More Movie Reviews

Up in the Air is really good film that's hard to categorize. Dramedy is the word I've most heard used but I'm not sure it's right. George Clooney plays a contract firer, who flies around the country and lays people off. In the standard version of this film, the work would be the funny part to go along with the dramatic relationship stuff, but the work stuff isn't funny, particularly now. Anna Kendrick plays the young up and comer who works with him and is trying to make the industry more efficient. Normally she'd fall for Clooney, but not in this one. Instead Clooney has frequent one-night stands with Vera Farmiga, another serial traveller avoiding commitment. The performances are all good and the script, which writer-director Jason Reitman has been working on for years, is true to the characters and their emotions, even if the characters themselves aren't true to them. It's a very good film, well worth seeing.

Elegy is another film about the nature of relationships but takes things much deeper. Ben Kingsley is a divorced professor who has had a series of short affairs with his students. This time he falls for one, probably because it's Penélope Cruz. But once you fall for someone you can be afraid of losing them, and that fear and lack of confidence can be self-fulfilling. The film goes in a number of different directions and there are strong supporting characters in his mistress, Patricia Clarkson and his son, Peter Sargaard. If you're in the mood for something serious and adult, this will do it.

The full title is Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. I had never heard of the novel, but I'm not the target demographic. Precious is an overweight teenager, being brought up in incredibly abusive household, pregnant with her second child and hopeless. She dreams of being on the red carpet, but even that dream is via the eyes of a television which is the only way she's knows about that life. There's nothing in her dream that would allow her to actually achieve anything. Not being hit, or worse, by her parents would be a very reasonable dream to have, but that's even beyond her conception. When a caring teacher takes her in there's a great line she thinks, “These people talked like TV stations I didn’t even watch.” This is a really powerful tough film, though it's also merciful in how it tells the story. The worst parts aren't really shown, but rather are described by one character to another and with timely cuts to dream sequences. It lets you imagine the horrors without having to witness them. It's probably the only way to have done with it and still have it's intended audience willing to watch it. This is a film with a lot to say about the forgotten in society and should get a wide audience. Mo'Nique has best supporting actress sown up for her performance as Precious' mother.

The International - At times this is a fun political thriller and at other times it just gets too bogged down in conspiracy that's too large to handle. Clive Owen and Armin Mueller-Stahl are quite good and there are some fun set pieces, but it spins a little out of control in the end.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a Wes Anderson film and I have to say, I think most of his films are the same story over and over again. This has the same melancholy mood but in a stop-motion animated film with a Chicken Run like caper attached. Clooney voices a fox, and foxes are clever, so he's a chicken thief who after a narrow escape retires to take care of his family. But retirement doesn't suit him and like Danny Ocean he thinks he has one more in him. It's clever and I think Anderson should stick to animation as it gives him more freedom. Kids will probably like and adults will like it, if they like Wes Anderson.

The Day the Earth Stood Still remake is not very good. Shocker. There was no reason to make this though you could see some thought when into updating it. It just fails on every level. I'll give one example. They weren't going to but at Keanu Reeves' insistence they included the classic line "Klaatu barada nikto", twice even. However it's so unintelligible, it blends into the background sounds (battles and storms) and never even heard it until I looked up when it was said and rewatched those scenes. If you're going to include the reference, at least make it so people can hear it. Nope, they couldn't even get that right.

I never read The Road but by all accounts the film is a faithful adaptation. The operative word is bleak. A man and his son wander a post-apocalyptic world looking for something better. Plants and animals are also dead so food is definitely an issue. There are roving packs of surviving humans and the whole thing seems to be a fable about what it means to remain good while things get worse and worse. I can't say I got too much of that out of the film. The book's strength is supposedly the beauty of the prose and that's of course lost in the film. The visuals are well done and as I said bleak, but unlike prose, after 10 minutes you've got that down. There are some good performances, particularly Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall and Michael Williams (The Wire's Omar) but while I'm glad I saw it once, I have no need to see it again.