The Newsroom

Got a chance to see writer Aaron Sorkin's new show on HBO last Sunday night. If you've read any of my previous posts about Sorkin you would know that I have a soft spot for the guy and his work. One of my favorite shows still is the West Wing and some of my favorite flicks that he wrote; A Few Good Men, Moneyball, The American President, Charlie Wilson's War & Social Network are all pretty fantastic. Now I realize that not everyone loves the guy. Many Conservatives think he's an arrogant Liberal shill who thinks he's smarter than he is. Many critics get annoyed that he writes similar characters and for the most part all his characters speak with the same voice, the sharp, intelligent rat-a-tat dialogue. All of which are in evidence with this new show. In fact his opening sequence pretty much copies from his previous failed show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. In that show actor Judd Hirsch's character, who is running an SNL like show, disrupts the program he is producing, comes on air and voices his Howard Beale complaint about the deterioration of Art and our lobotomized culture. In the Newsroom main character Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is considered to be the Jay Leno of news anchors he supposedly never takes a political position and it's apparent why people watch him. While on a panel with other talking heads he's asked a question as to why the U.S. is the greatest country in the world and he has his moment of clarity. It sounds like a rant but he is obviously pointing out the harsh truth about the path our country has been taking over the last 40 years or so. So after watching both you can see the similarities but the after part is very different, Hirsch's character is fired and Daniel's character merely loses most of his staff and has to re-invent himself. The similarities with Studio 60 didn't bother me so much but for the first time I was a little annoyed with the pacing and some of the dialogue. I really liked the cast but the first half hour was a lot of speechifying and a lot of these characters felt re-used, I thought I saw a bit of Sam Seaborn a possible Donna Moss and this is probably the first time where I really noticed they were all speaking with Sorkin's voice.

Where the show really started to cook was after the new producer arrived, Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) and we got to the crux of the show which will be to report on real news not made up news. They started with the oil spill in the Gulf from 2010 as they try to build the narrative with as much facts as possible. I really thought it was great to see part of the process and to see the info trickle out as the disaster unfolds and the team gets to work. This is where Sorkin excels at his craft it's one of the things that made West Wing so damn interesting was that behind the curtain look. Yes there are speeches and a rosy colored view about politics but you also got to see the process of a democracy in action. Where the West Wing tried to pay homage to our fore fathers Washington, Franklin and Adams. The Newsroom intends to do with Cronkite and Murrow.

I'm going to keep watching this show and see where they are going to go with it. I really do like the overall arc of the pilot and I hope that the real news portion continues. They do have an outstanding cast and I hope that they give these characters a little more time to build. At the moment the character I like the least is McAvoy and that is a problem, hopefully he'll grow on me I have faith in Sorkin on that.  I also hope that he tones down the speeches a bit I felt they went a little overboard in the pilot and it takes you out of the narrative if everyone is just doing that. In the West Wing most of the time the big speeches came at the end of the episode mostly from the President which always, to me, made a lot of sense. If everyone is doing it no one is actually having a conversation and it's going to get dull fast.

So if you get HBO and you want something smart, entertaining and the potential to be a strong narrative about news culture then check out the Newsroom on HBO on Sunday nights at 10 pm.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

I took the little guy to see Madagascar 3 this past weekend, we had a couple choices I would have preferred to see Brave but Tamar really wanted to see that with us so we went with choice number 2. I had previously shown him the trailers and every time he would fall into a convulsive laughter every time he heard Chris Rock's Zebra belt out his "Afro Circus" song.  The trailer was cute but for me a little grating especially when you have a 4 year old child without an off switch regarding the aforementioned song. Still I always enjoy taking him to see a movie on the big screen especially watching his eyes get big with anticipation when the film starts. Nothing better than that.

Unfortunately I'm not as familiar with the series except that I remember in the first one a group of animals escape from the Central Park Zoo and find themselves in Africa with intentions to return to the Big Apple. Never saw the second one but I'm assuming that is what they tried to do and were left stranded. So for this third one the Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) want to track the techno friendly Penguins to France so they can all go home. Once they hit Europe they find themselves being hunted by a doggedly obsessive Animal Control Officer Captain DuBois (Frances McDormand). The chase leads the group to the train yards where the group joins a troupe of Circus animals in order to get out of the country. You've got a tough Russian knife throwing Tiger named Vitaly (Bryan Cranston), a trapeeze artist cheetah, Gia (Jessica Chastain) as well as a juggling goofy sea lion named Stephano (Martin Short). The hijinks are perfect for the little guys between 2 and 5. This isn't like the Pixar films that has a little something for everybody although there are a few scattered quips here and there to give the older folks a chuckle. It's a cute little sequel and the little guy seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

Dreamworks Animation seems to be getting better and better the landscapes and character renderings looked great.  I haven't really been a big fan of their style of animation they use but I can appreciate the end result. I didn't see it in 3D but I personally don't think it's necessary, especially with kids under the age of 5, they'll never be able to keep the glasses on the whole time. The pacing and jokes are fairly consistent with some of the more amusing parts lying with Sacha Baron Cohen's Julien (The Lemur) and his infatuation with a giant bike riding Bear. There is also that pesky "Afro Circus" song that makes it's way into not just one but at least three scenes that will cause your child to break out into song over and over and over again until you find yourself wanting to locate Chris Rock and--discuss the impact of this song on your children. And trust me it doesn't go away after an hour it can go on for a while so be prepared for that. But it's a cute flick for the whole family so if you find yourself stuck inside on a rainy day with nothing to do take the kids to see Madagascar, just be prepared to be serenaded all day, if you can deal with that then by all means take'em out to the movies.

My Grade: 2 1/2 buckets

Kid Grade: 4 Buckets ("AFRO CIRCUS--POLKA DOT POLKA DOT")

Snow White and the Huntsman

This is the second Snow White movie to be released this year. They are both pretty different and frankly I'm not going to get into the similarities given that the other one is a Relativity title. Suffice it to say that the Relativity title Mirror Mirror was really a kids movie and this one was darker and more akin to Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.  Personally I think the trailers for Snow White and the Huntsman were damn effective especially for capitalizing on the Game of Thrones. It seems to do tough/gritty/magic with an effortlessness that seemed to elude the Clash and Wrath of the Titans flicks. But when the movie opened the reviews started to come in and it seemed like whatever hype that came out of the trailers the critics seem to be calling bullshit. The opening weekend was actually pretty successful, they opened to a solid 56 million, unseating Men in Black 3. According to Nikki Finke Hollywood can breathe a sigh of relief because this movie exceeded expectations, yippie! I guess it means we can expect more films over the next two years or so at least, thanks Nikki, I feel so much better about the future of my industry.

Like all of the fairy tale versions from before an evil Queen named Ravenna (Charlize Theron) seduces the nice King of the land and plots to take over his throne and imprison his daughter Snow White (Kristen Stewart) until she can solidify her power. Snow White escapes and the Queen sends out a Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to bring her back so she may devour her heart and apparently stay young forever.

Let me start off by saying I generally enjoyed the movie, it was beautifully filmed and the effects were pretty great. The performances were solid especially Hemsworth and Theron, it was appropriately dark and gritty and it was not silly in the least, so now you are thinking, ok so when is he getting to the but in his review--The pacing, oh the pacing, they totally botched the flow of this flick. This thing was all over the place and it didn't always feel like the Director knew where he wanted to go. He established plot threads and either dismissed them early or kept them dangling along until the end where they drop off altogether. The romance, or lack thereof,  between Snow and her childhood friend William (Sam Claflin) was poorly executed. They wanted to establish some kind of relationship between the two but there is no development at all between them and when they are reunited as adults it felt forced, especially when the Huntsman comes into the mix in a very odd love triangle. It felt in the beginning as if the Huntsman would act as a father figure or mentor to Snow but near the end of the film it seems to change and all of a sudden she seems to be into him romantically. I know the aren't related or anything but since the setup implied a father/daughter type relationship between them when she started giving him googly eyes it started to feel a little uncomfortable. And the way it ends leaves it even more ambiguous about what's going on with the three of them which frankly was a little annoying. But in the films defense I later heard that they are working on a sequel that I assume will clear up this love triangle business. Which leads me to kind of complain about Kristen Stewart, this girl was completely miscast in this film. The girl seems to have trouble smiling and she's playing a character that is described as a happy cheerful creature who is incapable of hatred. Really, this dour girl who can't seem to walk straight without hunching over who looks deeply depressed at almost all times except when she was dancing with one of the dwarfs. It's not her fault, really, Universal should have known better then to cast her but she just looks out of place then entire film especially when she has to shine in front of scene stealers like Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron and of course those dwarves, especially Ian McShane, Ray Winstone & Nick Frost.

Charlize was truly fantastic as she chewed every bit of scenery she could get her hands on. She really took it to the next level and you were always just waiting to see how far she was going to push it. I could tell that the director, Rupert Sanders, came from commercials cause that scene where the Queen is coming out of the milk looked just like one of those Dove commercials. Personally, I wish the guy had stayed there. He wasn't ready for a movie of this magnitude in my opinion. He did a great job with the visuals but he seemed to be lost at sea when it came to the pacing of the film and the direction of the actors. Overall it was a fun Summer blockbuster, it looks great and takes some interesting twists from the original Snow White story, unfortunately there isn't much character to work but until Prometheus and Spidey there aren't too many new options.

Grade: 3 Buckets

Men in Black 3D

What a lackluster couple of weeks its been for any film without a Marvel character running around in it. Dark Shadows was a dud, Battleship crashed and burned. All eyes focused on Big Willie and Tommy Lee to see if they could go toe to toe with the Avengers. The end result last weekend was a success but a mild one but if you were to read Nikki Finke over the last few days you would think the movie world was coming to an end. That woman laments film openings with more angst than 5 years of Beverly Hills 90210 ever could. Calm down Nikki take your medication. However, as far as the industry is concerned, it is a shame that Men in Black didn't shatter expectations but if you continue further to my review you may see why it shouldn't be that surprising that it was lackluster. It made about 54 million through Sunday and another 14 million for Monday. Which puts it at about 68 million for the overall weekend. Now compared to the previous versions and to usual blockbuster fare of this magnitude it's middling for sure. The real test is how it holds on its second weekend with Snow White and the Huntsman coming out next weekend.

Men in Black 3 brings back Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) as the world weary team tasked with containing and sometimes eliminating threats to our world from Foreign and Domestic aliens. In this go-round an old baddie, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement), that K locked away on a Moon prison escapes to get his revenge on his old nemesis. Boris decides to eliminate K Back to the Future style as he travels back to 1969. J is tasked with going back to save his partner before Boris sends an invasion force in present day to destroy the Earth. He of course, runs into K's younger self (Josh Brolin) as they try to stop Boris together.

Honestly I had fun with this movie it is by far much better than the previous installment but honestly that isn't saying very much. The performances, and the pacing were great but I feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities here. Especially given how well Josh Brolin pulled off playing the younger K. The thing that I always loved about the first Men in Black is that it was sharply written with a very clever plot. Not to mention it was genuinely funny. I felt that a lot of the humor in this one felt forced and a little stale. Admittedly we haven't seen a Men in Black movie in about ten years maybe it has become outdated. One of the better sequences was the Andy Warhol stuff with Bill Hader but they featured so much of it in the trailers it kind of ruined the surprise and fun of it in the film. The time travel plot while kind of fun felt well traveled already by many other more successful films and TV shows. The one character that was supposed to be interesting and funny was Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg) the temporal displacement guy who really only felt like a low rent Observer from the far more creative and interesting show Fringe. This plays into the narrative that we had been hearing about this film all along the past year or so that they were working off unfinished scripts and that Will Smith was being a diva about his massive trailer in NYC. Director Barry Sonnefeld denied the rumors about an unfinished script and I'm sure he's correct about it especially a film of this magnitude it would be extremely difficult to do on the fly but it does beg the question why not flesh the script out better? You had so many tacked on things here with Agent K and his watch and a somewhat lame payoff at the end. The relationship between older K and agent O (Emma Thompson) and then the weird attempt at a romantic angle in the past with Agent O (Alice Eve) that doesn't seem to go anywhere. These are very small things but they do add up and certainly take away some of the enjoyment for the film. As far as the 3D I think it holds up pretty well. This is definitely the kind of movie that 3D is made for. If you do see it I would suggest seeing it in all of it's 3D glory. Overall it's a fun but forgettable ride.

Grade: 3 Buckets

The Avengers

I've been waiting 25 years to see a movie like this and I waited a week and saw it twice before I decided to put pen to paper or in this case fingers to keys. After months of endless trailers, clips and tie-ins is it possible for a movie of this magnitude to live up to the hype and overall splendor it was intended for? The answer is just as easy-- yes, God yes may I have some more. The Avengers is the end result of a painstaking process that started in 2008 with Iron Man that sustained the tie-ins through 4 more films: Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and finally Captain America. Were they all masterpieces? No, far from it but they continued a narrative sometimes subtly sometimes in your face but this narrative started the building blocks for a massive project that would put all of Earth's mightiest heroes in one film. Producer Kevin Feige deserves a lot of the credit for this as he has successfully tied together on one team a Demi-God, a smart ass genius billionaire, a soldier from a different era, an indestructible Goliath and two superb agents of Shield. The toughest challenge after putting this team together is executing it and Director/writer Joss Whedon rose to the challenge and crushed a Grand Slam.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the God of Thunder's brother, has come to Earth to claim it for his own. His first action is to take the Tesseract or Cosmic Cube from Shield. For those of you unaware of what I am talking about look no further than after the end credits of Thor. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) brings in Dr. Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) to study the Cosmic Cube and harness it's power. The Cube was also seen in the film Captain America - The First Avenger. The Red Skull used the cube to power his evil mechanical abominations until he was seemingly destroyed by the cube while fighting Steve Rogers, aka Captain America (Chris Evans). Loki snatches the cube and using his magic turns Selvig and Agent Clint Barton aka. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) against Nick Fury and his fellow Shield agents. Fury is forced to go to plan B which is to re-instate the Avengers Initiative. He sends his faithful agents Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) to recruit Bruce Banner aka. The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Tony Stark aka. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) to the team that already includes Captain America. They come together to fight Loki and a destructive alien force hellbent on destroying the Earth and claiming the Tesseract for themselves.

Again what more can I say, but damn, damn! It was by far one of the most entertaining films of the year but it may be one of the biggest summer films ever. God Bless Joss Whedon for his ability to put this together so well and curse him for doing it before I ever could. I always wanted to make big movies ever since I was a kid and to be able to be apart of something like the Avengers is pretty damn high on the bucket list if you know what I mean. The pacing, the script the overall action the balancing act of all of these heroes in one space. It was masterfully done and I tip my hat to him, honestly. Just trying to put a cork in Robert Downey Jr. alone had to be one of the biggest challenges, I love the guy but nobody has a bigger ego then that man. The Hulk was probably the best improvement of all. This is the first time they've gotten him right in any format. Mark Ruffalo played Banner with humor and pathos and really outshines previous Banners like Ed Norton and Eric Bana. As for the Hulk, he looked like Ruffalo and for the most part he seemed like he could be real as his emotions and playful side got some of the best Holy Shit moments as well as some of the biggest laughs. I also loved how Whedon bookended the other films and allowed the characters to breathe and grow. If you were to watch Iron Man to Iron Man 2 and then the Avengers you will see the evolution of Tony Stark that brings him into a larger more dangerous world that even he can't tackle on his own and they did it almost effortlessly.

Captain America also gets his due at being the leader of this team. This was also the part I was most concerned that Chris Evans wouldn't be able to step up to that plate and convince me he could do it. But he did that and more, throughout the film he was always the voice of reason and he was the only one to keep the focus on the mission without waver. He has a big moment during the invasion that in my mind solidified the character of Steve Rogers and showed without question that Chris Evans is more than capable of leading this team of extraordinary people. It was also great to see Black Widow get a nice chunk of the film to work with as she played it cool off of the Hulk and Loki. Poor Hawkeye doesn't get a whole lot of screen time but he is wonderfully played by Jeremy Renner who could totally take this character to do a stand-alone film of his own. He's got great range and he's tough and can effortlessly take over a film if given the opportunity. If anyone could make Hawkeye an A-list Avenger it's Renner. Tom Hiddleston's Loki also should get some massive credit here for weaving a complicated character like Loki into the fabric of the Avengers with his taunts and his aggression. It's hard to find an actor to play the role of such a despicable character like Loki and yet challenge the audience to still find a ray of sympathy for him. Which is what made his scenes with his brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth) that much more enjoyable. The two are masters in this realm and play up the scenes to make them even more dynamic then they probably intended to be. Hemsworth's Thor is also a difficult balancing act because of his Olde English vocabulary and the fact that he has otherworldly powers. Yet he brings a humanity to Thor that makes it easy to forget how much of another level he actually is on. Finally, with the support staff of Nick Fury, Coulson and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) the Avengers has something to fight for. I won't give away some of the story but there is a big death in the film and it carries a lot of weight that could only come about due to the extraordinary performances of these support characters. It literally gives the team its second wind to do what they have to do to bring Loki down.

I saw the film last week in 3D and this week in 2D and honestly it doesn't matter which format you see it in. I enjoyed it just as much on a 2D screen as I did a 3D one. Like many of the previous blockbuster films utilizing 3D they seem to focus more on space rather than shit flying at your face which is always a better strategy but it also makes you forget about the 3D altogether. There are so many great scenes and action set pieces that I would have to write a 200 page book just to describe them all. I'll just end by saying if you haven't seen the film like I don't know a few million over the past week, then what the hell are you waiting for?  I'm looking forward to seeing the new stand-alone films Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Captain America 2 and I'm really looking forward to seeing Thanos in Avengers 2. Yes, that's right for all of you who do not read comics that was Thanos sitting in that chair grinning at the end and it looks like he's going to be bringing his Infinity Gauntlet to raise the stakes and kick some Avengers ass. I'll be first in line in 2014. Avengers Assemble!

Grade 5 Buckets