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02Apr

Brothers

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Brothers is a movie I admired but did not much like. I believe that’s a compliment.

The film is relentlessly grim, and it does not end happily. But why should it? It’s about the effects of war in the Middle East on both soldiers and the homefront, and there’s nothing cheery about either.

I can’t help but compare Brothers to its more celebrated cinematic sibling, The Hurt Locker. The latter film, I’m convinced, will actually encourage some young men to enlist in the armed services. The Hurt Locker depicts an enigmatic, John Wayne-like hero who becomes addicted to the adrenaline-rush of sniffing out bombs. In a perverse sort of way, the Jeremy Renner character is glamorous. And the movie is first and foremost a thriller, dependent on one suspenseful situation after another.

There is nothing glamorous or overtly suspenseful about Brothers. If it has an upside, it’s that love and family can perhaps lessen — but not eradicate — the horrors of war. That’s not a particularly pleasant lesson, but then I don’t believe Brothers was meant to be pleasant. Grade: B+

Director: Jim Sheridan Cast: Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Bailee Madison, Taylor Geare, Patrick Flueger, Clifton Collins Release: 2009

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

01Apr

The Ghost

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by Robert Harris

Like most book lovers, I prefer to read the book first, then see the movie. But I was anxious to see director Roman Polanski’s version of Robert Harris’s thriller (retitled The Ghost Writer for the film), so this time I reversed the process. I don’t recommend doing so.

Although the novel is very good, the movie’s images kept implanting themselves in my brain as I read. I kept wondering, “Was this scene cut from the film?” or “Who played this character?” It’s more satisfying to read the book, create your own mental pictures, and then see them played out on the big screen. But never mind the movie. Harris’s The Ghost, as Stephen King put it, has “got the goods.”

01Apr

Sherlock Holmes

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There’s nothing more frustrating than a movie like Sherlock Holmes.

You watch it, and you’re impressed by all the loving care that went into the art direction, the special effects, the costumes, the musical score, the editing, the direction. Hell, I was even impressed by the end credits. And then there is Robert Downey, Jr. and his quirky, entertaining Sherlock Holmes. Downey is a true talent, and if there’s a sequel, as I’m sure there will be, I’ll look forward to Downey as Holmes again.

But what grates is that, with all of the millions of dollars and energy spent on the factors named above, the film itself is only average. It’s a mediocre movie because, once again, every expensive frill trumps what ought to be the most important element: a good script. It seems likely that producers instructed the writers that there was CGI for a shipbuilding yard, and spectacular effects for a bridge across London’s Thames, so be sure to build the story around those set pieces.

Stephen King recently wrote an essay about the merits and demerits of the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader. “There’s a troubling lightness to the [Kindle’s] content … a not-thereness,” King wrote. That’s similar to how I feel about modern special effects. They look cool, but you know they’re fake, and so you spend time looking for flaws. Unfortunately, flaws are also easy to spot in the screenplay for Sherlock Holmes. Grade: C+

Director: Guy Ritchie Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Eddie Marsan, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, James Fox Release: 2009

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

31Mar

An Education

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When I read that Nick Hornby, a favorite writer of mine, had written the screenplay for An Education, my spirits rose. Who better, I thought, to translate a coming-of-age memoir about a 16-year-old girl in 1961 London than Hornby, an aging male Baby Boomer like myself?

Yeah, right.

But does Hornby pull it off? Mostly. I thought An Education was touching, funny, and with a few exceptions, true. Is it true to teenage-girl life, circa 1961? Were parents of teenage girls as naïve as they are in this film? I have no idea. I’d have to consult with a group of 16-year-old girls, or girls who were 16 fifty years ago. What I do know is that the film is witty and the performances are captivating.

Carey Mulligan, as young Jenny, might have lost out on an Oscar this year, but I don’t think there’s much question we’ll be seeing a lot more of her. An Education is really just soap opera, a morality tale about making bad choices and living with consequences; in other words, it’s a film we’ve seen many times before. But it’s a story that never grows old because it’s a story that never changes, whether it’s 1961 or 2010. At least I think so. I’ll have to consult with some teenage girls. Grade: B

Director: Lone Scherfig Cast: Peter Sarsgaard, Carey Mulligan, Alfred Molina, Rosamund Pike, Dominic Cooper, Olivia Williams, Cara Seymour, Emma Thompson, Matthew Beard, Sally Hawkins Release: 2009

Watch Trailers and Clips (click here)

29Mar

Free Flick of the Week: “Cat Ballou”

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Poor Jane Fonda. 1965’s Cat Ballou was supposed to be a star vehicle for Henry Fonda’s daughter but, although she’s very good in the comedy, upstart Lee Marvin wound up stealing the show (and an Oscar) with his portrayal of a drunken ex-gunslinger. Then, adding insult to injury, Jane’s ad campaign was apparently run by the sexist gang from AMC’s Mad Men. Check out the poster pictured below. Then watch the movie free of charge by going here.

28Mar

The Big Short

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by Michael Lewis

When Wall Street premiered in 1987, Oliver Stone’s movie was pitched as a morality tale. Its lesson was that when greed gets the upper hand, bad things happen. In reality, the movie served as a “how-to” guide for aspiring Gordon Gekkos. Michael Lewis, in his book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, laments the fact that his previous expose of Wall Street, Liar’s Poker, had the same unintended consequences: It inspired materialistic-minded future Gekkos.

The Big Short’s topic, global financial failure, is not only depressing but ongoing. Most books need some semblance of a hero, but Lewis had to scrape to find protagonists for this story. He discovered a handful of small-timers who, through sheer gumption, hard work, and contrariness, managed to make killings out of Wall Street’s meltdown. These men appeal to the underdog-loving Lewis, but it’s hard to disguise the fact that even these guys acted more out of self-interest than any sense of social responsibility.

But my biggest obstacle to fully appreciating The Big Short is related to something that contributed to the financial crisis in the first place: the onslaught of insider jargon, economic voodoo theories, and meaningless acronyms geared to befuddle anyone lacking an economics degree. As a reader, I became exasperated by the financial hocus-pocus and simply wanted to just walk away from it. In other words, it engendered in me the same attitude that allowed Wall Street hooligans to swindle so many others.

27Mar

The Weekly Review: March 21 – 27

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The balcony has closed on At the Movies, and Web sites like Rotten Tomatoes are shouldering some of the blame. Apparently, a lot of folks prefer to get their cinematic guidance from people like Catherine, a 20-something from England who is one of my “friends” on Tomatoes and who lists movies like Ghost among her all-time favorites. Sigh.

At least you can’t blame my reviews for the demise of At the Movies. I’m guessing that my site gets fewer visits than Tiger Woods gets from his mother-in-law.

For me, At the Movies lost its must-see-TV status back in 1999, when Gene Siskel died. It’s not that subsequent critics weren’t knowledgeable, it’s just that when Siskel and Roger Ebert ceased sparring, the magic was gone. Perhaps Catherine can get her own show ….

*****

Tucker Carlson was on Red Eye carping about how all too often when we need to raise taxes, we raise it on whomever or whatever happens to be unpopular. Carlson proposed, I assume facetiously, that we tax children, nuns, and mothers.

I might not go that far. But as a smoker, I feel Carlson’s point and I can see how tanners might get burned up over a proposed tax on them. On the other hand, look at the woman in the picture above. Doesn’t she look smug? I don’t like her. Let’s tax her.

26Mar

Let the Right One In

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One sign of a great movie is the images it leaves with you. My favorite visual from Let the Right One In occurs in a swimming pool near the end of the film … but describing it would be a spoiler, so I’ll refrain.

Another indicator that a foreign film excels is when Hollywood announces plans for a remake. Sadly, just such a plan is in the works for this brilliant Swedish movie from 2008. But for now, we can still appreciate the original.

So how does this movie stand apart from the glut of other vampire films? It is certainly not the scariest vampire movie you’ll ever see, but it might be the best. A lot of the credit goes to Lina Leandersson’s performance as Eli, the young heroine with a taste for blood. I’m not sure why, but prepubescent females make for some of the most frightening characters in horror. I’m thinking of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, and the girl climbing through a television in The Ring. Maybe it’s because in real life, young females are the least threatening members of society, and so when they do turn on you ….

Let the Right One In has more than strong performances; it has Swedish atmosphere, always cold, quiet, and creepy. And director Tomas Alfredson does not rush things (I’ll bet the American remake won’t pause for a second). Oh, and did I mention that this film is also a haunting love story? Grade: A-

Director: Tomas Alfredson Cast: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Karl-Robert Lindgren Release: 2008

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25Mar

And Then There Were None (1945)

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Who among us, in our misspent youth, has not hunched over a game board and contemplated Colonel Mustard doing something nasty with a lead pipe in a conservatory? “Clue” fans and Agatha Christie buffs, And Then There Were None is the movie for you. Christie’s classic whodunit has been filmed many times, but no version can match director Rene Clair’s tongue-in-cheek delight from 1945.

A group of strangers is summoned to a barren island and, sequestered in a cliffside mansion staffed by two servants, the guests are bumped off, one by one. Clair’s actors play all of this straight-faced, but the movie is loaded with sly wit and humor. And these really are the characters from “Clue.” Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Roland Young, June Duprez, C. Aubrey Smith, Judith Anderson, and Richard Haydn are all outstanding.

My only quibble is that, typically for films of that time, Christie’s ending has been altered. Rest assured, there is no happy ending for the young lovers in the book. Grade: A-

Director: Rene Clair Cast: Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Louis Hayward, Roland Young, June Duprez, C. Aubrey Smith, Judith Anderson, Richard Haydn, Mischa Auer Release: 1945

Watch the Movie (click here)

24Mar

The Old Man and the Sea

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by Ernest Hemingway

It’s funny. You go back and read the critical reaction to Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea, and you learn that some critics saw it as a vengeful allegory — Hemingway placing himself in the shoes of an old man who battles on, despite being constantly assailed by outside forces (in this case, Hemingway critics). Other analysts were struck by the story’s religious significance, especially in a passage in which Santiago, the “old man,” alludes to his crucifixion.

But in rereading the novella, I think of it first and foremost as the middle link in a trifecta of epic man-versus-sea-monster sagas. First Ahab and his great white whale, then Hemingway’s Santiago and the sharks, and finally that Hollywood bad boy, “Bruce the Shark” in Spielberg’s Jaws. Critics don’t seem all that interested in what might be Old Man’s strongest asset — it’s a gripping adventure tale.