Delivery Man

Looks like Vince Vaughn has decided to continue being in bad movies.  However, compared to The Internship, Delivery Man is a huge step up.

The concept is exceptionally ridiculous.  Vaughn plays David Wozniak.  David has a massive debt to a loan shark, a pregnant girlfriend, a crop of weed, and no ambition.  To complicate matters, it turns out that he's the biological father to over 500 kids.  How does this happen?  In his youth, David donated to a sperm bank.  Thing is, his sperm is of such high quality that it soon became the only sperm the bank gave out.  Now, a large contingent of his spawn are contesting his privacy contract with the sperm bank.  Curiosity gets the better of him and he begins covertly checking in on his "children." 

Not only is this plot ridiculous, but this is a remake.  It wasn't enough to make this junk once.  The biggest problem the film suffers from is that it is intensely unfunny.  Chris Pratt almost manages to turn his lines into chuckles, but even he can't help this script.  But the anti-laughs are soon replaced by light-hearted sentimentality.  This is where Delivery Man elevates itself above the horrific The Internship.  Whereas The Internship is basically a lazy, cynical advertisement, Delivery Man's sentimentality has at least a modicum of sincerity.  It just fails at being any good.  And I have more respect for a movie that tries and fails than a movie that aims for mediocrity (and still fails).

Delivery Man would've benefited from a removal of all but a few of the "sperm donor" kids.  If it would've been about 3 or 4 kids seeking him out, we could've really gotten to know them and spent some real time developing their relationships with David.  Instead, the characters all blend together. 

At the end of the day, it's a bad movie.  The concept asks too much of our suspension of disbelief.  Also, the kids are super creepy.  It is stated that they just want to know where half their chromosomes came from, but it immediately becomes clear that they all view David as their actual father.

Don't watch Delivery Man.  If the highest praise I can give it is that it's better than The Internship (and shorter too), you know it's terrible.  Drinking Windex is better than The Internship.

3.5 out of 10

The Wolf of Wall Street

In my mind, The Wolf of Wall Street completes a trilogy of films by Martin Scorsese centered around crime as a means to achieving the American Dream.  What started with the straightforward crime of Goodfellas and was continued in the world of gambling with Casino has now concluded in the world of white collar crime.

The Wolf of Wall Street is easily one of the best films of 2013 and is hands down its greatest comedy.  Scorsese films usually have moments of wicked humor, but he hasn't directed a full-on comedy since the mid-80s.  It's a delight to see that the man has not lost his touch. 

The story revolves around real-life criminal Jordan Belfort's rise and kinda fall.  He arrives in New York ready to make a career on Wall Street.  But in no time, he is taught how to make serious money via questionable methods.  Questionable soon becomes fully illegal which is how the big bucks are made. 

The Wolf of Wall Street also brings us Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance.  He is stellar.  DiCaprio covers so much emotional range and a whirwind of tonal shifts with what appears to be great ease.  It's as if he was born to play Jordan Belfort.  Jonah Hill also knocks it out of the park.  And when he and DiCaprio are on screen together, it's electric and hilarious.  Matthew McConaughey has a small but brilliant role.  He essentially mentors the idealistic Belfort in the real workings of selling stock.  His message is essentially that of Alec Baldwin in The Glengarry Glen Ross (watch this movie) albeit more paternal.  Once Belfort has reached the height of success, he regurgitates that message again but with the manic energy that comes from mountains of cocaine.  It's a film full to the brim with virtually flawless performances.

It's refreshing to see a return to form from Martin Scorsese.  His past several films have been mired in stylistic references to other films.  It's not as intrinsic to his style as Quentin Tarantino, and it's been more prevalent than his pre-Gangs of New York movies.  But whereas Tarantino draws from exploitation films of the 60s and 70s, Scorsese pulls from the canonical classics from the entire cinema history.  I'm sure that there are flourishes in The Wolf of Wall Street that callback classic films, but it's not so obvious this time.  The Wolf of Wall Street feels like fresh vision from a master of the craft.  This doesn't feel like the work of a man in his 70s.

The Wolf of Wall Street is a must-see film.  It's definitely not for the kids.  There's more drug consumption and nudity in it than I've seen in a film in a long while.  But don't let that get in the way of an incredible film that serves as the greatest cinematic condemnation of capitalism run amok in the last few decades.  I'll be revisiting this movie a lot.

9 out of 10

Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom

This movie is either too long or too short.  I'm leaning toward too long.  Making Mandela longer would require more skill than the folks making this possess.  The work here is good enough, but I would've thought that the story of Nelson Mandela deserved better than that.

The film starts with Mandela's childhood but breezes through that to bring us to Mandela as a young lawyer but breezes through that to bring us to Mandela as a young revolutionary but breezes through that to bring us to Mandela as a domestic terrorist but breezes through that to bring us to Mandela in prison.  Then the film settles into that time of his life.  Being that he was imprisoned for 27 years, his captivity is still breezed through but it takes longer to gloss over nearly three decades.  Then he's released.  The End.

That's what I mean by too long or too short.  The film gives the impression that it should be a two or three film showcase of the various stages of Nelson Mandela's life.  We should have a film showcasing the events that led to his imprisonment, we should have a prison film, and we should have a film of his presidency.  Instead, we have a film that tries to cram it all in to 2 ½ hours.  And the result of this CliffsNotes version of his life is that there isn't enough time to linger on moments of great drama or emotion. 

Despite strong performances by Idris Elba and Naomie Harris, Mandela feels extremely hollow and it's all too often somewhat dull.  The film is a huge missed opportunity.  It fails mightily to show us the importance of Nelson Mandela and his life.  And because of this film, it will be a very long time before anyone makes another attempt at this material.  Unless you feel a really strong desire to see this movie, I'd say pass on it.  You can read the Nelson Mandela Wikipedia page in less time and learn much more.

5 out of 10

Saving Mr. Banks

This movie is barely based on a true story.  The people really existed and Disney did make a film entitled Mary Poppins, but the reality ends there.  I'll leave any truth-seeking up to the curious reader.  While I feel that the real story is more interesting, it wouldn't make for a very good movie.  Saving Mr. Banks is revisionist history at its best.  The film throws history and facts out the window and replaces them with emotion and narrative arcs.  The result is a wonderful, if sappy, look at the making of Mary Poppins.

In this film, P. L. Travers (author of the Mary Poppins books) is forced by impending financial trouble to sell the rights to her character to Walt Disney.  However, she makes the stipulation that she have final say over the script.  Travers flies to Los Angeles and begins causing problems for Disney and his creative staff.  Travers eventually faces her traumatic past and learns to live again.  Mary Poppins turns out to be a pretty good movie.

Tom Hanks is great as Walt Disney.  He nails the rhythm of Disney's speech without ever entering the realm of imitation.  Thing is that Hanks isn't in much of the movie.  Emma Thompson kills it.  She makes her character's growth feel very natural.  Considering that scenes in films are almost never shot in order, it's pretty incredible that she could make the incremental chipping away of her rough exterior appear so seamless.  Jason Schwartzman and B. J. Novak as the Sherman Brothers and Bradley Whitford as Don DaGradi steal every scene they're in.  Their gleeful attempts to showcase the work they've put into Mary Poppins only to be shot down by Travers make for some of the best moments of the film.  Paul Giamatti also makes the most out of a small role.  He's so good that it feels like he's a larger part of the film than he actually is.

Saving Mr. Banks isn't a stellar film.  It's competently filmed at best.  It does feature some really nice crosscutting during Travers' flashbacks.  What makes the film stand out are the wonderful performances and a really strong script.  Director John Lee Hancock was a wise choice to helm this film.  His movies are glossy and clean looking and he seems to gravitate toward sappy "true story" films such as The Alamo, The Blind Side, and The Rookie.  But finally he has a script and actors that elevate his film from merely watchable to truly good.

The music is also worth mentioning.  It's really great.  So good that Thomas Newman was nominated for an Academy Award this year for it.  It's eerily reminiscent of his score for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (also Oscar nominated) but that's not at all a bad thing.  At the very least, Saving Mr. Banks is a nice movie to listen to.

I say that you should totally check this movie out.  Maybe make it a double feature with the excellent documentary The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story which will give you a huge appreciation for those characters.  You know what?  Make it a triple feature, because you're really going to want to watch Mary Poppins after that.

7.5 out of 10

American Hustle

American Hustle is a fairly good, sorta fun movie, but how did it ever get nominated for Best Picture?  It's a jumble of great actors with funny hair having a blast delivering inconsistent performances while the scenery they haven't chewed up looks nice.  It reminds me very much of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven remake (which garnered no Oscar nominations), except less fun.  But maybe that's the brilliance of American Hustle.  Maybe this movie about con men is, itself, a con.  It's all smoke and mirrors to fool you into thinking it's a great movie. 

The story is loosely based on real events.  A con man and his partner/mistress are put in a position where they must help the FBI or go to prison.  The plan to use con men to take down the mob soon involves taking down politicians.  The higher stakes of the plan are further complicated by a budding friendship with one of the marks, an FBI agent's infatuation, and an unstable, jealous wife.

A lot of hubbub has been made about the performances, which comprise four out of American Hustle's ten nominations.  With the exception of Amy Adams and Louis C.K. (and maybe Jeremy Renner), the acting is not very good.  The style of the film is heavily improvisational.  This works only when using actors skilled in improv.  Only Louis C.K. possesses this skill.  Adams and Renner just indulge in very little improvisation and come off the better for it.  Actors may be talented people but they need direction in order to deliver the best possible performance.  These actors are not being directed (so can we call bullshit on David O. Russell's nomination too?) leaving us with a film full of inconsistent/borderline-schizophrenic performances of which Bradley Cooper is the worst offender. (And if a movie is heavily improvised, can it really be nominated for Best Original Screenplay?)

The focus on manic, improv-ed performances ends up overshadowing the plot.  Con artistry (is that a term?) is inherently complicated.  The story requires delicate handling in order to juggle the information that is to be revealed and that which is to be obfuscated.  American Hustle's plot is a muddy mess of information.  The filmmakers couldn't care less about the actual events that propel the characters from one scene to the next.  Therefore, the film ends up just feeling like a collage of scenes.

I did like the return of some of David O. Russell's flashy camerawork.  It was missing from his last couple films.  And I really like Russell's work.  His film pre-The Fighter are incredible.  The Fighter is a fairly good, safe, and ultimately forgettable drama.  The Silver Linings Playbook is a fun romantic comedy masquerading as high art.  American Hustle is a hot mess.  But it's a sorta fun mess.

The movie fully deserved its complete shutout at the Academy Awards this year.  Watch it now, because it'll be gone from public consciousness within a few months.  American Hustle will be the movie you half-watch on a Saturday afternoon on TNT while you iron clothes or do dishes.

6 out of 10

Frozen

Have you not already seen this movie?  It made over a billion dollars.  Everyone has seen it.  Everyone has made a terrible YouTube video involving some song from the soundtrack.  Get with it!  In all seriousness, Frozen is actually a brilliant film. 

One of the greatest missteps that Disney ever took was doing away with traditional cel animation in favor of computer animated films.  The company looked at the success of Pixar and came to the conclusion that people loved those movies because they were made on computers.  Audiences weren't responding to the incredible stories, profound themes, or lovable characters.  No, they only liked computer animation.  This mentality would fuel some of Disney's worst films.  The company looked at the lackluster response to their Treasure Planet or Brother Bear or Home on the Range and, instead of seeing how awful the storytelling was, they saw an outmoded form of animation.  So, Disney scrapped their animation department and installed a corps of computer technicians.  This immediately lead to a new golden age of animated films from Disney, including such classics as Meet the Robinsons, Chicken Little, and Bolt.  Oh, wait.  Those are garbage.  When people complained about the lack of quality and the loss of traditional hand-drawn animation, Disney responded by making The Princess and the Frog.  They animated the hell out of it.  It looks incredible.  Trouble is that they never bothered to make it a good or interesting story.  It's relative failure was the final justification that Disney needed to declare cel animation dead.

What's the point of all this?  Well, Disney came to the conclusion that since people didn't like their computer movies either, it must be the Pixar brand that people liked.  So they bought Pixar.  Once this happened, the Disney animation department suddenly had access to Pixar's "brain trust," a pool of writers and storytellers who are responsible for assembling Pixar's stories.  Disney took another shot at animation.  The result was Tangled, a movie that remains wonderful despite mostly forgettable songs.  Then came Wreck-It Ralph, a movie so funny and likable and emotional that it feels like classic Pixar.  With a couple solid warm-ups under their belt, Disney took the princess-centric storyline and look of Tangled, added the flawless storytelling of Wreck-It Ralph, and (as if to show off) hired some great songwriters.  What followed is the best Disney film in at least 15 years (but I'd say 20 years).

Frozen is the story of a non-specifically Scandinavian princess, Anna, who lives in a far off, non-specifically Scandinavian country.  Her older sister, Elsa, has the power to control cold or ice or something (it's also pretty non-specific).  Out of fear, her parents hold the sisters up in the castle.  Upon the death of the parents, Elsa becomes queen.  During her coronation, Elsa's powers get out of control and she flees into the mountains leaving her kingdom shrouded in ice.  Anna joins up with an ice vendor, a reindeer, and a living snowman to find Elsa and convince her to thaw out the kingdom.

It's been a long time since I really loved Disney princesses and Frozen introduces two phenomenal ones (well, one becomes queen).  Any concern that studios have that boys won't watch movies with girls as the heroes goes right out the window.  Anna and Elsa are incredible characters and viewers, regardless of gender, can connect with them.  Disney princesses are iconic (except Tiana) and lovable.  They are written specifically to carry an entire film.  They have to be so wonderful that all the awesome side characters will do anything to help them.  This is why Disney princesses are a multi-billion dollar industry.  When was the last time you saw merchandise for Mowgli or Arthur or Robin Hood or Basil of Baker Street?  Those are awesome male heroes for awesome Disney movies.  But they don't connect the way that the fairy tales do.  Frozen is a new classic fairy tale.

This is a nearly flawless example of children's entertainment.  As annoying as I find the intense obsession that people seem to have for this movie, it's all completely justified.  Frozen is a movie that we'll all be watching for decades.  It'll go up on the shelf next to Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty (the best Disney animated film).  Kids will grow up with the adventures of Anna and Elsa.  It's really exciting to see a film like that.

9 out of 10

Homefront

Jason Statham is an incredibly watchable actor.  He makes even his worst films worth at least one viewing.  He's comparable to Charles Bronson.  Bronson was an actor whose films were usually pretty hokey with a few classics mixed in.  He also only played one character: Charles Bronson.  This is exactly the same formula that Statham employs.  And just like Bronson, Statham's very presence in a film is enough for his fans to check it out.  So when I watch Jason Statham films, I rank them only in comparison to other Jason Statham films.  So on a scale from In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale to Crank, where does Homefront come in?  Just below The Mechanic.

Is that clear?  No?  Ok.  Then let's discuss this in the context of movies in general.  When viewed that way, it's just alright.

Homefront is the story of  former undercover agent (DEA I think, but his papers say Interpol) Phil Broker, who is part of a drug bust that results in the death of the drug lord's son.  He leaves the force and settles down to a quiet life in Louisiana with his daughter.  His daughter, who is struggling with the death of her mother, gets in a fight with a boy at school who bullies her.  Because her dad has taught her how to fight, she beats the hell out of the bully.  The boy's mother vows vengeance for the wrong done to her family.  She asks her brother Gator, a local meth dealer, to take care of it.  Gator calls in the biker cronies of the man whose son's death he holds against Broker.  Needless to say, the bad guys get totally Statham-ed.

Despite several fun action scenes, Homefront is mostly pretty dull.  Statham is effortlessly cool, but the even he can't carry the whole movie.  Winona Ryder and Kate Bosworth aren't given much to do (Bosworth really tries though).  Izabela Vidovic manages to not be a obnoxious child despite being in the film just to provide stakes to the final showdown.

The oddest casting choice, however, is that of James Franco as Gator.  The villain of a Jason Statham film needs to pose a real threat.  It can even be an intellectual threat (Jason Statham characters are always super clever and endlessly resourceful).  Franco's Gator is neither physically or mentally a challenge for Statham.  Most of my desire to see Homefront was fueled by my curiosity to see how a Statham/Franco showdown would go down.  SPOILERS!!  Gator kidnaps Broker's daughter and Broker catches him and beats easily beats him almost to death.

During the opening credits are the words "Screenplay by Sylvester Stallone."  That's right, Academy Award nominated screenwriter Sylvester Stallone!  I knew that I was going to be sitting through a few good action scenes and a lot of dramatic shorthand.  Instead of developing the lead character, he is just given a dead wife and a kid.  There's plenty of weird sappy nonsense in the movie too that is a trademark of Stallone scripts.  Homefront feels like a movie that Stallone wrote for himself, but he's now too old to believably be raising a 10 year old.

Unless you're one a die-hard Statham-ite like I am, I wouldn't recommend.it.  If you are a fan, check it out.  It's got enough fights and Statham charm to make it worth your while.  It'll at least hold you over until The Expendables 3 this summer.

P.S. Charles Bronson is way more awesome than Jason Statham.  For proof, click here.

5.5 out of 10

Inside Llewyn Davis

Can the Coen Brothers do no wrong?  Of course they can (did you watch The Ladykillers?), but this movie is so very right. 

Inside Llewyn Davis is the tale of a young man trying to make his way in the world of folk music during the early 60s.  Most of the film takes place in Greenwich Village.  Davis bounces from couch to couch searching for gigs and irritating those around him.  During our time with him, he'll take in a cat, drive to Chicago, and learn a lot about himself.

What isn't great about it?  Let's do something I usually reserve for cinematic grievances.  Make a list!

1) The music.  Maybe I've just got a soft spot for folk music, but this is a killer soundtrack.  The actors give their all to these songs.  All the songs were performed live which, while a disaster for Les Miserables, works wonderfully in the context of live shows and studio recording sessions.  The highlight is Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake, and Adam Driver performing "Please Mr. Kennedy."  Driver's goofy faces during his vocals are incredible.

2) The cinematography.  Bruno Delbonnel earned the hell out of his Oscar nomination this year.  This film is gorgeous.  The muted colors and the soft glow of the light make the film feel depressed and romantic all at once (just like Llewyn Davis himself).  Inside Llewyn Davis looks outstanding even in a year packed with staggeringly beautiful movies.

3) The performances.  Everyone is amazing.  But special recognition needs to go to Oscar Isaac.  His performance as Llewyn Davis is the biggest Oscar snub of the year.  Chalk him up with Chiwetel Ejiofor as another actor who gave us a much better performance than Matthew McConaughey. 

4) The script.  The idea of making a tragedy set in the world of 1960s New York's folk music scene is interesting enough.  But to make that tragedy entirely of the main characters own doing is even more daring.  Then to make us grow to not only sympathize but even love that character by the end of the film takes tremendous skill.  The Coens achieve all of this seemingly effortlessly.  And they still manage to insert several moments of humor. 

Inside Llewyn Davis only has one flaw.  At the very end, right in the middle of a really emotional moment, an actor playing Bob Dylan takes the stage.  This does nothing except pull the viewer out of that moment.  Instead of staying with Llewyn, the audience stops and says, "Hey! That's Bob Dylan!"  I understand the idea of pointing out that people like Bob Dylan were part of that world too, but the song he sings could've just as easily been played on the soundtrack without an actor distracting the audience. 

Other than that, it's a nearly flawless film.  One of the absolute best movies of 2013.  I cannot recommend it enough.

9 out of 10



The Book Thief

I have not read this book which by all accounts is really, really good.  The movie, however, is mostly boring with rare moments of beauty.

The Book Thief is about a little girl in pre-WWII Germany named Liesel who is sent to live with a foster family.  It is found out that Liesel cannot read.  She and her foster father begin reading lessons and soon Liesel is obsessed with books to the point that she begins "borrowing" them.  After Kristallnacht, her new family find themselves hiding a young Jewish man named Max in their basement.  Liesel must deal with the advent of war, the Gestapo, bullies, and the affections of the boy next door.

A huge problem I had was with the narration which is delivered by Death.  It's just awful.  One that is never good for a movie is for people to tell you how important the main character is.  We should be shown that otherwise the character can never live up to the hype.  Being told the main character is important is usually a sign of bad writing (definitely the case with The Book Thief).  The screenwriter just doesn't know how to write an important character so they just tell you to take their word for it.  In this movie, Liesel is the only person that has earned the affections of Death and he takes care to check in on her regularly.  She has done nothing exceptional to catch anyone's eye, let alone Death.  The narration also suffers from a writer (I'm not sure if it's the book's or the movie's or both) thinking that their own words are profound.  The result is almost always cloying and pretentious and assuredly not profound. 

There are also pacing issues in The Book Thief.  It just drags for most of its run time.  I'm sure that editor John Wilson has done the best he could with the footage provide to him.  The man edited some great films that could've been tiresome chores if not cut correctly.  This movie, however, just lacks any sort of drive.  It even largely lacks any real tension.  Even when the Gestapo officer searches the basement and the family has had no time to hide Max, the scene is flat and dull and overly long.  I'm reasonably certain that director Brian Percival is just really bad at his job.

One thing that does help the film is John Williams' Oscar nominated score.  Williams is always great.  The man has won five Academy Awards for his music and been nominated 49 times!  His music in The Book Thief provides some of the atmosphere that the filmmaking is sorely lacking.

Many of the actors are really good though.  Geoffrey Rush is phenomenal.  He plays Liesel's new father and he brings warmth and even some humor to the film.  Emily Watson turns in the best performance of the film as Liesel's new mother.  She's a woman who is loud and angry, but it's all a front.  She's actually a big softy with a hard exterior. 

The actors unfortunately are asked to speak in German accents.  Rush and Watson are pretty good, but many of the other actors are really bad at it.  Trouble is that many of the supporting characters are played by German actors who obviously have perfect German accents (that are oddly enough, less thick than those of their non-German co-stars).  The majority of the accents sound like caricatures best suited for comedy work.  For example, Sophie Nélisse, who plays Liesel, goes full on Elmer Fudd turning all her r's into w's.  Because of this, I didn't realize until the movie was hallway through that the boy next door was named Rudy.  I thought she was calling him Woody! (Nélisse gives a fine performance outside of the accent.)  And characters keep speaking in German.  Sometimes single words.  Sometimes entire speeches (with subtitles, of course).  Trouble is that there are rules to filmmaking and according to those rules, whichever language the characters speak in represents the language of the area.  Therefore, English (even horribly accented English) represents German.  So when characters start speaking in actual German, the rules of cinema say that German is a different language than the characters speak.  But it's not!  They live in Germany!  The German then feels very out of place.  It's just another indication that the director is really bad at his job.

The Book Thief isn't terrible, but it's not really worth two hours of your time.  There are much more satisfying films made about the Holocaust and World War II.  Go seek those out.  Or read the book.

4.5 out of 10

The Grandmaster

If I were forced to pick only one type of movie to watch for the rest of my life, it would be kung fu (wuxia) movies.  Martial arts movies have become more refined with time.  It used to be that Chinese audiences could only afford to watch one or two movies a year.  As such, Hong Kong production studios would make films that had something for everybody.  There's love, comedy (wordplay, situational, and slapstick all at once), action, sorrow, revenge, and redemption.  This hodge-podge of scenarios made for some wacky films.  But as Chinese audiences began visiting the theater more and more, a more diverse range of movies started to be made.  Now, kung fu movies are just about revenge or just about love.  That singular focus makes modern Asian action far more accessible (if somewhat less fun) for American audiences.  And The Grandmaster would make a wonderful introduction to contemporary wuxia. 

The Grandmaster tells the story of real-life martial arts icon Ip Man.  He is most famous for being Bruce Lee's teacher and for his exceptional skill in the Wing Chun style of kung fu.  The film is a highly stylized portrait of important events in his life. 

Chinese audiences love movies about famous heroes of martial arts.  There are several movies made about Fong Sai-yuk, for example.  And the films involving kung fu master Wong Fei-hung are too numerous to list (but you should seek them out).  Right now, there is a surge in Ip Man films. 

The Grandmaster was nominated for two Oscars this year.  One of which was for Best Cinematography.  Anyone who is familiar with the films of director Wong Kar-wai (and you should be) knows that even his misfires are stunningly beautiful.  This film lives up to that expectation.  But Wong is best know for making stylistic dramas.  If it hadn't been for his 1994 film Ashes of Time, I never would've thought that he had a martial arts film in him.

The fights are numerous and spectacular.  There's a focus in the film on the philosophy of kung fu.  What that leads to are battles that showcase the steps and counter-steps that are necessary to defeat your enemy.  It's martial arts as a chess match.  And it's wonderful.  There's plenty of wire work for those who like that kind of thing and the combat is definitely superhuman.  The fighting is as much about expression as it is about overcoming obstacles.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai (not Tony Leung Ka-fai, but no one knows what I'm talking about) is back as Wong Kar-wai's go-to actor.  He's one of China's greatest actors and does not disappoint as Ip Man.  Zhang Ziyi is also wonderful and finally starting to look like an adult woman (despite being 35).  This helps bring some gravitas to her role.

This is a fantastic piece of kung fu cinema.  It combines martial arts action with art house ideas.  While the episodic nature of the story can throw off the pacing a bit, The Grandmaster can always find an excuse to have a fight which picks things up again.  It's exciting and gorgeous and fun. 

8 out of 10

Oldboy (2013)

One of the greatest problems with remakes is that they inherently invite comparison to the original film.  This is especially true when a remake heavily references the original.  This only serves to make the audience more aware of the existence of another film and takes the viewer out of the moment.  The heaviest criticism that can be lobbied at a remake is "Why?"  Why bother making the same movie twice?  It's not a new thing.  Hollywood has been recycling its films since the beginning.  Usually, the results are abysmal cash grabs.  Sometimes the result is better than the original.  David Cronenberg's The Fly and The Thing are often used as prime examples and even The Maltese Falcon is the third version of its story.  Remakes are widely viewed as unnecessary unless they can surpass their predecessors.  Only a couple remakes fail to live up to the originals, yet still remain interesting: Vanilla Sky, The Ring, and Insomnia come to mind.

The best remakes take the most basic ideas from the original and introduce an entirely new set of themes to it.  This helps create the impression that the new version is its own movie.  Viewing a familiar concept through a wholly new and interesting filter makes that concept fresh and exciting.  New ideas are not an automatic recipe for success, however.  There have been four very different versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  The first two are nearly flawless, the third is interesting, and the fourth is really boring.

Where am I going with all this?  Well, Oldboy is a remake of a 2003 Korean film of the same name.  This new version tries to have the it both ways.  It tries to take the same concept in a new direction, yet it also insists on constant "shout outs" to the original film.

It's kinda understandable, really.  The original Oldboy casts a long shadow.  It may very well be the greatest film in South Korean history (cue intense movie nerd debate).  Director Spike Lee and screenwriter Mark Protosevich (immensely talented people) know that their film can't just tread the same ground as the original.  Some remakes try the same formula that sequels use, namely go bigger than the original.  Anyone who has seen Oldboy '03 knows that that movie goes about as big as a movie can go, so that idea is difficult to achieve.  The ultimate solution that seems to have been settled on for the English language Oldboy is to make a film that is stylistically opposite that of the original's director, Chan-Wook Park. 

Park's film is economical and minimal.  It's cold and calculated.  This helps make the more bombastic, extreme moments all that more shocking.  Oldboy '03 is a film that operates on the belief that less is more.  The remake operates as if more is more.  But remember that the original is so crazy and gross and powerful that little is left to have more of.  So, the remake interprets "more is more" as "longer is more."  The iconic hallway fight from the original isn't bigger and more violent; it's longer.  The hero's imprisonment isn't more maddening; it's longer.  The climax isn't crazier or more disturbing; it's longer.  The result isn't a film that justifies its existence.  It's a film that becomes fairly tedious despite some lurid subject matter.

To some degree, however, I feel that Spike Lee's Oldboy needs to be appraised on its own terms, that it is somewhat unfair to only judge it comparatively.  So, how is Oldboy '13 as a stand alone movie?  It's not bad.  Spike Lee tries several different cinematic styles during the course of the film.  They don't always work together, but individually they make for some well made scenes.  The performances are good enough.  Nothing special.  It's a better than average movie that retains much of the disturbing concepts (although much tamer) that make the original so (in)famous.

I wouldn't say to avoid it, but I would suggest that you watch the original first.  It's streaming on Netflix through the end of the month.  Go in knowing as little as possible and you will be blown away by it.  Then, once you've finished the 2003 version, if you're in the mood for more of that same kind of thing, watch the new one.  But you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you watched the 2013 version and decided that you didn't need anymore.  Basically, if you're going to watch one, watch the original.

6 out of 10

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Two things before this review gets underway: (1) I have read and enjoyed all the "Hunger Games" books and (2) the first movie is terrible.

Catching Fire is a better film than The Hunger Games.  That's not hard to do and I feel that that comparison has contributed to much of the hype surrounding the sequel.  Turns out that Catching Fire's not that great either.

This new installment picks up a year after the first film.  Katniss and Peeta are going on tour as last year's victors to promote the 75th Hunger Games.  Turns out that Katniss has become a symbol of the growing revolution against The Capitol.  The evil President Snow decides to take advantage of the Quarter Quell (a shakeup of the Hunger Games that occurs every 25 years) and pit the former Hunger Games winners against each other with Katniss' death being the intended outcome.  Can Katniss and Peeta win the Hunger Games again?  Can they save their families from the brutality of The Capitol?  And even if they can, what comes next?

Well, I'll tell you what comes next!  Revolution!  But I only know that from the books.  Based on the end of Catching Fire, you'd think the next two films (that's right, two films) are going to be the teen version of Kill Bill. 

The story-telling in the sequel is no better than the first.  In fact, it may be worse.  Catching Fire is one of those movies that assumes its audience are morons who need every little thing spelled out for them.  Not only is this insulting, but in order to do this, the dialogue becomes very clunky as people try to act and deliver awkward exposition.  The script is so bad that three time Oscar nominee (and one time winner) Jennifer Lawrence ends up giving a borderline terrible performance.  No one can elevate that material.

So, how is Catching Fire a better movie than The Hunger Games?  Because of Francis Lawrence.  Say what you will about the quality of his films, but the man at least has a keen eye for atmosphere and action.  What Lawrence brings to Catching Fire is a harder edge and a better made film.  The Quarter Quell is pretty exciting and, unlike the first movie, you can actually see what's happening. 

The Quarter Quell is where the movie really shines.  People stop delivering exposition and start killing each other.  The effects work is really good.  The fights are about as violent as PG-13 will allow.  Even the performances get better (you may even want Peeta not to get killed).

Now that we've seen a first installment that is a total mess and a second film that is a total mess for only the first half, can we expect only the first quarter of Mockingjay: Part I to be terrible and all of Part II to be great?  I certainly hope so (we'll find out in November).  The books deserve a better treatment than they are receiving.

5.5 out of 10

12 Years a Slave

The Best Picture winner at this year's Academy Awards and deservedly so.  12 Years a Slave is brutal, beautiful, and haunting.

The film is based on a memoir.  It is the story of Solomon Northup, a freeman living in New York.  He is convinced by con men to travel to Washington, D.C. where he is placed in bondage and sold into slavery in Louisiana.  He must use (as well as hide) his considerable intelligence in order to survive.

There has been so much written about this film already that I feel as if I have nothing new to contribute to the discussion.  I can, however, contribute my love for this film. 

Steve McQueen is a director who makes films that focus on pain.  12 Years a Slave is his third picture and easily his best (although Hunger is my favorite).  McQueen has a way of lingering on moments of intense brutality and hurt.  He doesn't cut away and he doesn't sugarcoat it.  But people don't want to see terrible acts.  We avoid it.  We turn away.  McQueen understands this, so he makes his films incredibly pretty.  The compositions, the framing, the lighting.  These all come together to create a distance that the audience can place between themselves and the horrors onscreen.  We can all appreciate the brilliant filmmaking and that entices us to keep watching despite the tragedy unfolding before us.

I find it interesting that two of the best examinations of American slavery on film have come from English filmmakers.  Of course 12 Years a Slave is one, and C.S.A. is the other (a faux-documentary that posits how the Unites States would be had the South won the Civil War).  Is that because we are not ready or willing to take an honest look at the most shameful thing in our brief history as a country?  Maybe.  Even Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, while fun, only dealt with slavery under the veneer of Italian exploitation films.  The brutal moments are reminiscent of Addio Zio Tom (not for the faint of heart) as opposed to any honesty.  And then Django enacts a cathartic revenge for those wrongs à la spaghetti westerns.  There is no catharsis in 12 Years a Slave.  Terrible things are done to innocent people and no one is punished for it.  American audiences crave swift justice.  That's why villains in action movies are never arrested, they are killed.  We need that closure.  12 Years a Slave is not excessively violent.  It's the oppressive need for justice, which never arrives, that makes the film such a heart-breaking and intense experience.

As usual, Steve McQueen has made a film full of staggering performances.  Chiwetel Ejiofor should have won Best Actor.  There's no contest between his portrayal of Solomon Northup and Matthew McConaughey's Ron Woodroof.  Lupita Nyong'o is a force to be reckoned with.  She's incredible.  Michael Fassbender is always fantastic (even in the horrific Jonah Hex).  Other notable performances come from Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Paulson, and Paul Giamatti.  Oddly enough, Brad Pitt is terrible.  Thankfully, he's barely in it.

This is a film for the ages.  The music is perfect.  The camerawork is perfect.  The acting is perfect (except Brad Pitt).  I will be revisiting 12 Years a Slave many more times.  It's a film that needs to be watched.  Do not miss it.  To use an old movie critic cliché: if you only see one movie this year, make it 12 Years a Slave!

9.5 out of 10

Gravity

Did you see this in theaters?  In 3-D?  I hope so, because it's a movie that is miraculous on the big screen.  I did rewatch much of it at home and it holds up pretty well though.  Needless to say the bigger your TV and the better your sound system, the more enjoyable Gravity will be.

Gravity is a movie about a field of debris that strikes the space shuttle during a routine repair of the Hubble telescope.  One of these astronauts must make her way through the vastness of space and all its perils in order to find a way to return to Earth.

Gravity is a technical marvel.  The computer effects are incredible.  The world they inhabit feels very real.  But it's sweeping camerawork that is really impressive.  If there is one film for 2013 that deserves to have the "making of" featurettes watched, it's this one.  The combination of various effects technologies come together to make an absolutely captivating film.  It'll blow your mind how much of the film is practical.  It's also amazing how much effort was put into seemingly minute details.  But you would've been hugely distracted had the filmmakers not had that keen eye for detail.

Apart from the incredible visuals, the movie has some problems.  Some script problems.  The dialogue is awful.  The scenarios start to get repetitive, but the movie is relatively short and doesn't wear out its welcome.  We also have no emotional connection to Ryan Stone.  She is our only character, yet nothing is done to make us care about her.  The script does try for a bit of lazy, Hollywood shorthand by having her be a woman whose child died.  But that doesn't make me root for her.  The suspense lies just in wondering how she's going to get out of that situation not in any real concern for her.  Had Ryan Stone been a character that a viewer really cared about, the various perils she faced would've been almost unbearably intense.  As it stands, her struggles to return to Earth are just visually impressive.

One thing that really helps create an air of tension is the score.  The music drives the movie.  It is flawless, intense action music.  Without that music, even the impeccable renderings of space turmoil would've been fairly dull.  Gravity is a film that marries sight and sound in a nearly perfect way.

10 Academy Award nominations have been given to Gravity.  It's one of the best of 2013 without a doubt.  It's a more impressive use of computer effects and 3-D than Avatar.  This movie is a classic.  There are better movies out there, but Gravity is the kind of movie that people keep coming back to.  Rent or buy it (preferably on Blu-ray) and take it to the biggest TV you've got access to.  In a world where we can watch some of the greatest stories, characters, and acting on television, Gravity makes a strong case for the continuing relevance of movies.

8 out of 10

Nebraska

The problem with really, really good movies is that there seems to be less to say about them than really bad movies.  It's so much easier to complain about a movie's faults.

Nebraska has almost no faults.  This is hands-down one of the very tip-top best films of 2013.  There was not a single second of this movie that I was not completely enamored with.

Director Alexander Payne is a master of his craft.  He has a way with characters that sucks you in.  His style is not flashy.  You would never say that he is a visual director.  His style is characters.  He presents you with strong, well-defined characters and lets you follow them for a couple hours.  And the result is magic.

I love his work.  Even The Descendants, which I do not like, has better characterization than almost any other movie being made today.  The Descendants was not a funny movie though and that may be why I did not connect to it (that and all the characters being rich, whiny white people struggling with hardships of being wealthy).  Payne is at his best when he's dealing with comedy.  His humor is a little dark and sardonic, but it brings out the best in his films.  Nebraska is wildly funny if you're in tune with Payne's sense of humor.  I laughed out loud through the entire film.  

It's the story of an old man who is convinced by a piece of junk mail that he has won a million dollars.  He manages to convince/guilt his youngest son to drive him from Billings to Omaha in order to collect his prize.  They have to stay a weekend in the old man's hometown of Hawthorne, Nebraska and the hubbub over the million dollars digs up a lot of history.  When the eldest son and mother arrive in Hawthorne, family squabbles and old debts finally come to a head.

Being that Alexander Payne's movies are so character driven, performances become the big thing to talk about.  Bruce Dern's Oscar-nominated role in Nebraska is well worthy of its copious praise.  The man is already a legend and even at 77, he's proving that he's still got it.  Dern has very little to say but that's not where the strength of the performance lies.  It's in his eyes and his face.  He's always thinking, always off in his own world.  June Squibb is also nominated for an Oscar this year.  She is phenomenal.  Her performance is as close as the movie gets to conventional comedy.  She's a cranky, judgmental, and exasperated old woman.  She's a joy to watch and makes you so happy that she's not your mother.  Rounding out the main cast are Will Forte and Bob Odenkirk as Dern's sons.  They are wonderful.  Maybe Payne knew that it would take a couple of skilled comedians to handle the subtle humor of this film.  They nail it.  And Will Forte's performance is especially strong.  Also, a shout out to the great Stacy Keach (Mike Hammer!).  He still maintains his amazing blend of charm and menace.  I miss his mustache though.

This is a beautiful film (in exquisite black and white).  It's nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture.  It may not win any, but it certainly deserves to win them all.  Do not miss this film!

9 out of 10

Thor: The Dark World

It seems that despite Marvel's incredible execution of its cinematic universe, they still don't know what to do with Thor.  He's a great comic book character with several really fun stories.  There's the time that Thor got turned into a frog and had to use his powers to save the frogs of Central Park from New York City's rats.  There's the time Thor had to battle Beta Ray Bill (an alien with a horse skull head) for the right to wield Mjornil and Bill is found to be the only other creature worthy to carry the hammer.  Or even the "death" of Thor when Tony Stark creates a Thor clone/robot that goes on a rampage.  Those are weird stories, but not too weird compared to the Dungeons & Dragons-esque world that Thor inhabits.  Marvel's film team doesn't know how to handle a character with a world so strange.

Thor: The Dark World sees Thor team up with Loki in order to keep a handful of elves from unleashing a force that will plunge the Nine Realms into darkness and allow the elves to rule over all.

To take some of the oddity out of the Thor comics, Marvel keeps placing Thor firmly on Earth.  That provided the first film with a few good "fish out of water" gags, but it quickly wore out its welcome.  In this new film, Thor gets to spend much more time in Asgard and other parts of the Nine Realms.  But everything still keeps coming back to Earth.  It's as if Marvel cannot believe that we will be invested in the story if Earth is not under immediate threat.  They think that we cannot have an emotional connection to Asgard and its people or even accept that for Thor the stakes of losing his home are very high.  

Having Earth's fate be the driving factor of the movie is only a small part of the problem.  The big part is his relationship with Jane Foster.  Essentially, Thor only cares about the fate of Earth because Jane lives there.  So we have to deal with a romance that has still, after two movies, not been adequately fleshed out.  The first movie had some decent flirting between Thor and Foster, but they have never been shown to have any reason to be interested in each other.  Basically, they're just two attractive people and attractive people should be together (I guess?).  

Thor: The Dark World is not a bad movie though.  It's just underwhelming.  The look of the sequel is better than the original, but it still lacks any real excitement.  Thor needs to given big foes to fight.  He needs to have a film where the antagonist is a worthy opponent to a god.  This film tries in a couple of places, but then Thor never overcomes those obstacles.  Someone else does, which renders Thor useless in his own movie.

If you liked the first movie (which I did), you'll probably like this one too.  This review comes off a little complain-y, but I ultimately had fun with Thor: The Dark World.  Ladies, this movie knows you like Chris Hemsworth and takes plenty of opportunities to get his shirt off.  It was very interesting to watch a movie wherein a man is filmed with the same lingering camerawork that is usually reserved for scantily clad women.  And if ever there was an actor who should be filmed in that way, it's Chris Hemsworth.  

6.5 out of 10

Diana

Watching Diana is like watching Nascar.  You stare at some boring nonsense for two hours while waiting for a car crash.  This is a really bad movie.

The film essentially follows Diana from the onset of her post-marriage relationship with Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan until her death.

What to say about this movie?  It's so lifeless and dull that it's hard to find anything to say.  The film feels like a Lifetime Original Movie with better cameras.  A Lifetime movie might've been a better experience than Diana.  At least then I would've had commercials to give me a break from the film.

Naomi Watts is an incredible actress but you wouldn't know it from this movie.  Every actor comes off as if they were in a high school theater production.

Also, is this movie supposed to make the former Princess of Wales seem great or was it trying to tear down some of the "saintly" image people have of her?  If it's the latter, then Diana succeeded.  Diana Spencer, according to this film, is selfish, out of touch, entitled, and a terrible mother.

Stay away from this movie.  Diana should only be used as a non-habit forming sleep aid.  

2.5 out of 10

Austenland

I have never read a Jane Austen novel.  That's not me bragging.  I just never have (does Pride & Prejudice & Zombies count?).  My experience with Jane Austen is limited to having watched more than my fair share of film and television adaptations of her works.  I bring all this up because the film Austenland is about a rabid Jane Austen fan who takes an immersive, period authentic Jane Austen vacation.  I was pretty sure that this was a movie that, at best, I would not be able to relate to.  Fortunately, no familiarity with Austen is required in order to "get" this movie.  And despite by intensely negative response to the trailer, I kinda liked this movie.

The plot is more specifically about a thirty-ish woman whose fanaticism for Jane Austen keeps her from being in a relationship.  Either her fandom frightens away men or men fail to live up to the dashing male characters from Austen's novels.  She finds out about a place called Austenland in the English countryside.  She spends her life-savings in order to go there and finally live her fantasy.  Once there, she must deal with the other patrons, the tyrannical headmistress, and romances both real and scripted.

Austenland is a really sweet.  It's not mean-spirited in any way.  Even the "villain" is allowed to be funny.  Keri Russell seems so well suited to this kind of movie that I kind it shocking that she's not been the lead of dozens of romantic comedies (but Waitress is so freakin' good that it's worth a dozen rom-coms).

The real standout performance comes from Jennifer Coolidge.  I swear that half her lines are probably ad-libbed, and the result is pretty funny.  Her gleefully dense character is what broke my determination to dislike this movie.  After Coolidge's wacky antics got me chuckling, it didn't take much for the easy charm of Keri Russell and Bret McKenzie to go to work on me.

Now, the film does struggle with setting up the love interest.  There are several male suitors but the movie is a little wishy-washy about which one we're supposed to root for.  This makes the ending feel a little rushed but not unearned.

Austenland also benefits from having several original songs from Emmy the Great on its soundtrack.  If you're unfamiliar with Emmy the Great, go buy her albums right now.  You'll thank me later.

I was really surprised to have enjoyed this movie.  It may be the biggest disparity between expectation and actual experience I had in 2013 (and that includes my heart-breaking disappointment in Man of Steel).  Ladies, check it out.  Fellas, watch it with your ladies (you might even like it).  Geez, 2013 was a pretty good year for romance.

6.5 out of 10

The Best Man Holiday

I'm not entirely sure what I just watched.  As I usually do, I watch the original film (if I haven't already) prior to reviewing the sequel.  In watching the previous film (1999's The Best Man), I was surprised by how un-racial it was.  It is essentially a bad romantic comedy script with an all black cast.  Other than the actors casually referring to each other with the "n-word," The Best Man could've just as easily been a white movie or Asian or Latin or multiple colors or whatever.  Despite being a mediocre rom-com, The Best Man was at least accessible to me.  Far too often with "black comedies," I feel like I just don't get it (whereas "black dramas" are totally relatable on a human level).

The Best Man Holiday rides a fine line between being racial and also having accessible, albeit unfunny, humor.  This time around, the color of the actors is constantly referenced.  Even the difference in the way light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks are treated comes up (in a throw-away joke that turned out way more poignant than the filmmakers intended).  Yet the presence of one character's new white boyfriend is not really dwelt on.  He's a momentary sight gag but is immediately accepted (but not for the poster leaving Nia Long to look lonely).  The film has a weird preoccupation with being black.  I don't mean the rapidly dwindling racism that they must face on occasion.  I just mean being this color.  Yet, the "n-word" is only used twice in the entire film, and it results in one of the only jokes that work.

But what is this sequel that arrived 14 years after the original about?  All the characters from The Best Man are back and each of them are mindbogglingly successful.  It's kinda ridiculous, but they are all the best in their respective fields.  So, Mia (the best stay at home mom) invites the entire cast of The Best Man to come visit for Christmas.  But every couple that arrives has its own set of problems to deal with.  Harper (the best author) and Robin (the best chef in New York) are having a baby but Harper can't seem to sell his new book and has lost his job teaching at NYU, but he refuses to tell Robin.  Julian and Candice (the best private school operators) are dealing with a major donor withdrawing his money.  This is due to a YouTube video of Candice accepting money for sex back before she met Julian.  Jordan (the best TV producer) and her new boyfriend, Brian (the best boyfriend), are dealing with Jordan's standoffish personality.  Shelby (the best reality TV star), who everyone hated in the original movie and should never have been invited, is starting to realize that she's a terrible mother.  Quint (the best brand manager) is starting to realize that the bachelor life is lonely.  Mia and Lance (the best football player) are dealing with Mia's cancer.  Since all these things are being kept a secret, many shenanigans and a lot of drama commences.

The Best Man Holiday is weirdly religious.  But it tries to be a raunchy sex comedy too.  For every time that Quint yells the word "titties," there's a discussion about faith.  For every viewing of Candace's prostitution video, there's mention of "a divine plan."  For every time women talk about how great black penises are, there's a grand, life-changing prayer.

This is not a good movie.  And despite having a lot of really, really weird stuff going on, it's not really "so bad it's good" either.  There are plenty of really good actors that I usually enjoy watching in The Best Man Holiday, but it's not the best showcase of them.  I didn't like this movie at all, but I'm sure that there is an audience for it (it made a fair amount of money in theaters).  Hopefully in 2027, the third movie will be better.

4 out of 10

The Counselor

When was the last great Ridley Scott movie?  I'm not talking about a really good movie like Kingdom of Heaven (the extended director's cut) or American Gangster.  I'm not even talking about a fairly good movie like Matchstick Men.  Ridley Scott is one of the greatest directors of the last 40 years.  So what was the last truly great movie from Ridley Scott?  It's Black Hawk Down back in 2001!  Most of his output since then has been an interesting mess.  Y2K must've struck Mr. Scott especially hard.

The Counselor is an interesting mess about an unnamed lawyer who willingly decides to participate in a drug deal.  Despite warnings about the ruthlessness of the drug cartels if things don't go right, he proceeds with his plan.  Things don't go right.

Ridley Scott takes more than a couple pages from his dearly departed brother's playbook (I miss you Tony!) for this movie.  The movie is filmed in various shades of orange with an intense chiaroscuro lighting especially on characters' faces.  That coupled with Ridley's gritty sensibilities and always flawless art direction make The Counselor an extremely attractive movie.  The pacing could've been faster which is crazy to say because a lot happens in this movie, but for the most part, the problems this movie has are all script related which is equally crazy to say because Cormac McCarthy wrote this movie.

Cormac McCarthy is one of America's greatest living authors but that talent did not transfer well to screenwriting.  The dialogue is awkward.  The story is a vague jumble of events.  I think Ridley Scott and his cast did their absolute best (Cameron Diaz is excellent in this movie) but could not elevate this material.

There's so much awesome stuff happening in The Counselor and so many great actors that it's weird to have to say that the movie is mostly boring.  Of Ridley Scott's interesting mess movies, The Counselor is definitely the worst.  It's not like watching a train wreck per se; it's more like coming across an old rusty car in a field and wondering how it got there... for two hours.

4.5 out of 5