Movie chatter

Oliver Stone has not produced a sendup of the president nor a wholesale takedown, the film looks like a traditional biopic. I was surprisingly and thoroughly entertained by Josh Brolin playing the frat boy who would be king, while Richard Dreyfuss creeps around in a Dick Cheney sneer. As far as I could tell the story and dialogue, with the exception of a weird dream sequence near the end, was based on real words and events. Maybe some of it was slightly out of context. But this was not a hatchet job. W. is not a documentary but it is entertainment.  [ RT ]

Formulaic, trite, predictable, by-the-numbers . . . they all apply. I would only recommend The Express to some one who doesn’t know about or remember the civil rights struggles and/or Ernie Davis. Of course this is the kind of movie where, as he has proven before, Dennis Quaid can shine. And he does here. His performance almost saves the movie. [ RT ]

To be flip Rachel Getting Married is a two hour cat fight.  To be more charitable I will call it an engrossing tale of family angst, highlighted by Anne Hathaway’s powerful performance. Along with a welcome performance by Debra Winger.  The spotlight, in all honesty, should fall on the performers.  This cast did a tough job at a high level of emotional energy.  I must say, though, Rachel Getting Married has “indie” written all over it.  A more commercial film would have been edited much more tightly and would gone to the humor card more.  It was somewhat of a challenge to make it though this film.  [ RT ]

I guess I am with the 50% of critics who would recommend Body of Lies. A proven director and screen writer meant a film that was much more nuanced and credible than a lot of pictures in this shoot-em up, CIA/Middle East Jhadist genre. I enjoyed the whole trip and most of all I wasn’t saying to myself every ten minutes . . . “wait a minute that can’t be.” Here the issues and characters weren’t painted black or white . . . lotsa gray tones to contemplate.  [ RT ]

Blindness should have been called “Anarchy.” After some unexplained plague causes blindness in a group of random citizens they are quarantined and left on their own to survive. Mob rule and survival of the fittest are a potent mix. So many unanswered questions arise. No effort is made to find out the cause of the blindness. In fact we see very little of what the authorities are nothing in the out side world. The frustrating part of the plot was why the one person in the lock up who could see didn’t use this power for more good. Just too many holes in the story.  [ RT ]

A bizarre modern new world, 200 years in the future, is created in City of Ember. Like in so many films these days some, never described, calamity has hit Earth so the citizenry live in some sort of bubble city with lotsa gadgets. But some things don’t change. The powerful still are corruptible and it is left to a more hopefully youth to find a way out (literally and figuratively). The predictable story and chase scenes do little to contribute anything new to this old story.  [ RT ]

Since I was the only one in the theater and I have trouble remembering all the trailers I see . . . I pulled out the camera and captured a few seconds of each of the five previews shown.

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I think it was in the mid-80s when the intermittent windshield wipers came up on my KOMO Big Afternoon Broadcast. We all learned of invention of and the introduction of the wiper system in the late 1960s. And how inventor Robert Kearns was ripped of by the major automobile manufacturers.  It wasn’t until the early 1990s that Kearns got his justice.  Flash of Genius tells this long story in condensed fashion with out getting bogged down by the engineering technology and legal wrangling.  Greg Kinnear in the lead role sheds his usual smarmy wise ass character and shows some drama depth.  To bad this film won’t be seen because it’s worth watching. [ RT ]

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a small teen romantic comedy with very little in the way of innovation. I realize I am in not in the target audience but I didn’t care about any of the characters or what they did. It was refreshing that the script was free of the superbad crassness of such movies . . . as . . . oh Superbad. Maybe because it was written by a women. It was refreshing to see a rare sex scene with a female orientation. Will the film be seen as to wimpy and cost the film at the box office? [ RT ]

Minutes after seeing Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist Gary and Norm talk about the film.

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This could have been a conventional western. It has all the trappings including the story of a citizenry being threaten by bad guys and out of desperation the town fathers hire a couple of gunman to bring justice to their community. How many times have we seen that?? “Shane,” “The Magnificent Seven,” etc?  But a constant theme of subtle humor , some nice chemistry (it’s a joy watching Harris and Mortensen connect, in the way their characters’ friendship is conveyed by tiny nods) and a very modern woman make Appaloosa worth seeing. [ RT ]