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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.3

Published by marco on

Updated by marco on

Gravity (2013) — 6/10

I can only say what I thought of this movie based on the way that I saw it: in HD on a conventional screen at home. I can imagine that the experience was very different in 3D and on a giant screen with a kick-ass sound system. The only downside I can think of is that if the sound-leveling was the same in the theater, it would have been an ear-blistering experience. If you set the volume high enough to hear the occasional radio whispers, many other parts of the movie nearly blew you out of your chair—or caused the neighbors to call to yell at you that their kids can’t sleep.

Gravity stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in an unlikely in-space scenario. The inconsistencies abound in a movie that purports to make an effort to get things right. It’s ludicrous because space is big. Neil DeGrasse Tyson did a masterful job of listing plot holes on his Twitter account. Just to sum up the ones I noticed:

  • Once you’re locked to something in space, you will not “drift away”. Once the tether stopped Bullock and Clooney, there was no force causing them to continue to drift from the space station. None. The station was not rotating so centripetal force did not come into play.
  • It sure was convenient that the space in which they found themselves was so inordinately populated with other stuff: ISS, the shuttle and the Chinese station were all within a couple of hundred miles of each other and in sight lines.
  • An utterly untrained and self-admittedly terrible pilot uses landing thrusters to hit a target in space and match speed with it? With minor adjustments made by a fire extinguisher? Sure, why not.
  • Why doesn’t the fire extinguisher come soaring down on her head during one of the many, sudden momentum changes when she’s in the capsule?
  • Why is nothing tethered? And why is there literally no instinct to tether anything on her part? Especially when she’s so absolutely amazing at navigating the tight tunnels of the station at high speed without so much as nicking a knee or elbow?
  • Why in God’s name was a medical doctor doing a spacewalk? This is not in any way explained. Armageddon did a better job of explaining why the utterly unqualified were suited up.
  • I did not notice this one, but I love DeGrasse Tyson for noticing it: “Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east yet all satellite debris portrayed orbited east to west.”

It was an action movie, but I didn’t really get into Bullock as an action actress. I could not have cared less about her character because there was almost zero character development. Having her character tell me that she lost a child does not count as developing her character. A movie has to have a character that you root for and I honestly could not have cared less if she lived or died. I was actually pleasantly surprised to think that the movie would end with her turning off the oxygen in the Russian capsule (which Clooney kept calling the “Soyez). This would have been a delightfully and realistic existentialist ending. See Magic Mike below for how to end a movie.

Alas, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps, performed some utterly unbelievable miracles, forgave herself and learned to walk again. Yay for happy endings that confirm the ability of humans to overcome anything. Meh. I’m not leaving off a recommendation because the science was wrong, I’m leaving it off because I didn’t like the schmaltzy plot and I don’t have a giant 3D screen at home.

Real Steel (2011) — 7/10
A film about the robot-boxing world of the future. Hugh Jackman plays a down-on-his-luck robot-boxer manager who was a strong, skilled and hard-headed boxer. In 2027, men no longer box; robots do. Jackman’s failures as a robot-boxer driver are only exceeded by his failures at gambling. Long story short, this is a Disney movie about a little robot fighting against a giant robot owned by a steely-eyed Russian lady—it’s like Rocky IV all over again. Hugh Jackman is good, as usual: he’s charming even though he’s an utterly useless idiot for much of the film, seemingly intent on self-destruction for reasons that are unclear. Evangeline Lilly plays a plucky boxing-manager’s daughter—the same who managed Jackman’s former career. After Jackman inexplicably and almost deliberately wastefully burns through a couple of expensive robots, his long-lost son joins him for the summer and discovers a long-buried, early-model robot at a junkyard. The little robot turns out to be plucky and trainable and hard-headed and ready to bite off a lot more than it can chew. Yadda yadda yadda. It was entertaining and well-made—and watching mechanical robots pound each other in the brainpan without any perceivable form of defense is much preferred over watching the same with humans. The boxing scenes are well-done and quite exciting. recommended.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) — 7/10
The crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation end up in the middle of a dispute between a new race whose longevity is waning and the simple residents of a planet whose radiation imparts rejuvenatory effects on its few inhabitants. Thanks to corruption and misguided notions of charity, Star Fleet stands solidly behind the dying, but invading, race and feels that the few hundred inhabitants of the planet have no right to sit on a resource that has the potential to prolong millions if not billions of lives. They want to oust the inhabitants and let the other race in to research and develop the energy that is their Fountain of Youth. Picard and crew quite rightly see the inherent injustice of this and intervene on behalf of the residents, whom they’ve in the meantime befriended. Cue heroics and Star Trek-style badassery in which our favorite crew triumphs and simultaneously proves that Star Fleet and the “ancient” race never truly had a moral leg to stand on. Slow-paced as you would expect—and with battle scenes that are laughable by today’s sci-fi standards—but also rife with the expected philosophical and political discussions, into which parallels to modern-day issues and situations can easily be read, but which would in all likelihood be denied by the makers of the film, albeit with perhaps a sly smile and a wink. Recommended for fans of the genre.
Lolita (1997) — 8/10

This film is lovingly narrated by Jeremy Irons, who also has the lead role. The film shows his character moving in with Lolita and her mother (played by Melanie Griffith) and slowing being pulled into Lolita’s orbit. Or rather, he is immediately smitten and she slowly pretends to seduce him. She is aware of her power over him, but toys with it casually, not even letting it take precedence over being a teenager. It’s lovingly filmed with a focus on the nubile young Lolita from the eye of the narrator. And Jeremy Irons is a wonderful narrator.

Lolita is young and obnoxious but the bloom only slowly comes off the rose for Humbert, as long as she’s banging him. The interview at the college—which turns out to be a prep school for débutantes—was quite funny and featured a zeugma, “Here at Beardsley Prep, we’re less concerned with Medieval dates than weekend ones.” Slowly, Lolita comes to be in total control, twisting him around by his predilections and his guilt about them. She irritates him deliberately and is deliberately obnoxious, knowing that her sexual favors allow her everything. When Humbert says, “You’re very young and I know it’s hard to imagine that people will try to take advantage of you,” it’s quite hard to keep a straight face.

The movie is a PSA for “do not date too young or too crazy and definitely not both”. He is her slave; he is in love. Whereas he does not try to break her at all, she definitely breaks him. Being an ephebophile is his only societal flaw; he is otherwise not capable of the brutality—psychological and otherwise—required to keep her under control. Spoiler alert: he can’t do so and she ends up running away with another “lover of nymphets”, with whom she comes to an unhappy end three years later. In the end, he has broken her and she’s only concerned with money and thinks nothing of performing for it. He has broken her because she is the only thing he ever loved and his touch twisted her into something base and stupid and unlovely. And still he loves her.

The power that Lolita acquired in her youth rewarded her, but it was a cheap substitute for what perhaps could have been. It is difficult to judge the potential of such a young creature: was her precocity indicative of an intelligence that would find other channels of expression later? Or was it the pinnacle of her cleverness, manipulating men bedazzled by her nubility? Nabakov argues that we will never know—because Humbert imposed himself into the situation, collapsing the quantum waveform, and dooming her to a life of dimmed prospects, where her imagination cannot reach farther than to think of which sugar daddy she will grace with her wiles—but not whether life could be lived without one.

Rien à Declarer (2011) — 8/10

I saw this movie before, on a plane, in French with English subtitles. This time I watched the first part in French with German subtitles, but my viewing partner doesn’t understand much (any) French and the dialogue comes so quickly that she was reading the whole time. It’s still good in German but it loses something, I think. It’s an absolutely fantastic French comedy, an exemplar of the genre. My favorite joke:

“Q: Why does the Frenchman laugh 3 times when he hears a joke about Belgians?

“A: Once for when he hears it, once for when someone explains it to him and once again when he finally understands it.”

See the previous review for a short synopsis. Highly recommended.

Nighthawks (1981) — 7/10
Instead of Carl Weathers, Sylvester Stallone teams up with Billy Dee Williams as New York City cops hunting terrorist Rutger Hauer. Stallone looks awesome and young in his beard, leather jacket and 70s-era shooter glasses. And Hauer, even so early[1], plays the perfect Euro-terrorist. When he’s finally cornered with his hostages on the Roosevelt Island gondola, one of the ladies says to him, “Please leave us alone; we’ve done nothing,” he haughtily responds with his characteristic smirk, “You must be very proud.” Wicked burn. Minutes later, he wastes her in front of Stallone to set an example—definitely not trying for the PG-rating. Although the film is far less gory than it would have been were it shot today, it has a more brutal sensibility than is common for action films these days. Stallone and Hauer spend a lot of time squinting menacingly into each other’s eyes, but it kind of works. Also, the pacing is more deliberate, the shots are far longer and there is no shaky cam. I’m kind of a sucker for this kind of action film, I guess. Recommended.
Blue Jasmine (2013) — 8/10

This film is the 2013 installment of the long-running streak of yearly films by Woody Allen. Though there are flashes of Allen in Jasmine’s dialogues, this is a very thematically and artistically different film than many of his others. If you hadn’t told me it was a Woody Allen movie, I may never have guessed (whereas To Rome with Love, for example, was unmistakably Allen).

It stars Cate Blanchett as a former socialite-on-top-of-the-world whose husband’s crookedness she’d steadfastly ignored, all the while pretending that all she had was somehow deserved of someone of her talents, intellect and sensibilities. She moves in with her sister—both girls were adopted by the same parents, but from different families—and tries to put her life back together. In this, she does much better than expected, getting a menial job and persevering for more than a day. She continued to inhale pills (provenance and type unknown) as well as nearly limitless amounts of Stoli vodka.

In the end, she is unrepentant and bitter, convinced that the world is at fault for her downfall. Her husband was a criminal and a philanderer and an all-around immoral person. When she turns him in to the FBI out of spite, her son hates the mom rather than the dad, whose criminality is at the root of all of the family’s wealth but also its problems. The film is much, much, much darker than other Woody Allen movies, with no one really coming out on top in the end. Recommended.

Straw Dogs (2011) — 4/10
The remake of the 1970s classic that starred Dustin Hoffman[2], but this time starring Kate Bosworth, James Marsden and Alexander Skarsgård. I watched it because of Skarsgård, who was so good in Generation Kill but he didn’t have a lot to work with in the role of the leader of a group of not-always-vaguely rapey misanthropes. The story is of Bosworth moving back to her hometown with her author-husband. Dominic Purcell stars as a mentally handicapped man who’s put upon by the town, especially the extremely alcoholic former coach, played well by James Woods. The town has a distinctly menacing and anti-intellectual and highly church-y vibe, to which the husband is all-but-oblivious. He was never destined to mix in well with the people of town but the coming disaster is hastened by his superiority. His wife doesn’t do nearly enough to fight of the attentions of the local XY-carriers, choosing instead to at-times revel in their attention. The film does more than play with the idea of a woman getting’ what’s comin’ to her. This will, of course, not end well. The actors are decent, but the plot is a bit too manipulative and undernourished for my taste. Hopefully, the original is better. Saw it in German. Not recommended.
Election (1999) — 10/10
This is an absolute classic about a deceptively sociopathic and egotistical high-school student named Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon. Matthew Broderick plays a sad-sack teacher at her school named Jim McAllister. McAllister and Flick narrate much of the film along with Paul and Tammy Metzler, who run against Flick for the student-council presidency, all for their own reasons. McAllister’s life circles the drain with a pathetic attempt at an affair with his wife’s best friend (who also happens to be the wife of his own best friend, with whom he used to teach but who was thrown out of both the school and his own home when he was caught having an affair with Tracy). Witherspoon is penetratingly obnoxious and terrifying. Broderick is great as a loser who was happy with what he had, teaching ethics and morals and having none of either. Who will end up winning? Well, the one who wants it most—and understands the least of ethics. Will McAllister give up the last of his tenets in order to stop her? Will it be worth it? There are no good guys in the movie, but you’ll still feel that the wrong people won.
Black Snake Moan (2006) — 6/10

Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, a God-fearing full-time vegetable farmer and part-time blues guitarist whose wife has left him, Christina Ricci plays Rae, a caricature of the town slut whose reputation from high school follows, defines and leads her well into her twenties. She is psychologically unstable, at best, with a thirst for men—to be more precise, a very specific part of men—that is depicted as medically uncontrollable. Not that she doesn’t try to self-medicate: no pill or drink goes unconsumed in her presence. Justin Timberlake plays her boyfriend, who knows of her past and predilections but thinks that they are in the past and under control. No sooner does he set foot on a bus, headed forArmy boot camp, than Rae hops into bed with a former lover or three. It is made clear that these actions are out of her control and are to be considered fallout from the psychological trauma of having been regularly abused by her father (or step-father?) as a teenager.

Long story short, Lazarus takes up the Herculean task of trying to cure her of her smutty desires. It’s hard to tell how serious the movie takes itself—it seems to think it’s something more than just an excuse to show Ricci’s pretty little self be used and abused in various stages of dishabille. If the dishabille doesn’t sell you, then perhaps Jackson’s musical number near the middle of the film will make it worth your while. It’s quite haunting and well worth the ride. Timberlake returns at some point with his own bushel of psychological problems and mixes things up a bit. Saw it in German. Hard to recommend but it wasn’t as terrible as it may sound.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) — 6/10

This is part two of a three-part homage to a three-hundred–page book. The last time I read it, I would definitely have called it a “children’s” book when compared with the sweeping mythos and breadth of the Fellowship of the Ring. The story of The Hobbit is of a decidedly non-adventurous member of a non-adventurous and nondescript race of miniature beings who live under hills, play in the sun and snack all day long. They are human-shaped rabbits, in other words.

The cast of the first film returns, joined by Evangeline Lilly as a pretty elf—not much of a stretch there—and Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Many arrows are loosed and much elvish fighting skill is on display as orc after orc after orc is dispatched by these two in their attempt to help the dwarves on their quest. There is a bit of confusion on that point, but the upshot is that that is what they end up doing. Gandalf is also back, especially good in a scene that reveals the Necromancer for what he truly is. Benedict Cumberbatch is almost unrecognizable as the voice of Smaug, a gigantic dragon who sits on a gigantic hoard and who is possessed of a gigantic ego.

The storyline of the book is enhanced by an escapade that traps the arrogant Smaug, if only temporarily. The smith-works of the dwarves below Erebor—the Lonely Mountain—are beautiful and of an imposing scale that beggars belief. Truly impressive visuals but the story, as with the first installment, is a bit threadbare in places, failing to cover up the fact that it’s been stretched over three films. Recommended for fans of the books or fans of big-budget action films, of which this is a more than passable exemplar.

Magic Mike (2012) — 8/10
Channing Tatum stars as the eponymous hero, a self-styled entrepreneur who runs a car- and truck-detailing business as well as a roofing/contracting firm and playing the lead role in a male revue, stripping at night. His real passion is building one-of-a-kind furniture from found objects, but he barely finds time for that. He does find time for a decent amount of harmless partying and fun, usually with two or more companions at once, one of whom is an adventurous Olivia Munn. He meets and takes pity on a sad-sack named Adam, taking him under his wing and introducing him to the world of male revue. Adam’s sister—played by the sloe-eyed and quite pretty newcomer Cody Horn—is of a more sober bent. She hardly cracks a smile once throughout the movie although she is not immune to Tatum’s infectious humor and inestimable charm (like when he sees that she’s clearly irritated by Dallas’s drivel about his lifestyle and how people should raise kids, he follows her and asks if she wants him to get her Dallas’s number because he’s starting a life-coaching business and he can tell that she’d be interested). Dallas is played by Matthew McConaughey, in a role he was born to play. He comes full circle with the beginning of his career, often repeating “all right, all right, all right”—which he first uttered as David Wooderson in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. The role of Dallas is anyone’s best guess at what Wooderson would look like as a grown-up. Stephen Soderbergh did a great job and treated the material quite seriously. It was a funny, well-made movie with an absolutely perfect ending. While McConaughey is good, it’s Tatum who holds the film together. Recommended.


[1] In IMDb, it looks like this was Hauer’s first American movie—everything else before that was Dutch.
[2] I have that one in my list of thrillers to watch, but this one came on TV instead.