Tag Archives: Movie

Culture, Movies

No-No-No-Noah!

4 Comments

Okay, everybody can act. I mean, this is Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson and even Anthony Hopkins. Three Academy Awards out of the four top-billed actors isn’t bad, especially since Emma Watson is too young to really make her mark yet. So when things get all intense and angsty, they can twist up their faces pretty good and make you believe they’re crazy upset.

And we’ve got these great Hollywood production values (though my friends spotted a rubber sole on Russell Crowe–I mean Noah’s– boot. We won’t talk about that.) The special effects are pretty cool and go way beyond making a really big boat (exception: the reoccurring vision of the snake and the apple is pretty cheesy).

But there’s a lot of stuff on there that never came up in Sunday school. Like these prehistoric transformers made out of lava-encrusted, fallen angels called ‘watchers.’ Good thing they’re around. The whole movie would have been over before it started without them on the job, and you and I would not be here.

Then there’s these cool little rocks that you can make fire bombs out of. This guy  says he’s King of the World and he has a thing that looks like a bazooka that shoots these rocks right out, and wow! Ka-BAM!

They use magic smoke to put all the animals asleep for about a year. You don’t have to feed them and there’s no manure to shovel. I’ve got to figure that one out for my dogs. It would be great if I could go on vacation without having to board them.

Did you know they saved a skin shed by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and they like to perform rituals with the snakeskin and it glows? Or that Methuselah was alive when Noah needed some advice? I can’t figure out why Noah left Grandpa out in the rain like that. I mean, they had room. And Grandpa could pull some really wicked tricks out of his, well, he didn’t have a hat, but, you know.

Good thing they can act, because it gets pretty ugly when Noah decides that the evil God wishes to erase from the Earth, well he decides that evil resides in him and his family, and no one is exempt. I’m glad they didn’t have chainsaws back then.

Yes, there was a big boat full of animals and a flood. Past that point, it was a bunch of guys in Hollywood, sitting around a table saying, “How can we sex this thing up?” I had more WTF moments during this movie than I’ve had in, well, years, because, like, I don’t say WTF,” like, ever.

If the Bible isn’t exciting enough for you as it is, you should leave well enough alone.

Save this one for DVD. Then you can toss popcorn at the screen when it gets too silly. But skip the butter, it’s hell to get off.

 

 

Movies

Mud in Your Eye

Leave a comment

Mud is the one movie I wanted to see this spring, and of course I missed it. Which is why this review is several months too late.

Fourteen year-old Ellis is a romantic in a hard-scrabble life that offers him none. He lives on a houseboat on a river in Arkansas, his family supported by the the fish his father catches, that he and Ellis sell in town. When we meet Ellis, the impending breakup of his parent’s marriage threatens his way of life.

Ellis is not concerned. While pursuing his first kiss, Ellis and his friend, Neckbone, stumble across a fugitive (Mud) who needs their help. Like Pip in Great Expectations, Ellis obliges. With the reluctant assistance of Neckbone, he staves off disillusionment by devoting himself to Mud’s reunion with the love of his life.

Director Jeff Nichols is understated and matter-of-fact in the way he portrays a small town that prosperity has passed by. He neither ennobles nor dramatizes the lower-class denizens, humanizing them as people pursuing life the best they can and allowing the story to shine through. He errs in creating a tone that is suitable for a Disney adventure, presumably to assure a family friendly offering. Mud is an engaging film. With a little more grit, it would be compelling.

Tye Sheridan as Ellis is a heart-felt knight errant and Jacob Lofland is utterly convincing as Ellis’s loyal and pragmatic follower, Neckbone. I would not be surprised to see both Lofland and Ray McKinnon (as Ellis’s Father) receive Oscar nods for supporting actor.

Sam Shepard is a bit too affable for a man who has never spoken to his neighbors. This I lay on Nichol’s direction. Shepard has been brilliant in the past as tough, lonely men. He could have easily shined here. As it is, we are more afraid of Ellis’s taciturn dad than we are of the hermit marine sniper or the fugitive.

Matthew McConaughey is competent playing himself. The rough, uneducated, river rat poetry of Mud’s dialogue is lost in McConaughey’s slick elocution. We would better understand Juniper’s dilemma if we could see Mud as he was surely intended: a simple man who thinks no more than three days ahead, and whose whole life’s ambition is to serve his love for Juniper. (I would have picked Christian Bale for this role)

Reece Witherspoon’s is spot-on as the beguiling and troubled Juniper, for whom Mud’s love is not quite enough enough even while she refuses to let it go. Her small part carries the heavy weight of convincing us that a man would ruin his life over her. Without this conviction, Mud’s dedication would be merely pathetic.

Ellis is navigating troubled waters in this coming of age story, in which no adult has a happy relationship. The real question is, who is going to grow up?

I give it a nice, solid “B”