Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I’ve seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I’ll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I’ll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Moonrise Kingdom

I’m not much of a Wes Anderson fan. Apart from Fantastic Mr. Fox, I’ve never found his films that interesting. I should probably revisit a few, especially Rushmore, which I saw over a decade ago. However, with Moonrise Kingdom, I found myself engaged with his work like I hadn’t been before. Anderson is a very pretentious filmmaker. He tries very hard to create an aesthetic composed of quirky situations, unrealistic characters and carefully crafted dialogue that has been the backbone of the indie film scene for decades. Yet, with Moonrise Kingdom, he turns that oddball nature into something compelling and visually stunning. It feels like the film his entire career was building up to make.

The story involves two awkward, driven children who “fall in love” and steal off in the night to be together, worrying the boy’s scout master and the girl’s parents. One of Anderson’s hallmarks is his colorful array of actors whose talents are unquestionable and whose ability to deliver his dialogue with clarity, honesty and tongue firmly in cheek. Moonrise does a fine job assembling the likes of Edward Norton (the scout master), Frances McDormand (the mother), Bill Murray (the father), Bruce Willis (the sheriff) and Tilda Swinton (Social Services). They are joined by other regulars and noted thespians such as Jason Schwartzman, Bob Balaban and Harvey Keitel. All are on key the entire production, but each support two talented kids: Jared Gilman as the young boy and Kara Hayward as the young girl. Gilman plays the awkwardness of self-assured childhood well, though Hayward easily outshines him.

Anderson has achieved a rare amalgamation of excess and honesty that make the film speed by without feeling rush. Alexandre Desplat continues his fruitful collaboration with Anderson, crafting an outstanding musical score that might rival his other work this year and surpass them each for the Oscar nomination.

Anna Karenina

From the response critics had given Joe Wright’s latest costume drama, I had been prepared for something modestly engrossing. My experience with Anna Karenina was far more than that. Based on Leo Tolstoy’s famed novel about a wife whose romantic affair with another man leads to her social downfall stars Wright muse Keira Knightley precisely where she needs to be. Somehow, Wright manages to pull out superior performances from her than any other director. While she’s not quite as polished as she was in Atonement, the theatricality of this production may have diminished her overall performance.

The film starts out as if it were being produced for the stage with backdrops and props being chauffeured around the set by stagehands. But as the film progresses, the stage transforms into real settings and back again. The effects are sometimes dizzying, but frequently spectacular. Most noteworthy was a scene early in the film (one featured in the trailer), where Oblonsky’s brother Levin steps through a stage door into a vast frozen landscape. This design decision makes for a most intriguing production and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey demands high praise for his marvelous photography.

The whole film is sumptuous and the story is straight forward and involving. Though it runs a bit long and seems to feature more than a few throwaway scenes, the whole of it is completely engaging. Not everyone will like it and more than a few will think it rather pretentious. But this kind pf pretentiousness works very well for me.

Life of Pi

The landscape of great cinematography this year is fantastic. Few films could be so gorgeously shot as one being made by master filmmaker Ang Lee. I can’t remember the last movie he made that wasn’t absolutely breathtaking. Director of Photogrpahy Claudio Miranda has never worked with Lee before, but after The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, it’s no surprise that such a captivating visual aesthetic came through here with Lee’s estimable assistance.

The story is that of a young man trapped on a life raft with a Bengal tiger struggling for survival until he can be rescued. Suraj Sharma plays Pi as an idealistic boy, searching for God among various religions whose tragic tale of survival he tells in adulthood (played by Irrfan Khan) to a curious novelist (Rafe Spall). Khan is an engaging storyteller and Spall a dutiful listener, but its the adventures young Pi has on his lifeboat that enrapture the audience.

Without giving anything away, until the climax of the film, I had been mostly frustrated for the film’s length. Having never read (nor even heard of) the novel, I was not familiar with where the story would end up. Thankfully, the climax is a riveting sequence that redefines the film for the better. Khan, who seems to be in every English-language film requiring an Indian actor is once again joined by Tabu who plays Pi’s mother. Both have appeared in films together thrice before, most notably Mira Nair’s wonderful The Namesake.

The performances aren’t what the film is about (except for that of Sharma). It’s about the wonder of the many situations in which our hero finds himself. As he struggles to find his faith, his tenacity is frequently tested, ultimately leading him to an understanding of who he is. This is a coming of age story that changes the methodology of such tales, turning it into the grand adventure. The visual effects are almost as good as the cinematography and art direction while the opening title sequence is nearly as grand.

ParaNorman

Using the same style and technique that made the stop-motion marvel Coraline so engaging, directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell bring Butler’s unique concept of a screenplay to vivid life. The story surrounds a young boy who can see and speak with dead people. The entire town thinks he’s crazy, but as the town’s 300th anniversary of the celebrated witch trial that brought their town touristic fame approaches, a dreadful curse threatens to destroy the town. Only Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) can stop it.

The voice casting is fairly strong with the aforementioned McPhee being joined by the likes of Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann and Elaine Stritch. What merits mentioning, though is the amazing detail put together here. While Claymation forms the building blocks of modern stop-motion, Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit films and shorts attest to that, it’s Tim Burton’s production of The Nightmare Before Christmas that brought it to its natural evolution. Coraline remains the peak of that creativity (if you exclude the Aardman canon), but ParaNorman isn’t far behind, coming in just under Nightmare Before Christmas in my estimation. The animation is richly detailed and complemented by excellent visual effects work. Were that it a little less immature in places, it might have surpassed Burton’s milestone.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

The story of a young girl, raised by her disconnected father, as she struggles to survive in a small community just outside the Louisiana levee system. As a tremendous storm floods their close-knit community, her father begins to teach her how she can go on independently when he’s gone. The film stars six-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis as the girl named Hushpuppy and Dwight Henry as her father Wink. Filmed on a small budget, with the assistance of local residents, Beasts of the Southern Wild succeeds quite well.

Wallis could be a strong actress in the future, but part of me wonders just how much of her performance here was coaxed out of her by the film’s director, Benh Zeitlin. Zeitlin obviously understands how to elicit credible performances from his actors as neither Wallis nor Henry have any prior acting experience, the latter being little more than a professional baker. While I can’t decide if Wallis deserves all of the credit for her performance, Henry undoubtedly understands the emotions that are going into his.

Wink is an emotionally vacant man, having lost his wife and the mother of their child when she decided to leave town, abandoning both of them. While his lack of connectivity to his daughter forms the backbone for a shaky relationship, the key to their mutual affection is in circumstance. After he discovers that he’s dying and with the added stress of a massive flooding of the land, Wink must step up and be the father he’s never been in order to ensure that Hushpuppy can take care of herself after he’s gone. I struggled with understanding his character and how he could be seen as sympathetic, but reflection on the film and discussion with others has brought me to the realization that it’s his borderline mentally abusive history that makes his eventual motivated redemption feel more believable.

There are certain elements of the film that still bother me, but I’m more impressed now that I’ve scribed this small write-up than I was when I initially finished the film. Perhaps on further reflection it will improve in my estimation, but for now, I’ll simply say that I’m impressed, if a little underwhelmed.

Television Series Catch-Up

Every Thanksgiving, I use the extended weekend to catch up on the screeners that have come in by mail. Overall, I’m outpacing 2011 in terms of catching films, even if this weekend falls 1 short of my 2011 Thanksgiving weekend achievement. This weekend’s five films (Life of Pi in the theater) would have been accompanied by others had I not been intent on finishing off two television series I had been working on for the past month (or longer in the case of the 2009 series I’m about to reference).

Flash Forward

Back in 2009, I had started watching this series based on its clever concept: everyone in the world blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and each had a vision of the future. The mystery concept kept me intrigued as I made my way through the series, but an extended hiatus and flagging interest caused me to stop watching the series. Earlier this year, I started trying to re-watch the show to catch up on what I missed and hopefully renew my fascination. It worked, but as the series progressed, a number of nagging issues began to emerge. While the flash forwards were fairly well established early in the series, half way through the season (either under the new showrunner or as an attempt by the network to control and goose up the excitement of the show), some of the flash forwards were modified to introduce new characters, new situations and generally muck around with what had happened before.

To make matters worse, just past the half way point of the season, one of the more compelling characters in the show was revealed to be a conspiratorial informant. My desire to finish the show was almost negated. Out of obligation, I finished out season one, topping it off with the last few episodes over the weekend. While it didn’t go precisely the direction I had hoped, there was enough redemption of the concept through the final episodes to make the journey worth it. Had the show not been cancelled AFTER the final episode was aired, the ending wouldn’t have felt like an unnecessary cliffhanger, but at least the major storylines were resolved and there was plenty of nerve-tingling moments wrapping up all that we had seen before.

American Horror Story

Unlike a lot of viewers, I got through the first disc of American Horror Story and wondered aloud what was so special about the show. A fairly straight forward concept, modestly likable characters and horror-standard scares seemed too rudimentary for my tastes. I was left wondering, four episodes in what the big deal was. I’m not much of a quitter when it comes to starting things, so I pressed on. To my delight, the show got really good; almost sinfully good, as new revelations were made, more new characters were introduced and twists and turns I had not expected started turning up at regular intervals. By the end of the twelve episodes (the last five of which I saw this weekend), I was hooked. While I’ve heard the second season isn’t as good as the first, I feel satisfied by the wrap-up at the end of the first “season.” I like that here, unlike Skyfall, they gave their gay characters depth and motivation. Zachary Quinto proved to be a better actor than I had initially suspected after Heroes. Dylan McDermott and especially Connie Britton are superb as is Jessica Lange and the rest of the wonderful cast.