Brave ***

Director: Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

It’s a shame that sometime in the last ten years, the word “Disney movie” became associated with old fashioned, sappy and obsolete when compared to more progressive animation studios like Dreamworks, Blue Sky and especially Pixar. Although the quality of Disney Animation Studios did diminish (sadly taking down their 2D branch) the true thing is that the house of the mouse remained loyal to what Walt had once envisioned; making magic in our world seem possible.

The old sing and dance cartoon flicks that once made the studio the most groundbreaking filmmakers in the world, became object of parody. But how many of us still treasure the countless times we saw Peter Pan and Dumbo growing up? And how have we come to realize that despite their undeniable profundity and complexity, Pixar movies will never truly relit that first spark of awe ignited by Disney classics?

Pixar’s sophisticated filmmaking techniques have spoiled us yes, but sometimes it’s still refreshing to let ourselves be enchanted by a simple (not to be confused with simplistic) fairytale. Brave, might be the most effortless film to be put out by the Pixar brand, and it truly feels much more like a “Disney” movie than one made by the people behind Wall-E and Toy Story, but this in the end doesn’t seem to matter much. Despite the film not being the melting pot of “will-they-pull-this-off”s Pixar has made us used to, it still contains the sincerity and deep love of storytelling that has made them such beacons of creativity.

Set in Scotland, the film centers on the unorthodox Princess Merida, a hot headed beauty who’d rather spend the day horseback riding and shooting arrows, than learning how to sew and training to find the perfect husband. Her mother, Queen Elinor, finds herself in a constant battle with her daughter who refuses to conform to tradition; it doesn’t help that her husband King Fergus seems almost oblivious to everything going on around them.

When Merida defies the rules and refuses to choose among the candidates offered to her in marriage, she and her mother undergo the ultimate kind of battle. The central twist in the film can easily be deduced by anyone who knows how these “try to have some empathy” movies work and when it unfolds, its familiarity somehow makes it feel quite refreshing. The rest of the movie plays out like a well told bedtime story (legends and storytelling are a constant theme in the screenplay) until it surprisingly transforms into something more profound: it’s an oft-touching dissection of the loves our mothers have for us.

Without being preachy or overly sentimental, the film tackles the right balance between what society expects of men and women. The film is filled with stunning action sequences that become even more exciting because of the heroine’s beauty. They do not stimulate the mind in the way watching Angelina Jolie or Sigourney Weaver kicking butt do; they make endless adventure seem possible for people regardless of their gender and sexual orientation. While the “mainstream” lesson might have something to do with how we each own our destiny (which in itself isn’t a shabby lesson at all), the more subversive subtext in the film allude to how women must often battle harder than men and always find themselves at stakes with men and other women. It’s lovely to see a story so devoted to womanhood, especially because of how it comes to represent an entire history of female liberation. See how it reminds us that more often than not, women are the real authority figures in the household, and regardless of how cute they are, isn’t it interesting how Merida’s triplet brothers don’t get to utter a single word in the movie?
By subverting our notions of what a Pixar movie should be, isn’t Brave in a way (from its very form), alluding to the battles faced everyday by women who feel they have to live up to standards created by and for men?

The powerful feminine force behind Brave is especially obvious when compared to the short film that precedes it. In Enrico Casarosa’s La Luna we see the patriarchal system at its most obvious and the dichotomy created by the juxtaposition of the short and feature films, will make for fascinating post-screening conversations among all family members. Will little boys and girls want to be like the nameless boy of La Luna or like Merida? The time will come when the answer won’t really make a difference, only then will we know we are living in a truly brave world.

The Brothers Bloom **

Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz
Rinko Kikuchi, Robbie Coltrane

Writer/director Rian Johnson tells the story of the title brothers, Stephen (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody), two con artists for whom every new job is a play of sorts.
They get into character, develop twists and orchestrate grand finales. But eventually Bloom wants out, he wants to live "an unwritten life".
So Stephen comes up with one last job: conning eccentric heiress Penelope Stamp (Weisz). Things go wrong when Bloom falls for her and before you can say "an inverted 'The Lady Eve'", Johnson has delivered a restless film-straight out of the Wes Anderson book of witty- that thrives on quirk, movie and music references and utter aimlessness.
The actors are pretty good, but bring nothing we hadn't seen before to the table. Brody mopes, Ruffalo shows-off and Weisz uses her Victorian beauty to evoke novel heroines.
But the film's problem is Johnson's script and smugness; he tries to pull a million rabbits out of the same hat, without considering that by the third the audience is already in need of something different.
He has so much fun with his characters that he turns them uninteresting-for people who aren't him at least-and by the second half of the film it's difficult to want to invest any sort of interest in them.
Heist movies should be enjoyable-even if the end to their means is not legal-but make it so that the audience is fooled and the characters within the movie have no idea what the hell just happened.
But not a single thing in "The Brothers Bloom" feels organic or unwritten. Some movies are too quirky for their own damn good.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince **

Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith
Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton, Bonnie Wright

"Are you confused?" asks a concerned Albus Dumbledore (Gambon) to Harry Potter (Radcliffe) as they uncover yet another dark mystery halfway throughout the film. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were" he continues without waiting for Harry's reply.
Dumbledore, as it seems, may not only be speaking to Potter, but to an entire audience, who have never read J.K. Rowling's famous books and will have a hard time following, or even being interested, in a movie that contains as many plot holes, discrepancies, lack of character subtext and coherence as there are tastes in Bernie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.
Since there is no re-introduction needed the film throws us back into Hogwarts where Harry and his friends Ron Weasley (Grint) and Hermione Granger (Watson) return for another year of misadventures.
This time around Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters, who have seemingly recruited Draco Malfoy (Felton) as an inside agent, have been attacking the Muggle world and are, as usual, trying to infiltrate Hogwarts and help their master take over the world.
After almost reaching a decade of movies, the Harry Potter series has become formulaic and by now everyone knows that all of the films will at some point have all of the following: Christmas vacations, a Quidditch match, a sudden attack from Voldemort and a new professor in the school.
Said professor now comes in the shape of Horace Slughorn (Broadbent) who is reluctant to return to Hogwarts, but does so after insistence from Dumbledore.
Slughorn may possess valuable information about Tom Riddle (A.K.A Voldemort) which might help the good guys get rid of him before long.
Dumbledore of course recruits Potter to carry out this mission and most of the film consists of the execution of said plan.
The problem with such a thing is that the films have fallen also into a state of disconnect from any sort of "realism".
Why are we supposed to believe that things go wrong only when the kids are back in Hogwarts? Does evil also take a summer break? None of the films in the saga so far have been able to create believable links between each installment.
It's ironic when Professor Minerva McGonagall (Smith) tells Harry, Ron and Hermione "why is it that whenever something happens, you three are always involved?".
It's obvious that they're the stars, but it should be only obvious for the audience, not the characters themselves.
Most of the ensemble does a good work; people like Smith, Gambon, Carter (who is a wicked tease!) and Rickman can do no wrong (he is a particularly sinister scene stealer) and the delightful Broadbent brings freshness to what was feeling like a stale staff.
The kids on the other side are obviously still learning their craft. Most of the time they act like actors acting.
This problem is more obvious with Radcliffe, who movie after movie, manages to turn Potter into an uninterestingly smug kid playing humble and nice.
It comes as no wonder however that they act this way, when the film constantly neglects their "human" side. They are forced fed with dialogues and quips that have no verosimilitude and because of this the film loses its most important ally.
There are several subplots involving their sexual self awareness. Harry begins to fall for Ron's sister Ginny (Wright) while Hermione puts aside her pride and accepts that she might have feelings for Ron. They all of course spend most of the film denying such things and date other students to get over their actual feelings.
And it's not so surprising that these are the most involving scenes in the movie, where the kids get to act like kids and saving the world is something that comes second after finding who they really are.
The film is filled with sexual innuendos (that seem accidental) but actually make the whole thing feel alive for once. There is a particular Quidditch match where the position of Ron's broomstick only rises more as he becomes more satisfied.
But then the director comes and completely de-sexualizes the characters turning them into words straight out of a screenplay.
One, that isn't even that good to begin with. Writer Steve Kloves' delivers his most uneven script of the series yet. Many things in this installment seem incomplete; several key characters disappear for long periods of time and some are featured just for the sake of filling a billing.
Even if you haven't read the book it's easy to detect that a lot of material has been ignored because the plot advances in a bizarre way, it stalls more than it flows.
Fans of the book will probably dislike this feeling, but those who go to the theater expecting to see a movie will also have much to wish for.
Both Kloves and Yates seem to have forgotten that they are crafting a movie and unlike in literature there are things that can't be found by turning back a page at your desire.
"The Half-Blood Prince" feels more like a work in progress than an ultimate adaptation and very few scenes evoke a pinch of emotion out of the viewer.
It's a shame because with the magnificent work of the tech department (the costumes and art direction are stunning) the look of the saga has finally matured.
Particularly with the achievement of director of photography Bruno Delbonnel, who does actual magic with the light and his camera.
Several scenes in the film will take your breath away just from the sheer beauty they possess. Delbonnel transports his sunny French take into Hogwarts which is a more macabre environment.
His aesthetic sometimes recall nineteenth century fairy tale engravings which had both the mystery and the humanity that fascinated and attracted people so much to these stories.
Through his lens for the first time the things inside a "Potter" movie feel less like props and more like actual lived-in heirlooms.