Tag: review

MOVIE REVIEW: The Theory of Everything

One of the questions the film The Theory of Everything did NOT address was how has Stephen Hawking lived to 70 with ALS?

theoryofeverythingWhen I heard the buzz about the movie The Theory of Everything, I expected that the movie-making would be less conventional. But it’s just a standard romantic biopic of boy meets girl/boy and girl fall in love/boy discovers he has ALS and has two years to live/boy and girl get married anyway/they live happily ever after (for a while).

The “boy” is astrophysicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne from the movie Les Misérables), who will eventually become one of the most famous scientists in the world, and author of the bestseller A Brief History of Time. The “girl” is fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), an unlikely pair.

Jane: So, I take it you’ve never been to church?
Stephen: Once upon a time.
Jane: Tempted to convert?
Stephen: I have a slight problem with the celestial dictatorship premise.

Great physical transformations have taken place so often in film that I think this one by Redmayne may be underrated. Yet I think the greater evolution takes place with Jones, who, over a thirty-year period, convinces the viewer of the joys and tribulations of living and dealing with someone so physically limited, yet so intellectually stimulating.

Perhaps the story, based on Jane’s memoir Travelling to Infinity, feels a tad formulaic, though occasionally quite funny. But the acting, including Charlie Cox, Maxine Peake, and Simon McBurney, who I was unfamiliar with, and David Thewlis and Emily Watson, who I’ve watched for years, is solid.

The Wife and I were glad we saw it, as usual, at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

One of the questions the film did NOT address was How Has Stephen Hawking Lived to 70 with ALS?

In the year-in-review stories, it’s fascinating how the ALS ice bucket challenge became a viral storm.

MOVIE REVIEW: Whiplash

Whiplash is a movie less about jazz than the application of perfection that the instructor was apparently seeking.

Whiplash-5547.cr2Sometimes, what movie The Wife and I end up seeing depends on circumstances. The weekend before Christmas, I’m looking at the movies playing at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany that was departing on Christmas Eve, and the one that got the most critical buzz was Whiplash. Specifically, J.K. Simmons, who I know from the Tobey Maguire movie version of Spider-Man, as Assistant Chief Pope from the TV show The Closer, and, oddly, from a series of commercials for Farmers Insurance. He’s already won the Best Supporting Actor nod from the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association and is nominated for a Golden Globe, as is the movie itself.

Whiplash stars Miles Teller, who I remember favorably from The Spectacular Now in 2013. Here he plays Andrew Neiman, a 19-year-old jazz drummer, who wants to next Buddy Rich. He is accepted into the legendary New York City music school, the Shaffer Conservatory. Andrew successfully auditions to become the new drum alternate for notorious Shaffer conductor Terence Fletcher (Simmons).

Then the “fun” begins. While practicing the Hank Levy song “Whiplash”, Fletcher makes Andrew’s life difficult, not that he has singled him out. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

The movie costars Melissa Benoist (Marley from the TV show Glee) as Andrew’s neglected girlfriend and Paul Reiser (TV’s Mad About You) as his supportive dad. The film was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, who I had never heard of.

We watched a pair of intense performances. At the point about 2/3s of the way through, the movie seemed to let up a bit, but the drama returns and runs to the end. This is a movie less about jazz than the application of perfection that Fletcher was apparently seeking; I’ve seen it, and you have too in other endeavors. In fact, the Wife and I found several examples of, “Boy, do I know THAT feeling.” The music is quite good, but it is secondary to the narrative.

When I was in high school, we had some music competitions. Someone said that drum solos are boring unless they’re not. Whiplash is an inspired drum solo.

MOVIE REVIEW: Force Majeure

American audiences don’t much like movies with subtitles.

force-majeure-poster-640x400The problem with describing the Swedish film Force Majeure as a comedy, or even as a dark comedy, which I’ve now read a few times, is that one may look for the humor early on, and that would be a mistake. It looks like the portrait of a perfect bourgeois family, a pretty mom, and nice-looking dad, and their attractive children, a girl, and a boy, on a ski vacation in Switzerland at a chichi resort. Pretty mundane, even boring.

Then the avalanche comes, which, not much of a spoiler, they all survive. Physically, that is. But what goes on emotionally in the relationships among the “perfect” nuclear family, and those with whom they interact is what’s interesting.

I suspected, even before looking up the Rotten Tomatoes scores, that it’d be a movie liked more by critics, 93% positive at last glance at Rotten Tomatoes, than by the general public. 76% positive. One either buys the basic conceit of the narrative, or one does not. It’s also the case that American audiences don’t much like movies with subtitles, though some of the film is in English; it didn’t bother me.

The Wife and I liked it quite a bit when we saw it at The Spectrum in Albany on a recent Sunday afternoon, In particular, the stark use of silence, and the ambiguous and multiple endings, were intriguing. There’s one brief moment when I actually ducked in my chair, and it was NOT the avalanche scene.

I just figured this out: the choice of the dominant music was part of the joke!

MOVIE REVIEW: Birdman

Birdman is “a backstage drama, an absurdist comedy, a quasi-autobiographical revelation.”

birdmanWay back on Thanksgiving weekend, I saw Birdman, or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance at the Spectrum in Albany. I really admired what they were trying to do, this black comedy about an actor named Riggan (Michael Keaton) who had become rich and famous for playing a comic book superhero, the title reference.

Now he wants to write, produce, direct and star in a play on Broadway. However, he finds himself in conflict with some of the other actors, a nasty Broadway critic, and mostly, with himself.

The scene where Riggan is walking through Times Square nearly naked (seen in part in the trailer) is quite funny, as is the superhero action sequence (likewise teased in the trailer). This is great work by Michael Keaton, who, of course, played Batman in the movies then walked away from the role.

I think the movie says some important things about celebrity, trying to be true to one’s artistic vision, and how difficult the acting profession can be on family life. The actors are all fine, including Andrea Riseborough, Naomi Watts and especially Edward Norton as his fellow thespians; Zach Galifianakis as the guy trying to keep the production together; Lindsay Duncan as the steely critic; Amy Ryan as Riggan’s ex-wife; and Emma Stone as his very moody daughter.

Eric Melin wrote, correctly, in Scene-Stealers.com: “It’s a lot of things-a backstage drama, an absurdist comedy, a quasi-autobiographical revelation, a self-aware jab at blockbusters, a wannabe social-media age satire, and a piece of technically superior magical realism-but one thing it isn’t, is subtle.”

It has reviewed really well – 94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, last I checked. Yet as I walked out of the theater, I saw someone I knew, who had seen the same showing of the film. He asked if I liked the film, and I said, “I’m still working on that.” He replied, “I didn’t like it.”

A couple of weeks later, I STILL don’t know that I liked it as much as admired it. Perhaps the too-positive buzz raised my expectations too high. Maybe the quirky direction of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also co-wrote the screenplay was at times too distracting. Or maybe, just maybe, I just wasn’t in the mood for that particular movie at that particular time; it happens.

MOVIE REVIEW: Big Hero 6

Stay to the end of the credits of Big Hero 6 because… well, just do it.

big-hero-6-movie-poster-disneyA couple of weeks ago, The Wife and the Daughter went to the Colonie Center mall, near Albany, to see the movie Big Hero 6 in 3-D; I had a choir rehearsal. They both liked it a lot, though The Daughter said it was a little sad.

They went out of town to visit my in-laws the day after Thanksgiving, and as it turned out, the local second-run theater, the Madison, had started showing the movie in 2D, which was fine with me. I hadn’t been to the venue since it had been refurbished several weeks ago.

Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) is a techno-geek who graduated high school at age 13 but has little direction beyond hustling people in illegal bot (robot) competitions. His older brother, Tadashi (Daniel Henney), realized that Hiro needed focus, and brings him to a competition at Tadashi’s college. But after a tragic fire, Hiro is morose.

His brother had invented an inflatable medical robot named Baymax (Scott Adsit). The robot wanders off, and Hiro discovers that someone has stolen the technology he created and is using it for nefarious purposes. Hiro and his brother’s school friends use their creativity and intellect to turn themselves and Baymax into superheroes in order to identify and stop the villain.

First off, I LOVE the setting of San Francokyo, the locale that has blended the two cities in fun and creative ways. The animation was quite fine. The voice actors, which also included Damon Wayans Jr., James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Abraham Benrubi, and Maya Rudolph as Aunt Cass were solid.

I enjoyed the storyline, though most of the heroes in Big Hero 6 aren’t always particularly as well defined as they could be. And if the story mentioned how the boys were orphaned when Hiro was three, I missed it.

On the plus side, there are difficult lessons that Hiro has to learn about justice and forgiveness, and Baymax (who I kept hearing as Betamax) helps him learn them through the compassionate programming that Tadeshi encoded. Hiro also gets support from his brother’s friends, who become his friends.

My buddy Greg Burgas wrote this on Facebook, and I think it’s correct: “At the heart of Big Hero 6 is the need for young people to process complicated emotions in a positive way, which seems to me far more mature and interesting than a lot of kids’ movies.” But I didn’t think it was just a kids’ movie. There’s a great action scene when the heroes use their powers and just get in each others’ way, which seems logical for people with skills they are just developing.

I read one negative review that said that the movie wasn’t funny. I thought good chunks of it were LOL hilarious, especially when it involved Baymax. Another thumbs-down review wondered where the audience was for this movie, thinking it was too intense for small kids and too boring for adults. I know The Daughter would likely have been frightened by it when she was five, but at ten, she was fine. Her mother, who is an adult, and her father, who purports to be one, were seldom restless.

Someone pointed out that, in the midst of some faux comic books the heroes were reading was one very real comic book, one I once owned. Marvel Premiere #32 featuring Monark Starstalker was written and drawn by Howard Chaykin back in 1976. This was a very obscure item, even in the day, and I’m curious why it was chosen.

Stay to the end of the credits, because… well, just do it.

There was a short before the movie, The Feast, “The story of one man’s love life is seen through the eyes of his best friend and dog, Winston, and revealed bite by bite through the meals they share.” It was cute, but I might have enjoyed it more if the hipster film buffs who had been blathering about DeNiro and other actors had SHUT UP when the Steamboat Willie intro came on. There was little dialogue in The Feast early, but their yakking was still distracting.