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.

November 2011 movie reviews (part 1)

TOWER HEIST.  Ben Stiller is the general manager of a posh Manhattan co-op, and he has no life other than providing top-notch service to the wealthy residents.  Alan Alda lives in the penthouse.  He is a financial guru who one day is arrested by the FBI (Tea Leoni) for stealing everyone’s money (a la Bernie Madoff).  This includes stealing the hotel staff’s pensions, who gave him their money to manage.  So Ben, along with some of his co-workers/friends (Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick) decide to steal their money back from him.  Since they aren’t criminals, they recruit Ben’s childhood friend (Eddie Murphy) to help them.  Occasionally amusing, with some edge-of-the seat moments, this is a mildly entertaining heist movie (made better by Murphy), but nothing special.  Worth seeing on TV.

ORANGES AND SUNSHINE.  Margaret (Emily Watson) is a social worker in 1986 England.  She is doing group therapy with some adoptees when a woman asks her assistance in finding her roots.  The woman tells Margaret that she was shipped to a home in Australia when she was a child.  Margaret doesn’t believe this, as it would be quite illegal, but then she hears of another case of the same thing.  She starts investigating and finds that the English and Australian governments conspired to send thousands of foster and orphan children to Australia (up until 1970).  And some of these children still had living parents.  She starts a non-profit trying to reunite families.  The movie doesn’t really tell a surprising story (unfortunately) of the abuse that some of the children suffered.  But it is quite good in showing the stress of the work on Margaret, and the differing affects the emigration had on the children (especially Hugh Weaving and David Wenham).  Very good because instead of focusing on the event, it shows the effect on individuals.  Based on Margaret’s book in the subject.

BLACKTHORN.  This movie presupposes that Butch Cassidy (Sam Shepard) was not killed in Bolivia in 1908, but instead bought a horse ranch on the Bolivian frontier.  The movie opens in 1928 as the old Butch (using the name Blackthorn) decides that it is time to go back to the States and see his family.  So he goes to town to sell his belongings for the money he needs, but on his way back to the ranch he is shot at and loses his horse and everything with it.  The shooter is Eduardo, a young Spanish mining engineer, who claims that a posse is out to get him because he stole money from a mining company.  Eventually the two men team up to retrieve the stolen money and evade the posse.  Mortality is weighing on Butch’s mind, and at times he flashes back to his early days with Sundance and Etta.  This movie is just a little slow-paced for me, but other than that, I quite liked it.  We don’t see Westerns much anymore.

ANONYMOUS.  This movie takes the position that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays, the Earl of Oxford did.  He apparently is a favorite candidate among the Shakespeare-didn’t-write-his-plays crowd.  I don’t really care one way or the other who wrote the plays, but I would want a movie like this to clearly explain its position.  But I found the court politics surrounding this theory confusing, and was expected to believe plot twists that I just couldn’t buy.  The movie is kind of fun in depicting the Elizabethan era, but it’s too long, and like I said, just didn’t make enough sense.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE.   Martha escapes from the at-first-glance bucolic commune she is living on and has her estranged sister Lucy come pick her up.  Lucy feels guilty for not having been there for Martha when their mother died, so she wants to make it up to Martha.  But Martha is very odd.  It turns out what she was escaping from was a seriously creepy cult led by John Hawkes, and she is dealing with PTSD from having lived there for two years.  The movie flashes back and forth from Martha’s experiences in the cult to her trying to cope with the real world at her sister’s house (although she never tells her sister the truth about what she has been through).  Martha is just falling apart.  Well-acted, and believable, I guess, but this isn’t my kind of movie.  I just don’t enjoy movies where the main character is suffering some kind of psychological breakdown (like Black Swan last year) and you are just waiting for something horrible to happen.

A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR CHRISTMAS (3D).  The 76% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes who gave this a positive rating must have been high when they saw it.  I wish I had been, it might have helped.  I laughed a lot at their first movie, even though it was stupid,  but this one is horrible; I laughed maybe twice.  The plot doesn’t matter, so I won’t relay it here.   The 3D was good though, and they played it for the gimmick it is.

April movie reviews

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

March movie reviews

THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.  Do you believe in predestination or free will?  Matt Damon plays the youngest U.S. Representative ever.  At the start of the movie he is running for U.S. Senator.  During the campaign, he meets a woman (Emily Blunt) and they have an immediate connection.  She disappears from his life, but eventually he finds her again.  Whereupon the Adjustment Bureau (John Slattery, Andrew Mackie) try to intervene.  Apparently they work for a higher power who has a plan for all of us, and when things don’t go according to plan, they make adjustments.  Matt was never supposed to meet Emily, and their being together will change what is “supposed” to happen.  Interesting movie about romance with a science fiction/thriller spin.  Based on a story by Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner, Total Recall), which is a pretty good recommendation right there.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER.  Legal thriller starring Mathew McConaughey as a sleazy defense lawyer, willing to take any case.  Drug dealers included, because he is all about the money.  Thing is, he is a very smart lawyer.  He ends up defending a rich playboy (Ryan Phillippe) accused of assaulting a prostitute.  Is the guy guilty or not?  Will Matthew get him off regardless?  I saw a couple of twists coming, but there were a couple of surprises.  Also starring William H. Macy, Frances Fisher, and Marisa Tomei.  It’s not a great must-see movie, but it’s fairly clever, for the genre.  Worth a rental.

JANE EYRE.  In this Charlotte Bronte classic, Mia Wasikowska is Jane Eyre, a poor girl who escapes an abusive girls’ boarding school only to become governess at the gloomy mansion of Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender).  Jane is very smart and strong-willed, but life has certainly given her a bad hand.  Still, Mr. Rochester, who seems bored with life, sees something special in Jane.  But  he seems to have secrets, and she of course, must be very prim and proper, despite all the passionate undercurrents.  Very moody gothic romantic melodrama.  Well done, but this kind of overly romantic story won’t be everyone’s taste.  

PAUL.  Two English geek/nerds (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) finally make it to Comic-Con in San Diego where they are in heaven, seeing all the exhibits and meeting their heroes.  To finish off their trip to America, they decide to tour infamous sci-fi sites around the country (i.e., Roswell, Area 51).  They rent an RV, and after a day on the road witness a horrific car accident,  It was an alien (Paul) driving a getaway car trying to escape the government, who have kept him for all the knowledge they can get from him.  After the nerds get over their shock, they try to help Paul connect with his species and escape the evil government goon (Jason Bateman) out to re-capture him.  Along the way they also meet a fundamentalist (Kirsten Wiig), who shall we say, has her ideas about the world challenged.  This flick is by the two guys that did Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.  Clever, the movie has funny bits and lots of pop-culture references.  Not a but-guster, but amusing.  

RANGO.  Animated feature, with Johnny Depp voicing the lead character.  Rango is a pet lizard, who entertains himself by visualizing himself as an actor and putting on plays.  He finds himself alone in the Mojave Desert when his owners have a car accident.  He ends up in the town of Dirt, where water is a valuable commodity.  Rango puts his acting skills to work and becomes the sheriff.  The towncritters expect him to help, but there are scary villains, of course.  And corruption around the water supply.  Beautifully drawn, but I was really bored.  Critics are giving this high praise, maybe because it is very referential to classic movies, and especially westerns (Timothy Olyphant is the voice of The Spirit of The West), but I don’t imagine even kids liking this one.  

THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED.   In 1986, a 30-ish man ends up in the hospital with a brain tumor.  After surgery, Gabriel has no short term memory.  In fact, he really only comes to life when he hears the 1960’s music of his youth.  His conservative WWII veteran father (JK Simmons), from whom he had been alienated since he was a rebellious teenager, must come to appreciate his son’s music (especially The Grateful Dead) in order to communicate with his son.  This movie has the feel of a Lifetime movie about it.  It’s not bad (JK is always good), but the father-son conflict and resolution felt very pat.  It was trying to grab my heartstrings, but didn’t wholly succeed.  Based on an factual Oliver Sacks story, with liberties taken.

December movie reviews

THE KING’S SPEECH.  The Duke of York, aka “Bertie” (Colin Firth) is the second born of George V, so he doesn’t have to worry about being King, but he does have to do public service.  Which is very difficult for him, because he has a severe stammer.  His wife (Helena Bonham Carter) keeps trying to find someone who could really help him, and finally she does – Lionel (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian.  Lionel is not intimidated by royalty and in fact does things that are very much against protocol.  But his methods and insistence on informality help Bertie make progress.  The movie is very good, more than just about speech therapy, with quite a lot on insight into Albert’s background and issues.  The side story of King Edward (Guy Pearce) and Wallis Simpson, while slight, is also well done.  Quite a wonderful history lesson about the father of Queen Elizabeth, who would unwillingly become King right before WWII.  Colin Firth does an outstanding job portraying a man dealing with the hand he is dealt, humanizing someone whose life we could not imagine.  This is one of my favorites of 2010. 

THE FIGHTER.  Micky (Mark Wahlberg) is an up and coming boxer in working-class Lowell, Massachusetts.  His half-brother Dickie (Christian Bale), is fourteen years older and used to be a contender himself.  But now, he is lost in a crack addiction.  Still, he is Micky’s trainer.  And their domineering mother (Melissa Leo) is his manager.  They are family and they think they know best.  But maybe they don’t. When Mickey meets barmaid Charlene (Amy Adams) and they become a couple, she starts giving him the backbone to stand up for himself and do what is best for him and his career.  Will he make it in boxing?  Or will family be his downfall?  Based on a true story.  Now, I really, really hate boxing, so I can’t really love this movie (having to avert my eyes for the matches), but despite that, I think it really is quite good. And Christian Bale has to get the Oscar for his performance.  

TANGLED.  Disney animation has really made a comeback.  This one revolves around the tale of Rapunzel, whose golden hair has magical properties.  As a result, she is kept in a tower by an evil crone (who Rapunzel thinks is her mother).  Rapunzel wants nothing more than to go out and see the world.  When a thief evading capture climbs into her tower, she has her chance.  Cute little songs, sweet humor, great secondary characters, this isn’t quite as good as THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, but it’s pretty close.  I also love how Disney cartoons show girl power now, instead of the heroines just getting married to their princes.

TRUE GRIT.  The Coen brothers take on the 1960’s book that was made into a movie with John Wayne.  The story is basically the same.  Mattie, a 14-year-old girl, is determined to avenge the murder of her father.  She hires beat up old drunken US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges).  Another marshal (Matt Damon) is on the trail of the murderer as well.  This is a straightforward western, I think, not immediately identifiable as a Coen movie.  But well-done.  There’s the dirt of the old west, unsavory characters, violence, and frontier justice. The best thing about the movie is the character of Mattie, who is smart as a whip and about as determined as they come.  One had to be tough to make it on the frontier.  She’s terrific, and Rooster is more than meets the eye as well.  So this was fun to watch.

THE BLACK SWAN.  Natalie Portman is Nina, a young ballerina who dreams of playing the Swan Queen in Swan Lake.  She is quite neurotic and stressed out, which is only exacerbated by her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey) and demanding dance director.  He lets her know that she would be perfect as the virginal, naive white swan, but she has a lot of work to do before she can dance the evil, seductive black swan role.  As he pushes and pushes her to become freer and less uptight, Mila Kunis arrives as the free-spirited competition.  Nina begins a downward spiral and is heading for a psychotic break in her quest for perfection.  Although this movie is getting generally rave reviews, psychosexual melodrama is just not my kind of movie.  At best, I found it eye-rolling annoying.  But that’s just me.
 
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS.  This is a 76% on the Tomatometer of Rotten Tomatoes.  I do not know why.  Steve (Jim Carrey) is trying to live an upstanding Christian life in Texas, until he gets in a car accident and decides he has to be who he is, which is a gay man.  Since, as he says, being flamboyantly gay in Miami is expensive, he turns to crime, becoming a smooth con man.  He can impersonate lawyers, CPAs, medical personnel… He eventually gets sent to prison, where he meets sweet, naive Phillip (Ewan McGregor) and they fall instantly in love.  When they get out of prison, they build a life together, but Steve continues to lie and cheat his way through life, getting sent to prison again and again and escaping again and again.  I liked Ewan McGregor a lot, but Jim Carrey’s Steve seemed borderline sociopathic to me.  The tone of this movie is all off.  It veers from amusing con man caper-type episodes to heart-rending tragedy.  It just didn’t work for me.  (Interestingly enough, this is based on a true story.)

November movie reviews

UNSTOPPABLE.  Denzel Washington is a grizzled train engineer near retirement, Chris Pine is a newbie conductor.  They are on their route in Pennsylvania when they get word that there is a runaway train with hazardous materials coming straight at them (and populated areas).  So goes this popcorn action movie.  The movie gives you a great feel for the weight and power of a runaway train.  And there is suspense, lots of crashes, an evil corporation more worried about the bottom line than human lives, and two attractive leads.   Fills the bills very well, if sheer entertainment is what you are looking for.  Very enjoyable.   And inspired by a real event.  

FAIR GAME.  Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) is a covert operative for the CIA, on the front lines in fighting terrorism.  Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) is her ex-ambassador husband.  When he realizes that the Bush administration is misrepresenting his findings about the possibility of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he pens an opinion piece for the New York Times.  In retaliation, because they were so damn anxious to justify going to war in Iraq, the Bush administration outs her as working for the CIA (a majorly illegal act that probably cost lives).  This movie, based on books by the two protagonists, pretty clearly explains the reprehensible nature of what Scooter Libby and others in the administration did, and also has some good insight on how tough it is to maintain a relationship when you work for the CIA.  Good movie, although for me not terribly gripping because I read the news and knew quite a bit about the story already.

MEGAMIND.  Animated feature.  Will Farrell voices Megamind, an alien who comes to earth as a baby, but because he isn’t very popular with his schoolmates, becomes a evildoer.  His nemesis is MetroMan, who also came to earth as a baby.  Because MetroMan a goodie-goodie and better looking (voiced by Brad Putt), he is popular and always wins.  Tina Fey, girl reporter, reports on their conflicts.  The problem is that Megamind isn’t really an evil person, but when he tries to be good, the populace can’t accept his changing.  This movie just didn’t grab me; it wasn’t original enough in any way.  But probably children would enjoy it.

127 HOURS.  Aaron (James Franco) is a happy-go-lucky, wild outdoors-loving guy.  He’s an engineer, but really would like to be a guide in the canyonlands wilderness he lives in.  One weekend he goes out for an adventure without telling a soul where he is going.  He meets up with some hikers and shows them an unforgettable time.  Then he is off on his own again.   He falls into a crevasse and a rock falls in on him, pinning his hand.  He spends days trying to get out, and (if you haven’t heard this true story) eventually figures a way out.  There are also flashbacks to his life and relationships, and some hallucinations when things get really tough.  Very VERY intense movie.  I am not squeamish, but even I had to avert my eyes at times.  It’s a fine movie, but I think, for most people interested in the story, they’d be better off reading the book (appropriately titled BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE.)  It’s kind of a stressful experience, although I do have to admit that the end of the movie is very uplifting and life-affirming.

HEREAFTER.  Matt Damon is a psychic who can hear what the dead are saying and convey it to their loved ones.  But he has stopped doing readings because he finds it too emotionally draining.  In a parallel story, a French journalist had a near-death experience but survives the Indonesian tsunami.  Because she saw the “white light”, she becomes obsessed with the afterlife.  And in London, a third story follows a pair of young twins who face tragedy.  In the way of movies, all three stories will come together and the characters will find each other.  I cannot pinpoint what about this movie lost me, but I had kind of an “eh” reaction when it was all over.  Just not my cup of tea, I guess.  Directed by Clint Eastwood.

KINGS OF PASTRY.  Documentary about a very prestigious cooking competition that takes place in France.  The movie follows three competitors.  I didn’t mind the movie…and the pastries and sugar sculptures are beautiful, but there wasn’t much about how the cooking is actually done.  You can see similar stuff with more info on the Food Channel.  Mostly it was a little learning experience about this specific competition.

TODAY’S SPECIAL.  Sayid (Aasiv Mandvi from The Daily show) wrote and stars in this little movie.  He is a sous chef who dreams of having his own restaurant, but his boss doesn’t think  his cooking has soul. Sayid is the son of Indian immigrants who want him to be more successful, get married, give them grandchildren, the same old story.  His dad, who ran a hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant, gets sick, and Sayid tells his parents he will take care of  the restaurant.  But he knows nothing about Indian cooking.  So he will learn about cooking and life from a real character. This is a harmless movie, but I have seen this story a dozen times before.  Nothing original.

October movie reviews

THE SOCIAL NETWORK.  This movie is loosely based on the Harvard undergrad who developed Facebook.  Mark Zuckerberg, as portrayed in the movie, is obsessed with getting into the right social clubs, but while very, very smart, he is socially inept.  One night, after being dumped by his girlfriend (because he is an obnoxious asshole) and fueled by beer, he starts madly writing code that will eventually lead to the development of Facebook.  Along the way, he takes ideas from other students and betrays his business partner.  Written by Aaron Sorkin ( The West Wing, The American President), it is a fascinating story with great dialogue.  The structure of chronology interspersed with various depositions lets you see the different points of view.  I liked the movie, but I think critics are making it much more than it really is.  It’s not that deep to have a story of an underdog being successful, even if there is the irony of a socially clueless guy becoming a leader in social media.  It may be on a lot of top 10 lists this year, but might only crack the top 20 for me.  We’ll see.

RED.  Bruce Willis is a retired CIA agent, so bored he has taken to chatting up a woman (Mary-Louise Parker) who solves payroll problems.  One night, a wet team invades his house to try to kill him.  He takes Mary, and begins to investigate why he is on a hit list. Who and what is behind this?   This leads him to other former agents, including John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, and Helen Mirren.  They are all red (retired: extremely dangerous).  Pretty tongue in check, with lots of action.  Like this summer’s Angelina Jolie movie (SALT), this movie is really preposterous but great fun.  A terrific popcorn movie.

IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY.  When  stressed out teenager Craig decides he is fantasizing about suicide too much, he checks himself into a mental hospital.  But the teenage ward is closed, so he ends up with the adults, one of whom is Zach Galifianakis (from The Hangover), who just seems kind of quirky, but actually also suffers from depression.  Zach shows the kid the ropes, and also provides some perspective on life in general.  Craig finds that he must stay in the ward five days, so he starts making the best of it.  And there is a cute girl too (Emma Roberts), so they get to know each other.   The movie is both amusing and serious. I am kind of making it sound like a very predictable movie, but I really really liked the path it took.  Recommended.

INSIDE JOB.  Documentary on the economic collapse of 2008.  This is very well done, doing a good job of explaining how several years of de-regulation led to greater and greater risk taking by financial institutions.  It also explains in pretty easy terms (animation, charts, etc) the things the banks did that caused the problems (including creating the housing bubble and AIG’s insurance of the flimsy financial instruments).  It explains why thinking short-term is all that matters, because no one in the industry cares about long-term risks.   If you are interested in this kind of stuff, I would say this movie is well worth the two-hour investment.  It held my attention.

SECRETARIAT.  When her father gets ill, housewife and mother of four Penny (Diane Lane) takes over management of their horse breeding farm, even though her husband and brother don’t think she should.  She is intent on ensuring that the family gets the most out of the place as possible,  Including developing any colts that have potential.  She hires a quirky trainer (John Malkovich), and together they strategize their way to the top of the horse racing world in the early 1970s with the horse Secretariat.  The movie depicts the sexism she withstood and her support for her daughters’ independence.   But mostly it’s about her wisdom about horses and her strength to do what she thought right, including not selling the horse for a sum she really could use to save the farm.  I thought this was quite entertaining, even though there isn’t really any suspense (for me anyway), but I will admit that I have a real tendency to enjoy the sports-underdog-does-good genre movie (REMEMBER THE TITANS, MIRACLE, RUDY, etc).  

CONVICTION.  Betty Ann (Hilary Swank) and her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) have a tough life growing up, mostly in foster homes.  But they are bonded to each other through thick and thin.  Kenny is kind of a loser, getting into drunken bar fights and such, but nothing serious.  So when Kenny gets accused and then convicted of murder, Betty is willing to do whatever she can to prove his innocence.  When all other efforts fail, she gets her GED, graduates from college, and goes to law school, all in an effort to get him out of jail.  Even though her family life suffers and the process takes years, she remains determined.   Swank and Rockwell are totally believable, and Melissa Leo and Juliette Moore have small roles that they do very well.  Middlin’ good movie.  Definitely shows how those without money can get screwed by the justice system.  True story.  

NOWHERE BOY.  In 1950’s England, teenager John has always lived with his Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas) and Uncle George.  George is great fun, but Mimi – she’s kind of a stick in the mud.  When George dies, Mimi is very stiff upper lip, all about getting on with things and not mourning.  John decides he wants to meet his mother, only to find out that all this time, she has lived only a few blocks from him.  So he starts getting to know her.  She is great fun, a real party girl, just the opposite of her sister Mimi.  So John’s meeting his mother and bonding with her leads to conflict between the two sisters, and with Mimi and John.  He finds that music can help him feel better, and he starts really getting into early rock and roll.  Well acted, and definitely evoking the time and place, this certainly isn’t a bad movie.  But for me, it’s mostly about teenage boy angst and just isn’t all that interesting, even if the teenager is John Lennon.  

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.  This documentary tries to analyze what has gone wrong with our public schools.  It follows five children, all stuck in crappy public schools,  whose parents are trying to do right by them.  Which in most cases means trying to get into charter schools where selection is by lottery.  There are also interviews with educators and academics who know the issues.  According to this movie, a lot of the blame lies with the tenure that bad teachers get, plus the multiple layers of bureaucracy in our education system.  It makes it pretty clear that poverty can be overcome with good schools, and that poor schools aren’t a result of an impoverished student body.   Lots of good facts and figures here.  If you are interested in the subject, it is worth waiting to see if it shows up on PBS.  But it’s pretty depressing stuff, to tell you the truth. The movie attempts to inspire one to do something about the issues, but it didn’t work for me. 

LAST TRAIN HOME.  This documentary follows one Chinese family as representative of the 130 million Chinese that have left their homes to work in urban industries.  It’s a rough life, and most migrants only get to go home to see the families once a year, at New Years.  In this case, both parents have gone to the city and left their children behind with grandparents in the hopes that the children can get a good education and not have to live the hard life of the parents.  But the teenage daughter is very bitter about her parents having left her.  The movie basically shows a system that has torn families apart. Another sad documentary, worth waiting for on PBS.  (The scenes of the train stations packed with humanity at New Years are worth it.)

July 2010 Movie Reviews

  INCEPTION. Leonardo DiCaprio works for hire, invading people’s dreams to steal corporate secrets. He and his team (including Joseph Gordon Leavitt and Ellen Page) create alternate realities (with really cool visuals for us) to set up the circumstances during the dream that enables them to steal the secrets. But there are things you don’t do, like plant ideas in someone who is dreaming (inception) because they always know they didn’t come up with the idea themselves. But when Leo is offered the job of conducting an inception for the chance to go back home (he can’t go home for reasons not explained early on), he jumps on it. This is a complicated movie with dreams within dreams within dreams, and time moving at different speeds, but I didn’t find it too difficult to follow. Directed by Christopher Nolan (Dark Knight and Memento) and he delivers. In fact, I really liked this movie.

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT. Family drama being advertised as a comedy. Jules (Julianne Philips) and Nic (Annette Benning) are long time partners with two teenage children. Nick is a bit of an uptight doctor, and Jules is kind of a hippie chick. They have kind of settled into routine, and I would say the romance is mostly gone. When the daughter turns 18, her brother convinces her to contact their sperm donor dad (Mark Ruffalo). The movie follows the changing dynamics of the family as they try to see how biological dad can fit in. Although this movie has very funny moments, I would say it really is more about family dynamics, exploring how everyone has issues, we are all imperfect, and how challenging it is to be together for decades. Very good stuff.

 RESTREPO. Documentary that covers a year with a company of soldiers in Afghanistan. They are stationed in an isolated valley near the border of Pakistan, and the Captain has them building an outpost (named Restrepo after a fellow solider that died) in a veery dangerous area. They face gunfire every single day, fighting an enemy who is everywhere but rarely seen, while at the same time trying to get the local village elders to support them. (The carrot is that the US will build a road that will help the village economically.) A terrific look the life of these young kids – their goofing off, their fears, their sorrows. It’s not easy for civilians to get a feel for battle, but this movie does about as good a job as can be done (without the adrenaline rushes of real warfare). It’s really well done (by Sebastian Junger, author of the Perfect Storm, who was embedded with them for most of the year, and wrote a book about it, which I now want to read).

 SALT. Angelina Jolie is Evelyn Salt, one tough cookie CIA agent. One day a soviet defector comes into their office, and tells her and her colleagues that a sleeper agent is about to be awoken in order to kill the Soviet President and re-start the Cold War. The sleeper agent’s name is Evelyn Salt. Denying that she could be the sleeper, Salt takes off, theoretically she says to save her husband. But we wonder – maybe she really is a Soviet assassin. The CIA and counter-intelligence are after her. Meanwhile, the Soviet President comes to the US to attend a state funeral. Will he be assassinated? And so on. Of course she does things that are physically impossible and takes bruising hits with little effect, but that’s typical for action movies these days, and it doesn’t bother me. This is a roller coaster of a popcorn summer movie – very entertaining and well done for the genre.

 DESPICABLE ME. Animated feature. Steve Carrell voices Gru, an evil mastermind, complete with evil minions. But he starts be overshadowed by Vector. So Gru decides to steal the moon. But first he must steal Vector’s shrinking ray, but he can’t get in to Vector’s house. So he adopts three little girls who will sell Vector cookies, and get entry. A little action, but a lot sappy. Anyway, I suppose this would be fine for kids, but I was 5% amused and 95% bored. Pretty lame. Maybe better in 3D.

June 2010 Movie Reviews

TOY STORY 3. In this newest episode of Toy Story, Woody and Buzz and the rest of the toys are facing tough times, as Andy has grown up and is going to college. His mother is making him clean out his room, and the toys face the garbage bin, the attic, or being given away. They end up at a Day Care Center, which at first they think is the best thing, because children will play with them once again. But the Center’s toys are led by a bitter stuffed bear who will ensure that the new toys are assigned to the worst room on the center (with all the toddlers). So the story involves the toys trying to escape the Day Care Center and get back to Andy’s house. Sweet movie, but I didn’t find it as entertaining as the earlier two Toy Stories. It’s actually kind of a deep movie, about coping with life changes. Still good for not-too-young kids though (the end would be pretty scary for real little ones).

WINTER’S BONE. Ree is a 17-year-old living in the Ozark backwoods. Her dad has disappeared and her mom has had a nervous breakdown, so she is the sole caretaker of her 12-year-old brother and 7-year-old sister. The family is dirt poor, often depending on the kindness of neighbors. When the sheriff comes to their cabin to tell her that her dad put their house and land up for collateral to guarantee his appearance in court, and they will lose the house if he doesn’t show up, Ree lets the sheriff know she will find her dad. Which she sets out to do. But her dad cooked meth, so she has to contact some pretty sketchy characters, none of whom want to help her, even though some are family. This is a mystery story combined with a real feel for these people and their way of life. It makes for a gripping drama. Well worth seeing.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK. Jonah Hill is a low-level flunky working for record producer Sean Combs, and the company needs to bring in some revenue. Jonah suggests bringing down-on-his-luck rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand in the same role he played in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL) back to LA to do a reprise of his most successful concert ever, a 10-year comeback concert at the Greek Theater. So Sean sends Jonah off to London to get Aldous back to LA within 3 days. Aldous’ last album was a critical and popular disaster, and the pop-star love of his life (Rose Byrne) dumped him. Since then, he has been off the wagon in a big way. Aldous is a serious substance abuser and major party hound, so Jonah, who is not exactly a wild man, has his hands full trying to manage him. Stops in New York and Vegas don’t help Jonah’s deteriorating relationship with his fiancee, but they certainly broaden his life experiences. Although the movie is not a 100% success (gross out humor that was more gross than humor for me), it’s at least usually amusing and certainly has laugh out moments. Some cute and unexpected cameos too. But it wasn’t THE HANGOVER, which I guess I was expecting. It has more heart than that, giving the Aldous character some back story and reasons for his issues.

BEST WORST MOVIE. Documentary on the cult status of the 1992 movie TROLL 2. It is apparently a truly dreadful straight-to-video movie that makes no sense whatsoever. But hipsters discover it on HBO and make it a midnight success. The documentary, directed by one of the child stars, interviews fans and the cast members, including a small town Alabama dentist, who truly loves his newfound fame. Very entertaining movie, and quite amusing, but it is brought down a little by the director of Troll 2, and one of the stars, who are completely oblivious to how awful the movie is. Those parts are kinda sad. Otherwise, I enjoyed the film.

JOAN RIVERS: A PIECE OF WORK. This is a documentary on Joan Rivers, who was a ground breaking comedian when she came on the scene in the early 60’s. The filmmakers followed her for a year, plus intersperse the movie with earlier clips of her career. It’s a year filled with ups and downs (bad audiences, no work, then Celebrity Apprentice). She was 75 years old when the film was made, and still working her tail off. She can be funny , of course, as well as too crude (for me), but she also has an almost pathological obsession with working and being accepted (which I found disconcerting). Interesting movie.

SOLITARY MAN. Michael Douglas plays a successful car salesman who in the first scene, gets the news that something might be wrong with his heart. Six years later, and his life is falling apart. He is having trouble connecting with his family (because he is mostly obsessed with nailing young women), and his career is also in the dumps. He is really in a downward spiral. At first he seems charming (the salesman in him), and you root for him, but then I realized that his character is so reprehensible that I found it hard to care what happened to him. This movie is the kind that people can actually discuss after seeing, because it has an open-ended finale, but it wasn’t entertaining, if that makes sense.

PLEASE GIVE. Katherine Keener and husband Oliver Platt make their living buying retro furniture from the children of the recently deceased. Their daughter is an unhappy adolescent, a typical teenage girl with zits and weight issues. The couple are waiting for the next door neighbor, a cantankerous old lady, to die so they can buy her apartment and double their living space. She is taken care of by one of her granddaughters, a bland young woman played by Rebecca Hall. Her sister, Amanda Peet, is a nasty piece of work, who will pretty much say and do whatever she wants. The movie doesn’t really go anywhere, it just shows these people’s interactions and highlights their lack of self awareness. The one granddaughter hates her grandmother, for instance, and is really nasty to her, but doesn’t realize how much they are alike. Katherine gets annoyed when she finds another store owner buying her stuff and marking up the prices, yet feels guilty that she does the same thing. The movie mostly kept my attention, but the lack of what I would call a plot leaves me cold. I get that the director likes to show everyday life, but that doesn’t mean it’s that entertaining to watch.