Non-Stop

Posted on February 27, 2014 at 6:00 pm

I’ve got nothing against action movies that are dumb fun (see last week’s review of 3 Days to Kill). My bar is pretty low. I don’t ask them to make sense. But “Non-Stop” sinks to a level of ridiculousness that harshes the buzz from even a top-notch cast and engaging set-up. I never thought I’d say this, but if Liam Neeson wants to appear in an yearly middle-aged action movie to combat the doldrums of winter, maybe he should consider “Taken 3.” Or “Snakes on a Plane 2.”

Neeson plays Bill Marks, an ex-cop-turned air marshall with issues. We meet him in the airport parking lot, taking a drink, arguing with his boss, and looking seedy and shaky. Outside the airport taking a last smoke, he is distracted, not hearing a request for a light, and inside the airport he is curt with other travelers. Once on board the plane to London, he admits to his seatmate, Jen (Julianne Moore), that he is very tense during take-off, but fine once the plane is in the air. Once they air airborne, he goes into the lavatory and puts duct tape on the smoke detector so he can have another cigarette.

Back in his seat, he receives a text on the secure federal network. It says that if $150 million is not transferred to a bank account, every twenty minutes someone on the plane will die. The sender seems to know all about him. Bill has to figure out if the threat is real and who it is coming from.

Thankfully, the movie avoids the obvious “if you don’t know why that well-known actor is in this movie, he’s the bad guy” syndrome. There’s a lot of bench strength in the “that guy looks familiar” non-star supporting cast, with outstanding character performers and up-and-coming actors like Scoot McNairy (“12 Years a Slave,” “Argo”), Corey Stoll (“Midnight in Paris,” “House of Cards”), Nate Parker (“Arbitrage”), Michelle Dockery (“Downton Abbey”), Luptia Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”), Linus Roache (“Law and Order: SVU”), and Omar Metwally (“Harry’s Law”). Every one of them takes the unforgiving material of the storyline further than it could possibly be expected to go, most of them giving us reasons to doubt/believe/doubt/believe whatever they are saying so nicely that they almost make it possible for us to ignore the increasingly dumber twists of what I will loosely refer to as the plot. They make the shifting alliances hold our interest even as the storyline veers out of control. The twists and turns of the who-dun-it and what-did-he-or-she-do-and-how are not as dumb as the decision to have Marks, for example, stop in the middle of a dire, every-second-counts moment to tell everyone on the plan a sad story about why he is so tortured. And then there’s the moment when the cabin loses air pressure just in time to float a gun into Marks’ hand.

An airplane movie should take advantage of its locked-room setting and inherent danger. But this one seems to miss the point. Constricted space and the limits on getting dangerous materials through the TSA checkpoint should make the fight scenes more interesting, but they are unimaginatively staged by director Jaume Collet-Serra. Marks’ instability is another limitation should also add an additional layer of uncertainty, but it is handled so inconsistently that it breaks the tension. Finally, so much is piled into the last fifteen minutes that it feels like an unsuccessful attempt to get us to forget how little sense it makes. We don’t ask for much from movies like this but the minimum is that you should get all the way to the car before you start saying, “Wait a minute….” This one depends on such a pile-up of preposterousness that even these actors can’t land it safely.

Parents should know that this movie’s themes concern terrorism and hijacking, fights, guns, bomb, intense peril. Some characters are injured and killed, and the movie includes a sexual situation, brief strong language including gay slur, drugs, and alcohol abuse.

Family discussion: What was the villain’s real motive? If you suspected the wrong person, how did the movie mislead you?

If you like this, try: “Air Force One” and “Red Eye”

Related Tags:

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”

Don Jon

Posted on September 26, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made a remarkably assured debut as writer/director, putting him in the front ranks of today’s filmmakers. Gordon-Levitt also plays the lead role, Jon, a New Jersey guy with a high and tight haircut and a spare and immaculate apartment decorated in gray and black. He reels off the list of things he cares about: his body (for working out), his car (for driving and looking cool), his boys (friends), his girls (for sex), his church (for confession), his family (for Sunday dinners), and porn (you know what that is for). Those are the parameters of his life, and that seems fine to him because he knows who he is and how things fit together. The title is a reference to the legendary libertine who symbolizes all men who seduce many women without forming any attachments to them.

Jon and his friends like to go to the club and rank the ladies, an endlessly fascinating conversation about various body parts and the optimal shapes and proportions of each. Sex with those ladies is primarily a contest between the men, and Jon is by far the leader. His success with nines and “dimes” (a ten) is about status and competition, and he tells us that he prefers pornography to sex with real girls. One night, Jon sees a solid dime named Barbara (Scarlett Johansson). For the first time, he becomes involved with a woman who is more than a one-night stand and he has to earn her affection. She has her own ideas of what a “dime” equivalent looks like, and he finds himself going to romantic comedy movies and taking a community college class. He even brings her home to meet his family, where she gets a very enthusiastic response from his parents (a wonderful Glenne Headley and Tony Danza).

And then things get more complicated. Gordon-Levitt has crafted a whip-smart, richly cinematic film with some very funny moments and a lot of heart. He makes it clear that Jon is not the only one who is numbing his feelings. His father is more absorbed in watching the football games than in talking to his family and Barbara’s aspirations are almost as based on fantasy as the images Jon connects to online. Watch how the settings help tell the story, and style of the movie changes as Jon goes from the techno-pumping macho world of his friends to the more romantic, orchestral environment of dating. And then it shifts again as other changes happen. Keep an eye on Jon’s sister, played by the superb Brie Larson (“The Spectacular Now,” “Short Term 12”), who appears to be as addicted to her devices as Jon, never saying a word to her family as she stares into her phone, texting back and forth. She will make it clear that she has been more connected to what is going on with the people she loves than anyone else in the film. And Julianne Moore gives an earthy but sensitive performance as a classmate of Jon’s who surprises and disconcerts him with her honesty.

Seeing Jon begin to learn to interact with the world with feelings, not just sensations, is a pleasure. But seeing one of today’s best young actors bloom into one of tomorrow’s best young filmmakers is even greater.

Parents should know that this movie is about a young man who is addicted to pornography. It includes very explicit sexual references and situations, nudity, very strong and crude language, drinking, and drugs.

Family discussion: How did other characters aside from Jon find ways to avoid their feelings? How did Joseph Gordon-Levitt use different film-making styles to show the different moods of his time with his friends, with Barbara, and with Esther?

If you like this, try: “Thanks for Sharing” and some of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s other films like “Brick” and “Mysterious Skin”

Related Tags:

Comedy Date movie Drama Romance

What Maisie Knew

Posted on May 23, 2013 at 5:41 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for some language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Emotional confrontations
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	May 24, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	August 12, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00D5XC8MC

She has the face of a flower and she still believes that the world is an enchanted place that cannot hurt her. She does not understand what is going on around her, but we do.

Her name is Maisie (the exquisite Onata Aprile). She is seven and she lives in New York with her parents, a fading rock star named Susanna (Julianne Moore) and a British art dealer named Beale (Steve Coogan). They are self-centered and feckless, and she does not yet realize that their hugs are more about themselves than about her. They split up, and then, incapable of being alone and primarily to reassure themselves and spite each other, immediately take on new, very unwise partners. Beale begins a romance with Maisie’s nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham). And Susanna, feeling doubly betrayed, one-ups him by impetuously marrying a bartender named Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgård). This comes out when Lincoln, who Maisie has never really met, appears at her school to pick her up. “I’m sort of like Maisie’s…stepfather,” he sheepishly tells the teacher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtoYBL-mJL4

Maisie’s clothes often have fantasy elements, like a tiara, showing the gloss of fantasy she brings to her world — and the casual indulgence of the adults in her life. Moore’s neediness, as a woman who is losing her career, her romantic partner, and her child, is raw and affecting. Coogan gets a rare chance to show what a fine serious actor he can be. In one scene, he impetuously invites Maisie to go to England with him, and then immediately changes his mind. We see every thought on his face, including his chagrin at recognizing that he is betraying the daughter still young enough to believe in him.

This movie feels very much of this moment and has a very specific sense of place in its shabby chic New York settings. But it is based on a book by Henry James written more than a century ago. Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have a delicacy and sensitivity that gives their superb cast the chance to create complicated characters. They are not afraid to mix moments of humor with selfishness, heart-wrenching loss, and tragic choices.

Parents should know that this movie deals with themes of parental neglect and family dysfunction. It includes sexual references and non-explicit situations, drinking, strong language, and many poor choices.

Family discussion: What will happen to Maisie? What will she think of her parents when she gets to be a teenager? A grown-up? What has changed since Henry James wrote the book?

If you like this, try: “Careful, He Might Hear You”

Interview: Scott McGehee and David Siegel of “What Maisie Knew”

Posted on May 23, 2013 at 3:59 pm

“What Maisie Knew” is a touching, beautifully acted new movie starring Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan as a couple breaking up but the story is seen through the eyes of their little girl. I spoke to the directors, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, about the film. Remarkably, though it is set in the present day and feels very contemporary, it is based on a book written over 100 years ago by Henry James.

I have to begin my asking you, how you got that amazing performance out of Onata Aprile, who plays Maisie.

DS: With pins and…you know I’m just kidding. She really is extraordinary. We’d love to be able to take more credit for it then, then we really can because she really has this incredible ability to just live in front of the camera. To shut it all down and just give her a scenario and she could really just, just sort of be in it, to live it as I was saying. When we were casting, we knew we needed a child who could be, with her face and close up to be able to convey a sense that you were getting into her head, that there was an interior life there that you were sort of understanding on an emotional level. Then boy did she deliver in spades. The only time that we’ve ever had an actor in one of our films whose had that kind of responsibility was Tilda Swinton in “The Deep End, and you know, Tilda’s a forty year old actress, very trained and very cerebral. Onata is a six year old child who wants to play with her horsie.

SM: Our only handicap, honestly, was her bedtime. We talked a lot about how to explain the story of the movie to her in a way she would understand. Her mother, Valentine Aprile, is an actress also, and really has a great relationship with her daughter. She kind of did the heavy lifting in terms of preparing Onata for the day’s work and, you know, kind of making sure she was comfortable with the emotional terrain of what the story was. And then the other actors also, Julianne Moore especially were all good about making sure Onata was comfortable if they were going to do a scene where they were screaming, or whatever. They’d say, “Okay Onata, I’m going to be screaming but I’m just pretending, and if you get uncomfortable let us know.” There was a scene I remember when Julianne had to cry and after she finished Onata was kind of giggling because she thought it was interesting that Julianne’s pretending went so far. She was very user friendly that way, if that makes sense.

The story seems so completely contemporary. Tell me a little bit about bringing it up to date.

DS: You know it obviously starts with the writers, Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright. There was a lightness of touch to the script that kept it from being maudlin. We were really afraid that there would be a kind of florid melodrama. Before reading the script that’s where our anxiety was. Their idea of telling the story in ellipses really also caught our eye from a film making perspective. That was really interesting and a great challenge. And it was also the thing that made it start to feel relevant and contemporary. It allowed us, the film makers, to play with it cinematically, to play with the fundamentals of film making, where the camera is, how high it is, what comes in and out of the frame and what she hears, what she doesn’t hear, because it’s all coming from her perspective. It’s a real treat to get to play with the blocks, as opposed to play with the digital blocks that are, you know, thicker, louder and you know, more violent. We had heard anecdotally or we read anecdotally that James was inspired to write this story because he had heard at a dinner party of a couple that had chosen in a divorce settlement to share custody of a child, and he thought it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. And so the book is kind of darkly satiric and it takes place over a much longer period of time in Maisie’s life. And now joint custody being the most common thing in the world. But still it is interesting how many people who see the film identify with the struggle that the child endured.

It’s a very different role for Julianne Moore. She plays a fading rock star.

SM: We took her to a Kills concert. The Kills’ frontwoman, Alison Mosshart, was kind of a style model for us for Julianne’s character. She said that the singing aspect of this character was the thing that scared her most. But it was also the thing that attracted her. She didn’t shy away from something new and challenging. She could, just kind of jump in head on, and it was really inspiring.

What did you want from the movie’s score?

DS: The composer was Nick Urata, who did the music for “Little Miss Sunshine.” He’s the front man for a band called DeVotchKa, so he’s a player himself. The score needed to kind of feel like Maisie’s world. There’s only occasionally any classical underscoring. Most of the scoring is kind of just, a kind of filling up of the kind of our world, with music. He really got on board with that, and thought it was a great idea and we, we got the idea early on in cutting that we thought a voice would be good. A voice would help connect us to the child.

The scene with Steve Coogan first asking and then un-asking Maisie to go to England with him is heart-wrenching.

DS: He was our first choice for that role and that doesn’t happen often enough. He’d handle the emotions really well, we thought, and he’d be a little bit funny at times and bring a bit of levity to the proceedings that we thought would be really welcome. And we just lucked out that his agent had read it around the same time and also thought of him for it. Steve’s a classically trained actor and really likes to do the dramatic stuff and doesn’t get that many opportunities. We were more than happy to give him one.

What was the most fun part of making the movie?

DS: We had such a good vibe on the set of this film. We have the lucky opportunity to work with several long time collaborators like Kelly McGehee, Scott’s sister, who’s been our Production Designer forever and Giles Nuttgens who shot and Stacey Battat, who did the costumes, and a lot of the seconds and thirds on the crew were great people. It was a pleasure to show up every day. And it doesn’t happen on every movie and, and you know you could just feel it. And we had a little six year old who just wanted to be there. She had so much enthusiasm and that never waned… Seven weeks, five days a week, a dozen hours a day. That was amazing.

Related Tags:

Directors Interview