Year in Reviews 2012: Movie Edition - Part 4

Blogger's Note:  Check out part 1, 2, and 3 if you missed them.  You won't be disappointed.  Well, you could be I guess.  But it's worth the risk.

As always, these are in no particular order.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012 - Wes Anderson) - If you've ever seen a Wes Anderson movie, you know you can spot a Wes Anderson movie a mile away.  He was in the hipster vanguard, dating back to 1998's Rushmore, which I love, and possibly to 1996's Bottle Rocket, which I've never seen love.  Every aesthetic aspect of Anderson's movies smacks of the Ironic 60's; from the mod costumes, to the British Invasion soundtracks, part homage and part parody. His movies are weird and whimsical, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.  Moonrise Kingdom definitely works.  It's a story of young, forbidden love, 12 year old Khaki Scout Sam Shakusky falling in love with the slightly older Suzy Bishop.  The two run off together to the chagrin of Sam's foster parents, Suzy's attorney parents (played by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), the Khaki Scout Master (played by Edward Norton), the local cop (played by Bruce Willis), and basically everyone else who inhabits the beautiful New England island of New Penzance.

The grown up cast also features Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel, and Jason Schwarztman.  All are great, as one would expect, but the kids are really what make the movie.  Jared Gillman as Sam and Kara Hayward as Suzy are the perfect pair to capture the innocence of a young and earnest love that doesn't really know any better.  More than any other of Anderson's movie, this one shows actual heart, rather than an ironic twist on what true sentiment might actually look like.  Not to say Moonrise is sentimental, because it's not, but it's Anderson's most honest movie yet and highly enjoyable.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962 - David Lean) - For my full take on 5 Things That Make Lawrence of Arabia the Consummate Epic click here.  I guarantee it's the only take on David Lean's classic that drops a quote from The Wire.

Fargo (1996 - Joel Coen) - I am a huge fan of the Coen brothers, and their classic crime story is without a doubt their masterpiece.  Not necessarily my favorite, but it's pretty great.  William H. Macy is a portrait of frustrated ineptitude as Jerry Lundegaard, a hapless car salesman who plots his wife's kidnap and ransom to extort money, and respect, from his wealthy father-in-law.  Unfortunately for Jerry, the criminal "professionals" he hires are only slightly less inept than he is and things go south in a hurry.  Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare are the mismatched kidnapper duo; one neurotic and one a sociopath.  Frances McDormand is terrific as Marge Gunderson, the unassuming, sharp, and very pregnant, small town cop who is investigating the case.  Dark, funny, and full of awesome Midwest accents and cadence, it also sets the pace in movie uses for wood chippers.

The Cooler (2003 - Wayne Kramer) - Another great performance from William H. Macy, this time as Bernie Lootz, a hard luck gambler employed by one of the last old school, pre-corporate casinos in Las Vegas as a cooler.  When a player gets hot at the black jack table or roulette wheel, they send in Bernie, a walking whatever-the-opposite-of-a-rabbits-foot-is and suddenly lady luck waves bye bye.  But when Bernie falls for waitress Natalie, played by Maria Bello, his luck, begins to change.  And that's bad for business.  Alec Baldwin stars as Shelly Kaplow, the hard core casino boss trying to hold on to the joint before the corporations take him over too.  He is none too pleased with Bernie's sudden stroke of good fortune.  He's old Vegas to the core, preferring to solve his problems with a ballpean hammer when possible.  A pretty good show about luck, destiny, and choices.  However, I saw Macy's butt on multiple occasions so that may have soured it for me a little.

Winnebago Man (2009 - Ben Steinbauer) - I wrote a full blown review of Winnebago Man a while back.  It's one of the most entertaining and thoughtful documentaries I've seen in a while.  Predictably funny, surprisingly poignant, and full of swearing.

Die Hard

Mostly for reasons explained elsewhere I missed out on a lot of the 80's and early 90's era action movies. I have since made up for lost time, checking many if the "classics" off my list: Terminator 1 & 2, Rambo, Predator, Commando, Big Trouble in Little China, Lethal Weapon, etc. (To this day I've still never seen a Jean Claude van Damme movie, but somehow I don't think I'm missing much there.). Their was a gap in my catalog, though, a gaping one. I had never seen a Die Hard movie. This wasn't intentional, it was just one of those things. Recently, I finally had my chance,or so I thought.

I few months ago I DVR'd Die Hard off of HBO, along with several hours of other movies my wife had no interest in watching. In an effort to free up some space for some TV shows based on fairy tails or something, my wife decided to erase some of my movies. Being the considerate woman that she is, even when erasing my unwatched movies, she made an effort to erase the most likely to have already been seen.  When I returned home one night to find Die Hard missing I was incredulous.

"Why did you erase Die Hard?!"
"I needed the space and it was the oldest one.  What's the big deal, you've seen Die Hard before."
"No I haven't!"
"Really?"
"No."
"Really??"

When even your wife is shocked to learn you've never seen Die Hard--and she has!--it's time to take matters into your hands to rightfully reclaim your man card.  Once word got out to a few of my buddies, it became our collective mission to get me to the Greek, so to speak.  And no, I haven't seen that movie either, fortunately.

So, on Monday three of my buddies, (all Critical Errors contributors) Peter, Rhett, and Josh came over to join me on my maiden viewing.  If only I had known what I was missing!

Die Hard may be the best action movie in the long and storied history action movies.  I type that without an iota of irony in my meaning.  It is seriously great.

Being most likely the last man standing not to have seen it, I'll skip an indepth rehash of the plot.  To put it into a couple of sentences, Bruce Willis stars as NYPD cop John McClane who is in LA to try to patch things up with his estranged wife, a big wig at a multi-national corporation.  While visiting her at her company Christmas party in a high-rise office building, terrorists lead by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) take over the building; action-comedy thrill ride ensues.

That's one of the things that makes it work.  The plot is simple, not surprising for an action movie, but also reasonably plausible.  No, in real life McClane is unlikely to survive the ordeal and no one's finger tips are that strong, but director John McTiernan does a great job of pushing the action envelope of plausibility to the very limits without somehow ripping it clean open.  Make no mistake, he comes very close to shredding the envelope into a thousand tiny pieces, but doesn't quite get there.  Not only is the action plausible, but holds up remarkably well for a 25 year old movie.  Yes, you read that right.  Die Hard is 25 years old!  But other than the costumes, cars, and maybe a couple other minor details, Die Hard may as well have been made last month.  No small feat when you consider the high-tech special effects we all take for granted these days.

Another strength are the two leads, Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman.  The screenplay blesses both with some really great things to say, and they both say them with appropriate zeal.  Willis as the wry, streetwise cop cracking wise and Rickman as a smart smooth talking German with a dry wit of a Brit.  Any action movie worth it's weight in C4 explosive needs a few memorable one-liners and it's like Willis and Rickman were in a contest of who could deliver the most and the best one.  Tough call, but Rickman's dead pan, "I read about them in Time magazine," might be my favorite line in the movie.  It's probably a better line in context.  Are there some cheeseball lines in there?  Heck yes!  But, again...action movie.

There is one glaring weakness, however, and it nearly kills the momentum about halfway through.  After LAPD beat sergeant Al Powell, played by who children of the '90's will recognize as Carl Winslow from Family Matters Reginald VelJohnson, is tipped off by McClane that terrorist have taken hostages (by dropping a dead terrorist onto the hood of his squad car--brilliant), Powell calls in the cavalry, the rest of LAPD.  While VelJohnson is fine as the lifeline to McClane over the radio, the weakness is Paul Gleason as Deputy Chief of Police Dwayne T. Robinson.  It's not Gleason's fault really.  Robinson is written like the biggest twit in law enforcement.  He's a boorish idiot and it really doesn't serve the plot in any meaningful way for him to be so.  It comes off as lazy to have the suit-wearing-desk-jockey-cop-in-charge be an utter moron, but fortunately after his initial appearance he only shows up in small doses for the rest of the movie.  The movie has so much going for it that he doesn't ruin everything, but it definitely went off the rails for a bit.

Fortunately, it finishes strong.

Bottom line, I had a blast--pun intended--watching it with my buddies and is one of the most enjoyable action movies I've ever seen.  The experience was definitely enhanced by watching it with a bunch of guys cracking one-liners of their own and remembering the big moments and telling me,"Dude, this next part is awesome!"  But it's not crazy to say it's the best ever, in 1988 or 2018.  Yippe kay yay....well, you know the rest.