Noah

SPOILERS -- I assume you know the Bible story, and I am not going to feel bad about spoiling the extra Hollywood subplots here. This is awful movie, and you shouldn't see it. 

Plot: You know the story, God drowns all of humanity except for Noah (Russell Crowe) and the kids. In this version, Noah agonizes about completing human extinction by stabbing to death the fertile females on board. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Unpleasant. The subplot about killing off the daughters-in-law provided drama but was terrible to watch.

Noah is sincerely told; here the Creator is the ultimate good guy, and the Creator is justified in wiping out humanity. Killing the whole human race is just depressing, and being God's instrument to kill everyone is hard to put a happy face on. I wonder why Noah's wife Ila (Jennifer Connelly) hugs Noah at the end.

Most outrageous was the killing of women and girls; Three offenses: selling girls for cannibalism, Noah letting a potential daughter-in-law get trampled, and Noah's threat to kill his grandchildren but only if they are girls.  The threatened infanticide of girls by our hero, prophet and patriarch, was really hard to watch.  The Bible's Noah story is not misogynist.  (The idea of castrating his sons very came up.)

The acting was good. I really liked Jennifer Connelly (Noah's wfe, Naameh), and Emma Watson (daughter-in-law, Ila) too. The women had reason to cry regarding the outrageous actions of God, Noah, and all the other men including director Aronofsky. Russell Crowe was pretty great too. He looked troubled, but like an old testament patriarch; the role required a hard ass.

There were some good visuals, especially the snakes crawling on the ark, and the Noah's story of Adam & Eve where all the evils of the world are acted out by silhouette figures flashing past in rapid succession.

None of the positives outweighs the unpleasantness of the experience and the monstrousness of the story. It's certainly not a positive faith-building experience. 

Cast: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson

Directed by: Darren Aronofsky

Rating: 1.5 stars: Not recommended, despite the good acting. Too monstrous. Not suitable for children

More: Noah leaves you with lots to talk about. 

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Captain America: Winter Soldier

Plot: Now in the present day, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), is suspicious of the power of his employer, a secret Super agency called SHIELD. SHIELD's director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is killed, and it appears Fascists are taking over SHIELD so they can control the world with flying, computer-controlled battle stations to kill enemies from the air. The bad guys come after Steve Rogers and compatriot Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and they encounter "The Winter Soldier"/Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) who is just as tough as Captain America, and who has lengthy back-story. At the end, the bad guys launch their battle stations, and aided by flying man Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), they strive to save the world from Fascism.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Well-written, well-acted, and always interesting, Winter Soldier is a good action adventure movie. The story is about ideology -- freedom vs safety. It reminds me of the Patriot Act and NSA leaker Edward Snowden.  The action scenes are fast-paced and as special effects are as realistic as they come. I liked the 3D effects too.

Chris Evans's Captain America is so strait-laced and idealistic that he is hard to relate to. He is more of an ideal to strive for. Johansson's Black Widow is so sold-out that she is easy to relate to. They had good chemistry together, and I liked how she was always trying to fix him up on a date as they struggled with life & death situations.

My DW was upset at all the high body count, but it was bloodless violence, and Captain America himself just whacks people with his shield -- something he did endlessly. And the bad guys live on for the sequel. 

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Samuel L Jackson, Anthony Mackie

Directed by: Anthony and Joe Russo (brothers)

Rating: 3.0 stars: An interesting and sometimes fun movie. Recommended. Cool, with some ideological elements, but not actually thoughtful.

More: The phrase 'Winter Soldier' comes from Thomas Paine's tract The Crisis, which he wrote as Washington was about to spend Christmas on the Delaware River in December of 1776. The Winter Soldier is never mentioned, and is the heroic contrast to the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot. The real Winter Soldier is General Washington and his soldiers shivering in their camp. Here is the first paragraph:

THESE are the times that try men's souls.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth.

More on this from Dana Stevens at Slate.

John Kerry, now Secretary of State, helped popularized the term Winter Soldier during Senate hearings on Vietnam in 1971: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Soldier_Investigation

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

Plot: Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) is concierge at a grand resort hotel in the mountains in Europe. He runs the hotel with insane attention to detail, and he romances the elderly female guests too -- which may be the key to the hotel's prosperity. He takes on an refugee, Zero (Tony Revolori) as a personal assistant. When a longtime guest dies, Gustave inherits valuable painting, and the children of the deceased are out to get him. [SPOILERS FOLLOW SKIP TO REVIEW SECTION] Soon war breaks out, Gustave is framed for a murder, and ends up in prison. Gustave and his prison friends engineer a crazy complicated breakout. Gustave, Zero and Zero's girlfriend Agatha (Saorirse Ronan) conspire to find a hidden second will and the movie ends happily 

[imdb]    [photos]

Review: Grand Budapest Hotel  is an absurd comedy where everything is mad and deliberately unreal.  It is both a refreshing diversion from other styles of movie making, and a satirical mediation on how weird regular life is too. 

There are many running gags. One I liked was the un-natural speed of all the transportation. It just zips along about 50% too fast, which reminds us, that everything in this world is strange.

Having said that, the feel of the movie is staged and contrived. The character relationships are not deep, the photography is bland, and the music is forgettable.

While I like the novelty, it is not really fun to watch and the film's ideas are not especially interesting. 

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saorirse Ronan, F. Murry Abraham, Adrien Brody, and Jeff Goldblum

Directed by: Wes Anderson

Rating: 2.0 stars: almost recommended, -- refreshing after a diet of normal movies. It is funny in places and I liked the cameos. 

 

More: The movie is a flashback inside a flashback. In the present, a young woman is reading the book by the film's nameless narrator, and inside that flashback the hotel owner is telling his personal story to the narrator. Why? And why do present-day people put their keys on the narrator's tomb?

Even more: Why is the Grand Budapest Hotel on a mountaintop and NOT in Budapest?
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Divergent

Plot: In a post-apocylpsic Chicago, people are divided into five castes according to their personality. Keeping similar people together makes them easier for the Government to control. Tris (Shailene Woodley) doesn't fit into one of the castes, making her unpredictable, and "Divergent." She has to hide her divergent nature and try to fit in. Helping her fit in, is drill instructor Four (Drew Roy) who is to be too cute for Tris to resist. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Okay, that five caste system is dumb, and the technology is more magic-fantastic than science fiction, but besides all that, it is a pretty good story about a young woman, who doesn't fit and wants to. Screenwriters Daugherty and Taylor made a human story about teens who want need to hide their inner selves -- and everyone can relate to that.  Shailene Woody was up to the acting challenge, and seemed appropriately scared, tense and brave. Her performance made the movie entertaining with help from co-stars Drew Roy and Ashley Judd. I liked all the Ashley Judd scenes.

Highlights were the images of post-apocolypsic Chicago and some music. Weaknesses were the fight scenes and the military training camp which were cheap and amateur. The computer control center looked like a TV news room. 

Divergent would have been better movie with a few more quirky characters, and a more realistically imagined world.  This is a case where the movie was better than the book. 

Divergent is fun-to-watch, and what is the matter with that?

Cast: Shailene Woody, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Zoe Kravitz, Kate Winslet

Directed by: Neil Burger

Based on the novel by: Veronica Roth -- Link to Barnes & Noble

Rating: 2.5 stars:  Saddled with a weak story, director Burger and actress Woodley made a fun-to-watch movie by focusing on her character Tris. We cared about her, and her mom, brother and father too. It gets 2.5 stars because I recommend people see it despite its weaknesses. 

 

More: The story could have supported some examination of hiding our true nature and our inner secrets -- like Spiderman broods on; We don't get any of that. This was dumbed down, and that hurts the movie.

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Non-Stop

Plot: Air Marshall Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is getting threatening texts from a passenger on a trans-Atlantic flight. He tries to hunt down the bad guy, but as the body count rises, he is suspected as being the terrorist himself. All the characters with speaking parts become suspects at some point.  [imdb]   [photos]

Review:  Bill Marks has a lot of problems including lying to everyone and drunkenness. As the terrorist begins to make threats and Marks learns what is going on, Non-Stop is an engaging whodunit. Later, the not-so-bright Marks tries some interesting ideas to catch the bad guy, but gets outsmarted. This leads to the best part of the movie, where we wonder whether he both a schizophrenic killer and a sky marshal at once.  The last part is noisier and louder with more violence in the aisles, but less interesting and more predictable. The climatic ending has a particularly stupid rescue that wrecks the moment.

Liam Neeson plays a dim-witted cop, but big hearted cop pretty well. No problem with his performance. Julianne Moore plays a self-absorbed, but ultimately friendly passenger for Marks to talk to. Michelle Dockery is engaging as the head stewardess. 

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o has a bit part as a stewardess. I am sure she'll be getting bigger roles soon. 

The soundtrack was fast-paced, orchestral music -- OK, but nothing special. Visually, all the scenes are inside an airplane.

Cast: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Lupita Nyong'o.

Directed by: Jaume Coliet-Serre

Rating: 2 stars, but still recommended for a boring March weekends

 

More: Real life flight attendants were not happy when Liam showed everyone how to disable the lavatory smoke detector -- not funny because a fire in the bathroom could kill people. 

<<MINOR SPOILER>> Even More: Turns out there really is something called the Least Risk Bomb Location.  Its location varies from plane-to-plane, and the flight attendants are trained to locate bombs there and pack in the luggage around it. Also, Liam chose the wrong location, it would have been on the opposite side from the exit, and the bomb is not placed directly on the floor. 

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Blue Jasmine

Plot: Broke socialite Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) comes to San Francisco to live with her working class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins). Both Jasmine and Ginger find new boyfriends, but it all goes wrong. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: .This is a drama about two sisters and their different expectations and standards. It has good dialog, but differs from other Woody Allen movies where the dialog is the star. Here the ideas of wealth vs balance are the most important, and some of the scenes have sitcom humor. 

Some of the characters are not that likable. While Cate Blanchett is up for an Oscar; her performance was not as good as Sally Hawkins -- good but less showy. 

Cast: .Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins, Louis CK

Written & directed by: Woody Allen

Rating: 2.5 stars:  I saw it home on pay-per-view, and often I don't like movies in the living room as much as at the theater. 

 

More: Blue Jasmine put me to sleep. Good movies shouldn't put you to sleep. 

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The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu)

Plot: A Japanese aircraft engineer, Jiro Hirokoshi,  strives to design beautiful planes that end up being used as fighters in WW2. It is basically a true story of how the Japanese Zero fighter was made. Jiro is kind young man who helps people, and who falls in love with a pretty Japanese girl.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: This colorful animated film is distinctive in two ways, it tells the story of a hero engineer striving to make something beautiful and functional, and it tells the human story of Jiro growing up, falling in love, and dealing with sorrows. Director Miyazaki shows us images we don't see in animated or conventional films for example, there is a dramatic rainfall that starts as a pitter-patter in the weeds and becomes a downpour. There are beautiful scenes of nature, and wonderful images of railroads. 

It is a common style in Japanese media for the love story to be sincere and not ironic.  One reason to see a Japanese movie is for this sincerity.  I find a sweet romantic story refreshing, but if you were not ready for it, you might find it corny. When was the last time you saw an American story (or song, or novel or TV show) this sweet and non-ironic? 

There are dream sequences where Jiro meets Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni, and they talk about life and love, and also the corruption of technology to war. Caproni is a mentor, and at the end Jiro's friend. 

There is another scene where Jiro goes to Germany to see the German heavy bombers, and meet its designer. The scene shows the aircraft as beautiful, but also as far out of reach of the poor Japanese. 

The Oscars are tomorrow, and The Wind Rises is up against Frozen. While I liked The Wind Rises, I like the liberating message of Frozen more. Both movies have interesting messages, but Frozen feels better, whereas The Wind Rises is more intellectual. 

Written and directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Rating: 3.25 stars: same rating as Frozen, which we saw last week. 

  1/4

More: I know that old-time Japanese engineers smoked cigarettes, but there is a lot of smoking in this movie, and I can't figure out a reason for it. Later one of the characters gets tuberculosis, and I was trying to figure out a connect, but I couldn't. I did not like Jiro smoking in front of the tuberculosis patent. Bad, Bad, Bad.

Even more: If I had middle school kids, I take them just to get them interested in math and science. American movies never have hero engineers -- except perhaps Star Trek. You might even have to explain how a slide rule works. 

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