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2013

You’re Next – 0 stars

August 31, 2013
0 stars, 2013, Scary
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You're Next's innovative use of a household blender
Taken on it’s own terms, You’re Next is probably a 2 star film.  The story of a family of ten, terrorized and murdered one-by-one at a secluded reunion, is effective and frightening. The mystery, however, is easily deduced, and the killings themselves, which take up most of the film, are (with the exception of an inspired murder by blender) a pedestrian lot of slayings, stabbings and bludgeoning.

The film’s terms, however, are my objection. I was drawn to it by my son, who pointed out reviews noting pitch black humor, a play on the genre, a fresh twist,  etc . . . I was hoping for Scream or Evil Dead 2, but this is just an abattoir with an occasional wry exchange.

The Way Way Back – 3.5 stars

August 24, 2013
2013, 3 stars, Comedy, Drama
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The opening scene, where our beleaguered protagonist Duncan (Liam James) has to endure a numeric assessment from his mother’s new boyfriend (Steve Carell, who deems Duncan a “3” on a 1 to 10 scale for his layabout ways) reveals a great strength and a great weakness of the film.  James, as an awkward, inward 14 year old dragooned to Carell’s beach house with his mother (Toni Collette) for the summer, exhibits all the hideous hallmarks of the age. He’s ungainly, goofy and paralyzingly shy.  Carell also keenly occupies his type – an exact, sly bully who masks his menace in the cause of trying to be a father figure.  Everyone time he says “hey, buddy”, it presages a cut, an attack, and therein lies the problem with this coming of age tale.  With Carell identified as a villain from the get go, little that occurs next is unexpected or fresh.

That said, the script, from the Oscar winning writers of The Descendants (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who also co-direct) is assured.  The story of Duncan’s growth under the tutelage of Sam Rockwell, a comic guru who runs the local water park, takes pity on Duncan, and gives him a job, is the heart of the picture, and their banter is really very funny and often surprisingly touching.  As Duncan’s mother loses herself in Carell’s world, we know  Carell must be slayed.  While we wait for that inevitability, however, Faxon and Rash have a blast with the water park and all of its quirky characters (including both Faxon and Rash, who are both very funny as well).  Carell’s coterie at the beach are also well written, if not fully developed, with Allison Janney delivering the lion’s share of the killer lines, most of which are directed at her own son, who has a wandering eye she insists be covered up by a patch.

There is triumph and happiness at the end of the picture, as you knew there must be, but with a little more care and guts, the writers could have made a great film.  Instead, in the middle, they so vilify Carell that they do lasting damage to the story.  Duncan goes on a boat trip and Carell forces him to wear a ridiculous life vest while the much younger kid with the wandering eye is unburdened.  The cruelty is too much.  It robs Carell of any chance of being anything but a caricature, demeans Collette, and is so humiliating to Duncan that you start to lose sympathy for the kid.  I don’t think Faxon and Rash wanted Carell’s numeric assignment to find purchase with the audience, but that’s what they risked.

This film is a similar to, but not as good as Adventureland.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone – 3.25 stars

August 23, 2013
2013, 3 stars, Comedy
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Image result for Burt Wonderstone

Not bad, not great, along the lines of Dodgeball, with a few good gags (in particular, Vegas magician Steve Carell freaking out 20 minutes after the start of his 7 day stunt stint in a box above The Strip).

This is a movie that answers the question: What would Michael Scott have been had he left Dunder Mifflin to become David Copperfield?

Two takeaways.

First, Jim Carrey plays Carell’s nemesis, and boy has he aged.  Cable Guy schtick doesn’t work so well from such a weatherbeaten vessel.

Second, I am a huge fan of Steve Buscemi.  He stood out in Miller’s Crossing, his dramatic work in Reservoir Dogs and Fargo was gritty, his season on The Sopranos was sublime, and his Nucky Thompson on Boardwalk Empire is rock solid.  But where did he get the reputation for comedic chops?  He’s been in 5 Adam Sandler vehicles, but having that on your resume’ isn’t exactly a recommendation.

Funny looking is not funny.

Mud – 5 stars

August 22, 2013
2013, 5 stars, Crime/Mystery, Drama
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The excellence of writer/director Jeff Nichols’ Mud lies in its authenticity, confidence and reserve. As I watched this coming-of-age story about two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Loffland), both of poorer Arkansas stock, and their involvement with a fugitive (Matthew McConaughey), I couldn’t shake what the film wasn’t – maudlin, simplistic or heavy-handed (i.e., like the template for so many “coming-of-age” stories about young boys, Stand by Me). While those two films have the Huck Finn story in their DNA, that’s where the comparison ends. Stand by Me needed a narrator to tell you what was of import and what was not in the adventures of their young male characters, and by the end of it, you felt thoroughly manipulated. Mud, however, requires no such crutch. The symbol of what is a man and father, what the divorce of his parents means to a boy, what young love is, and the heart of friendship, is depicted in a lifelike, piercing way. There is a wonderful scene where Loffland’s uncle, played by Michael Shannon, tries to impart some wisdom to Ellis, explaining in a deft but allegorical manner how Ellis needed to stay out of trouble and the nature of his responsibility to Neckbone, who is both a rock and a natural born follower. When Neckbone asks Ellis what they were talking about, Ellis shrugs and replies, “I don’t know.”

The performances are almost completely spot on, and Sheridan and Loffland should be shoo-ins for best actor and best supporting actor, but I’m certain they will be overlooked. That’s a shame, because they are at the ages where pure naturalism (for example, Quvenzhane Wallis in last year’s Beasts of the Southern Wild) cannot carry the day. These boys are making intuitive choices. Their interplay alone is mature and steady, and Sheridan’s scenes with a would-be girlfriend are heart wrenching. They will evoke your best friend from childhood, and you won’t need Richard Dreyfus intoning, “he was my best friend from childhood.”

McConaughey, who has bouts of phoning in roles with a quick smirk and a lazy drawl, delivers a much deeper performance here as the outlaw, desperate not only to escape the law but to reconnect with his true love (Reese Witherspoon). Nearly every other supporting character – from the rigid, recluse Sam Shepard to Ellis’s parents (Ray McKinnon and Sarah Paulsen), to Shannon (whose three scenes damn near steal the movie) – contributes in an effective, understated manner. If there is a weakness, it is Witherspoon, and she was not bad, she was just a little outclassed.

Nichols (Take Shelter) shoots the Mississippi River as a dream, and when the boys are on or traveling to and from the island where McConaughey is holed up, the feel is very Terence Malick. But when the boys are back home or amongst the townies, the look is bleached and tacky, further emphasizing the juice they get from their adventure.

Another kudo – when Hollywood deals with the non-urban, at its worst, you get a grotesque caricature, and at best, you merely get a sort of condescending ennobling, the hick version of “the magical negro” (usually wrapped up in a “you’re better than this place, Willie!”). There is none of that here. Instead, Nichols has written rounded, grounded, real characters.

It is perhaps unfair to use this picture as a club against Stand by Me. To the positive, it ranks up there with the equally excellent Sling Blade and One False Move and is thus far the best film of 2013.

Gangster Squad – 0 stars

August 20, 2013
0 stars, 2013, Crime/Mystery, Historical
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Dreadful in every respect. Ostensibly about an impeccably tailored group of LA police vigilantes formed to take down gangster Mickey Cohen in 1949, Gangster Squad sports a script so hackneyed it seems like a goof. The picture is a mash of The Untouchables and LA Confidential, if those films were re-written by a 13 year old boy whose sole inspiration was Rambo II.

Some gems:

“To the sarge. You’re a bull in a china shop but we’d follow you anywhere.”

***

“I’ve been with a lot of outfits but none better than you group of misfits”

“To the Gangster Squad!”

***

“I signed up for this so I could tell my boy I tried to do something about it”

***

“Can you remind me of the difference between us and them? Because at this point I can’t tell anymore.”

***

“If I leave, Keeler dies for nothing.”

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“Tomorrow they’ll take my badge. Tonight I’m still a cop.”

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“Let’s finish it.”

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“We gotta’ take out that gun!”

“Watch this, hoss.” (six shooter beats machine gun)

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“Wanna’ dance?” (Man with gun drops it so a fistfight can occur)

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“Every man carries a badge. Mickey Cohen pledged allegiance to his own power.”

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“Jerry threatened to leave the force but he never did. I guess he couldn’t shake the call of duty that echoed in his ears.”

You simply cannot believe what you are hearing.

The squad is led by the wooden and true Josh Brolin and is rounded out by a playboy (Ryan Gosling), a cowboy (Robert Patrick), a black guy (Anthony Mackie, who uses a knife just like James Coburn in The Magnificent Seven), a Hispanic (Michael Pena, who is Patrick’s Tonto, and maybe even his son, depending on your reading of a death scene), and a geek (Giovanni Ribisi).

Not quite Costner’s gang in The Untouchables, but damn close.

All the character are awful, but Gosling is by far the worst, utilizing a Brooklyn accent on helium. The result is a really dreamy Elmer Fudd.

And Sean Penn as Cohen?

Image result for Sean Penn Mickey Cohemn

See Sean Penn in Casualties of War.

The picture also gives us Emma Stone as the Kim Basingeresque world weary ingenue?

Taylor Swift must have been unavailable.

***

Ryan Gosling. “Don’t go.”

Emma Stone. “Don’t let me.”

***

***

The plot thuds along.  Our avengers mess with Cohen, but their efforts must be expedited because Cohen is setting up a wire service which will give him control of all betting west of Chicago . . . in a week! If it becomes operational, he will be too big to take down.

But our heroes can’t find the location of this new wire service.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have blown up his trucks carrying the wire service equipment instead of following them.

No matter. Because Cohen places the wire service HQ, the jewel in his criminal crown, in the back of the nightclub that doubles as the hottest spot in LA.

The film was not well received but it is troubling that it was not roundly demolished, it is so crappy.

For example, in one scene, a thug’s overcoat (in balmy LA, mind you) catches on fire when he is backed into flames. He removes the burning coat, kills a man, and yet, in the next shot, voila!  The overcoat has returned to his body, unsinged!

The film also shows Mickey Cohen watching footage of one of his boxing matches, an Cohen explains how he held on to the championship.

The real Cohen, however, never had a championship fight (he lost to World Featherweight Champion Tommy Paul two minutes into the first round), which I suppose is nitpicking.  Yet, despite being a “championship” boxer, Cohen loses a fistfight to Brolin to close the movie, which is not nitpicking.

The following critics gave the film positive reviews: Ricardo Baca (Denver Post), Richard Roeper, Rafer Guzman (Newsday), Rex Reed (The New York Observer), John Hanlon (Big Hollywood) and Peter Debruge (Variety).

Follow the money, I say. Follow the money.

Olympus Has Fallen – 1 star

August 20, 2013
1 star, 2013, Action/Disaster
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I saw this on my flight back from Rome. I tried something new, a review in real time, where I watched and typed, watched and typed.

Big trouble early. The First Lady is Ashley Judd and she telegraphs where we may be going when she tells our hero, Secret Service agent Gerard Butler, that the president (Aaron Eckhart) can get the country off its dependence on foreign oil but cannot pick her earrings. I think I know who the bad guys are.

President Eckhart and wife leave Camp David in a motorcade in brutal, snowy weather, they hit black ice, and as the car totters on a bridge, Butler must make a tough call. Goodbye Ashley.

18 months later, Butler is haunted. And cashiered at the dreaded desk job at Treasury.   Martial music portends trouble and Butler is dressed for it. Unshaven, dark on dark, like Christopher Moltisanti.

A massive unidentified military plane gets in near spitting distance of the White House before receiving a final warning from the two, and only two, jets hawking it.  When it shoots the jets down, and starts shooting up the White House, no worries. We send one, as in the loneliest number, other jet to intercept. The threat is seemingly neutralized at the expense of the top of the Washington Monument.

As this goes on above ground, the President is hurried to his bunker beneath the White House with the VP, the Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo), the South Korean prime minister and a boatload of aides and security personnel.  The president is apparently a sexist, because it is Leo to whom he says, “Ruth. Where is my son?”  Sadly, she did not respond, “I’m not the fu**ing nanny.”

Meanwhile, Butler is out in the street in front of the White House, which is suddenly overrun with Asian ninja-skilled terrorists. He’s killing a boatload and it is on, on like Donkey Kong.

Oh snap. The president gets jumped by the South Korean prime minister’s security team. They’re really North Korean! [insert joke here] And the White House has been overrun above ground and below . . . Hey, wait. Olympus HAS fallen!

Luckily, Butler is in Olympus. He’s John McClane! I’m intrigued. Forget the play by play. I watch uninterrupted. This experiment has failed.

LATER:  I was wrong about the bad guys. Not big oil. Former Secret Service agent Dylan McDermott went traitor and snapped at the president about “globalization and Wall Street” and the $500 million necessary to buy the presidency. I smell Tea Party, who as we all know, have a natural affinity for the North Koreans.

Regardless of its politics, this is the most anti-American film I’ve ever seen. Not so much philosophically, but competence-wise.   As noted, the Secret Service takes the President on icy bridges at night and the skies around D.C. have become a lot friendlier 12 years after 9-11.

Also, Morgan Freeman is Speaker of House and thus, acting president.  Freeman is also a total puss. He actually started withdrawing troops from the Korean DMZ and the Seventh Fleet after the terrorists killed the VP and threatened to kill the President.

President Eckhart makes Freeman seem like Teddy Roosevelt. It seems the U.S. has a nuclear failsafe system. 3 people can provide numbers to defuse our nuclear missiles in case of a rogue launch, making us defenseless in the process, which seems to be the aim of the terrorists. So what does Eckhart do? He orders two of the code handlers to give up their codes so they won’t be killed. Eckhart has the third. But it turns out the terrorists didn’t need the third code. Because they intended to blow the missiles up in the silos. Which required only one code.

Nice system.  Good choices. Bad movie. Impeach Eckhart.

Jack Reacher – 3.25 stars

August 15, 2013
2013, 3 stars, Crime/Mystery
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Tom Cruise plays a former military detective, a ghost drifter who is drawn into the role of lead investigator for the defense of an Iraq War sniper accused of a senseless shooting spree in Pittsburgh. As he digs deeper, he unravels the true motive for the killings and the web of intrigue surrounding them.

Jack Reacher is a competent thriller, and Cruise is convincing as a smart, tough ex-military hero. He exudes a certain intelligent menace despite his short stature (the Jim Grant books had him a lot bigger) and the story whips along. The bad guy, a disfigured Werner Herzog, is a treat, and the scene where he gives a man a chance to avoid execution is memorable.  There are also some sharp exchanges in the script which, if not Dirty Harry, is subversively conservative.

Still, the aim of the villains is weak (a construction company???); the late introduction of Robert Duvall as a sidekick for Cruise strains credulity; and the effort to mask the necessary killing in the cloak of a shooting spree is, upon reflection, wild overkill, the kind of gambit that would elicit the attention the bad guys sought to avoid.  These weaknesses are forgivable, but when Cruise drops his gun to go mano a mano with his nemesis, the film veers into Road House territory, if only for a moment.

2 Guns – 0 stars

August 14, 2013
0 stars, 2013, Action/Disaster, Crime/Mystery
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Watch 2 Guns | Netflix

Bad in an instructional way, serving as an exemplar of most everything wrong with American action blockbusters today.

The film attempts to replicate the “bang bang” buddy cop repartee of Lethal Weapon fails utterly. Wahlberg and Washington bust their humps to make it work, but the dialogue is unfunny and disjointed, and the central plot device (they rob a bank that has too much money in it) is an old trope.

The story is not silly enough to be camp or cohesive enough to be plausible.  It seems to laugh at itself but it does expect you to take it somewhat seriously. Serious or campy, the action is minimal and what action there is comes off blocky and mundane.

When the exchanges between Wahlberg and Washington thud to the ground, we get warmed-over Tarantino. Bill Paxton’s turn as a CIA baddie suggests the eclectic but he is really no more than a Roger Moore-era Bond villain.

Last, there is cheap, hip anti-Americanism. DEA, CIA, U.S. Navy, all rotten to the core. Olmos is also given free reign to condescend to the gringos, and when Washington runs into trouble on the Mexican border, it’s in the form of anti-immigrant yahoos flying the Stars and Bars and insulting Muslim Americans.

Unbearably, when Wahlberg and Washington have to cross the Mexican border illegally, they do it with stoic Mexicans to the tune of some shitty, self important pop tune by Danger Mouse. You can feel the characters grow more charitable in outlook, which will help when they waste a couple of dozen bad guys later.

Thank you, Mr. Director from Iceland and Mr. Writer of Law and Order.

The Conjuring – 4 stars

July 20, 2013
2013, 4 stars, Scary
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The Conjuring (2013) - IMDb

The plot is simple.

House.  Haunted. Evil involved.

An old-fashioned, creepy mash up of The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist, the film opens with rare restraint, and it remains for the most part intelligent and taut. When it gets going, like director James Wan’s prior, impressive Insidious, it can freak you the hell out.

Two minor criticisms.

While Vera Farmiga (as the medium who, along with her demonologist husband Patrick Wilson, makes a living of studying/expelling ghosts) is very eerie and committed, the actual homeowners (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) seem a bit too calm and even dull.  Livingston, of Office Space fame, is really no more than a smirk, a smaller budget’s Ryan Reynolds, and the haunting of his home and terrorizing of his children comes off as humdrum to him.  Wilson is similarly uncommitted, and two characters included for presumably comic relief, a sheriff and student who assist in monitoring the house, make little impression.

The movie also seems rushed.  20 more minutes devoted to uncovering the history behind its malevolence would have been well spent. Instead, Farmiga has its entire history laid out like she Googled it. The movie, however, is set in 1971, when there were no search engines. Not even Ask Jeeves!

Delbert Grady. | Meme Generator

Based on a real house and incident, if not quite a true story.

The Bridge – 0 stars

July 18, 2013
0 stars, 2013, TV
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Diane Kruger was a model.

then naturally Helen of Troy.

And then she was in some other stuff, including a surprising but undemanding role in Inglorious Basterds, and then she played a convincing Marie Antoinette in Farewell, My Queen.  And on the strength of this body of work, she presumably got the lead in FX’s The Bridge.  Based on the Danish/Swedish series Bron, Kruger plays a seemingly stand-offish El Paso detective, part emotionless, part awkward introvert, and she’s about to be drawn into the seemy world of Mexican drugs, American corruption, etc . . .

Strike one – the quirky character (Kruger’s detective has Asperger’s).  Isn’t Homeland‘s wacko Carrie Mathison enough?  Who is doing the hiring of our defense against domestic and foreign threats?   When Kruger is detailed to inform a husband that his wife has been found dead and bi-sected, ala’ The Black Dahlia, her extreme unfeeling and offensive behavior underscores the idiocy of the premise.  Next time, let’s send Dustin Hoffman in Rainman guise to pass on such difficult news.   What could go wrong? 

Strike two and three and infinity – if you’re going to give someone this challenging if stupid role, why Kruger? An El Paso detective? She’s a ballet dancer born in Lower Saxony, Germany.  I didn’t stay to find out, but I suppose Armin Mueller-Stahl plays her toothpick chewin’ sheriff boss (actually, it’s Ted Levine).

It’s a hard role for someone who can act, and Diane Kruger cannot really act.

Full disclosure:  I turned it off after 25 minutes, despite some decent notices.