REVIEW: Crazy Heart

Plot summary of Crazy Heart from fandango.com:

A worn-down country singer and a burgeoning journalist form an unusual bond in this drama adapted from the novel by Thomas Cobb. His spirit broken by multiple failed marriages, too much time on the road, and too many nights with the bottle, Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) had started to feel like he was headed down the path of no return. When probing young writer Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) digs deep enough to unearth the broken man behind the legend, however, Bad realizes that redemption may not be such a long shot after all. Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell co-star.

Kinsey and I saw Crazy Heart the same day as we saw The White Ribbon and the two films couldn't be more different. The latter is a film that leaves you unsatisfied and contemplating the scenarios long after its over, while the former brings you along for the ride and drops you off at the end, done deal. It all depends on whether or not you liked the journey. Maybe I was just in an analytical mood, but the ride wasn't enough for me.

Now, there is plenty to like about this film. Jeff Bridges gives an admirable performance, though not his best (and definitely not the stone-cold lock for Oscar which seems to be the case). There is some wonderful old-timey country music and a charming supporting turn from the great Robert Duvall. But this story isn't something that hasn't been done a hundred times before. Down-on-his-luck drunk finds redemption isn't exactly the most original thing in the world.

And I don't know if its just me, but the story seemed to force the viewer to laugh at Bridges' character, Bad Blake. Not with him, at him. At times, it portrayed him as a fool, when the protagonist of this story should be a sympathetic figure. Crazy Heart is like a poor man's The Wrestler.

A major flaw was events seemed o happened simply to move the story along, not because it made sense for them to happen. Jean fell for Bad because the film needed romance, Bad lost Jean's kid because he needed a reason to get sober, Bad was a drunk because he was a musician. The perfect illustration of this was a scene where Bad needed to contact Jean on the road. So, of course, he pulls over to a phone booth... in the middle of the prairie! Nothing around but a phone booth.

So overall a decent film, but pretty unoriginal and, when you come down to it, forgettable.

Kinsey: 3.5/5 stars
Wade: 2.5/5 stars

REVIEW: The White Ribbon

Plot summary of Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winning, The White Ribbon:

In a village in Protestant northern Germany, on the eve of World War I, the children of a church and school run by the village schoolteacher and their families experience a series of bizarre incidents that inexplicably assume the characteristics of a punishment ritual. Who could be responsible for such bizarre transgressions? Leonie Benesch, Josef Bierbichler, and Rainer Bock star in director Michael Haneke's Palm d'Or-winning period drama.

There are some movies that are a fun time and easy to digest and then there are movies that force you to analyze the product. If you're up for the latter, I'd suggest checking out the filmography of Michael Haneke. Both of his films that I've seen, Cache and now The White Ribbon, definitely leave the viewer with questions to ponder.

The film is told in flashback from the memory of the village's schoolteacher, as he tries to come to grips with the violent occurrences that took place, especially in light of his existence in post-WWII Germany. Memory is important as it informs not only the surreal quality of the black and white visuals, but also the partial omniscience of the camera as it seems to probe every character (through the teacher's perspective and knowledge of them, of course) yet never witnesses the violent acts and, at times, dawdles at the edge of a scene, not seeing what is happening just out of view.

This is really a film about violence: it's causes, it's repercussions, and what it leads to. It's not giving anything away to say that suspicion is cast on the children of the village as the possible perpetrators of these violent acts. But why? Why would children in such an idyllic village commit such acts? One only has to look at Haneke's portrayal of their parents for explanation. There's the cruel doctor who molests his daughter, the steward who savagely beats his son, the baron who treats his wife coldly and sarcastically, and the preacher who not only beats his children but also publicly shames and ridicules them. Do the actions of the parents beget the violence of the children? Are the children passing revenge through these violent acts? Haneke never directly answers these questions, except once, when after being berated by her father, the preacher's daughter ferociously impales his pet bird.

After contemplating the film, what Haneke is driving at starts to become clear . Just look at the time period. It's 1914. These children, supposedly committing these violent acts, are teens and pre-teens. In 20 years, the roots of Nazi Germany will begin to take hold and these children will be adults. The connections are for the viewer to decide.

On a final note, the visuals in this film are amazing. The black and white is striking and Haneke exquisitely composes every scene. Really, its almost worth seeing the film just for the visual pleasure.

Reason my rating is so different from Wade's: blah! I need more than just two and a half hours of seemingly setting and set-up, with only a hint of the climax, and then its over. Although the movie did keep me intriqued, and Wade's right, the art direction is beautiful. Still I felt frustrated when the movie was over, all that effort and concentration and it ended with no answers...

Wade: 4.5/5 stars
Kinsey: 3/5 stars

REVIEW: Avatar

A quick plot summary of Avatar from jamescameron.org:

Far into the future, Human space travelers find a planet given the name Alpha Centauri B-4. It's known as Pandora, which is bountifully blessed with weird and wonderful creatures and plants that breathe ammonia instead of oxygen. The Humans seek to take the wealth of this amazing planet for themselves. The hero of the story is an injured, former marine named Jake Sully, who unwillingly joins the native population of Pandora in a dramatic and mesmerizing battle to avoid conquest by the invading extraterrestrials from Earth.

James Cameron has cranked out a lot of blockbusters in his movie-making career. Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, and, of course, Titanic. Avatar is definitely in this vein.

I'd like this review to remain positive as long as possible. I do have to say that the visuals were pretty amazing and better than I expected, especially the landscape of Pandora. The creatures on the planet and the blue natives were pretty obviously CG but still pretty darn well done. The fight/war scenes were well choreographed, thrilling and exciting. It was pretty good spectacle. Unfortunately, a movie can't be all just spectacle.

This movie has one of the most heavy-handed stories I've seen in a while. Its hard to find something that isn't an obvious cliche. We've got the iron pumping, scarred, tough guy sergeant who plays by his own rules. The ex-Marines spouting lines like "Yeah, get some!" while they mow down natives. On top of that throw in the wise-cracking scientist and the money-is-everything, Gordon Gekko-esque corporate guy. It is pretty difficult to take a movie seriously with that cast of known characters.

Not only are the characters cliche, but the story is a cherry picking of history. Now I don't mind metaphors in movies, but please try to add some layer of subtlety or original thought while you're at it. Of course, Avatar is basically the story of the Native American's battle with European settlers, like Dances with Wolves in space. Cameron doesn't add anything new to this story. He just replaces the Native Americans with Na'vi. There's even that haunting, chanting music over serious scenes, just like every other movie about native peoples. Even the weaponry is the same, guns versus bows and arrows. Actually, the one twist Cameron does throw in is breaking down the Na'vi's Mother Earth-based mysticism with a scientific explanation. In my opinion this hurts the story even more (it reminded me of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menance, when they boil down the Force to a blood condition).

In the end Avatar is just too self-serious. I would have no problem treating it like Die Hard or Transformers-level empty fun, but the critic's and Cameron's bestowal of importance won't allow that. So, great job on the special effects, but the story and characters just aren't worth the hype.

Kinsey: 3/5 stars
Wade: 2.5/5 stars

REVIEW: A Single Man

Plot summary for A Single Man from fandango.com:

Fashion designer Tom Ford makes his directorial debut with this dramatic outing starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, and Matthew Goode. Ford and David Scearce adapted the story from a book by Christopher Isherwood, which tells the tragic tale of a professor's loss of his longtime partner.

It had been awhile since we'd seen an experimental indie film; A Single Man ended that streak. Visually adventurous with a capsule of a story and a standout performance from Colin Firth, it's everything a nice indie film should be.

This is fashion icon Tom Ford's first film and he comes in with his creative guns blazing. For the most part everything is beautifully constructed and shot, but he does occasionally let his creativity get the best of him, specifically shots involving unneeded closeups of eyes and lips and goofing around with the saturation levels. Fortunately Ford is aware enough as a director to know when to let Colin Firth do his a thing. In a devastating scene where Firth is learning of the death of his partner by phone, Ford shows wonderful restraint in letting the camera simply linger on Firth's face.

This scene specifically is a great example of the mastery of Firth's performance in the film. In the scene, Firth struggles to keep his composure even as he sits alone in his house, unwilling to break. With this struggle he demonstrates so much about his character and even the setting and era of the film. He struggles to hide his grief and emotion in the same way he must hide his orientation and love of another man. A wonderful job by Firth. One irritation I had with the film was that everyone kept commenting that Firth's character looked terrible, but I thought the guy looked quite dapper. It was easy to imagine Ford's involvement in costume and set design; both were hip and perfect for the setting.

With daring visuals and courageous acting, A Single Man is really the epitome of indie film. Even the plot is similar to that of a modern short story, short on the timeline, narrowly focused, tragicomic (a darkly absurd suicide preparation), and with a kicker of an ending (although maybe a bit too ironic in my opinion). All in all, a singularly pleasureful experience.

Wade: 4/5 stars
Kinsey: 4/5 stars

REVIEW: It's Complicated

Plot synopsis for It's Complicated from moviefone.com:

Writer/director Nancy Meyers ('Something's Gotta Give,' 'The Holiday') directs Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in 'It's Complicated,' a comedy about love, divorce and everything in between.

Jane (Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has--after a decade of divorce--an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son's college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together turns into the unimaginable--an affair. With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman.

Caught in the middle of their renewed romance is Adam (Martin), an architect hired to remodel Jane's kitchen. Healing from a divorce of his own, Adam starts to fall for Jane, but soon realizes he's become part of a love triangle.

Should Jane and Jake move on with their lives, or is love truly lovelier the second time around? It's...complicated.

One thing in particular nagged at me throughout the entirety of this movie: the false reality that writer/director Nancy Meyers creates. Sure, Streep's character Jane owns a thriving bakery, but is that enough to afford a million dollar addition to her already multi-million dollar home? And this addition is for the kitchen of her dreams because, apparently, the one with the two stoves and seating for six isn't enough. It looks like a Williams and Sonoma ad. In fact, the whole movie feels like an ad for luxury goods. Everyone is stylishly dressed (and, of course, super good-looking), driving luxury cars or hybrids, it was just way too much to have to swallow.

The saving grace of this movie is Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, specifically Alec Baldwin (Streep has a couple weird "giggly" moments). But Baldwin is winning and charismatic and, this might have something to do with my love of 30 Rock, hilarious. These two have amazing chemistry together. Given the convincing attraction between Baldwin and Streep, it was a stretch to believe that Jane would see anything in Adam, Steve Martin's character, who is a complete nerd. Martin and Streep's on-screen time falls completely flat.

The movie does have a few hilarious moments and some great one-liners. But it's mostly full of dumb jokes that go on too long (let's have Meryl Streep and Steve Martin smoke pot!) and throwaway gags (let's put John Krasinski in a pre-teen girl's pajamas!). Also there are these odd "we're having a good time" montages full of sap. Overall, despite a few laughs, this is not a movie I would recommend seeing.

(I'm going to go on an architecture rant before I finish here. I've seen about a half dozen films featuring characters who are architects and they all have a hard time getting it right. This movie, with Steve Martin's character as the architect, is no exception. Movies always try to glamorize architects when we're not that glamorous. I have a hard time believing that an architect designing single-family homes is going to drive a high-end Mercedes. Or that he is going to need a staff of 30 (in a brick loft, of course), all of them hand-drafting (hand-drafting!!). The kicker to all this is when Adam shows up to Jane's ill-conceived kitchen addition with a roll of drawings big enough to build a mixed-use complex in Shengxen. Attention to detail is not this movie's strong suit. OK, rant over.)

Wade: 2/5 stars
Kinsey: 2/5 stars