Wednesday, June 03, 2009
K - PAX
****½ K-PAX. Science fiction, drama.
Directed by: Iain Softley.
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack, Alfre Woodard
We saw K-PAX on TV years ago, but The Martian Child and Carl's disappointment in its ending reminded me of it, so I put it in our Netflix queue.
Turns out, we'd missed the first half hour or so when we saw it on TV, because neither Carl nor I remembered the beginning, which shows how Prot (Kevin Spacey) ended up in the mental hospital. In fact, I thought that was the weakest part of the movie. I can believe in aliens, but I couldn't believe that the police would have carted him off. He'd rescued a woman from an attempted mugging; eyewitnesses, including the victim, told the police he wasn't the culprit; he wasn't violent or argumentative, and while he was odd, he didn't seemed drugged or confused. So he didn't want to remove his sunglasses. This was NYC. There are no odd people who wear sunglasses in NYC? *sigh*
Other than that, it was a fabulous movie. Kevin Spacey is Prot, who looks pretty darn human, but he says he's from K-PAX. Jeff Bridges is Dr. Powell, the psychiatrist in the mental hospital where Prot ends up. Prot has a date and time when he'll be going back to K-PAX, giving hope to his fellow patients when he tells them he can take one of them with him back to K-PAX when he returns, and he helps them in a low-key kind of way with folksy advice.
The deadline for his return puts the pressure on Dr. Powell to find out who Prot really is and why the date is significant. The more he studies Prot, however, the more questions he has. It's nicely ironic that even as being around Prot is convincing the workaholic doctor that he needs to spend more time with his family, the mystery of Prot is making him work harder than ever.
The performances were all wonderful. Kevin Spacey is nicely vague, in the way that someone would be whose mind is on something more important. Jeff Bridges is very convincing as the harried but dedicated doctor. Alfre Woodard was underutilized as the head psychiatrist (? I'm not sure what her actual position was, but she seemed to be Dr. Powell's boss) who cautions Dr. Powell against getting too close to Prot, and advocates standard treatments.
Possibly the best thing about K-PAX is the open-ended ending. We discussed it for a couple of days afterward.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama, ScienceFiction
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies, ScienceFiction
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Martian Child
****½ Martian Child. Drama.
Directed by: Menno Meyjes
Starring: John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Amanda Peet, Bobby Coleman, Oliver Platt
We watched this weekend before last, courtesy of Netflix. Kind of interesting that last week we watched Identity, which also starred John Cusack and Amanda Peet; and then this week we're watching season one of Heroes, and Clea Duvall, who was the newlywed wife in Identity, is in the episodes we've seen this week. And none of this was planned.
Martian Child could so easily have been one of those sappy, overly sentimental melodramas... but it's not. But because I hate sappy, overly sentimental melodramas so much, I'd have skipped this one if it hadn't starred John and Joan Cusack, two of my absolute favorite actors.
David Gordon (John Cusack) is a bestselling science fiction author (reason #2 guaranteeing I'll like this movie--I'm so predictable!), a wealthy widower. He and his wife had planned on adopting a child: "I don't want to bring another kid into this world. But how do you argue against loving one that's already here?"
Then he meets 6-year-old orphan Dennis (Bobby Coleman) who thinks he's from Mars. Dennis spends his days in a box, is afraid of the sun, wears a weight belt to keep from floating away, only eats Lucky Charms, and says his purpose is "To join a family and to learn human beingness. "
Joan Cusack plays David's sister (go figure), the voice of reason and as a mom, a source of support and advice. Amanda Peet is Harlee, a free-spirited friend who takes all of Dennis's oddities in stride.
It is, yes, heartwarming to watch as David and Dennis become a family--but not in that sickly sweet way. The acting from all the major character is impressive. They seem genuine. And Bobby Coleman is just amazing.
While there are a lot of funny moments in the film, they're not ridiculous. I can't resist adding another video here: . It demonstrates the various sides of the movie very well--and has a nice song, too.
There are also a lot of conversation-starters in Martian Child--like what's wrong with being different? I admit one of the reasons I enjoyed this is that it espouses my own parenting philosophy to allow kids to be themselves. I suspect that someone with a more authoritarian style would enjoy it less than I did. And it's also possible to play with the little details in the film--such as parallels between David and Dennis, and reasons for Dennis's quirks--because they do actually mean something, and aren't just added for silly effect.
Carl shares my parenting style, but he still enjoyed it less than I did because **** mild spoiler **** Dennis turned out not to be from Mars. **** Another one of those cases where what you expect influences how you view something.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Monday, April 20, 2009
Identity
***** Identity. Drama.
Directed by: James Mangold.
Starring: John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet
This is the second DVD Camden and I watched while Carl was gone, and it was Camden's favorite. He loves movies and books with psychological suspense and plenty of twists, and Identity definitely fits the bill.
Ten strangers, including a limo driver (John Cusack) and his movie star passenger, a newlywed couple, a prostitute (Amanda Peet), a young boy with his parents, and a cop (Ray Liotta) and a prisoner he's escorting, are stranded at a motel during a rainstorm. Then they begin to be murdered, one by one.
At first, it seems like a murder suspense on the order of And Then There Were None, but it twists and nothing is what it seems.
John Cusack is a brilliant actor, and the rest of the cast plays their roles just as well. It's all so well done that when you know the twists and watch it again, you can see the clues in the action and the acting, nuances that I'd imagine can't be all that easy to portray.
The setting is perfect--a seedy motel--and the rain is practically another character. There are no wasted scenes, nothing that doesn't fit.
And possibly best of all, there's a ton of fodder for conversation about the story, both acknowledging and disregarding the twist. I suspect film classes would love this one as much as I do.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Drama
Labels: 5 stars, drama, Movies
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Bangkok Dangerous
**** Bangkok Dangerous. Drama.
Directed by: Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Charlie Yeung, Panward Hemmanee
We saw this last night at the theater on post.
Hitman Joe (Nicolas Cage) has four rules--get out before you lose your edge, never leave any loose ends, never get close to anyone, and never ask any questions. He realizes it's time to get out, so he's taking one last big job to set himself up for the rest of his life: a mobster has hired to do four hits in Thailand.
Unfortunately, it's already too late, because he starts breaking his rules. He hires Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm), a young pickpocket, to be his errand-boy; and when Kong figures out what Joe is doing and asks Joe to teach him, Joe agrees instead of killing him. Worse yet, he starts to fall in love with deaf-mute Fon (Charlie Yeung), taking her on dates and leading a double life instead of his usual lonely, isolated one.
Paralleling Joe's romance, Kong begins pursuing the dancer Aom (Panward Hemmanee) who's the errand-girl for the mobster who hired Joe.
The first hits are ones you'd applaud, making Kong idolize Joe, but they become increasingly more dubious until Joe has serious second thoughts about the last one.
Bangkok Dangerous is more of a drama than an action/adventure movie, and I think it succeeds admirably. Joe is a realistic-feeling assassin. He starts out as the exciting, heroic but isolated assassin I'm used to seeing in films, then as the film progresses, the darker side of his life becomes ever more visible. The contrast between the dark Joe and the brilliantly light Fon is dramatic and poignant, and made even clearer by the fact that she always wears white. His attempts to fit into her world are hopeful, but doomed.
Kong and Aom are a good contrast to Joe and Fon. Kong and Aom are more alike--they're both just on the fringes of the dark side, and there's hope that they'll have a future together.
Nicolas Cage is the only big Hollywood name in this film, but big Hollywood names don't have a monopoly on acting talent. Shahkrit Yamnarm and Charlie Yeung in particular deliver stellar performances, and I'll be looking forward to seeing them in future films. I know quite a few people dislike Nicolas Cage in general--I'm a fan, but even if I weren't, I think his style worked well for the character. The introspection and the unease with interpersonal interactions of the assassin, as well as the ruthlessness, were convincingly portrayed. I do wish he'd stop with the horrible hair, though. Seems like every movie I've seen him in in the past few years, his hair has been frightening.
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Saturday, March 29, 2008
In the Line of Fire
***** In the Line of Fire. Drama.
Directed by: Wolfgang Petersen.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Rene Russo, John Malkovich
I watched this video while exercising.
Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) has the distinction of being the only active Secret Service agent to ever lose a President--he was there, on duty, when JFK was killed. Now someone (John Malkovich) is after the current President, and he's turned it into a game between himself and Frank, and Frank returns to directly protecting the President (he'd been chasing counterfeiters at the beginning of the movie) because "Booth" has made it personal.
Except that Frank is a little old to be running alongside limos, and the President is in the middle of a reelection campaign and the press secretary thinks Frank's alarmist tendencies are hurting his chances. Frank's main ally is Agent Lilly Raines (Rene Russo), with whom he gradually develops a romantic relationship, but even she thinks he's going too far.
This is just an excellent movie. I'm not in general a huge fan of Clint Eastwood--not liking westerns in general--but he's just perfect as the aging agent who has one last chance to get it right. Rene Russo as well is great as a rare female agent, and I very much enjoyed the way her character was portrayed--strong, tough, and smart without having a big chip on her shoulder, being tougher than the guys, or being a wimpy token female. The romance between the two built slowly and was understandable and believable.
But most impressive was John Malkovich's portrayal of ex-CIA-assassin Mitch Leary. He was seriously creepy, utterly ruthless, and yet he was a chameleon who could be any role his plan demanded. This was one of those movies that worked great for exercising to, because I'd get so engrossed in it that I'd forget that all those crunches were killing me.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Drama
Labels: 5 stars, drama, Movies
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Gone Baby Gone
***** Gone Baby Gone. Drama.
Directed by: Ben Affleck.
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Amy Madigan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan
We saw this at the Hercules back in January, and now it's already out on DVD. Shows you how quickly we get movies here.
Gone Baby Gone is based on the book of the same name (#13) by Dennis Lehane. It's the fourth book in the series, which seems an odd choice to me, but it stood alone as a movie quite well.
Private investigators Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan) are hired by a woman (Amy Madigan) to investigate the disappearance of her niece. The little girl's mother (Amy Ryan) is a drug addict who neglects the child. The cops (Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris) warn Kenzie and Gennaro to stay out of their way.
It's a chilling case and full of heart-wrenching twists and turns that still worked even though I was prepared for them by having read the book. And the ending is painful, emotional, and right.
I was initially unsure about the casting--Affleck and Monaghan seemed a lot younger than I remembered Kenzie and Gennaro, but a few minutes into the movie, I was convinced. All the performances were exactly right--to the point where I could forget they were actors playing roles.
One thing that really impressed me--it's a little thing, but it made a big difference in the feel of the movie--was that the extras, the people wandering around on the streets, the people who were briefly interviewed about the little girl's disappearance, were all ordinary-looking people. I didn't realize until watching this how often the "ordinary" people in movies were of a limited number of types, straight from central casting. These weren't. They were the people you'd expect to see walking around a lower-class neighborhood in Boston.
The rest of the atmosphere of the movie was just as impressive--real and convincing. The urban decay wasn't overdone, but it wasn't Hollywood-slick, either.
I'm always a little wary about movies made from favorite books, but in this case, an excellent movie did justice to an exceptional book.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Drama
Labels: 5 stars, drama, Movies
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Bishop's Wife
**** The Bishop's Wife. Drama.
Directed by: Henry Koster.
Starring: Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven
Every year, I get at least one new Christmas movie on DVD. This is 2007's, and we watched it Christmas Eve. I'd never seen it before, but hey, it's got Cary Grant, so if nothing else, I could just watch and listen to Cary Grant. Mmmm.... Cary Grant....
Cary Grant plays an angel (well, of course!) sent to answer the prayers of a bishop (David Niven) and his wife (Loretta Young).
The bishop is trying to raise the funds for a new cathedral, but the wealthy woman who's prepared to donate them has put strings on the donation, wanting the cathedral as a monument to her late husband. So the bishop prays for guidance, and the answer is the angel Dudley.
Dudley's assistance doesn't turn out exactly the way the bishop expected, though, as the angel ends up taking on all the "niceties" the bishop hasn't had time for: mostly spending time with his wife.
This could have been an overly sentimental holiday movie about realizing what's important in life, if it weren't for two things: the humor, and there's quite a bit of it; and the notion that Dudley starts to fall for the bishop's wife. Dudley's dilemma isn't emphasized, but it adds a little extra depth to the story, making him a little more human, a little more interesting than a perfect being sent to show people the error of their ways.
The Bishop's Wife is cute, and sweet, and it's always a pleasure watching Cary Grant.
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Eastern Promises
****½ Eastern Promises. Drama.
Directed by: David Cronenberg.
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl
I saw this with Carl at the Hercules.
Anna (Naomi Watts) is a midwife who gets involved when she delivers a baby to a young teenager who dies. Nobody else seems concerned, so she takes the girl's diary, intending to find her family. The diary is in Russian, so the logical choice seems to be to ask her Russian uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) to translate it. He refuses, so she takes it to restaurant owner Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who turns out to be the local head of the Russian mob.
Viggo Mortensen is Nikolai, trying to move up in the mob, currently playing bodyguard/babysitter to Semyon's son Kirill (Vincent Cassel). He's cold and hard and capable of extreme violence, but he still has some compassion and a conscience.
Eastern Promises earns its R-rating. It's violent and graphic (it tells you something when there's a nude fighting scene and all I remember is the gore), and made me cringe and close my eyes several times. But it was also absolutely engrossing. All the performances were amazing: Mortensen was great as someone forced into a life he wouldn't have chosen but determined to succeed nevertheless. Mueller-Stahl was chilling as the affable grandfather who was also utterly ruthless and conscienceless. Cassel was utterly convincing as the spoiled heir-apparent, trying to hide his homosexuality by being sporadically ultra-violent, and reacting to his father's disappointment by being a screwup. Watts is understated but realistic as the do-good midwife, and thankfully isn't quite so stubbornly do-good that she's stupid about it.
This wasn't a relaxing movie, by any means, nor a feel-good one, but it was an impressive and satisfying one, a real rollercoaster ride of tension and drama, and I felt almost physically drained at the end. I wonder if that's how horror fans feel after a horror movie?
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Dan in Real Life
****½ Dan in Real Life. Drama.
Directed by: Peter Hedges.
Starring: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney
We saw this at the Hercules.
Dan Burns (Steve Carell) is a widower with three daughters, and during a family holiday, he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche) in a book store and is immediately smitten--the first time he's been interested in a woman since his wife died. Unfortunately, she turns out to be his brother Mitch's (Dane Cook) new girlfriend.
That's really the whole story--the romance between Dan and Marie, how they make it work out, and the family dynamics.
There aren't any pat answers, though it's obvious to the viewer that Marie is better suited to Dan than to Mitch, but it's not as cut-and-dried as that. Marie and Mitch aren't horribly wrong for each other. Likewise, when Dan realizes he's been neglecting his daughters in his preoccupation with Marie, the answer is neither that he should seek his fulfillment in fatherhood and forget about Marie, nor that he should devote himself to love and assume his daughters will come around eventually. Like real life, it's messy, and the answers lie somewhere in the middle. Also as in real life, the characters aren't perfect, though Dan's parents (Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney) come close.
Granted, the family as a whole is just a little too Norman Rockwell-ish to be believed. Among the family activities is a family talent show, for goodness sake. And yet... it's not all that unlike what we're aiming for in the next decade or so. A cabin on the lake where we can go with the kids and their eventual significant others and children. Not quite as much organized activity, but the family get-togethers, definitely.
-read more-
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Little Miss Sunshine
****½ Little Miss Sunshine. Drama. Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris. Starring: Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve CarellWe got this from Netflix after hearing lots and lots of recommendations.
Little Miss Sunshine is about a family trying to get the youngest daughter across country to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant. There's the dad (Greg Kinnear), who's a motivational speaker and author of a self-help book he's trying to sell; there's the gay uncle (Steve Carell), just out of the hospital after trying to kill himself; there's the teenage son (Paul Dano) who's taken a vow of silence; there's the grandfather (Alan Arkin) who's been kicked out of the retirement community; there's the daughter (Abigail Breslin) who's not quite like the other pageant contestants; and the mom (Toni Collette) who tries to hold them all together.
The trip tears them all apart and puts them back together, as a family.
If the characters were less quirky, the story would be too heartwarming for words, and would require a warning from dentists. But as it is, they're understandable and sympathetic in their quirkiness, and because they're exaggerated, it's easy to see parts of them in your own life, whether in yourself or those around you, making the movie very thought-provoking.
Little Miss Sunshine is described as a comedy, but I don't see that. There are funny parts, yes, but the story is too tragic to be a comedy, I think.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Monday, November 26, 2007
The Gunrunner
*** The Gunrunner. Drama.
Directed by: Nardo Castillo.
Starring: Kevin Costner, Sara Botsford, Paul Soles, Ron Lea
I (re)watched this video a bit at a time while exercising. Then I rewound it and watched it a third time while exercising. It still ended up being rather confusing.
Ted (Kevin Costner) comes home from China to 20s Canada and he's trying to smuggle guns and trying to get people to give him either guns or money or both, and his younger brother is involved in smuggling liquor to the U.S., and then there's something about socialists. Go read the summary on the IMDB--I wish I'd read it before watching this, because I really didn't get all that from watching the movie 3 times. I certainly didn't catch that he was in love with the night club owner--I thought that was just sex and business.
The 20s atmosphere was excellent, and it's odd, but the whole confusion thing just fit with the film as a whole. There was very little dialogue, and what there was was terse. The scenes were mostly dimly lit, and if I'd paid very close attention, I could probably come up with what the roulette scenes symbolized besides the obvious all-or-nothing risks Ted was taking. (Or maybe it's not that deep, and I got it already.) All that fit together very well to make a whole. It's just that it's a period piece--a character study, where the character in question is 1920s Canada--and I prefer more story to my movies.
The Gunrunner strikes me as a movie to have playing in the background on a big screen TV while you're hosting a 20s party. If nothing else, a young Kevin Costner is definitely pretty.
...more
Categories: Movies, 3stars, Drama
Labels: 3 stars, drama, Movies
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Brave One
****½ The Brave One. Drama.
Directed by: Neil Jordan.
Starring: Jodie Foster, Terrence Howard, Mary Steenburgen, Naveen Andrews
Carl and I saw this, sans offspring, at the Hercules. I was a little dubious about it initially, worried that it would be a tear-jerker. It wasn't.
It also wasn't a revenge/action movie, though that's definitely part of it.
Erica Bain's (Jodie Foster) fiance David (Naveen Andrews) is killed in front of her, and The Brave One is the story of how she deals with that. She buys herself a gun to feel safer, and then finds herself courting danger with the gun for protection, and finally becoming a vigilante.
But it's not something she sets out to do--she's not trying to be a superhero, and she's not reveling in the violence or even remotely feeling good about it--she's just trying to feel safe.
Detective Mercer (Terrence Howard) is the detective on her fiance's case, and ultimately on her own, and he plays a sounding board, conscience, and catalyst.
Gah. I'm having a terrible time describing this movie. It's always so much easier to say what I don't like than what I do.
One scene that sticks in my mind is when Erica is in the emergency room, the action is interposed with a love scene between her and David. It's visually poignant and powerful. And there are a lot of similarly powerful scenes.
Okay, I give up. Bottom line: I loved the movie. I'll be looking for the DVD.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Edukators
****½ The Edukators (aka Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei). Drama.
Directed by: Hans Weingartner.
Starring: Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch, Stipe Erceg, Burghart Klaußner
We got this from Netflix on Dagny's recommendation.
Peter (Stipe Erceg) and Jan (Daniel Brühl) are friends with a mission: they break into the homes of the ridiculously wealthy, not to steal, but to rearrange the furniture and leave a message saying "your days of plenty are numbered," (die fetten Jahre sind vorbei) signed "The Edukators."
Peter's girlfriend Jule (Julia Jentsch) has her own reasons for being angry with the ridiculously wealthy: she's perpetually broke, slowly paying a man named Hardenberg (Burghart Klaußner) the cost of a high-end Mercedes from an accident when she didn't have insurance. At her low-wage job, it'll be years before she pays it off.
When Peter's out of town, she and Jan spend time together, getting closer, and Jan tells her about The Edukators. Jule convinces Jan that her nemesis is the perfect subject for the scheme. However, while they're rearranging his house, Hardenberg returns home, catches them, and recognizes Jule.
Panicking, they take him hostage, and then call Peter to come rescue them, and they all end up in a secluded cabin in the mountains while they think about their options.
I wasn't sure I was going to like this movie that seemed to promise to be a sociopolitical drama, but after the first 20 minutes or so, I was hooked. It did make me think--a lot--about social problems, but it was the characters that grabbed me.
The young trio were very realistically frustrated, both with the injustices they saw and with their inability to effect change. And yet, they're just playing at being revolutionaries--their big statements are a cross between a prank and performance art. The romantic triangle was also very well done, and played into their motivations--specifically, the different relationships between Jan and Jule and Peter and Jule, and between Jan and Peter were distinct and the events in the film changed those relationships.
Hardenberg was even more thought-provoking, as he reveals his history as a 60s radical himself, and his journey into becoming one of the ultra-rich.
Probably not coincidentally, it was also around the 20-minute mark that I started ignoring the subtitles and just listening to the dialogue in German. There's a huge difference for me in being able to understand a movie when it's originally in German as opposed to being dubbed. Lots more syllables in German than in English, so the actors in dubbed movies talk really fast--not so good for the less-than-fluent.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
The Invisible
**½ The Invisible. Drama.
Directed by: David S. Goyer.
Starring: Justin Chatwin, Margarita Levieva, Marcia Gay Harden
We saw this at the Hercules, after being very intrigued by the previews. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the previews had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the movie. Okay, that's an exaggeration. The premise shown in the previews is what has nothing to do with the movie. "How do you solve a murder when the victim ... is YOU?" has nothing to do with the movie. There's no murder, there's no mystery. What there is, is a heavy-handed metaphor: kids feel invisible.
Nick Powell (Justin Chatwin) is a high school senior from a wealthy family. Oddly, he attends a public school, where he has a run-in with violent juvenile delinquent Annie Newton (Margarita Levieva), but he's so very cool that he defuses the situation.
Meanwhile, his mom (Marcia Gay Harden) has been smothering and controlling since his father's death, and she's so mean she won't let him go to London for a writing workshop. Because, as everybody knows, London is the only place to learn to become a writer. And if he doesn't go, his life is over.
Then Annie's out with her boyfriend and robs a jewelry store window. Her boyfriend warns her she's out of control, but she doesn't listen, so he turns her into the cops. Except she decides it must have been Nick who did it. So she and her henchmen attack Nick and when it appears they've killed him, they dump him in a manhole in the woods (?), cover it up, and run off.
Nick then is literally invisible, and nobody can hear him except Annie, eventually, and he has to convince her to save him.
There are some pretty clever scenes when he first realizes he's invisible, first showing some action on his part and its consequences, then showing that nothing really happened. That was actually my favorite part of the movie.
Both of our boys (ages 12 and 17) went with us, and they both liked The Invisible much more than Carl and I did. Unsurprisingly--it's aimed at teenagers. And no, I didn't try to change their minds. We did, however, discuss the fact that Hollywood's version of high school doesn't bear a lot of resemblance to Curran's experiences.
I got the distinct feeling that the filmmakers changed the movie's focus halfway through--after they'd shot the trailers. It wasn't until halfway through the movie that it became clear that it wasn't a paranormal murder mystery, and the movie seemed a lot more forced after that point. The ending/rescue scene(s) dragged on and on, apparently to hammer home the point that Annie needed to redeem herself, apparently by revealing... her hair. (She wears a knit cap through most of the movie, and amazingly, when she removes it--pointing out that now she's good--she doesn't have hat hair, she has lovely, wavy, quite long hair.)
*sigh* Freshman film classes are going to love this one. All that wonderful symbolism, easily identified. They can write whole essays on the meaning of Annie's hair alone.
...more
Categories: Movies, 2.5stars, Drama
Labels: 2.5 stars, drama, Movies
Monday, July 02, 2007
Bonnie and Clyde
****½ Bonnie and Clyde. Drama. Directed by: Arthur Penn.
Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons.
We got this one from Netflix. I believe I put it in the queue when I was on my Gene Wilder spree. The boys spent the first half of the movie asking when Gene Wilder would show up. Turns out, it was his film debut. I hadn't seen this before, but I do remember all the controversy around it when it first came out. Funny, it seems so tame now.
Warren Beatty is Clyde Barrow; Faye Dunaway is Bonnie Parker. They rob banks during the depression, and they're joined by Clyde's brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck's wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and a young gas station attendant (Michael J. Pollard) they recruit as a driver.
They go on their merry way, with preacher's daughter Blanche's protests their only problem, until things start to catch up with them.
It's a wonderful blend of exciting action, humor, and pathos--the sort-of lovers racing gleefully toward their doom. Clyde in particular is almost innocently childlike in his self-centeredness and lack of consideration of the consequences of his actions, not to mention his ambiguous sexuality. I'm not that well-versed in evaluating acting performances, but I believed all these characters.
Which is not to say that I believe Beatty and Dunaway were just like the actual Barrow and Parker. Far from it, I'd say--rather than a portrayal of actual fact, the movie is more fiction based on the true story.
Oh, and Gene Wilder? He was wonderful as a man who's briefly caught up in the gang when they steal his car.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Drama
Labels: 4.5 stars, drama, Movies
Friday, March 16, 2007
The Dark Corner
**** The Dark Corner. Drama.
Directed by: Henry Hathaway.
Starring: Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens, Clifton Webb, William Bendix.
We watched this one courtesy of Netflix. Dagny had put it in my queue--she's a big Lucille Ball fan--but it didn't arrive while she was here.
It's a 1940s film noir about a hard-boiled PI Galt (Mark Stevens) and his devoted and gutsy secretary Kathleen (Lucille Ball).
Galt's an ex-con who'd been set up by his former partner, Jardine, but he's (mostly) put it behind him. Except that it looks like Jardine isn't done with him.
As it turns out, someone's trying to provoke Galt into killing Jardine, and when that doesn't work, they up the ante. Through it all, Kathleen is not only right there by his side believing in him, but also coming up with smart suggestions when he's ready to give up.
Galt is a little more human than most 40s hard-boiled movie detectives--he shows emotions and doubts more than others I've seen. Whether that's due to the actor, the director, or the script, though, I couldn't say.
Even though the movie was made 5 years before I Love Lucy's debut, Lucille Ball's character was the star. She was smart and practical, and she was feminine without being fragile. And no, she wasn't funny--it wasn't a comedic role, and she still played it very well. Get over it.
It's not the best film noir I've ever seen--though I enjoyed the PI and his secretary very much, the other story, about Jardine, Jardine's lover, her husband, and his henchman, was a little confusing, and it took me until nearly the end of the movie before I figured out what the heck they were doing, and why we cared.
Of course, part of my confusion could have come from watching it over two nights, with 3 males, who consider fight scenes the only parts of movies that you need to be absolutely quiet for. Grrrrr. (And please, if someone can explain the logic of why it's perfectly okay to talk while characters are discussing the plot, but you must be silent during fight scenes when there's nothing to hear, I'd be really grateful--this is a question that's bugged me for years.)
...more
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Man of the Year
**** Man of the Year. Comedy/Drama
Directed by: Barry Levinson
Starring: Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney
We saw this at the Hercules with the kids.
Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams) is a political comedian. Think Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. Christopher Walken plays his manager. One night on his show, someone asks him why he doesn't run for President, and the ball starts rolling. At first, it's just a lark, a publicity stunt, but it becomes more real when he debates the regular candidates. And even more real when he wins.
Or is it? Laura Linney plays a woman who works for the company who devised the computer voting system, and she's discovered a glitch. She tells the head of the company (Jeff Goldblum), and receives the equivalent of a "don't worry your pretty little head about it." She thinks the problem's been fixed, but when she sees the election results, she knows it hasn't been.
And then the story becomes serious, as the company tries to shut her up using whatever means is necessary, and all those in power are more concerned with perceptions than reality. As long as Tom Dobbs looks like the legally elected President, that's more important than whether or not he actually is.
And that's where the movie lost a lot of the reviewers, apparently, from what I've been reading on the Amazon reviews (told you I wouldn't be able to resist). It was billed as a comedy, and the beginning of the movie was funny, so they felt betrayed when it turned serious. I truly do not think that the movie changed directions--it's more that the viewers' expectations did. Which is, I think, the fault of the marketing department.
Given the way the story is set up in the first half, there's no other way it could have played out in the second. The computer company's willingness to overlook the problem and the huge amount of money riding on the program was introduced early on. There's no way you can make that funny, and no way you can resolve it in an amusing way without being unbelievable.
And much as the ending pained me, there was no way it could have ended differently, either. The ending message is that maybe the crisis would prompt politicians to act differently in the future, but, call me a cynic, I wouldn't count on it.
Which is the other reason I think that a lot of viewers disliked the movie: "It couldn't happen here." I think (hope) it made people uncomfortable to think that people in positions of power really can be that ruthless. Hopefully, after they've vented about movies that "aren't really comedies," a little spark will linger in the backs of their heads.
My biggest pet peeve: the "problem" with the software. I'm not even going to spoiler it, because it's really, really stupid, and it's not much of a revelation, anyway: the program had a glitch that made it automatically select a name with double letters in it as the winner. It would have been much better to leave the actual glitch vague than to come up with something that idiotic.
If you're a programmer, and that seems logical to you, please let me know. I'll feel so much better about it.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Friday, March 09, 2007
Rocky Balboa
**** Rocky Balboa. Drama.
Directed by: Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone
Saw this at the Hercules with the kids. We'd seen the entire series in the past year or so, so it was something we'd been looking forward to.
Rocky Balboa is pretty much what you'd expect. Rocky's retired from boxing and running a little Italian restaurant where he gives fellow former boxers free meals and entertains the customers with stories from his days as the champ. But Adrian's dead, and Rocky's living in the past, and their son is tired of living in his famous father's shadow.
The current champ, Mason Dixon, is suffering from a bad reputation. He's had nothing but knockouts, so boxing fans are complaining that he's only taking easy fights and that he's not a "real" champ.
A computer simulation fight between Rocky and Mason Dixon that shows Rocky winning brings everything to a head. Rocky wants one last fight, and Mason Dixon's promoters want an exhibition match between the two to shore up Mason Dixon's reputation.
There are a lot of flashbacks, of course, and the training scenes are similar to Rocky IV, contrasting Rocky's working-man methods with Mason Dixon's high-tech. And we get the raw eggs and beef carcasses, too, just because.
And there's a new girlfriend for Rocky, to add a little hope for the future for him, since this really has got to be his last fight.
It's not nearly as good as the first movie, of course, but it's a much better end to the series than Rocky V.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
We're No Angels
**** We're No Angels. Comedy/drama.
Directed by: Neil Jordan.
Starring: Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn.
Watched this video with the boys when Carl was gone last month. I think I mentioned before that when Carl's away, I make a point of watching movies with the boys that we otherwise wouldn't watch. We own this one, but haven't watched it in years, and the boys had never seen it.
Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn are 1920s-era convicts who are dragged along when a vicious killer escapes the electric chair. They end up in a town near the Canadian border, and are mistaken for a pair of priests expected at the local monastery.
So they masquerade as priests while looking for an opportunity to cross the border into Canada. An opportunity presents itself in the form of a procession/pilgrimage to the church's sister church across the border. Each priest participating has to bring along someone who needs help, so they decide on the deaf daughter of local laundress and prostitute, played by Demi Moore.
This version (there's a 1955 version I haven't seen--I've put it in the Netflix queue) is billed as a comedy, but it's much more a drama, or maybe an allegory, though I don't have the time or inclination to delve into what it's an allegory for. There are humorous moments, to be sure, but it's not a laugh-aloud comedy at all.
It's about life-changing events, about miracles. We never do learn why DeNiro and Penn's characters were in prison to begin with, but we don't need to know. They begin as buddies, but the masquerade affects them in different ways. Penn's character thrives in the monastic life, despite, or maybe because of his ignorance. DeNiro and Moore's characters are world-weary and cynical, but they too are affected by the miraculous.
The movie leaves it up to the viewers to decide if the miracles are divine or human, but there's just enough mystery to allow you to believe if you want to.
We're No Angels leaves me with the same sort of feeling that Christmas movies like Miracle on 34th Street do--a kind of uplifted feeling, and a renewed faith in the human spirit. Or maybe I'm just feeling sappy.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4stars, drama
Labels: 4 stars, drama, Movies
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Witness for the Prosecution
***** Witness for the Prosectution. Drama.
Directed by: Billy Wilder.
Starring: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester.
We got this one from Netflix. I'd been wanting to see it ever since reading Witness in Death.
If you haven't seen it, and haven't read Witness in Death, here's what it's about: Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power) is accused of killing a wealthy widow, and he applies to Sir Wilfrid (Charles Laughton), the best barrister in England, to defend him. But Sir Wilfrid's health is failing, and he initially refuses, until actually meeting Leonard convinces him to take the case.
Leonard's wife Christine (Marlene Dietrich) is his alibi, but she's not very believable when she talks to Sir Wilfrid, and indeed she ends up as a witness for the prosecution.
Even though I knew the plot, including the twists and turns, from reading Witness in Death, the movie itself was more than just the sum of its parts. The drama of whodunit and how and why was interspersed with humor, much of it coming from interactions between Sir Wilfrid and his nurse (Elsa Lanchester, who I remembered from Mary Poppins and That Darn Cat). In fact, it added an extra dimension watching the movie and thinking of Eve & Roarke watching it being performed by Richard Draco & Areena Mansfield.
If you don't know what's going to happen, though, the twists are wonderful--my husband and sons loved it as much as I did.
...more
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Drama
Labels: 5 stars, drama, Movies
