Black Mass (2015)

Black Mass is one of those movies that I really look forward to. Even from the trailer, you can see it checks all of the boxes: movie about a real gangster, set in the 70's, a great cast and great actor diving deep into the main role. Black Mass delivers on all of this. Mostly...

Black Mass, from this point in the review will be abbreviated to BM, which will certainly not cause any confusion with anything else, starts off with great dialog and a compelling story. I had no familiarity with Whitey Bulger before seeing BM, but it took no time at all to get into it. The story builds and builds, but then due to the nature of how the real life events played out, it loses steam towards the end. I won't spoil it here, but if you're familiar with Whitey Bulger, you might already know what I'm referring to. It doesn't necessarily ruin the movie necessarily, but it's an unsatisfying climax.

Welcome back, Johnny Depp. We missed you. After a series of shitty movies and silly roles, it's nice to see Depp return to serious acting. He's freaking fantastic and unrecognizable at times. Colored contacts usually weird me out, but here they were used to great effect. It really made his performance of Bulger that much more chilling and creepy. Don't be surprised if gets nominated come awards time. Joel Edgerton is great as well (supporting actor nod?). Just when I thought The Gift was the best I've seen him, he takes it to another level here. Jesse Plemons also really surprised me at well. The cast overall is fantastic. It's so stacked that there just isn't enough time to dedicate to everyone. How often can you say that guys like Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon and Corey Stoll were underused?

BM also does one of my favorite things where at the end they show you pictures of the real people, and in some cases you'll see how much they really nailed the casting and look. They also use this to wrap up the loose ends to the story that they don't show you in the film.

Overall, Black Mass is an entertaining gangster drama and worth watching just for Johnny Depp's performance as Whitey Bulger. It's nothing you haven't seen before, but totally worth a matinee. If you wait for video, it would make a good double feature with The Departed or The Town.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Gift (2015)

I say this every year, if you know how movies are scheduled, then you know you shouldn't expect much out of movies released later in the Summer. I've affectionately called August and September "Dump Months", but I think I prefer the term "Dump Season". However, and this seems to be a growing trend, there's always a few surprises each year. The Gift is the first surprise of Dump Season.

I love a thriller that can surprise me without resorting to a real gimmick or twist. Unless the 'twist' in The Gift is that it plays out smarter and more realistically than most thrillers. I think the real message you'll come away with from The Gift is, "Who's the real bad guy?" That's about all I can say though without spoiling anything.

This is one of Jason Bateman's more nuanced performances. You'll watch him and go, oh he's just doing another version of his Arrested Development character, but you start noticing subtle things about his behavior. I can't objectively say anything about Rebecca Hall's performance since I'm in love with her.

The real winner here is Joel Edgerton. In addition to his creepy, yet sympathetic performance, he also wrote and directed the film. I've always enjoyed his acting, especially his perfect performances in Episode II and III, but if this is the kind of stuff we can look forward to from him, then he's gonna move to my short list of favorite actors.

There are a few slightly cheap jump scares, but they work here because the film does such a good job of building tension. With each jump scare, it would be followed by a wave of relieved laughter from the audience. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap when they can get you like that.

The Gift is one of the Summer's pleasant surprises and a satisfying suspense definitely worth seeing in the theater. It also makes for a good date movie if you want to see them jump and then keep getting closer to you whenever it gets tense. You're welcome.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Great Gatsby (2013)

More like the "So-So" Gatsby...

Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby isn't a terrible movie, but I found myself going through various stages of irritation and interest throughout it.  Fifteen minutes in, I was so nauseated by the visuals and music that I considered walking out.  Gatsby hadn't even shown up on screen yet.  Once he did though, I found myself taken in by his charm and story.  However, as it continued on, I started to care less and less about the characters and what was going on with them.

Let's start with those visuals.  I think part of my experience was compounded by the fact that I saw this in RPX 3D.  I heard this was actually shot in 3D, and if it was, it's one of the worst examples of unnecessary 3D I've seen.  It didn't add anything to the film, and just made the visuals that much more distracting.  Several scenes were simultaneously in and out of focus and weird digital camera tricks were used that won't help anyone that already has motion issues watching movies in 3D.  In some ways the look of the 3D reminded me of the effect that The Hobbit has with it's 48 FPS motion.  Much of the film felt and looked fake to me, whether it was wide shots of houses or cities, or scenes of cars racing around at impossibly fast speeds.  Some shots looked so clearly computer generated, that I thought I was watching a video game cut-scene version of The Great Gatsby.  I don't think I've ever said this about a film before, but I'd call it over-directed.  The whole film was just too busy and there were times I wish Luhrmann would just stop playing around with the look of the film, moving the camera around, and just concentrate on telling the story.  This did calm down a bit as the movie went on though, especially during some of the more dialog-heavy scenes.

The music I found extremely distracting as well.  In what felt like a lame effort to try to give this more of a modern feel, there are lots of hip-hop and dance songs throughout.  This is worsened by the fact that many times this is mixed with the actual background music heard, so you've got this cacophony of musical styles and songs with different tempos being played over one another.  During the credits I saw that Jay Z co-produced the score, and then it made sense.  Who else would shoehorn a remixed version of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" in The Great Gatsby?  I'm not kidding, that song is in the film.

So, what's the story about?  Nick (Tobey Maguire) is a bond salesman in 1920's New York.  He lives in a small, but comfortable house on the outskirts of town.  This house is dwarfed by a huge mansion directly next door inhabited by the mysterious and elusive Gatsby.  Little is know about Gatsby; who he is, where he got his money, what he does, but the one thing everyone does know about him is that he throws great parties.  People come from all over (uninvited, I might add) to hang out at Gatsby's mansion even though none of these people actually know him.  Nick gets a formal invite, a rarity, to one of these parties and meets Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio).  The two become friends, and eventually Gatsby asks Nick for a favor.  He wants to reconnect with an old love of his, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), who happens to be Nick's cousin.  They have not seen each other in five years, and in that time Daisy has married rich sportsman Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton).

My only real familiarity with F. Scott Fitzgerald is when Loki (Tom Hiddleston) played him in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, so yeah, I haven't read the book and didn't have any ideas about the story going in.  After hearing what a classic novel this was, I thought I was going to be in for a treat as far as depth of story and characters, but that's where I thought this adaptation really let me down.  All of the characters felt very one-dimensional to me, with the exception of Gatsby, but like with Daisy, there's just nothing to her character that makes you see why these men are in love with her (other than the fact that Carey Mulligan is very pretty).  She's just there.  In other cases, they go out of their way to make sure you don't have any reason to like them.  For example, Tom Buchanan is not only is cheating on his wife, but he's jealous of Gatsby, and he's a racist.  I've often railed against movies that romanticize extramarital affairs, and this is no exception.  Daisy and Gatsby begin their affair, and they don't appear to have any conscience about it.  It's not until Gatsby finally pushes her to leave her husband, and then you see a little bit of internal conflict.  I felt like I was watching a very slick looking soap opera.  I'm guessing that Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce's script didn't capture the depth or these characters or story.  Otherwise, I'm not sure what makes this a classic.  Most of the movie hints that there's more to Gatsby than he's letting on, but when it's revealed I couldn't help thinking, "that's it?"

I'll give credit to the performances though, especially with Leonardo DiCaprio.  He really was charismatic as Gatsby, and turned in another fine performance.  He was easily the best thing about the film for me, and was the only character that went through any kind of emotional range.  I also liked Joel Edgerton's performance, despite not really liking his character.  Another standout for me was Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan.  I believe this was her first role, and I thought she looked like someone plucked right out of the 20's.  While I think Tobey Maguire's wide-eyed enthusiasm worked for his performance, I thought there were problems with his narration, especially as the movie began.  It sounded like he was speaking with a labored voice, as if to convey he's much older, but then when you finally see him, he's the normally aged Mcguire, so what's with the voice?  It didn't sound like that throughout the film, so maybe he was sick that day?  The cast is rounded out by Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke, who were fine, but not given a ton to do.

Gatsby might have been great, but The Great Gatsby isn't.  It has it's moments, but the visuals were too flashy and distracting for their own good and the soundtrack was annoying.  Leonardo DiCaprio was great as Gatsby, but found myself really not caring about anyone else in the film or what was happening.  It's another case of style over substance.  I suppose it's going to come down to whether or not you like the visual style of the film, but it didn't work for me.  DO NOT see this in 3D!  I'm calling this one a rental.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) - Movie Review

Just when I thought I was done with all of the 2012 Oscar contenders another emerges...

I had almost forgot about Zero Dark Thirty despite the fact that it was one of the year's most anticipated films.  It probably didn't help that it wasn't given a wide release until 2013, and even that date was kicked around (rottentomatoes.com shows it as Jan 11th).  A friend of mine was surprised when I told him it didn't come out on Christmas, and I have friends that saw screenings of this weeks ago.  I just found it odd that a release like this would be so under the radar.

Zero Dark Thirty spans the ten years from 9/11 right up until the operation that found and killed Osama bin Laden.  The trailers for this film make it look like it's more of an action film and military focused, but it's definitely not.  Certainly not for the first two hours anyway.  The story mainly follows the work of Maya (Jessica Chastain), an extremely driven CIA officer focused on finding bin Laden.

A majority of the film revolves around chasing down leads and trying to find a courier that will lead them to bin Laden.  To be honest, I didn't really find this part of the film to be all that interesting. There are a lot of names and jargon being thrown around, and at times I had trouble keeping it all straight.  It's the kind of film you sometimes wish you had a flow chart to refer to while watching. Unfortunately, this is the majority of the film.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its intense moments.  We open with a really brutal and graphic scene of torture involving a man with ties to known terrorists.  I've heard there are complaints that the movie has a pro-torture stance, but I didn't come away from it thinking that or that it glorified torture.  I thought it was presented in more of a matter-of-fact way where the officers believed it was the best and quickest way to get the information they were looking for.  Once that gets shut down, their focus shifts to other methods, and those other methods are what gave them the leads that eventually led to Bin Laden.  You could almost argue the opposite, that if they had continued torturing prisoners, perhaps they never would have gotten to bin Laden.

Maya eventually uncovers enough information to believe she's found bin Laden, but her superiors are not convinced.  You see a lot of stand-offs between Maya and anyone that doubts her.  This is one of the areas where I thought Jessica Chastain shined.  When she'd square off with people, you never doubted that she wasn't going to get what she wanted.

The last 40 minutes or so is where the tension in Zero Dark Thirty ramps up.  I always find it impressive when a movie can still build tension despite knowing how the movie is going to end before even sitting down in the theater.  It reminds of Argo in that way.  Director Kathryn Bigelow seems to have a knack for keeping the tension high, even when things aren't necessarily happening, or always keeping the fear that something may explode at any moment.

Unlike Argo, the problem with Zero Dark Thirty is that it doesn't have the character development of that film.  Outside of Maya, I don't think I could tell you name of any other character in the film. Even with Maya, I couldn't tell you anything about her.  Was she married?  Did she have any kids? Did she even have time for a social life outside of co-workers?  There's a point in the movie where you briefly see a wallpaper on her computer screen of her and little girl, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was her daughter, a niece, or an actual picture of Jessica Chastain.  It makes the movie a little less relatable (and entertaining) when compared to something like Argo.

I also thought the movie could have been cut down a little.  Sure, when covering ten years of actual time you have to show a lot, but at the same time, I felt that a lot of scenes didn't really go anywhere or give you much information.  I credit writer Mark Boal for being thorough, but I don't think they needed to include everything.

I love Jessica Chastain, and I'm sure she'll get an Oscar nomination, but I didn't think this was her best performance.  I can think of a few movies last year where I thought she was much better (and I'm not even talking about her nomination for The Help).  Granted, I don't think it's necessarily her fault as it's just what she was given to work with as far as the character.  Many of her early scenes in the film involved standing off to the side and not saying anything or looking serious.  She does have those good scenes when she'd confront someone, but those aren't very frequent and I didn't come away from this blown away by her performance.

Like Lincoln, the supporting cast is stacked with many great actors in very small roles.  I'm sure it's another instance of taking any role to be in a sure Oscar contender, but it's also a shame when you see an actor you like a lot and they aren't given that much to do.  Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Mark Duplass and even James Gandolfini have small roles.  In the beginning of the film, I actually thought it focused more on Maya's partner Dan (Jason Clarke) than on Maya.  It's not until he takes a different role in the hunt for bin Laden does the movie focus more on her.  Not go get off on a rant, but how is Mark Duplass in everything these days?  The only person I've seen in more movies over the past year than Mark Duplass is Jessica Chastain.  I like him fine, but does even he lose track of all the films he's been in?

Zero Dark Thirty is a very good movie, but I didn't think it was a great one.  This isn't the type of movie you're going to watch over and over.  The lack of character development makes it more difficult to connect to, and the lull in the middle of the film could have been tightened up.  When you compare it to Kathryn Bigelow's last film (The Hurt Locker), or other Oscar contender's like Argo or Lincoln, I don't think it measures up to the story or performances of those films.  It's still worth watching for the intense beginning and ending though, so I still recommend it as a matinee.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) - Movie Review

It's nice when the title of a movie doesn't mislead you. The Odd Life of Timothy Greenis an odd movie. Young Uncle Owen from the Star Wars prequels and Sydney from Alias...wait a second, I'm already getting off track. I'm starting over...

Jim (Joel Edgerton) and Cindy (Jennifer Garner) are a young couple living in a small town that is "The Pencil Capital of the World."  Jim works for the local pencil factory and Cindy works for the town's pencil museum.  As the entire town revolves around pencils, you know these guys see a lot of excitement and know how to party.  So, Jim and Cindy have been trying unsuccessfully for some time to have a kid.  However, the movie begins with them getting the bad news that it's just not going to happen.  Rather than adopt, they basically decide to get over it, but before doing that, they write down their wish list of what their child could have been.  They take these notes and bury it in a box in their garden, like you'd do with a dead hamster.  Can you imagine the outcome if they had flushed it down the toilet like a goldfish?

So magic happens, and they wake to find that a child, Timothy (CJ Adams), is now in their lives. The magic is never explained, and movie just basically asks you to 'shut up and go with it.' Not only did they never bother explaining the magic, they didn't even bother explaining to anyone how they have a kid now. "We adopted him, or something. Why are you asking so many questions? Are you a cop?"

Anyway, the magic, garden boy's obvious physical quirk is that he has leaves growing out of his ankles.  It's clear that Timothy knows something about the significance of these leaves, but leaves (haha...get it) everyone in the dark about it. From the first meeting, he addresses Jim and Cindy as mom and dad, and there doesn't seem to be any confusion on his part about his role or where he came from.  To protect him, he now has the tortured existence of having to wear socks everywhere.  However, they take comfort in the fact that he will always have a built in Halloween costume as Poison Ivy and will fit right in at toga parties when he reaches college.  Okay, maybe I made that part up.

One of the attributes they wished for him was to be honest to a fault, so he aways seems to know the right thing to say, giving him that 'wise beyond his years' trope.  As the same time, his knowledge seems to be completely limited to what they wrote on the cards, as he's extremely naive and lacks basic knowledge at times. When needed, the script will have capable of something he showed no aptitude for previously.  As with all magical children, he's here to solve everyone's problems, too. Throughout the film I got more of a vibe that he was an alien, rather than a magic child. There's a part that will give you a real Superman vibe.

Everything felt so forced.  Jim has this strained relationship with his father, Jodie Foster's dad from Contact (David Morse).  Jim goes on and on about how he wasn't a good dad, but the extent of his terrible parenting seemed to be that he never hung around for all of Jim's soccer games.  I can't say I entirely blame him, as I tend to find soccer boring and zone out, but it felt like Jim needed get over it.  He even admitted that he wasn't very good at soccer.  It just felt thrown in to add drama and really wasn't necessary at all to demonstrate any motivation about Jim's need to be a good parent.  I was able to buy a little easier into the relationship between Cindy and her sister (Rosmarie DeWitt) because it seemed more of a natural sibling rivalry of two people with different values.

It's not an issue with the performances.  I thought everyone was doing a good job and the leads had their charm.  I think Joel Edgerton might have been trying a little too hard, but that would have also been due to Peter Hedges direction.  The screenplay from Hedges, with story by Ahmet Zappa, is fairly predictable and is too cliched.  It really takes no chances at all.  There's musical number that got a good laugh from the crowd, but I thought was so cheesy I could barely watch it.  I'm a little surprised at this as Hedges has written or directed some much better films (Pieces of April, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, About a Boy).

Dianne Wiest plays the nasty boss of Cindy and I felt like her character was your typical mean old lady role.  I did like Ron Livingston as the pencil factory owner.  He plays a jerk boss, but I felt like he tried to milk some humor out of his part.  In another movie, it would have been more effective. Again, I'm not blaming any of the actors; their characters were all underwitten.

Timothy forms a relationship with Joni (Odeya Rush), and I think this the part of the movie I enjoyed the most.  I think if whole movie would have focused more on their friendship, like maybe a less quirky version of Moonrise Kingdom, it would have been a stronger film overall.  I think both kids had nice performances, and I think Odeya Rush is one to watch for in the future.

The ending was very abrupt and it sapped most of what emotion it should have had out of it.  I felt nothing from it, and was left wondering what the point was.  I don't mind a family drama, they can even be moving, but when the movie's ideas are so underdeveloped it's hard to get into it.  It's a shame because I liked the cast and it felt like were trying hard, but again, they weren't given much to do.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green is one of these sweet and harmless family dramas, but it's also very sappy and contrived.  Maybe I'm being too hard on a family film that's basically a kid's fairy tale, but it's just too simple and predictable.  There are too many missed opportunities to do better things with the characters or flesh them out in a more satisfying way.  This is suitable for everyone though, and is something you can watch with your kids without hating it.  I didn't hate the movie, but it just didn't work for me.  I did like the performances, but there wasn't enough to the story to really recommend.  It's a rental, and probably one your kids will watch over and over.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars