3 Days to Kill

Posted on February 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Kevin Costner is back, big time, with five scheduled releases this year. It’s only February, and this is his second big spies-and-shoot-outs action film of 2014, following Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. This one, from writer Luc Besson and director McG (“Charlie’s Angels”) seems inspired by Liam Neeson’s annual series of middle-aged action films (“Taken,” “Taken 2,” next week’s “Non-Stop”). This will not go down as an especially memorable entry in the filmography of Costner or Besson, but it is a big improvement over Besson’s previous middle-aged star action film, From Paris With Love, with John Travolta, also set in Paris. Costner reminds us why he is a movie star with ease and likability that is a perfect on-screen match for Besson’s trademark mash-up of intense action, gooey sentiment, and goofy comedy.

Costner plays Ethan Renner, a long-time CIA operative. He is not a spy. He is an assassin. He is sent in to kill people, presumably bad guys, and he is very good at it. But when we meet him chasing after a bad guy known as “the albino” and clearly not feeling well. It turns out he has cancer. A doctor tells him to get his affairs in order and crisply thanks him for his service to the CIA.

Ethan returns to his apartment, where a large family of sweet-natured squatters from Africa have moved in and repainted his bedroom. Under the law, squatters cannot be evicted until spring, plus one of them is a young pregnant woman, so he lets them stay. Ethan contacts his estranged-but-n0t-divorced wife, Christine (Connie Nielsen) and his teenaged daughter, Zoey (Halliee Steinfeld) to spend time with them while he can. And then Vivi (Amber Heard), a CIA operative who dresses like Lady Gaga, makes him an offer he can’t refuse. If Ethan will take one last job, she will give him an experimental drug that could cure his cancer and give him more time.

Ethan races around Paris, alternately torturing the director of a high-end limo service to get information about the whereabouts of The Albino’s accountant and asking him for parenting tips, giving his daughter lessons in bike-riding and, with the help of that accountant, a recipe for spaghetti sauce, hallucinating due to the effects of the experimental drug and swigging vodka as an antidote, and doing some very bad things to some very bad guys. A lot of it makes no sense, but let’s face it, that’s not why we’re here.

Parents should know that this film has extensive spy-style action peril and violence. A character is an assassin and many other characters are injured and killed with guns, chases, explosions, fights, some disturbing images, mortal illness, drinking, smoking, drugs, some nudity and suggestive dancing, non-explicit childbirth scene, and some strong language.

Family discussion: Is Ethan a good dad? How did the theme of fatherhood come up in different ways throughout this film?

If you like this, try: “The Professional” and “The Transporter”

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Two Film Noir Classics Now Free Streaming

Posted on January 31, 2014 at 11:59 am

“Film Noir” (“black films”) usually refers to the stylized dark crime films of the 1940’s, usually made by German directors who came to the United States to escape the Nazis. Their cynicism, sense of dread and loss, and themes of betrayal, obsession, and sin gave their stories of crime and mystery an archetypal feeling. Two of the best can now be seen for free.

A neglected gem from Orson Welles, “The Stranger” is the story of an investigator (Edward G. Robinson) who is tracking down a Nazi war criminal (Welles), now living a quiet life as a professor and married to a woman (Loretta Young) who knows nothing of his past. The climax in a church belfry tower is brilliantly staged.

Edward G. Robinson also appears in the less characteristic role of a mild-mannered professor who gets caught up in a web of deception and betrayal in “The Woman in the Window.” The ending is a disappointment, but the direction by Fritz Lang is a masterpiece of noir mood.

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Classic Drama Mystery Thriller

The Uninvited: Now on Criterion

Posted on October 25, 2013 at 3:59 pm

Just in time for Halloween, one of my very favorite ghost stories has been released in a beautifully restored edition from the wonderful folks at Criterion. It is The Uninvited, starring Ray Milland (“Love Story”) and Ruth Hussey (“The Philadelphia Story”), as a brother and sister who move into a beautiful but spooky house on the cliffs of Cornwall. Made in 1944, this was one of the first Hollywood films to treat a ghost story seriously and it is wonderfully eerie and romantic, with a very satisfying conclusion and a gorgeous score that includes the classic song, “Stella by Starlight.” By today’s standards, the scares are rather tame but the psychological horror and suspense are well handled. Both Martin Scorsese and Guillermo Del Toro have named it as among their favorite thrillers. Highly recommended. (No connection to the 2009 film of the same name.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfRSZ2kYvXs

For a delectably spooky Criterion double feature, add I Married a Witch with Veronica Lake and Fredric March.

The Counselor

Posted on October 24, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Adult
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for graphic violence, some grisly images, strong sexual content and language
Profanity:	Very strong, explicit, and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drugs and drug dealers, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Very graphic and disturbing violence with characters injured and murdered, decapitations, guns, sexual violence
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 25, 2013

Cormac McCarthy’s spare, bleak, and very literary prose has made for some compelling cinema, most effectively in No Country for Old Men and The Road and the adaption of his play for an HBO movie, The Sunset Limited. In his first original screenplay, he shows his flair for dialog that is half gangster, half poetry, but he is still more writer than visual story-teller. He needs to learn to trust the audience. If you show something, you don’t have to tell it, and you certainly don’t have to tell it more than once. Some good ideas and some gorgeous talk get lost in an awkward, over-the-top, you’ve got to be kidding me mess. Other writers are better at adapting his ideas for film than he is.

Michael Fassbender plays the title character, a handsome lawyer with a lot of low-life clients and a gorgeous girlfriend (Penélope Cruz) who adores him. What he does not have is a name. We never hear him called anything but “counselor.” He does have — a very bad combination — a plan to get a lot of money very quickly, some friends and clients involved with some very bad people, and a wildly unrealistic notion that he can veer off of that path of what’s legal just one time and then get right back on. If you have any confusion about what happens next, check your ancient Greek dramas with the hashtag #hubris. Or, just listen to the loving description of a method of killing people from Reiner (Javier Bardem) that involves a wire noose that tightens inexorably around the neck. METAPHOR ALERT. Don’t even get me started on the diamond seller the counselor visits to buy an engagement ring, the one who explains that in the world of diamonds, what we look at are the imperfections, sells him a cautionary stone, and tells the counselor, “We will not be diminished by the brevity of our lives.”

Renier also has a girlfriend named Malkina (Cameron Diaz) who not only MORE METAPHORS COMING loves to watch her pet cheetahs chase and devour jackrabbits but has cheetah-themed tattoos and eye make-up, a gold tooth, and an amber ring the size of a cheese sandwich. She also brings new meaning to the term “auto-erotica” in a crazynutsy scene narrated by Bardem that is literally over-the-top. Note: Diaz is very limber and has lovely long legs. “I asked her whether she had ever done anything like that before and she said she had done everything before,” Renier says, a little dazed. Also, the drug smuggling involves trucks carrying human waste and occasionally a dead human body. On the side, it says, “We pump it all!” Is it just me, or is that a METAPHOR, too? Did I mention Renier lives in a glass house?

Ridley Scott’s direction, the cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, and outstanding performances keep the movie watchable, even when it isn’t working, until the literary pretentiousness overcomes it with a series of speeches near the end that tip the scales from poetic, and ironic to purplish and self-parodying. In small roles, Rosie Perez, Rubén Blades, and Natalie Dormer create vivid characters who evoke the work the counselor thought he could keep himself apart from and does not realize he has already been changed by. “If you think that, Counselor, that you can live in this world and not be a part of it, you are wrong,” Renier tells him.

McCarthy knows this is a world where the problem that brings you down is one that in normal world would be quickly explained and quickly forgiven. These people do not believe in explanations. “They’re a pragmatic lot. They don’t believe in coincidences. They’ve heard of them. They’ve just never seen one.” There are no second chances. And then, as Renier explains, “it’s not that you’re going down. It’s about what you’re taking down with you.”

I enjoyed the elliptical epigrams tossed around by the characters, especially Brad Pitt’s cowboy, a loner who has a bit more perspective than the others. “How bad a problem?” the counselor asks the cowboy. “I’d say pretty bad. Then multiply it by ten,” he answers. These are people who expect they are being listened to by law enforcement, so it makes sense that they would corkscrew their communications. And it was fun to see the actors having fun with their roles, especially Diaz, with her asymmetric hair, cut to a point that looks like it could etch metal, swanning into a church to try out this confession idea she had heard about. With all the flamboyance, though, the movie’s best moments are the quiet ones. Everything ends up turning on a decision that was not really a mistake. And the most terrifying moments are not the ones with spurting blood or automatic weapons. They are a quiet phone call and a simple, “Hola!”

Parents should know that this film is an extremely violent crime drama with very disturbing and graphic images including decapitation. Many characters injured and brutally killed. It includes guns, crashes, drug dealing, drinking, smoking, very explicit sexual references and situations, and very strong and crude language.

Family discussion: Who suffered the most? Why do we never learn the counselor’s name?

If you like this, try: “No Country for Old Men” and “The Lincoln Lawyer” and the books of Cormac McCarthy and James M. Cain

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Crime Drama Movies -- format Thriller

Carrie

Posted on October 17, 2013 at 5:50 pm

The remake of “Carrie” is not a bad movie; it’s just a completely unnecessary one. The 1976 original is a horror classic, directed by Brian de Palma and the first film based on a novel by Stephen King, just 26 years old when he sold the rights for $2500. Both of its stars were nominated for Oscars, almost unheard of for a genre film, and it is number 46 on the American Film Institute’s list of the top 100 thrillers.

The idea of updating the story of the bullied high school girl to the era of Facebook and YouTube had some intriguing possibilities, especially directed by Kimberly Peirce, whose extraordinary “Boys Don’t Cry” had an insightful authenticity in the portrayal of young people who felt like outsiders. But there is nothing especially timely, revealing, or surprising in this remake. The performances are not up to the level of the original and even the special effects do not seem much better than those in the version that came out when Gerald Ford was President.

Less than a moment into the film, we are already immersed in blood. We hear screams and we see a Bible. Margaret White (Julianne Moore) is in bed, the sheets all bloody, moaning and praying. She thinks she is dying and she thinks it is because she is being punished. But the pains she feels are contractions and she is shocked to find a baby emerging from her. At first, she wants to kill her new daughter with her sewing shears. But she loves the newborn too much to hurt her and, as we learn, she sees the baby as another chance for her to be pure, to be kept safe from the predations of sin and the devil.

We then see Margaret’s daughter, Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz of “Kick-Ass” and “Let Me In”), a shy, repressed, somewhat backward senior in high school and ignored or insulted by the other girls. She gets her period for the first time in the locker room after PE and becomes hysterical. Like her mother, she has no idea what is going on with her body and she thinks she is dying. The other girls are horrified that she is so ignorant and make fun of her, throwing tampons and sanitary napkins at her. Chris, the ringleader (Portia Doubleday) gets it all on her cell phone camera and uploads it to YouTube.

Margaret seems to think that if she had been able to keep Carrie “pure” she never would have gone through puberty. She locks Carrie in a small closet under the stairs and tells her to stay in there and pray.

But puberty seems to have unlocked some special powers in Carrie, powers that seem tied to her emotions. As she sits in the principal’s office, his water cooler bubbles and then explodes. Carrie gets books on miracles and telekinesis from the library and begins to see what she can do and how much she can control. For the first time, she begins to sense some independence and to rebel against her mother.

Sue (Gabriella Wilde) feels guilty about her role in making fun of Carrie and asks her boyfriend, Tommy (Ansel Elgort, soon to be seen in both “Divergent” and ‘The Fault in Our Stars”) to invite Carrie to the prom. She says no at first, but then accepts, and his kindness and courtesy make her feel appreciated for the first time. Until….

And that’s the thing. Everyone knows what happens at the prom. It is one of the most famous images in cinematic history. This replay adds nothing new.

Moretz is a thoughtful and serious young actor, but she is better at playing a precociously sophisticated and capable character like Hit Girl or even the friend of the Wimpy Kid than she is at trying to show us the innocent and vulnerable Carrie. More at fault is the script, which fails to provide a consistent emotional truth for the character. Like the Hulk, her powers are rooted in fury. King, even in his 20’s, knew how satisfying that would be for everyone who has been picked on (that is everyone), and Moretz is at her best when enjoying the sense of righteous revenge. To make the movie work, though, that would need to be balanced by an underlying sense of the character that is never there. The same goes for Margaret. In 2013, the thoughts of a religious fanatic open up some possibilities worth exploring but Peirce is more interested in re-creating the original than updating it.

Parents should know that this film has extensive and graphic peril and violence with many characters brutally killed, disturbing and bloody images, sexual references and situations involving teenagers, a graphic childbirth scene, teen drinking, and strong language.

Family discussion: Why were the girls so mean to Carrie? How has bullying changed since the story was first written? How did Carrie feel about her powers and why?

If you like this, try: the original film and some of the other Stephen King adaptations like “The Shining” and “Sleepwalkers”