tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85836590957353191412023-06-20T09:59:16.591-04:00Movie Night ReviewOur family movie night conversations and debates escalated to the point where we decided to share them with family member and – thanks to Blogger – the wider world. Each week (or thereabouts), Ben and Dad (Jon) trade off reviewing a film we’ve recently seen, with the other asked to provide a response. While some titles will be familiar, we hope to introduce you to a few you’ve never heard of.Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-61344551818557077732018-01-31T21:04:00.000-05:002018-01-31T21:04:18.922-05:00Let it Ride<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-156c8587-4f16-5005-68b0-e77efa521b53" style="font-size: 16px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 22.08px; margin-bottom: 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the last film we reviewed, Ben was introduced to “Nice Richard Dreyfuss” playing the wistful, cameo-narrator in the Rob Reiner-directed/Steven King-written coming-of-age story </span><a href="https://kidflix.blogspot.com/2017/12/stand-by-me-reviewed-by-ben.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stand by Me</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Which is why I thought it important to introduce him to one of the lovable rat-bag characters that have always brought out the best in Dreyfuss. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the 1989 hidden gem </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097731/?ref_=nv_sr_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let it Ride</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Dreyfuss plays Jay Trotter, a lovable shmuck of a cab driver who has just promised Pam, his much put-upon wife (played by Teri Garr), that he will grow up, get serious, and really work at their marriage, a promise that includes not wasting time and money at the horse track.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then Trotter runs into his pal Looney, an even dirt-baggier cabbie with a fondness for tape-recording conversations that take place in the back of his hack, who spills the beans that he caught some recent passengers talking about a fix that was in at the next day’s races.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not gambling if it’s a sure thing, right? So, once their shifts end, Trotter and Looney are at the race track, ready to place their bet. But not before stopping at their favorite dive bar where fellow gamblers/losers pound beer in the AM while sharing their schemes of how to beat the odds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it turns out, Trotter’s first win is part of a streak that continues in race after race as he continues to “let it ride,” placing one bet after another based on increasingly outlandish and superstitious techniques for picking the next winner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As his streak continues, Trotter migrates from that grotty bar to “The Club” where well-to-do locals hang out, watch the races, and try to figure out what to make of the increasingly lucky cabbie (who finally wears out his welcome by breaking into unholy shrieks, declaring “God likes me!!! He really, REALLY LIKES ME!!! upon his latest win).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m having a great day!” he continues to tell anyone who will listen, including a frantic Pam who keeps wondering if she’ll ever see him again (and if she does, if she’ll be relieved or kill him).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While Dreyfuss is terrific, and the horse-race backdrop of the film novel, what really made this film transcend was the collection of quirky characters – both high-life and low-life – Trotter encounters during his “great day.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">David Johensen as Looney steals nearly every scene he’s in (my favorite being one in which he’s selling his blood to pay for his next bet, smoking a cigarette and scanning the racing form, with a needle and bag attached to his arm). And Garr has never been more lovingly distraught. But even small roles are played with comic and dramatic texture, from the security guard who first arrests Dreyfuss then becomes his bodyguard, to the lovable giant who collects fees for clearing people away from the track fence so that his clients can get closer views of the races.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speaking of lovable giants, Robbie Coltrane (yup - Hagrid from the Harry Potter films) does a fabulous turn as the “ticket-man” who takes Dreyfuss’ bets, turning his cash into “tickets” that then get turned back into cash as “the streak” continues. At first, Coltrane treats Trotter like the two-dollar betting loser he usually is, but as the hero continues to “let it ride,” Contrane’s attitude moves from respect to awe to love for a man willing to risk it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s an emotional trajectory I shared as I watched this lovable doofus have the day he may not have deserved, but certainly earned. </span></div>
<br style="font-size: 16px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal;" /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ben responds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.66px; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I’m with you on this one. Richard Dreyfuss is an amazing onscreen force in almost every moment he appears. The non-believers he’s surrounded with are similarly funny and contribute to the film’s tightness, wit and humor. I was a particular fan of the way the movie moved along in real time. It’s a genuine unfolding of everything this slimy man does in a few hours at the horse races. Without such a capable performer at the center spitting, yelling, pleading and celebrating, this movie would be almost as boring as a day at the real horse races.</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-27934779441504436962017-12-29T09:34:00.001-05:002017-12-29T09:34:58.098-05:00Stand by Me (Reviewed by Ben)
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and
Kiefer Sutherland star in an adventure movie about two rival gangs trying to
find a dead body, ending in a violent confrontation. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">You probably just imagined something very
different than what <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092005/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Stand By Me</a></i> really is. These actors starred
in this movie when they were in between their child and teenage years, and
though there are some high-stakes moments, it is really a film about the
amazing bond between four 12-year-olds and where it took them. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">This movie was made by Rob Reiner 1986 about
kids in 1959, but it reminded me of friends I had in 2014, and ones my father
had in the 1970’s, showing how timeless a movie really can be.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">It is told in flashback by older Gordie (Will
Wheaton as a child), as played by Richard Dreyfuss. He recalls a summer with
his three best friends, all of whom from households that are unhealthy to some
extent. The four boys--around age twelve-- overhear a gang of older teenage
bad-boys talking about a young boy who has disappeared and been presumed dead.
The four boys embark on a journey together after overhearing a lead to where
the dead boy might be. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">The majority of the film is just those four boys
trudging through the forest and over train tracks to get to him. Though it
might sound boring, it is anything but. Perhaps it’s how intensely vulgar and
funny the boys are together or how heartbreaking their honesty, but you can’t
help but be entertained and touched by how great these kids are. It’s no
surprise that all four would go on to be well known as adult actors. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">One thing I appreciated is that the film is not
trying too hard to be anything that it’s not. It verges on melodrama, but then
descends into the childish (especially in a funny and gross story-telling scene
revolving around “Lard-Ass Hogan” that I will avoid describing). It is also
able to balance humor and charm by not trying to hard. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">The defining moments are the scenes that remind
us that they are really just kids, and the ones where they impress us in a <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/" target="_blank">StrangerThings</a></i>-esque way. In one of two train based scenes, for example, they
make a risky decision to walk across train tracks with no shoulder to sidestep
onto. Predictably, a train comes and they try to make a break for it. Vern, an
overweight kid, is too terrified to run. This intense moment where even the
toughest of kids doesn’t know what to do reminds us that each of these kids is
just that; a kid. But in a later moment, they prove themselves as a pack of
very capable seventh-graders.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">Watching a lot of movies can give you doubts or
even harsh feelings about child actors. It’s a tough piece of work to star in a
movie and some kids are not up to the task. As the older Gordie says “you never
have as great friends as you do when you’re twelve years old.” In the same
respect, you can’t play great friends better than a group of real twelve-year-olds. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;"><i>Stand by Me</i> really showed off child acting
skills I haven’t seen since the family watched Haley Joel Osment’s performance
in the 1999 movie <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167404/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Sixth Sense</a></i>. Coincidentally when you put those two films
together, you get something along the lines of <i>Stranger Things</i>, a
show that would coronate a new generation of young performers. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">But I digress. The way that the four kids
at the center of this picture act so uniquely and honestly resonates far better
than the acting of many reputable movie stars.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">In conclusion, this film didn’t tackle any major
issues or break any ground in the special effects department, but it was sure
entertaining, physically beautiful and bittersweet. Not only that, but it
showed the true abilities of so many young actors who later be well-known as
adult stars.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">Dad responds:</span></i></b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;"> I really appreciate your reflections on what kid actors can do,
as well as how this film touches on immortal topics, such as the bond between
kids at a certain age and how those strong feelings continue into adulthood,
even when the kids you were tight with are no longer together (or even
friends). </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; margin: 0px;">While I definitely appreciated the acting chops
of these young’ns, I will say that, having seen the movie when it first came
out, the dialog didn’t stand the test of time for me. While that didn’t
diminish the bonds of friendship at the center of the picture, I think the
script was not as tight as the actors performing it. That said, it was
good seeing (and having you see) that kids were able to put together exciting
times in an era before cell phones (or even TVs in every house). </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-73993632323093620782017-12-14T20:21:00.001-05:002017-12-14T20:21:47.214-05:00In the Line of Fire (Reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I envy the kids for being able to enjoy something we aging movie fans can never do again: experience great filmmakers for the first time. And one of the greats we’ve been tapping (albeit in a very limited fashion) is Clint Eastwood.
For example, earlier this year we enjoyed (</span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-9d4888ff-57be-9982-b8d3-29d21e65a1d4"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span><a href="https://kidflix.blogspot.com/2017/02/unforgiven-reviewed-by-ben.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reviewed</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">) Eastwood’s Oscar-winning star vehicle <i>Unforgiven</i>, but have yet to watch any of the Sergio Leone “Man With No Name” classics that picture riffed on so successfully. Similarly, while Eastwood’s best performances happened when he was a young and then an old man, we recently watched a transitional picture of his I remember seeing at the drive-ins during the 1990s </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-9d4888ff-57be-d54e-e2b6-5dacd852abb6"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">called </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107206/?ref_=nv_sr_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the Line of Fire</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">.
In this 1993 thriller, Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a secret service agent haunted by his failure to stop the killing of John F. Kennedy, whom he was bodyguarding on the day of the assassination. Having failed in his duty back in ‘63, Horrigan remains on the force doing undercover work, refusing retirement until he can get one last chance at redemption.
That opportunity materializes when Mitch Leary, a deadly assassin played masterfully by John Malkovich, decides to take out his troubled past on a sitting President currently involved in a tight re-election contest. That race means lots of campaign stops, requiring lots of coverage by trained agents. And given that Horrigan himself is caught up in the fixation driving Leary, he is able to leverage this unique position to get himself a spot on the Chief Executive’s bodyguard.
At the same time, Horrigan is following clues to try to identify and track down the killer – including numerous direct phone calls (which, this being a crime thriller, can never be traced) – where Leary lovingly taunts his hunter, all the time getting ever closer to his own prey.
The would-be murderer’s pathway reminded me of a similar journey James Fox took in </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-9d4888ff-57bf-29fe-2e70-03891c503b79"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069947/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Day of the Jackal</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with many near misses not stopping him from executing his ultimate plan, one which involves charming his way into a big campaign event, building a handgun from plastic (and thus invisible to metal detectors) and swapping out a variety of dorky wigs.
Horrigan is not alone in his quest to prevent history from repeating itself. In addition to a cranky supervisor who continues to OK Frank’s proposals, and a bevy of new agents ever ready to tease him about his age, the team also includes Lilly Raines, one of those young agents, played by Renee Russo.
Raines remains unconvinced that Frank should even be on the case, despite her sympathy for the man himself. This sympathy eventually flourishes into romance (leading to a hilarious bedroom scene shot low enough to watch both agents leave a trail of guns, bullets, knives, badges, cuffs and other secret service paraphernalia on the pathway to a hotel bed). And while Russo is always game to match up with an unlikely partner (such as in </span></span><span id="docs-internal-guid-9d4888ff-57bf-8686-1cf4-1bc0d155b1ea"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113161/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get Shorty</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> where she towered over her ex-husband played by Danny DeVito), her hookup with Eastwood remains the least interesting (and convincing) part of the picture, probably one of the star’s last flings with romancing much younger actresses on screen.
This lack of romantic pizzazz did not diminish the tension of seeing agent and assassin locked in a crucible whose end result you’ll have to discover yourself (unless Ben spills the beans)...
<b>Ben Replies</b>: I side with you on this one. I have not seen any of Eastwood’s older films that provided the basis for this one, so can’t compare much, but I definitely found <i>In the Line of Fire</i> riveting and engaging, if a little contrived at points. I was equally unaffected by the romantic piece, and would actually argue that Malkovich was the best thing about the film. He took excitement that Eastwood brought and mixed it with his weird charm. I have to confess--Eastwood really does old well, and would be surprised if I find him as a young actor to be better.
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Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-80024562767381685332017-11-16T10:15:00.000-05:002017-11-16T10:15:18.249-05:00Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our household, we are laugh-out-loud fans of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">30 Rock</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and other comedy projects led by Tina Fey. So we did not start this feature dramedy starting Fey without bias. Despite hopes, however, I saw <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3553442/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Whiskey Tango Foxtrot </a>starring Fey bouncing between mediocre, weird and straight-up off-putting. Checking my father to see if he was as uncomfortable as I was, I looked over to see him asleep.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie has a risky premise, but we gave it the benefit of the doubt. It focuses on a news reporter named Kim Baker (Fey) -- the same overworked Third-Wave feminist she so often plays-- who get the opportunity to report in Afghanistan and meet soldiers and citizens alike. She seizes the opportunity and leaves her depressing boyfriend to go into a war zone for a “short time” that ends up continuing for years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Things are crazy from the start, with Fey staying in low-budget quarters and facing death in a combat zone from her first day on the job. But she quickly develops a taste (actually an addiction) to the adrenaline of combat reporting and begins to push the limits of being in a place like Afghanistan.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Problems with this premise show up early (and continue). Are explosions where people got killed that parallel reality, and heartbreaking stories from soldiers appropriate for something trying to be a comedy? A concept they introduced of Fey as a “4-10-4” (a woman considered a “4” in New York who comes to Afghanistan and is a “10” there, then returns to New York as a “4”). is a funny concept that might have worked in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">30 Rock</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but just felt weird in this film. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As two separate movies (or separate comedy sketch and docu-drama), this could have worked. The funny parts are funny, and Martin Freeman (who plays against type casting as a gruff Scotsman and Fey’s romantic interest) is charming, as are Alfred Molina and Christopher Abbott as surprisingly complicated Afghani characters. The representation of the horror of war is interesting and heartbreaking. But as a whole package the film is a confusing mess in the first half and boring in the near-jokeless second. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tina Fey does a good job, but demonstrates her challenges working without her own material and outside her comfort zone (Fey as the Ripley of Afghanistan?). As mentioned before, supporting players like Freeman, Molina and Abbott are good, as is Tanya Vanderpool (the beautiful Margot Robbie) who plays Fay’s professional frenemy. But on the whole, I would not recommend the film - especially to younger viewers (it’s R rating is for gore, language and - I presume - an intentionally awkward sex scene, although frightening parallels to real life events is what makes Foxtrot least suitable for kids). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dad replies </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- Just to clarify, I didn’t conk out until the end of this picture, which is pretty good since I’ve tended to struggle to stay awake in movies, despite joy from watching them (especially with my kids). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ben hits the key points pretty well. Fey wasn’t entirely miscast, but it would take someone with a much broader acting range to make a story this morally complicated work. War zones featuring cynical war correspondents have been the setting of many great books and movies (Scoop, Foreign Correspondant, Year of Living Dangerously, to name just a few highlights), but Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot (at least the 7/8ths of it I was awake to see) never captured the drama of a society collapsing while reporters allegedly covering the story get drunk, sleep with each other, and stab one another in the back for the latest scoop while the locals try to live their lives, only to be used and killed.</span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-22574503665696621972017-09-24T07:27:00.000-04:002017-09-24T07:27:17.702-04:00La La Land (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3783958/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was this year’s Oscar winner, at least for the five minutes it took for the accounting firm that is supposed to correctly put the right envelopes into the right hands to realize it had screwed up.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll admit to having felt bad for those behind this picture who had to return, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tdtNISDZwA" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Zoolander </i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">like</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, to their seats while the folks behind </span><i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722/?ref_=nv_sr_1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moonlight</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(the actual Oscar winner) got to give their thank-you speeches. But having just watched </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on video with Ben and the family, the picture didn’t actually seem that Oscar worthy, or even that good.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie features Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Sebastian and Mia, a pair of struggling artists doomed to come together in a meet-cute then split apart in a series of inexplicable plot turns, all set against the backdrop of Los Angeles in general, and Hollywood in particular.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mia is a coffee shop barista on the lot of a movie studio who longs to become one of the famous film stars she serves lattes to. Meanwhile Sebastian is the entertainment at a piano bar, at least until his uncompromising jazz soul gets him fired for not playing the musical dreck the public wants to hear (or at least his boss – J. K. Simmons – insists he play). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The two were destined to come together and, after a couple of contrived false starts, dance their way into one another’s hearts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did I forget to mention </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a musical?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Not just a musical, but at attempted throwback to the kind of musical romances of the 30s and 40s where anything can happen – including unaided human flight – once songs begin to swell. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two big numbers anchor the picture. The first (which opens the film) is an inspired showstopper featuring gridlocked commuters singing and dancing atop their stuck cars (which was almost as much fun to watch as it probably was to shoot). And the film ends with a kind of “what-might-have-been” fantasy number that, for some reason, got me thinking of Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron dancing through Toulouse Lautrec paintings at the end of </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63gajBOBZnE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>An American in Paris</i></span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s in between those two numbers, however, that the film falters. Largely this is due to the decision to give the leads over to two enormously attractive actors who are just serviceable in the song and dance department. In the films </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was inspired by, actors like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were not classic stunners when standing still, but became immortal beauties once their feet and bodies began to do their thing. In contrast, Gosling and Stone seem to become smaller and less interesting whenever the script has them cut a rug.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> also features a plot device that has derailed more than one film for me: the assumption that the lead characters are so talented that one can forgive their indiscretions and misbehavior (or, in this case, their limited range of emotion and inexplicable motivation). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trouble is, I was never convinced either character was that special an artist. Gosling’s supposed musical talent (on display whenever he performed) was closer to the surface than Stone’s (who showed what she was truly made of in a one-woman stage play her lover inspired her to produce). But that piano music really didn’t seem to be coming from him, and her play was kind of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">meh</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which meant we were being asked to love, forgive and feel bad for two “great talents” who I was never convinced were particularly good.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m ranting, but if you’re going to try to revive the classic musical, or at least make a film about what Hollywood knows best – itself – it’s going to need more magic, more heart and more brains than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>La La Land</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which, like it’s star’s footwork, was serviceable but nothing special. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ben replies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I hate to disagree with you, but I found La La Land to be a masterfully written, awesome looking film with a simple but sweet concept about fame. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The talent of Stone and Gosling in the acting category was palpable, and I did not find the plot to be very contrived, and rarely even found myself frustrated with the characters. Though it was not as dramatically brilliant as Moonlight, it would definitely have been Oscar material in another year (even the snobby Academy voters have to recognize a film that genuinely lets you root for it’s characters). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The one thing I didn’t like however, was something else you mentioned. They were really not that great artists. I am someone who believes in the power of the musical theatre, and a skeptic of how well it works in the cinema. Neither Ryan Gosling or Emma Stone is a good singer or dancer, at all. Their charisma might confuse you, but the scene in which she sings her ballad - it’s just not that good. There are so many great stars out there who can "triple threat" (dance, sing and act) - they litter the dressing rooms in the theatres surrounding Times Square. If you’re going to make it a musical, make sure you don’t make the musical ability of your stars an afterthought.</span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-53628418722401950722017-07-23T08:09:00.003-04:002017-07-23T08:09:38.246-04:00Arrival (reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-dd4c1ba8-6f56-a28b-82b9-fb2a9feb1f61" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Denis Villeneuve</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">’s 2016 film </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Arrival</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank"> </a>is nothing less than superb, a brilliant look at humanity, science and language that redefines the sci-fi genre. This great idea for a story is brought to life by the talent of it’s leading lady and breathtaking special effects.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The movie’s plot is about human communication. I’ve seen a lot of alien movies, and it usually happens that the creatures arrive and are miraculously able to communicate fully with the humans they are visiting (usually to conquer). In this case, renowned linguistics professor Margaret Banks (Amy Adams) is brought in because the government </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">can’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">talk to the aliens who have arrived. She is brought to the nearest vessel in Montana to try to communicate with them, while physicist Ian Donelly (Jeremy Renner) joins her as the scientist half of the team. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To describe the rest of the film’s story would be to spoil some of it’s many mind-blowing twists, so I’ll be vague. She learns that their language is based around time, and their own sense of it. As she and other scientists try to decode their language, human fear of the unknown kicks in through a military part of the story which is less interesting than it’s main theme which is more about communication. In an unexpected twist, the alien’s language has a lot to do with Banks’ perished daughter. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The film is also visually incredible, with long shots, close ups and everything in between. The camera might linger on something for a very long period of time to increase suspense, while other small details are only seen in brief passing. Shots follow one character instead of the exciting action around them, which gives the audience a personal perspective on the action. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Watching character development in a movie that’s all about a sense of time is extremely interesting. Adams’ Banks is a very intriguing protagonist, and it’s difficult to figure out her motivation as it turns out that she sees time in a way that’s different from the rest of us. What appears from the start to be a simple tale about a people trying to communicate with intimidating aliens ends up being about how characters re-learn the way they think. This kind of storytelling, that’s not quite time travel but plays with time in an original way, is what makes the already great film so unique.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It wasn’t considered an Oscar frontrunner this year, though the 8 nominations and 1 win it scored were a big step for science fiction movies, especially when put up against uber dramatic Oscar-baiters like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">La La Land</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moonlight </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Manchester by the Sea</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Other science fiction pictures in the past few years have been critically successful, such as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Gravity </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Avatar</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> but none were as dramatically impressive as this one which truly deserved it spot as one of the best few pictures of the year.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The film features quite a few talented group of actors, including the 6 time Oscar Nominee leading lady, Adams, as well as everyone’s least favorite superhero (but a charmer regardless), Renner and the charismatic Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker as the military commander.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The movie is PG-13 rated, meaning that nothing is in here that wouldn’t be in a Marvel Superhero picture, and it is actually far less violent and action-packed. It has more adult themes about human nature, world chaos, international wars and losing a child. A little heavy and perhaps even boring for a less mature audience, but a must see for fans of thought-provoking sci-fi.</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Dad responds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: I liked it a lot, less for the effects (which you were more impressed by than I was) or the military bits they tacked onto the story, than for the patience and thoughtfulness of the storytelling. Arrival reminded me of science fiction movies from the pre-Star Wars age, films like <u>2001</u>, <u>Soylent Green</u> or <u>Silent Running</u> which used the open-endedness of the sci-fi genre to ask difficult questions about who <b>we </b>are (vs. how to stop <b>them </b>from invading the planet and taking all our stuff). The movie was based on </span><a href="http://discours.philol.msu.ru/attachments/article/264/Chiang_Story%20of%20Your%20Life.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">this short story</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;"> which is definitely worth going back to before or after you’ve seen the film (assuming there’s a difference between the two). </span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-25710942650966785992017-06-11T07:20:00.000-04:002017-06-11T07:20:21.020-04:00All That Jazz (reviewed by Dad)After seeing a pretty-decent high-school production of <i>Pippin </i>with the family, the time seemed right to give Ben a glimpse into the complex figure behind the dance moves that define that and so many other unforgettable stage shows and films: Bob Fosse.<br />
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Fosse’s work goes back to the fifties in musicals like <i>Damn Yankees</i> and <i>Pajama Game</i> where his energetic dance numbers overwhelmed nearly everything else in those shows. As his choreography chops continued to sharpen, and cultural norms changed, his productions became more energized and erotically charged in shows like <i>Cabaret</i>, and the aforementioned <i>Pippin</i>.<br />
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In 1973, Fosse suffered a heart attack while simultaneously choreographing another stage musical and directing <i>Lenny</i>, a quirky biopic about the edgy comedian Lenny Bruce. Far from stifling his creativity, that setback inspired Fosse to create a new film based on his emotional reaction to that near-death experience.<br />
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In <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078754/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">All That Jazz</a></i>, Roy Scheider plays Joe Gideon, a barely disguised version of Fosse, who is not only juggling a stage show and film, but also an ex-wife (and kid), a lover, and a host of one-night stands. This while also chain smoking while washing down uppers with Alka Seltzer.<br />
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The film captures each aspect of his frenetic life through emotionally charged snippits. For instance, while we never quite know what the Broadway show he’s working on is about, a preview for producers lets us see one complete number where he turns a limp airplane-themed song into a sexual roller-coaster that only his wife recognizes as his best work ever.<br />
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There he is bickering with his wife and bonding with his daughter, all the while learning, practicing or performing his latest dance moves. Meanwhile, his roll through projects, lovers and life is a swirl of creating, perfecting, drinking, smoking and downing pills – with death staring him in the face at every turn.<br />
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Oh, did I mention Death is a character in the picture? Clad in all white, and tempting Gideon with her own seductive offers, this personification of mortality interacts with the lead in a strange Nether-Netherland, where Fosse/Gideon is able to confess to her all his life’s sins while the people he’s loved, harmed or inspired (many played by actual friends and creative colleagues of the director) perform for and with him in a final cabaret seeing him into the afterlife. <br />
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I’ve heard that the 1970s is considered by some to have been one of the greatest decades in American film, years in which the studios trusted auteur directors (vs. CGI and formula scripts) to deliver audiences. And trusting Bob Fosse, the ultimate auteur, turned a picture that could have ended up a self-indulgent half-filled balloon into an award winning, unforgettable, profile of a flawed human and creative dynamo who left a gigantic footprint on our culture.<br />
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Not a picture for young ones (especially that airplane number scene mentioned above). But how about for teenage Fosse fans?<br />
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<i><b>Ben replies</b>: I agree that theatre loving kids ought to be interested in the life of the man who basically recreated musical theatre. I also agree with the praise you give, though I must admit the picture took a while to sink in. I had given up trying to understand what was going on after the 6th minute of the 9 minute musical number Scheider shares with Ben Vereen about accepting death. This flick is well crafted and interesting from start to finish, and though lacking in structure, it was able to truly depict the life of a complicated person, bravely exposing his troubled, diseased and narcissistic life. Undeniably a great flick, for any entertainment lover.</i><br />
<br />Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-73699315048097132892017-04-30T15:41:00.000-04:002017-04-30T15:41:15.745-04:00The Prestige (reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-51da6aa9-c05b-6b1d-3c92-aae6f77fb48e" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt;">Twists, turns, and two devastatingly handsome superhero stars make <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">this accused copycat of a movie</a> an entertaining epic that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. Though it is enjoyably suspenseful for an action/horror picture, that doesn’t slow down the acting of titans Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine and David Bowie who have to issue cheesy one-liners that have done in other great actors in similar pictures.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I am afraid of giving away one of the film’s many, many twists if I tell the full tale, but the basic story begins as a flashback at the murder trial of Alfred Borden (Bale) for killing a rival magician, Angier (Jackman), by drowning. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When both men were alive, their endless game of stage magic upmanship starts off bloody and only gets bloodier. It goes from messing with a rival’s trick, to maiming an audience member, to blowing fingers off another, to murder of one magician’s wife. This ridiculous smack back-and-forth with magic tricks is witnessed by aging engineer and friend of Angier (Caine) as well as that magician’s assistant and lover (Scarlett Johansson) who is caught between the two rivals. Also involved is real-life inventor Nikola Tesla (if you are confused by this part, so was everyone else). I won’t spoil the other twists involving doubles, lovers, crippling and faked deaths, to say anymore would be to ruin a fantastic (if confusing) movie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I will tell you that you will find both leading men obnoxious, not the actors (who together hold 4 Oscar nominations and are strong here) but their characters, whose only character development involves them turning from cocky to frightened over what the other might do to them next.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The movie isn’t often spoken of, as it wasn’t beloved upon its 2006 release and only scored Oscar noms in technical categories. I can understand why some people might prefer a movie like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Fast and Furious</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">that is 95% action since it starts with an adrenaline high and stays there. In the case of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Prestige</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, the action starts with the first “prank” (the murder of someone dear to the other) ending with the murder of the other. One could grow tired of the endless back-and-forth, because it is fairly repetitive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For me, I enjoyed the film as an interesting backdrop in the life stories of two magicians, and the far more interesting engineer (Caine) who watches them as they do reckless thing after reckless thing. It sits with you like an epic such as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Les Miserables</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (which Jackman starred in six years later) in that it’s an extremely dramatic story told over a long timeline. It is devastatingly satisfying to see the grand scale and the two characters full stories, beyond their deeply rooted rivalry. It also accurate in it’s representation of the photogenic time period.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There are some things I dislike about Christopher Nolan (who directed the film) movies, like his more recent duo of mind blowers, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Inception </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Interstellar </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">which are horribly overrated in my opinion (though they did provide a few thrills). For instance, he makes so many crazy things go on at once that you can barely bring yourself to question if it makes sense. You can’t be gripped by a twist if you don’t get it. I did not find those problems in this period piece and found it to be more about human connection than the (admittedly awesome) magic tricks, and though there were many twists; you could mostly follow them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It is not perfect as a movie but, as I have already pointed out, it is very intriguing. Its plusses include a phenomenal cast, deeply rooted in a story that uses action as a backdrop for storytelling. All in all, a fantastic, if imperfect, movie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dad responds</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">: I was kind of looking forward to seeing Batman take on Wolverine, until I realized that the two of them would be going at it by doing magic tricks while wearing fake beards. That said, I’m a sucker for any film that tries to depict the power stage acts had over an audience during the pre-Internet/television/film age (which reminds me it’s time to introduce the boys to Mr. Memory - a stage act featured in Hitchcock’s 39 Steps).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">But I digress. I’m with Ben on both enjoying, but also tiring of the endless twists and turns of the plot, with the sci-fi element introduced via Tesla seeming like an especially ludicrous application of technology to what amounted to a so-so disappearing act. It was good to see Ben appreciate Michael Caine holding his own against the two intense whippersnapper stars, although I’ve seen enough of Caine to know when he’s doing a film in order to pay for another Picasso. And how did Bowie decide what film roles he would play? I-ching? </span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-79029165628050117882017-03-26T18:50:00.000-04:002017-03-26T18:50:15.321-04:00The Time Machines (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d4f71364-0cc5-dce9-9f31-2b6370a6c529" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben and I are breaking slightly from tradition to look at two films, both of them based on H. G. Wells’ 1895 genre-spawning sci-fi novel: </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Time Machine</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition to inspiring everything from the Tardis to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d7eBo_7i8I" target="_blank">Time Juice</a>, Wells’ original story was also brought to the screen in a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054387/" target="_blank">1960 film</a> directed by stop-motion animation wizard George Pal, and again in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268695/" target="_blank">a 2002 remake</a> with Simon Wells (no relation) at the helm.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve got an enormous soft-spot for the 1960 Pal version, given the number of times I watched it growing up in an era before cable when the movie seemed to play in monthly rotation with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">War of the Worlds, Beast from 20,000 Fathoms</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Journey to the Center of the Earth</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> during Creature Feature Saturday afternoons on UHF Channel 56 (confused younger readers can ask your parents to translate that last sentence for you).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This early version of the story starred Rod Tyler as the time-travelling hero who built his Victorian-era contraption (which served as inspiration to the steampunk aesthetic) at the turn of the 19</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super;">th</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> century. After introducing a tiny working model of his device to friends at a New Year’s Eve dinner party, he proceeds to the basement to use a full-scale version to launch himself into tomorrow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While our hero hoped to find an era when man had gotten past his animal desires and entered a stage of enlightenment, each stop on his journey reveals more carnage – including a nuclear attack that entombs him for hundreds of thousands of years. Fortunately, this is just a few hours based on his clock, after which he emerges into the paradise he was always hoping to find – or does he?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ll admit that the clever stop motion effects in the film (mostly used to depict the rapid passage of time) weren’t enough to make up for the stiff acting, unconvincing romance and over-padded costumes worn by the Moorlock villains, all of which left this pre-digital era film looking its age. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Long-running fondness for this 1960 film might have inspired more recent studio honchos to place another animator (the aforementioned Simon Wells, mostly known for his artistic work on films like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kung Fu Panda</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Madagascar</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">) at the helm of a 2002 crack at the same story. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben and I watched this newer version a few months ago during an evening when Netflix seemed to be running dry, and while effect technology (and Moorlock costumery) had certainly advanced over the previous 42 years, the 2002 film made all the mistakes of the first (bland acting, unconvincing romance, etc.) before adding new catastrophic decisions all its own.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For starters, apparently scientific curiosity and utopian vision weren’t good enough motivations for the main character to build his machine, and so a subplot was added in which the hero created and used his time-travel device to accomplish the impossible task of saving the woman he loved from an untimely death. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The pitstop futures the hero stopped to visit on his way to the 1,000,000 AD utopia/dystopia of Eloi and Moorlocks were clearly forgettable, since I’ve already forgotten every detail about them (except for a ludicrous talking computer that seems to have survived for 992,000 years without maintenance). That said, I did like Jeremy Irons (in full check-cashing mode) playing the head baddie. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Other than Irons, however, everyone else involved with this production should have checked themselves into witness protection right after the film was in the can to avoid harm from fans of the book, fans of the original movie, and fans of common-sense and entertaining storytelling.</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben replies</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: Like I said when you suggested we do this one, I don’t think it’s fair to bash a film made almost 60 years ago, when film (and special effects) have matured so much since then. While many films even older than the original Time Machine remain enjoyable, this reminds us that not every old movie does. Especially me, who lived in a time of Avengers, explosions and giant robots would prefer the remake, which while mind-numbingly dull plotwise, is at least full of exciting special effects. I won’t tell you which is better, because to me they exist as two completely different things. It is not really appropriate to call out the flaws of a film made so long ago, only to point out how a great old movie remains timeless. </span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-51545396709791211332017-02-26T22:29:00.000-05:002017-02-26T22:29:01.432-05:00Unforgiven (reviewed by Ben)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The “Spaghetti Western” is something that most
people associate with the old 60’s and 70’s, and that is mostly thanks to the
currently controversial star of over 60 films: Clint Eastwood. In the year
1992; Eastwood released a different kind of masterpiece: </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105695/" target="_blank">Unforgiven</a>. </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This
film was quieter, and more cerebral than any Western people had seen before. It
was the biggest hit of 1992; taking home four Oscars. What made the picture so
great? Several elements of cinema at its finest (even if the movie missed the
mark in a few places).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">The movie starts off from three directions.
One involves the cruel “anti-violence” sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene
Hackman) who refuses to punish strongly enough a cowboy who gets caught cutting
up a prostitute, which leads her friends to put a bounty on that cowboy’s head.
The second thread involves the reformed extremely-violent cowboy Bill Munny
(Eastwood) who gets drawn in by a newcomer cowboy “The Schofield Kid” to try
to earn that bounty. The third involves pompous British sharpshooter English
Bob (Richard Harris) who wants to mess with some Americans and pick up the
bounty himself.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">On his journey, Munny re-connects with his old
friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), who joins Eastwood and “The Kid” to make a
not-so-tightly-knit trio. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile, things go wrong for English Bob and
his bookish sidekick W.W Beauchamp (played by Paul Rubinek) when they clash
with the increasingly evil Little Bill who, despite refusing to let anyone hunt
down the “whore slasher,” grows violent and beats English Bob in front of a
full town square. Later, the stakes increase between the lawman and the cowboys
as the old murderous Munny reappears in a grand psychological transformation,
even as the once-macho Schofield Kid shrinks back in another.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This is not your typical Western or even
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western" target="_blank">Spaghetti Western</a> (which, if you’re wondering, is a more complex version of Old
West stories released earlier in film’s history). <i>Unforgiven </i>might not
have the gory violence of some older Westerns, but it has the gunslingers, killers,
cowards and lawmen that made the genre great, while also taking the time to
display <i>psychological </i>action. It was a wondrous new thing when the film
was released, and it still is today. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">And talk about big names! Eastwood, directing
himself, a charismatic Gene Hackman in his Oscar winning role were the two
standouts of course. But Ned was also one of Morgan Freeman’s best roles
who was phenomenal as the mellow center of gravity in an otherwise raging group
of characters. We were also quite fond of the ladies’ portrayal of the
revenge-taking prostitutes and the brief but memorable charm and rage of
Richard Harris as English Bob, especially in his scenes with Hackman. Overall,
this was a fantastically acted film from some of the greats.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">I won’t lie; it’s dull at a few points because
of Eastwood having too much fun with long shots and cinematic techniques. It
also attempts to be--and falls short at being--funny at certain moments.
Eastwood should have left the comedy after English Bob’s charming attempts to
convince a group of Americans mourning President James Garfield that having a
royal ruler is a better solution, surprisingly the funniest scene in the movie.
This movie does a great job proving that great does not mean perfect in every
way. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">This is not a family movie by the way. It opens
with a man having sex and slashing a woman with a knife which is just the start
of the violence. So it’s a great movie, for anyone but a child. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Dad Responds</span></i></b><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">: It was a little weird watching this picture
with Ben and his brother, given how many Westerns old (John Ford) and new
(Sergio Leone) they <b>haven’t </b>seen. Still,
as much as Unforgiven’s greatness derives from the commentary Eastwood is
making on a film genre he helped re-invent, it’s still a wonderful straight-shooting
story filled with the kind of psychological complexity Ben rightly complimented. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> </span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">As a member of an older
generation, I’m a tad more forgiving of long shots of long wind-ups, especially
when they set the stage for the frightening transformation of the main
character from an elder gunman who thought he found redemption to unstoppable angel
of vengeance. Unforgiven has lost none of its luster in the decades since it
rightly gobbled up so man deserved Oscars. </span></i><i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-78847245085394731202017-01-29T18:32:00.001-05:002017-01-29T18:32:39.839-05:00Hitchcock (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-888ee102-ec8f-3209-0290-d0b814558847" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The kids have only had a smattering of Hitchcock films over the years (I can recall watching </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">39 Steps</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">North by Northwest</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> with them, so they still have a long, long way to go). Even so, it seemed like watching 2012’s </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0975645/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Hitchcock</a></span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, which tells the story of the making of the director’s famous horror hit </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, would be something Ben would appreciate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hitchcock was late in the Hollywood stage of his career when he decided to take a risk and make a film based on Robert Bloch’s best-seller inspired by the notorious Ed Gein murders of the 1950s. Gein was the first serial killer since Jack the Ripper to gain pop-culture icon status, inspiring a number of horror blockbusters – including </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Silence of the Lambs</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Texas Chainsaw Massacre</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The studio, which just wanted more installments of Hitchcock’s “innocent man mistakenly caught up in intrigue” shtick, weren’t interested. But “Hitch” and his wife Alma Reville were ready to go back to their roots and do the unexpected, as they had done earlier in their careers. And so, one house mortgage later, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">was financed and ready to cast.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Speaking of cast, Anthony Hopkins – even in a fat suit with distracting facial prosthetics that always seemed at risk of melting off – pulled off the old master’s intonation and mannerisms. And Helen Mirren as his equally talented partner was riveting as her husband’s equal, even if the script upped her historic role in the making of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> (allegedly at Mirren’s request).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As much as I enjoyed the chemistry between the two stars, and the energy modern Hollywood always gins up when making movies about its own past, some key blunders made the film much less than the sum of its parts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To begin with, by focusing on the strained relationship between Alfred and Alma, the bio-pic created the impression that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">was driven as much by Hitchcock’s psychological fragility as his craftsmanship. A scene (I’m guessing fictitious) in which Hopkins grabs the knife in order to create </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho’s</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> famous shower murder on his own (all the while imagining he’s eviscerating his wife’s imagined lover and the various Hollywood studio types standing in his way) reinforces the notion that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is the product of the director’s id.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But, as aficionados know, the key to Hitchcock’s directorial success was his absolute control over every aspect of the filmmaking process, a mastery which allowed him to manipulate his cast and crew to get what he wanted from them – not be manipulated by them, or by the pressures of production schedules. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was also disappointed by how much of the making of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> wasn’t in the movie. Sure, there was the aforementioned shower scene recreation, and a few other brief moments where you got the feel of being on the set of an old time Hollywood production. But nothing gave viewers the sense that being on the set of a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Hitchcock</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> production was anything special. Hitchcock’s ability to leverage his own brand to create buzz was also alluded to late in the picture, but only for the sixty or so seconds needed to explain why </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Psycho</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> was a hit despite indifference from its studio-distributor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The film also uses two narrative devices – one in which Hopkins interacts with the real Ed Gein (actually actor Michael Wincott playing Gein) and one which recreates the droll openings and closings Hitchcock began and ended episodes of his TV series with – both of which were incompatible with each other and with the rest of the picture.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As you can tell, it is only film snobbery that forces me to point my thumbs down on a homage that should have been more homagey (is that a word?). Ben – might you have anything kinder to say?</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben replie</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">s: Not much kinder, I’m afraid. I am not particularly familiar with Hitchcock but I still found this 2012 miss a bit disappointing. The biopics I’ve seen have all followed the delivery-room-to-the-funeral-ceremony formula. I though this film might be better because it chose to focus on a short period of time in Hitchcock’s life, especially one so iconic, but it was also disappointing in that respect. Notably; the filmmakers made the Oscar-baity decision to cast Hollywood stars as every famous name involved with Psycho, including Hopkins, Mirren, and Scarlett Johansonn and James D’arcy as Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins respectively. Good acting on the part of the great Anthony Hopkins, but other a bit a waste of a biopic. </span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-33474343653732839682017-01-04T05:39:00.000-05:002017-01-21T11:23:27.983-05:00Birdman (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-9cd3dc04-6908-daa1-b67c-ab0548a77a2b" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px;">You may have noticed that most of the films we talk about on this blog are pictures we enjoyed, that is to say “we recommend this film to you.” This one will be a little different. Last week, we watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2562232/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank"><i>Birdman</i></a>, nominee of eight oscars and a winner of four. We finished with a pretty similar consensus: <i>Birdman</i> was junk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">The film is the pretentious story of the pretentious, unlikable Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton), a superhero action star of the past now trying to make a name for himself in a (you guessed it) pretentious Broadway play. The drama he generates with his fellow actors, family and theatre technicians is the focus of the film. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Riggan’s constant search for recognition as a true dramatic star is countered by the voice of Birdman (his original superhero persona) in his head, telling him to forget the stage and do “Birdman 4” instead. The supporting characters are slightly more interesting than Keaton, like esteemed star Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) who Riggan miraculously gets to join his play, his rehabilitated daughter (Emma Stone), and his girlfriend (Andrea Riseborough). As Riggan spirals into madness, the film gets more and more abstract, until you finally give up on trying to understand what each moment means. It might sound subtle and brilliant. It is not. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">For a movie I dislike, this 2014 film did have some great elements. One of those is the directorial style of Alejandro G. Innaritu which makes the whole films look like one continuous shot which, in a better written story, could have kept the viewer engaged. But the movie’s script failed to bring the audience on an engaging journey, instead dragging us through melodrama that amounted to not that much. The acting is actually great on the part of Norton, Stone, Naomi Watts and Keaton in a couple of less-overacted scenes, but <i>Suicide Squad</i> reminds us that good actors does not a great movie make. The beauty of the shots and acting did not save this movie from being a slog, but also did not prevent it from securing a place at the Oscars. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">Despite all this criticism, the movie did have one standout scene that remains with me in which Riggan’s sub-conscious goes berserk and he imagines himself as Birdman, flying through the city, the superhero he once was. It was the one “deep” moment that really made me think, but I’ll let you decide what it means.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;">All in all, not a movie for kids. Brief drugs, swearing, sex and enough references and bad examples to keep fans of <i>Superbad</i>, <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i> and the first two season of South Park happy. Not fun for the kids and, to be frank, probably not fun for the adults.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px;"><i><b>Dad replies</b>: I probably disliked the film a little less than Ben, although we agree on all of its shortcomings: a main character we failed to care about performing a play that looked like a bore to everyone in the film and real-world audiences. The “theatre as redemption” theme has caused more than one film star to go off the rails (John Turturro in the 1998 <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Illuminata</a> comes to mind). And Birdman is one more data point that magic realism still hasn’t made a successful translation to the screen. Still, as a big Michael Keaton fan I was glad to see him get the recognition he deserved, even if he deserved it for different work.</i></span></span><br />
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Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-80935233518046678812016-12-02T20:50:00.001-05:002017-01-21T11:23:41.698-05:00Barton Fink (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-2fe0e0e7-c25d-2aaa-b0f0-58cd1a1eefe4" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The kids have already been introduced to the Joel and Ethan Coen, first through their Horatio Alger business fairy tale </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Hudsucker Proxy</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, more recently through that weird concoction of quirk and grit that is </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Fargo</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">. So – unsure what would be the result – it was time to introduce Ben to what I consider to be the Brother’s Coen’s very best picture: </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101410/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Barton Fink</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The title character of this 1991 dark work (played by John Turturro) is an idealistic, young playwright who, after a smash hit on Broadway, is offered the chance to write for the pictures. This requires him to relocate to Hollywood where he splits his time between the studio and a residential hotel, each of which compete for the most hellish tormenter of Barton’s soul.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">On the studio lot, he has to navigate between Jack Lipnick, the crazed megalomaniac who helms the studio (played brilliantly by Michael Lerner), and other Hollywood types including studio player Ben Geisler (Tony Shalhoub), a Faulkner-like fellow writer (also a sous and brute) W.P. Mayhew (John Mahoney) and Mayhew's secretary-with-a-secret Audrey Taylor (Judy Davis).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Speaking of secrets, Barton shares the floor of his decaying hotel with traveling insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (played by John Goodman). On the surface, Charlie is one of the ordinary schmoes Barton writes about in his “socially relevant” dramas. But might he be more than that?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">While the characterizations in this ensemble alone would make <i>Barton Fink</i> a masterpiece, the locations (especially Barton’s hotel/prison) are are almost characters in their own right. And no film in history has depicted the lunacy of Hollywood and the suffering associated with writer’s block with </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Barton Fink’s</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> combination of cinematography and mania.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The kids are definitely getting schooled enough in film to start exposing them to stories that require appreciation of the self-referentiality that has led to more than one Hollywood classic (from </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Singing in the Rain</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> to </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Player</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, Hollywood’s best products tend to be about itself). But I wasn’t sure how Ben would react to some of the surprises in the story, especially those that appear on the surface to be surreal diversions, but in fact speak volumes about the nature of a main character (in this case, the seemingly talented but ultimately shallow Fink).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">So, Ben, what did Barton do for you?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben Replies</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: It was so incredibly different from Fargo that I was caught by surprise. But I ended up loving Barton Fink. It was a truly intriguing movie that left me with more to think about than I’m used to at the end of earlier movie nights. The acting and writing were great. My biggest criticism was that at times the performances were too subtle, which meant you couldn’t really tell what what the film was trying to say until long after you finish watching it. This meant I like the film less for perfect storytelling or intense entertainment, than for its thoughtful and meticulous qualities. In summary, I really liked it (although maybe not as much as Dad).</span></div>
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<br />Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-5870541403346492422016-11-17T21:57:00.000-05:002017-01-21T11:23:53.962-05:00The Man from Earth (reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-6effaf6c-7558-0f31-77f6-7a5ad24b6677" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">You’ve probably noticed that most of the movies we review on this page are successful, or at least well-known. So you might be surprised that one of our all-time favorite movies is one you’ve probably never heard of. </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Man From Earth</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> (2007) was made for only $200,000 and it’s brilliance lies on the fact that it’s a gripping sci-fi tale consisting of seven people sitting in a room, just talking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">A group of college professors in varying fields hold a goodbye party for their friend, John Oldman, where John decides to reveal to his intellectual pals that he is thousands of years old, having been born a Cro Magnon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">What starts out as a friendly hypothetical conversation heats up as his friends realize he might just be telling the truth (or, at least, believes he is). Talk about a conversation starter for a biologist, a devout Christian, an anthropologist, and historian and an archaeologist, all experts in their fields who can’t quite prove that he’s wrong! It is a perfect way to include almost any topic in the film. If he really is so old, then surely he can tell you almost anything you want to know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">This kind of thinking drives the arc of the conversation, as his friends go from playfully questioning him to calling a psychologist to save him, eventually pulling a gun on him to see if he really is immortal like he says. It doesn’t quite sound like the film could keep you interested for an hour and a half, and yet it does. It perfectly demonstrates the dark side of human nature, but also convinces you there is hope within the bonds of friendship. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Many films today consists of the mindless action sequences with no heart (like </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Doctor Strange</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, which I saw with my brother last week). The “action” in </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Man From Earth</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> consists mostly of discussion of everything from religion to cellular regeneration. At its heart, however, it’s a movie about a man redeeming himself after several thousands years spent hiding, only to find that the world is not ready to accept him. It’s a lesson that’s hard to swallow but truly important, and not something you will not forget.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The fact that few have heard of this movie, it’s director, it’s screenwriter, and it’s stars is quite sad, but to be expected. Every year, action (especially superhero) movies, are the big cash machines. And intellectual, over-dramatic, made-on-a-grand-scale yet heartless beyond the surface films are the big favorites come award season (see </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Big Short</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Shakespeare In Love</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> and many more.) This film was a drama, and the biggest awards don’t go to such small films, even one as brilliant and intriguing as this one. There are so many great films out there that no one knows about, and </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Man From Earth</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> just might be the best I’ve ever seen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The family has actually watched this movie twice. Each time, I remembered the thoughtful, quiet perfection that makes it so great. This movie has found it onto my list of favorites of all time, along with the likes of </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Shawshank Redemption</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">, and has proved that just a few people talking in a room has twice the intrigue of a ten-million-dollar blockbuster.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Dad Responds</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: The official name of this film is Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth, highlighting its pedigree as the work of the writer behind some of the most memorable classic Star Trek episodes (including the Spock-with-beard classic Mirror Mirror and Requiem for Methuselah, the third-season episode that inspired Man from Earth). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s been a huge pleasure that both boys enjoy this film enough to write about it (Ben on this blog, Eli on one of his college essays). The movie is a genuine triumph of writing, full of chills and emotion, which tackles substantial issues (the origin of ideas, what it means to be human, etc.) through the medium of sci-fi - the very thing that made Star Trek such a breakthrough series. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">So I agree with everything Ben says, except his dissing of Shakespeare in Love - party pooper!.</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-90159360137473710362016-11-08T06:36:00.002-05:002017-01-21T11:24:02.585-05:00Quiz Show (Reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-c048185e-43b2-40a3-d1c3-e01fc01209fd" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The 1994 historic drama </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110932/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Quiz Show</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">provided a peek into the early world of television and television game shows which gave contestants the chance to win thousands of dollars by showing off their smarts, demonstrating that anything was possible for “average American Joes” who knew their stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The problem was that a number of winners in these programs </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">didn’t</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> need to know their stuff since many of those early TV quiz shows were fixed, feeding answers to contestants television viewers liked, while asking those the public had bored with to throw the match to the next up-and-coming personality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Such was the fate of Herb Stemple (played by John Turtorro), a working class schlemiel whose braininess won him thousands before his winning streak on the game show 21 came to an end at the hands of the erudite Columbia professor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The film dramatizes actual events, including the exposure of the quiz show scandals which involved sponsors, producers and contestants getting hauled in to testify before Congress. The pivot point of the story is congressional investigator Dick Goodwin, played by Rob Morrow (mostly known for his television work on </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Northern Exposure</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Numb3rs</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">) who befriends Van Doren, even as he investigates him at the behest of Stemple (who has let his loss fester into loathing of the WASPy academic who defeated him).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The people behind the film might have thought they were creating a political allegory to help us understand how the media manipulate the public, even as they feed us the images and stories we most desire (such as rags-to-riches tales which let us stare as tens of thousands of dollars exchange hands). By the end of the film, however, it was not a political message that resonated but a human one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Scenes featuring Goodwin and Van Doren, for example, are charged with tension as the young Jewish lawyer gets drawn into (and becomes infatuated with) his target’s family – Charles being the son of the famous scholar, poet and fellow Columbia professor Mark Van Doren (played brilliantly by Paul Scofield). But these scenes feature just a fraction of the sparks generated when the younger Van Doren must confess his success, and later his dishonesty, to his father.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Generally, it is the older actors who dominate the screen – even in bit parts. Paul Scofield is definitely the best thing in the picture. But veteran character actor Allan Rich (playing Robert Kintnet – the head of the network during the quiz show scandals) was only slightly less brilliant than Scofield or legendary director Martin Scorsese in one of his few acting roles (as the cynical head of Geritol, sponsor of the crooked game show).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Not all is perfect with the younger cast members, however. In fact, it was hard to concentrate on Murrow’s performance, give how much of his energy he was putting into affecting a Brookline (MA) accent. Even Fiennes, who usually inhabits his roles un-self-consciously, seems to struggle with the ticks and language required to portray a scion of America’s intellectual aristocracy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">There is also a problem with the film’s central premise that the corruption of television quiz shows says something big and important (other than the fact that they are as fake as professional wrestling). Which is why the movie’s best moments are small and intimate, requiring us to ask ourselves how we would respond if a big check was offered to us if we would simply make a distinction between entertainment and lies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben replies</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: Another one where I agree with you. Quiz Show is an oddity that shows that a film can be very flawed, while still being great for what it does right. This movie centers around three performances, two of which range from forgettable to not just not as good as they could have been, and I could name several other problems. However, so much of this film is unforgettable as an entertaining look into the world of entertainment. The acting from the supporting cast and a quick-witted screenplay alone make the film worth watching. It’s also one of the most clean movies that we’ve reviewed, with a PG rating (so nothing to watch out for but a slow second act and a couple of so-so performances).</span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-65317559973144783872016-10-23T19:35:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:24:12.734-05:00Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bathing in the sink, cars falling from the sky, stealing a house, Mark Ruffalo and Kirsten Dunst dancing around in their underwear as a man - hooked up to all kinds of wires - lies on the floor... </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sorry, what did I just watch? And what makes a vision as bizarre as director Michael Condry’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> succeed as well as this movie does? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to put your finger on where this film goes right, even as you realize you can’t take your eyes off the screen. In the hands of a less capable team, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eternal Sunshine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would have been a cheesy mindbender that just couldn’t pull off the seriousness buried in a seemingly silly plot. In this dark comedy, however, sci-and romance go together like you never thought they would. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie is about something we all we wish we could do at one point in our life. Joel (Jim Carrey) is a man getting out of a serious relationship and discovers that his ex-lover, a colorful woman by the name of Clementine Kruckynski (Kate Winslet), has had a medical procedure which removed all memories of him. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upon hearing this, he sets out to do the same. But once he relives the memories, he changes his mind. The film is centrally about him running through his mind as if it were a maze, trying to get away from the doctors trying to get a hold of him to complete the memory-removal procedure. Unfortunately, he has to watch as scientists remove the priceless memories of his lover (who joins him on the race through his mind). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those scientists play a unique role in this imaginative movie. For while this small group of friends who work in their office, they are completely unaware of the drama going on as Joel and Clementine - within their own reality - try to run away in hope they can call the whole memory-wipe off.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> exactly? A sci-fi mind bender? Maybe. A very dark comedy? A strong case could be made. I however, think that the sci-fi and laughs are there to provide a foil to a serious human story. The visuals are truly unique, but they play a part in one finest dramas I have ever seen, rather than take over the film. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie is perfectly written, directed with impressive detail, and charmingly acted by some great performers. If it sounds like a “different for the sake of different” movie, know that watching </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eternal Sunshine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a great experience for even the most traditional of cinemagoers. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The standouts in the cast include the two stars: an electric Kate Winslet and a much more toned-down Jim Carrey than one is used to. The medical staff include Tom Wilkinson as the older, thoughtful boss with a secret, Mark Ruffalo as the charming operator, Kirsten Dunst (who is especially good) as his girlfriend (the receptionist at the company), and Elijah Wood as a geeky intern who uses his knowledge about Clementine’s mind to replace Joel in her life. Their ensemble work is masterful.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has a very complicated story and is certainly a movie one has to give their full attention to. There are a couple sex scenes, some drug references, and a whole lot of swearing, so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone. However, once you get around to watching this magnificent film, your view on film (and reality) will forever be altered.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dad replies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I share Ben’s enthusiasm for this film, especially how they take elements of effects-driven science fiction and comedy and work them into a romantic drama with genuine heart. This was one of the first pictures in which Jim Carrey (where did he go, by the way?) demonstrated his ability to turn in a heartfelt, powerful performance, rather than mug for the camera or explode into flames. Truman Show placed him in a similarly unreal situation, but failed to invoke the core element that makes Eternal Sunshine such a triumph: a deep understanding that as much as love can hurt, it is the only part of the human condition that can not (and should never) be erased.</span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-17894228075845106752016-10-03T16:04:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:24:28.834-05:00Goodby Lenin (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301357/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">This 2003 German charmer</a> is set in East Germany, just before the “East” is dropped when the Berlin Wall fell and both halves of the country were united as simply “Germany.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Years earlier, Mutter (played by Katrin Sab) was abandoned by her husband who defected to the West, leaving her to raise two children, Alex (played by Daniel Brüh</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0117709/?ref_=tt_cl_t1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">l</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and his sister Lara, on her own. After emerging from nearly catatonic grief, she finds a renewed commitment to life by throwing herself into Party work, becoming an exemplary “comrade” in Erich Honecker’s East German “socialist paradise.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The kids grow up to become working-class cogs in Berlin’s Communist economy, adding interest in the opposite sex to their repertoire as adolescence turned to young adulthood. One such romantic pursuit leads Alex to one of the protest marches that broke out in Germany as the ripple effects of Gorbachev's Perestroika (reform) program reached the rest of the Warsaw Pact.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately for Alex, his inadvertent participation the march led to a beating by the East German police, followed by arrest (all without reaching the girl). Double unfortunately, Comrade Mom was on the street where the march and police attack took place, and watching her son get clobbered and dragged away caused her to have a heart attack and fall into a coma.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot takes place during her months-long coma (from which doctors said she would never recover), including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of Communism and the reunification of Germany. The kids roll with these changes, moving from earlier meaningless jobs to far more meaningful careers installing TV satellite dishes and working in a fast-food drive-through. And, as it turns out, Mom’s nurse was the very girl Alex previously pursued (and subsequently caught during one of his many visits to the hospital to be by his mother’s side).</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just as they kiss, however, Mom springs from her coma - a miraculous recovery. The only problem is that her fragile condition means that any shock (such as finding that her beloved Soviet system no longer exists) could trigger another heart attack and kill her. Faced with this choice, Alex takes the only reasonable course of action (for a comedy movie script anyway): moving his mom back home and doing everything in his power to prevent her from discovering that history has transformed her world.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As it turns out, Alex is remarkably resourceful in maintaining this illusion, beginning with scrounging for East Germany food packaging into which he could stuff the West German (I mean German) products that had replaced Socialist pickles and coffee. As time moves on and his mother becomes more lucid (and suspicious), his deceptions escalate.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This long set-up of a seemingly comedic premise might obscure the amount of heart in this picture. Each character is endearing in his or her own way, even as they expend tremendous energy hiding the truth from one another. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sab and Brüh</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0117709/?ref_=tt_cl_t1" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">l</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are particularly good at combining warmth, intensity and eccentricity as they create the reality-distortion fields the family has shared for their whole lives. And the subtle messages the filmmakers deliver are as complex as the power of nostalgia to make us long for what once made us miserable, and the way familial love can be communicated through deeds and glances, rather than words. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ben replies</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The interesting premise, a great script, and impressive visuals (like the scene where the mother runs out of her apartment to see a changed world) fortunately make up for uninspiring acting. It’s a great mix of comedy and seriousness. Although it’s a slower-moving film that makes it better for more mature audiences, it has a lighter touch than you’d likely find in more “family” films. Certainly a strong candidate for your viewing.</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-51274982225997309592016-09-11T06:58:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:24:39.434-05:00LA Confidential (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a scene, late in Curtis Hanson’s </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119488/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">L.A Confidential</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where within the story, a brief synopsis of the plot is given. I think even the Sherlock Holmes of moviegoers will be grateful for this moment. That’s because this crime drama is very complicated, and unlike many films, that just makes a great film better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L.A Confidential</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the story of three drastically different cops in L.A’s new police department, taking place in the 1950’s. Each has a personal interest in a new case, which drives the film’s narrative. When we first meet them Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is more proud of his job as an adviser on cop shows than he his as an actual cop, Bud White (Russell Crowe) is a corrupt jerk who has a soft spot for women and a specific hatred for those who lay hands on them. He also despises goody two-shoes Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), who got Bud’s partner, Stensland, kicked off the force for beating up a group of Hispanics for a bit of Christmas fun. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exley wants nothing more than to be promoted and be as well respected as his father. He is, at first glance, your average, incorruptible cop, but as his sense of honor gets challenged, he gets even more interesting. The crime that starts it all is the murder of Stensland and several others in a bar, and the case gets the title “The Night Owl Murders.” Bud wants to avenge his partner, and Exley just sees it as an opportunity for some more recognition. Vincenne’s doesn’t care about the Night Owl killings, and continues to fool around with celebrities, that is until an actor he knows is murdered. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It turns out the murders were part of a larger web of crime. They are also tied to a man who gives prostitutes plastic surgery so they look like famous actresses. This ties together as both Exley and White begin a romance with one of his creations (an award-winning Kim Bassinger). The final scenes are full of action, backstabbing and interestingly enough, the three men befriending each other. It has a bittersweet ending that I won’t spoil.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a movie that really delivers. The writing is quick and sharp with some great highlights. It has an incredibly complex story that is both entertaining and suspenseful. It is littered with twists and turns and unfortunate truths.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then there’s the acting, which is something else. Spacey gives one of his best as the most likable character in the film. Pearce and Russell Crowe are equally good. But the most impressive thing is watching Bassinger’s Rita Hayworth lookalike twist Crowe’s morals. It’s also surprising how well acted the bit (or at least smaller) parts, such as the woman identifying a murder victim as her daughter and a rough district attorney who Bud almost kills. Based on a book under the same name by James Elroy, Hansen and these great actors have made more than a movie. They’ve made a world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are things I love less, as there are with almost any movie. My main one was how the “bad guys” we’re just not developed enough. It was also hard to tell what their plan was, as this part was a little complex. You just don’t get involved enough in what they’re doing. But this query was nowhere near enough to stop me from loving the film as much as I did.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In two weeks since I watched it, this crime drama has grown to be one of my all-time favorites. It is also one of the most impressive one’s I’ve seen. It is an action-packed drama full of interesting character, clever moments and bright costumes, that any movie fan should enjoy-if not love.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Dad responds</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I’ve been waiting for the boys to get old enough to start enjoying important movies with tougher stories and more adult themes. Unlike so much R-rated rot that delivers little more than shock, gore or raunch, this modern noir masterpiece is built off not one, not two, but three fully-formed (and imperfect) heroes who each end the film in a far different place than where they began it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The setting (LA in the 50s when policing was informed by both military and Hollywood cultures) is a character in itself. And while I agree with Ben that the story was complicated and the evil scheme a bit hard to unpack, such thoughtful complexity was welcome in a genre (the gritty cop drama) known more for characters exercising finger triggers vs. their (and the audience’s) grey matter.</span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-58290125347330728552016-08-28T20:12:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:24:51.347-05:00The Walk (Reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 1974, French aerialist Philippe Petit walked across the Manhattan skyline on a tightrope (actually a steel cable) strung between the soon-to-be completed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. His caper to run a wire between the towers and his epic crossings (eight times!) were the subject of the 2008 documentary </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1155592/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2" target="_blank">Man on a Wire</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3488710/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Walk</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a more recent fictionalized version of the same story, is director Robert Zemeckis’ attempt to recreate the event as well as send a valentine to New York in general and the World Trade Center in particular.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I say fictionalized, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Walk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is more of a fairy tale whose mirthful nature is exemplified by the main character (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) narrating his story from atop the torch of the Statue of Liberty. As flashbacks show us Petit’s upbringing in France, his discovery and falling in love with wire-walking, his mentorship by uber-grump Papa Rudy (played by Ben Kingsley), and his teaming up with friends to cross the towers of Notre Dame and then the Trade Center, Zemeckis’ Paris and New York bore the same relationship to reality as Hill Valley of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back to the Future</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> did to actual 1950s small towns.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But just as this make-believe moved from wearing out its welcome to getting downright annoying, the film generated some genuine magic in its recreation of the walk itself. But even here, I couldn’t help noticing how much the steady and careful crossings in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Walk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> contrasted with footage of the actual event shown in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Man on a Wire</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> where Petit taunted the cops waiting for him on both ends of his wire by dancing back and forth before crossing the distance between the towers yet again. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I suspect that this lack of fidelity was the result of limitations in CGI technology (or F/X budgets). In fact, at certain angles the traversing Petit resembled nothing so much as a video game character that was still in the process of rendering.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All this fakery would have been less of a problem if the non-fiction story upon which the film was based was not so well known or well documented elsewhere. The filmmaker’s attempt to romanticize buildings that met such a tragic fate in 2001 presented further problems, although not ones for which Zemeckis should be held liable.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For Hollywood, like the rest of the nation, has never really come to grips with the magnitude and meaning of 9/11, which is why we retreat to the story of Petit or films like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">World Trade Center</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (which turns the horrific events of 9/11 into a formula story built around the epic heroism of firefighters) to help us avoid confronting the reality of an attack that left thousands dead and the world permanently changed.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><b>Ben’s response</b>: I think that the movie was just edgy. That is to say different and weird for the sake of being different and weird. I’ll admit that the scene on the wire was pretty cool, and one of the only reasons I don’t totally regret watching the movie. It was just stupidly written and childish, and that’s not to mention the long and so melodramatic scene where they set up the wire. I haven’t seen the documentary, but I think that would’ve made this overly dramatic film much more difficult to like.</i></span></div>
Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-33966557111989025052016-08-21T13:21:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:25:06.262-05:00Bernie (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’ve ever had an odd craving to see what happens when </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051201/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Witness For The Prosecution</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> meets </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374900/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Napoleon Dynamite</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">crammed into the format of a mockumentary) - or just want to see something really weird - the Richard Linklater-directed oddity <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1704573/?ref_=nv_sr_3" target="_blank">Bernie </a></i>is definitely for you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This film has the quirky, very very dry humor that many loved about the redheaded loser of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Napoleon </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">woven into a plot that reminded me of the Billy Wilder’s famous courtroom drama (though at first you’ll be convinced you’re watching </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310281/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">A Mighty Wind</a>).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie begins with an odd, dark and funny collection of people talking about how perfect undertaker Bernie (Jack Black) is. It eventually talks about his unlikely “friendship” with an older, unpopular woman in the town (Shirley MacLaine) as the kindness that people associate with Bernie ends up being his downfall. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The woman, named Marjorie Nugent, ends up using this angel of a funeral director as her servant. As he becomes her property, the locals being interviewed start talking about how he changes before we see this “good man” finally snap and kills Marjorie. Realizing what he’s done, he hides her in a freezer and tries to convince the town that she’s still alive. When they finally find her on ice, it looks bad for him. When they find out she left her whole estate and fortune to him, despite her large family, it looks worse. You’ll notice the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Witness</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> similarities again when Bernie’s tried in court where everyone loves Bernie, but no one believes him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Within the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Might Wind</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> style documentary format, it was dull, and kind of creepy how people think about murder as more of an entertainment. But surprisingly, there were some very complex good-guy/bad-guy ideas that are bound to surprise you as Jack Black jokes about death while selling someone a coffin, dances the big number in“The Music Man,” or carefully brushes up a dead body.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Similar to Adam Sandler, people either love Jack Black or think his branch of humor is an insult, and that he lacks real talent that other comedic actors like Steve Carell or Billy Crystal posses. But this movie lacks in toilet humor and stupidity found in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kung Fu Panda</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the cringeworthy </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gulliver’s Travels</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, allowing Black to be funny in a way that demonstrates real acting skill. He keeps himself reserved, which makes the movie even funnier, as does his brilliant singing and dancing ability.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does it say that my grandmother recommended this movie? Probably that this family loves weird concoctions of film. And Bernie has proved that that can pay off.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dad Replies - I’m with you that the film gave Jack Black (who I can’t stand when he does his loud and obnoxious routine) the chance to blend a subdued performance with screamingly funny song-and-dance routines. In fact, I would have paid to see the entire production of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJcZYX_SzTc" target="_blank">Music Man</a> that you caught a glimpse of in Bernie. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently all those personal recollections that punctuate the film came from actual locals who were around when the real life crime the movie was based on occurred. This helped blur fiction and reality in some interesting ways, although I thought those interviews could have been integrated a bit more sparingly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So while Bernie is a big of a hodgepodge - part comedy, part courtroom drama, part real and part faux documentary - it was fun to enjoy with the family a film in which everyone involved took a chance. So thumbs up (and thanks for recommending it Mom).</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-41709189268835411232016-08-16T19:03:00.001-04:002017-01-21T11:25:15.702-05:00City Slickers (Reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Years ago, I took a course on how to write formula movies for Hollywood where </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101587/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">City Slickers</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was used as an example of a formula pic you could set your watch to, which makes the movie a true testament to how great screenwriting transcends mechanics.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For those who missed it when it came out in 1991, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">City Slickers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a cowboy buddy comedy starring Billy Crystal as Mitch Robbins, a New York radio-ad timeslot salesman with a loving wife, two teenage kids, and the mother of all mid-life crises. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The crisis manifests itself during Crystal’s hilarious meltdown before his young son’s class during a “Bring Your Dad to School Day” that leaves everyone in the room (kids and teacher alike) gaping and depressed. With his wife threatening to kick him out unless his “gets his smile back,” Robbins hits the trail with two boyhood friends for a working-ranch cowboy vacation that he hopes will put his life back on track.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those two friends are Phil (played by Daniel Stern) an affable loser stuck in one of filmdom’s most loveless marriages, and Ed (the late Bruno Kirby), a sporting goods salesman who takes time away from his underwear-model main squeeze to exorcise the chip on his shoulder by going on dangerous vacations with his two buddies Phil and Mitch.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film actually begins with the three buddies joining the Running of the Bulls in Spain where, of course, Mitch is the one who ends up with his bottom gored. And it’s Ed who comes up with the idea of a two-week working holiday wrangling on a Western cattle ranch.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boys get to the ranch in time to meet their companions for the adventure: father and son black dentists (get over it, scolds the son), doppelgangers for ice-cream kings Ben and Jerry, and the (as usual) underutilized Helen Slater.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slater gives Mitch and friends the chance to act heroically when the film’s nemeses, a pair of no-good cowpokes, gives her a hard time. But the day is actually saved by the dark and dangerous Curly played by the incomparable Jack Palance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This being a formula picture, the challenges Mitch and his friends face begin light and end overwhelmingly heavy, eventually leading to a situation requiring Mitch to summon up that inner cowboy he never knew was in him. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unlike other stars who have successfully mixed comedy and drama, notably Tom Hanks and Robin Williams, Billy Crystal doesn’t let his performances get tripped up by the secret desire to make audiences love him. His Mitch is a pain in the butt – childish, broody, whiny – albeit a pain in the butt with a remarkable gift for wisecracking. And it’s his willingness to play to these imperfections that generates genuine drama from formulaic scenarios.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film also treasures quiet moments, notably short scenes featuring the three friends conversing while in the saddle, scenes which transcend broader comic and action sequences and secretly reveal the true theme of the picture: what it means to be a grown up.</span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Ben Replies</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: I enjoyed </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">City Slickers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it was fun to watch, although no one expects a comedy to be groundbreaking, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Slickers </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was not. </span></i></div>
<i><br /><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As someone who’s not super familiar with older comedies, this cowboy laugh-out-loud reminded me a bit of </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anchorman</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoolander </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ted</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: hilarious in a fun kind of way, full of people being stupid, and brimming with bright but not very real characters. Every scene is fun and the cast is great. But with every cliche (and an overly long saving-a-calf scene), I’m reminded that, having heard </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">City Slickers </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was an Oscar winner, I was secretly hoping that it would be more than just enjoyable. Although I enjoyed the film a lot, groundbreaking it was not. </span></i>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-39540582811209111482016-07-05T06:27:00.002-04:002017-01-21T11:25:29.215-05:00A Few Good Men (Reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-d08674e6-ba93-ba37-324c-8f0aa72f4008" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">There are more than a few good actors in A </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">Few Good Men </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">. And yet the all-star cast is only one of the film’s redeeming qualities. There is a complex storyline and, although it deals with tough subjects, this Rob Reiner courtroom picture is just fun to watch.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The storyline kicks off when naval officer and lawyer Daniel Kafee (Tom Cruise) is given the frustrating case of two Marine cadets charged with the murder of their fellow soldier, William Santiago, who had requested a transfer off their base on Guantanamo Bay.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Unfortunately for the lazy lawyer, while he and his longtime friend and fellow lawyer Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon) think the case is open-and-shut (plead guilty for involuntary manslaughter) both clients (James Marshall and Wolfgang Bodison) refuse to do so. For they want to go through with a trial in order to accuse their superior officer Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) of ordering a “Code Red” (an order to assault a fellow cadet issued by a superior).</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kaffee goes through with this destined-to-fail court trial along with faithful friend Sam Weinburg (Kevin Pollak) and the much-more-focused lawyer JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) as the team for the defense, while Jack Ross is the attorney for the prosecution.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">In providing this defense, Kaffee takes just about every risk in the book, and throughout the trial he grows from the laid-back Lieutenant who would rather play baseball than win a case, to a serious lawyer who breaks down witness after witness and proves that the two cadets acted on an order from their sergeant, with none of them knowing that toxins on the rag they used to gag Santiago would kill him. </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">As Kaffee matures, he becomes more and more passionate about proving that Kendrick and </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">his</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> superior, Col. Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson), a very serious marine colonel with a sadistic manner, are to blame for ordered the Code Red on Santiago and then trying to cover their tracks., A main character growing dramatically in pursuit of justice can be a cliché, but </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">A Few Good Men </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">does this cliché impressively, something else that makes the film fun to watch.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Even people who haven’t seen the movie are probably familiar with the final confrontation between Cruise’s Kaffee and Nicholson’s unforgettable Jessup (nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar), most specifically for Nicholson’s line “you can’t handle the truth!” Though the film features many great scenes (including the drunken Kaffee ranting about how the team is destined to lose or the two accused soldiers refusing to plead guilty due to their duty as marines) the five minutes of dialogue where Kaffee tugs the truth out of the straight-toothed, red-faced Colonel is the highlight of the film. The intensity when Jessup breaks under the heavy pressure, and not only loudly confesses to ordering the Code Red, but attempts to jump out of the witness booth and strangle Kaffee, cursing the day he was born, contrasts so heavily with his seemingly authoritative persona that the scene borders on comedy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">While I love the story, cast and screenplay, I must say that the movie didn’t take any risks, for better or for worse. They used a cast full of stars, an unoriginal premise and plot points that you could find in many other movies. While this playing-it-safe method paid off, making </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.66px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">A Few Good Men<u> </u></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">enjoyable to watch, a less-clichéd story can be found in just about any other courtroom drama.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">As for the acting, someone must have called up every single big-name actor in Hollywood and said ‘hey, come be in this movie.’ From Cruise’s likable attorney, to the cold, condescending Kendrick (Sutherland) to Kaffee’s fellow lawyer (Moore), Reiner made it more than clear that he wanted nothing less than the best actors in his film. But it’s Nicholson, one of the most acclaimed actors of all time, who dominates the screen whenever he’s on it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">With a gun-in-mouth suicide, a violent opening sequence, and pretty heavy swearing, this film earned an R rating. However, I think that for any teen who loves movies should see this film (whenever their parents see fit).</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline;">Dad Replies</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">: A toned-down version of the film (sans cuss words) plays on cable every few hours, so no one of any age should have to miss what I agree is a taught and enjoyable courtroom drama with a military twist (one that ignited the JAG jag and other imitators). I agree with Ben that the all-star cast delivered the goods, although most of the other big names (Bacon, Sutherland, Moore) kind of faded into the background whenever Cruise and/or Nicholson were on the screen. Like <a href="http://kidflix.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-cousin-vinny-reviewed-by-dad.html" target="_blank">My Cousin Vinny</a>, this film is less a “who-done-it” than a “can-he-prove-it” court battle, which gives the final confrontation between Cruise and Nicholson its dramatic punch, even for those who have seen the scene repeated and imitated endless times.</span></div>
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Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-89285501271103460802016-06-25T21:39:00.002-04:002017-01-21T11:25:45.408-05:00My Cousin Vinny (Reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-e4bcb6d4-8a56-6e55-9589-72a04344ed57" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 1.38;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">My Cousin Vinny’s</a> “R” rating kept us from sharing this favorite with the boys until now, even though – having just recently gotten around to a family screening – the only thing that might make the film objectionable is ripe language (no sex, no violence).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">Actually, that’s not quite true since the storyline is kicked off with a murder. Specifically, the clerk at a local quickie-mart in rural Alabama is bumped off during a robbery, and blame falls on a pair of New York college kids (played by Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield) who had just stopped by the shop during a cross-country drive in their mint-green GM convertible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">After being arrested and accidentally confessing to a crime (albeit, not the homicide they are accused of), Macchio decides to call home for rescue and is alerted that his cousin Vinny – a newly minted attorney – is on the way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">If the two accused boys were fish out of water, they have nothing on Vinny Gambini (Joe Pesci) and his leather-clad fiancé Mona Lisa Vito (Marisa Tomei in an Oscar winning performance) who roll into town completely unready for the local culture or courts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">This becomes apparent when the judge presiding over the case (played by the incomparable Fred Gwynne, sans monster makeup) repeatedly scolds Attorney Gambini for his informal attire, inability to comprehend (much less follow) procedure, and frequent curse-laden outbursts – some of which land Pesci in the same jail as his clients for contempt of court.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">But after a slow start, Vinny finally gets the chance to shine as he demolishes one witness after another with a mix of goomba and chutzpah anyone who has ever traveled through Brooklyn will find immediately recognizable. The prosecution eventually decides to fall back on evidence supplied by an FBI expert in automobile-related forensics, much to their dismay when Vinny’s fiancé is forced to take the stand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">As much as I continue to enjoy this picture (now through my children’s eyes), in retrospect it does seem as though the script was written backwards from a few (admittedly show-stopping) courtroom scenes. That said, every scene in which Pesci and Tomei interact is pure magic, more than making up for the implausibility of the key conceit in this high-concept comedy (would a law school graduate, even a totally green one, really have never heard of “discovery?”).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">The fantastic nature of such a scenario may explain why I found that aforementioned R-rated language so jarring. For the multiple F-bombs dropped by the leads placed them squarely in the vulgarity-laden tough-guy genre that have become Pesci’s trademark in films like <i>Goodfellas</i> and <i>Casino</i>, not in the semi-fantasy world of this much gentler storyline. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;">So, I don’t know. Ben – what do you think?</span></div>
<i><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Ben Replies:</b> Regardless of plot holes and ridiculous moments, Vinny is undeniably hilarious. Everything about this film has you laughing at every turn. The film is perfectly cast, especially the leather-clad duo of Vinny and Mona and the script is perfectly riotous. How can even the stiffest fellow not bust a gut when Pesci’s character brings the cooking time of grits to question on the stand? As a courtroom drama, however, this flick is only alright. A scene involving the identification of tire tracks was incredibly clever (and probably scored Tomei’s her Oscar). But if the goal was to make </span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">A Few Good Men</span><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline;"> with an incredible underdog winning his first case, that case was kind of open and shut and, without the comedy, could be criticized for being boring. So all in all, I agree with your thoughts on the film.</span></i>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-41201354479669357472016-06-12T15:34:00.000-04:002017-01-21T11:25:56.980-05:00Sweeney Todd (reviewed by Ben)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were more liquid ounces of fake blood used in Tim Burton’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408236/" target="_blank">Sweeney Todd</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (subtitled </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Demon Barber of Fleet Street</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) than lines spoken (or sung). Despite that, even gore lovers will think the cannibal/barber movie over the top, the film itself was somewhat underwhelming. Movie musicals are always a risky thing, and in the case of this film adaptation of Sondheim’s play, the risk did not pay off.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the somewhat confusing story of Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp), who was once an innocent barber who was arrested and robbed of his family by the malicious Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). He later returns to London to seek justice under the name of Sweeney Todd, a much less innocent and much less forgiving barber, ready to kill Turpin with a handy barber’s razor. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He befriends the longtime Fleet street resident Ms. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) and discovers his daughter to be the ward of his enemy, Judge Turpin. His innocent work disguised as a haircuttery leads him to less innocent murder. And because he works just as hard on business as justice, he merges with Ms. Lovett’s pie shop where she uses the human meat of his barbershop’s customers in her very popular meat pies. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a happy life, and yet he is plagued with the desire to find and kill the judge who still has his daughter. This leads to desperate measures which leads to the downfall of all the residents of Fleet Street. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All in all, a decent setup and the oddly heartwarming music is among Sondheim’s finest. The film does have it’s moments and we can even relate to several characters, especially since the acting is not half bad, especially Depp’s. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However the story was over-complicated and the excessive blood was distracting from the already complex plotline, not to mention the work of the talented songwriter of better-scripted musicals like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">West Side Story</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Into The Wood</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">s and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The film Sweeney Todd sometimes seemed like a lame excuse to have a wild bloodbath, rather than treat Sondheim’s work with care.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apart from the star-studded cast, I’d give credit to the film’s casting director for reuniting the cast of Harry Potter (Rickman, Timothy Spade, Helena Bonham Carter) and Tom Hooper’s just as over-the-top </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Les Miserables</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sacha Baron Cohen and Bohnam Carter). It was also fun to see the vocally talented Johnny Depp and the very talented child star Ed Sanders (as the barber/pie shop's kitchen-hand, Toby). For a film that is not very well put together, the acting of many (especially Depp) is superb.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would say that this bloodbath musical is alright, but mostly because of the acting and singing performances and the wonderful score. The extremely gory scenes as well as the extremely complex story bring down mine (and many other people’s) opinion of the Tim Burton film. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dad replies:</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Count me as one of those people Ben just mentioned as not having a great opinion of Tim Burton’s take on Sondheim’s murderous stage musical. I agree that there were lots of interesting things going on in the film, and the director did key into the irony of having such a violent story play out against songs with whimsical tunes with bloody lyrics. But the in-your-face images of slashed throats spouting gore, not to mention hands and feet spewing out of a meat grinder (and onto people’s plates) numbed me to artistic subtly. As Ben mentioned, the cast was a treat (metaphorically speaking, of course) and the original material certainly worked on stage. So blame for this mishap has to be placed at the feet of Burton who decided to go over the top, rather than find the middle ground the material required.</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8583659095735319141.post-79031817096770446122016-05-29T20:09:00.001-04:002017-01-21T11:26:19.033-05:00Dark Knight (reviewed by Dad)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having seen nearly all Batman movies on opening week since Michael Keaton first donned the cowl in 1989, this repeat viewing of </span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Dark Knight</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (the second installment of the Chris Nolan series starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader) reminded me of everything I love and hate about the Batman film franchises.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the plus side, you’ve got the greatest villain characterization since Jack Nicholson went whiteface in the aforementioned 1989 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Batman </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with another Joker – this one played by Heath Ledger (right before his sad and early death in 2008). Ledger’s Joker is the edgiest villain in any superhero film ever, a grisly, scarred clown who destroys not for money or power but for the sheer joy of bringing anarchy to Gotham, a city that still sports 30-million inhabitants despite frequent visits by mass murderers itching to burn the place to the ground. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apparently Gotham’s mobsters are on the ropes, pressed on one side by a certain black-caped vigilante and on the other by a new “incorruptible” District Attorney, Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart). And so they say “Yes” to the Joker, who promises to solve all their problems, despite misgivings about allying themselves with a murderous nutcase.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Long-time comics fans knew before the first frame was shot that District Attorney Dent was destined to become the psychopathic Two Face, another Batman rogue, one who makes decisions regarding who will live and who will die based on the flip of a scarred coin. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In an earlier, more innocent era, Two Face was just another themed criminal whose duality calling-card primarily manifest as “two-ish” crimes (like stealing twin diamonds and making his escape on a bi-plane). But that was another Millennium, which means today the villainous Dent is left flipping a coin in order to determine if he will plug a child (the son of Commissioner Gordon, played stalwartly yet again by Gary Oldman).</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another thing I like about the Nolan Batman oeuvre comes from the hero’s mature sidekicks played once more by Michael Caine (as Alfred) and Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox, the Wayne Enterprises exec who provides the Batman with his military-level armament). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But getting back to Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, the introduction of a second villain represents an element that plays a role in many a Batman stinkeroo: too many bad guys. It was one thing when Adam West faced off against his entire rogues gallery in the 1966 TV-series cinema spin off. But Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Bane (who cares) squaring off against Batman (George Clooney), Robin (Chris O’Donnell) and Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) in the 1997 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118688/?ref_=fn_al_tt_6" target="_blank">Batman and Robin</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> definitely proved that more was much, much less.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Dark Knight’s</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doubling up on the bad guys wasn’t as much of a misfire as that, but the extra baddie in this picture definitely lessened the impact of Ledger’s signature Joker and blurred the real duality driving the Batman mythos: that of Batman and the Joker as mirror images of one another. And why does so much of the drama in this of the next picture (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">Dark Knight Rises</a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) hinge on maintaining the heroic myth of the incorruptible Harvey Dent?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In any superhero pick, you come to expect a storyline driven by the need to set up the next action scene. But the most skillful of these (such as the first </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Superman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spiderman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iron Man</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avengers </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pictures) manage to create enough drama (as well as humor and romance) to make you forget that fact. Not so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dark Knight </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">where I kept wondering why the characters were doing what they were doing, other than to get everyone where they needed to be for the next big fight.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All that said, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dark Knight</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is definitely not one of those “I’m going to hate this picture just as much when I watch it ten times on cable” pictures. Watching it with Ben made me remember what I liked about the picture much more than what I disliked. So keep ‘em coming guys! I’ll keep buying tickets (this time for both myself and the boys).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Ben Replies</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">: </span>I’ll start with what you said about this film going with the “Sinister Six” approach, like Batman and Robin or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413300/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Spiderman 3</a> (where Thomas Haydyn Church, James Franco and Topher Grace teamed up against our webbed friend). I would say this is not a fair comparison. These films were made for the purpose of making the superheroes look unbeatable, and the Dark Knight is trying to do the opposite. The film brings ideas about humanity to the table in a way no film of this sort has ever done before, and brings out the man in Batman much more than Clooney’s attempt did. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the point of Harvey Dent, I couldn’t agree more about the storyline being forced. And as for Ledger’s incredible performance, I was just as shocked by the merciless clown. I do however believe that the drama that led up to the action was there, even if it was not as skillfully done as the rest of the film. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A final thing you may have forgot was that even though the cast was made up of all-stars (Freeman, Oldman, Bale, Ghyllenhal, Eckhart and of course the Brokeback Mountain star who was acting so much his makeup was sweating off) there were so many characters, everyone except for the clown and possibly Dent were uncomfortably underdeveloped, including “The Bat” himself.</span>Jonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17740145761799343210noreply@blogger.com0