Category: Movie Reviews

ZERO DARK THIRTY gathers the facts from 9/11 to the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011.  Kathryn Bigelow has worked with primary material to create a time-line ellipsis from the point of the terrorism, to U.S. troop anger, to a standstill and eventual information from a luckily found source leading to bin Laden.  The film is the straight story, without agenda, presenting major and minor incidents, as testimony is tossed aside, the wrong directives taken: in essence, the difficulty the C.I.A. had in homing in to the final clue to the million piece jig-saw.  Jessica Chastain is Maya, and agent drafted out of high school, a natural investigator put in charge of the hunt for bin-Laden.  Events flow from torture to street bombings so we are never out of danger and never having enough knowledge to clarify the nature of the enemy.  Meanwhile, the power in Washington would just as well end the hunt but Maya is trusted and her instincts are quite strong.  Detainees’ questionable legal rights are taken for granted as is the torture and street incidents.  Responsibility and morality are not a consideration—only the bottom line.  Zero Dark Thirty represents a style of cinema which shows writers and director making no judgments though there are complaints that presenting torture is to rationalize it for our country’s reputation.  Not only was it done as harshly as possible without judgment, the detainee gave no information leading to anything more than a pretty mild Al-Qaeda agent who claimed also to know nothing.  Bigelow’s spare style and slightly detached view precludes the events, not having to introduce characters (Maya hardly knows most of them anyhow) to emerge at the end with a finality to the goal, but not for Maya whose life has known nothing else.  I felt it eye-opening and gripping from the first sounds of telephone communication during 9/11 to Maya, alone in a troop transporter, deciding where to go next.  Jessica Chastain gives a great performance becoming Maya in our eyes; it is her point-of-view we follow throughout.

DJANGO UNCHAINED is one of those pictures that people have tried to throw under the bus claiming that because Quentin Tarentino made a movie that about slavery in a style criticized by many African-American leaders and entertainers.  Perhaps they are unfamiliar with “Inglorious Basterds” in which a holocaust-driven Europe is used as a backdrop for eye-popping fantasy–anything but historically accurate. Well, Django is the same fictional piece, different plot, different characters.  Django (Jaimie Foxx) is in a line of chained slaves walking to his new owners’ plantation when a Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) finds the short caravan, kills the two leading gunslingers, frees all and takes Django as a cohort in the bounty hunter profession.  Schultz also trains Django on how to handle himself as a freed slave.  The two work together, make good money, and head for Mississippi where Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) was taken when the two were separated at an auction years before at.  In the midst of this, they are chased by bandits, slave traders and just plain bad guys.  But their final visit is to visit the plantation of Calvin Candle (Leonardo di Caprio) and his butler, Stephen (a well made up Samuel L. Jackson).  There’s lots of blood, guts, gore, various body parts and mayhem for his next movie well.  He also had a Ku Klux Klan band humorously roaming around, but stop when they can’t see through the holes in their hoods.  The Klan was created after the Civil War, not in the film’s pre-war years.  However, this is a Quentin Tarentino film and who are we to say that we don’t expect these bloodbaths after “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction.”  Tarentino’s goal was to make a spaghetti western (with the common “n” word in almost the style of Sergio Leone) and of using some of Ennio Morricone,  His scores helped form a new movie standard.  It is an entertainment and if seen as history, there is a serious knowledge gap in this country.  Tarentino is not African-American, nor is he Jewish, nor is he Japanese, nor a lot of things, just as his critics have spoken and performed have worked outside their culture, race and religion. And stupidity followed as Tarentino, criticized a film God when he stated that he hated John Ford because he had worked at several roles in front of, and behind the camera during the making of “The Birth of a Nation.”  If Tarentino were in Los Angeles in 1915, he would have given his left arm to get the same opportunity and experience, not to mention the money, to work in the new industry.  I think that there is always room for criticism, but it should include having seen the object in its real context.

PROMISED LAND is about fracking.  It is also about power, money, integrity, truth and reality, if there is one.  Fracking is a controversial way of extracting natural gas from the earth by drilling and forcing water and toxic chemicals into and through the layers of sediment and rock and ultimately driving the gas to the surface.  The companies who do this tell you it’s safe, the opinion ignored by those who sign away their mineral rights to the land for the handsome compensation as do agents of the state who frequently give them a pass, deciding for their own share, as well as the state’s.  The other side claims that land will lay fallow with unwanted chemicals reaching the surface.  It would also result in contaminating the water table (not to mention streams and rivers) leaving water headed for cities and no filtration system to take out the toxins — leaving many people without drinking, bathing and cooking water.  Sales people Steve (Matt Damon) and Sue (Francis McDormand) enter a town representing a corporation that want the land..  Money is the prime mover until Frank (Hal Holbrook) mentions the first doubts about the value of the town as it is and how much everyone would lose if the town were to allow this.  The town folk, still favoring the land sales, then contend with Dustin (John Krasinski) an environmentalist with all the tools, including a winning personality, to show what can happen to land abused by the corporation.  Of course, money talks, and that leads to a split of those who care and those who want the money.   If enough sign up, then the rest of the town would probably follow suit.  But there is more to it than what meets the eye.  No matter how I feel about the subject, it is a bit loaded against the giant corporation.  The way the main characters do their work does undermine integrity.  Promised Land flows nicely even with a few stock characters, but the acting is almost too good and believable. There are a few sticky and confusing points but it’s is a good one to see.

 

NOT FADE AWAY is the story of a 1960s high school rock ‘n’ roll band that came of age around 1960, but found a voice after the Beatles ascendance in 1964.  The road was going to be tough, playing in bars, bowling alleys, the seedier the better for the experience.  To give credence to this story is David Chase, the creator of “The Sopranos’ (James Gandolfini has a fat role) and a first time feature director.  He had long wanted to make this movie, an autobiographical venture with a band featuring Douglas (John Magaro) who seeks more from life than as a lead singer in a quartet frustrated at every turn.  The film moves along chronologically to create its own form of maturity but there are anachronisms, most noticeable in the band sound as if it was ten years later, a few years after the Sex Pistols made their debut in the U.K.  That’s just my ears and my experiences at the time, being the same age as Chase.  Also working on the film, as his assistant, is Steven Van Zandt, who played Silvio Dante on “The Sopranos.” Altogether, Not Fade Away is recommended to all of us young at hearts.

DVDs

Appearing presently is the Criterion Collection’s restoration of THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1934 opus and quite full of himself also.  Forget that this is early in his career just before the big breakthrough with “The Thirty-Nine Steps” (also a DVD/Blu-ray Criterion).  The Man Who Knew Too Much, an hour shorter than the remade version (1956) with James Stewart and Doris Day, is the story of kidnappers, creeping lines of passing music and a race to the finish.  Peter Lorre is in his first film outside Germany and perfect playing himself, as he would do for the rest of his long career.  There’s no Morroco (the opening local in 1956) here, just the Swiss Alps in 1934 with the spies, the maguffin, the reworking of known ethical standards and a lot of fun.  It also looks as it likely did in a first run house back when.  It’s worth every penny.

New in stores is the collection: DARK CRIMES: FILM NOIR THRILLERS (1942-1946, Warner Home Video). This entry into the series has “The Blue Dahlia” with Alan Ladd, “Rope of Sand” with Burt Lancaster, “Union Station” with William Holden and Charlton Heston in “Dark City.”  Each is unique, not only with its youthful stars, but as exciting “studio” films that most of the public really did see at the time.

 

Caroline, royalty from England, is compelled to go to Denmark where she first meets her husband, the mad King Christian VII in A Royal Affair.  It is hate at first sight and all the butlers, maids and officials know it.  To aid the King, his court finds a Dr. Johann Struensee to serve him and to overcome his childish ways.  As the story goes, the doctor is stuck by the beauty and intelligence of the Queen.  Their mutual love leads to an inevitable pregnancy.  This is not “Anna Karenina” but a better film, a richer tale of unfortunate circumstance.  The doctor has worked with Christian so that Johann and Christian help turn his political ideas toward a progressive Denmark and Europe for the end of the 18^th century.  However, the idea is short-lived as the government refuses to give up the monarchy.  Christian declares Struensee “King” but—well, I can’t go on without being a spoiler.  Alicia Vikander (who was also in “Anna K”), Mads Mikkelsen (the doctor) and Mikkel Boe Folsgaard (the King) do splendid work with director Nikolaj Arcel.  Worth catching.

 

Barbra Streisand (Joyce) and Seth Rogen (Andy) are mother and son in The Guilt Trip.  With ulterior motives (to locate old loves), the two leave New York for San Francisco, a route which will allow the failing Andy to sell his organic cleaning solution to prospective clients on the way.  Joyce is led to believe her son is a great success but the more kvetching she does, the greater the friction.  Always searching for a freebie, Joyce enters a contest right out of Man vs. Food (Travel Channel).  She must eat a 50 ounce steak with all the sides in one hour.  This is a band-aid on their relationship but a start.  The trip ends appropriately and while not the funniest movie around it is a pleasure to see two pros going at it.

 

In This Is 40, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are Pete and Debbie in this comedy about a couple becoming 40 during the same week.  Pete runs a boutique record label specializing in groups he enjoyed as he grew up, Graham Parker (really) is his current talent.  Unfortunately,  Parker has not sold many records in 30 years.  Pete’s inevitable cash flow problem seems distant as he seeks ways to avoid his family responsibilities.  Apatow also throws in John Lithgow and Albert Brooks as their almost worthless fathers.  To appreciate the movie even more, Judd Apatow has written and directed his real wife (Mann) and daughters in this personal work.

 

The Impossible takes place during the destructive 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia, and the setting here is a beautiful beach resort in Thailand.  Everything gets washed away as Maria (Naomi Watts) attempts to stay alive while keeping one son close by.  Her husband Henry (Ewen McGregor) and the two other sons, have been swept away from her.  The melodrama plays out against the landscape the dismal hospitals and shelters.  While visually impressive, the search is not very effective emotionally.  You know the ending by ten minute mark so the overwhelming obstacles are overcome as a series of anti-climaxes.

 

The thought of Bill Murray as F.D.R. in Hyde Park on Hudson raised some skeptics’ eyebrows.  Roosevelt was too bellicose, too over the top for Bill Murray.  Murray might have played a mess of other presidents but not F.D.R.  This story is told by Daisy (Laura Linney), a distant cousin raised in the same area though her family just scraped by.  One day, she is called to Hyde Park to meet the president.  She is smitten and becomes part of his Hyde Park entourage.  Her relationship with Roosevelt is no secret to insiders though kept from the public (par for the media back then) while wife Eleanor pursues her own relationships.  Of course, the history and the visitors are important (the British King George VI stutters and Roosevelt has polio), but never far away is Daisy.  Linney deserves the greatest praise as the perfection of imperfection and if the film falls short of its mark, she hits the bulls’ eye.

 

Les Miserables has now gone from novel to filmed versions to musical and back to film.  It is being anticipated by millions who have seen it on stage and by millions who have waited over twenty years to share in the experience.  Unfortunately, it is neither the staging, nor the songs, but as filmed, this musical drama with is an unconvincing adaptation.  The songs are earnestly sung by Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman.  Still, the Hugo plot at the surface is Jackman as Jean Valjean, condemned to spend his life paying for stealing a loaf of bread, and Crowe as policeman Jauvert, obsessed with finding and arresting Valjean for escaping the remainder of his sentence as stated by the law.  After that, romance takes over, anti-government activity, more romance and an abrupt end to a revolution.  Even Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter can’t enliven this Hugo plot.v I appreciate the production and the sacrifices given, but it is a shame it seems so distant, not unlike “Anna Karenina.”

 

Tom Cruise is the mysterious Lee Child character, Jack Reacher, friend of truth, enemy to evil.  There are exciting scenes of car chases on empty roads. (half of the excitement of a chase is to see the crashes and add up the law suits the police would have)  The special effects are old, but the plot is neatly played out.  Werner Herzog is wonderfully cast as evil.  This is a gun culture movie so if you are sensitive to the subject, given the recent shootings, then stay away.

 

 

DVDs

Alfred Hitchcock is not only the subject of Hitchcock, a pretty good movie with a great performance by Helen Mirren, but his films are worthy to gift, as a gift to receive and as a gift for yourself.  If you do collect everything Hitchcock has done or you are a cherry picker, here are titles here for you.  You might start out with the silent film The Lodger (Ivor Novello, 1926) and Britain’s first sound film, Blackmail (John Longden and Sara Allgood, 1929). His career really got going in the mid 30s with The Man Who Knew Too Much (Peter Lorre, 1934), The Thirty-Nine Steps (Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, 1935), Secret Agent (John Gielgud, Madeleine Carroll); Sabotage (Sylvia Sidney, Oscar Homolka1936), Young and Willing (Nova Pilbeam, 1937) and The Lady Vanishes (Dame May Whitty, 1938).  His first American film was an adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, 1940), a model of straight direction under the eyes of David O. Selznick.  Except for a film or two, Foreign Correspondant (Joel McCrea1940), Suspicion (Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, 1941), Saboteur (Robert Cummings, 1942), Hitchcock’s favorite Shadow of a Doubt (Joseph Cotton, Teresa Wright, 1942), Lifeboat (Tallulah Bankhead, Walter Slezak, 1944) and Notorious (Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, 1946) are each unique in ways that make them indispensable for watching time and again.

After some misses, he came back in the 50s with Strangers on a Train (Farley Granger, Robert Walker, 1951) is a classic of opposites, especially in murder.  The merry-go-round sequence caused millions to think twice before taking that child’s ride.  I Confess (Mongomery Clift, 1953) puts a priest at the center of a murder plot when he is told in a confessional that a parishioner is going to kill someone.  Because of the sacrament, the priest is unable to tell anybody what he knows though the police are suspicious.  Rear Window (James Stewart, Grace Kelly, 1954) has a professional photographer laid up with a broken leg in a large chair facing out at his Greenwich Village court and slowly notices what might be a murder.  The slick To Catch a Thief (1955) is a classic cat burglar melodrama.  The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), a remake of the 1934 thriller, may be loaded with too much Doris Day and James Stewart, but there is much Hitchcock to love.  The Wrong Man (Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, 1956) is a black and white drama about a case of mistaken identity and my favorite just as Vertigo (James Stewart, Kim Novak, 1958) and North by Northwest (Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, 1959) could be screened on the walls of the finest museums of the world.  To many Psycho (Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, 1960) is his last great film—original in plot, form and atmosphere.  It did for showers what “Strangers on a Train” did for merry-go-round.  But I have always been a fan of Frenzy (Alec McGowan, Jon Finch, 1972) about a sadistic London serial murderer and the policeman after him.  It is as extreme and as Hitchcockian as any film he had ever done.  Most of these have been issued by Criterion, Universal, Warner Bros. Home Video, and many of the early British films from smaller companies.  Just about all are available.

 

Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina is the 26^th filmed version of Tolstoy’s novel, originally written in serial form from 1873 to 1877.  From 1911, audiences always like the married woman who loves a single man, becomes pregnant, leaves her marriage, has the child… and you know the rest.  In one way or another, there have been many times 26 with similar plots—and Tolstoy was 17 years behind Flaubert’ s Madame Bovary, first serialized in 1856. This recent release stars Keira Knightley as Anna and Jude Law as Karenin.  Large it is, directed by Joe Wright under a theater bound proscenium arch and as an operetta (without songs).  This framing device, repeated periodically, is distracting.  The drama seems distant, as if it were in the nineteenth century rather than a classic story filled with class structure, envy, indecision, capturing love at its crest and the shattering truth Anna finds in herself.  Often, a scenes last too long and the acting is tossed asunder to favor symbols and/or contrivance. And most of the deeply drawn Tolstoy characters are treated as mere contrasts to the main lovers.  The result harkens back to the Henry James and Jane Austen novels-to-films trend of the 1990’s, many over-produced and underwhelming.

The Silver Linings Playbook

On the other hand, The Silver Linings Playbook, is a not-so-hot comedy-drama as a bi-polar boxer returns from prison to his parents’ home to get himself together.   His wife and children have left him and his wild mood swings. Bradley Cooper is the lead and Jackie Weaver and Robert DiNiro are his parents. He is an obsessive Philadelphia Eagles fan, but, since no one actually talks “football,” it is only an ongoing plot device for local and a convenient tool for a motif of a family’s fabric.  The presence of skin deep concerns in a character driven story feels that the mood is half-hearted at best.  There are moments of comedic humor, but for me, they were not worth the 2 hours.

Of interest and still in theaters are the James Bond thriller, Skyfall; the Israeli documentary, The Flat; Ben Affleck’s Argo and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

DVD Releases

Many of the year’s best have been released on DVD and blu-ray.  Available now is the restored and expanded epic that is David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (Sony) with an all-time great performance by Peter O’Toole.  The blu-ray is so sharp that you might be tempted to brush the sand from your clothes. Brazil (Criterion) is the ambitious Terry Gilliam at his best. This combination of “1984” and “Blade Runner” is supremely high tech and engrossing with mystery and discovery around every corner.  Sci-Fi futuristic never had it so good and creepy.  Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Olive Films) directed by Sidney Lumet in 1962, is as grisly as a dysfunctional family can make itself.  All families have baggage, but Eugene O’Neil did not offer any easy way out for his stand-in parents Katherine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson and “kids” Jason Robards, Jr. and Dean Stockwell.  Letter From an Unknown Woman (Olive Films), directed by Max Ophuls from a novel by Austrian Stefan Sweig in 1948, is a romantic drama whispering dreams and disillusion from the young woman played by an older Joan Fontaine.  Just as we have to forgive her age, she has to deal with naïveté and hero worship of a famous pianist well cast for Louis Jordan.  Finally, there is Rosemary’s Baby (Criterion) with Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes and support by the likes of Ruth Gordon and Ralph Bellamy.  Roman Polansky’s filming of Ira Levin’s novel is an original, a movie of mood, mystery and horror few movies of the genre have equaled.  Other recent releases include some of this year’s best: A Separation, Monsieur Lazhar, Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Disney’s 1950 Cinderella.  These are just a few gift ideas!

 

Currently in Theaters

When a movie shows us the end of the world, it ought to be a blast.  Unfortunately, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World was made to emote loneliness before nothingness.  Neither Steve Carrel nor Keira Knightly can convert this overwritten script and snore-maker direction give us enough to care for these lonely souls who feel more for their self-pity than grasping to live to the end.

Moonrise Kingdom is about young love on an island called New Penzance located off the New England Coast.  The 12 year-olds have escaped from their home (Suzy) and the summer camp (Sam) to follow an Indian trail to its end, while the sparsely populated town has an all-points-bulletin out for them.  Director Wes Anderson, whose “Rushmore” this resembles, has made his best film to date.  The wit, whimsy, irresistible dialogue and plot take in more than meets the eye—each scene defines the one before and sets up the one after.  Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Ed Norton, Jason Schwartzman, Frances McDormand and newcomers Kara Haywood and Jared Gilman are some of the personalities who turn the representation of reality into full-fledged fantasy.

The latest vampire-movie-of-the week is Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  There are many reasons not to like this blood gusher and among them are the continued sight of vampires in the daylight (no excuses ring true) and Lincoln’s role in some of the history display attempt tongue-in-cheek humor (“It’s time to go to the theater”).  Lincoln was some handler of the ax from his youth as a tree chopper, to cleanly behead the creatures who want to control the country.   Thus we have been saved from two sets of enemies, both vampire centered.

DVD and blu-ray

The Gold Rush is a recently restored Charlie Chaplin narrated 1942 release following its 1925 opening.  What makes this special is that the blue-ray and DVD versions look spectacular, probably as close to an original pristine print.  Chaplin was in stride with this comedy and it shows.

The Artist for home viewing has also been made available.  Award winning, the Star is Born plot works perfectly to beguile.  And the last fifteen minutes are… a sight for sore eyes.

The Swedish Summer With Monika (1953) and Summer Interlude (1951) are early Ingmar Bergman films.  They are gritty, tight and censored upon release in the U.S.  What more of a pedigree could you ask for?

 

DARK SHADOWS

From a 1960’s afternoon soap opera, comes Dark Shadows with Johnny Depp as the cursed vampire Barnabus Collins.  His 18^th century love, Josette (Bella Heathcote), died under the spell of Angelique (Eva Green).  Segue to 1972 and Barnabus is freed when construction workers discover his buried coffin and his thirst is quenched on their blood.  Angelique’s antagonist, Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), is the matriarch of the famous Collins family and their decaying 200 year old mansion, Collinswood.  Barnabus enters his old haunt and meets the family and the new nanny, Victoria (also Heathcote).  Of course, his appearance creates a new spell of curses, animals of the night and the demise of a band of hippies.  I was very entertained by Dark Shadow and it is the easy, quizzy nature of Depp mixed with Tim Burton’s artful direction in their eighth collaboration (the first was the unique Edward Scissorhands) that kept me captivated.  The rich photography, the crumbling house on the hill, the scintillating performances by an all-star cast and more than a few laughs added up to success.

 

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

Formerly, the British escaped to Italy or a Greek Island when they wanted to depart the Isles, but here, it is India and the hope for a growing nation in the midst of modernization.  Reality has a way of destroying the myth in a hurry as this great cast led by Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Maggie Smith. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a rundown and torn apart shell owned by the optimistic and energetic son of the former owner.  That each finds him and herself willing to alter their uncomfortable life situations as their surroundings slowly improve.  This movie is a positive addition in a genre void of quality in recent years.  The standard has been Julia Robert’s “Eat, Pray, Love,” which undercuts its own themes.  Exotic is sometimes subtle and witty and a bit less glossy in a good way.  It is a drama with comedy just outside the bounds of cliché.

 

Sound of My Voice

Here is a piece of fiction loaded with the evocative.  It is difficult to describe the emotions of the two documentary film makers (Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicius) who set out to explore a new cult.  Maggie (Brit Marling), who claims to be from the future, is the brain behind this tightly knit.  Through rituals, forbearance and a complicated handshake, the interlopers find themselves uncomfortably drawn in by the anticipation of the future and Maggie’s unsettling mystique.  True, Sound of My Voice does contain elements of several novel and movie plots, but this one is fresh and one I won’t soon forget.

Burt Shapiro