Movies

The Whistleblower: a potentially riveting story, clumsily told

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The Whistleblower is a potentially riveting story, clumsily told.  It’s a paranoid thriller about human trafficking that was tolerated and even assisted by UN peacekeepers in Bosnia.  After seeing this movie, I was determined to debunk its claim of “inspired by real events”.  So I looked up the story and was surprised to learn that it is essentially true.  The problem is that the filmmaking caused me to think it was fictionalized.

Director Larysa Kondracki throws every Hollywood trope at the screen.   The photography is dark when the movie is supposed to be foreboding, and extra dark and jerky when things are supposed to be scary.   To keeps things dark and scary, Weisz uses a flashlight instead of flipping the light switch when entering an uninhabited room.  Several characters exist primarily to give exposition-filled speeches.  Various Eastern Europeans conveniently speak English when they encounter Rachel Weisz.   And Weisz’s character is the only person in Bosnia who drives a jeep around unaccompanied.

The Whistleblower is a vehicle for star Rachel Weisz and she does a good job.   David Straithern and Vanessa Redgrave contribute their customarily excellent performances.  Human trafficking is topical.  But this movie just isn’t up to its subject or its cast.

DVD of the Week: Kill the Irishman

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Kill the Irishman is based on the real story of Danny Greene, a 70s Irish gangster who took on the Cleveland Mafia. Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo on Rome) stars as the ambitious hood with uncommon charm, ruthless determination and knack for survival.  All-in-all, it’s a worthy crime drama with an excellent cast of veteran “mobsters”: Christopher Walken, Vincent D’Onofrio, Tony Lo Bianco, Paul Sorvino, Steve Schirripa,Robert Davi, Vinny Vella and Mike Starr.

Other recent DVD picks have been The Music Never Stopped, Source Code, Potiche and Another Year.

The Guard: another winner for Brendan Gleeson

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This Irish dark comedy is a showpiece for Brendan Gleeson as a lowbrow cop happening upon an international drug conspiracy.  Gleeson is always very good and was especially memorable in director Martin McDonagh’s  2008 In Bruges, which was either the funniest hit man movie ever or the darkest and most violent buddy comedy ever.  This time, McDonagh’s brother John Michael McDonagh directs Gleeson as a very canny man who convincingly strives to appear much dumber than he is.   The perfect foil for Gleeson’s sloppy local cop is the refined FBI agent played by Don Cheadle.  Those familiar with Ireland will recognize the Connemara Coast.  Don’t miss The Guard.

The Names of Love: amusing but forgettable

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The Names of Love is an amusing but forgettable romantic comedy about the attraction of opposites  – a flighty leftwing women who converts conservatives by sleeping with them and an uptight and controlled guy.  Sara Forestier won the Cesar (France’s Oscar) for her portrayal of the most attention deficient character in recent cinema.  Indeed, Forestier is actually convincing as a woman so distractable that she doesn’t notice that she has left her flat and boarded the Paris Metro without wearing any clothes.

DVD of the Week: The Music Never Stopped

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Here’s a crowd pleasing movie.  Parents find their long lost adult son in a hospital, suffering from a brain tumor that has erased his much of his memory (and all of his short term memory).  A speech therapist discovers that the son’s personality is sparked by music that he remembers from his teens.  The father and the son have been estranged since the son left after an argument between them.  The father finds that he can reach over the memory disability and re-connect by learning the son’s music.

The son’s music is all from the period 1964 to 1970 – and this music is another character in the film.  Dad leaves behind his Big Band sensibilities to embrace Bob Dylan, Donovan, Steppenwolf, Crosby Stills & Nash and, especially the Grateful Dead.  Baby Boomers and Dead Heads will really enjoy this movie from the music alone.  Indeed, the Dead’s Bob Weir and Mickey Hart have been out supporting the movie.

The film is a showcase for the excellent actor J.K. Simmons, who plays the father.  Simmons is always very, very good (Juno‘s dad, getting fired in Up in the Air and on TV’s Oz and Law and Order).  Here, he plays a guy who is secure in his own righteousness, but then sees and accepts his own responsibility for the estrangement, and whose love for his son motivates him to make some big changes.  Lou Taylor Pucci is excellent as the son.  Julia Ormond does a good job playing the speech therapist.

Now I generally hate “disease of the week” movies.  Really hate them.  But here the real story is about the relationship between father and son, and the rebuilding of the bond between them.  The memory disability, along with their past and the father’s initial stubbornness,  is just another obstacle to their communication.

The story is based on an actual case described by Oliver Sacks in his essay The Last Hippie.

Other recent DVD picks have been Source Code, Potiche, Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants, and Another Year.

Crazy Stupid Love: Gosling, Stone shine in romcom

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Crazy Stupid Love is an altogether very satisfying romantic comedy starring Steve Carell as the middle-aged sad sack who has been dumped by his longtime wife (Julianne Moore) and comes under the tutelage of uber lounge lizard Ryan Gosling, who in turn is falling for Emma Stone.   Lots of laughs ensue, leading up to a madcap climax in Moore’s back yard, before the film slows down for the last 20 minutes.  But, it’s plenty funny (and not many romcoms are these days).

Gosling, who earned indie favorite status playing tortured/damaged characters,  is great here as the guy who can melt any gal in a bar with stunning ease and speed.  Emma Stone is always good in comedies.  Lisa Lapira shines as Stone’s wingman, and Analeigh Tipton is excellent as Carrel’s babysitter.

The first cowboys & aliens movie

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I really enjoyed the first cowboys and & aliens movie, the sci fi spoof 1994 Oblivion, now available on DVD.    It is set in the year 3030 on the planet Oblivion, which strongly resembles a frontier town from a spaghetti Western, peppered with the occasional cyborg, ray gun and ATM machine.

Oblivion is intentionally campy, has a silly plot and lots of tongue-in-cheek dialogue.  The scene where the funeral is interrupted by the weekly bingo game upstairs is especially funny.  The cast seems to be having lots of fun with the material. Musetta Vander as the  rawhide whip-wielding dominatrix Lash and Carel Struycken as the death-forboding undertaker Gaunt are especially over-the-top good.  In addition, Julie Newmar plays a cougarish saloon proprietor, and Star Trek’s George Takei is the Jim Beam-swilling town doc.  Amazingly, Oblivion rated a 1996 sequel, Oblivion 2:  Backlash, in which most of the cast returned.

I haven’t yet seen the $100 million summer blockbuster Cowboys & Aliens, which opens this weekend.  Cowboys & Aliens is set on the planet Earth, where Daniel Craig, playing a Clint Eastwoodesque Man With No Name, awakes with his memory erased by aliens and a futuristic bracelet.  Harrison Ford’s torch-bearing mounted lynch mob is interrupted by laser attack from an alien spaceship.  Saloon gal Olivia Wilde (House, The OC) is pulled into the sky by alien forces.  It takes itself much more seriously than does Oblivion, and I only hope that it’s half as entertaining as Oblivion.

A Little Help: pulling herself out of malaise

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A Little Help is a Jenna Fischer vehicle that illustrates the depth that Fischer can bring to even a shallow character.  In this dramedy, Fischer is suddenly widowed and must reassemble her life and support her quirky 12-year-old son despite the intrusions of her shrill, micro-controlling sister (Brooke Smith) and their chilly mother (Leslie Anne Warren).  Fischer’s biggest challenge is helping her son navigate social life at his new school, where he has told a preposterous lie on his first day.

Kim Coates steals every scene as a medical malpractice attorney.  Ron Liebman sparkles as the blowhard father.

Writer/Director Michael J. Weithorn made the very smart decision to hold Fischer’s character accountable for the bad choices she has made in her life.  If she were instead written as a completely innocent victim, the story would have lapsed into cliche.  Instead, it’s a pretty good movie and a fine showcase for Jenna Fischer.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI2qIul29Iw]

Tabloid: a gut-bustingly funny documentary

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In Tabloid, master documentarian Errol Morris delivers the hilarious story of Joyce McKinney, a beauty queen jailed for manacling a Mormon missionary as her sex slave.  McKinney doesn’t like the film, but she has no complaint because two-thirds of the film is her telling her story in her own words.  The humor derives from her being such a clearly unreliable narrator – “barking mad” in the colorfully accurate description of a British journalist.  Morris came across her story decades after the kidnapping, when she had her dead dog Booger cloned from “Spirit Booger” into a litter of Korean-named Boogers.

Morris’ last two films (Standard Operating Procedure about the Abu Ghraib abuses and The Fog of War) were as funny as a heart attack.  But remember that Morris’ earliest films (Gates of Heaven, Vernon Florida and Fast Cheap & Out of Control) also focused on eccentrics and were plenty funny.  Just for fun, this time Morris even leaves in some of his snarky wisecracks to the interviewees.

This is one of the funniest movies of the year and the funniest documentary since The Aristocrats.

DVD of the Week: Source Code

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Source Code is a gripping thriller, and I admired both its intelligence and its heart.  The key is a breakthrough screenplay by Ben Ripley.  The scifi premise is that supersoldier Jake Gyllenhaal can inhabit the brain of a terrorism victim for the same 8 minutes – over and over again.  Each time, he has 8 minutes to seek more clues. Can he build the clues into a solution and prevent the terrorist atrocity?  Gyllenhaal is excellent.  So is Vera Farmiga as his handler and Michelle Monaghan as a girl you could fall in love with in 8 minutes.  Jeffrey Wright chews the scenery with his homage to Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove.  Director Duncan Jones solidly brings Ripley’s screenplay home.

It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.

Other recent DVD picks have been Potiche, Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants, and Another Year.