Beginners is a charming film, and so quirky, it almost out-quirks itself. Trying to be the ideal “indie” film, it essntially loses it’s sight along the way, but it has some really fantastic attributes to it. One, or shall I say three, are the leading performances. Ewan McGregor and Melanie Laurent as the two love-birds in this low-key RomCom are both great, McGregor playing his usual best and Laurent giving us something new and subtle and fantastic, in a bizarre you-can’t-take-your-eyes-off-of-her way. The real star, of course, is Christopher Plummer, who plays a 80 year old father to McGregor, finally coming out of the closet. Plummer brings such grace and such youth to his role, it is truly astonishing. He captures the essence of the character so much (the wit, the class, the wistful nature) that you honestly forget it’s an actor playing the role. The direction and cinematography are both great, though it tends to lose it’s kitsch towards the end of the film. It’s sweet, lovely, and down-to-Earth in the most hipster way possible. And the hipsters all probably pretend to hate because it’s too “mainstream” but really all love this movie for how hipster it is. But that may get in the way sometimes to tell a truly great love story, with a powerful heart. Just because it’s indie doesn’t mean falling into cliché of indie. However, there’s way much more good than bad, and Plummer alone brings such sensibility and beauty to his role, you simply can’t resist.
Sean Durkin’s first feature is quite the trip. Durkin’s sensibility as a director shines with this film, and shows undeniable promise. The really crazy thing about this film is that it’s quietness is only juxtaposed by the really messed up things that are happening in the plot. An intriguing analytical mess of reality, memory, and fantasy, Martha Marcy May Marlene is about a paranoia, an extreme desire to escape the past, though it always comes back to haunt you. It is the isolation and the trouble that comes with that, that Martha really suffers from— the cult has a certain way of thinking and the film geniously explores the psychological persuasion into a way of thinking…the way that the cult tries to make their ethics and morality universal is a terrifying, and intriguing thing. Elizabeth Olsen does a helluva job as Martha, giving her dewey eyed complexity, both bewilderment, shock, digust, and intrigue. She gives quiet moments great momentum, and is an actress to keep an eye on. Jody Lee Lipes’ cinematography is eerily distant and then uncomfortably close; the mixed bag reflects Martha’s psyche in an interesting way. The scariest thing about Martha Marcy May Marlene is that it actually could happen. It may have even benefited from taking that dive a bit further, let us know just how paranoid and altered Martha is, and especially contrasting that with the old Martha, and the only complaint I might have is that we never get to see what the original Martha was like; it is only infered as to why she would even accept and join this group in the first place, or what exactly she was running away from. But perhaps that makes the film only more intriguing—running away brought her to this society, and of course it looks fine on the outside, with it’s acceptable living conditions and always a “family’ of sorts around you. But, ah, there’s always more than meets the eye.
Martin Scorsese knows a thing or two about magic. Or so it would seem from his stunning film Hugo. Hugo is about a variety of things, one being a boy, who lives in a clock tower, obsessing over finding the key to his last recollection of his father, which happens to be a robot. Other various plots includes the young boy meeting a young girl and them discovering her grandfathers past passion for cinema, and his work as a director. Another involves a train stration security guard of sorts who is out to find Hugo after chasing him around the train station. The plots go on and on and on, a lot of times without any clear throughline or connection. The characters are sometimes random and the events don’t always pay off (or feel like they should or have to pay off). The performances are fine, nothing too outstanding (besides Ben Kingsley’s brilliant turn as the ex-director). Whatever. Those things don’t seem to matter at all. Scorsese truly shows what he can do in this film. His direction is seemingly magical and he brings these strange stories to life in such an inventice and fascinating way (some of his single shots are fantastic) that you are deeply invested into everything that is happening for the 2 and a half hours you are spending in the theatre. Sure, it’s a little long and there are unnecessary parts, but Scorsese’s love song to cinema and to film is a stroke of genius rarely seen in film, let alone commercial film, these days. The art direction and photography for this film are also breathtaking, and this may be the one film worth seeing in 3D this year. Hugo may not be the most fulfilling time this year, but it certainly is one of the most magical. I am not sure if Tabloid is a great film or a great story, so I am going to go with BOTH! Morris captures this cooky (and fascinating) story of Joyce McKinney, and if there was ever any performance award for a documentary, she would be the winner! Such an interesting story, and it’s told with such umph and intrigue, it keeps you there throughout the entire film, which is hard to say for many other documentaries.
The gang is back! And thank God for that!
As I walked into the theatre I got such a sense of enormous joy and excitement to see what the Muppets can bring, after a nearly ten year absence from pop culture altogether. They’ve always been there, distilled in numerous films, television shows, and random videos but never were given the chance for a true comeback. I was extremely happy to find out that they did not disappoint. Walter, a Muppet-obsessed Muppet, is dying to visit the old Muppet studios, and finally gets his chance when his best friend Gary (writer Jason Segel) and his girlfriend Mary (a delightful Amy Adams) vacation to Los Angeles. They finally meet Kermit, to Walter’s shock, who tells them that the entire Muppet studios is being renovated…but what Kermit doesn’t know is that Tex Richman, a meta-name if there ever is one, is planning on tearing down the studios to drill for oil. Unless Kermit and the classic Muppet gang, who have long separated and moved on since their days together, can come up with 1 million dollars, they will lose their beloved studio. So what else to do than put on a show?!
The new venture isn’t perfect. There needs to be more Muppets…many of the sequences and musical numbers are hardly performed by the crew that the film is titled after! Other problems consist of a lack true Muppet heart…the film feels all too much like a fun nostalgia trip, than a new addition to the Muppets canon. Some characters have been reduced: Rowlfe barely has a personality at all, while Rizzo is there in merely passing glances. But it does a whole lot of things right. It has the zany, cooky energy that the Muppets have lost and an endearing quality is back that has been missing since Jim Henson’s death. The simple nature, the meta-awareness, and this film finally brings back the great comedy that the Muppets are capable of. The songs, though short and often forgettable, express a lightheartedness and Amy Adams is just the kind of celebrity who would be a guest host, if the Muppet show were around today. She proves herself Muppet worth in this film for sure, though her character gets shifted at times due to the films lack of focus. To me, this film is great but could have been more, and maybe that’s just what will happen. The nostalgia is only nostalgia for those who knew the Muppets, but kids today have no idea who these felt creatures are! As an introduction, the film is lovely. It’s heartwarming, and may create a few tears for true Muppet fans…when Kermit begins to sing “The Rainbow Connection,” it is a reminder of what the Muppets have always been about: suspending disbelief and keeping the dream alive. They’ve infiltrated the hearts of America almost like no other since their inception, and judging by the box office reports, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. It may not fully capture all the magic of the Muppets in their golden age, but The Muppets is a brilliant, hilarious, and positively gleeful time to be shared, and certainly a promise of the greatness to come. B+
George Clooney’s newest film The Ides of March is anything but safe. This tale of a young Junior Campaign Manager, Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) who is working on winning his candidate, Mike Morris (George Clooney), the Demoicratic primary in Ohio to become the Democratic nominee in a modern-times election. With this battle comes private battles of their own. The angst between Meyers and Morris’ Senior Campaign Manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to get things done. The pace quickly picks up as Meyer’s secretly meets with the opposing candidates manager (Paul Giamatti) and becomes romantically involved with one of the interns working on the campaign (Evan Rachel Wood). There are twists and turns along the way, and the action only rises from there.
Clooney has a great sense of character (not uncommon coming from a director with an acting background). The manipulation of characters plays perfectly into the greedy twisty political interplay that everyone is basically akin to, but Clooney, along with screenwriters Grant Heslov and Beau Willmon do it in a way that maneuvers human emotion of the characters, a true strength of the film, and one that Moneyball REALLY wished it could have had. The performances were solid all around, even despite Gosling being a bit miscast in the role. Evan Rachel Wood is climbing a ladder of greatness, and her next few projects, whatever she decides those are, are going to take her to new levels; talk about a promising actress. It is no surprise that Clooney fits into the mold of his character extremely well, and the supporting cast (including a fabulous Marisa Tomei) are excellent.
The social context of the film is intriguingly displayed, with the plot revolving around an Obama-esque character, so soon to the start of his re-election campaign. It’s a film about winning and what that costs to the person themselves. And it’s handled pretty admirable. B+
What a winning combination can be found in Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in Michael Winterbottom’s comedy The Trip. Utilizing every inch of British humor that they can, Coogan and Brydon take the witty script even further, making real characters out of themselves and playing it straight, whether it’s hilarious or a little heartbreaking.
Set up as a mockumentary, Steve Coogan (playing himself) is asked to make a country-wide tour of England and explore the best restaurants in the country. Unable to take his girlfriend, he ends up taking his actor best friend Rob Brydon (also playing himself), and the two must endure the trip together, which becomes quite a challenge for Steve and Rob. They make quite the pair from there, often feeding into one another’s humor brilliantly and in only a classy way, as they try to pass the time. They deal with their (sometimes dismal) outside life, which helps the film get some weight, but mainly focuses on the silly things they do when they are on the trip, which is usually impersonating people they admire or dreaming about roles and films they wish they would and I suppose could make. Even when their humor starts to repeat itself, it is surprisingly still intriguing. This is probably because it is such a refreshing contrast from the loud and obnoxious comedies we have been accustomed to in the Hollywood market. This film is quieter, but it’s so damn funny. It finds its humor from not playing dumb to the audience, and higher minded viewers will appreciate that while simpler minded viewers might even find the film dull or droning. What I found is a hilarious, classy, British comedy that never tries too hard, and in doing so, it succeeds where other comedies only wish they could. A-
Meek’s Cutoff, the 2011 Western by Kelly Reichardt, is a film all about chances. What will chances bring? What chance are you willing to take to survive, to live, what path is the correct path? Essentially, it could be looked at as a metaphoric film, but, luckily, there is so much more there underneath.
Michelle Williams plays Emily Tetherow, a purebred settler, bonnet and all, heading out on the Oregon High Desert, with a small band of other settlers. They are following Meek (Bruce Greenwood), a so-called leader, who is attempting to get them to fertile land, but their short journey has taken much more time than they expected. Thirsty, hungry, and in desperate need of salvation, they take in a Native American to guide them to resources. But do they trust this captive? Will he lead them to what they need or set them up in a trap?
This film has as much dialogue as the wildlife surrounding the deserted plains the characters walk on. It is just about the quietest Western ever made, with very little action and so focused on the people themselves and, even more prominently, the landscape, which becomes a character of its own. Filmed with skill and beauty by Kelly Reichardt and cinematographer Chris Blauvelt, Meek’s Cutoff is stunning. Though the subdued nature of the film prevents any real powerhouse performances, the actor’s take shape in this film almost as if they were in a painting. It is understated, that’s for sure, but there is still a sense of urgency; a wary tension that builds until the characters must make the decision of where to follow, and essentially where they want their lives to go. Do they take the risk? Or do they comply and hopelessly wander? It is a question that Reichardt poses so subtly, but its done in a way with class, undeniable style, and a calm so intense, it never crosses into dullness. B+
Jonathan Levine’s new dramedy 50/50 hits all the right notes. It takes the most essential of the human heartbreak and turns it into something real, emotional, and, surprisingly, hilarious. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a young man stuck in a flux between his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) and his nagging, desperate mother (Anjelica Huston). Matters only get worse, naturally, when Adam finds out he has an extremely rare form of cancer on his spine. His best friend (Seth Rogen) tries to find the positives in the situation, like getting laid out of sympathy, while Adam tries to figure everything out with his young, inexperienced psychologist (Anna Kendrick). As you can imagine, there is a good amount of heartwrenching scenes, but the thing that makes them great is they’re not overcooked. It plays so much on the realism, that makes it even more powerful. Will Reiser’s script calls for a lot more than tragedy, however. It’s a tricky subject to tackle, but Reiser does it almost perfectly. As much sadness that could be in a film about cancer, there is just as much, if not more, time for laughs. Seth Rogen gives his usual performance, but the personal aspect of this film (he essentially plays himself; Gordon-Levitt being a form of Reiser) takes him to a slightly new, better level of the performance he has given countless times before. The only real problem with the film is its misogynistic undertones, mainly from Rogen’s character, which don’t add to the film, and essentially demoralize it in a way. It was funny once, but the continuing notion seems a bit too crude for such an emotional story. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam perfectly; he is sweet and charming but you feel his struggle and the confusion as to what to do when faced with this in your life. Both supporting women give great performances. Anjelica Huston plays Adam’s mother with a desperation to find someone; her husband has Alzheimer’s and her son now with cancer, it drives all of Huston’s choices and though she plays her kind of crazy, you understand all the while. Anna Kendrick gives her finest performance. Very grounded, but so well-crafted, her performance is not loud in any way. I often forgot that there was a celebrity behind the character, that’s how great she was. If Up in the Air didn’t prove Kendrick as a rising star, 50/50 has to. Director Jonathan Levine doesn’t seem to intervene too much in this film. The film feels well-guided but not super-imposed, like many other directors feel. The film feels so true to life, to the subtle triumphs that everyone with cancer has to at least tackle. He doesn’t turn it into a sappy epic, he allows the characters to play as they would play in real life, and that is maybe the most resonant of them all. A
I have rarely been as scared at a film than I was in Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion. That’s not to say it was a horror movie, but it will seep into your conscience like a disease, and for what it’s worth, it really does it’s job well.
The entire pandemic of fear comes after a mom (Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home from a trip to Japan and begins the spread of a terrifying disease that begins to infect the entire world. People attempt to stop it (Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne at that) and there are a whole slew of celebrities filling in for characters either working against, working with, or dying from this disease. Soderbergh has an extremely effective sense of detail, and he is able to spin this into one of the most realistic pandemic horror films. Soderbergh uses the state of global anxiety and focuses that through a medical lens, creating a sense of bio-terrorism; one that seems so close to home as Contagion opened 2 days before the 10th anniversary of September 11th. Though there is rarely use of subtlety in his notions, the ideas and concepts of fear in Contagion may just keep you away from restaurants, and up all night long.
However nicely Mr. Soderbergh’s detailed film plays out, it certainly gets lost within itself along the way. Scott Z. Burns’ script gave plenty of hokey dialogue, and though the cast probably has more Oscar nominations between them than anyone would care to count, most of them are wasted here. Almost none of the characters are given sufficient depth; I left the film not remembering a single characters name. And perhaps that wasn’t the point; perhaps the idea behind Contagion was the widespread nature of this fear, this disease. But even then, several characters and plotlines were complete unnecessary and only hindered the film from reaching it’s full potential. Kate Winslet turns in an excellent performance as Dr. Erin Mears, an Intelligence Service Officer, who is on a mission to figure out whats causing this catastrophe. Winslet is intense, and real, and the audience is with her all the way. Unfortunately, out of the dizzying amounts of people we’re introduced to, she is the only one you can feel for. And that very well may be part of Contagion’s cold, bleak plan: to disconnect because of fear, only drives the fear itself. Makes you wonder, what’s the real pandemic going on here? B
