March 2015 movie reviews

STILL ALICE.  Julianne Moore won the Oscar for her portrayal of a college professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.  It’s brutal watching her forgetfulness getting worse and worse, along with her awareness of what is happening to her.  Meanwhile, her family (Alec Baldwin and Kristin Stewart) are also trying to cope.  Julianne has one great scene where she gives a speech on what having the disease is like.  Not exactly a fun time at the movies, but certainly a worthy movie way above the usual disease-of-the-month type thing.

KINGSMAN.  Colin Firth plays a secret agent for a super elite agency in England in this spoof of spy movies.  He recruits a working class kid to join, and the movie shows the training the recruits go through.  Then the survivors must save the world from a megalomaniac Samuel Jackson.  As with so many of movies these days, for me, it felt too long.  Clever, but could have been terrific with some editing.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS.  Four vampires are housemates in New Zealand, ranging in age from 8,000 years old to “only” 138.  This pseudo-documentary shows how they have conflicts like any other group of guys living together.  Plus they try to deal with the modern world and changing fashions, technology, etc.   Although mildly amusing at times, for me it really felt like an improv sketch that went on too long.  Definitely NOT as hilarious as the ads would have one believe.

SHE’S BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE’S ANGRY.  This documentary covers the women’s movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, interviewing many of the women that were the movers and shakers of the times.  They fought for equal pay, women’s health, abortion rights, child care, against sexual violence, etc.  And the movie covers it all. Because it covers so many topics, it felt a little superficial.  Certainly worth seeing for people who don’t realize how far we’ve come, though.

November 2014 movie reviews

INTERSTELLAR.  Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a single dad  who farms corn, the only crop that grows anymore. Earth is fast becoming unlivable and as a former pilot, Cooper is asked to take on a mission to find a planet that is viable and save mankind.  He doesn’t want to leave his kids, but he also wants to give them a future, so he goes.  He and the crew (including Anne Hathaway) will have to leap through a wormhole and avoid black holes, and it’s all a race against time before humanity dies out.  I thought I wouldn’t like this film, but I mostly loved it.  It’s got philosophy, physics, humor, edge of your seat action, and great visuals.  In this almost 3 hour-long movie, there were only a very few moments I didn’t enjoy.  Strongly recommended

BIRDMAN.   Riggan (Michael Keaton) starred in 3 very popular superhero movies in the early 90’s.  But now he is trying to bring a play to Broadway, one he adapted from a Raymond Carver story and is directing and starring in.  He has to deal with the temperamental actors, hateful critics, a resentful daughter, and a public that only wants him to make a 4th Birdman movie.  And more.  The movie is very artistic, the acting is really excellent, it is very funny at times and it has big themes about art and our current culture.  And I didn’t really enjoy it.  Most of the characters were so self-involved and egotistical that I just couldn’t get into it.  At times I found it insufferable.   Critics are loving it, though.

NIGHTCRAWLER.  Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a skeezy character, currently in LA and surviving by stealing.  He also is very smart, and will read up on ways to manage/manipulate people.   One night he comes across a traffic accident and observes the free-lancers that film dramatic episodes for the local news stations.  So Lou decides that is what he wants to do.  He buys a cheap camcorder and police scanner and tries his luck.  And he turns out he is good at it.  He works with a local low-rated TV channel and desperate news director Rene Russo to get his stuff on the air. He is not above manipulating events to get good footage.  Lou is beyond creepy, but this is a compelling look at a sociopath finding a niche.  Gyllenhaal is really good, and although this isn’t the kind of movie one says they enjoy exactly, it is a very good movie.

ST VINCENT.  Vincent (Bill Murray) is a cranky drunk with gambling problems. Single mom Maggie (Melissa McCarthy) moves in next door with her pre-teen son.  Stuff happens, and Vincent ends up looking after the boy. Given the cast, you might think this is a comedy, but it is not (although there is humor).  It is more in the same genre as Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, I would say.  The boy humanizes the crank somewhat, and Vincent helps the bullied boy.  Not a bad movie – the acting is very good, for example – but nothing about the plot is terribly unexpected.  A little pull at the heartstrings; it’s perfectly pleasant movie.

KILL THE MESSENGER.   Reporter Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) is working for the San Jose Mercury News in the 90’s when he stumbles on the story of how the government allowed drug dealers to operate in order to fund the war in Nicaragua.  He investigates and the story is published and it hits the fan.  Not only does the government come down on him, but other newspapers try more to discredit him than investigate the story.  Interesting look at how your life can tumble down when you take on the powers that be.  The movie doesn’t really have any thrills or gripping moments, but it is more or less based on a true story, so it is moderately interesting.

DEAR WHITE PEOPLE.  This movie takes place at an elite college campus.  There is a small minority of black students, some of whom are trying to retain their culture and keep the all (or mostly) black on campus-residence. Others are trying hard to fit in. The movie focuses on four different characters with very different issues, and as a result, I didn’t find this particularly enlightening, more all over the map. A decent attempt from a young director, I think, although it just felt not quite baked.  Mildly humorous at times, but mostly sarcastic.

August 2014 movie reviews

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.  In the 1980s Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is abducted and taken to other worlds, where he grows up to be a self-styled Star Lord, but is actually a thief and con man.  He steals the wrong thing from the wrong guy, and ends up being pursued by many (including Zoe Saldana (who rocks), a tree-like creature, and a genetically enhanced raccoon.  He eventually bonds with his pursuers as they work to save the galaxy.  I am not a huge fan of the superhero genre, but this had enough wit and humor (and 1980’s references) to keep me entertained between all the extended fight scenes and CGI battles.   No actual raccoons or tree humans were harmed in the making of this movie.

LUCY.  Scarlett Johansson is in Hong Kong when a recent acquaintance tricks her into delivering drugs.  Before she knows it, she is being used as a drug mule, with a new-fangled drug being inserted into her abdomen.  But the drugs starts leaking into her system, and she finds her intellect growing by leaps and bounds.  She is smart enough to get back at the drug kingpins now.  Meanwhile, she also connects with Morgan Freeman, a scientist who lectures on the brain’s unused capacity.  This movie is completely ludicrous and occasionally pretentious.  It is also quite psychedelic with crazy ass visuals, and reminded me of a 1960’s movie that people might take hallucinogens before viewing.  It’s crazy/silly, but…Scarlett Johansson is always good, and I didn’t hate it.

THE ONE-HUNDRED FOOT JOURNEY.  An Indian family emigrates to England after violence at home, but find that the English climate doesn’t agree with them.  So they leave and explore continental Europe to find a place to locate their restaurant.  The patriarch (Om Puri) finds what he thinks is the perfect place in small town France, right across from a Michelin star restaurant, run by Helen Mirren.  She is exceedingly unpleasant, but the Indian son is a gifted chef, so the competition is on.  This movie has absolutely no surprises, so only the setting, the actors, and the food can save it.  Which they marginally do.

CALVARY.  Brendan Gleeson plays a worldly priest in a small Irish town.  He hears confession, and the confessor tells him that when he was young he was raped over and over by a priest who is now dead.  The confessor says he is going to kill Brendan in a week, because that will have more impact than killing a bad priest.  Brendan goes about his duties while he tries to decide what to do.  The local people he comes in contact with include a rich alcoholic, a loose woman, an atheist doctor, a woman-beater, and more.  The movie didn’t bore me, but I found it so disturbing I can’t really recommend it.

RICH HILL.  This documentary follows three young teenagers living in small town Missouri (Rich Hill, pop. 1395).  They all are living in poverty, and have other strikes against them as well (mental illness, absent parents, etc.) .  One is ever optimistic, one is seething in anger, and the third has other problems.  It is very sad; you know the chances of them being successful adults is slim.  Not mind-blowing, with no analysis at all to explain their situations or indicate what would help them, but interesting enough as a straight-forward look at their lives.

July 2014 movie reviews

BEGIN AGAIN.  Greta (Keira Knightly) and Dave (Adam Levine) are a couple who moved to New York so he could work on his rock-and-roll video.  She is a songwriter who believes in authenticity.  Dave gets caught up in his stardom, and dumps Greta.  She is alone in New York, but meets a friend who has her sing one of her songs in a club.  Dan (Mark Ruffalo), having just lost his production company and having personal troubles of his own, hears her and wants to make her the next big thing.  But the music world is changing…  This is a sweet movie, not the romance one might expect, more a movie about the music business and people adapting to it.  Keira doesn’t have a great voice, but she can carry a tune, and the songs are pleasant enough.  And all three actors do a good job making their characters believable. This is by the same director who did ONCE, and has much of the same feel.  Very appealing.

LIFE ITSELF.  Documentary on the life of movie critic Roger Ebert.  Begun during the last year of his life (not that they knew that), it includes interviews with him, colleagues, friends and family, clips from the past, and readings from his autobiography.  I watched Siskel and Ebert beginning with their appearances on PBS, and read Ebert’s reviews and blog (he was a terrific writer), so I knew a fair amount about the man, but I still learned something new about him.  The movie doesn’t idolize him, but also shows his warts, his weaknesses, and his physical struggles at the end of his life.  It also looks at his impact (for good and bad, depending on your perspective) on movie criticism.  Really quite good look at a man who had very full life. It brought me to tears a couple of times.

SNOWPIERCER.  Sci-fi action film. Apparently, in an attempt to solve global warming, humans instead froze the planet, killing everything.  Earth is now an ice and snow covered rock.  The only survivors are on a high tech self-contained train circling the world.  The train mirrors human society, with the destitute in the back of the train (including Chris Evans, John Hurt, Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell) with the wealthy privileged few (including Tilda Swinton) in the front.  The poor are planning another revolt, and they have to battle car by car forward in the train toward the train’s engineer, who rules over all.  I think this was a little too long, and I am not big on long bloody fight scenes, but other than those minor complaints, this is a really fun and interesting movie.  What should human society look like?  Or what does it have to look like?  Look for it On Demand, although best on a big screen.

BOYHOOD.  This movie is making a big splash because director Richard Linklater filmed it over 12 years.  It is, at heart, just a simple story of a boy growing up, and his divorced parents Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke and a slightly older sister.  There are ups and downs as his mother has her struggles, and that’s it – his life from 6 to 18.  But with a few exceptions, it is fascinating to watch and feels not at all like 2 hours and 45 minutes.  I enjoyed it a lot, even though it really is just about ordinary lives – like a documentary, almost.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.  I really liked the previous RISE OF movie, so I had high hopes for this one.  But….eh, it just didn’t engage me.  The apes are living in Muir Woods while the humans have been decimated by a virus.  The people in SF need to go north to ape territory to fix a dam so they can have power (and try to connect with other pockets of humanity).   The apes have a bad egg, and the humans have a bad egg, and that’s all it takes to start a war between the two groups, even though most want peace.  Big CGI battles. Disappointing.

22 JUMP STREET.  Another sequel fails to impress.  I thought 21 Jump Street was pretty funny.  Here, the “boys” (Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) go to college, again to take down drug dealers.  There are a lot of self-referential comments (about sequels doing the same thing over, about them looking too old, etc), and there are some laughs, but this one was, I thought, a little more labored.  Not flat-out horrible, but not as consistently funny as the first.  Or maybe just the jokes got old in the re-telling.

IDA.  This Polish black-and-white film takes place in the late 50s/early 60s.  Ida is a teenage orphan brought up in a convent, and is almost ready to take her vows as a nun.  But the Mother Superior insists that Ida first go visit her aunt, an aunt she didn’t know she had.  Turns out, Ida is Jewish, and her parents were murdered in the war.  So her and her aunt (a hard drinking Communist official) go looking for their graves.  If all that doesn’t sound absolutely scintillating, this movie takes place at a snail’s pace.  It has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and I am stunned.  I can’t believe anyone with a pulse wouldn’t have trouble staying awake for this.  (OK, the actress is very good, but other than that…)

October movie reviews

CAPT. PHILLIPS.  This is a fictionalized account of what happened when a large cargo ship was taken by pirates of the coast of Somalia in 2009.  Capt. Phillips (Tom Hanks) runs a tight ship, but despite employing all the measures at his disposal, his ship is taken by four Somalis with automated weapons.  The first half of the movie is the cat-and-mouse game between the crew and the pirates, as the crew tries to ensure they and the ship are not held for ransom.  The second part covers the episode where the Captain is taken away from the ship on a lifeboat and the US Navy comes to the rescue.  Tom Hanks is great, and the film doesn’t give short shrift to the Somalis point of view.   Directed by Paul Greengrass (Bourne movies, United 93), who really knows how to do suspense, even though you may know how it is going to turn out, it keeps you engrossed at every minute.  A terrific entertainment.

ENOUGH SAID.  Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Albert (James Gandolfini) are two divorcees who meet at a party and agree that they initially aren’t attracted to each other.  But at a subsequent set-up, they really hit it off.  Unfortunately, Eva also meets Albert’s ex-wife (Catherine Keener), and starts hearing about all of his negatives.  Despite Eva and Albert’s budding romance, Eva keeps up her friendship with the ex-wife.   This is a charming comedy about an adult relationship, and how even mature people can screw up a good thing.  I really liked it.    

GRAVITY.  Dr. Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Astronaut Kowalski (George Clooney) are on a spacewalk as she tries to make a fix to a telescope.  He is experienced, and cool and collected, while she is a novice trying to do her job.  Then space debris hits their spacecraft, and they are alone in space trying to survive.  In what is essentially a disaster movie, the filming here is what make the movie so special.  It is remarkable how the movie makes you feel the emptiness of space, the beauty, the silence… and the terror of being alone with only your wits to rely on.   The special effects really enhance the emotion of the movie, not overwhelm it.   Whether or not the astronauts can make their way to a “lifeboat” and survive kept me totally engrossed, but at the same time, not fully satisfied.  Still, those effects…

PRISONERS.  Keller and Gracie (Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello) have Thanksgiving dinner with friends Franklin and Nancy (Terence Howard and Viola Davis) and their children.  When their two little girls go missing, they all react in different ways.  As Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) attempts to find the girls, Keller goes off the deep end while Gracie curls up in a ball of misery.  Convinced that a simple-minded boy (Paul Dano) knows where the girls are, Keller goes all vigilante.  This has a fairly convoluted plot, with bolts out of the blue, and is too long, but all of the acting is top-notch and it mostly comes together in the end.  So although it was a bit intense for my tastes (torture!), I would recommend it because of the acting.

ALL IS LOST.  The movies open with a voice-over  with a sailor (Robert Redford) writing a letter to his family, saying all is lost, and he is sorry for all of his failings.  Move to 8 days earlier, where he is sailing his yacht 1700 miles of the coast of Sumatra when it runs into a container that had fallen off a cargo ship.  The resulting hole in the side of his ship sets off a desperate struggle for survival.  He must patch his boat, overcome bad weather, and try to navigate to waters where he might be found.  There is practically no dialogue, and we simply watch as he thinks his way through every crisis and implements solutions.  Interesting, if a tiny bit too long.  A fight for survival story similar to GRAVITY, without the great effects. Still, I felt more satisfied at the ending of this one.  

DON JON.  Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed) is a Jersey boy who does well with the ladies.  Still, he prefer porn, because as he says, with porn he doesn’t have to do nuthin’, or say nuthin.  Despite his lecherous ways, he is a church going boy, confessing his sexual peccadilloes every Sunday after going to the clubs and scoring the rest of the week.  But then he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) and he thinks she is off the charts beautiful.  And she isn’t easy, either – she is definitely waiting for someone to meet her high standards – so he makes quite an effort to pursue her.   And they do become a couple, but although he makes several changes for her, he can’t wean himself of the porn habit.   So we’ll see if they can overcome their false ideas of perfect relationships.   Occasionally amusing, I didn’t find this the comedy some people said, but more a character study of a kind of shallow man that really doesn’t like women, or even sex with women, just orgasms.  I wouldn’t bother with the movie if you are offended by the objectification of women (by Jon and his friends) or multiple clips of porn.  Still I thought it was interesting.  Although primarily about porn addiction there is even a little side note on the harm believing in romantic comedies can have on women.

September movie reviews

AT WORLD’S END.  Gary King (Simon Pegg) was hot stuff in high school, but he is pretty much a loser 20 years later.  He decides recreating a famous pub crawl from his youth will make him feel better, so he gets the old gang (including Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Rosamund Pike), very reluctant, back together.  This time, he intends to finish what they didn’t in their youth, at the World’s End pub.  But about halfway through the dozen pubs, the gang starts realizing that their old home town is different, something about the town folk…  Third in the trilogy that began with SHAUN OF THE DEAD, followed by HOT FUZZ, the writer/director/actors have hit their stride.  Totally ridiculous stuff, but lots of laugh out loud bits.  We’ll always have The Disabled!

IN A WORLD.  Lake Bell wrote, directed and stars in this as a young woman trying to make it in the world of voiceover work.  Her father was a king of the field, and it is a tough field in general for women, so she also does vocal coaching (and really really hates women who talk like “sexy babies”).  She is competing with her non-supportive father as well as a contemporary to do the trailer for a new young adult quadrilogy that is bound to be a huge hit.  There is a love interest, and a side story involving her sister.  There is sweetness, family drama, humor, marital discord… Although the movie ends terrifically on a nice feminist note, as a whole it didn’t capture my interest.  It was kind of all over the place.  Like real life, I suppose.

ELYSIUM.  Max (Matt Damon) lives on 22nd century Earth, where because of pollution and over-population, the wealthy have moved to an idyllic space station while leaving the masses on earth in a desperate state.  Jodie Foster is Secretary of Defense of Elysium and stops at nothing to keep the people on earth from moving there.  Due to a circumstances, Max is desperate to get to Elysium  and agrees to work with a rebel to obtain computer code that would help the people on earth.  Stuff happens, there is action aplenty.  This movie was made by the guy who did DISTRICT NINE (a movie I really like; you can see similarities), but unlike it the characters here are more caricatures (Jodie Foster complete with a distracting accent) and the situation heavy-handed.  This one didn’t grab me and keep me along for the ride like an action movie should.

SHORT TERM 12.  This movie is about Grace, a twenty-something who works at a home for at-risk kids (abandoned, abused, etc.)  She is awesome at it – she knows when to be tough and when to sympathize.  Her boyfriend also works there, and you can see through their relationship that she has some issues of her own.  She knows what to do for the kids, but is still having trouble putting it into practice in her own life.  This movie takes a hard look at the challenges that these kinds of kids face, but has a hopeful note to it.  It feels really honest; I liked it.

THE SPECTACULAR NOW.  Sutter is a hard-partying teen who has just been dumped by his girlfriend.  He becomes friends with Amy, a more straight-laced, inexperienced girl.  At first he has no intention of dating her, but her sweetness draws him in.  And she likes his attention and charm.   She sees his sweetness, but doesn’t seem to see that he is an incipient alcoholic.  This is just a nice little movie that feels truthful about growing up and learning about relationships.  Bonus: Kyle Chandler and Jennifer Jason Leigh as parents.

July 2013 movie reviews

FRUITVALE STATION.  The movie opens with cell phone footage of the real life shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant at the BART Fruitvale Station  by BART police on New Year’s Day 2009.  Then it moves to the beginning of the day and follows Oscar as he hangs with his girlfriend and daughter, friends, and family.  This movie doesn’t portray Oscar as a saint by any means (in fact I think quite the opposite).  But he did love his daughter and mother, and was trying to do better, and he certainly didn’t deserve what happened to him.  Maybe he would have turned his life around, maybe not, but he’ll never have the chance.   And the filmmaker and actors make you feel that loss, doing a terrific job of capturing the events (mostly based on fact).   A very powerful movie, it may be one of the saddest movies I have ever seen.

THE WAY, WAY BACK.  Fourteen year old Duncan is being forced to go on a beach vacation with his recently divorced mother (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carrell).  Duncan is a pretty sullen teenager, but he has good reason, as Trent is a real a-hole.  The grown-ups are having a great time at the beach, the kid – not so much.  But in an attempt to escape the beach house he finds a nearby water park with a compassionate manager (Sam Rockwell), and ends up working there and finally loosening up a bit.  And he and the neighbor girl start being friendly.  Allison Janney provides great comedy as the alcoholic neighbor.  Not quite as unoriginal as one might think, this was written by the guys that wrote THE DESCENDANTS, and has sort of the same seriocomic feel.  And good movie to see when you want something breezy and don’t want anything too serious.  

WORLD WAR Z.  Brad Pitt is retired and taking care of his family when a zombie apocalypse breaks out.  And these zombies are fast.  It turns out that Brad used to work on catastrophes for the UN (or something like that).  He gets his family to safety, and then is drafted to figure out what can be done.  His investigations take him to Korea, Jerusalem and Wales as he tries to save humanity before the powers that be move his family to somewhere less safe (they are blackmailing him to help).  It is touch and go for a while.  :-)  Although one side character was an idiot who should have died, this is a fun, relatively smart, not very gory take on the zombie genre, if you enjoy that.  Not awesome, but suspenseful and fun enough.

20 FEET FROM STARDOM.  This documentary looks at the careers of the unsung (mostly) women who made their living as backup singers for acts like the Rolling Stones, Motown, etc.  Some were happy not being stars, others not, but they all lived to make music and now seem to have come to terms with their careers.  Especially compelling are the stories of the woman (Darlene Love) who sang songs that become hits under another group’s name (because Phil Spector was cheating her), and the woman who sang “backup” on Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter.  It is nice to see these women get credit for their contributions to popular music.  Less interesting is the current backup singer trying to make it on her own.  There is great music in the movie, and interesting interviews with the women as well as the stars they sang for, so I would recommend catching it on PBS, where it is likely to show up.

May 2013 movie reviews

STAR TREK.  The gang is back, and this time they are responding to a terrorist attack on Federation offices.  They are sent into forbidden Klingon territory to track down the perpetrator (Benedict Cumberbatch).  But rather than kill him as ordered, they arrest him.  But he’s quite a handful, and getting home safely will be a challenge.   The characters keep developing (while keeping with what we know of them from the earlier incarnations), the Kirk and Spock relationship grows deeper despite their inherent differences (maybe because of them), and there a really nice emotional touches along with moral ambiguity.  A tiny quibble for me is that nearly all of the action scenes could have been trimmed by 30 seconds or so, but it’s a small thing in this movie, which is great fun and every bit as good as the last one, if not even better.  

MUD.  Ellis and Neckbone are two 14-year olds living in rural Arkansas.  They are at that age where you start discovering that the world and people are a lot more complicated than you think.  One night, they take their boat out on the river to a deserted island where they have heard of a boat stranded up in a tree.  The boat is there all right, but someone is living in it – he says they can call him Mud (Matthew McConaughey).  Although a little wary of him at first, he seems pretty open and honest and they grow to trust him.  He tells them he is just waiting for his girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) and he will be moving on.  But of course there is more to the story than that, and the boys end up helping Mud both connect with his girl and help him plan a getaway.  Meanwhile, Ellis’ parents are having troubles, and Ellis himself is falling for a girl.  This movie has lots of layers, is very atmospheric and visually beautiful, the personalities are well drawn, good acting all around – I really liked it.

THE ICEMAN. The movie opens with Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) having coffee with a nice young woman (Winona Ryder).  She has to drag conversation out of him.  But she sees something in him, and they end up marrying.  And they end up having a nice suburban New Jersey life.   What she doesn’t see is that Kuklinski is a psychopathic killer who murders in cold blood, sometimes for the mob, sometimes just because.  He would never hurt a woman or child, but he is completely detached from the inhumanity of killing men.  The couple have two daughters and for all his family knows, he works in finance.  The wife starts to suspect that it’s not all on the up and up, but she never knows the truth.  It’s very odd to see a man who has two diametrically opposed sides to his personality.  Shannon is always compelling, and he pulls this off, and it makes for a movie worth seeing, or at least renting.  Based loosely on a true story.  

FRANCES HA.  Frances (Greta Gerwig)  is a New York City 20-something, apprenticing at a dance company and couch surfing for places to crash.  She just doesn’t seem to be too focused on what she needs to do to….well, grow up.  Still, at this point in her life, although she is just drifting, she is happy. She’s not that different from a lot of young adults, and she is a sweet girl.  But the fact is, that didn’t make her interesting to me, just kind of goofy.  And boring.  Perhaps I am too far removed from my 20s to get it.   The movie is in pretentious black and white.  I have come to the understanding that I don’t care for the movies of critical darling Noah Baumbach (Greenberg, Squid and Whale).

April Movie Reviews

THE ANGELS’ SHARE.  This Scottish movie opens with a young thug being sentenced to community service.  Robbie has a child now, and really does want to be a better person, even if circumstances make that difficult.  Luckily, his community service supervisor is very supportive, and takes a liking to him.  The supervisor even introduces Robbie to whisky, which at first he does not like.  But it turns out he has the nose and taste buds for it.  Then the movie shifts gears, and Robbie’s attempt to improve his life leads to a lighter and much more fun story, with laugh out loud bits.  I like this a lot.  It’s one of the first movies this year that I have no trouble recommending to friends.   It has subtitles, if you worry about understanding the brogue.  (Available On Demand)

THE SAPPHIRES. The movie opens in 1960s Australia, where a group of talented Aboriginal girls have a singing group, but discrimination is a barrier to their success.  A down-on-his-luck musician (Chris O’Dowd) notices them, and he works to change them into being a soul group.  They audition and get the opportunity to sing for the troops in Vietnam.  That’s pretty much it for story, but O’Dowd is charming, the girls are individuals with well-defined believable personalities, and the music is terrific (can’t go wrong with Motown, in my opinion).  The movie isn’t exactly original, but it is a lightweight fun time at the movies, certainly worth watching.  Inspired by a true story, you read the story of what these remarkable women went on to accomplish over the credits.

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES.  Ryan Gosling works as a stunt rider for a circus.  When an ex fling (Eva Mendes) comes to visit, he finds that he has a son.  Not having had a good father himself, he feels compelled to take care of his kid.  But, as a friend puts it, he has a limited skill set.  But that skill set can be useful for robbing banks.  Which is what he does in Act 1 of the this movie.  Bradley Cooper, also the father of a young son, is the cop who will track him down.  But that is just the start of the movie, which goes on to explore issues of morality, fatherhood, the consequences of our actions, etc.  The movie is long and ambitious, but although I can’t say I found it entertaining, exactly, the acting is really good and the complex characters always kept my interest.  

DISCONNECT.  The movie follows three interconnected stories of people affected by the internet.  There is cyberbullying, identity theft, and sex chat rooms.  To me, the movie felt a lot like CRASH, that movie on race relations.  Like that one, this one is superficial, but still, interesting although the feeling of dread watching people try to deal with horrible things than happen to them is not all that pleasant.  There were parts where I thought I knew where it was going, but I wasn’t always right.

NO PLACE ON EARTH.  This documentary begins in the Ukraine, where an explorer discovers long-lost items in a cave.  He works years trying to discover the secrets of the cave, and eventually learns that a few families of Jews hid in the caves for 18 months during WWII. The movie consists of interviews with the elderly survivors, and re-enactments of life in the cave.  Like all survival stories, this one is life affirming and an ode to the human spirit.  Very touching.

November movie reviews

LIFE OF PI.  Pi is growing up in India, where his father owns a zoo.  As a youth, he has spiritual questions, and adopts Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.  Then his father, because of political considerations, decides to move the family and zoo animals to Canada.  On a freighter in the Pacific Ocean, a terrible storm sinks the ship, and Pi is left on a life raft with a few of the animals.  After a slow start, the bulk of the movie is how Pi survives on the ocean with the animals.  Beautiful visuals (although I didn’t really need the 3D), this movie is compelling to watch and also one of those movies with ideas that stay on your mind after viewing.  Entertaining, too.  I really liked it.

LINCOLN.  The movie opens right after Lincoln’s re-election in 1864.  With so many lame ducks who are not beholden to the voters, Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) determines there is no better time to get the amendment to abolish slavery passed.  The movie shows the machinations that went into working with the various congressmen (including Tommy Lee Jones) and getting the votes of the recalcitrant.  It also shows a bit of Lincoln’s home life, including his troubles with his wife (Sally Field) and his oldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).   Lincoln also has to deal with his own cabinet (including David Straitharn as Seward).  The movie really humanizes the man, and Day-Lewis is really, really good.  In addition, the movie felt very authentic to me (i.e. dark smoky rooms, the language), and I can’t deny this is an extremely well-done movie.  There were definitely some emotional moments for me.  However, I am not at all interested in political maneuverings, so much of the movie just wasn’t my thing.

SKYFALL.  In this latest Bond installment, Bond (Daniel Craig) is presumed dead after losing a battle with someone stealing a hard drive containing all MI6 agents undercover identities.  As M (Judi Dench) is hauled in front of a committee to defend her work, a hacker destroys a government building and agents start dying.  Of course Bond isn’t dead, so he appears to find the bad guy.  Clues lead him to China, Macau, and eventually Javier Bardem, a former agent who has an issue with M and is bent on destroying her.  It is up to Bond to save her and MI6.  I liked Casino Royale quite a bit, but in general I am not a big Bond fan, and this movie didn’t really provide me the excitement needed to make me change my mind.  I found it too dark (I don’t go to Bond movies for heavy), although I assume Bond fans will generally like the movie.

FLIGHT.  Whip (Denzel Washington) is an airline pilot who, as the movie opens, is waking up with a raging hangover.  A little cocaine perks him up, and he goes to work.  During the flight, the plane goes through some nasty turbulence and then things go really haywire and the plane appears to lose all hydraulics.  Whip has the talent to bring the plane down with limited loss of life (these flights scenes are terrific).  But he was drunk and high when he did it, and the NTSB knows it.  The bulk of the movie is concerned with efforts by Whip, friends, and his attorney (Don Cheadle) to ensure he is not found at fault for the accident.  But Whip is a serious alcoholic who continues to go on benders, so the outcome is in doubt.  This is a good movie (Denzel is always good), although I didn’t love the last couple of scenes.  Be warned that this is not a movie about a plane crash, it is a movie about an alcoholic.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  Pat (Bradley Cooper) has just gotten out of the hospital after suffering a manic episode.  Moving in with his parents, he is obsessed with getting his wife back, even though she is divorcing him and has a restraining order.  Dad (Robert DeNiro) is a bookie with an obsessive compulsive disorder and many superstitions about his team, the Philadelphia Eagles.  One day Pat’s best friend introduces him to his very blunt sister-in-law (Jennifer Lawrence) who is a grieving widow acting out.  So what we have here is a story of a bunch of people with issues just trying to get by.   They are all on the edge, it seems, so the movie isn’t exactly a fun experience (although some are calling it a comedy).  But the movie is really well acted and the people very believable.  It’s very different (as you might expect from David O. Russell –  THREE KINGS, THE FIGHTER, SPANKING THE MONKEY), and I kind of liked it.

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN.  In the early 1970s, a Detroit man named Rodriguez released a couple of albums.  Maybe because they had a folk feel to them, they failed to sell in the U.S.  But astonishly, his albums were huge in South Africa, and even are credited with giving people courage to question apartheid.  He was so important there (bigger than the Rolling Stones, says one), yet no one knew anything about him, partly perhaps because during apartheid, Rodriguez was a banned artist.  Rumors were that he had killed himself on stage.  In the 1990’s, a couple of South Africans tried to discover more about him, including putting up a website “searching for Rodriguez”.  When his daughter contacted them, they were overjoyed.    This documentary traces their quest for more information that lead to conversations with his record producers, people who knew him back in the day, and his daughters.  This documentary brought tears to my eyes, because he meant so much to the South Africans, while remaining completely unknown in the U.S.  Life can have some real unexpected twists, as it turns out.

THE SESSIONS.  Mark O’Brian (John Hawkes)  got polio when he was six and had to spend 21 hours a day in an iron lung. He can feel but can’t move (except his head).  Despite this, he got his degree at Cal and became a writer/poet and activist for disability rights.  After conferring with his priest (William H.  Macy), he decides, at age 38, to lose his virginity.  So he hires a sex surrogate (Helen Hunt).  This might sound like a prurient topic, but the sex is very matter of fact, and Mark apparently had a great sense of humor, so the movie is amusing and not-always-serious.  It’s really a tribute to the power of the human spirit to overcome obstacles.  Very good.  True story.

LIBERAL ARTS.  Thirty-five year old Jesse (Josh Radnor) works in the admissions office at a college in New York City.  He gets a call from a favorite college professor (Richard Jenkins) who is retiring, and goes back to college in Ohio for the retirement dinner.  While there, it is obvious that he really misses college life.  He meets a sophomore (Elizabeth Olsen) that reinforces those feelings.  They become pen-pals, and he revels in being able to write thoughts like he was still in college, in love with ideas and emotions.  The parts of this movie don’t work together all that well, but all the characters – a young woman wanting to grow up faster than she should and a man yearning for the ideals of his youth, along with smaller roles of a senior regretting his retirement, a professor (Allison Janney) disillusioned with life, and a couple of students, are interesting.  So overall I enjoyed it. 

THE FLAT.  In this documentary, an Israeli man is helping his mother clean out his grandmother’s flat after she dies, and is astonished to find a newspaper article indicating that his grandparents accompanied a Nazi from Germany to Palestine in the 1930s.  And, maintained the friendship even after the war!  He is so puzzled by this that he digs deeper into his grandparents background, and visits the daughter of the Nazi.  While his mother maintains disinterest in those events, he is fascinated by them.  An interesting look at the differences in people and how they view the importance (or lack of importance) of the past.