Category Archives: Movie Reviews – B

REVIEW: “Brave” (2012)

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BRAVE POSTER

Does anyone even question the amazing filmmaking that comes out of Pixar Studios anymore? Well, “Cars 2” didn’t do them any favors, but still Pixar has evolved into one of the most impressive filmmaking teams in cinema. Me, I’m not the biggest animated movie guy. But even I can appreciate their amazing knack for good quality storytelling. That knack is once again on display with “Brave”. Once again Pixar gives us another solid animated feature mainly by following their proven formula. They take meatier subject matter and cover it with a beautiful and playful animated wrapping. They hire the perfect voice talent, create beautiful visuals, and throw in some fantastic music. This tried and true formula once again really pays off here even for a tepid animation guy like me.

“Brave”starts off with the perfect approach. The first thing it does is give us a true sense of location via some of the greatest uses of scenery and surroundings I have seen. Even though I knew it was animated, I was amazed by the huge, sprawling, panoramic shots of the Scottish Highlands. The film creates a breathtaking natural canvas that quickly places us within the story’s location and environment. Tall trees, grassy meadows, jagged mountains, and beautiful streams grab us and submerge us into this beautiful land. This gorgeous landscape is the home of a young princess-to-be named Merida who lives with her brave but playful father King Fergus and her stern and often times overbearing mother Queen Elinor.

Merida is an adventurous free spirit who loves archery and riding her horse through the countryside with her long, bright red locks of hair flowing in the wind. But her mother has quite a different vision for her. Queen Eleanor is infatuated with tradition and feels she knows what’s best for a young princess. A strong tension develops between the mother and daughter and it all boils over during a customary competition between three awkward princes from other clans vying for Merida’s hand in marriage. Merida wants no part of it so she hops on her horse and takes off. This infuriates the queen and sets in motion the events of the rest of the film.

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The tension soaked relationship between mother and daughter is at the heart of the story. Something takes place later in the film, and I don’t want to give away what it is, that causes both of them to reevaluate their relationship. This is one place where I give Pixar a lot of credit. This isn’t shallow stuff. This is pretty real and heavy subject matter and they tackle it with sensitivity and smarts. And once again they’re able to walk that line between being faithful to the weighty material and keeping it within the bounds of a fun animated family feature.

But it’s not like this is a drab and overly serious film. This is a Pixar movie which means there’s a lot of fun and playfulness. King Fergus’ ‘typical male’ personality is a lot of fun. Even funnier are Merida’s rambunctious and mischievous little brothers – three little red-headed terrors who are always getting into something. I also loved the three Clan’s leaders and their sons. Talk about wacky! This peculiar bunch offered up some if the movie’s funniest moments. All of this worked for me but I have to admit that the heavy dose of slapstick silliness near the middle of the film began to wear me down. It seemed a bit monotonous and was pretty typical stuff. But this is a small part of the movie and things pick up on its way to its tender and rather satisfying ending.

“Brave” is another winner from Pixar Studios. It’s a powerful and relevant story wrapped up in gorgeous animation and one of the best soundtracks of the year. The characters come to life through great voice work particularly from Kelly MacDonald, Billy Connolly, and Emma Thompson. All of these components come together to form an entertaining whole and even though it does contain some of the standard cartoony moments, its impossible to watch this movie and not have a great time. This isn’t the best Pixar film but it’s certainly a very good one.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

REVIEW: “Breathless”

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There are certain movies that will always be remembered for their undeniable influence. Such is the case with “Breathless”, the first feature film from acclaimed director Jean-Luc Godard and a major player in the French New Wave of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. French New Wave was a bold and experimental movement that toyed with new techniques of filmmaking and storytelling. The stories were often rooted in and influenced by the social climate of the time and ambiguity, realism, and sometimes romanticism were key tools used to craft these stories.

French New Wave also had several distinguishable visual techniques that set it apart from the contemporary filmmaking of that time. New Wave directors experimented with long takes, creative tracking shots, handheld cameras, and fast scene changes. These techniques originated in low-budget necessity but they were also intended to buck the traditional brand of filmmaking. Godard and “Breathless” were instrumental in defining the movement. Nearly every technique unique to French New Wave can be found in “Breathless” and it has certainly made an important mark in cinema history.

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The movie follows around a young criminal named Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo). His forte is stealing cars and petty crimes but things go bad when a simple car heist results in him killing a cop. He ends up on the run in Paris trying to secure some money to make his escape. Michel is not a good guy and it’s hard to get that impression from the film. But an argument could be made that, in a sense, the movie glamorizes Michel’s lifestyle. There is some legitimacy to that but I think it overlooks a major part if the story. Godard does try to emphasis a sense of cool about Michel through his freewheeling attitude, dangling cigarettes, and thumb rubs across his lips. But I feel his coolness is more his perception of himself – a misguided perception more rooted in arrogance than reality.

It’s a combination of his arrogance and his heart that proves to be his biggest obstacles. He fashions himself after movie stars such as Humphrey Bogart and he seems infatuated with his own press. Throughout the movie we constantly see him buying newspapers in an attempt to get information no doubt, but also to bask in his own headlines. He walks the streets of Paris, impervious to his wanted status, with nothing more than a pair of sunglasses to hide his identity. Even as scrolling marquees across the city report of the police manhunt drawing closer, Michel still takes to the streets of Paris with an almost cocky sense of invincibility.

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He also finds himself smitten with Patricia (Jean Seberg), a young American student at the Sorbonne and aspiring journalist. She’s a seemingly insecure young lady who ends up falling for Michel but with an ever-present sense of uncertainty. Michel often insults her and talks down to her yet she grows more and more fond of him. I believe it’s because she sees through his tough guy facade and finds something she can cling onto regardless of how unwise it is. She struggles with whether to stay with Michel or not but even after finding out what he’s done she can’t just walk away. In a very different way Michel finds himself in the same boat. It’s some compelling stuff.

“Breathless” is a little rough around the edges yet it’s exhilarating cinema. Much of the script was written as they were filming and it features a lot of improvisation. But I love the spontaneity that comes along with that both narratively and visually. Hand-held cameras, a signature of the movement, are tremendously effective both in giving it a unique style as well as capturing some of the beauty of Paris. In fact, “Breathless” features some of the best views of the city you’ll find in cinema. The movie is also recognized for its fresh and bold use of jump cuts – a film editing technique where a scene makes quick jumps forward. There are so many filmmaking devices in “Breathless” that have influenced directors for years and still do today. And even though the storytelling structure may feel a bit jarring, the film is hypnotic and its mark on cinema cannot be overstated.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

“Bridesmaids” – 2.5 Stars

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I’m one of the few movie fans who just doesn’t appreciate Judd Apatow’s special brand of humor. In fact I often will skip a movie just for seeing his name attached to it. I would have done the same with “Bridesmaids” if not for the Academy Award nominations and critical buzz it received. Unfortunately it doesn’t take the movie long to latch itself to the other Judd Apatow productions. Yet underneath the veneer of fart jokes, toilet humor, and raunch lies a movie with some heart and some genuinely funny moments, a movie that could have stood on its own and done without the other junk that Apatow seems compelled to put into his pictures.

After seeing the trailer my first impression of “Bridesmaids” was that it was “The Hangover” starring women. That was enough to turn me off. But from a story perspective it’s quite different. It’s actually a movie about Annie (Kristen Wiig), a disillusioned thirtysomething living in Wisconsin whose had a run of bad luck. She recently had to shut down her bakery, she has no money, and she’s forced to share an apartment with a loopy British guy and his freeloading sister. She hates her new job at a small jewelry store and her personal life is equally in shambles. Her boyfriend left her and she’s currently in a one-sided go-nowhere relationship with the insufferable and self-centered jerk Ted (Jon Hamm). It’s a good life, right?

Despite all her troubles at least Annie has her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph). That is until Lillian reveals that she is engaged to be married to a loaded Chicago bigwig. Annie is asked to be the maid of honor and to plan the wedding with the help of Lillian’s quirky group of bridesmaids. Among those bridesmaids is the wealthy, prim and proper Helen (Rose Byrne) who doesn’t mind throwing around her money and connections. Soon Annie and Helen find themselves in a serious competition to be the true BFF of the bride. Melissa McCarthy plays Lillian’s crude and sometimes obnoxious sister-in-law who doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the bridesmaids. McCarthy received an Oscar nomination for the role. But even though she provides some laughs with her raunchy female John Candy routine, its just a variation of a role we’ve seen many times before.

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Annie and Helen’s rivalry heats up and eventually boils over. Annie’s desperate attempts to one-up Helen ends up causing a series of mishaps that not only threatens the wedding but her friendship with Lillian. While the whole wedding thing is a key component to the story, it’s really a movie about Annie and her decision to face the changes in her life. It’s about not letting life’s changes grind you down. Instead you move on. You turn the page. This isn’t easy for Annie because the movie really piles it on her. I mean you name the tough situation or bad break and Annie gets it. But life throws her a lifeline in the form of Nathan (Chris O’Dowd), a friendly highway patrol officer. The question is, will Annie ever reach out and grab the line?

As I mentioned, there’s really is a lot of heart in the story and Annie’s plight is certainly a sympathetic one. It’s also easy to care for her thanks to Wiig’s wonderful performance. I also really enjoyed Maya Rudolph as Lillian. She and Wiig play off of each other beautifully and the movie was at its best when these two were on the screen together. But when it gets down to it, this is a comedy and “Bridesmaids” has some truly hilarious moments. The script has moments of comedic brilliance that results in some of the funniest scenes I’ve watched in a long time. But this also gets to the film’s big weakness which I alluded to earlier.

It’s the raunchiness and cheap toilet humor that drags the movie down (something that seems to be mandatory for every Apatow production). These unnecessary moments yanked me out of the story and undermined a lot of the more clever and intelligent humor that the movie uses. You could cut out the raunch, including a lot from McCarthy’s character, and the movie would be better for it. Then you have scenes such as when the ladies are trying on gowns at a high-end bridal shop and then begin feeling the effects of food poisoning. The gross-out bathroom humor is lazy and ridiculous and seems terribly out of place. I swear I felt I was suddenly watching a cheap National Lampoon’s flick. Sadly, these are the things that keep “Bridesmaids” from being an even better film than it is. Yet despite these shortcomings there are moments that are incredibly funny and even heartwarming. You just have to weed out the other Apatow influences to enjoy them.

REVIEW: “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (2012)

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BEASTSThe 2012 movie year had more than its share of big time blockbusters and I have no problem with that. I’ve never felt that a big budget and tons of resources automatically disqualifies a movie from being great. But sometimes we can grow weary when being soaked with huge Hollywood box office popcorn pictures and we need a film that reminds us of the technique and craft at the heart of good filmmaking. We need a movie that gets back to the core of pure cinema. And we need a movie and gives us something we’ve never seen or experienced before. Thank you Behn Zeitlin for giving us all of these things and more with “Beasts of the Southern Wild”.

“Beasts “is a movie that has met its fair share of praise as well as criticism and I could spend a lot of time going over the different likes and gripes that have been thrown its way. But when it comes down to it, “Beasts” is a visceral and emotional experience that will either pull you in or push you away. If you’re not engaged emotionally, your reaction will be tepid at best. Personally, “Beasts” grabbed me and carried me through the full gamut of emotions so effectively that even when I was being manipulated I just didn’t care. There is so much heart and feeling that saturates this film. It’s that feeling that’s made more powerful by the circumstances and environment surrounding the story. And the fact that first-time filmmaker Zeitlin can convey it all through his smorgasbord of sensibility and technique is phenomenal.

The story takes place in an isolated and poverty-stricken community located in the New Orleans delta. This patch of land behind the mainland’s levee is simply known as The Bathtub and that’s where young 6-year old Hushpuppy lives. Most of the story is told through Hushpuppy’s eyes and we see the harsh reality of her circumstances viewed from her tender perspective. This movie has been called a fantasy picture by many but I don’t see it that way. It’s all about a young girl trying to make sense of the cruel and difficult world she lives in. Often times her imagination and innocent naïveté interprets her world in a fantastical way. But it’s really a young girl trying to process her surroundings the best way she knows how.

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Hushpuppy’s life in The Bathtub is a difficult and gritty existence but its all she knows. From the disturbing living conditions to her heartbreaking relationship with her father, Hushpuppy’s life is filled with obstacles that most of us could never imagine. Zeitlin realizes this world through a sobering realism that sometimes seems to focus on the worst of everything. He pulls no punches in creating this seemingly forsaken post-Katrina landscape – an almost surreal disaster area except for the fact that it’s so close to home. We experience Hushpuppy’s ramshackle home and her daily struggle to find food. But their hardships multiply after a massive storm hits, flooding the area and driving them from their home. They reunite with a small group of remaining neighbors and together try to survive in the only place they all call home.

A major component of the story is Hushpuppy’s father Wink. He’s a hotheaded and sometimes volatile man who can evoke feelings of hate and disgust from the audience. But he’s also a layered and complex character whose inadequacies and inner struggles are constantly warring within him. One minute I wanted to beat him to a pulp. Another minute I felt genuine sympathy for this man who was trying to keep his daughter alive the best way that he knew how. Hushpuppy’s mother left him to raise her, something he is at times utterly incapable of doing. The poverty level stuff is truly unsettling. But it’s this relationship between daughter and father that lands one emotional gut punch after another.

This offers me a good chance to talk about the performances. Let me get this out of the way first, newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis is sensational. She was only 5-years old when she was first cast and 6-years old during the filming. I don’t recall ever seeing a child actor or actress handle this type of material as well and she does here. She beautifully sells every look, every motion, every smile, and every tear. Now to be honest a lot of credit has to go to Zeitlin. The director knows how to use her and he never overextends his young actress. He frames scenes and shots with her limitations in mind and then harnesses her strengths in a remarkable way. But I don’t want to underplay how good she is here. It’s one of the year’s best performances.

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There’s also been a lot of debate over Dwight Henry’s performance as Wink. He’s been criticized as being too loud, too in-your-face, and too exaggerated. I do agree that there are a few scenes where he could have been dialed back a bit. But I think it’s more of an issue of how he’s written instead of how he’s played. Like Wallis, Henry had no professional acting background and for him to bring as much out of this character as he does is impressive. It is a bold and brash performance but it’s never to the point of showy. In fact, I think it works perfectly within the context of the story.

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is a rare film that leaves you feeling a variety of things and contemplating a variety of topics. It tiptoes around politics and instead focuses on shaking and waking us to the realities that aren’t far from home. It’s also a movie of contrasts. There’s the ugliness of poverty wedged within the beauty of nature. There’s the beauty of community mixed with the tragedy of loss and need. And most importantly it’s the beauty of the optimistic innocence of a child’s imagination against a harsh, and in this case, sad reality that she just can’t comprehend. Some may find “Beasts” smothering and unrelenting, and its ending won’t leave you smiling on a mountaintop. But I love how the film left me with a plethora of emotions. I love how the film’s tenderness melded with its real-life rigidity. And I love how three movie newcomers came together to give us one of the best movies of the year.

VERDICT – 5 STARS

REVIEW: “Battleship” (2012)

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Hollywood has made movies based on just about everything. They’ve made movies based on fairy tales, movies based on old TV shows, and even movies based on video games. So should it come as a surprise to anyone that they would make a movie based on an old Hasbro board game? I guess it would be more accurate to say that “Battleship” is loosely based on the popular board game that first appeared in 1967. Obviously the story has little to do with the back-and-forth game itself, but in some ways it’s just as boring as watching two people play. This movie is all about the visual eye candy with almost no attention given to storytelling or dialogue. But visuals only take you so far and at about 130 minutes long, the movie eventually becomes an almost tedious exercise in endurance.

The story is about as shallow and stripped down as they come. Taylor Kitsch plays Alex, a shaggy-haired loser who always finds a way to get into trouble. Fed up with Alex’s “do nothing” approach to life, his older brother comes up with a great idea – force Alex to join him in The United States Navy. Apparently there’s nothing to joining and advancing in the Navy because next we see Alex as a lieutenant aboard the USS John Paul Jones. He’s still getting into trouble and eventually finds himself on the verge of being tossed out. But that’s before a hostile alien force lands near Hawaii and Alex’s leadership may be the only thing that can save the planet. Sense some all too familiar storylines here? How about this one – he wants to marry his girlfriend (Brooklyn Decker) who happens to be his commander’s daughter. I’ll bet you can figure out how that plays out. Oh, and this one – Alex is forced to work alongside his chief rival (Tadanobu Asano) in order to survive and save mankind. It’s pretty obvious where that goes isn’t it?

Jon and Erich Hoeber’s script is riddled with cheesy dialogue and there’s not a single action movie cliché that isn’t used here. If you’ve seen any of these types of movies you will see where the amateurish plotting is going from a mile away. Director Peter Berg tries to give the film some credibility and weight with his heavy-handed use of patriotism and military camaraderie. There’s certainly nothing wrong with the message but the cut-rate execution makes it feel like a cheap knock-off of a number of other films. And it’s impossible to take any of these attempts seriously mainly due to some horribly written and sometimes unintentionally hilarious dialogue. I found myself completing a character’s sentence just because their lines were so familiar. I also caught myself laughing several times during dramatic moments that weren’t meant to be funny.

Now let’s be clear, “Battleship” doesn’t aim to be anything more than a simple, loud, CGI-heavy, summer popcorn picture that strictly adheres to the Michael Bay “Transformers” formula. It bombards you with large-scale special effects sequences, many of which are quite impressive yet undeniably repetitive. I can’t count how many times we see alien ships hopping up and down out of the water or arming their weapons over and over in what looks like the exact same scenes. But the film does at times look spectacular and it can be fun in occasional bursts. There is one particular sequence where the aliens send a metal rollie pollie that literally shreds a destroyer vessel from the inside out. Sure they rip off a couple of scenes from James Cameron’s “Titanic” as the ship sinks but it’s still a wildly impressive scene.

Maybe I’m just getting old but this film left a lot of potential on the table. I suppose “Battleship” would work for the passive movie fan or if you were 12 years old. But even those folks won’t rush to see it again. Yet I have to admit there are some amazing visuals here and I did find myself occasionally caught up in them. But underneath the bombastic veneer of grinding metal, explosions, and destruction lies a corny and often times ridiculous story that can’t be saved by the fancy coat of CGI paint. “Battleship” is a hard film to rate. Narratively speaking its a train wreck. But it’s a visually stunning wreck which makes the experience bearable. But I need more than that in my movies.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

REVIEW: “BERNIE” (2011)

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I can honestly say I’ve always been mixed on Jack Black. So it’s safe to say that it wasn’t Jack Black that drew me to “Bernie”. But the movie has several other things going for it that spurred my curiosity. First, “Bernie” was directed and co-written by Richard Linklater, a filmmaker I have recently grown to appreciate especially after seeing “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”. Then there’s the whole “based on a true story” thing about a funeral director in a small southern town. It sounded quirky and unusual yet featured several things that hit pretty close to home. Throw in what looked like a really peculiar looking role for Matthew McConaughey and I knew I needed to check this film out. I’m glad I did.

I wasn’t familiar with the real story of Bernie Tiede but I knew it was a highly unusual one. Jack Black plays Bernie, a funeral director in the small town of Carthage, Texas. In the first few scenes we notice that Bernie is, shall I say, a very different individual. Yet despite his many eccentricities, he is adored by the small community. He sings in the local church choir, helps locals with their taxes, coaches little league baseball, and is known for the amazing attention and care he gives grieving families at the local funeral home, particularly the widows. Linklater employs a very effective and often times hilarious method of storytelling. The movie is constructed like a documentary and we are introduced to and learn about Bernie through snippets of interviews with the Carthage locals. Some of the locals are played by lesser known actors but sprinkled in are interviews with real citizens of Carthage who are familiar with the real Bernie and the situation that he found himself in. It’s quickly evident that the locals truly loved him.

Bernie befriends a mean, crusty old widow named Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine). Marjorie is an extremely wealthy woman but she’s hated by the community and her family. She hits it off with Bernie after he handles her husband’s funeral and the two soon become inseparable. He takes her to dinner, helps her manage her affairs, and takes trips with her all over the world. Even as she grows more abrasive and abusive, Bernie is loyal and supportive. Again, Linklater tells us all of this through interviews with the town folks who aren’t a bit shy about sharing their opinions of Marjorie and of her friendship with Bernie. This is also where we meet Danny Buck Davidson (McConaughey), the area district attorney who some locals feel is more interested in staying in office that doing any real good. McConaughey is fantastic with his cowboy hat hair, oversized glasses, and funky inner mouth prosthetic. He fits perfectly in this zany cast of characters and he steals most of the scenes he’s in.

There is so much that works with this film. It shocks me to be able to say this but Jack Black is really good here. This is a quirky character that fits right into his limited comfort zone. He sells Bernie wonderfully and he leaves the audience questioning how we should understand and respond to his character. The movie also packs a lot of genuinely funny moments. Even when the story takes a more twisted turn it stills manages to sideswipe you with some unexpected hilarious scenes. But while it certainly didn’t ruin the movie, the later shift in the movie’s tone wasn’t seamless. There were a few moments in the film where it felt like Linklater struggled in mixing his humor with the more serious elements of the story. It’s impossible to go any further into detail without getting into spoiler territory but I did find myself questioning what kind of movie Linklater was making a few times in the third act.

But don’t let that small gripe scare you away from this picture. “Bernie” is one of the bigger surprises of the year. It’s a comedy that’s actual funny. It’s intelligent and creative and it doesn’t use the normal modern comedy gimmicks that are so prevalent today. Linklater does a brilliant job of taking a serious true story and wrapping it up in very unique humor and the results are fantastic. Black is really good, McConaughey is great, and the entire assortment of interviewed locals are guaranteed to make you laugh. I had a blast with “Bernie” and it’s a movie that I simply can’t wait to check out again.

VERDICT – 4 STARS