Loose Ends

Man, this whole "job and family thing really gets in the way of blogging.  Here are some short observations about what's been on my screen.

22 Jump  Street 

Don’t make my mistake.  Do not watch 22 Jump Street in a public, yet quiet, place.  I watched it while riding as a passenger in an airplane, and I spent roughly 90 minutes biting my knuckles to keep from guffawing.

This is my kind of comedy.  It’s clever, it’s packed with gags that hit us in rapid succession, and it even blows up a car.  Really, what more could you possibly want?

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Eh.  I’m getting too old for this $#!^.

Noah

Noah drags through its first act, then turns on the juice once the rain starts falling.  If you can get past the fact that everyone’s Caucasian and has British accents, then it’s easy to accept lava monsters and ancient industrialized civilizations.  Soon, you can immerse yourself in Aronofsky’s tale of justice and mercy, prophecy and insanity.  Just don’t make it the last film you see on a 9.5 hour flight.  This is not a movie to see when you're punchy.

Cats & Dogs

What a delightful film.  I’ve seen it, with my kids, I don’t know how many times.  It just never gets old.  

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Because I'm a good father, I sat my 14-year-old son down for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure the other day.  Two observations: (1) Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have excellent comic timing, and (2) this is the 'Doctor Who' adventure that never was.

Regarding the first observation: both my son and I laughed all through this wonderful movie.  This isn't one of those cynical pictures with two levels of humor (one for children and one for their parents).  Rather, it's a picture with simple humor done well.  Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan are funny, sympathetic characters, and everything about their goofy attempts to talk themselves out of trouble (at the beginning) and save the day (at the end) is both winning and hilarious.  Their goofball schtick just never gets old.

Regarding the second: the entire premise is clearly a ripoff of then-defunct British television adventure series 'Doctor Who.'  Instead of the time-travelling Doctor’s iconic English police box, Bill & Ted's time-travelling mentor (George Carlin) uses an American telephone booth.  Instead of Gallifrey, Carlin comes from a future Earth that has found enlightenment through the teachings and music of the titular Bill and Ted.  This makes me happy.  In fact, until further notice, I choose to believe that George Carlin is the 15^th Doctor.

Y’know, I have fond memories of many films from my youth.  Very few hold up, but Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure does.  It’s funny, it’s charming, it’s optimistic, and it’s everything you could want in a time-travel team comedy.  

In short, on a scale of triumphantness, I give Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure the highest rating: most triumphant.

The Grandmaster

The Grandmaster tells the story of influential kung fu master Ip Man.  Ip Man won renown in pre-Invasion China, suffered through the Japanese occupation, and eventually made his way to Hong Kong, where he taught a young Bruce Lee.  His is a fascinating story, told well in the film Ip Man, starring Donnie Yen.

This telling, starring Tony Leung and directed by Wong Kar Wai, misfires.  This surprised me, as Tony Leung (Chiu Wai – there’s also a Tony Leung Kai Fung, who was terrific in DetectiveDee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame) and Wong Kar Wai have, in the past, worked together to make remarkable, moving, and memorable films such as Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love, and 2046.

The problem is that The Grandmaster, a kung-fu biography, is better suited to the directorial talents of a Zhang Yimou or Yuen Woo-ping.  Filmed kung fu is dance: extensively choreographed, intensively practiced, and performed by people with years of training.  When photographed in medium- to long takes, it’s one of the most beautiful things one can see onscreen.  While Leung is entirely capable of performing in such takes (see Jet Li’s magnificent Hero), Wai chooses to shoot and edit his battles in a kinetic, quick-cut style of the sort one uses to hide that fact that one’s star doesn’t actually know what he’s doing.

This short changes Leung, as well as the stuntmen and dancers with whom he performs Ip Man’s contests, and draws the viewer out of the film.  Once drawn out, one begins to notice Wai’s other stylistic choices, such as snap closeups to direct the audience’s eye (rather than trusting the audience to notice important elements for themselves) and a frenetic editing style at odds with the calm and self-possession of the film’s title character.

I’m sorry to find this film so disappointing, as I have great respect for Wai, Leung, and co-stars Zhang Ziyi and Chen Chang.  Nevertheless, Wai and Leung have created enough wonderful films that I’m happy to give this one a pass.  Though The Grandmaster disappointed me, I look forward to their next collaboration.

Three Quick Bites

The Palm Beach Story

The AV Club published an excellent piece on this wonderful film last month.  Here's a link.

The Trip to Italy

Did you like The Trip?  Based on my brief review, do you think you’d like The Trip?  Well, then, you’re sure to like The Trip to Italy, which is exactly the same as The Trip, but to Italy.  What are you waiting for?

Viva Las Vegas!

Man, I don’t know.  Elvis may be one of the greatest vocalists in the history of recorded music, but he comes across as a nonentity on film.  Ann-Margaret may be a talented and beautiful woman, but she comes across as a feral force of nature who’d eat this Tupelo yokel for lunch.

Viva Las Vegas! tries to build a romantic comedy with these two, but I never bought it.  Elvis seemed like a doofus, Ann-Margret kind of scared me, and the whole thing only comes alive when The King sings one of his many numbers.  Viva Las Vegas! doesn’t work as a film, but I’d listen to the album.

White House Down

Now, here’s a role for Jamie Foxx: President of the United States.  He has presence.  He has dignity.  He can pick up an automatic weapon and spray small-arms fire into the chests of evildoers. 

Unfortunately, White House Down makes him a supporting character.  That’s ok, however, because the lead is the surprisingly versatile Channing Tatum.  Together, the two of them run and gun through a film that’s basically Die Hard in the White House, and they do so with gusto and wit.

In my review of TheAmazing Spider-Man 2, I took that film to task for being nothing more than a formulaic product.  The film’s great failing, however, wasn’t in the fact that it was product: it was that it was poor product.  White House Down is, unabashedly, product.  But it’s good product, with excellent casting, slick effects and editing, and beats that flow one into the next.

Do you like rocket launchers?  White House Down has rocket launchers.  Do you like machine guns?  White House Down has machine guns.  How about genius villains who play Beethoven during their moments of triumph (I told you this was Die Hard in the White House!)?  Spunky kids?  Grizzled veterans who say things like, “I was wrong about you?”  Villains who practically shriek “And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids?”  Oh, yeah.  White House Down has all of these, and more, but it sells them with such glee that you can’t help but bop right along with it.

All this, and a Jamie Foxx on his game.  What more could you ask for?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I saw the first act of Amazing Spider-Man 2 on one of those little screens on the back of an airplane seat in business class.  All I could think about was how fake the CGI looked.  I saw the second and third acts on my nice tv at home.  All I could think about was how lame the story was.

Here’s the movie in a nutshell: it begins with Andrew Garfield breaking up with Emma Stone (who is wonderful in everything.  I’d watch that woman burn toast.).  So right off the bat, we know he’s an idiot.  Soon enough, we meet proto-villain Jamie Foxx.  Foxx plays a nerd as only a jock can play a nerd:  a complete loser, a barely functional basket case who just happens to be an incredible genius.  Soon enough, the nerd turns into a super villain and the movie loses me for good.

Why?  Because Jamie Foxx is an Academy Award winning actor, and the movie doesn’t trust him to show us how he’s feeling.  Instead, it gives us a horrible voice-over of his supposed inner monologue.  It’s a waste of his talent and an indication of just how simplistic and condescending The Amazing Spider-Man 2 really is.

But wait- there’s more!  This film boasts an Emo Harry Osborn who (a) doesn’t dance, and (b) should be wearing a t-shirt reading “B Story.”  He’s there solely to pad things out and provide an additional villain.  This makes no sense.  The movie’s already over two hours long.  They could have cut his entire arc and still had a ninety-minute movie.  

There’s still more!  The climax plays like it was written by some guy working from an outline provided by some other guy who not only lazily Xeroxed a page from some screenwriter’s manual, but is actually stupid.  I mean, the whole thing hinges on the audience’s willingness to believe that you can punch electricity.  There’s a subplot about airliners in danger that feels like it was added in post to generate extra tension, and that doesn’t even make any sense to anyone who knows the first thing about air traffic control.  There’s a needless death that, while well handled, eliminates the only reason I can think of to see The Amazing Spider-Man 3.  And there’s a denouement that suffers from a shockingly bad performance by Paul Giamatti, embarrassing effects rendering by the F/X department, and unearned emotional manipulation that just feels cheap.

Oh, this movie.  While Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 still stands as a high-water mark for the genre, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 feels like something hastily cobbled together by people with no investment in the material.

I even liked TheAmazing Spider-Man.  If Sony decides to have another go with this creative team, it’ll take one heck of a critical reception to get me to so much as stream it on Instant.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I’ve had it with Wes Anderson.

The Grand Budapest Hotel looks marvelous, represents a unique vision, and tells its story with wit and creativity.  I hated it.  It’s the Manic Pixie Dream Girl of movies.

Its love interest has a birthmark the exact shape of Mexico running down her cheek because – whimsy! 

Its one honest and noble character meets a horrific end because – unpredictability!

Its paragon of class and carriage is a vulgar buffoon because – honesty!

It concludes with an image suggesting an entire nation living in grateful wonder at its story because – self-indulgence!

I swear to God, I half-expected this movie to pull out a ukulele and improvise a tune about the wonder of dewdrops.  Up yours.  Entertain me.  Blow up a car.

The Worst of 2014

I’ve been putting off writing this post.  I only see movies I think I’m going to enjoy, and I take no pleasure in dissing any particular film.  After all, it takes incredible chutzpah to release any kind of creative work, hanging your creation out there for all to see.  I respect anyone who makes anything, and especially respect anyone with the combination of talent, skill, leadership ability, and business sense required to make a feature film.  Nevertheless, anyone can misfire.  Here are the misfires I saw in 2014.

10.  Elysium:  Possibly the ugliest film I’ve seen in years, Elysium dares tell the world that rich people are bad.  This is particularly brave, given that this is a major studio production.  Somewhere in Hollywood, rich studio executives, a rich director, and several rich movie stars all decided that telling the world they’re bad people was a good idea.  Oh, what’s that?  They meant *other* rich people?  I get it.  Well, at least they served up their hypocrisy with a serving of ‘splosions.

9.  Silver Linings Playbook:  This film got accolades during last year’s Oscar season.  I don’t get it.  90 minutes with people who know how to communicate only by lying or shouting is 89 minutes too long.  I couldn’t get to the credits fast enough.

8.  Ted:  A 10-minute sketch stretched into a 90-minute feature, this film's premise wears out its welcome less than a third of the way through.  I don’t understand how anyone could have read this screenplay and said, “This is a film I want to make!”

7.  The Incredible Burt Wonderstone:  Another failed comedy, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is based on the assumption that audiences enjoy watching hateful characters treat one another poorly.  If I wanted that, I’d see Silver Linings Playbook again.  At least that movie doesn’t pass itself off as something trying to be funny.

6.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug:  This big-budget action-adventure actually put me to sleep during its climax.  At least numbers 10-7 on this list kept my attention, in a train-wreck kind of way.

5.  Room 247:  This amateurishly made film about Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has absolutely nothing to say.  It’s like being stuck with the crashing bore at a party.  I’m fascinated by The Shining and was looking forward to learning about its production.  Instead, I got conspiracy theories and stock footage.  Ugh.

4.  Robot & Frank:  Here’s another film that failed at its most basic function: to entertain.  I fell asleep roughly halfway through this film about a disagreeable man doing bad things.  When I woke up, I realized that I had missed absolutely nothing at all.

3.  After Earth:  I couldn’t even get through this one.  I’m sure Jaden Smith is a nice kid who’s trying to make it in the family business.  Unfortunately, he isn’t ready yet.  He lacks screen presence, and I just couldn’t get invested in his character’s journey.

2.  The Heroic Trio:  Such a sad waste of the talents of the queens of mid-‘80s Hong Kong kung fu cinema.  Not even Michelle Yeoh, Anita Mui, and Maggi Chung can enliven this poorly shot, amateurishly choreographed, laughably bad movie.

1.   Pain & Gain:  As I understand it, this film was Michael Bay’s pet project, a low-budget comedy that, presumably, came from the heart.  Michael Bay’s heart must be a cold, dark place.  Pain & Gain revels in stupidity, cruelty, and a pervading cynicism that made me feel like a terrible person just for watching it.  The world is a worse place for the presence of this film.

Best of 2014

I don't see as many films as I used to when I rode the Metro to work every morning, but I still see more than the average bear.  That said, here's a list of the ten best movies I saw in 2014.  You may quibble with my ranking, but I don't think you can go wrong by spinning up any of these wonderful pictures.

10. The Bridges at Toko-Ri:  Forget Top Gun.  If you really want to know what it's like to be a naval aviator, this is your film.

9. Interstellar: Tense, beautiful, and thought provoking, I loved every minute of it.

8. Seven Psychopaths: Such a great script, and so well performed. I don't understand why this wasn't a big, big hit.

7. The Raid: Redemption: Pay no attention to the paper-thin story. The stunt work in this picture is the best I've seen since Ong Bak: Muy Thai Warrior.

6. Gravity: Stunningly beautiful and masterful in every way, it'll look great sitting on my shelf next to Interstellar.

5. 3 Idiots: I'm a sucker for singing, dancing, life-affirming pictures that give me a window into another culture. Aal izz well!

4. Edge of Tomorrow: The most underrated film of the year, and the one I most look forward to seeing again. Creative, exciting, and featuring a brilliant lead performance, this is everything you could want in a summer action movie.

3. A Separation: A thoughtful, compassionate, yet devastating film, A Separation takes us into another culture and crumbling marriage with care and love. This is a heartbreaking, absolutely necessary film.

2. Chef: When I wasn't laughing during this charming film, I was sitting with a big, dopey grin on my face. If you relish the idea of spending 90 minutes with good people trying to do the right thing, all while making you laugh, this is the movie for you. I'm smiling just thinking about it. Smiling and craving a Cuban sandwich.

1. After Life: I think about this film every day.  It makes me a better person. I hope I think about it every day for the rest of my life.

47 Ronin

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can get behind a movie like 47 Ronin, and those who make me sad.

47 Ronin is set in a mythic, legendary Japan.  It tells the story of 47 samurai who, though outcasts following the dishonor of their master, hatch a plan to redeem his honor and set the world to right.  It’s steeped in a heightened, storybook version of Japanese bushido culture, and it’s wonderful entertainment.

Keanu Reeves plays the financing necessity – no, wait.  That’s unfair.  While Reeves was, most likely, the key to a financing and distribution deal, he’s perfectly fine here as the half-European, semi-mystical outcast and audience identification character.  Yes, he’s a bit wooden, but that plays well in a story set in a rigidly controlled, hierarchical society.  Beyond that, he’s game for whatever the movie throws at him, and he doesn’t embarrass himself or the production.

I could name check a couple of Japanese actors whose names would be familiar to movie buffs, but all you really need to know is that this is a beautiful production, professionally acted and directed.  Yes, much of the monster-related CGI is dodgy, but so what.  This is legend.  Roll with it.  More importantly, the story makes sense, the action sequences are a delight, and my 14 year old and I rocked along with smiles on our faces throughout its running time.

All this for a movie I saw reluctantly.  I’m currently polishing my annual Best/Worst post.  Though this film won’t make either list, it certainly counts as my biggest surprise of the year.  I’m delighted to report that 47 Ronin is a winner.

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.

Mrs. Miniver

Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film, pure and simple.  Its prologue reads, “This story of an average English middle-class family begins with the summer of 1939; when the sun shone down on a happy, careless people, who worked and played, reared their children and tended their gardens in that happy, easy-going England that was so soon to be fighting desperately for her way of life and for life itself.”  Its epilogue:  “AMERICA NEEDS YOUR MONEY BUY DEFENSE BONDS AND STAMPS EVERY PAY DAY.”  (Source: IMDb)  

The film (directed by William Wyler) introduces us to The Minivers, the aforementioned average middle class family.  It tells us that they’re an average middle-class family, but it lies.  They’re well above average.  In fact, I’d call them rich.  They live in a beautiful home and have servants.  Their oldest son is away at Oxford, and he woos the granddaughter of the local noblewoman.  Mr. Miniver owns a yacht, Mrs. Miniver splashes out on ridiculously expensive hats, and the couple drives a car that’d cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000 today.

Over the course of the film, we see the Minivers overcome adversity, do their duty, spread joy, and generally be happy.  When the Blitz wreaks havoc on their cozy village, we in the audience are supposed to feel compelled to buy war bonds to –what?  Help these nice rich people keep being nice and rich?  To preserve an ideal of an England that never was?

I’m not quite sure, but here’s the kicker: it works.  I liked the Minivers.  As played by Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver is a saint – and a pretty one, to boot.  Mr. Miniver does his part at Dunkirk and helps to bring the boys home.  Young Oxford Miniver, despite his intellectual pretensions, grows into a fine fellow and just the man for the noblewoman’s practical and intelligent granddaughter.  I laughed.  I cried.  I noticed a subplot brazenly plagiarized by ‘Downtown Abbey’ decades later.

So, yes, Mrs. Miniver is a propaganda film.  That’s not the point.  The point is, it’s a good propaganda film.  Now, where can I go to buy some bonds?

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I am the target demographic for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.  I still have a 35-year-old copy of the source novel that has followed me from move to move.  I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I bought the extended editions of all three of those films on DVD.  Heck, I even loved the generally unappreciated first ‘Hobbit’ film, An Unexpected Journey.

Desolation of Smaug is different.  I fell asleep during the climax.

By the time the film got our titular hobbit to the treasure-laden lair of the dragon Smaug, it had taken so many detours that I’d lost interest.  A love triangle featuring two elves and a dwarf?  That idea never should have escaped the world of slash fiction.  A tedious backstory about a heroic ferryman and his family’s legacy of dragonfighting?  Meh.  Gandalf and Radagast investigating the possible appearance of the villain from The Lord of the Rings?  At least it wasn’t trade negotiations. 

And on and on and on and on.  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug felt so bloated and meandering that it failed to generate any propulsive energy.  I began the film caring about our Hobbit’s quest to find Smaug’s mountain, but by the time the last MacGuffin showed up (some kind of glowing gem that the dwarves want), I’d lost interest and felt the need to rest my eyes.

All this means that The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, failed in its core mission: entertaining its audience.  I didn’t actively hate it, but I grew so bored I don’t even know whether I’ll queue up its final sequel, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.  It’ll take one heck of a critical reception to make me change my mind.

After Life

After Life is unlike any movie I’d ever seen before.  Watching it suffused me with happiness, and I’m taking a lesson from it.

The film, by Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda, is set in a way station between this life and the next.  The souls of the newly-dead file in to a reception area, give their names, and take seats in a waiting room.  When called, a friendly and efficient counselor tells them they’ll be staying at the way station (which looks an awful lot like a college dormitory the production company rented) for five days.  They’ll have three days to review their lives and choose one memory they’d like to carry into the next world.  On the fourth day, the staff will recreate that memory and film it.  On the fifth, the souls will see their films and depart, off to spend the rest of eternity in moments of their choosing.  The staff, it seems, gets one day off and one day to prep for the next batch.

The counsellors are kind and patient.  One helps a teenager dig more deeply after the latter goes with a trip to Disneyland, presumably the first thing that popped into her mind.  Another helps a man who argues that life is pain and best forgotten.  This is a narrative film, so there is a plot, but the plot seems beside the point.

The point, I think, is to inspire viewers to browse their own memories as they ask themselves which one they’d take with them.  The effect: roughly ninety minutes of reviewing one’s personal highlight reel.  While watching this film, I found myself beginning at my earliest memories and reliving those moments in which I felt the most loved, or in love, or triumphant, or elated, or joyous, or content.  Whenever I thought I’d settled on an answer, another memory would crowd in to take its place.

This was a powerful experience. 

I tend not to dwell on the past.  When I see old friends, I steer the conversation away from reminiscence.  When people refer to some shared experience from long ago, I often smile and nod, having forgotten the moment to which they’re referring.  I didn’t have a particularly traumatic childhood.  I’m just more interested in what’s happening right now.

This film, however, taught me that my past is a rich trove of memories, one worthy of attention and reflection.  It reminded me how very fortunate I am to love and be loved, to be an adventurer, to have achieved some modicum of professional success and fulfillment.

This film taught me to look back and choose what matters.  And if the end came right now, the choice would be clear.  My most cherished memory may seem mundane, but it’s precious to me: hanging out on the couch with my wife and children, doing nothing in particular, living in love.

Ender's Game

Ender’s Game tanked in its theatrical release.  I’m not sure why.

The film, about a boy at a space-military academy for exceptional children, has engaging characters, an interesting story, and beautiful special effects.  What went wrong?

Perhaps it was the subject matter: children forced to fight both an alien menace and one another.  In a world in which we teach our children to stop bullying by reporting incidents to the nearest authority figure, Ender’s Game posits that the best way to stop a bully is to knock him down, then kick him in the ribs until his bones crack.

Perhaps it was the premise: adults manipulating children into becoming merciless, unstoppable, alien-killing prodigies.  It’s one thing to wield a magic wand against Ralph Fiennes.  It’s quite another to commit genocide.

Perhaps it was the subtext of that premise: adults are not to be trusted.  Since adults form critical consensi and make purchasing decisions, perhaps Ender’s Game antagonized the wrong demographic.

Whatever the reasons, all I can say is that Ender’s Game worked for me.  I cared about its hero, I enjoyed its action set-pieces, and I even got my socks folded.

Perhaps it’ll fare better on video.

Gravity

If Thor: The Dark World is a film to watch while folding socks, Gravity is one that rewards the viewer’s full attention.  Gravity is beautiful, awe inspiring, and captivating.  It’s the kind of movie that’ll make you spring for the biggest, best 3-D TV you can afford, then hope for an IMAX revival run.

The film begins in orbit, with first-time astronaut Sandra Bullock trying to fix a malfunctioning circuit board outside the Hubble Space Telescope; while salty spacewalker George Clooney enjoys the moment.  As the trailers indicate, this routine mission comes to a catastrophic end when remnants of a destroyed Russian satellite collide with the Telescope and the astronauts’ space shuttle.

So begins a tense, exhilarating survival tale.  One is hard-pressed to imagine a more unforgiving environment than space, but these characters are smart, capable, resourceful professionals.  What a pleasure to watch a film not about screaming morons, but about adults dealing with stresses that push them to their breaking points.

I don’t want to say more about the story for fear of giving away plot points, so I’ll write that director Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (working, of course, with a huge team) have created the most beautiful film I’ve seen since Aronofsky’s The Fountain.  In addition to the virtuoso opening sequence, Gravity offers moments (such as that featured in the photo) of remarkable beauty coupled with thematic resonance.  This is wonderful stuff, the very epitome of mainstream filmmaking.

In other words, Gravity is a masterpiece.  I only wish I’d seen it in IMAX 3D.

Thor: The Dark World

I didn’t care for Thor (see my review).  It was a movie about people I didn’t care about fighting for stakes that didn’t matter.

I’m pleased to report that Thor: The Dark World fixes its predecessor’s faults.  This time around, the titular Thor is an interesting guy fighting a threatening villain over something worthy of the effort.  Both hero Chris Hemsworth and nemesis Tom Hiddleston have found their groove.  Villain of the Week Christopher Eccleston seems a credible threat to the universe in general and Earth in particular.  Even previously misused Natalie Portman comes across as competent and capable, as opposed to just another Pauline.  The action sequences pop, the jokes land, and everything hangs together.

I admit, I watched most of Thor: The Dark World while troubleshooting a technical issue with one of my gadgets, but that’s ok.  This is light action entertainment, perfectly fine to play in the background while folding socks or debugging code.  Let’s just forget the first outing even existed.

Shame

Shame brings to mind Leaving Las Vegas.  They’re both about addiction, and neither are about redemption.  They’re both about addicts who have lost all inhibition, all control over their addictions.  They’re about people who’ve burrowed into their addictions, feeding their needs far past satiety, past loathing.  They wrap themselves in shame.  They are their addictions.

With Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, it’s alcohol.  With Michel Fassbender in Shame, it’s orgasm.  And while these addictions are terrible and destructive, they aren’t, ipso facto, particularly compelling.  Humanity is compelling.  In Leaving Las Vegas, humanity comes in the guise of Elisabeth Shue as a prostitute who recognizes the man inside the addiction.  In Shame, it’s Carey Mulligan as a sister so damaged she forces the man to look beyond his.

Cage, of course, won an Academy Award for Leaving Las Vegas.  Fassbender deserved one for Shame, delivering a performance breathtaking in its fearlessness and competence.  His character begins the film a slave to his compulsions, yet he seems to have found some kind of a workable life balance.  When Mulligan’s character enters the scene, however, he’s forced to see himself.  His dawning realization, his reaction to that realization, and his subsequent evolution (or lack thereof) is absolutely magnificent to behold.

My tastes in film run toward the upbeat low- to middlebrow.  A movie like Shame, like Leaving Las Vegas, generally isn’t my thing.  But sometimes, a film is so good, so well made, so compelling, that it defies those tastes and becomes something I recommend to all my friends.  Leaving Las Vegas is such a film.  So is Shame.

Silver Linings Playbook

Oh, good God.  An hour and a half spent with people who yell at one another as a form of communication.  If I wanted that, I’d go home for Christmas.

The Hunter

In The Hunter, Willem Dafoe plays a world-class game hunter who has accepted a contract to kill the world’s last surviving Tasmanian tiger.  He’s a quiet man in a quiet setting.  He walks the Tasmanian wilderness, sets traps, and tries to pick up the trail of a lonely, elusive creature.  Things get complicated because this is, after all, narrative film.  However, one gets the sense that the plot is secondary.  The film recalls the pacing and tone of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and it is a film very much more about the pacing than the destination.

The pacing is .. deliberate.  We don't get to know Dafoe's hunter with an intro and a quip.  Rather, we get know him as he (re?)discovers an aspect of himself slowly, carefully.  There are few actors who can pull this off, and Dafoe is one of them.  However, The Hunter moves so slowly, so carefully, that I found it difficult to remain engaged.  The Hunter is a film for someone ready to meditate.  I, however, saw it on a computer in an airport lounge while keeping an eye on the "Delayed Departures" board.  I may be the target audience for this film, but I was not the target headspace.

So, see The Hunter if you love Dafoe.  See it if you love Australia.  But skip it if you have something else on your mind.  The Hunter is for meditation, not distraction.