BEFORE MIDNIGHT (2013)

Rated: R

Stars: Ethan Hawke,  Julie Delpy,  Seamus David-Fitzpatrick

Director: Richard Linklater

Genre: Drama/Arthouse


In Before Sunrise and Before Sunset,  Jesse and  Celine  (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy)  were falling in love.  In the third leg of the trilogy, Before Midnight, we find them as a  middle-aged couple with two young daughters. Jesse has a teenaged son who lives with his estranged wife back in the states.  

The film opens with Jesse and his boy, Hank, (Seamus David-Fitzpatrick) at the airport. Hank is returning to Chicago after spending some time on dad's turf in Europe. The father -son connection will figure prominently into the plot, as it's ripple effect will cause some tension between Jesse and Celine. Jesse wants them to consider moving to the states so he can be a real part of his son's life. Celine feels that's too radical of a shift. 

So we are there in the car with Jesse, Celine, and their adorable daughters, who are zonked out in the back seat. The two adults talk about all manner of mundane subjects. They talk. And they talk. And they talk. And while this extended scene is playing out, I'm beginning to wonder if I might soon be joining the little ones in la la land. 

And then I catch on.

Before Midnight is to be a movie in the mold of My Dinner With Andre, where the entire film is one long conversation around the dinner table. Here we thankfully get a few changes of scene along the way, but the similarity between the two films can't be ignored. We are the third wheel--the fly upon the wall--along for the ride to witness all the intimacy of this couple's life together, which ranges from an extended dinner table conversation with extended family, (everything about this film is extended) to some real intimacy in the bedroom where the sparks begin to fly. 

And it's all freaking BRILLIANT!

I gotta figure that much of the dialogue is off the cuff, because who is going to be able to deliver rehearsed lines in one continuous take that runs for a half an hour or so, without messing up?  Can you imagine the director, Richard Linklater, yelling "CUT"  twenty minutes into the scene, and they have to go back and take it from the top like, a hundred times? 

The brilliance of Before Midnight is that it is so fascinatingly real. In these tour-de-force performances from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, there is more than just acting going on here. These two have immersed themselves into their characters to a degree that is rarely seen these days. Life, death, love, loathing, conflict, philosophy--it's all there. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the extended toplessness of  Delpy in the bedroom scene. That really topped it off for me.   

Grade: A

JILL'S TAKE

Finally: a film that backs up the boxing kangaroo image.... I couldn't disagree more with Tim's praise-worthy review of this endless talkathon. I haven't seen the other two films in this tired trilogy but BEFORE MIDNIGHT has the power to make any "hopeless romantic" give up Valentine's Day. Clearly the two actors had a hand—a heavy one—in the improvised script for which they both get a credit at the end. We all know that women can drive you crazy with their incessant, unforgiving, beating-a-dead-horse repetitions of what pisses them off. And we also know that a man's best (and sometimes only) defense is deflecting the situation with humor. Yes, French-American actress Julie Delpy has a nice set of knockers. And yes, Ethan Hawke (ex hubby of Uma Thurman) uses his boyish smile effectively. But do I really need to sit through one hour and forty-eight minutes of this self-indulgence? For me, nice tits and a nice smile aren't nearly enough.

If I had to say something positive about this film? The scenery is spectacular. And I suppose I'd have to compliment director Richard Linklater for the relaxed and realistic way he shot that last supper scene which was, for me, the only redeeming five minutes in the entire film. In this instance, Tim and I saw BEFORE MIDNIGHT separately (him in Tucson, me in La Jolla). Had we seen it together, we'd probably still be in the empty movie theater arguing about our very divided reactions!

Grade: D

  

AT ANY PRICE (2012)

Rated : R


Stars: Dennis Quaid,  Zach Efron,  Maika Monroe,  Kim Dickens,  Heather Graham

Director: Ramin Bahrani

Genre: Drama

In At Any Price, Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid) is a glad-handing, stab you in the back kind of guy--not exactly what comes to mind when you hear the word "farmer." Henry inherited a family farm that at one time was a neighborly kind of operation--I know because I spent many of my formative years on an Iowa farm, like Henry. So what made him this way?  Big business, which has extended its money-grubbing reach and turned farming into a cut-throat enterprise, as the mantra "get big or die" echoes o'er the land.  At least that is the case for those like Henry, a salesman for the Liberty Company and its genetically modified corn seeds. Henry competes with other salesmen to carve out his territory by being the most successful sales rep in a multi-county area. 

The Liberty Seed Company--as anyone who has a mild awareness of what's going on in the agribusiness these days will recognize--is a stand-in for Monsanto. If you don't know the whole Monsanto story and the way in which genetically modified seeds have been foisted upon the farming community, you need to see a revealing documentary called "Food, Inc." which will get you up to speed.  

Henry would like to see his son, Dean, (Zach Efron) join him in the business, but Dean has dreams of becoming a NASCAR race driver, as he routinely picks up trophies for winning races at the local track. But is Dean a born racer, or are his aspirations born more out of a disgust for his father's lack of integrity?  We will find out, so don your helmet and strap yourself in. 

Henry's family is fractured in other ways as well. He has another son who is off climbing mountains in South America and doesn't want to come back. His wife, Irene, (Kim Dickens) tells him she loves him, but that he makes her feel like a fool for it everyday. Mix in his mistress, the alluring Meredith, (Heather Graham) stir that pot, and you've some toil and trouble a brewin.' .

Throughout At Any Price we see those monolithic windmills towering above the cornfields. But they're different from the old style windmills we had when I was a kid--sleeker looking---and the way in which director Ramin Bahrani keeps returning to them is highly symbolic of the prevailing winds that now blow over these vast fields of green---an ill wind that blows no good. 

Despite it all, we'd like  to see Henry's family come together in the end--but the way in which that is accomplished is the dark and sinister part of this film. Is this a marriage of convenience--as in three conspirators who need each other to keep their stories straight to cover for some serious misdeeds--or have they finally grown to appreciate each other for who they are? At any rate, you will leave the theater in a reflective mood. 

At Any Price features good performances from Quaid and Efron, though Quaid's Henry--with that cemented on ear to ear grin-- may be a bit more of a caricature than I  am willing to totally buy into. 

Grade:  B +

JILL'S TAKE

If I shared what I felt was the major flaw in AT ANY PRICE, I'd ruin it for you. And if there's one thing that really pisses me off it's reading a review that reveals too much about a movie. Suffice it to say that I didn't buy the idea that all three "conspirators" would be able to pull off the conspiracy. (That didn't give away anything, did it?)

Dennis Quaid's character adds new dimensions to the word "smarmy." And his devoted wife has definitely never read an issue of "Cosmo." But the actor who impressed me the most was Zach Efron (whose last name means "lark" in Hebrew). From Farley Granger to Tab Hunter, Hollywood has always had its quota of pretty boy actors. And before I saw this 25-year-old golden boy in AT ANY PRICE, I would've put him in that same category. But despite his perfect face and well plucked eyebrows, Zach Efron has acting chops. And the role of Dean Whipple gives him plenty of opportunities to use them.

Since Tim forgot to mention it—but I know he agrees with me—the score by Dickon Hinchliffe was excellent. Too often people take the background music for granted. But it is "instrumental" (pardon the pun) in creating a mood. As was a wonderful scene in this movie where bleachers full of corn-fed spectators at a local drag race sing The National Athem a cappella. What a marvelous way to cement those folksy faces in our minds. Americana at its best – and worst. When I went to see this flick, I wasn't expecting to like it. But by the time I left the theater, I couldn't stop talking about the many underlying themes.

GRADE: B

THE HANGOVER PART III (2013)

Rated: R

Stars: Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Justin Bartha

Director: Todd Phillips

Genre:  Gross-out Comedy


It's hard to catch lightning in a bottle. Todd Phillips and company did it with the original film, which was an instant classic, but you know, milking that cash cow is so hard to resist,(ask Sylvester Stallone) so now we have two sequels that pale in comparison to The Hangover. 

The Hangover Part III is uneven and inexplicably mean-spirited in tone (I've never understood the mindset that thinks animal cruelty is funny). The film's saving grace, I suppose, is that it's frat-boy humor--and that's what this is from start to finish--slaughters all  sacred cows, so no one should complain that they've been singled out. Yes, there are laughs here and there, but it's the scattershot approach to humor--as in throwing a bunch of crap up against the wall--some of it's going to stick, and some of it is going to plop flat.

In a departure from the formula for the first two films, The Hangover Part III is targeting the action/adventure crowd, as it follows The Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, and Justin Bartha) from Mexico to Las Vegas, with bang 'em up car chases  and dudes getting shot, as the manhunt is on for the maniacal Mr.Chow (Ken Jeong). Chow has ripped-off mega millions in gold bullion from crime boss Marshall,(John Goodman)who has commissioned our boys to bring him back, or else. 

Chow is an over-the-top caricature of an out of control sociopath who has no regard for any kind of life--human or animal--and merely does what is is callously expedient to serve his own single-minded purpose.  He is so far from plausible as any kind of real person that the writers apparently figured anything  and everything  he does will get a guffaw out of some sick puppy in the audience, and even if there are only varied and scattered  pockets of laughter, everyone should come away with at least one or two bits they felt were really bitchin.'

I dunno, I get the impression Bradly Cooper was slumming in this project, as was Ed Helms, who is a considerable comic presence in his own right--as he has shown in the TV hit The Office , and his starring gig in Cedar Rapids--but there wasn't enough room for him to shine with Zach Galifianakis' and Ken Jeong's antics dominating.

While Mr. Chow is the despicable anti-hero, Alan, (Galifianakis) who is equally amoral in his own way, (opening the movie transporting  a CGI  giraffe down the freeway, its neck too long to clear one of the underpasses, and...)is a more endearing presence as the clueless man-child.

The Hangover III is like the third hangover you get when you start drinking as a teenager. The first two you can rack up to innocence and inexperience, but the third one, there's no real excuse for it. And puzzling--to say the least--why, in a film aimed primarily at younger guys, there's no T & A worth mentioning (and I'm wording it that way to forewarn you of a sight gag at the end that flops.) 

There is one great line here, though, and that is as the Wolfpack are cruising into Las Vegas, and someone says  offhandedly, "Somebody should burn this place to the ground."

That really made me smile.

Grade: C--

JILL'S TAKE

Oh dear. I hate to ruin that clever visual of me and Tim as boxing 'roos, never quite agreeing on anything. But I'm definitely in his corner when it comes to HANGOVER, PART III. Okay. Every once in a while, like all the other sick puppies in the audience, I'd laugh. I'm a sucker for sight gags. But this film has so little to recommend it that I actually felt guilty for laughing.

What's good about it?

If you've never visited Vegas, you'll feel like you have after watching the long, lingering shots of Caesar's Palace, the water fountains outside The Bellagio, The Strip....

I'm a big fan of Zach Galifianakis so I was looking forward to more of his endearing antics. I'd seen his comedy special on HBO and the guy is truly brilliant. But not in this piece of cinematic claptrap.

Another brilliant comedienne whose talents are underused in HANGOVER, PART III is Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids, 2011), who plays Cassie, a less-than-feminine clerk working behind the counter of video games arcade. (Or was it a casino?) Doesn't matter, really, as she was given less on-camera time than the giraffe! As for People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive!" (2011), I'll bet Bradley Cooper is a lot prouder of that achievement than appearing in this over-hyped, super hapless sequel.

Grade: D

And now, the BIGGEST announcement in the history of  Timmy's Noodle Film Reviews!  (Not that we've had any big announcements prior to this.) Author, Broadway playwright, and former RCA recording artist Jill Williams is joining this blog as a regular contributor--giving you the benefit of two perspectives for the price of one. Jill was married to a two-time Oscar winner, which gives her instant "street cred" as a film reviewer.  

So now you'll get my review, immediately followed by Jill's take on the same movie. We won't always agree--as you will see...oh, will you EVER see...but that's going to be part of the fun.

So please join me in welcoming Jill Williams!   

ON THE ROAD (2012)

Rated: R

Stars: Sam Riley, Garrett Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi, Tom Sturridge

Director: Walter Salles

Genre: Drama/Arthouse


The first thing I want to see at the beginning of a period movie is that the sets and the hairstyles and clothing of the actors is reflective of that era. In other words, to feel that I am authentically THERE. Otherwise, it's pretty stupid to ask you to believe you are watching a scene from the late forties, for example, when all the primary characters have contemporary looking hair styles. It's like they time traveled BACK to that era as their current selves, rather than being the authentic folks FROM that era. Some may think that's a relatively minor point, but I don't. And that's the first thing that irks me about On The Road, the film adaptation of beat poet Jack Kerouac's novel of "high" adventure in late forties and early fifties America.

I read the novel some time back, but if you are unfamiliar with it, you'll need to keep in mind that in the book--as it is in the film--that Kerouac has thinly disguised himself as a character called Sal Paradise, (Sam Riley) and his close friend Neal Cassady,(Garrett Hedlund) as Dean Moriarty. The third primary character is Cassady's free-spirited wife, Marylou (Kristen Stewart). 

Okay, here it comes again...they didn't even try...they didn't even TRY to do anything with Stewart's straightish, beyond shoulder-length hair that looks the same in the movie as it looks in any current publicity shot of her. That's the end of my rant, except that I've posted a picture of what women's hairstyles really looked like in the forties at the head of this review. 

So now they're all off to look for America in a drugged-up haze of weed fumes, Benzedrine and bongo drums. On The Road the movie is, like the book, a rambling recounting of aimless bohemian youth in all its hedonistic glory. It's evident that everyone involved in this production is trying real hard to bring off the unbringable and recreate the spontaneous, frenetic feel of the book, and to an extent they succeed. 

Kristen Stewart, whom up until now has been associated with a variety of vacuous vampire flicks, loses her adolescent image-- along with her duds--as a seductive predecessor to the free love movement of the sixties with a couple of steamy, revealing scenes,including a menage a trois with Paradise and Moriarty. 

Heglund is well cast as Moriarty/Cassady, but Sam Riley as Paradise/Kerouac just felt WRONG! Jack Kerouac had a kind of Boston "blue collar-ness" to him, and a bit of an edge to his personality that Riley--who comes off as slightly effeminate in the role--simply did not bring.

A bevy of household names are here in either small roles or cameos, including Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams, and Steve Buscemi. Seems they all wanted to be a part of something legendary. The book is legendary, the movie is not, but On The Road--your quintessential arthouse film-- becomes more fascinating as it snakes and weaves recklessly along its way to a sobering conclusion. 

Grade:  C +

FROM THE DISTAFF SIDE--Jill's Take!

[In case Tim doesn't include this in his introduction, I'm his bona fide movie buddy. We see everything together—and agree on nothing. That's what prompted the idea of me adding my two cents in writing rather than bending his ear in the parking lot.]

I'm usually very quick to have opinions, and strong ones. But ON THE ROAD left me wondering how I felt about it. Hairstyles be damned, it was long and disjointed. And I should have hated it. Only I didn't. And the embarrassing thing is, I can't really tell you why. Except that the film created a kind of innocence of the era. No cell phones, no seat belts. There's a scene—it won't ruin the movie for you—where Sal Paradise/Sam Riley goes into a mom-and-pop store to steal some food and the clerk says he'll be right back, heading for the supply room. Would that happen today? No way. The clerk would probably have a gun hidden below the cash register. I much preferred the road scenes to the endless pot-smoking orgies. Yes, the film meandered. And yes, the main character was nobody I'd ever empathize with. But for once in our joint movie history, I'd rate this flick higher than my male cohort. If for no other reason than to watch all those megastars—especially Steve Buscemi as a smarmy closet gay, and naked-from-the-rear Viggo Mortensen—making quickie appearances.

Grade: B

MUD (2013)

Rated: PG-13

Stars: Matthew McConaughey,  Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon, Jacob Lofland, Ray Mckinnon, Sam Shepard, Sarah Paulson

Director: Jeff Nichols

Genre:  Drama

Mud has a little bit of everything--mystery , suspense, romance, rednecks, rootin' tootin' shoot 'em up action,  angst, rednecks, young love, and... uh...rednecks. The cast--many of them with southern roots, including  Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon--are convincingly  "redneckish."

McConaughey is the  loose cannon known as "Mud," whom we find  hanging out on this small island in the Mississippi river. He is discovered there by two adventurous 14 year-old  boys:  Ellis, (Tye Sheridan)  and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland).  Mud has dirt on him throughout most of the movie--especially on his hands--but he doesn't care, and he eats beans from a can with his fingers. (It's never really explained why his name is Mud, but that's what everybody who knows him calls him too. When you're covered with dirt, I guess that's what you get when it rains). Mud  is trying to avoid an unpleasant encounter with the law and a gang of bounty hunters who are on his tail for the killing of a man who was mean to his one and only love, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).

Witherspoon calls upon her Tennessee roots to channel a simple kind of gal in blue jean cutoffs who is waiting in town to hook up with Mud again when the moment is right. Unfortunately, she gets distracted by other men during her vigil, and it gets back to her longtime lover. Part of what Mud is about is the emotional rolllercoaster Mud and Juniper are riding with one another. But it's just as much a coming of age story about the two boys--particularly Ellis--who goes around trying to punch out people who are bigger than him, (in some instances successful, in some not) mostly when he sees a girl being mistreated. In that sense, he is a chip off the old block for Mud, and maybe that's why he takes a shine to the fugitive and believes in his innate goodness. Ellis is more than willing to do the mud man's bidding, which is primarily to act as emissary between Mud and Juniper.    

We're supposed to root for Mud, because he has shown his tender side with his love for and devotion to Juniper. But he has gotten himself into quite a jam...or pickle...or any other food metaphor you want to use, and how he's going to extricate himself won't be determined until Tom, his surrogate father figure from the past, (Sam Shepard) weighs in. Tom is a former sharpshooter with the Marines, and he will have something to say about the outcome before it's all said and done. 

Mud, which starts off  kinda slow, keeps building like a bonfire where more and more kindling is being heaped onto it--and some A-hole has tossed some cherry bombs in there too--leading to an explosive climax that will give action fans plenty of what they want.  

There are numerous subplots--including  Ellis's infatuation with an older girl, which is going to teach him something about women; and the sad state of affairs surrounding Ellis's parents, (Ray McKinnon & Sarah Paulson) who are breaking up, and are too distracted to do much parenting, though his father tries in his  ineffectual way. While McConaughey's performance here is being touted as Oscar worthy, not much due is being given to McKinnon's sensitive and multi-layered portrayal of a man whose world is slowly crumbling around him. It should be noted. He is the true tragic figure in this film.

Ultimately, Mud is pretty unrealistic, but most movies are. The fine performances here overshadow that little detail. Tye Sheridan, as Ellis, gets to show his emotional range, and he is going to turn into a fine actor. With Lofland, we can't really tell, because not much is required of him other than a sidekick's monosyllabic responses here and there. But I swear by looking at these two kids that they were both in Stand By Me--but then, they would be a little long in the tooth for that by now.

Grade:  B + 

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP (2013)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Robert Redford,  Shia LaBeouf,  Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie

Director: Robert Redford

Genre: Mystery/Suspense, Political Thriller 


The Boston Marathon bombing has given The Company You Keep  a kind of relevance and topicality it might not otherwise have appeared to possess. The film pings upon historical events from the politically turbulent sixties and seventies to present a fictionalized story that bears the ring of authenticity.   

The Weather Underground, which came to be known as the Weathermen, grew out of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the late sixties.  It was a revolutionary group that conducted bombings of U.S. government buildings, and other targets, primarily in protest of the Vietnam war. As the movie opens,  a  former member of the group, Sharon Solarz, (Susan Sarandon) who had been hiding out as a suburban housewife, is preparing to turn herself in for her part in a bank robbery that turned deadly back in the seventies.  (Look up Sara Jane Olsen, aka Kathleen Soliah!) 

The ensuing publicity results in one of her cohorts, lawyer Jim Grant, being ferreted out by  cub reporter Ben Shepard, (Shia LaBeouf) who is still cutting his teeth at an Albany, New York newspaper.  Grant (Robert Redford) is in reality Nick Sloan, and he may or may not be guilty of having participated in that same robbery. He goes on the run to attempt to prove his innocence, and in the process reunites with some of his old comrades, which gives Nick Nolte, Richard Jenkins, and Julie Christie a reason to be in this movie.  

Sloan is particularly anxious to hook up with his old flame, Mimi Lurie, (Julie Christie) who, unlike some of the others, hasn't developed a different perspective through the passage of time. (Christie, who is now in her early seventies, is eerily reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn here.)  Lurie is unapologetic for carrying the same ideals that galvanized her, and many of her contemporaries back in the day, to demonstrate what people power can actually accomplish by bringing an unjust war to an end.  When their clandestine meeting finally occurs,  Lurie still has fire in her eyes--still railing against a system that brought us Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the loss of so many innocent lives on all sides. 

 I think it was Redford's intention, by taking on this project,  to give a little poke at a society that has grown complacent in many ways--and to say HEY, the questions raised in the Vietnam era haven't gone away--they are still here, as relevant today as they ever were. 

To those too young to have lived through these events, The Company You Keep may simply seem to be relating a tale of homegrown terrorism from another era.  Baby boomers are more likely to grasp the complexity of the issues that existed at the time. And while there is  no disputing that  their actions were tragically misguided, the difference between organizations like The Weathermen and the Boston bombers is that the former believed that they loved their country, whereas the latter apparently hated it. 

That said, The Company You Keep  does a good job of bringing some balanced perspective to an era that becomes ever more misunderstood as time passes and we grow farther and farther away from the fact. Efforts to try to rewrite history for the purpose of promoting a particular agenda are something that should be vigilantly guarded against.

There are some intriguing twists and turns, and a few loose ends don't get tied up at the conclusion, but beyond the nuts and bolts of the plot, The Company You Keep is a thoughtful attempt to examine still relevant questions about the use and misuse of government power.

Grade:  B +