Midnight in Paris (2011)

Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Art Direction  I'm not usually a Woody Allen fan.  I think that the humor is usually good and they're witty but they're generally too overwrought for my tastes.  This one wasn't.  I found it alluring.  It drew me in, but that may have been due to the fact that it's set in my favorite city in the world.

I love Paris.  I have only been once but from the moment I set foot there I felt I was completely at home.  Just thinking about it makes me all dreamy.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood screenwriter who comes to Paris with his girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) and her parents so he can work on his novel.  He romanticizes the Roaring 20's when writers and artists flocked to the city to work and play, but his fiancee could not give a damn about any of that.  One night, while on a midnight walk, Gil accidentally strays into the time period he most loves.  He pals around with Hemingway (Corey Stall), gets his novel critiqued by Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), and philosophizes with Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody).  While out, he meets the lovely Adriana (Marion Cotillard), artists' muse, and begins to question the life he is headed toward.

There are a ton of cameos including Carla Bruni, Tom Hiddleston, and Gad Elmelah.  I wouldn't have said this was the Best Picture of the year but it was easily the most watchable.  It was an utterly effortless blending of fantasy and reality which is exactly how I feel when I think of Paris.

Beginners (2011)

Nominated for Best Supporting Actor  
This was cute, in a quiet sort of way.  I wouldn't call it riveting but it was okay. 

Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor) is trying to have a relationship with a woman (Melanie Laurent) while still ordering his thoughts and feelings about his father (Christopher Plummer) who came out in the years before his death.  ...That's about it, really. 

The real scene-stealer here is Arthur, the Jack Russell terrier.  That is a really cute dog. 

It sounds terrible that the only thing I liked about this movie was the dog but I'm really not a fan of character drama or movies about deep personal reflection.  I think everyone involved did a good job, especially Goran Visnjic as Plummer's younger, still immature, boyfriend.  He was able to show such nuance to the character without resorting to flamboyance.  It was a great understated performance and I would have liked to see him get more attention for it.

More importantly, this is my 500th post!  Yay!

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

Nominated for Best Visual Effects  Or as I like to call it, "How James Franco destroyed the world". 

I hate James Franco.  I have never liked him in any role he has ever done and this was no exception.  Fortunately, he can be safely ignored to focus on the movie's more awesome parts.

In this prequel, a doctor (James Franco) is working on a cure for Alzheimer's to help his father (John Lithgow) suffering from the disease.  The chimp he is testing seems to be showing miraculous results until she goes crazy and gets shot in the lab.  They find that the reason for her outburst was a protective maternal instinct.  Seeing that the baby chimp displays the curious green irises known to be a side effect of the drug, the doctor takes him home and raises him.  Caesar (Andy Serkis) is indeed smarter than other apes.  Unfortunately, he is smart enough to realize the inherent inequality in his position, especially after he attacks a neighbor that was threatening his foster grandfather.  He is put in chimp jail (a housing center for captured apes, since it is generally illegal to have them) where he is brutalized by the head chimp and also by one of the workers (Tom Felton, the Draco kid from Harry Potter).  Disillusioned and filled with growing rage, Caesar uses his superior intelligence to reverse his circumstances and lead his people out of oppression.

I was pleased with the small references they made to the earlier films and by the general scope and tone.    It does make you feel a bit of a species traitor since by the end you're actively rooting for the apes but I can get over that.  Overall, this was a solid film and I would definitely recommend it to someone.

Soldier (1998)

  Back from my trip and even though I've missed my post deadline here on the east coast, I'm still running on California time so I'm going to go ahead with this one.

I was really trying to get Rob to watch movies he'd never seen which involved several repeats for me, like The Muppets and Escape from New York.  Still, I suffered for a good cause.  

This is another film that doesn't get a lot of play but I really liked it.  Probably because it doesn't try and pretend to be anything but what it is:  a solid action movie.

Todd (Kurt Russell) is trained from birth to be a perfect soldier, an emotionless yet highly dedicated killing machine.  However, at 40-years-old, he's replaced by a newer, faster breed personified by Caine 607 (Jason Scott Lee).  Left for dead and dumped onto a trash planet, Todd is taken in by a group of refugees.  Unfortunately for all concerned, the planet they are on is shortlisted for cleaning procedures.  All inhabitants are to be considered hostiles and eliminated.  Now Todd must go head-to-head with his replacements in order to save his new community.

There are no surprises here.  There are lots of shooting, lots of explosions, and lots of dead people.  Some people may find it a bit too simplistic but this is Paul Anderson before he got all crazy with the Resident Evil series.  For me, I liked it.

The Rocketeer (1991)

  Rob and I are in California for the weekend so he can be a groomsman in his friend's wedding. While he was at the rehearsal today I watched one of his favorite childhood movies. 

 
I have to say it does not weather the years well technology-wise.  The CGI is really obvious, not to mention that the actual rocket-pack design looks like anyone who used it would end up with burned off feet.  Rob compares it to the Indiana Jones franchise, in that you have to take it with a grain of salt, but he's smoking crack.  I would put it on the same level as John Carter:  fun for kids but pretty lukewarm for adults.

Cliff (Billy Campbell) is a pilot gearing up for the 1938 Nationals, a flying race, when his plane is shot down during a gunfight between gangsters and the Feds.  The gangsters had stolen a prototype personal rocket from Howard Hughes' (Terry O'Quinn) labs.  The FBI thinks the rocket was destroyed but the gangster pulled a switch.  Cliff and his mentor, Peabody (Alan Arkin), find the rocket and mess with it, working out some of the bugs.  Meanwhile, Cliff's girlfriend, Jenny (Jennifer Connelly), an aspiring actress, is trying to get ahead in Hollywood and convince her flyboy boyfriend to take her job seriously.  After a near-disaster when Cliff comes to visit her on set, Jenny comes to the attention of Neville Sinclair (Timothy Dalton), the number three box office star in America.  Unfortunately, Neville is only using Jenny to get to Cliff since he's the one who paid the gangsters to steal the rocket in the first place.

The story is based on the comic books of the same name but I have no idea how faithful they are.  The dialogue is a little stilted for me since they were trying to capture the accent of the period and it just doesn't sound natural.

From what I've read, this movie polarizes people.  There are some who feel that it didn't get enough of a chance, that it was released at the wrong time, or that it should be remade.  A lot of people just didn't like it.  I find myself in an apathetic category.  Would I protest if this movie was being remade?  No, but I wouldn't run out and buy it on blu-ray either.

John Carter (2012)

  The original title was going to be John Carter of Mars hence the JCM initials. 

Based on the novel A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (the guy who wrote the Tarzan series), it's about a former Confederate calvary Captain, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who stumbles across a mysterious artifact while looking for gold in Arizona that transports him to Mars.  (In the book, he is an immortal who dies in one place only to wake up in the other but in the movie he finds a teleportation device.)  On Mars, or Barsoom as the locals call it, Carter gets picked up by an alien race called the Thark.  Due to the gravitational differences, Carter is imbued with supernatural strength and the Jeddak of the Thark (Willem Dafoe) takes a shine to him.

Meanwhile, the ruler of Zodanga (Dominic West) is out on a mission to rule the planet.  Aided by a mysterious man wielding incredible technology (Mark Strong), he demands the Jeddak of Helium (Ciaran Hinds) hand over his daughter, Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), in marriage.  Dejah escapes only to be caught by the Thark.  She and Carter escape with the help of a Thark named Sola (Samantha Morton) and head toward a holy shrine for answers as to how John can get back home.

There's a lot of action so it doesn't feel like a two and a half hour long movie.  I would have liked to see more of a puzzle aspect or some form of cleverness but that's because I tend to like movies like that.  This is not a bad movie.  It is very straightforward sci-fi action so, as long as you don't expect too much from it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

The Tree of Life (2011)

Nominated for Pest Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography  Two things as first impressions:  1) the opening screen says "For optimal sound reproduction, the producers of this blu-ray recommend you play it loud".  I'm not sure what the hell they're trying to say there, unless they knew their target audience was the elderly.  2) The next screen is a quote from the book of Job in the Bible.  This is not good foreshadowing.

This movie made no sense.  It was so boring I thought I was going to lose a pulse.  It was like a boring mid-life-crisis retrospective had been chopped up and put in a blender with a nature documentary.  And yet, it's not a shitty movie.  It is beautifully shot and each frame was chosen with care which I can only take to mean that the director did it on purpose this way.  I can't fathom his reasoning but that is probably the point.

Jack (Sean Penn) is a successful architect but is unhappy.  He has a strained relationship with his father (Brad Pitt), a strict disciplinarian, and a dreamy appreciation for his mother (Jessica Chastain), a devout Catholic with a love of nature.  As far as I can tell, the whole point of the movie is that life progresses and eventually something bad happens and it changes your perspective, but if you try hard enough, you can get that feeling back.  Or something.  Honestly, I kept falling asleep everything I tried to watch this movie.

This was supposed to go up yesterday.  I know you guys don't care what my excuses are but I'm going to list them anyway.  I'm still adjusting to my new work schedule with involves a much longer commute so finding time to watch movies during the week is getting rough.  I've almost completely given up on TV.  Also, yesterday I helped my friend paint her rental house so she can hopefully get some tenants soon.  Hopefully things will start settling down soon and I can get back to doing what I do best:  make fun of movies that suck.

Act of Valor (2012)

  I am not going to talk shit about the Navy SEALs featured in this movie.  They are highly trained, highly dedicated people who do a difficult job and do it well.  I have nothing but respect for all the objectives they've accomplished.

However.

They are incredibly shitty actors.  That is Reason #1 why I think this movie should never have been made.  Every line sounded forced, the attempts to make these men more warm and cuddly just fell completely flat, and the bromance between the two main characters was excruciating.

Now, this isn't a documentary.  These are real SEALs doing real training missions...surrounded by actual actors.  It's like 24 meets G. I. Jane.  The SEALs are briefed that they need to rescue CIA operative Lisa Morales (Rosalyn Sanchez) in Costa Rica.  Morales was trying to surveil Christo (Alex Veadov) when she got kidnapped.  They save her and find that Christo has connections to Chechen jihadist Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle).  Shabal is planning to smuggle 16 suicide bombers through Mexican tunnels under the border to the US.  It's up to the SEALs to stop all of them.

Again, not ragging on the SEALs as themselves.  Complete shit as actors.

Honestly, my second reason for thinking this film should have stayed in a draft form is that I'm pretty happy with how SEALs are portrayed by Hollywood.  It's not like they're coming out to set the record straight or correct a misapprehension.  Everyone knows they're badasses and, frankly, I think a Hollywood veneer helps them do their jobs.  Not everyone who watches movies is a friend to us and I think that filming realistic scenarios featuring real military personnel is bad operational security.  I would much rather our enemies have a fictionalized version to base their opinions on, rather than the real thing.

The Producers (2005)

  It's my ongoing mission to make my boyfriend as gay as possible.  Not really.  But that's what he thinks.  He refuses outright to watch musicals with me.  It still happens but at least he can tell himself that he fought against it.

This is one of my favorites.  It started as a classic movie by Mel Brooks with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.  Then, it was turned into a 12-Tony-winning hit musical on Broadway and eventually back into a musical movie.  It's fantastic.  Rob loved it.  I would catch him turning around from his chair (playing Star Wars, of course) just to watch and laugh his ass off.

Max Bialystock (Nathan Lane) is a Broadway producer, fallen on hard times.  His last few shows have all flopped, including his most recent "Funny Boy", a musical version of Hamlet.  He is interrupted one day by the arrival of Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick), a mousy accountant with an anxiety disorder, who is there to do his books.  Leo makes an off-hand remark that a producer, if unscrupulous, could actually make more money with a flop than with a hit.  Max is immediately on board and cajoles Leo into being his partner-in-crime.  They find the worst script possible --"Springtime for Hitler"--written by crazed ex-Nazi Franz Liebkind (Will Ferrell) as well as the worst director, Roger DeBris (Gary Beach), to make it as gay as possible.  Not even the possible rivalry over hot Swedish secretary/receptionist Ulla (Uma Thurman) can bring down the pair of perfidious producers.

Yeah, I said it.  What?

When I first heard they were making a musical based on The Producers I cringed.  I really didn't think it would be as good as the original but, God love that crazy genius, Mel Brooks actually surpassed it.  They didn't change the story; they just wrote songs to fit it.  It's awesome.  I still laugh and I've seen it a half dozen times.

Side note:  I know posts have been light the last couple of weeks.  I have mentioned the bout of depression before and I wanted to let you guys know that on Monday I officially start my new job.  That means less overall posts because I can't watch three a day any more but a much happier Lucy and, very soon, a once-more movie-buying Lucy.  This will benefit everyone.