30 Second Reviews by Carter Lyman Hall
In Theaters:
More reviews coming but for now here are at least the grades:
The Men Who Stare at Goats - Grade: B+
The Informant! - Grade: B
Crazy Heart - Grade: B
Reviews:
Up in the Air Grade: C
"Up in the Air", the new George Cooney film by Jason Reitman, son of "Ghostbusters" Director Ivan Reitman, never gets off the ground. F. Scott Fitzgerald once ssaid taht "character is action". The filmakers would ahve done well to adhere to this advice as there is an amzing lack of any in this podding film. You wait and wait and wait for soemthing to happen, and nothing ever really does. I understand, its supposed to be subtle and sensitive, but its just boring. Critics were not kind to Mr. Clooney's other vehicle this year - The men Who Stare at goats" - but it is an infinitely better film. it's just that it got the bums rush because there was no inherent built-in audience for that picture (I still struggle to define just what subsect of humanity would flock to this film, and I am at a loss). On the other hand this is Clooney's first true chick flick - if memory serves. At any rate it's his first in a long time.
As for the pacing, 2008's Michael Clayton wasn't that fast paced, but turned on excellent performances and a sense of danger lurcking around every corner. In the case of this film, that's not a problem. Let's face oit, its about a guy who lives in arports and on the road nearly 300 days a year -and he likes it. he actually does not look forward to that return to his sparse one-bedroom he hesitates to call home (at point when asked by a pilot hwere he's from, he says "Here." They, are of course, airborne at the time).
The femme du jour Vera Farmiga plays the love interest, a kindred spirit of Clooney's character, basically his female counterpart also on the road constatly. She's getting a lot of attention for her performacne, but I can't see why. She's a fine actress but she really isn't given much to do here. At no point is she allwoed to exercise any real acting chops. it's a workman like performance but don't balme her - someone really should ahve written her a better part.
Not so in the case of the other lead female, Anna kendrick. As the fresh-from-college know-it-all newbie (and don't we all know one of those!) who throws Geroge Clooney's perfect little world into utter chaos via a cost saving proposal to management, she is a really high point in the film. As is the seriously underappreciated Jason Bateman who nails the CEO of the firm with a perfect sense of pitch. i don't kno if he actually hung around with these other CEO's or not, but he nailed it. This Bateman is starting to carve out a nice niche for himself playing these tricky supporting roles. he plays this guy before us with a devil-may-care attitude about whether anyone will walking away liking his cahracter or not (jury's out by the way - sometimes charm trumps all).
Clooney has to play his part with much reserve to get the point across about his soulessness, but you can't help but feel for him in the final reel as his feelings are finally awakened. He does an excellent job in some tricky scenes.
Finally, a nod to director Reitman for the un-tidy, non-storybook ending. They say that times like these dictate the endings of films in a sort of art copying life sort-of way. If so, boy did he get this one right.
Avatar Grade: B
Jim Cameron's follow-up t Titanic, only a deade later! Well, more actually. Imaginative, visionary, transportive. More an experience than a film. In 3-D, new technolgy, and, of course, you must see this on the big screen.
Me and Orson Welles Grade: B-
So, what I'm thinking is that Richard Linklater could not get the financing for this picture unless he cast teen heart throb and Disney High School Musical star Zach Efron in the picture. And, seduced by the box-office receipts Effron's fan base could deliver, we're off t the races. Efron gives it a good shot but in the end this was a part written fro Matthew Broderick circa 1985 - or something like that (whenever he was Ferris Bueller). In fact, it scrreams for a director like John Hughes (rest in peace). I can just imagine if this picture - it would have been such fun to have seen what John Hughes would have done with Orson Welles.
Christian McKay has the nearly impossible job of re-creating the larger-than-life (in all ways in which that can be imagined) and, at first also seems hopeless. But this is just because the first scene where he is introduced is rotten, and schmaltzy and probably should have been cut if not entirely re-imagined. However, once things get rollng, and despite Welles' lack of girth (yes, I know, its set in 1937 and he wasn't the size of a blue whale, yet, but he was still pretty large) and height, McKay is very good. He clearly gets into the part and steals the picture from Efron.
I know it's a vehicle for him and his fans won't be disappointed. He has scenes where he's innocent, lovable, gullable, with requisite puppy-dog eyes, and, less we forget, of course, he gets to sing girls! Yes, let the shreiks begin! But, for all of it, this film suffers from what Julia and Julie and The Devil Wears Prada suffers from - a supporting performance that dominates the film - and that no one else in the cast is capable oif compteting with. By Act II all you'll care about, are the scenes with Orson.
Efron's hopelessly (there's that word again) lost, but its not his fault. You see, this film needed a screen presence and a charisma that Effron lacks spectacularly. He's a pretty face who can carry a tune, but that's it. Will his fans be pleased? Yes, in the way that 13 and 14 year-old girls are pleased - for the moment. What this film needed, aside from Matthew Broderick two-deades agao, is the closest thing to him today - namely, Michael Cena. He would have been perfect. Clare Danes looks lovely and does a nice job in her role as the career-obsessed woman involved with both Efron and Welles (he's going to get her intorduced to David O. Selznick on the eve of the start of his production of Gone with the Wind - again, for some reason not entirely clear), who has all the charm that Effron lacks. The rest of the large supporting cast (mostly the Mercury Theater players, the actors in Welles' company) are well-cast.
In the end, I give cudo's to Christian McKay for doing a very good job at re-creating one of the largest legends in the entire history of Hollywood.
Damned United Grade: A-
Honestly? My favorite picture of the year.
Michael Sheen, in one of his few roles where he is not playing Tony Blair (wasn't it just his luck when the Brits elected him!), is nearly unrecognizable as a soccer (football in the UK) team manager (like a baseball manager) from the north of England (like Yorkshire, if you are familiar with the UK; London's in the south) who is pretty much desised by al. The title refers to 'United' as in Manchester United or Leeds United - a common way of refering to football clubs in europe and the UK.
It's a top cast of some of England's finest movie actors like Sheen and Jim Broadbent (who was so good as either Gilbert or Sullivan in Topsy Turvy - sadly I have forgotten which one). But, this movie belongs to Sheen, an ambitious - and I mean ambitious - soccer manager who will do anything to get to the top - or at least to Leeds. His road has many curves in it, and as he scales the heights, you just get the idea pretty quickly that his fall back to earth is going to be even farther, and tougher, and hardfer and very, very humbling.
Fans of England are not going to be happy with the cinematography which seems to place a thick layer of filth over every shot - interiors or exteriors. They sacrifice none of the working-class, atmosphere of tough English industrial cities. This is not the England of Shakespeare's "This blessed plot", trust me. But what an engaging film from start to finish. So well done across the board. It's a film of anti-heroes to be sure, but its honest, and what more can you ask these days? Or, would you rather just go with CGI? You know what I mean.
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On DVD:
Hurt Locker Grade: A
Seriously intense film about a military bomb squad in their final weeks in Iraq before coming to the end of their tour. They may or may not be lead by an individual with not-so-borderline suicidal tendencies. Earnest performances by all and you do get a rare movie from the war film genre - namely, a film that doesn't look or feel like any other and one that presents war to us in new terms. No smal task.
Closest thing to it was probably Ridley Scott's "Blackhawk Down" some years back, minus the cool swagger and rock-star, over-the-top, macho feel to the performances. This just seems purposely scaled-back and the volume intentionally dialed down despite no lack of action and without sacrificing one bit of intensity. It feels, dare say, quite 'rea.'
This film is very linear in its delivery - no sub-plot to speak of. It's one thing, is to follow the bomb squad as they attempt to difuse road side bombs until their rotation ends, with an emphasis on a key relationship between the white leader of the outfit and the black voice-of-the-men, so to speak.
I think there is no doubt that a picture this serious is bound for some heavy duty nominations this award season and it may even win some, but I think, with her deft touch and no frills approach we spoke about earlier, that director Kathryn Bigelow may be the film's best shot for a major award. She'd be the first woman to win Best Director from the Academy and, maybe, its about time. If nothing else, she's made a truly great 'man's film', if you follow me.
Invictus Grade: B
Clint Eastwood' film about newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela and how he inspires a rugby to victory at the 995 World Cup. OK, so here's the deal. This film's a "B". It's brilliantly mediocre. Clint's big art project was "Unforgiven", one of the greatest Westerns ever made and one of the best films of the past 50 years. But, with "Invictus", Eastwood takes his foot off the gas. He makes a very traditonal Hollywood film. Many master shots, nothing fancy and no social statements that I can think of in a film that was probably screaming for some.
Basically, Mandella (played with inspired brilliance by Eastwood chum and frequent collaborator, Morgan Freeman - and wouldn't Mandella have gotten a kick out of a guy named Free-man playing him) shows up, decides the South African "Springboks" rugby team should win the World Cup, says a few words to the team captain played with admirable restraint and pitch-perfect South African dialect by Matt Damon, while at tea, and the rest, as they say, is history. As straight-forward as it gets. No surprises, and surprisingly little suspense. In fact, that's the problem.
The good part - awesome footage (nearly all of which shot at ground level) of the tough rugby action. Bad part - a subplot of no relevance about Mandella's mixed-race security team and no explanation whatsoever about the rules of rugby or why in the hell they are called the "Springboks". He also misses a great chance to invest more energy to the plight of the poor blacks in South Africa, or at least, life in post Aparthied Suth Africa. Eastwood instead choses to make a very clean film (in all ways), instead. Much too clean. In so doing he misses a golden opportunity.
Unfortuantely Eastwood just doesn't have any imagination, this time, in terms of how to present the material. Now, if this had been a film about an Australian or Scottsih rugby team, then this film would have been right-on. No need for excesive political topicality there. But...this is SOuth Africa, newly freed of the Aparthied yoke and that puts it on a different plane entirely.
Eastwood wastes time on that silly subplot involving the security detail, when he could ahve been saying more about what was happening and the fafct is, in ignoring that., he ignores an important responsibility to the material./ I mean, a lot is going on here. You need to show it.
Still, Freeman and Damon give terriffic performances, although Damon fans will want their money back due to a serious lack of screeen time and dialogue. What can I say? It's a "B" - a good movie tghat could ahve said morea bout why it was a good topic to begin with. Technicaly, there's nothing really wrong with it. It's a, how they say, a workman-like performance from Eastwood. And this year's most average nominee for Best Picture (which is surely coming soon).
Star Trek Grade: B
Interesting prequel to the venerable Star Trek brand/franchise. There’s something here for those who remember and watched the original series circa 1966 (re-runs were prevalent in the 1970’s primarily), and nothing for fans of ‘Next Generation’, etc., etc. and all the rest, which is fine since it all started with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty and the rest, anyway. Great jobs done by the young actors playing Spock and McCoy who do fine work paying homage to their predecessors and chewing some good scenery all the while (but Spock as a lover?).
As is all too common today, the computer generated special effects and heroics exhibited by Kirk (mainly), go way over the top. There is a completely unnecessary battle on top of a tower and some half-ass sky-diving maneuvers put in to show off some new FX technology, most likely (all effects were created by George Lucas’ miracle workshop, Industrial Light and Magic). McCoy, Scotty and Chekov show off the bon vivant flare and comic touches which were the original series’ secret weapon (it didn’t survive all this time because it was great space opera, and certainly not on its original special effects, which were, by today’s standards, laughable, it survived because the guys on the crew were people you wanted to hang out with in real life. That’s why they survive to this day. They had a good time out there and that is what our new Captain Kirk is missing. He’s too much action hero – although Kirk was certainly that - and not enough wise-guy, just too much wise-ass, and there is a fine line there that this Kirk is going to have to find. Remember, Kirk had fun out there, so let’s see some of that, right?
So, Ok, here we go again, work on the sequel can’t be far from starting, and just once I wish they’d make films like they used, and go for it, holding nothing back, as though this was it. Let the original film actually earn and be deserving of a sequel instead of trying to build a franchise for one thing, and one thing alone – to boldly take profits where no studio has gone before.
But, why quival? A game and largely engaging cast does well in their roles, the Romulan’s, lead by an un-recognizable Eric Bana, do their thing with gusto, so, for the most part, well done. But there is one more thing I’d like to see in Star Trek 2.1, let’s get the Klingon’s back to the galactic menace they used to be. When did we get soft about making them the villains they ought to be, anyway?
Angels & Demons Grade: C+
God Bless Ro Howard and Tom Hanks, they mean well, and for two acts we get a pretty good movie, and then they screw it all up in Act III. I didn’t read the book as I did “ The DaVinci Code”, but I knew that Dan Brown (a good and competent writer, in his own right – given) had been pretty heavily criticized by the intelligentsia and other academicians the world over for what they thought were his false conclusions and half-truths espoused as though they were fact, in The DaVinci Code.
As someone lucky enough to have studied religion and history in my collegiate days, I could see the errors right away, myself, but thought he was clever in using just enough of the truth so as to advance the narrative as though it were fact and not fiction, but I still couldn’t help but feel bad for all the folks reading the book and seeing the film that didn’t have the advantage of a background in history and religion so as to make sense of this. So, on some level I found him irresponsible.
So, this time I dispensed with reading the book, thereby simplifying the process for myself – I could just go into the movie and let it flow, instead of being unnecessarily burdened by pesky facts – omitted or otherwise. So, I went in, liked much of what I saw – great shots of Vatican City and Rome, which is really a central character in the film, a great cast, Hanks, Stellan Skarsgaard and Ewan MacGregor (especially) are all fine in their roles, and for nearly two-hours things proceeded nicely – until the final act and they way the movie wrapped-up. Completely and utterly preposterous, and that is what keeps this film from being, potentially, one of the year’s best.
So, from here, I don’t know what to say, you’ll just have to see it for yourselves and cringe on your own at some of the stuff Ron Howard, et al pull at the end. This film (and probably the book, as well) suffers from the same fate that befell John Grisham’s “The Firm” – a lousy ending, even by Hollywood ‘you have to suspend disbelief’ standards, to a pretty good and compelling piece.
The Wrestler Grade: A
Let’s just say this – its like watching real life. Yes, Mickey Rourke ain’t the Mickey Rourke we remember. Years of boxing and some wacky plastic surgery have altered his face into, well, a guy who looked like he got hit by a truck – or a wrestler. Which leads me to the fact that as I watched this, it really, really, seemed like it was a film following a real-life wrestler, at the end of his rope, trying to get by. This is enhanced by Darren Aronofsky’s chosen documentary style, which works perfectly with this project.
Some of the scenes display an unexpected amount of absurdist humor that, if one was a wrestler, would probably find itself actualized in real life such as the scene where he is giving the hairdresser points on how to use the foils why dying his long, bleach-blond locks.
Still, this is not a feel good film for the most part, and things don’t end all tied-up neatly, but there are a lot of things to take-away from the picture, not the least of which is this: Mickey Rourke was robbed at the Academy Awards this year. This forms the tri-fecta of screw-jobs he shares with Burt Reynolds (screwed from winning on “Boogie Nights”) and Eddie Murphy (screwed from winning on “Dreamgirls). It is little consolation that he won just about every single other award out there, but this was his year and this was his chance to not just play, but t become Randy “The Ram”, which he does t the point that yu forget that you are watching an actor in the role. In fact, congrats to the whole cast, who are utterly 100% believable I their roles – so well done to the director.
The Wrestler is going to be remembered the way “Slingblade” and “Leaving Las Vegas” and maybe “American Beauty are remembered, as examples of how nearly perfect films are made, not on epic, but on a small scale, with an emphasis on performances that all work, across the board. But this one was a true tour-de-force for Mickey Rourke, and if you haven’t seen this film, you should and just watch a real master at work. He should have won an Oscar, which leads me to….
Milk Grade: B-
Ok, So, I am a huge Sean Penn fan – no doubt. He’s the most talented actor of our generation with the way that he inhabits a character from the inside out and becomes them. That said, and in the words of Randy Jackson, “Listen baby, I’m a huge fan, but this wasn’t your best performance for me, Dog.” Yes, he has a lost of scenery to chew in this movie and he does justice to his Gay character, for sure, but I actually think that when your part I this fat and you’re a good actor, you’ll make something out of it. It was a flamboyant part with lots of flailing about and, as mentioned, scenery to chew. I actually find his cerebral, more quiet and intense roles (like the Secret Service agent he plays in the un-even, but ambitiously conceived and intended film “The Interpreter”) more important as showcases of his powers.
As for the rest of the film – I just don’t think it was a s good as many others seem to think it is. Yes, the subject matter of a Gay elected official in San Francisco, assassinated at the end, is important, I just don’t think it was a particularly good film –aside from a good performance from Sean Penn and period costumes and set design that really take you back to 1970’s San Francisco.
So, I guess I was disappointed after hearing all the buzz. I am reminded that I am disappointed in the way I was disappointed in another San Francisco based film, also set in the 1970’s – Zodiac. I just feel that both of these should have been better. But, hey, nice work Sean, you did really god work, but the Oscar should have gone to…Mickey Rourke.
Get Smart Grade: Forget it
What can I say? Horrible. Unwatchable. Its as though Steve Carrell lwho plays Agent Maxwell Smart recreated from the 1960's hit TV show isn't quite sure how to play Smart. Don Adams did a brilliant job and played it with campy flair throughout its TV run, but Carrell, so terrific on TV's the office and in the 40 Year Old Virgin, of which I am a huge fan, just whiffs completely. Maxwell Smart was always one inch away from real trouble (....and loving it!), but it doesn't seem as though Carrell is loving it at all, he's just inexplicably lost in his portrayal.
And Alan Arkin and Anne Hathaway are hopelessly miscast as The Chief and Agent 99. Sorry, but this film was pretty much unwatchable from the opening scenes and it doesn't get any better as it goes along, with virtually nothing redeeming. I'd have rather gone to a Will Farrell flick and you know what I think of him. This one was just a waste of time and money. I had high hopes for it and for Carrell's ability to interpret Agent 86, but it never even got off the launch pad. Sorry.
Valkyrie Grade: B+
What I can say? Much better than I expected, altough the lengths the film makers go to to make Tom Cruise appear taller than the other actors is practically heroic. His meeting with Hitler is laughable, they either had Cruise on a box or Hitler was played by a dwarf (which might have been a nice touch except for the fact that the film is not a satire). Still that's about all I have to say about it being bad. Cruise doesn't bother to try a German accent, which was a wise move. At first I thought it would be wrong, but as the story went along - first rate storytelling by the way - you don't even notice.
Speaking of heroic, this has got to be one of the A-plus casting efforts in recent memory. We're talking Tom Wilkinson (whom I am now convinced is cast in every single film that matters), Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, and the always wonderful Bill Nighy, among others. Serious heavyweights, all. The Producers and the Director were clearly taking no chances. I thought the actor portraying Hitler was not nearly up to the job, appearing more old and tired than defiant and charismatic if you ask me, but that might have been the Direction - which misses in that case.
Still, considering that the people who went to the flick are; A, Tom Cruise fans and B, war film fans and history buffs, and so you probably already know how this baby is going to end since it is based on a well known incident from WWII, the film remains amazingly tense and suspensful. Very well done. The costumes and set design as well as some of the set pieces themselves were absolutely top-notch. They actually did more with this film than I thought possible going in. My expectations were low going in, but upon going out, they were truly exceeded.
Cruise himself gives a humorless dead-on performance as the man who would blow-up the Fuhrer, and in turn, help end the war by suing for peace. I think its his best performance in ages - since Jerry McGuire, anyway (talk about a departure). I never thought I'd say it, but I guess old Cruise has got some range after all. So, if you have not already done so, check this one out - its better than you think.
- Carter Lyman Hall