Thursday, May 22, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com FILM REVIEW Run, it's 'Godzilla' Thursday, May 22, 2014 1AV>" The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com S BOOK REVIEW 'We Were Liars' FILM REVIEW 'Million Dollar Arm' Acceptably thrilling update of a monster movie classic By SEAN CZARNECKI DailyArts Writer Godzilla has been killed at least twice. The exact number depends on the fans you ask and their inter- pretations of the franchise, but one B+ can never mistake the feeling oftrag- Godia' edy that comes with his fall. No At Rave and one within ten Quality16 miles is outside Wamer Bros the thunder of his approach or his roar, which alone puts the fear of God into you. That a beast of such power can be killed by humans is cause for mourning, not triumph. In 1998 it seemed Roland Emm- erich's grievous reimagining might've killed Godzilla for good. Lifelong fans cried foul, enthu- siasm dropped and its sequels were scrapped. The challenge this "Godzilla" faces then, sixteen years since Emmerich's tailspin, and sixty years since the 1954 Japanese original, is resurrecting a God and returning him to his former glory. Perhaps I am being grandiose. As my friend had said on the car ride to the theater, "It just needed to not suck for me to be happy." Most moviegoers consider the Godzilla franchise low-brow junk, best when enjoyed ironically. Director Gareth Edwards ("Mon- sters") and his team of artists and screenwriters must therefore re-bill the Godzilla franchise. They have to tailor him to the demands of an American audience, and make him vital to a cinema industry that in this modern CGI age, has leveled more than a few metropolises. Godzilla has always been a ferocious mon- ster, compelling because of his com- plex sense of morality, sympathetic because of his rage. Edwards taps into this part of the mythology bet- ter than any other Godzilla movie I have seen. I expect to see a sequel in the next few years, and (I hope) even a crossover. Like most disaster movies, the scope of "Godzilla" is sprawling. The plot attempts to anchor this Godzilla awakens from his ocean slumber ordeal through its main character, USN Lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, "Kick-Ass"), son of a nuclear physicist named Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston, TV's "Breaking Bad") who is searching for answers. Only Dr. Ishiro Serizawa (Ken Watanabe, "Unforgiven") knows the truth: Mankind's arrogant forays into nuclear science has brought two prehistoric monsters out of hiber- nation to feed on the radiation, and Godzilla is their predator. The actors and actresses play their parts well, with Cranston and Watanabe as the predictable stand- outs. But too often is "Godzilla,"with its two hour runtime, sidetracked by its obnoxious supporting cast. You know the types: some military adviser talks through a spiel filled with jargon meant to impress us, some stone-faced officer delivers a speech he probably wrote on a nap- kin, some mother looks out for a kid too cute for his owngood, and so on. Really, we just want to see Godzilla punch a hole through San Francis- co's City Hall. A monster movie operates in much the same WWE does. Two headliner heroes stand opposite of each other, size each other up - smash. Destruction and blunt-force trauma provides its own payoff, and we do get to see the Big Guy slug it out, but not for as long as most fans would've hoped. The hoary tropes of past entries are gone; "smashing" plays second- fiddle. Edwards's "Godzilla" chan- nels instead an apocalyptic energy, an adrenal feeling of suspense and even dread. Gyfrgy Ligeti's "Requi- em," which you might remember from Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," plays throughout several sequences. There is won- Wvarner Bros der and despair in that clamorous wailing, and the imagery, resonant with Biblical undertones, electri- fies the audience. "Godzilla" is filled with moments like these, often with "Jaws" and "Jurassic Park"-inspired touches, and often masterfully so. It seems there is always one char- acter in every Godzilla film that attempts to understand the monster. Serizawahas chased Godzilla all his life, and he is the character we ulti- mately admire most. in one scene of breathtaking suspense, Godzilla is swimming in the ocean when he turns toward an aircraft car- rier with such force and mass that he produces a wake almost power- ful enough to tip the warship, all 100,000 tons of it. "I have to see this," Serizawa says. And he races up to the deck of the aircraft carrier, just in time to witness the mountainous ridge of Godzilla's dorsal spine break the water and pass underneath. It reminds me of my all-time favorite Godzilla scene, the end of "Godzilla 2000." Another scien- tist of sorts stands at the edge of a skyscraper to meet the monster. His friends beg him to run, but he stays. He wants to look him in the eye, and he wants to die doing it. As this scientist does, and as Serizawa and Ford after him, I tried to read Godzilla's face when I was a kid and saw only wrath. For one moment, all that power is focused on us alone, and itis humbling. This 2014 reboot has thought through what makes Godzilla so terrible and sympathetic. He is a sentinel, a terror, filled with rage - the King of the Monsters fully real- ized. Fans will watch him roar, and they willthink, satisfied, "That's the Godzilla Iknow." Delacorte Press Author e. lockhart By ALEX BERNARD Daily Arts Writer Dear readers, you are all too familiar with the novel and its tricks, traps, and tropes that reel in audiences like fish chas- ing bait on fan- tasy-adventure hooks. And, through these techniques, fiction, as you bookworms are surely aware, is designed to make sense. A- We Were Liars e. adcart Delacorte Press People like to know that jus- tice will be done or that injustice will prove some sort of grandiose point about humanity or exis- tence or capital-S Something. And yet, in e. lockhart's ("The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks," "The Boyfriend List") new novel, "We Were Liars," the pieces to the puzzle are tossed out the metaphori- cal window and replaced with square pegs that just don't seem to fit into the round holes, at least as far as the reader is concerned. In fact, in the first few lines, the reader is told: "No one is a criminal. No one is an addict. No one is a failure." Welcome to the Land of Liars, where the stories are made up and the truths don't matter. Please leave your reliable narra- tors at the door. In "We Were Liars," Lockhart tells the story of the Sinclairs, a family with about as many problems as dollars and enough secrets to last through 240 deceitful pages. The narrator is Cadence Sinclair, the seventeen year-old heir to her grandfa- ther's fortune, who spends her summers on the family island - Beechwood - just off the East Coast. SPOILER ALERT: She is a liar. Once on Beechwood, Cady passes her time with cousins Johnny and Mirren and with handsome love interest and out- sider Gat. Together, the four dub themselves the "Liars," and serve as the novel's protagonists, fuel- ing the story by reeking havoc on the other Sinclairs while also providing an emotional hook that reels the reader into their tale. Welcome to the land of liars. At first, "We Were Liars" reads like a typical summer young adult novel, full of quirky relatives, nosy grandfathers, and kisses in the attic that are both "electric and soft". The mood turns, however, when Cady vaguely describes an "accident" during "summer fifteen" (when she was 15 years old), but is unable to recall the events leading up to and follow- ing her injury. The result? She skips the next summer at Beech- wood, not returning until she's seventeen, newly obsessed with unveiling the truth. Now do not be deceived, dear reader, this is no story of begin- See LIARS, Page 7 New Disneybiopic more about money than baseball By GIANCARLO BUONOMO ManagingArts Editor Americans are suckers for movies about dogs, boxers and baseball. Especially baseball, because it's "our thing," as Amer- ican as apple pie and pre-emptive C strikes. Clas- sics like "Field Million of Dreams" and DollarAl "The Sandlot" effortlessly com- At Rave and bine jargon and Quality6 J.B. "coaching" his prospects romance into a . episode is a montage of cliched film that is both Walt Disney "white guy goes to India for the about baseball Pictures first time" tropes. J.B. gets food and, at the same poisoning. He gets stuck in traf- time, not base- fic. The t-shirts manufacturer ball. They remind us why we love must be bribed. A family drives by the game so much, but also why on a motorbike clutching a goat. we love so many other things. Despite all of this, J.B finally finds The newest addition to the two young men: Dinesh Patel baseball movie genre is "Million (Madhur Mittal, "Slumdog Mil- Dollar Arm," directed by Craig lionaire") and Rinku Singh (Suraj Gillespie ("Lars and the Real Sharma, "Life of Pi"). Neither boy Girl") and written by Thomas plays cricket, nor particularly McCarthy ("The Visitor"). But likes it, but they can throw a base- "Million Dollar Arm," a well shot, ball over 80 miles per hour. well acted, biopic about the first Now, this indifferent treat- two Indian men to be signed by a ment of India would be, if not Major League organization, is no forgiven, at least tempered if the classic. Despite it's subject matter, rest of the movie were a deep it's not really a baseball movie. character analysis of Dinesh and You won't be reminded why you Rinku, and their undoubtedly love baseball, and you won't be confusing journey to America to reminded of why you love any- learn a sport they've never played thing else, besides maybe money. before. But the focus is all on Sports agent J.B. Bernstein J.B. Forced to allow the boys and (Jon Hamm, "The Town") and his their interpreter/baseball enthu- partner Ash (Aasif Mandvi, "The siast Amit (Pitobash Tripathy, Internship,") have struck it out "Shor in the City") to live in his on their own, and they're strik- home after they unwittingly set ing out. Having lost the chance off the hotel elevator's fire alarm, to represent star linebacker Popo J.B. becomes both coach and sur- Vanuatu, they make the ballsy rogate mother hen to a trio of decision to "tap" the unexploit- clumsy chicks. This is where the ed potential of Indians in Major film really becomes a Disney- League Baseball. J.B travels to fied version of "Jerry Maguire." India to set up a nationwide con- Popo comes calling again, but test called "Million Dollar Arm," J.B. loses him when he is forced where young men will demon- to leave their meeting to fetch strate their throwing arms, and Dinesh, Rinkhu and Amit, who the winners will get shipped back got drunk for the first time. Popo to Los Angeles for training and an is Cush, the boys Rod Tidwell. eventual tryout with major league There's even a Dorothy Boyd, this teams. time in the form of J.B.'s neighbor The first part of the movie Brenda (Lake Bell, "No Strings depicts J.B.'s search across India Attached"), who teaches him to to find his prospects. This whole stop being such a heartless wank- LIARS From Page 6 ning, middle and end. Truth be told (for once), the end is in the middle, the middle is the end and the beginning was never really a beginning to begin with - read the book. (Then reread this para- graph, nod your head and say, "Yeah that's true.") And it is in this backwards, forwards, and altogether scram- bled action that Lockhart suc- ceeds in pulling a shroud over the behind-the-scenes mechan- ics. Fueled by smart dialogue, heart-pounding suspense and a narrator whose voice and pas- sion fuel the novel's engine like coal in a train (do trains still use coal anymore?), "We Were Liars" lulls its readers into a false sense of trust, only to flip the script in the last few pages. Before this final twist though, the novel operates somewhat flatly. While amusing, the char- acters are trope-like and static, save for Cadence, whose wit, reactions and interpretations carry an otherwise rhyth-. mic and predictable series of events. Throughout the entire novel, Lockhart makes up for this insufficiency through solid detail, sharp observation and a narrator whose thoughts will bounce around your head for days. Without Cady though, the novel itself is merely an excep- tional piece of work without that extraordinary dash of unforget- table action. Not only the teenag- ers, but also the adults come off as two-dimensional and some- what undynamic. The result is a beaten-down experience that makes one wish a paramedic would come around with a defi- brillator and shock the charac- ters into life. And lo! The paramedics arrive by the droves! One for every character and each plotline! Yes, a good novel is certainly' not a good novel without a good ending. Lockhart knows it too and delivers big time. Just as the reader expects the narration to drift into an exposi- tory tone, the last few chapters deliver a shock that jolts the spine, gooses the bumps, and "I'm notcrying; Ijusthavesome- thing in both of my eyes!" A stunning, "what just hap- pened?" twist gives precious life to an expertly crafted piece of work that relies heavily upon its unpredictability and dishonesty. Through a truly unforgettable - and quite jar- ring - reveal, Lockhart keeps the reader questioning until the bitter end. Yet do not be deceived again, dear reader. You may expect Lockhart's conclusion to leave you with answers to your ques- tions, but that's not quite the case. Instead, the turn of events will weigh on your thoughts, making your brain feel like a heavy burlap sack filled with nickels and quarters. "We Were Liars," more than anything, is a defibrillator itself, shocking the reader to life and awareness, forcing us to recon- sider why bad things happen to anyone at all. Lockhart challeng- es the nature of grief and shows us that, in the face of pointless tragedy, people are still people. In this hard truth lies the crux of Lockhart's best work to date: an honest, thrilling story about a kid who discovers that life isn't fair and everyone is a liar. Welcome to the land of liars. Check your trust at the door. er. But whereas "Jerry Maguire" is all about how "show me the money" is the wrong attitude, "Million Dollar Arm" shameless- ly embraces it. Instead of leading you to root for Dinesh and Rinkhu to become great baseball players, the film leads you to root for J.B. to succeed in creating the illusion that Dinesh and Rinkhu can play baseball. We're never given an idea of why Dinesh and Rinkhu are playing baseball, other than the antiquated assumption that anything is better than living in India. Mittal and Sharma's talents are wasted on the char- acters, because all they seem to do is sheepishly say "Sorry Mr. J.B. Sir," whenever they throw a wild pitch or otherwise endanger J.B.'s agenda. The film definitely falters on the human side of things, in part because it flat out fails in its por- trayal of baseball. It gives the impression that all Rinkhu and Dinesh need to do is throw a ball about 90 miles per hour over the plate a few times, and that will tempt MLB teams to sign them. Being able to throw a ball fast and over the plate is as much of an indication of one becoming pitch- er as the ability to play "Hot Cross Buns" is of becoming a musician. So what are we left with, after the film cuts to some archival footage of the real Dinesh and Rinkhu getting signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates, and J.B and Brenda mar- rying? A reminder of the market- ing power of exploitation, and that a heartwarming story is only heartwarming if it has a hand- some price tag. HAVE YOU EVER DRESSED UP AS CHARLES BUKOWSKI FOR HALLOWEEN? If so, e-mail gbuonomo@michigandaily.com for information on applying.