Rango (2011)

Starring: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Bill Nighy, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, Timothy Olyphant

Director: Gore Verbinski

Running Time: 107 minutes

The Lowdown: A chameleon named Rango (Johnny Depp) stumbles into small desert town named Dirt where he somewhat unwittingly becomes sheriff. Shortly thereafter he becomes entangled in the mystery of the town's water shortage and becomes suspicious of the town's mysterious mayor (Ned Beatty)

My Take: Good films that get a wide release so that I can actually see them at the theater are exceedingly rare these days, especially in the early months of the year. Even rarer are good animated films, simply because so few are made to begin with and even fewer are actually worth seeing. Typically in a given year one can count on Pixar putting out one of its masterpiece and one can also count on the majority of wide release animated films being crap. Luckily, "Rango" manages to defy the odds and become one of those very few good animated films being made by companies not named Pixar.

I was surprised when I found out that this was Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) first animated endeavor. For years ILM has always been the go to company for visual effects so CG animation seems like a natural fit for the company. As such the animation is incredibly detailed and brings a strong realistic touch to the film's anthropomorphic animal cast and its desert terrain. There all also a number of breathtaking, sweeping visuals that remind one of the epic feeling the animators brought to 2009's "Up". No doubt, the film's visuals benefited from having cinematography god Roger Deakins on board as a visual consultant, a position Deakins also filled for Up, WALL-E and How To Train Your Dragon. You can  just see in every scene the care that ILM has put into this film that put its miles ahead of the half baked garbage that a lot of animation studios (i.e.Dreamworks) usually put out. If future endeavors work out as well in a decade or so ILM might be a leader in the industry alongside Pixar.

Similarly, much care was put into crafting a solid screenplay that puts "Rango" in a league with "Up" and other animated flicks that are enjoyed by children and adults alike. The screenplay is filled to the brim will playful parodies of everything from "A Fistful of Dollars" and "High Noon" to "Chinatown" and "Raising Arizona". Perhaps, the more classic films that you've seen the more you will enjoy "Rango".

However, the film isn't content to rest on parodying other films and manages to have enough heart to stand on its own. Unlike most non-Pixar animated flicks the characters are for the most part fully developed enough to keep adults engrossed in the story (which itself is surprisingly a bit dark when compared to the marketing campaign that aims it so squarely at children). Similarly, the cast is an all star cast full of strong voice work from greats like Ned Beatty, Bill Nighy and Alfred Molina who all put enough effort into their roles that these performances easily could have held up a live action film. However, the flick belongs not surprisingly to Johnny Depp who brings his usual trademark weirdness to the title role but adds a bit of Don Knotts-esque cowardice to the role so as to make the character miles away from Jack Sparrow and other braver Depp characters.

Best Moment: A toss up: either the film's epic battle that homages "Apocalypse Now" and countless war films or the scene early in the film where Rango lands on the windshield of none other than Hunter S. Thompson as pictured here:

     

In Short: "Rango" is a promising animated debut from ILM that benefits from a witty script, terrific voice acting and memorable visuals that reveal a project that has just as much care and love put into it as anything Pixar has put out in the past few years.

9 out of 10

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)

Starring: Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter, Elizabeth Risdon, Porter Hall

Director: Leo McCarey

The Lowdown: After their home is foreclosed on an elderly couple is forced to temporarily seperate when none of their five children have room to take them both in.

My Take: Seeing as "Make Way for Tomorrow" was made and takes place during the Great Depression and its storyline is so deeply rooted in that era's economic turmoil and poverty its not hard to understand why people didn't flock to theater to see it. That said, its unfortunate that such a beautiful film up until recently was only known of by a very few aficionados of classic film.

However, "Make Way for Tommorow" merely uses the trappings of the Great Depression as a springboard for its real plot: an examination of two elderly people who find themselves lost and isolated from eachother in rapidly changing modern times that they don't understand.

When Bark (Victor Moore) and Lucy (Beulah Bondi) loose their house to foreclosure, the 5 children do their best but are so caught up in their own lives, the lives of their own children and numerous financial troubles all of which make it hard to be fully attentive to the needs of their parents. Any other film would have villainized the children and while as audience sympathy inevitably lies mostly with Bark and Lucy, the somewhat neglectful actions of their children are made understandable, if not sympathetic, thanks to a terrific script and some strong acting from the supporting players.

Similarly, Bark and Lucy are made sympathetic and the precise opposite of the curmudgeon stock characters that populate many Hollywood films thanks to the remarkable performances of the actors. Victor Moore makes Bark's stubborn pride a thoroughly believable and an occasionally endearing, Beulah Bondi makes us love this elderly woman who is able to handle many of the hard decisions that she must make over the course of the film with such grace. It is perhaps because she so capably portrays this woman's love for her children, no matter how neglectful  they may occasionally seem that we are able to forgive them to some extent for the decisions they make near the film's end.

Furthermore, despite what little time the two spend together on screen, Moore and Bondi are so thoroughly convincing in the portrayal of the loneliness and heartbreak of these two characters that when they reunite in the final act it we're overjoyed to see them reunited. As they spend time together, fully aware of how close to the end they both are, we feel a deep sadness as though we have known these characters for all 50 years of their marriage and forget that we are only seeing actors.

During this final arc we also see that this couple, despite being in their 70s (which was much older in 1937 than it is now) is truly young at heart and if only they had the time they would gladly live a whole other life time together. It is because of this youthfulness the actors bring to the characters that we can relate to these two, no matter how much older they are, It is ultimately that intense empathy that causes the film's conclusion to be one of the few that has ever moved me to tears. This is made all the more remarkable by Leo McCarey's terrific direction that never allows the proceedings to sink into melodrama and is instead intensley real, making "Make Way for Tomorrow" a deeply moving picture that is hard to forget.

Best Moment: The film's final emotional scene which Orson Welles' famously said "could make a stone cry."  I feel inclined to agree.

In Short: "Make Way for Tomorrow" is a shockingly underrated and mostly forgotten film that deserves a second look by today's audiences as more realistic, understated and infinitely more moving film that is in stark contrast with the more manipulative and less convincing tearjerker dramas churned out by Hollywood today. A beautiful film that any true fan of classic cinema should make an effort to see and one that has become a favorite of mine.

10 out of 10

Intolerable Cruelty (2003)

Starring: George Clooney, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Geoffery Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Edward Herrmann, Richard Jenkins

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen

The Lowdown: A serial gold digger (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and a charming divorce lawyer (George Clooney) become entangled in this romantic comedy.

My Take: Every great artist has misstep and most even have a brief period of failed efforts. For instance Woody Allen had a terrific artistic period in the 70s and 80s only to later struggle with his latter career mostly being a rollercoaster as far as quality is concerned. Its to be expected that an artist will hit a rough spot and make a film lesser than their other films or even a film that's just plain terrible. Whether its because the artist has run out of creative juices or simply doesn't have their heart in a particular project that they're only participating in so they can buy a new house or fun a better project doesn't matter. It happens to even the greatest artists. However, just because its expected doesn't make those low points any less painful for fans.

That brings us to "Intolerable Cruelty", far and away the Coen Brothers' weakest film to date. "Intolerable Cruelty" is the first and to date only film the Coens have made based off of somebody elses idea. The brothers signed on to direct the project after another more personal project fell through. In other words, its not really a project that comes from the heart, and the Coen's lack of personal interest in the material shows throughout.

The credits insist that the brothers did some sort of revision to the script but as far as I can tell all they did was add a couple hints at their normal creative and darkly comic style to plant hope in the hearts of their fans that the film may eventually get on track. They were also probably instrumental in attracting the talents of George Clooney, Geoffery Rush, Billy Bob Thornton and others to assist in giving the audience even more hope that the film's clumsy beginnings will eventually give way to a film that's actually funny. However, this never occurs and we are instead left with an unfunny mess that reeks of laziness throughout.

The two lead performances from George Clooney and Catherine Zeta-Jones feel half hearted at best. Clooney does bring some charm to his role but it feels phony and its a pathetic performance in comparison to his similar role as a cynical but vulenerable character in 2009's "Up in the Air". Catherine Zeta-Jones has similarly seen better days and that this was her first role after her Oscar winning turn in Chicago makes her absolute lack effort all the more confounding.

The supporting cast is similarly frustrating. Geoffery Rush is woefully underused and miscast as a character that appears in no more than three scenes (but somehow still receives third billing). After his character's first appearance Rush's character is so inconsequential that if one didn't know the actor they might assume it was three different characters. Billy Bob Thornton, who was spectacular as the lead in the Coens' then most recent film "The Man Who Wasn't There", is well cast but gives a lifeless performance that makes one feel that the actor didn't even want to be there. The most confounding bit of casting however is Cedric the Entertainer as a PI that works for Clooney's character periodically. The so called Entertainer takes what should have been a forgetable bit part and makes it the most annoying performance of the whole picture. Most frustrating is that all three characters more or less exist to help facilitate the film's worthless and eye roll inducing final scene.

There are also a number of odd but ultimately forgettable supporting characters that serve to more or less provide the audience with tantalizing possibilities that they may turn this into another Coen masterpiece. Unfortuanately, all hope of this happening is squashed just before the third act when Clooney's divorce lawyer character gives a speech about the importance of love and rejects his divorce lawyer profession at a national convention for divorce lawyers. The speech itself is not as cheesy as the fact that the ENTIRE AUDIENCE at the convention erupts with applause and cheering. Its this scene that is the point of no return and erases all hope that the film will ever become worthwhile. This is a scene that in another Coens' film may have been a dream sequence written so as to lampoon such a ludicrous scene.

Scenes like this abound with only a few feeling as though the Coens had any hand in them. However, even when there are scenes that feel Coenesque they are so mild, lazy and in one case down right implausible that it is impossible for me to derive any pleasure from them. Similarly, the cinematography by the usually great Roger Deakins is so mild and the score by their usual compose Carter Burwell is so grating that it seems both men felt as much indifference (or is it contempt?) for the material as the Coens themselves.

In Short: Due to the talent involved it should be so much more and because it remains the only bad Coen brothers' film one can only feel that this is a cruel prank the Coens decided to play on their fans. If they did indeed make revisions to the script they had to be small and are not readily apparent in a final product that reeks of an apathy and laziness that is similar to watching Mozart drunkenly and lazily compose elevator music. In other words, the result is disheartening and though we've been proven wrong and the brothers have created great films since I don't blame anybody that thought twice about seeing any of their new movies after watching this one.

3 out of 10

The Sunset Limited (2011)

Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson

Director: Tommy Lee Jones

The Lowdown: In this HBO TV movie adapted from the Cormac McCarthy play, two nameless characters, only called Black (Jackson) and White (Jones), have a lengthy discussion about the existence of God, the meaning of human suffering and everything in between after the devoutly religious Black stops the depressed and atheistic White from killing himself on the tracks of a train called The Sunset Limited.

My Take: Cormac McCarthy is widely believed by many, me included, to be one of the best authors of the past half century. His western novel Blood Meridian was amongst Time's 100 best novels published since the magazine's fist issue and his post apocalyptic tale The Road won the Pulitzer prize a few years ago. Both those works represent McCarthy's nihilistic and grim worldview and filter them through certain genres to make them the backbone of compelling stories.

The Sunset Limited, however, lacks these filters and strips down drama to its bare essentials. We have two men. One black. One white. One a man of great religious conviction and limited education. The other a suicidal professor on the brink of oblivion who shares McCarthy's bleak world view only cranked up to eleven and devoid of any hope whatsoever. What follows is basically a 90 minute chess match between two men dead set in their ways.

Its often difficult for a dialogue driven film with so little narrative incident to actually get made. "My Dinner with Andre" is a great example that comes to mind and I was certainly reminded of it as these two characters shared a battle of words around a kitchen table. However, this isn't two friends bantering along, rather this is "My Dinner with Andre" meets Ingmar Bergman's "Winter Light" for the working class. While I would gladly travel to a theater for this, its hard to imagine many people flocking to the multiplex to watch two old codgers wax philosophical about some of the grimmest philosophical questions. As such, its probably best this was produced by HBO as this way more people will see it than in what I'm sure would be a very limited theatrical release.

While a theatrical release would have been nice, the lack of one is what allows "The Sunset Limited" to come to life uninhibited. Were it produced by a big film studio chances are the producers would have asked for the film to be opened up and contain more scenes outside the kitchen would distract from the film's singular focus.

As for the acting, I cannot praise the two leads enough. Samuel L. Jackson is perfectly cast as Black and brings a terrific fire and brimstone quality to the religious debate. However, Jackson never lets Black become a caricature and thanks to McCarthy we are able to sympathize with his view and he never makes the character a bland stereotype even if some in the audience, McCarthy included, may not agree with his views.

Likewise, Tommy Lee Jones, who also produced and directed, is entirely convincing as the professor who has lost his faith in just about everything. Jones has a sadness in his face and carries himself as a world weary man who has given up all hope and has given into total nihilism. While the character's views are grim the script makes it easy for us to sympathize and understand how he's come to this point in his life.

These two performances compliment each other perfectly and these two actors bring so much believability to each line of dialogue that you can't help but be fascinated and hang onto every word of it no matter how grim. As expected, there are no easy answers given and it's up to the audience to make conclusions but the film should make for interesting conversation.

Best Moment: Samuel L. Jackson recounting complete with hand motions and in graphic detail a prison fight that led to his conversion as a befuddled Tommy Lee Jones sits dumbstruck.

In Short: "The Sunset Limited" is not for everyone but those who are interested will be fascinated by its two lead performances and its frank look at philosophy, something that is not often discussed in films today.

10 out of 10