NOAH (2014)

Rated:  PG-13

STARS:  Russell Crowe,  Jennifer Connelly,  Emma Watson,  Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins,  Logan Lerman
 DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky
GENRE: Drama

I was initially put off by the idea of seeing Noah, because Bible stories, to me, are in the same category as Greek Mythology--great stories from writers who had some wild imaginations, to be taken with a liberal sprinkling of salt.  And since Easter is right around the corner--and with it the annual return of Charlton Heston as Moses and the rest of those similarly campy films from the fifties the television stations drag out for God knows what reason this time of year--I was so hoping that Noah might be a breath of fresh air. 

My prayers were answered.

As a film, Noah is a remarkable achievement.  Noah (Russell Crowe) is a kind of obsessed environmentalist who sees the value in preserving the innocent creatures of the world, of which wicked Man is notwithstanding. The images of beast and fowl winging and plodding their way toward the ark are awe-inspiring. Scripture mentions giants inhabiting the earth in those days, but director Darren Aronofsky takes it a step further with some hulking CGI rock monsters who would look more at home in a film like Transformers. A little something for the kids, perhaps.

Jennifer Connelly, as Noah's wife,  gives us some soul-stirring moments when she stands up to the monomaniacal man as he is about to go off the deep end and do some really mean and nasty stuff.

 Noah is a film full of beauty, grandeur and intensity, and rife with irony when you consider the idea of the Creator sending a big flood to wipe the slate clean and start anew, hopeful that this time things will be different. Especially in light of the condition our planet is in today.

Grade:  A  

JILL'S TAKE

[Tim didn't bother telling you that I had to drag him to this movie, bitching and moaning all the way. So it gives me no small measure of satisfaction to read his glowing review!]

As for me? I kind of like those old cinemascopic epics. Especially the villains—Peter Ustinov as Nero, Richard Boone as Pontius Pilate, Laurence Olivier as Crassus. But the biggest villain in Noah is Noah himself. Torn between doing God's bidding or following his own humanness, he's a larger-than-life character with an abundance of problems to overcome. Portrayed with deep-voiced veracity by Russell Crowe, the film is billed as an "epic story of courage and sacrifice from the Old Testament." Now I could be picky about some of the incongruities in this cautionary tale. Did they have buzz cuts back then? How come Noah aged and his wife didn't? Can fish really survive without water? But logic and Bible stories are not necessarily synonymous. And after I saw Noah, I actually went home and read chapters 5 through 9 in Genesis. Holy cow! There were certainly a lot of literary liberties taken. But in my view, they improved the story considerably. (Creative blasphemy to some, good film-making to others.) If Tim hadn't already made a comparison to Transformers, I would have. Those rock monsters aka "Watchers" could have just as easily been rebuilding a razed New York City in 2020 as helping Noah build his ark.

And kudos to Anthony Hopkins as an impishly ancient Methuselah. In a final scene, when he's enjoying some freshly picked berries, I could almost hear him adding 'some fava beans and a nice Chianti.'

GRADE:  A

HITCHCOCK (2012)

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston
Director: Sacha Gervasi
Genre: Biopic/ Drama

First off, don't even bother with this movie if you haven't  seen Alfred Hitchcock's signature film, Psycho.  Hitchcock, which is about the making of Psycho, interwoven with the legendary director's difficult relationship with his wife, Alma Reville, simply contains too many inside references and tongue-in-cheek memory joggers relating to the film--and to his long running television series, (e.g., his shadowy silhouette upon the wall) that you just wouldn't get it otherwise.  Fortunately, for the sake of my labors here, most everyone besides the very young and those who just stepped off the boat from Timbuktu are familiar with Hitchcock's work...so let us proceed.

Anthony Hopkins, in a fat suit, has the late director's mannerisms and pretentious speech patterns down pat, but the small  beef I have with his performance is the same one I had with Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn, in which the actress plays Marilyn Monroe too close to her public persona--that of the dumb blonde--even in private. I can't imagine Alfred Hitchcock, in intimate moments, saying "Gooood ev-en-ing " in that oft caricatured way to his wife as he's about to plop on top of her like a grand piano falling from a fifth story window.  
  
What will be truly revealing to most about Hitchcock is the role that Alma played in the making of his films (the veracity of  this information comes from the writings of  their daughter, Patricia). A talented editor and screenwriter, Alma was the wind beneath Alfred's wings--acting in the background as collaborator and sounding board to the great director. 

Helen Mirren , superb as usual, plays Alma as a woman who is fooling herself, as well as her husband, about the nature of her "working" relationship with screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston). Hitchcock's well known eye for the ladies is only referred to in passing,  but it gives the viewer some insight into one of the reasons why the couple's relationship was strained, and why Alma's eye may have been roving as well.  

Scarlett Johansson brings a subtlety to her role as Janet Leigh (the star of Psycho UNTIL...) that I felt was spot on.

As in most films about real figures from the past, strict attention to detail is not sacred here. For example, in Psycho's famous shower scene, it is implied  that Johansson/Leigh  is nude, and that they are trying to work the camera angles so as not to reveal too much--as this was the day of heavily repressive censorship in the movies--but in reality Leigh had some semi-sheer fabric strategically covering her in critical areas,. which gave the impression of nudity in some of  the quick out of focus shots in that scene.

With all that was working against Psycho getting produced--as in the studio balking on the making of the film to begin with; the perverted censors (as all censors are) breathing down the director's neck; and the couple having to pony up their own funds to finance the film--Hitchcock leaves us with the impression that Psycho stumbled its way to success. But I think maybe that was for dramatic effect. They didn't call Alfred Hitchcock a genius for no reason, and now we know that at least part of that genius came from his "better" half.  

Grade: B
   

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER--2010

Rated: R

Stars: Gemma Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Antonio Banderas, Lucy Punch, Freida Pinto

Director: Woody Allen

Genre: Drama/comedy

There are no single, lonely people at the beginning of Woody Allen's You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger-- just married and lonely people--ready and ripe to fall under someone else's spell and rekindle the fire of romance that all too quickly peters out in the day to day reality of monogamous "bliss."

Helena (Gemma Jones) is a ditzy old gal who has been divorced by Alfie, (Anthony Hopkins) and now she's seeing a "fortune teller" who tells her just what she wants to hear. Alfie falls for a young opportunistic prostitute named Charmaine, (Lucy Punch) who likes the finer things in life that he can provide her--as long as his money holds out! Alfie and Helena's daughter Sally (Naomi Watts) is married to once promising--but now frustrated--writer Roy, (Josh Brolin) who has an eye for the exotic young guitar player in the window across the way, Dia (Freida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire). Sally, who works at a high-profile art gallery, develops a thing for her boss, Greg (Antonio Banderas).

But are they all delusional?

In You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Woody Allen is exploring the idea of faith, or more accurately, the tendency that many of us have to want to believe in something--often another person--to the point where we are willing to believe only what we want to believe, and don't confuse us with the facts.

Woody's endearing (at least to me) brand of cynicism tinged with irony is all over this one--his fourth in a row set in London--but the sense that he is literally speaking through his characters, so apparent in some previous films, (I could close my eyes and hear his voice, even through his female characters, which was freaky) isn't present here--perhaps refreshingly so.

Quite an impressive cast he's assembled--and Gemma Jones is a hoot as Helena, who goes on ad nauseam about reincarnation as if she'd never heard of the concept before... happy as a clam because her psychic has told her she has lived before and will live again. (Not everyone--the Buddhists for example--are pleased about that wheel turning round and round and going back, Jack, and doing it again!)

But it's Lucy Punch as Charmaine--the happy hooker supposedly gone straight who is now Alfie's wife-- still playing him for all he's worth while maintaining an air of bewildered innocence, even when he catches her in the act with some young buck, who upstages them all.

Anthony Hopkins, who I never thought was very scary as Hannibal Lecter, is more believably cast as a guy who's extending his mid-life crisis--and all the delusional flamboyance that goes along with that-- into his golden years.

And there's a delicious twist at the end of You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger that reinforces Woody Allen's philosophical bent that oft-times you can't win for losing.

GRADE: B