Chef

Plot: Carl (Jon Favreau) is a chef in LA, who gets in a Twitter fight with a critic, and ends up out of work. He gets an old food truck in Miami, starts making Cubano sandwiches, and drives back across the country with his 10 year old son (Emjay Anthony) and friend Tony (Bobby Cannavale.) They stop along the way cooking and learning life lessons. When they get back to LA, he meets up with his ex-wife (Safia Vergara) and the critic.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Chef is underrated, likeable and fun. The characters are interesting. The story is something different, and the music is good. 

Jon Favreau delivers lots of great performances especially the scene where is telling of the critic in the restaurant -- very tense and very believable. He had other good scenes with son Percy. 

There several minor characters played by celebrity actors like Scarlett Johansson (always good), Dustin Hoffman, Amy Sedaris, and especially Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr is hysterical. He kept changing the subject so fast you can't tell what he is talking about, but no matter what he means he is funny. 

The music is exceptional. The salsa heavy soundtrack is anchored by Mariachi legend Pereco Hernandez, who plays ex-wife Inza's father. Why do so many movies have boring soundtracks?  The music makes the cooking seem like a party. 

The photography is solid -- there are some food porn scenes early as Carl is tenderly working out his ideal menu, and a few panoramic landscapes as they drive back across America. 

The story is driven by an Twitter feud, and I thought that was refreshing. 

Starring, written and directed by: Jon Favreau

Cast: Safia Vergara, Bobby Cannavale, see above for more.

Rating:3.5 stars: Fun to watch, charming, peppy, clever, good performances. A well-crafted film. Why not 4 stars? 

More: .Favreau says this is the message of the movie

"I'm most proud of the fact that it shows there's a recipe for success if you dial into the shit that is going to make your life better. It's counterintuitive, but if you take time away from your career and invest it in your personal life, your career flourishes. That's a lesson I've learned a decade ago. That was the real underlying message of the movie." 

Even More: This Jon Favreau is different from the Obama speechwriter and White House staffer Jon Favreau.

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Sin City: A Dame to Kill for

Plot:  Four stories from Sin City one about Marv (Mickey Rourke) hunting down some college kids who dissed him. Another about a gambler named Johnny (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who wins too much at a poker game against corrupt Senator Roarke (Powers Booth.) The third about Dwight (John Brolin) who is called by an old girlfriend Ava Lord (Eva Green) to  rescue her from her husband, but the husband's bodyguards turn out to be formidable, and  Ava's story is not what is seems. Dwight enlists Gail (Rosario Dawson) and her gang of female killers to help out. The final story is about dancer Nancy (Jessica Alba) who wants to kill Rourke to get revenge for his killing of her old boyfriend (Bruce Willis) who is now a ghost. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: I went to see this moving because most of it just looks great. All the Noir scenes! The style! Cool. Really outstanding! Beautiful at times!

The characters are trying to be cool too, and therefore they are hard to relate to. Also four stories dilutes the dramatic action. By halfway through the movie, I wanted more characters that I could care about.

At the very end, I thought there is all too much casual killing. By the end of the movie, even this nice characters are just shooting people. As I left the theater, it was hard to be enthusiastic about the film due to the violence and sexism. The magic of the film did not last the whole 102 minutes.

Cast: Mickey Rourke, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Powers Booth, John Brolin, Jessica Alba, Eva Green

Directed by: Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez

Written by: Frank Miller

Rating: 2.0 stars: Early in the movie, I loved it  -- solely because it was so cool. As the stories played out, I liked it less. I think I would have liked it better as a silent movie. Good enough for 2.5 stars but minus 1/2 because the message of the movie is to shoot people who bother you to death.

More: OK, this is fantasy, almost superhero fantasy, but I don't like how characters live through multiple gunshot wounds. It may make real life shooting too easy to justify.

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Get on Up

Plot: Get on Up is a bio-pic about the R&B singer James Brown (Chadwick Boseman) -- it starts with his lonely, poor childhood, his struggling early career, the early hits, and then the pitiful, wash-up, egotistical, old man. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: James Brown's story is told in a powerful way with many times-out for funky R&B. The music has its hits and misses. The best songs are great, and some seem dated and sleepy. 

Chadwick Boseman is the center of the action as his character is on screen continuously either singing or acting. He handles the lip-syncing flawlessly -- no doubt helped by flawless editing. 

James Brown is shown as a larger-than-life music and business genius who does not seem to owe his success to anyone. It would have been interesting to see who his musical influences were. Brown has passions and genius, but he seems too monomaniacal to be realistic. 

The supporting performances by Nelsan Ellis and Viola Davis helped carry the dramatic scenes, and the dramatic scenes are the binding glue to keep us interested. It would have been nice to see the relationships with women played out more -- aside from just abusing or ignoring them.

Highlights were the early childhood scenes which edged on being "poverty porn," as well as the faster songs. Lows were the photography which was not so artistic, the old-age make-up which was distractedly bad, and the music toward the end of the movie -- which dragged on.

Cast: Chadwich Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Aykroyd, Viola Davis, Jamarion & Jordan Scott as young James.

Directed by: Tate Taylor

Rating: 2.5 - stars: often fun to watch, but it had its dull parts too. Seemed stale -- too much like other musical bio-pics.  Chadwich Boseman was great though. 

More of the Real James Brown: 

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A Most Wanted Man

Plot: Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) sneaks into Germany with a plan to claim his dead (Soviet General) father's bank account. Charity immigration lawyer Annabel (Rachel McAdams) tries to help him with asylum,  but she gets snapped up by a German anti-terrorist group headed by Guenther Bachmann (Phillip Seymour Hoffman.) They get Issa to entrap another immigrant who was suspected of sending money to a terrorist group. With help of banker Tommy Brue ( Willem Dafoe), and after endless chatter with other spy agencies, the movie drifts to its pointless non-ending.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: John Le Carre writes spy vs spy books with many characters and shifting loyalties. I am not a fan of Le Carre and have only read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Le Carre sells a zillion books, and I can only assume that the novel is better than the movie.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman has a great performance -- inhabiting this role, and I am sorry he is dead, but the movie is dull and not enjoyable.

What was the point of this movie? --rivalry between spy agencies trumps all -- it is not about life & death or even money & power -- its about bureaucracy. The ending was especially pointless. All the previous action was negated by the spy vs spy rivalry.

Visually there were some bright spots, the opening shot of two hands climbing up over the sea wall in Hamburg was cool, and the shot of William Defoe's house were cool.  The simple soundtrack hurt because it made the move seem slower. 

Cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Grigoriy Dobrygin

Directed by: Anton Corbin based on the novel by John le Carre

Rating: 1.5 stars: Not recommended. I could have given it two stars based on Hoffman's performance, but I did not enjoy myself, and it was just slow. It is occasionally interesting like an acting seminar might be interesting. 

More: Why are spy movies dying out? There certainly are more CIA agents than ever before. It might be because the war on terrorism is just too vague. It helps for the spy to be the underdog, and survive by stealth and wit -- none of that here. 

Guardians of the Galaxy

Plot: Peter Quill Lord(Chris Pratt) has been hired to an collect a mysterious orb, that many villains also want, and thus begins a complicated story involving  a green lady Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a muscle-y guy Drax, a walking tree Groot, and genetically-engineered, talking raccoon Rocket. When they have the orb someone else takes it; when they don't have the orb they scheme to get it back.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review:  Guardians of the Galaxy is the most fun I have had a superhero movie in a while. They are more misfits than super-heros with few talents besides audacity and gadgets.

The irreverent dialog and camaraderie carry the movie, and provides the glue between action scenes that move the story along -- usually the orb being taken or regained. Often superhero movie tropes are skewered, like people laughing when Peter says he is called Time Lord. 

Guardians reminds me of Joss Wheden's Firefly in that it is about an unlikely ensemble of misfits  in stealing stuff in space. (Perhaps intentionally since Joss Wheden now produces Agents of Shield for Marvel.)

Smaller scale special effects are excellent. The larger effects such as the spaceships and the other worlds -- they seemed either fuzzy or un-original -- nothing spectacular.  (I saw it in 2D.)

The orchestral music was forgettable. There a few sixties & seventies songs featured in the plot. I liked Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Tammi Terrell & Marvin Gaye. One or two got annoying.

Zoe Saldana is skinny as a twig and not a very likely warrior woman, but she did this walk that made her look confident & not to be under-estimated. The scene of the Guardians walking together out of the spaceship was so well done that they actually put it in the trailer.

Guardians was fun and refreshing, but not over the top because it had no central moral theme -- after all they are professional thieves -- and because it lacked something special that could have put it over the top -- like a clever plot twist, great dialog, cool design or etc.

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana

Directed by: James Gunn

Rating: 3.0 stars: Lots of fun.

More: Howard the Duck is cult favorite Marvel character that makes a cameo in a post-credits snippet. 

Even More: The Infinity Stone showed up in the Thor movie. 

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Lucy

Plot: Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) is forced to be a drug mule, but the bag holding the drugs in  her stomach bursts, and she gets a super-mega dose of a psychoactive drug -- this supercharges her brain and gives her  great intelligence, mind-reading, body morphing, and other super powers.  She tracks down the rest of the drug mules in Europe, and the drug lord tries to get back at her. She keeps developing and growing until she can't anymore. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: I loved it, and I want to see it again. 

It has a magic-reality, non-linear story telling style that I like, but everyone doesn't.  Everything isn't literally happening or true like they show it -- you are seeing the symbolic reality.  Cloud Atlas was like that -- and many reviewers never understood it. 

Lucy has a lot of philosophy-speak, and in the same way -- it is a symbol for philosophy -- you don't need it to make sense to "Get it."  Get it means that people can be better than they are, and that we need more unity of vision & unity of people to be better. See Major Spoiler at the end. 

I loved Scarlett Johansson -- who gives us a great tearful phone call to Mom, and a kick ass super hero too. Morgan Freeman is great, but I am tired of him playing a scientist. I get it that he can be geeky without being threatening, but let's move to the next generation.

There are several good visuals including the cheetahs eating the antelope, Lucy's hand morphing scene, and who expected a pile up of French police cars. 

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman

Written and directed by: Luc Besson

Rating: 4.0 stars: Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. 

More: I did not like how it is a drug that leads to all this enlightenment. I think it sends a bad message about drugs. 

Major Spoiler:  Lucy has the same story as 2001 Space Odyssey, and the final scene's flash drive is supposed to be like the 2001 obelisk. (In the book, the obelisk is full of stars, like the flash drive.)

In both movies we see an ancient apes making the step to humanity and the we see a modern human (the astronaut & the modern Lucy) making a step to be come a trans-human or star baby or the singularity.

Finally, the movie isn't about using drugs to achieve super powers, it is about people being unified in purpose and achieving a unity of knowledge to help the society progress. 

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Born Again

Plot: Washed-up music producer and record label owner Dan (Mark Ruffalo) meets heart-broken, depressed songwriter Gretta (Keira Knightley), and they make an album outside in different NYC neighborhoods. We meet Dan's teenage daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld) and his estranged wife Miriam (Catherine Keener) along the way. Keira channels her troubles into her music, and when the project is done, everything seems better. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Kira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo are great, and the movie is fun to watch. Who knew that Kira Knightley could sing? 

Born Again is a light drama about people in New York City making an album. It is not a musical, but there is a magical reality element where things kind of work out -- we get some satire about the music industry though. The music making is overlaid on a soap opera plot involving Gretta's break up with her boyfriend (James Corden) and Dan's relationship with his wife Miriam and daughter Violet.

There are a lot of singing scenes, but the music isn't boring -- the visuals are interesting, and the music is well integrated into the story. I liked the Kira Knightley songs better than the others.  I might just buy "Everythings Coming Up Roses,"

Some of the visuals of New York are pretty cool. 

Cast: Kira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, James Corden, Katherine Keener, Hailee Steinfeld

Directed by: John Carne

Rating: 3.0 stars: Well acted and fun to watch

More: .The songs are written by a whole committee: Gregg Alexander co-wrote songs for the film with Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley, Rick Nowels and Nick Southwood. John Carney and Glen Hansard also contributed as songwriters for the film's music. The featured song Lost Stars was written by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood.

Even More.

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