TOY STORY: Innovating with Style

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Our first movie is that very revolutionary work mentioned above, Toy Story.

Other Reviews in this Series.

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: John Lasseter
Writers: John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Joe Ranft, Joss Whedon, Joel Cohen, Alec Sokolow
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, John Morris, Erik von Detten
Runtime: 81 mins.
1995

My mom tells the story of the first time I ever watched Toy Story. She had gotten a handful of free tickets to see the movie through work, so decided to make it a family outing. My dad certainly had no interest in the movie, but he was a good sport about it. My older brother required a great deal of coaxing to see a little kids' rated G film called Toy Story, but parents can be convincing. So the four of us took a trip to the theater. I was two and a half years old. This was my first movie on the big screen. I sat on my mother's lap. I remember none of this.

The movie started, and my mom had no idea what was going on. Imagine growing up with two separate categories in your head: animation and live action. Then suddenly, you're watching toys zoom about the screen in what looks like a real physical child's bedroom... but the toys are alive. Imagine not following the promotion of the film, and not knowing that computer animation was a thing, or what it could look like. Imagine the uncanny wonder of that opening sequence: Andy's bank robbery melodrama.

Of course, she eventually adjusted to the medium shock and discovered the great substance behind it. The whole family laughed throughout the film, and little toddler Ryan sat silent and enraptured throughout its entire runtime.

AMISTAD: Save the Slaves

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. Amistad is Spielberg's attempt to deliver a meaningful film about slavery that isn't packed with stereotypes and fetishism.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Franzoni
Cast: Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Pete Postlethwaite, Nigel Hawthorne, David Paymer, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Anna Paquin
Runtime: 155 mins
1997

In the year 1839, a group of captured African slaves broke free from captivity, revolted, and killed most of the crew of a Spanish slaving ship called the Amistad. They were ultimately captured by the American navy and brought to America for trial. Contrary to what you might think, the trial had less to do with the brutal murder of the crew and more to do with the ownership of the African men--the surviving slavers, the Queen of Spain, and the American ideal of freedom all made claims. This case ultimately made it to the Supreme Court, where the slaves were defended in grand fashion by former president John Quincy Adams. This is the story of Spielberg's Amistad.

Yet Amistad feels like it is more than just one story. It feels like two movies nesting within each other. One is anchored in the perspective of the slaves, and kicks off the movie with one of the most harrowing opening sequences I've ever seen: the revolt. Spielberg pulls no punches; the violence is wretched and brutal, the slaves bloodthirsty, the captors merciless. The camerawork is an orchestra of disorienting close-ups, lit hectically by lightning and lanternlight, punctuated with desperation. Then it is over, and we follow the journey of these Africans whose language and customs we do not understand, but whose plight is already all too familiar to us. The camera swings up and reveals the breathtaking stars, the captives' only guide home.

The other movie is anchored in the perspective of white members of the political and legal behemoth that is the United States' judicial system. This perspective supersedes the other, taking up most of the runtime. It is more visually and structurally typical, with dialogue-driven courtroom scenes and earnest pleas for help and justice. This movie is less artful but just as competent as the other.

The true identity of Amistad isn't either of these movies, but the thing that exists where these two movies clash. As this recent Birth.Movies.Death essay articulates, Spielberg and co. are clearly aware of the pitfalls that movies about slavery are liable to fall into: the Noble Savage, the White Savior, Brutality Fetish, etc. These are tropes are not only lazy and played out, but they undermine the very purpose of the movies that contain them. If you want to show how bad slavery is, why are you whitewashing the black protagonist? If you want to show that people of color deserve equality and independence, why can they accomplish nothing without the help of the generous white man? Does it give you pleasure to linger so on the pain of minorities?

EMPIRE OF THE SUN: The Sun Never Sets on the Land of the Free Rising Chinese Empire

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. This time we're looking at Empire of the Sun, a movie that I find to be criminally overlooked.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Tom Stoppard
Cast: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Joe Pantoliano, Miranda Richardson, Peter Gale, Nigel Havers
Runtime: 153 mins.
1987

Empire of the Sun is a World War II film from an atypical perspective. The movie follows a young British boy named Jamie Graham (Christian Bale) who has lived in Shanghai his whole life. His father is a merchant, and his mansion is maintained by Chinese servants. He takes advantage of them, as any young boy in his social position would do. But his social position changes drastically when a Japanese military force invades Shanghai, and the streets erupt in a chaos of fleeing civilians. Jamie is separated from his parents and wanders about the city bereft, hungry, and seeking someone to take him to safety. The man he finds and latches onto is an American scoundrel named Basie (John Malkovich) who prides himself on being able to slip through the cracks of society. Unfortunately, he's not slippery enough. Basie and the freshly-christened "Jim" are deposited in a Japanese internment camp, and most of the film follows Jim as he grows up in leaps and bounds, styling himself as the caretaker of everyone in the camp. He becomes more capable than many of the depressed and defeated adults around him; he takes the blows of wartime with both a childish eagerness and a well-worn wisdom.

1941: Spielberg's Flop

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. Here we examine 1941, that rarest of rarities: an outright bad film by Steven Spielberg.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Disclaimer: I watched the extended director's cut, so take any complaints about the length of this film with a grain of salt.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, John Milius
Cast: Bobby Di Cicco, Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Christopher Lee, Tim Matheson, Toshiro Mifune, Warren Oates, Robert Stack, Treat Williams, Nancy Allen, John Candy, Eddie Deezen, Perry Lang, Frank McRae, Slim Pickens
Runtime: 118 mins. (directors cut: 145 mins)
1979

1941 is great, but not funny.
-Stanley Kubrick

Humor is a magical elixir. It's like practicing alchemy except sometimes it actually works. Professional improvisers, comedians, Sunday comics writers*, and comic filmmakers have dedicated whole careers to seeking out that elixir, and trying to capture its magic consistently. So what is it that makes a movie funny?

*maybe not

In the wake of the massive success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg decided the answer is excess. 1941 is a movie about California in the fallout following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Everybody is convinced that the Japanese are going to invade Californian soil, and the attack could strike at any moment. The movie is a wide-ranging survey of mostly military characters who mostly react with panic or bravado until their paths mostly cross in one of several of the movies climaxes. Everything in 1941 is built for bombast. The special effects are spectacular, the gags are enormous (often involving heavy machinery of war), and the cast boasts a great many of the comedic stars of the '70s. It's a cavalcade of tomfoolery.

It's also overlong, oversaturated, and not very funny.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND: I Want to Believe

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. Today's film is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, young Spielberg's alien encounter passion project.

Other Reviews in this Series: Duel, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive in the corner ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Melinda Dillon, Francois Truffaut, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban
Runtime: 137 mins.
1977

Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a movie about aliens visiting Earth and making their first (official) contact. The entire film unravels like the first act of an alien invasion movie blown up, drawn out, and made resonant in its own right.* We see the bizarre effects of the impending alien contact on all sorts of people, only a handful of which are main characters. The most central, most explored, and most interesting human is Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), who encounters a UFO on a lonely road at night, and cannot stop thinking about it. His obsession morphs into something strange and uncontrollable, and he alienates his family in the process of trying to figure out what it is that pulls him so.

*I hesitate to make this comparison, but this movie operates much like M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable in the sense that that film is the first act of a superhero origin story blown up, drawn out, and thus fashioned into a spiritual journey. We forget, but once upon a time Shyamalan was heralded as the new Spielberg. A few years ago the new new Spielberg was supposed to be J. J. Abrams. I think it's a testament to Spielberg's singularity that we clearly have not yet found his heir to the blockbuster throne.

I've seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind twice now, and I still have no idea exactly how I should think about it. Part of that must be that the film thematically denies this brand of dissection, imploring us, "Don't think about it: just go." It's a film about a religious conversion, among other things.

Part of it might be that this is the truest, most essential Spielberg film. That's a bit of a paradox, as so much of Close Encounters is antithetical to the sort of blockbuster that Spielberg invented. There's no strong, clear narrative arc. The protagonist isn't easily sympathetic--in fact he's kind of despicable. There aren't any explosions or fights. There isn't much of any conflict whatsoever. Nor is it akin to Spielberg's later dramatic fare, with large sweeping narratives and big historical personalities. This film is an unfocused story of everymen and nobodies. Despite all that, the one major constant of all of Spielberg's filmography, a trend that Close Encounters doubles down on, is a profound sense of awestruck wonder. That most Spielbergian of cinematic tricks is purest in Close Encounters, which is not coincidentally the only movie in all of Spielberg's career that he both wrote and directed.* Spielberg is the anti-Nolan for this reason: Nolan demands you apply your intellect to his puzzle box narratives, and rewards you for doing so. Spielberg doesn't care about any of that; if anything, Spielberg demands that you abandon your sense of logic and go along for the ride. Wonder by its nature defies the critical gaze, so maybe that's where I hit the roadblock.

*Poltergeist controversy notwithstanding. (The rumor is that in addition to writing the film, Spielberg ghost directed it.)

Or maybe it's just that Close Encounters is the sort of movie that demands to be revisited every five years or so, and is different every time. I read an article about the film recently, and the comment section was radically split between people who loved the ending (spoiler alert I guess?), whereas a large contingent found it unbelievable and/or morally reprehensible that Roy Neary decides to leave his earthly family behind and go off spacetrotting with the extraterrestrials. Personally, I love the choice. I think it's a perfect button on a movie about the inexplicable pull of the unknown. But then again, I'm a young whippersnapper who doesn't have a family of my own. Spielberg himself has admitted that, after having children, he feels like he screwed up that ending. Either way, I'm glad we got the movie we got. The ending of Close Encounters spits in the face of typical mainstream movie catharsis, and that's a big part of why it's so damned interesting.

Close Encounters is Spielberg's first movie after the massive breakthrough hit of Jaws, and it feels like he still has something to prove. The main character's arc could be read as a religious narrative of course, but it could just as soon be read as the story of the intense and uncanny pull that cinema exercised over young Spielberg's mind. That being said, the whole film sort of washes over you, like a bath in a baptismal font. Maybe it's the lack of conflict, or the deliberate pacing, but all of Close Encounters feels very much like a dream: I only recently watched it, yet I'm having a hard time remembering everything that happened, instead returning again and again to the key moments that have been emblazoned upon my memory. The abduction of the child. The inspired destruction of the suburban home. The musical conversation with the alien mothership. These strong images remain when everything else floats away.

I don't care so much about any of the other characters, but I can't stop thinking about Roy Neary's arc. This certainly means that Dreyfuss did an excellent job. His performance is engaging without being ingratiating, and subtle without being workmanlike. He's not lovable. He's not a piece of crap. He's just a person who feels the need to build a mashed potato mountain.

Special credit goes to the visual effects and, in particular, the lighting design. Apparently Spielberg did a lot of the effects concepts himself, another indicator that this was his labor of love. The visuals fit perfectly with the tone of the movie, and sometimes may look a bit shabby, but feel more real than 95% of effects driven movies. And the lighting is absolutely brilliant. The major thing I remembered from seeing Close Encounters years ago was the blaring orange light that shone through the door during the abduction scene, a scene that is a master class of building tension and the sole point in the movie where the aliens read as overtly sinister. Throughout the movie, the interplay of unnatural light and sound (or lack thereof) works beautifully to establish the uncanny without forcing tension.

It feels weird to rate Close Encounters. It's not one of my favorites, but I think it might be a masterpiece, and I appreciate the hell out of it. It's just one of those films that unveils the ultimate bankruptcy of a numeric rating scale for works of art.

4 / 5  BLOBS

Post-Credit Coda Revamped!

Welcome to the new and improved Post-Credit Coda! I've made a few changes around here. Let me take you on the tour.

This blog was created on impulse, and has evolved impulsively. For a while I rotated the design, posting movie screenshots as backgrounds and changing around the aesthetics. As I've been getting more consistent web traffic, I've felt the need to establish a more permanent look. So here it is! Post-Credit Coda's new semi-permanent look. Feel free to give suggestions for improvement (and don't make fun, I'm not a visual designer...).

More importantly! Post-Credit Coda now has a full-fledged review archive! If you click the link in the top right-hand corner of the blog, you will be taken to the main page of Post-Credit Codex. From there you'll be able to search my review archive alphabetically, by date, and by score. You'll also be able to see the archive of Top Ten lists and stuff like that. I've experimentally added a few gadgets that'll allow you to take polls and submit suggestions or requests.

Finally, a change in content. My plan is to start rolling out more series to supplement the one-off reviews. I tried this out earlier in the summer with a Jurassic series retrospective, and I really enjoyed how it unfolded. Watching the franchise develop gave me some neat ideas about self-awareness in blockbusters. Plus for whatever reason, my Jurassic Park review has become the most viewed post on the website by a large margin.

Later today I'll be starting another series, a Spielberg retrospective leading up to his new movie Bridge of Spies. I've picked a collection of five Spielberg films I have seen and five I haven't. I plan to post one of these reviews every other day. Steven Spielberg is one of the most iconic filmmakers of all time, one who has been woven into the childhoods and adulthoods of millions of people across generations--a fitting kick-off and a neat way to fill out my review archive.

As usual, let me know what you think, and let me think what you know.

DUEL: Pure Nasty Screaming Cinematic Bliss

Every other day leading up to the release of his new movie Bridge of Spies, we will be dissecting a film in Steven Spielberg's oeuvre. I've picked ten movies spanning the length of Spielberg's career, five of which I have seen and five of which I haven't. Today we look at Duel, the DTV spectacular that catapulted Spielberg onto the filmmaking scene.

Other Reviews in this Series: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1941, Empire of the Sun, Amistad, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln

Other Spielberg Reviews: Jaws, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Bridge of Spies

(If you haven't already, check out my new archive over there ---->)

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Richard Matheson
Cast: Dennis Weaver
Runtime: 90 mins.
1971

Duel, shot in just over a dozen days, is a low-budget direct-to-television movie about a tractor-trailer that terrorizes an everyman protagonist in his little red car. Nothing about that description sounds auspicious, or even vaguely desirable, unless you're of the sort who deliberately seeks out B-movie schlock. Thankfully, that misleading description lacked the movie's two most important ingredients: Duel was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Steven Spielberg.

THE VISIT: Va-ca-tion Had to Get Away

Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn
Runtime: 94 mins.
2015

This is truly a momentous day.

M. Night Shyamalan has made a new movie. Already this sounds like a very bad idea. I don't like to dogpile on easy targets, but I feel uniquely qualified to do so in this case. M. Night Shyamalan was my first ever favorite director. In the budding years of my cinephilia, I discovered the value of choosing a "favorite director" at the same time I was discovering Shyamalan's body of work. The Village was the first scary movie I'd ever seen, and the shocking moments of blood red imagery are still imprinted on my memory. From there I worked through The Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable, and I loved them all. Shyamalan's deliberate pacing, eye for the unsettling, and twisty plots all had significant appeal to my adolescent brain.

Then came the downfall. I eagerly awaited Lady in the Water, only to be a bit baffled and disappointed by the circlejerking peculiarity of the narrative. After that The Happening was announced. M. Night finally makes an R-rated horror movie! It's about mass suicide! My interest was piqued and I was rooting for it so hard.

We all know how that story goes.

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL?: Mankind's Greatest Achievement

Director: Sion Sono
Writer: Sion Sono
Cast: Fumi Nikaido, Jun Kunimura, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Hiroki Hasegawa, Gen Hoshino, Tomochika, Itsuji Itao, Tak Sakaguchi
Runtime: 129 mins.
2014 (USA)

Where to begin?

Why Don't You Play in Hell? is about a squad of childhood filmmaker friends called the Fuck Bombers, led by a charismatic figure whose goal in life is to make one truly great piece of cinema that will resonate for generations.

But Why Don't You Play in Hell? is also about a young actress who is running away from her responsibilities, trying to find her place in the world, and committing twisted acts of violence against those who get in her way.

Then again, Why Don't You Play in Hell? is actually about two rival yakuza gangs whose leaders are both obsessed with the aforementioned actress. They come to blows over this obsession, and to resolve old rivalries, and to make one truly excellent movie.

More than anything though, Why Don't You Play in Hell? is about a strange toothpaste commercial that knits the plot, characters, and themes together into a satisfying whole.

What I'm trying to tell you is that Hell? is a movie that deliberately defies any sort of concise and sensible summary, so I'm going to stop trying.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: Viewers in a Half-Hell

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Writers: Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec, Evan Daugherty
Cast: Megan Fox, Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Tohoru Masamune, Whoopi Goldberg, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub, Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Danny Woodburn
Runtime: 101 mins.
2014

In response to [Michael Bay's announcement about creative changes in the film], actor Robbie Rist, who voiced Michelangelo in the first three films, wrote to Bay accusing him of "sodomizing" the franchise. Rist later remarked that he could have been out of line since Bay makes more money than he does.
-Wikipedia

Somewhere, in the darkest stickiest corridors of adolescence, a full-time Minecraft player and habitual masturbator has mustered up the list of his (because it is inevitably a he) ten favorite movies--Transformers: Age of Extinction, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, etc.--and from these has logically (because everything must be logical) determined the formula for the most perfect Ninja Turtles movie imaginable, for that is the intellectual property nearest and dearest to his heart, and he feels as if the special effects in the trilogy of extant Turtles films are not realistic enough (because the greatest value an action film can have is realism). From this hypothetical basement-dwelling woman-hating travesty of a subconsciousness, Jonathan Liebesman's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is born.

One more gem from Wikipedia before we get into this:

In mid-February 2013, actress Megan Fox was reported to be cast as April O'Neil, marking her first collaboration with Bay since her remark comparing him to Adolf Hitler.