Kon-Tiki (2013)

Title: Kon-Tiki (2012)

Directors: Joachim Ronning, Espen Sandberg

Cast: Pal Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Tobias Santelmann, Gustaf Skarsgard, Jakob Oftebro, Agnes Kittelsen, Odd Magnus Williamson

Review:

Kon-Tiki is the real life story of a Norwegian adventurer named Thor Heyerdahl who in 1947 was hell bent on undertaking an expedition across the Pacific Ocean. But this wasn’t just any old expedition Heyerdahl wanted to put together, nope, Heyerdahl wanted to go on a wood raft across the Pacific Ocean. He wanted the raft to be constructed with the materials that people had in the past, nothing modern, just basil wood and rope. He wanted to prove that in the past, man could have traveled long distances on rafts made of wood. Heyerdahl wanted to prove that these long treks could have taken place and that technological limitations didn’t stop people of the past from achieving these journeys. Basically, he was kind of like a Jacques Cousteau, the famous biologist/adventurer; actually, Cousteau and Heyerdahl were contemporaries. I admire guys like these, I mean; they give up a normal life to live extraordinary ones. Their lives were filled with real life adventure; which is probably why the tagline for this movie is “Real Adventure Has No Limits”.

So yeah, this is one of those “based on real life events” type of films, even though from looking at the trailers, you might get the idea that it’s some sort of fantasy. And speaking of fantasy, the film has some similarities with a couple of movies out there, but the most blaringly obvious one is Life of Pi (2012). Both films are about people traveling on a raft through the perilous, unpredictable ocean. On both films the travelers meet beautiful marine life, gigantic whales, sharks, glowing sea creatures, flying fish. Both films also explore the validity of faith, of believing in what we can’t see. While Life of Pi preaches about the Christian concept of God, Kon-Tiki has a character fiercely believing in ‘Tiki’, a Polynesian God. At one point this belief in ‘Tiki’ is questioned when a character tells Heyerdahl “nobody believes in your Tiki story” to which Heyerdahl replies “Then why are you here?”  So Kon-Tiki has various levels of similarity with Life of Pi, the difference is that while Life of Pi is more of a fantasy film, Kon-Tiki happened for real. These crazy guys really did take this journey through the Pacific on a raft they built themselves. The film also had some similarities with a film I love very much called Joe Versus theVolcano (1990), a film in which Tom Hanks also embarks on a journey through the ocean on a small raft. Joe Versus the Volcano is a film that gets quite existential, it also touches upon the idea of god. At one point Joe actually looks up at the heavens, talking to a God whose name he does not know and thanking whoever that being might be. What is it with films about people taking perilous journeys on rafts and the theme of God? It might have something to do with pitting man vs. nature; nature on these films being the closest thing to God an idea that pops up in all three of these films, the idea that nature and life are so grand that they are worthy of our worship.

In Kon-Tiki, the part of the story that amazed me the most is the one about these guys building this raft all on their own and deciding to just do it. I mean, this took guts because they wanted to make the journey sans anything modern, save for a radio to communicate with in case of emergencies. Heyerdahl even tried looking for funding through National Geographic magazine, a help which the magazine denied because Heyerdahl’s journey seemed downright suicidal to them. Which made sense to me in a way, I mean, when the journey begins, you feel as if these guys are so green, they really don’t know much about traveling through the ocean, much less on a wood raft. You kind of get the feeling that the sea is going to give them a good whoopin’. But what they lacked in experience, they made up with sheer adventurous spirit. And a grand adventure it was, the film portrays all their adventures, their fights with sharks, whales, the weather and themselves. Those scenes where the men interact with nature bring up some of the most spectacular moments in the film, my favorite being their encounter with a whale, such an awesome scene. It reminded me a bit of that elusive mythical fish in Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), yet another film about a group of adventurous men in the sea.

Thor Hayerdahl wrote about his experiences and printed them in a book called The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft across the South Seas. He also took Cousteau’s example and filmed the whole expedition with hopes of turning the footage into a documentary, which ended becoming a documentary called Kon-Tiki (1950). By the way, that documentary won an Oscar in 1951! Heyerdahl continued doing expeditions after this one, there’s actually a whole museum dedicated to all of his journeys where you can see all the different rafts he made for these different journeys. The guy dedicated himself to a life of adventure and exploration, so much so that he sacrificed his family life and this is something that the movie addresses a bit, how his journeys destroyed his marriage. This is a concept that’s been played out in films about people who are so devoted to achieving a certain goal, that they opt to sacrifice everything, marriage, love and even family life. These are people that feel that what they are doing is bigger than themselves, so they pay the price. At the end of the day I thought the film was very motivational, it also reminded me of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982), yet another film about a determined dude in a boat going against all odds. Final words on this film is that even though it is a really beautiful film to look at and one with some amazing moments in it, it needed maybe a little more conflict, a little more intensity in its plot; but aside from that, I personally really dug this movie. The Norwegian directors of this film, Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg did such a swell job with this movie that they are now directing the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film, looking forward to that, it will be interesting to see what kind of feel they can add to that franchise. Bottom line is, if you love nature, need to be inspired and have an adventurous spirit, this one comes highly recommended.  

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Memorable Movie Quotes from the 90's

Film: The Mask (1994)

Quote: "Somebody stop me!" 

Film: Clerks (1994)

Quote: "Im not even supposed to be here today!"

Film: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1994) 

Quote: "Did you see what God just did to us man?"

Film: Toy Story (1995)

Quote: "To infinity and Beyond!"

Film: Babe (1995)

Quote: "That'll do Pig, that'll do!"

Film: Braveheart (1995)

Quote: "They can take away our lives, but they'll never take away our freedom!"

Film: Apollo 13 (1995)

Quote: "Houston, we have a problem!"

Film: Schindler's List (1993)

Quote: "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire" 

Film: Ed Wood (1994)

Quote: "This is the one, this is the one I'll be remembered for!"

Film: Titanic (1997)

Quote: "I'm the King of the World!"

Title: The Mask (1994)

Quote: "Smokin'!" 

Title: Forrest Gump (1994)

Quote: "My momma always said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get"

Title: Army of Darkness (1992)

Quote: "First you wanna kill me, now you wanna kiss me. Blow!"

Film: The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 

Quotes: "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti"

Film: Pulp Fiction (1994)

Quote: "And you will know that my name is The Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"

Film: The Usual Suspects (1995)

Quote: "Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze"

Film: A Few Good Men (1992)

Quote: "The truth? You can't handle the truth!"

Film: Ghost (1990)

Quote: "Molly, you in danger girl!"

Film: The Sixth Sense (1999)

Quote: "I see dead people"

Film: Kindergarten Cop (1990)

Quote: "It's not a tumor!" 

Film: Fight Club (1999)

Quote: "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" 

Film: Jerry Maguire (1996)

Quote: "Show me the money!" 

Film: The Matrix (1999)

Quote: "It is the question that drives us Neo"

Film: As Good As It Gets (1997)

Quote: "You make me want to be a better man"

Film: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1992)

Quote: "Hasta La Vista Baby!"

Film: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)

Quote: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering"  

Film: Unforgiven (1992)

Quote: "It's a hell of a thing killing a man"

Film: Waynes World (1992)

Quote: "A sphyncter says what?"

Film: Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quote: "Ramblers, let's get rambling!" 

Film: The Big Lebowski (1998)

Quote: "I am the dude, so thats what you call me. You know, uh, that or uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or uh, you know, El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing"

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Title: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

Director: Lasse Hallstrom

Cast: Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, Juliette Lewis, John C. Reily, Crispin Glover, Mary Steenburgen, Darlene Cates

Review:

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is a film that talks about how life can be strange, beautiful and tragic all rolled into one and how sometimes there’s not much we can do about it. Sometimes, those are the cards we are dealt and what’s left for us to do is just try and survive as best we can through it while we are trying to make sense of it all. In this film we meet Gilbert Grape, a young man who’s lost his father, has an obese mother, two bitchy sisters and a mentally challenged brother called Arnie; so Gilbert doesn’t exactly enjoy a happy family life. It’s not that he doesn’t love his family, in fact; he is portrayed as someone who loves his entire family even though they sometimes drive him nuts. He’s the kind of guy who’ll take care of everyone else before taking care of himself. He forgets to make himself happy, but this is not entirely his fault, his brother Arnie takes up a lot of his time, Arnie needs Gilbert to survive. So in a way, Gilbert is kind of like a male version of Amelie (2004), you remember that one? That’s the French film about a girl named Amelie, she would help everyone, but always forgot to make herself happy. She didn’t even have time to find love, until she made time for it. This film follows a similar structure. Gilbert is the ultimate do gooder.

This is the kind of film that’s all about small town life. The film takes place in a fictional town called ‘Endora’. Gilbert is always complaining, saying how much he wants to leave Endora because not a whole lot happens there. If you ask me, I’d love to live there; the whole place is kind of like a paradise? The entire film was beautifully shot in Texas, and honestly, it made me want to live there, it’s that kind of film, its locations are so beautiful, you’ll wish you were there. But of course, the main character takes it for granted. I guess Gilbert wants out of Endora because to him, Endora is well, the name of the town says it all, it's End-ora. I guess Endora is representative of the quintessential dead end town. We always want what we don’t got, the fat want to be skinny, the poor want to be rich, the rich want to know about common people…and Gilbert wants out of Endora. I understand Gilbert though, I mean, here he is, in the prime of his youth and he is working in a local supermarket that’s on the brink of closing down.

When Gilbert goes back home, he goes to a dysfunctional family, now here is the true reason for Gilbert’s unhappiness. He finds himself trapped with taking care of his mother and his mentally challenged brother Arnie, masterfully played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Now here’s something you need to know about this movie, this is one of DiCaprio’s finest performances. It’s not an easy thing to play a mentally challenged individual, when done wrong, it can go horribly wrong.  An example of this is Sean Penn in I Am Sam (2001) a movie I despise because to me Sean Penn didn’t really sell me the performance; to me it looked like Penn simply playing 'stupid', not a convincing performance at all. But DiCaprio’s Arnie? Now we are talking! Now here’s a convincing performance! To be honest, when this film first came out in 1993, DiCaprio was just getting started in his career and I didn’t know who the hell he was yet. I actually thought they had used a mentally challenged actor to do this performance, it is that convincing!

DiCaprio did extensive research for his performance, which is why it comes off as so believable; he actually spent some time in a home for mentally challenged teenagers. DiCaprio’s performance did not go unnoticed; he was nominated for many awards that year, he was even nominated for an Academy Award in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category. Sadly, DiCaprio’s nomination was one of those times when an actor should have won the Oscar but didn’t. You know, like that year in which Ellen Burstyn was nominated for her amazing performance in Requiem for a Dream (2000) but ended up losing to Julia Roberts for her performance in Erin Brockovich (2000)? And you’re left saying “whaaaat?!” Well, that year, Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for playing Arnie, but lost to Tommy Lee Jones for his performance in The Fugitive (1993), can you believe it? One look at DiCaprio on What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, it’s one of his best performances ever, truly memorable, he got me to feel for Arnie. I doubt you even remember Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive, but after seeing Arnie in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, I doubt you’ll forget the performance. The chemistry between Arnie and Gilbert is great, loved seeing  Depp and DiCaprio performing together.

But then again all the performances on this film are outstanding in my book. Darlene Cates, the actress they chose to play Gilbert’s obese mother, she was chosen after Peter Hodges, the author of the book the film is based on saw Cates appearance in an episode of the Sally Jessy Raphael show. The show’s theme was “Too Heavy to Leave Their House”. Hodges saw a tape of the show and immediately offered the role of Bonnie Grape to Mrs. Cates, who accepted. Now this was not an easy role to accept because it’s a role that would address her real life obesity and the way that people react to it. There are many scenes where Momma goes out on the street and people stare at her or make fun of her as if she was some sort of freak. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to film these scenes. To me, this actress is a brave soul for recognizing her problem and not being afraid to address it through her performance. Depp himself apologized to the actress after filming some of his lines. So my hats off to this fine actress, she actually got to me; she was completely vulnerable and honest in her performance and that calls for appreciation.

The film is sprinkled with a great supporting cast. Mary Steenburgen plays the desperate housewife looking for some action with Gilbert. John C. Reilly plays this guy who wants to open up a fast food franchise called “Burger Barn”; he swears it’s the best kind of food. That’s something else the film touches upon, how big businesses are gulping up small ones. Then we have Crispin Glover playing the town mortician, basically, it’s one of those movies that is filled with all these characters that make up the town folk. Finally we have Juliette Lewis playing the role of a girl who travels across the United States on a camper with her grandma. When she and Gilbert meet, sparks fly. She offers him something he’d been missing all his life, a breath of fresh air, some love and understanding. Juliette Lewis glows on this movie. So what we got here is a bitter sweet movie filled with some wonderfully happy moments and some terribly dark ones as well, kind of like life. It’s a film that teaches us to take the good with the bad.

Rating:  5 out of 5

World War Z (2013)

Title: World War Z (2013)

Director: Marc Foster

Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, Fana Mokoena, David Morse

Review:

The first thing that pops in my mind when I think of World War Z is that it is the most expensive zombie movie ever made, this zombie opus costs about 200 million dollars to make. So taking that in consideration, I expected the biggest zombie massacre ever. But then I remember they decided to make it a PG-13 film which immediately means, no gore, no graphic gut munching, no blood, no brains, which of course just goes against everything that a true blue zombie movie should be about. I mean, a zombie movie with no gore? That doesn’t even fit the rhyme scheme, but that’s what World War Z is. A gutless zombie movie and I mean that in more ways than one. But okay, so who am I kidding anyways right? This is a movie starring one of the biggest actors in Hollywood, World War Z was not gonna be a graphic zombie film since that fateful day in which Brad Pitt signed on to do the film. So whatever, zombie movie expectations aside, what was World War Z like?

Gerry Lane is an ex United Nations employee who has to reinstate himself in order to help the government discover the origins of the zombie plague. In order to find a possible cure for the zombie plague, they have to find “patient zero”, the first victim of the virus. In this way they can identify the cause of the disease so they can find a way to stop it. So the search for this patient zero takes Gerry all over the globe. Unfortunately, the plague is spreading so quickly that any country that Gerry visits is overrun by thousands of zombies! Will they ever find the ever elusive patient zero?

If you ask this zombie fan a gore less zombie movie just isn’t the same, I mean, isn’t the nature of a zombie that they eat flesh and or brains? But whatever, I decided to accept World War Z for what it is. I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is one of those movies that’s PG-13 but still intense and scary? And it was, I’d say that even without the graphic violence and gore we’ve come to associate with zombie films, World War Z remains gripping and intense. And it has some genuinely spooky moments squeezed in there. On any one of these zombie movies, my favorite moments are those in which the zombie plague is just getting started, when the chaos is just starting to show its ugly face and these moments are very exciting in World War Z. We first come to face with the zombie chaos when Gerry and his family are on their car, having a nice day. Suddenly chaos hits and its explosions, car crashes and thousands of people hollering down a city street running from zombies…all cool stuff, exciting. I mean these zombies can leap like grasshoppers! And the movie maintains that level of excitement all throughout. My only critique would be that they should have made the zombies scarier, as it is, all we see them do is run ferociously, and that’s it. You never see a zombie munching away at somebody, so why are they a threat? Because they can run really fast? Yes my friends, sadly the flesh/brain eating element was left out of this zombie opus, as a result, the film is less gripping then it could have been. In my opinion, World War Z is good, but it would have been a better zombie movie had it been rated ‘R’.

World War Z is based on Max Brooks’ novel World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. For those not in the know, Max Brooks is also the son of Mel Brooks, the famous director of comedies such as Young Frankenstein (1974) and Spaceballs (1987). In contrasts with his father’s career, Max Brooks has chosen to be a writer of zombie novels! He also wrote another zombie themed book called The Zombie Survival Guide. From what I gather, the film is a very loose adaptation of the book, I haven’t read the book, but I’ve read some fans complaining that it isn’t a very good adaptation. When they adapt a film into a book, I like to judge the movie on its own merits; unfortunately, World War Z is not a very original film. Instead of sticking with the books political criticism or dammit, some of the books more original elements (from what I’ve read there are a lot of those on this book!) the filmmakers decided to show us moments we’d already seen before in previous zombie films. What I’m saying is that if you’re a zombie fan, then you’ll be familiar with many of the situations presented on World War Z.

The picture perfect suburban family thing, where the film starts out with a beautiful happy family being extra happy and joyful only to hurl them directly in the middle of zombie chaos is something we already saw before in Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004).The scene in which a zombie horde follows Gerry as he jumps off the building? Saw that in Resident Evil Afterlife (2010). The heroes of the film find refuge with a nice family inside a complex building? Saw that in 28 Days later (2002), even the last shots of this film and the way it was resolved reminded me of I Am Legend (2007). Zombie outbreak on a plane? Saw that in Flight of the Living Dead (2007)! So in the end, World War Z goes down a couple of notches in its rating simply because it wasn’t that original. In essence, even though it entertains, it doesn’t break new ground in terms of what a zombie film is. The most original element about this film is how the masses of stampeding zombies pile on top of one another to form waves of zombies, but aside from that, it’s all be there and done that. 

So ultimately, what hurt this movie the most, in terms of it being a good zombie film, was Hollywood playing it safe. Multimillion dollar productions like this one are such a risk, that Hollywood has no options but to put a huge star in it and rate it PG-13 so that the biggest amount of youngsters will go see it. If they stamp it with an R, they are afraid fewer kids will be let in theaters to see it. When has an R rating ever stopped a kid from seeing a movie? I don’t know about you guys, but that whole rating thing is bull, I’ve seen kids seeing R rated movies in theaters all the time, so I don’t know about the validity of that whole rating thing. Ultimately I think theaters will take your money no matter what age you are. But in order to play it safe and rake in that dough, they rate it PG-13, it doesn’t matter to them if they end up with a less effective movie. They even went and changed the ending of the film entirely in order to give it the typical happy ending; I hear the ending was supposed to be this big ass zombie war, which would have made sense, I mean the film is called World War Z after all. As it is, the film doesn’t end with a bang, it ends with a whimper. Of course it’s going to have a happy ending; this is Brad freaking Pitt we’re talking about here. I’m not saying it wasn’t entertaining or gripping, in fact it has some moments that take zombie films to a level of epic that zombie films had never reached, I mean, 200 million bucks can buy you a whole lot of goodies for your film, but then you also feel like World War Z is missing valuable elements that would have made it even more effective.  I would have preferred this movie with a lesser known actor and with more guts. But alas, World War Z is Hollywood; pure and unadulterated.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5

"No, no, no, scrap all that, we're going with the mega happy ending!" Brad Pitt talks with director Marc Foster behind the scenes.