THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL

6/6/2012

Run to see this lovely film by director John Madden, screenplay Ol Parker, about aging Britains who retire in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. This is a fabulous cast giving exceptional performances. Judi Dench narrates as the recently widowed Evelyn, Maggie Smith is outstanding as a close-minded racist who, as Muriel, transforms inside and out when she travels for a hip operation. Tom Wilkinson gives a moving performance as Graham, who walks away from politics to return to his childhood haunts to make right a wrong done when he was a teenager, and Penelope Wilton is an unbending married woman, forced by circumstance to relocate to India with her husband, played by the awkwardly affable Bill Nighy, when their funds disappear into their daughter's business start-up. Ronald Pickup rounds out this cast as the naughty elderly gentleman with the bad lines (cast for the fun of the pun?).

Dev Patel (Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire) plays the young man who inherits the falling down hotel from his father. He slogs on with enthusiasm, bordering on delusional, while the building lies in ruins about him. His siblings and mother want to knock the thing down; the pressure mounts when his mother demands he give up the girl he loves, return to Delhi and marry a woman chosen for him.

This is a brilliant ensemble piece, hearty, satisfying and as savory as the delectable repasts offered the guests of Marigold Hotel. Catch it in a movie theater where you can enjoy the colors and atmosphere of this part of the world.

HIGH SCHOOL

6/27/12

Here's a Sundance film from 2010 that the filmmaker made on ten million dollars. Times sure have changed for the bastion of "indie" film, if one can call it that anymore. Anyways, this is a stoner film by first feature director John Stalberg Jr. which is worth seeing especially for the performance of Adrien Brody as the badass dealer dude. Funny as hell. Nice young cast. Clever topic for mayhem when the valedictorian gets high right the day before the principal decides to drug test the school. This is a modern man's pineapple upside down version of Reefer Madness taken to the nth degree crossed wtih a Ridgemont High. Colin Hanks plays an assistant principal and nice casting...this is Tom Hanks oldest son. Adhir Kalyan was the perfect touchy as the salutatorian antagonist, Sebastian. Sean Marquette, the bad boy, stands out with an eerie aura of John Belushi that seems to hang over him. Don't expect art here, it is what it is and it's funny. Let it grow on you that way.

MOONRISE KINGDOM

6/28/12

Moonrise Kingdom is the most magical, evocative film of the summer...it's what movies should be. It's the movie I WISH I'd made this summer but it's all Wes Anderson and features some of his "troupe" we've seen in his other films including the inimitable Bill Murray as a cuckolded father and fey Jason Schwartzman as a Khaki Scout troop leader. He shot the film on 16mm which gives it the perfect nostalgic look of the New England coast of 1965. Bob Balaban is the "Chorus", Harvey Keitel makes an appearance, Edward Norton is wonderful as the troop leader who keeps losing his boys, Frances McDormand and Bruce Willis (as police chief) round out the adult cast. It's the tweens, though, who are the heart of this film...mainly the young "lovers", unknowns, played by Jared Gilman as the orphaned boy scout and a fetching Kara Hayward as the troubled young girl...though one drawback if you watch is there seems to be a purposeful casting of these two who resemble a generic 11 year old Harry Potter and a young Emma Watson. Was this coincidence or a purposeful thumbing of the nose at the Potter empire? The score is riddled with pieces by Benjamin Britten and evocative songs of the era that fit the scenes including country music hits of the time such as Kalija and was filmed in different parts of Rhode Island (notice the shot of the Ocean House near the end which is in Watch Hill.) Roman Coppola is credited as writing the screenplay with Wes Anderson.

LIFE OF PI

12/15/2012

Based on the book by Yann Martel, Ang Lee brings to life this strange tale of a young man and Bengal tiger stranded in a lifeboat 227 days in the Pacific Ocean.

The story is told in two parts as in the book; the tale of a boy named for a French swimming pool as Piscine renames himself as Pi, the ratio between circumference and diameter of a circle. The boy seeks G-d and learns about Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. His father runs a zoo and decides to relocate the family to Canada, taking some of the animals as collateral for a new life when disaster strikes the Japanese freighter they're on.

Ang Lee is a miraculous director and he doesn't disappoint, though I wouldn't say this would be considered his masterwork. The story is approached as flashback from the point of view of the adult Pi. He tells his story to a writer referred to him by a common friend (mentor?). The approach, disappointingly, dilutes the impact in comparison to films such as Zemeckis's Cast Away which has a strength because of its immediacy. Instructive as to how this film could have been more successful is to look at Titanic in which the set-up to flashback is compelling and allows the viewer to move into the main story without the narrative being intrusive. However, segments of the film of Pi's survival on the boat are singularly beautiful and magical, made more so by the casting of unknown Suraj Sharma in the lead. His relationship to the tiger is elemental and enthralling. Most of the tiger sequences are cgi, which is even more remarkable.

I don't want to give away some of what's seen in the film, but for the Xmas season, you won't go wrong choosing to enjoy this eyeful of allegory.

LINCOLN

12/15/12

This ambitious film with magnificent performances by Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln, Sally Field as his wife, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens and James Spader as Bilbo is another tour de force by Spielberg that just misses the mark. Unfortunately, the screenplay by Tony Kushner, focusing on specifics surrounding Lincoln's efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment, has crackling dialogue and well-crafted scenes taken individually, but the entire story comes across as convoluted and unfinished.

There is, first off, a feeling of shifting protagonist that while entertaining in terms of watching various leads take their star turn on screen, dilutes the through line . If the film only focused on the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment the script could have been more cogent. Or a choice could have been made to establish one strong POV or explore one relationship such as Lincoln with his wife through this period.

It's also impossible to not compare this to the film musical of 1776, the culmination of which is the vote by roll call and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The writing successfully hones in on the various personalities because the heart of the story is the formation of the United States, not on any one individual.

So here we have a story about Lincoln that competes with the story about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Certainly, taken scene by scene, there can be nothing but praise though one feels manipulated to a certain extent by the Spielberg magic. When I dug in a little to the facts, looking behind the sainted intentions asserted by the film to Lincoln and others, it appears the emancipation of slaves was seen as the equivalent of Truman's use of the atom bomb to end the Civil War, not necessarily for the noble intentions ascribed by this film. Lincoln was advised the freeing of the slaves would be the equivalent of releasing a million more soldiers on the south, a way to win the war. As well, it's bad form to not have used the real names of those who refused to sign the amendment in a film seen as historical such as this. There are also other odd choices that don't work, such as moments in a theater I'll refrain from including out of respect to those who have yet to see the film.

There were many ways to approach Lincoln and establish its intent but it seems these filmmakers were satisfied with an ensemble actors' tour de force and less a cohesive film with a strong through line. See it for these performances, they're great. See it as a study in how a film with all the elements of greatness can still not be a great film because of a lack of decisiveness with its through line.

ARGO

12/18/12

Ben Affleck directs this recreation of the rescue of six diplomatic workers from Iran by a CIA operative while the world, unaware, watched the many others held hostage during the 1980 uprising. He tells the story stylishly with some excellent performances by John Goodman and Alan Arkin as the Hollywood guys who assisted in the rescue by creating a legitimate film production as a front to sneak them out of the country.

The film is well-made, and it appears a great effort went into the portrayal of the event as it happened, however, there's not much developed dramatically in the screenplay and production to call it a masterwork in comparison to similar films. One of the best of this genre is the Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek film Missing that takes place during the coup in Chile. Another is the adaptation of Mariane Pearl's story of her search for her husband Daniel in Pakistan in A Mighty Heart.

It's certainly worth the price of admission for entertainment value (in my opinion best provided by Goodman and Arkin) and to learn about the history if you want a diversion, but you can just as well wait for it to show up on television. As far as watching angry Islamists protesting, there's a lot of that in this film, but you can catch that most days on CNN so you wouldn't be missing much to watch it in this . As well, the insinuation that President Carter managed to defuse the situation without violence, that the past Shah's attempts to "Westernize" Iran were evil because they trampled on Islamist credo (do the Iranians who remember when women could practice medicine and citizens had other general freedoms believe this crap?????), and to believe this is a lesson in how we should deal with increasing antagonism in this region when Americans have their lives threatened...well, I think some who catch this bent of the film will find this offensive. The "point of view" on this is dictated at the top of the film and a moment at the end in an almost propaganda-ish fashion and doesn't mesh with the message of what we see on film where the anti-Americanism extends to gunning down average Iranians in the street; not really sure how any of this showed that Carter's non-involvement strategy benefitted anyone as the filmmakers assert, except it put off any military involvement in the mid-east for another decade while violence against Americans, hijackings, murders continued because...well...there wasn't much wrist slapping over it back then.

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

12/18/12

Ian McClellan as Gandalf, Martin Freeman as the wide-eyed hobbit Bilbo Baggins and Richard Armitage as the brooding Dwarf King leading his merry band back to his lost mountain kingdom are the heroes of Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit. The script, acting, direction of action sequences, cgi are superb. The 3D effects are adequate and add to the experience. My issue is with the unfortunate approach in the use of the 48 fps Red technology that makes the picture look like live TV or a video game experience rather than film. The screening I saw was not cinematic at all, though one is caught up in the story. It's quite perplexing as scene to scene you see conscious work with the depth of field, composure of picture, etc. and yet it completely fails as a work of cinema art.

Truly, the action sequences are amazingly choreographed, the adversaries encountered are frightening, some monolithic, the introduction of Gollum is satisfying. The story is strong and I'll go see the next in the series. But frankly, as "film" it doesn't stand up to scrutiny as his first series did. It's possible the technology using the higher frame rate Red camera is just not suited for Jackson's old-fashioned style of direction. He mostly composes with epic wide shots and classic talking head moments, by the book choices that haven't changed much since the making of Spartacus. It's unfortunate considering the success of Avatar made in 2009 using 24 fps technology that mixed film with HDCAM where the technology in all ways produced a highly cinematic picture from beginning to end.

The Red Camera may work well with more of a cinema verité style, quick MTV-like edits, swifter camera movements, jerky hand held moves, and other choices that made cinematic earlier digital formats (i.e. a shallow depth of field was hard to access on pre-HD video so the closer you were the safer.) Here you glimpse the warp of fabric of the green screen behind actors heads because of the high definition and sundry other problems. If it weren't for the strength of the performances, the story, and the sheer video-game action- adventure of it that will look great on smaller screens, Jackson would be looking at a huge financial disaster...but I believe its other strengths will win out in respect to recoupment.

Howard Shore as the film composer adequately repeats musical themes from the earlier adventures.

In conclusion, if you want to see great performances, magnificent scenery, scary monsters and adventures, go see Part I of The Hobbit. If you love Masterpiece Theater or live broadcasts from the Met you'll be ok with this. If you want to see a film with camera work where you become lost in the magic of glorious picture, you'll be disappointed. Up to you!

THE GUILT TRIP

12/29/12

At holiday time with its treacly good cheer it's always a good idea to escape into the movie theaters where tinsel can't scratch, paper cuts can be forgotten, and family members out to ruin the mood can't harm you. So it is with this road trip movie, The Guilt Trip, where relentlessly doting Mama (Barbra Streissand) and her aspiring business mogul son Andy (Seth Rogen) meander across America on their way to San Francisco where Andy has set up a surprise tryst for her, doing stops along the way to pitch his invention of Scieoclean, an eco-friendly liquid cleaner, at big box stores.

The film is both expectedly funny and surprisingly touching with both actors turning in wonderfully memorable performances. It's also a true-to-life exposure to the nth degree of the relationship between the modern, urban Jewish mother and son...a bond that I suspect will be recognized, appreciated and identified with across religious and cultural lines. While there are bigger offerings for the holidays, huge literary epic adaptations, dwarves on the march, don't dismiss this film which offers huge holiday bang for the buck.

LES MISERABLES

12/31/12

Les Miserables is a big spectacle opera film based on the Victor Hugo novel directed by The King's Speech director Tom Hooper. For those not familiar with the show as "musical" they might expect an approach like you'd see in familiar film adaptations of stage musicals that drop songs in between dialogue as in The Music Man or My Fair Lady.

As an adaptation of opera, the film works visually, but is uneven for acting and singing performances., though to a great extent the director's stays true to the lingo of opera and this particular score.

The story begins while Jean Valjean is in chains at the time Louis XVIII is returned to the throne. Herein, perhaps is the unfortunate flaw of this particular adaptation as the relationship between Jean Valjean and the police officer, a martinet by the name of Javert (performed by Russell Crowe), is never firmly established emotionally as it is, for example, in early film adaptations where Jean's crime and initial exposure to Javert's intractable cruelty is established. As a result of this approach Crowe's performance comes across as inchoate and his eventual fate, which occurs many years later after the June Rebellion of 1832 in Montreuil, Paris (the student rebellion that is the culmination of a series of uprisings to throw out the monarchy that begin in 1830) unsupportable, even ludicrous. The only person responsible for this appears to be the director as Crowe is a proven actor with amazing emotional depth, yet he is directed to be wooden (is this the only way Hooper could make Javert appear to be without heart?), the coaching for his singing seems to have been to produce "good singing" as opposed to focusing on the acting, and what is the point of this as Crowe's voice is acceptable but not expressive or highly trained in bel canto...what was the director thinking? Could he not demand Crowe speak-sing and focus on the character? The story with its strength based on the duality of Jean/Javert is never allowed to take root in performances or in the script. Though there are lyrics in the center of the story explaining Javert's similar background to Jean's by that point nobody cares and the obsession Javert has for Jean never manifests in Crowe's performance in a believable way.

However, Hugh Jackman's performance as Jean Valjean, the protagonist forced to 19 years of labor for stealing a loaf of bread, is so utterly magnificent, the experience of watching the story unfold progresses forcefully ahead solely because of Mr. Jackman.

Other sterling performances include Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter as the wicked innkeepers, and newcomer Isabelle Allen as young Cosette. In addition to Crowe's unfortunate attempt, Amanda Seyfried as adult Cosette seems uncomfortable with both the style and high soprano range, though her acting is passable.

Overall, for a film of this extravagance where the score is the real star, it seems a better job at casting individuals who could both sing and act with this style of material should have been a top priority. When watching a film like Chicago, or even the film adaptation of Phantom, one sees a marriage of actors voice/performance to role carefully laid as the foundation to the success of the project; not here. It is true that one can attend an opera and see wooden performances, but at least the singing is so marvelous it makes up for this deficit. None of this is taken into account in this casting to the detriment of what could have been perhaps a perfect picture otherwise.

A cool thing about this film...the music was mixed at Abbey Road and all the vocals were done live to a set pianist. Later, the orchestra was dubbed in. The singing was recorded without limiters (something I insisted on doing when we went in to record the basic tracks for the Welcome to the Dollhouse songs I did the score on that are seen sung in the picture). By doing this the full range of the voices are used with all their expressiveness...of course each take was different, but it allowed the actors to pace themselves for their performances.

Conclusion, this is an opera film fully realized with uneven performances and little else to discredit it. Hugh Jackman's performance on screen is a marvel not to be missed.

ZERO DOWN THIRTY

12/31/2012

Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal deliver a terse, unblinking film about the hunt for Bin Laden as carried on by a CIA operative named Maya who refused to lose focus on her mission even as the years passing made others do so. Jessica Chastain as Maya delivers an even, professional performance.

There's nothing to criticize about this film. It dramatizes a real event and chose to do so as Maya's story. It could have been told from the point of view of others; a torn president, Osama himself, one of the Navy Seals, but instead Bigelow chose the story of Maya and her ongoing relationship to Osama, sticking with her as he slaughtered her friends in service until really only she was left. The action sequences are riveting as they recreate storming Osama's hideout. Unfortunately, however, the film offers no cathartic release, no sense of joy at watching justice done.

I admire Bigelow made this film without pandering to be "politically correct", and bothered to start the film with the voices of those doomed after the jets flew into the World Trade Center before cutting away to water boarding scenes to extract info out of Al Qaeda members. Contrast this to the opening of Argo where a voice is telling the audience that the Shah of Iran and other predecessors to those in power are evil-minded (yes that terrible Shah who allowed women to attend school and other "terrible" modern things that got all the islamists mad as hell((??????))) and had been supported in a wicked way by the U.S.

Unlike Argo, there's very little manipulation in this story line to extract sympathy or bang home a point of view. Perhaps by not doing so Bigelow will get less interest this year at the awards circuses where people just love to tout works with political agendas, on the other hand, I do feel the lack of emotional pay-off with this film is not because of the subject matter, but a lack of vision by this filmmaking team in the presentation. In other words, it's a good film, but in my opinion not a film that blows others out of the water though it does a great service presenting this incident as an excellent dramatization for the historical record.

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

12/31/2012

Finally, a 2012 film with an absolutely perfect screenplay, beautiful acting from beginning to end and masterfully executed by director David O. Russell.

The story about the love and obsession of Patrick, released into the care of his Philadelphia family from a mental institution eight months after an incident with his wife who has a restraining order out on him, is freely adapted from a debut novel by Matthew Quick by the director. Perhaps if the book were better known it would irk that the story is significantly changed from the novel, but the spirit is there, as is Patrick's significant new relationship with Tiffany, a troubled young widow in the film, whose pursuit of him to be her dance partner wakes him up to a new reality.

There are outstanding performances all around in this ensemble production. Bradley Cooper as Patrick captures perfectly the true-to-life ups and down of a mentally ill young man unwilling to take his meds or hear reason; granted his illness went into full swing after a severe trauma where he not only assaulted, he was fired from his teaching job at a local school where his wife also worked. Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany, a troubled young woman who becomes socially inappropriate after the death of her husband, is absolutely outstanding. Robert De Niro as an ocd father with a gambling issue is superb and turns in a moving performance in this supporting role, as does John Ortiz as Pat's married friend Ronnie on the outside who admits to being overwhelmed by pressures. Other cast members who are truly superb include Julia Stiles as Ronnie's wife, Jacki Weaver as Pat's mother and Chris Tucker as a friend he meets at the mental hospital.

The film deals with tough issues and relationships. It's a drama but it's also certainly a comedy, in the same way a satisfying film like Sideways is. It's a must-see film of the past year and a worthy Oscar contender in all ways, certainly I can't imagine there's a better adapted screenplay this year no matter which film wins in that Oscar category, this is it.