Tag: reviews

Movie Review: Argo

The hostage crisis is an event I remember all too well, watching the ABC News crisis news segment each night with Ted Koppel; that Koppel show eventually became Nightline.

 

It shouldn’t have worked: six Americans avoid being taken in the Iran hostage crisis, which started November 4, 1979. They hang out at the residence of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber) for several weeks. The CIA, trying to get them out, rejects the idea of pretending the six are Canadian farm aid workers. Instead, CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) came up with this ridiculous idea of wanting to scout Tehran as a potential backdrop for a science fiction movie called Argo, with the six becoming part of the crew, a plan approved by his boss (Bryan Cranston) as the “best bad idea” available.

It shouldn’t have worked: the movie was based on real, known events. You might know how it turns out. And yet my wife and I are on the edge of our seats for the last third of the film when we saw it Sunday at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.

This is a wonderful movie, directed by Affleck. It is also, at times, rather funny, with most of the laughs generated by John Goodman, as John Chambers, a Hollywood make-up artist who’s done work for the agency before, and Alan Arkin, as film producer Lester Siegel; they set up a phoney film studio to put out a non-film, even getting a story in the entertainment periodical Variety. Yet the tension is never far away, as the Iranians are developing their own intelligence about the missing Americans.

At the beginning of the film credits, a picture of the actual passport of each “fake film crew” member is shown alongside of the performer in the film, which reflected the sometimes astonishing similarities between them. Also, Kyle Chandler is almost a dead ringer of President Carter’s chief of staff Hamilton Jordan. Then we hear from the President, giving thanks to the CIA, while expressing only passing regret that the US government had to give all the credit for the rescue to the Canadians, lest the 52 hostages, who weren’t freed until January 20, 1981, the date of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, suffer the repercussions.

Interesting fact from the IMDB: “In order to make the movie feel like the 1970s, Ben Affleck shot it n regular film, cut the frames in half, and blew those images up 200% to increase their graininess.” This is done to great effect.

The hostage crisis is an event I remember all too well, watching the ABC News crisis news segment each night with Ted Koppel (shown in the footage, along with ABC’s Frank Reynolds and NBC’s Tom Brokaw); that Koppel show eventually became Nightline. If you’re younger, an important history lesson, even as the film takes a couple of liberties, especially near the end.

The Oscar buzz is warranted.
***
There’s a Kickstarter project about the story behind this story, involving Jack Kirby, Ray Bradbury, and Buckminster Fuller, among others.

MOVIE REVIEW: Robot and Frank

If you plan to see the film Robot and Frank, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much.

The Wife and I had a Sunday afternoon date at the Spectrum Theatre to see Robot and Frank, as described in Rotten Tomatoes:
“Set in the near future, Frank, a retired cat burglar, has two grown kids who are concerned he can no longer live alone. They are tempted to place him in a nursing home until Frank’s son chooses a different option: against the old man’s wishes, he buys Frank a walking, talking humanoid robot programmed to improve his physical and mental health.”

Frank (the marvelous Frank Langella) is initially displeased with this turn of events. He’s also unhappy the way that the library is being automated into an “experience,” with the paper products virtually being eliminated, in an effort led by some well-to-do, condescending yuppie twit Jake (Jeremy Strong) to make the library an “experience.” At least Jennifer (Susan Sarandon), the librarian with whom he is smitten, still has a job.

Is Frank really losing it? The program of the robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard, based on the motions of dancer Rachael Ma) is to keep Frank’s mind occupied, with gardening and the like. Frank eventually has other ideas, though, involving his previous line of work, as a cat burglar.

Conflicted but loyal son Hunter (James Marsden) and world traveler daughter Madison (Liv Tyler) seem slight against Frank, but that could be in the writing. The robot, though, is quite engaging, in his/its own way, and becomes a worthy companion for Frank. (The machine’s HAL-like voice bothered Roger Ebert far more than it did me.)

I shan’t say more, except that if you plan to see the film, try to avoid the trailer, which I think gives away far too much, although there is one big reveal I did not see coming. It was an interesting treatise on aging and memory, family relationships, technology, and what makes a person a person. Oh, and, a few times it’s LOL funny. (And yes, when I write LOL, I MEAN LOL.)

There were things that bugged me, though. How the apparently aggrieved Jake essentially orders around the sheriff (Jeremy Sisto) is one example. The selection of Mozart’s Requiem, overused in film generally, was not particularly necessary here; yet the Ave Verum Corpus by Mozart was quite movingly applied. Obviously not the film’s fault, but at the end of the feature, in the beginning of the credits, they had real examples of robots working to care for people, yet about a third of the audience is walking out, which I just did not understand.

This is a good movie that might have been great. Still worth seeing, if not in the theater, then on video (or whatever they’re using these days).
***
My wife saw Frank Langella on Broadway in Dracula c. 1977. She loved the show, and was especially fond of the actor, it seems…

MOVIE REVIEW: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was – from the list of terms I try to avoid – delightful, charming, intelligent.

The Wife had seen The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel several weeks ago, with one of her friends. So when I finally got a chance, I went to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, by which point it was playing only once a day.

Evelyn (Judi Dench) is a recent widow who had always had her husband make the big decisions. Muriel (Maggie Smith) is a bigot who needs a cheap hip replacement. Douglas and Jean (Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton) have an inadequate funds from his work pension. Continue reading “MOVIE REVIEW: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”

MOVIE REVIEW: Bernie

With Bernie, director/co-writer Richard Linklater literally gets back to his Lone Star roots to create a black comedy and a fantastic character study.

 

Bernie is a funny movie. I mean, occasionally, laugh out loud, and there wasn’t a pratfall or a joke to be found. Strange for a basically true story of a mortician (Jack Black), well-loved, generous, pious, in an east Texas town, who starts squiring around a wealthy and unpleasant widow (Shirley McLaine), ignored by her own family, until Bernie is charged with her murder, and prosecuted by the generally unlikable district attorney (Matthew McConaughey).

You know when there is a particularly heinous crime in a town, and the defense attorney asks for a change of venue, lest the accused not be able to get a fair trial? That is NOT what happens here.

In the wrong hands, this could be a farce or a disaster. But director/co-writer Richard Linklater, who worked with Black in School of Rock, literally gets back to his Lone Star roots to create a black comedy and a fantastic character study, not just of the lead participants, but of a whole town, who seem to have collectively accepted the context of the rather disturbing events. To the degree the viewer agrees with the town becomes an interesting reflection of justice and morality.

To say this is Jack Black’s finest performance would be an understatement. Roger Ebert wrote: “I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it’s like nothing he’s done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role.”

McLaine is wonderful as usual. McConaughey is all but unrecognizable, but very effective. But what makes this work are the various townspeople who fill in Bernie’s biography.

I am loath to say much more. See Bernie. But sit through the closing credits. A lot is revealed there, yet people walking out of the theater simply missed it.
***
Though I saw him in only one film, The Green Mile, I was sad to see that Michael Clarke Duncan died this week at the age of 54 (!) as a result of his July 13 heart attack.

MOVIE REVIEW: Ruby Sparks

Zoe Kazan, who wrote the script, is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, and if you don’t know who he was, look it up.

There is a play, a comedy, I take it, called “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,” which I have never seen. The movie Ruby Sparks reminded me of that sentiment, except the last part might be “Stay the Same.” I’ve been thinking about this film since I took a vacation day so The Wife and I saw it on a Monday matinee at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, with only six other people in the room.

Ever see or read something and all you can think about is only peripherally from the work? I’ve been thinking about God and free will; Lisa wrote something about that recently.

Or maybe it DOES have to do with the movie. The young writer, Calvin (Paul Dano) has enormous commercial and critical success early on. He’s like that hot indie band having a difficult time putting out its sophomore effort. Then he dreams this pleasant, though mundane story about meeting a girl named Ruby, from Dayton, Ohio. Since he’s been having writer’s block, his therapist (Elliot Gould) recommends that he write a story about his dream girl, even if it’s lousy writing. And after he types it out – on a typewriter! – Ruby (Zoe Kazan) appears! His brother Harry (Chris Messina) is the only one who knows the secret.

So obviously, she’s perfect. But as she becomes integrated into his life, she has her own needs. But he is the author of her. Can he change her? Should he? And what would be the consequences? Anyone who has ever been in a relationship, past that first glow, recognizes how tricky the day-to-day stuff can be. “If she would only…” “It makes me crazy when she…” And if you “fixed” it, would it REALLY make it all better?

Zoe Kazan, who wrote the script, is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan, and if you don’t know who he was, look it up. It appears that she, the REAL creator, is having a lot of fun on screen with this role. Paul Dano, with whom she lives, is convincing as a guy who has stopped trusting his skills. Some other nice turns by the cast, listed here.

In all this ramble, the film made me think, a lot, about control and fairness and reality, and that’s more than enough to recommend it.

Ramblin' with Roger
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