Archive

Rating

Beasts of the Southern Wild – 4.75 stars

January 19, 2013
2012, 4 stars, Drama
Leave a comment

A 6 year old girl, Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) lives in functional squalor in a poor, bayou fishing community – The Bathtub – cut off by a levee in Louisiana. What passes for the comminity’s teacher tells her that one day, the ice caps will melt, the Bathtub will be swamped by water, and prehistoric beasts will roam the earth. As a storm comes, most of the inhabitants evacuate, except for Hushpuppy, her disturbed father, and some boozing stragglers and abandoned kids. They create a floating bar, a drunken, drifting haven, but their world is dying around them.

This is a mystical, beautiful picture, told primarily through the eyes of the girl, who speaks to her dead mother and imagines beasts marauding her world. The breakdown of her surroundngs after the flood, the fevers of her own imagination, and her introduction to civilization (they are forcibly evacuated) is gorgeous and moving and Wallis’s fierce maturity is captivating.

This is a real life fable (“a passionate and unruly explosion of Americana”, per A.O. Scott) with barely a semblance of a plot, so beware – it does meander. But it is rightly nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, as is Wallis for Best Actress. Her confident, self-possessed performance is one of the strongest child turns I’ve ever seen. The non professional actor Dwight Henry (he’s a New Orleans baker who read for the part during down time and reluctantly took it because he was starting a new business) is also noteworthy, giving a raw, jarring performance. Filmed on location, the film’s rendering of nature reminded me of Terence Malick, but unlike Malick, first- time director Benh Zeitlin connects with actors as well as his surroundings. I’ve never seen a film quite like it.

Ted – 4 stars

January 12, 2013
2012, 4 stars, Comedy
2 Comments

Ted Movie Review – New Bedford Guide

For better or worse, Seth MacFarlane is our Academy Award host this year. It almost has to be better given Billy Crystal’s snooze-inducing Borscht Belt performance last year and the train wreck that was stoner James Franco and clueless ingenue Anne Hathaway the year before. MacFarlane is the force behind numerous animated television shows, the best of which is the occasionally funny but mainly awful Family Guy, an outlet for easy shots and pro forma crudity still outclassed by the tired old Simpsons and never, ever near the same class as the brilliant South Park. So, I’m no fan. But I am hopeful. MacFarlane is a gifted mimic and I watched him on a recent Saturday Night Live. He was surprisingly deft and his impression of swimmer Ryan Lochte was nothing short of brilliant.

Ted is MacFarlane’s creation, a live teddy bear wished for by a young Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg is all grown up and he and Ted remain roomies, even as Wahlberg hits year four with his luminous girlfriend, Mila Kunis. Kunis wants commitment and maturity, Ted and Wahlberg smoke dope all day and watch TV, and things come to a head when, after an anniversary dinner, the live couple come home to find Ted with a passel of hookers.

There are a few clunker lines, but for the most part, this is a very funny, very crude (Ted’s come-on to a grocery store checker is waaaaay over the top) and surprisingly sweet story of a boy and his childhood pal. I say “surprisingly” because I would have expected MacFarlane to be a little more daring. He comes close, such as a scene in the end where, after Ted has gone through a harrowing ordeal and appears to have died, he wakes up but appears to be impaired. Is Ted going to come back as a mentally disabled stuffed bear?

That’s MacFarlane – and Ted – in a nutshell.

Looper – 4.5 stars

January 10, 2013
2012, 4 stars, Crime/Mystery, Drama
Leave a comment

Hitman Joseph Gordon-Levitt seemingly has the simplest job in the world.  A crime syndicate in the future sends bound targets back in time to a field, where “loopers” like Gordon-Levitt kill and dispose of them.  The loopers get paid in silver until one day, an older version of a looper is sent back to be killed by his younger self.  Strapped to that older version is a pile of gold, the final reward.  When the older Gordon-Levitt is sent back, he is Bruce Willis, and not unexpectedly, Willis thwarts his own execution, and the fun begins.

A blast of a movie, and upon scrutiny, for a time travel film, it does pretty well from a logic standpoint (though some disagree). What matters, however, is that the logic holds up well enough to allow you to be carried away by writer/director Rian Johnson’s fresh and intricate script and his nifty vision of two futures.  The Terminator, for example, was so riveting, you didn’t have the chance to think, “Hey.  Why didn’t Skynet send the Terminator back in time to the hospital where John Connor was born?  Aren’t babies easier to track down and execute?”

Gordon-Levitt is uncanny as a young Willis (they’ve even altered the contours of his face to cement paternity), Willis is gruff Willis, and Emily Blunt (the Brit fashionista assistant in The Devil Wears Prada) is surprisingly convincing in a tough gal role.  Jeff Daniels is a good choice as an off-beat heavy, and Noah Seegan and Garret Dillahunt impress in small roles as the men tasked to hunt Gordon-Levitt and Willis down.  The standout performance, however, belongs to child actor Pierce Gagnon, who manages to be terrifying and then sympathetic.

Johnson’s 2005 noir high California school flick – Brick – was similarly inventive.  Johnson is not exactly prolifiic, but if Looper is the norm, I can wait.

The Dark Knight Rises – 4 stars

January 7, 2013
2012, 4 stars, Action/Disaster, Drama
Leave a comment

Christopher Nolan’s last entry to his Batman trilogy closes the story out in satisfying fashion and even leaves room for the rise of Robin (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) should Warner Brothers need a fiscal stimulus in the future. The story is the same as the prior two pictures. A reluctant Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) is drawn back into the fray when his beloved Gotham City is threatened. This time, the threat comes from Bane (Tom Hardy), a muscular beast who wears a mask not unlike a greyhound. Much like The Joker, Bane seeks to test the mettle and morals of Gotham.  Bane’s appeal is Occupy Wall Street on steroids. The city is shut down and isolated by a moving nuclear device controlled by Bane, and as its time runs out, the new masters judge the rich and powerful (the villain Scarecrow plays Robespierre) while Bane’s henchmen and at least a certain portion of the citizenry pillage their apartments.

This is actually the most interesting part of the movie, begging the question, “Why does Batman dig this fickle town so much?” Unfortunately, less time is devoted to the occupation’s class warfare and the internal de-evolution of Gotham and too much to Batman’s angst, Alfred’s (Michael Caine) regret that Bruce did not have a normal life, and some corporate skullduggery that is . . . eh. The movie is also a bit too solemn. I applaud the darker, starker vision of Batman and his story, but we are, in the end, talking about a man who dresses up like a bat. With the exception of a few smart quips from Catwoman (a lithe Ann Hathaway), the movie is largely humorless.

Still, the action is first-rate and the big finish does not disappoint.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home – 0 stars

January 6, 2013
0 stars, 2012, Comedy
Leave a comment


I could only bear 20 or so minutes of this student picture.  Written and directed by Mark and Jay Duplass, this is a movie that represents the dark side of “independent” film.  Jason Segal plays a 30 year old stoner who . . . lives at home. Ed Helms plays his brother in exactly the same style as his Andy character on The Office. Their mother, Susan Sarandon, suffers them both as they are tasked to buy her wood glue.

Alas, she suffered them longer than I. The script is pretentious, the set-up uninviting, the direction (the Duplasses are addicted to an ostentatious jump zoom) self-indulgent and the plot random, all sins that cannot be expiated by deeming it “quirky.”

The Perfect Storm – 1 star

January 1, 2013
00s, 1 star, Action/Disaster, Drama
Leave a comment

Image result for The Perfect Storm crew

A Gloucester fishing boat captained by George Clooney goes out to get some fish and is soon in “the perfect storm.” Based on Sebastian Junger’s best-selling book about the fate of the Andrea Gail, the visuals are occasionally impressive but this is no Captain’s Courageous. The characters have a working class look but not the feel, and Clooney, who normally chooses well, is too damn dreamy to be the salty sea dog (he would have been better as the telegenic and wide-eyed meteorologist who captures the storm on his Doppler).

A better skipper would have been John Hawkes, the crewman furthest to the right above, who was nominated for an Oscar for Winter’s Bone and should be nominated again this year for The Sessions.

Junger’s book delved deeply into the precarious, brutal and chancy world of commercial fishing, but the script elects to show hard drinkin’, hard lovin’, misunderstood men of the sea while on land, and on the water, a boring band of brothers. The screenplay is either hackneyed or just plain dull.

Here’s a taste.

“This is the the moment of truth”

“Billy, you’re not gonna’ like this but I’m gonna’ say it anyway.  You be careful.”

“I always find the fish.  Always.”

“Last night was worth it. There’s nothin like sleepin’ with you… just sleepin’… lyin next to you… all warm and sweet… Me wishin’ the mornin’ would never end.”

“You just caught me on a good night. I’m doing what I was made to do – and I’ve got a feeling I’m going to do it even better this time.”

And when crew member John C. Reilly is about to drown, he doesn’t scream or panic. Instead,  being a man of the sea, he says to no one in particular, “This is gonna be hard on my little boy.”

Hard on the audience as well, John.

There’s also a lot of forlorn women looking out the window for these good men of the sea (Diane Lane is completely wasted). Old Spice commercials are filled with greater verisimilitude.

Director Wolfgang Peterson made it to Hollywood on the strength of his gripping U boat drama Das Boot, but since then, he’s gone to sea twice, with The Perfect Storm and the even worse Poseidon.

He needs to stay on land.

 

Jackie Brown – 4 stars

January 1, 2013
4 stars, 90s, Crime/Mystery
Leave a comment

This is the most un-Tarantinoesque of Quentin Tarantino’s pictures, faithfully adapted by the director from an Elmore Leonard book. A flight attendant (Pam Grier) gets caught shuttling money and drugs for a gun seller (Samuel L. Jackson) and caught in between the ATF (represented by Michael Keaton) and Jackson, she devises her own scheme to steal all of the latter’s funds while extricating herself from prosecution, enlisting the help of a bail bondsman (Robert Forster) in the process.

Tarantino’s pace is languid, his body count minimal, and the film features long stretches of sharp dialogue and silent character reflection. As Jackson’s scheming girlfriend and dim accomplice, Bridget Fonda and Robert DeNiro shine in a cast of apt, funny secondary characters. This is a clever and straightforward crime story.

Like the two Tarantino pictures that preceded it, Jackie Brown utlizes the seedy environs of Los Angeles to great effect (the bar and nightclub locales are particularly well-chosen). In an interview, Tarantino explained his changing of the locale from Miami to LA:

I don’t really know anything about Miami. I had never been to Miami before. One of the things Elmore Leonard has to offer in his novels, is an expert sense of both Miami and Detroit. He has got his Detroit novels and he has got his Miami novels. I can’t compete with that, and Miami is very hot! You don’t want to got there to shoot! One of the things I do have to offer is that same kind of knowledge about Los Angeles; partly in the area that the area is shot in, in the South Bay. It is not used that often. Tequila Sunrise used it a little bit, and a few other movies have touched on it a little bit. I am very familiar with that area because I grew up around that area. It is one of the things I could bring to the piece; an expert knowledge of that area, the way he brings an expert knowledge to Miami.

While Jackson uses the “n” word with his usual vigor, the script is refreshingly shorn of the showy pop culture references found in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. It’s also a lot moodier than those pictures.

The plot, however, is not wildly intricate and certainly doesn’t justify a 2 and a half hour running time. Also, while Tarantino loves reclamation projects like John Travolta and David Carradine, Pam Grier and Robert Forster are bridges too far. Neither are particularly good actors, and while Forster’s wooden approach isn’t terrible given his role, Grier is key, and she cannot convey the emotions necessary to really bring the character home.

She was a B picture star in the 70s for a reason other than acting.

Lawless – 1 star

December 29, 2012
1 star, Crime/Mystery, Drama, Historical
Leave a comment

Lawless (film) - Wikipedia

I wonder how a movie like this gets made these days.  Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, and Shia LeBeouf can’t open it, the milieu (1930s backwoods of Virginia) doesn’t relate, it can’t be cross-marketed with a soundtrack, and the script, which could override all of the above if it were really good, is not.  In fact, there is not a memorable exchange in it. Hardy is colorless (he resonated stronger with a mask in The Dark Knight Rises), Chastain a stock dancer with a heart of gold, and LeBeouf showy, always “acting!”

The Bondurants are bootleggers in Franklin County, Virginia.  On principle, they won’t pay off the authorities, which smacks of stupidity more than honor or savvy business sense.  The authorities hire Guy Pearce to shut them down. Pearce must have sensed what a dreary endeavor this was to be, so he took on the affectation of a sexually dysfunctional dandy/germaphobe.

And he hates hillbillies.

Character developed!

Pearce goes too far, Hardy brings hell and damnation with him, and it ends with an underwhelming shoot-out and an interminable voice-over coda by LeBeouf.

Die Another Day – 1 star

December 29, 2012
00s, 1 star, James Bond
Leave a comment

Pin on Jinx

Even Halle Berry cannot save the ridiculously coiffed, barely interested Pierce Brosnan in the last of his four Bond films (her love scene with Brosnan makes you uncomfortable, like watching your father dance to a pop song at a wedding). Shockingly, even though Austin Powers had been released five years earlier, this Bond film amped up the cheese, provided a cartoonishly mwahahaaa villain (Toby Stephens), an ice fortress, Duran Duran video slow-motion, enough sexual double entendres to shame Roger Moore, Halle Berry uttering the line “read this bitch!” to baddie Rosamund Pike, and perhaps the most laughable stunt in the series.

Bond gains entrance to the villain’s lair because a guard takes a leak at an inopportune time.  You can hear the toilet flushing.  Hilarious.

Daniel Craig arrived in the nick of time.

The Queen of Versailles – 4 stars

December 29, 2012
2012, 4 stars, Documentary
1 Comment

The Queen of Versailles (2012) - IMDb

The gaudy nouveau riche feel, stately-meets-Glamour Shot portraits on the wall, grotesque adornment (including a gold throne), spoiled kids with Filipino nannies and a house staff of 19, stuffed dogs, fake tits, boasts of having gotten George W. Bush elected by illegal means (wink, wink), all presented within the framework of a family who wants to move from a 16 bathroom mansion to a Florida Versailles, well . . .  you cannot wait for the fall of this cretinous couple, Jackie and David Siegel, the latter self-titled The Time Share King.

But as you watch them lose it all after the 2008 market crash, it is hard not to root for them.  There is something endearing about Jackie’s limo ride to McDonalds, and there is a down-to-earth quality about the family, as well as a toughness in the adversity.  But when the staff is downsized, and the house goes to shit (even the tropical fish and pet lizard die), and Jackie actually says, “I never would have had so many kids without a nanny,” well, the schadenfreude returns.

This documentary says a few things about resilience, greed, the American dream, status (Jackie’s take on TARP – “I thought it was supposed to go to the common people . . . You know . . . us” – is priceless) and excess, but it doesn’t preach or instruct, which is its greatest strength (so many documentarians force what they capture into a desired narrative).  It is content to record a fascinating story about one very unique American family caught from their zenith to a fall (which didn’t last long).