Les Miserables - 2012

Viva la musical!

3.5 Stars (of four)

Les Miserables is exactly what it claims to be in its advertisments, a great musical.  One that could easily take its place among Hollywood's pantheon of great musicals like Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, Singing In The Rain, Gigi, and Xanadu.  Ha!  Just kidding about that last one.   But all kidding aside, Les Miserables really is good, IF you like musicals.  As I have seen reported in other critics, it is designed with a hardcore audience in mind.  I happen to be one of them.  I have seen the play four times, once even in Spanish, and it never fails to evoke great emotions from me.  This movie will appeal to all diehards who have seen and were moved by the original stage production.  Whether it will appeal to others who have not seen it on the stage remains to be seen.  But, like all movie musicals, this is audience manipulation at its finest.  There are stirring calls to arms, heartbreaking laments and even some much needed humor here and there. 

Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables takes place years after the French Revolution has occurred and the idealism of it has died with it.  There is a new king on the throne and this one has apparently not learned any lessons from his predecessors.  The people are starving and calling for revolution.  In the midst of this, Jean Valjean (excellently protrayed by Hugh Jackman), is released from 20 years in prison and must carry papers that identify him as an ex-con.  Because of this, nobody will have anything to do with him until a priest takes him in and gives him some silver to start his life over again.  Valjean drops his name, breaks his parole, and starts a new life.  Because he has broken parole, Inspector Javert (played with appropriate menace by Russell Crowe) doggedly pursues him across France over the years.  Through a set of circumstances, Valjean helps a woman, Fantine (played by Anne Hathaway, in the highlight of the film), who is dying to look after her child Cosette (played by Amanda Seyfried).  Flash forward about 15 years and a new revolution is brewing in Paris.  Cosette falls in love with a young revolutionary named Marius in a chance meeting.  The revolution happens and quickly falls apart, everyone but Marius is killed and heand Cosette are married.  Unfortunately, such a quick summary of the story really leaves a lot to be desired.  It is a large cast with intriguing personalities that come together in dramatic circumstances that run the gamut of all emotions.  By the end, you really are emotionally drained, unless you have no soul.  If that is the case, there's not much I can do for you.

Anyway, a lot has been made about this movie recording the actors live, rather than what is done in most musicals where actors sing their lines before in a studio and then lip sync on set.  In this case, the rationale is that if you let the actors sing live, they will be able to ACT.  This was a great plan.  The results are spectacular.  Comparing this rendition to the Joel Schumaker version of Phantom of the Opera, the Phantom is particularly lifeless.  While it also has stirring and emotional music, the performances in that version are curiously lifeless, as if the actors were phoning it in.  In Les Miserables, you really feel like you are in a Broadway production of the play.  With the singing live, it gives the actors full range to act instead of making sure they sync to the music.  Since there is not a bad actor in the cast, this serves the movie well.  You are really pulled into the drama of what is happening because of this.  This made all the difference in the world.  Even better, movies allow for the closeup and different angles, which bring us even more into the emotions of the songs.  You can't really get this in stage performance because the audience is so far away from the performers.  Therefore, performers almost have to pantomime and emote in order to communicate those emotions.  But in the movie, the closeup allows us to get very intimate with the performer, we can see every nuance in the face and eyes, so you don't have to be overly bombastic.  Therefore, it feels more real.  Compare the difference between William Shatner's acting (good stage acting), to Patrick Stewart's acting (good cinematic acting).  It is quite jarring when you take stage acting and put it into television or movies.  It seems hammy and scenery-chewing.  This does not happen in Les Miserables.  Charlie Chaplin once remarked you use the medium-shot in comedy and the close-up in drama.  This is part of the subtle language of movies, and what worked then, works just as well today.

Now, I have spent a lot of time ballyhooing this movie and saying how great it is.  But you look at the rating and it is only 3.5 stars out of 4.  Why do you ask?  For the very simple reason that while I recognize the need to have some star power in the movie, they are not very good singers.  Oh, they can sing just fine, insofar as they can carry a tune and carry off each of their parts fairly well.  But they are not singers.  Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried are especially lacking in powerful chops.  Hugh Jackman, once a song-and-dance man himself is quite good.  But Anne Hathaway's rendition of I Dreamed A Dream is truly spectacular and moving.  It is the centerpiece of the film.  And, I noted with great satisfaction, that the lesser-quality version that is used in the commercials was not used in the final film.  It is even better in the final film, something to be marveled at.  But the true scene-stealers in the entire film are Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks, Marius and Eponine, respectively.While Redmayne is a cinematic actor, Barks is a theater actress and played Eponine in the 2010 Les Miserables in Concert.  Both of these actors have amazing voices.  While Redmayne especially seems miscast at first, as soon as he opens his mouth, his voice is incredibly strong and vibrant.  Both of their performances are Oscar-worthy and will both, unfortunately, be overshadowed by the bigger marquee names in the cast.  There are a couple of new additions in the music to help with the cinematic transitions that are good.  There is also a really good addition in the end where Valjean, Cossette and Marius sing a trio that wraps up a motif in A Heart Full of Love which appears earlier.  In fact, this movie does a very good job at recurring motifs throughout the story, much more so than the stage production does.  This is, again, mostly to aid the transitions in cinema that you can't do on stage.  But, there were also some very jarring and abrupt transtitions that really spoil a moment.  Specifically, the song Turning before Marius sings Empty Chairs at Empy Tables.  It suddenly moves to him and takes us totally out of the moment for a few seconds and ruins a mood.  So, should you see it?  If you like musicals, yes.  If you are a fan of the original stage production, yes.  I don't really know if it will convince non-fans.  But, even if you are not emotionaly invested in the original production and are curious to see it, I would recommend it highly.  You just may like it.  I know I did.

Django Unchained

Tarantino Unleashed

Django Unchained  4 Stars (of four)

In Django Unchained, the newest film by Quentin Tarantino, it has finally happened.  Tarantino is finally unleashed with total abandon.  I'll get to that in a minute, but first, a quick summary.  For those of you who don't know, the film starts two years before the Civil War.  Dr. Shultz (played by the amazing Christoph Waltz-the guy who played the main Nazi in Tarantino's last film Inglorius Basterds) is a bounty hunter who stops a pair of slave traders in Texas looking for a slave Django (played by Jaime Foxx).  Schultz is looking for a bounty on a group of men who were overseers at a plantation where Django was a slave.  Schultz gets Django to help him because Django can identify the three men.  Once they kill the three men, they form a partnership to become a bounty hunting team.  Django also asks that they find and free his wife, who was sold away to another plantation owned by Calvin Candy (Leonardo DiCaprio, playing one of the slimiest bastards ever committed to film).  Yadda, yadda, yadda, great violence ensues to a bloody denoument.  I won't give away the ending, but it is quite good.

Now, much has been made of Tarantino's penchant for doing homages to other film genres, specifically older ones that really aren't done anymore.  Django Unchained, as has been ballyhooed a lot in the press, is no exception.  It is a loving tribute to the revenge flick and the spaghetti western in the vein of For A Few Dollars More, Once Upon A Time In The West and Hang 'Em High, or the more recent, more nihilistic westerns like The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Wild Bunch or Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid with a touch of the blaxploitation westerns like Take A Hard Ride, Posse, or Boss N----r (probably closest to what Tarantino was trying to get). This is not the John Wayne western, but rather the Clint Eastwood western or the Fred Williamson/Jim Brown blaxploitation western that were cynical, revisionistic and much more realistic as far as attitudes in the west are concerned.  The action is tense, exciting, and very violent.  As usual, Tarantino's writing is crisp and his dialogue realistic.  While the dialogue is a tad modern in its vernacular and slang, this is not a realistic depiction of historical fact, so it does not detract.  A lot has been made of its depictions of the violence and cruelty in slavery, and this movie does not shy away from that.  The big issue I have with this is that many people, including the actors themselves, view the movie as documentary rather than just telling a violent fictional story set in a place and time of reprehensible values.  I don't know if this is contrition for being involved in an extremely bloody movie to deflect criticism, or jjustification to end on an extremely bloody note.  In either case, I find this attitude a tad hypocritical, and the backpedalling that has been made by all involved (other than Tarantino himself) in the context of Newtown ridiculous.  Own up to the fact that you made something very violent and that you are playing to the masses, not that you are making something that has some kind of greater historical or cultural value.

A note about Tarantino.  I actually agree with him and his recent statements on his irritation for being blamed for every violent action that occurs.  Despite what most people think, Tarantino's movies are quite restrained as far as the violence goes.  Up until this flick, he has subscribed to the Alfred Hitchcock school of less is more.  Despite what you think you may have seen in most Tarantino flicks, they are not very gratuitous with what is shown in the final product.  However, it is the implication of what is happening on the screen which is more disturbing to people, it is something they have never seen before.  Therefore, your brain fills in the rest.  Freeze-frame almost every Tarantino film (outside of the House of Blue Leaves sequence in Kill Bill), you really do not see a lot of violence.  It is what you think happened which is far more horrible than anything he shows.  But in this film, he ends all pretense as to restraint.  This is a VERY bloody movie, and definitely not for all tastes.  But if you are up for a rip-roaring, bloody good time, this is a great movie, another worthy installment in a great series of films by a master filmmaker. 

One last thing.  While waiting to go in, I saw at least two kids who could not have been over 13 go into this film.  How are they getting in?  Please do not take your children to see this film.  It is really not for them.

The Hobbit

Peter Jackson Rides Again

The Hobbit-An Unexpected Journey-2012 (3 Stars-out of 4)

The Hobbit-1978

So, The Hobbit is finally here.  I certainly say, it took long enough.  I'm not exactly sure why Peter Jackson held out for so long.  Maybe he was burned out, but it is finally here.  So, I'm sure you're asking, how good is it?

The short answer is, it's pretty darn good.  The high level of quality that you have come to expect from WETA and their special effects.  Peter Jackson and his writing partners do a first rate job of adapting the film as they did last time.  However, there is a small wrinkle.  The Hobbit is a fairly simple book.  It is a very simple, children's book where not too much really happens.  I remember standing in line for the movie thinking, "how in the world are they going to make three 3-hour movies out of this book?"  As I was watching, there was a lot of elements I did not recognize from when I read the book.  It turns our that Jackson has added a lot of elements to the movie that I believe are either from the appendices in Lord of the Rings or other books like The Cimarillion.  There are at least three new elements that have been woven into the narrative.  There is a story about the Orc king that killed Thorin's father and is chasing them throughout the movie.  There is also the mention of a necromancer which is starting the setup to The Lord of the Rings.  This part is starting to bring about the story of the Nazgul and the beginnings lof the awakening of the evil of Sauron and the One Ring.  There is also a whole section on the elves and Elron/Galadrial where Gandalf becomes a detective of sort to figure out why the evil is awakening.

As I said, the special effects are magnificent.  But they get really over the top during the fight with the Dragon King.  There is just way too much action that is designed to show off the 3-D effects.  This is a movie that does NOT need to be seen in 3D.  Don't waste your money.  Go see it in 2D.  The acting is great and all of our familiar characters are back.  The movie ends on the escape from the Goblin King and Gollum.  One of the things I really enjoyed with the film was that you don't really get a good look at Smaug, the dragon.  I think that this will be most of the second film, the battle with Smaug and I'll bet the third film will be that battle of the five armies.  As a lark, I decided to rewatch the original animated film from the 70s to compare them.  Obviously, it shows its wear.  The songs are a little hokey, and the DVD transfer is one of the murkiest and worst transfer I have ever seen.  I know this is a fairly vanilla review, but there really is not much to say.  It is fun if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, and I recommend seeing it.  It is a tad long, but it is good.  I think you will have fun.

The Sessions

1.5 Stars (Out of 4)

Ladies, see if this job pitch catches your eye.  You are a seasoned professional in your chosen field for well over twenty years, have been recognized by your peers with some of the highest awards in your field and are generally considered to be one of the better professionals in your chosen field.  Now, for the last few years, you have hit a rut and not made quite the same heights you were known for, but you have been putting in solid work nevertheless.  Now, you are offered a new job with not as much visibility and you are told that if you spend approximately 60-80% of your time in the nude, you are guaranteed to make it back to the top.  Now I ask you, doesn't this sound like every girl's dream job comeback?  Hands?  Anyone?

Now I wonder: what in the world possessed Helen Hunt, the Emmy, SAG, Golden Globe AND Academy Award winning actress to do a film where she spends approximately 40 minutes of a 2 hour film in the nude?  She is not the first actress who has gone nude to give her career a boost (Meg Ryan, Elisabeth Shue, Rebecca Rominj, Tia Carrera, Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Diane Keaton just to name a few), nor will she be the last, but it is kind of sad that this is one of the only ways that established actresses in a slump have to bring them back to the top.  I guess it is only a matter of time before we see Meghan Fox do her first nude scene (she already played a prostitute twice-Jonah Hex and The Dictator).  Anyway, we live in a time now that women have more opportunity than ever to make their own way in this world on their own terms.  Hollywood, as liberal as they think they are, still operates by the same old rules.  For the most part, actresses are a piece of meat to be exploited.  Now don't mistunderstand, I am not a prude about this.  If a role genuinely calls for anything, I don't have a problem with it.  This includes violence, nudity, whatever.  But the fact is, most of time, nude scenes are put in for their titilation factor, not necessity.  For instance, necessary (Belle Du Jour, The Accused, Irreversible, The Reader, The Last Seduction) and unecessary (Leaving Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, any Bo Derek movie).

The movie is about Mark O'Brien (played by John Hawkes), a poet paralyzed by polio and essentially trapped in an iron lung most of his life.  Through the help of his therapist and priest, he goes to see a sex surrugate, played by Helen Hunt.  Through these sessions, he finds out a little about himself.  Yes, that's it.  I didn't find the movie particularly insightful or emotional.  Really, the only emotion I felt was sadness for Helen.  This is a woman who has been considered tops in her field for a very long time.  It just seems like this was a role she did not have to take.  But maybe that was the point.  I do like that a film came out that can deal with the subject of sex in a mature and adult way without adolescent snickering in the background.  Our country has a very strange predilection toward sex that may be left over from our puritanical days.  I found it interesting that a movie filled with non-stop violence like The Ring, Batman: The Dark Knight or The Lost World is considered just fine entertainment for children, but a movie whose primary subject is sex is usually relegated to the NC-17 or pronographic world.  There is a long history in Hollywood for trying to sell frank depictions of nudity and/or sex in a psuedo-educational or documentary fashion that started with the movie Mom and Dad all the way through this one.  My primary problem with this movie is that it seems to be more about Helen Hunt being nude rather than telling a good or interesting story.  Unfortunatly, most movies like this fall into this category.  So if you want want to see Jaime Buckman nude, this is your film.  But I found it fairly lifeless and unengaging.  I genuinely hope this helps Helen's career and that she will continue making great films.  She is a particularly gifted comedic actresses and I can only see her getting better.  Unfortunately, since we are a culture that worships youth and beauty, this may have been her paying her dues so she can continue working.  And that is a sad commentary on today.

"Hitchcock" & "The Girl"

The Girl            2.5 Stars (of four)

Hitchcock          3.5 Stars (of four)

Interestingly enough, two different movies with vastly different views of the same subject came out in November, HBO's The Girl and 20th Century Spotlight's Hitchcock.  Both are very interesting views of this very complicated artist, one who many consider one of, if not the best director of the 20th century.  While I won't comment on that, I will say that both movies are entertaining with fascinating subject material.  It would be interesting to see a biopic on Hitchcock someday, as he was a very interesting man.  Both movies focus on essentially the same period of his life, Hitchcock takes place as he was making Psycho, the movie that cut movie history in half.  The Girl was about his time on his next two films, primarily The Birds and Marnie.  It is a revealing choice to focus both movies on Hitchcock's career when it was nearing its end, rather than focusing on a rise and fall, Behind The Scenes-type film.  I'll take each one at a time.

The Girl was done by HBO with Toby Jones as a truly terrifying Hitchcock and Sienna Miller playing the beleaguered Tippi Hedron, who was Hitchcock's new blonde starlet in The Birds and Marnie.  The film traces Hitchcock's work with Tippi Hedron, the next woman he was going to make a star.  By this time in his career, Hitchcock was at the top of his game, with several great movies under his belt and a successful TV show watched by millions.  But Hitchcock is not the true focus of the movie, but rather Tippie Hedron.  While being a first class beauty herself, she had the unfortunate luck to be following some of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, from Kim Novak to Janet Leigh to Doris Day to Ingrid Bergman to Grace Kelly.  Quite big shoes to fill for anyone, but the movie goes to show how determined she was to take her place in this pantheon of starlets.  Unfortunately for her, her director, according to the film, was a lecherous and cruel taskmaster, driving her to literal near-insanity during the shoot of The Birds.  There is a telling sequence in the film, very famous in Hollywood lore, where she spent five days on a set with large, live birds attacking her, after being told the scene would only last 1 day in shooting with bird models.  And if this was not bad enough, the film also portrays Hitchcock as a lecherous fiend who even at one point at the beginning of filming, attacks her in the back of a car.  After this, he kept harassing her with unwelcome suggestions, filthy limericks and leering at her all the while.  And through it all, holding it over her head that she was nothing without him and that she never measured up to her predecessors, and that he could crush her and her career at any moment.

While I have no doubt this actually happened, based on the accounts by Ms. Hedron herself and others, the movie comes off as a cheap and lurid expose along the lines of a Behind The Music.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Workplace harassment is unacceptable anywhere or anytime.  I don't think one should whitewash history.  It is important to understand all its context in order to make a objective judgement.  But this movie demonstrates to me a disturbing propensity in Hollywood that, unfortunately, is not a new.  This movie focuses primarily on the morbidly obese man forcing himself on the young, beautiful woman and we react in characteristic disgust.  How dare he, we ask ourselves.  Doesn't he realize his place?  Yet when an attractive harasser does the deed, the victim is usually portrayed as at least conflicted (Indecent Proposal), enjoys it or at least looks like it (Straw Dogs), laughs at it or treats it as a joke (Anchorman, Horrible Bosses), and, at times, even falls in love (Unfaithful, Memoirs of a Geisha, Cast Away).  Being beautiful or ugly should not determine the tone of the film when dealing with this subject.  There have been precious few movies over the years that have taken on this difficult subject matter and shown it for how ugly it really is (High Country, Repulsion, The Accused, Disclosure).  When I finished The Girl, two things were on my mind.  One, I felt I needed a shower, as this movie dripped with lurid undertones.  Second, I marveled at how tough this woman was as well.  I don't know if Hollywood today is as much of a jungle as it was then, but this is the day of the casting couch, and many woman had to compromise themselves to get ahead in the business.  Just dealing with what could only be defined as a very hostile work environment, both professionally and personally, Ms. Hedron certainly went through hell and back.  In the end, though, the movie comes off as a shallow hatchet job on Hitchcock with all the taste and depth of a National Enquirer article.  Puerilily entertaining, yes.  But deep and insightful?  Not really.

Hitchcock, I believe is the superior film.  While it is a little more reverential about the "great Hitchcock", it is also the more adult of the two.  It focuses more upon the relationship with Hitchcock and his wife, Alma, who was his constant companion and collaborator over his long career.  Most people probably don't know the enormous influence Alma had on her husband.  She was herself an accomplished writer and director who had worked just as long has Hitchcock had, if not longer.  All of his movies have both of their stamps on them, not just his.  It discussed his enormous insecurities and pressures that were on him while making Psycho.  And yes, it also dealt with his predilections and did not shy away from them, but they were a little glossed over in this story.  I believe that this was a movie that actually gave a more rounded view of who Hitchcock was and why he was the way he was.  Unfortunately, it does require the viewer to know a little about his history with the business and Alma.  There is not a lot of exposition in these matters.  (For a good, concise history on Hitchcock, read Francois Trauffout's excellent Hitchcock, an extended interview where the master of the French New Wave (himself a celebrated director) has an unusually long and frank conversation for the normally very guarded Master of Suspense.)  Hitchcock also has a very wicked sense of humor, very much in keeping with the man himself.  It is introduced and ended in a very similar way as his introductions and conclusions to his TV shows, with the blackest of black humor.  Anthony Hopkins is his usual amazing self.  I honestly believe he is one of the five best living actors of our time.  Helen Mirren plays Alma, and she is the real star of this movie.  Maybe it is because so little is known of Alma, that this is such a vision.  Mirren herself in interviews bemoans the fact that there is so little out there on Alma that she could use to educate herself for her performance.  So therefore, she had to make up a lot of if, and showed just how capable she is and adding another fantastic performance to her very long list of great performances.  I doubt she will get the Oscar for this film (mostly because she already has one for The Queen), but it is an Oscar-worthy performance.

One last thing I would like to add about Hitchcock.  It is one of the three best instances of visually showing the creative process, the other two being Finding Neverland and Amadeus.  In all three, it shows just how true artists see the world and how their work occupies their souls and how they must literally and figureatively live with their creations.  Hitchcock, being a writer as well as a filmmaker, needs to live with his character.  In this case, there are several sequences where he was with Ed Gein, the mass killer whose exploits are the inspiration for Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged and The Silence of the Lambs. It is very difficultr to show the creative process.  It is easier to show its result (Pollack, Frida).  These three movies come the closest, in my opinion, to accurately portraying the artist and his (or her) process.  It would be better to watch these movies in the order of their placement in Hitchcock's life, so one's context guides the other.  I know I would have preferred to see Hitchcock before The Girl.  But, in the end, I found them both fascinating portraits on a subject I truly love.  Both are worth seeing and I would recommend each of them.

Lincoln

Lincoln - 4 Stars (out of 4)

Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day Lewis in the titular role, is about as close to perfect as a movie can get.  It only has a few missteps, mostly overlength, but only minor ones that do not detract away from the film's message.  I went in the movie expecting a biopic of sorts, but the movie covers a very specific timeframe and event in his life, the passage of the 13th Amendment banning slavery in the United States.  Now, I must admit with some shame, I don't know a lot about this period of time in United States history and I did not know, but am not surprised given the politics of the time, that the passage of this amendment was extremely controversial and difficult.  A wise man once said the two things you never want to see being made was sausages and laws.  This movie is exhibit A.  It covers the division within the Republican Party, the cajoling and outright bribing of members in the Democratic Party, even the divisions in Lincoln's own cabinet.  It may be surprising to some (or maybe not), the outright unethical means that had to be employed in order to secure the 2/3 passage of this amendment.  And, hanging over it all, a possible overture of peace from the South that threatens to derail the whole process.  This is the part I did not know.  That there was a peace deal from the South on the table for Lincoln to consider, but he could not even let word of it get out.  If word reached the Congress, they would table the motion and enact immediate debate on terms.  A future problem, also, was that if the South came back into the fold of the Union full members (as they did), the amendment would never have passed as they would have never voted for it.  So it was critical for Lincoln to pass the amendment within a certain timeframe if slavery was to be abolished in his lifetime.  The negotiations are often tense, other times funny, but downright interesting.  No one is villified or lauded, but rather presented as they really were, warts and all.  And this, in the end, is the source of the film's greatest strength.  The unvarnished look at both sides.  Now obviously, Spielberg does sympathize with history, but it is a revealing glance of these men who had such an impact on American society that still reverberates today.  Spielberg can't help but put a few theatrical touches in moments, because, well, he's Spielberg, and sentiment has never been in short supply with him.

Spielberg's direction is excellent, as always.  I have noted before in coversations that I consider Martin Scorsese the greatest artistic director in Hollywood today, but I consider Spielberg the greatest craftsman.  What I mean by that is that Spielberg's direction of scenes rarely call attention to themselves.  He does not show off technical mastery with odd camera angles, strange lighting or following characters around a room.  There is nothing in a Spielberg film that is in there for its own sake.  Everything he does serves the story.  For those who notice composition, lighting, blocking and movement, there is a great technical and artistic wizardry to Spielberg's direction, so much so it almost seems effortless, almost as if he can't help himself but create powerful images that speak volumes before any characters actually speak.  But it never, never intrudes on what is happening in the scene.  That is what I think is true mastery.  I do not mean to demean Scorsese in any way, but his direction is almost self-indulgent, almost as if he is trying to prove something.  Spielberg doesn't have to do that.  He is confident enough that he does not need to be artsy unless he wants to be.  Ever since Schindler's List, Spielberg has a method of direction that makes you feel as if you are there, that you are really seeing what is happening, and never takes you out of the moment.  This understated direction serves Lincoln well, so he can show off the main focus, Lincoln himself.

A few words about Daniel Day Lewis.  I never ceased to be amazed at this man's dramatic range and capability.  He can be anybody, transform into anyone.  Unfortunately, since he is in semi-retirement, we don't get to see a lot of him.  But when we do, wow, are we in for a treat.  I would put him into one of, if not THE best living actor today.  There are only a few actors who do what he does so well.  A lot of times, many great actors develop personas or tics that are hallmarks to their performances.  I, being who I am, call it their thing.  We all know them.  Robert De Niro repeats himself, John Malkovich slows down and e-nun-ci-ates.  George Clooney cocks his head to the side and gives you the look.  Al Pacino screams a lot.   Denzel Washington turns into the bully.  Bruce Willis whispers and smirks.  We all know them and love them.  But great actors never have to phone it in like that.  I consider Daniel Day Lewis one of these.  Also Gary Oldman, Leonardo DiCaprio (as much as I hate to admit it), Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Christian Bale and Kevin Spacey.  All very nuanced and subtle actors, when the role calls for it.  Lewis infuses Lincoln with the humanity of the man, a trait sorely lacking in all past portrayals from Young Mr. Lincoln to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.  An annoying tendency that storyteller get when depicting our founding fathers (or other great historical figure for that matter), is they portray them as greek gods, marble approximations that do not think, talk or act like any human being.  They are either deified paragons of virtue who do no wrong, or vilified as dastardly devils incapable of human feeling or rational thought.  With the sole exception of HBO's excellent miniseries John Adams, I have never seen a more realistic depiction of the man.  We already know, or at least are aware, that he did great deeds.  What movies like this and John Adams do is to help us know the person behind the acts, their virtues and foilbles, and through that we see they are not entirely different from us.  Which, for me, makes the deeds they do so much the greater.

Skyfall

Skyfalls Flat

Skyfall - 2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Skyfall, for those of you who have been living under a rock, is the newest entry into the storied James Bond series (23rd in the Broccoli-famly produced versions, 24 if you count Never Say Never Again and the 1960s Casino Royale, or 25 if you want to include the original American live TV Casino Royale starring Barry Nelson).  Anyway, I have to preface this review by saying that I have seen EVERY Bond there is (except the David Niven Casino Royale) and am a HUGE fan of the series.  I have seen every single one since The Spy Who Loved Me in the theater in 1977.  I am very much a Bond purist, so I may have a little bias here.  But enough about with the disclaimers, on with the review.

First, this is not a bad movie.  When I left the movie, I was quite elated.  Considering what a mess its predecessor, Quantum of Solace, was, this outing was a welcome change.  It was thrilling in all the right parts, had a comprehensible story unlike its predecessor, had a least a couple of exotic locales and Daniel Craig keeping the great new brooding Bond firmly in place.  But the more I think about it, the less and less I liked the movie.  Without giving away the story, this is probably the closest we will ever get to a Bond origin story.  And that is its almost fatal flaw.  More on that later.

First the good stuff.  The director, Sam Mendes, is quite good.  He produces some very unforgettable images in this film without being too overly arty.  From the thrilling open chase in the rooftops of Istanbul, to the surreal beauty of Shangai at night, this is a beautiful movie and a visual delight.  I especially liked the Shanghai scenes, with its neon-infused night, it looks like something out of Tron.  I love it when I am not bored by the scenery in the background.  Unfortunately with some Bond movies, they do not take advantage of the exotic backgrounds and use the natural and manmade scenery to their advantage because we want to move on to the next thrill ride.  This movie, for the most part, is not like that until the end.  Next, apparently during MGM's bankruptcy (which delayed the production of this movie for 9 months), the producers wisely used the time to punch up and focus on the story.  The key to any good movie, be it comedy, romance, drama or thriller relies first and foremost on a good story.  A bad script can ruin what could otherwise be a great film.  Case number one,  Quantum of Solace.  I have watched Quantum of Solace all the way through three times now, and damned if I still can't tell you what happened in the movie.  It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Not that that is always a prerequisite for a Bond movie (Moonraker, Die Another Day, The Man With The Golden Gun, You Only Live Twice), but your better Bonds tend to be the better stories (From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only, Goldeneye, Casino Royale), stories that focus on what Bond does, and that is spying.  Another good aspect of this movie was mentioned in The Washington Post: that is there is a certain reverence for the past in cute little one-liners and knowing winks.

And that is also where this movie flies off the rails.  What starts out as a great chase after a mysterious enemy who has stolen the names of every undercover operative in the world, turns into a strange and frankly, unsettling descent into revenge.  While this may work for most movies, it is strangely out of place in a Bond movie.  Bond movies, in the end, are about a British spy who is stopping bad guys for Queen and Country.  This quasi-origin story morphs into a weird mish-mash of Saw and The Most Dangerous Game.  When I think back on the movie, I realize not very much happens in the whole movie, but especially the last 15-20 minutes.  It is more than a little disappointing.  While my expectations for Bond movies are never very high as far as excellence goes, I do expect there to be some kind complex happenings.  This movie starts out fast and then slams on the brakes and tone about halfway through and never recovers.  I have heard dumber critics saying this could be a contender for Oscar, but that is ridiculous.  It's not that good.

A few final notes.  I really like the direction the new production team has taken Bond since Casino Royale has been stellar.  I like the fact that they have not been listening to the fanboys saying, where's Q?  Where's the gadgets?  Where's Blofeld?  I also like Daniel Craig's Bond, the brooding and dangerous guy, not the wink and a smile made popular by Roger Moore.  His acting choices for Bond have been great, and the general tone of the stories is great.  However, in this movie, he seems to be suffering from a malady that requires him to take off his shirt every 10 minutes, not unlike William Shatner in Star Trek.  Unfortunately for the guys, none of the actresses seem to suffer from this same malady and tragically keep thier clothes on for the most part.  Unfortunately, it also has a dearth of beautiful, exotic women in the movie.  There is only one this time, in addition to Bond's sort of partner.  The new Q irritates me, but not as much as I thought he would from the previews.  The story is grounded, sort of, in reality, and makes it interesting.  Unfortunately, in the end, it is only good, but not great.  I put this somewhere just above the middle in terms of how good it is.

Here Comes The Boom!

A Whole Different Kind of Rocky 

Argo - 3 Stars (out of four)

Score one for Adam Sandler and his Happy Gilmore productions!  Ordinarily, most things Adam Sandler touches are amusing, two or three good joke stories with good hearts.  Not so with Here Comes The Boom!, a truly funny, yet weirdly inspiring underdog story in the vein of Rocky, Rudy, and Hoosiers, but with a lot more laughs.

The story is about a Boston school that has fallen on hard fiscal times whose principal announces that in order to meet their budget, they must cut all extracurricular activities, chief among them the music program. Kevin James plays the once very inspiring, but now apathetic biology teacher who volunteers to try to rally the teachers to raise the necessary $48,000 to save the school and his friend, Henry Winkler's (yes, for those of you old enough to remember, THAT Henry Winkler), job.  He begins to teach a basic citizenship course for immigrants who want to become citizens where he meets Dutch giant of a man who asks Kevin to tutor him.  During their sessions, Kevin founds out that this guy, Niko, is an ex-MMA fighter and that fighters can make a lot of money quickly, even if they lose. He hatches a plan to train with Niko to fight in MMA fights until he can raise the money by losing. When word gets out he is doing this, hilarity and inspiration ensue.  I don't want to ruin the jokes by telling them here only to say this:  Unlike a lot of other films that show their best two gags in the trailer, this is chock full of them that will have you grinning ear to ear by the end.

But this is the best part.  Unlike a lot of comedies today that must broadcast their jokes (including most of Adam Sandler's movies), this one is actually subtle, or as subtle as a comedy can be.  It feels real, not some surreal world of pratfalls and stale routines a la The Three Stooges, Anchorman, or Deeds.  Don't get me wrong, movies like that have their place and can be vastly entertaining, but when you are trying to strive for something bigger, something with a message, it becomes inappropriate and gets in its own way.  I think a lot of that has a lot to do with Kevin James, whose King of Queens on TV, I will admit, I was a latecomer to he party. He has an instantl likeable everyday charisma about him that is crucial, like Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson or Bradley Cooper.  This inherent likeability propels them through what would otherwise be stupid roles in less able hands.  Comedy, by it's nature, is unreal and has its own rules, like a musical.  People just don't act like this in real life, but by its absurdity, casts a distorted mirror up on its subject and highlights what the writer was trying to say without browbeating his audience.  When done right, it can be sublimely satisfying, like this film.

The best part of the film is there are no bad guys, just bad situations to overcome.  The overall culprit is not the system, teachers unions or anything else, although the film touches on both. It's life, and how it throws us a curve occassionally.  How we deal with these curves is just as important than overcoming them, and we just may get a few victories along the way.  But that doesn't mean the way will be easy, or even if we will win in the first place.  But to persevere, that is what's important.  This movie has all of that and more.  Go see it if you need a lift or are discouraged today.  You won't be disappointed.

Argo

Ben and the Argonauts

Argo -  4 Stars (of four)

At the risk of sounding hyperbolous, Argo is a godsend.  The combined crap stew that Hollywood has been spewing out over the past couple years has been mindnumbingly vacuous and condescending.  There was a brief, shining moment when Hollywood realized you can make quality entertainment for an audience over the age of twelve a couple years ago.  But then went right back to the brainless crap that crescendoed with the combined insulting and cynical Battleship.  But then Argo came out.  Finally, a movie made by adults FOR adults that is exciting, dramatic and thrilling.  It can certainly proudly take its place alongside such great films like The Third Man, The Counterfeit Traitor, The Manchurian Candidate, The Odessa File, The Little Drummer Girl, or Gladiator.  I hope George Clooney and Ben Affleck, as the producers of this movie are monitarily rewarded and honored for this film because I want to see MORE of them.  Now, I love a big ole dumb action flick just as much as the next guy, but I really do hunger for great, meaty entertainment the likes of Argo.

For those of you who don't know, Argo is the recounting of a declassified story of how the CIA, along with the Canadian government, exfiltrated six American Embassy workers from Tehran during the takeover of the U.S. Embassy during the 1979 Iranian Revolution.  They did this by making the Embassy employees the crew of a fictitious movie doing scouting locations in Iran.  The CIA officer, played by Ben Affleck, flies into Tehran, meets up with the Americans who had been in hiding at the Canadian Ambassador's residence, and walk out through the airport as a Canadian film crew.

The movie takes some radically different tones.  The first act, setting up the problem, the US Government coming up with absurd escape plans, and finally the creation of the fake movie, Argo, is actually very funny and engaging.  From the absurdities of the State Department's attempts to put an escape plan together to the absurdities of Hollywood egos and fake atmosphere.  The movie takes an almost satirical look at Hollywood culture and shows its artificiality for what it is.  The movie then makes an almost surreal juxtaposition with the ersatz world of show business and the very real business of being a fugitive in revolutionary Iran.  The second act, the plan itself, is all suspense, worthy of being in the company of some of the greatest espionage stories in cinematic history.  Finally, the third act, the actual escape, is nail-biting intensity.  I don't know if the escape was quite so close or not, but it was thrilling to watch.  An interesting side note, the end credits run photos of the actual people involved side by side with the actor portraying them.  The casting choices were phenomenal.

Now, can we finally say it?  When will we, as a nation, finally acknowledge Ben Affleck as a great artist?  What is the source of this communal revulsion, or at least distaste of him?  There does not seem to be anyone in Hollywood that elicits as much ridicule and derision as Ben Affleck.  Why?  Is it because he has been, admittedly, in a lot of bad movies?  All stars go through these.  Harrison Ford made Hannover Street and Hollywood Homicide.  Clint Eastwood made Paint Your Wagon and Any Which Way You Can.  Liz Taylor made Cleopatra.  Al Pacino made Cruising.  Robert DeNiro made Rocky and Bullwinkle.  The Wachowskis made Speed Racer.  George Clooney made Attack of the Killer Tomatoes 2 (!) AND Batman and Robin.  Warren Beatty made Reds AND Ishtar.  Even Steven Spielberg made 1941 AND The Terminal.  So we see they can't all be hits, box office gold.  Was it because he was a bit of a womanizer in his early career?  If you lay that one at his feet, you may as well add him to the club that includes Charlie Chaplin, Errol Flynn, and Warren Beatty to name a few.  All men who were the new young and hot talents for their respective ages.  Is it because he is perceived, unfairly, as a bad actor?  Need I mention John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwartzeneggar or Chuck Norris?  Not being great thespians never hurt them.  Or is it, I believe, that green-eyed monster, jealousy?

1. Ben Affleck has now directed two great movies, Argo and The Town.  He has received an Oscar for Good Will Hunting.  He has received Emmys and Golden Globes   He has been to the heights of success for his MTV movie award nomination for Best Kiss in Daredevil and to the depths for his attainment of the Razzie for the trifecta stinkeroo of Datedevil, Gigli and Paycheck.  And despite what Jay and Silent Bob say, he was NOT the bomb in Phantoms.  But let's take a closer look.  He also made: Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare In Love, Chasing Amy, Boiler Room, Hollywoodland, Dazed and Confused, Jersey Girl (yeah, I SAID it!), Forces of Nature, Changing Lanes, Dogma, The Sum of All Fears and Armageddon. Whether or not they were all equally good is a matter of debate, but they are all entertaining in their own ways.  So why do we act so shocked when he makes great movies like Argo or The Town, like we just discovered a new Gospel?  He's been here all along, and bad press, along with our love to hate somebody has kept him from being recognized as a great artist in his own right, not just the junior partner of Damon/Affleck.  It's time to get over our irrational, knee-jerk distaste of him and really look at what he is capable of, objectively and honestly.

Taken 2

Okay, this will be a little clumsy to start, but let's open with Taken 2, sure to be the big winner this weekend.  To begin, Taken 2 is a rip snorting good time.  It is full of action, action, action.  Car chases, foot chases, rooftop chases, more foot cases, more car chases and ass whupping fights.  I was thoroughly entertained watching it and had a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, that's about it.

Taken 2 starts a couple years after Taken takes place.  It still has Liam Neeson, who, at 60, appears to be the biggest action hero in Hollywood, or at least the most intense anyway.  He still is the doting father of his teenage daughter, and still estranged from his hot ex-wife, played by Famke Jannson.  You may remember her as Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye, the coldest killer with the oddest fetishes.  In this outing, she has separated from her rich, new husband, and sorta appears to be reconciling with our hero.  He gets a quick security job in Istanbul, and asks her if she and their daughter would like to join him there after the job is finished.  They agree, and the plot spirals away from there.

For those of you who saw Taken, we all know that Liam broke up a group of very nasty group of Albanian white slavers who kidnapped his daughter in Paris to sell to mean arab sheiks who appear to have less than honorable intentions.  Well, even nasty slavers, it seems, have family who loves them  and these nasty slavers are no exception.  One of the dead ones had a dad, played by Rade Serbedzija, Hollywood's go-to guy when they need a safe, foreign-sounding bad guy so the producers don't seem racist.  It turns out that he is very angry and sad Liam killed his kid and vows revenge by kidnapping his wife and daughter to kill and "sell to the lowest brothel" respectively to punish our hero.  Then kill him in a most gruesome way.  The rest of the movie after that is all sound and thunder.

Now, I really liked the original Taken, despite its racist undertones.  It has a little of everything, action, suspense, drama, pathos, even topicality with the human trafficking angle.  Its strength comes from the fact that Liam Neeson is not your standard action hero.  Quite the opposite, actually.  He has clear motivation, saving his daughter, and even a bit of an arc, where he and his daughter change a little on the other side.  In other words, it "feels" real.  There is not too much straining the bounds of reality, or at least the perceived bounds of reality.  Unfortunately, between the time it took to make Taken and Taken 2, something awful happened.  Liam Neeson became an action star.  Also, during that time, because they like the box office an action hero brings in, they decided to make an action movie.  See, the first was more of a mystery, noirish-type of deal.  We were with him every step of the way, tracking the bad guys with scraps of information most people would overlook, sort of like MacGuyver meets Sherlock Holmes.  We have tense moments, betrayal by his friend, and then HE is on the lam.  And in the end, you don't know if he will save his daughter or not.  Taken 2, there is never any doubt.  It is a by the numbers actioner, with no real soul or excitement because we've all seen it before and there's nothing new.

It's sad, because this could have been another great film instead of a good one.  Most of the films this summer were similar, from Bourne to Batman to The Expendibles.  Tragic, missed opportunities that really could have surpassed the mark.  Only The Avengers seems to have escaped this fate, but just barely.  One can only hope Bond's new outing, Skyhook, will buck this trend.  But I am not optimistic.  Hollywood is nothing, if not responsive, to fans and their wallets, and the brain dead fanboys are already clamoring for more gadgets, and where's Q?

You'll probably note that in my description of the plot, it sounds like I'm reading off a stale, worn story, and that's what this is, a comfortable, old shoe.  The stupid description is deliberate, because it is a stupid story.  But, I guess, what can we expect?  I was hoping something a little closer to the first.  Everything in this movie is simple.  Simple plot, simple bad guys, simple feelings.  There is nothing complicated at all.  While this movie attempts to give the bad guy depth by giving him motivation, it is still a simple caricature.  This is why the first movie is a tad racist, and the way you can judge that is:  Can the plot still function if you plug anyone else in there?  If so, you have a caricature, and usually a bad one.  This is lazy writing at best and sinister at its worst. Most people know there are bad people all over the world; they are not focused in Europe or Asia or anywhere else for that matter.  Just because a story is undemanding is not an excuse for lazy characterization.  Ultimately, the best movies are those that have the best characters, good and bad.  They have to be believable. They anchor us to the story by giving us something with which to identify, or at least understand.  This is critical in movies, especially ones that ask us to believe fairly unbelievable things, like sci-fi, fantasy or action movies.

So, that's a long way to say that Taken 2 is fun, entertaining, but ultimately hollow.  If you want to turn your brain off and go with the flow, this is your flick.  If you want something meatier, rematch the original.  2.5 stars out of 4.

Hello and intro

So, this has been a big dream of mine, and apparently a LOT of other people, but here goes.  Hello.  I'm Thombat, and quite simply, I love movies.  I have loved them all my life.  I grew up in a darkened theater, waiting to be whisked off to whatever magical world lay before me.  As time moved on, and I started to understand them and the craft involved, I loved them even more.  Kind of like trying to figure how a magician does his tricks, a director waves his wand and weaves a tapestry of entertainment that can take us anywhere; celluloid dreams in a flickering dreamscape.

Okay, enough of the sentimental crap.  The plain truth is, I'm not artsy (most of the time), I could care less about Godard, Fellini and Bunel.  I am just a regular guy who loves movies, as I assume most of you are as well.  While I may occasionally delve into the esoteric stuff of movies, I set out to create a review site for people like you and me, who see movies as art AND entertainment.  This, in the end, is what I will look at most of the time.  Is it entertaining in my opinion and why?  I would love to hear what you think as well.  Art, in the end, means something different to everybody, and that is part of the fun.  So let's talk.

So sit back, as the lights dim, and if you're sitting next to me in the theater, shut the hell up until the end!  Talk to you all soon!