Brian Vs. Movies

I knew I made a wise choice in viewing material the second my DVD player loaded the main menu to Hesher.  The icon that indicates your selection is a crudely drawn fist giving the middle finger.  Nice!  Even better, the bonus scenes are called "Extra Shit."  Some films have to fight for my affection, while others have me at "Extra Shit."  Hesher, I loved you before I even pressed play.
Hesher is, shockingly, not about a character named Hesher.  It is about TJ (Devin Brochu), a tween whose mother recently died.  TJ is taking the loss hard, naturally, but he's expressing his grief through an odd attachment to the wrecked car she died in; he repeatedly bothers the junkyard owner and acts out when he doesn't sell TJ the car (that he has no money for, or a license, or insurance, or a way to fix it, etc., etc.).  Making things worse, the kid who works at the junkyard is also TJ's bully at school.  He would turn to his father for advice, but Paul (Rainn Wilson) has been popping pills for months, trying to avoid feeling anything.

"When does this movie get METAL?" Be patient.

That's when we meet Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).  Hesher isn't related to TJ, he's not a family friend, and he's neither famous or infamous in their town.  Heck, we never even learn if "Hesher" is a first name, last name or nickname.  Hesher is just Hesher.  And that's how he shows up.  He was squatting in a house that was under construction when TJ accidentally blew his cover, so Hesher decides to give TJ his full attention.

This isn't the scene where Hesher threatens to skullfuck TJ.  But rest assured, it is in the movie.

Hesher shows up in TJ's school.  He follows him to the grocery store.  He even moves into TJ's house with no explanation to Paul or TJ's Grandma (Piper Laurie).  He's just Hesher, and if he wants to live in Paul's garage and hang out in his underwear, what the hell are you going to do about it?

A: drop trou and enjoy some stolen cable, courtesy of Hesher

There's more to the plot of Hesher than that, but not a lot more.  The destination is not the best part of this film's story --- this is about the journey.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is priceless in the title role.  Since JGL doesn't tend to play bad-asses, I was surprised at how convincing he was.  Maybe it was the awesome headbanging hair, or the scuzzy beard, or the first-class crazy eyes, or his fantastic tattoos (a cartoon fist flipping the middle finger across his back and a stick figure blowing his brains out across his torso) --- whatever it was, this character was completely awesome.  It helps that the character is eminently quotable; one of my favorites is "Humans been pokin' vagina for hundreds of years.  Longer, probably."  Gordon-Levitt does a good job playing quiet characters, so it might surprise you how great he is as a completely over-the-top and impossible extrapolation of that one guy in high school who really really really loved his heavy metal.  Actually...yeah...Hesher is the personification of what high school kids think is cool and dangerous.  And JGL is convincing as a scary dude, too!  Who'd a thunk it?

Another lesson learned: fire makes everything more bad-ass

Devin Brochu is okay as TJ, but it's a tough role to be totally likable in.  He's a teenager misdirecting his anger from a massive emotional trauma --- of course he's going to be whiny.  Brochu does do a good job acting as a proxy for the audience, looking suitably surprised/horrified by nearly everything Hesher chooses to do.  Rainn Wilson wasn't in a whole lot of the movie and he was not funny at all.  He was pretty fantastic, though.  It was a very subtle performance, but Wilson was excellent as a depressed father trying to move on with his life; I don't really like Wilson normally, so consider that praise well-earned.  Natalie Portman has a more substantial role as a grown woman who somehow winds up befriending TJ and becoming a love interest, of sorts.  Unfortunately, she suffered from "ugly pretty girl" syndrome, where she was given big glasses and baggy clothes to make her look nerdy and ugly.

Look at her.  I just want to vomit in her face, she's so gross!

Aside from that bit of cliche, I thought Portman did a fine job.  Piper Laurie was also good as Grandma, especially with her interactions with Hesher.  There aren't many films that show the elderly treating younger, threatening-looking folks with complete acceptance, and I thought that was an unexpected small twist.

Hesher is the first full-length theatrical work by writer/director Spencer Susser, and I think it shows.  There are a lot of things that Susser does right in this movie.  The main characters are all interesting, and their interactions feel natural even when they're doing ridiculous shit.  I was genuinely impressed with how well depression was exhibited by the characters, without being the full focus of the movie.  And, of course, I liked how high-school-awesome Hesher was.  The soundtrack (comprised entirely of Metallica and Motörhead, I believe) was also pretty great.

You know what else is great?  Markers.

Having said all that, I have to admit that this story never really gels.  The characters are individually good, but the parts never come together to form a greater whole.  Specifically, it never makes sense why TJ's family would just accept Hesher living in their house, and it never makes sense why Hesher chose to live with them.  The characters are just not woven together; this movie could have ended at almost any time and had only a marginally smaller impact on the story as a whole.  That's (obviously) the biggest problem I have with Hesher, but there are some missed opportunities as well.  The use of film style in this movie is inconsistent and, therefore, ineffective.  In the first few scenes that Hesher is in, it is questionable whether or not he is a real character, or if he is a suburban heavy metal Tyler Durden.  It turns out that he is not.  There is also an audio feedback noise that happens when somebody is going to do something crazy --- and I liked that effect --- but it lost its significance when it was also used just before Hesher got philosophical.  Hesher's inspirational speech toward the end could have been terrible, but Susser was smart enough to steer it away from genuine sentiment and back to weird and funny.

Also smart: not using tie-dye and coffee stain-halos in the main promo posters

Hesher is not a great movie, and its shortcomings in the story department are pretty obvious.  I really liked it, though.  There was enough to make this enjoyable despite its flaws, and those moments came from various sources.  I liked that there is no definitive time or place for this story; those license plates might look like California plates, but they just say "Drive Safely."  That's clever.  And there are so many chunks of dialogue that are random and abrasive, yet still very funny --- Hesher's rants about Grandma rape and orgies were stellar --- that I can't help but walk away with a positive impression.

Admittedly, it helps if you've ever looked at someone like this

Maybe the key to this film is that it is presented as a drama and it has dramatic parts...and then, over to the side, is Hesher, doing Hesher knows what.  If this was supposed to be a comedy, it would certainly be a strange one.  If you take this as a drama, though, it's not bad at all --- and it has occasional doses of awesomeness in small bursts.

I'm a pretty big fan of Norse mythology.  Part of it is due to my Swedish ancestry and part of it is because Norse myths are basically set up like The Dirty Dozen; yes, the gods are all pretty bad-ass, but they all know that they're on a suicide mission called Ragnarok.   When I heard that Marvel Studios was going to be making a Thor movie as part of their announced Avengers franchise, I was a bit skeptical.  Sure, I've enjoyed the movies the studio has made so far (the Iron Man films and The Incredible Hulk), but Thor is a different type of character entirely.  This wouldn't be about making a fantastic character down to Earth, it would be about telling a story about a foreign god that most Americans are fairly unfamiliar with and turning it into a superhero movie.  There are a LOT of ways to do this story wrong.  Hell, even the comics only get it right every five years or so.  Now, I will admit that I read comics and have a decent collection of classic Thor issues, so I am definitely approaching this movie as a bit of a fanboy.

This issue was, in all seriousness, awesome.

That said, I entered Thor with high hopes and dreadful fears.  Would this join the ranks of awesome Marvel Comics movies, like X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, and Iron Man 2, or would it be an incomprehensible mess, like X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, and Daredevil?

Right off the bat, the film makes a wise choice by (more or less) starting the film in Asgard, home of the Norse gods.  The King of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is preparing to pass on the mantle of king to one of his sons, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), when there is a security breach within their castle.  Some Frost Giants, the immortal enemies of Asgard, managed to sneak in unseen and almost stole a weapon of great power before they were terminated with extreme prejudice by Odin's deadly sentry, the Destroyer.  Thor's immediate impulse is to take the fight to the Frost Giants, but Odin forbids any acts of war; he reasoned that this was an act made by a few, and they have been appropriately punished.  Thor seethes, but does nothing.  That is, he does nothing until he is baited by his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  Thor decides to go to Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, with his partners in crime, Loki, Sif (Jaime Alexander), and the Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg).  Why does he go?  Ostensibly, to get an apology from the Frost Giant king, but he's really there to fight.  And fight they do.  The Asgardians beat the living hell out of several dozen Frost Giants, but they are outnumbered and do not have any back-up.  A royally pissed-off Odin arrives and manages to keep the peace, but he punishes Thor by banishing him to Earth, without his godly powers.  Odin also takes away Thor's signature hammer, whispering an enchantment to it that more or less states that whoever can lift the hammer will have the power of Thor.
Most of the rest of the film follows Thor on Earth as he adjusts to not being a god.  Naturally, a brawny blonde that claims to be the god of thunder showing up right around the time and place that an unmovable hammer arrives garners some attention from all sorts of people, including scientists and the military.  However, the humbling of a god does not answer one key question.  How did those Frost Giants sneak into the supposedly impenetrable Asgard and set these events in motion?

One of the more interesting aspects of this film's production process was the decision to hire Shakespearean expert Kenneth Branagh to direct the movie.  As far as his Shakespeare films go, Branagh is one of the best in the business, both as an actor and as a director.  As for his other movies, well...Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was pretty godawful.  The man definitely has a good touch with his actors, though, as anyone working with (mostly) plays must have.  I thought he did a pretty solid job with Thor.  The action scenes (which he hasn't directed before) looked good and, in some cases, were pretty awesome.  The characters that had more than a few lines were all acted quite well by the cast, and I was particularly impressed by the lead performances of Thor and Loki by two unknown actors.  Branagh does not have the lightest touch when it comes to cinematography (I hope you like lopsided camera angles), but his choices all make sense.  All in all, I think Branagh did an adequate job with making the film look good and a very good job with the cast.

Speaking of the cast, I was alternately very impressed and depressed by Thor.  Chris Hemsworth was great in the lead role, capturing the arrogance of the character wonderfully.  His character could have been a little deeper, but Hemsworth more than delivered with what was given to him.  I was also impressed by Tom Hiddleston's Loki; Loki is a great character in mythology (and Neil Gaiman's fiction), and Hiddleston took a character that could easily just be evil and made him mischievous, cunning, and emotionally desperate.  This is definitely my favorite performance of a Marvel villain since Ian McKellan's Magneto.  I was surprised to see Anthony Hopkins giving a solid performance as Odin, since he has been mostly just mailing in his work for the past decade.  He wasn't spectacular, but he seemed regal and cold, which fits the part well.  I was far less impressed by Natalie Portman's role as Jane Foster, an astrophysicist that develops a romance with the thunder god.  She should be a pretty important part of the story, but aside from being a decently strong female character (read: she argues with the men-folk), she doesn't do much.  I'll give her credit for being more than just another damsel in distress, but that's not enough to stack up against the gods.

The rest of the supporting cast is similarly underwhelming.  Jane Foster's friends, played by Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings, are likable enough, but never get past generic stereotypes.  Thor's Asgardian buddies have a similar problem, although they are less endearing.  Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Josh Dallas (Fandral) and Jaime Alexander all seem like they should have more depth, but they are surprisingly bland.  Aside from Volstagg's appetite and their general appearances, these four warriors are interchangeable in the story.  Colm Feore, who seems to get cast in big budget movies more for a willingness to wear extensive makeup than anything else, was mediocre as the king of the Frost Giants.  You would think his character would have a little more depth, or at least a few wicked moments, but I guess it's okay, since he's essentially a red herring.  Clark Gregg was okay as the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he is certainly no Samuel L. Jackson.  You might be surprised to see Rene Russo in a small part, since her last role was six years ago.  You might not be surprised to hear that she doesn't do much of anything in the movie.  On the other hand, the requisite Stan Lee cameo was handled pretty well.

There was a minor controversy when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall, the gatekeeper.  Personally, I don't have a problem with casting against type, and I think Elba has some serious potential as an actor.  He did good work in a small part here, and that should be where the controversy begins and ends.

What, he doesn't look Swedish?

This is a superhero movie, though --- the acting can only take it so far.  The action is, in parts, pretty entertaining.  I thought that most of the fight scenes were great, especially the ones on Earth.  I would have preferred the battle to be in a place where more stuff could be destroyed, but whatever.  The battle that opens the film had some inconsistent special effects, which distracted me, but the rest of the movie looked very good.  Actually, this movie is fairly action-packed, with far less time devoted to character development; that is a sharp change from the recent Marvel movies (aside from the horribad Wolverine flick), and not necessarily a bad one.  The story slows down significantly and takes on a more humorous tone when Thor is on Earth, so the movie feels a bit uneven at times.  And how much time passes in this movie?  The events in Asgard seem to take place at one pace, while the Earth storyline might have only covered about two or three days, which seems like a pretty compact amount of time for a character to learn a life lesson.  Still, the fight scenes were pretty sweet and I thought the off-Earth scenes were handled quite well, on the whole.

Thor is different from every other superhero movie that has come out because it is more than a superhero tale --- it has to be mythic.  While it doesn't get everything exactly right, I think this is a pretty entertaining action movie with some impressive fantasy elements in it.  The well thought-out work that was done to bring Asgard and Jotunheim to life helps elevate this movie above some of the more mediocre elements in its makeup.
What would have made this movie better?  A more well-defined Frost Giant king, either differentiating between Thor's war buddies or cutting some of them from the script, and a love interest that could go more than two minutes without mentioning the possibility of Thor being crazy.  More epic special effects in the flashback battle would have helped, too --- or, since it was a story, maybe animating it like an old story.  Thor is still pretty entertaining, and the lead actors were fun to watch.  It's just not up to the level of, say, an Iron Man.

I don't get ballerinas.  I see the appeal of ballet (dancing, music, women with the bodies of twelve year-old boys), but I cannot fathom the mind of a ballerina.  There is so much pressure, both mental and physical, and the payoff is disgusting feet.

Ballet causes leper feet.  Fact.

Does that mean that Black Swan will have just as little payoff?  That's a tough call.  The film stars Natalie Portman (which is good), is directed by Darren Aronovsky (which is typically depressing), and has some very strong sexual scenes (which is good) that are frequently referred to as weird and uncomfortable (which is less good).  Going into this, I was interested in the film's possibilities, but wary of the many signs that I would not enjoy it.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is one of the many supporting ballet dancers at New York's Prestigious Ballet Company, where the star ballerina, the apple of director Thomas' (Vincent Cassel) eye, is the aging legend, Beth (Winona Ryder).  For his next production, Thomas wants to do a new take on Swan Lake, one that is raw and passionate; just as importantly, Thomas doesn't want Beth to be his star.  The timid Nina sees her chance to seize greatness, and tries her hardest to impress Thomas.  Her form is technically perfect, but lacks passion.  That's a problem, because the lead in Swan Lake plays both the fragile and pure White Swan and the sexy and dangerous Black Swan.  Thomas eventually ends up casting her for the role anyway, thanks to a faint spark he sees deep within her.  Still, he demands that she find a way to unleash that trapped-up passion for the performance, and he points to the newest girl in the company, the raw and unpolished Lily (Mila Kunis), as an example of what it takes to be the Black Swan.

That doesn't sound too weird, does it?  Well, Nina lives with her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), who was also a ballerina; Erica places a lot of pressure on her daughter to fulfill her own ballet dreams.  For added creepiness, there is no lock on Nina's bedroom door.  Clearly, Nina's social life is not terribly exciting, but that's not too weird.  Well then, how about the unexplained rash on Nina's back that keeps getting worse as the movie progresses?  Or the flashes of goose-pimples (or should I say swan-pimples?) that pop up on her skin at key moments?  Well, if that's not weird enough for you, how about Nina's obviously loose grip on reality?  She sees her own face on the bodies of strangers all the time and sometimes has imaginary encounters with others.  What, exactly, is going through her tiny dancer's mind?

Darren Aronofsky has a tendency to make movies about things I don't really care much about.  That doesn't make him a bad director, it just means that he doesn't regularly deal in what I regard as cinematic awesomeness.  Whatever his subject taste might be, you have to admit that the man can shoot a movie.  The cinematography was very effective in Black Swan.  I thought the special effects (and there were a lot of them, surprisingly) were handled very well and the editing allowed for the greatest impact whenever Aronofsky wanted to get weird or creepy.  I didn't particularly enjoy the shaky hand-held camera scenes, but that technique was clearly being used to disorient the viewer and leave them uncertain of what they had seen.  All in all, the camerawork and editing were very effective.  I thought Aronofsky handled the actors well, too, although I believe this was more of a director piece than a showcase for great acting.  Aronofsky did a good job telling the story, too, even if I didn't particularly care for it.  Actually, that's putting it a bit mildly.  I think all the artsy storytelling and camerawork done by Aronofsky was wasted on a substandard story.

I don't know much of anything about ballet, aside from whatever I learned in the cinematic ballet masterpiece, Center Stage.  I don't know any ballets in general, or anything about Swan Lake, in particular.  And yet, even I was able to pick up on the intended parallels between the plot of Swan Lake and Black Swan.  I understand the artistic drive to add layers to a story, but this just seemed a little weak to me.  Do we really need the story of Black Swan to be so tied to that of the ballet?  Doesn't that neuter any suspense the film is trying to build?  Yes, it does.  It also makes the film more predictable and boring.  This story device just brings the rest of the movie down.

I was also left cold by the story itself.  I thought it was generally predictable, even with the strange/creepy moments supplied by Aronofsky.  Big surprise, ballerinas have issues with their image.  What's that, performers are extremely jealous of each other and protective of their positions?  I'll notify the Associated Press.  A young performer has been pushed into that profession by a parent's desire to succeed vicariously through their child?  Gosh.  Ballerinas are crazy?  I would never have thought that bulimics that do things with their body that nature never intended (look at their feet!) might not be completely sane.  A lot of this story was simply trite.  Yes, the direction is impressive, but the story is shallow and so are the relationships in the movie.

Now this looks like an interesting ballerina movie!  No cliches here!

A lot of the attention Black Swan received was for the acting of Natalie Portman, and I will admit that she did a good job.  She looked like a skeleton ballerina, and she did a very impressive job portraying somebody that is slowly going crazy.  She also did a great job playing an uptight character whose emotions were easily understood by the audience --- that's difficult when a character is reserved.  However, her character has a wild side waiting to be unleashed, and that wild side is played by another actor (for the most part).  That means that we never really see a wide range of emotions in Portman's performance, which is a shame.  Mila Kunis was surprisingly good as the carefree dancer; I normally despise her voice and her acting, but I thought she was pretty good here.  Barbara Hershey did a good job as the obsessive mother, although I think her character was one or two good scenes away from something startlingly vicious.  Oh, well.  Winona Ryder's small part was okay, I guess, but nothing too special.  As for Vincent Cassel...yeah, I guess he was fine.  I have had a hard time not hating him in movies ever since his yoga break dancing scene from Ocean's Twelve.

Overall, I think that the boring predictability of the story more or less negates the solid acting.  Portman was good, but her character was, as demanded by the plot, necessarily undeveloped.  I liked Aronofsky's direction, and the camera work was impressive.  But without either A) a cool story or B) any real relationships on-screen, this drama doesn't quite work.  I'll give it due credit for its impressive technical achievements, but I just didn't like or enjoy this picture.
Now, as a red-blooded American male, I cannot review Black Swan without commenting on the sexy Natalie Portman masturbation and lesbian scenes.  I will admit they were cool, but I think hat this really stupid and immature video (read: borderline NSFW) sums up my feelings.

Beware movies that take their inspiration from classic literature or foreign films.  In this case, Brothers is a remake of the Danish film, Brodre, and both are inspired by the epic poem The Odyssey.  If you aren't familiar with Danish cinema, rent some Nicolas Winding Refn movies and you've pretty much caught yourself up on their last 20 years of international impact.  Ooh...are you just going to take that sick burn, Denmark?  Probably.  Anyway, when movies cite The Odyssey as an influence, it usually just means that a husband has been away and returns to a wife that may or may not have moved on without him.  To give you an idea of how different Odyssey-based films can be, O Brother Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain both claim it as a source of inspiration.  So how will Brothers handle this age-old plot structure?

Shortly after his nogoodnick brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), is released from prison, US Marine captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) is set to leave for yet another tour of duty in Afghanistan.  Sam is a loving husband to Grace (Natalie Portman) and father to his two daughters, Isabelle (Bailee Madison) and Maggie (Taylor Geare).  Tommy is having trouble adjusting to life outside of prison, spending his time drinking and arguing with his father (Sam Shepard).  Shortly after being deployed, Sam's helicopter is shot down, leaving only him and one other solider (Patrick Fleuger) alive; they are "lucky" enough to be taken prisoner in a remote Afghan village.  After weeks and even months of being starved and tortured, Sam is rescued by incoming US soldiers; his helicopter-mate did not survive.

Meanwhile, Tommy had finally decided to stop being a bum and remodeled Sam and Grace's kitchen and had become a constant help with Isabelle and Maggie.  When Sam's "death" was announced, Tommy and Grace bonded over their mutual mourning over Sam.  Their friendship deepens over the ensuing months, and Tommy takes on more of a fatherly role with the girls.  When Sam returns home, everyone is ecstatic --- except Sam.  He's still on edge after his months of trauma.  He alienates his daughters (who don't understand his problems) and tries to get Grace and/or Tommy to confess to an affair.  Well...he uses language a little coarser than that, but you get the picture.  Time passes, but Sam isn't getting better; he's just one careless remark away from snapping.  What kind of remark?  How about Isabelle getting angry at the dinner table and shouting that Mommy and Uncle Tommy have sex all the time?  Congratulations, kid, you're grounded for instigating homicide.

Before I go on about the acting in this film, let me state how nice it is to see Tobey Maguire in a drama again.  I know, he made two in between Spider-Man movies, but Spidey 3 was so bad that I almost forgot why I liked him in the first place.  He's really, really good in dramatic roles.  And he handled not only a high-strung and dangerous character here, but an impressive physical transformation into an emaciated wreck.  It would have been even better if Sam actually had a personality before he left for his tour of duty, but this was some impressive acting anyway.  Jake Gyllenhaal was also good, but he definitely had the easier role; all he has to do is act reasonable, and he's doing his job.  Similarly, Natalie Portman did what was asked of her, but her character didn't have a whole lot of depth; Portman did a great job handling the variety of emotions that her part demanded, but you don't really learn much about any of these characters enough to truly like or feel sorry for them.  The supporting cast is solid, but they don't offer a whole lot that is interesting.  The kids were pretty good (for child actors), Sam Shepard can still play a hard-ass, and Ethan Suplee is still a bumbling but lovable friend character.

Jim Sheridan's direction is pretty okay.  I thought there was a pacing issue in the film, but more on that later.  I thought all the actors were handled well, and Sheridan captured a lot of small moments effectively.  This movie is definitely carried by the performances of its stars, but I honestly felt that --- good as they were --- Gyllenhaal and Portman could have been better.  That's kind of an elitist gripe, I realize, but they've both played more well-rounded characters with more depth before, and this was a stellar opportunity for the director to get a smorgasbord of great acting.  It was an opportunity that was considered, but ultimately not seized.

At its core, Brothers is little more than a Lifetime movie of the week with some superior acting.  It's a pretty melodramatic story and the plot hits all the typical beats.  The problem with this movie is, unfortunately, the story itself.  The camera shows all the important things that happen during Sam's "death."  What messed Sam up in the head so much?  Did Tommy and Grace sleep together?  We already know, because we saw it happen (or not happen).  Where's the drama?  Where's the suspense?  In the end, when Sam finally tells someone else what scarred him so badly in Afghanistan, I was left indifferent because it wasn't a bombshell for me any more.  It would have been nice to see things through Sam's eyes when he got home, or at least shown his suspicions of Grace and Tommy growing over time.  Instead, whenever he got one of them alone, he started grilling them.  That made the post-Afghanistan part of the film feel very condensed, which in turn made the pacing of the whole film a little lopsided.

Here's what I would have done to make this film better.  I would have shown everything up until Sam being declared dead and then skipped forward however many weeks or months.  I would have shown Sam's Afghanistan experience mostly in flashback and the same for Tommy and Grace's relationship, leaving the ultimate answers to the film for the very end.  As it is, not edited by me, the movie struggles to rise above mediocrity despite some good acting.