Hyde Park on Hudson

Neither the writing, the direction nor the acting gives us the depth of feeling or understanding of President Roosevelt that we get of President Lincoln in Spielberg’s Lincoln, but Roger Mitchell’s Hyde Park on Hudson is a delightful  film, nonetheless.

Initially thinking this was going to be Bill Murray’s film, I was surprised to discover it’s really Laura Linney’s film.  She, admirably, plays F.D.R.’s distant cousin Daisy Suckley, who becomes one of his lovers and the film would be lost without her.  Well, not entirely.

 

Samuel West is, also, excellent as King George VI, no mean feat, following Colin Firth’s Oscar-winning performance in The King’s Speech.  And, Olivia Coleman is, also, fun as his wife Elizabeth.

The principal event depicted, the King’s visit to America to gain support for the War looming in Europe, provides a grounding to an otherwise rushed story.  One of the most interesting aspects was seeing how slowly people, apparently, moved during that period.  A nice touch.

 

 

If you like period pieces, you’ll find Hyde Park on Hudson an enjoyable experience.  I give it a 3+ out of 5.

Killing Them Softly

Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly is about scum dealing with scum.

Here’s what you learn:

1.      If you’re going to steal, don’t steal from mobsters.  Makes sense.

2.      Mobsters supposedly spend a lot of time watching and listening to national news.  Really?

3.      No one is killed softly.   There’s no truth in advertising.

4.      You’ve gotten the Holiday season off to a bad start by wasting your time seeing this movie.  For sure!

 

To paraphrase Brad Pitt’s character Jackie’s last line, “This film has nothing to do with anything worthwhile.  It’s just a business.”  And, a bad business at that.

I give Killing Them Softly a 1 out of 5 since, at least, Brad Pitt and Richard Jenkins gave decent performances…although I hate to use the word “decent” around this film.

Anna Karenina

How could Director Joe Wright be so wrong?  That’s what I was feeling while watching Anna Karenina. 

Mind you, Joe Wright is my favorite English director with his Pride & Prejudice and Hanna being two of my all-time favorite films and the Dunkirk scene in Atonement being the most amazing continuous camera-shot since the dawn of cinema. 

 But, here…  Say it isn’t so, Joe!

 
Let me step back and repeat my belief that a film has to stand on its own, meaning the viewer shouldn’t have to know anything about the book from which it’s drawn or what critics say the filmmaker was attempting to do before seeing it.  Being true to its style or setup and being entertaining to its audience are the only issues of importance. 

And, since the average film viewer sees only 6 films a year, it’s my intent to point them in the right directions.

 

Well, then, let's start with the good things about Anna Karenina.

Wright and Cinematographer Seamus McGarvey, aided by Production Designer Sarah Greenwood and Costume Designer Jacqueline Durran, all of whom worked on Atonement, have created lush, sometimes breathtaking images of the late 19th century Russian milieu.  

Jude Law as Anna’s husband Karenin, Matthew MacFayden (Mr. Darcy in Pride & Prejudice) as Anna’s buffoon brother Oblonsky, Kelly MacDonald as Oblonsky’s wife Dolly and Alicia Vikander as Kitty, the young woman spurned by Anna’s lover Count Vronsky, all turned in superb performances.

Now, the bad…

All the world may be a stage, but portraying a film on a stage, though amusing at times, just didn’t work; mainly, because the setup was violated by moving back and forth from the stage to real out-of-doors sets.  Another problem is that theatrical acting is different from film acting and using one style in the other doesn’t ring true.

And, so, the worst…

Anna Karenina is a story of passion.  And, though I’ve always been a huge fan of Keira Knightly, since I first saw her in Bend It Like Beckham, here she was as passionless and cold as Napoleon found the Russian winter.  The above-mentioned actors acted; she just said words.  However, I can’t totally blame her because she was supposed to be swept off her feet by Count Vronsky, played by the totally miscast Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who gets minus points for sex-appeal.  I mean, really?  Perhaps she needed glasses.

Because she starts out on such a bland note with such a bland lover, Knightly’s performance is always in question, even when it warms up later in the film.  Sorry to say, we couldn’t wait until she stepped in front of a train.  And some viewers didn’t.  This is the first film I’ve seen this year where I saw people leave during the screening.  When a baby cried on screen, my viewing companion leaned over and whispered, “That’s how I feel.”  Ouch!

 If you love period pieces, then, you may enjoy much of this production, however I can only give Anna Karenina a 2 out of 5.  But, please see Joe Wright’s above-mentioned films and watch for his signature one continuous camera-shot scenes.  Everyone's entitled to a misstep.

Life of Pi

Director Ang Lee’s Life of Pi is a marvel of filmmaking and beauty.

 

Pi Patel, played admirably by Suraj Sharma, is a young Indian boy, who survives the sinking of a ship in which all aboard, including his family, perished.  The only other survivor of the wreck is a Bengal tiger being transported by Pi’s zookeeper father and, together, they share the same lifeboat and an extraordinary adventure as they fight for survival against the sea and each other.

The adult Patel relates the story to a young writer played by Rafe Spall as a tale that will make him believe in God.  What the story will make anyone believe in is the magnificence of nature from the mirror of the phosphorescent sea to the fires of the luminescent sky, all breathtakingly captured by cinematographer Claudio Miranda.   

Ang Lee is noted for his ingenuity, as evidenced by the wire-fighting in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: here, it is the incredibly “real” creation of the magnificent, computer animated tiger, the meekrats, the whale, the flying fish and the floating island. 

 

I urge you to see this fantastic work of art and take in its beauty.  Those who can’t accept it will make do, as have some critics, with the false story Patel relates for those who can’t accept magic.

 

I give Life of Pi a 4+ out of 5.

 

 

Hitchcock

Hitchcock is an enjoyable movie about Alfred Hitchcock’s struggle to make the ultimate horror film, Psycho.

Despite the popularity of his earlier films, including the, then, recent success of  North By Northwest, Hitchcock had to fight against the management of Paramount Pictures, the critics and the censors to get Psycho greenlighted. He, finally, had to mortgage his own home to get the funding to produce it. 

This is the story of great tenacity to create something totally different than what, to that time, had been imagined or allowed.  I remember taking a date to see it the week it opened and she actually went to the floor and hid under her seat at least twice during the screening.  And, she wasn’t alone.  There was absolute pandemonium in the theater!

 Backed by the superb Helen Mirren as Hitchcock’s wife Alma, Anthony Hopkins turns in a stellar performance as the great director.  I found myself trying in vain to picture the real Hitchcock in my mind because Hopkins embodied him so completely.  Scarlett Johannson was, also, better than the real-life Janet Leigh.

Those who were around when Hitchcock was alive will enjoy this film the most.   There was a lot of laughter from this segment of the audience, who understood the milieu in which Psycho was created. 

I give Hitchcock a 3+ out of 5 with Mirren and Hopkins getting a 4+ for their performances.

 

Silver Linings Playbook

I saw a t-shirt that read:

I’m bi-polar.

Are you?

I’m not.

I was reminded of that as I watched Silver Linings Notebook, the new film by director David O. Russell.

It was, initially, difficult to take in this story wherein Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a life-long, undiagnosed sufferer of bi-polar disorder until he snapped when he found his wife in the shower with one of her co-workers while the song from their wedding played on his boom box.  (That can rock your world apart.)

But, Cooper’s very good performance of this volatile character with, as he says, no filter on his mouth is balanced by the superb performances of Robert De Niro as his OCD, sport’s-obsessed father, and Jacki Weaver (an unfamiliar actress to me) as his loving mother, who tries to balance out all the progesterone and keep her family together. 

They mellow out the difficulty of watching their son’s refusal to go on his meds, but, when Jennifer Lawrence enters the scene as Tiffany, the young widowed sister of Larry’s best friend, we are treated to an out-of-this-world, extraordinary performance that takes a fine film to stratospheric heights.

No longer the young girl of Winter's Bone  and The Hunger Games, Lawrence is a powerhouse woman of enormous talent. In fact, hers is the best performance by an actress this year, so far.  I’m not sure who is in the cards to go against her by year’s end...perhaps, Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty...but, Jennifer is surely in the lead right now.

Director Russell's and excellent Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi 's extensive use of close-ups would be dangerous with a lesser cast. But, here, it highlights the intensity of the building relationship between Larry and Tiffany and shows off the incredible honesty that Lawrence brings to her role.  Everything about her is real.  Watching her, it’s easy to understand, why You-Know-Who lost the election.  He didn’t understand that even average Americans can be exceptional.

Hats off, also, to the wonderful supporting cast, especially John Ortiz as Larry’s stifled best friend, Anupam Kher as his wise psychiatrist, Dash Mihok as the officer assigned to Pat's case and Chris Tucker as his fellow rehab inmate, who teaches him to relax and have soul.

I give Silver Linings Playbook a 4+ out of 5, but Jennifer Lawrence gets a 5+.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is a fitting and exceptionally fine ending to the series.

For a filmmaker, one of the most important things to learn is to honor your audience.

This is, especially, important in a franchise series wherein the characters and the actors who play them become an extended family to the core viewers, perhaps, for many, because they represent the family they wish they were part of.

 

 

 

This film gives great honor to its core audience with all of the original cast involved and being featured to finalize their story in a way to “quench the thirst” of the saga’s fans.  That is different than a film like Godfather 3, which should have been the best of the series, if key actors weren’t so concerned with their pocketbooks instead of honoring their fans.

Now, everyone knows the core audience for the Twilight series is young women, but lest you guys think this is just a “chick flic,” Breaking Dawn 2’s climactic battle bests that of ANY action film this year and ranks as an all-timer in this regard.  The film is worth a second viewing by action fans just for this.  And, the surprise resolution to the battle will blow your mind!

Many of the film’s actors will be, for many years, the stars of the future.  I predict that Taylor Lautner’s career will top Robert Pattinson’s, who will also have a strong career.

And, Ashley Greene will be one of Hollywood’s top leading ladies with a career that might even surpass the current success of Kristen Stewart.

I give The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 a 4+ for the series’ fan base and a 4 for the rest of us.