UP, 2009 (Grade B)

Directors: Peter Doctor & Bob Peterson
Studio: PIXAR
Awards? Academy Award Bests Picture Nominee 
Starring: Edward Asner; Jordan Nagai; Christopher Plummer; Bob Peterson; Delroy Lindo; Jerome Ranft; John Ratzenberger; Elie Docter; Jeremy Leary; Mickie McGowen

sez says: I was really suspicious of this--how could I possible really LIKE an animated movie. Sure I take the grand kids to see them..but how many have I ever watched that I really and truly liked myself...not many, if any.  They are what they are but generally they are not my cup of tea--I don';t hate them but I don't go to see them without a youngster asking me to take them.

But this movie got nominated for Best Picture --and even my grown son told me it was worth seeing, and he isn't one to be wowed by a kids movie. So we got it and watched it.  I was surprised at how quickly I suspended my need for the characters to be real humans.  I was a little annoyed by the overly cute balloons as flying machine/ house mover motif.  But ok I let it go and went along for the ride.  For me it was the dogs that finally won me over -- once I met the 'good dog' I found myself engaged with the characters and enjoyed the rest of the movie. Well done -- and all the little boys in the world now have a magical story to cleave to about the importance of fathers: about being a father, about having a father, and about substituting for a father when the original one is missing. 

Single Man, 2009 (Grade A-)

Director: Tom Ford
 Awards? Starring: lots of nominations for best actor--and won best actor from BAFTA, also some niminationf for Julianne Moore
Cast: Colin Firth; Julianne Moore; Matthew Goode; Nicholas Hoult; Ginnifer Goodwin; Paulette Lamori; Ryan Simpkins; Nichole Steinwedell; Paul Butler; Lee Pace

sez sasy--what a genius Colin Firth is! He should have run off with all the awards for acting this year.  That he didn't is probably because Hollywood is afraid to use the box-office power of its awards to send the movie going public to see a film about gay men that is this sensuous.   Firth plays the part of a man in grief:  He is gay and he has lost his lover of 16 years in an auto accident. His lover's family doesn't even tell him what has happened and won't allow him to attend the funeral.  The story says that  gays were invisible and treated inhumanely in the 1960s: "Light in the loafers" the neighbor calls him.  He is a man of taste and style and education who must stay invisible so as not to frighten the world--because if the world becomes frighted he will be persecuted.  This is a nuanced performance: spot-on perfectly acted.  Buttressing Firth is an equally wonderful performance by Julianne Moore. Firth's dear friend --and even she doesn't really understand that his relationship was 'real' -- too bad, she says, that they didn't marry and have a 'real relationship'   How sad. The lighting and color alters from scene to scene--sometimes being nearly B&W and other times vivid color. This, I believe to suggest to what extend Firth's character is tending toward life (for instance when he is about young men)  and or falling into a numb pit of despair and planning suicide. I'd say the only downside is that the story is about an OLDER MAN than Colin Firth.  If he has been much older his despair would have been even more acutely felt and understood. That he was still relatively young and ever so handsome makes it hard to think that his life was over--as the plot suggests. Still a great movie-- (Grade A-)

Hearts in Atlantis, 2001 (Grade C+)

Director Scott Hicks
Awards? -- none that I know of
Cast:  Anthony Hopkins; Aston Yelchin; Hope Davis; Mika Boorem; David Morse; Alan Tudyk; Tom Bower; Celia Weston; Adam LeFevru; Will Rothhaar

sez says: I read this book and wanted to see the movie. This is a rendition of the first story in the book--the book being made up of multiple characters, loosely tied together by secondary characters that jump from one story to the next.  Anthony Hopkins is brilliant.  The cinematography--and the creation of a world circa 1960s is great.   The story is a slow unfolding of  smaller events that turn to bigger events and that all add up to be events of substance in our protagonists life.  But, it is as much --if not more-- about the importance of relationships as it is about actions. It has a light motif of the supernatural--and some suggestive points about our society (are the Low men sent by J Edgar Hoover?) But in the end--it is not terribly compelling. It is a light diversion.

Thje Eclipse, 2009 (Grade C)

Director Conor McPherson
Awards? none that I know of
Cast: Ciaran Hinds; Iben Hjejle; Aidan Quinn; Dorothy Cotter; Eanna Hardwicke; Hannah Lynch; Jim Norton; Hilary O'Shaughnessy

sez says:  I wanted to see this because I just saw a play by Conor McPhearson (The Lime Tree Bower) which I liked very much--and I understand that is suppose to be made into a movie. I couldn't find that movie but I found this one instead--so I sent away for it, just to see what other things he is doing. McPherson co-wrote the screen play for this (along with the author of the story) and he directed the film.  The film is lovely and it is a pleasure to watch.  McPherson's love for Ireland shows.  The story on the other hand is a bit obtuse. It has elements of a Horror Flick / Supernatural Tale--complete with ghoulish ghosts. But it seems to want to be something else entirely. This is a story about a man who has lost his wife and is now a single father (Ciaran Hinds--does a fine nuanced job with this role). He is a high school teacher, who helps-out at the local literary awards ceremony and who is a closet writer himself. There are some snide --but probably accurate -- and sometimes funny presentations of the literary establishment --and of best selling authors. Then there is a female writer/love interest who show us at the conference. She writes about ghosts, which is most convenient because our protagonist has just begun to be visited by ghosts.  oh my-- given this set up it is all pretty predictable.  But it does not end with gore.  Rather it seems to want to be about grief and how to escape a loss of tremendous magnitude. But it doesn't make itself clear--so I fear it wouldn't appeal to the horror-movie crowd --nor to the crowd lloking for a Sensitive-Drama.  (Grade C)    

 

Inside Man, 2006 (Grade B-)

 Director Spike Lee
 Awards?  none that I know of
Cast: Denzel Washington; Clive Owen; Jodie Foster; Chiwetel Ejofor; Christopher Plummer; Willem Dafoe; Ken Leung; Peter Gerety; Kim Director; Ken Garito

sez says: this is something akin to a remake of Dog Day Afternoon --with a twist. SPOILER ALERT- - It sure has a star studded line-up. It is a 'puzzle story' that is made up of 'part mystery'' part 'police procedural' and part caper flick.  The 'mystery' part of the story held up for about the first half of the film.  The police procedural was mostly respectful back-drop that was appropriately respectful to the NYPD following 9-11 (but they still got call on their racism and profiling). It was most successful as a caper--where the bad guys are --or aren't good guys or bad-guts..and you keep wondering which it is as you watch.  Smart move to dress all the hostages in the same clothing that you--the robbers are wearing (but how would you know the right clothing sizes for your hostages before you got to the bank?) And, yes, the rich and the powerful--and their mysterious power broker (Jodi Foster)-- are corrupt.  The good cops are really good.  The robbers turn out to be justice fighters--and not greedy guys. All of this is entertaining and, thus it is done over and over and this story-style and subtext have all become a relatively common sort of story in turn of the century America.   

Cache, 2007 (Grade B-)

Director: Michael Haneke
Awards? --none that I know of
Cast: Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Maurice Benichou, Annie Girardot, Bernard Le Coq, Walid Afkir, Daniel Duval, Nathalie Richard, Denis Podalydès, Aissa Maiga, Caroline Baehr

sez says: This starts off well--with a troubling but not horrific mystery-- who is watching our house and sending us tapes to prove it.  No laws broken--just proof that you are being watched in secret--but who is doing this and why?   Thee story goes on to tell the secret that husband has been carrying since he was a young child and how it comes back into his life (via the secret watcher) -- It works for about 80% of the film--but it eventually goes off track with drama that really was not required and that made no sense.  The film maker's interview that accompanies the movie on the disc is mostly boring--but there was one illuminating statement that Haneke said. He suggest that we should not be told the reason for everything in a story--that we don;t know the reasons for everything in real life--so why should we tie everything up neatly in our stories. My response to that is: maybe it is precisely becasue real live doesn't provide answers that we need stories that try to do it for us. (Grade B-, nice try but a let down in the end)

The Taking of Pelham 123, 2009 (Grade D+)

Director: Tony Scott
Awards? None that I know of
Starring: Denzel Washington, John Travolta, Luis Guzmán, Victor Gojcaj, Michael Rispoli, John Turturro, James Gandolfini, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Jason Butler Harner, Brian Haley, Chance Kelly

sez says--this has a great cast and everyone does a good job but Denzel saves he day-not just in the story but for the whole movie. It is a flash-dash-jump-run-blur of activity. Only Denzel holds to a calm center and thank goodness for that or you would be exhausted watching this--sirens blasting --cars crashing-- bang bang- crunch blood and gore and even rats. The bad guys do get caught: that is not a surprise. And even with all the energy expended it is not really very exciting. And you can;t blame the actors here -- "the bad" has got to be laid at the feet of the director (Grade D+)