The MacGuffin

The annual festival of Hollywood-types congratulating each other for their ability to play make-believe really well while flaunting a garish display of uniquely American excess is rapidly approaching. Of course I’m talking about the annual Academy Awards. As a concept, and looking at the amount of import it is often met with, the entire affair can be seen as somewhat ludicrous. Wealthy people handing out statues while displaying millions of dollars in gowns, tuxedos, and jewelry can be seen as paling in comparison to really important things. Teachers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, social workers, Peace Corps volunteers, parents, and thousands of others toil away in professions that, it can be argued, deserve much more praise. They do REALLY impactful work for far less/no money with often little thanks. So yes, the Oscars can be seen as yet another example of our out of whack priorities. Much like the carnival that surrounds sports figures or models or reality TV stars or musicians, the Oscars elevate a group that already gets plenty of rewards for their toils.

Despite all of that, I love them anyway.

Aardman Animation proves themselves once again in the delightful new holiday animated movie Arthur Christmas. Aardman is the production company behind both Chicken Run and the delightful Wallace and Gromit series of shorts. While there was some trepidation that their expertise in stop motion animation might not carry over into the medium of high budget computer animation, those fears are long left behind now. Arthur Christmas is a delight.

It’s a Thursday afternoon in 2008. A nameless investment firm on Wall Street is going through what looks to be just the latest round of layoffs. But this round is particularly brutal and ends up ejecting a significant portion of their workforce. One of the people laid off, Eric Dale, played by Stanley Tucci, has been working on something fairly important in the company’s risk management department. On his way out the door he tosses a zip drive with his research on it to one of the young analysts who is staying with the company played by Zachary Quinto. He also gives the dire warning: “Be Careful.” This simple act sets off a long night of corporate trouble that ends up being the beginning of the collapse of the American economy.

Ryan Gosling plays a rising star in Democratic Party politics in the new thriller The Ides of March. Gosling’s character Stephen Meyers has been around the block a few times. But while working on the campaign of Presidential hopeful Governor Mike Norris (engagingly played by George Clooney), he sidles his way into a potential political firestorm. At the beginning he is a true believer; he’s “drunk the Kool-aid” and actually believes in Governor Norris. But being courted by Paul Giamatti as the opposing candidate’s campaign manager leads him into a world of conflict of interest and scandal. The core of the story centers on Meyers’s eventual disillusionment about the process to which he’s dedicated himself.

Giving. How much do we give to others? To what extent can we sacrifice to help people who are suffering? As Americans, what can we do for one another and for others around the world? And how blinded are we to suffering? These, as well as other moral quagmires, are explored in the new film Machine Gun Preacher.

Hummmmmmm….Seminyaaaaaa, felicammmmmmmmm….wenya, hummmmmmmm….It’s the circle of life, and it moves us all. From despair and hope, to faith and love. Til we find our way….

Oh, sorry, got lost there for a moment.

What I’ve Been Watching

Movies:

Captain America was a lot of fun. After everyone’s initial trepidation, it turns out that Chris Evans filled Cap’s boots admirably. And casting-wise, the big highlight was Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull. He is carving himself quite a career as a menacing figure with a rich voice behind it. The young comic book geek inside of me is getting awfully excited about all of these pieces for the upcoming Avengers movie continuing to come together. Does it all make for groundbreaking storytelling? No. But it is smile-inducing.

I must start with full disclosure here. I was predisposed to hating this movie. The Smurfs represent everything I think is wrong with the entertainment industry. The very idea is a shining example of filmmaking based on licensing and market research. It feels like a marketing executive asks “What properties do we have lying around?” They find a kid-friendly property that has some Generation X name recognition so that parents potentially will drag their kids to the theater. And the Smurf idea has minimal plot, some cuteness, and an easy to explain concept. Couple that with potential merchandising, the fact that since nothing’s been done with the little blue guys for a long time it can probably be done cheap, add some stunt voice casting like Katy Perry, prime the pump with some conspicuous mentions of Smurfs on TV shows leading up to the opening weekend to freshen the collective memory, of course make the whole thing 3D, and it’s gotta be a recipe to make some MONEY. Ugh.

In the middle of this summer season of blockbusters at the theater, it seemed like a good midway checkpoint to see how 3D is faring. In a previous article I wrote in response to the tacit dismissal of 3D as being worthwhile (you can see that article here), I stated how the idea of watching some of the coming summer delights would be more fun with Hal Jordan’s power ring shooting beams into the audience or Thor’s hammer flying over our heads. Now that we’ve seen a goodly amount of these big popcorn flicks, I wanted to take a look at how value-added the 3D was at this point.

Recently premiering locally at the Seattle International Film Festival, and now playing in select cities, Submarine stars Craig Roberts as Oliver Tate, an awkward and self-conscious teenager whose internal monologue we hear throughout the film. While accurately described as a coming of age story, it is a quirky alternative to the typical tropes of the genre. The movie plays like a Welsh version of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore with its offbeat sense of humor.