Date Night Turned Thinking Night

Is The King's Speech truly worthy of all its Golden Globes royalty?

Just about every Saturday night, my lovely girlfriend Marie and I head down to the local cineplex to check out a flick. I usually come out of it with opinions galore and indigestion from the vat of popcorn that I inhale; Marie usually comes out of it wishing I’d keep my opinions to myself.

So I thought instead that I’d share my two cents about the entire viewing experience with CultureMap readers. On this Golden Globes' night, let's look at The King's Speech, which is up for more Globes (seven, including best drama) than any other movie. My night with the King:

AMBIENCE: I really didn’t need the large tub-o-popcorn just 20 minutes following a meal with The Better Half and her Mom, but it’s the movies, you know? It turns out that I ended up with two helpings of popcorn: The one I ordered and the one that was spilled on me by the lady who sat down next to me.

And she didn’t even ask me if I preferred my lap with butter.

THE PREVIEWS: So Natalie Portman, you’re coming off what’s likely to be an Oscar-nominated role in Black Swan. How do you follow it up?

In No Strings Attached, by essentially remaking the old Seinfeld episode where Jerry and Elaine try to come up with rules for sleeping together while staying friends. Only you’ve chosen as your co-star that bastion of comedic genius, Ashton Kutcher. Pass.

Meanwhile, The Beaver stars Mel Gibson as a man so psychologically distraught that he bonds with a rodent puppet. Surprisingly, it’s not a documentary.

THE FEATURE: In the fact-based The King’s Speech, an heir (Colin Firth) to the throne of England suddenly becomes King George VI when his newly-crowned brother abdicates on the brink of World War II. The problem is that the new King has had a pronounced stutter since boyhood, so he calls on an unorthodox therapist (Geoffrey Rush) to help him out with all those rousing wartime speeches.

FOUR OBSERVATIONS:

It’s good to see several British actors get a chance to stretch their acting muscles for American audiences. Their opportunities these days are usually limited to the villain role in some bad action movie, Masterpiece Theatre or a job as a staff member at Hogwarts.
Not only does this movie work as a character study, it’s a nice little historical primer as well. There’s one moment when the King watches footage of Hitler, and when that footage fills the screen, it’s a chilling reminder about the folly of mistaking charisma for character.
I cannot believe that this flick got saddled with an R rating. It’s basically because of one scene when the therapist urges Firth to spew profanities as a way to get past his impediment. How silly to think that such a worthy and harmless picture is equated, in the eyes of the MPAA, with the Saw franchise.
Although the movie could have sunk into Oscar-pedigreed stupor, the two lead actors never let that happen. Firth makes it clear that it’s not just his stammer that his character is trying to overcome; it’s the universal fear of failing to fulfill expectations. And Rush wisely underplays what could have been a hambone role.

FINAL VERDICT: It could have been stodgy and lifeless, but The King’s Speech is deserving of the accolades it’s getting. The tale is almost too well-told, but luckily Firth and Rush provide the edge that brings this history lesson to vivid life.

THE BETTER HALF SAYS: In a rare case of agreement, she loved it (although I have a sneaking suspicion that she might have a thing for Colin Firth, hence her insistence on watching the Bridget Jones movies ad nauseam). Oh, and Marie’s mom (or, in keeping with the royal theme, The Better Half Mum) enjoyed it immensely as well, even as she continuously mistook Rush for James Woods.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess

Photo by Matt Grace

Jack Black and Paul Rudd in Anaconda.

In Hollywood’s never-ending quest to take advantage of existing intellectual property, seemingly no older movie is off limits, even if the original was not well-regarded. That’s certainly the case with 1997’s Anaconda, which is best known for being a lesser entry on the filmography of Ice Cube and Jennifer Lopez, as well as some horrendous accent work by Jon Voight.

The idea behind the new meta-sequel Anaconda is arguably a good one. Four friends — Doug (Jack Black), Griff (Paul Rudd), Claire (Thandiwe Newton), and Kenny (Steve Zahn) — who made homemade movies when they were teenagers decide to remake Anaconda on a shoestring budget. Egged on by Griff, an actor who can’t catch a break, the four of them pull together enough money to fly down to Brazil, hire a boat, and film a script written by Doug.

Naturally, almost nothing goes as planned in the Amazon, including losing their trained snake and running headlong into a criminal enterprise. Soon enough, everything else takes second place to the presence of a giant anaconda that is stalking them and anyone else who crosses its path.

Written and directed by Tom Gormican, with help from co-writer Kevin Etten, the film is designed to be an outrageous comedy peppered with laugh-out-loud moments that cover up the fact that there’s really no story. That would be all well and good … if anything the film had to offer was truly funny. Only a few scenes elicit any honest laughter, and so instead the audience is fed half-baked jokes, a story with no focus, and actors who ham it up to get any kind of reaction.

The biggest problem is that the meta-ness of the film goes too far. None of the core four characters possess any interesting traits, and their blandness is transferred over to the actors playing them. And so even as they face some harrowing situations or ones that could be funny, it’s difficult to care about anything they do since the filmmakers never make the basic effort of making the audience care about them.

It’s weird to say in a movie called Anaconda, but it becomes much too focused on the snake in the second half of the film. If the goal is to be a straight-up comedy, then everything up to and including the snake attacks should be serving that objective. But most of the time the attacks are either random or moments when the characters are already scared, and so any humor that could be mined all but disappears.

Black and Rudd are comedy all-stars who can typically be counted on to elevate even subpar material. That’s not the case here, as each only scores on a few occasions, with Black’s physicality being the funniest thing in the movie. Newton is not a good fit with this type of movie, and she isn’t done any favors by some seriously bad wigs. Zahn used to be the go-to guy for funny sidekicks, but he brings little to the table in this role.

Any attempt at rebooting/remaking an old piece of IP should make a concerted effort to differentiate itself from the original, and in that way, the new Anaconda succeeds. Unfortunately, that’s its only success, as the filmmakers can never find the right balance to turn it into the bawdy comedy they seemed to want.

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Anaconda is now playing in theaters.

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Movie Review

Meta-comedy remake Anaconda coils itself into an unfunny mess