CARNAGE (2011)
Rated: R
Two eleven-year old boys get into an altercation. One swings a stick at the other and knocks out a couple of teeth. The two sets of parents get together and try to smooth things over in a polite and civilized manner. The stage is now set (literally--the film is adapted from a stage play) for some delicious dark humor, and some not so appetizing cobbler dessert, in Roman Polanski's Carnage.
Jodie Foster and John C.. Reilly play the odd couple--Michael and Penelope. She's a liberal minded writer. He's in the household supply business, and something of a hamster hating sociopath. Christopher Waltz and Kate Winslet are the upscale pair--Alan and Nancy. He's a corporate attorney, and she's an investment broker.
Initially, everyone is polite. Then, accusation and counter accusation begin to fly in an escalating manner. Booze is poured. We are treated to the spectacle of Nancy tossing her cookies (actually, the aforementioned apple cobbler) all over her husband and Penelope's precious coffee table books. There are great lines like: Their son is a threat to national security! Then, when the spouses turn their rancor upon each other: If you ask me, the couple is the worst ordeal God has ever inflicted on us.
This is a heavyweight cast, and each of the four turns in a bravura performance. But Jodie Foster's tightly wound Penelope--ready to snap at any moment--is something to behold.
Other than the opening setup and the closing shot, Carnage takes place entirely inside Michael and Penelope's Brooklyn apartment. The intimate, close-range aspect of it is reminiscent of My Dinner With Andre, but with decidedly less civil overtones.
Grade: A
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TAKE SHELTER (2011)
Rated: R
Michael Shannon stars as a normal family man who begins having visions of impending disaster, and starts building an underground bomb shelter in his back yard. His wife (Jessica Chastain) thinks he's going schizo. Is he? Pony up some scratch to see it and find out.
There is a building sense of foreboding in Take Shelter (sort of like the way I feel about the upcoming presidential election). It all leads to an understated, yet potent and portentous ending. Some may be disappointed with it, but those are the folks who need to have everything spelled out for them. Anyway, it all fits into the groove of what is in the back of the minds of a lot of people as the countdown to December 21st, 2012 continues. If anybody is crazy, let's hope it's the Mayans. (Those knuckleheads!)
Take Shelter was on a lot of top ten lists of 2011. It misses mine, but not by a whole lot.
Grade: B +
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IN TIME (2011)
Rated: PG-13
Time is money, that's how the saying goes. In the world of the future, that is literally true. People are genetically programmed to stop aging at 25. Then, an electronic digital clock implanted in your wrist begins to count down the days, hours, and minutes until you reach 26. You've got one year, and it's up to you to beg, borrow, or steal more time--otherwise you'll drop stone cold dead. (Hell of a birthday present, eh?)
Yep, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Those who are short on time live in ghettos and scramble to stay alive day to day. The rich, who have hundreds of years in the bank, live in their own segregated world. Just like now. The currency medium is the only thing that has changed. (The way it works is you drive up to a toll booth, for example, and stick your arm out and the attendant collects a few minutes off your life...yes, you can LITERALLY be nickled and dimed to death!)
Justin Timberlake stars as Will Salas, a poor dude who is bequeathed a hundred years by a guy who no longer wants to live. But Salas is accused of the man's murder, and he's on the run. He's pissed-off about the inherent unfairness of the system, (like the Occupy Wall Street gang) so he buys himself some threads and decides to crash the rich folks' party. There he meets the super hot daughter (Amanda Seyfried) of an extremely wealthy man. She's intrigued by him, and they both end up on the lam, running from the "timekeepers" who are out to bring them in. And that's where In Time kicks into another gear.
The movie opened to mostly lackluster reviews, but I was surprised by how much it grew on me
as it sped toward its climax. (You only want to do that in the movies, of course.)
Grade: B
Rated: R
STARS: Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hanigan, Chris Klein, Eddie Kay Thomas, Eugene Levy, Thomas Ian Nichols, Ali Kobrin
DIRECTOR: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
GENRE: Gross-Out Comedy
Must be a testament to the fun and good times the original American Pie cast had in making the film, (and its two sequels) because the WHOLE GANG--Jim, Stifler, Oz, Kevin, Finch, Michelle, Jim's dad and Stifler's mom--are back for another go at it in American Reunion.
Staying true to the formula, there are enough gross-out gags and juvenile hijinks to keep your inner adolescent cackling along throughout.
It's been thirteen years since the original film, and as they plan for a high school reunion back at East Great Falls, Michigan, you'd think these these thirty-somethings might have changed and matured some, but it's really just their circumstances that are different. Jim (Jason Biggs) is married to Michelle, (Alyson Hanigan) and they have a two year old son.
Stifler is a yes-man at a financial firm. Oz is a semi-recognizable sportscaster on TV. Finch is a world traveler who regales the girls with tales of his adventures.
But people still remember the embarrassing YouTube video of Jim's
bedroom misadventures, (from the first film) so it's almost mandatory that he winds up in a similarly compromising situation here. Stifler, (Seann William Scott) the heart and soul of the American Pie franchise with his wild and crazy antics, is obligated to pull another doozy of a caper out of his butt (and he does--in a manner of speaking). And so on.
The subplot involves 18-year old Kara, (Ali Kobrin) the little girl Jim used to babysit
back in the day. She's all grown up in a BIG way, and now she's got a major crush on him. We will see how things have been developing with Kara, in a madcap sequence that begins with her being drunk, and tearing off her clothes, and coming onto the now husband and dad, Jim, (always the hapless fall- guy) in the car as he is innocently trying to take her home.
The various inside jokes in American Reunion will fall flat if you haven't seen the original American Pie. You can still get off on American Reunion if you didn't, but it's like eating apple pie without the whipped cream.(And you wouldn't laugh--or groan--at what I just said unless you HAD seen the original!)
Relationships will be tested, and some will be rekindled, but through it all, we sense that things will right themselves in the end-- because despite all the raunch, this film has a good heart, and that goes a long ways with me--even if it is all the familiar scenarios with an updated twist.
Grade: B
Rated: PG-13
STARS: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks
DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
GENRE: Drama, Action-Adventure, Sci-fi
Normally, I wouldn't lower myself to see a film aimed at 15 year-old girls, but I wanted to see for myself if all the hype and the hoopla surrounding The Hunger Games--the screen adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling teen novel--was justified. I didn't read the book, but in my book, a movie should stand (or stagger) on its own merits anyway.
The brief synopsis: In the dystopian future kingdom of Paner, a yearly "special" Olympics--of sorts--has been devised, which pits twenty-four young people between the ages of twelve and eighteen against each other in a battle to the death. Only one of them will come out alive and be declared the winner. (This person gets that stupid looking Mirabal Trophy from Dancing With The Stars ...NOT!.) The games serve as an ongoing punishment (and a way of keeping the uppities in their place) to the twelve outlying districts of the kingdom for an uprising against the all powerful central government, headed by President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Each district must cough up one male and one female gladiator to compete in the televised gore fest, which employs low-tech weaponry with blades, or bows and arrows, to maximize the up close and personal aspect of the killing.
Our heroine, from District 12--which appears to be the poorest and most downtrodden of the suburbs--is the brave and resourceful Katniss Everdeen, played with effectiveness by Jennifer Lawrence, (Winter's Bone) as the blue-eyed Everygirl who rises to the challenge when it's do or die. Her saving grace is that she's a crack shot with a bow and arrow. And she's our hero because, unlike those other crass kids who just want to survive, she only kills in self defense--when there is no other way out. (Back home, I noticed, she's not as compassionate--she goes deer hunting, and likes to shoot other types of small defenseless furry creatures betwixt the eyes.)
Alliances form among the contestants (like in Survivor, or Big Brother) and Katniss and her male counterpart from District 12, Peeta Mellark, (Josh Hutcherson) are there for each other. Will they make it to the end? Will romance bloom amidst the pervasive carnage? And what of the rule that only one teen must survive?
The first half of The Hunger Games drags, as it's partly exposition, and then the mental and physical preparation the kids must undergo to give themselves a fighting chance. I could sense the mostly teen audience at the showing I attended chomping at the bit like the ancient Romans in the Colosseum--because, let's face it, the video games and comic books they are into are mostly violent in nature.
The second half of the movie gave them their fix.
Woody Harrelson brings a touch of levity to the grisly proceedings as the drunken sot "mentor" to Katniss and Peeta, (gotta love those names) who dispenses mostly thanks-but-no-thanks advice on their upcoming ordeal.
Oh, and you've got to see the most MENACING looking beard in the history of filmdom--sported by Wes Bentley, as the organizer of the games. The sharp-edged design of it--as if he were wearing cutlery on his cheeks--is so heavy handed that it's funny, and it brings me to a pet-peeve about sci-fi films. You know, when the space ships that the invading aliens are traveling in are designed to look like nasty, evil creatures themselves--so there's no second guessing for us as to what they're all about. But I don't think the aliens would advertise their nastiness in such a blatantly obvious manner. In reality, evil often comes in the guise of a beautiful woman-- like a Casey Anthony--or that mass murderer in Norway with the movie star good looks.
And while the dystopian image of a future world--the one depicted in The Hunger Games--seems heartless and cold, that same world exists today. And has existed among our species since pretty near the beginning. A world where innocents--who have no personal reason to hate their adversaries because they've never even met them--are pitted against each other in a kill-or-be-killed spectacle coordinated by governments. Often for no better reason than to gain some strategic political advantage in the world.
It's called war.
Grade: C +
Rated: R
STARS: Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, John Hamm, Chris O'Dowd, Megan Fox
DIRECTOR: Jennifer Westfeldt
GENRE: Romantic Comedy/ Drama
Maya Rudolph, with her hair pinned up, (not a flattering style for most women--flat-out dreadful on her) and looking matronly in that bloated kind of way-- with the sound of young children screaming in the background--is enough to give any fancy-free bachelor the heebie jeebies about the prospect of "connubial bliss" in the new romantic comedy, Friends With Kids.
Kyra Sedgwick look-alike Jennifer Westfeldt writes, directs, and stars as Julie-- a thirty-something New Yorker whose biological clock is ticking. She and longtime best friend, Jason, (Adam Scott) observe their married friends, Leslie and Alex, (Maya Rudolph and Chris O'Dowd) and Missy and Ben, (Kristen Wiig & John Hamm) and figure there must be a better formula. Neither Julie nor Jason have found anyone they want to settle down with, but both are amenable to the idea of child rearing, And though they are not physically attracted to one another, they decide to "do it" one time, become pregnant, and raise the child together while keeping their relationship platonic--which gives them both the freedom to continue to screw around with whomever. THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS!
Ah, if only there were such a thing.
So out pops an adorable kid, and things go along nicely for about two years, as our friends- without-benefits couple feels they've beaten the system and avoided the pitfalls of the dreary lives their married friends with kids have settled into. Jason meets his perfect woman, a Broadway dancer named Mary Jane, (Megan Fox) and Julie finds her hunky guy, and hey...it appears that what we have here is a forward thinking, avant garde kind of romantic comedy!
Not so fast, Kemosabe!
You can bend, but not break the romcom formula, and the ending of Friends With Kids is telegraphed from the time Jason and Julie's little scheme is hatched--though there are plenty of deftly placed road hazards along the way to keep many a- guessing about that.
The film kicks into another gear when their son asks: WHY DOESN'T DADDY STAY ALL NIGHT? Aha...now we've all got to stop and think about what it means to be a REAL mom and dad--and that becomes the essential and lingering question in Friends With Kids--and it's what gives the movie its deeper and more contemplative tone.
If you buy the idea set forth in When Harry Met Sally--that men and women cannot TRULY be friends, (unless they're both hideous) because there is always this subtle boy-girl thing operating beneath the surface, then the oh-how-I-could-never-be-attracted-to-you thing is a bit overplayed here. Both Jason and Julie are attractive people, and the awkwardness and near revulsion they seem to feel for each other when they initially hop into bed to do the deed is played for laughs--not realism!
Jennifer Westfeldt is just as big a potty-mouth as any male screenwriter, which may or may not add to your enjoyment of this film. I think I was the only guy in the theater--surrounded by chicks on all sides--and they were yukking it up throughout.
Oh, how jaded we've all become. Guess my old-fashioned side is showing, but I think we guys have lost some kind of edge when women can no longer be shocked by in-your-face sexuality.
Grade: B +
Rated: PG-13
STARS: Amanda Seyfried, Daniel Sunjata, Wes Bentley, Sebastian Stan,
Emily Wickersham
DIRECTOR: Heitor Dhalia
GENRE: Psychological Thriller
Would you begin to question your own sense of reality when everyone around you is telling you that you are delusional? Young Jill Parrish (Amanda Seyfried) never wavers from her belief in her own truth--but the questions remain, and become intensified for the audience in the new thriller, Gone, from Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia.
Jill has a history. A history of mental illness. Or so it is has been declared. A year ago she told a story of being kidnapped by a really bad dude who kept her imprisoned in a well and tried to kill her. She escaped. But her story didn't check out with the police. They could find no trace of the man, and no trace of the big hole in the ground where she claimed he kept her. Another blow to her credibility is that she spent some time in a mental institution after her ordeal.
When her sister, Molly, (Emily Wickersham) turns up missing from the home they share together, she fears that the man is back--intending to take her again, but settling for the sister when Jill wasn't home. She reports the disappearance to the cops, but due to her history, they flat out don't believe her. I found this element of Gone hard to swallow, because no matter what, the authorities are supposed to routinely follow up on missing persons reports. These cops come off as totally cavalier boobs. But, as is often the case with the psychological thriller genre, SOMEBODY has to be or do something really stupid to make the plot work.
Jill is thrust into the role of being the lone crusader trying to find and save Molly before it's too late. When the police learn she has a gun, they feel she may be a danger to herself and others, and so the "manhunt" for her is on. It then becomes a race against time--and this is where the dramatic tension is created--as Jill tries to find a potential killer before the cops nab her and put her out of commission.
Gone is a decent thriller--nothing that's going to tax your brain all that much--we know we will learn in the end whether Jill is connected to reality or a real nut job. And whether sis--who has a drinking problem--has maybe just gone off on an alcoholic bender and will stagger home later with a slurred WHASSUP, SUCKAHS? There ARE enough red herrings floating around in the soup of this movie to keep us guessing and second guessing as to who the real bad guy is-assuming he exists.
Amanda Seyfried herself may be the biggest draw for guys--she's at least a 9 on the beauty scale--with (not Betty Davis) Zooey Deschanel eyes, big as saucers. She turns in a believable performance as the girl nobody believes. (Tell me what I say!)
Nobody else worth mentioning here, but doggone if Gone doesn't deliver a satisfying "touche" type of ending that may put a smile on your face as you walk out of the theater.
Grade: B
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow
Director: Stephen Daldry
Genre: Melodrama
Maybe I've been watching too many art house and independent films lately, because as Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close began to unfold, I felt there was real potential there.... BUT... then that aura of SLICK HOLLYWOOD PRODUCTION just started dripping from every pore of it, and I knew what I was in for. How to describe...well...blatant manipulation of your emotions at every turn, where the poignancy of it seems manufactured, rather than stemming naturally from the story. Let's see, what would a character naturally say and do here? Hmm...forget that...gotta be something really gooey to get those tears gushing.
Oskar (Thomas Horn) is a precocious, but socially inept 11 year-old whose dad, Thomas Schell, (Tom Hanks) perished in the World Trade Center on 9/11. By all accounts, he was a good dad. He invented scavenger hunt games and made up stories to stimulate his son's imagination and get him to interact with other people. There's the fanciful story of New York's "lost sixth borough," for example. (Which kinda took me in, even.)
On the day of the tragedy, Oskar stands frozen and listens to the increasingly frantic phone calls on the answering machine from his father. He decides to conceal the recordings from his mother (Sandra Bullock). A year later, the boy is still consumed by his loss. In his dad's closet, he finds a key in a vase with the word "Black" written on the envelope. Oskar surmises that the key must have been left for him to find, and that it must fit the lock of some box that contains undiscovered messages from his father, in the event of his early demise. And that Black must be the surname of the person who holds the key (no pun intended) to this mystery. So he compiles a list of everyone in the five boroughs named Black (and there's a crapload of them) and sets off on an odyssey to visit each one of them until the mystery is solved.
Again, there were some things here that drew me in...the disparate people that he meets...their own stories of personal loss, or just the touching ways in which they send him off with love and godspeed. Unfortunately, and I don't know if this was intended, or it's just the way the inexperienced young actor comes off, (they found him from an appearance on Jeopardy) Oskar is extremely obnoxious and incredibly annoying--an insufferable little brat who feels entitled to make all the world feel guilty about HIS pain, and HIS loss, because no one else has ever experienced such things, you see. He continually spouts off from recall a bunch of amazing facts and figures in a monotone staccato voice, like some kind of idiot-savant, to illustrate his points and show us how bright he is for his age.That's fine as far as it goes--but in scenes that would seem to require it, the young Mr. Horn appears unable to convey any real nuance of emotion.
Why was he chosen for the protagonist role in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? Because Haley Joel Osment and Macaulay Culkin are grown up now...what do you want from me??? (But he's got plenty of time to learn his craft, and no doubt will improve.)
No one feels obliged to put Oskar in his place. Not even his mother, who is still dealing with her own pain, but tries to carry it with some semblance of dignity. In what is surely the most manipulative scene in this movie, her son, with venom in his eyes, tells his mom that he wishes SHE had been in the World Trade Center that day, instead of his dad. (If you can imagine.) There is a pregnant pause--we're supposed to wait for her reply because it will surely be good--but I knew immediately what she was going to say. The one self-deprecating thing she could have said designed to wrench the maximum amount of boo-hoo from the audience.
The only one who tries to rein the kid in is the mysterious man who rents a room at Oskar's grandmas place, played by the great Max von Sydow. He doesn't speak. Not because he can't, but because he's suffered a trauma of his own. The renter decides to accompany the boy on his arduous odyssey through New York City.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also suffers from some totally implausible plot elements near the end. With all of its flaws, the film is still an extremely (see how I like to play off that word?) effective tearjerker. There was lots of sniffling going on around me in the theatre, and I know all those people didn't have colds. Me, I had a little piece of rock in my eye...or something...and kept tearing up to try to flush it out.
Bring lots of tissue.
Grade: B --
Hey kiddies...my list is appearing a little later than many others, because I wanted to make sure I had seen most of the promising films that were released right near the end of the year. In putting this list of the top eleven films of 2011 together, my main criteria were twofold:
1.COULD I RELATE TO IT ON A HUMAN LEVEL? (Meaning it had more substance than just great special effects and all kinds of crap getting blown up every few seconds.)
2. DID IT MAKE ME SMILE? (Either because it was damn funny, or because it touched my heart in some way--which always makes me smile.)
Yes, I've seen many of the films that appeared on other critic's lists, and most of them received at least a "B" grade from me...but they didn't quite measure up to the one's below. Nevertheless, feel free to argue in favor of anything you feel passionate about, (except the hot date you had last night) as I respond to all comments.
SO HERE WE GO--TIMMY'S TOP TEN (PLUS ONE) BEST FILMS OF 2011!
(Click on the title to see my full review of each film.)
11. Tuesday, After Christmas
10. Cowboys & Aliens
9. The Adjustment Bureau
8. Crazy, Stupid Love
7. The Names Of Love
6. Horrible Bosses
5. Circumstance
4. Submarine
3. The Artist
2. My Week With Marilyn
1. Young Adult
Honorable mention: Hugo, I Am Number Four, Cedar Rapids, The Ides of March, The Lincoln Lawyer, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Midnight In Paris, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.
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