September 2014 movie reviews

WHAT IF.  Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) and Chantry (Zoe Kazan) meet at a party and immediately hit it off.  They have similar senses of humor and attitudes, and they just click.  But Chantry has a long-term boyfriend.  At first, Wallace doesn’t even want to be just friends, but their compatibility gets the best of him, and they do develop quite a friendship.   I thought this was a charming movie, with some good laughs, good characterizations, and a nicely developing relationship.  The developments aren’t exactly shocking, but it worked for me.  The movie only got middling reviews, but I would recommend it if you’re in the mood for a bit of rom-com fluff.  A When Harry Met Sally for the 21st century.

THE SKELETON TWINS.  In this family drama, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are siblings who haven’t seen each other in ten years.  As the movie opens, failed actor Milo is in LA slitting his wrists.  Maggie is in New York about to take a handful of pills when she gets the call about her brother.  She flies to LA and brings Milo back to stay with her and her cheerful husband (Luke Wilson).  As the siblings get reacquainted, the problems that drove them apart eventually come to light.  They did not have a normal childhood and they both have “issues”.  Although this movie isn’t a complete downer, it is a very serious look at family relationships.  I actually liked it, and Bill and Kristen are amazing in this, but it’s not a party, that’s for sure.

LOVE IS STRANGE.  Alfred Molina and John Lithgow have been together for forty years when they finally are able to get married.  Which they joyfully do, but unfortunately the Catholic School Alfred works for fires him because they didn’t keep their marriage a secret.  As a result, they can no longer afford their New York apartment.  While they get on the waiting lists of affordable places, they have to split up – Alfred to live with nearby neighbors and John to his nephew’s.  Alfred’s hosts like to socialize, so he can’t get any rest, while John has to live in his great nephew’s bedroom, which isn’t ideal either.  So their situation is stressful.  That’s about it.  The movie is kind of sweet, and the acting good, but really…kind of pointless, I thought.  Just not much there.

MY OLD LADY.  Kevin Kline arrives penniless in Paris to take possession of the apartment he has just inherited from his father.  On his arrival, though, he finds Maggie Smith living in the apartment.  And it turns out she has kind of a reverse mortgage, and not only does she get to live there until she dies, but Kevin also has to pay her a stipend every month.  And he has no income.  Also in the mix is Maggie’s daughter, Kristin Scott Thomas, who is incredibly hostile to the idea of the apartment ever being sold.  Now, with a cast like this, you might expect a fun little movie, but nooo.  This is quite the downer, with alcoholism, infidelity, suicide, depression, etc.   I knew the movie wasn’t a comedy, but I didn’t expect it to be as depressing as it was.  Not a satisfying experience.

January 2014 Movie Reviews

HER.  At some unspecified future time, Joaquin Phoenix works as an author writing deeply emotional letters for other people.  His marriage has fallen apart, and he is having trouble connecting with people.  I think he is suffering from depression.  He gets a new operating system for his computer, one that has artificial intelligence.  And the more the operating system gets to know about him, the more it seems like a friend.  And then he starts falling in love with “her” (voice of Scarlett Johansson).  The scenario  is actually quite believable, as people more and more pay more attention to their smartphones, etc, than they do with real people.  Occasionally amusing, and definitely thought-provoking, this is kind of an odd movie that wants viewers to think about the role of technology in our lives.  And what defines a relationship.  More of a movie to think about than find compelling watching.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN.  Famous in his own time, Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) was an intellectually curious, extroverted man-about-town.  His wife, however, was more a stay-at-home, domestic sort, managing their several children in the suburbs.  So when Charles meets the smart and vivacious actress Nelly (20+ years his junior), he is enthralled.   This historical drama uses Nelly’s flashbacks to show their developing love affair.  She is depicted as haunted by the affair, but I am not sure why.  Although the movie is interesting, and seems to recreate the 1890s beautifully,  I never really got any passion from the two principles.  Which is kind of a problem in a romance; even though their emotional lives are depicted, it felt kind of flat to me.

THE PAST.  This French film opens with a woman waiting for someone at the airport.  It slowly develops that he is a 2nd ex-husband, visiting at her request to sign divorce papers.  She is involved with a new man, and wants to marry him.  She has two girls from her first husband and the new man has a son, and a wife in a coma.  The oldest daughter is very upset with her mother.  This family melodrama is by the same director who did A SEPARATION, which I believe won an Oscar for best foreign film.  This one is similar, in that the viewer really can understand every person and their motivations.  He is great at capturing the complexities of ordinary lives.  That said, his movies are more absorbing than fun to watch, I would say.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

October movie reviews

CAPT. PHILLIPS.  This is a fictionalized account of what happened when a large cargo ship was taken by pirates of the coast of Somalia in 2009.  Capt. Phillips (Tom Hanks) runs a tight ship, but despite employing all the measures at his disposal, his ship is taken by four Somalis with automated weapons.  The first half of the movie is the cat-and-mouse game between the crew and the pirates, as the crew tries to ensure they and the ship are not held for ransom.  The second part covers the episode where the Captain is taken away from the ship on a lifeboat and the US Navy comes to the rescue.  Tom Hanks is great, and the film doesn’t give short shrift to the Somalis point of view.   Directed by Paul Greengrass (Bourne movies, United 93), who really knows how to do suspense, even though you may know how it is going to turn out, it keeps you engrossed at every minute.  A terrific entertainment.

ENOUGH SAID.  Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Albert (James Gandolfini) are two divorcees who meet at a party and agree that they initially aren’t attracted to each other.  But at a subsequent set-up, they really hit it off.  Unfortunately, Eva also meets Albert’s ex-wife (Catherine Keener), and starts hearing about all of his negatives.  Despite Eva and Albert’s budding romance, Eva keeps up her friendship with the ex-wife.   This is a charming comedy about an adult relationship, and how even mature people can screw up a good thing.  I really liked it.    

GRAVITY.  Dr. Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Astronaut Kowalski (George Clooney) are on a spacewalk as she tries to make a fix to a telescope.  He is experienced, and cool and collected, while she is a novice trying to do her job.  Then space debris hits their spacecraft, and they are alone in space trying to survive.  In what is essentially a disaster movie, the filming here is what make the movie so special.  It is remarkable how the movie makes you feel the emptiness of space, the beauty, the silence… and the terror of being alone with only your wits to rely on.   The special effects really enhance the emotion of the movie, not overwhelm it.   Whether or not the astronauts can make their way to a “lifeboat” and survive kept me totally engrossed, but at the same time, not fully satisfied.  Still, those effects…

PRISONERS.  Keller and Gracie (Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello) have Thanksgiving dinner with friends Franklin and Nancy (Terence Howard and Viola Davis) and their children.  When their two little girls go missing, they all react in different ways.  As Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) attempts to find the girls, Keller goes off the deep end while Gracie curls up in a ball of misery.  Convinced that a simple-minded boy (Paul Dano) knows where the girls are, Keller goes all vigilante.  This has a fairly convoluted plot, with bolts out of the blue, and is too long, but all of the acting is top-notch and it mostly comes together in the end.  So although it was a bit intense for my tastes (torture!), I would recommend it because of the acting.

ALL IS LOST.  The movies open with a voice-over  with a sailor (Robert Redford) writing a letter to his family, saying all is lost, and he is sorry for all of his failings.  Move to 8 days earlier, where he is sailing his yacht 1700 miles of the coast of Sumatra when it runs into a container that had fallen off a cargo ship.  The resulting hole in the side of his ship sets off a desperate struggle for survival.  He must patch his boat, overcome bad weather, and try to navigate to waters where he might be found.  There is practically no dialogue, and we simply watch as he thinks his way through every crisis and implements solutions.  Interesting, if a tiny bit too long.  A fight for survival story similar to GRAVITY, without the great effects. Still, I felt more satisfied at the ending of this one.  

DON JON.  Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed) is a Jersey boy who does well with the ladies.  Still, he prefer porn, because as he says, with porn he doesn’t have to do nuthin’, or say nuthin.  Despite his lecherous ways, he is a church going boy, confessing his sexual peccadilloes every Sunday after going to the clubs and scoring the rest of the week.  But then he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson) and he thinks she is off the charts beautiful.  And she isn’t easy, either – she is definitely waiting for someone to meet her high standards – so he makes quite an effort to pursue her.   And they do become a couple, but although he makes several changes for her, he can’t wean himself of the porn habit.   So we’ll see if they can overcome their false ideas of perfect relationships.   Occasionally amusing, I didn’t find this the comedy some people said, but more a character study of a kind of shallow man that really doesn’t like women, or even sex with women, just orgasms.  I wouldn’t bother with the movie if you are offended by the objectification of women (by Jon and his friends) or multiple clips of porn.  Still I thought it was interesting.  Although primarily about porn addiction there is even a little side note on the harm believing in romantic comedies can have on women.

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.

June movie reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 2012 movie reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April movie reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

March Movie Reviews

HUNGER GAMES.    Teenage Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in coal mining District 12, one of the districts that rebelled against the Capitol.  After the rebellion is put down, each of the districts must provide a teenage girl and boy to fight to the death in the televised Hunger Games (reality TV gone amuck).  Katniss’ family is so poor after the death of her father that  she hunts in restricted areas to help feed her family.  So she has some skills, and when her little sister is chosen to fight in the games, Katniss takes her place.  This movie does a fine job showing how the teenagers are manipulated for prime time.  And Katniss is a strong and clever girl (always a welcome sight in movies) when it comes to participating in the games.  The movie has great supporting characters as well with a cast including Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz.  I really enjoyed this movie and think the series has a lot of potential. (I haven’t read the books, so I had no expectations for the movie going in.)

21 JUMP STREET.  Channing Tatum was the cool but dumb kid in high school, while Jonah Hill was the smart nerd.  They become friends in police academy, where Channing helps Jonah with the athletics, and Jonah helps Channing with the academics.  After graduation, they end up working undercover in high school to uncover a drug ring.  The movie is very wink-wink about the silliness of the premise (one of the high school kids tells Channing he looks like he’s, like, 40 years old).  A mix-up has Channing in the smart kid classes, and Jonah in the popular crowd.  Things have changed since they were in HS, and aren’t as predictable as they would have thought.  There is a lot of humor, although it’s not a gut-buster.  It’s silly, sure, and I think the movie was just a tad too long, but it has enough laughs to make it worth a Netflix, at least.

SALMON FISHING IN YEMEN. Ewan McGregor is a stuffy bureaucrat in the British fisheries department; Emily Blunt works for a wealthy sheikh from Yemen.  The sheikh loves salmon fishing, and is determined to spend millions to make it possible in his homeland, even building a dam to create the water for the salmon.  Ewan knows this is crazy, but is forced into it because the British government, mired in the war in Afghanistan, needs a feel-good story from the Arab world (Kristin Scott Thomas is a manipulative but funny government press agent).  Directed by Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat, Cider House Rules), who does movies with such heart, this is a nice little movie depicting the conversion of Ewan into a believer, and the developing friendship between him and Emily.  Enjoyable movie, although nothing huge.

JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME.  Jeff (Jason Segal) is thirty years old and living in his mother’s (Susan Sarandon) basement.  He is waiting for a sign to tell him what he should do with his life.  His mother and brother (Ed Helms) have lost patience with him.  When Jeff gets a wrong number for a Kevin, he takes it as a sign to pursue references to Kevin.  And that is how he spends his day.  Coincidentally, this will lead to a meet up with his brother, who discovers his long-suffering wife (Judy Greer) may be cheating on him.  So the signs take Jeff from place to place, and lead to a climactic event.  The movie is less than 90 minutes long, which is good, because although I wasn’t exactly bored, I don’t have much patience for guys like Jeff (or his nasty brother, for that matter).  Mildly amusing at times, this was lightweight, just OK.

THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD.  Nic is a normal teenager – going to school, always on his cell phone, and has a crush on a cute girl.  But he lives in Albania, which means things are a little different from here.  His dad makes a living delivering bread in a horse-drawn cart, for example.  One day his dad gets into an argument with a neighbor and the neighbor ends up dead.  In Albania, that means the members of the surviving family can take revenge and kill a family member (his dad has disappeared).  Nic essentially must remain in the house 24/7 to avoid being killed.  Not easy for a teenager, but the older generation doesn’t appear to want to change, admit this is wrong, and take the burdens of the old ways off of the young.  This movie is interesting in its depiction of a different way of life, but it felt more like an anthropology study than entertainment.

November 2011 Movie Reviews (part 2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July & August movie reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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