Chronicle

Telekinetic powers allow hands-free videography helping you get those real cool shots you want.  

*** out of ****

Chronicle, like Cloverfield, is a successful faux-found-footage genre twist. You know, those movies that take on a tired genre and give it new realistic life by making it look like something that was roughly shot on a character-within-the-story's video camera. Though, like a lot of movies from this new movement, you are forced to suspend your disbelief that the average environment they visit has perfect lighting and audible sound, that the battery is lasting through all this time, and that someone is managing to capture all the important events inherent to the story, no matter how impossible or terrifying the situation may be.

This movie still does all the right stuff. No stars. No music score. High quality special effects.

A trio of high school guys in the Seattle area, one of whom is a video-camera totting social reject, encounter a strange environment deep within a cave in the forest at night. They awake the following morning to realize they've all been gifted with superpowers. They choose to document themselves as they experiment with these powers in a way that kind of resembles Jackass videos. It slowly develops into a dark tragedy about the documentarian character whose tortured, lonely, and bullied life turns out to be a bad combination with telekinetic powers. I was reminded of Tetsuo in Akira. 

As I say, the benefit to this movie movement is that familiar stories we've seen in films before are being retold but stripped of their cinematic stylization. In many cases, such as this one, they are big-budget movies in the disguise of a movie with no budget at all. Chronicle is a very good example of when this approach works pretty well. It's not really rising above it's B-movie plot. It's just refreshing it. 

Check out Mike and Jay's review:

Dark Shadows

Johnny Depp is Barnabus Collins with a little more Max Schrek than Bela Lugosi influence

**1/2 out of ***

I might say I've always felt ambivalence regarding the work of director Tim Burton. There's a general attitude among movie fans that Burton only started to suck recently. I don't see it that way. To me, Burton has always been a style-over-substance artist going back and forth between making dazzling original experiences like Edward Scissorhands to misguided moronic adaptations like 2001's Planet of the Apes. Then there's mediocre Burton fare like Batman Returns, Sleepy Hollow, and now Dark Shadows. If there is a merit to all of these films, it is that they are interestingly produced, great-looking, and memorable. Except for Alice in Wonderland which I thought was his most intolerable and awful looking movie.

Dark Shadows never gets to be very good but it is much better than the marketing would have led me to believe. Earlier this year, I expressed dismay over the coming of this film for being yet-another Johnny Depp/Tim Burton collaboration. It's not that they don't work well together, they do. My resentment is how Burton isn't being adventurous with his career. Depp in this movie is a symbol that we're getting more of the same and we are. The movie simply passes for me as watchable. 


The story follows an eighteenth-century aristocrat cursed, turned into a vampire, bound and buried for two-hundred years, and is circumstantially broken free in the nineteen-seventies. He then returns to his manor discovers his house to be inhabited by his descendents who are a dysfunctional bunch and only getting by with their inherited property.

I've never seen the famous soap opera on which this story is based, but I still see a story with a lot of potential to be personal on a level that Burton is not capable. The purpose of Barnabus' stay in the modern Collins house is simply stated, but I never felt it through a movie that was having too much invested in the fish-out-of water aspect to the story of an ancient vampire in a nostalgia-fantasy version of the nineteen-seventies. Burton, no matter what the subject matter, is always trying to get a chuckle out of his audience and with most of his movies (especially this one) he succeeds, even if it is at the expense of some required sincerity.

The cast is very good, especially the newcomer, Bella Heathcote as the manor's new governess. Eva Green is perfectly seductive as Angelique, the witch. Chloë Grace Moretz continues to warm up for playing Carrie in a young career which has been focused on playing young girls with sinister problems.

The song selections are choice, particularly the traveling montage during the opening credits set to Knights in White Satin. It establishes a tone for the film and the idea that this young governess is going to be our sane vessel through an experience of monsters and weirdos. Sadly though, that tone and idea don't survive very long in a very unfocused story.   

Burton built a career from an aesthetic talent for filling the screen with gloomy atmosphere and people of pale complexion. For me, this played out perfectly in my personal favorite of his films, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. That was the rare case of Burton having a deep interest in the adapted material that almost seemed tailored for him. Most of the time however, his adaptations feel like he should have made this project a fun-house ride at Disney World instead of a movie.      
Check out David Edelstein's review on Fresh Air

The Grey

Liam Neeson fends off  vicious territorial wolves in the remote icy Alaskan wilderness.

**** out of ****

The Grey is a 'cut-the-crap' survival movie. What I mean is that it is about the act of survival. It's filled with characters in a terrible situation where they are bound to die and chooses to be about their will to stay alive as long as they can while they stare death in the face. There is no false hope. There is simply endurance. This is a very strong movie.

Listen to the director discuss the film.

Having a story about a group of men who have survived a plane crash in a place where they shouldn't last long could go in a very banal B-movie direction... Though I am a big fan of The Edge. This explores all the subject matter I would hope to be addressed in a fight-for-your life story. It's about human beings staying human and knowing how to support each other which is given strength through dialogue and narration exquisitely delivered by the film's star, Liam Neeson, it's about being a man in a deep existential way. 


The film is directed by Joe Carnahan, and given his resume of dumb-fun action, this is a surprise project of passion and realism.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

A great cast is the composition of one of many great shots in Thomas Alfredson's adaptation of John le Carré's spy novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

*** out of ****

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy lies somewhere in my mind that is a place of uncertainty. Is it a work of well-calculated greatness or is it sloppy storytelling in disguise? I have seen this movie three times now and I think I am at the point where I understand most of it. This is a film that demands very close attention and committed memory to all names and events mentioned in order to comprehend the passages it is taking. I think I find this difficult because the film is filled with the distraction of strong atmosphere created by director Tomas Alfredson. The cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema, who previously collaborated with Alfredson on Let the Right One In, has a very meditative approach through movement and a nostalgic color-pallet similar to gloomy European thrillers of the late seventies and early eighties. The score by Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias is one of the best I heard in 2011 because of how effectively dark and mysterious it is despite it's being really soft. I was so immersed in the environment every scene created, that I rarely felt the ability to pay attention to the characters and story.  Maybe this is a problem you will have with this movie or maybe it's just me.

There is a lot of foreshadowing that contributes to the mystery of the film but, for me, it is subtle to a fault. Fans of John le Carré's work may say that this is a fitting tribute to his vision of the world of spies; a world he was a part of, where certainty is very rare and everything is incredibly grey. 

This is a film that shows spies as intelligent listeners and observers. Gary Oldman doesn't have one line for what seems like a long time during the first act and conveys a character of intelligence and experience simply through well conducted body language. I could go on about how cool this cast is but I don't think I have the time right now to write about such a long list of great talents.


I generally think this is a good movie and where I have faith in it's possibly being great, is that it seems like a movie I could buy and watch again and again (Particularly on lazy Sunday mornings) and only feel more interested every time.


Check out Ebert's review

Damsels in Distress

(Left to Right) Carrie MacLemore, Analeigh Tipton, Megalyn Echinunwoke, and Greta Gerwig

*** out of ****

Whit Stillman has never been as focused on the strength of a story as he is on the entertainment of dialogue. Damsels in Distress is no exception, yet is doesn't seem as intellectually alienating as his other work. Some critic said that this is the most accessible of his films but I haven't seen The Last Days of Disco, so I can't really confirm that. I do know that his first two films, Metropolitan and Barcelona are unapologetically eccentric in their character's knowledge of class and social theory. Stillman likes young characters who are steeped in an intense obsession with lifestyle and behavior through higher education and makes comedy out of how their understanding of such things is simply theoretical. 

This movie focuses on Violet, played by the charming Greta Gerwig, a college undergrad at a liberal arts campus who has unusual preoccupations. She has two devoted followers who help her with the campus's Suicide Prevention Center and take other girls under their guidance to save them from the pitfalls of college social life that can lead to despair. Violet's caution is directed in very atypical ways. Strangely she seems to embrace the concept of finding a boyfriend who is unambitious and lacks vision. She recommends finding one of these young men at a fraternity. Her justification behind this is the kind of comic absurd rationalization that is the driving force of Stillman comedies.

The dry humor continues through other characters such as the new transfer student (Analeigh Tipton) who is torn between two unusual men. Another bizarre addition is an idiot frat boy who never learned to identify colors. Fun talk. No slapstick. But there is dance.

Here's a review from The AV Club. 

The Avengers

Years of smart planning led to a screenshot this awesome!

***1/2 out of ****

You don't need me to tell you that The Avengers is cool. By now everyone should be carrying on endlessly about what an ultimate geek-out experience this flick is. I really can't think of another time in movie history where several characters from different films came together to share the same movie. This is done with ease in the world of comics and television does it occasionally. With movies, it takes a lot of planning. Marvel Studios carefully calculated how they were going to make movies about these individual heroes years ago and still have them all available for this one which is based on the comic book series about them working together as a team. It really paid off.

This movie as a concept was a recipe for disaster. Thank god it was handled by a great cook. The plot is simple: The world is threatened by forces we've never dealt with and a team of Earth's mightiest heroes must be gathered to fight back. Putting all of these characters together in a way that doesn't feel forced and stupid, is the big challenge. Marvel hired the man for the job. Considering the many creative people in the sci-fi/fantasy entertainment business, it is hard to think of someone better, when it comes to writing and directing a group of characters who are a team. Joss Whedon knows how to do it very well in this movie because he allows each Avenger to stand strong as an individual while dealing with others in a character dynamic that feels like a family. 


He also gets away with having a final act that strongly resembles one from a movie last year. Doing this demonstrates how much more you can enjoy an action scene of the same kind when you actually like the heroes.

Watch Mike and Jay's review. 


This movie, like many other first entries in a new series, knows that the characters are the first priority. The overall threat gets the short end of the stick. Usually there isn't enough time for complex antagonists when you have to spend a good amount of time getting the heroes ready. This is a movie where I never got bored with exposition. Every scene that could be as simple as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner sharing a lab together was fun and entertaining.


I must also point out that after two tries in the world of cinema, we are finally given a version of The Hulk that totally works. Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner is better for being more subtle and the computer animation of him when he 'Hulks out' is easily the most alive version I've seen.


Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is fun with the wisecracks -as always. Chris Evans continues to pull of the idealistic Steve Rogers, who is frustrated while trying to catch up to the modern world so that he can feel in place to be the 'Captain' again. Chris Hemsworth's Thor is Thor. Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff and Jeremy Renner's Clint Barton both had small roles in previous Marvel films and are given more time and expanded as characters. Finally Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury finally gets a full movie but only seems to have the purpose of being the Avengers' manager. Maybe he'll have a really deep character moment in a future Marvel movie.

If I were to nitpick on any aspect of this movie, it would be the score by Alan Silvestri -which is very good ...and achieves the right tone.... but... I have such wishful thinking that I'm going to hear a movie theme again that enchants me as much as Silvestri's work used to. This is a good score but it's no Back to the Future. Just the same as James Horner can't top his Rocketeer theme or John Williams doesn't deliver the same thrills as his old music for Star Wars/Indy/Superman/E.T. (and that list goes on) or how Michael Kamen, Basil Poledouris, and Jerry Goldsmith are all dead. The only composers who fill their shoes for bringing back that classic adventure feeling to the big screen these days are scarce. Michael Giacchino, Dario Marionelli, and James Newton Howard are some of the only names that come to my mind when it comes to who can get this right. The reason why I can carry on about a score that was decent but should have been great, is because I remember a time when dumb movies got incredibly emotional scores. Now here is a movie that is so well-thought-out and deserves that extra dose of manipulation but the time for that talent is expiring through old age and young composers taking interest in a different kind of music. -'Nuff Said -on that subject.

ANYWAY, the spectacle is that perfect balance of crowd-pleasing and wit that Joss Whedon is getting to be more and more famous for. It is everything the folks at Marvel and their fans could have wished for. It's Two-and-a-half-hours and not a minute feels wasted. And the very end of the credits has maybe the best P.S. I've ever seen.