Reeling Backward: "Princess Mononoke" (1997)

It was time to introduce my two boys to the anime genius of Hayao Miyazaki, and I thought it a good idea to start with one I hadn't seen myself: the 1997 film widely regarded as a masterpiece, "Princess Mononoke," perhaps second only to "Spirited Away" in his filmography.

Despite the 2¼-hour runtime, dense spiritual themes and surfeit of bloody/oozing imagery, the kids were absolutely enthralled by "Princess." I was, too.

Like many of Miyazaki's feature films, it combines a sense of high-minded mysticism with a very grounded connection to the natural world. Our machines and dirty industry are an assault on the spirits of the earth, he seems to argue, which physically manifest themselves into gods or demons to contest against the vile intrusion.

In "Princess," the Great Forest Spirit is passively fighting against the nearby human village of Irontown, run by Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver in the version released in America), who is stripping the forest to get at the ore underneath. The spirit takes the form of a stag-like creature by day, but after the sun goes down transforms into the Nightwalker, a giant amorphous creature whose underlings, tiny spirits called kodama, plant new trees to replace the destroyed ones.

Eboshi is cunning and determined but not necessarily evil, and in fact in some ways is a visionary leader. She has gathered together female brothel workers, unwanted lepers and poor male laborers and forged them into a rather idyllic little society, one in which women are not chattel but mouthy, empowered individuals who own their own sexuality. The lepers are the engineers, crafting their advanced flint guns. The men are the worker drones.

Eboshi's archenemy is San (Claire Danes), the feral "wolf girl" who attacks their trade convoys. She is the adopted daughter of Moro (Gillian Anderson), the wolf god who has sworn to bite off Eboshi's head. The metaphysics are a little fuzzy, but it seems that the various animal tribes each have one or more supersized leaders who can speak with humans and have some degree of invulnerability.

San loathes the humans, possibly even more so than Moro and her two wolf pups, and hates it whenever anyone points out she is one herself. It should be noted that Mononoke is not her name, just what the humans call her, it being a Japanese word for a supernatural shape-shifting creature, roughly the equivalent of "were-" in English.

Alas, if there's a weak spot with this movie it's that the titular character is rather underwritten and tertiary to the story. With a few tweaks she could even be written out of the script entirely (which Miyazaki wrote, assisted by Neil Gaiman for the English version).

The real main character is Prince Ashitaki (Billy Crudup), a stranger from the near-extinct Emishi tribe far to the east. When the boar god Nago, turned into a demon after being shot with an iron bullet by Eboshi's men, attacked his village Ashitaki was forced to kill him, being infected with the evil taint in the process. It gives him superhuman strength, but will eat his body and soul if he does not prevail upon the Great Forest Spirit to lift the curse.

There are shades of "Yojimbo" in the narrative, as Ashitaki comes upon the war between Irontown and the forest gods and acts as a destabilizing neutral party, helping one group and then the other. Rather than using the situation for his personal gain, he tries to act as peacemaker, largely unsuccessfully. 

At one point he gets shot straight through his torso near his heart, yet is able to continue for some time before succumbing to weakness from massive blood loss. 

There's quite a lot of frisky byplay between Ashitaki and the women of Irontown, particularly Toki (Jada Pinkett Smith), who see the smooth young newcomer as a prime sexual object compared to the squat, vaguely ape-like men of the village. I don't recall there being so much fleshy displays and flirting in Miyazaki's oeuvre. 

A few other notable players include Keith David as Okkoto, the blind ancient boar king who leads an assault on Irontown (David also serves as narrator); John DiMaggio as Gonza, Eboshi's bullying but unfailingly loyal right-hand man; and Billy Bob Thornton as Jigo, a mercenary monk who allies himself with Eboshi in a bid to kill the Great Forest Spirit and take its head to the emperor, it reputedly having properties to heal or make one immortal.

Jigo is a real piece of work, exceedingly friendly to everyone and yet also willing to cut anybody's throat to get what he wants. There's mention of terrible crimes in his past requiring the emperor's pardon, but all he says of himself is that he's "just a simple monk trying to make his way in the world." He meets Ashitaka during his journey west, and somewhere along the way recruits an elite force of hunters who disguise themselves with animal pelts to move among the forest tribes.

He is short and squat, about the size of a dwarf from fantasy mythology, though he supplements his height with towering geta sandals with a single huge block that would seem impossible to balance upon for even normal walking, let alone the running and acrobatic fighting Jigo is shown to be capable of. They are common in the films of Miyazaki and other anime.

The animation of "Princess" is gorgeous but also fairly simplistic, with most characters drawn with bold, umembroidered lines that would not seem out of place in a children's comic book. Miyazaki puts the denser imagination into the natural world, so the forest background behind San or Ashitaka might actually contain more detail than the human figure.

I'm mesmerized by the depiction of the Great Forest Spirit, who in its day form almost appears to be wearing a human-like mask under a crown of countless antlers. It does not seem to possess more than rudimentary intelligence, and does not communicate with anyone directly. The Nightwalker is depicted as vaguely menacing, unable to control its instinctual actions. 

When Jigo and Eboshi succeed in cutting of its head, the creature breaks down into a writhing mass of ooze that threatens to sweep over the land, killing humans, animals and gods alike. 

San and Ashitaka's romance is utterly asexual and not terribly convincing, them both being depicted as closer to child age than full-grown adult. Indeed, the story ends not with them living happily ever after, but agreeing to remain in their separate communities.

There's a fair amount of violence and gore in "Princess Mononoke," including severed limbs and heads. My sons were a little shocked at first, but soon settled in and didn't report any nightmares. 

This film is one of dreams, sometimes dark ones, that stand alongside the real world and comment upon its failings. Miyazaki's truly is a world of magic.

 

 

Video review: "Alien: Covenant"

“Not an utter embarrassment” is unfortunately the new bar for films in the “Alien” franchise, and I’m pleased to say the latest iteration manages to clear that low threshold quite easily.

It breaks no new ground and gives us no character as compelling as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. But it puts the people through their familiar paces with technical and emotional vitality in a way that will leave audiences not exactly thrilled, but surely not disappointed.

It’s nice that original director Ridley Scott, after seeing his movie pass through the hands of multiple imitators, finally took back the reins himself with “Prometheus” and now this film, which exists as its sequel within the (admittedly somewhat murky) timeline.

The set-up is that a space ship is carrying thousands of hibernating humans (and some fertilized embryos) to a distant solar system to colonize it. When a solar flare damages the vessel, the crew is awakened early – all except the captain, who is incinerated in his sleeping pod.

Not wanting to face the prospect of living and dying before they reach their destination, and too scared to go back into hibernation, the crew settles on a nearby planet that appears to be able to sustain life. Billy Crudup is the fickle second-in-command calling the shots, while Katherine Waterston is the more sensible subordinate who we know will eventually take over.

The rest of the cast includes Carmen Ejogo, Demian Bichir, Amy Seimetz and Danny McBride. Interestingly, the crew is made of matched romantic pairs, so there’s a lot of tension about protecting loved ones and, soon enough, mourning them.

Michael Fassbender returns as an android named Walter assigned to help the humans. He previously played another, more malevolent “synthetic,” David, in “Prometheus,” and that character turns up again, a bit implausibly. Their clashes and ruminations about the mystery of human behavior represent the movie’s high point.

When the planet turns out to be populated with the iconic aliens -- face-huggers that give way to two-mouthed killers -- the blood starts flying, the character clashes grow more intense and the aliens start spreading.

Taken purely as a popcorn flick, “Alien: Covenant” is filled with plenty of creepy, moody sequences set apart by bursts of high-octane action. It’s not like it was in “Alien” or “Aliens,” but it gets a passing grade.

But seriously, when are people going to figure out the thing that made the first two “Alien” movies great was not the critters, but Ripley? Maybe Scott or somebody will realize Weaver is still around, and still pretty spry.

Bonus features are pretty substantial, starting with a feature-length commentary track by Scott. It’s bothersome that so many storied directors -- Spielberg, Coppola, etc. -- have refused to do commentaries. He also takes part in a “Master Class” documentary on making the film.

There are also a dozen deleted or extended scenes, gallery of production photos, and six making-of featurettes.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Alien: Covenant"

Everyone knows the “Alien” franchise stopped being good after the second movie, reaching its nadir when the iconic mouth-within-a-mouth critter squared off against the Predator.

Original director Ridley Scott, no doubt grumpy about the state into which other filmmakers had led his creation, came back in 2012 with the moody, dizzy “Prometheus,” which he coyly declined to describe as a prequel, saying it “shared DNA” with his 1979 movie.

Well, now Scott has made a sequel, “Alien: Covenant,” and there’s no more doubt remaining about where the two latest films fall within the canon. (Squarely.) These events take place 10 years after “Prometheus,” and still some decades before “Alien.”

It’s energetic and fast-paced, covering familiar territory with (mostly) new characters playing out a lot of the same scenarios and musing upon the same themes. Despite the lack of originality, I liked it better than any of the other “Alien” movies since 1986.

It’s probably the closest inheritor to the story and mood of the original, with a crew of woefully unprepared humans exploring an unknown planet where alien bugaboo will infect them, releasing larger versions that grow rapidly and kill even quicker.

Again, a female junior officer chafes under the yoke of clearly less competent male superiors, having to wait her turn until a sufficient number of them have died to place her in command. Here it’s Katherine Waterston as Daniels. As before, characters are known simply by their last names, and share a sort of martial comradery.

There are some differences, however. The ship Covenant is traveling to colonize a far planet, carrying 2,000 colonists in cryo-sleep and another 1,400 or so human embryos to speed up the population-building. Interestingly, pretty much all of the crew are paired off into romantic couples – an arrangement better suited to starting a new life far, far away.

“Alien: Covenant” has lots of fascinating ideas like this that it never bothers to really explore. Such as the captain, Oram (Billy Crudup), being a man of faith whose leadership is questioned by a crew more typical of an agnostic future.

Actually, they doubt him because he’s a squirrelly, inconsiderate weakling who was never meant to be the leader in the first place. The real captain (a cameo by James Franco) dies in the opening sequence, in which a solar flare damages the Covenant, necessitating the early awakening of the crew, and his hyper-sleep pod fails horribly.

They receive a strange signal they believe is human from an uncharted planet. Since no one wants to brave the sleep pods after the accident, and this planet can sustain human life, they decide to go there to check it out as an alternative to their destination. Daniels and Oram clash over this, and we know who is going to turn out to be right.

Demián Bichir plays the chief of the security squad (along with his husband – hey, it’s the year 2104, people); Amy Seimetz plays Faris, the hyperventilating one; Carmen Ejogo is Karine, Oram’s mate and the science chief. Danny McBride shows he can not be goofy as Tennessee, the cowboy hat-wearing pilot who gets to show his right stuff.

Michael Fassbender reappears playing Walter, the creepy “synthetic” – aka android – assigned to the Covenant. He’s a later model of David, the trouble-making synthetic from “Prometheus.”

Mild spoiler alert: Fassbender also has a dual role playing David himself, whom we might have dismissed, seeing as how he was decapitated in the last movie and all. The two get to have a number of philosophical conversations about the nature of humanity before the inevitable square-off.

“Alien: Covenant” doesn’t break any new ground or raise the bar for the franchise. But it’s entertaining and doesn’t embarrass itself in front of its forbears.

Review: "Spotlight"

“Spotlight” is the truest depiction of journalism since… well, ever.

Even “All the President’s Men,” “Network” and “Broadcast News” -- great movies though they are -- contained a certain quotient of Hollywood BS. Here is the new standard in cinematic depictions of the journalists, along with one of the best films of the year.

This new drama depicting the Boston Globe’s discovery of a massive cover-up of sexually abusive priests never skimps on the facts, or sexes up the individual reporters and editors, or creates composite characters to skirt over the unsavory aspects of some of the real ones.

Why? Because it never has to. The real thing is compelling enough and needs no sprinkling of fictional fairy dust.

Directed by Tom McCarthy (“The Station Agent,” “Up”), who also co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Singer, “Spotlight” is a great story about the making of a great and tragic story.

McCarthy knows a little about newspapering, since he played an ethically untethered reporter in the last season of the great HBO television series, “The Wire.” Having portrayed the worst of the profession, he now shows us the best.

Unless you’ve had your head in a hole, you know where the long tail of the priest molestation story eventually went: widespread sexual abuse by clergy and a coordinated effort by the Catholic Church, nationally and internationally, to cover it up rather than end it. Even the Pope personally apologized.

Here is how the shroud first began to fall.

The most realistic thing about the movie is that it shows how big stories are rarely uncovered by a single person who has the information fall into their lap. It’s almost always a group effort, it takes weeks and months and years of arduous work, and at some point in the investigative process someone will realize they already had the information they needed all along, right under their noses. But it either got swept under the rug or ignored in the rush of daily publishing.

The heroes here are the four-member team of Spotlight, the investigative project unit at the Globe. As the story opens in 2001 a new editor is arriving at the paper, an out-of-towner named Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), who knows nothing of predominantly Catholic Boston and is an unmarried Jew, to boot. He’s given warm handshakes and cockeyed glances, both outside the newsroom and within.

Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton) is the editor of the Spotlight, a self-described “player/coach” who doesn’t just sit in his office and circle misspellings. He’s a man of the town, went to the high school across the street from the Globe. He acts as the glad-hander and bridge to the city’s bastions of respectability -- who are hiding vile secrets.

Mark Ruffalo plays Michael Rezendes, the quintessential dogged reporter who seems to have little in his life beyond his phone and notebook. Rachel McAdams is Sacha Pfeiffer, who has a knack for getting people to talk, especially victims of sexual abuse. John Slattery plays Ben Bradlee Jr., the skeptical metro editor, and Brian d’Arcy James is Matt Carroll, the “glue guy” who eventually discovers that some of the accused priests have been living down the street from his family.

Stanley Tucci shines as Mitchel Garabedian, a cantankerous attorney suing the Church on behalf of dozens of victims, who is slow to be recruited to help the intrepid reporters. He’s fought many battles and lost. “I’m not crazy. I’m not paranoid. I’m experienced,” he intones. Also solid are Jamey Sheridan and Billy Crudup as conflicted lawyers and go-betweens.

The film nails, absolutely nails, the rhythms and culture inside a metro newspaper -- the petty rivalries, the built-in curiosity about everything, the caustic humor, the deep-seated belief that whatever you’re working on is the most important story in the world. All the little background details are there, from the men’s cheap short-sleeved shirts and ties to the hurried junk food, constant scribbling of notes and long nights away from family. (And how the librarians are the unsung heroes of every newsroom.)

It shows how journalists get reluctant people to talk, through appeals to better nature and sheer persistence, since they have no real power other than the threat of telling the truth. “You want to be on the right side of this,” they say, more than once.

The story of mass abuse of children by priests is one of immense importance, but even it is fleeting in comparison to the story of journalism itself. It’s been called the first draft of history, but what reporting most essentially represents is the intrinsic need to ask questions -- to inquire of our communities, our wielders of power, of ourselves.

“Spotlight” is the triumphant depiction of one of mankind’s noblest instincts.

Video review: "Eat Pray Love"

It's good to see Julia Roberts back in serious-actress mode a decade after "Erin Brockovich." But "Eat Pray Love" was not the right movie to cement her comeback.

Based on the best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, it's the story of an early-middle-aged woman who goes through a nasty divorce and decides to spend a year traveling the world. She spends time in Italy searching for the perfect pizza, in India getting in touch with her new-found spiritual roots, and finally in Indonesia where she falls in love with a Brazilian businessman played by Javier Bardem.

It's all a little too rote, and no wonder: Gilbert came up with the idea for the book beforehand, and used the advance money to finance her trip.

Those who've read it (unlike me) say the author is very upfront about the calculated nature of the whole enterprise, but the movie doesn't offer a peep. She's supposed to just leave her home in a whirlwind of passion and soulful discombobulation.

She meets a variety of characters, including a toad-like little holy man, a drawling Texas who shares her faith in Hinduism, and the aforementioned Latin lover.

It's a beautiful-looking movie without much really going on in its head, or its heart.
Bonus features are served in rather modest helpings.

Oddly, the centerpiece of the offerings is an extended version of the film. At a sprawling 139 minutes, the last thing this movie needed to be is longer.

The DVD comes with the extended version and a single featurette following director Ryan Murphy's journey to make the film.

In addition, the Blu-ray edition boasts a trio more featurettes: A making-of doc, and two more on Finding Balance and Praying in India.

For the true videophile, that's hardly adequate nourishment to justify buying your own copy.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 2

Review: "Eat, Pray, Love"

Here's my six-word review of "Eat, Pray, Love": I wish they'd stopped at "Eat."

This new Julia Roberts star vehicle is based on the best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert about the year she spent traveling the globe to rediscover herself following a painful divorce. She spends four months each in Italy, India and Indonesia seeking nourishment -- for, as the title suggests, her body, soul and heart.

It's a more ambitious role than Roberts has tackled in the decade since her Oscar-winning turn in "Erin Brockovich," and one centered around a woman of refreshingly mature years. I admired Roberts' grasping for something meatier, but this film sticks her with an unrelatable character that even her coltish smile can't beautify.

Director Ryan Murphy, who co-wrote the screenplay adaptation with Jennifer Salt, spends an excessive amount of time setting up Liz's life in New York prior to her trip. In these sequences Liz is established as a successful but skittish woman who doesn't seem to belong anywhere, or to anyone -- even herself.

She quickly, and callously, decides to divorce her husband Stephen (Billy Crudup). Despite his flightiness, he does seem very determined about his desire to stay together and attempt to work things out. When she won't even try, our sympathy for her wanes.

Sooner than would seem appropriate, or even comprehensible, Liz ends up in the arms of David (James Franco), a much younger actor who turns her on to meditation and Hindu scripture. She soon decides that she needs to learn to love herself before she can love another again, though she at least packs her newfound spirituality for the trip.

The first sequence in Rome has an uplifting energy as Liz searches for the perfect pizza, learns the lingo, and absorbs the Italian devotion to beauty and pleasure without any American veneer of guilt. It's here that she seems to tame her self-absorption a bit, finds some new friends and truly grows as a confident individual.

The spiritual section in India shifts into a seriously downbeat gear, as Liz lives at a Hindu temple, prays and meditates, and verbally jousts with Richard (Richard Jenkins), a fellow American -- well, he's Texan, which to the typical New Yorker is far more exotic than the Far East.

Richard, who looks like James Taylor and talks like Obi-John Wayne, calls her "Groceries" for her healthy appetite and counsels her to clear her head of self-doubt and regret, or it will ruin her life. Richard knows this through personal experience, as he lays bare in a rooftop scene that's supposed to be revelatory and emotionally cathartic, but just makes the audience want to tiptoe down the stairs and escape.

The vistas are perhaps the most beautiful in Bali, but Liz's journey of discovery grows less genuine with every step. She romances a Brazilian businessman (Javier Bardem) who's also been through a painful divorce, and studies with a medicine man (Hadi Subiyanto) who looks like Yoda, but with a worse dental plan.

I confess that I found Liz's New Age-y proclivities a dreadful bore -- I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole Guru Gita thing, which involves a bunch of people chanting at a painting of a woman, as near as I can figure. At 139 minutes, the movie feels sprawling and self-indulgent.

And I'm always suspicious of memoirs in which people ditch their entire lives for parts unknown and unexpected adventures -- and, it turns out, for good reason.

After seeing the movie and doing a little Googling, I learn that the real Elizabeth Gilbert pitched the idea for her book to a publisher before embarking on her journey, and used the advance to pay for it.

"Eat, Pray Love" seems less like a year of wild abandonment to indulgence and exploration of the inner soul, and more a calculated mission to land on Oprah's Book Club. It's mass-produced gruel, dressed up as native cuisine.

2 stars out of four