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JUPITER ASCENDING (2015) movie review

February 16, 2015October 25, 20153 Comments

What’s in a name?
Everything, apparently.
Channing Tatum lures an audience of lonely women, Step Up dance fans, and heart throb honeys looking to him to fill their Saturdays with shirts-off eye candy. In that case, Jupiter excels.
Mila Kunis‘s name promises dark eyeshadow dreams and daylight sighs. Her teen impressions are spot-on every time.
Sean Bean, ever Boromir, brings the sci-fi fans a quick thrill with his original accent and scenes of hard punching. Though he tries for the likable space-rogue status, he can never quite reach his inner Han Solo. Not enough comedy…even his smiles look angry.

And sweet Eddie Redmayne‘s big bang into stardom began with his role in Les Miserables and evolved into larger roles. He is currently up for an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. In Jupiter, however, he whispers his way to the purest dark side as this film’s Hitler, trading bones for soap stones in effect by managing the factory that turns humans into liquid life. A sort of advanced anti-age serum.

And finally the big names: The Wachowski‘s, of the Matrix fame. Ironically, they wrote and directed this film in which yet another advanced life-form chooses to liquefy people into a product worth killing for. Decent plot repeat on the sci-fi syndicate.
I left feeling adequately sci-fi satisfied with endless kicking and sky-skating. My dad loved it. Aliens. Kicking. Explosions. Yes. Yes. Yes. He had to agree, however, that the dialogue was junior high driven, if not written, and when the plot lacked, shooting commenced.
You obviously won’t go for an intellectual boost. You won’t have to think at all, in fact. It feels very Men in Black minus the quirky duo and catch phrases.
“Say it again.”
“Your highness.”
“Yeah. I like that.”

Wow.

Oddly, the costumes and creature creations were almost worth the ticket. I enjoyed the sequence of alien waiting lines and red-tape best, even though it led to another poorly executed scene in which lycan bodyguards wrestled dragon dino slaves to free the helpless virginal beekeeping princess from a fate worse than death. Good thing they brought their flying boots along.

BOYHOOD (2014) movie review

January 27, 2015October 25, 20154 Comments

One CBC columnist aptly titled his review “12 years a Boy.” 12 years. 12 times an annual reunion with the same cast to produce this one film. THIS one…incredibly dull, purposeless film. Here are 12 reasons to avoid the hullabaloo and redeem the time you would waste by watching this year’s Oscar nom:

Reason 1. MUSIC & TECH. Most reviews have been ooohhh’ing and aahh’ing over Linklater’s use of music which sets the veritable stage as time beats on. This trick is not revolutionary or foreign to film. Being a period film, the occasional Britney Spears hit and a glimpse at the original Oregon Trail game is to be expected.
2. CAMERA ANGLES. The first scene opens on a young boy watching the sky. Most reviews have waxed poetic over reasons why he is watching the sky. So many metaphors could be made, reasons presumed. The reason is unclear, and unnecessary to unfold. The passing of time allows it to matter even less.CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
3. Ethan Hawke’s character, “Dad,” offers constant, ridiculous advice. He proves untrustworthy from the start but becomes a bit less so as time passes.
4. The character known simply as “Mom,” played by Patricia Arquette, obviously wants to do right by her children, but her choices prove selfish and continually deepen her sorrow and confusion.
5. All adult / potential mentors like teachers and employers become more childlike and less trustworthy as the two children age.
6. You get to know a few secondary characters who just disappear in the film. No, you never see them again. But you don’t seem to mind.

7. TITLE & MEANING. The film is called “Boyhood,” which is misleading since the coming-of-age views expressed in this film come equally from the sister and the parents.

8. STRING THEORY. For the same reason as #6, you won’t be bothered by the fact that I am skipping reason #9. Time will skip forward and you’ll just have to move along with it. Don’t worry. You haven’t missed anything.
10. HYGIENE. One fascinating observation that you will allow your mind time to ponder while watching this film, however, is the fact that the characters obviously shower less frequently as they get older. To the degree which your concern for their personal hygiene increases, your interest in the film decreases sevenfold.

11. BOWLING. Bowling is a repeated motif. I wonder if the idea of trying your best and being repeatedly mowed down is symbolic in any way. Nah. Too bad the bowling scenes are the more interesting offerings.

12. CONCLUSION. The pertinent moments of a boy’s life shown over those 12 years are in retrospect…pointless? Is that the point. If so, what a Nihilistic, God-forsaken, frustrating conclusion. Why was any of this nominated for awards?

CHEF (2014) movie review

November 3, 2014October 25, 20155 Comments

Jon Favreau has his moments. Sure. He’s won over Hollywood and Marvel, and made a lot of amazing friends along the way. He seems the quintessential action movie maker now.In my film class, I teach that he loves primary colors and that he sold an entire movie on a title alone. Guess which one…*cough *Cowboys & Aliens *cough. He’s an idea man, a dreamer, a big thinker. I respect that.Notches in his directing belt include Iron Man 1 & 2 and the Christmas Classic for this generation: Elf. He has also directed single episodes of favorite tv shows like The Office. He was an actor first. His presence on screen as an actor is sweet. He is likable. And though likable big thinking dreamers are not exactly rare, they are Willy Wonkas, a little mysterious, and potentially explosive. (Check out his impressive imbd credits). In the movie Chef, he decided to become triple threat, so he wrote, directed, and acted. He said he did this because this way he wouldn’t have to explain everything to everyone. This “little” film, compared to his big budget busters, stretches the big screen limits. To be honest, I didn’t really like the movie, but I loved all of the characters. Ironic. Food movies are fun, and this belongs on the thematic food movie shelf for its glorious twirling of noodles, cutting of cucumbers, taste-testing-slicing and event-making of food. My expectations low, a few friends called and told me to rent it. I knew the rating was for language and should have expected the frivolous freedom used, but this was real backstage, in kitchen, outtakes of Chopped kind of language. It totally removed from the story. Moments that were, I suppose, indie-funny, were unnecessary and distracting. Some scenes lingered and lacked story to hold audience attentions. Don’t see it for RDJ’s five minutes of unscripted screen time or Dustin Hoffman’s 10 minute window. Favreau has made great friends who were willing to film fast scenes and help him boost his indie. Lastly, I know I should not be bothered by the use of technology in films, but I am usually bothered three years later when everything is out of date. Perhaps this will gain an 80s timeless element, like a mix tape. Sadly, for me, the story didn’t carry the sweet characters very far. All were likable: all flawed, all gifted, and all rewarded when they decided to use their potentials selflessly for the good of others. I love the happy ending, and if anything, this film does have that payoff.So I suppose my critical review is that I liked the lava cake and the scallops because I don’t mind the classics, but the garnishing left much to be desired. The story was simple and the language was…expectedly indie. That, and you’ll crave a cuban sandwich for a week.

POMPEII (2014) movie review

November 3, 2014October 25, 20151 Comment

My ritual theater attendance has been hindered by life events and lack of interesting plots of late, so I offer a shredding of a recent rental: Pompeii.

If the sci-fi network and the movie Gladiator had a love child it would be Pompeii 2014. It is the exact story set in a new location. Perhaps plagiarism is excused when hot people reenact epic film moments. Not really.

This film stars many models who try to act and Kiefer Sutherland as …well Jack Bauer dressed like Julius Caesar. You’ll also recognize Moriarty from the RDJ Sherlock 2 & Mr. Eko from the show Lost. Some have British accents, and many have 8-pack ab muscles...if these abs could speak.

Tons of killing…but no blood. Well, okay a little blood. The city of Pompeii burns at the height of its power and glory. And they never saw it coming…despite the ash falling from the sky and constant earthquakes throughout. Also, despite the lava flow. The giant volcano erupted …out of nowhere, destroyed everything …literally everything.

If there is nothing left to watch. If it’s this or Sharknado 3. It’s still a tough call.

TRANSFORMERS 4 Age of Extinction (2014) movie review

July 10, 2014October 25, 20153 Comments

a sonnet in 14 lines

The world may cry for Michael Bay to pay
For this atrocity Transformers 4
Explosive robot action sets the stage
For Autobots, Decepticons at war.

Mark Wahlberg plays the poor inventor dad
Who fights to rescue Optimus, the Prime.
Resenting daughter’s favorite Irish lad,
She cries, explaining all with “Dad, he drives.”

Your expectations low, you may survive.
No story. Endless end-of-world type threats.
The power swords bring dinobots to life
And oddly that’s when Stanley Tucci sweats.

Three hours of my life I can’t get back,
The age of MY extinction come to pass.

THE BOOK THIEF (2014) movie review

February 12, 2014October 25, 20157 Comments

At least with Titanic, you knew the boat would sink.

This film showed such perseverance of the soul, such hope in desperation, such light in darkness, such freedom breaking out with boldness, bursting through despite fear. It was gorgeous until…

…until the end.
The end, if you can call it an ending, attempted to jump 80 years or so into the future and relay the deaths of ALL OF THE CHARACTERS!
Never before have I seen a script invest in and develop characters and relationships so delicately, so painstakingly right up until the instant death of almost all.
Sure, there are gruesome war films. But this? Everyone dies horribly, too soon, only to be found by the one girl who loves them all. We have to watch the main character grieve again and again over each one. It was too much.

They all live through wars, but die in a moment? They fight to love then lose their lives? What is this, Downton? My apologies. I give Fellowes far too much credit for killing his characters when their lives are sweetest to them. War is never sweet. But life can be. I confess I’m on the constant watch for the sweetness of life. I hunt for beauty like treasure. I value words as the character Max did.

This film is not what I imagined it would be at all.
Skip the narration, choose the alternate ending and turn it off before the end of the war.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (2013) movie review

January 11, 2014October 25, 20154 Comments

Please run from not to this film.

It’s a modern mid-western Alice in Wonderland tale without the dreamy Disney flair. The foul unfiltered Alice character, Julia Roberts, ventures into her prairie Wonderland: Osage County, Oklahoma. Following her white rabbit father, Sam Shepard, down the rabbit hole of dysfunction, addiction, and death, where she meets the Queen of Hearts herself, the former Devil in Prada with undeniable talent and swagger, Meryl Streep. Threatening to bite her daughter’s head off, she verbally rips at the entire cast reducing each one to a flimsy fellow card in her wild deck. Off with their heads.

It’s heartbreaking and that is all. Real? I suppose. While most people crave resolve of some kind, this offers none. Conflict and tension aplenty, but an absence of resolve.

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?” queries the author Lewis Carroll through the mouth of his Mad Hatter. The riddle has no answer, and neither does the question of why this perfect cast, (including Benedict Cumberbatch who attempted an Oklahoma accent while most native to the US didn’t bother), came together to perform this…everyone’s worst Thanksgiving. Family holidays are the worst, second only to family funerals. August offers both wrapped in tragedy, tied with the bow of summer heat and midwest prairie dust. The sister Tweedles, Dee and Dum, cannot refute incest and prostitution. Nor can the caterpillar stop offering his drug of choice to the littlest and future Alice, played by Indie cutie, little miss Abigail Breslin.

Roberts central, losing her marriage to the smiling Cheshire Cat, Ewan Mcgregor, takes a final step through the looking glass and sees… herself, that she has become her greatest enemy: her own mother, the queen of Osage County.

PRISONERS (2013) movie review

October 26, 2013October 25, 20153 Comments

…or rather 1/2 of Prisoners.

A cold, dank landscape mirrors an even colder script as hopelessness banks the curbs of this one-way highway of a film. I had to pull over and get off.

If my metaphor is lost on you, then you feel a bit like I did 20 min. into this film when long pan shots lingered over sticks from the woods and panels on an old RV. These are not clues. They are B-role.

The film opens to the Lord’s prayer as Hugh Jackman teaches his son how to hunt for an odd venison Thanksgiving dinner. Jake Gyllenhaal eats his holiday meal alone avoiding the flirty waitress who must have been drawn to the cross tattoo on his hand. The priest is classically portrayed as the drunkard. Purposeful signs of a director’s devotion to faith perhaps, but more likely part of the frigid bitterness plaguing each scene.

Lost in details but not plot points, the cast of A-listers never actually gets to develop these absent-seeming characters. They say everything, pepper it all with profanities, and care little for the emotion of the audience. It goes 0-60 in intensity without allowing us a buy in. Hugh Jackman barely has time to pet a dog before the girls are missing and he is torturing the only witness, bringing Terrance Howard and Viola Davis along to…watch?

Even television shows like Law and Order SVU and Criminal Minds that deal with this subject matter in re-run ad nauseam, allow for comic relief or the odd splash of color between commercials knowing that viewers need it.

Titles often have meaning. Perhaps each character is prisoner in some way to his own stubbornness or addiction or fear or need for control. Jackman’s character claims that he prides himself on being able to handle any situation. His own wife accuses him of failure since he had claimed he could protect them from anything. The confines of grey hues in this film look very much like a prison. Suddenly the theater felt enclosed, cold, four-walled, and I felt the need for escape.

Hugh Jackman was about to pummel a mentally challenged boy for information. Torture him. Wow. One child ruined to save another. I liked this cast too much to want to remember them like this. I quickly clutch and brake, turn, and head for higher ground.

ABOUT TIME (2013) movie review

October 26, 2013October 25, 2015Leave a comment

A conceptual Time Traveler’s Wife, more Groundhog Day in its repetition, About Time is not the next Notting Hill.

It is a lightweight film about living without regrets. It has perhaps the sweetest voice-over opener I’ve seen with true moments of originality and grace, but the script and story, though not complete “rubbish,” was perhaps a bit “dodgy.” Like a run-on sentence without commas, too many scenes felt too drawn out and annoyingly slow, like a director’s cut.

Sex and the occasionally purposed “F-word” earned it the “R” rating. Both unnecessary and both stealing from what could have made this a keeper of a chick-flick.

Rachel McAdams herein only ever plays the sweet dimensionless rather every-woman role with very little personality. Passenger seated in this and many a film, she does allow her leading men to shine in the spotlight. She and Domhnall Gleeson have tangible chemistry.

Fans of Gleeson will no doubt flock. He is known best for his role in the Harry Potter series, but I loved him best for his sweet insecurity in Anna Karenina (2013), his sass in Never Let Me Go (2010), and his quirk in True Grit (2010). In About Time, he is, as my British friends would say, “so lovely.” Truly, his face alone tells his story.

This film preaches carpe diem, seizing moments of life in the face of grief and powerlessness. We all rush about our days, forgetting to stop and take tea by the seaside, as his family does. Some sprites have the gift of making the mundane special. Even those who could go back and have “do-overs” find that it’s not about fixing the details, but in savoring them.

BLUE LIKE JAZZ (2012) movie review

October 6, 2013October 25, 20151 Comment

It’s a dry season in theaters, friends.

Netflix the oasis, I suppose, I found a title that jumped from the screen and I turned it on: Blue Like Jazz.

Preface:
This book is close to my heart. Where some friends used Donald Miller‘s words, one man’s story, to justify smoking pot for Christ, for me it was at the time a breath of fresh air that threw open the closed doors of the church.

I wrote my first screenplay based on stories from that book. It was a tribute, a reckoning, an outlining, a recognition of story. His story. My story. They intermingled and I wrote it all down for the first time.

I found a piece of myself, not in his life but in writing.

I admit I turned this film on with some trepidation. My fear, I suppose, was that despite Miller’s own work on the screenplay, the beauty and art of his first work would be bullied into Hollywood submission.

It was worse than I suspected. Budget perhaps forced the indie feel, but the film collapsed in execution. Characters, though well acted for the most part, became caricatures. The film should not have used the same title as the book as it was not an adaptation, but a tight angle focus on a piece of Miller’s Reed College experience. So much of it felt exaggerated, almost cartoon, especially in its representation of Christianity, more like an office episode than a purposeful glimpse into one man’s conversion story.

Life is messy. Christians are expected to look perfect or the world must face the truth that no one is. If Christians need a Savior, all must.

Christian filmmaking, unfortunately a genre, has given itself a bad name for many years by promoting poor art.
I personally believe that Jesus performed miracles. And if He turned water into the best wine, his films would be phenomenal. Beauty, professionalism, story, art.

Miller is not oblivious to any of his film’s failings, I am sure. His recent book is an honest journey through the making of this film titled: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life. In the book he says, “When something happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or get better.”
So despite my own despair after seeing this film, I had to take Miller’s advice and start writing again, more and better stories. And so did he. It seems our journey continues, together and separate, learning from our mistakes as all of humanity must.

“We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn’t mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It’s a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”
– D. Miller

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