"True" story about a the hijacking, in 2009, of a large American freighter by a band of Somali pirates, based on the book by Captain Richard Phillips. The usual procedure is to take hostages of both the crew and the cargo and demand a large payment, which, until this incident, was usually negotiated. In this case, the crew of the Maersk Alabama had been trained in anti-piracy measures and successfully resisted the take-over. However, Captain Phillips was taken and the pirates escaped with him in a lifeboat. The lifeboat was tailed by a U.S. Destroyer and a long negotiation took place eventually resulting in the deaths of the pirates by sniper fire from the navy ship and the rescue of Captain Phillips. "Captain Phillips" smartly gives you some background about the pirates: they were not the cynical gangsters the public prefers to know. They were impoverished Somali teenagers desperate to provide for their families and they are well-acted in this film. The major annoyance is the hand-held jerky camera used throughout: are we supposed to believe that a real cameraman is there? That we are actually part of the action? Hanks is okay in a role suitable for him, and the odd, added coda of his treatment by medical staff on the destroyer is genuinely moving. However, it's a flattering portrait-- and his accent wanders. And the viewer simply must keep in mind that this film was made with the cooperation of the U.S. Navy (even to the point of not charging the film company for the crewmen's time). How does this impact the film? Well consider that the snipers did not wait for an official command from the captain, in real life. The sniper team leader simply decided to shoot when he felt Phillips life was in danger. Also in real life, his own crew did not find Captain Phillips quite as lovable as this film would have you believe: he was accused of endangering the crew by disregarding advice to stay further away from the coast line. He also didn't give the orders to deal with the hijackers: the crew did that on their own.
Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Catherine Keener, Faysal Ahmed, M. Ali Mahat, Michael Chernus, Yul Vazquez
Well-directed and schemed story about a marriage: the woman disappears and the husband is suspected, of course. There are numerous twists and the story grows increasingly implausible, if continuously intriguing. Rosamond Pike is entrancing at times: too bad her character is twisted beyond credibility by the end, as is the story. Still, it's an extremely chilling take on the gender wars, written by a woman, Gillian Flynn, with a compelling if controversial insight into feminine psychology. Amy and Nick meet in New York. Both are writers, smart, good-looking. They develop a strong sexual attraction and eventually marry. When Nick's mother becomes terminally ill with cancer, they move to North Carthage, Missouri, and Amy feels dislocated, lonely, and marginalized by Nick, who is back with friends and family, and teaching-- instead of writing. One day, she simply disappears. Nick, of course, is suspected, and "Gone Girl" does a very good job of showing the way the media begins to play the story, and Nick's concern about the fact that he was carrying on an affair with a student at the time Amy went missing. Is she dead? The detective investigating, Rhonda Boney, is not a predictable foil to Nick. She is too astute to buy the whole story at the start, in contrast to Officer Gilpin who wants to arrest Nick the minute evidence turns up that the couple were in deep financial distress and there is a big life insurance policy on Amy (overlooking the problem that life insurance will not pay out for years for a missing individual). For the first two thirds of the movie, we are strung along on a very well-considered, well-developed, fresh plot. But Flynn can't resist adding bigger and bigger twists until the story simply loses all believability.
And Frederico Fellini listed as writer. When a major city is in imminent danger of occupation by an enemy force, the occupying forces will sometimes declare it an "open city", meaning that they will not defend it militarily against the invading army, thus sparing it destruction. This is Rossellini's classic depiction of the waning days of the Fascist control of Rome focusing on underground activities and the participation of children and a priest, Father Pietro Pelligrini. Giorgio Manfredi, a resistance leader, contacts his friend Francesco for a place to hide. Francesco's fiancee, Pina (who has a child, a boy named Marcello), agrees to help out. So does Giorgio's girlfriend, Marina, a cabaret singer. But she is tempted by a fur coat... and a possible lesbian relationship with a collaborator. Francesco is an atheist but Father Pietro considers anyone who opposes fascism to be godly, in a broad sense, and even agrees to marry him and Pina. However, they are betrayed to Nazi Major Bergmann. While Georgio is tortured and Father Pietro forced to watch, the German officers listen to piano music and drink and play cards and discuss the superiority of German culture. Then a drunken German officer, Hartmann, lauds the courage of resistance fighters, and decries the death and hatred the Germans sow. A bit heavy-handed on Italian heroism and Germans going, drat, foiled again, but a very compelling film because of it's raw authenticity, the unknown actors, and the wonderful exteriors: Rome itself, immediately after the war.
Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero, Harry Feist, Giovanna Galletti
Wildly over-rated alleged biopic of Allan Turing which pays as little attention to facts as possible in favor of cliche-ridden fake conflicts with-- by golly, isn't he basically a teacher-- Commander Denniston, and his entire code-cracking team who, we are given to believe, were so stupid that they did not understand that building a computer-like machine (the Bombe) would ultimately speed up their code-breaking and save even more lives than they were saving manually every night. But then again, that conflict could not have existed anyway because Turing did not invent nor build the Bombe in real life (though he helped). Nor did he meet Joan Clarke through the ridiculous crossword puzzle contest shown here; nor did get to decide which decoded messages would be forwarded to the military authorities in order to prevent the Germans from knowing it had been cracked. Nor did any seriously astute person from the era believe the Enigma was not crackable-- of course it was, but the Germans did think it could not be cracked efficiently enough to matter. The mystery is why so many reviewers and viewers think so highly of "The Imitation Game"-- because it makes them feel smart to think they they would have understood Turing, and they would never have discriminated against him or locked him up later for being gay after all he did for the war effort. Because they can feel broadminded and tolerant of gays because-- thank god-- "The Imitation Game" never shows you any gay sex, not even a kiss.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightly, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance
Mark Schultz and his brother David both won gold medals at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (when Eastern Block nations boycotted). As they trained for the World Championships and the 1988 Olympics, in poverty, a wealthy benefactor named John Du Pont contacted them and offered them a stipend, a place to train (all expenses covered) on his farm in Pennsylvania, and all the support they could ask for. Mark accepted the offer immediately, Dave a few years later. But Du Pont was a strange, disturbing man who had a habit of wandering in and out of training sessions, of insisting on being treated as a coach, and on a personal friendship with all of the wrestlers he brought on board. Most of them thought he was a time-bomb. In real life, he was dismissed from coaching at Villanueva because of sexual improprieties: Foxcatcher merely hints at his sexual orientation and possible abuse of his athletes. Beautifully filmed, with impressive wrestling sequences, editing, music-- the whole package. One of the finest films of 2014.
Channing Tatum, Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Michael Hall
John Hughes? Seriously? Should easily rank among the lamest, most mind-numbingly dull Christmas movies of all time. Best remembered-- and only remembered-- for the genesis of an adjective to describe ridiculously over-decorated Christmas homes: Griswold. Clark Griswold wants to have a really, really special Christmas, and sets out to out-do everyone in decorating his house. Both sets of grandparents arrive and, unexpectedly, cousin Eddie and his clan in a motorhome from which they dump the sewage into the storm drains. One unfunny disaster after another unfolds until all, of course, is well: Clark gets his bonus, everyone loves him, and the neighbors are justly skewered for their high-class, educated, elitest snobbery.
Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, John Randolph
John Hughes? Seriously? Should easily rank among the lamest, most mind-numbingly dull Christmas movies of all time. Best remembered-- and only remembered-- for the genesis of an adjective to describe ridiculously over-decorated Christmas homes: Griswold. Clark Griswold wants to have a really, really special Christmas, and sets out to out-do everyone in decorating his house. Both sets of grandparents arrive and, unexpectedly, cousin Eddie and his clan in a motorhome from which they dump the sewage into the storm drains. One unfunny disaster after another unfolds until all, of course, is well: Clark gets his bonus, everyone loves him, and the neighbors are justly skewered for their high-class, educated, elitest snobbery.
Two hours of penis, poop, masturbation, and other bodily fluid jokes enlivened slightly with CGI and guest appearance by Emma Watson. As funny as being trapped in an adolescent boys locker room for three days.
James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill
Daring, unusual study of a woman's determination to walk the Pacific Crest Trail as a way of cleansing herself of bad behaviors that have led her to a dead end in her personal life. Contemplative, original, and expansive, avoids the obvious plot complications in favor of reflective moments and encounters. Reese Witherspoon is not the measure of this task but she does well enough to sustain the interesting sequences. Not particularly well-directed or inspired, but a fine film, and a good companion to "the Way", Martin Sheen's more satisfying take on the issue.
Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski
(Second time we saw it). Lovely, austere, beautifully rendered story about a French woman, Babette, who has to flee her home because of a civil war and takes up residence with two very pious, self-denying sisters belonging to a small, dying religious cult formerly led by their father. She agrees to work for them as cook and maid in exchange for shelter and bed, and does so without complaint for 15 years. When she wins a lottery, she persuades the sisters to let her cook them a feast in celebration of the 100th anniversary of their father's birth. They and their fellow parishioners are reluctant, fearful of the temptations of the flesh, but as the sumptuous feast unfolds they all begin to find ways to embrace life, friendship, joy, and beauty. And entrancing, wonderful story, resonating with themes of religious faith and sensualism and sin and miracles. Favorite film of Pope Francis.
Stephane Audran, Bodil Kjer, Birgitte Federspiel, Jarl Kulle, Bibi Anderson, Vibeke Hastrup
(Second time we saw it). Lovely, austere, beautifully rendered story about a French woman, Babette, who has to flee her home because of a civil war and takes up residence with two very pious, self-denying sisters belonging to a small, dying religious cult formerly led by their father. She agrees to work for them as cook and maid in exchange for shelter and bed, and does so without complaint for 15 years. When she wins a lottery, she persuades the sisters to let her cook them a feast in celebration of the 100th anniversary of their father's birth. They and their fellow parishioners are reluctant, fearful of the temptations of the flesh, but as the sumptuous feast unfolds they all begin to find ways to embrace life, friendship, joy, and beauty. And entrancing, wonderful story, resonating with themes of religious faith and sensualism and sin and miracles. Favorite film of Pope Francis.
Low key story about a Filipino maid, Teresa, and her host family who stumble into financial difficulties while trying to deal with any angry, disruptive boy, Jialer. His parents, Teck Lim and Hwee Leng, are both distracted by problems at work, and hope Teresa will be able to manage recurring issues with Jialer's school. Teresa herself is a single mother with a child at home being cared for by her sister. She forms a bond with the boy in spite of his rudeness and the jealousy of his mother. Lovely, sensitive, gentle story, apparently based on the director's own childhood. What keeps it from ranking with Ozu is the pedestrian cinematography and undistinguished performances except for Jia Ler as Jiale, who is remarkably uninhibited and passionate in several scenes.
Yann Yann Yeo, Tian Wen Chen, Angeli Bayani, Jialer Koh, Peter Wee, Jo Kukathas
Michael Keaton is Riggan, an actor who, like Michael Keaton, is most famous for a role as a superhero in a bad series of Hollywood blockbusters. But it's years later and he wants to put on a self-penned play based on Raymond Carver's "What we Talk About When we Talk About Love". And everything is bulging and stretching and pushing him to the limit: his daughter, fresh out of rehab, doesn't think he loved her enough; his ex-wife is worried that he'll start drinking again. His manager worries about money. One of his co-stars in the play has a psychotic need to bring real life to the stage, and a pretentious attitude about the superiority of New York stage actors to Hollywood celebrities. But the real star of "Birdman" is the camera, following characters around, swooping into position for a revelatory moment, closing in on the actor's faces. Is this about the role of art in everyday life? About the audiences blood-lust for expiation and sacrifice? About the cost of authenticity? Nothing unfolds exactly according to any of these schemes. Mike really can act, and the "Birdman" movies obviously fall into the realm of trashy spectacle, and Riggan doesn't seem inspired to produce great art by his travails, though it leads him to a pitched moment of dubious bloody intensity. He gives us a man who has never reconciled his celebrity status with his aspirations as an artist, and thinks the Carver play might be his ticket to a kind of artistic redemption-- a work that will "mean something" and vindicate his entire life. If so, Inarritu suggests it's a fool's quest, a futile attempt to resolve the unresolvable: to be loved for revealing a truth that no one will love? Some very, very funny scenes (as when he locks himself out of the theatre), and great acting from the entire ensemble. And the first time I've ever really liked Galifianakis in anything.
Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Edward Norton
Rich, compelling 4-part portrait of an unpleasant woman who remains unpleasant: I don't think she really has a heart of gold under that cynical and acerbic exterior. Her husband does, and her son, who ends up resenting her does. But her only real passion is for a colleague who is killed in a car accident. Olive's abrasiveness, of course, is a shield against the inevitable hurts of life, but that doesn't quite cover it. She simply has a little patience for the courtesies and niceties of life and doesn't see what she gets out of it anyway. We follow her over a period of twenty years or more, as the people she knows grow up and marry and people her age die off, and she is inevitably left alone, digging in her garden, until Jack comes along and they establish a kind of entente to grace the last moments of this story. McDormand is a producer, but also gives a performance that is, as they say, without vanity. One wonders if a different producer might have elicited something perhaps a bit richer, but one really can't complain when a drama resists so many temptations to homogenize this story.
Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkens, Ken Cheeseman, Ann Dowd, Bill Murray
As Ebert observed, all of Ozu's films seem extraordinarily even and unified, as if they are all pieces of one large puzzle, each of which contains it's own particular puzzle. In Floating Weeds, the tableau consists of a travelling actors troupe which returns to a town with special meaning for the master: it's where he fathered a boy with a young woman, and where she waits faithfully for his visits, accepting payments for the boy's schooling, and tolerating his infidelities and absences. The boy, Oyoshi, thinks Komajuro is his uncle. But the master's mistress is jealous of Oyoshi's mother and bribes a fellow actress to seduce him. When the boy and the seducer fall in love, complications ensue, and Komajuro reveals himself to be selfish and hypocritical. Beautifully filmed, as always, if somewhat static and picturesque. More sensitive to the slights and modest indicators of familial and collegial love and affection than almost any other director.
Ganjiro Nakamura, Machiko Kyo, Ayako Wakao, Haruko Sugimura, Hitomi Nozoe, Chishu Ryu
Documentary about the 503rd Infantry Regiment 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan and their efforts to control the Korengal Valley. Basically looks like found footage and interviews, but does provide a gripping, visceral look at the activities of these soldiers, including segments when they come under fire, without any kind of perspective or insight into why they are there or what they hope to achieve. But that's good-- it has it's place here, and it works as a document about the actual boots on the ground and how they work and interact.
Juan Restrepo
Two and a half hours of exhilarating special effects and some of the best space action sequences ever filmed, and a giant dubious pile of sci-fi quantum mechanics and relativity hokum: once again, we have a clever director going, "who needs a writer? Nobody cares", and writing a script so marred with cringe-worthy dialogue (especially the parent-teacher meeting), pompous, self-important half-baked theories about time and space and gravity and humanity-- that it almost destroys the film. Yes, there are moments of elegance and beauty, and mystery, and solitude. And there are loads of preposterous situations, as when astronauts are sent all alone to colonize prospective planets, and Professor Brand conducting a major hoax on his team of scientists, engineers, and astronauts that just beggars belief, psychologically, logically, and dramatically. And (spoiler alert) when Brand goes on to visit Edwards on his planet and seems marooned there, everyone waited for Cooper to recover so he could personally go and rescue her? Worse, Nolan tries to make the case that some weird concept of "love" might be part of a 5-dimensional universe and can transcend space and logic and save mankind from itself. In one of the weirdest scenes in any movie, Cooper even travels back in time-- except he doesn't-- he sends some kind of vibrations or psychic energy. It began to remind me of Scientology after a while. And the worst thing that happens is that by the last half hour I didn't even care anymore: it had lost all narrative coherence and believability. And yet, there are exquisite moments of human feeling, as when they arrive back at the mother-ship after a few hours on a planet on which, due to relativity, each hour is seven years in earth time, to find Romilly, who has just spent 23 years alone. On second viewing, I was more generous about he sci-fi parts, and less than ever sold on the melodrama: what was the point of Cooper slamming the principle who wouldn't recommend his son for college, even though Cooper paid his taxes-- as if that is what qualifies you for college? I suspect somebody involved in the movie had a long-standing grievance about a teacher judging him in school. And a bizarre reference to the government rewriting textbooks to assert that the Apollo program was a sham, used only by the U.S. Government to drive the Soviet Union into bankruptcy trying to compete. What the heck?
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Wes Bently, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Michael Caine
Repellent, violent drama about a tank crew that heroically commits numerous atrocities and rape because, ah, heck, they killed our buddies. They plunge deep into enemy territory, in Germany, and desperately try to convince you that the allies were running out of tanks and soldiers at the time, so only Wardaddy and his trusty crew of misfits can save the day. The Germans they face, in the climatic battle, seem to have hit upon the idea of behaving like ducks in a carnival shoot-'em game, circling the tank continuously as the bodies pile up, until someone finally remembered that they had a panzerfaust which was quite efficient at destroying a Sherman tank, but especially a disabled Sherman tank. At point in the film, Wardaddy and Norman enter a house occupied by two German women, one them very young and attractive. Wardaddy makes it clear he just wants to clean up and shave but the women are terrified. He tells Norman that if he doesn't take the young, attractive woman into the bedroom, he will. I don't know how you can interpret this as anything other than rape. This film, oddly, was made by a Christian (Ayer), and Shia LaBoeuf is said to have become a Christian during the filming of the movie. So how does he jive that with his glorification of wartime criminality? Norman hesitates to fire in a critical situation, so the experienced Wardaddy does not sent him back and replace him, or even explain to him that their lives depend on him following orders? No, because then you couldn't explain to the stupid, liberal audience that it is not only necessary but good for soldiers to murder prisoners of war-- the film- makers don't even seem to be aware of the issue of U.S. prisoners being shot in captivity in retaliation. Mostly, it's just plain stupid.
Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Alicia Von Rittberg
Based on Dostoevsky's novel "The Double", intriguing, somewhat uneven parable about a man losing touch with his own consciousness. Jesse Eisenberg is James and Simon. James bumps into a stranger on his way to work one day, who turns out to be him. Or a copy of him. Or someone impersonating him. It's not clear. His colleagues at work don't seem to see that they are identical, though each takes turns passing for the other at various points in the narrative. James is in love with Hannah, whom he watches through a telescope (in the movie world, she leaves her blind open almost constantly) and who works in the same dreary office he does. In fact, the whole world of "The Double" is dreary and colorless and shabby-- much like Gilliam's world in "Brazil". The interesting thing in this film is the question of who the double really is. Is James schizophrenic? Is it the dark, aggressive side of his personality? Is it his own consciousness of his pathetic station in life, his fantasy of what he could be, his id? Doesn't always work but there are enough original ideas at work here to keep it interesting and compelling. But it is a weakness of the film that it relies on external surfaces to convey the existential pointlessness of Simon's existence, as if a more colorful, abundant world would have provided him with a meaningful life. There are many Simons in the world we have, and we would have connected more with a character how faced a more believable conundrum.
Jesse Eisenberg, Mia Wasikowska, Wallace Shawn, Yasmin Paige, James Fox
Sci-Fi thriller set in the future after an attempt to address global warming with chemical particles fails disastrously plunging the earth into bitter cold. The only survivors are on a perpetual motion train, circumventing the globe, as a microcosm of earth society, from the very rich, the talent, to the poor and dirty. It's all a little tongue-in-cheek and flamboyant, which is a good thing because the plot doesn't always hold together particularly well. There are flashes of cleverness-- the idle rich continue their dancing even as the rebels work their way past them towards the engine-- but a bit too much speechifying near the end. The twist-- they should not have bothered-- is a bit too contrived and so predictable that's it's actually unpredictable (you don't believe they are going to go there), but there are some stylish twists, especially Swinton as Mason, the whip-cracking commander who is held by the rebels briefly. Generally good performances though, but the CGI is not all that impressive.
Tilda Winton, Chris Evans, Ed Harris, John Hurt, Kang-ho Song, Alison Pill
Director Rappeneau spent over a year looking for Olivier Martinez to play the lead, Angelo Pardi, but ended up with a pretty boy without a lot of weight to his ability or presence in this lavish but uneven story about a young Italian revolutionary fleeing Austrian assassins in France during a time of plague and warfare. He connects to a noblewoman, Pauline de Theus, who is looking for her husband, an old, rich, titled noble, who has disappeared in the chaos. There's some action and chase, some moody scenes, despair, betrayal, and a lot of luck involved, but rarely a moment that is moving or inspiring or really dramatic.
Olivier Martinez, Juliette Binoche, Pierre Arditi, Francois Cluzet, Claudio Amendola, Gerard Depardieu
Interesting documentary about firefighters in Detroit who spend about 90% of their time putting out fires in abandoned homes and buildings, with aging equipment, poor wages (for firemen, at least), and little gratitude. A new chief is brought in, mainly to find cost-efficiencies (one of his key ideas is to not risk going into abandoned buildings to check is someone might be squatting or doing drugs in there). Most interesting for the scan of Detroit's declining, wrecked neighborhoods, and this core group of firefighters who still have good jobs, and the wonder that America allows this kind of ruin to occur to a major city.
Uneven but generally entertaining story about a couple of young lovers separated by an unexpected death due to brain tumor. So Gerry, the deceased husband, arranges for a new letter to arrive at Holly's door every week or so, with instructions or revelations and such for Holly to do. Sounds extremely unpromising and starts unpromisingly but occasional sharp-tongued comments by Denise and Ciara and others keep the movie on an even keel, even as Holly travels to Ireland to meet Gerry's family for the first time, and hear a friend of his sing lovely Irish songs, and have explained to her why no one from his family came to visit him while he was dying of the brain tumour. There are low points: a lame comedy bit with the three women in a boat and one of them hooks a fish. Or a scene in the new Yankee Stadium that appears to have been shot solely for the purpose of having a scene in the new Yankee Stadium. And there is a big chunk of "my suffering is the only important suffering in the entire world" attitude. And the scenes of light-hearted frivolity between the two lovers tries too hard and ends up being unconvincing. But the film usually drifts back from the precipice with humour and the occasional touching moment. Hilary Swank is also --- a bit to my surprise-- acceptable as Holly, trying to be vulnerable without being pathetic and somewhat charming. Unusual and interesting choice of background music.
Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudro, Gina Gershon, James Marsters, Kathy Bates
Typical Reichardt film: meditative, slow-moving, rich in nuance and subtlety, and moody and dark. Josh, Dena, and Harmon plot to blow up a dam, as a protest against our capitalist, earth-despoiling society, but the event proves shattering to their personal lives as well as suspicion and paranoia and guilt begin to dominate their personalities. Perhaps, not entirely satisfying, but scenes at a kind of natural food farm with Josh, his interactions with the progressive individuals running it and working there, and the contrast between the beautiful Oregon landscapes and, for example, a couple in their motor home watching a game show on tv, are striking, though not heavy-handed. Eisenberg is perhaps a bit too scowly throughout, and Fanning and Sarsgaard really don't get that much to do.
Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat, Barry Del Sherman
Based on a story by Rudyard Kipling (about a boy, not a girl), Wee Willie Winky is Priscilla Williams, a very young girl travelling with her widowed mother to deepest India to stay with her paternal grandfather, who is a British Army Colonel in a troubled outpost. Priscilla, of course, charms everyone in site, but this is a John Ford movie so the charm factor is fairly restrained, the story -- centered on an imprisoned rebel leader named Khoda Khan-- who is also charmed by Priscilla-- concerns Priscilla's attempts to please her stuffy grandfather, and her attachment to a doomed sergeant named McDuff. There is a really extraordinary scene in which Priscilla performs a drill with a troop of soldiers, quite impressively. You think it must have been quite a performance, as well, for the 8-year-old Shirley Temple. She also comes to the bedside of a dying Sergeant McDuff and Ford wisely filmed it as if the child, Priscilla, has not idea that McDuff is dying. She is chipper and funny and he is protective of her feelings. This, by the way, the film for which Graham Greene wrote the infamous review claiming that the attraction of middle-aged men to Shirley Temple movies was largely sexual, and for which he was successfully sued. A scene of Temple being spanked by her mother was shot but cut from the final version.
Shirley Temple, Victor McLaglen, C. Aubrey Smith, June Lang, Cesar Romero
The story of a repressed, traditional English teacher at a public school over 50 years of his life as he evolves from a strict disciplinarian unpopular with his students to a witty, wise -- but still strict-- master. Infused with more than a little pompous British self-satisfaction-- we are so civilized and honorable-- and quaint English tropes, nevertheless an interesting and thoughtful story inspired by a teacher named W. H. Balgarnie. We don't see much of the legendary floggings, or the hazings, or the small cruelties recounted by people like Roald Dahl. After watching "The Browning Version", and even "All Quiet on the Western Front", it's hard not to find the conclusion-- Chipping proudly claiming he has thousands of children, all boys-- ridiculous. It's as if Browning never had his realization. Chipping, be it noted, pushed his boys to sign up for a quick death in the trenches of World War I and never seems to absorbed the lessons.
Robert Donat, Greer Garson, Terry Kilburn, John Mills
Originally pitched as "Lord of the Flies" meets "Lost", Maze Runner retains the incoherent triviality of the latter and not a trace of the intelligence or insight of the former. A group of teenagers are trapped in a large compound in the center of four large, high walls. Every day, a panel opens allowed "runners" to enter the maze, to try to find a way out. Spoiler? As if-- this is all a test of potential future generation gene pool material, which was so apparent that I could not believe that the movie treated it as a revelation. Hunger Games lite.
Dylan O'Brien, Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter
This is a narcissistic, cliche-ridden genre. Nevertheless, it was a bit shocking to witness this consummate piece of navel-gazing, weepy-eyed, self-centered masturbatory weaseling mawkish bullshit, and then read James Berardinelli's review: "the acting is top notch, the characters are three-dimensional, and the dialogue is sharp and witty". In fact, "Fault in the Stars" is poorly acted, the dialogue is lame and lifeless, and the characters are so flat and one-dimensional that I was completely convinced the the writer had never been anywhere near a real person with cancer in his entire life. (I was wrong: author John Green saw a young woman with an oxygen bottle at a Harry Potter conference and struck up a correspondence). Hazel Grace Lancaster is dying of cancer. Augustus Waters is dying of cancer and has a preposterous, pretentious name. They are supposedly more aware and more deeply aware and more sensitive and soulful because of their sufferings. They are so sensitive that all the adults around them have lost all of their personalities and histories and exist only to mirror the soulfulness of Grace and Augustus. At one point, seriously, Hazel opines that her parents might just kill themselves after she dies-- she really believes it is a virtue in her that she thinks this-- and oh how I wished one of the parents would have said, "you do realize that our entire world doesn't necessarily revolve around you all the time, do you? You do realize that there are other people in the world and that they might matter some day?" Just as someone needed to slap Augustus in the face after his revolting request of his friends to write and perform eulogies for him in a mock funeral before he dies. The movie is full of scenes like Hazel not wanting to go to support group and her parents ridiculously insisting she go. Why would they do that? Precisely so that the support group can be presented as a whipping boy, voluntarily cowering and whimpering before the blistering heat of Hazel's righteous rage-- which would not be quite so blistering if it hadn't looked like she had to go. Or their meeting with the Dutch writer, Van Houten: again, events must be contrived so that the couple are forced upon the writer so he can vent his righteous indignation at the captive audience when no one, in real life, on either side, would put up with this kind of imposture. Then they tour the Anne Frank house and Hazel's struggles to climb the stairs are presented as heroic even if it inconveniences all the other visitors. Why? I don't know. It doesn't even really make her look all that heroic in any sense of the word. Someone just thought they needed to show her suffering for something worthy, I suppose, to hear more about Anne Frank. So they could read some of Frank's most famous quotes as voice-over. I don't know. Again, Bernardelli: "The characters here are beautifully realized". I didn't think there was an ounce of authenticity to any of the characters, not mom or dad or any of the medical people, and especially not Hazel or Augustus or their friend. Another reviewer lauded "material this rich" and I cannot believe they were looking at the same movie, or that we are living on the same planet. Or that they thought, perhaps, that the egging scene was hilarious and "witty", or that the picturesque suffering of these cosmetically beautiful teenagers would be convincing? Or that the mom, played with gleeful triviality by Laura Dern, would not come off as a joke? That the dad would have less reality or personality than Bob Saget? Or that scene after scene of weeping and weeping and weeping that doesn't seem to express any particular realization or consciousness-- it's just time for a sad scene, so instead of showing us what's sad about it-- by, say, reminding us convincingly that a character will be missed-- we'll just announce that something really, really sad has happened and go to the tears.
Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, Sam Trammell, Willem Dafoe
Bob Crane was a disk jockey who scored it really big in LA before being offered the lead in "Hogan's Heroes", that hilarious comedy about a Nazi prisoner of war camp. Along the way, he wanted to continue drumming on the side, so he began to sit on at bars and strip joints where he met a gentleman named John Carpenter who was into video, in it's earliest incarnation. He helped Crane set up his own video recorders and camera in exchange for Crane going with him to pick-up joints to attract girls. They were enormously successful for a time, but when Crane's career went into the ditch, he decided to ditch Carpenter, which is when things turned really sour. Unfortunately, one more exhibit in the museum of Schrader's inability to overcome his Calvinist upbringing and show us something genuinely interesting about sex or success or celebrity or death. For all his Hollywood cache, this might have been schemed up by a high school sophomore, trying to demonstrate his shocking discoveries about what other people are doing out there. Even so, it might have been at least mildly interesting if we had learned something more about Carpenter, other than the obvious. Stylized film, deliberately shot with a B-Movie sensibility, which, of course, means the acting is unconvincing and the colors are mostly flat and banal.
Greg Kinnear, Willem Dafoe, Rita Wilson, Maria Bello, Ron Leibman
Based partly on Chaplin's biography-- and plays like it-- this dismal, poorly acted, poorly written, poorly directed hodgepodge of touchstones in Chaplin's life is worse than depressing. A desperate attempt to include every well-known event or motif ends up being a catalog rather than a story. Even worse, Chaplin's version of events are given face-value, and we don't get the slightest glimpse of the smart, sometimes cynical hustler we know Chaplin to have been. Standard practice is to offer some "struggle" tropes (his childhood poverty, his mother's insanity) in order to "explain" the failures and faults in his later life (his womanizing and taste for luxury. We are also besieged with crap like "you can't make a movie about Hitler!" and you can't do this or that because it's never been done before. "Monsieur Verdoux", in some ways Chaplin's most important film, is completely ignored. We don't get any insight into his technique or directorial style, and everyone seems to enter every scene as if they were just waiting to enter the scene, instead of actually playing a part in Chaplin's life. Huge mistake to cast Geraldine as his mom (her grandmother)-- she looks 70 though she was actually about 48 when filming began, playing a woman who was 24. No mention of his greatest rival, Buster Keaton, nor of
Robert Downey Jr., Geraldine Chaplin, Paul Rhys, Anthony Hopkins, Moira Kelly, Kevin Kline
Delicate, unsentimental animation about an old man named Emilio sent to a retirement/nursing home by his son and daughter-in-law, suffering possibly from Alzheimer's. His new room-mate, Miguel, is a bit of a hustler, stealing money from the other residents, while espousing a very individualistic, pragmatic philosophy: he believes he does no harm because he provides the other residents with harmless fantasies, that they can call their children, or acquire a pet. Quietly, without fuss, we see Emilio, who is generally accepting, adjust to his newly constricted life, adopting illusions -- that he will use the pool some day-- and forgetting more and more. All of the people on his floor dread the fate of those on an upper floor: the hopelessly senile. Miguel makes many bitter, incisive observations, noting, for example, that the pool is mainly a theatrical piece designed for the families who feel guilty about shunting their loved ones off to oblivion. Touching, honest, and quietly brutal. The animation itself-- very traditional-- is rather pedestrian, but the story is so worthwhile you forgive the deficiencies.
Martin Sheen
A Russian circus musician named Vladimir Ivanoff is completely exasperated with his friend, Anatoly's, insistence that one day he is going to defect-- and decides to do the deed himself, in a Bloomingdale's in New York City, while touring with the Moscow Circus. Give Mazurksy a lot of credit for caring about detail and accuracy, and giving the viewer a relatively balanced view of the hardships of life in Moscow vs. the hardships of life in New York, and good explanation of the mechanics of "defection". Turns out you don't automatically get an apartment and green card from immigration. Vladimir ends up moving in with a security guard from Bloomingdale's, perhaps unaware of the implications of living in the ghetto. The love interest, Lucia, is perhaps a little too cute and too immediately interested, but she does have a personality and resists Vladimir's possessiveness. One of Robin Williams' better performances. There is also-- shocking-- nudity in the film.
Robin Williams, Maria Chonchita Alonso, Cleavant Derricks
Linklater found a talented young boy and filmed parts of his movie using the same actor every year for the next 12 years, producing this brilliant portrait of American life. The boy and his sister watch his neglectful dad leave, a new attentive dad come into their lives, tension and separation, school struggles, ambition, ending with Mason's enrollment in College. Along the way, we get an unusually honest, insightful depiction of Mason's struggle for identity and a sense of place, and his ambivalent feelings towards his absentee dad. Brilliant experiment unlikely to be duplicated soon. If there is a weakness, it's that the acting is not always as impressive as in other Linklater films, and certainly not intense, though it would be fair to assume that was intended.
Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater
Perhaps the most stunning omission in this story is the fact that Eric Lomax was married at the time he met Patti Wallace: he dumped his first wife, and mother of his two daughters (a boy died in infancy), for Patti. You would also never know that Patti was also married at the time, with three children, or even that she was Canadian. In the film, Nan, the first wife, does not exist. Convenient. But there is not a single moment of this film that doesn't seem contrived and self-serving-- which is odd for a movie about forgiveness, and about coming to grips with real but unpleasant stories. Eric Lomax was a British soldier in Singapore in February 1942. Surrendered to the Japanese, he spent the rest of the war building the Burmese railroad and suffering unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the Japanese, though we only shown waterboarding. Waterboarding is indeed horrific but it doesn't quite live up the hype about just how terrible and unspeakable Lomax's experiences were. One wonders if the film-makers didn't wish to exploit the news about the U.S. and waterboarding of terrorists. It's a wonder how the film manages to deflate every sense of menace or horror. Here's a clue: Nicole Kidman wears a body stocking for the single scene that wasn't even really a nude scene. But the worst offense is the way movie buys into the psychobabble tripe about confronting your demons before you can sooth them out of your life. After confronting Takashi Negase, the Japanese soldier who translated the torturer's demands, he returns home and all is sweetness and light. We are even set up with his friend, Finlay, who commits suicide, we are instructed, because he didn't "let it out" and confide in his friends and family.
Jeremy Irvine, colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman
Intriguing dark comedy about a man whose son dies while applying asphyxia while masturbating. Lance Clayton writes a suicide note to cover up the embarrassment but the note becomes a hit at the high school where his son, Kyle, was otherwise despised. For good reason: he really was a jerk. Things get out of hand and Lance has to decide just how far he will let things spin, especially when people ask for a book, and personal appearances, and a library room is named for the deceased. Witty and sharp and very funny, one of Williams' best films (especially compared to a lot of the drek he has put out, like "Patch Adams"). Continuously surprising and daring, until the very end which consists of a misguided and poorly judged resolution that undermines the main point of this satire: how we reframe our relationships when necessary to illuminate our own goodness and virtue.
Robin Williams, Daryl Sabara, Morgan Murphy, Naomi Glick, Evan Martin, Bruce Hornsby
Intriguing dark comedy about a man whose son dies while applying asphyxia while masturbating. Lance Clayton writes a suicide note to cover up the embarrassment but the note becomes a hit at the high school where his son, Kyle, was otherwise despised. For good reason: he really was a jerk. Things get out of hand and Lance has to decide just how far he will let things spin, especially when people ask for a book, and personal appearances, and a library room is named for the deceased. Witty and sharp and very funny, one of Williams' best films (especially compared to a lot of the drek he has put out, like "Patch Adams"). Continuously surprising and daring, until the very end which consists of a misguided and poorly judged resolution that undermines the main point of this satire: how we reframe our relationships when necessary to illuminate our own goodness and virtue.
Intriguing dark comedy about a man whose son dies while applying asphyxia while masturbating. Lance Clayton writes a suicide note to cover up the embarrassment but the note becomes a hit at the high school where his son, Kyle, was otherwise despised. For good reason: he really was a jerk. Things get out of hand and Lance has to decide just how far he will let things spin, especially when people ask for a book, and personal appearances, and a library room is named for the deceased. Witty and sharp and very funny, one of Williams' best films (especially compared to a lot of the drek he has put out, like "Patch Adams"). Continuously surprising and daring, until the very end which consists of a misguided and poorly judged resolution that undermines the main point of this satire: how we reframe our relationships when necessary to illuminate our own goodness and virtue.
There are strengths to this movie-- Lindsay Crouse's performance, the dialogue, the relatively clever plot-- and there is even some intrigue in the character of Margaret, who seeks danger as a kind of diversion from her sedentary life, and is more capable of dealing with it than we expect. Margaret meets Mike, a con man, after one of her patients loses a large sum of money in a con game. She threatens Mike but is obviously intrigued by him and interested in how the con works, how you spot a bluff, and how you see "tells" (when a gambler gives away his bluff) and so on. But Mike is up to more than being sociable and she is absorbed into a gang's activities to the point where it is not clear who is conning who. Well-- that's generous. She is always the victim, and her turnabout is not exactly shocking. Crouse is Mamet's wife (at the time) and this is Mamet's first directorial effort.
Lindsay Crouse, Joe Montegna, Mike Nussbaum, Lilia Skala, J.T. Walsh
Interesting and informative documentary on film critic Roger Ebert marred by somewhat tactless concessions to wife, Chaz, who gets prime time near the end when you hope to hear more from fellow critics, writers, or commentators on the value and character of his contribution to film criticism over the years. Clearly, with Ebert's death, control of his estate, writings, and imagery fell to Chaz and the documentary shows it, giving ample expression to Ebert's devotion to her, which at times suggested to me the gratitude of an older man to a devoted younger woman who brought a semblance of order and stability to his life, but at a price. Ebert was clearly wounded by Gene Siskel's decision to keep his own cancer private until his death, even from long-time partner Ebert, who, almost to make a point, is very public about his own cancer. There is some balance, a little more than token, in comments by Richard Corliss and others about Ebert's popularization of movie reviews, which Corliss regarded as "junk food", compared to lengthier and more thorough and challenging reviews by others. Certainly, Ebert became overly generous in his later career, in an effort, I thought, to maintain the perspective of an average movie goer, rather than one who saw five or six movies a week for 40 years.
Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel
Monumentally over-rated sequel-prequel-cash-in of the Planet of the Apes series featuring a ridiculously contrived plot, inane dialogue, cliche-ridden tropes, and uniformly weak performances as per most movies that are so heavily green-screened. The allegedly riveting final sequence, a long battle between a miraculously animated Cesar-- after being near death after an assassination attempt by Koda which is bafflingly believed by the apes to have been by a human-- and Koda on some kind of skyscraper, that is being blown up, and is on fire, and is collapsing-- why didn't they just toss in a flood and an earthquake?-- is so over- the-top preposterous that it succeeds creating a dull sense of entropy and boredom. Some critics praise the "substance" of this utterly vacuous story, about apes and humans learning to distrust each other-- as if the ape suits add gravitas to a theme as old as "Big Country". In fact, good chunks of the plot might have been lifted entirely from "Big Country". In fact! The much ballyhooed animations and CGI in "Dawn..." also seem to me vastly over-rated. I had a lot trouble believing the scenes of the apes on the horses: they seemed ridiculously top-heavy (since they chose to be relatively accurate about the body shapes). And the expressiveness-- by human standards-- of the ape's faces didn't do much, for me, to enhance the credibility of their characters: they looked to me more like humans as apes, rather than apes.
Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell
Alexandros and his sister Voula want very badly to go to Germany to look for their father. Their mother is not a bad person-- just doesn't get it. And though they overhear that their father might not even exist-- their mother may have been trying to hide their illegitimacy-- they are undeterred. They hop trains, hitch-hike, and walk north, encountering various adventures, challenges, and threats on the way. Adults, holding them for not carrying papers, are suddenly mesmerized by snow and freeze in their tracks, allowing them to escape. An acting troupe circulates on the roads, desperate to find someone who wants to see their ancient Greek plays. A gigantic mining machine seems to come after them. Alexandros and Voula have only each other, and, occasionally, Orestis, who occasionally helps or comforts them, but can't quite save them. Strange, elliptical, confusing at times, but always sensuous and beautiful, and slow-moving.
Michalis Zeke, Tania Pailaiologou, Stratos Tzortzoglou
Fioravante has lost his job and needs money. So does Murray, his former employer and book-store owner. When Murray discovers that his female doctor is interested in arranging a menage a trois, and is willing pay big bucks for it-- doesn't that happen to you all the time?-- he decides to become Fioravante's pimp. Turturro, oddly, is believable as not entirely reluctant "ho": he has a gift with women. More than that-- he is actually quite sensitive and kind, and, as he says, not shy. And that's really the heart of the movie and what keeps it from being contrived and sophomoric. Murray encounters an orthodox Jewish widow who is starved for affection, and arranges for Fioravante to give her chaste massage, which he does with great sensitivity. Unexpectedly, he also falls for her, but the story does not end on this unsurprising trajectory. I'm talking myself into liking this movie more than I did at first: it is an odd movie, fairly fresh and original, and if not quite as intellectually satisfying as a real Woody Allen film, at least it's entertaining.
John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara
Fioravante has lost his job and needs money. So does Murray, his former employer and book-store owner. When Murray discovers that his female doctor is interested in arranging a menage a trois, and is willing pay big bucks for it-- doesn't that happen to you all the time?-- he decides to become Fioravante's pimp. Turturro, oddly, is believable as not entirely reluctant "ho": he has a gift with women. More than that-- he is actually quite sensitive and kind, and, as he says, not shy. And that's really the heart of the movie and what keeps it from being contrived and sophomoric. Murray encounters an orthodox Jewish widow who is starved for affection, and arranges for Fioravante to give her chaste massage, which he does with great sensitivity. Unexpectedly, he also falls for her, but the story does not end on this unsurprising trajectory. I'm talking myself into liking this movie more than I did at first: it is an odd movie, fairly fresh and original, and if not quite as intellectually satisfying as a real Woody Allen film, at least it's entertaining.
Unconvincing thriller about two women who try to double-cross a mob enforcer and get caught up in the complications-- particularly, their own lesbian relationship. Damaged by Gina Gershon's seriously unbelievable portrait of a macho lesbian handy-man who cruises bars for action, and, we are asked to believe, falls for Jennifer Tilly's Violet, whose boyfriend, Caesar, ends up holding $2 million for the mob. After some gratuitous lesbian sex scenes for the first half, bogs down with rather pointless chase scenes in the second half, and an unsatisfying conclusion.
Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano, John P. Ryan, Christopher Meloni, Richard C. Sarafian
Unconvincing thriller about two women who try to double-cross a mob enforcer and get caught up in the complications-- particularly, their own lesbian relationship. Damaged by Gina Gershon's seriously unbelievable portrait of a macho lesbian handy-man who cruises bars for action, and, we are asked to believe, falls for Jennifer Tilly's Violet, whose boyfriend, Caesar, ends up holding $2 million for the mob. After some gratuitous lesbian sex scenes for the first half, bogs down with rather pointless chase scenes in the second half, and an unsatisfying conclusion.
Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano, John P. Ryan, Christopher Meloni
True story of F. Ross Johnson's attempt to buy out R. J. Reynolds-Nabisco after leveraged buy-out specialist Henry Kravis suggested the idea for himself, and his battle against Kravis and others to offer the winning bid to the Board of Directors of the Company. Lucid, interesting, punchy diagram of the shenanigans going on behind the scenes, including activities that would have been regarded as illegal (like Kravis offering Peter Cohen a "bribe" to combine the offers) had they been exposed at the time, or if the government had cared to prosecute them. Good performances, especially by Pryce and Riegert, though direction is a bit soft and unconvincing at times. Illuminating and entertaining.
James Garner, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Riegert, Joanna Cassidy, Fred Thompson, Ron Canada
Is there a hell? Many of the theologians and church leaders in "Hellbound" explain why, no, there isn't. And a lot of other leaders explain why there is. This documentary is somewhat uneven and murky at times but does get to the crux of the matter: nowhere in the Old Testament is there a single reference to hell as a place for sinners. There might or might not be a place for the dead (sheol), but there is nothing like the modern evangelical concept of a place of eternal punishment. The rather thin New Testament references are oblique at best and always struck me as symbolic and figurative, as illustrations of Christ's message about love and serving God. Looks at the infamous Westboro Baptist church which pickets funerals of soldiers and claims that God is punishing America for it's tolerance of homosexuals, and features a screed from discredited pastor Bob Larson, and a young people's group that stages a "hellhouse" in Dallas. Stimulating and interesting and provocative.
Bob Larson, Mark Driscoll, Robert McKee, Rob Bell, William Young
The first drug czar in U.S. history proposed making drugs like cocaine, heroin, and marijuana illegal because they had the effect of enticing white women into sexual relations with blacks and Hispanics. And from there, it gets worse. Dynamic, sardonic, powerful documentary about the drug wars, using the ironic device of an instructional video, with numerous experts, telling us how to make a lot of money selling illegal drugs. Really fascinating segment with a former cop named Cooper who turned on the enforcement culture and wrote a book on how to fight convictions for drug possession, and setup a trap for police to catch them planting evidence, which he then used to get a young woman released from prison on the basis of police misconduct. Looks at the prison system, which created a very interested corporate interest in continued incarcerations, and at Portugal which recently legalized most drugs.
Kristen Wiig plays Johanna Parry, a quintessential Alice Munro character: lonely, middling in age and beauty, quirky and modest but willful. She is a maid whose charge dies at the beginning sending her to the service of Mr. McCauley and his grand-daughter. McCauley's daughter was killed by her husband in a car crash: he was drunk and doing drugs and served time for it. The granddaughter is also a quintessential Munro creation: no one reveals more, Sabitha, about just how cruel and devious young girls can be than Munro. Sabitha spoofs emails from her dad to Johanna suggesting that he is in love with her. When Johanna responds, he is unexpectedly open to her, and Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld) herself begins to rethink her antipathy. Odd story, very un-hollywood, and Wiig is daringly self-effacing, but the main problem is that Wiig is not a very good actress, and neither is Guy Pearce. Things take on some life when Jennifer Jason Leigh, as Ken's girlfriend Chloe, enters the scene, and Steinfeld is actually pretty good, but the rest of the performances just don't match her intensity or bravado or her timing and sense of nuance. Still, a brave attempt, and a reasonably faithful rendering-- other than the depressingly expected shift to Iowa from Ontario. That said, some of the critics hammer the movie for being stodgy and slow-moving and meandering, and I can't help but suspect they mean, not Hollywood enough. As when Salieri helpfully advises Mozart to always have a big bang at the end so the aristocracy know when to clap. One of the few virtues of this film is that it doesn't play to the awful "Notebook" mentality, where the audience has to be clued into every emotional development, with music and tears, and wailing. A quote cited by one reviewer, "my problem is I never believed what was happening was love" is actually one of Munro's most acute observations about love and life, and the one Hollywood is usually incapable of illuminating.
Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Hailee Steinfeld, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte
In a poor farming village in Iran, an Ostrich ranch hand, Karim, is confronted with various needs, including his daughter's hearing aid, and sets out to earn the money whatever way he can, after he is fired from his job for losing an ostrich. He travels to the city on his motorbike running various errands, acting as a taxi service, and doing anything he can to get the needed money, while occasionally hearing of the missing ostrich. Contrasts urban and rural cultures and values, the struggles of families in poverty, with gentle humor and wistfulness. Wryly notes the differences in values between rich and poor without resorting to hackneyed stereotypes. Rich, soulful, and illuminating.
Mohammad Amir Naji, Maryam Akbari, Kamran Dehghan
Slow-moving, languid tale about a student and musician, Gaspard, spending his summer in a resort town in Bretagne, with girl trouble. His girl- friend Lena hasn't arrived yet so he spends a lot of time with sensible Margot who is a bit of a tease, but is clear that she only wants to be a friend-- or does she? He is quickly enchanted with Margot's friend Solene, but she is not patient about his whiny, self-absorbed indecisiveness. Lena turns out to be high-maintenance and Gaspard really can't make a sensible decision about anything. Reminiscent of "Day for Night" and other Truffaut films. A bit aimless and indulgent but seen from the point of view of adolescent narcissism, has it's virtues. Tries to make art of nostalgia, and doesn't fail entirely.
Melvil Poupaud, Amanda Langlet, Gwenaelle Simon, Aurelia Nolin
Slow-moving, languid tale about a student and musician, Gaspard, spending his summer in a resort town in Bretagne, with girl trouble. His girl-friend Lena hasn't arrived yet so he spends a lot of time with sensible Margot who is a bit of a tease, but is clear that she only wants to be a friend-- or does she? He is quickly enchanted with Margot's friend Solene, but she is not patient about his whiny, self-absorbed indecisiveness. Lena turns out to be high-maintenance and Gaspard really can't make a sensible decision about anything. Reminiscent of "Day for Night" and other Truffaut films. A bit aimless and indulgent but seen from the point of view of adolescent narcissism, has it's virtues. Tries to make art of nostalgia, and doesn't fail entirely.
Slow-moving, languid tale about a student and musician, Gaspard, spending his summer in a resort town in Bretagne, with girl trouble. His girl-friend Lena hasn't arrived yet so he spends a lot of time with sensible Margot who is a bit of a tease, but is clear that she only wants to be a friend-- or does she? He is quickly enchanted with Margot's friend Solene, but she is not patient about his whiny, self-absorbed indecisiveness. Lena turns out to be high-maintenance and Gaspard really can't make a sensible decision about anything. Reminiscent of "Day for Night" and other Truffaut films. A bit aimless and indulgent but seen from the point of view of adolescent narcissism, has it's virtues. Tries to make art of nostalgia, and doesn't fail entirely.
Slow-moving, languid tale about a student and musician, Gaspard, spending his summer in a resort town in Bretagne, with girl trouble. His girl-friend Lena hasn't arrived yet so he spends a lot of time with sensible Margot who is a bit of a tease, but is clear that she only wants to be a friend-- or does she? He is quickly enchanted with Margot's friend Solene, but she is not patient about his whiny, self-absorbed indecisiveness. Lena turns out to be high-maintenance and Gaspard really can't make a sensible decision about anything. Reminiscent of "Day for Night" and other Truffaut films. A bit aimless and indulgent but seen from the point of view of adolescent narcissism, has it's virtues. Tries to make art of nostalgia, and doesn't fail entirely.
Literate, intelligent dramatization of the life of Christopher Isherwood, in Berlin and shortly thereafter, his friendship with Jean Ross, W. H. Auden and others, the rise of the Nazis, and his emigration to America, without the compromises and Hollywoodizations of Cabaret. Isherwood doesn't care much about politics or injustice- - though Jean Ross, a communist, does-- unlike in Cabaret where Sally asks "what does politics have to do with us?". Sad and nostalgic at times but never cheaply so. Offers more about his mother and his brother, and his trip to England after leaving Berlin, his failure to get a visa for Heinz, his lover, and Heinz' eventual arrest and induction into the army.
Matt Smith, Imogen Poots, Linday Duncan, Pip Carter, Douglas Booth
Interesting story about a young woman who, in 1975, decides to cross the Australian desert with four camels. Why? Well, that would be to compromise the conceit of this film, wouldn't it? We are given to understand that the media jackals wish to intrude on the privacy of poor Robyn Davidson who only wants to be alone-- except for the National Geographic photographer who came as part of the sponsorship deal-- and then publish a book on her experience. We are invited to ignore the fact that she could have gone any number of places to be alone, and she didn't have to announce that she was going to walk across the desert by herself-- she could have just done it. Anyway, aside from that, the film is clumsily shot with sequences that make no sense. After losing her compass, for example, she follows her trail back until she finds it. But then the trail suddenly seems to vanish and she is lost until her dog, told to go "home", leads her back to her camp. And I've seen Mia Wasikowska play other roles convincingly but here she seems barely warmed up. I never felt that I glimpsed that part of her personality that wished people would leave her alone. But there are virtues: it's not too contrived or jazzed up, and the aboriginals bring interesting colour to the story, and her suffering isn't too over the top. And the landscape is not sentimentalized: we often seem images of nooses, dead animals, skulls, and poisons. The camels too are fascinating: I never knew a bull camel in rutting season could be so dangerous. You almost want to forgive the ultimate pointlessness of the exercise.
Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Rolly Mintuma
Interesting story about a young woman who, in 1975, decides to cross the Australian desert with four camels. Why? Well, that would be to compromise the conceit of this film, wouldn't it? We are given to understand that the media jackals wish to intrude on the privacy of poor Robyn Davidson who only wants to be alone-- except for the National Geographic photographer who came as part of the sponsorship deal-- and then publish a book on her experience. We are invited to ignore the fact that she could have gone any number of places to be alone, and she didn't have to announce that she was going to walk across the desert by herself-- she could have just done it. Anyway, aside from that, the film is clumsily shot with sequences that make no sense. After losing her compass, for example, she follows her trail back until she finds it. But then the trail suddenly seems to vanish and she is lost until her dog, told to go "home", leads her back to her camp. And I've seen Mia Wasikowska play other roles convincingly but here she seems barely warmed up. I never felt that I glimpsed that part of her personality that wished people would leave her alone. But there are virtues: it's not too contrived or jazzed up, and the aboriginals bring interesting colour to the story, and her suffering isn't too over the top. And the landscape is not sentimentalized: we often seem images of nooses, dead animals, skulls, and poisons. The camels too are fascinating: I never knew a bull camel in rutting season could be so dangerous. You almost want to forgive the ultimate pointlessness of the exercise.
Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver
Disturbing documentary about International House of Prayer (yes, iHop), and it's missionary zeal for Uganda, where it has been able to influence political leaders in a way it has been unable to in North America, and has helped drive the government to make homosexuality illegal and punishable by life in prison. Very even-handed portrait of the Christian missionaries who come off as sincere and well- meaning, but fanatic about how God's word should prevail politically, and how Uganda is a new start in the war on sexual permissiveness. Well-filmed and elegantly edited, not narrated, quietly compelling. Some liberal critics find that it was too "soft" on the evangelicals but I don't believe you can overlook the fundamental sincerity of most of the missionaries, even if some of their leaders are dangerous fanatics.
Christopher Senyonjo
Over-rated supposedly "quirky" comedy about a man who finds the perfect woman only to discover that she doesn't believe in true love or marriage. Tom chases her anyway and the audience discovers, to their huge disappointment, that Zooey Deschanel is a complete failure here, miscast and misdirected, charmless, and dull. What has happened, I believe, is that the director is really convinced that just showing you Zooey's big blue eyes and half-pout is enough to convince you that she is witty and amusing and that there is something going on beneath the surface, because there must be or none of the movie makes sense. None of of it makes sense especially because the writer and director really want you to believe that Zooey was not only beautiful but she was also virtuous-- thus justifying Tom's disintegration in the end. Just as we are manipulated into believing that Tom was so monogamous that he would be totally depressed after Zooey leaves him. A better actress would have given us something to chew on in Summer's character that would make her actions later make sense. I have known women like Summer: they are never as banal as this, or as googly, always looking at Tom as if waiting for their lines, which is exactly what Zooey Deschanel is doing in those scenes. The emblematic moment in the film is when Tom -- drunk or not drunk, but essentially mimicking drunkenness-- stands up at a staff meeting at the greeting card company and lambastes the company for producing phony sentiment. And not a single person at the meeting stands up and says, "of course we produce phony sentiment, and you can't possibly be so stupid as to have ever thought we didn't". In fact, this is the phoniest moment of sentiment in the film-- trying to con the viewer into thinking he's smart, he's in on it, with this rigged scene.
Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Grace Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler
Mysterious, haunting, harrowing account of an alien seductress who lures unsuspecting Scottish men-- loners-- to their deaths, possibly as a form of food to other alien beings. Scarlett Johannsson is daringly cast as the alien who is partnered with several other beings on motorcycles who clean up after her and, eventually, form a posse when she goes rogue. The alien is merciless and so is the film, depicting an abandoned child that the alien ignores, but stirrings of compassion arise when she encounters a man with a horrible facial deformity who is deeply moved by her interest in him: it is clear that she doesn't see the deformity. She asks why he doesn't have a girlfriend, and then, if he's ever touched a girl. And eventually we begin to ask who the monsters really are. The shabby Scottish urban landscapes and wet, dank lowlands form a darker counterpoint to the alien's activities. Notable that the men she lured into the van were not actors: they were real people who were told afterwards that they were in a movie.
Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy McWilliams, Lynsey Taylor Mackay
Austere, contemplative story about Ida, a young novitiate, who is ordered by her Mother Superior to visit her only relative, a judge named Wanda, before taking her vows. Set in Poland in the early 1960's, Wanda is her aunt and knows a lot about Ida's family, about whom she knows nothing. The first shock: Ida is Jewish. Wanda agrees to take her to where her parents lived and they uncover disconcerting facts about their fate. But this is not a mystery story as much as a character study: how does Ida respond to this new information, and to the worldly behaviour of her aunt who lives a life of sensual abandon. She has lived her entire life in a convent-- can she keep the faith, while confronting the darkness of her own past? Intriguing and beautifully filmed in black and white, but a bit slow-moving, and perhaps not as richly realized as it should have been.
Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik
Sometimes witty and clever, and sometimes incredibly awkward and clumsy, a very odd comment on the status of women, circa 1942. Tess Harding is a brilliant columnist, diplomat, political adviser, and feminist who meets cute Sam Craig, a sports columnist at the same paper. They fall in love and marry. Story over? No, she spends too much time being brilliant and important and not enough time making breakfast for Sam Craig, or just being there for him. Yet the movie does come down heavy-handedly on the anti-feminist slant: he doesn't seem to necessarily want her to be completely domestic, though that last caveat is tucked so obtusely into the ending that it's hard to credit. The acting is well-developed and smart and graceful and the story has a writer, but a scene of Tess trying to make breakfast for Sam at the end looks, at times, like a high school sketch. More sophisticated, really, than "Devil Wears Prada", which resolutely insists that real women prefer domestic bliss to a life of globe- trotting achievements. In fact, the ending of "Woman of the Year" was rewritten at the insistence of the studio after test audiences balked at an ending in which Tess finds out that Sam has gone missing (he has enrolled in language school) so she attends the big fight and writes a good article about it for the paper. They then agree to compromise one her role. Hepburn was appalled at the changes, as were the original script writers, but had no choice. (Another version says it had nothing to do with test-audiences: Stevens and producer Mankiewicz decided between themselves that American women were not ready for an independent, smart female character: she had to have a comeuppance.)
Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, William Bendix, Fay Bainter, Reginald Owne, Minor Watson
Spiderman has always been an off-kilter superhero-- young, whiny, impulsive, and bit irreverent. This installment is true to that spirit, with a good deal of wise-cracking banter, the obligatory special effects, and hand-held jerky camera. But it also takes a moment or two to account for the evil in his foes, how they were bullied or abused or forced into impossible predicaments before they became evil. Can't make myself too fond of either Garfield or Stone as the romantic couple, but Dane DeHaan as Harry (the Green Goblin) is somewhat intriguing, as is Jamie Foxx as Electro. And Paul Giamatti is kind of amusing.
Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti
Youssef is a blind university professor who must travel to France for treatment of a small tumor that is pressing against one of his eyes. He pleads with God for mercies-- have I not already suffered enough, with blindness (caused by accident when he was young)? He has a devoted wife and young daughter who adore him, a good job at a university, and the respect of friends and colleagues. But when the operation to save his eyes has unexpected consequences, his life is changed dramatically, and he changes. We see Youssef giving his wife long assessing looks, especially after gazing-- mistakenly-- as his attractive sister-in-law, and a young female student. This is not a heart-warming development: Youssef proceeds to make decisions that seem impulsive and ill-considered, until a poignant message comes to him from a walnut-obsessed fellow patient in France. Touching, thoughtful, and provocative. Wonderful film-making: he can't wait until the morning to pull the bandages off his eyes and he wanders the empty hospital at night until two nurses come dashing towards him. Another: he watches a pick-pocket, slowly patiently, slide a wallet out of man's pocket and the pick-pocket sees him watching and knows that he isn't going to alert the victim. Beautifully shot.
Parviz Parastui, Roya Taymourian, Afarin Obeisi, Mohammad Amir Naji
Pompous, implausible story about a group of Roman Legionaries who survive the annihilation of the 9th Legion at the hands of the violent, primitive Picts. There is not a scene that does not fall over on itself: the men are rather unbelievably trusting of Etain while the audience immediately realizes she is going to lead them into a trap. The men, on the run from allegedly deadly, ruthless, magically powerful Picts, don't even post someone to watch while they eat or chat around a fire; all six of them poke their heads up to peek at their camp; when they approach an occupied Roman fort there are no scouts or patrols in the vicinity and when they approach an abandoned forts they don't notice that it is abandoned until they kick the gate down. They flee Picts on horseback continuously for a preposterous amount of time, and on and on. When they are not posturing as brave, macho soldiers, they are pontificating on duty and honor and loyalty. When Thax improbably finds Dias and Bothos again, they immediately look at him suspiciously-- because, I can only assume-- of information that only the audience has.
Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, J. J. Feild, David Morrissey, Olga Kurylenko
A man, Zac, wakes up one day and finds that he's the only person left on earth. At least, that's what he concludes early on after finding his immediate environment vacant. The trouble is, that's what the viewer is supposed to think, and so he tells us that, but all he can possibly know is that he can't find anyone in that particular area of New Zeeland, or manning the other terminals of the computer network he accesses at work. A reasonable person would likely assume that there were living beings somewhere else on earth. Eventually, he does find someone else. Together they try to solve the mystery of what happened. Zac is pretty sure it is a cosmic side-effect of an experiment the Americans were conducting, with which Zac was involved. The Americans get the back of his hand several times-- it turns out Zac was against the experiment and thought it was dangerous but the Americans, obsessed with new weapons, disregarded his advice. The ending is mysterious but not very compelling. I could not find a decent explanation of what it means anywhere and I certainly don't have one. Extra credit for avoiding some obvious cliches about the relationships.
Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge, Pete Smith
Tedious story about several office employees who make a bet as to who can stay indoors the longest, using the buildings and tunnels of downtown Calgary, including malls, to avoid ever going outside. There's a serous attempt to make a comment about the dehumanizing attitudes and values that drive these people to extreme states of anxiety and distress, but a lot of it is lost in amateurish cinematography and sloppy, miscast performances. Reminiscent of "Office Space" but not as funny or as well performed. Plot elements recycle themselves and some of the attempt to imbue Tom Bennet with some kind of tragic awareness ends up being flippant and self-pitying at once.
Fab Flippo, Don McKellar, Marya Delver, Gordon Currie
Starts out simple, direct, and affecting, showing the details of how a marine's body is returned to his family. And it's actually quite moving at this point. But the narrative becomes more and more about how great Lieutenant Colonel Strobl is for feeling so bad about poor Chance Phelps, and how much people admire him for feeling so bad about Chance Phelps, and how he is really just as noble and courageous as Chance Phelps because he accompanied the fool's body back to his home down with dignity and grace and lots of saluting and teary eyed dramatic faces. Mr. Phelps was tricked into serving his country in a foreign war that had nothing to do with 9/11. He served the ego of Donald Rumsveld, the gullibility of George W. Bush, and there is something sickening in the sniveling reverence with which people greet the passage of the box containing his remains. ('Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in box.') The characters become flat and one-dimensional, existing mainly to be moved by Strobl and inspired by his devotion to this ritual: it's a militarist's wet dream of a movie, a masochistic tribute to mindless patriotic servility. It needed oh so badly one manly character to speak to the viewer: "he went over there to fight the wrong guy, didn't he? I hear he didn't have nothing to do with 9/11." It's really quite sad, because the movie set out in the right direction (that's why I gave it a 6 instead of a 4) and was headed towards a compelling, moving conclusion, when it got sidetracked by Strobl's narcissism. Most distasteful moment (among many): when a young woman sits beside the very sober Strobl on a flight and texts her friend: I'm sitting beside a very hot soldier. He corrects her-- he's a marine. Then the movie chastely passes on. Second awful scene-- all the baggage handlers come out to salute the body as it is unloaded, then reloaded in Minnesota. Meant to clobber us over the head with the idea that "real" Americans have an honorable respect for the military. These same people don't care if they end up homeless after their military service is ended and all the tax dollars have been used for sports stadiums and tax breaks for the wealthy.
Kevin Bacon, Tom Aldredge, Guy Boyd
Intelligent, thoughtful story about a Palestinian man, Omar, who participates in an act of violence and is eventually snagged by the Israeli police and forced to become an informant. Too smart to make him a martyr-- he did participate in the shooting-- the film explores how the Israeli occupation itself corrupts and distorts all relationships, including Omar's romance of the sister of one of his co-conspirators, Nadja, played by a striking Leem Lubany. The Israeli handler talks to his wife about picking up a child from school while torturing Omar-- can't you see I'm busy?-- and Omar constantly finds himself in front of bill-boards advertising the joyful, complete life of an Israeli citizen, while deprived of his most basic rights by the occupying authorities. No caricatures here-- Rami, the Israeli handler, is no monster: like Omar, he values family, there's nothing personal in his abuse of Omar: it's just what occupying authorities do. It's what they become-- part of a monstrous system. Artistically, the film does not impress as much as it does for it's intelligence, sensitivity, and astuteness.
Adam Bakri, Leem Lubany, Iyad Hoorani, Samer Fisharat, Rohl Ayadi
The true story of journalist Stephen Glass who copped a position at New Republic and wrote a series of striking, impressive articles, featuring generous dollops of local color and personality, most of which turned out to be fabricated. New Editor Charles Lane gradually realizes that Glass's inability to provide back-up details to the stories means that, at the very least, Glass had been duped, while the rest of the writing staff rally to his defense, moved by his vulnerability and charm. Forbes' online unit tries to do a follow-up story and quickly uncovers the scandal forcing Lane to take action. This is really about character and Glass's weaknesses as a person, his craving for approval (he keeps asking Lane if he is mad at him), and his inability to come clean even when his story falls apart before his very eyes. Unusually accurate and respectful of the real facts, moving, fascinating, and powerfully relevant.
Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Chloe Sevigny, Rosario Dawson, Melanie Lynskey, Hank Azaria
Delightful documentary about the legendary Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama, it's founder and master recording genius Rick Hall, and the astounding roster of singers and bands who recorded there. Rick Hall's own story is amazing, from the death of his younger brother, abandonment by his mother, his impoverished childhood, to the hit records with Arthur Anderson and Aretha Franklin, the Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Paul Simon, and others. Generous helping of music samples and interviews with a pretty terrific list of artists, and continuous revelations about Hall's personal life that enrich the presentation.
Rick Hall
Wonderful documentary about a band formed of seven brothers, all of whom are children of jazz "legend" Phil Cohran. The boys started playing at 3, 4, 5 and father Phil had his own very strong ideas about what they should play and how they should live. These ideas have worked their way uneasily into the boys show-- there was a traumatic break with the father when one of the songs announced he no longer wanted lessons, and the father, miffed, stopped the lessons for all of them. The music is terrific -- too bad we are often shown them playing while the sound track is not from the performance we see. Still, a likable, rich, intriguing document about a very intriguing band.
Phil Cohran
Rapturously filmed indulgence: four great-looking girls rob a fast-food outlet to get money to go to Florida and dress up in bikinis and join the sensual mobs writhing to the endless beat of disco and rap and whatever, boozing it up, dancing and doing drugs-- the whole 9 yards. It is the original sin of film-makers like Korine that they believe that this is all incredibly interesting to us, in the same way they believe that using the word "fuck" proves some kind of raw authenticity or transgressiveness, and depicting the use of drugs proves some kind of understanding of the real world. Add to that, James Franco doing kind of minor league Matthew Mcconaughey and lot of badly, meandering improvisations. But Korine is too good of a film-maker to not punch up his non-linear progression with a few sensitive scenes, some unexpected sub-plots, and an intriguingly unexpected ending. It's actually quite a funny movie, and not nearly as self-serious as, say, Scarface.
Rachel Korine, James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Heather Morris
Isadora works at the Central train station writing letters for illiterate people. In this "Wings of Desire" mode, we encounter brief capsules of peoples lives, personal disasters, disappointments, longings, as they send letters to abandoned family members, distant friends, absent husbands and fathers. But one little boy, Josue, wants to send a letter to his alcoholic father, a carpenter named Jesus. Isadora usually simply tears up the letters and throws them away after taking the money but, when Josue's mother is killed in a car accident, Isadora reluctantly takes him home, where her neighbor, Irene, is far more sympathetic to the boy than she is. Isadore at first decides to send him away to an adoption agency, but after a shocking discovery, she takes him back and then takes on the task of bringing him to his father in a far-away city. Predictable, perhaps, but the pleasure is in seeing how the inevitable softening of her heart unfolds, and the travelogue, to small towns in Brazil as they search for the long lost Jesus, encountering an evangelical truck driver whom Isadora tries to seduce, a lovely spiritual event involving thousands of pictures of lost or wounded relatives and commemorative candles and chanting, and surprising details about the father's luckless life. The ending is a bit too precious for my taste, but this is a lovely, rich, and enriching story.
Fernanda Montenegro, Vinicius de Oliveira, Marilia Pera, Oston Bastas
Interesting companion to "Groundhog Day": through a fluke of lightening combined with an unauthorized activation of a particle accelerator, Barry Thomas is temporarily doomed to relive the same day over and over again (at the particle accelerator complex) and tries to save desired scientist, Lisa Fredericks, from being assassinated. Smartly avoids too much implausible detail, there are moments, as when Thomas uses his knowledge of Fredericks' personal memories to intrigue her, but not as startling as "Primer" or astonishingly clever as "Groundhog", and directed in a pedestrian manner by Sholder. Notable for Jeremy Piven as a co-worker.
Jonathan Silverman, Helen Slater, Martin Landau, Jeremy Piven, Nicholas Surovy
Said to be Dwight Eisenhower's favorite film-- he showed it four times consecutively in the White House--this long, spectacular Western tells the story of a feud between two clans, the Terrills and the Hannasseys, who come into conflict over access to water owned by Julie Maragon, a river called "The Big Muddy". Into this ongoing feud steps James McKay, an Easterner, former sea captain, and fiancé of Patricia Terrill. McKay doesn't play by Western rules. He stands down instead of fighting when challenged, and disdains the macho culture of the West. Patricia is deeply disappointed. When he tries to find a peaceful solution to the water issue, both sides turn on him. But Terrill's foreman, Steve Leech, begins to respect McKay, and grows tired of the bloodletting. Intelligent, thoughtful movie, understandably interpreted by some as an allegory of the cold war. In contrast to "The Searchers" and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", asserts that the idea that evil can only be confronted with ruthless force-- Ethan, in the Searchers, for example, is challenged. The bloodletting is revealed a creating an endless cycle, and the Hannasseys are revealed as more complicated than the Terrills want McKay to believe. In fact, Major Terrill himself is not the kind of man he seems to be. But this is not a naive or idealistic film: McKay recognizes when he must really fight and confront those who seem determined to cause harm. Well-acted, beautifully written and filmed. One of the best Westerns ever.
Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford
Unbelievably tedious and ridiculous combination of "Water World" and "Transformers", makes Noah a fanatic vegetarian and the evil peoples of the earth first and foremost meat-eaters, and rather irrationally frantic about taking the ark, seeing as the gist of the original story is that they don't believe a flood is coming. But then, it's no use trying to make sense of any part of the plot of "Noah"-- it's all Aronofsky's own construct-- who needs a stinking writer?-- astonishingly lame. Crowe's method acting seems contagious and one feels sympathy for Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson and, well, everybody, giving it their best in scenes that frequently meander into the ridiculous. The so-called "twist" in the plot makes little impact because everything up til then, including the fabulous transformer rock angels, is absurdly disconnected from anything resembling a story. The rain comes in a single, immediate torrent; the old man lives in a cave; Ham finds an innocent girl in some kind of pit of dead bodies in the middle of an evil town; and Emma Watson's Ila cringingly forgives Noah for being a fascist and trying to kill everyone. Awful.
Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins, Logan Lerman
Traditional Hollywood blockbuster leavened with a few interesting political angles, commenting on the NSA's surveillance program and proposing that it could be misused for evil by those in power. Like the Ironman 1, has an attractive pace and wit to it that keeps it from becoming a mere rehash of conventional CGI spectacles, though it is not without the usual "size matters" approach. Scarlett Johansson, with black hair, is actually quite good as Natasha, and Chris Evans plays Captain America straight but without that self-mocking, jokey white bread ridicule used by some actors to pretend they are above the material. Even Redford is relatively spastic, chortling his way as the heavy.
Robert Redford, Samuel Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Stan Lee
Meg and Nick travel to Paris for their 30th anniversary, Nick hoping to re-ignite some passion, and Meg hoping to let Nick know that she's had enough. They bicker but then they play, and when she accidentally knocks him down, she is kind and concerned, but their relationship is clearly waning. Nick is devoted to Meg and holds a strong conviction about one person being the right person for him and that person can only be Meg. They bump into an old friend of Nick's-- Morgan-- whom Nick mentored at one time-- and he invites them to a party that turns somewhat emotionally explosive for them. I kept feeling as though someone put a nail in place and positioned a hammer perfectly to drive it in and then missed. The elements of a powerful story are there, and partly realized, but there are a number of flubs and some scenes just seem ill-conceived, as when Nick gives his speech at the party. What is his attitude towards Morgan? I believe the director thought we would admire Nick for his courage in confessing that he is broke and has failed as a father and in his career and has just been sacked for an inappropriate comment to a young female student (he told her that if she paid as much attention to her studies as her hair she could escape her background). But the speech is really quite self-serving and would seem more calculated to evoke pity than admiration, and that is not as attractive a result as I think the film-makers intended. The short, flamboyant escapades (trying to weasel out of a dinner bill, or the hotel bill) also seem jarring in film that seems, at first, headed into Mike Leigh's territory of oblique confessional, exposition. Is there some improvisation going on here? The actors inserting themselves into the narrative?
Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum
Typical Disney bowdlerization of Hans Christian Anderson's compelling story, "The Snow Queen", about an evil spirit who causes winter and ice and heartless cold because feelings only bring grief. There are now princesses in the original-- just the snow queen-- just Gretel and Kai, who disappears one day after turning mean to lifelong companion Gretel. In Disney's version, of course, Gretel and Kai become Anna and Elsa, and Elsa is really a good person with dangerous powers and all Anna has to do is show her love. Spectacular animation, but an oddly weak story and dialogue. Unbelievably predictable pratfalls and lame humour, and a very derivative sidekick, Olaf the snowman. Some of the singing seems extremely weak-- no surprise: they are daughters of the director and other executives of the film, which is surprising even for Disney. Some defenders allege this is a "feminist" Disney fairy tale-- only if you believe a narcissistic princess can be a feminist because she doesn't actually marry the prince at the end of the movie. Agatha Lee Monn, the voice of teenage Anna, is Jennifer Lee's daughter. Katie Lopez (Anna as a child) is the daughter of songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Shameless.
Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Alan Tudyk, Santino Fontona
Odd, impressionist documentary on the inequality between the Tanzanians who fish for Nile Perch in Lake Victoria and the affluent Western nations who import it by jet. Looks at the fishermen, the airport staff, the prostitutes, and the children of the small towns that rely on fishing this exotic species for their livelihood (the fish, which is destroying all other species, was dumped in the lake by a single person 60 years ago). The obvious analogy here is the Nile Perch consuming all other species, and even it's own young (!) in the same way that global capitalism consumes the young of the Tanzania communities that services European demand for the fish. Europe gets the fillets; the locals get dried out re-processed heads and spines. As Village Voice called the image of it, "Brueghelian". As we might the revelation that the jets do not return to Tanzania empty: they bring weapons for sale to the battling tribes and warlords in neighboring countries.
Raphael Wagara, Dimond Remtulia, Elizabeth Nsese
Strange dramatization of the life of Karen Carpenter with Barbie and Ken dolls. Yes, seriously. Is now withdrawn from circulation due to the use of Carpenters' songs without permission. Focused primarily on her anorexia nervosa condition, her bad relationship with her mother-- who doted on Richard--, and doesn't really offer much aside from biographical information that's out there, and a rather daring, if not exactly artistically impressive, use of dolls and fixed model sets. Brave, but not really all that interesting.
Merrill Gruver, Michael Edwards, Melissa Brown
Fabulously realized story about a fabulous concierge at the fabulous Grand Budapest Hotel during the golden age of great European hotels, the murder of an elderly patron, the theft of a valuable painting, and other shenanigans. Wonderful and brilliantly filmed, and yet, in the end, more chase sequence than story, and more montage than narrative. And yet, the shots are so beautiful and witty, you almost want to ascribe something more to it yourself-- it seems so deserving. But other than the portrait of the roguish, refined, cultured concierge, and his loyal lobby boy, and intimations of World War I creeping into the action, I'm not sure there is much else there. The cast is absolutely sterling, from Bill Murray to Saoirse Ronan to Adrien Brody.
Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Lea Seydoux
Inferior remake of the clever original-- hampered by the decision to play it safe, tone down the dark sarcasm, and impose a more message-oriented narrative on the schlock. Just not as much fun. Dr. Norton-- Dennett (Oldman) is named for philosophy Daniel Dennett who, though he denies it, believes that humans have no consciousness or will: we are essentially biological computers.
Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish
Rather pedestrian, conventional telling of Mandela's journey from activist to revolutionary to prisoner to conciliator, hitting all the obvious milestones and delivering the expected "moments"-- not one of which feels like a revelation. Faithful enough to history-- it acknowledges many of the less inspiring developments, like the internal conflicts in the ANC and the near civil war with Inkatha, and Winnie's growing disillusionment with him. But none of the secondary characters have a life of their own-- they exist to bracket the story of Mandela, and the movie itself never comes to life.
Idris Elba, Naomie Harris, Tony Kgoroge, Riaade Moosa, Gys de Villiers
Documentary that intimately follows the Egyptian revolution from the first protests in Tahrir Square to the election of Morsi and his subsequent fall. Heartbreakingly evocative of the rising and falling hopes of educated young Egyptians, following the closely the activities of four or five participants, including a member of the Moslem Brotherhood whose ambivalent feelings become clear as Morsi's election approaches. Intense scenes of the parents of a young Christian killed by the army when military movers plunged into a crowd. Very good but not entirely successful at capturing the sweep of events, the ebb and flow of the military's involvement, and the attitudes of the general population who did, after all, barely elect Morsi President, before turning out in astonishing numbers to demand his removal. The film was funded through kick-starter and nominated for an academy award.
Khalid Abdalla, Dina Abdullah, Dina Amer, Magdi Ashour
Punchy, exuberant dramatization of Julian Assange's rise to power and influence as founder of Wikileaks, the dramatic revelations, the staggering release of tens of thousands of secret documents, and the public fall-out, and the split between Assange and "co-founder" Domscheit-Berg. Using multitudes of digital effects to convey the interplay between computers and humans, the story builds momentum and tension as governments counter-attack, and volunteers bicker about social responsibility (the redaction of names of informants whose lives would be endangered by release). Picks up the story with Nick Davies of the Guardian, with the New York Times and Der Spiegel, share release of the diplomatic cables and memos that generated the most controversy. Raises, for me, the question of whether you need a prickly, non-conformist like Assange to get the truth out there, while the New York Times and Guardian, by themselves, might well have been pressured into greater redactions or downright suppression. They knew Assange was going to release the documents one way or another (because he was a prick) so they weighed in and gave the information more gravitas than it would otherwise have possessed. The greatest flaw in the story is the inevitable bias offered by Domscheit-Berg, who was ousted by Assange after disagreements (in the film, over redactions of names of government informants). He is presented as the sane, responsible member of the duo-- you have to keep that in mind, and if you do, the movie is more flattering of Assange than Domscheit-Berg thinks it is). A bit messy at times, but, in the end a compelling dramatization of one of the signature events of our era.
Benedict Cumberbatch, David Thewlis, Daniel Bruhl
Uneven account of a young boy living with his sister in an apartment building near a ski slope in Switzerland. He scrapes by for the two of them by stealing ski equipment and reselling it to tourists. There is a stunning revelation, and a very unhappy ending, lifted by two very good performances by the leads. Haunting, but not shattering, and not particularly artistic or intense.
Lea Seydoux, Kacey Mottet Klein
Lovely footage amid a safe environmental message about global warming, with occasionally annoying diversions into self-puffery for National Geographic photographer James Balog (who felt it necessary to describe his aching knees before rappelling into an ice hole). Amazing video, really, but otherwise not particularly special.
James Balog
Fascinating look at a Japanese sushi chef who owns and manages a tiny restaurant in a subway station that seats 10, yet has received a remarkable 3-star rating from Michelin. Jiro Ono is a master chef and has been working at his craft for 75 years (he is now 85) and wants to pass on the business to his son. Details the remarkable care and craft that goes into preparing sushi, from the purchase of tuna and octopus, to the preparation of the rice, and the presentation. Glowing tribute to obsessive craft and dedication, if almost comical at times in Ono's fanatic dedication to standards.
Jiro Ono, Yoshikazu Ono
Worthy, well-sourced documentary on the battle to find a cure for AIDS, from it's earliest days in Greenwich Village, led by the organization "ACT UP", which eventually splits into two because of conflicts over cooperation vs. confrontation. A lot of great historical footage from meetings and demonstrations and newscasts, and honest enough to acknowledge major errors in judgement by Act Up and it's leaders-- the government, while treading carefully (at least under Clinton) was not altogether wrong in hedging against some of the early so-called wonder drugs.
David Barr, Bob Rafsky
From a play by Heldenbergh, who also plays the lead, Didier, a story about a young couple in Belgium, a cowboy who loves America (at the start of the story) and a tatoo artist who can sing and who joins his bluegrass band and provides some of the genuinely soulful moments of the film, performances of "Wayfarin' Stranger" and other worthy folk songs that comment on and accentuate the developments-- some tragic-- in their relationship. Darker than the American movie type it seems based on, but, unfortunately, predictable and cliche-ridden, without ever giving an indication that anything is written from an authentic experience. But the serenade during a late death scene is moving and touching and could only have been sweeter if they had recorded it live instead of dubbing it. The principles are pretty good, especially Nell Cattrysse as Maybelle.
Johan Heldenbergh, Baetens Veerle, Nell Cattrysse, Geert Van Rempelberg
Danny Rose is the agent for a ragtag collection of one-armed jugglers, water glass musicians, and one washed up singer, Lou Canova. When Canova asks him to pick up his Mistress and pretend she is his date to an important performance at the Waldorf Astoria (Milton Berle will be auditioning him for a TV show and Vegas gig), a series of misadventures, including some angry mobsters, ensues. Filmed in black and white, the usual Woody Allen schtick (a lot of "whadaya mean"s, and the usual interesting characters and backgrounds. Allen recruited a number of small-time, semi-washed-up New York cabaret performers to basically play themselves, and it adds considerable depth and character to the story.
Woody Allen, Nick Apollo Forte, Mia Farrow, Sandy Baron, Corbett Monica
A hodgepodge of elements of other films, almost all of which were more original and imaginative than this frenetic, fast-paced, cliche-ridden story about a lego construction man who learns that only by playing with interchangeable parts can the world be saved, and it is better to believe in yourself than to not believe in yourself, and a father's serious, ambitious work projects should be tossed out if his child wants to destroy it even if he has his own adequate supply of toys to play with. But that might not even be the film's most grievous fault. Well, yes it is, but it also subscribes to the idiotic notion that if one climax is good, and a surprising second climax is better, than four or five or six climatic battles is best, even if each is of diminishing effect. Michael Moore endorsed the movie and said he thought it was terrific. That only goes to show that Michael Moore is a clueless film-critic: I think he actually believes that "The Lego Movie" is subversive on some level because it takes a cheap shot at industriousness and self-control, and an even cheaper shot at consumerism while at the same time promoting the Lego toy. To say that it rips off "The Matrix" would be unduly complimentary. It doesn't even begin to understand what made "The Matrix" interesting. And having Morgan Freeman as the wizened old black dude (even if he's an architect called Vitrivius) doesn't entitle anybody to think parody. The fact that many reviewers liked this movie tells me that even most reviewers have given up on the idea that any movie studio would hire a real writer any more. They don't care. Audiences don't seem to care. Let's just get together with some buddies and steal ideas from dozens of other movies and throw them together without the slightest interest in developing a coherent or original idea.
Elizabeth Banks, Chris Pratt, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson
Slow-moving, unduly complicated story by the director of the excellent "A Separation", about an Iranian man who flies to Paris to settle his divorce with the beautiful Marie, who is clearing the deck for her relationship with Samir. She has three children, a daughter who feels that Ahmad, the Iranian, is her father, and who despises Samir, a younger girl, Lea, who likes Ahmed, and a son, Faoud, Samir's boy, who is troubled by the conflicts among the adults around him. It is clearly suggested that our liberal, tolerant society, which allows Marie to break off with Ahmed and live with two other men in succession, has it's own dark side, and a cost, especially to the children. Marie is corrupted by this freedom, and it leads to serious consequences for others. Ahmed is the most respected adult in this triangle and he tries to get Lucie, and older daughter, to respect her mother, and to do the right thing with her secret knowledge of a tragedy within the story. Lost and confused at times by too many complications and revelations, it is, at least, and adult story trying to tell you something serious and worthwhile about relationships and freedom. The children are great.
Berenice Bejo, Taher Rahim, Rahim Mosaffa, Pauline Burlet, Elyes Aguis, Jeanne Jestin
Three cars navigate a winding country road in the dark. They pull up to small park. Is it here? A man in handcuffs answers, maybe. There was a round tree. Is that it? I don't know. And so it goes for the first hour of the film, the three cars take the road, they stop, frustration. But all the while, small conversations between the doctor and the police chief and the prosecutor and the others take place, and a mystery within this larger mystery begins to predominate: a young, pregnant, beautiful woman told her husband that she would die on a certain date, after giving birth. And she does. For no reason at all. The doctor is not convinced. It must have been suicide. Nobody dies because they know they are going to die. The prosecutor is bothered by this. Maybe it was a heart attack. And so it goes on as this crew, determined to make a case against the forlorn suspects, travels on through the night. Beautifully filmed and acted, grim at times, mysterious, and allusive. A beautiful girl appears and somehow becomes a talisman for the range of guilt and deception that pervades this disturbing exposition.
Okay, so if you long to see someone with an AK-47 jump into the middle of these dancing, jumping, posturing martial arts devotees and mow them all down, does that mean I'm unwilling to suspend my disbelief? And when the hero defines himself primarily by looking more cool than the villain, and when his wife is so hot and so cool and so devoted that she gladly joins her super-heroic killer husband at a disreputable club, while maintaining her amazing dignity and savoir faire... well, I'm just sick of it, not matter how wonderful the cinematography is. We are told that in Foshan, life was "peaceful and good", meaning, we must assume, that the starving masses restrained themselves so that aristocratic families could indulge themselves with gravitas. It's all about building mystique and mystique is almost always bullshit, whether it's the man with no name in the Sergio Leone films, Christian Bale's Batman, or the Ip Man, here. The Ip Man resembles nothing so much as a Chinese Bogart and the encounters with various challengers grows tedious as it becomes inevitable that Ip will prove his superiority even if he suffers a set-back. So it's all style and mystique, because the plot doesn't have the slightest resonance with any political or social reality. Most of the players seem to set around looking sophisticated while smoking and glancing, glancing, glancing at this or that, at some move, some gesture of rank or submission, refusing to teach drifters or Lion Dancers because it would be "crude". And when we take vows, in this fantasy, there is no "going back". Somewhere, of course, someone is tidying up and preparing meals and doing laundry : they see no light of day in this film. Gong Er, the daughter of the retiring master, challenges him: they agree that if anyone breaks anything, he or she has lost. When he reaches for her as she is falling over a balcony, he loses position and breaks a step. She is, of course, haunted by his serious face as she passed over it in their acrobatic flurry. Foshan falls to the Japanese. Ip is forced to accept leftovers from collaborationist friends: we are meant to pity him because that is what this episode is for. We are suddenly told he lost his family. Where? How? His daughters starved to death and his wife disappears from the second half of the movie in deference to Gong Er. And to the muddle that this film ultimately descends into. And oh, cheap shot: Ma Sang takes a position with the Japanese controlled puppet government. Wong might as well have given him a black hat and swirly mustache! Really beautifully filmed, however. The heroes' cause is invariable good, the funeral is spectacular (though you wonder where they are going with this monumental procession through a frozen wilderness), and the real life travails of ordinary people are worse than irrelevant: they are boring. But we are to understand that they deserve to be boring because they are not, like the heroes of martial arts films, extraordinary and beautiful and skilled. They don't have gravitas. Interesting how often the characters do not make eye contact during important speeches to each other-- as if that would be immodest. Even the actors, beautiful, demur, become landscapes. Most resembles-- even in the music-- "Once Upon a Time in America", with Gong Er as the ineffable Deborah.
Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Zang Ziyi
Screenplay by Paul Schrader. Nicolas Cage is Frank Pierce, an EMS attendant, a paramedic, haunted by Paul Schrader's fatuous sense of personal tragedy. Yes, I mean that. We see a parade of losers, misfits, addicts, and the broken hearts they bend, all serving to enlarge Frank's sense of cosmic significance. What saves it from tedium is Scorcese's witty, punchy, direction-- there's a lot going on in every scene, and a whirly camera, and great sequences that almost convince you that you will walk away from "Bringing Out the Dead" with an enlarged mind. Add to that that Cage doesn't chew the scenery as he often does, and the supporting cast is generally good. But beyond the portrait of depravity and weakness and the vivid life Scorcese gives to this parade of wounded people-- amid echoes of "Taxi Driver"-- I'm not sure what it's all about.
Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Marc Anthony, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore
In 1965-66, the Indonesian army under General Suharto overthrew the elected government and went on a mass killing spree of anyone they suspected of being communist, or liberal, or simply democratic. It is thought that over 500,000 people died and Suharto ruled with an iron fist for 30 years. Forty years later, documentary film-maker Josh Oppenheimer persuaded some members of the death squads to re-enact their atrocities for a Hollywood type film, sometimes as drama, sometimes as a musical (!). The result is one of the most bizarre, stunning, compelling documentaries I've ever seen, "The Act of Killing". I mean, really bizarre, as if Goebbels teamed up with Liberace to celebrate The Third Reich in music and dance. There are painfully uncomfortable sequences, as when the paramilitary seem to coerce or attempt to coerce local residents into participating in their "movie", by screaming "don't burn my house down", and begging for mercy. Or when an older man's grandchildren scream at the actors to leave their grandfather alone. One of the killers has a soft spot for "Born Free", the song, because, he says, the word gangster means "free man" in American. There are segments of the envisioned film that are westerns and musicals, and one of the killers dresses in drag for several sequences. Disturbing and jaw-dropping. Is this another variant on Arendt's "banality" of evil, or something worse. The killings that took place in 1965 and 1966 were incomprehensible, frenzied, and irrational. Up for an Oscar for best documentary, I believe.
Anwar Congo
Amateurish but interesting Saudi Arabian film about a young girl, Wadjda, who wants a bike, in defiance of her mother, teachers, and society. Well, it is interesting to see an insider's view of Saudi Arabian society, of the women dressed in their hijabs, of the hysteria surrounding any exposure of women's faces or bodies in public, their subservience to male drivers and chaperons, all of which seems to get a pass in the world media, probably because Saudi Arabia is so oil-rich it is able to buy off dissent. Wadjda is a rebel who wears running shoes and likes to entertain a neighbor boy, Abdullah, who treats her better than anyone else in this story. In fact, the relationship between the two of them is the most touching part of the movie. Wadjda's teacher is a witch, determined to inculcate in her students a complete reverence for the repressive laws and customs of their society. Slightly reminiscent of "A Separation", but not in the same league in terms of cinematic virtues.
Waad Mohammed, Abdullrahman Al Gohani, Reem Abdullah, no first name Ahd
Ambivalent documentary on Salinger utilizing numerous interviews with friends, acquaintances, and former lovers, including the infamous Joyce Maynard, but lacking in any kind of intelligent or insightful perspective on the writer-- who really was not a recluse-- he had a very active social life with people he trusted. Follows his career from his experiences during the war, his encounter with concentration camps, his nervous breakdown, and his brief marriage to a former Nazi, to his later years in Cornish. He would sometimes come out and interact with seekers, usually warning them off the idea that he had any kind of miraculous wisdom to dispense. Joyce Maynard was shocked that he was interested in anyone other than her and tried to even things up by selling his letters to her (which Peter Norton purchased and returned to Salinger). Really quite moving at times-- Salinger's life was a deeply profound statement on "celebrity" and fame, and a comment on the "blah blah blah" of American life and culture-- yet he loved old Hollywood movies. There are profound resonances missed here-- Dylan and Truman Capote, for example- - but Salerno isn't very sly about linking three murders to "Catcher in the Rye". He has one of his interviewees actually state that one or two murders inspired by your writing is to be expected, but three! Reminded me of Oscar Wilde's: losing one parent is a tragedy, but losing both of them sounds like carelessness.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, Joyce Maynard, Judd Apatow, Margaret Salinger
Ah, Woody Grant is a rude, unlovable old coot. That means we get to see that he really has a heart of gold, right? Or that he is rejuvenated by some miraculous event or substance and starts break-dancing? Or chasing younger women? Wrong. Woody is truly incorrigible, even when someone does something nice for him. But he thinks he's won a million dollars in a contest that looks a lot like the old "Publisher's Clearing House" scam and he persuades a reluctant David, one of his sons, to help him get to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his prize. Along the way they visit Woody's childhood home and meet up with a pack of his relatives who think David is trying to hide the fact that Woody really won the money and hatch their own schemes for getting a shared. David also meets an old girlfriend of Woody's, who, in spite of his alcoholism, has fond memories of their brief romance. "Nebraska" never caves, never looks contrived, never surrenders to pastiche or cliche. It's a bracing film that isn't always smooth or clever but stays true to its subject and the to the heartland it evokes, and to fraught relationships. Touching, beautiful, sad.
Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach
Obviously based on Jordan Belfort's personal memoir-- because it is manifestly self-serving-- "Wolf" is an overly long dissection-- we are supposed to think-- of the attitudes and actions of a two-bit boiler room weasel stock hustler, who discovers that there are fortunes to be made in selling worthless stock to gullible investors. Belfort starts small but soon expands to over 100 brokers, all immersed in a cacophony of telephone pitches, high pressure tactics, and testosterone-fueled braying and screeching with every successful mark. The question, does Scorcese think anything is wrong with it? The bigger question: is Scorcese revealing Belfort to us or celebrating this daring, audacious rogue who does what we would all really like to do if we had the guts? In real life, Belfort's "inspirational" speeches to his team were largely self-promoting. Here, they are invigorating, and the team is far more rapt than is believable. Belfort uses gimmick after gimmick to stimulate his sales force, from semi-naked marching bands to strippers and prostitutes and cocaine and Quaaludes. He is clearly psychotic but "Wolf" suggests that he is more fun and more alive than the dutiful FBI agent who rides the subway downtown every day to track Belfort's scams. In the end, in the envious faces of the acolytes who sign up for his seminars, it is suggested that we all really want to be Jordan Belfort. Could it be that Scorcese has no regard for the victims of his scams, or that he really believes the prostitutes and the drugs are as beautiful as he makes them? The film is seriously damaged by what can only be explained as DiCaprio's insistence on total screen time: there are speeches and drawn out scenes (as with the telephone cord) that make no dramatic or narrative sense. And, as illustrated by a powerful scene with Matthew McConaughey that DiCaprio tries to emulate near the end of the movie: DiCaprio still can't act.
Leonardo Dicarpio, Matthew McConaughey, Jonah Hill, Margo Robbie, Kyle Chandler
Not your heart-warming, family values film: Violet has mouth cancer (no wonder: she smokes like a demon), and her husband, Beverly, has disappeared. Her three daughters, Ivey, Barbara, and Karen arrive to sort things out, scream at each other, make accusations against Violet, and generally discover what a debauched, dysfunctional family they all belong to. Superbly acted and generally well-directed, the revelations-- preposterous on the face of it-- are presented in oblique diversions from arresting confrontations, so they don't seem quite as unbelievable as they might have been. This was a very good play but it's not as great as film, though it builds up a head of steam. Streep, perhaps for the first time in my memory, doesn't help the movie, and Julia Roberts doesn't hurt it, but Chris Cooper, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Julianne Nicholson are excellent.
Chris Cooper, Meryl Streep, Ewan McGregor, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Benedict Cumberbatch
Jeb Gambardella is a writer, famous for one book he wrote 40 years ago. Since then, he has partied and socialized and indulged in every form of pleasure, while his friends wonder when he will get back to his vocation. He is not unoccupied: he adores beautiful women and music, and the fantastic architecture and monuments of Rome, and meditates on life: what is the point of it all? What is the point of him? He is savagely critical of hypocrisy and pretense (especially towards a rather likable Stefania, whom he later embraces) but freely admits he isn't much better than anyone else. A friend's son commits suicide, another friend gives up his ambitions of presenting a play, and a famous saint, a nun clearly modeled on Mother Theresa, wants to meet him because she found his book beautiful and "fierce". He is told that Elisa, a young woman he loved more than 30 years ago, has died. Her husband is disconsolate, and tells Jeb that Elisa always only loved Jeb. All of this before exquisitely filmed vistas of Rome, of gorgeous buildings and terraces and parks, set to music that wobbles from the most sensual, heated disco to sparse and inspiring cantos and beatitudes. In the end, he means something after all: the endless battle against the blah, blah, blah of the incessant noise of humans struggle, scratching, and wailing their way through life, through despair, and disappointment. The most beautiful, impressive movie of 2013.
Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Galatea Ranzi, Pameal Villoresi
Based on an intellectually and emotionally ludicrous concept, "Her" is stylish, imaginative, well-acted and filmed, and unsatisfying. There are moments when I thought it was almost brilliant-- if you could imagine a team of absolutely brilliant programmers coming up with something like Samantha. But all the adults in the film behave like credulous children: not one of them really attacks the absurd premise-- that a human would "love" a computer, or, worse, that a computer would fall in love with a human and express this love in a way that would not be taken as meaningless by any rational person. It's as if the inhabitants of this film were admiring a cheating poker player or corrupt politician: it's just not that interesting when you realize that you are meant to believe that he's really lucky or brilliant. When Theodore and Samantha go out on a double date with some of his friends, it's hard not be nauseated at the clever banter with the software. Oddly, there are the elements of a really interesting film on how the algorithm breaks down, how it acts with other people, where the imperfections in this fantastically brilliant application begin to show. But when Samantha goes off somewhere for a short time, the computer doesn't even give Theodore an error message. So, to be generous, you could say that the movie is about longing and desire, and there it has something in the relationship between Theodore and Amy.
Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Olivia Wilde, Mara Rooney
Llewyn Davis is not a movie story like the films about Ray Charles or Johnny Cash or Dianna Ross-- someone who's personal behavior, recklessness, and infidelities get to be passed over because there is a mass audience out there just waiting for them to perform high ART so they can fall over themselves grovelling at their own good taste. No no no-- Llewyn Davis is, in the words of a discarded lover, Jean, an asshole, who thinks only of his own immediate needs and desires, and very little of anyone else. He's trying to make it as a folk singer in Greenwich Village, 1961, in the middle of the folk boom, with a talent that isn't embarrassing but isn't really very marketable. It is a tribute to the good taste and desire for authenticity of the Coen brothers that we accept Llewyn's talent as respectable but no more. The Coen brothers recorded all of the music "live"-- what we see is what we hear, and it's a delight. We follow Davis as he has a very bad couple of days, from allowing a friend's cat to escape, to a confrontation with a pregnant x-girlfriend, to a pointless trip to Chicago to seek stronger representation. There are in jokes and teasers: a manager named Bud Grossman is trying to assemble a folk trio-- would he consider trimming his beard to a Van Dyke and joining? But mostly it's personal, a confrontation between the exceptional and the desire to be exceptional and the relentlessly mediocre, which seems to include even Llewyn's own fans, the Gorfeins, who ask him to sing after making him supper and offering him a couch to sleep on. "Inside Llewyn Davis" is relentlessly cynical about audiences and performers and life generally, immersing us in the tasteless company of Roland Turner, played with consummate vulgarity by John Goodman, for a good portion of the trip. And just when Davis seems ready to throw in the towel and resume his career in the merchant marine, he visits his father, a retired sailor, imprisoned in a bleak retirement home, stewing in his own shit. No bright side, no redemptive moments. Just miles of authentic experience that feels lived in and worn out. A terrific period piece, with all the trappings of inchoate movements and trends and attitudes, momentarily as shapeless as Davis' career and love life.
Oscar Isaac, John Goodman, Carey Mulligan, Ethan Phillips, Jeanine Serralles
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