Tag: Podcast

I recommend you see this movie with no presuppositions. Even the few small things I mention here should be seen as simply one critic’s opinion. I wrote this review the week of its premiere in 2014. This is a uniquely remarkable film. I highly recommend it.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
R | 1h 59min | Comedy, Drama | 14 November 2014 (USA)

A washed-up actor, who once played a famous superhero, attempts to revive his career by writing and starring in a Broadway play.
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (as Alejandro G. Iñárritu)
Writers: Alejandro González Iñárritu (as Alejandro G. Iñárritu), Nicolás Giacobone

See it with an open mind. To begin: this is not a superhero movie. I purposely did not use a mock Birdman as an image for my post. Instead I used Michael Keaton in his underwear because metaphorically, this is what you get. I feel bad for the kids that may pay to go see this expecting a gritty sort of superhero that mimics the likes of Batman. This is not a lower Batman, this is a lower person and the anatomy of his breakdown. It just so happens that in this man’s life, he played a “Birdman” in a set of sequels. It doesn’t matter to the point. Birdman is a firing of brain cells in the mind of an actor who has wasted his life living for appearances and not for reality. In his words, he “has not been present” for his life. We can all get some good lessons from this movie. It portrays men as egotistical and highly capable of getting what they want at any cost. It portrays women as victims who men fail to support time and time again. The male brain is sinister at times and women find this sad. In fact, the audience is meant to find it sad. At the bottom right of Riggan’s (character played by Michael Keaton) mirror he has a quote taped on that reads: “The thing is the thing, not what is said about the thing.” Could there be an application to social media? To “getting off the grid?” Maybe. You as a viewer decide to what degree.

There is also a dream element that has already been touched on all over the internet so I won’t get too into it. There is a lot about the brain but not in the way you might think. Some see the film as a death bed reflection, others see it as part dream and part brain firing. I do not feel that this movie was meant to be understood. It was meant to be enjoyed and talked about but never fully understood. One thing I noticed that didn’t seem real was when Riggan pulled a cocktail napkin out of his wallet, showing his daughter Sam (Emma Stome) it’s significance to the play. Raymond Carver had signed it for his while he was in a bar with his dad. I din’t know about you, but receipts in my wallet start to disintegrate after a few months. I thought it was bad writing at the time but now I see it could be part of a dream or trick of the brain at time of death. Perhaps the whole movie is that.

You keep waiting throughout the film for it to make sense but it really isn’t until you’ve seen the entirety of it that you can start to form opinions on what just happened. Hallucinations permeate the film so it’s hard to see what’s really going on. I think in the end, the psychiatrists will have the best read of this film. Go see Birdman if you want to see a creative and beautifully filmed movie. It might also appeal to you that Michael Keaton, Zach Galafinakis, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, and Emma Stone are in it. The acting drew me in like a moth to a light. It was a highly enjoyable movie experience but you have to be willing to fill in the mortar between the bricks. Once again, don’t assume it’s about a superhero. The title is extremely misleading. There is a man in a suit but he is the voice in Keaton’s head that tells him things. He isn’t real. He is, in fact, in the movie only about 10 minutes total. Ok, I’ve said enough about that. This is not a superhero film. I feel it leaves too much up to the imagination. It reminded me of the acclaimed Enemy movie that way. Perhaps the director got too close to the material and forgot the audience couldn’t get the ending. It needed to be explained more. For that reason I think a lot of people will be frustrated with this movie. I know I was. It could have said so much more about “being present” in ones life and social media and art and theater. Instead, it tries too hard to be spooky and vague and achieves it, which is also fun when you’re out at the movies. This is at the cost of a star. I give it 4/5.

A film showing the darker face of religion when the wolf comes in sheep’s clothing. In this case, Robert Mitchum plays a great wolf, and as he usually is a scary one too.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
1h 32min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir | 24 November 1955 (Argentina)

A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he’d stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton
Writers: James Agee (screenplay), Davis Grubb (based on the novel by)
Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

Plot Summary

Harry Powell is a lifelong crimimal doing time with a one time thief, Ben Harper, seeking only to secure his kids’s future. To Harry it’s all about greed. While in prison, Harper tells Powell about his huge stash from the crime and Harry Powell dedicates himself to getting it. Posing as a preacher, he infiltrates Ben Harper’s town and family as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” but find that money from the secrets he shared with his children isn’t going to be easy.

Director and Actors

This is actor Charles Laughton’s only credited work as director. He has a very recognizable face. You may know him as the hunchback in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Sir Wilfrid Roberts in Witness for the Prosecution, or any other of his many successful roles in film. I admire his direction in this film, the characters all seem focused on the same page. The “page” is something that would have been a real taboo in that day. Preaching is often mocked to make a point. Even though we know the villain is no preacher, all the significant particulars relating to religion tend toward a reality that isn’t flattering. This would seem to be the intended message of the director.

Robert Mitchum is just scary as all get up in this. I’d say it comes close to Cape Fear as such. I suppose it you’re religious, you view him as worst of the worst because he’s posing as a man of the cloth. If you’re not, you might see religion as the evil here. Either way, he’s a truly bad dude doing really bad stuff out of greed. Shelly Winters plays Willa and does a really good job as such. Nonetheless my favorite character in the film is Rachel Cooper played by Lilian Gish. She comes later in the film but is such a strong force. She helps build a lot of plot to a climax. She’s the real hero of this story.

My Take on the Film

This is an oldie from 1955. It carries that air of mystery you might sense in an Alfred Hitchcock film. At the same time, there is the classic look everywhere like in the wooden houses or even the archaic farm equipment. The boats, the wardrobe, everything reminds of a time long ago. One aspect that isn’t far off though is the evil that people do in the name of religion. Toward the end of the film they seem to redeem faith but in the first 2/3 of the film religion in general is portrayed in a bad way. No one can deny it enables the villain to have access to the wife and her kids. Most the film is suspense, drilling down on the wife and kids. Mitchum is at his best faking religious drawl as he seeks to extract the location of the money from the kids. The film stays on that for a large chunk and it is enjoyable, a definite thrill ride. But when the kids see fit to escape, we are relieved of the suspense, Mitchum is free to play an all out evil wolf, and a slightly different air rises up in the film. It’s more a stalker film at that point. I enjoyed the dialect and story of the film. It was also very well cast.

Final Thoughts

Anyone who’s seen Robert Mitchum as an evil character in a film knows he is unmistakable and talented as such. This is no exception. Watching him weave his wiles as a preacher in the family and as Willa’s new husband in hypnotic. He is very convincing. You find yourself saying “No No Willa, think of your kids” as she’s taking her vows. His smug face is so perfect for the role. If you’re hankering for a suspense filled black and white from the 50’s, I highly recommend this one!

10/10

This is my article first published as Despicable Me Is Not Your Typical Villain Movie on Blogcritics.

People have asked me what movie is the best of 2010. This is my answer. Despicable Me is a delightful film with much to offer families and any movie-goer looking for fun in a film. It was co-directed by relative newcomers: Pierre Coffin, Gary’s Fall 2003, and Chris Renaud, in production on The Lorax and creator of No Time for Nuts, a short on the Ice Age DVD. I watched previews for Despicable Me with some cynicism thinking: “Here we have yet another piece of CGI predictability.” I was pleasantly proven wrong, however, when the characters, writing, and voice performances turned me around 180 degrees. I haven’t been this impressed with an animated film since Meet the Robinsons (2007). In the same way Robinson’s does, Despicable Me does more than entertain us: it shows a portrait of our humanity.

Without giving away too much, the movie is about Gru, a super-villain who is trying to recover a shrink ray from Vector, another super-villain. This is sort of the opposite of a human growth hormone. After multiple efforts to penetrate Vector’s lair, Gru discovers Vector’s weakness for girl scout cookies as he lets girl scouts come past the gate. Gru then gets a “lightbulb” and surreptitiously adopts three girl scouts from a local orphanage to do his bidding. Gru quickly learns what caring for kids is all about, and the girls prove less expendable than he thought.

There are some big names behind the voices in this movie; most are incredible performances. Steve Carell brings a superstar appeal to the film’s marketing. Having said that, I don’t find anything extra special about his voice in the film. He does an okay job as “Gru,” the Pinocchio nosed, Russian-accented villain who becomes an unwitting dad. The CGI is what makes his character amazing. His legs are unnaturally spindly and belie his enormous rotund body. He’s hilarious without uttering a word. I really liked Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life and most everything he does. He has a great personality-filled voice, but I think he served more to get people into the movie than to give Gru a memorable voice.

The other characters are a whole different story. The actors doing the voices for the girls, (Margo: Miranda Cosgrove, Edith: Dana Gaier, and Agnes: Elsie Fisher), Miss Hattie (the adoption lady): Kirsten Wig, and Vector: Jason Segel, are noteworthy and special. They provide a sonic reality to the animation rarely seen in the minions of CGI animated movies nowadays.

This movie is being marketed as a villain movie. It is indeed that for a while, but eventually it moves to a wider encompassing place. The juxtaposition of such an evil guy, Gru, with three sweet little kids lends the movie a global warmth, taking it beyond a potentially one-dimensional villain movie with just “neat” effects. I think it will have mass appeal with family movie-goers. It made me want to hug my kids. Comic relief is provided by the “minions,” amazing little yellow tubes that serve Gru and do many hysterical things. Interesting trivia: the minions are voiced by the two directors of the movie, Coffin and Renaud.

Vector is a great “villain’s villain.” You love to hate him. He is reminiscent of villains we’ve seen in the past, but Jason Segel brings new character to the villain we love to hate. I had to stay after and watch the credits because the voice was just so familiar to me. I was a big fan of him in I Love You Man and, when I saw his name in the credits, it was a V8 head-smacking moment. Segel does a great job voicing the true villain in this film.

The littlest girl Agnes is beautifully portrayed. The scenes when she talks to Gru begging for a bedtime story get me to the core. I would say any father in the theater could attest to the same. I’ve already alluded to it twice but I will say it again that I feel the audio performances like the one of Agnes make this a unique and special animated film.

To wrap this, I recommend Despicable Me to families and people who appreciate more than just visuals in an animated movie. The characters, writing, and voice performances work together to make this film exceptional. Despicable Me made me glad I spent my $10 and 95 minutes at the movies.

This post I wrote was first published at Blogcritics.

I just saw I Love You, Man, the latest film by director John Hamburg (The Letter, Along Came Polly) and I laughed myself silly. The operative word here is “silly” because in the same spirit of Hamburg’s Along Came Polly, this movie is a laugh a minute. Despite some crude references, which are more the norm than the exception in Hollywood these days, this is a wholesome R-rated comedy (if that is possible).

Peter Klaven, played by Paul Rudd, is a real estate agent in his 30s, set to be married to Zooey, played by Rashida Jones. Peter needs a best man. His brother can do it but he feels they are not that close. Instead, Peter chooses to start “man-dating.” This sets a stage where some truly hilarious scenes take place. These are jokes about the insecurities some guys have about getting close. There’s nothing gay going on but it feels like that same category of humor (i.e. Reno 911, The Birdcage, etc). This is a clever job of writing; it’s nice to see a movie that takes a spin on something that’s already been done and makes it original.

One of the themes revisited several times in this film is the “man cave.” Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) has a man cave and invites Peter into it to jam Rush songs and observe his “special chair” (one of the crude references I alluded to earlier). Every guy 21 and up can relate to a man cave: a place to jam music and talk about chicks!

The conflict at the end is quite predictable, especially in its resolution, but frankly, I didn’t care to be critical. I was laughing and enjoying myself right up until the end. They might have made the Sydney character a bit more normal since most guys have friends like that. Then again, this is a movie so it doesn’t have to be exactly like real life, I guess. It never became as odd as The Cable Guy but that sort of weirdness in another shade is what I’m talking about. Take it from this writer, friends don’t have to be that weird to be weird according to our wives. I thought the writing of Sydney was a bit overkill.

The Southern California settings were beautiful, starting in Pasadena, working through Venice Beach, and finally culminating in the real on-location wedding in Santa Barbara. I found the realism of setting reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s recent film Yes Man which was shot in Pasadena, Balboa Park, and at the Hollywood Bowl.

I recommend this one to guys and/or couples 21 and up. My wife and I laughed our brains out. Sure, it could have been better with a more realistic characterization of Sydney but who’s keeping track of stuff like that in new movies that really make us laugh?