MICMACS: A caper with a conscience

Welcome back!! For six long weeks, I’ve been stuck at home, recuperating from foot surgery. I wasn’t entirely ready to return to the cineplex even today, but I couldn’t miss the chance to see Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s new film, Micmacs, on the big screen. And so, armed with my trusty crutches, and with Mr. Webber carrying a cardboard box to prop my feet on, I officially returned to the land of the living!

And Micmacs was definitely a movie worth coming out of hiding for. Jeunet was the brilliant director behind Amélie, a French phenomenon and one of my all-time favorites. Like Amélie, Micmacs is visually intriguing and rife with cunning plans. But unlike the romantically minded Amélie, Micmacs is not about love – it’s about revenge, of the purest and most noble kind.

Micmacs, which is French for “shenanigans,” doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite the seriousness of its subject matter – the international arms trade. It starts off with a bang – actually multiple bangs – and enough death and despair to make me wonder if I’d made a mistake. But soon enough, the noir wears off and the shenanigans begin, thanks to a quirky cast of characters whose flair for strategy could give the A-Team a run for its money.

If you’re familiar with Amélie – or with French cinema in general – you’ll recognize many of the faces in this film, including Dominique Pinon, Yolande Moreau, and Urbain Chancelier. And if you’re not familiar with French cinema, there’s never been a better time to try it! Micmacs is a lot of fun, like a ride through a Parisian funhouse. And the best part is that all the clowns in this caper have their hearts in just the right place.

See the Micmacs preview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buarPFzHmBw

And for old times’ sake, see the Amélie preview here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIYrpyt6rbk

THE A-TEAM: A blast from the past

I’ve been waiting forever for Hollywood to make T.J. Hooker: The Movie. I’m still waiting. But until that happy day arrives, spending an evening with The A-Team is the next best thing. Entertainment Weekly calls The A-Team “cinematic testosterone on steroids.” If that doesn’t sell you on it, nothing I can say will – but I won’t let that keep me from trying.

After being so totally let down by MacGruber earlier this summer, my hopes weren’t all that high for this movie. But I needn’t have worried – The A-Team blew me away, so to speak. Starring Liam Neeson, Jessica Biel, and Bradley Cooper’s abs, the movie reveals the humble origins of this notorious U.S. Army Special Forces Operational Detachments Alpha Team, a.k.a. A-Team, then catches up with them in modern-day Iraq, where their next deadly mission awaits.

When it comes to elite super-squads of good-looking fellas with a penchant for incendiary devices, my heart still belongs to The Losers, but The A-Team makes a fine companion piece. Liam Neeson is a perfect fit for the role of Colonel Hannibal, trading the long hair and thunderbolts of Clash of the Titans for a close crop and a cigar. His team is the same sort of motley crew you fell in love with back in 1983, with newcomer Sharlto Copley supplying the bulk of the laughs with his wild-card portrayal of “Howling Mad” Murdock, pilot extraordinaire and all-around fruitcake.

I do hope we will be seeing more of Hannibal and the gang in the years to come. Given the sequel-ready ending of this year’s A-Team, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. True to their roots, our boys are still caught in a never-ending loop – always striving to prove their innocence, but managing somehow to commit new felonies in the process. But it never gets old, does it? Okay, apparently it got old in 1986, when NBC canceled the show. But that was then, and this is now. What’s old is new once again, mohawk and all.

See the preview for The A-Team here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z93AADd2Dpo