Bridge of Spies

From the desk of The Movie Snob.

Bridge of Spies  (B+).  So, I set out to see Crimson Peak, but somehow I got the time messed up and arrived at a theater where it wasn’t playing until much later in the day.  Casting about for something else, I saw that I was in time to see this movie, which I knew had gotten good reviews.  So I bought my matinee ticket and was pleasantly surprised to learn during the opening credits that Steven Spielberg (War of the Worlds) directed and the Coen brothers (True Grit) co-wrote the screenplay.  The movie itself was even more of a pleasant surprise.  Based on true events, the film stars Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!) as Jim Donovan, a Nuremberg-prosecutor-turned-insurance-lawyer.  In the late 1950s, a Communist spy is arrested in New York, and the feds recruit Donovan to defend the Commie (Mark Rylance, The Other Boleyn Girl).  Needless to say, his vigorous defense of the hated spy doesn’t win Donovan many friends.  Then the feds have to turn to Donovan once more when U-2 pilot Gary Powers is shot down over the U.S.S.R. and captured.  Can he go alone into East Berlin and negotiate a prisoner exchange?  Although this is all ancient history (and the movie clocks in at a lengthy 141 minutes), Spielberg and Co. make it fresh and exciting.  Alan Alda (The Aviator) and Amy Ryan (TV’s The Office) pop up in small parts as Donovan’s law partner and wife respectively.

Schindler’s List

A DVD review from The Movie Snob.

Schindler’s List  (A-).  I did not get around to seeing the winner of the 1994 Oscar for Best Picture until last night — I had bought the DVD years ago, but could never bring myself to watch it.  It is, of course, as good and as powerful as I had expected it to be.  A young Liam Neeson (Clash of the Titans) plays Oskar Schindler, an amoral, womanizing entrepreneur who moves to Krakow, Poland, and hatches a very successful plan to profit from WWII by using cheap Jewish laborers to manufacture things for the German army.  Gradually, his eyes are opened to the Nazi horror, and by the end of the movie he has spent his entire fortune on the bribes necessary to save the lives of some 1,100 Jews.  Neeson turns in a fine performance (Tom Hanks beat him out for the Best Actor Oscar for Philadelphia), as does a young Ralph Fiennes (Wrath of the Titans) as Amon Goeth, the psychotic Nazi commandant of the labor camp outside Krakow.  (Tommy Lee Jones beat Fiennes for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Fugitive.)  Ebert included Schindler’s List in his first book The Great Movies, and with good reason.

Lincoln – a second opinion

The Motor City Reviewer pays us a visit.

Lincoln

The fundamental concern of Lincoln is the passage of the 13th Amendment, and Lincoln’s struggles to make that passage happen in the House of Representatives. There is great drama in the floor-fights and speeches which led to the 13th Amendment’s adoption on January 31, 1865.  David Strathairn, who deserves a Best Supporting Oscar for his depiction of William Seward, conducts the back-room deal cutting necessary to assemble the requisite two-thirds majority, seconded by Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens. The bad guys appear in the form of George Hunt Pendleton (the disappointed Democratic nominee for vice-president in 1864) and Fernando Wood, the sleazy New York Democrat.  Happily, when the final vote is taken, the bad guys lose.

Another plot line to the movie is a peace plan brewing with the South.  On the recommendation of General Grant, Lincoln sets up a meeting with the peace commissioners. He hopes to keep this under wraps, so as not to feed the Democrats’ campaign against the amendment, even to the point of concealing it from Seward. But the word leaks out all the same, and Lincoln escapes a debacle over the vote for the amendment only by issuing a written assurance that there are no Confederate commissioners in Washington. (They were not, of course, in Washington, but cooling their heels at Hampton Roads, where Lincoln would shortly meet with them, but no one in the Democratic caucus seems to have caught on to Lincoln’s lawyer-like evasion).

The movie delights in the rough-and-tumble of American politics. In an age when so many people complain about gridlock, lobbying, campaign money, and inefficiency, Lincoln embraces all of them, and good comes out of it. It is a movie of confidence – confidence in politics, confidence in a very skilled yet principled politician, confidence in the self-created mazes of our representative democracy.  Daniel Day-Lewis’s Lincoln, haggard but smiling, tormented and yet fundamentally serene in his knowledge of doing right, carries the movie with the help of the excellent supporting cast.

Lincoln

A new review from The Movie Snob.

Lincoln  (A-).  I thoroughly enjoyed this two-and-a-half-hour movie about The Great Emancipator, who is played with panache by the great Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood).  As you’ve probably already read, the movie actually focuses on a very short period of time–a few weeks in January 1865, when the Civil War was close to being won and Lincoln decided to push for the congressional passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery throughout the country.  I had never imagined that the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment was a difficult feat, given that there were no congressmen from the Confederate states in Washington at the time, but apparently it was a very close-run thing.  Anyway, despite the narrow focus, the film has an epic feel (no doubt thanks to director Steven Spielberg, Jaws).  Lots of familiar faces turn up, such as Tommy Lee Jones (Hope Springs) as fiery abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, Sally Field (Forrest Gump) as Abe’s difficult wife Mary, and a memorable James Spader (2 Days in the Valley) as one of three slimy fixers who are enlisted to help round up the requisite votes for the amendment’s passage.  It may be a history lesson, but it goes down easy.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (B+). How did this one elude me for so long? Well, it didn’t entirely. Somewhere along the line I did manage to see a fair amount of the ending, so the movie didn’t really hold any big surprises for me. Nevertheless, I still really enjoyed seeing for the first time the 2 hours leading up to the grand finale. Weird things are happening around the world, such as the discovery of the missing airplanes from Flight 19, intact, in the Mexican desert, with any trace of their crews. (Flight 19 was a group of Navy airplanes that disappeared in or around the Bermuda Triangle back in the 40’s. You could look it up.) There’s a rash of spectacular UFO sightings. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss, Jaws) is an ordinary guy who happens to witness one of these sightings. From then on he’s obsessed with a strange conical shape that he can’t stop sculpting. What does it all mean? If you know the technical meaning of the title of the movie, you’ll have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen. Very good — certainly ahead of its time.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Movie Man Mike contributes our first review of the new Indiana Jones flick

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (B-). This movie was pretty formulaic, brain candy. You got your bad guys—the Soviets. You got your legend of some lost tribe and an artifact—a magnetic crystal skull. You got several good chase scenes with lots of unbelievable stunts requiring the suspension of reality. And you got some good humor sprinkled in here and there. It’s all a little familiar, but in the end, it’s a fun summer movie that certainly appeals to younger audiences and it’s bound to have older crowds waxing nostalgic for the earlier movies in the series.

The most interesting aspect of my trip to the theater to see this film may have been the venue. I saw this one at the newly-refurbished Inwood Theater in the Inwood Shopping Center on Lover’s Lane. They’ve replaced all the old seating with bean bag chairs and love seats and couches. It made the movie-viewing experience a bit more like being in the comfort of your own living room. If you aren’t comfortable enough, go grab another pillow or a blanket; there are plenty. I was pleased to hear that the management launders the covers on the furniture “regularly”—whatever that means because the patrons made themselves at home. Some even took their shoes off and put their bare feet up on the couch. I was a little disappointed, however, to see the condition that many of the patrons left the theater in, with popcorn bags and candy wrappers spilled all over the furniture. After that scene, I have to wonder if “regularly” is often enough and I wonder how long before the furniture needs replacing. In any event, the experience is unique and I recommend checking it out.

Land of the Dead; Munich

New reviews from Nick at Nite

Land of the Dead

I love Zombie movies. Anyone who really knows me, knows I do. I can’t really explain it. I saw Omega Man at an early age and was struck by the way Charleston Heston existed as the lone survivor in a post-apocalyptic world run amok with the Zombies. From Omega Man I moved on to Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Shaun of the Dead, Resident Evil, the list goes on and on and on … I was pumped about seeing Land of the Dead because it is from the mind of George Romero, the grandfather of all modern day Zombie movies. My viewing of the film was delayed because Blockbuster got into a dispute with George over the distribution of the film. The result: you could buy it at BestBuy or Amazon or wait for it to come out on cable. I waited. I caught it last night at 11:30 on HBO. I could not have been more disappointed. Everything that was campy, strange, and scary about the first George Romero movies was missing from this movie. This movie took itself a little too seriously, without the plot, actors, or special effects to justify it. It just was not what I expected. Basically, Dennis Hopper (Giant) has taken over an exclusive high-rise building in a the middle of an unnamed city and managed to keep all the Zombies outside the city. He has created a rich-poor gap inside the city – with lower class workers living in old warehouses and rich folk living in his high-rise. Well the rich-poor gap spills out into the Zombies who attack the city. Much mayhem ensues. People die. People get eaten. I was mostly bored. Save your money, save your time. Rent one of George’s older movies or rent Shaun of the Dead, it’s a riot. I give it an F.

Munich

Spielberg is a genius. I have enjoyed every movie he has ever made, with the notable exception of Munich. Unlike others, who were disappointed in the movie because they thought it was only supposed to be about the original hostage crisis at the Munich Olympics, I was disappointed because the after story seemed slow. I know a story about how the Israeli secret service took out its revenge on those responsible for the hostage crisis should be a reflection of the methodical and deliberate nature of the Israeli secret service’s actions, but how Spielberg was able to take such an interesting and compelling story and make it boring, I’ll never know. Honestly, I might have been more interested in the how-did-they-do-that and who-is-that-person, than in emotive character development. I’ll give it a C. He can do better.

Munich; Syriana; The Island

New reviews from That Guy Named David.

Munich (A-)

Coming into the this movie, I thought the Munich Olympic massacre occurred in 1968 instead of 1972, showcasing how very little I knew of the event. After the movie, I found myself surfing the internet to find out more about the hostage situation, as well as Israel’s response to the massacre over the next several years. To me, that is the sign of a good movie if it makes me want to learn more about the subject of the movie. The bulk of the movie follows the actions of a hit team organized by the Mossad (Israeli Secret Service) to track down and assassinate those responsible for the murder of the 11 Israeli athletes in Munich. While the movie does spend a significant amount of time showcasing the action scenes portraying each of the assassinations, Spielberg does a masterful job of setting forth the moral equivalency debate that such actions inevitably provoke. Throughout the film, you can see the actions of this hit squad incite reactions from the Muslim groups targeted by the Israelis. Spielberg did not attempt to sugarcoat the acts of Israel, nor justify the acts of the Muslim groups responsible for Israeli-targeted terrorism. However, Munich forces the audience to take in all the acts and make those judgments on their own. Very well-done. One of the best movies I have seen in quite a while.

Syriana (C+)

I saw on a “Best of 2005” movie show where the reviewer listed Syriana as the number 4 movie of 2005. He must have been vying for a position in Section 8 Productions, George Clooney’s production company, because I can name 20 films I saw this year (and some I didn’t see) that put this one to shame. Syriana is a complicated movie intended to set forth the complex relationship between oil companies, foreign governments, Muslim extremists, private and governmental lawyers, energy analysts, princes and emirs, presidents, and the always demonized Central Intelligence Agency. While generally these are the types of stories I find interesting, the way Syriana is made annoyed me more than it kept my attention. Basically, for the first hour or so, you have snapshot followed by snapshot followed by snapshot with absolutely no connections between any of them. Eventually (during the last 30 minutes or so), the director attempts to put the snapshots together to form a mosaic but instead gets a convoluted, confusing, and anti-climactic ending that leaves the viewer wondering what in the hell happened over the past 2+ hours. If you are in the mood for a heavy movie, see Munich. On a side note, they have one scene showcased in the movie that was filmed in Hondo, Texas, hometown of this reviewer. Needless to say, it was a little strange seeing my hometown of 6000 people acknowledged for a few seconds in a George Clooney/Matt Damon movie. Not enough to make me enjoy the movie, but still interesting.

The Island (B-)

Pleasantly surprised. I kinda have a thing for Scarlett Johansson (We Bought a Zoo), and my girlfriend has a major crush on Ewan Moulin Rouge! McGregor (I think we look very similar). Anyway, she refused to watch the movie because the plot line of human clones discovering their clonehood and then attacking their makers really didn’t appeal to her. Nonetheless, because I got bored with football about 8 hours in, I decided to conclude my holiday weekend with a mindless action movie. Not bad. There really isn’t a whole lotta substance to the movie, and the dialogue is weak, but for some reason, I enjoyed it. Maybe I was taken by the beauty of young Ms. Johannson, but in any event, not a bad rental.

War of the Worlds

A second opinion on War of the Worlds, by Nick at Nite:

War of the Worlds –

Everything I need to know in life I learned from Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. From Tom I learned: ladies like men who wear blue jeans, but no shirt to play beach volleyball; sometimes doctors are really doctors and not strippers; that it is a bad, bad thing to go uninvited to a kinky, sex party; there is no minority report; an M-60 machine gun makes a beautiful noise when it is fired out of the third floor window of a military school; and that we live in a cynical world. From Steven I learned: what a Goonie is; talking teddy bears are creepy; dinosaurs live in Costa Rica; you can marry women you cast in your movies; Richard Dreyfuss is old; and Harrison Ford is only cool and interesting when he is acting. I learned a little more from these two guys watching War of the Worlds: it doesn’t matter what story these guys try to tell, they do it pretty well.

The premise of the movie is the same as the original. Aliens come to kill humans. The spin this time around is that the special effects are amazing. By “amazing,” I mean this is some of the coolest stuff I have seen since Jurassic Park. The special effects are unique because Spielberg uses some of the CGI technology, but he also uses real people, helicopters, trucks, and more. He combines the old and new very well. This is a great summer blockbuster. You should see it on the big screen. I give it an “A.”

War of the Worlds; Howl’s Moving Castle; My Summer of Love

From the desk of The Movie Snob:

War of the Worlds (B). The buzz I had heard was that this movie keeps you on the edge of your seat almost the entire time, and I have to say that it delivered. For about five minutes, things are perfectly normal. Tom Cruise (Edge of Tomorrow) plays Ray, a swaggering, divorced New Jersey dockworker. He is charged with taking care of his surly teenaged son and ten-year-old daughter for the weekend while his ex-wife and her wealthy new husband go to Boston. Weird storms simultaneously crop up all over the world, knocking out power and communications, and before you know it invincible alien tripods are marching through cities and across the countryside. Ray takes off with his children, and the film is at its best when it focuses on their flight from the alien marauders. To my mind, the film faltered when it slowed down and zeroed in on Ray’s conflicts with his children or other humans, like an unhinged Tim Robbins (Mystic River) hiding out in an abandoned farmhouse. I was also surprised at how much Spielberg seemed to borrow from Independence Day, although perhaps that’s unfair since ID itself apparently lifted its plot straight from the same source—H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Overall, a perfectly decent thriller.

Howl’s Moving Castle (C). This was my first experience with Japanese anime, and it left me completely befuddled. The visuals were undeniably stunning, but the setting and plot were baffling. In the movie’s universe, from what I could tell, most people live in kingdoms that look like something out of Europe circa 1900, but wizards, witches, and magic are also accepted as facts of life. Howl himself is a wizard who lives in a fabulous moving castle that looks like a junkyard on giant mechanical chicken legs. The film’s protagonist, Sophie, is an ordinary young woman who attracts a witch’s attention for some reason and gets put under a spell that turns her into an old woman. She finds the moving castle and attaches herself to Howl’s small retinue as a cleaning woman, hoping to get her spell reversed. Lots of weird stuff happens, but danged if I could tell you why, and there’s a cute fire demon voiced by Billy Crystal (The Princess Bride) too. Definitely a different sort of movie experience.

My Summer of Love (C). The reviewer for the local newspaper loved this British movie, calling it a “triumph” and a “gem.” I was less impressed, finding it pretty ordinary and predictable. The protagonist is Mona (Natalie Press, Suffragette), a poor, plain, teenaged girl with no parents and few prospects. She’s having a loveless affair with a married man, and her older brother, Phil (Paddy Considine, Last Resort), has turned away from a life of petty crime and become a religious fanatic, leaving her even more alone. Then a beautiful rich girl named Tamsin (Emily Blunt, The Adjustment Bureau, in the first movie I ever saw her in) moves into the mansion situated just outside of town, informing Mona that she was asked to leave her boarding school for being a bad influence on the other girls. Mona is quickly pulled into this exotic creature’s orbit, and over the summer the two girls experiment with various illicit activities and substances. As I say, I thought it was really pretty predictable. And average.

Jaws

From the shelf of The Movie Snob:

Jaws (A-). How is that the Movie Snob had never seen this movie before this past weekend? Well, I’ll tell you. When I was about 9 years old, this movie came on network television. My parents foolishly let my little brother and me watch it, and about halfway through I was totally freaked out by it. (You can guess the scene, the one where Richard Dreyfuss (Poseidon) gets into the water at night to check out the underside of a wrecked fishing boat.) Twenty-five years later, I am only just now able to face my fears. Anyhoo, I thought this was a terrific movie, if you overlook the rather dated special effects. The mechanical shark is somewhat more comical than menacing, but still, it’s a good suspenseful tale. The book was really good, too; I read it when I was about that same age, and it didn’t freak me out at all.

The Terminal

From The Movie Snob:

The Terminal (C+). For some reason I just couldn’t embrace this light summer movie. Maybe I’m getting too old and cynical, I don’t know. The premise sounded promising enough: Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!) plays a fellow from an Eastern European nation that falls into civil war while he is on a flight to New York. Consequently, his passport is invalid when he lands, and he is consigned to a legal limbo–unable to enter the U.S. and equally unable to return to his war-torn homeland. So he has to live in the international lounge area of the airport indefinitely, until the situation in his home country settles down enough to give him a normal national status again. Hanks’s performance is fine, but too much of the rest of the movie didn’t work for me. The bureacrat-in-charge at the airport, played by Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games), is too consistently and inexplicably mean to the hapless Hanks to be believable. Hanks’s delicate relationship with a gorgeous flight attendant (the gorgeous Catherine Zeta-Jones, No Reservations) is nice enough, but it suffers from some unbelievable moments along the way too. There’s some other unbelievable and sappy stuff too. By the end, I was more than ready to get out of that danged airport.

Catch Me If You Can

A new review from That Guy Named David:

Catch Me If You Can (C+)

I don’t know if the low grade stems from the fact that I had reasonably high expectations that weren’t met, I still can’t watch Leonardo DiCaprio without wanting to vomit because of Titanic (his career went downhill after Growing Pains and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), or I want to put a bullet in the back of my head every time I hear Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!) mutilate an accent (he’s right up there with Kevin Costner in that department). The movie was alright, but I wasn’t overly impressed with any aspect of it. Christopher (Click) Walken’s performance was good, but I think that it was merely accentuated because you were forced to watch DiCaprio and Hanks through the rest of the movie. I found it interesting that it was based upon a true story (and this also made me take notice of the monotony of my daily existence); however, it just didn’t do it for me.