July 1: A Cat in Paris/Une vie de chat (2010 -- Jean-Loup Felicioli & Alain Gagnol)

★★★

While some theaters this summer have shown images of an exploding TV to counter-attack against watching movies at home, a film like A Cat in Paris is a much more persuasive argument.  The rich color, smart imagery, and unique instability of frame-to-frame animation in this little movie are as strong an argument for the big screen as need be made.  

In fact, I would have almost been content with no dialog at all in this visionfest of a film.  Nearly every unique frame is interesting and engaging, whether it’s the images of characters dancing across rooftops and up gutters or fantasy scenes of a menacing octopus or a rampaging African figurine.  The animation of night, when most of the film occurs, lets the artists create contrast and shadows that give the film depth.  In fact, I almost mistook the opening for 3-D.  Many of the images have witty content, too.  There’s a clever reference to the cat and the moon, and the tour-de-force ending has an intelligent reference to King Kong as well as kung fu movies and Victor Hugo.  In the fluid freedom that directors Felicioli and Gagnol find in this animation, a long-suffering pooch experiences visually-varied ways to suffer, and character movement is more a flow than a mechanical change of position.  The film’s wit and freedom are on special display in a night scene where characters in the dark are at first invisible, then seen from the cat’s perspective as outlines, then seen as Picasso-like shapes as the outlines shift.  And throughout the film, the hand-drawn frames fail to match up exactly, giving the film a continually changing, unstable quality even as the overall gist of the action remains quite clear.  A Cat in Paris is a visual delight.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some problems here.  The tone of the film is uneven, jumping too quickly from one extreme emotion to another.  This is especially true of the mother and of Costa, the villain.  In fact, Costa is even distracting at times, stretching out his rants a bit too long and raving unimpressively.   And not only is Costa not up to par, but the film starts grinding gears when he’s on screen too long.  His pursuit of Zoe could have been another of the several intense, bravura set pieces of the film, but Costa stops the scene and dilutes its energy with a silly berating of one of his hapless flunkies.  And this gang of accomplices adds little humor or sympathy as a whole.

I also wondered if there’s a problem with the translation.  I watched the English version of the film, and some of the lines had the awkward feeling of animee translations.  And most of the English vocal talent lacks the range that might complement the visuals of the movie.  I especially wonder whether the failure of Costa for me is actually the failure of voice actor JB Blanc.

Despite these problems of tone, range and pacing, A Cat in Paris is a very worthwhile investment of time.  The visuals and the intelligence of the animation more than compensate for whatever other directorial misjudgments there are.

June 30: Moonrise Kingdom (2012 -- Wes Anderson)

★★★★★

June 23: I Wish/Kiseki (2011 -- Hirokazu Kore-eda)

★★★★★

June 20: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012 -- John Madden)

★★★

Susan K. and I, a neo- and proto-retiree, decided to check out the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for a weekday afternoon show, and we found the theater fairly crowded.  With similar moviegoers.  That’s the demographic for this fun film, and it punched all our buttons.

Not far into the film, I realized I’d seen it before.  Marigold Hotel is that movie that is set in a college dorm or among a group of college friends who are discovering themselves and having new life experiences, films like Cédric Klapisch’s L'auberge espagnole.  In Marigold Hotel, though, the characters are late middle-aged, and instead of transitioning into adulthood, they’re moving into late adulthood.  The key to this film is that its characters are going through the same process as those in the 20-somethings’ films, but these older people have a different context for their discoveries about life.  Some here have lost spouses and find themselves alone for the first time, making their own way in the larger world alone.  Some have to learn how to meet others and start relationships, while others have to come to the recognition that the relationship they have isn’t functional.  They cope with money problems, and since they’re in India, they have to learn how to deal with the large, unfamiliar world.  There’s even a gay character coping with coming out to his peers while also dealing with some unresolved issues from his past.  Change the age of the characters, and the film has the familiar feel of a group of young adults discovering the world.

A big part of the pleasure here is the way the maturity and life experience of the Marigold Hotel residents affects how they cope with their life discoveries.  Each of the characters has his own arc and each brings along the wisdom of a life lived, so although characters find surprises as they grow, they all have a lot of knowledge to use and to share.  They help the young hotel owner with his own transition into adulthood, and they apply the skills they’ve learned in their lives to improve the situations they find themselves in.  Marigold Hotel’s wisdom is in this point: The characters accept the challenge of a new environment and thus experience growth, but they have the wisdom of a lifetime to use, a tool not available to younger characters in films about young adults.  Of course, those young adults don’t have death quite as near or present, either.

This is a fun movie.  The TV background of director John Madden shows in many elements of the film: The story is conventional, and there aren’t a whole lot of surprises.  But Marigold Hotel is a film about personal growth and having life-changing experiences, and it refreshing to see that opportunity offered to older characters.

June 17: The Avengers (2012 -- Joss Whedon)

★★★

The Avengers is exactly what it needs to be—a summer movie with great special effects, a story that moves along clearly and quickly, a collection of mono-dimensional characters whose speech varies from witty repartee to patriotic platitudes.   There are clever variations on old-time technology, like the flying aircraft carrier, as well as amazing alien technology, like the Chitauri creature-machines who come to earth to destroy it.  The story engages as it splits into multiple scenes of recruitment, defeat and victory with director Joss Whedon all the while managing to keep the various story strands coherent, clear and related.  With a cast and story this big, that’s an achievement.  And the distinctive dialog and mannerism of each Avenger lends itself to a certain predictable but pleasant set of interactions.  Iron Man’s smart assness grates on Captain America, and Thor’s Shakespeare contrasts mightily to The Hulk’s inarticulateness.

All these formulaic elements come together surely in The Avengers, and the movie is as pleasing as a ride at Six Flags.  You don’t take much away from it when the ride ends, but it’s fun while you’re there.

June 10: A Night to Remember (1958 -- Roy Ward Baker)

★★★  

June 9: Prometheus (2012 -- Ridley Scott)

★★★

Prometheus is a very different movie from Alien.  A lot of fans are complaining that Prometheus takes on so much explanatory detail that it is confusing and ultimately doesn’t make sense. And that all the detail dilutes the thrills.  I wouldn’t totally disagree with that opinion, but if you just look at the broad brushstrokes, this is still a fun summer movie with outstanding special effects.

The visuals are very well thought out and wonderful to watch in 3D.  Prometheus has the same vast scale of Alien, the same claustrophobia, and the same stark lighting.  Dusty scenes that are cut through with searchlights and flashlights create depth and scale and give the visuals a plausible feel. There are quotes and echoes of Alien throughout. The angular bulkheads of the first movie look familiar here, and so do the helmeted spacesuits with their camera feeds and interior lights.  

On the other hand, transparent circuit boards seem to have replaced the tubes and wires of the older film, and this small difference in design points to the large difference in the two movies: Alien is a simple horror flic that uses its sets to add to the viewers’ tension, while Prometheus has moved away from horror in pursuit of larger sci-fi themes.  Unfortunately, it’s this move toward greater sci-fi that complicates and ultimately undercuts the film.

Seen in a large perspective, Prometheus starts with a slow development and gets more and more intense as the stakes and the violence rise.  A lot like Alien.  But Prometheus also becomes more dilute as it adds layers of complication like the subplot of Weyland appearing on the Prometheus and the seemingly gratuitous references to Lawrence of Arabia (and why was Charlise Theron’s character even in the movie?).  But the more the dilution increases, the more the film loses energy and coherence.  If you eventually begin to question the motivation for some of the actions in the film, Prometheus loses the amiable unity you’re willing to grant it in pursuit of your cinematic thrills, and you have to resort to thinking that you liked it despite it's finer incoherence, which is my conclusion.

Prometheus might be on the path to becoming the poster movie for those postmodern film theorists who say films don’t need to be coherent to be good.  Michael Bay regularly puts together incoherent action scenes to create chases and fights, but Prometheus does this on a larger scale by putting characters and events together without the tight logic of a traditional story.  But whether postmodern or just badly scripted, with its great visuals and larger story structure, Prometheus is still a fun way to spend a couple of summer hours.