GODZILLA Is King of All Monsters, But Is He King of All Movies?!

GODZILLA Review:

- I was so looking forward to GODZILLA. A few months back, at Wonder-Con in Anaheim, I saw director Gareth Edwards speak. It was clear that - in addition to being humble and self-deprecating - the guy was passionate about this film, about Godzilla, and about the legacy of the character and the film franchise. This was also a guy who seemed poised to deliver the Godzilla movie that we'd all been waiting for. I don't hate the 90's Emmerich version as much as some, but that movie was a goofy thrill ride when, clearly, the Godzilla character demands darker, epic, and more mythological treatment. And man, the footage that we saw at Wonder-Con seemed to promise just that. We saw a massive, insect-like creature emerge from the darkened ocean - hordes of screaming people fleeing in terror. Then, a giant leg stomped on the beach, and it was clear that the insect creature was about to meet its match. The camera panned up gracefully, and there, before us, was Godzilla in all his glory - taking a form that both paid homage to his man-in-suit origins, yet looked spectacularly badass. This. Was. Godzilla.

But maybe I should have been a bit worried all along. Edwards made his mark with indie creature-feature Monsters, which garnered a cult following and minor critical acclaim for the way it created a feeling of ominous dread and scale even with a barely-there budget. And yet ... I watched Monsters when it came out a few years back, and it left me pretty cold. I admired its ingenuity, but I also felt nothing for its characters, who I found to be whiny and inhuman-seeming. I put all of those doubts out of my mind though prior to GODZILLA. I mean, this was the return of the King of All Monsters. Who cared about the puny humans that might happen to populate the film?

As it turns out though, human characters are pretty important, even in a GODZILLA film. Especially when you consider that Edwards expends so much effort centering his story around his human protagonists. In many ways, his biggest inspiration here is Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park. Edwards looks to create a JP-like sense of awe and wonder in his film by grounding it in an all-too-human POV. But there's a coldness in these characters, a blandness, similar to what I saw in Monsters. I mean, in Jurassic Park, characters from Alan Grant to Ian Malcolm became instant fan favorites, because they were bursting with personality and life. They were colorful, distinct. We cared about them. Godzilla, meanwhile, is saddled with good actors playing non-characters.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson is our hero, Ford Brody. But I guarantee you won't remember that name when the film is done. He's a military guy whose main character trait is being the military-guy-with-the-heart-of-gold. I've enjoyed Taylor-Johnson's work in the Kick-Ass films. I know he can do way better than this. I don't even really blame him ... he's given pretty much nothing to work with. This is even more true for Elizabeth Olsen. She was Oscar-worthy in Martha Marcy May Marlene. Here she is playing Generic Wife. David Straitharn is Generic Military Officer. Ken Watanabe is Generic Scientist. At least Watanabe is given a couple of super-badass lines to say (the movie could really use a heavy injection of badassery). I guess it's not just badassery that I was looking for. It's emotion.

The huge bulk of the movie's emotional core comes, not surprisingly, from the great Bryan Cranston. Cranston plays Taylor-Johnson's dad, who, as we see in a riveting opening flashback sequence, was once a nuclear scientist charged with maintaining safety at a Japanese nuclear plant. His wife, who also worked at the plant, was tragically killed in an accident, and now Cranston has become obsessed with finding out what really happened that day. The movie's best scene is actually in this flashback sequence, as Cranston makes a desperate bid to save his wife's life, but ultimately, tragically, comes up short. Cranston kills it here, and helps GODZILLA to open on one hell of a high note.

But as the movie flash-forwards to the present, the focus shifts to Taylor-Johnson, and things start to go off-the-rails. Here's the thing: I'm all for restraint in this type of movie. I admire that Edwards takes his time in revealing Godzilla, and that he builds and builds the tension until, finally, all hell breaks loose and this finally becomes the Giant Monster Movie that everyone was expecting. It's an admirable tactic, in theory. The problem though is that all of the other, non-Godzilla stuff in the movie is sort of weak. Taylor-Johnson's character isn't interesting enough to carry the film, and he and his mini family drama with Olsen and their young child is uninteresting and carries minimal emotional weight. The characters who do show some promise - i.e. the team of Watanabe's Dr. Ishiro Serizawa and Sally Hawkins' Vivienne Graham - are given the short shrift.

When Godzilla finally makes his formidable presence known, the movie takes on new life. All of the giant monster stuff in this movie is pretty damn awesome, and Godzilla, as mentioned, looks great. Godzilla is, far and away, the best character in the movie. In fact, he feels more fully-realized than just about any of the humans. This is a Godzilla who is sort of a weary protector of humanity. Woken up from his long dormancy, he goes about the business of laying the smackdown on all other monsters with head-down efficiency, even though those unappreciative humans he's out to help tend to just devise ways to kill him. I really like that there's a character in the film - Watanabe's - who quickly advises the military types about Godzilla's proclivity for helping humans. And I like that not everyone immediately thinks he's insane. But again, Godzilla is a great character as portrayed here. His face is surprisingly expressive, as is his body language. He has real personality, even while also being a gigantic, awe-inspiring monster. Kudos to the creature-designers for really nailing it.

For some reason though, Edwards never lets the movie just become the all-out monster vs. monster battle royale that it seems to want to be. He literally cuts away right in the middle of giant monster-fights to check in on the much-less-awesome dramatics of his not-so-great human characters. Once or twice, I'll accept. Build the tension, right. But eventually, I found myself getting actively annoyed with the movie. GODZILLA is exchanging blows with a giant mosquito monster, and we care about anything else at that moment? Show us the fight! Edwards has a bad habit of undercutting the momentum he's deftly built up. The hot air gets let out of this balloon way too often, and it becomes frustrating.

Especially given how fun and cool some of those big fights are (when we actually get to see them). I do think that Edwards's tendency to shoot things from a human level adds something to the proceedings. There is that sense of awe and wonder as we see these creatures appear, destroy, and battle, that, again, both pays homage to the fun of the Toho originals, but also feels like something new. My one complaint: as great as the Godzilla creature-design is, I wish that the other monsters were equally as memorable. They do feel a little blah as compared to the fantastically-realized Godzilla.

I think I enjoyed the idea of this GODZILLA a lot more than the actual execution. A dark, mythic, huge-scale parable that took the material seriously? Yes, please. All of the trailers for this film had me utterly convinced that it was going to kick all manner of ass. But as I sat through it, the sort of darkly clinical coldness that was evident in the trailers never faltered or broke. The result is a movie whose execution oddly mirrors its own narrative: in the film, Godzilla gets little love from the fearful humans, and on a meta-level, the movie just won't cede the spotlight to its true star, instead force-feeding us half-baked Spielbergian character drama that totally underwhelms given the awesomeness that we know is occurring just off-screen. I'm not asking for some Michael Bay-esque f/x orgy. I'm just saying that if you're going to do the slow-burn, than that burn had better be interesting, and it had better result in a worthwhile payoff. GODZILLA is well worth checking out, if only because its best moments - that superbly-crafted Cranston opening, the big reveals of Godzilla and the other monsters (or "mutos" in the film's vernacular) - are really, really good. But the rest feels less like necessary narrative and meaty character drama, and more like plain ol' filler. I get it, lots of people are inclined to love this movie because it "gets" Godzilla and does right by the character. And that it does, and for that it deserves much credit. But doing right by a character does not, in and of itself, a great movie make. This one re-establishes Godzilla as The King of All Monsters, no question. But it is not, sadly, The King of All Monster Movies.

My Grade: B

A Farewell to BREAKING BAD: The Greatest Story of Our Time.

 - It feels almost strange to write about Breaking Bad these days, because it was only a few years ago that it was a cult-favorite show that the faithful were yelling about to their friends, but that was still very much under the broader cultural radar. I too got on the Breaking Bad train slightly late - my brother and I powered through the first two seasons in preparation for Season 3, and man, marathoning through those first couple of seasons ... it was some of the best TV I'd ever seen to that point. But Breaking Bad just kept topping itself. As the show went on, I often thought "you know, this might just end up as one of the all-time great TV shows." But now, as I write this hours away from the finale, there can be no doubt. BREAKING BAD is likely the best serialized TV drama of all time.

Writers have waxed endlessly about the show over these last few months, but I thought I'd pull back for a second and talk about some of the broader thematic virtues of the series. I could write for pages about the brilliance of the cast - the great Bryan Cranston in particular, in what will go down as perhaps the single greatest TV drama performance ever given. I could talk about the look and aesthetic and production value of the show - so unique and so consistently incredible. Or I could talk about the mind-blowingly good writing, that keeps you guessing week to week, that never fails to shock, disturb, or get your heart racing. But what I want to do is talk for a bit about certain feelings that Breaking Bad captures - certain themes and moments - that no other show has ever tackled with such effectiveness.

The Moment of Panic.

- We all experience it. We all know the feeling. Okay, maybe some of you are those rare Type A personalities who constantly have their $#%& together every waking moment. But for most of us, we have it: that moment when the clock is ticking, when we have to quickly weigh all options, when we feel backed into a corner and we're not quite sure how or if we're going to make it. Maybe it's a feeling that's heightened in our modern world, a feeling that's magnified when we're constantly overextending ourselves and trying to pack in as much as we can into a a day that feels increasingly short. Breaking Bad is a show that captures that feeling of modern panic better than any other. For Walter White is a man who has a literal ticking clock, a man who is constantly backed into corners. And when Breaking Bad goes into "panic mode," and hits us with one of its patented Breaking Bad sequences of pure heightened adrenaline, my reaction is a mix of excitement and dread. Dread because again, who doesn't know that feeling, even if in some small way? The feeling of oversleeping and realizing you've got ten minutes to get to work. The feeling of realizing that you've got 20 minutes to accomplish something that would normally take an hour. The feeling that your plans aren't quite coming together, and it's going to take a desperate move or calculated risk to pull 'em off. Breaking Bad's heightened reality is our modern reality cranked up to 11. Walter White's dread is our dread. On one level, all Walter wants is to reach some mythical happy ending where he lives out a life of peaceful tranquility with his family. But on another level, he keeps pushing forward and practically digging his own grave. In some small way, isn't that what we all do? We box ourselves in. We set ourselves up. We participate in actions that will come back to bite us, but we do so anyway, thinking "I may *just* be able to get away with this if I play my cards right." When Walter is able to overcome the odds, and somehow escape - when he outwits Gus Fring or lucks out and squirms his way out of a tight squeeze - we can't help but root for him despite his ever-decreasing moral compass. Why? Because we've all been there, in some small way. We know the rush that comes with getting away with something, with having a plan somehow work despite the fact that it shouldn't, and only thanks to a stroke of lucky timing.

The Break-Bad.

- Here's another thing we all deal with in the "real world." The sad fact of adulthood that what is considered "good" is not always the same as what is considered required to succeed. As we get older, idealism can give way to self-preservation. And oftentimes, our own personal dealings - in business, in life - are framed as us vs. them. We're supposed to be ambitious. We're supposed to care about what's best-for-business. But how do we reconcile that with being kind, nice, caring, and good? In a world that seems to constantly pit us against one another, in which we're all scraping and clawing to be able to support ourselves and build a future, isn't it inevitable that people will get trampled along the way? It sounds bad to say that, and every day I think many of us grapple with these same issues. I know I sometimes come home from work feeling like I haven't been true to myself. I've spent all day trying to seem on top of things, trying to build up my own personal "brand," as they say. And yet what gets lost in all that is often common decency and altruism. We all see that to some extent in our own lives, and we also see it every day in the world around us. We see governments that kill in the name of a supposed greater good. We see entertainment that is exploitative. We see businesses that do harm in order to help the bottom line. Our world often constantly seems to be in a state of "breaking bad." And I think that's part of the reason why the journey of Walter White is so powerful, and why it speaks to us so clearly here in 2013. Breaking Bad spurs the conversation of: at what point do you still sympathize for, even root for, Walter White? And in turn, it makes us think about how we react - in a similar fashion - to our country, to corporations, to products we consume. Breaking Bad illustrates how behind a seemingly innocent business - say, Los Pollos Hermanos - lurks a darkness, a foundation built on crime and corruption and death. It shows us how business people like Lydia sit at the top of structures that are rooted in a similar sort of rot. Sure, the top of the hierarchy is glossed over with a fine coat of paint - its head is an attractive woman in business suits and pumps. But she is just one cog in a machine that includes gangsters, thieves, and killers. She distances herself from them outwardly. But really, how is she any different? Think about Walter White - the one thing we still sympathize with him about is his love for his family. It reminds me of during political season, when no matter how reprehensible a candidate is, we're always forced to acknowledge: "he's a family man," "he loves his sons and daughters," etc. The same sympathies that we extend Walter White could be extended to any number of corrupt, morally bankrupt, evil people. And yet ...

Bruised Ego.

- At its core, Breaking Bad is a story about one man's quest to satisfy his traumatized and broken ego. And again, as loathe as we may be to admit it, who among us doesn't experience the desire for ego-boost, on some level, on a regular basis? We want credit for what we've done, compensation for work we've put in, acknowledgement from others so that we get our proper due. It's only fitting that the finale of Breaking Bad be set up to get right back to that central theme, with Walter White incited back to action after seeing his old colleagues on TV, downplaying his role in the company he helped get off the ground. Walter, for all his questionable actions throughout the course of the series, was never good at the kind of slick, subtle whitewashing that his old colleagues display. And again, in a weird way, I sort of relate. In today's world, we're bombarded with sound-bites, censorship, and revisionism. We have media outlets, politicians, corporations giving us *their* version of the truth, to the point where it takes a renegade to get to the real truth and the real, bare facts. And to that end, there is often a feeling that he who bull$%^&s best, wins. The ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves, who speak their mind, who say what they mean - they're marginalized and dismissed as cranks. And so therein lies some of Walter White's lasting appeal: he became a frequent liar and manipulator during the course of his break-bad, but he was never particularly smooth. Everything he did had an air of desperation, of reaching beyond his means. Walter pretended to be a mastermind - he became Heisenberg. He used his hat and sunglasses to become a mythical figure - a supervillain. But remember, he had the hat, the glasses, the badass shaved-head/goatee look. But he also still had the khakis, the loafers, the dorky button-down shirts. He was always out of his league, trying to be something that he was not. And for that, we can't help but feel for him. Who among us hasn't put on a mask to appear one way, knowing that it's not who we really are? But Walter needs props, clothes, mental conditioning to convince himself that he is the man who knocks. And why shouldn't he? He's smart, he's capable ... what, really, separates him from the likes of Gus Fring? We all tell ourselves this on occasion. "What makes him any better than me?" "What's he got that I don't?" And in Walt, we admire that what actually makes him more weak and frail is that he is sort of bumbling and dorky and yes, maybe even, at his core, more of a decent human being than his rivals. But the tragedy is that Walt's way of compensating is to continually boost his ego by playing fast and loose with morality. To be Gus, he's got to lie, cheat, and kill. And in the end, that's what checks a lot of our everyday ego boosts at the door. We know that maybe we *could* be that guy, but to do so, we'd have to be an asshole. We know that maybe we *could* get the upper hand in a situation, but ultimately, we'd rather be the better man, the better example, the version of ourselves that we can live with and like. Perhaps, on occasion, we fantasize about *not* being that person, about being the break-bad versions of ourselves. That could mean anything from telling someone off to speaking the truth even when the truth hurts. It could mean boosting ourselves by putting someone else down. For Walter White, when he turned that switch off, it took him on an insane journey into the heart of darkness. But as we've seen, acting in the name of ego is a very dangerous - and very often futile - path to follow.

And so, tonight I tune in to the final episode of BREAKING BAD, and man, it's going to be the end of a long and crazy and just-plain-awesome ride. Oftentimes I watch TV, and as a TV guy, I think with my ego and think "yeah, I could do better." But in this instance, I put all ego aside and simply take my hat off to Vince Gilligan and co. This is a towering achievement - not just of TV, but of storytelling. The journey of Walter - and Jesse, Hank, Skylar, Marie, Walt Jr., Saul, Gus, Mike, and the rest - it's been a wild ride. Dialogue that will forever remain in the pop-culture lexicon, characters that will forever be icons, and a narrative that has set a new bar. But even beyond that, BREAKING BAD is the quintessential moral parable of our times - the ultimate cautionary tale about the perils of the modern world.

ARGO Is a Riveting Real-Life Thriller

ARGO Review:

- Ben Affleck has come a long way. After reinventing himself with gritty, Boston-based dramas Gone Baby, Gone and The Town, Affleck has now taken the next step towards becoming not just a legitimate filmmaker, but a great one. His latest, ARGO, is a fantastic film. It's a gripping thriller that's also funny, and even educational. This is one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction real life tales. But the interesting thing with the story of Argo is that it isn't just a "can you believe this really happened" sort of narrative. There's some fascinating political context here, recent history that still very much informs where we're at today with Iran and the Middle East region. Argo is an intriguing look at one of the major foreign policy challenges of the Carter administration, but it's also a rip-roaring spy story. The cast here is top-of-the-line. And again, Affleck makes it all sing. Despite its true-life trappings, ARGO zips along with the urgency and sheer entertainment value of a classic, 70's-era, big-screen thriller. This is one of the finest films of the year so far.

Argo's story is the kind of thing that you'd imagine could only be dreamed up for the movies. But this story - declassified by President Clinton in 1997 - is all too real. In 1980, Iranian revolutionaries took over the US Embassy in Tehran, holding all of the workers there hostage for a prolonged period that extended for months, as President Cater attempted to work out a solution that would result in minimal loss of life. But during the initial Iranian raid on the embassy, six American diplomats escaped the building, and eventually found refuge at the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran. He kept them hidden in his home, even as the Iranians desperately searched for them. The US needed a plan to extract them from Iran, but had to figure out a way to keep the identities of the six diplomats hidden. Enter Tony Mendez, a CIA "exfiltration" expert, who specializes in out-of-the-box escape plans. Mendez devises a plan to get the Six out of Iran by having them pose as a film crew. Mendez reaches out to contacts in Hollywood, including a major producer, and the special f/x guy behind the Planet of the Apes films. They get a hold of an unproduced sci-fi screenplay called Argo, and go to every effort to make it seem like this movie - a cheesy Star Wars ripoff - is actually going to get made. Eventually, Mendez, posing as the film's producer, goes to Iran to "location scout," picking up the Six on the way and briefing them on their new, assumed identities. All the while, the Iranians are increasingly hot on their trail.

Part of what makes the film so fun is how Affleck-as-Mendez must weave between the worlds of international espionage and Hollywood. At the CIA, he's answerable to Bryan Cranston's exasperated Jack O'Donnell and O'Donnell's even more world-weary superiors. In Hollywood, he works with old-school producer Lester Siegal (Alan Arkin) and veteran makeup and f/x guy John Chambers (John Goodman). In their own way, these guys are as cagey and hardened as the higher-ups at the CIA - and the movie illustrates how the movie business can be as much about rumors, info leaks, false statements, and insider secrets as the CIA. At the same time, it's funny to see how the movies really do serve as America's most beloved export. Whereas other covers might have raised more Iranian eyebrows, the thought of a big Star Wars-esque movie shot in Iran never fails to impress even the most American-hating Iranians.

Now, from some of the description above, you can probably tell ... the cast of ARGO is phenomenal. Arkin and Goodman are always great, always scene stealers - and the same holds true here. They bring some needed levity to the film, and Arkin in particular just kills it with some of his quips. What I like though is that there is some real dimension to these characters. Sure, Arkin and Goodman play Hollywood old-hands, but you also see a gleem in their eyes as they realize they get to use their talents to serve their country in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, Cranston gets one of his meatiest film roles to date since breaking out on Breaking Bad. Mostly, he plays the part of the by-the-book good soldier, but when he has to go out on a limb to support Affleck, we get to see Cranston really let loose. As for Affleck himself ... he's quite good here. It's a somewhat understated role, but Affleck does a great job of giving the part of Mendez some nuance. The film doesn't dwell, for example, on Mendez's strained relationship with his ex-wife and young son - but what bits we do get shade Mendez's character and his motivations throughout the film. Otherwise, the cast is just filled, top-to-bottom, with fantastic players. Victor Garber, Zeljko Ivanek, Kyle Chandler, Tate Donovan, and many others all do solid work. There are cameos from the ever-reliable likes of Richard Kind and Titus Welliver. Suffice it to say, a huge part of what makes the film so successful is the cast just playing off of each other, and lending an old-school sort of feel to the film. It's an all-star cast, but no one is really competing for top-billing. Everyone chips in and makes the most of their screentime.

What's more, the film does a great job of giving us all sorts of interesting details of the CIA's unusual mission. We see the storyboards that were created to help sell the fake film (drawn by no less than Jack Kirby - the co-creator of The X-Men, the Hulk, etc. - himself!). We see how an ad for the film was taken out in Variety, and how a poster was hung up on Siegal's office wall for posterity. We see how the diplomats were explained away to the Canadian Ambassador's Iranian maid as being houseguests - but we wonder if she might suspect something. We also get some insight into the diplomats themselves. They too are fully-formed characters - each with a backstory that makes watching their own debates - on whether to trust Mendez, and on whether to go along with his escape plan - all the more riveting. Affleck skillfully covers a lot of ground here, zipping from Washington to Los Angeles to Iran. He keeps things moving at a nice clip, but he gives us all the details that flesh out the story, that make you realize all of the meticulous planning that went into this caper.

Affleck perfectly captures the vibe of the late 70's / early 80's. Not just in terms of the period details, which are spot-on, but in the way the movie itself almost feels like some lost classic of the era. The packing, the acting, the sense of intrigue and humming intensity - it brings to mind classic thrillers like All The President's Men. Still, Affleck isn't afraid to bring some of the bombast of The Town and other modern action flicks to the movie. There are some epic scenes in this one - from the initial raid on the US Embassy, which is absolutely breathtaking - to the nail-biting finale in which the six diplomats attempt their ultimate escape. Meanwhile, little touches - like Jimmy Carter giving a sort of spoken epilogue prior to the end credits, or side-by-side photos of the principle actors next to their real-life counterparts, provide a nice sense of context to the film.

What we have here is one of the year's most entertaining, well-acted, and sharpest dramas - a film that seems to perfectly encapsulate a certain era, even as it feels uber-relevant to today's headlines. With ARGO, Ben Affleck has, in my estimation, just catapulted himself into the upper-echelon of working directors, and I will now actively look forward to what he does next. Argo stands as a top-notch example of the kind of film we need more of: it's a big, fun, engaging drama that nonetheless actually says something about the way things were and the way things are. This is one of the year's best.

My Grade: A-