Love the Coopers

For F*** Magazine

LOVE THE COOPERS

Director : Jessie Nelson
Cast : Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Ed Helms, Anthony Mackie, June Squibb, Marisa Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Jake Lacy, Steve Martin
Genre : Comedy
Run Time : 107 mins
Opens : 10 December 2015
Rating : PG13 (Some Sexual References)

Family reunions are often where grinning and bearing it is the order of the day. This Christmas comedy-drama follows four generations of the Cooper clan as they reunite to celebrate Christmas as one big, not-so-happy family. Sam (Goodman) and Charlotte (Keaton) have been married for 40 years but on the brink of calling it quits, both reluctantly agreeing to put on a brave front for everyone coming over. Their son Hank (Helms) is recently divorced from Angie (Borstein) and is looking for a job, having to provide for his kids Charlie (Timothée Chalamet), Madison (Blake Baumgartner) and Bo (Maxwell Simkins). Hank’s sister Eleanor (Wilde), a struggling playwright, meets military man Joe (Lacy) at an airport bar and they kind of hit it off. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s sister Emma (Tomei) gets arrested for shoplifting by Officer Percy Williams (Mackie). Grandpa Bucky (Arkin) befriends diner waitress Ruby (Seyfried). Christmas dinner doesn’t go according to plan as a series of events unfolds, events that could drive the family further apart or bring them together in the spirit of the holiday.

            Every Chinese New Year, we get star-studded comedies like All’s Well that Ends Well, with posters that have Andy Lau, Chow Yun Fatt, Cecilia Cheung or Carina Lau grinning and holding their chopsticks up in the air. Well, Hollywood has movies like Love the Coopers. This is the kind of film which one can bring grandpa and grandma to during the holidays and it’s meant to please everyone, naturally pleasing nobody in the process. The goings-on are at once mundane and over the top, with the Coopers depicted as dysfunctional in a relatively pedestrian manner. Before everyone gets together a little after the halfway mark, the film flits from character to character, stringing the vignettes together. Every line of screenwriter Steven Rogers’ dialogue sounds like stock romantic comedy-drama drivel and it’s altogether very cloying and syrupy. There are attempts to temper this with some cynicism, but it seems like Rogers and director Jessie Nelson are constantly asking themselves “we can be a little bitter here without alienating all the grandparents, right?”

            We’re going to dust off that old chestnut one hears whenever there’s a movie that entirely wastes the collective talents of its cast: “imagine what Robert Altman could do with these actors.” Indeed, the collective wattage of the star power could eclipse even the Star of Bethlehem itself. Love the Coopers manages to be tolerable in the slightest because many of the actors are innately watchable, Goodman in particular. While he and Keaton are believable as a squabbling elderly married couple, the material is still very rote. At one point, Sam even asks Charlotte “what happened to us?” Excuse us if we can’t gather up the sympathy. There are flashbacks to every single character when they were kids and it feels more like a cheap heartstring pull than a worthwhile storytelling device.

Wilde and Lacy have decent chemistry and there is a degree of development to their relationship, even though it is heavy on the “oh, he’s a Republican and she’s a Democrat!” jokes. Tomei is shrill and casting the usually-engaging Mackie as a stoic police officer and the token black guy is a crying shame. Arkin mopes about and looks sad a bunch with Seyfried playing opposite him as the diner waitress anyone would have a crush on. There are hints of romance in their interaction, which given the 52 year age difference, is creepy in spite of both actors’ best efforts. Helms is pretty much a non-entity and Squibb is the doddering senile aunt whose dementia is played for laughs. While nobody is sleepwalking through the movie per se, it’s obvious that Love the Coopers demands precious little from its cast, literally half of whom have won or been nominated for Oscars.

While Love the Coopers isn’t an insufferable gag-heavy Christmas comedy in the Deck the Halls mould, it still provides plenty of cringe-worthy moments. All of this is tied together by painfully on-the-nose narration by Steve Martin, with an end reveal as to the mystery narrator’s true identity that is worthy of an almighty eye-roll. This isn’t one of those films that’s joy and cheer from start to finish and it does take stabs at drama, albeit very ham-fisted ones. Make no mistake, with the fluffy St. Bernard and the adorable moppet granddaughter, this is still engineered for maximum “aww” factor and that’s going to make a significant portion of the audience throw up in their mouths a little. It’s not even cheesy and corny in an endearing, old-fashioned manner. Love the Coopers oozes insincerity and sitting through it ends up being quite like being forced to spend the holidays with relatives you’re not entirely fond of.

Summary: A monumentally talented cast by any standards is entirely squandered in this schmaltzy holiday flick which repeatedly attempts to trick us into thinking it’s making wise observations about family.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Her

For F*** Magazine

HER

Director: Spike Jonze
Cast:  Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Spike Jonze, Sam Jaeger, Katherine Boecher, Rachel Ann Mullins, David Azar
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Run Time: 126 mins
Opens: 16 January 2014
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene)

A good forty-ish years ago, few imagined that a sizeable portion of the world’s population would have a personal computer on their desk at home, let alone one in their purse or pocket. And yet here we are, with cell phones that also function as cameras, day planners, maps, compasses, media players and any number of other things. There’s even an “intelligent personal assistant” in the form of Apple Inc.’s Siri (who is aware of the existence of this film, and is not entirely fond of its portrayal of artificial intelligence, in case you were wondering). Writer-director Spike Jonze asks the question “Could you fall in love with Siri?” Okay, that doesn’t do this justice, so read on.

It is the not-too-distant future and Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) is a writer living and working in Los Angeles. He is employed at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com, where he helps clients express their feelings and emotions for someone in the form of computer-generated letters designed to look like the genuine article. Going through the final stages of divorce with his wife Catherine (Mara), Theodore is morose and lonely and gets himself the O.S. 1 – “It’s not just an operating system, it’s a consciousness”. The O.S. is configured into Samantha (Johansson): friendly, chirpy, helpful, efficient…one might almost forget she’s not a real person. Over time, this strange and wonderful relationship blossoms, and Theodore finds himself falling for his operating system and stops to consider the myriad implications of that possibility.



Like Jonze’s earlier works Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Her is destined to be analysed, dissected and keenly examined by many a curious film student. Movies that fit this description tend to be impenetrable and inaccessible, functioning as examples of that maxim “true art is incomprehensible”. With Her, Jonze has crafted a film that doesn’t come across as lofty and high-falutin’. He has managed to marry a heartfelt tenderness with keen, astute social commentary, all wrapped up in a beautifully-photographed sci-fi package.

There are a flurry of thematic elements and ideas presented in Her. Has increased connectivity resulted in a lack of human connection? What constitutes a relationship? Can one enter into a romance with an intangible entity? Why do we need physical intimacy and does it matter from where it’s derived? Why do we try to emulate artifacts of a bygone era with the technology of today? Must we really conform to the roles society expects us to? Jonze doesn’t merely list them as this writer just has, he orders these thoughts elegantly, framing them within a well-realised near-future milieu created by production designer K. K. Barrett, costume designer Casey Storm, art director Austin Gorg and other crew members. It’s certainly more Shanghai than it is L.A., but there are delightful little design touches that ensure it’s “just futuristic enough”.

Praise has been lavished upon the performances in Her and it is well-deserved. Phoenix has gained a reputation as a capable, serious, extraordinarily intense and unpredictable performer, not your garden-variety movie star, as evidenced by incidences like his I’m Still Here social experiment/bizarre performance art piece. Here, Phoenix plays an everyman, Jonze refusing to turn Theodore into a stereotypical “loser” the way many other directors might. He is sweet, sympathetic, unsure of himself and still very wounded from the dissolution of his marriage. A lot of screen time is dedicated to close-ups of Phoenix’s face and seemingly inconsequential moments like a casual expression of being slightly disturbed during an off-kilter phone sex session are carefully realised by the actor. Theodore is not as unstable and discombobulated as the protagonists of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, both artists like Theodore, but in Phoenix’s hands, he is by no means less interesting.

Johansson goes from being Black Widow to an amorous J.A.R.V.I.S., replacing the actress initially cast as Samantha, Samantha Morton. Johansson is known for her sexy voice, husky yet distinctly feminine, and with that voice and that voice alone, she gives one of the greatest performances of her career. Samantha comes across as cheerful, curious about the world, cheeky and playful, opening Theodore up to the simple joys of his existence, a ‘manic pixel dream girl’ if you will. However, Jonze in his writing and Johansson in her portrayal make Samantha far more than your average example of that trope, approaching “What is this thing you call love?” in the most compelling of ways and eventually subverting what might be an eye-roll-worthy character type. Show us a movie where Zooey Deschanel tangles with metaphysical transcendence.



The discussion of her eligibility come awards season can be seen as an extension of one of the themes in the film: does a voice-only performance qualify for an award as much any other type of performance?  Can an artificial construct ace the Turing test to the point where it’s indistinguishable from a person? There’s a crucial scene in the movie in which this idea is cleverly played with. The screen goes black, and for that brief period, it seems as if Samantha is physically interacting with Theodore as we can only hear both their voices and the chemistry they generate together is through the roof.

The rest of the cast is good too, Amy Adams playing the diametric opposite of her American Hustle role, largely make-up-free and recalling Cameron Diaz in Being John Malkovich. Chris Pratt is gently funny as Theodore’s colleague at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com and Mara is suitably frosty as his soon-to-be ex-wife, short flashbacks showing how rosy things were to start with. Olivia Wilde is only really in one scene but she is effective as Theodore’s blind date. Jonze himself gets a small role, entertainingly voicing a foul-mouthed alien child in a video game Theodore plays, quite possibly a spoof of many a Seth MacFarlane-style character. Listen out for vocal cameos from the likes of Kristin Wiig and Brian Cox, too.



Her has been compared to largely-forgotten 80s comedy Electric Dreams but perhaps it’s more like S1m0ne (also largely-forgotten), in which a desperate film director fabricates an A.I. actress that he tries to pass off as the real deal. Her handles the idea with far more wit and sophistication, delving far past the surface of its high-concept premise, and yet admirably avoids coming off as smug. Jonze’s screenplay is, on the surface, a less-complex affair than any of the scripts written by oft-collaborator Charlie Kaufman, but it is by no means poorly-written and Jonze’s command of character, emotion, tone and subtext is nothing short of masterful. Her is an “examination of” and a “meditation on” increasingly pertinent issues in the way we lead our lives in today’s “smart”, hyper-connected world, but it is far from clinical and sterile – as that description might suggest.

SUMMARY: Spike Jonze brings a deft intelligence and a disarmingly personal warmth and vulnerability to one of the best cinematic romances in recent memory, if not ever.

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

For F*** Magazine

THE INCREDIBLE BURT WONDERSTONE

Director: Don Scardino
Cast: Steve Carell, Olivia Wilde, Steve Buscemi, Jim Carrey
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 100 mins
Opens: 14 March 2013
Rating: PG13 (Some Drug References and Coarse Language)

There is much drama to be mined from the world of magic. There’s a sort of romanticism, danger and mystique associated with the heyday of such performers as Houdini, a world where reality and make-believe dangerously collide, a world where smoke can suffocate and mirrors can shatter…but let’s face it, there’s just as much, if not even more, comedy in there too.

Las Vegas stage magicians have long been associated with cheesy theatrics, ridiculous costumes, unruly big cats and even unrulier bad hair. Burt Wonderstone (Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Buscemi) are a pair of magicians in that grand tradition, best friends since their mutual love of magic brought them together as kids. However, a tiresome routine, waning ticket sales and Wonderstone’s increasing self-absorption put a strain on their working and personal relationship.



On top of that, new magic sensation Steve Gray (Carrey), a self-styled street illusionist renowned for his wince-inducing, “extreme” stunts, has poised himself as competition for a residence at a new hotel. After falling out of a glass box and from grace, Burt is forced to eat his humble pie working in a retirement community, where he meets his idol Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin), a curmudgeon whose magician days are far behind him. However, perhaps there’s a spark to ignite yet, as Wonderstone strives to recapture his glory days and win the affection of Jane (Wilde), a beautiful assistant and aspiring magician he once spurned.

We’ll come right out and say it – The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is pretty much formula from start to finish. There’s the hero whose early success has gotten to his head and who has lost his drive, the loyal best friend whom he abandons, the ageing mentor whose wisdom has yet to run out, the despicable professional rival, and of course the girl who motivates him to get his groove back.



We’ve seen it hundreds and hundreds of times and yet, the film is somehow able to rise just above the clichés from which it is constructed. There isn’t very much to the characters beyond Burt’s requisite “hero’s journey”, and many of them are not very much more than one-note caricatures – the hotel/casino tycoon played by James Gandolfini is actually named “Munny”!  Still, the cast musters enough charm to get us to actually enjoy this familiar ride.

Decked out in low-cut, bejewelled jumpsuits and sporting the most vivid spray tan this side of the Jersey Shore, Carell is, as usual, just very fun to watch. However, it is a little more difficult to buy him as the sort of guy who’d actually have groupies. The film also showcases Steve Buscemi at his least creepy and most sympathetic, and he and Carell do make a decent team. As the subversive, manic illusionist who relies more on gross-out, shocking feats than actual magic, Jim Carrey is clearly having the time of his life, and it is the craziest he’s been in a movie in a while. Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin don’t do all that much in their supporting roles, but Wilde’s lower-key performance is a good counterpoint to the broad comedy and Arkin being the actor that he is, is effortlessly hilarious and threatens to steal the show each time he appears.



As a satire of the Las Vegas stage magic scene, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is not particularly insightful or biting, and its parody of street magicians who trade on shock factor is around ten years too late. However, there are a good number of laughs to be had and some pretty inspired gags. For example, Steve Gray’s show is named “Brain Rapist”, a side-splitting riff on “Mindfreak”, and magician David Copperfield’s cameo as himself is something of a treat. The closest the film gets to being offensive is a vignette in which Anton Marvelton visits a poor village in Cambodia, only to find that the villagers aren’t interested in magic kits and are much more in need of food and clean water – but that bit is indeed funny.

The movie’s high-energy first half is certainly its better one, and the climactic trick is both ethically and logistically dubious – but director Don Scardino ultimately succeeds in serving up silly, old-fashioned fun. Sure, the story mechanics are well-worn, but if done proficiently enough, there’s still magic to be found in even the oldest of tricks.

SUMMARY: More like a card trick than making the Statue of Liberty vanish, but it coasts by with the help of a game, charming cast and a healthy number of laugh-inducing moments.

RATING: 3 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Tron Legacy

TRON LEGACY

2010

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski

Walt Disney Pictures

            In 1982, director Steven Lisberger gave us Tron, a visual effects masterpiece that was something of a game-changer in the world of movie magic. Futurist Syd Mead, who also worked on Blade Runner, had a hand in designing the virtual world of Tron, with its high-tech lightcycles and identity discs. 28 years later, Disney has given the cult classic an upgrade with this sequel.

            The film opens in 1989, where maverick software engineer, videogame developer and CEO of software company Encom Kevin Flynn (Bridges) mysteriously vanishes, leaving behind his young son Sam (Owen Best as a boy, Hedlund as an adult). Sam watches as Encom is turned into a corporate machine, against the wishes of the elder Flynn who would have wanted to share the technology with the world for free.

            Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), Kevin Flynn’s partner and friend, approaches Sam, saying that he had received a page from Kevin’s old office. Sam investigates, and is transported into the digital world of the Grid. He is forced to familiarise himself with advanced technology and participate in gladiator-like cyber battles as the ruthless ruler of the Grid, Clu (also Bridges) looks on.

            Sam reunites with his father, who has been trapped in the Grid and living in exile away from the main city. Clu, a computer program that Flynn had created in his own image, turned against him. Kevin relates the story of how he and Tron, a program made in the likeness of Alan Bradley, were betrayed by Clu, the very creation that was meant to help them create and develop the world of the Grid.

Kevin and his son are aided by digital warrior Quorra (Wilde), and the three must return to the real world and evade capture by Clu, who will stop at nothing to acquire Kevin Flynn’s identity disc, the master key to conquering the Grid – and the real world.

            To the modern eye, the original Tron can’t help but feel a tad dated; a relic of the world of 8-bit video games like Pac-Man and Pong. However, the main draw of Tron Legacy is how The Grid has progressed into a marvel that will impress even the most jaded gamers. If making movies is akin to creating worlds then, in the hands of CGI-wizard and first-time director Joseph Kosinski, this film has indeed reached the ultimate. It ushers viewers into a believable world completely created from scratch.

            Tron Legacy is every digital designer’s dream come true. Production designer Darren Gilford, vehicle designer Daniel Simon and a team of designers and artists have lovingly crafted a sleek, stylish and very sexy world of light, pixels and reflective surfaces. Instead of using CGI as a way to cheat, the filmmakers have instead pushed the technology to its limits in the name of creating a fresh and novel film-going experience. The practical costumes do actually light up, and several practical sets were constructed as well.

            It seems that every major film is finding an excuse to use the 3D gimmick, and in some cases it makes no sense at all – as the god-awful Yogi Bear trailer before the film amply reminds. However, Tron Legacy is exactly the film that is perfect for jumping off the screen. Scenes set in the real world are in 2D, but the bulk of the film, taking place in the Grid, is in 3D. The added dimension gives real weight and scale to what would otherwise merely be computer graphics, and helps the viewer buy into the conceit of the virtual reality universe.

            With atmospheric sound design and a throbbing techno score by Daft Punk complementing the eye-popping visuals, the film is clearly a triumph of style over substance; however substance is a close runner-up. Tron Legacy is ultimately a father-and-son story, and an off-key performance is all it would take to invalidate the visual effects bells and whistles. It is a good thing then that the performances are serviceable.

            Jeff Bridges, fresh off his Academy Award win for Crazy Heart, carries the film squarely on his shoulders. He has the challenge of playing two characters; with the help of digital de-aging he appears more than 20 years younger as Kevin Flynn circa 1989, and Clu. Bridges comes off as sincere and quietly sad and sometimes hippie-ish as Flynn in exile, and charismatic and commanding as Clu.

            Garrett Hedlund proves himself a competent leading man, able to stand up to both the dazzling visual effects and his onscreen father Bridges and possessing potential action hero credibility. Olivia Wilde seems destined to become a sci-fi geek pinup, cutting an elegant figure in her skin-tight, luminescent bodysuit and rocking a stylish bob. Michael Sheen camps it up enjoyably as nightclub-owner Castor, relishing the chance to go flamboyant and chew some of the high-tech scenery.

             Tron Legacy’s main flaw is its somewhat convoluted storyline. Viewers are likely to get at least a little confused by the technobabble or distracted by the light show, and while the film stands pretty well on its own, it probably would help to have seen the original first. The dialogue is unwieldy at times, and the emotional aspect of the film is often drowned out by the sensory feast.

            It seems a tad ironic that this may be the best video game movie ever, and isn’t even actually based on a video game. As opposed to being made merely to cash in on an aging franchise, Tron Legacy is a worthy successor and breaks just about as much ground as the original – quite a feat considering how far technology has come already. And the best part is that while the film is mainly enjoyable for its visuals, there is a little more to it than that.

RATING: 3.5/5 STARS

Jedd Jong Yue