Review of DRIVE

What with rehearsals and all, I haven’t had much time lately to see any movies, but yesterday I went to see DRIVE,  a really violent, brutal movie with several scenes where I had to turn away from the screen.  It is bloody.  At the same time, for an action movie, it is very slow moving.  There were a lot of scenes where the camera just lingered on a face for what seemed an endless time for no apparent rreason.  Also, what story there is, is pretty convoluted.  Ryan Gosling, in what seems his seventh movie in five weeks, stars as a “driver,” who stunt drives for movies during the daay, then serves as a wheel man for a couple of hold up men at night.  Along the way he meets a cute girl with an 8 year son (how often has that been in a movie) who turns his life around.  The ending is very ambiguous, so you can make it to be whatever you want.  From the way it was advertised, I thought there would be more exciting car chases – there weren’t, but there was a lot of bloody violence as Gosling gets involved with some horrific killers who wind up trying to kill him.  It’s a well-made movie, and the cinematography is excellent, including some great shots of Los Angeles at night.  It’s tightly edited, the acting is good, but it’s pretty ugly.  I’ve been all over the place trying to rate it, and while I can’t recommend it – in addition to the violence, every other word is the F word – I still give it a 5.8.

Two Reviews

Yesterday I went to see CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER.  It’s a bit long at two and a quarter hours, but I found it pretty much engaging for the whole time – didn’t look at my watch once.  Most of the special effects were effective, and their making Chris Evans look like a scrawny little pipsqueak at the beginning of the movie was very convincing.  It’s pretty typical of a summer blockbuster – the pipsqueak hero wants to join the army but is too puny.  The movie is set duirng  WWII, and he wants to fight the Nazis (who have, somehow, 25th century weaponry).  However, a far advanced scientist (Stanley Tucci, one of my favorite actors) has a serum that turns him into an invulnerable superhero, Captain America.  For some reason he has a Brisith Colonel girlfirend who is with him constantly.   Coincidentally (??), the Nazis have the same serum and crreate The Red Skull, an equally strong and talented villain.  Their fight at the end is worth the price of admission.  The film starts pretty slowly, but once the action starts it gets much more exciting.  I’ve not read the comic books on which the movie is based, but the movie stands on its own.  It was fun and gets a socks up 7.  It emphasizes patriotism, which is pretty nice these days.
Then, the timing being right, I went in to see HORRIBLE BOSSES, one of the most horrible moives I’ve ever seen, despite having Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, and Jennifer Anniston in the cast. I checked my watch numerous times.  I should have known better just from what I’d read about it.  I rank it as the second most disgusting movie I’v ever seen (right after SOMETHING ABOUT MARY). Thinking back on it, it breaks every one of the ten commandments numerous times – all for laughs.  Sadly, the audience I saw it with was laughing their heads off.  I won’t spend much time on it, but it is filled with really foul and sexual language, a lot of illicit sex and adultery, and a lot of bathroom humor.  It has no redeeming qualities, and says rather loudly how sick and sad our society is.  Minus 15 is a generous ranking.

ASPECTS OF LOVE

If you’re looking for a great way to get out of the heat this week end, go see the OFF THE WALL production of ASPECTS OF LOVE.  It’s absolutely wonderful.  I saw the original show three times in London and loved it, and this one almost matches the original.  Great voices, strong acting, and the thirteen year old girl who plays Jenny is fantastic.  Also a great set that uses the space really well.  If you like musical theatre, you’ll love this one.

THREE REVIEWS

Yesterday I saw HARRY POTTER: THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 and found it engrossing and entertaining, but not as much as I had expected.  I’ve read some bad reviews of Part 1, but I thought Part 1 was quite good and loved the way it ended with the lightning bolt to the sky, and that’s where Part 2 begins.  First of all, Harry and his friends are now in their twenties, ten years after the first in the series was made, and they look their age, especially when seen along with some of the flashbacks that are used.  Probably the toughest thing for David Yates in directing this movie is the novel was so excellent.  As the last in the series of seven books, I thought J.K. Rowling did a a masterful job of pulling all the story lines together and concluding it in a really powerful way, and that all made it too complex to easily bring it to the screen (and thus two parts to the film).  Another problem, though probably minor, is I thought that if you hadn’t seen the earlier films you’d be lost in this one, at least at first.  but since I’ve read all the books and seen the movies, that’s hard for me to judge.  All the characters are back, and it’s like a WHO’S WHO of British sterling actors.  Harry and Valdemort (Ralph Fiennes) are stilll trying to kill each other, and together they wreak a lot of havoc.  Good overcomes evil, of course, but I won’t give away any particulars.  The special effects are seamless and fantastsic, and includes the best movie dragon I’ve ever seen.  The story is gripping, the acting excellent, and it’s worth seeing in 3D.  I give it  a socks up 8.

     With some time to spare I walked into WINNIE THE POOH just as it was starting.  It’s only a little over an hour long, but is a lot of fun.  It’s a Disney animated film that brings Pooh back to the screen (and surprisingly, there were more kids in this movie than in HARRY POTTER).  The kids loved it, and there was enough more sophisticated humor for adults.  Uhnappily, I read that all of the original voices of Pooh and his friends have died, but the replacemnts do a pretty good job of sounding fairly much like them.  Pooh is hungry for honey, of course, and he finds a note left by Christopher Robin saying that he has gone off, is buy, and will be back soon.  The stuffed animals all think he has been captured by the monster Backson and go about trying to rescue him.  It’s all rather silly but fun and has a few hearty laughs.  The animators did some really clever things in actually bringing the book to life.  I give it a 7.

     Being a member of the cast and in mid-production of the stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s EMMA, I decided to watch the Gwyneth Paltrow movie version last night (there are several others), since it was Book Club night for my wife.  I’m glad I did; it is a delightful movie.  I suppose it shouldn’t have been, but I was surprised how much it is like the script we’re doing; same source, but different writers, and it is a long book.  But with Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma, Ewan McGregor as Knightly, Alan Cummings as Elton, and Toni Collette as (a particularly unattractive) Harriet Smith, it’s a wonderful cast.  The costumes are beautiful, the story/adaptation hangs together well, the acting is superb, and the English setting is gorgeous; it is a delight and gets a socks up 8.7.  I was smiling all night.

EMMA

A good dress rehearsal last night, the process is over, and we’re ready to open tonight.  Fine cast, great costumes, Jane Austen story – should be fun for the two week ends.

Review: TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (3)

From the sublime to the ridiculous, and back and forth, that’s pretty much the story of TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.  The movie has a surprisingly good cast, which helps raise the level of the writing.  Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Michael Bay, it is a failry engrossing close to three hours, although the final battle seems interminable.  Course, I guess it takes time to save the world. Once again, it’s sometimes diffiucult to tell the good bots from the bad, but up close the bad ones are darker colors and have evil faces.  Shia Le Beouf remains one of the worst actors in Hollywood, but he must be in good shape to do all the running he does in the movie.  Megan Fox opted out of this one, which is fine with me, and another collagen lipped girl friend replaces her – British model/actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who is not only better looking, but also a better actress than Fox.  Unfortunately, she stands a head taller than the tiny La Beouf, which makes their romantic scenes a bit silly.  Maybe number 4 will be about her – I’d go in a heartbeat.  John Turturro is fine as a friendly scientist, and Frances McDormand plays the head of the national space agency, while John Malkovich plays another of his delightfully wacko chracxters.  Once again the evil transformers are trying to take over the earth, and the good ones are helping the humans save the planet.  I just heard yesterday that Bay wrecked 389 cars in the making of this movie.  They’re wrecked to good use.  Several scenes are set in Milwaukee’s Calatrava Center, and Chicago also gets a lot of use and is left in ruins.  There are some truly preposterous events in the film, but, the old willing suspension of disbelief is required.  The digital sepcial effects, by-and-large, are fantastic and quite realistic.  The sound vibrates the whole auditorium.  If you decide to see it, see it in 3D;  it’sworth it.  I found it pretty good escapism and give it a socks up 6.8.  One other odd thing, I thought, was in the beginning  when they intersperse film clips of Presidents Kennedy and Nixon with actors who don’t look anything like them.

TRADITION

Ah, tradition; I love it.  Yessterday, for the 28th year in a row, I watched the movie version of the musical 1776, one of my all-time favorite shows – I directed it, have seen it on stage several times, I’ve seen the move more than thirty times, and I’m still not tired of it.  It’s a very well researched looked at the days leading up the signing of THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, and ends with the signing. (Yesterday I noticed for the first time, since I happened to have a copy of the document in my lap, that each of the actors signs the declaration exactly where the historic personage he is played signed it – wow, how cool!)  The movie includes most of the original Broadway cast, and they are wonderful!  William Daniels as John Adams, Howard Da Silva as Ben Franklin,and Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson.  There are 24 men and two women in the cast,which makes it hard to do for amateurs, but it is a wonderful script with fantastic music, and leaves me in tears every time.  If you haven’t seen it; you should!

Up-date

Rehearsals for EMMA are going well – excellent cast, and tonight the choreographer comes to teach us 19th century line dancing.  That should be fun.  Fitted costumes yesterday.  We’re getting there.

REVIEW: CARS 2

On a beautiful summer afternoon, yesterday, I went to see the new Pixar animated film CARS 2.  It’s a sequel that’s better than the original.  The animation is fantastic with a lot of action – races, and chases, and things, and the story is fast-moving, funny, and clever.  Mater, the dimwitted tow truck and Lightning McQueen, both from the original, CARS, go to Europe for a World Grand Prix, visiting Paris, London, and other cities along the way, and get involved in some foreign intrigue with a couple of sophisticated British sports cars involving an alternative fuel, Allinol.  And there is a nice, if brief, tribute to the late Paul Newman, who played the Hudson Hornet in the original.  The strong cast includes the voices of Michael Caine, Owen Wilson, and Larry the Cable Guy.  It’s great fun and gets a socks up 8.  With time and opportunity, I then went to see MIDNIGHT IN PARIS again.  I liked it even better the second time.

Three Reviews

Yesterdady was movie day. First I went to the theatre to see two comic book movies, GREEN LANTERN, based on the DC Comics character, and then X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, based on the Marvel Comics series.  I grew up on comic books, but only vaguely remember Green Lantern; clearly he wasn’t one of my favorites, and wasn’t one of the more popular comic heroes.  Having that in mind, the film makers spend the first third of the movie filling in the back story of how Green Lantern became Green Lantern.  Actually, he’s only one of many Green Lanterns throughout the universe, each of whom has a ring with the power to do all sorts of amazing stuff.  The ring is powered by a green lantern, and it’s the ring which selects the defender,each of whom has to protect his/her portion of the universe from the evil Parallax – a smoggy cloud with an evil face.  The plot is too convoluted to try to summarize, and it is confusing and hard to follow, but who cares, this is a movie about special effects, which are great.  It does have a very scary villain, a wimpy scientist taken over by the Parallax,who is really, really, scary and creepy.  Nonetheless, Hal Jordan, a great if  irreverent test pilot, is selected by the ring to be earth’s Green Lantern, and in addition to fighting crime, he has to try to save his universe from Parallax.  The movie runs about two hours and is mild fun.  It is pretentious, the dialogue silly, the acting fairly mundane, and the special effects fantastic.  Blake Lively (Is that really her name?) plays Hal’s girlfriend in a truly worthless role, and Tim Robbins give a wooden performance as Hal’s father.  It gets a 5.5 and is not as bad as some other reviewers have said; it’s much better than THE GREEN HORNET, and see it in 3D if you can.

I then stepped into X-MEN: FRST CLASS, just as it began.  This is a much better movie than GREEN LANTERN, and the special effects are almost as good.  It pretty much fillls in the back story of the X-Men who have already appeared in several movies as adults. In this movie they’re teen agers just learning to deal with their special “talents” and being recruited by a young Prof X (and we learn how he came to be confined to a wheel chair)  As the movie develops the viewer is introduced to each of the X-People as they take on their various guises – half for good and half for evil, with some switching back and forth.  This prequel has some contradictions from the earlier movies, but they’re not distracting.  The film is set in 1962, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is an important part of the plot.  The young actors are all pretty good, and January Jones, who plays Emma Frost, who can change herself into a diamond body, is gorgeous!  Kevin Bacon makes for a good James Bond type villain, and Michael Fassbander is excellent as Erik, who beocmes Magneto.  It’s all great fun and gets a socks up 7.9.

Since it was book club night, I picked up a honey mustard chicken sub and went home to see what was on Movies on Demand.  I saw that THE TOWN was still available, and since I’ve read several reviews saying how good it is, decided to watch that.  The Town is a suburb of Boston (I think – everyone has a Boston accent), and it’s essentially a police procedural.  The movie begins with a very long bank robbery that introduces a gang of four, led by Ben Affleck, who take a hostage (Rebecca Hall), later turning her loose  (Come to think of it,  there was no reason for taking a hostage other than to set up the plot).  Affleck has no qualms about being a bank/armored truck robber, but he wants out of the business – which is cohorts don’t want to happen.  Meantime, he tracks down their hostage to make sure she can’t do the gang any harm.  So he picks her up in a laundromat, and very shortly they fall in love (of course).  The rest of the movie follows their growing relationship as the FBI works at tracking down the gang as they continue to rob banks and armored cars.  There is a lot of foul language, some fairly graphic sex, and the story is fairly original and not too predictable.  The actors do a lot of mumbling which is hard to understand.  Blake Lively was also in this film as a former lover of Affleck’s character, and Affleck directed the film.  It was fairly engrossing, so I give it a socks up 6.7.