Klickberg

David Wain and his well-established troupe of actor-comedians -- along with a few new brilliant featured players -- have done it again. This is not only a smartly crafted film that transcends the lazy simplicity of a prototypical parody film (it actually has a forward-moving plot and characters who develop over the course of the narrative, as opposed to just a string of jokes loosely tied together). It is also the first movie I've seen in years that left me laughing out loud at every turn.

This likely has as much to do with the high caliber of its cast as the incisive and hilarious writing that is also true to the prosaic genre it is skewering.

As much as I've enjoyed (surprisingly) some of Wain's more commercial fare of recent years, it was so refreshing to see his reliable team and him back in doing what they do best and have proved to be the unarguable masters of: Pure pastiche. It's one thing to poke fun at romcoms (especially THESE days with such predictable drivel bombarding us wherever we go). But to deftly embrace the genre and play with it WHILE also playing by the strictures of said genre is what makes Wain a true craftsman.

Unfortunately, as with The State and Stella, such comedy isn't as easily accessible and fast-food digestible as the hackneyed, broad comedy most audience members are being fooled into spending their money on today. But, it's nice to know that at least someone is out there working to make funny films for the rest of us.

Blue Jasmine is the first Woody Allen movie (aside from possibly Match Point) that I not only didn't hate, but actually loved since Sweet and Lowdown.

Allen went back to school and relearned story structure, character development and pacing. Laugh out loud funny from moment one until the end, with the best ensemble by far (they actually seemed like they were real people and not just du jour stars acting in a Woody Allen movie!).

Cate Blanchett gives the best performance of her career or anyone else's in a long time (with kudos to her obvious rubric, Judy Davis, who she channels marvelously throughout).

And Andrew Dice Clay will make you cry; so glad to see him being used in such a clever way. He deserves this.

This will absolutely sweep all awards, and for the first time in over a decade, the Allen crew will have actually earned it!! No more resting on laurels and skirting by on "Well, yeah it had some problems, but that one part was soooo funny/good ..."

Hope he stays in the U.S. Clearly it does him some much needed good after his prolonged Euro vacation.

Granted, I found the first Nolan Batman to be overblown, dull, trite, and a bit silly (does Christian Bale really need to talk in the Batman voice like that? Thank goodness they made fun of that on South Park), and the second to be a bit better I suppose, but the third might be the worst of all.

And the fact that there are those claiming it was "perfection" or "flawless" must have either seen a different film than I or are taking their job in the studio's marketing dept. way too seriously (most likely the latter).

Let's forget Bale's awful voice work which has marred the entire Batman legacy throughout these three films (there continues to be one Batman and his name is Michael Keaton; I'd rue the thought of how the latter-day Burton would ruin the series further, but his initial two remain some of the last great masterpieces of commercial/studio film to be consigned to celluloid in the last era).

Why did Bane need to sound the way HE did? I tell you, I'm not expecting cogent story lines or apt character development from a film like this or from Nolan, but as soon as Bane started talking in the first two minutes of the film, my girlfriend and I turned to each other and knew right away we were in trouble.

Forgetting the fact he sounds like an arch-villain from an early 80s action cartoon (or an American Sean Connery, perhaps), whomever did the technical work on his ADR really dropped the ball. You can tell easily that his voice was incorporated into the soundtrack in a way wholly different from everyone else in the film. He sounds like he's talking in voice over the entire time. Yikes. If this movie gets nominated for Best Sound Editing, I'll know the Academy has absolutely no credence at all anymore.

Other technical and editing faults spiral throughout the film. I blame Nolan again for this, as so many of the scenes in which characters are talking to each other are clearly edited poorly. Really took me out of the film. And, again, I'm not looking for artistry in a shoot-em up comic book movie made for acne-face'd teenagers, but one would think the filmmakers would AT LEAST get the spectacle/technical aspects of the thing right. Shame. Lazy work all around.

The acting was, as usual for these films, subpar except for possibly Gary Oldman who for once didn't have a slew of cliché comic book/TV lines to spout ("Gotta get me one of THOSE!" Yich).

Then, of course, there's the many, many, many plot holes that are truly just befuddling. Namely the fact that we have an underground prison that is a central focus of the film and is supposed to be enshrouded in pure darkness, is to be "Hell on Earth," and one of the worst -- if not THEE worst -- places someone can be exiled to... and yet whenever they show the actual place, it's well-lit and the folks who "live" there seem nothing but nice, as though inhabiting a communal little village in which you have doctors and gurus and mentors helping each other out. WHY is this place a Hell on Earth that would spawn "pure evil" like Bane? I couldn't figure that one out.

(And without giving any spoilers, the way out of the place was so obvious -- even to the prisoners themselves -- that it makes one wonder why more of the prisoners don't just up and leave.)

You also have the total unreality of a booming metropolis under complete lockdown for like six months and yet everyone still somehow has electricity, water, heat, food, makeup, clean clothes, etc. and even a relatively chipper attitude throughout? I would've thought Gotham would digress into Lord of the Flies pretty quickly, but apparently everyone just stays traditionally phlegmatic in Nolan's yawningly dull cinemaverse.

(Not to mention a police force stuck underground who seem to be kinda fine with that after months of no light or clean bathroom facilities.)

Sorry, there's suspension of disbelief and then there's just bafflingly lazy writing mixed with lobotomized audience members.

As with the first Batman, I was also so incredibly bored for the first hour or so trying to stay awake for Nolan's signature needlessly convoluted, chaotically discursive, and haplessly disorganized "plot"lines that rather than being fooled like the illiterates who found this movie to somehow be better than Sunset Blvd, The Professional, or Once Upon a Time in the West according to the IMDb score they gave it, I knew -- yet again -- that Nolan is no genius but only a comic book enthusiast who thinks he's making a two-hour TV drama.

And two hours were two hours too long here. Even when the movie finally picked up with some action about halfway through (aside from the loud and obnoxious first few seconds that might as well have been one explosion before moving into the doldrums for the next interminable sixty minutes), I had trouble keeping awake, wondering how much longer this seemingly five-hour marathon would go on for.

Why didn't I leave sooner? Because $20 for an IMAX ticket is too much to step away from in this day and age and I thought MAYBE there would be some kind of pay-off in the end (there really wasn't; it goes pretty much where you think it would go).

So, in conclusion: 1) Fair to poor acting, 2) Awful sound design and voice work, 3) Shoddy/lazy technical logistics, 4) Meandering and hopelessly disorganized script -- surprise -- 5) And, sadly for an action film whose one goal is to entertain popcorn flick style, BORING.