THE WORDS (2012)

Rated:  PG-13

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde
Director: Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal
Genre: Romantic drama/ Mystery


A friend of mine predicts that Jeremy Irons' performance in The Words  will garner him an Oscar nomination. My crystal ball is somewhat murkier on that score. It's a damn good turn, to be sure, but knowing how the Academy normally has to be ga ga about the film itself to bestow such individual recognition--and The Words is getting panned by a lot of critics--all bets are off.  Those who aren't dismissing the film, however, are glowing about it, creating a dichotomy of opinion that I always find intriguing, and therefore ready to jump into the fray and lay out the naked truth...the gospel...the straight poop. (Regular visitors to this site know that I've never dispensed any crooked poop!)

Fact is, that by the time the closing credits were rolling, I was blown away by this movie--but it wasn't until the actual ending that it had grown on me to that degree. The Words is a tale within a tale within a tale, which can make you forget who the Original Storyteller is to begin with...kind of like all of us wee lost souls here on planet earth (the "riders on the storm"  that Jim Morrison sang about). 

Bradley Cooper is Rory Jansen, a talented writer, but apparently not talented enough to get his novels published. When he discovers an old manuscript that he instinctively senses is better and more marketable than anything he has created himself, he does some soul searching--but not a whole lot of it--and decides to claim  the work as his own. Now a celebrated author, Rory's karma catches up to him in the form of the old man who actually wrote the book (Jeremy Irons) 

Interwoven is the story "Old Man" (he is never given a name) created in his novel, about his days as a GI in Paris, the woman he falls in love with, and the personal tragedy they bear together. 

Eventually we are steered back to the creator of both these fictional tales, writer Clay Hammond, (Dennis Quaid). 

Or ARE they fictional?  Heh heh.

Or...has a writer so fallen in love with one of his own characters that the lines between fiction and reality have become so blurred as to be indistinguishable? 

The ending of  The Words  should leave you questioning just what is and what isn't--which may be disconcerting to some--but as a writer I was entranced by the ambiguity...by the possibilities being raised...by  a film that actually made me think enough about it as I was heading for the exit that I forgot to stop and take a pee! And one that I will definitely consider seeing again. The only question in my mind is whether the average film goer is going to find it quite as fascinating as some of us literary types will be wont to do.  

Grade:  B +
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MOONRISE KINGDOM (2012)

Rated: PG-13


STARS: Jared Gilman,  Kara Hayward,  Bruce Willis,  Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand,  Tilda Swinton
DIRECTOR:  Wes Anderson
GENRE: Comedy


You've got your quirky film characters, and then you've got your quirky films, and Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom--a sepia-toned homage to young love--fits the latter category. 


Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward) are two twelve year old social misfits who carry through on a pact to run away with each other. Sam is a would-be orphan who has  worn out his welcome with his foster parents, and has just "resigned" from his Khaki Scout troop because he feels he doesn't fit in . Suzy is a surly problem child in a family of parents who are bored out of their gourd with each other (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand).


Their flight is largely symbolic, because they are on an island off the coast New England, and it's not like they won't eventually be sniffed out by police captain Sharp (Bruce Willis) or the gaggle of Scout Master Ward's charges who are hot on the missing  couple's tail. Willis is playing against type here--as a sensitive kind of guy with a heart, and it's refreshing to see. 


Any film that Bill Murray is in, I'm expecting  him to be the dominant presence, (unless it's a true cameo) displaying his deadpan wit and charm to full advantage. But that takes a back seat in Moonrise Kingdom to the two young stars and Edward Norton's adultolescent Scoutmaster Ward. 


So Sam and Suzy traverse the island, setting up camp and relying on Sam's scouting skills to survive, while exploring  their puppy love in innocently provocative ways. But there's a big storm a-brewing off the coast,  creating a renewed sense of urgency amongst the adults to locate the runaways. The storm could be a metaphor for  all of the institutionalized societal and parental forces forever poised to quash amorous exploration by the young  with an iron fist. 


While  Sam and Suzy are precociously testing the waters of adulthood, some of the grownups in Moonrise Kingdom are cartoonishly dorky and not terribly mature. But the story is set in 1965--a time when most adults WERE still pretty dorky--plaid pants and all.


And while the  film is listed as a comedy, the humor is so unswervingly  deadpan that nary a  chuckle was heard from the patrons at the showing I attended,  though I think most must have been sitting there, like myself,  with a bemused grin throughout. And any film where you haven't correctly guessed what is about to come next goes a long way toward winning me over.


The only misstep, in my opinion, is the magic realism  that literally strikes  from the heavens  in the latter part of the film, turning a tale that was still plausible--if unlikely--into the realm of a cartoon where Wile E. Coyote gets his ass blown up by a bomb, or falls off a cliff,  but jumps back up a second later no worse for the wear.


Tilda Swinton has a turn as the demanding and uncompromising bureaucrat known only as "Social Services," who wants to nab Sam and stick him in an orphanage. Jason Schwartzman and Harvey Keitel also appear. 


With a creative and  imaginative soundtrack by Benjamin Britten.


Grade:  B +


        

THE INTOUCHABLES (2012)

STARS: Francois Cluzet, Omar Sy
DIRECTOR: Eric Toledano, Olivier Nakache
GENRE: Comedy/Drama (French with subtitles)


Rated:  R


I think about the great onscreen couples: Sylvester Stallone and Talia Shire in Rocky. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally. Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy. And now I must add Froncois Cluzet and Omar Sy in The Intouchables.


The odd couple who find common ground and make it work in spite of themselves has long been an appealing film premise. In The Intouchables, we have rich guy Philippe, (Francois Cluzet) paralyzed and wheelchair bound. Driss (Omar Sy) is a rude, crude, and lewd African dude (an ex-con) who shows up one day at Phillipe's palatial digs to apply for the job of caregiver/companion. After seeing a battery of milquetoast applicants for the job, Philippe sees something in the brash  Driss--a diamond in the rough--and gives him the job.


Driss propositions the female help in the household, and manhandles  people who park their cars where they may be blocking his access to the street.  But what Philippe sees in the man is freedom. With Driss, his spirit can be unleashed, even as he languishes in that chair--the result of a paragliding accident.  


Philippe's intuition is accurate.


Driss is the ultimate instinctive man--totally comfortable in his own skin. The kind of person who makes those who live by convention nervous. He takes Philippe on a wild high-speed ride through the streets of Paris with the cops in hot pursuit. They evade the gendarmes for a while, (some great stunt driving) but are eventually boxed in and surrounded. Apparently, they are now going to pay the price.  The way they finagle themselves out of their predicament is sheer bravado and comic genius.


Philippe's paralysis has not erased his desire for affection, and a subplot has him writing flowery letters to a female  "pen pal." Driss,  in his adorable cut-the-crap way, tells him to simply pick up the phone and call her. They may or may not meet someday--though initially she doesn't know that Phillipe is a quadriplegic.  


The Intouchables is an international hit because it's breezy, uplifting, touching, heartwarming, and funny--with sparkling chemistry between these two fine actors. And it's got a great everybody dance scene (except Phillipe, of course) to one of my favorite Earth Wind and Fire songs.  


Grade:  A

A TITILLATING TRIO NOW PLAYING ON HOME THEATRE: SLEEPING BEAUTY***SHAME***A DANGEROUS METHOD

SLEEPING BEAUTY  (2011)


NR


An alternate title for Sleeping Beauty might have been: Wake Me When It's Over.  That pretty well sums it up for Lucy, (Emily Browning) a college student who sleepwalks through her life of working at odd jobs to get by--the oddest of all being a hired play toy for rich old pervs who have carte blanche to do what they will with her naked body, as long as there is no penetration (house rules) and they don't leave any marks.  


Lucy has been taken on by Clara, (Rachael Blake) the madam of a soft-core brothel, to be a kind of living doll that the pretentious old farts will work out their sexual fantasies upon in various ways--some pretty twisted--as she lies there in a drugged stupor, unaware of anything that has happened to her when she wakes up. Hell of an easy way to make a buck--if you have totally acquiesced to the precept that the end justifies the means.  The delicate, waif-like Browning is perfect for the part--the embodiment of innocence exploited--or at least the appearance of such


We don't get any real insight into why Lucy has numbed out on life, but we see the slippery slope that leads up to her becoming a Sleeping Beauty. She snorts cocaine in a club, then allows the flip of a coin to determine whether she will have sex with a man she just met. She propositions another guy at a bar--as directly and obscenely as any sleazy, tactless guy trying to pick up a woman.  When she does come into some money, she sets fire to a hundred dollar bill, watching dispassionately as it turns to ash. 


 It is apparent that much of  Lucy's behavior is one attempt and then another  just to feel something--the no penetration clause of her employment agreement serving as metaphor for the impenetrable shield between herself and life. Maybe this is writer-director Julia Leigh's indictment of life in the twenty-first century, with all of our technology providing interpersonal contact at the press of a button--but is it bringing us closer in any meaningful kind of way? 


There is a subplot involving an alcoholic friend named Birdmann, who seems to be the only male Lucy can relate to in a normal emotional way, and only because they're an odd couple and wouldn't be relationship material for each other.


Most everyone in Sleeping Beauty has a wistful, far away look in their eye--so if you ask me what the film is about,  I'd say it's about the uniquely human inability to inhabit and be fully present in the moment.  


Grade: B

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SHAME  (2011)

Rated: NC-17

Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is obsessed. With porn, with masturbation, with hookers, with picking up women in bars--wearing an ascot like some classy dude--and ending up rutting with them up against a wall somewhere. 

He consistently ignores phone calls from his sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) as he and his dangling participle navigate au naturel around his upscale Manhattan apartment. Until one day he comes home to find her naked in his shower--totally freaking him out. She stands there in full-frontal repose for a good long while as they converse, neither of them acting like it's any big deal, which might be a clue to something in their shared past, or just an indication that they are totally at ease around one another.  But unlike Ms. Mulligan, their back story is never exposed. 

Sissy needs to put distance between herself and a bad relationship, so she wants to play roomie with her brother for a while. Brandon reluctantly consents. But they are oil and water. She's needy and clingy. He's cold and calculating.  And with the way he dispatches people to follow his one-track mind, not a very likable guy.

In a highly revealing scene, (well, they're all revealing) Brandon and his co-worker,  Marianne--who is interested in him on an emotionally deeper level than most of his consorts--are about to get cozy. But faced with the prospect of beginning something of a "normal" relationship with a woman, Brandon gives an underwhelming performance in the bedroom. After that, we see him back in his element--on top of his game again with some sleazy, anonymous sex played out against a Manhattan high-rise picture window with the drapes wide open.


But the real impact of Shame lies in the relationship between Brandon and Sissy, and whether he'll be able to  recognize her call for help before it's too late. They're both time bombs--he in his controlled way, though near the end his obsession drives him to make some highly risky choices; she in a way that could lead to overtly disastrous consequences. 


It's just a Shame that we don't know more about what makes either of them tick. 

Grade:  B

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A DANGEROUS METHOD (2011)

Rated : R

       

Michael Fassbender is back in a very different kind of role, though sex is still at the forefront in A Dangerous Method--based on the real life love triangle of Carl Jung, (Fassbender)  Sigmund Freud, (Viggo Mortenson)  and Sabina Spielrein. (Keita Knightly).

Ms. Spielrein was  one of history's more  fascinating  characters. Initially a mental patient being treated by Dr. Jung, she went on to be his student, and later became one of the first female psychoanalysts. Keira Knightly's portrayal of Spielrein is straight out of  How To Act Like A Crazy Person 101. Can you say "overacting?" The woman's unbalanced phase could have benefited from just a touch of subtlety-- as I know plenty of folks who are totally off their nut, and they can pass for normal for a couple of hours straight on a given day. 

Speilrein got off on S & M, and in the scene where she is being spanked, (I don't think it was her birthday) Knightly is entrancing with her top falling down, but didn't convince me that she was truly enjoying it.  Maybe this was where she was bringing the subtlety.

Fassbender and Mortenson  give  interesting, chatty performances (and certainly look the part) as Jung and Freud respectively, as they begin their friendship and then have a falling out, with Sabina figuring prominently into the mix. 

Notable quotes: I think Freud's obsession with sex probably has a great deal to do with the fact that he never gets any.

On the subject of monogamy, for example, why should we put so much frantic effort into suppressing our most basic natural instincts?     

Grade: B

  

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL (2012)

Rated: PG-13


STARS: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup
DIRECTOR: John Madden
GENRE: Comedy/Drama


A colorful assemblage of "elderly" Brits heads off to India where their retirement dollars will go further. Awaiting them is the "newly remodeled" (according to the brochure) Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. They arrive to find a structure that is crumbling and in disrepair. Sonny, (Dev Patel from Slumdog Millionaire ) the young, buoyant  hotel manager has good intentions and a dream of renovating the place, but he needs to secure some funding. Some of the lodgers will make the best of it, and some will utter grouchy, mean-spirited things. In the end, each will find something or someone they've been searching for, and be transformed.


An ensemble cast as large as this one could be unwieldy, but there are many familiar names here, and I find it  easier to remember a character's story when it's a face that I recognize. These are stock characters, for the most part, but it doesn't make their stories any less poignant or compelling.


There's Jean and Doug (Penelope Wilton & Bill Nighy) the not so happily married couple who lost their savings when they invested it in their daughters business venture. Nighy, of course, is a great comic presence, but he's more subtly engaged with it here. 


Muriel, (Maggie Smith) a retired housekeeper who doesn't like India initially--maybe something to do with her being a racist and needing a hip replacement. 


Evelyn, (Judi Dench) a recent widow and all alone. 


Madge (Celia Imrie) is a wealthy woman on the prowl for a husband.


Norman, (Ronald Pickup)  an aging lecher (or "horny old dude" in contemporary parlance) on the prowl for one night stands.  


But the most poignant of the pensioners' story lines belongs to Graham, (Tom Wilkinson) a high court judge who grew up in India, and is back to find a man he loved when they were both teenagers, and hasn't seen since.  


A subplot involves Sonny and his true love, Sunainia, (Tena Desae) whom his domineering mother doesn't approve of. She wants her son to enter an arranged marriage. It's a clash of traditional and contemporary Indian mores. Things will come to a head, and Sonny will face his moment of truth with his mother.  


Beautifully shot and deftly paced, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel  captures the bustle, the color, and the seductive allure of a land where cows and elephants saunter down the street--and the truly wise men are the ones who know enough not to follow  too closely behind either one.


 The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is the best exotic movie I've seen since...well... Slumdog Millionaire.


Grade:  A

THE DICTATOR (2012)

Rated: R


STARS: Sacha Baron Cohen,  Ben Kingsley,  Anna Faris
DIRECTOR: Larry Charles
GENRE: Comedy


If you live in society, you exist in two different worlds. The first is that of the public persona, where we are all  good little boys and girls--socially conscientious and politically correct in word and deed. The second is the world of the inner individual, who instinctively feels there is nothing wrong with making light of things--including  our ethnic, cultural, and political differences--as long as it isn't coming from a place of hate. Thank those like Sacha Baron Cohen that we have a place to go and hunker down for a couple of hours--the movie theatre--and make light of our world, because (hope this doesn't come as a shock) it's all an absurdist fantasy anyway.


In contrast  to the ambush style mockumentaries  Borat and Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen--in The Dictator--is working from a script he co-wrote. The result is a less cringe-inducing and flat-out funnier kind of raunch- fest. And while the bad boy humor here is hit and miss--when Baron Cohen connects, it's a right cross to the funnybone. If you think he's not going there...he's going there. (Though sometimes it's like that hooker you and your buddies took on the night of the senior prom--you enjoyed yourself, but felt kinda dirty afterwards.)


Admiral General Aladeen (Baron Cohen) is the despotic ruler--in the mold of Gadaffi and Saddam Hussein-- of the fictional north African country of Wadiya. He competes in his own Olympics, gives himself an unfair head start, and when other runners are closing on him, simply turns around and shoots them.  He gives a speech in which he claims that the nukes his country is developing are for peaceful purposes, and can't keep himself from chortling at his obvious insincerity.


On his way to New York to address the U.N. Security Council over their growing concerns about his development of nuclear weapons, Aladeen is kidnapped by a hitman (John C. Reilly) hired by his scheming uncle, Tamir, (Ben Kingsley) who wants to bring democracy to Wadiya--not for any noble reason, but because it will open up the country's oil fields to development and make him rich. The tyrant escapes, but finds himself replaced by a look-alike decoy (flashbacks to Saddam Hussein). He is cast as a nobody onto the streets of Manhattan, (would've been cool to hear Dylan wafting  nasally on the breeze: How does it feel... ) then runs into Zoey, the manager of a  health food collective. He will fall for her (in a strange sort of way) as he plots his revenge. Don't get hung up on the plot--it's there mainly to facilitate the delivery of the various gross-out gags.


There is a poignant little soliloquy near the end that serves to remind us the perceived black and white world of  bygone eras has long since clouded into muddled shades of grey. 


I'm a soundtrack guy, and The Dictator has  a great one  by Erran Baron Cohen that,  in a "serious" film would be conjuring  images of exotic sand dunes, but here I was flashing back to a certain Ray Stevens parody tune from the sixties.  


Anna Faris brings to Zoey a bewitching blend of naivete and new-age stars in her eyes (she thinks that Aladeen is a political refugee named  "Alison Burgers.")


And Ben Kingsley...well, he's done it all now, hasn't he?


The Dictator is being hotly debated as we speak  I've already precipitated one online brushfire with my assessment of the film at another site. Bottom line, I think those who are prone to being offended will find something to be offended about. I hear:  I'm usually pretty good with this kind of stuff, but right THERE he went too far!  Thing is, you've got to take Sacha Baron Cohen or leave him...there's no in between.


Ben Kingsley is an actor I have always admired... so hell, if he signed on and took it as a hoot...that's like The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to me.


Grade:   B 

THREE ON DVD (recently released to home theatre) THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO***THE SITTER***LIKE CRAZY

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011)


Rated:  R


I'm not going to repeat the whole plot synopsis from the original Swedish film, because the Hollywood remake is the same, for the most part,  in that respect. So if you didn't see the original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo from 2009, go to my  review  now and check it out. Then come back.


dum de dum...
dum de dum...


 I half expected a toned-down version for American audiences,  but the remake pulls no punches in recreating those scenes of violence and sexual assault. So the main comparisons to be made are between Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, and Michael  Nyqvist versus Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist.  


Rooney Mara's Lisbeth seems more waif-like--more sullen and withdrawn than Noomi Rapace's smoldering, edgier characterization.  Her actions in the original felt totally in line with her outward persona. When  Rooney Mara's Lisbeth  breaks out of her shell and starts kicking some butt, it is something of a surprise that she has it in her. So I'll give the nod to Rapace there. 


As to which of them is more appealing in the buff, (if you're at all interested in such things) it's a tossup, because both of them looked like they had been on a thirty day juice fast. Mara has a little more going for her up top, so score one for her. (Actually...two.)


Daniel Craig is a serviceable Blomkvist , but I'm more accustomed to seeing him as an action hero than an intellectual--and since the setting  IS  Sweden, and Michael Nyqvist  IS a dyed-in-the-meatballs SWEDISH PERSON...geez,  I gotta go with him.


This 2011 version clocks in at upwards of two and a half hours, but I liked it nonetheless. Mainly because once I've seen a movie, I've forgotten most of what it's about six months later, so it's... like...NEW TO ME!


Grade:  B




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THE SITTER  (2011)


Rated:   R 

Noah (Jonah Hill) is a giver.  And in the heady opening scene of The Sitter, he is  performing a service for his self-absorbed girlfriend who, once she is satisfied,  always has an excuse for not wanting  to return the favor. It is this very selflessness that will land him in a mess of trouble when he takes on a babysitting job to help his mom out, and runs into the kids from hell.


There's the precocious  preteen Blithe (Landry Bender) who likes to play dress-up and drop the totally unexpected F-bomb; the adoptee from El Salvador, Rodrigo, (Kevin Hernandez)  who gets off on blowing up toilets by dropping  some REAL (cherry) bombs inside them: and 13-year old Slater, (Max Records)  a gentler soul confused about his sexual identity.


Things spiral out of control when Noah goes looking to score some coke at the behest of his girlfriend, and out of necessity must take the kids along for the ride. The little darlings behave badly, some drugs are ripped off, a minivan is stolen, and Noah must come up with some big bucks before a cranky drug kingpin (Sam Rockwell) exacts his revenge.


The Sitter is a wild ride, and an enjoyable one. A total grin-fest all the way through. However,  the nasty little kids in this movie, who not only stretch, but bulldoze the boundaries of acceptable language and behavior for children onscreen,  make The Sitter--ironically--a film that you don't want to take your kids to. But for adults, I'm rating it "highly."

Grade:  B +   


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LIKE CRAZY (2011)


Rated:  PG-13


A British citizen ( Felicity Jones) studying for her degree in Los Angeles falls for an unassuming  teaching assistant (Anton Yelchin) and the game is on. It's not a game of catch-me-if-you-can, but  of hold-onto-me-if-you-can. When Anna decides to overstay her visa and spend a languorous summer "in bed" with Jacob, complications ensue after she returns home and then attempts to reenter the country later.  Seems the immigration authorities don't take kindly to those who bend their rules, and she is unceremoniously put on another plane and sent back home. 


Like Crazy  is a bittersweet film about  long distance relationships, and whether love can conquer all when the odds are stacked against you.  


Anna and Jacob try to be realistic about their plight, and become involved with other people (here's Jennifer Lawrence of Winter's Bone and Hunger Games popping up again as Jacob's new squeeze).  Until  one day Anna sends him a text and says she KNOWS they were meant to be together--you know, like Romeo and Juliet...like peanut butter and jelly were meant to be together--and it convinces him to traverse the Atlantic to be with her in London. 


But his visa will run out too.


The question that Like Crazy  is posing is whether true love really exists, especially for the  very young in a world of so many distractions and temptations. There is no fairy tale ending here--just a realistic one. And by saying that I haven't revealed what ultimately happens to them, because Like Crazy is about complicated emotions, not simple ones. 


But it's a beautiful little film--I'll say that. 


Grade:  B+