Puss in Boots

So much time had pass since people could say confidently that an animated film was the highlight of its opening weekend at the box office, and that was with Dreamworks Animation’s “Puss in Boots,” the 2011 spin-off of the “Shrek” franchise that is more active and more entertaining than people would think. Richard Propes said in his review, “Of course, it should be noted that the opening weekend of Puss in Boots is dotted with such cinematic mediocrity as Anonymous and In Time.”

“Puss in Boots” is a prequel to the “Shrek” films, but it has a completely different tone and look to it. I should also point out that “Puss in Boots” is one of the rare films of the year that the 3D animation was actually worth it. Propes mentioned, “The film's animation is richly layered and the action sequences, abundant in quantity, are also of tremendous quality. While the film is not up to Pixar's best, it certainly surpasses this year's Cars sequel and it wouldn't be surprising to see it mentioned during the 2011 awards season.”

The script from a team of writers doesn’t really bring anything new and definitely isn’t on the same emotional level of a Pixar film, but Dreamworks was really making a mark for itself as just a step below the Pixar films with their recent films like “How to Train Your Dragon” and the “Kung Fu Panda” movies.

Propes credited, “Antonio Banderas is marvelous as Puss, bringing to his vocal work a vibrance and energy that would make you literally able to envision the action even if you weren't looking at the screen. Banderas is suave, debonaire, funny and simply everything you want Puss to be. The actor has had quite the year between this appearance and his appearance in Almodovar's controversial The Skin I Live In.” Salma Hayek is perfect as his halt and friend, Kitty Softpaws. Visually, the two enjoy some really great scenes that go from well choreographed sword fights to really entertaining scenes. The story tells audiences Puss’s childhood and his friendship with Humpty Dumpty, voiced by Zach Galifianakis, whose work on the film include one of the naughtier jokes that was every inserted in a kids’ film (that it’s almost reassured the kids will never get).

Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris voice Jack and Jill, whose magic beans become the subject of a robbery by Humpty and Puss.

Directed by Chris Miller, who also directed the boring “Shrek the Third,” “Puss in Boots” hands down is superior to just about anything that anyone could have thought from a film that spun off of a four film franchise. Even one of the largest fan had to think if “Puss in Boots” would be worth checking out. Surprisingly, it’s one of the best animated films of 2011.

If you were not very fond of the “Shrek” franchise after one or two movies, then you should see “Puss in Boots” because it was a very good animated movie. I checked this out when my brother got it from the library and I thought it was very entertaining. As a spin-off to the franchise about a character that is a spoof on Banderas’ Zorro character, it did a really good job. You should see it, especially if you have kids, because all of you will really enjoy it, I promise.

Alright everyone, we have now come to the end of “Salma Hayek Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed it and have checked out the films that I have reviewed, even though there are more films that she starred in. I know there might be some famous ones that I didn’t look it, but I will have to see when I can check them out and look at when will be the right time to review them.

Stay tuned next month when we pick back up with “Black History Movie Month,” where I will be looking at some of the work done by a really great actor/director of his time.

Frida

Early in their marriage, Frida Khalo tells Diego Rivera she would like him to be “not faithful, but loyal.” She puts herself in that same field. Roger Ebert describes that these types of faithfulness “is a bourgeois ideal that they reject as Marxist bohemians who disdain the conventional. But passionate jealousy is not unknown to them, and both have a double standard, permitting themselves freedoms they would deny the other.” During the runtime of “Frida,” released in 2002, Kahlo has affairs with Leon Trotsky and Josephine Baker (Ebert said, “not a shabby dance card”), but gets mad at Diego for his infidelities.

Julie Taymor’s biographical movie tells the story of a famous life. Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek, born of a German Jewish father and a Mexican mother, grew up in Mexico City at a time when it was a source of exile and trickery. As a student, she goes to see the famous muralist Diego Rivera at work, fearlessly calls him “fat” and knows that he is the one she wants to marry.

Then she is almost dies in a bus accident that breaks her back and cuts her body with a steel rod. She was never to be able to walk again in her life and for long periods had to wear a body cast. Taymor shows a bluebird flying from Frida’s hand at the time of the accident, and later gold leaf falls on the cast: Ebert said, “She uses the materials of magic realism to suggest how Frida was able to overcome pain with art and imagination.”

Rivera was already a legend when she met him. Ebert describes, “Played by Alfred Molina in a great bearlike performance of male entitlement, he was equally gifted at art, carnal excess and self-promotion.” The first time Frida sleeps with him, they are discovered by his wife, Lupe, played by Valeria Golino, who is furious, obviously, but that is Diego’s power over women that after Frida and Diego get married, Lupe brings them breakfast in bed (“This is his favorite. If you are here to stay, you’d better learn how to make it.”) Frida’s paintings often show herself, alone or with Diego, and imitate her pain and delight. They are on a smaller level than his famous murals, and her art is overlooked by his. His reputation goes to a notorious incident, when he is hired by Nelson Rockefeller, played by Edward Norton, to create a mural for Rockefeller Center, and daringly includes Lenin among the figures he paints. Ebert said, “Rockefeller commands the mural to be hammered down from the wall, thus making himself the goat in this episode forevermore.”

The director, Julie Taymore, became famous for her production of “The Lion King” on Broadway, with the amazing combination of actors and the animals they played. Ebert noted, “Her film "Titus" (1999) was a brilliant re-imaging of the Shakespeare tragedy, showing a gift for great daring visual inventions.” She also shows the realism here to say the imaginary colors of Frida’s imagination. However, real life itself is strange in this marriage, where the couples build houses side by side and connect them by a bridge between the top floors.

Ebert said, “Artists talk about the "zone," that mental state when the mind, the eye, the hand and the imagination are all in the same place and they are able to lose track of time and linear thought. Frida Kahlo seems to have painted in order to seek the zone and escape pain: When she was at work, she didn't so much put the pain onto the canvas as channel it away from conscious thought and into the passion of her work.” She needs to paint, not just to “express herself” but to live, and this sis her closest relationship with Rivera.

Biographical films of artists are always difficult, because the connections between life and art always seem too easy and superficial. The best ones take us back to the work itself and tell viewers to sympathize with its artists. Ebert noted, “"Frida" is jammed with incident and anecdote--this was a life that ended at 46 and yet made longer lives seem underfurnished. Taymor obviously struggled with the material, as did her many writers; the screenwriters listed range from the veteran Clancy Sigal to the team of Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, and much of the final draft was reportedly written by Norton.” Sometimes we feel like the film twists from one lively event to another without break, but sometimes it must have seemed to Frida Kahlo as if her life also did.

The film opens in 1953, on the date of Firda’s only one-woman show in Mexico. Her doctor tells her she is too sick to attend it, but she has her bed lifted into a flat-bed truck and carried to the gallery. This opening scene gives Taymor with the group for the movie’s amazing ending scenes, where death itself is seen as another work of art.

I was in the beginning of the second year in college when I found out about Frida Kahlo’s famous accident on the bus, where I had to step out of the class because I was getting sick to my stomach hearing the details. I’m not good with graphic, detailed information because I always feel as if I’m going to throw up hearing it. I’m not kidding; I get pale and sweaty that I have to lay down for a bit to get it out of my head.

All of that aside, this is another good movie that I think everyone should watch. I think it’s Salma Hayek’s famous work and if you haven’t seen it, you should, especially if you know of Frida Kahlo, her artwork and her life story.

Look out next week to see what I will end “Salma Hayek Month” with.

Wild Wild West

There’s a pattern to a huge summer blockbuster – a pattern so exact that any mistake anywhere can have an unacceptable feeling. The 1999 adaptation of “Wild Wild West” has a lot of mistakes, which could explain why the critical reception to the film has been so largely negative. Noel Murray said in his review, “There's no denying that the picture is a mess; but speaking as someone who finds the "blockbuster rhythm" to be generally stupefying, there's some pleasure to be had in tuning in those rogue notes.”

Barry Sonnenfeld, director of “Men in Black” and “Get Shorty,” adapts the famous television show. The story, like the show, is set in a post-Civil War country fighting for a reunified future. The country is about to be ruled by charming confederate Arliss Loveless, played by Kenneth Branagh. Supporting President Grant (Kevin Kline) and the Union are two government agents, elegant gunman Jim West (Will Smith) and inventor Artemus Gordon (Kline).

Murray said, “The film arrives DOA in its first half hour, as Sonnenfeld and his team of screenwriters deliver not one, not two, but three consecutive action sequences set in crowded rooms with scantily clad women huddling in the wings. The scenes are dark, dull, and--with the persistent presence of prostitutes--needlessly randy.”

Murray continued, “Once Sonnenfeld and master cinematographer Michael Ballhaus move outdoors, though, the brighter light illuminates the leads a little more--especially Kline, who is almost poignant in his portrayal of a wide-eyed gadget hound and "master of disguise" who doesn't even know what a woman's breasts are supposed to feel like. Equally cool are the gadgets themselves, all pneumatic and rickety.”

Still, the pans are mostly validated. Female actor Salma Hayek is pointless, the close-up fight scenes are really hard to follow, and except for Branagh’s long (probably self-wrote) speeches, there’s nothing special about the dialogue. What is worth praising is the large visuals and narrative spark that was not common for an expensive summer film. Murray noted, “Between Smith's suave brutality, Kline's foggy romanticism, and Sonnenfeld's giddy contrasting of the Western landscape with steam-powered contraptions, Wild Wild West almost achieves an enjoyable style.”

Murray continued, “My biggest quibble is that the film ends just when it's finally getting its newer, funkier rhythm together.” That’s one thing that “Wild Wild West” has in common with most of the famous studio franchise – everything is introduced and nothing really to know.

As I had stated last week, this is a movie that I know a lot of people hate, but I never have seen the original show this was based on. I think the action and the humor is good, and Will Smith as usual brought his coolness that we all knew and loved at the time. If you want to see it, go ahead, but if you don’t, it’s not a huge loss. Still, I think it’s one to see and given a chance, and the main song is good, even though I know it was taken from both a famous Stevie Wonder and Kool Moe Dee song.

Now with that out of the way, look out next week when I look at a very famous film in “Salma Hayek Month.”

Dogma

Maitland McDonagh started her review on the 1999 film “Dogma” by saying, “Make no mistake, Kevin Smith's talky, farcical comedy of cosmic errors is clever. But it's clever in a deeply juvenile way, like the high-IQ wiseass you knew in parochial school who rehearsed for a career in law by confounding priests with preposterous scenarios in which, technically speaking, it wasn't actually sinful to covet thy neighbor's wife or fail to honor the Sabbath.” Cardinal Glick, played by the late George Carlin, is preparing to start his stylish “Catholicism – Wow!” campaign, with the Buddy Christ and restoring luxuries, the spiritual get-out-of-jail-free cards that helped put the medieval church to shame.

Banished angels Loki (Matt Damon) and Bartleby (Ben Affleck), who’ve been suffering in Wisconsin, like that last one, have figured to pick up their luxuries at Glick’s Red Bank, NJ, church and flying back into God’s good hands. Sadly, the Almighty, played by singer Alanis Morissette, can’t afford to be overtaken on a small point. If the angels return to Heaven, the world will no longer be alive. That’s where Bethany, played by Linda Fiorentino, is called to stop Bartleby and Loki, helped by Serendipity the muse (Salma Hayek), Rufus the 13^th Apostle (Chris Rock), who was excluded because he’s black, and unlikely prophets Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith). Displayed against them are spiffy demon Azrael (Jason Lee), the roller blading Stygian Triplets and a really disgusting excrement demon.

McDonagh said, “Smith's sensibility owes plenty to comic books; grossness, grandiosity and easy irony are constantly elbowing each other for position. But he pulls off one heck of a trick, slipping more than a little preaching in between the sight gags and profane disquisitions on matters inappropriate.” Say what you will about his sense of humor, actual faith is rare enough in popular culture to make any viewing worthy of note.

This is one of Kevin Smith’s famous films that I think everyone should check out. It is really funny and if you can just take the jokes on the Catholic Church, then all is good. I really think you will have a hilarious time watching this, as I sure did. No worries, if you know Kevin Smith and his trademark style, then you will really like “Dogma.”

Look out next week where I talk about a film that I enjoy but everyone else bashed in “Salma Hayek Month.”

Fools Rush In

Happy New Year to all of my online readers! To start off this year, I will be returning back to my Friday reviews by making this month “Salma Hayek Month.” To start off this month, I will review a film that I saw in Spanish class in High School, “Fools Rush In,” released in 1997.

Roger Ebert started his review by saying, “In actual fact, of course, angels rush in where fools fear to tread. And that's what happens to Alex Whitman, a fairly unexciting builder of nightclubs, when Isabel Fuentes comes into his life. Alex comes from Manhattan, where he leads the kind of WASP life that requires Jill Clayburgh as his mother.” He’s in Las Vegas to observe the construction of a new club, when he encounters Isabel, a Mexican-American photographer at Caesars, who believes in fate: “There is a reason behind all logic to bring us the exact same time and pace.” The reason is the oldest one every that ends with them in the same bed for a one-night stand, which both insist they “never” do. Then Isabel is never seen for three months, returning suddenly one day for a visit when she asks for saltines (always a warning sign) before telling Alex she is pregnant.

Ebert credited, “"Fools Rush In'' is a sweet, entertaining retread of an ancient formula, in which opposites attract despite all the forces arrayed to push them apart.” Alex, played by Matthew Perry (who you will remember from the show “Friends”), who has been running from the same marriage girl “since first grade,” decides that Isabel is “everything I never knew I always wanted.” Isabel, who also has someone on the run, knows only that Alex is the man she loves.

You can tell there will be bumps on their road, but most of them happen after they’re married (they get married very quickly in a wedding chapel on the Strip, with an Elvis imitator as witness). Isabel cries when she thinks the marriage won’t work, and tells him, “I ask only that you meet my parents – so when the baby comes they can at least say they met you.” She invites him over for dinner, which is a backyard barbecue for about 100 guests, that also has a mariachi band. Ebert said, “Alex tries to get in the spirit, despite ominous glares by suspicious male relatives who suspect (correctly) his designs on her.”

A lot of the remainder of the movie has misunderstandings that could hurt their possible happiness. There is a movie rule that whenever a lover sees a loved one from a distance in a problem that can be incorrectly read, it is always read in exactly the wrong way, with no questions asked. That leads to Isabel disappearing for some time (“we are too different and always will be”), and Alex disappearing the other times (she wants to live in Vegas and finish her book of desert photography, he has to work in New York, he lies, she feels cheated, etc.) “To you,” she shouts, “a family is something you put up with on national holidays.” They fight about everything, even religion. Are they really married after the charade at the wedding chapel? That’s not what her parents say, who want a Catholic ceremony, or his parents, who are Protestant. (“Presbyterian is not a relation!” she demands.) When she wants him to give up his New York job, he rebuttals: “This is something I waited my whole life for, and I’m not giving it up because I put a $5 ring on your finger in front of Elvis.” “Fools Rush In” is entertaining because of the energy of the performances – especially Salma Hayek’s. Ebert credited, “Until now she's mostly been seen as the partner of gunslingers in action thrillers ("Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn"); here she reveals a comic zestfulness that reminds me of Maria Conchita Alonso. She's one of those women who is hotter in motion than in repose, hotter talking than listening, and should stay away from merely decorative roles.”

Ebert continued, “I also liked the way Isabel's parents were portrayed. Tomas Milian is all bluster and ultimatums, but with a tender heart. Her mother is played by Anne Betancourt with a combination of great romance and pragmatism (yes, she agrees, her daughter wants to stay in Vegas near her family--"but your husband has a family to support'').” Clayburgh and John Bennett Perry, as his parents, are more closely made, but that’s because of the direction of the movie. Ebert said, “(Someday we will get excitable WASPs and dour Mexicans, but not yet.) By the end, by the time of the obligatory childbirth scene, I was surprised how involved I'd become. Yes, the movie is a cornball romance. Yes, it manufactures a lot of standard plot twists.” However, there is also a level of inspection and human comedy here. The movie shows how two cultures are different but share so much of the same values, and in Perry and Hayek it finds a chemistry that isn’t quickly shown. That’s a nice aspect. Most movies about opposites who attract don’t really begin with opposites. (Ebert noted, “Consider the obviously perfectly compatible Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney in "One Fine Day."”) In “Fools Rush In,” they are opposite, they do attract, and somehow in the middle of the standard comedy there is the look of truth.

If you haven’t seen this romantic comedy, and you’re a fan of romantic comedies, then see this one. Don’t listen to the hate that this movie has been getting from the critics. Just watch the movie and judge for yourself. I find it best to not judge a movie based on someone else’s opinion, but your own.

Look out next week when I look at the next movie in “Salma Hayek Month.” Now I'm going to take a week off after posting everyday last month. I need this well deserved rest.