I took Ben earlier this summer to see Ratatouille when it was in the theaters. Brad Bird and Pixar have really put a little masterpiece together here. At just nine minutes shy of two hours, the run time might be expected to strain the attention span of a five-year-old, but Ben was mesmerized throughout. Nutshell plot: Remy, a rat, yearns to express himself through food preparation. Linguini, the bumbling garbage boy, becomes the vehicle through which Remy achieves his goal. Remy tastes success, the deception is soon uncovered, livelihood and lives are threatened, adversities are overcome, and the rat and his boy triumph.

There are a couple of nits I can't resist picking. First, despite being set in France and despite being surrounded by the French-accented supporting characters, the main characters speak with distinctively American accents. Second, you'd expect some involuntary audience revulsion at the sight of rats (even cartoon rats) in the kitchen. Maybe it's because of the subtly expressive animation, but these objections barely register a blip while viewing the movie.

In addition, the be-all-you-can-be message is heartwarming and uplifting. Bird perfectly paces the action and builds the tension so that at the moment of Remy's triumph I couldn't help shedding a tear. The oft-repeated motto, “anyone can cook,” might be misinterpreted as “everyone can cook,” but that's clearly not the emphasis here. As with the Incredibles before, Bird is intent on showing that individual talents are unique. It's up to each person to use those talents as best they can.

Which brings us to the theme of Brad Bird's first major work, the conventionally animated Iron Giant. Nutshell plot: a giant alien robot crash-lands near a New England town during the height of the Cold War. A boy, Hogarth, discovers and befriends the giant. He teaches the giant, who has suffered amnesia or memory erasure, how to behave in a civilized society and tries in vain to conceal the giant's presence from the pesky G-man assigned to investigate reports of strange activity. Tensions escalate, nuclear war is threatened, and the giant acts against his own programmed nature to save the day. Here the motto was more bluntly: “be who you choose to be.”

Of the two movies, Ratatouille is more technically brilliant, but Iron Giant is more heartfelt. Either way, they are both a lot of fun and hopefully are just the beginning of more brilliance to come from Brad Bird.

Posted by ksmoker at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This widely-praised film, directed by Clint Eastwood, portrays one of the more famous campaigns of WWII from a perspective that most Americans are unaccustomed to seeing. Of course, we've known at least since Tora, Tora, Tora that the Japanese are people too, but what Eastwood does here is depict in stark detail how, thanks to a bellicose Japanese leadership, the lack of adequate supplies, and the weight of a samurai warrior culture, for most soldiers--and even the field commanders-- life essentially became a long, drawn-out exercise in slow, excruciating mass-suicide.

Obviously this is not a suitable flick for the kiddies, but it is an instructive (and even entertaining) study of the futility of war.

Posted by ksmoker at 11:06 PM | Permalink

This was a beautifully filmed, but mostly incomprehensible adaptation of James Ellroy's own speculative fiction about the real-life murder of aspiring movie starlet Elizabeth Short. The roles are actually prretty easy to sum up. Scarlet Johansson pouts and looks pretty, Aarron Eckhart broods, Josh Hartnett bumbles around with wrinkled forebrow, and Mia Kirchner hilariously overacts in the role of a struggling bad actor. Meanwhile, Hilary Swank steals the show with her luxurious 40's coiffure and smouldering gaze.

The movie is not without its redeeming factors, however. In addition to the gorgeous cinematography and the creepily alluring Swank, the seediness of 40's Los Angeles practically drips from the screen. In the end, however, Black Dahlia can't overcome its mish-mash of unrrelated storylines and contrived climactic scene.

Posted by ksmoker at 8:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is our favorite of the Studio Ghibli movies (so far). Two young girls move to the countryside with their father so they can be closer to their mother who, suffering from tuberculosis, is confined to a hospital bed. While exploring their surroundings they discover and befriend Totoro, a giant forest spirit. As the girls struggle to come to terms with the absence of their mother, Totoro watches over them, coming to the rescue when needed.

A charming movie that perfectly captures the bittersweet innocence of childhood and resilience of the human spirit.

Posted by ksmoker at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another Miyazaki creation, this one tells the story of a young witch who strikes out on her own to develop her craft--apparently, every witch does a year of solitary training when they turn thirteen. Kiki, settles in a city that doesn't seem to particularly require any of her admittedly limited magical talents, so she sets up a delivery service.

This, like many other Miyazaki creations, focuses on a young woman's struggle to grow up while being true to herself. it also features the voice of Phil Hartman as Jiji the cat.

Posted by ksmoker at 9:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We caught pieces of this Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece recently on the Cartoon Network and then promptly moved it to the top of the Netflix queue. Miyazaki has been described as a cross between Spielberg and Dr. Seuss. That doesn't really adequately describe the boundlessness and playfulness of his imagination, but it gives you a clue.

Here's my clumsy attempt to describe the film: After mistakenly entering a mysterious spirit world, our hero, a ten-year old girl named Chihiro, sees her parents turned into pigs and then gets a job in a bathhouse that caters to ghosts and other spirits where she befriends a magical young boy, helps a free a sludge monster, matches wits with the witch Yubaba, and learns to believe in herself in the process. As you can see, it's hard to explain, but it's enchanting and uplifting just the same.

We've since started plowing through the rest of Miyazaki's oeuvre, which Disney has been kind enough to dub into English for US release along with other releases from the animé Studio Ghibli. (See more above.)

Posted by ksmoker at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Critics are nearly unanimous in their praise for this film, which celebrates the work and the spirit of legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow. The film does capture Murrow at the height of his powers during a golden age in network news. At great personal risk, Murrow and fellow newsman Fred Friendly challenged the tyranny of Senator Joe McCarthy in the name of free speech and freedom of conscience. Ably directed by George Clooney and filled with strong acting performances, Good Night, and Good Luck perfectly captures the spirit of the time and the tension that permeates every scene like so much lingering cigarette smoke.

But I never quite bought it. There was the whole courage in the face of tyranny thing, which was inspirational enough, but underlaying the entire movie was a smug nostalgia. They don't make 'em like E.R. Murrow anymore! Yeah that's true; as hard as he tries, Keith Olbermann will never measure up.

But this is not 1953, either. Today, instead of Murrow, we have John Stewart. In today's day and age, Murrow would come across as a crank. I'm sorry to say that, but it's true. CBS boss Bill Paley knew it: even as Murrow was dusting off McCarthy, CBS was cutting back on his show and moving it to Sunday.

So: a solid, well-made, entertaining film. A bit heavy on the moralizing, but a worthy study of one man courageously standing up to challenge the powers that be.

Posted by ksmoker at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back when Kari was in law school, she would close her books at 11PM and we would stay up and unwind by watching Dr. Katz. Animated in Squigglevision, this series tells the story of a non-confrontational and low-key psychologist who, in addition to treating a wacky variety of patients (played by stand-up comedians such as Ray Romano, Dave Atell, and Wendy Leibman), has to also deal with his shiftless, live-at-home son and his obnoxious receptionist.

Dr. Katz's interactions with these personalities is what makes the show so funny. He is a slightly more earnest and less befuddled version of Bob Newhart, but the influence is obvious. For us, ten years later, it is now perfect late night viewing for unwinding after putting the kids to bed.

Posted by ksmoker at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This movie depicts the life of Nick Naylor, chief lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Now, Nick is not a moustache-twirling evil villain bent on destroying the world, but he is only a half-step or so short of that. Here is a guy that is paid big money to lie, as in bald-faced, smiling-into-the-camera lying about the health effects of tobacco.

Except that to some extent, you end up liking the guy. That's the whole point. That's why the tobacco industry hired him in the first place. In one scene, he goes to the house of the Marlboro Man (played by Sam Elliot), now aged, sick, dying of cancer, and bitterly attacking the tobacco company that put him into the saddle with his cigarette. You see Naylor struggling with the task that's been given him: he must deliver a suitcase of money to Marlboro Man and convince him to drop his lawsuit. Except, whoops! He's not really struggling, or at least it doesn't last long, because, well his sales pitch works.

So but did I mention that the movie is hilarious? The poignant moments like the one described above (plus other scenes where you see him struggling to raise his teenaged son) are intermixed with a steady stream of over-the-top satirical humor. Quick example: Naylors only friends are the chief lobbyists for the alcohol and firearms industries (Alchohol-Tobacco-Firearms, get it?) and they refer to themselves as the M.O.D. Squad--as in, Merchants of Death.

Okay, so it's not so funny in print, but that and other tongue-in-cheek hilarity helps keep your spirits up throughout the film. In the end, you are also confronted with one of the core questions of freedom in this country: to what extent do we allow our citizens to make decisions for themselves as opposed to having the government act as babysitter?

On the way out of the theater, I noticed about three-quarters of the audience exhibited various forms of good cheer, laughing smiling, animatedly discussing the movie. The othe 25 percent sat in their seats looking grim. I'm guessing that the satire was lost on these people.

Posted by ksmoker at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hollywood has always had fun with spy movies, from James Bond to Jason Bourne and I've generally enjoyed them in an escapist sort of way. Stephen Spielberg's recent addition to the genre is anything but escapist. Like Syriana, this movie freaked me out somewhat in that they were based on real events. The spy v. spy stuff you see in Bourne et al. is, in these two films, at least to some extent, based on real-life events.

Unlike Syriana, Munich has a single clear plotline and one central character that you follow throughout the film. Eric Bana plays a young Mossad agent drafted by Golda Meir to avenge massacre of Israeli athletes at the '72 Olympics at the hands of Palestinian extremists. Through the course of the film, Bana's character is forced to confront the apparent futility of his mission and the self-perpetuating cycle of violence that is the norm, almost taken for granted, in the world of international espionage.

In both films, Munich especially, assassination is not so much undertaken as a means of promoting an agenda or protecting national interests. These killings become a form of communication. All over the world, governments are passing secret messages to each other in the form of a poisoned diplomat or in the carefully arranged bulletholes in the back of the skull of an intelligence officer.

These films made me glad that I don't live in the world if international espionage, but they also make me fear what would happen if that world were, for some reason, to begin blending into the world the rest of us live in.

Posted by ksmoker at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)