December Film and DVD reviews

December 29th,2009

Author: John Harrington
Final Year: 1972
Biography: John is a Real Estate Manager (Citibank) and has lived in Pasadena California for over 20 years.

“Up in the Air” and “Invictus” now at your local cinema will get Oscar consideration. plus a selection of DVD reviews 

“Up in the Air” with George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. A difficult film to classify – comidrama (a la Coen Bros) is a typical term, however it’s very easy to enjoy. Clooney is Ryan an insular detached businessman who spends over 300 days a year traveling by air. He works for an outsource company and specializes in letting people go from their jobs on behalf of large corporations. Ryan is very good at his job and he is even better at traveling efficiently (and very proud of it). While it appears a ‘downer’ subject for a film there is a lot of humor. The film really picks up when a young MBA graduate Natalie (Kendrick) joins the firm and introduces some radical new ways of firing people that will change Ryan’s life and he believes not for the better. However first Ryan and Natalie must go out on the road so she can get first hand experience from the old pro and this leads to the best scenes in the film. Meanwhile Ryan has met the female version of himself! Alex (Farmiga) and what starts out as a relationship of convenience develops into feelings that Ryan had strenuously avoided in his life to date. So now, with his mentor relationship with Natalie, slowly falling for Alex and seeing his career change, Ryan is no longer living in his cocoon world but emerging emotionally. The film plays on all these levels using both drama and dead pan comedy to excellent effect and it has a clever ending. Clooney is excellent and parts like these are made for him. He is a good dramatic actor but he also has impeccable comic timing, the modern day Cary Grant. Both Farmiga and Kendrick are very good and the film which treads together a number of story lines really works.

"Invictus" Morgan Freemen, Matt Damon directed by Clint Eastwood. Ok then, a rugby film made by my favorite director with two of my favorite actors! What’s not to love? Well the lack of tension and drama for one! Firstly it’s a very un-Eastman film both in style and subject matter. Secondly we all know the outcome of that World Cup. Also I thought Damon was way underused – that is not to say his character deserved better, most likely not, but then why have Damon – a lesser known actor may actually have helped the part. Good news is the rugby scenes are well done and Damon very believable in that role. Freeman as Mandela is pitch perfect not only looking like Mandela but the speech pattern and physical actions and its Mandela all the way. For me the most interesting part was understanding the political capital Mandela invested in supporting the SA rugby team that at that time, to his constituency, represented white supremacists and the worst of apartheid. And all this against the advice and of his closest political and personal advisors. It’s a good story well told but it’s also DVD material.

“Hunger” with Michal Fassbender and Liam Cunningham directed by Steve McQueen. This is the well known story of Bobby Sands however McQueen manages very effectively to give us a different perspective. At times this uncompromising film is difficult to watch but it rivets your eyes to the screen. It is a claustrophobic view of Sands, his time “on the blanket” and the casual brutality of the Maze prison. We also get to meet a very committed man, dedicated to his beliefs and very determined to make his protest which, as we know, leads to his death by self inflicted starvation. The film has a number of memorable scenes however one sequence stands above the others when Sands meets with Fr. Dominic (Cunningham) who has come to dissuade him from starting the hunger protest. In a beautifully lit and framed scene Sands outlines his life philosophy and his commitment to the cause by turning the table on the priest in using a real life experience as a parable to explain why it is he, Sands, and only he who must do this thing. Fassbender’s physical commitment to the role is impressive, it’s a film not for everyone but I liked it and it haunted me for days after.

“The Hangover”. If you like your comedy raw and crude this is the one for you and it is very funny in parts. I won’t attempt to detail the story line except that it involves four friends who head to Las Vegas on a bachelor party weekend. They wake up with the mother of all hangovers and collective amnesia as to the night before, but with enough evidence to suggest it was catastrophic and add in a missing groom…ooops! A lot of laughs, but a very adult comedy.

“Julie and Julia” with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Somewhat of a ‘chick flick’ but I enjoyed it. Streep is Julia Child the famous American chef who brought classic cooking to America and had a much loved cooking show on TV. Adams is Julie a telephone operator bored with her day life who decides to cook every recipe in Child’s French cookery book in one year and write an internet blog about it. So the film splits between Child’s experiences in France as the wife of a diplomat, where she learned to cook - originally as something to simply pass the time – to where she writes her famous cooking book; And the cooking experiments, successes and failures of Julie as she makes her way through that very book. I have seen some of Child’s TV shows but I don’t know her well enough to assess Streep’s performance as an impersonation but she sure dominates the screen. Adams is excellent as always.

“Five Minutes of Heaven”. James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson. Wow! This is a highly complex film but not because of its plot line, that is in fact fairly simple. The complexity arises courtesy of a phenomenal performance by Nesbitt (Joe) well aided by Neeson (Alistair). Set in Northern Ireland, post Good Friday accords, it tells the story of Alistair who we meet as a reformed UVF member who, at 17, murdered Joe’s older brother right in front of him when Joe was young boy. This murder radically changed both men’s lives, but emotionally Joe has not recovered or indeed may never have faced up to the trauma and the damage this act has cost him. Yet he will face it now, as he and Alistair have agreed to meet as part of a controlled reconciliation program. The film covers the background and the killing but where it scores is in the emotion that both men display as they prepare to meet and Joe in particular as this man, Alastair, is his nemesis. Great stuff with excellent direction that really brings tension and drama to the story. Nesbitt blew me away.

“State of Play” Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachael McAdams. This is well worth the visit, a film with a very good cast including a feisty Helen Mirren. I would like to outline the plot but I haven’t the space, its long, it’s complicated with plenty of twists and turns yet I was never lost. It’s a crime story mixed with political thriller a little along the lines of “All the President’s Men” because it focuses on Cal (Crowe) and Della (McAdams) as the plot follows their journalistic instincts deeper and deeper into a Washington scandal. The film has great pace and keeps you glued and guessing, three vital elements in any thriller. On a side note is Crowe getting chubby (the ladies shout “No”) – as this is the 3rd recent film I have seen him in where his character is somewhat overweight?