Movies: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Score:  **** out of ***** (A-)

Long Story Short:  The Perks of Being a Wallflower seems to be slowly working its way through theaters nationwide and is likely to be available on DVD and streaming soon.  It's a coming-of-age film of one year in the life of a high school-aged boy named Charlie.  Ezra Miller shines as one of his pals, and both Lerman and Watson improve along the way, too.  Ultimately, Perks represents the journey of high school faithfully and makes up for any imperfections with its emotional resonance.


It's almost like summer again as the films keep on coming.  This week I got to see The Perks of Being a Wallflower, initially released all the way back in September.  I was interested in seeing it then, but as a limited release it didn't get to my theater; I guess it's expanded since then, so I took the opportunity.  The main draw for me was simply the strength of reviews for it, and I also enjoy the occasional coming-of-age story.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower was directed by Steven Chbosky (who also wrote the novel that it's based on, in 1999) and stars Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller.

We first get a glimpse of the main character, Charlie (Lerman), who is about to enter high school.  He lives in an average suburb with both of his parents and his sister Candace (Dobrev).  Charlie is quiet and intelligent, and at first the only connection he makes is to his English teacher (Rudd).  On a chance encounter at a football game, he sits down with a kid from his shop class, Patrick (Miller) and his stepsister, Sam (Watson), both seniors.  He sees them again at a school dance, and follows them to an after party where they begin to bond.  Charlie, attracted to Sam at first sight, tells her of his lack of romantic experience at Christmas as she expresses some affection, though she is dating someone else.

The trio, plus some of Patrick and Sam's other friends, begin hanging out together all the time, and a favorite activity becomes enacting The Rocky Horror Picture Show at a local theater.  Mary Elizabeth (Whitman) asks Charlie to the Sadie Hawkins dance and, under her controlling lead, the two start to date.  Growing frustrated with the relationship, Charlie acts rashly which threatens his friendship with the entire group.  Meanwhile, spring is approaching with Sam struggling to get accepted into college, Patrick dealing with his own difficult relationship, and Charlie feeling both blessed and cursed by the friends he's made in his first year of high school.

The performances of the young people in a coming-of-age film are crucial to establish relatable, believable events.  Logan Lerman as Charlie is the main character, but he acts more as the center rather than the focus throughout the film.  For the most part he portrays his quiet, polite, intelligent part well, with a few slips in character here are there.  Crucially, he does well in the most important, emotional scenes.  Emma Watson as Sam improves throughout the film after a little overacting at first.  She is well-cast, her strikingly beautiful face attracting Charlie's and the audience's attention; she flirts almost off-handedly, something few can pull off well.  The third member of the group, Ezra Miller as Patrick, is the best, though.  He oozes charisma, and also comes across as the most believable teenager in the entire cast.  Swinging between the extremes of petty pranks to deep pain and alienation, Miller pulls it all off and steals most of the scenes he inhabits.

There are some nice supporting roles, too.  Paul Rudd, typically a leading man, does a fine job in just a few minutes of screentime as the English teacher.  Nina Dobrev as Candace is very convincing as Charlie's sister, trying to keep her little brother at bay at times and at others showing a deep, sisterly bond.  Finally, Mae Whitman injects some good humor into the role of Mary Elizabeth, a smart, sarcastic girl who fluctuates believably between cooly controlling and desperately clinging.

The cast provides the foundation of this realistic coming-of-age film; Perks also contains a story, structure, flow, and feel that makes it all the more relatable.  I mentioned that Charlie acts as the center rather than the focus of the film, and I mean that his are the eyes and ears through which the story is told.  He has a strong family, but aside from his sister, they are virtually ignored - as a real teenager would, focusing instead on his peers.  The foci throughout the film goes in a cycle - again, in the way a teenager's typically does - going from school concerns, to friendship, to romantic pulls, and back again. The structure is also clever:  it takes place over roughly one year, and shows the paradoxical high school feeling of being both temporary and timeless, as Charlie's new friends are all seniors.  There are just enough cultural cues to give the story a place in time, but it's still plenty relatable to most generations, I think.  There are several powerful yet genuine scenes, though not so many that it seems every day has a world-altering one.  Perhaps the most memorable is the most simple, utilizing the power of music, and recurring at the end as a perfect book end.

***

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a flawed film, but one that resonates in ways that elude the efforts of most other films.  The first act of the film had me thinking that it was headed down a very common, very predictable road but then it just kept on developing.  I would argue that the Charlie-Sam relationship is potentially most deserving of criticism:  it takes up the largest chunk of time, sometimes starts to drift into cliche; then it dies down, only to rise up again (better, yet briefer, this time).  I suppose, whether or not this was done intentionally, though, that it well reflects the awkwardness of the whole high school experience.  There are several different important strands of Charlie's relationships in the film, some of which occur simultaneously and others consecutively, and it's interesting to see them all interact and yet stay in their own little bubbles apart from each other.  Although my own high school experience was much different in detail than Charlie's, of course, I could relate to many of his feelings and some of the more powerful moments.  Perks is a movie worth seeing at least once and, like our memories of high school, worth revisiting from time to time.

Movies: Skyfall

Score:  **** out of ***** (A-)

Long Story Short:  007 is back after a four-year hiatus, and is receiving great praise from critics as well as success at the box office.  Craig, already great in his first outing as Bond in Casino Royale, mirrors his character's own development of greater confidence by having more fun than in the two previous films.  Yet Bond faces not only a sinister foe in MI6 rogue Silva (villain master Javier Bardem) but also questions of his own role in defending the modern world.  Seen best (in my opinion) as the third act of Craig's Bond trilogy, Skyfall also represents the finest quality of today's action genre.


It's been a great fall movie season so far, with the fantastic Argo and Flight.  Now it's 007's turn, and one of my most anticipated films of the year.  I am a huge James Bond fan, and was thrilled with the series reboot in 2006's Casino Royale (my favorite of the series so far).  Quantum of Solace was also very good - severely underrated, in fact - and then 007 fans were subjected to another long drought between films thanks to MGM going into bankruptcy.  Fortunately, Daniel Craig stayed on as Bond, and I was quite excited by both the trailer for Skyfall and by the inclusion of Javier Bardem as the villain.  Skyfall was directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) and stars Craig in his third 007 adventure, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, and Bardem.

Skyfall drops the audience straight into one of 007's missions, this one in Istanbul.  Bond (Craig) finds a meeting gone awry, and M (Dench) instructs him to abandon a fallen fellow agent there are go after a stolen hard drive.  A great Bond chase ensues, going from car to motorcycle to train.  As Bond grapples with the bad guy, M instructs another MI6 agent to shoot - taking out 007 instead, accidentally.  Bond survives, of course, and takes his time getting back to home base; meanwhile, MI6 is hacked and under attack by cyber terrorists.

Bond's only lead is the man who stole the hard drive - containing the identities of NATO secret agents - and he manages to track him to Shanghai.  There, 007 meets a voluptuous woman who takes him to the boss, who turns out to be a former MI6 agent named Silva (Bardem) gone rogue and insane.  It seems that Bond has the situation under control, but Silva knows exactly what to expect from his former handlers and remains two steps ahead of them.  Bond is forced to dump the agency playbook and make Silva fight on his terms, resulting in not only an explosive finale but one that brings 007's mysterious origins in contact with his new "family".

Acting is hardly the most important aspect of a Bond film, but Skyfall has a strong cast.  Craig retains the same gritty style that he introduced in Casino Royale, but his 007 is now a shade more confident, in particular deploying a sense of humor more often.  Craig's Bond is unique in that the first three films all build off each other (more on that later) rather than stand alone, and so the character has evolved.  I personally still prefer Pierce Brosnan, the 007 I grew up with, but Craig does a superb job with his own interpretation of the iconic spy.  He really hit the ground running (literally and figuratively) in Casino Royale, and has ably guided the character along from there.

Judi Dench has her largest role yet as M (which she started in 1995's Goldeneye), and her character (along with 007) is under pressure from the start as being past her prime.  Unsurprisingly, both Dench and her M prove themselves up to the challenge.  Javier Bardem as Silva is sensational, and an instant classic villain in the 007 pantheon.  If you've seen No Country For Old Men, just imagine a metrosexual Anton Chigurh - equal parts creepy and frightening.  His introductory scene, basically a monologue, is perhaps the most entertaining in the entire film.  Naomie Harris plays an MI6 agent "Bond girl" and, in limited screen time, flirts with Bond effectively.  Ralph Fiennes plays a hard-nosed bureaucrat who breathes down M and Bond's necks, yet remains fiercely loyal to the country.  Last but not least the new Q is introduced (yay!), and the young Ben Whishaw plays him with the same bored, hilarious exasperation as the legendary Desmond Llewelyn.

Skyfall has plenty of action befitting a proper James Bond film, and Mendes eschews the often-confusing shaky cam from Quantum of Solace.  The opening Istanbul chase is a very good one, employing classic 007 tricks yet in the grittier, imperfect mode symbolizing Craig's style (I have to admit, the opening is the best action of the film and the rest is fairly pedestrian, by 007 standards anyway).  Daniel is very convincing as a hand-to-hand fighter (unlike the beefy Roger Moore) and also shows himself as a mortal, taking almost as much punishment as he dishes out.  Of course, just when you think "what's so special about this guy?", he takes down half-a-dozen baddies in two seconds, taking your breath away. There is considerably more psychological and emotional "action" as well in Skyfall, particularly in questioning the effectiveness of MI6 in the modern world, and delving (like Casino and Quantum) into Bond's past and what drives him.  Fear not, Skyfall is not all battle:  Bond trades quips with Harris' agent and Whishaw's Q like the old days, and Dench and Bardem even add some humor, too.  One last thing:  Adele's title song is one of the best Bond themes and I hope that she, in the style of Shirley Bassey, returns to the series.

***

Skyfall, taken by itself, is a very strong action film.  But I have to admit that the first time I saw it (yes, I've seen it twice already), it left me with an empty feeling.  Thanks to an observation from another reviewer, I went into my second viewing with another perspective and it worked much better.  How did this happen?  I went in the first time expecting one of those classic 007 films which have - despite a lot of variations, of course - a certain formula and style.  I could tell Skyfall was moving toward that classic 007 feeling, but it didn't quite get there.  The second time I saw it, I thought of it more as the third film in a trilogy and was much more pleased.  Unlike any Bond films before them, Craig's have all built on each other, and Quantum is even a direct sequel to Casino.  Skyfall has a completely new plot, yes, but it retains the overall theme of developing James Bond into the legend on display in films one through twenty.  And the last scene of Skyfall rather clearly shows that at last, Craig's 007 is truly the Bond of "shaken, not stirred," "the name's Bond, James Bond," etc.  So for full effect, I recommend that you watch Casino Royale (see this regardless!) and Quantum of Solace before Skyfall.  Yeah, yeah, it's just an action film - but it's a great one by itself and even better for those who follow 007.

Movies: Flight

Score:  ****1/2 out of ***** (A)

Long Story Short:  Denzel Washington gives an excellent, career-defining performance as main character pilot "Whip" Whitaker in Robert Zemeckis' Flight.  An edge-of-your seat opening gets the audience's attention and then turns it to the struggles of one man - seemingly a hero - with his own demons.  Supported and enriched by a great cast forming Whip's circle of friends and enemies.  Thanks to Denzel's performance and a fine balance between believability and inspiration, Flight soars into its place among the year's best.


The beginning of November signals the start of a nice long run of films I'm interested in seeing.  I caught this Flight last Monday; last night I saw the new James Bond movie (review coming next weekend!); my local theater finally released Perks of Being a Wallflower; and Lincoln is already out now, too.  First thing's first, though:  I saw the trailer for this during another theater trip, and the premise intrigued me.  Plus, Denzel is a great actor and when he stars in the more "serious" films like Training Day and American Gangsters, the result are strong.  With a good score on Rotten Tomatoes (76%), I decided to see it.  Flight was directed by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) and stars Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and John Goodman.

Flight introduces the main character, Whip Whitaker (Washington), waking up in a hotel room with bottles of alcohol strewn about and an attractive young woman casually walking around naked.  After ingesting a line of cocaine, we watch Whip stride out of the hotel - dressed for duty as an airplane pilot.  Whip is the captain of a short flight from Florida to Atlanta, from where he will debark to greet his estranged family.  Whip shows off his skills to his young, inexperienced co-pilot, but midflight he is awakened from a nap by turbulence and all hell breaks loose.

When the dust settles, Whip is a public hero, saving the vast majority of the lives on his plane.  But the pilot's union, represented by Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) quietly informs Whip of a positive toxicology report taken and summons attorney Hugh Lang (Cheadle) to defend him.  Whip grapples with his continuing addiction and finds himself pulled different directions by old faces, like dealer Harling (Goodman), and new faces, such as fellow addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly).  Both the NTSB and Whip search for the answer to this question:  is he a hero or a villain?

Flight sports a stellar cast, and it is led by a phenomenal turn from Denzel Washington.  The focus of the film is entirely on Whip; as the character went, so too did the rest of the film.  I'm pleased to say that Denzel knocked it out of the park with a moving and memorable performance.  Part of Whip's character is the typical calm, collected Denzel - but Whip is also a man utterly controlled by his addiction.  Whip can be a charming, thoughtful guy, but when he is confronted by others over his addiction, he lashes out in fierce, yet vulnerable, self-defense.  Beyond Whip himself, the film sets up his relationships with his family, friends and co-workers superbly and Denzel drops right into the middle of those interactions like he has lived that life for years.

While Denzel is the focus and the star, he has tremendous supporting players around him.  Kelly Reilly (whose face you'll likely recognize) does a great job in her role as a random acquaintance of Whip's, keeping control in a role that easily could have been overacted.  Goodman has kind of a similar role to the one he had in Argo, actually, and he's just as good - and funny - here.  Whip's co-workers Charlie (Greenwood) and Hugh (Cheadle) master their characters' superficial compassion and the ruthlessness they reveal only behind (sometimes literally) closed doors.  One last role that deserves mention is one I can't even find on IMDB - he's a cancer patient in Whip's hospital and provides an electric few minutes.

The hook of Flight, and what the studio surely hoped would get people to the theater, is the plane crash.  And certainly, the film does not slight this scene in the least, producing tension about on par with some of the better scenes in Argo.  But it's only the take off (pun intended) for a film about, as I described in Denzel's acting, a man dealing with addiction and perhaps his final reckoning.  Seeing how this man, a capable guy esteemed in his profession, brought to his knees time and again is powerful, as is seeing the results of his addiction, due to the crash or otherwise, on other people in his life.  Even with all of this serious stuff, Flight manages to sneak in some really good humor to help prevent things from getting depressing.  In fact, one of the miracles of the film is that it isn't depressing despite the subject matter.  A final note:  although the score is by Alan Silvestri, who did the beautiful themes in Forrest Gump, I can't remember any of the music except a few excerpts of Rolling Stones hits.

***

Put simply, even in a particularly strong year for film, Flight is one of my favorites so far.  A huge reason for this, I'll say it again, is Denzel Washington's bravura performance.  Another part is that it fits into a style of film that I really like.  After all, this is the director who did Forrest Gump, one of my all-time favorites.  Like in that film, Flight manages to straddle that tight-rope line between showing characters and their behavior that the audience can believe with characters and behavior that we want to see.  Nine times out of ten, if not more, a film does one or the other, either slipping into cheese and taking us out of the film's world - or being so real and bleak and depressing that we desperately want to get out of the film's world.  Flight achieves that rare balance, in my opinion.  Great main character, great relationships, great humor, a great range of emotional responses - oh, and a great ending, too.  Highly recommended - see it in the theater if you can (we need more films like this!) but rent or stream it later if you can't.

Movies: Star Wars-Disney Deal

Movie News:  Disney Buys Star Wars

Last weekend, I wavered on whether or not to see Cloud Atlas.  It seemed intriguing, but got mixed reviews and it's three hours long.  Ultimately, I decided to hold off on it until it comes out on DVD.  This weekend will start a string of movie weekends for me (starting with Denzel Washington's Flight).  Not having a film to review worked out OK because possibly the biggest non-product-release entertainment news in many years broke this week:  George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney.

Disney Buys Star Wars:

I think the enormous news that broke last Tuesday was best summed up by a Huffington blog post titled: "Disney Buys Lucas, Star Wars Saga Continues, and Internet Breaks in Half."  If you are somehow unfamiliar with at least the basics of the deal at this point, just Google "star wars disney" and you should find a few things.  Being a huge fan of the franchise, I wanted to share my thoughts on the news, especially when it's so early and the possibilities seem virtually endless.

First, I should state that I share in the (minority?) view that the prequels were a triumph.  Were they perfect?  No.  Probably my biggest gripe with them is the actors they got for the pivotal role of Anakin Skywalker.  Both Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christensen were terrible.  But come on, Jar Jar wasn't that bad (more bearable than the Ewoks, IMO).  And let's look at the positives:  Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan, Liam Neeson as Quin-Gon, Sam Jackson as Mace Windu, Yoda:  the Jedi just kicked ass.  Emperor Palpatine's scheming.  Cool world designs (esp. in Attack of the Clones).  Natalie Portman.  Powerful emotional sequences created not just by what we know occurs in Episodes 4-6, but also by the way they are set up in the prequels themselves.  Point being:  I found far, far more to enjoy in the prequels than to complain about.

Still, Disney has a mixed record in dealing with big franchises.  Coming to my mind, I see one good, one bad, and one mixed result.  The bad:  Pirates of the Caribbean.  The first was a lot of fun, and I also enjoyed the second quite a bit.  But things just went overboard in the third film, and the fourth was purely a money grab by the studio.  Despite the fourth still making buckets of money, I think it's clear that the bad taste in the collective mouths of the public will have to fade a bit before another could be made.  The good:  Disney purchased Pixar, and the studio has essentially been left alone to do its thing, ie, be today's highest-quality studio.  Sure, there was the Cars 2 dud and I hope they steer away from more sequels and back to originals, but the phenomenal films WALL-E and Up! were made in the Disney era.  And then there's the mixed:  Marvel.  I loved The Avengers about as much as anyone else, but the film's success has resulted in a flood of green-lit spinoffs:  Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man will probably have five films each before long (they're even making a film for someone called Ant-Man for crying out loud!).  Having found a super-successful formula, Disney risks overextending with the Marvel roster of superheroes.

The Disney plans for Star Wars that I know so far are: A) there will be an Episode 7, 8, and 9; B) Lucas will not write or direct any of them; C) they will not be based on existing "Expanded Universe" literature; D) Disney hopes to release a SW film "every two to three years"; and E) there will likely be SW TV show(s) on Disney's TV network soon.  Hearing about B made me rather disappointed - here I'm admitting, yes, I've read several SW books - because there are some really good stories to tell (including a ready-made, fan favorite known as the Thrawn trilogy).  The good news is that while Lucas will be a creative consultant, he will not have a direct role in the making of the films - we'll thus be spared Lucas' occasionally cringeworthy dialogue.  There already is a SW TV show - The Clone Wars - and, based on a few episodes I've seen, it's not bad.  Any new series would likely follow a similar formula.

Lucas made billions with this deal, but overall it was a bold and selfless decision, particularly based on his history.  SW has been Lucas' baby for 35 years - he had the final say on everything that went on in that universe, from the merchandise and other peripherals to, of course, all the films.  Now, in the hope of creating a smooth transition, he is passing the franchise into the hands of one of the world's oldest, biggest, and best-loved entertainment companies so that SW not only remains relevant for generations to come, but also grows and evolves.  Lucas will still be around, one would hope, for the release of the coming trilogy, and he has accepted a far more passive role in their creation - essentially a grandfatherly role.  Now the ball is in Disney's court to live up to the trust Lucas has put in them.

Will Disney try to quickly cash in on SW, creating a mindless factory that saps the franchise of its creative force?  Or will it rely heavily on the experience of the LucasFilm people and nurture it as an intergenerational franchise?  Right off the bat, Episodes 7, 8, and 9 present challenges:  they ought to be centered on the Skywalker arc again, yet Hamill and his buddies are too old to be the featured players.  Even should Disney find the right story to pursue for that trilogy, and get the right directors, writers, and actors, there is their goal of releasing a SW film "every two to three years".  What will that look like?  Fortunately, the SW films have sketched out the foundations of a rich, wide universe.  Star Wars is already the king of film franchises (with all due respect to 007); it being passed on to Disney creates a huge range of outcomes for it.  Will it be remolded into an unmanageable behemoth that gets sent off course then left to float adrift until nostalgia for the first films can return?  Or will Disney support those who have worked with the franchise for years and give them the resources to carefully grow it into something even better, something that the entertainment world has never seen before?

May the Force be with you, Disney.