I said I wouldn't comment on any of our recent Netflix titles, but I know that Mike wants to comment on this film, so I might was well while I'm at it.
This was clearly "inspired" by "Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and others in the dysfunctional family drama genre. Why is it always a vindictive mother or shrewish wife? Are there no nasty men out there? Or are they nasty in a different way?
Bette Davis is clearly having a great time camping it up as the "Manipulative Mother of the Year," and I know that many people rave about the "black comedy," but I found it depressing and painful to watch. She knows each of her sons weak spots and not only sticks in the knife, she twists it and smiles.
I suppose you have to be in the right mood to find it funny.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Rango
Yes, we have watched movies from Netflix since "The Cowboys," but Mike's been monkeying around with the queue, so the less said about those films, the better.
From the first strains of the mariachi owl guitar, Rango is a movie for lovers of Westerns with a sense of the absurd. Kids will like it for what it is; adults had better have a good grounding in the genre or they'll miss all of the allusions and references and see only the surface. Some reviewers have called it "cliched," which only goes to prove that they don't know the difference between a cliche and a motif. At first I was bothered by the saguaro cacti in the Mojave desert, but then I realized that, if they were good enough for Marshall Dillon in Dodge City, they were good enough for Rango in Dirt.
There are also references to It's a Wonderful Life, Chinatown, Star Wars and other classic films, but I was particularly taken with the character references to familiar Western character actors. We'll be getting this later on DVD just to look for them, although I'm not sure that I can put names to all of them.
It's a bit slow to start, but once it gets going, you're in for a wild ride!
The score is a fantastic homage to the spaghetti western. The animation is amazing. The scenery is rich, colorful, textured, layered. The movement of the characters and objects is natural and convincing. The characters themselves are gritty and dirty and individualistic. The story is the classic hero myth; although we're fairly certain of the ending, we're not quite sure how Rango will get there. There's a surprising amount of real violence for an animated film, a surprising amount of adult language and references and humor -- all of it subtle enough to go over the head of any kid too young to understand it -- just like in the real Westerns of a few decades back.
I guess I'll leave it at that. It's loaded with surprises that I don't want to risk giving away by making more detailed comments.
From the first strains of the mariachi owl guitar, Rango is a movie for lovers of Westerns with a sense of the absurd. Kids will like it for what it is; adults had better have a good grounding in the genre or they'll miss all of the allusions and references and see only the surface. Some reviewers have called it "cliched," which only goes to prove that they don't know the difference between a cliche and a motif. At first I was bothered by the saguaro cacti in the Mojave desert, but then I realized that, if they were good enough for Marshall Dillon in Dodge City, they were good enough for Rango in Dirt.
There are also references to It's a Wonderful Life, Chinatown, Star Wars and other classic films, but I was particularly taken with the character references to familiar Western character actors. We'll be getting this later on DVD just to look for them, although I'm not sure that I can put names to all of them.
It's a bit slow to start, but once it gets going, you're in for a wild ride!
The score is a fantastic homage to the spaghetti western. The animation is amazing. The scenery is rich, colorful, textured, layered. The movement of the characters and objects is natural and convincing. The characters themselves are gritty and dirty and individualistic. The story is the classic hero myth; although we're fairly certain of the ending, we're not quite sure how Rango will get there. There's a surprising amount of real violence for an animated film, a surprising amount of adult language and references and humor -- all of it subtle enough to go over the head of any kid too young to understand it -- just like in the real Westerns of a few decades back.
I guess I'll leave it at that. It's loaded with surprises that I don't want to risk giving away by making more detailed comments.
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