Category: Reviews

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a paint-by-numbers spectacle with manufactured profundity.

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a family friendly movie about dreaming big, acting spontaneous and being adventurous. That it has a patterned, scientific, literal mindedness to its approach is part of this perfectly coifed film’s problem. Ben Stiller has made a film where the magic and the life lessons are all paint by numbers.

Walter Mitty (Stiller) as described here and in James Thurber’s famous short story from 1939 is a daydreamer, constantly getting lost in the clouds with fantasies of rescuing puppies in a burning building for the girl of his dreams (Kirsten Wiig) or having an epic, super power driven fight with his boss (Adam Scott).

But his real life involves processing film prints for the dying Life magazine, and he finds himself unable to think of anything he’s done notable or interesting as he fills out an online dating profile. When the prized photo intended for the cover goes missing, he sets off on a quest to track down its elusive photographer (Sean Penn). Continue reading “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”

August: Osage County

Meryl Streep is excellent in the broadest, most vile performance in her career.

Meryl Streep has gone broader in her acting as her career has continued to explode. Between a vicious nun, Julia Child, a scathing magazine editor and Margaret Thatcher, her roles as an ordinary everywoman from “Manhattan” and “Kramer vs. Kramer” have somewhat faded in memory.

With a role like Violet Weston, Streep is playing the broadest and vilest in her career. The character from Tracy Letts’s play “August: Osage County”, unseen by me, is infamous, and people have been quick to label Streep as merely scene-chewing. Her challenge as an actress is to rise above the bigness and vices of her character, to show a wounded, sympathetic and tragic figure underneath all the bile.

When we first meet her in “August: Osage County,” she’s worn, frumpy and unrecognizable, sporting the thin hairdo she had in the concentration camp in “Sophie’s Choice,” this time ravaged by chemo therapy. But with her big black wig on or not, she shows no vulnerability in taking swipes at her family while being slightly endearing in the process. Continue reading “August: Osage County”

American Hustle

“American Hustle” is David O. Russell’s brilliant charade of a movie led by an amazing cast.

 

Christian Bale gained 43 pounds for his role in “American Hustle.” When he first appears on screen, he spends minutes “perfecting” an elaborate comb over of glued on hair and parted strands that will fool no one.

The beauty is that Bale and O. Russell have fooled everyone. We immediately are torn between the “real” Bale, the real character he’s portraying or the carefully tailored version he’s putting on for his associates, and if this portrayal is good enough, we’ll believe whatever these master performers put in front of us.

“American Hustle” is a brilliant charade of a movie. It’s a talky, intricate and intrigue filled caper in which everyone’s a con artist and there’s little sense of what’s real and what isn’t. We’ve been conditioned to believe in the movies there’s a certain element of truth within each story, no matter how fictional, fantastical or how deceitful and crafty the characters.

O. Russell’s film takes the real life story of ABSCAM, a ‘70s FBI sting operation that convicted several congressmen and a senator, and turns that concept of reality on its head. He opens the film with “Some of this actually happened,” a clever twist on the ambiguous “Based on a True Story,” and inhabits his and Eric Singer’s screenplay with a wacky, high octane and deliciously fun investigation that can’t be fully followed, trusted or believed in the slightest. Continue reading “American Hustle”

The Hunt

Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt” explores what it is to be a marked man. With Mads Mikkelsen.

How do you survive when you are a marked man? How do you convince someone who already has the answer they’re looking for? How do you overcome a label and a conviction that’s gone viral? How do you defend against something that cannot be proven and is already a given?

Those are the fundamental questions behind the powerful Danish drama “The Hunt.” A man is accused of pedophilia after a young girl gets upset with him and tells a white lie she can’t pull back. Immediately the world unravels around him and the word has been spoken. Thomas Vinterberg’s film is a practical examination of human nature in a not unlikely circumstance.

The poor soul at its center is Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen, best known to American audiences as Le Chiffre from “Casino Royale”), a loveable kindergarten aid and divorcee. His son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm) begs to be with his father during Lucas’s custody battle, he’s got a new girlfriend in his colleague Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), and his relationship with his best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen) has never been stronger.

He’s got a good life, and everyone loves Lucas. But Theo’s youngest daughter Klara (Annika Wedderkopp) loves him just a little more. Lucas walks her home from kindergarten, helps her when she gets lost and lets her walk his dog Fanny. During playtime one afternoon, Klara innocently steals a kiss from Lucas and makes him a heart out of beads. He plays the parent and says she should give that kiss to one of the boys, but instead she gets angry and tells the teacher “Lucas is ugly and has a penis.” She then says Lucas’s stands up straight after she gets the wrong idea elsewhere, and Lucas’s fate is sealed. Continue reading “The Hunt”

20 Feet From Stardom

“20 Feet From Stardom” is an American rockumentary about finding personal strength, identity and success through music.

“20 Feet From Stardom” documents the work and life of some of the most iconic pop culture figures you’ve never heard of. They’re the voices of The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter”, of David Bowie’s “Young Americans” and Tina and Ike Turner’s Ikettes. They’re the unheralded backup singers all throughout rock history.

Morgan Neville’s film is insightful because it does more than give a few people a platform to shine; it delves into the complicated nuances of this job, this industry and the effect it has on these individuals’ lives.

Neville is the producer behind such rock docs as “Pearl Jam Twenty” and “Johnny Cash’s America,” and he uses that clout to gain access to such rock royalty as Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger and Stevie Wonder. Bruce explains at the film’s opening that the walk from the back of that stage to the front is a complicated one, and some of the best in the biz have flown under the radar not for lack of trying.

To be a backup singer, the job involves conforming to the sound, the voice and the need of the song. It inherently rejects individual expression such that you can be part of an ensemble. Continue reading “20 Feet From Stardom”

Her

Spike Jonze’s “Her” deepens our relationship with humans by embracing love and technology.

We live in a world of screens. There are now more screens and devices on this planet than there are humans. So it’s amazing how few of them there are in Spike Jonze’s “Her.”

Jonze’s film only invokes technology as a way to communicate the imperfect beauty of human nature. “Her” has a sci-fi high concept but it’s as true and honest a relationship movie as any ever made.

In Jonze’s near future, men don un-ironic mustaches, pants are beige and hitched high with no buttons or belt loops for style, walls and homes are pristine white and softly focused but not exaggeratedly so, and few people crane their necks staring down at cell phones. Everyone can be seen talking with head held high, but they’re speaking to indiscreet ear buds implanted in their sides, getting headlines and emails read aloud to them on the subway. In this new age Los Angeles, everyone is alone together. Continue reading “Her”

A Hijacking

“A Hijacking” is a scathing indictment of the corporate culture told through a compelling thriller.

A Hijacking

I wrote in my review of “Captain Phillips” that the movie was really about two businessmen, leaders who respected one another and negotiated a deal. “A Hijacking” is a Danish film likewise about a shipping freighter being boarded by Somali pirates, but this film is the one that hits at the reality of how men do business.

It’s a cold-blooded negotiation, one in which the men do not respect each other or play fair. It’s a thriller, but a slow one designed to drag things out mercilessly and endlessly, making “Captain Phillips” look like just a busy weekend. “A Hijacking” works as a complex drama and thriller because it’s an indictment of corporate culture first. Tobias Lindholm’s film lacks a hero or a fulfilling rescue, and it serves as a stark counterpart to Paul Greengrass’s movie.

The captain of the hijacked Rozen isn’t even on the boat. His name is Peter Ludvigsen (Søren Malling), and he’s the CEO of international company that owns the vessel. In an early scene we see Peter about to storm out of a negotiation meeting with Japanese businessmen, successfully knocking down their asking price by a few million dollars in a manner of seconds.

So when he gets wind of his boat being taken capture and held for ransom, he hires a consultant to advise him on the pirates’ intentions and takes a seat at the negotiating chair himself. Motivated partly by ego, partly by compassion and partly by duty, Peter is advised by his consultant that pirates don’t think like regular businessmen. Give them their first asking price and they immediately ask for more. Play the negotiating game and show no emotion that might cause the pull of a trigger. Continue reading “A Hijacking”

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The second Hobbit film remains as meandering and as inconsequential as the first.

The first “Hobbit” film was needlessly long, padded with backstory, cameos and Easter eggs into a cartoony, rehashed bore. Peter Jackson’s devotion to his source material just seemed like indulgence the first time around. With “The Desolation of Smaug” however, Jackson has turned that obsession into a Wikipedia entry.

This second “Hobbit” film is so devoid of actual ideas or substance that it is not merely a meandering middle film without a proper beginning or ending, but it stands to be about nothing at all. It is so obsessed with its own plot details that “The Desolation of Smaug” becomes a litany of portentous prophecies, stern warnings and untrusting conversations between various species and creeds.

The film doesn’t so much pick up where the last one left off but drops us in a new CGI playground. First they outrun the orcs still chasing them, then they escape the spiders in a mystical forest, then they escape the elves holding them captive, and finally they evade the humans somehow bent on arresting them. Eventually they will reach the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) that was merely hyped in the first film, only setting up what is now prepared to be a three hour long battle sequence in “The Hobbit: There and Back Again.”

Missing from all of this is a sense of purpose and a set of values. Gone are the words of wisdom from Gandalf (Ian McKellen), who sidelines himself for much of the movie, or even the cheeky riddles and split personalities from everyone’s favorite Gollum, here replaced by Smaug to only recite more threats about how the dwarves will never reclaim their home.

What he has added (because even Jackson is not averse to fan fiction) is mightily slim. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) returns mostly for stylish, Elvish beheadings of orcs, but he’s also caught in a love triangle between the new elf maiden Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and the dwarf Kili (Aiden Turner). This drama is as manufactured and stiff as the elves. It introduces a woman and an extra archer into the mayhem and little else. Continue reading “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”

Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer

The HBO Documentary only covers the courtroom circus surrounding the infamous Russian punk band Pussy Riot.

On February 21, 2012, a group of young Russian women entered into Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior Orthodox Church and staged a political protest and performance art piece. They danced and sang a punk song called “Mother of God, Drive Putin Away” in revolt to the re-election of the Russian President.

This femme group is Pussy Riot, and shortly after three of the girls were arrested for “hooliganism” in a sacred place, their iconography went viral and sparked international outrage among women, musicians and political activists everywhere.

The HBO documentary “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer” chronicles their preparation, their subsequent trial and the social unrest in Russia that surrounded the investigation. And yet the band isn’t famous because a few girls don’t like Vladimir Putin. The band is iconic because they have universal beliefs and values, but the documentary wants only to cover the circus.

Members of Pussy Riot don balaclavas on their heads like ski masks and neon colored leggings underneath short dresses in the cold. They stand for women’s rights and shout about LGBT politics in their performances. Pussy Riot isn’t quite a band either; they’re a political activist group first, performing short, poorly recorded songs in high traffic areas while someone records and posts their act of rebellion online.

Mike Lerner and Max Pozdorovkin’s film shoots their preparation for these guerrilla acts like a secretive heist movie, shooting from dark attics at low angles and shaky cam doc-realism to convey their urgency and the social unrest surrounding them. It’s compelling filmmaking, and when we see the fly on the wall conversations in the courtroom that one of the girl’s fathers might be beat up by Orthodox thugs leaving the trial, there’s a true sense of nervousness at stake. Continue reading “Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer”

Computer Chess

“Computer Chess” is a fascinating docu-realistic experiment, but it gets trapped in a stalemate of ideas.

I can’t quite decide if “Computer Chess” is a brilliant bad movie or just a bad bad movie. It derives from the mumblecore movement of awkward dialogue, minimal story and consequence, ugly analog video cinematography and the “real kind” of naturalistic acting.

Some fascinating films have been made of these stripped parts, and Andrew Bujalski’s is one of them. “Computer Chess” is a movie that through diligent attention to detail immerses the viewer in another reality. It fools the viewer into believing this is a documentary and demonstrates remarkable craft in doing so. But whether or not this beguiling film is actually a reality worth delving into is another question altogether.

“Computer Chess” is the story of a group of programmers in the early 1980s who have gathered at a drab Midwest motel to test their chess software and see which is best. The winning team even gets the opportunity to play the master of ceremonies (film critic Gerald Peary) and see if for the first time a computer can best a human at a game of chess.

Bujalski transports us to a world complete with bulky computers the size of a wine fridge and haircuts from another time. He pulls back the camera and reveals a sea of pocket-protected shirts, thick rimmed glasses and ugly named tags. The black and white cinematography is not merely grainy and ugly; it’s downright amateurish as though the man hired to document this piddly occasion was learning for the first time. Continue reading “Computer Chess”