ParaNorman

 

Chris Butler and Sam Fell's animated feature ParaNorman is in the class of recent "children's" films that aren't really for youngsters. They're actually for adults with unresolved Daddy or Mommy issues, memories of classroom bullying or the sudden death of a loved one that open up torrents of regret. Child actor Kodi Smith-McPhee (The Road and Let Me In) voices the title character Norman, a reclusive boy who sees and talks to ghosts (yes, he sees dead people). This gift -- and not his spiky hair or lugubrious manner -- has turned him into an outcast at home, at school and on the streets of his little New England town that was cursed after torching an innocent girl as a witch back in colonial times. The colonists' horrible deed comes back to haunt them every year as the disquieted spirit of the murdered girl comes to raise hell. Despite the spooky goings-on, the story is chockful of important stuff about intolerance, mob rule and familial dysfunction, most of which will fly over the heads of the young ones in the audience. Smartly, Fell and Butler, who wrote the screenplay, wrap the lessons in beautfiully construted scenes that pop even in tired old 2-D, which will delight the rugrats and not get in the way of their parents' appreciation of the film's wholesome message. Recommended.

Torch Song Trilogy

In celebration of S.C. Pride weekend I would like to recommend Paul Bogart's Torch Song Trilogy, the film version of Harvey Fierstein's Tony Award winning stage play. I hate this poster but think the 1988 film is pretty nifty though a bit dated. Fierstein is like caviar -- delectible in small portions but, unfortunately, he only comes in gallon-size drums. The film, which also stars Matthew Broderick, Brian Kerwin and Anne Bancroft, is froth and a little fury and includes some fun drag numbers featuring Harvey, Cats' Ken Page and the then ageless, now deceased, Charles Pierce. Oh, about the poster, everyone in it has been pinched and powdered from hell to breakfast and the marvelous Miss Bancroft looks all "good-googly-goo," like she's been goosed. In all it's pretty life-affirming but ham-fisted in places.

Seven Psychopaths

Martin McDonagh's unsettling funny though dyspeptic second feature, Seven Psychopaths is a comedy despite the outrageous amount of blood spilled and spewed. Hundreds of gallons, it seems. Seven Psychos is the tale of a half dozen murderous head cases -- played with quizzical insouciance by A-list wackos Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waites among others -- who cross paths, leaving mounds of bodies at every intersection. It is often shockingly hilarious, that is, it often feel it shouldn't be. McDonagh, who also wrote the script, has set the proceedings in Los Angeles for the most part and Joshua Tree National Park for the final showdown. He gives his cast free rein to ring every drop of subtlety from the contentious encounters and the unspeakable events that follow. You can imagine McDonagh winking knowingly at the audience, even though his performers give absolutely nothing away. The work of the cast is overwrought and as broad as the Mojave Desert but I really enjoyed the film, as I did McDonagh's earlier feature In Bruge, which like Seven Psychos featured some inspired work by Colin Farrell. In the latest, Farrell plays a blocked screenwriter trying to finish the script for a film titled Seven Psychopaths. Yes, it's a wormy contrivance but in the end it works surprisingly well. Recommended.

Argo

The beauty of Ben Affleck's Argo is not just in its stunning period perfect cinematography but in the tautness of the film's storyline. As the true tale of a CIA operative's plan to lead six American foreign service workers out of a revolting Iran in 1980, Argo lays out with crystal clarity what was at stake and builds the dramatic tension strategically until the picture's breathless finale. Affleck stars as Tony Mendez, the CIA Moses who is the brains behind the scheme to smuggle out the workers, who were hiding in the home of the Canadian ambassador. He plans to pull them out disguised as a Canadian crew for a sci-fi adventure movie. The idea is absurd but it's greenlighted by Langley and off we go to Tehran where the streets are overlfowing with hatred of all things U.S. Watching the whole affair would be nearly unbearable if Affleck and screenwriter Chris Terrio had not concocted a delightful parallel storyline about Hollywood finagling and Tinsel Town shenanigans. Brilliant. Argo (the name of the fake film and the real operation) was an incredible mission, sure to fail, and Affleck captures masterfully the confusion, fear and frustation of that operation and of that turbulent period in American history. Quite an achievement, I must say.

Bird 6: Cock of the Walk

End of Watch

David Ayer's End of Watch is a police buddy drama made for folks who have had their fill of cop movies. The body count is waaaay too high for it to qualify as a chick flick and there aren't enough references to male genitalia or flatulence for it to rate as a bromance but it will probably appeal to some members of both of those audiences. Its closest comparison, IMO, would the '70s police series Adam 12, if one of its leads had been Hispanic and both Malloy and Reed had dropped F-bombs like they were Tic-Tacs. 
End of Watch follows LAPD patrol officers Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his partner Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) as they get drawn deeper and deeper into each other's lives and into the orbit of a brutal Mexican cartel. The heart of this film (and it has enormous heart) is the devotion these guys have for each other and for the women in their lives (Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez, both splendid). Gyllenhaal and Pena invest their characters with emotional intelligence and sincerity and deliver two wonderful performances for a story that isn't really that complicated. And maybe that's why it's so good.
Dreadful things are foreshadowed early on, but Ayer keeps the story locked down pretty tightly, so the last 10 minutes are unexpected and riveting. The film's epilogue is especially affecting, as well. Recommended.

Hayden Panettiere

 

My problem with Hayden Panettiere? She was orders of magnitude too slutty for Heroes, her relationship with her creepy, controlling murderous father in that series was waaaay beyond Electra complex, her fairly spectacular beauty seems to be matched by uncharted denseness as evidenced in this quote from her Heroes days: "I hate how people say I'm growing up fast." Honey, they were talking about your bust. And now she's starring as a slutty country singer in an ABC series named after my favorite film. WTF?

Looper

Yes, Rian Johnson's Looper could easily be the new Blade Runner. It's kinetic and violent and prophetic and masterfully directed and acted. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as an assassin who conducts mob hits at the gate of a time portal through which  the unfortunate victims are shoved from the year 2072 back to 2022 where Joe the Looper waits, blunderbuss in hand. This way, there's no body to connect the mob to the hit.  It's an intriguing idea made even more so when Joe the Younger faces his future self (Bruce Willis) at the portal, kills him and then doesn't and thus begins the journey along the Moebius strip that is this film's twisting narrative. Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay, has crafted a  world that borrows a bit of the yin yang / future-retro of Mad Max and the grimy dystopia of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. The film is arresting and absorbing in its imaginative detail, even down to Gordon-Levitt's uniquely Eurasian features being molded to reflect more of Willis's, except (spoiler alert!) Gordon-Levitt has attached earlobes and Willis does not. It's not enough to derail the story but for those fixated on continuity issues (like me) might find it a bit of a distraction.

Leon Russell

 

 

Leon Russell turned 70 in April, has a bit of a paunch and walks with an ebony cane but he has a stevedore's forearms, undoubtedly from years of piano pounding. Russell was at the Neighborhood Theatre, a boite off of North Davidson in Charlotte, where he and his four exuberant bandmates played a respectable assortment of his more rolicking tunes for a couple hundred appreciative fans. The set included fan favorites -- Out in the Woods and Tight Rope from Carney, Delta Lady and a smattering of others from his first solo album Leon Russell, Back to the Island from Will o' the Wisp, and a blistering Rolling Stones medley. In his signature Stetson and sunglasses, Russell sat at an electronic keyboard at stage left where he intoned and howled his classic tunes with no more audible articulation than a latter-day Dylan but it didn't matter. The songs were standards delivered with fresh, driving back beats that kept much of the audience on their feet. Dylan's own A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall was barely recognizable under the throbbing bassline and screeching guitar -- it rocked. The show was Leon's 90-minute dance party, and the Master of Space and Time was in great humor as he shared a rambling tale about George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh that featured a cameo from inventor / visionary Buckminster Fuller and a swipe at a certain Republican presidential candidate. A new album produced by Tommy Lipuma is on its way.

The Master

It will be interesting to see which of the male leads in The Master will be nominated for the Oscar. Nominating both Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman would assure neither wins though both deliver astounding performance in a film that is as enigmatic as any I've ever seen. What's it about? It's about truth and lies and how they're absolutely essential to human life. At least that's my reading.

I must confess I don't think it's a GREAT film. Its core puzzlement about the complex relationship between the master (Hoffman) and his not so stellar, moonshining but loyal disciple (Phoenix) seems to be a notion without solid mooring. Or it could be I'm too dense to get Paul Thomas Anderson's meaning beneath the surface of the story of one manipulative fraud trying to "save" another manipulative fraud. Singular performances -- including Amy Adams and Laura Dern -- are wonderful, and Hoffman and Phoenix's "chemistry" -- in every sense of that overtaxed word -- is truly potent.

Arbitrage

 

Nicholas Jarecki's Arbitrage builds up a great deal of momentum but ultimately falls apart. Richard Gere, who delivers a mostly fine performance, stars as Robert Miller, a venture capitalist trying to sell his cash-strapped company, which looks great on paper, to a banking concern. His scheme begins to unravel when the buyer holds up the purchase for one more audit, Miller's daughter begins to suspect book cooking, his mistress dies in a fiery car wreck from which Miller walks away, and the son of his former driver is collared by the cops after helping Miller flee the accident scene. Jarecki, who also wrote the screenplay, piles the calamities high and, for the most part credibly, but they start to tumble in the last act showdown between Miller and his devoted and boozy wife, played to unimpressive effect by the usually captivating Susan Sarandon. Arbitrage contains many fine moments but it's cynical ending doesn't deliver a satisfying pay off.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

What is this sad, hopeful and totally wonderful world director Behn Zeitlin has created in Beasts of the Southern Wild?  A young girl named Hushpuppy (an astounding and preternaturally gifted young actress Quvenzhané Wallis) lives with her ailing father Wink (an affecting Dwight Henry) in separate mobile homes in a backwash region of a low-lying coastal city that is threatened by winds, water and wild boar. To say this film is surprising is such an understatement that I'm a bit embarraassed to use it. But it is such a refreshing cinematic experience, totally devoid of cliche and sentiment but absorbing, heartbreaking and uplifting. It's a revelation that walks the line between stark reality and magical realism. See it at once.

Lawless

 

Lawless is the second John Hillcoat / Nick Cave feature film collaboration --  the first being the horribly overlooked but masterful The Proposition from 2005. I've enjoyed both immensely. Director Hillcoat has an impressive eye for detail (not unlike his countryman Peter Weir's period work -- Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli) and an implacable taste for violence. Cave, a fellow Aussie who is better known for his work with the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, weaves a compelling tale that doesn't rely too heavily on narrative conventions but when it does the film is weakened a bit.
Lawless is the 'true" story of the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, who during Prohibition ran a large bootlegging business in the backwoods that drew the attention of conniving, greedy and sadistic lawmen. Led by the stalwart and seemingly invincible Forrest (Tom Hardy), the brothers try to grow their enterprise while takiing on an effete and heartless enforcer out of Chicago named Rakes (another Aussie Guy Pearce), which leads to a bloody shootout at a covered bridge in the final reel.

The youngest of the Bondruant brood, Jack (Shia LaBeouf, a personal favorite of mine), is itching to get a piece of both the bootlegging action and the local Mennonite preacher's daughter (Mia Wasikowska). Despite warnings from Forrest and eldest brother Howard (Jason Clarke, yet another Aussie), Jack disastrously tumbles into both, assisted by the gimpy young moonshiner Cricket (Dane Dehaan of Chronicle). The cast, which also includes Gary Oldman and Jessica Chastain, is first rate and their dedication to the film and Hillcoat's vision is undeniable and all over the screen.

Lawless is weakened a bit by conventional cinematic devices -- innocence must be sacrificed, carnality damned and evil must come with dyed hair and French cuffs -- but these are not fatal flaws. Bloody, terrifically violent but enjoyable.

Bird 4: He Ain't Heavy ...

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Premium Rush

 

David Koepp has made his name, and no doubt most of his money, as a screenwriter of many successful though unchallenging films -- Panic Room, Carlito's Way, The Paper, Death Becomes Her, Spider-Man. The films he's directed have been mainly good and interesting thrillers -- Secret Window, Stir of Echoes -- but nothing remarkable. So it is not a surprise to me that Premium Rush, written and directed by Koepp, is a generally entertaining but unremarkable movie. It stars the ever-reliable Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a New York bicycle messenger who is carting a mysterious ticket given to him by a young Asian woman with a big secret.The ticket is coveted by a maniacal cop with the cartoonish name of Bobby Monday, played by one of my favorite little know actors, Boardwalk Empire's Michael Shannon (rent Bug tonight!). Gordon-Levitt's Wilee (pronounced like the Coyote) sets off from Columbia University Law School to deliver the ticket to Chinatown while chased by Monday, another cop on a bike, his spunky and fairly clueless girlfriend (Dania Ramirez) and his boastful rival (Wole Parks). The film contains some thrilling footage of bike vs. vehicle maneuvering and a few scary spills but in the main is harmless.

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Once Upon a Time

I've been watching the first season of this show at the recommendation of  my friend Bertram Rantin (thanks) and find it endlessly fascinating. It's difficult to choose one reason why I'm so enthralled (it has many, many intriguing elements and characters and enormous charm) but I do know for certain its exploration of family and kinship (a golden thread woven through each of the episodes) is some of the smartest (cleverest?) writing I've encountered in quite some time. Even though it's based on Grimm fairy tales and has a young boy as one of the central players, this is a decidedly adult affair.

The Wire Season 4 Episode 8: Corner Boys

The Wire Season 4 Episode 8: Corner Boys   Det. Herc Hauk (Dominick Lombardozzi) is a Baltimore Police Department survivor. Even though he routinely displays unbelievably bad judgment in policing the modern urban crime environment (he actually has the murderous Chris and Snoop stopped with incriminating evidence in tow and, unwittingly, lets them go), he always seems to land on his feet. Herc's not a bad guy or sorry po-leese; his heart, as folks say, is in the right place and when paired with Ellis Carver (Seth Gilliam) the streets of Baltimore are actually a bit safer for the working man. The worst that can be said about him is he's a fairly amoral opportunist. And the Simon and Company appear to be suggesting that feline slickness, when you lack true talent, is what's needed to survive.

The Bourne Legacy

 

Before The Bourne Legacy, Tony Gilroy directed Michael Clayton, which I loved, and Duplicity, which I didn't. Legacy, which stars Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz, is as humorlessly briliant as the Bourne Ultimatum, a study in cagey, outlandish subterfuge and velocity that was directed by Peter Greengrass. Renner is an amped-up version of the super agent Jason Bourne (played by Matt Damon), and Weisz is a brainy biochemist caught in a mysterious "downsizing" operation that sends both of them scurrying from pillar to post to escape detection and elimination. Gilroy was one of the writers on Ultimatum so this latest entry in the franchise, based on the Robert Ludlum series, weaves in prime elements from Ultimatum into this story and moves the tale sideways more than forward, but still at a ferocious pace. The key high-octane set pieces (including the mandatory vehicular finale, this time through the crowded streets of Manila) are expertly and purposefully disorienting, creating a film that's a wondeful carnival ride of dread and delusion. Warning: The ending, which leaves the door wide open for new adventures, might leave some fans a bit deflated.

Prometheus

Ridley Scott's Prometheus is not a badly constructed film by any means, but as many have said it is disappointing and confusing. However, my main problem is that this supposed prequel to Scott's masterful Alien from 1979 is a dishonest motion picture. This story of an early corporate-sponsored space expedition manned by vain scientists and surly, cynical crew members includes a duplicitous artificial person (Michael Fassbender), a spunky female  (Noomi Rapace), and an oily corporate sleazebag (Charlize Theron), versions of whom appeared in either Alien or Aliens. To suggest that central characters from the first two films in the Alien series had spiritual predecessors is not just intellectually and creatively dishonest, it's lazy. The premise that titans came to the earth and populated the planet with lesser varieties of themselves is at first intriguing but ultimately annoying because the horrifically gruesome path to discover why these bald giants did so leads nowhere.

Moonrise Kingdom

 

Wes Anderson's beautifully captivating Moonrise Kingdom is the most accessible of the enigmatic auteur's recent films. I have found Anderson's movies unquestionably imaginative but disconcertingly clever, as well. That is to say, they are almost too rich -- to be admired rather than enjoyed. Moonrise is marvelously crafted, and Anderson's genius for tableaux is on full display. He composes scenes like paintings -- portraits, landscapes and still-lifes. Sumptuous. Into those frames he has placed two disaffected and damaged 12-year-old pen pals in New England in the 1960's -- Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) -- who fall in love and take off together on a wilderness expedition with camping gear, portable record player, overdue library books and pet kitty in tow. Parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) police (Bruce Willis) and khaki scouts (Edward Norton) set off in pursuit. The ensemble of Hollywood A-listers is marvelous but the two young actors Gilman and Hayward are a dream, their faces (which often fill the screen) are stoney, as if drained of feeling, but still, oddly, expressive -- maybe therein lies their magnetism. These are children in search of a life that's free of pain, both the kind they suffer and the kind they inflict. I can't remember the last time a film has so brilliantly transformed the familiar and invested it with new meaning. I'll not hear "I'm on you side" the same way ever again. Moonrise Kingdom is not an especially tender film but it is loving.

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan's brilliant final episode in his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, is absolutely dreadful in that the film sends fear swirling about the viewer's head like the ominous creatures that inspired the legendary hooded hero. Bruce Wayne / The Batman (Christian Bale) was left bent and battered at the end of 2008's The Dark Knight in which he battled the maniacal Joker (Heath Ledger) and Scarecrow (Ciillian Murphy). The arrival in Gotham of a vengeful, masked terrorist named Bane (Tom Hardy), like Bruce a member of the secret order League of Shadows, draws Wayne out of his self-imposed seclusion to defend his beloved city but not without making even greater and more painful personal sacrifices. The movie has an abundance of  Nolan's signature complex action sequences but also a generous number of tender moments. Bale, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Bruce Wayne's trusted adviser Fox and Michael Caine as Wayne's devoted Alfred give wonderful performances but Joseph Gordon-Levitt as rookie cop Blake and Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard as wealthy and mysterious Miranda were impeccable. Nolan's final chapter in this series is dark, yes, but also enormously intelligent and inspiring. It's terrific.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Marc Webb's energizing The Amazing Spider-Man is not a complete reimagining of the familiar tale of the orphaned loner who is transformed into a human arachnid but it is a niftily imaginative comic book venture nonetheless with more mature undertones. Webb and The Social Network's Andrew Garfield, as amiable a young actor as any currently on the screen, imbue Peter Parker with a kind of woundedness that moves the character into a different realm, one more commonly explored in D.C. comics, IMO. In this film version, Parker / Spider-Man is not just a costumed avenger in search of the petty robber who gunned down his beloved Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). He's a young man in search of a meaningful paternal connection to replace the one he lost when his father (Campbell Scott) and mother (Embeth Davidtz) left mysteriously when he was 5 and lost again when his uncle was killed. The 17-year-old boy in the red and blue unitard is on the verge of becoming a man but he's not really sure how to do that. He needs and wants help but the father-figures in his life keep dying or mutating into slithering lizard men (Rhys Ifans). The reliable Emma Stone is Parker's love interest as the oddly asynchronous Gwen Stacy, whose father (Dennis Leary) is a police commander on the hunt for the masked vigilante. One of the most winning scenes in the film is a dinner table verbal battle between Gwen's new boyfriend and her abrasive but loving father. It's nicely done. Still, Webb, known mainly for his music video, stages a half-dozen spectacular fight scenes and his aerial work is far superior to anything in the previous Spidey outings. They are truly Amazing. Enjoy.