Hamlet 2

Set in Tuscon, Arizona, Hamlet 2 centers around failed actor Dana Marschz who is now a drama teacher at a high school there and hating Tuscon almost as much as he hates his lack of success. However, Dana valiantly lives for his drama productions at the school – which are self-penned, Hollywood blockbusters he’s turned into high school musicals. When Dana finds out drama is being canceled because of budget cuts he decides to save the program by writing a completely original play – Hamlet 2 – which brings Hamlet back to save the day thanks to Jesus and a time machine. The play stirs so much controversy that soon it ricochets out of control and everyone from the fire department to the religious right is trying to shut Dana down.

If you find the phrase “a sequel to Hamlet” remotely amusing there is a pretty good shot that you will like Hamlet 2. Out of the gate this film feels like an elongated South Park episode – and I mean that in a great way. The filmmakers were on South Park and Hamlet 2 is a better satire for it. This film is a dry comedy that uses everything from the barren landscape, the business of Hollywood and inspiring teacher movies to create a through atmosphere that runs the riot of comedy all the way from intellectual humor to slapstick.

Steve Coogan is without a doubt the anchor of this cast. If a less talented actor had been in his shoes, or a more obvious comedian, Hamlet 2 would have crossed a line and never recovered – it would have become terminally unfunny. However, Coogan is an expert at what he does and Dana Marschz becomes pathetic yet loveable because of it.

The single most infamous element in Hamlet 2 has got to be the song “Rock Me Sexy Jesus”. If you’ve heard of this song in the past few years, you now know what it is from. “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” is the most controversial element in Dana’s play and perhaps the funniest set piece as we get to see the actual staging (which includes teen girls fainting at the sight of Jesus in a wife-beater and Jesus kicking Satan in the rear), the audience reaction (a group of religious women running up to the stage to pray) and the protesters outside the building. It’s the perfect storm in the third act of the film that cements Hamlet 2 as a brilliant and fresh satire with bite.

A personal bonus for me in Hamlet 2 are the references to Tuscon. Dana and the filmmakers don’t’ like Tuscon very much, and the film bags on it so much that they actually had to go to New Mexico to shoot – which anyone that’s been to Tuscon can immediately tell. While I know Tuscon is a place beloved by many I have to say that my personal experiences in Tuscon and the surrounding area have not been pleaseant…so for me Dana’s distaste of the city and this knocks it receives were met with many understanding laughs.

This will undoubtedly become a permanent member of my DVD collection and a cult classic for many. I can’t wait until I force it onto my friends so I get to see what they think of Jesus and Hamlet.

Director: Andrew Fleming
Writers: Pam Brady & Andrew Fleming
Dana Marschz: Steve Coogan
Brie Marschz: Catherine Keener
Principal Rocker: Marshall Bell
Gary: David Arquette
Elisabeth Shue: Herself
Cricket Feldstein: Amy Poehler

Dana: Chuy, you're going to have a magical life. Because no matter where you go, it's always going to be better than Tucson.

Where the Wild Things Are

Max is trying to figure out the world around him and he’s very confused. His big sister whom he adores no longer give him the time of day and his mother is dating. When Max sees his mother kiss a man in their living room he acts out, throwing a fit for his mother and running out of the house; as he runs he goes further into the recesses of his imagination and discovers the land of the wild things. This is a land where the large, scary monsters are actually friends, and Max is king of it all.

When I was in film school a professor once told me adaptations weren’t so much about being literally faithful to the events, but finding and capturing the spirit of the story. The fact that Spike Jonze was able to fully capture the spirit of Maurice Sendak’s book and turn it into a fully realized feature film for Where the Wild Things Are astounds me. The book is all of 10 sentences about childhood temper tantrums, disappointment, anger and imagination and Jonze found a full length film in this; he turned it into a film about what it’s like to be a child without control over anything and being on the precipice of wanting to understand adult concepts and wanting to run away from change and anything that might actually make you grow up.

Despite being a brilliant film, Where the Wild Things Are will not be a popular movie. Like most films of its kind, people go into a movie like this and whether they are conscious of it or not they expect a glossy, happy children’s movie. Where the Wild Things Are is not that film, and it is better for it, but the fact that there is violence, scary moments, and that Max is a liar and sometimes a bully will turn people off. However, it is these things about the film and about Max that make the movie transcend from being a children’s movie and turn into a beautiful film experience. Through the course of a fight with his mother and a trip into an imaginary land Max completes a character arch, one that teaches him he can’t control the world around him no matter what he pretends and all that really matters is that his family loves him. This might be a simplistic character arch, but it is the arch of a child, and a child is what the movie and the book is all about.

Director: Spike Jonze
Writers: Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Max: Max Records
Mom: Catherine Keener
Carol: James Gandolfini
Alexander: Paul Dano
Judith: Catherine O’Hara
Ira: Forest Whitaker
The Bull: Michael Berry Jr.
Douglas: Chris Cooper
KW: Lauren Ambrose

Carol: It's going to be a place where only the things you want to happen, would happen.
Max: We could totally build a place like that!

The Soloist

I try to post about the movies I watch in the order that I watch them, but I just left The Soloist and I feel the need to break that pattern and right about this movie while it is very fresh in my mind.

As you can pick up from the trailers The Soloist is based on the true story of L.A. Time writer Steve Lopez and his coverage of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a Juliard musician who has ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. It is a story of a city, a group of people, and an unlikely friendship. However, more than anything this is a movie about faith.

The faith theme that runs through this movie is not limited to the traditional “god” or religious faith that will immediately spring into people’s minds, though that is in the film; The Soloist deals with faith in a great many forms – the faith between friends, faith that there is a purpose to life, faith that you can push past struggles, and most importantly the need to have something to believe in to go forward every day as the world tries to fight against you. In this movie Steve tries to find the sense in Nathaniels situation in life and he struggles to reach out to the confused, the lonely, and those whom he would never interact with if he didn’t have Nathaniel in his life; Steve operates on the faith or belief that Nathaniel has a story that is worth discovering and to understand that he needs to see part of the world that Nathaniel is in.

What kills me about The Soloist is that the release date is going to kill this movie. This is a movie that should not have been pushed into a month so near summer. It’s going to alienate the audience this movie deserves because they are going to expect a much lighter, cheerier movie that they will see. Parts of The Soloist are down right experimental and that is going to force The Soloist into a much smaller audience than it might have received in a fall/awards season month.

Jamie Foxx will be lauded for his performance as Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, as he should because he is in the Dustin Hoffman/Rainman category of greatness, but I have a feeling that because of this Robert Downey Jr. will not get as much credit as he deserves. The character of Lopez is real, the straight man trying to pull his life together and though he goes through quite an arch in the film the transformation of Lopez from beginning to end is much more subtle than the character of Ayers. My favorite scenes in the film were actually when Downey was reacting to his situation with Ayers; two notable ones were when he first listens to Ayers play the cello and the emotions that run through his eyes alone are the kind that make you think he has become another person, and a scene where Lopez quietly breaks down to his ex-wife about how Nathaniel has slowly broken his heart. I know Downey is a phenomenal actor but he never ceases to amaze me.

The only think that disappointed me about The Soloist is that the film is a bit more of a downer than it appears to be in the trailers. However, the film hits perfect notes all the way through, and tacking on a “uplifting” ending would not be true to the characters or the film.

Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Susannah Grant
Steve Lopez: Robert Downey Jr.
Nathaniel Ayers: Jamie Foxx
Mary Whitman: Catherine Keener