Movie Review: The Monuments Men

Synopsis: At the tail end of World War II, art historian Frank Stokes (George Clooney) is tasked with preserving and rescuing much of Europe's great art, sculptures, and buildings from the retreating Nazi forces. He assembles a crack team, known as "The Monuments Men", consisting of artists, architects, and playwrights and the group of aging men head overseas. Once stationed on the front lines, James Granger (Matt Damon) must persuade French historian Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett) to trust him and reveal her knowledge while the rest of the group spreads out across Europe in an attempt to locate the thousands of stolen pieces before the Nazis put them all to the flame.

What I Liked: It's hard not to get excited about a cast like this. Clooney and Damon are great in and of themselves but when you add in American Treasures John Goodman and Billy Murray and the criminally underrated Bob Balaban in supporting roles, you know you're bound to see some excellent work no matter how the finished product turns out. And that's what sticks about most about The Monuments Men. You get these bright moments of greatness from one of these performers or another and often the best sequences involve two of them working off of one another. Clooney and Damon have an obvious easy chemistry with each other, Murray and Balaban work delightfully in tandem for quite some time, and Goodman and Jean Dujardin make the most of their time together as well. (Very little of this film includes all of the Monuments Men which is a real bummer obviously.) I think it's fair to say that when The Monuments Men shines, it is because of the rich stock of talent that makes up the cast, though the story itself is interesting and worthy of being told.

What I Didn't Like: I think we're at the point where we have to say that George Clooney as a director can no longer be considered a draw. His first two films (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Good Night and Good Luck which earned him an Oscar nomination) were of the highest quality but his subsequent efforts have fallen off significantly. Leatherheads is horrible and while The Ides of March had its moments (and even brought a nomination for writing), its pursuit of greatness was hamstrung almost from the beginning and the direction had a lot to do with that. Monuments Men is much the same. Great cast (as noted), interesting story, lots of good vibes going in but ultimately it doesn't come anywhere close to achieving its goals. I think all the right pieces are here but the assemblage of said pieces is wrong. The tone is uneven and usually seems slightly off, the first hour is incredibly choppy, and the movie routinely tries to cash in on emotional checks it hasn't yet earned. We're supposed to be invested in Stokes' attachment to a certain piece of art but the development of this plot point (and many others) fails to deliver the same amount of attachment that the character feels. There are numerous, "Oh that's nice" moments that are played for, "This will stick with you for the next 20 years." The score is horrendous and often drives the tone in just enough of the wrong direction that I had trouble staying attuned. And when The Monuments Men works, it seems almost always to be a result of the great talent of the cast and almost in spite of the poor direction.

In Conclusion: I'm not willing to call The Monuments Men a bad movie but it is a far, FAR cry from the classic film that I, and I think everyone involved with this movie too, expected it to be. To me, it's like a puzzle that has been twisted and turned into an assembled whole but the final picture is all wrong. The Monuments Men is passable and decently entertaining but that unfortunately makes it quite a disappointment.

Grade: B- (Rated PG-13 for some language and violence)

Movie Review: Inside Llewyn Davis

Synopsis: Singer-songwriter Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) bums around 1961 Greenwich Village, toiling in the folk music scene and couch surfing with anyone who will have him. Davis is a talented musician but not truly a great one and after the death of his singing partner, he drifts through life believing that he is better than his circumstances but unwilling or unable to change them. He travels from New York to Chicago and back and has interactions with a number of more successful, "together" friends, usually while transporting a cat, and whether or not his experiences leave him a changed man or not is left to the discretion of the viewer.

What I Liked: One of the things I love most about the Coen Brothers is their undeniable style that oozes through every film they make. You never watch a Coen Brothers movie without coming out knowing that you just watched a Coen Brothers movie. But at the same time, they never beat you over the head with their Coen-ness. Each of their movies centers on a drastically different subject or subject matter (though this one shares some obvious connections to O Brother Where Art Thou?) but there's this sense of familiarity that goes hand in hand with everything they do. That, I think, is why they can take chances and piece their movies together in strange ways and still expect the audience to buy in, because there's an existing comfortability that comes along with each project.

Inside Llewyn Davis is sort of the quintessential Coen Brothers movie. They've chosen a interesting but perhaps not all that accessible character and then they throw the audience right into a week in his life with very little build up but we immediately buy in because it all seems familiar (assuming you've had some experience with previous Coen works). This lets them really put you in Davis's shoes and helps to make him a much more likable character than he really has any business being. He's a melancholy, grumpy bum in many ways but the movie lets you (or perhaps forces you) to see the world through his eyes and it works beautifully.

Isaac is a tremendous medium for the Coen's particular brand of darkly comedic art. Davis is at the same time witty, sulky, and subtly charismatic and Isaac hits each mark perfectly. It doesn't hurt that he is an outstanding musician and every time he picks up his guitar is a glorious trip into the heart of 60s folk. Seriously, this is absolutely perfect casting. And the supporting players, featuring the typically strong batch of great actors in small roles we've come to expect from the Coens, take turns setting Isaac up to shine. Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan, F. Murray Abraham, and John Goodman, among others, all have some glorious moments and all serve to further Davis' progression through his own personal Odyssey. Inside Llewyn Davis is also near-perfect from a technical standpoint and the cinematography, while a little understated, is superb.

What I Didn't Like: Um, that it ended?

In Conclusion: I've been looking forward to this one and building it up in my mind for a year now and somehow it still managed to exceed my expectations. Inside Llewyn Davis is smart, it has a strong emotional core, and like most Coen movies, it is darkly hilarious in just the right ways. It is a brilliant, heart-achingly genuine piece of filmmaking. This is one of the very best movies of the year for me and I've had the soundtrack playing on repeat for three days now. If I had had the opportunity to see it before I wrote my Top 10 list and Top Performances list, the movie would have come out third or fourth and Isaac's work would have been top five. Love, love, love it.

Grade: A+ (Rated R for language and some sexual references)

http://youtu.be/eXMuR-Nsylg

Movie Review: Monsters University

Long before Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and James “Sulley” Sullivan (John Goodman) ever revolutionized the scare industry, they were just your average, run of the mill college student monsters. Mike was the typical bookworm, a hard worker with an academic approach to scare tactics and Sully the naturally talented but lazy prodigy who doesn’t put in much effort. Their rivalry results in their mutual expulsion from the Monsters University School of Scaring and their only path back to the course of their assumed destiny is the Scare Games, an intramural competition between the school’s fraternity and sorority houses. But while they both believe their own abilities will carry the load, they soon learn that winning in the Scare Games will require the sort of teamwork that both of them have struggled with in the past.

While Monsters Inc. might not be able to crack my top five Pixar films, it is, I believe, one of the better examples of the studio’s ability to bring real human emotions to otherwise foreign settings. In fact, aside from Up, it might be the most easily accessible Pixar film from an emotional level. I’ve always had a great soft spot for Monsters Inc. and its main characters are some of my favorite in the Pixar universe. That said, I’m not so sure that we needed a reunion with Mike and Sully. Their story is one that stands up beautifully on its own but I’ve never thought of it as a tale that needed to be added upon in either sequel or prequel form. Monsters University didn’t exactly change my opinion on that but at the very least I must give Pixar credit for developing an interesting premise while keeping the film in line with the spirit of the predecessor.

Much like the last two Pixar films (Cars 2, Brave), Monsters University is geared much more toward the kid audience than anyone else. Unlike those films, however, it also provides a good bit of content from the adult audiences. This element is what has always made Pixar the best in the business and while this movie is still a far cry from the best of the studio’s work, it is, if nothing else, a step in the right direction. College is, I think, an entertaining if not altogether original, setting for a film such as this and allows for a few moments that harken back to Animal House and the like and these little dalliances helped to keep my attention through all of the “Just be yourself” sentimentality that is aimed squarely at the kid audience. The supporting voice talent, featuring Nathan Fillion, Aubrey Plaza, Helen Mirren, and more is excellent and of course Billy Crystal and American Treasure John Goodman do their jobs quite well. The biggest improvement, however, on the last two Pixar entries is Monster University’s extra measure of heart. It may lack the ambition of Toy Story, The Incredibles, etc. but it does feel like this is a story director Dan Scanlon and Pixar wanted to tell whereas Cars 2 and (to a lesser extent) Brave felt more like cash grabs than anything else. It’s still a little too cute for my tastes but at the very least, I think Monsters University represents a step in the right direction and the beginning of a second era of incredible original content. Grade: B+ (Rated G)

Review: Flight

It’s been a while since Robert Zemeckis has been on the set of a life-action film. After 2000’s Cast Away, Zemeckis dedicated himself to the art of motion capture animation, a bumpy road that brought about three relatively unsuccessful films (The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol) and the shuttering of his studio. With that in mind, I think it’s only fair to give Zemeckis, the creator of such beloved films as Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, the benefit of the doubt if Flight, his first foray back into the realm of live-action cinema, shows a few signs of rust. When his commercial aircraft experiences a massive mechanical malfunction, Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) goes above and beyond to save the lives of his crew and passengers, taking evasive maneuvers that perhaps no other pilot could have managed. He awakens in a hospital room as a hero, having lost only six of 102 souls on board in spite of tremendously long odds and a harrowing crash landing. His story takes a turn, however, when it becomes known that Whitaker has a serious issue with alcohol and drug addiction and was in fact drunk at the time of the crash. As investigators close in on his condition and the heaping pile of lies he’s told to cover it up, Whitaker’s drinking problems reach a whole new level, alienating his only allies, heroin addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly) and company lawyer Hugh (Don Cheadle), and bringing himself closer and closer to a breaking point.

There are moments of sheer brilliance in Flight that reminded me of just how good Zemeckis can be when he’s on his game, especially in the early going. The man is a special effects whiz and whereas someone like Michael Bay uses effects in a, “Look how shiny!” sort of way, Zemeckis has always used his visuals to add drama, tension, and/or intensity to his films. (Example: the plane crash and subsequent struggle for shore in Cast Away.) The sequence of events that take place on the plane in Flight, which takes up about the first 20 minutes of the film, are extremely tense and very well put together. It’s both exciting and terrifying and in these moments you get to see Captain Whitaker at his very best, perhaps a look at what the man would have been without the backbreaking influence of chemical dependency. Following this opening sequence, however, the brilliant moments come along less frequently and before long I found myself getting bogged down in the narrative, lost somewhere between apathy and outright disdain for the protagonist.

Addiction is not an easy thing to portray in a film. If you go too soft, you end up with an unrealistic story that doesn’t resonate. Go too far in the other direction, however, and you’re likely to end up with a character that begins to grate on the nerves of the audience. Christian Bale’s performance in The Fighter I think stands out as the prime example of how to bridge the gap between the two. That character is completely realistic down to the very last detail and yet he plays it in such a way that you truly do feel sorry for the character even when he is doing horrible things. Whip Whitaker doesn’t quite fit that bill for me. Zemeckis takes the narrative of Flight so far and does so much to show him to be a miserable human being that Whitaker becomes a wholly unsympathetic character. I guess the object of all of this would be to drag Whitaker down to his lowest point so that his redemption will seem all the more fulfilling but instead, I reached a point nearing the film’s climatic conclusion in which I said to myself, “This guy sucks and I hope he either dies or goes to jail.” At that point, there’s really no coming back; Whitaker could have gone on to find a cure for cancer in the film’s final scene and I still would have harbored some dislike for him.

As part of this process of breaking down the lead, Flight asks much of Washington while simultaneously putting him in a hole that he has a tough time digging out of. Like everyone else with a pulse, I love Denzel Washington and consider him to be one of the very best Hollywood has to offer. But whereas Flight requires a great performance in order to make the movie work, Washington’s is only a good one that holds some real strength but doesn’t measure up against the man’s better works. It is unfair to demand an Oscar-caliber performance out of anyone, even someone as accomplished as Washington is, but I think that’s the sort of portrayal Flight requires in order to hit its mark and as a result, both parts of that equation come up short. The supporting cast, including Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, and American Treasure John Goodman, also struggle to excel and at times come off a bit uneven. I found only Reilly and James Badge Dale, in a short but excellent appearance, to be particularly strong performers. This is disappointing as, given the names attached to this film, Zemeckis could have done considerably more with his cast than he did.

Flight represents a good effort from all parties, though perhaps a little too far-reaching for its own good. Its better moments shine quite bright but they are too often blotted out by a hard-driving narrative and an uneven tone that struggles to strike the right chord at the right time. And in the end, I was left with the feeling that Flight could have been much better than it ended up being.

Flight Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman Rated: R (language, nudity, and “here’s how to do cocaine, kids!” extensive drug use) Recommended For: Adults with patience who get to see more than one movie a month. In other words, don’t spend your one night away from the kids on this one.

Review: Argo

The opening of Argo came at a bad time for me and despite my extreme excitement for the film, it caused me to wait a week before making it to the theater. In that time, the hype surrounding this movie went into full-on hyper drive, leaving me with an expectation level that stood somewhere between “top five movie of the year” and “greatest movie in the history of mankind.” I hate when this happens as it is supremely unfair to hold a film to lofty expectations that could not possibly be reached (see: The Dark Knight Rises). As such, you know you’ve just seen a GREAT movie when you go in with absurd expectations and it still manages to completely blow those expectations away. Such is the case with Argo, a spectacular endeavor that stands as nothing short of a masterpiece. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a large group of American citizens was taken hostage at the US Embassy and held for over a year. Just as the takeover began, a small group of six Embassy employees snuck out a backdoor and were harbored by Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber), hidden away from search squads and forced to become hermits. With the pressure of the situation mounting, CIA exfiltration expert Tony Mendes (Ben Affleck) devised a strange plan to bring them home by having them pose as a Canadian film crew in Iran to scout locations for a Star Wars knockoff known as Argo. As the Iranian army comes closer and closer to discovering the stowaways, Mendes makes a daring gamble that puts both his life and the lives of his compatriots at stake.

What a difference a few years makes. Six years ago, if you and I had made a $50,000 bet that in 2012, Ben Affleck would direct and headline the best movie of the year, then right now you would be in possession of a worthless IOU because you would be right but I don’t have $50,000. The guy who once starred in Gigli, Paycheck, and Jersey Girl back to back to back has become, through great effort and a rededication to his craft, one of the best filmmakers the industry has to offer and a personal favorite of mine. It’s a shocking turn of events, really. It started with Gone Baby Gone, a film that gets better and better over time, and continued with The Town, a film I absolutely love that doesn’t get nearly enough credit in my opinion. Argo, however, takes all of the promise, potential, and skill Affleck displayed in those previous films and ramps it up into an incredibly well-made and painstakingly attentive film going experience.

From the first moments, Argo sets the tone for what the audience should expect by throwing you directly into an insanely tense atmosphere that does not let up until the credits roll. It’s a very organic and natural progression that Affleck allows his story to build through and as it goes, so does the drama. Near the very end of the film, I found myself taking in a giant gasp of air that should only be reserved for trips to the surface of a pool after jumping off the high dive and realized that I’d barely been breathing for, oh, a solid hour. The first hour sets the stage meticulously for what is to come in a slow but still thrilling manner and in the final hour, as every aspect of the setup collides together, I found my pulse quickening and my heart pounding as if my own life depended on Tony Mendes’ plan. Without question, the second hour of Argo is simultaneously one of the most satisfying and intense hours of film that I have ever had the pleasure of watching. This is the very definition of a nail biter, and I mean that quite literally as the bloody stumps that used to be my fingers will attest. The simple way in which Affleck creates such a rich and thoroughly compelling dramatic thriller is an absolute stroke of genius that should (and will) be rewarded by every award committee worth its salt.

Across the board, the performances within Argo are on par with the direction and the narrative itself. These are subtle, understated portrayals turned in by one of the greatest cast of supporting players I can ever remember. The film’s IMDB page is a Who’s Who of tremendous character actors, all of whom fit their respective roles like a glove. Kyle Chandler, Bob Gunton, Chris Messina, Rory Cochrane, Scoot McNairy, Titus Welliver and more all receive various levels of screen time and all hit their marks wonderfully. The cast’s true glory, however, belongs to the trinity of Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and American Treasure John Goodman. As Mendes’ boss, Cranston brings a savvy mix of intensity and compassion to his role, making his character’s spring into action incredibly satisfying. It is great to see Cranston take on a film role that is equal to his immense talent after a recent string of less-than-stellar appearances. Arkin plays the fake movie’s producer and truly nails the no nonsense approach required by the role. You could argue that this is just Arkin being Arkin but my response would be, why mess with something great? He fits his role perfectly. And as a make-up artist with a CIA past, Goodman is…well, Goodman is magnificent. He maximizes his limited screen time beautifully, ensuring that every second he is on screen is memorable. When he is on his game, there are few in the industry who do supporting work better than Goodman. All of these performances (and many more I do not have time to highlight) serve to highlight the strength of Affleck’s own subdued portrayal which suits the film quite well.

Every aspect of Argo works in conjunction to create a film that everyone should be able to find merit in. It is well-shot, well-written, and extremely well-acted movie and one that I plan on seeing many, many more times and it might just be enough to make us all forget about Affleck’s past acting transgressions. Or maybe not. Gigli is really stinking bad.

Argo Director: Ben Affleck Cast: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Scoot McNairy Rated: R (language, intensity) Recommended For: Every movie fan 12 years and up. Seriously, go see this one.