Goon

I love hockey. I don't know if you heard me. I. Love. Hockey. So I got excited when I started hearing the buzz that Goon was creating, especially among hockey fans, writers, and even players. So once I was hit with the void created by the end of the Stanley Cup Final (in which my team won its first championship!) I moved Goon up to the top of my Netflix queue, ready for something good.

I was disappointed. Severely. This wasn't a case of a movie that's pretty good but gets a lot of hype and is built up as great. It's just not a very good movie. It's got a couple laughs and funny lines, but other than that it's lacking.

Let's take the main character, Doug Glatt, played by Seann William Scott. He's a nice guy, bouncer at a bar, not very bright while the rest of his family is. However, he's more written as just plain stupid, bordering sometimes on challenged. As if there's no other way to make character nice and sympathetic. There's no depth. He's just...simple. He has no real thoughts or concerns about what he's doing, he's just glad to find something he's good at. It's pandering, not endearing.

So, Doug goes to a hockey game with his friend, the incredibly annoying Ryan (played by co-writer Jay Baruchel). When a player from the opposing team goes to the penalty box and decides to go into the stands to attack Ryan for taunting him, Doug intervenes when the player calls Ryan gay, because Doug's brother is gay so he takes offense. The player punches Doug, who is unfazed by it. Doug then knocks the guy out quickly and easily, because, you know, he's a bouncer. Apparently Doug's ability to take and throw a punch is all that's needed for him to be offered a spot on the home team in the next few days. Doug can't skate, he gets to the point where he can stand and slowly make his way to where he needs to go, but I guess this doesn't matter as he can fight.

After a short time, his fighting ability gets him noticed by a minor-league team who signs him to protect their star player. He instantly becomes a star and a leader on the team – after a few weeks he is made an assistant captain – merely for his fighting ability. In this movie, hockey is all about the fighting. The game is simplified and boiled-down to the most brutal bits – which make it look exactly like what people who don't know anything about the game think it is. You know how hockey only gets attention on ESPN when something bad happens and people think that's all it is? Yeah, this is like that.

As a fan, I find that insulting. Yes, we do, for the most part, like fighting. Yes, we do often like the tough guys. But not so much, really, when they are a one-dimensional player who only fights and offers no skill – we'll like them as a person because by and large they're actually good, friendly people but not as a player. More often than not, fans will bemoan their team playing someone who offers nothing but an ability to take and throw a punch over someone who might not be as good at that but can bring something else to the table. Fighting doesn't win games, scoring goals and keeping the other team from scoring does. And Doug is one of those one-dimensional players, so, in reality, he wouldn't be as adored as he is. I feel as though the movie whiffed on a chance in the slot to make a statement on fighting or the role of the tough guy or enforcer in hockey. The classic Slap Shot, known for its portrayal of fighting, does this with characters who see their team descending into goonery and making a mockery of the game.

As a film fan, it's really poor film making and story telling. There's no real struggle here. There's no actual obstacle for Doug – everything just falls into his lap. His parents don't like that he's a goon and think he could be doing something better, but we only see that in one scene which is just a ham fisted way to make us sympathize with him. It's there and then gone. It's not earned and it's not followed-up.

The film climaxes with a game between Doug's team and the team of a legendary fighter at the end of his career. So of course it's played as the changing of the guard type deal. But...there's no real build-up to it. Ok, this guy delivered the Marty-McSorley-on-Donald-Brashear-esque hit that gave the star player a concussion and made him too scared to play in the big leagues anymore, hence why he's in the minors. But that didn't happen during the movie, it happened a couple years ago. There's no bad blood between Doug and him or between the two teams. It's just that we're supposed to care because we're supposed to care.

Ok, ok...the two teams are also playing, in the last game of the season, to decide which one makes the playoffs. Not win the championship. Make the playoffs. The stakes just aren't there. I'm not invested enough to care whether or not one of them makes the playoffs. Give me a reason to root for them other than that I'm supposed to. In Miracle, Team USA doesn't win the gold medal by defeating the Soviets in the climactic game of the movie, but it has enough emotional power to serve the purpose. Not so here.

The love story between Doug and Eva similarly offers nothing for you to grab hold of. She has a boyfriend but he's out of town so there's no trouble at first. When he comes back and discovers that she's been seeing Doug, they break up, she gets with Doug for reals (because they pretty much already were) and Doug goes and lets the guy punch him for taking his girlfriend. It's all very easy.

So, at the end of the movie, you walk away with nothing but a couple good lines to remember and share with others who've seen the movie. There's nothing else memorable. And you have a lesser appreciation for the game. I wanted to like this movie, I really did, but it just gave me no reason to. Like Patrik Stefan it had a wide open net with a few seconds left, missed, then the other team took the puck the other way, scored and won in OT (if you don't get this reference, YouTube is your friend).

1 out of 5

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

So, this is the American adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel of the same name, previously the subject of a rather highly regarded Swedish film adaptation. I've seen the Swedish film and have read the novel (which I hadn't before seeing the Swedish film). This, American, version is directed by David Fincher, director of films such as Seven and Zodiac, so this is sort of in his wheelhouse. The film still takes place in Sweden, just as the novel does, possibly resisting the pull to Americanize it in that way.

In case you haven't read the novel or seen the Swedish film, the story goes something like this: Mikael Blomkvist (here played by Daniel Craig) is a disgraced journalist, just convicted of libel. He's contacted by the lawyer for an old businessman, Henrik Vanger, with a proposition for Mikael, while he rides out the storm of the controversy – to investigate the murder of his niece, Harriett, some 40 years previously. The police were never able to solve it and Henrik wants to give it one last go, while he can, with a new set of eyes. During the course of the investigation, he is brought into contact with hacker Lisbeth Salander (played by Rooney Mara, who told off Mark Zuckerberg in the opening scene of Fincher's The Social Network) who investigated him for Vanger before hiring Blomkvist and joins his investigation of the murder.

Both the novel and Swedish film, in my opinion, start agonizingly slowly (and given that I know people who couldn't get through the beginnings of either, because of how slow they are, bears that out). Here, Fincher and screenwriter Steve Zaillian, are able to get the story going much more quickly. In the novel, Larsson drags things out for pages and pages to the point I wanted to scream at him to get to the point. In the Swedish film, the pacing drove me crazy – just as the story seemed to get going it had to stop, and almost get sidetracked, introducing Salander. Fincher and Zaillian create a much more even pace, where the two characters' stories are intercut better and one never feels as though it's getting in the way of the other. They cut it down to only the necessities in order to get the story going.

David Fincher has the skill and confidence to let a few shots give you needed information. Whereas the novel and Swedish film often felt as though they lacked subtlety and belabored points. If they wanted you to notice something or get a point or message, they sort of beat you over the head with it. Especially with message. There's nothing wrong with having a message, but it's less effective if you wield it like a sledgehammer. Here, it's toned down – the points are still made but with more finesse. Information and message is never a distraction from the story here.

Unfortunately, due to how much story there is in the novel and having to compress it for a film (even, here, with a two-and-a-half hour movie), some things will suffer. Characters and relationships kind of get glossed over in this film. Aside from Blomkvist and Salander, we don't really get to learn much or get to know the other characters, apart from what part they might have played in Harriett's disappearance. Literature has the luxury of being able to take the time to delve into characters and relationships and story. And there simply is just too much to be able to get into it with a film version. I'll be curious, though, on whether or not there will be an extended version once it hits home video.

Any discussion of this film would not be complete without getting into the performance of Rooney Mara. It is fantastic. I don't feel that I can really describe how great it is. It's just – wow. I'd also want to mention Jeff Cronenweth's cinematography, it's natural and just looks fantastic. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for their score for Fincher's The Social Network) is also excellent - perhaps highlighted by a version of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song", with vocals by Karen O, that accompanies the opening credits.

I know it may not be a totally popular opinion, but I, personally, liked this version better than the Swedish one. And I definitely liked it more than the book, which I got dangerously close to chucking. But, of course, they're all their own pieces that stand on their own merits and provide their own unique insights and twists on the characters and story. I think that people who may have had problems getting into either the book or Swedish film will have a better time with this one.

4 out of 5

For reference, see also my review for the Swedish film.

Midnight In Paris

I can't really think of a way to write about Woody Allen's new film, Midnight in Paris, except to say that it's just fun. I thoroughly enjoyed because it's just plain delightful. Allen deals with issues such as the fear of death, love, and the folly of nostalgia without getting serious or heavy. He keeps it light and fun.

Gil, a screenwriter who is trying to write a novel, is visiting Paris with his fiancee, Inez, while her father conducts a business deal. Gil is captivated by the city, but longs to be in the city during the 1920s, when it was a hotspot for artists and writers. He views that time and place as a sort of golden age. This tendency of people will become a theme throughout the film.

After a night out with Inez and a couple of her friends who happen to be visiting Paris as well, and some wine, Gil decides to walk back to the hotel rather than join them dancing. He gets lost, of course, and takes a rest as the bells chime midnight. A strange, antique car drives up, stops and the people inside beckon him to join them. He at first resists, but, come on, a bunch of French people offer you wine and continue to insist you join them, you go.

And go, they do (spoilers ahead). To a party. For Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. And Cole Porter's there, playing the piano. The Fitzgerald's take Gil to meet Ernest Hemingway. After a conversation with Hemingway, Gil asks him to read his manuscript. Hemingway declines ('I hate it.' 'You haven't read it.' 'If it's bad, I'll hate it because it's bad. If it's good, I'll be envious.') but tells Gil he'll give it to Gertrude Stein, whom is the only person he trusts to read his work. Gil leaves to grab the manuscript from his hotel, but once he leaves he's back to modern time.

Over the course of the next few nights he goes back to the 1920s. He meets Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Picasso's mistress Adriana (whom Gil is immediately smitten with). As he goes back more, and spends more time with her, his feelings for her and Inez become complicated. Does he really want to get married to Inez, whom he doesn't seem to have much in common with? If he's falling in love with a girl from the 1920s, how can that work? In a very humorous scene, he meets Salvador Dali, Luis Bunuel, and Man Ray and explains to them that he is from the year 2010 and in love with a girl from the 1920s. They see no problem with this, however, because, well, they're surrealists.

Gil spends a night with Adriana. She's always wished to live in Paris in the 1880s. When he confesses his love to her, a carriage approaches and beckons them inside and they're transported to the 1880s, where they meet Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gaugin, and Degas. When Gil finds out that they wish the live in the Renaissance, he realizes that people are always nostalgic for a time past and you just have to accept the time you're in. After getting offered a chance to design costumes in the 1880s, Adriana chooses to stay, but Gil goes back to 2010. He ends the relationship with Inez and chooses to stay in Paris rather than go back to California.

I don't know what I can say, it's just fun. Gil is the typical Woody Allen character, but Owen Wilson doesn't try to be Woody Allen or play the Woody Allen persona, and he's good and works really well. I enjoyed the scenes with Hemingway. I can't think of anything that I didn't especially like. Inez was maybe a little two-dimensional (odd given the way Allen's female characters are generally very strong), but given the needs of the story and how little she really featured, I don't know how that could be changed without effectively changing everything else. It's intellectual without being condescending. It feels fresh and light but meaningful. It's an excellent film. That's it.

4 1/2 out of 5

Super 8

Writer/director J.J. Abrams has been pretty open about Super 8 being an homage to the early films of Steven Spielberg (who produced the film through his Amblin Entertainment production company), and to be honest, I feel that it does the film a disservice. That puts into my mind images like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and, of course, E.T. - movies that really capture your imagination, not to mention their status as classics. So it sets you up to walk into the theater with this expectation, but it's not that kind of movie.

Not that that's a bad thing. There are definitely elements and influences at play in this film (it's sort of like mixing the child protagonists of E.T. with the mystery and government secrets of Close Encounters of the Third Kind plus the monster scares of Jaws), but they work together to make something clearly Abrams' own. And, for the most part, it works really, really well.

What works the most is the kids. They're fun and unique of each other. You care about them. Their relationships with each other are believable. It's so much fun watching these kids try to make a movie. And the jealousy that comes up when two friends are interested in the same girl and, of course, she only likes one of them (especially at that young age, when it's so new to them and they don't quite know how to deal with it). And this is, perhaps, the most Spielberg-ian aspect of the film – the child protagonists - which only furthers the expectation of a Spielberg type movie at the start.

Where it stops to work as well is when it tries to become a monster movie (in Spielberg terms, this is the Jaws component). It doesn't work, as well, because it just doesn't quite mesh with the tone of portions of the film with the kids and their families. It's two distinctly different feelings. The kids, their families, and the mystery of what the Air Force is doing in town go together very well. And a very fine movie could be made using just that. But Abrams has to go one step further and have a monster that starts snatching people.

Plus, when it becomes the monster movie, it starts to get a bit confusing. The Air Force has been holding the monster captive for the past twenty years. For what purpose? I'm not sure. The monster smashes things and takes people (more on this to come), but I think that we're supposed to sympathize with it and want it freed. And the taking people...apparently when it touches someone they're able to understand it. When the kids find where the monster's hiding, they also find all the people it has taken, who we previously presumed dead, hanging from the ceiling of the cave. The people say that the monster was hungry, thus why it took the people. But, if it's hungry, why are all the people still alive? Was the monster saving them for a snack? What was the point? It didn't make sense. It draws you out of the movie a bit.

But still, it's an extremely enjoyable, well made movie. The kids are fun. The family drama is engaging and well done. It's not a Steven Spielberg movie and that's fine. Don't expect that, it's poor judgment on their part to push that so heavily. I walked out of the theater satisfied, happy, and glad to see something like this.

4 out of 5

Everything Must Go

Nick Halsey loses his job. He goes home to find that his wife has thrown all of his stuff on the lawn, changed the locks and security codes. His company car gets repossessed. His wife puts a hold on their joint account - rendering his credit and debit cards useless – and cuts his cellphone. He has no place to go, no money, and no way to move his possessions, which he has to do within five days according to city law or go to jail. You could say he's having a bad day. And this is where we find ourselves in Everything Must Go.

It's a great set up. He's down. He's got nothing. He's faced with the necessity to make decisions about his life and himself. He's a recovering alcoholic who has lapsed, he's never without a beer. He was let go from his job because they can get someone younger and cheaper, and, of course, his history of needing time off for treatment and counseling probably didn't help matters. And while he has lapsed, his wife, who apparently is also a recovering alcoholic, hasn't.

In order to gain the five days to keep his stuff on the lawn, he has to call it a yard sale. He hires a local kid, Kenny, whose mother is a nurse taking care of an elderly woman nearby leaving him by himself most of the time, to make signs and watch his stuff. And at first Nick isn't interested in actually selling his stuff, as he hopes to work things out with his wife before the five days are up. Nick and Kenny become friends, with Nick teaching Kenny about sales. Nick also befriends Samantha, the pregnant woman who has just moved in across the street. She has relocated there for her husband's job, he has not yet joined her there.

I have to praise Will Ferrell's performance as Nick. Where Ferrell normally plays these sort of broad, over-the-top characters, here he plays the character with an honest subtlety. He never tries to draw attention to the character or his plight. Think how easy it'd be to play it as 'hey everybody, look, I'm living on my lawn!' Especially for someone like Will Ferrell. He also doesn't play him as a total schlub loser who just gives up. He's a person who doesn't know what to do – hope things work out or just let go?

Where I think the movie falters is the self-realizations just don't seem to read. Nick watches old home movies and sees his dad, always with a beer in hand, just like him. Throughout the movie he suggests that he didn't like his father and that he was a drunk. So you'd think that maybe he'd watch these movies, see this, and, at least, start looking at himself. But he doesn't. The next morning, he's got the beer in hand just like his old man. And this is a movie about self-exploration and realization, so when moments like this pass and nothing happens....it's a missed opportunity. And at the end when he finally drinks coffee instead of beer and decides to sell everything, clean up and let go it lacks the clear, definable moment where he decides to do that. He finds out his wife has been staying with his AA sponsor and... that's it. It's a let down because you're connected with the character but miss out on this important moment.

I also felt that the outcome of Samantha's relationship with her husband was a bit confusing. Nick asks why he hasn't joined her yet and suggests that he's stayed behind because he doesn't want to be a father, and as a successful young businessman he is probably seeing someone behind her back. She tells Nick that she's called him and told him she's leaving him. He finally shows up the next day but she appears to greet him warmly, not like someone who has decided their relationship is through. It left me going 'wait? What?'

The movie is enjoyable and funny. Yes, funny. Not hilarious. Don't expect to bust a gut laughing. But there are laughs. Will Ferrell gives a performance that makes you wish he did more films like this. And I do like the relationship between Nick and Kenny, it's endearing. A good movie.

3 out of 5

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is the third in the series of novels and films begun with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (reviewed previouly). As with the first film, I came into this intrigued by the almost universal praise I'd heard for the film, and series as a whole. I caught up by watching the second film, The Girl Who Played With Fire, first though. Which is good, otherwise I would have been very confused as these two seem more like one story broken into two parts, so Fire directly leads into Hornet's Nest.

On a whole, I think this is a better film than Dragon Tattoo, mostly because it is nowhere near as slow to get going. Unfortunately it seems to still suffer from some rather sloppy storytelling, which is something that bothered me about the first film. In this film we have a character who was introduced in Fire; he serves no purpose, and brings nothing, to this story. But, because his arc was not closed at the end of that one, he shows up a few times throughout this one, to remind us he exists, before they have to add 10-15 minutes to the end of the movie, after the conflict has been resolved, to take care of him. A similar problem that Dragon Tattoo had.

I like the courtroom drama aspect of this film more than the crime/investigation stories of the previous two. For one thing, we've had this central character, Lisbeth Salander, who we haven't gotten to know much and finally, now, we get to actually focus on, and learn about, her. In the first one, we're introduced to her and she's interesting and complicated but we don't end up learning, or knowing, much about her. In the second, she becomes the subject of a conspiracy, but still, we don't learn much about her, except her father is an evil man. It takes until this third film for us to actually get insight into her.

It feels as though it's inefficient storytelling. One of the things that comes to play here, at long last, is one of the problems I had with the beginning of the first film – a subplot between Lisbeth and her guardian. Was that purposefully set up then for use now? Or is it just taking advantage of something that was already there? If it was a set up, why then and there, at the beginning of the first film when it has no bearing on that story? Why slow down the first film solely for the purposes of this one? If it's just taking advantage of something that was there, well, why was it there in the first place? There has to be a better way of giving us the information needed. You can hint at it in the first film then flesh it out later in the second and/or third when it actually has some meaning to the story.

I also have a problem with just believing this story, no matter how much I liked it. In order to keep Lisbeth from talking about her father, a Russian defector protected by a forgotten underground group (yeah, the government just happened to forget about it, how convenient), this group sends her, twelve years-old at the time, to a mental institution headed by a corrupt doctor involved with said group. They torture her and have her declared unfit, thus why, as an adult, she has a legal guardian. I have a problem with this because it would seem to me that, in order to keep someone quiet, a corrupt group would just have that person killed. It's in their power, they kill other people, and they're not good people who would seem to have a problem with killing a twelve year-old girl. A conspiracy seems much too complicated, just kill them and be done with it. So everything that ends up happening feels like convenient twists, turns and complications merely for the sake of twists, turns and complications rather than what makes sense for the story and characters. It's as though a bunch of ideas were tossed in a bowl and whenever something was needed, one was picked at random.

It's unfortunate because it is good, I don't want that to get lost in here. If I could walk away from any of these films without thinking 'there just has to be a better way to do this,' they'd be closer to great, and that's what's so frustrating. But this messy, inefficient story keeps it firmly in the 'good' category - it has all the right parts (maybe a few too many), they're just not used properly. Not having read the novels, I can't say if it's a source material problem, but it would seem as though it must be. The only thing that I can't argue with is Noomi Rapace's performance as Lisbeth. It's outstanding. If for no other reason, watch the film, and the whole series, for that.

3 out of 5

The Social Network

You may ask yourself “why would I want to see a Facebook movie?” The answer is that it's so much more than a movie about Facebook. Is it an accurate depiction of the founding of Facebook? Undoubtedly not. Does it matter? Absolutely not. The film is like a perfect storm of great parts coming together.

First, there's the script written by Aaron Sorkin. In actuality, the script may be the star of the film. Not only does Sorkin cleverly use depositions from two lawsuits against Mark Zuckerberg as a framing device to tell the story, but the dialogue is superb as well. Using the depositions gives a frame of reference for us, and suggests that what we're seeing isn't necessarily what actually happened, as they point out several times. It also gives the events a more personal feeling as we can see how actions affected them, how the characters view them, and what they think of each other. It adds drama that otherwise wouldn't exist. He makes it a very compelling story of ambition, friendship and betrayal.

Mark Zuckerberg is driven to stand out and be exceptional, perfectly set up in the opening scene. He's not great at coming up with ideas, but he has the ability to improve other peoples' ideas and make them great, wonderfully displayed in the following scene. And that creates the problem – if someone has a very basic idea, but someone else is able to fill it out, make it better and make something different and their own out of it, who has the right to it? And with Mark's social awkwardness and ambition, he doesn't understand how to do deal with his friends and their business. And as their business grows, so too do the tensions as they want to take the business different directions.

Then there's David Fincher's direction. I think the most astounding thing is that he was able to get a 160 page script into two hours. The general rule of thumb is that pages equals minutes – a 120 minute movie script should be around 120 pages. But Fincher pushed the actors to spit out the dialogue as fast as they could (the opening scene took 99 takes, and Fincher throughout filming told the actors “Faster!”). But nothing feels rushed. You never feel as though you're being bombarded with information. It's all shown to us very well, you don't miss anything.

Jesse Eisenberg is fantastic as Mark Zuckerberg. He speaks the dialogue so well, it sounds natural (when, in fact, no one talks like that). He also plays Zuckerberg with sincerity – he honestly does not see what the problems that people have with him are. He believes that he's done what is right and proper. He doesn't just play him as someone who is petty and looking to screw people over. And the character could easily come off that way. It keeps the character very human and strangely sympathetic.

I also quite enjoyed Jeff Cronenweth's cinematography. Like he did with Fincher's Fight Club, he largely uses natural light. He lets the location bathe the scene in unusual colors, making very striking and beautiful images. I thought the electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross worked very well.

There is no doubt that this is an early favorite for some Oscar considerations. They'll be well deserved. It's an extremely well-crafted, put together, interesting, funny movie. There's quite a lot of humor here to break up the dramatic tension. And it's interesting to watch the relationships between the characters change and evolve as the story moves along, especially when you know where they end up – finding out how they get there is the fun and intriguing thing. There's so much more to this than just being about Facebook. And with a great script, great direction, and a great performance, how can you go wrong?

5 out of 5