Captain Phillips

I agree with the blurb on the TV spots—Captain Phillips IS one of 2013’s best films. Tom Hanks turns in his usual strong portrayal, but it’s the guys who play the Somali pirates who help give the film its realism.

Captain Phillips has the three elements that make a good movie: a compelling story, compelling characters and an interesting way of telling of that story.

Captain Phillips is based on a true story, though some of the actual crew members claim that they didn’t get the love they deserved and blame the real-life Captain Phillips. Also: a movie, even one based on real events, takes liberties with characters, timelines and minor details in its storytelling.

Having issued those disclaimers, I can assure you that Captain Phillips sometimes feels like TV news coverage. (Although, unlike many films based on recent real-life occurrences, we do not see clips of TV news reports of the incident.) With many handheld camera shots, plus scenes filmed in close quarters, Captain Phillips has an air of reality that many similar films do not have.

Phillips (Tom Hanks) is a regular guy from Vermont who happens to have a job as a sea captain. As the film opens, we see him riding to the airport with his wife (Catherine Keener) who sends him off to his next trip. He runs a cargo vessel that has to sail in open waters near Somalia. Hanks has great range as an actor, but playing everyman is his sweet spot.

Admirably, director Paul Greengrass also shares the Somali pirates’ backstory. He shows them gathering on the beach, choosing a team and constructing a longer ladder to enable them to board large vessels. During their takeover of the ship and all that follows, the audience comes to know these guys and their motivations. They are not sympathetic characters, but they are not just a bunch of faceless thugs.

Native Somali Barkhad Abdi (now a U.S. resident) plays Muse, the rail-thin leader of the pirate takeover. His machine gun allows him to display some swagger, but his cool helps him calm dissension within his gang of four. Could this unknown be 2013’s version of Quvenzhané Wallis, last year’s awards season darling?

Although you as a moviegoer know in advance that Phillips made it out alive, as with Titanic and Apollo 13, discovering the outcome is not the reason to see Captain Phillips. It’s the journey that each of the characters takes that keeps the tension building right up to the film’s climax. Also, it’s rather cool to see the way U.S. military involvement in the event is depicted.

Sometimes a big star promotes a movie with maximum gusto to generate a decent opening weekend, before ticket buyers figure out that it is not a very good movie. Hanks has been flogging Captain Phillips like crazy in recent weeks. In this case, it is not to salvage a mediocre film but to generate long-term box office. The guess here is that Captain Phillips will have “legs” and that Tom Hanks is in line to get a large percentage of those ticket sales.

In mid-summer, I had only a couple of films on my 2013 “must see” list. Happily, the list has grown in recent weeks. My latest “must see” movie is Captain Phillips.

 

 

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Gravity

And you thought George Clooney was up in the air in 2009!

How good is Gravity? It’s pretty darn good, but it falls way short of greatness. Still, it’s a movie to see because (1) it’s a complete, competent movie with only two onscreen actors and (2) it has some spectacular images.

Is every special effect awesome? No, a few are fakey, obviously done with miniatures. But many do look terrific.

The title has two meanings here. Gravity is the force that pulls us to the earth. And gravity describes a tense, serious life situation.

George Clooney, as astronaut Matt Kowalski, defies gravity—both kinds. As a veteran of the space program, he has escaped earth’s gravity numerous times. And in a time of looming danger, he wants to tell stories of a trip to Mardi Gras in the 80’s and flirt with space chum Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock).

Astronauts (especially those from the Right Stuff era) are a different breed but Kowalski seems more like a typical earthbound Clooney charmer than a NASA space cowboy. His almost flip attitude is balanced by his deep fascination with the views he sees, even after many trips to the sky.

Stone, on the other hand, is all business. She’s an engineer and has a stoic, let’s-stick-to-the-task disposition.

Their spacewalk is interrupted by orbiting space debris. The flying flotsam wreaks significant havoc on its first go-around. The experienced Kowalski points out that the next orbit of space junk could be worse.

Interestingly, when Stone takes refuge inside a space station, the first thing she does is strip down to her shorts and t-shirt. Sure, it’s less bulky than a spacesuit, but it also serves to add a bit of sex appeal when she “swims” weightlessly through the facility. This setting renders a memorable shot when the camera backfocuses on a floating tear.

Gravity is essentially a story of survival, one where human instincts merge with technical knowledge and skill. To be sure, we haven’t seen this many narrow escapes since Indy Jones hung up his fedora. But the intensity starts early and keeps going to the end. Enjoy the ride!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Enough Said

Here is an excellent movie for grownups. Two extremely likeable characters fall in love in a movie that has a message for all couples.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorced woman who goes to a party at the urging of her unhappily married friend Sarah (Toni Collette). At the party, Eva meets Albert (James Gandolfini), a divorced man. Eva also meets Marianne (Catherine Keener) who becomes a massage client and, in short order, a friend and confidante.

Albert and Eva go out on a date. Neither expects anything special, but they enjoy each other’s company and soon are sleeping over. They have one big thing in common: both have daughters who are about to finish high school and go away to college. This circumstance requires that they interact with their exes.

The message for couples in Enough Said is not to let little things become deal breakers. Those of us who’ve been married for a while know that both partners have to tolerate their mates’ imperfections. For instance, dirty underwear left on the bedroom floor may be an annoyance but not grounds for divorce. On the other hand, when one partner is aware of his/her annoying behavior and makes zero effort to change, that can be a problem.

Eva has scenes with Sarah and her husband Will (Ben Falcone). They nitpick and bicker but manage to stay together.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is totally charming as Eva. She frequently flashes the great smile that her often snarky Elaine (on Seinfeld) shared minimally or, often, sarcastically.

James Gandolfini is just a big, sweet teddy bear as Albert. I had a melancholy feeling watching Enough Said because I knew that it was one of his last roles before his sudden death last June. His performances during the past year in Zero Dark Thirty, Not Fade Away and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone showed promise of a hugely successful post-Sopranos film career. Sadly, that will not happen.

Let me offer a huge hat tip to the woman who wrote and directed Enough Said, Nicole Holofcener. Her dialogue is clever, funny and believable. Her directing is efficient and never overbearing. Honestly, the only thing I dislike about Enough Said is its rather generic title.

If you’re looking for a movie for grownups without violence and peril, escape to the movie house to check out Enough Said.

 

 

 

 

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Prisoners

Prisoners is intense. To maintain energy and interest for two and a half hours, a film needs to keep moving. This detective story with a vengeance twist doesn’t stop throwing new plot developments until the screen goes black.

Hugh Jackman, in a non-singing role, is the more bankable star of Prisoners. But Jake Gyllenhaal delivers the stronger performance as a police detective charged with solving the disappearance of two young girls.

The Dovers (Jackman and Maria Bello) and the Birchs (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis) are suburban neighbors who get together for Thanksgiving. After the meal, their two young daughters go outside but soon disappear. Their older siblings recall seeing an old RV. When it is found, suspect Alex Jones (Paul Dano) is brought in and questioned by detective Loki (Gyllenhaal). But Jones has an apparent learning disability and can barely talk. With no solid evidence, he is released.

Dover, however, is convinced that Jones is the perp. Shortly after Jones is turned loose, Dover imprisons Jones inside an abandoned apartment building where he beats and tortures him. He enlists the aid of the Birchs (first Mr., later Mrs.) in the effort to get Alex to tell where the girls are.

Loki meanwhile pursues other leads, which take him to a couple of creeps including a priest on his sex offender list (Len Cariou) and a slimy guy who buys kids clothing but has no kids (David Dastmalchian). Loki finds weird things in each of their homes. He stops by Alex Jones’ home and talks to his mom (Melissa Leo) in his search for solid evidence.

Loki’s frustration increases until the Birch girl is found. In the wake of that occurrence, almost everything gets resolved.

Jackman is not the first male actor to express extreme anger about a daughter being abducted, but he carries it off well. Bello, Howard and Davis, sadly, have little opportunity to show their acting chops. Dano plays the simpleton perfectly. Leo is initially unrecognizable as the dowdy middle-aged mom. And Dastmalchian has a look that should get him as many decent “creep” roles as he can handle.

The reason to see Prisoners (along with trying to figure it all out) is Gyllenhaal. He maintains a level of intensity that hovers just below the boiling point through most of the film. He does blow his top a time or two.

Jake owes a debt to writer Aaron Guzikowski for handing him a great character and to director Denis Villenueve for delivering the story in a straightforward way, without any tricky stuff.

Prisoners has the grim look of rainy winters down south. (It was filmed in Georgia, a state that actually does have sunny days, though not in this movie.) It has no real comic relief. Prisoners is intense.

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Blue Jasmine

How much money did Woody Allen lose to Bernie Madoff? If he was not among the many who were defrauded (Madoff’s ripoff total was some 65 billion dollars), Allen probably has friends in New York city who were losers in the gigantic Ponzi scheme.

Blue Jasmine is ostensibly the story of Jeanette “Jasmine” French (Cate Blanchett) whose husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) went to jail for investment fraud a la Madoff. After the feds have seized all their belongings, Jasmine goes from Park Avenue to San Francisco to stay with a poorer relation, her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Both were adopted and have never been particularly close.

Blue Jasmine also illustrates the damage done to people by investment scandals like the Madoff affair. Not just to Jasmine, but also to Ginger and her ex-husband Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) and to Hal’s son Danny (Alden Ehrenreich), among others. Cate Blanchett’s performance may be the main reason to see Blue Jasmine, but Allen’s script (based on repercussions of the real-life fraud) is flawless and is the framework for this excellent movie.

Other memorable characters populate Blue Jasmine. Ginger’s boyfriend Chili (Bobby Cannavale) is a volatile, tactless greaser who nonetheless accurately pegs Jasmine. Al (Louis C.K.) is a flirty charmer who momentarily woos Ginger away from Chili. Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) is the classy guy who appears to be Jasmine’s ticket back to wealth and respectability.

Jasmine is, at various times during the film, a woman to be pitied and a woman to be scorned. She has no apparent misgivings about her behavior when she was a woman of leisure, the wife of a man with limitless wealth. She has difficulty adjusting to her new personal economy and lifestyle and, like many working women, has to fight off the advances of her boss. Her crises have left her dependent on booze and pills to maintain a semblance of sanity. When she meets a wealthy man who is impressed by her style and grace, she is ready to shove off from Ginger’s generous charity in a heartbeat. Can she handle reality or is she a big phony?

A favorite scene is the one that finds Jasmine in an eatery booth with Ginger and Augie’s two sons. She shares with them some memories of the unraveling of her charmed life in NYC. The boys stare back with blank expressions, but she tells the tale anyway, perhaps because she knows that they don’t perceive the ramifications as their mom might.

Cate Blanchett is a likely Oscar nominee for best actress. Woody Allen has given her a timely, memorable character and she has delivered a performance that may be her best. Blue Jasmine is a “must see” movie. Not just for Cate’s work, but also for Woody’s.

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Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

The look, the sound, the mood, the time and the place of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints are classic. The cast is brilliant. The story, though somewhat predictable, has enough layers to keep moviegoers entranced from start to finish.

Ruth (Rooney Mara) and Bob (Casey Affleck) are young lovers in a small Texas town. They steal. They are chased. In a shootout, Ruth shoots a deputy in the shoulder but Bob takes the fall and goes to jail. The scene where Ruth and Bob are being led away from the shootout is one of the year’s best as they hold hands, whisper to one another, then are pulled apart.

Four years later, after Ruth has given birth to their child, Bob escapes. Deputy Wheeler (Ben Foster) breaks the news to Ruth and we see that he has feelings for her. (The deputy does not know that Ruth was the shooter who took him down.) Foster embellishes his performance with a distinctive cop swagger.

Keith Carradine plays a local shopkeeper whose son was an accomplice to the robbery and was killed in the shootout. While he befriends Ruth, he maintains a grudge against Bob. Escapee Bob visits his store and he tells Bob to stay away from Ruth and the girl. Fat chance.

Nate Parker is a local bar owner who provides a place for his old friend Bob to crash while he is on the lam. When deputy Wheeler comes looking for Bob, Parker’s character diverts attention while Bob jumps out a window.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is set sometime in mid-twentieth century. The gas guzzler sheriff’s cars appear to be mid-60’s vintage. The film recalls the 1973 movie Badlands with a young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as violent heartland killers. But Ruth and Bob are not so heartless.

Director David Lowery (who also wrote the script) has crafted a film with muted colors, frequent use of sepia tones and many almost monochromatic shots. The toned-down color, combined with some of the wardrobes, gives Ain’t Them Bodies Saints the feel of a Western movie in many of its scenes.

Though set in Texas (and filmed in Louisiana), ATBS looks like it could be anywhere in flyover country. Despite its chases and gunplay, much of the film has a relaxed pace. With its classic feel and strong acting performances, expect Ain’t Them Bodies Saints to show up on a few Top Ten lists at year’s end. Festival prizes already scored may be echoed in a few months by other awards groups.

Top cast members are Rooney Mara as the seemingly weak young woman who manages to gain strength and raise her daughter and Ben Porter as the deputy who finally gets the courage to express his feelings for Ruth. Casey Affleck’s mumbling may play against his chances for awards noms. Keith Carradine’s performance as a man with many motivations could also earn some awards love.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. It has a good story told well and good characters acted well.

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Closed Circuit

Ever had a friend (or a comedian) tell you a joke with a great setup? One that gets you ready for a big payoff? And then… the punch line is not that funny?

Closed Circuit, though not a comedy, is a bit like that. The setup is tremendous but the payoff falls way short.

The film’s clever opening sequence presents an increasing number of security camera views of a busy London market. When the number of images onscreen hits fifteen, a terrorist bomb explodes. Coming just four months after the Boston Marathon bombing (in which suspects were identified from security footage) this film initially appears to be particularly timely.

When a suspect is brought in, Martin (Eric Bana) and Claudia (Rebecca Hall) are chosen to work as defense counsels. Actually, Claudia is a special advocate and Martin is a replacement defense attorney. At this point, the setup gets muddied with rules regarding the case. Supposedly, Claudia and Martin cannot share information with one another. Here comes another potentially interesting wrinkle: they are ex-lovers whose breakup was acrimonious.

Because of the complex rules regarding the case, which is being tried behind closed doors, and the fact that the government is sharing details with these two on a severely limited basis, they are forced to seek information on their own. But the British government is keeping an eye on them as they try to figure things out.

Despite all these contrivances, the potential for a strong finish still remains until the story seems to lose its mojo. Its resolution may be an accurate depiction of real life, but this is a fictional narrative that might’ve benefited from a different wrap up.

James Broadbent, who sometimes seems to be in every movie set in Britain, appears as the UK Attorney General. He usually plays a nice guy, but here his AG is a bit devious. Bana’s voice sounds amazingly, distractingly like Liam Neeson’s in many instances. Hall, a statuesque beauty, displays great mobility in high heels. (Or was it her double?)

Closed circuit video is used admirably in other parts of Closed Circuit after the great opening. Director John Crowley makes the point that our lives are being observed by others. That’s not news to most of us.

Closed Circuit coulda been a contender. Instead it gets a one-way ticket to Palookaville.

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In A World

Make way for a new showbiz triple threat! Lake Bell wrote and directed In A World and stars as the film’s central character Carol Solomon. The film is a romantic comedy, a family comedy and a workplace comedy.

Lake Bell’s is not a household name, but she has worked as an actor for years. I interviewed her for radio a decade ago when she was on a short-lived TV show called Miss Match. Now she adds feature film director and writer to her resume and I look forward to seeing what she delivers in the future. (She has also received great exposure this month with a nude cover shot for New York magazine.)

Carol Solomon is a voice coach who wants to make it big as an L.A. voice over talent, just like her father Sam Sotto (Fred Melamed) has done. His voce is anything but sotto—he has killer pipes and gets lots of work narrating movie trailers. Sam designates fellow voice talent Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) as the heir apparent to the real life announcer Don LaFontaine (noted for trailer scripts that begin with the words “In a world…”)

Sam tosses Carol out of his place because his girlfriend is moving in. Carol crashes with her sister Dani (Michela Watkins) and eventually causes her sister and her boyfriend Moe (Rob Corddry) to bust up. Meanwhile, Carol is in competition with Gustav for the plum gig of narrating the trailers for a new movie “quadrilogy.” When Gustav and Carol hook up, he doesn’t know (a) that she’s a voice talent and (b) her friend Sam’s daughter.

In A World is not gut busting funny, but it has its moments. I overheard a fellow critic call it “sitcomy.” In a way, the movie does recall elements of media-related workplace sitcoms (The Mary Tyler Moore Show and WKRP in Cincinnati come to mind) with its lineup of likeable second bananas and oddball tertiary characters. Plus plot points that circle back to earlier setups.

The cast also includes Demetri Martin, Nick Offerman and Tig Notaro as recording studio personnel. Eva Longoria cameos as herself, doing ADR dubbing. Geena Davis appears as a movie studio head. (The formerly glamorous Davis also serves as a sad example of bad plastic surgery.)

In A World is rated R, mainly for language. This is a movie for grownups that is nicely paced and thoroughly entertaining. It clocks in at 93 minutes.

Oddly, the trailer for In A World, is one of those that gives away many of the movie’s best lines. Skip the trailer, but see this movie about trailers. As has been written in bad commercial copy read by voice talents for decades, “You’ll be glad you did!”

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The Spectacular Now

Here’s the problem with movies like The Spectacular Now. These low-budget indie darlings get critic love at festivals. The NY/LA early release stirs up some big city and national buzz. Then, when they come to the hinterlands, we expect to see something that is transcendent.

This is good marketing strategy, but when an anticipated mind-blower is merely okay, there’s disappointment. We should recognize that festival people and NY/LA people are sometimes more easily charmed by such films than those of us here in flyover country.

When the film’s screenwriters appear (trolling for tweets) in a prologue before the preview screening, mentioning that they also wrote 500 Days of Summer, one may figure that The Spectacular Now might match or exceed that ’09 hit.

It’s not that the central characters Sutter (Miles Teller) and Aimee (Shalene Woodley) aren’t real and likeable. They are. And these are two talented young actors.

Sutter is a good-time high school guy with little ambition who gets by on charm. He’s also a chronic boozer who lives for the moment, the now. Aimee is a modest background player at school who, upon meeting Sutter, discovers the perks of being a wallflower. Their relationship, with Sutter’s ex Cassidy (Brie Larson) hovering nearby, percolates slowly but eventually gains traction.

Sutter urges Aimee to stand up to her divorced mom and Aimee replies that Sutter should stand up to his divorced mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to find out the truth about his absent dad (Kyle Chandler).

The big question looms: Will Sutter turn out to be just like his dad and hurt Aimee (like his mom was damaged by his dad’s actions)?

This is a good movie. But it’s not half the movie that 500 Days of Summer was. Enjoy it for what it is. Although Sutter chooses to live in the “now,” you can probably just wait for the DVD.

PS: The Spectacular Now, like most movies about high school kids, uses actors who are in their 20’s. Are there no 17-year-olds who are capable of playing 17-year-olds?

PPS: Also, since this movie is obviously set in the south (it was filmed in Georgia), shouldn’t at least one of its characters have a southern accent?

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Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Lee Daniels’ The Butler will win awards. Its stars, its director and its storylines assure that this movie will notch several trophies next awards season.

But who gets which award? Oprah Winfrey was nominated for an Oscar in her first film role nearly 30 years ago in The Color Purple. Forrest Whittaker was a Best Actor Oscar winner for his work as Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. Director Lee Daniels, whose name is now part of the film’s official title, earned a best director nom for Precious (whose star Mo’Nique took Oscar home).

Cecil Gaines (Whittaker) is a butler at the White House. His career spans the years of the civil rights movement in America, from the Eisenhower administration through the Reagan years. While the nation is undergoing major changes, so are Cecil and his family members.

His story begins in the 1920’s. After his cotton picker parents are victims of hateful violence by a member of their white employer’s family in Georgia, a young Cecil becomes a “house n——.” He parlays his talent into hotel gigs and is later recruited to be a butler at the White House. Life is good, better than he could’ve imagined.

Cecil has a wife he loves (Gloria, played by Oprah Winfrey), a family, a car, a home and a good job, serving presidents at the White House. When his son Louis (Daniel Oyelowo) goes to college in Nashville, he becomes an activist in the civil rights battle, making Cecil uncomfortable. The son’s radicalization takes him all the way to the Black Panthers, at which point Cecil decides he has gone too far. Their other son goes to the opposite extreme and enlists in the army during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Gloria’s booze issues threaten family harmony.

The men who are cast as U.S. presidents make up a notable list: Robin Williams as Ike, James Marsden as JFK, Liev Schreiber as LBJ, Jon Cusack as Nixon and Alan Rickman as Reagan. Jane Fonda appears as Nancy Reagan and Minka Kelly plays Jackie Kennedy. Presidents Ford, Carter and Obama appear via video footage.

Nancy’s invitation to Cecil to attend a White House dinner not as a server, but as a guest, is an appropriate coda to his career. A few more life events follow during Cecil’s retirement.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler’s talented cast also includes Terrence Howard, Cuba Gooding Jr., Lenny Kravitz, Maria Carey and Vanessa Redgrave.

Screenwriter Danny Strong and Daniels should be praised for keeping this movie at a reasonable length. This is a big movie that covers a lot of ground in just over two hours. With as many characters and plot points as this film has, it could’ve run much longer.

Whittaker’s performance should nab him another Oscar nomination and LDTB should land a best picture nom. Is Oprah’s performance Oscar-nomination-worthy? She’s good, but I don’t think she’s a lock to win, as some have forecast. Best adapted screenplay is another possibility. (Click HERE to read the Washington Post story that inspired the fictional movie script.)

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is a good film but not quite a classic. Because of its specific subject matter and because it covers a large swath of recent American history, LDTB is likely to become a favorite of many moviegoers.

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