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?  

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Plot: Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) get sent back to the Hunger Games after getting double-crossed by President Snow, who thought Katniss was becoming a political symbol. Katniss and the other tributes are more angry at the government for putting them in the games than they are at each other. In the games she forms an alliance to fight off adversaries. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Hunger Games: Catching Fire is genre-crossing movie with action, romance and politics all co-existing. The first novel & movie played with killing for mass entertainment. This movie plays with politics manipulating people through entertainment.

Catching Fire's Politics was not as clever as the media satire from the first movie, so Catching Fire is not as strong as the first Hunger Games. On the other hand, the plot has been streamlined from the book, and I found it easier to understand. 

In Catching Fire, Katniss grows up from a lucky victim to a heroine herself. The moral dimension gets heavy-handed; and as heavy handed as the politics were in the movie -- it was worse in the book.

The fact that people were dying and our young heroes were killing them is taken more seriously in Catching Fire, and this leads to the revolutionary sentiment. 

I loved the art direction in Hunger Games, and this continued the same theme, and the darker tone of Catching Fire makes the silly clothes seem more silly. I liked the elaborate food, the bohemia reference and the TV production sets.  Stanley Tucci should get his own sequel playing the announcer. I continue to love Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) and her clever costumes. Poor Lenny Kravitz is wasted though. 

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks

Directed by: Francis Lawrence; based on the book by Suzanne Collins

Art direction by: John Collins, Adam Davis, Robert Fechtman

Rating: 2.5 stars: I am a Hunger Games fan. A satire about reality shows where the contestants really kill each other is a great idea. Here in the second movie, the concept wears thin, and the contestants turn their hatred toward the government. At its best Catching Fire, satirizes how entertainment media can manipulate people, but sometimes the political aspect of the movie seems forced -- like an excuse for the action/romance part of the film. 

More: Hopefully Catching Fire was a necessary step to set up a great 3rd movie. 

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Philomena

Plot: Journalist Martin (Steve Coogan)  investigates the case of Philomena (Judi Dench) who was forced to give up her child Anthony for adoption 30 years prior while in residence at a convent. They never find Anthony, but they trace out his tragic life. 

[imdb]    [photos]

Review: A slow moving, melodrama featuring a great performance by Judi Dench. It tells of horrific child-rearing practices and human trafficking in Ireland during the 1950's.

Highlights are the great performance of Judi Dench who inhabits the simple-minded persona of Philomena, and the writing which is filled with little details of her personality. The tragic story has a documentary aspect that is intrinsically interesting.

Lowlights were the many digressions, and the melodramatic, tear-jerker manipulation. Similarly I don't believe the nuns were so incredibly evil when they were probably doing the best they could. The poor nuns were, in fact, helping young mothers who had been disowned by their families. It helps to remember that Ireland after WWII was a poor country. 

Cast: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Sophie Kennedy Clark

Directed by: Stephen Frears; Based on the book by Martin Sixsmith

Rating: 2.0 stars: One good performance saves what would otherwise be a tedious story. 

More: Perhaps I am supposed to think that this was a heroic crusade to buy back the past of these young mothers. This movie did not work for me as a documentary. I don't trust dramatizations to get the facts right. The Guardian has some fact checking here. 

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Thor: The Dark World (3D)

Plot: Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and her friend Darcy (Kat Dennings) are looking for Thor with astrophysics instruments when Jane stumbles across some Aether, and gets infected with it.  Aether is the primordial stuff that Dark Elf Malekith (Christopher Ecceleston) is planning to use to destroy the universe. Thor (Chris Helmsworth)  manages to find Jane and bring her home to Asgard, where she meets his parents. Soon Malekith attacks, and after a battle, Thor takes Jane and estranged brother Loki (Tim Hiddleston)  to defeat Malekith with stealth and deceit. This leads to the final battle which happens to be on Earth.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Thor: The Dark World is a big, splashy movie with likable characters, some humor, some action, a little dialog, and without much romance. The love story between Jane and Thor is flat -- they  are more like siblings or distant relatives.  The interesting drama is between Thor and his Dad Odin (Anthony Hopkins,) and his brother Loki. I also liked the subplot with Darcy back on earth with sarcastic commentary.

Visually there are high points and low points. High points are the "gravity tricks" early in the movie and at the end.  I also liked the imploding hand grenades -- clever -- why hasn't someone thought of that before? There are several good action scenes, but the dark elves were not good -- like Imperial Storm Troopers -- just masked guys who are there to get killed by the good guys.

I am tired of superheroes bashing each other all around the landscape and not getting hurt -- I am still sick of it from the last Superman movie -- it is just not cool anymore.

The soundtrack was dull. I did not notice any cool 3D effects, and I usually am a fan of 3D. 

Cast: Chris Helmsworth, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, Anthony Hopkins 

Directed by: Alan Taylor and James Gunn

Rating:  2.5 stars: an enjoyable movie that doesn't challenge the intellect too much.

More: Did you notice that Stan Lee was the old man whose shoes Erik was waving around while he reviewed the plot points? 

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About Time

Plot: Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) can travel back in time to anywhere in his own past and re-do it. He becomes infatuated with Mary (Rachel McAdams) and re-does their early meetings over-and-over until she falls for him, and then he re-does their first-time sex perfecting his moves. Soon they have kids, traffic accidents, and someone dies. He learns that there are some things time travel can't fix, and time travel teaches him the importance of living each day like it is your last day.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Cute and sentimental. About Time is a romance -- it is not so much of a comedy as a straight up romance where the gimmick is the boy can re-do his mistakes. There are two minor characters for comic relief, sister KitKat and Uncle D.

The time travel gimmick is not used make money or fight crime like one of the X-Men, but to explore his relationships -- generally with Mary, but sometimes with his Dad (Bill Nighy.) 

There is an overlaid message about living each day like it is your last, and this message is told using time-travel to illustrate it -- so it is less glib that it sounds here in text, but it still feels superficial. 

Rachel McAdams is cute and easy to relate with. She is what carries the movie. Domhnall Gleeson delivers his lines well, and is easy to relate to, but is not super.  Their meeting in the restaurant when they talk simultaneously is the best writing in the film, and I liked it. Most of the dialog is just serviceable. 

There are a couple of good songs including one in the subway where the musicians  are buskers. The set design is kind of interesting, and there is one party scene in the rain that is pretty great. 

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy

Written and directed by: Richard Curtis

Rating: 2.5 stars: entertaining, warm-hearted

More: Writer-director Curtis clearly wanted to make a light romance, and so he didn't explore any of the other ramifications of being able to do time travel, but seriously, only little text message to the FAA could have prevented the 9-11 terrorist attacks for example.

Even More: NPR reviewer Chris Klimek transposes this story line into a psychological thriller and imputes evil motives on Tim in his review.  I disagree with the review, because this is a plot device not a real thing. 

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12 Years a Slave

Here Solomon is running. That is misleading since the 

movie is slow paced. it is giving the prospective

viewer hope there will be a dramatic and 

exciting escape.  Don't go there thinking you will

see fast paced action. 

Plot: The title tells the whole story so don't complain about spoilers. Solomon (Chiwetwel Ejiofor) is kidnapped in Washington DC, and shipped to Georgia as a slave, where he keeps his head down. He endures many hardships with the other slaves. He has different owners, who are more and less cruel. At the end of twelve years, he manages to get freed.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Just like the title tells you the whole plot, it also forecasts the movie experience. Here is a guy who seems like anyone -- suddenly kidnapped and reduced to horrors from the middle ages -- with chains, muzzles, whippings, loads of indignity and rape. We get a relentless cataloging of terrible slave experiences to let the audience see what it must have been like.

It is interesting to see the mental states of the slave owners -- who manage to justify their cruelty with bible verses and racial supremacism. Mrs Epps (Sarah Paulsen) is especially interesting, because she knows her husband is having sex nightly with the Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o). She is very tough and unsympathetic.

Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance is often excellent -- he finds a lot of ways to show suffering on his face. I also like Lupita Nyong'o for the same reason -- her scene where she begs for suicide is dramatic and should win an supporting actress Oscar.

The sound track is pretty good. The photography is solid, but not overly creative.  There are pretty pictures of moss hanging from trees.

I liked the cross-cultural experience and the immersive experience of  12 Years a Slave.

I was weary of the unrelenting terribleness of it. I did not like the unhappiness of the ending -- as mentioned, the twelve years expire, he manages to get rescued. Does he smile as the carriage leaves the plantation?  NO. Does he smile as he greets his wife and now grown children? NO. Do the kids smile back? NO  Is this anything like the tearful and joyful reunions of countless soldiers returning from Afghanistan or even men being released from prison today? NO. Couldn't they have allowed one happy moment?   One little smile in 143 minutes?   I guess not.

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, Brad Pitt

Directed by: Steve McQueen (the black London-born director, not the American Actor)

Rating: 3.0 stars:  This is a weighty movie about weighty topics. While it is hard to watch, the movie is in service of a worthy goal, and it certainly helps people understand the evils of slavery. It makes me think about human trafficking today. There are also two Oscar worthy performances. On the other hand, the unrelenting sadness and terror was unnecessary. It was manipulative and borders on melodramatic. 

 

More: Here is another link on human trafficking in Michigan. 

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Ender's Game

Plot: Tweens are recruited into the military by Col. Graff (Harrison Ford)  to battle an alien invasion because of tween's superior strategic skills, and Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is one of these. Ender is bullied by all the other cadets, but he keeps getting promoted because he is the best. Along the way, he becomes platonic friends with Petra (Haliee Steinfeld.) Soon he finds himself in deep space getting ready to battle real alien ant-people.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Ender's Game isn't that enjoyable because  it is too much like a Power Rangers episode -- too campy to be cool and not campy enough to be funny. This is especially true early in the movie, for example, when the tough guy sergeant is yelling at a co-ed group of cadets in their underware by their bunks. While later parts of the movie are more grown-up, this part looked like after-school TV.

A second gap is the Asa Butterfeld's Ender isn't that sympathetic. While the lines are delivered well enough, he was like a cerebral superhero -- too distant from real world experiences to evoke emotion. When he threatens to quit, it feels like an intellectual power game; part of the mental "chess game" he is playing with Ford's Col. Graff. It doesn't feel like he needs to be with his sister as he claims.

Harrison Ford provides some good dialog and facial acting, but it is in service a bullying plot line that is predictable.

Speaking of bullying: Ender usually he beats up the bully using superior tactics, but the point is to use violence to fix violence. This aspect of the message makes the story feel much older -- like WWII era Sci-Fi stories. I was surprised that the novel was written as late as 1992, because Star Trek Next Generation (from the same period) was far more progressive. Maybe author's Orson Scott Card's conservative views extend beyond his views on homosexuality.

The special effects are great. There are good action scenes in the weightless sports-game that seems to be a cross between Quidditch and football. These are probably the best scenes in the movie, but they are less interesting and suspenseful than Quidditch in Harry Potter.

I liked the ethical dilemma posed by the end of the movie. This began to redeem the movie, but it was pretty campy. I am glad they felt bad about what they did after it was all done.

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis

Directed and screenplay by: Gavin Hood

Based on the book by: Orson Scott Card (link to Amazon)

Rating: 1.5 stars:  Not so great. Not so fun. Predictable. 

More: I love the ink on Ben Kingsley. Even though he looks good, he had an empty character and was wasted in this film. 

Even more: I read the book about four years ago, but I didn't like the book enough to read any of the sequels. Going into the movie I did not remember most of the plot.