Category: Reviews

  • ‘Looper’ takes time travel and body disposal for a loop

    ‘Looper’ takes time travel and body disposal for a loop

    Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 'Looper'
    Joseph Gordon-Levitt in ‘Looper’

    A looper is a hired killer. He has been hired by an unseen crime boss 30 years into the future, because when time-travel finally becomes possible, it’s too difficult to easily dispose of a dead body. So this crime boss sent a man named “Abe” (Jeff Daniels) back to the 2040s to hire some assassins. The work is easy, the victim arrives from the future at a specified time, at a specified place. The payment for killing and disposing of the body is several silver bars attached to the body.

    “Joe” (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper. He is also an addict. The unnamed drug is dispensed via an eyedropper directly into the eye and he uses a lot of it. We also see him shooting a lot of guys from the future with his ‘blunderbuss’ and keeping some of his silver bars tucked away for the future. He knows that his future is a finite amount of time because part of being a looper means being willing to “close your loop.”

    That’s how a looper is fired. His future self is sent back for him to kill, along with a bunch of gold bars, to see him through the next 30 or so years. Failing to close your loop is… not an option.

    Bruce Willis in 'Looper'
    Bruce Willis in ‘Looper’

    When Joe’s future self (Bruce Willis) appears, he isn’t bound or wearing a hood and he quickly gets the upper hand on Joe. This forces Joe to hunt him down, because Abe and his hired guns are going to kill both Joe and his future self the minute they can find either. But Joe’s future self is in the past by choice and to accomplish a specific goal.

    In his hunt for his future self, Joe ends up on a farm owned by “Sara” who lives there with her young son Cid. Their futures are intertwined with Joe’s for reasons best left for the viewer to see for themselves.

    Rian Johnson is a talented filmmaker and Looper is a fine third effort following Brick and the less enjoyable but competent Brothers Bloom. The action sequences are more than adequate and the story is intriguing, although like most movies and TV that deal with the paradoxes of time-travel, questions about the concept of moving through time and changing the past are always raised.

    Lovely ladies of 'Looper'
    Lovely ladies of ‘Looper’

    The classic paradox is a man going back in time and killing his grandfather. So if the time-traveler’s father is never conceived, how does he get born to go back in time and kill his grandfather? Similar questions about the path taken by the current and future versions of Joe as they move through the same time period may take one aback momentarily.

    Gordon-Levitt and Emily Blunt are very good and Jeff Daniels makes an excellent villain. Piper Perabo has a few nice moments in a small role, but sadly Bruce Willis appears to have phoned this one in. Being a big fan of his work, this particular performance was disappointing.

  • ‘The Other Dream Team’ will lift your spirit

    ‘The Other Dream Team’ will lift your spirit

    The members of 'The Other Dream Team'
    The members of ‘The Other Dream Team’

    The Other Dream Team is about basketball, but it’s more than just a basketball movie.

    At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, the U.S.A. men’s basketball team lost a game for only the second time in history up to that point.

    They were defeated by the Soviet Union team, who then went on to win the gold. Four of the five starters on that team were from Lithuania, one of the three Baltic states that were occupied and taken over by the Soviet Union in 1940.

    The Other Dream Team is about these players. It tells the story of how basketball intertwined with the desire of the people of Lithuania to become free from the USSR. It also tells the story of a modern day Lithuanian basketball player in 2011 who wants to be drafted by an NBA team so he can achieve his dream of playing professional basketball in the U.S.

    Two of the names of that four man group of starters from the gold medal winning team are familiar to NBA fans of the 1990s. Šarūnas Marčiulionis joined the Golden State Warriors in 1989 and Arvydas Sabonis became a Portland Trailblazer in 1995. Sabonis is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and is considered one of the all-time great passing centers to ever play the game.

    The film shows the history of how Lithuania was first occupied, and includes some film references to the U.S. perception and portrayal of the USSR in the past that include scenes from War Games, Rocky IV and even the Rocky and Bullwinkle character Boris Badenov. It also shows us the four players from that gold medal team today and their humble origins, as well as delving into what life was like for them under the Soviet “system” when they were playing for the Soviet National Team.

    Lithuania gained its independence from the USSR during Mikhail Gorbachev’s rule and actually declared independence in March of 1990. After that, the players wanted to represent their new nation in the upcoming 1992 Summer Games at Barcelona, but Lithuania was broke. There was no money to travel to the Games (which is required). In fact, they didn’t even have the money to attend the Games as mere spectators.

    Marčiulionis and the man who became the assistant coach of the Lithuania team, Donnie Nelson, were trying to raise money for the team and a reporter in San Francisco wrote an article about their efforts. That article was read by members of The Grateful Dead, and as it happened, Golden State had a game coming up in Detroit at the arena where the Dead were scheduled to play. Marčiulionis and Nelson went to the concert, went backstage and met with the Dead and soon the money was there. The Dead also sent the team a big box of tie-dyed t-shirts with a great logo involving both the Dead and the Lithuanian team.

    The Lithuanians qualified for the Olympics and made it to the semi-finals where they lost to the team that is more widely known as “The Dream Team,” the U.S.A. squad with Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and nine other NBA players who ran away with the gold medal that year. But their loss to the U.S.A. team in the semi-final game set up a confrontation in the game for the bronze medal that was one for the ages. They would play the “Unified” team, the name for the team representing the new Commonwealth of Independent States, also known as the former Soviet Union. This was their chance to make a statement about Lithuanian independence and freedom.

    This is an excellent documentary film. It contains commentary from not just the players and coaches involved in the process, but also members of the Grateful Dead and others who were involved. They interviewed basketball legends such as Bill Walton and sportscasters such as Jim Lampley, who were in Barcelona at the Games.

    The Other Dream Team is a stirring, uplifting look at just how popular basketball is outside the U.S.A. and how Beijing’s Tiananmen Square wasn’t the only place people stood up to oppression.

  • ‘Won’t Back Down’ gets a barely passing grade

    ‘Won’t Back Down’ gets a barely passing grade

    Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal in 'Won't Back Down'
    Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal in ‘Won’t Back Down’

    “Malia Fitzpatrick” (Lynd) is in the 2nd grade at John Adams Elementary school in Pittsburgh, and she has a problem. She can’t read very well. The fact that she has dyslexia just exacerbates the problem. So does the fact that she was forced to leave the private school she had been attending due to her mother’s financial problems. Her mother, “Jamie Fitzpatrick” (Gyllenhaal), loves her daughter very much, but she’s a single mom working two jobs just to make ends meet. Even if she wanted to help her daughter with her studies, her own education is lacking. This is evident in some of the words she seems to make up that aren’t part of the ordinary English language. But she’s willing to do anything to help her daughter, which includes going to a lottery to get her daughter into the Rosa Parks Charter School, where “Principal Thompson” (Rhames) has done an incredible job and urges the parents of the children who don’t get into his school to keep fighting.

    It is at this lottery that Jamie gets to talk to “Nona Alberts” (Davis) about Malia’s problems. Nona is the other 2nd grade teacher at Adams and Jamie wants to get Malia into her class, but she’s already been turned down several times by the school’s principal. After a failed attempt to get in to see the district superintendent, Jamie learns there is a parent trigger law that allows parents and teachers to take over and change failing schools. There’s a great big F hanging figuratively on Adams, and Jamie realizes that Nona and she are the right two parents/teacher to use this law to make changes.

    Jamie is also inspired by seeing a terrific teacher at Adams, “Michael Perry” (Isaac), who she wants to enlist in their efforts. But he’s resistant, supporting the teacher’s union which is vehemently opposed to any effort to use this law. Seems that when this happens, the teachers at the newly changed school are no longer union teachers. The union’s opposition is represented by “Evelyn Riske” (Hunter) at the direction of her boss, the president of TAP (Teacher’s Association of Pennsylvania).

    The law requires that 50% of the parents and teachers support the petition for change before they can even schedule an appointment to schedule a hearing before the school board. They also have to come up with a 400-page proposal that must be absolutely perfect in every detail, or the board will summarily dismiss it and tell them to try again next year. With two months to go before the current board’s term ends, the clock is ticking fast.

    The acting in this film is excellent with Oscar nominees Gyllenhaal and Davis really showing off their considerable talents. But the film itself is flawed. It is cloying and maudlin, apparently in the belief that this is the only way to move the audience to care about a truly important social issue. The manipulation of audience emotion wasn’t required. Nor were plot devices to make the struggle of Alberts and Fitzpatrick even more difficult that it would be under normal circumstances.

    Worse yet, the writing takes too much poetic license with the realities of the public and private education system. No charter school is holding a lottery in the middle of the year for 40 spaces, several at each grade level. With the fierce competition to get into such a school, only death, emergency or being forced to relocate would get a parent to take their kid out of that kind of school. Worse yet is a plotpoint where Riske gets an expensive, exclusive private school in the area to offer a place and full financial aid to Jamie for Malia. The notion that a union official, even a former teacher, like Riske could get a private school to do such a thing mid-year is just ridiculous. It’s an out-and-out bribe to drop the effort to change Adams and protect union jobs and while it serves to drive the story forward; in the end it’s just too much to swallow.

    If you are really interested in the problems of the public school systems read “Savage Inequalities” by Jonathan Kozol. It’s over 20 years old but still resonates today. Or try “Two Americas, Two Educations: Funding Quality Schools for All Students” by Paul F. Cummins.

    Won’t Back Down does describe the problem fairly well, especially when we’re shown a teacher who is too busy texting and shopping for shoes on the computer at her desk, rather than paying attention to how poorly Malia reads.

  • ‘Hellbound?’: A documentary that asks – Does Hell really exist?

    ‘Hellbound?’: A documentary that asks – Does Hell really exist?

    Driving out Satan in 'Hellbound'
    Driving out Satan in ‘Hellbound’

    Hellbound? is a documentary that explores an interesting question: Would a truly loving God allow His children (or Her children, if you’re so inclined) to actually spend an eternity suffering fire and brimstone damnation?

    Why do those who believe in Hell (some faiths have no concept of such a place) believe in it so firmly?  Because of scripture?  Because that’s how they were inculcated into their particular faith?  Writer/director Kevin Miller explores these and related questions in this engaging documentary.  It makes use of copious interviews with theologians, noted and unknown.  Among the unknown are members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church, who regularly picket and protest funerals of random people, from soldiers to high school teenagers. At the beginning of Hellbound?, they are picketing at the 10th anniversary of 9/11, next to the 9/11 memorial.  Carrying provocative signs such as “God H8Ts Fags” and the like, members of this protest expound on their views of God, His Word, and how they interpret it to mean that 99.9999999 (their stat and I may have shorted them a decimal point or two) percent of the population are going straight to hell.

    The conviction they held in saying this brought back memories of one of Eddie Murphy’s earliest comedy routines, which involved the man who shot Pope John Paul II.  “He shot the Pope.  I guess he figured he wanted to go straight to hell and he didn’t want to stand in line.  ‘Oh, you shot the Pope.  You can go right on through.’”  They were convinced and convincing in their fervent belief that if anyone doesn’t worship exactly as they do, Hell is inevitable.

    Then against this opening backdrop, Miller presents a veritable parade of theologians expounding on their views on philosophies like annihilism, universalism and more.  There are slow moments when these experts are discussing their positions and beliefs, particularly when the speakers aren’t charismatic ‘preacher’ types who usually speak on such matters from the pulpit rather than the interview chair.  Indeed, some of the presentations are done from the pulpit and they are much more attention-holding than other portions of the material presented.

    Aside from the sequences (there are more than just that one at the beginning) involving the Westboro Baptist folks, there is also an interesting shot at the Huntington Beach Pier, where an evangelical man proselytizes and his target is some random bystander who agreed to stand on a box and become the target of the evangelical’s scorn.  His reaction in the aftermath when the evangelical tries to shake hands with him is quite telling.

    Miller uses his interviews with these theologians and others well, and also makes very effective use of imagery and music.  There are those slow moments, but unless you are one of those who hates talking religion or politics, this documentary will be informative and hold your attention throughout.  It must be noted that the overall presentation is a bit disjointed and unorganized.  It also may seem that only one side of the argument is being fully presented and advocated, depending on your own personal perspective.  Personally, I found it balanced but meandering.

    If you’re a particularly religious person, it is definitely for you.  If you are worried you may be en route to Hell personally, it might make you worry less.  Or you could just check it out, because you like documentaries.

  • ‘Never Cry Wolf’ is a perfect, beautifully told story about one man’s journey to find himself

    ‘Never Cry Wolf’ is a perfect, beautifully told story about one man’s journey to find himself

    Charles Martin Smith in 'Never Cry Wolf'
    Charles Martin Smith in ‘Never Cry Wolf’

    When I was a kid, Never Cry Wolf was the first film I went to see alone. It was 1983, and I was 8 years old. I went to see the movie 13 times, 12 of which alone.

    I don’t know what struck me about the film, but I was completely taken by it. Fascinated. I loved the story, and continually scratched together the five to six bucks I needed to see the movie, and buy a soda and popcorn.

    In the past year, I’ve been dedicating myself to getting it on DVD. I saw it was available on Amazon, but I’m really not a believer in buying things online. I mean, $12 some bucks for the DVD, then another $10 just to pay for shipping? Give me a break. Nah, I wanted to get it in Sam Goody or Best Buy. Just let me buy it at a store.

    But I could never find that darn thing.

    Wolf in the night
    Wolf in the night

    So, I was down in Pennsylvania recently visiting family, when we took a trip to the mall. There happened to be a video store by the little eatery we stopped in, so I finished my lunch and poked my head into the store. I remembered that I’d been looking for Never Cry Wolf, so I figured I’d give it a shot. Let’s see if perhaps I could find it.

    And, shockingly, I did. And I bought it right away.

    Never Cry Wolf is based on the true story of a scientist (Charles Martin Smith) who journeys to the Artic to determine if the wolves in the region are causing the demise of the caribou. He makes this journey alone, and soon encounters a family of wolves in the wilderness. There he studies them to understand how they live and what they eat.

    He also encounters an old Inuit spiritual man, and a young Inuit who makes a living selling wolf hides.

    It’s a powerful, sometimes funny tale. Much of the humor comes through the main character’s experiences in trying to survive in the wilderness, often poking fun as the fact that his “funded” expedition was so poorly mishandled. But, none of the humor would have worked without the beautiful performance by Charles Martin Smith.

    Zachary Ittimangnaq in 'Never Cry Wolf'
    Zachary Ittimangnaq in ‘Never Cry Wolf’

    Smith was all over the place in the late 70s and 80s, appearing in films such as American Graffiti, The Untouchables and Starman. He’s shifted into being a director now, but he was a great, natural actor who always played quirky but likable characters.

    Here he play Taylor, a man in search of himself in the middle of nowhere, struggling to find his place in the world. I identified with the character even as a young boy. I suppose that was attracted me to the film.

    Of course the film is also about nature and man’s relationship to it. While Taylor came to study the wolves because civilization believed them to be a threat, what he discovers is that the true threat is civilization.

    Filled with beautiful vistas, the visions of the Artic are just as important to this story as the main character. While the majority of the story features one man, the environment is equally important. It’s not man vs. nature, but man with nature. As such, the cold and the mountains are all characters in this drama.

    The wolves, too, play an important role. The film is of course a statement for people to love and respect nature and its animals. In this case, the film strives to reverse the general perception that wolves are mostly violent and dangerous.

    Brian Dennehy in 'Never Cry Wolf'
    Brian Dennehy in ‘Never Cry Wolf’

    The only bit of disappointment here is with the DVD itself. The DVD features nothing — and I mean NOTHING — but the film. And while the Never Cry Wolf does look rather good — just a few bits of dust and age visible in a few scenes — I would have liked to have seen something more to this DVD. There is another version with production notes, but nothing else.

    Perhaps it’s simply become a forgotten film from the early 80s that no one’s bothered to put together a special edition. I think it would be a worthy endeavor, perhaps featuring a documentary on the real person whose experiences the film was based upon, Farley Mowat.

    So, consider this review a plea to Anchor Bay Entertainment to put together a special edition of Never Cry Wolf that is worthy of this quiet classic.

    REVIEW ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MAY 25, 2004

  • ‘The Cold Light of Day’ might have been best left in the dark

    ‘The Cold Light of Day’ might have been best left in the dark

    Henry Cavill in 'The Cold Light of Day'
    Henry Cavill in ‘The Cold Light of Day’

    Making a spy thriller is easy.  Making a good spy thriller is hard.  Making a bad spy thriller with good actors is even more difficult, yet that’s what The Cold Light of Day turns out to be.

    Henry Cavill is “Will,” who has just journeyed to Spain to spend a week with his father, mother and brother on a sailboat.  He owns a business that’s in trouble at home, but his presence was demanded and he acquiesced.  His father “Martin” (Bruce Willis) and mother “Laurie” (Caroline Goodall) live there, as Martin works at the U.S. Embassy as some kind of cultural attaché.  Will’s brother is there and so, unexpectedly, is his brother’s girlfriend.

    Everything seems idyllic until Will swims to shore to go to town for something and returns to find the boat is gone.  He tries to enlist the aid of the local police, but that doesn’t go well and Will ends up on the run.  He ultimately finds his father and learns that all was not as it seemed.

    Bruce Willis meets up with Sigorney Weaver in 'The Cold Light of Day'
    Bruce Willis meets up with Sigorney Weaver in ‘The Cold Light of Day’

    Dad is really a CIA operative and he’s involved with terrorists who want to get their hands on a briefcase.  Martin is trying to get someone he works with named “Carrack” (Sigourney Weaver) to help him out.  Seems the terrorists have kidnapped Laurie, Will’s brother and girlfriend, and will kill them if they don’t get the briefcase.  Carrack seems helpful but soon Martin has been killed and Will is being pursued through the streets of Madrid as he tries to save his family.

    This is a vehicle for Cavill (the new Man of Steel) and it’s one he might have wanted to test-drive before signing the lease.  Weaver makes a fine villain and does a nice turn as the ‘crook’ but there are far too many flaws in the story to attempt to list here.  The action is adequate but the visuals are choppy and please suspend your disbelief in the lobby or suffer accordingly.  There is an attempt at a clever plot twist, and it’s not bad… but it’s not brilliant either.

    You may prefer to enjoy the bright sunlight outside the auditorium to The Cold Light of Day inside.

  • Amy Adams delights in ‘Trouble With the Curve’

    Amy Adams delights in ‘Trouble With the Curve’

    Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood are daughter and father in 'Trouble with the Curve'
    Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood are daughter and father in ‘Trouble with the Curve’

    Any serious baseball fan knows the names Ferguson Jenkins and Mike Schmidt, both members of the Hall of Fame.  Few if any know the name of Tony Lucadello, but without him, they’d have never heard of Jenkins or Schmidt.  He was the baseball scout who signed both players to their first contract.

    The baseball scout is the unsung hero of baseball.  When he gets it right, the team wins and no one notices.  When he gets it wrong, the team loses and he’s on the chopping block.  In Trouble With the Curve from director Robert Lorenz and writer Randy Brown, “Gus Lobel” (Eastwood) is one of the best scouts ever to work in the Atlanta Braves organization.  He found and signed a bunch of superstars in the past, but now he’s old and struggling.  The club’s director of scouting, “Pete Klein” (Goodman), still has faith in him and will protect him, but “Phillip Sanderson” (Lillard) wants Klein’s job and will throw Gus under the bus to get it.  The club has the number two pick in the upcoming draft and Gus is sent to evaluate “Bo Gentry” (Massingill) to see if he is the potential superstar that computers tell them he will be.

    But Pete knows that Gus is struggling and he asks Gus’ daughter “Mickey” (Adams) to go with him.  She is bucking for partnership at an Atlanta firm and has a big case that will make or break her bid for partnership.  She also has a romantic relationship that’s reaching a critical point.  However, when she learns that her father’s eyesight is failing, she puts everything on hold to go to North Carolina to help him scout this prospect.

    Mickey spent years on the road with her dad as a child, after the death of her mother.  That ended when she turned 13 and Gus packed her off to boarding school.  She knows baseball better than most and can be of great help to her father in finding out if Gentry really does have what it takes to succeed on the major league level.  But their unresolved issues loom very large.

    Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in 'Trouble with the Curve'
    Clint Eastwood and Justin Timberlake in ‘Trouble with the Curve’

    If that wasn’t enough, at the first game where Mickey joins Gus, “Johnny ‘The Flame’ Flanagan” (Timberlake) is there.  He’s a player that Gus signed who blew out his arm and now he’s a scout for the Boston Red Sox, where he hopes to land a job in the broadcasting booth.  He’s also there to scout Gentry.

    With all of that, this isn’t really a movie about baseball, scouts, or the critical role they play in whether teams succeed or fail.  This is all about relationships and aging.  Gus’ relationship with Mickey and what happened to it after her mother died.  Mickey’s inability to sustain any relationship with anyone else because of that problematic relationship with her father.  Pete’s relationship with his very close friend, who he wants to protect and may be unable to.  Johnny’s relationship with baseball, the game he loves and his regrets over how his career ended.

    Adams is superb as the daughter who has been driven to succeed in her career in order to gain her father’s approval, and whose life suffers in every other aspect.  Eastwood only improves in the role of crotchety, angry old man that we thought we’d seen the last of in Gran Torino.  Timberlake was surprisingly good as Johnny, especially in the third act.

    It’s easy to see that Lorenz spent years working as Eastwood’s assistant director, as there is a very real Eastwood ‘feel’ to the film’s imagery and direction.  The story is well thought-out and holds the viewer’s attention throughout.  Baseball fans will be particularly enthralled, but you don’t have to love baseball to enjoy Trouble With the Curve.

  • There is no reason to dread ‘Dredd,’ film far surpasses Stallone version

    Karl Urban takes no prisoners in 'Dredd'
    Karl Urban takes no prisoners in ‘Dredd’

    “Is it better than the original” is a question that will be asked about every movie remake.  In the case of the remake of Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone and Diane Lane, the answer is: “Hell yes!”

    Under the capable direction of Pete Travis (Vantage Point and Endgame), Dredd 3d takes the comic book character to new heights.  Portrayed by Karl Urban (“Dr. McCoy” in 2009’s Star Trek), this is the “Judge Dredd” that begged to be brought to the big screen.

    Set in a post-apocalyptic North America, Dredd is the story of “Mega-City One”, a megalopolis that stretches from what was Boston to what was Washington, D.C. and is home to 800 million people. It is surrounded by high, sturdy walls that separate it from vast wastelands, and is a place that sees tens of thousands of crimes daily.  It is home to many large buildings that rise into the sky housing both criminals and the people who fear them, side by side.

    Lena Headey stars as Ma-Ma in 'Dredd 3D'
    Lena Headey stars as Ma-Ma in ‘Dredd 3D’

    Administering justice as law enforcement, prosecutor, judge, jury and – if need be – executioner, Mega-City One is patrolled by the judges who ride out daily from the Hall of Justice.  One such judge is “Judge Dredd,” and on this day he has an additional task.  He is to perform an assessment on a new graduate of the academy where judges are trained.  “Anderson” (Olivia Thrilby) didn’t pass the course, but she’s being given a chance to be a judge because she is a mutant with strong psychic abilities.  This one day will be make or break for her.

    There is a new drug making the rounds in Mega-City One.  It’s called “slo-mo,” and it makes the user feel as though time is passing at 1% of its normal speed.  To better illustrate its effects, consider this.

    “Madeline Madrigal”, better known as “Ma Ma” (Headey), is the leader of the gang that produces and sells slo-mo. She also rules the 200 story building where it is made with an iron fist. When three bodies are thrown from the top of the building to the sidewalk below, Judge Dredd and his rookie judge are dispatched to investigate.  Soon they are inside and arresting “Kay” (Wood Harris), one of Ma Ma’s key people.  She can’t afford to let them get out and take him in for questioning, so she orders the building sealed and then orders the residents to kill the two judges.

    Olivia Thirlby stars as Anderson in 'Dredd 3D'
    Olivia Thirlby stars as Anderson in ‘Dredd 3D’

    So that leaves cops trapped inside a building filled with bad guys and the only way to survive is to take out their leadership. Sound familiar?  It should.  The excellent Indonesian film The Raid: Redemption released earlier this year features this same device (no doubt this is purely coincidental).

    Dredd 3D features plenty of action, lots of thugs getting their just desserts, a stoic, hoarse, direct hero who says what he means, means what he says, and who won’t hesitate to dispense justice to anyone who he feels has violated the law.  Clearly Urban was a fan of the comic before taking the role and it shows in his performance.

    Thirlby is fine as the new judge who learns that handing out justice means is not as easy as it looks, especially when you encounter those whose lives you’ve altered just by doing your job.  The 3D visuals may be worth the extra cost of admission to those who like that sort of thing, but the images are perfectly enjoyable when seen on a “normal” screen.  I doubt anyone will ‘judge’ Dredd 3D to be anything but a vast improvement on the Stallone version.

  • ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ is very, very good

    ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ is very, very good

    Emma Watson in 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'
    Emma Watson in ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’

    The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a film adapted from a highly influential novel about young adults.  The highest compliment one can give to a film adapted from a novel is that the movie makes you want to run right out and buy the book.

    This is one of those films.

    “Charlie” (Logan Lerman – 3:10 to Yuma) is about to enter his freshman year in high school.  He wasn’t popular in middle school and expects things to only get worse.  His older brother was a jock and is now playing college football. His older sister is also a senior at his high school, and while both he and Candace are very smart, he lacks her “coolness” and social skills.

    It looks like he is in for a very long four years until he meets “Patrick” (Ezra Miller – We Need to Talk About Kevin).  Patrick is a senior forced to take a freshman shop class and he and Charlie become friendly, which leads to Charlie also being friendly with Patrick’s senior step-sister “Sam” (Emma Watson – My Week With Marilyn).  Suddenly he’s in their circle of friends, going to their parties and having interesting new experiences.  His first time getting high, thanks to a brownie he eats unknowingly is particularly amusing.

    But there is a dark side to Charlie that lies beneath the surface, and is hiding a tragic secret.

    Charlie is attracted to Sam, who also has demons in her past, but she’s worked to overcome them.  Now she’s dating an older guy named Craig and Charlie may or may not be able to compete with him.  Meanwhile, one of Sam’s friends, “Mary Elizabeth” (Mae Whitman – Nights in Rodanthe), asks Charlie to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance and quickly they become boyfriend and girlfriend, even though that’s the last thing on Earth he wanted.

    Logan Lerman in 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'
    Logan Lerman in ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’

    We see flashbacks of a young Charlie interacting with his “Aunt Helen” (Melanie Lynskey – Hello I Must Be Going), a relationship which has more to it than meets the eye.

    There’s a lot more to the story that is best left to be experienced as it happens.  This is a really good film that deserves a rating closer to four than three, but that’s not an option.  The reasons it isn’t a four involve the use of tired clichés, even if they were part of the original material.

    Hollywood, please give us a movie about a writer (Charlie wants to be a writer) that doesn’t involve a manual typewriter.  And if we’re going to be shown a closeted high school boy, does he have to be an athlete who has a homophobic father?  It also doesn’t help that we aren’t told up front that this film is set in the early 1990s, although you figure it out eventually thanks to the music used, and the ever present device of people romantically involved or interested in one another making “mix tapes” of music and a few spoken words recorded on a cassette tape.

    But the good far outweighs the negatives here.  Chobsky, who adapted and directs his own novel, does so with a very deft touch.  Miller and Watson are perfect as step-brother and step-sister, two siblings brought together by the marriage of their parents who adore one another in a truly platonic way.  Lerman may not have a lot of experience, but he shines as Charlie.  Lynskey’s role as Aunt Helen is tiny, but critical, and Joan Cusack is good in the final act as a doctor treating Charlie once his demons have finally broken through.

    Strong acting, great music and excellent writing mix together for an enjoyable movie.  It’s especially enjoyable for those who were themselves “wallflowers” in high school, as it is an authentic translation of that experience.

  • ‘The Master’ might just be a… ‘master’-piece

    ‘The Master’ might just be a… ‘master’-piece

    Joaquin Phoenix returns to the big screen with 'The Master'
    Joaquin Phoenix returns to the big screen with ‘The Master’

    When I ranked Magnolia as my top film of 1999, I often found myself in the position of have to defend it often to non-believers. Yes, it was tough, I acknowledged. Yes, it was difficult. But unlike many other works, which receive acclaim for breaking the rules, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s uncompromising visionary vista was to be applauded for creating a set of rules all his own. Anderson’s latest, The Master, is a visually arresting and highly stylized look at a similar group of those who may doubt and disbelieve.

    Make no mistake, The Master, as is to be expected by a work from the leading American auteur of his generation, is as mature and confident a motion picture as you’ll find this year. Ambitious enough to evoke comparison to The Great Gatsby, it probably ranks among the savviest movies to be released since Anderson’s last opus, There Will Be Blood. A trenchant look at those who lead and those who need to be led, Master is rich and dense with ideas and images. It is also, however, an emotionally aloof experience when it could have been a wrenching one.

    Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) is our Nick Carraway this time, a literal washout after a scarring tour of duty with the U.S. Navy in World War II. Destructive both to himself and to others, he drunkenly stumbles upon a unique enclave when stowing away on a New York-bound cruise in California. Instead of being thrown overboard when discovered, he is invited into the family of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), himself a naval veteran. Dodd, the leader of an imposing cult-like group known as the Cause (whose followers refer to him as “The Master”), takes an interest in the mercurial Quell, who vacillates between stubbornness and stubborn loyalty. The Master leads Quell through a series of pseudo-psychological therapy sessions that feel more like hypnotherapy, but nonetheless produce a sort of mental excavation for the patient.

    Philip Seymour Hoffman is stellar in 'The Master'
    Philip Seymour Hoffman is stellar in ‘The Master’

    These sessions, described in Anderson’s film as “processing,” bear more than a passing resemblance to “auditing,” part of the practice of Scientology. Prior to its release, Master was seen as a parable about the oft-mocked,, little understood religion, and while Dodd can easily be read as a stand-in for L. Ron Hubbard, Master can actually refer to any faith. Anderson questions the very nature of religion in his movie. There are people that want to come together in shared beliefs and rituals, and Dodd, who the film comes to regard as a nefarious fraud, has identified such followers as his prey. Religion, to him, is an enterprise to exploit. This is in keeping with one of the running themes in Anderson’s oeuvre (notably Blood): the way in which opportunity and success can lead to corruption, and the ways in which adults cloak it to make their self-serving needs feel okay. What causes Quell to rebel from the home he has found with Dodd and his wife Peggy (Amy Adams, the embodiment of steely motherhood) is the notion that to join any such group and be a follower means that he cannot always be a leader in his own life.

    That’s a lot to digest, and Anderson doesn’t try to make his message accessible. Master is what I refer to as “movies for medicinal purposes.” Watch this, it’s good for you, is the general feeling while sitting through the two-hour-plus film. And while Anderson exhausts every possible filmic resource, from a terrific ensemble that includes Laura Dern and Rami Malek to Jonny Greenwood’s haunting, heavy score to Mihai Malaimare Jr.’s unforgettable cinematography (conjuring up films of David Lean, Nicholas Ray, and George Stevens), in charting Quell’s journey with the Cause, it all happens at a distance, allowing us time to take ourselves out of the film. Unlike earlier works like Boogie Nights and Magnolia, kinetic canvases that were impossible to look away from, Master mostly works at an intellectual level. Anderson has created a grand movie with plenty of breathing room, but never given a reason to exhale.

    All of which takes nothing away from the transcendent performances of Hoffman and Phoenix. The latter makes Quell a mess, a man-child who wears his fear, mistakes, and ruin all over his face and body, while Hoffman shows that beneath Dodd’s veneer, he is every inch Quell’s petulant equal. As their relationship – part father-son, part master-servant, with a hint of sexual jealousy thrown in – begins to fissure, Master pokes more holes in the Cause, yet also provides more reasoning why so many people might need to flock to one. This is easily one of the most important films of the year, while, frustratingly, it remains difficult to articulate all of the reasons why. Perhaps Anderson has, again, created a new lingua franca.