6A — Monday, February 9, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
PARAMOUNT
Finland!
‘SpongeBob’ only
works for kids
Latest iteration of
SpongeBob franchise
runs on fart jokes
By CONRAD FOREMAN
Daily Arts Writer
A note from the writer:
I must preface this review by
making it known that I was never
a SpongeBob fan
and I have only
a basic famil-
iarity with the
show.
While
I was not the
only
audience
member in my
age group, I was
the only person
seeing Sponge-
Bob alone on a
Friday
night.
In all fairness, I
actually (sadly)
didn’t have any-
thing better to do.
“The
SpongeBob
Movie:
Sponge Out of Water” marks
the second foray into film for
the Bikini Bottom crew, and
the first in 10 years. For this
adventure, the stakes are set
as high as they can be when a
botched scheme by Plankton
results in the loss of the recipe
for Krabby Patties. The ensuing
uproar
forces
SpongeBob
and Plankton to team up and
find the recipe before Bikini
Bottom’s descent into chaos
becomes irreversible.
While the driving force of
the story (finding the recipe)
is simple enough, the plot is an
exercise in over-the-top ridicu-
lousness. This is best exempli-
fied by the introduction of an
extraterrestrial dolphin that
apparently oversees the galaxy.
Of course, no one sees “Sponge
Out of Water” expecting suc-
cinct, thoughtful storytelling.
They see it for the jokes.
Much of the film’s comedy
is fart/poop based. This per-
haps doesn’t appeal to the col-
lege demographic, but it is a
kids’ movie after all. There are
moments where the comedy
reaches higher points, such as
when
Plankton’s
computer
wife, Karen, escapes from cap-
ture and she’s shown to have
carved in the walls of her pris-
on “CTL + ALT + DEL,” and
other phrases one might expect
from a robot going insane from
imprisonment. The rest of the
humor surely comes from a con-
nection to the old characters —
Patrick is dumb, Squidward is a
stick in the mud and Mr. Krabs
is cheap.
Though the title of the film
and the promotion surround-
ing it implied there would
be extensive scenes with the
main cast stranded on land,
that doesn’t come to fruition
until the climax of the film.
During the sequence, Sponge-
Bob (Tom Kenny), Patrick (Bill
Fagerbakke), Mr. Krabs (Clancy
Brown),
Squidward
(Rodger
Bumpass) and Sandy (Carolyn
Lawrence) receive some assis-
tance from a deus ex machina
that transforms each of them
into their superhero equivalent.
The crew relinquishes their
powers for the sake of returning
things to normality, but Squid-
ward finally catches a break
and gets to keep the washboard
abs of his superhero-self.
The live action antagonist
pirate, Burger Beard (Antonio
Banderas, “Once Upon a Time
in Mexico”), doesn’t add much
to the film comically, but the
conclusion of his story ties up
the universe nicely, revealing
Burger Beard to be the portrait-
ed pirate that famously calls
kids to the ready before each
“SpongeBob” episode.
In the end, “Sponge Out of
Water” isn’t great, nor does it
aspire to be. It’s purposefully
targeted to young children,
bringing them the joy of laugh-
ter and teaching them an age-
old, ever-salient lesson about
the value of teamwork.
A violent response to
‘A Most Violent Year’
By ANDREW MCCLURE
Daily Arts Writer
I can’t even say, let alone think
anything, about the title of “A
Most Violent Year” without using
a Queens English enunciation,
each syllable sharing equal parts
attention and glottal contraction.
That we, the audience expecting
a gritty, violent gangster-like pic-
ture, are left with our leading man
Abel (Oscar Isaac, “Inside Llewyn
Davis”)
borrowing
overloaded
rhetoric from J.C. Chandor’s sin-
ewy script leaves something —
everything — to be desired: like for
Abel to talk with, at least, minor
imperfection as if he actually has
something to lose, something
human. The movie never compels
us to lend a hand to Abel, someone
so multifaceted yet one-dimen-
sional that we can’t care about
his cause because we never really
understand why, or are even con-
vinced that he actually wants to
corner the heating-oil market.
This is not a diatribe. It’s not
because I’m about to, with econo-
my in mind, say some good things.
Bradford Young (“Selma”), the
film’s director of photography,
lenses with meticulous care, cul-
minating in a bridge chase scene
where his cam snakes between
standstill traffic followed by a
tracking shot backpedaling just
fast enough to keep our sprint-
ing subject framed finely. Pictori-
ally, his daylight scenes bleed a soft
blue and his night shots play with
moody contrast, almost to ques-
tion the so-called moral compass
of our Abel, whose grayish-black
pompadour often fades into the
unlit back.
Isaac’s Abel, I think, does what
he can given the weakness of a
script that burps lines like, “When
it feels scary to jump, that is exact-
ly when you jump, otherwise you
end up in the same place,” a blurb
better engineered to tell your kid
growing up than in a movie that
wishes it had the same spine as
that aphorism. Isaac’s delivery, his
acting, with these ambition-wet
lines feels, if anything, actorly. His
knee-kissing sandy overcoat and
bespoke suits create the illusion of
an oil baron better than his actual
words, which are heavy like lead
and preachy like a preacher. But
worst of all, all of this overact-
ing and fatless writing could be
rendered negligible had our Abel
showed us, proved to us, that this
expansion he “dreams” of was,
in fact, a dream of his. Instead,
it falls limp as an empty drive to,
um, build a bigger manse? Prove
to the other dickhead NYC barons
that he reigns supreme? The lat-
ter could’ve worked, but the movie
only pokes at these ostensibly
more interesting characters.
The internet contends this
movie is about “making it,” “Amer-
ica” and “making it in America.”
But how can a movie so adamant
on walking in dumb circles, from
sidesplitting plot-point predict-
ability to Jessica Chastain’s on-
then-off bad Brooklyn accent, ever
“make it” if the only glimmer of
progress is a piece of land, one that
signifies thicker profits but no pal-
pable emotional utility gained for
the purchaser?
“Shucks!” goes the moviegoer
when Abel’s immigrant employee,
Julien, reappears in the final min-
utes of the film, after having been
discarded by the script, to wave a
gun around like a whack-job. We
wince because Julien, eyes jaun-
diced and poor English tremulous,
hints at what this movie could have
been: A story about a real Ameri-
can Dream and how it, well, gets
warped out of shape. It’s a slovenly
denouement, but it would have
been nice to see Abel show just half
the vim, the quasi-psychosis, in his
vocation that Julien did in being a
lowly teamster.
A24
“So you’re telling me you were inside Llewyn Davis?”
Getting hooked on
Yung Lean’s enigma
By CARLY SNIDER
Daily Arts Writer
“Where the hell did you find
this?” a confused friend asks
while watching and listening to
Yung Lean’s “Hurt” music video
for the first time. The video fea-
tures a random compilation of
images and clips — Japanese
writing, neon colors everywhere,
Lean “cooking” with Arizona
Iced
Tea,
computer
screens
from the early ’00s. I think of
a response to explain that the
Swedish rapper’s style and over-
all aesthetic is meant to be ironic
and that its perplexing nature is
purposeful.
Even then I am faced with
more questions. Yes, he knows
that it’s not actually 2002. No, he
is not always a “sad boy.” I don’t
know if he actually has a Louis
duffle bag filled with heroin. No,
this isn’t a joke — well, not really.
Despite my efforts, I could not
find the words to communicate
the appeal of Lean’s backward
sound.
This encounter took place
well over a year ago, and I am
still unable to fully encapsulate
the enigma that is Yung Lean. I
think he is something you “get”
immediately or will never really
appreciate.
Lean’s flow is fairly relaxed,
rapping his lyrics with a slack
style. With contrast to the main-
stream rappers of today, with art-
ists like Wacka Flocka and Joey
Bada$$, there is no urgency in his
delivery. Rather, his style is more
closely linked to other less-than-
conventional rappers like Lil B.
Mumbling his way through
lyrics that don’t make sense most
of the time, Lean somehow man-
ages to create something infec-
tious. For the most part, he sticks
to the general rap lyric agenda —
bragging about various states of
inebriation and his ability to “get
with” women — while somehow
maintaining his “emotional boy”
persona. Though entirely unprec-
edented, after a few listens, you
can’t deny Lean’s swagger.
Even more striking than the
lyrics are the beats support-
ing Lean’s voice. Most tracks
include some combination of
classic hip-hop snare drums and
electronic-based melodies. The
instrumentation is so intricate
that, even without Lean’s vocals,
it could stand on its own as a
chill electro beat. There are hints
of synth, echoing background
vocals and round, rolling tones to
create a sound that is undeniably
Lean’s.
Traditionally, one would think
that such low-key background
music and slack style wouldn’t
allow for an ignorant rap feel,
yet Lean manages to defy these
conventions. Tracks like “Ghost-
town” and “Ginsberg Strip 2002”
are hype in their own sense of the
word, they do not need to be in
your face to get their point across.
What may be the most intrigu-
ing aspect of Lean’s identity is
the way in which he presents
himself and his music. Typifying
his character are the bucket hats,
the references to himself and his
crew as “sad boys,” filling his
music videos with psychedelic
colors and making frequent ref-
erences to years 2001-2003. The
way in which he markets himself
is truly a product of the Internet.
It makes no cohesive sense, but
it’s cool and it works.
Maybe Yung Lean’s strength
is that he is undefinable — he can
be compared to others while still
running a league all his own. I
don’t think I will ever know how
or why Yung Lean does what
he does, all I know is that I’m
hooked.
SKY TEAM
#sadboys 2k14.
C+
‘The
SpongeBob
Movie:
Sponge Out
of Water’
Rave and
Quality 16
Paramount
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