Rush

THE PITCH:

A cross between Cinderella Man and Secretariat but with Formula One race cars.

THE RESULT:

What you get is nothing terribly gripping nor visually arresting. But you do get an interesting examination of two dynamic real-life racers: James Hunt, a sexy playboy who does it for the glory, and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) whose skills for car design and driving lead him to overcome all odds to do the thing he loves.

Frustratingly, the film is mostly montage and has a rushed (pun!) feel to it. There's no set-piece racing sequence to get engrossed in until the end, perhaps, and even then the focus pulls away from the drivers' point of view.

Ultimately, the film is a satisfying look at two very different characters who compete against each other so fiercely that they feel at a loss when a horrendous accident takes Lauda out of the action.

Still, the film is about these two drivers and their involvement in a life-threatening sport, but director Ron Howard never puts you in the driver's seat.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES:

Hemsworth is well suited to the role of the long-haired playboy, and Brühl keeps your attention with his portrayal of the awkward, anti-social outsider whose veins are full of motor oil.

Olivia Wilde is quite good as Hunt's trophy wife. Wilde is developing into a solid actress, and she does well in Howard's many extreme close-ups of her face. What's the deal? Does Howard doubt her ability to emote?

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

It's just not a film full of memorable moments. It moves along smoothly from episode to episode, but there are no gripping or hugely dramatic moments. Even the big accident is too quickly staged to have much effect. Every scene is utilitarian.

The most arresting scene comes when Lauda, in the hospital, gets his scorched lungs vacuumed out.

WATCHABILITY:

An enjoyable character study, but nothing that cries out for a second viewing.

Eyes Wide Open: Prisoners

THE PITCH:

Does the end justify the means? Elements of Zero Dark Thirty thrown into a suburban child-kidnapping tale. Add elements of Silence of the Lambs and The Vanishing.

THE RESULT:

During the first third of this film, the cinematography and the naturalistic performances of a great ensemble cast kept my eyes painfully wide open as I sat on the edge of my seat. I love the shots seen through frosty or rain-streaked windows. I felt I was viewing one of the most sharply lucid and realistic films ever made.

When some bargain-price retirees started to narrate what was happening on screen (Shot: The police release the suspect (Paul Dano) from jail. Retiree: "They're releasing him!") I relocated to the unoccupied front section and embraced the wonderful images framed by Roger Deakins.

When the film wanders into literal basements of perversion and goes stereotypically lurid, I was disappointed but still riveted by the camerawork, the ominous musical score, and the film's dense sense of approaching doom.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES:

Jake Gyllenhaal's affectations tend to irk me, but here his understated, scowling delivery fits right in. He is superb. Jackman is still invested in Valjean. Viola Davis is excellent. The cast is a strong one though I would have loved to see what they could have done with a more grounded, realistic story about families reacting to a kidnapping.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

The cinematography makes just about every shot chillingly, exquisitely memorable. The best moments are in the film's first third, before Inspector Loki (Gyllenhaal) makes his first descent into a dark basement.

WATCHABILITY:

I need to see this again for the cinematography, also because the plot gets too convoluted for its own good, and I want to clear up some viewing quandaries.

For me, the first third of this film is the most riveting movie experience in years!

The Family

THE PITCH:

Like The Addams Family except with the family of Mafia boss Giovanni Manzoni, posing as the Blake family, hiding out under witness protection in Normandy, and trying to fit in. Like the Addams family of ghouls, this is one bizarre family, but they are loyal and loving like a normal father, mother, daughter, and son.

THE RESULT:

A very enjoyable film, nicely directed by Luc Besson, funny in a macabre way as it leads to one of the most gripping climaxes of the year.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES:

Granted, playing a Mafia tough guy is in De Niro's blood, but I must say he shines in this movie. He doesn't ham it up or go off the silly deep end as he has done since he started doing comedy. This is a fine performance by De Niro.

Each member of the Blake/Manzoni family is excellent. Michelle Pfeiffer stands out as the long-suffering Mafia wife from Brooklyn who goes into a French grocery store, asks for peanut butter, and then torches the place when she is treated rudely. She doesn't stand for any nonsense, but she expresses the drawbacks of being married to a very dangerous husband whose favorite word is "Fuck!"

John D'Leo as the son, Warren, displays a youthful, promising talent. Hope we see more of him.

My favorite is Belle, the daughter, played by the talented and very attractive Dianna Agron. Her little brother has inherited his father's criminal talents for extortion, bribery, and forgery, but Belle has inherited a tendency to vent her anger in extreme ways, expressing a pent-up rage that suggests her frustrations with this unusual family and her longing to be part of a normal family.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

The film builds up nicely to the tense climax when hit men locate the Manzoni family, take out the village policemen, and get ready to massacre the family.

My favorite moment: Belle takes a tennis racquet and vents her prodigious rage on a randy teenager who tries to force her to have sex. Her wrath is gorgeous. Oo, la, la!

WATCHABILITY:

I laughed out loud. I really enjoyed seeing the performance of a bygone De Niro. I was suitably gripped by the ending. Belle is awesome. I would see this again.

Insidious: Chapter 2

THE PITCH:

Repeat the same lurid red main title from Insidious without the same effect; use clips from the first chapter as flashbacks; keep Rose Byrne's Renai looking like she's scared shitless throughout the movie..

THE RESULT:

Not nearly as chilling as Chapter One. Not nearly as chilling as this year’s Mama. Poor editing softens its attempts to be scary. A nice premise is set up with the clairvoyant throwing dice to see what Patrick Wilson's demonic Josh Lambert has behind his back, but the editing is ponderous.

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES:

Patrick Wilson does well as the Daddy possessed by a demon that wants the deaths of his family.

MEMORABLE MOMENTS:

There are some chilling moments, and the climax is nicely gripping with some nice editing; but there’s nothing too memorable here.

WATCHABILITY:

Enjoyable though not that scary. I liked the flashbacks that tie this chapter with the original story. Wish the original had been a one-off entity. Don't need to see this again.

Summer's Over, Back to School, But the Fall Movie Season Approaches

As the summer movie season fades out with a whimper, I look forward to, hopefully, better releases this fall. With travels up to Maine and out West to the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sierra Nevada, taking in the oft-used film location of the Alabama Hills above, I found less time to blog, and I did not report on the following:

The Conjuring, a clever and suspenseful haunted house tale with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga; Planes, basically Cars with wings, a cheerful romp that provides memorable images as the planes engage in a global aerial race; 2 Guns, a violent dick flick (as opposed to chick flick – credit to my younger brother for this), in which Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg engage in some pretty creative dialogue as they take on a drug cartel backed by the CIA (supplanting Nazis and Arab terrorists, I guess, as the new stock movie villains); and Getaway, an action-paced flop with an incredibly unwieldy plot, a tired Ethan Hawke, and Selena Gomez, looking cute and very un-tough as she attempts to stretch her acting repertoire.

What’s next? There are some movies to look forward to, but just not my favorite genres. Despite the silly preview with Sandra Bullock swinging in space, I’m looking forward to Cuaron’s Gravity. An extended preview of Captain Phillips, with Tom Hanks, has increased my interest in this movie. And Ron Howard’s Rush, whose plot seems to be a remake of Grand Prix, looks compelling. Of course, we will check out anything by Scorsese – with DiCaprio as an additional draw (The Wolf of Wall Street). Meanwhile, Jason Bellamy and I will have to check out The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, since we watched them filming on Sixth Avenue in NYC, and the lady managing the extras allowed us to sit in the back of one shot, so there’s a very slight chance, but a chance nonetheless, that we are in the final cut.

Will also see The Monuments Men (bad title) because it may achieve some of the look and tone of The Great Escape; The Invisible Woman because Fiennes and Charles Dickens are big draws for me; American Hustler because of a cast led by Bale; August: Osage County because I’ve taught the play in A.P. English for the past three years – and I’m curious how the casting will work out, since I think most of the performers are miscast – except for Sam Shepard who has all of one scene; Catching Fire because it’s, you know, Jennifer Lawrence and The Hunger Games, and it's a must-see for all teens and high school teachers, though I feel the second book is ponderously gimmicky; and Prisoners because I’ve seen the preview so many times and I’ve got to find out who kidnapped the girls.

To Have and Have Not: Elysium

In an interview, South African director Neill Blomkamp, who gave us District 9, said he thought it would be a nifty idea to make a sci-fi film about "the haves and the have-nots," suggesting, as it seems, that had never been done before.

Uh, like, Metropolis (1927).

In Elysium the "haves" live in a wheel-shaped space station. There, everything is green and new and opulent; you have to be rich to live there. I found Elysium visually fascinating, but you never feel IN Elysium. You don't know what it's like to live there. The only citizens you see are running away from the scuzzy illegal aliens running across their lawns. I wanted to be taken INTO Elysium. I wanted to know what it was like to live there, like in WALL-E, we are taken up close to the fat blobby people who float around in hoverchairs and consume fattening shakes.

The film does an excellent job of evoking the dismal slums of L.A., filmed on location in the slums and vast dumps of Mexico City. Poor Mexico City. You really feel the crowding, the squalor, the heat, the despair. This is the best aspect of the film.

Matt Damon as Max drives the story. Matt Damon has a presence and a believability he brings to all his films. I really enjoy watching him, and here he fits right into a story that is less about ideas (the commentary is trite: the haves are like our rich people who live in gated neighborhoods, people who thank God for Republicans and Homeland Security) and more about sci-fi action.

In order to make his way to Elysium so that he can be cured of a lethal dose of radiation, Max gets fitted with an exo-suit which turns him sort of cyborg. But the dramatic possibilities of this suit are not exploited. It is never made clear what he can do with this suit other than throw some bad guy across the room. Anyway, Damon fits right into the role of a bitter "have-not" who has always dreamed of getting to Elysium.

Below is Kruger, played by Sharlto Copley, star of District. Here Copley is a mechanically enhanced secret operative whose extreme methods dealing with illegal aliens get him fired, so he plans to use a rebooting code to take over Elysium and rule the world of the "haves." Copley is a suitable bad guy, and his mechanical enhancements make you wonder if he's part District 9 cyborg.

Then there's Jodie Foster as Delacourt, the dictatorial bitch who runs security for Elysium, who thinks the president is too soft, and who would love to run things herself. Unfortunately, Foster is given little to develop her character, explain her bitterness, provide some motives, explain why she constantly acts bitchy and looks sharp and grumpy throughout the whole movie. See below.

A note about accents: When we first see Foster, she is speaking French. (Foster studied French at Yale and then in France. She got pretty good at it so she likes to use it.) But then she speaks English throughout the rest of the film with an accent that isn't quite English, isn't quite American, an accent that is I don't know what. This movie has a thing about accents. Kruger goes with a South African accent that is so extreme it's hard to follow what he's saying all the time. In addition, William Fichtner plays John Carlyle, a business tycoon who wants to help Delacourt take over Elysium. Here, Carlyle speaks in a stilted robotic voice, but when he's shot, he bleeds. I thought he WAS a robot! What's with the weird robotic delivery of his lines?

There's a lot to like about this movie. It is always visually engaging. It is fast-paced. Damon is excellent. But as the action goes standard, I found myself wishing I had gotten to spend more time in Elysium and learn what it's like to live there. This would have provided a starker contrast with the vividly evoked world of the L.A. slums.