Mud

Plot: A fugitive, Mud, (Matthew McConaughey) is living on a river island in Arkansas when he is befriended by two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). Mud is running from the law and a posse of locals from the next town who want to lynch him. Mud wants to get back together with his girlfriend, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and run away. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A flawed, pessimistic, and poorly-paced film about poor kids in river country and their mis-adventure with a lowlife. Early, the film is painfully hard-to-watch as unlikeable characters crawl at snail's pace through set-up details. Allegedly, Mud is a great liar, but he never shows any dynamism or charm that great liars employ. He should have been more like the Great Gatsby. Later, when the boys are stealing things for Mud, the story picks up.

I liked the child actors because their scenes never seemed fake.  The pluckiness of Sheridan's Ellis is the strongest part of the movie. The relationships between the characters are vague and the emotional tone is cool. Despite the characters saying 'I love you,' regularly; I did not understand what kept these people together. Mud's relationship with Juniper was especially undeveloped, and Reese spends the movie wasting away in her hotel. No dialog at all -- they wave at each other.

The plot has dangling ends, like there were many scenes that got edited out.

Art movies are supposed mean something. Our hero, Ellis, was idealistic -- picking fights for love, and stealing to help lovers stay together. This was to compensate in his mind for his parent's marital troubles, and  because he wanted love too. See SPOILERS section below for more. 

Despite lots of pictures of trees and riverscapes, the photography does not capture natural beauty, and maybe that is intentional since the subject is generally dreary. On the other hand, natural beauty is one reason why these river men love the life so much, and that never made it into the film. I did not think this was an "interesting portrait of a dying way of life," on a historical or cultural level.

The soundtrack was poor, especially the closing credit music.

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland

Directed by: Jeff Nichols

Rating: 2.5: My original rating is 2.0. The strong performance of the child stars can't fix the poor pacing, weak character development, and deeply pessimistic world view. The is film is dreadfully boring in places.  On the other hand, there is a lot of depth to the story as a fable or dream, see spoiler section below. On this level, 2.5 stars. 

  << The original rating was 2, and that is why the graphic is 2. I bumped it up to 2.5 after thinking about it for a while.

More: Mud was strongly reviewed. These critics are suckers for the off-beat and a little symbolism.

BIG SPOILERS:  Bad guy Mud gets rescued and floats away to start again. He does not pay for his crime. The lynch mob trying to get justice for their dead kin lay dead instead. I am sure we are supposed to be happy that Mud lives, but why?

Idealistic Ellis, is happy because he can gaze at the cute (older) high school girls across the street. It would have been so much better to have him meet girls his own age. If this is a coming of age movie, where is the advance in Ellis? Just this one detail would have changed my assessment of the film.  Instead he is turning into a peeping Tom/stalker.

Idealism is drowned in a river of troubles. This is how idealistic boys turn into burned-out, bitter, old men: where the best skill is picking off bad guys with a sniper rifle, or swimming unseen while been shot at.  

SPOILER - Let's say it was all a dream:  We know that boats are never found in trees: this should be a clue that this is a make-believe world, and Mud lives there. He also slept high in the trees like Peter Pan. No adults ever talk to Mud (except Tom Blankenship, who must also be make-believe.) This is like 2007's Bridge to Terabithia, which is best understood as a metaphor or dream.

Ellis never went out on the date with Mary Ellen either; that was also a dream. He met Juniper selling fish, and she never met Mud.  The boys find a boat on the island, get some rope to free it, patch the leak, steal a motor, but never get the motor running. At the end, Ellis dreams his house gets shot up, that is why Mud is attacked in Ellis' bedroom, and in the morning the house boat is dismantled and Ellis moves to town with his Mom. His imaginary friends cruise away on the boat to open water. In the end, Ellis sees some neighbor girls. (As mentioned above) it would have been a happier ending if they were his own age, or carrying a fishing pole, or a soccer ball, or anything to show they were real people not another daydream.

There are problems with this analysis -- why do the police have Mud's photo? Even if one believes all this, what is the hidden message. Nothing really? Just a kid "coming of age."

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Plot: A rogue Star Fleet officer (Benedict Cumberbatch)  attacks several Star Fleet sites and then runs off to a far away planet. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and the Enterprise follow minus Scotty (Simon Pegg). When Kirk catches him, the Enterprise does battle with a giant enemy ship, and the plot twists people's loyalties.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A top movie with action, personality, plot-twists and moral dilemmas -- I really liked it. Even though the special effects are gripping, the interactions between the characters are the best part. The close-up interactions between the crew and with the villain -- make this an action movie with people we care about. The Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto scenes are strong especially the facial acting. There is quarrel between Saldana's Uhura and Quino's Spock that is priceless and funny.

The special effects were excellent, we expected that. The music was boring however. I did not like the scene of the space ship crashing on San Francisco. The scale of everything wasn't right -- distracting.

Star Trek gets extra credit for having a moral dimension. In a Hollywood where there are too many mind-less shoot'm ups, I liked angst about the morality of killing enemies, for example using a missile to destroy a terrorist instead of capturing him and returning him for trial. I think this builds the notion of the Star Trek universe as being a utopian peaceful place.  The last Bond movie, Skyfall, also had a moral dimension.

There was a lot of "hat tipping" to old Star Trek episodes, and these were cute and lightened up the tone. Hard-core fans want the film to be dark and serious, but Star Trek has always been a mixture of dramatic and comic.

Since I am a fan, perhaps I love this movie more than I should, but I liked it a lot. I want to see it again.

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Benedict Cumberbatch

Directed by: J J Abrams

Rating: 4.0 stars: I loved it. Fun to watch. Engaging. Thought-provoking. 

 

More: And it sets up years of sequels . . . 

Even more: I was very disappointed that the theater rescheduled our 3D screening into 2D. I really wanted see it in 3D. Nearly drove to another theater.

Spoiler: So why could Spock talk to Leonard Nemoy and ask him questions. What weird sort of time-travel is going on? I'm not sure what I think about young Spock getting his war plans from old Spock.
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The Great Gatsby (2D)

Plot: Young writer Nick (Tobey McGuire) goes to see his psychologist, and tells him a story about Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his romance with his married cousin Daisy (Carey Milligan.) In flashback, Gatsby has over-the-top parties at a grand mansion on Long Island Sound near New York with many important and famous guests. Daisy's wealthy husband Tom (Joel Edgerton) is keeping a mistress in a run-down part of town.  Nick visits Daisy, goes with Tom to party with the mistress, and then hooks Daisy up with Gatsby. The love triangle plays out and this leads to the film's tragic ending. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Spectacle! The beginning of the film is beautiful to look at, full of music, costumes, and choreography. Wonderful! I really liked the beginning.

I liked the modern rap tracks and the cool trumpet jazz. I need to buy some of these songs. I loved the trumpet player on the roof.

As the movie progresses, Leo's Gatsby is cool and mysterious. It keeps the tone going for a while, but the love triangle just isn't that interesting. The latter part of the film is just OK, too bad.

Since most of us read Gatsby in school, it is easy to pick out the literary themes. The hollowness of life, the silence of god, the longing for the past, the lost object of desire, the injustice of life, and so on. Early  in the movie, this is done well. See how in the movie poster, we have the eye's of God watching us.  Later in the movie we spend too much time staring at a green light in the fog. Not so well done.

The great parts are great, but the love triangle doesn't work, so the movie fails.

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey McGuire, Carey Milligan, Joel Edgerton

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann

Rating:  2.5 stars: uneven. Still fun to watch.

 

More: Deserves awards for set design, art direction and music.

Even more: The movie is in the 3D, and there are several parts that utilize that.  3D is part of the over-the-top aspect of the spectacle.

Sadly, I saw this in 2D because my DW has bought into the false idea that 3D movies are dimmer, while choosing to ignore that theater bought a new 3D projector sized for their auditorium. Obviously the screen is brighter with the glasses off, but the project lantern is sized for the technology. Theater owners need to do some informational advertising.

Iron Man 3

Plot: Terrorist 'The Mandarin' (Ben Kingsley) nearly kills a friend of Tony Stark/Iron Man's (Robert Downy Jr) and Tony gets on TV and threatens the Mandarin. Almost immediately the Mandarin destroy's Tony's house and workshop full of Iron Man gear.  Soon Tony is off in Tennessee with a broken down Iron Man suit looking for clues with help from a middle school kid. Meanwhile wife/girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is double-crossed by an old friend and is in danger from the glowing fire-people who are bioengineered stooges for The Mandarin. Tony gets back in the fight with low tech tricks, and then reboots for a final battle. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: In the third installment, the Iron Man schtick is getting familiar, but the writers know that. They overlay three new things in Iron Man three: Tony becomes a less egotistical; that Tony is the hero not his armored suit; and his home life with Pepper. Despite the writer's efforts to freshen the story up, "3" is not as fun as in the first movie, and the drama is not as strong as in the second movie.

Tony does a lot of the movie without it or in a broken down suit and this creates more death-threatening scenes. We see Tony and Pepper's home life, and  Pepper becomes a 2010's feminist ideal -- a high powered exec who can take care of herself. 

A highlight was Tony sparring with the middle school kid in Tennessee and the snarky dialog. As funny as this was, it was something we expected from the egotistical and smug Tony Stark. By the end of the movie, Tony learns not to be such an ego-maniac, and creates a twist in the Iron Man legend.  Robert Downey Jr is a good actor and he gives a great performance again. Gwyneth Paltrow is also good. Villain Ben Kingsley is a comic element and villain Guy Pearce is disappointing. 

A better villain with a better super-power gimmick might have saved Iron Man 3. It is dumb to complain about superpowers that don't make sense, because they never do, but the battle scenes with the fire people aren't very satisfying. The main villain has a back story, but it doesn't seem substantive enough.

There is a floating brain sequence that seems made for 3D. I recommend the 3D glasses. Flying scenes are always good in 3D. 

The end was clever, and I liked the twist in how the bad-guy finally dies.  

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce

Directed by: Shane Black

Rating: 2.5 stars - a little stale. It has good parts, but not satisfying .

More: It seems clear that this is the end of Robert Downy Jr in Iron Man movies, and the next movie will be a reboot with younger actors. I still expect to see Downy in The Avengers 2. It would be fun to see Gwyneth there too!

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The Place Beyond the Pines

Plot: Luke (Ryan Gosling) finds out he has a boy in Schenectady, so he moves to town, and robs banks for money. He gets caught by local cop Avery (Bradley Cooper), and unexpectedly the movie starts following the cop -- who has a son the same age. After a subplot involving police corruption, suddenly we start following the now high school aged boys Avery's son Jason (Dane DeHaane) and Luke's son AJ (Emory Cohen), who unexpectedly become friends in school. Avery finds newspaper stories about the fathers, and reenacts the drama between the fathers. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The Place Beyond the Pines is three related stories, and like Cloud Atlas each story is in a different style. The first story is about outlaw Luke, who is colorful and dynamic even if he makes bad choices about risk-taking. Luke meets his friend Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) riding his motorcycle beyond the pines. 

The second story is a cop drama with police corruption and threats of getting snuffed out by cops in the woods beyond the pines. It feels cold, calculating and political.

In the third story, the two boys meet and talk with well-written dialog, and they get in various kinds of trouble. Without giving too much away, AJ forces a final confrontation out beyond the pines too.

At the very end, a final scene wraps the three stories together. 

Beyond the Pines is always interesting and keeps you watching with a fast moving, plot-intensive story. There is a good chase segment at the end of the 1st story with a jerky motion that seemed artificial and little distracting, but increased the energy and tenseness too.

The photography is gritty, grainy and conveyed the mood well; however there is little spectacle. The soundtrack is unexceptional, and the closing credit song was singularly awful and made me want jump up and leave the theater so I could avoid it.

I liked Ryan Gosling's acting -- he made a bigger than life character believable. Eva Mendes has a pivotal role in the story, but the movie would have been stronger with bigger parts for the female characters.

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Dane DeHaane, Emory Cohen

Directed by: Derek Cianfrance, who is also credited as a writer.

Rating: 2.5 stars: Like a page-turner novel. You need to keep watching to see what happens. 

 

More: I did not like the ending for Avery and Jason, although the ending for AJ seemed appropriate. 

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Oblivion

Gray. The movie poster is all gray. Look at
the plastic rifle. 

Plot: In a post-apocalyptic world, aliens have invaded, and earth has been evacuated. Jack (Tom Cruise) repairs robots including killer robots that hunt down the enemy called Scavs, aided by fellow service member and bed-mate Victoria (Andrea Reiseborough.) The rebels have been shooting down a lot of robots while Tom and Olga try to last just 2 more weeks until they evacuate to the Tet -- a giant tetrahedral satellite in the sky where humans go for evacuation to a new planet.  After Jack meets mysterious survivor Julia (Olga Kurylenko) and rebel chief Beech (Morgan Freeman,) everything is not what it seems, but Jack finds his core values to push through to the heroic conclusion. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Not Fun. Empty with work-a-day doggedness. Colorless scenery with colorless dialog and a soundtrack that is too quiet.  Yes, all the special effects must have been expensive, and there is something cool about their base on a tower in the clouds, but there are too many scenes of Jack working in solitude.

Writer-Director Kosinski probably thought the aseptic coolness and frigid relationship between Jack and Victoria was foreshadowing the conclusion. However Beech with his fat cigar, and Julia in her flying casket were just as emotionless as Victoria. The only homey place was Jack's earthy hideout on a lake where he listened to 1960's rock on vinyl and stared at the lake.  Why and where was the barren earthscape hiding this idealic paradise? Somehow this is tied in to their mantra, 'Another Day in Paradise,' but I can't figure out how.

This movie could have used a better villain -- one evil mastermind would have helped a lot. Fighting robot villains makes blowing them up less morally offensive, but where is the drama? Jack could have used a better sidekick than his bobblehead doll.

This movie needed more drama, more fun -- less glass & shiny plastic.

Cast: Tom Cruise, Andrea Reiseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski, based on the comic book by Joseph Kosinski and Arvid Nelson

Rating:  1.5 stars: not very fun. Boring characters. Personality-free villain

More: I liked the visual allusions to older Sci-Fi movies. Inside the Tet was like V'ger from Star Trek TMP. The flying robots looked like Darth Vader's fighters in Star Wars. 

Even more: Why is the movie called Oblivion?  Try a Google search on Oblivion -- there are a zillion comic books with Oblivion in the name or characters called Oblivion. This goes to the lack of creativity in the film. 

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Olympus Has Fallen

Plot: Korean terrorists take over the White House and capture the President (Aaron Eckhart). It is up to ex-Secret Service agent Mike Banner (Gerard Butler) to rescue hostages and save the day. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Bang, Bang, Guns, Missiles, Crashing Fighter Jets, Blackhawk Down! Nuclear Launch Codes. It's all action during Olympus has Fallen -- non-stop and full speed. 

The action is so fast that you might miss how unrealistic most of the story is.  And if you are loving it, you will miss how shamelessly jingoistic and saccharine patriotic it is too. 

The special effects are good. The plot, such as it is, keeps the action rolling. The villain comes up with enough plot twists for 120 minutes, and the end feels satisfying. Gerard Butler's Banner is a pretty good action hero that is likeable, human, and not a too much of a super-hero. 

I was put off by the pandering patriotism. How many shots of the flag did we need? Did it have to flutter down to the ground in slow motion? I get that it was the White House, and how symbolic that is. 

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Rating: 2.0 stars. A little too melodramatic for me. Fun to watch.

 

More: So ironic that the villains were North Koreans, and right now they are threatening nuclear war. Even more "Life Imitates Art," that Kim Jong Un had a map of the US with targets on it on the wall of his command center. 

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