Mantis Fists

The fight for civil rights in the United States has been a brutal, painstaking process. Reversing the status quo, and convincing people that their prejudices and preconceptions are unfounded, is difficult business. Yet throughout history there have been those fearless people who understood that their own rights were deserved. Equality. It is a simple, defined word, and yet so many lives have been lost, both publicly and anonymously, to its cause. Obviously there’s never been a shortage of films championing equality in its various forms, or romanticizing revolutionary figures, but none have captured the nature of grassroots organization and humanized a controversial issue in the same bold, beautiful fashion of Gus Van Sant’s “Milk”.

Being a heterosexual male, the subject matter of “Milk” was admittedly foreign to me. Of course, often the most fascinating and rewarding material is that which challenges. The film begins as Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) is living in New York City, working a desk job. He meets Scott Smith (James Franco) in a subway station, a man much younger than himself, and they begin a relationship, eventually attracting them to San Francisco’s Castro District where they open a camera shop at a time when the Castro District is seeing increased numbers of gays migrating from across the country. The amount of support available in the neighborhood encourages Harvey Milk to begin work repealing anti-gay legislation, while gathering a substantial following who convene in his camera shop to map out campaigns.

He runs for city supervisor, and after two losses in ‘73 and ‘75, manages to run a successful campaign for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Also on the Board is Dan White (Josh Brolin), a flustered and socially awkward conservative who resents Milk for reasons beyond mere bigotry. If interested in the ending of the film, simply look at the history of the real Harvey Milk.

“Milk” is, while soaring and ultimately powerful, a surprisingly by-the-book biopic, focusing more on fact than a passionate retelling of Harvey Milk’s story. Sean Penn is utterly charismatic, capturing both the mannerisms and the idealism of the real life activist with unprecedented bravado. He’s both an icon and a clever politician, and for the most part, the film portrays his shrewdness and determination rather than the sweeping emotion that one might have expected from such a controversial and unique figure, in an equally incredible time and place. You’d be a fool to miss this film, a surprisingly somber and realistic depiction of a man’s life and determined efforts to work within the political system for change.

Kung Fu Panda is Dreamworks Animation’s latest computer-generated cartoon, centering around a kung fu panda named Po who becomes the “chosen one” in his small village in China. He is a fat, lazy, clumsy panda, but nonetheless, Master Oogway, an aging turtle and the leader of the kung fu troupe the “Furious Five”, sees in him the makings of a legendary warrior. Po eats dumplings, but must put down the chopsticks and train if he wants to be able to roll with the Furious Five.

The film contains the hallmarks of a commercial CGI movie: vague inspiration, subtle adult humor, slapstick, and pop culture references. Thankfully, the panda’s story is less fueled by allusions and references and impressions than satirizing the kung fu genre. The world is populated only by animals, like the rhinoceros prison guards (one of which is voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan). The Furious Five are in fact rather star-studded, consisting of the Tigress (Angelina Jolie), the Mantis (Seth Rogen), the stork (David Cross), the monkey (Jackie Chan), and the viper (Lucy Liu). Perhaps the most successful voice casting is Dustin Hoffman as Master Shi-fu, the tiny red panda, a master of kung fu and Po’s mentor, teaching him the ways of the foot and fist by enticing him with delicious dumplings. The safety of the village is threatened when the leopard Tai Lung (Ian McShane) escapes from his heavily fortified prison and returns to wreak havoc on the Furious Five.

While generally enjoyable, “Kung Fu Panda” also seems to delight in the celebration of fat jokes. Po is the cute, dumb fatty, and I could not help but imagine chubby children idolizing him not for his determination and skill but for his big belly flop moves– never has Jack Black, who voices Po, celebrated his own chunk so vehemently. Make no mistake about it, “Kung Fu Panda” is a commercial effort, but it is funny, and certainly a good direction for the increasingly banal animation genre, in that it emphasizes character and story rather than its own potty humor.

Role models are those people that you seek to emulate. David Wain (from MTV’s The State and the comedy group Stella) makes his directorial debut with a movie that was most likely first in the hands of Judd Apatow. Colorful and perfect, Role Models is textbook Hollywood comedy fare, even with Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott in the mix as two men sent to a big brother-esque day camp called Sturdy Wings to serve community service hours. It’s a simple premise, and never extends beyond it’s lightweight limits, staying close to “American Pie” and “40 Year-Old Virgin”, but does make for a surprisingly funny and adept look at maturity.

Paul Rudd plays Danny, a negative-minded salesman hawking a nutritionally worthless energy drink called Minotaur. His partner, who must don a minotaur costume, is Wheeler, played by Seann William Scott. There’s no real challenge here: Paul Rudd plays Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott reprises his party boy character. They are sent to Sturdy Wings to fulfill court-appointed community service hours, which they receive after crashing the Minotaur truck. Paul Rudd is assigned to spend time with a strange nerd named Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who’s main interest is live action role-playing. If you’re unfamiliar with LARPing, it is the dressing up and acting out of fantasy scenarios, such as pretending you are a knight. Augie is part of LAIRE, a large neighborhood LARP group, reenacting mythical battles on the weekends. Paul Rudd is at first horrified by Augie’s out-of-control geek, but the two soon become “true friends”. The highlight of the film however, is Seann William Scott’s buddy, a young black kid named Ronnie played with comic perfection by Bobb’e J. Thompson. The funniest moments in the film are as Ronnie blurts out his extremely vulgar thoughts. He is a boy that has seen more in his impoverished ghetto than most adult men, and so, as the advertisements for Big Brother say on television, he ends up teaching his Big Brother more about masculinity and responsibility than vice versa.

Again though, simplicity and predictability are the name of the game, and “Role Models” does as little as possible to remove itself from the many like-minded comedies that have come before it. KISS references and LARP battles aside, there’s nothing more here than you will find in any other comedy of its kind. More built around its players than its premise, there’s not much to look up to.

A late contribution to the Year of the Comic Book Movie, Frank Miller’s directorial debut The Spirit is a complicated affair: based on Will Eisner’s graphic novels of the same name, it mimics the gray-scale noir of “Sin City”, as well as its raspy narration. Less somber than “Sin City” though, it is a cartoon mess, more concerned with slapstick and visual charm than the comic’s famed storytelling. But it does have its good traits: Scarlett Johannsen and Eva Mendes are supporting players, and Frank Miller, the fifty-year old comic book writer, films them with utter devotion, the kind that can only be found at costume conventions and D&D gatherings.

“The Spirit” begins with little introduction. The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) is an unnamed hero, one that wears a mask, a fedora, and a black suit with a red tie. He jumps from dilapidated building to fire escape to abandoned water tower.. His arch nemesis is the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), a lunatic with an obsession with the number eight, hence his name. Get it? Ha ha. The fun begins and ends with Sammy J, who consistently entertains the world. As the Octopus, he seems to be more concerned with entertaining himself than anything else- he boils a cat, dresses as a Nazi, and murders his cloned henchman often. But where the Octopus succeeds, the rest of the film is painfully uninspired. The Spirit has his way with many women, but unlike Marv’s hulking scenes in “Sin City”, the love-making is only spoken of. For the most part, the movie is cliched dialogue and absurd battles between the Spirit and the Octopus. Save for some humorous scenes in the Octopus’s lair, “The Spirit” is entirely disposable, a popcorn flick without a drop of substance.