Piranha 3D

People come up to me all the time and ask "Tony, why do write your blog?" Is it for the money, the women, the overwhelming sense of machismo? And each time, I look them straight in the eye and say the exact same thing – "How dare you talk to me." Then, having sufficiently scolded them, I go on to answer their question. "No, the reason I write this blog is for the same reason anyone writes a blog – to save lives."

And lately it has come time my attention that there is a clear and present danger that threatens our summer fun. This threat can turn an innocent beachside wet T-shirt contest into a bloody, gory massacre in minutes. This threat is of course, prehistoric piranhas which were trapped in a subterranean lake and recently released after seismic activity created a portal to the earth's surface. It's a story as old as time.

But after watching Alendre Aja's Piranha in 3D, I feel like I am now something of a piranha survival expert. And since being attacked by these prehistoric killers is a matter of when and not if, I feel like it is my duty to once again use my writing to save lives. Here is EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SURVIVING A PREHISTORIC PIRANHA ATTACK.

1. Piranhas, like early 80's slasher villains, have a very strict moral code. I can't be sure what denomination they are (Could be Lutherans but I'm thinking Methodists) but piranhas will not stand for consuming alcohol, dancing suggestively to hip hop music, foul language, or premarital relations of any kind. And what they really hate is public nudity. One can only assume that being trapped in a subterranean lake for millions of years has given them time to develop a very strong moral code. In any event, it seems that if you engage in any kind of risqué behaviour, you will be devoured by piranhas. Only the good will survive. So if you're Billy Joel, surviving a piranha attack may seem counter-intuitive.
   

   
    

2. You're going to need a bigger boat. The opening scene of the movie features a character named Matt who looks a lot like the Matt from another monster-in-the-water movie. This Matt is fishing in the middle of the lake when he his flung from his boat and devoured by a pack of piranha's. We learn right away that piranhas hunt in packs. Not unlike those douche bags on Jersey Shore. And because they attack in such great numbers no small watercraft will keep you safe. Many times people tried to flee in small boats and every time they wound up eaten. To be really safe you want to make sure you are on something the size of a cruise ship. Just make sure it's not a celebrity cruise ship or you might encounter the only thing worse than prehistoric piranha – those douche bags from Jersey Shore.
   

   
    

3. Hand-to-hand combat is not recommended when fighting piranhas. This may seem like common sense but too many characters perished by trying to fight off the piranhas with blunt instruments with not much success. You could be like the Ving Rhames character and find yourself grabbing an outboard motor and using the propeller as a weapon. This could have been successful but Ving made the classic mistake of yelling "Choke on this Motherf**kers" as he was fighting them. As we established in survival tip #1, piranhas don't care much for the salty talk. Sadly, there was only one way this was going to end and this is the last we saw of Ving.
   

Look, I could go on but I think you get the point. The truth is that developing a survival strategy against prehistoric piranhas is really the only reason to go see this movie. I was hoping for so much more and found myself underwhelmed when I left the theatre. Not because there was too much cheese and gore but rather because there was not enough cheese and gore.

I thought this was going to be a throwback to the old drive in 3D monster movies. It would be wall to wall, over the top scenes of killer piranhas attacking unsuspecting boaters and swimmers. Instead they took the same approach as Jaws and only gave us a dabbling of piranha attacks in the first half of the movie. Aja must have figured this would be a nice build up to the feeding frenzy that takes place for the last 25 minutes of the film. He could not be more wrong.

I think there may have been two scenes of piranha attacks in the first hour of this movie. So if there weren't piranha attacks, what was in the first hour of the movie? The answer is character and storyline introductions that lead to nowhere. We meet Sherriff Julie (Elizabeth Shue) whose job it is to keep the area safe during Spring Break. She finds the half-eaten body of Matt and wants to shut down the beach but is reminded this is the busiest time of the tourist season. Sound familiar? But instead of developing this as a fully fleshed out storyline, this is the last we hear of it.

We also meet hall of fame sleaze peddler Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) whose 'Wild Wild Girls website is not even thinly veiled as Joe Francis' Girls Gone Wild site. O'Connell does a great job of playing this sleaze-bag whose only function in the movie is to be a reason to have hot topless women on the screen. If you want to do that, fine. But why spend all the time setting up the relationship between Jones and Julie's son Jake (Steven McQueen (yes, grandson)). Jones appears like he's going to be a mentor figure for the shy Jake but again, this storyline goes nowhere.

Even worse is there is no third act. The way they neutralize the threat was accidental more than planned. And it wasn't necessary in the escape scene in which it took place. It's like they had no way of ending it and threw something in that was really nonsensical.

The only reason why I am deconstructing character motivations and storylines in a 3D Piranha movie was because the filmmakers made the mistake of introducing them for the first half of this film. The big scene late in this movie is fun and is the reason why someone would pay money to see it. So my point is why hold it back to the end? It should have been like that all the way through. Because if you try to pass this off as a regular film with characters and storylines, you have to make it make sense.

And when these don't make sense, it makes me so mad I want to curse a blue streak. But I don't. Why?

PIRANHAS DON"T CARE FOR THE SALTY TALK.

People you have to learn the rules. It will save your life one day.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Here are three ways the world has gotten worse and not better in the past 15 years:

1. We live in a world where "The Situation" has more adulation and recognition than David Mamet. To fully explore the degree to which this is a crime against humanity would require more time and words than I could possibly muster right now.
   
2. It is now considered bad form to ask people out on dates either in person or on the phone. Today's kids believe it is to be done over text or email so as not to put the other person on the spot. Maybe one day we will get to the point where we can completely remove all genuine human interaction from our daily lives.
   
3. Filmmaker's today seem to believe that style is a legitimate substitute for story. It used to be that to be a wildly successful film, you had to craft a meaningful story to engage an audience to get them to keep coming back. Then Pulp Fiction (1994) happened and with it came a generation of directors who seemed more concerned with creating a slick, stylistic film than telling a great story.
   

And it is this last point that has caused the most consternation over recent years. It seems like time after time after time, I would come out of a theatre after seeing one of these slick, stylistic exercises in cinematic masturbation and think "How great could that have been if they combined that style with story? What would you get if one day someone had the crazy idea to tell a well crafted story with a fresh stylistic approach?"

The answer is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

This is a movie that is clearly targeted to a specific generation. The entire motif of the film is an homage to the Nintendo and X-Box fighting games that were ubiquitous in the 1990's and 2000's. The opening shot of the Universal Logo is done as if it done on the Nintendo gaming system circa 1990. Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) got permission to use the music from the game The Legend of Zelda (1986) because he believed it to be "The nursery rhyme of this generation."

So this film comes flying out of the gate with so many stylistic devices that speak to the MTV and video game generation that I'm bracing myself for another style-over-substance piece of dreck. I am almost white-knuckling the arm rests waiting for the combination of despair and anger to begin to wash over me. And even though I am being bombarded with cuts so quick it is difficult to keep track of what is real and what is fantasy, a strange realization starts to take hold of me. It occurs to me, I am not hating this movie. And here's why.

Just underneath the very stylized surface of this film is a story about a lost and adrift youth named Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who plays in a garage band and spends time with his Asian pseudo girlfriend named Knives (Ellen Wong). Scott keeps having these dreams where he sees this pink haired beauty named Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who all but ignores him completely even in his own dreams. Then one night at a party, he sees this same girl and approaches her and awkwardly and clumsily asks her out. He is of course blown off completely but it doesn't dissuade him from making it his mission to win her over.

Now right here, despite all the video game gimmicks, they have cleverly set up a classic boy meets girl story. Due in large part to the boyish charm of Michael Cera, we like Scott and want to see him develop something with Ramona.

So we have the classic set up. Now to fully realize a second act, we're going to need a series of obstacles and challenges that our protagonist must overcome to succeed in his mission. And this is where this film really pays off in merging the style with substance. Because instead the obstacles being the nauseating and tiresome teen angst that makes you want to poke out both your eyes with sharpened number 2 pencils (Twilight series, call your office) this film establishes Ramona's exes as the obstacles Scott must overcome.

One by one, Scott faces one of her seven exes and must fight them in a Mortal Combat style. It is during these fight scenes where we get the full effect of the video game style. But it works brilliantly because only through this style would we accept it as being believable. And it makes the fighting fun without seeming gory and violent. In each battle Scott must find a new and ingenious way to overcome these stronger and more powerful enemies.

Across the board the cast did a great job at making these characters fantastical yet believable at the same time. Cera and Winstead are very compelling in their respective roles but it was relative newcomer Ellen Wong who really impressed me with her portrayal of Knives. With this character she takes her from shy Asian school girl to badass martial arts fighter. At the same time she needs to uphold the critical third part of the romantic triangle that evolves between Scott, Ramona, and Knives. This romantic triangle is so well executed that even at the very end, I was not sure either who Scott would end up with or who he should end up with.

Perhaps the greatest achievement Edgar Wright boasts in this film is turning the final showdown between the hero and antagonist into a genuinely suspenseful and anticipated event rather than the usual eye-rolling bore. When Scott faces off against Gideon, we want to see him kick some ass. This segment provides enough genuine surprises to keep it fresh and interesting.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World succeeds by complimenting style with story. It is fun and fresh and certainly worth checking out in the theatre. It is probably the best date movie out in the theatres right now.

Should you want to bring a date, whatever you do – do not ask them in person. That is so 1998!

 

 

Rejuvenated and Rededicated

To the readers of this blog I have one thing to say – I am back and better than ever. One of those is actually true. I don't know if anyone missed reading this review blog while I was gone but I assure you I missed writing it. And so I return with a set schedule for upcoming blogs. From here on in you will find regular postings on Wednesday mornings and Friday afternoons.

The Friday afternoon review will be the biggest film of the weekend. The one you are most likely considering seeing that weekend. The Wednesday review will be whatever I felt like seeing the previous day.

If you have suggestions for movies you'd like reviewed, feel free to let me know either on Facebook, Twitter, or in the comments section of the latest review.

Tune in first thing Wednesday morning for the next review – Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

The Switch

It has been three months and seven days since my last written review. That is 99 days in total. I apologize to my massive fan base (don't snicker, they could be out there) for my lengthy absence but I have been busy working on my own movie and TV stuff. So what cinematic achievement brought me out from my self-imposed exile? What could be so remarkable that I had to share my views with the world? Only one of the rarest phenomenons found on this earth.

First, let me give you some context. Here are some things that are incredibly rare in ascending order of rarity:

 

1. Ice Circles – This is a real thing, check it out here http://videosift.com/video/Ice-Circle-Extremely-rare-cold-weather-phenomenon
   

   
    

2. A Blue Sun – Now before you think I'm making this up take a look for yourself http://hubpages.com/hub/Blue-Sun---A-rare-phenomenon-captured-at-the-Pyramids-in-Egypt
   

   
    

3. The Udumbara Flower – according to Buddhist scripture blossoms every 3000 years before the coming of the next Buddha or Tathagata. I don't have a link for this but trust me, it is pretty rare.
   

   
    

But only one thing on this planet is more scarce than a profit-predicting flower found once every 3000 years and that is…the pretty good Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy. Faithful readers of this blog (seriously, again with the snickering?) will recall that back in March I predicted that the Jennifer Aniston vehicle The Bounty Hunter would kill the Romantic Comedy genre for good. Let's not forget that her other Rom Coms include: Love Happens, Rumour Has It, Along Came Polly, and Picture Perfect just to name a few.

So who exactly is picking these scripts for her? The only people more out of touch than her career advisers are LeBron James' PR team. I wouldn't have been surprised to see her on a one hour special on The E Network announcing "I'm taking my talents to The Switch". But in the face of history and the natural order of the universe, The Switch is a fun, enjoyable, and dare I say, touching film. So the burning question is WHY? The answer may surprise you.

The Switch is a comedy from the directing team of Josh Gordon and Will Speck (Blades of Glory) based on the short story by Jeffery Eugenides. Eugenides is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer so even without having read the short story, I'm going to go ahead and assume they had some strong story material from which to begin. The premise of the switch is that 40 year-old Kassie (Aniston) decides that she is going to have a baby despite not having a man in her life. The closest thing to a man in her life is her best friend Wally Mars (played brilliantly by Jason Bateman) who we know right away is in love with her. Kassie finds Roland (Patrick Wilson) a handsome Ken doll type to be the sperm donor. Of course things go comically awry when Wally accidently destroys Roland's specimen and, in a drunken haze, replaces it with his own. Flash ahead seven years and Kassie calls Wally out of the blue to tell him she and her son Sebastian (Thomas Robinson) are moving back to the city. When Wally meets Sebastian for the first time, he can't help but notice the similarities and, in time, realizes what happened. But how can he tell Kassie without losing her from his life?

Now if we stop right here, we can see that we have a fairly contrived comedic premise that appears to promise broad, over-the top gags and almost no genuine character development. And yet that's not at all what we get so again, the question is why? Much of the answer can be found within the two leads themselves.

Where this film succeeds where The Bounty Hunter failed is in the casting of Jennifer Aniston's love interest. In the Bounty Hunter, Gerard Butler was way over the top trying to wring big laughs out of every situation. He doesn't get many comedies and it seems like he was trying to get all of his comedic abilities out in one fell swoop. But here Jason Bateman does what he does best – play a character with understated charm that makes us feel like we are watching a real person rather than a stock sit-com character. As Wally, he is a neurotic, self absorbed man-child who doesn't have the courage to tell Kassie how he really feels for her. He doesn't play him for laughs but instead, holds back, giving the character real vulnerability.

And because Bateman is brilliantly understated, this allows Aniston to be portrayed in the best possible light. When she doesn't have to match Gerard Butler's frantic comic energy she can be the best version of herself as an actress. Don't mistake the opening of this review as Jennifer Aniston bashing. I think she is a tremendous talent. One need only see her in Friends With Money or The Good Girl to see just how great she can be. And here we get a glimpse of this again. (Minor Spoiler Alert) In the scene when Wally finally tells her the truth about being Sebastian's real father the camera stays on her reaction. We wait for her to get angry or sad or any other one note emotion. Instead her face reflects a combination of anger and sadness and a little bit of relief at the same time. It is this kind of depth that makes us keep coming back to her movies.

But perhaps the real secret to the success of The Switch is that the relationship that captures our attention is not that of Wally and Kassie but rather that of Wally and Sebastian. Robinson is amazing at matching Bateman's gloomy neurotic energy. As the movie progresses we see not only them becoming closer but more importantly, how they influence change in each other for the better. This relationship saves the film from having to go through the clichéd pitfalls of the boy-girl plotlines.

Alas, The Switch does have its missteps. After going almost the whole movie avoiding unmotivated and nonsensical character choices, we have the first encounter between Kassie and Wally after the truth has come out. I thought the last 10 minutes of the film was the ending to another, less sharp film. It left me a little uneasy but was not enough to ruin the movie for me. I just wish they would have worked a little harder at showing us why Kassie does what she does.

Don't expect this film to be single out on Oscar night but if you want to see a fresh, fun Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy, I would suggest you check it out. After all, how often do these come around?

By my count, once in a blue sun.