Momcat_of_Lomita Reviews

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Stick with the Alec Guinness version.

[4/10 · 8 January 2012]

I had such hopes for this movie.

When I heard that a big-screen version of John Le Carre's spy-thriller "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" was in the works, I had mixed feelings. The mini-series, which stars Alec Guinness as the British master of intelligence, George Smiley, was a benchmark in the espionage genre. It was a successful translation to the small screen of Le Carre's very cerebral, short-on-action novel. Alec Guinness nailed the Smiley character. It captured the tone of the story, the feeling of the period. A very hard act to follow.

But the buzz about the new movie version seemed to be good, and although the early reviews were mixed, there was enough good word for me to be hopeful. I went into the theater wanting to like this film, ready to be pleased.

Instead, I was disappointed. And, I have to say, I felt betrayed by some of the liberties taken with Le Carre's story. The fact that Le Carre himself is credited as an executive producer makes the sense of betrayal all the stronger.

Okay, so enough of my feelings: the movie. It's a return to the days when the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the satellite republics was a real and daily event, and everyone took the possibility of the east-west standoff igniting into something more devastating seriously. Constant vigilance, a game of watchers garnering information that the other side sought to hide, covert jockeying for position. This was back in the days when a wiretap or "bugging" with hidden microphones was sophisticated technological espionage.

The movie does successfully convey this atmosphere, but to some extent this is to its detriment: the movie is a "period piece," with ladies in 1960's fashions manually transcribing from reel-to-reel tape recorders and nary a computer to be seen; landline telephones of the correct period and fashions and hairstyles all looking unmistakably dated. When we're used to movies of the spy genre dripping with the latest technological gizmos and gadgets and everyone very much in the current style of dress and appearance, it's jarring to see.

The movie is also shot with a muted color palette, tones of grays and browns and blues predominating, which gives it a flatness that's unappealing to the eye.

The acting: well, nobody is going to touch Alec Guinness as George Smiley, but Gary Oldman is respectable in the role. In a way, my heart ached for him: this is a very nuanced role, playing a character who is the antithesis of active and animated. Oldman gets Smiley right and I can't fault him in the lead role.

But he's upstaged by John Hurt's portrayal of George Smiley's boss and predecessor, the head of the British intelligence, service, known only as Control. In the Le Carre story, Control is almost a cameo, a figure not fully fleshed out and seen mainly through the actions of others. John Hurt's characterization of Control is fully realized, three-dimensional, completely believable and alive. Oh how I wish the rest of the movie had been up to the standard that Hurt set! For the rest: Benedict Cumberbatch as Smiley's assistant Peter Guillam in the hunt for the "mole," the double-agent deeply buried in the hierarchy of the "Circus," as British Intelligence is referred to, does a good job with what he's given. However, there's a problem with what he's given. Somewhere in the translation of the book to the movie, a change was made in Guillam's character that is shocking to anyone who is familiar with the character from the books. Suffice it to say there's a point in the movie where you could tell which members of the audience had read the book and were familiar with Guillam's character, because you could hear audible gasps of shock and half-stifled protests.

And therein lies what I would say is the biggest problem this movie has: if you're familiar with the book and the mini-series with Alec Guinness, you're not going to like the liberties that have been taken with the story. So much so that you're probably going to "buy out" of the story and not like the movie at all.

If you're not familiar with the book, you're going to find the look of the movie stodgy and dull, and there really isn't a lot of action to what is essentially a very cerebral story. That means you're going to find yourself not caring about the movie or the characters enough to remain interested, and will probably find yourself wishing you'd gone to see the latest shiny glossy polished contemporary spy thriller, something like "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" or yearning to watch a re-run of one of the Bourne movies on cable.

I can't recommend this movie to people who are hard-core fans of Le Carre's book, because they aren't going to like the liberties taken with the story, especially with the Peter Guillam character. I can't recommend this movie to people who enjoy movies in the spy genre, because frankly when taken as a whole, it isn't very good.

If you're a fan of John Hurt and his work, I would suggest that you might enjoy the relatively brief time he's on screen. And if you have an academic interest in comparing Gary Oldman's characterization of George Smiley with Alec Guiness' characterization, you will appreciate the movie. But for anyone else, I would suggest that you wait until the movie comes out on cable and you can watch it without paying $10 per ticket to see it. Don't waste your money seeing it in the theater.

...But I can recommend that you get the DVD set of "Tinker, Tailor" with Alec Guinness as George Smiley. Stick with that and read the book; avoid this current version because I don't think you'll like it.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Fun summer popcorn movie if you can suspend disbelief

[31 July 2011]

This is a fun, suspenseful summer "popcorn" movie, but strictly make-believe. You have to be able to turn off the analytical/logical part of your brain to enjoy it. If you can do that, this is an enjoyable movie in the "guilty pleasure" category.

It's an original premise: take a western movie, your basic evil cattle baron (Colonel Dolarhyde, played by Harrison Ford) who owns the town vs. "lone wolf" gun-slinger (Jake Lonergan, played by Daniel Craig), and mix in an invasion of aliens to shake the genre up.

Harrison Ford makes a fun bad guy, especially a bad guy who is ultimately redeemable. Daniel Craig is the strong, silent type of gun-slinger (possibly so he doesn't have to deal with his native British accent?), charismatic and riveting. These two guys together in one movie is just plain fun.

Olivia Wilde, who plays "Thirteen" on the Hugh Laurie series "House," has a pivotal role, and she's on screen as much as Ford and Craig are. She plays Ella Swenson, who is apparently a commercial woman of ill repute (don't call her the word that rhymes with "door" in Lonergan's hearing!), and she's up to the task of carrying her part of this movie, a very important part.

The movie starts out with Lonergan waking in the middle of nowhere in the desert, wounded in his side and with an apparent loss of memory. One thing you can count on in a Hollywood western: if there's someone injured out in the middle of nowhere, with a population density of about 1 person per 1000 square miles, someone will come riding along and will find them.

The finders are a group of bad guys, who set out to rob and kill Lonergan. This triggers his "physical memory" and he out-fights and out-guns them, killing them all and acquiring a horse, clothes and a gun, as well as the conclusion that although he can't remember who he is, he shouldn't be messed with.

He also has a weird bracelet-thingy on his wrist. He doesn't know what it is, or how he got it, and he can't get it off. He tables the issue for later contemplation.

So he rides into the nearest town. (How does he know which way to go? Towns are hundreds of miles apart in this part of the country at that time. No road signs. No GPS. No service stations to ask your way.)

This town, it develops, is "owned" by a Colonel Dolarhyde, whose ne'er-do-well wastrel of a son, Percy, played by Paul Dano, is shooting up the town out of boredom, winging a deputy sheriff in the process.

The sheriff (reluctantly) arrests young Percy, who sneers at him and tells the sheriff that when daddy finds out what's happened, daddy is gonna make the sheriff very sorry. Bad Percy!

The sheriff, having a picture of Longeran on a "Wanted" poster, also (reluctantly) arrests Longeran, who now knows his name and why he's someone who shouldn't be messed with, but still doesn't know how he got into the middle of nowhere with a wound on the side, the very strange hardware around his wrist, and the loss of memory.

This sets up the rest of the movie: Lonergan and young Percy Dolarhyde are both set to be shipped off to a US Marshal who can take over their imprisonment. As the sheriff is loading Lonergan and young Dolarhyde into the lock-up wagon, the elder Dolarhyde comes riding into town to free his son.

This is the device used to get all the main characters into one place outside at the same time so the aliens can come and engage them in a fight. And what a fight! Alien fighter craft blowing things to smithereens and grabbing people off the street with long cables, yanking them away to...what? We don't know. But young Percy is taken, several of the townspeople are taken, and a rescue mission must be mounted.

I don't want to spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it. The rest of the movie is rich in unlikely allies for Dolarhyde and Lonergan in their fight with the aliens, who are terrifically ugly and apparently technologically advanced. (Why do technologically advanced bad-guy aliens never wear clothing? And have only one apparent gender?) The fighting proceeds with nifty tricks and stunts and clever Macgyvering by the humans in their hopeless fight against the aliens.

There's an important revelation about Ella Swenson, both Colonel Dolarhyde and Lonergan show unexpected sides to their character, and there's some mild comic relief scattered throughout. In the end, the humans vanquish the aliens. I don't think this is giving anything away, because did anyone really expect it to turn out any other way?

I enjoyed the movie. The special effects are very good and move the action along; the acting by Ford, Craig and Wilde is excellent, and everyone else is passable. The aliens are scary bad guys and the ending gives the "happily ever after" crowd something to enjoy.

If you're looking for a fun action summer movie with thrills, scary aliens, and nice but not epic performances by Ford and Craig, and the pleasant surprise of finding Wilde able to hold her own with these Hollywood heavyweights, you'll have a good time watching this movie and I can recommend it.

I don't recommend this movie for very young children, who may find the aliens too scary, the gory parts too gory, and the brief nudity (Wilde or a body double, back view) and references to commercial sex too adult. And if you aren't the kind of person who can forgive lapses in logic, sense and believability, then you probably won't like this movie.

Great cinema it's not; entertaining summer fare that's above average, it definitely is. I enjoyed it for what it was.

Inside Man (2006)

Smart, exciting, well-acted, funny caper movie

[24 July 2011]

Oh how I wish there were more movies this smart and this good! Thank you, director Spike Lee and writer Russell Gewirtz! This is a great movie for a truly broad audience.

It's a "caper" movie, basically a bunch of people who have planned a bank heist. This is the story of how they pull it off.

On one side, we have Clive Owen as Dalton Russell, who starts the film off with a monologue: "My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself. I've told you my name: that's the Who. The Where could most readily be described as a prison cell. But there's a vast difference between being stuck in a tiny cell and being in prison..." On the other side, we have Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), who is the founder of the bank that Russell is set to knock over. Case came over to the US following World War II, and has a lifetime of good works and a shelf full of awards to show for it.

In between, we have Denzel Washingtong as Detective Keith Frazier, who happens to be the cop who gets tabbed to run the "field headquarters" and direct the police as they attempt to end what seems to have started as a bank heist that turned into a hostage situation. Preferably to end it without innocent lives lost.

I don't want to spoil the fun; suffice it to say the Dalton Russell has planned this caper very, very, very carefully. He's enlisted an unlikely group of compatriots to bring it off. And he's very, very sure that they can make it work. Bank owner Arthur Case is concerned, because there is something in the bank that he wants to make sure is protected, something that means more to him than any sum of money. And the object of his concern is something that he really can't tell the police about, he doesn't dare even to hint that it exists.

To make sure this property is protected-- without involving the police-- Case calls in someone who apparently has made a reputation as a "fixer": the person who can call in and bestow favors from unlikely sources, and whose discretion is assured. That person is Madeleine White, played like a smiling shark by Jodie Foster.

And so the maneuvering begins.

I really enjoyed watching this carefully-choreographed caper play out. It becomes clear that Detective Frazier is smarter than the average cop, and he figures out that something about Dalton Russell and what he's up to isn't what it seems to be. He also grasps that the enigmatic Ms. White and her actions on the bank owner's behalf indicate that the bank owner isn't exactly what he seems to be, either. One of the most enjoyable parts of the movie is watching Frazier, as played by Washington, figure out what the pieces of the puzzle are and how they fit together, try to work out the solution-- and then ponder how to put the solution into action without having it blow up in his face.

There aren't a lot of caper movies where I'm sitting and thinking, "dang, that was GOOD, I hope they do another one soon!" Most of the time, the ending is a foregone conclusion that you know almost as soon as the title plays and the interest, if any, is in seeing how well the cast and crew play out something that's been done a thousand times before. Not this time: "Inside Man" is like a successful conjuring trick. You know you were fooled, but you're in awe of the conjurer for pulling it off without giving it away. That's what "Inside Man" is like.

This is a movie that I think is going to appeal to anyone who likes caper movies, and it's very authentic and suspenseful entertainment. It also doesn't have a lot of violence in it and while suspenseful, it isn't terrifying-suspenseful. That means that I'd recommend this movie to people who find violence and terror a turn-off but who like suspense and trying to puzzle out a mystery. (There is some mildly offensive language used and a couple of scenes with people in their underwear, but no nudity.) This is one of the better, more original caper movies I've ever seen. Clive Owen is very watchable, Jodie Foster is cool and smart and self-possessed, fun to watch; but this is really Denzel Washington's movie, and he's in excellent form here. This is also one of the more accessible movies Spike Lee has made, with the greatest popular appeal; this is a great movie to start an examination of his work with.

I loved this movie and I could watch it over and over and over again.

No Country for Old Men (2007)

No country for happily ever after, but a great suspenseful movie, great performances.

[23 July 2011]

I loved this movie. But this is not a movie for everyone, I want to be very clear about that. It is violent, it is scary, and it doesn't end with the bad guys losing and the good guys heading off to a "happily ever after." If you're looking for a harmless popcorn movie with comic-book violence that's so exaggerated it's unreal and a feel-good ending, be warned: "No Country for Old Men" is not what you're looking for.

There's also no romance here, so forget it as a "date movie;" and while there's a certain amount of irony to it, there really isn't any humor.

Which leaves: a suspenseful plot in the chase/hunt genre, some really superb acting, and everything put together in a movie that just won't quit.

Plot basics: Llewelyn "Lew" Moss (played by Josh Brolin), a hapless regular good ol' boy in the desert southwest country, lucks into $1,000,000 in cash when he stumbles on a drug deal gone bad. He doesn't know that the guys the money belongs to tucked away a transponder in the middle of one of the bundles of cash, and that he can be located by someone who has the receiver tuned to the proper frequency who knows roughly where he may have gone.

Lew and his wife Carla Jean abandon their trailer home; Carla Jean heads off to her mother's, and Lew heads off to try to figure out how to hide the loot.

It's Lew's bad luck that one of the parties to the drug deal has hired Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), an executioner that's as relentless as Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Terminator" android and is pure sociopathic killer.

Chigurh (pronounced like "sugar") has to join the movie bad guy Hall of Fame. He simply doesn't care who he has to kill to get a job done, and when he decides he has to kill someone, he isn't going to change his mind. (This figures very prominently in the way the end of the movie plays out.) Once he knows that Lew is who he is hunting, the chase is on.

Chigurh isn't just the hunter in this film; he's hunted by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), the lawman in whose jurisdiction the drug deal gone bad went down. Bell quickly realizes what's going on, and unlike Lew and Carla Jean, he realizes how deadly serious the situation is. Lew knows he's being hunted, but he doesn't know how deadly the guy hunting him is; he also has a cocky belief that he's smart enough to shake off the pursuit and hang onto the cash.

Bell tries to communicate with Lew through Carla Jean; he tries to get across to Carla Jean that Lew's life is in danger. Carla Jean is rattled, but she can't convince herself that shopping her husband to the law is the lesser of the evils.

The hunt is on. And that's basically what the rest of the movie consists of: Lew trying to escape with the money, Chigurh (and ultimately several other parties to the drug deal) trying to hunt Lew down, and Sheriff Bell trying to get to Lew in time to save him.

There's a lot of collateral damage in this hunt, and it's the way Tommy Lee Jones' Sheriff Bell is affected by the carnage that raises this movie above the level of your average hunter-and-hunted movie. Bell realizes that what he's dealing with in Chigurh, and to some extent the people who employ Chigurh, is something so far beyond the average kind of criminal he's used to dealing with that he literally cannot win. Chigurh is without any compunction: if the way to get to Lew involves killing people who are totally innocent, but whose deaths make it easier for him to get to Lew, then those people are going to die. And unlike the sheriff, who wastes time and effort in feeling something for the victims (even those who aren't completely innocent), Chigurh just mentally closes the books and moves on, the dead forgotten.

Sheriff Bell realizes that however good he is at what he does, however well he does his job, he can't stop someone like Chigurh, he can't win the fight. Maybe nobody can, but for sure he can't and so it's time to step down and let someone else try.

This is an excellent movie, but it doesn't spare anyone and it doesn't finish in a way that leaves you feeling good. It's unrelenting in following the story through to the bitter end. Literally the bitter end.

Bardem and Jones are unforgettable; Woody Harrelson does a fine turn; Kelly Macdonald is sympathetic and completely believable as the wife who is content to let her husband make the choices for both of them...until it's too late.

"No Country for Old Men" is an excellent choice for an intense, powerful, suspenseful movie with some top-rate performances in it. But definitely not for light entertainment or easy viewing, or for people who want a happy ending.

Courage Under Fire (1996)

Denzel Washington shines in this take on "war is hell" in Iraq

[20 July 2011]

When this movie came out, we were just 5 years past Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait and Iraq, and the 9/11/01 attack on the World Trade Center was 5 years in the future. I think that's important to remember when watching this movie, because it does refer to events in Iraq and things are very different now than they were then.

Anyway: the plot of the movie is very simple. The pilot of a medic-evac helicopter that flew into a combat area to rescue the crew of another helicopter, one that had been downed by enemy fire, is killed during the rescue effort after also being downed by enemy fire.

Because the pilot's actions saved the crews of both helicopters from attack by Iraqis until a rescue mission could be mounted, the pilot is being considered for posthumous award of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award given by the military services for valorous action under combat conditions.

The twist in this movie: the pilot being considered for the award is a woman, Captain Karen Walden (played by Meg Ryan), which would make her the first female combat veteran so honored.

Denzel Washington plays the role of Lt. Colonel Nat Serling, himself a Desert Storm veteran, who has been tasked by his commanding officer, General Hershberg (Michael Moriarity) with investigation of the circumstances surrounding Captain Walden's death to determine whether her actions qualify her for the honor of receiving the Medal of Honor.

Much is made of the fact that it would be a wonderful public-relations thing if Captain Walden receives the award. The pressure is on Serling to complete his investigation quickly and to affirm the circumstances of Walden's heroism so the President can make the award to Walden's family (she has a little daughter, who is raised by her parents, the father of her child evidently being some sort of deadbeat who bailed on his wife and child very early).

Serling is fighting his own demons relating to something that happened under his command in Iraq, something we are shown bit by bit in a series of flashbacks. As played by Washington, we get the impression of a man who is barely hanging on as he represses anger and self-loathing. He's withdrawing emotionally from his wife and kids and self-medicating with alcohol to the point where General Hershberg is ready to come down hard on him if Serling doesn't get this investigation done quickly and without causing problems.

And therein lies the kick: Serling very quickly discovers that there are inconsistencies in the statements of the men who were in the helicopter with Captain Walden when it went down. It also becomes very quickly evident that there is something about what happened after the helicopter went down that the men do not want to talk about.

And that sets up the rest of the action in this movie. Serling has to dig out the problem while coming to terms with his own issues and trying to do justice to the memories of those killed in Iraq-- and that doesn't just mean the lady helicopter pilot.

Washington is superb in this role, and this movie is much more about him than it is about Meg Ryan's character. In fact, I think people who watch this movie thinking that it's going to be about Meg Ryan's character are probably going to be disappointed. While she's good when she's on screen, her performance isn't a standout. Washington's is.

Two other performances really need to be mentioned: Lou Diamond Phillips, who plays Staff Sergeant John Monfriez, and Matt Damon, who plays Medical Specialist Ilario. Both were on Captain Walden's helicopter when it went down. Monfriez went as the door gunner, and it quickly becomes clear that he did not like Captain Walden and that he wants to discourage Serling from asking questions about what happened after the helicopter went down. Ilario likewise doesn't want to talk to Serling; but where Monfriez becomes menacing when Serling confronts him, Ilario goes AWOL.

Damon and Phillips are absolutely key in making this plot work, and they both deliver the goods powerfully and believably.

In the end, the problems of the investigation and Serling's personal demons are both put to an end, and not necessarily in the way that the powers-that-be would like to have seen things turn out. Let's just say that the search for truth is successful.

This is a must-see movie for Denzel Washington fans and works as a psychological whodunnit. It's also rewarding for people who admire the work of Matt Damon and Lou Diamond Phillips. The ending is upbeat enough to make most people happy. This is a very watchable movie as a character study, too. It isn't light entertainment, but if you want an interesting and thoughtful movie in the "war is hell" genre with a stellar performance from Washington and superb supporting performances from Damon and Phillips, this is it.

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

A movie that left me with very mixed feelings about the concept

[20 July 2011]

I sat down to watch this movie with very mixed feelings about it, and found that ambivalence intensified by the end of the movie.

I'm aware that a lot of the way I felt about "Moulin Rouge" is because of a very personal feeling I have about what a musical movie should be, and that isn't entirely fair to the movie. Take this warning for what it's worth.

On a pure entertainment level, "Moulin Rouge" provides some shiny sparkly fun diversion. It's the story of a singer/dancer/courtesan, Satine (Nicole Kidman), who is the star attraction at the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris during the belle epoque, which was about the late 1880's through to the start of the first World War.

This is the Paris of Comte Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec, who is played in the movie by Jim Broadbent, and it is a decadent period where cynicism and grasping materialism collide head-on with the dreams, now possible, of upward mobility through the burgeoning entertainment/arts industry. A singer, a dancer, a writer, an artist (or artiste), an impresario could become a major player in society. All that was required was talent and the will to make the grab for the brass ring when the merry-go-round spun you into its path.

The bare bones of the plot involves the romance of Satine with a penniless writer, Christian (Ewan McGregor), while Satine tries to seduce a rich rich rich nobleman, known only as "the Duke" (Richard Roxburgh) so he'll finance a show for her at the Moulin Rouge cabaret. The Duke wants to possess Satine; Christian wants to love her; and Satine, who has tuberculosis and is doomed, waivers between going for the love (Christian) and going for the undying fame and fortune (the Duke and the starring role in the show he'll finance for her).

Where the movie goes wrong for me is in setting all of the plot and action to a contemporary soundtrack, featuring songs like "Lady Marmalade" sung by Christina Aguilera, "Diamond Dogs" by Beck, "Nature Boy" by David Bowie, and Kidman and McGregor covering songs like "Sparkling Diamonds" and "Our Song".

It's not that McGregor and Kidman do a bad job of singing, or that the songs chosen are themselves inappropriate or badly done. And it's not that the action and dancing that accompanies the songs is wrong or badly done. It's just that the use of the contemporary songs that are well-known and hits in their own right gives a sense of being a bunch of music videos cobbled together to make a movie. For me it just didn't feel right: it didn't feel original. It felt commercial, and it made me feel betrayed, as if by ponying up my dollars for admission I was just buying a slick packaged product, not viewing an original work of art.

And that's where I have the problem with this movie. But setting aside my personal feelings, I'm not going to tell you that this movie is a waste of time, far from it. While the plot of the doomed courtesan having to choose between true love and commercial success is an old story, it's very well told in this movie, in an entertaining way, with some very talented people doing a good job. As pure entertainment it can work very well.

I hate to use the term "chick flick," but I do believe that this is a movie that will appeal to women far more than to men, although guys should take note that this would be a really great "date movie." But the costumes, the dancing and the plot will not appeal to those who are looking for an action movie towards the testosterone end of the spectrum.

I'm not going to tell people looking for a fun movie to watch to avoid "Moulin Rouge," because it is a fun movie to watch. But for people who wonder why I rated this movie relatively low, I'll just say this: watch a really original musical movie like "Oliver!", or one of the older classics like "West Side Story" or "South Pacific," and see if that makes you wonder what "Moulin Rouge" might have been if someone with talent and vision had tried to make a really original musical, instead of grabbing a bunch of contemporary hit songs and building a musical around them. Maybe if that had been done, we'd have a really GREAT movie, instead of a movie that's good commercial entertainment without the spark of originality that sets great art apart from merely successful art.

The Fugitive (1993)

Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford in a superb movie remake of the TV series.

[19 July 2011]

Harrison Ford may have gotten the top billing, but Tommy Lee Jones stole the movie. And since Ford is no slouch in "The Fugitive," that gives you some idea of how good Jones is in this big-screen remake of the 1960's TV series that starred David Janssen.

It's the same plot as the TV series: Dr. Richard Kimble, played by Harrison Ford, is put on trial and convicted of the murder of his wife (played by Sela Ward). Ford had arrived on the scene of the murder in time to tussle with the murderer, but he had to let the assailant go as he tried unsuccessfully to save his wife. Detectives summoned to the scene are unconvinced by Kimble's tale of a one-armed man on the scene, and suspicion quickly settles on Kimble.

He is tried and convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. As he is being transported to death row on a bus with a bunch of other prisoners who are being moved, a couple of the other prisoners stage an escape. The attempt goes wrong, the bus goes off the road and onto a railroad track, and in the chaotic seconds before a train impacts the bus, Kimble saves the life of a guard and then manages to make his escape in the aftermath of the wreck.

And that sets up the rest of the movie: it's a pure chase, a hunt with Ford as the hunted and US Marshal Samuel Gerard, played by Jones, as the hunter.

The chase is played out in a series of episodes that take Kimble back to Chicago, where he practiced medicine and where his wife was murdered. With Gerard and his crew hot on his trail and sometimes just minutes behind him, Kimble has to try to track down the one-armed man and figure out why his wife was murdered.

It's a suspenseful chase, during which Gerard comes to the conclusion that Kimble is not the cold-blooded wife murderer the Chicago police and DA think he is. This leads to the climactic chase/fight scene, in which Harrison's Dr. Kimble is vindicated and cleared of the murder as he brings the real murderer, and the man who hired the murderer, to justice.

This is a great entertainment movie with some very well-done chase sequences. The train wreck that starts the action is an amazing piece of special effects and action photography. There are some jaw-dropping stunts and the fight sequence at the end keeps you on the edge of your seat right down to the end, even though we know before the movie even starts how it's going to turn out.

Harrison Ford is excellent in the role of Dr. Kimble, but make no mistake: whatever the billing says, this is Tommy Lee Jones' movie. He's smart and funny and riveting to watch, and even though your sympathies might be for Kimble, you can't help but be cheering Gerard on as he hunts Kimble down.

This is one of my favorite action/suspense movies, and even though it's now 18 years old, it's still great entertainment to watch. Certainly if you enjoy seeing Tommy Lee Jones in a role that allows him to steal the movie from Harrison Ford, you're going to want to catch "The Fugitive." It's also the best example I know of how to take a TV series and successfully translate it into a big-screen movie.

In the Valley of Elah (2007)

A complex crime investigation, a Tommy Lee Jones movie.

[19 July 2011]

In writing a review, I think it's important to try to indicate who might want to watch a movie, and who probably won't like it.

"In the Valley of Elah" is basically a "whodunnit" movie, a mystery movie, with a military twist. It's based on a true story, the murder of Specialist Richard R. Davis, who had just returned from a combat tour in Iraq and whose partially-dismembered, partially-burned body was found just outside of Ft. Benning after a night out on the town with members of his unit.

This is not a "war movie" in the sense of the action taking place in and around the battlefield, although what happened in Iraq does figure in the plot and is shown in flashbacks. It is a movie about the investigation of a horrific crime, and how that investigation and that crime affects very specific people who happen to be a part of the military.

It isn't a movie that's heavy on action sequences, and it isn't a movie that is going to leave you feeling good at the end. In many ways, it's a real downer. This isn't a movie you want to sit down and watch as fun entertainment. It is also emphatically not a movie for young children. And there isn't any romantic interest in it, so forget it as a "date movie."

So who do I recommend this movie for? If you're a Tommy Lee Jones fan, this is a movie you're going to want to see, because Jones is central to the movie as the father of the murdered soldier. His performance is both understated and forceful: there isn't a lot of action, and Jones' intensity as the hurt and grieving father isn't played out in explosions so much as in rigid control of himself and relentless pursuit of something that he knows is going to be agonizingly hurtful to uncover, but that he has to pursue in spite of where he knows it's going to lead.

Charlize Theron plays one of the detectives involved in the investigation of the case. As Detective Emily Sanders, a single mother who is trying to be taken seriously in her job and finding it the opposite of rewarding, she is not glamorous, she is not sexy, there is no sexual or romantic chemistry between her character and Jones' character, although there is a sense of empathy and kinship as parents. When I watched this movie the first time, I didn't initially realize that Sanders was played by the beautiful and glamorous Theron. She really does sink herself into the part in a way that makes you not notice that she's beautiful and glamorous. I find that absolutely awe-inspiring, considering how lucrative (and easy) it would be for her to just go for the beautiful/glamorous niche and stay there.

Susan Sarandon plays the mother of the murdered serviceman, but she doesn't get much time on screen. She's good when she's on, but if you're watching this movie to see her, you're going to be disappointed in how little time she spends on screen.

As a crime "whodunnit," this movie will appeal to people who like to watch an investigation play out. I also think people who are interested in movies that get deeply into the psychology of the characters will find this movie rewarding.

And I think that, ultimately, is who the movie is going to appeal to most: people who like the intensity of psychological character-driven dramas that examine how certain sets of circumstances can drive certain kinds of people to do things that are truly horrific, and how certain kinds of people are driven to look for truth that allows an understanding of how horrific things can happen, even if the cost of finding that out is personally agonizing. For sure this is not a movie for the "happily ever after" person who is just looking for entertainment.

I can't comment on the way this movie will appeal, or not appeal, to people who have a military background, except to say that I don't think this movie is about what we were doing in Iraq at the time it was made, and whether what we were doing was good or not good. It's more an examination of how what happened to them in Iraq affected a handful of young men, and how that led to a horrific tragedy after they returned home. And how that, in turn, affected one particular family.

Can "In the Valley of Elah" be categorized as a "war is hell" genre movie? Probably. But isn't war supposed to be hell, so we try to avoid it? Probably.

If you think that analysis is a political statement, and not one you can at least give a hearing to, then you probably don't want to watch this movie and you might find it preachy. You've been warned.

So that's how I saw "In the Valley of Elah." As a Tommy Lee Jones fan, I think this is Jones doing a superb job in a tough role and so it's a must-see. As a crime investigation movie and a psychological drama, I found it superb. Light entertainment with an uplifting ending it most emphatically is not.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)

Near-perfect adaptation of John Le Carre's book.

[16 July 2011]

When I heard that there was a TV mini-series of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" in the works, I cringed. Le Carre's book is complex, cerebral, very long on detail and on setting up the puzzle that's the unmasking of the "mole" in the British intelligence service, and very short on action. In other words, not the kind of thing that lends itself well to the small screen.

When I heard that Alec Guinness had been cast in the starring role of George Smiley, I had even more reservations. Not for Guinness' talents as an actor, of course not that; but anyone who is familiar with the George Smiley character knows that he's almost the antithesis of the popular notion of a spy. Smiley is not charismatic, he's not dashing and handsome, he's not athletic, he's certainly not good with technology, and far from being an accomplished womanizer, he's unable to prevent his own beautiful and temperamental wife from constantly straying. In many ways, Smiley is the antithesis of the James Bond model of the superspy.

I wondered how on earth an actor as talented and accomplished as Guinness could possibly be successful in portraying someone who is in many ways so negative, so lacking in color.

Well, Guinness got it right by going to the heart of Smiley's personality: his quiet, glacier-like force in pursuit of his nemesis, the enigmatic Soviet spy-lord, known only by his code name, Karla. Glaciers don't move fast but they can grind mountains down in their relentless march. And so George Smiley as portrayed by Guinness hunts for the mole that Karla recruited and planted in the British intelligence service in the chaotic time at the end of World War II.

The mole, code-named Gerald, has been systematically subverting the British intelligence service and compromising nearly every covert operation undertaken by the British for more than 25 years when a series of fortuitous events bring the word of the mole to the attention of the British intelligence service in a way that Gerald the mole is unable to prevent. George Smiley, retired from the service and presumed to be clean, is tasked by the government to undertake the slow, stealthy and dangerous process of doing the research necessary to find the mole, and then to plan the operation that results in his unmasking.

I recently found out that a new movie version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is set for release around November of 2011. I have mixed feelings about this: the TV mini-series format seems to me much more suitable for Le Carre's books; not all of his work has translated well to the screen, because there's so much detail in the books and they're much more cerebral than the usual source material for movies-- especially the spy genre, which is usually done with a lot of action. And I'm very much afraid that Gary Oldman, who is cast as George Smiley, is going to have a heck of a job trying to follow Alec Guinness in the role. I sure wouldn't want to be an actor undertaking a role that Guinness had previously played very successfully! On the other hand, if Director Tomas Alfredson can pull off a successful adaptation of Le Carre's book, then maybe the sequel to "Tinker, Tailor" can finally be brought to the big screen. That would be "The Honourable Schoolboy," which is in my very humble opinion one of the best spy novels ever written and is different from most of Le Carre's work in that it has almost more action going on than you can pack into a movie.

But I digress: by the end of the mini-series, it was impossible for me to imagine anyone else in the role of George Smiley. I loved the way Le Carre's book was translated to the small screen, and I felt that Alec Guinness set the bar impossibly high for anyone else who ever undertook the role of George Smiley.

If you like the spy thriller genre, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is well worth watching. And if the adaptation coming out in November for the big screen is successful, then maybe we can look forward to "The Honourable Schoolboy," which would REALLY be one heck of a movie.

Casablanca (1942)

This movie gave the people involved immortality.

[11 July 2011]

You cannot talk about all-time greatest movies without having "Casablanca" somewhere in the top 10. At least, until enough time goes by that the fundamental things don't apply! (Sorry.) In all seriousness, it pains me to think that there may come a time when this movie, shot in black-and-white and with nary a special effect and with all the limitations of the technology of its time (1942), will seem so primitive and unnatural that instead of being a classic, it will be considered a curiosity. That will be a very sad time indeed.

Bogie and Bergman are immortal, not just because of this film, but I cannot imagine a time when people who see "Casablanca" will fail to be affected by their story in the film. Bergman is indelibly and incredibly beautiful, completely believable as the woman caught between two men that she loves equally in very different ways. Bogie is the man that women want to be with, the man that men want to be: smart, suave, completely cool, admired and respected by everyone and feared by those who have a reason to fear him. And in this place called "Casablanca," with the world crashing into war around them, they play out a story that's both intensely personal and yet universal.

The mythology that's sprung up about this movie is a story unto itself, and maybe some day someone will write a movie about that. Suffice it to say that the way the pieces came together, you have to believe that this was as movie that was meant to be.

"Casablanca" was made back in the days when movies and live plays were pretty much the "only games in town" when it came to entertainment (other than sports), and since every small town had a movie theater but only big cities had live plays, EVERYONE went to the movies. I don't think young people who have so many options for entertainment now can quite understand what a big deal a movie like this was, and how beloved and what a stir it created. I hope that because so much of the dialogue in the movie is so well-known, maybe they'll get a feel for just how large this movie looms in American culture.

I love it. It was on TCM yesterday, and I watched it for what must be the twentieth time, and I still love it and can watch it without getting tired of it. Bogie and Bergman, forever luminous and forever saying good-bye there at the airport in a place called Casablanca. It never gets old and I never get tired of it.

Inception (2010)

Anything is possible when a filmmaker trusts his audience.

[11 July 2011]

Director/writer Christopher Nolan clearly trusted his audience to follow him through a labyrinthine story of dreams within dreams within dreams. He obviously believed that he didn't have to "dumb things down" to get an audience, he didn't think he had to beat people over the head with obvious hints and blatant explanations, and he didn't have to apologize for making a movie that is smart, requires intense attention to follow, and doesn't have an obvious ending that ties it all up neatly and hands things to the audience on a silver platter.

And I LOVE that about this movie. Nolan clearly believes that there is an audience out there for movies that aren't comic-book action "morality plays" intended to appeal to the people who want the filmmaker to do their thinking for them, or sequels/prequels of an established franchise film that has a built-in audience.

He has made a film that is intelligent, nuanced, clever without rubbing your nose in it, and that showcases established talents (Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio), allows Ellen Page to show that her work in "Juno" was just the start of what I hope is a long and distinguished career and that Cillian Murphy's work in "Batman Begins" showed he not only looks good, he acts well; and brings a wider audience to some actors (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao) who aren't very familiar to American audiences.

"Inception" has an amazingly complex plot. At it's most basic, it's about conducting espionage/sabotage by entering someone's mind through dreams and stealing their secrets. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, the lead "thief"/"architect" of a group of men who engage in this apparently very lucrative work. (In passing, we learn that there is also apparently a very lucrative industry in training potential targets of such plots how to protect their subconscious and fight attempts to break into their minds and steal their secrets.) Watanabe plays the role of Saito, a mega-billionaire industrialist who wants Cobb to undertake a job for him: not to steal secrets, but instead to implant an idea in the son and heir of his greatest business rival. The rival, Maurice Fischer, played in a very brief appearance by the late Pete Postlethwaite, is dying. His son and heir Robert (Cillian Murphy) can ruin Saito by just continuing the consolidation of his father's business empire.

Saito wants Cobb to implant in Robert Fischer's mind the seed of an idea that will make young Fischer break up his father's business empire, rather than consolidate it. Saito asks Cobb if this action, implanting the inception of an idea so deeply in someone else's mind that they are unaware that the origin of the idea came from outside, is possible.

Cobb knows it's possible. He also knows it's dangerous. We aren't initially shown how he knows this.

Cobb is reluctant to take on the job, but Saito can offer him the one thing that Cobb wants and can't get any other way: Saito can make charges pending against Cobb for the death of his wife, Mal, go away, making it possible for Cobb to return to the USA and be with his two children. Saito can, and will, do that for Cobb if Cobb will undertake the inception.

Cobb agrees, and so the ride begins.

Ellen Page is Ariadne, a talented young architecture student who is introduced to Cobb by Cobb's father-in-law, Miles, played by Michael Caine. Miles, we learn, started Cobb in the business of dream espionage.

Cobb also has other cohorts in the business, Arthur (Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Hardy), and Yusuf. Each plays a part in the complicated business of first designing a scenario that makes the inception feasible and then carrying it out.

I don't want to get into a slavish description of what happens. That would spoil it. In the end, it involves going through different levels of dream consciousness and different worlds. Nolan challenges his audience to try to follow Cobb through the different layers of dreams, and to keep track of what is really a dream, and what is a dream reality. He doesn't hang out signs that tell you where you are and where you're going, and he isn't afraid of ambiguity and nuance. He also doesn't preach or proselytize about what's "right" and what's "wrong." This movie isn't a morality play. It doesn't take sides and you don't get any hints about who, if anyone, the heroes and villains are.

It also does an astonishing job of presenting a literally mind-blowing alternate reality universe. Man oh man, this is the kind of story that had to wait until computer animation technology caught up with it before it could be done. And the wait is worth it, and then some. Nolan is one of a very small group of filmmakers who have looked at what the technology can do and envisioned using it to tell a story that couldn't previously have been told in film, not in any way.

I've watched this movie more than half a dozen times already and I know I'll watch it at least that many times more. And I don't think I will ever be completely sure about what it's really about or what is really going on. And that's fine with me; I wish there were more movies that trusted the audience enough to be ambiguous, to allow uncertainty, to not try to tie everything up in a tidy package that doesn't challenge you or leave you unsettled.

I can't wait for Christopher Nolan's next movie. BRING IT ON.

Slap Shot (1977)

A fun film that's going to appeal to a relatively small audience.

[7/10 · 10 July 2011]

Reviewing a movie that came out in 1977 means thinking about what kind of people might want to watch this movie, because you're basically up against everything else that's on the shelf at the DVD store or that you see scrolling through the listings on Netflix or whatever.

First of all: "Slap Shot" has a lot of swearing. A LOT of swearing. F-bombs, among other swear words, being thrown helter-skelter all over the place. It also has some "boobs and bums" shots, including what was probably the largest group mooning scene prior to the battlefield mooning scene in Mel Gibson's movie "Braveheart." And it drops some homosexual epithets and some graphic sexual references. So this is not a movie that you're going to want to sit down with the kids or the church pastor or your elderly and sensitive mother to watch.

Second, this is a movie that is really about hockey. Hockey does frame some relationship sub-plots and there's some slice-of-life background stuff, but it is unabashedly a sports movie. So people who don't like sports, and especially don't like hockey, are going to want to take a pass on "Slap Shot." Third, this movie is set in a time (the 1970's) and place (a small semi-industrial town facing the closing of the factory that is the major employer) that younger people may just not understand or identify with. So people who are still uphill from thirty may draw a blank on this film.

So who is going to want to watch it? Well, first of all, if you're a Paul Newman fan, you're going to want to see this film. Newman plays the lead, Reggie "Reg" Dunlop, a player who is also coach for the minor-league hockey team the Charlestown Chiefs.

If you enjoy a movie that's full of bawdy, raunchy fun; that speaks of dealing with disappointments and the powerlessness of being just a depreciable asset on somebody's balance sheet without being preachy or angry or depressing; and that is about loving hockey, and minor league hockey at that, in the days when players didn't wear protective head-gear and a brawl with intervals of skating was the way to play the game, this is your kind of movie and you're going to love it.

Newman's character, Dunlop, is middle-aged, this is probably his last season in hockey as a player, it's been his whole life. The Chiefs, the team he plays for and coaches, are one of the few entertainments to be found in a gritty blue-collar town that's facing the closure of the factory that's the major employer. Always on the ragged edge of perdition, stocked with players who are one waiver away from having to get a REAL job, the Chiefs are facing disbandment by the unknown owner because, as a business proposition, they're a dead loss.

Dunlop's wife, played by Jennifer Warren, has long ago gotten tired of the role of hockey wife-- husband forever on the road, the vagabond life of moving when he gets traded, the groupies who go after her husband, the uncertainty-- and has left him. She's just had enough and without bitterness or angst is moving on. Dunlop hasn't accepted the finality of her decision, and throughout the movie he keeps trying to find a way to make her change her mind.

Dunlop's assistant and fellow player is Ned Braden, played by Michael Ontkean. Braden didn't come into hockey through the blue-collar route of junior leagues and working his way up through the minors; he played on a scholarship at college, he's preppie, he's got a future outside of hockey if he wants it. His wife, Lily Braden, played by Lindsay Crouse completely deadpan, is also college-educated. She comes from a wealthy family and she HATES the whole minor-league, small-town, small-world, hockey-wife scene. She doesn't fit and she knows it, and endures it only by drinking early and often.

Dunlop finds out the team is to be disbanded, and decides that if he can somehow cobble together a winning season, he can persuade the anonymous owner to sell the team instead of dissolving it. And so he sets out to inspire his rag-tag bunch of no-hopers and losers to win, to scratch and scrape and fight out victories any way they can.

And he's aided in this by three new players who've just arrived, the Hanson brothers, who are certifiably nuts but can skate, can shoot, and can FIGHT like junk-yard pitbulls, and who are happily madly satisfied to win any way their coach tells them to.

And that sets the stage for all the rest. Make no mistake, this movie has some howlingly hysterical moments, including one of the all-time best striptease scenes ever made.

I loved this movie, and if you like sports movies and aren't a sensitive soul who cringes at the language and the non-PC references and nudity, and especially if you enjoy watching Paul Newman, you're going to like this movie too. It's a real gem of it's type.

Under Siege (1992)

If you have to watch a Steven Seagal movie, make it this one.

[10/10 · 10 July 2011]

Now that Steven Seagal has become almost a parody of himself, it's easy to scorn the movies he starred in. But there was a time when he was a handsome, charismatic, easy-to-watch action movie star.

I guess you'd have to call this movie a "guilty pleasure" for me, because in many ways it's a silly plot. It's basically Steven Seagal as a former Navy SEAL, Casey Ryback (who through a series of unfortunate events is now a cook on the USS Missouri on her final voyage), saving the world from nuclear Armageddon with the help of a Playboy centerfold, Jordan Tate, played by Erika Eleniak. The perpetrator of the evil-doing is Tommy Lee Jones as a CIA operative named William Stranix gone rogue. Stranix is assisted by the second-in-command of Big Mo, Cmdr. Krill, played by Gary Busey, who is obviously psychopathically crazy. (One of the unsettling things about the movie is how comfortable Busey's Commander Krill is in pantyhose, a dress and HUGE fake boobs. Now that's scary!) A series of unfortunate coincidences leaves Seagal's Ryback as the only obstacle standing between Stranix and Krill off-loading Big Mo's nuclear weapons onto a North Korean submarine waiting to rendezvous with them mid-ocean. The crew is trapped beneath decks. Stranix and Krill don't know that Ryback is loose, don't know he's an ex-SEAL, and have completely forgotten about the Playboy centerfold they brought onto the ship as part of the ruse to get Stranix on board.

And so the fun begins, and it really is fun! It's pure good vs. evil with Seagal, the centerfold, and a few members of the crew fighting off all the baddies and saving Honolulu from being turned into a radioactive puddle of recycled lava.

It's suspenseful and fun, and Tommy Lee Jones is absolutely a riot as he hams it up as the evil and possibly insane Stranix. Busey's Krill is so nasty that you've got to love to hate him. Eleniak as the hapless Jordan Tate is surprisingly likable and effective as the tag-along to Seagal who proves that she's not just another pretty face and set of boobs. She does a nice job in this movie.

The ending is, of course, predictable: Seagal is going to save the day and end up covered in glory as he modestly accepts his medals for heroism, and the baddies are going to get their comeuppance in some appropriately spectacular fashion. But this movie is genuinely entertaining if you aren't looking for a serious plot or a "significant" movie. And if you're a Tommy Lee Jones fan, you're going to absolutely be howling with glee as you watch him ham it up as Stranix.

And you may appreciate that although Steven Seagal isn't a world-class actor, with the right kind of movie and supporting cast he can be very watchable. I enjoyed this movie and I can recommend it as pure fun entertainment.

The Bourne Identity (2002)

A great start to a very strong franchise.

[8/10 · 10 July 2011]

I love this movie. It delivers everything that a spy chase thriller is supposed to deliver, and does it with exceptional skill and economy of action. Also, Matt Damon is fantastic in the title role of Jason Bourne.

First, a couple of caveats about who might not want to watch this film: it contains some violent fight scenes that are fairly graphic, and there are some shootings that are violent, although not in the graphic "pink mist" gory way. So you really don't want to sit down with the little kids and watch this one and adults who aren't keen on violence in movies may want to give it a miss. And there's some swearing, both in English and in other languages.

The movie starts with Jason Bourne floating unconscious in the ocean, where the crew of a fishing boat sees him and picks him up. While one of the people on the boat administers first aid, Bourne violently regains consciousness, and it becomes apparent that he has no idea who he is, where he is, how he got there. He has been shot twice, with superficial wounds; more strangely still, he had embedded in his hip a device that upon activation reveals a number that is apparently a bank account or code of some kind for a bank in Zurich.

The fishermen let Bourne off when they reach their port in Marseilles, and with the money they give him for the work he did while on their boat, he makes his way to Zurich and the bank.

Once there, he finds that he apparently has access to a safe-deposit box that is filled with currency, a variety of passports in different names but with his picture, and a gun. And now the chase is on.

Bourne's accessing the safe deposit box triggers the start of a CIA hunt for him. It's apparent that he's some kind of "black ops" assassin for the CIA, but he himself doesn't yet know that or really understand who he is and what he's been doing.

The rest of the movie consists of Bourne, who joins up with a somewhat flaky young woman who we know only as Marie (played superbly by Franka Potente) who he meets in the American embassy where she is trying unsuccessfully to get a visa.

"The Bourne Identity" is a very straightforward chase movie, with Bourne running away from people bent on killing him while trying to find out who he really is.

What raises it well above the average for this genre are two things: first, the way Matt Damon becomes Jason Bourne and makes him a thoroughly believable character who is likable in spite of having apparently been a bona fide assassin. Second, the quality of the writing, the stunts/action, and the general high level of the acting throughout.

I don't want to give too much of this movie away, but I do have to mention the car chase scene in this movie. The car chase has become such a staple of the action chase movie genre that it's very, very hard for anyone making this kind of movie to do something that doesn't seem mundane. The car chase scene in "The Bourne Identity" is exceptional in the way it is choreographed, the way it is photographed, and the unique twists it has. One of the better car chases of recent years, although when the movie is over and you start thinking about it, you have to wonder if Marie's decrepit little car really would have held together through what Bourne put it through in the chase! This is a superb action spy movie with Matt Damon truly exceptional as Bourne. You're on the edge of your seat rooting for him to evade the people who want to kill him and to find out who he is. A very enjoyable action/spy movie, one of the best of recent years.

The Sting (1973)

One of my all-time favorites, a great entertainment movie.

[9/10 · 8 July 2011]

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that just "checks all the boxes" of what makes a really great movie: Great actors who "know their stuff" even in the small roles, who are pitch-perfect in their parts? Check.

Great writing: superb dialog that doesn't make you wince or cringe, that's true to the story and the characters, that even in the pauses and silences moves the story forward, and that has some memorable, great lines? Check.

A great director, who knows what he wants to do, knows how to do it, has the experience to put it all together, and trusts himself and the audience to follow the plot twists without beating everything to death or trying to "dumb it down" so that even a moron can follow it? Check.

Visually enjoyable, opening up a place and time that may never have been real but has the look and feel of reality, and that becomes an important part of the story? Check.

Has a soundtrack that's appropriate and sets the mood right, has costuming ditto, and gets all the technical issues right so it all works flawlessly? Check.

Man, how often does this all come together? Not nearly often enough.

"The Sting" is a straightforward caper movie, a bunch of grifters who are all working together to pull off a job that in some way revenges the death of another grifter, Luther Coleman, played by Robert Earl Jones. Robert Redford, in one of the two lead roles, is Luther's friend and partner-in-crime, Johnny Hooker, a brash young grifter who seeks the help of Paul Newman as Henry Gondorff, a wise and experienced con man who has forgotten more about grifting than most grifters ever know. Hooker wants to find a way to con Doyle Lonnegan, played by Robert Shaw, the gangster boss who ordered Luther Coleman's hit when Hooker and Coleman pull a grift on a "mark" who happened to be carrying the week's take on the rackets for one of Lonnegan's managers.

And therein lies the story: the "sting" of Doyle Lonnegan, who is a dangerous gangster with no inhibitions on ordering a hit on anyone who crosses him up or threatens his position in the organized crime world.

The movie plays out suspensfully, with several twists to the plot that all come together at the end. I'm glad I'm old enough to have seen this movie when it first came out, so I didn't know what those twists were, and I won't spoil the movie by giving them away.

What I am going to say: when you're tired of all the movies that are big-budget action stories, when you've had enough of the movies that are sequels and prequels and spin-offs made because they can make money, when you're fed up with comic-book heroes and movies made from books or "graphic novels" or other sources that guarantee the movie an audience, sit down and watch "The Sting." You'll be seeing a genuine original movie made by and with people who loved what they do and do it well. You'll come away at the end wishing that someone would make movies like "The Sting" now, just for a change.

...And you'll be seeing a movie that is one of the all-time great entertainment movies ever made.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

I liked it, but not sure I can recommend it.

[6/10 · 7 July 2011]

First the good news: This movie has a lot going for it.

It has Haley Joel Osment. He's the make-or-break actor in this movie, and I believe he did an incredible job in a very tough role, all the tougher when you consider that much of what he did involved acting on a "green screen" stage. He makes you love him while at the same time you want him to not be such a perfect loving child because you know he's going to get hurt-- even though that shouldn't be possible, and shouldn't matter since he's not human. Should it?

It has Jude Law in a part that seems in some ways almost a throw-away to the plot of the movie, but that is done so well it stays with you. I find Jude Law an incredibly charismatic actor with great versatility and unexpected talents; as "Gigolo Joe" the adult entertainment "mecha", he's incredible, capering and literally dancing from appointment to appointment, both impersonal and incredibly personally intimate as the perfect love machine-- literally.

It has some incredible special effects that create new and believable times and places that make you want to explore them further when the movie ends. To me, that's one of the tests of a movie's successfulness: does it take me to a place where I can immerse myself in an alternate reality that isn't awkward or jarring? This movie does that-- sometimes.

It is visually in many ways a stunning movie in its concepts and their execution.

That's the good stuff. The not-so-good stuff: it isn't cohesive enough in plot and story for the viewer to really understand what it's about.

On one level, it's the "Pinocchio" story, updated and explored from a slightly different angle. You have the "puppet" who is made so real that ultimately he wants to be real, and cannot stand the pain of knowing he isn't a real boy. And he goes through his odyssey like Pinocchio, in a series of adventures like Pinocchio had, that carry lessons/information he needs to assimilate or to show how in his imperfection as a "puppet" trying to be a boy, he's in some ways more perfect than the real thing.

On another level, it's an exploration of the pain and love of the parent/child relationship, and the power of that connection, particularly the connection between mother and child, and whether there can be, or should be, a surrogate for a real child when a real child isn't available.

And on a very superficial level, it's something of a morality play about how imperfect humans behave savagely when confronted by the perfection of machines that are programmed to be people who are more perfect than people ever can be.

And it's all interesting, in an episodic way, but it doesn't fit together. It's like riding in a car with a manual transmission and a driver who hasn't figured out how to coordinate the controls yet. It moves forwards in fits and starts and with much lurching and grinding of gears, and occasionally the engine is roaring at full throttle while the wheels aren't going anywhere.

I enjoyed this movie while at the same time feeling great frustration. It didn't deliver me to the destination it seemed headed for and the ride there was occasionally very bumpy and unpleasant. But the scenery at times was astounding, and the actors delivered performances that made me willing to forgive a lot.

But in the end, I think many people will find this movie too flawed for pure entertainment. If you want to sit down cold and watch a movie that takes you from beginning to end with a smooth flow of events and impetus that's always moving in the direction it promises, you are not going to feel this movie delivers. But you may, at the same time, feel glad you watched it anyway.

I particularly enjoyed the ending, which is about wish-fulfillment and finally finding that perfect, unflawed, unconditional happiness and shared love, even if it took more than a thousand years of waiting and the end of mankind to get there, and it only lasted for a day. It was the realization that maybe a single day of perfection in love makes a thousand years or more of darkness and stasis and the collapse of everything around you into chaos worthwhile. Maybe if you have the faith to believe that that kind of love is possible, and you get it for a single day, it cancels out all the pain and unbearableness of what's come before it. Wouldn't it be nice to believe in a world that eventually makes everything right and wonderful and worthwhile in one day, one stunningly perfect day that meets your expectations unconditionally and flawlessly?

It's a sweet thought and a sweet ending, but it's unsatisfying: because the way that Osment's "Pinocchio" achieves his single perfect day, we know it's really an illusion arranged for him out of pity and an abstract curiosity by literal alien entities that observe it all with a sense of detachment as a sort of laboratory experiment. In the end it isn't real even though it is, because it happened through deus ex machina. Does that count?

I've watched this film several times now and there are parts of it that are so good that it frustrates me that in the end, the parts are better than the movie as a whole. So I say: if you're looking for a straightforward entertainment movie that takes a story and tells it well and smoothly, you aren't going to like "A. I. Artificial Intelligence." But if you're the kind of viewer who can forgive the picture's overall flaws because you're happy that there are some incredible parts, I think you'll be glad you spent the time with this movie.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

How do you review a movie that's become a cultural icon?

[7/10 · 30 May 2011]

Is there a soul alive nowadays who doesn't know about this movie? Given that, it's difficult to do a straightforward review. Almost everybody knows, or thinks they know, what it's all about.

If you don't know what it's all about, here are some hints: Transvestites. Cannibalism. House of horrors. Pure unadulterated 200-proof camp. Singing and dancing. Zombies. Over the top.

It stars Tim Curry. And let me right here disabuse people of a common misconception: Curry is NOT Rocky Horror. He is Dr. Frank N. Furter. (Peter Hinwood has the title role, and a surprisingly small role it is.) It also has Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf, Nell Campbell, and Richard O' Brien. And a bunch of other people.

If you go get a DVD of this movie and spool it up on your TV and just sit down to watch it cold, you'll find that the first part is campy fun, but that in the end it dissolves into a mess that goes on forever too long. As a straight entertainment movie, it would rate maybe 3 stars out of ten.

But it isn't a straight entertainment movie, and that's the point, and you shouldn't sit down to watch it cold.

I was lucky: I saw this movie in the best of all possible circumstances, in fall of 1976, at a midnight showing at the Nuart Theater in Venice, California. Ladies and gents, viewing "Rocky Horror" doesn't get any better than that.

I was as innocent and clueless as Janet is at the beginning of the movie. My then-boyfriend, now husband, took me there on our third date ever. Good thing it was our third date, I was ready to give him benefit of the doubt; had this been our first date, there wouldn't have been a second.

"You HAVE to see this," my boyfriend told me. "So what's it about?" I asked. He wouldn't tell me. That should have been my first clue.

So we went, and I noted that a lot of the people queuing up at the Nuart were dressed...oddly. Oddly even for Venice, California, in 1976, near midnight. That should have been my second clue.

And then the movie started, and that's when the show REALLY started.

People throwing rice during the wedding scene. People spraying the rest of the audience with water-pistols during the storm scene. People who got up on stage, and danced along with the actors in the movie, during the dance scenes. And that's just the stuff I can mention in a review that might be read by kids.

It wasn't a movie, it was an EVENT. No mistake about it. I emerged stunned and drop-jawed, at this glimpse of a culture and a gestalt that I'd never known existed before. "Did you like it?" my boyfriend asked anxiously as we walked out, past people in drag and wedding attire who were acting out their own bits of the movie.

And he wasn't talking about just a movie, he was talking about an event, a scene, a shared experience. And I really think that's how you have to deal with "Rocky Horror Picture Show": you can't take it out of cultural context as a movie you sit down to watch cold. If you want to really understand it, you have to try to experience it as an event in a theater (or a party at home) with people who aren't just watching it, but who are BEING it, to paraphrase the chorus from one of the songs.

I'm 35 years on down the road from my initial viewing of this movie at the Nuart, but it's an experience that has stood out more strongly for me as time has gone by. There aren't more than a handful of movies that have done that for me, but it wasn't this movie just by itself. It was the totality of the experience: the movie, the time, the theater, the person I was with, and most of all the crowd. All coming together to make something greater than the sum of the parts.

I was very, very lucky to experience "Rocky Horror" in that way.

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

Irreverent and funny, skewers the "war movie" genre, and has young Clint Eastwood.

[8/10 · 30 May 2011]

It's Memorial Day weekend, and on TV you can find many war movies playing. It seems that someone on the satellite menu always has "Kelly's Heroes" playing during this weekend.

Before I review, some disclosure: my first viewing of this movie was particularly memorable for me. I saw it at the Rudder Theater at Texas A&M University in 1978. Most of the other people viewing the movie were members of the Aggie Corps of Cadets. Now I don't know if things are still the same at A&M, but back in '78, the Corps added their own very memorable soundtrack of cheers, boos and hisses to every war movie that was shown at Rudder. This was no exception. Watching "Kelly's Heroes" at Rudder Theater at Texas A&M in 1978 was the same sort of experience as seeing the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" at the Nuart Theater in Venice, California in the mid-70's: you had to have been there. It was an EXPERIENCE. The audience didn't watch the show, the audience participated in the show.

Now that I've got that off my chest, here's the review: I love this movie, but it is not for people who want to see a movie that treats the war experience with either grimth or reverence. This is not a serious war movie, it is not faithful to history, and it is not going to give you the warm fuzzies about anything.

So why watch it? Because it is straight-up FUNNY and watchable, that's why! And it has a young Clint Eastwood in it. My god, now that he's old and all his recent movies have him as an old guy, it's easy to forget that when he was young, he was one good-looking dude! As the hero of this movie, playing the title role of Kelly, he is sooooo easy to watch.

And the other actors: Telly Savalas. Don Rickles. Donald Sutherland. Carroll O'Connor. These guys are GOOD, and if you're too young to remember them as young and to have seen them acting in their prime, this is a good movie to bring you up to speed on them.

The plot is a straightforward caper movie: it's near the end of WWII, the defeat of the Germans is a foregone conclusion, it's just a matter of how and when their capitulation will take place. For most of the troops involved on both sides, at this point the major concern is not getting killed in some unimportant final action as the war winds down. And, if opportunity presents itself, in picking up the pieces of spoils that are available in the chaos and confusion of the end.

It's in this disorganized situation that Kelly, a former Lieutenant busted to Private to take the rap for incompetence in the command above his level, finds out that in a town some miles away and behind German lines from where he and his men are stationed, there is a bank that is the repository for a truckload of German gold. Long story short: Kelly and his buddies figure that they're going to go for the gold and get something out of the war for themselves.

The movie skewers war movies in a gentle way, and it also takes the opportunity to send up the "spaghetti western" genre that Eastwood did so well. Donald Sutherland's character, Oddball, bears mentioning as a real anachronism. Oddball is a hippie ahead of his time, and if you find this sort of thing jarring, you're not going to like his character. You have to have a sense of humor, and remember that this is NOT a serious war movie, if you're going to go along for the ride.

I love this movie and when it comes on TV on Memorial Day weekend, I usually find a way to watch at least part of it.

And, I have to admit, part of the reason I like it is that it takes me back to that experience of seeing it for the first time at Rudder Theater at Texas A&M, with the Corps of Cadets all around me, barking at Oddball and hissing the Germans.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Pirates of the Caribbean: I'm swimming against the tide.

[4/10 · 30 May 2011]

So it's the first blockbuster movie weekend of the summer. And the reports are already in, it's official, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" has made a gazillion dollars and people are packing the theaters to see it. It's a hit!

I just wish I could share the enthusiasm. But I can't.

It's not that I don't love bravura over-the-top swashbuckling Saturday-matinée popcorn action movies, because I do. I've watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" more times than I can remember, and I still love it. "Ironman" was a great fun movie, I loved the first two Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movies, I even enjoyed "National Treasure." I don't believe that a movie has to be profound, or reveal some inner truth, or break new ground, or even make sense in a logical way in order to be enjoyable.

But I do believe that an action movie has to have more than a bunch of fight sequences strung together at random, that it has to have characters you care about at least on a superficial level, and if the plot doesn't make sense, it at least has to be good enough to make you suspend disbelief for the duration of the movie.

"On Stranger Tides" failed on all these levels. Oh, Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow has his moments; he's cute, and clever, and silly in a lovable way/lovable in a silly way. But when all is said and done, at least for me he wasn't, in this movie, a character I was more than mildly amused by. And that wasn't enough to keep me invested in the movie.

Penelope Cruz makes a fetching Pirate (Piratette? Piratess?), but I just never bought into the back-story, which is that she's Blackbeard the arch-Pirate's daughter. She's pretty and she's fun to watch on screen, but there isn't enough plot/character to make me care about her.

There's a cute sub-plot involving a mermaid and a young male missionary, and as far as I was concerned, that was potentially the most interesting part of the movie. But it was a minor item, and the way it turned out was pre-ordained and obvious from the get-go.

Kevin McNally as Gibbs was actually the character that I felt was the most authentic, but he was just dragged along for the ride, as it were, and really didn't have a part in the action.

For the rest, there are Spaniards and British who swashbuckle and flash swords at appropriate moments in the movie, but that's all they're really there for.

I know I'm swimming against the tide in saying this, but for me the movie just didn't work. In the climactic action sequence at the end, I found myself more concerned with how cramped and uncomfortable I was starting to feel in my theater seat than in how the movie was going to end.

So, in the end, I really can't recommend "On Stranger Tides." My suggestion: if you're hankering for a good action popcorn flick, skip this movie and watch "Raiders of the Lost Ark," either of the first two Brendan Fraser "Mummy" movies, or check your cable channels for any other big-budget action movie of summers past.

...Or do something really original, and give the action flicks a miss; go spend some time with your family doing something more fun and more memorable on a beautiful summer weekend than watching a movie that is, in the end, predictable and forgettable.

Avatar (2009)

Visually a treat, great escapist fantasy, message pounded in with a sledgehammer

[7/10 · 20 May 2011]

First, a couple caveats: I did not see this in the theater, and I did not see this in 3-D.

That said, even in small screen format and even without 3-D, this is a visually impressive movie. It creates a world that looks believable and there is nothing that jars you when the movie transitions from obvious real photography with real sets and real people, to obvious animation with everything on the screen computer-generated. Considering the scope of this movie, that's very impressive.

Before going any further, I want to comment on some of the influences I saw in this movie. I haven't read anything about James Cameron's creative process in writing the movie, and I don't know what books he's read or movies he saw that influenced "Avatar." But this movie had elements that I saw that reminded me very strongly of Anne McCaffrey's "Dragonriders of Pern" saga, as well as some of Robert Heinlein's works-- most notably "Starship Troopers." And visually, it really reminded me very strongly of Joss Whedon's "Titan A.E." animated movie in some of its appearance.

I don't know if these things went into the mix when Cameron made the movie. But the movie reminded me of them, and I think other people will see some of the resemblances. Whatever.

Once you get past the visual candy, the movie is fairly straightforward in its plot. We have a technologically superior culture moving in on a naturalistic aboriginal culture. The techies have found deposits of a super-valuable mineral on the planet, and they want to mine the minerals. The techie faction is represented by the corporate evil-doers, the profit motive, assisted by the military faction, which does the security and pushes the techie agenda without questioning the morality or ethics. Attached to the techies as a sort of concession to the sentient-being rights people is a unit headed by an anthropologist (Sigourney Weaver) who utilizes a consciousness-transfer technology to drop humans into the bodies (Avatars) of indigenous people (the Na'vi), ostensibly to study the natives and try to negotiate with them.

One of the humans used in the Avatar program is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a Marine who is a recent paraplegic and is a last-minute addition to the Avatar program after his twin brother is inconveniently killed. Through a series of fortuitous events, Sully is taken in by a Na'vi Clan, which undertakes to train him and initiate him into their culture.

From this point, the movie is predictable: the Na'vi have a culture with reverence for the environment and seeks a balance with nature, rather than a submission of nature. Sully slowly falls in love with both the culture and with a woman of the Na'vi people, Neytiri, who is his guide through initiation into their culture. Initially committed to the assistance of the goals and means of the Marines who forward the human techie agenda, he changes his viewpoint. He "goes native." This brings us to the inevitable climax, the battle of good vs. evil and technology vs. nature. The good guys win, at least this round of the battle, although it's a given that the human interests aren't going to let well enough alone. There HAS to be a sequel, don't you think? And that's my primary gripe with this movie. Leaving aside the way it breaks new ground on 3-D technology and the quality of the animation, it's a formulaic story: Ewoks vs. Storm Troopers, Indians vs. Evil Land-Stealing Settlers, Aztecs vs. Conquistadores. The techies and their military enforcers are bad, they refer to the locals as "monkeys" and other derogatory terms, and just want to rape the land and make money money money. And the indigenous peoples are gentle, have a strong religious culture that venerates nature and the land, and they do fun things like ride dragons and weird horse-like creatures. They eat meat, but when they kill anything, they say a benediction over the kill to release the soul. And they wear loincloths and the females cover their breasts so we don't get into any issues of nudity. What fun.

In the end, I think your feelings about this movie are going to depend on how much you like being pounded over the head with a sledgehammer to get the message that technology/capitalism are bad, respect for nature/living close to the land are good. While the movie does a fabulous job of giving you a whole new world to escape into, and that's wonderful, it doesn't capitalize on this by giving you a story that's original and a viewpoint that's nuanced or complex. And that is, in my opinion, a serious flaw.

Maybe Cameron is really representing how he feels, but it would be nice if he would trust his audience to be able to deal with complexities and contradictions and subtleties, rather than reducing everything to a nature-good, technology-bad morality play. Maybe in the sequel? Somehow, I doubt it.

All That Jazz (1979)

Brilliant dancing and choreography, but flawed.

[7/10 · 11 May 2011]

When this movie came out in 1979, it made a SENSATION. It generated a lot of debate: was it a self-indulgent pity-party that Bob Fosse threw for himself? Was it a scathing commentary on the business of entertainment? Was it a brilliant metaphor for for....something? Was it Fosse's payback for perceived injustices? Was it brilliant? Was it overdone? How much of Joe Gideon, the central character, represented Fosse's view of himself? It seemed to me that a lot of the reviews that were done at the time were more about the reviewer's erudition and knowledge of the minutiae of Fosse's career, and personal life, and the insider references in the film than about whether the movie was worth the cost of admission and the time out of your life to go see it.

So that's how I want to address this movie: from the point of view of someone who is wondering if it's a good movie for entertainment.

The answer is yes, but a very reluctant, qualified yes, with a warning that towards the end, the pace of the movie bogs down and it loses its narrative quality. If you're looking for a movie that maintains narrative momentum from beginning to end, that tells a story straightforwardly and without getting artsy, this is NOT a movie you're going to enjoy.

Don't get me wrong: there are things about this movie that I loved as much as anything I've ever seen in a movie. If you love to watch dancing, if you're a fan of Fosse the choreographer, even if you just find it interesting to see the human body used as an interpretive vehicle through dance, this is a MUST-SEE movie. Leland Palmer as Joe Gideon's ex-wife, Anne Reinking as Joe Gideon's main girlfriend, are AWESOME dancers. Oh my god, what would it be like to be able to dance like that? The "Take off With Us" dance (sometimes referred to as the "airotica" dance) was groundbreaking and amazing. A "must-see" if you love musical dance numbers. The dancing and choreography are superlative. No doubt about it, if you love dance, this movie has something for you.

The movie moves along smartly early on: the characters are engaging, you get hooked into wondering if the play and movie that Joe Gideon is working on are going to be successful, and you wonder about his relationships with his ex-wife, with Anne Reinking as his girlfriend Kate Jagger, even his relationship with dancer Victoria (Deborah Geffner). The movie is hard to fault in establishing the relationships and the tension about the projects Gideon is working on.

Where it bogs down: when Gideon starts to have his heart trouble, and the movie disintegrates into metaphorical dance numbers and a really totally jarring open-heart surgery segment. Warning: if you are squeamish, this part of the movie will disturb you. If you're watching this on DVD or TiVo, this is where you will be grateful for the fast-forward button.

At this point, the dance and musical numbers don't move the movie forward, in my opinion. They bog it down. It's all very metaphorical, and very artistic, and the dancing is good, but it is SLOOOOOWWWWWWWWW. It really screws up the pace of the movie. For me, that's the biggest flaw this movie has. Up until the heart attack hospital sequences, the movie flows smoothly. When it gets to this point, I find myself getting bored and wondering why it's dragging on so long.

I also have a certain amount of ambivalence about the device of using Jessica Lange as a personification of Death. The device works early in the film, not so well towards the end, at least in my opinion. There's a point where it becomes melodramatic.

So do I recommend this movie? I do, with reservations. If you're a Bob Fosse fan, it's a must-see. If you enjoy dancing, it's a must-see. If you're looking for a movie with a straightforward plot that moves smoothly along from beginning to end, you're probably going to be disappointed, because the movie is going to bog down and go on too long at the end. That's a serious flaw, all the more glaring because the first part of the movie is so good.

Wish I could give it a stronger recommendation, but there it is: from a purely entertainment standpoint, it bogs down and loses steam at the end.

Jaws (1975)

An Appreciation of Robert Shaw

[6/10 · 7 May 2011]

Okay, it's been 36 years now since that summer when we were all afraid to go into the water, and what was new and suspenseful and amazing then is either a milestone or a cliché, depending on who you listen to.

I don't want to review the whole movie, because I don't think anyone needs a review of the whole movie. I just want to talk about one particular scene in the movie that, for me, lifted it above ordinary thriller material and put me in awe of what an actor can do.

That's the scene when Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw are on the boat "Orca," and they're all sitting around a table in the galley and they're slightly drunk. They start comparing scars, and Dreyfuss or Scheider, can't remember which, notices the tattoo that Shaw has. The one with the name "USS Indianapolis".

When Shaw describes what happened to the men on the Indianapolis, what it was like, in that one scene, he makes the character of Sam Quint real, and completely understandable. Shaw makes the whole movie live and breath and crystalize in that one scene.

I didn't get to see many movies when I was growing up, and when I went away to college I didn't have time or money to go to the movies. I didn't actually get to see Jaws when it first came out. But when I had time to see movies and could actually watch them on the VCR, this scene in "Jaws" was the first that actually left me in awe of what an actor could do, if he was good enough. If the material was good enough.

After the movie was over, I couldn't wait to hunt up information on the USS Indianapolis and the events Shaw described. This wasn't as easy back then, around 1980, as it is now: there was no internet, so if you wanted to research something, you had to go to the library and try to find a book or magazine or archival newspaper stories. Well, I found a book about the Indianapolis and I was fascinated.

I was awe-struck at the power Robert Shaw had to evoke the tragedy of the Indianapolis in that one scene. For me, that one scene made the whole movie. Shaw made me understand the character he played, and got through to make me feel the primal fear a shark can evoke.

That's a powerful talent. And Shaw certainly was a powerful talent; I loved him in "The Sting" and in "A Man for All Seasons." But I think I saw him truly at his best in those magical moments of that one scene in "Jaws," when through his talent he broke through the gloss of fanciful entertainment and got right to the heart of terror, and in so doing lifted a summer suspense thriller above the ordinary into the extraordinary. I am thankful for Shaw and his art.

The Dish (2000)

Geek movie that's funny and sweet and good entertainment

[7/10 · 7 May 2011]

Sometimes I feel sorry for the people who didn't get to experience the excitement of the early days of the manned space program. The miracle of space exploration is all so routine to them, it's hard to explain what the "big deal" was all about.

This movie perfectly captures the excitement of the first manned moon landing, and does it from a point-of-view that most people never think about. It's funny: we see the images on our TV, and most of the time we never even think about how they got there. It's just TV, right? It comes out of a box (or, nowadays, a flat screen), right? It just comes through wires or through the air.

This movie is about one of the massive antenna assemblies that received the images from the Apollo XI mooncast, and about the people who made it work. And while that sounds more like something that you'd expect to see on a "how it's made" show on the Science Channel than in a movie, it's actually a wonderfully entertaining and funny movie about people who are engaging and funny, and who are doing a critical and fascinating job that made it possible for millions of people worldwide to watch, live, one of humanity's great milestone events.

And another nice thing about it: this is a FAMILY movie. There is no nudity, no violence, and although the movie has a PG-13 rating, I can't remember any language in it that was overtly offensive.

Sam Neill stars in this movie as Cliff Buxton, the guy who is in charge of the huge antenna dish that gives the movie its title. Neill is excellent in this. He does a superb job in bringing out the nuances of the character and in working with the other people in this movie. My only problem with him is that in the sequence that frames the movie, when he has to appear aged, a truly AWFUL job of makeup was done. It looked like something that might be done in an elementary school play by kids who borrowed their mom's makeup kit. Please, please try to ignore this cringe-inducing look, because it's very brief and Neill looks fine the rest of the movie.

The rest of the cast is also very good, although I don't think any of them are well-known or very familiar. They do well with the material, and there's a real sense of a group of people who like each other and care about each other, while at the same time occasionally getting on each other's nerves. They're mostly engineering/scientist types, which basically means they're aware that they're better with machines and numbers than they are with people. There's a little sub-plot involving romance that's very funny and sweet.

The tension in the movie comes from the fact that the giant antenna assembly that receives the lunar transmissions had to be pointed very precisely in order to get the reception, and that certain kinds of weather conditions made moving the giant antenna very dangerous. While most of the world was sitting in front of their TV sets, expectantly waiting for the "mooncast" to begin, there were a whole bunch of people in Australia, where the antenna was located, frantically working and making some very tough decisions to make it possible.

I have to say that the sequence when everyone is finally watching Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the moon really swept me back to when I was 12 years old and sitting spellbound on the couch in our living room, watching that shadowy shape on the TV screen make that "giant leap for mankind." I'd like to hope that maybe, through watching this movie, younger people who missed out on that magical moment will at least understand how transforming it was for the entire world. We don't have many moments like that in history. I'm glad I was there for this one. And this movie captures that moment, when just for a few heartbeats while we watched the blurry black-and-white image of a man in a spacesuit slowly coming down a ladder, literally everyone in the world was riveted and united by a sense of perfect awe.

And I'm glad this movie captures some of the magic of that particular event, and gives us some insight into what it took to bring it to the world on TV. That it almost didn't make it live onto TV was something I didn't fully appreciate until I saw "The Dish."

This is a great movie to enjoy with your family. I don't like to say "family movie," because that conjures up something silly and trivial and kid-centric, which this movie is not. I really enjoyed it and I think anyone who is into the space program or who can identify with engineers and scientists will like it too.

Oliver! (1968)

Can I have more, sir?

[8/10 · 5 May 2011]

I love this movie. Love it love it love it.

But I know that not everyone loves musicals. So: if you find the musical genre contrived or unnatural or kitschy, if it's just not your thing, then don't bother with this movie because it is unabashedly and outstandingly a MUSICAL.

The songs: "Food, Glorious Food," "Consider Yourself," "You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two," just for starters. These are wonderfully singable, indelibly memorable, and they move the plot and action along the way musical numbers in a film should. This is a lost art now, I'm convinced, although maybe with the TV series "Glee!" now riding a wave of popularity, there will be some talented musicians and lyricists who will revive this art-form. Anyway, suffice it to say: "Oliver!" is the musical at its best.

The actors: Oh my lord. Here we have Ron Moody in the role of Fagin, and he is INDELIBLE. He doesn't just act the role, he doesn't just sing it and dance it, he slips into the character's skin and he IS Fagin, in a way that makes it impossible to imagine anyone else in this role.

Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger. He's just superb, audacious and sassy and swaggering, and you can't help but like him even as you see him cheerfully taking up a life of crime. He makes us accept the character as someone basically good-hearted who is just adapting to the life he has to live. Matter-of-factly and without malice, and leaping to grab joy when the opportunity presents itself.

Shani Wallis as Nancy: tender and tough, tough and tender, she has the virtues of loyalty and honesty even as those values become hindrances to survival. She is who she is and she doesn't apologize for it, she's key to saving young Oliver.

Oliver Reed as Bill Sikes. I love Oliver Reed, always have, and he dominates every scene he has in this movie. You look at him and you see what the Artful Dodger would turn into if he had malice in his soul. Sikes is dangerous; he has no code but survival for himself, and he'll throw anyone else to the wolves without pausing to think about it if it serves him to do so. Oliver Reed really makes the movie work, because he brings genuine menance and sexuality to his role, which serves as a counterpoint for the sweetness of the musical as a whole.

And finally, Mark Lester. He is beyond winsome as the title character, a completely believable innocent who is without guile and imbued with a natural sense of goodness. I just love looking at Mark Lester, he's such a beautiful and dreamy-looking child.

This movie is about as good as a musical gets: it's visually stunning, in the sets and the cinematography and the costumes, and in the staging of the musical numbers. The characters are wonderful, they're classics. The plot is pared down to the basics and conveys the material as Dickens wrote it without being slavish or getting bogged down in detail.

When I saw this movie for the first time, I laughed and I cried and I sat at the edge of my seat, and when it was over I wanted more. Since the first time I saw it, I've seen it more than a dozen times more, and it's a movie I can watch again and again and again.

As a musical, it's tops. But not everyone likes musicals. Maybe because not every musical is as good as "Oliver!" on every level.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll see a renaissance of the genre soon, and more people who "don't like musicals" because they've only seen bad ones will understand that when a musical is good, it's really, really good.

Signs (2002)

You have to drop the Gibson/Phoenix/Shyamalan baggage

[7/10 · 3 May 2011]

It's hard to write a review of this movie now (2011), after all the attention that Mel Gibson's ugly tirades got, after Joaquin Phoenix's crazy "mockumentary", after M. Night Shyamalan's missing the mark with "Lady in the Water," "The Happening," and "The Last Airbender." But if you can let go of the baggage that subsequent events have loaded onto this movie, it's a decent, watchable movie. It does have some flaws, but it's well above average as entertainment and gets points for originality from all parties.

So: what's it about? It takes a little while to declare itself. Initially it seems to want to be a suspense drama. And then it morphs into a sci-fi invasion drama. And then, at the end, it finally declares itself: it's about unlikely events providing a redemption for a man of faith who, for a while, lost his faith.

First things first: Gibson. Up until we were inundated with recordings of his ugly tirades of venom spewed at his ex-girlfriend, and his anti-semitic tirade during his DUI arrest, Gibson was a genuinely likable actor who could project a streak of craziness that made him suspenseful to watch. There was also a sense of humor about him; at any moment in a serious drama, he might break out with a comedic moment that lightened things up. And he conveys these things in the character he plays here, but he also gets across to us that this character is a man who has lost his calling and doesn't know how to fill the empty place it left.

Working with him to move the plot forward is Joaquin Phoenix as his younger brother, a man who hasn't lost anything of a calling because he hasn't found anything to hold him yet. He exists in this movie mostly as a foil for Gibson's character, and he plays that part well. He's an actor who is sexy and charismatic and has a feel of dangerousness even when you know he's solidly on the side of good things.

Through a series of events surrounding an alien invasion, Gibson takes actions to protect his two kids, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (an adorable, and tiny, Abigail Breslin). As events proceed, we get flashbacks that lead us to the source of Gibson's disillusionment and loss of faith, the death of his wife in a freak car accident.

This leads me somewhat obliquely to what I have to regard as this movie's biggest flaw: Shyamalan doesn't seem to have much faith in the ability of his audience to see what he's getting at. He is not subtle in getting his major premise across; he wants to spell it out, then repeat it for emphasis, and then finally beat us over the head with it to make sure that we "get it." This is jarring, to say the least, and it works against the movie: it's hard not to feel that maybe if he feels the need to be obvious, BLATANTLY obvious, perhaps he's unsure of himself and his craft as a writer and a director. He doesn't want the material to fail: but I think that if he wants to craft movies that are more than workmanlike entertainment, he has to take chances in trusting the audience and trusting himself and his ability to get things across to the audience without spelling them out so obviously.

He doesn't want to take that chance, and that shows. And it hurts the movie.

I kind of think that it affected Gibson and Phoenix, too. There are some moments in the film when it seems like they're just going through the motions, just "reading" their lines, not living them and making them live. Gibson does this more than Phoenix does, and it makes me wonder: was Shyamalan afraid to call him on this and demand better from him? It's obvious to the whole world now that Gibson has quite an ego, and with his experience both in front of and behind the camera, he must be an intimidating presence to direct. Was he holding back and just going through the motions because he didn't like some of the material? Was Shyamalan unaware of how Gibson came across, or was he afraid to demand better? I don't know and it doesn't matter. Those moments when Gibson is obviously not engaged in the material are jarring.

In the end, I want to recommend this film with some reservations. It's decent entertainment and has originality. It also has flaws that hold it back.

But I think the bottom line in deciding whether you want to watch this film or not is whether you can disengage what you know about Gibson, Phoenix and Shymalan off the set from what's happening on the screen. If you bring their baggage to this movie, I don't think you will enjoy it at all.