Capsule Review: "Going Native"

Most of the time, South Park is at best hysterical, and at least funny enough to burn a half hour. But when the show isn’t clicking, there aren’t different levels of bad to it. When it’s bad, it’s usually HORRIBLE.

Sometimes on the show, Trey Parker and Matt Stone get so into their surreal storylines that humor is left by the wayside. Tonight’s episode was an example of that.

In it, we find the usually excessively cheerful Butters in an inexplicable fit of rage, having beaten up a recurring character offscreen (I know this is horrible, but that might have actually been very funny to see, in the show’s gleefully offensive way). Turns out his anger is somehow because he’s a Hawaiian by birth, and he must make a pilgrimage to the Aloha State to participate in a sacred ceremony with other Native Hawaiians (in actuality, just regular Americans who make the state their seasonal home; I guess this was the intended joke, but it didn’t make me laugh). There’s also some stuff about a war with the U.S. Mainland, and the ghost of Elvis, and…yeah, it lost me at about the 12-minute mark.

The one redeeming moment (well, not redeeming enough to salvage the episode) came when Butters revealed the true source of his anger: Ben Affleck, who Stone and Parker seem to have something of a grudge against. Butters’ aimless tirade about Affleck (including a diss/shout-out to his current film Argo) might give dedicated fans a chuckle, but that little inside joke is about the only laugh in this one.

The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson might not exactly be a household name to the average moviegoer, but he is certainly one of the most talented directors today. His pictures are aesthetically so simple, and yet so deep and complex. You can watch them as the simple story at the surface, or you can spend hours unraveling the themes and ideas every line, every scene, and every shot may implicate.

His last film, 2007’s There Will Be Blood, can be viewed simply as the story of a ruthless oil baron in the early 20^th Century. But dig a little deeper, and the movie works as a parable on greed, isolation, capitalism, religion, or human nature, among other things. It’s easily one of the best films since the start of the new millennium.

Anderson's newest film The Master similarly works on many different levels. The subject taking center stage this time is religion and indoctrination, specifically that of a new age cult, as seen through the firsthand experience of one man.

That man is Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a depraved drifter returning from World War II.  More than an alcoholic, the film depicts him drinking machine oil while in the service and making cocktails out of dangerous chemicals. He is quite sexually ravenous, but seemingly can’t cope on a personal or societal level. After failing to keep some meager jobs, he drunkenly wanders on board a yacht owned by Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the founder of a radical new religion called The Cause. Dodd sees in Freddie a potential convert, and takes him under his wing as a follower.

Some have speculated that the story is based on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. I can’t say for certain if it is or not, because the extent of my knowledge of Scientology doctrine comes from South Park. It doesn’t really matter, though, because the content presented in the film can act as stand-in for any fanatical belief system.

The ritual indoctrination on display is wrenching and excruciating. Ostensibly, Dodd seeks to help people, and yet, none of The Cause’s activities ever seem to be even remotely spiritual, just manipulative and spirit-breaking. Such a stark, unfiltered look at the dark side of a cult mentality is different from anything depicted in Hollywood before, as it seems so real and unglamorous.

Great performances that are tailor-made for award season abound in the picture. It’s good that Joaquin Phoenix’s announcement that he was quitting acting turned out to be a hoax, because for all his off-screen eccentricities, he can still deliver a great performance. As Freddie, he is pitiful and, at some points, disturbing as a man with many demons, and who's quite probably mentally ill. Yet, he comes off as a real human being, not an exaggerated caricature. He’s even somehow, in spite of everything, sympathetic (maybe just because of the way The Cause uses him). It’s possible that Phoenix’s weird behavior surrounding said hoax makes him even more believable in the role.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Dodd as an enigma, for it’s never quite clear whether or not he actually believes what he preaches. His angry outbursts when people question him suggest he’s just a con man. Yet, his devotion to saving Freddie, who it becomes obvious is beyond help, makes it seem like he really believes what he’s doing is right, or at least he’s convinced himself he’s right. For all the character's manipulative charisma and demagoguery, Hoffman still convincingly walks this fine line between prophet and fraud, never firmly stepping on either side and leaving it up to the viewer to decide where he stands.

Amy Adams is also very good as Dodd’s status-seeking wife. Unlike her husband, her true nature is obvious, as she only takes part in The Cause’s activity for the power it allots her as its leader’s wife. Adams usually plays such likeable characters that it’s a little weird to see her as an overbearing, guilt-instilling shrew, but she plays the part well.

And all this is just on the surface. So many little pieces throughout could suggest completely different interpretations. One example: Some scenes from Freddie’s point of view, especially flashbacks to his hometown love Doris (Madisen Beaty) prior to the War, seem to have a surreal quality, possibly suggesting that they’re all in his head. The ending also leaves questions: Did The Cause help Freddie, or was it just another stop on his aimless journey through life? Again, the answer could change with each viewer.

Admittedly, the film as a whole is not exactly the most enjoyable cinematic experience. There are really slow stretches, and some of it is rather unpleasant, such as the aforementioned indoctrination sequences and the jarring, unerotic sexual content. But while the adrenal gland may take the movie off, the mind is working overtime, which is arguably a more rewarding experience.

Capsule Review: "Insecurity"

South Park used to always make its point by addressing its topic directly, with those sappy “I learned something today” monologues at the end of each episode. But the show’s satire is many times more scathing and effective when they just let the story play out. Be it saving the rainforest or gay conversion camp, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have a way of making a point painfully, brutally self-evident without their characters jumping on a soapbox.

In last night’s case, the target was home alarm systems, as the men of South Park seek to install them to protect their wives from being seduced by the UPS delivery man (a non-problem, only brought upon the town through a misunderstanding involving the bedroom habits of Kyle's parents). Though Cartman let them have it over the phone several times, much of the episode made it clear how Stone and Parker feel simply by showing how the alarms are only effective at creating a nuisance without actually helping to make people safer. Seeing alarms go off over and over got a little grating as the episode went on, as some gags on the show do over the course of an episode, but in this case, it helped hammer the point home even more. In addition, the episode found time to skewer Cialis ads, compulsive online shopping, and all our little insecurities (they have alarm systems for those, too, called “IN-security”).

The main storyline of the misunderstandings involving Kyles’ parents’ roleplay wasn’t as funny by the end as it was at the beginning, and the reference to The Dark Knight Rises seemed more superfluous than funny. Overall, though, this episode was solid, in both the comedy and commentary departments.

Capsule Review: "Raising the Bar"

I am one of the apparently few who have not watched a minute of TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. After seeing last night’s South Park, I intend to do whatever I can to keep it that way.

 

Seeing resident fatboy Eric Cartman join the Rascal Scooter brigade made for some big laughs, as well as biting satire on the cultural acceptance of obesity in this country. But the most stinging barbs were directed at us, for accepting such exploitative trash as Honey Boo Boo as entertainment.

 

Through all the years of the show’s shocking gross-out humor that would never fly on live-action television, I always just laughed it off as typical South Park. But this episode marks a milestone: this was the first time the series elicited a real emotion from me, specifically despair.

 

Even in its (I hope) exaggerated cartoon form, the Honey Boo Boo content was horrific.  Despite all the laughs (and Cartman gets a lot of them), the episode still left me with a deep sense of sadness at the state of America (though seeing the First Lady pound the crap out of Cartman made me feel a little better; after all the awful things he’s done, it’s always nice to see Cartman get his).

A clever subplot involved Avatar director James Cameron, who has made a hobby out of exploring the ocean floor, traveling to the depths of the sea searching for “the bar.” By bringing it back up to the surface (“raising the bar,” get it?), he hopes that America’s standards will return to an acceptable level.

If only it were that easy…

 

**I'll be back every week with reviews of each new South Park episode. Stay tuned!**

The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1

After Christopher Nolan’s dark, epic take on Batman, it’s hard to believe that the film series ever sunk as low as this. But it’s even harder to believe that at one time, the comic itself had reached such a level of camp. Yet, long ago, well before the superhero movie renaissance, the Caped Crusader had done just that.

That changed in the mid-1980s. One of the biggest reasons for that was the work of Frank Miller. Though he seems to have lost his mind of late, at the time, he was one of the best comic book writers in the business, and he wrote what are easily the two greatest Batman stories ever written. One was 1987’s Batman: Year One, a retelling of the character’s origin updated to a then-modern day realistic setting (Nolan’s Batman Begins was at one point slated to be a direct adaptation of Year One, and the final film contains several references the story).

The other (actually, the one that came first) was The Dark Knight Returns, a four-part graphic novel released in 1986. The story featured an older, meaner Batman, unlike the clean-cut hero he had been for so long. Miller’s gritty story gave the Dark Knight a much-needed shot in the arm, and formed the basis for the character as we know him today.

Year One was adapted last year as one of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies (rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it?), which are direct-to-video adaptations of specific DC Comics story arcs. Now, The Dark Knight Returns is getting the same treatment. Only instead of editing the dense story down to a single 70-plus minute feature, the filmmakers saw fit to give us two to tell the whole story. Part 1, out now, adapts the first two parts of the graphic novel.

The story begins ten years after Bruce Wayne (voiced by the original Robocop Peter Weller) has quit fighting crime as his alter ego. In the decade since hanging it up, he has become a cynical old man, his anger stewing as Gotham City becomes more crime-ridden than ever. When an ultraviolent gang called the Mutants grips Gotham in a fit of terror, Wayne finally dons the cowl once more and returns to save his city (if this sounds familiar, yes, certain elements were borrowed in The Dark Knight Rises).

Watchmen showed that adapting a comic scene-for-scene doesn’t exactly make an effective motion picture. Well, this movie shows how to make an adaptation right. The story is transcribed to the screen very closely, but the filmmakers understand the difference in form between a moving picture and a comic page.

For instance, Miller’s comics are often heavy on first-person narration, with characters going on long internal monologues. This works in a still comics panel, but it doesn’t translate too well to a movie, as film moves too fast for Miller’s amount of narration. This problem was evident in the film of Year One. This time, the narration is dropped completely (save for one introspective scene), or incorporated into the dialogue whenever possible. This makes for a more laconic Batman, but still true to Miller’s story. Another example is the television news reports that pervade the story, which are wisely relegated to the background or placed at cuts between scenes, rather than always hovering over the action like they do in the comic.

It’s great as an adaptation, but for those who haven’t read Miller’s comic, the film is still a fantastic Batman experience.

The animation finds a nice balance between Miller’s gritty, realistic style and a sleeker modern look, creating a Gotham City with a mix of retro/futuristic cityscapes and the hellish urban decay of the comic. The book employed several series of repeating images to create an almost cinematic reading experience; though the art doesn’t move, the story unfolds at the breakneck pace of an action film. Onscreen, these images come to vivid, thrilling (and bloody) life. The action sequences, such as Batman’s final showdown with a surgically-healed Harvey Dent and the battles with the Mutant Leader, are edge-of-your-seat intense, and the flashback to the death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is touching, macabre, and beautiful.

To me, Kevin Conroy will always be the true voice of Batman (I grew up on The Animated Series, and I still read the comics in his voice), but Peter Weller is not bad, either. His gruff vocals fit the older, wiser Batman perfectly. The rest of the voice cast is adequate, but none stand out quite like Weller; this is his Batman’s movie, through and through.

There are a few expository elements from the comics that were deleted, so a few story points might go a little fast for those who haven’t read the comic. Really, though, the only complaint is that we have to wait until next year for Part 2. The Dark Knight Rises was nearly three hours, so why couldn’t they have just made a longer animated film? Then again, Part 1 is so action-packed that an intermission is kind of in order (and the film ends with the perfect scene, moved to later in the story than the comic).

I'll return with a full review in 2013, but as of now, The Dark Knight Returns could very well be the greatest DC direct-to-video movie yet. And apologies to Christopher Nolan: I liked The Dark Knight Rises, but this will always be the definitive final Batman story.