3 Years!

Happy 3 Year Anniversary to Roland Chang's Movie Blog

Weekly Recap 12/30/11

Watched this Week
The Good: Moneyball, The Game, The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Informant!, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), Public Enemies, The King's Speech, The Bourne Ultimatum, Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-Rays Bought: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Trips to the Theater: None

Actors of the Week: Marion Cotillard, Jesse Eisenberg, Matt Damon
Director of the Week: Fincher


Trailers/Clips of the Week:
Prometheus Teaser

My Top Ten of 2011

26 trips to the theater (down from 34 last year). 440 rentals.
Let's celebrate the best movies of the year. Ironically 2 remakes of Swedish films are on this list. Also 2 sports movies. And some Muppets.


10. Contagion
A fantastic, scary, thriller about science from director Steven Soderbergh. It plays at a high level of intelligence and craftsmanship. One of the best shot movies of the year. Certainly the best edited. He’s on a great run. (review)






9. The Muppets
As I wrote in my review, it's a big warm hug of a movie. Tons of heart and wonderful songs written by Flight of the Conchord's Bret McKenzie. Am I a man or am I a Muppet? I've got everything that I nee-eed, right in front of me. (review)






8. Midnight in Paris
At 75, Woody Allen wrote and directed this magical, often hilarious journey into 1920s Paris. With Owen Wilson of all people as the Woody Allen lead. “You can fool me, but you cannot fool Ernest Hemingway!" (review)






7. Moneyball
A movie that champions intelligence and doing things differently. A sports movie about statistical theories and economics. Completely engrossing from start to finish. The smartest movie of the year. (review)






6. Trust
Director David Schwimmer took a difficult and terribly uncomfortable subject (online pedophilia) and made a great and thoughtful movie. I don't think you could make a better film about this material. Tasteful, dramatic, and heartbreaking. (review)






5. Super 8
JJ Abrams does it again. For all of the business with aliens and government conspiracies (which is very good), the movie is best when it’s just Joe and his friends. One of two great films this year about being a kid. I’d put it in the small club of movies that include Goonies, E.T., and Stand By Me. (review)





4. Catfish
No other movie like it that I’ve seen. A remarkable, once in a lifetime documentary that took me down story paths I had never been down before. The joy about the possibility of love, then seriously scary, and then it ends with such poignancy. An amazing achievement from directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. Not to mention Yaniv (Nev) Schulman who lived this story. (review)





3. Warrior
A sports movie, a family about to lose their home, estranged brothers, a father trying to make amends. These are bad elements to create a film, but director Gavin O’Connor and this cast made something far greater than the sum of its parts. I saw it twice in two days. The film I was most emotionally invested in this year. The best ensemble of the year which includes Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Jennifer Morrison, Nick Nolte, and Frank Grillo as Brendan's trainer. If you weren’t moved, check your pulse because you may be dead. (review)



2. Let Me In
Technically it was released late last year, but I did not see it until January 2011. Let Me In is a deeply moving horror drama with two incredible characters in Owen and Abby. Their relationship is very, very special, and one of my favorite friendships in a lifetime of watching movies. Written and directed with pitch perfect tone by Matt Reeves, it’s a beautiful and haunting movie about adolescence. A horror movie at #2. I’m just as surprised as you are. (review)




1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
The technical skill alone makes the movie worthy of being on this list. It's a masterfully told, hypnotically engaging genre film that any director would envy. But the choices made toward the end, they take it to another level. Those images are embedded in me. I cannot forget them. It's one of those films that no matter what I may write, it won't truly express how I feel about it. How I feel about Rooney Mara's performance as Lisbeth Salander and director David Fincher's presentation of her. There are extremely few times in my life when I've watched a movie and said, that's me. How he/she feels, I feel that way too. "That character is me". With Fight Club and now The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher has done it twice. And I am very grateful to him. (review)



Honorable Mentions: Jane Eyre, Pearl Jam 20

A Great Year for Documentaries: Exit Through the Gift Shop, Waiting for Superman, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Picture Me, Bobby Fischer Against the World, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Picture Me, Tabloid, Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Best Trailers http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2011/12/best-trailers-of-2011.html


Best Actors
Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris
Will Ferrell in Everything Must Go
Brad Pitt in Moneyball
Joel Edgerton in Warrior
Daniel Craig in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Actresses
Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids
Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Liana Liberato in Trust
Chloe Moretz in Let Me In
Keira Knightley in A Dangerous Method

Best Supporting Actors
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
Andy Serkis in Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Frank Grillo in Warrior
Michael Fassbender in X-Men: First Class

Best Supporting Actresses
Elle Fanning in Super 8
Jennifer Morrison in Warrior
Amy Adams in The Muppets
Shailene Woodley in The Descendants

Best Ensemble: The cast of Warrior

Best Directors
Bennett Miller for Moneyball
Matt Reeves for Let Me In
JJ Abrams for Super 8
David Fincher for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Cinematography
Greig Fraser for Let Me In
Adriano Goldman for Jane Eyre
Steven Soderbergh for Contagion

Best Score
Cliff Martinez for Contagion
Mark Isham for Warrior
Michael Giacchino for Super 8
Mychael Dyanna for Moneyball

Disappointments: Hugo, The Next Three Days, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Never Let Me Go, Hanna, The Tree of Life
Guilty Pleasures: Tangled, William & Kate (so embarrassing)

Avoided like the Plague: Fast Five, The Smurfs, Just Go with It, Zookeeper, Beastly, The Change-Up, Real Steel, Battle: Los Angeles, Abduction
Missed, Will See: Shame, Carnage, The Artist
I saw, no one else saw: Mesrine: Public Enemy #1, The Beaver, Kill the Irishman, The Housemaid, Super
Everyone Liked, I Didn't: Source Code
Best Rentals: 13 Assassins, Cedar Rapids

Great Titles: Crazy Stupid Love, Drive, Midnight in Paris, The Future
Terrible Titles: Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Unknown, The Ides of March, Jumping the Broom, Mars Needs Moms, What’s Your Number?, Take Me Home Tonight, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Art of Getting By, Cowboys & Aliens

Best Song: Karen O and Trent Reznor's cover of The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin
Best Kill: Magneto putting a coin through Kevin Bacon's head in X-Men: First Class
Best Surgery: Gwyneth Paltrow getting her head sawed open in Contagion
Best T-Shirt: Lisbeth's, which has written on it: "F--k You, You F--king F--k"


My Top Ten of 2010

Weekly Recap 12/23/11

Watched this Week
The Good: Contagion, The Hunt for Red October, Veronica Guerin, more TNG
The Bad: The Ides of March, Star Trek: Insurrection and Nemesis
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-Rays Bought: Warrior

Trips to the Theater: A Dangerous Method, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo x2

Actors of the Week: Keira Knightley, Brent Spiner, Rooney Mara
Directors of the Week: Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher



Trailers/Clips of the Week:
The Hobbit.

The Best Trailers of 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger. "And they, will personally, escort Adolf Hitler, to the gates of hell."



The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Full Trailer. Almost 4 minutes long and I still want more.



Carnage International Trailer. "Wow!"



Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy International Trailer. The song used is actually from another film on this list.



Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II.



X-Men: First Class. Beautifully cut together.



The Raid. Women don't seem to understand why we love this one so much. And that's fine.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

4 stars I don't know how to start this review. The movie ended 2 hours ago and I'm still pretty stunned by the experience. I think we have to start with Lisbeth. What is it about Lisbeth Salander that has captured the interest of millions of people? It's not the piercings, it's not the wardrobe, it's not the dragon tattoo. That stuff is external. They protect her from the world that she believes rejects her. I think it's because we all are Lisbeth Salander. At least part of us feels that way. Hurt too much, hurt too often in the past so we do things to protect ourselves from people. We might not be as extreme as she is, but we all have our personal armor.

The Swedish version of the Stieg Larsson novel was released in 2009 and that's a great movie. It was #10 in my top ten that year. People were wondering why they should even make an English language version and I think Fincher has answered definitively. With his formidable skill and talent, David Fincher has made a very different movie, which is among the best of the year.

Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is a publisher and part owner of a Swedish political magazine named Millenium. He's just lost a libel case involving his allegations against billionaire financier Hans Wennerstrom and although he will face no jail time, it takes his legs out financially. Because of this, he is much more willing to take on an assignment from a rich, elderly man, Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer). Henrik wants to hire Mikael to find out what happened to his niece Harriet who was murdered 40 years ago. The Vanger family is an assortment of wealthy and despicable people. Some of them were even Nazis, and Mikael moves up to their private island in northern Sweden to begin his investigation. Parallel to this is of course Lisbeth, who initially did a thorough (and illegal) background check on Mikael for the Vanger family and who Mikael decides to bring into the investigation as his research assistant.

That's the gist of the story, and I was concerned with having watched the original, would I be as invested in this mystery. I was, wholeheartedly, but what takes this film beyond the previous is that it is not just about that mystery. The murder of Harriet Vanger is a big part for sure, but there is a lot more here, and I don't believe I can write further without writing spoilers so scroll down past this part.

**SPOILERS BEGIN
The fourth act, the events that take place after the car explosion and the last scene with Henrik, they really took the film into another level for me. It is an odd section, and part of my own screenwriting knowledge initially wanted to reject the last 15 minutes. The murder is solved, why bother showing us Lisbeth on this mini mission? I think it's brilliant. The movie is not simply a murder mystery. It's not just about finding a killer. The scene with Henrik and Harriet should not be the last scene of the movie. It's not about them, and it's honestly not even that much about Mikael Blomvkist. This movie is about a girl with a dragon tattoo named Lisbeth Salander.

Her life is what Fincher cares about more, and I don't know the man personally, but I imagine he relates to her as he has related to so many of the outsiders in his films. Rooney Mara has a different spin on the role than Noomi Rapace. Lisbeth is much more wounded here. I felt so much for this 24 year-old girl (and she is a girl not a woman) who lives a sad life of microwave noodles in her crappy apartment and the occasional casual sex with someone she meets at a lesbian bar. She has some great moments of force, particularly in her revenge on her new guardian, but look at all she does for Mikael during those last 15 minutes. The costume, the fake passport, flying to another country. It's not about a sense of duty. I don't think she's even bothered by what Wennerstrom's done. She has a friend. She trusts him, she likes him, both are extremely rare things for her, and look how much she will do for someone she considers a friend. This is a girl who wants to care about someone, but the world has said F you to her too many times. It has rejected and dismissed her so often. Then this man enters her life. He's honest and straightforward with her, he's intelligent, he earns her respect. He really is one in a million to her. She actually says, "I'm happy". Even writing this, I feel so deeply sad for Lisbeth. When she throws away that leather jacket, I think she's not going to try again with a person for a very long time. There's a small scene you might not care about when she asks Mikael what he's doing that night. Asking that question is a huge, enormous thing for her. For her it's like proposing. But now she's going to close up and will never again ask Mikael what his plans are, and there is tragedy to that. It's the first and only time in the movie when she cries and she's all alone. No one is there to even witness it. I would love to know Lisbeth Salander and be her friend.
**END OF SPOILERS


Daniel Craig turns out to be a fantastic choice as Mikael Blomkvist. I always thought the Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist was too old, and Craig is utterly believable as a professional journalist with this searing investigative intelligence. When he's just looking at photos on a Mac, we are engaged with him. He's working things out in his head, and I'm leaning forward in my seat anticipating what he might do next. It's a great, natural performance. Rooney Mara is quite spectacular in the movie. I write about her in the spoiler section above, but let me say that her performance is very different than Noomi Rapace (who was also great) Rooney's choices made a deeper emotional impact with me. Lisbeth is not just a badass ultra goth. She's still a prodigy when it comes to technology, but I think she's much more complex here, much more is going on inside, and this 26 year-old actress in her first lead role gives a performance of a lifetime. There's a look on her face late in the film after she witnesses a car accident that really blew me away. At that moment, I saw an actress who had completely embodied another person. Some credit should go to Fincher who probably worked her to death, but goodness she's powerful in this film.

Fincher himself shows his power. Lightning quick pacing, so much information, so many characters, so much for us to keep track of, and it's all there. Along with the always stunning Fincher visuals. A lot of credit should go to screenwriter Steven Zaillian as well for crafting a great script, with wonderful economy of dialogue. I always think it's his choices that make David Fincher special. The costume design, the production design, even the choice that Lisbeth eats Happy Meals. There are of course department heads, but the choices are directed by him. Also certain images continue to stay with me. A close-up of a leather jacket, the long drive up to the Vanger mansion, a point of view shot of Mikael and Erika Berger (Robin Wright). These images mean a lot to the characters. They are images they will remember maybe for the rest of their lives, and so he wants us to remember them too. Another beautifully shot film from cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth (Fight Club, The Social Network).

It's not gonna be for everyone. It's surprisingly not all that violent, but there is one horrifically brutal rape scene that most people are aware is coming, yet seeing it with your loved ones around Christmas may not be such a good choice.

Lastly, this is how I know a movie is really special to me. I don't want to talk about it with anyone. I'll write my review, but I don't want to hear anything remotely negative about it. It has its flaws, but I don't want anyone taking away the personal impact it had on me. You watch hundreds of movies to find this feeling and no one is going to spoil that. I think it's a decision Lisbeth would agree with.


From my Top 10 List:

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
The technical skill alone makes the movie worthy of being on this list. It's a masterfully told, hypnotically engaging genre film that any director would envy. But the choices made toward the end, they take it to another level. Those images are embedded in me. I cannot forget them. It's one of those films that no matter what I may write, it won't truly express how I feel about it. How I feel about Rooney Mara's performance as Lisbeth Salander and director David Fincher's presentation of her. There are extremely few times in my life when I've watched a movie and said, that's me. How he/she feels, I feel that way too. "That character is me". With Fight Club and now The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Fincher has done it twice. And I am very grateful to him.

The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

Annie looks like she can handle herself. I had my issues with The Dark Knight, but I'm properly excited.

Contagion

4 stars It saddens me, yet I so respect Soderbergh for saying he needs a break from directing. A brief sabbatical he says. Because what I see with Contagion is a director in total command. Contagion is about a virus that hits across the globe. It is transferred by touch and is spreading like a motherf----r. This thing is aggressive, and in Hong Kong, Minnesota, Chicago, and many other places, it's taking out a lot of people. And with this large cast, we see what this virus does at every level of life.

We see Laurence Fishburne and Kate Winslet in the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta as they discover it, hope to contain it, and they estimate its rate of growth. We see Matt Damon and his daughter couped up in their home as his wife played by Gwyneth Paltrow came home from HK and within a day she is dead and their son (his stepson) is dead. Marion Cotillard is part of the World Health Organization in Geneva and Jude Law is a blogger in San Francisco, ranting against the government and it's lack of progress with this virus, and some of what he's saying may be true.

It is a large canvas and technically this is a "disaster" film, but you've never seen an epidemic epic played so intimately. There are no action sequences. There are no soapy scenes of letting go of a loved one. Everything is played very real, very serious and calm, even as these intelligent professionals desperately try to stop this thing. The heroes aren't the guys with guns, the heroes are the scientists in labs trying to understand the virus and create a vaccine. It may not sound exciting, but it is. The movie builds and builds in this momentum of dread. A news report, then army trucks drive toward downtown Chicago, then a grocery store is empty and being looted, and later Damon steals a shotgun from a neighbor's home as suburban Minnesota is growing out of control. As the days tick off we are very aware that the number of deaths is multiplying and the longer it takes to find a cure, the more destruction there will be.

More than anything, the film is so incredibly edited. Soderbergh is one of the best technical directors out there, he's just not talked about in that way because he doesn't make movies about robots or cars going very fast. The pace of Contagion, the camera angles, the transitions, they're just immaculate. There's no fat in the movie. There are no scenes that could've gone. It doesn't seem like it, but the movie is rushing forward at a blazing high speed. Everything fits, every actor in this gigantic cast fits. It's a remarkable achievement. Standout actors include Fishburne, Damon, and Jennifer Ehle who was last seen as Geoffrey Rush's wife in The King's Speech.

Second thing that is stunning is how much this scared me as I watched it. I went to the bathroom midway and not only did I wash my hands thoroughly, but I used a generous amount of hand sanitizer. And I'm just alone in my own home. It's a scary movie about germs and contamination and the idea of something biological killing us is very 21st century. The 80s have nuclear warheads, we now get SARS, H1N1, and Avian Influenza. A virus has no judgment. It just wants to grow and live and doesn't care about who it's destroying in the process. That's a great movie villain.

After The Informant! and The Girlfriend Experience, Contagion is the third great Steven Soderbergh film in a row. He's on a hot streak, and has somehow made a hyper intelligent thriller about science. It's science and story that feel totally authentic. It also has more Oscar nominated actors than any film in most any year. Contagion makes Outbreak look like a comedy.

A Dangerous Method

3 ½ stars I love David Cronenberg in this later period of his career. He established himself with films like Scanners and The Fly, but now with these last three dramas (that include A History of Violence and Eastern Promises), I think he's entered the elite. A craftsman filmmaker, he is so control of what he is doing.

A Dangerous Method follows psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) as he establishes his particular method of psychotherapy in Zurich in the early 1900s. He has a patient Sabina (Keira Knightley) a Russian woman struggling with deep seeded trauma from her abusive relationship with her father. At the same time Jung starts a correspondence with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) as they try to move their theories forward as a more prestigious method of care. Jung is quite successful in helping Sabina, but in that they have begun to be attracted to one another.

I wouldn't call this a biopic. It's not about the life of Carl Jung. It's a fictionalization of a particular time in his life and his relationship with Freud. I'm not sure if any of it is accurate, but what is interesting is going back and hypothesizing about what may have happened between these two men. Part of your enjoyment of the film will be affected by how much you believe in psychotherapy. I do, and the arguments that happen between the two men are stimulating. Should the therapist simply diagnose or does he have a role in helping that person become a new person. Where does instinct end? How much should be repressed? There's even a notion that sex is the destruction of one's own ego as you are giving yourself to another person. This was 100 years ago and these must have been such radical ideas. Freud is older, a father figure to Jung, and is maybe growing closed-minded in his age. Jung is not as confident, unsure of what is exactly the answer, but he stays in the struggle to find it.

But for all the analytical talk about analysis, the movie is most potent during scenes between Fassbender and Keira Knightley. I've said it before, but she is simply one of the best actresses we have. She's not in the gossip mags, we don't know who she's dating, so maybe people find her less intriguing. But movie after movie she gives wonderful performances. She's rather fearless. Not only is the emotional territory very difficult here, but there are also the technical things she's doing with her body and her voice. Her character changes so much through the course of the film, and she never misses a beat. A stunning performance.

Jung is married and their affair doesn't come without complications. The choices they make cannot help but be analyzed by themselves and make them question themselves. Jung says at one point, "Sometimes you have to do something unforgivable just to be able to go on living". There are a lot of possibilities of what his unforgivable act was, and the power of that ambiguity is very dramatic. Life is not as simple as we'd like it to be, even for those whose very profession is to examine life.

The movie has some problems though. I think Jung's relationship with Sabina and its consequences are more interesting than his relationship with Freud. Their professional drift doesn't have the emotional impact and it does take up much of the film. I wasn't that impressed with Viggo as much here (he replaced Christoph Waltz). All I think of when I think of Freud from this film is thick cigars. Fassbender is solid in the fourth film I've seen him in this year (after X-Men, Fish Tank, Jane Eyre). What I will remember though is Sabina in that carriage as she is being driven away toward the end. The look on Knightley's face, and the subsequent epilogue about what happened to her character is terribly moving.

Again, all of this may be uninteresting to you. A drama about the birth of modern psychiatry? Certainly not to everyone's liking. A drama about adults, for adults. However, when a director like Cronenberg makes a film, it's really something to see.

The Ides of March

2 stars "The Ides of March" is a reference to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It's a foreboding statement of his eventual assassination, but what a terrible title for a movie.

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is the junior campaign manager for Governor Mike Morris (Clooney) who is running for President. Above Stephen is Paul Zara (PS Hoffman) and there is an intern named Molly (Evan Rachel Wood) who begins a sexual relationship with Stephen and becomes entangled in this story. Gov. Morris is the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination against Senator Ted Pullman but the race is close. The one who wins Ohio, wins the nomination.

The Ides of March is Clooney's inside look at political campaigns, but it sadly doesn't feel that inside. We've seen this material before, and the best version I've seen it in is in the great documentary The War Room. Also it was better done during seasons 3-4 of The West Wing and Primary Colors with John Travolta. Of course there are spin doctors and handshake deals and media offensives and moral compromises but it's all very familiar. What the movie hopes will grab us is a storyline involving sexual dirt on Gov. Mills and how that affects Gosling's character and the campaign as a whole. It fails to hold interest. Real life political scandals are much more interesting than what goes on in this plot.

The movie can be two things then. A thriller involving a campaign manager who knows a secret about his candidate. Will he maintain his idealism? Will he let the secret out? Or, it can be a tragedy about what political campaigns do to the players in it and who these players have to become to win. It's half of each and it's not enough. The emotional journey Gosling goes on and the moral choices he has to make are not dramatic. And the sensational stuff isn't played for any thrills. It's a half movie. Also one big problem, I wasn't even for Gov. Mike Mills. I didn't care if he won. He's a background player in this film who occasionally makes speeches. We see him ever so briefly behind the cameras and even then we barely know him.

Clooney is a good director (Good Night and Good Luck) but I have to say I've disliked the majority of the films he's directed - Leatherheads, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and now this. The very strong cast of actors elevate the material but it's ultimately forgettable stuff. Check out the much better political thriller State of Play with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck.

Weekly Recap 12/16/11

Watched this Week
The Good: Warrior (review), Let Me In, The Road, more Star Trek
The Bad: Drive, The Muppet Movie (1979), Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-Rays Bought: Glory, Eastern Promises, The Firm, Public Enemies

Trips to the Theater: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Actors of the Week: Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Owen Wilson
Director of the Week: Wes Anderson



Trailers/Clips of the Week:
The Adventures of Tintin. That last shot gets me excited.

The Dictator.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

2 stars Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an absolute throwback. A meticulously made old fashioned spy thriller that is ultimately too old fashioned for me. This is a sad disappointment since you won't find a more prestigious cast of actors in one film this year.

Gary Oldman is George Smiley, part of the old guard in British Intelligence who has been given the assignment to find a mole who is apparently at the top of MI6, which they call "The Circus". There are a lot of those great little code words and spy innuendo. However the fact of the matter is, The Cold War is over. The threat of Soviet Red has no weight anymore. And whatever the mole may be doing in this film, there doesn't seem to be any significant damage or consequence. Nothing seems currently at stake in this game of espionage. There's simply a bad egg and they have to find it. But we the audience need more urgency. We need more at stake to get us invested in this investigation. Sadly there really isn't anything at risk, it's just a mole hunt. This also excludes the film from having any strong thematic material. It has nothing really to say about the older generation vs. the new. It has nothing really to say in depth about what it means to be a spy. It has nothing to say about patriotism and oaths to one's country. This could've been an interesting character study of Oldman's character, but he's so silent in the film. One wonders why Smiley is even bothering to do this.

Most of the characters sit and glare. They smoke and wear thick wool three piece suits and seem more like corporate board members than people dealing with the fate of their country. I'm sad to say none of the actors have much to do, other than Tom Hardy who creates a lively performance with his more modern field agent. I did want to know who the mole was, but when I found out, I realized that it could've been any of them and I don't know if it would've made any emotional difference.

This remake of the 1979 British mini-series starring Alec Guiness (based on the novel by John le Carre) was directed by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson who directed Let the Right One In. It's underwhelming. It's too restrained, too much is held back, and we are robbed of possibilities of suspense. There should be tension but there isn't. I remember a scene with Oldman and Benedict Cumberbatch sit in a car and talk about information. I think it is indicative of the style of the film. People are sitting, information is coming at us, but none of it really matters. I had the same feeling after seeing The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon. These are supposed to be spy thrillers, but they aren't thrilling. They don't deliver the goods.

Also sad because the trailer is so good.

The Max Fischer Players

Serpico. Max must've loved Heat.


Heaven and Hell. "Best play ever, man." -Mr. LittleJeans


The 1999 MTV Movie Awards. The Truman Show, Armageddon, Out of Sight.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

3 ½ stars I think time has shown The Life Aquatic to be a very good film. Wes Anderson had come off Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, both beloved, and people were suddenly dubious when they heard he had spent so much money (around $55 million) on a comedy about an oceanographer. This always happens to independent directors. If people feel they are going Hollywood, they start to turn. What they missed in their bias is a hilarious film that once again creates a complete Wes Anderson world of its own. If it wasn't for his previous work, they would have championed this as daring and bold, simply based on its visual design.

Bill Murray is Steve Zissou, an oceanographer and a documentary filmmaker whose last film fell flat with critics and audiences. It involved the death of his best friend Esteban who Steve claims was eaten alive by a Jaguar shark. People don't believe him. They think he's old, that his best films are behind him, and that he's pretty much washed up. After the screening, at the after party, Steve meets Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) who believes Steve is his father. Steve is not that surprised, but he's definitely affected by this news, and he invites Ned to join Team Zissou on their next expedition. Steve hopes to find the Jaguar shark that killed his best friend and kill it.

This plot synopsis, if tweaked, could fit an action movie about fathers and sons and hunting sharks. It is not that. It is mostly about Team Zissou, an eccentric group of crewmen who all wear red caps and baby blue matching uniforms and are required to carry around Glocks. We see where they live, which is on Steve's private island. We see them train and hang out. But mostly we see them working as a team on Steve's boat The Belafonte. Frankly all of these descriptions are pretty meaningless. You have to see these things. You have to see the production and costume design. You have to see the short moments of their camera team checking colors in one room while someone else records ADR in another. The boat is a film studio and as much as the movie is about life at sea, it is so much about making movies. Klaus (a hilarious Willem Dafoe) complains that Ned doesn't even know how to use a boom, and in the same conversation Steve makes it clear that no one stops filming until he says cut. In the business, you are as good as your last film, and Steve is desperately trying to make a hit.

The rest of the cast is wonderful starting with Owen Wilson as a pilot and a Southern gentleman from Kentucky who is trying to connect with his father. He's so sweet and earnest in the movie. I loved Ned Plimpton and was saddened when Steve changed his name to Kingsley Zissou as he would've named him that if he had a say in it. Cate Blanchett is warm and sharp as Jane Winslett-Richardson, a reporter doing a story on Zissou that may not be the most flattering. Most of the crew are unknowns and you have to know films to be aware of a great actor like Noah Taylor. They also have a script girl who very casually is topless for most of the film.

One person everyone remembers is Seu Jorge, a Brazilian musician who starred in City of God. They remember him because so much of the score is comprised of his Portuguese acoustic covers of David Bowie songs. They are fantastic, my favorite being his version of Ziggy Stardust. Apparently Jorge has a huge career now, touring with his own music and these Bowie songs. Murray though is king as a director with a big ego who is aware that the last decade hasn't been too great. Bill Murray is a comic genius and I don't use the word genius very often. No one says lines like he does. No one has that ridiculous pitch perfect timing. It's a great performance.

And it's a funny, funny film. Favorite moments include two action sequences. One where Filipino pirates take over The Belafonte, only to be thwarted when Steve takes one of their weapons and starts firing away to Iggy Pop's Search and Destroy. "Those f---ing amateurs. You forgot your dog you idiots!" The other is the big sequence on Ping Island where they go rescue their bond company stooge. At some point Steve gets covered in swamp leeches but no one else has. "Nobody else got hit, I'm the only one, what's the deal?" Also any moment with German Klaus complaining about feeling left out really makes me laugh. "Thanks a lot for not picking me."

The Royal Tenenbaums is still my favorite (it was in my Top 10 of the last decade), probably followed by Fantastic Mr. Fox, but this one is pretty great too. And it's surprisingly heartfelt. I had a Wes Anderson week as I also watched Tenenbaums and Rushmore again (which you should too). I want to be in the Zissou society. Hopefully someone will send me a red cap and a Speedo.

*This was one of the first movies I saw when I moved to LA. Henry Winkler (The Fonz) was in the crowd, as well as Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson when they were dating.

Weekly Recap 12/9/11

Watched this Week
The Good: Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Star Trek Deep Space Nine
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-Rays Bought: Rushmore: Criterion Collection, The 40 Year-Old Virgin

Trips to the Theater: Moneyball, The Muppets (2nd time)

Actors of the Week: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman
Director of the Week: Bennett Miller


Trailers/Clips of the Week:
The Secret Life of Arrietty. Studio Ghibli!

The Five-Year Engagement Trailer

I loved director Nick Stoller's first two films, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek.
This is a great trailer and not just because I love Emily Blunt. Looking forward to this one in April.

Moneyball

4 stars After seeing Drive in mid-September, I had a movie theater drought of over 2 months. I didn't go see anything, it was all just at home. Now in the last 3 weeks, I've been to the theater 5 times, and I've been seeing a lot of good movies.

Moneyball is one of the best of the year. A wholly engrossing drama, directed with a high level of intelligence by Bennett Miller. With this and his first film Capote, he's now a major player.

Moneyball is about Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) who after losing to the Yankee's in the 2001 postseason wants a major change. The Yankee's player salaries total over $100 million and the A's have around $35 million. How do you compete with that? He's surrounded by old scouts who use the same age old methods to pick players and he wants to change. During a trip to Cleveland, Billy meets 25 year-old Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale graduate with a degree in economics who has a radical idea.

The trailer gives the idea away a little but what counts is that the idea is a smack to the face to old fashioned baseball. It takes away the value of intuition and gut feelings and replaces it with a lot of numbers. In a game that may have the most die hard tradition, this approach may as well be from Mars to the old timers. But that's what hooked me in. Billy is an individual, it's him alone mostly, and he tries to change all of it. He doesn't do it out of spite or ill will, he just knows that there is a better way to do this. And your enjoyment of the film may depend on how much you believe that too. I really believe that as a life philosophy. Challenging the old guard, seeing if there is something different and better. Not just different, but better.

I was scared this was going to be a sentimental journey of a divorced father risking his security and his daughter and there would be big scenes of desperation and then later cheering. It avoids all of that. All of the cliches are stripped away. It's a movie about thinking differently. Brad Pitt is fantastic as Billy Beane, who remains a private guy throughout the entire film. I wondered why he would be so gung ho about this role (even after original director Steven Soderbergh dropped out), but I can see why. Billy is a different guy, and Pitt has a great history of playing different guys. Tyler Durden, Mickey the Pikey, Jesse James. Billy doesn't have huge flaws that need to be solved. He has a healthy relationship with his daughter and his ex-wife, he isn't grossly in debt or in some sort of desperate life struggle, he's just put his mind to doing this new thing. He wants it to work, and man is that something that gets you emotionally invested. I wanted it to work too. So very badly. One thing I really loved, Billy doesn't watch the games. He drives around occasionally turning on his radio for the play by play. I completely get that. It's too freaking stressful to be there all the time, especially when by then it's out of your hands.

Jonah Hill is a standout in this movie. Peter Brand is a young kid compared to all of these guys but he isn't geeky comic relief. He's a smart guy who is learning to work in a world of adults and mercifully he isn't given one awkward or embarrassing scene. What a relief. Jonah Hill is so good in the film, worthy of a best supporting Oscar nod. He plays so well with Pitt. They have great chemistry, and one scene in particular on a back and forth conference call brings a huge satisfying laugh with its final moment. 6 years ago Jonah Hill did his first movie, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and look at him now. It was so smart to cast someone who himself is a smart guy making non-traditional choices.

The whole movie is non-traditional. It's a sports movie where the players and coaches are in the background. It's a sports movie about economics and upper management. The wins aren't about the glory of the team, it's not even about the fans, it's about Billy and Peter proving something right. Sure the screenwriters Steven Zailian and Aaron Sorkin stack the deck sometimes. Brad Pitt is the star so the emphasis is a lot on the GM and I'm sure the manager Art Howe (played by PS Hoffman) will be unhappy with how powerless he seems in the movie. The old scouts do look very old and I honestly couldn't remember the last time I saw a hearing aid in a movie. The movie wants us on Billy's side and it gets us there. There are also wonderful visual touches, and I don't remember a baseball film ever being shot like this one. It's all very subjective, with strong use of shadow and lighting and unusual camera angles. It's pretty exhilarating. And yet, despite all of the fantastic intellectual stimulation, the movie does build a strong amount of emotion. How did they do that? Being moved by the implementation of a new scouting strategy? Now that's an accomplishment.

It's probably too late to catch Moneyball in the theater but it comes out on Blu-ray and DVD on January 10th. It is one of the best movies of the year. I love smart films, they come out so rarely, and this is one of them.

Dec 2011 Reviews 1 (The Debt, Mission: Impossible)

The Debt 3 stars The Debt is actually a remake of a 2007 Israeli film of the same name which was widely praised and very popular. John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) directs this remake starring two sets of casts. The older cast includes Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, and Ciarin Hinds as ex-Mossad (Israeli intelligence) operatives who were part of a mission 30 years ago to find and capture a Nazi war criminal named Vogel. The film begins with them, and then the middle third involves the younger cast. Jessica Chastain (The Tree of Life), Sam Worthington and Marton Csokas. We see the younger group on their mission in East Berlin as they hunt "The Surgeon of Birkeneau."

I'm sure there are other movies involving Mossad agents tracking down old Nazis, but I can't think of any. This is extremely interesting territory to set a movie in. The good thing about the Nazis in movies is that they are so certainly evil. They can be out and out bad men and anything done toward them seems perfectly fine because of the sins they've committed. And the idea of hunting them years later in foreign countries is very appealing. However as strong as the first half of the movie is, the second doesn't maintain. There is a secret among the team, that the older characters have kept for 30 years, and that is intriguing. But sadly the younger cast and their story isn't as compelling. Sam Worthington is dull and uninteresting as a brooding, nearly silent agent. Marton Csokas continues to be an actor I find underwhelming. The only standout is Jessica Chastain. The idea of a Jewish woman in the 1950s being put into the field as a secret agent is rife with inherent drama, and she plays her scenes well. All in all though, the past isn't as interesting as the present.

The story then comes back 1997 and takes a bold turn that ultimately can't hold water. I won't give it away, but it stretches credibility, and the thematic lesson that the movie is professing loses its power because of this. It gets drowned out in scenes of action and suspense. I wanted to dispose of the action and get to the drama. I felt the movie should've ended with characters making choices rather than characters trying to kill and survive. It's a mixed movie, but enough for me to give it a positive review despite its flaws.


Mission: Impossible 3 ½ stars In light of number 4 coming out this Christmas, I thought I would review the first three. The first Mission: Impossible is still the best Mission: Impossible. Brian De Palma directed the hell out of the movie, and it continues to be so stylish and iconic. First of all, the movie is about a team, not just about Ethan Hunt. The opening scene has them working together in sync, and the team happens to be filled with very good actors like Kristin Scott Thomas, Emilio Estevez, and Jon Voight. These aren't young 20 year-olds, they are experienced professionals which one would imagine a high level covert operation would prefer. Later more good actors like Ving Rhames and the great Jean Reno show up. It also has French actress Emmanuelle Beart who is gorgeous and very good in the movie. It's one of her few American films. I love how the team works together. I like how the screenplay refers to the cloak and dagger aspect of their jobs like disappearing into different countries with numerous aliases. They're spies in this one, not action figures.

More than anything, the movie is beautifully shot. No hand held, no finding it in the editing room, these sequences are meticulously designed by De Palma. Each shot connects to the next, and the high level of suspense created in so many sequences doesn't just happen magically. They are crafted and executed with precision. The sequence on the bridge with the team going after the disk, the magnificent scene in the aquarium restaurant which ends with the tanks blowing, and of course the one everyone remembers with Cruise hanging upside down on a cable in a CIA vault. The restaurant water sequence may be the most visually stimulating. Look at the angles, the compositions, the building to high speed slow motion. You just realize how boring movie conversations are usually shot. As for the vault scene, I remember how insanely quiet it was in the theater. This is a big summer tent pole and its major set piece involves minutes of near silence. It's an amazing scene, inspired by an old French heist film called Rififi.

The plot may be a bit muddled, but that's the great thing about subsequent viewings. You can just enjoy the good stuff and skip through the bad. I hope you watch this one again. I think it's one of Cruise's best films, although it sadly began his career shift into action movies. His three previous films before this one were A Few Good Men, Interview with the Vampire, and The Firm.

Still a great trailer. Up the resolution to 720p.



M:I 2 3 stars A totally different film than the first, but somehow connected in the series because it's so director driven. De Palma is an auteur and John Woo is as well. Their signatures are so immediately apparent. There's not much to say about a plot involving a chemical virus or a ho hum relationship with the beautiful Thandie Newton, but the action sequences are so creative. Forget reality, look at the choreography, particularly in the last 30 minutes. The gunfight on motorcycles, the knife in the eye, the mano a mano on the beach. The movie seems to be made so that John Woo could show his stuff. Even his directing during the opening rock climbing scene is so specific. One thing I realized though, Ethan Hunt is a pretty bland guy. He doesn't seem to have any issues or much depth. He's the epitome of the classic Tom Cruise character. He's driven, set on a goal, and determined to win.





Mission: Impossible III 2 stars Watching it again, it's not very good. JJ Abrams' first feature film and it was just Cruise's attempt at a safe comeback after he jumped the couch. A lot of choices aren't good. No one wants to see James Bond get married, why would we want to see this top covert agent settle down in the suburbs? His relationship with Michelle Monaghan is a snore anyway. Why is he suddenly so disdainful of his job? Cruise shows his age in the film, particularly next to Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, yet Ethan Hunt hasn't matured. He's not any more interesting.

The action is wall to wall and some of it is good, and some of it is confusing. There is a lack of a pre-production plan here and sometimes you get lost in the chaos. There is way too many big close-ups and shaky hand held. Also the story is a who cares about something called the Rabbit's Foot and Philip Seymour Hoffman being given very little to do as the movie's villain. He's good in the movie, but the character is way underwritten. All of the characters are underwritten. Is anything distinctive about Maggie Q's character? I don't even remember her name. Simon Pegg, Laurence Fishburne, Billy Crudup. These are good actors who seem to be forced to act in a lame story with big fireworks. It's the most expensive of the movies and the least memorable. The best thing about it is the trailer. Btw, I probably will see Ghost Protocol because it has Josh Holloway (Sawyer from Lost) and is directed by Pixar director Brad Bird whose previous films were The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The choice of him is so bizarre that I hope something different comes out of it. Those posters though, with Cruise in a hoodie, who approved that?

Weekly Recap 12/2/11

Watched this Week
The Good: The Debt, I'm Not There, The Aviator, Star Trek II IV VI Generations First Contact and a lot of the Next Generation series
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None
Didn't Get Past 20 Minutes: None
Blu-Rays Bought: The Hangover, Brokeback Mountain, Crimson Tide, The Bourne Supremacy, Mission:Impossible I-II

Trips to the Theater: Hugo, The Muppets

Actors of the Week: Patrick Stewart, Amy Adams, Cate Blanchett
Director of the Week: James Bobin

Trailers/Clips of the Week:
"Life's a Happy Song" performed by Bret McKenzie and Kermit


The actual video Jason Segel sent to Amy Adams, asking her to be in the movie.