Category: Reviews

The Beaver

Some stories are flawed on a fundamental level. No matter how well told or performed they are, there are certain things it becomes tough to get past. “The Beaver,” a lovingly directed film by Jodie Foster, falls into this trap. It’s not bad or uninteresting, just problematic.

Walter Black (Mel Gibson) is a hopelessly depressed man. He has no ambition and spends much of his day sleeping. As the CEO of a failing toy company and the distant father of his lonely little boy Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) and his self-hating teenager Porter (Anton Yelchin), he has no one to look to but his wife Meredith (Foster). But she has given up on him after years of trying to help him come out of his slump and kicks him out of the house.

He drunkenly tries to kill himself, only to be startled by an ugly old hand puppet of a beaver. Walter talks through it with a Scottish accent and assumes this new persona. He convinces his wife it is a therapy procedure and finds his confidence at home and at work through it. Continue reading “The Beaver”

Winter’s Bone

Characters are the lifeblood of any movie, and so many mainstream films forget that crucial fact. “Winter’s Bone” was 2010’s top winner at the Sundance film festival, partially because it tells a real world, bitter, brutal and cold blooded narrative in the heart of America, but more likely because of the remarkably strong female performance at its core.

Debra Granik directs the young Jennifer Lawrence as Ree Dolly, a 17-year-old from the Ozarks responsible for her young brother and sister and her medicated and helpless mother. Her father Jessup has jumped bail and is missing after being caught cooking meth, and he has posted their house as his collateral. It quickly becomes Ree’s job to find her dad in the 10 days before his court date if they wish to not be thrown off their land.

Ree’s quest does not take her far, as everywhere a person could possibly disappear to can be found within this small mountain town. The people that refuse to help her or can’t are all neighbors, friends or close and distant relatives.

Whether or not this world Granik has created for Ree to inhabit is believable or not is beside the point. Granik is making a statement about the often over sentimentalized view of these rural communities. When everyone is this close and so much family in breeding has seemingly taken place, tensions run high. Continue reading “Winter’s Bone”

Bridesmaids

Kristen Wiig is the funniest woman in the movies today, and one of the best character actors too. Such has long been the position of a number of critics, and her breakout comedy “Bridesmaids,” which she co-wrote, definitively proves it.

Wiig is a real trooper. She simply knows how to be funny and make anyone laugh, not just women. Her film, and yes, this is her film even though Judd Apatow produced it, knows how to be goofy, silly, smart, stupid, raunchy, vulgar and even heartfelt. It finds the perfect middle ground between bad chick flick and offensive bromance.

What “Bridesmaids” is not is “Sex and the City” at a wedding. Wiig’s Annie is a kind-hearted woman with a protective instinct and a competitive edge, especially when it comes to her childhood best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). She differs from the bitchy and gossiping foursome on HBO’s hit show with a disdain for men, other women and children. She just shows an inherently believable female instinct to preserve her friendship in an awkward, yet civil manner. Continue reading “Bridesmaids”

Coraline

The theme of “Coraline” is that not everything is what it appears to be. Until now, 3-D movies have sounded good on paper and have ended up gimmicky. But Henry Selick’s use of stop-motion animation and the new technology of RealD 3-D have made for what is easily the most visually stunning and deep animated movie I’ve ever seen.

It is quite beautiful yes. Most animated movies today are. And it’s not the best animated movie I’ve ever seen. There are even some classic artistic moments from other films I would favor over any in “Coraline,” such as the ballroom scene in “Beauty and the Beast,” the flight scene in “Toy Story,” watching WALL-E drag his hand through space as he clings to the rocket, or Jack’s Lament in front of the moon in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” The story and portrayal of those films made those moments stand out from the background, but in “Coraline,” the artistry is in the foreground. It’s all so eye-catching and appealing, but it also does so much for the film’s dark setting. Continue reading “Coraline”

WALL-E

“WALL-E” is a modern silent movie. It proves that we have not become dependent on language or wit to express our emotions; it can still be done through art, music and common affection. It knows that the essentials of comedy are nothing more than facial expressions and pure charm. “WALL-E” understands the beauty of innocence, the faults of humanity and the sheer joy of friendship and love, and it doesn’t have to say a word to prove it.

The movie does however have some dialogue (no point in repeating what Mel Brooks did), but I believe the message would be as strong without it. “WALL-E’s” title character is a lonely robot on the now uninhabitable Earth in the year 2815. 700 years prior, humans left Earth to live on a space station where everything is automatically provided for them, and all of mankind has become fat and lazy, as automated robots now hold them in blissful ignorance and control. But the sci-fi stuff isn’t why we came. Continue reading “WALL-E”

Avatar

James Cameron and “Avatar” prove the worth of 3-D in this thrilling and visually stunning sci-fi epic.

What were my expectations of “Avatar?” I don’t know. Whatever they were, they were too high, an unattainable level of excellence for an unproven technology in the hands of a capable, yet questionable director. So did James Cameron meet my expectations? Just about.

“Avatar” is a visual wonder with the story, the style and the spectacle to place it all in context. It’s use of 3-D and the facial recognition technology is inherently convincing and in its stunning perfection will likely change the way fantasy, action blockbusters are made. James Cameron has invested an estimated $300 million into his first project since “Titanic” 12 years ago, and every painstaking hour of work and dollar spent shows up on that screen in what is by far the most visually busy and yet remarkable feature of the year. Continue reading “Avatar”

The Kids Are All Right

How long has it been since I’ve seen a “real” movie? “The Kids Are All Right” is as real as they come, being warm, funny, charming and smart all without an air of cynicism. The film’s characters are well-developed individuals, not predictable character types, portrayed through brilliant performances. It may sound ridiculous but there’s really nothing like it.

Director and co-screenwriter Lisa Cholodenko has created a story with miraculously authentic and normal people. It’s depressing that such a word like “normal” or “average” can sound so foreign when compared against the crop of summer blockbusters, clichéd rom-coms and gritty thrillers.

I cringe to tell you anything more about the characters other than they each have problems, flaws, passions, motivations and interests, but it’s the profile of a unconventional family of Nic (Annette Bening), Jules (Julianne Moore) and their two teenage kids, Laser (Josh Hutcherson) and Joni (Mia Wasikowska). The parents are a lesbian couple that have each given birth through the same sperm donor, and the kids, one heading off to college and the other a few years behind, decide they would like to meet their biological father, Paul (Mark Ruffalo). He becomes a sort of special friend and confidant who will create a few bumps on the road in the parents’ mid-life crises, the daughter’s coming of age as a young adult and the son’s discovery of another male figure in his life.

I could get into more specifics, but to do so would only diminish the natural quality and authenticity of these characters. It’s like attempting to describe what makes one of your best friends funny, amiable or flawed using only your words. Any description shy of an essay would be too broad and too typecast to actually capture the full range of individuality your friend has. Cholodenko’s film manages to sketch out those individuals perfectly through nothing more than sheer observation and experience.

It’s a real gift, because to diminish these fully invested performances with a flat script or bland character development would be a sin. Mark Ruffalo’s Paul is probably the finest example of this. Paul is a laid back, organic food grower and restaurant owner who dropped out of school, is just a little full of himself and is an instant charmer. But watch Ruffalo smile and struggle his way through some charmingly awkward moments in the screenplay and just try and say he is merely one of those things. His character is so much more, and we can sense why he has a hard time describing himself to his kids, why Nic has a hard time explaining her reasons for not warming to him and why Jules is drawn to sleep with him against all odds of her sexuality.

That last conflict I described embodies the running theme of lesbian relationships throughout the film, but again, to label it as a “lesbian movie” would be inappropriate. “The Kids Are All Right” respects us as intelligent enough to know that these marital problems have nothing to do with sexuality in general, but nor does it forget that such a couple is somewhat unique. And the chemistry of Bening and Moore makes it impossible to forget such a crucial fact.

But even the kids are treated as adults. Surely after 18 years of living with two mothers, young Joni would stop feeling insecure about the lack of a conventional family. Seeing his best friend wrestling with his dad may inspire Laser’s call to Paul, but he too is above the concern that would likely be a theme in a more conservative Hollywood film.

“The Kids Are All Right” is such an easy movie to love. It has funny and clever dialogue that never feels phony, and that is even truer of the characters. Like Nic, Jules, Paul, Joni and Laser, Cholodenko’s film is the perfect indie that’s one of a kind.

4 stars

Alice in Wonderland (2011)

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” remake isn’t as clever as “Avatar” with its use of 3-D and suffers from a sad third act.

Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” may be a very faithful adaptation of the Lewis Carroll novels. But the book is “Through the Looking Glass,” not Through the Victorian Oil Painting. Wonderment has never been this tedious.

When Alice (Mia Wasikowska) falls down the rabbit hole, this time at the age of 19, she arrives in Underland, convinced this is a new place to her despite the numerous dreams she had of what she called Wonderland when she was a child. The stock of Carroll heroes including a smoking caterpillar, talking flowers, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, a feisty mouse, the white rabbit and of course the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) all debate whether she is the right Alice. If so, she is destined to slay a dragon-like monster called the Jabberwocky, remove the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) from power and return Underland to its once glorious state under the rule of the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).

The trick with adapting this story, as it has been done so many times before, is clarifying that it is not a kid’s story. Doing so opens it up to a whole new level development flaws. Aside from not being a cartoonish experience full of joy and wonder, Alice is an uninteresting straight-man put through a series of increasingly quirky and odd encounters with one-dimensional characters. Continue reading “Alice in Wonderland (2011)”

Jane Eyre

There is a subtle beauty to the latest adaptation of “Jane Eyre.” The cinematography is full of color and light, but often it is somewhat washed out to the point of Gothic bleakness. Cary Joji Fukunaga’s film, like Charlotte Bronte’s novel or the eponymous character herself, can be plain, tragic, haunting and lovely all at once.

“Jane Eyre” is a familiar story, a classic of Victorian Era literature and adapted numerous times dating as far back as 1943 with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, but this new version is strikingly original. It hits all the right notes of cinematic style, acting poise and elegiac melodrama, and it stands out as one of the first great movies of 2011. Continue reading “Jane Eyre”

Flags of Our Fathers

Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” and his slightly superior film “Letters From Iwo Jima” both stand up by themselves as great films, but together, Eastwood’s World War II epic is just shy of a masterpiece.

I can’t quite say what my reaction would be had I seen “Flags of Our Fathers” first. Both films deal with common themes from different perspectives, and Eastwood’s ability to make that parallel is brilliant. But “Letters” delves deeper than simply questioning culture’s ideas of heroes and good vs. evil. It finds value to life amidst a war where so much is lost, and to see that story second would make “Flags” feel mediocre in comparison. Continue reading “Flags of Our Fathers”