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.

January 2015 movie reviews

SELMA.  This movie traces Martin Luther King’s efforts to get the Voting Rights Act passed.  He knows he needs to push the issue in a place where the southerners will push back, because it will bring publicity to their fight.  Selma, Alabama is that place. The movie is interesting in its exploration of King’s political astuteness, and also in the challenging relationship he had with his wife Coretta.  The events in Selma were hugely significant to our history.  And David Oyelowo is absolutely stellar as King. Although the movie brought me near tears several times, that was more because of the emotion surrounding the actual events.  Although this is a good movie, I found it a bit slow.  It’s more the events (and acting) that are great, not the movie itself.  Still, many people should see it, for the history  it depicts.

BIG EYES.  In this based-on-fact movie, Amy Adams plays Margaret Keane, an artist who became very famous in the 60’s for her paintings of woebegone children with over-sized eyes.   She was not an outgoing woman, and her husband, Walter Keane (Christophe Waltz) was a born salesman, so he took the lead in promoting her work. Trouble is, he also started taking credit for the paintings, telling her that women couldn’t get recognition as artists.  This movie is directed by Tim Burton, but I wouldn’t have known.  It is a fairly straight-forward recap of the commercialization of Margaret’s work, and her  growing backbone, which led to her split from Walter and finally revealing herself as the artist.  It was OK, but not what I expect from a Burton movie.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR.  Oscar Isaac plays the owner of a home heating oil business in 1981 New York City.  His wife Jessica Chastain is the daughter of a gangster.  Oscar is trying to run a straight business, more or less, but he is living in difficult times.  The government is targeting him for corruption (because his industry is rife with it) while somebody is stealing his trucks and selling the oil.  Meanwhile, time is running out on him getting a loan he needs to expand the business.  The movie is getting terrific reviews, and it is well acted and recreates an era quite well.  But I wasn’t impressed.  It wasn’t entertaining, or edge of your seat, or much of anything for me, really.  I guess critics like the darkness and moral ambiguity….

CITIZENFOUR.  When Edward Snowden decided he want the world to know how much the NSA was spying on American citizens, he first contacted documentary maker Laura Poitras.  Along with journalist Glenn Greenwald, they met in Hong Kong.  This documentary is mostly conversations with Snowden (before he went to Russia) as he explains his point of view vis-a-vis the loss of privacy that has resulted since 9/11. There is also discussion of what it is exactly that the NSA is doing.  This movie gives one a little deeper perspective into Snowden’s point of view, but there isn’t too much in the movie that one wouldn’t already know, assuming one watched the news when the documents were being released.

October 2014 movie reviews

GONE GIRL.  Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) are a lovely couple living in Missouri.  Their relationship and marriage seem perfect.   But one day Nick comes home and finds Amy gone and the house in minor disarray.  The cops and the town mobilize to find Amy, but as time goes on,we see via flashbacks that the marriage was far from perfect and Nick seems more and more guilty of murdering Amy.  I read the book, and knew the twists and turns of the story, but I still really enjoyed the movie.  Director David Fincher has done a terrific job of bringing the best seller to the screen.  (Still, I wonder if I would have liked it more or less if I hadn’t read the book?)  The supporting cast is also terrific.  Recommended.

PRIDE.  In 1984 Britain, Margaret Thatcher tried to break the coal miners.  An LGBT group in London decided to support the miners (feeling a bond with another oppressed group).  At first it is even a challenge to get the miners to accept the money they have raised, but they eventually start supporting a small Welsh mining town, and they both learn a lot about each other and develop deep bonds.  This is based on a true story, and is a terrifically entertaining and funny and touching movie.  Well worth looking for.

LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM.  In 1974, when Nixon left office, North Vietnam broke the peace agreement and started pushing into South Vietnam.  As it became more and more clear that the country would fall, the American Ambassador was in denial.  (He had lost a son in combat and was deeply invested in the independence of the country.).  So no plans for evacuation were being implemented.  Finally, a variety of Americans  (military, spies, etc.) started taking matters in their own hands and tried to get as many South Vietnamese out as possible (they knew those that had worked for the Americans would be in deep trouble when the South fell).  The documentary is a gripping look at what the various people did and did not do,, and how sometimes doing the right thing might not be the legal thing.  Highly recommended.  It will be on American Experience eventually, watch for it on your PBS channels.

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…)

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.

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.

February 2013 movie reviews

SIDE EFFECTS.  The movie opens with a scene of a bloody apartment.  Obviously something bad has happened.  Then “three months earlier”, we meet Emily (Rooney Mara) as she is meeting husband Martin (Channing Tatum) in jail.  He was convicted of insider trading, and will be getting out soon.  Even though Emily is happy about his release, she has a history of severe clinical depression.  After a suicide attempt, she goes to a psychiatrist (Jude Law), where she tries to treat her disease with the latest pharmacological drugs.  I won’t say any more about the plot but you do wonder whether justice will be done.  After a fairly slow first thirty minutes, this is a terrifically entertaining movie, ESPECIALLY if you don’t read anything about it beforehand.  It’s not deep, but a lot of fun as you follow the twists and turns.

WARM BODIES.  In this version of the zombie apocalypse, zombies retain a small vestige of their humanity, and have thoughts, vague memories, and can grunt out a few words.  “R” (Nicholas Hoult) is a young zombie and he is friendly with another older zombie “M” (Rob Cordry).  We hear R’s thoughts in voiceover (e.g., early on, R is wondering about his human life, and guesses he was unemployed, because he is wearing a hoodie.)  The surviving humans, led by John Malkovich, live in a city behind a very high wall, and venture out only for supplies.  John’s daughter, Julie, is a member of a group sent out to obtain medicines.  They are attacked by a group of zombies, but she is saved by “R”  because he feels a connection with her.  He tries to keep Julie safe from other zombies, especially the ones that are so far gone they have no humanity left.  He also wants to keep her close but not freak her out too much.  Eventually she will start to warm up to him.  This is a bit a fluff, actually kind of sweet, and has some real laugh-out-loud moments.  Worth seeing, if not paying for.

WEST OF MEMPHIS.  Another documentary in the they-were-wrongly-convicted genre.  It follows the case of the West Memphis 3, who were convicted in Arkansas of murdering three young boys in 1993, based on the false confession of one mentally challenged young man, and because they were misfits.  Prosecutors presented the case as a satanic crime, based on “expert” testimony that most certainly was not.  One of the teenagers was even given a death sentence.  HBO has done a series on the case (Paradise Lost 1-3), but this movie puts it all together, shows the weakness of the case, and even promotes an alternative suspect.  Interviews with the celebrities who championed the case (Eddie Vedder, Peter Jackson), investigators who pursued new evidence, and the main personalities in the case provide context.  It’s just tragic to see how prosecutors will insist on the correctness of their case in the face of overwhelming evidence.  American justice may be top of the line, but it sure as hell isn’t perfect.  (see also:  CENTRAL PARK FIVE.)  Very well done.  

56 UP.  This ongoing documentary has followed several English people every seven years since they were seven years old in 1963.  The original idea was to see how much class distinctions in England would affect what happened to the children.  The class issue isn’t quite as prominent now, which is what the filmmakers thought might happen as Britain changed post-war.  The movie shows clips from the earlier episodes, and it is fascinating to see how consistent people’s personalities are, even given the wisdom they gain over the years.  It’s kind of a voyeuristic thing, but I have enjoyed all of these movies.  Now at age 56, most of the people seems quite content with their lives, no matter the ups and downs they have had.  

December 2012 Movie Reviews

DJANGO UNCHAINED.  In Quentin Tarantino’s latest, (King) Christophe Waltz (love him) is a bounty hunter in 1858 Texas.  Even though he abhors slavery, he buys Django (Jamie Foxx) from some slave traders because Django can identify some crooks he is after.  They develop a bond working together, and King agrees to help Django locate and find his wife, still enslaved, before they go their separate ways.  So they travel to Tennessee, to the plantation where Django’s wife is.  Like all Tarantino movies, there is a lot of carnage.  But, like INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, the carnage seems appropriate.  There is also great dialog and some very witty moments.  Also with Don Johnson and Leonardo DiCaprio as slave masters, and Samuel Jackson as the head house slave.  A little long, it was still a fun movie.

LES MISERABLES.  If you loved the play, you will probably like the movie.  But the material works better as a play, I think.  As usual, Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is relentlessly pursued by Javert (Russell Crowe) for stealing some bread for a child.  Anne Hathaway is really good as Fantine, and Eddie Redmayne is superb as Marius.  But Crowe doesn’t have a strong enough voice for Javert (during one song the music swells at the end, I assume because Crowe couldn’t hit/hold the note).  And although I loved Jackman in OKLAHOMA!, I don’t think his voice works here.  Perhaps being dramatic and singing at the same time isn’t his forte.  Still, there are some great songs in this, which for me made it worth the price of admission.  And the movie is able to clarify some plot points that aren’t as clear in the play.  But I wouldn’t see it again, or recommend it to people who don’t love dramatic musicals.  See the play, or buy the play’s soundtrack.

HITCHCOCK.  This movie is a bit of a mess.  It’s two overlapping stories.  The first is a look at the relationship between Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma (Helen Mirren), who was very important to his career. (In addition to giving him good advice, she was an editor and a script doctor.)  The movie shows that he is a creep and she is a bit of a nag, so it is hard to care about their relationship or root for them to work out their issues.  The second story here is about the making of the movie PSYCHO.  Hitchcock had a great deal of difficulty getting the movie made (it was ahead of its time as a horror movie), but persevered though all obstacles.  I found that part interesting, and so liked the movie for that.  

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE.  In 1989, a large group of young black/brown men went into Central Park and starting creating trouble, beating a homeless man, harassing cyclists, etc.  Unfortunately for them, at the same time a young jogger was being brutally beaten and raped in the same area.  With media exploitation and the racial atmosphere of the times, the police felt pressure to solve the rape quickly.  To do it, they browbeat some of the young men – fourteen to sixteen-year-olds –  for hours, and eventually some confessed.  Although their confessions were radically different and there was no other evidence (including no DNA match), they were prosecuted and convicted and sentenced to 7-13 years (that short only because they were juveniles).  Not until the actually rapist confessed years later did the truth come out.  It’s doubly shocking to hear that the police had evidence on the actual culprit at the time, and could have prevented a future murder by arresting him.   This movie is like others of the genre (PARADISE LOST, THE MARCUS NELSON MURDERS), so there wasn’t much that surprised me.  I am still shocked, though, at how the police and prosecutors can never admit their errors.  If you think our justice system is near perfect, watch this documentary.

ANY DAY NOW.  It’s 1979, Rudy (Alan Cumming) is living on the edges, and works at a gay bar as a drag singer.   One day lawyer Paul (Garrett Dillahunt) comes in to the bar, and Rudy immediately notices him.  Even though Paul is closeted, they click.  Meanwhile, a drug addict living down the hall from Rudy abandons her Down Syndrome son, and Rudy takes the boy in.  Before you know it, they have created a family.  But it’s 1979, and being gay, that family is threatened if anyone suspects the true nature of their relationship.  The movie doesn’t have much character development, and we are asked to believe that it’s love at first sight for Paul and Rudy, despite their differences.  Still, it’s a movie that shows the hardships for gays just a few decades ago, and Paul and Rudy’s efforts to keep their family together are touching.  Worth seeing. 

KILLING THEM SOFTLY.  In this crime drama’s opening scene, two low-life thugs talk about doing a job.  Apparently there is a mob-run, high-stakes poker game they could rob, and they are told they won’t be suspects.  But because the games are run by organized crime, they soon find they are in over their heads.  It doesn’t help that they are dumb as posts.    Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini are hit men out for revenge, who also need to ensure that no one thinks they can get away with robbing the criminal big leaguers.  Meanwhile, it is the 2008 financial collapse, and we keep hearing speeches by Bush and candidate Obama in the background.  The movie is obviously comparing the American system to the organized criminals.  Richard Jenkins and Ray Liotta are in this as well, and the acting is really good.  (Gandolfini does a drunk about as well as I have even seen it.)  But this is a very violent and intensely cynical movie, and I didn’t care for it.

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.