Mad Max Fury Road Review

May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

When I saw the trailer for Mad Max Fury Road I was positive it would be one I couldn’t see. I don’t like violent films and it looked like a gory, violent mess. However, I always go through my process I describe for evaluating movie content in How to Be Mormon and Like Movies. I look at reviews, the detailed content summaries on screenit.com and I ask friends who have seen the movie. To my surprise I found it to have virtually no profanity and to not be as violent as I anticipated. It is an R but most of that is more battle like violence, some nudity and vehicular battles. Convinced it was within my comfort level I decided to go check it out .

It’s a very tricky movie to review because it does what it is trying to do masterfully well. I don’t know how that can be debated. Whether such a master work is your cup of tea is another question. It’s certainly not a movie I will be frequently rewatching but I did think it was good and engaged me more than I would have guessed. All in all it is a success and I can see why many people love it.

I have not seen the original Mad Max movies because I always figured they were too violent so perhaps I will give them a watch. This Mad Max doesn’t have much of plot. It’s one action sequence after another. It does not try to have symbolism or a puzzle like a Nolan film might have. It doesn’t have a strong lead character like a Bond film. The title is perhaps a misnomer because Mad Max has only a few lines of dialogue and is an ensemble player with Charlize Theron and others.

Basically the plot that does exist starts out with setting. It is a desert post-apocalyptic world that is ruled by a man named the Immortan Joe. Max has been arrested and is forced to be a blood bag for a War Boy played by Nicholas Hoult. Charlize Theron is Furiosa who abducts 5 of Joe’s wives called the breeders.

The rest of the movie is Max, Furiosa and crew getting chased by Joe and having intense battles with each other. Each of the cars is so imaginative with one even being a giant speaker system with a guy playing an electric guitar. There are cars that have long poles for people to swing onto other cars. There are rigs with gasoline and others covered in spikes. It keeps the action exciting because you don’t know how the cars work and how the fight will play out.

For not speaking much Tom Hardy is good as Mad Max. But the movie doesn’t give you a lot of time to contemplate his character. I can’t even imagine how awful it must be to shoot a movie like this with all the dust and dirt but he is convincing as the stoic anti-hero.

The CG is kept to a minimum and it at least appears to have a lot of practical effects. The stunt work is flawless. I wonder how much Hardy and others did of their own stunts? Whatever the percentage is by professionals you definitely can’t tell. It feels earthy and real which we haven’t seen in an action film in a long time.

I loved how Mad Max handled its female characters. It reminds me a little bit of Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow. These are not cliched warrior women or damsels in distress. Even the breeder women are relatively complex especially for this kind of movie. Charlize Theron is amazing! She is tough but has heart and there is a moment that is completely devastating for her and she sells it.

There are different kind of women- old women, young women, pregnant women and they all defy female tropes. The last thing I expected in a movie like this is an awesome group of women and it definitely helped sell me on the film.
Hugh Keays-Byrne is good as the villain Immortan Joe but most of that credit has to go to his costume and mask.

There is such attention to detail. The amount of time that must have been spent to get teeth right, skin layered and dry, lips cracked, everything covered in dust is mind blowing. The makeup on the war boys including Nicholas Hoult is very convincing. They are brainwashed to believe if they are obedient servants to Joe they will achieve immortality at the gates of heaven.

Mad Max Fury Road is not a movie that gives the audience much time to breathe. There is very little dialogue and I did feel kind of exhausted by the end of it. But then again I feel like it was trying to do something completely different and new and from a comic book guy like George Miller it makes sense it is primarily a visual spectacle. Still, it pushed me to my limit of apocalyptic car battle sequences (who knew I had such a limit? 😉 ). I’m a little surprised it is so universally loved because I would think a few people might be bothered by the thin plot and lack of character development?

I guess they just accept it for what it is- a new dazzling creative vision of what a war movie looks like. After all do we complain that the villains in a WW2 movie aren’t fleshed out enough? Do we want more dialogue in our John Wayne war movie? No. Same with this. It is visually incredible and the action is immersive enough to carry the day.

Like I said, the women put it over the hump for me to a strong recommendation. It was such a pleasant surprise and I bet you could see the movie and not even notice most of the women. They are just characters in the movie like anybody else. It looks gorgeous. The action sequences are stunning and I was entertained.

As far as content it has some nudity from a distance and women are milked like cows in one brief shot. Characters are stabbed, impaled, tortured and shot in the battle scenes. Another you see briefly has his face ripped off from a mask. A lot of crashes, explosions and sand storms that are intense. A woman has a c-section mostly off screen and an IV is seen being inserted. I know it sounds crazy but its actually more tame than you might think. No language. Mostly it is a lot of cars and broad fighting like a battle than one on one violence like you might get in a horror movie.

A grade is tough because I did feel a little bit weary by the end but it looks so great, the action is so well done and I loved the female characters so I grade it an…

Overall Grade- A- Content Grade- C

Also the music by a guy named Junkie XL was outstanding with a great combination of electric guitar, medal sounds and a traditional sweeping score.

Far From the Madding Crowd Review

May 18, 2015August 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

It feels like a long time since a real period piece came out. I guess you could count 12 Years a Slave but I have to go back to 2011’s Jane Eyre to find a literary classic period piece. This month we get Far From the Madding Crowd based on the Thomas Hardy novel.

I must own I have not read the novel but I have it on my audible list and am going to listen to it right away! That says something for the movie that it made me want to read the book, flaws and all.

The story of Far from the Madding Crowd is about a woman named Bathsheba Everdene that I’m guessing was 1830ish (not sure on exact time frame). She is an independent spirit and I can see why Suzanne Collins picked Everdene for Katniss’ last name.

She inherits a farm from her uncle and faces the challenges of running the farm in an era where women didn’t do that kind of thing. The movie does a great job getting the dirty, lived in feel that you don’t always see in the period pieces.

She then has three different suitors. The first is Gabriel played by Matthias Schoenaerts who I loved and thought he and Carey Mulligan who played Bathsheba had great chemistry. They were both such good people and you wanted them to be happy which is absolutely key in a romance.

The second suitor is named Sergeant Troy and I’m sorry but I thought Tom Sturridge was terrible in the part. It was too campy, too gaudy, didn’t fit the style of the movie and it just felt like a bad performance. There is no chemistry between him and Mulligan and I couldn’t wait for him to get off screen. It was extremely predictable because he was such a one note character.

The final suitor is Mr Boldwood played by Michael Sheen. He is good but I felt like his scenes were cut because his character growth felt choppy and disjointed. We never got any idea of his real motivation or why he liked Bethsheba. He ended up kind of being a blank face and especially with his ending it didn’t quite make sense he would behave that way. Just not a passionate enough character.

I think the story would have worked better as a miniseries instead of a movie. There were a lot of characters I wanted to get to know better and storylines I wanted fleshed out. It could have been 2.5 hours instead of just 2 and I wouldn’t have complained.

But the movie looks gorgeous! The cinematography from Charlotte Bruus Christensen is earthy and beautiful. The costumes are perfect and all the sets are lovely. It is an easy movie to watch although a scene with sheep is very sad.

I am sure some people will hate the melodrama of all the men in love with Bethesheba but I didn’t mind it. A lot of that probably goes back to Mulligan who is warm and relatable. She feels like a person who could actually exist and like I said we want to see her happy.

I also liked that none of the men are all bad. Even Troy has his moments of humanity which makes them interesting; although, I could have had them all fleshed out more. It’s a shame Hardy never wrote a sequel because I would be curious to see what happens next.

There is one kissing scene where the director decides to zoom up so close it was very strange. It was a very badly filmed kissing scene and I’m not sure what the director was trying to get with that. It certainly wasn’t romantic.

In the end I was entertained by Far From the Madding Crowd. It looks great. All the production values are top rate. I loved Gabriel and Bathsheba’s story and thought the 2 leads were excellent. That’s enough to get a mild recommendation from me.

As far as content there is one brief sex scene after 2 characters are married. You do see a corpse, a man is shot, and a lot of sheep die but that’s about it.

Any of you seen this one or read the book? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Overall Grade- B+ Content Grade- B

Pitch Perfect 2 Review

May 17, 2015May 17, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I rank comedies on a very simple scale- did it make me laugh? If it did then it did its job. Pitch Perfect 2 made me laugh. Throw in some good music and you’ve got a fan!

In Utah and particularly my alma mater, BYU, acapella is a huge deal. I went to many competitions to cheer on my favorite groups and we even had a team on the Sing Off a few years ago. Acapella is just part of campus life in my book so the first Pitch Perfect had huge nostalgia points for me.

It also did the rare feet of being funny without being too vulgar. I still will frequently put it on and laugh my head off while listening to great music.

So how does Pitch Perfect 2 measure up to the original? Well, it’s a tough question because they are basically the same movie. They totally do the whole Mighty Ducks 2 thing where you do the exact same plot but you have it be the World Championships instead of the Nationals.

That said, it still made me laugh.

You’ve got all the major players from Pitch Perfect 1 back plus the addition of Hailee Steinfeld as a new legacy freshman to the group.

I love these women!

Anna Kendrick is great even though Hailee Steinfeld is kind of playing her part from the first movie. Rebel Wilson steals the movie once again and made me laugh every time she was on screen. Her confidence as Fat Amy is just so likable, lovely and funny.

I kind of wish they had developed a few of the other Bellas a little more, and they do go back to the same joke a bit too many times. For example, a Guatemalan girl named Flo is repeatedly given the immigrant joke and it was naughty the first time but got a little old after a while.

Elizabeth Banks (who directs) and John Michael Higgins return as the announcers and this time podcasters of the acappella world and they are hilarious. Every time they are on screen it reminds of Fred Willard in Best in Show and cracked me up. I would love to know how much of their dialogue is improved like the Christopher Guest movies which Higgins is often in.

David Cross from Arrested Development appears briefly along with a cameo that has mostly been spoiled but I will let what few of you that haven’t heard of a certain new acapella team be surprised (was so funny!)

Keegan-Michael Key is very funny as Becca’s boss for an internship she gets at a record label. He has this hipster employee that drives him crazy which made me laugh.

The plot is completely stupid. Basically a wardrobe malfunction happens and the Bellas are suspended from national competition. However, they can compete at the World Championships (see totally Mighty Ducks 2). The big competition is a German team called Das Sound Machine.

For the most part they are the cliched German bad guys but they are given some funny interactions with the girls and they are pretty good singers. I liked that it at least seemed like a fair fight.

The boys are mostly relegated to a few scenes which is fine with me. We need more female heavy pictures especially with female directors!

Adam DeVine is probably in it the most of the young men and he is very funny as Rebel Wilson’s love interest. His idea of a romantic meal totally cracked me up.

In the end Pitch Perfect 2 isn’t creative or different but I can’t deny that it made me laugh and I loved the music. If you didn’t like the first one and didn’t find it funny than you won’t like this. It’s as simple as that. I did so I liked this. It isn’t as good because first is always best but still I really enjoyed it.

Humor is completely subjective. What makes one laugh may leave another stone faced and cold but I at least appreciate a comedy that isn’t completely raunchy like we were getting for a while. There is nothing in Pitch Perfect 2 that made me want to cringe like in the Judd Apatow movies.

For some reason a lot of people that read this blog don’t like comedies. I don’t really get that. I like to laugh probably more than I like dramas. I also love musicals. In other words, Pitch Perfect 3- sign me up!

As far as content there is a scene at the beginning where a woman is exposed off camera and it is discussed. There’s talk of making out and sex but it is all pretty tame. That’s about it.

Overall Grade- B-, Content Grade A

Any of you see it? Did you think it was funny too?

Cheatin Review

May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

A few days ago I posted my belief that “whether 2D, 3D, stop motion or live action it all comes down to the story“. I genuinely believe that to be true for 99% of films but like any rule there are exceptions. Some films are obviously an excuse for art and the story takes a back seat. Usually to work these types of films have to give us something new. They have to be over-the-top and challenge us artistically otherwise the movie doesn’t work. Fantasia, for instance, gave us something new. Something that has never been topped artistically to date. Another example, last years Rocks in My Pockets did have a disturbing and profound story but it still took a back seat to the imagery presented.

This years Cheatin’ is another example of such an artistically bold film. It is not a film for everyone. It is challenging and like most new things a little tough to digest but I’m glad I saw it.

Created by animator Bill Plympton, Cheatin’ tells the story of a beautiful woman named Ella who is tired of superficial men. To her chagrin she gets wrangled into attending a carnival when she wants to just read her book.

Eventually she is convinced to ride the bumper cars but there is an accident and she is trapped. Fortunately, she is rescued by a jock type named Jake and they instantly fall in love. None of this is done through any real dialogue but through music, opera, grunts, screams, yells, sighs and other expressions.

The artistry throughout is just beautiful. I mean look at this shot.

So they get married and Jake is completely loyal to Ella. However, a woman who is in love with him stages a photo to make it look like Ella isn’t faithful to him. This breaks Jake’s heart.

With his broken heart he falls prey to temptation and becomes a serial adulterer. These scenes are fairly graphic for an animated movie. But they are so non-realistic that I wasn’t really offended but I can see that others would be. The music is amazing throughout in mixing opera, jazz and the score by Nicole Renaud.

Meanwhile Ella is devastated at her husbands cheatin ways and fantasizes what she wants to do to him.

In her remorse she stumbles upon a magician who has a special machine that will allow her to enter the bodies of the women her husband is seducing.

The magician knows this is a mistake but she sneaks in and does it anyway.

Eventually Jake realizes the photo was a phony and that he was wrong about Ella but it is too late? We don’t know.

Cheatin has an interesting back story. Bill Plympton raised over 100k on Kickstarter to make the movie and backers received the film in August of last year. This is why it was submitted to the Academy and Annies for 2014. (I guess that means it is out of the running for 2015?).

All the animation was drawn by Plympton himself which is kind of amazing (40,000 drawings all done by him!). What an artist! A staff of 10 people then did the colorization and compositing. It’s hard to believe so few people and such a tiny budget could make a film like this.

If 2D proponents are looking for signs of hope the Cheatin’ Kickstarter success and the quality of this movie should give it to them. Hullabaloo animated project got over 400k in only 1 month of fundraising with a goal of 80k so there’s that as well. Not half bad!

But back to the movie. It is challenging. It is different but I like films like that. The story isn’t much but it is audacious and bold enough in the visuals to not need it.

I think if you watch the trailer and it looks like you’d hate it you probably will. If it looks like the type of art you like and something interesting then give it a shot. You’d be supporting a small animator trying to do something in a big pond. I was more than happy to throw $10 his way to buy it on demand. $4.99 to rent.

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cheatin

Overall Grade- B+, Content Grade- C

Ex-Machina Review

May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Like some scifi? Then Ex-Machina is the movie for you! Normally I stay away from movies that look scary but the more I read about Ex-Machina the more I saw it is actually more a movie like Kubrick/Spielberg’s AI than a horror robot movie. In fact, it’s better than AI.

It’s about this guy named Caleb who works for a popular search engine and wins a prize to visit the company’s reclusive founder named Nathan. He has a compound only accessible by helicopter (and not even that. You have to then hike by a river to get to the house).

Evidently Ex-Machina was shot at a hotel in Norway. I want to go to that hotel. It was amazing! The exteriors were lush and green. The interiors were cold concrete with frosted glass but with a lighting that reminded me of those happy sun lights you can buy for depression. It was different than anything I have seen in these types of movies.

Once Caleb gets to the compound he meets Nathan who creeped me out because he looks a lot like my older brother (who is also a CEO of a hipster company with a shaved head and long beard! Even some of his way of speaking reminded me of my brother. Creepy!). Oscar Isaac is great as Nathan who is brilliant, arrogant, drunk, stupid, charming, psychopathic and naive. It makes me excited that both he and Domhall Gleeson, who plays Caleb, are going to be in the new Star Wars movie!

It turns out Nathan has brought Caleb there to test out his robot called Ava to see if she is a viable AI. We then get a series of experiments over Caleb’s 6 day visit. Caleb begins to bond with Ava and we see more into the mind of Nathan.

I don’t want to be accused of spoilers so I will leave the plot at that. The ending for me was a bit of a letdown but overall it is a very satisfying movie. It is shot very well. The characters are complex and it looks gorgeous. The lighting in every shot was as good as I’ve seen in a movie in years.

I know comparison is silly but I couldn’t help but think about another recent Kubrickesque picture Interstellar which also has a robot albeit of a more vintage style. They are very different films but I think I still prefer Interstellar because it had me more emotionally engaged. I really was drawn into Murphy’s journey in a way I never was with Caleb. Interstellar had a wider scope of emotions and I didn’t know what was going to come next. Ex-Machina is pretty predictable.

As a sci-fi movie should, it tries to ask bigger questions about reality of being, sensuality, evil, creation etc and it does that pretty well. I might have pondered those questions more if I was more emotionally invested in the characters but it definitely made me think.

All the performances are good and Alicia Vikander is haunting as Ava. I also liked the design of the robots with the clear fronts and sparkly heads.

That said as a sci-fi thriller it was very well done. It’s creepy, weird without cheap jump scares or unnecessary gore. You might know what is going to happen but it is a very entertaining journey to get there and again it looks so beautiful. The pacing might also be a little bit slow for some less seasoned film-goers but I was engrossed

As far as content there is some cussing but I didn’t find it excessive. Some people will be offended by the nudity but because it is robots and not sensual it felt more like Greek statues to me than actual human nudity. There is a scene where a character slices their arm open which is tough to watch. I’d say it is a strong R and adults only but I wasn’t offended by it. I strongly recommend checking out http://www.screenit.com before seeing it to know if it is the type of content you are comfortable with.

Overall, I think Ex-Machina is a very good movie. It’s cinematography, visual style, set design, and the design of the robots are outstanding. The performances are good especially Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander. The story is classic sci-fi even if it is a bit predictable especially the ending. I wish I was a little more invested emotionally in the characters but it is still a movie worth seeing and enjoying.

Overall Grade- B+ Content Grade- C-

Any of you seen it? What did you think?

Pixar Review 8: Geri’s Game

May 12, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

After the release of Knick Knack in 1989 Pixar took a break from their animated shorts to make feature films, Toy Story and A Bug’s Life. This worked because the same crew which had grown up on the early shorts was ready to do longer films. However, by the end of the 90s they had recruited a lot of new talent who they wanted to test out so they reinstated the animated shorts.

Their first short back is called Geri’s Game and it was designed to push their limits for creating a human being. Nobody can deny that Geri looks a million times better than the humans in Toy Story who were used minimally so it worked but this is a whole another level.

It’s a simple silent movie style story like most of the shorts but it is so charming. It’s about an old man named Geri who is playing chess but with who? With himself! The thing that makes it so charming is as he moves from one side of the table to the other the film creates an illusion of 2 players and Geri gives both characters personality. The player with the black pieces is feisty with a wicked sense of humor, and the other guy is more soft spoken and cowers in fear.

It’s a delightful little short and it is directed very well with neat perspectives where you capture the chess pieces from one angle and Geri from another. It’s great stuff!

Geri’s Game was released in 1997 so it won Best Animated Short in the 97 Oscars but it was shown to most of the public with the release of Bug’s Life. This would become the 3rd Oscar with their special award for Toy Story and Tin Toy for best short in 1987.

It’s neat that Pixar has found a way to not only entertain us with their shorts but to nurture new talent and it is perhaps that reason that at least to me they haven’t made a terrible film. You can feel the unique new voices coming out in shorts like Geri’s Game and it is a complete delight. Also keep your eye open because Geri appears in many a future Pixar feature film including our next review Toy Story 2.

Overall Grade- A+

Pixar Review 7- Bug’s Life

May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Hey guys! I hope you all had a good Mother’s Day. Let’s celebrate by talking about what I think is an underrated Pixar film, A Bug’s Life. After the epicness of Toy Story Pixar’s second feature had a lot to live up too. To add to the tension was the premiere of Dreamworks Antz that same summer which I reviewed last week.

With all of that pressure I think they came up with a charming movie with some lovely animation and nice messages for kids. Is it perfect? No but if it was the only Pixar movie I’d still say it was a strong effort.

A lot of people criticize Bug’s Life because it is a formula picture. It tells a story of the oddball character who is sent on a journey where in the end he is finally shown to be special. This is an especially popular formula because of all the writers who no doubt have a similar journey. We also get the liar reveal which we see in lots of movies.

If all that is true then why do I say it’s underrated? Because I think a film doesn’t necessarily have to be original to win an endorsement from me. A movie can follow a formula but do it well and that’s great. One of my favorite movies of all time is You’ve Got Mail and that is a total formula picture. It works because the writing is good and the characters are easy for me to relate too. I think you can say the same for A Bug’s Life.

A Bug’s Life is about a colony of ants that live by a tree surrounded by water called Ant Island. They are a timid species and afraid of any kind of change (even the great twig of 93!). Except for one ant named Flick voiced by Dave Foley who is an innovator and is trying to make things better.

The ants are ruled with an iron fist by a grasshopper named Hopper voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey. He intimidates them to giving an ‘offering’ every year of food, so it basically works out to servitude but the ants are too scared to fight back.

The ants have their own leadership- a queen voiced by Phyllis Diller and her daughter Princess Atta voiced by Julia Louis- Dreyfus who are both great and 2 of the more dynamic Pixar female characters we see for a long time. We also get little princess Dot voiced by Hayden Panettiere.

Eventually Flick screws up the offering and he is sent away on a seemingly fools errand of finding bigger bugs to help defend the colony.

Through various circumstances Flick stumbles on to a troop of circus bugs he mistakes for warriors and they return to the ant colony. The troop is a total delight with great vocal performances and really funny writing with characters like Francis the ladybug that’s actually a dude (and voiced by Dennis Leary which is so perfect!).

I also love Heimlich the German caterpillar who dreams of being a beautiful butterfly ‘and then everything will be better’. Joe Ranft, who was an animator at the time, did the voice and he gets a laugh from me every time he is on screen.

Like I said at the beginning, the story isn’t really what attracts me to A Bug’s Life. It’s a lot of other things:

1. It’s bright and colorful. It looks great and every scene has texture unlike the brown, brown, brown of Antz. The soil looks like little craters and the grass looks like giant trees because we are seeing it from a bug’s perspective.

2. The voice cast is great. It runs so deep with everyone from Madaline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Brad Garrett, Richard Kind and more.

3. Hopper is a terrific villain that is menacing and extremely scary from the point of view of the ants. He also has some great sarcastic remarks.

4. The writing all around is really good. It elevates the more ordinary material. There are a lot of laughs and genuine moments of heart . I particularly like when Flick is trying to convince Dot that she’s just a seed using a rock.

I also really like a scene where the ant children put on a little play letting the circus bugs know what they expect. It’s very funny.

5. The score is some of Randy Newman’s best. I know a lot of people deride Newman but I like his cheerful style and found this to be just the right tone for the story they were telling. The finale song is also great. One of his best.

And that’s enough for me to give it a hearty recommendation. It’s bright colorful, sweet time at the movies. And it’s a movie that will appeal equally to little girls and boys, which can sometimes be hard to find.

Overall I give it a B.

They ended off Bug’s Life with this very cute ‘outtakes’ segment which was kind of a thing in the 90s but I enjoy it.