John Carter of Mars

This movie is going to suffer an ignoble fate at the box office and that is just too sad. The source material has been an inspiration for science fiction films and fans for decades. The fact that this project was never developed into a film property before now has hurt it in strange ways. It should be an anticipated series of films based on an original character that was popularized in a set of stories told in books. The books unfortunately are nearly a century old and the modern audience has no familiarity with the characters. Edgar Rice Burroughs' other creation, Tarzan, has been adapted for films since Elmo Lincoln first played him in the silent days. Audiences that may never have encountered a Tarzan book have seen a version of Tarzan at some time or other. He is a character that entered the public consciousness and has stayed there even in long fallow periods. John Carter on the other hand has remained a literary icon, for the community of science fiction and fantasy aficionados and those things that were original about the books have been strip mined for movies since Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon to Star Wars and Dune.  So the material here may seem like old hat although the character of John Carter precedes any of the other modern heroes.

The trailers do not do the film justice. It looks too much like there is a somber theme, attached to a CGI crapfest which comes from the studio that brought us the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise which was a success and the would be "Prince of Persia" franchise that failed. The emphasis in the previews is on the spectacular look of the movie and the alien creatures that inhabit that world. If you don't know who John Carter is, you probably won't care much about seeing the movie. I have to admit that I voraciously consumed Tarzan novels when I was a kid, but never dove into the John Carter story. I remember in college, when we had seen "Star Wars", my debate coach John DeBross, tried to encourage me to read the stories since so much of the Star Wars mythology drew on the Burroughs work. I was too distracted to get around to it and my knowledge of the series is severely limited as a consequence. I can say based on the movie I saw today, that I am encouraged enough to take up the task of catching up with a hundred years of science fiction history.

A couple of things about the movie stand out and should encourage viewers to seek it out. To begin with, the tone of the film is set pretty effectively with the bookend story that puts the author Burroughs into his own fictional work. The start of the movie details the background of the John Carter character without revealing too much. It provides a reason for us to want to follow this character into the story. The technology for his transportation to Mars is partially explained and it turns out it is less space travel than astral projection. The performance of Taylor Kitch in the lead is fine, he seems a little contemporary at times, but plays the southerner he is supposed to be solidly due to some appropriate dialogue and vocal tone. He is a gentleman from the South, not a redneck farmer but a Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia. He manages the transition to life on Mars (Barzoom) about as well as any man of the times could hope to.  The other strong part of the story is the Princess of Mars that he comes to know and defend and is the romantic interest for his character. She starts off a little too eager but settles into a more serious character who finally begins to realize the sacrifices she might have to make to save her planet. She is not so much a damsel in distress as a warrior scientist that needs some common sense and love. The actress Carol Lynn plays her with just a right amount of sensuality but a lot more intelligence. 

Mars is depicted as a dry and barren planet nearing the end of it's life cycle. This is the way it has been visualized by movies since the earliest of times. The origin of this vision is contained in this story.  While there is a significant amount of CGI in the backgrounds and sets, it did not feel overdone. There were maybe a couple of scenes where the goal seemed to be to wow us but most of the time the film makers stuck to their story. The alien races are visualized in an adventure action style that is reminiscent of old pulp novels, horns in their jaws, multiple arms, body tattoos, and friendly and dangerous animals to interact with. There is some good humor in the tribal story of the race that Carter first encounters, that helps keep us in mind that we are watching an entertainment. It may strain at credibility as most fantasy will, but it sets up some believable moments to keep us in the story. The story is much too complicated to try and explain. The character names all sound similar and it sometimes feels like a Russian novel with hard to pronounce names and characters that can easily be mixed up with one another. In "Dune" back in the 1980s, David Lynch gave characters internal dialogue to try to clarify the story. That had the effect of making the movie portentous.  George Lucas would have some long scene of exposition that is stuck into the middle of the story and slows the pace of the movie but then he would try to slam it back into action with an elaborate and overlong set piece.  Here they go for something in the middle. The characters sometimes verbalize plot, usually they try to show it and plenty of times we are left to infer it, which may leave a viewer confused at times. Even if you lose track of all the characters, you still have a pretty good sense of who the good guys and bad guys are.

Your willingness to give into the pulp roots of the story and accept the complications of plot and character will be your best guide for determining if you will enjoy this movie. I was very much surprised by how much it all worked despite my familiarity with the world Burroughs had created. The battles are epic and well staged, the look of the movie seems true to it's roots, and best of all, the growing relationship of the two leads and the resolution of the story left me hopeful about the characters.  They spent a lot of money making this movie and most of it ends up on screen. I am just afraid that it will not mean much to most potential customers and they will move on to some other film that is not as much fun or as ambitious. John Carter does not succeed entirely, but there is plenty here to satisfy the  twelve year old boy in all of us.

AMC Stubbs Program

I was not a fan of the program when it first started. I enjoyed the surprise of a promotion on my ticket with the old Movie watcher program. I must say however, it is nice to know how much I have got back on ticket purchases and concession spending. In the year since the program started, I have received $260 back. You earn $10 for every $100 you spend. That means I spent $2600 at AMC Theaters in the last year. That could be one nice vacation, but instead I had over fifty mini vacations and got to eat popcorn too.

Universal Celebrates 100 Years

OK, I'm a movie whore selling for the man. I just love the promotional stuff studios put out celebrating anniversaries and old films. It makes me want to watch them all again.

FOR SHAME, OSCARS! 2012

Someone else posted this on Youtube and it seems appropriate to share. Some of these might be better known in TV but there are definitely some glaring omissions.

Prometheus - Guy Pearce Weyland Viral Video (HD)

This movie is going to be incredible. This is a fantastic monologue presented as a TED video setting up the premise of the movie. I don't know how much Guy Pearce is in the movie, but this sets the tone for something amazing.

Evolution of Trailers

Here is a CBS story on the changes over time in the way trailers try to sell movies.

Sean Hollihan Film

Isaac Illuminated from Sean Hollihan on Vimeo.

Sean is the son of one of my college mentors, Tom Hollihan. This is from the Ed Wood Film Festival at USC. The idea is that everything is conceived, shot and produced in 24 hours.


Just found an update on Facebook that Sean's film won the Ed Wood Festival at USC. Congratulations to Sean and his partner.

Academy Award/Best Picture Showcase Summary

We had two great weekends to set up the Academy Awards tonight. We have been going to the Best Picture Showcase since it started back in 2006. Usually I have seen all the movies by that point but as it became apparent that this event was going to be an annual occasion, we started being a little cautious and waited because we knew we had this as a back up. The Academy has upped the number of nominees the last three years, ten for the previous two and nine this year. Before this event I had seen four of the Best Picture Nominees and so I had five new experiences. I am not going to do full reviews on all of them, but I will provide some quick thoughts. For the four I did full reviews on, the poster should provide you a link to that review.

Tree of Life

One of the posters that we won at the Best Picture Showcase in the trivia contests is this lovely image from the movie Tree of Life. Admittedly, the movie is filled with lovely images but it has no storytelling skills and those images are in service of a ponderous pile of pretentious nonsense. Amanda read that of all the text ratings sent in by the ticket holders from the BPS, this one had the lowest rating, Obviously some critics disagree but while I respect the right of others to find meaning where they may, I need to point out that the Emperor is naked.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

This is another movie that appears to have polarized critics. Some have loved it and others have described it as mawkish 9/11 porn. It is certainly different and there are some things about it that I like a lot. Here is a trivia question you could probably win a bet or two on, "Which acting nominee fails to speak a single word in their performance?" Many people will be suckered in, thinking that the silent film "The Artist" is the answer, in fact the correct answer is Max Von Sydow in this film. He is one of the great things about the movie. There is also a wonderfully muted performance by Jeffery Wright in the last part of the film. I had problems with the way the story develops and the concept. There is a slight remedy of some of my objections in the last section where Sandra Bullock's mother reveals her involvement in what is going on. It is reassuring and also a bit of a cheat. This is the poster that we won in another of the trivia contests during the long day.

The Descendants This was my second time seeing this movie. If you go back and look at my original comments, you will see that I was ambivalent about the film. Alexander Payne has done some films that I have adored, Sideways among them, but this movie felt  to me a lot more cold than the others had. With a second viewing I was able to see the themes a little more clearly and appreciate the situation that is being presented. Clooney does good work, my daughter Amanda thinks he plays George Clooney, but I was a lot less of the cockiness that characterized his roles in "Michael Clayton" and "Up in the Air". He seems more like a lost soul and a desperate man in this than I have found him in other films. Many people have talked about his wardrobe as a tool for conveying the character here. I don't live in Hawaii but I suspect the casual dress and the odd ways he wears his shirts at times might reflect the culture there which is supposedly more lay back. This is the first of the nine films that would not piss me off were it to win. I did not think it was the best but it was very good. Also, sorry to brag but we got one of these posters as well for another answer. 

Midnight in Paris  Woody Allen is a director and writer that I admire, but a human being that I have deep doubts about. Over the years I have seen many of his films but I also have skipped quite a few. I did not purposefully ignore this when it came out but my wife has a block on Woody and it never worked out to get the timing right with her mood. As it is, she enjoyed this movie immensely as did I. This is one of the charming fantasies that Woody Allen has produced and it ends up being very satisfying. There were some political potshots and the usual snide asides about the movie business, they put me off momentarily. When the premise of the movie kicks in however, the story focuses on finding what is real in life and in artistic expression. It appears that no one will be satisfied with the world they are born in, and we need to make what works there connect for us. The actors playing the famous artists, film makers, writers, and others of the bygone eras visited here were really fine. I especially liked the portrayal of Ernest Hemingway, who delivers the lines in the straight prose of the character even in conversation.. I also thought the first line of Owen Wilson's characters book would make me want to read it as well.

The Artist  This is the film that has all of the buzz and appears to be the likely winner tonight. It is thoroughly entertaining and  deserves to be recognized as an excellent film. I do think that as the years go by it will appear to be a novelty pick rather than a reflection of the best film making this last year. The actors perform virtually without speaking, and they tell the story in a way that movies did a hundred years ago. Some of the techniques are very clever and the dog is one of the best special effects of the year. John Goodman appears in this movie as well as Extremely Loud. There were a couple of performers who appeared in multiple best picture nominees this year. Another character actor that was a favorite of mine since the 1970s, is Ed Lauter. He has a couple of small scenes here and I just like to see that people I have enjoyed for years are still making a contribution and working. The music for this movie is also nominated and it was strong, but I swear I heard the love theme from Vertigo used in the movie and it would be a shame if this film wins on the basis of a misunderstanding of which music was original.


War Horse This was one of the two films that effected me the most
emotionally. I have been a fan of Steven Spielberg since I saw "Duel" as a TV movie of the week way back in the early 1970s. This guy knows how to tell a story. He can make a sprawling event like a world war, into a personal drama that pulls us into the individuals experience. He did it with "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List". Here he manages to do so with a central character that cannot speak a line of dialogue but manages to break our hearts with his courage and  spirit. I hope someday to see the play that this movie is based on, because I have heard it is magnificent. Spielberg is not limited to the stage or horse puppets to tell the story and he makes the most of the settings on the battlefields and farms of Europe. Tom Hiddleston, is another one of those actors in two best picture nominees. Here he is the Captain that takes Joey with him to the Great War, in "Midnight in Paris" he is F. Scott Fitzgerald. Most of the characters who encounter the horse are sympathetic, regardless of the side of the war they are on. It is however obvious that war is casually cruel to animals as it is to people. One character tries to diminish the emotion by saying that after all, he's a horse not a dog. I'll bet there are horse people out there who sat up in anger at the thought that their love of an animal was any less valid. I am a sucker for animal stories and this one pulled me in completely. If this were the upset winner tonight, I would be delighted.

Moneyball  The great American Pastime is given a modern makeover with technology and desperation. Baseball movies that work, are usually not focused on a single game, that's not how baseball works for the most part. There are one-hundred and sixty-two games played by each team each season, that is why statistics matter so much in this game. The theme of Moneyball is the courage of your convictions that the way to gain success is by playing the odds rather than swinging for the fences with a  player who is really a reach. From a romantic perspective, it is a hard concept to wrap your head around. Baseball fans love stats but they also love a hero, and this movie is about guys being heroes for doing the mundane job they are chosen for. If it all works out they are a success. Brad Pitt joins our list of performers appearing in two nominated pictures for this and for "Tree of Life". He is personally nominated here and his performance was so natural that I think it was under appreciated. If Aaron Sorkin had not won the screenplay award last year, he would be a lock this year for turning an idea into a screen story. This is based on a book, but it is not a narrative like the movie is. Good job again Mr. Sorkin.


The Help  This is the movie that should be the favorite but it suffers from having come out in the summer and the original impact it had on audiences will have faded a bit. This is an empowering story of women, civil rights and dramatic changes for the better in our culture. It is hard to fathom that the world portrayed here was actually part of my lifetime. Most of my students will see it as ancient history so they may not be able to feel the same kind of power from it that I did. This movie is filled with great performances from the women in the story. Viola Davis is probably going to win tonight as Best Actress, she is also in our two nominee Best Picture Club having also appeared in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close".  Joining her at the victory table tonight will be Best Supporting Actress nominee Octavia Spenser. Jessica Chastain is also a nominee and appears in another Best Picture Nominee, "Tree of Life", so she and Viola can compare their membership cards when they see each other after the show. Oh, and here is a leading contender for Best Picture that apparently directed itself. Terrance Malick is sitting in the theater tonight with Tate Taylors directors nomination in his pocket. Shame on the Academy for honoring a director who can't find a story to save his life instead of one who told an incredible story and actually directed people in the movie he was making.

Hugo  After seeing all the films and seeing this for a second time, I believe it is the Best Picture of the films nominated this year.  The visual imagery is used not to dazzle us with tricks like in "Tree of Life" but to tell us a story. This story is one that should be embraced by movie lovers everywhere. It is about the history of our passion. There is adventure, mystery and fine acting in the movie. It features a character who was a real person and a real magician, so it is something that I can relate to on additional levels as well.  It might look like a children's film but it is deeper than that, it has elements that every adult can relate to as well as those things that the kids might care about.  This is the movie that I believe in ten years will be the one that appears on all those lists of films that should have won but did not. Other than Spielberg, Martin Scorsese is the closest thing there is to a sure thing when it comes to entertainment. He will be able to look back on films that everyone says are the best of their respective decades and be proud that he worked at this level his whole career. If we ever get a Best Picture Winner made for 3-D, it would be a shame that it was not this piece of heartfelt homage to the infancy of cinema. This was the other film that moved me enough to shed tears on a consistent basis. Let's have one for the romantics and the technicians together. 

 

BPS Part Two

 

This is just a quick update on Day Two of the BPS at AMC. The day was long but rewarding. Everything we saw was excellent although I had some issues with Extremely Close Incredibly Loud. The Artist was very good although I am not sure it should be the front runner for the Academy Awards tomorrow. Midnight in Paris was a solid Woody Allen entry  in the vein of Purple Rose of Cairo or  Zelig. I will post some mini reviews and insights tomorrow and let the chips fall where they may.

BPS Part One

Here at the Best Picture Showcase. A lot of familiar faces from last week. We are missing Anne but the day looks promising. Hugo is up first and it is in 3D.

Loved Hugo even more than the first time.

The Help was again, terrific.

Extremely Loud Incredibly Close was fine but not great. There were some things about it that bugged.

After Dinner, the Artist and Midnight in Paris.

Best Picture Show Case Day Two Preview

Last weekend was pretty great. There was a good sized crowd but it was not packed. Everybody was having a good time, and we started off with the movie that AMC Voters ranked as the best for the day on their text poll; War Horse. We saw this movie on Christmas day and it was a wonderful way to cap off the holiday. I was moved by the story all over again and in many ways it was more touching and deeply effective than it had been the first time. My appreciation of the movie was increased, and although I have heard criticism of John Williams score being over used and too saccharine, I thought it worked well and was happy to hear it.

Next we saw "Moneyball" which was my first time. I have a hard time believing that I did not see this earlier in the season. Like other movies with baseball at the center but not about the game, it uses our familiarity to tell a different story altogether.  It is a lot like one of the two Costner baseball films of the eighties. Family and reconciliation are the themes of "Field of Dreams" and love and ambition are the targets of "Bull Durham". Both movies feature baseball, but the outcome of the game is not really the point. In "Moneyball" the outcome of the season is the point, and there is one game featured, but that was about it. The story is really concerned with innovation and creativity confronting prejudice and tradition. It was very entertaining, even though most of what happens is talk. Of course if the talk is scripted by Aaron Sorkin, then it should be plenty interesting.

The less I say about "Tree of Life", the happier I will be. You can see my comments elsewhere on a post earlier this week.

Finally, "The Descendants" manages to be an effective drama with humorous moments. It centers on several complicated situations that the main character must deal with all at once. Every once in a while, I think a family gets challenged by a really tough stretch of time. Years ago I lost my best friend, my Mother, my Father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, we bought a house and we had the hardest move you can imagine, all in a period of about nine months. George Clooney's character faces overwhelming problems and difficult decisions and it is the manner in which he faces those challenges that he end up defining himself as a person. I was much more ambivalent about the movie the first time I saw it. This time it resonated more with me and I could see the quality of work Mr. Clooney was turning in.

Tomorrow, we have "Hugo", "The Help", "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" , "The Artist" and "Midnight in Paris".  For my previous comments on two of the films you can click on the poster below. I have heard great things about the other three and it looks to be a very pleasant day.

 

Safe House

Finished off the long weekend with a little Denzel action. The man can play badass without breaking a sweat and in this movie all he does is kick other peoples asses and brains around. There is a little too much dependance on fistfights and car crashes and shootouts to make this work as the paranoid spy thriller it wants to be. It never rises above the level of action film with pretensions of insight. It looks like it is going to be a buddy spy film for a while and while it does have elements of that, there is not much time devoted to the motives of the two protagonists.

From the late sixties and early seventies on, there have been a thousand spy films with rogue elements of the CIA doing bad things. They must have the stupidest recruiters and the worst internal controls of any bureaucracy in history, at least if you buy any of the premises of these kinds of films. The story here involves a CIA agent that has turned traitor and may be selling secrets that will expose the CIA to international ridicule. The bad guy in the movie can be spotted early on because it is just casting that creates this character. None of this ultimately exonerates Denzel's agent, but it is supposed to make it more acceptable that he is basically "Wiki-leaks" with a bank account. 

Ryan Reynolds does a credible job as a young CIA operative, in a low level, low priority job which suddenly becomes the center of the spy universe. He sells the desire to do the right thing with his puppy dog face, and he handles the action scenes with vigor. He needs to because every time we turn around there is running, fighting, chasing and shooting. There are more survivors of car crashes in this movie than there are on the streets of L.A., I know that for sure. People get shot, stabbed, beat up and they just keep going. You hope the real spies can do all of this stuff because most people can't make it through the course in an episode of "Wipeout" without a longer breather than any of these guys get. The director relies on a lot of shaky cam work to pump up the action, but there is some good tight choreography as well.

A few years ago I saw a parody of action films where the lead, turns their back and walks away as an explosion goes off right behind them. It has become a cliche in the modern action world. Denzel seems to be making it his own personal cliche to put an extra bullet in the other guy when he is on the ground, and to do it while looking away. Of course the one time he fails to perform the cliche move, there is a negative consequence so in a sense it does set us up for one piece of business.  His character is supposed to be an expert at manipulating assets with psychology, but we hardly get any of that. That would have made the relationship with Reynold's character so much more interesting than we got here. There was enough to sustain the loud gunfights and action sequences but not the story threads.

Sometimes these films rise to a level of excellence that is impressive, but more often they simply compete with one another on body count and action. This is a missed opportunity. It was still a worthy movie, after all it features Denzel doing his thing, but the stone cold facial expression sometimes needs a little more backup. What this movie really did for me was make me want to see some Denzel films where he gets to do more than just his thousand yard stare. I could really go for seeing him work opposite Gene Hackman again. Those two are fantastic in "Crimson Tide". If you just want a shoot em up, this movie fits the bill, but if you want something a little sweeter from Mr. Washington, maybe go back and check out some other work instead.

'This Means War'

In an effort to come down from yesterday's sugar rush of movies, today we have a little bit of the hair of the dog so to speak. A single movie that no one will remember for good or ill in a few months. There is nothing about it that I found offensive but there was also nothing about it that I found particularly worthwhile either. It has cute guys for the girls, Reese Witherspoon for the guys and a bunch of misused spy craft for everyone else. Some explosions, a couple of smiles, and maybe a laugh or two. If you are looking for a date movie this will do fine, it is entertaining enough but it won't interrupt the rest of your evening with conversation about the meaning of it all or the film maker's craft.

The two guys featured are up and comers Chris Pine and Tom Hardy. Pine is the new Captain Kirk in the relaunched Star Trek movies. As far as Amanda is concerned, he is a terrific actor, which translated means, "yummy". Tom Hardy was in my favorite movie last year, "Warrior" where he is a menacing, hulking presence and does most of his acting with his fists. Both of these guys get to trade on their natural gifts, Pine uses his baby blue eyes, crooked smile and smart guy attitude to woo our female protagonist. Hardy plays it sincere with a natural physicality that I guess would be appealing to the opposite sex, oh, and he has a British accent. The third part of our triangle is Miss Witherspoon, last year seen in Water for Elephants and seemingly a little old for her co-star there. She hasn't gotten younger but the make up and costume people on this shoot made sure that she would be a desirable woman for the two younger guys (and us old guys also). She does a completely unnecessary booty dance that reminded me of Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels. I guess that should not be a surprise since McG, the director of this film also directed that piece of cotton candy film.

Comparisons to "True Lies" might be in order since the film does feature a spy romance where the profession of espionage agent is being hidden from the romantic partner. Also, a lot of government resources are being used for personal purposes that verge on the brink of creepy stalking. What is missing from this movie that "True Lies" had in abundance is a real action spy movie to immerse the romance in. This movie sets up such a plot line, abandons it for most of the rest of the movie and then revives it in the last ten minutes. The spy stuff never feels serious and there are stupid resolutions to most of the action in that last section. The set ups of the shots felt like out takes from "Fletch" and "Speed". The shots from those movies that were too tired to be used in their respective stories.

For a modern twist on romance being conflicted by two rivals, the story makes some pretty dated references. My guess is that the dialogue of Reese's friend will be lost on contemporary audiences. Do any teens and twenties really know who Gloria Steinem is? This movie sets up Pine as a smooth up to the minute player, and he is using Sade as his seduction song and the cute meet with Reese takes place in a video rental store? Those devices would have been funny ten years ago but here they seem lazy. It is just screenwriter shorthand to save from having to develop something original. The dating site jokes were old a decade ago when I saw them in "Must Love Dogs", why would anyone think this is a fresh take on this kind of story? The idea of Spy vs. Spy is a good one but underdeveloped and used only for the barest of story structure here.

Anyone can see the romantic resolution coming from early on. The bad guy is not menacing enough and is clearly too stupid to be much of a threat, maybe that's why he disappears from the movie for ninety percent of the time. There are some ridiculous romantic set ups that would be cheesy in any film, but set in a world of international espionage, they stand out as obvious. Attempting to match up to an ex-boyfriend, dating at a carnival, lying about volunteering at a pet shelter, all provide quick jokes but no real humor and never any sympathy for any character. This movie is product, but not even good product like an obvious romantic comedy. It gets a reaction in the most obvious way possible and then moves on to the next set up.   There were several times when I noticed story continuity issues, but the film just keeps plugging along. It may be a better evening to go out and see this with a date, than spending time in watching Law and Order or NCIS, but just barely.

Tree of Life -- Special Edition WARNING***

I do my best to talk about movies without repeating the storyline and giving out spoilers. Since Tree of Life has no storyline and the movie is spoiled already, I can safely say that the point of the film is to wallow in vague imagery for two plus hours, and then make you want to throw up from the shaky camera work. Vomiting would make you feel better after digesting this unsatisfying exercise in film school philosophizing. Just yesterday I said that the original Ghost Rider was maybe the worst film I'd seen in five years, well we have a new winner and I may not be putting a time limit on it.

More than a decade ago, I was warned away from the Thin Red Line. I'd seen Badlands and Days of Heaven, but a friend told me she would lose any respect for me if I liked the Thin Red Line. Her scorn was never at risk since I had heard enough to stay away to begin with. On the other hand I did enjoy The New World, but I only saw it one time and maybe revisiting it would highlight some warning signs for me. I was hesitant about the movie and I thought Tree of Life was supposed to run almost three hours. When we looked at our Best Picture Showcase Booklet, the run time was listed at 2:19. That did not sound bad. Well, I need to leave instructions for my end of life declaration that this movie be played on my last day on earth, because it will make it seem like I am living an extra ten years. Tree of Life is pretentious, and boring and pointless in so many ways, it is hard to find the words.

Several film sites that I follow and read have praised the movie for it's innovation and visual storytelling. Anybody who thinks this movie is artistic genius, probably thought that the best part of 2001 was the light show near the end. People stoned on pot, at a lasariem show at Griffith Observatory, would have to drop acid three times to appreciate this. Whispered dialogue used in narrating story points is derided in many films, here it is praised even though the comments have no context, insight, or interesting language to go along with them. The visual spectacle of inner and outer space is beautiful to look at, but after a while it reminds you of a screen saver that you downloaded ten years ago for your computer. The classical music would be better to listen to with your eyes closed. Terrance Malick has created a doodle that lasts for more than two hours and people have been suckered into seeing something deep here.

Brad Pitt is a stern Father who loves his kids, despite the fact that one of them is a borderline head case. The boy does some kid stuff, some strange stuff and some deeply wrong stuff. All of this happens after we get the history of the universe in CGI, watercolor, nature documentary style shots. Oh, this includes the history of dinosaurs, from evolution to destruction by giant meteor. The scenes set in the human world are shot with a steady cam that is not steady at all. The dialogue, such as it is, sounds like ghosts muttering about nothingness. The acting in the movie is not acting at all, since there are no motivations or real human emotions on display. We have snippets of yelling, and deep looks and a lot of walking. Terrance Malick's main direction to the actors must have been for foot placement and speed. Sean Penn appears to be the young boy all grown up, but all he has is maybe three lines of dialogue and twenty minutes of walking around deserts, modern buildings, and what is supposed to pass for heaven.

Like I said above, many reviews and on-line posts about the movie have described it as polarizing. Our audience was unified by this movie, we all hated it. I'd rather sit through an insurance seminar, followed by a division meeting, and then a Ghost Rider/Donnie Darko double feature, before I subject myself to this. We watched the Descendants after this, and that movie took only ten minutes to wrap up it's goodby to a doomed character. Tree of Life is so constipated in trying to deal with the death of one character, that when the final goodbye gets said, you'll wish all the other characters were dead too.

Best Picture Showcase Live Blog

So ready for the day. I will be posting pictures and brief comments during the showcase. They have to be brief because I am using my phone, but it should be fun. If you can't make it out to the movies today, please check in and see what is going on with our movie orgy. Talk to you soon.


The Live blogging with my phone is not working well.

Warhorse was better than the first time I saw it.

Moneyball, was great, I can't believe I did not see it until today.

Tree of Life is something I will have to do an extensive post on, because I need to spew all the bile it built up in me.

We are on a dinner break and will go back for The Descendants. 

Ghost Rider 2 Spirit of Vengeance

I am afraid I have to admit that the main reason I spent $40 taking Amanda to see this and buying popcorn and coke is the stinger at the end of the trailer above. I forget exactly which movie Dee and I were seeing, when we saw the trailer, but Amanda, Allison and I saw "Shark Night" back in September, and the 3D flame-throwing Ghost Rider provoked  such a big laugh that we were committed then and there to seeing it. At that point we had never watched the original Ghost Rider from four years ago. I had recorded it off the satellite, and had it on DVD, but we never got around to it. Nicolas Cage is a guilty pleasure at our house. He can be a terrific actor, or a huge ham, chewing up the scenery. We like him in both kinds of movies. Last year he was in the ridiculously stupid and equally fun, "Drive Angry in 3D".   So this looked promising.

In anticipation of the arrival of the sequel, we got out the prior film and watched it a few weeks ago. It may very well have been the worst movie I have seen in five years. It should have been fun and self depreciating and stupid action. Instead, it lay there like something the dog dropped off and no one wanted to admit was smelling up the house. It certainly lowered our expectations for the "Spirit of Vengeance", after all, there are very few sequels that live up to the original much less exceed them. What chance was there that this movie would stink less than the awful original? However, we were reminded of the scene in the trailer where we see "Ghost Rider" relieving himself and that gag had exactly the tone and humor we had expected the original to have so we took a deep breath and plunged in. I am happy to report that the experience was much better than we had any right to hope for. This movie is substantially better than the one that preceded it. That is not really saying much, but it is a start.

Getting to the point, "Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance " is not a good film. The story makes jumps which have no sense to them, there is not much tension built up and when there should be dread, there is only the hollow sound of mild anticipation. We get no sense of character development from anybody in the story. People are killed off left and right and there is no reason to care if they deserve the fate that the Ghost Rider brings them or not. One character who opens the movie with a pretty good action scene, seems to be someone we can root for, but he is drawn in the vaguest terms possible. He appears to be a priest of dubious origins, and he is smarter than the other characters in the story, but we have no sense of why.  There is a prophesy that is referred to several times, and we are never told what it says. The mother and child that the "Rider" ends up playing protector to (much like Terminator 2), are introduced but never given anything to do except be the focus of the bad guys pursuit. The kid does get one chance to shine when he is denied a request to open a car window, (there is a complicated action sequence that follows) but after that, he mostly just walks through the movie.

So, if it is not a good film, why did we still feel satisfied with the expenditure of time and money? It is simple, there are three or four good action scenes and an equal number of bad jokes that are right up my alley. Cage gets to grimace and mug for the camera in a funny transition from Johnny Blaze to the Rider, while on a motorcycle. The combination of CGI and Nic Cage facial ticks, was certainly worth part of the admission price. I also liked the long title sequence which told the necessary parts of the original story in a clearer, more interesting manner than the whole first movie. There was a nice combination of comic book animation, still shots and voice over. Skip the first movie, you don't need it, everything that is important was in this nice recap. In the middle of the film, is maybe the best "Twinkie" joke I ever saw in a movie. There are also a few clever social jabs concerning the form that the devil takes. Let us not forget the money shot from the trailer, which is repeated a second time for an even better laugh. 

No one involved in this movie will want to highlight it on their resume, but it won't cause anybody to skip applying for a job because they did this movie. If you see the film, I don't think you need to hang your head in shame. Be careful about recommending it to the wrong people however. Not everyone will have the demented taste to appreciate the few gems of wit in this otherwise stupid film. "Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance" does not rise to the level of craptastic that "Drive Angry in 3D" does, but you won't have to scrape your shoes off after you leave the theater as you had to with the original.







Come back tomorrow for the live blog from the Best Picture Showcase. Four Academy Award Nominated Movies all in one day at the AMC annual event.

2012 AMC Best Picture Showcase Sizzle Reel

Two More Days. We have done this since they first started. I still can't get my wonderful wife to do the 24 hour marathon but the two weekends in a row make the event feel even bigger.

Featurette Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Secret Life Featurette

Trailer Park Movies | Myspace Video

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter - Official Trailer (HD)

I did not see a movie this weekend but I did find something to share.

The Woman in Black

So when we saw this trailer months ago, it got me going immediately. I like a ghost story that is Gothic and creepy without a lot of actual violence. If it is told in a suspenseful way, it can give you some goosebumps for a couple of hours and a jolt to make it all pay off. The last really excellent ghost story I remember seeing was "The Others", and before that "The Sixth Sense". When the story is right and the actors are up to it, a movie that tries to chill you with your own imagination and a bit of visual prompting is a lot of fun. "The Woman in Black" is not up to the standards of those last two films I mentioned, but it does give you the right amount of tension and a couple of very creepy moments.

From the beginning of the movie, you know this is not going to be right. For some reason that Stanley Kubrick discovered back in 1980, little girls dressed in old fashioned clothes and playing silently, freaks people out. The dolls these kids have would give you nightmares, without even adding the things that happen afterwards. Later there are images of toys that seem otherworldly and ominous, even though they are supposed to be charming and amusing. Like little girls in old fashioned clothes, monkeys just bug. My daughter Allison would not like this movie at all because it has the creepy monkey toys and some clown like images. That's all she needs to know this is not her cup of horror tea. Give her Zombies and Aliens and she is fine, but werewolves and ghosts do not go down as smoothly. Amanda on the other hand decided she could not wait to accompany me on my birthday trip to the movies, and she watched eighty percent of the film from behind her hands and the flap of her jacket as she pulled it across her face.

Daniel Radcliffe is trying to make the leap from Harry Potter to regular movie actor and he does a fine job with this film. He is the main character and is featured far more than any other element in the movie. I thought he was a little young to be playing the part of a widowed father of a four year old, but once the story got going and the scenario was set up, I did not think about his youthful appearance again, I merely saw him as the character that he was playing. Early turn of the twentieth century English lawyer, handling the estate with a spooky reputation, calls for a demeanor that is serious but also open to the world of the paranormal. So maybe it is not that big a jump for Mr. Radcliffe. Anyway, I thought he was fine and sold the fear and dread very well.

Much of the credit for the suspense in the movie must go to the set designer and the musical score. While the cobwebs sometimes seem cliched, the dark corners of the mansion, the weird furniture and the horrifying toys and letters create a mystery and discomfort that fits exactly with the tone of the story. The score is sparse and quiet with only occasional bursts of energy designed to goose up our reactions. Most of the time the music sets the stage in a low key manner that is not tuneful but rather mournful. There are some good optical effects to tingle the nerves but they never go too far in making the spirits anything other than ephemeral. While there are the usual jumps, quick cuts and flashes to shock us, they are timed well enough that even though we know they are coming, they usually work.

What flaws exist in the story have to do with the complicated back story and the attempt to resolve that story that seems to come out of nowhere. Near the end of the tale, a deadline suddenly looms, and our protagonist needs to find a solution for the haunting in a timely manner. The theory seemed rushed and the actions that follow are mostly out of character because of the quick time limit that arrives. Like all good ghost stories there is also a kicker, and here it grows out of the back story and shows how manipulated we were by the attorney's fight to put a spirit to rest. You will not have a huge number of surprises but there will be an acceptable amount of shrieks to make this a good date movie, that will not simply be remembered as "Harry Potter and the Haunted Mansion".

Contraband

This is one of those movies that you don't really have great expectations for, but that satisfies in the way a good hamburger does. When you want what you want, it fills the bill. There is progesterone fueled, tension filled capers and clever plot twists that are not always logical but work anyway. All of it is served up by a competent cast in a well paced couple of hours. I may not hold onto anything here for very long, but that may make the movie very re-watchable because it just meets our needs rather than our hopes.

I have not always been a Mark Walberg fan, but starting with "Boogie Nights" he has gotten better and better. He was overshadowed by the performance of his acting partner Christian Bale in last years "The Fighter", but he was top notch and probably deserved a nomination like almost everyone else in the cast got. This is a part that he can do in his sleep now, the tough guy with a family and a heart of gold. He has more heart and common sense than the other characters in the movie and of course he is the luckiest criminal in the world. Every time something goes wrong, he is johnny on the spot with a solution and good timing. Like most caper films, a lot goes wrong here.   So we get to see him improvise and take advantage of his bad luck and turn it around.

J.K. Simmons is in the movie and while not the bad guy, he plays a pretty unlikable fellow pretty well. His story gets a bit of a nice resolution which satisfies a old family debt that you won't remember was there from early in the movie. Giovanni Ribisi is playing a patented scumbag character that he can do so well. He does not get to do much more than glower though because in the long run there are other issues that the set up wants us to be looking for. There are a couple of unbelievable outcomes in the movie that may be tempered because the audience has a stake in some of these characters, and I guess it makes the resolution more palatable, but the film loses any real tough guy veneer as a consequence. It is Hollywood action that we are getting, not some indie that wants us to suffer for our entertainment. Ben Foster is getting to be a stereotype in this kind of movie and he should be careful because he may end up pigeonholed in this part for the rest of his career. I was surprised to see Lukas Haas from "Witness" as one of the crew and Walberg's brother. He and Walberg  play off of each other pretty well in some intense scenes set in Panama City.

There are a couple of schools of thought about crime movies, one says that we should go ahead and accept the anti-hero as our character and use that as our passage through the story. The other sees these characters as a morality play that warns us of the consequences of living a bad life. I wish more people saw "Scarface" as the morality tail it is supposed to be rather than the hero worshiped scum bag that today's "gangsta" culture has made it. This movie does make contact with the criminal world look unpleasant, but of course it gives a a resolution that is pure Hollywood wish fulfillment. It is not a big idea movie, it is a well made thriller with the requisite hard ass dialogue to sustain the modern audience. I had a giant Coke Zero and a box of Junior Mints to go with this Big Mac, you might like it better with something salty, but you will be satisfied if not really balanced with this movie meal.

The Grey

When I first saw the poster for the movie, and then the trailer, I thought "The Grey" referred to the wolf that is tracking Liam Neeson throughout the movie. Having seen the film, I now feel the title is a bit more ambiguous, just as the color is somewhere between black and white, the subject here is really the middle ground between having a life or giving up on life. This is a man versus nature story, but it is not just an action flick. There is some thoughtful mediation on what makes us human and what life is worth in the long run. It sometimes runs into cliche, but it is never boring and at least the film makers were trying to say something while entertaining us.

At the center of the movie is the great Liam Neeson, an actor I first noticed way back in "Excalibur" in 1981. He has been known as a dramatic actor primarily for films like "Schindler's List" and "Michael Collins", but I know that he was always an action guy since he is Darkman. Three years ago in the movie "Taken", he laid claim to the mantle of action badass, and each January since then we have been rewarded with an action loaded film. This movie is solid and it also contains what may be Neeson's best work on screen. It is a physical role to be sure, but he gets many chances to show us what is in a man's heart and head as well as his hands. There is a scene early on, where he confronts a dying man, he does not coddle him, he does not lie to him, he tells the truth in a way that all people who respect life want us to feel. Later in the movie he gets a chance to back up his words with deeds, but that one quiet scene and his gentile and serious voice go a long way in showing us that the alpha is not necessarily the biggest bully but can be the one with the biggest heart.

In the 1970s, I saw Richard Harris as "A Man Called Horse" and as the "Man in the Wilderness". He was the king of determination against the elements back then. Neeson takes over this role and lives it to it's fullest. There are not huge surprises in the movie. Those of you who watch the trailer know that it basically pits a group of survivors of a plane crash, against a pack of wolves defending their territory. To complicate matters the battle takes place in the frozen wilderness of Alaska, so the threat of death does not come just from the lupine adversaries but the weather itself. Neeson's character doesn't know everything, but he has the common sense that others in the situation don't always show. He also has a strange determination to continue to fight because as we see early in the film, he is ambivalent about continuing to simply exist. None of the guys who survive the crash is a sniveling coward, but some of them have given up and some feel so frustrated by their circumstances that they become a pain in the ass. We don't get to know them as well as we could because the story keeps pushing us forward, and the small bits of character have to come from very brief moments.

The special effects are harrowing in the plane crash and creepy at night as the band is stalked by the pack. There are some pretty gruesome deaths, which make the story all the more frighting because they are rendered in a very realistic way. It almost makes you glad for those characters who are lost without the violence of having their throats ripped out by wolves. There are a couple of scenes in which man is pitted against man, but it never comes to a violent confrontation, just an emotional one. There is very little doubt that the stronger spirit here is the one that drives our involvement with the story. Each of the actors in the final group gets a chance to show what they are capable of as performers. I was impressed by the quiet work of Dallas Roberts and the more flamboyant performance of Frank Grillo. Both of these guys are supporting actors that should work more in more prominent roles.

I don't know how everyone else will feel about the way the story goes. Looking back over the set up it seems the right resolution, but it may be confounding to many. The moral principles that crop up at times may seem like they are mocking the universe and God, but in the long run it is more complex than that. Each man's spirit is freed in a manner that befits the situation. Neeson, being the main character gets the strongest spiritual journey, and in the long run it is the one that is most satisfying. There is nothing of cliche in his actions, and the dilemma of "the grey" is resolved very effectively. 

Haywire

Fridays in January are for action films. That is just a personal preference and it seems that Hollywood tends to agree. We get a lot of releases at this time of year that are geared to simple, mindless butt-kicking action. I am anticipating my annual Liam Neeson fix next week, and I am not a fan of the Underworld movies, so this was on the table. The director Steven Soderbergh, has made a lot of films that I have enjoyed. Most of them are character and dialogue driven. They have clever plots and lines to make the movie flow. This film is neither dialogue heavy or full of characterization. I think you can see some of the limitations of his work in this movie. It is a good film, and the story is intricate but as an action film it lacks the drive and rhythms that most of us crave.

Ever since Pulp Fiction, I have noticed that movies and TV shows have employed time shifting story development on a frequent basis. Sometimes it adds to the drama as we anticipate the situation we started in, sometimes it is a humorous device to reveal how foolish the characters have been and sometimes it is simply not necessary. This is one of those movies which employs this device but has no real reason to do so except that it seems a stylish choice. Nothing was added by the back and forth jumps in the story and it made a somewhat confusing spy betrayal story even more confusing. Dramas and comedies can probably make this technique work, but action films need a rhythm to them and this movie never seems to develop any rhythm.

The main feature of the film is the star, a woman who is apparently a Mixed Martial Arts fighter. She has a striking look but is definitely not the typical Hollywood beauty. It appears that instead of casting for a actress who can fight they cast  a fighter who can act a little. Gina Carano is clearly a badass, She handles the stunts and fight sequences really well. There are several really well staged fights in the film, including one that opens the film in a dinner and another one that takes place in a hotel room. The hand to hand combat is brutal and realistic with the exception that most action films have, the participants all stand up to a lot more physical abuse than is ever apparent five minutes after the scene is supposed  to be finished. The main problem with the story is that it really just consists of one chase after another and then a fight scene. Because it is hard to tell where the plot is headed and why, the sequences feel like time killers until the next point of exposition. There is a lot of exposition. People talk on in long sequences without always revealing what the audience needs to anticipate the next action scene.

It was an interesting choice to have all of the fight sequences and most of the chase sequences occur without a music score to increase the mood. There is a nice low key jazz type score in the sections where characters are setting up the next sequence, and there is  a little bit of emotional weirdness in the dissonant score. In the context of a film that is supposed to be all propulsive action, it feels like a failed experiment. The movie never takes off the way the fight scenes and at least two chase scenes do. Also, the betrayal requires a much stronger payoff than we get, at least with the main betrayer. I did think that the final shot worked effectively and does leave something to our imaginations that should be pretty hard. There are several good actors in the film, some of them are under used like Bill Paxton and Antonio Banderas. Michael Fassbender who is on the brink of becoming a major star, has a long sequence in the middle of the film but only take flight in his big fight scene and then a later flashback.

Nothing about the movie should discourage anyone from seeing it if you are interested. I enjoyed it quite well. I just wanted to love it much more than I did. Last year, "Hanna" covered some similar themes and action but with a much more focused story. The style of that movie was much more interesting than this one which feels like a film maker, trying out for the part of an action director. With the Bond films, action helmers like Martin Cambell and John Glen, while not artists by most standards, managed to make movies that feel like they are constantly headed somewhere. Marc Foster, the director of "Quantum of Solace" was not an action director and it showed. We have the same problem here. There is a serviceable plot, a strong central character but a weak execution of the pace and rhythm that most fans of these kinds of film want.  

The Art Of The Modern Movie Trailer : Monkey See : NPR

The Art Of The Modern Movie Trailer : Monkey See : NPR

Here is a great article and podcast on movie trailers.

'We Bought A Zoo

Someone once decided that Christmas is the perfect time for a sentimental movie about family issues, redemption, or heartwarming comedy. It does seem to be a natural fit, and it is good counter-programing to the big blockbusters and Oscar bait that get released about the same time each year. Unfortunately for every, "Cast Away", "Lemony Snicket", or "It's Complicated", there are an equal if not greater number of misses. Films like, "Toys", "Seven Pounds", "How Do You Know?" have been big misses with film-makers that have proven track records but could not quite get it done. "We Bought A Zoo" seems to fall more on the side of a miss than a hit. There are a lot of things going for it; it stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johanssen,  it is written and directed by Cameron Crowe, and it is based on a true story. Still it can't quite work because it tries so hard to be in that niche, it feels inauthentic.

The problem as I see it is that there are just too many themes and issues stuffed into this movie. There are two love stories for the main character, one for a secondary character, a father-son redemption story, a comedy about the characters that populate a zoo, an allegory about an aging tiger, and the little zoo that can story that contains them all. It just feels like this movie is constantly hitting you over the head with the need to be charming and to be loved. As a result, the focus of the story is hardly on the zoo at all, it is on a lead character who can't let go of the life that he has lost. It is a life that we are only given short flashbacks on, and we have to rely on the characters to tell us how wonderful it was, we never really get to see it (except for one bit at the very end of the movie).

One other problem I had was the casting of the lead. Matt Damon is a good actor and there is nothing he does here to hurt the film. The difficulty is that he is so good looking and accomplished that it is hard to buy into the self doubt he has in a lot of scenes. The one scene where he tells his children about meeting his wife, he says that the thing he said to her was "why would someone like you ever talk to someone like me?" I will put it to any women reading this right now, can you think of a reason you might talk to a guy who looks exactly like Matt Damon when he first approaches you? Oh and by the way, he is asking this while he smiles shyly and blinks those big blue eyes.

Things happen in the movie that only happen in movies, and they only happen the way they do in a movie. The story suddenly demands that Damon's character come up with a extra $100,000, after he has been spending without consideration from the beginning. Guess what, that amount of money falls into his lap at exactly the right moment and we get one of the defining decisions that the character keeps making in the story. Will he buy the zoo?, Will he kiss the girl?, Will he decide to spend the money that he comes into in the right way?, Will he finally open the slideshow of his dead wife?, Will he have a defining moment with his son?, Will he step up for the animals in a tough situation?. There are so many set ups and payoffs that it feels like a tennis match at times, Serve and then return and then again.

Crowe also highlights all of this with his signature collection of song cues. Some work fine but others are cloying or repeat the same sad winsome moment over and over again. People accuse John Williams of being heavy handed with an original score, Crowe manages to do the same thing with bits and pieces of contemporary music and classic rock. This is not a bad movie. You will be entertained and charmed at times. It is simply not a great movie and the reasons it is not great are always too apparent. Years from now, someone will have a hard time remebering this film, just like you probably have no recall of "We're No Angels". Another holiday film that tried but was just not worth keeping in your head.

Beauty and the Beast 3D

As I have made abundantly clear on multiple posts, I am a sentimentalist and a marshmallow. If a film moves me, I can take it to heart and love it forever. I did just that 21 years ago with Beauty and the Beast. This was the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture by the Academy Awards, and that was in the days that limited nominations to 5 and there was no animated category for  feature length films. "Silence of the Lambs" won that year, but "J.F.K." and "Bugsy" were also up, imagine that for a collection of diverse films. I am not reducing any of my love for the great Johnathan Demme film, but I thought "Beauty and the Beast" was the Best Picture of 1991.

Today, it was re-released for probably the third time but for the first time in a 3-D format. I am really conflicted about 3-D, most of the time it is unnecessary and  it makes it difficult to enjoy a picture because projection lights just do not seem to be strong enough. Sometimes, the original use of 3-D in a movie, adds an element to the film that makes it really different and enjoyable. Films that are re-engineered as 3-D films raise my natural suspicions. That said, the Disney folks have found a way to keep marketing their films to theaters, despite availability on home video, and 3-D is boosting the reason to see some of those truly great films again. Last year we got "The Lion King" and now Beauty.

To be honest, the movies depth of color and beautiful painted backgrounds often made it seem like a 3-D film, even in 1991. The first shot of the castle through the trees as the image moves through a forest and over a brook was stunning in regular 2-D. It was even more amazing in the third dimension. As Belle wanders the castle and encounters statues and relief paintings, they make the eyes pop with dramatic image response. Gaston's trophy room looks even more ridiculous with a third dimension to all of his antler decorating. That is the main benefit of the 3-D treatment here, the background impress even more than they originally did. The action and characters are not enhanced much by the converstion but that is quibbling, it is still a delight to sit through.

My kids were five and three when we first saw this film. My oldest cried out during the scene where the villagers were on their way to storm the Beast's castle. She sobbed inconsolably in my lap and I was embarrassed but also proud that she could so freely respond to the emotions in the film. Today, just as 21 years ago, we went as a family and all of us had moist eyes at the end of the screening. I know this is a commercial for the video release of the film in just a couple of weeks, but I have been known to cry at commercials as well so I don't feel too self conscious. When people complain that it is simply rehashing the past and that Hollywood has run out of creativity when it starts mutating older films for re-release, I have to ask if you have seen some of the dreck that has been foisted on us in the past five to ten years.

I was happy to plop down the extra price for the 3-D, even for a 10:30 a.m. showing, because what I was being sold was worth the price, even if it did not have a 3-D added element. Someday, when my lotto numbers come in, I will open a small four screen multiplex, and show movies that I want to see on the big screen again. Maybe I will be sitting there alone, but that will make it easier for me to shed a tear for how wonderful a movie can be and not be embarrassed in front of everyone else.

Celebrating 50 Years of James Bond on Blu-ray

I'm having a double Ogasim. This is just too cool. Of course I'm going to be repurchasing product I've owned for the fourth or fifth time. I guess I am the Consumer that Hollywood craves.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Back in the late seventies or early eighties, my best friend Art Franz, turned me on to the works of John LeCarre. I think I only read "The Spy who Came in from the Cold", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People".  I don't remember them that well but I do recall that they were intricately plotted, very detailed and focused on the real contest between the Soviets and the West. Smiley was a character that was contained but brilliant and his mind was not really clouded by anything except the game. Alec Guinness portrayed Smiley in a BBC production of Tinker Tailor, that ran on PBS back in the early eighties. I think it was an eight hour project, so you can tell there is a lot of plotting and material that could be visualized.  This new theatrical version is just over two hours and there is still the same amount of plotting in it but it has to develop a lot quicker.

I guess I should consider myself thankful that the concession stand attendant had to move over and put together Ice Cream for someone else, otherwise I might have got my usual large Coke Zero and then might need to leave the theater to relieve myself an hour or so in. Had I done so, I know I would have been lost because every moment in the film has clues and paths that will help develop the story. This is a spy story where the plotters are not known till the end, the main villain is never really seen directly, and the hero is a nondescript bureaucrat, who appears to be as ineffectual at home as he is efficient at work. Phone calls, receipts and words repeated by someone that you did not share them with, are all the evidence that we get for most of the mystery. There are only three quick scenes of violence and everything else is internalized or hinted at.

Gary Oldman has been a wonderful actor for more than three decades. I first remember seeing him in "Sid and Nancy", an unpleasant memory of the Sex Pistols but a grand introduction to Oldman as an actor. I have seen him chew up the scenery in plenty of films. "Romeo is Bleeding" and "The Fifth Element" are good examples of Oldman going full force at an over the top character and making it interesting. He has been the lead, a key supporting character and a passing cameo in dozens of films over the years. Alec Guinness played Smiley as a little more elite and not quite as cold. Oldman takes the character and owns it. His Smiley barely speaks in the movie, he is all reaction and timing. There is a vacuum around his personality that sucks in all the air and makes him feel like the center of the scene even when he has little to do. The end of the film made me want to see him in a big screen version of "Smiley's People" right now. It is a very good example of a performance that is subdued but controls the story around it.

The intrigue and suspicion in the movie is supported by a cast of very good actors that covey exactly the mood the film needs. Toby Jones (who I think is American) plays the new head of the British spy agency known as "The Circus", with unctuous superiority and disdain for anyone else.  Colin Firth is one of the suspects who also oozes an attitude of superiority in the grand British style.  There are so many good performers in the film that it is easy to lose track of the focus which needs to be the story. I did feel at times that a little more underlining would help the viewer keep track, but if you are engaged, you won't have any trouble figuring out what is going on.

The movie is set in 1973, and the director and art director do a fine job showing us London without all the new landmarks and Budapest (although I suspect it has looked the same for a hundred years) looks like it could be behind the Iron Curtain. This is a well made piece of adult entertainment and I am pleased to say there was a pretty good audience for a 10:30 a.m. showing on a Tuesday. This bodes well for financial returns, which maters because there really should be a follow up using the character of Smilely in another story, but if they can't get Gary Oldman to return, they should forget it. You need this kind of performance to sustain an intellectual puzzle movie that would not be very appealing if there were not an excellent cast selling it.

The Darkest Hour

January is a dead time for new movies. Most films opening are wide releases of late debut Oscar bait. Then there is the annual Liam Neeson ass kicking movie, and finally there is product that is so dismal, it can't even be opened in September so they wait until January to dump it. This movie actually opened on Christmas day and then it died. It felt like a wake today because Amanda and I were the only people in the theater to see this screening. It actually was kinda nice, I did not have to ask anyone to turn off their phones and save the Facebook updates until after the movie. Counter programming is a strategy that can work if you have no other competition, but this movie has Sherlock Holmes, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Mission Impossible to contend with for the action audience and it was not a contest.

This is your basic alien invasion movie, with horror touches. I had a student in class tonight named Yuri, who said he saw it at a midnight screening for the opening, in 3-D, he said it sucked. Of course he paid $16 to see it when he was probably tired, I paid $6 and saw it all before noon. I used this as an example in class tonight, in making a claim of future fact. Could I expect to make money investing $30 million for a sci-fi action film to open on a holiday among crowded competition ? My answer was no, I'd have waited and tried to open the week before the Liam Neeson movie. Action fans will want something to wet their appetite, and the other movies will be more played out by then. This is a high concept film with no stars, a limited budget and a downer theme opening at Christmas, someone did not make very strong inferences.

I found the movie perfectly satisfying for what it is. There is an interesting concept, a very effective special effect that gets used each time there is an alien attack, and the setting was somewhere that has not been seen a thousand times already in other movies (although Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, did just use the same setting for the opening sequences of it's story). There is nothing groundbreaking here, if you were to cross "Cloverfield" and "Independence Day", you would pretty much get this chase film set in a largely abandoned Moscow. There is enough suspense to keep you involved for an hour and a half, and the people are pretty as are the special effects.

There are four or five main characters, and then some come and go as the movie travels from one location to another. Not everyone makes it out of the scenerio that has been set up and that adds a little bit of credibility to the plot. Although if you think about it, you can probably predict who will survive and who will get wiped by the alien forces. I did like the fact that the American characters had to struggle because they did not speak Russian, and therefore they could not tell which broadcasts or what signs should be listened to. Each character gets a couple of minutes to shine, and even one character that we know to despise, gets a chance at redemption. I did like the courage theme that ran through the film. We all ask ourselves, "how would we cope in this situation?" Here we get a variation on the answers that seems to cover most of the possibilities.

Emile Hirsh is the only name I recognized in the cast. Except for the four Americans, everyone else is Russian or Swedish so they are not household names. I thought Hirsh was the weakest performance of the cast, but he does have one good scene at the end where he is explaing his friendship with his buddy/business partner to one of the girls in the story. That was his most convincing segment in the movie. He also has some rousing moments in the closing of the film, but he is not really an action star. This movie is all about the concept. If you are not too discriminating on dialogue or character, and you like alien invasion movies, then you will be OK with The Darkest Hour. If I were you however, I'd go to the discount 2-D matinee instead of the mid-night 3-D screening.