WHAV (https://whav.net/category/archive/movies/page/3/)
St. Vincent has a lot of positive things going for it but originality is not one of them. Rather it’s built on the popular cliché of the curmudgeon next-door turning out to be a good guy despite his rough exterior. (I also predicted how it was going to end by the trailer alone.) Oh, and did I mention that at times it can be maudlin? Still, St.
If you’re a movie goer, you probably read the synopses of new films that appear on various websites. One I read for the film adaptation of Chad Kultgen’s novel “Men, Women, & Children” says that it’s about “how the internet and social media have change our lives.” In fact, it’s more about how these things really haven’t changed much, outside the conduits through which human emotion flows. The picture begins with the Voyager spacecraft, and its cargo of humanity’s artifacts, leaving the solar system, as it in fact did recently, with narration from Emma Thompson. Shots of the craft & the narration return throughout ,as several interleaved stories of love, loss, and growing up unfold. All are poignant, well-written, and well-acted, with Adam Sandler proving that his performance in “Punch Drunk Love” was no fluke.
”Kill the Messenger” is the new movie produced by and starring Jeremy Renner…and an ambitious affair it is. Part documentary, part journalist-sleuthing adventure, and part family drama, it succeeds more often than not. It’s mostly the story of Gary Webb, a reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, who stumbles on to the story of how the CIA, as a fundraising adjunct to Iran-Contra, became involved in cocaine trafficking that fueled the U.S. crack epidemic of the late 1980’s. If this were ALL it was about, the picture would be less than revelatory in 2014. It is, rather, about the complex interaction of government agencies in damage control mode, pusillanimous corporate media, and the strength of family and other relationships.
Despite being marketed as an action-thriller “Gone Girl” is more of a psychological portrait of two people which asks the question: is it possible to ever truly know someone especially if that someone happens to be your spouse? Based on the runaway bestseller by Gillian Flynn, “Gone Girl” first appears to be the relatively straightforward tale of a suburban woman gone missing and her increasingly suspiciously-looking husband. The couple, Nick and Amy Dunne appear on the surface to have it all, but like everything else in the movie, things aren’t always what they appear. While there was some controversy casting Ben Affleck as Nick Dunn-mainly because he is considerably older than the character is in the book-he does a more than adequate job here. The fact that his Nick bears an uncanny resemblance to the real life convicted wife-killer Scott Peterson is more than mere coincidence.
“The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” is one of those films that I really wanted to like. It is one that people should like because after all, it has a stellar cast, Jessica Chastain as the title character and James McAvoy as the male lead, a strong supporting cast including Viola Davis in a small but memorable role as a college professor, and a poignant storyline. Somehow, though, it was just hard to care about the main characters much less whether or not they got back together or not. Without giving too much away, the plot of “Eleanor Rigby” revolves around a young couple that separates after the wife makes a failed suicide attempt following a tragedy. Without revealing what that tragedy is, it is worth noting that other films have also explored a similar theme and pulled it off much better than writer and director Ned Benson does here.
It ain’t “Lord of the Flies,” but it ain’t bad…. The latest novel from the category known as young adult fiction to make it to the big screen is James Dashner’s ’09 bestseller “The Maze Runner.” The action begins, quite effectively and chillingly, in a darkened freight elevator which is delivering Thomas, with supplies, but sans memories, up to an idyllic glade where a group of similarly affected teens, all male until the last delivery, have set up a functional colony. The place’s main problem is a 100 foot-high wall around it, with the only potential escape route being through a constantly changing maze patrolled by cybernetic monsters called Grievers. Preserved from the novel is an over-arching and analogous struggle between two emerging factions among the group, one trying to work within the situation, and the other restless to escape it. Thomas, played by Dylan O’Brien, becomes the default leader for the latter group, and faces a strong opponent in Alby, brought off well by Aml Ameen, as leader of the “stand-patters.”
Director Wes Ball peels back the layers at just the right pace to keep up the suspense while keeping the story moving.
It’s probably impossible to review “The Drop” and not mention that this is the last performance of the late, great James Gandolfini. While Gandolfini is amazing here and reminds us that we lost a great actor last fall, “The Drop” may mark the beginning of new career opportunities for his co-star, Tom Hardy. Hardy, who received much critical acclaim for his work in this year’s earlier release “Locke,” shows that he has what it takes to take him beyond action films and establish himself as a character actor. In “The Drop,” Hardy plays a bartender named Bob who is employed by his cousin Marv in an establishment that Marv used to own before he was forced to sell it to some Chechen gangsters. The new owners aren’t interested in the day-to-day operations.
This week, “Indiana Jones…” meets “The Blair Witch Project,” and the results are not pretty. The action in “As Above, So Below” begins in Iran, for all the wrong reasons, where student archeologist Scarlett has gone
to retrieve an artifact important to her research on alchemy. Once back in Paris with the object in hand, she seeks out an ex- who can
translate the Aramaic inscriptions on it. This is where the problems begins…Aramaic was never used in Persia, and even if it was, it
wouldn’t likely translate into perfectly rhyming iambic pentameter in modern English. The retrieved object directs them, conveniently, to the catacombs beneath the city they’re standing in, as we travel along via helmet light and go-pro, first through lots of bones, then
through tunnels where things more weird than scary start happening.