Hansel and Gretel forgot the breadcrumbs...

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters

It is that time of year again. When all the good movies are out and the studios try to pass off some crappy wannabe movie on an unsuspecting public and hope to make back their original investment. It is the time of the dead movies. Dead movies to me are movies which have star in them but the script, effects, or acting was less than good. In fact, most of the dead movies are literally the worst ideas in the history of cinema.

From this we get movies like The Brothers Grimm, Joyful Noise, One for the Money, Season of the Witch, The Dilemma, and the ever classic From Prada to Nada. It is in the vein of these classics of January film season that the new release Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

We all know the story of Hansel and Gretel. Two children are taken into the woods and left by their parents. They wander about in search of their home and come across a house made of candy. A smart child would probably be dubious of the effectiveness of frosting as spackle but I digress. The kids enter the house and are besieged upon by a witch who plans to fatten the children up and eat them. Hansel and Gretel eventually outsmart or trick the witch and she is consumed by fire in the very oven she meant to kill the children is. It is one of those stories that if it ended right there people would be OK with that. It has all the great moments... candy house, witch, moral lesson about stranger danger/ too many sweets, cannibalism, and finally innocence defeating evil. Who wants more? Apparently the makers of this movie.

I knew walking into it that it didn’t have a great shot of being a movie that was a fun adventure through the world of fairy tales. It did have Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Peter Stormare, and Famke Janssen. A decent cast who with a proper script could have made a quality picture. They went another way. Hansel and Gretel in the years since dispatching of the candy house witch have become the go to people for witch killing. They have weapons (made by their own hands, made for them, the movie never tells) and for some odd reason witches magic does not work on them. So they can fight and defeat the worst of the worst. They also save a few would be witches from the pyre. Now they fight, shoot and take an inordinate amount of punishment (really when someone is hit in the face by a shovel they do not continue with the fight until after they regain consciousness) on there way through killing any witch that crosses their paths. Now they come to a town that has lost 11 kids to witches and as the blood moon comes, the town mayor turns to the witch hunters to find the children and kill the witches.

I’d want to say I thought this was a fresh idea but the Van Helsing of it all really took me out of the picture. From the opening moments when the production houses put up their little teasers, I knew that this movie was tonally in trouble. It started with Paramount and MGM which gave me a flicker of hope. Then came MTV films which as an old man I would attach to a young teenage style of movie. This is what the movie was. Oddly the movie carried an R rating which took away the teen audience. Why they made an R movie really bothered me. There was unnecessary nudity (coming from a guy that means something), an out of time use of modern slang and swearing, and violence that while inventive wasn’t necessary. They easily could have made a PG-13 movie without changing the story and had a better movie that was able to reach the target audience. Instead we are stuck with these odd tonal shifts that puzzled me. 

The last production house, Gary Sanchez Productions made me feel as though the story they told in their production card was more interesting than the story that was gonna come. I’m not even sure what it all meant. I wanted more production card... which says all I really need to say about Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters. It just was. There was not real caring about characters, no backstory (in a movie when the backstory was the premise), good effects that tried to hide the obvious flaws in story and tone. 

I like Jeremy Renner and think he could become the next great action hero. Based on this movie, I am sure he hoped this movie would rot on a shelf. It probably should have but it is January and Paramount Pictures wanted to make back the 60 million dollars they invested in it. So once again the curse of the new year’s movie dead space strikes again. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Like Hansel, I went diabetic after eating the candy house. After the first scene I would have preferred a diabetic coma. 

I dreamed a dream of miserables

Les Miserables

I’ve always had a strict anti-musical stance. I’ve often said that to see people break into song mid step and begin to extoll the virtues of a healthy bowel movement is laughable at best. I’ve said that you cannot create a sense of drama or emotion when you have to service lyrical verse to tell story. Well, folks, that is because I was a guy and I was told or inferred somewhere that in being a guy, musicals were for the less manly. I was wrong and I am man enough to say that. I’ve been wrong for a while and I shouldn’t be ashamed to admit it. I was in a movie theater tonight with 5 older women, 1 teenage girl and two guys dragged there by their wives/girlfriends. There is probably a few thousand pocket handies being given by the wives and girlfriends of some weepy guys after they’ve seen Les Miserables. It is that powerful a movie and a great show. 

Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a man arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s son and having served 20 years as a prisoner under the rule of the cruel Javert, he is freed but his name will be forever disgraced by the small crime he committed. Javert tells him that he will suffer on parole for the rest of his life and when the day comes that he breaks the law again, Javert will bring him in and lock him away for life. Valjean does suffer as he tossed from house to house until he is taken in by the Bishop of Digne. Given food, wine and a place to sleep, Valjean is desperate and steals all the silver from the priest and is captured by the police who bring the silver back to the church. Yet the Bishop gives Valjean a new life by telling the police that he gave Valjean the silver. He changes his ways, his name and skips out on his parole to start a new life. 

He does and rises to a place of power in the small town and provides work for the poor and attempts to give up his life of hate. There Valjean meets Fantine (Anne Hathaway) who was fired by Valjean’s foreman and forced to whoore (pronounced who-ore) herself on the street to the point of near death. Fantine has a daughter whom she left in the care of an innkeeper and his wife. She’s been sending money back to them to pay for Cosette’s upkeep. That the two criminals treat Cosette like dirt and make her work for the scraps they give her Fantine is probably quite aware yet powerless to help. 

This performance by Anne Hathaway is one of the most powerful of the movie. Though she enters and leaves after maybe 20 minutes of the 2 1/2 hour movie, her character and her love and dreams of a better life resonate throughout the film. As they move into Fantine’s bed (which is probably quite intentionally the size of a coffin) and Hathaway sings the powerful song “I dreamed a dream” you see 100 emotions of the character she plays. She is quite literally singing the life out of herself, she no longer wants to be a part of the world. It is perhaps the most powerful moment of the movie. I am reminded of a scene in the movie Sleepers in which their is no dialogue but you hear the story through the face of Robert Deniro’s Father Bobby. 

As the movie moves forward in time by leaps of 8 years, Valjean and Javert age in a constant struggle. Javert wants to bring Valjean to justice for skipping out on his parole and Valjean wants to raise Fantine’s orphaned daughter Cosette. There is perhaps 5 lines of actual dialogue throughout the entire movie, the rest is sung by Jackman, the surprising well voiced Russell Crowe. I was struck most by Samantha Barks in the role of Eponine, the daughter of the inn keeper and his wife whose hard life has been tempered by her affection for Marius, a young revolutionary who upon seeing Cosette in the street is stuck by what the Godfather called the thunderbolt. I understood her character and the struggle to love someone so much and yet never be able to tell them. That pain of every moment you see them with someone else or wanting someone else is like a dagger in your gut. Samantha Barks is a newcomer but really steals the latter half of the movie.

My only issue was with the character of Cosette (played as a child by Isabelle Allen and as an adult by Amanda Seyfried) who seems so oblivious to the world around her. Perhaps that was the intention. That Valjean has kept the harsh world away from her so she truly does not see the pain and anguish all around her. 

I loved this movie, it stirred in me feelings of joy, sadness, depression and longing. I am man enough to admit that I teared up at a few moments and that at 2 1/2 hours the movie barely felt that long. That is the sing of a good movie. When you can sit on watching for 2+ hours and still find yourself not wanting it to end. When I first read Stephen King’s It, I remember reaching the last 100 pages of the 1000 page book and not wanting to finish because it meant my time with my friends was coming to a close. The same could be said about this movie. It brought me down, filled me with joy, and ended with a smile on my face. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the movie was how the music all flowed into one another so each song could be mixed together and sung with triumph at the end. 

This is one of those movies that I not only recommend but implore those who love each other to see together. Be a man and see this film that so perfectly captures raw emotions and gives you license to love, dream and hope. I don’t mean to gush like a 14 year old girl but truly this movie is great and surprising to me, the cynical voice of the chronically depressed. This movie stuck with me. Sure it has only been two hours since I left the theater but it is still stuck. Anne Hathaway’s performance, Samantha Barks singing “On My Own” with such pain and sadness. This movie is worth the praise it is getting and I get it now. I can go into Oscar season knowing that I saw one of the best movies of 2012. I love Silver Linings Playbook but Les Miserables is just as good. 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Les Miserables is one of the best movies of 2012. Guys if you want to see a good movie and score some brownie points with the wife/girlfriend, I’d see this one. 

The Ever Rare Golden Unhappy Award for a single film

Anne Hathaway -  The performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” is perhaps the most emotional scene in a movie I’ve seen in years.

Samantha Barks -  Her performance “On My Own” is definitely the most emotional thing I’ve seen in years. It haunts me.

This may be 40 but I need to pee...

This is 40

       I like Judd Apatow. I do. His movies are smart, his humor is often hilarious and he has an insight into human life that many writers/directors simply don't have. He is by far one of the voices of this generation of adults. All of his movies combine the right amount of humor and drama to make you feel as though you've had a complete movie experience. I walk out of a Judd Apatow movie with a sense that I was not talked down to for 2 hours but was treated as an equal. I feel as though the movie echoes everyday life instead of a made up world of impossibly attractive people. So I do love Judd Apatow (Freaks and Geeks is probably as influential to my generation as John Hughes was to my brother's).  I just wish that he had a movie in him that could be under 2 hours.  Funny People is 146 minutes, Knocked Up is only 129 minutes and his best movie The 40 Year Old Virgin is the shortest at 116. His latest This is 40 runs at robust 134 minutes and easily could have been about 40 minutes shorter. It is one thing to have something valid to say and having it take 2+ hours but movies recently have taken busting the 2 hour mark as some sort of goal to be admired or some sign that their movie not the 90 minute one is more valid. Much like the penis, length is not the end all be all on how good you are.

     This is 40 is a sort of sequel to Knocked Up in so much as the characters played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are the same characters they played in that movie. Both are now turning 40 and Leslie Mann’s Debbie is beginning to question her decisions in life. She feels unattractive to her husband who uses erectile disfunction medication to have sex with her, her store is missing 12,000 dollars and she is turning 40. Apparently 40 is the magic number by which people turn back into pumpkins. You need to have everything in line. A solid future, eating healthier and kids that want to spend time with you. Pete (Paul Rudd) is not having an easy go of it either. His father mooches off him and Debbie to the tune of about 80,0000 dollars, his indie record label is failing and he may have to sell the house just to keep out of debt. All of these things he has not told his wife.

     There is a lot going on but the soul of this movie is when they  follow immediate family. When the movie focuses on Debbie and Pete and their two daughters Sadie and Charlotte (played by Apatow and Mann’s own children Maude and Iris), the movie is at it’s funniest. When the movie includes Pete’s dad (Albert Brooks playing Albert Brooks) or Debbie’s father (John Lithgow playing a uptight spinal surgeon and absent father), the movie bogs down and I begin to wonder why we are there. It isn’t a condemnation of the actors, they do a game job of making their specific part work. Is Albert Brooks character aware that he is an ass? Does John Lithgow’s Oliver actually care that he barely knows his daughter? Who cares?

       I loved the scenes in which the family argued over their use of technology. May it be Sadie trying to finish Lost so she can know why they were on the island to Charlotte just wanting her teenage sister to want to be around her or when Pete hides in the bathroom to play Scrabble on his IPad. They obviously love each other but they never seem to tell each other. Pete and Debbie fight constantly and only seem to be truly happy when they can get alone time with each other on a weekend away. The truth is that if the movie could have focused on the 4 person family and a few of their friends, it would have been a tighter, more insightful look at turning 40. Why do I care if Megan Fox is hot and having sex in Debbie’s store during store hours? Why do I want to follow Pete’s lame attempt to make a 60’s rocker relevant in today’s world? 

This is 40 makes some smart observations about married life and the idea that turning 40 is when you begin the long slide to death. The movie tells you a lot about how you love your kids and how they in turn love you. It is a good comedy that keeps you laughing throughout but maybe has a few too many dry spells in between the laughs. Towards the end, I was so bent on climbing over my friends to get to the bathroom that I didn’t get to enjoy the movies climax which never really seemed to solve any of Debbie and Pete’s issues and instead ended because they realized they were 2 hours and 15 minutes into a story and it needed to end someway. There is very little I enjoy more than a good ending and This is 40 just finishes. Life goes on and perhaps that was the point. To make the film be speak to real life. I just wish it could have said it faster.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: With 40 minutes less and a few less plot lines, this movie could have been insightful, smart, funny and enjoyable. Of course maybe that is just my bladder talking.