Well That's Cool

Let’s leave aside the obvious (who would choose to work for James McAvoy over Kevin Bacon??) and focus on the necessary: badass people with bad dialogue and awesome powers!

I love these movies – from the Marvel flipping comic page logo to the last lame sweep-shot. They have their faults. More than goofy dialogue (“Mutant, and proud!”) but also in areas that could have easily been fixed if someone would take five minutes to review the material. Like – Sebastian Shaw speaks all these languages, and is presumably German, but he speaks as if he’s from Ohio. Or, why is Moira the only person in most scenes not in period dress? My most obnoxious complaint, for the millionth time: why the blip does Dr. X’s chair look like that?! I know, later on in the saga, sure, get yourself a fancy set of wheels. But initially? You might as well make it out of plexi-glass, fill it with gold fish, and blame it on the times.
Obviously it’s a bit obscene to expect some type of realism from a comic book film. The plot, afterall, does focus on a new (to my knowledge) explanation of a world event. Still, I’ve got my standards, and one of them is the idea that fans deserve to be treated like they have some cinematic sense, even if they don’t know it. These nit-picks aside, the movie mainly falls prey to the flaws of most origin stories — too much jumping around to cover all the bases, too much attention to explaining things that can respectfully be taken for granted. A lot of this gets back to giving credit to your fanbase. I’m not suggesting film makers should act like the movie is a giant inside joke and everyone not in the know can just flip off. A little a mystery is a good thing and, when used right, can spark desire to investigate deeper from those unfamiliar while providing a fun treat for long termers. It’s all about balance, a space between bottomless insider references and walking the viewer through like a newly toddled child.
In the end, these are more complaints for the genre at large than this particular flick. I’m not a reader of the books so it was fun to learn new things, while also enjoying little gifts for those who’ve seen the other films. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and I can’t wait for the next one (hurry, hurry, hurry).

Can’t finish without saying a word about the wicked performance by Nicholas Hoult, portraying my own favorite X-Men character (who I shamefully didn’t recognize initially). His subtlety as an actor continues to astonish me, I hope they keep him on for the next film (seriously, there better be another film, and soon). In the meantime, I’ve moved the other X-Men flicks to the top of my Netflix queue, if only to enjoy how Holt’s characters make-up SHOULD have looked.

Popularity: 16% [?]

While there has been considerable acknowledgement that this is a potential game changer for women in comedy, the frequent description of this as the “female Hangover” risks undoing the gravity of this potential progress. Aside from raunch and a wedding I fail to see the correlation. This movie is about what it means to be a woman. When it comes to this exploration, we normally don’t get beyond body issues featuring characters who normally weigh in at a stick and a half, and accepting single hood so that you can finally end up with an awesome man. What we have here is the crisis that is expectation, the whole package of what are women are supposed to be. And all this is not simply an issue of the big bad studios not willing to tak e a chance on material like this (though if you have time I could speech a treatise about the way particular points in cinematic history have fueled our present situation). Scapegoating the media is a pathetic cop-out. To paraphrase Lewis Black, media isn’t a bunch of robots running around and doing shit, it’s people. We can argue all day over how the percentages work out, but the fact remains that society and “the media” feed off of each other, not one inflicting itself on the other without mercy.

The most potent element of this film is the acknowledgement of female sexuality which normaly is not depicted beyond an ability to fulfill male desire. Though Kristen Wiig is the central figure, when it comes to figuring out the balance of how large a part a man should play in ones life, it’s Melissa McCarthy who really shines. The way she’s portrayed in the trailer seems to peg her as the pathetic comic relief like Zach Galifinakis in “Hangover” (keeping with that obnoxious comparison). Instead, she has a brutal confidence that we should all be so lucky to possess. To compare with other conventions: she’s not fat best friend, not butch comic relief, and most importantly, is not the chubby girl who somehow finds a man who can see past her awful appearance. She is in CONTROL and remains unshaken throughout the film, not in an attempt to show that beauty is magically on the inside, but showing that beauty, and awesomeness, simply is as is.

Finally, to touch on the claims made by some tv spots, though guys will probably enjoy this film, I venture that this isn’t a flick “finally enjoyable to both men and women!” Personally, I relished the occassional discomfort of the guys in the audience at the sneak preview. The humor can be exclusive at times, but that’s what a “woman’s film” should be — targeted to the people it’s about, not two-dimensional and obnoxious, and not agony for those of the opposite sex (aside from a few jokes and again, that was brilliant).

Popularity: 12% [?]

Once, down at the Pub, I was introduced to a group of film students because, with good intentions but limited understanding, people see me and think, “here are some film people, you should talk to them!”  Quite quickly I ran into my expected issue in these situations, “I actually make films, mainly documentary.”

Judge me as you will – I don’t like documentary.  I like narrative, I like thematic struggle and development and what have you, I’ve learned about the docu form, I find it interesting, but I don’t want to sit and watch something that runs more than thirty minutes.  Not wanting to annihilate the attempt at small talk, I admitted that I didn’t watch documentaries much but mentioned a few I greatly enjoyed (I know The Kid Stays in the Picture was one, can’t remember what else).  His response?  A cold hearted, “Oh, yeah, those are very cinematic.”  My response?  “Go suck down another overpriced beer, you pretentious bleep.”(editors note these people are also known as pretentious asshats)

Okay, not really.  I blow at confrontation, so really it was just an awkward grin, let him talk a while, then slipped away which offered no protest because, well, I was just an ignorant movie watcher, not to be taken seriously by these high brow production types.

Here’s the point of this wayward story: how do you judge, critique, analyze (whatever you want to dub it), a film that is part of a genre you normally despise?  Or, in a milder sense, find pretty boring.  Answer: very delicately, trying to balance as much open-mindedness as you can handle without letting your brain fall out, and, in my case, searching for the “cinematic” (you, buddy, can bite me).

I went to the screening of Darius Goes West with average timidity.  Didn’t know anything about it beyond what the poster looked like and that our department was sponsoring it, which I find serves me best for non-fiction films.  Meeting the director lowered my already nonexistent hopes.  He was a good friend of the guy who was the subject of the film.  He and his buddies had never made a film before.  Never taken a class.  Trial and error, raising money in the community, and so on.

Without sounding too sappy, I say: imagine my shock.  Aside from staying engaged in the story, I wanted to grab the director/editor afterward and shout, “holy crap man, this is what you do without training?!  Screw this raising money for medical research thing (okay, not really, it’s good work, this was just initial passionate response) and make more movies (I’ve, uh, got several script outlines at home if you’re looking for inspiration).”  Don’t get me wrong, this was no work of explicit technical genius, but it did clearly show someone who, despite not having formal training or experience, did have a keen eye for what he was doing.  Marveling at that helped the viewing.  Bolstering this technical aspect was the fact that the movie didn’t pity its subject (a young man with muscular dystrophy on a road trip across the nation with the hope to get his wheel chair pimped by MTV). More importantly, they makers didn’t draw attention to this lack of pity as so so so many films about medical issues do.  I.e., look at us, we see him as simply a regular person, aren’t we wonderful?  No, not at all.  There were a few scenes speaking with researchers, disability advocates, and families who have experienced the disease, but this acted merely as greater conditional context.  The main focus remains a fellow and his crew motoring across the nation, and that’s plenty.

Only poor point: loose the sappy keyboard tracks.  But really, that’s just a small element of beginner’s-schmuck. (editors note. This movie really touched us here at wellthatscool.com and if you’d like to borrow a copy just email us at wellthatscool(at)gmail . we have several copies)

—Dosty Glory

Popularity: 9% [?]

by Dosty Glory with pictures by Bo Hicks

Toy Story 3, much like its earlier incarnations, is an exploration of the perpetuation of imagination.  Try saying that five times fast!

Beyond that, there really isn’t much to say.  From my limited memory, the second film in the franchise was a bit of a dud, as second films are apt to be, but this one picked up the spirit where the original left off.  The power of this film, however, is bolstered by the fact that we see the affection for the power of imagination reach beyond childhood, to “infinity and beyond.”

Both films, if boiled down to a single theme, revolve

around the line between fiction and reality.  When Buzz Lightyear is introduced, he is a creature that doesn’t know of his existence within the fictional realm.  This condition makes him an item of folly amongst the other toys and gets them into trouble, ending in a devastating scene where Buzz is forced to come to terms with the realities of his existence.  This conflict and confusion is embodied in each child who succumbs to the power of imagination.  The whole reason that Buzz is brought into the toy’s world is because their owner, Andy, is affected by marketing to request something flashier than the old fashioned toys he is formerly enjoyed.  Though Buzz eventually enters the fold of Andy’s play universe, he continues to be a symbol of how reality, embodied in the concept of media marketing, attempts to chip away at the autonomy of childhood imagination. (picture to the left is the editors attempt to show “autonomy of childhood imagination”)

This most recent film opens entrenched in fantasy.  Gradually, the scene of make-believe is pulled away and developed into a montage of Andy’s growth and change, cumulating in the question of what happens to a person’s playthings when they leave childhood.  In this scenario it isn’t the reality of marketing that encroaches on imagination, but the reality of “growing up.”  The toy characters that we have developed a relationship with over two films are the symbol of youth and freedom of mind and spirit, unaffected by the pressures of the outside world.  The progression of the plot is then an allegory of what happens to that freedom.

What makes Toy Story as a franchise so powerful, to me, is that it thrives on the simply human need for creation as opposed to a more recent dependence of children on video games and television shows.  Both of these things are fine, in limited measure, but they are no replacement for a villainous Potato Head and a courageous cowboy demanding you “reach for the skies!”  Though there is likely plenty of argument to the contrary, I would say that in many ways this film exceeds the first film, and certainly runs laps around the second (Star Wars, anybody?).  By giving us an intimate look at toys beyond Andy’s room, the issues of aging and the destruction of the creative spirit expand to a more global level, even if it’s still in the same suburban neighborhood.  This expansion of the toy community gave their adventure even greater heft, as if our old friends weren’t just fighting for their relationship with Andy, but the relationship of all of us with hope and wonder.

And even if the whole thing were an utter wreck: Michael Keaton as the voice of Ken!

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“I can fail again, but at least I will fail with something that excites me.”  – Billy Wilder

—Dosty Glory

Popularity: 5% [?]