REVIEW: The Great Gatsby

6/10 - At least Pitbull wasn't on the soundtrack.

“In my younger and more vulnerable years
my father gave me some advice that I've been
turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,"
he told me, "just remember that all the people
in this world haven't had the advantages
that you've had.”

I do have a great fondness for The Great Gatsby. I disliked the book when I was forced to read it in school but I've grown to really love it over the years. There's something beautiful, and poetic about the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

With far less poetic subtly, Baz Luhrmann adapted the novel into a visual showcase that is The Great Gatsby in 3D. I'm not the biggest fan of his films. I find they peak in the first act and I lose interest by the end. A a trend that continues with The Great Gatsby.

Gatsby is a tale of romance and heartache in the roaring 20's. The narrator, Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire), recounts the summer he spent reuniting with his cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) and discovering just who the mysterious and legendary Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) is.

The first half of this movie is really a spectacular. It opens on the legendary parties that Gatsby's reputation was built on. This is where Baz Luhrmann shines. The frantic pace works well, showing Nick getting swept away by the idealistic lifestyle of his upper class neighbors. But then the movie crawls to a stop. The Great Gatsby isn't a fast paced novel, it's a slow character story that shows how Nick grows disenchanted with the idols he once held in high regard. For the film that means an hour in there's a clunky halt to the once fast pacing, and suddenly it's a movie about long tea parties filled with subtext. Suddenly the lush environment becomes jarring, and distracting to the story. Suddenly the movie feels about 90 minutes too long.

The best reason to see this film, is without question for the fantastic cast. It's not often Leonardo DiCaprio plays a role where he's mostly happy. He embraces all of that Gatsby mystery, with a smile  that oozes charm and charisma, but with fear brewing beneath the facade. Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton as Daisy and Tom Buchanan are a terrific individually. They both bring dimension to their otherwise shallow characters. The missing element is the chemistry that pulls them together or pushes them apart, but that doesn't seem so necessary in this film as the relationships seem to take a back seat to the production design.

Baz Luhrmann's style is really appealing. He creates fantastic images that are better than the imagination. That scene from the trailer with Leonardo DiCaprio raising his glass with the fireworks behind him is stunning. It's a style that needs an operatic story, which Gatsby is far from. I'm not opposed to changing the original story, regardless of how revered it is. In this case even the most dramatic story changes wouldn't make the aesthetic and novel more compatible. Instead of being engaged in the characters, I found myself disappointed in how flat out boring the movie was. Perhaps that's a good reflection for the tragic elements of the story, but the audience should feel for the characters, not feel like they wasted their time.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future 

that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, 

but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, 

stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning-

So we beat on, boats against the current, 

borne back ceaselessly into the past."

IMDb - The Great Gatsby (7.3)
Wikipedia - The Great Gatsby
Rotten Tomatoes - The Great Gatsby (48%)
Amazon.ca - The Great Gatsby

REVIEW: Jurassic Park

10/10 - Hold on to your butts!

Jurassic Park is probably my all time favorite movie. 

It's got dinosaurs and it's awesome. That's it. I love it. 

It's also a tight, intelligent story, that totally holds up over 20 years later, with impressive special effects, wonderful characters, and a concept that permeated pop culture for decades. This is Spielberg at his best. One of the iconic adventure film. inauthentic raptors and all. 

To celebrate my favorite movie, I just want to share some of the great moments that make me love this film. 

That Alan Grant introductory monologue, telling a kid why a velociraptor is scary and not a six-foot turkey. This was a great moment to legitimize Alan as a knowledgeable scientist, with a healthy respect for dinosaurs, and foreshadow what was to come. But why is this kid on a archaeological dig? Where did he come from? Why is the kid there if he doesn’t know anything about dinosaurs? My biggest question, why do all the other adults let Alan tell this innocent kid about what it will feel like to get eaten alive? That’s kind of messed up. What a great scene.

"If The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

How freaking great is Jeff Goldbulm. In the making-of special features, Spielberg said Goldblum was a naturalistic actor who always sounded like he was coming up with the lines in the moment. It's so true, that's definitely the appeal of Dr. Ian Malcolm. Thank you Michael Crichton for this phenomenal character.

"I’m always on the lookout for the next ex-Mrs. Malcolm." 

I love the way the way the raptors are the mystery element. The very first scene shows an animal cage, and then something goes wrong and a guy gets eaten. Back to that Alan Grant monologue that happens to me more real than he knows. Then at Jurassic Park the pen for the raptors doesn't show anything, they're all hidden under big leafy trees and bushes, but get to destroy an airlifted cow. Even Muldoon, the Kenyan game hunter, says "they should all be destroyed." The T-Rex might have been the "star" but these guys were the unseen danger. J.J. Abrams has become famous in recent years for using the mystery element in his movies, and this is the sort of thing that inspired him. Raptors are all we heard about in the first half of the movie, so you knew when you saw one in the second half, you were in big trouble. 

"The park will open with the basic tour you’re about to take."

The combination of Samuel L. Jackson as the chain smoking Ray Arnold and Wayne Knight as the nefarious Dennis Nedry is just so delightful. Sometimes character actors make a movie, and in this case, the almost cartoony relationship between these two adds so much depth and texture to the world.

“Find Nedry, check the vending machines!” 

The inexplicable appearance of a cliff that didn’t exist 15 minutes earlier. If you ever noticed that,
congratulations you continuity expert! It's my favorite goof. The T-Rex paddock is a major set piece, as the jeeps break down next to it, and we spend a lot of time looking beyond the fences to see if our movie monster will appear. The little goat sits waiting just beyond the fence, we can see the ground inside the T-Rex pen, it's all flat. Then! A few scenes later! The Jeep the kids are in gets pushed like a kickball inside the T-Rex pen where it... falls off a big cliff. Where did this cliff come from? It's the exact same location the goat was in earlier, and now it's a 30-foot drop. What happened here? It's made even better when later, Ellie goes to look for their missing Jeep and somehow sprints down to the bottom of this cliff and back up to their search car in about a 3 minute round trip. Pretty impressive, Ellie!

"...He'll lose you if you don't move. But no, not Velociraptor. 

You stare at him, and he just stares right back"

It’s almost cheesy to look back on the set design now, but the creation of these elaborate set pieces are what made Jurassic Park so great. It wasn't just a location, it was a theme park. It was Disneyland for dinos. Everything from the animal cages to the door handles had such distinct branding, unique to this world. Now, those images are quite iconic, with the Jeeps going down in movie history as one of the more memorable vehicles.

"T-Rex doesn't want to be fed. He wants to hunt. 

Can't just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct."

Finally, maybe my favorite thing about Jurassic Park, the score. John Williams is just a genius. I think every movie score that gets stuck in my head has been composed by John Williams. It's hard not to love those themes. There's not situation where singing the Jurassic Park theme doesn't immediately make everything a thousand times better.

"Hammond, after some consideration, I've decided, not to endorse your park."

Even though Jurassic Park is so high on my list of movies, I haven't watched the new Jurassic World yet, as I'm re-watching the whole series before getting to it. I'm sure it's a great addition to the Jurassic franchise, but lets be honest. Chris Pratt is no Jeff Goldblum.

IMDb - Jurassic Park (8.1)

Wikipedia - Jurassic Park

Rotten Tomatoes - Jurassic Park (93%)

Amazon.ca - Jurassic Park

REVIEW: Aloha

3/10 - Perfect movie to leave on the TV for your cats when you go out. 

I really like Cameron Crowe, even though his movies aren't pushing the limits of filmmaking. At his worst he captures heart and sincerity in his movies, and that's better than most. I also really like Emma Stone, who doesn't. Bradley Cooper, yes please. Rachel McAdams another delight. Bill Murray?! Are you kidding, sign me up for this film.

None of those talented people could save Aloha. It's a shallow snooze-fest with nothing worthwhile to say. Halfway through I was wishing someone would buy a Zoo.

Aloha follows Brian a military contractor (Bradley Cooper) as he dicks around on Hawaii going between millionaires who want to exploit the Hawaiian resources (Bill Murray and Alec Baldwin) and the native Hawaiians, inexplicably represented by Emma Stone. Brian's ex-wife is also there with her new husband (Rachel McAdams and John Krasinski) where they do some stuff with their kids.

There is very little about Aloha that doesn't feel contrived. I've come to expect Cameron Crowe rom-coms to feature very little conflict and represent more personal journeys, and this is almost an attempt to do the opposite. It's so story heavy that it doesn't play to any of Crowe's strengths and it just an incomprehensible bore. Even Bradley Coopers character doesn't come across as likable, and all the other characters seem to exist solely as predictable roadblocks. The story becomes a diluted cocktail of American military pride, astrophysics, Hawaiian culture, and romantic feelings, where none of those story points fully come through, and all them them become weaker in combination.

I can't even sign off on this film representing Hawaiian culture despite the name. There's the obvious Emma Stone controversy that I can't add to, other than to agree that she was a terrible casting choice and her character does Hawaii a disservice.

Perhaps I'm disappointed with the film because I had hoped that beyond the initial kick back the film faced, there might be something redeeming about it. I couldn't find anything to make this movie worthwhile. There's no major trainwreck moment, it's just the kind of movie that makes you want to netflix and nap.

IMDb - Aloha (5.5)
Wikipedia - Aloha
Rotten Tomatoes - Aloha (19%)
Amazon.ca - Aloha

REVIEW: Ex Machina

8/10 - Go ahead, try to outsmart this movie 

I love indie thrillers. There’s something great going on in indie films right now as they tap into old school film techniques to make good stories on a low budget, while big blockbusters don’t have to. With limited sets, and strategic use of special effects it’s easy to become immersed in the world of Ex Machina. 

In the film, Caleb is a programmer at a massive tech company who wins the opportunity to visit the reclusive CEO of his company, Nathan, to work on a top secret project. Spoiler alert, the project is androids. Nathan has developed a robot with sophisticated A.I. and asks Caleb to conduct a Turing test (remember Alan Turing from last year’s The Imitation Game?) to determine if the robot could pass as human. 

Conceptually, there’s a lot going on. There are philosophical questions about artificial life and the repercussions of their introduction to society, but more than that, what it means to someone like Caleb. The android being created isn’t a program run on a Mac. Her name is Ava. She is an attractive young woman, with big doe eyes. Ava seems so naive and innocent, but we already know her appearance was designed to deceive. 

This opens up so many other thematic concepts, like gender roles. Ava was designed by a man to be a woman, so how does that affect her? Or how the constant surveillance of the compound impacts those in it. Very quickly the home begins to feel like an elaborate prison. It’s the cerebral concepts that make this movie psychologically tense. Very little is obliquely threatening, and yet everything feels somehow wrong. 

If it’s not already obvious, Ex Machina is quite heavy on the ideas. Fortunately, the story doesn’t get lost among them. The audience is lead along a deliberately journey, steadily paced, with a great payoff. Writer/director Alex Garland had a unique vision for this film, styling it to be overly polished and almost inhuman. It strikes a good balance of selling the narrative and evoking imagination. 

I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention the fantastic cast. Oscar Isaac is a powerful force as Nathan. He’s a scary presence in the film, with a difficult character because the majority of the film seems to circle his psyche. Domhnall Gleeson, Caleb, has been in some great films lately, and this is another highlight for his resume. Alicia Vikander gives a striking performance as the robot Ava, who is the specimen, the love interest, the protagonist, and the villain. 

With all this heaping praise, it might seem like this is the best movie ever, but I don't think it's going to be everyone's cup of tea. There are plenty of issues with a movie that’s largely just two guys talking about A.I. theory. Some people might dare to say it’s boring. Like any sci-fi film it needs to have a certain amount of buy-in from the audience too. Stylistically it feels claustrophobic, and I think the ending will be divisive, however you could argue those elements were intentional.

Flaws and all, I really enjoyed this film. Alex Garland has been creating cult classics for many years and I can only hope he inspires other filmmakers. It's the kind of movie you want to watch late at night with the lights off and a bowl of popcorn. 

IMDb - Ex Machina (7.7)

Wikipedia - Ex Machina

Rotten Tomatoes - Ex Machina (92%)

Amazon.ca - Ex Machina