Irreviews

This terrific Danish movie is a throwback to the unadorned style and masterful techniques of 1970’s thrillers. It is a tense, dialog-driven psychological drama which focuses on the protracted negotiation process between the corporate owners of a large shipping vessel, and the Somali pirates who hijacked it in the Indian Ocean. The story is told from two perspectives: the owners, and the imprisoned crew of the ship. The Somali pirates are completely untranslated for the entire movie, and are thus as mysterious to the viewer as they must be to the actual crew; the only Somali who you get to know is the translator, who is not a pirate, but rather a kind of “working-Joe” who is basically risking his life for his job (if there’s no deal, he dies with everyone else.)

I found A Hijacking to be a very satisfying movie. The story itself is pretty simple, but interesting and well-crafted, with good characters. This film has an even-handedness about it that is quite rare these days, at least for this kind of story. It’s very human, very literal, very unmanipulative. They somehow managed to make this film without overly villainizing the pirates – I’m not exactly sure how they did this (the well-conceived character of the translator was probably the key,) but this choice freed up a lot of emotional energy and on-screen time that they successfully redirected to much more interesting aspects of the story. The dialog is really solid, the pacing strong, the set-up more than adequate. All the performances are excellent. It hard to find fault with this movie.

Given that A Hijacking was at Film Forum (and is now at Cinema Village,) I can’t imagine it’s getting much distribution nation-wide, but if you are lucky enough to be near a theater playing it, go see it now! Otherwise, Netflix it as soon as it’s out – you won’t regret it.

The To Do List is not great, but it’s better than your typical teenage sex film. Its story is basically realistic and coherent, the humor is raunchy but stays fairly dignified, the characters are pretty well-conceived across the board, the dialog is not bad, and they managed to make the film without relying on narration, a skill that is getting pretty rare. It’s a cute film, an homage to the days when the internet had not yet demystified everything sexual. I could see Generation X folks getting a kick out of this. I saw it with a theater full of 20-somethings, and I’m not exactly sure why they found it so entertaining, unless it was a way of laughing at their parents, or older generations in general. Then again, maybe they too long for the good ole days of innocence (and freedom from electronic devices?)

Aubrey Plaza is very cute as the awkward, brainy, 1993 high school senior who suddenly turns all of her obsessive diligence to acquiring (by force) first hand experience with every sexual act she has ever heard of. And the film also features Scott Porter, one of my favorite young character actors who is always very fun and winning in his performances. The film is structured, kind of like American Pie, around various sexual gross-out scenes which are strongly telegraphed yet which for the most part still prove amusing. And the character of the brainy girl actually develops over the course of the movie – a surprisingly real transformation into something of a sociopathic monster. The ending was a little bumpy, but all in all it was quite enjoyable.

I might have found The To Do List even more enjoyable, but my experience was marred somewhat by a guy sitting in the front row who was loudly announcing all of his feelings and opinions to the sold-out theater of NYU students and slumming hipsters. His most frequently repeated announcement was any time a character uttered something sexually provocative about Aubrey Plaza, this guy would loudly, seriously, and firmly say “God Damn Right!” After about a dozen of these emphatic utterances this got more than a little creepy, and at the end of the film I tried (but failed) to get a look at the fellow, in case poor Aubrey Plaza goes missing anytime soon. Who knows how much I would have enjoyed this movie if I was not constantly being pulled into a state of alarmed distraction.

There’s definitely worse things to see than The To Do List. If you’re in the mood for fairly dignified, teenage sexual silliness, go for it!

The Other Son is such a lovely film! Beautifully plotted, great casting, politically bold, and tremendous balancing of crisp pacing with the unrushed capturing of key emotional moments. It was one of the best films of 2012, without a doubt.

The idea behind this exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is really a brilliant device: an Israeli family and a Palestinian family find out that their teenage sons were switched at birth in the confusion of a Scud missile attack during the first Gulf War. It’s a French film, and they introduce a specific and powerful element of commonality: the mothers both have a connection to France – one is from there, the other lived there briefly and has relatives who moved there and still live there – and hence the mothers and the sons both speak French (and a little English.) As the two families stumble forward, their lives and everything they believe in shattered, the French language becomes a symbol of their shared humanity, which is forced in their faces by this traumatic event. This opens up a lot of great dialog possibilities, without sacrificing any of the tense and meaningful language issues (Hebrew/Arabic) inherent in their situation. It’s not often that a device like this works so spectacularly, without calling undo attention to itself.

Every aspect of this film is beautifully and elegantly developed. The deep and complex feelings of the parents. The disorientation but much easier acceptance of the young boys, who in fact become friends. The handling of the political issues, which has the balls to call a spade and spade and subtly side with the oppressed Palestinians, but which manages to do so not in a preachy, Costa-Gavras way, but from a very modern, youthfully idealistic perspective  (this aspect of the film was particularly marvelous.) The all-important physical casting, which is damn near perfect, adding a palpable extra emotional weight to everything that transpires. In addition, the film is beautifully shot, with a strong sense of place. And perhaps above all else, The Other Son is extremely pleasant to watch, which for this kind of political film is very exceptional.

I loved this film. I very highly recommend it.

When Woody Allen goes bad, he really goes bad.

Blue Jasmine is not a comedy. I think Woody Allen is trying to make some kind of social statement. But what kind of social statement is he making? The poor people are portrayed as ugly, boorish oafs, foul in every way. The rich people are portrayed as amoral and insensitive, but glamorous, well-dressed, attractive individuals. The sympathy of the audience is definitely directed toward the rich people, including the Bernie Madoff type played by Alec Baldwin. The characters are uniformly uninteresting, the dialog simultaneously grating and boring, and I don’t know how Woody Allen managed to do it, but he somehow made San Francisco look ugly, which has to be a first. His usual score of crappy old music is even more irritating than usual.

The moral of Blue Jasmine is: if you’re poor, you’re trash; if you’re rich, try to stay rich. This movie has a black heart. Save your money. Save your soul. Don’t go see Blue Jasmine.

Everyone we talked to told us that Warm Bodies was way better than it looked. They were right, it is way better than it looks. It’s a good, entertaining and enjoyable little movie. I’m not a big fan of the whole zombie concept in general, in fact I think its rather lame. But this zombie movie basically worked because of the innovation that the zombies are, at least initially, still somewhat human, with an outside chance of becoming fully human again. This obviously sets it apart from every other zombie movie, because its innovation opens up the possibility of a plot and dialog! This possibility is realized with surprising effectiveness, and its execution is smooth and natural. The film has a very sweet and winning theme of love restoring our humanity – sure, it’s a little sappy, but in a very good way!

This film is helped enormously by Nicholas Holt’s performance, especially his fabulous narration. Just as he did in About a Boy, he demonstrates a tremendous ability to make perfect judgments about how to speak his narration all the way through the movie – it’s a special talent, one that is rare and worth appreciating. He really holds the film together through what might have otherwise been a problematic opening third of the movie, instead making the film’s set-up fun and consistently interesting.

I don’t have too much more to say about this film. It has a good soundtrack, it’s pretty well written, performances are solid across the board, and it has a very satisfying ending. There is no reason I can think of to not see this movie. Netflix it today!

Killer Joe is based on a play, and its transition to screen is quite clunky, with the exception of one classic William Friedkin chase scene in the middle of the film which is filmed with characteristic skill and effectiveness. The cast ranges from pretty good (Juno Temple, who is way too talented to be wasted in crap like this) to decent (Matthew McConaughey) to execrable (Thomas Haden Church, who at this point should not even be called an actor, in my book.)

But the cast and the transition from play to screen are kind of beside the point, because this material is so foul, stupid, and uninteresting that nothing was going to save this movie except not making it in the first place. Its predominant theme is a deep and abiding misogyny. Its secondary theme is run-of-the-mill gangster shit – stuff like “if you don’t have my money, I’m gonna wrap you in duct tape and bury you in a coffin ten feet deep.” There are no other themes of any kind.

Here’s a way to decide if Killer Joe is for you: the denouement of Killer Joe is a scene where McConaughey makes Church’s wife suck on a chicken drumstick (held as if it was his dick) for a good five minutes, in front of her entire family, while he carries on like he’s in a really disgusting porn movie – this is after he has severely disfigured her face with his fists, I might add. Man, if this shit floats your boat, have at it! For me, it’s just a fucking waste of time.

My wife and I have this theory that professional reviewers tend to pan movies that present rich people in an unfavorable light. I’m not talking about movies where rich people are the villains, but they are also presented as sexy and appealing objects of the audience’s envy; I’m talking about class-informed movies where rich people are presented as the nasty, selfish, entitled pricks that they actually are. This tendency has proven so reliable that when we see a movie that is getting panned and it clearly has at least some subversive content, no matter how paltry, we always give it a chance, and it is almost always at least decent, often quite good. I’m not exactly sure why professional critics are doing this, or if they are even aware of their bias, but nevertheless the pattern exists and should be kept in mind when interpreting professional film reviews.

The latest example of this unfair trashing is Girl Most Likely, a very pleasant, decently made and enjoyable film about a naive, working class striver (Kristen Wiig) who by virtue of dating a rich guy gets nominal and temporary admission to “the club” of New York City’s super-privileged, only to loose everything the minute he dumps her for a super-model. She winds up back in Ocean City New Jersey, trying to figure out where her life went wrong, and she has to confront the realities of her family, her hometown, and her frustrated aspirations.

I think it’s very interesting that critics are portraying this film as making fun of New Jersey. Actually the film is the exact opposite: its point is that New Jersey (or anywhere for that matter) is not so bad a place after all, once one’s illusions of joining the super-rich are shattered or disabused. The folks in her life are strange and troubled to be sure, but all these colorful characters are played perfectly straight and very humanly by the excellent cast, and not simply exploited for cheap laughs  and discarded. And they eventually emerge as decent, warm and caring, if somewhat bizarre, individuals who were not at all deserving of the contemptuous scorn Wiig heaped on them initially. Wiig even comes to fairly realistic terms with the realities of her class and her feelings about who she is. In contrast, the wealthy, privileged people in the movie quickly reveal themselves to be selfish and despicable assholes, and again this portrayal is straight, unglamorized and spot-on.

The film is quite well-cast. I’m not sure there’s any actress more comfortable with portraying a embarrassingly messed-up and obnoxiously misguided character than Kristen Wiig. Annette Benning is solid as the mother, and Christopher Fitzgerald gives a very nice, sensitive performance as her brother. Darren Criss is good playing opposite Wiig, as his warm and likable personality blends nicely with her cold, clumsy act. And last but not least, Matt Dillon is always a very welcome presence in a movie, no matter how small his role.

Now, with all that said, Girl Most Likely is not a great movie. The humor in general is a bit clunky and does not work all that well, the story structure is a touch muddled and contrived, and it rides its (quite good) score a fair bit. But by the end of the film, it had basically won me over, and I am not at all sorry I went to see it.

My recommendation is that you ignore the critics and give Girl Most Likely a chance. Underneath the blemishes, it’s a pretty sweet movie.

Stuck in Love is a very nicely done film about a family of writers, each struggling with different aspects of falling in love and staying in love. It has a solid and interesting (if not transcendent or super-moving) story, with pretty good dialog, good pacing, excellent use of its soundtrack, and a cast that works together very well. It’s way better than its preview makes it out to be, and it’s better than critics are telling you. In this (so far) extremely weak year at the movies, it is clearly among the better things I’ve seen.

I am fascinated by actors whose mere presence in a film just seems to make the entire film work better, and Logan Lerman (the Perks of Being a Wallflower kid) is emerging as an actor with that ability. I was really impressed by how much this movie started to jell the minute he arrived on the scene, and it made me wonder if I had underestimated the impact he had on Wallflower. He has suburb delivery and a natural emotional magnetism on screen that somehow focuses whatever scene he’s in in an entirely positive way. Lily Collins benefited enormously from Logan Lerman’s magic. She is a weird, cold, very unevenly convincing actress (sometimes she seems perfect, and the next moment she seems completely miscast,) but acting opposite Lerman disguised these qualities a good bit, and focused attention on the aspects of her presence and performance that were working. I am well aware that no one agrees with me about the natural abilities of Mr. Lerman, but as usual I don’t give a fuck. The kid has got something, I’m telling you!

As for the rest of the cast, Greg Kinnear is always fun to watch, and always fits himself into movies well and appropriately, and Stuck in Love is no exception. Jennifer Connelly’s acting remains a touch bizarre, but the incredible resemblance between her and Lily Collins carries the day, well that and she looks every bit like someone Greg Kinnear would wait forever for, that helps too. Nat Wolff, rebounding successfully from his involvement in the painfully disastrous film Admission, gives a warm and earnest performance as the romantic and somewhat scattered son who falls in love with a drug addict. The chemistry between all the actors is quite strong.

Stuck in Love is way better than The Way Way Back, which I just reviewed a few days ago. I might even watch Stuck in Love again at some point, as it had qualities that were worth re-experiencing. I recommend it!

The Attack is one of those films that restores your faith in movies as an art form, answering in the affirmative the question “does anyone know how to really make a movie anymore?” Apparently Ziad Doueiri does. It is a great film from start to finish, in every way. Along with To The Wonder, it currently sits atop my list for the best film of the year, so far.

The Attack has many outstanding qualities, but foremost among them is the way it manages to portray, with perfectly even empathy, so many conflicting points of view on the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and do so with admirable economy and without ever lecturing its audience. What makes this even more impressive is that it simultaneously manages to create a complete spectrum of compelling and sympathetic supporting characters, all of whom you bond with instantly, which brings a remarkable human quality to every aspect of the story. This is not a preachy movie; it’s a surprisingly low-key, character-driven drama that gradually overwhelms you with the depth and significance of its message. Every aspect of the screenplay is first-rate, and very impressive.

The direction and production of the film is just as fine as the writing. The casting and performances are absolutely outstanding across the board. The movie is shot beautifully, and honestly put me in mind of the best of Costa-Gavras at many times while I was watching. The pacing of the film is also very strong, and the use of its excellent score in conjunction with the pacing was lovely, reminding me of similar (amazingly effective) technique found in Tell No One. There are many fantastic scenes in this film, especially in its last third, but never do any of these scenes jump out to overwhelm their surroundings or the film overall. Ziad Doueiri’s direction is disciplined and focused right to the end, and yet it is also imaginative, bold, even romantic. He weaves a complex tapestry of political and moralistic concepts with aplomb. Professional critics love to casually toss around accolades for very average directors who come in vogue for whatever reason – people like Noah Baumbach, Lars von Trier, Kathryn Bigelow, the Coen brothers. When was the last time any of them made a film that was crafted half as beautifully as The Attack? Never, that’s when.

My wife and I discussed The Attack in rapt admiration for a long while after seeing it. It’s one hell of a movie, one that stays with you in lots of different ways – from the depth of its theme and ideas, to its memorable atmosphere, to its beautiful and haunting series of concluding scenes. I very highly recommend it.

The Way Way Back is a film about teenage adolescence and bad parenting. I found it quite enjoyable, but somewhat less than scintillating. It struck me as one of those films that basically “did everything right,” but still fell a good bit short of creating a powerful emotional bond between audience and story, or between audience and protagonist. This film is definitely not like The Perks of Being a Wall Flower, where you felt deep emotions from your own childhood flooding back the whole movie, and where you bond so greatly with the characters you cry in the end. No, The Way Way Back is much more clinical about the whole subject. And it’s much more about the relationship of the young man Duncan to his fucked up parents than it is about other aspects of being a child.

The real plus in this film is Steve Carell, who once again proves he is very underrated as a serious actor. It was incredibly disconcerting to watch him playing a horrible, implicitly menacing, and insufferable step-father type, and playing the role 100% straight, but he was pretty fabulous in the part. The spectacular and always radiant Toni Collette plays Duncan’s mother, and she is her usual talented self, although hamstrung a bit by limited dialog. The dynamic between Carell, Collette, and Duncan (Liam James,) is quite well done.

I think The Way Way Back falls short because none of the rest of the film comes together emotionally. I know Liam James is playing an awkward, clumsy, painfully shy kid, which he does with admirable conviction, but he definitely lacks that certain something as an actor that let’s you bond with him despite the unattractiveness of his character. I was a bit of an awkward, shy kid too, but I wouldn’t want to relate to that Duncan kid in a million years! The whole story at the water park was underwhelming – the crazy manager was comedically a little off, and he was not warm enough to pull off the relationship with the kid in the absence of dialog. The support staff at the water park were kind of superfluous and undeveloped. The teenage “romance” with the gloomy blonde girl (AnnaSophia Robb, the Soul Surfer girl) was sort of sweet, but basically didn’t go anywhere emotionally. And let’s face it, ever since Bounce, water parks have been a problematic backdrop for emotional dramas.

Nevertheless, I think The Way Way Back is probably worth seeing. Despite its limitations, it’s entertaining and in some ways quite well done.