CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

12/31/2013

Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips cargo ship encounter with Somalian pirates, Tom Hanks does an admirable job in this cinema-verité film directed by Paul Greengrass. Watching it is like viewing a news story unfold. The style suits the story. An outstanding newbie actor in the role of Muse, Barkhad Abdi essentially steals this limelight as one of the pirates in a haunting performance you won’t soon forget.

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

12/31/2013

Matthew McConaughey

Directed by the incredibly gifted Canadian filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée (The Young Victoria), Matthew McConaughey creates an indelible impression as a rodeo rider named Ron Woodroof who contracts AIDS and then hustles to bring new medications not approved by the FDA to others in need. This is a perfectly crafted film; strong and affecting. Jared Leto as the transvestite Rayon is a heartbreaker. McConaughey is unrecognizable having lost so much weight to be believable in the role. McConaughey continues to astound with his talent; perhaps this is a breakthrough role for him as not just another “pretty” actor. He certainly already has the fame. This work introduces the first screenplay written by unknowns Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

12/31/2013

Based on the Broadway play by Tracy Letts, the film version of August: Osage County does not do justice to this story about a dysfunctional Oklahoma family with a drug-addled matriarch. It is surprising to me that this director, John Wells, would be put in the position of directing this stellar cast, headed by Meryl Streep as the matriarch, when his background has been exclusively television. In other words, both the writer and director had no feature film experience before adapting this play and it shows from the opening sequence on. The entire story comes off as a mish-mosh soap opera that doesn’t take advantage of the place or setting  or do more than indulge these actors as a vehicle for them to have a couple of “moments.” Amidst this mess, Julia Roberts actually manages to not embarrass herself, though she sleepwalks through the role, Meryl relies on theatrics and histrionics rather than sincerity; she’s just not believable as the sick, sadistic mother. The other actors are adequate. The cast includes Dermot Mulroney, Abigail Breslin, Juliette Lewis, Ewan McGregor, Sam Shepard, but the piece never lingers enough on any of their character’s stories to make us care, nor does it give us enough of a sense about why the Julia Roberts character ultimately does what she does. Outside of the entertainment value of seeing these actors play with each other in this depressing screenplay, this film is a miss.

AMERICAN HUSTLE

12/31/2013

Directed and written by David O. Russell, creator of I Love Huckabees and Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle is based on the ABSCAM scandal in the late 70s, early 80s that involved the hire of a con artist named Melvin Weinberg to offer bribes to members of Congress involving a deal to rebuild Atlantic City. The sting operation was successful. Melvin becomes Irving Rosenfeld in Russell’s recreation and is portrayed by Christian Bale who gained an astounding amount of weight to look the part. He is very convincing in the role. While the script is fun, and the actors come together as a fine ensemble cast, I didn’t feel the film was a great cinematic achievement. Besides the icy cool performance of Amy Adams as Rosenfeld’s con artist f-buddy, a good part for her, it was still a bit of a stretch to pull off a New York/Long Island vibe, but she gets over because so much of the time she’s supposed to be affecting a British accent while doing her “con.” Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence shine in their supporting roles as an IRS agent and Rosenfeld’s ditsy wife who cheats on him with a mafia thug. It’s hard to pin down why this film doesn’t succeed in the way it should, but perhaps it’s because there’s a diluted sense of whose film this is, and assuming Rosenfeld is the protagonist, there’s not a great enough change in this character by the end of the film; no great epiphany to achieve that cinematic height.

12 YEARS A SLAVE

12/31/2013

Directed by Steve McQueen and adapted by John Ridley from the writings of Solomon Northup, a free man from Saratoga New York is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841. The story is a chilling testament to the evils of slavery in the American South. There are no fancy gimmicks used in this film,  no sentimentality, its a straightforward narrative and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays his role with veracity and heart. Michael Fassbender as the plantation owner Edwin Epps is outstanding, as is Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist. Some of the actors had difficulty with the language that was supposed to reflect the period and came off sounding stagey. The word on the street is the film used gratuitous violence. This is, in my opinion, absolutely untrue; not a note was out of place. If the filmmakers had wished to be gratuitous, they could have edited the film very differently, but instead, a lot of the pain and torture Solomon endured as a slave is left to the imagination of the viewer.

BLUE JASMINE

12/31/2013

OK, we SAG members are inundated with screeners and screenings around this time to vote on worthies for the SAG Awards. There were a lot of great films this year. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine is no exception, though I did feel it isn’t one of his more outstanding offerings. Cate Blanchett, however, is wonderful as Jasmine, the wife of a Madoff-like character played to sleazy perfection by Alec Baldwin. Stripped of all worldly possessions, Cate moves in with her sister Ginger, played by Sally Hawkins, who has a job at the check-out counter at a supermarket. The sisters are not related by blood because they are both adopted. This Woody Allen film is notable for starring these two British actresses who have no trouble at all playing believable Americans. Then there’s Andrew Dice Clay in the role of Augie, Ginger’s first husband. Wonderful casting. I did have moments of incredulity toward the story when I felt the voice of the auteur impinging; a shadow narrative of petty wish-fulfillment by Woody Allen toward Mia Farrow. This is in regard to the rejection of unstable Jasmine by her son, an underlying theme in this story. I guess he has to get his therapy somewhere a wish-fulfillment projection about his own son, though I doubt “acting out” with his written work on screen will change his real-life pseuris.

WOLF OF WALL STREET

12/26/2013

I caught a screening of Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street. Funny as shit! Yeh, I know people are avoiding it because of its "male chauvinist" portrayals, but this was the attitude of these brokers in the late eighties and early nineties. They were hiring hookers on holiday, shoveling in the coke and breaking the law. And some of them did go to jail. This film is absolutely brilliant! Get past all the sex on the screen. Jonah Hill and Leo DiCaprio is a screen match made in Heaven. The screenwriter is Terence Winter, that guy who created the Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. Don’t miss this. You have to see it in a theater to believe it.

GRAVITY

10/7/2013

I don't know what to say about Gravity, a high-thrills film about survival in space after disaster strikes starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. I think you need to see it in the largest movie theater you can in 3-D. I saw it in the smallest movie theater in 2-D but this is a film to be seen for its cinematography of outer space in 3-D and earth from outer space and the sequences of astronauts with zero gravity being bombarded with flotsam at the speed of bullets so you know, just know this and pay the extra two dollars if that interests you. The story is sparse, just enough to add impetus to the Bullock character, but otherwise, this is about being amazed at the picture, not much else. And for some who want to spend a couple of hours staring at earth from outer space, it will work. It ain't no 2001 or Apollo 13 so be aware this starts in space and all I can say is, it would have been longer if more countries were building space stations, maybe. And well...in 2-D...there's not much of a movie.

CBGB (see 10/2 post on the Blogsite for the review of the CBGB movie)

RUSH

9/22/2013

I guess Ron Howard has now achieved the sort of envious Spielberg-hate that swept about Hollywood when he was making too many successful, sentimental movies judging from some of the “official” reviews. All I can say is, if you're a filmmaker, Rush is a rush.

It's a great film biopic about the spirit of competition of Formula One drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

The editing is mind-blowing, the marriage with the Hans Zimmer soundtrack is superb. The cinematography at moments will take your breath away. The seventies time period, the famous speedway locations, all feel and read authentic.

Chris Hemsworth, the Australian stud most familiar as Thor, finally gets to strut his stuff in a film that isn't starring him as a Star Trek character, fairy tale character, superhero. Hemsworth, who in real life grew up in a Crocodile Dundee existence, plays the Formula 1 driver James Hunt magnificently, affecting his public school British background and laissez-faire, playboy attitude.

However, the actor who in my opinion steals this film, is Spanish-German Daniel Bruhl as the uptight, privileged Austrian Niki Lauda..

This is high-speed entertainment at its finest and shame on Hollywood if it doesn't give this film a big nod at the Oscars. Ron Howard's nailed a great magic trick when he pulled this one out of the hat.

LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER

8/18/2013

A satisfying two-plus hours of film, Lee Daniels' The Butler delivers star performances in this sensitively sequenced biopic that does double duty as a primer of the Civil Rights Movement from the points of view of the butler, the presidents who came and went, and the generation that chose active roles to effect a change.

Just wonderful.

Forrest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey are superb as the butler, Cecil Gaines, and his wife, Gloria.

Though many believe director Lee Daniels emerged as an independent talent, out of the woodwork, with the hard-hitting Precious, he had been around the film industry for many years prior as talent manager, producer, and in other capacities. With this film, he steps into the limelight as a director with a proven ability to create an accessible film vehicle for the general public.

Be aware the story is painted with broad strokes, but the screenplay covers a huge number of years and does so in a nimble, balanced way to get to the heart of the main characters and their saga; and as the world changing around them changes them. Cameos are all performed well, despite actors with little resemblance stepping into the roles of known dignitaries and presidents. Jane Fonda adds color as a spunky Nancy Reagan.

Among the cameos, see if you spot Mariah Carey in her small but significant role!

WE’RE THE MILLERS

8/15/2013

We're the Millers is an awesomely stupid summer throwaway film about a Denver drug dealer (the funniness starts with this) and ok, one of the laughs is the orca tank that you see in the trailer...the whale has perfect timing (though the parts where Jennifer Aniston pretends to be a stripper aren't REALLY funny). If you're into stupid comedy catch This is the End which is actually a ground-breaking (meta) comedy film where the apocalypse starts while a bunch of film stars are living it up at James Franco's huge party in his Hollywood mansion...nothing is dumber or funnier this year. Last chance to catch up with films before I begin graduate school, so I'm looking forward to seeing the new Woody Allen and the opening of The Butler this weekend. And yes, I admit I have a hankering to see Brad Pitt save the world from a bunch of flesh-eating zombies. Who wouldn't!

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

7/7/2013

In this second Star Trek with the cast we first saw in the 2009 motion picture, Kirk and the Enterprise are sent on a secret mission to Kronos to wipe out the superhuman Khan who has fled there after his attempt to eradicate Earth. Kronos is in Klingon territory, the Klingons are enemies of the Federation, and approaching Kronos could set off an intergallactic war.

The promise of greatness in this cast is confirmed for trekkies everywhere in this movie, a big box spectacle that works in tandem with the first to kick off the new franchise. These actors have melded into these roles with a confidence and commitment that jumps across the big screen into the hearts of their audience. They boldly go where other Star Trek crews did not in an expediently rational away (won’t spill the beans in my review, see for yourself) that gives this cast its own identity, separate from the original Shatner/Nimoy group.

Almost all attempts to reinstate popular television, film series and adaptations fail because of inappropriate casting, weak scripts and production values, that don’t stand up to the originals. In the case of Star Trek, it’s possible it will ultimately surpass the original with this winning cast who have stepped into these roles at younger ages. I’m excited to see what comes next.

THE LONE RANGER

7/6/2013

July 4th weekend I caved in to my mother’s request--the hot weather a horror--and off we drove to the Regal theaters at Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island to catch an 11 a.m. screening of The Lone Ranger. I was surprised to see there were only five others in attendance. Not that this is unusual for a film screened before noon, but it was so hot you’d think the place would be packed.

At the time, I wasn’t aware of the critical fusillade against the film.

Armie Hammer (great-grandson of Armand Hammer and the Vinklevoss (sp?) twins in "The Social Network," stars opposite Johnny Depp in this insanely dumb Western script based on the original radio series, created in 1933 (and in fact the film kicks off in 1933 [before it flashes back to the Wild West of the 19th Century], a choice made to allude to this year of creation.)

There is unsettling language and style that break the illusion of time and place e.g. an emphasis on proper women applying lipstick, plus there seems, in this film, a conscious attempt to throw a nod at Little Big Man and cross this with a lift straight out of Nights at the Museum...well, you'll see. Despite these flaws, it is a strangely satisfying Lone Ranger for the sole reason that despite the film exhibiting miniscule artistic integrity, it is big on entertainment. Thrown in with the package are 3 hours of air-conditioning, great photography of Monument Valley, and the goofy direction by the Pirates of Caribbean guy, Gore Verbinski.

So yes, it has flaws, but ignore the critics, go see it, and remember to leave the little kids at home because the arrows and bullets really seem to be flying: Though there isn't blood, there's one sequence that is...uh uh uh unforgettable...well don't want to ruin your dinner. And of course, they didn’t forget to throw in an amazing sequence where the William Tell Overture truly kicks in. Plus, if you like Depp in strange parts well, this is a strange one.

Armie Hammer, surprisingly, holds his own in this; he's a romantic, almost pretty boy--leading man who has just the right touch with comedy without losing truth, a very winning--and in the case of this cringe-worthy script--very refreshing talent, balancing Depp's character work perfectly.

THIS IS THE END

7/6/2013

You have to be a die hard comedy fan to appreciate this highly original, off-the-wall, madhouse of a film. If you’re turned off by tasteless comedy skip this. If, however, you want a wicked laugh at a send-up of nouveau actor success stories, using the trope of a crazy Hollywood house party disrupted by disaster, this is it.

This is the sort of comedy that could give a comedy fan brain freeze from overload.

I could wax on forever about some of these moments, but it’s overwhelming so see for yourself (to begin with the weirdness, the actors all assume the roles of...themselves).

This mayhem was written and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and it stars James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Emma Watson (yes!), Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, and dozens of others. A lot of these guys are Canadian; maybe Canadian actors are funnier, at least once they party in Los Angeles, or maybe it’s where they get exposed to drugs, I don’t know.

If you’re a comedy fan, DON’T MISS THIS...I MEAN...REALLY...DON’T MISS THIS!

THE INTERNSHIP

7/6/2013

This film is a riot.

Two aging losers get internships at Google.

The film stars Vince Vaughn (co-writer) and Owen Wilson.

What’s not to love? Comedy at its finest with a fresh, high-concept idea that can do no wrong.

THE HEAT

7/6/2013

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy star in this cop buddies genre flick that pairs by-the-book Special Agent Ashburn (Bullock) with a few screws loose, tough-mouthed Boston cop Mullins (McCarthy).

While I applaud female buddy comedy films, and these girls make me laugh (another unforgettable McCarthy performance), and this film shows promise of a comedy team that could equal the heights of our beloved Abbott and Costello, my enthusiasm is tempered by this material. Here is a script that uses a rehashed cop buddy formula, putting these women in the roles that worked with their male counterparts, but focuses on a one-trick pony that simply because these characters are women in these usually male roles it’s a given it will be comedy.

As a woman, I find something offensive in this.

These women need better material that is uniquely created to plow the minefield of women’s issues, and for this reason, while the laughs happen here, there’s a certain sheen missing.

One has only to refer back to Bridesmaids, or indeed Melissa’s brilliant work in Identity Thief, or Bullock’s romantic comedies...even in Bullock’s Miss Congeniality, the fun was the focus on making over a female cop who abhorred the trappings of femininity, forced into a beauty pageant; in The Heat, the girls enter this vortex when they’re forced to transform into party girls for a night to peg their perp. It just doesn’t go far enough to satisfy.

Of course there is already a sequel in development but I hope someone out there will throw them into a fictional environment that gives their enormous talents more to work with. They should go back, if they insist on sticking with the buddy cop genre, and look at why the Die Hards and Lethal Weapons worked so well, the soliloquies of despair and angst (especially in Gibson’s case) because these movies, while marketed as action films, were successful because they utilized comedy by their stars without a need to descend into buffoonery and clowning to make up for the lack of development within the script, in other words: room for the actors to express true moments.

The amazing thing about both Bullock and McCarthy is these are two actors who have vastly more going for them than comedic talent; they are fully rounded actors who can mine the pathos as well. Within this reality lies their potential.

RENOIR

5/27/2013

If life ever becomes dull for you, read Proust. As I’ve begun to read required texts for graduate school, kicking off with Swann’s Way, everything slow is faster by comparison. So, on a break to see a film, I found the slow-paced Renoir a welcome divertissement!

Renoir is a wonderful study of the artist in his last years (1915 specifically in Cagnes-Sur-Mer...he was to pass on in 1919) and his relationship to his sons and the young model, Andrée Heuschling, who enters their lives.

The film, a selection of the 2012 Cannes festival sidebar screenings, Un Certain Regard, is a work by Gille Bourdos. Christa Theret as Andrée is a scene stealer. Michele Bouquet as Renoir  turns in an exacting performance. Vincent Rottier as Jean, a young man wounded in WWI, is compelling, and Thomas Doret as young Coco Renoir shows remarkable talent.

While the screenplay is based on Jean Renoir’s autobiography, there are a number of trifles that are confusing. From what I’ve read, Andrée didn’t enter the household until 1917 and was recommended by Matisse, yet in the movie 1915 is mentioned and that Renoir’s dead wife had recommended her, so that when she appears at their home, her fibbing about her recommendation “paints” her as a fibber. As well, in the film, it is she who ambitiously dreams of being a famous actress, yet in real life she supposedly didn’t harbor these thoughts. In real life, as in the film, Andrée did model for Renoir the pére and indeed did marry the fils , and went on to work with Jean in his early films (later known as Catherine Hessling).

Renoir, though slow-paced, captures the essence of the Impressionist palette, technique, in the cinematography and the subjects; there are a number of works that the Impressionists left us from time spent in Cagnes-Sur-Mer, especially during the Franco-Prussian War when some avoided conscript in the south of France. As well, Renoir’s exquisite rendering of flesh on canvas is focused on, to contrast thematically with the destruction taking place in the Great War, and the literal wound to the bone on Jean’s leg.

This is a beautiful, well-made little film that gives a slice of life of the artist in his waning years, albeit a very vague one as it focuses on his diminished faculties and physical issues, the arthritis that impeded his mobility, and the small world he inhabits with his family in the countryside during this period, and the legacy of his name passed on to his sons.

THE BIG WEDDING

5/15/2013

How can you go wrong with a comedy throwing together our most beloved actors? Robert DeNiro and Susan Sarandon are lovers, Diane Keaton plays DeNiro’s ex-wife and Sarandon’s one-time best friend. Katherine Heigel is a daughter of the family, an adopted son is getting married.

What can go wrong is the tasteless language of a script that aspires to genre (everything goes wrong at the wedding, everyone’s secret is revealed) in a base manner that is also directed by the writer, Justin Zackham. The same individual wrote The Bucket List, which showed some writing promise.

Separating the script from the direction, the film itself showed talent by Mr. Zackham for directing comedy. I would hope he continues to pursue his penchant for comedy without resorting to the clichéd, the hackneyed. It didn’t work here. He was lucky to have had a cast that threw themselves gamely into this venture and hope his next script has more originality and less reliance on sexist verbal and visual humor that seemed to be the writing of a young man who hasn’t reached maturity in certain ways, like in life. It didn’t do much here, and made the film forgettable. The only thing worse I’ve seen in recent years, as far as the script was the last installment of the Stiller Parents trilogy, Little Fockers.

However, I admit I laughed out loud a lot, but that’s me, and these great actors are always worth a visit (I mean who would purposely skip anything Keaton is in?  Not me. And she is, as always, highly diverting in this.) It still didn’t make for a good film, though it had some entertainment value if you’re really desperate for a comedy movie, but be warned if you’re in any way a film snob or tend to wince at weak screenplays that put actors we love into a lot of compromising positions we’d rather not see them in.

THE GREAT GATSBY

5/15/2013

Baz Luhrmann, the Australian filmmaking wunderkind who made a musical film about Moulin Rouge, Paris, 1899, with a soundtrack more remembered for Bowie, Sting, Pink than Offenbach, now has turned his sights on the great American classic novel: the summer of 1922, Long Island East and West Egg (Port Washington and Great Neck), F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

As in Moulin Rouge, this film is a smorgasbord of color and motion. I saw it in 3D and it very successfully used this medium to create visual wonders in editing transitions, and to enhance visual distance and foreground. Don’t be afraid of it...pay the extra money to see it in 3D.

The story about Gatsby, the mysterious young man in the mansion who catches the interest of his neighbor, the narrator and bond salesman Nick Carraway, and has a mysterious connection to Nick’s cousin, Daisy Buchanan, unfolds in its inevitable way. As in Moulin Rouge, this film version of Gatsby is a smorgasbord of visual beauty, but is thankfully not edited with the same freneticism.

In all ways, this film should be a masterpiece, save for the obvious failure by this director to give a nod to the music of the period. In Moulin Rouge, the film was stylized in such a way the absurdity of hearing Christina Aguilera in an 1899 dance hall was part of the craziness, in Gatsby, just as you’re settling into a sense of stepping back in time, you hear Jay Z and Kanye West...house music used sparingly in the film...just enough to ruin it.

As a film composer, I tried to put aside my prejudice, but try as I might, no two ways about it...this filmmaker, or these producers missed an opportunity. Rather than trust a film composer to create a theme, work it into the background, elevate the presence of the music of the period (or create original music with the flavor of that period), they threw the chance away. The beauty of Gatsby is its capture of that time period, a story about young men after the Great War and how they lived, loved and let loose. The sound of the film was goose-stepping off in a different direction than the visual. Thought it’s true that Moulin Rouge worked with its soundtrack to some degree, and the rock music Sofia Coppola threw daringly into her study of Marie Antoinette was effective (though the French audiences booed her film it at its screenings in Cannes), the music choice did not work here in this love story that takes place during the Flapper Era.

I wouldn’t discourage anyone not to see The Great Gatsby. It’s beautiful. The gowns are by Prada. Tobey Maguire, especially, and Carey Mulligan turn in fine performances. Maguire, in fact, keeps the film from descending into “cartoon” to a great degree. Leo DiCaprio is well cast, I felt his performance was a bit uneven, but then he is playing an uncomfortable, untruthful character...as Leo DiCaprio is normally a very truthful actor, it was probably a stretch for him. Nonetheless, the biggest fault in this production lies squarely with a concept that allowed this score. And though there is a feeling of the dystopian, alternate universe, existing outside of time, the gangster rap puts it squarely where it shouldn’t have landed: now.

PAIN & GAIN

5/15/2013

If you're into black humor, check out this "pumped up" film by Michael Bay who finally steps out of his comfort zone playing with action figures (transformers) to make a somewhat more (ahem) serious film, Pain & Gain. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The story, about supremely delusional morons in Miami, joins a pantheon of like films such as Fight Club, Trainspotting, Pulp Fiction, To Die For, etc. except since Michael Bay is the director other filmmakers love to hate, and doesn't forget he’s making entertainment, he'll be hated more for this.

It's a good film...loved the cast. Mark Wahlberg is the supreme leader, Daniel Lugo, a beefed-up gym rat-trainer who is the “moron-brainiac” of a plan to steal the wealth of one of his clients, a Jewish wheeler-dealer, played superbly by Tony Shalhoub. Dwayne Johnson is one of Wahlberg’s sidekicks, and Ed Harris adds a note of class as a retired detective.

There are a lot of surreal moments in this, violence and gore, and yes they are a correct choice; but most disturbing is to know this is based on a true story.

Unless you have a weak stomach, go see it. Though it will give you a lot of moans and groans, it's fun.

ADMISSION

4/14/2013

Being it's the weekend, I wanted to see a film that's not gory, fantasy, super-hero driven, animated. Not many choices, but I saw Admission, starring Paul Rudd and Tina Fey, was playing at the Union Square cineplex. Pfeh, OK I thought.

Admission turned out to be a pleasant diversion. It's about an admissions officer (Fey) at Princeton who is convinced an interested applicant may be the son she gave up at birth, thanks to the affable jockeying by the director of a progressive prep school (Rudd). As the only child of a single women's-rights-activist-author mother (Lily Tomlin), motherhood is a concept she's avoided. Comes the day her professor-boyfriend skips out to marry the Virginia Woolf professor, pregnant with his twins.

The lightweight screenplay by Karen Croner has moments of sparkle in the quirkiness of her female creations and some of the comic phrasing, which is tastefully understated. The lack of development of the male characters weakens the story, however; the relationship that develops between Fey and Rudd feels forced; like it happens because it's a movie, not because these characters drift towards each other by circumstance or character growth. The Fey character seems to be looking in on her world rather than being an active participant.

All that aside, the film entertains. The director, Paul Weitz, directed About a Boy, a super-pleasant film, and American Pie. He was also the director of the unfortunate Little Fockers, but one could forgive that for its screenplay. Besides, who would pass on seeing Lily Tomlin--a Bella Abzug tattoo on her right shoulder-- pull a wrench out from under her ass after sex with a Russian philosophy teacher with a "We both got lucky last night" to her daughter, Fey? Well, I wouldn't.

VICTIMAS DEL PECADO (VICTIMS OF SIN)

3/4/2013

I went with a friend to a screening at NYU of Emilio (El Indio) Fernandez's film, Victimas del Pecado (Victims of Sin). Fernandez, Mexico's undisputed greatest filmmaker, made this film in 1951. It's a typical cabaretera, a genre of melodrama and film noir that takes place around a musical club. Besides some awesome choices (the symbolic smoke from a train rising into the sky as the actress stares at a club on the other side of the tracks...or perhaps she’s considering hurling herself from them) the fascination with this particular film is its leading lady, Ninon Sevilla, a Santeria practicioner in real life who had moved from Cuba to Mexico and became a film star with her outrageous rumba and mambo dancing and outfits exposing her long legs, contrasted against the pachuco (zoot suit egomaniac bad guy) played brilliantly by Rodolfo Acosta. No bad guy in classic Hollywood compares to the lowdown meanness of this character, who demands one of his women dump his own baby in a garbage can if she wants to continue to work for him. The film is melodrama to the point of camp when the good guy, played by Tito Junco, has a first rendezvous with Ninon's character, Violeta, accompanied by an army of mariachi players. This is my first foray into the cabaretera of the golden age of Mexican cinema and I'm hooked!

DARK SKIES

3/3/2013

An ordinary family in the suburbs is thrust into a nightmare when weird things occur in their home. Weighing heavily on various close encounter stories, this is not a childlike Spielberg E.T. In fact, the film owes more to Spielberg’s Poltergeist for its shocker content, without the sentimentality. It is a well-made sci-fi horror film by Scott Stewart and stars Keri Russell as the mother (check her out as a Soviet spy in The Americans) and rising star child talent, Dakota Goyo. I attended a Sunday morning screening and was so frightened I wouldn’t let the theater workers close the doors (there was no one else in the theater for the before noon $6 screening...go figure...well really, you wouldn’t want to be alone in the dark watching this.)

IDENTITY THIEF

1/12/2013

Identity Thief is incredibly stupid but funny as hell because Melissa McCarthy is in it. If you need that lift, go see it. Lou Costello has been reincarnated as she. Written by Craig Mazin, who I think went to the Ben Stiller school of comedy writing (don't these guys EVER develop their own comic voices??????), Melissa actually rises above the material at one point, showing much greater depth to her talent that hopefully she'll be allowed to tap one day with better scripts.