Win Win

Win Win

Win Win is a small low budget film that, from the trailers, I was afraid would be just another feel good underdog sports movie.  The only reason it caught my eye was because one of my favorite actors, Paul Giamatti, was starring in the lead role.  I love his ability to play the inwardly tormented and outwardly comedic everyman.  His farcically intense delivery and exaggerated facial expressions over things most of us find mundane and normal never cease to make me smile and make him exuberantly fun to watch in all of his movies (remember his role as ‘Pig Vomit’ in Howard Stern’s ‘Private Parts’).  His role as Harvey Pikar in ‘American Splendor’ proved his acting ability, but it’s his stature as a character actor which I find most endearing.

            I took a chance on Win Win and it was surprisingly good.  It’s the story of a New Jersey attorney named Mike Flaherty who is struggling to make ends meet in his personal law practice.  He is in dire financial straits and has started to have panic attacks. Mike finds  a questionable way of making money off one of his elderly clients by becoming his court appointed guardian.  You feel for Mike because he is able to rationalize this as his practice is about to go under and if he doesn’t he won’t be able to provide for his family.  Mike also moonlights as a wrestling coach for a perennially failing team at the local high school,

            The plan goes along fairly well until an unexpected visitor shows up in the form his client’s 16 year old grandson from Ohio named Kyle (Alex Schaffer).  Sitting on the doorstep of his grandfather’s house, Kyle seems adrift and reluctant to go back home to his ‘in rehab’ mother.  Mike and his wife Jackie (played with mature attractiveness by Amy Ryan) reluctantly take Kyle in to their home until things can be worked out.

            This is where the film could have gone terribly wrong, but didn’t.  Mike discovers that Kyle is an incredibly talented wrestler and has visions of him turning around his last place wrestling team. Visions of ‘The Bad News Bears’ or even the lesser known Mathew Modine wrestling film ‘Vision Quest’ popped into my head and I started preemptively shaking my head with anticipation of the clichés to come.  To my surprise, the focus of the movie did not turn to Kyle’s comeback and success in wrestling.  Even though that was a part of the film, it was a small part.  The film focused on Kyle bonding and growing to trust Mike and his middle class family from New Jersey.  While far from perfect, they provide him with a stability and acceptance he had never experienced before.  Kyle starts out as a grunting, monosyllabic teenager and slowly starts to grow and come out of his shell as Mike becomes the father figure he never knew.

            The sudden appearance of Kyle’s mother threatens to derail Kyle’s new found happiness.  Fresh out of rehab and looking to get her hands on a part of her father’s money, she looks to reclaim Kyle and to take him back to Columbus.  The movie’s drama and theme grows out of this struggle; the mother who is not fit to be a parent and the family that didn’t want Kyle to begin with struggling to keep him.

            The movie has a hard time trying to decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama.  Giamatti’s buffoonery at everything he does is always funny and his two best friends and Asst. Coaches, Jeffery Tambor and Bobby Cannavale are put in for almost exclusively comedic reasons.  However, the story of Kyle’s relationship with his mother and his attachment to his grandfather and Mike Flaherty’s family is all drama and interesting to watch.

            There are no explosions or intense thrills in this movie.  Like I said, it is a small quiet film about a normal middle class family trying to do what is right and opening their home to a troubled boy.  They don’t all have to be blockbusters.  Sometimes just a simple and ordinary human story that could happen to anyone of us can be engaging enough. 

I rate this *** 3 stars



Limitless

Limitless



            My whole life I’ve been hearing that we only use 10% of our brains.  What if they developed a pill that allowed us to access the other 90%.  What would we be capable of?  Limitless deals with the question of what we could do with a 4 digit IQ.

            The movie stars Bradley Cooper (the heir apparent to the aging Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise) as Eddie Morra. Eddie is a down and out writer who hasn’t written anything in years and has just been left by his girlfriend for his lack of drive.  Eddie lives the depressing life of someone who just isn’t making it.  One day, during a chance meeting, Eddie runs into his ex-brother-in-law who used to be a dealer, but is now a pharmaceutical rep.  After listening to Eddie’s story, the cleaned up, but still slimy brother-in-law offers him a not-yet-on-the-market drug designed to help boost one’s thinking abilities.  Eddie is hesitant, but figures as down and out as he is, what does he have to lose?  After all, his brother in law informs him it will cost $800 a pop when it becomes available.

            The drug works better than Eddie could have imagined.  Eddie begins to notice things he never noticed before.  Ways to grow his money on the stock market seem obvious.  He suddenly has cultural appetites.  Suddenly, his cluttered apartment seems so unorganized and inefficient.  His mind is on fire with ideas and drive. He wins his girlfriend back through his new charm, drive, and success.  He finishes his novel in four days.  His publisher is blown away by his new found talent.  He invests in the stock market and is able to parlay $12,000 to 2 million.  Of course this type of success does not go unnoticed. Soon, the prominent investment billionaire, Carl Van Loon (played uninspiring by Robert De Niro) catches wind of his success and seeks him out.  Eddie’s life seems to be on the fast track to a life beyond his wildest dreams.

            Of course, with something this good there has to be a drawback.  Soon Eddie begins to realize that he physically can’t live without the drug and that his mind is going too fast, which causes him to have blackouts and have skipping consciousness.  He goes to find his brother-n-law only to find him dead, a victim of foul play.  Soon he realizes that he is not the first to try this drug and finds himself pursued by many people interested in trying to capture his remaining stash of pills.

            The movie is fun and fast paced.  I would call it a light hearted drama or a dark comedy.  The director, Neil Burger, does an effective and artistic job illustrating visually how Eddie sees the world while on the drug.  I think the movie started too many sub-plots, some of which they never resolve (how, why, and by whom was the girl he had a one-night stand with murdered).  His dealings with the Eastern European loan shark did not seem as well thought out as a man with a 4 digit IQ should have planned.  Still, they were minor issues for a fun movie. 

            If Bradley Cooper is not the newest A-list leading man in Hollywood, he soon will be.  He definitely has the charm and good looks of the Clooney/Pitt/Cruise tribe.  I usually only make Oscar predictions, but I’m willing to bet that he gets the more coveted People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ within the next 2 years. 

            I felt Robert DeNiro was totally wasted in this movie.  He just reminds me of a boxer past his prime (Raging Bull???).  I can’t think of a single movie in the last several years that he has done that has been impressive.  He’s living off his name.  I felt he phoned this one in.  This movie was owned by Cooper.

            I did think the twist at the end was a weak and unsatisfying way to end the movie.  I’m not saying the movie was strong all around, but have you ever watched a movie where you go “Really!!??? That’s how they’re ending it?”  Well this was one of those movies.  I can’t say that I didn’t have fun though.

I rate this *** stars

Women in Trouble

Women in Trouble

I like small independent films that are out of the norm.  That doesn’t mean I give them a pass if I don’t enjoy it.  ‘Women in Trouble’ is a film by Sebastian Gutierrez that follows the lives of ten disparate women who somehow have lives that are all interconnected.  These women include a famous porn star, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a flight attendant, two call girls, a bartender, and others.  The only thing they have in common is that they are all “Women in Trouble”

            I try to have an open accepting mind, but I must confess that I felt a little pushed out by this movie.  The movie is about women and starring almost exclusively women.  The few men in the movie seemed to be more props than anything else (with the exception of Josh Brolin).  I wanted to feel a part, but the movie made it difficult. This movie is a comedy/drama of errors affecting the lives of all these women.  The intersections are complex and you find yourself half the time trying to map out all the connections.

            The center piece of the movie is Elektra Lux played by Carla Gugino, who in my opinion, is one of the best unheard of actresses out there.  She is a thinking man’s sex symbol (the title previously held by Lena Olin).  She always portrays strong, attractive, and unconsciously seductive women in her films (The Watchmen, Sin City).  In this film she plays Elektra Lux, a famous porn star who has just discovered she is pregnant.  She spends most of the movie stuck in an elevator, but the intersection of the women she knows provides the drive of the movie.  There are so many sub stories that it would be difficult to go through them all here. 

            The stand-out performances that are worth mentioning: 

Sarah Clarke as Maxine, the psychiatrist who discovers her husband is having an affair with one of her patients.  Ms Clarke really is able to convey the pain and hurt of someone who doesn’t want her marriage to be over yet can’t let go of the betrayal.  A strong and nuanced performance.

Adrianne Palicki plays Holly Rocket, a not-so-bright lesbian porn star who has trouble performing with women.   It takes some skill to play someone who is not the sharpest tool in the shed, yet still pulls empathy from the audience through her portrayal.  Adrianne does this skillfully.  She is a dismissible character at the beginning of the film, but as her story progresses you begin to feel for Holly and the struggles her life have brought upon her.  She is a decent person without the wits to make it successfully in the world.

The one notable male performance in the film ,which unfortunately doesn’t last more than 10 minutes, is Josh Brolin as the drugged-out British Rocker; Nick Chapel.  Nick is on a flight to the States from England, unaware that he is the father of Elektra Lux’s baby.  His slovenly attempts to renew his membership in the Mile High club with a stewardess is hilarious and he captures the character perfectly.  I’m amazed at how Josh has over-shadowed his father James Brolin’s career as an actor.  He truly is a fine actor and I see him only getting bigger.  His 10 minutes goes by too quickly.

The last performance I will mention is by Emmanuelle Chriqui (from Entourage fame) who plays Bambi.  She is a call girl who doesn’t realize that her air headed best friend Holly Rocket is in love with her.  Why would she?  Holly can’t do a lesbian love scene on camera, so she naturally assumes she must be straight.  Despite her name, Bambi is a street smart call girl who feels great sympathy for the psychiatrist Maxine’s marriage problems.  She has every reason to be dismissive of the upper class WASPy psychiatrist who under any other circumstance would be looking down upon her.  The bond of women in pain seems to win out and Bambi takes her under her wing.

Again, there were many other stories, but I could go on forever. I admired the complexity of this movie and how every story was connected, but there were so many that no story was truly developed.  The dialogue was smart, but there was something innately unsatisfying about the film.  I just felt they were quick glimpses with no real resolutions.  Also, it is difficult for the male perspective to appreciate the nuances of female relationships.

I’m going to give it some rating stars as I admire the attempt, concept, and craftsmanship, but ultimately I can’t say I enjoyed it.

I rate this movie ** ½ stars



Paul

Paul

            I was in the mood for a comedy, despite a number more ‘worthwhile’ films coming out this weekend.  I’m a big fan of the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movies (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).  I can’t say their films are works of great art, but I admire the creativity of comedic teams doing their own thing and finding success.  Paul is a chance for this team to go mainstream and they bring us a cute, if R-rated, story of an E.T. style alien teaming up for a road trip across the Southwest.

            The premise of the movie entails Graeme and Clive (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) two comic book fanboys from England, who come to America to visit all the mysterious UFO sites in the Southwest (after attending the world famous San Diego Comic Con).  They accidentally stumble across an Alien named Paul (Seth Rogen), who arrived 60 years earlier and has been living at a nearby air force base acting as a consultant for the US government.  Paul had come to the realization that he is not a ‘guest’ on planet Earth, rather a prisoner and is seeking to escape.  He runs across Graeme and Clive during their RV tour of the Southwest.

            Any movie that involves Fanboy geeks already has built in laughs.  They are truly one of the few categories of people where it is totally acceptable to mock and laugh outright.  Give the Fanboys a British twist and you have comedy gold.  Being a recovering Fanboy  (some would say I fall off the wagon on a frequent basis), I feel I have authority in stating that the movie captures the essence of comic book fandom perfectly.  Each one of these characters seemed like people out of my past. 

            The movie is filled with lots of cameos (not just people, but places), with winks to the audience for the space movies they represent.  The movie knows only the uber-geeks in the audience will get the references and Fanboys love that fact  (note: references had to be pointed out to me [that’s my story and I’m sticking to it]).  This movie is filled with some fun comedic performances by a lot of modern day favorites.  Jason Bateman plays the straight man hilariously as Special Agent Lorenzo Zoil (say the name quickly and count how many times it takes until you get the joke), the government operative leading the chase to retrieve Paul.  Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio play the bungling rookie FBI agents, Haggard and O’Reilly.  They both give great comic performances, but Truglio’s expressions as an FBI agent who is also trying to desperately hide his own Fanboy excitements is truly memorable.

            Other supporting comic actors could have been played their generic side roles forgettably, but Jeffrey Tambor as the comic book writer Adam Shadowchild stole his scenes at the San Diego comic con.  Kristen Wig is fast becoming the love interest go-to actress in comedy movies.  She plays her role as the fundamentalist Christian who has had her world shaken by the existence of an alien with no apologies to any conservatives she might offend.  Once she realizes that everything she knows in life wasn’t true, her pendulum swings to the other extreme and Graeme and Clive do their best to calm her down.  Her funniest moments are her attempts at cursing.   It’s always vulgar, but never quite right.  The movie is rated-R only because of her cursing rants.  There is no nudity or violence that would justify a rating above PG.

            The cameos are too numerous to mention, but for the geeks out there, they’re lots of fun.

            Seth Rogen plays the voice of Paul and captures the hip slacker vibe the movie was going for in the alien.  The animation of Paul is good, but not great.  I felt the movie went for the obvious laughs (and laugh I did), but given the concept it could have been much better.  It felt a little formulaic for the innovative and creative talents of Pegg and Frost.  Still, I must confess that Graeme and Clive sucked me in and I felt their Fanboy giddiness right along with them as they saw and met things that were every nerd’s comic book ultimate fantasy.  One of the film’s funniest running gags was the two of them constantly trying to convince everyone they weren’t gay.

            This movie is a lot of fun and contains the right amount of laughs for a Saturday matinee.  If it weren’t for Kristen Wigs hilarious, but extreme cursing, I would almost recommend this as a movie suitable for the whole family.  I wonder why the producers would limit their audience with an R-rating when mostly teens and pre-teens would find this movie appealing.  I guess they pay people to make those decisions.  I’m just a blogger.  This movie is good fun, but nothing great.

I rate this movie ** 1/2 

The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau

Do you believe in Destiny?  Do you believe in Free Will?  Are these two concepts mutually exclusive?  Do you believe in True Love? What if True Love was not our Fate and our Destiny was on a different path? These are all questions posed by ‘The Adjustment Bureau’.

            The story follows the Senatorial candidate David Norris (Matt Damon) who, on the eve of losing his Senate bid, has a chance meeting with the beautiful and mysterious  Elise (Emily Blunt) in the men’s room  (don’t ask, it works).  The chemistry is instant and David finds himself falling for her immediately.  After a second random meeting on a bus, David begins to realize that mysterious fedora wearing men are following them and conspiring to keep them apart.   Soon David learns that these men live in a shadowy world amongst us and use their considerable power to adjust the paths of our Fate.  They are The Adjustment Bureau.  An organization dedicated to subtly correcting events when people stray from the ‘Plan’.  David is informed that Elise is not part of the ‘Plan’ and if he varies from the ‘Plan’ there will be catastrophic consequences. In the face of their seemingly omnipotent power, David must decide whether to accept his destiny and lead it on a path to greatness or risk everything (including his existence) and defy Fate to be with Elise.

            It’s hard to classify the genre of this movie. Some would call it sci-fi, others would point out its’ religious sub-texts, while still others call this a romance movie.   All would be right.  The movie mainly focuses on the romance part, with the agents of The Adjustment Bureau thrown in to add excitement and test our belief in True Love and Fate.  The Adjustment Bureau runs like a Corporation and feeds into every Big Brother paranoia out there.  They dress like business men from the 1950’s and if one knows what to look for, they are everywhere,  subtly guiding us along the path we were meant to take.   The movie takes great lengths not to define them more than that.  At one point David asks one if they are ‘Angels’.  The agent replies “We’re more like case workers”.  David pleads with them to understand the ‘Plan’, but the agents are not omnipotent like they seem and don’t know why David and Elise can’t be together anymore than David does.  They only follow the plans laid out by the ‘Chairman’.

            The trailers make this movie look like a dark foreboding conspiracy action movie, but as I have stated, this is more of a romance movie.  I saw many couples coming out of the movie where the women were stating their surprised appreciation of the movie to male partners who had unreadable expressions.   I think the men enjoyed it, but were expecting something more action oriented.

            The success of a movie with this premise revolves entirely around whether the two leads have believable chemistry.  Matt Damon and Emily Blunt succeed in this and their instant attraction and gelling is very engaging.  Emily Blunt is fast rising on my list of notable actresses.  Her beauty is sophisticated, yet attainably girl next door.  You become mesmerized by her eyes and smile right along with David and understand what motivates him to risk everything.  She is someone whose star is rising and deservedly so.  This is the third movie since I started my blog where I will give kudos to Matt Damon’s performance.  Perhaps I owe an apology to all my brother’s Boston friends who informed him they don’t understand my hang up about Matt Damon.  I will say he performed his job very competently and I’m sure he is a great guy.  My issue with him as a superstar is that, other than ‘The Talented ‘Mr. Ripley’, I never seem to see him transform himself into a character which is the mark of a great actor.  He always plays Matt Damon.  I don’t think he has earned the level of fame that he has (despite winning the Oscar for ‘Good Will Hunting’).  So take it as high praise that I extol his performance in this movie.

            The movie was interesting and posed many interesting questions, but given the premise, I feel they didn’t take a lot of chances.  It could have been a much greater movie if the director had the courage to tackle the issues raised (or should I blame the screen writers).  Instead, I feel they copped out and just let it devolve into an engaging, if not mundane, romance story.  I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, but wished it were more.

I rate this movie ***



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish film that hearkens back to the age of the film noir detective stories of the 40’s.  It’s a ‘whodunit’ that involves the discovery of dark secrets on the path to uncovering the mystery.  The use of computers is the primary investigative tool.  I marveled with all that they were able to accomplish with the computer as much as their cleverness at piecing together the puzzle.

The story follows Mikael Blomvkist (Mikael Nyqvist), a disgraced investigative journalist, who has been summoned by Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), the wealthy elderly patriarch of a prominent Swedish family, to solve the mystery of his long lost niece, Harriett, before he dies.  His beloved Harriett disappeared 40 years earlier and Henrik suspects that a member of his dysfunctional family is the culprit.  Mikael enlists the aid of a troubled young hacker named Lisbeth (Noomi Rapace).  She is the titular ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. Lisbeth has a mysterious, troubled past and a hatred of men, but is an unparalleled hacker who can find out just about anything. 

Henrik is near the end of his life, but the disappearance of his beloved niece 40 years prior has haunted him every day of his life.  He suspects a family member did it in order to crush his spirit and they may have succeeded.  The question is ‘Who’.  Henrik has nothing but contempt for his entire family and rules out no one as a suspect. 

As good as Mikael is as an investigator, the young punk-fashioned Lisbeth is even better.  She is so good that she is even employed by a large corporation despite her pierced leather clad appearance and surly demeanor.  Lisbeth’s dark past of abuse has caused her numerous psychological issues that have required she be monitored by a state appointed guardian.  Unfortunately, the newly assigned guardian provides some the film’s darkest and most disturbing moments.  Lisbeth takes an interest in Mikael and secretly supplies him with information for his research.  Mikael is adept enough to discover that Lisbeth is the source of his information (or did Lisbeth want to be found) and enlists her aid directly. 

The movie has many subtexts of sexual politics and portrays men as oppressors and abusers.  In fact, the book this movie was based on was originally titled ‘Men Who Hate Women’.  Lisbeth’s abuse at the hands of men is what has made her into what she is today.  She is smart, tough, angry, and guarded, but I would definitely not call her vulnerable.

As Mikael and Lisbeth start to dig, they uncover much more of the Vanger family’s dark history than just the disappearance of the niece.  The family’s secrets are so dark and hidden that the uncovering of them threatens both of their lives. 

I felt this movie started slow, but as it evolved it does become riveting.  You try to decipher and interpret clues along with Mikael and Lisbeth.  As they come closer to solving the riddle the danger increases and you are at the edge of your seat as time runs out.  It’s a race to find the answers before sinister forces stop them.

If you are in the mood for a good old fashioned whodunit detective story, then this is for you.  It’s a Swedish film, but you can watch in either sub-titled or dubbed.  The cinematography of the Scandinavian countryside is beautiful and expansive.  I will say there are some disturbing violent scenes and some deep psychological issues that are explored (I won’t say dealt with).  If you can handle that then go for it. 

I rate this movie ***