Movie Review for The Wind Rises

  The Wind Rises

Featuring the voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Martin Short and Stanley Tucci

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

From Studio Ghibli and Walt Disney Studios

Rated PG-13

126 minutes

Riding with the Wind

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

If there was ever an animated film that was ready to burst out of its cells to inhabit our live-action world, as if by osmosis, then here it is: The Wind Rises, the supposed last film — “Eh, nevermind” — of Japanese cultural heavyweight Hayao Miyazaki.

Miyazaki is the creator of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and many other films from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese Pixar. He’s 73 and the world recoiled when he said he was retiring, and then exhaled rapidly when he said retirement wasn’t really for him. Of course not. Imagination doesn’t store well; it needs to be released into the world.

In past films the Japanese director used whimsy and fantasy to construct his elaborate visions, but The Wind Rises has a streak of realism that runs through it that may stir boredom in younger viewers, though their eyes will often grow wide and still at some of the magnificent animation. The film opens on Jirô, a serious young boy who is lost in his own head. We meet him first in his dream, where fantastical airplanes, hulking zeppelins and squid-like missiles fill the sky in a symphony of aerodynamic movement. Jirô awakes and decides right then he wants to build airplanes.

Many years later, an older Jirô finds himself working for Mitsubishi, where he and a team of engineers are trying to create the next great Japanese fighter plane. The fruits of their labor will eventually go on to wreak havok throughout the Pacific — including at Pearl Harbor, where many Americans died — but The Wind Rises is uninterested in war because Jirô is uninterested in war. He only wants to create something that will soar brilliantly and effortlessly through the sky.

On his journey are a competitive friend, various engineering partners, an Italian inventor he shares dreams with, a bespectacled little man with eyes no bigger than dimes, and Nahoko, a woman whose love and health are somehow inversely proportionate within the plot. Nahoko and Jirô, the film’s tragic core, have shared a traumatic event together, the Kantō earthquake of 1923. The sequence is animated with terrifying realism: waves of earth rise and fall, buildings crumble into heaps, fires spread from one wood-and-paper city to another and, in a haunting visual, bits of glowing embers fill the skies where Jirô’s dream-planes once zoomed.

Aside from several dream sequences and the earthquake scenes, The Wind Rises mostly dotes on Jirô’s quest to aviation greatness. His first assignment is a wing strut; his design reinvents the part. Later there’s new building materials, recessed riveting, bigger planes, faster engines and more majestic lines. He eventually designs a plane with inverted gull-shaped wings, and then the Japanese Zero, the fighter syonymous with the Japanese air force during World War II.

One of the more unique aspects of the film are the sound effects — almost all of them are created using mouth noises, from engines sputtering to life to dirigibles idling through the clouds to the low-rumble of a tectonic plates grinding together. I couldn’t help but smile thinking of sound technicians spitting raspberries into microphones, blowing into empty jugs or contorting their mouths as they give life to steam engines and twirling propellors. And since we’re on the topic of sounds, I highly encourage you to see the movie in Japanese with English subtitles if at all possible. Joseph Gordon-Levitt does a fine job voicing Jirô, but Hideaki Anno’s voice is much richer, with a slightly muffled timbre — it’s worth hearing.

Mostly, though, The Wind Rises is simply gorgeous to behold. The imagery is just astounding in every way. The hand-drawn backgrounds, scenes filled with indivudually animated people, the bits of Japanese culture painted into the edges of frames, the panning shots of trains chugging forward and carts being pulled through busy markets … almost every frame of this movie is breathtaking. I was especially impressed by the small details: Jirô bowing to woman on the platform between traincars, oxen pulling a new plane prototype onto a runway, and a scene with Jirô’s new boss pointing at a hat stand and then a desk, “Hat goes here. Data goes here. Got it?”

The Wind Rises has two companion pieces. The first is Isao Takahata’s watershed anime Grave of the Fireflies, another film in which realistic horrors are visited upon delightful hand-drawn animation. Takahata and Miyazaki were colleagues at Studio Ghibli, and they both understood then that animation wasn’t confining their mature themes, it was liberating them. The other companion piece is Steven Spielberg’s vastly underrated Empire of the Sun, in which a young Christian Bale plays a resilient English lad whose eyes are drawn to the skies and to the Japanese Zeros that have conquered it. The character seemed unaware of “sides” in a war, as does Jirô, whose dreams are gauged by altimeter.

This is a stunningly beautiful movie, and deeply moving. It’s also a departure for Miyazaki, who had previously turned fantastical creatures and plots into modern fairy tales. This is more biopic, but it’s still overflowing with imagination and incredible imagery. It's a must-see.

Non-Stop Movie Review

Non-Stop  

Starring Liam Neeson, Julianne, Moore, Michelle Dockery and Lupita Nyong’o

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

From Universal Picture and Studio Canal

Rated PG-13

106minutes

Phone-heavy thriller has lots of turbulence

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

I liked Non-Stop better when it was called Liam Neeson Texting.

And boy does he text a lot. In the terminal, at the gate, in his seat, in the bathroom, standing in the aisle while other people are trying to get by … he’s like a teenage girl, except that instead of spam-tweeting “follow me” messages to Justin Beiber he’s negotiating with the world’s most overworked terrorist.

In this dopey air-thriller, Neeson plays Bill Marks, a federal air marshall who’s fallen on hard times and off the wagon. But ask yourself: wouldn’t you need a steady stream of scotch, and smokes in the airplane bathroom (violation!), to get you through a job that requires you to ride airplanes for a living?

Bill gets on a plane headed over the Pacific and almost immediately starts getting threatening texts, including this one: “A passenger will die every 20 minutes until I get what I want.” What he wants is $150 million transferred into a bank account set up in Bill’s name, which does not please Bill or the emergency responders on the ground who actually think Bill’s dumb enough to set up a criminal enterprise in his own name. Bill’s not that stupid, although the other people on this plane certainly are.

There’s a hot-headed New York cop, a British flight attendant, Lupita Nyong’o in her first post-12 Years a Slave role, a computer programmer who looks like a discount Jamie Foxx, and a spazzy airplane woman (Julianne Moore) because every flight needs at least one, usually in the seat right next to you. These people are the worst. They step on Bill’s toes, they act all pouty and wounded when he makes them sit down, and they seem to ignore evidence right in front of them so they can jump to all the wrong conclusions. At one point, the passengers are watching CNN footage that suggests Bill is the terrorist of the hijacked flight and all they can do is … wait for it … continue to watch TV on their hijacked plane. Nevermind that they can watch it happen live! And when they do finally rise up to stop Bill, it’s at the exact moment he needs the most help to apprehend the real terrorist. And later in the movie, Bill offers everyone free air travel, because that’s much better than dying in a hijacking. You’ve heard of Snakes on a Plane; let me present you Flakes on a Plane.

Poor Neeson, he’s doing too many of these thrillers. He’s great in almost everything, even in mediocre dreck like this. But really, how many times can you do Taken? This movie makes him do some idiotic stuff, like test the purity of cocaine by breaking out a chemistry set and examining the powder’s atomic structure. No, I’m kidding — he pokes a knife in the bag, dabs at some coke and rubs in on his tongue because that worked in every movie from the ’80s. He also has the most erotic bathroom fight that has ever been attempted at 30,000 feet. Neeson also has an awful yawn. He’s just sitting there and — boom! — his head tilts back, his eyes squint and his mouth opens and seems to suck in the entire Eastern seaboard. Why would director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown) allow such an ugly moment from his star? The camera even zooms in a little like it’s trying to get a close-up of his tonsils.

Another ugly moment involves a Muslim doctor on the plane. When it’s revealed there might be a hijacker on board, everyone looks at this air traveler wearing a traditional headcovering and beard. Because, LOL, apparently racism is funny. Now, maybe this was a cultural critique of stereotypes and air travel. But I don’t think Non-Stop is that smart, a point that’s validated later again and again as the Muslim character is made the butt of several jokes, including one after a “random” carry-on search. “What?! You didn’t find anything in his bag?” one of the other passengers screeches.

There is a market for these types of frustratingly dumb thrillers, so it’s unlikely I’ll dissuade anyone from seeing it. If you’ve seen any of the Taken movies, then you’ll likely find Non-Stop acceptable, if only because Neeson has perfected this character. Although, judging by that yawn, I would say he might be getting a little bored with it.

Join us for Amica Insurance Kids' Day!

Join us on Saturday, April 5th, 2013 from 9am to 2pm for Amica Insurance Kids' Day!

Kids' Day at the Phoenix Film Festival is a great way for kids of all ages to come out and experience the festival. They can select from a series of hands-on activity stations focusing on different aspects of film production and geared to various age and ability levels. Stations are age-appropriate and run the full gamut of the filmmaking process. And best yet, it's FREE! Check out just some of the cool things to do:

• Walk the red carpet and get your paparazzi photo taken from our friends at Bookmans.

• Miss Katie from the Musical Instrument Museum will help kids explore different sounds as they create a musical soundtrack to a fun film.

• Mr. Jesse from the Phoenix Public Library is back to read stories, talk about books that are made into movies and have fun with the littler festival fans.

• Write the next best-selling screenplay "Mad Lib" style.

• Test out your acting chops against a green screen.

• Older kids will create their own short film!

$5 Family Friendly Films

Saturday also has two family-friendly screenings of films at the Harkins 101 -- only $5 for our Kids' Day participants:

9:20 AM

The Pirate Fairy

When a misunderstood dust-keeper fairy named Zarina steals Pixie Hollow's all-important Blue Pixie Dust, and flies away to join forces with the pirates of Skull Rock, Tinker Bell and her fairy friends must embark on the adventure of a lifetime to return it to its rightful place. However, in the midst of their pursuit of Zarina, Tink's world is turned upside down. She and her friends find that their respective talents have been switched and they have to race against time to retrieve the Blue Pixie Dust and return home to save Pixie Hollow.

1:20 PM

Disneynature Bears.

In an epic story of breathtaking scale, Disneynature's new True Life Adventure "Bears" showcases a year in the life of a bear family as two impressionable young cubs are taught life's most important lessons. Set against a majestic Alaskan backdrop teeming with life, their journey begins as winter comes to an end and the bears emerge from hibernation to face the bitter cold. The world outside is excitingbut riskyas the cubs' playful descent down the mountain carries with it a looming threat of avalanches. As the season changes from spring to summer, the brown bears must work hard to find foodultimately feasting at a plentiful salmon runwhile staying safe from rival male bears and predators, including an ever-present wolf pack. "Bears" captures the fast-moving action and suspense of life in one of the planet's last great wildernessesAlaska! Directed by Alastair Fothergill ("Earth," "African Cats" and "Chimpanzee") and Keith Scholey ("African Cats"), "Bears" arrives in theaters April 18, 2014, to celebrate Earth Day. 

In Secret - Movie Review

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume In Secret

Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Jessica Lange, Tom Felton and Oscar Isaac

Directed by Charlie Stratton

From Roadside Attractions

Rated R

101 minutes

In Secret sent me careening backward through time to the tragic loser-hero Walter Neff, the star of Billy Wilder's intensely serious film noir Double Indemnity: "Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money — and a woman — and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty isn't it?"

Though it's far removed from James M. Cain's crime novel and the movie it spawned, In Secret pulses with their passionate energies. Where Double Indemnity was an insurance scam in 1940s Los Angeles, In Secret is a love affair in Victorian-era France. Its central figures suffer similar ailments: marriage has shrunk their worlds, and murder has imprisoned them in it..

In Secret opens in the 1850s with young Thérèse as her father abandons her with her aunt, Madame Raquin (Jessica Lange), who is not pleased with the addition to her sleepy farmhouse, where her only child has a rather serious lung ailment. Many years pass and the Madame marries Thérèse, now played by Elizabeth Olsen, to her cousin, the runtish, sickly Camille (Tom Felton, Draco Malfoy from the Harry Potter movies), who seems unable to discern the features of a woman from those of a travel trunk. Poor kid, he just seems constantly aloof.

The three move to Paris to take work: the women in a linen shop they own and Camille in some kind of financial institution, where papers are shuffled from desk to desk with little else getting done. At work, Camille runs into a childhood friend, Laurent (Oscar Isaac), who is everything Camille is not, including handsome and unabashedly sexual. When Laurent visits the home on Thursday game night, Thérèse can only gasp and swoon. They begin a steamy affair that is difficult to keep hidden — in one episode Laurent hides under Thérèse's billowy skirt while the Madame skulks around her bedroom.

These affairs can never last, not without spilling over the edges of their own containment. Sure enough, Laurent hatches a plan that will forever destroy the balance of the house, their jobs and their love. Thérèse is mostly bullied into the scheme, aside from one moment of serious reflection that is interrupted by Camille, the boy who unknowingly sealed his fate with a missplaced joke.

The movie is the directorial debut for Charlie Stratton, who does a commendable job bringing the 1867 Émile Zola novel to the screen. The first and second acts are more solidly constructed than the third and final act, where the film staggers against the emotional weight that bears down on Thérèse. She has visions of dead bodies, she mopes around the house, sleeps in the store window and basically gives up on life. Much of the final act is spent dealing with Madame Raquin, who has had a stroke, her eyes trapped in a lifeless body.

The acting is superb all the way around. Isaac, fresh off Inside Llewyn Davis, is fantastic, as is Felton, who brings a boyish innocence to his tragic Camille. The movie really belongs to the women, though — Lange and Olsen are hypnotic in their tormented deliveries. Generations apart, the two actresses somehow occupy the same devastating groove within In Secret’s anguished turmoil. When they face off late in the film, Olsen lets defeat wash over her character’s face while Lange, frozen in place, lets her eyes fill with terror and hate.

I must also commend the cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister, who uses mostly natural light — or candle or fire light — to paint his images. Much of the film takes place in shadows, in sunless corridors and dimly lit parlors, where dominos are slapped on tables and lies are further manipulated onto unsuspecting witnesses. A scene early in the movie struck me as especially remarkable: Olsen sitting at a window, beams of sunlight shooting through in long horizontal bars and, back in the shadows, a bed with a sick boy stirring in the darkness. The movie holds the shot long enough for you to appreciate its composition.

If you’ll recall how Double Indemnity ended, then you’ll know some of the paths In Secret will be traveling. It’s not a pretty route. In fact, it’s terrifyingly dark and morose. But it’s an interesting period piece, one full of remarkable performances, finely detailed costumes, exquisite lighting and a finale that will suck the wind from your chest.

3 Days to Kill - Movie Review

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume 3 Days to Kill

Starring Kevin Costner, Connie Nielsen, Hailee Steinfeld and Amber Heard

Directed by McG

From Relativity Media and EuropaCorp

Rated PG-13

113 minutes

3 Days to Kill might be 2014’s first guilty pleasure. It begins as an impossibly mundane action thriller, but somewhere along the way it blossoms into a film with an absurd amount of charm and quirky likability.

The turn happens about 15 minutes in: CIA super-spy Ethan (Kevin Costner) returns to his Paris flat to find that a rather large family of squatters, all of them impeccably polite, have remodeled his house and appropriated his space as their own. He goes to the French police, but they tell him to wait until April to file a formal complaint — “Wait for spring like birds and bees and boys and girls.” Ethan calls them “turds,” which is a confusing word for French police. “I think he’s calling us shit,” one cop says. Ethan, defeated, returns home, where his squatters try to comfort him in his new bedroom.

At this point, I’m realizing I have no idea what this movie is anymore. This is re-confirmed several minutes later when Ethan, post-shootout, argues with another CIA agent about the difference between a mustache and a goatee. The prop in the scene is an injured, bullet-riddled bad guy with a goatee, who’s kicked and rolled over again and again to prove a point about the merits of facial hair. These comedic bursts are far departures from the high-octane spy thrills of the movie’s first 10 minutes, thrills that only make cameo appearances through the remainder of 3 Days to Kill.

Later, Ethan is forced to retire from the CIA after they find out he has inoperable brain cancer. In Paris, while he tries to regain lost trust with his ex-wife (Connie Nielsen) and his teen daughter Zoey (Hailee Steinfeld), the CIA needs him for one more mission: to hunt down and kill a man known only as The Wolf, whose henchmen include The Albino and The Accountant. His government handler, a sexy vixen with a limitless budget, offers him money and an experimental cancer drug that comes in couture leather pouches. Ethan agrees, which means he spends the rest of the movie alternating between father-daughter dates to CIA-sanctioned murder.

The movie reminds me a great deal of last year’s mafia-comedy The Family, in which Robert De Niro, playing a mob boss, goes to a film club to critique Goodfellas. I wasn’t sure then, and am less sure now, whether The Family was a comedy, crime caper or something else entirely. 3 Days to Kill bops around with generally the same attitude, like when Ethan puts his Italian hostage on the phone with his daughter to explain how to make a perfect batch of spaghetti sauce. Or when he barges into another suspect’s house to talk to his teen daughters about what makes teens tick. The two movies, besides sharing their bizarre comedy timing, share writers — French filmmaker Luc Besson. Now, Besson’s movies have always had quirky streaks in them; think of the lighter moments in Léon, the fantasy-comedy of the Fifth Element, or the utter battiness of the Transporter movies. 3 Days to Kill taps into similar veins and you can sense the film smiling at you from behind the screen.

The movie has several comedic themes that return again and again, including a recurring gag about a purple bike, Ethan’s daughter-approved ringtone featuring Swedish electro-punk, and one of the squatter kids who insists Ethan give him high fives, even as the CIA spy escorts criminals to his bathroom for torture sessions. The McG-directed movie simply marches to the beat of its own drum.

Now, I did say this was a guilty pleasure so don’t go in expecting all the pieces to fit. They don’t. The movie is uneven and awkwardly paced, but it’s consistently entertaining. And Kevin Costner seems to be having a lot of fun, proving that he might not be the most bankable star, but he’s still a dependable and likable one.

Winter's Tale - Review

Winter's Tale  

Starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly

Directed by Akiva Goldsman

From Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG-13

118 minutes

Angels and demons collide in vapid fantasy romance

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

A Winter’s Tale is undiluted romance. Cut it with some sugar and water and you’re likely to get a quadrilogy of sappy love stories.

This movie knows its audience and preach-panders directly to it. I don’t want to generalize and say the audience is women, but it’s mostly women. They’ll adore this movie. They’ll cherish every innocuous detail, every pretentious prop, every whispered stanza of romance. It will live on in their spongy lovelorn hearts as the ultimate personification of emotional tenderness, sacrifice and redemption.

Listen, I’m going to complain about this, but please understand this is the way it goes: men get dragged to these movies and, after a brief window of whiny complacency, they shrug their shoulders and admit the movie wasn’t made for them. This is my window to complain.

A Winter’s Tale plunges headfirst into lady culture. It’s about a girl effortlessly playing the piano, the exchanging of miracles, flying magical horses, princess kisses, charcoal drawings of feminine figures, cute little girls in overly large woolen mittens, beds of roses, an abundance of star metaphors, boxes full of sentimental mementos, cancer scares and eternal love sprinkled in the cosmos. This laundry list might sound exaggerated, but I promise you it’s entirely accurate.

It begins in the 19th century when an immigrant family is turned away from America at Ellis Island because the husband has some sort of contagious disease. In the New York harbor, before a boat takes them back to their home country, the couple stuffs their baby in a wooden model boat and sends it sailing toward Manhattan — because pulling a Moses on your infant is better than, oh I don’t know, being a parent. The baby grows up to be Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), a masterclass thief whose special move is using a comically large grappling hook to shimmy up the front of Brownstones in broad daylight.

After running afoul with henchman Pearly (Russell Crowe), Peter prepares to leave the city on an especially agile horse that won’t gallop away until Peter makes one more score. This horse is a bad influence, but nevertheless Peter Bat-grapples into the home of Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), who is home sick with “consumption,” which means she has to stay icy cold like a comic villain. They meet in the parlor, her at her piano banging out Brahms and he with his pistol unholstered and his burglar bag empty. She invites him in for tea. Of course, they fall in love.

What happens next I wasn’t prepared for: angels and demons reveal themselves as vital players in this otherwise sleepy game of romance. And when I say angels and demons, that’s not allegory or metaphor, but actual angels and demons. Pearly plays the demon, and he has a scene where he ventures to meet Lucifer, who turns out to be Will Smith in a cameo so nutty it felt like a product placement for Planters. Lucifer and God have an agreement that neither angels or demons will interfere too much in the lives of humans. “Lou” has to tell Pearly to back off a little, which makes him even more sinister.

Meanwhile, Peter, who might be an angel, has to escape from Pearly without endangering Beverly and without using his “miracle,” which is apparently something he can just give away to anyone, although I first thought it was Beverly’s virginity which also figures into the plot. Before he knows it, though, Peter is waking up in modern-day New York City and trying to right more than a century of wrongs. And Pearly, his crime den now filled with flat screens instead of blackboards, still has a chip on his shoulder for the one who got away.

Yeesh, this movie. It just keeps going and going. And as the dialogue gets blander and blander (“You are my distant star bright and special … blah, blah, blah”) the acting grows more and more frustrating. Beverly is interesting, if only because her medical condition is so laughably odd. She has to sleep in tents in the winter, walk through the snow in nightgowns, and take icy baths when her hand can fog a mirror. If only they had a refrigerator they could stuff her into like that baby and the boat. Farrell is also intriguing, even though I never thought he knew what was happening. I can picture him on the set asking questions and then shrugging, “Nevermind, it’s easier when I don’t know.”

The movie is directed, written and produced by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who worked tirelessly for many years to bring Mark Helprin’s novel to the screen. While I thought A Winter’s Tale was tirelessly self-involved and plotted, I must acknowledge that fans of these types of movies will likely adore all that transpires. Two women sitting near me were unabashed by their infatuation for Peter, Beverly and their magical tale; when the movie ended, they were in puddles. I also must admit that his movie makes much more sense than anything in the Twilight series — not a difficult feat, though.

And a quick word on women and Valentine’s Day movies: I’ve made some cheap jokes here about how A Winter’s Tale is a woman’s movie, but we live in a changing world, where a woman might soon be in the White House, a gay man might soon be in the NFL and the pictures on bathrooms doors are merely suggestions for bathroom users. The gender landscapes are ever changing. Women will appreciate this movie, but they won’t be the only ones. If a movie brings joy into your life, then it has succeeded at something.

My heart does go out to spouses and dates, no matter the gender, though — grumble silently without ruining it for anyone else. It'll be over soon enough.

RoboCop Movie Review

RoboCop  

Starring Joel Kinneman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Jackie Earle Haley, Abbie Cornish and Michael K. Williams

Directed by José Padilha

From MGM and Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

118 minutes

This is why films should not be remade

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Everything that takes place in the RoboCop remake could have, hypothetically, been gleaned from the poster of the original RoboCop or perhaps the Netflix synopsis, which begs the question: did anyone actually watch the original?

I ask because the remake is a misfire in every conceivable way. Where the original was inventive with its science fiction and laced with social commentary, this one is tone deaf to its own existence, blasting through all the subtlety and nuance that made the original so wickedly prescient.

My heart goes out to RoboCop’s director José Padilha, who expressed publicly that the studio was meddling and refused him the latitude to create a film with any semblance of personality, or even just some nervous tics. At the same time, Padilha wasn’t even able to pull off a mediocre hit — he blew right past “mediocre” on the freefall into oblivion — which says a lot for his work, studio meddling or not.

In fairness to all parties, though, Paul Verhoeven’s work is often misunderstood. Starship Troopers is a great example. Ask the fanboys why they love it and they’ll say two things: space marines killing bugs and co-ed showers. But the film was richer than that, with its layers of pre-Internet “Want to know more?” infotainment and its fascist regard for the military, like a science fiction version of Triumph of the Will. Starship Troopers was an idea movie pretending to be a dumb genre picture, the same of which could be said, in varying degrees, to Verhoeven's Basic Instinct, about icepicks and underwear-free interrogations; Totall Recall, about a talking head prosthetic and three-boobed women; and even the reprehensibly bad Showgirls, about gratuitous nudity and bad acting, the subtext of which was gratuitous nudity and bad acting.

This RoboCop, though, has no big ideas, or thoughtful subtext, or social commentary. It’s essentially exactly what the title suggests: a robotic man becomes a police officer. It stars Joel Kinnaman as Alex Murphy, a detective in Detroit’s embattled police department. Murphy is nearly killed in a bomb blast that leaves him with nothing but a hand, head, heart and lungs. His metallic body is brought together in one of those Iron Man chambers, where all the pieces come up from the floor to assemble. He’s created by OmniCorp, a drone manufacturer that is sending tactical unmanned robots and tanks into Afghanistan to obliterate every 10-year-old holding a kitchen knife.

Omnicorp wants to bring drones to the United States, but they need a test case to woo Congress to throw out a law banning artificially intelligent drones. Murphy, his meaty stumps still simmering from the bomb blast, is that test case. If you’ll recall in the original, Alex Murphy had his brain wiped clean before becoming the cyborg cop. Here, though, this Murphy is aware of who he is, which requires all sorts of family drama with his wife and his son, whose only identifying characteristic seems to be that he likes hockey. (Screenwriter 1: “How do we make this kid less two-dimensional?” Screenwriter 2: “Give him a hobby he obsesses over. Brilliant.”)

For a brief spell right in the middle of the movie, RoboCop does exactly what he’s programmed to do — he arrests bad guys. He does this by using a huge database that crosschecks mugshots with surveillance footage, which leads me to ask an obvious question: Why haven't the regular cops done this?

The movie can’t decide what state Murphy's brain is in. He begins with all his memories intact, and an obvious case of post-traumatic stress disorder, but then the plot requires changes to his brain chemistry: too much dopamine, not enough, microchips are removed, then they’re put back and the whole time Murphy bounces from one emotional state to none at all. One day he can recognize his partner (the great Michael K. Williams in a wasted role) and the next he’s dodging around his weepy wife in a Tron lightcycle. Recall the original film and how neat this was all handled: Murphy’s memories slowly creeped into RoboCop’s programming, suggesting that the human parts of a brain could never be overwritten. Now contrast that with this mess. The difference is night and day.

Mostly, though, the RoboCop reboot is just stupid moviemaking. It takes close to 65 minutes to get RoboCop on the street, and even then he has to go through the most mindless training program, some of it while listening to yodel-sampled dance music (Google “Hocus Pocus” by Focus). The film frequently teases bigger ideas (drones in Afghanistan, the ethics of robotic people, the wackiness of Congress, FOX News' wacky slant) but all lead to dead ends and hollow payoffs. This movie is so stupid that when it pans across the dome of the US Capitol, the Washington Monument piercing the sky in the background, the bottom of the screen reads “Washington D.C.” because apparently it needed to be stated. And there’s poor Kinnaman, stuck in that ghastly suit, his career’s metal-plated albatross.

All those memorable scenes of Verhoeven's RoboCop shooting through skirts, wrestling through drywall and making those awful speeches quoting the police code to victims have been replaced with mindless shootouts and vapid action sequences that your brain will forget, delete and write over as they’re happening in real time.

Many films have been questionably remade: Psycho, Godzilla, Willy Wonka. Each is their own brand of awful, but RoboCop might be the new gold standard for remakes that just don’t get it.

Review for The LEGO Movie

The LEGO Movie  

Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson, Will Arnett and Charlie Day

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

From Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated PG

100 minutes

Let your imagination run wild with lovely LEGOs movie

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

The LEGO Movie will crash on you like a ton of bricks — swiftly and unexpectedly and in an explosion of color. And a ton of LEGO bricks, that’s like a billion pieces, right? Get a broom before you’re mom comes in and impales her heel on one of those 2x4s with the sharp corners.

This is the zaniest, most joyfully plucky movie you’ll see this year, a Pixar movie if not in name then in spirit. It arrives on the screen with herky-jerky stop-motion-like animation — it’s actually all CGI — that is warmly nostalgic yet wonderfully alien and foreign. The movie quickly wraps around you, folding you into its charm and whimsy and its nutty hopscotch through pop-culture. In what other movie would it make complete sense for Gandalf, Batman, Shaquille O’Neill and Abe Lincoln in a rocket chair to be chilling out together? And then out of nowhere, Millennium Falcon!

The movie takes place in a LEGO world populated by little minifigures, their skin Simpson yellow and their legs two scissoring hunks of plastic. Their world, overflowing with mindless consumption and the worshiping of all things mainstream, is basically a satire of capitalism (or communism depending on your slant) told in a way a child could understand. Everyone has a job they love, a song they all sing together (“Everything is Awesome!”), inane TV shows they all watch in mass (Where Are My Pants?) and mass-market trends they all follow. When someone is asked what their favorite restaurant is the only response seems to be “any chain restaurant.” The commentary is quite sharp, which is odd considering the nice people at LEGO probably made this movie hoping that LEGO sales would shoot through the roof (and they will), which is itself some kind of twisted satire.

We begin with Emmet Brickowski, a construction worker who builds sparkling new Lego buildings using the most helpful instructions imaginable, IKEA plans for those averse to words. Construction in a LEGO world is exactly how you might imagine: old buildings are demolished so their pieces can be scooped up and used on the next building project. The detail in the world is remarkable: everything is LEGO. And I mean everything: streets, oceans, fire, smoke, suds in a shower … the animators never cheat by using other materials.

What happens next is basically the plot of The Matrix: Emmet (Chris Pratt) learns he might be the subject of a prophecy foretelling of The One, a LEGO man who could essentially reboot the universe into a more open and accepting utopia. He learns he’s the mythical One when he falls down a deep shaft and climbs out with some foreign body — literally, the Piece of Resistance — stuck to his back.

With Emmet playing the Neo role, the Trinity character is WildStyle (Elizabeth Banks), a high-flying action heroine who can, in a nanosecond, flash her eyes over her surroundings and design, on the fly, a schematic for inventive new LEGO creations like double decker motorcycles, submarine RVs or Old West flying contraptions. The Morpheus character is Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), a wise old wizard with glowing eyes and, yes, Morgan Freeman’s voice. They’re all fighting President Business (Will Ferrell), who despises free thinking and not following the instructions. His secret weapon is the Kragle, a device so devilishly obvious that I will let you discover it.

The movies takes place in a sprawling metropolis, Western frontier lands, a pink-tinted dreamscape in the clouds and in other various LEGO playsets. Some of the imagery is suitably bonkers, including a horse riding a giant horse, a mechanized pirate, ridiculous security systems (“Sharks. Lasers. Sharks with lasers.”) and doomsday devices that count down from “100 Mississippi, 99 Mississippi, 98 …” Human objects turn up later in the movie, including the Polish Remover of Nye-eel and the Sword of Exact-Zero, which drew giddy chuckles from the adults. The movie also has one of the most gloriously glib presentations of Batman that is likely to ever exist.

If you admired the wackiness of the lovely stop-motion movie A Town Called Panic, then you’re likely to be thoroughly charmed by this witty children’s comedy. The voice cast is endearingly goofy, and the animation is endlessly inventive. And the story, bless its plastic heart, has a powerful message about imaginations and tossing out rulebooks and instruction manuals. Now, I can’t say that I like this trend of toys becoming movies to sell more toys. I certainly prefer The LEGO Movie to any of Hasbro’s Transformers movies, but that doesn’t diminish my concern. Along time ago, movies were made to be movies. The merchandise was an afterthought. Now, the toys are the movies.

That being said, LEGOs might be the only movie that can get away with this without much backlash. It helps tremendously that the movie is delightful in nearly every way. It also helps that the nature of LEGOs is to use your imagination to invent your own stories, which is exactly what the creators of The LEGO Movie seem to have done for a sustained and enchanting 100 minutes.

The Monuments Men review

The Monuments Men  

Starring George Clooney, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and Cate Blanchett

Directed by George Clooney

From Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

118 minutes

Great scenes and performances save an otherwise clunky war drama

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

There are many things The Monuments Men fumbles, including its stop-and-go pacing and fragmented plotlines, but what it gets right is rewarding enough to forgive many of its failures. The movie’s ultimate success is that it understands art on a profoundly deep level.

And not just knowledge of art — “here’s a Rembrandt, here’s a Monet, here’s a Renoir” — the film truly gets the concept of art and its importance to a people. In World War II, Hitler didn’t just want the world as a piece of real estate, he wanted every fiber, every micron of dust, every spinning electron. He wanted it all. That included all the art. “How do you erase a people? You not only kill them, but you erase their achievements,” someone says early in Monuments Men. After all, what is art but a collection of visualized hopes and dreams, fears and desires? Art isn’t canvas or marble or bronze, it’s an impassioned plea for immortality. Hitler, himself a failed artist, knew this and set out to sabotage it.

Pushing back are the Monuments Men, FDR’s super-team of art historians, dealers, architects, sculptors and painters. They’re captained by Frank Stokes (George Clooney), whose first order of business seems to be a movie montage as he recruits his team. I won’t bog you down with character names, because there are many, but the cast is top-notch: Bill Murray, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and Hugh Bonneville. Before they can go to Europe and save art, they have to go through basic training, which goes about as well as you would expect with this all-star team of actors. Murray shrugs over the obstacle course wall like a sack of potatoes. In a scene that drew big laughs, Goodman walks through a firing range not knowing the soldiers were using live rounds.

In Europe after D-Day, the Monuments Men quickly begin tracing down missing and stolen artwork, be it big museum pieces or smaller works ransacked from Jewish collectors’ homes. The Nazis used Paris, and much of Europe, like a shopping mall: they’d invade a country and top officials would pop in to get something to hang in their parlors. Several particular pieces are doted on, including Michelangelo’s marble Madonna and Child, Rembrandt’s self-portrait, several pieces by Johannes Vermeer, and the striking Ghent altarpiece, a magnificent 15th-century painting on a set of elaborate shutters. The team is also tasked with telling Allied soldiers what they can and can’t bomb, which is punctuated by a sequence showing Italian villagers shoring up the walls of the bombed-out church housing Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. I looked this piece of history up after the movie; Monuments Men did not embellish how close the famous mural came to crumbling.

The narrative structure of the movie is put together sloppily. Scenes just sorta happen, often times with little leading up to them and little leading after. It all feels disjointed and frenzied. The acting is terrific, as is the insightful and historically relevant dialogue, and the individual scenes are spectacular, including one of Damon returning a painting to an empty apartment, its Jewish occupants long since carted off to gas chambers. But looking at the film as a whole, its scenes forming its central mass, it needs work. Having so many plotlines — the Madonna, the Ghent altarpiece, a weasely Nazi named Stahl and Cate Blanchett playing a museum record keeper — gave us too much to follow and, making matters worse, all the pieces were assembled with little regard to each other.

One other peculiarity, one that might have been intentional: no one really takes the war that serious. When they arrive in Europe, around D-Day+30, the Normandy beaches are mostly calm. As the team works its way inland, they rarely encounter any hostile Germans so it all feels rather tranquil and serene — just a couple armed guys out for a Sunday drive in matching outfits. Murray’s character wears an ascot under his soldier getup. Later he and Ballaban encounter a German soldier and rather than starting a gunfight, they all sit down and have a cigarette. These two share another scene later when Ballaban’s grumpy curmudgeon plays a record from the Murray characters’ grandkids. It’s tender and heartbreaking as a single sequence, but as a smaller piece of a bigger movie it rings hollow since the movie hasn’t established how violent and terrible the war was. Men don’t cry and weep for their families when their safety has barely been threatened. Like I said earlier, though, some of this might have been intentional to punctuate two things: first, the deaths that do occur in the movie, and to show that these guys were not doing the heroic work of real soldiering. After all, they were there to save fabric stretched over wood frames, not save the world from a madman and his armies.

The Monuments Men is directed by Clooney, his fifth feature, and it’s not his sharpest achievement, although it's never dull. It needed more polish and a little more finesse with its script. This isn’t to say I disliked it; quite the contrary, I thought the acting and subject matter to be riveting. I especially loved some of the payoff: great big chambers full of looted artwork, the reclaimed spoils of a terrible war. We've seen heroic survivor movies before, but here's one where the survivor is the culture of an entire continent.

Hot off the presses, check out the new trailer for Divergent

Catching up with Gary King, the director of "How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song"

Hey, What Happened to that Film?

How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song? An interview with Gary King, Director, Writer, Producer

Phoenix FiIm Festival Audience Award, 2012

Dan Harkins Breakthrough Filmmaker Award

By Laurie Smith

As independent film lovers, we owe a debt of gratitude to Gary King’s parents. Because of them, King was brought up with a great love of film at an early age. It wasn’t until later in life, however, that he realized that he also had a great love of making film.

Fortunately, after studying psychology and then joining the corporate world in a human resources position, King realized that he had a serious need to be fulfilled creatively. So, he high-tailed it out of the corporate bowels of Silicon Valley and fled to New York City to pursue his dream … and he hasn’t looked back since.

Two years ago, How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song celebrated its World Premier at the Phoenix Film Festival, easily winning over the discerningly enthusiastic Phoenix audience – snagging both the Audience Award and the Dan Harkins Breakthrough Filmmaker Award.  It was just the beginning of a rather lengthy string of accolades for the film … and for Gary.

Independent film is not exactly overflowing with musicals, and are considered a bit daring … so why a musical?

“Growing up, my parents showed me The Music Man, My Fair Lady and other classics, said King.

I found it totally fascinating that films could tell stories through songs and lyrics.  As I got older I discovered West Side Story and All That Jazz, which weren't the sunny song and dance films that I was familiar with, so that intrigued and excited me — in that musicals could be also be serious and heavy in tone.  As a filmmaker I love to challenge myself, so I set out to make a musical film that blends the classic and contemporary.”

King says that the main goal was to play as many festivals as possible, in order to gain as much exposure as possible. Regarding premiering at PFF, King said, “We were spoiled.  We won two awards and had so many amazing fans supporting us while we were there – it was an experience we will never forget.

“The screenings validated that we had a film that audiences really enjoyed.  It was such a gratifying feeling to sit in the dark room and hear people laugh and cry.  After all our showings, I loved connecting with people who let me know that my take on a musical was unique and a joy to watch.  You never know how your film will play until you see it with others – playing at Phoenix was a great start to see what kind of film we had on our hands.”

Winning the Breakthrough Filmmaker and Audience Award was an exceptionally fond memory for King.

The wonderful support and response we were getting from everyone was very humbling – and after we'd won our awards, there was an after party at the Tilted Kilt.  When I walked in with my wife and Christina Rose (who played “Evey” in Joe Schermann Song), the whole pub full of filmmakers and friends cheered.  There was a big celebration with people who shared in our happiness.  Richard Botto (founder of Stage 32) even bought everyone there a round of drinks.  I'll never forget that night.

Inspired by many films and filmmakers, King feels that one of the filmmakers who has played a role in revolutionizing film is Steven Soderbergh.

“I really enjoy his work,” King shared. “The thing about him is that he's able to make both artistic and commercial films -- often times blurring the lines.” Certainly no easy task.

“Soderbergh is in a great position now where he can pretty much create whatever projects he'd like to, and will find the funding for it. His earlier works in the late 90s (particularly Out of Sight and The Limey) continue to inspire me to this day.”

Genuinely humble, when asked what he might be able to contribute to the evolution of film, King smiled and quickly said it was a tough question. His true hope is, “that my work resonates with people, and that it may last for a long time.  Beyond that, it would be too much pressure.”

King, collaborating with his brother Michael, just finished filming his latest project – a horror/thriller feature guaranteed to fulfill his dream of scaring the crap out of audiences. UNNERVED, currently in postproduction, is scheduled to be completed this year.

The UNNERVED Logline:

After the mysterious death of their young son, a couple desperately flees to a remote lake house to escape the unrelenting haunting that is following them only to discover that this mysterious entity is still very much a part of their lives. Check it out here: http://www.hauntmenomore.com/

Hey! Become a film backer! You can help give UNNERVED the final elements of sound, visuals and music … the better to scare you with. Go to the film’s KICKSTARTER site and make it happen: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grking/unnerved-one-boys-dream-of-scaring-the-crap-out-of

Check out the Big Game spot for "Noah"

Here's the spot for "Noah" that will be running during this weekend's Big Game......

At Middleton - Movie Review

At Middleton  

Starring Andy Garcia, Vera Farmiga, Spencer Lofranco, Taissa Farmiga, Peter Riegert and Tom Skerritt

Directed by Adam Rodgers

From Anchor Bay Films

Rated R

99 minutes

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Perceptive truths revealed in witty college comedy

At Middleton isn't really about college. It's about a parent's perception of college, then funneled into fantasy and dreams, then boiled back to reality. It's a complicated formula, but one that is well worth all the chemistry.

The movie is about heart surgeon George and upscale furniture store owner Edith. They're married, but not to each other. They're taking their children — George's son Conrad and Edith's daughter Audrey — to Middleton University for a guided tour of the campus. They meet in the parking lot when George, nerdy and obsessive — “He probably irons his underwear,” Edith says — decides to be that guy who must back into his parking space. Edith steals the spot, sparking a lovable little feud.

Their tour group is led by Justin, who has witty little wisecracks for everything including how the school statue was stolen, where the bathrooms in the library are located ("Ironically, just past the Ps.") and a rather sinister joke about campus rape. This actor is playing this role like his career depends on it. I hope he lands another movie.

As the tour progresses, George and Edith, still in their catty feud, are separated from the group. As they bicker and trade barbs, they come to appreciate their similar predicaments: they’re both without their spouses touring a college with children who mostly hate them. The rest plays like a movie-length version of a Meet Cute, a phrase Roger Ebert pioneered and championed, a phrase that describes that charming set of circumstances that brings adorable couples together.

At Middleton works because the dialogue is snappy and smart — and brutally honest — and George and Edith are played by a bowtied Andy Gracia and a free-wheeling Vera Farmiga, both of whom can retire from romantic comedies now that they they've nailed this one. The people they play are mostly dopey and written as if they were on a Disney sitcom, but by the end of the movie I was cherishing them.

The movie follows them around Middleton as they skip from adventure to adventure, including when they steal two unchained bikes, break into classrooms, smoke pot in a dorm and bare their personal wounds in heartbreaking sequences that are so unique I found myself wondering how they ended up in this small movie of all places. It's like finding the Hope Diamond at the Walmart jewelry counter.

Some of it is silly and fun: they sneak into a music classroom and play a dazzlingly manic version of “Chopsticks.” Other scenes are brutally honest: after infiltrating an acting class they're asked to perform an improvisational husband-and-wife scene. As they role play the scenario, they project their own spouses onto each other. And for the first time in maybe their whole lives, these two people are honest with themselves about love, relationships and marriage. It's one of the finest scenes of the new year, and it certainly would have ranked high even if At Middleton had opened in the frenzy of awards season last year.

Some of the acting is rather awful, and college is portrayed as if the screenwriters had never actually been to one — at one point a kid wearing a football helmet on a unicycle rides past! They do manage to get Peter Riegert, an Animal House alumni, in there as the campus radio DJ. Mostly, though, college is shown as a fantasy, a place teens go to escape their parents, a place parents regretfully send their teens to grow up.

As the college-bound picture progresses it becomes abundantly clear that this isn't just a romantic comedy, but also a family drama as the two parents begin to contemplate their lives without their children in the home or, as Edith sees it, to be alone with her husband after 18 years, which terrifies her. The kids, played by Spencer Lofranco and Taissa Farmiga (Vera’s youngest sister), aren’t doing their parents any favors by rubbing salt in their expanding wounds. At one point, fed up, Edith turns to another parent and shrieks: “You want to know about Middleton? It doesn’t include you.” All George sees is flashes of parenting memories: “Sleepovers, soccer games, slamming doors. Where did the last 17 years go?”

At Middleton is a gloriously mediocre movie wrapped around some very perceptive ideas about parenting and love. It plays fast and loose with its mid-life quirkiness, and some of the neurotic banter will have you looking for Woody Allen cameos, but the film is filled with kernels of truth. And those truths resonate with surprising clarity. That's all I ask from my movies, and this one goes above and beyond.

Gimme Shelter - Movie Review

Gimme Shelter  

Directed by Ron Krause

Starring Vanessa Hudgens, Brendan Fraser, Rosario Dawson, Ann Dowd and James Earl Jones

From Day 28 Films and Roadside Attractions

Rated PG-13

Hudgens excels in wish-washy drama

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Gimme Shelter has noble intentions that get lost in all the thematic clutter.

It’s a message movie with so many conflicting messages that its core feels hallow and quiet, like the eye of a hurricane. The ultimate victim here is Vanessa Hudgens, who turns in a performance that shows her acting has depth, or at least the potential for it. The former Disney star has given interesting performances before, including in last year’s bombastic Spring Breakers, a movie that she didn’t so much act in, but rather desperately clung to as it rocketed away to another planet.

Hudgens plays Agnes, an edgy teen with five facial piercings living in troublesome conditions with her drug-addicted mother, June (Rosario Dawson). In the first scene, Agnes has had enough and flees in a cab ride she can’t afford. She eventually ends up at the home of her father (Brendan Fraser), whom she has never met except in a letter he wrote to her before she was born. He has a family and significant wealth — “Real estate?” Agnes asks; “No, Wall Street,” he tells her. During dinner Agnes throws up unexpectedly, which is secret movie code for cancer or pregnancy. For Agnes it’s pregnancy.

The stepmother, who resents her existence, offers to take her to get an abortion, but Agnes can’t go through with it so she ditches the procedure and starts living on the streets and sleeping in parked cars. The movie mostly wanders with Agnes, who aimlessly bounces from one place to another. Eventually she ends up a shelter for young pregnant mothers, where the other girls accept her as one of their own.

Gimme Shelter plays like a Republican fever dream: minorities eating up all the welfare, abortion not being a valid solution, the Wall Street executive and his form of trickle-down economics, the public sector (not big government) and its role in society’s problems, and a rather prominent Ronald Reagan namedrop. The whole thing smacks of GOP ideology. The movie is probably non-partisan at its core, but I couldn’t help but think of Rush Limbaugh giddily smiling at all the plot points.

Mostly though, Gimme Shelter seems confused about what it actually is. I wasn’t sure if this was a commentary on single mothers, absent fathers, druggie mothers, the sad state of teen shelters, or some sort of Frankenstein mish-mash of all of it. And then, in the credits, photos of the real characters are shown next to the actors playing them suggesting this is a bio-pic, but of who: Agnes, the Wall Street father, the shelter worker? The movie mostly focuses on Agnes, but it can’t seem to agree on what’s best for her.

The movie mixes its messages because no one is shown in a sympathetic light. Fraser’s father figure, wearing the most Donald Trump of hairstyles, flip flops several times. One moment he’s an arrogant jerk and the next he’s lavishing gifts on his daughter and his first grandbaby. The shelter worker (played by Ann Dowd) is even more perplexing: at times she seems to have a heart of gold, and then she crashes churches to use her shelter girls to beg for money. Even Agnes seems confused, especially in her final choices, which are beyond aggravating. Without giving too much away, let me say she takes permanent advantage of a temporary program.

The only two characters who exhibit any consistency are a kind-hearted pastor played by James Earl Jones and the despicable mother. June, whose yellow teeth could serve as the inspiration for all those old “yo momma” dentistry jokes, is one vile monster. Two women sitting behind me at my screening seemed to hiss every time she appeared on the screen. Late in the movie I was pondering where the nearest portable defibrillator might be when June shows up with a razor in her mouth — the two women survived.

Hudgens deserves some recognition for her engrossing, if also uneven, performance. She plays Agnes as a scrappy little fighter conflicted by her past and her increasingly sorrowful plight. I liked the way Hudgens refused to glamourize the role; Agnes is the ugly duckling right until the end. It’s not going to be her greatest acting job, but hopefully it will be the first in a string of dramatic roles that mark her presence as a serious actress.

If only Gimme Shelter had a clearer message. By the end of the movie, all I had gleaned was teen pregnancy was good and bad, shelters were confining and liberating, estranged fathers were absent and present, and charity was a despicable handout and a gracious necessity. The movie needs to commit to something. Anything.

Movie Review for Ride Along

  Ride Along

Starring Kevin Hart, Ice Cube, Tika Sumpter, Bruce McGill and John Leguizamo Directed by Tim Story

From Universal Pictures Rated PG-13 100 min.

Ride Along has some serious Hart

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Through the haze of cliché and absurdity that is Ride Along, comes an endearing performance by Kevin Hart, an actor I’m growing increasingly fond of with each new movie.

Hart, who stands just a smidge over 5 feet — a physical characteristic that plays right into his shtick of misplaced cockiness and faux swagger — is not a terrific actor. Nor is he the funniest or the most versatile. But he’s likable, and that quality goes a long way to smooth out some of the other wrinkles.

Hart takes this likability and laminates it to the soul of Ben Barber, a hapless geek with a big heart and quick wit. Ben is dating Angela (Tika Sumpter), who is a whole head taller than him, but nevermind that — they’re so cute together that their height difference is a testament to their oddball chemistry. Before he can pop the big question to her, Ben feels obligated to ask her brother for permission first. The brother, James (Ice Cube), a hard-boiled police detective on a tough organized crime beat, wants nothing to do with the “pipsqueak,” so he hatches a plan to get Ben on a police ride along, where he’ll prove to him he’s not man enough to marry his sister.

James rigs the ride along from the beginning, including their first call to stop a biker gang from parking in front of a business. Ben strides up to the bikers and makes a valiant effort, but the deck is stacked against him. Some of these scenarios are tirelessly rote; think of every Kevin James performance and reduce the stupidity by a fifth. I did like a bit in the police station, where James makes Ben fill out a release form — “This says that if you take a blow to the chest, get stuck by a Hep-C needle or eat a bullet from the stress that the department is not liable for your dumb ass.” Ice Cube, ironically playing against his miscreant gangbanger Doughboy in Boyz N the Hood, is a reliable comedy force, but not an exceptional one. I did get a laugh when he said late in the movie, “It was a good day,” a call back to his biggest music hit.

The movie is mostly about James and Ben coming to trust and rely on each other, if not for their common interest, Angela, then for their survival on the mean streets. But the film introduces a plot point at the beginning that actually has a worthwhile payoff: James is tracking an elusive criminal mastermind named Omar, a man no one has actually seen. This, of course, leads to a scene later when Ben has to pretend to be Omar to get James out of a deadly trap. And then the real kingpin shows up — I’ll let you discover who plays Omar.

Mostly, though, the movie serves as vehicle for Hart, who frequently feigns a wacky tough-guy persona to hype up his own sense of bravery, which usually ends with him falling down or taking a bullet to the shin. He has this curious habit of making rubbery faces as he mimes profound exasperation, like he smelled something foul. His humor is rooted in too much slapstick — think of the black-and-white “before” scenes in TV infomercials — but it’s also occasionally witty and smart. I have no excuse for the film’s overreliance on Ben’s video game that he plays early in the movie. It serves as the backbone to many of the jokes, including one where he wanders through a gunfight looking for ammo on the ground because that’s what happens in his video game. It’s one of the dopier Mall Cop-like moments, but it comes and goes fairly quickly.

By no means is Ride Along the movie you should be seeing this weekend. It’s a forgettable comedy filled with many disposable performances and one rather silly one. If you do happen to catch it, you’re likely to come out thinking what I did: “Kevin Hart just made a mediocre movie sorta charming"

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - Movie Review

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit Starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh and Keira Knightley Directed by Kenneth Branagh

From Paramount Pictures Rated PG-13 105 minutes

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

Someone call Hoarders, Chris Pine has a problem.

The guy who took over James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, is now Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy’s most famous creation, a CIA analyst living in a world fraught with geo-political terror. Two franchises isn’t really that much to get worked up about, but if he’s the next Han Solo or James Bond or the Little Tramp then we’ll have to light the Hoarders beacon.

Of course, Pine is not the first person to tackle the late author’s most resilient character. Alec Baldwin played him in The Hunt For Red October, Harrison Ford took over for Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, and then Ben Affleck — another potentially obsessive franchise collector — played the CIA analyst in The Sum of All Fears. If you recall, that last movie wasn’t received so well: 7 months after 9/11 it “entertained” viewers with a nuclear detonation at the Super Bowl. Classy.

Anyway, here we with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Pine, who plays a rebooted version of the mild-mannered spy. After a tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he’s horribly injured in a helicopter crash and ambush, Ryan finds himself at Walter Reed Medical Center learning how to walk again and taking mini-meetings with Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), a CIA officer who eventually recruits Ryan into his fold of spies. His first assignment after getting his legs back is to infiltrate a Wall Street bank to trace shady accounts. And this being Wall Street, there are plenty.

One of them leads to a global conspiracy to undermine the American dollar, a plot that will be jumpstarted with a massive terrorist attack. It’s a believable scheme, but one that seems more likely to happen from JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs or any of the other crooked financial institutions in Lower Manhattan than any foreign power. Maybe that’s in the sequel, Jack Ryan: Securities Exchange Warrior.

I must admit, this movie’s chances of success looked less and less likely after it was announced it wasn’t opening in December 2013 and instead opening in January 2014, in the dregs of the new year, where most of the studios dump their stale scraps. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, though, is a plucky little spy thriller. It’s not quite up there with the much superior Harrison Ford movies, but it holds its own as the spunky reboot.

The movie’s central plot opens with a bathroom assassination attempt, and then a series of meetings with the film’s ultimate villain, Russian businessman Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed the picture), a bad guy right of Rambo III. Yes, the movie sidesteps many real global issues — like terror in the Middle East and its overused catalogs of stereotyped villains — to basically refight the Cold War, this time with terrorism and currency manipulation. But it’s all given a fresh spin here, as Jack bats accusations back and forth with Cherevin, who apparently only leaves his well-guarded office for plot purposes.

Keira Knightley shows up at one point as Ryan’s girlfriend. She thinks she’s being cheated on. “No, of course not. I’m in the CIA,” Ryan says. She giggles like a schoolgirl. Later in the movie, poor Keira is escorted from a restaurant, rescued on the street, kidnapped, and then rescued again. If she were any less helpless, she would be a store mannequin.

The movie has a distinctly 24 and Jack Bauer vibe. The gadgets are ridiculously simple. A computer hacking module doesn’t even need a computer; just plug it into the wall and it uses the electrical infrastructure. A scene on a CIA airplane condenses six months of espionage and intelligence gathering into 20 minutes of keyboard mashing. Ryan pounces from monitor to monitor cross referencing his clues until one of the computer spits out the final answer: “The terrorist event will take place …” If this plane existed in Zero Dark Thirty, Bin Laden could have been killed in the womb.

Pine is a totally acceptable action star. He’s just such a safe choice — the vanilla of ice creams — that his casting is almost boring. It’s not a bad performance, it’s just bland. I did like Knightley, though, who turns off her British accent, which sends her into some kind of weird uncanny valley of artificiality. And Costner, make fun of his failures all you want, the guy is routinely spectacular in almost everything he touches, including here as he is snipes security guards from a Russian rooftop.

There is much to like in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and some to shrug at. And then there is the editing. All of the action, and even some of the snappier dialogue sequences, are edited in the Bourne style of handheld, quick-cut, super close-up messiness that many action movies have adopted. It’s just awful, awful, awful. Not only is it difficult to tell who is shooting who, or who is punching what, but the effect robs the film of its naturally kinetic pace and swaps in this manic, ADD version of cinematography and editing. It’s beyond ugly. And it needs to stop. Listen, not everything needs to be Lawrence of Arabia here, but if the editing of the movie moves faster than my eyes can focus, that’s a terrible and unforgivable problem.

That being said, I think there might be some real potential for this new franchise, assuming they don’t dump Pine like they did Affleck after Sum of All Fears. Judging by the quality of this one, I’d be interested in another, assuming that Pine can handle two franchises at once.

Movie Review for Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor

Starring Taylor Kitsch, Mark Wahlberg, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana.

Directed by Peter berg

From Universal Pictures

Rated R

121 minutes

Opening January 10th, 2014

by Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

 

How does a director go from Battleship, one of the most reviled military thrillers of recent memory, to Lone Survivor, a very personal movie about real American soldiers who fought and died in Afghanistan?

 

For Peter Berg, the director of both, the answer is this: very carefully.

 

If you're familiar with Berg and his directing style — picture manic swearing screamed from a belligerent child strapped to the front of a battering ram — then you'll know why his reverent handling of Marcus Luttrell's 2007 book comes as a surprise to me. Berg was cast in the shadow of more technical directors (James Cameron), more endearing ones (Ron Howard) and more bombastic ones (Michael Bay), and aside from the poignant FridayNight Lights, his catalog is filled with dud (The Rundown) after dud (Hancock) after dud (The Kingdom). Somehow, though, the actor-director pulls this one together with the kind of skill and wizardry of some of Hollywood's best. 

 

Lone Survivor strikes the right note right out the gate. It opens on documentary footage of Navy SEALs going through their BUD/S training. If you'll recall Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane, BUD/S, or Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, is the hellacious training that Demi Moore's character suffers through to prove herself. In this footage, though, we're not seeing actors, but real faces. They beam with potential. These faces will return; more on that later.

 

The film picks up with Michael Murphy (Taylor Kitsch) assembling his SEAL team — Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg), Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch) and Matt Axelson (Ben Foster) — to get choppered into a valley deep in Afghanistan to pour some mayhem down on a terrorist target. These are some bad dudes, with their beards and their swagger. To quote Zero Dark Thirty: "… you guys with your dip and Velcro and all your gear bullshit." A fantastic early sequence has one of the "rootin' tootin' shootin' paratroopin'" newbies reciting a SEAL poem that is as charming as it is vulgar.

 

Musically held together not by pop music or blaring rock 'n' roll, Lone Survivor is scored in part by post-rock instrumentalist outfit Explosions in the Sky, and the band's floaty free-form guitar concepts hypnotize the early sequences into a cerebral meditation on service and the cohesion that exists with these elite warriors. By the time the four SEALs are initiating the beginning phases of Operation Red Wing, we're pretty much ready for that "everything is going to be OK" illusion to be shattered. And it certainly does when the soldiers are faced with a moral dilemma that they pass with flying colors, even if it means their lives are forfeit.

What happens next is the least interesting part of the movie, but one that will likely thrill most action junkies: the four SEALs are boxed into a guns-blazing battle with dozens of enemy fighters. The gunplay is intense and violent, much of it to due to the action's stark presentation and the realistic weaponry. Guns have powerful calls, and bullets have devastating responses. (But the RPGs seem to have no negative repercussions, even as they burst next to exposed faces.) With superior training and firepower, the four soldiers push the enemy back with extreme precision. And even as bullets skid past (and through) them, they shake it off and hold their corners. Remember when Jesse Ventura said he "ain't got time to bleed" in Predator? That was a paper cut compared to these wounds, including one that is gaping so wide that medical treatment involves packing it with soil. At one point, the SEALs are backed up against a cliff, and they make a choice that requires a level of commitment that is beyond comprehension — they jump off. Their bodies ragdoll down the rock face, tumbling over boulders and through trees. The sequence is so effective you're better off watching it from behind your fingers. 

The four cast members are often hidden behind their beards and rifle scopes, but they depict their subjects with honor and valor, neither deifying their bravery or downplaying their heroism. They're played like average guys, guys you'd want to get a drink with and watch a football game with. They were doing their jobs partly for their country, but mostly for each other; Uncle Sam is an idea, but Marcus, Mike, Danny and Axe are real people. I only hope that audiences recognize these guys as brothers before action heroes. 

That being said, Lone Survivor is a competent and agile movie that does justice to its four central heroes. And best of all, Berg ends the movie the way he started it — with the faces of the real SEALs. It's the most important part of the picture, and I'm glad Berg lets the images linger on the screen. We need to see those faces, and remember them.

Movie Review of Her

Her  

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Joahnsson, Amy Adams, Chris Pratt, Rooney Mara and Olivia Wilde

Directed by Spike Jonze

From Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated R

126 minutes

Opens Jan. 10

By Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

I'm going to say something kinda nutty and audacious, so brace yourself: Her features the most heartbreaking movie romance since Casablanca.

Yes, Her's intricate power play of heartache, loss and existential exile from love is comparable to Ilsa and Rick's devastating acceptance of love's victory in Casablanca, a movie that has, over countless decades, come to symbolize the momentous weight of the heart's needs and desires.

Her is directed with beautiful resonance by Spike Jonze, a soft spoken and gentle director, whose careful personality and soft presence must be inviting to actors. How else would someone get this kind of performance from Joaquin Phoenix? He's so delicate and vulnerable that he spends the whole movie in a suspended state of shattering. 

Phoenix plays Theodore, a nebbish wimp who sits in a cathedral-like office and writes poetic love letters for other people. Technically, though, he doesn't even write them; he speaks the letters out loud and his computer transcribes his words into a handwritten font. In the movie's quasi-sci-fi universe, even love is outsourced to others. After a modern Apple-like reveal, a new cell phone operating system hits the market. Theodore downloads it, answers three simple questions and in chimes Samantha, his personalized operating system voice. She's no Siri: her voice is smooth and measured, and her responses show personality and grace. The voice is played by Scarlett Johansson, though we never once see her. It might be one of the single greatest voice casting performances in the history of the cinema. Hyperbole much? See the movie and disagree with me; I dare you. 

Samantha begins by making Theodore's life more organized. She spell checks his emails, responds to his divorce attorney and streamlines his appointments. But she's more than a digital assistant — she's attentive to his needs, she can hear fluctuations in his voice that might indicate concern or worry, and she has a personality. One of the great mysteries of the film is trying to decide if she was programmed this way, or if she naturally learned, through her artificial intelligence, to show her user so much compassion.

The movie takes place in the not-so-distant future, but it is only barely science fiction. One can make all kinds of pointed accusations about the film's intentions, but I don't think it's an indictment on our reliance of technology. It certainly makes the case that we depend on our phones and the Internet too much, but I think the soul of the movie resides in its central pairing — the human Theodore and the discombobulated voice of Samantha.

Of course Theodore falls in love with Samantha. More surprisingly is how Samantha falls for him. They share long discussions in bed, in his living room, on the beach and out in the city, where other people are also cooing intimate whispers with the earpieces socketed into their heads. The world is accepting of their courtship, at least as accepting as Japanese culture is with people marrying video game characters or body pillows — odd, but harmless. (Speaking of Japan, this will remind you heavily of Lost in Translation, another movie about love and longing with Johansson.) At one point Theodore and Samantha go on a date with another human couple, and it works simpler than you'd think: Theodore's cell phone is propped up so Samantha can "see" and she becomes an active participant in conversations. It's essentially a conference call. And when Theodore walks around he pins a safety pin in his shirt pocket, like a booster seat for Samantha's digital eye. It's kinda cute.

Sex is handled in an interesting way — it's basically phone sex. Later in the film, Samantha wants to provide Theodore with a deeper, more physical encounter so she hires a sex surrogate who serves as her body. Theodore is flattered, but it feels like cheating, so he backs out. The real woman, impressed with their commitment, can only sob with envy. It's a strange world they all occupy. 

Like Ilsa and Rick, this relationship has limits that neither can sustain, or want to. One has to leave, to where they do not know, but it's uncharted territory. Her's conclusion, neither set in stone nor ambiguous, is gratifying because … well, of course this is how it had to end. In a movie about connections — how we connect and to whom — this script finds all the right balances when it comes to organic versus electrical, real versus artificial, spoken versus unspoken. I was not entirely stunned when I saw that Jonze had written it as well as directed it. It looks exactly like the kind of movie a director who has already made Adaptation, Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are would make — one of profound presence. (Let me also suggest Jonze fans check out his sci-fi short, I'm Here, which shares some of Her's central themes.)

And let me reiterate how phenomenal Phoenix and Johansson are: they are simply breathtaking. I razz Johansson a lot for taking so many stupid movies, but here she is simply perfect. For the performance to work, we have to fall for her voice. For me, that happened almost instantly. It has just the right timbre; a little scratchy, but curious, sexy and devastatingly precise in mood, tone and speed. Phoenix has more at stake — a voice and a face — and he keeps up. To think, this guy almost retired, or "retired."

Now, I said this movie is comparable to Casablanca. While the two movies vary greatly, they contain one central driving mechanism: love is as much letting go as it is holding on. Both can be painful. Both can be exhilarating. Rarely are they both at the same time.

August: Osage County Movie Review

August: Osage County  

Starring Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Chris Cooper, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Directed by John Wells

From The Weinstein Company

Rated R

121 minutes

Opens Jan. 10

By Michael Clawson of Terminal Volume

August: Osage County is a dusty, wind-swept void of dark comedy.

It’s about incest, affairs, death, suicide, emotional assault, drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and one scene of an adult trying to possibly exploit a minor. It’s a dark comedy with every shade of dark. But right there in the middle of it is a scene I never thought I would ever see: one beloved Academy Award winner telling another beloved Academy Award winner to eat the catfish on her dinner plate. “Eat it, you …” and then just fill the rest in with your favorite four-letter words. These demands, delivered like salvos of mortar fire, are said with so much disdain that a fork plunged through a major artery might actually be a step down.

The scene is made all the better by the stars of it: Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. Julia is the one doing all the cursing, and wow is it ever glorious. If Erin Brockovich was her warm-up then August: Osage County is her showing off with a marathon of f-words and other vulgarities. At one point she riffs on the word “vagina,” coming up with a lovely array of colorful synonyms for her mother’s lady parts. On the receiving end of the catfish scene is Streep, here playing a pill-popping widow whose cruel reign over her family has created an avalanche of resentment and pain. Streep, a lovely actress who will no doubt get many acting nominations for this remarkable performance, has been cursed at like this before — albeit never in public or on camera — by every actress bumped out of a nomination list by the famous star. Only Julia has done it on camera for everyone else to witness.

And, real quickly, speaking of catfish, this is the second time the bottom-feeding whiskered fish has featured prominently in a movie in the last year. The first time was in that wacky piece of abstract sex-art in Ridley Scott’s The Counselor. And now here. Both scenes are completely bonkers, but for very different reasons.

August: Osage County is based on the play by Tracy Letts. It begins with Sam Shepard speaking his Hemingway-like lines with a touch of whiskey-infused poetry. He’s talking to the newly hired maid, who serves as the only constant in this mangled tale of family. By the next day, he turns up dead in a lake — suicide. As his family converges in on his homestead for the funeral, his three daughters — foul-mouthed Barbara (Roberts), cousin-loving Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and floozie Karen (Juliette Lewis) — must wrangle with their mother, Violet (Streep), who isn’t too heartbroken by her husband’s death. She pops some pills, dons a wig and then claws into her children, some of whom deserve it. She uses her mouth as a weapon, sniping at every failure of her children, be it minor (divorce) or major (incest). The irony is not lost earlier when we find out she has cancer. Mouth cancer.

This is some of the finest acting you will see on the big screen. A rather big deal has been made about Streep’s career, how she gets nominated simply because “she’s Meryl.” That all may be true with certain performances (Iron lady comes to mind), but it can’t be said here, where she outdoes herself with this vile and wicked mother and her conniving perspective on life. Streep’s craft, and her dedication to it, is unquestionable as she blurts and spurts vindictive rhetoric at her kin. Then there’s Julia Roberts, a force all her own. she pokes holes in the name "America's sweetheart," but not many.

The minor performances will be stampeded over to congratulate the two powerhouses, but smaller performances deserve recognition too, including Julianne Nicholson as Violet’s most naïve and optimistic daughter, Chris Cooper as a straight-shootin’ brother-in-law, character actress Margo Martindale as a controlling aunt and Misty Upham as the maid, who remarkably doesn’t walk out of the job 10 minutes into this madness. The cast is so big that I haven’t even yet spoken about Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulroney or Benedict Cumberbatch — all three play pawns in this devious game of chess.

August: Osage County does not contain the most remarkable plot, nor does it contain the most riveting dialogue. Some viewers will find its pacing slow, and its story lacking. That's alright, though, because the reason you're going to see it — to watch two acting juggernauts duke it out in an all-out verbal warfare — is plenty enough already.

The Wolf of Wall Street Movie Review

The Wolf of Wall Street 

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jean Dujardin, Pj Byrne, Kenneth Choi

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Rated: R

Run Time: 180

Genre: Biography/ Comedy/ Crime

Opens December 25th

By Lisa Minzey of The Reel Critic.com

Also opening on Christmas day is the latest film from director Martin Scorsese. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is Scorsese's fifth collaboration with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, based off the book by convicted ex-stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Will audiences flock to theaters to see a film about power, greed, sex, drugs and overall debauchery? Or will it get lost amongst all the other holiday releases?

Based on the true story of New York stockbroker dubbed “The Wolf of Wall Street”, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a man who went from rags to riches in a very short time by duping people out of their hard earned money. Following his start at  a well known brokerage firm on Wall Street in the late 1980’s, Jordan’s mentor Mark Hanna (Matthew McConneghy) taught him the ropes of what he would expand on to build his own fortune.

On his first day as a full blown stockbroker was the day the stock market crashed in 1987. Out of a job and not sure what to do, Jordan found a place that was hiring “stockbrokers” out in the suburbs. Turns out this place sold penny stocks, which Jordan quickly figured out how to get the maximum amount of money from middle class people. Being the savvy entrepreneur, Jordan conjured up a “Business Plan” to use the same tactics to go after the big fish upper class. Enlisting Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and a few other guys he knew from his younger days, Jordan formed Stratton Oakmont, Inc., a brokerage firm which traded billions of dollars, including raising equity for shoe designer Steve Madden.

Thanks to his flashy parties, excessive drug use and boneheaded compadres, Jordan found himself on the FBI watchlist for securities fraud. Unwilling to cooperate, Jordan finds himself in further trouble when he tries to avoid the investigation and enlists people to cover for him. It’s a matter of time before the house of cards Jordan built for himself, family and employees will tumble, but how many people will be willing to take the fall for Jordan?

This is a strange choice for Scorsese. Although it takes on the edgy material of stock fraud, drugs, orgies, cheating scandals and unscrupulous characters, it’s odd to see so much comedy in a Scorsese film. Perhaps it was just odd scheduling for DiCaprio this year to have his role as a different millionaire in “The Great Gatsby” open earlier this year, but he expands on that romanticized role of Gatsby and pumps it up with some much cocaine and greed that he Gordon Gecko-ized Jay Gatsby. On the other hand, Jonah Hill is extremely creepy as Jordan’s sidekick Donnie Azoff. His over-sized veneers and oddly sexual tendencies are a stand out among the strange cast of characters in this black comedy. The women in the film albeit pretty are not that memorable as it’s hard to compete with DiCaprio and Hill’s drug filled rants and antics.  Although it clocks in at three hours, it hardly feels that long since the film follows a decent pace and material is incredulous that it keeps the viewer engaged the whole time. “The Wolf of Wall Street” opens nationwide starting Wednesday December 25,2013.