by Dean | Feb 23, 2014 | General, Movies
A true sense of tragedy intermittently comes through in August: Osage County (2013), the John Wells film of Tracy Letts’ play, as the troubled Oklahoma characters blow it big-time. Successfully Letts adapted it, confidently Wells directed it.
The complaint has been made that the movie contains too much Meryl Streep (as the ranting, pill-addicted Violet Weston). I’d say that considering the thoughtful, unself-conscious magnificence of Streep’s performance, she has exactly the right amount of screen time. Julia Roberts is stunningly impeccable as a candid and discontent wife and mother, while Margo Martindale is very good at making Violet’s sister complex.
Chris Cooper delights with common-man qualities, but the British actor Benedict Cumberbatch, for all his effort, is not meant for the role he was given. Julianne Nicholson and Juliette Lewis are engaging enough that we miss them after they drop out of the film. (I do, anyway.)
Wells’s movie was made a lot closer to where I live, which is OK’s Tulsa County, than other movies are. It’s a funny-bleak work not without faults, but whose acting means a lot and is not to be underrated.
by Dean | May 20, 2013 | General, Movies
For a man who has threatened a major-league terrorist, Tony Stark—a.k.a. Iron Man—certainly leaves his house unprepared for the savage aerial attack that constitutes Iron Man 3‘s first large-scale action sequence. Where are the robotic guns? It should be understood, though, that the movie’s narrative is fundamentally for children. Everything else, I would say, is for grownups as well as children, which is good news. Shane Black’s film is faulty but fun, a relentlessly commercial family pic (made by Marvel/Disney—again, relentlessly commercial). Predictably, Robert Downey Jr. is unerring in the title role. The one-liners he spouts are only part, albeit the most important part, of what makes IM3 a semi-comedy. Guy Pearce and Sir Ben Kingsley can also be funny. The film is close to being a laugh-fest with explosions.
Another thing: there may be a mini-message in the film—terrorists are invariably ULTRA-villains (Guy Pearce, this means you).
by Dean | Jan 2, 2013 | General, Movies
David O. Russell’s first film, Spanking the Monkey (1994), is not a crowd pleaser. Mediocre as it is, it’s tougher than that. His new picture, Silver Linings Playbook (2012) is a crowd pleaser—and it isn’t mediocre. It’s a seriocomic piece that manages to be a lot of fun. Nimble with his camera, Russell adapts a novel unknown to me for what seems like a good adaptation to the silver screen (i.e. the movie stands on its own).
The story is that of a man (Bradley Cooper) just out of a mental hospital and his hopes of restoring his subverted marriage. Presently he befriends a chilly, emotionally disturbed young widow (Jennifer Lawrence) who affects his life in curious ways. The value of marriage, despite the imperfections of marriages, is a theme in Playbook. So is the understandable fight, undertaken by some individuals, to turn away from darkness, from “negativity” (oh, that word!), and concentrate on light—as well as possible.
Funny and buoyant, what we have here is a contemporary Preston Sturges movie, only more touching. Granted, it can be corny too, but I had no trouble seeing a silver overlay in Silver Linings Playbook, however un-tough it may be.
by Dean | May 21, 2012 | General, Movies
The Avengers (2012 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) is consistently entertaining. Its action footage would be more entertaining, wholly exciting, if it contained greater suspense (like the car chase in The French Connection), but no matter. It’s still head-on fun and technically accomplished.
Certain Marvel comic-book movies, most of which I haven’t seen, anticipated this lengthy flick in which Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and other superheroes band together to–you got it–save the world. (I wonder who’s going to save it from the economic policies of political leaders?) I enjoyed the movie’s humor and was certainly glad the talented, now likeable Robert Downey Jr. was on hand. I mean he’s now likeable as a human being, I think. Like the action, Downey makes us forget most of Whedon’s poor plotting.
by Dean | Nov 21, 2011 | Movies, Music
Cover of 8 Mile (Widescreen Edition)
Eminem, in 8 Mile, plays a Detroit post-teenager who dreams of becoming a rap singer, who both has black friends and receives hostility from blacks who don’t like his career intentions. For all its hokiness it’s a good movie, chiefly because of its depiction of working-class life in an American city. Scott Silver’s script is fragile, but Curtis Hanson directs it with flair and know-how. Eminem’s acting is hollow but the other performers shine. E.g., Mekhi Phifer is urban tough but nonthreatening as one of Eminem’s friends, he who asserts he intends to square things with the Lord but never gets around to it. Kim Basinger gives a nicely complex performance as the white rapper’s mother, and the late Brittany Murphy effectively plays, er, an affable slut. It’s not much of a role. It is not even clear that Silver is aware she is a slut.
Another problem: the obligatory embarrassing sex scene. And another: rap music. The one Eminem rap song I have heard in its entirety struck me as trivial and unfunny, and the tripe spewed out in 8 Mile is no better. One wishes we had Duke Ellington and Scott Joplin around to teach this white kid a lesson.
by DaveStuff | Apr 18, 2011 | Movies, Religion
Image via Wikipedia
Directed by Alexander Amenabar, Agora stars Rachel Weisz as the philosopher, mathematician, and martyr Hypatia of Alexandria, whose history has long been muddled and contested since the limited release of the film. Many Christians including Catholic evangelist Rev. Robert Barron, condemn Amenabar for the film, calling it an “atheist agenda” despite the fact that the director insisted on a multi-faith cast and crew and the distributors insisted on a preemptive screening by the Vatican, which reported no issues with the film.
Synopsis
History buffs already know how the movie ends, so I won’t worry about spoilers. Agora is a about a woman mathematician, philosopher, and scholar in Roman Egypt. We, the audience, see Hypatia teaching men of prominent families, including Orestes, who admires her but cannot attain her because she loves philosophy first. Davus, one of her father’s slaves (whom she pities), also loves Hypatia, but the latter is oblivious and the former is burdened by his lower status. He begins to turn to Christianity for solace.
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A true sense of tragedy intermittently comes through in August: Osage County (2013), the John Wells film of Tracy Letts’ play, as the troubled Oklahoma characters blow it big-time. Successfully Letts adapted it, confidently Wells directed it.
