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.

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.)