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Get on Up (2014)
Electrifying portrait of James Brown. Chadwick Boseman is superb.
It is not possible to watch this movie without falling in love with the superhuman -- and yet ultimately all too human -- James Brown. Chadwick Boseman's performance is nothing short of stunning, magically inhabiting Brown from the golden years of his youth on through his broke-down later years.
Remarkable. I want to go out and buy "Live at the Apollo."
The cast includes great performances from Nelsan Ellis, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Craig Robinson, though I found Dan Aykroyd a little out of tune as Brown's long-time manager Ben Bart. Interestingly, the Hollywood Reporter has an interview with Bart's son Jack, who points out some inaccuracies in the film, most importantly that the emotion-laden funeral scene is completely fictional: Brown apparently did not attend at all.
Small matter. Get On Up delivers a rich and detailed picture of James Brown, a brilliant performer and sadly troubled human being.
Layover (2014)
Beautiful, intimate foreign film by US filmmaker Josh Caldwell
While filmmaker Joshua Caldwell is thoroughly American, he has made a French film -- as in, virtually all of the dialogue is in French, and the lead character Simone, a young Parisienne stuck in LA for 12 hours, also achieves an obviously "not American" vibe. In fact, the cranky and standoffish Simone isn't very likable as we get to know her, again atypical for American film fare.
What is charming about this film is how Caldwell manages to capture moments of real truth through the interaction of his characters. On the phone to boyfriend Alain in Singapore whom she is traveling to join, Simone becomes irritated with his insistence on helping her. She looks up a friend in LA, and their reunion visit packs all the messy love and betrayal of a real adolescent relationship that's been outgrown. And through the chance meeting with an adorable-but-unnamed young man on a motorbike, Simone comes to a new understanding of her life.
Other reviewers have remarked about the fact that the film was made for $5,000 -- Caldwell's VOD interview reveals that it's actually more like $6,000 -- and that's remarkable for a couple of reasons. One of them is, you will never know that this is a low-budget film from watching it. It is simply a film in the style of the French cinema of the 60s. For that alone, I urge you to take a look: it's available for purchase on Gumroad.com. The acting is great, the dialogue is great, the music is great -- just a very accomplished piece of work.
The second reason the budget is especially relevant is as described by Caldwell in the VOD interview: the indie film industry is in decline, and with the emergence of social publishing technologies, he is exploring the "new normal" of small filmmaking. This clearly sets a high water mark for truly low budget (as in pocket change low budget) filmmaking, and I am eager to see the other two films that will complete this planned trilogy, as well as films by others inspired by Caldwell and Company.
Joshua Caldwell has shown us that all you need to make a great movie is a great idea and talent -- so get to it!
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
This is great film-making
I loved everything about this movie. Every single frame was brilliant: the framing of the shot, the shot sequences, the sets, the makeup the wardrobe, the unbelievable Caribbean vistas... for example, a simple reaction shot of Beckett's face is imbued with surreality. Or the way Sparrow prances around like Bette Davis... a riot! Everything was brilliantly thought out and realized on the screen.
The story is complex on many levels, but the story is perfectly clear in the telling. It never skipped a beat from beginning to end. (In contrast to monstrosities like KONG... YIKES!) Seeing this movie affects you in the way the Treasure Island must have captivated boys in the 19th century. It just sucks you in, and makes you want to be part of its world. You could watch this film over and over and I think it would just get better with each viewing.
As I left the theater, all I could think when I let was "WOW! How did they ever come up with all those great ideas!?!?" And all this from a superlatively lame DisneyWorld ride!
My ONLY moment of "awww, I don't buy THIS!" was when we first meet Gibbs (Sparrow's first mate)... He seemed too well groomed: I couldn't "smell him with my eyes," like all the other pirates. Luckily, he got gamier as the film went on!
I didn't give this movie a 10 because that score I reserve for one-of-a-kind or "life-changing" films (Annie Hall, My Dinner With Andre, Brazil, Mulholland Drive, Sling Blade).
But it was definitely a summer blast, every bit equal to if not better than the original.
Superman Returns (2006)
Superman: This franchise needs help!
The special effects are great. Kate Bosworth is a total babe as Lois, and all the casting is great. Yet this movie ends up being a complete "so what?"
The problem I think with Superman is that he's just too much of a goody-goody... A Dudley Dooright. To Superman it doesn't matter if it's a train going of the tracks, or Osama blowing up the WTC. He's simply this robot that mechanically prevents disaster.
Here we have a superior being from another planet that is said to be far more advanced than we here on Planet Earth. Yet there is no sense of Superman shaking his head to see people committing evil on each other: "These pathetic Earthlings just don't GET IT!"
Instead it's like "sh*t happens... perhaps if I can save enough kitties from trees, I'll score with Lois." While I love Kevin Spacey, his Lex is without a doubt the least menacing bad guy EVER. His passion for destroying the S-Man comes across as simply a hobby, like a guy who builds model trains. "It's what I do with my time."
I think the 1-dimensionality is the great flaw of the franchise: "We can't make Superman INTERESTING!!! That's not what Superman is ABOUT!!!"
I beg to differ. The Lex character is like Satan, bent on destroying an all-good super-being (SMan:God). This is a very compelling moral quandary: We KNOW that real people do such things (e.g. Osama)... And there is an endlessly fascinating question of "What's the difference between HIM and ME? What could make any person DO such an evil thing and yet believe it's right? I see myself as a 'good person,' because I don't purposely blow up cities, but is 'not doing terrible things' my only moral responsibility in life?"
XMen does a far better job of turning these issues into compelling stories. Or look at the first Star Wars movies: this is THE issue that made them so compelling, not just the light sabers.
In this city of Metropolis however, everyone's made from cardboard: Superman is squeaky clean, whose only issues are 1) kryptonite, and 2) a (lily-white) h*rd-on for Lois. The bad guys are bores who do evil stuff because they apparently can't come up with anything else to do with their time.
And through it all, Superman is never forced to choose between which evil is worse, the baby falling out the window or a postal worker gunning down his bowling league: he just fixes whatever catches his eye on the way from point A to point B.
Bottom line: When you leave this movie you forget every moment of it. Better you should stay home and watch Seinfeld, or Law & Order...
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
What a mess...
XMen 3 is a special effects movie. Period. (This is not an endorsement btw.) Rattner does a great job of showing us really cool burning-cars-as-bombs, etc, but the weirdly rushed and glossed-over treatment of the human dimension left me nodding off. The telling of the story -- and explosions are *not* a "story" -- was simply a disaster. Thus... It was all about the explosions. I forgot everything about the movie by the time I got to my car.
The way it was treated by Rattner, this "cure" for mutantism came across as non-compelling. Somebody announces a 5-second cure for mutantism in all its bazillion forms, and within 3 minutes we have a Race War, with thousands of 8th-tier mutants (Really-Bad-Dandruff-Man? Farts-Smell-Like-Chanel-#5 Girl?) lining up behind Magneto, who sets right out to destroy the world if the "cure" is not abandoned.
Consider: Here you have a situation (far-fetched to be sure, given that "mutantism" isn't a specific condition, but a normal genetic process that leads to bio-diversity) that could have been very, very moving. EVERYONE in the audience can relate to being the outcast; what would you give up to "fit in"? How would you decide? And should OTHER mutants have the right to choose for themselves? This final point -- that everyone should make their own choice -- is what our dear XMen should have concluded... with Magneto, like Osama, or Mao, or any megalomaniac throughout history deciding for everyone the way it's gonna be.
Rattner's shorthand shortchanged any any pathos: or rather, there were little scenes here and there that said "quick dose of pathos here, now let's get back to the action!" Jean Grey -- Alive? Ugly? Who cares? Cyclops in tears? Who cares? Rogue, will she or won't she? Who cares? Oh well. It's just a movie.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Ron Howard proves his genius
Turning Dan Brown's lengthy and detailed novel into a movie that works was a hairy, hairy problem. (Brown himself said that his own screenplay would have worked out to a 20 hour film -- or longer!) Yet Ron Howard's take on the book is a tremendous success. The filming is marvelous. The story is well-told, and clear to follow. It's true to the source material, keeping in just enough of the background as needed to tell the story. The acting is fantastic. Most impressive, Howard avoids cardboard characters and treacly sentiment (like the requisite romance between Langdon and Sophie that was in the book), and avoids a total sell-out of the book in order to appease Bible-thumpers.
The major criticisms of this movie that I have seen are 1) It's not as good (or as detailed) as the book and 2) it's sacrilegious.
Neither of those I find really significant; in response to #1 I can't imagine a *better* screen version of the book than this.
And as for #2: oh well, that's the problem with free speech... people say things you don't agree with.
Rank-and-file Catholics like to believe that all the facts of Christianity were written down on a long sheet of paper by God himself, and that only someone inspired by Satan would question the foundations of Christianity. What Brown's book (and now movie) show is the FACT of just how much play there was in the development of the Catholic/Christian Mythos. The Catholic Church and Christian faith were the creation of MEN, who each believed that they were on the right track to God. Their arguments and disagreements went back to the very earliest days: Paul thought that the "Three Pillars" of the Jerusalem disciples -- Peter especially -- were bone-heads and had it all wrong about Jesus; at least that's what he says in his epistles! While I am not asserting the truth of any of Brown's particular claims or plot devices, what IS important is the search for truth. If we know anything of God at all, it is that God is truth. And the "cut and dried" version that the Vatican presents is most certainly NOT the truth.
For example, if priests are literally Jesus on earth, then how can ANY priest be a pedophile? If popes are infallible, then why have they been wrong about matters of faith and morals, and even declared heretics by later generations? Is believing in the American system of government (separation of church an state) in FACT a heresy, as stated and reaffirmed in the Syllabus of Errors? And what about the Malleus Maleficarium, where the pope expressly gave German bishops the authority to kill in the name of God?
This is a great job of turning a book into a successful movie. I hope the legacy of this movie, once the furor dies down, is the emergence of a more sane view of Christianity, a faith that centers on the spiritual experience of the common man, rather than the terrible self-contradictory "just shut up and do as we say" power-trip that the Vatican has promoted for so long.
Or, in other words: Don't fear God... Fear men who can justify doing evil in God's name.
Shopgirl (2005)
Steve Martin's sexual fantasy misses the mark
This is one of those movies that admirers compare to other darlings, like Lost in Translation, or the original novella it was adapted from. However, let me address this film on its own merits, and not its reference to other things.
This whole project was Steve Martin's baby, from original novella to screen adaptation, producing, starring, narrating and perhaps foleying. While there is merit to this film, I can't help but feel that Steverino got a little too close to the flame, essentially living out a forbidden fantasy on celluloid.
Woody Allen had Manhattan, where he kicks over a relationship with an adult woman for a waifish teen, saying "It's not autobiographical!" and then years later marrying of all women HIS OWN TEENAGE STEP-DAUGHTER.
I think this is Steve's turn to dip into the forbidden well, vicariously. He probably got the idea while shopping at Saks, and rather than make a sleazy pass at the babe behind the glove counter, writes this book. And wouldn't you know it -- in real life he gets to roll around naked with Claire Danes!!!
The fans of this movie seem to miss the entire point, probably because Steve is such a likable goodnik. This movie is about Bill Gates taking your daughter to the prom, and expecting her to put out. The fact that he is a nice enough guy, or that he perhaps maybe has genuine feelings for her just a little bit unfortunately obscures the moral point Martin is making: He is not the right man for this girl. Period, end of story. The fact of this wrongness is what motivates the entire film: If he WAS the right guy for her, this movie would be completely pointless.
What is missing though is an honest nod to the creepiness of a 60-something entering a sex-only relationship with a woman of 24. Whenever you see a post that says "I wanted to see Ray and Mirabelle together at the end" you know that they completely missed the point of this movie.
Claire Danes does an awesome job of being Claire Danes. While she is a great actress, this role gave her nothing to work with; or if it DID, she surely missed it. Consider how Meryl Streep turns into vividly different characters depending on the role. Or Diane Keaton in looking For Mr. Goodbar -- a woman mining her dark side.
Here we have Claire playing a nice 24-year-old girl. How did she ever prepare for a stretch like that??? We like Claire, so we like the character. Since we like the character, we want to see her have a happy ending.
This is a thoughtful movie, but heavy, slow, uneventful, and worst of all tripping over itself with a completely muddled moral message. If Ray had been played by someone who can deliver a sleazier vibe than Steve Martin -- try Dennis Franz! -- I think the movie is better on all levels.
But then Steve doesn't get to do the love scenes...
Hostel (2005)
Does the world really need this kind of trash?
It's sad to me that great talent would be wasted on an exercise as vile as this. I mean, this is a well-made movie; the craft is great. The filming, the actors, the effects...
But this amounts to a "snuff film" and nothing more, an exercise in pure sadism and blood lust. There is NO redeeming value of any kind. I was told that this is based on a real-world situation, from Thailand. OK: so for those of you who don't have the time or money to go to Thailand, here's the next best thing. (And maybe if you save up your dollars, you can be there in the flesh some day!)
I'm starting to think that Tarentino is a twisted perv, given that his thumbprints on a movie always means a new height in graphic violence. Sadly, is that what it takes for him to have any kind of human emotion?
But as long as we keep voting with our dollars, this kind of crap will continue to pollute the world. (Sadly, I accompanied a nephew to this film, and wasn't prepared for the extreme level of graphic violence.)