August Movie Reviews

RUBY SPARKS.  Paul Dano plays a young writer who made a big splash with a great novel when he was 19.   Now he is 29 and suffering from writer’s block.  His therapist suggests a writing exercise of just writing one page about a woman he would like.  It gets him going, and he writes reams about a woman of his dreams.  And then, she comes to life.  (You just have to go with it.)  At first, of course, he thinks he is going crazy, but when he realizes other people see her too, he realizes his good fortune.  And their relationship grows and he is happy for the first time in a long time.  But…even with a woman who you can control by writing her to be/do what you want, things will get complicated.  This movie is funny at times but at heart it is taking on people who can’t accept that no one is perfect, even the partner of your dreams.  Loved it – one of my favorite movies of the year so far.

HOPE SPRINGS.  Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones play a long married couple whose marriage has gone stale.  Grumpy old Tommy doesn’t care to do anything about it, but Meryl is desperate to save her marriage and insists they go to couples therapy.  This movie is being touted as a romantic comedy.  Although it is occasionally mildly amusing, the movie is really about a couple that is seriously sexually repressed and needs sex therapy.  I don’t care how good the acting is (and it was), this is not a movie I was interested in.

PREMIUM RUSH.  This is a popcorn movie about a bike messenger racing through Manhattan being chased by a sinister man who wants his delivery.  A silly premise, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon are really good actors, and it is getting generally positive reviews, so I thought I would give it a shot.  Actually the scenes with the bikes were my least favorite, because those guys are such assholes in traffic (making it hard to root for them), but I did like the story behind it all.  The plot involves gambling and money changing in Chinatown, among other things I won’t divulge, and is more coherent than many an action flick   So all-in-all, not a bad 90 minutes, if a fast-paced chase movie is what you are in the mood for.

ROBOT AND FRANK.  In the near future, Frank (Frank Langella) is getting a little forgetful.  He goes to town, visiting shops and the local librarian (Susan Sarandon).   His son (James Marsden) lives far away, and knows that someone needs to be there to watch out for Frank.  So he gets him a helper robot.  Frank is really annoyed at the gadget, but he eventually warms to the robot, especially since it doesn’t judge him.  And Frank does have a criminal past.  They end up going on adventures together, and the robot actually does help his health.  But Frank can’t keep going the way he is…. A bittersweet kind of story, as stories about people getting old invariably are.

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER.  Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) have been best friends forever, gotten married, and, when the movie opens, after six years of marriage, are getting a divorce.  She is a professional and he is an artist going nowhere, so she thinks she has to move on.  But neither is thinking anyone is at fault.  They are still really close friends, and their friends are thinking it is all a bit weird.  Eventually Celeste and Jesse will start trying to move on with their lives and date other people.  But in doing so, they will each come to the realization that they can’t quite maintain the friendship they had.  Although somewhat amusing, this is also sort of a sad story about the importance of maintaining relationships and not taking them for granted.  Not bad, but definitely not a must-see.

THE IMPOSTER.  Documentary.  In 1993, a 13-year-old boy in San Antonio went missing.  Three years later, the family gets a call from Spain saying he has been found.  Despite the fact the supposed son has different skin, hair and eye color, the family bought into the fiction that this was their boy.  They believed his tales of torture and sexual abuse and ignored obvious clues to his fakery.  Interviews with the family, the imposter, and investigators make this a fascinating story.  Unbelievably true.

THE WELL-DIGGER’S DAUGHTER.  In this French movie, Patricia is the oldest of 5 daughters in turn of the century rural France.  Circumstances sent her to Paris as a young girl, but now she is back home in Provence, where her widowed father knows he needs to marry her off.  He would be OK with his work colleague, a really good guy, but working class and not very charming, being his son-in-law.  She, however, will fall for the local good-looking guy from a well-to-do family who is a smooth operator.  This is a very old-fashioned movie, with bucolic scenery, and will be appreciated by those who are not put off by a movie with plot points that hinge on 19th century morals.

AI WEI WEI – NEVER SORRY.  Documentary about human rights activist/artist Ai Wei Wei, a Chinese dissident who uses his fame as an artist (he designed the bird’s nest stadium for the Beijing Olympics) to highlight the abuses of the Chinese government, most often in the arena of lack of transparency by the government.  For example, he investigated the large number of schoolchildren who died in an earthquake due to shoddy school construction.  And then his results posted it online, where he had a large following.  When the government shut down his blog, he moved to Twitter.  Admirable man, this movie is worth seeing.

EASY MONEY.  J.W. (Joel Kinnaman) is attending school at the Swedish School of Economics, where he is working nights and trying to keep up socially with the wealthy boys.  When his boss asks him to help him in a task, it involves saving an escaped prisoner from a beating and takes J.W. into the criminal underworld of drugs and money.   In addition to J.W. and Jorge, the escapee, the movie also follows a thug that has gotten custody of his little girl and wants a better life.  They will all be working toward a big score that will help them escape their circumstances. The movie has Serbian mobsters, Spaniards, and maybe Russians, I am not sure.  Because there were so many ethnic groups (all subtitled) I sometimes got a little confused on who was with who.  Not a bad movie, but maybe a little slow and not very satisfying in the end.  Mostly in Swedish.

July 2012 movie reviews

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.  I don’t generally love the movies based on comic books, but I do like the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy the best.  In this final installment, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has been a recluse ever since he allowed the powers-that-be to blame him for the crimes of the DA (in The Dark Knight movie).  Alfred (Michael Caine) is getting really worried about him.  But when a super evil villain Bane (played by Tom Hardy) takes over Gotham, Batman will have to return to save the city.  Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) makes an appearance as well (and it’s a well written and well-done role).  No more details here, other to say this is a very dark movie.  The plot is way over the top, the evil doers’ plans didn’t make a lot of sense to me (and they weren’t amusing like the Joker), and as usual with summer movies these days, this is too long.  But I still liked it.   Also starring Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman.  Everyone is good here.  And kudos to Hans Zimmer who does the music; he really gets the adrenaline going.

TED.  Seth McFarlane (of TV’s The Family Guy) directs his first movie.  As a little boy, John (Mark Wahlburg) is friendless.  When his parents give him a teddy bear for Christmas, John wishes the bear were alive to be his best friend.  And his wish comes true!  Much publicity and fame follows (everybody can see and hear the talking bear).  But fast forward to the present day, where John is still a bit of a loser who can’t do without his best friend Ted – who has become the worst sort of obnoxious, lewd, politically incorrect frat boy.  John’s girlfriend Lori (Mila Kunis) is pretty understanding – she really loves John – but she is losing patience with John’s inability to grow up.  That’s the plot. If you don’t mind really offensive outrageous humor, this is a riot.  If it were a real person saying and doing these things, it would be disgusting, but coming from a cute teddy bear, it’s mostly pretty damn funny stuff.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD.  Hush Puppy is a young girl who lives with her father in The Bathtub, an on-the-margins community in what appears to be low-lying Louisiana.  The movie is seen through her eyes as the community sees a big storm coming that may drown them all.  Hush Puppy sees herself as a small part of a much larger world, but also imagines that even the littlest piece is important.  I imagine we are supposed to take great meaning from her wisdom.   This movie is getting great critic love.  I understand the value of a movie where we see the world through her eyes (and the actress is charismatic, I’ll give you that), but the fact is that she lives in squalor with an abusive father surrounded by alcoholics.  I thought the movie was a pretentious mess, romanticizing a life that is not at all charming.  I guess I was just in a too literal state of mind.

FAREWELL, MY QUEEN.  The movie begins on the day the French Revolution started, with the fall of the Bastille prison.  In Versailles, where Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI reside, at first things proceed normally, as if nothing really important has happened.  The Queen frets about fashion, and asks for her reader Sidonie, who loves the queen.   Because Sidonie is employed by royalty and lives in the palace, she and her friends have some advantages.  But still…they are servants only.  As events begin to spiral out of control, the members of the elite and their employees being to panic.  And Sidonie observes it all.   I wouldn’t call the movie entertaining, exactly, but it does give one a sort of impression of what historically might have been happening at that time, through the eyes of an outsider.

THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES.  The Siegals and their 7 children are fabulously wealthy Floridians, he having made his fortune in timeshares.  His 30-years-younger wife is a former IBM engineer and beauty queen.  This documentary begins as she decides their mansion with 17 bathrooms isn’t big enough, and embarks on building a 90,000 square foot home (with bowling alley, gyms, etc.)  modeled after Versailles (it would be the largest private home in America) .  But then the depression of 2008 hit, and their finances change.  You go into this movie thinking these people are going to get their comeuppance, but in the end, I didn’t feel that way.  Although she clearly has a shopping addiction and is vain and tacky, at the same time you don’t come away feeling they are bad people.  They lived beyond their means, like a lot of people, just on a much bigger scale.

June movie reviews

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED.  Seattle journalist Jeff sees an ad in a local paper asking for someone to go back in time (“safety not guaranteed”).  Jeff’s pitch to do a story on the ad’s author is accepted, and he travels with two interns to a small town to interview the guy.  But, really, Jeff just wanted to go to the town to see an old girlfriend.  When his initial contact with subject Kenneth (Mark Duplass) goes bad, he lets one of the interns (Darius, played by Aubrey Plaza) do the work of getting to know the guy and developing the story.  Even though Kenneth has some obvious mental issues (the whole town knows him as odd), he has a sweetness to him and Darius really feels a connection, which is good because she is rather depressed and at loose ends herself.  He doesn’t know she is doing a story, and she agrees she will go back in time with him.  Although of course she doesn’t really believe that will happen, she goes along with his pursuit and gets emotionally drawn to him.  The movie will culminate in her making a decision on whether to have faith in him or not.  I really thought this was a charming movie, and liked it a lot.

YOUR SISTER’S SISTER.  Jack (Mark Duplass) is having a hard time getting over the death of his brother, so his best friend Iris (Emily Blunt) sends him to her family’s cabin in the woods, in the hopes that just having some solitude will help him.  But when he gets there, Iris’s sister Hannah is there.  They spend the first night getting drunk and getting to know each other.  And that one night leads to ramifications for all three characters.  I really enjoyed this movie about three believably flawed  and very likeable people just trying to get by best they can.

PINK RIBBONS, INC.  This is a very good documentary about the corporatization of the funding for breast cancer movement.  Based on the book by the same name, it takes on the ideas that fighting hard against cancer will ensure survival, that early detection is the best defense (as opposed to prevention in the first place), and how those raising money for the cause are beholden to companies that aren’t so interested in prevention (chemical and pharmaceutical companies, for example), which leads to loads of money going toward a cure (i.e., drug development) and not studies on what causes breast cancer in the first place.  Mostly done in a traditional style with interviews of lots of talking heads who explain things from their various perspectives, it is well worth seeing.  I am sure it will be on PBS one of these days. 

MAGIC MIKE.  Channing Tatum is Mike, a 30-year-old stripper with dreams of opening his own furniture design company.  Meanwhile he is working several jobs, including the dancing/stripping in a nightclub.  He takes a young Adam under his wing, and along with club owner Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), teaches Adam the robes.  Of course, to a young 19-year-old, the money and women are pretty irresistible.  But Mike is ready to move on.  This movie is getting generally good reviews, but I think – if this were flipped to being a movie about female strippers – it would be pretty darn clichéd.  There’s plenty of eye candy for straight women and gay men, and the developing friendship between Mike and Adam’s sister is very sweet, but I wasn’t overly impressed.

MOONRISE KINGDOM.  This Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) film takes place on a small New England island in 1965.  Twelve-year-old Sam goes missing from his boy scout camp.  An orphan with an odd air about him, no one really likes him.  Suzy, a young girl living on the island with her parents and three younger brothers, also has (anger) issues.  They are pen pals, and they have really connected.  She runs away with him, and they set up camp in a remote part of the island.  Although this movie stars Bill Murray and Frances McDormand as Suzy’s parents, Bruce Willis as the local policeman, and Ed Norton as the scout master, the movie is really about these two troubled youngsters, their developing love for each other, and growing up.  Extremely quirky movie, like you might expect from Anderson, it certainly kept my interest watching it, but  in the end it was just a bit too odd for me to love. 

PROMETHEUS.  Dr. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her fiance discover that cave paintings all over the world seem to point to another solar system.  Believing that it leads to “the Engineers” and/or a God that created the human race, she convinces a billionaire to fund their space voyage.  Charlize Theron will represent the corporate sponsor on board, and Michael Fassbender is the robot who takes care of their needs during the flight.  Two years later, they arrive at the planet to find what they are looking for, but it appears that the Engineers are all dead.  And then things really start to go wrong.  Because this is in some ways a prequel to ALIEN, I admit my expectations were high.  But although this certainly  isn’t a bad movie, it just didn’t grab me.  The debates over life’s origins didn’t bother me and the visuals were great (although I think the 3D unnecessary.) I think my angst is because I felt that the heroine was always just desperately trying to survive, and does so by the skin of her teeth, rather than being a calm, smart woman who was in control of her destiny.  Of course that is more realistic, but…. I don’t remember Ripley being so vulnerable.  And Ripley rocked!

MEN IN BLACK 3.  In this latest installment, J (Will Smith) wonders why K (Tommy Lee Smith) is such a dour fellow.  What happened in his past?  Then, J all of a sudden is in a different reality where K died 40 years ago.  And a murderous species that K saved the world from back in the day is alive and well.  So J goes back in time, to 1969, to save K and humanity from the escaped alien that K imprisoned all those years ago.  Good enough premise, but unfortunately, with the exception of one scene at Andy Warhol’s The Factory and a guy named Griffin who sees all potential futures, this movie doesn’t have half of the creativity or wit of the first film.  It is more a sweet tale about J discovering about K’s past.  Josh Brolin is amazingly good as a young K, but that doesn’t make a movie.

May 2012 movie reviews

BERNIE.  Bernie (Jack Black) is the assistant funeral director in a small East Texas town.  Everybody loves Bernie.  He sings at church, participates in the local theater, is kind and giving, and is wonderful at his job.  The little old ladies especially adore him.  He even befriends the meanest (and wealthiest) old lady in town, Mrs. Nugent (Shirley McClain).  Everybody, including her own family, dislikes and avoids her.  But Bernie gets along with her, and before we know it, he is living a very nice lifestyle thanks to her, traveling with her to international destinations, flying a private plane, etc.  But this won’t last.  This movie is based on a true story, and I won’t say more, but it’s a look at small town relationships as much as anything.  It is interspersed with comments from the townspeople, which give it a real depth at how people looked what happened.  On one hand, it is a kind of a slap at small town naiveté, but on the other hand, it is really very funny.  Most enjoyable movie so far this year.

HEADHUNTERS.  Roger is a smooth corporate headhunter.  He is married to a tall, beautiful blond, and feels inadequate.  To compensate, he steals art works on the side so he can give her expensive things.  He is deeply in debt, and when the opportunity for a big score comes along, he grabs at it.  But of course, things will start going wrong, and he keeps getting deeper and deeper in over his head.  One doesn’t know if he will be able to extricate himself from the bodies that are piling up.  I really, really liked this Norwegian thriller – it kept me interested through all the twists and turns.  They’ll probably re-do it in English, but it may not be as good.

FIVE YEAR ENGAGEMENT.  Romantic comedy, with Jason Segal and Emily Blunt getting engaged at the beginning of the movie (no meet cute, or hating each other before realizing they belong together).  It is clear that they have a loving, grounded relationship.  But when she gets a job that will take her cross-country, their relationship will be tested in ways they never expected.  Written by Segal, who also did FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, this is a romantic comedy that isn’t ridiculous in its premise.  Funny, and very enjoyable.

BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL.  Seven various retirees in England get taken in by a glossy brochure that extolls retirement living in luxury in India.  When they get there, they find the hotel doesn’t quite live up to its name.  Not to mention that life in India is quite different from England.  Some of them will roll with the punches, some can not.  Each character is developed so that they seem like relatively believable people, and it turns out that going to India will be more than a physical journey, but also a psychological one for most.  It’s hard to go wrong with a movie starring Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, etc.  It gets a little sappy at the end, but all-in-all, it’s a charming little film.

AVENGERS.  An evil Nordic wanna-be god steals an energy source and plans to use it to dominate earth.  Only a group of superheroes can save humanity.  Samuel Jackson will bring them together and they work out their competitive natures before joining together in battle.   I have never had much of an inner  fan girl when it comes to comic book movies (with the exception of the Batman movies, I usually think the genre is just ok) and this one was no different.  I enjoyed the character development, and the repartee between characters quite a lot, and there were a couple of laugh-out loud moments.  But the battles just went on too long.  This is a special effects extravaganza, and by no means a bad movie, it’s just not my taste.  Maybe if it were 20 minutes shorter…

FIRST POSITION.  Documentary about kids ages 9-19 who compete in a ballet competition for scholarships and jobs in elite ballet companies.  The movie follows a small group of contestants from around the world through regional contests and the finals in New York.  I have never taken a dance lesson in my life, and rarely go to dance shows, but I am fascinated by these kids being so devoted to something at such a young age.   And they are GOOD, amazing to watch.  This is a nice little view into a subculture that we rarely see. Really enjoyed this.

SAFE.  Sometimes I just want to see a mindless action flick.  And Jason Statham can do the job, because he looks good beating the crap out of a dozen guys at once.  In this case, he is a disgraced cop/martial arts fighter (!) who tries to save a young Chinese girl from the various bad guys (Russians, Chinese, and cops on the take), who are after her because she is a math genius who has memorized a code they all need.  Doesn’t make a lot of sense, and not really an edge-of-the-seater….just OK.  Jason can, and has, done better.

January 2012 movie reviews

A DANGEROUS METHOD.  The movie opens with a hysterical Sabina (Keira Knightly) being taken to a hospital where Carl Jung (Michael Fassbinder) will treat her.  Jung was one of the originators of psychoanalysis, and had a mentor-like relationship with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen).  They spent hours together discussing their theories.  Although Sabina’s breakthroughs aren’t depicted (although it is made clear she had psychosexual issues), she does get well and becomes Jung’s lover and a student of psychiatry herself.  There is much discussion among the protagonists about the workings of the mind.  Freud believes everything is sexual, and that the scientific method is essential.  Jung believes there is more to the mind, and is willing to explore the mystical.   This movie was more of a lesson in the early theories of psychiatry than entertainment.  Not that there is anything wrong with that; I thought it was interesting. 

CARNAGE.  Two New York couples get together to discuss what to do when their two 11-year olds get into a fight and one is hurt.  At first they are very civilized to each other, with the middle-class couple of the injured boy (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) being oh-so-reasonable, even though we can tell that the mother especially is seething with anger.  The wealthier parents of the perpetrator (Kate Winslet and Christophe Waltz) are trying to be sympathetic, even though we can see they think too much is being made of a boys’ fight on the playground.  At first the movie is quite serious, but eventually the true feelings of the adults come out, and then there is drinking, anger spills over, alliances are made and un-made, and the movie actually becomes very funny.  This is a pretty entertaining 80 minutes.

HAYWIRE.  Former Marine Mallory Kane works for a contractor who does secret, not exactly legal jobs for the government.  Girl can kick ass.  The movie goes from a job in Barcelona that seems to go well to a job in Ireland that doesn’t.   Shen ends up on the run, and there are betrayals and double-crosses. Honestly, the plot was kind of convoluted, but I have no problem with a brainless action flick, especially where it’s a woman who rocks it.  So I thought this was a fun popcorn movie.  Also starring Ewan McGregor as her boss and Bill Paxton as her dad (as well as Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbinder.)    Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

WAR HORSE.  Albert, a teenager in England, is thrilled when his drunken father brings home a thoroughbred for their hardscrabble farm.  Mom (Emily Watson) knows they needed a plowhorse and isn’t so thrilled, and wants the horse returned.  But Albert promises to train the horse to be a workhorse, and the film shows Albert and the horse bonding.  Then WWI comes, and the horse is sold to the Army.  I was OK with the movie up to this point, but from this point on the movie is mostly about the experiences of the horse in the war, as it changes from English to French to German hands.  I don’t dislike horse movies (I liked Seabiscuit and Secretariat quite a bit), but caring about a horse at a time when tens of thousands of young men are being slaughtered on the fields of Europe, I just couldn’t get into it.  Spielberg does a fine job recreating the war, and ends the movie was some beautiful scenery, but as a movie it was just OK.

December 2011 movie reviews

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.  Mikael (Daniel Craig) is a disgraced journalist who takes the job of investigating the disappearance 40 years ago of a teenage girl, a member of a powerful industrial family.  The patriarch of the family (Christopher Plummer) hires Mikael to finally unravel the mystery, and makes it pretty clear that he thinks someone in his crazy family murdered her.  So Mikael moves to the island where they all live and starts investigating.   Meanwhile, Lisbeth (Rooney Mara) is a computer hacker and investigator, and also a very tough woman with a past.  She has to report to a social worker, who revels in his power over her.   And she barely contains her rage (at first).  Early in the movie, their stories are only slightly connected, but Mikael will hire her to help him, and they eventually work together on solving the girl’s disappearance.  I hadn’t seen the Swedish movie or read the best-seller, so I really enjoyed following the mystery to its conclusion.  Really a well-done movie (and I gather different enough from the Swedish one to still be worth seeing if you saw the earlier one.)  It most definitely didn’t seem like a two and a half hour movie.  One of my favorites of the year.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY.  George Smiley (Gary Oldman) works in British intelligence fighting the Cold War.  His boss “Control” (John Hurt) is convinced there is a double agent working with/against them.  The powers that be think he is paranoid, so Control and Smiley are forced into retirement.    Then a politician contacts Smiley to investigate the possibility that there is  indeed a Soviet mole in the upper echelons of the service.  Smiley slowly and methodically starts working to discover whether there is in fact a mole, and if so, who it might be.  (Candidates include Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds.)  I found the first half of the movie a little slow going, but the pace picked up, and the complexities of the spy’s life, where so much is not what it seems, and paranoia is everywhere, is fascinating.  Spying is mostly plodding work, no car chases or explosions here.  In the end I found this a very satisfying movie.  (I never read the book or saw the earlier mini-series, so that was probably good.)

THE ARTIST.  George Valentin is a major silent screen star, doing what appears to be a combo of swashbuckling and romantic roles.  He loves his life, and the adulation.  But when talkies arrive, he doesn’t adapt and finds himself on his way down.  Meanwhile, a young woman he supported on her way up becomes a big star.  Whether she can help him recover from his downward spiral is the gist of the movie.  This movie is making a big splash because it itself is mostly silent, and in black and white.  I personally didn’t find that annoying at all.  It’s not necessary to hear people talk to know what’s going on.  At about 90 minutes, I found it charming and entertaining. 

THE MUPPETS.  Gary (Jason Segal) is a big fan of the 1980’s Muppet Shows.  Coincidentally, his brother Walter is a Muppet, and despite their physical differences, they are very close.  When Gary decides to take his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) to LA to celebrate an aniversary, Walter tags along and insists they tour the old Muppet studios.  The studios are rundown and abandoned, and Walter overhears an oil tycooon’s plans to tear down the studios to drill for oil.  So Walter and Gary go on a quest to find Kermit, and then they all try to reunite all the Muppets (Miss Piggy, Animal, etc.) and put on a show to raise money and save the studio.  Sunny songs, some witty dialog, celebrity cameos, this is a cute movie, especially if you can channel your inner child and just go along with it.  Or if you were a Muppet fan back in the day.

BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY.    This short documentary covers the career of the puppeteer behind the Elmo Muppet.  Shy Kevin Clash has always been obsessed with puppets, so much so that he cut up the lining of his father’s raincoat to make one when he was young.  The movie covers his career path from putting on shows for the neighbor kids to a local TV kids’ show to Captain Kangaroo to Sesame Street.  I also learned a little more about the talent it takes to be a really good puppeteer.  This is really a sweet movie about someone whose dreams have come true.    When I wasn’t smiling, I had tears in my eyes.  It’s just so life- and decency-affirming.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL.  Ethan (Tom Cruise) and his team (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner) are blamed when a proponent of nuclear war blows up the Kremlin.  The Russions are blaming the Americans and now the world is on the verge of armaggedon.  The MI team have been disavowed and must work on their own to stop the maniac.  I am fine with popcorn movies (see: Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and I liked this for about the first half (especially the action on the tallest building in the world), but then it started feeling bloated to me.  A too long car chase, a scene in a parking garage…  Despite some fine action scenes, I lost interest.  The crowd I was with seemed to like it, though (applause).

YOUNG ADULT.  Mavis (Charlize Theron) is a former prom queen (and mean girl) who has had some success in writing a series of novels for teenage girls.  But now she is down on her luck and drinking too much.  When she gets a announcement that her former boyfriend has had a baby, she decides to go back to her small hometown and win him back.  The fact that he is happily married doesn’t even give her pause.  Before she connects with the boyfriend, she meets a former classmate (Patton Oswalt), who had a locker next to hers.  He remembers her, but she doesn’t remember him.  Until she remembers he was the infamous victim of a hate crime that has left him disabled and bitter.  Knowing he doesn’t have a chance in hell of impressing her, he doesn’t have any trouble telling her how delusional she is.  I think he knows her better than she knows herself, but nothing he says stops Mavis.  Because this movie is by the director and writer of Juno, I think there is a tendancy for people to think this is a funny movie.  Yes, there are a few funny lines, but personally I don’t think nasty alcoholics are all that amusing.  Although well-made and especially well-acted, I wouldn’t call it entertaining.  Movies about really dislikeable people who do really appalling things just aren’t my thing.

September 2011 Movie Reviews

MONEYBALL  In 2001, the Oakland A’s made it to the playoffs, but when their season ended their top three players went to greener pastures.  Because Oakland is a small-market team with a small budget, there was no way to get equal caliber players on the 2002 team.  This based-on-fact story shows how general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and a recent economics major (played by Jonah Hill) used statistics to replace those players and have a winning 2002 season.  Billy faces opposition from the coach, scouts, and the owner.  But he prevailed.  Now, I understand the movie takes liberties with the truth, but I am not a huge baseball fan and wasn’t distracted by that.  As much about the business of baseball as anything, I wouldn’t really even call this a sports movie, at least not a typical sports movie.  All in all, it was pretty interesting and I enjoyed it.

FRIGHT NIGHT.  Teenage Charlie and his mom (Toni Collette) live in suburban Las Vegas.  Their new neighbor, Jerry (Colin Farrell), seems a little off-putting, a weird combination of charm and sleaze.  Charlie used to be a geeky kid, and one of his former geeky friends, Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, love that guy), insists on seeing him.  When they finally meet up, Ed tells Charlie that one of their friends has disappeared and it’s because Jerry is a vampire.  Charlie, naturally, thinks this is unlikely.  But, it’s true.  So the blood-letting begins, with Charlie trying to save family, neighbors, and his girlfriend.  Throw in a Vegas magician who is a vampire expert.   This isn’t a great movie, but I kind of liked it, mostly because it isn’t taking itself seriously.  I don’t like really graphically gory movies, but this one has a good blend of humor and horror, without just being gory for gore’s sake.

CONTAGION.  Gwyneth Paltrow returns from Hong Kong with a bit of a cold.  Next thing you know, she’s dead.  But this is just the beginning of an epidemic that will sweep the world and kill millions.  The star studded cast includes Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Lawrence Fishborne, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law.  They are CDC officials, doctors, World Health Organization officials, a paranoid blogger, etc.  Now, I have a real fondness for medical topics, so I quite liked the movie, but my fondness for epidemiology doesn’t keep me from thinking that for most people this movie would feel like a NOVA special.  There’s not that much excitement, just more an explanation of how epidemics come about and how the medical professionals deal with them.   But it is getting good reviews, so maybe I was over-analyzing it.   I do think people will be better about hand washing after seeing this movie.  :-)

THE DEBT.  Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, and Ciaran Hinds are heroes in Israel, because in 1966, when they were young Mossad intelligence agents, they pulled off a mission to catch a Holocaust war criminal.  Helen’s daugher has written a book about the affair, and it makes them a little nervous.  They don’t seem to be comfortable in the limelight.  One senses not is all as it seems.  The movie then flashes back to the actual events surrounding their mission.  I quite liked this part of the movie, but then the last 30 minutes of the movie takes a turn that I couldn’t buy into.  Still, it didn’t make me regret buying a ticket.

DRIVE.  Ryan Gosling is a stunt driver who also will drive getaway cars for criminals.  He is a very cool customer, rarely speaking or showing any emotion.  He does begin to care about the woman down the hall, and when her husband gets out of jail and gets in trouble, Ryan tries to help.  But things go really wrong.  This movie is methodical and really slow paced, but it is only a little bit longer than 90 minutes, so that didn’t bother me.  It’s very stylish, has some good music, and has interesting supporting actors Cary Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman. But the second half has some really gruesome violence, and if I have to hide my eyes 4 or 5 times in a movie, I just can’t recommend it.

THE HELP.  Skeeter (Emma Stone) has graduated from college in 1963 and returns to her hometown of Jackson, Mississippi.  She wants to be a journalist, but the best job she can get is writing a household hints column for the local paper.  But she does get the idea of interviewing the maids in town for a book, to try to get their view of what it is like to raise a white woman’s children, and then have those children grow up to become their bosses.  Skeeter’s society friends don’t understand, and in the Jim Crow south it is illegal for her to do what she wants to do, but eventually she gets one particularly downtrodden maid (Viola Davis) to help her.   And then another.  This movie is getting good reviews, and I didn’t hate it, but at the same time I felt it to be completely fake.  Skeeter’s white childhood friends are all stereotypes (horrible racist, ditzy blond) and the maids are oh so noble.   Not a bad film for young people to see, though, since they probably have little idea of what the segregated south was like.

MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE.  Gerard Depardieu is a handyman in a small village, where he is teased by his friends for not being very bright.  One afternoon he goes to the park and meets a old woman, Margueritte, who comes every afternoon to read.  They begin a friendship, she reads to him, and they become close.  He had an unfit mother, and Margueritte had no children, so they even develop something of a mother/son relationship.  And she actually increases his confidence and helps him become a more fully realized person.  Sweet film, but there isn’t much more to it.  (French)

July & August movie reviews

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.  Will (James Franco) is working on a cure for Alzheimer’s, and thinks he has made a breakthrough.  But the experiment goes horribly wrong when one of the lab subjects, a chimpanzee, goes berserk and has to be shot. The biomedical company refuses to pursue his research.  But as it turns out, the chimp got violent because she was pregnant, so Will takes the newborn chimp home and raises him like a child (including sign language).  And Will gives his dad (John Lithgow) the drug, proving it works.   At some point, it becomes obvious that the little chimp named Caesar is brighter than one might think – did he inherit the drug’s benefits from his mother?  When Caesar gets older, he is harder to handle and ends up in an animal “sanctuary” run by a sadist.  Stuff happens, apes run amok in San Francisco and on the Golden Gate Bridge.  For the most part, the plot makes movie sense (although one secondary character serves only to forward the plot) and the CGI effects seem better and better as the movie proceeds.  I would make this my pick for brainless “summer movie” to see.  PS – don’t leave immediately after the credits start, there is one more short scene to set up sequels.

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS.  Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) are high-powered professionals, but not so successful at maintaining relationships.  They meet when she brings him from LA to New York to interview for a job (she’s a corporate headhunter), and they  become friends.  And, eventually, decide to become friends with benefits (duh).  Now, there isn’t a second of this movie where you don’t know exactly where it is going.  It does what romantic comedies are supposed to do, but is self-aware that it is doing exactly that (even including a parody of a romantic comedy movie within the movie).  And even though the characters seem too perfect, they are given back stories (Patricia Clarkson is her mom, Richard Jenkins is his dad) that make this a cut above the usual romantic comedy.  The leads are very attractive and impossibly quick-witted, but the movie has tons of giggles, so I would definitely recommend this romcom.

OUR IDIOT BROTHER.  Ned (Paul Rudd) is living on an organic commune, and is as nice and innocent and honest as can be.  Selling produce at a farmer’s market, he is so kind that when a cop (in uniform!) begs him for some pot to relieve his stress, Ned eventually gives in and sells it to him.  After some months in jail, his girlfriend has found someone else, so Ned has to leave the farm and crash with family members.  Shirley Knight is his mom, and his sisters are Emily Mortimer, a granola-type wife and mother married to Steve Coogan; Elizabeth Banks, a tightly wound journalist; and Zooey Deschanel, a foul-mouthed comedian still trying to find herself.  One by one, Ned innocently does something that turns his sisters’ lives upside down.  And they all get really mad at him.  But, maybe (you think?), they will forgive him and it all will turn out OK in the end.  Sweet movie.

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.  Cal (Steve Carrell) is sucker-punched when his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce.  He had no idea she was unhappy, and is completely lost.  But he moves out of the house and tries to get on with his life.  At a bar, he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a player who takes Cal under his wing to show him how to make women fall for him.  To me, it is an unbelievable premise that a young man would take a middle-aged man under his wing, but if you can ignore that, the movie is decent.  So we follow Cal trying to make his way in the dating world, while Jacob pursues Hannah (Emma Stone,) who casts a cool eye on him their first meeting.  Carrell does schlub well, I am a fan of Ryan Gosling, the movie is sometimes amusing, and various subplots are cleverly tied up, so this was a reasonably satisfying matinée choice. 

TABLOID.  Documentary.  In 1977, beauty queen Joyce McKinney met the man of her dreams in Utah.  She is crazy in love with him, but one day he disappears.  She is convinced he wouldn’t leave her on his own, so she hires a private detective to find him.  Turns out he is doing a Mormon mission in England.  Convinced that the Mormons have brainwashed him, she goes to England and kidnaps him, so she can “de-program” him.  He escapes and the story hits the news, where the London tabloids turn it into a sex slave story (missionary manacled to bed!), and go on to investigate her life and turn it upside down.  This may be one of the earliest cases of the papers taking a non-celebrity story and making it big news.  Errol Morris, the great documentarian, interviews Joyce, some of the peripheral characters, and some of the tabloid writers.  The added bonus is that we don’t know really what happened (the Mormon won’t talk), so we pay attention and try to make up our minds.  It’s fun and fascinating to watch.

COWBOYS & ALIENS.  In 1873, Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert with no memory and a mysterious metal band around his wrist.  He makes his way to a frontier town, where UFOs suddenly appear and start snatching up townsfolk.  Daniel Craig as the reluctant hero, Harrison Ford as a grumpy rancher, Paul Dano as his slimy son, Sam Rockwell as a wimpy saloon owner…they all do a good job playing the archetypes.  But I guess with a title like cowboys vs aliens I was expecting it to be more clever.  Not a horrible movie, but a month after seeing it, I can barely remember the details of the plot, so I’d have to say it didn’t work for me. 

THE GUARD.  Brendan Gleeson is a tired, cynical cop in a small Irish town. He is slightly corrupt, and not happy to get a young partner.  Even more upsetting, in to his routine comes an uptight FBI agent (Don Cheadle), who believes a ship is arriving in the harbor for a major drug deal.  Their conflict is the bulk of the movie, and Brendan’s sly way keeps the viewer guessing – as Cheadle says – is he effing smart or an effing idiot?  Well-reviewed, I admit that perhaps I didn’t find the movie that terrific because I missed 10-20% of the dialog because I found the strong accents often impenetrable.

ONE DAY.  Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) meet at their 1988 college graduation and sort of hook up.  But he sleeps with every woman he can, and she suffers from low self-confidence, so they agree to just be friends.  The movie follows them for about 20 years, every year on July 15.    People mature (although some take longer than others), they go through ups and downs, etc.  Sometimes Emma and Dex meet on that day, sometimes they are friends, sometimes not.  Not a romantic comedy, as the ads might make you think,  it’s just life, as the two characters evolve from their early 20’s to late 30’s.  I wasn’t bored, although I did see a major plot point coming.  Sort of a harmless movie.  Not real special, though.

May movie reviews

 

BRIDESMAIDS. Annie (Kristin Wiig) isn’t doing well. She has lost her bakery and boyfriend, and is reduced to working as a jewelry store sales clerk and having booty calls with a selfish sleazeball (Jon Hamm). When her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces that she is engaged, Annie steps up to be maid of honor. But when Annie meets one of Lillian’s wealthy new friends (Rose Byrne), a very funny game of one-upmanship ensues over bridal showers, bachelorette parties, etc. Lots of crude and lewd laugh-out-loud moments, with some pretty gross stuff. There’s also a great performance by Melissa McCarthy as another of the bridesmaids. It’s not the funniest movie ever, but it’s a very good comedy (produced by Judd Apatow). Despite the title, not just a chick flick. Just funny.

 MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. Gil (Owen Wilson) and Inez (Rachel McAdams) are an engaged couple visiting Paris with her parents. He is a big-time screenwriter in Hollywood, but is writing a novel with a protagonist who lives and breathes nostalgia. Gil loves Paris, and regrets he didn’t move there when he was younger. Inez is a shallow harpy that can’t understand why he doesn’t want to live in Malibu and keep writing movies and making money. They are really not very compatible. When she meets old friends that he can’t stand, she goes out with them and he ends up walking the streets of Paris at night. And when the clock strikes midnight, he gets in a cab that takes him to 1920’s Paris, when Hemingway and Picasso and so many others were making art. Every night he goes back, meeting more and more people of the time that he idolizes. This is a lovely movie, quite funny, charming, and thoughtful about the value of nostalgia vs. people needing to live the lives they have, not fantasize about whatever. One of Woody Allen’s recent best.

 

13 ASSASSINS. As the movie opens, a samurai commits harakiri. It’s the late Shogun era in Japan, and the half-brother of the current Shogun is a murderous psychopath. The half-brother is on his way to being in line for leadership, which will be a disaster for the country. (The dead samurai was protesting against his growing power.) The current Shogun’s advisor finds a wise older samurai to carry out the secret mission of killing the half-brother. The samurai recruits other samurai and the gang makes plans to assassinate the half-brother by ambushing him in a small village. The last half of the movie is one gigantic battle of the few good guys fighting against overwhelming odds, typical of these movies (the Magnificent Seven was based on a samurai movie). I am not a huge fan of this genre (a little bloody sword fighting goes a long way with me), but this is very well done and kept me interested.

 

FAST FIVE. I haven’t seen any of the “fast” movies, but this one is getting some favorable reviews, so I thought I’d give it a try. In this one, the guys are on the run down in Brazil, and come up with an idea to do one last big score, stealing from the drug kingpin. Now, I am game for action movies, even ones that are a little ridiculous, but this one – oh my – is flat-out preposterous. For me, there has to be some character that makes sense or some kernel of truth or at least some wit in an action movie to make me want to go along for the ride. Despite attractive leads (Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and Dwayne Johnson), this was just so over the top  that I just could not buy into it. Throw in some phony sentiment, and it really lost me.  (Maybe I should have seen THOR instead.)  That said, if you want a movie full of car crashes and car chases, this is definitely your movie.

 

EVERYTHING MUST GO. In this drama (not a comedy!), Nick (Will Farrell) is fired from his job, only to go home and find that his wife has changed the locks and thrown all his belongings onto the front lawn. Nick is an alcoholic, and he is in a downward spiral. Not wanting to lose his stuff, but not having any money to move it, he camps out on his front lawn to keep an eye on his things. He meets a neighborhood teenager, and they start working together to protect (and eventually sell) his stuff. He also meets a new neighbor (Rebecca Hall), and they become friendly. Interesting movie about a man coming to grips with the wreck that his life has become. Will Farrell does a really good job, too.

 

BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK. Documentary. Bill Cunningham works for the New York Times as a photographer. He does the photography for both the street fashion and the society pages. At 80 years old, he is still riding his bicycle around the city, keeping his eye out for interesting subjects. He lives like a monk, spends all of his time doing his job (and loves what he does) and no one really knows much else about him. But this documentary shows him to be a worthy subject, because he is just a fascinating character. Although this may sound like kind of a niche film, you don’t have to have any interest in fashion to find the movie interesting because it is more about the man than his job.

 

INCENDIES. Two grown twins gather at an attorney’s office to hear the reading of their mother’s will. To their surprise, her last wishes are for her children to go back to the old country (not named, but much like Lebanon) and find the father they thought was dead and a half-brother they didn’t know existed. The son refuses, but the daughter travels to the Middle East and starts putting the pieces of her mother’s life together. The movie flashes back and forth from the daughter’s search for the truth to the mother’s experiences as a young woman. Set during a civil war and sectarian violence, the mother’s experiences were grim. Although the story is really disturbing, and the movie is at times slow, the mystery of the mother’s past did keep my interest the whole time, so I guess I would have to say it’s worth seeing. French Canadian movie, mostly subtitled.

April movie reviews

 

 SOURCE CODE.  In this science fiction thriller, Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up on a train.  He is completely disoriented, but the attractive woman across the aisle appears to know him (as somebody else).  But he knows he is a helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan.  He stumbles to the bathroom, only to find the face in the mirror isn’t his.  As he is trying to figure out what is going on, the entire train blows up.  He regains consciousness in a confined space, where through a video screen an Air Force captain is trying to get him to concentrate on his mission.  Which is to live the last 8 minutes of a train rider’s life, again and again, until Jake figures out who blew up the train and therefore stops another, future terrorist attack.  So he does keep going back, trying to solve the crime, changing the events bit by bit, while at the same time trying to figure out what has happened to his own self.  If you like science fiction, alternate universe type movies, you’ll probably like this one.  I did.  

WIN WIN.  Paul Giamatti is a small-town lawyer who is having trouble making it in the bad economy.  He has a slip of ethics, taking conservatorship over an old man (Bert Young) for the money he can make from it.  When the old man’s grandson shows up, Paul and his wife (Amy Ryan) end up taking him in.   The kid seems a little odd, but turns out he is an outstanding wrestler (Paul coaches the local high school team), and the last-place team gets a real boost from the kid’s participation.  The movie also has Jeffrey Tambor, Melanie Lynsky and Bobby Canavan in great supporting roles.  Another one of those Paul Giamatti movies where he plays an ordinary guy with regular problems, making human mistakes.  I really liked the arc of the movie and all the relationships.

HANNA.  Hanna (Soirse Ronan) is a young teenage girl who lives near the Arctic Circle with her dad (Eric Bana).  He is teaching her all the survival skills she could ever need.  One of those skills includes defending yourself from assassins.  Her dad realizes she is getting older, and gives her the option to leave.  When she does, she is tracked by a CIA team (led by Cate Blanchett), who are out to get her.  She apparently was part of some plot to breed super-children.  Much mayhem ensues as Hanna attempts to escape her pursuers once and for all.  Although this movie is very stylish and has some rocking good music, I found it was too disturbing to have a young girl both be an assassin and be the target of assassins.  Plus, when you think about it, the plot doesn’t make much sense.

RIO.  This family-friendly animated movie is about Blu, a blue macaw who was separated from family early in life.  He lives with his human in Minnesota, and has never learned to fly.  One day a scientist notices him, and realizes he is the last living male of his species.  He convinces his owner to bring Blu down to Rio, where a female macaw lives.  In Rio, the female is not impressed with Blu, as all she wants to do is escape back to the jungle where she belongs.  They both are kidnapped by smugglers, and together must escape.  Lots of adventures ensue, with an entertaining supporting cast of characters.  The kids I was with thought the movie was funny, but I didn’t think it was that great for adults.  It was colorful, and I did like the music.  Good family movie, I think.

AFRICAN CATS.  This Disney documentary follows two families of cats in Kenya.  On one side of the river is a lion pride, with the main focus on an aging mother with one cub.  On the other side of the river is a cheetah mother with five cubs.  Both females will face significant challenges bringing their cubs to adulthood.  There is a lot of drama – the lions face off against competing lions and alligators, the cheetahs face off against lions and hyenas.  Samuel Jackson narrates a pretentious, overblown storyline, over and over again telling us how mommy and daddy will do anything to protect their families.  On one hand, I think this movie is too dumbed down for adults – there is no information here that isn’t easily found on Animal Planet or PBS’s Nature.  On the other hand, it was pretty darn scary for children, so I am not sure who the audience for this is.  Maybe older children.  I will say the cinematography was pretty spectacular.

POTICHE. In 1977 France, Suzanne (Catherine Deneuve) is a dutiful corporate housewife. Her husband disrespects her and treats her like an idiot. He is also pretty negative to their grown children. He runs the umbrella factory she inherited from her father like a dictator. When his health gets bad, she ends up taking control of the factory and making a success of it. She even works with the local communist politician (Gerard Depardieu). The kids find their niches in the workplace, the workers are happy and Suzanne finds a competence she didn’t know she had. But then the husband comes back. What will happen? Not only does this movie take place in 1977, I felt it was from 1977. Even though it is intended as a feminist story, Suzanne’s power is rooted in her maternal instincts. It had a very dated feel to it. Other than one revelation about Suzanne about two-thirds into the movie, I felt this could have been a Lifetime TV movie.