Movie Review: Stan And Ollie (2018)

Genre: Biographical Dramedy

Director: Jon S. Baird

Starring: Steve Coogan, John C. Reilly, Danny Huston

Running Time: 98 minutes

Synopsis: In 1937, a contract dispute with producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) drives a wedge between comedy movie duo Stan Laurel (Steve Coogan) and Oliver Hardy (John C. Reilly). In 1953, with their peak popularity days well behind them, Laurel and Hardy reunite and embark on a theatre tour in England. Laurel promises Hardy that a film deal may also be in the works, but first they need to navigate poor attendance, past hurts, thorny dynamics between their wives, and deteriorating health.

What Works Well: Based on real events, this is a story of a deep friendship sustained after the limelight has faded. Director Jon S. Baird humanizes Stan as the creative business mind balancing Ollie's larger-than-life, hopeless-with-money jovial presence. Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly deserve credit for portraying men with faults rather than screen personas, with a noble dedication to the success of every next show. The final scene is a wonderous embodiment of a career bow.

What Does Not Work As Well: This is an ultimately small story, pumped into inflated prominence but still struggling to justify even the 98 minutes of running time.

Conclusion: A pleasing-enough salute to comedy masters approaching the final fade-out.



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Movie Review: The Sisters Brothers (2018)

A chase western, The Sisters Brothers features a character-rich tale of greed, science, shifting alliances, and plenty of killing.

In the American West of the 1850s, brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters (John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix) are assassins-for-hire doing the dirty work for Oregon-based industrialist The Commodore (Rutger Hauer). Brash younger brother Charlie is an expert gunslinger but also frequently drunk. The older Eli is more circumspect.

With the California gold rush in full swing, their next assignment is to catch-up with detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is supposed to find and apprehend prospector Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed). Morris does find Warm on the way to California, but they become partners once Morris learns about Warm's chemical discovery. The Sisters brothers now doggedly chase down both men, and more surprises await when the pursuers find the pursued.

An adaptation of the Patrick DeWitt novel, The Sisters Brothers is an often engrossing western with a twisty plot. French Director and co-writer Jacques Audiard draws inspiration from classics like The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre (the greedy pursuit of gold subsuming everything else) and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (the endless chase, here flipped twice), and adds spikes of humour and frequent shoot-outs to some visually magnificent landscapes.

The film's strength is drawn from four sharply drawn characters. In this story, the nasty cold-blooded assassins are the central protagonists. Eli and Charlie have a backstory fuelling their relaxed relationship with death, while an uneasy dynamic crackles between the two men. They actually rarely agree on anything, but they also always look after each other and combine their strengths to repeatedly get out of impossible jams.

Meanwhile, Morris is a thoughtful and soulful detective using his diary to chronicle his travels. An expert at finding men but with no interest in killing them, Morris has no difficulty finding Warm and sidling up to him. But the prospector is a shifty character and probably the smartest of the lot. A misfit and penniless chemist seeking a wild west fortune, he is a man with a different plan to get rich quick. And once Morris and the Sisters brothers find out what Warm is up to, all the agendas are shuffled. But greed is an all-consuming monster, tearing alliances apart as easily as they are forged, with the added misery of rapid physical and psychological degeneration.

The characterizations are boosted by interludes of short and sharp action, Audiard finding mixed success in seeking innovative ways to demonstrate the brothers' calculated bravura as they confront numerically superior enemies. Some of the nighttime scenes are brilliantly staged, while others are a muddle of indistinct shadows.

Small details round out The Sisters Brothers, mostly swirling around Eli. A small bug causes an inconvenient sickness; a middling but resilient horse becomes a precious companion; and a scarf from a long-ago liaison carries the symbolism of a life never to be experienced. Heartless gunslingers plagued the west, but they too were once men with hopes, dreams, and scars.



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Movie Review: Cedar Rapids (2011)

An independent small-scale comedy, Cedar Rapids creates a clever premise with potentially interesting characters, but then quickly runs out of ideas.

Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) is a naive but well-meaning insurance agent who has never left his small Wisconsin hometown of Brown Valley. He enjoys sexual encounters with his former school teacher Macy (Sigourney Weaver), although he is much more serious about the relationship than she is. Tim's boss Bill (Stephen Root) is adamant the agency maintain the coveted "Two Diamond" rating awarded by the regional insurance association.

When star agent Roger unexpectedly expires, Bill dispatches Tim to the industry conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a mission to impress association president Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith). On his first ever trip to anywhere, Tim meets a trio of seasoned insurance agents: the kind Ronald (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), boorish Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), and frisky Joan (Anne Heche). They expose him to conference-style fun, but Tim soon discovers some hard truths.

The world of nondescript conferences in nowheresville towns where salespeople congregate provides potentially rich soil for humour. Screenwriter Phil Johnston, director Miguel Arteta, and co-producer Alexander Payne conjure up a good foundation for laughs, with most of the film taking place at the mundane cookie-cutter hotel.

But once the place and people are introduced, Cedar Rapids quickly stalls. Tim's naive disposition is too easy a target, and he quickly succumbs to alcohol and pot, leading to all the usual and predictable misadventures. Uncomfortable nude encounters, skinny dipping, drunken sexual liaisons, and wild parties with prostitutes ensue, the film ticking off a checklist straight from the horny teenager comedies of the 1980s.

Ed Helms as Tim is essentially a blank canvass allowing events to be drawn on him. It is left to the veteran conference attendees to enliven the film, and thanks to a strong cast enough energy is injected to provide bursts of entertainment. John C. Reilly gives Ziegler a few good layers to peel away, while Anne Heche is the married-too-early mom who uses the conference as the one annual opportunity to live a different life. Isiah Whitlock Jr. is less well defined, while Alia Shawkat as the local whore with a heart of gold has nowhere to take her character.

Most of the laughs come from Reilly going all out with the churlish mannerisms of Ziegler as loud, rude and with a ready insult for any situation. He is a common but unwelcome conference presence, lingering like the sickly chlorine smell of the hotel's indoor swimming pool.

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Movie Review: Kong: Skull Island (2017)

A monster adventure movie, Kong: Skull Island provides rollicking action without ever rising to any new heights.

In a prologue set in 1944, an aerial dogfight over the Pacific results in American pilot Hank Marlow and a Japanese pilot crash-landing onto a mysterious island. As they try to kill each other, they are interrupted by a massive ape.

In 1973, monster researcher Randa (John Goodman) and geologist Brooks (Corey Hawkins) secure funding from Senator Willis (Richard Jenkins) to explore a recently discovered island. They recruit adventurer Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) to lead the team, while anti-war photojournalist Weaver (Brie Larson) talks her way onto the expedition. Lieutenant Colonel Packard (Samuel L. Jackson), fresh from the disappointment of the Vietnam War, is tasked with providing protection.

Packard's helicopters penetrate the storm clouds surrounding the island, and Brooks drops seismic charges to explore the subsurface geology. The explosions irritate Kong, a massive ape and de facto ruler of the island, and he proceeds to decimate the invading helicopters. The survivors have to navigate their way to an extraction point, but Packard insists on re-engaging with Kong to avenge his losses. Conrad, Weaver and others stumble upon more monstrous creatures, as well as the elderly Marlow (John C. Reilly), who has survived since World War 2 and is living with local tribespeople.

Yet another Hollywood retelling of the Kong story, this version is not half-bad. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts conjures up more-than-decent monster special effects, and the many battles with and amongst assorted oversized creatures provide frequent highlights. As per the title the film remains confined on the island once the expedition lands on Kong's turf, and with no final chapter featuring capture, relocation and urban chaos, Kong: Skull Island settles down as a solid if routine metaphor for the Vietnam War, fully immersed in the jungle environment.

Kong is the local dealing with internal threats, Packard is the helicopter-powered invader arriving uninvited and all guns blazing, Weaver represents the anti-war disengagement movement as well as the press recording proceedings, and the rest of the film is sweaty jungle warfare with multiple-fronts, internal divisions and some unexpected alliances.

Vogt-Roberts shrewdly steers well clear of interspecies lust, romance and infatuation, the bond here between Kong and Weaver limited to gestures of mutual respect, empathy and understanding of interdependence. Packard slips into the villain role, the warmonger intent on violence as the solution before understanding what the problem is. Kong also has his hands full with suitably ugly Skullcrawlers, ugly beings who emerge out of their subterranean habitats to take on all comers.

With stock character definitions and no narrative surprises, Kong: Skull Island stays faithful to its mission: oversized high energy entertainment, unprovocative but polished.

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Movie Review: Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby (2006)

A sports satire, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby skewers the world of NASCAR racing with a rusted tie rod.

Ricky Bobby is born in the backseat of a car to semi-professional racer and heavy pot user Reece Bobby (Gary Cole), a mostly absentee father, and his wife Lucy (Jane Lynch). Ricky grows up idolizing his Dad, and adopts Reece's throwaway line "if you ain't first, you're last" as his life's mantra. A grown up Ricky (Will Ferrell) finds work as a NASCAR pit crew member on the circuit's worst team owned by Larry Dennit Sr. (Pat Hingle) and his son Jr. (Greg Germann). When the Dennit driver goes AWOL, Ricky jumps into the car and achieves third place.

Ricky quickly establishes himself as the best driver in the field and starts accumulating wins and championships. He forms a formidable "Shake 'n Bake" partnership with his teammate and childhood friend Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly), although Ricky never lets Cal win. Ricky gains immense wealth, a trophy wife in Carley (Leslie Bibb), and two bratty young boys. But when ex-Formula One champion and openly gay Frenchman Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen) invades NASCAR, Ricky's life starts to fall apart.

The world of racing where the cars only ever turn left in big circles may be an easy target, but director Adam McKay, who co-wrote the film with Ferrell, bites into it with venom. Talladega Nights features none-too bright drivers married to buxom gold-digging beauties doing battle for dimwitted owners married to perpetually tipsy wives in a modern version of chariot racing dominated by sponsors. While the laughs are plenty and the characters goofy if not stupid, McKay and Ferrell also handle the subject with enough affection to avoid outright meanness.

McKay wisely stays away from too many actual racing scenes, the sport a primarily boring exercise in going round and round until someone crashes. When Talladega Nights does go to the track, it is to generate over-exaggerated crashes and big laughs, including Ricky's infamous mental meltdown prompting a stripdown to his undies. It's a wild enough sequence that deserves the encore that duly arrives, as the film's second half focuses on Ricky's long road to redemption.

Off the track the film circles back to Ricky's family, and to McKay's credit the story gets better when dad Reece and mom Lucy re-enter Ricky's life. What the young boy lacked in proper upbringing he will receive from his parents through the pixelated lens of an already warped adulthood, and the film motors its way to a satisfying conclusion where men stumble upon their improved selves.

Will Ferrell has rarely been better in a straight comedy, with the strong material allowing him to ride the story without appearing to try too hard. The characters of Cal Naughton Jr and Jean Girard are the catalysts who steer events in Ricky's life, and both John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen are perfect in providing support. Reilly ensures that Naughton is the perfect side-idiot, while Baron Cohen somehow keeps a straight face playing the arrogant Frenchman sipping macchiatos inside the racing car while waiting for someone - anyone - to challenge him at the front.

The three lead actors engage in plenty of sharp improvisation, and the lines of dialogue frequently veer wildly off-topic, prolonging some scenes beyond what is necessary but adding to the satirical wackiness.

Amy Adams gets a small role but makes a big impression as Ricky's mousy assistant who turns into a tiger helping Ricky fight his demons. Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby burns rubber with enthusiasm, but of course it's the big career wreck and subsequent recovery that grabs all the attention.

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Movie Review: Gangs Of New York (2002)

A raucous story of revenge among the rabble, Martin Scorsese's Gangs Of New York is impressive but also overwrought, more a visual treat than a cerebral triumph.

New York City, 1846. At Paradise Square in the poor and crime-ridden Five Points neighbourhood, rival gangs square off for a grand battle with rudimentary but lethal weapons. The Natives are led by William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting (Daniel Day-Lewis), and consider themselves rightful residents and true Americans. The Dead Rabbits are more recent Irish Catholic immigrants, inspired by "Priest" Vallon (Liam Neeson). The Natives win the battle, and Bill kills the Priest. Vallon's son witnesses his father's death and escapes.

16 years later, the grown-up Amsterdam Vallon (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns to the old neighbourhood, seeking revenge. Bill The Butcher is now the undisputed king of Five Points, controlling all crime activities, as well as the law in the form of officer Jack Mulraney (John C. Reilly). Bill, who still despises new immigrants, has also forged an uneasy alliance with politician Boss Tweed (Jim Broadbent), who is more welcoming of new arrivals as potential voters.

Amsterdam starts a relationship with professional thief Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) and becomes a trusted advisor to Bill even as he plots to kill him. But with the civil war raging and a military conscription draft about to be imposed, there is growing unrest on the streets of New York City, and Amsterdam's quest for Bill's blood will encounter some surprising twists.

Gangs Of New York delves into a slice of history almost lost in the shrouds of time. The social anarchy of Manhattan's poor neighbourhoods between 1846 and 1862 is now all but erased from collective memory, socially and metaphorically eradicated, built upon and transformed into a modern multicultural metropolis teaming with tourists.

But this is where Scorsese goes looking for the origins of American civility and democracy, and identifies Five Points as ground zero for cultural accommodation, a place where natives and newcomers (both relative terms) squared up to each other and literally engaged in slaughter before concepts of civilized discourse seeped down to street level. In parallel the nation was defining its soul in the bloody Civil War, a conflict that may as well have been occurring on another planet as far as Five Points residents were concerned. Eventually the national and local civil wars intersect in the orgy of violence known as the Draft Riots, and the bloodletting nudges the City towards understanding its future destiny.

The film boils down the intriguing social context to a simple story of revenge, and while compelling in its intensity, the story goes marginally too far in personalizing history. Amsterdam's lust for vengeance is a relatively small story to carry a 160 minute film, and other than the magnificent sets, Scorsese cannot build much around it. Amsterdam is dour and Bill The Butcher is larger than life, but otherwise the film is surprisingly devoid of any memorable secondary characters, sub-plots, or even noteworthy incidents. The likes of Cameron Diaz, John C Reilly and Jim Broadbent are too often reduced to shallow representations, and Liam Neeson's seemingly interesting Father Vallon is knocked-off early.

But when the story gets bogged down, there is always something compelling to look at. Gangs Of New York is extraordinary as a set design feast. Recalling the lavish era of Hollywood reproducing history on sound stages, the imagined New York City of the 1860s was recreated at Rome's Cinecittà studios. The film looks gorgeous, a cross between theatrical set-piece and crime-infested but irresistible Les Misérables inspired nightmare.

Diplomacy only prevails when thugs get tired of killing, and even the Gangs Of New York start to understand that a history of greatness will only be achieved when the blood-letting ceases, and other, still imperfect tools, like voting, start to take hold. The one spectacular celebration of violence arrives early in the form of the blood thirsty rumble in the square. Once victory is proclaimed and the bodies are cleaned up, the film settles down to a long, drawn-out and colourful story of a young man seeking self-defined justice but also finding himself in danger of falling under the spell of his prey. DiCaprio and Day-Lewis, moody and flamboyant respectively, are more than capable of carrying the film, and Gangs Of New York rides their talent to a rousing ending that, while still victimized by indiscriminate violence, carries echoes of a personal and national history finally taking shape.

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Movie Review: The Thin Red Line (1998)

A lyrical World War Two drama, The Thin Red Line explores the psychology of soldierhood in the context of the Guadalcanal campaign. The film mixes intense battle action with slow moving, narration-driven introspection scenes to create a unique but not always successful experience.

A collection of soldiers are thrust into battle when the United States mounts an invasion of Guadalcanal to halt the Japanese plans to control the south Pacific. The men include Witt (Jim Caviezel), who is thoughtful and philosophical about the war's purpose and always one step away from wandering off on unauthorized leave; Welch (Sean Penn) a no-nonsense down to earth soldier's soldier; and Staros (Elias Koteas), a Captain who cares about his men, perhaps too much.

The hard-driving Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) is the local commander, and he is eager to make up for lost time after being passed over for promotions throughout his career. Captain Gaff (John Cusack) is Tall's loyal second-in-command. The soldiers engage in fierce combat to dislodge the Japanese from a strategic hilltop, and then push on towards the Japanese rear positions. But territory is gained at a high cost, and each man has to deal with the chaos of war in his own way.

At times, The Thin Red Line represents war as wall paper with a soundtrack of pensive poetry. The visuals may be impressive, and the narration a morose and thoughtful reflection of soldiers' thoughts, but the pace, particularly in the opening and closing 45 minutes, is as close to watching paint dry as a movie can get. Terrence Malick directs with his trademark disregard for what may be popular, opting instead to focus on the beauty of a Pacific paradise being invaded by the ugliness of war. With a running time of close to three hours, the film occasionally rewards patience, but also tests it to the limit.

The action scenes, when they come, are heart-pounding, all the more so thanks to the contrast with the languid pace of the set-up. The middle of The Thin Red Line is an absorbing, meat-grinder of a battle in three phases. The US soldiers are first pinned down and picked off by unseen Japanese troops dug into the hillside. The middle phase finds a small group of soldiers charging at the key Japanese fortification to try and force a breakthrough. The final phase involves a rout of the Japanese
rear lines.

Malick matches Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (also from 1998) in capturing the agony and ecstasy of war, the pulsating kill-or-be-killed calculus quickly disposing of human pauses once the battle is joined. This is a war film that is not afraid to show fighting men as confused, terrified and error-prone. When heroes do step forward, they do stand out, although in their rush to claim glory, commanders like Tall also find ways to cheapen the achievements earned on the battlefield.

Less successful is the attempt to humanize the soldiers. Despite the mammoth running length, there are just too many individuals cluttering up the front lines, and too many actors given too little to do. With Malick endlessly focusing his cameras on wildlife and still life, the soldiers are shortchanged into insignificance. The likes of Adrien Brody, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and Jared Leto are reduced to little more than extras in the context of a three hour film. John Travolta and George Clooney are each on screen for about 30 seconds. Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn and, to lesser extent, John Cusack are treated marginally better, but the film is definitely stained with the mark of name actors slipped into meaningless roles to try and salvage box office.

The movie offers up two half-hearted character conflict points, and they are both overdrawn. Tall and Staros clash about battle tactics, with Staros refusing  to obey orders that would have put his men in harm's way. The stand-off between the two men is prolonged to the point of exhaustion. Meanwhile, in a bizarre chase for dramatic tension that goes nowhere, the loyal Gaff dares to demand from Tall that the men be supplied with water as they fight. Ponderously spouted narration about the futility of war does not make up for the lack of genuine narrative substance.

Flawed as it is, The Thin Red Line is a worthwhile and cerebral addition to the catalogue of war epics that care more about damage caused than territory gained. The film may choose aesthetics over content, but it never loses sight of the losses on all sides.

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Movie Review: Chicago (2002)

Slick, sexy and sly, Chicago is a brash musical, a sizzling combination of media satire and pure sass.

It's Chicago in the 1920s. Showgirl Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta Jones) is a celebrity prisoner, awaiting trial for the murder of her husband and her sister. Wannabe entertainer Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) is married to the naive but devoted Amos Hart (John C. Reilly) while carrying on an affair with Fred Casely (Dominic West) who claims to have connections in show business. When Roxie realizes that Casely is just leading her along for the sex, she shoots him dead. Despite Amos' attempt to cover for her by claiming to be the shooter, Roxie is arrested and joins Velma behind bars at a prison overseen by the entrepreneurial "Mama" Morton (Queen Latifah).

With the crime-obsessed media always looking for the next sensational story about women murderers, Roxie realizes that she can now aim for her dreams. She hires flamboyant lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) to represent her, and he fires up a publicity machine to build sympathy for Roxie, with reporter Mary Sunshine (Christine Baranski) leading the charge to portray Roxie as a victim. All this is at the expense of Velma, who finds herself yesterday's news. But with Roxie's court date fast approaching, millionaire heiress Kitty Baxter (Lucy Liu) is arrested for murder, distracting the media and forcing Roxie to think up new twists to regain the headlines.

Based on the Bob Fosse Broadway show originally produced in 1975 and revived in 1996, Chicago is more relevant than ever in the age of real-time news, saturation 24/7 coverage of sordid murders, and lust for celebrity. The basis of the musical resides in the true stories of accused murderers Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, as covered by newspaper reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins for the Chicago Tribune in 1924. If nothing else Chicago makes the point that not much has changed, other than the exponential magnification of the media's capability for self-induced frenzy, a most useful trait to be manipulated by those seeking the riches that come with cheap fame.

Chicago captured the Best Picture Academy Award, the first musical in 34 years to achieve the feat. And its an extraordinarily fun experience, thanks in large part to an incredibly catchy collection of musical numbers, staged by director Rob Marshall as intrinsic pieces of the plot, often through Roxie's stellar imagination. The many highlights include Velma performing the opener All That Jazz, the women prisoners recounting their stories in the purely magnificent Cell Block Tango, Billy re-imagining Roxie's crime and casting her as a victim for the press to lap-up in We Both Reached for the Gun, Billy explaining the courtroom art of Razzle Dazzle, and then performing an exquisite Tap Dance, before Roxie and Velma bring down the house with Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag. Marshall stays true to the stage show and colours the film with the stark black of satire, frequent backlighting, smoke and fluid camerawork adding breathtaking dynamism to the pointy Fosse-inspired choreography.

And its all drenched in oozing sexuality, Chicago striding into the world of women not afraid to use their bodies as a weapon to get what they want, and equally not afraid to turn to violence when their sexual supremacy is threatened. The edgy stage performances reflect women as wielding power and not afraid to use it. The victims are husbands, lovers, friends, family members and liars who dare to betray the women's love or lust, and it's the job of the Billy Flynns of the world to prove that a woman betrayed deserves her revenge, proportionate or not.

The casting choices are impeccable, and the three lead performances are uniformly excellent, with Zeta-Jones, Zellweger and Gere doing their own singing and dancing. Zellweger plays up her plain Jane personality, a woman whose ambition of stardom is not matched by her looks or talent, but who can nevertheless strive for the limelight with the help of frenemies like Billy and Velma. Zeta-Jones exudes the confidence of a wronged star, and whether on-stage or behind bars, she carries a dominant confidence that earned her the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. And Richard Gere is a revelation, unleashing his inner performer and having a blast with the musical numbers.

Drenched in style and substance, Chicago is rowdy, raunchy, and a rip-roaring riot.

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Movie Review: The Hours (2002)

A dense multi-era drama inspired by the life and works of Virginia Woolf, The Hours is a slow moving three character study revolving around depression and death.

After opening with Woolf (Nicole Kidman) committing suicide by drowning, the film alternates between three separate stories. In the early 1920s, Woolf is miserable living in the British countryside, struggling with writer's block and depression as she tries to write the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) bears the brunt of her anti-social behaviour, while a visit from her sister Vanessa (Miranda Richardson) makes matters worse.

In Los Angeles of the early 1950s, Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) is a depressed housewife reading Mrs. Dalloway. Laura is pregnant with her second child, stuck in bland suburban hell, and no longer in love with husband Dan (John C. Reilly). Laura has a sensitive and precocious five year old son (Jack Rovello), and a glamorous neighbour Kitty (Toni Collette) who is facing her own hell.

And in New York City of 2001, Clarissa Vaughn (Meryl Streep) is busy organizing a celebration and party for her lifelong friend and former lover Richard Brown (Ed Harris), a renowned author and poet suffering miserably with the late stages of AIDS. When they were lovers, Richard bestowed the title Mrs. Dalloway on Clarissa. Now Richard is deeply depressed, and forces Clarissa to question her approach to life. Clarissa's partner Sally (Allison Janney) and daughter Julia (Claire Danes) watch as Clarissa's big day disintegrates, and the appearance of Richard's former lover Louis Waters (Jeff Daniels) does not help.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Hours wallows in a misery of its own creation. While the three lead performances are perfect, with Kidman nabbing the Best Actress Academy Award, the film is a lengthy, unrelenting treatise on lives stalled at the dead end of severe depression. The Hours starts in a dark place and walks, slowly, into pitch blackness.

All three stories unfold over the course of one day, and Daldry cleverly weaves the emotional strings linking the three women, from the depression and death themes to visual parallels and dialogue, with Mrs. Dalloway serving as the common foundation. A vague strand of unexplored lesbian lust also oscillates across the three stories. A more physical connection ultimately emerges between Laura and Clarissa, and overall the film does just enough to maintain interest through the thick fog of despair.

Through the dense thicket of tangled negative emotions, relief comes only in the enjoyment derived from Kidman, Moore and Streep, actresses at the top of the craft bringing to life three women struggling against greater forces. Kidman sacrifices her looks with a harsh nose to simulate the common image of Woolf. Her subdued performance is filled with internal struggle and external iciness, a woman content to let her misery drip out and contaminate those closest to her.

Moore gets to reveal the least about Laura Brown, a character with hardly any other adults around her to talk to. Brown's day is centred on one major decision, a choice between seeking immediate relief or longer term opportunity. Her son appears to know more about his mother's mental state than most boys his age. Streep's Clarissa is trying to be positive, and she does her best to fend off Richard's choking negativity and carry on. But when misery comes knocking it can be relentless, and Clarissa's big day will see black clouds move across her sun.

Ultimately The Hours only finds resolution in various forms of emotional escape rather than difficult confrontation, all three women ending the day staring at future prospects that are at least as gloomy as they appeared in the morning. There are only glimmers of light, and the passing hours serve more to confirm the gathering storm of dejection.

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Movie Review: Hoffa (1992)

A biography of the legendary leader of the Teamsters Union, Hoffa bounces on the surface of superficiality and never comes close to properly exploring neither the person nor the issues that defined him.

The film starts in 1975 on the day Hoffa (Jack Nicholson) died, as he and his close associate Bobby Ciaro (Danny DeVito) wait for a meeting in the parking lot of a secluded diner. Flashbacks recount the story of Hoffa's rise to power. He first meets Ciaro in the 1930s, as Hoffa fights to organize truck drivers into a union. Hoffa is not afraid of violent methods, and one of his trusted friends Billy Flynn (Robert Prosky) is killed in a fire bombing gone wrong. There are frequent large scale and vicious clashes between pro- and anti-union forces.

A turning point in the struggle for workers' right is an alliance that Hoffa creates with organized crime, represented by mob boss D'Allesandro (Armand Assante). The Teamsters Union is formed and Hoffa gains power, money, influence and notoriety, but still presents himself as a man of the people. Ciaro gradually becomes Hoffa's closest advisor, while Pete Connelly (John C. Reilly) is also admitted into Hoffa's inner circle. But Hoffa becomes a target for anti-corruption officials and politicians, including an idealistic Bobby Kennedy (Kevin Anderson), precipitating his spectacular downfall.

Hoffa's problems are many, but start with a surprisingly spineless script by David Mamet. Every opportunity to delve into Hoffa's background, motivation, and leadership talent is missed, the film often fading away just when Hoffa is getting into his groove. Moments that should have been seminal, such as Hoffa exerting his influence on Ciaro during their foundational truck ride, or the critical negotiations with the mob, are just edited out in an astounding example of either lazy writing or clueless editing.

The film is also silent about Hoffa's upbringing and influences, and he is just presented as the mysterious organizer dropped into a period of labour strife and inspired by...nothing. And too much time is spent on a ponderous imagining of Hoffa's final hours, his mysterious disappearance theorized as a meeting-gone-wrong at an out of the way roadside diner.

Equally poor is the treatment of all secondary characters, who are sketched in the most rudimentary manner. Bobby Ciaro is a fictional amalgamation of Hoffa's associates but too often the movie appears to be about him, while the other union bosses, underworld types, family members, politicians and enforcement officials drift in and out of the film at perfunctory intervals, offering no context and spouting stock lines.

Danny DeVito's directing is sometimes clever but mostly succeeds in amateurishly pointing to itself, with an over-reliance on rookie zoom and pan tricks, and flourishing musical crescendos every time a large-scale brawl erupts between armies of extras.

The good moments in Hoffa come courtesy of some good set designs, including the recreation of grim 1930s blue collar work environments. The large crowd scenes are well-handled, and Nicholson does his best to salvage a person out of the wreckage of the script. In a performance that is mostly under control, Nicholson at least finds the inner fire and magnetic intensity that drove Hoffa from grimy obscurity to the riches bestowed on the top union boss in the land.

Underwhelming and lacklustre, Hoffa is cause for a grievance.

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Movie Review: Never Been Kissed (1999)

A back-to-high-school comedy of sorts, Never Been Kissed is a tedious non-event, attempting to sail on the charms of star Drew Barrymore but crashing on the shores of an infantile script.

Straitlaced and single, 25-year-old Josie Geller (Barrymore) is a copy editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, with ambitions to be a journalist. Her boss Gus (John C. Reilly) does not think she has what it takes, but the newspaper's eccentric editor-in-chief Rigfort (Garry Marshall) anyway assigns her to go back to her high school as a fake student and prepare an exposé about modern teenagers.

Josie returns to South Glen High School and is soon reliving the nightmare she experienced in her real life senior year, when she was a gawky unpopular girl. Just as awkward and clumsy this time round, Josie is shunned by the cool clique of girls consisting of Gibby (Jordan Ladd), Kirsten (Jessica Alba), and Kristin (Marley Shelton) but befriended by the nerds, including Aldys (Leelee Sobieski). When her naturally cool brother Rob (David Arquette) also re-enlists at the high school, he helps Josie turn the corner and become popular. As the prom approaches, the pressure increases on Josie to file her story, and she finds herself attracting the attention of handsome student Guy (Jeremy Jordan) and dishy English teacher Sam (Michael Vartan).

Never Been Kissed was the first feature film co-produced by Barrymore's Flower Films, an inauspicious if commercially successful start. It's difficult to understand what the film is trying to achieve. It does not work as a look back at a different era, since Josie is not so far out of high school for much to have changed. It does not work as a romance, with the relationship between Josie and Sam remaining tepid at best, and the film unwilling to delve into the complex waters of lust between teacher and student.

It does not work as a comedy or a parody. Scenes of Josie tripping over herself and spilling milk on her dress are painfully contrived rather than funny. And it certainly does not work as any form of exposé of high school life, the film losing all credibility by stretching it's already thin premise to have Josie's brother Rob also re-enlist in the same high school with no one the wiser, the equivalent of doubling down on a clearly losing hand.

And finally the "be yourself and be happy" message, delivered without irony, falls flat within the pervasive confirmation that the traditional high school ecosystem, consisting of cool kids, nerds, jocks, and in-betweens, is what it has always been, and is unlikely to change.

Director Raja Gosnell is left with the charisma of his star to trade on, and Barrymore gives it all she has, which is not nearly enough to save the movie. Barrymore does not convince neither as a stiff copy editor nor as a clumsy teenager, and is worse still in the over-the-top flashbacks to Josie's real high school senior year, where she portrays a ridiculous walking disaster built on out-of-date fashion and immature behaviour. John C. Reilly over-acts to distraction, while James Franco and Jessica Alba appear in fairly minor early career roles.

Stuck in the neutral gear of irrelevance, Never Been Kissed simply never gets going.

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Movie Review: The Aviator (2004)

The biography of Howard Hughes as he carves his legend in the worlds of film, flight, and business, The Aviator is the grand story of one rich but flawed man's visionary approach to life. Leonardo DiCaprio's performance is inspired, and Martin Scorsese directs with controlled audacity.

After a brief introductory glimpse of Hughes as a young boy being bathed by his mother as she emphasizes disease phobias, the film starts in 1927 with Hughes (DiCaprio) in his early twenties having inherited his family's immense fortune and control of the Houston-based Hughes Tool Company. But Hughes is not interested in running a tool company, and has settled in California to produce and direct the movie Hell's Angels about aviators in the Great War. Hughes hires Noah Dietrich (John C. Reilly) as his right hand man, and spares no cost to create an epic and ultimately successful film outside the studio system. Hughes also meets and starts a relationship with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett).

Hughes translates his love of aviation into an aircraft manufacturing business and pours his resources to push innovations that make planes lighter and faster. He puts himself at risk by insisting on flying prototypes and attempting to set speed records, and is awarded contracts by the US Air Force and fledgling civilian company TWA. But Hughes is also suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and gradually his behaviour becomes more erratic. He breaks up with Hepburn and soon befriends another star in Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). With the eruption of World War Two Hughes becomes a major contractor to the defence industry, and starts to develop the Hercules, a gigantic "flying boat" military transport airplane, an ambitious project that consumes inordinate time and resources.

After the war he takes control of TWA and unveils plans to start providing civilian flights across the Atlantic, which puts him in direct competition with Pan American Airways and its powerful chairman Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin). Trippe is well connected politically and calls on his friend Senator Owen Brewster (Alan Alda) to block TWA and to eventually start an intimidation campaign against Hughes. With his mental state worsening, Hughes faces the ultimate political battle to save his business and his legacy.

Despite a length of 170 minutes, The Aviator is a joy to watch and an unconditionally engrossing experience. Martin Scorsese directs John Logan's script with an eye firmly on the man at the centre of the legend, and creates a portrait of a flawed genius carving his own path, creating his own rules, and reshaping history. The Aviator portrays Hughes as a true one of a kind, a headstrong tycoon innovator possessing the courage of his convictions, always willing to create and fund a new reality whenever useless constraints get in the way of his achievements.

But he is also sick and undiagnosed, and DiCaprio is at his best as Hughes starts to lose the grip on his mind and his ability to practically function. Hughes' fear of germs consumes his life, and his increasingly damaged mind starts to freeze into endless sentence loops, behaviour that compromises Hughes' ability to lead and inspire. There is a thin line between genius and debilitation, and Hughes often crosses into the dark territory of an outstanding intellect misfiring badly. DiCaprio takes Hughes to the highest peaks of achievement and the lowest depths of self-imposed isolation in a driven performance deservedly nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award.

The Aviator is filled with moments that count as supreme brilliance, extreme folly and plain obsession all at once. Hughes micromanages Hell's Angels, hiring a meteorologist to predict the cloud formations that Hughes demands as the perfect backdrop to the aerial combat scenes. He then shoots endless reels and oversees a mammoth editing process, but the end result is a masterpiece. Hughes' fight with Trippe and Pan American is Quixotic, one man tilting at the windmills of an establishment backed by impressive political forces. And Hughes' tenacity in the face of all the technical impossibilities of the Hercules sums up his ever-strengthening resolve in the face of a seemingly never ending list of challenges. The Aviator is a study of the science of making the impossible possible, granted through a man with the resources to buy his way towards new solutions.

Scorsese eschews CGA and uses scale models to recreate the world of Hughes' aircrafts, from World War One fighters to military spy planes and finally the mammoth Spruce Goose, as the Hercules became known. The use of models gives the film a rich, old fashioned texture, and avoids the distraction created by the inevitable transition between real and digital screen images.

The rich supporting cast is full of first class talent, and Cate Blanchett won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her turn as Katharine Hepburn. Blanchett initially plays Hepburn as Hughes' female equivalent, an independent woman changing the rules of her industry, but a fateful trip to her family home in New England is telling: Hughes does nothing to try and fit in, and instead exposes the hypocrisy of rich people touting socialism as a viable political solution. Hepburn, for all her public independence, blends in with her family. Their relationship is never the same again.

In one of her best career roles, Kate Beckinsale also does an excellent job as Ava Gardner, as strong as Hepburn in dealing with her man but with fewer outward revolutionary airs. Gardner plays a crucial role in bringing Hughes back to his feet when he most needs a boost. Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda create a formidable duo in opposition to Hughes, the embodiment of industrial / political entangled sleaze corrupting the system. Jude Law and Willem Dafoe have small but sharp single scene roles, Law as Errol Flynn and Dafoe as a journalist possessing compromising photos of Hepburn with her new lover Spencer Tracy.

A magical union between talented filmmakers and an outstanding subject, The Aviator simply soars.

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Movie Review: We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

A tense and disturbing family drama, We Need To Talk About Kevin delves into the back story of a teenager gone bad. Tilda Swinton is captivating as the mother left to wallow in the shattered debris of what used to be her domestic life.

Constructed non-linearly by director Lynne Ramsey, We Need To Talk About Kevin follows two basic time lines. The first occurs in the present, with Eva Khatchadourian (Swinton) living alone and depressed in a small ramshackle house by the rail tracks and trying to get on with life. Her house is targeted with paint bombs, and her neighbours greet her with angry stares, angry words and sometimes outright violence. Eva secures a job beneath her abilities at a dingy strip-mall travel agency, where her co-workers shun her. She visits her son Kevin (Ezra Miller) in prison, but the visits are silent.

The second timeline occurs in flashback, with Eva reminiscing about her family life. Husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) is never less than loving, but from the moment their child Kevin is born, the bond between mother and son is dysfunctional. As an infant Kevin never stops crying while in the company of Eva. As a toddler he is late to start talking and even later in getting toilet trained. But the worst of his anger and anti-social misbehaviour always appears to be targeted at his mother. As a teenager, Kevin is particularly sullen with Eva, while his father encourages him to excel at archery, the one sport that seems to make him happy. Finally Kevin's behaviour starts to turn menacingly violent, with his young sister Celia (Ashley Gerasimovich) the first to be vulnerable to his increasingly harmful actions.

Presenting a scenario in answer to the beseeching question of what goes on in the family lives of middle-class kids who prove to be really damaged, We Need To Talk About Kevin is unrelenting in portraying a mother's quiet nightmare. Kevin is the teenager who may well be perceived as well-adjusted and typical by everyone else, but in Eva's recollection, something was wrong from the beginning, with persistent signs of some undiagnosed damage, ill-will towards her, and anger boiling beneath the surface. Kevin is just a normal kid as far as his father and everyone else is concerned, but Eva's experience dances on the seam between blaming herself for lacking a mother's instinct and being convinced that her child is evil.

The one weakness in the script by Ramsey and Roy Stewart Kinnear, based on the Lionel Shriver book of  the same name, is the almost incessant portrayal of Kevin as a bad seed in all of Eva's memories. There is no attempt to balance whatever good moments there may have been between mother and child: it's a uniformly grim experience. The one joyful moment recollected by Eva involves Kevin suddenly feeling close to her when she reads a Robin Hood adventure to him. It emerges that Kevin was actually switched on by the subject matter of archery, rather than any affection towards his mother.

Tilda Swinton dominates the movie, and her portrayal of Eva is a stunning portrait of a woman victimized first by her son and then by society, and yet she can never shake the lingering doubts that the tragedy unleashed by Kevin is somehow her fault. In each of her memories interacting with Kevin, Swinton is perfect in planting those tiny yet precise seeds of imperfection in how a mother handled her son, from the way she held him, to the games she played with him, and her methods of discipline. Swinton silently conveys the eternal question that will dominate the rest of Eva's life: if she had only done everything just a little bit differently, would the outcome still have been the same.

Ezra Miller as the teenaged Kevin is chillingly calculating and manipulative, an adolescent already occupying a different world compared to his mother, emotionally dominant, physically brooding, and plotting seemingly several steps ahead to make her life a misery.

In demanding a conversation about the most disastrous of family unit failures We Need To Talk About Kevin does not arrive at any tidy answers, but simply a myriad of doubts, suspicions and what ifs, affirmation that when the problem is complex, any simple explanations are simply wrong.

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Movie Review: The Perfect Storm (2000)

Inspired by real events, The Perfect Storm is a melancholy ode to fishermen and a life spent battling the hidden dangers of the ocean in search of a livelihood. Director Wolfgang Petersen combines nature's fury with a human-centred drama that keeps memorable characters ahead of the raging special effects.

It's 1991, and the town of Gloucester, Massachusetts has for generations served as the home base to a fleet of swordfishing boats. Captain Billy Tyne (George Clooney) has been riding a recent streak of rotten luck, his boat the Andrea Gail bringing in a lot less fish than expected for owner Bob Brown (Michael Ironside). Although it's late in the season, Billy decides to set out for one more run, hoping to turn his luck around. His crew members are unenthusiastic about another exhausting fishing excursion, but they need the money. Among them is Bobby Shatford (Mark Wahlberg), who is planning to settle down with girlfriend Christina Cotter (Diane Lane), and although she begs him not to leave her again, he joins Billy for the extra cash.

With the Andrea Gail far out on the water as Billy searches for the perfect spot to snag the big fish, three different weather systems collide in the North Atlantic, creating a mammoth storm. Billy and his men make the decision to attempt a return home through the storm rather than wait it out at sea and watch their catch rot. Meanwhile, the leisure yacht Mistral is caught in the storm, and the three crew members need to be rescued in treacherous conditions by the Coast Guard. A Coast Guard helicopter subsequently runs out of fuel, ditches in the stormy seas, and the rescuers themselves are in need of a rescue.

By necessity, The Perfect Storm fills in a lot unknown gaps about the last journey of the Andrea Gail. Little is actually confirmed about what transpired on the boat's final journey, and given the relative freedom afforded by the absence of a historical record, the William D. Wittliff script, adapting the book of the same name by Sebastian Junger, imagines a moving scenario of tension, errors, conflicts, heroism and sacrifice.

The wisdom of including the story of the Mistral and the subsequent ditching of the Coast Guard rescue helicopter as part of The Perfect Storm's narrative is debatable. In real life the yacht that serves as inspiration for this incident was called the Satori, and of course a lot more is known about its rescue, and the subsequent drama of the Coast Guard needing to rescue their own after the chopper ditching. But in the context of The Perfect Storm, the Mistral story is introduced deep into the movie, almost as an afterthought, and generally takes away from the tragedy unfolding on the Andrea Gail. The crew of the Mistral (despite the presence of Karen Allen) and the Coast Guard rescuers remain largely faceless, stock characters, compared to the depth afforded to the crew on-board the Andrea Gail.

When the focus is on the fishermen and their lives, The Perfect Storm benefits from a stellar cast bringing to life the passion and yearning of the men and women who live and die by the sea. George Clooney finally found his breakthrough big-screen role as Captain Billy Tyne, a desperate man determined to risk everything to triumph over a devastating losing streak. Clooney's achievement is in making Billy likable despite him being down-on-his-luck and not very sociable. Both Clooney and Billy spring to life when the ocean demands the highest level of attention, and Clooney brings to the role the raw humanity of a most imperfect man facing his most cataclysmic challenge.

Mark Wahlberg as the young rookie Bobby Shatford provides able support as a willing and more than capable crew mate looking to make a few more dollars to kick-start  his domestic life. John C. Reilly as Murph is the veteran presence, perhaps what Bobby can look forward to several years on. Murph stokes a nasty feud with another crew member on board the Andrea Gail, in another example of The Perfect Storm not shying away from portraying the crusty edges of men who live in tight quarters for weeks on end in search of large smelly fish. Captaining a sister boat is Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Linda Greenlaw, delivering a touching performance as Billy's soul sister and the last person to make radio contact with the Andrea Gail.

Back on shore, Diane Lane as Bobby's girlfriend and Janet Wright as his mother (and local inn keeper) represent the home front, and they add greatly to completing the fabric that defines a fishing community.

The cinematography by John Seale and the special effects crew masterfully recreate an angry ocean full of mountainous waves, furiously seeking to destroy any ship that dares to stray into the path of the hurricane. The Perfect Storm creates an intimidating canvass, with the fierce chill and threat of watery death flooding off the screen. The Andrea Gail battled against the odds and against gigantic waves, and she helped provide a lasting memorial for the power of nature and the men and woman who routinely venture into the teeth of danger.

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Movie Review: What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

A drama offering hope amidst despair, What's Eating Gilbert Grape benefits from an outstanding Leonardo DiCaprio performance, and a story that never gives up looking for silver linings.

In the small rural town of Endora, Iowa, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is a young man struggling to maintain some semblance of sanity in a challenging household. Ever since his dad disappeared (and maybe committed suicide), Gilbert's mom Bonnie (Darlene Cates) has collapsed into morbid obesity, and has not left the creaky house in seven years.

Gilbert is one of the few people who can manage the erratic behaviour of his severely mentally retarded younger brother Arnie (DiCaprio), who is about to turn 18 and living on borrowed time according to all the doctors. Of his two sisters, the older Amy (Laura Harrington) does her best to help run the house, but the younger Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt) is a self-obsessed young teen, with an uncanny ability to make every bad family situation worse.

As an escape valve Gilbert is carrying on an affair with Betty (Mary Steenburgen), a frustrated older woman married to an insurance agent. He also has a couple of friends, including Tucker (John C. Reilly), who dreams of opening a burger franchise, and Bobby, the town mortician. But the arrival of Becky (Juliette Lewis) in Endora ignites Gilbert's attention, and he starts spending more time with her and viewing his family in a different light.

In his breakthrough role at 18 years old, DiCaprio delivers an astonishing performance as Arnie Grape. Portraying damaged four year old behaviour in the body of an adolescent, DiCaprio moves with ticks, quirks, and unconstrained physical abandonment. He is also prone to frequent outbursts, endless loud repetition of the most childish of phrases, and the most convincing temper tantrums. Yet there is a heart deep within the retarded child, and it emerges in flashes, most often near the calming influence of Becky and away from the chaotic Grape household.

Johnny Depp's portrayal of Gilbert is equally perfect, for different reasons. Depp's eyes tell the tale of a young man barely holding his family together, and burying deep within himself the sorrow and anger at the loss of his father and embarrassment with his ballooning mother. It's an enforced transformation to premature adulthood for Gilbert, and a demonstration by Depp that he is capable of complex, layered roles.

Becky is almost too perfect, the young woman proving to be an ideal antidote to all of Gilbert's problems, patient, understanding, loving and accepting of all the extreme eccentricities surrounding the Grape household. Becky is nothing but a good influence, a positive force in the movie but also a role that Juliette Lewis can do relatively little with.

Director Lasse Hallstrom, working from Peter Hedges' adaptation of his own novel, makes excellent use of the rural location to maintain a quiet and dignified environment despite the chaos surrounding Gilbert. Hallstrom deftly works the film towards the modest conclusion that the Grapes are no different than any other family, individuals dealing as best as they can with a set of challenges. There are several parts of the Grape household that are on their last legs, but perhaps not the obvious ones. By the end Gilbert does well to make peace where he needs to and arranges an appropriate joint farewell to the family members who need to move on.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape is moving without being emotional, grounded without being overly dramatic, and serious without ever losing touch with the hope for a better tomorrow that beats solidly within every character. Nothing and everything is eating Gilbert Grape: he is getting on with life and doing a fine job.

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