CLINT HAS A BLOG

I’m a big Wes Anderson fan, if I made a list of my favorite Directors/Writers he would rank pretty highly. I’ve liked all his movies, even Life Aquatic which lots of people hated. When I first saw the trailer for Moonrise Kingdom I immediately knew it would be a movie I’d see at the theaters. It’s not playing nationwide yet, but luckily Austin is one of the cities its showing in now.

Moonrise Kingdom is basically a love story about two kids who separately are not happy in their current situations, so they run away to be with each other. Sam is an orphan who no one likes, so he escapes from his Khaki Scout troop and Suzy is a girl with anger issues who their parents believe is “troubled”.  And of course when they run away, shenanigans ensue. There are some other side stories here too, but I want to keep this spoiler free so I won’t mention them.

As soon as the movie starts you can tell its a Wes Anderson film. It has that same trademark look, feel and sound that he is known for. I thought the score was really well done and I like how he incorporated it into the film. While its not knee slapper funny, it is a smart script and definitely has some laughs. It’s that typical Anderson dry sense of humor, and it works here. The cast was also great. It was the first movie for the two kids but they nailed their roles. Even though I haven’t really liked Bruce Willis and Ed Norton in a while, I thought they were great here. Willis was a great choice for an older cop on a small island town and Norton was solid was the scout leader. It’s a Wes Anderson movie so of course Bill Murray has to be in it. He basically plays another sad old man, but that type of role just works for him these days. Frances McDormand plays his wife, her bits with the megaphone were great. And along with the humor, this movie has heart too. You definitely root for Sam and Suzy even if they are runaways.

Moonrise Kingdom lived up to the critics praise in my opinion. Probably my favorite overall film I’ve seen thus far in 2012. It’s a must see for Wes Anderson films, but if you don’t like his style this won’t change your opinion.

And since I ranked Pixar movies yesterday, I’ll go ahead and rank Anderson films (which was also difficult, was torn between Moonrise and Rushmore for #2):

1. The Royal Tenenbaums
2. Moonrise Kingdom
3. Rushmore
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. Darjeeling Limited
6. Life Aquatic

*I did not rank Bottle Rocket because it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. I do remember liking it though, will have to re-watch.

I’m a big fan of Pixar films. However, when I first saw the trailer for Brave, I wasn’t that excited for it. But it’s Pixar, so I had to go see it as I have every Pixar movie other than Cars 2. While I wouldn’t put Brave in the top tier of Pixar movies, I did enjoy it.

Brave is about a kingdom in 10th century Scotland. The Princess is now a teenager and the Queen believes it is time to pick out her husband. The King and Queen set up Highland Games for the first born sons of three clans to compete for Princess Merida’s hand. However, Merida is more of an independent girl who loves archery, exploring on her own, and does not want her husband chosen for her. Her mother the Queen does not believe Merida behaves the way a princess should and wants her to follow the typical path of a princess. They fight about this, then Merida storms off, runs into a witch who helps casts a spell on the Queen, and shenanigans ensue.

While its not as original of a story as other Pixar film’s, it is unique in that the main character is a strong independent teenage girl and focuses on a mother-daughter storyline. The initial trailers made Brave seem like the boys fighting for Merida is the main focus of the movie, but that isn’t the case at all. This movie is about the relationship between the mother and daughter. Where Brave might be lacking in originality, it makes up for in heart, which it has a lot of. It’s the strength of the movie and why I enjoyed it. I believe the female audience will probably have an even greater appreciation than the male audience.

The problems I had with Brave are pretty minor. I thought the two songs in the movie were very cheesy (the score was fine though). The three boys, Merida’s younger brothers, were great but underused. The Witch character and her pointless crow were pretty weak. Luckily these issues I had don’t hamper the movie that much.

If you like Pixar movies, you will probably enjoy Brave, just don’t go into it expecting Toy Story, Wall-E or Up quality. A good movie to bring kids too, especially if you have a daughter.

And if you are curious, this is my ranking of Pixar movies (which was really difficult to rank):

1. Wall-E
2. Up
3. The Incredibles
4. Toy Story 3
5. Ratatouille
6. Toy Story
7. Finding Nemo
8. Toy Story 2
9. Brave
10. Monsters, Inc.
11. A Bug’s Life
12. Cars
13. Cars 2 (never actually seen it, and never will)

The 2nd movie of my movie week is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. I wanted to really like Seeking a Friend, but ultimately it ended up being a disappointment for me. I liked the concept of the film. The world is coming to an end, Dodge (Steve Carrell) just had his wife leave him, he then meets his downstairs neighbor Penny (Keira Knightley) and finds a love letter from his old high school sweetheart declaring her love for him. After the city riots, Dodge takes Penny (who just broke up with her boyfriend) and his new dog on a quest to find that lost love and to get Penny back to her family in England. It starts off as a clever and unique combo of end of the world movie and dark romantic comedy. Unfortunately somewhere around the last third of the movie it transitions from this unique movie to your standard and predictable romance. I’m not going to go as far as to say its a bad movie though. As much as I disliked the end, I really did enjoy the first half of the movie. For a while it was clever, it just seemed to run out of steam. The performances from Carrell and Knightly were solid. Carrell is playing a similar character as he did in Crazy, Stupid, Love. I like that version of Carrell and do hope he takes on more roles like this, and hopefully won’t go back to doing over the top versions of Michael Scott. There are also some good minor roles by Rob Cordray, Patton Oswalt, William Peterson, TJ Miller and Gillian Jacobs.

Unfortunately the more I thought about the final act of the film, the more I disliked it. I would say Seeking a Friend… is worth a rental, as there are some good moments to be found here. Unfortunately its an uneven movie, so I’d skip seeing it at the cinemas.