Posted on April 10, 2012 at 8:00 am
Exciting movie news! Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are in talks to appear in a new movie about Walt Disney’s efforts over 14 years to persuade “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers to allow him to make a movie about the magical nanny. 
Posted on January 19, 2012 at 5:59 pm
Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed novel about a boy whose father was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 has been brought to the screen with great sensitivity and heart. Newcomer Thomas Horn plays Oskar, whose ferocious intellect overwhelms his social skills and may be on the autism spectrum. His father (Tom Hanks) understands him best and it is in their time together that Oskar feels most alive and most at home. Oskar’s happiest moments are solving the puzzles set by his father, whether oxymoron contests or treasure hunts. After his father’s death, Oskar searches for the final challenge he is sure his father must have left behind for him, some way to make sense his loss. He finds a blue vase in his father’s closet and when he breaks it, he finds a key in an envelope that says “Black.” He decides to visit everyone in the phone book named Black to see if he can solve at least one mystery in the midst of the senseless tragedy that has devastated his family, his city, and the world.
Oskar’s mother (Sandra Bullock) is withdrawn, scared, and angry. She never had her husband’s gift for reaching Oskar and making him feel safe. As Oskar goes off in search of his father, in a way he seems to be searching for his mother, too. The different people named Black that he tracks down feel like pieces of a puzzle, each unidentifiable and indistinct but somehow, put together, a picture of a piece of something whole begins to emerge. One of the people who opens the door to Oskar is played by Viola Davis in a performance of exquisite beauty. In her brief moments on screen she creates a character of such depth and complexity and humanity that she illuminates the entire film.
Oskar’s grandmother lives across the street and he can see her apartment from his window and communicate with her by walkie-talkie. She takes in a new, mysterious tenant known only as “the renter” (Max von Sydow) and Oskar goes to investigate. The renter is mute. He has “yes” and “no” tattooed on his palms and writes what he wants to say in a notebook. He agrees to accompany Oskar on his visits to Blacks.
Oskar finds an answer that is not what he was looking for or hoping for. But looking for something so far from home makes it possible for him to see what was in front of him all along that he could not face. He is able to tell his own story, finally. He is able to hear the stories of the renter and his mother. And it is only then that he can find the real message his father left behind.
Without speaking a word, Sydow conveys a sense of gravity and compassion, more eloquent than all of Oskar’s words. “The renter” balances Oskar — old and young, silence and constant talking, hiding and seeking. Both are damaged by the trauma of world events with the most personal impact and each expands the other’s spirit with a sense of possibility. The final revelation from Oskar’s mother proves the old saying that only a broken heart can hold the world.
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 4:23 pm
I have free tickets to give away to a January 17 Washington DC-area screening of a new movie based on 
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
For tickets: log onto gofobo (www.gofobo.com/rsvp) and input the following code: BLF83QD to download your tickets. Each ticket admits two and there are 20 available. REMINDER: Screening tickets do not guarantee admittance. Seating is first come, first served, so get there early.
The movie opens on Friday, January 20. It is rated PG-13 for emotional thematic material, some disturbing images, and language
Posted on December 1, 2011 at 4:34 pm
In observance of World AIDS Day, I recommend these films:
Longtime Companion
And the Band Played On
Philadelphia
Posted on June 30, 2011 at 6:00 pm
“Larry Crowne” is such a perfectly pleasant movie that it may not be until you walk toward the exit that you realize that something is missing. Until then, the good spirits of stars Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, clearly enjoying themselves and each other as they beam their considerable star power our way keep us feeling if not entertained at least appreciated. Hanks, directing for the first time since his debut with the terrific “That Thing You Do” is immensely hospitable. He all but hands out milk and cookies to make the audience feel welcome, with a series of recession-era but sweetly comic scenes and quirky but endearing characters and a can’t miss theme of a man literally and metaphorically casting off the elements of his past that are holding him back and discovering that he is capable of taking on new challenges and new relationships.
But Hanks the star and director has a problem with Hanks the co-screenwriter (along with “My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s” Nia Vardelos). Something is missing from the story.
Of course we fall in love with Larry Crowne (Hanks) right from the opening credits. The very first thing we see him do is pick up trash in the parking lot on the way to his job at a big, WalMart-style store. Then in a quick montage we see that he always does more than expected and genuinely enjoys his job. He is ever-cheerful with colleagues and helpful with customers, and an eight-time winner of the “Employee of the Month” award. And then he gets fired. Our first clue that something is not right with the story is the over-the-top awfulness of the termination, but we let that pass because we want to see what he will do.
Larry is downsized because he does not have a college degree. He joined the Navy after high school, got out after 20 years as a culinary specialist (cook), and has been working at the store ever since. He is in a financial pinch because he bought out his ex-wife’s share of their home, which is now worth much less than its mortgage. A perky blonde bank representative (Hanks’ real-life wife, Rita Wilson) keeps offering him complimentary coffee as she gives him the bad news. Larry can’t find a new job and realizes he needs to go to college. He sells his gas guzzler and trades his flat-screen TV for a scooter.
Mercedes (Julia Roberts) is a teacher at the community college whose greatest hope is that fewer than 10 students will register for her classes so she can cancel. She feels very far from what she once aspired to, supporting a husband (“Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston) whose own aspirations have shrunk from novelist to comment on a blog. She once hoped to teach Shakespeare and Shaw. Now she teaches students who cannot even remember how to pronounce her name how to get up in front of the class and say something.
So we know where this is going, and we want it to go there, and the ingredients are all assembled. The situation is timely and engaging. The cast is exceptional. Larry has adorable neighbors (Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson), and adorable classmates: the ravishingly lovely Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the girl who gives Crowne a literally top-to-bottom makeover and introduces him to her scooter-riding gang, Grace Gummer (Meryl Streep’s daughter) as a lacrosse-player more comfortable on the field than in the classroom, “Night at the Museum’s” Rami Malek, sweet but a little dim. George Takei is marvelous as a professor of economics. Mercedes has a sympathetic colleague (the always-welcome Pam Grier).
But something is missing. All of Roberts’ movie star magic can’t make the character of Mercedes as appealing as she needs to be. We never get a sense of how she got to the slough of despond she is in and the character is so inconsistent she seems blurry. All of Roberts’ usual tricks, the dazzling smile, the laugh, the walk, can’t disguise the fact that while she tells her students what she is teaching them is to care, it is not clear to her or to them or to us that she has learned that lesson herself. There is no moment of change or connection or even notice to make us feel that there is a genuine basis for a relationship, and the ending is hurried and superficial. There is build-up without pay-off. I enjoyed spending time with these characters. I wish they were in a better movie.
