Tag: review

MOVIE REVIEW: Begin Again

Keira Knightley told Jon Stewart that in her last 10 movies, her character dies seven or eight times.

Begin-Again-2I had heard that Begin Again was an Americanized version of the movie Once, which was not a particularly inviting prospect. I mean, I liked the 2006 movie about an Irish busker quite a bit, but didn’t need to see a variation. But Begin Again is largely a different thing, though it does share the fact that music is being performed outdoors, and has the same writer/director, John Carney.

Dan, a music-business executive (Mark Ruffalo) who drinks too much, sees the performance of Gretta, a shy young singer-songwriter (Keira Knightley), and visualizes what her music could sound like in the right hands. Unfortunately, he’s burned a few bridges with his former label partner Saul (Mos Def, billed as Yasiin Bey). So they have to be a bit more creative to realize their vision.

As the story develops, you might think you know why Dan is separated from his wife Miriam (Catherine Keener, who my wife knows I have a crush on) and is only a part-time dad to Violet (Hailee Steinfeld, star of the True Grit remake), but it’s more complicated. Even more so, Gretta’s back story before she ends up crashing on the sofa of her friend Steve (James Corden) is much richer, involving her partnership with Dave (Adam Levine), and is not what one might have expected. The movie also features Cee Lo Green as Dan’s old music colleague Troublegum.

I saw Knightley on The Daily Show a few weeks ago, and she told Jon Stewart that in her last 10 movies, her character dies seven or eight times. This is a nice change of pace. She sings more than adequately, though no particular song, save for the first one, I remember that well.

There are contrivances here and there, and the movie does develop a certain let’s-put-on-a-show vibe, as though it were a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney film, so I suppose it’s not as fresh as Once. Still, you feel as though Dan and Gretta earned their chance to…(see title).

Movie reviews: Chef; and The Hundred-Foot Journey

We saw TWO food movies in four days.

chef-uoWARNING: do NOT got to the movie Chef if you’re hungry. The Wife and I saw this film Sunday at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany, and we were practically salivating by the end. We’ve seen a lot of foodie movies, notably the classic Big Night, and this was among the best. I mean, a grilled cheese sandwich looked “to die for.”

Moreover, the music was great. The Wife is chair dancing, in the theater, and she is not traditionally a chair dancer. (I am in my office, but I was too.)

Chef Carl Casper (the movie’s writer/director/co-producer Jon Favreau) is a high-powered chef at a chic Los Angeles restaurant, has a good crew (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale), and an ambiguous thing with Molly (Scarlett Johansson), who runs the front. If he could only ignore the controlling owner (Dustin Hoffman), life would be great.

OK, not so great. His work ethic has wrecked his marriage to Inez (Sofia Vergara) and has strained his relationship with their young son Percy (a very solid Emjay Anthony).

I could explain more, but all I’ll say is that the Oliver Platt and Robert Downey, Jr. characters play important roles in what comes next in the film, which is a relationship movie, a road movie – did I mention the food? The Wife thought the first half could have been tighter, and some critics agreed, but I liked it all. A scene involving Carl and Molly was very sensuous, but it involved no sex, only food. The film is rated R, largely for language, which is salty.

hundred-foot-journey-quadThen on Wednesday, we saw The Hundred-Foot Journey, about a family forced to leave India, who ended up in a little town in France, aided by fate, and a young woman named Marguerite (the lovely Charlotte Le Bon).

This is another food movie, as the papa (Om Puri) decides to open a restaurant VERY close (see title) to a Michelin star restaurant, much to the resistance of his family, even his culinarily gifted son Hassan (Manish Dayal) and his siblings. But open it they do, much to the consternation of the competing establishment’s head, Madame Mallory (the always great Helen Mirren).

There’s a bunch of stuff about intolerance and acceptance and a fun little war between Madame and Papa. Marguerite is often enigmatic. But by the time Hassan makes a major breakthrough, you know how the film is going to conclude. And given the long exposition at the front end, it was a difficult film for me to love.

I mean it was fine, it was nice, it looked nice – filming in India and France helps. The language was much cleaner than Chef, rated PG. It’s your basic 2 1/2 to 3-star film; 65% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. It was like a movie you might expect to be produced by Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, which, with Juliet Blake, it was. But while there was lots of delicious food, it wasn’t filmed as beautifully as the cuisine in Chef, and I cannot explain, on a technical level, why.

I wish I had seen these movies in the opposite order.

MOVIE REVIEW: Words and Pictures

As a teacher, The Wife appreciated the non-traditional ways both main characters in Words and Pictures attempted to engage their students.

wordsandpicturesAt some point in July, the Wife and I saw Words and Pictures at the Spectrum 8 Theatre. I forgot to write a review straight on, partly because I was busy, but also because I don’t particularly enjoy scribing negative reviews. ESPECIALLY when I REALLY wanted to like the film.

The premise is that prep school English teacher Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), once an acclaimed writer himself, is a burned-out, functional alcoholic. He tries to motivate his students to value the written word.

He starts this contrived competition with the new teacher Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), a well-regarded abstract painter now struggling with rheumatoid arthritis, about whether…well, read the title… are more important.

Some of it is mildly inspirational in the teacher-motivates-students plot in a number of better movies. Some of it is hokey, such as a scene in which she struggles to paint with nice classical music, while he drinks to excess while raucous David Bowie is the soundtrack. But the ending of this movie I didn’t believe AT ALL.

The Wife liked this quite a bit more than I. As a teacher, I think she appreciated the non-traditional ways both characters attempted to engage their students. And I did as well, but it wasn’t enough to ignore its failings.

I loved Binoche in Chocolat, and apparently, she does her own painting here, credibly. I think the failure of Words and Pictures is not with her. It’s not with Owen, either, though his character is never as charming as we’re supposed to believe. The real issue is the somewhat hackneyed script.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Grand Seduction

Taylor Kitsch is best known for the acclaimed TV series Friday Night Lights.

grand-seductionThe Wife and I went to the Spectrum Theatre on a recent Saturday night. I knew little about any of the movies, so we opted for the film down from four showings per day to two, The Grand Seduction.

From the IMDB description:
“The small harbor of Tickle Cove [probably Newfoundland, Canada] is in dire need of a doctor so that the town can land a contract to secure a factory which will save the town from financial ruin. Village resident Murray French (Brandon Gleeson) leads the search, and when he finds Dr. Paul Lewis (Taylor Kitsch) he employs – along with the whole town – tactics to seduce the doctor to stay permanently.”

This film is an English language remake of the French-Canadian Seducing Doctor Lewis (2003), originally called “La grande séduction”. Here’s a trailer of the current movie.

It takes a bit to set up the premise, but eventually, there are lots of laughs, coming from these folks who are looking for meaning in their life that work used to provide. We enjoyed it quite a bit and related to many of the characters. It also provided an interesting parallel about the value of honesty.

Gleeson is a versatile actor who often plays the heavy. Kitsch is best known for the acclaimed TV series Friday Night Lights. The last movie in which I saw Gordon Pinsent, who played Simon, Murray’s aide de camp, was in the very different Away from Her (2006).

The reviewers were mixed on this, 61% positive in Rotten Tomatoes. One of the negative reviews read, “Loved Local Hero? Charmed by Waking Ned Devine? Then go watch Local Hero and Waking Ned Devine.” Funny that, because right as the movie ended, this woman sitting right behind us said, “It was good but not as good as Ned Devine.” I did see that quirky film 15 years ago, and liked it fine, but don’t remember it well enough to make the comparison.

Don’t know that you need to run out to your local theater to see it – if you can even find it – but it’s worth at least a rental. Here’s a video review that doesn’t reveal too much.

MOVIE REVIEW: Million Dollar Arm

My wife thought Bill Paxton was so convincing as pitching coach Tom House, she thought he was the actual guy.

milliondollararmI suppose I should not have been surprised that the Daughter expressed tremendous interest in seeing the film Million Dollar Arm. She watches these annoying Disney shows on TV, and I imagine they have promoted the movie incessantly. A Memorial Day matinee trek to the Spectrum Theatre was in order.

There is an inherent problem with most movies based on real life. Additional issues come from sports movies, which generally slip into cliche. Still, the premise was interesting: a struggling sports agent, JB (Jon Hamm) comes up with a wild idea. What if he could find a baseball pitcher or two from India, perhaps kids who grew up playing cricket? This would attract a brand new market of a billion people to start watching American baseball.

Of course, the process does not go smoothly, but eventually, two young men make the trip to the US to learn the game and experience the fish-out-of-water hijinks one might expect. Finally, the big tryout is scheduled.

Here’s the thing: I rather liked much of the movie anyway. The parts in India were especially interesting. And a scene where one of the players was leaving home for the first time and had to say goodbye to his mother I found touching.

Much of the cast I enjoyed, including Suraj Sharma (star of Life of Pi) and Madhur Mittal (Slumdog Millionaire) as the young pitchers, Pitobash as the coach wannabe, and Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show) as JB’s partner. Lake Bell (In a World…) was fine as Brenda, JB’s tenant, even though their eventual relationship is telegraphed. My wife thought Bill Paxton was so convincing as pitching coach Tom House, she thought he was the actual guy. Alan Arkin is always good; he plays a scout.

Possibly the weakest link was Jon Hamm. I have liked him on Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, but here he was more mechanical, or maybe it was the writing. Ken Levine wrote: “The one thing I took from seeing MILLION DOLLAR ARM is that Jon Hamm needs Matthew Weiner’s words. Don Draper’s really a boring guy without great writing.”

The Daughter loved the music, and danced to the Bollywood hip hop at the end of the film; the other dozen patrons had already left. Despite its 2:04 running time, I was seldom bored, and it was a decent pic to see with the kids.

In the end, we see the real people in the story. The fact that Million Dollar Arm used the hidden fact trick did not diminish the story.
***
Saw Monsters University, the Pixar film, at my daughter’s school on a recent Friday night. I’d never seen Monsters Inc., so barely knew the characters. I enjoyed it, though I missed some dialogue; sometimes the audience was louder than the film.

Ramblin' with Roger
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