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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.2

Published by marco on

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The Thin Red Line (1998) — 7/10
I was not surprised in the least to confirm that Terence Malick directed this film about the US attack on Guadalcanal in the Pacific Theater in World War II. The film starts with character portrayals of the various sailors on the vessel with a lot of the by-now classic Malick voice-overs. The cast is just loaded with acting talent (male-only), featuring Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John Travolta, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviziel, Elias Koteas, John C. reilly, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto and George Clooney. The attack goes typically poorly with a lot of attrition, some self-inflicted, all while the officers in charge (Nolte) make up a much more encouraging story in real-time. Nolte impressed me most recently in Warrior and he once again shines, even though he’s even less sympathetic in this than he was as the alcoholic, absentee father in Warrior. The aftermath is even more painful than the bloody assault, with the soldiers whiling away the time, waiting for letters that never come or reading letters they wish had never arrived (e.g. when Ben Chaplin’s wife writes to him with bad news). Caviziel as Pvt. Witt is ethereal. The film is a bit on the long side, but the cinematography is mesmerizing. It’s kind of deep and kind of preachy; Malick’s cyclical themes are in evidence and it’s quite a sad film (although the scenery is beautiful, life is pretty terrible for everyone). It’s worth watching if you’re into more introspective war movies, but it’s hard to recommend.
Inception (2010) — 9/10
I gave this film a good initial review but then pulled back a bit in my review of Shutter Island and Paprika. I watched it again, this time in German and with someone who was a bit confused their first time through. Explaining the various elements showed me that it held together remarkably well, especially for a second viewing. I even learned a few things myself that I’d missed the first time through.
To Rome with Love (2012) — 8/10
This is a Woody Allen that takes place in Rome and is largely in Italian. Unusually for his recent films, he takes a role in this one, playing a neurotic as usual. Although the conceit is that Jesse Eisenberg plays a younger version of Alec Baldwin, with Allen writing it, Eisenberg seems to be playing a the younger version of Allen instead. And Baldwin is…a ghost? Or a muse? Or something else? Greta Gerwig plays Eisenberg’s live-in girlfriend while Ellen Page plays the flighty girl with mysterious allure who captures Eisenberg’s attention. There is a sub-plot with Allen’s daughter falling love with a local Italian boy, played by Flavio Parenti, whose father sings like an operatic angel in the shower. Roberto Benigni plays well as Leopoldo, who becomes mysteriously famous for most of the film and just as quickly is no one again, just at the end. It was decent fun, with a lovely soundtrack, as usual. It was nice to see it in Italian, with quite a lot of the film subtitled. Recommended.
Ravenous (1999) — 6/10
Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle star in this movie about a fort in the American West during the Mexican-American war. The tale is one of hunger and cannibalism and wendigos. More and more people succumb to the hunger, eating humans to gain power and to survive. It’s a ghastly, bloody movie that does a decent job of depicting the misery of the frontier. The story is a good one, even if the movie is a bit heavy on fight scenes, spreading the material over 101 minutes when 80 or 90 would have done just fine. The two primary actors are good and veteran character actor Jeffrey Jones is good as well. The first half with the eerie/creepy visit to the cave—which gets a lot of mileage out of the background music—is quite good. Recommended for fans of the genre, but it won’t win any new fans.
Repo Men (2009) — 8/10
I’d recently seen this film and reviewed it in Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.6 but I didn’t have much to say at the time. Upon second viewing, it held up relatively well and I can continue to recommend it. A “bit gory” doesn’t really begin to cover it, though. It’s quite gory and not for the squeamish, although it’s not as off-putting as Ravenous (reviewed above).
Dead Ringers (1988) — 8/10

Jeremy Irons plays brilliant and nigh-sociopathic twin gynecologists whose extremely close—some would say interchangeable—relationship is endangered by their relationship with Claire, played by Geneviève Bujold. The movie was written and directed by David Cronenberg, which is obvious almost from the get-go, if you’re at all familiar with his work. One of the brothers becomes addicted to drugs, and then so does the other?

Or which one is which, really?

Irons plays both and their relationship is so symbiotic that they try to get “synchronized” again by having Eli fall as far as Bev, who’s mad with drugs…and visions, of some kind. Bev has some very Cronenbergian surgical tools built that shock and horrify his colleagues (“gynecological instruments for operating on mutant women”). It’s quite a psychological thriller with the dash of true surreal madness we’ve come to expect from Cronenberg.

Jeremy Irons carries the movie with aplomb and his typical diction and style. In response to Claire’s statement that “you resent me tremendously, don’t you?” , Elliot replies that “[y]ou contribute…a confusing element to the Mantle brothers’ saga. Possibly a destructive one.” By the end, the practice is nearly ruined, the apartment is a shambles and I still can’t tell them apart, really. The finale is grim and echoes that of the original Siamese twins. Apparently based at least in part on a true story. Recommended.

Margin Call (2011) — 7/10
An all-star cast gives us a look at what it might have looked like inside Lehman Brothers sometime in October of 2008. Stars Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and Simon Baker (the Mentalist) and builds suspense pretty well. That is, for a movie this is very heavily dialogue- and story-driven with little exposition and steeped in the minutiae of the financial world. I can attest that the trading and risk-analysis desks and software was nailed pretty well (having written some myself in the past), but the freshness of appearance of all of these people at 03:00 in the morning beggared belief. It’s well-done, but I can’t imagine how this film had so much success considering the level of technical jargon they were throwing around. Some of the shot choices in the offices were nice. Recommended.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012) — 6/10
A Wes Anderson film if there ever was one. Ed Norton is a scout master on a tiny island shared by husband and wife Bill Murray and Frances McDormand and their family of triplet boys and teenaged daughter. Jason Schwartzman is, to one’s surprise, also in the movie, though in a bit part and Bruce Willis plays the police with a complicated relationship with Frances. It’s a coming-of-age story for a lonely, young, orphan, oddball scout and the aforementioned, also oddball, teenaged daughter. All this with the backdrop of a truly legendary Nor’easter coming in over the island. Wes Anderson has a very unique style, which I kind of like, although I’m no so over the moon about it (pardon) that I’ll excuse anything, as some of his fans will. The movie was fine but nothing to write home about and it seemed to be trying much too hard to be weird.
The Ghost (aka The Ghost Writer) (2010) — 7/10
Pierce Brosnan is a former prime minister of Great Britain whose career has clearly been modeled on that of Tony Blair. Ewan McGregor is an author hired to ghost-write Brosnan’s memoirs. There is intrigue and twists and turns as we try to find out what happened during Brosnan’s career and why his ghostwriters keep disappearing. It was quite an interesting thriller, all in all.
2 Fast 2 Furious (2006) — 6/10
It has its moments and it is way better than Tokyo Drift. I honestly don’t know whether GTA is based on these movies or these movies are based on GTA. Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes star. Gibson is over the top and has the best lines of the film. The driving sequences don’t always hold up so well, but it’s fun to watch 80s-style action movies made in the noughts.
The Brood (1979) — 5/10
More disturbing weirdness from David Cronenberg, this time about a woman in a special psychological program for her anger issues. Spoiler alert: her anger evinces itself in the form of little, deformed, violent munchkins, who range about through the local town, exacting revenge on all who they perceive to have wronged their mother. Cronenberg continues his fascination with squishy, bloody and highly organic props. It was well-made and definitely unique but I’m not in a hurry to watch it again. Not really recommended.
Bedazzled (2000) — 5/10
A reasonably entertaining about an awkward young man (Brendan Frasier) who makes a deal with the devil (Elizabeth Hurley): seven wishes in exchange for his soul. With each wish, Frasier plays a different character. Some of the situations are quite funny and it must literally be the best thing that Hurley made in her entire career. Decent enough fun, but hard to recommend. It was better than anything else on TV at that point, but that’s not really saying very much.
Adaptation (2002) — 9/10

A recursive movie about a screenwriter who adapts a book about orchids for a major motion picture. It’s a movie about writing movies that ends up being about the screenwriter and his brother…who may not even exist. The movie is ostensibly about the plot of the book but also about the author and a lot of writer-angst mixed up in it. It’s quite well-written and well-acted, starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhall and the always excellent Chris Cooper in probably his most endearing role (and it’s not particularly endearing, but at least he’s not playing a CIA jerk for once).

Cage is good as twin brothers Donald and Charlie (does Donald even exist?). Charlie hates his fat, balding self and is trying to claw his miserable way through a screenplay. Donald is more upbeat and, while Charlie is in the throes of writing, manages to create a spectacular screenplay that wows Donald’s agent (or is Charlie who wrote it?), all under the tutelage of Robert McKee, screenwriter extraordinaire, played by Brian Cox. Charlie gives in and attends a seminar and starts second-guessing what meager amount of screenplay he’s managed to write so far. He’s told to find an ending for it, within himself, if there is none in the book. The film ends on a rollicking end with drugs, shooting and alligators in the swamp—but no deus ex machina. Recommended.

Thor: the Dark World (2013) — 7/10
The second in the series features kind of a similar plot to the first one, with a bunch of stuff from other genres mixed in. The cast, the effects and sets were all top-notch and the plot was interesting enough, with quite a bit of foreshadowing crammed in at the end. There are a lot of pretty high-quality players, including Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Rene Russo, Kat Dennings, Anthony Hopkins and Ray Stevenson (from Kill the Irishman). Tom Hiddleston, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth return as Loki, Jane and Thor, respectively. An ancient evil in the form of dark elves and something called aether are brought back to life just in time for something called the convergence. Long story short, Jane gets all caught up in things again, Loki gets out of jail and gets all tricky and Thor solves everything with his hammer and lightning. Pretty satisfying as super-hero movies go.
Riddick (2013) — 7/10

Vin Diesel reprises his role as Riddick, space criminal and warrior extraordinaire. This sequel to a sequel picks up with Riddick as king of the Necromancers, an incredibly destructive and warlike collection of beings. He still seeks his home planet, Furia, legendary home of the legendary warrior race of which he is the last living exemplar. He ends up on a planet, but it’s probably not Furia. It’s quite dangerous, though and we spend a good deal of time watching Vin Diesel deal with the local fauna.

Act II involves a lot of Vin Diesel time again, this time with a dog/giant jackal that he’s adopted. This part of the movie is pretty low-budget but tries to convince you otherwise. You only have to pay one guy, right?

Act III centers on a bounty-hunter’s shack that is soon occupied by two sets of bounty hunters, none of whom are there to dispel any stereotypes. Nothing much has changed since the original space-marine squad established the ground rules in Alien. Riddick is awesomely amazing, so he naturally starts whittling them down. They, of course, show no fear and bluster that they will kill Riddick any second. This, even after he clearly demonstrates that he could kill any of them at any time, but chooses not to. Pretty standard fare, though made entertaining by Mr. Diesel (if you’re a fan, which I kind of am).

Just because that would be boring and because you need to fill an over two-hour–long action film somehow, Riddick gets caught (just like in the last two movies). The post-capture scene is actually pretty good because we see Riddick control the situation, driving the conversation and forcing errors, despite being in chains. When Johns yells at him that “maybe he wants to be something other than a savage”, we know that Riddick already stated near the beginning that he feels he went soft when he got too civilized and also that of all of the people there, Riddick is the fairest and least back-stabbing of any of them. He continues his generosity by not saying “I told you so” or reminding any of them that they could all have been off-planet before the rains came if they’d just cooperated.

This movie reminded me much more of the original Riddick and dammit if Vin Diesel doesn’t just win you over. Riddick’s survival instinct is awe-inspiring. You probably don’t need to watch the extended version, though; watch an edited version instead.

Ender’s Game (2013) — 7/10

I can’t remember having read the book and I honestly didn’t know what to expect, but I thought it was entertaining enough. The back-story was a bit…dated, but it set the stage for a Lord of the Flies in space well enough. Aliens attack; humanity is terrified; military solution the only way; find someone who can do exactly what humans did the last time to repel the next invasion. The adult roles are adequate, but also kind of ridiculous. The young lead role is well-written and well-acted, with the super-genius kid actually acting quite clever and tactically most of the time.

The user interfaces aren’t half-bad although I’d go ape-shit if the 28-day countdown to alien attack bleeped and blinked like that for every second. Harrison Ford is decent, at his best delivering lines like “because we already have the uniforms” with a smirk that belies what might be a human side. It’s interesting, the movie has an alien attack and promises big effects in its premise, but it ends up being about a bunch of kids playing laser tag and playing at tactics and strategy. I’m not knocking it, but it’s similar to the way the most recent Riddick was more of a Mad Max-like movie with a half-hour of survivalist melodrama than a galaxy-spanning space opera, as expected.

One question: if you have a $70 billion molecular-displacement cannon (did the dollar skyrocket in value 500 years in the future?), why can’t you just make the water that the aliens seem to want? Wouldn’t that be a neat way to end the war? Or is that appeasement? Never mind. The end was cool—a typical sci-fi short-story kind of ending.

Escape Plan (2013) — 6/10
Sylvester Stallone stars as a prison-break specialist sent to a super-secret, off-the-grid, maximum security facility. There he meets Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s an OK setup and the breakout parts are kind of clever—especially the initial one—but it gets kind of action-heavy at the end (surprise, surprise). It’s entertaining enough for an action film—and the old dogs are decent enough—but the script is pretty uneven. Hard to recommend, but also not necessarily panning it. I’ve seen worse.
My Dinner with André (1981) — 7/10
A movie about a struggling playwright, Wallace Shawn, who meets his friend André for dinner at a fancy restaurant. André quickly dominates the conversation by telling Wallace of an acting experience he had with his acting group in Poland. Shawn is an unbelievable masochist. When André finally shuts up (and it takes forever for him to do so), Shawn prods him with a “wow…and what happened next?” You cringe inwardly as the next mindbogglingly boring story starts. The stories are so detailed and self-referential and real that they come full circle and end up being captivating. Midway through the film, Shawn joins in and the conversation turns quite philosophical, discussing reality vs. happiness vs. career.
“OK. Yes, we are bored. We’re all bored now. But has it ever occurred to you Wally that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world now may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing, created by a world totalitarian government based on money, and that all of this is much more dangerous than one thinks? and it’s not just a question of individual survival Wally, but that somebody who’s bored is asleep, and somebody who’s asleep will not say no?”
The sheer amount of dialogue in this 2-hour movie is staggering. If you like the philosophy of the everyday and haven’t been exposed to a lot of it, this movie will seem insightful. There are far worse conversations with which to waste an evening. A pleasant ending. Recommended?
The Lone Ranger (2013) — 8/10

Gore Verbinski directs this re-imagining of the famous lawman and his sidekick, Tonto. Tonto kind of stars in this one and is played by Verbinski’s favorite actor, Johnny Depp. The story is a little
…off. The world is askew, thrown out of balance by the sheer evil of an outlaw—Tonto calls him “wendigo”. I suppose the cannibal rabbits are the first sign that something is amiss. It’s hard to tell what’s real around Tonto—is what we see actually happening or focused through a lens of warped perception and mescaline/peyote?

Depp manages to bring a sort of dignity to his role, subtly and sometimes overtly condemning the “white man”. He understands what is going on, he understands that enough concentrated evil can break things on a lower level. There are shades of the pirates from Verbinski’s more recent films in some of the other characters (in the gang). Helena Bonham Carter makes an appearance as the madam of a very bawdy bordello, also typically loony with a wooden leg that houses a rifle. William Fichtner is excellent and nearly unrecognizable as the abominable Butch Cavendish. And I just noticed a heavily bearded Tom Wilkinson playing Mr. Cole. And character actor Barry Pepper as the Captain of the U.S. Army. And there’s Stephen Root! It seems everyone wanted at least a bit part in this one.

There is a very prosaic underlying plot that involves a crooked railroad owner who uses a band of horrible people to pretend to be Indians so that he can encroach on Comanche lands, blaming the Comanche for breaking the treaty. Viewed through Tonto’s twisted lens, though, it all becomes more bizarre and not necessarily untrue. This movie is a good deal darker and more interesting than I expected it to be. And Tonto manages to impose his view of the world on the world with pure willpower. Silver (the horse) is a good example. He’s positively Daliesque. That horse can get anywhere. And the ending is madcap lunacy without being camp. You can guess the soundtrack for the final, manic act, can’t you? The film is ridiculous and walks a very fine line, but I think it works. Johnny Depp thinks he’s the next Buster Keaton. I was laughing out loud. And then he intones with a straight face,

“All these years, I thought you were Wendigo, but you’re just another white man…bad trade.”

After 2 hours, Tonto manages to convince the Lone Ranger that the world does not support the kind of justice he seeks—he must make that justice for himself. Themes of American avarice, capitalism, military and cruelty that have dogged the country from the get-go are well-addressed. So. Many. Western. Movie. References. The review I read last year by Matt Zoller Seitz (RogerEbert.com) has held up. Recommended.

Escape from Alcatraz (1979) — 9/10

This classic prison film based on a true story stars Clint Eastwood and a bunch of other recognizable character actors (Fred Ward and Larry Hankin are in their youth and prime in this film). The story is slow and nicely paced, showing a time in America where it was possible to make a movie about convicts where it was just assumed that most of the people in prison weren’t insanely violent. Instead, the prisoners are represented as misunderstood and unlucky and horribly put-upon in a prison like Alcatraz. It must be noted, though, that the prison life as depicted in this film isn’t the reality for many prisoners in America anymore.

The story is engaging, the pacing is great and the cinematography is really nice. Tied with The Shawshank Redemption for my favorite prison movie. It’s very deliberate and quite slow at times, but through this conveys a realism. The warden is the only one who’s almost over-the-top inhumanly mean. And good old Litmus with his little mouse was possibly the inspiration for Stephen King’s Delacroix character in The Green Mile. Highly recommended.

The Italian Job (1969) — 6/10

Michael Caine stars in the original caper film. Charlie Croker is the same guy, just out of prison, there’s a much larger crew of helpers but otherwise and the plot and pacing is totally recognizable from the remake. It even has Benny Hill as the Professor. Hill plays a straight role in a movie with more than a few madcap, comical scenes. There’s a lot of the violence in the first part of the movie and it’s strangely aimed at really lovely vehicles, which must be a sign of the times, I guess (The French Connection hails from this era as well). They really like to destroy cars—a lot of true beauties bite the dust in this film.

There are some famous lines in this film, “[y]ou’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” sticking in my mind as one cited by Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan in The Trip as being quintessentially Michael Caine. Quote-wise, it was also interesting that Croker threatened the Capo of the Mafia with “driving all the Italians in England into the sea”. That is almost word-for-word what Ahmedinejad is accused of having said about Israel. But I digress.

The heist is a lovely plan that should be familiar to those who’ve seen the remake and there are a lot of nice shots of roads in the timeless Italian Alps and their hairpin roads. And it’s especially lovely to see them with no one driving on them. Oh, to time-travel with my modern cycle back to those empty, pristine roads (in fairness, some of the surfaces did look a bit sketchy). The final scene is ludicrous but nerve-wracking nonetheless and it ends quite well. Overall, Caine is good but the film as a whole is kind of uneven, so it’s hard to recommend. I’d watch the remake instead.

Daredevil (2003) — 6/10
Ben Affleck stars as Daredevil opposite Jennifer Garner as Elektra. This movie has a horrible reputation but it’s not as bad as all that. Some scenes are kind of painful—the initial meeting between Matt Murdock and Elektra—but there are others that are relatively well-done. Colin Farrell as a somewhat cross-eyed Bullseye is over the top and felt cheesy in a Batman & Robin kind of way. Ving Rhames as the Kingpin was a good choice. Daredevil’s only superpower is that he can do martial arts really well for a blind guy. His heightened other senses grant him superhuman-seeming reflexes, but there’s not going to be city-smashing fun as the Hulk or Thor or Iron Man delivers. I liked it as a more down-to-Earth, crime-busting, redemption and origin story for Daredevil. Not really recommended but you could do worse zapping around the channels.