BOYHOOD, Linklater, & Monty Python Discussed On The New Postmodcast

On the newest episode of postmodcast, a podcast that I am now co-hosting with Kevin Brewer (Twitter handle: @RealKevinBrewer) I talk about the new movie BOYHOOD, touch on the career of its director Richard Linklater, and discuss Kevin's experience seeing MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL for the first time (I've seen it so many times that I think its the #1 movie I've seen the most). That's Kevin and I pictured above at a Halloween party at my house few years ago (I'm in the Devo garb).

These are a few subjects near and dear to my heart as BOYHOOD is my favorite film of the year so far, I'm a big fan of Linklater, and HOLY GRAIL is my all time favorite comedy. 

There was a great moment in the last episode of Judd Apatow's one season cult classic TV series Freaks and Geeks when a teacher (played by Steve Higgins, later Jimmy Fallon's announcer on Late Night/The Tonight Show) consoled the lead geek characters, who were so tired of getting bullied, with a “it all gets better” speech. Higgins then offers up an 18 mm print of HOLY GRAIL (pictured above) that he just scored, saying for now that they should “enjoy the simple pleasures in life.”

On this episode of postmodcast I find out that one person's idea of the simple pleasures may be as foreign as can be to another. It was a lesson I had to learn.

If you didn't catch the links above, click here to listen.

More later...

Minor Marvel Characters Make Major Movie Debut

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

(Dir. James Gunn, 2014)

The latest offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Gunn’s GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, is for sure one of the funniest movies of the year.

Sure, it’s a big action-packed sci-fi spectacle, but for me, it was all about the laughs. And there are a lot of them, many coming from one-liners spouted by the lead, Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation, ZERO DARK THIRTY), who carries the movie like a reigning comedy champ.

Funnier still, is Pratt’s co-star, an animated raccoon named Rocket voiced by Bradley Cooper, in maybe my favorite performance of his, who’s as much a master of weaponry as he is wisecracks, employing both in battle.

In this adaptation of a long running comic book series that I’ve been unaware of despite the fact it has been in existence since the year I was born (1969), Pratt plays Peter Quill, who we first meet as child in 1988 played by Wyatt Oleff witnessing his mother’s (Laura Haddock) death in the film’s opening moments. The young boy is abducted by aliens immediately afterwards, and we flash forward 26 years.

Pratt, identifying himself as a “junker,” flies around in his spaceship called “The Milano” scouring various planets for stuff to steal while listening to an old school tape compilation of ‘70s hits called “Awesome Mix. Vol. 1.”

From the dark, rocky terrain of a planet named Morag, Pratt obtains a mysterious orb (the movie’s McGuffin) which is sought for evil purposes by the villainous Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), who sends the green-skinned Gamora (Zoe Saldana, who was blue in AVATAR) to fetch it.

After Pratt tries unsuccessfully to sell the orb the much more stable planet Zander, Saldana steals it from him, but a couple of bounty hunters (the aforementioned raccoon, and a tree-like creature named Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel) get caught up in their chase/fight sequence mix.

The friction fraught foursome gets arrested by the Nova Corps, an intergalactic military/police force stationed on Zander, and run by Glenn Close as Nova Prime Irani Rael, with the always reliable John C. Reilly as one of her high-ranking officers.

From there, the thrown together team joined by Drax the Destroyer (WWE pro-wrestler Dave Bautista), who’s bent on taking revenge on Ronan to murdering his family, break out of imprisonment (in a hilarious chaotic set-piece to the tune of Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song),” and set about to keep the dangerously powerful orb away from the destructive devices of Ronan, and his boss Thanos (Josh Brolin), who you may remember from the stinger at the end of THE AVENGERS.

Also caught up in this crazy, uber colorful mayhem, is a blue-skinned Michael Rooker (HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, The Walking Dead) as the leader of the Ravagers, a rag tag posse of alien ruffians also after the orb. Rooker’s gravel voiced scenery chewing makes you believe that extreme racist redneck stereotypes will no doubt flourish in the depths of space and other dimensions.

Now, it may seem silly redundant to say that this Phase 2 Marvel movie has a STAR WARS-ian swagger to it, as every summer sci-fi/comic book contender draws upon the blueprint of George Lucas’ original 1977 space opera, but with this particular entry with its motley crew onboard a hunk of junk spaceship traveling to seedy ports thing a-goin’ on, I can't help going there.

Also, it has more than one Han Solo figure present in the rogue smartass bravado of both Pratt and Cooper, leaving Diesel’s Groot to be our Chewbacca stand-in. There’s a great running gag involving how Groot can only say “I am Groot,” and how each time (with different Diesel inflections), Cooper’s character can understand what he’s really saying, a sort of Han and Chewie-ish situation.

Bautista's Drax being able to only take things literally (“Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast. I will seize it.”) is another highly amusing thread.
The big ass CGI- saturated battle sequences were a bit too visually cluttered for my tastes at times, but the sheer amount of fun I had with what director Gunn and his co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman kept hurtling at me and the audience made that not matter so much.

Just like Pratt’s coveted cassette compilation is called, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is an awesome mix. It takes nifty sideline superheroes, only known to hardcore comic fans, and makes major stars out of them (it's also certainly a star-making part for Pratt). But more importantly it made me a laugh a lot, while it proved once again that the Marvel formula - Stan Lee cameo included – has a lot of life left in it.

And, of course, stay for the traditional post-credits scene, which, I won’t spoil, but I will say that it hints at the resurrection of an infamous Marvel character apparently still trapped in a world he never made. That probably is a bit of a spoiler, sorry.

More later...

The Much Better Than Expected James Brown Biopic GET ON UP

GET ON UP (Dir. Tate Taylor, 2014)

  
I wasn’t psyched about the prospect of a PG-13 rated James Brown biopic from the director of THE HELP, yet Tate Taylor’s GET ON UP far exceeded my expectations.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s no masterpiece. It’s a bit disjointed, and suffers from many of the tired true-life story tropes that bogged down Clint Eastwood’s JERSEY BOYS, but it’s anchored by an invested, confident performance by Chadwick Boseman as the Godfather of Soul, and its concert sequences are electrifying.

Boseman, best known for his portrayal of another African American who made history, Jackie Robinson in Brian Helgeland's 42 last year, doesn't really resemble James Brown but he's got his voice, inflections, and definitely his dance moves down. It satisfyingly shows that Boseman has worked hard to step into the shoes of the hardest working man in show business.

Scripted by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, who co-wrote FAIR GAME and EDGE OF TOMORROW, the film bounces around through the decades with each year given a title like “1965: Mr. Please Please Please.”

After a beginning shot of Brown walking through a dark backstage hallway towards the sound of screaming fans (hello again, WALK THE LINE, and its satirical sister WALK HARD), Taylor delves right into one of the seedier stories of the man's past: his PCP fueled tirade with a shotgun in tow towards a room full of insurance agents, one of whom made the mistake of using Brown's private bathroom in his business located in the same building.

This incident bookends the timespan-hopping bulk of the movie which takes us from Brown's poor childhood living in a rundown shack in the middle of South Carolina woods with an abusive father (Lennie James), and neglectful mother (Viola Davis) to his legendary performances at Apollo Theater in 1963 (one of the greatest live albums ever) the T.A.M.I. show in 1964 (one of the greatest concert films ever) his riot-quelling show in Boston the night that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, his triumphant concert at the Olympia Hall in Paris in 1971 (another essential live album), and back again to his youth.

I so wanted to leave the version of Brown as a boy (played by twins Jordan and Jamarion Scott) behind, but the film kept bringing him back into the time-shifting narrative, even surreally inserting him into a later-day scene to make some sort of point that I'm not sure I understand.

Despite that Brown sang that this man's world “wouldn't mean nothing without a woman or a girl,” we don't learn much about his first two wives, played by Jacinte Blankenship and Jill Scott, except that they had to put up with a lot of shit.

The movie focuses more on Brown's friendship with Famous Flames bandmate Bobby Byrd played by Nelsan Ellis (True Blood, THE BUTLER), and his relationship with his manager Ben Bart, 
well acted by Dan Aykroyd, who appeared with the real Brown in THE BLUES BROTHERS back in the day.

These scenes are fine, but perfunctory and the same device of breaking the fourth wall - i.e. Brown talls directly to the camera throughout the film - that JERSEY BOYS did to death, doesn't help matters much either.

But, again, the fact that somebody with the name Chadwick Boseman can capture the fiery force of nature of the Funky President in so many standout scenes is cause for celebration.

There are times when Boseman's Brown comes on like a caricature, but then Brown often did in real life. One only needs do a Google image search or spend time with some clips of the man on YouTube to see that Boseman does a really respectable job with the role. 

Sure, I would've liked to learn more about how Brown's saxophonist Maceo Parker (Craig Robinson), who had many complaints about how his boss fined band members for making mistakes, left to join Parliament/Funkadelic in the '70s then returned to the fold in the '80s, or spent a little more time with Little Richard, wonderfully played by Brandon Mychal Smith, but then we're talking mini-series territory and the film, at 138 minutes, is long enough.

But Boseman's Oscar worthy performance surrounded by a roster of some of the greatest soul and funk music (all the original recordings) makes for a must see in my book (or on my blog).

So despite its many flaws, including a very uneven flow, GET ON UP is about as good as a PG-13 rated James Brown biopic from the director of THE HELP can be.

More later...