Reviews of District 9, Ponyo and Inglorious Basterds.

Mega movie weekend for me.

District 9

I didn’t hear about Niel Blompkamp until Peter Jackson had presented him as his choice to direct the now likely dead Halo movie. Shortly after hearing that I watched a couple of his self produced shorts. The one that struck me was “Tempbot”. It was a small low busget short that had a simple premise. What if an a everyday office was given a very capable robot as a temp. Even on his minor budget back then the SFX we terrific. The short itself is a touching, funnny and sad film that made me instantly excited to see what him and Peter Jackson could do with the Halo license.

Sadly Universal refused to front 100 mil upfront for a picture helmed by a first time full length feature director. Two weeks ago Universal learned their lesson. District 9 is one of the finest pure sci-fi movies I’ve ever seen. For the sake of your first viewing I have to say I will not divulge the plot or story details because the marketing was actually perfect for once. All you need to know is that in the world of the movie aliens do exist and they have landed in Johannesburg, South Africa. That’s it. The trailer shows you some amazing FX work with an incredible mother ship hovering over the city. One other slight spoiler that may help some of you is that the movie starts off as a documentary about a “incident” related to the current situation with the aliens. gradually the film shifts in to a third person omniscient perspective as a normal narrative driven film. For some it was a shocking chnage and deterred them but for me it was natural and teh confusion lasted seconds.

Since I’m not spoiling any plot points I will say what to expect. Expect an amazing lead performance from an actor we’ve never seen before and special effects that are jaw dropping nearly impossible to spot and just completely immersive. The budget of this movie was 30 million dollars. For 30 mil dollars it looks as good as a 200 mil. dollar picture. Just a terrific movie and a spectacular way to start Blompkamp’s film career. 5 doctored alien sex pictures out of 5

Ponyo

Ponyo is master film maker Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film. It centers on a young Goldfish named “Broomhilda.” Broomhilda is the eldest of a whole school of goldfish fathered by a formerly human wizard and the goddess of the sea. At the start of the film “broomhilda” runs away from her father to see more of the sea. After she has a run in with a fishing trawler she is found by a young boy named Saske. Saske names her Ponyo and a friendship is instantly born.

Ponyo is  film in which Miyazaki makes a a signature fairytale in today’s modern world. Set in a small Japanese town which is dominated by the sea trade Saske is the son of a senior care giver and a captain of a coastal guard ship. After he meets Ponyo she is forever changed and falls in love with Saske and the human world in general. Of course Ponyo’s father does not approve(he also generally hates Humans even though he used to be one).

The story is simple but filled with the touching interactions between Saske and Ponyo. This in tune with almost entirely 2d animation that drops your jaw and touches your heart and brings another masterpiece.

If there was a flaw to find I’d say it was the voice casting of the youngest Efron brother as the voice of Saske. Saske is the main lead and he is the one who has the most lines. He provides most of the needed dialogue and frankly the voice used seems terribly forced and blatantly read off a page. Disney’s lone stipulation for bring Miyazaki films to the US is that the theatrical runs use English voice work done by Disney. in the past they have been remarkably good and even rivaled the Miyazaki overseen Japanese dubs. Miyazaki has even commented that Jean Reno’s voicework made the English dubbing of Porco Russo a better movie. What’s sad about the poor voicework of Saske is that once again Disney delivers a very solid voice cast other wise. Tina Fey was so touching and enjoyable as Saske’s mother that I actually got a crush on her as the movie progressed. Liam Neeson also delivers solid work as Ponyo’s father giving some great levity, seriousness and some awkward scientist like tendencies. I await the blu-ray to hear the japanese dub and see how that plays out.

Any Miyazaki fan must see Ponyo. 4 pieces of ham out of 5

Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds is a hell of a film. I mean that in a good and bad way. Tarantino had been working on this movie for years and years. During his 7 year break from film making Tarantino spent 3 years writing Kill Bill and all 7 writing Inglorious Basterds. What he delivered was a very large and complicated meal that is very filling and indeed a signature piece. The film starts off with a small french family living under German rule during the Nazi occupation. A lone family man is running a milk farm with his 3 daughters. Very soon a regiment of Nazi SS troops arrive along with a Captian Landa. Landa is the movies main antagonist, other than Hitler. Landa is this film’s “Bill” and in a simple way of describing him, imagine Columbo if he lived in 1942 and was working for Hitler and was in charge of finding all the jews in France. We get several scenes throughout the movie of Landa smelling out our character’s true intentions all while providing the most charming but false veneer that only Columbo fans could spot.

Landa isn’t the main focus of the film though, in fact Tarantino focuses on several storylines only a couple of them actually dealing with the famed Basterds. Watching the movie is like watching the climax of Resivour dogs several times over. the majority of the action in Inglorious Basterds is quick brutal and dirty the build up however is long slow and very methodical. You see how every factor of the violence builds and builds until you actually understand how everything that happens in the 10 seconds of gunfire actually came to pass.

The film is very much another homage to exploitation movies and constantly switches up styles of music, editing and perspective. Tarantino actually utilizes a lot of the style choices from Kill bill to achieve a quasi 70′s style to a strangely realistic recreation of 1942 France.

My problem with the film are that Tarantino did seem to officially enjoy his dialogue a bit too much. Again I loved every scene but the oppressive tension  became really exhausting as the f ilm progressed. As I said the film uses the slow build to quick action many times and the tension seems to multiply as it goes but we so rarely got a reprieve from it. Towards the end of the film Landa interrogates a charecter and we know the jig is up we know Landa has that person in his sights and there seems to be no saving her. Tthe scene still takes it’s time to actually deliver that satisfaction of knowing what’s going to happen. This may have been intentional on Tarantino’s part to really make us feel indoctrinated and overruled by the Germans but it became very daunting to continue in this very long film. BTW Jackie Brown is my favorite Tarantino movie and it’s among his longest movies. I do in fact think this was intentional since Tarantino utilized the Chapter layout that he used in the Kill bill films. Sort of like each chapter is a separate novella and they all work together.

My problems with pacing a greatly over shadowed by Tarantino’s signature dialogue and wit. Each scene has lines and words so memorable and awesome that they are immediately etched into your brain. Violence is a hallmark of Tarantino’s vision, this movie doesn’t disappoint. There’s only a few scattered moments of florish on the violent scene’s this time which makes them all more brutal.

4 Nazi scars out of 5.