Queue Catch All #3 - Bones, Sketches and the CIA

The Lovely Bones - We watched this with our good friends/close relatives Karl and Allie. (Celebrity name Kallie) Watching a movie with people vastly changes the mood and intended comedy of a film. When someone else doesn't buy into something on screen or thinks it's funny you're suddenly thrust into thinking that, whether you like it or not. This is usually okay when watching a comedy, as a group usually does. But watching a semi-serious drama is a different story. The Karl half of Kallie is a joker and didn't take much of the movie very serious, which brought the whole mood of the room down (or up). We all began questioning the movie; it's characters' motivations, the fantasy afterlife, the funny 14 year old girl dialogue. But the one thing we didn't make fun of was Stanley Tucci's performance of the killer. He was freaky and chilling. The Allie half of Kallie, who works as a counselor for troubled teens, kept commenting on the accuracies of the character and how it related to real life killers. From seeing just the trailers, I could tell that Tucci deserved an Oscar nomination, and his performance in the whole movie didn't disappoint. He's haunting and thorough as the neighbor killer. You can see his method from the hair, mustache and glasses, to the way he talked, walked and laughed. Tucci was this killer to the core.
The film as a whole made some interesting story choices, and because of that I think it received poor reviews. It just doesn't follow standard movie plotline. The protagonist is dead and only occasionally acts to move the plot forward. She's barely even reactive. No one in the real world ever fully steps forward to take the place as the driving force in the movie, sometimes it's the father, sometimes the sister. At the end, the girl does nothing to stop Tucci from getting away. There are so many little things that alter the course of the film away from a standard story that a wide audience can accept, but that's what I admire about the film. It took a lot of chances. I'm curious to know how faithful it is to the book, because that may be why it made the choices it did. It's worth a view, there was enough there to make it enjoyable and enough in Stanley Tucci's performance to draw you in.

 Year One and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life - I've been meaning to do a review of Year One, but it's so awful that I hate even talking about it. So after seeing The Meaning of Life, I figured I could pair them together and talk about a good sketch movie next to a very poor sketch movie. Year One doesn't think that it's a sketch movie, it has a singular plot and protagonists, while The Meaning of Life actually is a movie made up entirely of sketches each relating to the meaning of life. Even though Year One has a plot and protagonists, it's nothing but a series of sketches relating to cavemen, biblical stories and ancient civilizations. Each scene or section is like a gag relating to that story or time period. They meet Cain and Abel and it's all a laugh when Cain kills Abel and the ways he denies it. Then later they meet Abraham and accidentally stops him from sacrificing his son and then it's a laugh when he wants to circumcise Black and Cera. And this is actually the good part of the film, once it starts getting a plot it all goes downhill and any interest left in the film is gone to whatever else around your house has caught your attention.
The Meaning of Life never takes on a plot and is better for it. These guys are the masters of sketch comedy, so each sketch has it's own story and pay off. And just like in the usual Monty Python style, they all kind of relate to each other and often build on earlier sketche's in-jokes.
The problem, though, is that you have to be a real fan of Monty Python to enjoy the whole thing. They never move beyond their usual comedy to make something that everyone could enjoy. Not that they have to sell themselves out to make everyone laugh, but at times the film is almost drearily lost in Monty Python humor that it isn't funny anymore, you're almost sick of them.
The brightest spot of the film, though, is the opening short film. What a masterpiece! I loved it. It has Terry Gilliam's stamp all over it. It felt like Time Bandits or Brazil, it was dark and worldly, yet fantastical and funny. And like the best sketch comedy, it was built around juxtaposing puns together to make a hybrid world. In this case, corporate takeover and pirates. The whole movie is worth it, just for the opening.

Plus I finally found where the meaning of this Family Guy joke came from...

....The Meaning of Life's super weird Intermission

Charlie Wilson's War - Like Syriana, this is a film dealing with politics and Mid-East conflicts. (Actually Afghanistan isn't a Middle Eastern country, but it is a Muslim one.) However, this film is based on real events and is generally comedic. But just like Syriana, the actual plot of the film is completely dry. It's the characters that make it worthwhile. Yes, the characters. Every film is about characters. Lovely, awesome characters. But none so than this film, because Charlie Wilson could be fighting for anything and it would be fun and interesting. And that shows, because the whole film consists of him back dealing and glad-handing people, you never really see the real action (the CIA guys training or any real action except stock footage of the war.).
So how do they get away with it? The filmmakers actually didn't, this film didn't do so well and has been mainly forgotten. But the film still works, so how did they get away with making it actually a good film? I have no idea, except the characters were fun to watch. Tom Hanks is being his normal charming self. (You could drop him on an island by himself and it would be interesting for 2 hours.) And Julia Roberts is fun as a Texas millionaire. But my favorite was Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the CIA operative. I wanted to see more of him, but he's nothing more than a set piece, representing the CIA. So in conclusion, did the film work? Yes and no. It tricked you into thinking it was great because the characters were so fun and enjoyable, but it didn't work because the whole film was just like a documentary with A+ actors but no character growth. At least Syriana had that going for it.