Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Review: Crazy Heart

Review: Crazy Heart
Rating: ***
Nonna's Rating: $$$
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

I have found it very difficult to evaluate films in an objective fashion that cut close to my bone. It's that Bowen psychology thing: am I responding or reacting? If I'm going to be honest, I have to say that this film was particularly uncomfortable for me to watch. I suspect that other people, like me, who have lived with alcoholic loved ones don't relish reliving those experiences through any number of great depictions of alcoholics on film. And this is another great one. Jeff Bridges' performance deserves all the praise it is getting. I suspect he will win the Academy Award. He has never won but was nominated for The Contender, Starman, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, and The Last Picture Show. He was completely overlooked for his arguably best performance in The Big Lebowski, so it's time they honored him. Perhaps my reaction to his performance is, in the end, testament to its power and verisimilitude.

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Monday, February 22, 2010

Review: I Can Do Bad All By Myself

Review: I Can Do Bad All By Myself
Rating: ***
Nonna's Rating: $$$
Rotten Tomatoes: 62%

Quite a few critics don't seem to like Tyler Perry's films at all. Even the critics who do recommend his films tend to be apologetic about it, noting that Perry's movies are sentimental, predictable, and contrived, that they unabashedly mix violence, tragedy and comedy.

I think most critics just don't get what Tyler Perry is up to. And I'm not so sure I get it either, but I'm going to take a stab at it.

Perry makes the most Christian films I've ever seen. Not smarmy, saccharine, pious cinema, but stories about ordinary people faced with choices, choices that will lead them toward God or away from God. Diary of a Mad Black Woman, for example, tackles the choice of whether or not to forgive, whether or not to change a heart of stone for a heart of flesh. In this film, Perry asks us to care for those who cannot care for themselves; he challenges us to take responsibility for one another, to put the needs of those less fortunate ahead of our own needs. That's downright revolutionary in this day and age.

Yes, I suppose Perry's films are sentimental and predictable, but he delivers such an inspired mixture of what might be trite with what is definitely uproariously funny. And, in this film, he adds six heart stopping musical numbers by Taraji P. Henson, Mary K. Blige, Gladys Knight, and Marvin Winans that bring down the house.

And then there's Madea (played by 6 ft. 5 in. Tyler), the gun-toting grandma who doesn't spend too much time in church. In one brilliantly funny scene, Jennifer (Hope Olaide Wilson), a motherless, fatherless, grandmotherless sixteen-year-old, asks Madea to teach her to pray. Madea launches into a retelling of the Old and New Testaments that is the comedic high point of the film. Nevertheless, she still manages to preach a fine sermon, admonishing Jennifer that, if she plans to walk on water, she'd better keep her eye on Jesus.

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Moon

Review: Moon
Rating: ***
Nonna's Rating: $$$
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

When I was in the fourth grade, I discovered Isaac Asimov, then Arthur C. Clarke, then Robert Heinlein, and then the rest of the whole magical world of science fiction. When I was a college professor, I was lucky enough to teach a senior-level course in Science Fiction. In addition to six or seven novels, we read a ton of short fiction. Moon reminds me of the best of that fiction: a simple story about a man isolated in space -- here on the dark side of the moon. He's only a few days away from returning home to his wife and child after a three-year work rotation. Then, a younger, healthier version of himself suddenly appears. This fine movie answers the central question of science fiction: "What if?" The answer isn't easy or pretty here; it calls us all to face the inevitable ethical questions of our future. No bug-eyed monsters, no aliens intent on making humans into Chateaubriand in this movie. Just intelligent, challenging, disturbing science fiction at its best.

Sam Rockwell, as the far from unique Sam Bell, carries the movie beautifully, and Kevin Spacey, as GERTY, the voice of a Hal-like computer, provides one of the many nostalgic echoes of 2001: A Space Odyssey in the film.

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Review: The Book of Eli
Rating: *1/2
Nonna's Rating: $
Rotten Tomatoes: 45%

Start with Mad Max. Add a smattering of A Canticle for Leibowitz and a heavy dose of Fahrenheit 451. You'll get The Book of Eli, a mess of a film. I wanted to see it for two reasons. First, Denzel. And he didn't disappoint, but his fine acting was wasted on this bizarrely derivative combination of post-apocalyptic violence and Christianity. Second, I had heard the film was very popular with fundamentalist Christians. I had to see what the fuss was about.

Unfortunately, the movie perpetuates the unfortunate historical coupling of violence and religion -- here, Christianity. I was hopeful that the ending would reject violence and move a bit closer to the Kingdom of God, but no such luck. Instead, the film continues the unfortunate Protestant convention of replacing the Pope in Rome with a Paper Pope.

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: The Hurt Locker

Review: The Hurt Locker
Rating: ***
Nonna's Rating: $$$
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%

As The Hurt Locker begins, a quotation on screen reads "War is addictive." Viewed superficially, that sentence explains everything that happens in this movie, but the words are deceptively facile. As this intense film unfolds, we notice just how complex, disturbing, and volatile are the motivations and emotions of the men who diffuse bombs for a living in Iraq.

By no stretch of the imagination can I say I liked this film. I admired the taut storytelling, the realistic portrayal of the insanity of war, but I could never watch it again. For the most part, it avoids the trap of making an anti-war film filled with seductive violence. The focus is not on killing; it is on the minute to minute possibility of being killed. When Jeremy Renner enters the film as SFC William James, the bomb defuser on the squad, he seems to be a loose cannon destined to be cannon fodder. Quickly, we learn how adept and smart he is about disarming munitions and about disarming the emotions of the men who support him. The heavily padded protective suit he wears, however, is as illusory as the team's infrequent moments of peace and solitude: James' naked fingers are always, always exposed.

Our involvement in the war in Iraq has saddened me from the time the Bush White House first began to talk about it. This film underscores the waste of it all: as someone once said, "No combat soldier ever comes back unwounded."

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Sunday, February 07, 2010

Review: A Single Man

Review: A Single Man
Rating: ***
Nonna's Rating: $$$
Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

There is something about this movie that I found very unsettling. I think it was the lighting. It has that overexposed look of color photos from the 60s. Washed out Kodachrome. Tom Ford's direction, the costumes, the makeup, the editing, the art direction -- all whisked me back almost 50 years. Whisked me back to the time when two "confirmed bachelors" would live together and everyone would tacitly agree just to ignore the fact.

Colin Firth's performance as George is the reason to see this film. He manages to portray a deeply depressed human being without dragging the film into his personal black hole. There are enough humor, enough pathos, and enough subtlety to draw us into the sad story of this meticulous man born too early.

And, oh yes, the other unsettling thing was the little girl with the long skinny legs who lived next door to George -- an animated Diane Arbus portrait if ever I saw one.

Nonna's Ratings:
$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it