Noah Review

Living with his family in self-imposed isolation from the rest of humanity, a man has a vision from God that the world will be drowned to make way for a new beginning. Believing that he must save all animal life from the flood, the man sets out to build a massive vessel capable of surviving the wrath of the Creator.  Noah by Darren Aronofsky, much like the famous ark in the story, is rough around the edges and held together with raw materials, yet contains with in it admirable components. Ultimately this film comes across as underdeveloped and overly ambitious.

                The world in which Noah and his family live is a dark, dirty, and brutal place where life is cheap and often ends violently and senselessly. Man has disobeyed the Creator of the world and has been banished from a garden of paradise. There are themes of environmentalism throughout. Noah and his family take only what they need to survive, which doesn’t include the meat of animals. They live away from other people, trying to make their way through their lives as humbly as possible. In this way there’s a kind of rural vs. city thing going on. The men that Noah hides from are killers and eaters of animals with a society that seems to revolve around mining. Man’s corruption of the Earth and the purity of nature are emphasized at every turn.

                The best parts of Noah almost all come from the second half, once we get on the boat. A truly chilling moment occurs when Noah and his family try to have dinner while the screams of drowning people hang over them. Aronofsky has succeded in crafting a film that gives us a deeper insight into what a man in Noah’s predicament could have gone through. The film weighs the issues of mercy and judgment and pushes its main character to the breaking point and beyond.

                Unfortunately many of the film’s subplots, including the villainous intents of Ray Winstone, a love story for Noah’s son Ham, and fallen angels known as the Watchers don’t pay off and feel undercooked. Winstone plays a king descended from Cain who isn’t given enough time to really develop beyond a cardboard villain who might as well be twirling a thick mustache.  The Watchers, apart from looking cheap, have shades of character but again, their place in the film’s story is ultimately too tangential to inspire much interest in them.

                Noah has grand themes, but it’s most successful when it turns into a tense family drama about a man in an extremely difficult position. In some ways it’s a small story stretched too far. The core of what’s here is fine, and worth experiencing, but the audience has to sift through several underdeveloped aspects to get to it.   

The Grand Budapest Hotel Review

Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel features a cavalcade of quirky characters in a mostly light hearted adventure revolving around a large luxury hotel in a fictional European Country during the 1930’s. Much of what makes Anderson’s style compelling is found here: A large and eccentric cast, matriculate set and costume design, and aggressively playful and fastidious dialog. The story is anchored by the hotel’s concierge, the genteel M. Gustav, and his protégé, Zero as they try to navigate a web of conspiracy and deception surrounding one of the hotel’s guests. Thematically, The Grand Budapest Hotel is interested in reoccurring social cycles, classism, and the nature of storytelling. Each of these ideas is explored in an interesting and compelling fashion while keeping the audience on a constantly moving and amusing narrative.

                The entire film, from the acting to the set design and the little flourishes of camera work is a fully realized vision. The hotel itself is a thing of wonder. The centerpiece is a lavish lobby where high society and elegance abound. The care put into the design of everything, down to the font on signs in the background, is evident. Like the castle Hogwarts in Harry Potter or the bathhouse of spirits in Spirited Away this location is filled with enchanting bewilderments. The hotel is truly a character itself, complete with its own narrative arc. All the time you’re there you can’t help but marvel at every inch of it and wonder what’s behind every door. Everything feels as though it’s made out of colorful card stock and lends the film a whimsical tone overall.

                The film crackles with energy and never lingers on one thing for very long. The vast amount of characters outside Gustav and Zero don’t get a lot of screen time, but none of them waste a second of what they have. The character list reads like something out of a lost Victorian novel: Tilda Swinton as an aging mistress of a vast estate, Edward Norton as an affectionate chief of the secret police, Saoirse Ronan as a straight talking aspiring baker, Adrien Brody as a greedy heir (sporting a kind of bizarre kinetic energy reminiscent as his performance as Salvador Dali in Midnight in Paris). The list goes on with more wonderful performances.

The great variety of characters gives the story a somewhat varied tone. At many moments it is playful and cherry, but prospect of melancholy is never too far away. There is a sense of faded glory in this film that has manifested itself in Anderson’s work before. At times in the story it seems that Anderson is addressing this idea more so than in his previous movies. This awareness is not played for cheap meta-humor, but instead is used to explore and draw closer to the concept and why so many of Anderson’s characters chose to live their lives in the shadows of former greatness. 

 The Grand Budapest Hotel is a delight to experience, delivered in an ornate package with a bow on top. What lies inside are a cornucopia of enjoyable performances, stunning set designs, and a charming story about coming of age, societal rhythms, and a damn fine lobby boy.

Nebraska Review

Nebraska, the sixth feature film directed by Alexander Payne, is about an old man named Woody Grant who convinces his son David to take him to Lincoln, Nebraska in order to claim a sweepstakes prize of 1 million dollars.  Woody is often confused about himself and his surroundings, due either to his age or his alcoholism, yet seems fixated on this more than questionable promise of prize money.  David, having nothing important going on in his life, decides to humor his dad and help him even if he thinks the prize is a total fantasy.  The two set off from Billings, Montana and encounter many people from Woody’s past along the way.

                For the most part the film and the story are as straight forward as the premise, with one caveat.  On the surface this appears to be a film about aging.  To be sure, the members of the cast that sport grey hair outnumber those that don’t, and the movie isn’t afraid to have a laugh at the expense of the elderly.  But this story is more about a son becoming closer to his father.  As the audience might expect there’s more to Woody than the disheveled, ornery man we meet at the beginning of the film.  Through one event after another Woody’s past comes to light and his son begins to understand his father more than he has his entire life.  This humanizing comedy, much like its main character, is at first rough and forlorn, but soon gives way to a peculiar tenderness.     

             Bruce Dern, who plays Woody, fleshes out his character with minute idiosyncrasies including a strained walk and trembling hands that are fascinating to watch.  Dern carries the film, but June Squibb, playing the role of his wife Kate, practically steals the show with her bold, biting humor.  The son, played by Will Forte, has an “Aw shucks,” feeling about him and serves as an anchor to the story.  The supporting cast is rounded out by the likes of Bob Odenkirk and Stacy Keach, each of whom is engaging in their own way. 

            As the title implies, the setting plays a strong role in the aesthetic of the film.  Endless highways pass through arid deserts and plains as Woody and David make their way to their destination.  The film feels intimate with its characters and the small town where the majority of the story takes place.  Yet the landscapes are vast and large.  Cows appear small as they graze in giant fields dotted with bales of hay, and the whole film hums with a rustic tone.  The black and white photography emphasizes shadows and the pale lights of the town beautifully.  The soundtrack is populated by acoustic guitars and a muted trumpet that seems to sigh along with Woody during his most desolate moments.  The sound, along with the rest of the film, feels like a kind of 21^st century Americana. 

           Nebraska is a window into an odd, faded world that holds many beautiful things.  The cinematography and frank performances make it a world worth traveling to.  Perhaps the story is a little too straightforward and would have benefited from a clearer arc for its central characters, but what’s here is an enjoyable playground for Payne’s measured sense of sadness, comedy, and sentimentalism.   

The Wind Rises Review

In the opening of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises we’re shown a quote from the French poem Le Cimetière Marin.  “The wind is rising! . . . We must try to live!”  This is the creed that the film’s protagonist, aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi, says throughout the movie to urge himself to pursue his dreams.  It’s an appropriate start to a film that often feels like a visual poem rather than a fully fleshed out narrative.  The film follows Jiro from his childhood as he strives to become an airplane designer in pre-World War II Japan.  It’s a movie that has many wonderful moments that feel disconnected in a meandering plot.  Sadly the achievement of the film as a whole is simply that it does more right than it does wrong. 

The biggest flaws are the listless plot that often feels directionless and overly sentimental moments that come across as trite.  These cause The Wind Rises to feel its length, and then some.  It’s hard to take this two hour tale as an examination of a deep central character because Jiro is presented as such a pure being with no flaws.  It’s also equally hard to take it as a memorable look at the culture of Japan and Germany right before World War II, which seems a potent time period and setting for a story about determined ambition.  The film feels less than the sum of its parts because the unwanted and non-contributing parts hold back the good aspects.  It’s also unsuccessful in building a cohesive arc for Jiro.  This is a problem because so much of the film centers on him and his point of view, yet we don’t see him fundamentally change or confront any part of his character.  He’s hard to connect with because he feels like a golden child, a teacher’s pet without a teacher.  We want him to succeed, but at the end he feels more of an idea than a full person. 

But the good news is that there are plenty of interesting and well-crafted moments.  These are the moments when Miyazaki latches onto the core of what a scene is trying to be and is able to make that feeling very clear.  Sometimes these bits are small, such as a comedic beat during Jiro’s suspiciously subservient meeting with the Japanese Navy, who are funding his design project.  At other times they’re charming scenes- such as when a young Jiro, distraught that his poor eye sight prevents him from flying planes, tries to improve his vision by climbing on top of his roof to focus on the stars without his glasses.  These successful moments in the film have to do with nailing a sense of wonder and charm, two hallmarks of Miyazaki’s films.  Unfortunately undeveloped melodrama drags the whole experience, mostly in the second half.  The height of this is a scene where a character becomes engaged right before revealing her terminal illness - tuberculosis.  The audience is almost driven to sarcastically yell “Gasp!” at the screen                  

The biggest ally to Miyazaki is the music, composed by Joe Hisaishi, a long time Miyazaki collaborator.  The score carries many of the most emotional moments of the film, most notably the love scenes between Jiro and Naoko.  It’s a great piece of music that’s at times tranquil and at others exhilarating.  Overall the sound design is excellent, with each engine, propeller, and machine pumping, wheezing, and creaking their own unique music.  The voice cast for the English dub is capable, with the stand outs being Martin Short as Jiro’s boss grouchy boss Kurokawa and Stanley Tucci as Jiro’s idol, Italian aviation engineer Giovani Caproni.  Joseph Gordon Levitt does a decent job as Jiro, but doesn’t do much to bring anything to the somewhat bland character.  Film buffs will enjoy a bizarrely entertaining appearance by Werner Hertzog as a German ex-patriot. 

The story of The Wind Rises covers a lot- the birth and pursuit of a lifelong dream, a devastating earthquake and the recovery from it, a love story, the development of the Japanese aviation industry, the design of a revolutionary aircraft, international tensions on the eve of World War II- but the problem is that it doesn’t tackle any of these things with the depth or nuance they warrant.  All of it is from the perspective of Jiro, who simply wants “…to make something beautiful” This passion for creating beauty is evident in this gorgeous looking film.  However, it is held back from being a better movie by a lethargic plot and undercooked sentimentality.  Buried beneath these flaws are moments of beauty, both artistic beauty and human beauty that are worth seeing.  The greatest sin of the film is that the story, setting, and creators were capable of something so much more.