Reviewing Jane: We Certainly Do Not Forget You, So Soon As You Forget Us

In which we review every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen.

Year: 2007
Director: Adrian Shergold
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Alice Krige, Anthony Head
Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! This is the final feature film of the Reviewing Jane marathon! Of course, like any marathon I do, that comes with a big fat asterisk. The second they make another one of these things, it's back to the drawing board (and even with the pandemic, I'm sure Hallmark will find a way to crank out a dozen or so this Christmas). And also I haven't included 1948's Emma, which I've been unable to find anywhere, not that I need another Emma adaptation in my life when we have two more or less perfect ones on our hands as it is.

And though I've sworn off including miniseries (I'm not a TV reviewer, and also including them would increase the length of this marathon by a nerve-shattering margin), I wouldn't be doing the genre justice if I didn't review the 1995 Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice sooner than later. But asterisks aside, this is a big day! Let's dive into the final adaptation of Jane Austen's final novel, 2007's Persuasion.

And of course, every single publicity still features the couple standing with each other even though this is the story where they're actually together like 1.5% of the time.

In case you missed it yesterday, Persuasion is the story of old spinster (she's 26, the horror) Anne Elliott (Sally Hawkins) who rejected the proposal of naval captain Henry Wentworth (Rupert Penry-Jones) seven years ago after being persuaded against it by her supercilious father (Anthony Head) and godmother (Alice Krige). Now he's rich and they're thrown together in a variety of situations though there's always some love triangle or other in the way, including a cousin that's super horny for Anne, a romance that everyone approves of because Regency England was the freaking Wild West of incest.

For all we know, Wentworth is also her cousin, but at least he isn't Mr. Elliott whose proposal involves his fervent wish that she not be forced to change her last name.

So yeah, we covered a different BBC TV movie adaptation of this same novel literally yesterday, but at least this one stars Sally Hawkins, who's a consummately terrific actress. Terrific enough that the lazy crutch of having her write diary entries in voiceover to narrate her internal thoughts and feelings almost doesn't fail to work. 

Honestly, every aspect of this one is a step up, even if it's just a half step. The character humor here is much more well-rendered, and provides a jovial spirit that buoys the more somber autumnal tone of the romance. A special standout is Amanda Hale as Anne's hypochondriac sister Mary, whose illness gets more or less severe depending on whether or not she wants to do what she's asked. She plays the character like a drunken pantomime witch, and it's certainly not "realistic," but it's perfectly pitched camp hilarity.

This adaptation likewise more capably handles the "action" sequences that the previous one rendered as wet noodley as possible. Louisa falling off the step on the beach and launching herself into a coma (still the most hilarious Austen scene to see adapted to film) is more sudden and shocking, and there's a scene where Anne resets a child's dislocated collarbone with a sickening snap unlike anything I might come to expect in a period piece romance.

These ladies aren't messing around.

The only real flaw I can find with this Persuasion is its curious tendency to present scenes in a stuttery, color-leached handheld style that wouldn't be out of place in an early 2000's J-horror film. But otherwise every element has the "good not great" quality of the best BBC adaptations.

I will say the romance here is more felt than last time, though it is still necessarily chilly, being as it is about a romance that is already beyond the point of its passionate first blush. And Sally Hawkins certainly displays a depth of feeling that a screen Anne Elliott hasn't shown before, even if she can't quite sell the prelude to a kiss that asks her to slowly creep her face closer to Wentworth, millimeter by millimeter for literally 30 seconds.

Persuasion is not my favorite Austen novel (in fact, it's my second least favorite behind Mansfield Park), and none of its adaptations have been my favorites either, but this was a perfectly adequate film with which I'm quite happy to close off the biggest leg of this marathon.

TL;DR: Persuasion is certainly the best adaptation of Jane Austen's final novel, but that's not a high bar to clear.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 796
Other Films Based on Persuasion
Persuasion (Michell, 1995)
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Kidron, 2004)
Persuasion (Shergold, 2007)

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Year: 2018

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

So, yes. Against all odds, I really really liked the original Paddington. But now it's four years later, the world has fallen to pieces, and the track record for movie sequels - especially to kids' movies - has never been particularly strong. There's no way Paddington 2 could provide the same level of earnest, warm quality that its predecessor had in spades. Right? Right?!

Wrong. So, so wrong.

Paddington 2 sees our beloved, marmalade-devouring bear Paddington (Ben Whishaw) having settled into his new home with the Browns, who are all more or less the same, but nudged a slight bit forward in their arcs and dealing with the problems that come with being four years older than they once were. Henry (Hugh Bonnevile) is attempting to drown his midlife crisis in yoga and ignoring the fact that his work promoted a younger, fitter employee past his rank. Mary (Sally Hawkins) is longing for adventure and training to swim across the English Channel. Judy (Madeleine Harris) has rather given up on boys and taken up journalism, and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is attempting to appear cool in spite of his intense love of steam trains.

Paddington's retired Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) has her 100th birthday coming up, and he has decided to buy her an antique pop-up book of London landmarks, to help her feel close to the city she always wanted to visit but never got the chance to. He takes on a series of jobs at which he fails hilariously to save up for the book so he can send it to her home in Darkest Peru.

And a Paddington movie is nothing without a sublimely arch villain, so enter Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), a fading, self-absorbed actor - think a more foppish Gilderoy Lockhart - who steals the pop-up book, knowing that it contains clues as to the location of a hidden treasure. Paddington is wrongfully accused of the crime and sent to prison, where he must work to befriend his fellow inmates, including violent chef Knuckles (Brendan Gleeson), while the Browns attempt to suss out the identity of the real culprit.

Unfortunately, he has a tendency of just blending into the background, what with his drab outfits and so forth.

If I hadn't obliterated every doubt you had yet, Paddington 2 is a spectacular success both as a sequel continuing the look and feel of a consistent universe, and as an insular movie striking off in its own direction with separate, if thematically similar, ambitions. If anything, this movie doubles down on the original's emphasis on creating a humanizing - or rather, bear-izing - tale of immigration. The more diverse ensemble certainly helps in this regard (the original Paddington is still a masterpiece, but it's awfully white), but the way the film explores the character of Aunt Lucy this time around is a heartbreaking, bittersweet portrayal.

The moment that really drives that emotion home is also conveniently the moment that declares that Paddington 2 hasn't forgotten the visual inventiveness of its forebear.

Or fore-BEAR. Geddit?

As Paddington flips through the pop-up book, he imagines himself and Aunt Lucy running through the cut-paper world, exploring the sights of a city she'll only get to visit in her imagination. Not only is it a splendid effects showcase, blending the 3D animated bears with 2D paper animation in a lusciously gorgeous scene that completely eschews live action for a moment, it's a stirring and deeply felt sequence that will have you openly weeping ten minutes into the film.

But this isn't a movie that strives to make you sad. Oh it succeeds in spades at doing that, and your chest cavity will be sore from all the times your heart swells, but it's not cruel or punishing. It's just... life. It's a celebration of the good and the bad and the way that suffering has a tendency of giving way to radiant peace. It's certainly an anti-Brexit argument, but it's couched in such an undeniably warm, loving register that it never feels preachy or forced. It's just lovely and charming, just like every other part of this movie.

These elements peacefully coexist with everything else, from the broad slapstick that's played so earnestly you can't help but be drawn in to the little visual gags that never needed to be there, but prove just how much love went into the creation of this whole affair.

In any other kids' movie, this would easily be the worst, most pandering moment. I don't know who they sold their soul to, but it just freaking ISN'T.

Now, there is an element here where Paddington 2 is a bit of a step down from part one. The Brown family, although they get more solo scenes considering that Paddington is in prison for half the movie, are a bit less fleshed out than they once were, and they always were a little bit archetype-y. They're explored less enthusiastically, although the script is still tight enough to incorporate them all into the adventure with Swiss watch precision.

And there's no amount of sidelining that can take away from just how gosh darn good of a performance Sally Hawkins is delivering here. She is always a delight, but she takes the character she created in the first one and draws a sly, self-effacing humor from her overzealous commitment to every action she undertakes in this silly, off-kilter world she's been placed into. If she's not in the conversation for next year's Best Actress nominations (and she won't be, because the world is a cruel place and the Academy even crueler), the world will be robbed of the recognition of a true treasure.

The plotting also slips a bit with Hugh Grant's treasure hunt, which - to be fair - has way too many steps. He is supposed to find twelve clues scattered throughout the city, and although that is assuredly far too many for a simple little 100 minute film to handle, the way they skip through them feels like a gargantuan chunk has been carved out of the story. But again, this element is rescued by an actor at the top of their game. Hugh Grant is simply delightful, embracing the camp pomposity of his character with a lacerating, sarcastic portrayal of aging stardom.

It's hard not to be upstaged by the glorious pastel dandy outfits that came straight from the brain of some fevered fashion genius, but Hugh Grant pulls it off, providing the film with a villain that's just as stylistically bizarre and captivating as Nicole Kidman, but in a wholly different direction.

All in all, Paddington 2 is just the bee's knees. It's more of the same, but different, just like a sequel should be. And when that same is this tremendous and that different is so inspired, it's hard not to want to sing the praises of this movie from the rooftops of any convenient towers or skyscrapers.

TL;DR: Paddington 2 is a tremendously worthy sequel that recaptures the spirit of the original.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1187
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

The Bear In The Big Blue Coat

Year: 2014

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Back in 2014, when the original Paddington was released, it made hardly a blip on my radar. And why would it? I do have a boyfriend who takes me to a lot of kids movies, but that's because he's an animation buff, so this one didn't weigh heavily on his consciousness either. And the character of Paddington is certainly more of a UK phenomenon. Being American, I'd certainly heard of Paddington, but had no affection for him to match that of, say, Harry Potter, The Little Mermaid, or hell, even Amelia Bedelia (I would watch the crap out of an Amelia Bedelia movie, by the way).

So there are a lot of reasons I never sat down to watch Paddington, and now I know a lot of reasons why that was a terrible decision.

Not that Paddington doesn't also make his fair share of terrible decisions.

To my point, I had no idea that Paddington was an actual talking bear, and not a magical stuffed teddy bear á là Ted. I still don't honestly believe that. Someone report back to me and let me know. Anyway,  Paddington (Ben Whishaw) is a talking bear from Darkest Peru who has come to England after the death of his Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) and the retirement of his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). These bears were taught about the English language and customs by the explorer Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie), who promised that the bears would always be welcome in his native land.

Now, many years later, Paddington finds that London is not the glittering gem of hospitality he was promised. The city is a cold, unforgiving place (as Babe could have told him), and it's going to be harder to find a family to take him in than he thought. Fortunately, he catches the eye of artist and author Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), who allows him to spend the night with her family; protective fuddy-duddy husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), hormonal tween daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris), and inventive young son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), and matronly aunt Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters). Thus begins a sweet fish out of water comedy, where Paddington's misunderstanding of English culture, penchant for clumsiness, and absurd love of marmalade get him into quite a few scrapes, but eventually allow him to wiggle his way into the hearts of everyone in town.

That is, except for Natural History Museum taxidermist Millicent (Nicole Kidman), who enlists their anti-bear neighbor Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) to help her capture Paddington, who she desparately wants to add to her collection.

She also seems to have acquired her hairstyle from a taxidermied meerkat.

Paddington is no ordinary children's film. Or rather, it is an ordinary children's film, just done extraordinarily well. There's not a single ingredient here that feels unfamiliar, and yet fresh life is breathed into a collection of well-worn tropes by a cast and crew that is utterly, wonderfully committed to making the movie the best possible version of itself it can be. 

The whole thing is just so earnest, in a way that only the British can be. Every character is quirky and fun in quiet, charming little ways (even two background characters - security guards who exist only to be knocked out by the villainess - have a fun little moment where they're playing a game involving guessing the amounts of certain nutrients in a little package of biscuits), and they play off the idea of a talking bear as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Everything in the universe of Paddington is just a little bit off-kilter, which helps to ground the fact that our protagonist is an anthropomorphic CGI cartoon.

And even though everything is twee and fluffy in the best possible way, Paddington - like all great children's films - has a thick vein of darkness running its way through the proceedings to take the edge off the sweetness. This is a movie that literally begins with a young bear's uncle dying in an earhquake, for one thing, but it's also at its core a Pig in the City-esque tale of an innocent trying to make his way through a cold, unforgiving metropolis. Does he teach people how to open their hearts and make their life's better through his unwavering optimism? Of course he ding-dang does! But on his way to that, he hears the tale of a Holocaust survivor and lives out an immigrant nightmare in an immediately pre-Brexit London.

Damn bears coming in here, stealing hats and marmalade from hard-working Brits.

Kidding aside, Paddington is literally a story about immigration and racism, any way you slice it. The fact that it has a brain in its head only makes it more delicious, especially because it deals with these topics on a  level any kid could understand, and as gently as possible. It encourages people to love one another in spite of their differences, and it's hard to argue with that message.

But oh, how could we have gotten so far without discussing the visual style? Paddington is a candy-colored delight, full of little details and fillips that turn the live action frame into a page ripped from a fantasy storybook. From the gloriously busy design of the pneumatic delivery tubes in a huge hall of exploration archives to the deliciously grim cutaway to an imaginary orphanage, the production design is top notch. Every surface is dripping with bold primary colors and lit with the warm glow of a long-remembered childhood dream.

Everything onscreen is perfectly precise, and yet feels homespun and inviting, like if Wes Anderson decorated a playroom. And of any movie this century, Paddington probably has the most facility with actually conveying emotion through imagery rather than dialogue. In one particularly low moment, a mural of a tree in the Browns' house has all its petals blown off, which is spectacular, but the film is full of these little moments. Everything is packed with creativity and wonder, even in little visual gags like the backs of all of Nicole Kidman's mounted, stuffed heads on the wall. I don't rightly know where director Paul King (who has mostly labored in TV comedy up to this point) got all this from, but he needs to direct every kids' movie from now on.

If this movie was a flavor of hard candy, I'd keep a dozen of them in my bag at all times.

Of course, this world would be nothing without the humans populating it, and they're all incredibly well-suited to the job. The whole Brown family is a satisfying bundle of quirks and clipped Britishisms wrapped around stock character archetypes, but the obvious standout here, other than Ben Whishaw - who maintains a sense of wide-eyed wonder without becoming grating - is by far Nicole Kidman. Her performance is incredibly sharp, all tiny little mincing movements designed to make as much impact as possible with ruthless efficiency. She's an incredibly retrained, genuinely scary presence that generates a significant amount of tension all while indulging in constant moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity.

So, there you go. Don't judge a book by its cover, I guess. Or don't judge a movie by the cover of the book it's based on. Paddington has no right to be as thoroughly delightful as it is, but when it comes down to it, it's an actual cinema masterpiece that works on every single level it's asked to work on, as well as a couple dozen more it tacks on just for fun.

TL;DR: Paddington is a downright delightful children's movie, and I'm so glad we have the capacity to make something like it in this cold modern world.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1301
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

Whatever Container It's In

Year: 2017

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon 

Run Time: 2 hours 3 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Guillermo del Toro is one of the few visionary directors we have on hand today, but he’s also one of the most inconsistent. I tend to abide by the rule of thumb that his Spanish-language work is stronger than his English films (Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone are masterpieces, whereas Crimson Peak or Pacific Rim are pretty but a bit empty-headed), but I was greatly intrigued by The Shape of Water, his quasi-remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I must say that rule of thumb still applies, but it’s certainly an interesting beast that I’m excited to discuss.

And if there’s one thing del Toro knows a lot about, it’s interesting beasts.

So, the plot. Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins) is a mute cleaning woman who works at an aerospace institute in a fairy tale vision of 1960’s Baltimore. When the scientists at work bring in their newest asset – an amphibious sea creature from South America (Doug Jones, who is not the Alabama senator, though I’m sure he wishes he had that on his CV instead of The Bye Bye Man) that they’re hoping will help them make major steps in the space race once they figure out how its breathing apparatus works – she begins to teach it sign language and they become fast friends… and maybe more.

When the Evil Scientist Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) decides to vivisect the creature, Elisa must face the loss of this new relationship with a creature that makes her feel less alien and alone in this world of people who look down on her, either for her lack of speech or the fact that she’s a woman. She is supported by her coworker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her aging painter neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), but she might just have to take action.

And I mean “action” in every sense of the word.

I don’t know what it is about this Oscar season. Normally I’m not a huge fan of big awards contenders in general so it shouldn't be surprising that I'm not feeling into it, but this slate of flicks seems tailor-made for my tastes. A non-AIDS/death related gay romance? A romance starring the Gill Man? A film bringing to life the story of The Room?! Don’t mind if I do! And yet I’m liking these films even less than normal. OK, I don’t think I’ll ever dislike anything as much as The Revenant or Birdman, but this year I’m kind of longing for a Her, or a Brooklyn, or even a The Descendants. Just something that doesn’t promise high genre heights yet still manages to evoke something quiet and engrossing. Meanwhile I’m stuck with empty promises of things I’ll love that end up delivering something messy and flawed, ultimately redeemable but impossible to fall head over heels in love with.

I at least enjoyed The Shape of Water more thoroughly than Call Me By Your Name, because del Toro is a consummate entertainer even when he’s operating in a lower gear. But this film fails so hard at delivering most of what it promises that when it hits one of its many truly great scenes, it just doesn’t have the punch you wish it did.

I think my biggest issue is that The Shape of Water is just a little bit – I hate to say it – twee. The easiest comparison that comes to mind is Amélie, another film that spins a grand fairy tale fantasy out of regular life. Del Toro has proven himself adept at that kind of thing before, but Pan’s Labyrinth is no Jean-Pierre Jeunet romp. The particular register he’s working in feels utterly alien, and the central romance suffers because of it.

Fairy tales have the ability to smooth the edges off the snags and quibbles of real life love (Prince Charming hardly ever knows the Princess for more than a week before they’re hitched), but del Toro’s instincts toward blending the epic fantasy with gritty, violent reality hobble his ability to do that.  And despite the stellar performances of both Hawkins (who whips up a dazzling internal life for a character who doesn’t speak a word) and Jones (whose posture is so utterly alien that you don’t for a second remember he’s a man in a suit), the script underserves them. Their romance is too rushed-through to evoke the huge swell of emotion the movie clearly wants you to feel toward the midpoint, and the characters are too whimsical to really take the stakes seriously, even when they are raised through the roof.

The amount of time it takes you to look at this caption is about the time the script devotes to their chemistry before tossing them into another movie entirely for about forty minutes.

But let's not pretend that there is not some terrific material at work in The Shape of Water, it just tends to be in the stuff circulating around the central relationship. The lead actors might be great, but their supporting players are even better. Well, I mean Octavia Spencer is doing her Octavia Spencer thing, and that's just dandy, but Richard Jenkins and Michael Shannon are pure magic.

Michael Shannon has made a habit of getting accolades for movies I don't really care to see, but he has more than won me over to his side here. The metaphor about his character (a white man with a hilariously perfect 50's suburban family) being the true monster here isn't particularly subtle, but boy does he sell it by being f**king scary. Every second he's onscreen pulses with nerve-shattering tension, and he has the audience wrapped around his little finger within two frames.

And then there's poor Richard Jenkins, who digs deep to unearth some raw loneliness in character as a gay man who has allowed himself to grow old hiding in the shadows and regrets letting his life and potential love pass him by. His character is probably the funniest, warmest presence in the film, but every three scenes or so he gets it into his head to rip out your heart with his bare hands and play the strings like a maestro of human misery.

The Shape of Water has a lot to say about alienation and loneliness, and those themes live and breathe in the performances even when they aren't present on the page. This is probably the best ensemble of the year, and the fact that they get to act out a story this weird on sets this sumptuous in their grotty glory, with cinematography this sleek and stunning is a small miracle. It doesn't come together quite enough for me to give it a wholehearted recommendation, but god damn can it draw some real beauty from its murky depths.

TL;DR: The Shape of Water is a gorgeous, well-acted film with clumsy script execution.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1165

American Godz

Year: 2014

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen

Run Time: 2 hours 3 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

From the beginning, Godzilla was never going to please everybody. It's hard enough to successfully reboot a foreign franchise into an American market, but when the franchise is a beloved 60-year-old kaiju series with a despised American remake only 16 years earlier, it comes saddled with a lot of expectations.

On top of his limited directing experience, visual effects artist Gareth Edwards had to face the precarious challenge of updating a cultural icon just enough for it to seem fresh and relevant in 2014 while staying true to the character's original intent way back when he was introduced in 1954, as well as the ways the proceeding years shaped his development. It should come as no surprise that the film was a mixed success.

Poor guy can't catch a break.

Let us also not act surprised that the human element is largely clichéd. That one was a given and, in fact, is absolutely in keeping with the spirit of the franchise. The film is full of people shouting things into telephones and melodramatically putting on glasses, but you won't catch me complaining. It's all in good fun.

So, the humans. Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) is an American worker in Japan, of all places. Basically, he has Homer Simpson's job, managing the local nuclear power plant. When his wife (Juliette Binoche) dies in a mysterious accident that collapses the entire structure, he dedicates the rest of his life to discovering the true cause of the devastation.

Fifteen years later, their son Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass and current holder of the title of Broadest Man in the World) is all grown up in San Francisco and is a lieutenant in the Navy who works with defusing bombs. He has a wife (Elizabeth Olsen) and son (Carson Bolde) because of course he does. I'm just glad they aren't estranged and forced to reconcile during the inevitable disaster.

An ill-timed encounter with his father in Japan sends Ford smack-dab in the middle of a full-scale catastrophe as they discover the truth behind the wreckage - a massive insectoid monster known as a MUTO (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) that immediately flies off in search of more radiation to devour, destroying everything in its path.

It's impossible to find production photos of the MUTO so soon after the film's release. Please accept my apologies and this photo of Bryan Cranston.

So off they go to stop the monster menace before it finds its mate and destroys the world. But lo! Help is on the way in the form of a giant lizard known only as Godzilla, protector of the natural balance of nature. Will these giant monsters duke it out, destroying entire cities in the process while the sound designers pump out rumbling bass that will rattle the bones out of your sockets? Hells yeah they will.

Let's get into it. Because the good largely outweighs the bad, why don't we start with that? The film takes a lot of cues from Jaws and Jurassic Park in the first act, using a slow burn tactic and subtle imagery (pencils rolling off a desk in an aircraft carrier and a terrific "airplane domino" scene are reminiscent of the rippling glass of water in the latter film) to hint at the impending doom before we get our first true glimpse of the titular monster.

The action is excellently choreographed across the board, at least where the humans are concerned and during the bulk of the monster mayhem, interspersed with some dazzling shots that I will not ruin here. I'll just mention the one used in the teaser trailer of parachuters falling over San Francisco, trails of lights following their paths. It is majestic and truly epic and not the only sequence in the film that feels that way. Edwards really knows how to frame an event for maximum import.

This scene is accompanied by a taut orchestral piece by Alexandre Desplat that is the standout in a mostly nonintrusive score and is certainly one of the best cinematic moments of the year, if not the decade so far.

That and Aaron Taylor-Johnson shirtless.

So that's all fine and dandy. The artists behind Godzilla had a real eye for visual storytelling and it is a massive benefit to the film as a whole. But it can't entirely overcome some of the more telling weaknesses in its plotting.

Unfortunately, the largest issue is, in fact, literally the largest: Godzilla. At the risk of sounding like a petty fanboy, he's not in the movie nearly enough. The human scenes are great, as are their tense interactions with the unleashed monsters, but this ain't the MUTO show. This is freakin' Godzilla and he only gets about a fifth of the screen time that they do.

It's the arrogance of man (specifically Edwards) to think that he can sideline our title creature - a veritable force of nature and king of the monsters - for some B-side kaiju of his own creation. And while there are some great moments in the monster clash finale, it's all a little clunky and haphazard and Godzilla is a little too fallible. 

Not that I'm asking that there be no element of conflict or suspense, but I just wish we could have spent more time with Godzilla destroying crap instead of wrestling crackerjack original creatures. I'm sure some people agree with me. And I'm sure some people don't. 'Tis the nature of the medium. But for what it's worth, it's still massively enjoyable even with what I consider its wasted potential.

Speaking of wasted potential, let's talk about the female characters. There are two women with major speaking roles and both are sidelined almost immediately, even though one of them - a scientist played by Blue Jasmine's Sally Hawkins - is ostensibly an expert on the subject of giant monsters. The other, Ford's wife, spends the back half of the film running around in the rain and crying.

It's like she was trapped in a Nicholas Sparks poster.

I do understand that the human characters are inconsequential in a Godzilla film. But come on, people! We can do better than this! Other than that though, Godzilla is a great popcorn flick and I have absolutely zero regrets shelling out the money to go see it. I'm just hoping it'll garner enough money to warrant a sequel where they can work out the kinks and bust out a truly magnificent American kaiju film. It's in the DNA of Godzilla, we just haven't quite reached it yet.

TL;DR: Godzilla is a terrifically tense action flick but some missteps with the giant monsters deflate it somewhat.

Rating: 8/10

Should I Spend Money On This? This month, you've got Godzilla or X-Men. Nothing else matters. If you're on a budget, pick one. If you're into pop culture at all you'll already know which one you'd rather see.

Word Count: 1165

CinemaBeach: I Lost My Mind In San Francisco

Blue Jasmine

Year: 2013

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Blue Jasmine barreled onto the scene, giving Woody Allen the all-time biggest box office debut of his career and sweeping up critics in its wake, but now that the tide has settled, a closer inspection reveals that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Not that it’s not a good movie, not by a long shot. Blue Jasmine has a strong sense of style that shines under the hand of a veteran director. The cast is mostly superb and it is never boring, but it has big ideas about class divisions and interpersonal relationships that never really crystallize by the time the credits roll.

Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a wealthy socialite whose husband (Alec Baldwin) is arrested for shady corporate dealings. She loses her house, her money, her stepson, and her husband and has to move in with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a working class city girl whose romantic life consists of a revolving door of lowlife guidos. Having never held a job, she’s not quite sure what to do with herself and after several unsuccessful ventures, she manages to convince the worldly (and handsome) Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) that she’s an interior designer, thus beginning a professional (at first) relationship.

Her road has frequent ups and downs (literally – her life is a haze of Xanax and high-functioning alcoholism) and we encounter frequent flashbacks to her life before. The higher the peak, the less we see. The harder the fall, the more time we spend in Jasmine’s dreamland of bubble baths and diamond bracelets.

Taking on what could be a deliriously campy role (Jasmine has a habit of talking to herself as if she were still at an extravagant dinner party) and moderating it perfectly, Blanchett is a rock in a briskly moving river of fast-paced cuts, flashbacks, and branching side plots. Baldwin, Sarsgaard, and Hawkins are quite at home in their roles as well, as is Louis C. K. in a surprisingly rich turn as a bumbling sound engineer. Unfortunately the movie suffers under the lesser efforts of a bloated supporting cast (Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s ex-husband is a particular disappointment).

Various thematic threads are picked up, held onto for a while, and summarily dropped as the movie spans across such topics as reinventing oneself, the hypocrisy of the laments of the rich, and the futility of trying to change someone who is already lost. Each of these themes valiantly vies to anchor the film and each of them is quietly buried and forgotten.

Disregarding the subtext, the text itself is a little shaky on its feet with its share of minor but niggling plot holes. The largest of which is that Jasmine is apparently so utterly computer illiterate that she can’t even Google “online design school,” even after months of computer classes. One could argue that she is deliberately causing herself to fail because of her guilt over her husband’s fate but one would be reading far too much into a film that doesn’t quite find its thematic footing throughout its 98 minute run time.

Blue Jasmine is definitely worth seeing if only for Blanchett’s wonderful performance, but remains in the mind about as long as a pleasant dream upon waking up.

TL;DR: Blue Jasmine is interesting and pretty but empty.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, but only because Cate Blanchett is a treasure.

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