Cedar Rapids3 ½ stars What a pleasant surprise. Pleasant is exactly the right word. Watching Cedar Rapids, I felt pleasant. Ed Helms stars as Tim Lippe, an insurance rep in small, possibly fictional town in Wisconsin called Brown Valley. As he puts it, all of his clients are either friends or friends of friends. The star of his 6 person firm has died unexpectedly, and Tim is called upon to head over to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for an insurance convention. They've won the Two Diamond Award of excellence three years in a row and Tim is hoping to win number four. This is admittedly an unexciting setup for a movie, but taken in the context of these small Midwest towns, and into that context a great little performance from Ed Helms, the movie becomes a lot more.
The thing about Tim is that he's never left his hometown. He's even living in the house he grew up in. He's never traveled anywhere, he's never been on a plane, and he freaks out a little when the hotel asks for an imprint of his credit card. "I was under the impression that you honored traveler's checks?" And his looks of angry worry when he gives it to the hotel worker is hilarious. It is all very sweet and endearing and the movie does slowly become about Tim finding out who he is as an adult. The people that help him are Isiah Whitlock (from The Wire), John C. Reilly (hilarious and refreshingly not a cliche as a loud boorish character can be), and Anne Heche who is shockingly good as the cool girl who can hang out with 3 guys. Shocking in that she did go off the deep end a few years ago didn't she? Something about an alter ego named Celestia. In any case, the four characters are very enjoyable to spend time with. The convention has those lame activities like a church retreat, but the movie makes the most of it. A scavenger hunt, a talent contest, they turn out to be fun. Even a trip to the pool in the middle of the night is so not wild, but charming in that pleasant way.
The stakes could not be lower since who cares about Midwest insurance awards, but for these guys it actually means something. They believe in what they do and even if it's not always glamorous, at least they have each other. For Heche's character this is her one time of the year to have irresponsible fun and she and Tim definitely have some. For which he of course feels immediately guilty. Ed Helms again is really great in the movie in a role that could so easily be a wimpy loser. Tim's a genuinely good and nice guy. I would want him to be my insurance rep. And I trust him since he mostly drinks root beer and if he's really feeling crazy, Cream Sherry.
Limitless 2 stars There are those movies where you enjoy some of it, but if you stopped to think about, it's pretty bad. Like that movie 21 that came out a few years ago, or any of the Fast and the Furious movies. Limitless has a decent concept of a pill that basically gives you access to 100% of your brain as we only use about 10-20%. Bradley Cooper's character Eddie Morra is not doing well. His girlfriend has just left him, he has no money, and despite an advance on a book, he's got nothing to write. He bumps into his ex-brother-in-law on the street in New York, and he gets this pill. Of course now he finishes the book in 4 days, it somehow causes him to get into shape, and why limit yourself to that and he starts trading money and starts making a lot of it. In comes De Niro's character, a billionaire investor and Eddie starts to work for him.
Neil Burger directed a very good movie called The Illusionist and a movie no one has seen called Interview with the Assassin which is also excellent. This is the first movie he has not written himself and it really shows. I think the script is weak as hell, with bad voice-over, bad dialogue, and for all the places the story could go with this magic pill, we end up in unnecessary subplots with Russian thugs and a murder that ultimately doesn't get resolved. The Twilight Zone moral point of the film is pretty murky too. By the end, I didn't know if any lessons were learned and honestly I liked Eddie Morra a lot less. Also De Niro is all wrong as this powerful businessman. The role and him never seem to gel. Some of it was entertaining, but it felt like I spent 2 hours eating cotton candy.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape4 starsSteven Soderbergh's first film was Sex, Lies, and Videotape and it's probably known as the first big independent film that started a great decade of independent film. It came out in 1989, won the Palme D'or at Cannes, and it won the Audience Award at Sundance that year.
Graham (James Spader) comes to Baton Rouge to stay with an old college friend John (Peter Gallagher) before he moves into his new place. Graham is an odd guy, somewhat distant, somewhat uncomfortable around such suburban normality, and his presence starts to affect things. John's wife is Ann (Andie MacDowell). Ann is rather repressed, uptight, and completely unaware that her husband is having an affair with her sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). She does get to know Graham though, and in a frank conversation he admits that he is actually impotent. She admits that she doesn't like sex and wonders what the big deal is. In another conversation, now at his place, Ann finds a case of videotapes each labeled with a woman's name. Graham explains that they are interviews with women. "What are the interviews about?" They are about sex. The only way he can become aroused is to watch these tapes of women describing their sexual experiences, their preferences, etc. Ann is of course embarrassed by this, but her sister isn't, and she goes over to Graham's place and makes a tape of her own.
I don't want to give too much else away other to say that there are twists, turns, and revelations that aren't just some Basic Instinct attempt to show skin. If anything, people with those expectations will probably be disappointed. It's a character piece, about four very different people, and those people happen to be talking about sex. It's not so much about what they say (it's not all that dirty, more like memories), it's about what it reveals about them. About who they are, and why they are who they are. The conversations are so intimate and fascinating because they are somewhat clinical. Graham doesn't know Cynthia at all, but she tells him some very personal things. And the movie does work as voyeurism. We want to hear these stories and we want to know more. It's a lot different than hearing someone talking about how work went that day.
It's a wonderful small movie in that there really are only four characters. We see very little of Baton Rouge and most of scenes take place in small rooms. I think whatever budgetary constraints they had, it just adds to the great intimacy of the movie. Even in a busy restaurant, when a conversation is going well, it really does feel like you're the only two people there. Soderbergh wrote the screenplay himself and I think it may be his most personal film, even if he himself might argue that point. It feels personal and it feels like it comes out of a lot of thought and reflection about men and women. It's not for everyone, but every time I see it I'm amazed at how sucked in I get.
Watched this Week: The Good: 13 Assassins, The Remains of the Day, Hustle & Flow, The Hurt Locker (review), a lot of The Office The Bad:Limitless The Ugly:None Blu-rays Bought: Aliens (a stunning hi def transfer), Infernal Affairs II
Trips to the Theater: None Actors of the Week: Koji Yakusho, Anthony Hopkins, Terrence Howard Directors of the Week: Takashi Miike, James Ivory
Trailers/Clips of the Week: Don't be fooled, it's The Muppets!
13 Assassins 3 ½ stars 13 Assassins is a Sergio Leone Samurai film. It isn’t a drama, it isn’t metaphor, it is 13 guys going against 200, with Katana blades everywhere. The first 40 minutes is all setup and it is great. It is the dying end of Feudal Japan and the Samurais are nearly irrelevant. It’s the end of the Old West and there is no place for cowboys anymore in industrial society. Within this context, Lord Naritsugu is a piece of work. He is the half brother of the Shogun and like any spoiled kid, he does whatever he wants. Including raping the wife of a man who is hosting a party for him and executing an entire family as he deemed the father to be a traitor. He does this by firing arrows into the family as they cower in their garden. You could not hate this man more. He is one of the most disgusting villains in recent memory. Fearing what more he may do, a plan is put together to take him out.
The leader of this group is Shinzaemon, a former Samurai, now Ronin who spends his retirement fishing and gambling. Shinzaemon is played by Koji Yakusho who some may remember from the great Japanese dancing movie Shall We Dance. He is so strong in the film, powerful and commanding. I think he’s in his 50s but he knows how to handle a sword. Now with renewed purpose, Shinzaemon starts to recruit his men. They aren’t all that distinctive (this isn’t The Seven Samurai) but a few stand out. They train, they prepare, which not only involves sword work, but surprisingly a good amount of explosives detail as well.
The next 40 minutes is the journey to the battle. Things aren’t as interesting in this second third and the film’s weakness is that we hardly get to know the guys individually. They are one unit and not much more than that. However, what is most excellent is the last 45 minutes which is all out battle. There really are 200 men with Lord Nartisugu and the strategy the 13 employ against them is something too cool to reveal. There is enough sword play to fulfill anyone’s appetite. Seriously, I can’t imagine how anyone could want more. 45 minutes! I clocked it.
13 Assassins was directed by Takashi Miike who I know more from directing extremist horror films like Ichi the Killer and Audition. He seems restrained here, and even though a couple of heads get cut clean off, there isn’t all that much blood in the movie. There is a scene though with a woman who has had her arms, legs, and tongue cut out that is profoundly disturbing. When Shinzaemon asks what happened to her town, she writes with a brush in her mouth, “Total massacre”. That piece of paper is brought out later in the movie at a moment where I dare you not to get pumped. Geez, what a great moment. This isn’t Kurosawa or even Twilight Samurai, but it is a few Samurai going against a whole lot of other Samurai, and goodness is it satisfying. Available on HD On Demand right now. Check out the awesome trailer.
Passion Play 2 starsI still contend that Megan Fox is a decent actress. I know bad actresses and she is fine. Passion Play should get points for level of difficulty because this kind of movie is way too hard to pull off. Maybe someone like Wong Kar-Wai could’ve done it or Godard in the 60s. Mickey Rourke is a trumpet player who stumbles across a small circus in Mexico where he meets Lily (Megan Fox). Lily has wings. Seriously, not fake wings, they are real wings with feathers that come out of her body. She’s been held captive in this circus all her life, and she and Rourke escape back across the border and she gets a taste of the real world. Rourke however owes a debt to gangster Happy Shannon (cool seeing Bill Murray play a tough guy again) and Happy wants Lily for himself. Romantic entanglements of course ensue.
Surprisingly it’s not all that silly despite the wings. There is a nice noir tone especially in the first half of the film and there is a small bit of chemistry between Rourke and Megan Fox. The plot is fairly predictable though with the bad man getting between the wounded lovers. And the ending, as much as it wants to be poetic, just doesn’t work. It doesn’t earn its literal flight of fancy. I’m being too nice, it’s ridiculous. Altogether, I’m shocked this movie got financing. Jazz musician meets bird girl with wings. Megan Fox is going to be in Judd Apatow’s next and I hope she does well. She’s gotta give up on playing the sexy girl for a while. Might be impossible as that is what she inherently is, but she’s gotta try.
The Remains of the Day 4 starsI had not seen The Remains of the Day possibly since it first came out on VHS back in 1994. For whatever reason I decided to put it in my Netflix queue last week and watching it again, I can’t believe how good the film is. It is a great film, a high point in the Merchant/Ivory canon that include A Room with a View and Howard’s End.
The Remains of the Day is about a butler named Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) who has served Darlington Hall, an astounding country home in England, for more than 20 years. He is the most dedicated servant, meticulous, exacting, and completely given to a life of preparations and setting tables and dusting. If you were in the realm of possibility of having a butler, you would want this man. Admittedly as a neat freak myself, I took a lot of pleasure in the almost fetishistic scenes of organizing and straightening up. Although I don’t understand the need to iron a newspaper. The head Housekeeper is Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) an equally qualified employee but who is younger than Mr. Stevens and therefore is more open to having a life. Nothing as open as a romance or even a whisper of attraction is conveyed between them, but the film is so much about their relationship. Or is it more about what their relationship is not.
During this time at Darlington Hall, Hitler is on the rise. It has been 20 years since the first World War and Lord Darlington is hosting several conferences with German ambassadors and foreign representatives (including a very handsome Christopher Reeve as a US Congressman) as they discuss what they can do to actually help the Nazi party. At this point Germany had only invaded Czechoslovakia and these naïve British gentlemen were woefully foolish in believing they could negotiate some sort of peace with the Fuhrer. And yet this story is in the background as Stevens serves brandy, he empties ash trays, and he hears bits and pieces of conversation but is too focused on his work to get involved.
The Remains of the Day is a great tragedy about a wasted life. Duty, honor, serving, but for what. For its own sake apparently. Stevens has become so singularly focused in his life that the possibilities are all but closed off. One could say he’s avoiding the pain of life, but without pain, without risk, what kind of life is it. This may be Hopkins best performance. It isn’t Hannibal Lecter, but it is a fascinating portrayal of a completely insular man. Everything is inside, everything is held back, and there are a few scenes that are simply amazing. One is the infamous book scene with Emma Thompson, the other is a moment when he is on a bench with her looking away. The look on his face, which he holds for quite a long time, will be forever burned in memory. Stevens truly one of the great movie characters.
Merchant/Ivory films have gone out of fashion in recent years but this one feels timeless. A beautiful film.
The Office continues to be my favorite TV show. I think I’ll be watching it for rest of my life. I also think Season 7 was a particularly great season. Knowing that it was Steve Carell’s last gave a real story drive to the whole thing. There were very good storylines like Dwight owning the building and Ryan’s business venture Wuphf.com. Also I really enjoyed the Andy/Erin relationship. Ellie Kemper is such a great addition to The Office with her bright, infectious personality.
I admit I am a little bit scared for the rest of the series. I don’t want a new manager. Only Michael Scott can write and direct Threat Level Midnight. Here are my Top 6 of the season.
1. Dwight K. Schrute, (Acting) Manager (ep. 24) Dwight becomes interim manager and accidentally fires a gun in the office. I do love when Dwight is on the receiving end. Jim and everyone else take full advantage of Dwight’s comprising position by making him do jazz hands and back massages (Kevin’s back is moist? Gross). Dwight in that cowboy hat as Gun Safety Dwight is so brief but man is it funny. (I’m the root'nist!) Rainn Wilson is such a great actor. Also a nice episode for the Andy and Erin’s relationship as sobbing Gabe makes Andy promise not to date her. Erin’s expressions while Andy tries to explain why he said that are priceless. “Is it actually how I feel? Yes…. or no? That is between me and my diary”.
Best Line: “Gabe was a great guy with so many wonderful qualities. But it was a challenge being touched by him.” -Erin
2nd Best Line: (Kelly singing) “Why did my temporary boss go on a shooting spree?” I’ve sung it myself countless times.
2. Ultimatum (ep. 13) The guys with the red hats are the Knights of the Night and I wish there was a whole episode about Dwight’s neighborhood crime fighting volunteers. They also look like Devo. The title comes from Holly’s ultimatum to her boyfriend about getting married but the story I love is the one where Andy, Dwight, and Daryl go to the roller rink to meet loose women. First, I didn’t know roller rinks were still around. Second, the last scene where the DJ offers to turn on the strobe light and the guys dance as well as this scene of celebration are both ridiculous and awesome.
3. Counseling (ep. 2) Michael has to sit in counseling sessions with Toby after spanking his nephew the intern, but the real story is Dwight getting refused service at a store at the mall and then decodes to “Pretty Woman their ass” and get revenge. His makeover his hysterical (ascot, parted hair) and that photo of him on the iPhone with his beet stained hands is very funny. The cold opening is pretty great too with Dwight turning one of the empty rooms in the building into Sesame Avenue Day Care.
4. Costume Contest (ep. 6) Probably altogether the funnest episode of the year. Not only because of the Hallooween costumes (Gabe as Lady GaGa/bizarre Anime character is still hysterical), but remember that cold open with the office trying to prove how much Stanley doesn’t notice anything? Kevin dressed as Phyllis was so disturbing. There’s also a great runner with Pam trying to get Jim to wear the Popeye costume that pays off so sweet. Three hole punch Jim is still my favorite.
5. Goodbye Michael (ep. 22) Steve Carell’s final episode does have a few too many scenes (I don’t care about your mittens Phyllis) but as the episode headed toward the end I really got emotional. The character has grown so much since that first season and I’m so happy to see him so clear about someone he loves and that leaving Scranton is okay since Holly will be his life now. That final look at the office at work as he’s about to leave got me choked up. Nice touch too with him taking off his remote microphone as a final gesture of leaving the show. It’s all very happy/sad.
6. Sex Ed (ep. 4) Michael gets a red bump on his upper lip and worries that it could be herpes. That begins an odyssey through old relationships as he contacts his ex-girlfriends, first investigating whether or not they might have given it to him, but learning more about himself, his perception of those relationships, and in the case of Jan, just craziness. “I used to think she was the one. Or at least a the one”. Another example of it being Steve Carell’s last season and therefore Michael can grow a little. I love how Pam’s mom hates Michael. “Michael your memory has failed you greatly.” His response: “Jerk”.
Worst Episode: The Christening. Neck and neck with Phyllis’s wedding as one of the most painful episodes of The Office. It’s too difficult to watch again.
A little disappointing: Will Ferrel’s guest appearance. I think it was just that the character was all over the map. He got the job by saving the CEO’s dog, he used to be obese and is struggling with it, he juggles, he loves the Southwest, he has stage fright, and he went out by dunking a basketball, the rim falls on top of him and now he’s in a coma. A lot of scenes did work though and I did like the everyday tone he captured.
Best Actor: Ed Helms as Andy Bernard. Andy had a great year. He was in Sweeney Todd, he held a small business seminar in the office, a gunshot burst his eardrum, and he sadly got over Erin. Maybe not fully but we’ll see.
Best Duo: Andy and Daryl. They text each other, they play the Dallas board game, Andy dates the only white girl at Daryl’s cousin’s birthday party, they jam in the warehouse. Sometimes Kevin joins them too.
Best Cameo: Jim Carrey in his 30 seconds in the finale talking about someplace called The Finger Lakes. Also Ray Romano. I want to see a show about that character.
Best True to Life: Gabe and Erin’s story about Gabe making her watch tons of horror movies. I know that guy. He exists and is cruel to his girlfriend. “I got us a compromise. This movie's called Hardware”.
Watched this Week: The Good: Catfish (review), 48 Hrs., Dirty Pretty Things, Melinda and Melinda, My Blueberry Nights (review), The Shape of Things, tons of The Wire The Bad:Passion Play, Winter Passing The Ugly:None Couldn't take more than 20 minutes: The Other Woman Trips to the Theater: Everything Must Go Actors of the Week: Will Ferrell, Michael K. Williams, Ed Helms Writer of the Week: David Simon (creator of The Wire)
3 ½ stars Will Ferrell is the lowest of low key in this great little indie from writer-director Dan Bush. Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, a regional Vice President at a large company and in one day he loses his job, his company leased car, his wife has cut off his credit cards and bank accounts, she’s changed the locks, and she has put all of his belongings onto their front lawn. This may sound cruel, but Nick is an alcoholic and he isn’t the greatest guy. As a lack gesture of F you, he decides to live on his lawn with his belongings for as long as he can.
I think it’s a great premise for a movie and Ferrell is just about the perfect casting choice for this character. Honestly I like him so much more when he’s playing real people (Stranger Than Fiction, Melinda and Melinda) than when he’s playing loud buffoons (Talladega Nights, Step Brothers). He really is a great actor and this performance is right on the money. He never pushes it, never goes for a cheap laugh. He is confident enough to do very little and still hold our interest. Nick is more of a lazy drunk who doesn’t have outbursts or tantrums. He just wants to sit in his barca lounger and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon all day long. Why Pabst? Why not. Maybe he saw Blue Velvet and it stuck with him.
Nick does meet some friends while living on his lawn. A young black kid named Kenny rides his bike around Nick’s home. Kenny’s mother is a nurse and is taking care of a woman down the street and Kenny has nothing to do all day. Nick recruits him to get ready for a yard sale as Nick can only live on his lawn as long as a yard sale happens in 3 days. Across the street is the pregnant Samantha played by the always lovely Rebecca Hall (The Town). She’s just moved to Arizona but her husband hasn’t come yet and the two of them have a couple of well written conversations about their lives and where they thought they would be versus where they actually are.
Nick’s story arc is small but it’s effective. He doesn’t completely change his life, he doesn’t even see his wife (we never do either), but he’s in the process of taking one step to the next. Even a dinner with an old high school friend (Laura Dern) doesn’t go into big dramatic territory. It feels real, genuine, and kind of heartbreaking. I was so refreshed by the laid back tone of the film. It is so very low key, and it was a pleasure to just relax with it. Will Ferrell is something to see in this movie.
Watched this Week: The Good: The Sum of All Fears, Patriot Games, The Recruit, The Hangover, Zodiac, Funny People, I Love You Man The Bad:Kill the Irishman, The Outsider (documentary on James Toback), Death Defying Acts The Ugly:Navy Seals Could not tolerate more than 20 minutes: The Dilemma, No Strings Attached, I am Number Four Trips to the Theater: Thor Actors of the Week: Chris Hemsworth, James Earl Jones Directors of the Week: Philip Noyce, Todd Phillips
MAY Bridesmaids (5/13) I hope it’s good, but the trailers and the commercials are not. Maybe part of me will never want to see 6 women vomit due to food poisoning. Also director Paul Feig has a great TV record (The Office, Freaks and Geeks) but his last movie was Unaccompanied Minors. Kristen Wiig deserves to be a lead in a movie and I hope it does well.
Priest (5/13) Like the awful movie Legion, Paul Bettany stars in another sci-fi, pseudo religious B-movie which apparently has no limits to its marketing budget. Posters have blanketed LA and I’m afraid people might actually go see this. Why in the world would anyone tattoo a big cross on their entire face? I’m tired of CGI monsters.
Everything Must Go (5/13) I really like Will Ferrell in more serious roles (Stranger than Fiction, Winter Passing) and hopefully I’ll see this one in the theater. Looks promising.
Pirates 4 (5/20) Who cares. Does anything seem the least be fresh or interesting about another one? Mermaids, the Fountain of Youth? I do not want to sit through another long sword fight on a pirate ship. I miss Keira Knightley.
The Hangover Part II (5/27) We all hope it’ll be good, but comedy sequels are mostly bad (Meet the Fockers, Analyze That). Let’s hope it isn’t the case, but how can they possibly match how surprising the first one was. I pray they have another end title sequence. Those digital pictures were the best part of the movie for me. What do tigers dream of Stu?
The Tree of Life (5/27) It’s all a matter of finding the right time to see it. Terrence Malick is the particular of particular tastes and I need the right crowd. No Friday, Saturday night. Maybe a weekday during the day. I still remember how overwhelmed I was by The New World. Pretty excited about this.
Other May Releases: Kung Fu Panda 2 (yawn), Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris (still stinging from You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Hesher (no clue what Joseph Gordon Levitt is doing looking like a homeless skater. Natalie Portman produced)
JUNE X-Men: First Class (6/3) Matthew Vaughn directed last year’s Kick-Ass and man did he put together a great cast for this latest X-Men film. McAvoy, Fassbender, even Kevin Bacon. I didn’t like the last two X-Men movies (Wolverine was incredibly bad) but doing a prequel seems appealing. And all of the trailers look great. If the Basterds can kill Hitler, why can’t the X-Men fight Castro?
Super 8 (6/10) aka E.T. 2 and I’m pumped. Whoever JJ Abrams has on his marketing team is a winner. No stars, no real story details on what the movie might be about, and people my parents age barely remember Super 8 cameras, but it may be THE movie to see this summer. Green Lantern (6/17) The more footage they release, the more silly it all seems. A planet of aliens with large heads in green tights. How is this cool? The CGI looks cheap too. Ryan Reynolds is a likable guy but he still hasn’t convinced me he’s a good actor. I know the character is legendary but this looks stupid.
Cars 2 (6/24) Shouldn’t they be promoting this more? I wasn’t crazy about Cars.
Bad Teacher (6/24) “A comedy centered around a foul-mouthed, junior high teacher who, after being dumped by her sugar daddy, begins to woo a colleague -- a move that pits her against a well-loved teacher.” Does the concept seem funny to anyone? Tired of movies set in high school.
Other June Releases: The Art of Getting By (killed at Sundance. Freddie Highmore, Emma Roberts, could be good)
Still, 2011 seems much more promising than the Summer of 2010
2 ½ starsAll I really knew about Thor was that he had a big hammer, he might be a viking, and he had a key role in Adventures in Babysitter with Elisabeth Shue. I was about 50% right.
Thor is the god of thunder, and his father is Odin, King of Asgard (Anthony Hopkins) who was in a longtime war with the Frost Giants (yes, that's their name). The last battle was won by Asgard and there has been a truce for many years as Thor and his brother Loki have grown from young boys to adult men. Thor as the older brother is the heir apparent to the throne, but the King is concerned as Thor is arrogant, prideful, and with his hammer he desires to go to war again with the Frost Giants to finish them off. He disobeys his father, he fights the Frost Giants, and he is cast out of Asgard and banished to Earth.
On Earth, Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is an astrophysicist and with her research team she is investigating certain stellar phenomena when Thor lands nearly on top of them in the desert in New Mexico. She desperately wants to know who he is, where he came from, and how he came from there. That's the basic setup of this comic book film, which is actually a lot more of a fantasy film than I expected. There are good parts, there are bad parts, but sadly I think the bad outweigh the good.
The good. Kenneth Branagh is a great actor and he has directed some good films (Hamlet, Henry V) and considering the silliness inherent in making a movie about gods and Frost Giants and portals to other worlds, the movie does feel grounded in reality. Characters are real and smart and the dramatic scenes work. The best part of the movie though is actually the romance between Portman's character and Thor. They have good movie chemistry that doesn't require too much time spent together, but we want them to be together as their scenes are so enjoyable. And apparently some people become more attractive as they get older because Portman is as stunning as I've ever seen her in a movie. Even when she's wearing flannel shirts and temporarily living in a trailer, you can't escape her beautiful face. And thankfully she's been given a decent role to play and she's very plausible as a research scientist. Chris Hemsworth (Captain Kirk's dad in JJ Abrams' Star Trek) is incredibly likable as Thor and it doesn't hurt that he's ripped to shreds. He's charming (in that Aussie way), he has great screen presence, and he's absolutely believable as a guy who can take on a squad of federal agents. His career's going to skyrocket after this movie.
The bad. Asgard, the planet in the stars, is a CGI snore. We spend a lot of time there with characters nearly speaking in thees and thous and I don't care about the palace intrigue, the father and his sons, nor the underwhelming group of warriors who are Thor's friends. Everyone must be so friggin' uncomfortable wearing thick armor and helmets everywhere they go. Must be hard when you have to go to the bathroom. Despite some interesting production design, Asgard is a boring place, and we spend way too much time there before Thor gets to Earth. Also, I think the movie doesn't deliver in terms of the action. An invincible hammer is a great idea but the fights are so forgettable. Branagh is good with actors, but there's something to be said about directors who can really direct action. It's the least satisfying part of the movie. Even a battle with a giant metal being called a Destroyer turns out to be a letdown. I also didn't love the shooting style. There is an inordinate number of dutch angles (meaning the camera is tilted).
I admit that it's hard for me to like fantasy films. The dialogue is usually pretty bad and vast lands of other worlds seem to lack essential things like wit and irony. I wish the whole movie was in that small New Mexico town. It would've been much better to see Thor discover Earth. There is one moment where he drinks and enjoys coffee for the first time, but the movie doesn't capitalize on opportunities like that. Anthony Hopkins is good though as King Odin and it was nice to see Rene Russo in a movie again. Whether or not you want to see the movie is really about how much you actually want to see it. I wanted to see the first movie of the summer (I realize I always do see the first movie released on the first week of May), but I can't recommend it. By the hammer of Thor, the summer movie season has begun.
Watched this Week: The Good: From Dusk Till Dawn, The Black Dahlia, Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story, A Mighty Heart, Black Hawk Down, Indictment: The McMartin Trial, The Thin Blue Line, William & Kate (sorry) The Bad:Kung Fu Dunk (awesome title though) The Ugly:None Trips to the Theater: None Actors of the Week: George Clooney, Hilary Swank, Mia Kirshner Directors of the Week: Robert Rodriguez, Michael Winterbottom
4 stars I noticed that available now for streaming on Netflix is The Thin Blue Line, and I really want you to see it. Errol Morris creates great documentaries (Fog of War, Gates of Heaven) but The Thin Blue Line is the best. Possibly my favorite documentary period. It is a wholly absorbing, absolutely spellbinding documentary about the murder of a Dallas police officer during a traffic stop in the winter of 1976. Randall Dale Adams was convicted of the crime, but what really happened on that night?
The film doesn't feel like a documentary, it feels like a complex and intricate mystery. Witnesses are interviewed on camera, the police, the lawyers, and in particular David Ray Harris who identified Randall Adams as the killer. He was a juvenile at the time and had met Randall Adams briefly when Adams picked him up hitchhiking one night.
The case isn't black and white and the deeper we get, the scarier it gets. Witnesses prove to be inept, and the capacity of which they can lie is amazing. And the facts are so fragile. One car can look like another, one person's memory of an incident can be so off point. Deeper than that, there is the aspect of why. Why would anyone do this? Why would someone shoot a cop, and why would someone possibly lie about another person's guilt.
Morris uses re-enactments in an unbelievable way. They seem abstract at times, like impressions of what might have happened that night. The facts of the case are shown to us in wonderful montages like the one that cuts from one license plate to another, and the images are so similar, I doubt if I could be trusted to remember which one I really saw. Also, the hypnotic score was composed by Philip Glass and you'll recognize him the minute you hear it. There is some great filmmaking here, and like any documentary, you're just amazed that this all really happened. It is streaming on Netflix. Add it to your Instant Queue. Won the Oscar for Best Documentary.
From Dusk Till Dawn3 stars I still recall this being one of the funnest movie theater experiences I had in high school. It was playing at Morton Grove Theater which is a second run $1.75 theater where the woman who took your ticket looked like she was born before movies were invented. I knew it was a Tarantino script, but the structure of it is very strange. The first half is a Tarantino crime movie with the Gecko brothers, Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Tarantino himself) on the run toward Mexico. They are being hunted by the FBI and they kidnap a family (Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, and an adopted Asian boy) so they can cross the border safely. They do, and at the rendezvous (a hellish joint called the Titty Twister), they come upon a whole lot of vampires. The first half is pretty awesome, with killer Tarantino dialogue. My favorite being:
"Don't you ever try and f--king run on us. 'Cause I've got six little friends (holds up his gun)... and they can all run faster than you can."
The first half is loaded with that kind of bitey dialogue and it's very enjoyable. Clooney in particular is great as a heavy. I kind of wish he'd stop playing serious dramatic roles and do something genre and violent. I really like his performance, and I think he makes Tarantino (who isn't always good in movies) better. The second half goes full on killing vampires and I think it's fun too. The effects aren't great but they aren't meant to be. It does feel a little bit like Aliens (Rodriguez loves the 80s. The trailer even uses a theme from Aliens). Just a few people are left, and a lot of creatures want to kill them. Clooney holds it all together with a cynical, sharp sensibility that sells the conceit. And Rodriguez captures just the right tone of not too silly, not too serious. I should mention the 15 year-old movie looks fantastic on Blu-ray. It was fun to watch it again.
A Mighty Heart 4 stars People think of the story of the of Daniel Pearl to be an emotional one, mostly about Mariane Pearl and how she dealt with the kidnapping while she was very pregnant with their child. They were both journalists working in Pakistan when he was taken. Angelina Jolie is so strong in one of her best performances, but the real star to me is the director Michael Winterbottom. He's one of the more daring directors out there right now (Nine Songs, 24 Hour Party People). He uses odd film techniques like not telling the actors where to go or move, he just lets them do 10 minute scenes with no visual structure. The camera has to find the drama. That's been done more often now, but the way he puts together his films, it's so non-traditional. And what this movie comes down to, and what the reason I watch it again and again, is the procedural aspect. An American is kidnapped in Pakistan, now what happens. In comes Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire) as the Chief Inspector on the case and man is he good in this film. What a great screen presence. Conducting this sort of investigation in Pakistan is a mess. There are too many people, it's too hard to find anyone, and we travel from city to city and see thousands of faces and how can they ever find Daniel Pearl? We see the methodologies, the clues that lead to other clues, and it is gripping. We feel exactly like the American characters do. Disoriented, confused, angry. All the while, time is running out on Daniel. Jihadists have him and no one knows what they are going to do to him or when they will do it to him. Even if you know what happened, the movie is so worth watching. The last scenes are an emotional powerhouse with Jolie emptying everything's she got. If you're not moved, you may not be human. A great film that unfortunately had a lousy title.
William & Kate 3 stars LOL, I know, I know. I didn't watch all of it but I watched a lot of it. A big part of me was interested because they just don't make these of the moment TV movies anymore. It was a big thing in the 90s where they would make a movie about David Koresh just a couple months after Waco went down. Or Drew Barrymore starring as Amy Fisher. There were tons of them on NBC, but it's now it's out of fashion. I guess not for Lifetime who seem to have put this thing together as fast as they possibly could. And you know what, as embarrassing as it is to say, it's not that bad.
I have to admit that I am fairly fascinated by this particular royal relationship. A lot of it has to do with them being around my age, and the notion of a girl dating a prince for 7 years (which is terribly contemporary), but the majority has to do with Kate Middleton. I think she is a completely attractive woman. I don't mean just physically, I mean as a person. If you were writing a fictional movie about a prince marrying a commoner, you would write someone exactly like Kate Middleton. You wouldn't write an icy blonde model. You'd write a middle class, low maintenance girl, who is an athlete, incredibly poised, and is down to earth enough to do her own make-up at arguably the biggest wedding in recent modern history. She apparently had a professional do her make-up for the engagement photos, she didn't like it, and on the spot she washed the make-up off and did it herself. When I read that, I said that's a movie scene! That's a scene you would write to show the audience the quality of her character. And you would put her in that Navy blue dress.
As for the TV movie, it's okay mostly because the leads are so likeable. They're attractive and intelligent and look enough like their real life counterparts. However it's hilarious to me how the script basically takes the highlights of the relationship we've seen in the news and places them within a structure of a movie romance. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they argue, they break up, they get back together. I think I enjoyed it because it amused me so much. They really are trying very hard to give the people what they want. They want to see fictional scenes that depict their college days and their first kiss. They even show the proposal in Kenya, but it's so not Kenya, it's some stage in Los Angeles, and I don't care because I love the whole non cynical approach to this movie. It's not trying to be an original film, it's trying to be daring, it wants to give the people who are interested in the relationship, soapy relationship scenes. And to that end, it is successful. Apparently it was a huge hit and Lifetime fans are demanding a sequel. I hope they make it. As humiliating as it is to admit I even watched this thing, I'm taking so much pleasure writing this review that it cancels any humiliation out. And that tagline: "Let love rule". How can you not like how cheesy that is? That's a LOL.
"The title character Django is a freed slave, who under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) becomes a badass bounty hunter himself and after assisting Waltz on taking down some bad guys for profit, is in turn assisted by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner."
Cedar Rapids 3 ½ stars What a pleasant surprise. Pleasant is exactly the right word. Watching Cedar Rapids, I felt pleasant. Ed Helms stars as Tim Lippe, an insurance rep in small, possibly fictional town in Wisconsin called Brown Valley. As he puts it, all of his clients are either friends or friends of friends. The star of his 6 person firm has died unexpectedly, and Tim is called upon to head over to Cedar Rapids, Iowa for an insurance convention. They've won the Two Diamond Award of excellence three years in a row and Tim is hoping to win number four. This is admittedly an unexciting setup for a movie, but taken in the context of these small Midwest towns, and into that context a great little performance from Ed Helms, the movie becomes a lot more.
Limitless 2 stars There are those movies where you enjoy some of it, but if you stopped to think about, it's pretty bad. Like that movie 21 that came out a few years ago, or any of the Fast and the Furious movies. Limitless has a decent concept of a pill that basically gives you access to 100% of your brain as we only use about 10-20%. Bradley Cooper's character Eddie Morra is not doing well. His girlfriend has just left him, he has no money, and despite an advance on a book, he's got nothing to write. He bumps into his ex-brother-in-law on the street in New York, and he gets this pill. Of course now he finishes the book in 4 days, it somehow causes him to get into shape, and why limit yourself to that and he starts trading money and starts making a lot of it. In comes De Niro's character, a billionaire investor and Eddie starts to work for him.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape 4 stars Steven Soderbergh's first film was Sex, Lies, and Videotape and it's probably known as the first big independent film that started a great decade of independent film. It came out in 1989, won the Palme D'or at Cannes, and it won the Audience Award at Sundance that year.
