movie gourmet

King Kelly: a rip-roaring satire

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In the refreshing satire King Kelly, a girl strips for her webcam and aspires to become a sex website mogul.  Her monomaniacal brattiness leads to a series of bad decisions that drive her to leave her parents’ suburban Long Island  home for a madcap series of adventures, which are all recorded on a cell phone.

That the entire movie is shot on a cell phone is more than a novelty here – it enhances the urgency and chaos of the rip-roaring escapades as well as satirizing our current post-it-on-Facebook-while-it’s-happening culture.

The nuclear core of King Kelly is the main character of Kelly, brought alive in a full throttle performance by Louisa Krause.  Besides taking teen self absorption and selfishness to an unsurpassed level, Kelly combines it with astonishingly misplaced moral superiority and entitlement.  [And how do kids get to be so entitled these days?  Are there concierge suites in kindergarten where a child doesn’t need to wait her turn?]   King Kelly‘s genius is that the Kelly’s brattiness is not just unappealing, but so over-the-top as to be very, very funny.

King Kelly also satirizes our reality TV world where people are no longer capable of being embarrassed by any behavior on their part.

It’s original, funny and moves fast.   I saw King Kelly on YouTube VOD.

Hyde Park on Hudson: FDR was never so boring

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FDR was our first charismatic celebrity President in the era of radio and newsreels, a man who dominated his tumultuous times and who lived among a fascinating collection of characters.  It’s hard to imagine his life as boring, but it sure is in Hyde Park on Hudson.  Bill Murray is FDR and Lara Linney is his distant cousin and one of his mistresses.  It’s set mostly during the weekend that FDR entertained the King and Queen of England at his country home.  The problem is that the woman that Linney plays was a no-drama wallflower, and that the royal visit, while interesting, was a footnote to the history of the era.  The source material for Hyde Park on Hudson would have made a mildly entertaining one-hour segment on Masterpiece Theater – it’s not worth a visit to the theater.

Movies to See Right Now

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Charlie Hunnam and Olivia Wilde in DEADFALL

It’s the Holidays and three major releases are joining the great choices already in theaters. In Lincoln, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis push aside the marble statue and bring to life Abraham Lincoln the man. Argo is Ben Affleck’s brilliant thriller based on a true story from the Iran Hostage Crisis. The rewarding dramedy Silver Linings Playbook has a strong story, topicality and humor, but it’s worth seeing just for Jennifer Lawrence’s performance. All three films are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.

Don’t overlook The Matchmaker, a gem from Israel or the solid thriller Deadfall that is flying under the radar this holiday season.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling. The Sessions is an uncommonly evocative, funny and thoughtful film about sex leading to unexpected emotional intimacy. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. A Late Quartet is a gripping drama with a superb cast led by Christopher Walken and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The wild and puzzling art film Holy Motors has its moments, too.

The engrossing but overlong drama In the Family is more than just another social issue picture because of Patrick Wang’s authenticity as a writer and brilliance as a director. The indie odd couple drama Starlet packs a surprising emotional punch. In the entertaining Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren star as Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock as they collaborate on making Psycho. Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

The crime drama Killing Them Softly wastes an excellent cast on a run-of-the-mill gangster story. Skip the forgettable non-comedy Lay the Favorite.  The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril.

I haven’t yet seen the FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson, the critically praised French drama Rust and Bone or the Judd Apatow comedy This Is 40, which open today, or Tom Hooper’s all star epic Les Miserables or the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained, which open on Christmas Day. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the singular comedy Sleepwalk with Me.

The Impossible: if you enjoy watching kids in peril

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In The Impossible, a family goes on a beach holiday in Thailand where a tsunami strikes and separates the parents (Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor) from each other.  Rescue operations after a massive natural disaster in a third word country are predictably chaotic.  The story is about each of the parents finding their kids, losing them, finding them again and looking for the other parent.  It is based on a true story.

If you enjoy watching human suffering, especially with children in peril (think Trauma:Life in the E.R.) and heartwarming reunifications, you may enjoy this movie.  That’s really all there is here.  It’s competently acted, but it’s just a standard kids-in-danger disaster movie.  The tsunami scenes are very good, but I did not find them as compelling as Clint Eastwood’s in Hereafter.

Oddly, Naomi Watts has garnered Best Actress nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes for this picture.  These seem more reflective of her fine body of work (Mulholland Dr., 21 Grams, Fair Game) than of her performance here, where she does a good job essentially playing a pinata.

I was very disappointed in The Impossible because director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez had combined for 2007’s The Orphanage, one of the best ghost movies I’ve ever seen.  But, The Impossible is at its core disaster movie, and it fails to rise above its genre.

Deadfall: Two killers, one shotgun and Thanksgiving dinner

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Deadfall is a solid thriller that is flying under the radar this holiday season.  Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde are brother and sister running for the Canadian border after a casino heist.  They wreck their car and split up.  The brother sets off overland, leaving a trail of murderous carnage.   The local cops are on the alert, including the sheriff’s deputy daughter (Kate Mara).   Meanwhile,  a bad luck boxer (Charlie Hannum of Sons of Anarchy) is released from prison, impulsively commits another crime and is headed for his parents’ (Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson) remote northern cabin.  The sister hitches a ride with the boxer.  Everybody converges at the boxer’s parents’ place for an extremely stressful Thanksgiving dinner.

An essential element of this thriller is that all of the families are dysfunctional.   The siblings have survived a hellish upbringing, from which the older brother has rescued his little sister; unfortunately, he has emerged as a psychopath himself and has infantilized the sister.  The relationship between the boxer and his father has been poisoned by a long-festering dispute.  The sheriff resents and belittles his bright and highly professional daughter while doting on her idiot brothers.

The core of the movie is the evolving relationship between Wilde’s sister and Hunnam’s boxer.  Neither knows that the other is on the lam.  She cynically seduces him because he is useful.  But then she starts to fall for him, and, by Thanksgiving dinner, her loyalties are uncertain.

Sissy Spacek is brilliant as the boxer’s mom, who must steer over the wreckage of the relationship between her son and her husband, and who must then serve a Thanksgiving dinner to a volatile killer who is holding a shotgun on the other guests.  She is a great actor, and she’s as good here as in any of her signature performances.

The cinematography, characters, acting and the directorial choices by Stefan Ruzowitzky are excellent.  What keeps Deadfall from being one of the year’s best is some trite, TV movie level dialogue along the way.  Still, it’s a good watch.

Note: This is NOT the 1993 Deadfall, with Nicholas Cage even more over-the-top than usual.

The Matchmaker: a character-driven gem from Israel

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Fascinating characters make good stories and good movies, and the Israeli gem The Matchmaker has them aplenty.   A middle class teenager falls into a very unusual summer job – the “spy guy” for a matchmaker based in a Haifa neighborhood where prostitutes and smugglers ply their trades.  His job is to shadow prospective brides and grooms to verify their suitability for a match.  The kid is a pretty normal teen with an affection for detective fiction and an emerging talent for writing, and we see the other characters through his prism.

The Matchmaker is set in 1968, when many Israeli adults were Holocaust survivors who refused to talk about the Holocaust.  Ironically, the adult conspiracy of silence means that the teen characters know less about the Holocaust than do other kids around the world.  Almost all the adult characters are emotionally scarred in ways the kids really can’t understand.

The matchmaker himself is a shambling, secretive and somewhat shady guy, with unexplained facial scars.  He is an uncanny, but not always perfect, judge of human foibles.  He advises his clients, “I find you what you need, not what you want”.  It turns out that matchmaking is his passion, but he makes his living from another, less legal business.

The matchmaker himself pines for a charming but extremely emotionally fragile woman who works with him.  There’s also a kind, beautiful and lovelorn woman who owns a theater and is a dwarf.  We also have an obsessive librarian who is even more tightly wound than we see at first.  Oh, and the kid’s best friend’s American cousin comes for a visit, and she’s smokin’ hot.

So The Matchmaker is a coming of age movie, but one unlike any you have seen because of the singular characters.  Credit goes to Director Avi Lesher, who adapted the screenplay from a novel by Amir Gutfreund.

DVD of the Week: Sleepwalk with Me

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As Sleepwalk With Me begins, the filmmaker lets the audience figure out three basic things about the main character.  First, he has the perfect girlfriend and, no matter what happens in his life, he will never do any better.  Second, despite her patience after being together eight years, it’s time for him to marry her or not.  Third, he is absolutely unready to make that commitment.

That filmmaker is co-writer/co-director Mike Birbiglia, a standup comic whose screenplay is based on his autobiographical one man show.  His protagonist’s unpromising career as a comedian is feeding his ambivalence to marry a woman whose career has already stabilized.  As he feels more and more relationship and career pressures, he develops REM Behavior Disorder – a rare and particularly dangerous form of sleepwalking.

The sleepwalking, of course, sets up some funny moments, as do the stumbling start to the standup career, the girlfriend angst and the usual maddening set of parents.  In a comic triumph, Birbiglia gently and intelligently milks the laughs out of each situation while never losing focus on the fundamental truth of each situation.

The girlfriend is beautiful, good-hearted, smart, sexy and full of life.  She is played impeccably by Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under. Starting Out in the Evening).  Veterans James Rebhorn and Carole Kane are excellent as the protagonist’s bickering parents.  Here’s a nice touch:  the pioneer scientist of sleep disorder science himself, Stanford professor Dr. William C. Dement, provides a funny cameo.

Movies to See Right Now

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Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

My top picks remain the same. In Lincoln, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis push aside the marble statue and bring to life Abraham Lincoln the man.  Argo is Ben Affleck’s brilliant thriller based on a true story from the Iran Hostage Crisis. The rewarding dramedy Silver Linings Playbook has a strong story, topicality and humor, but it’s worth seeing just for Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.  All three films are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.  The Sessions is an uncommonly evocative, funny and thoughtful film about sex leading to unexpected emotional intimacy. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. A Late Quartet is a gripping drama with a superb cast led by Christopher Walken and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The wild and puzzling art film Holy Motors has its moments, too.

The engrossing but overlong drama In the Family is more than just another social issue picture because of Patrick Wang’s authenticity as a writer and brilliance as a director. The indie odd couple drama Starlet packs a surprising emotional punch. In the entertaining Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren star as Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock as they collaborate on making Psycho. Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

The crime drama Killing Them Softly wastes an excellent cast on a run-of-the-mill gangster story.  Skip the forgettable non-comedy Lay the Favorite.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the fun and funny Men in Black 3.

DVD of the Week: Men in Black 3

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Our favorite alien-zapping secret agents return in the delightful Men in Black 3.   We still have the yapping Will Smith paired with the Titan of Terseness, Tommy Lee Jones.  In this edition of the  sci fi comedy franchise, Smith must travel back to 1969 to save his partner and the world from a new odious and scary alien villain, Boris The Animal.  We get a Mad Men size dose of 1969, including Andy Warhol’s Factory, the Miracle Mets, the Moon Launch, some hippies and lots of skinny neckties.

The cast is all good, but the most inspired casting has to be Josh Brolin as the young Tommy Lee Jones.  Michael Stuhlbarg, last seen as the uptight depressive in A Serious Man, here almost steals the movie as a blissed out but hyper-perceptive alien.  Michael Chernus, so good in a serious role in Vera Farmiga’s Higher Ground, is excellent as a shady geek. Bill Hader is very funny as Warhol.

I’m usually not one for franchise movies, but MIB3 is gloriously entertaining.  BTW in the trailer (but not the movie) we briefly glimpse the torch-wielding Columbia Picture lady wearing MIB shades – very cool.

Movies to See Right Now

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LIFE OF PI

Three films on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far are now in theaters.  In Lincoln, Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis push aside the marble statue and bring to life Abraham Lincoln the man.  Argo is Ben Affleck’s brilliant thriller based on a true story from the Iran Hostage Crisis.  The rewarding dramedy Silver Linings Playbook has a strong story, topicality and humor, but it’s worth seeing just for Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.

Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.  The Sessions is an uncommonly evocative, funny and thoughtful film about sex leading to unexpected emotional intimacy. Denzel Washington stars in Flight, a thriller about the miraculous crash landing of an airliner and the even more dangerous battle against alcoholism. A Late Quartet is a gripping drama with a superb cast led by Christopher Walken and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The wild and puzzling art film Holy Motors has its moments, too.

The engrossing but overlong drama In the Family is more than just another social issue picture because of Patrick Wang’s authenticity as a writer and brilliance as a director.  The indie odd couple drama Starlet packs a surprising emotional punch.  In the entertaining Hitchcock, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren star as Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock as they collaborate on making Psycho.  Skyfall updates the James Bond franchise with thrilling action and a more shopworn 007 from Daniel Craig.

The crime drama Killing Them Softly wastes an excellent cast on a run-of-the-mill gangster story.  Chasing Mavericks is a predictable and heartwarming true story that is just OK for most movie-goers , but is a Must See if you’re into surfing and/or have an interest in the Santa Cruz and San Mateo coast. Cloud Atlas delivers six fast paced stories set across six centuries with lots of movie stars playing multiple roles; it’s fun to watch, but it’s not as good a film as the ones listed above. A Royal Affair is an overlong historical costume drama with two fine performances.  Skip the forgettable non-comedy Lay the Favorite.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the superb and important Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is currently #2 on my list of Best Movies of 2012 – So Far.