Monthly Archives: February 2014

Airport 2014!

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NON-STOP

 

by George Wolf

 

The long, national nightmare is over..the Airport franchise is back, baby!

Okay, not really. There’s no George Kennedy, or Charlton Heston, and no Love Boat-style parade of guest stars hoping for more face time, but Non-Stop brings the mid-air disaster back to the big screen with plenty of B-movie chutzpah.

Liam Neeson stars as Air Marshall Bill, a boozy grump with a tragic past who isn’t too happy with his latest assignment on a transatlantic flight. His particular set of skills is tested a few hours after takeoff, when he begins getting text messages from an unseen passenger. Wire 150 million dollars to a secret account, Bill is told, or every twenty minutes, someone on the plane will die.

It amounts to an interesting setup from a team of writers, one with a Hitchcock-meets-Agatha Christie vibe that director Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, another Neeson thriller) has no trouble fleshing out.  Things move fast and deliberately, as suspicions fall on a collection of interesting passengers, including the friendly redhead who insists on sitting next to Bill (Jullanne Moore, classing up the joint).

The clearer the resolution becomes, though, the more the film struggles with flimsy contrivance. Yes, it’s a bumpy ride, but Neeson again proves his mettle as a late-blooming action star, and there is just enough fun in Non-Stop to make it an enjoyable, if easily forgettable, trip.

 

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

Welcome to Adulthood! Yes, It Does Suck

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Adult World

by Hope Madden

“Fame is your generation’s Black Plague.” So says Rat Billings (John Cusack), world-wearied poet and reluctant mentor to naïve college grad and would-be poet, Amy (Emma Roberts).

Rat has lots of good lines – he is a poet, after all – about the strange era of newly formed adults who grew up working toward fame for fame’s sake. “Generation Mundane” he calls them.

Unbeknownst to Amy, she herself fits that description, and that irony is at the heart of the bright indie comedy Adult World. The chemistry at the heart of the film belongs to Roberts and Cusack.

When Roberts’s Amy leaves the nest 90K in college debt with no marketable skill (her degree is in poetry, after all), she takes a job at an old style porn shop. There, a unique and fascinating world revolves around her, but she’s too busy “feeling, deeply feeling” to notice. Which is, of course, the problem with her artistry – she’s trying to write when she has refused to live, so what could she have to write about?

We watch as Amy refuses to participate in life, insulated from the world by her misguided, socially-instilled belief in her own specialness. Thankfully, director Scott Coffey’s film – scripted with refreshing self-deprecation by Andy Cochran – is rarely too overt with its theme. Sometimes, sure, and you would never call the film exactly subtle. But it has some real freshness to offer instead.

While the cast on the whole is quite solid, Roberts really hits high gear in scenes with Cusack. When these characters are together we get to see each at his or her most potent. Films rarely offer such undiluted presences. Neither actor is afraid to embrace what is unlikeable about their own character, and their scenes together are a kind of joyous celebration of flaws. A giddy artistic energy flows between the two performers that is a blast to watch.

Not every pairing goes as well. Amy’s onscreen love interest is played by Roberts’s offscreen love (and American Horror Story co-star) Evan Peters. Though their romance is sweet, its course is also predictable.

Worse still, the great Cloris Leachman is underused, and Armando Riesco’s drag queen is tacked onto the story sloppily and without real meaning.

Still, much of this story rings true, and the approach taken to poke fun at Generation Mundane is clever and well-intentioned. More than anything, though, it’s great to see Cusack running on all cylinders and matched so well.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

The Weight

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Generation Iron

 

by George Wolf

 

“We can do what 99.9 percent of people can’t do..lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.”

“We” refers to the best bodybuilders on the planet, and Generation Iron reveals their world in thoughtful, compelling fashion.

In fact, after nearly forty years, we may have the perfect companion piece to 1977’s Pumping Iron. That film, or course, gave young Arnold Schwarzenegger a big push on his path to icon status, as it followed his attempt to defend the Mr. Olympia title in 1975.

Writer/director Vlad Yudin crafts Generation Iron in similar fashion, focusing on the 2012 Mr. Olympia competition, as champion Phil Heath prepares to takes on several challengers, most notably Kai Greene. But, while parts of Pumping Iron were scripted, Yudin plays it straight, presenting a fascinating look at bodybuilding and the athletes who devote their lives to the sport.

Yudin’s instinct for pacing is spot on, as he moves between the different competitors and their training regimes. We get to know them, and their honesty (well, except about steroids) makes us care. Bodybuilding is not only their sport, it is their job, and the amount of devotion it requires can come with a high price.

The presentation of the film also holds your attention, even for those who may not have an interest in bodybuilding. Yudin follows competitors on a trip to the zoo (creating a nice contrast between the animals on display and massive physiques out in the real world) and a casting call, as the shadow of Arnold’s superstardom continues to loom large.

As it builds toward the showdown competition, a certain philosophical nature envelopes the film, though it comes more from the athletes themselves than from Mickey Rourke’s whispered, often melodramatic narration.

Generation Iron not only informs and entertains, but leaves you eager for a sequel focusing on female bodybuilders.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd-4qBhUSR4

Miyazaki’s Final Film?

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The Wind Rises

by Hope Madden

The Wind Rises – the Oscar nominated, animated, fantastical biopic of Japanese aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi – may be genius filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s final film.

A body of work like his – Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke and so many more – deserves a unique capstone, and The Wind Rises is certainly unique. This film is not only unlike anything else Miyazaki has crafted, but unlike anything else period.

Set in Japan in the early 1920s, the film offers a fictionalized account of a nearsighted boy who dreams – literally – of aircraft. In Jiro’s dreams, Italian aeronautical pioneer Gianni Caproni enlightens the boy to the elegant, creative possibilities of airplanes. Unable to become a pilot because of his eyesight, Jiro determines to design planes.

Like everything Miyazaki does, Wind is a visual glory. Whether crowded city streets, mountainside locales, or cloud-speckled heavens, the scenery in this film is breathtaking. Touching, intimate moments and catastrophic acts of God or of war, Miyazaki treats them with the same poetic brushstroke.

The subject matter here proves more adult than his previous efforts, though, and he limits the fantastical elements because of it. Though the dream sequences are a joy, don’t expect to find unusual creatures or outright feats of magic in this one.

Rather, Miyazaki attends to some of Japan’s most epic historic moments, contextualized behind the journey of one quiet, delicate young man’s voyage through life. The result is less giddily entertaining than what you might expect from the filmmaker, but no less captivating.

Still, the thematically bold effort lacks the whimsy that has marked every other film Miyazaki has released. It’s an odd sendoff for the master, an artistic mind unlike any other, who leaves behind a legacy of the most beguiling fantasies any artist could hope to create.

Maybe we can hope for just one more?

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZNz3M9E1Wo

A Couple of Major Paynes For Your Queue

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Nebraska – Oscar nominee for best film, best director, best actor, best supporting actress, best cinematography and best original screenplay – releases today on DVD. It should probably go without saying that the film deserves a look. Bruce Dern is Woody, a boozy old man who believes he’s won a million dollars and talks his son into driving him to Nebraska to pick up his winnings. It’s a lovely, surprisingly funny voyage and not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the best films in director Alexander Payne’s impressive arsenal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIsgpbSa4_4

After Nebraska, a quick look at one of Payne’s underseen early films is in order. How about Election, a subversive laugh riot about a high school presidential campaign? Oscar nominated for screenplay, the film proved Payne’s agility as a filmmaker and showcased Reese Witherspoon’s spot-on comic ability.

Outtakes: We Miss Him Already

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It would be hard to overstate Harold Ramis’s impact on American comedy cinema. He wrote and/or directed Animal House, Meatballs, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day.

That is insane.

Few writers in history can boast the same level of affect on popular culture. How many Ramis-penned lines have found their way into our lexicon?

Don’t sell yourself short, Judge. You’re a tremendous slouch.

This chick is toast!

Don’t cross the streams.

Be the ball.

The last time I saw a mouth like that, it had a hook in it.

Any of you guys call me Francis, and I’ll kill you.

We just want to get back to our hotel rooms and have some really serious sex.

Hell, basically ever word of Caddyshack is now commonplace American vernacular.

His writing was genius because his characters were somehow both ordinary and memorable – guys we know or wish we knew. (It helps that Bill Murray so often collaborated or flat-out improvised.)

Perhaps no American filmmaker has had more of an influence on the subsequent generation of artists than Ramis, whose writing managed to be simultaneously goofball and intelligent, his films impeccably crafted and open to improvisation. Plus, he seemed like a good guy.

Take some time to celebrate Harold Ramis and laugh your ass off in the process. Here, in chronological order, are our favorites:

Animal House (1978)

Harold Ramis co-wrote the greatest frat movie ever made. All others have been pale impersonators of this ingenious ode to the drunken college misfit. Remembered mostly as the springboard for John Belushi’s volcanic career, Animal House remains one of the smartest and best scripted comedies of the Seventies – an era lousy with excellent American films.

Quote: Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!

 

Meatballs (1979)

Writer Ramis’s first collaboration with director Ivan Reitman takes the wearied tale of a wacky summer camp and gives it some fresh hijinks and interesting characters, while reminding modern viewers that things were just different in the Seventies. Primarily known as Bill Murray’s first proof as a cinematic lead, the film still crackles with the comedic sensibilities that would mark Ramis’s entire career.

Quote: Attention. Here’s an update on tonight’s dinner. It was veal. I repeat, veal. The winner of tonight’s mystery meat contest is Jeffrey Corbin who guessed “some kind of beef.”

 

Caddyshack (1980)

Few films if any have riffed on the “haves versus have-nots” as delightfully as Ramis’s directorial debut, Caddyshack. We get to witness Bushwood’s country club elite deal with the new money riff raff – as well as gophers – invading their grounds. Murray is at his genius apex in this one as assistant groundskeeper Carl Spackler, a performance so great you might not appropriately appreciate the genius turns by Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield. Among the best comedies ever filmed, and certainly the greatest film golf can ever hope to see, Caddyshack is indispensible viewing.

Quote: How ’bout a Fresca?

 

Stripes (1981)

Writing with Meatballs co-scriptors Len Blum and Dan Goldberg, Ramis delivers director Ivan Reitman his second gem of a film. Stripes is the definitive military comedy, and the first onscreen pairing of Ramis as the egghead counterpoint to Bill Murray’s wiseacre lead. The duo is a scream, and their bootcamp adventure offers a timeless comedy.

Quote: Chicks dig me because I rarely wear underwear, and when I do, it’s usually something unusual.

 

National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983)

In ’83, Ramis turned his attention to a vehicle for Chevy Chase rather than Bill Murray, and Chase did not disappoint. Directing a script by John Hughes (The Breakfast Club), Ramis kept the pace quick and the comedy quicker in this road trip masterpiece.

Quote: Walleyworld’s closed. Moose outside shoulda told you.

 

Ghostbusters (1984)

Reitman and Ramis had their most financially successful collaboration with this classic that introduced the term ectoplasm to the world. Ramis writes and once again plays nerdy straight man to Murray’s smart ass in a buoyant, joyous film that was, surprisingly enough for Ramis’s work, family appropriate. And hilarious.

Quote: This Mr. Stay Puft’s OK. He’s a sailor, he’s in New York. We get this guy laid, we won’t have any trouble.

 

Groundhog Day (1993)

Ramis perfected the blend of intelligence, cynicism and good nature in this ingenious film about a selfish diva weatherman cursed to relive the same day until he can finally do it right. Insightful comedies like this are rare, and the screenplay, in particular, is a gem. Smart, sweet, compassionate and funny, Groundhog Day was Ramis’s last great effort.

Quote: This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.

 

RIP Mr. Ramis, we miss you already.

Countdown: Who Wins the Oscars?

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Sunday night, we invite you to join us at the Drexel Theatre, as we are once again pleased to host their annual Red Carpet Oscar Bash! You’ll have a chance to win great prizes if you can correctly pick the most winners, and on that note…here’s how we think the night will go:

Best Film

Will Win: 12 Years a Slave

American Hustle and Gravity are strong contenders, but we think voters will do the right thing and award this magnificent piece of filmmaking with its just due.

Should Win: 12 Years a Slave

Though the year offered a boon of wonderful, imaginative, powerful films, nothing quite compares to the meticulously created, absolutely visceral period piece.

 

Best Actor

Will Win: Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

McConaughey will be rewarded for turning a career’s worth of lazy rom-com roles into two of the most impressive years in any working actor’s career.

Should Win: Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a Slave

Unfortunately, McConaughey’s achievement will be at the cost of a phenomenal talent’s most blistering and brilliant performance, and hands down the best lead turn from an actor this year.

 

Best Actress

Will Win: Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine

From her opening moments as Jasmine, the wildly talented and uniquely versatile Blanchett owned the film and the audience.

Should Win: Cate Blanchett

Amy Adams is going to have to take home an Oscar one of these days, and her turn in American Hustle certainly deserves consideration, but Blanchett took a gift of a part and created an unforgettable character.

 

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club

Leto brings tenderness and tragedy to the belt-buckle-and-cowboy-hat tale Dallas Buyers Club with a beautifully dimensional performance, and his win is the second surest bet this awards season.

Should Win: Michael Fassbender in 12 Years a Slave

Fassbender will be ignored again by the Academy (who failed to even notice his devastating turn in 2011’s Shame), and that’s a shame in itself because his performance in 12 Years a Slave was more explosive, fearless and honest than anything he’s done, which is saying a lot.

 

Best Supporting Actress

Hope Says

Will Win: Lupita Nyong’o in 12 Years a Slave

She won the SAG, Golden Globe, and even the coveted Central Ohio Film Critics Association award for her work. Oscar will follow.

Should Win: Lupita Nyong’o

At first glance, Nyongo’s performance as field slave Patsy seemed a tad heavy handed, but as the character’s hellish existence is slowly revealed, we realize that this performer has found a way to make the unimaginable a reality.

George Says

Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle

Though it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Nyong’o does win, I just have a hunch that Lawrence (who also won a Golden Globe as American Hustle was in the comedy category) will prevail.

Should Win: Jennifer Lawrence

It really is a toss up, but I give JLaw the edge for stealing the movie right out from under the the best ensemble cast of the year. “Science oven” for the win!

 

Best Director

Will Win: Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity

This is a tough call. Basically, we think the best directing and best film nods will be split between Gravity and 12 Years a Slave. Last year, Ang Lee took the honor mostly for the technical/craftsman merits of his Life of Pi. We think Cuaron will receive the same treatment for the unarguably superior Gravity.

Should Win: Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave

It’s McQueen’s first dance with Oscar, and though his efforts in drawing performances, staging an epic, and keeping dusty old history as visceral and present as any other film this year are magnificent, we think the voters might side with Cuaron’s technical mastery.

 

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: American Hustle

It’s a dazzling work of writing, heartfelt and character driven, funny and touching, full of excitement and spot-on with period. Plus, David O. Russell’s never cashed in on his 5 nominations, so it’s probably time.

Should Win: Her

Spike Jonze’s uncommon voice and vision turned out the year’s loveliest and most original love story, and the sheer uniqueness of the project deserves the Oscar.

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: 12 Years a Slave

It’s simply the strongest contender.

Should Win: 12 Years a Slave

The ability to take a text more than a century and a half old, and from it create multi-dimensional characters and achingly relevant conflict, is a talent that needs to be recognized.

 

Enjoy the Oscars!

We’re Going to Need Another Bodice!

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IN SECRET

 

by George Wolf

 

To put it mildly, the story at the heart of In Secret has staying power.

It’s the latest telling of Therese Raquin, a novel by Emile Zola that has seen countless adaptations since its debut in 1867. The classic tale of lust, betrayal and murder has seen big and small screen productions, live stagings, and been sampled in a range of films, ranging from the noir staple The Postman Always Rings Twice to the Korean vampire flick Thirst.

This latest version sees writer/director Charlie Stratton adapting Neal Bell’s play and chasing Zola’s stated desire to produce a “study in temperament.” 

Elizabeth Olsen is Therese, who is stuck in a passionless marriage to Camille (Tom Felton), her sickly first cousin. They live with Camille’s doting mother Madame Raquin (Jessica Lange) in Paris, above the small shop she owns and Therese helps to keep running.

Camille brings his old friend Laurent (Oscar Isaac) home to visit, which ignites the long-repressed passions in Therese. Soon, she and Laurent are stealing every possible moment for bouts of bodice-ripping, which eventually leads to the pair imaging how nice it would be if Camille were to turn up dead,

Stratton, in his feature debut, is effective at setting the period, and the mood. The entire affair is laced with desperation, both before and after the murderous deed, and Stratton is able to differentiate between the shifting motivations of the characters.

His sublime cast is a huge help. Olsen continues to prove gifted at conveying much with the slightest of glances, and Isaac, fresh from his triumph in Inside LLewyn Davis, easily conveys Laurent’s penchant for blindly following his impulses.

Felton may be the biggest surprise. Since originating the Draco Malfoy role in the Harry Potter series, Felton has shown an impressive growth, and here he deftly gives Camille the dim-witted vulnerability which makes him an easy mark for,the scheming lovers.

And Lange? Well at this point, what can you say? She’s delicious, digging into a role which she makes even more effective once her character is forced to rely on her son’s killers for survival. Lange has been doing some of the best work of her storied career recently, people, take note!

In Secret is a pure, old-fashioned Gothic thriller, one that purposely takes a detached approach to the scheming. Those looking for a deep psychological look within the characters won’t get it.

You will get a filmmaker determined to stay as true as possible to the intent of its source material, and a cast talented enough to bring that vision to a satisfying fruition.

 

Verdict-3-5-Stars

 

 

There Are Better Ways to Spend Your Days

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3 Days to Kill

by Hope Madden

Remember when the first Charlie’s Angels movie came out, and it was much less terrible than we’d all expected – mostly thanks to Bill Murray? So much so that people marveled? Who’s this McG person, I’m sure someone said of the newcomer director. Look at his loose comic style and action movie flair.

Well, five tired films later, not that many people are still buzzing about McG, and his latest, 3 Days to Kill, isn’t likely to change that.

Kevin Costner stars as Ethan Renner, an aging CIA assassin with a bad doctor’s report who wants to spend what little time he has left in Paris with his estranged family. But a mysterious upper level agent (Amber Heard) offers him an experimental drug in exchange for one last assignment.

Little more than another riff on the old stand-by Luc Besson tale (who produced and co-scripted), the film feels worn out before it even gets started.

Costner’s casually humorous presence gives the movie some heart and McG coordinates some car sequences with a panache reminiscent of his earlier work, but otherwise you can expect a mishmash of every theme, scene, lesson and cliché in Besson’s arsenal.

Heard proves again that she doesn’t have the chops to act her way out of one-dimensional roles or the charisma to leave a mark within them. Hailee Steinfeld, playing combustible teen Zooey, does not use this particular project to live up to the promise of her spectacular performance in True Grit. Connie Nielson is wasted as her mother.

The subplot with a family of squatters in Ethan’s apartment is almost offensively clichéd. (Thanks, you noble clan, for teaching Ethan a thing or two about family!)

A blandly derivative middle age fantasy, 3 Days is about on par with everything else Besson, McG, Heard or Costner has done in the last few years.

Maybe we can still hold out hope for Draft Day?

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

Volcano Dead Ahead!

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POMPEII

 

by George Wolf

 

Two doomed lovers kept apart by the strict class system of their era, fighting to be together as disaster looms. Plus there’s a scene with handcuffs and a haunting love theme at the end.

This remake of Titanic is called Pompeii, with a CGI Mt. Vesuvius showing tremendous range in the role of the iceberg.

The smoldering Milo (Kit Harington) is a gladiator/slave who catches the eye of Cassia (Emily Browning) , the daughter of a wealthy Pompeii businessman. Trouble is, she is unwillingly betrothed to the menacing Corvus, a visiting senator from Rome (Keifer Sutherland, unapologetically hammy).

As Milo and the other gladiators begin combat in the crowded arena, Vesuvius uncorks in very angry fashion, leaving an entire city scrambling for a seat on one of the boats to safety..seriously.

There’s just no way to watch this film without thinking of Titanic, except in the moments when a Sutherland is standing before a crowd to “open the games” and then you’re thinking of The Hunger Games and wouldn’t you rather be watching that?

Pompeii offers very little substance. Harington (staying in his Games of Thrones comfort zone) and Browning (Sucker Punch, Sleeping Beauty) fail to generate any chemistry or emotion, while the screenplay relies on empty cliches such as, “Welcome to your new home, savages!”

Director Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil series, Event Horizon) is a bit lost in the quieter scenes, as if he’s just impatient, and hankerin’ to get back to the action. The abundance of shirtless hunks, along with Anderson’s knack for keeping M’lady cleavage in the frame whenever possible rank as weak attempts to keep attention from waning.

He’s much more at home creating a spectacle, and once the volcano erupts and madness ensues, Anderson does manage a few scenes that are visually impressive. So there’s that.

Still, Pompeii continues to ignore the most pressing issue.

Wasn’t there enough room on that piece of shipwreck for both Jack and Rose?

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars