Home
2012 Film Reviews
by Dr. Bob Blackwood
These movie review articles appeared in the Columbia River Reader and are copyrighted by Bob Blackwood
Oscar
Picks, Oscar Complaints, and a Fun Film
Ladies
and gentlemen, every year Oscar time comes.
Every year I wonder how some films are nominated while others with
marvelous performances and well-written screenplays are ignored.
I have learned to write it off as simply “show business.”
It is a business with the rules constantly changing, sort of like the
rules for the number of credit card points you need to get a free ride on an
airplane.
Therefore,
with my wide-brim hat and sunglasses, dressed as I will be for the races at
Keeneland Race Track in Lexington, Kentucky, here are my Oscar picks:
Best
Actor: George Clooney for “The Descendants.”
Starring in the weakest film on our list, Clooney is a very well-liked
actor for many good reasons. His
main opponent: Jean Dujardin for the almost silent film “The Artist,” who
won the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award.
Best
Actress: Viola Davis in “The Help,” who did win the SAG award.
Best
Supporting Actor: “Christopher Plummer,” who won the SAG award for
“Beginners,” with competition from Max von Sydow in “Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close.”
Best
Supporting Actress: “Octavia Spencer” for “The Help,” who won just about
every award in the business.
Best
Director: My heart says Martin Scorsese for “Hugo,” but my itchy finger
underlines Michel Hazanavicius for “The Artist.”
Best
Picture: I am hoping it will be “Hugo,” with 11 Oscar nominations, but
“The Artist,” with 10 Oscar nominations, is coming on strong.
That’s
the best I can do this year. The
Academy will make the decisions as only the Academy members can.
And the decisions will be split between business and pleasure.
Quick
comment on fun in January:
My
fun film for January was Måns Mårlind & Björn Stein’s “Underworld:
Awakening” (MPAA: R). Kate Beckinsale returns as Selene, the vampire warrior,
who leads the responsible members of her fantasy race in a fight against the
irresponsible werewolves, who would just wipe us humans out in an orgy of
gluttony worse than Thanksgiving in the U.S.
Yes, Beckinsale is really attractive in that black leather suit, but I think the film owes a bit of a debt to the lonesome girl gunslinger first portrayed by Milla Jovovich in the “Resident Evil” films. We used to have Gary Cooper on a lonely sun-baked street standing for the righteous in “High Noon.” Now, we have stunningly beautiful women using martial arts and high caliber pistols protecting us from various degenerate hordes. Men, we will just have to cope with it.
Woody
Harrelson Scores Big in Hate-filled “Rampart”
February
and March are not usually the months of the year to be releasing a good film.
Prior to the Oscar ceremony, the nominees for the Oscars fill the
theaters; afterwards, the winners glut the screens through mid-March.
Why did the distributor release Oren Moverman’s “Rampart” (MPAA: R)
late in February?
“Rampart”
has a fine script co-written by Overman and James Ellroy, author of L.A.
Confidential. Its distinguished cast includes Woody Harrelson, Sigourney
Weaver, Cynthia Nixon, Anne Heche, Robin Wright, Ice Cube and Steve Buscemi.
Well, maybe there is just not enough teen appeal in this film to stampede
the younger audience into the theaters.
Woody
Harrelson stars as a 24-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department’s
Rampart Division in 1999, a period when various brutality allegations led to
payouts of $100 million for inappropriate behavior to suspects from L. A.’s
Rampart Division alone. And let me
qualify my position on policemen. My
father served for a time as a police officer during the Depression. He said it
was the hardest job he ever had. This comment, from a man who spearheaded the
bullet-sealing fuel tanks project for American fighters and bombers in World War
II, was probably not an overstatement.
Harrelson’s
Dave Brown is an ex-Vietnam Vet, a failed law student of some intelligence, a
bigot and a dirty cop. He uses his
position to shake down people to provide for his family situation, his legal
bills, and his drinking. He lives
with two sisters whom he had wed and divorced serially and had a daughter by
each. The daughters feel remote from
him, until he starts to come apart.
Someone
videotapes Brown as he brutally beats up a man who smashed into Brown’s police
cruiser and then tried to run away. Brown
is in the news for brutality again; he has been there before and beaten the rap.
This time, it doesn’t look good for Brown.
Yet, we see his concern for his daughters, and, eventually, their concern
for him. If he has a saving grace,
it is in these relationships, but he really cannot help the girls.
He is too far gone in self-pity, booze and macho posturing.
Harrelson
has played a variety of roles—a comic bartender on “Cheers,” an upper
class homosexual with integrity in Paul Schrader’s “The Walker” (2007), a
macho tough guy in Ruben Fleischer’s spoof “Zombieland” (2009), and his
share of sensitive men with problems. This
time, he shows how he can suffer. An
interview in The Hollywood Reporter indicated it was a difficult yet worthwhile
film for him. You may find it a
painful film for you too, but it is also significant.
If
You’re Still Hungry After “Games,” Try “Salmon Fishing”
Why
not give a different response to two films, as opposed to the same response as
most of the other critics?
Gary
Ross’ “The Hunger Games” (PG-13) is going to pick up where the
“Twilight” films left off in attracting adolescent females.
True, romance is not the primary motivation in “The Hunger Games.”
There is a triangle, however. Jennifer Lawrence’s heroic Katniss is desired by
her sometime partner/enemy Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and her “politically
incorrect” old boyfriend Gale (Liam Hemsworth). Actually, watching the young
stooges of the central government—who enjoy killing each other for the
amusement of a jaded populace on a television show—and defending herself seem
to be Katniss’ main goals.
But
Katniss is angry. Her younger
sister, who lacked her survival skills, would have died in the first round.
Note Lawrence’s Katniss resembles her character in “Winter’s
Bone” (2010), which was set in a similar rural environment.
There, too, she survived the threats of those with the power.
Lawrence is a fine actress.
The
film was very well cast. Woody Harrelson played a wastrel, but still a keen
survivor of the “Games.” Elizabeth Banks did her best as the garish
quasi-panderer Effie Trinket. Stanley Tucci, as the sleazy but clever TV
“Games” host, was perfect. Lenny Kravitz, as a master of how to motivate the
audience, was a slick dude. Wes Bentley was a real “reality” show
producer-director, and, finally, Donald Sutherland as President Snow was sort of
a reserved Dick Cheney.
If
only it hadn’t been 142 minutes long, cursed with an uneven tempo and
threatening two or three more films to come.
In
contrast to the billion dollar blockbuster of “Hunger Games,” I offer a
problematic film, Lasse Hallström’s “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen”
(PG-13). To those wiseacres who
insist that I would see any film with “salmon fishing” in the title, I say,
“nuts.” If it didn’t have
Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ewan McGregor in it, I would have stayed
home.
An
oil-rich sheikh (Amr Waked) decides to bring salmon into the desert via modern
technology. Emily Blunt is the
rainmaker who convinces Ewan McGregor, the unhappily married salmon expert, to
make the desert bloom and herself, too. Kristin
Scott Thomas is the prime minister’s agent to make it all happen; she also
generates most of the laughs in this romantic comedy.
So
what’s wrong with this British romance? The plot is too forced with a
“surprise” conclusion that isn’t. But, after over two hours of menace and
mayhem from “Hunger Games” the day before, I enjoyed the quiet and sexy
relief. Give it a look, not a shot.
Action
Flicks—A Yea for “Safe,” A Nay for “Lockout”
I
take in a large number of action films. Perhaps
it is because at least one of the lads I grew up with matriculated in a state
institution that wasn’t educational in nature.
In any case, I rarely fall asleep in them (I’ll never review one that I
slept through). My wife doesn’t
have to nudge me when guns are blasting, but some of the domestic dramas ….
Boaz
Yakin’s “Safe” (MPAA: R) stars Jason Statham as Luke Wright. A former
undercover cop-hitman for NYC after 9/11, Wright degenerated into a cage fighter
who was throwing too many fights and, finally, accidentally creamed the wrong
creampuff. He soon finds himself hounded by the Russian mob (they bet on the
creampuff), the Chinese mob and his old NYPD pals, who have turned dirty and too
close to the Chinese mob.
Wes
Anderson: Love Him or Don’t Enter the
There
is so much media attention around Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” (MPAA:
PG-13) that I suspect critics will love it or hate it.
Since it opened the Cannes Film Festival, it is hitting the American
market with a lot of buzz. Frankly,
it does have a lot going for it—more so than Anderson’s “The Darjeeling
Limited” (2007), “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004) and “The
Royal Tenenbaums” (2001).
Anderson,
who likes to be part of the writing process as well as to direct his films, has
been gathering a small stock company—Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason
Schwartzman among others—and a reputation as an “actor’s director,” much
like Martin Scorsese, who allegedly also is cheering Anderson on.
What
makes this film special? It is a
film set in a summer camp in 1965 about two 12-year-olds—Sam (Jared Gilman), a
brainy Khaki Scout, and Suzy (Kara Hayward), a gifted townie of good literary
and musical taste. The couple met on the set of a production of Benjamin
Britten’s “Noye’s Fludde” (Noah’s Flood).
Their ignorance is not apparent, though it becomes obvious in an
inconsequential sort of way. Their
innocence and intelligence is always quite evident.
What
about the adults in the film? Their
arrogance is quite apparent. Their
innocence is long gone, and their intelligence is a matter of question,
particularly the parents of Suzy. Bill
Murray and Frances McDormand take the fall for those roles, and they generate
laughs too. Bruce Willis, though a bit of a rounder, turns out to be quite a
decent fellow instead of the usual not-so-bright small town police chief that we
find in so many comedies, though I haven’t had that experience, myself.
Edward
Norton, as the Scout Master, has both moments of clarity and positive action as
well as the usual would-be martinet lines of a man who wears a uniform that is
also worn by children. No adult
walks away from this film without at least a snicker or two from the audience,
such as Tilda Swinton as simply “Social Services,” but, to be fair, some of
the other scouts and kids also merit scorn.
In
other words, this is an “actor’s film.” I
think many of you will enjoy it. Some
of the adolescents will want more rock and roll.
There is some in the film, some blues, and more than a taste of Benjamin
Britten. Did you know that Wes
Anderson was in a version of “Noye’s Fludde” when he was 12?
You know it now. Did he run
off with a young girl? No, he was
too embarrassed to speak to her. But
now, he is a director. Good going,
Wes!
A
“Spider-man” for the Discerning Viewer and an
“Abraham
Lincoln” Lost in Vampireland
By
Dr. Bob Blackwood
Marc
Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” (MPAA PG-13) is a successful take on the
comic book, in a series that, thanks to Sam Raimi’s 2002 film on the
web-slinger, had a good start. You
might remember Webb’s film “500 Days of Summer” (2009).
What might you like about this “Spider-Man”?
Well, it has a better script.
The
characters are developed more slowly—e.g. Andrew Garfield’s (“The Social
Network” & “Never Let Me Go”) Spider-Man has to painfully learn how to
use his enhanced spider-powers. Some
people might complain that Spider-Man is not punching out bad guys and swinging
through downtown Manhattan right immediately.
Well, if your key to happiness is someone getting whacked every
five minutes, this is probably not the flick for you.
Garfield’s
mild-mannered Peter Parker, done with some solid underplaying, develops his
relationship with Emma Stone’s (previously in “The Help”) Gwen Stacy in a
relatively long period of time. They
are playing high school seniors, although he is 28 and she is 23.
If they started declaring undying love after 20 minutes of running time,
we wouldn’t believe it. The dialog
is good, but it’s not the poetry of “Romeo and Juliet.”
One
of the obstructions in their romance is Denis Leary as Captain Stacy, the man
heading the anti-Spider-Man Task Force of the NYPD and Gwen’s authoritative
dad. Leary shows his solid
competence again. Stone works well
with him, with Garfield, and with every other actor on the set.
She is a hot property in Hollywood.
Rhys
Ifans plays the villain, Dr. Curt Connors (aka The Lizard); he played the Earl
of Oxford in “Anonymous” (2011). Ifans
makes a formidable opponent and a strangely sympathetic one, as well.
You rarely get complexity in a comic book flick’s villain.
Alas,
Timur Bekmambetov’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” (MPAA: R) is a film
that can only be appreciated by people who can have sympathy for a good actor in
a problematic film.
I
would expect any director, who has a talented actor playing Abraham Lincoln,
which Benjamin Walker is, would at least try to develop a film with the same
care with which Walker develops the gravitas
of Abraham Lincoln from a youth whose mother was murdered by a vampire, to an
inexperienced lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, to a major political force in the
USA. Instead, we received blasts of
fast editing, crazy sequences (even Count Dracula would have avoided a stampede
of half-broken horses and no one could flip around on those mindless equines),
etc.
“Total
Recall”: Sometimes, You Just Don’t Want It
By
Dr. Bob Blackwood
Last
Friday, my charming spouse observed, after the trailers for the “new” films
ran, that four of them are re-makes and the other two are sequels. I have
noticed in the last few years almost all big budget Hollywood films must be
either a remake or a sequel (unless Steven Spielberg is helming).
It is the international market, you see.
The marketing expenses for a new big film—e.g. “John Carter”—is
incredibly high. If the new vehicle
flops, it flops big! But you know
what? In time, they all make
money--even “Howard the Duck” (1986) did—just not fast enough to quickly
cover the money borrowed for production. Ouch!
I
was looking forward to Len Wiseman’s “Total Recall” (MPAA: PG-13) with
Colin Farrell--so talented in “In Bruges” with Brendan Gleeson—and Kate
Beckinsale—the sleek vampire
action-heroine in Wiseman’s “Underworld” and “Underworld: Evolution.”
The actors, including the relative newcomer Jessica Biel (“The A-Team),
were fine, but the script needed work. Paul
Verhoeven’s 1990 version had humor—the automated cab driver’s downfall,
Schwarzenegger showing fear, his image seen in a giant X-ray, Arnold dressed as
a woman to fool security at the transit station, etc.
No laughs are evident in Wiseman’s film.
Well,
maybe it develops characters? No.
Well, what does it do? It has a lot
of action. Wiseman knows how to
showcase Kate Beckinsale. Much like
Milla Jovovich in her “Resident Evil” films, Beckinsale’s every moment is
like a prima donna on the Moscow stage doing “Swan Lake,” but Beckinsale
does it with automatic weapons too. Jessica
Biel shows some talent there as well, though Beckinsale has the edge. Farrell is
no slouch in rough and tumble sequences; he spends most of the film surviving
them.
I
like action films, but, to be memorable, they really require a character(s) that
the audience members can admire or, perhaps, can love to hate.
Farrell’s Douglas Quaid is supposed to be sympathetic with the poor,
overworked folks of The Colony of planet Earth, but we never get time to see
them as having the hard life which Verhoeven displayed so vividly in his Martian
colony. Verhoeven’s workers were
even deprived of air. We did not see
that kind of oppression. But, to be
fair, it is an election year, and maybe that would be controversial; well, at
least that would be different.
I
predict this film will make its money fairly quickly.
Action flicks are hot in the Asian markets, but I also predict that
everyone, who has seen the original film, will wonder why anyone would prefer
Wiseman’s version.
Three
for the Road: “Sparkle,”
“The Expendables 2” & “We
Have a Pope”
I needed a musical when I saw Salim Akil’s “Sparkle” (MPAA: PG).
If I saw another action film, I was going to buy an automatic weapon and
take out a roomful of Hollywood producers. “Sparkle”
is a remake of the 1976 film with Irene Cara.
“Sparkle” was Whitney Houston’s last film.
She played the staid, church-going mother (with a show biz past she
wasn’t proud of) of a three-girl singing group: Jordin Sparks (the talented
sister), Carmen Ejogo (the sexy sister) and Tike Sumpter (the bright,
hot-tempered sister). Houston was a
good actor and a good singer. We’ll
miss her. This film, however, needed
better songs. I remember the sexy
outfits that Ejogo was wearing more than the music that they were
singing—though the singing, costuming and acting were totally professional.
But, it’s not “Dreamgirls” (2006).
And then came Simon West’s “The
Expendables 2” (MPAA: R). West’s
pacing was better than the first “Expendables.”
The crowd of big action hero names—such as Stallone, Statham, Li,
Lundgren, and Schwarzenegger—was joined by Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme
(a perfect psychopathic villain), and Bruce Willis.
So much talent, so little time, eh? Well,
not really. Schwarzenegger and
Norris spent half of their time plugging past hits, repeating memorable lines
and, in general, reminding the audience of their glory days. The rest of their
time, they were firing automatic weapons.
To be fair, I enjoyed the individual sequences and the set-ups to them.
Stallone, who worked on the script and spark-plugged the film, showed he
can still make a film happen. I only
wish he were doing fresher material, and I’m sure he will.
Nanni Moretti’s “We Have a Pope” (MPAA: Not
Rated) is an amusing comedy about the election of a pope.
It stars French actor Michel Piccoli, a man in his eighties, as a
cantankerous cardinal who is elected pope. The
cardinals chose him as a “caretaker.” They hoped he wouldn’t do much.
Pope John XXIII, then 77, was supposed to be a caretaker in 1958. However,
John surprised everyone by internationalizing the College of Cardinals and
calling the Second Vatican Council.
Piccoli’s pope, while accepting the will of the majority, refuses to go
through with what a pope must do to be officially recognized as “the pope.”
He has a wonderful scene in front of the cardinals where he talks with a
psychiatrist (who was played perfectly by the director).
Then, the “pope” runs away from the closed consistory (a big no-no)
and wanders through Rome in disguise. It
is funny; it is not satirical. No
one used automatic weapons, either, though some of the Swiss Guards had some
sharp halberds.
Two
in Praise of Actors, One for the Director
The
acting in two films appealed to me: David Ayer’s police procedural film “End
of Watch” (MPAA: R) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s alleged
comment on Dianetics “The Master” (MPAA: R).
Jake
Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña are LAPD partners, who patrol a neighborhood filled
with Mexican cartel gangsters. We
see them not only as cops who enjoy the action; we also see them as men with
families. Gyllenhaal’s Taylor is
doing a personal project on-the-job with the aid of a mini-video cameras peeping
out of his shirt pocket. He is not
the usual hard-boiled copper, though he is tough.
Peña’s Zavala has a loving wife and children.
Taylor, during the film, courts and marries.
We get to see many different sides of these characters, which is unusual
in a police procedural. Good work!
Ayer,
their director, directed a workmanlike police procedural, “Street Kings”
(2008) with Keanu Reeves, and wrote both “Training Day” (2001) with Denzel
Washington and “End of Watch.” Clearly,
Ayer knows the territory.
Anderson
has created two wonderful characters in “The Master”: Philip Seymour
Hoffman, as a guru, a childlike scene-stealer, a stern master, and a
compassionate man (yes, there is some contradiction here) and Joaquin Phoenix as
a WWII veteran who has a number of problems, which continue to haunt him as the
years go by. Phoenix’s Freddie can
be likeable and loyal to the Master and his disciples, and, the next day, is a
violent person when his trigger is pulled. Amy
Adams, as the Master’s wife, is totally dedicated to her charismatic husband
and unforgiving to all others. It may be her most demanding role.
How
do you evaluate a film like this one? I
learned long ago, after reading a number of American Naturalistic novels—Upton
Sinclair’s The Jungle, James T. Farrell’s Studs
Lonigan, etc.—that one person’s beauty can be another person’s horror,
that only art that reflects reality, or some meaningful distortion of it, is of
value. This film is definitely art
and of value, but I never want to see it again.
And I don’t want to re-read Studs
Lonigan either.
I
enjoyed the time-travelling tale of Rian Johnson’s “Looper” (MPAA: R) with
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the young Joe, Bruce Willis as the older Joe, and Emily
Blunt as Sara, who loves the younger one. There
is a lot of action here in a world in which the gangsters of the future have
sent back victims to be killed and destroyed by people like young Joe.
Otherwise, the bodies would leave traces for the detectives to find in
the future world. The paradoxes are
pretty much eliminated by the end of the film.
It is fun too.
“Cloud
Atlas” Is Cloudy; “Bless Me, Ultima” Is a Blessing
By
Dr. Bob Blackwood
I
know the Wachowski Siblings’ “The Matrix” is a cult film.
It was rated among the Top 10 Science Fiction Films of the Twentieth
Century by attendees at three World Science Fiction Conventions. I surveyed the
attendees with the help of my wife, Diane, the sociologist.
The Wachowski’s new film, “Cloud Atlas,” (MPAA: R)—with the
co-direction of Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”)—will become a cult film as
well.
“Cloud
Atlas” has wonderful performances by Tom Hanks (a number of varied
characters), Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving (a wonderful villain/villainess) and
Susan Sarandon. But there is a bit
of a problem with “Cloud Atlas.”
There
are six subplots from six different eras—from the 19th century to
somewhere in the distant future. All
of them are on this planet, except for one episode in the last subplot.
You see, the basic structure of all six plots is identical. There is an
attractive person who has a problem dealing with authoritative personalities,
overly structured societies, oppressive governments, etc.
As the film progresses, we switch back, occasionally, to each of these
individual subplots, see how the beautiful person is doing, and we follow the
path to a resolution.
So,
what’s the problem? The problem in
this almost three-hour film is that the constant switching back and forth
detracts from the progression of the basic plot and steals the show from the
fine acting that is taking place.
If
you can’t imagine the difficulty of processing this film, let me point out a
film from an older generation that was regarded as difficult.
Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” was quite challenging.
It was a semiautobiographical fiction about a motion picture director.
Characters and sequences from the past and the present would appear, but
they were all focused upon one character—Guido, a great director, a lover of
women, a man of many failings and of many graces—one country, one life.
If you were alert, it wasn’t a problem.
Even if you are alert during “Cloud Atlas,” well…, let’s just
plan on re-evaluating it in 10 years.
Keep your eyes open for a dark horse in the Oscar race, Carl Franklin’s “Bless Me, Ultima” (MPAA: PG-13). Franklin—director of “Devil in a Blue Dress” and “Out of Time,” both starring Denzel Washington—has taken a fine novel about a New Mexican rural family in the post-World War II era. The family invites a medicine woman (“curandera”), played by Miriam Colon, who helps people with natural cures and white magic. She relates best to their seven-year-old Antonio (Luke Ganalon). Their relationship grows as does the insight into the family members and their challenging, even diabolical, social environment. I only hope the film’s distribution increases greatly.
Spielberg’s
“Lincoln” Is a Stunner; Steven Will Be Carrying an Armful of Gold Statues
The
best film about Lincoln that I had seen was John Ford’s “Young Mister
Lincoln” (1939), starring Henry Fonda. It
was a fictional piece that showed Lincoln’s defense of an innocent man.
That film, along with Ford’s “Grapes of Wrath” (1940) also starring
Fonda, did a lot to make Henry Fonda a political force in Hollywood.
In
Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (MPAA: PG-13), Daniel Day-Lewis shows us
Lincoln in many modes of behavior—even though the struggle over the 13th
Amendment is the focus of the film.
We
see Lincoln as:
Back
to film year index page