Aug 31, 2016
It’s become a common thing in Hollywood…characters from a film falling in love on the set in real life. Brad and Angelina in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Decades ago there was Annette Benning and Warren Beatty in Bugsy. There’s been quite a few in between. But for many of these actors and especially for our audience, we can actually see and feel the moment chemistry erupts.
In this, Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander apparently fell in love while living in a remote lighthouse in New Zealand for the making of this movie. Yet, the chemistry is hard to determine since she seems more his daughter, than his age-appropriate wife.
In the story, based on the novel by M. L. Stedman, it’s December 1918, and Fassbender portrays Tom Sherbourne, a former soldier returning from WWI. He’s turned lighthouse keeper. Clearly the job features zero paradise on the island, his isolation mistaken for a sort of Virginia Woolf…
Nevertheless, he falls in love with Isabelle (Vikander) who is wonderfully vivacious and radiant. He tells her the lighthouse offers prosperity and hope. The two marry and she gets pregnant, followed by a couple of miscarriages. But, as luck would have it, a dingy appears – seemingly out of nowhere – and washes ashore with a baby inside. Of course alerting the authorities is never an option. Adoption is the only cure.
Eventually the baby’s real life mother (Rachel Weisz) surfaces. At this point, it’s impossible for us to watch her suffer, knowing that ‘they’ (Isabelle and Tom) have her baby.
In the movie Sabrina, Julia Ormond once said “there’s a job” before questioning, ‘what kind of a man lives in a lighthouse?’ The answer was probably intended to be a man with a tortured soul trying to do the right thing all around.
The premise surprisingly gets us thinking… If a spouse loses a partner they’re called a ‘widow’ but if a parent loses a child, they’re still called a parent. And who better to serve the child’s needs? The only woman she’s called “mommy” or her biological one?
Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) directs with a controlled hand, his actors all delivering perfect performances. Even the soundtrack, moody and melancholy, by Oscar-winning, Alexandre Desplat, hits the single piano key before erupting into his seductive unleashing of a storm. But in the end, even his methodic repetition just doesn’t work. The character of Vikander leaves us little to sympathize for and instead a lot to question. ..
Why didn’t she continue to try to have her own babies? How couldn’t she get pregnant (miles from birth control and stuck on an island?) How is it a woman who declares maternal elements would throw such a crying fit when releasing her would-be child to its real mother? Wouldn’t she opt to stay calm so that the baby’s last image of her ‘mother’ would be a gentle one?
In the Bible’s King Solomon, the ‘good’ mother won’t cut the baby in half. She lets it go. Vikander’s character grows increasingly selfish and delusional, leaving our sympathy to ebb and flow with the tides. When it comes to the ocean, while anything is possible, true love is letting go…
t’s not often we get to cry at a movie and we should have with this, but instead we cry for what is a very laborious film on a very Laborious holiday.
Aug 18, 2016
(reviewed by our guest critic, the Movie Knight:) Inspired by a Rolling Stones article titled, “Arms and the Dudes” this is a movie based on a true story. If it was a work of fiction, no one would believe it. After the fallout of the Halliburton contract with the Iraq War, given then Vice president Dick Cheney’s relationship with the company, the US started to allow almost anyone to make military contract bids (You never hear conservatives being outraged about that situation). As a result, two twenty-something kids landed a $300 million arms deal with the US government.
David Packouz (Miles Teller) was working as a massage therapist in South Florida. It’s not very good money for him and now he finds out that his girlfriend (Ana de Armas) is pregnant. He hooks up with his childhood friend, Efraim, (Jonah Hill) who is just starting an arms supply business. A new website lists all the contracts the US has open for bidding. At first they just land small contracts, but then they hit the big one. They con their way to land one of the biggest Pentagon deals ever to help arm America’s allies in Afghanistan. This time though, they bite off more than they can chew.
This is the work of writer director, Todd Phillips. He is best known for making The Hangover Trilogy and other big comedies such as Old School. The movie falls more into the category of a dramedy, so if you are expecting big, out loud laughs, as he usually delivers, you are going to be disappointed. However, that is not to suggest Phillips did a bad job. To the contrary, he does show growth from this outing. Both Teller and Hill turn in great performances too. In fact, it will not be surprising to see Jonah Hill received his third Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
Having said that, one issue with movies like this one is how they find amusement in the category of war and soldier’s safety. To this day a large number of people’s fathers and sons are in foreign lands risking their lives on a daily basis with neither them or their families knowing if they will make it home. If you have seen any of the advertisements for this movie it makes it appear like this will be an all out comedy brawl. Granted, Hollywood is a business, but there is something unsavory about that too.
2 tiaras
Aug 18, 2016
The eleven-time-Oscar-winning-epic that starred Charlton Heston, returns some fifty-plus years later in CGI splendor, and 3D remake. Like the original, it’s the story of a Palestinian Jew battling the Roman Empire at the time of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
The story opens with Morgan Freeman earnestly narrating a history when extremists attempted power and control. One might consider that this could be contemporary times of the Middle East, too, since apparently extremists have always existed.
Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) lives in this world nourished by blood and fear. Adopted brother, Messala (Toby Kebbell) spends a good deal of the film’s opening sharing hugs and smiles, with his brother, Judah, whose message is that their dead father would wish the brothers to represent unity in a divided land. Not so easy…
When Pontius Pilate (Pilou Asbaek) appears with his soldiers, chaos ensues, and Judah is accused of treason and sent off to slavery. His mother and sister are left for dead. But a chance encounter with Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro) delivers a pivotal and almost ethereal moment in the film, changing Judah’s outlook on love conquering all.
What makes this movie work isn’t the big, loud, and spectacle moments, but the inspiring and smaller ones.
The backdrops of Jerusalem are breathtaking to behold, and the religious message of “Love your enemies – God is love” prevails. The scene of Messela on black horses – representing evil, vs Judah Ben-Hur on white horses – representing good, makes for an effective cinematographic shot with the unspoken words: Fight the good fight, keep the faith.
Despite the 3D glasses, an upsetting and overbearing chariot ride, characters who look more Kardashian than biblical, and some force-fed plot scenes, in the end, the film resurrects itself (no pun intended) by delivering a question tested of faith: “If God is righteous then why doesn’t he do right by this world?” The answer might be to stop depending on God, and depend on spreading your own brotherly love. It’s good to see a production company take a risk on a religious theme in a time where our world really needs it.
But more so it takes a lot of guts to tackle a classic like Ben Hur. I’d say God is in their corner.
Aug 15, 2016
Toby (Chris Pine) and Tanner (Ben Foster) are brothers with an agenda. Pine is a hard-working divorced father, and Foster, a hard-living ex con. Together, they plan to rob a Texan Midland Bank or two, or three, or four…whatever it takes to Toby’s ex-wife back-child support, and protect their family farm from foreclosure. Turns out it’s not the bank robbers who are the bad guys…but the banks.
Think of it as Wall Street filmed as a western.
“Somebody robbed the bank this morning,” casually declares Texas Ranger, Marcus (Jeff Bridges), an ole prairie dog, with a slow tooth-picking drawl. He’s a real crowd pleaser…though don’t tell him that. Marcus’s partner is Deputy Alberto (Gil Birmingham) who struggles with the insults of being a mixed Native American Mexican. But Alberto knows far too well what it feels like to have your ‘land’ taken. The two men share beer-sipping sentiments and talk retirement. Alberto wants to retire on a porch in Galveston. Marcus, wants to ‘go out’ in a bank shoot out. So here’s his ticket….
This is truly offbeat cowboys and Indians. And the land is Comanche which not only means ‘enemy’, but references the greed of the old, and now new, west.
The story ignites all of the audience’s senses. When we think of Texas or Oklahoma we think of films that caricature these geographical places. But in this, we can taste the dust from the truck wheels, smell the plains, feel the souls of the Apache, and see the dawn’s early light, on an America gone dim.
How do we hate our nemesis, Toby, the cow-poke in a ski mask, with his bedroom blue eyes and soft demeanor? His only motive is to pay off the back taxes and reverse mortgage so his estranged sons might someday inherit wealth. Apparently there’s oil to be drilled on the farm.
Marcus is trying to play cat and mouse with the robbers. This ain’t his first rodeo. And like a ‘Columbo’ of sorts, he’s got it all figured out.
In a time when America faces challenges with law enforcement, working hard to get nowhere, and wondering what is the definition of America anymore, Hell or High Water may be your richly dramatic ticket. The movie delves deeply into humans with souls, into so many contemporary issues, and examine why good people do bad things. It’s clear the players want peace and the film takes us out that way….to a gentle ending.
This is Chris Pine’s breakthrough role – move over ‘Captain Kirk’ and whatever crap he’s acted in before. Today Chris Pine is a star. And this is Bridges’s best role since the Coen Brothers True Grit.
British Director, David Mackenzie, does a superb and highly-entertaining mix. The bank robbing adrenaline rushes manage to off-set the dialog of humanity and effect. Turns out MacKenzie may have the first serious Oscar contender on his hands.
Aug 10, 2016
The setting of the original Pete’s Dragon was sometime in the early 1900s. This new tale occurs in the late 70s early 80s. (All homes have corded telephones and not a cell phone in sight.) Little Pete (Oakes Fegley) is out on a drive with his parents when a car accident befalls the family. The little boy survives, but he finds himself all alone in the woods. That is, until he meets Elliot, a dragon.
Flash forward to six years later… Pete has been living in the forest all this time under the protection of Elliot. He is finally discovered by forest ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), who takes him home with her fiancé Jack (Wes Bentley) and his young daughter, Natalie (Oona Laurence). Elliot is unaware of what has happened to Pete and ventures out of the forest to find him. The only person who ever spoke of seeing a dragon before is Grace’s father, Mr. Meacham (Robert Redford), but no one has ever believed his stories.
This movie – not for date night – is strictly a family affair. The original was a hand drawn cartoon character; this new one is CGI all the way. He looks more like a big green puppy dog with wings. Any child would love to play with him. The special effects team that created him did a flawless job. However, like most Disney movies, the 3D effects don’t add to the experience. Save your money and go for 2D.
2.5 Tiaras
