Pacific Rim

It's rather wonderful for a huge blockbuster to focus its attention on relationships, not romantic endeavors, that would be cliched, out of place, and drive away the target audience, but relationships between brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, friends and colleagues. Every character in the movie has a counterpart. All characters, at some point, come to realize that working alone is foolish and that the only way to defeat the giant beings attacking our dear planet Earth is to stand together. Simplistic, perhaps, but powerful nonetheless.

The movie begins by quickly telling the story of how giant beasts attacked the earth. In a spectacular opening shot, we see a beautiful night sky and hear a narrator saying that he used to look up at the stars every night wondering if there were other beings out there. But he admits he was wrong. As it turns out the "kaiju," as the beasts are called, came from the sea. As he reveals this, the shot transitions from what seemed as stars moments ago to show that those white specks are instead bubbles of air deep within the pacific ocean. Instants later, a kaiju comes soaring up towards San Francisco to devour the Golden Gate bridge. For a while, all seems lost.

To battle the kaiju, humans created "jaegers," giant mechanical warriors that can be linked to the mind of its pilots. Pacific Rim would be worth it simply to see the breathtaking design of the jaegers which are made to look like hybrids between World War II fighter planes and Transformers. Each jaeger, however, requires two pilots to control  since a jaeger is too big for one mind to control. 

As a result, director Guillermo Del Toro is able to anchor the massive un-relatable struggle between titanic creatures to the growing relationship between pilots who must share thoughts and memories while connected to their jaeger, particularly Raleigh, a veteran, though young ace pilot who lost a copilot while connected to him, and Mako, an eager, brilliant, student of jaegers who longs to prove herself as a pilot. Charlie Hunman infuses Raleigh with his usual, effortless charm to make a character who could have easily been a Tom Cruise-style arrogant maverick pilot into an immensely likable character with unexpected gravitas due to his past tragedy shown on the prologue of the film. 

Raleigh (left) and Mako (right)

This isn't a movie of humanity defending earth. Instead, like The Matrix, it is a movie about a defeated people struggling for its survival. This gives most, if not all, characters in the movie deep cynicism since few actually believe they can defeat the kaiju. As a result they are divided and mistrustful, especially a young Australian jjaeger pilot, Chuck Hansen, and a black-market kingpin, Hannibal Chau, played wonderfully as a coward-with-tough-guy-exterior by Del Toro regular Ron Pearlman (aka Hellboy). One learns how to cooperate with is peers and becomes a hero for humanity; the other gets eaten by a baby kaiju.   

Hannibal Chau

Other key relationships include one between a couple of scientists, used mostly for comic relief, trying to figure out the best way to defeat the kaiju as well as the relationship between Mako and her surrogate father Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) who also serves as the leader of the resistance and a unifying link among all characters. Idris Elba has such a commanding presence that by the time he gives his obligatory "today we're canceling the apocalypse" speech, I had to restrain myself from cheering and joining him in battle. 

Idris Elba

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the battle sequences of Pacific Rim, which I admire, but Matt Zoller Seitz explained it best in his review:

Nitpicks aside, though, the fights are astonishing. They split the difference between classical filmmaking and the blurrier, more chaotic modern style in a way that made me appreciate the virtues of both. Some of the whirling action has a geometric beauty that's faintly Cubist, and each fight contains surprises: a tactic you haven't seen yet, a power you didn't know about, a complication you didn't see coming.

He also takes a beautifully crafted paragraph to praise some of Del Toro's gorgeous visuals: 

There are many shots so striking that they could have served as the poster image: A Jaeger tumbling into an abyss, its E.T. heart pulsing; a little girl's red shoe in a grey ash-heap on a rubble-strewn street; a kaiju unfurling kite-like wings; a one-eyed kaiju-body-parts dealer named Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) stalking through wreckage, his steel-tipped dress shoes jangling like cowboy spurs. A simple shot of Elba's character taking off a helmet is infused with such emotion, thanks to its placement in the story and the sunlight haloing the actor's head, that it would have made John Wayne cry.

"If I were nine years old" Seitz writes, "I would see Pacific Rim 50 times." I agree, but, like him, "I'll have to be content with seeing it a couple more times in theaters and re-watching it on video." 

Verdict- 3.5/4

Pacific Rim (2013) 2h 11min. PG-13. 

Random Thoughts:

- I am convinced that Idris Elba should be the next James Bond. 

- Every time I see Idris Elba in a movie I think of his 40 degree day speech in The Wire. Warning, it contains strong language. 

- Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel were like 40 degree days. Pacific Rim, thankfully, was closer to a 60 degree day. 

Sofia Coppola

1.Lost in Translation- Bill Murray plays Bob Harris an actor past his prime who is perpetually worn down by life. He is in Tokyo, shooting a commercial. Constantly, he argues with his wife over the phone and easily becomes frustrated at the instructions of his director. It's not that he doesn't love his wife or enjoy his work, but simply that they take their toll. Scarlett Johansson is Charlotte, a recently graduated philosophy major who spends her days in thought, wandering (while wondering) around her hotel room while her hotshot photographer husband goes on photo-shoots around Japan. Bob and Charlotte both need a breath of fresh air. During a sleepless night, they find their way to the hotel bar where they happen to find each other. Theirs is not a physical attraction. What draws them together is their shared loneliness suggested by the title of the film. If something is "lost in translation" then there is not one but two misunderstood parties. The title, taken more literally, may also explain several encounters between Bob and virtually every Japanese he meets in the strange city of Tokyo (the most amusing being a scene in which Bob's director seemingly screams  at him for minutes and the translator only takes a second to relay the instructions in English). Bob, approaching Charlotte, tells her he's staging  a prison break: "I'm looking for, like, an accomplice. We have to first get out of this bar, then the hotel, then the city, and then the country. Are you in or you out?" Together they escape their monotonous routines to discover an enchanting city filled with skyscrapers, video arcades, karaoke bars, and thousands of bright, colorful billboards. Lance Acord's cinematography captures the lively of lights and colors that catch the eye of the main protagonists. When we first see Bob, he is on a cab arriving at Tokyo and rubbing his eyes with his hands as if to make sure what he's seeing is real.  

Coppola is fascinated by Tokyo and explores it with a roaming camera that never seems to settle on a single aspect of the city because it is in love with it all.  In the hotel, during the course of their daily lives, Charlotte and Bob are confined. She is usually framed against large windows, curiously looking at, but rarely engaging with, the world outside. He just sits on his bed or in his bathtub, looking at the camera while thinking he has seen it all.They spend a few days together, exploring, then they say goodbye at the hotel. As Bob is leaving Tokyo he spots Charlotte walking down the street. He runs out of his cab to give her a proper farewell in the streets of Tokyo where their relationship flourished. He hugs her. They take a moment, a much needed breath of air, then whisper a few private, unheard words to each other, and bravely part ways to continue with their lives. It's heartbreaking to watch them part, but at the same time it is a very hopeful ending since it leaves both characters reenergized and ready to go back to their families. Lost in Translation depicts the loneliness of a man, late in his career and that of a woman, just beginning her life. Through the other, these two individuals find the cure to their loneliness. All of Coppola's films deal with loneliness. Lost in Translation is my favorite because it provides a brief respite from it. 

2.Somewhere- The movie opens with the static shot of a winding road in the desert. A Ferrari flies by the camera and races off into the distance. It makes a turn offscreen and repeats the same motion whizzing past the camera once more and disappearing from view far away. This happens 5 times, in one continuous shot. The car then comes to a stop and the driver gets out. He is nowhere and he knows it. Johnny is a wealthy movie star, living the dream. During the movie people go up to him just to get a glimpse at what the life of a star is like. In reality: pathetic. Johnny lives alone in a hotel where he parties constantly and sleeps with every woman he sees. All of his activities are geared to give him pleasure but he takes none. His daughter comes to visit him for the summer. Elle Fanning gives a brilliant performance as Cleo, an astute girl who is forced to take care of her screwed up parents. In a wonderful scene, Cleo orders the ingredients she needs to make dinner for her dad, instead of simply ordering the hotel's room service. But in the end she's just an 11 year old girl and ends up breaking down in one of most harrowing scenes Coppola has ever shot. It is in her that he finds purpose. In the last shot of the film, Johnny gets out of his Ferrari, drops the key and starts walking. Finally, his life is going somewhere. 

3.Marie Antoinette- Early in the movie, Marie is taken to the Austrian-French border where she is separated from her friends, stripped from her clothes, and even made to leave her pet dog behind. In France, she discovers strange customs and hostile people that threaten and isolate her from the rest of the world. Versailles (in which Coppola was given permission to shoot) is portrayed as the most extravagant prison ever constructed. Marie spends her days (rather, her life)  wasting her time in a never-ending rave. A few great montage sequences show Marie burying herself in mountains of clothes and rivers of champagne. On the surface it's enthralling for both her and the viewer. If only it could make her happy. In another magnificent sequence, Marie takes a retreat to a home built to her by her husband, Louis XVI. With gorgeous natural surroundings and bathed in pure natural light, the scene looks like something from a Terrence Malick movie. Kirsten Dunst is absolutely luminous, always showing the humanity in an unfairly despised historical artifact. That's all Marie Antoinette ever really was to the people around her, a thing. What makes the film so painful is the inevitability of the story's conclusion. Thankfully, Coppola spares the audience the execution, taking the film right to the point of the people's initial revolt but no further. Coppola allows Marie Antoinette to leave her story with some dignity as she is able to charm masses one final time. 

"I want to rob" Nicki (Emma Watson)

4.The Bling Ring- The movie is a snapshot of today's celebrity obsessed youth. It follows the story of a group of teenagers who decide to rob the houses of their favorite celebrities. They take their money and their clothes and start living the lives of their idols. Mark, a loner who at the beginning of the movie was just looking for a friend, confesses that he had over 800 friend requests on Facebook after word of his exploits had gotten out. He accepted them all, because why not?The only thing these egomaniacal kids want is to be the stars of their own universe. Take, for example, a scene in which the group of friends sit at the beach. Coppola never shows the sea, only her hypnotized subjects staring intently into their phones unawares of the beauty surrounding them. In another instance, Mark spots Kirsten Dunst at a party. An excited Rebecca (the ring leader who first thought of the robberies) calls out that they have to take a picture. Do they take a picture of Miss Dunst? No. Instead they take a picture of themselves which had me wondering whether Rebecca even notice Kirsten Dunst or her friend speaking to her. None of the characters in the film seem to have any sort of conscience. In fact, they seem to think that its their right to break into the homes of "Lindsay" and "Paris" as if they were simply visiting a friends house. Chloe, a member of the "bling ring" as they were named in the news, gets drunk at a party and later causes a car crash. The following days no conversion occurs in her. Instead, what she does is brag to her friends about the alcohol content in her blood which the police told her was off the charts. Not all blame can be placed on the kids. Each has either absentee parents or deeply troubled, equally shallow "role models" in their lives. The most appalling of these is the mother of Emma Watson's character, Nicki, who gives her daughters Adderall for breakfast and follows a disturbing New Age religion based on the movie The Secret. While Leslie Mann's performance is often hilarious it prompted me to ask how far off the mark is it really? According to critic Richard Roeper, Coppola toned down the character of Laurie whose real-life counterpart is the subject of a "reality" TV show. Some critics complain that Coppola is too at home in this world and is too compassionate on these kids. On the contrary, I think The Bling Ring goes past merely observing this "MVP lifestyle" to become an impressive example of sharp yet subtle social critique 

5.The Virgin Suicides-  Sofia Coppola's first feature film begins by telling you exactly how it will end. The Lisbon girls all committed suicide. The film gains its power not from keeping you guessing as to what will happen next, but in building the conditions that will drive 5 beautiful (some, including the narrator, would say "perfect") young girls to suicide. Coppola is a master of tone and here she creates a deeply unsettling vibe within the Lisbon's home that makes the suicides seem sadly inevitable. At the same time, Coppola keeps the Lisbon girls at some distance and instead of immersing the viewer in their home, she keeps him at arms length, always from the point of view of the narrator who speaks as "we," the group of neighboring boys who never got over their naive teenaged obsession with the Lisbon girls and still think of them as angelic beings even after death. “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” That’s a question posed by a psychiatrist to the youngest of the Lisbon girls. Essentially, it is a question that could be asked to most of Coppola’s characters (Charlotte, Nicki, Marie Antoinette) who find themselves in such troubled states. “Obviously, Doctor,” the child answers, “you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl.” Cecilia was the youngest of the Lisbon girls as well as the first to commit suicide. I only place The Virgin Suicides fifth since I have seen it only once and am not yet sure what to make of it. It is not last because it is the least worthy, but because it is the most challenging. Although this is Coppola's first film, I recommend it only after having seen a few other of her films beforehand. A more detailed review forthcoming. 

Regardless of the ranking, I love each and every one of these films and hope Sofia Coppola will go on to make many more. She is one of the finest filmmakers alive. It would be a shame to let her pass without giving her the recognition she deserves. 

Verdict- 4/4 for all of her films. 

Virgin Suicides (1999) 1h 37min. R

Lost in Translation (2003) 1h 41min. R

Marie Antoinette (2006) 2h 3min. PG-13

Somewhere (2010) 1h. 37min. R

The Bling Ring (2013) 1h. 30min. R

Random Thoughts

Here's a great, though excessively harsh, article on how to make a Sofia Coppola movie: Its a list that begins with "1. Start with a seemingly vapid lead. 2. But remember she’s actually just misunderstood" and then goes on to “5.whatever the case may be, she’s trapped” and then all the way to "25. Distract the audience with bright lights” and “29. Use a modern pop score no matter what. NO MATTER WHAT.” which is something I failed to mention. Quentin Tarantino may be the only filmmaker to rival  Sofia Coppola in terms of assembling a great sound track filled with modern pop songs that seem to fit perfectly with the scene they’re placed with. Listen to this: