Retro Trio: The Wrestler (2008); The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996); Finding Dory (2016)

The Wrestler (2008)

Director: Darren Aronofsky

I fell in love with this movie back before I even started this blog, so I never did a review of it. I recently rewatched it with my wife, who hadn't seen it. She was impressed, and I was reminded of why I saw it twice in the theaters ten years ago.

The movie is a documentary-style following of fictional professional wrestler Robin Ramzinski, whose wrestling moniker is Randy "The Ram" Robinson, played by Mickey Rourke. Set roughly around the late '00s, Randy is a wrestler well past his prime. In the late 1980's, he was on top of the wrestling world, watched and adored by hundreds of thousands of pro wrestling fans. Now, however, he is struggling mightily. Working as a mover in a grocery store and barely able to afford rent for his broken down mobile home, Randy still puts his meager disposable income into staying in shape and wrestling in small, local events. Though still respected by the younger generation of wrestlers and old-school fans of the medium, Randy is only hanging on thanks to his legacy and a steady dose of steroids and other risky supplements. After he suffers heart attack, he begins to rethink the wrestling life. He decides to hang up his bright green tights and try to rebuild his broken life. He begins to reconnect with his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), starts working a steadier job at the deli counter in the grocery store, and seeks to deepen his relationship with a stripper (Marisa Tomei) who is, herself, questioning her line of work. But just as Randy seems to be getting his emotional life back in order, old, self-involved habits rear their heads and send him spiraling back to isolation. He ultimately retreats back to the one place he felt comfortable - the ring, even though it will likely cost him his life.

When one hasn't watched a movie in a decade, it is easy to wonder if it will be as entertaining or engaging as the original viewing. Despite being a devoted fan of Darren Aronofsky, this same question ran through my mind before this recent viewing. But it was just as good as I remembered. Even more surprisingly, my wife really liked it, and she has very little interest in pro wrestling. This is due to the movie's dual focuses: the fascinating and often hidden culture and world around pro wrestling, and the brilliant character study of Randy "The Ram."

Shot in documentary style, the feel of the movie wonderfully authentic, and thanks to an Academy Award-winning performance by the battered Mickey Rourke, it is easy to see what exactly makes the Randy character tick. He is not an overly complex man - his love of wrestling and the glory that being in the ring provides supersedes everything else - but within about 100 minutes of movie time, you get to understand this through his various relationships, moments of triumph, and his mistakes.

This has thus far been easily the most accessible film by Aronofsky, whose other films have taken on grand, cerebral, spiritual themes (sometimes all three). From his first movie Pi to his most recent mother!, the Brooklyn-born filmmaker loves going big, thematically, and sometimes even visually, such as with films like The Fountain or Noah. With The Wrestler, he showed that he is equally skilled with small-scale, personal stories grounded very much in the real world. Even if that "real world" involves grown men wearing fluorescent spandex and pretending to fight in a boxing ring.

The ever-outspoken Larry Flynt, being gagged and bound
in court after repeated outbursts and (often successful)
attempts to show up the judge.

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

Director: Milos Foreman

This movie still holds up phenomenally well, these twenty-plus years after its release.

The People vs. Larry Flint is a fictionalized biopic that chronicles key moments in the life of Larry Flint (Woody Harrelson), the founder and CEO of Hustler magazine - a periodical that started in the 1970s and depicted women in various states of undress and in compromising positions of variously scandalous natures. Flint was a self-made multi-millionaire who started in the strip club business but saw his wealth expand exponentially when his Hustler magazine very quickly became a publishing hit. He also became a target of the newly-emerging "Moral Majority" group founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell and like-minded preachers and their followers. These groups often sued Flint and tried everything they could to shut down his publishing operation, which they saw as corrupting the country. Flint became a rather unlikely and thoroughly uncouth champion of free speech, often taking the government and various powerful groups to court over his right to publish his magazine. He was also paralyzed from the waist down after a failed assassination attempt, and his wife Althea (Courtney Love) suffered a slow and fatal spiral into drug overdose.

I hadn't watched this movie for probably over twenty years, and I was pleasantly surprised at how the quality still shines through on every level. No, I don't find Larry Flint a particularly admirable person for his systematic profiteering off of the blatant sexualization of women in his magazines. But this is the very type of contradiction that the movie addresses - simply because you don't admire a person should not be a reason to silence their right to say and publish what they wish, provided that all involved are consenting adults. It's easy for most people to generally agree on the right to free speech when it comes to political views (though that's taken a hit lately) or general opinions about fairly innocuous topics. But what about when it comes to something that more than a few people find highly objectionable, like pornography? The U.S., as progressive as it is in many ways, has long had a strong Puritanical streak running through it, and sexual prudishness is one of the ways that it has manifested itself. The story of Larry Flint, his legal disputes, and the uproar that they caused is a fascinating case study in what, exactly, free speech represents and protects. These themes are where the real meat and depth of this movie come from.

Even beyond the more meaningful tale of Flint's battles, which actually went all the way to the Supreme Court, the movie is highly entertaining. Larry Flint always cut a very colorful, if crass, character, and he is written and played with great verve by the oft-underrated Woody Harrelson. When you add in the excellent supporting performances by Courtney Love and Ed Norton, you get top notch acting to go along with the other strengths of the film.

I probably won't need to watch this movie again any time soon, but I still highly recommend it to any who have never seen it, or haven't seen it in many years.

And now, from a biopic about a smut-monger to a family-friendly movie about an amnesiac fish...

The folks at Pixar have "cute" down to a science, as
evidenced by the young, large-eyed Dory and her doting
parents.

Finding Dory (2016)

Directors: Andrew Stanton and Angus McLane

The wife and I finally got around to checking this one out, and we enjoyed it.

The story follows Dory, the blue tang fish from Finding Nemo, as she sets off on a quest for her long-lost parents. Along the way, we viewers learn that Dory's famous forgetfulness is a condition that she was born with, and is the reason that she first wandered off from her parents years before she met Nemo and his father Marlon.

Dory's quest takes her back to a massive public aquarium, where she rediscovers several old friends from her time there - a near-sighted whale shark, a beluga whale with damaged echo location, and a few others - who try to help Dory find the trail back to her parents. One of the greatest helpers is a new friend, Hank, a clever, camouflaging octopus with a missing limb.

If you sense a pattern here, you're right. Finding Dory is very much about how those with disabilities can overcome them and succeed at something. It's a welcome message, and one that is handled well, if not always in the subtlest of ways. What impressed me most about this movie is how it truly does stand on its own, without relying on the tremendous success and impact of its predecessor, the early Pixar hit, Finding Nemo. Although several characters from that instant classic animated film appear in the picture, this movie has its own themes, primary characters, and unique plot. And it does bear plenty of the trademark Pixar visual creativity, with some great gags and use of the brilliant color palates at their disposal.

Finding Dory is a very satisfying sequel, even if there is a touch of the saccharine to its ending. It continues the tradition of Pixar movies that have displayed wonderful humor with themes relevant to everyone from age five through a hundred. 

New Release! Solo (2018) [Spoiler-Free Review]

Spoiler-Free! Read on without Fear!!

Director: Ron Howard

Maybe it helped that I was going in with very modest expectations, in the wake of the lukewarm reception among critics and fans, but I enjoyed this movie a bit more than I had anticipated. It's not the best Star Wars movie, but I found it to be a solid, entertaining popcorn movie that uses its mythological resources efficiently.

The movie takes place roughly a dozen years before Star Wars: A New Hope Episode IV (a.k.a Episode IV, a.k.a "The original Star Wars movie"), offering us the main backstory of Han Solo, the infamous smuggler-turned-rebel as portrayed by Harrison Ford in the original trilogy. Picking up with a Han approximately 20 years old or so, played by Alden Ehrenreich, we follow his escape from his home planet of Corelia, where he and his girlfriend Qi-ra (Emilia Clarke) had grown up in oppressed poverty. Though Han nearly manages to get Qi'ra out with him, she is held back, leaving him no choice but to enlist in the army to escape capture at the hands of an ever-growing Empire. After three years as an infantryman, Han manages to latch onto a group of thieves led by Beckett (Woody Harrelson), and he begins to find his true calling as someone who operates well outside the law.

I was impressed by how well this movie hit its marks, without leaning too heavily on "Easter eggs" for fans or being overly familiar. The movie does a nice job telling some of the most well-known aspects of the legendary rogue - how he meets Chewbacca, how he gets the Millenium Falcon - but it doesn't try to explain all of it, as I suspect weaker writers would have done. I was fully expecting explanations for everything we associate with the original trilogy Han, right down to the signature white shirt and black vest. Fortunately, the father/son writing team of Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan showed effective discretion in this area. Sure, it's a bit silly that many of the things we associate with Han all occur in Han's life within such a short span. But this didn't bother me much. I felt that enough new characters were introduced and that the plot hummed along well enough to be enjoyable.

Paul Bettany was a clear strength in the film. The character
Dryden Vos and Bettany's portrayal were intense in a way
that I found highly enjoyable.

The acting was perfectly fine. Sure, it's a bit odd seeing Woody Harrelson in a Star Wars movie, but he was cast well as the cynical, gun-slinging thief Beckett. Donald Glover, who simply can't seem to miss these days, is nearly perfect as a young Lando Calrissian, and even smaller parts played by Thandie Newton and Emilia Clarke are handled well. Probably the most pleasant surprise for me was the performance of Paul Bettany as ganglord Dryden Vos. Surprising not because I didn't expect Bettany to be good, but simply because I didn't know he was in the movie. He plays a frighteningly intense, intelligent, and murderous adversary who, despite not being a classic "Sith" villain, is rather intimidating.

Solo is a film that, while not doing anything exceptionally well, does nearly everything pretty well, and doesn't have any major missteps. Though it's not as wildly entertaining as The Force Awakens, or as novel as Rogue One, it's more cohesive and consistent than The Last Jedi. It's one I'll gladly watch again in time, even if it's never going to be among the very best Star Wars movies. 

Retro-Trio: Hellraiser (1987); Semi-Pro (2008); Flesh + Blood (1985)

Hellraiser (1987)

Director: Clive Barker

Sometimes you feel the urge to go back and watch a highly influential movie you hadn't seen in decades, even if you're fairly sure that it won't hold up well. Such was the case when, a few nights back, I noticed that Hellraiser was available on one of my streaming services. It was late, and I was in the mood for something twisted and dark, so I went for it.

Watching this movie now, 31 years after its original release and probably a good 25 years after I'd last seen it, the strengths and weaknesses are exactly what lay in my memory, even though most of the details had been lost in the interim.

For those who don't know the tale, it is a wildly horrific tale of Julia and the family into which she married. The rather cold, reserved Julia moves into the old, previously abandoned family house of her husband, Larry, and her step-daughter Kirsty. When first seeing the place, they realize that Larry's mysterious loner brother, Frank, had been squatting in the home not long before their arrival, though Frank is nowhere to be found at the time. Seeing his belongings sparks Julia's memories of having an extended, passionate affair with the darkly hedonistic Frank, and Julia even begins to dream about being with Frank again. A few days later, Larry cuts his hand in the home, and the blood trickles into the floorboards of the dank, upper-most room in the house. Slowly, the blood is absorbed and revives some sort of horrific, flayed human, whom Julia discovers to her horror. This creature quickly explains to Julia that he is, indeed, Frank, and that he had transported himself, via a strange black and gold magic box, into a realm of dark sadomasochism ruled by terrifying, demoniac creatures called Cenobites. Frank convinces Julia to lure more victims into his upper floor lair, where she should kill him and allow their blood to revitalize Frank into human form before the Cenobites discover him missing and pull him back into their twisted, torturous realm.

In its day, Hellraiser was one of the most creative, disturbing, and truly horrifying films made in quite some time. Sure, there had been more graphic horror movies. And there had been eerier tales told on film. But Clive Barker's feature film debut was its own stunning blend of modern gothic horror and graphic bloodletting, wrapped in a supernatural tale that hinted at its own almost Lovecraftian-level mythos. The mere conception and look of the Cenobites, tortured and disfigured creatures cloaked in black leather and adorned with various sharp, cutting instruments, was enough to give most of us nightmares. When this was added to the quality special effects that brought the nightmares to life, you had something that made a major impression, grotesque it is may have been. In watching it now, 30 years after its release, I can say that most of the visual effects, especially the costumes and basic set designs, hold up. And the pure horror elements of the story are just as disturbing now as they were then.

The effects in the movie are great, most notably on the
slowly-regenerating Frank. It calls to mind of the stellar
makeup work from Cronenberg's The Fly.

Unfortunately, like most of even the best horror films, the non-horror aspects of the movie are fairly weak. The backstory of Frank and Julia's affair is quite shallow, with Frank being a one-dimensional "bad boy" who literally shows up in a leather jacket on Julia's doorstep, dripping with rain, and giving her the bedroom eyes right from the jump. There is zero subtlety in their lust-filled affairs, and it seems a bit odd that Julia becomes so wildly obsessed with him that she is quite literally prepared to become a serial killer just to revive him - a man who long since abandoned her to go chasing other women and satisfaction of his own carnal lusts through any means he could find. I suppose one could argue that such can be the power of lust, especially lust repressed under a cold veneer such as the one that Julia usually exudes, but this is a bit of a stretch.

The acting is rather inconsistent, too, with a few screen veterans like Andrew Robinson and Clare Higgins doing just fine, but most other cast members appear rather amateurish. It doesn't do any of them any favors that the dialogue is uncomfortably bad, aside from the few memorable catchphrases that Barker puts in the mouths of the Cenobites - "We have such sights to show you," and "We'll tear you soul apart!" delivered in actor Doug Bradley's powerful, domineering voice still resonate as some of the most memorable lines in the history of horror films. But when it comes to the more casual dialogue between the horror scenes, the attempts at humor fall completely flat and any attempt to build any compassion for the characters never materializes.

I recall having seen the immediate sequel, 1988's Hellbound: Hellraiser II, but I've never bothered with any of the seven feature-length follow-ups (several of which were straight-to-video). I can appreciate dark horror, and the more imaginative concepts which Clive Barker created those decades ago are still somewhat compelling, but there was never enough for me to go beyond those first two movies. Real horror aficionados have likely already seen these films, probably multiple times, so it is hard to recommend it to any new viewers. Only if you are a horror fan who is a bit young and never gone back to see this one would I suggest you give it a go - despite its clear flaws, it really is one of the most influential horror movies of all time, with its fingerprints still being seen in horror movies made today.

Semi-Pro (2008)

Director: Kent Alterman

It's a Will Ferrell comedy, alright.

I like Will Ferrell. He's always been good for pretty solid, consistent laughs. I have not, however, ever become a full devotee of the comedian with seemingly boundless energy. As funny as he can be, he rather quickly became a one-note comic act in my view. This is why I've never run out to catch him movies in theaters, often waiting years after their release to watch them; sometimes never bothering to watch them at all. Watching the now decade-old Semi-Pro did nothing to change my feeling about Ferrell, either positively or negatively.

The story takes for its setting the rather low-hanging comedic fruit of the disco era in 1976. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit music wonder who used his lone hit song's earnings to purchase the Flint Tropics - a professional basketball team in the struggling American Basketball Association (ABA). The Tropics are the worst team in the floundering ABA, only keeping their nose above water thanks to Moon's over-the-top promotional antics, including sensational halftime shows and performances. When word comes down that the ABA is going to be contracted and absorbed into the far larger and more successful NBA, the desperate Moon makes a deal to see that his team is one of the four who will make the jump into the big league. The deal requires him to get his squad to climb out of the cellar and attain 4th place in the ABA standings by season's end, no mean feat for the disogranized and talent-bereft Tropics. Hope does emerge when aging former NBA player Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson) is able to lend his veteran knowledge and help coach up talented but selfish young NBA-hopeful Clarence (Andre Benjamin).

While Ferrell's Jackie Moon character isn't exactly like Ron Burgundy in Anchorman or Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights, Moon does bear the hallmark idiocy, self-absorption, and overconfidence of virtually every character Ferrell has ever played on TV or the big screen. Of course, there is a reason for the typecast - Ferrell is exceptionally good at the role. Despite myself, I can't help but laugh at his line deliveries, facial expressions, and overall body language when playing such over-the-top buffoons. Since Ferrell's shtick alone can become a bit tiresome at times, it helps that there's ample comedy talent around him. Will Arnett is a standout, as the whiskey-swilling, chain-smoking color commentator for Tropics' broadcasts, but there are several others who round out the proceedings well. Woody Harrelson's comedic gifts are mostly underutilized, as he plays the mature role in the film, but he does have a few moments.

As with every other Ferrell-starring film, not every gag hits, and there are probably ten to fifteen minutes of ad-libbed nattering that should have been edited out, but the movie provides frequent enough laughs to justify its purpose. It's a dumb comedy meant to provide some gut laughs. It does that just fine.

Flesh + Blood (1985)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

A rather good, gritty medieval flick with a B-movie attitude by a director who knows how to do entertaining sex and violence.

I picked this one up after seeing it pop up on more than one "underrated film" list. Despite being a true 1980s kid, I had never even heard of it. Now that I've seen it, I understand why. The movie follows a renegade band of mercenaries led by Martin (Rutger Hauer), a highly skilled and dangerously cunning fighter. Martin and his band are first used and then cheated by a regional lord in order to get his castle back from invaders. As revenge, Martin's unruly band stages an attack on a group of the lord's closest associates, including his son Steven (Tom Burlison) and Steven's bride-to-be, Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Martin's band of marauders steal the goods, only to later discover that Agnes has been hidden away in one of the wagons. She is promptly raped by Martin, although in a way whereby Agnes either does, or at least acts like she does, enjoy being violated by the strapping bandit leader. From this point, Agnes's action become rather difficult to decipher for everyone involved. She is taken with the band to a small nearby castle, where Martin's crew kills the defenders and takes over. Agnes seems to become Martin's willing woman, although when Steven and the regional lord's soldiers lay siege to the castle, Agnes continues to change her allegiances back and forth between Steven and Martin. By tale's end, Martin narrowly escapes his entire band's being wiped out by the plague, and Agnes leaves with Steven. Agnes actually sees Martin escaping, but remains silent rather than alerting Steven's men to the dangerous bandit's survival.

This is a 1980s medieval sword-swinger unlike any other I've ever seen, especially from that era. I always enjoyed the setting and characters in those romantic "Arthurian" type tales, and even plenty of the fantasy tales that were inspired by that sort of setting. Excalibur is still great, and movies like Ladyhawke and Willow always had an appeal for me. Those movies were, though, relatively PG-rated. Flesh + Blood, on the other hand, gets its hands really dirty. The murder and sex are right in your face, and Martin's rape of Agnes is downright disturbing on an original Straw Dogs level. This movie is very much about depicting a band of depraved and bloodthirsty cutthroats in all their viciousness, and it works quite well. They truly are despicable characters.

Martin is more than ready to let Agnes handle his, uh, rifle.
The previously-sheltered Agnes takes to the sex and violence
with disturbing alacrity.

The story of Agnes is also a strangely novel one. There is a bold ambiguity to her motivations, as she plays Martin and Steven off of one another, almost like a cat playing with two mice. Of course, this cat is posing as a harmless kitten, but there is a strange empowerment to her character at times. And the way that the theme of violence is handled puts me in mind of the David Cronenberg masterpiece A History of Violence, in which violence is depicted both as a repugnant aspect of human nature as well as a source of animal magnetism to others. Rutger Hauer's swaggering, bare-chested alpha male Martin is the polar opposite of the learned and thoughtful but also bold and clever Steven. The basic tale of a woman torn between "brawn" and "brains" was not a new one by a long shot, but this movie tackled the subject in a grittier way than any other I know of.

I doubt I'll ever need to see this movie again, but I was glad to have finally gone back and given it a shot. It's not for everyone, as it is a hard-R-rated movie, without a doubt. But it more than held my attention for its manageable running time, and it shed even more light on what an exciting, if uneven, resume Paul Verhoeven has put together over the decades.

New Release! Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2018)

Director: Martin McDonagh

A brilliantly biting, strikingly dark comedy that is noted director Martin McDonagh's best to date.

Taking place in the titular small town in roughly modern times, local woman Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents out three billboards lined up in a row along a little-used road near her home. On the billboards, she places three connected phrases, the ultimate message of which is to question the local sheriff, William Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), as to why he has yet to find the person(s) responsible for the rape and murder of her teenage daughter, a horrific act which happened a year prior. The billboards set off a range of emotions in several of the townspeople, and they expose more than a few sentiments that have lingered slightly beneath the surface for many. Most of these sentiments are connected to deep anger, and the only person who might be angrier than Mildred herself is the none-too-bright deputy Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a racist and homophobic thug who more often than he wishes finds himself in the middle of the firestorm that Mildred sets off with her billboards.

Anyone who has seen Martin McDonagh's other films In Bruges or Seven Psychopaths knows that he loves his humor pitch-dark, and Three Billboards is right in line with his previous movies. But while In Bruges was more overtly comic, and Seven Psychopaths had a much more bizarre, overall gonzo feel to it, Three Billboards includes more genuine, and genuinely moving, emotional turns. Yes, the plot turns and even sometimes the characters are quite obviously works of fiction, given the sometimes-extreme nature of what occurs and the main players' reactions. But it all has a mostly cohesive feel, and one that is helped along by plenty of downright hilarious (but again, dark) comedy. McDonagh seems to have found his best balance of his sly storytelling abilities and a certain poignancy with which he has only flirted in the past. The running theme he works with here is that of anger in several forms, and how people handle it in sometimes highly destructive ways, even when that anger is justified. This seems like a topic especially relevant to our current times.

Frances McDormand is an immense force in this movie,
utterly unafraid to face down anyone she sees as coming
between her and her desired justice. This includes head-
strong bully cops, like Sam Rockwell's Officer Dixon.

This movie has, along with grabbing a nomination for Oscar Best Picture, has also been nominated for a couple of acting Academy Awards. I can't argue, with Frances McDormand once again turning in a brilliant performance as the ever-salty, tough- and mad-as-hell Mildred. And Sam Rockwell is excellent as the mostly repugnant Officer Dixon, though I actually think that he has had a few performances even more worthy of recognition than this one, most notably in Moon. Though not nominated for any grand awards, Woody Harrelson also turns in a typically fine performance, and all of the bit players are great.

I will say that not everything in the movie fits perfectly into place. There are a few over-the-top or simply oddball scenes which feel too much at odds with the overall tone at times. And the change that Officer Dixon undergoes is a bit inexplicable in a few ways. Still, the movie's strengths do more than enough to outweigh such questionable elements.

At this point, I have seen eight of the nine nominees for Oscar Best Picture, and Three Billboards is among my favorites. Though it might not be as tight or quite as narratively polished as several of the other nominees, it is, along with Get Out, the gutsiest and most unique of them all. I give it a semi-outside chance at winning, but I'll be surprised if it wins the big award. 

New, spoiler-free, Release! War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Director: Matt Reeves

A very solid ending to an overall strong trilogy, all much to my surprise.

A touch of my history with this series: for most of my life, I had never really known much about the "Apes" series of films, aside from knowing about the classic twist at the end of the original 1968 movie and the fact that there always seemed to be marathons of the first five Apes movies running on television on Sundays during my childhood in the early and mid-1980s. I also didn't bother with the attempted 2001 reboot directed by Tim Burton. I did watch about 5 minutes of it a few years after its release, which was enough to realize that it was certainly not to my tastes. It wasn't until last year, during a big screen showing of the '68 original that I decided to give it a go. My full review is here, but suffice it to say that I found that the movie has not aged well. As much as I love finding worthy movie series to get obsessed over, the original Planet of the Apes did not inspire an urge to seek out the subsequent four movies in the original series.

And so it sat until I couldn't ignore the overwhelmingly and consistently positive reviews of this most recent reboot, kicking off with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011 and continuing in 2014 with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Rise was surprisingly good, if not completely flawless. I was impressed with how they handled the background stories plausibly and with some genuine heart. The sequel, Dawn, was a rather different movie directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield and Let Me In). Dawn was an even grimmer tale of a struggle for survival and identity, showing even more narrative and character savvy than its solid predecessor. At that second movie's end, the hyper-intelligent chimp Caesar and his large band of similarly-intelligent primates had defeated two aggressive adversarial factions - one ape and one human - to leave them relatively in peace amidst a world where humans have been nearly wiped out due to a simian-borne virus.

War for the Planet of the Apes picks up roughly five years after the events of Dawn, with Caesar and his community under siege from human military forces seeking to wipe them out completely. When a few members of Caesar's immediate family are killed in an assassination attempt on his life, he sends his community away to find a peaceful area farther to the east, while he and a few of his closest confidants attempt to track down and kill the man responsible for Caesar's loss - a military colonel played by Woody Harrelson. Caesar eventually finds the Colonel holed up in a small fortress with a loyal army of soldiers who are willing to kill and die for him in an effort to rid the planet of any remaining form of ape, as a form of perceived self-preservation.

The frozen, worn down shelter where Caesar's crew discovers
"Bad Ape" is one of several stunning and highly memorable
set pieces that grace the picture.

War is similar in tone to director Reeve's previous Apes movie in that it is mostly grim and severe, with only a few moments of levity. However, I never felt that this bogged down the movie, as the themes and questions raised are ones that are well worth pondering. There is also more than a little metaphorical food for thought, as one can easily view the harried apes as representing any one of the many groups of oppressed people throughout history. As one born and raised in the U.S., seeing enslaved apes being whipped, crucified, and eventually raising their fists in acts of defiant power quickly conjures up images of this country's historically brutal treatment of African Americans. It's especially hard to watch a scene in which Caesar, while being whipped, stares directly in the Colonel's eyes, and not see echoes of the similar and famous scene in Glory, with Denzel Washington offering Matthew Broderick's character the same icy glare. However, the apes could easily stand in for any "outsider" group who has been subjected to oppression and torture by those who fear them, whether its Jewish exiles of Biblical history or indigenous groups nearly everywhere in the world, Caesar's apes signify minorities' struggles throughout human history. One could probably get into a heated debate about using primates to represent such oppressed groups, but I felt that the movie handled it deftly enough.

But even such lofty themes can fall flat in films if they are not represented in sympathetic characters. As with Dawn, the film does an outstanding job with this, which is all the more impressive given that the most stirring moments are produced by computer-generated primates. Thanks to cutting-edge digital and motion-capture effects (the detail in Caesar's ever-more-vicious scowl is impeccable), along with some excellent physical acting by Andy Serkis and his "ape" cohort, it is easy to become invested in the plight of Caesar and his band. Enhancing the engagement on the character level is that the set pieces, environments, and other visual aspects of the film are outstanding, creating a cohesive look and feel to the entire movie.

I will say that, though the movie is solid top-to-bottom, it is one that I don't and perhaps won't feel the urge to see again. Despite the strength of virtually every element of the film, its grim tone and relatively unoriginal message (don't judge other groups until you know them) don't inspire repeat viewings for me. That said, I'm certainly glad I saw this final installment on the big screen, and I will be looking forward to future films that director Matt Reeves directs.

Retro Trio: Better Off Dead (1985); Kingpin (1996); Tristram Shandy (2005)

Better Off Dead... (1985)

One of the many classic scenes which, though having nothing
to do with the plot, speak to the silly fun of the entire film.

Director: "Savage" Steve Holland

At this point, I'll just assume that you've all seen this movie. If you haven't, it's probably because you're either under 25 or over 75 years old.

For those of my generation who haven't watched the movie in a long while, you may be wondering if it's still funny. Unequivocally, the answer is, "Yes." Nearly every bizarre segment and skewed sketch in this absurdist take on teen angst is still hilarious. There are a few scenes that are dated, such as the stop-motion hamburger "Van Halen" segment, but these are very few and far between. The vast majority of the movie holds up extremely well.

The key element to why this movie works is just how deadpan everyone is, most obviously John Cusack as the heartbroken and suicidal protagonist. But we should not discount the many other denizens of director Steve Holland's bizarre world, nor should we overlook just how effective their own dry approach to everything is. One need look no further than Lane Meyers's father, played by David Ogden Stiers. Stiers's stone-faced delivery of his lines had me rolling just as hard one week ago as they did two decades ago.

There are so many quirky little things in the movie that I hadn't thought of in long time, such as how enraptured the math class students are. Or the street-racing, Japanese brothers and adversaries of Lane. Or the basketball team members who are caricatured ogres. This is all great stuff, and the result of a fertile comic mind. 

It's always great to see that a key movie from one's childhood still had the goods. 

Kingpin (1996)

Director: Bobby & Peter Farrelly

I feel Kingpin to be the Farrelly Brothers' oft-forgotten masterpiece. Their highest grossing and probably best-known film is There's Something About Mary. Their first major film, Dumb and Dumber is a classic of idiotic comedy. I love the latter, and thought the former was funny but overrated. Kingpin, somehow, doesn't seem to register with nearly as many people, though, and I'm not really sure why. It's hilarious.

An early meeting between Big Ern and Roy. In this 2-minute scene, Murray
fires off no fewer than a half dozen classic lines and gags as he casually
denegrates everyone who gets within arm's length of him.

It boils down to two things: the writing and the cast. Curiously, it is one of the very few movies directed by the Farrellys that they didn't write themselves. Instead, it was written by a couple of veteran 1980s sitcom writers, Bobby Fanaro and Mort Nathan, who wrote for Benson and The Golden Girls. Knowing this, you might not expect the raunchy, sly, biting humor of Kingpin, but it's there in all its glory. There's a wealth of fantastically quotable lines throughout, and there's more than a few great dialectic and visual nods to classic films like The Natural, The Hustler, The Color of Money, The Graduate, and more. The entire world of Kingpin is a skewed alternate reality in which bowling is wildly popular, so there's plenty of fodder for spoofing athletics.

The cast is perfect. Woody Harrelson plays naive bowling prodigy-turned alcoholic degenerate Roy Munson, who incurs the wrath of veteran bowling champion Ernie "Big Ern" McCracken by daring to actually beat him. Big Ern is played by a Bill Murray at the absolute top of his comedy game. He's deadpan. He's ruthless. He's a womanizing, supremely arrogant dirtbag who lures Munson into hustling the wrong kinds of gamblers and having his bowling hand cut off. That's right. Harrelson plays a one-handed bowler the rest of the way, leading right up to his revenge showdown with Big Ern 17 years later. If you don't see the comedy in that, then this movie isn't for you.

Kingpin is another movie that's easy to recommend giving a shot. Just like Bad Santa, you can pick up the tone and humor within the first 10 minutes, and you can tell whether you'll like it or not. Unlike a lot of comedies, it doesn't lose steam at any point, and the last 15 minutes are just as funny as the first. 

Coogan's passive annoyance in the foreground is a steady
theme when he's paired up with the loquoacious Brydon.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005)

Director: Michael Winterbottom

I watched this for the same reason probably anybody would go back and watch it - I loved The Trip and The Trip to Italy. The semi-scripted, ad lib chemistry between comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon is phenomenal, especially to those who like rapid-fire British humor.

Tristram Shandy is funny, and it's a good film, but I didn't find it as consistently funny as the "Trip" duology.

This movie is a different animal, in nearly every way. It is very much in the vein as films like Day for Night  and Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 - two films about making a film. In the case of Tristram, it focuses most on the star actor (Coogan, in this case) trying to exert his star status as the title character of a famously unadaptable work of classic English literature. The dryer forms of humor come from Coogan's passive aggressive attempts to belittle his co-stars, no one moreso than the affable Rob Brydon.  Of course, Coogan is made to look a fool often enough, whether by his own arrogance or by the wild demands of the Tristram script. 

Those looking for the great back-and-forth between Coogan and Brydon in the Trip movies might be a bit disappointed. While they have several scenes together, Brydon is not nearly as prominent as Coogan, whose larger celebrity is the target for humor here. The overarching theme is the madness of moviemaking, with its writes and rewrites, casting and recasting, the short-lived passions that flair up between crew members, the egos, and plenty more. From that perspective, a cinephile like myself appreciates these peaks behind the curtain of movie show business. Those who are less interested are likely to find the film a bit dull.