October 2012 movie reviews

ARGO.  In 1979, when the Revolutionary Guard took employees of the American embassy in Iran hostage, 6 people got out and took refuge in the Canadian ambassador’s home.  This movie details the story of how a CIA agent (played by Ben Affleck, who also directed) came up with the idea of making it look like the hostages were part of a Hollywood film crew, and just take them out through the airport under the noses of the Iranians.  Affleck does a terrific job of setting the scene leading up to the Iranian revolution, as well as showing how the U.S. government bureaucracy worked and how the agent overcame it.  There are great scenes of the agent and his contacts in Hollywood (John Goodman and Alan Arkin) showing him the ropes of how to make the fake film (Argo) look like a real production.  Affleck also does a great job in making the movie suspenseful, even though I knew the outcome (and, in fact, the truth wasn’t quite as suspenseful).  Very good movie, very entertaining.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER.  Charlie is starting high school, and is understandably worried about fitting in and finding friends.  He has a past, but we aren’t quite sure what his issues were.  Lucky for Charlie, he is adopted by a couple of seniors who consider themselves outsiders as well, including Sam (Emma Watson) and her gay stepbrother Patrick.  They hang out, go to dances and parties, participate in the Rocky Horror Shows, and generally act like teenagers.  Charlie has a crush on Sam, but she has issues herself (it’s said she was quite a slutty freshman) and isn’t interested.  This is very much a movie for the teenage crowd, or those who remember the angst of teen years.  It’s honest and sweet without being saccharine.

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS.  Martin McDonagh, who wrote the very good IN BRUGES, also wrote and directed this.  It involves Colin Farrell, a screenwriter, and his friend Sam Rockwell, who along with Christopher Walken, steals dogs for the reward money.  When Sam steals criminal Woody Harrelson’s beloved dog, things get a little crazy.   Like McDonagh’s other works, this combines shocking violence with really black humor.  The movie did have lots of laughs, but it just wasn’t enough for me.  Although I guess it wants to parody the movie business, it just seemed cobbled together for the sake of the violence and laughs, without enough back story to make anyone all that believable.  It’s interesting how a movie can be both funny and dull at the same time.

October must be documentary month…

THE HOUSE I LIVE IN.  This documentary takes a look at the origins and consequences of the war on drugs.  Drug use is essentially unchanged, and America has the most prisoners in the world, most for non-violent crimes.  In addition, this has destroyed poor and minority communities.  The filmmaker interviews people in the prison industry, cops, judges, abuse experts, and victims of the system.  All of them know the current system doesn’t work.   This is a very compelling documentary that explains the difficulty in changing the system (more than just politics,; there’s lots of money in the current system).  Just Say No.  To the War on Drugs.  It’s useless.

THE OTHER DREAM TEAM.  This documentary looks at the Lithuanian bronze-winning 1992 Olympic basketball team. In 1988, four of the five starters for the Soviet Union gold medal team were Lithuanians, who had to play for the Soviets.  So 1992, after their independence, was a real opportunity for them to show some national pride.  And they ended up playing against Russia for the bronze.   The movie shows a little too much history of Lithuania (although some is necessary to show why the win was so important for their country), but because I didn’t watch much of the 1992 Olympics, I knew very little of the story.  So I enjoyed the movie, including appearances by the Golden State Warriors and the Grateful Dead.  Very inspirational. 

THE WAITING ROOM.  This documentary takes place in the emergency department at Highland Hospital, the public hospital of Alameda County, California.  Anyone in the area without health insurance will come here for their health care.  Even though emergency departments are not the place for ongoing or preventive health care, it is the only option for people without insurance. (Patients in the know will bring lunch and dinner, because they know they have a long wait in front of them.) The staff do their best, and are extremely compassionate toward their patients.   Stories include those of a father who is terrified that his daughter is sick, because he already lost a child, a young man with testicular cancer who knows he needs surgery ASAP, a man who has spreading numbness due to a gunshot wound, and people with a whole variety of other ailments.  And even once they are seen in the emergency department, it may be months until they can see anyone for needed follow-up care.  This documentary is very powerful, and should be required viewing for anyone who thinks people in America can get the health care that they need.

September 2012 movie reviews

END OF WATCH.  Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña are best friends and cops in the South Central area of Los Angeles.  They love their jobs, and Jake is especially gun ho and ambitious.  So much so that they begin to gain the attention of drug cartels, which is not a good thing.  From the previews, I thought this might be a movie about rogue cops, but it is not.  This movie feels very authentic, showing the two over several months just BS’ing on patrol (some of their conversations are hilarious), with their patrols being humdrum punctuated with really tragic and really frightening moments.  I really liked it.

LOOPER.  In this science fiction tale, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) lives in 2044, where time travel has not yet been invented.  But it has in 2074, and Joe works for a crime boss in the future.  The crime boss sends back people to be killed and Joseph does it – he’s a looper.  They are called loopers because it they decide to get out of the killing business, they know that in 30 years time, they will be sent back to be killed (hence, closing the loop).  It  sounds complicated, but it isn’t that hard to follow.  When old Joe (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be killed, things go haywire, and young Joe is in serious trouble for not killing his older self.  Both old and young Joe are on the run, trying to survive.   There’s a lot more, but I won’t explain it.  Suffice it to say the movie is very watchable and held my attention for the whole two hours.

ARBITRAGE.  Richard Gere stars as one of the 1%, a fabulously wealthy money guy.  When the movie opens he is winning awards, and loving his family, and attempting to sell the business for a boatload of money.  But of course not all is as it seems to be, personal or business wise.  When his mistress has an accident, he tries to manipulate the situation to keep his role out of the papers and continue his business machinations.  This may not seems like a good plot for a movie these days, but the script is tight.  We watch and really don’t know – will he get away with it?  Will he ruin the lives of others in doing so?  Or will he pay the price?  I thought this was an enjoyable movie.  Also with Susan Sarandon and Tim Roth.

SLEEPWALK WITH ME.  This movie stars comedian Mark Birbiglia in a semi-autobiographical look at his relationship with his girlfriend of 8 years and his early comedy career.  He knows how lucky he is to have Abby (Lauren Ambrose) in his life, because he is a bit of an aimless loser, tending bar and barely working on his comedy.  When he starts feeling pressure to make a commitment to Abby (his parents are James Rebhorn and Carol Kane in terrific small parts), Mark starts sleepwalking.  Not in a cute way, either, but dangerously.  Around the same time he starts using his relationship in his act, his comedy career starts taking off.  This is a nice little movie, interesting in that Mark has no problem portraying some of the least flattering aspects of himself.  So the movie feels very realistic and believable.  It’s apparently based on a “This American Life” that Mark did for NPR.  It does feel like a filmed version of one of those stories, so if you like them, you’d probably like this.

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE.  Documentary.  This movie uses old footage of the early years of Act Up (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), a group of mostly HIV-positive New Yorkers who took on the powers that be to push for the expedition of AIDS drugs and research.  They know that they are facing death, but they educated themselves and chose to use political action to help, if not themselves, those who will come after them.  Although I knew of the group, I was surprised to hear how effective they had been, despite eventual infighting.  Those who survived are interviewed toward the end of the film.   Very moving look at the power of the people to effect change. 

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.

April movie reviews

CABIN IN THE WOODS.  I don’t enjoy horror movies, but I went to see this one because it was written by Joss Whedon (who I love).  It’s a sly take on the horror movie genre.  Here, the five college age students (each filling a stereotypical role), despite warnings from a maniacal gas station owner, go to a secluded cabin in the woods to relax.  What makes the movie different is that they are all guinea pigs in a government experiment (the first scene shows two bureaucrats; I am not giving anything away).  That setup allows for lots of clichés to be poked.  The movie is rather clever, has some amusing bits, and despite a couple of standard horror scenes where a woman is being brutalized (which I HATE), it’s an original take on the standard story.  I would think horror fans would really love it, because they understand all the conventions being tweaked.

BULLY.  Documentary.  This film follows several students in several states who endure bullying (psychological torture, really) in school, as well as parents who have lost their children due to bullying.  This is a heartbreaking movie, well worth seeing, and very effective at showing the problem, if not so much at pinpointing solutions.  One can only hope that it pushes school boards and administrators (who are unbelievably useless in this movie) into realizing bullying doesn’t have to be something that is tolerated, and do something about it.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI.  Documentary.  This films follows 85-year-old Jiro Ono, who had to begin working in restaurants when he was 10, and continues to pursue absolute perfection in his 3-star Michelin sushi place every day.  He is obsessed with sushi, never taking a day off and working long hours.  Interviews with his sons and restaurant critics and his suppliers bring little more insight into his psyche.  He is just plain and simple driven to be the best he can be, and old age isn’t changing that.  Every day he thinks about what can be done to make the sushi better.   Interesting enough movie. I was hungry after, even though the focus isn’t on the food, but the man.

FRIENDS WITH KIDS.  Romantic comedy.  This is a likeable little movie, written and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt (who did the amusing KISSING JESSICA STEIN).  Julie (Jennifer) and Jason (Adam Scott) are best friends, who because they are not attracted to each other, have never hooked up.  But they are very close.  They see their married friends having varied success trying to cope with being parents and trying to maintain the romance.  So in movie-world style, Julie and Jason decide to have a child together but remain just friends.  Of course it is a ridiculous premise, but this isn’t just a simplistic romantic comedy.  The movie does actually show some of the challenges of relationships, like not being in the same place at the same time, or having romance crushed by real life challenges.  Great cast, including Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, Ed Burns, and Kirstin Wiig, this is cute enough if you don’t require your movies to be grounded in reality.

MONSIEUR LAZHAR.  This French Canadian movie (nominated this year for Best Foreign Film) is about a classroom full of kids trying to recover from a teacher’s death.  Because the school has not been successful recruiting a replacement, they hire Monsieur Lazhar, an Algerian immigrant.  He has different ways of doing things, which he, the kids, and the school administration find a challenge.  He also has his own tragic past, which helps him help the kids.  This is an OK movie, but I think typically movies of this type have an inspirational story that really grabs the heart.  This one was a little too low-key and subtle for my taste.

FOOTNOTE.  In this Israeli film, Eliezer has spent his life comparing versions of the Talmud, and was on the verge of publishing his ground breaking results when another researcher, as the result of a fluke discovery, beats him to it.  Meanwhile, Eliezer’s son, Uriel, has had great success in the same field, both in academia and the popular press.  Although the son is very considerate of his father’s feelings, the father is still very bitter.  When a mistake is made in awarding a major academic prize to the wrong person, it will have serious ramifications for their relationship.  Seen by some as a comedy, I smiled a few times, but mostly I saw the movie as one of a father-son conflict with no winners.  In  Hebrew, also nominated for Best Foreign Film.

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.

November 2011 Movie Reviews (part 2)

HUGO.   Martin Scorsese has made a beautiful movie that takes full advantage of 3-D.  Pre-teen Hugo lives behind the walls of the 1930’s Paris train station after his father is killed in an accident.  Hugo fixes the clocks behind the scenes, steals food to survive, and evades the Station Inspector (Sacha Cohen Baron) who would put him in an orphanage.   The one thing Hugo has left from his dad is an automaton that he is trying to repair.  To work on it, he has been stealing parts from toy store owner Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), who works in the station.  When Hugo gets caught stealing, it sets off a series of events that lead him to learning more about the automaton, and about Georges.  Why does the Georges’ god-daughter have the key to the automaton?   This is almost two movies – the first is Hugo’s adventures in the train station (and the 3-D is fabulous here) and the second involves discoveries about the early movie making years.   This might be a bit long for children, and it does include a bit of a history lesson, but I really, really liked this movie. 

THE DESCENDANTS.  The movie begins with George Clooney’s voiceover, stating that just because people live in a Hawaiian paradise, it doesn’t mean their lives are problem-free.  It seems his wife was in a boat accident and is in a coma.  He has to take care of his younger daughter, and decides to take his older teenage daughter out of boarding school to help him.  But George hasn’t been around much, and she’s a bit of a pill, for good reason.  The events around and following his wife’s accident make George take a look at his marriage, his parenting, his job…it’s more than a family crisis, it’s a personal crisis for him.  This is a thoroughly entertaining movie, quite funny at times, but also with a serious bent.  (It’s by the director that did Sideways and Election; men in crisis seems to be his genre.)  It’s a good movie, and Clooney is even better, as is the actress playing the older daughter.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN.    This based-on-a-memoir movie revolves around Marilyn Monroe coming to London in 1956 to make a movie with and directed by Laurence Olivier.  The third assistant director Colin Clark became her friend for a week and accompanied her on a weekend around London.  I found the core story to be pretty shallow.  Of course the young man was smitten, of course Marilyn broke his heart.  But I did enjoy the details surrounding the movie-making, and some of the side bits (her acting coach, Olivier’s frustration with Marilyn’s unprofessionalism, Vivian Leigh).   Michelle Williams doesn’t really look or sound anything like Marilyn Monroe, but she does a terrific job of making you see Marilyn’s specialness, sexiness, sweetness, insecurities…

INTO THE ABYSS.  Werner Herzog’s latest documentary investigates a capital murder case that happened in Texas in 2000.  Two teenage boys, because they wanted a red hot Camero, senselessly murdered three people.  Herzog interviews the murderers (one on death row, one not), victims’ families, the police, and others.  Although he states up front he is against capital punishment, he isn’t railing against it in this movie.  He is just examining a really tragic event from all angles.  This is quite good, but sooo sad.  Like a real life DEAD MAN WALKING.

LIKE CRAZY.  This movie is about two college students who meet and fall madly in love.  Anna is an exchange student, and she is so in love with Jacob she can’t bear to go back to England for the summer, so she violates her visa conditions and stays in LA.  When she is caught and has to go home, their relationship of course will suffer the ups and downs that long distance creates.  And it will take months and months for her immigration status to be resolved.  I thought Anna especially immature, so I had trouble having sympathy for her.  And Jacob could be a jerk.  You know, like real people.  Interesting to me, sort of, but I think anyone’s interest in this movie will strongly depend on their tolerance for young love and how naive (i.e., stupid) young people can be.

THE OTHER F WORD.  Pretty amusing documentary about punk rockers (members of Rancid, Black Flag, Pennywise, etc), and how they were forced to change when they became fathers.  Most of them did not have great male role models, but are determined to be the best dads they can be for their kids.  They realize the conflict between their careers (when punk is all about doing whatever the fuck you want and fuck everyone else) and being there for their kids and raising them right.  The movie is a little long, but I enjoyed it a lot.

LE HAVRE.  French movie about a middle-aged shoeshine man who lives in Le Havre, a port town.  One day a container of illegal immigrants from Africa is opened, and a young boy escapes.  The police are hot on his tail, and Marcel, the shoeshine man, and his neighbors endeavor to help the kid.  Marcel also has a sick wife in the hospital.  Critics are saying this is a sentimental black comedy.  Wow.  I thought it was a rather dull slice of life portrait of ordinary people doing something to help a kid, nothing more.

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.