June Movie Reviews

THIS IS THE END.  Seth Rogen meets best buddy Jay Baruchel at LAX, and they proceed to get high and stupid.  Seth insists they go to a party that James Franco is hosting at his place in the Hollywood hills, and Jay reluctantly goes along.  There they meet Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera…(they all play less than attractive versions of themselves).  Jay is getting fed up and ready to leave when disaster strikes.  It appears the apocalypse is upon them, and they are stuck at Franco’s house trying to survive.  This is a really stupid movie about people behaving badly, but it also has enough laugh-out-loud moments that make it worth the bits that don’t work and the often lowbrow male-oriented humor.

WHAT MAISIE KNEW.  Maisie is a little girl living in New York with her constantly bickering parents (Steve Coogan and Julianne Moore).  When they divorce, they put her in the middle of their never ending and bitter battles.  Mom especially is a self-centered narcissistic mess.  Maisie seems to take it all in stride, though, merely observing the world around her.  Eventually Maisie will understand that her new step-parents more concerned about her than her parents.   Based on a Henry James novel, this modern take isn’t quite as believable as the original, but still compelling, mainly because we totally believe the little girls’ journey in coming to grips with her parents’ true natures and figuring out where she needs to be in the world.

FILL THE VOID.  Shira is an 18 year old girl living in an orthodox community in Israel.  That means it is time for her to get married, and her parents are using a matchmaker to find her a husband.  Shira has some say in her marriage, but it will essentially be based on a look and a quick meeting.  She thinks she has found someone acceptable, but then her older sister dies in childbirth.  And her mother thinks, maybe, Shira should marry her widowed brother-in-law (and keep the grandchild nearby).  But her parents won’t force her.  Shira must think it through and decide for herself what is best, but at 18, that’s tough for anyone.  I really appreciate this kind of movie, which enlightens one about a culture and community that is behind closed doors for outsiders.

THE EAST.  An anarchist group is committing acts of terrorism against corporations, and a security firm whose clients are big corporations sends Sarah (Brit Marling) to try to infiltrate the group.  She is a well-trained young woman who believes in doing the right thing (the movie makes a point of her Christianity).  She is also very smart, and eventually finds and is welcomed into the group.  So, of course, you can figure out that she will begin to sympathize with the group (including Alexander Skarsgard and Ellen Page).  The morals of the group’s specific actions bother her, but not the cause of justice for the powerless.  The movie is always interesting, although I had trouble developing much emotional investment in Sarah’s issues.  I think the movie has trouble committing.  Patricia Clarkson is excellent (as always) as the cold-hearted head of the security firm.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.  For me, Shakespeare is like a second language I don’t speak all that well.  So I have to really concentrate on what people are saying to make sense of it.  In this comedy, director Joss Whedon has taken the tale of people manipulating lovers to modern day.  Well done, I suppose, but I really need to study up before watching Shakespeare because I otherwise miss too much of the dialogue.  

KINGS OF SUMMER.  Joe and Patrick are 15-year-olds struggling to deal with parents that drive them crazy.  One day, Joe gets the idea to build a house in the woods, leave their families behind, and live off the land.  Along with an odd hanger-on, that it what they (try to) do.  There is also a girl.  While I actually found the boys to have believable personalities, I found this movie to be rather pointless.  It was a favorite at Sundance, and has a high Rotten Tomatoes rating, but I wasn’t enamored.  Perhaps if I had an one point been a teenage boy (like most critics), I would have a better feeling about the movie.   It was just….eh.

KON-TIKI.  As an ethnographer working in Polynesia in the 1930s, Thor Heyerdahl becomes convinced that the Pacific Islands may have been populated from the east, (Peru) not the West as was commonly thought.  After the war, Thor tries to convince people to publish his book on his theory, but no one will buy it because they think it is outlandish, with little proof.  But he truly believe his theory, so he decides to build a raft using 1,500-year-old techniques, and sail to the islands, which he estimates will take 100 days.  And so, in 1947, with all the low technology of the times, he sets off with a group of five others up for the danger/adventure.  This movie is mostly a terrific depiction of his and his crews’ ordeal (storms, sharks!), although there are moments where not much is happening (a raft in the middle of the Pacific can be kind of uneventful).    Beautiful photographed, the movie worth catching if you would like a nice offering in the adventure genre (so rarely seen these days).  Nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar (although it’s in English).

May 2013 movie reviews

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

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

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

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

April Movie Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

January 2013 Movies

ZERO DARK THIRTY.  The movie opens with the sights and sounds of 9/11 and other terrorist events of the decade.  It then follows Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA analyst who is assigned to Pakistan and working to find Osama Bin Laden.  Events along the way (including torture of detainees) are depicted in a judgement-free, matter of fact way.  Maya is convinced she is on the right track, and pursues her leads doggedly.  The movie ends with the raid on Bin Laden’s compound, which at the time of course, was considered a risky undertaking.  This is a good movie, but I don’t  quite understand the the critical love.  It’s not edge-of-your-seat like ARGO.  It is more of a procedural on how the CIA works.

THE IMPOSSIBLE.  This movie tells the true story of a couple (played by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor) and their three sons, who were celebrating the 2004 Christmas holiday in Thailand when the tsunami hit.  The first half of the movie does a really good job of showing the terror of the wave, the scale of the disaster, and the subsequent confusion.  SPOILER ALERT: The second half details the efforts of the family to reunite after being separated by the water.  Usually I am a sucker for reunification scenes, but for some reason these didn’t do it for me.  (Maybe because hundreds of thousands of people were dead, so their eventual reunification doesn’t seem that important.  After all, they still had family to re-unify with.)   Even though Watts and McGregor (and the oldest son) are terrific, the the second half was a drag for me.  So first half yes, second half no.

QUARTET.  In a beautiful old country mansion that is a home for retired musicians, the residents are busy preparing for a fund-raising gala, including reserved Reggie (Tom Courtenay) and outgoing Wilf (Billy Connolly).  Into their midst arrives diva Jean (Maggie Smith).  Not only is she distressed to end up in the home, but she was briefly married to Reggie way back when and he has never forgiven her.  They were all part of a quartet who most famously sang together in Rigoletto.  I can’t say there were many surprises in this movie, and I am not one for thinking that ditzy, cranky, and/or inappropriate behavior is hysterically funny just because the perpetrators are old people (as apparently the audience I saw the movie with did).  Just an OK movie, but for me, it was completely saved by a very sweet ending.  

NOT FADE AWAY.  Douglas is a teenager in 1960s New Jersey.  Like many young guys, he dreams of his garage band making it big.  Meanwhile, he has a father (James Gandolfini) who seems to be very bitter at all the advantages his son has that he never had.  And his mother seems depressed.  The band has ups and downs.   That’s kind of it.  The changes that occurred during the 60s were interesting, and the soundtrack here is fun, but these people aren’t.  I found this semi-autobiographical movie by David Chase to be a bit dull.  

RUST AND BONE.  In this French movie, Marion Cotillard is a Sea World-type trainer who suffers a terrible accident.  Before the accident, she meets a single dad who is making ends meet as a bouncer, and  is a former boxer.  She has a boyfriend, so nothing happens.  But they reconnect after the accident, and develop a very unusual friendship.  It’s very matter of fact.  He starts making money by participating in “street” fights.  She starts adapting to her disability.  He is the right person to help her at the right time, because he completely lacks sentimentality.  Their friendship becomes a little but more, but not really a romance.  I found this to be a very odd movie, maybe a bit too French for me.  

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.

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.