Throw a neg? #6: Funny People

Judd Apatow sure does love his family. Every shot of Leslie Mann gleams, every shot of daughters Maude and/or Iris Apatow holds just too long. It's not like hiring Janusz Kaminski to light his pictures into "pretty" makes Apatow any better a filmmaker. But the problem isn't directing, per se, it's scope; which points to writing, which points to editing, which of course points to directing, too (we're after harmony after all, aren't we?). Endless coverage and endless post-production work shouldn't really be a problem, in theory, because you'd hope that editing was actually editing, or trimming--cutting off some fat. Hell, it's a recurring joke that Seth Rogen's gotten skinnier since the last time he was on screen. More, Apatow's trying to tell two too many stories at once, and each one is so moral. Granted, I felt good walking to the car; and, I suppose, self-reliance is a about as good a thing to preach as any. But, for every dick joke and for all the let's-get-serious talk, there's still a gauze on mess. It's a satisfied picture, no doubt, happy to know what it knows. It's Hollywood; it's fantasy. Solutions seem easy. After watching so much Hawks recently (a terrible and unfair comparison, I realize, but what are standards for?), I get that, for all his assurance of how the world works, Hawks is more about letting things play--or following a course as it leads. Despite the bloat of the running time, you can feel Syd Field all over Apatow's screenplays/outlines. Bottom line: gimme more movies about competition and more Aubrey Plaza telling our dummy boy-man Rogen she can fuck whoever she wants. --RWK

Throw a neg! #5: Harry Potter 6

As soon as he says that line, you know it's over. Or, I did. I got up premature and beat it the hell out of the parking lot. No need to soak credits. For a film that long, with that much "plot," it's pretty damned minor. Yates seems to have a few good ideas about lighting, and jostling the screen sometimes, but there's a certain embalming patina over most things in the movie. It's definitely a movie of things, too, as all these Potter books/movies are, except for when Cuaron really turned the central thing into a theme in his picture. Now, this one cannot be deemed a nadir by any means, but it certainly doesn't mean much to state that. Nor does it mean much by itself, as all the things are just things, attached to very little. A film/story this reliant on "memory" should be a little bit more about the mind, don't you think? (Something Yates' #5 got, kind of.) No, this one's just a different kind of faithful to the book, exclusively a plot delivery machine, even though the color and consequence of the final confrontation/s has been transposed down, dampened or muted, and, quite honestly, smoothed over. We (or I, or other dummies like me who've read the books) know that the series won't deliver on all its mythological possibilities, but there's still hope, maybe, that the next two films (of one book! money! cash! greed!) will at least be loud. God knows there won't be any less exposition. Even without Gambon asking, in just about every scene, "You must be wondering why I've brought you here." My query is why I want to be lead, or why I keep on following.

Throw a neg! #4: Transformers 2

I'm happy this was the first flick I saw in the Green Country Cinemas. And I'm happy the crowd was talkative. I'm happy I could point out who was an Autobot and who was a Decepticon in some of the "fight scenes" to the kid on my right. Maybe I'm just worn out, or maybe I just have way less invested in getting riled up at windmills, but I couldn't muster the kind of anger this idiotic mess warrants on an ideological level for the simple fact that Michael Bay makes images that swoon and pop, burn and thud, go bang and lazy, and all at once, as it's true spectacle: always in motion, always useless beyond aesthetics and the pleasure of light and color. But there is a soundtrack, and dialogue, and, as many have griped, some really fucking terrible attempts at comedy -- plus, of course, all the obnoxious hate one can expect from a lame-brain adolescent -- not to mention it's 150 minutes without previews. And, while we're at it, we might as well mention how terrible Ms Fox is (and how crazy Bay's idea of sexuality is; ditto "love") despite, somehow, in the midst of the wooden line readings and anime posturing, she's still pretty sexy in a middle school fantasy way. The most dispiriting thing about the enterprise is just how much fucking money this will make, and how much fun that is for those involved, since I don't get paid to do what I love, and since I think this thing is genuinely cancerous for culture. Still, I had a fine time. Orange is a good color. --RWK

Throw a neg! #3: Rachel Getting Married

This won't be bilious like the last "neg" thrown. In fact, I think this movie is relatively worthy of attention. It's just not that good, or maybe not even "good" at that. For starters, the screenplay is thick. For another, Anne Hathaway can't carry her eyeliner that well. For more, there's this whole multiculti bit of nonsense that seems genuinely celebrated, not investigated, by Demme's (dare I say it?) indulgent running time. Yep: this thing should have been--or at least could have been--30 minutes shorter. There was too much pageant, somehow too little Bill Irwin (defo too lil Winger), and way too many Serious Dramatic Clichés. That, or I'm just not interested. No amount of docu-hijinks can get me into thinking all that pomp was knowingly dumb; not when I'm forced to watch it for so long from a camera giddy to see smiles dancing. --RWK

Throw a neg! #2: Watchmen

Fuck "embargoes"—I don't give a shit if I'm never invited again. I was ready to walk out inside five minutes, during the opening credits. However, I stayed. For the full fucking 3 fucking hours of this dummzville parade of bullshit. Zach Snyder can write all the nasty emails he wants: he's the worst kind of middle schooler around this "movie" business. Get a life, dude. Go be rich, fine; great job at that. But I cannot imagine ever enjoying one of your movies. The worst part? It's soooooo not worth getting this upset about. Why am I soooooo upset? Why didn't I buy two tall cans? More later, maybe, in other spaces. --RWK

Throw a neg! #1: Ben Butt

Yesterday I saw this with my new pal, Glenn (who initially wrote this), up in the thick of midtown. It's not that good. Although some of it is good. I left this comment on my new pal Danny's piece:

Finally saw this thing. And, for the most part, I agree it’s a waste. It wastes yet another perfect Pitt performance, and a steady stream of too-fucking-pretty images, all in the service of some kind of fable kind of scare quotes idea of “memory” or of “time” or of “storytelling” — all under the umbrella of that idiot framing device. Ormond is kinda good, too, like Pitt, in her reserves, but, like you say, Danny, she’s not quite right (like a lot of the picture). That said, it makes sense, in a way, that her story be drained of the amber and the glow and washed out (literally in the end). And with THAT said, it’s not quite worth it, really, despite a few genuine moments, because every one of those is undercut by some hokey “ism” line of dialogue. Lucky though we may be for that ten minute segment of the blissful and beautiful years where everything drips sex, and lucky though we may be for all the generosity (and, yes, curiosity) of Pitt’s performance, this thing, on the whole, stinks of Eric Roth’s word processor. That, and, well, Fincher can’t seem to let a shot last very long here; I got kinda dizzy in simple dialogue scenes with all the shot-reverse shot flip flops.

Bah. At least I saw it big. That’s the only way to really appreciate how fucking gorgeous some of these CAPITAL LETTER COMPOSITIONS truly shine and shimmer

I mean, I wanted more of this type of shit, below, but that's just a preference. And yet, that still coulda worked in D-Fincher's little wannabe gemlike nugget-elephant. --RWK