The Curious Case of Stars..

Here it is! The patented 5 star movie review system. This is a system I stole from my movie critic hero Roger Ebert, and it goes a little something like this:

Imagine each star as representative as a man/woman sitting in a theater seat.

1 STAR - A one star represents an empty movie seat; meaning that whatever man or woman was sitting in the seat prior has officially left the building. In other words: this movie stinks!

2 STAR - Here the man is still in the seat but finds himself drifting off to sleep. If you're continually glancing at your watch, this is a good sign that the movie is a two.

3 STAR - Most films fall under the 3 star category. This is the territory in which the man in the chair has stayed fixed on the screen the whole time. It wasn't necessarily memorable, but it wasn't necessarily forgettable either. (3 Stars I often find suffice as a DVD rental for the average movie goer in lieu of spending 9 bucks at the theater)

4 STAR - This is the kind of film in which the man in the chair finds himself clapping after the film is over. Highly memorable and genre bending material here.

5 STAR - The 5 star category is a furious standing ovation (admittedly a rare breed, but so is a 1 star for that matter). This slot is reserved for movies that defy genre and seem to transcend the normal movie-going experience. Recent examples include "The Hurt Locker" "Inglorious Basterds" last year's "WALL.E" or the wonderful documentary "Man on Wire"

Hope this helps shed light on an otherwise difficult task of putting a bothersome label on something often times hard to reduce to mere category!

Wild Things Still at the heart of us all...

Where the Wild Things Are, the beloved children’s picture book has captured multiple generations with its subtle yet searingly true themes of childhood. In the hands of enigmatic director Spike Jonze, the film becomes a vast and looming meditation on the struggles and psyche of childhood. The boy in the wolf suit sent to bed without supper is still there, but the great adventure prompted by the immortal words “Let the wild rumpus start!” have been expanded into a soul-searching adventure of a young boy facing the challenge of holding a family together when his own is torn apart.
So how does one even begin to adapt 10 sentences of source material into a full-length feature film? The answer of course, is with great artistic liberty. Jonze and screenwriter Dave Eggers have given the story of the precocious Max context for his behavior in a world of dark fantasy and wonder.

Max, full of vivid imagination feels the weight of his parents divorce. His older sister would much rather be with her friends than spend time with him. The opening scenes have a group of the teenage friends destroying Max’s homemade igloo, and apart of his heart in the process. Before long, Max acts up to the point of finding himself cast out from the house. Not by Max’s mother, but by his own doing, he sails away to an island in which anything seems possible, because its Max’s dream.
The paper-thin plot involves the kind of details that on the surface seem little more than backyard childhood dialogue. Max and the Wild things he meets crown him king and then build forts. They discuss what happens at night when the sun goes down, and how max has magical powers unlike anyone has ever seen. The great beasts believe what Max tells them because his imagination demands that they do. The climax of Max’s time on the island involves a great war with dirt clods, the teams being evenly dissected into the “good guys” vs. “the bad guys”

In the most ambitious part of the script, Jonze and Eggers give the Wild Things a distinct personality, with plenty to say. There is the bossy know-it-all Judith (Catherine O’hara), Douglas (Chris Cooper), the sisterly K.W. (Lauren Ambrose), the gentle Ira (Forest Witaker), the boss-Thing Carol (James Gandolfini), and Alexander (Paul Dano) who is closest to Max in size and character.

The beauty of the film is that for the most part it doesn’t get too steeped in dialogue to let its most emotionally heavy-hitting moments shine through. Some of its most breathtaking scenes are shot gorgeously with actors that deliver loads of truth without speaking. The look and feel of the creatures is so real that it becomes hard to tell whether or not we’re watching CGI or actors in costumes.

Still the film feels as though it drags at times, begging the question of whether there really was enough of Maurice Sendak’s book to adapt into a movie. The heaviness of the plot’s themes do get a little cloudy for the film’s own good, but the main story arcs are powerfully derivative of its source. No, it’s not a film necessarily for kids, but it captures the timeless truth expressed in Sendak’s original book. When our world seems torn apart, even the greatest wild thing in all of us wants to know that we are loved and protected. And that our supper will still be warm when we return home.

3.5

If Rag Dolls Could save the world...

There are a few fleeting moments of brilliance in Shane Acker’s 9, most of which come within the first 5 minutes. With images so magnificently animated and wonderfully nuanced, as the first of the film’s 9 main characters stumbles to life, we are filled with wonder about their existence. This magnificence is oh so short lived though. Acker’s film, inspired by his 2006 Oscar-winning animated short film, and co-produced by Tim Burton leaves the space of mystery its origins inhabit and clunks around on the big screen at just under 90 minutes.

The film’s plot, much like it’s landscapes is sparse. Instead it makes a big to do about action sequences that create stakes we are not really sure about, and characters with motivations that we are not really invested in. It is somewhere in the future or some alternate view of the past, and the only remaining remnant of life on Earth is a band of rag-doll esque beings who have been sparked with life by a late scientist. The team of 9, each go by their respective numbers, being named 1,2,3 etc… Our hero, voiced by Elijah Wood is the youngest, and quickly becomes intrigued with the decimation of Earth’s population and what his species now must do in response.

We learn that Earth’s destruction was wrought by (go figure) machines of the highest technological sort. The screenplay seems to pay no attention to this “its-all-been- done-before” approach. Instead it pens a human race that obviously never read their H.G. Wells and therefore was unaware that building a race of All-terrain, laser machines would only bring about our demise. Now the 9 remaining must fight “the beast” which has been placed into the story with no origin or explanation simply so that our heroes will have something to do for their on-screen time.

The film raises interesting questions left and right that are quickly swept under the rug with the most rudimentary discussions of battle-plan between the main characters. I don’t suppose I was expecting the rag-doll species to sit around and pontificate the vastness of their far-reaching effects on humanity, but needless to say the dullness of the dialogue makes for an uninspired story.

9 is a visually arresting film at times, but mostly it bored me to tears. It’s not a children’s movie, but I’m not sure adults will find much to chew on here either. Whoever it’s billed for, I hope they can stomach the thought of a world that exists solely for animators to run amok in, because 9 delivers, if only on that one order.

2/5

Tarantiono's Latest is Bold, Bloody, Propoganda

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds is a big, outlandish, bloody revenge movie that takes place in an alternate view of WWII. Its characters, like all of Tarantino’s, are larger than life. Some will love this film; others quite possibly could be repulsed. Nonetheless, Tarantino’s skills as a writer and director are clearly evident in this picture that is, to say the least, wildly entertaining.

The film’s characters are drawn broadly, and are the same archetypes we have probably seen in countless classic war B movies. Most of their actions approach satire as close as possible without going too completely far. The film opens with a wonderfully tense scene in which Nazi Col. Hans Landa (a star-making performance by Christopher Waltz) breaches the home of a young dairy farmer whom he believes is hiding Jews. His premonition, following a lengthy scene of vintage Tarantino dialogue, proves to be right. The lone Jewish survivor from the events that ensue is named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent).

One of the plots running parallel to hers is that of the esteemed American war group the Basterds. Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), these men pride themselves in killing Nazis. Raine, in his southern-boy war-hungry patriotic mind, boldly demands the scalps of 100 Nazis each from his men. Their mission is a kind of guerilla warfare tactic in which they promote fear amongst the Nazis, even if it’s the Fuehrer himself. One of them specializes in bludgeoning their enemies to death with a baseball bat. Pitt’s character opts to carve the Nazi emblem into their foreheads so they are “easy to identify” later.

Shosana’s story revolves around the screening of a Nazi propaganda film, to be shown in Paris with loads of decorated Third Reich officials. It is no coincidence that Tarantino creates his own kind of propaganda with the Basterds. They kill and maim in a way that is grotesquely comedic. It’s the kind of alternate vision to WWII that some uber-patriotic Americans have only dreamt about.

By the time the stories converge in a Parisian cinema in the last act of the film, the stakes have been set so incredibly high that it is virtually impossible to believe the demands will be met. That is, until you remember who is at the helm of this movie.

Basterds is revisionist history, you can be sure of that. It is a film though, like most of Tarantino’s work, that resists categorization. It’s shocking, outlandish, hilarious, savage, and stylish. It’s a film in which the normal rules of criticism don’t necessarily apply. When a director breaks all-known genre rules by transcending genre itself, it is much harder to stand in contempt than it is to just be swept away by its power.

4.5/5

Life, Death, Regret and Comedy

Funny People is a film about the kind of friends we all have, the ones who seem compelled to make other people laugh.  The space this film inhabits explores the varying motivations behind such funny people, and what they sacrifice through relationships in order to get to the top.  Writer/director Judd Apatow’s latest film is a comedic heavy-weight hitter.  The kind which puts its audience up against the ropes using highly emotional story arcs, and then knocks us out with cleverly placed jokes when we are at our most vulnerable.  A masterful blend. 

           The film centers around grown up funny man George Simmons (Adam Sandler in arguably his strongest performance to date) who has recently learned that he has a very short time to live.  This is a major problem for the super-star comic, because he lacks the necessary support group that most people need to get through a sickness like this.  He has starred in a dozen movies, but lives in his own kind of solitary confinement high up on the hills overlooking LA.  It’s not hard to say what led George to this place in his life.  His botched marriage George dubs “the one that got away”.  The story implies that there is a certain kind of collateral damage that comes with being close to a comic like George.  Sometimes, his material relies on how he has or will hurt his loved ones.  It’s contrasts like these that make George’s story so compelling.

           George soon meets an aspiring comic named Ira (Seth Rogen).  George senses that there is something about Ira’s writing style that would compliment George’s own voice, so he makes him an offer.  Soon Ira, becomes George’s new right-hand man and the only thing close to resembling a support group that George has.

           This is not merely a film about one comic’s struggle with mortality.  No, it is much more nuanced than that.  Trust me, it’s also much more hilarious than its dark subject matter implies.  As in previous Apatow films, there is a cavalcade of supporting cast members, each of whom deliver mostly fantastic performances. 

 The film is rather lengthy, and by the time four major characters reach the home of Simmons’ ex-wife (Leslie Mann), the story begins to careen down an arc that requires us to quickly believe in the extent of all of this couple’s marital problems.  The pay-off, though rushed, is genuinely satisfying.  It implies, that each character will choose a path that is truly best for themselves, not just what the audience would most like to see. 

 Here Apatow does not stick to formula, he sticks to his guns and creates characters with remarkable depth and extreme vulnerability.  His wonderful insight into what makes a character intriguing, and most importantly, the characters that surround him, make this film what it is. 

 

 

4/5

Moon makes us revisit age old questions...

Although I am not old enough to remember the original 1969 moon landing, my loved ones have often indirectly done their part to help me re-create the scene in my mind.  I remember years ago, trifling through a box of my late grandfather’s old newspaper columns The Casual Comment.  I happened to stumble across an article he had written dated merely days after Neil Armstrong first took those now legendary “small steps”.  In it, my grandfather reflected upon the wonder and mystery of what it was like, to now live in a world in which “man has walked on the moon”.  Now, 40 years later at what some would call the height of our technological prowess,  a film like Duncan Jones’ brilliant Moon questions where we are headed, in an age when sending an ordinary human to the moon does little to satisfy our fancy, or our dollars.

I have to warn you, this week’s movie is one that I can assure you has probably flown under your radar.  No it is not a big budget vehicle like Transformers, therefore it doesn’t have quite the same ad revenue behind it.  I promise you though, your experience will be much more gratifying. So in breaking with the golden rule of most film critics, I am going to tell you why it is worth your time to see a film like Moon

Astronaut Sam Bell (a knock-out performance by Sam Rockwell) has endured quite the long haul.  For three years he has been the lone man on a crew intended to harvest the moon’s resources in order to produce clean burning energy for the entire world.  Sam doesn’t work for the government but for a massive corporation that has hired him out to do this job that painstakingly requires the abilities of human interaction.  Basically, if the machines screw up while he’s up there, it’s Sam’s job to work out the kinks.  In between menial tasks such as these, he waits.  He longs for home, for his wife and daughter.

With just a few weeks to go on his shift,  an accident occurs near the space station.  When Sam wakes up in the infirmary being looked after by the ship’s A.I. Gerty (voiced wonderfully by Kevin Spacey)  he finds a disturbance somewhere outside the space station.  What he finds there is beyond anything he could have possibly imagined.  It is from this point that the rest of the film delves into the struggles Sam faces as he interacts with the other new human he has discovered on the ship, which also happens to be…himself.  I realize full well I may have lost some of you with that last sentence, but I assure to say much more would be spoiling far too much.

There are few scenes you can watch in Moon without thinking of its predecessor 2001: a space odyssey, but the genius of Moon is that it pays homage to its forerunners while still managing to say something current and fresh.  The film is a wonderful sample of a dying genre: hard sci-fi.  The kind that makes us ask questions that I’m sure my Grandfather was asking that summer night 40 years ago:  What is it that makes us human?  Where do we go from here? And what does our future hold?

4/5

 

He Robbed Banks...and We cheered

Michael Mann’s Public Enemies is a sharp and fresh look at a romanticized traditional American genre: The gangster flick. Taking its cues from Bogart and Clark Gable alike, the film’s main character is hopelessly fond of these actors’ on-screen personas. He is a bank robber, an idealistic, maybe even romantic one at that, but he is nothing more nothing less.

Public Enemies focuses sharply on the brief crime-spree of legendary bank-robber John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp. It is not a traditional bio-pic, or a summer action flick for that matter. What director Michael Mann does instead, he does with great discipline. He portrays Dillinger, during the two weeks or so that the film covers, as a bank robber, and nothing more. “I rob banks” Milliner says to his lover Billie (Marion Cotillard) with enough confidence to bet the house on it. We aren’t sure of his motivation, except that we suspect he might have something against the institution itself seeing as how he never steals from the customers’ pockets. We aren’t sure of his background either, but according to Mann it doesn’t really matter that has one. What matters is that the audience shrugs off its rememberance of the Robin Hood legend that he has become, to view him as he really was. Unabashedly cool, yes. But oh so tragic as well.
The film opens with a jail-breakout sequence that is unfortunately not as engrossing as it needs to be to get the story rolling. From here we are thrust into the crime saga of ambitions for his future. All he seems to take pride in is doing something and doing it extremely well.

Christian Bale co-stars as Melvin Purvis, working for the newly formed FBI. Purvis is obsessed with fighting criminals like Dilinger and his work becomes centered around apprehending him. He has admiration for his boss J. Edgar Hoover, who dreams of an FBI with black-tie officials, and clean-cut accountants. Purvis however, wants men who have actually been in gunfights, and when the feds’ screw-up leads to a Dilinger prison break and dead civilians, Purvis starts to feel the heavy toll of hunting a man like Dilinger

This plot does meander, and doesn’t always earn many of its emotional arcs it tries to implement, but it is a film of mostly crisp story-telling. The film is gorgeous to look at, with the utilization of digital hand-held shots to tell a story set in the 1930’s creating a breath-taking juxtaposition. I suppose that even though I wasn’t always excited at what was around the next corner, or even hugely invested in its characters, the film did what it was supposed to do anyway. It showed me Dilinger, at least Mann’s interpretation. Take it or leave it.

3/5

This one goes right for the tear ducts...

My Sister’s Keeper takes a sharp left turn from the typical summer fun at the box-office and delivers a story laden with emotional baggage and a plot that is unavoidably audience-grabbing. From the film’s opening monologue, we learn that 11-year old Anna was designed at birth with a very specific purpose. She was born through in-vitro fertilization and used as a source for spare parts for her leukemic 16-yr. old sister Kate. So far, Anna and her parents have succeeded in keeping Kate alive who was supposed to be dead at age 5. Anna however, is starting to become fed up with the whole thing. Bright, and endearing Anna (Abigail Breslin) finds a local attorney boasting a 90% success rate (Alec Baldwin) in order to sue her parents for “medical emancipation”. In short Anna wants to be able to make her own decisions with her own body. She wants a shot at having a somewhat normal childhood and a future that won’t be riddled with medical problems brought on by her parents’ decision to use her.

Anna’s mother Sarah (Cameron Diaz) also happens to be an attorney who is not currently practicing. Her desire to move every mountain and win every battle inevitably gets in the way of her dying daughter’s wishes and Anna’s as well. The family seems to be picture-perfect if only somewhat enigmatic being that some of them are rather under-developed characters in the film.

I am afraid that many people will write off this film because they believe it to be contrived, emotionally manipulative, and too close to genre norms. They would perhaps be partially right, but to completely dismiss this film would be equally unfortunate. The script does a great job of giving us scenes that are emotionally jarring without constantly inserting dialogue that tells us what to think as an audience. Each scene is paced in such a way that just as we begin to feel we have pegged a family member down, the screen fades to black and we are given a different dose of the complexities of this family’s struggle through a different person’s perspective. The film’s “pro-life/pro-choice” themes are clear but we are not hit over the head by director Nick Cassavetes and told what to think. The younger actors in this film are the most consistently strong performances throughout. They virtually never step wrong, and carry the weight of the entire story. An incredibly strong supporting performance is offered by Joan Cusack as the judge hearing Anna’s case. Cusack plays the part of a mother who has recently lost her 12 year old daughter, with intense yet restrained emotional gusto.

I won’t deny that many of these scenes do seem to have been manufactured in a lab long before they ever got on-screen for the sole purpose of hitting us right in the tear ducts. Yes, I’m warning you, the room will get very dusty during this one, so make sure you have your Kleenex box handy. In the end, this film is meditative enough that audiences will not feel as if they are being completely spoon-fed source material to crank up their emotions. The filmmakers manage to take highly thematic material and show remarkable restraint in displaying it.

3.5/5

The Proposal is perfect formula for romantic comedy disaster

I’ve heard it said that the 18-35 year old male is the key demographic for summer movies. I’ll admit I happen to fall under that same age-group expected to shell out their much coveted cash in order to get lost in two hours of on-screen explosions and high-flying car crashes. I would like to think that my disdain for the latest romantic comedy The Proposal however has much more to do with my love for cinema than what the statistics say I should be drawn to. Having said that, you must know that, yes I am a male, I am married, and as a matter of fact I have enjoyed some romantic comedies in the past. I tried, oh how I tried to like The Proposal. There comes a point though, when as the saying goes, familiarity does breed something much closer to contempt than a good time at the movies.

The basics of the plot are as follows. Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) plays a high profile book editor for an influential New-York based publishing company. She has rightfully earned her secret nickname around the office “the witch”, firing employees as if it were a bodily function. Ms. Tate also happens to be a Canadian whose work visa has been recently denied. This poses a problem for Margaret because unless she thinks of a quick plan she will be deported. Enter Margaret’s unsuspecting office assistant Andrew (Ryan Reynolds) whom Margaret unwittingly blackmails into becoming her fiancé in order to retain her citizenship. The whole scheme takes a romantic-comedy turn for the worse when the couple visits Andrew’s family in Alaska for a weekend birthday celebration of Andrew’s 90 year-old grandmother (Betty White).

Really the first 20 minutes of this film are just a quick way to get to the scenes on the island in which the age-old romantic comedy themes are inserted into the plot one by one. Believe me this film has them all. It’s not that there’s a lot wrong with this movie, it’s just that there’s not a lot it does right either. Reynolds and Bullock display great on-screen chemistry together that is wasted with several pro-longed scenes some of which can only best be described as “geriatric” slapstick. (I’m talking to you Betty White). There’s also that curious scene with the little dog that no one is supposed to let outside because “the eagles might snatch him up” . I bet you can already guess fido’s fate, and which out-of-towner is the first to let him outside. Scenes like these are unfortunate even though some of them were amusing and seem to be the film’s biggest problem. It relies so heavily on formula, that the characters and their performances are drowned out about half way through. By that time I didn’t much les care whether or not Andrew caught Margaret at the airport (yes add the airport chase to the list of clichés this movie holds) because I honestly wasn’t that invested.

There is a demographic out there for The Proposal even if Hollywood says I’m not it. So if you’re dying for some formulaic light-heartedness with your date, rush to the theater to see this one. As for me, my quest for another good romantic comedy continues. My wife tells me I should try How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days tonight. It’s going to be a long day.

2.5/5

It’s quite possible you might be taken by Pelham 123

The Taking of Pelham 123 is an action-crime movie about a crazed lunatic who hi-jacks a subway train in order to make a financial gain from an economic downturn. To believe that people go to great lengths during desperate times is not hard to ask. It is the means by which the villain in this film barters with a down-trodden New York economy that stretches the imagination.
John Travolta stars as the mastermind responsible for taking over a New York city subway car one afternoon in order to hold the passengers aboard hostage for a hefty ransom. The film never quite answers whether his axe to grind is a political or personal one, though the plot hints at both. I’m not sure that it matters anyways because director Tony Scott is putting his money on the fact that audiences won’t be asking such questions, or much less care by the time the first hostage is threatened to be offed.

The film co-stars Denzel Washington who plays Walter Garber, an ordinary city subway dispatcher whose day is thrown into disarray by a man calling himself Ryder (Travolta). Ryder’s demands are simple enough for a plot such as this: Get the mayor to deliver him $ 10,000,000 in one hour or hostages will be killed for every minute past. Garber must use his vast knowledge of the underground subway system to devise a plan to negotiate with the lunatic and remove the hostages safely.

The film tries to be much more of a visceral experience then a mental one. With frenetic directing, fast-paced cutting, and a pulsating soundtrack, Tony Scott’s trick is to get you to sweat without paying too much attention to the plot. For the most part, the trick works. The tension is indeed raised but unfortunately not nearly as much by performances, which is what a movie like this needs. Travolta seems to be behaving more like a bad-guy than rooting his performance in real character. The script demands him to swear so he does it. He is asked to wave his gun in the face of helpless pedestrians, so he complies.

The film works better on the city-side of the story. John Turturro gives a fine supporting performance as chief negotiator for the NYPD. Denzel Washington’s character although somewhat familiar by now, is genuinely intriguing. He seems to be the classic wrong man, caught in a situation that he has little or no control over.
The best indicator of how much I enjoyed this movie is probably the fact that at times my hands were gripping the chair. Yes those minutes were few and far between, and yes the action is mostly preposterous, but Pelham 123 has its moments.

3/5

Oh the places we'll go..in Disney's UP

Disney Pixar’s Up is a fairly wonderful film with relatable characters, a life affirming story-line, and a dazzling palette of colorful visuals. In short, Pixar has done it again. Let me go on the record and say, Pixar animation studios is hands-down the best production company in the film industry. I’m not talking merely about animated movies, I’m talking about all of film. Period. If you need any proof of this (if you actually do, then I guess you really haven’t been to the movies in about 10 years), then look no further than this year’s Cannes film festival. Last week Pixar’s Up opened the festival, marking the first time in Cannes history that an animated feature hallmarked the event. Now just imagine a bunch of European art snobs and critics staring at a brightly animated silver screen, 3D glasses donned and all. Need I offer another argument to prove that Pixar blends art and candy like it’s as natural as Mel Gibson films and bloodlust?

Taking their cue’s from the silent era greatness of Charlie Chaplin, their creative teams manage to say an infinite amount by stringing together not series of jokey dialouge, but frame after frame of pictures. Seriously, I wish story-tellers would take notice at these guys’ craft because they’ve got it down. Remember last year in the triumphant WALL*E when we received the entire back-story of planet Earth’s demise in one sweep of the camera? That’s the kind of “nothing-more-nothing-less” approach to story-telling Pixar boasts. Up is no exception to the brilliant understanding of narrative that this creative team possesses. If only live-action films could be as poetic, heart-warming, and yes, as true as these films, then every movie-going experience would be an adventure.

Up focuses on the life of Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner), who is grieving the death of his bride Ellie. We learn that Carl and Ellie were life-long companions who as children found friendship through their common desire for adventure. The two aspired their whole lives to up and leave for an exotic South American location where their adventurous hearts could roam freely. Pinching and saving every penny, the two set out to one day retire far away from the ebb and flow of life. Of course life, as it often does, got in the way of their plans and the two found themselves nursing broken bones, blown tires, and medical bills to pay their way out of their vacation fund. All of this back-story is set up seamlessly within the first few minutes of the film. Since Ellie’s death, Carl has had trouble letting go. His house has become a monument to her, standing in the same place for years, even as the incessant string of retail stores pop up around it.

When Carl meets a chubby, well-intentioned young boy scout named Russell one day, both of their lives begin to change. Russell endearingly approaches Carl’s front door in hopes that the gruff little man will help Russell earn his last of a long line of coveted boy scout badges. “Is there anything I can help you cross?” Russell asks. Although Carl is defiant with the boy at first, we get the idea that Russell will most likely help Carl cross some chasm in his life even though it may not be across the street or across his yard.

When Carl hatches a plan to skip town and head for South America, the boy is accidentally brought along with him. Carl, who spent years as a balloon salesman, attaches several thousand balloons to his house in order to float away from all that reminds him of failure and heartbreak in his own neighborhood. When the duo reaches their destination these very adult targeted themes are carried along in the plot with the help of robotically talking dogs, an exotic bird named Kevin, and a house of balloons that keeps going and going.

If the film has any shortcomings, it’s that the story eventually falls on familiar Pixar formulas of the past. But oh how that formula shines. The film is visually extraordinary, accentuating the tiniest of details within its landscapes. What makes Up so endearing though is the remarkable humanness of its characters. Quite an impossible feat when considering they are cascading over the horizon in a makeshift hot-air balloon house, with a talking dog. Pixar has not merely ruled the market in Animated films, they have redefined the terms of the market itself, continuing to make us laugh and cry over and over again.

Up may not be in the top tier of Pixar films. I’m sure that will be debated for months to come. In the end I don’t think it matters though either. They don’t have to outdo themselves with each subsequent picture. What Up does instead is add to an ever-expanding canon of classic films, not merely cartoons.

4/5

No need to get your rosaries in a bunch...it's only Hollywood

Critics and Catholic leaders alike have panned Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons for defaming the Catholic Church and littering itself with historical inaccuracies. Never fear though. Audiences with even the slightest bit of discernment will understand immediately what they are in for when watching this sequel to 2006’s The Da Vinci Code: pure fiction. What the film does is create a space for believers and agnostics alike: It asks us to respect the mystery of things that are unknown, and portrays the church as sympathetic and pro-science.

It’s a film that works because for what it gets wrong it unapolagetically makes up for in frenetic fast-paced energy. Requiring us to take extreme liberties with history, religion and science the script stays true to its pop fiction roots. It’s a more tightly directed and cleverly plotted version of the original, but don’t be tricked by all the high profile actors attached- it’s still not a series that prides itself in characters. There is little to be explored in Robert Langdon, but a far-fetched maze of theories regarding the Catholic Church and its secret heretical sects fuel his tromp around the Vatican City with a beautiful but less than important co-star.

The Vatican City is only recently mourning the sudden passing of the pope when a group of scientists become the victims of the theft of a dangerous vial of antimatter. Fearing a threat from the ancient underground society known as Illuminati , the Vatican requests the help of Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) in order to stave off further harm. The top four contenders for the new chair (Preferrati) have been kidnapped by the Illuminati and threatened to be offed every hour leading up to midnight. Remember that vial I mentioned earlier? At the stroke of 12, the battery life that the vial is running on will expire and the Vatican city will go up in a blaze far bigger than any black or white smoke from St. Peter’s square.

The circumstances though dire, seem to have been created for no other discernable reason than revenge for years past of the Church’s silencing of great scientific thinkers i.e. Galileo. That and the obvious need for an exciting plot of course. The real reason is not even a side-note for a script such as this, because what really matters is that the trap has been set, and now Langdon must race across the city trying to locate the undisclosed location of each of the four cardinals. Thankfully the enemy is at least kind enough to point to a series of ancient clues used to help Langdon on his search, and lucky for us, he seems to be remarkably savvy at stumbling across them. But again, to ask such obvious questions of how or why is, according to Dan Brown, to completely miss the point.

Yes the plot of this film is completely preposterous, but it is also quite entertaining. It doesn’t ask us to buy anything we see save for 2hrs. of investment in the wildly outlandish plot. It is also a Ron Howard film, and here he does what he does best, making Hollywood pop that is cleverly paced and easy to watch. Just don’t expect to learn anything about history. If you want that, head to the library because after all, that’s not why you’re sitting in a movie theater on a summer day in the first place.

3/5

Star Trek= Great Reboot of a Tired Franchise

Simply hearing that there is a new Star Trek movie is enough to make some grab their plastic Spock-ears and rush down to the local cineplex. The series has often pandered to that type of fan-boy that the rest of us would much rather see on TV than have to deal with sitting behind us at the theater. In fact, I’m sure that some of you reading this may need nothing more than the afore-mentioned title to make you lose interest and move on to the next article. If director J.J. Abrams has anything to say about it, those days might be gone for good. Abrams’ new installment to the age-old franchise boldly goes where no Star Trek film has gone before..kind of.

Although the plot is nothing terribly new or fascinating for Star Trek material, the young, hip cast create characters that are intriguing to watch as their origins unfold before us on screen. Abrams tactfully blends the perfect amount of action, stunning visuals, nostalgia, and pop-philosophy to create a chapter in the series that above all else is extremely watchable.

When we first meet young James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) he is brash, naeive and adventurous. Prone to bar fights, stealing cars, and chasing girls, the legacy of Kirk’s Starfleet captain father has gone before him. Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) convinces Kirk to enlist in Starfleet academy and follow in his father’s footsteps. Kirk, having quickly proved himself a natural completes the 4 year study a year earlier than the allotted time.

During Kirk’s rise we meet many of the other characters that will become so influential later in the story. He meets and develops a friendship with Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), and initially squares off with that ever-historic Vulcan who places sheer logic over emotion, Spock. The two’s relationship becomes an ever present power struggle on the U.S.S. Entrerprise.

There of course are bad guys that are threatening the crew’s and the planet’s existence. There are Black holes and time travel, both of which seem to be topics that Star Trek has created its own rules about. The time travel theme is used in particular as a device to bring Old Spock (played by the original Leonard Nimoy) into the script. It seems to serve no other discernable purpose.

I am sure that unabashed Trekkies will find this a bit of a departure from the heart of the original series. You won’t find the same amount of moralizing from our characters that give the original series its running commentary on social/political issues. The result is a film that feels less like true science fiction and more like summer popcorn. Abrams gets away with it by offering picture-perfect casting to help create depth to characters that in previous installments would have seemed uninteresting to anyone not already invested in the show’s history. The film is true to the heart of the source material though and helps reboot this franchise for a 21st century audience. Future installments with this same cast and crew will not doubt “live long and prosper” for generations of trekkies to come.

4/5

Origins: Still has a lot of explaining to do..

The calendar may still read Spring, but last week the summer movie season officially got under way. Unfortunately, X Men origins: Wolverine does little more than to start the summer off with a thud.

Fox’s resurgence of the X-Men franchise is the first installment in a series intended to explain the origins of each of the main characters from the comic story. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as the tortured mutant hero Logan aka Wolverine. The film boasts a few action sequences which are entertaining if only for the briefest of moments, but otherwise begs the question, why is this story necessary in the first place?

Logan and his half-brother Victor’s (Liev Schrieber) story begins in 1840. After Logan kills his adoptive father, who had previously murdered the brothers’ biological father the boys run away together. After serving together in the Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam (if you’re new to this source material, yes the two boys live forever and at some point retained the age of which they would look most handsome on-screen), The two are recruited by a special forces op. led by William Stryker. The unit is made up entirely of mutants and Logan, eventually tired of the atrocities committed by the wayward band, retreats to a life of peace and solitude in the Canadian Rockies. His life becomes bent upon vengeance after the murder of his girlfriend, and he joins the secret “X” program intended to manipulate his powerful abilities.

Forget about failing to land properly, this film’s plot never seems to even take off right. We are reduced to years of back-story via picture frames during the opening credits, and are thrust right into the middle of Wolverine’s plight for resistance. Perhaps the biggest disappointment though, stems from the fact that our hero is completely uninspired and uninteresting. He never once says anything that challenges us or makes us question his struggle. He offers nothing of the such to those who come in contact with him throughout the film either. This might actually be excusable if it wasn’t for the fact his powers virtually eliminate any stakes that could exist within the story. He uses his razor-sharp blades to fly through the air, dismantle a helicopter and walk-away virtually untouched, which seems to be his character’s only real purpose: stimulus.

Unlike Batman or Iron Man from last summer, Wolverine seems to be laying up on the screen strictly for our own amusement. “Look at how he does what he does and how cool it looks in the process”, the director seems to want us to be saying. Some of us undoubtedly will be voicing such phrases when leaving the theater, but on the whole there is so much more to care about during the story that doesn’t even exist. Nothing learned, nothing gained, which is unfortunate when your film boasts to be a movie about origins. Last time I checked, origins implied story.



2/5

The Soloist, watchable but complicated

The Soloist is a mine-field of emotional story lines and social/political issues. These elements make for a film that is thoroughly watchable with a story that is perhaps hard to tell because it is so complicated to deal with.

Like Russell Crowe’s character in State of Play, Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) is a journalist for a major newspaper faced with the overwhelming statistics of declining readership. There is no sign that Lopez appears to be overwhelmed with the prospect of the written word vanishing from the face of the earth though. He appears to have enough to worry about coming up with ideas for his column “Points West”, while managing a relationship with his estranged ex-wife.

One day when Steve is wandering around downtown LA, he comes across a man. At first glance he seems like any of the thousands of homeless wandering the Los Angeles streets, but Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (Jamie Foxx) is different. Accompanied with a shopping cart that contains his entire life, and slowly moving his bow over his two-stringed violin, we learn that this man perhaps had a fantastic fall from greatness. It is clear that Nathaniel is mentally unstable. He talks in ways in which he probably hears his music: A continuous flow of thoughts sometimes unfinished and unrelated. Steve sees potential in him, if even for merely a story subject at first, but a relationship quickly grows.

With a little research, Steve discovers that Nathaniel was once enrolled at the Juliard School of Music but dropped out after two years. When Steve runs a piece on Nathaniel in the Times, a reader sends a brand new cello to the paper in hopes that Nathaniel will be able to aquire it. Steve uses the new instrument as a way to coax Nathaniel into opening up his life and his story.

What Steve is trying to gain from this relationship is never quite certain, but with great tenacity he tries to find a way for Nathaniel to be healthy. He makes the tragic assumption that by getting Nathaniel back into society, his demons will be released. Nathaniel has the kind of mental illness that could probably be drastically reduced with proper medication, but is an empty apartment with daily meds and a normal 9 to 5 the kind of freedom that he really needs? The film dances around this and many other questions surrounding the issue of homelessness and how every-day working Americans try to respond to it. This does pose a problem by film’s end as we are not sure exactly how to think or feel, yet this seems to be a story that demands that kind of attention from us as an audience.

The performances here are just what they need to be and nothing more. Foxx plays the part of madness with a kind of reserved tone that gives Nathaniel grace and depth. He hides behind his music and the elaborate costumes he wears on the streets from day to day. Downey Jr is easy to sympathize with even if as our hero he wears the badge a little sloppily. The wonderful Catherine Keener does a fine job as Steve’s “editor” and former wife, although she is grossly under-utilized in this film.

The film’s plot may be a little unfocused but the script seems to make amends for this. When Lopez is approached with the idea of adapting Nathaniel’s story into a book he dolefully resists. There is much more to the story than is able to be expressed on the written page. Quite simply, it’s complicated.

3.5/5

When we didn't need glasses to go to the movies...

Dreamworks Studios’ newest animated film Monsters Vs. Aliens boasts an all-star cast, but the technology involved takes center stage. Call it a gimmick, a way to sell more tickets, to cut down on piracy, whatever you like. In the end, the film is actually important because of the fact that it helps usher in a new era in viewing movies. I can’t speak for myself, but I’m sure that if you see it in the old (does anyone feel as strange reading that as I do writing it?) 2D format, a fun time will still be had at the Cineplex.

Susan (Reese Witherspoon) is the unlikely heroine who on her wedding day experiences an extraordinary event. When she is struck by a falling meteorite infused with a rare and powerful element called quantonium, she grows to an enormous size. Dubbed “Ginormica” by the feds, she is absconded and imprisoned in a secret warehouse with other misfits like herself. There is the mad scientist Dr. Cockroach (Hugh Laurie) who is a half human half roach hybrid, B.O.B. (Seth Rogen) a gelatinous and very much brainless mass brought to life in a bizarre scientific experiment, The Missing Link (Will Arnett) A creature-from-the-black-lagoon-like Lizard man bent on scaring the world’s most popular beaches, and a skyscraper sized mutant larvae, insectosaurus. These oddities have been deemed as monsters by the U.S. government and have remained in captivity for nearly 50 years.

When evil alien lord Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) arrives on earth bent on retrieving the quantonium and destroying the world, the monsters get their chance to regain their social standing in society by helping stop the alien invasion.

As you can imagine, this is all too much for Susan to handle. But as the story progresses and her character becomes more and more confident in herself, her powers seem more like an afterthought than a necessity for beating the aliens. It’s a story about having confidence in one’s self no matter what society or in Susan’s case her hair-brained fiancé thinks of her. Quite honestly, Susan represents female empowerment, and young girls will no doubt find her character endearing and worth rooting for. For adults, there are just enough spoofs and references to classic sci-fi movies, including a hilarious jab at the Stephen Spielberg classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind to keep you entertained

At times, the plot of the film is vaguely reminiscent of Pixar’s Monsters Inc, and believe me it’s pretty simplistic. The animation of the movie clearly takes center stage here as it is the first cartoon to be filmed in “tru3D”. The 13th Ave. Warren Theater currently offers the film in 3D. Adults may find it distracting, but to your little ones, I’m sure they won’t notice or much care about the difference in the “old fashioned” 2D.

3/5

Oh the waiting...

When you are young summer represents that time in which anything is possible. For a short time, you feel lighter than air, basking in the hope that the previous year is far behind you, and the future may be miles away. Adventureland is a coming-of-age film that captures that spirit of waiting. It tells the story of kids working at a summer theme park who are waiting for true love, for a way out of the house, for a college education, and for anything that will break them free from the patterns of their daily life. Even if they are in no hurry for the fall to get here.

If you think that the main character James is completely directionless that’s where you would be wrong. James knows exactly what he wants from life, but like the rest of his co-workers, he doesn’t know how he is going to get it. Thus the theme-park where his new 20-something comrades reside serves as a kind of “in limbo” waiting place for, amongst other things, their maturity. It’s the late 80’s and James Brennan (Eisenberg) is a squeaky clean graduate on his way to travel Europe for the summer. Times are a bit harder for his parents though, and when the funds seem to be running dry for his upcoming trip and future plans to attend Columbia grad school, James has no choice but to land a summer job to save up money. When he walks into a job at the local theme, park Adventureland, James unknowingly steps into a summer of romance, personal growth and introspection.

He meets Joel a student of Russian literature who, despite his brute personality is probably much too brilliant to work the job he is currently serving. There is Lisa P, the cute one, and the flirt who is the obsession of most of the male employees at adventureland. I’m pretty sure that it’s no coincidence that Lisa’s Adventureland t-shirt says “Rides*Rides*Rides”. Ryan Reynolds gives a toned down performance as the maintenance man at the park, Connel. Connell is married, but you would never know it watching him tell stories of his days “in the band” to enquiring blondes waiting in line at the tilt-a-whirl. James is most interested in Emily though. She works in the Games department with James and appears to have some depth that draws James to her. Her sexual experience far outweights James but he is not intimidated. Perhaps it is his character’s one flaw that he says too much. It lends his character to awkward conversations around females like Emily, and divulging too much about her exploits to co-workers. At the same time, she is a young girl who has a tortured past, and we believe that she finds some kind of solace in James’ character. They share something over the course of the summer, even if it is never articulated. As you can imagine all of these characters begin to intersect in a way that is often predictable but is seemingly genuine.

The film has most of the young adult comedy tropes that you’ve come to expect, including the seminal virgin who surprisingly, in this case is played suprisingly by the lead male character. He smokes pot gets into as little trouble as he knows how to, and is as genuine a kid as you will see on-screen in a comedy with an equal amount of jokes as nostalgia The goofy title will mislead you but there is something sweet and genuinely sincere plugging along through the plot of this little film.

3.5/5

State of Play/State of Flux

“State of Play” is a fairly well acted and tautly wound political thriller. Like all really good scripts, its details are nuanced. It engages us because it takes place in the halls of Congress and a city newspaper as well. It’s not about cops and bad guys with guns, its about truth. How we uncover it, and how we process it.

Russell Crowe plays an ace investigative reporter for “The Washington Globe” in Cal McAffery. He has just covered three separate murders, all of which soon seem to be inexplicably linked. Rachel McAdams plays the newbie in the office who McAffery thinks could heed the wisdom of age-old reporters like himself. Namely, don’t rush to the gossip columns and spill the “truth” before full investigation has taken place. The problem is that in the demand for more readers, the paper’s new corporate bosses have demanded to cut costs and get more gossip scoops that appeal to readers today. Helen Mirren’s role as the chief editor accentuates the company’s relentless knack of breathing down the neck of reporters like Cal.

Remember the three dead I mentioned before? One them was a researcher for Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) who was launching a full-scale investigation of an unholy alliance known as PointCorp. Another one of the victims held a briefcase containing photographs of the woman that was doing the research for Collins. Soon we begin to see that all of these deaths are connected.

There are many more plot twists and surprises to even get into here, but this plot is interesting enough to keep you invested for most of the 2 hr. run time. It’s a movie in which political scandals and cover-ups are revealed a little too conveniently by story’s end; but an exercise in cleverly orchestrated suspense.

On the one hand the film is a meditation on the crisis that newspapers all over the country are experiencing. The demand for corporate headlines that will garner the attention of the last few straggling readers overshadows the need for cold-hard-facts journalism. Coupled with the oft-perceived two-bit gossip columnist style of blogging, our hero clearly feels true to the heart of what his medium has always been about. There is a subtle urgency to this material that makes you feel as if you are watching the last days of the newspaper business unfold right before your eyes. Although the stakes our two leads are involved in are never so much articulated, it slowly becomes evident that perhaps what they are fighting for is the nature of the business itself.
Let us not forget what has been said regarding our publication however. The medium may change, but we will still exist. Somehow or another we need the press. I think that’s what makes a movie like this important. The need to process information, and seek truth will still live on even if the old-fashioned format of printed media exists solely in the movies. Which it perhaps will someday. Like one of my favorite critics has said commenting on this film: It is way more fun to say on-screen “Stop the Press!” instead of “Stop the Upload!”


3.5/5

Like they say....life can be messy

Life is a messy business. That’s what the proprietors of Sunshine Cleaning tell their clientele as they tromp through the streets of their town selling anyone who will listen. Similarly, audiences viewing the film Sunshine Cleaning experience something similar. We are told over and over again how sweet, tragic, poignant, and clever this film is before we ever get a chance to let it wash over us. The result in Sunshine Cleaning’s case is a film with strong performances with a well-intentioned director that will fail to resonate with audiences after its over.

The wonderful Amy Adams plays a single mother named Rose Lorkowski. She is working hard to support her son Oscar and unreliable sister (Emily Blunt). Alan Arkin, in a role virtually cut and pasted from his Oscar winning performance in 2006’s Little Miss Sunshine plays the girls’ father who is bent on get-rich quick schemes. It is clear that Rose’s own past has betrayed her. Once the cheerleading beauty queen in high school envied by most of the girls in her class, Rose has become quite discontent. She still sees the quarterback (Steve Zahn) although it is little more than a despondent love affair. Despite her efforts to see the world through the kind of colored glasses her name implies, she can’t help but feel stuck in the direction that life has pushed her. She works day after day for a house cleaning service painfully bumping into old friends who revel in their own financial success, while Rose tries her hardest to convince them she is “more than a maid”, even if she does have little to show for it.

When her son gets expelled from school Rose falls into a plan to make some fast cash. She develops the business “Sunshine Cleaning” in which she is paid to clean up messy crime scenes after the investigators have left. She doesn’t have to deal with bodies as they have already been removed, just the “afterthought” of what happened, which can sometimes be very grisly. Rose soon recruits her sister to join the business and together they begin to enter into the lives of people who have had their world turned upside down by unimaginable tragedy.
There are some genuinely touching scenes in this film, including moments of near brilliance from the Oscar-nominated Adams. There are enough interesting scenes that I am still convinced there is a good film in here somewhere. Instead we are treated to pay-offs that never fully satisfy because we aren’t always emotionally invested, and breaking the golden rule of great movie making” “show don’t tell”

By the film’s end it becomes a story about one of several possible themes: The girls’ own acceptance of death and the ability to move forward, the need for hope, the journey to discover one’s self. I’m not sure it really matters to this director, as long as you pick one that pulls your emotional heart strings the most.

2.5/5