Classic – Page 3 – Splatter: on FILM

THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY (2013) movie review

December 29, 2013October 25, 20156 Comments

I held my breath so many times. When it was too beautiful or too shocking or when I was too worried for our hapless hero. Don’t miss this journey into adventure, into bravery and joy, into LIFE and living it.

Starring and directed by Ben Stiller, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an instant family classic reminding us to seize life and live it. It also shows the value in cherishing everyday moments that seem mundane, those unposted, ungrammed, forgettable day-to-day type events like work and meals. My friend Dan says, “No one posts pictures of themselves in their cubicles at work because they don’t seem glamorous enough for Facebook, but we all go to work and it’s okay.” Dan is wise. Flat, grey paper Mitty from side A of the film would not agree, but post-transformation Walter Mitty feels the valuable weight of each moment.

Don’t worry. It’s not a spoiler. Every character must undergo transformation. Dorothy must go over the rainbow but return to admit that “There’s no place like home.” The Grinch-heart must grow 3 sizes. The underdog must win. Even the bad guy must see his ills in a mirror and move to change and become likable. Transformation.

Life Magazine‘s humorous first motto was “While there’s Life, there’s hope.” Stiller offers another cinematic take which graffiti fonts the film and leads Mitty on his path to self-discovery. Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Patton Oswalt, and other TV funny people walk alongside Stiller holding hands with greats like Sean Penn and Shirley MacLaine. It’s a beautiful film. I went with my family after Christmas. We will most likely go again. Probably tomorrow.

SAVING MR. BANKS (2013) movie review

December 27, 2013October 25, 20158 Comments

Saving Mr. Banks is a beautiful film reawakening Mary Poppins as an eternal classic. Etched into the psyches of most adults who watched it as children, we all know, for instance, that a spoon full of sugar actually does make the medicine go down. For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. Children should play games, all sorts. Height can be measured by one’s character and be “practically perfect in every way.” Birds are meant to be sung to and fed, tuppence-a-bag. Sister suffragettes have earned a glee-filled “well done!” Neighbors have their quirks and canons. Street art is best. Carousels are magical. Uncles often get lost in their own jokes and must be brought back down to earth. Chimney sweeps were the first dirty dancers. Mothers should all be allowed to hire governesses, cooks, and cleaners. Fathers must be forgiven for working hard and then we must teach them to fly kites.

Emma Thompson plays P L Travers, British author of the Mary Poppins books. Her character appears to be the quintessential British matron with grand expectations and low tolerance for superfluous nonsense. What a pairing with the original imaginarian, Tom Hanks as Walt Disney himself. This film peaks through the office doorway into the early glory years of Disney. As an adult, I still believe that Disneyland is the best place, “happiest on earth” as it claims to be. I love it so much. It remains quaint but moves forward, new and inventive while reviving vaulted delights at will. Creativity personifies within those gates, often showing up as the Mouse.

The brilliantly cast Colin Farrell is Mr. Banks, the one who must be saved. And Paul Giamatti delights with his quiet affirmations. He won me over as well. Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak march in as the brilliant unsung jolly song writing duo who turned so many children’s books into a show giving characters musical life.

What we don’t realize while watching Mary Poppins that it battles heart wrenching issues, offering hope to children when real life gets them down. Though slower-paced than Poppins, edgier and more emotional, Banks is all heart as it endears and renders fathers forgivable at long last.

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ROMEO & JULIET (2013) movie review

October 26, 2013October 25, 20154 Comments

I teach Romeo & Juliet to freshmen. So, how thrilled am I when a film does justice to a story and offers yet another visual option to help students connect with literature, especially their first taste of Shakespeare.

This version is beautiful. Filmed in the actual city of Verona in Italy, you feel transported by the orange-hued sunrises, the castled landscape, and the constant flavors in renaissance artwork layered on each backdrop.

It’s visually perfect. Certainly Julien Fellowes, Downton Abbey writer, takes his literary liberties as screenwriter, allowing for a medieval tournament and fewer characters. He does, however, speed up the action and include scenes and characters rarely enjoyed in film versions. He is also somehow able to keep it clean (classroom appropriate) without losing the romantic heart of the play. I believe that Shakespeare himself would have approved of Fellowes’s translation.
Paul Giamatti, never before a favorite of mine, flawlessly endeared the Friar character and stole the show.
Damian Lewis (brilliant as Winters in Band of Brothers and currently starring in tv’s Homeland) played Lord Capulet perfectly. His performance was unexpected and fresh. Hailee Steinfeld, the True Grit lovely, sweetened Juliet with youth and believability. The statuesque and stunning Douglas Booth played well the lovestruck son and heir Romeo.

Any attempt at Romeo & Juliet begs a comparison.

There is no better teaching tool to offer freshmen boys than replacing swords with guns, an orchard below the balcony with a swimming pool, and awkward tights with khakis and Hawaiian shirts. Baz Luhrmann‘s 1996 version with gorgeously brooding Fortune’s fool Leo and a pre-pubescent Claire Danes helps students relate and hear actual Shakespeare with modern connections. We scaffold to what we know, and suddenly learning is not a chore.

Most stage versions cast the couple too old, so it’s a hard sell in a classroom. Zeffirelli’s classic 1968 version, though prominent in schools and sporting a boastable Zac Efron look-alike as Romeo, is now nearly unrelatable to students who mock the forced lines, abundance of cleavage, and laughable characterizations.

The flaw in Fellowe’s version is that students will forget to treat it as an adaptation and No Fear Shakespeare will reign over actual script. Well, we shall all take a tip from Juliet in this and, “Look to like, if looking liking move, but no more deep endart my eye than your content gives strength to make it fly.”

WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013) movie review

July 4, 2013October 25, 20156 Comments

It’s worth it. The lines never felt forced. Everything worked. The actors were great. There was enough felt tension to make the comic relief enjoyable. I thought Channing Tatum would overcompensate with sincerity to knotch up from eye-candy, but he didn’t. He made it feel real. I thought Jamie Foxx might overly-Obamatize his character, but he did not. And, as promised, the White House does indeed go down. The rule of thumb in Hollywood seems to be: release the same concept in the same month and see which film tanks. This is all about Antz (1998) vs. A Bug’s Life (1998). Or Mirror Mirror (2012) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), although those two are are a toss-up. They pushed a quick release this year for Olympus has Fallen with Gerard Butler. Somehow I knew to wait, and I was glad I did. White House Down is the same in name only. The story works, it’s fun, and it stars some trusted names like Maggie Gyllenhaal and Richard Jenkins.

Though director Roland Emmerich unforgivably released the torturous film 2012 (2009), he also made the film Independence Day (1996). So, it seems appropriate to write this review today, July 4th.

Independence Day. Now there’s an American classic. Nothing screams freedom better than Will Smith punching Aliens in the face, than Jeff Goldblum solving the alien math-speak while wooing women, than Randy Quaid yelling “Up yours” while flying kamikaze into an alien ship, or than Bill Pullman giving his presidential speech. Now that’s a national treasure.

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THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) movie review

May 14, 2013October 25, 20158 Comments

Baz Luhrmann revives Gatsby for a new generation of readers. The screen glosses over every few seconds with another coat of fresh paint in vibrant colors. Every perfect string of Tiffany pearls pales only in comparison to the brilliant custom cars and beaded 20’s gowns. For those of us who fell for Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (1996), this is his newest moveable feast.

I tried a new experiment. I hadn’t read the book yet, so I picked it up one morning, absorbed it, and drove straight to the theater once I’d finished it. Fitzgerald, Zelda, Gatsby, Daisy. I was a-whirl with the graspable metaphors as they came alive before my eyes. The billboard’s God-eyes, the green light of envy from across the harbor, the luminous drops of sweat, the clock that drops from the mantle. Solid adaptation. Spot on, as they say.

Leo DiCaprio is back in full Gatsby glory, and that smile once thought lost on the icy bow of the Titanic shines with fresh vigor. He feels type-cast as Gatsby, as though he is acting out his own charmed, affluent, carefree, secretive life. Gatsby’s glossy disguise masks a past of pain and the obsession of a singular dream for true love as he once knew it. All other characters dance on and off-screen in glimpses of likable Chaplin-esque chop and charm.

Fitzgerald’s tale is tragic. The sin-centric storyline allows for rare moments of reflection admitting to itself that our sins will surely find us out. The adulterous are painted no worse than the greedy or gluttonous, and only in the eyes of God are we the same and forgivable as we meet on common ground in that shadowed valley of death.

42 (2013) movie review

April 20, 2013October 25, 20151 Comment

Stop what you are doing. Don’t waste another second. See this beautiful film.

Harrison Ford has always been a favorite, but now I’m in awe. He’s got gumption – that confidence that shines on-screen. And, he keeps secrets worth decoding, joy and sorrow resident in his eyes.

Young Chadwick Boseman, Jackie Robinson‘s true doppelgänger, fulfilled his role with the honesty and swagger of the legend himself.

There is honor in this film. It speaks of doing right all alone, of standing still against oceanic pull.

Racism obviously disgusts on every level. This film chooses to go beyond the black versus white question to pierce the heart of hate being hateful and the soul of letting skill speak for skill alone. It reminds me that people are capable of great love or brutality, but that they can also change.

Who has your heart? What keeps your feet steady? Jackie Robinson was just a man playing the game that he was born to play, a game that so many love. People fight in many ways for what is right. Robinson allowed himself to become a symbol. He walked in silence allowing his skill to speak for him despite screaming threats on an angry current.

He played baseball and let God fight for him.

LINCOLN (2012) movie review

February 23, 2013October 25, 20154 Comments

Steven Spielberg usually goes for gimmick and glory over text and tone. This film, however, is a talkie. It’s not an action flick or a sci-fi. It’s not shocking. There is no product placement. It IS, however, perfect lighting in brown rooms, it is fluttering curtains and conversation. These conversations mattered. They carried historical weight.

The film centers around the passing of the 13th amendment, ending slavery in our country. President Lincoln so obviously bore the burden of that charge, pressing despite political implications, with a goal to do more than just end a war. He wanted to end it having changed the world. He wanted the war to matter.

This is not our fight today, but would it be had not this captain lived and died making this his fight?

Watching this was like piecing a puzzle together. It was methodical, thick with names and faces, strategic, messy, then somehow quite beautiful – a wonder to be cherished.

Watching Daniel Day-Lewis portray the man Lincoln was rather existential. He became Lincoln. Lee Pace jeered crowds against the amendment while Sally Field broke her husbands heart daily. Tommy Lee Jones regaled as the artful dodger and lovable curmudgeon.

When Lincoln spoke, all stilled to listen. Lincoln must have been a storyteller who wooed masses with his gentle reverberance. His words felt weighted. He was called to that great purpose.

O Captain my Captain.

SKYFALL (2012) movie review

November 20, 2012October 25, 20152 Comments

Elegance in action, the blond Bond returns with intentional swagger. He’s aging, and the underlying truism of this tale is that people age like wine, only improving upon acquaintance.

His word remains as good as his name, and “M,” as Dame Dench is called, stands poised for a bit of explosive field work of her own.

Ralph Fiennes joins up. But it is Javier Bardem who stuns, as usual. Out of his John Waynish trustworthy norm, Bardem pulls off a deeply paradoxical brash and hideous alongside the posh effeminate – a brilliant foe for our blessed patriot.

Looks may fade, but neither bullet nor brunette can take out a Bond.

Charlie Chaplin’s THE KID (1921) movie review

August 10, 2012October 25, 20151 Comment

In our era, we struggle to understand issues that people faced in bygone days. Charlie Chaplin understood and helped people emote to the harmonium’s repetitive tunes. He romanced the camera turning simplicity into hilarity and heartbreak.

2011’s best picture hit The Artist, gave modern audiences a sumptuous taste of film history. Oddly, it prepared me to watch this Chaplin film for the first time, and it was a lovely hour and a half spent.

I dare you to try it. Get to know the glorious black and white. Learn to read lips, facial expressions, and body language. Delight in young talent. Settle in for a short time at a safe distance from the chasm between poverty and prosperity that they knew too well in the 20’s. You may surprise yourself and fall for Chaplin’s flat feet, cane, and satche as I did.

DOWNTON ABBEY – – TV Series (2010-2012)

March 10, 2012October 25, 20155 Comments

Pronounced “Dow’tn,” it’s a place and a people. This castle is the Crawley family home. The proper lines are drawn between the titled and the subordinate, and rarely in film or TV do the twain meet. Here at Downton, however, the lives of the separate sets intersect in all ways proper and improper.

Just give in already. Everyone, from your sister and your co-worker Jim to your friend’s great Aunt Ruby, has been telling you to watch it. This once small show about a large English estate and the hierarchy of its inhabitants has become a delightful pastime, another family to feel for, a set of characters that you don’t have to feel guilty for judging.

Cast perfectly, they all seem normal and somehow more tangible than most period characters. They are real people from a surreal time in history. Each lasting character has proven him or herself flawed in some way or another so we become kindred, drawn in.

We relate, celebrating triumphs and weeping loss along with each one. Certainly some characters feel less so, almost cartoon, existing as entities completely evil or entirely good. And a few storylines wane exhaustive while others hold us, keep us paying for Netflix, keep us wondering if Matthew and Mary will ever figure it out.

Go ahead. Get sucked into Downton for a little while. You’ll see a different take on historical events like the sinking of the Titanic and WWI. You’ll gain perspective for a culture that we anglofiles already glean from and emulate. We know who we are. We woke up at 4am to watch the wedding. We care about the pomp and propriety. We long for a bit of that in our lives. But, when it comes down to it, we haven’t really decided which side of the estate we can see ourselves on. Would we bear the boredom, the censure, the responsibility of those who stand still to be dressed for dinner? Or, would we wear the worker greys, sweep the soot, and serve the food with snark and sass in each step up those creaky Downton steps.