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For Your Queue: Affleck Proves his Mettle as Director

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After racking up several big wins this awards season, Argo has emerged as the favorite to win Best Picture this Sunday at the Academy Awards. If you didn’t catch it in theaters, you can bring it home this week on DVD, and you’ll be glad you did. The true story of how a CIA operative got six hostages out of Iran in 1979 by posing as a film producer, Argo is simply fantastic moviemaking.

Working with a smart, taut script by Chris Terrio, director Ben Affleck expertly layers political intrigue with Hollywood deal-making. He also crafts an effective period piece, with a sharp eye for details that not only recreate an important slice of history, but also foreshadow more recent international events.

Though you already know how it ends, Affleck infuses Argo with tension and urgency. Regardless of his perplexing snub in Oscar’s Best Director category this year, Affleck, after just three directing efforts, has emerged as one of the best in the business.

Honestly, he showed the skill right from his directing debut in Gone Baby Gone…

Four-year-old Amanda McCready has gone missing in one of Boston’s rougher neighborhoods. Not the neighborhood of Will Hunting and his buddies, because this is not Ben Affleck’s Oscar winning turn as screenwriter. This film is Gone Baby Gone, Affleck’s first, hauntingly successful attempt at directing a feature film.

The director’s kid brother Casey, in fine form, plays a baby-faced PI working his neighborhood connections to find the girl as the mystery plays out among Boston’s nickel-and-dime drug dealers, mules, perverts and ex-cons.

Gone Baby Gone is a complex work examining place as an existential determiner, using setting as character, and plumbing the validity of conscience, all the while developing a disturbingly absorbing mystery. And though the mystery itself tailspins into something less than the story deserves, the final moments of the film remind the audience again of the craftsmanship that went into creating a film you may have missed back in 2007, but you need to see now.

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Yippi Ki Yawn

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By George Wolf

 

Okay, full disclosure:  the original Die Hard is my all time favorite movie.

One of that film’s many great qualities is, back then Bruce Willis’s John McClane character was a regular guy in extreme circumstances. While each of the three sequels has been at the very least decent, McClane himself has morphed into more of a wise-cracking superhero.

That has never been more true than in A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth, and definitely the weakest, in the series.

This new adventure has John traveling to Russia, where there apparently is no police force. He’s there to help his estranged son Jack (Jai Courtney) out of a jam, but John is barely out of the cab from the airport when things start exploding, drawing father and son into a ridiculous yarn involving a Russian political prisoner and a secret file.

There may have been an acceptable action flick at the heart of Skip Woods’s script, but director Jon Moore (Max Payne) buries it under misguided pacing and wretched excess.

The extended car chase that kicks off the film becomes downright tedious, setting the stage for a film that never has a chance to build any tension or interest. Though the film’s finale does boast some action that’s worthy of the Die Hard name, getting there just isn’t enough fun. Moore keeps his foot on the gas until he abruptly stops for some father-son bonding time, and much of the film feels slapped together (the bad editing job doesn’t help matters).

Producers may be grooming Courtney (Jack Reacher) to take over the franchise, but his charisma, in this effort at least, is lacking.

Sadly, so is the film.

2 stars (out of 5)

 

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Hey, your sandwich is talking to you

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by Hope Madden

“You don’t choose the soy sauce. The soy sauce chooses you.”

If you hear these words while holding a bratwurst to your head like a cell phone, it would seem the soy sauce has indeed chosen you, as it has Dave and John in the mind-bender John Dies at the End.

Slacker vigilantes hunting the supernatural, Dave (Chase Williamson) and John (Rob Mayes) “handle unusual problems.” Like dealing with that meat monster in the hot girl’s basement – things like that. How did they come to this occupation? Well, that’s just what Dave is going to explain to a curious journalist (Paul Giamatti).

The tale he spills comes together in shades of Cronenberg, Burroughs, and Philip K. Dick, spun with the sensibilities of Sam Raimi circa Evil Dead. And that, my friends, is fine company.

Directed by Don Coscarelli (best known for Phantasm, but personally beloved for Bubba Ho-Tep), John Dies offers a fun hallucination on film. Its trippy logic doesn’t hold up for the full running time, but it’s certainly never dull, it boasts some fun cameos (Clancy Brown is particularly cool), and its “whatevs” style of clever remains surprisingly enjoyable.

3 stars (out of 5)

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Do Not Mess with The Formula!

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By George Wolf

 

Rule number one:  do not  mess with the formula (I know it’s not really rule number one, but we’re not supposed to talk about the real rule number one so this is the fake rule number one, now shush!)

The formula in question comes courtesy Nicholas Sparks, whose novels, from Message in a Bottle to The Notebook and beyond, have all become films with very recognizable elements. Attractive, lovestruck people in an idyllic setting are kept apart by emotional damage, family tragedy and ties to the past but somehow fight through the melodrama to find each other just in time for a tear-filled finale. And rain, don’t forget getting soaked by rain.

So far, the films have ranged from heinous to barely watchable.

The latest, Safe Haven, ranks as one of the better efforts. Not good, but at least a wee bit of an improvement.

The quaint setting this time is Southport, a small town in North Carolina that seems a perfect landing spot for Katie (Julianne Hough), a young woman running from..say it with me..her past.

Is she emotionally fragile, and pretty? Why yes, and so is local nice guy Alex (Josh Duhamel), the single father who is still reeling from the death of his wife.

Even if you haven’t read the book, you’ll guess most of the rest, though director Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) does an admirable job of exercising some restraint as long as possible.

In the end, though, the emotional manipulation ingrained in each Sparks story will not be denied, as secrets from both Katie and Alex’s past collide in a melodramatic mess.

But wait! Sparks then adds the coup de grace, a shameless device that, though easily omitted to benefit the film version, showcases the formula so well all you can do is tip your hat in disgust.

These stories aren’t designed to be average. They are meant to be remarkable, if only for the sheer bombast of their sentimentality, and Safe Haven will keep the customers satisfied until the next installment.

2 stars (out of 5)

 

 

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Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll!

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By George Wolf

 

When Nirvana blew up the music scene with their 1991 album Nevermind, they drew instant comparisons to many legendary bands of the past.

Fleetwood Mac wasn’t one of them.

But to business owner Tom Skeeter, Nirvana was “Fleetwood Mac all over again,” as both bands recorded their breakthrough records at his Sound City recording studio during periods when it was badly in need of success stories.

Now, former Nirvana member Dave Grohl tells the story of that legendary studio in Sound City, his informative and endlessly entertaining documentary.

Grohl, who has gone on to massive success with Foo Fighters and various producing projects, proves an able documentarian, filling the story with a genuine love for the human element in music and indeed, in all things.

Through interviews, still photos, and some classic behind the scenes footage, Grohl traces the history of LA’s Sound City. It was, by all accounts, a dump of a place that just happened to have a great staff, a first rate drum room and one of the best recording consoles in the world.

Word spread quickly, and as early critics (like Tom Petty’s producer, caught on camera saying “this place should be firebombed”) became converts, Sound City played host to a litany of big names.

Of course, the rise of digital recording posed a threat to Sound City’s traditional methods. Grohl brings the story full circle by recruiting such legends as Trent Reznor and Paul McCartney to illustrate how, in the right hands, the two approaches can effectively mesh.

A sentimental yearning for “the way things used to be” is hardly groundbreaking, but Grohl and his friends present a solid case for less digitized rock and roll. For music geeks, Sound City is a must, and even casual fans will be won over by the film’s humor, heart, and passion.

Rock on!

4 stars (out of 5)

 

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The Notebook it Ain’t

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Amour – the sure winner February 24th in Oscar’s foreign language category – comes to the Drexel just in time for Valentine’s weekend. It is a love story, after all. The Notebook, however, it is not.

This French-language film is the handiwork of Michael Haneke, also nominated by the Academy for his efforts in writing and directing the film. Those unfamiliar with the filmmaker should look into his catalogue; he’s never made a film undeserving of multiple viewings.

Indeed, Amour is not even Haneke’s first masterpiece. (See: The White Ribbon. Seriously. You should definitely see the film The White Ribbon.) In fact, Amour is his second Golden Palm takeaway from Cannes, and his second Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It’s his first nod for best film altogether, though. With Oscar leaving such brilliant movies as The Master and Moonrise Kingdom empty handed in the Best Picture nomination department, Amour has a lot to live up to.

Meticulous and unsentimental, Haneke seems an unusual helmsman for this tale of an elderly couple facing the devastating physical and emotional consequences of a stroke. In fact, he’s perfect. He sidesteps every inclination to be maudlin, melodramatic or sentimental and instead delivers a film as quietly devastating as it is beautiful.

Oscar nominee for Best Actress, a flawlessly honest Emmanuelle Riva compliments the equally genuine Jean-Louis Trintignant, as the two create a truthful love story wrapped in the unadorned poetry of decay.

The understatement and authenticity work together to detail a lived-in love, a livelong merging of the soul that transcends all other worldly entanglements. There is not a false note, not a single moment of sap or romanticism. There is much tenderness, though, and that’s what will demolish you.

Amour is a film like no other: an intimate, unsentimental portrait of aging, love and death. Who but Haneke has the nerve to pull that off?

For tickets, showtimes and more information, visit www.drexel.net.

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For Your Queue: Hawke and roll all night, and party ev-er-y day

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Skyfall comes out this week, and if you haven’t seen that, please do. But since you probably have seen that, and since our goal is to draw your attention to the jewels you may have missed, we’ll spin a John Hawkes two-fer this Tuesday morn.

Robbed of a richly deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination for his brilliant work in The Session, Hawkes plays Mark O’Brien, a poet sentenced by polio to live out his days in an iron lung. The consummate character actor can transform from dead-eyed and dangerous (Winter’s Bone) to aw-shucks sweet (HBO’s Eastbound & Down) without ever losing sight of the human soul inside the character. For The Sessions, he proves equally adept at physical transformation.

As Mark approaches middle age, he struggles with the hope to check sex off his bucket list. In walks a fearless, wonderful (and Oscar nominated) Helen Hunt, completing an ensemble that doesn’t blush at or sugarcoat this story about sex and its power in a human life.

A different type of power is on display in Martha Marcy May Marlene, with Hawkes delivering a mesmerizing performance as Patrick, a mysterious cult leader. As Patrick charms the cult’s new member (a terrific Elizabeth Olsen) Hawkes skillfully foreshadows the menacing intentions beneath Patrick’s inviting charade.

A fascinating film with a dreamlike quality, MMMM is another gem in Hawkes’s catalog.

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So that happened…George OK’s clubbing one particular seal

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by Hope Madden

I got up last Valentine’s Day morn to a package containing two tee shirts. One was a Leonard Cohen tee. I love me some Leonard Cohen, and George had long heard my complaints that I’d been too cheap to buy a shirt the last time Cohen performed in Columbus. Our son Riley had splurged on one, and every time I saw him wear it, I openly coveted the garment and bemoaned my cursed frugalness. So last February, George rectified the issue nicely.

There was also a bonus garment: a white tee shirt that read “I’m fine” above an enormous blood stain. Nice!

I donned the bloody tee shirt and marched off to work. (Since it was not Casual Friday, I naturally paired the shirt with a respectable blazer so as to broadcast my bone-deep professionalism.)

I was pleased as can be, but it turns out the shirts were only a diversion from the real gift.

Do tell!

George and I had planned to meet for a lunch date at 1:30. George called around noon to confirm. I confirmed. George sounded mildly distressed.

I picked him up at 1:30.

He continued to seem distressed.

As I pulled in to park, my phone rang. George asked, “Is that my phone?”

This struck me as odd. I have, as a ringtone, the theme from the movie Halloween. If you’re not me, you don’t hear that song and think, “Is my phone ringing?” Instead, you might think, “When was the last time I saw our butcher knife?”

My ringing phone was in my purse, which was on the floor in front of George’s feet, so I ignored it. George, however, did not. He fumbled madly through the purse to hand me the phone, which I’d previously had no intention of answering, but did so now.

It was my colleague Christie. She thought I should call our boss. She was cryptic at best. She seemed amused, even.

I hung up, and immediately our receptionist called me.

George took the phone.

“Put him on….That’s not what I said…Your email said 10 am…I don’t see how that’s going to help anything…Great!”

Perplexing. Why the hubbub?

It turns out that George had arranged for the Columbus Clippers to send a Valentine to my office at 10 that morning. They were tardy. Apparently, they had e-mailed a notice of the time change but that e-mail, now a full year later, has yet to arrive.

At  2pm, both Clippers’ mascots – Lou Seal and Krash the pirate parrot – plus several other pep squad types, arrived at my place of employment bearing a basketful of flowers, baseball tickets, snack treats and balloons, and, of course, a great deal of spirit and pep.

As you know, I was not there. Instead, I was about to partake of a lunchtime sub with my incredibly thoughtful, wildly disappointed husband.

The Clippers posse made a little circuit around my office, entertaining everyone and, frankly, making all the other husbands in the place look bad.

Oh, did you get flowers? I had balloons delivered by a guy in a seal suit who mimed sliding into home plate in front of the Editor in Chief’s office door.

The fact that all this was done in vane only made George that much more tragically romantic to my officemates.

So, what does my exuberantly romantic husband have planned for this Valentine’s Day? There is a new Die Hard movie releasing this weekend, correct?

Well, you can’t slide into home every year.

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Side Effects may include unusual career choices

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by Hope Madden

Director Steven Soderbergh has worked with screenwriter Scott Z. Burns three times now, each instance a bit weaker than the last. Their first collaboration, The Informant!, was an unhinged gem of a flick owing as much to Matt Damon’s outstanding performance as to Burns’s knack with the English language. Next came Contagion, a better box office performer, but a less inspired effort.

Their third collaboration, Side Effects, offers a mystery thriller inside the world of pharmaceuticals. As is often the case with mystery thrillers, to say much more would be to give away too much. Coursing with Soderbergh’s cynicism and varnished with his laid back style, the film has more in store for you than the diatribe against Big Pharm it appears to deliver at first.

Unfortunately, plot holes seriously interrupt the impact of the mystery, but a solid cast helps bridge those gaps. Jude Law evolves cleverly from the modern doctor – overworked and ambitious – to something more raw, dirty and real. As his patient, Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) carries the film. It’s her picture, and she does with it what she wishes, thank God.

Like Soderbergh’s last several efforts – all mid-budget, off-season genre pics – Side Effects is an absorbing bit of entertainment you’ll dismiss after viewing. It’s better than most February releases, but worse than most Soderbergh pictures. What a funny turn for a career that began with the game changer Sex, Lies & Videotape.

3 stars (out of 5)

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A Tale of Two Sandys

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By George Wolf

As far back as his childhood days in the 80s as Ricky Schroder’s wise-cracking friend Derek on Silver Spoons, Jason Bateman has displayed flawless comic timing. Melissa McCarthy, on the other hand, has burst on the scene in the last few years, with 2011’s Bridesmaids firmly establishing her as a major comic talent.

Put them together in a road picture, and you’ve got comedy gold, right? Well….

Don’t get me wrong, Identity Thief does deliver some laughs, just not as many as these  two stars would suggest.

Bateman is Sandy Patterson, a financial manager in Denver who deflects constant comments about his first name (“it’s not feminine, it’s unisex!”) while wondering if his jump to a new job at a start-up firm is a good move for his growing family.

McCarthy is also Sandy Paterson, the illegal Florida version. That is, after she makes him her latest identity theft victim and starts racking up credit card bills and arrest records in his name.

As the real Sandy discovers why his life is unraveling, he hatches a plan to travel South and bring the veteran conwoman back to Colorado authorities so she can prove his innocence.

After some great moments of physical comedy as Bateman struggles to apprehend McCarthy, the film settles in as a cross between Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Due Date.

Director Seth Gordon, fresh from the very funny Horrible Bosses (also with Bateman), does his best to bring the same breezy, ad-libbed approach to his latest, and that is a wise move. Writer Craig Mazin’s script, weak on its own, is rescued by the sheer talent of the two leads.  Even when the story makes the inevitable turn toward sentimentality, Bateman and McCarthy keep it from collapsing.

3 stars (out of 5)

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?