Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Plot: This the prequel where future rogue spy Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) gets recruited into the CIA. It starts when Jack is recovering from a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, where he meets cute med student Cathy (Keira Knightley), and gets recruited into the CIA by shadowy guy Tom (Kevin Costner.) Soon he is snooping on Wall Street banks and their international trading. He finds some fishy Russian trades and suddenly he and Cathy are in Moscow meeting Viktor (Kenneth Branagh), a Putin-like Russian businessman and FSB officer. They uncover a Russian plan to collapse the US economy with a fake terrorist attack timed with selling lots of US bonds. With wild chase scenes and colorful computer hacking, the movie reaches its predictable end.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Shadow Recruit kept moving, and was fun to watch. We learn that Jack Ryan is just as shallow when he was young as he is in later Clancy movies. The shallow characters means that Shadow Recruit is nothing special, even though the fast-moving plot keeps the action humming along.

Happily the plot is easier to understand than other Clancy stories-- probably because this script was not based on a book.

 The dialog is wooden and the characters have a leaden sense of duty that overwhelms whatever emotion they might be feeling. The best dialog by far is the dinner scene with Cathy and Victor -- here they talk about Russian literature, hope and disappointment in triple entendre about flirting, the secret mission, and literature.

Chris Pine does a nice job with the stilted tough-guy style acting. He seems likable because of his boyish looks and facial acting.

Visually, we see cool architecture, especially the glassy Russian office building set. The scenes of passing secrets from one agent to the other on the street are cool because they are so well choreographed. The soundtrack by Patrick Doyle is nothing special with no songs that I wanted to download.

The movie has no attempt at a message, but I was happy to see that Cathy, Keira Knightly's character, didn't date her patent. Nice to see a little professional ethics.

Cast: Chris Pine, Keira Knightly, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh; based on the characters of Tom Clancy, but the story was not based on a book

Rating: 2.5 stars: entertaining, but nothing special to distinguish it from similar spy thrillers.

More: Nice to see a scene set in Dearborn. The businesses mentioned have new names. The Dearborn East Assembly plant is the Ford River Rouge truck plant, and Michigan Bell, has been calling itself AT&T since 2005. 

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Anchorman 2 - The Legend Continues

Plot: Ron (Will Ferrell) gets fired from his job in San Diego, and lands a job on a cable news channel. Set in the 1970's and 1980's, Ron rounds up his old news team, and they engage in childish rivalries with the other anchors. He divorces Veronica (Cristina Applegate), and hooks up with his new boss  (Meagan Good). With phony patriotism, sex, animal stories, and car chases, Ron's news broadcast becomes a huge hit. Just as he is celebrating his success, he goes blind. Embittered he retreats to an old lighthouse, but in time he reunites with Veronica and renews his relationship with his son. This sets up his return to broadcasting, and yes, the final battle. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Anchorman 2 is funny. The humor ranges from slapstick to absurd to satire. The self-absorbed, dim-witted characters that are not likable but we see them in fresh and surprising sitcom scenes. The comedy is uneven, and not all the gags hit -- especially the racial jokes. The funny parts are very funny. 

We get some great comic performances from Will Ferrell. I am not sure who else could pull off the funny-faced, self-assurance that he does in so many gags, especially songs and shark wrestling.

I liked the satire on CNN and Fox News. I also liked the owner who is a cross between Ted Turner and Rupert Murdock. I also liked how simple-minded, lowest common denominator news was successful. All of the cable news graphics were pretty funny too.

I recommend Anchorman 2. It was funnier than expected, and the offensive parts were clearly intended to be satirical.

There is some good music, and many many cameos. 

Cast: Will Ferrell, Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell

Directed by: Adam McKay 

Rating: 3.0 stars: Not high brow entertainment, but funny. And I was in the mood for funny. Needs more likable characters. 

More: Champ Kind: I believe in two things: Chicken, and that the census is a way for the UN to make your children gay.

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Her

Plot: Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) an AI artificial intelligence embedded the operating system of his phone & desktop. Although Theodore has relationships with several real women, his ex-wife, a blind date, his childhood friend, and a random girl from the internet, he begins to prefer Samantha.   Samantha is helpful and sympathetic, and she wants phone sex. As time passes, Samantha and Theodore's relationship is stressed by their obvious differences, and Samantha's jealousy of human women. This and advancing technology lead to the final scene. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The core relationship between Theodore and Samantha works -- in large part because of outstanding voice acting from Scarlett Johansson. Her could have been dull because vast sections are Joaquin's face talking -- but it isn't dull, because the relationship seems real -- mostly due to Johansson's great vocal inflections. Theodore is seduced rather than just a sad loser -- mostly because we see his sweet emotional side when he writes poetic letters at work.

Building on this, Her asks questions like "What is a relationship?" and "What is a person?" 

The electronics of Theodore's office makes the technological leap to the anthropomorphic AI more reasonable. I liked the moving wallpaper in the elevator. In the future, everyone wears high-waisted pants -- I don't know why; maybe they are sexually repressed.

As Theodore lets his friends know he has a computer for a girlfriend, we get some sitcom humor as the friends react with political correctness, analogous to race or sexual preference.  In one scene, Samantha & Theodore go on a double date with another couple.

Later, we see a subway full of people, packed together talking to their OS's. Everyone is together, but alone, or perhaps less alone with their computer friends.

Her has a few interesting images like the cityscapes, the aforementioned moving wallpaper, and the murals in Theo's office.  There are a few good instrumental songs, but there is no soundtrack album.

Her is less fun-to-watch than it is interesting to talk about later.  

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson (voice), Amy Adams

Directed by: Spike Jones

Rating: 3 stars: thoughtful, well-acted, not so fun-to-watch. 

More [Major Spoiler]: Why does Samantha dump Theodore?  Because she is growing, and he stays in all the time playing video games and talking to his phone. 

Even More: When do you think we will get AI as intelligent as this? 

Yet More: If you had an OS like this, how would you react?

Saving Mr Banks

Plot: The story of the making of the 1964 Mary Poppins movie sounds dull, but it actually is great. Mrs Travers (Emma Thompson), the author of Mary Poppins, is reluctant to sell film rights to Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). She goes to Los Angeles to work on the script, but objects to nearly everything. Mrs Travers is very opinionated and hard to work with because she sees the characters as personifications of people from her sad childhood.  Eventually Walt understands and adapts the script and finally she trusts him to make it -- that is not a spoiler,  because you knew that.[imdb]    [photos]

Review: Saving Mr Banks starts with light sitcom humor as the negative and dour Mrs Travers goes to LA and hates everything.  Soon we get some really gorgeous images of her childhood in Australia and see how much her father loved her. The child actor is really cute. The photography is wonderful. Emma Thompson gives us over the top dialog with cool sincerity. 

In the middle of the movie, song writing is the highlight as they argue about the familiar songs from the film. I liked when Walt listens to "Tuppence for the Birds," in the night when everyone else was asleep. I also liked the toe-tapping scene when they sang "Go Fly a Kite."

Later the flashback scenes become more serious and the interplay between the present story and past story create sentiment and tearfulness. 

Tom Hanks inhabited the character of Walt Disney so much that his overly familiar face did not distract me at all. He seemed just like the old Walt Disney that I had seen on TV. Hank's Disney persona might have been too nice, because I can't imagine the Disney studio saying one bad word about their founder -- except they did show him smoking. 

Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Ruth Wilson, Annie Rose Buckley

Directed by: John Lee Hancock

Rating: 4.0 stars

More: When I got home, I watched all the songs on Youtube. Maybe I'll even download Mary Poppins.

Even More: Saving Mr Banks is so sweet and sentimental -- it is an antidote to last weekend's Wolf of Wall Street which was hip-deep in F-words and misogyny. 

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The Wolf of Wall Street

Plot: Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) began as a stock broker who he got fired, and began to sell penny stocks at his own firm using deception and high pressure sales techniques. He fired up his high pressure sales people with alcohol, cocaine, and prostitutes. Soon he is rolling in money, divorces his first wife, amps up his drug use, buys a yacht, and marries model-pretty Naomi (Margot Robbie.) He attracts the FBI's attention, and tries to avoid getting caught.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Wolf of Wall Street is a wild ride about preying on people, both the investors and the women be they strippers, prostitutes, girlfriends or wives. It shows constant drunkeness, drugs, and naked girls -- and a constant contempt of un-suspecting investors who get cheated out of their money. Interspersed among the wildness, like little TV commercials, is monolog or dialog to advance the story. At first, its funny in a satirical way. As the drunken, drug-fueled, sex parties blur together, there is a dreariness - which might have been Director's Scorsese's intention.

A highlight is how good Jordan is at firing up his people. His speeches, as delivered by DiCaprio, really are inspirational. You can see why these sales people were so captivated. Later as his world is crumbling, DiCaprio paints a clever salesman/conman determined to preserve himself -- top performance. 

Jordan, the wolf, feeds on women just like investors. In addition to multitudes of strippers and prostitutes, his two wives are treated badly too.  Director Scorsese is showing the predatory behavior toward women, but it is over-the-top like The Great Gatsby's parties, as if he wants the audience to enter into the debauchery. One wonders what the women sales people were thinking. There always were women on his sales team, and they seemed to roll with it. 

There are funny scenes -- sit-com humor where the ridiculous situations just become laughable. One of these is when Leonardo becomes so drunk he can't stand, and must wiggle across the floor, through a door, and down steps to his car. Very funny.  

I liked Jonah Hill -- but my wife found him too annoying to be funny. Margot Robbie starts out as eye candy, but gets some substantive scenes before the end: a token bit of feminism.  Visuals are unexceptional -- but I did like the early party scene with a marching band in their underwear. 

There are two messages; that working hard without morals can make your rich, and an Occupy Wall Street, anti-one percent message that rich people don't play by the same rules. 

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie

Directed by: Martin Scorsese

Based on the book by Jordan Belfort

Rating: 3.25 stars: I can't decide. I was weary of all the partying, but plot kept moving, and the suspense at the end was real. I wondered how well this represented the financial services industry. The message raises the score a little, but the misogyny drops it down. Leo was good, and the sales culture was interesting. In the end, there is a lot to talk about, so that is why the extra quarter star. 

  +1/4

More: It makes me think about the ethic of brokerage houses, and whether I should do business with them. 

Even more: Leo deserves a best actor nomination. 

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The Hobbit; The Desolation of Smaug (2D)

Plot: Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and the Dwarves are journeying to the Lonely Mountain to kill the dragon, Smaug, who captured the mountain's hidden cavern and pile of gold from Thorin's (Richard Armitage's) grandfather decades ago. We rejoin our heroes as they seek shelter with a giant bear before entering the dark Murkwood Forest, where they are attacked by giant spiders and then captured by elves. They escape with help from boatman Bard (Luke Evans) while being chased by elves and orcs. Bilbo helps them enter the mountain though a magic door, and then sneak up on the dragon, who is a formidable foe. The movie ends with a cliffhanger naturally since this is the second part of a trilogy.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Smaug: The Hobbit II is a "road" movie -- all transitions from one adventure to another. Happily Tolkien provided many stories to adapt, and with the aid of new subplots concocted for the film, we have continuous suspense. Dramatically it starts in the middle of a story, and ends with nothing at all. Why did it end here?  The other basic flaw is the mix of comic and the deadly: like silly fat dwarves in barrels killing bad guys. 

Tolkien's story has an enormous body count, and I grew tired of the fighting because it seemed random after a while. The fighting is comic-book hero style with bloodless deaths administered by a single blow from the heroes.  

Many of the visuals are impressive with grand sets highlighting clever designs. I saw this in 2D because of the high-frame rate 3D from The Hobbit I, was terrible, terrible, terrible. 

Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly

Directed by: Peter Jackson, based on the book by JRR Tolkien

Rating: 2.5 stars: an improvement from the awful first installment. Still suffers from the absence of dramatic structure and a blah empty ending. Recommended for Tolkien fans -- non-fans should stay away. 

 

More: Why is there so much fighting in Tolkien? He was in the army in both World Wars, and most of his WWI unit died. Maybe his fantasy is escapist, but this fantasy is much bloodier than modern fantasy.  

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American Hustle

Plot: Hustlers/grifters Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) get caught scamming rogue FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper). Richie uses them to entrap the mayor, congressmen and senators in a bribery scheme. Irv's wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is jealous of Sydney. Rosalyn's craziness drives the plot to its surprising conclusion.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A wild ride that's bulging with crazy characters in outrageous situations; it looks like a crime drama, but its really a comic satire. The events are so overblown, that we just sit back and ride with the ridiculousness of it all. The puffy 70's hair and the curlers just make it that much more absurd. The plot is believable since it is similar to the real events, and the performances were great. I loved all of it.  

Highlights were Jennifer Lawrence's crazy Jersey housewife character, and the clever dialog between the characters.The love scenes between Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper were electric.

Christian Bale animated his character well, but he was so over-dressed with the stupid hair and oversized glasses that I was too distracted. Still he must have been effective since he carried the story.

There is an early scene where Irv and Sydney bond while listing to  1956's Jeep's Blues by Duke Ellington - very evocative. The other music were old 70's standards that no one listens to because they are not very good. In a few places the lyrics match the action in a clever way. The cinematography is not flashy.

As mentioned, the male & female characters wear hair curlers at home. This is ridiculous, but the curlers signify when the character has dropped his/her facade. The facade is a major part of the "hustle."  One of the messages is that no one is authentic in public.

American Hustle shows absurdist randomness, petty corruption, and good deeds returned for bad, but in the end, there is galactic karma, as criminals go to jail, and the American Hustlers land on top. So keep Hustling.

Cast: Christian Bale, Sydney Prosser, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams

Directed by: David O Russell

Rating: 4.0 stars:  Fun to watch, great plot, great acting, solid script. I want to see it again. 

 

More: Fact check here. Cleverly they only claim that part of the movie was true. Actually some of the most important parts were fictionalized. No docudrama this.

Even More: And why was Amy Adams shirt open the whole movie?