Movie Summary of Animal Kingdom by Michael The Moviegoer

ANIMAL KINGDOM = ***

“Bark And Bite”

I had heard David Michod’s “Animal Kingdom” was a gripping film. So I kept waiting for that vice-like hold. The first hour was good, but I couldn’t understand what all the festival fuss was about. Then came hour #2 and the film had me in a tight grip and didn’t let go until the final frame.

What “Animal Kingdom” slowly and patiently becomes is a nerve-rattling urban crime drama. Set in Melbourne, Australia with a cast that’s mostly unknown to American audiences, this is the saga of a teenage boy who is suddenly orphaned when his mother overdoses. He is taken in by a distant relative who becomes his new mom. She is played by Jacki Weaver in a role that deserves serious awards attention. She is the coldest baddie since Javier Bardem in “No Country For Old Men”.

Perhaps the most recognizable actor in this cast is Guy Pearce who plays a pivotal and cruicial role in this boy’s life as a law-enforcement officer using the boy to get a murder conviction against his uncles.

“Animal Kingdom” is raw and unflinching. The series of events will haunt you long after it’s over.

DVD Double Feature:
Guy Pearce’s character in this movie reminded me of his role in 1997’s “L.A. Confidential”. Curtis Hanson’s film about Los Angeles police corruption in the 1950s also starred Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe, and won an Oscar for Kim Basinger.

Michael The Moviegoer

Movie Summary of The American by Michael The Moviegoer.

THE AMERICAN = ***

“Privacy In Plain Sight”

The novel “A Very Private Gentleman” comes to the screen with the bland title “The American”. The entire film is set in Europe. Not one scene in America. So why that title?

But I’m not being critical of the setting. If anything, the locations in Sweden and Italy are what make this film so worth watching.

George Clooney is a samurai-like hit man with a special skill for assembling customized weapons. In Italy he meets a beautiful and mysterious client who is looking for a weapon with precise specifications. What she needs it for is unknown to us. So, yes, this is one of those movies that you could think doesn’t have much of a plot, but you’d be wrong.

We’ve been programmed to easily seek out and recognize plots in movies as though there is some sort of routine formula they must follow in order to be successful. “The American” succeeds because nothing in it is obvious. Look and listen closer and you’ll find details that keep changing what his puzzle is supposed to look like.

If you’re old enough to remember the days when you had to bring your brain to the movies, this one’s for you. It’s a riveting suspense drama. A stylistic throwback to the European art films of the 60s and 70s. Director Anton Corbijn, known from 2007’s “Control”, takes his time with everything. His film is so quiet there are moments when the stillness in the theatre and the stark silence become deafening. This movie may actually have the least dialogue of any movie released since the birth of the talkies.

For most films, that minimalist approach could equal extreme boredom. But every moment in Corbijn’s film is filled with heightened intenisty because of this. It gives this film a strong Hitchcockian feel, and Clooney reminds us of Cary Grant in “North By Northwest”.

“The American” requires patience and may not be everybody’s cup of tea. But it is a rewarding experience for those who are game. It’s not an action-packed samurai metaphor the way 1998’s “Ronin” was. This is more of a psychological character study.

DVD Double Feature:
This movie reminded me of one of my favorite European assassin movies of the 70s. Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 masterpiece “The Day Of The Jackal”. Edward Fox plays an assassin hired to kill General Charles de Gaulle. Michael Lonsdale is the french detective tracking him. A great European cat-&-mouse game.

Michael The Moviegoer

Movie Summary of Going The Distance by Michael The Moviegoer.

GOING THE DISTANCE = **1/2

“It’s Not A Small World”

Anyone who’s been living in a city where movie advertising is everywhere from buildings to buses has seen the ads for the new Drew Barrymore romantic comedy “Going The Distance”. On a billboard, it certainly looks like it could be a good movie. So I was greatly anticipating the advertised August 27 release date. But August 27 arrived and the movie was nowhere to be found. Not on a single screen.

Instead the movie quietly arrives one week late. I smell last-minute focus group tampering. It’s too bad, because I would much rather see the version of this film that was meant to arrive last week. This week’s version seems to come without an ending.

I can only guess as to what was altered in the eleventh hour. For a romantic comedy, the concept of a long-distance relationship is tricky. In reality, they rarely work out. But in big star-driven romantic comedies, they must work out.

It might be possible to explore genuine issues that long-distance couples face, but this isn’t that film. This is a raunchy sex comedy with a lot of explicit and very frank dialogue intended to shock and stun ala Judd Apatow.

There are a handful of truly fun moments, but the careers of these characters keep getting in the way of all potential logic. Barrymore and Justin Long are the geographically challenged couple. She wants to be a newspaper reporter. He’s a music business A&R executive at an un-named record company. The screenwriter is oblivious to the fact that both of these industries are on the verge of becoming extinct. The internet is threatening both the print media and music sales. Over the past couple of years, record label offices have begun to resemble ghost towns. Yet Long’s label feels like Grand Central Station at rush hour.

Also, Long is an A&R executive based in New York when the music capital of America is currently Los Angeles. But Barrymore is in California so the movie can’t work that way. Shouldn’t his company pay for his trips to California? For the purpose of this movie let’s just create a fantasy of the music business. One where an A&R executive can sign and work with artists even while spending all his time frolicking with his girlfriend on a beach in what seems like an endless parade of rom-com montage cliches.

“Going The Distance” goes nowhere very fast. It’s life in the fast lane on a dead-end highway.

DVD Double Feature:
Although they share no scenes together, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long were both wonderful as part of an ensemble cast in one of the best and smartest romantic comedies to come out in recent years, “He’s Just Not That Into You”.

Michael The Moviegoer

Going the Distance

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Movie Summary of Mao’s Last Dancer by Michael The Moviegoer.

MAO’S LAST DANCER = ***

“Dirty Dancing”

Usually when a film wins the Oscar for Best Picture, the director of that film goes on to have a long career of interesting and important films. Poor Bruce Beresford. Nothing he’s done since 1989’s “Driving Miss Daisy” has resonated with anyone.

Beresford’s latest film “Mao’s Last Dancer” is one of his best, but still somehow lacks a certain zing that makes for really great cinema. But it certainly aspires to be that.

From the screenwriter of “Shine”, this is the true story of Li Cunxin, a peasant Chinese child who became an international ballet star and defected to the United States in 1981 while dancing with the Houston ballet.

Without permits, Beresford reportedly filmed on many locations in China and smuggled the reels out of the country. Those scenes, in Mandarin with English subtitles, try hard to look like the work of famed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou. But the film does not tell its story chronologically. It jumps back and forth between present-day Houston and the flashbacks of China. The switches are jarring and intrusive. They don’t really flow together.

But the ballet choreography by Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon is spectacular. It makes “Mao’s Last Dancer” a must-see for anyone who appreciates ballet, or a great true human interest story involving the battle between communism and capitalism.

The lead role belongs to newcomer Chi Cao, and he’s quite good. Bruce Greenwood is fabulously flamboyant as his American teacher and choreographer.

Somewhere in the middle, the film becomes a tense political thriller as Li Cunxin is abducted by Chinese officials while inside the Chinese embassy. But some of the more melodramatic moments play like a Lifetime Channel TV movie. The dance scenes are all amazing, even if there are too many cutaways to audience reaction shots.

DVD Double Feature:
In 1985’s “White Nights”, Mikhail Baryshnikov plays a legendary Soviet dancer who has defected from Russia, but finds himself back there and arrested after surviving a plane crash. There he meets a U.S. army deserter played by tap dancer Gregory Hines. This dance-filled political thriller was directed by Taylor Hackford.

Michael The Moviegoer

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Movie Summary of Cairo Time by Michael The Moviegoer.
CAIRO TIME = ***

“Walk Like An Egyptian”

Romance slowly simmers for Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig in the quiet, lovely “Cairo Time”.

Clarkson plays Juliette arriving in Cairo to meet her husband who works for the U.N. but is detained in Gaza. He sends an Egyptian friend to look after her. He’s wonderfully played by Siddig (“Syriana”).

Clarkson aimlessly roams the streets of Cairo in a sort of “Lost In Translation” haze. Over the course of several days (or weeks, it’s hard to tell) Juliette starts to develop a romantic bond with her new Egyptian friend. Her desires are read on her face and in her eyes. It’s an award-worthy performance in restraint for an actress who is overdue for such recognition.

Unlike the recent Julia Roberts film “Eat Pray Love”, in “Cairo Time” we have the story of a woman who finds herself without really looking. But what’s similar to Roberts’ film is how a drastic change of environment and culture can re-awaken one’s soul.

“Cairo Time” is beautifully photographed on location. The cinematography is gorgeous. The scenes shot at the pyramids are simply awesome. Well worth the trip.

DVD Double Feature:
A married woman finding love with an outsider late in her marriage, then having to struggle with the difficult life choices that always complicate seemingly settled lives. That’s the core of the drama in “Cairo Time”. It is also the circumstance that Meryl Streep faces as an Iowa housewife who has an affair with a traveling photographer played by Clint Eastwood in the haunting and lyrical “The Bridges Of Madison County”.

Michael The Moviegoer

Cairo Time

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Movie Summary of the other guys by Michael The Moviegoer.

THE OTHER GUYS = ***

“L. O. L.”

“The Other Guys” is laugh-out-loud funny. A firey send-up of the buddy-cop action genre. After a string of disappointments, Will Ferrell returns to his A-game. This is the kind of movie that made Ferrell a comedy star in the first place.

Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are New York City cops assigned to nothing more dangerous than paperwork. But they desperately want to be hero cops like their own idols, a pair of overly-caffeinated arrogant cops played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. Once Jackson and Johnson are removed from the picture, the competition to fill their shoes begins.

The movie opens by going from zero to sixty in a single frame. The first scene is an outrageously over-the-top action sequence involving Jackson and Johnson. It’s so ludicrous, in fact, that I thought the scene might end by revealing Ferrell and Wahlberg sitting in a cinema watching a movie. But that over-the-topness is the world “The Other Guys” lives in. It takes a little while to get used to it, but once it gets rolling, we find ourselves thoroughly enjoying the ride.

Michael Keaton is quite funny as the police captain who moonlights as a manager for a Bed, Bath & Beyond. Steve Coogan is fun as a Wall Street villain who bribes cops with Broadway show tickets. But it’s so good to have Mr. Ferrell back in a comedy that really works. “The Other Guys” is non-stop fun!

After the fun, however, is a rather sobering list of information and statistics about our economy and its relation to some real-world Wall Street corporations. It’s like something out of a Michael Moore documentary! Those oddly out-of-place statistics are a real downer after such an enjoyable piece of fluff. But stick around for a silly stinger after the end credits.

DVD Double Feature:
The last time I remember laughing so much at the buddy-cop action genre was 1991’s brilliant “The Hard Way” starring the unlikely pairing of Michael J. Fox and James Woods. Fox is a Hollywood action movie star who is doing research for an upcoming role by partnering with tough New York detective Woods. The steady stream of classic one-liners keep coming like gunfire. Dead on target and hilarious!

Michael The Moviegoer

The Other Guys

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Movie Summary of The Concert By Michael The Moviegoer

THE CONCERT = ***

“The Gift Of Music”

Radu Mihaileanu’s “The Concert” is a film in search of a genre. It starts as a comedy and ends as a drama. Both parts are equally enjoyable thanks to a genuinely touching performance by french actress Melanie Laurent.

The comedy part involves a janitor for the Bolshoi Orchestra who many years ago was a celebrated conductor but lost his job as a result of his political beliefs. He intercepts a FAX’d invitation for the Bolshoi Orchestra to come and play in Paris with a french violin star played beautifully by Laurent. So he assembles his now very old orchestra friends to pose as the Bolshoi Orchestra and basically hijack the show.

The drama involves the violinist’s mysterious past, who her parents are and why she plays Tchaikovsky so well.

Alexei Guskov leads this band of misfits into Paris to finish the concert that Communism wouldn’t let them finish decades ago. Guskov perfectly balance comedy and drama with a skill that reminded me of Dustin Hoffman. Melanie Laurent is impossibly beautiful, but still comes off as genuine and real.

DVD Double Feature: Celebrate the recent work of this fine french actress by catching Melanie Laurent in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”. Here she also plays a girl with a mysterious link to a past life, and in both films there is quite the similarity between those pasts.

Michael The Moviegoer

Movie Summary of Life During Wartime By Michael The Moviegoer

LIFE DURING WARTIME =  zero stars

“Casualties Of War”

In 1998, Todd Solondz made a brilliantly edgy slice of indie cinema called “Happiness” in which nobody was even close to being happy. Dysfunctional relationships and sexual frustration infected every character. The performances were daring. The final scene one of the greatest ever. I thought Solondz was some kind of genius. Until now.

More than 10 years later, Solondz’s latest film, “Life During Wartime”, is a sequel to “Happiness” with the original cast entirely replaced by new actors. Hey, James Bond and Batman did that!!!!

If you haven’t seen “Happiness”, there’s no point in reading any further because “Life During Wartime” is definitely not for you. If you’re a fan of “Happiness” I’m sorry to say that “Life During Wartime” is definitely not for you.

But if you’re interested, here’s the scorecard. In the new film, Paul Reubens plays the ghost of Andy (Jon Lovitz in the first film), Ciaran Hinds takes over Dylan Baker’s pedophile dad. Lara Flynn Boyle becomes Ally Sheedy who has tattoos on her arm and is dating Keanu Reeves (who is not in the film)! Allison Janney steps into Cynthia Stevenson’s shoes. And Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character is now a black man played by Michael Kenneth Williams. At least both actors each have three names!

What seemed original, daring and edgy in 1998, now seems like Solondz’s obsessively sick and twisted fantasy. The film is filled with uncomfortablly frank conversations between adults and children. I felt embarrassed for Allison Janney having to do a scene with a 12-year old boy in which she explains to him how she “got wet” when a man touched her.

Sadly, Solondz seems to find pleasure in discussing the anal rape of young boys between adult and child actors. I felt gross watching this movie. I began to feel that Solondz himself might actually be a danger to society. Somebody should get this guy into therapy quick.

DVD Double Feature: Unfortunately my experience with this sequel has forever tainted my view of the 1998 film “Happiness”, once a favorite of mine. Now, I see it as a director’s perverse pleasure. But if you haven’t seen “Happiness”, that’s the film to see before “Life During Wartime”.

Michael The Moviegoer

Life During Wartime (UK import, Region 2 PAL format)

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Movie summary of Eat Pray Love by Michael The Moviegoer.

EAT PRAY LOVE = ***

“Help Your Self”

The movie version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling book “Eat Pray Love” is not easy to review. For those who can relate to its narcissistic nature, the film and the book are sure to become a beloved self-help/how-to manual. Relating to this material is key to enjoying it.

But then, even for those who don’t connect with Gilbert’s emotional rollercoaster ride, it’s hard to deny the top-notch quality of the performances. Julia Roberts plays Gilbert in one of her most accomplished acting showcases since “Erin Brockovich” for which she won an Oscar. Richard Jenkins proves his recent Oscar nomination for “The Visitor” was no fluke and well-deserved. In one long, un-edited scene Jenkins delivers the film’s most powerful emotional punch, stealing every bit of Roberts’ thunder.

But as strong as these elements are, the film still feels fractured. It plays like a medley of three short films. Upon leaving the theatre, I overheard many people simply talking about which ‘part’ they liked best. No part was the clear winner, but I couldn’t help but wish that all three parts somehow felt like one complete movie.

The true-story plot involves Elizabeth Gilbert’s emotional journey of self-discovery. After a failed marriage in New York City, Gilbert embarks on a year-long quest that starts in part 1 (eat) Italy, then on to part 2 (pray) India, and ends in part 3 (love) Bali, where she meets Felipe played by Javier Bardem. There’s no mystery that she’ll find love with Felipe as the film’s title is actually a spoiler for that. So when that moment finally arrives, it feels sort of anti-climactic and not in the least bit romantic.

Director Ryan Murphy is the man behind the “Glee” television series. That may explain why he’s become so comfortable with short film-like episodes. But this material feels like it requires a more epic cinematic scope to really work as a film. A good example might be David Lean’s “A Passage To India”.

I can’t say that I hated or was disappointed by “Eat Pray Love”. I just didn’t feel enlightened by it. I wanted a Yoda-like infused epiphany. But instead I got “Pretty Woman Travels The World”. Delicious to experience, but tomorrow I know I’ll be hungry again.

DVD Double Feature: My review of “Eat Pray Love” comes from a man who actually can relate to Gilbert’s emotional journey. Like Gilbert’s, my quest for self-discovery began in Europe. But it also stopped there. For me, Europe was my parts one, two and three. But I did cover a lot of ground. The UK, Scandinavia, France, and finally The Czech Republic. My favorite city was a little Czech spa town just outisde of Prague called Karlovy Vary. This was my Shangri-La. A few years after I visited there, Queen Latifah made a film there and it really put the place on the map. It was 2006’s “Last Holiday” in which Latifah learns she has a terminal illness and decides to spend her last days living it up, not in Italy, India or Bali, but in Karlovy Vary.

Michael The Moviegoer

Eat Pray Love

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Movie Summary of Middle Men by Michael The Moviegoer.

MIDDLE MEN = **1/2

“Pop Porn”

The trailer and poster for “Middle Men” promises a movie that could be the “Boogie Nights” of internet porn movies. But George Gallo is clearly not as skilled or as visionary a filmmaker as Paul Thomas Anderson. So what we’re left with is a teaser of a film that actually plays like a feature-length trailer for the film we’d like to see.

“Middle Men” is the story of the invention of credit card billing on the internet. It’s why we have Amazon today. It’s why we are able to purchase anything online. And the origins of this idea came out of selling porn on the internet. It involves a world filled with topless showgirls and russian mobsters. There’s almost no way to screw up a movie like this, but Gallo has done just that.

Our main character is played by Luke Wilson who serves as the middle man in facilitating the merger of a credit card billing service for internet porn sites. Nearly the entire movie contains Wilson’s voiceover narration like some wanna-be Scorsese crime saga. Scenes and timelines jump back and forth so often you feel like the film was edited in a blender.

If there’s one bright spot in this mess, it’s the surprisingly effective supporting performance of James Caan. Here he’s giving one of his finest performances for this stage of his career. In a better film, this performance might even be recognized come awards season. But Caan is actually better than the film itself, which only enhances the disappointment.

DVD Double Feature: Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 epic “Boogie Nights” used an all-star cast to tell the story of the porno movie industry during a time when it had to adjust to the transition from theatrical to video releases. Among the cast is Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Heather Graham, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Don Cheadle, Julianne Moore and many other familiar faces.

Michael The Moviegoer