For the week of March 21st, Lionsgate Home Entertainment is bringing Part 2 of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay to Blu-ray. I don't know if I've ever seen a promising franchise deflate so acutely in its final film. Up to this one, The Hunger Games pictures was establishing itself as an engaging, psychologically complex "blockbuster" series, one unafraid of tackling serious issues of status and wealth; if the first film suffered under some cost-cutting aesthetics and terrible camerawork, the core story and character fundamentals were strong, and director Francis Lawrence helped marry these strengths to better, more expressive filmmaking in both Catching Fire and Mockingjay: Part 1. About the best I can say about Part 2 is that Lawrence's eye is as keen as it's ever been. He still favors spatial clarity over vérité murk, and he pulls off one iconic setpiece - a white-knuckle descent into the sewers under the Capitol - that builds and releases tension expertly and suggests that if Ridley Scott ever relinquishes control of the new Alien franchise, then Lawrence should be the only person to replace him. But the big problem is that a series that has never wanted for thrilling suspense moments only has one here. Mockingjay: Part 2 has such a great premise - as Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence, looking bored for the first time in the series) and her team enter the Capitol to assassinate President Snow (Donald Sutherland, having a ball in his limited screentime), they find that the entire city has been rigged with brutal traps and diversions - yet outside of that sewer scene and one or two smaller action beats, so much of the mission finds our heroes hunkered down in bombed out apartments where they a) watch videos that provide exposition in about as clunky a fashion as possible and b) engage in hushed conversations that revolve around everyone's least favorite Hunger Games topic: whether Katniss will choose Gale (Liam Hemsworth, the most disposable of all Hemsworths) or Peeta (Josh Hutcherson, bland). I get indulging in this Twilight-esque romantic nonsense at the start of the series, but the stakes have gotten so high (political killings, mass genocide, whole-scale social unrest) that putting this level of emphasis on which boy Katniss likes more insults the audience's collective intelligence. Still, those two concerns are endemic of the larger issues plaguing Mockingjay: Part 2, which also hustles through some major narrative beats (from the moment Katniss reaches the President's mansion until her last confrontation with Julianne Moore's poised rebellion leader, I felt like key footage had been cut) and wastes much of its absurdly talented supporting cast (like Jeffrey Wright, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Jena Malone, Stanley Tucci, Gwendoline Christie, and Natalie Dormer? Tough, 'cause they don't get a lot to do here). On that last note: we feel the death of co-star Philip Seymour Hoffman in a bigger way this time around. He's reduced to a few major scenes and some digitally pasted-in reaction shots (his passing meant that his biggest scene with Katniss went to Harrelson's character, and none too smoothly), and the disconnect between Hoffman's minimized screen presence and the increased importance of his Plutarch Heavensbee character adds to the narrative compromises on display. Still, you can't blame the filmmakers for making due with what they had. You can blame them for including the last scene. For all its flaws, Mockingjay: Part 2 actually finds the perfect note to end on, a sad acknowledgment of the pain that these people will carry for the rest of their lives...and then the movie keeps going just to give us a little bit of uplift. Like so much of this film, the moment feels hollow, and unworthy of what preceded it.
Jeffrey Kauffman wrote that "a lot of the second act of this film feels like padding, sidebars that accrue for little other reason than to forestall the inevitable. That seems especially true with regard to the kind of silly 'romantic triangle' between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), an element that never seems to find any real emotional power. Something that also tends to hobble this final chapter is the absence of over the top set pieces designed to satisfy the adrenaline needs of action junkies. Once Katniss and her crew start invading the Capitol, there are a couple of traditional sequences featuring things that go 'boom,' and there's a rather well done sewer sequence that may remind some viewers of certain Ray Harryhausen offerings, but otherwise this is a curiously static film in a number of ways, with characters pretty much just sitting around waiting for something - anything - to happen. Even the film's climactic moment lacks the sort of visceral intensity that often accompanies huge blockbusters like this, though it's notable that there is an emotional component at play here that is just as frequently missing from many huge constructs which seek to provide a closing moment of hyperbolic energy."
Far less hollow is Shout Factory's new HD upgrade of the great Freaks and Geeks. We're in a new Golden Age of Television, but even a die-hard Wire and Breaking Bad fan such as myself often wonders if any Great TV show had a first season as perfect as this one. Over eighteen episodes (and not one stinker!), showrunners Judd Apatow and Paul Feig tell the story of Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini, who would stand as the most nuanced, compelling lead in an Apatow production until Gillian Jacobs in this year's Love), a Michigan teen struggling to find her place amidst all the trials and tribulations that come with being in high school. On first glance, this setup could be the stuff of a bad after-school special, but Apatow and Feig are uninterested in scolding viewers. Rather, while they hit all the controversial hot spots - bullying, drug use, drinking, premarital sex - they do so with good humor and grace. The show accepts these elements are parts (sometimes large, sometimes small) of teenage life and accepts them nonjudgmentally. And frankly, ripping the lid off High School's Dark Side is nowhere near the series' primary emphasis. Freaks and Geeks is no Skins. This is a supremely confident hangout show, one that's far more content to document the goofy, aimless musings of Lindsay and the two groups she drifts between: the "Freaks" (the burnouts and losers, led by the trinity of awesome that is Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, and James Franco) and the "Geeks" (the dorks, unofficially chaired by her younger brother Sam). There's no antagonism here - just a difference in attitude - and Apatow and Feig would be the first to tell you that these attitudes can change; one of the show's most hilarious/triumphant moments occurs when Franco's James Dean-wannabe becomes an unequivocal and enthusiastic supporter of Dungeons and Dragons. Hell, it almost feels limiting to call this program a teen dramedy, given the sensitivity that Freaks and Geeks offers its adult characters: people like Lindsay and Sam's parents (Joe Flaherty and Becky Ann Baker, who deserve a spinoff of their own), their hippy guidance counselor (a hilarious and touching Dave "Gruber" Allen), and the school's long-suffering gym teacher (the once and future Biff Tannen, Tom Wilson) all have complete and rich character arcs. But that quality is a given, given that the series functions as a compendium of great talent. The series was Judd Apatow's first big at-bat as producer/impresario of comedic talent (yes, he'd cut his teeth on The Larry Sanders Show, but Freaks and Geeks found him working without the protective umbrella of mentor Garry Shandling) - in another five years, the one-two punch of Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin would make his name a brand commodity. But Feig would also find success as the director of such successful farces as Bridesmaids and The Heat (and, Sony hopes, the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot). Orange County scribe Mike White was in the writers' room (and made a small-but-memorable appearance in the unaired episode "Kim Kelly Is My Friend"). Jake Kasdan, who helmed five of the series' eighteen episodes, also directed Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (the less said about his Sex Tape and Bad Teacher, the better). And that cast! Besides Rogen, Franco, and Segel, who are practically household names now, we get Silicon Valley's great Martin Starr, SCTV legend Flaherty, his on-screen wife - and current Girls co-star - Baker, Cougar Town's Busy Philipps, Mystery Science Theater 3000's Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu, Party Down's Lizzy Caplan, plus appearances from Ben Foster, Kevin Corrigan, David Koechner, Jason Schwartzman, Leslie Mann, Shia LaBeouf, Rashida Jones, and Ben Stiller, just for kicks. As TV shows go, you can't find a more assured inaugural year, which makes The Strange Case of Freaks and Geeks all the more tragic. Despite overwhelming critical support, NBC cancelled the show after the one season. You look at this roster today, and you wonder how NBC let such a wonderful show like this one go. Dollars to donuts says NBC is wondering that, too.
Jeffrey Kauffman's Blu-ray review remarked that the series "is rather interesting in how it slowly starts to unravel the subtexts of the various characters while it also follows more of a traditional sitcom ambience in terms of its humorous proclivities. There's rather appealing depth to many of the characters here, albeit admittedly probably more on the freak side of the equation than on the geek side. Lindsay's uncertainty of where she 'stands' at an important juncture of her still young life provides the fulcrum around which much of the content hinges, but the series commendably delves into several plotlines where supposedly supporting characters are given rather substantial moments for character development, at least within the confines of a weekly series featuring a rather large cast. In fact what continually impresses throughout Freaks and Geeks is how nuanced even transitory characters can be, including many of the adults."
From Olive Films comes the crime-comedy Bandits, and full disclosure here: while movie reviews are, by definition, inherently subjective, the following assessment proves to be more subjective than most. By most conventional quality-metrics, Bandits is not a good movie. The story of two best friends/bank robbers (Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton) as they plan a series of heists along the California coastline, Bandits almost seems more like an excuse for Willis and Thornton to indulge in a paid tour of the Left Coast than, y'know, an actual movie. Willis is sleepier than usual (he's at his most lively during some deleted scenes aired over the end credits, where his character hilariously confuses Stanley and Livingston with Lewis and Clark), and what filmmaking brio director Barry Levinson had once possessed (Diner and Wag the Dog, we miss ye) had all but vanished - scenes extend so far past their normal length that we start to wonder if the movie is playing out in real time. Even as an escapist caper, Bandits falls short - screenwriter Harley Peyton telegraphs the biggest "twists" from a mile away until we start questioning whether or not the movie is going in that direction because, really, it can't be that obvious, can it? (Spoiler: It can.) Yet I have seen Bandits more times than, say, Citizen Kane, a statement which is less a negative reflection on Kane than it is an indication of Bandits' strange hold over me. We - I - expect movies to maintain a certain pitch and pace, and in that sense, the film's logy mechanics and dawdling narrative actually work to cast a unique spell of its own. You can either resent the apparent lack of an editor (Stu Linder's credit be dammed), or you can (as I did) sink into its tangles, succumbing to the world Levinson and Co. have created. When you watch Bandits, you're on Bandits-time, which drifts along at a rate far divorced from that of the real world, with only the odd self-consciously quirky detail present to break the spell (Bobby Slayton's Jack Walsh-meets-Joey Bishop caricature; everything involving Willis' dimwitted, wannabe-stuntman cousin). It's intoxicating, intentionally or otherwise. Plus, the movie does boast a few unironic pleasures: Dante Spinotti's lush widescreen cinematography (as someone who'd never been to California until relatively recently, I found his work transporting, like the best-looking travelogue you'd ever hope to see), or Thornton's nebbish second-banana, which starts as a compendium of odd quirks (many of which Thornton "borrowed" from his own neuroses) and quickly becomes strangely touching. And the film even hinges on an idea that's borderline revolutionary for a PG-13 studio comedy: that Willis and Thornton's pair might find happiness in a open, mutually acknowledged relationship with Cate Blanchett's flustered housewife. Sure, it's no Jules and Jim (in fairness, what is?), but at least this aspect of Bandits strives for something a little left of center. Maybe it's that accretion of strange, uncanny, unsatisfying, and endearing that I love so much. God help me, but I do.
Finally, Paramount Home Media Distribution is giving the recent Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy's Home a Blu-ray showing. The promise of more Ferrell-Wahlberg hijinks is irresistible to fans of their great 2010 buddy comedy The Other Guys. In that action-comedy, Ferrell played a surprisingly adept straight-man to Wahlberg's volatile doofus; the two sparked off each other in ways both expected (Ferrell's abject panic when flooring a Prius into a crime scene) and less so (Wahlberg's wide-eyed inability to process Ferrell's hot-blooded marriage to Eva Mendes) and helped secure the film's position among Ferrell's best 21st Century comedies. Seen through that metric, Daddy's Home can't help but disappoint. It's a far more conventional farce about what transpires after Ferrell's conservative stepfather has to compete for his stepchildren's love with their dangerous, super-cool biological father (Wahlberg, of course). What begins as mild antipathy soon develops into all-out parental war, and Ferrell grows increasingly less mild-mannered as he has to match Wahlberg's ostentatious displays of affection. I guess there's a kernel of a good idea here, but unfortunately, Daddy's Home director/co-writer Sean Anders is no Adam McKay (who has a producing credit and nothing more), and he chooses the path of least resistance every time. Would it surprise you if I said that Ferrell's desperate attempts to endear himself to his new kids begin to put a strain on his marriage (a wasted Linda Cardellini plays his wife)? Or that Ferrell and Wahlberg's characters end up seeing eye-to-eye (just in time for the finale) For The Sake of The Children? What sets McKay apart is that he usually doesn't end on the easy joke: if he were in charge, I wonder if he might have capitalized on Ferrell and Wahlberg's chemistry by making them allies much sooner (shades of the Ferrell-John C. Reilly dynamic in Step Brothers), or if he might have intensified their conflict to such a surreal degree that it would have become Dadaist in its hilarity (something to top the non sequitur brawls in both Anchorman, perhaps?). Anders has two modes - obvious slapstick and maudlin treacle. Furthermore, none of the cast really gets a moment to shine. The best of Ferrell's films always have a deep-bench supporting cast of comic ringers, but here, we get some mildly enjoyable turns from Thomas Haden Church, Hannibal Buress, Paul Scheer, and Bill Burr, and that's about it. Even Ferrell and Wahlberg aren't at peak operating levels. Ferrell doesn't play neutered well - what made his Other Guys character a treat was that he was always the smartest guy in the room AND that his calm facade masked a calculating criminal operator - and Wahlberg is far less engaging playing cool than he is playing flawed, weak, unstable (vide the difference between his work in Boogie Nights or Pain & Gain and his work in this or Transformers: Age of Extinction). Daddy's Home isn't bad, but it's eminently forgettable. Ferrell and Wahlberg can do better.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman noted that the film "earns many of its laughs from the 'opposites attract' approach to comedy, pitting the teddy bear-esque Ferrell against the muscled Wahlberg. It's the alpha male versus the beta male, the man who cruises in on a motorcycle versus the guy who traipses around town in a Ford Flex, the classic bad boy versus the classic mamma's boy. The pair is terrific in the leads, capturing more than the essence or spirit of the men they play but finding the emotional centers that drive them and building on believable and well defined life histories that shape their conflicting inner traits and outer qualities. The duo shares an instant and evident chemistry, whether in the quieter moments of reflection, the subtle jabs, or the all-out wars of daddy brinkmanship. Many of the laughs may not be completely unique, but they almost all work well thanks to the actors' firm grasp of the material and apparent enthusiasm for the project."