Monday, November 12

SEVEN PYSCHOPATHS / ARGO / LOOPER / TED / BRAVE

Seven Psychopaths must have been described in some meeting as Pulp Fiction meets Adaptation and although thats as reductive as any X meets Y pitch, damned if it isn’t sorta accurate.  This is my version of a popcorn movie.  It’s entertaining as all hell, but when it’s over it doesn't feel very substantial.  Writer Director Martin McDonagh last made In Bruges (also with Colin Farrell) and the black as coal Irish wit returns; Farrell, Sam Rockwell, and Christopher Walken gabbing is a wonderful thing to see.

THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS

This film is simultaneously very original and very unoriginal.  The plot doesn’t really have any surprises, but man is it fun to watch.  The RZA has worked in the film world for years, providing music or acting in brief roles.  But he finally steps up to the plate with one hell of a debut feature.  The RZA wears many hats here: writing, directing, scoring and starring in a martial arts pastiche full of wacky effects, aptly named characters, and copious blood-letting.

FLIGHT

Robert Zemeckis has finally crawled out of the mo-cap ghetto and made a film with a real living breathing cast again, headlined by Denzel Washington as a drunk pilot who saves the day.  This is a film of many contradictions.  It’s kinda preachy about quitting drinking and joining AA but it also shows that you can fly a plane, land an exploding plane, and survive a grilling at a federal hearing all while drunk.  And high on cocaine that you bought from the world’s fattest cocaine dealer played by John Goodman.

CLOUD ATLAS

This film is like an apple pie left in the rain: mushy.  The Wachowskis, of The Matrix fame, and Tom Tykwer, of Run Lola Run fame, bring you an absurdly ambitious film with an absurdly un-ambitious message that being nice is good and being mean is bad.  There are six stories in the film, linked heavily by theme and lightly by plot, which are intercut over three hours:

LINCOLN

Lets get this out of the way.  This movie is funny.  Intentionally funny.  Character-based humor, not falling-in-shit gags.  I laughed out loud at least ten times during this film and I’ve laughed less at comedies that I gave good reviews.  Abraham Lincoln liked to tell stories, whether they be parables or anecdotes, and they are funny.  Even the reactions to his stories, sometimes before he even starts telling them, are funny.  There is a warmth to this movie, a story about bloodshed and misery and depression and demons and the nation torn asunder, that is unexpected and wonderful.  Abe Lincoln loved his country and his fellow man, and this is a loving tribute to the man.

SKYFALL

The best Bond movie in the last ten years was probably X-Men: First Class or maybe Michel Hazanavicius's deft parodies OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio.  The last three Bond films have been surgical procedures, designed to remove any last trace of fun, color, or personality from a franchise built on them.  In this film, right from the beginning I knew I was in trouble.  Bond opens a door and finds a room full of bloody murdered agents.  Ah, the childish fun of a Bond movie!