Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Directed by: Wes Anderson (quick Top Five Wes Anderson Movies: 5. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou 4. Moonrise Kingdom 3. Rushmore 2. The Fantastic Mr. Fox 1. The Royal Tenenbaums)

Written by: Anderson and Roman Coppola

Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel and Bob Balaban

What it’s about: two outcast youngsters fall in love and run away together, while their family and scout troop look for them.. sorta

B-Movie Alternate Title: Our Twee Summer

Movie Mash Up: pretty much all of Wes Anderson’s movies in a blender

What I liked: Thankfully this isn’t like the last couple live action Wes Anderson movies, and it actually feels like a different story from his trademark stuff.  Great, real and awkward performances from the two young leads, Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward.  Love the ensemble cast.  Love the absurdity of Anderson’s worlds.  Looks gorgeous, will have to purchase on Blu-Ray soon.

What I disliked: it didn’t feel like a complete movie, more like a snapshot of a movie.  Not that I’m saying that the movie requires artificial padding to the running time or anything, it just felt like there were more stories to tell.  Minor complaint, and I think the movie will benefit from further viewings.

Would I recommend it to anyone?: Probably not my mom and step-dad since they generally have bad taste in movies, but yes, it’s a great movie and one everyone should see.

Rating: 4 / 5

Burn After Reading (2008)

There are some movies that greatly benefit from a re-watching.  Fight Club was that way for me, having to see it again in theatres just to process exactly what I’d seen.  It just helped, and the first time I watched Burn After Reading in a theatre, I enjoyed it, and I’m pretty sure I got what it was about… at the end.  However, if you go into the movie having previously seen it, there are so many other levels that it works on (no matter what any message board thread on IMDb says) and it just makes me think that no matter how much praise we give them, the Coen Brothers will never get enough.

To go into the plot detail of this movie is to invite madness, so if you want to know all about that, check the Wiki article on it.  Suffice to say, it involves a large group of characters in Washington, D.C. dealing with infidelity, intrigue and idiots.  I think the Coens themselves would endorse that as a tagline for the poster.  The characters all have high levels of self-delusion about their own worth, and the worth of the activities of their lives.

I cannot stress how amazingly executed the movie is, and how that might not become apparent until you re-watch it again and “get it”.  Everything is overblown, from the score to the camerawork to the reactions of the characters.  It’s a parody of such a high class nature that it takes place on a trapeze wire, one misstep away from disaster.  At first glance the acting is just playing roles, but with a second watch, man, there’s so much more to the performances.  Other than Frances McDormand’s Golden Globe nomination, it was criminally overlooked in my opinion.

I would go full marks on this one, but I will readily admit that it won’t work for everyone and almost any movie that you have to re-watch to fully enjoy isn’t a perfect movie.

4.5 / 5

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

First of all, I’m pissed that this is the third Transformers movie and where the hell is Judd Nelson?  Secondly, it isn’t as bad as Revenge of the Fallen was, I mean, how could it be, right?  That thing was a steaming pile of excrement.  However, just because it’s better, doesn’t mean it’s good.  I’m sure a more anal-retentive person that cares more about Transformers could dissect all the plot holes in this film and rage for hours, but since I don’t care about the mythology and long ago learned to divorce source material from film (thank you Bourne trilogy), I’m not going to do that.

All I’m going to say is that it is a far less racist film than the preceding one.  There’s a tonne of name actors and That Guys in the movie, and the best portions of the movie involve the awesome Alan Tudyk.  Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a less impressive Megan Fox, just as Ken Jeong is a less impressive Rainn Wilson.  The “twist” can be seen a mile away (and I need to find a new metaphor for that), and the fight scenes contain much robot-on-robot violence and thousands of humans dying.  It is ridiculous and easily the most tragic thing I’ve seen today.  Patrick Dempsey lets us all have a little therapy by finally acting like the douchebag we want him to be, but sadly gets owned by Shia LaBeouf.  And other things happen.

It’s not a good movie, not even average for what I would expect a popcorn movie to be.  It won’t make you forget about how terrible Revenge of the Fallen was, and it is far too long by about 45 minutes.  If you must see it, watch it, but you have been warned, human.

2 / 5