Category: Reviews

Frances Ha

“Frances Ha” touches on the same generational dilemmas of modern millenials in the same way as “Girls,” but does so with its own style and originality.

Does 27 feel old? 23-years-old, which I’ll be in a week, is starting to feel that way: too young to really have forged a career in this day and age, yet too far out of school to still be coasting.

So it must feel ancient for someone like Frances (Greta Gerwig), the title character of “Frances Ha,” who is rapidly approaching that of a mature failure, but still feels young enough to be figuring things out. Noah Baumbach’s film captures the generational feel of modern millenials, much the same themes as Lena Dunham’s “Girls,” but does so in a way that feels fresh and personal.

Frances might just be a female Woody Allen surrogate for a new generation. Baumbach and Gerwig’s dialogue often feels like vintage “Hannah and Her Sisters,” with four-way conversations surrounding a dinner table that touch on joblessness, hipster poverty and casual hook-up culture in all the best ways, and all of it happening a mile a minute. Continue reading “Frances Ha”

Jack Reacher

Twists and meaningless McGuffins galore, “Jack Reacher” requires a patience that this pulpy movie doesn’t fully earn.

Look, I get that killing is bad no matter how you go about doing it, but Jack Reacher is a plain thug. Only firing a gun if he’s within point blank range, Reacher prefers to beat the pulp out of lesser opponents, finally getting in a few brutal finishing moves to the crotch, by breaking legs or wrists or finally stomping someone’s face in.

He makes for a disturbingly cold action hero, and the movie that shares his name, “Jack Reacher,” feels much the same.

Blending TV crime procedural talking points with hyper violent vigilante excitement, “Jack Reacher” explores the investigation of a man who went on a sharpshooter killing spree, murdering five random and innocent people, only to frame the attack on an Iraq War veteran discharged for a similar attack. Just before he’s beaten and goes into a coma, he asks for Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), his former military detective, to come and help him.

Based on Lee Child’s series of novels, “Jack Reacher” has a distinctly literary quality for an action film. It’s labored with a heavy backstory and conspiracy nuance, but all of it in arguably the wrong places. We learn an awful lot about the supposed murderer, the female lawyer, investigator and love interest (Rosamund Pike) and her relationship with her father (Richard Jenkins) and the bizarre mastermind without even much of a reason to be in the movie (Werner Herzog being absolutely sinister and iconic while barely lifting an eyebrow), but very little about the mysterious Jack Reacher. Continue reading “Jack Reacher”

Star Trek Into Darkness

“Star Trek Into Darkness” isn’t overstuffed, but isn’t exactly balanced, and it begs for more innovation.

J.J. Abrams’s innovation on the “Star Trek” reboot was that he managed to take a long-standing institution, play with a very sacred universe’s timeline and still manage to canonize it. If he didn’t manage to impress me, and I was one of very few, it’s that doing so was his only innovation.

Set pieces existed for their own sake, as did stylistic camera twirls and lens flares. Dialogue teetered on being self-serious and self-referential without pausing for breath, and the plot that grew out of it didn’t make as much sense as it appeared. Even Roger Ebert pointed out that in this futuristic sci-fi epic, space battles were reduced to cataclysmic mayhem and sparring with fists and swords.

And although “Star Trek Into Darkness” improves upon that last aspect to the point that I enjoyed everything I saw, part of me wishes the Abrams from “Super 8” showed up, to dust off a cliché, and boldly go where none have gone before. Point being, if you’re looking for innovation here, you won’t find it. Continue reading “Star Trek Into Darkness”

Mud

Jeff Nichols’s Mud is a true Americana movie that, like a wise elder, has true secrets and wisdom to impart.

Jeff Nichols, along with Ramin Bahrani, is the best director today capturing the spirit of down-south Americana values. His third feature “Mud” follows this tradition by showing just how deeply rooted all his characters are, each with their own deep-seeded histories that guide the film through otherwise rough waters.

Deep in the rivers of Arkansas, two boys named Ellis and Neckbone (Tye Sheridan of “The Tree of Life” and debut performer Jacob Lofland) come across an island, a boat stuck in a tree and a drifter named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) calling it his home. These kids have hard faces and journey out into the open fully aware, yet still wary, of the danger. So when Mud appears and asks for their help, they act on instinct and ingrained country wisdom.

Mud’s a murderer on the lam with only a shirt and a pistol to his name. He explains to the boys that he killed a man trying to defend the love of his life, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). The two plan to escape together, but Juniper is aimless, uncertain and faced with her own danger.

It’s a thriller in this way, one that turns a bit too Hollywood near the end for its own good, but the intricate subtext surrounding the livelihood of Ellis is what makes “Mud” feel so at home. Continue reading “Mud”

Smashed

“Smashed” is a touching, light, relatable story of a functioning alcoholic, an idea and persona that makes it that much more authentic.

Movies about alcoholism are always pitiful and tragic in nature. The characters in “Leaving Las Vegas” or even as far back as “The Lost Weekend” are at the lowest of low, and drinking is the end-all/be-all of problems.

“Smashed” tells a story about a functioning alcoholic, or someone who has survived this way for a long time. It recognizes that alcoholism is just a catalyst in people’s complex lives; the deeper problems are systemic. In that way, James Ponsoldt’s film feels infinitely more relatable. Continue reading “Smashed”

Somewhere

Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere” is not as successful at tackling the themes of “Lost in Translation,” but it does gives us a glimmer of hope

Never has a performance of two hot twin nurses spinning on stripper poles to the tune of Foo Fighters’ “My Hero” been as listless as it is in Sofia Coppola’s “Somewhere.” It’s not merely the story of a guy so jaded with these pleasures but of a person with so little going on in his life that this incident feels quite literally like nothing at all.

Coppola first introduces us to movie star Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) racing around a track in his Ferrari, an elegant, but obvious way of saying he’s going nowhere fast. In between films and sporting a broken wrist, his life has diminished to pure tedium.

He sits through mindless press conferences, interviews and awards shows and waits motionless as special effects artist smother him in clay. These are the more mundane moments of a movie star, but arguably still exciting enough for some people. Coppola however shoots without much focus in the frame, mismatched colors and a movie free of music that makes it appear as if these moments were non-events. Continue reading “Somewhere”

The Great Gatsby

The parties in “The Great Gatsby” are grand, but does Baz Luhrmann see any similarities between now and then beyond “people were gangsta”?

Part of what has made “The Great Gatsby” so enduring is that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is a trim, elegant story with themes that touch on American values old and new. And yet as would be his nature, Baz Luhrmann has transformed “The Great Gatsby” into a long, over-stylized melodrama. Because it lacks Fitzgerald’s resounding tone, it’s a glitzy movie stuffed to the brims that feels strangely empty.

Luhrmann spoke on “The Colbert Report” about how modern the book feels after all these years, and no one is arguing with him there. But what does he see as the similarities between the Roaring Twenties and now? Surely it can’t be the economy, music, fashion or ideas about race.

Luhrmann sees the massive parties and equates them to raves on the wildest scale. He sees scantily clad dancers and choreographs them to hip hop, and for everyone else wearing suits, throwing around money and driving flashy custom rides, he sees them all as gangsta.

Make no mistake; the parties in “Gatsby” are grand. Done up in 3-D and bursting with colors, streamers and floating butterflies, Luhrmann throws a gigantic bash. All the greater then in demonstrating Gatsby’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) unwavering love for Daisy (Carey Mulligan), or something like that.

“What’s all this for,” Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) asks Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki). “That, my dear fellow, is the question.” But Luhrmann is too enamored with his 3-D effects and the celebratory nature of it all to justify how any of this speaks more broadly about our time or theirs’. Continue reading “The Great Gatsby”

Iron Man 3

“Iron Man 3” and its franchise as a whole has resisted a firm genre label because it’s trying to be everything at once and just feels like nothing at all.

How would you put a label on the “Iron Man” franchise? What is it about this franchise that has allowed it to survive reboots, drastic recasting, self parody and made Tony Stark the most likeable character in the complete Marvel Universe?

The popular candidate is Robert Downey Jr., but his on-camera chemistry with Gwyneth Paltrow is part of the reason the franchise has resisted description. These two are screwball comics on par with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and their dialogue mixed with their story in “Iron Man 3” comes across as part comedy, part action movie, part superhero fantasy, part conspiracy thriller and even part social commentary.

“Iron Man 3” and its franchise as a whole has resisted a firm genre label because it’s trying to be everything at once and just feels like nothing at all. Continue reading “Iron Man 3”

Ebertfest Review: Escape From Tomorrow

“Escape From Tomorrow” may just be the most talked about movie you’ll never get the chance to see. Is it brilliant, or is it a mess?

Credit should be given where it’s due: “Escape From Tomorrow,” which may just be the most talked about movie you will never get a chance to see, was a near impossible film to make.

Shot on the fly and on the run in both Disneyworld and Disneyland, two places where the use of cameras for commercial use is strictly forbidden, first time Director Randy Moore has made a daring, stylish and damned strange film that ties the Happiest Place on Earth to sexual perversion, fatherly trauma, conglomerate conspiracy and personal psychosis. Moore should be applauded for finding a way against all odds to put Disney’s head on the chopping block.

And yet in another way, Disney is something of an easy target. The legacy left by Walt has such an oddly glowing reputation that they’ve always seemed like they have the farthest to fall. Even institutions like “The Simpsons” have recognized the almost surreal annoyance brought on by “It’s a Small World After All” and “Zip a Dee Do Dah.” If you’re going to make a Lynchian mind-bender, you’d better have immensely strong imagery that can go beyond the Disney gimmick, and you better know exactly what movie you want to make so that people aren’t just amused by the novelty of it. Continue reading “Ebertfest Review: Escape From Tomorrow”

Blancanieves

The fairy tale “Blancanieves” is a silent film with big emotions and style that resembles the way modern silent films should look.

For anyone who had watched “The Artist,” the feeling that silent films could come back in fashion was little more than wishful thinking. The film was intentionally a pastiche, and it accomplished just that.

But if someone were to update silent movies for the 21st Century, the Spanish silent film “Blancanieves” is a perfect example of what this new genre should resemble. The quivery camera, shortened average shot length, overpowering close-ups, low shots and canted angles mixed with classical and Latin musical intensity is stylish and in your face, but also simple and lively.

Here’s a movie with a simple story and big emotions that might be unbearable if it was told another way. To call it a throwback misses the point. And director and writer Pablo Berger has picked no better place to start this revision than with a simultaneously dark, innocent and whimsical retelling of some of our oldest fairy tale legends. Continue reading “Blancanieves”