13. Kick-Ass

Speaking of a wholehearted dive into flesh-ripping and bone-breaking…

This film was forgotten quickly by the movie-going public, for reasons not quite clear to me. At the time of its release, it was controversial enough – having a 12-year-old girl spew that much profanity is bound to raise eyebrows, and that’s without even considering the film’s excessive violence. But it seems to have already disappeared from the public mindset, and showed up on almost no “Best Of” lists, even among critics who gravitate towards this sort of movie.

I’ll admit, it’s faded a little in my mind, too. I remember enjoying the movie quite a bit, but I can’t recollect the film nearly as clearly as I can other films I saw around the same time (Alice In Wonderland, Iron Man 2) despite enjoying it much more. I’m not sure why it’s so forgettable. The movie’s a little light, perhaps, and maybe its message is a little convoluted. But in the midst of a glut of comic book movies, where heroes plow endlessly into buildings and lamp posts and iron girders and get up without a scratch, I remember being thrilled to watch the whole idea turned on its head. What would happen if someone really did try to become a superhero? Especially if that person didn’t have any idea what they were doing?

The film is carried by excellent performances by Moretz, Aaron Johnson, and surprisingly, Nicholas Cage, and plays out in a way that’s somehow a light mockery of superhero plots and yet perfectly natural at the same time. All of the absurdity of it – rocket-packs and spandex suits and a little girl killing dozens of henchmen – all seems totally believable.

But despite keeping its foot loosely planted in the real world, and its willingness to explore the dark side of what being a real-world superhero would really entail, it never loses that one thing that superhero movies can’t seem to keep a hold of anymore: its sense of fun. The film is packed with elegantly choreographed action sequences and the plot clips along at a thrilling pace. If all superhero movies were willing to play things this fast-and-loose, summer movies would be a lot more fun.

14. 127 Hours

Speaking of strange things that actually happened…

My relationship with this film is well documented on this blog, but for those of you unfamiliar with the story: a few years back, I was working as a intern at the film company of a major Hollywood director. While most of my tasks were standard intern fare (making copies, getting coffee, working phone lists), once I won a little bit of their trust, they began handing me the occasional script or book to do coverage on. I would read the piece, write up a two-page summary, and let my bosses know if I thought we should pursue it or pass on it.

 Most of the scripts were dreck, but one of the books they handed me was intriguing. It was Aron Ralston’s Between A Rock and Hard Place, the true story of a climber whose arm was trapped under a boulder.  He survived there for several days before he was forced to saw off his own arm to escape.

I enjoyed the book but thought it wouldn’t work at all as a film. The main character spends almost all of his time trapped against the rock, thinking sad thoughts and panting with thirst. There’s a rescue attempt by his family, but they never find him. Most of the money parts are pretty gross: he drinks his own urine, pokes experimentally at his dead flesh, and finally, y’know, cuts off his own arm. I recommended that my company pass on it. I have no idea if they considered my recommendation at all, but I know that they never made a bid on the rights, and they never made the movie.

Flash forward five years, and 127 Hours is an Oscar-nominee for Best Picture. Ouch.

My ego might have taken a hit from this escapade, and I’ve been rooting pretty heavily against the film from day one (I was recently cackling triumphantly at its scant $6M box office, until its Oscar nod pushed it back into theaters). But today, I have come to praise 127 Hours, not to trap it against a rock and cut its arm off. It’s a good film.

But first, it needs to be said: I was right to reject the book. This movie is essentially unmakeable. Only a yeoman’s effort by James Franco, aided by Danny Boyle’s helter-skelter stylings, elevates the movie from being dull gross-out flick. If the film were in hands any less capable, the story wouldn’t work at all. Most of the critics who’ve rated the movie seem to agree. I’ve hardly seen a review where the phrase “essentially unfilmable” didn’t pop up somewhere. It’s a tough movie to make.

Boyle deserves a chunk of the credit, but this is Franco’s movie through and through, and the whole effort rides on his surprisingly capable shoulders. I’ve always loved Franco and his dopey, devil-may-care persona, but if you’d told me a few years ago that the star of Annapolis and Flyboys (and the director of The Ape!) would be the Oscar-nominated lead of an Oscar-nominated film, there’s no chance in hell I would’ve believed you. But Franco is perfect here, so comfortable in the skin of the solitary, self-reliant hiker that you feel almost as if it’s the first time he’s ever really played himself. Keeping the audience’s attention for 85 minutes while flopping uselessly against a rock is no small feat, and there’s only a handful of actors out there who could manage the role the Franco played here. And… dare I say it?... maybe none who could do it better.

That said, 127 Hours is solid but a touch unremarkable. The film’s a little slight, and Boyle’s frenetic search for meaning in Ralston’s life – ex-girlfriends forgotten, siblings ignored, parents estranged – all seem a touch desperate in their shouts for your rooting interest.  None of the relationships really sticks, not in the way that Franco’s bid for survival just for survival’s sake seems to. When the money scene hits and he makes his final, desperate push for escape, it seems more obligatory than it does earned.

As for the arm-cutting itself? I wasn’t bothered by the unflinching nature of the nature of the scene – in fact, having read the book, I felt they could have gone much further – but then I’m rarely bothered by appropriate violence. The scene called for a wholehearted dive into flesh-ripping and bone-breaking, and once I know to expect something, I don’t have any problem with the filmmakers going at it whole hog. Considering the nature of the film, I’d be disappointed if they did anything less.

15. Catfish

Due to my addiction to ESPN’s stalwart “30 For 30” series, I probably watched more documentaries this year than in all my years prior combined. I’ve usually ignored the ones that blow through my local multiplex, figuring that I’ll catch them on DVD later (or at least convince myself that I will). Catfish was the first doc that I actively sought out.

I hadn’t planned to see it at first. It was marketed as a Blair Witch-style horror film, for some reason, an advertising angle that couldn’t be further from the truth. Then it was advertised as a cinematic shocker, a movie with such a stunner of a final twist you should feel free to kill your best friend if they let the details of it slip to you. And sure, there are some surprises in the movie, but they’re all of the “the main character doesn’t know what’s happening, but now the plot’s moving along and he’s learning things and here’s the final confrontation and now the movie’s done” sort of surprises. A dead Bruce Willis doesn’t pop out of the wall or anything.

 What actually lured me to the movie was the thing that drives anyone to a movie – people telling me that it was great and that I should see it. I saw it, and it was.

The film follows a twenty-something photographer named Nev Schulman, living in New York City, who develops a friendly correspondence with an 8-year-old painter in Michigan via Facebook. Their relationship spreads to her family, including the girl’s mother and older sister, the latter of which Nev starts dating via phone calls, text messages, and the like.

Nev lives with a pair of filmmakers, who begin to film him, ostensibly in order to explore the way social interactions work over the internet. But as Nev’s relationship with the sister develops, things start to become…. well, I better leave it there. Lack of twist ending or no, I’m not going to spoil anything, in case you were exposed to its ad campaign and this review tempts you to rip out my intestines with a butter knife.

What I liked about this film is how remarkable the story we’re watching unfold really is. It’s so unlikely that Morgan Spurlock congratulated the filmmakers after the screening, calling it “the best fake documentary he’d ever seen.” Even the filmmakers admitted that they stumbled on this movie almost entirely through luck.

I felt the same as Spurlock, that the situation seemed almost too perfect to have really happened. Could something so odd really have taken place with cameras rolling to watch it? In this age of cell phone cameras and constant self-promotion, I suppose it doesn’t seem all that unlikely. And as bizarre as this story of Facebook lies is, it’s not that much stranger than ones I’ve heard, or imagined myself. Sometimes the strangest thing you can think of is the thing that actually happened.

16. Tangled

Speaking of flashy visuals that find a way to be more than that…

It’s a generally accepted fact that the magic has gone out of Disney. After a brief, impossibly strong run from ’89-’94 (The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King), it’s been hit and miss for the studio ever since. I’ve enjoyed some of the films (Mulan and Bolt were both solid, and I have a special place in my heart for The Emperor’s New Groove), but I’ve skipped most without a second thought and haven’t regretted it – though I’m assuming that the people who actually might’ve (Anyone see Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Chicken Little, or Home on the Range? You have my sympathies).

But along comes Tangled with a remarkably simple pitch: do a classic Disney princess story, with all the magic and wonderment and songs sung by princesses staring out windows that comes with such things, but do it as a computer animated film instead. Bet the guy who thought up Meet The Robinsons is kicking himself he didn’t think of that.

Times being what they are, of course you have to have famous names to voice the characters (when did this practice start? The earliest I can remember is Robin Williams in Aladdin, other than Burl Ives as a claymation snowman). Fortunately, instead of being distracting or schticky, both of the stars cast here are excellent choices. Mandy Moore gives her sighing princess just the right amount of spunk, while Zachary Levi lends an intrinsic niceness to a roguish hero who could’ve turned unpleasant in the wrong hands.

The real hero here is the animation, though. It’s only very recently that animators have been able to animate human faces in ways that aren’t disconcerting, and Tangled is a nice blend of cartoony and realistic, with a surprisingly endearing bit of 3-D animation thrown in. The finished product works perfectly. There’s a beautiful bit towards the end where the characters release thousands of floating candles to the sky, and the camera weaves in and around them, till the viewer ends up dizzy from trying to take it all in at once.

Maybe the magic isn’t all the way back in Walt’s old stomping grounds (I can’t be the only one worried about the full-length Winnie-The-Pooh film next year), but it was awfully nice to go into a Disney movie and be so pleasantly surprised.

17. Tron Legacy

Speaking of a collection of cool ideas and flashy visuals…

Tron Legacy is a visual movie. And I mean that as a full-throated compliment – it’s stunningly well realized as a big-picture event, with near-perfect special effects (I’ll give it a pass on the young Jeff Bridges effect), beautiful uber-modern monochromatic design, and some of the best 3-D since Avatar. If movies are supposed to take you into another world, then this one more that fits the bill. I just wish the world it took you to were a little more vibrant.

To be fair, almost the entire movie takes place inside a computer game, so if everything feels a little wooden, that’s part of the experience. But the lack of real interaction proved a great deal more wearing than I would've thought. When Michael Sheen bursts onto the screen two-thirds of the way through as a shady gay nightclub owner, I couldn’t believe how relieved I was that one of the characters was finally showing some personality.

No offense to Garrett Hedlund, who seems to be a solid young acting talent, but he’s not given much to do here. The film leaves him out to dry, endlessly staring blankly at green screens as a succession of massive visuals are superimposed around him. Olivia Wilde has a nice turn here as a computer program seeking to understand humanity, and Bridges gives his reluctant-father role all the personality he can muster, but his quasi-Dude persona seems grating in this cold, blank world – the weight of it clamps down on the viewer, and we come to expect each line to be delivered with the same informative dullness as the one before.

More disorienting are the troubling plot holes. Major structural questions nag at the mind througout the film: How are these characters physically inside a computer program if the whole thing fits on one data card? Where did they get the food that they’re eating? And (spoiler alert) how can a computer program possibly leave the game and become a human being in the real world?

But all this I can handle, as long as once these characters are in the world, they remain true to whatever logic the world necessitates. But with each turn, things only get more confusing. What makes these programs turn evil – and then back – without explanation? Why would a computer program takes bribes? If every piece of important information you own is on a round disc, why do you use it as a weapon and throw it at people? And if the portal home is so hard to get to, why is there a train that goes straight there? (I wasn’t the only one to notice that one).

I’m a sucker for event movies, and flashy visuals make it easy to get my attention. But for me to go home with a smile on my face, they’ve got to find a way to be more than that.