The Film Thugs Movie Show

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Quick confession. I have not seen any of “The Planet of the Apes” film from beginning to end. I have seen bits and pieces of a few, but never a complete beginning to end. Oddly, I have read Pierre Boulle’s book (he also wrote “The Bridge Over the River Kwai”). Yet somehow the movies have evaded me.

I never really felt like I was missing much. The iconic shocker of an ending has been ruined more times over than I can count, and since I feel as though I “get” what it’s about I haven’t ever really felt the need to watch any. It’s heresy I know, but I do intend to rectify this soon.

Sad to say, but I’ve actually seen more of the Tim Burton version than any of the others. That’s not saying much, I only caught the last 40 minutes or so on HBO one time and found it too hilariously grotesque to turn off.

That being said, I didn’t feel overtly compelled to see this one. Even when the positive reviews started flowing in I felt as if it was a case of lowered expectations being surpassed. I was very wrong.

What could easily have been a quick, mindless, effects reliant mess (basically what we have been trained to expect these days) is, instead, a thoughtful, touching, and emotional story of what happens when someone learns to expect more.

James Franco plays Will Rodman, a scientist working on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. He creates a formula that allows the brain to create new pathways and repair itself at an alarming rate. In primate testing it delivers astonishing results. Due to some complications his project is cancelled, but not before it can yield a newborn ape who, through the genetic mutation caused by his vaccine, develops incredible intelligence. Things, of course, go awry and the hyper intelligent Caesar ends up in a primate sanctuary, where his mistreatment at the hands of humans causes the beginnings of man’s ultimate downfall.

That’s the broad strokes of it. No big surprises, as the title lets you know up front where things will end up.

I actually had fairly high expectations going into this. The guys over at The Adams Movie Podcast (The A.M.P) both listed this as their number two (almost number one) film of the year and I absolutely cannot blame them.

For starters the writing is fantastic. This is a much more personal story than you might think at first. Caesar is not an animal or a pet, he is developed as a child, a fully functioning, intelligent child. His interactions aren’t simple survival reactions (seeking food or shelter) but are emotionally driven. He is kind, inquisitive, and protective. In short, he is a full member of the family.

I’m not going to lie to you; Caesars story is absolutely heartbreaking. What could have been a simple revenge, animal gone wild story, is instead a story of a fight for freedom. You come to know and care for Caesar so much that when he is expected to act like an animal it is genuinely crushing and infuriating. This is not an animal, this is a very intelligent child that you have seen grow into a caring and inquisitive young man, and suddenly he is expected to eat slop and play in the water with a milk jug.

The performances are all very solid, which is to be expected form people like James Franco and Brian Cox, but the standout is Andy Serkis. I honestly have no idea how good an actor Serkis is as just a man. I’ve only seen him in a few things, most recently “Burke and Hare” (although I do hear that he is fantastic in “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll”), but make no mistake, this man is the Olivier of motion capture. His portrayal of Caesar easily rivals his stunning work in “Lord of the Rings.” He is uniquely able to find and convey the humanity of a non-human character and make that character come to life, fully formed, and completely relatable. You will feel Caesars heartbreak, his longing, his joy, his desire to belong, and his ultimate fury.

I was absolutely stunned by this movie. Even though I had high hopes, it was not what I was expecting. Yes, there are some pretty thrilling action scenes, but there is also poignancy to those scenes. The violence matters, you feel every death and every injury. But more than that the film allows you, almost forces you, to side with Caesar. You are shown why he not only wants his freedom, but why he deserves it. In a movie about the ultimate downfall of mankind you actually find yourself cheering for the other side. Think about the difficulty in that.

During this years Austin Film Festival Campbell and I sat in on a panel entitled “Zombies, Apes, and Vampires: Breathing New Life Into Old Genre’s” featuring Rick Jafa (writer of this film), as well as a few others. We only lasted about half way through it because all discussion kept going back to another film (which I will not name here, but you might hear mentioned on the show) that was more “extreme.” That was literally all that was mentioned, how “extreme” it was. We heard nothing about how it was written or how it breathed new life into anything, just about the cool shit they did and how cool that shit really was. This is even more infuriating now as “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” was possible the most refreshing take on a tried genre I’ve ever seen. It transcended the earlier films in terms of emotional impact (given what I’ve heard), it went beyond basic creation myth, and it completely up ended the idea of the revenge film.

This movie is why I hate writing best of the year lists. Invariably there is one movie like that that I didn’t see until after the new year, when my list is already out, and I find myself completely reevaluating what I wrote. Make no mistake, this isn’t on my list, but it damned will should be. This, along with another I forgot to mention (Source Code), belong firmly in my top 5. No question. So if you think it looks like a stupid sci-fi piece that you couldn’t possibly be interested in, do yourself a favor and take a chance on it. Trust me when I tell you that it is well worth the time.

Captain America

When it comes to comic books there are two wildly different worlds: fans and outsiders. The distance between the two is so vast and rigid that they are essentially different species. The fans have their own language, customs, and lens for viewing popular culture. Even though there are different levels and faction, but they are all very much in the same camp.

This makes it kind of difficult to navigate the world of comic book films. They are made for everyone, but have to appease two completely disparate audiences. To outsiders comic book characters are top tier super heroes (Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The X-Men, Iron Man [as of the movies], The Hulk), recognizable ones you know nothing about aside from maybe their powers (Green Lantern, Daredevil, The Punisher, Captain America, Thor), and the completely obscure (Alpha Flight, Elektra, Iron Fist, etc.).

That’s how they break down in outsider circles. To insiders all of these characters are somewhat familiar. Hell, even the top tier ones are more familiar. I would wager that I was the only person at my advanced screening of X3 who knew, before seeing him, why Jamie Madrox could be problematic.

However, as I mentioned in my “X-Men: First Class” review, Hollywood is the girl who falls in love during the first date and knows that this relationship will last forever and never have any problems. Some comic movies started doing well, therefore everyone everywhere wants to watch comic book movies all the time and will never ever ever get tired of them. How do you balance the known with the unknown? Which will be popular?

For years all you could really count on were Superman, Batman, The Hulk, and Spider Man coming around every few years. Then, a few second tier properties became mainstream. X-Men was big in the insider world, but not really known outside of it. Then the movie hit and everyone was suddenly wise in the ways of mutants. People were aware of Iron Man, but probably couldn’t name Tony Stark until the Faverau movie came out.

There is always a gamble. Is this going to be the obscure property to break through?

I was a bit of a fringe outsider for years. There were a few books I read, mostly mainstream alternative titles, but just being part of the world forced an awareness that most outsiders don’t have. Suddenly I was aware of multiple human Green Lanterns. I knew that Hal Jordan was the holy grail, but that John Stewart was pretty popular, and that Kyle Rayner was pretty powerful. I know that there is little respect for Aquaman or Prince Nemor. For some reason I even know that Wolverine was a member of Alpha Flight for a while. It’s just a part of that world.

So, the recent spate of comic films has been… well, a bit perplexing to me. Having inside heroes like Green Lantern, Thor, and Captain America all come out in the same year just feels like stacking gamble on top of gamble.

I know very little about Captain America. Basically, I know that Steve Rogers was a physically weak man with an incredibly strong will and fierce sense of duty who becomes part of a military experiment to create a unit of super soldiers. The procedure is a success, but the scientist who perfected it is killed before any more people can undergo it. He goes against a villain named Red Skull, who is so named because he has one.

The only reason I know this is because I saw the 1990 direct to video disaster. That being my main background, my hopes were pretty low.

That being said, I was pleasantly surprised. Captain America: The First Avenger isn’t a Spider Man or Nolan Batman level success, but it is a fairly solid action movie with a lot of heart.

Chris Evans has done a good job moving beyond the wisecracking pretty boy roles he seemed destined to play. He delivers a fairly compelling performance as both the small and frail Steve Rogers and transitions that sense of fierce determination beautifully to the superhero persona.

Hugo Weaving nails it as Red Skull, but there isn’t really much surprise there. The rest of the cast is pretty spot on, especially Haley Atwell who comes off both stern and sensitive as Peggy Carter, one of the military liaisons to the Captain America project.

The CGI was not, thankfully, distractingly over the top as it is in most of the movies of this type. Yeah, there was no shortage of it, but it was reserved in usage.

All in all, I enjoyed it. The recruitment, training, the struggle to gain respect, the missions were all decently entertaining. But the ending got a bit wacky. Gratanted, we were dealing with a superhero film, so wackiness is something you kind of expect. But there is an actual story here that is told pretty well. This wasn’t just a collection of cool action scenes and impressive looking set pieces. The very ending was a bit much for me, but it did fit, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

In the end, Captain America isn’t a movie I will seek out to watch again, but I am by no means upset that I saw it. I only wish more productions took this angle, focusing on a person who goes on a journey based on decisions they made based on their established personality and not just some guy who can do cool things that a bunch of stuff happens to and near. But I realize that this is asking too much. So, enjoy one of the good ones and accept it for what it is and try not to worry too much about the upcoming sequels that will quickly choke out any and all good will you have towards it.

History has little use for third acts. Yes, things are always happening and then developing further complications, but real life feels no need to resolve things neatly. This isn't much of a problem in the study of history, but it really is when you are dealing with attempting to retell it in a dramatic sense.

It usually works best to allow enough time to pass for inaccuracies to be overlooked. That's why movies like "Braveheart," and shows like "The Tudors," work so well dramatically. There is little attention or care paid to history and a lot paid to drama.

So how do you handle an interesting true story that is less than 10 years old and doesn't really have much of a resolution?

This is the difficulty facing "The Devil's Double," and it is handled about as well as it could have been.

It is the story of a man chosen to be a double/decoy for Uday Hussein, the unstable son of Sadaam Hussein. It is a look at what happens when a sociopath is given a consequence free playground and how a person who is accustomed to a world that makes sense can become lost in it.

Dominic Cooper is absolutely amazing as both Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier who is pulled from his life and dropped into the most insanely decadant world imaginable, and as Uday, one of the most chillingly charismatic lunatics imaginable. He creates two completely unique people who exist on opposite sides of the moral spectrum. Latif is a moral man who is forced to endure, and in a way assist, Uday in his world where people are disposable playthings that are useful until they become boring. Uday is a spoiled child who has no regard, or even awareness, of other humans as anything other than things put there for his own amusement (the wedding scene is especially brutal). Cooper makes both completely real.

The first two thirds of the film are strong, very strong. But then it kind of falls apart, which is to be expected. You know how the story plays out, that Latif has to escape in order for his story to be told, and Uday has to live long enough to be killed in 2003, so much of the real dramatic tension leading to the climax is lost. Also, as Latif's real story was left somewhat open ended by history it is impossible to really put a dramatic release on the film without pulling an "Inglourious Basterds" and rewriting history, which goes against the purpose of this film.

What you are left with is a good film that doesn't really have a chance to rise above being good. The idea and set up is top notch and it is a fascinating look at a world that few of us could ever really imagine.

Remember that girl in high school who got “engaged” to her first boyfriend in the 10^th grade. Then they broke up and she was devastated. It was the worst break up in the history of break ups. But then she starts dating another guy in 11^th grade and after a month, guess what… she’s “engaged” again. Then a few months later she sets the record for worst break up ever a second time. This time she bemoans her “bad luck” with men. And next thing you know… she’s found the right guy!!! She’s engaged again and you know what’s coming this time.

Looking back you know what the future holds. She will get engaged 10 times before she gets married for the first time, then that will fail and she will get married again. Maybe one day she will find one that will stick, but you know that’s not very likely.

What does this have to do with movies? Well, Hollywood is a lot like that girl. Something comes out that does well and it is suddenly the greatest thing ever and nobody will ever get tired of it and they will make money doing it forever and ever and ever.

It’s happened more times than I can count. Hell, it’s happening now. 3D, reboots, gritty reboots, adaptations of teen novels, vampires, all of it. It’s happened before and it will happen again.

Probably the biggest one of the past ten years would be the comic book movie. Yeah, we’ve always had superhero movies, but they were, by and large, a novelty. Every few years they would roll one out and it would be met with moderate success or failure, but there was rarely (Tim Burton’s “Batman” aside) any big deal made about them.

Then at the turn of the century (sounds cool, doesn’t it?) 20^th Century Fox made a bold move and released an X-Men movie. Right off the bat there was concern from comic fans. This is one of the longest and most complexly layered comic universes out there. There are dozens of characters with multiple incarnations and near infinite storylines. How on earth could this hope to work?

Thing is, it did work. It worked quite well. This led to a seemingly unending stream of comic movies that looked kind of awesome at first. Led by X-Men and Spider Man, which were not only good movies, but were followed up by superior sequels. Yeah, there was a lot of crap, and crap with sequels and spin offs (did anyone really want or need Elektra?), but those two seemed bulletproof. Then part 3 of each rolled around and… things got strange.

Each franchise went in a wildly different way. Spider Man went scorched earth and straight up rebooted. X-Men decided to go into backstory.

Their first attempt, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a hot nightmare. Somehow they took the most popular and, arguably the most popular member of the team and reduced his back story to… I don’t even know what to call it. This was a character whose background was kept secret in comics for 27 years. At this moment I checked out.

So, when they announced X-Men: First Class, I was awash in apathy. They couldn’t handle the most interesting back-story and now they were going to muddy the waters with MORE people? I abstained.

Then, New Year’s Eve rolled around. My girlfriend was out of town and I came down with a touch of food poisoning and was facing a night alone on the couch. So I decided to hit up Red Box. The only things they had that interested me at all were “The Devil’s Double” (Review forthcoming), “Captain America”(Review forthcoming), and “X-Men: First Class” (whose inclusion on a lot of best of the year lists had gotten my attention).

I am so glad that I had what was, on the surface, the most depressing New Year’s Eve since 1999-2000 when I worked as a camera operator at a TV station that did a midnight broadcast, so as the rest of the world welcomed the new millennium I was one of ten people watching two very bored reporters discuss how nothing had really happened.

X-Men: First Class is a solidly made, entertaining film that shows an incredible amount of promise for any forthcoming films.

Origin stories are difficult because there needs to be a balance between the hero actually becoming the hero, and the hero actually doing something specific. You have to introduce a villain and make them real while incorporating the existing canon. It’s a difficult prospect that this film pulls off brilliantly.

In essence it is a three-tier creation story with a common villain. The first two creation stories are by far the most important to the X-Men world. We see the very different backgrounds of Charles Xavier (Professor X) and Eric Lensherr (Magneto). Charles grows up INCREDIBLY privileged. Early on he befriends Mystique and they grow up well educated, safe, and loved. We meet Eric shortly after the events that began the first X-Men movie, where he is ripped, screaming, from his parents arms at the gates of Auschwitz. His grows up tortured, exploited, and subjected to the worst of humanity.

Chance brings them together to face an enemy bent of the destruction of the planet and the subjugation of humanity. They join forces, and together create the third tier of the story by working with a group of young mutants, forming the first incarnation of the X-Men.

There is a lot more going on, but that’s the broad strokes of it.

This is a gutsy film. Magneto spends a large portion of the film as a sullen loner bent on vengeance. However, at no point is he painted as a cartoonishly evil stock villain. I found myself siding with him most of the time, and even if I didn’t side with him I understood why he was acting the way he was. This is no mean feat. Creating a villain, even the early stages, is difficult. Creating one that your audience can truly understand is nearly impossible. But they pull it off.

Charles is portrayed as an idealist who believes that mutants can work with humanity to better the world. Of course he does, this is a man who grew up with people being nice to him so naturally he things that people are inherently good.

Stuck between them is Mystique, who is struggling to find her identity. She was raised like Charles, but due to her appearance has always felt the sting of humanity’s fear and ugliness that Eric grew up with. Her relationship with Hank McCoy (Beast) provides the hear of the film, as they both question how to exist in a world that does not accept them as they struggle to accept themselves.

That is really the strength of this film. Yes, it deals brilliantly with the technical, nuts and bolts aspect of the creation story, but it makes it about more than just creating a team. The X-Men comic has always been about more than action and adventure. It has, at its heart, been about a struggle for acceptance (both external and internal), identity crisis, self-preservation, the dangers of extremism and racism, the search for commonality in a world of infinite diversity, and ultimately how to find peace in a world that doesn’t make sense. This film deals with all of these themes quite deftly. It’s never preachy, but it gets the point across.

Ever the optimist, there is a part of me that really hopes that this film is a new beginning for this type of film. That perhaps now quality will work its way into the product mill that is comic book film, and it might be. But if we are honest with ourselves, this probably won’t be the case. That being said, I am still very happy that we got this one, because no matter how bad the ensuing sequels (and we all know they are coming) may or may not be, at the very least we have one solidly entertaining and engrossing film. Those are far too hard to come by these days.

There are sports movies that aren’t really about sports. Some are pretty heavy handed about it, like “Remember the Titans” (racism is bad), others are more subtle, like “Million Dollar Baby,” (redemption), and others cast the sport in a very small supporting role, like “Brian’s Song” (the power of a friendship, and no I’m not crying the room is just dusty and I have allergies!).

Moneyball falls in the middle category. On the surface it is about the struggling Oakland A’s trying to compete against teams with much higher budgets. If taken just as that it’s a solid underdog sports film. However, if that’s all you get from it, you are missing a really fantastic and innovative movie.

Beyond the simple underdog angle this is the story of a man who challenged the very foundations of one of the pillars of America itself. Baseball doesn’t cotton to change. The idea of doing something new or different in baseball is… well, it’s easier to change the US Constitution. To give you an idea, the designated hitter (being able to substitute a person to hit in place of the pitcher without removing the pitcher from the game) was introduced in 1973, and there are still people who view it as cheating. Basically, you don’t mess with baseball.

So, when Oakland manager Billy Beane decides to go against 100 years of baseball tradition by ignoring the instincts of scouts in favor of a statistical approach… well, he would have been viewed more favorably had he killed someone on field during a game.

What makes the film so engaging is that it focuses on the drama of two outsiders who have the audacity to state that instead of signing players based on how nice their swing looks or how fluid their pitching motion is, that things like on base percentage, the ability to draw walks, or a low ERA might be a better barometer of potential.

Add to this innovative editing as well as striking visual and sound design and you have a solid and surprising film that is more reminiscent of “The Social Network” than any sports film.

Not only are the story and style outstanding, but also the performances are fantastic. Brad Pitt and Philip Seymour Hoffman the type of solid performance you have come to expect, and Jonah Hill gives by far the best performance of his career and shows that there is a lot more to him than his light comedy resume would lead you to believe.

It might sound like a dry film meant just for baseball fans, but I cannot stress enough how much more it is. This is a movie about what people can do if they just step back from the expected norms and stay true to their beliefs. Even if you don’t care for baseball that much, there is a lot going on here for you to enjoy.