Thursday 29 September 2011

Movie Review: Mystic Pizza (1988)


A small movie with a big heart, Mystic Pizza is most famous as Julia Roberts' earliest prominent role. It also happens to be a charming coming-of-age story with three engaging central performances.

Sisters Kat (Annabeth Gish) and Daisy (Roberts) work at the Mystic Pizza restaurant in the small fishing town of Mystic, Connecticut. Jojo (Lili Taylor) is their co-worker and friend, and the three help the earthy owner Leona (Conchata Ferrell) keep the place going while figuring out their futures.

Kat is the smart sister, and already has an acceptance to Yale. She takes on an extra job as a babysitter, and is soon infatuated by her employer: Tim (William R. Moses) is a hunky architect, much older than Kat, and is all the more attractive because he is perhaps having marital problems.

Daisy has looks to kill, and has therefore never bothered to find out if she is as smart as her sister, cultivating instead a reputation as a bed-hopper. Daisy enters into a relationship with the very rich Charles (Adam Storke), and soon finds out that a lot of money could mean a lot of family problems. Jojo faints at the altar, just before her marriage to Bill (Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio) is about to be made official. Bill is an earnest lobster fisherman, and is eager to get married and settle down. After her fainting incident Jojo is not so sure: she can predict her future with Bill, and wonders if she should strive for more.

Kat, Daisy and Jojo are memorable and well-rounded characters, and the script (a four-way collaboration) gives all three enough screen time to mature into believable people with realistic small-town struggles. Kat is the brainiac goody two-shoes, carrying the burden of being responsible to the point that she never expects herself to do anything impulsive. With her exit out of Mystic and into Yale already secure, Kat's challenge is to step outside of who she is to discover if there are any emotional risks worth taking.

Her sister Daisy is the good-time girl, close to reaching for the title of town slut, and she knows it. Daisy has decided that her physical charms are her ticket out of Mystic, but she has also arrived at the blind alley where being used and being cared for melt into the same puddle.

Jojo is almost sure that her fate is to stay in Mystic, and much as she hates to admit it, she has stumbled onto the true love who will actually make her long term life in the small town tolerable. Jojo has to weigh the benefits of early but true commitment against the unknowns that will erupt with the decision to reject a man who worships the ground she walks on.

While Julia Roberts sparkles as Daisy, her dominant, effervescent personality filling the screen with sass and charisma, Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor share the spotlight with bravado. Gish finds the quiet uncertainty within Kat as she fights an internal battle against a life consigned to predictable conformity. Taylor is humorously open with Jojo's insecurities, a feisty, talkative fireball made of equal parts doubt and resolve.

Director Donald Petrie brings the best out of his actresses and the small fishing town locations, but does not avoid all the cliches: Kat is a budding astronomer, and there are some unnecessary eye-roll worthy scenes of star gazing and opportunely timed shooting stars. Some bites of Mystic Pizza may be a bit extra cheesy, but overall, the toppings are delectable, spicy and most satisfying.






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Monday 26 September 2011

Movie Review: Something's Gotta Give (2003)


A romantic comedy for adults, Something's Gotta Give is the equivalent of spending an evening with old friends: the entertainment flows smoothly, enhanced by good humour, great food, and an inevitable happy ending. It may go on for longer than it needs to, but time spent with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton is always pleasurable.

Harry (Nicholson) is a successful businessman in his 60s, dating the much younger Marin (Amanda Peet). Harry makes no secret of wanting to be in the company of younger women: he finds them much simpler to deal with and significantly less demanding. Marin's mother is the divorced Erica (Keaton), a famous Broadway playwright in her late 50s. Harry and Erica meet at her house in the Hamptons and they develop a healthy mutual dislike: she is uptight and judgemental, while he is all self-satisfied smarm.

But Harry suffers an unexpected mild heart attack and Erica finds herself babysitting him. Gradually they begin to care for each other. Marin notices and happily breaks up with Harry to leave the coast clear for her mother to nurture the romance, but Erica's love life gets further complicated when she also attracts the attention of the young and handsome Julian (Keanu Reeves), the doctor looking after Harry's heart health.

As time passes Harry and Erica fall truly in love, but he finds it difficult to commit and she finds it difficult to trust; for the relationship to survive both will need to take risks and venture into previously fenced-off territory.

Nicholson and Keaton slip into their roles with exquisite ease. They both convincingly depict adults blind-sided by love after having been certain that life carried no further surprises. Nicholson's performance starts with some scenery chewing, but gradually dials back as Harry comes to terms with his mortality and his first great romance. Nicholson holds Harry's hand and gently guides him through a transformation to a man overcoming hubris to plead for Erica's trust and companionship.

Keaton's performance is more nuanced, as is the fate of any role opposite Nicholson. Erica has experienced love and hurt, and has rigidly set-up her defences to prevent any future emotional damage. Initially she sees in Harry exactly the type of man she needs to avoid, but as he knocks down her fortifications she gradually recognizes in him an unlikely second opportunity for a grand romance.

Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves and Frances McDormand (as Erica's sister) round out a formidable cast, but they do get nudged firmly into the shadows once Nicholson and Keaton take centre stage.

Nancy Meyers wrote, produced and directed Something's Gotta Give, the beginning of her journey to explore romance among mature adults which would continue with 2009's equally appealing It's Complicated. The romance of Harry and Erica takes more than two hours to unfold, and a solid 15 minutes could have been trimmed to remove unnecessary fat. But otherwise, the screenplay has the unmistakable focus of a single author's vision, Meyers putting to shame the all-too-common clumsy scripts written by committee.

Something's Gotta Give is playful, witty and memorable. It may carry some weight around the waist, but that is just in keeping with the realism of its central characters.






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Saturday 24 September 2011

Movie Review: Brothers (2009)


Yes, war is hell, but soldiers who survive the battlefield just trade in one agony for another when they return home. Brothers is an intense story of post-traumatic stress disorder, and the destruction unleashed on the home front when veterans fail to cope with the aftermath of combat shock.

Sam (Tobey Maguire) and Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) are brothers. Sam is a Marine on active duty, a perfect husband for his wife Grace (Natalie Portman), a fun father for his young daughters Isabelle and Maggie, and a model son for his father Hank (Sam Shepard). Tommy has just been released from jail, a loser whose life has so far amounted to exactly nothing.

Sam is deployed to Afghanistan, where his helicopter crashes into a lake. Reported to be dead, Sam is actually captured by the Taliban, tortured, and eventually forced by his captors to beat to death a fellow captive American soldier. Meanwhile, Grace believes that she is a widow, and needs to piece together her life and help Isabelle and Maggie deal with their dad's death. Tommy starts to help Grace in her recovery, and gradually becomes a surrogate father figure for the children. Tommy and Grace are slowly but surely drawn together.

When Sam is rescued and returns home, the new normal in Grace's life is again destroyed. Sam is not the same person who went off to war, and his traumatized mind finds it almost impossible to deal with the reconstituted reality of his domestic home, building to a treacherous crisis with his wife and brother.

To make its point, the Brothers screenplay by David Benioff does push the horror of war. Sam is tipped into the mental darkness after being forced at gun-point to kill a fellow Marine; while dramatic, this is much more than most soldiers who develop PTSD have to endure, but Hollywood is rarely known for choosing pastels when vivids can be manufactured.

Compensating for the excesses in the script, the acting performances and particularly the three main leads elevate Brothers to a delectable, slow-melt drama. Jake Gyllenhaal delivers the most intriguing transformation, as the brother who blooms when life unexpectedly hands him a purpose and a responsibility. Gyllenhaal allows Tommy to even surprise himself, and is most poignant when pushed back out of Grace's life upon Sam's return.

Natalie Portman enhances her reputation as a dramatic actress, in a performance less showy but no less intense than 2010's Black Swan. For the sake of her daughters Grace has to maintain a semblance of normalcy when Sam is reported dead, and then unexpectedly finds it even more difficult to welcome an unhinged husband back into her life. Portman keeps her performance controlled while conveying simmering anguish, and an undercurrent of unease for allowing herself to be happy with Tommy.

Less interesting but still solid is Tobey Maguire, who goes from effective Marine to traumatized veteran without much of a change in expression, although his best acting is physical: Maguire's awkward stance and glassy eyes upon his return home speak volumes without saying a word.

Sam Shepard and Mare Winningham (as Hank's wife) add plenty of earnest supporting talent, and the scenes between Shepard's old-school traditional retired soldier Hank and Gyllenhaal's good-for-nothing Tommy are deliciously uncomfortable.

With an efficient running time of 105 minutes, director Jim Sheridan maintains momentum with scenes of what should be tranquil domesticity regularly disrupted by the nibbling forces of crushed expectations, mis-trust, doubt and jealously. When the shooting stops, the brain damage kicks-in, and the casualties just continue to mount.






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Monday 19 September 2011

Movie Review: Proof Of Life (2000)


A romantic triangle set amidst the drama of a businessman's kidnapping in South America, Proof Of Life is engaging but flawed. A spluttering romance never quite catches fire, and an all-guns-blazing finale undermines the character-centred drama that the film patiently constructs.

Peter Bowman (David Morse) is an American construction manager, supervising a dam project in the fictional South American country of Tecala. His wife Alice (Meg Ryan) is having a hard time adjusting to life in Tecala, resulting in significant tension within the marriage. The day after a big argument, Peter is kidnapped by guerrillas belonging to the Liberation Army of Tecala (ELT) and marched at gunpoint deep into the inhospitable mountains. Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe) works for a British consulting firm that specializes in negotiating hostage releases. Assigned to Peter's case, Terry meets Alice but is called back to London due to Peter's company having no kidnap insurance coverage. But Terry's brief encounter with Alice caused a connection, and he decides to return and help her on a freelance basis.

Over several months Terry conducts arduous negotiations to agree on a price for the release of Peter, while a strong attraction evolves between Terry and Alice. Terry also meets up with other hostage consultants working in Tecala, including the fiery Dino (David Caruso). Peter, meanwhile, struggles to stay alive and sane in a remote ramshackle jungle camp, where some of the guerrillas are looking for any opportunity to physically harm him while others see his value as a healthy hostage. Despite Terry's best efforts, the negotiations break down, Peter's life is thrown into jeopardy, and Terry and Dino need to decide if more drastic action is warranted, in the form of a military rescue attempt.

Director Taylor Hackford has a resume filled with flawed gems, including Against All Odds, White Nights and Everybody's All-American. Proof Of Life is littered with question marks that perforate the credibility of Tony Gilroy's script. Central to the movie's purpose, Terry's motivation for coming back to help Alice is never convincingly dealt with; the coincidence that helps Terry to identify the ELT negotiator is wild-eyed; and late in the proceeding, the reasons for the ELT sparing Peter's life on the jungle mountainside are vague. The sudden transformation of Terry from a suave negotiator to a mercenary joining a group of suddenly heavily-armed westerners launching a hastily planned jungle raid in a foreign land is also quite jarring.

Helping to traverse the rocky patches in the longish running time of 135 minute are three strong central performances. Meg Ryan in particular shines as Alice, finding the dilemma zone between fear, frustration, worry for the fate of a missing husband and growing affection for the man now in control of her life. Russell Crowe is comfortably confident as a man who rarely encounters any situation that he cannot control to his advantage. David Morse has the difficult task of playing the missing third point in the triangle, and he does well as a man who grabs onto the thought and image of his wife to maintain sanity in prolonged captivity. In an ironic example of life somewhat imitating art, the filming of Proof Of Life sparked a real-life relationship between Ryan and Crowe, destroying Ryan's marriage to Dennis Quaid.

Proof Of Life does benefit from some intentional loose ends related to the future happiness of the main characters. This is a welcome change from routine happy endings, and consistent with a common theme in Hackford's films: relationships are difficult, messy, and not always cheerful.

Proof Of Life's greatest strength is its relatively unique setting and stressful backdrop, exploring the rich territory of romance flourishing in times of extreme tension, when the normalcy of life is overturned and the well-established rules of day-to-day living are forcefully abandoned. Falling in love is one proof of life when there appears to be little to live for.






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Sunday 18 September 2011

Movie Review: Platoon (1986)


An intense front-line view of a most muddled conflict, Platoon is a close-up examination of the human damage caused by war, and also one of the best war movies ever made. Director Oliver Stone wrote the story based on his personal experiences in Vietnam, and his narrative is unblinking in its portrayal of all that is wrong with war, from politicians sacrificing the lower classes to the resultant irreparable emotional devastation of those who do the killing.

Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a college student who has willingly enlisted in the army, and he arrives for combat duty in Vietnam of 1967. Oppressive heat, low morale, disgruntled troops, ineffective jungle patrols and clueless commanders are just some of the challenges that he immediately faces, and this is before any enemy encounters.

Chris learns that two fearless sergeants are the de facto leaders of his Bravo Company: Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) stands up for his men and encourages a loose attitude and plenty of camaraderie. Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) is all intensity, having long since adopted a kill'em all individualistic attitude. The men of Bravo Company are divided, with some supporting Elias and others idolizing Barnes. Elias and Barnes are on an inevitable collision course, and after Barnes loses all discipline during a raid on a Vietnamese village, they become mortal enemies.

Chris witnesses the intensifying conflict between the men and survives skirmishes of ever increasing ferocity with the North Vietnamese Army, culminating in a massive gory and desperate battle, during which Chris has to apply all that he has learned from both Elias and Barnes just to try and live for another day.

Stone enriches Platoon by not glossing over the little details that dominate a soldier's experience: the insatiable bugs feeding on human flesh; the endless marching in the impenetrable jungle; digging trenches in the energy-sapping heat; the devastating fatigue causing soldiers to fall asleep at critical moments; and the endless, tense waiting for encounters with the enemy.

And when these enemy encounters do occur, Stone, cinematographer Robert Richardson, and editor Claire Simpson emphasize the overwhelming chaos and confusion. Platoon's battle scenes play out in limited light, the enemy mostly seen as shadows, tactics and strategies utterly lost in the anarchy of the battlefield.

The central theme of Platoon is the contrast in the education of Chris at the hands of Elias and Barnes. Both are exceptional warriors, but while Elias has retained his humanity and is still killing for a greater purpose, Barnes has adopted killing for the sake of killing and no longer cares to delve into the subtleties of when should the killing be justified.

Both men have their followers, and Platoon poses the question as to which form of soldier is needed to win a war. At the personal level, Stone ends the film with Chris standing at the most important fork in his life, having absorbed and internalized characteristics from both Elias and Barnes. Whether he becomes more like Elias or more like Barnes will determine which part of Chris will die, and when.

Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe lead the testosterone drenched cast, both diving into their roles as jungle combatants with stone-faced relish. Charlie Sheen, with a successful future career still in his hands should he choose not to snort it, finds the balance between the bewilderment of the new recruit thrown into battle and the grim determination of a smart soldier willing to learn and survive. A large supporting cast of at-the-time relative unknowns includes the likes of Forest Whitaker, Johnny Depp and Kevin Dillon.

Platoon condemns war by staring at its horror, a reminder that while the dead represent the tragedy, the survivors and those who do the killing are plunged into the same universe of infernal misery.






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Saturday 17 September 2011

Movie Review: Four Christmases (2008)


A mild relationship comedy that has all the flavour of left-over Christmas turkey three days into January, Four Christmases has an entertaining secondary cast but little else to recommend it.

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a happily unmarried loving couple, never planning to tie the knot and certainly avoiding ever having children. Both products of broken homes, Brad and Kate spend their vacations avoiding their families at all costs, concocting tall tales about doing charity work while flying off to exotic vacation resorts in places like Fiji.

When an unexpected storm grounds their Christmas vacation flight and a local television crew beams their interview as stranded travellers across San Francisco, they are exposed and forced to visit all four of their parents on a single day leading up to Christmas Eve. For the first time obligated to interact with their parents as a couple, Brad and Kate discover that they really know very little about each other, and that their seemingly perfect life may actually be quite vacuous.

With the easily dismissable attempts at humour including Brad being gang-tackled by his brutish brothers (more than once) and baby projectile vomit soiling the landscape (more than once), the main joy of watching Four Christmases comes from spotting rarely-seen and once-distinguished old pros contributing short performances. In their prime Robert Duvall (Brad's dad), Jon Voight (Kate's dad), Mary Steenburgen (Kate's mom) and Sissy Spacek (Brad's mom) would not have been caught within miles of a generally witless movie, but here they become the distraction that salvages some entertainment from the limp main event.

Vince Vaughn arduously avoids any stretching and plays the part of Vince Vaughn, essentially the same role that he plays in all his movies: modern man struggling mightily to control the base instincts of jungle man. In Four Christmases his family is still in the jungle, white trash spewing unrefined DNA all over the dirty carpet, leaving open the question of how Brad ever escaped his family's gutter. Vaughn will do well to expand the range of his on-screen persona, as he currently resides solidly on the lazy side of the judgement line.

Reese Witherspoon seems to know that she's stuck in a production at least two notches below her talent level, and Kate's building sadness in the movie may be equally attributed to losing faith in her relationship with Brad and to Witherspoon realizing that Four Christmases will really not look good on a resume that includes Walk The Line. That she co-produced the movie would not have helped to cheer her up.

Five producers (including both Vaughn and Witherspoon) and four writers shared the apparently heavy lifting to assemble this lightweight 88 minutes of easily forgettable entertainment. Next time, they may all want to focus less time on convincing veterans to appear in semi-cameos, and more time in finding something a bit more original to put on the screen.






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Movie Review: Single White Female (1992)


A psychological thriller that brushes against Hitchcockian levels of ever increasing menacing tension, Single White Female is a compelling descent into the turmoil caused by a deeply disturbed mind.

Allie Jones (Bridget Fonda) is a struggling New York software designer, deeply in love with live-in boyfriend Sam (Steven Weber), and friends with upstairs neighbour Graham (Peter Friedman). Allie's love life collapses when she discovers that Sam cheated on her with his ex-wife. She kicks him out, advertises for a room-mate, and soon Hedy Carlson (Jennifer Jason Leigh) moves in. Although a bit frumpy, Hedy at first appears sensitive and caring, but she gradually reveals obsessive tendencies towards Allie. Hedy adopts Allie's style in fashion and hair, and starts to take liberties with Allie's mail, voice messages and personal belongings.

Things go from uncomfortable to creepy when Allie and Sam reconcile, and Hedy feels like an unwelcome guest in her own apartment. She starts to actively sabotage the relationship between Allie and Sam, and finally turns outright hostile against all the foundations of Allie's life.

Neither Bridget Fonda nor Jennifer Jason Leigh ever made it to Grade A stardom levels; but both actresses are at their best, and possibly their career peaks, in Single White Female. Fonda oozes confident trendiness mixed with the vulnerability that comes from the ground shifting and the walls closing in, the quintessential wannabe career woman unable to break a sequence of body-blow betrayals: her former business partner; her current boyfriend; and now her room-mate.

Leigh's role is darker, more transformational, and ultimately chilling. Initially appearing normal but marching mercilessly into a dance on the edge of madness, Leigh embraces the role of catalyst, aggressor and severely damaged victim.

Barbet Schroeder gets the best out of his two lead actresses, and he imaginatively introduces the New York building that houses Allie's apartment as a menacing co-star. The sturdy, imposing art nouveau structure can't help but seep impending evil, and Schroeder finds all the internal and external perspectives to maximize the sense of doom.

At its climax, Single White Female probably turns the screw twice more than necessary, dropping into cliched and well-stripped "not dead yet" territory. The drama and engagement reside in the journey more than the resolution, and Single White Female has a patient and delectably ominous slide towards its final acts of madness.






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Friday 16 September 2011

Movie Review: The War Wagon (1967)


A tongue-in-cheek western with a streak of dry humour, The War Wagon allows two screen veterans to have fun without totally abandoning the pillars of the genre. The movie has plenty of horses, gun-play, bare-knuckle fist fights, and Indians, but scrubs-off any edge of seriousness and replaces it with a wink and a smile.

Crooked but powerful businessman Frank Pierce (Bruce Cabot) has taken over the ranch of Taw Jackson (John Wayne), kicking Jackson off his land by framing him for a crime and consigning him to a jail sentence. Pierce seized control of Jackson's land after discovering that the ranch sits on gold deposits. Now he is growing richer mining the gold and transferring his treasure and money to and from the rail station in an impressively armoured wagon, protected by more than 30 men on horseback. A turret-mounted Gatling gun is the latest enhancement to ward off attacks on the War Wagon.

Released on parole, Jackson is back in town and looking to reclaim what is his. Rightfully predicting the worst, Pierce tries to hire ace gunman Lomax (Kirk Douglas) to kill Jackson. But Jackson gets to Lomax first, and recruits him to help execute a daring heist of the War Wagon. Assisted by the Indian Levi (Howard Keel), the perpetually drunk explosives expert Billy Hyatt (Robert Walker Jr.), and inside-man and old geezer Catlin (Keenan Wynn), Jackson and Lomax hatch a plan to destroy the War Wagon and take off with a large supply of gold.

Lomax and Jackson simultaneously shoot and kill two bad guys:

Lomax: Mine hit the ground first.
Jackson: Mine was taller.

In a traditional yet brisk outing easily packing genre fundamentals, John Wayne and Kirk Douglas ride through The War Wagon with the effortlessness of grizzled old-timers who have seen it all and done it all multiple times, trading barbs, planning their robbery, and guarding against each other with obvious delight. Director Burt Kennedy fully realizes his two stars are much bigger than the routine story, and provides Wayne and Douglas with every opportunity to dominate the screen, which they do with understated relish. Kennedy also makes good use of Monument Valley scenery to polish the classic western credentials of the movie.

The supporting cast features a host of Western veterans shooting their guns straight and earnestly reciting their lines to counterbalance the levity of the two stars. There is also a brief but memorable appearance by Bruce Dern: he is one of the two bad guys who are shot to prompt the classic "mine was taller" exchange of dialogue.

The portrayal of Indians is generally unenlightened, even for 1967, although they do emerge as beneficiaries of the sting in the tale. Clair Huffaker's script otherwise features an epic everyone-against-anyone saloon fist-fight, and misadventures with nitroglycerin, a welcome departure from the standard over-dependence on dynamite in most Westerns.

The War Wagon is an entertaining farewell wave to a genre that was otherwise fast galloping towards the canyon's dead-end.






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Wednesday 14 September 2011

Movie Review: She's Out Of My League (2010)


A brash attempt at combining the overt boorishness of gross-out farces with the more dainty elements of romantic comedies fails on all counts. She's Out Of My League is rarely funny, never romantic, and always aggravating.

Twentysomething Kirk (Jay Baruchel) and his buddies work at a Pittsburgh Airport security screening station. Kirk is geeky, angular, and has been comprehensively dumped by Marnie (Lindsay Sloane). In fact, Kirk is such a doormat that Marnie and her new boyfriend Roy are good friends with Kirk's parents, and rub their relationship in Kirk's face at every opportunity in his own home.

Molly (Alice Eve) is a stunning blonde with supermodel looks. She catches Kirk's eye as she passes through airport security, and because she is bored with good looking but plastic guys, he also catches her attention. They start a relationship, despite the attempted intervention of Molly's former boyfriend Cam (Geoff Stults) and the suddenly insanely jealous Marnie. But the biggest hurdle that Kirk needs to overcome is gaining belief that a dolt like him is worthy of a gorgeous girlfriend.

The humour in She's Out Of My League is crass and predictable, the romance uneven and never the least bit believable. Jay Baruchel may have some comic talent but it is not yet sufficiently developed to save a limp script. Alice Eve does not even try to find any meaning in a dream doll role that only exists in the imagination of unimaginative screenwriters. The supporting cast works hard to ensure obscurity by mimicking overly familiar characters from numerous better movies, while Kirk's white trash family seal the deal on eliminating all potential for clever or understated humour.

This is the first feature length film directed by Britain's Jim Field Smith, and unless he quickly graduates to better material, it could also be among his last. Molly may be several leagues above Kirk, but this cast and crew are also several leagues below the level required for good movie making.






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Sunday 11 September 2011

Movie Review: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958)


The film adaptation of Tennessee Willliams' play is both compelling and enchanting, with stunningly multi-dimensional characters peeling away layers of civility in excruciatingly delicious slow motion. Cat On A Hot Tin Roof provided Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives the opportunity to deliver stellar and unforgettable career-defining roles.

The extended Pollitt family is gathering to celebrate the birthday of rich patriarch Big Daddy (Ives), who owns a plantation and hundreds of acres of land. Big Daddy's health is beginning to fail, shining the spotlight on issues of inheritance. His son Brick (Newman) is depressed, drinking heavily, and has just managed to break his ankle in a drunken attempt to run a midnight steeplechase at the local high school track.

Brick's wife Maggie (Taylor), nicknamed Cat, is at least partially the cause of her husband's angst, but Maggie also sees Brick's brother Cooper (Jack Carson) trying to nudge Brick out of the inheritance picture, with Cooper's wife and baby factory Mae (Madeleine Sherwood) giving her husband plenty of encouragement to shove Brick and Maggie aside. In a series of difficult and tense confrontations over the course of a stormy evening, Maggie, Brick and Big Daddy gradually come to terms with difficult past issues still dictating present behaviour.

Director Richard Brooks co-wrote the screenplay with an eye to achieving modest break-outs from the theatrical trappings of the original material. He succeeds in moving the action from room to room relatively seamlessly, but there is no doubting Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is a stage-bound adaptation of a play. The characters are the dominant element of the experience; the settings are interesting but very much secondary.

To comply with the censorship codes and public tolerances of the day, the movie adaptation only hints at the homosexual sub-texts in the story. The MGM studio was perhaps marginally behind the times in pushing boundaries, but the screen version does provide space for Maggie to emerge as a forerunner of the coming sexual and feminist revolutions. Maggie starts the day unloved by her husband and being eased out of Big Daddy's fortune; she ends the evening as a dazzling example of what an empowered woman is capable of.

Elizabeth Taylor is a magnetic presence as Maggie "the Cat", with an unnerving ability to dominate any frame, even on the rare occasions when she is the secondary observer on the edge of the drama. Taylor pulls off a masterful performance combining guilt, ambition and tenacity to fight for her marriage and ensure her husband secures his rightful share of Big Daddy's inheritance. More than just a cat on hit tin roof, Maggie is also a cat walking through a minefield of complex familial relations and tragic legacies. Taylor's performance is all the more remarkable as she started filming three weeks after the death of her husband Mike Todd when his plane crashed, killing all on-board. Taylor was supposed to have been on the plane.

Paul Newman spends the first two thirds of the movie brooding and drinking, but comes alive in the final act, breaking through years of crusty barriers to confront the pain inflicted on him by his wife and father, and most painfully, the agony he has imposed upon himself. For an actor whose career was built on cool detachment, Brick's emotional breakthrough represents some of Newman's most animated screen moments.

Big Daddy: What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it, Brick? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?... There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity... You can smell it. It smells like death.

Burl Ives acted in movies for five decades, but his Big Daddy easily ranks among his most memorable roles. With subtle twitches of the mouth and eyebrows, Ives, who was reprising his role from the Broadway stage production, conveys various degrees of irritation with his mostly insufferable family, while inexorably moving towards a mammoth confrontation with Brick. Both men will at least recognize their devastating weaknesses without necessarily rectifying them.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof celebrates the consequences of soul-baring, as hot days, tin roofs and agitated cats combine for cleansing outcomes.






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Saturday 10 September 2011

Movie Review: The Pelican Brief (1993)


A political conspiracy thriller that makes little sense as a story, The Pelican Brief survives as entertainment thanks to charismatic stars who glide above the increasingly ridiculous events erupting all around them.

Two United States supreme court justices are shockingly assassinated. In New Orleans, law student Darby Shaw (Julia Roberts) conducts some solo research and hypothesizes that the murders are linked to a court case related to big oil drilling in pristine wildlife habitats. The bombshell is that the tycoon behind the oil corporation has strong connections with the President (Robert Culp).

Shaw writes up her theory, which becomes known as The Pelican Brief, and provides a copy to her teacher and lover Thomas Callahan (Sam Shepard). Callahan is intrigued enough to forward the document to his friend Gavin Verheek (John Heard), a lawyer who works at the FBI. The report makes its way to the director of the FBI and then the White House. What was an interesting theory turns out to be painfully close to the truth, and soon people start dying, including Callahan, who is blown up, and Verheek, killed in a hotel room.

Running for her life, Shaw turns to Washington Herald journalist Gray Grantham (Denzel Washington), who is poking around the justice assassination story. Shaw and Grantham team up and have to duck bullets and avoid explosions as they attempt to uncover the conspiracy behind the murders.

The script by director Alan J. Pakula, adapting the John Grisham book, has a yawning black hole at the middle of it. Darby Shaw is of no consequence to the events that she uncovered: her report consists of conjecture inspired from matters of public record, and she herself witnessed nothing and holds no evidence that is otherwise unavailable. For Shaw to become an assassination target once her report is circulating throughout Washington DC is disingenuous and nothing but a cheap plot device to place a damsel in distress, and even at a superficial level of scrutiny The Pelican Brief suffers for it.

Moving past the unjustified histrionics, the movie is never enthralling but always engaging thanks to a stellar cast, with weighty performers in most of the meaningful roles. Julia Roberts, still refreshingly eager to please and not yet the diva, is appealing as Darby Shaw, despite remaining surprisingly sane as the bodies pile up around her. Denzel Washington is equally in his energetic prime, and provides the most solid core to the movie as investigative reporter Gray Grantham.

In support, the likes of Sam Shepard, John Heard, Robert Culp, John Lithgow and Hume Cronyn ensure that the secondary characters add plenty of colour to the proceedings, providing enough distraction from the progressively more improbable drama to maintain interest.

Pakula, directing what proved to be his penultimate film, is deep in his All The President's Men comfort zone of Washington DC-based thrillers revolving around political conspiracies, with journalists stunningly more competent than law enforcement authorities. Pakula's directing is effortless and polished, and he makes the best use of his stars and locations.

Like the pelican itself, The Pelican Brief is curiously noble and occasionally does fly, but it's far from the most streamlined of birds.






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Wednesday 7 September 2011

Movie Review: Dumb And Dumber (1994)


A celebration of idiocy, Dumb And Dumber actively seeks and happily steers onto every low road. Some moments are funny, but many are just too stupid to be enjoyable.

Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) is a confirmed idiot, and his roommate and buddy Harry (Jeff Daniels) is equally dense. Working briefly as a limousine driver in Providence, Rhode Island, Lloyd gets to deliver Mary (Lauren Holly) to the airport. Mary is rich and beautiful, and Lloyd is immediately smitten. At the airport, Lloyd notices that Mary has abandoned a briefcase; he retrieves it but not in time to return it to Mary, who has boarded her flight to Aspen.

Unbeknownst to Lloyd, Mary was actually making a drop: the briefcase was a ransom payment intended for criminals Joe (Mike Starr) and J.P. (Karen Duffy), who have kidnapped her husband. Lloyd convinces Harry to embark with him on a long road trip from Providence to Aspen, and they are soon hotly pursued by Joe and J.P. on a journey that rapidly degenerates from misinformed to chaotic. Once they make it to Aspen, Lloyd and Harry need to find Mary and return the briefcase, but with two idiots in control of a lot of money and kidnappers in control of a high society member, all hell can be expected to break loose in the Aspen snow.

Jim Carrey is suitably farcical and by far the best thing about Dumb And Dumber, elevating an otherwise potentially irksome film into reasonable entertainment. But Lloyd Christmas is among Carrey's most forgettable characters. Yes, he gets himself into continuous trouble that is occasionally funny, but stupid is also predictable, and predictability kills comedy. Once it is established that Lloyd will make the stupidest decision available at every turn, he is rarely capable of springing genuinely amusing surprises.

Jeff Daniels plays Harry as just slightly more world-weary and a lot shaggier than Lloyd, but he also is entertaining just in patches, his dumbness eventually blanketing any sparks of originality. Harry's excessive dogmobile ride is a good indication of the film's ability to deal in subtleties.

Mary spends plenty of time humoring Lloyd and Harry because the script demands it, but Lauren Holly does little to answer the question as to why Mary would tolerate the dimwits for any longer than it would take to slam the door in their face. Holly at least got something out of the film: she became Mrs. Jim Carrey in 1996, a union that lasted for all of two years.

Brothers Peter and Bobby Farrelly keep the cameras pointing at Carrey's face to maximize use of their main asset, but the shallowness of the character eventually makes even his mug tiresome. Dumb And Dumber recalls the days of lowest common denominator, Laurel and Hardy style slapstick comedy. Yes, morons are funny, but some sharp wit would have been appreciated, if for no other reason than to demonstrate acknowledgement of screen comedy evolution.







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Monday 5 September 2011

Movie Review: Field Of Dreams (1989)


A lyrical fable about the meaning of life, Field Of Dreams embraces a loveable eccentricity as it meanders down the path of answering the big questions. Mixing the rich mythologies of baseball and the cultural earthquake of the 1960s, the film celebrates life as the sum total of poignant outside influences and deeply personal decisions.

Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) never properly resolved his relationship with his late father John, a bit-part minor league baseball player. Ray experienced the turbulent 1960s, married Annie (Amy Madigan), and finally settled down as a corn farmer in Iowa. Walking his fields one day, Ray hears a Voice repeatedly telling him  "if you build it, he will come". After seeing a vision, Ray goes ahead and flattens a patch of his corn field, and builds a baseball diamond, complete with floodlights. Soon, Shoeless Joe Jackson, John Kinsella's hero, appears from the wall of corn surrounding the diamond; he and Ray talk, and Ray pitches to Jackson for some practice hitting. Other members of the 1919 Black Sox scandal soon start joining Jackson on the field, but only Ray, Annie and their daughter Karin can see them.

There are more instructions from The Voice, and these lead Ray to take a road trip and connect with Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), a once influential 1960s author now reduced to a crusty, angry and reclusive curmudgeon; and to Archibald "Moonlight" Graham (Burt Lancaster), a baseball player from the 1920s, who fielded half an inning in one game and never had an at-bat. Graham went on to become a well-respected doctor, and although he died in the early 1970s, Graham first appears to Ray in his elderly "Doc" persona, and then as a youthful and eager ball player.

Congregating back at the baseball field on Ray's farm, now busy with many players from bygone eras, the young Archie Graham gets a chance to fulfill his ambition of one major league at-bat before his ball career gets interrupted again; and Terence receives an invitation to rediscover his magic in the corn field. There is one more visitor to Ray's field of dreams, and a final lesson about appreciating what life has to offer.

In one of Kevin Costner's defining roles, he plays Ray Kinsella as a man embarking on an incredible yet needed journey, guided by forces that he does not understand to connect the dots of his life. Costner conveys anchored bewilderment to perfection. Amy Madigan defines the spunky and fully supportive wife, and shines in the one scene at the school PTA meeting where she demonstrates what she contributed to Ray's life. James Earl Jones and Burt Lancaster appear to have enormous but controlled fun lending their domineering authority to the roles of Terence Man and Doc "Moonlight" Graham.

There are many hidden and interweaving meanings and themes running through Field Of Dreams. Most apparent is the value of listening to the inner voice when making decisions, although in this case instinct is crystallized as a clear outer voice. Ray does not fully understand where The Voice will lead him, but he trusts the instructions and never regrets doing so.

Celebrating life as the accumulation of past legacies and key individual decisions is the overall theme of the movie. Baseball played a large part in Ray's heritage and childhood; the 1960s defined who he was, and led him to his wife; she in turn influenced his decision to relocate to a farm in Iowa. These elements are mixed in a rich broth, represented by Joe Jackson and Terence Mann, to awaken Ray to the treasure of his life's accomplishments.

The character of Moonlight Graham serves to reconnect Ray with his father's achievements, as well as his own lack of success on the baseball diamond: just like John and Ray Kinsella, Graham never made it in the Big Leagues; but Graham vividly demonstrates to Ray the value of contributions made by failed baseball players. There indeed is a rich purpose to the life of those not quite good enough to hit, pitch or catch a baseball.

Phil Alden Robinson directed his own screenplay, adapted from W.P. Kinsella's book Shoeless Joe. Robinson allows the magic to flow with a tinge of humour and a shading of pathos, the story never pretending to be anchored in anything other than the enchantment of the soul.

Field Of Dreams succeeds due to its unadulterated joy of the incredible, the film a surrender to a pleasant self-aware dream. From the early moments of The Voice talking to Ray to the long series of ghosts starring in time-shifted events, Field Of Dreams takes place in an alternate reality where the fantastic is acceptable, and a diverse set of miracles work together towards a common, human-centred and very down-to-earth conclusion. Sometimes, the spirits just enjoy the freedom of providing guidance using their own curious methods.






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Movie Review: Must Love Dogs (2005)


The romantic comedy meets on-line dating for an exploratory coffee, with results that mix pleasant small talk with a sweet-enough hug and kiss on the cheek at the end of the night as a strong cast helps push Must Love Dogs towards watchable territory.

Sarah (Diane Lane), an elementary schoolteacher in her early forties, is in a prolonged post-divorce slump, frumpy and semi-depressed despite the best attempts of her sister Carol (Elizabeth Perkins) to get her back into a relationship. Sarah's mood is not improved when she realizes that her widowed dad Bill (Christopher Plummer) is enjoying the single life with a succession of dates and overlapping relationships. Sarah is attracted to the hunky but shifty Bob (Dermot Mulroney), the parent of one of her students, but this does not stop Carol signing up Sarah to an on-line dating service, including in her profile that her suitors "must love dogs". Sarah immediately gets responses from 18 interested men, but most turn into the usual first-date disasters.

Jake (John Cusack) builds classic wooden canoes that nobody wants to buy, and his divorce has just been finalized. A hopeless romantic addicted to repeated viewings of Doctor Zhivago, Jake's divorce reinforces his view of love being doomed to tragic failure. His lawyer friend Charlie (Ben Shenkman) eventually convinces him to respond to on-line dating ads, where he ends up as one of Sarah's dates. Although their initial meetings are just short of disastrous, Sarah and Jake ignite enough of a spark to persist with building a relationship that eventually flourishes, pushing Sarah to decide between Jake's sensitivity and Bob's ruggedness.

John Cusack and Diane Lane make an engaging couple, mixing comic awkwardness with the warmth of damaged hearts looking to believe in love again. They are surrounded by a better than usual supporting cast, led by the indefatigable Christopher Plummer as Bill, marching ever onwards in his career and not hesitating to pursue companionship and romance as Sarah's sprightly dad. Stockard Channing adds colour as the earthy Dolly, one of Bill's more durable arm ornaments. Elizabeth Perkins, Dermot Mulroney and Ben Shenkman contribute welcome depth to the talent level.

Director Gary David Goldberg translates the quality of his television productions Family Ties and Spin City to the screen, keeping the comedy understated and allowing his stars to shine unencumbered by boorish behaviour or larger-than-life episodes.

On-line dating quickly transitioned from novelty to mainstream, and Must Love Dogs dates itself as an exploration of romance enabled by technology that was only new for a short period. Nevertheless, the film survives because as this genre never fails to remind us, true love triumphs over all adversity.





All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Edge Of Darkness (2010)


A gloomy revenge tale, Edge Of Darkness starts at the edge but marches to the heart of darkness in a tale of one man taking on powerful evil forces. An otherwise standard story benefits from a pervading and welcome sense of despair.

Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is a veteran Boston detective. His daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) comes for a visit, and she appears to be sick with a mystery poisoning ailment. Before Thomas can rush her to the hospital, Emma is killed at close range by a masked shotgun-wielding assassin at his doorstep.

The original assumption is that Thomas was the intended target and the motive must be related to one of his police cases. But his dogged investigation reveals that his daughter was a whistle-blower at her place of work, the government-financed Northmoor corporation. Emma uncovered an illegal weapons manufacturing program at Northmoor, confided in her boyfriend David (Shawn Roberts) and contacted an activist group to help her shine the spotlight on Northmoor's activities. The activists have all been murdered on the orders of CEO Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), with the knowledge of Senator Jim Pine (Damian Young), whom Emma had turned to for help before being killed.

Thomas starts feeling the effects of radiation poisoning, and he needs to move quickly to expose the Northmoor conspiracy while navigating around the unwanted attentions of Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), a brutish British "consultant" brought in by Northmoor and the political aides to clean up all loose ends.

Mel Gibson, trying to stitch back together a career in tatters due to personal demons, injects Edge Of Darkness with in-built doom. Gone is the boyish charisma and twinkle in the eye. Instead, Gibson's Thomas Craven is dour and craggy, eyes filled with the mist produced by the combination of quiet sadness and burning rage.

The supporting cast is lacking intensity and individuality, playing stock roles in low definition. Danny Huston as Jack Bennett is the standard evil corporate CEO, oozing corruption and MBA-speak. Ray Winstone's Jedburgh is the stereotypical cleaner, sent in to mop up inconvenient left-overs with maximum prejudice and minimum emotion. As Emma, Bojana Novakovic gets a potentially interesting but unfortunately minuscule role that she can do little with.

Nevertheless, veteran director Martin Campbell, who has on his resume the solid Bond episodes GoldenEye and Casino Royale, maintains a consistent level of tension as Thomas navigates his way through the web of deceit that claimed his daughter's life. Edge Of Darkness gains its strength from the depth of conspiracy and intensity of Craven's pain, rather than the exaggerated action set-pieces that plague most contemporary thrillers.

Edge Of Darkness may lack any sharply defined bolts of originality, but it succeeds as a mature reprisal drama, pessimism fuelling a story that comfortably progresses from dark to darkest.






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