The Phantom of the Paradise

Who would think there would be a cut-rate version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Brian DePalma’s weird, campy twist on The Phantom of The Opera is a violent musical in which the only star is Paul Williams. It bombed, by the way. Now that it’s forty years old, it’s bypassed painful unwatchability and moved straight into hilarious train wreck. It’s also interesting to see the director that Brian DePalma would become. (One also remembers the trivia about DePalma, who laughed at the rough-cut of Star Wars, sure that it would bomb…)

Boyhood

I remember reading about this years ago -- the fascinating and ambitious project by Linklater and company chronicling a character as he grows up on screen. Since it took 12 years to finish, I sort of forgot about it, wondering if it was ever finish-able. Turns out, it was and it’s a first-class endeavor. It’s truly about boyhood, and the theme drives the movie. While there are characters and a story, there is no “plot,” per se. It’s a meditation about growing up, which consists of essays about the different stages of adolescence. (It reminded me of Dazed and Confused in this way: kinda loose.) The cast is great, especially Ellar Coltrane, the boy transforming into a man and the central subject. What’s neat is to think back over the movie after you’ve left the theater, remembering the little moments that you realize after the fact are important rites of passage. Yes, it’s a bit long. But it’s important that it is, it should feel like an emotional journey. There is no “resolution.” How could there be to boyhood? But there is a conclusion and it’s both simple and profound.

Begin Again

A nice, likeable movie about a washed-up record producer who decides to get behind an idealistic busker. The original songs are sweet, but nothing mind-blowing. The commentary about the music industry stays with you, though, as you start to wonder where original music is actually coming from. Is it coming from songwriters and artists? Is it computer algorithms randomly selecting notes and songs statistically likely to be hits? It makes you think.

Snowpiercer

A train circles the globe, never stopping. It’s miles long and the people in the back, the poorest of its residents, are fed up. They want better food and a better life. It’s time to rebel; fighting their way forward one train car at a time. The metaphor works: rich people in the front, poor people in the back. There’s no skipping cars to the front either, every car must be traversed. So the set-up is interesting. Some of the practical aspects of living on a train are skimmed over, but it’s sci-fi, so a it’s all an allegory anyway. It starts to get weird toward the end, and some important questions go unanswered. But the cast is good, especially Chris Evans as the reluctant hero. And the message, we’ve seen it before, about the rich oppressing the poor, “trickling down” their wealth and food, is always infuriating. At some point this train’s gonna crash.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

A serious, almost Shakespearean rise to power for Caesar and the threats to his leadership by vindictive lieutenants makes this a worthy follow up to Rise of the Apes. The motion capture acting, especially by Andy Serkis Andy Serkis and the army of motion capture animators and geniuses, is really impressive, as is the script which focuses on the apes as protagonists, rather than the humans. Certain critical chapters of this were rushed through for time, you can tell, like the “How the Apes learn to Shoot Guns” chapter. But we’ve seen how quick they can learn, so we have too accept a little dramatic license there. Otherwise this is an excellent, entertaining sequel, full of drama, imagination, and great science fiction cautions about mankind’s warring future.