GOUGE AWAY

I sat on my butt and watched a ton of movies over the winter break. Here’s a quick review of each of them!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011)

I had really intended to see this movie in the theatres, but it just never transpired. I heard tons of good things about this movie, and I was excited to finally see it. And honestly…it kind of fell flat for me. The acting and casting was great — Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving were both great. And the message it sends about compassion and heart over brute strength is really well done. The first act of the movie (up to and including Cap’s transformation) is awesome: it’s when the movie really “begins” that complaints begin to arise.

For one, there’s only one real fight scene where it’s just Cap: there’s A LOT of just general WWII battle scening, which definitely can be good (see Saving Private Ryan, etc.). but it’s played as filler here and it’s obvious that its filler: it feels more like I’m watching a generic WWII movie than a superhero flick. It reminds me of the first Transformers movie where Optimus Prime doesn’t show up until halfway through the movie. On a similar note, Red Skull SUCKS in this movie. I know that Captain America is supposed to easily conquer the Nazis blah blah blah, but especially when you have /the/ most perfect actor playing the part, it’s such a shame to see him woefully underused. There’s actually a scene halfway through the movie or so where Red Skull punches Cap across a room, and it’s awesome and builds for a great fight scene at the movie’s climax. Except the final confrontation between them sucks. Captain America kicks Red Skull’s ass no problem — largely because Red Skull doesn’t even attempt to fight back, and when he does, it’s with weaponry that’s clearly ineffective. And maybe there was a fight scene that got edited out at the end or something, but my point is, wouldn’t you have liked to see a fight between two Super Soldiers? I know I would’ve.

This movie ultimately felt like filler for the upcoming Avengers movie (even moreso than Thor). If you want to be up to date on the Marvel movie universe, you’ll enjoy it, but don’t get your hopes up any more than that.

ANIMAL FARM (1954)

A classic animated film on one of my favorite books written by Orwell. The cheesiness/over the top nature of animation at that time period really works to the film’s advantage ,and in many ways it feels like a classic propaganda piece. The voice acting is top notch, and although there’s an omniscent narrator, there’s large portions of the story told purely through the animation, which is awesome. The film does have its cutesy moments, but it’s not afraid to be dark or scary when the story requires it to.

There’s not much point in reviewing the story, because it’s a pretty black-and-white retelling of Orwell’s novel: if you like the book, I can’t see you not liking the movie.

FORKS OVER KNIVES (2011)

This movie is a documentary that explains and analyzes the benefits of a whole foods diet (which, in the movie’s universe, is somewhere between a vegetarian and a ‘paleo’ style diet). It does a really good job of explaining the effect nutrition has on one’s health, as well as taking a non-Americancentric view of things by analyzing the culinary practices of several different countries. It uses the careers of two scientists as its basis, but you get a wide range of interviewees, so it never feels bogged down by too little or too much scientific/nutritional mumbo jumbo.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it feels like it’s made more for people who already eat a whole foods diet and are just looking for a film that will pat them on the back, more than enlighten anyone who doesn’t. Comparing this film to something like Supersize Me, Supersize Me did a lot of analysis on WHY McDonalds food is so bad for you, as well as addressing larger financial and cultural implications. In Forks Over Knives, a whole foods diet is praised as heaven on earth, but it’s never really explained enough to help viewers understand what it consists of, without using secondary sources — and yes, I know that they DO give a definition in the film, but it’s so fleeting and sporadically placed that you’ll miss it if you blink. It’s true that it’s not the most difficult concept in the world to grasp, but if you’re going to spend your entire documentary talking about something, it’s never a bad idea to firmly define the parameters of what it is you’re talking about.

I don’t know if I’d call this a bad documentary per se, but I’d recommend looking around a bit if you want to watch a food documentary.

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967-1975 (2011)

I don’t know if I’d say this is an informative documentary on the subject (which is the American Black Power movement) because I really know dick-all about it beyond its existence, but it’s certainly a good jumping off point. It gives you the name of many notable figures and actions within the movement, and explains what a person’s actions meant then as well as now. It’s also an awesome film from an artistic standpoint: the juxtaposition of old b/w footage and voice overs of recent reflections work really well here, and the footage and audio captured by the Swedish reporters is top notch.

It suffers from its limitations of only being able to cover the time span that the available footage covers. It does somewhat circumvent this issue by switching between perspectives, but like I said earlier, if it’s not something you’re already knowledgeable about, this movie is not really going to help you out. It’s relatively short at 72 minutes, so if civil rights history and/or politics is something that interests you, I’d definitely recommend it.

THE FOX AND THE HOUND (1981)

I also had no idea there were so many big name voice actors in this movie. Huh. Anyways, this is your typical scar-your-kid-for-life-sad Disney flick, about the irreconcilable nature of compassion and society (or “Why can’t we be friends?”) The premise had me extremely interested for a while, and I finally got around to watching it. While it’s not bad, I definitely understand why it’s one of the more ‘forgotten’ Disney films, despite it’s fascinating premise.

One big issue is that it suffers from being ‘too nice’ at many points: for instance, when Chief gets hit by a train and falls at least a hundred feet to the ground below, he breaks his leg, which causes Copper to become filled with a vengeful rage (it’s a Disney flick: let’s not debate physics here). Wouldn’t it have been more effective/more justified if Chief outright died? I mean, he’s already seriously injured, and they chose a subject matter that is saturated with death to begin with: so really now, what’s one more corpse? I feel like if this were made in the 50s, no one would’ve cared about PC bullshit, and the dog just would’ve died — and they DO show Tod’s mother being shot to death off screen, so I’m not sure what the issue was here. It flip flops too much between wanting to be a cutesy kids film and wanting to have strong themes — and ultimately, it makes seem more like cheap Bambi knock-off than an entirely different film. If you’re going to handle death in a kid’s film, diminishing the severity of it does nothing to help the movie’s message: it just cheapens it. For example, at the movie’s climax, Copper and the Hunter have Tod and his gal-pal trapped in their foxhole by blocking off one exit with fire, and the other with an bloodthirsty hound. How do they get out of this one? They just jump through the fire.

Without a scratch, naturally.

Now, I can understand why Disney didn’t want to have a scene where the protagonist burns alive, but the suspense built by having the fire in the first place is immediately killed once you realize that the solution to defeating it is just to have the animators lazily draw your way out of it. Ugh. If you didn’t want your film to be violent, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T CENTER IT AROUND THE KILLING AND SKINNING OF ONE OF THE FILM’S PROTAGONISTS.

The voice acting for the ‘child’ Copper and Tod is some of the worst voice acting I’ve ever heard in an animated film (let alone a disney film made this late). They must’ve literally just had the director’s kids reading the lines off of cuecards before he took them out for ice cream. The quality picks up once Copper and Tod ‘grow up’ mind you, but even still, I was amazed at the laziness prevalent in a theatrically released Disney film. Overall, while it’s a really cool premise, it suffers from wanting to play it safe, and many of the stakes that the movie establishes are deus ex machina’d for the sake of pleasing parents. Watch it if there’s nothing else on TV.