It is the curse of our era that movies can’t just be about stuff anymore. Even the simplest stories are gussied up with aesthetic gimmickry. I’m not talking about 3D, or Sam Worthington, either. I’m talking about hand-drawn titles, papercraft animation sequences, and freeze-frame images of dogs wearing football helmets. In some ways I think it is an emotional dishonesty. Why can’t we just talk about what we want to talk about without turning it into a music video? (Of course, many of today’s movie directors got their start in music videos no duh, including Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, David Fincher, McG [ugh, McG]. Oh, and Mike Mills, who wrote and directed this movie.) Then again, it is also a blessing of our era to be a part of our era, and so regardless of any skepticism (also a mark of our era, incidentally) that we might have about the aesthetic distractions from genuine storytelling, it’s impossible not to find them so appealing. What I’m trying to say is fuck you Garden State but also PUT THIS MOVIE IN MY EYES!

Let me just say first of all that sometimes it is more fun to want something than to actually get/have it. The pleasure is in the anticipation! (Of course, sometimes you want something and then you get it and it’s the best to finally have that thing you wanted.) (And thus begins and ends Gabe’s Big Bathroom Book of Condescending Truisms.) And now let me go on to say that Amelia, a biopic about the life of Amelia Earhart, starring Hilary Swank and the finest set of fake teeth $50 can buy, and Richard Gere doing an Academy Award-winning Mr. Magoo impersonation if the Academy gave out an award specifically for people’s Mr. Magoo impersonations, is a terrible movie! THE HUNT, IT IS CLEAR, IS BACK ON. It is worth pointing out that biopics always suck and are always the worst. The complications and messiness of an actual human life without any discernible narrative arc reduced to plot points and swelling music against an historical (but malleable) backdrop featuring actors doing funny voices, all towards a falsely redemptive or emotive outcome is insulting to anyone who actually takes an interest in the genuine histories of historical figures, but should really just be gross to anyone who has, you know, been a human being alive on Earth.

But Amelia sucks and is the worst for specific reasons in addition to the general ones listed above. So let’s talk about those:

Read More...

On the one hand, I’m glad that they turned Jon Ronson’s book into a movie, because Jon Ronson’s book was great, and Jon Ronson is great, and it’s great when great things happen to great people. On the other hand, they should have just made this a documentary. Jon Ronson is actually very personable and entertaining. He could have carried the movie. Instead of Ewan McGregor and his Nowhere Man Voice. What is that accent? He’s like an alien whose transcoder only has one setting. “Just talking normal like a human being from the city of Earth. Nothing weird about the way I am talking, no way.” Also, if it had been a documentary, then the very weird and hilarious details from the book, which are real, would have been super weird and super hilarious because of how when things are real then there is no willful suspension of disbelief, there is just belief and disbelief mixed together, because that is life, jump into life. Instead, it has a semi-generic, strangely common-place military farce feel to it (has anyone else noticed how common-place military farces have become? It’s a real catch-22).

But, you know, wish they had made it into a documentary in one hand, and buy your ticket to the movie they did make with the other hand, and see which one is in a bucket of popcorn first, as the old saying goes.

/Film says it’s been described as Catch Me If You Can meets Brokeback Mountain, but probably in a way where every movie with a gay character is described in terms of Brokeback. We can say what we want, but I think everyone in America (and Candada!) wants Mr. Carrey to succeed, and we seem to like it when he does new stuff, so let’s give this movie a chance, guys! It really doesn’t seem like another Liar, Liar. At all.