The Grandmaster: All the right moves

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>The Grandmaster</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/thegrandmaster/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for violence, drug use and brief profanity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a> • </b></span>Originally published in <i><a href="http://www.davisenterprise.com/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">The Davis Enterprise</a></i>, 8.30.13</b></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is the <i>Dr. Zhivago</i> of martial-arts epics.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0MOGCtsoqResnFg3UCdsHqYq8atMm4tv2pxZ3QzeeWap5qq3OMmHnEbpfQUMfdGpeLEcR28H7BlxGf96qK4rC_s4UZW8nqRz5juUI57eenHp9BLvhskAFX47gTGVlvp688q7DugNXB6E/s1600/Grandmaster+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0MOGCtsoqResnFg3UCdsHqYq8atMm4tv2pxZ3QzeeWap5qq3OMmHnEbpfQUMfdGpeLEcR28H7BlxGf96qK4rC_s4UZW8nqRz5juUI57eenHp9BLvhskAFX47gTGVlvp688q7DugNXB6E/s400/Grandmaster+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Having agreed to a martial arts duel with the angry Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), Ip Man (Tony<br />Leung) wagers the match's outcome on the precision of his particular brand of kung fu.<br />The resulting skirmish is a masterpiece of graceful choreography and tighty edited<br />camerawork.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The parallels are so striking that I’m convinced Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai must have studied David Lean’s 1965 film intimately. It’s not merely a matter of the factual elements in Kar-Wai’s biographical drama hewing closely to key plot points in Boris Pasternak’s novel; the luxurious work by Kar-Wai’s cinematographer, Philippe Le Sourd, evokes strong memories of Freddie Young’s Academy Award-winning camerawork, in <i>Dr. Zhivago</i>, just as Kar-Wai’s composers, Nathaniel Méchaly and Shigeru Umebayashi, deliver a lush (and Western-based) symphonic score very much in the mold of Maurice Jarre’s haunting themes for Lean’s film.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Factor in William Chang’s sumptuous production design for Kar-Wai, with a segment that evokes the “winter palace” chapter from Lean’s film, and the comparisons become too numerous to be accidental.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More to the point, Kar-Wai’s film — which he also scripted, in collaboration with Jingzhi Zou and Haofeng Xu — takes its core characters through similar spirals of triumph and shattering tragedy, against a backdrop of world events that scatter them like helpless leaves in a hurricane. Individual lives are of no consequence within the inexorable march of history, and yet we better grasp such nation-changing events <i>because</i>of such individual lives.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this, and<i> The Grandmaster</i> also is an exhilarating parade of ever-more-exciting martial arts bouts, very much like genre classics that range from lowbrow action flicks (<i>Enter the Dragon</i>) to highbrow dramas (<i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s an impressive to-do list ... but, then, Kar-Wai is an impressive director: one of very few who understands how best to exploit the medium, blending every element — sound, image, emotion — for maximum impact. Far too many filmmakers create dialogue-heavy works that are little more than radio with pictures; Kar-Wai, first and foremost, puts the “motion” into his motion pictures, unerringly amplifying viewer response with touches as subtle as falling rain, or the graceful slide of a shoe on a slippery surface.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We cannot help being amazed, transfixed, even transported.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All that said...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...Kar-Wai’s narrative approach is slow and methodical, at times so leisurely as to stop altogether. Mainstream viewers accustomed to the rat-a-tat pacing of contemporary Hollywood fare will find this style challenging, to say the least; I daresay some patrons will be bored beyond words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then, too, <i>The Grandmaster</i> won’t even be on the radar of American viewers who dislike foreign films to begin with, and — if forced to endure them — make a point of avoiding imports with subtitles, in favor of those dubbed into English. I can’t imagine a greater heresy, in this case; <i>so</i> much of this story’s drama depends on the superlative emotion placed into the dialogue delivered by its many characters ... and you lose all that with dubbing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We don’t need to understand individual words, in order to perceive the intensity — or gentleness — with which each syllable is rendered. Acting this fine often transcends the need for precise translations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kar-Wai’s film, close to a decade in the planning and making, is inspired by the life and times of legendary kung fu master Ip Man, whose professional acclaim emerged during the waning days of China’s last dynasty, and was overshadowed by Japan’s invasion in 1937, and — following World War II — the subsequent rise of the People’s Republic of China.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ironically, this period of chaos, division and war also hosted a golden age of Chinese martial arts: an era when once-competitive disciplines were embraced collectively and collaboratively, as highly skilled specialists of each learned to respect and learn from each other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the most part, anyway. In martial arts, as with any other craft, petty emotions sometimes cloud the exercise of wisdom and judgment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ip Man (Tony Leung), born to a wealthy family in Foshan, in the south of China, is introduced as a happily married man whose social standing has allowed him to focus on a style of martial arts known as <i>wing chun</i>. His skill with this discipline’s three “hands” — spade, pin and sheath — earns the respect of colleagues who choose him to represent them when Grandmaster Gong Baosen (Wang Qingxiang), leader of the martial arts world of Northern China, elects to celebrate his impending retirement during a ceremony in Foshan.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A longstanding rivalry has existed between these two realms, with Northern China’s martial arts “elite” often contemptuous of their so-called “upstart” colleagues in the south. But Gong Baosen recognizes the value of bringing ALL martial artists together at a time when their entire country needs to unite against Japan: an inclusive outlook viewed with scorn by his disciple and successor, Ma San (Zhang Jin).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gong Baosen and Ip Man meet in a most unusual battle; the result infuriates the former’s daughter, Gong Er (Ziyi Zhang), who — as a woman — has not been allowed to carry on her father’s name and training, even though she is the sole inheritor of his lethal <i>bagua</i>-style “64 Hands” technique. She therefore demands her own match against Ip Man, who accepts this challenge with amusement; this skirmish, taking place under equally unconventional rules, also builds to an unexpected outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What briefly follows — as we’re told by an off-camera narrator who sometimes speaks as Ip Man himself, and other times as a third-party observer — becomes the “spring” of Ip Man’s life. It segues, all too swiftly, into a lethal winter that begins with the Japanese invasion of Foshan and surrounding regions of Southern China.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In terms of the broad canvas, Kar-Wai’s film is a study of milestones, many immortalized by photographs taken at key moments, the vibrant tones of Le Sourd’s full-color tableaus freezing into the sepia-hued stillness of a snapshot that we imagine has been preserved, somewhere, in an album. This global view is contrasted by the individual threads of Ip Man’s life, many designated by melees or formal “duels” where he must prove, time and again, that his beloved <i>wing chun</i> is a match for any other martial arts discipline.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But this also is a saga of reckonings: of anger left simmering, sometimes far too long, and of revenge attempted — or taken — under dire circumstances.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Leung will be recognized from sprawling Chinese epics such as <i>Red Cliff</i>, and gritty cop dramas such as <i>Infernal Affairs</i> — which inspired Martin Scorsese’s <i>The Departed</i> — but he shines equally well in quieter dramas such as 2000’s exquisitely atmospheric <i>In the Mood for Love</i>, which Leung also made with Kar-Wai. Leung’s work here is similarly minimalist, with the actor drawing impressive power — and emotional complexity — from bemused glances and half-smiles.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Leung is far from impassive; his every flicker of expression speaks volumes, in the manner of consummate actors such as Anthony Hopkins or Cate Blanchett. Ip Man’s patience, wisdom and forbearance become both heartbreaking and superhuman, as these events unfold, and yet Leung ensures that Ip Man never loses his stature as a skilled but otherwise ordinary man who views his craft as a great art form, and not a flamboyant excuse for vulgar thugs to brawl in the streets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The quiet dignity of Leung’s performance reassures us that Ip Man can survive any indignity or tragedy; we’re not so sure about Gong Er. Despite this young woman’s balletic grace and warrior expertise, Zhang imbues her with a worrisome vulnerability, her grim determination subtly offset by a stiff porcelain bearing that could shatter without warning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both Ip Man and Gong Er endure pain and loss: their own, along with metaphoric calamities writ larger by the surrounding cultural revolution, and by the accompanying cultural loss. Linguists scramble, these days, to preserve languages in danger of being lost; what price, then, the disappearance of an entire art form?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Qingxiang exudes the wisdom of a long life, as the aging grandmaster; Jin is appropriately petulant and impatient as the treacherous Ma San. Song Hye Kyo is quietly graceful as Ip Man’s devoted wife, while Shang Tielong is memorably colorful as Gong Er’s guardian, never seen without his pet monkey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kar-Wai and action choreographer Yuen Wo Ping orchestrate the various fight scenes both cleverly and delightfully. Action fans will love the sequence wherein Ip Man must prove himself worthy to face Grandmaster Gong Baosen, by first defeating a series of Southern masters: the sort of elimination skirmishes that Bruce Lee endured in <i>Enter the Dragon</i>. Alternatively, the superbly choreographed battle between Ip Man and Gong Er has the astonishing athletic grace of <i>Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t say enough about Le Sourd’s cinematography, with its slow-motion raindrops and sparkling crystals of falling snow, and of the way he conveys emotional depth via shadow. Kar-Wai, happily, does <i>not</i> overuse tight close-ups, recognizing that Le Sourd’s scenic compositions render them unnecessary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Production designer William Chang lends poetic grace to the story’s various locations, whether the frozen, snow-swept vistas of Northeast China, or the grim, explosive destruction of thuggish soldiers invading the balmy, subtropical south. We feel both the cold and the oppressive humidity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Full disclosure demands that I mention we’re dealing, here in the United States, with a compromised product. Kar-Wai’s original cut runs 130 minutes, but this American release is an abbreviated 108 minutes. Much as there is to admire about this gorgeous, hypnotic cinematic dream, then, I cannot grant top marks without having experienced it the way Kar-Wai intended.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A treat that must wait for video afterlife, I guess.</span></span><!--EndFragment-->

2013 Foreign films Four Star Films martial arts Shang Tielong Tony Leung Wang Qingxiang Wong Kar Wai Zhang Jin Ziyi Zhang The Grandmaster: All the right moves

The Grandmaster (2013) • View trailer 4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for violence, drug use and brief profanityBy Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.30.13 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false …

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I'm So Excited: Not by a long shot

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>I'm So Excited</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2013) • <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/imsoexcited/" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>One star. Rating: R, for strong crude and sexual content (all verbal), and drug use</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m still struggling to believe that Pedro Almodóvar had anything to do with this flimsy waste of celluloid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTmJxgJmlxFPlbjtIxhdxkY4smbs-WUJvQgB-ZNUUvY3C4FUNNZNmatK4Tp-XfbP1JjaOy2CK6x8L86NEk3cktpC3RadFa4ipL56Yn5FO3R1Pw6eVWVMCzeQ5P2gQ5kswCLQ8IypjZqw/s1600/I'm+So+Excited+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTmJxgJmlxFPlbjtIxhdxkY4smbs-WUJvQgB-ZNUUvY3C4FUNNZNmatK4Tp-XfbP1JjaOy2CK6x8L86NEk3cktpC3RadFa4ipL56Yn5FO3R1Pw6eVWVMCzeQ5P2gQ5kswCLQ8IypjZqw/s400/I'm+So+Excited+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">In an effort to distract their passengers from the dire circumstances that are preventing<br />the plane from landing, three flight attendants — from left, Fajas (Carlos Areces),<br />Ulloa (Raúl Arévalo) and Joserra (Javier Cámara) — break into a hilariously<br />choreographed rendition of the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited." This three-minute<br />sequence is absolutely the only thing worth watching in this bewildering bomb.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almodóvar, the acclaimed Spanish filmmaker who brought us <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All About My Mother</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Volver</i>?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>That</i> Pedro Almodóvar? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seriously?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hard to imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Almodóvar knows better than most that cheeky, exaggerated sensuality is a magical blend of setting, sharp dialogue, camera-friendly actors who radiate lust and, yes, artful nudity (the less expected and more inappropriate, the better).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I’m So Excited</span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> contains none of the above. Worse yet, Almodóvar has abandoned his (usually) progressive Western European sensibilities in favor of stale and vulgar homoerotic jokes: the sort of tiresome one-liners currently viewed as the height of sex humor by arrested American adolescents such as Seth Rogen and the rest of Judd Apatow’s repertory company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> </span><br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I’ll give Almodóvar the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he deliberately spoofs timeworn gay male stereotypes here ... but that’s not apt to mollify viewers who will recoil from his mincing portrayal of three flight attendants. Not even Liberace was this swish.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On top of which, if Almodóvar removed every dialogue reference to fellatio — spoken by men, women and genders hard to determine — I suspect his entire script would clock in at fewer than 25 words. Never have so many men, some of them defiantly heterosexual, claimed to so thoroughly enjoy wrapping their mouths around ... um, you get the idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This might be amusing — even hilarious — under better circumstances. But absent context or back-story, it’s just a bunch of ill-defined characters with potty mouths and overcooked libidos. Never has polymorphous perversity sounded so ... well ... dull.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This film also looks cheap, with almost all of its “action” restricted to the cramped, obviously fake-set interior of an airplane. Brief detours are taken to a) an apartment; and b) a city street. Also not what you’d call budget-busters. Production costs couldn’t have topped $1.78.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The cast looks and sounds under-rehearsed, and the dialogue is forced, unpersuasive and (from the sound of things) frequently improvised. I’m amazed Almodóvar had the audacity to claim scripting credit; I see scant evidence of actual writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">He also opens with a tease: a quick scene between Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz, leading us to hope that we’ll see more of them. No such luck. Their radiant faces — their naturalistic performances, and their obvious chemistry — vanish after a quick prologue. After that, we’re stuck with the B-Team. No, wait ... more like the P-Team.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The story then, such as it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Banderas and Cruz make their cameos as León and Jessica, members of the ground crew for Peninsula Airlines Flight 2549; thanks to a brief interruption, León fails to properly remove the large wheel chocks, prior to take-off.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We then join Flight 2549 during take-off, as the flight crew preps all passengers with the usual lecture about oxygen masks and seat flotation devices; this is our first glimpse of flight attendants Fajas (Carlos Areces), Ulloa (Raúl Arévalo) and Joserra (Javier Cámara).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Then, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">whoosh</i>, time passes. The plane is quiet, which is no surprise; everybody in coach is fast asleep, having been doped with muscle relaxants (!). For some reason, the business class passengers have been allowed to remain awake. (I guess we’d have no movie otherwise, which I’d argue would have been a good thing.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The reason for the doping, and for the worried expressions shared by pilot Alex Acero (Antonio De La Torre) and co-pilot Benito Morón (Hugo Silva), is that Flight 2549 is in trouble. It can’t land because the aforementioned chocks have interfered with the deployment of landing gear. The intended flight to Mexico City has been canceled; the plane just keeps circling, waiting for ground-based Folks In Charge to find and then prepare a runway for an emergency landing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">We now pause, for a moment of topicality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Almodóvar can’t be blamed for bad timing; he certainly didn’t know that his film would gain its U.S. opening mere weeks after the Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco. I’d like to think, however, that the folks at Sony Pictures Classics might have deemed release a wee bit tasteless, and elected to postpone. Absent that bit of prudence, we’re left with a low-rent sex comedy that would have been dreadful under the best of circumstances, but becomes even worse by attempting to mine humor from a situation that is seriously un-funny at this particular moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(Disney “waited” six months, until April 2002, to release <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Big Trouble</i>— with its tasteless bomb-in-a-plane climax — in the wake of 9/11. That didn’t work either.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Anyway...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">With death a very real possibility, the business class passengers eventually confess the reasons for their trips: revelations apparently intended to be provocative and/or amusing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Hardly.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bruna (Lola Duenas), a self-proclaim psychic, frets that she may die a virgin; she can’t stop eyeing the impressive pants bulge of one fellow snoozing away in coach. A newlywed groom (Miguel Ángel Silvestre), actually a drug mule with a baggy of mescaline shoved up his fundament, pops pills into the mouth of his bride (Laya Martí) so that she’ll sleep through whatever happens next.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Gossip queen Norma (Cecilia Roth), actually a dominatrix who boasts of having slept with her country’s 600 most powerful men — while taping said encounters, for blackmail leverage — worries that this calamity is a rather ostentatious plot to kill her. Infante (José María Yazpik), a somewhat sinister fellow, keeps close counsel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Corrupt businessman Mas (José Luis Torrijo), having fled just ahead of arrest back home, laments the ongoing estrangement from his daughter, who has embraced a provocative sexual lifestyle. Finally, soap opera star Ricardo Galán (Guillermo Toledo) has abandoned his most recent lover, while contrived circumstances bring a former lover (Blanca Suárez, as Ruth) back into his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Our brief sojourn with Ruth takes us back to the ground, for a subplot that appears to have been dragged in from another film. A better one, too, from what we see of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Back in the air, everybody gets drunk — including the pilots — in some cases will past the point of acute alcohol poisoning. That’s not funny; it’s just dumb. Inhibitions disappear, particularly after the application of mescaline-laced punch. Confessions emerge, none the slightest bit interesting. The bride demonstrates a talent for having sex in her sleep. Bruna has sex with the well-hung fellow in coach, while <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">he</i> sleeps.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Nobody undresses, not even a little. As Joe Bob Briggs might have groused, back in the day, we don’t even get a flash of side-boob during any of these couplings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The film’s sole saving grace comes when the three gay caballeros — ah, flight attendants — wriggle and jiggle their way through a lively lip-synched and hilariously choreographed rendition of the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited” (hence the film’s title).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">No doubt this scene soon will be extracted as a YouTube video, saving everybody the trouble of enduring the rest of this tawdry turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Actually, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m So Excited</i> has one more virtue: It’s short. At 90 minutes, it’s only 87 minutes too long.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I don’t care how much you admire Almodóvar; this one must be skipped.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">You’ve been warned.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><!--EndFragment--></span></div><!--EndFragment-->

2013 Antonio Banderas Antonio De La Torre Carlos Areces Cecilia Roth Comedy Foreign films Hugo Silva Javier Camara Lola Duenas Pedro Almodovar Penelope Cruz Raul Arevalo I'm So Excited: Not by a long shot

I'm So Excited (2013) • View trailer One star. Rating: R, for strong crude and sexual content (all verbal), and drug useBy Derrick Bang 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ t…

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Kon-Tiki: Spirited but superficial

<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><i>Kon-Tiki</i> </b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>(2012) • <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4DZ7svBw7I" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">View trailer</a></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b> </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b>3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for dramatic intensity</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #5e5e5e; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b>By <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/12885694730612878577" style="color: #27a9c5; text-decoration: none;">Derrick Bang</a></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <br /><div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thor Heyerdahl’s Oscar-winning 1950 documentary about his famed ocean voyage was a frequent attraction during my grade school and middle school years; I must have seen it at least three times before hitting my teens.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgo0sK_cu0q-dez1tOvIC1HuyQb0099wvAYpecoyj2UspuwQoRIQcehmKeUJrOsOY0wpKu52rhj0c628skGEN7NY41ICDTTvwyrqoUDeC_t2GT8bKVgow5BwouaDB2c7L8mxjdllqmcl8/s1600/Kon+Tiki+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgo0sK_cu0q-dez1tOvIC1HuyQb0099wvAYpecoyj2UspuwQoRIQcehmKeUJrOsOY0wpKu52rhj0c628skGEN7NY41ICDTTvwyrqoUDeC_t2GT8bKVgow5BwouaDB2c7L8mxjdllqmcl8/s400/Kon+Tiki+blog.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Enraged by the constant presence of the always dangerous sharks, Torstein (Jakob<br />Oftebro, left) and Knut (Tobias Santelmann) foolishly decided to kill one of the<br />predatory creatures.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I also read Heyerdahl’s published account of the expedition — 1948’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft</i> — and noted that articles about him were fairly common in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i>in the 1960s and early ’70s (which is deliciously ironic, given the magazine’s initial refusal to treat him seriously).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I therefore approached the new dramatized account of Heyerdahl’s 101-day journey on a balsa wood raft — Norway’s recent nominee for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award (losing to Austria’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amour</i>) — like a reunion with a long-unseen friend. And, on that level, this new <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kon-Tiki</i> does not disappoint.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg have crafted a respectful, detail-laden account of Heyerdahl’s voyage that plays very much like a valentine: quite similar to the family-friendly tone Brian Helgeland gives Jackie Robinson’s story, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">42</i>. This worshipful atmosphere is amplified by the almost saintly aura that star Pål Sverre Hagen gives his reading of Heyerdahl; once granted the months-at-sea affectation of a scraggly beard, and the Christ-like framing by cinematographer Geir Hartly Andreassen, we almost expect a halo to appear over Hagen’s head.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, so Heyerdahl’s messianic qualities are larded on rather thickly, but I suppose we can forgive everybody concerned; after all, the famed explorer remains one of Norway’s most cherished native sons.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The performances are heartfelt and credible, and the film certainly captures both the adventurous spirit and eventual doubts experienced by Heyerdahl and his five companions, as the journey progresses. But scripter Petter Skavlan is much better at back-story and laying the groundwork for the Kon-Tiki’s trip, than in conveying the day-after-grinding-day reality of their experiences, once the raft is launched.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On top of which, several sequences feel like Hollywood-ized peril, clearly exaggerated for dramatic impact. Such moments give the film an embroidered, boys-own-adventure aura: unfortunate, when an unvarnished depiction of these events should have been sufficiently absorbing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><a name='more'></a><br /> <div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heyerdahl and his wife, Liv (Agnes Kittelsen), are introduced in 1937, during their yearlong research trip to Fatu Hiva, a tiny island in the Marquesas group in the middle of the Pacific. This initial study of Polynesia, a collaboration with the University of Oslo’s zoological facility, hoped to reveal how a previously deserted Pacific island’s flora and fauna could have reached it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It must have been a magical year for this young Norwegian couple, essentially living alone during their research in paradise, and this film deftly sketches both Thor and Liv’s loving and collaborative relationship, and Thor’s growing interest in a new theory. Conventional wisdom at the time suggested that Polynesia had been populated, long ago, by people from Southeast Asia; Heyerdahl became convinced that ocean currents and prevailing winds suggested something else.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The crucial moment, lifted for this film directly from Heyerdahl’s book, comes when a Polynesian elder quite dramatically insists that “Tiki” brought his ancestors to the islands. In Heyerdahl’s mind, that points to Peru.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, he faces an uphill battle, while trying to gain acceptance for this belief. Years pass, during which he is ignored or dismissed by publishers, universities and, yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Geographic</i>. Undeterred but now convinced that he’ll gain credibility in only one way, Heyerdahl decides to reproduce one of the voyages that he believes must have taken place 1,500 years earlier, and do so down to the last detail.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meaning, the raft must be built only with materials that would have been available to those ancient peoples.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Heyerdahl constructs this ungainly craft with a team of four experienced colleagues: radio experts Knut Haugland (Tobias Santelmann) and Torstein Raaby (Jakob Oftebro), Swedish sociologist Bengt Danielsson (Gustaf Skarsgård) and navigator Erik Hesselberg (Odd Magnus Williamson). They name their craft the Kon-Tiki, after the Inca sun god. (It would be nice to understand how Heyerdahl knows these men, and comes to select them, but that’s one of many details Skavian’s script glosses over.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re joined by engineer-turned-refrigerator salesman Herman Watzinger (Anders Baasmo Christiansen), an “average Joe” sort who befriends Heyerdahl and embraces the expedition for the “thrill of adventure.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The roly-poly Watzinger is employed as this saga’s weak psychological link: a well-meaning, likable fellow who hasn’t the faintest idea what he has let himself in for. It could be argued that this depiction is both unkind and unfair, since we get the impression that Watzinger is quite useless during this journey, when in real life he collected and recorded valuable weather data about the then-unstudied Pacific.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The raft’s seventh member is Raaby’s pet parrot, Lorita, which — on at least one occasion — creates the sort of mischief one would expect from a 1960s Disney comedy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once past the jubilant glow that briefly lingers after they begin the journey, the men fall into a routine of observation, logbook entries and efforts to maneuver their ungainly raft. Early problems are what we would expect: storms and dangerous ocean swells, ever-present sharks and boredom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additional tension results from Skavlan’s distortion of actual events, starting with a malfunctioning radio that rarely seems to work ... at least, according to what we watch here. This belies the regular broadcasts that Haugland and Raaby made to American, Canadian and South American stations, which relayed the transmissions to the Norwegian Embassy in Washington, D.C.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hesselberg also worries, day by passing day, that they’re heading northwest, rather than the desired west/southwest that will allow their raft to be embraced by the crucial South Equatorial Current: essentially an ocean expressway to Polynesia. Heyerdahl advises patience and faith, Hagen’s piercing blue eyes taking on an obsessive, mildly unsettling quality as the explorer stubbornly clings to his convictions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At about the same time, Watzinger announces that their huge balsa wood logs — the essential framework of their raft — are absorbing water at a dangerous rate, with stray balsa chips becoming heavy enough to sink. Clearly, this is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i>serious issue ... and yet we never get closure. Do Heyerdahl and his companions solve this problem? Ignore it? Impossible to say, because...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...once the Kon-Tiki finally, happily, slides into the South Equatorial Current, the saga jumps forward several months, to the raft’s climactic arrival in Polynesia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this narrative leap feels abrupt and absurdly jarring, you’re not imagining things. Rønning and Sandberg made a 118-minute film, but this American release — courtesy of the Weinstein Company — has been abbreviated to 101 minutes. Clearly, some essential details have been left behind. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That’s shameful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Santelmann, Oftebro, Skarsgård and Williamson look and sound right for their respective roles, although we don’t get much in the way of character development. At times, Heyerdahl’s strongest relationship appears to be with a small Peruvian crab that has hitched a ride on the raft, becoming a living example of how one species could travel 4,300 nautical miles to make a new home.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hagen’s Heyerdahl gets the lion’s share of Skavlan’s character exposition, particularly during the lengthy first act, as the explorer refines his theory and mounts the expedition. Hagen is wholly credible as a determined researcher who won’t back down, his slightly mocking smile greeting each setback with ever-greater determination.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ironically, modern DNA theory and other scientific studies have reaffirmed the original belief regarding Polynesians having ancestors from Southeast Asia, but of course that doesn’t diminish the adventurous awesomeness of Heyerdahl’s journey by raft. And his expedition certainly proves that South American natives <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> have made a similar trip.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If this film — particularly our bowdlerized American cut — too often feels like the gentled-down cinematic equivalent of a young adult novel, well, that also doesn’t lessen Heyerdahl’s contributions to world knowledge (and let’s not forget that he would go on to make many more expeditions, before dying in 2002, at the age of 87). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Perhaps this <i>Kon-Tiki</i> best can be considered a jumping-off point, designed to encourage today’s generation — no doubt unfamiliar with Heyerdahl — to track down the memoir and documentary that were so ubiquitous half a century ago.</span></span><!--EndFragment-->

1940s 2012 Agnes Kittelsen Anders Baasmo Christiansen Fact-based Foreign films Gustaf Skarsgård Jakob Oftebro Odd Magnus Williamson Pål Sverre Hagen Tobias Santelmann Kon-Tiki: Spirited but superficial

Kon-Tiki (2012) • View trailer 3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, and needlessly, for dramatic intensityBy Derrick Bang 0 false 18 pt 18 pt 0 0 false false false /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso…

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