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Cars 3 (2017)
Mary Sue Becomes A Racer
This was a completely disappointing effort. I think we have to acknowledge that Pixar's tank is empty at this point. It was a very muddled, confused story, with minimal plot, just a few set pieces strung together.
I appreciate Lightning's character arc, but it didn't pay off. OK, he's getting old, starting to get beat by the younger, higher tech cars. Interesting premise. At the beginning, they ignore the idea that cars can actually change their tech - could Lightning try to "get in shape" by improving his aerodynamics, suspension, handling, etc.? No, he just gets old and gets bypassed.
And he's aided by a "trainer" who expects to get him ready for a race in just a couple weeks, by putting him on a 5 MPH treadmill. She's pretty inept, I expected her to get thrown by the wayside.
BUT WAIT! The inept trainer is actually a racer! Who's never raced before? But, a day racing on the beach, a night on a moonshine run, and a few days on a dirt track, and a demolition derby, make it clear to us that this is now a main character. A boring, predictable, main character.
SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING HERE.
And the final twist is the most unrealistic thing I have seen in a movie in years, I can't understand how this made it past the first draft of the script. You know how, if you don't run any qualifying heats, you get to race in the championship, you just have to start last? No?
You know how, in a marathon, they just let anyone trade numbers, and the person finishing the race is not the person who started? Really, you don't? And how you can just pick someone out of the crowd to finish the race for you, they don't have to be on your team, or regulated in any way by the race? You don't? Well, the writers of this movie know all those things.
You know how, if you have no idea about the rules of a game or sport, and you try to write a movie about it, you risk making something completely unrealistic, that takes the audience out of its suspension of disbelief entirely? The writers of the movie never heard that rule either. And the movie ends on this absolutely farcical idea, which is awful. Even worse, Lightning's story arc is resolved in an unsatisfying way, and Cruz's story arc was set up so inartfully that it basically means nothing to her. And it certainly meant nothing to me as a viewer.
Still, better than Cars 2.
A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
When you're panning for gold, sometimes you come up empty.
Watching an Altman movie is like panning for gold; other people may have been in the same stream, some find riches, some find nothing at all. You can't just stand there and let it wash over you, you have to work to find the valuable stuff sifted from the stream. Sometimes (MASH, The Long Goodbye, Gosford Park), just about everyone is able to fill their pockets with nuggets, sometimes (Dr T, The Company), you can plunge back into the stream over and over again, and all you come up with is sand from the river bed. This one has some really great stuff in it, but I'm afraid that Altman released the floodgates, and covered up what could have been a gold rush of treasure (a good script, great actors, an interesting situation), drowning it with nothing but babbling brook.
The Aristocrats (2005)
A Narrative Arc Mirroring the Joke Arc; A Comedy Film for Jazz Lovers
It's all about the journey. To me, the interesting thing about "The Aristocrats" is that the film in many ways mirrors the joke. In getting comedians to tell the joke, talk about the history of the joke, discuss the mechanics of the joke, and finally reflect on the sociopolitical implications of the joke, Penn and Provenza have created a story which, like its subject matter, is more about the telling than about the punchline.
Of course, the movie is screamingly funny. It's an attempt to get people who are funny on stage and on camera to show us a little of who they are around their buddies, and there are some exhilarating moments. Those who are complaining about the editing should look at the DVD extras; there's a lot of material on the cutting room floor, and what they put on the screen is for the most part the best. Other critics who are offended by the language or the subject matter are missing the point completely: of course rape, incest, scatology, bestiality, and other concepts introduced into "the aristocrats" joke are wrong; if they weren't taboo, the funny would be lessened. There's an overtly spoken need for the joke to be as offensive as possible, and when something has been around for this long, playing "can you top this?" becomes an attempt to scale Mount Offensive and then launch into the Offensive Stratosphere. The implicit assumption is that the audience is hipper than the public at large, and needs more "shock value" to actually be shocked. Reviewers who are indeed shocked by hearing the story told place themselves in the out group automatically, and in my opinion disqualify themselves from presenting an objective review.
One of the most counterintuitive things about the joke, and by extension the whole film, is that the ending is a deflation rather than a real punch line. This is exemplified by the two comics who do a reversal, Wendy Liebman who describes the act as a genteel family being served afternoon tea by their staff of servants, calling their act "The C---sucking Motherf---ers", or the comedian I can't identify who describes "three women of color" who play classical music and do fine art and call themselves "The N----- C--ts". THOSE are punchlines. The standard form of the joke is all delivery, and it's malleable to an infinite degree, even to the point where comics riff on the metajoke ("Why isn't the agent calling the cops?"), or profess mock (or real) disgust at the existence of the joke itself, or deconstruct the punchline itself, trying to come up with a funnier or more relatable name for the act, or modifying the physical delivery of the punchline. That was the fascinating thing to me. They talked about Coltrane a lot, or different musical groups playing "Tambourine Man", and to me the joy in this film was the same joy as listening to a jam session with dozens of great musicians, aping each other, riffing, echoing, quoting, playing together, playing a capella, making the song their own.
But of course, many people like pop and not jazz, and many people like sitcoms and not comedy, and this is not a movie for everyone, but the sheer virtuosity of it was enough for me to recommend it very highly.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Guy In The Hat Killed The Other Guy In The Hat
OK, I was prepped by countless 4/4 or 10/10 reviews to see a masterpiece. What I saw was basically meh. Not much action, not much mystery, not much motivation, not much plot. I mean, the story is so straightforward, if you can't figure out who did what by the time you've met three main characters (there are only five), then you are probably living in the 1940's and have never seen a detective movie.
The love story was scotch-taped on, and completely unconvincing: "I just met you" "I am interested by you" "You are the love of my life". Sorry, doesn't work, doesn't really even make sense. And the ending? Pathetic, lengthy, and pointless, as process of elimination (again, there are only five characters, and when the police question Spade about the murder, the obvious red herring immediately narrows the field even further) makes the whodunit part not only predictable, but inevitable.
The whole movie boils down to people relating tales of what they have done, but not actually doing anything. It's not much more complex than if the characters were to be filmed reading the original novel word for word. Sorry, I love the genre, I love Bogart, but this one was so simplistic as to verge on childish, and I have no idea what everyone was watching who praise this movie so highly.