Brazil

Sometime in the future, or maybe somewhere in the past, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil takes place. We are never told what year it is or in which country the action takes place, because it doesn’t really matter. The world of Brazil is utterly anachronistic, a place where past, present, and future collide, and time might as well be nonexistent. All that exists is the government and the miserable people it perhaps once served. That’s not even true. There is no government, because we never even see the big picture. Instead, there are only government departments created with the sole purpose of passing the buck to other departments and creating an infinite loop that never answers the cries of the people asking for help. In this world lives Sam Lowry, a worker of the Department of Records whose job seems to consist of shuffling papers, using computers, and calming down his ineffectual boss. He’s just another worker bee, sadly and routinely making his way through life. The only escape from his dreadful existence is in his elaborate dreams, where he becomes the hero who gets to save a damsel in distress. One day, he wakes to find that the government is looking for a woman identical to the one he saves constantly in his fantasies, so he takes it upon himself to save her in real life for once. The madness that ensues takes up most of the movie as Sam leaps through every bureaucratic obstacle placed in front of him to rescue the one he loves. 

An introverted man wakes up to save the girl of his dreams. It almost seems like it could be a bright fairy tale, a romance for the ages, but Brazil actually draws from so many dark and cynical works of art, it's astounding: 1984, Blade Runner, 8 1/2, Dr. Strangelove, Monty Python, Ikiru, Playtime, Battleship Potemkin, Metropolis, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, just to name a few. In turn, Brazil seems to have inspired even more fascinatingly complex, nasty works of art itself: The Matrix, Dark City, Batman, Minority Report, and The Truman Show come to mind. These works, both before and after Brazil, have their bright spots, but for the most part they are dark, disquieting, and challenging pieces of art. Yet, there is absolutely nothing like Brazil. It is magnificently, stubbornly, manically, its own thing. And it’s beautiful. 

For starters, there is no situation that director Terry Gilliam cannot  turn into a joke: A man sitting at home is suddenly kidnapped by government officials, and Gilliam focuses on the forms his wife has to fill out right before they take him away, including a receipt for him, since everything must be accounted for; the straight-faced, sinister looking, security guards that populate Brazil secretly meet in a government building basement to practice Christmas carols; the whole film takes place during Christmas; two helpless and hopeless government employees, who are merely ants in an overwhelmingly powerful system, are disposed of when the oxygen supply to their suits is replaced by filth and explodes from the pressure; walls throughout the land are covered with deceptively optimistic government-issued slogans like “Suspicion Breeds Confidence.” These are just a few of a seemingly infinite number of jokes ranging from the highly cerebral to the lowest of the low, assuring that there will be something for everyone to enjoy, even if only for a moment of this 2 + hour film. Indeed, Gilliam packed so many jokes into the film that few of them, relatively speaking, get any real attention. Instead of being at the center of the screen, most jokes slink at the sidelines, taking place at the corners of the frame. Blink and you'll miss them, but they're there. Brazil is the sort of artwork that demands multiple viewings to unpack (I'm thinking now of Dark City, which it inspired, or Arrested Development which it resembles in weird ways). 

Of course, Brazil is fucking scary as hell. It stirs up the chilling realization in the viewer that maybe our world is not so different from the one up on the screen. Like 1984, from which it borrows heavily, the question becomes not if, but when will a fully realized Brazil-like nightmare envelop us all? Sooner than you think, probably, says Gilliam. Brazil contains many things that will make your blood turn cold, but chief among them is a terrible, terrible (terribly accurate?) depiction of life-sucking bureaucracy that could be deemed too extreme for the average viewer. People literally drown beneath mountains of paperwork in this film! The only benefit of that comes from the many bureaucratic inefficiencies is that it gives lowly government workers (i.e. most of the film world’s population) enough room to trudge along life with occasional moments of happiness, like tuning in to Casablanca when the boss is not watching. However, the one thing that does work wonderfully in Brazil is the SS-like police system used to neutralize, equalize, and delete (the film calls it several different names) unwanted peoples. Anyone who becomes too much of a nuisance, like Sam does, will eventually raise enough red flags that the system will make sure they are quietly, efficiently, and permanently silenced. 

As if to pacify people to make them forget of the disappeared, the soundtrack features a lot of catchy music. It serves, like so many of the elements on-screen, to hide the ugly truth that lies scattered throughout the world of the film. The sound design terrifies with the sound of pipes groaning and gurgling in agony in the background of every scene, but all of this nastiness is drowned by the soothing music that mirrors the way in which Sam's mother and her old friend try to hide their decrepit skins under layers of makeup and plastic surgery. If you've seen the film, you know where that road leads: death. Gruesome, sickly, nauseating death that swallows any beauty or hope that could exist in such an awful world. 

Ultimately, there is no salvation in the world Terry Gilliam has created. Sam finds his mystery girl, but she doesn’t love him. She changes her mind drastically for a few scenes in one of the film’s major missteps, but what their scenes ultimately amount to is her merely putting up with him for a while before disappearing from his life for good. In fact, the details from the story never quite add up, even when the broad outlines of the story are easy to understand, and the film drags here and there (too much time with the mother, for one). The film succeeds more at creating a disturbing, hopeless mood rather than telling a coherent story. In the end, Sam’s only hope is to take the blue pill, as it were, and retreat forever into his own fantasy, a glorified version of the small reprieves his work used to provide at the start of the film, a place where he can be the hero and the rescued damsel loves him in return. Sam is neutralized. Nothing is accomplished, and the system marches on unscathed. 

In their works, artists like Orwell and Gilliam have shown us the fast-approaching destination of humanity. Now the question is, can we prevent it? 

Oh, and I wrote this whole thing without mentioning my favorite part of the movie: Robert De Niro. He plays a man labeled a terrorist by the government, but who’s essentially Brazil’s twisted version of a superhero. He appears out of nowhere, when needed, to blow stuff up, get our hero out of a few tough spots, and then vanish as if he were never there. Creating mayhem is his way, I guess, of giving the finger to the omnipresent Big Brother. Given the nature of the film, you can probably guess his fate, but his attempts at undermining the system are admirable while they last. De Niro provides the film with some of its most lighthearted humor and demonstrates a third way of life other than compliance (mostly everyone) or oblivion (Sam): resistance. Maybe there is hope after all? 

Verdict- 3.5/4
Brazil (1985) 2h 13min. R

Million Dollar Arm

After the success of Slumdog Millionaire, there was bound to be a more mainstream India-centric film, so what better studio to make it than Disney? Like that film, Million Dollar Arm sticks close to the streets, gazing at India from the ground level, taking in its life, movements, colors and textures. It uses Indian music to enhance the visuals, and it takes the care to show off the beauties of the country like the Taj Mahal, and it even ends, just like Slumdog, with a feel-good musical montage unrelated to the rest of the movie as the credits roll. But India's poverty too, is realistically portrayed, as well as its nightmarish bureaucracy and the ever-honking vehicles that clog its cities. 

A case study in extremities, particularly in its smells, says J.B, the film's main character. But, unlike India, Million Dollar Arm remains squarely rooted in the middle of the road, never less than good but not groundbreaking or innovative enough to be excellent. As expected from Disney, the movie tells the safe story of the workaholic jerk in need of redemption; the perfect setup for a heart-tugging climax. We all know the story. In a desperate financial situation, sports agent J.B turns to an investor who will fund his crazy plan to save his business. He will travel to India to find the MLB’s first Indian players. There, he eventually finds Rinku and Dinesh, two talented athletes who have never thrown a baseball (you can see the tragic/comedic potential already) but who can be (and will be after many difficulties) trained to be baseball pitchers. 

A more daring movie would have focused on the struggles which faced these kids who had never left their hometowns before going  on to join an MLB team, the first athletes of their country to play for any professional sports league. The movie does show their unfamiliarity with their new home and how it affects them. There’s a poignant scene in which Rinku calls his family from his new home in LA,  but he can barely express his frustration, thinking that he ought to be grateful for his opportunity instead of complaining about it. He simply hangs up with the excuse that he has to go to work. This little scene and others like it provide enough evidence that this could have been a truly special movie, but no matter. The film follows the formula to the letter, never deviating for one second, but it does so perfectly. The fish out of water situation is used not to explore cultural differences, but for jokes. One of the players falls in love with pizza while the other can’t stop fooling around with the automatic elevator door, and their translator gets drunk on punch. They laughs are cheap, and maybe they ought to be more troubling. As Drew McWeeny points out in his review, three Indian adults should know what pizza is, how an elevator works, and if a drink has alcohol in it. But I found them funny  nonetheless. Despite myself, with a tinge of recognition, I just kept laughing at the situations these poor guys were in. 

But its not all fun and games. In a film of this kind, there must be a redeeming force that pushes our hero past his narcissistic phase. You see, Rinku and Dinesh are risky investments, J.B’s last choice. His primary concern is Popo — a football player as imbecilic as his name — the big fish that can bring in a lot of business and a lot of money to J.B. So while he’s preoccupied with Popo, he abandons Dinesh, Rinku and their translator Amit. 

It’a a recipe for disaster, but this is a Disney movie, so in comes Brenda (Lake Bell) with her girl next door good looks, impossibly radiant smile and strong but charming personality. Brenda —who’s J.B’s tenant and so perfectly fulfills the girl next door paradigm — has always liked J.B, taking any opportunity she could to talk to him before his three Indian visitors came around and later befriending the three of them. She has the ideal vantage point to see how J.B’s behavior has been affecting them, particularly the two pitchers who look up to him as their saviour and need him to be more present in their lives. Thankfully, Lake Bell injects the character with her usual strong will and bizarre sense of humor ("I always wanted a mini Taj!"), in the process creating a character central to the story, one who’s unafraid to call J.B on his BS and will not settle for just hanging out on the sidelines, as many heroines often do. 

Miss Brenda, as the Indians call her, could use her own movie as much as Rinku and Dinesh, but the possibility of a movie that could have been does not in any way diminish the movie that is. Jon Hamm has the makings of an A-class movie star, and Million Dollar Arm serves only to solidify his standing. He takes a standard character in a typical story and makes him into an actual person through several, expressive, closeups that show the desperation of a decent man and the pitch-perfect line readings that make us see the decent man beneath that desperation. He can also deliver hilarious deadpan stares like no one else, proving that he can play the comedy as well as the drama (see this scene from Mad Men). 

Anyway, after Brenda tells him of the terrible pressure the pitchers-in-training are in, and after he sees them fail spectacularly in front of several MLB scouts, he is finally able to open his eyes. He apologizes, listens to their troubles, shares a homemade Indian meal with them, and he even accompanies them in prayer to demonstrate his solidarity. After that, he miraculously assembles enough people for a second tryout, and, well, if you are vaguely familiar with Disney or baseball, then you know what happens next, as this is a true story. 

Coming in, I knew everything that would happen, but I wouldn’t hesitate to call this a good movie, verging on great. Hamm and Bell are a revelation, and so are Suraj Sharma (Rinku) and Madhur Mitta (Dinesh). Alan Arkin and Aasif Mandvi also show up as their usual funny selves. Arkin plays a retired scout who helps J.B find the pitchers. He’s old and wise, so J.B has to learn to listen to him; plus, he doesn’t need to see any of the pitches because he can hear their speeds, a gift that makes him seem even wiser and stranger than he already is. Mandvi meanwhile plays the best friend/coworker who knows how screwed up J.B is, but is too close to the situation to do anything about it. So he’s used for comedy, mainly for complaining that none of his new Indian friends are fans of Cricket, one of his favorite sports. Director Craig Gillespie beautifully photographs not only India, but the field and the pitchers as well. Baseball’s a beautiful sport, and an excellent subject for movies. Gillespie knows it and takes full advantage of it. But I’m getting sidetracked. I saw the potential of a great movie about two Indian immigrants, and the problematic nature of yet another white-savior narrative. I saw the great Disney wheels turning smoothly to release yet another feel-good movie. I saw the manipulative strings of the perfectly constructed story pulling at my heart.  And I could’t resist any of it. I saw it all coming, but it hit me anyway. Maybe I’m a sucker, but at least I’m happy. 

Verdict- 3/4
Million Dollar Arm (2014) 2h 5min. PG.

Random Thoughts
- Watching people eat pizza onscreen makes me hungry for pizza. Maybe Rinku in real life is more knowledgable than his counterpart in the film, but coming from a similar situation as him, the availability of pizza in the U.S continues to astound me years after that first delivery.
- I always knew that Alan Arkin had superpowers.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

In the future, all mutants (including, of course, the X-Men) are being hunted by powerful killer robots called Sentinels. These shapeshifting non-metallic machines have the ability to target and destroy every mutant on earth. All they need is the time to do it. Thankfully, Kitty Pride -- played by the wonderful, vulnerable Ellen Page -- a mutant seen in previous X-men films, has the ability to send a mutant’s consciousness back in time so as to be forewarned about upcoming Sentinel attacks before they ever happen. This allows a core group of X-men to survive, but not much more. Soon, they will be annihilated. Perhaps it was this inevitable defeat that finally brought Magneto and Professor X back together, but at the start of the film, they seem to have forgiven each other and forgotten past wounds, since they are working together to eliminate the Sentinel threat. Together, they hatch a plan to send Wolverine back in time, so that he can stop the future war from ever happening. Ironically, his task is to prevent the murder of the man responsible for the creation of the Sentinels, Bolivar Trask, whose death prompted the acceleration of the Sentinel program, instead of its intended effect which was the exact opposite. 

The murderer of Trask: Mystique, the powerful blue-skinned mutant with the ability to physically turn into anyone she pleases. If you’re reading a review of X-Men: Days of Future Past, you probably already know this, but ever since the end of X-Men: First Class, Mystique has been on a dark path of vengeance, and the only people who can snap her out of it are Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier (aka Magneto and Professor X). Essentially, Wolverine is tasked with bringing the band back together. This leads to some spectacularly clever scenes, most notably a prison break featuring Quicksilver, a mutant with the ability to travel at superhuman speeds. With all the time in the world, a wicked sense of humor, and a nicely selected 1970s soundtrack, Quicksilver makes breaking into the Pentagon look easy and quite a lot of fun. When the film represents his speed, every other character is visually frozen in time except Quicksilver who appears to move normally and takes his precious time in executing Magneto’s escape. When the film goes back to "real" time, he’s just a silver blur, capable of altering any situation (say, by stealing a character’s wallet or readjusting his gun) in the blink of an eye. The movie goes back and forth between the two, never letting his powers grow boring. I’d like to see him more in his next film, but the only potential problem I can think of is having a mutant with abilities that can counter his, something not brought up in this time around. The movie also features several beloved characters including Beast, Bishop, Colossus, Storm, Iceman, Rogue, basically every mutant seen in the past X-men as well as a few humans, and Richard Nixon. But the film keeps going back to the core trio: Mystique, Magneto, and Charles, and it’s up to Wolverine to bring together this disparate, broken family.

Charles’ 1970s introduction is an incredibly moving scene. The character has never been so confused or pessimistic as he is here. Professor X has always been the moral compass of the series, guiding others towards the best, and never faltering. Here, however, he’s a drug-addled mess who’s so stoned that he can barely use his powers, much less lead anyone else in the struggles to master theirs.

The story, which goes back and forth from a future hopefully about to be erased, and a past that could alter time for the better, does lose focus on occasion, and it doesn't make much sense. However, at least it knows where its strengths lie. I'll allow any narrative inconsistencies just to be able to have the wonderful confrontation between the two Charles Xaviers played by Patrick Stewart and James McAvoy, who have never been better, beating the casts of any movie this size (even The Avengers) with raw talent and a fascinating, unexpectedly complicated character at their disposal. I’ll also allow any excuses needed, no matter how complicated they may be, to reunite Mystique, Magneto, and Professor X. Jennifer Lawrence has done a remarkable job of turning Raven, as the character was first known, from a poor lost girl to Mystique, a ruthless killer, back again to a recognizably -- I guess there’s no better word -- human, mutant. Meanwhile, Michael Fassbender continues Sir Ian McKellen’s work of showing Magneto’s justifiable rage against the human race, but his story also takes a dark turn when he crosses an ethical boundary that genuinely took me by surprise. All I will say is that he lost hope, which led him to the dark conclusion that fueled his terrible choice. And that’s really at the heart of this movie: hope. If not in humanity or an ideal, at least have hope in a person, the film argues. That’s enough to drive humans and mutants even through the darkest of times. 

All the doom and gloom does not prevent Days of Future Past from being an incredibly enjoyable experience. There are plenty of jokes about the 70s -- flower power, waterbeds, lava lamps, only 3 Networks “and PBS!” -- and there are plenty of deadpan growls from Wolverine too. Plus, the movie has some impressive special effects, like Magneto lifting a whole baseball stadium, that are big but never overwhelming or gratuitous as they often seem in other superhero films like Man of Steel or Thor 2. 

As the film ends, it establishes, similarly to Captain America 2, a new status quo that made me giddy with excitement. Director Bryan Singer, the man who started it all, has come back to let himself free from some of the messes caused by the X-Men sequels. Now, anything is possible. I can’t wait to see which future he chooses to cast for his beloved X-Men. 

Verdict- 3.5/4
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) 2h 10min. PG-13

Random Thoughts:
- Bryan Singer also directed the unjustly maligned Superman Returns. That movie remains one of the best modern superhero films, and a benchmark for all blockbusters for that matter. It’s so good that it’s worth mentioning here, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with X-Men. So, if you can’t get to a theater, watch Superman Returns. 
- Ellen Page’s Kitty Pride was pivotal for the movie, but doesn’t get much to do. Every scene with her is fraught with tension, as she is constantly under the threat of extinction. Page is perfect, as usual, but I want to see her get more screen time, and I want to see her get her own story arc. 
- Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart forever! 
- Peter Dinklage is also excellent as Trask, but he plays the obligatory scared human who feels the need to eradicate the mutant population, seeing them as a threat. On his defense, his fears are not completely baseless as he does get murdered by a mutant in one possible timeline. 

The Great Beauty

Jep, the writer of a single classic, has written nothing in years. He lives on the success of his one book, spending his time wandering around Rome, going to the most extravagant of parties, concerts, art-shows, and galleries in search of "The Great Beauty” which he has not yet encountered, and probably never will, if he and the filmmaker, Paolo Sorrentino are to be believed. All he really can look forward to is death. At one point in the film, he even pleads with a magician to make him disappear. However, a film with such an ugly and despairing outlook and subject matter also manages to be one of the most aurally and visually satisfying films in recent memory. What a contradiction!

Jep (and Sorrentino) clearly believes that the elite, and all of their frivolous activities, are morally bankrupt and utterly hypocritical. This is made clear in the film's key scene in which Jep dismantles the carefully maintained illusions of a fellow socialite who had the misfortune of pushing him too far. All of their attempts to capture beauty, or anything of meaning, are empty. A “trick,” he says. Fine. But what is the alternative, I wonder? Jep sees that all of his peers and himself lack something, yet he nor the film never articulate what that is. Both are content to drink in the excess and enjoy whatever fleeting pleasures this life provides -- though rightfully acknowledging that that's all they are, fleeting pleasures -- without searching for anything lasting.

This film is not merely misogynistic, it is misanthropic, a philosophy firmly against the wonders I witnessed, both natural -- in the many beautiful sunrises and shots of the sea and flowing water -- and man-made -- as part of the subject matter in Rome's artworks and architecture, and as part of the style in the editing, score, and sound design. Rome, being both an example of what humanity at its finest and most destructive can achieve, is the ideal setting for this story. If there is one place where such beauty and ugliness can coexist, Rome is it. This, for me, is perfectly encapsulated in the Coliseum, shown briefly but spectacularly in one shot with the sun rising behind it on the background while Jep, in closeup, walks across the screen on the foreground, failing to notice it. If only Sorrentino could turn a little more of his considerable talents on the good, he could have had an instant classic. Instead, he’s fascinated by the horrid, which, again, has never been so stunningly (though not attractively) depicted, an absurdity illustrated by a hard-partying blue-haired dwarf, among other indelible images.

So where do you find this Great Beauty? For me the answer is tied up with a specific section of Rome Sorrentino never bothers to show. His view of the Chuch -- apart from the saintly nun, who like him is entrenched in the path of uncovering the mystery of beauty -- seems to be that it is just another facet of Rome's elite. At one point a cardinal in line to become pope tells a fellow cardinal that he will meet a living saint. "At the Holy father's," he is asked. "No. At Jep's." The portrayal is not wholly unsympathetic, though. Jep seems to believe that he might find answers in the church. If only anyone in a position to counsel him would notice! He tries to approach the cardinal, but is simply waved away by a man who only cares about food, the only topic the character talks about in his scenes.

Sorrentino suggests that maybe Jep did come across the Great Beauty once in his life, during an encounter with a woman that he would never forget, even after 40 years. Part of the elusive nature of beauty must certainly be hidden in this gorgeous scene; it is beautiful. But instantly, something happens to turn Jep astray. It is not clear when the scene takes place, but I would argue that this was right after he wrote his book, or perhaps it is the subject of that book. Either way, he has been stuck there for all of his life. It is in that scene that his quest for a fuller understanding of beauty begins, but also the moment that it is doomed to fail, blinding his perspective to all else but what is right in front of him. After the encounter, he looks for beauty where he will never find it.

In the end, I appreciated the careful study of human vanity, and, despite its creators best intention, a lasting beauty did shine through the film, and I suspect it will stay with me after the bitter aftertaste of Jep and Sorrentino’s worldview, which is one and the same, washes off.

Verdict- 3/4
The Great Beauty 2h 22min. R.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Katniss Everdeen and Peeta whatshisname have just won the Hunger Games. As a reward, they receive free outfits, plenty of money, and the opportunity to be paraded around the twelve (thirteen?)districts that make up their post-apocalyptic wasteland of a world. By instructions of the ruthless president Snow, an evil looking Donald Sutherland, they are to pacify the crowds with rosy visions of their blooming romance. Instead, they are seen as heroes of the revolution. We see an example of this when one of their supporters is unceremoniously shot down after showing a sign of resistance. After that incident, intended as a warning, Katniss and Peeta stay on-script, but this is not enough. President Snow thinks it would be more effective to drop them into another round of Hunger Games and allow them to die there.

As anticipated, this film was better than the first one, but only slightly. It gets much better in its second half, when the games start, and a bunch of meaningless, though nicely choreographed and impressively designed action sequences begin. I don't, however, care about any of the characters or the idiotic thoughts they have to convey through their dreadful dialogue. Peeta’s favorite color is orange, not because that’s the shade of Stanley Tucci’s face in the film -- that would obviously be senseless -- but because of the sunset, he says. Who cares? Apparently everyone in this world. Just because he’s a decent enough guy, everyone, including the otherwise smart Katniss, does the best they can to keep him alive and well. I’m baffled by how much time the film spends on him, his feelings about Katniss, and their fake relationship. Granted, it also spends too much time on her other relationships, mainly with her sister and her other boyfriend, but at least Jennifer Lawrence can sell it. She is absolutely spectacular in conveying the transition occurring within her character who goes from being an unwilling (though acutely aware) pawn in the system, to outright embracing her status as a leader of the revolution. She’s also quite good at showing her ever-changing emotions towards the stale Peeta, particularly when she’s shown in closeup and you can witness the evolution of her emotions onscreen. It’s wonderful to behold. As for Josh Hutcherson? A corpse conveys more emotion. I feel a bit sorry for him. This movie often plays like a who’s who of the most notable actors working today, which certainly works against him.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, may he rest in peace, besides being the best actor in the ensemble, also plays the most interesting character of the whole film. There was an essential goodness to Hoffman that made it easy to sympathize even with his most abominable characters. So there's a sense, from his first scene in the movie, a dance with Katniss, that he means well. All of his scenes with Snow are played to perfection. Clearly, he's leading the president on, but for what purposes are made unclear until the cliffhanger ending in which he gets another good scene. Hoffman truly is irreplaceable. And speaking of Snow, I think I could watch a whole movie of Hoffman and Donald Sutherland watching the games, rigging them for their own Machiavellian purposes. I wish that was the case. 

The film’s only real interest is the central couple and the dawning realization that they’ll have to free their people the totalitarian government. The colonial subjects, or whatever the peasants from the districts are called, are all selfless heroes and worthy examples for Katniss and Peeta, while the citizens from the Capitol are vapid, narcissistic savages who live solely to watch the hunger games and the developing reality TV relationship between Katniss and Peeta. All the colors in Elizabeth Bank’s makeup and Stanley Tucci's hair can't liven up this drag.

If the movie was simply about kids, or in this case adults, stuck in an island killing each other, it would have been leaner and much more effective. I wanted to watch a mainstream Battle Royale, which I partly got, not another Twilight, which I definitely got. There are oh so many senseless plot devices and lifeless, single-note characters. Evil monkeys! Poisonous magic fog! Clockwork lightning! The arbitrary nature of the games bothers me. From the start of the game onwards, the film spends most of the time inside the dome, so there’s absolutely no knowing why each of these things are happening. It’s a game without rules, something I could have accepted had they been taken to their logical conclusion. But anarchy is not applied in a systematic and ruthless Game of Thrones sort of way in which everyone dies, no matter how good or bad they are. On the contrary, this is a game with no rules that is somehow rigged to allow Peeta and Katniss to survive, but not without getting a few bruises and scratches first. The movie doesn’t have the guts to kill of any character we come to care about. It instead creates characters (rather, devices) who are extremely likable from the beginning (like Amanda Plummer’s tick-tock kook, who is sadly wasted) and kills them off instead in a way that appears brave but is cheap in reality. 

Catching Fire is not concerned with the game; all it cares about is its characters, but outside of Katniss (due more to Lawrence’s virtues than anything else), it fails to develop them in any meaningful way. It’s a real shame. Gary Ross, the director of the first movie did a nice job of introducing the characters, but had no flair for the action, which was that film’s main concern. This time out, director Francis Lawrence excels at the action sequences, but has no idea what to do with the characters in a film designed to bring them to life more fully. A wasted opportunity above all else, rather than a bad film. 

Verdict- 2.5/4 
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. 2h 26min. 

Celeste and Jesse Forever

Celeste (Rashida Jones)  and Jesse (Andy Samberg) love each other. In an ingenious opening montage consisting of still photographs, we see the development of their relationship as they kiss for the first time, go out, exchange loving gestures, marry, and have friends over to their new house. For most of the pictures shown, they seem genuinely happy, except for one which is hard to decipher due to the lighting and the fact that we only see their silhouettes, but it appears that Celeste is disturbed; it seems they could be fighting. It’s perfectly normal, but not something you'd quite expect in a romantic comedy. As the slideshow ends, we come to a regular scene set in the present, and Jesse is driving Celeste to work. Everything appears to be normal. They flirt a lot and fight a little, and they say they love each other right before they part, which is when Celeste reminds Jesse that they have a dinner with friends. Cut to the dinner, where the best friends of Celeste and Jesse, who are also a couple, are clearly not in a good mood. They explode. “This is fucking weird,” they tell them. Celeste and Jesse are separated, have been for over six months, and they are getting a divorce. The setup is perfect. It comes as completely unexpected, but rewatching the first two scenes, it makes complete sense. The joke works, and the premise looks promising, but after that the story advances on a lackadaisical, rom-com standardized way that won’t surprise anyone. 

Abandoning the pretense of a story would have been better than telling this extremely predictable tale. The characters do precisely what you think they will at any given moment. Celeste and Jesse have a falling out at which point one of them settles down with another person after being pushed away from the relationship; the other goes on a few uncomfortable dates, etc.  The characters suffer the predictable anxieties that come with their various predicaments, and they have the flaws that basically every standard romantic comedy character has -- like both of them thinking at different times that they should be together, never meeting in the middle, or fearing that they'll be alone forever when the other finds love. The film follows the usual progression until the couple makes up, but it ends with a self-conscious “twist” deliberately designed  to combat the formula. It’s fine, and it works given the context of the story. But the film believes itself to be superior to your average rom-com in rejecting the genre's stereotypes, when its really not. It is, however, a good romantic comedy, with the potential for greatness, if it only had a better script.

Instead of going through the motions in telling an uninspired story -- albeit one with an interesting starting setup that I imagine worked wonders for the advertising -- the filmmakers should have just gotten rid of it. Instead they should have taken the story in the direction of the “Before" trilogy, to have Celeste and Jesse — reminds you of someone, Celine and Jesse,  from “Before Sunrise” maybe? — just hanging out, drinking and talking for hours on end, because the best thing in the film is, by far, the chemistry between Jones and Samberg. The characters probably don’t work as a couple, yet both actors sold me instantly on their friendship. I like that the film acknowledges the necessity of friendship in a healthy relationship, but I don’t see how these characters ever worked as a couple or how they ever thought they could work. This  reminded me of Drinking Buddies, another comedy about two best friends of opposite sexes who at one point seriously consider getting together, but in the end they laugh it off, which makes both them and the film better off. 

Sadly, Celeste and Jesse Forever is not quite as smart as Drinking Buddies, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its charms. Rashida Jones' skills at improvisation — which peak during a marijuana induced rant of of non-sequiturs ending with "Do you think the Obamas really love each other?” — are marvelous. Samberg has a regular-guy who landed the beautiful girl appeal similar to Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall that is hard to resist. As I watched them together, I kept thinking of Sarah Marshall, Drinking Buddies, Before Sunrise, Like Crazy, and 500 Days of Summer,  all movies I love. The script makes me angry, because the more I think about it, the more I believe this could have been a truly great film, worthy of belonging to that list.

Director Lee Toland Krieger has a very distinctive style. The film moves at a brisk, relaxed pace. He cuts out anything that is non-essential, and seems to be more interested in those moments of Celeste and Jesse enjoying each other’s company rather than in advancing the story he was given. His visuals  subtly enhance these moments, without calling attention to themselves. Take, for example, the wedding of the best friends of Celeste and Jesse. By this point, Celeste is finally coming to terms with the fact that she has lost Jesse. They will never again be together. The whole screen is suffused with a blue filter, making the scene more touching and sad than it probably deserved to be. "You are lucky to be best friends. Work on that,” says Celeste during her maid of honor speech. "Fight for it every day.” The sequence ends with a shot of Celeste standing apart from the party, in the dark, smoking a cigarette. She knows what she lost. Jones’ performance elevates the film. It’s refreshing to see a romantic comedy with style, but it could have been better. It should have been better. And I can't shake off that feeling. 

Verdict- 2.5/4 
Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012) 1h. 36min. R. 

Random Thoughts.
- Rashida Jones co-wrote the film. She can certainly write to her strengths as an actress, but as I said, the story needs work.
- That said, its sad that she doesn't get more lead roles. She shouldn't have to write her own movies just to get a good part. It reminded me of Lake Bell with "In a World..." a film the extremely talented actress both wrote and directed. 
- Elijah Wood shows up. He's weird and funny, but seem totally out of place.