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Reviews
American Hustle (2013)
Strip out the period costumes and music and what are you left with?
Terribly unfunny, overlong; this movie goes for the cheapest possible laughs. Like all period movies, the actors constantly have to struggle to surmount the weird hairdos--none succeed. Jennifer Lawrence was ATROCIOUS, too broad, like a parody. Neither the Amy Adams character nor the Christian Bale character were remotely sympathetic. I guess we were supposed to get caught up in their love story (?) or feel sorry that Bale has a heart condition (who cares?) The movie uses too much voice-over in the first half hour, which is always the sign of lazy storytelling. Even when the voice-over disappears the storytelling doesn't pick up. The entire movie felt like a rush job; another year or two honing the screenplay might have resulted in a decent movie.
3/10 stars.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Loved it!
This movie felt like a throwback to the 1970s, when a director and his editor would let a story unfold without a quick cut or CGI dinosaur bursting out of a hedge every 15 seconds to wake the audience from its diabetic stupor. It was hardly confusing--there are 2 story lines which intersect eventually, and flashback scenes which you can tell are flashbacks by watching Smiley's glasses.
The slower pace allows you to drank in the seventies London scenery and permits the tension to build immeasurably. The last 5 minutes, played over a cheesy Christmas song, was the most inspired ending to a movie that I've seen in years. Wonderful all around!
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
No idea what this was about
Something about anarchists and tensions between France and Germany, a gypsy fortune teller of indeterminate nationality with a missing brother who at one point I thought was buried in a basement but shows up at a peace conference/ballroom dance high up in the Alps. Oh, and throw in an evening at the opera, a dead dog brought to life with a shot of adrenaline to its heart, and a severe case of TB communicated apparently by teacups.
On top of this, all the male characters come across as gay. Holmes seems jealous of Watson's marriage; Holmes's brother acts like Oscar Wilde; Watson dances at a ball with Holmes, etc. Maybe this was an intentional subtext but just seemed odd.
Young Adult (2011)
Whole lot of nothing great
The central conceit is that Charlize Theron's Mavis is a slob and a wreck, like a frat boy without the frat, but with a semi-successful job ghost-writing a series of young-adult novels. When her ex-boyfriend sends her a picture of his new baby, she gets the idea to return to her podunk hometown and try to steal him away. If that doesn't make much sense on paper, it makes less sense on screen.
Mavis isn't that great of a character for Theron; she's a one-note cartoon. But the hapless screenwriter has given her a secret "trauma," which is revealed 2/3 of the way into the movie, apparently as a way to explain her character or give her depth. This same technique was used in The Descendants to give "depth" to the jerk boyfriend, Sid, but it wasn't successful there, either. When you give a cartoon character a secret tragedy in their past, you don't get a complex character; you get a cartoon with a secret tragedy. It's a lazy way of writing--a technique I'd expect of Mavis in one of her novels.
My Week with Marilyn (2011)
Thoroughly acceptable performance by Michelle Williams
That's as strong as I would go: she was very, very competent and acceptable. It was a good performance that she can be proud of, but I don't think it was beyond the reach of any number of talented MFA candidates and under-employed actresses.
Unlike some of the reviewers on metacritic, I don't think Williams made any attempt to capture Monroe's breathy, babyish voice (which would fine, except the actor playing her husband Arthur Miller adopts a thick accent, which is jarring.) Admittedly, I have no idea what Monroe was like off-screen, so maybe she sounds like this. But there's a scene where Monroe is surrounded by fans and she whispers to her date "Do you want to see me be her?"--and yet her performance of "Marilyn the star" isn't really any different than what we see her like off screen. Scenes like that made me fall out of the film.
The Descendants (2011)
Emotionally hollow and, even worse, boring
This movie was a bust. The premise is simple—unbelievably simple, given the length of the movie: a man's wife goes into a coma as the result of a boating accident and he learns, via one of his daughters, that she was having an affair. There's more to it, of course, but nothing interesting: e.g., Clooney in voice-over tells us he's "the back up parent," so we see a few scenes of him failing at being "Mr. Mom" and a few scenes of him fighting with his eldest daughter. Yet, remarkably, a half-hour into the movie the entire family is getting along so well that they all troop off to a different Hawaiian island in search of the mystery man Mom was having the affair with, with the oldest daughter even playing a lead detective role.
What unfolds is hour upon hour of the family walking on beaches, driving down roads, etc., all of which culminates in a kitchen scene where Clooney confronts the man, played by Matt Lillard, about the affair. Lillard, whose acting has not deepened from his Scooby-Doo days, ensures that the scene has no dramatic impact. Then it's back to the hospital to watch Mom die.
The script is unbelievably flat-footed; its idea of humor is having children shout profanity at each other. (I'm no prude—-but I'm not 12, either.) There's even an odd disconnect to the more "dramatic" scenes. Because we've never seen anyone interact with Mom—she's just a corpse, lying there—we have no way of judging the believability of anyone's reaction to her death. We're simply bludgeoned by the musical score into accepting that any given scene is sad. The movie operates on a simple syllogism: the characters are crying, so you should too.
Still, judging by the audience's reaction, this movie will be a major success. I'm enough of an adult to admit when I'm odd-man-out. At each curse word, the audience roared with laughter; for each tear-jerker scene, the waterworks flowed. The Hawaiian landscape is beautifully shot, and the Hawaiian music is lovely, too. Unfortunately, I didn't pay $9.50 for a travelogue.