A Weekend of Movie Reviews – Part II

Here are the two movies I viewed on Sunday:

Milk (2008) – DVR’d from HBO Saturday

milk Starring Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin (riding an impressive Oscar movie streak – In the Valley of Elah, American Gangster, and No Country for Old Men), James Franco, and Diego Luna. Directed by Gus Van Sant.

Netflix synopsis: Sean Penn (in an Oscar-winning role) stars in this fact-based drama about Harvey Milk, the openly gay activist and San Francisco politician who was murdered along with Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) by disgruntled city supervisor Dan White (Josh Brolin) in 1978. Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Diego Luna co-star in director Gus Van Sant’s compelling biopic, which also earned Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Brolin).

Excellent story. Very good acting, especially by Penn, who took home the Oscar, and by Brolin, who was nominated. The story has been told often enough, so here’s my takeaway:

I never realized that Anita Bryant was the 1970’s voice of the Christian Conservative right, which hadn’t really rallied up to that point in time. I had always thought of Anita Bryant as a throw-away line in Airplane!, but now I think that was a barb put out by Hollywood.
How crazy was the whole loss-of-civil rights based on sexual orientation? Wow – I guess there has been progress, but I never knew it was such a polarizing issue. I had wrongly assumed it was part of the whole (mostly) African-American Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, but now it was its own event at the leading edge of my political consciousness just before the ERA movement.
The movie did a great job of covering Milk, but the primary antagonist Dan White, played by Brolin, was underdeveloped. I didn’t get his motivation. He was just a seething mass of angst, and, other than being uncomfortable with what was going on in the Castro, I didn’t connect with the source of his anger. Sure he got the shaft (pun intended) on a few legislative measures, and Harvey played politics with him a bit, but his whole resignation and the shooting of Mayor Moscone was underdeveloped. I do get that once he killed the mayor that he had nothing else to lose, so might as well “off” Harvey, but I needed more backstory.
I thought James Franco was great, Emile Hirsch was very solid, but I wasn’t wild about Diego Luna. His character was intended to be somewhat clingy and annoying, to both the audience and the established team, but he played “Jack” as really grating. Looking at Luna’s films, of the ones I’ve seen (Criminal – a great confidence movie, in which he seemed over his head, The Terminal, Open Range, and Frida) I found him lacking. Maybe that’s his typical role, but after a while I could develop a dislike for his career path.
That Declaration of Independence is pretty cool, eh? Except when Nicolas Cage thinks there’s a treasure map on the back of it. That was kinda cool also, but in a much different way.

I’d rate this an 8.5, downgraded from a 9 by the above-mentioned deficiencies in backstory and motivation. The next film received three more Oscars and was nominated for two more (10 vs. 8):

The Apartment (1960) – DVR’d from Turner Classic Movies Saturday

apartment Starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, along with Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston. Directed by Billy Wilder.

Netflix synopsis: C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) has his future mapped out — all he needs to do is cozy up to the top feeders in the corporate food chain. But his fast track to the executive suite gets short-circuited when he falls for one of the bosses’ girlfriends. The Apartment features top-notch performances from Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning five, including Best Picture.

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay. Best Actor and Actress nods for Lemmon and MacLaine. Yet it feels formulaic. Maybe it was groundbreaking in 1960, but a first watching in 2009 has me seeing several similarities to other movies, though they all came after. Perhaps this was the initial inspiration, but the impact was softened substantially.

Open with our protagonist C.C. Baxter (Lemmon) pushing papers across a desk in a big NYC insurance company (office looking like All the President’s Men). Later scenes in the executive office look like Sterling Cooper in Mad Men: Seasons One & Two (and in fact should have been just down the street), and of course, the philandering of the executives, all using Buddy-boy Baxter’s bachelor pad for their trysts. But things get complicated (and they always do) when he discovers that the girl he likes (MacLaine) is the tryst-ee with his boss in his apartment. Throw in the sleeping-pill scene in Heathers – Limited Edition Box Set, the stomach pumping of Almost Famous – The Director’s Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition), the New Year’s Eve scene from The Hudsucker Proxy, some new Year’s Eve sprinting from When Harry Met Sally… and other generic Nora Ephron scenes, and “Cut!”.

Side note: One of the secretaries schedules a luncheon at Longchamps at 59th and Madison, where the current Longchamp handbag store is (my wife pointed this out). After a little research:

Ladies Who Lunch
Longchamps was a chain of restaurants that was highly popular with “Ladies Who Lunch” in the post-WW II years in New York. There were a number around town, mainly situated around Madison and Fifth. When cheating Fred McMurray’s secretary Edie Adams rats him out to his wife in Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment,” the two women meet at Longchamps. The places were elegant, smart and very Deco. They boasted plenty of mirrors and murals.

Don’t get me wrong, I give the movie a solid 8. It didn’t have the heart of Marty from several years earlier, though Lemmon was great in a range of emotions over a short timeframe. It was the last completely black and white film to win the Oscar (Schindler’s List is primarily black and white, save for the opening and end-credits). Maybe it’s just me – I was surprised to learn In Bruges was nominated (Golden Globe) for as a comedy, so perhaps I’m losing my sense of humor. Additionally, since there was a suicide-by-overdose, some fisticuffs, and plenty of serious drinking and the aforementioned philandering, it did indeed have a dark side, unlike the similarly set North by Northwest’s opening Madison Avenue advertising agency themes (more Mad Men).

Last night’s Mad Men was the best piece of drama, writing and acting I saw yesterday, these excellent films notwithstanding.

Posted by Andrew Flynn on October 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Milk, movie reviews, The Apartment

A Weekend of Movie Reviews – Part I

I’ve been under the weather the past few days – not the Swine flu thank you very much – basically just a cold. So I took it easy, and since Michigan was looking pretty pathetic at the half, and I wasn’t interested in this weekend’s Mecum Auto Auction, I thought I would catch up on some movies. Here are the four new-to-me releases I caught (in order of viewing):

Revolver (2005) – Viewed using Netflix Instant on my PC.

Starring Jason Statham (established enough to not need to go by “Handsome Rob”), Ray Liotta (playing Ray Liotta the nearly-unhinged casino owner, as opposed to Ray Liotta, renegade cop/mobster), Vincent Pastore (“Big Pussy” from Sopranos), and Andre Benjamin (“Coffee Black” from Semi-Pro). Directed by the usually awesome Guy Ritchie.

Netflix synopsis: Guy Ritchie delivers another fast-paced crime thriller starring Jason Statham (of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch), who this time plays Jake, a gangster and ace gambler recently released from prison. Determined to hustle the crime boss (Ray Liotta) who killed his sister-in-law, Jake deliberately humiliates the kingpin in a private game. But when the mobster calls for Jake’s head, a mysterious duo steps in to save his skin.

This movie should be right up my alley. Guy Ritchie, directing a confidence scheme movie, this time with a psychological twist. The problem with the official synopsis is that it covers only the first 15 minutes. The intrigue is who the mysterious duo actually is (we find out in the final minutes), and the joy is the contemplation on where Jake goes from here. The psychological part seemed like part Fight Club, with a dash of Smokin’ Aces, of all things. Add the improbability of Jason Statham transplanting Peter Stormare’s hair, and a touch of Wes Anderson’s uncertain timeframe, and, and now you’ve got something.

And seriously, we (the audience, not the “royal we”) have no idea if this is in London (filmed there, anyway, but all vehicles are Cadillacs), or if it’s in the 1970’s or present day. Only the lack of cell phones and a few English accents help us out. Equally puzzling is the B-roll documentary-style interviews (during the credits) with leading experts testifying to the voracity of the plot, which, while interesting, doesn’t help the suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately this is a more-serious effort for Ritchie, as the only real laughs are from the (predictable) ever-increasing meltdown of Liotta’s character, which we’ve seen elsewhere. If I were a ratings man, I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10. Bonus points for Mark Strong as a (bald) hit man (he was Archie in RocknRolla). The plus side is that I’m still thinking about it a bit, so there’s a chance that score will warm up with re-watching over time, which cannot be said for. . .

The Code (alternate title: Thick as Thieves) (2009) – Viewed using Netflix Instant on my PC.

thecode Starring Morgan Freeman, Antonio Banderas, Robert Forster (the bail bonds guy from Jackie Brown) and Radha Mitchell (Dakota Fanning’s mom from Man on Fire), along with uber-Russian Rade Serbedzija (“24″, EuroTrip, Shooter, Snatch, Space Cowboys, MI:2, and he was the Russian president in The Saint)

Netflix synopsis: Deeply in debt to the Russian mob, master jewel thief Ripley (Morgan Freeman) recruits a talented burglar (Antonio Banderas) to help him pull off one more daring heist: filching two gem-encrusted Fabergé eggs worth a cool $20 million each. The stakes stack up when Ripley’s criminal creditors threaten to kill his goddaughter (Radha Mitchell), while the cop (Robert Forster) who’s been trying to nail Ripley for years is hot on his trail.

Meh. The heist stuff seems too easy, and the big “Code” is a 7-digit safe code that they finally figure out while trying to drill said safe containing said Faberge eggs. Not enough team and skills development scenes, like (surprisingly, Entrapment had), and superficial Brighton Beach Russian settings let us down (much better in Lord of War, or even last weekend’s Bored to Death). The technology and the heist goes too easily, and apparently there are iPhone apps that make live video feeds that transmorgrify into 3-D vault blueprints (think Ocean’s Eleven’s PowerPoint presentation done on an iPhone. Live.)

Even the big twist [Spoiler Alert] that Banderas is actually a cop assigned to go undercover with Morgan Freeman leaves us disappointed in the eventual second twist [Spoiler Alert] that Freeman escapes, and that the Russian king pin was actually Freeman’s old partner (and father of Banderas’ love interest). The thieves escape with the loot, and the disgraced cop eventually hooks back up with the daughter. Just like Keanu Reeves and Lori Petty in Point Break. I think you see the problem here – the comparable movies aren’t that good. Additionally, this one went straight to DVD, but even so, I give it a 4.5.

Posted by Andrew Flynn on October 26, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Tags: movie reviews, Netflix, Revolver, The Code