Playing Catch-Up

Movies: The Dark Knight Rises, Turn Me On Dammit!, The Campaign, Ruby Sparks

Hey guys, so sorry about not updating this blog for a long time. I have been busy moving to a new state and preparing for a new job! But now that I'm settled in, it's time to review a few movies I saw recently.

The Dark Knight Rises

For everyone living under a rock, TDKR is the third film in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The final film finds Gotham nearly a decade after the Joker wrecked havoc on the city and the vigilante known as "the Batman" killed beloved public official Harvey Dent (or so the people of Gotham believed).

Now a new villain, the terrifying Bane, is causing chaos in Gotham in the form of violent civil unrest (imagine if the Occupy movement was run by an violent fascist). Bruce Wayne, who has been avoiding Gotham for years, must suit up and return to save the day, while also fielding the affections of two lovely women, Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

As with Nolan's other Batman movies, TDKR is intense, violent, and more than a little nihilistic. It has some truly intense scenes of destruction (when Bane starts setting off bombs all over Gotham) and fights (the opening scene where Bane takes over a plane in mid-air is awesome).

However, TDKR lacks something that The Dark Knight had. First, I didn't find Bane as compelling as the Joker. Part of this was due to the fact that you can't really tell what's going on behind that scary gas-mask contraption on his face. While Tom Hardy does the best with what he has to work with, his performance doesn't live up to Heath Ledger's insane and oddly sympathetic turn as the tormented Joker.

Also, as someone not familiar with the Batman comics, I was easily able to follow the plot and understand the motivations in The Dark Knight whereas I was often at a loss for what drove the villain(s) in TDKR. So many people seem to want to destroy an entire city because of its "corruption" (where the main corruption comes in the form of those who seek to destroy it) or for revenge. However, I did like the sequences that took place in the South American (or Middle Eastern?) prison.

Despite these quibbles, TDKR is a very good and entertaining movie. Once again, Nolan shows his flair for creating slick, fanciful, and exciting worlds, as well as writing complicated plots that leave the audience with much to debate and discuss.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Turn Me On, Dammit!

This little coming-of-age gem from Norway has something many American teen movies lack: female sexuality without the side helping of exploitation. The film opens with 15-year-old Alma masturbating while listening to her favorite phone sex operator, Stig, describe a juicy scenario to her. Like most teens her age, she lives with her mom and enjoys the rare moment of lack of supervision by indulging in a common pastime (masturbation...not talking to a phone sex operator).

Alma is a normal teenager in her podunk little town in Norway, but she soon finds herself an outcast after her crush, Artur, randomly pokes her with his penis at a youth group event. Alma tells her jealous, mean girl friend, Ingrid, who accuses her of lying. Artur of course denies it, and Alma earns the nickname "Dick Alma". The teasing becomes so bad, that Alma looks for a way out--whether by retreating into her fantasy life, or by literally running away.

The best thing about this movie is how real it is. Alma, Ingrid, and the other teens look and act like real teenagers. They're mean, petty, and horny, but also intelligent and capable of empathy and kindness. The film doesn't blow their small dramas out of proportion (for example, Alma doesn't end up pregnant or raped for her sin of having sexual feelings). Alma has a generally good relationship with her single mother, who is embarrassed and taken aback by Alma's interest in phone sex and porno mags, but she never flips out on her daughter. I can't imagine what this movie would look like if it were made by Americans. Probably pretty dumb.

4 out of 5 stars

***

The Campaign

Speaking of dumb, the latest Will Ferrell comedy sadly has more idiocy than laughs. The movie concerns North Carolina politician Cam Brady (Ferrell), a slick democratic incumbent, who loses popularity after he accidentally leaves a ridiculous and vulgar message intended for his mistress on the answering machine of a conservative local family. Republican bigwigs in DC see the opportunity to run a gullible Yes Man candidate against Brady in the hopes that if this man wins the election, he will blindly pass any legislation they want. Their pick for the Republican candidate? Effeminate, pug-loving Marty Huggins (Zach Galifanakis, who is the best thing about this movie). Huggins is the naive son of Southern Good Ol' Boy Raymond Huggins, who is so old-fashioned, he makes his Asian maid talk like a black Mammy to remind him of times gone by (the joke gets old before it even starts).

Although there are some pretty good jokes and great cameos, The Campaign offers very little you haven't seen a million times before. The writers seem to value penis jokes more than actually coming up with original ideas. It's your typical not great, but not awful comedy.

3 out of 5 stars

***

Ruby Sparks

Ruby Sparks, written by and starring Zoe Kazan, turns the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope on its head. Ruby Sparks is the name of a character created by young writer Calvin (Paul Dano, great as always). Ten years ago, Calvin wrote a Salinger-esque novel that was a huge critical and financial success. Hailed a genius, he has been living off the royalties since and has failed to come up with his next great novel. He has also failed at love, preferring to avoid women and keep to himself, opening up emotionally only to his therapist (Elliot Gould).



Calvin longs so hard for a perfect female mate, that he begins to write about a girl named Ruby who grew up in Dayon, Ohio. Ruby roller skates to work and doesn't own a computer. Ruby wears red dresses and purple tights. Ruby loves giving blow jobs and can cook French cuisine. In other words, Ruby is a geeky male fantasy. The weird thing is...this fantasy comes to life.

One day, Calvin wakes up to find Ruby in his kitchen. At first, he thinks he's going crazy. But when other people see Ruby too, Calvin realizes that he has literally written Ruby into reality. And not only has he created her, he can change her at will, simply by writing whatever changes he would like. The movie takes a dark turn when Ruby begins to do things Calvin doesn't like, such as bond with his mom and stepdad, and flirt with other men. In the end, Calvin has to decide whether he will keep a perfect woman as a prisoner, or let Ruby go off to become a "real girl".

In spite of a sticky-sweet ending that didn't mesh well with the rest of the movie, I loved Ruby Sparks. I thought the idea behind it was fun and interesting, without being heavy-handed. The acting was great--Paul Dano is perfect as the well-meaning but insecure Calvin, and his real life lady love Zoe Kazan is wonderful as the cute, moody Ruby. The supporting roles, including Antonio Banderas as Calvin's hippie stepdad, are equally well cast. If you hate the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl phenomenon, I'd recommend giving Ruby Sparks a try. It suggests that even "kooky" femininity is still kept under lock and key by men who want a partner who was placed on this earth for their pleasure alone.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Katrina Fairy Tale

Movies: Beasts of the Southern Wild

In Benh Zeitlin's magical, moving, revelation of a film, Beasts of the Southern Wild, characters that many of us would consider the reddest of rednecks live in disgusting, abject poverty. They literally sleep on top of trash. Their clothes are ratty and covered in dirt and filth. Yet, the director asks us to believe that they are happy. We (and by "we", I mean most anyone who has shelter, a place to shower, healthy food, and possibly an Internet connection) have difficulty believing that there can be anything other than misery and pain while living in such conditions. Yet we are asked to believe that with such poverty comes a certain dignity and community that cannot be replaced with nice clothes, nice cars, and safe, stable homes.

I had a hard time believing it, I'll tell you that. I would take a safe, clean home and running water over "The Bathtub" any day. The Bathtub is what the residents of the waterlogged, Southern Louisiana community call their town. Beasts takes place in this town in the not to distant future, where global warming is a fact of life, the ice caps are melting, and big chunks of Florida and Louisiana are all but under water.

While most everyone has moved north to avoid the storms and constant flooding, the Bathtub residents have decided to stick it out until...well, until they're underwater. Even if that means having to construct motorized boats out of the backs of dismantled pick-up trucks to glide around in after the storms. Such stubborn refusal to relocate somewhere safer is difficult to believe, especially since some of the Bathtubbers are young children.

Hushpuppy is one such child. She is a motherless six-year-old girl with an unstable, sick daddy who somehow manages to be braver and wiser than many of the adults around her. Quvenzahane Wallis plays Hushpuppy, and her performance is just unbelievable. Hushpuppy is an old soul; acutely attuned to nature. She has a habit of picking up creatures--birds, farm animals, etc--and listening for a heartbeat in their chests. When the ancient beasts that give this movie its title start to roam the land, it is Hushpuppy who is unafraid to face them.

The only thing that Hushpuppy is not equipped to handle is life outside the Bathtub. After a forced evacuation of the area, Hushpuppy and the other Bathtubbers are taken to a stark white shelter that feels more menacing than safe. The 'Tubbers desperately want to return to their warm, wet home, despite its dirtiness and danger.

Although I couldn't relate to the 'Tubbers and their love for their flooded hometown, I was touched by the film's suggestion that home is where one chooses to make it, and the freedom to do so is ultimately more important than safety, convenience, and even life itself. Beasts is a bizarrely patriotic film, given that we live in a country where patriotism is now something you can purchase at Walmart [or Chick-Fil-A ;)].

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a singular film. It is a fairy tale without the glass slipper and the fairy godmother. It's a patriotic film about the very people who are considered lowest on the totem poll of America. It's a film that says inner strength is what makes someone human, not clean clothes and a warm bed. It's a celebration of the human spirit that doesn't put humans on a pedestal above nature.

5 out of 5 stars

Afraid of the Dark

Movies: Dark Horse

There are movies out there that are difficult and challenging. Films like Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda Midnight Express, and Brokeback Mountain are sad, and show us a side of the human condition that we might not like or want to see. But they have nobility in their sadness. They're like vegetables: they don't always taste great, but we know they are good for us.

And then there are movies that are downright hostile. They are misanthropic and their central thesis is usually something to the effect of: "people are shit." In fact, the characters might express this very sentiment out loud.

The films of Todd Solondz fall into this category--hostile, ugly cinema. I've seen five Solondz films now, and I know that when he is at his best (as he is with Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse), his films are darkly humorous and outrageous, like less campy John Waters movies. His films make you hate characters you should sympathize with (the hapless Dawn Weiner in Dollhouse) and sympathize with characters you should be disgusted by (Dylan Baker's sensitive portrayal of a pedophile suburban dad in Happiness is haunting).

But when Solondz is at his worst, as I feel he is with his latest film, Dark Horse, his films are downright boring. Like Abe, the boorish main character, Dark Horse is grating, rude, and annoying. But it's also bizarre, with numerous dream sequences and fantasies that made it difficult to tell what was real and what was in Abe's twisted, childish mind. Also, and this might sound sick, but I didn't find Dark Horse dark enough. Whereas Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse seem to come from a dank, dark pit in the recesses of the human psyche--a place where shame, fear, and taboo hide away--Dark Horse comes more from a smelly, fluorescent-lit dentist's waiting room in small town middle America. Horrible pop music plays in the background. The decor is tacky. The people there look like they really don't want to be there. But it's not like, awful. It's just bad.


Dark Horse concerns a childish, thirty-something man, Abe, who lives with his parents, works (or rather, avoids working) for his dad (Christopher Walken, very understated here), collects toys, and believes that all the good things in life were handed on a platter to his smarter, more attractive younger brother. Abe's most irritating characteristic is that he blames everyone else for his lack of success, while he is clearly a lazy oaf.

Abe meets a woman, Miranda (Selma Blair), at a wedding and proposes to her a week after meeting her. Miranda is severely depressed and seems to cling to the idea of marriage and babies--with someone, anyone--as the answer to her problems. She reluctantly, kinda sorta goes along with Abe's plans. But, as happens in all Solondz films, things eventually go to shit and lead to a very strange yet also very underwhelming ending.

Dark Horse has some good qualities in spite of its overall unimpressiveness. All the actors excel in their roles. Selma Blair is especially good as a woman who is so depressed, she looks like she hasn't slept in weeks. Jordan Gelber is game to play the entitled, insufferable Abe, and does a wonderful job expressing the rage and disappointment coursing beneath Abe's sweaty surface.

There are also some pretty funny moments, such as when Abe tries to return an opened toy to Toys R' Us, only to be rebuffed by the faux-polite employee working there.

In the end, Dark Horse isn't a total loss. It's just not that great. I can only recommend it to fans of Todd Solondz and filmgoers who like very dark, uncomfortable comedies.

2.5 out of 5 stars

2012: The Best (So Far)

Entertainment website AV Club has compiled their picks for the best movies of 2012 (so far). While I agree with most of their choices, others leave me baffled (Haywire? Really?), so I've been inspired to look back at my reviews since January and see which movies impressed me at the time and still stick with me now.

Overall, 2012 has been one of the best years for good films in a long time (in my opinion). While I had trouble coming up with my "Best Of" lists in 2011 and 2010 due to the dearth of films that I felt went above and beyond, I have a feeling that there will be an overabundance of great films by the end of 2012.

So far, here are the movies I enjoyed the most/think are the best:

5. Magic Mike
Think and say what you will about this man-candy filled movie, but Magic Mike has garnered good-to-excellent reviews and I can say that it was one of the most surprising (and fun!) movie experiences I've had this year. The genius casting of Matthew McConaughey as the icky/sexy Dallas and Channing Tatum as Magic Mike himself elevates the movie from merely two hours of dude-butts to an actual story about camaraderie between testosterone-filled men and the calling to be more and do more in life than people think you're capable of.
4.5 out of 5 stars

4. A Separation
Technically, A Separation came out at the end of 2011, but it didn't reach my local arthouse theatre until 2012. The family drama is tense, but never melodramatic. It's highly relatable, and like in real life, finds humor in even the saddest and most confusing situations. The acting is wonderful and natural and the script is infused with realistic dialogue and plot twists.
5 out of 5 stars

3. A Dangerous Method
The story of the relationship between the fathers of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, is an interesting story in and of itself. Mix in Sabina Spielrein, a patient, lover, and protege of Jung's, and you've got a downright fascinating (and sexy. and smart) film. Directed by David Cronenberg, a master of psychological and body horror, A Dangerous Method explores mental illness, masochism, hysteria, friendship, and psychology. I couldn't look away from the screen.
5 out of 5 stars

2. The Cabin in the Woods
This incredibly twisty, funny, and smart horror-comedy was a huge surprise for many viewers. It starts like hundreds of other schlock-horror films: five college students vacation at an isolated and creepy cabin in the woods. But then the twists begin and don't stop until the final minutes of the movie. Trust me, you won't be able to guess what's really going on.
5 out of 5 stars

1. Moonrise Kingdom
Beautiful, whimsical, emotional, funny, humane. All words to describe the films of Wes Anderson. Moonrise Kingdom is his latest, and one of his best. It's about two "troubled" kids who run away together and the far more troubled adults who try to find them. It's also about how kids can fall in love like adults and adults can act like children while trying to control their own and others' lives.
5 out of 5 stars

Honorable mentions: Damsels in Distress, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shame, Pariah, 21 Jump Street --all 4 out of 5 stars

Myriad of Movies

Movies: Headhunters, Sound of My Voice, Brave, and the Studio Ghibli movies

I've seen a ton of movies lately, and I am finally catching up on reviewing some that I saw weeks, even months ago. So here is a collection of short reviews.

Headhunters


Directed by Morten Tyldum, Headhunters is an exhilarating, if forgettable, heist film based on the book by bestselling Norwegian author Jo Nesbo.


Headhunters concerns one Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie, who looks like a young Christopher Walken). Roger is a headhunter for large companies, meaning he discovers, interviews, and recommends new talent to big businesses. Roger is also 5'6'' and married to Diana, a statuesque blonde with brains to spare. Roger is clearly insecure about his height and the fact that he's married to a bombshell, so he tries to compensate by showering Diana with all the material possessions she could dream of, including her own art gallery. But Roger's day job doesn't pay for this luxury: Roger moonlights as a art thief. When he gets entangled with a sociopathic Clas Greve, a man he is supposed to "headhunt" for a company, Roger's world comes tumbling down and he ends up running for his life. Greve will stop at nothing to hunt Roger down.

Headhunters is a fast-paced, violent thriller. I enjoyed it, but it didn't stick with me (after all, it took me about 6-8 weeks to get around to reviewing it). I would recommend it to people who enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and similar movies.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Sound of My Voice


Sound of My Voice is also a thriller, but a much less action-packed one. The premise of the film is fascinating: a journalist and his girlfriend decide to go undercover to check out a woman who claims to be from the future and the cult that is slowly building around her. Will they be able to bust her as a fraud, or will the get sucked in and "go native" in the process? Sound of My Voice keeps you guessing throughout. At times, it seems as though Lorna (the girlfriend) is starting to genuinely believe that this woman is telling the truth. At other times, it seems as though Peter (the journalist) is the more bedazzled of the two. And in the end, the movie makes a blatant point to keep you guessing. It's definitely a tease of a movie, but an enjoyable one. There are also great performances all around, especially up-and-comer Brit Marling as Maggie, the leader of the cult.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Brave


Pixar's latest film finally puts a human girl at the center of its plot. Princess Merida, a fiesty, red-headed, bow and arrow-toting 16-year-old, lives in what appears to be a Disney-fied version of Medieval Scotland. She is about to be married off to one of the first born princes of another clan and she is none to happy about it. Unfortunately, her mother insists that she must marry in order to continue the family line. Merida goes off in search of a way to "change her destiny", which leads to unexpected consequences and a twist I genuinely did not see coming. Even though Brave is formulaic in the sense that "everyone learns a lesson" in the end, it really is a heartfelt movie and with a very different tone than most people expect from an animated film. It's definitely worth checking out.

4 out of 5 stars

***


The films of Studio Ghibli:

Recently, the local arthouse theater in my area did a month long festival dedicated to the Japanese Studio Ghibli, featuring the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, among others. I was a little skeptical at first, since I've seen a number of Miyazaki films (namely, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, and Howl's Moving Castle) and I haven't particularly cared for them--which is sacrilege in the world of cinephilia, I know.

But I went ahead and gave some different Ghibli films a try. Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro were both adorable and easy to watch. Kiki's Delivery Service focuses on the coming of age of a young witch who uses her ability to fly to become a delivery girl for a bakery. My Neighbor Totoro is a little more heart-tugging, with two young sisters at the center of the film. The girls and their father move out to the country while their mother is recovering from an unspecified illness. Despite their difficult circumstances, the girls (voiced by Elle and Dakota Fanning) are unfailingly optimistic, playful, and imaginative. They end up making friends with magical creatures in the forest, who help them deal with the fear and uncertainty of having a sick mother.

Whisper of the Heart was a more forgettable film about a school girl who dreams of becoming a writer and also finds herself falling for a rather annoying young man who wants to become a violin maker. The story line is a bit more mature than Kiki's and Totoro and deals with the difficulties of growing up and discovering one's calling.

The Cat Returns was much more fun. When Haru, a teenage girl, saves a cat from getting run over, she is rewarded in a very unusual way: the cat begins speaking to her and asks her to join him in the land of cats and marry him! Before Haru can decline, she is whisk(ered) away to a fantastical land and held captive by the Cat King, whose son is the one she saved and the one she is being forced to wed. With the help of the Baron, a statue of a cat that comes to life, and a grouchy, corpulent cat named Muta, Haru tries to escape before it's too late.

And finally, I saw an unbelievably bizarre film called Pom Poko. Pom Poko is about a community of shapeshifting raccoons whose land is being forested so that the local city can expand into the once densely wooded forest. The raccoons decide to impede this destruction by pretending to be ghosts and demons to scare away the humans. Ultimately, they lose the battle and decide to adapt and either live among the humans, or in what's left of the woods. You would think this movie could get its point across in 80 minutes. You'd be wrong. Pom Poko is two hours long and very repetitive. The raccoons try to foil the humans and fail. They try again and fail. They try again and fail. They try again and fail. They try once more and fail. They admit defeat. The end.

Oh, and they also use their balls as weapons. Yes. Their testicles. As weapons. Which is really the only thing that makes this bizarre movie worth watching.



"They used their testicles as weapons in a brave kamikaze attack"
          ~actual line from Pom Poko






Kiki's: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Totoro: 4 out of 5 stars
Whisper: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Cat Returns: 4 out of 5 stars
Pom Poko: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Friends and Lovers

Movies: Your Sister's Sister

Warning: This is a spoiler-heavy post. If you haven't seen Your Sister's Sister yet and don't want to be spoiled, please stop reading!

Your Sister's Sister is a great movie up until the last 20 minutes, during which it resolves one of the central conflicts in a manner so laughably unrealistic and 'kumbaya' that I think I actually was laughing out loud in the theater. Which sucks, because everything that led up to the conclusion was great!

YSS is the latest film by Lynn Shelton, the little-known, very talented director of Humpday. Like Humpday (which is awesome--go see it now), YSS centers on relationships and sexual politics. YSS stars Mark Duplass in an excellent performance as Jack, a cute, neurotic 30-something who is still mourning the death of his brother a year later. Jack's best friend, Iris (Emily Blunt, also giving a great performance), sends him out to her family's isolated, unplugged vacation home to relax and "think about his life". Assuming he'll be alone, Jack is surprised to run into Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt), Iris' half-sister, at the cabin. Hannah just walked out of a 7 year long relationship with another woman and is drinking her troubles away in the middle of the night. Jack joins her and...one thing leads to another (they bone...very awkwardly).

When Iris unexpectedly shows up, Jack pleads with Hannah not to tell Iris what happened. Once Iris reveals to Hannah that she is secretly in love with Jack, Hannah agrees not to share their secret. But...there's a catch.

When watching the trailer (which reveals the above conflict) for YSS, I kept thinking, "So what? He drunkenly slept with the lesbian half-sister. This really doesn't mean than Jack and Iris can't be together. I mean, it was a one night stand, right?"

Well, once Hannah reveals her desire to have a baby at any cost and Jack suspiciously digs up the used condom and finds out that Hannah poked holes in it and never planned to tell him (!!!), I realized that damn, that is a good twist!

So now we have Iris in love with Jack and vice versa, but a possible baby on the way due to Hannah's unconscionable manipulations. I was genuinely shocked and outraged on Jack's behalf. That has got to be some kind of sexual abuse, right? JESUS.

To this point, YSS is great: great acting all around, a compelling plot, and a crazy twist. But then, once all the characters know about Iris and Jack's secret love for each other, the fact that Jack slept with Hannah, and the fact that Hannah is possibly carrying Jack's child...

...We get a 10 minute montage of the characters walking in nature, riding their bikes, cooking dinner, and you know, thinking about what transpired. And then, Iris tells Hannah that she wants to help raise the baby if there is one. And Jack returns to the cabin, after storming off in a rage a few days earlier, and says that he loves Iris and also wants to help raise the baby if there is one.

The second to last scene is a freakin' GROUP HUG between the characters, in which, I shit you not, Jack says to Hannah, "Get over here you sperm stealer!" before enveloping her in his forgiving arms.

WHAT?!

Ok, no. Just...no. I'm cool with unrealistically happy endings in Disney movies and movies like Juno and Moonrise Kingdom that take place in TweeWorld as opposed to the "real world". But YSS is supposed to be this super-realistic movie about human interactions. And, to me, Hannah is a freakin' criminal! Her lie is so huge and has such life-altering consequences for Jack, that the concept of the whole thing being forgiven and accepted in two or three days (along with a mopey montage) is laughable.

Yes, sometimes one night stands result in a baby. But usually not through premeditated sabotage of birth control.

Yes, I could conceive of someone sabotaging someone else's birth control and the other person forgiving them. But not so easily and flippantly as in the end of YSS.

What if the roles were reversed? What if Jack wanted a baby and poked holes in the condom? Hannah would, in all likelihood, press criminal charges. At the very least, she'd have an abortion. Not such a rosy ending there.

So, to reiterate. Your Sister's Sister is a solid, very good film until the last 20 minutes. I could not buy the ending, and was actually kind of mad about it. Normally, I'd give the movie 4 or 4.5 stars, but I must knock it down because the ending was so outrageous.

3.5 stars out of 5

Kingdom of Childhood

Movies: Moonrise Kingdom

Wes Anderson is a director you either hate or love. His meticulously framed and designed sets with either warm your little OCD heart, or make you roll your eyes at the cutsie-wootsieness of it all. His deadpan, funny-because-it's-overly-earnest humor will make you smirk and chuckle, or make you ask "Why is this funny?"

Those of you who don't care for Wes Anderson: I get it. He's a director with a specific vision, and if that vision, or the way he expresses it, doesn't appeal to you, that's totally cool. But this review isn't for you.

Because, to me, Wes Anderson is one of the greatest living directors and Moonrise Kingdom, his latest exploration of innocence and connection, is a swoony fantasy and his best film since The Royal Tenenbaums.

Anderson tugs at the heartstrings in a subtle, barely perceptible way. In The Life Aquatic, when Steve Zissou and his crew take his submarine to find the creature that killed his best friend, and he finally comes face to face with the behemoth, I got choked up. In so many ways, The Life Aquatic is a silly movie about fantastical undersea creatures and a narcissistic Jacques Cousteau-like character out to find the shark that ate his friend. But damn, it has some poignant moments that come out of nowhere.

Rushmore, though more obviously melancholy, is similar. Beneath the sarcastic, anti-humor humor ("These are O.R. scrubs." "Oh. Are they?") is a really moving story about an outsider trying to deal with the death of his mother, first love, and finding his place in the world.

Moonrise Kingdom is on par with the longing tone of Rushmore. It's about an orphan, Sam Shakusky (imagine a 12 year old, outdoorsy Max Fischer), who escapes his troop of Khaki Scouts on the isolated New Penzance island in 1965. Sam has a plan to run away with local girl, Suzy Bishop, who dresses like a French chanteuse even though she's actually an American preteen who loves library books.

Sam and Suzy only make it so far before the grown-ups in their lives--Suzy's parents (Frances McDormand and Bill Murray), the local chief of police (Bruce Willis), and the earnest Scoutmaster Ward (Edward Norton), as well as a group of surprisingly violent Khaki Scouts--start to search high and low for them. All Suzy and Sam want to do is kiss and dance to French pop music on the beach, but they are inevitably dragged back into the real, and far less appealing, world by parents and guardians who just don't understand.

As usual, Anderson builds the movie to look like a dollhouse, with hundreds of tiny details in each frame, and with each shot perfectly centered. This is especially true during the scenes at Suzy's house: the orderly shots highlight the emotional chaos roiling underneath. The colors are exquisite and the costumes (at least Suzy's collared dresses and Sam's badge-bedecked scout uniform) are wonderful. Anyone familiar with Anderson's films knows he's as much a creator of fantastic worlds as George Lucas or Peter Jackson. Instead of creating Middle Earth or Endor, Anderson creates New Penzance Island. And for my money, I'd rather live on New Penzance.

Underneath Suzy and Sam's struggles to be together and to find their place in the world (they're both described as "troubled" by the adults around them), is a levity and optimism that is common in Anderson films. Things tend to work themselves out in the end in Anderson's tidy universes, and so although we feel genuine fear for Suzy and Sam, we also know that they'll be ok.

I think my favorite moment in Moonrise Kingdom is when Sam warns Suzy that he might wet the bed while they share a tent. He says, "I don't want you to be offended." Suzy takes his hand and says tenderly, "I would never be offended." This got a big "awwww" from the audience I watched it with. Only in Wes Anderson's movies do 12 year olds have more maturity and understanding than adults. What a world it would be if it were ours.

5 out of 5 stars