Mud

‘He’s not dangerous.’

‘Sounds like a shit load of state troopers think differently.’

Best friends Ellis and Neckbone live in rural Arkansas where the Mississippi river is their playground. Ellis lives with his troubled father and unhappy mother, while uncle Galen takes care of  Neckbone. The boys go to a nearby island to check on a boat that landed between the trees after a flood. They can see themselves using the boat as an alternative tree house when Ellis discovers a couple of fresh bootprints, a fresh loaf of bread and canned food. They realize that someone has been living there. This is how they meet Mud, a scruffy but fit looking guy – with a great shirt and a chipped tooth – who says is waiting on somebody and if the kids could get him some more food. This is the start of an unlikely friendship, the two kids learn about Muds predicament and his deep love for girlfriend Juniper. The pair is to help him and love a helping hand.

This movie could easily be named Ellis. He is the main character and the world of this movie is seen through his eyes (but I guess Matthew McConaughey and his Mud are more appealling Box Office wise and he is the catalyst of Ellis’ inner and outer journey). Ellis is soft-spoken, polite but with the heart of a lion. He gets served with lessons of the importance and dynamic of love and relationships from all angles. He has to sift through adult lies, compromises, complexities and the way men and women relate to each other. His coming of age is not a gentle one, it is one with betrayal, disillusionment, confusing and frustration. The movie has a lot of symbolism, in the form of spiders, snakes and birds.

Tye Sherican plays the part of Ellis who acted in Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life. He is a breath of fresh air, his brooding and observing gaze has you wondering what it is that goes around that 14-year-old brain. Jacob Lofland plays Neckbone and even though he hasn’t had previous acting experience he plays Neckbone with such ease and comfort, one cannot conclude different that there is some real talent there. The kids had no problem with riding dirt bikes as it is all part of growing up in the south. Reese Witherspoon plays Juniper, Mud’s love interest he’s desperate to reconnect with. I love that all these actors are originally from the south, they know the atmosphere, the setting, the culture and the feel. They are totally comfortable in these surroundings (this is including the director and the cinematographer). The river becomes a character of its own. It pays homage to Mark Twain’s characters and books of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (Huckleberry was based on a childhood friend of Twain called Tom Blankenship, the name of a character in this film). The only thing missing is a Mississippi river boat.

The cinematography is stunning and probably best enjoyed in a real movie theater (shot on Super 35mm film – not digital). Cinematographer Adam stone has worked with director Jeff Nichols on his other projects: Taking Shelter and Shotgun Stories. This style of filmmaking had a certain nostalgic feel to it which reminded me of movies like Stand By Me and more recent Super 8. There are no fancy view points or savvy editing. I love the fact that this movie is thick, stuffy with nature breathing, living and making noise. The story is linear, chronological and straight forward. The characters are so rounded and well-developed they could be real people, you’ve probably met some of them. Apparently the parts for Matthew and Sam (Shepard) were written with these two men in mind. The move overall pacing is easy but there is also intrigue, danger and high tension too!

I loved it! Great entertainment with substance on various levels.

The Heat

‘What’s Wrong? You look a little pale, Snowcone.’

Really funny movies, or series for that matter are few and far in between. Movies often resort to the poo, pee, sex and stereo type kind of humor. Which if done well can be really funny but, old and very much in the category been-there-done-that. The Heat is from the same director of Bridesmaids a movie hit who took the middle-aged guys funny movie (The Hangover) to the middle-aged funny middle-aged gal movie. In all honesty I have not seen Bridesmaids, it passed me by not being on a priority list and no one in my vicinity who wanted to go and dragged me with him/her (kind of what happened with The Hangover). The reason I did wanted to see The Heat is first and for all: Sandra Bullock. I love her, I think she is funny, likable, talented, she has a great speaking voice and has a down to earth thing going for her to her that I find very endearing. I also thought her acceptance speech for the Academy Award (Actress in a Leading Role – The Blind Side)  was very moving and sincere. Cannot help but rooting for her ever she played Annie in Speed. Did you know she is fluent in German? So… The Heat. The opening credits/sequence are a bit off, for a moment I thought I might have walked into the wrong movie. But it all turned out okay. The movie is not set-up as a comedy (i.e. expecting to laugh every few seconds), it is the writing and Melissa’s and Sandra’s timing which make it a comedy. It’s not the decor, or the physical aspect (there is a scene in a bar with a lot of drinking, music and dancing)  where it leans on for its comedy content. The writing is hilarious and the moment Melissa McCarthy’s character is looking for her boss’ balls and does so in such determination it had me rolling out of my seat. There are so more written / spoken jokes that if not paid enough attention would fly right by. But yes, this is a funny movie.

The Heat is about two ladies working in Law enforcement. Sandra Bullocks character is FBI agent Ashburn. She has to prove herself to be considered for a promotion and get transferred to Boston. In Boston works police officer Mullins (Melissa McCarthy) who knows Boston and its inner criminals like the back of her hand. Both ladies are not used to work with someone else and have their own way to get the job done. Investigating a drug lord and his compadres, Ashburns Boss insists the two work together and if she doesn’t she can kiss her promotion goodbye. They get off on the wrong foot and have to see a way to work together and bring their assignment to good result.

This movie is filmed like a serious crime movie. The Director of Photography made a few interesting choices in its in and out of focus images – short but noticeable. This movie definitely made me curious about other work of Melissa McCarthy, I should get a hold on to Bridesmaids. The writing is what stands out, Katie Dippold is responsible for the script. She used to write for Parks and Recreation and apparently is linked to the sequel of The Heat. Sandra Bullock is a delight to watch, but I did not expect anything different. I was afraid it was going to be a repeat of her role in Miss Congeniality, but it wasn’t. Excellent entertainment!

World War Z

‘Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.‘

This movie is my  stepping-out-of-my-comfort-zone movie of the summer. Of all the movie genres out there horror is not on top of my list and of that list zombie movies are not on top of that list. I just do not like tons of blood and gore. I like psychological thrillers, I like action movies and I am able to handle a fair amount of violence. World War Z got a PG 13 rating that sort of comforted me. The reason I wanted to make the plunge: The book this movie is based on gets a good rating on Goodreads and a friend of mine liked the book. Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B produced it and he (in my opinion) choses his projects with great care. There you go… Alex off to see a zombie movie.

In World War Z Brad Pitt stars as Gerry Lane: A UN employee forced to travel the world to find the source of the zombie pandemic to contain it as soon as possible to prevent that whole mankind will disappear.

Watching this movie (in 3D nonetheless – let it stop PLEASE! let it stop!) literally was a roller coaster ride and to be honest the PG 13 rating is a bit of a stretch. Granted no gore, hardly any blood but still a couple of shocking scenes. It is a thriller that had me jumping out of my seat and my  knees covering my face. There is a feeling of suffocation, urgency and always being on your toes to this film that is well crafted. What I loved about the casting of Brad Pitt in the lead is that is you care for his character instantly. There is no need for an elaborate introduction. The opening scene does that, he’s having breakfast with his family which is clearly a very loving , strong and caring unit. From there on the adventure starts. It is fast passed, in your face, its shocking and it makes you wonder how in the world is this going to end on a happy note? A hopeful note… at least? The movie slows down around two-thirds into the movie which does not mean it is over with the action it just a bit more… contained.

This movie has gone through quite the ordeal before it saw the light in the movie theater, surpassing budgets, rewrites, reshoots, huge chunks of the movie ending up in the bin. My expectations were on the low side but knowing that I think cast and crew excelled on producing a zombie movie that is more accessible for people like me who do not like zombie movies but like a good thriller that has a bit more substance than just its surface.

 

Now You See Me

‘Who doesn’t love a good magic trick?’

I love a great magic trick. It amazes me how they do that stuff and even if it is, just a trick. It takes a lot of skill to pull it off not to mention how ridiculously fast the magic happens; often not without any danger. The trailer of this movie triggered just that kind of excitement. The cast is brilliant and I loved the idea of magicians/illusionists using their skills (or creativity…) to rob a bank. Just suggesting for a bit that what they do might actually be real, because after all the bank IS robbed… At least so it seems. And the special effects are beautiful done.

The movie opens with an introduction to the four illusionists and their particular skills and how they end up working together as a team. Then it jumps in time for about a year and ‘The Four Horsemen’ (as they call themselves) are drawing big crowds with their shows. During one of their shows they rob a bank in Paris. This peeks (just a tad…) the attention of the FBI and an Interpol detective; a cat and mouse game filled with smoke and mirrors begins.

The brilliant cast stars The Four Horsemen who each have their own specialty: Jesse Eisenberg as Daniel Atlas (what a cool name that is) who is a slight-of-hand specialist. After seeing The Social Network he still comes across as a regular-orginal-know-it-all and you expect him to say “Just a sec, let me update my Facebook status: ‘In custody about to slaughter a FBI agent with my razor-sharp use of words and magically put my handcuffs on him’.” Isla (pronounced Eye-Lah and married to Sasha Baron Cohen) Fisher (The Great Gatsby) as Henley Reeves an escape artist who used to be Atlas’ former assistant. Dave Franco (younger brother of James Franco) as Jack Wilder who is a pickpocket and Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games/ Seven Pounds/ No Country for old Men) as Merrit McKinney who is a mentalist. They are managed by the character of Arthur Tressler played by Michael Caine. Morgan Freeman’s Thaddeus Bradley has a special interest in The Four Horsemen and their illusions and want to expose them for the frauds he believes they are. The two main characters that are after the group are Mark Ruffalo (Shutter Island / The Kids Are All Right) and Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds/Beginners) in the parts of Dylan Rhodes and Alma Dray.

Quite a lot of characters and all fight for viewers support and screen time. That is the main flaw with this movie, I did not know who to root for. It lacks big in the character development department. The intro makes you lean towards the illusionists but the audience has no idea what is really going on, what their motives are and what The Four Horsemen are up to and why. So while I am puzzling that out I am not this engaged with these characters any more. Then the movie shifts more towards the investigators and their quest to catch these ‘criminals’.

There are many twists and turns and I am still not sure they all add up, but you have to keep up and on your toes to grasp it all. It looks beautiful and I really enjoyed watching the magic unfold and this movie is just great fun!

Olympus Has Fallen

‘Sorry about the house sir…’

‘That’s all right, it’s insured!’

Sometimes when you just see a title of a film it doesn’t register, rings any bells or gets me excited to run to the movie theater. Olympus Has Fallen falls into that category. I probably would not have seen the movie if not for the viewing of  intro while waiting for another movie to start and the projectionist (do you still call them that?) was fiddling around with Olympus. No sound, but due to the subtitles had some idea what it was about. There were Aaron Eckhart, Ashley Judd, Gerard Butler and Dylan McDermott. I have a soft spot for Mr. McDermott, I do:  1. He was in The Perks of Being a Wallflower 2. He was one of the main characters in The Practice one of my favorite  shows of all time 3. He sometimes favors my tweets (he does that a lot with a lot of tweets from a lot of people) and I think that is extremely charming. Olympus instantly intrigued and made me curious.

The same guy who directed Die Hard, Training Day, Shooter and King Arthur, directed the movie.  The leading role is for Gerard Butler who at his, then, 36 years old became a more familiar face with his part in 300 (2006) with his portrayal of King Leonidas. He’s been doing action, comedy, romance, animation and advertising (because he IS worth it). A refreshing actor with an air of ‘being real’ around him; it stands out from what Hollywood usually dishes up. His Mike Banning is a tough, loyal guy who lives for his job and carries a heavy burden of a tragedy he was not able to prevent or manage. When crisis strikes again Mike goes in his protective mode and he gives himself a mission determined to do better this time around. This movie has a delight of talented actors such as the charismatic Morgan Freeman, who is for his 76 years old  been quite busy:  Oblivion (2013) , Now You See me (2013), The Last Knights (2013) and Last Vegas (2013). He stars as the Speaker of the House and gets a lot of responsibility. This is actually the fourth time he and Ashley Judd play in the same movie. Angela Basset, who we remember for her riveting part in What’s Love Got to do with It as Tina Turner is Secret Service Director Lynn Jacobs. Another strong character who gets tested in her faith in Mike.

What I loved of this movie is that even if it is something we have seen and experienced before it does has an authentic and fresh feel to it. It is thrilling, exciting and pretty smart. I really appreciated that the terrorists are not the usual suspects and the way they let ‘Olympus fall’ is pretty genius; the amount of force released is air gasping. It did bother me that the way people bit the dust was cartoonish with unrealisticly weird blood spatter (yes, I do know how blood splatter should look – well maybe not but it did look very weird), especially since there was so much care put into other things. Plotwise there are a couple of things that left me with some question marks: The codes the terrorists are after (which is a plot thing that builds up tension and then just deflates… I mean really?) and the escape of Sparkplug, I might have missed something but that could be a plot hole. But overall excellent entertainment!

Top Five Summer Movies I Look Forward to

The summer just started and what a great time to check out what is coming to the theaters. Since there is no way to count on the weather; we can count on adventures at the cinema. These are the movies I am looking forward to these coming three months:

1. Mud

Two teenagers encounter Matthew McConaughey’s Mud and form an unlikely friendship. Mud is someone with a ‘colorful’ past and his new-found friends are diving headfirst into an adventure. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols. The Cannes Film Festival screened this movie and it got great reviews. I have not read any of those reviews for the main reason I want to form my own opinion and go into the movie theater as blank as possible. Opens in The Netherlands on August 15.

2. Behind the Candelabra

This HBO movie comes to the big screen. Directed by Steven Soderbergh . It is based on the book  Behind the Candelabra: My Life with Liberace, written by Liberace’s lover, Scott Thorson. When HBO broadcasted this, my Twitter Timeline gushed about who good it was; now it is one of the movies I’d like to see this summer. The trailer looks really good and has an excellent cast to boot: Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Rob Lowe and Scott Bakula. Opens in The Netherlands on August 8.

3. jOBS

I just finished listening to the book and I am curious what this is going to look like. The stills and trailer I’ve seen have impressed me of how much Ashton Kutcher resembles mr. Jobs and his mannerisms. Apparently this is not the only film about Steve Jobs that is coming out. Aaron Sorking (Oscar-winning scriptwriter of The Social Network) writing the script of the ‘other’  Jobs movie. The Guardian published an article about this in November of ’12. Which is quite remarkable since Jobs asked Sorkin for his help writing his Stanford commencement (2005), and never did… Help. Opens in The Netherlands on September 5.

4. Kapringen

The integrity and no-nonsense of Jagten really impressed me last year and now Denmark gives us Kapringen. Scandanavian tv and cinema have been booming the last couple of years and this one is the next in line expected to leave an impression. This movie is about the crew of a Danish cargo ship, hijacked by Somali pirates (there is a Tom Hanks movie coming out in November about the same subject: Captain Phillips). Written and directed by Tobias Lindholm (who also wrote Jagten). Opens in The Netherlands on July 4.

5. World War Z

I am not sure if this is going to be an ‘Alex kind of movie’. I am not a big fan of zombies: books, movies or music (is there zombie music?). I did like the trailer and the book this movie is based on, is supposed to be really good. Brad Pitt stars in it and he does choose his parts and projects with care. I’ve read the Vanity Fair article about the what a nightmare it was to get this movie into the theaters. So if all goes well I’ll be seeing my first zombie movie this summer (not counting I Am Legend)… And sometimes I just have to broaden my horizon and step out of my comfort zone. Opens in The Netherlands on July 4.

What are the movies you are looking forward to these coming months?

The Great Gatsby

“Gatsby?… What Gatsby?”

When Baz Luhrmann comes to mind I think about how he blew me away with William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996): The flamboyance, loudness, full color, the language, the fast editing and the theatrical art direction. The, then, practically unknown Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby) got to show his talent as an actor with all kinds of nuances, complexity and range. I was instantly charmed by his portrayal of Romeo. Baz’s next movie Moulin Rouge (2001) elaborated on what he had done in R+J. Again Colorful, loud, modern and nostalgic. The score is a feast of recognition and Luhrmann’s imagination had me wide-eyed, smiling, touched and bouncing in my seat. He left the boisterous and bombastic style somewhat, filming Australia (2008), but still it had the Luhrmann feel to it. Now 2013 Baz returns with The Great Gatsby (2013) a grandiose movie based on the classic by F.Scott Fidgerald (released in April of 1925). Looking at the trailer, you become overwhelmed by the loud music, snappy editing, big sets and invasive hyper images. It sets the expectations right up there.

Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s next door neighbor, narrates this movie. He lives in the most charming cottage and has a view of Gatsby’s propostrous mansion. The movie is set in the time it was written in: the Jazz Age. Rags to riches millionaire Gatsby lives in his palace across from his long-lost love Daisy; who married Tom Buchanan. Drowning in the shallowness of overindulgence he persuades Nick – who happen to be Daisy’s cousin- to arrange them to meet.

This romantic drama is gorgeous and it is very obvious there has been put great care, love and money into the set design, art direction, wardrobe, location and lighting. The choice of music is quite Tarantino-ish as it is not an obvious one, but on the other hand it is also very Luhrmann. Besides one whiff of Alicia Key’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ and a Beyonce’s ‘ Crazy in Love’ I probably miss other nuggets of recognition – that could be very well to blame to my musical shortcomings.

The experience was all right, it just did not connect with me. It did not excite me, it did not lift me out of my chair and into Gatsby’s world. Maybe this was because I could not identify with any of the characters or maybe just the way the movie was set up: with a certain distance. I did laugh a couple of times. As for the acting performances I do feel that DiCaprio did his best, he’s a fine actor… But he’s really comfortable in parts like this and as of late, in my humble opinion, Monsieur DiCaprio has gotten a bit too comfortable (please do something different Leo: comedy, romantic or otherwise, a kid movie, for Pete’s sake, horror even, a character driven independent movie anything different then these characters that look and feel the same). So much als DiCaprio is comfortable so much is Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway) uncomfortable (he always looks uncomfortable – he does). He’s the only miscast (I think a Jesse Eisenberger or a Joseph Gordon-Levitt might have been a better choice). But since DiCaprio and Maguire have been friends for ages (they only starred together in the student film Don’s Plum – 2001-) it must have been great being on set together. I loved Carey Mulligan’s Daisy Buchanan, she made Daisy come to life with all her confusion, frustration, quirks, beauty, wonder and weirdness.