Ted (2012)

Title: Ted (2012)

Director: Seth McFarlane

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Seth McFarlane, Giovanni Ribisi, Sam J. Jones  

                                              

Review:

When Ted was first released in theaters, I totally ignored it because I thought it was going to be a stupid movie, a one trick pony about a Teddy bear doing all sorts of obscene stuff. And while it was that, it was also much more than that and I’m sorry I missed this super funny movie in theaters, I totally underestimated, my bad.  Still, I managed to laugh just as much in the comfort of my home and so I’m here to say that if like me you thought Ted was going to be a sucky movie and haven’t seen it yet, then give it a chance, you’re missing out on a truly funny movie.

Story is all about this kid named John who is a social outcast; his class mates make fun of him and he is lonely most of the time, which is why he ends up talking to his teddy bear. Like many kids at that age, when they got no friends, they make up one. One night, John wishes upon a star. His wish is that Teddy would be real, so he could talk to him like a real person. To his surprise, his wish comes true; his Teddy bear has come to life! Fast forward thirty years and John is now an adult and his Teddy bear still talks! In fact, John and Ted are best buds, they smoke weed, drink and party together. They are inseparable.  Problem is that John’s girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) wants’ more out of their relationship and gives John and ultimatum: her or Ted.

The most relevant thing about Ted are the themes it plays with. Yeah we have a little Teddy smoking weed and cursing like a sailor, but at its core Ted is a movie about growing up, leaving behind childish comfort zones and facing responsibilities head on. Sometimes, people don’t want to face the often times overbearing responsibilities of adult hood. Some would just rather party all the time, like that stupid ass  Eddie Murphy song. To some, responsibilities loom heavily on the horizon, threatening to end all their fun in life, so they ignore them and party as much as they can. Problem is that, if you don’t face these responsibilities and ignore them instead, then you’re hiding away from growing up, you remain a child forever, hence the term “Peter Pan Syndrome” a term commonly used in the world of psychiatry for people who just don’t want to grow up. These are people who are afraid to face anything that threatens their comfort zone. They don’t want to hear their parents, girlfriend, or friends telling them to “do something with your life”. Basically, people like this shun away anything that questions or threatens anything in their comfort zone. People who suffer from this state of mind, shun the rest of the world because they don’t want to face it, they feel inadequate facing others who have moved on with their lives.

John, the character played by Mark Wahlberg isn’t so far down the rabbit whole, he’s at least managed to get himself a beautiful girlfriend played by Mila Kunis, and he wants to become an adult even though he is already 35 years old. He has fallen into that gutter where your life is essentially going nowhere. But his girl is willing to give him a chance, and John at least demonstrates a desire to stand up for himself and become a man; which of course includes one of the biggest responsibilities imposed by society on any human being: marriage! The ultimate compromise! Can John grow up, get married and become a man? That all depends on him leaving his child like things behind, his comfort zones which include smoking weed, drinking like a mad man and watching movies. The problem with these things is not that John does them, it’s that they are the only things he does with his life. It’s all about that delicate balancing act, work hard and then you can party hard. But it can’t all be party! John at least admits that he is 35 and “going nowhere”. So this is a movie about a man who has to stop wasting his life away. The problem is Ted the talking Teddy bear. This little talking Teddy represents that friend that doesn’t want to stop partying, the facilitator of mirth, the one that always calls you up to hang out and party like there’s no tomorrow. According to the film, this type of friend can be detrimental to a person, because they are the kind of friends who won’t let you move on with their lives, who will drag you down with them into their own neverland.  

   

But you have to admit; sometimes a good party has a strong pull! And in this film the party is not only filled with babes, drugs and alcohol, it also counts with the presence of Sam J. Jones, the actor who played Flash Gordon ("Quarter Back, New York Jets!") in Mike Hodges’s Flash Gordon (1980)! This was the coolest joke in the movie for me because I am a fan of that particular Flash Gordon film, it’s so campy, so flashy, so cheesy, but oh so very fun! Thing is that this Flash Gordon joke is a running gag throughout the whole freaking movie so I was laughing like a mad man every step of the way. Take it from me; if you’re a fan of that Flash Gordon film, with Queen singing “Flash! AaaAaaaaa he’ll save everyone one of us!” then you are in for a special treat with Ted.

"Look Flash, there's Tim Burton blast him away with your laser cannon!"

Ted can be categorized as a “guy’s film” which is basically the kind of movie a guy will want to play for all his buds in his man cave, drinking beers and eating pizza, though woman can also identify with the film since it is a woman that is pushing John to make all these changes in his life. The theme of commitment in a relationship is also one that women will find interesting. Though if they want to see the female verison of this film, then I urge them to check out Young Adult (2011) starring Charleze Theron which plays with similar themes but from a females point of view. Word of warning to those who can’t take a raunchy jokes, the film does indulge into its fare share of vulgar jokes that I’m sure many will find offensive, but again, Gene Simmons definition of success shines through:  “offend as many people as possible”.  This film might have had a Teddy Bear smoking weed, drinking beers and attempting to have sex (even though he has no penis!), yet still, the film went on to make more than 500 million dollars at the box office! So a ‘congratulations’ is in order for first time director Seth McFarlane. Making such a huge hit his first time out is always something good, let’s see if he can duplicate it with his next one, which no doubt we will be seeing sometime soon. I’m sure the success of Ted has Hollywood knocking on his door as I type this.

Rating:  5 out of 5 

The original 'Flash Jump'! 

The Postman (1997)

Title: The Postman (1997)

Director: Kevin Costner

Cast: Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Olivia Williams, Lorenz Tate, Giovanni Ribisi

Review:

To me, The Postman is the Gone with the Wind (1939) of post apocalyptic movies, and that’s probably not a popular opinion but I stand by it. Normally, seeing a post-apocalyptic film equals watching a low budget, badly written/acted film. The big budget post apocalyptic film that is shot like an A-film, with A-list actors is not the norm. They exist, but they are not in the majority. This was a huge production, it cost 80 million dollars to make. It was shot in beautiful locations all over the United States, it has a great cast, it’s based on an award winning book yet for some reason, critics decided to lambast it as “worst movie of the year” It was even nominated for various Razzie awards. The problem is that sometimes, once an important reviewer or critic decides a film is bad like say Roger Ebert for example, then the rest of the world has to agree, simply out of fear of appearing stupid.  Then suddenly everyone believes a film is terrible just because of one or two prominent people thought so, this to me is what causes the death of some films. Maybe the themes and ideas are to liberal and so all conservatives and the media gang up to give it a bad reputation? Whatever the case, I personally though this movie was all kinds of good. Maybe a little repetitive with its themes and maybe a tad bit too long, but in no way would I say this was a bad movie!

A man and his donkey

In The Postman we meet a lonely, nameless nomad who wanders across a post apocalyptic wasteland America living his life in peace, traveling across the country with his trusty mule ‘Bill’. They go from town to town performing Shakespeare for the entertainment hungry survivors of the apocalypse. One day, while performing in one of these towns, the nomad gets picked up by a group called ‘The Holnists’, a military group looking to grow in size so they can take over the country and start a new tyrannical form of government. But the nomad, whom everyone now calls ‘Shakespeare’ doesn’t want to become a part of this army, so he escapes and takes his chances out in the world, on his own, the way he’s always done. On his travels he stumbles upon a mail truck, with the mail man dead inside. The only thing that remains is the mail mans skeleton, the mail mans uniform (which Shakespeare quickly appropriates to shelter from the cold rain) and a bag of old letters. The nomad then takes the post man’s uniform and the bag of old letters and travels to a nearby town, posing as a postman who comes to bring mail. He tells them he is a representative of the United States Government and that the government is re-establishing itself, that they have a new president called ‘President Richard Starkey’ and he tells them that things are getting better and better. He lies to them because he wants to give them hope. In this post apocalyptic world, The Postman becomes a symbol of hope to those who have none.

So this would mark the third time that Kevin Costner worked in a post apocalyptic film. The first was a film called Testament (1983), a film that took place within a typical American suburb and how the community reacts to a nuclear attack. I’m sure this film must have been specially chilling to watch during the 80’s when a lot of people lived in constant fear of dying in a nuclear holocaust. The film’s a pretty realistic portrayal, not over the top, not comic-bookish. In contrast to the realism of Testament, the second Costner post-apocalyptic film was Waterworld (1995), a comic book of a movie which portrayed Costner as a loner surviving in a world in which the ice caps have melted. Most of the land is buried under water and so, a society that survives in man made atolls is the only thing that remains. He plays something of a selfish asshole that only cares about his own survival, yet ends up learning to help others anyways. I enjoyed Waterworld for various reasons, all of which I’ll be getting into on my upcoming review for it. Then comes The Postman (1997), which Costner made shortly after Waterworld, and maybe that’s partially what hurt it a bit. Both films have many similarities. They are both post-apocalyptic, their both about a loner, and like Dances with Wolves (1990) and Waterworld, this loner comes to aid a group of people against a tyrannical form of government. It seems like for a while there and maybe without realizing it (or maybe entirely on purpose?) Costner made a series of films with extremely similar situations and themes. So by the time The Postman rolled in, it felt like he was being redundant. This in my opinion might be the only thing that brings The Postman down a bit.

In all other departments The Postman feels epic, well acted, well shot. It’s a beautiful film to look at, sometimes too beautiful for a post-apocalyptic film. At times it actually feels like a western. At heart, it’s a film that speaks about the best and worst things in human nature.  What makes America, America? Is American what we want it to be? This is the kind of film, like many others before it that criticizes certain elements we still see in the modern world: war, tyranny, greed and complete Disregard for human life. Why treat others as less because of their skin color? Why try to dominate man for your own selfish purposes? Why can’t we all just live in peace in this world? Is this just idealistic thinking? Perhaps, but the world would definitely be a better place if we all strived for happiness, peace and understanding and that’s why I enjoyed this film, it strives to remind us that even though we live in a messed up world similar to the post apocalyptic world of The Postman, there’s still hope. We can still strive to make society and the world better, yeah, I got faith in humanity that way. Why should a film be castigated for promoting peace?

Maybe this film got heat because its main character doesn’t want to be part of the army? The Postman tells a military leader “a fighter is the last thing I will be” Same as Chaplin’s character in The Great Dictator (1940) The Postman cares nothing for war and killing, he just wants to fall in love, to sing and dance. Some of the warmest scenes involve just that. By the way, The Great Dictator, one of Charlie Chaplin’s masterpieces (dare I say his most important one) is an equally subversive and controversial film because of the anti-military message it puts across. One of my favorite lines in The Postman is “wouldn’t it be great if wars could be fought just by the assholes who started them?” Now there’s an idea! But no, during war the ones that die are the people, not their leaders.

Some might get the idea that because of its pacifist message The Postman is an anti-American film; which is probably why it had a tough time at the box office, but it isn’t. It’s a film that wants a better America, a better country to live in, a better form of government, and lets not keep things centered only around America, this film simply wants a better world period. Not a tyrannical one, not one centered on war. This is probably the reason why in the film, they make a new American flag and on its white lines it reads “The Restored United States of America” At one point, the villain tells The Postman “you don’t care about anything! You value nothing! You don’t believe in anything! That’s what makes me better!” and The Postman answers “I believe in the United States!” letting us know that yes, this is a film that cares for its country; it simply wants a better one. One of the main characters in the film is looking for a better place for her child to be born in, cause this place they are currently living in simply isn’t it. Society as we know needs to improve, evolve and become something better. It needs to achieve its full potential. So what we have here is a film striving for a better world. War isn’t it. Being part of the military isn’t it either, in this film, the good guys, the peaceful men fight only because they are forced to. You ask the filmmakers behind The Postman and they’ll tell you: peace is where it’s at.

Rating: 4 out of 4 

The Rum Diary (2011)

Title: The Rum Diary (2011)

Director: Bruce Robinson

Cast: Johnny Depp, Michael Rispoli, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard, Richard Jenkins

Review:

I was looking forward to finally seeing The Rum Diary for various reasons: number one being that I’m a huuuuge fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s work, so this being an adaptation of one of his “lost books” well, of course I was excited to see it come to life on theater screen. Second: the story takes place entirely in Puerto Rico, and they actually went ahead and shot the film in Puerto Rico, so I was excited as hell to see my country in a film, by the way, I want to go right ahead and say that Puerto Rico looks beautiful on this film. Another selling point for me was that this is a film based on a Hunter S. Thompson book, I was looking forward to a heavy dose of Gonzo madness for the evening. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed with the film adaptation of The Rum Diary. If you are so inclined, please keep reading and find out why.

The Rum Diary presents us with Paul Kemp, a writer who’s just arrived to Puerto Rico (during the 1950’s) to begin working for The San Juan Star, an English language newspaper that ran in the island for years and years. When Kemp arrives he is confronted with a heated political climate amongst the Puerto Rican people. A lot of that heat stems from the clash between the American and the Puerto Rican cultures. During those years, there was a very strong anti-American sentiment going on in the island, and depending on who you ask these days, that feeling still exists. Puerto Ricans would call Americans ‘Gringo’s’ and the Americans would call the Puerto Rican’s ‘Jibaros’; neither one had any desire to understand the other. This is the reason why when Hunter S. first arrives at the San Juan Star, he is welcomed by a bunch of Puerto Ricans screaming things like “Gringo go home!” and the such. American’s saw Puerto Rico as a land of business opportunity; a land where hotels, casinos and resorts could bloom and prosper. Puerto Rican’s saw the Americans as invaders coming here to take advantage of the land. Amongst all the madness, Kemp meets his new boss and co-workers, most of which are a bunch of washed up has beens that resort to drunkenness to deal with the current state of their lives. Kemp’s first assignments include writing the horoscope and sports section; not exactly the most exciting of assignments for Kemp. So when Sanderson, a big money entrepreneur wants to pay Kemp to write a  series of brochures to sell the idea of making a huge hotel on a nearby island, Kemp considers it. Will Kemp form a part of this business venture?

The Rum Diary was a novel that Hunter S. Thompson had written back in the 60’s and is based on the experiences he had while living and working in the island of Puerto Rico. Thompson had ignored the novel for many years because it had gotten rejected many times over by many publishers. But when Hunter S. Thompson and his writing became increasingly popular, then they were salivating to print one of the first novels he’d ever written. And so, even though this novel was written during the 60’s, it actually ended up getting published in 1998. I like the book a lot, it captures what Puerto Rico was like during the 50’s, commenting on the growing boom in businesses and development that was going on in the island. I enjoyed reading about Kemp’s adventures through streets that I walk through all the time; this is something the film also got right. The filmmakers actually went out and filmed on the beaches and areas of old San Juan where Hunter S. Thompson had his adventures in. This gives the film a level of authenticity that I enjoyed. The novel (and the film as well) addressed Puerto Rico’s eternal political climate. Should we be independent of the United States? Should we be another state? Should we be a common wealth and have the best of both worlds? These three ideologies have always divided the Puerto Rican people, even to this very day and I found it so interesting that it was just as much of an issue in the 50’s as it is today.

Hunter S. Thompson, enjoying the beaches of Puerto Rico. Notice the hotel in the background. 

Other issues the film addresses are still relevant for the Puerto Rico of today. Hotels have taken over the coasts, nowadays there are so many hotels in the San Juan area that you have to pay to see the ocean. And that’s a big part of what Paul Kemp is against in this story, he doesn’t know if he should be a part of this rampaging capitalism, building and building and building. I recently went to a Hotel right smack in the area where Hunter S. Thompson lived and wrote what we now know as The Rum Diary, and all I can say is, I’m glad I wasn’t the one paying! A breakfast for four was well over a hundred dollars! And we’re talking about breakfast here people! Eggs, ham, juice; for a hundred bucks? Get out of town! There is a character in the film called Sanderson, he is the developer who wants to make the hotels, at one moment in the film he looks at the beach and says “an ocean of money, waiting to be made!” And that’s how developers see Puerto Rico; they don’t care about eliminating beautiful natural areas that people can enjoy for free, nope, the only thing they care about is making their hotels for the rich people who can afford them. In the book, Kemp muses about the beauty of the island, and nature, and he wonders if it should all be destroyed so that tourists can come and waste their money on casinos.

Of course this is the kind of subject matter that Hunter wrote about, he spent a huge part of his life traveling from hotel to hotel, from casino to casino, from hotel bar to hotel bar. Even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1994) takes part mostly in hotels and casinos. He knew what he was talking about, he lived in hotels for a huge part of his life, but he hated the fakeness of it all. Why switch nature for fakeness? These are the things Paul Kemp partially muses about on this film. One thing I liked about the film were those scenes that we see Hunter S. Thompson sitting in front of his typewriter simply musing about his situation. That’s when we get Hunter S. Thompsons thoughts and mentality; thats when we get to know him. We have a couple of those scenes on this film, but in my opinion they weren’t enough. I didn’t feel I was with Hunter S. for the ride. Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the character and the way he was written, made it feel like Thompsons spirit was distant this time around. It surfaced briefly for a few seconds then hid again in the midst of the banality. One scene I did like, and it’s a scene that has Thompson talking about how he will always be a writer for the people, that was what Hunter S. was all about, but again these scenes are few, Hunter S. Thompson was a very verbal individual, he always said what he tought and it was tough titty if you didn’t like it. But on this film he is so silent, I wonder why they went with that.  

The rest of the movie? A disappointment. The way I see it, it was a wasted opportunity. Now, I’m not  saying it’s a badly made movie, cause it isn’t. I’m just saying it needed a bit more lunacy. It needed to really capture the essence of being a drunkard, which in my book it didn’t do. I mean, you see Fear and Loathing and you feel the essence and the madness of going on a drug binge. Deep and Benicio really looked wasted, they made us believe it. This does not happen in The Rum Diary. Though Paul Kemp is drinking for a huge part of the film, you don’t get that drunkenness vibe. The madness isn’t there. The big scene where everyone goes to this big carnival, it should have been this totally insane moment, with everyone drunk out of their minds, yet that’s not really what I got from the scene. They should have gone more into what it is to be an alcoholic. So many things just didn’t live up to their full potential, they had all the elements necessary to make a funny and interesting story, for some reason they chose to make it a totally lifeless film. This being a film about Hunter S. Thompson then you know that lifeless and Thompson shouldn’t even go in the same sentence.

They needed a director who was a bit more in tune with Thompson’s craziness. Bruce Robinson, the director behind The Rum Diary is primarily known for having made Withnail and I (1987); a film about a pair of friends who are all searching for their purpose in  life. It captures the bohemian lifestyle, the poverty and the uncertainty of living with very little money and a whole lot of alcohol. Whitnail and I is the story of two guys who want to be something, but aren’t exactly there yet. They are in some sort of middle ground, a limbo. And that film is great, and I enjoyed it immensely, but it’s not what I’d call an exciting film. And neither is The Rum Diary, which didn’t need to be another Withnail and I in terms of pace. Unfortunately, the themes and the characters in The Rum Diary where all screaming for something better than what we got. It’s as if you had all the ingredients to make a great Cuba Libre, but in the end you didn’t put enough rum in the mix, so you end up with a watered down drink. The result is a very banal film. The most outstanding thing about the film was Giovanni Ribisi's performance as Moburg, and even he was underused.

But what disappointed me the most was that this film wasn’t a faithful translation of the book. They tacked on an ending that never exists within the pages of Hunter S. Thompsons book. The whole third half of the film was completely made up by the writers. And so, we end up with a film that has a drug induced scene that was tacked onto it merely to connect this film with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1994), as a way to let other people understand that this is actually a prequel to that film. And yet another disappointment was the elimination of ‘Yeamon’ the character that Kemp befriends once he gets to the island. They twisted things around beyond recognition, therefore, I, as a fan of the book, was not pleased. My point is, if your going to ignore the source material, then at least do something that’s worth a damn. In this case, they made a film that was boring and ultimately feels unimportant when it could have been so much more. Hell, even Depp didn’t bring his A-game entirely, for some reason, his voice in the film, his character, felt muted. Fans of Hunter S. Thompson won’t get enough of him and fans of the book wont get that either. You’ll just get a so-so movie that had potential, but failed to live up to it. 

Rating: 3 out of 5