Blog Archives

THAT IS THE QUESTION
(IN ORDER OF PERFECTION)

SELMA. Given the state of racial affairs in the USA and the world today, this movie should be seen by every thinking human. It’s a powerful document of a shameful historic period in our history that should never be forgotten. There are many facts, lessons, and messages here that need repeating over and over again, no matter how well you think you remember or understand our Civil Rights issues. It gives us a real picture of Martin Luther King and David Oyelowo portrays him beautifully. Tom Wilkinson isn’t a great LBJ but he tries hard and Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 99, so there you are. Go see it.

THE IMITATION GAME. Excellent film, and if you care a lot about authenticity look it up on Wikipedia (much artistic license) but it doesn’t matter, it’s still a fine film Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing and Keira Knightly as his best friend are nearly perfect. It’s all about breaking the code that the Germans were using during WWII. Turing invents a machine, and in spite of his extra odd personality, the Germans are defeated. The sub theme of Turing’s then illegal homosexuality, and the deathly consequences he paid for it are strangly underplayed, but significent. See this fine film asap.

INHERENT VICE. I can’t review this film fairly. I can’t “get into” Thomas Pynchon’s books and this film is an excellent adaptation of his 2009 Los Angeles themed novel. Like his books the film’s plot weaves and staggers leaps ahead and falls back. Here’s what a friend of mine who knows Pynchon as a friend said of the film…” Upon further reflection, I realize now that when I said the movie was schizophrenic, what I was feeling was that there was no coherent thematic feel (despite a cinematic unity/style) but that THAT is precisely the nature of Tom’s writing. His stock in trade is the mixture of high and low culture, profane/sacred, slapstick/goofiness with high art/glorious writing. This and his (consistent) paranoid/anti-authoritarian/pro-individual themes contributes to his status as a primary source of “postmodern” literature. We like our stories to be linear and with a consistent theme or tone, whether books or movies, despite our own experience that real life is a hodgepodge of conflicting occurrences and desires, successes and failures, punches out of left field, transcendent grace, whacky/strange/unpleasant thoughts, wistful memories of lost loves/opportunities, etc. creating a general posture of “Huh?” This befuddlement and all of society’s attempts to “explain” or provide coherency/context (religion, morality, philosophy, politics, etc.) at the expense of individual spontaneous expression and our general turning away from looking at the usually disastrous, and evil consequences and actions of these (corporate/fascist) control mechanisms is a central theme of Tom’s writing. That Yin/Yang “chaotic” nature is, I think, what I was feeling and it perfectly captures Tom’s writing style. So I think this movie is a resounding success not only in presenting the primary story line but in somehow capturing the quality of the writing in the film. It is not a film for everybody, nor are the books”. A complex review , a complex film, and a very complex writer.

UNBROKEN. More than a few critics have remarked about director Angelina Jolie’s focus on male torture in this near-true saga. It’s a Hollywood product, all heroism, suffering, payoff at the end, and unless you need to feel bad, think twice before you see this one.

BIG EYES. Thomas Kinkade must have picked up all his marketing of kitsch art from Walter Keane (and from Margaret Keane) Most of us who’ve lived in Nor Cal any amount of time remember the invasion of the Big Eyes paintings back in the 1950’s and 60’s centering in San Francisco’s North Beach and spreading all over the world. Both Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz play odd roles and do it well. It’s an absolutely fascinating story, well worth seeing.

INTO THE WOODS. By now we all know the cast, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden Johnny Depp, Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick.We know too that Stephen Sondheim wrote the music, and yet it misses. It’s a clever mixing of Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel, and still it doesn’t hang together. The plot is crazy and lacks cleverness, the singing is what you’d expect fom that lineup of non-singing stars, and you’ll just sit there and watch the screen and leave unimpressed.

THE GAMBLER. Mark Wahlberg tried hard to re-create what James Caan did in this same film back in 1974 with Paul Sorvino and Lauren Hutton, and fails miserably. This is just another dirty crime, bloody action mess. What’s crazy is that we’re supposed to believe that Wahlberg is an university English Professor who either gambles—or teaches— on the side. Whichever!!! His class room scenes are absolutely insane. Don’t go.

THE INTERVIEW. Yes, I saw that desperate, anti-North Korea gross-out attempt at a comedy. More than that, I saw it Christmas night with daughter Jennifer at famed Hollywood theatre, The Crest.The Crest was built in 1940 and has been named a cultural landmark. Three TV Stations were there to cover any and all action as this indy theatre defied the SONY ban on distribution. James Franco and Seth Rogen should be very ashamed to appear in as ignorant, vile, unclever film like this. The only funny line in it was when Rogen said about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, “he’s gone to bed with more women than Ellen De Generes“.

STILL PLAYING AT A THEATRE NEAR US
FROM BEST TO REALLY BAD

BIRDMAN. Great cast with Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Zach Galifianakis, and Lindsay Duncan. Keaton is always good and here he plays an ex Batman/Birdman who tries to make it back to fame in a Broadway play. This is not a simple Hollywood flick!!! Don’t expect some cheap laughs, and takeoffs on Batman movies. It’s a complicated psychological look at egos, fame, friendship, family. It’s a very fine film, worth your going to see by all means. It’s just deeper than the previews make you think.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Stephen Hawking is played by Eddie Redmayne who did Les Miserables. Felicity Jones from Spider Man 2 and Emily Watson is in it too but you’ll hardly recognize her. David Thewlis is also perfect and downplays his role nicely. It’s a heart rending- tear jerker- feel very good- movie. Redmayne will be near the top for an Oscar because they always go for handicapped roles (My Left Foot, Rainman etc.). There’s very little of Hawkings actual scientific genius in the film. It’s more about how later he split from his long suffering and eternally supportive wife and went for his beautiful sexy caretaker and how his wife paired up with her choir director!!! Hawkings book A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME sold more than 10 million copies in twenty years (but only 8 people read it!!). It was translated into 35 languages sez Wikipedia.The Met has commissioned an opera based on the book which should happen in 2015. Wikipedia also says, “the theory of everything, is a physicists’ jargon term for a theory in physics which unifies the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, the strong force, the weak force, and the electromagnetic force”, but recently Hawking says that theory will probably never happen. Go see it, and bring a hankie.

WILD. Any Santa Cruzan will be totally sucked in when Reese Witherspoon starts hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and starts reading a copy of one of Adrienne Rich’s books. Somebody mentions Adrienne latsr in the film too. Cheryl Strayed did hike the PCT and wrote the book.Thomas Sadoski from HBO’s The Newsroom is in it too. Good acting, a few award nominations are already happening and it’s a very good feel-good movie. Not a great movie but a good feel good thing….especially for women.

FOXCATCHER. This is one of the most odd movies I’ve ever seen. You’ll spend almost the entire time just watching Steve Carell’s eagle beak fake nose. Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum look and act like a sequel to Planet of The Apes. It’s creepy, non-focussed and I’m not sure why they made the film. Carell will be nominated for sure for something. du Pont was a real psycho and thought he was Jesus Christ, the Dalai Lama and a Russian czar according to Wikipedia

INTERSTELLAR. This over hyped piece-of-crap movie starring Mathew McConaughey, Michael Caine and Anne Hathway should refund every admsssion dollar it takes in. It’s pretentious, full of phoney intelligence, and uses such concepts as black holes, three dimensions and even five dimensions, singularity, string theory and voices from “them” who exist beyond Saturn. It’s not as bad as UCSC’s recent production of Birth Of Stars ..but almost. Once in a great while I’ll look up other critics to see who’s with me in disliking (or seeing) a film the way I do. Here’s what Critic David Thomson of the New Republic wrote…check it out

HUNGER GAMES, Mockingjay Part 1. A stunning cast, plus what has to be Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s really, really last role–forever. He’s joined by Julienne Moore, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, and Elizabeth Banks….and it’s a waste of your time and money. That is unless you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy. Ashlyn Adams of Westside Video read the books, saw this movie, and even then said this new film is puzzling. I could not follow the plot, who’s good, who’s evil…and what is it all about anyways. And Jennifer Lawrence the star of the Games carries a bow and arrow while everyone around her shoots and kills things with future zap and zing future type weapons. I repeat DO NOT GO unless you’ve read all three books and even then Ashlyn says you can’t always trust anybody in the story.

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES. This is supposed to end the Hobbit trilogies, but considering the huge opening weekend they’ll probably squeeze another dwarf flick and go for four. Yes, Martin Freeman is still in it as Bilbo Baggins, the titular lead of the little people. So is Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, and good old Ian Holm for two minutes at the end. Like Exodus it’s all done with pixels, and it’s impossible to tell one army fromanother. It’s very bloody and violent as all these billion dollar money makers are. So if you want to support more of these torture scenes, just go.

A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM. Not even Robin Williams in his last role gets a laugh here neither does Mickey Rooney in his last cameo appearance.Even with Owen Wilson, Ben Kingsley, Steve Coogan, Dick Van Dyke, Hugh Jackman, andmostly Ben Stiller in two roles, it’s not a funny film. They try very hard, but the joke material has run out on late night museum happenings. Save your money.