Only now does it occur to me... HAIL, CAESAR! (2016)

Only now does it occur to me... that the Coen Brothers must be closet HIGHLANDER fans. Why else would they cast Clancy "The Kurgan" Brown:

and Christopher "Connor 'The Highlander' MacLeod" Lambert:

in the same film? (aside from the fact that they're both great, and wield a mean broadsword).  With Sean Connery retired, I suppose my only complaint is that Michael Ironside didn't make the cut.

Regardless, this film does not in fact revolve around HIGHLANDER sequel/prequel fan-fictions, though from the standpoint of a character-actor fan, it has much to offer. Amid the pastiche of Busby Berkeley and Vincente Minnelli-style musical numbers, there are wonderful bits by Robert Picardo as a finicky, test audience rabbi:

Fisher Stevens (who really knows how to make an entrance) as a furtive, blacklisted screenwriter:

Tilda Swinton in dual roles as twin-sister gossip columnists:

and Dolph Lundgren as the silhouette of a Russian submarine captain:

(since it's the 1950s,  I can't tell if he's Ivan Drago's father, or the father of his henchman from A VIEW TO A KILL). 

Sure, it's no BARTON FINK, but I enjoyed it.

Only now does it occur to me... SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER

Only now does it occur to me... that Bill Paxton nearly saves SPY KIDS 3-D GAME OVER from itself.

Granted, this is a children's movie that embraced the 3-D gimmick (in 2003) before its officially annoying resurrection, and by all accounts is trying to be a nonsensical mess of CGI fuckery.  However, even by Rodriguez/SPY KIDS standards, this is pretty unbearable, and for the first three-quarters of its runtime, the only saving grace is Ricardo Montalbán in a CGI robot suit.

The primary antagonist is Sylvester Stallone (who agreed to do this at one of the lowest points of his career) as a computer programmer known as "The Toymaker"

who frequently banters with three virtual alter-egos, all also played by Stallone, including a Kaiser, a nerd, and a hippie.

This is even more awkward than you can possibly imagine.

You will recall Stallone's earlier attempts at comedy in such films as RHINESTONE and OSCAR and STOP! OR MY MOM WILL SHOOT.

I think I'll leave it at that.

Anyway, in the final act, characters from the previous SPY KIDS films are called into action to defeat giant CGI robots.  Everyone was clearly on set for about five minutes, delivering their line in front of a green screen and then going about their business.  You gotta love Rodriguez.  Anyway, this motley crew includes Steve Buscemi, who maintains his dignity despite riding a flying pig,

Danny Trejo as Uncle Machete,

Alan Cumming, Tony Shaloub, Carla Gugino as "Mom," Banderas as "Dad,"

etc., etc., etc.  And then we have Bill Paxton as "Dinky Winks"

who delivers this film's benediction:

in a perfect reference to both the film's title and Paxton's own legendary line reading "GAME OVER, MAN!  GAME OVER!!!" from ALIENS.  Thank God for Paxton.

(Also, in case it was somehow not apparent from the screenshot of "Hippie Stallone," you should absolutely not see this movie.)

Only now does it occur to me... GRAVITY

Only now does it occur to me...  that the glory of 3-D has brought us a giant ape flinging boulders right at me and Jason Voorhees squeezing a man's head until the eyeball shoots out.  It's shown us Freddy Krueger, Michael Ironside, and even Charles Bronson in three-dimensions.  I've even seen blue cat people have strongly-implied weirdo hair sex.  But never did I ever expect to be...   
SPLOOSHED IN THE FACE WITH SANDRA BULLOCK'S CGI SPACE-TEARS!!!

 

Let me make this brief and relatively spoiler-free:  while GRAVITY indeed boasts some incredible visuals, its manipulative attempts at emotional depth are in general clumsy, unearned, and give off the overwhelming impression that they've been scraped together from the afterglow of superior movies (DON'T LOOK NOW?  APOLLO 13?).  Sadly, this cannot be remedied by an Ed Harris vocal cameo (he gets about 10 minutes of screentime, tops) or any number of George HaClooncinations, even when he does his best Doug Ross impersonation.

[It's also worth mentioning that Sandra Bullock's numerous wardrobe changes– from spacesuit into hot pants/tank top and back again– flavor the film with a "peekaboo– gym bod!" salaciousness that distracts from the narrative drive and nearly suggests a sexploitation movie, which gave rise to the idea that I'd much rather have seen a GRAVITY that was made in the 1970s, starring Pam Grier and Sid Haig!]

Perhaps I made a mistake in watching it nearly back-to-back with one of my all-time favorite 'survival journey' movies, THE WAGES OF FEAR, a film that that firmly balances character development and white knuckle thrills with virtuosic integrity; conversely, GRAVITY's mushier than a melty banana split (and I don't mean one made with astronaut ice cream!). 

Hell, I don't mean to shit on this thing; it seems that many have derived genuine emotional responses from it, including some teary-eyed patrons at my local theater.  Perhaps ours is a fragmented era of ramshackle profundities, where the existential hum can be quieted with a pat on the shoulder and a few empty platitudes.  Perhaps the legacy of cosmic wonder and moral wisdom forged by writers like Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke has merely become... CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE ASTRONAUT SOUL.  Now that makes me sad.  I s'pose you succeeded after all, GRAVITY!

In closing, for its unsubtle attempts at emotional button-pushing and a visual vocabulary that consists of objects hovering slowly across the frame, I think perhaps a better title may have been:

Film Review: THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009, Wes Anderson & Mark Gustafson)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 87 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Wallace Wolodarsky, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Eric Chase Anderson, Brian Cox, Mario Batali, Adrien Brody. Music by Alexandre Desplat (BIRTH, THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED). Co-written by Noah Baumbach. Animation director Mark Gustafson (did claymation for RETURN TO OZ and THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN, creator of the California Raisins TV series).
Tag-line: "This year, forget super... ignore incredible... it's all about fantastic."
Best one-liner: "Excuse me? Am I being flirted with by a psychotic rat?"

Utilizing the same stop-motion animation and adorable attention to detail which make Rankin/Bass productions like MAD MONSTER PARTY the cutest shit on the planet, FANTASTIC MR. FOX fuses that aesthetic with the stilted, familial comedy of Baumbach/Anderson and the boyish dream-logic of Roald Dahl in order to create  the sort of children's movie which I can actually stomach. You know, the kind which has Willem Dafoe playing a country-drawlin', switchblade-slingin', wife-slanderin' Rat, somehow the kiddie approximation of his role as Bobby Peru in WILD AT HEART.

It's been a lifelong dream to see Bobby Peru appear in a children's movie.

Much of what I love here is due to what some would call "imperfections"- the manner in which stop-motion lends itself to spontaneous, awkward humor (i.e., the voracious rapidity with which characters eat, or how silly they look dashing across a barnyard)

or the way the animals' fur flutters during shots (because it's an actual, organic object, and not synthetic pixelation). The voice-acting is beyond first rate, not only because of the ridiculous slew of talent, but because Anderson preferred to record outdoors, replacing the sterility of the recording studio with living, breathing, tactile nature. George Clooney's incorrigible, glorious scamp; Meryl Streep's wife, a force at once blazing and soothing; Jason Schwartzman's brattish, sympathetic son (in perhaps his greatest performance to date); Michael Gambon's seething villain:

Wallace Wolodarsky's bewildered chum; or Bill Murray's irascible pushover- the voice actors are the perfect blend of tonality, timing, and role, and the film could not succeed nearly as well as it does without them. I have to wonder, though- now that Anderson has succeeded in perpetuating his vision in a (basically) controlled environment, how will he feel about returning to live action?

What would have happened if Jacques Tati had ever presided over a production using the 'Animagic' process? Well, regardless of where he chooses to go from here- five stars of pure wild animal craziness.

-Sean Gill

Side note: Animation director Mark Gustafson is not actually credited as co-director, but clearly he deserves to be.