Young Adult

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Plot:  Writer Mavis (Charlize Theron) is supposed to be finishing a pulp romance novel, when she finds her high school boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson) just had a baby with his new wife. She jumps in her Mini Cooper and is off to win him back. When she gets there Matt has a drink with her, and she begins  work on getting him back. In a bar, she meets old high school friend Matt (Patton Oswalt,) who may be gay, and is now disabled.  She puts herself in increasing desperate, and embarrassing situations trying to break up his marriage. 

Review:  Young Adult is a light drama about how Mavis can't never grew up, and is reliving her high school life. She is upset that Buddy is living an adult life when she is still drinking hard and sleeping around.  Hard drinking Mavis keeps pushing until she becomes pathetic, and crashes. A lot of people never resolve their high school issues, just like Mavis. 

Diablo Cody's dialog is the best, and Charlize Theron facial acting is a great combination. Despite the gimmicky plot, most of the fun is the small gestures and intonations between two people. It can be very funny, but you have to like this kind of comic drama. 

Ultimately Mavis decides that she needs to grow up, and that produces a feel good ending. 

Charlize Theron should be considered for an Oscar.

Cast: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson and Patton Oswalt

Directed by: Jason Reitman; written by Diablo Cody

Rating:   4.0 stars - fun to watch with a heart too; at first I thought only 3.5, but the more I think about the film, the more I like it. 

More: It looked like a Diablo Cody cameo on the TV in Mavis's hotel room. 

Even More: Mavis's poor neglected dog

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J. Edgar

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Plot: FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) was a colorful and corrupt government official whose austere lifestyle and paranoid beliefs made him a colorful figure. The movie starts in the twenties with the Lindbergh baby kidnapping,  catches mobsters during Prohibition, battles communists during the 50's and blackmails Martin Luther King during the '60s.

Hoover has an odd personal personal life forcused on his mother (Judy Dench,) his work, and his assistant Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer.)  The nature of the relationship is hard to understand.

Review: J. Edgar is a historical memoir with voice over narration and a laser focus on J. Edgar Hoover. The story of eccentricity of Hoover is interesting on human level, but also how Hoover fit in to the events of the 20th Century gives the story heft and substance.

This is the best performance from Leonardo DeCaprio in a longtime.  The dialog is great. In historical movies, it is difficult to know what is real and what is move adaptation. This is especially true here as the film is presenting Hoover's version of the story, which is overstating his importance.

I liked the sound editing -- it isn't usual that the sound editing seems sharp, but it did here. There is not much muscial sound track and the photography was unexceptional.

The old age make up works on DiCaprio and Watts, but Hammer looks awful. What happened to his face?

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts

Directed by: Clint Eastwood

Rating:   3 stars: always entertaining; 

More: Gotta like Judy Dench

Even more: Here is a photo of the real Hoover and Tolson:


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Hugo

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Plot: Hugo (Asa Butterfield), an orphan in 1920's Paris, lives in a train station where he winds the clocks, and tries to keep clear of the constable (Sacha Baron Cohen). He tries to steal parts for an automaton from a toy dealer (Ben Kingsley,) but is caught and soon meets the dealer's foster daughter Isabella (Chloe Grace Mortez.) Isabella and Hugo discover a secret about the toy dealer which propels the movie to its conclusion. 

Review: This story about the plight of orphans in Paris is a stylized fantasy, but well-done, always entertaining, and fun to watch. 

The tween actors, Asa Butterfield and Chloe Grace Mortez, are excellent, and they execute their lines with emotion and not woodenness.

I also liked the Sash Baron Cohen character, who is handicapped physically and emotionally. His whole subplot was pretty cool, and is a parallel story to Hugo's. 

A really well-directed 3D movie where much of the action occurs in a plane perpendicular to the screen rather than left to right. The photography is very good, and the giant clock scenes are outstanding in art direction. 

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Mortez, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Rating:   3.5 stars: top film: nearly 4.0

More: The filmmaker is certainly in love with film making. 

Even more: I liked the stylized artwork in the old silent movies.

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A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas

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Plot: Harold is married, and his father-in-law brought a home-grown Christmas tree, which Kumar burns down. Harold and Kumar need to replace the tree before Harold's wife and family get back from Midnight Mass. They buy another tree but it gets wrecked in a traffic accident, and then they run around town trying to get another while avoiding getting shot by mobsters.

Review: This is a light movie with some funny parts and lots of low-brow humor -- especially drug jokes and penis jokes. The first half hour is relatively intelligent, Rom-Com humor with Harold and his wife's family. I thought the film might have potential early. As the film progresses, the situation-comedy get more and more extreme and not as good.

In the middle, there are fifteen minutes of Neal Patrick Harris scenes that were pretty funny. 

I saw it in 2D, and we missed some scenes which were clearly only for 3D. I wish I would have seen it in 3D. 

The soundtrack had some interesting versions of Christmas songs, and a few may be worth downloading. Overall it is a likable, sophomoric movie.

Cast: Kal Penn, John Cho, Neal Patrick Harris

Directed by: Todd Strauss-Schulson

Rating:   2.0 stars

More: Waffle-Bot is the new R2-D2. I'd like a Waffle-Bot sequel.

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Tower Heist

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Plot: Josh (Ben Stiller) manages a NYC super luxury apartment, where a Bernie Madoff type financial villain named Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) lives. Arthur had lost the apartment worker's pension fund huge financial scandal, and the apartment workers are mad and want to get even. The crew plots to get their money back. Josh recruits his childhood friend Slide (Eddie Murphy) to help.

Review: Tower Heist is fast and always entertaining; it is not great cinema. It has a few good scenes with sit-com set-ups and sit-com laughs.

I liked the analogy between the real life Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, and Arthur's scandal. When that wears thin, there is Eddie Murphy's larger-than-life character stealing every scene that he is in. Gabourey Sidibe spices things up with a tough girl Jamaican character.

The music is good. The photography is nothing special.

Cast: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Alan Alda, Gabourey Sidibe, Mathew Broderick.

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Rating:   2.5 stars:  Entertaining enough to recommend. It is a good evening at the movies. A good popcorn movie.

More: Tower Heist and last week's In Time both have Occupy Wall Street themes. Is this a trend?

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In Time

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Plot:  In a distopian future, people grow up to be 25 years old when they either die, or if they have money they can buy more time, which is additional days of life. Everyone looks like they are twenty-five because they stop aging.

A person's lifetime is recorded on their forearms, and lifetime used as money to buy things. If you go bankrupt, then you die.

Will (Justin Timberlake) is poor and lives with his mom (Olivia Wilde) in a poor "ghetto", and they scrape together enough time to live one day at a time. Will meets a guy in a bar who has 130 years with him, and robbers swoop in to take his time. Will rescues him, and is rewarded with the 130 years. Will runs to a rich area where his new wealth will not stand out, and he meets wealthy time-banker Phillippe Weis (Vincent Karthauser) and his adventurous daughter Sylvia (Amada Siegfried.) When the cops catch Will, Will and Sylvia run. Soon they are robbing the rich, and donating the money to the poor, Robin Hood style. There is a strong class-warfare, social justice message.

Review: In Time has many levels, and the political commentary is what carries it. It is like the science fiction movie version of the Occupy Wall Street Protests. The movie takes the themes of the recent protest movement and plays them in the this allegorical science fiction universe. If you are going for the action movie or science-fiction movie aspects, you may not like it.  

 Justin Timberlake does a fine job as a caring working-man hero. His mom Olivia Wilde is emotive and has a great death scene. Vincent Karthauser's Phillippe is greasy and completely self justified. Amanda Siegfried was disappointing. A better performance from her could have made this a major movie. Chemistry between Justin and Amanda just was not there. Cillian Murphy does a great job as a cop, but at 35 he looks too old.

The plot is highly conceptual, and the convention of a clock in one's forearm keeping you alive is odd. My wife found the whole clock/timebank/time-is-money metaphor too distracting. 

Director Andrew Niccol produces some painterly scenes and solid art direction. The soundtrack is OK.

In Time is reasonably entertaining, but the script and its political narrative are the real stars. If you don't like politics, you'll find it dull and preachy. 

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Siegfried, Vincent Karthauser

Written and directed by: Andrew Niccol

Rating:   2.5+ stars; It is a two star movie that gets another half because of its ambition. I am glad I saw it. It is a good conversation movie.

More: The robberies that Will and Sylvia do are justified by saying "How many people are killed every day in the ghetto?"  This is the kind of rhetoric that is used to justify terrorism, so it is a pretty dangerous argument.  Will and Sylvia shoot people as they steal time, and while they don't they kill civilians, this is getting close to terrorism.

Even more: I have described the film's message in terms of social justice and politics, but it could just as easily be described in terms of anarchy and revolution. Ideas that are more dangerous. 


I wonder how thin is the veneer of civilization in the US, and how far underneath is anarchy. 

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Melancholia

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Plot: The movie starts with a (slow motion) visual poem that ends with planets colliding. When the live action starts, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is heading to her own wedding reception at her sister Clair (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband's (Kiefer Sutherland) huge estate. They can't get the wedding because their huge limo can't drive the serpentine roads to the house, so they arrive late. She is easily distracted and tired, and spends time outside looking at the stars, upstairs taking a bath, and otherwise lounging. Afterwards, they realize a planet (Melancholia) may hit the earth, and end all life. Those who know the planet is going to hit commit suicide, but others lie to themselves saying it will miss. Clair becomes more devoted to her young son.

Review: I had a really good attitude when I started watching, and I wanted to like this movie. I saw the opening visual poem, and I said -- look at all the pretty barely moving photos -- how artistic! When the limo got stuck on the road, I said, "What a great metaphor for society!" At the wedding reception, I thought that the incomprehensible weirdness must be leading somewhere, but it was just leading to the end of the world.  The slow pacing was just too much. I got tired of watching the little that was happening, happen so slowly. Soon I was dozing off. I missed a few suicides. 

I never fall asleep at movies, except for this movie. When I woke up, Justine was depressed and unable to care for herself, and Clair was trying to help her. 

This is an intelligent script with some clever metaphors that are thought provoking. The film dealt with death and personal destruction. It says that it is best to help each other by lying to each other. Not uplifting.  (See "Even More" section below for more ideas on the meaning of the movie.)

 Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg give great performances. The others are forgettable, except child actor Cameron Spurr, who is bad. The visuals are generally good, and tell the story better than the words.

This ambitious movie could have been so much better, because sad movies don't need to be glacially slow.

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland

Written and directed by: Lars von Trier

Rating:   2.5 stars: A dreary and sleepy movie experience that I don't recommend, but it is thought-provoking, and well-made.  It should be rated lower since it is so hard to watch. It should be higher because it is so fun to talk about. 

More: I wonder how the gravity would change if another planet would hit the earth. I wonder if people would become weightless in the end. How would you film that?

Even More: Maybe Melancholia is not really about death, but actually is about depression. It is about how lying to oneself is necessary to keep functioning. People who fail to lie, kill themselves. Living with depression requires some self-deception and other people to help.


Yet More: We saw Melancholia on pay-per-view prior to theatrical release. I wonder if watching new films on TV will catch on?