Movie Review @ MindSay

This was what it promised to be: a good movie.

Thank you, Michael Cera and Kat Dennings for making this possible.

Talk about the best job of casting ever, first of all. All of the actors and actresses were perfectly suited to thier characters in a way that is seldom seen, especially in these cutesy teen movies.

I've heard it compared to Say Anything, but I would have to disagree for several reasons. First, the plots are not even what I woud call similar. Secondly, this movie didn't have the same fake, unrealistic quality that viewers of Say Anything probably only picked up on if they didn't watch it in the 80s. Third, Say Anything was overrated garbage, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist was actually good.

Although lacking any real sort of climax, Nick and Norah gave a pretty decent storyline, with a plot interspersed with laughter, realism, diversity, romance, and just plain moments that made you smile--and others that made you punch the air in triumph because the person onscreen actually listened to you when you told him/her what to do.

The music was good, but thankfully there wasn't a ridiculous amount of it. Not overly sappy, not overly sexual, and not overly cheesy, Nick and Norah delivered a surprising blend of everything it promised and more. When you wanted something, it gave it to you, but it certainly played hard to get.

And really, isn't that just about all you want when you go to see a date movie?

 

Two and a half stars.

In other words, a solid "good."

Hot damn, Michael Clayton is a good movie.  I don't even need to say much more after a sentence like that, but then that would make this an ultra-mini movie review and that's not my plan.

It is wonderfully structured so that while you are playing a classic case of whodunit through about 2/3rds of the flick.  Most movies that have you trying to figure something out generally get weak after the big reveal, as the challenge of the hunt is the real motivation to continue watching the movie.  These movies lose steam with the big reveal out there and only plot housekeeping left.  Not with Michael Clayton.  The big payoff is right at the end of the movie, even though the whodunit question was answered a good twenty minutes before the credits roll.  I think this is because the viewer gets that answer in a very natural, organic way.  There isn't a big confrontation with a showy reveal, but a very natural discovery as the plot unfolds.

I have a big man-crush on George Clooney, so I might not be the best person to write about his performance in the movie, but I'm going to anyway.  I thought he was incredible.  I rarely saw George Clooney on the screen; I almost always saw Michael Clayton.  Tilda Swinton was also amazing in her role, one for which she was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.  I haven't seen the other nominee's performances to know if she was truly the best, but after watching Michael Clayton, I certainly can't argue with her win.  The rest of the cast was just incredible, as well.  Tom Wilkinson... oh, wow.  Just simply, "wow".

The only fault I can really find with the movie is that there are many things that are just not explained very clearly.  All the information you need is given to you, but often you have to put it all together on your own using the context of the situations to connect all of the dots.  While this works wonders for the whodunit aspect of the film, it can be a bit challenging in other areas.  I felt like I spent the first 30 minutes of the movie playing catch-up.  It would have been nice for someone to just throw out a sentence like, "So we're the defense lawyers representing u-North in the class action lawsuit against them," but that would have been completely unnatural and out-of-place given how late in the lawsuit the story takes place.  I only mention this to set expectations.  You won't be able to have this movie on in the background and pick up all the necessary details.

If you like Clooney, or lawyers, or whodunits, or good movies, you owe it to yourself to watch Michael Clayton.  It is one superb movie.

This movie was terrible.

I was going to live it at that, as a super mini movie review, but it's only right that I explain my opinion.  The bottom line is that the script is terrible.  The movie had great actors (Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham, John Goodman, and Jonah Hill), but they just didn't have anything to work with.  The script was written by Steve Oedekerk, who has turned in some great scripts in the past including "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" and the original "Bruce Almighty", but this one just fell flat.  My guess is that the studio, seeing the mega star power of Steve Carell, started meddling with the script so that it appealed to a broader audience.  In fact, while the original "Bruce Almighty" was rated PG-13 for crude language and sexual humor, "Evan Almighty" was only rated PG for rude humor and peril.

Please stay away from this movie, even if you are a die-hard fan of one of the actors in the magnificent cast.  This movie is not typical of their normal work.  You will be disappointed.  Your kids will probably love it, though.  Carell gets hit in the balls enough times (and different ways) to humor just about any kid.

Spoilers!

Planning on having a bite and pausing this film and doing some chores, I nonetheless played this one to its term.

The whole movie has so much momentum; the narrative does not seem to have wasted space or wasted characters. Like There Will Be Blood, the film fits so well into its Western genre that it helps define what a modern Western can be. And as with all good films within the genre, the final finish -- the gunfight at the O.K. Corral -- 3:10 to Yuma promises so much, but still comes through.

Casting Christian Bale and Russell Crowe against one another couldn't fail. Both actors get it; they just go to work. Consider if you were to play a post-Civil War veteran down on his luck in outback Arizona? What would be on your mind if your son had tuberculosis, and your other son thought you weak because you couldn't pay your debts, or feed your family fully, for that matter? Bale's characterization is supple and believable, in a role that has much similarity with Josh Brolin's character Llewelyn Moss in No Country for Old Men: a pawn that's had enough of the simple life, and tests his mettle against the vicious.

But the intelligent addition for Dan Evans (Bale's character) is that he fights for his family, in a lawless Old West where taking advantage of others is "man's nature," as Crowe's character Ben Wade puts it. And stark inequalities and viciousness are not the robber Wade's territory; Dan Evans takes on the task of delivering Wade to the 3:10 to Yuma train because a banker burns his barn after he falls behind on paying down his debt. "That land is worth more without you than with you, with the trains coming," he says.

The film beautifully places Good and Bad under erasure -- suspend your judgment. While a killer and thief, Wade's father was murdered and his mother abandoned him, and he used his natural gifts to first memorize the Bible and second to become a slippery genius outlaw -- one that can tempt any woman, and also a skilled sketch artist. Lawmen become cowards, "posses" work Chinese immigrants to make railroads, and, perhaps most tellingly, the man who burned down Evans' barn soon becomes his partner in transporting Wade, only to be killed by Wade. Evans says in response to this, "Wishing a man dead and doing it are two different things."

The final sequence shows how great films create a space for the climax to succeed. Evans' son has refused to stay home and instead is Dan Evans' final partner in putting Wade on the train, seeking excitement, but also wanting to find his father as a hero instead of peasant. When everyone gives up under the threat of death, Evans soldiers on, his death all too likely. He proves his mettle with the ruthless, which teaches Wade about respect and even friendship.

When Wade rides off in the train with his trusty horse trailing, and Evans finally having taken care of his family for good, we are satisfied -- especially with the classic "everyone dies" ending, vis-a-vis Hamlet.

Yes, the film recalls Unforgiven; my favorite aspect is how the action is undergirded by us slowly learning the backstory of the Bale and Crowe characters. One flaw was that the filmmaker did not seem to find "huge" Arizona shots -- the shots seemed to be limited in view because of modern elements; why not remove them with digital photography, and offer a spectacular Arizona sunset? One "suspension of disbelief" aspect is how a ruthless killer with a ruthless posse chasing him down would merit staying alive, with his captor-transporters drop like flies.

Overall, this film is a great pleasure, and yet another reason that 2007 was an amazing year in cinema, along with the aforementioned No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. One wouldn't think the Western could offer this much, with the themes of the Western -- violence, inequality, ruthlessness -- having so much to say about our time. But only 3:10 to Yuma offers us hope that some men are good, even if the villain gets away every time.

I watched an intriguing movie last night -- Jerome Bixby's The Man from Earth. Bixby, who died last year before the film was released, was a known writer for episodes of Star Trek and the Twilight Zone. Although the subject matter of this film is a departure from this type of work, it still has that similar feel to it.

David Lee Smith (who plays Calleigh Duquesne's IAB boyfriend on "CSI:Miami") plays John Oldman, a professor at the local college.  The entire film takes place the afternoon of his impromptu "going away party" when he announces that, after ten years at the college, he'll simply be "moving on."  He's packing everything from his house into his truck and isn't telling anyone where he's going. His colleagues, concerned about him and the mystery of his departure, come on over to talk with him.

And then he lets them in on a shocking secret that they discuss for the duration of the movie: He grew up as a latter paleolithic cro-magnon man. He stopped aging at around age 35, and has been alive for the 14,000 years since then. He leaves his job and his friends every ten years or so when they start to notice that he doesn't age.

And everyone reacts. Some with fervent belief, some as skeptics. All of them trying to poke holes into and substantiate his story from biological, anthropological, Biblical and psychological points of view. But he seems to have an answer for every one of them.

And that's it. No action scenes (aside from a minor scuffle), no sex scenes, no changes of location. Just tenured professors (and one undergrad who allegedly is boning her professor with whom she arrived).  Some of them are downright annoying. (Example: John Billingsley plays Harry, the biology professor. He's the actor who played Dr. Phlox on Enterprise. As well as many other nerdy characters with annoyingly nasal voices. But he plays this part extremely well.) Richard Riehle (the old guy from "Office Space" who gets laid off, hit by a drunk driver, and invents the "Jump to Conclusions Mat") plays Dr. Will Gruber, a psychologist who can't decide between believing Dr. Oldman's story or committing him for further observation.

Every question is asked and receives a relatively good answer: Have you ever been sick? Are there any others out there like you? When did you come to America? How do you know that you were in what is now France thousands of years ago? What were you doing in 1292 AD? Did you know any figures from the Bible? 

And the way it ends will set your heart a poundin'.

Great movie. I give it 54 out of 57 stars.