We Bought a Zoo (!)

We Bought a Zoo

Vinyl Films/20th Century Fox, 2011

Directed by Cameron Crowe

Starring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church

 Three and a half stars

It's been over a decade since Cameron Crowe made Almost Famous, a semi-autobiographical film that not only became his magnum opus, by perfecting his personal, moving and perfectly soundtracked directorial style, but also went on to be my second or third favorite film of the decade. That film was the peak of a terrific run for Crowe that had started with the screenplay for 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (from his book of the same name), and later, his directorial debut on 1989's Say Anything. The former became a cult phenomenon of sorts and starred Sean Penn, whose portrait of a slacker, surfer, stoner kid introduced the world to an actor who would, however unlikely, go on to win two Best Actor Oscars. The latter still has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is generally considered one of the greatest teen romance films ever made. That run also included 1995's Jerry Maguire, which has Tom Cruise giving one of his best performances, Cuba Gooding earning an Oscar (likely for his first and last truly great performance), numerous iconic quotes and a Bruce Springsteen song featured prominently in the soundtrack: needless to say, it's a film I adore, and all ll three are films that I love and will watch nearly anytime I catch them on TV.

Almost Famous was a different beast entirely though: this time, Crowe was giving us a personal view of his own life rather than the lives of characters he created, and in doing so, he made a film that was even more resonant and moving than his other work. To this day I think it's flawless, from Philip Seymour Hoffman's brief but brilliant appearance as legendary music critic Lester Bangs, to the "Tiny Dancer" singalong on the bus, to the bittersweet romance of the run-after-the-plane scene, to the shouted confessions between the members of the central band during a shared near death experience. I personally maintain that the film should have, at very least, taken home Best Picture that year, and I think it's one of the Academy's greatest blunders that it didn't even get nominated. That failure becomes even more tragic in the light of the decade that would follow for Crowe, with the unusually weak (and well...weird...) Vanilla Sky, and the flawed (but underrated) Elizabethtown. The latter released in the fall of 2005, and for awhile, I thought it was the last time we'd ever see Cameron Crowe.

Thankfully, I was wrong; Crowe finally emerged from his extended hibernation this year, with two music-documentary projects (one for Pearl Jam and one for Elton John), and his latest full length feature, We Bought a Zoo. While the film doesn't quite reach the level of his "holy trinity," it's the best film he's made since Almost Famous, and features many of the cornerstones I've come to adore in his films, from the immensely personal, heavily character driven storyline, to the fantastic cast, to the wonderful soundtrack. While the film occasionally stumbles into a few inherent cliches, by the end, I could hardly have cared less: I don't think there's a more uplifting, moving or altogether more joyful film around this holiday season, and I couldn't have asked for a better film to play the role in my semi-annual tradition of seeing movies on Christmas Eve.

A lot of credit must be given to Matt Damon, who gives one of the most likable leading male performances of the year, but does so with the usual depth and emotional nuance that Crowe's lead characters always possess. While the role will, I think, prove to not be "showy" enough for Oscar voters, Damon will certainly be among my favorite performances of the year (by the time I've seen a bit more, that is). His character always feels "real," and he brings life and validity to every scene he's in and every relationship his character forms during the film, whether it's with his onscreen kids (who he's fabulous with), his brother (Thomas Haden Church, with some light comic relief), with the colorful cast of characters that come into his life with the zoo, or even with the animals. Damon has always been a great actor, but I don't think there are many more dependably solid guys working in Hollywood these days, and I'm confident that, eventually, he will have an acting Oscar to go along with the one he won for the screenplay of Good Will Hunting.

Also notable (as usual) is Crowe's pitch perfect music selection. Along with a gorgeous score by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, he delivers a few perfectly soundtracked scenes to the likes of Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Bon Iver, and each works perfectly. Crowe has gone on record saying that he felt the music brought out something extra in Damon's performance, and Damon has sworn by Crowe's music methods, even saying he will use music in a similar way when he makes his directorial debut next year. No moment is as iconic as the boombox-over-the-head scene he scored with Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" back in Say Anything (few scenes are), but a scene where Damon looks through pictures of his late wife becomes viscerally moving with the help of a Jónsi tune. That scene may be the film's definitive moment, actually, because it represents so much of what this film is: this tale, about a man making a big life change post-tragedy, of trying to move on, has been done many times (though perhaps not with a zoo), but the result here is one of the funniest, most joyful and most moving films of the year, and though many will write it off, I could see it being the film I revisit more than any other from this year; that's some of the highest praise I can give, but then again, I wouldn't expect anything less from a Cameron Crowe film.

Hugo

 Hugo

Paramount Pictures, 2011

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Starring: Asa Butterfield, Chloe Moretz, Ben Kingsley

Four stars

Martin Scorsese is one of the biggest legends working in film today: he's made a career of exploring the psyche of damaged men, whether through films about crime, violence, personality disorders or anything in between. He has been a prominent presence in film throughout the past four decades, making such undisputed classics as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, films that are ranked among the greatest of all time. He's spent the last ten years exploring an actor/director relationship with Leonardo DiCaprio, directing him him in four films (and directing him to arguably his best performance in 2004's The Aviator), a relationship that mirrored his earlier career work with Robert DeNiro, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his work in Raging Bull. Despite all this, Scorsese never won either a Best Picture or Best Director Oscar until 2006, when the Academy gave both of those prizes to The Departed. Scorsese has at least one classic for every decade he's been active; I personally have not delved deep enough into his oeuvre to discuss many of his lesser known films, but after seeing his latest film, Hugo, from the historical fiction novel/picture book/graphic novel/something-in-between The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, I think it could easily go on to be the definitive Scorsese film from this era.

The first time I saw a trailer for Hugo, I almost couldn't believe that it was a Martin Scorsese film. I'd read about it, of course, but I wasn't really familiar with the source material and, due to my lukewarm reaction to Scorsese's last film, last year's Shutter Island, it wasn't among my most anticipated films for the winter season. Hugo features very few of Scorsese's filmmaking cornerstones: it's a PG-rated family film whose protagonist isn't some damaged, violent male, but a boy who has lost everyone in his life, but who still maintains his curiosity, his will to live his life as he wants, and his love for cinema. And despite the fact that this character is an anomaly for Scorsese, it's also possible that it's the one he personally relates to the most. As a boy, Scorsese was the one looking out windows and watching the world go on around and without him, and that's the character that Hugo Cabret is at the beginning of this film. While I haven't read the source material, I've heard that Scorsese emphasizes the aspects of it that he felt the most personally connected to in his adaptation, and that shows, since the film isn't just a semi-autobiographical story for the director, but a love letter to cinema as well.

Scorsese's usual go-to actors are absent from this project as well, though Ben Kingsley also worked on Shutter Island. He plays Georges Méliès, a historical filmmaker and magician who essentially invented the art of special effects a century ago. In this film, he's been forgotten, left working at a toy shop in the train station where Hugo lives, and much like Hugo, he feels like the world is passing him by. Though his initial reactions to the boy are quite hostile, Hugo eventually discovers that Méliès was once a renowned filmmaker, and not only that, but one of his late father's favorites. With the help of Méliès' granddaugher, Isabelle (played wonderfully by Chloe Moretz, who seems to be becoming the go-to child actress these days) and a kindly film preservationist, Hugo reminds Méliès of his passion, talent and impact, and he revitalizes it.

While the film is expertly directed and beautifully acted by a rich ensemble cast (Sascha Baron Cohen as a comically villainous Train Station Inspector is especially notable for the comic relief he provides), Hugo is most notable in the technical categories, especially for it's art direction and cinematography, and I'm certain there hasn't been a more gorgeous looking film made this year. The expansive Parisian vistas that Hugo gazes across from the windows of the station are breathtaking, and a scene where he hangs from one of the hands on the station's clock is both beautiful and dizzying. Scorsese gleefully enjoys the moments when he gets to recreate bits and pieces of Méliès' films, and those recreations are absolutely radiant. Meanwhile, the train station becomes a living, breathing character itself, full of interesting personalities that are only developed in passing (obviously intentional, to reflect Hugo's point of view), and the opening moments, which utilize an extended tracking shot to depict Hugo's life in the walls of the station, drew me in immediately. The film is also shot in 3D, and while I didn't personally see it in that format, I've read nothing but good things about it. I have always seen 3D as a gimmicky bit of technology, and I normally opt out of seeing films in that format, since I believe many studios just use it to get an extra cash boost on their films, but according to various sources, Scorsese's use of the technology here is the most natural and innovative ever. It makes sense that Scorsese would put 3D technology to it's best use to date, especially since this film makes a big deal about the development of special effects. The Lumière Brothers' 1896 short film, Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, which makes an appearance in this film, could be seen as the first instance of the modern 3D gimmick, as it solely depicts a train coming towards (and potentially out of) the screen; clearly Scorsese couldn't resist giving the scene the 3D treatment.

I found Hugo to be an enchanting and enrapturing experience, the kind of fantasy that would have swept me away as a kid, but which means even more to me now. The themes of friendship and family lead to a conclusion that is heartwarming and quite moving, and the film's look back at the history of cinema is arguably even more compelling. Not enough can be said about Asa Butterfield, who plays the title role with ability beyond his years, or Kingsley, who gives a fantastically understated performance here, but Scorsese is the star of this film, making it into the kind of passion project that is always a joy to see. I know it's a departure from his usual style and themes, but it's a reminder of what a terrific filmmaker he is, and I hope he will continue to take risks like this throughout the decade. While it does get a little slow at points, Hugo moves forward with a loving sense of wonderment that is never anything less than spellbinding, and for that, it is most certainly one of the best films of the year.

Ten years ago today...

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings

 New Line Cinema and Wingnut Films, December 19th, 2001 (United States Wide)

Starring: Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen

Four stars

Ten years ago today, New Line Cinema unleashed what would ultimately, I think, go on to be the definitive accomplishment in cinema for the decade. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was the new millennium’s second big event picture, the first having launched just a month before (though it would take much longer to complete that particular series). That film was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first of an eight film series that would go on to become the highest grossing franchise in movie history. I saw both films on incredibly memorable days, and both movie going experiences are ones that I still recall happily and nostalgically a decade later, even when hundreds of other movies have come and gone. It was, I think, the beginning of my love for film.

I saw the first Harry Potter film on my 11^th birthday, which is, coincidentally, also the birthday that Harry celebrates early on in the story. At that point, only four of the Potter books had been released, but I loved all of them, and they had instilled in me a passion for reading that I think few people my age ever experienced (and one that I haven’t quite been able to regain, to this day). The movie was decent, if unspectacular. It stayed true the books and the cast, especially the adult characters, played by some the finest British actors of this era, was quite excellent, but I always felt like there was something missing. The Potter books have always had this addictive element to me, something that keeps me reading and makes me want to finish them in one sitting. That’s something only a few books have ever gotten out of me, but the movie was missing that spark. Everything about it was technically fine, but there was something missing, and my 11 year old mind didn’t know what it was; not yet, at least.

I saw The Lord of the Rings just over a month later, on Christmas Eve 2001. At this point in time, my step dad was reading me the first book in the trilogy every evening, but we hadn’t gotten very far yet, and I had little idea of the story’s epic scope. I also had no idea that we were walking into a three hour film, but I didn’t mind one bit that it ended up being that long, because from the first frame, I was more enthralled with this film than I think I’ve ever been by any other, before or since. There were moments from that first viewing that are still pretty much burned into my mind: Gandalf’s reading of the text on the ring, the nightmarish Moria sequence, the final battle and Boromir’s farewell, to name a few. These were moments that brought these characters to life for me, drew me into this story that I was mostly unfamiliar with, and made me fall in love with it. These were moments that scared me, moved me or excited me; moments that exemplified everything that made movies like these classics, from Star Wars to E.T. to Back to the Future and now to this. Walking out of the theater on that cold but beautiful winter’s night, I was pretty sure it was the greatest film I’d ever seen; it’s still in the running.

The reason The Lord of the Rings triumphs where so many other literary adaptations partly or completely fail (I think the Potter films fall into the former category) all comes down to the director. Peter Jackson makes a case for himself as one of the greatest directors of all time on the strength of these films alone, even if he never nears that level of greatness again. The Lord of the Rings doesn’t rise above most adaptations simply on the strength of its source material or on its technical marvels (both of which are considerable), or even on the abilities of its vast and supremely talented ensemble cast. No, the greatness inherent in these films is there because, above all, this was a passion project for Peter Jackson, and his love for these books and these characters can be felt in every frame of every film, in every casting decision and performance and in every spectacular effect. It’s possible there are other directors who could have undertaken this project and done well with it, but I find it hard to imagine that there is another director who could have brought the same emotional sensitivity to these stories that Jackson finds so easily in every moment. In lesser hands, The Lord of the Rings could have become first and foremost a special effects piece: indeed, part of the reason for my lukewarm reaction to films like James Cameron’s Avatar (which was partially inspired by these films) was based on the fact that I never felt emotionally connected to the characters or the stories they had to tell. Yes, the visual effects in that film are among the greatest of all time, but it’s a film I have forgotten and a film I have never felt inclined to revisit because it seemed like a pale imitation of what Jackson had achieved more than half a decade earlier with this series. I’ve seen Fellowship probably 20 times, and every single time, I still get the same visceral, emotional reactions to certain scenes as I always have. And yes, the special effects were and still are excellent, but in making this film, Jackson did what the likes of Michael Bay and so many other Hollywood blockbuster directors would never even consider: he emphasized the human side of these tales rather than trying to hide them behind special effects.

 

There aren’t enough things that I can praise about these films, but two aspectss that have always struck me are the cast and the adapted screenplay. There’s not a weak link in the former, in any of these three films. Jackson and his crew don’t go for big star power here, but the first time I saw the film, I still found myself picking out plenty of familiar faces, from Sean Bean (one of my favorite actors in one of my favorite performances, as Boromir) to Ian McKellen, who is likely the “best-in-show” in the series, and whose work for this film should have earned him an Oscar. Elsewhere, less familiar actors caught my eye and promised greatness, whether they lived up to that promise (Viggo Mortensen, who has since done some very compelling and interesting work) or not (Orlando Bloom, who has pretty much only played guys who complain a lot). As for the screenplays, the work done in that category is strong across the three films, but never, I think, has an adaptation been executed as perfectly as this first film. The cuts and changes that Jackson and co make are the right ones, bringing extra drama to the early parts of the story and creating a more compelling film. The few characters that are excised aren’t really missed (reading back through the books, I remember how happy I am that Tom Bombadil was cut), while the characters that are more fleshed out, like Liv Tyler’s Arwen (to give Aragorn a more present love story) or especially Christopher Lee’s Saruman, who provides a face for the growing darkness that permeates most of the series’ first part, are drawn quite naturally, always remaining true to the spirit of the book. 

 

And that brings me back to my 11 year old self, the one who couldn’t quite put his finger on what he didn’t like about that first Harry Potter film. It turns out there was something missing, and that was the amount of love that Jackson injected into his project that none of the four Potter directors could ever find. Maybe that kind of passion can only arise when the stories stand the test of time, and maybe a later incarnation of the Potter series (because everyone knows that it’s coming eventually) will find a director that can do for those books what Jackson did for Rings. There are actually a good handful of moments of real greatness in the Harry Potter films, and they all have one thing in common: the director or screenwriter has a moment of inspiration, and takes the Potter legacy into their own hands. And maybe just for a scene or two, those movies stop feeling like adaptations, like ways to make money off of an existing fanbase, and start feeling like films. There’s never a moment of any less than that in Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, and that’s why these films will live forever among my favorites of all time. There are a lot of people who would call Fellowship the best in the series. It’s impossibly difficult for me to pick a favorite, since every time I watch any one of the films, I’m inclined to call it just that, but Fellowship is certainly the truest book-to-film transition and, as most films at the beginning of any series do, it feels the most complete on its own. But whether or not I will ever be able to call one of these films my favorite, whether I would choose the quiet, building darkness of Fellowship, the epic bombast of the The Two Towers or the triumphant, chill inducing finale of The Return of the King, one thing is for certain: these films made me into the movie lover that I am today, and there is no greater gift a film can give than that.

Like Crazy

 Like Crazy
Paramount Vantage, 2011
Directed by Drake Doremus
Starring: Felicity Jones, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence
Four stars

"I thought I understood it, that I could grasp it, but I didn't, not really. Only the smudgeness of it; the pink-slippered, all-containered, semi-precious eagerness of it. I didn't realize it would sometimes be more than whole, that the wholeness was a rather luxurious idea. Because it's the halves that halve you in half. I didn't know, don't know, about the in-between bits. The gory bits of you, and the gory bits of me."

There's a moment in Like Crazy, Drake Doremus's 2011 romantic drama film, where Anna, played by Felicity Jones, calls Jacob (Anton Yelchin) on a late night, after months apart and weeks of playing phone tag. She's in tears, her voice cracking, as she asks him if he wants to come over. The complication is that they're half a world apart, separated by thousands of miles of land and sea, and their relationship, which started with such splendor and optimism, has been challenged and altered so completely by that distance that they've contemplated giving it up. That phone call is the turning point, the emotional crux of an emotional film and the moment when we realize how doomed their relationship really is. Ingeniously, it's also the moment that we really start rooting for them, and that's all owed to the actors, both of whom give their hearts and souls to these characters. Jones, especially, is a revelation, and as one reviewer put it, "she will break your heart at least once" during this film. For me, it was far more than once.

 
 

Like Crazy, like many other semi-acclaimed love stories in recent memory (Blue Valentine, (500) Days of Summer), is a film that focuses more on the disintegration of a relationship than it does on it's formation. The early moments of the film play out in choppy segments, telling how the two came together and how they fell in love in brief flashbacks. The relationship isn't given a lot of time to bloom here, an interesting choice, since the effectiveness of the film lies entirely on the audience believing in that relationship, which, against any odds, we do. Completely. Yelchin and Jones have an instant spark of chemistry that transcends the minimalistic screenplay (which was apparently almost completely improvised anyway), and that spark builds so quickly that we almost don't register it happening. And yet, by the time they are separated, it's impossible not to buy into their strong feelings for one another.

Anyone who has ever been in love or had to endure a long distance relationship will find plenty of moments, both euphoric and heartbreaking, to relate to throughout this film. Personally, the film enveloped me immediately and never let me go; it still hasn't. There are moments in this film that continue to haunt me even as I write this, moments that I have thought about over and over again since this credits began to roll on Friday night. For me, that's the mark of a terrific film, and that's the reason why, the further I get from this film, the more I want to see it again and the more I want to call it one of the best films of the year. Much like in last year's Blue Valentine, a film that would have probably ended up as my second favorite of the year and one that resulted, in my opinion, in both of the best leading performances of 2010, you won't catch either of these performers acting here, and much like that film, there are moments in Like Crazy that legitimately hurt to watch. A fight that takes place about two-thirds of the way through never explodes into the all out furor we've come to expect from dramatic relationship movies (Revolutionary Road built a whole movie out of that kind of over the top acting), but the end result is far more devastating. Yelchin loses his temper, but Jones plays the scene with an understated fragility that is completely real, and we can feel her heart breaking as the scene unfolds; it breaks ours too.

 
 

By the time the screen cut to black and the sounds of Stars' "Dead Hearts" heralded the film's coda, I was emotionally exhausted. Some will find the ending cheap and unsatisfying. I myself thought I hated it when I sat in that theater seat, hoping that maybe there would be one more scene, but the further I get away from it, the more I believe that there is no other way the film could have ended. The final scene doesn't feel like an ending. Suddenly, the screen goes black and this song starts playing and we're supposed to make sense of what happened, but it feels like these characters and their story were left unfinished. But when I thought about it, about what that ending meant, what it could have symbolized, it made perfect sense. The thing with these sad romance films is that there is always a character we as the audience side with. In Blue Valentine, I couldn't help but feel for Gosling's character as he hopelessly tried to hold on to a woman who had clearly fallen out of love with him. And I don't think I've met a single (500) Days of Summer fan who didn't sort of hate Zooey Deschanel's Summer for breaking Joseph Gordon Levitt's heart. In both of those movies, there was always one person who was more in love than the other, the person who was giving up everything to help out with a child who wasn't even his or the person who was imagining big Hall & Oates musical numbers in the middle of everything. In this movie, it's Anna who drives the relationship all along, from making the first move to deciding to stay with Jacob to sacrificing everything to be with him, and as a result it's her we feel connected to. Yelchin plays Jacob with a detached distance for much of the film: only rarely does he seem as passionate as Anna. But she's the one who is completely in love from the get go, which only makes that cut-to-black ending that much more heartbreaking. As she thinks back on what their relationship used to be, contrasting it with what it is now, it's one of the most devastating moments of cinema this year. Nothing needs to be voiced. There's no dialogue, just silence and thought, but something just doesn't feel right. And that the film doesn't explicitly state the fate of their relationship is a masterstroke, a powerful, moving and thought-provoking, if sudden, ending that hasn't left my mind since I saw it happen.



The best films are the ones that attach themselves to your mind after your first viewing and stay there, for days, weeks, even months, all the way until you see them again and the whole process starts over. There will be a lot of people who will hate this film for precisely the reasons that I was so moved by it. There are a lot of people who will write it off as a schmaltzy, dramatic love story, and they have a point, but sometimes, love is just that, and this film's beautifully realized, living, breathing portrait of a flawed relationship makes for the most "real" film I've seen all year, and one that I'm tempted to place among the best. I don't expect this film to earn much awards attention. Like Blue Valentine, there's not a best picture nomination in it's future, and that will likely hold true for other categories. If it gets any notice at all though, I hope it comes in the form of a Best Actress nomination for Felicity Jones, who, I think, gives the best performance of the year, in any category, and deserves every accolade that will likely be stolen by flashier but less lived in performances. But then again, when a film hits me so hard in such a personal way, I'm not quite so inclined to care about those things.