<dl dt_class="field"> Argo (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1024648/">6/10</a> Ben Affleck directs and stars alongside John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and Zeljko Ivanek in this movie about the CIA pretending to make a movie in order to smuggle US-embassy employees out of Iran during the hostage crisis. The cast is good and the idea isn't bad but the execution is a bit slow, especially in the second act, where I felt that they didn't sustain the suspense well at all. The direction and cinematography were quite good, but not exceptional for the genre (like <i>Skyfall</i>, for example). Perhaps I was just burdened by knowing that the actual story---which was more than exciting enough---had been adjusted to emphasize the CIA role and deëmphasize the Canadian one. It's not a bad movie, but it's also not a great movie. The Oscar nod it got as best motion picture of the year was likely just a way of sticking it to Iran. It's good for fans of Arkin, Goodman, etc. but otherwise not recommended. This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013) <div>For a sobering and honest look at the situation in Afghanistan and the repercussions of the dozen years of war there, you could do far worse than investing 90 minutes to watch <a href="http://www.vice.com/vice-news/this-is-what-winning-looks-like-full-length" source="Vice.com" author="Ben Anderson">This Is What Winning Looks Like: My Afghanistan War Diary</a>. The lead paragraph of the accompanying article summarizes the film, <bq>I didn’t plan on spending six years covering the war in Afghanistan. I went there in 2007 to make a film about the vicious fighting between undermanned, under-equipped British forces and the Taliban in Helmand, Afghanistan’s most violent province. But I became obsessed with what I witnessed there—how different it was from the conflict’s portrayal in the media and in official government statements. </bq> The footage is crisp and high-quality and almost entirely of the Afghan citizens, their police force and their army. 3/4 of the film is in Pashto and Dari with English subtitles and American/western soldiers are not featured prominently at all, unlike in other documentaries.<fn> The shining exception is Major Bill Steuber, who is interviewed extensively, perhaps because of his honesty and forthrightness. He talks corruption among the police officials, struggling against his Sisyphean tasks (<iq>Have you ever seen The Sopranos? [The corruption]’s vast.</iq>). And how can anyone build up trust in this region, with the leaders of the war working against the boots on the ground with drone and hellfire-missile attacks? One villager said, <iq>They have hit me so hard that I am stunned. What can I do? I have lost four of my brothers. How can I look after their families now?</iq> whereas another said <iq>Life has no meaning for me anymore [...] I have lost 27 members of my family. My house has been destroyed. Everything I’ve built for 70 years is gone.</iq> The conclusion is sobering and overall dismal, as expected of any war. The reality for those on the ground is quite different than that sold to Americans at home. Even the commanding officers are happy to hear only bullshit and tick a box on their checklists. They don't want to hear how it's really going; they want laurels for themselves. So has it ever been in war.</div> Koch Brothers Exposed (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2347411/">6/10</a> A Robert Greenwald documentary that digs into the various nefarious means by which the Koch Brothers exert undue influence on our society. Decent enough for background material, but not much new here. Slap Shot (1977) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076723/">8/10</a> The quintessential hockey movie, starting Paul Newman, who claimed later in his career that making this movie was the best time he had in the movies. That's a career that included <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</i>, <i>The Hustler</i> and <i>Cool Hand Luke</i>. The film takes place in northern New England in the mid to late 70s. It's a motley crew, who are joined by the ... drum roll ... Hansen brothers, 18, 19 and 20 years old, respectively and goons like the game has never seen. The attitude toward penalties is extraordinarily lax, but you'll hardly care because this movie is such a good time. I'm biased because the time and place both speak to me, as I grew up near where they filmed most of the games (Syracuse and Utica). Hell, growing up, I even saw games in Utica featuring the Utica Devils, the farm team for the New Jersey Devils. Again, it's a treat to watch an R-rated comedy back when they weren't so formulaic and when they were still being made and when they weren't over-the-top disgusting to earn their rating. It likely earned the rating just for swearing, but when you're making a movie about a down-and-dirty f'in hockey team, what kind of language is the most honest? It even addressed themes that America has seemingly been saddled with forever: its class divide and its obsession with violence. When Newman visits the team's owner, he learns that, while she's happy that the team has turned a profit, she'd still rather take the capital loss for tax reasons than sell the team and let the players keep their jobs. He shouts at her, <iq>You are totally fucked! You're garbage for letting us all go down the drain,</iq> a sentiment that resonates no less today. In the final act, the two teams in the championship game are beating the bloody bejeezus out of each other, which is just fine with the announcers and with the crowd. When one lone player starts a strip-tease, others take umbrage that he's making a disgrace of the game. As ever, violence is just fine whereas sex and nudity are to be feared. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Hero (2002) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0299977/">9/10</a> An all-star cast of Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Zheng Ziyi, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung star in a highly stylized fable/history of the beginnings of modern China, telling the story of the unification of the six kingdoms into "Our Land". A beautifully filmed, scored and paced film with an interesting story and quite lovely choreography. It's not a beat-'em-up martial arts movie, but much more of a thinking person's film. Saw it in Mandarin with English subtitles. Euro Trip (2004) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356150/">8/10</a> A relatively well-constructed teen road-trip movie. Good cameos by Matt Damon, Vinnie Jones, Lucy Lawless and Rade Serbedzija. Hall Pass (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480687/">2/10</a> An utterly awful film and a waste of what could have been a very good cast (Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Christina Applegate, Stephen Merchant and J.B. Smoove (Leon!). Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty? (2013) An Alex Gibney movie, so take it with a grain of salt, but it's decent enough. The film discusses the widening disparity in American society by juxtaposing the richest people in New York City, living on Park Avenue with those just 10 minutes north, in the South Bronx. The movie covers how lobbying by the rich has changed laws to tilt the odds even more in their favor, a seemingly unstoppable tendency. You can <a href="http://www.whypoverty.net/en/all-about/park-avenue/">watch it online </a>. Salvation Boulevard (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1251743/">5/10</a> Greg Kinnear stars as the unquestioning faithful fool and Pierce Brosnan is the sleazy head preacher at Kinnear's mega-church. The plot ends up quite convoluted, with an atheist professor played by Ed Harris and a Mexican drug lord. Jim Gaffigan provides comic relief as well. Up in the Air (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/">7/10</a> George Clooney stars as a near-constant air traveler whose only life goal is to attain 10 million travel miles and be inducted into some sort of platinum club for travelers. Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Zack Galifianakis, Danny McBride and Sam Elliot round out the cast. It's a decent movie with some very nice shots landscaping a relatively predictable plot. Kind of a chick flick, but stands on its own as well. BBC: Surviving Progress (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1462014/">8/10</a> A series of interviews about modern society, again with an emphasis on the increasing tendency toward wealth concentration and increasing inequality. It addresses how the upper echelons use propaganda to blind everyone else---and even themselves---to the fact that the society that buoys them up is hopelessly divorced from reality and shockingly short-term---not to mention, crassly unethical and cruel for almost everyone else. Resources are getting scarcer and being used up more and more quickly and that by an ever-more exclusive class. For Your Eyes Only (1981) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082398/">6/10</a> Roger Moore plays James Bond in Greece, trying to retrieve an Enigma-like decoding device from the ocean floor. Lots of pretty vanilla underwater action with a much more down-to-Earth feeling than some of the more bombastic subsequent Bond films (e.g. another Moore film, <i>Moonraker</i>). There was a skiing scene that was strongly reminiscent of the famous opening sequence in <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i>. The climactic scene involves a bit of derring-do as Bond scales a cliff face to get to the fortress/monastery where the enemy is holed up with the device. When a henchman knocks out a few of his pitons, he falls precipitously but hangs on to climb back up using a pair of <a href="http://www.abc-of-rockclimbing.com/climbing-knots/prusik-knot.asp">Prusik knots</a> made from his shoelaces. Saw it in German. The Expendables 2 (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764651/">7/10</a> Watched it again. Surprisingly my <a href="{app}view_article.php?id=2740&search_text=expendables">earlier review</a> held up to the scrutiny of a second viewing. Repo Men (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1053424/">8/10</a> A pleasant surprise: a bit gory at times, but otherwise a solid near-future science-fiction story loaded with metaphor and uncomfortably close to our world today. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker put in very solid performances, as does Liev Schrieber in a minor role. Good ending. Recommended. Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian (2002) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328962/">6/10</a> This is a documentary about Jerry's return to stand-up after a long, successful run on his show <i>Seinfeld</i> and ensuing semi-retirement. The parts with Jerry and most of his fellow comedians are quite good, with typically Seinfeldian insights. The parts with Orny Adams are utterly horrible; he's an insecure shell of a man, probably representative, but nonetheless irritating. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1743720/">7/10</a> A documentary directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock (of <i>Supersize Me!</i> fame) that is very open about its sponsorships. In fact, the plot of the movie eats itself in that the movie is about the making of the movie. Spurlock documents his search for corporate sponsorship to make a documentary about a documentary that is sponsored by corporations. While the movie shows how strongly our major media is influenced by advertising dollars, it at the same time leaves you wondering how true to his vision Spurlock was able to keep, considering how much sponsorship he received for his documentary. He reads portions of the contracts in the documentary, wherein it is stipulated which beverages he's allowed to drink, which cars he's allowed to drive and so on and so forth. When several sponsors indicate that they want to be involved in the final cut, are we to think that the movie we're seeing is really the full-on branding-exposé documentary we would have expected from Spurlock or, because of the very nature of the film, are we watching a diluted version of that beware-of-branding message that was collaboratively spun by the dozens of sponsors to make them look more sympathetic? That is, do these brands want to be associated with the movie because they really do care that they and other corporations like them are brainwashing people or because they want to pick up that, as Bill Hicks once said, <iq>anti-marketing dollar, [which is] a good market</iq>? Lockout (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1592525/">8/10</a> Guy Pearce, uncharacteristically all beefed-up and looking---and sometimes acting---eerily like Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Snow, a CIA operative charged with rescuing the U.S. President's daughter from a high-security prison in LEO (Low Earth Orbit). I am not kidding. The reason this works is that Luc Besson came up with the idea and helped write the screenplay. So, it works for the same reason that <i>The Fifth Element</i> worked so well: excellent sets, great tech, crazy/quirky characters and evil enemies, a decent plot and a wise-cracking, gritty hero with a checkered past. Maggie Grace as Emily Warnock (DOPOTUS) was nowhere near as cool as Milla Jovovich as Leeloo, but you can't have everything. Sure, there are plot holes---the prison isn't in a stable orbit? And then it crashes into the ISS? Really?---but they don't get in the way of a rollicking space adventure. </dl> <hr> <ft>The Danish documentary <i>Armadillo</i> was like that, reviewed <a href="{app}view_article.php?id=2741">Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.9</a>.</ft>