Paul (2011)

Tagline: Who’s up for a close encounter?

Curiosity: My beloved BFFs Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are back! And they’re working with American laughmeisters like Seth Rogen, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, and Joe Lo Truglio.

Plot: Now that they’ve finally made it to America for Comic-Con, English sci-fi nerds Graeme (Pegg) and Clive (Frost) decide to celebrate by taking a tour of the country’s most famous UFO hotspots. Things quickly go awry, though. First they piss off some local rednecks (David Koechner, some other guy).

THEN THEY MEET A FRICKIN’ ALIEN NAMED PAUL (Rogen).

After befriending the eponymous Paul, Graeme and Clive decide to help him get back home, befriending the uber-Christian Ruth (Wiig) along the way.

Thoughts: I liked Paul. It’s not as consistently funny as Pegg’s most revered works (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), but it has a sweetness to it that compensates. The film is a love letter to science fiction, and Steven Spielberg in particular. Much like Pegg’s best work, Paul is stuffed with references to sci-fi’s finest moments.

That said, it drags a little in the middle. Wiig’s love interest Ruth doesn’t feel like a fully formed person. Her character ignites a debate about creationism versus science, which by association questions the existence of a God, but the movie can’t comfortably slip in such a Big Issue^TM comfortably. Paul stalls for a moment, but then picks back up once Ruth drops it.

Director Greg Mottola won me over with Adventureland, but I found myself constantly comparing him to Pegg and Frost’s good buddy Edgar Wright, who helmed that holy trinity of British comedy listed above. The film looks good overall and Paul looks great, but part of me wanted to see Wright’s take on the material, if only because I find his cinematography to be a little more compelling. Hot Fuzz had some amazing establishing shots and action scenes. Pegg and Frost have called Paul a tribute to America in addition to sci-fi, but Mottola doesn’t really do much with his sets. I didn’t get much American sentiment out of the film besides A) rednecks are c-c-c-crazy and violent and B) we totally have the best nerd culture.

Still, Paul is a nice balance between Pegg’s nerd love and Rogen’s crass druggy humor. It’s a little more dependent on familiarity with its references than Pegg’s other works (Hot Fuzz, for example, is a legitimately good buddy picture. It helps to be aware of Bad Boys II and Point Break, but it’s not essential), but the film covers such a great swath of sci-fi. It’s a cult movie for a quite sizeable cult.

Reflection: Blythe Danner is in this movie for like five minutes and she gets the two best jokes.

The Quiet Man (1952)

Tagline: Action...Excitement...Romance...Fill the Screen!

Curiosity: Irishmen engage in the longest fight scene committed to film (at the time).

Plot: Having retired from boxing after accidentally killing an opponent in the ring, wealthy Irish-American Sean Thornton (John Wayne) returns to his homeland in search of solace. He almost gets it when he marries the beautiful Mary Kate Danaher (Maureen O’Hara), until her brother Will (Victor McLaglen) refuses to pay her dowry. Determined to never fight again, Sean loses Mary Kate’s respect, throwing their sexy, sexy Irish marriage into jeopardy.

Will Will stop being such a dick? Will Sean kick his ass and/or get laid? Are any of these characters sober?

Thoughts: For St. Patrick’s Day, my fiancé and I decided to down some Smithwick’s and watch The Quiet Man. And eat pizza. Because pizza is awesome. The Quiet Man is awesome too.

I have some reservations about celebrating it for this blog, since the movie actually won two Oscars, but c’mon. Anyone who’s seen The Quiet Man will tell you that part of its charm comes from it being about barely functioning alcoholics with anger issues. Barely any of these characters have jobs. They just drink and argue six days a week (On the seventh day they go to mass). Shit, Wayne and O’Hara barely belong together – Mary Kate is batshit insane, freaking out with little provocation, while Sean tends to kick the crap out of her a lot, culminating in him dragging her five miles on foot. This is like a drunken Irish version of Taming of the Shrew. It does quiet her down, though.

Of course, it helps that John Ford was such a brilliant director. He and cinematographers Winton C. Hoch and Archie Stout won awards for their cinematography, and deservedly so. The Quiet Man explodes with bright colors, from the costumes to the sets to Maureen O’Hara’s gorgeous red hair. Watching O’Hara and Wayne court along Irish farmland is some of the most beautiful footage I’ve ever seen.

The Quiet Man is love letter to Ireland. Its characters are eccentric and inebriated, but dang it if they aren’t appealing too.

Reflection: John Wayne dragged Maureen O’Hara through sheep shit. Now that’s realism.

Ong Bak 3 (2011)

Tagline: Do that thing where you knee people in the face.

Curiosity: It’s the thrilling conclusion to the mighty Ong Bak 2.

Plot: Ong Bak 3 picks up where 2 left off, with Tien (Tony Jaa) getting carted off by Lord Rajasena’s (Sarunyu Wongkrajang) men. Rajasena has his bones broken and is about to Tien put to death when he escapes. While Tien heals, Rajasena has strange dreams about an usurper to the throne, eventually made manifest by an even badder bad guy named Demon Crow (Dan Chupong). DC kills just about everybody he comes in contact with. Meanwhile, Tien studies dance and grows a beard.

Thoughts: Considering the sequels have next to nothing to do with the original, Ong Bak would’ve been a questionable trilogy anyway. But at least the first two installments were solid throughout. 3 mucks up the plot considerably, to the point the film drags despite running only 95 minutes.

But here’s the thing: 3 gets a lot of stuff right. It shows Tien’s evolution as a fighter while wrapping up his personal growth from 2. It also slips in some Buddhist philosophy. Those scenes are slow too, but in a good way that should appeal to martial arts fans. But when those bits get mixed in muddled storytelling, the film falters. 3 introduces fantasy elements via the magical Demon Crow, but he jars with the film’s previous set tone of realism and attracts some lackluster special effects. The fight scenes are great; the CGI is not.

I have to believe that some elements were lost in translation, but the plot points of 3 comes off as uneven. Characters’ deaths are often underlit and barely remarked on. For a while, I forgot that I love Tony Jaa.

But the movie is nicely bookended by nice action sequences, and the final 20 minutes are just amazing. Though slightly tainted by bad CGI, 3 delivers some of Jaa’s most intricate stuntwork yet, with a whole slew of humans and elephants fighting all at once. It’s also some of Jaa’s most brutal choreography yet. While it’s a little disappointing coming after 2’s surprising emotional depth, Ong Bak 3 should still satisfy many a Jaa fan until the inevitable Ong Bak 4.

Reflection: I’m getting old. I had to break this movie up into three installments because I kept falling asleep around midnight.

Trapped (2002)

Tagline: It was the perfect crime… until she refused to be the perfect victim.

Curiosity: Charlize Theron and Courtney Love are the top two billed stars.

Plot: The Jennings family is ridiculously cute. Will (Stuart Townsend) is a jet pilot AND a doctor! Karen (Theron) is wicked hot and appears in magazines and stuff! Abby (Dakota Fanning) is cute and precocious just like every Dakota Fanning role ever! Yep, things are pretty spiffy for the Jenningseseseseses.

Then Joe Hickey (Kevin Bacon) roles up with a gun, kidnaps Abby, and tells Karen tough shit. To her face! If Karen and Will are going to get Abby back, they’ll have to follow Joe’s 24-hour schedule… and pay up $250,0000! And let Joe diddle Karen private bits at some point!

Courtney Love rolls up at some point and looks pretty beat up.

Thoughts: Tonight my fiancé and I decided to watch a movie together. This is sometimes a difficult task on account of our divergent tastes. She wanted to watch Love and Other Drugs because it had acting. I wanted to watch Unstoppable because it had Denzel Washington and Chris Pine fighting a train. We saw The Illusionist last night. I’ve gotten my share of culture for the week.

Ah, but then we spied Trapped. We both like Charlie Theron. We both tolerate Courtney Love. And the thought of Theron beating the snot out of Kevin Bacon in the final quarter sounded promising. Not so.

Trapped consistently piles on scenarios to drag out its running time, with the kidnappers constantly bungling the job. The film reminds us constantly that they’ve ransomed four other kids prior to Abby, but offers little proof in terms of capability. Bacon and Love’s characters fail to properly research the family they’re attacking. Karen keeps coming up with ways to stop them (including holding Kevin Bacon’s wiener hostage!), only to smack her down so as to pad the film. A late period revelation about Joe similarly extends the story longer than it needs to go.

Speaking of padding the film, Townsend’s character is kind of superfluous. Theron does all the legwork. But he does get locked in a room with Love. Now that’s the real crime.

Reflection: This movie taught me that you can hide a scalpel in your butt.