The Equalizer; Into the Woods; Going Clear

The Equalizer

Lone superman eliminates the entire Russian Mafia in Boston.  I don’t get it – it’s not like they killed his dog.

Yes, The Equalizer is basically John Wick with Denzel Washington.  I’m actually ok with that, because I liked John Wick and I like Denzel Washington.  I liked The Equalizer, but I didn’t love it for two reasons.  First, it was so bleak that I felt depressed while it was on.  Second, the fight choreography and photography weren’t particularly compelling.

If I were the kind of guy who gave scores, I’d add bonus points for the Chloë Grace Moretz's turn as an actress affirming that, yes, she is the next Jodie Foster.  Further, I’d add points for casting Marton Csokas as the villain.  He’s kind of a stock Russian baddie, but he was in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  And I really love Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Into the Woods

About halfway through Into the Woods, I paused it checked to IMDB to learn whether the guy who wrote the music is the same guy who wrote Cats.  I hate Cats.

That said, Into the Woods does provide yet another example of why Meryl Streep is enjoying such a long and lauded career.  Frankly, it's as if she were in a different movie.  While the rest of the performers seem to be there to make one of two statements ("I may be a movie/tv star, but I can do musical theater!"  "I may be a Broadway star, but I can do movies!"), Streep is assaying an actual character.  Yes, she sings and dances, but she's alive and she brings the movie alive whenever she's onscreen.

Perhaps I'll remember Into the Woods as the move that made me think, 'Maybe I will queue up Ricki and the Flash, after all.'

Going Clear

One day, my college roommate came home with a copy of Dianetics.  I threw a fit, warned him not to get involved with that evil cult, and convinced him to toss the book.  Going Clear, a documentary exposing Scientology, proves me right nearly thirty years later.  I’m just glad my roommate listened to me way back when.

While the film lingers a bit too long on celebrity scandal for my taste, it succeeds in making its case that Scientiology is an evil, rapacious swindle.  It does so in a careful, compelling way that makes it succeed as entertainment, as well.  I recommend this one without reservation.

 

 

Interstellar, Dark Shadows, and others

Interstellar

I’m a father who loves his children.  I’m a pilot who spends an enormous amount of time on the road.  I still own the copy of ­Black Holes and Warped Spacetime I ordered from the Science Fiction Book Club in 1982.  Interstellar could not have been more calibrated to my sensibilities if it had been coded to my DNA.

Here’s the setup: Earth is fast becoming uninhabitable.  In the first act, scientist Michael Caine tells hero Matthew McConaghey that his children will be the last generation to live to old age.  The solution?  A journey to another solar system, via wormhole, to find a habitable planet.

That’s a great setup for any number of films.  You could go thriller, horror, hamhanded political screed, religious allegory – you name it.  Interstellar blends aspects of exploration adventure and introspective head trip to create a film that evokes Kubrick’s 2001 while maintaining a sense of desperate tension.  All that, and it provides the best exploration of time dilation in popular science fiction since Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War.  There’s even a snappy android played by Sesame Street’s Mister Noodle.

Really, what more could you ask for?

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows has all the elements of a solid horror-comedy: a classic vampire, a vampy villain, ghosts, and werewolves.  However, it never quite comes together.  Its hero is a genuine monster, making it hard to root for him.  Its villain has clear motivations that make no sense, its plot is muddled, and its climax says “to heck with it” and departs even from the rules of its own fantasy world.

And on and on and on.

One gets the feeling that some producer decided to exploit his or her rights to a nominally familiar horror franchise, called Tim Burton, and handed him a sack of cash.  Burton did his thing, complete with a real live Corpse Bride, but the movie spent too much time in production and not enough time in the word processor.

Ah, well.

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady combines a fairly risible story (once you think about it) with one catchy production number after another.

I like catchy production numbers.  I’m still humming “Ascot Opening Day.”  I’ll watch this any time it comes on.

The World’s End

The World’s End is lovely.  While hampered by a rocky first act, the picture gets to swinging once the world actually begins to end.  It’s funny, it’s heartfelt, and it’s a winner.

Much Ado About Nothing

Meh.  There ain’t no Beatrice and Benedick like Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh’s Beatrice and Benedick.

The Heroic Trio

Oh, what an abomination.  Stupidly plotted, poorly choreographed, badly shot, and amateurishly dubbed, The Heroic Trio is a sad waste of the talents of Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui.  Give it a pass.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

When you sit down for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, you know exactly what you're getting: classical piratical adventure with swordfights, damsels, treasure, and men of questionable hygiene shouting "Yarrr!"

The film is competently made, it looks great, and I'm still not tired of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.  Toss in Penelope Cruz (CDNW) as a foil and love interest, and we have a recipe for high seas adventure that ought to be worth at least a few more entries.  Did POTC IV capture my imagination as well as the surprising Wrath of the Titans?  No, but it was just the thing to help me while away a couple of hours while riding as a passenger on a transpacific flight.  You could do worse.

Rango

Rango is a great Western.  It’s a great kids’ movie.  It’s just plain great.

This beautifully animated film both ribs and pays homage to the Western, and particularly the spaghetti Western.  It’s a tale of an evil boss and a new sheriff, and it references enough classics of the genre to keep the aficionado in deep clover.  More importantly, it tells its own Western story, and it does so well enough to capture the imaginations of children for whom it represents their first exposure to the genre.

Johnny Depp voices the titular Rango, a chameleon who dreams of adventure and heroism.  When he wanders into an Old West town populated with (beautifully rendered) desert creatures, he tries to blend in.  After all, that’s what chameleons do.    Next thing he knows, he’s the sheriff.  Now, if he can only figure out how to work that gun …

And away we go.  Rango has gunslingers, saloons, jailbreaks, and even a plucky belle struggling to save her ranch.  It also has great music, funny jokes, and the most beautiful animation I’ve enjoyed since Kung Fu Panda.  I loved it, my wife loved it, and my kids loved it.  Now, if only I can get ‘em to watch Stagecoach.

Chocolate

Oh my God.

Oh. My. God.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Who is this woman, JeeJa Yanin? She has the physical presence of Johnny Depp. She nearly has the onscreen grace of a young Jackie Chan. She works her butt off: two years in training preproduction, two more years during production, and it shows. Muy Thai, Kung Fu, Jeet Kun Do, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kendo, gymnastics, rail fu, chair fu, knife fu, glass table fu (c’mon – there’s always glass table fu), sign fu, ledge fu, ice fu, even neuromuscular disability fu: this woman can do it all.

CHOCOLATE, directed by Prachya Pinkaew of ONG BAK: MUY THAI WARRIOR and TOM YUNG GONG fame, continues the Thai eclipse of the hoary Hong Kong martial arts thriller. Featuring eye-popping stuntwork that’ll make you go “Wow!” showcased by direction and editing that give us space to marvel at the skill and craftsmanship of its performers, and complemented with a score that underlines the action beats just so, CHOCOLATE is a worthy successor to Pinkaew’s earlier work and a must-see for fans of martial arts pictures, dance pictures, and plain old action thrillers.

CHOCOLATE: it’s the second-best film, after FROZEN RIVER, that I’ve seen this summer. It has movie has absolutely everything you could want in an action picture: it looks great, sounds great, features phenomenal stunt work, and just plain rocks. Bring on the JeeJa Yanin / Tony Jaa teamup picture. I’ll be there.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I enjoyed the hell out of SWEENEY TODD.

This film was my first exposure to the story, and I admit that I went into the picture not expecting to like it. My tastes run to the bright and cheery, frankly, and this stuff is pretty dire. But it works. It works because Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, even under all their makeup, infuse the proceedings with a compelling, dark humanity. It works because of top notch supporting performances. And it works because Tim Burton creates a world, and a worldview, so complete that we can enter into it and live there for a while, even if we don’t care to live there much longer than a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp, a strong contender for Can Do No Wrong status, is Todd, a man with vengeance in his heart. I knew Depp could do vengeance (Hell, I knew he could accomplish most any acting task set before him.), but I didn’t know he could sing. His numbers, and his performance of those numbers, enhance his character and entertain – he’s just great here. Helena Bonham Carter, an actress to whom I’ve always found it difficult to warm, is just right, as well. She’s creepy and off and fascinating and, what do you know, she can sing, too.

As for the supporting work, well, look at this cast: Alan Rickman (CDNW), Timothy Spall, and Sacha Baron Cohen (a performer whose stock keeps rising, in my book), among others. Rickman, of course, Can Do No Wrong. Spall is taking too many “slimy guy” roles, but he’s mighty good at them, and who knew Cohen could sing? Even as I recognized their faces, I bought their roles.

And Burton, well, he’s Burton. He creates films that come fully alive in their self-contained worlds, and his choice of palette and scene here is spot on for the material.

This is a successful film, and a damn fine entertaining one. Color me pleased.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I had no intention of ever seeing this movie.

But one of my nephews had it and showed it to my 8-yr-old, who showed it to me.

Y'know what? I liked it.

Sure, the CGI overlays on some of the actors were wierd, Depp was wierd, and the whole thing was wierd. But I like wierd. I like Danny Elfman's music. I like Johnny Depp. I like any mainstream movie that shows some real originality, some creativity.

Did I believe in this film's worl? Not for a minute. Did I enjoy spending some time there? Sure, sure I did.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END (POTC 3, henceforth) isn't very good. It wants to be an exciting, family-friendly adventure, but it begins with the hanging of a child. Now, I now that to somebody in Studio City, nothing says "entertainment" like the twitching feet of a dying juvenile. But I hate to break it to you, buddy: you hamstrung yourself very early on. The stakes are too high here, the villains too villainous, the deaths too real for POTC 3 to be fun. Yet this is a POTC movie, not NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, so it's not like you were going to sell it as a drama.

Early pall aside, POTC 3 makes no sense. It would have us believe that Pax Brittania was a bad thing, that the world is much better off with pirates disrupting the global economy than with trading vessels being able to ply the seas, and that the life of a felon is somehow noble. The earlier POTC movies at least kept the pirates morally ambiguous - here, they're good guys who do a little raping and pillaging in their spare time.

And yet, POTC 3 does have some things to recommend it. The performances are great fun, with Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy chewing the scenery with gusto comparable to Johnny Depp. The special effects are magnificent, and the set design is out of this world.

If only the movie hadn't gone so dark so early, it might have swept me away. Alas.

Lost in La Mancha

Watching 'Lost in La Mancha' is not a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half.

Well, I guess it could be pleasant, if you enjoy seeing dreams, hopes, trust, and bonhomie whither and turn to despair and hopelessness before an onslaught of bad luck, bad planning, and bad blood.

The film, a documentary that probably started out as a simple "making of" piece, chronicles director Terry Gilliam's effort to get his version of Don Quixote on screen. The film opens with Gilliam energized, excited, and ready to begin production. Then things start going wrong, and wrong, and wrong, until the viewer begins to suspect that God Himself doesn't want this movie to happen.

Is it interesting? Yes. Is it engaging? Kind of, in a car-wreck sort of way. Is it a good use of your time? Hard to say: do you like watching people suffer?

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

What's not to love about PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST? It has fun characters, terrific monsters, plenty of swordplay, and great set-pieces galore. It's just plain a fun time at the movies.

Here's the setup: well, on second thought, who cares? Here's what you really need to know: all the principals are back, some cool new monsters get added to the mix, and the movie rocks along with just the right combination of action, humor, and character to keep you well entertained for its full 2+ hour running time.

Enjoy.

Finding Neverland

FINDING NEVERLAND is a charming picture. It has a striking visual vocabulary, Kate Winslet is luminous, Julie Christie gets a turn, and Johnnie Depp absolutely nails his accent (He sounds just like one of the hobbits in the LOTR commentary - either Boyd or Monaghan, I don't recall which).

I didn't laugh, and I didn't cry, but I did enjoy it through and through. There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.