The Artist

Deb 7 Me 7

This is a classic entertainment movie about classic entertainment and it’s evolution. The film pays tribute to the great movies and actors of the past, with many visual and story references to movies like Sunset Boulevard and Citizen Kane but mostly Singing in the Rain. It looked to me like the film was shot in color and then converted to black and white, I say this because the scenes seemed to be washed in light, much the way you shoot for color. Typically, classically, you light more dramatically for b/w because all you have is dark and light, so they made the most of light and shadows. Not so here, where many of the scenes were sort of clinically white. Actors were asked to be over-the-top a lot of the time, much the way acting was done in the old days, but everyone was likeable and did a swell job. I didn’t recognize a lot the players, Malcolm MacDowell was on screen for thirty seconds but made the poster billing and a new slimmer version of John Goodman did his usual superb job in a major role here. In keeping with the old days the music score played a huge part of telling the story and it made a real contribution here too, I really liked the music’s role. It was a good story, dramatic with lots of comic relief and good attention to detail. Seeing this movie was a fine way to spend the evening.

Melancholia

Deb 5 Me 3

First off, look up the word melancholy; if the idea of watching melancholy for two hours is your idea of a good time, this might be for you. But probably not. Sure there is enough melancholy to fill a ward, but there’s boredom too. Think about that before plopping down your hard earned pay.

All this is disguised by some beautiful and fascinating imagery, but it leads to nothing. And the score, it plays a huge role in the film, from the long Wagnerian slo-mo opening montage to the swells of orchestration throughout the film, punctuated with popular songs, you’re still left in a drab emotional vacuum.

It was rated R for graphic nudity and sexual content and you can dismiss that right away. Sexual content was incidental and distant, and the nudity (I don’t know about it’s being graphic) was there for a few minutes, but it was cold and joyless skin shots. So if you like big music and lots of effects, this might whet your appetite, but if you like some sort of a story with maybe an occasional smile, go somewhere else.

The Descendants

Deb 5 Me 8

I’ve seen a couple film with Clooney, Perfect Storm and the Goats movie, and liked them both. I really liked this one too and he was a big part of the appeal, but again, it’s the kids. Where are they getting these child actors these days? There must be a Tiger Woods type camp or camps worldwide that are turning out these amazing creatures.

So we have a good story, set in a great location with a nice subplot. Overall a dramatic theme with a surprising amount of comic relief, almost enough that you forget it’s a drama. It also looks like it was shot on film. If it was shot in digital, and I think a few scenes were, then digital has arrived.

Deb sometimes has a problem with time compression, that players evolve or grow or transform from one state to another much too quickly; and she felt like that occurred here. I was okay with it, everybody was believable and it was easy to follow. A nice way to spend the evening.

Anonymous

Deb 6 Me 2

Here’s a big disappointment. The premise is that Shakespeare was more of a ghostwriter than genius and the first few minutes provided clear and interesting information about this issue. Then it went into the void of confusing characters, weird time shifts, people who look the same speaking with olde English accents all contribute to a real waste of time. I was completely lost. Talking about with friends later found that I was not alone, but I didn’t even get that there was a bad guy in it. One friend who really liked it and knows quite a bit about those times was apparently in the dark about much of the story too. Now there were a couple people who I could identify on a regular basis, but for every success there were twenty mysterious folks doing things that were beyond explanation. I can’t think of any reason anyone would come away from this movie happy about the time they’d invested.

J. Edgar

Deb 2 Me 0

When will I learn? Mainstream movies just flatline. This movie was as flat as they come. We saw it opening Friday night. There were four other couples. One walked out after twenty minutes, another after forty. We sat it out. At the end, another couple started laughing, “have you ever seen a worse movie?” Yes, I have, but this was pretty dismal.

There were four of us who talked about the movie for a while afterwards. The make-up was a big part of the films failure. The actors were done by someone from Madame Tussauds; they may have looked authentic, but stiff as boards. No one recalled shots where the actors could go from a smile to a frown; they had to be shot in one mode, re-made up and shot again with the next expression. This didn’t allow for a lot of emotional involvement with the story.

Here is an interesting part of history, about a guy who played a big part in our successes and fiascos in investigation, from Lindberg to Lennon. It was a real opportunity to tell an exciting story that covered generations. Instead it was clinical and drab, it might have been correct in many details, but as dull and listless as you could make a film.

The Way

Deb 8 Me 7

This was a surprise out of left field, never heard of it, had zero expectations and sat down in a crowded theater to see The Way. First thing I see I see is that it is produced, directed and written for the screen by Emilio Esteves. This is followed by the cast list where Martin Sheen is the only name I recognize. In the film Sheen plays Esteves father, amazing casting. So from the git-go my antennae is up and I’m thinking this is going to be a “cause” movie, something to promote something on Sheen’s political agenda and will not be very appealing. This feeling haunted me all the way through and sure enough there was the obligatory pro-catholic and pro-life diatribe, slyly played out by other actors, but what the hell, its their movie, they can say what they want. It was indeed about something near to the Sheen/Esteves family heart, but something with a wider and historically significant appeal and generally remarkable.

Without giving too much away it is about the Camino de Santiago and the thousands who make the pilgrimage to the place where St. James’ remains are reputed to be interred. The film focuses on only a few trekkers who were all ably acted, they were rough equivalents of the tin man, scarecrow and lion on the way to Oz, and the off-hand reference to this made it a light coincidence rather than a worn-out formula. It is a long trip through villages scattered along beautiful countrysides. My namesake is Basque and they pay homage to the Basque region in a way that interested me; in fact almost everything they touched on was interesting to me. It was a good movie, a bit overplayed, but they avoided obvious clichés and made some good choices. A not so good choice was shooting in digital rather than film, which left the gorgeous panoramas a bit weak. The biggest issue was the several holes in the story and a lot of un-answered questions (some of them I considered to be key) that left me a bit hollow in an otherwise filling tale.

The Help

Deb 8 Me 8

This one came recommended. I looked at the trailer and it looked to be a horrible movie, filled with giggly southerners and maids making cutesy commentary. Ignore the trailers. This was a pretty darn good movie that dealt with genuine issues in a realistic way. It takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the days of the civil rights movement. I can’t pretend to know anything about how deeply rooted the southern problem is/was, but the movie shows it with a pretty even hand. Like anyplace, some folks are kind but misguided, others mean and rueful.

Points against the movie are its slow pace, slow as a southern summer. And the main player just wasn’t believable, she didn’t look right to me and her motivations were never quite convincing. It’s a long movie at 137 minutes, the result of the slow pace and just a little too much ground covered.

But in its favor is that it’s a good story. It’s a big story that needs to be remembered all the time. It’s a movie that reminds me of our social shortcomings and wants to make things better. It opens the door for me to rant. The black slaves were freed in the 1860s and it takes a full 100 years for them to get legal equal rights. That was 50 years ago and still our most depressed communities, our worst schools and our jails are filled with black Americans. Sure there are great strides for a few blacks, but this works as a distraction to the thousands who still remain in squalor. This is a story of a few who courageously take the first tentative steps toward resolution of a powerful and deeply entrenched American crisis.