From The Hip (1987) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Bob Clark

Starring:  Judd Nelson, Elizabeth Perkins, John Hurt, Darren McGavin, Dan Monahan, David Alan Grier, Nancy Marchand

From The Hip almost works in spite of its loud, obnoxious protagonist.   Centered around a murder trial of a seemingly guilty English professor, From The Hip is well done enough within its genre to be passably entertaining.   Bob Clark, whose directing career reached its zenith with A Christmas Story and its nadir with Porky's and Baby Geniuses, moves things along well enough, but should have begged Judd Nelson to dial down.   

Nelson plays Robin "Stormy" Weathers, a novice attorney at a big Boston law firm who gains national attention by turning a simple assault case into a circus.   Through inventive and somewhat dubious means, he wins the case and is made a junior partner.   Life is good, until he is assigned the case of accused murderer Douglas Benoit (Hurt).   "The case is unwinnable," Stormy tells Benoit, but Benoit thinks Weathers can work magic and conjure a "not guilty" verdict.   It won't be easy, considering witnesses placed Benoit at the scene and the murder weapon was found in his car.   Hurt is charmless and malicious as Benoit, who maintains his innocence despite his general aloofness and his uncanny ability to be disliked.     

Stormy's ideas of defending his client include yelling his opening remarks at the jury and smashing the murder weapon (a hammer) into a table, breaking lots of furniture in the process while trying to prove a point that no one knows what a hammer hitting a skull sounds like.   The jury seems to like him, even though he is obnoxious and sneering (and screams at them frequently in order to get his points across).  Then, he starts having bouts with his conscience when it seems that Benoit indeed committed the heinous act.   He has a heart-to-heart with his girlfriend, who pretends she is asleep while he confesses his misgivings.   Perkins tries her best in a thankless role of the girlfriend whose function is to sit in the courtroom and watch him screw up at trial every day.

I don't know.   We are supposed to agree with Stormy and condone his actions as he attempts to ease his conscience by forcing Benoit to confess.   However, and I know I sound idealistic here, but he and his firm are paid a lot of money to serve the best interests of his client.   If I were Benoit, I'd demand my money back.   Stormy is a defense attorney and he owes his client the best possible defense.   It is certainly not an easy job, but that goes with the territory.  I'm almost sympathetic for Benoit, which is ass backwards in a film in which we are expected to go along with the hero.    

The Secret Of My Success (1987) * *

Directed by:  Herbert Ross

Starring:  Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan, Margaret Whitton

The nagging question was this:  What was Brantley Foster (Fox) trying to accomplish as he pretended to be an executive at a big Manhattan company while working as a mail room clerk?    He expends a lot of energy changing clothes and avoiding detection, but to what end?    I know, I know.  That's two questions. 

The Secret Of My Success is a 1980's Michael J. Fox vehicle which would've been a complete dud if not for Fox's intrinsic charm.    Fox has a load to haul and he is up to it, but the script is below par screwball/romantic comedy.   Seeing Fox being chased through the office halls grows quickly tiresome, as does watching his chasers slip, trip, and fall in their attempts to nab him.     You would think he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List.   Marshal Sam Gerard could have helped out if he were in the building. 

Brantley flies from Kansas to New York City as a college graduate with a degree in business (I think) with hopes of becoming a rich yuppie.     He lands a job as a mail room clerk for his rich uncle's company, but after seeing the numerous vacated offices on the 25th floor, he decides to pose as a newly hired executive named Carlton Whitfield.     He attracts the disdain and then the guarded friendliness of Christy (Slater), the company's lone female executive who is also sleeping with Carlton's uncle.    She, of course, is only on hand to provide Fox a potential love interest, so her emotions follow lockstep with the requirements of the script.     

Carlton is there to work and show his business smarts, creating a plan which would save the company from a looming hostile takeover while eluding his mail room boss and his uncle.    But other than popping a boner hanging around the executive lounge and feeling important for a few moments, what does Fox have to gain from this scheme?     He isn't being paid any more money.    There is nothing but downside.

Further complicating things is Brantley's aunt's attraction to him.   She blows cigarette smoke in his face from the back seat of a limo as a come hither signal.    Yuck.   Doesn't she know about the dangers of secondhand smoke?    So, now he has to elude her too, although he does get a few bangs in.   

The misunderstandings are all cleared up during a night at Fox's uncle's house.    How the takeover works out in Fox's favor is something he actually just falls into.   None of his earlier actions matter.    He is a product of extreme good fortune and a rather forgiving aunt.    He tells Christy at the end that he wants to fly back to Kansas on the company jet.     Doesn't he realize that such wasteful spending could lead to the company not making its quarterly projections?     Maybe he didn't graduate from a top-flight business school after all.

Gangs Of New York (2002) * *

Directed by:  Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Leonardo Dicaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Brendan Gleeson, Jim Broadbent, Henry Thomas, Liam Neeson

Gangs Of New York could have been a simpler story.    It runs nearly three hours and tries so hard to cover various subplots and events that the original plot seems like an afterthought.     We lose general interest in the thrust of the story, which is a young man named Amsterdam Vallon (Dicaprio) seeking revenge for the death of his father in a gruesome street fight years earlier.      His target is Bill "The Butcher" Cutting (Day-Lewis), who runs the Five Points section of New York City and was the man who offed his dad with a knife.     Amsterdam's father was Priest Vallon (Neeson), who feuded with Bill The Butcher over control of the Five Points.      When you consider how dirty, dingy, crowded, and generally unpleasant the Five Points area is, Priest should have just relented and let The Butcher run the show. 

Scorsese's film attempts to echo his better crime films such as Goodfellas and Casino with Dicaprio providing voiceover narration explaining the players and what is happening onscreen.      Yet, it is hollow, mostly because there is little life or joy in Gangs Of New York.     Henry Hill loved being a gangster and Sam "Ace" Rothstein loved being a casino owner.     They could not wait to share their zeal with us.     Scorsese in turn enjoyed his colorful criminals.    I can not imagine what Scorsese enjoys about the people or places in Gangs Of New York.      There are top-notch production values and a certain level of competence that Scorsese just simply can't fall below because he is so talented, but there is an awful lot of dankness and darkness for him to plow through.  

Amsterdam's plot is to ingratiate himself to Bill The Butcher, join his gang, and kill him at the right opportunity.      Daniel Day-Lewis is the best thing about Gangs Of New York.    He breathes life and villainy into Bill with a gruff, no-nonsense performance that doesn't go over the top.     Bill The Butcher isn't a monster, just a very tough man who is fighting to keep hold of his power.      He takes a liking to the serious Amsterdam, not suspecting that he is the son of his old enemy.      Amsterdam, for all of his anger and hatred, finds getting close to Bill's power more seductive than anticipated.
He also falls in love with a pickpocket named Jenny (Diaz), who is streetwise, yet tenderly loves Amsterdam as much as she can under the circumstances.

The actors and characters here would be better serviced in a less cluttered script.     Also tackled in Gangs Of New York are Boss Tweed and the corrupt Tammany Hall, the 1863 draft riots (which take up the last half hour of the film), and the Civil War.     Too many characters are in play for us to care about any of them deeply.    The only one who elicits a passionate response is Bill The Butcher.     Amsterdam is supposed to be the hero, but so much else happens that he is lost.     When the inevitable final confrontation happens, there is little payoff for our nearly three hours of waiting.

Gangs Of New York is ambitious in scope, but it didn't need to be.    A streamlined storyline would've sufficed.  

The Wedding Date (2005) * * *

Directed by:   Clare Kilner

Starring:  Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, Holland Taylor, Amy Adams, Jeremy Sheffield, Peter Egan

The Wedding Date is a romantic comedy that is slight, breezy, and inconsequential, but sometimes those are good things.    At roughly eighty minutes of actual running time, the film hits it and quits it efficiently.   It is also not entirely predictable as one might expect.   There is thankfully no scene in which the real relationship between its two protagonists is discovered.  Such a development would've added running time and perhaps broken the mood.   

Debra Messing stars as Kat, a New Yorker who is dateless as her half-sister's wedding in London approaches.    The best man is Kat's ex-boyfriend who jilted her, so in order to make him jealous she hires a confident, charming male escort named Nick (Mulroney) to pose as her boyfriend when they attend the wedding.    Nick is a fairly sophisticated man-ho who confesses he holds a degree in literature from Brown University and has even moonlighted as a columnist for the New York Times.     His ability to know what women want makes him good at his job.  He suspects Kat may want something more than merely just to make her ex jealous, although she may not know it herself.

Messing, as she was on Will & Grace, is engaging and has a great smile. She is neurotic to be sure, but who wouldn't be after being kicked to the curb right before her wedding?   Mulroney takes a standard part and adds some mystery to it.  "It must be nice to be paid just for being you," Kat tells Nick.  Nick replies, "Who says I'm being me?" Nick has made his living out of being what others want him to be.     Yet,, he is intelligent and not insensitive to Kat's insecurities.    

The Wedding Date ends as you would expect, but enough care was taken to make it an above-average rom-com.     I've noticed this is a rather short review, but there isn't much to dissect.   The Wedding Date is just long enough and just well done enough.  It could've easily have been dreck, but it works out better for all involved.  

22 Jump Street (2014) * *

Directed by:  Phil Lord and Chris Miller

Starring:  Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Amber Stevens, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell, Rob Riggle

I have to say I laughed watching 22 Jump Street, but when a movie throws so much at the wall, a few gags and jokes are bound to stick.     Other than a scene where Capt. Dickson (Ice Cube) stares at a character that is dating his daughter with an expression that is part snarl and part puzzlement, I am hard pressed to remember what made me laugh.      Oddly, the film's predecessor, 21 Jump Street, had the same effect on me, although I did enjoy it more.     Such films live in the moment, but are nearly forgotten by the time you get home.

21 Jump Street was more plot driven.     Its humor was drawn from the irony that the high school geek was more popular than the high school jock when they went undercover as students trying to break up a drug ring.       Each learned how the other felt when they actually were high schoolers.     In 22 Jump Street, the cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) go undercover as college students trying to bust up a drug ring, but they are too old to be college freshmen and are called on it.     Schmidt and Jenko's bromance is threatened by the emergence of a rival, a jock named Zook (Russell) who finds a kindred spirit in Jenko, especially when Jenko turns out to be an excellent wide receiver.    

A running gag in the film is Schmidt and Jenko behaving like an unconsummated homosexual couple.     They are not gay, but only they seem to know that.     An unscheduled therapist session doesn't just underline this, but marks it with a fluorescent highlighter.     The scene unravels without a substantial payoff.     Many scenes in 22 Jump Street have a wonderful setup, but fall flat when it comes time to deliver the punch line.     And there are many, many punch lines here because nearly everything is a joke.

22 Jump Street is not only a sequel, but it goofs on itself by making fun of sequels.     It also is part slapstick, part self-aware humor, part sly cultural references (you have to look hard and fast to catch the Benny Hill show reference) and when all else is exhausted, projectile vomiting.     In other words, anything goes, which is not usually a sound formula for successful comedy.    How many members of the intended audience for this movie would even know who Benny Hill was?

I really didn't divulge details of the plot because the film never tires of telling us how it is so similar to the one in 21 Jump Street.     If you saw the original, you pretty much know how this one will turn out, although the locales do change and Johnny Depp does not make a surprise cameo (which was fun in the first film).      Sometimes self-aware comedies become too cool for the room or simply become retreads of what they are spoofing, which happens here     Tatum and Hill pour a lot of energy into their roles and both are likable performers.     Hill is a two-time Oscar nominee who doesn't necessarily need to do any more Jump Street films.     Tatum's earnest niceness comes through in his roles and does so here too.    He has also stretched his talents beyond Jump Street.     

22 Jump Street is ambitious if not entirely successful.      There is a montage of potential Jump Street sequels over the closing credits, but for my money every comic possibility has already been explored in the first two films.     A third installment will be repetitive and extraneous, which I'm sure 22 Jump Street has already warned you about.   

The Aviator (2004) * * * *

Directed by:  Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, Kate Beckinsale, Cate Blanchett, Alan Alda, Kelli Garner, Danny Huston, Matt Ross, John C. Reilly

The Howard Hughes of The Aviator is certainly not the Howard Hughes who was seen decades later living in hotels, germophobic to the point that he did not like to even be touched, and if the movie Melvin and Howard is to be believed, wandering the desert like a homeless man.      Although, you can certainly see the genesis of the pitiful Hughes who died in 1976.      Martin Scorsese chooses to focus on the years Hughes was famous and inventive before his demons overtook him.     It is epic in scope like Hughes' expensive early movies such as Hell's Angels, but it also shows us a man who may be more fondly remembered today if not for the sad final chapter of his life. 

Hughes (DiCaprio) was a rich Texan who inherited his family's wealth and boldly strode into 1920s Hollywood with dreams of making realistic, big-budget films no one had dreamed of.     Hell's Angels budget skyrocketed due to Hughes' desire for realism and also to convert it to a talkie.     It far outearned its budget at the box office, allowing Hughes enough power to finance more movies and date Hollywood actresses like Jean Harlow (Gwen Stefani), Ava Gardner (Beckinsale), and Katharine Hepburn (Blanchett).      Things were good for him, but soon he turned his attention to manufacturing airplanes and purchasing TWA.     His vision was to take on Pan Am and its monopolized dominance over international air travel.     Pan Am founder Juan Trippe (Baldwin) does whatever is necessary to prevent that, including having Senator Owen Brewster (Alda) launch a Congressional hearing targeting Hughes.   Did the pressure bring about his demons?   Or were they always there?     

We witness Hughes go from powerful aviator and filmmaker to someone so germophobic that he couldn't leave a men's room because he would have to touch the door handle to exit.     Did such behavior stem from childhood, where his mother would repeatedly tell him he is not clean or safe?    The Aviator hints at this, but concentrates more on the man who risks his fortune on a flying boat like the Hercules, which had a wing span of a city block.     Did Hughes actually believe such a plane would be practical?    Maybe, but Hughes seemed to be a believer in bigger being better.    Just look at how he films Jane Russell's bosom in The Outlaw.    Hughes was a man who achieved small victories just by doing things others said he couldn't do.

Scorsese's film reflects a certain admiration and sympathy for Hughes.    DiCaprio received an Oscar nomination for his work.    He is equally adept at showing us all sides of Hughes while allowing us to sympathize with a man who, even with his vast fortune, was unable to stop repeating himself and locking himself in screening rooms and urinating in bottles.     Yet, he managed to pull himself together long enough to get the Hercules flying and humiliate Brewster at the Congressional hearings.
Blanchett won an Oscar playing Katharine Hepburn.     She is strong, passionate, and loves Howard, but worries about his womanizing and eccentricities.     We see a woman who is not willing to sacrifice her own sense of self to become Mrs. Howard Hughes.      Ditto Ava Gardner, who turns down Howard's repeated marriage proposals by saying, "You can't buy me."  

The Aviator thankfully does not glorify Hughes or exaggerate his greatness.    He dreamed big, thought big, and pushed the envelope in films and aviation.     The film does the same, especially in the depiction of the test flight resulting in a horrific crash that nearly killed Hughes.     Considering the wealth of injuries he sustained, it is a miracle he survived at all.      Would it shock anyone to learn that Hughes had his hospital bed modified so he could adjust it to be comfortable?    And this was the prototype of the bed used in hospitals today?     This was the spirit The Aviator hopes to shed light on, rather than the dark days ahead which are a more well-known part of the Howard Hughes legacy. 

The Armstrong Lie (2013) * * *

Directed by:  Alex Gibney

In a sport like pro cycling, where doping controversies and positive drug tests are commonplace, does it surprise anyone that Lance Armstrong would also be caught doping?      His story is mythic, as is his downfall.      Surviving a near-fatal bout with cancer, Armstrong won 7 straight Tour De France titles between 1999-2005.     He was an inspiration to millions and raised hundreds of millions of dollars through Livestrong to support cancer research.     For years, Armstrong was the center of doping rumors, yet no one really wanted to believe them until the evidence became overwhelming.     Armstrong would not only deny the rumors and the stories, but sue anyone who dared to tell the truth.    "He would spend money and years bankrupting you if you said anything about him doping," said Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrong's former teammate Frankie Andreu.    

Armstrong is depicted as a rich bully with a vindictive streak.     He approaches life the way he approaches racing, "I love to win, but I hate to lose even more."    Lawsuits, threats, and intimidation are some of the ways Armstrong won.      He also avoided accountability for cheating because his millions of fans did not want to believe the truth.     That would destroy a great story and why let truth get in the way of a great story?     He also buddied up to those who would be able to help him the most, mainly Italian doctor Michele Ferrari and the then-head of the UCI, cycling's governing body.     Ferrari was able to keep his client just ahead of the testing, while UCI realized banning Armstrong would mean less revenue.     Others helped, while even more turned a blind eye.   

Alex Gibney's The Armstrong Lie started out as a documentary of Armstrong's 2009 Tour De France comeback.     At the time, Armstrong was four years away from admitting during an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he doped.    He wanted to shut up the naysayers once and for all by winning the Tour De France after a four-year layoff.      Armstrong placed third, but the documentary wasn't released.     Once Armstrong publicly admitted his complicity, then Gibney decided to film a different ending and a different perspective.     Armstrong himself granted Gibney an interview to explain things.    Gibney believes Armstrong's insistence on returning to cycling instead of walking away when he should have contributed to his demise.     

Armstrong's demise means being stripped of his 7 Tour De France championships and millions of dollars in fines and money owed the U.S. Postal Service (which sponsored him during his Tour De France runs).    Yet, despite having to admit cheating and the blow to his personal reputation, Armstrong is not exactly destitute.     Those whose lives he ruined through litigation even though they were telling the truth were not so fortunate.    

The Armstrong Lie is almost a film within a film in its structure.     To Armstrong's credit, he faces the music in his own documentary which was originally supposed to glorify him further.      Why Gibney, whose other credits include Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room and Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In the House of God, would be drawn to such a piece is also mystifying.      I suppose documentarians need work like anyone else.     Gibney himself almost seems to want to finish the film because he felt betrayed by his subject much like millions of others did.     Armstrong comes clean about EPO use, blood doping, and every other advantage he used to thrive in a grueling sport.    His decision to cheat came because in the late 1990's, he was riding clean and getting nowhere.     Because of his ultra-competitive nature, he chose to keep up with and even surpass the Joneses.

Gibney's film isn't quite as heartbreaking as some of his other films because The Armstrong Lie shows us a man who isn't sorry he cheated, but sorry he was caught.      Lance Armstrong may not have the fortune he once did, but he isn't crying poor anytime soon.     Armstrong is a cog in a corrupt sport where doping is almost a prerequisite if you want to win anything.     The Tour De France is as grueling a competition as there is.     Armstrong chose to ride in it and also chose to try and outcheat the other cheaters.     He did so with more arrogance and hubris than others did, but at the time, very few wanted to spoil the happy ending.     Soon enough, the amount of evidence against him became overwhelming.      Are people more upset that he doped and lied, or that he ruined their fantasy of a clean champion in a dirty sport? 

The Killer Elite (1975) * 1/2

Directed by:  Sam Peckinpah

Starring:  James Caan, Robert Duvall, Burt Young, Gig Young, Bo Hopkins

If The Killer Elite has someplace to go, it is in no hurry to get there.    I have rarely seen an action thriller that is this laid back.    The film needs to be nudged along to set up the buildup, and then there is no payoff for all of our patience.     We have good actors standing around waiting for something that never arrives.    

The plot begins simply enough.    A CIA man named Mike (Caan) is double crossed by his longtime friend and partner George (Duvall) while on a job.     George doesn't kill Mike, but he shoots him in the knee and elbow, shattering both and leaving Mike to recuperate and rehab for a good 45 minutes of screen time.     If you ever want to see a movie grind to a halt, throw in about 45 minutes of a character trying to walk again.      He hooks up with a homely nurse who can't even be bothered to get rid of the lit cigarette in her hand when Mike falls, which is frequently as expected.      Once he is recovered, Mike is offered another assignment, one which George has also taken (on the opposite side of course).

It seems a Japanese man of importance (Mako) is targeted for assassination when he steps on American soil.     Mike's job is to keep him away from the hitmen and smuggle him out of the country.     However, it appears Mike and George are being paid by the same CIA bigwigs which makes little sense to me no matter how much the movie tries to explain it.     Why George betrayed Mike in the first place is also not made clear.     Something about money and "it's just business", but I'll be damned if I understand it.   

Thrillers depend on ratcheted up tension to keep things going.     We must believe something important is at stake in order to keep our attention.     The Killer Elite provides us with little to care about.     There are double crosses and plot twists, but by then we have run out of goodwill.      Even a scene in which a bomb is discovered under a taxi is handled almost as high comedy.     Hitchcock once said (and I'm paraphrasing), "Suspense is waiting for the bomb to go off and shock is when it happens,"     Usually, a character trying to diffuse a bomb at least has a choice between cutting either the red or blue wire, but here the bomb is given away to a naive cop to dispose of.     There is no suspense or shock to this sequence.    The whole tone is wrong.

The Killer Elite is directed by Sam Peckinpah, who made his career on thrillers and Westerns.     His handling of The Killer Elite seems like he intentionally left out all of the things that make such movies work, such as a sensible plot and intrigue.     Maybe this is a satire of CIA thrillers and I just missed the joke.    I'm sure I'm not the only one. 

3 Days To Kill (2014) * 1/2

Directed by:  McG

Starring:  Kevin Costner, Connie Nielsen, Hailee Steinfeld, Amber Heard

3 Days To Kill wants to be a CIA action thriller and a family drama in which a man reconnects with his estranged family.     It is an ungainly fit.     I wasn't sure after a while if I was watching an action movie or a sitcom.     It tries to be both but succeeds at neither.     We're left with an earnest Kevin Costner trying his best in a script that keeps him adrift.

As the film opens, the CIA hires a very sexy agent named Vivi (Heard) to oversee the capture of notorious arms dealers (as if there are any other kind).    The arms dealers are The Wolf (whom no one has ever seen) and his lieutenant The Albino.     Vivi is instructed to kill The Wolf while veteran agent Ethan Renner (Costner) is tasked with killing everyone else associated with an arms deal.     Things go bad and the Wolf and Albino escape.     Renner, who has a telltale cough in his very first appearance onscreen, collapses while chasing The Albino and is hospitalized.     He has lung cancer and given three months to live, plus he is unceremoniously dumped by the CIA.   

With no CIA career left, Ethan goes to Paris to seek out his estranged wife and daughter, who are leery to let him back into their lives.     He promises his wife (Nielsen) he is out of the CIA, but soon Vivi reappears in a flashy sports car offering a deal:   Track down The Albino and The Wolf for her so she can kill them and she will give him an experimental drug which may prolong his life.      Vivi is now disguised in a blonde wig and a leather outfit, while racing through Paris streets at like 150 miles per hour.     She is as inconspicuous as a black cockroach crawling across a white rug (to quote Costner in JFK, which was the type of movie he was making all those years ago).

Vivi's role in 3 Days To Kill is not clear.    Is she still with the CIA?    Is she rogue?   She has very little onscreen time, which makes we wonder if many of her scenes weren't casualties of the editing process.      She acts like a femme fatale, so we keep expecting something to be done with her, but nothing materializes.     How she manages to stay out of harm's way while doing everything possible to draw attention to herself is a mystery also.     And what is the deal with her and the strip club?     Maybe the director was desperate for some local color.

Another group of unnecessary characters is the African family of squatters Ethan finds in his apartment when he goes there.     He tries to have them evicted, but is assured by the police that "there are laws against getting rid of squatters in the middle of winter".     I'm no expert on French law, but that sounds like something the screenwriters dreamed up just to stick Ethan with these people.     Why are they even around?    They serve no useful function to the plot, although I was halfway expecting the patriarch to be revealed as a spy or something.

Ethan is hardly ever at his apartment anyway, since his wife conveniently goes out of town on business, and he has a chance to look after his daughter and reconnect with her.     They start off at odds, develop a truce, and then reconcile.     Also, Ethan trains her to ride a bike in roughly one hour if you're interested.    Meanwhile, Ethan has enough time to track down associates of The Wolf and The Albino, including their limo driver who Ethan inexplicably keeps alive to dispense needed parenting advice.     There are more than a fair share of moments where Ethan is about to get medieval on someone's ass only to be interrupted by a call from his daughter (with a special ringtone and all).     This isn't funny the first time or the 25th time. 

If all of this sounds more than a little ridiculous, well, it is.     3 Days To Kill is all over the map and most of it we can't take seriously anyhow.     It is a thriller with little thrills and we aren't much moved by the family stuff either, since we have seen it before in better movies.     Kevin Costner used to star in films like Field Of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, and JFK.     There was a time he couldn't make a wrong move.     Then, his career slump hit in which he starred in a series of clunkers with a few exceptions.      His recent Emmy win for Hatfields and McCoys has bolstered his career again, but if he chooses projects like 3 Days To Kill to star in, then his career will go right back into the toilet.     At least we know that Liam Neeson hasn't completely cornered the market on movies about men pushing 60 kicking people's asses, if such a thing is refreshing to you.  

Staying Alive (1983) * *

Directed by: Sylvester Stallone

Starring:  John Travolta, Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Julie Bovasso

Staying Alive continues Tony Manero's story as the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, but it is so disconnected (apart from one scene) from the original that Travolta simply could've played a different guy who is struggling to become a Broadway show dancer.    The movie is slick and full of music sequences that could easily have been repackaged as MTV videos (back when MTV played such things), but it lacks intensity, wit, and purpose.      Saturday Night Fever was a great movie, full of energy and teeming with universal themes which many could relate to.     Staying Alive reminded me of 1980's Headin' For Broadway, also about people struggling to become Broadway dancers.    This film could've been called Headin' For Broadway II and few would've noticed the difference.

Staying Alive picks up roughly six years after Saturday Night Fever ended.    Tony now lives in Manhattan in a fleabag hotel and works as a waiter, while going on auditions to be a Broadway dancer.   He is in a quasi-relationship with Jackie (Rhodes), another dancer who supports Tony and loves him.   Tony, however, catches the eye of Laura (Hughes), a rich dancer who uses Tony for a one-night stand and kicks him to the curb.     This causes some friction between Jackie and Tony, but Jackie never wavers in her love for him.  She is so patient with him that after she witnesses him kissing Laura later, Tony is able to brush it off with, "It don't mean nothin'" and it is left at that.

Tony is cast as a backup dancer in a Broadway show called, "Satan's Alley", which stars Laura as the female lead.    The male lead doesn't cut it, so the hard-ass director casts Tony in the lead because He Sees Something In Him.    The show goes on, Tony triumphs, and then he struts his stuff in Times Square with "Staying Alive" by the Bee Gees booming on the soundtrack.    We see Tony walk the walk as he did in the first film, but this one is a desperate attempt to connect to the classic scene.    

The only other returning cast member from Saturday Night Fever is Tony's mom (Bovasso), who calls bullshit on Tony during a visit to the old neighborhood when he apologizes for his "attitude" when he lived there.   She replies, "Your 'attitude' is what got you out of this house."   Sadly, Tony's mom now seems to live alone.  I would've loved a cameo by his father chastising him about something, but alas it was not to be.  There is a brief shot of the 2001 Odyssey club, the disco where Tony once ruled and is now a gay night club.    

Was Staying Alive even necessary?    Sure it did well at the box office and produced an Oscar-nominated hit song by Frank Stallone (Far From Over), but other than Tony and the title song, the film has little in common with its predecessor.     This film was made more with dollar signs in mind than actually continuing Tony's journey toward respectability.     The play "Satan's Alley" itself is such a mish mosh of smoke, lasers, indistinguishable action, creepy music, and ugly set design (not to mention with no semblance of a plot) that audiences wouldn't have been cheering for it, but heading for the exits before intermission.   

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) * * * *

Directed by:  Woody Allen

Starring:  Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest, Barbara Hershey, Mia Farrow, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen O' Sullivan, Max von Sydow, Sam Waterston

"I heard of a theory that we are doomed to repeat our lives over and over again.    That means I'd have to sit through the Ice Capades again."     That line is one example of why Woody Allen remains a treasure and movies like Hannah and Her Sisters remain among his very best.     It is a series of stories about a New York family that has more than its fair share drama over a two-year period.     It begins with a Thanksgiving family gathering and ends with another as the family dynamic experiencing plenty of changes along the way.    

Hannah and Her Sisters consists of two major plots around which the rest of the film revolves.     All of the subplots are in one way or another connected to the main ones.     Plot 1.    Hannah's husband Elliott (Caine) is desperately in love with her sister Lee (Hershey).   Plot 2.   Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Allen) is a TV producer whose near brush with death forces him to examine the meaning of his life and if it has any at all.      The other major players are Hannah's neurotic sister Holly (Wiest), who endures her insecurities with cocaine and alcohol.     "You're going to develop a third nostril," Mickey tells her during a date from hell.     Another pair of players is the sisters' parents, played by Farrow's real-life mother Maureen O' Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan, a show-biz couple forever arguing and making up.  

Plot 1 first:   Elliott's crush on Lee does not go unnoticed, but is she prepared to betray her sister by sleeping with her husband?     A crucial scene in their relationship occurs on the street, where Lee admits having "certain feelings" for Elliott and he stands on the sidewalk joyously repeating, "I have my answer."     The relationship proves to be much more complicated than either realizes.

Plot 2:   Mickey, Hannah's hypochondriac ex-husband, receives good news that the ringing in his ears isn't caused by a brain tumor.     However, this provides only momentary joy as Mickey realizes death may not come today, but will one day.    He quits his job and goes out to seek answers about whether there is a God and what happens after death.     He questions priests, rabbis, and even Hare Krishnas, but their answers don't comfort him much.     Then again, with a worrywart like Mickey, what would?   "I wanted certainty or nothing," he says, not giving himself a lot of wiggle room.     Mickey's life is complicated mostly within his own mind.     When asking his father why there were Nazis, his father responds, "How do I know why there were Nazis?   I can't even get the toaster to work."   

The movie provides sufficient resolutions for its characters, all of whom are just living day-to-day trying to find their own happiness.     Allen's films are known for witty dialogue and unique insight into the human condition.    Hannah and Her Sisters provides even more.    Its people are touching, vulnerable, and act with their hearts more than their minds, except for Mickey who may wind up giving himself a brain tumor by thinking so much.    But even Mickey finds that "the heart is a resilient little muscle" and may be putting himself through his dilemma in order to avoid plunging into another relationship.   It is obvious he loved Hannah when they were married, but drifted apart from her when they had trouble conceiving children.    ("Instead of husband and wife, we wound up being just good friends.")

Despite their flaws, weaknesses, and insecurities, we like these people that Allen has presented to us.    We want to know where their lives lead them.     They have interesting things to say.    Hannah and Her Sisters, after all is said and done, is a film with a happy ending for all involved.     Things aren't contrived to be that way, it's just that everything works out logically and happily after much reflection.     We are happy for them.     It is rare that a movie makes us feel this positive about its characters.   

Back To The Future (1985) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Robert Zemeckis

Starring:  Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson

Back To The Future is a thrilling time-travel comedy with poignancy.      Its hero, Marty McFly (Fox) is accidentally sent back in time to 1955 in a DeLorean and disrupts the meeting of his parents.    Realizing this means he will cease to exist if they are kept apart, Marty concocts a plan with the help of his friend Dr. Emmett Brown (Lloyd) to get them together and return to 1985 in one piece.     This is, of course, not without an abundance of complications.     To name a few, Marty's mother Lorraine (Thompson) develops a crush on him (of course not knowing he is her future son), his father is a hopeless nerd, and one wrong step could send the whole "space/time continuum" into upheaval.  

I won't reveal too many plot points, mostly because doing so will take up more paragraphs than I'm willing to write.     Besides, having the plot twists and revelations sprung on you is part of the fun.     Despite all of the directions Back To The Future seems to go in, everything comes together rather sensibly.     There are some interesting payoffs to all of this, although some you have to look hard to discover.     (Example:  The name of the Twin Pines Mall gag).

We all know films like Back To The Future and its sequels are a goofy good time.    Naturally, it's preposterous, but done with great zeal.      The actors can barely conceal their grins.      Back To The Future also possesses an appealing underlying theme.     A teenager finally understands that his parents were once teenagers themselves.     We know our parents grew up the same way we did, but we don't really picture them walking around a high school as an insecure teenager.     When we were teens, we think our parents were born as fully grown, already mature adults.     Marty witnesses his father pushed around by larger bully Biff (Wilson) and says to himself in shock, "He's a complete nerd."     He becomes the object of his mother's desire and is more stunned to learn that she has such feelings at all.     "You mean my mom has the hots for me."    

Doc Brown is another story altogether.    His workshop consists of numerous clocks with simultaneous alarms set to go off exactly 25 minutes late and his white hair sticks straight up as if he stuck his finger in an electrical socket.     He invents the time machine in 1985 and is the only person who can help Marty get his parents together and return to 1985.      Doc doesn't believe Marty's story at first because, who would?     "Ronald Reagan, the actor, is President in 1985?     I'll bet Jerry Lewis is Vice-President," he scoffs.     But soon Marty convinces him and Doc energetically explains the pratfalls of Marty's dilemma.      "1.21 JIGGOWATTS!"  

I am a sucker for time travel stories because of their universal appeal.     People would love nothing more than a chance to travel through time to right wrongs or simply for discovery or historical perpsective.      Marty McFly may feel differently after all he goes through, but we are exhilarated.  

Leaving Las Vegas (1995) * *

Directed by:  Mike Figgis

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands

Movies about self-destructive characters are tricky.     If done right, they are fascinating.    If not, then we feel like sadists watching a man destroy himself.     Leaving Las Vegas, despite its Oscar-winning performance from Nicolas Cage, is in the latter category.     There is only so much of this we can watch.     The biggest flaw is that Ben and Sera, played by Cage and Shue, are nice people, if not fully developed, and we don't want to see these bad things happening to them. 

There are alcoholics and then there is Ben Sanderson, who at times can barely function without having a drink.     He shakes so bad at one point that he can't even sign his name to endorse a check.    He was once a writer and became a literary agent, but he is fired and given a severance check.     His plan is to move to Las Vegas and drink himself to death.     We never see him act as joyously as he does in the film's opening scene as he enthusiastically dances while he fills his shopping cart with booze.      Why is he an alcoholic?   Even he doesn't know for sure.     He once had a family, but they are long gone.     "Maybe they left because I drank or maybe I drank because they left,"  he says at one point.     By then, it doesn't really matter.

Ben travels to Vegas, where he encounters a hooker named Sera by chance.     He nearly runs her over, but after seeing her, he seeks her out the next night.     Upon finding her, he pays her $500 for sex, but not much sex is accomplished.     Instead, they spend the night talking in his hotel room until he passes out.     It is then that Sera becomes hooked on Ben, much like he is hooked on booze.    She suggests he move in with her.     He agrees with one caveat:  "You are never to ask me to stop drinking."    Even if she ever did ask, he is too far gone to be able to.     

Sera senses the good in Ben, even romanticizing him to an extent, even through the DTs and sickness.     It's amazing Ben can even stand up as we watch him pound drink after drink, but somehow he soldiers on toward his date with death.     We know very little about him, although we can sense he is intelligent and at times charming.      Yet, do we care enough?     We sense Sera's intelligence and humanity.      She is very attractive, but doesn't come off as hard enough or wise enough to handle the streets.     We hope she would re-enroll in college somewhere.  Shue received an Oscar nomination for her role, but I couldn't fully buy in to her character.      Cage, however, has the look and aura of someone resigned to his fate.     It is well done and we sympathize as much as the film lets us.

I saw the film first in 1996 and then again recently.    Both times, I was ambivalent towards it.     We see two people in a doomed relationship who continue to sink further into sad behavior.      Director Mike Figgis' film has the look and feel of film noir here.    He reportedly had to film certain scenes in one take due to lack of film permits.     I can't say Leaving Las Vegas was poorly conceived or acted.    In the end, however, I wasn't emotionally invested enough to be moved by the outcome.  

Red Dragon (2002) * * *

Directed by:  Brett Ratner

Starring:  Edward Norton, Anthony Hopkins, Harvey Keitel, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson

In 1991's The Silence Of The Lambs, we are introduced to Dr. Hannibal Lecter standing alone in his prison cell.    He has a pleasant demeanor and a pleasant countenance, but of course is a serial killer who cannibalizes his victims.      He offers to help FBI agent trainee Clarice Starling catch another killer, but is he helping or manipulating her?     Plenty of both.    Red Dragon provides the backstory to show how Lecter was caught and placed in the plexiglass cell with a cobblestone wall.  

Red Dragon begins with the highly cultured Lecter attending an opera.     He has sophisticated tastes to complement his savage ones.      He may be the most mannered cannibal you will ever meet.    His duplicity is fascinating.     An FBI agent named Will Graham (Norton) is enlisting Lecter's help in tracking a serial killer.     Graham discovers that Lecter is indeed the killer he is chasing and, after a brutal, near-deadly fight, Lecter is captured.     Graham retires from the FBI, but is lured out of retirement by his former boss Jack Crawford (Keitel), who is after another serial killer nicknamed Tooth Fairy.    (Named so for biting his dead victims as a sort of homage to Lecter).

Tooth Fairy is Francis Dolarhyde (Fiennes), a man with scars on his upper lip from numerous cleft palate surgeries and scars on his psyche from years of physical and psychological abuse.     He lives in what used to be the family nursing home and believes himself to be the human incarnate of the Red Dragon from a famous painting.     Think of Norman Bates and Hannibal Lecter rolled into one (plus a grotesque back tattoo) and you have a pretty good idea of what Dolarhyde is like.    Fiennes never goes over the top, but shows us a wounded man who we would possibly feel sorry for if he didn't murder two families.  

We would be tempted to write off Dolarhyde as an insane killer, but we see a sweet, almost normal side to him when he falls for a blind woman named Reba (Watson), who in Dolarhyde's eyes has an advantage of not being able to see him.     He wants to be with her, but can not control his demons and his desire to kill.     It is too late for him to be anything else.

Dolarhyde and Lecter feel a kinship because both are at the mercy of their murderous natures.    They write cryptic messages to each other through a National Enquirer-type tabloid called The Tattler.     The messages not only profess their admiration for one another, but a more sinister scheme hatched by Lecter.     Graham reaches a dead end in his search for Tooth Fairy, so he enlists Lecter's help again from prison.     Norton, sporting blonde hair and a tan, exudes competency with a hidden fear of Lecter despite having caught him.     He does not have the same effect on Lecter that Clarice Starling does, probably because Lecter fears him in his own understated way.

Red Dragon is not a geekshow like 2001's Hannibal, which was well-made, but depressing and needlessly gory.    Director Ratner is more interested in creating suspense with an efficient police procedural.      Hopkins gets top billing, but he is not really in the film all that much.     However, his creepy presence is everywhere, even scenes he is not in.     Red Dragon is about people who act according to their natures, whether good or bad, right or wrong.     It avoids becoming a gorefest like Hannibal, while not becoming a Silence retread, even though its story takes place before Clarice Starling ever decided to give the FBI a try.   

Edge Of Tomorrow (2014) * 1/2

Directed by:  Doug Liman

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson

I've had it with alien invasions.      These life forms have the technology and the capacity to travel millions of light years to try and take over our planet, only to be brought down by a minor detail which throws their whole scheme out of whack.      You would think that before they went through all of the trouble that they would at least have everything idiot-proofed.      I'm sure the head muckety-mucks on these planets aren't into wasting valuable time and resources on something that will ultimately fail because their species can't handle our common cold.     

And you would also think that they would head for the hills at the sight of Tom Cruise, who has spent more time recently saving the world than any actor I know.    Like Tommy Lee Jones is to fugitive tracking, Tom Cruise is to alien-busting.      He does it well enough, but he should really stretch himself now that he is in his early 50's.      Edge Of Tomorrow is a perfect example of a well-made, dumb film.    This is the first alien invasion film I've seen in which the aliens contribute so easily to their own demise.   

I will do my best not to present spoilers.     If you have seen the ads, you know that Tom Cruise is forced to relive the day of his battlefield death over and over again, a la Groundhog Day but without the laughs.      Tom Cruise plays Major Bill Cage, who appears on CNN talk shows as it covers an alien invasion that has taken over most of Europe and part of Asia.     He has never seen combat, but this doesn't stop his superior (Gleeson) from ordering him to report to a unit that will storm a beach for a surprise invasion a la D-Day.     Unlike the aliens in War Of The Worlds and Independence Day, these aliens work slowly, giving the humans enough time to fight back.     Why Cruise's character is made a Major who has never seen combat plays no part in the story whatsoever.    

Once Cruise and his comrades are on the beach, they are promptly slaughtered.     However, when Cruise dies, he immediately wakes up to the beginning of the day of the invasion, which allows him to tell his story to superiors that don't believe him anyway and try and do better this time.      I liked Bill Murray's take on his plight in Groundhog Day better.   ("I'm a god, I'm not the God")     On the beach, Cage also witnesses the death of a hottie named Rita Vratski (Blunt), who is famous for her heroic actions in another battle.     It seems she knows more about Cage's plight than Cage realizes as he instructs him, "Come find me tomorrow when you wake up."  

Why Cruise repeats his last day again and again is explained by Blunt, although I won't reveal how this phenomenon happens, it is one of those minor details the aliens overlooked when they planned Earth's demise.   Somehow Cruise's killing of a rare alien type made it easier for him to be able to relive the same day and thus plan the mission better in order to thwart the aliens.     Why didn't the head cheeses at alien headquarters keep these rare aliens home?   

Edge Of Tomorrow is ultimately just a high-concept video game.     The tagline for the movie, "Live. Die. Repeat." is what happens here.     A character dies and gets another life to try and defeat the evil aliens.     The aliens themselves are ugly thingies that look like a cross between the alien in Alien and a Rastafarian.     I did wish, however, that like in video games a character can pass a certain point and then when he dies could be sent back to that point instead of the beginning.     It would save a lot of time for us and the characters.  

This is a silly movie with a concept that doesn't add much to the proceedings except to stretch them out to unbearable length.     One other thing:   Shouldn't it be a bit harder to destroy the alien "brain" than by dropping a few grenades on it? 

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) * *

Directed by:  Seth MacFarlane

Starring:  Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Sarah Silverman, Giovanni Ribisi

I assumed all of the possibilities for spoofing a Western were exhausted.     Westerns are rarely made anymore and spoofs of them even less so.     However, Seth MacFarlane tries with A Million Ways to Die in the West, which has its funny moments, but is uneven and entirely too long.     Why are comedies these days pushing two hours?     Do filmmakers think we really want to laugh that much?    Did Judd Apatow's editor work on this film?  

MacFarlane attempts many methods to pry laughs from this material.    MacFarlane's last film was Ted (2012), where he voiced a Peter Griffin-sounding teddy bear that hung around with Mark Wahlberg.    Ted was bereft of good laughs and was borderline creepy by the end.    It didn't work.   MacFarlane as the lead here and he approaches the material like someone who has seen a lot of Westerns and traveled back to 1882 Arizona to provide commentary to its denizens.     

MacFarlane plays Albert Stark (no relation to Tony Stark from Iron Man), a hapless, cowardly sheep farmer whose girlfriend (Seyfried) dumps him for Foy (Harris), a proudly mustachioed, arrogant chap who tends to his mustache like a fetishist.     Albert's friends are Ed (Ribisi) and Ruth (Silverman), a couple waiting for marriage to have sex even though Ruth is a prostitute.    "We are good Christians," says Ed, more than once I might add.     Another woman comes into the picture named Anna (Theron), who is the wife of notorious killer Clinch Leatherwood (Neeson).     She and Albert strike up a friendship which of course turns to love.    Clinch comes to town, learns of their friendship, and challenges Albert to a duel.  

The plot is not terribly important.    Nothing happens here that is unusual or surprising, so we have to rely on the laughs to pull through.   I laughed sporadically, but each laugh was an island unto itself.     Reflecting back a few days after seeing the movie, I can't tell you exactly what scenes really made me laugh, although I know they were there somewhere.    One section that didn't provide any humor was Albert getting stoned with local Native Americans.   Why is Albert being greeted by creepy hallucinations funny?    

The funniest thing about the movie was a piece of trivia I read about on imdb.com.    It said Liam Neeson only agreed to play Clinch if he was allowed to speak in an Irish brogue.    Has he ever done otherwise?   Like Sean Connery's Scottish accent, you don't even bother trying to figure out why he has one.    You just accept it and move on.  

A Million Ways to Die in the West isn't as bad as Ted, which is faint praise..    It wants to make you laugh, but only succeeds sparingly.    MacFarlane tries verbal humor, puns, scatological humor, bodily functions, and slapstick.    It results in an uneven tone, although I have to confess that any movie that makes fun of Amanda Seyfried's big eyes can't be all bad.  

The Ringer (2005) * * *

Directed by:  Barry W. Blaustein

Starring:  Johnny Knoxville, Katherine Heigl, Brian Cox

The Ringer manages to sidestep the pitfalls of a plot in which a regular guy named Steve (Knoxville) enters the Special Olympics posing as a "highly developed, educationally challenged" man in order to rig the games.   It is a clever, sweet, funny comedy which avoids the trap of making the mentally disabled Olympians the joke.   Instead, they are quick to catch on to Steve's act and expose him as a fraud, but agree to train him anyway because they are moved by his story.      Plus, Steve falls in love with Lynn (Heigl), who works for the Special Olympics and is very nice and very pretty.   

How did Steve get into this mess?    At work, he is given a promotion and ordered to fire the hapless janitor Stavi (Luis Avalos).    Steve doesn't have the heart to do it, so he hires Stavi to work for him.    Stavi has an accident with a lawnmower and cuts off all of the fingers on one hand.      Since Stavi has no medical insurance to pay the costs to reattach the fingers, Steve and his Uncle Gary (the splendid Brian Cox) come up with the Special Olympics scheme.     Gary bets on the games and envisions paying off his own gambling debt with his share.    Even Gary's creditor thinks betting on the Special Olympics is beyond degenerate gambling, but hey, money is money.    

Steve shows up at the Special Olympics, calls himself Jeffy and acts like someone who is, well, "highly developed, educationally challenged".   Steve doesn't think far enough ahead to give himself a last name, so his uncle comes up with "Dahmer".     These guys aren't nearly as brilliant as they think they are.   Jeffy is able to fool Lynn, but not his roommates, who are all intuitive.   "I've seen better acting in pornos," one tells Steve.

Produced by The Farrelly Brothers, who made raucous comedies like There's Something About Mary, Kingpin, Shallow Hal, and Dumb and Dumber, the film doesn't deteriorate into bad taste.     It stays on the right side of things while still being very funny.    Most of the people in The Ringer, even Uncle Gary to an extent, are nice.   The reigning Special Olympics champion Jimmy (Leonard Campbell), however, is an arrogant prima donna who rides around in a stretch limo and behaves like a spoiled, rich athlete.    He forever refers to himself in the third person, as does Steve as Jeffy, probably because Steve thinks all mentally challenged people do it.    

The Ringer does not make fun of the Special Olympics, but instead pokes fun at people who think its participants are not superior athletes.     Steve and Gary think since Steve is able-bodied and "smart" that he will run circles around the others.    Not so.   He is out of their league and knows it.
Johnny Knoxville has spent a lot of his career performing ridiculous stunts as part of the Jackass series and movies, but he has shown in films like this one that he can be funny without lighting himself on fire or crashing into things.     If I were him, I would leave the stunts to others and concentrate on actual acting.    

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (2013) * *

Directed by:  Ben Stiller

Starring:  Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty plays like a live-action version of those posters you see hanging up in offices everywhere, extolling the virtues of Excellence, Teamwork, etc. etc.     It is not in doubt that Walter Mitty (Stiller) could use a little adventure in his humdrum life, which causes him to daydream often about being a romantic, hero, or both.     While Mitty travels to Greenland, Iceland, and Afghanistan in search for an elusive Life magazine photographer (Penn), the scenery looks great but the movie drifts into existential, Deep nonsense about The Meaning Of Life (or something like that).  Mitty has more fun riding a skateboard across the Icelandic frontier than we do watching it.

As the film opens, Walter Mitty is a very ordinary Negative Assets Manager for Life Magazine, which has just been taken over and will be turned into an online magazine.     His job consists of handling negatives sent in by photographers for articles.     One group of negatives sent by famed photojournalist Sean O'Connell (Penn) is missing the 25th frame, which the new boss (Scott) wants to use for the final Life cover per O'Connell's request.     Searching for the frame, Mitty takes it upon himself to follow O'Connell through Greenland, Iceland, and Afghanistan (with trips to New York and Los Angeles in between) hoping to find out where the 25th frame is.      Those who have heard the saying, "The journey's end is at the beginning." will learn quickly where the frame is, which takes Mitty much longer to figure out than us.

After tailing Sean through Europe and parts of Asia, I don't think it would've been impolite of him to ask why he was chosen to go through all of this crap.   Does O'Connell sense Mitty's need for adventure?   Is he Mitty's stalker?   The answer is never given, so I suppose we just have to Figure It Out For Ourselves.   Ugh, I hate when we have to do all the work.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty isn't very exciting.  There is a love interest played by Kristen Wiig who is pretty enough and seems nice enough, but there isn't a lot there between she and Walter.     Stiller's adventures allow us to be sorta happy for him, but we're not moved by them.     Then, there is Mitty's new boss, played by Adam Scott complete with a creepy beard.     He is such an over-the-top dick that we wonder how anyone would work with him.     He seems to have zero redeeming qualities.      Mitty gives him a tongue lashing later in the film, which passes for a comeuppance, but not a satisfying one.    

Shirley MacLaine is on hand as Mitty's mother, who divulges important information about Sean to Walter at a very odd time.  I'm reminded of Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer when he told his ex-fiancee who jilted him, "These are things that should've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY."    Then, there is the whole business of Todd (Patton Oswalt), an eHarmony representative who calls Walter frequently urging him to add to his profile in order to attract more traffic.     Todd is apparently someone who acts as a catalyst for Walter to find his True Self.  

I have no issue with a movie about someone who learns to embrace life, but The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty is underwhelming.    It has a pall hanging over it, strange for a movie where the hero learns to enjoy things more.    Actually, a better word for it would be a malaise.   It plays like it's coming down with something. 

The Normal Heart (2014) * * * 1/2 (shown on HBO)

Directed by:  Ryan Murphy

Starring:  Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Jim Parsons, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina, Taylor Kitsch

Growing up a teenager in the 80's, news stories about AIDS became commonplace by 1985, but it was still considered a "gay disease" then, even though heterosexuals were dying from it as well.      The Normal Heart explores the time before AIDS became the problem Ronald Reagan could ignore no longer.     It took four years after the onset of the disease for Reagan to even mention the word AIDS in public, and even after recognizing its destruction, he still wasn't exactly generous with federal funding to treat AIDS.     

The movie, based on Larry Kramer's play and written by Kramer himself, is an angry, stark film in which early AIDS activists are ignored by the bureaucratic machines in New York and Washington because "it was that gay disease."     Its protagonist, writer Ned Weeks (Ruffalo), based on Kramer himself, sees the refusal of the government to supply funding to fight the disease as part of a conspiracy to kill homosexuals.      Was that a stretch?  Possibly, but how else could frustrated homosexual men see it?     Their friends were dying from a disease that was only recently given a name, and no one except them seemed to care.     The fact that homosexuals were treated like second-class citizens made them even more suspicious of the government's lack of concern.    

Weeks expresses his frustration and pain in articles and through his work with Gay Men's Health Crisis center, which he co-founded.     He appeared on TV talk shows ready for a fight, making accusations and outing closeted homosexuals, which went against unwritten rules within the gay community.    He upset members of his own board of directors as much as government officials.      This comes from years worth of struggling to gain acceptance with his attorney brother Ben (Molina) and society at large.      Yet, we still care about him despite his abrasive personality because we sense his frustration and his hurts.     AIDS soon afflicts his lover Felix (Bomer) and he is powerless to stop it.     Ruffalo's performance allows us to understand the motivations behind his anger and his dogged pursuit of what he perceives as the truth.     That makes it all the more moving.

The Normal Heart doesn't go for the easy payoffs and there are no easy answers.     We see men we were just introduced to suddenly dying almost before we get a chance to know them.     We witness AIDS patients quarantined in hospitals due to staff fears.     As Tommy Boatwright (Parsons) states eloquently in a eulogy, "Our social calendars revolve around going to funerals."     Parsons never raises his voice, but convincingly displays his anger and bewilderment over the fact that suddenly his friends are dying in great numbers.      Tommy employs a sad, effective device for the audience and for himself to mark the passing of those he knew:    He takes their names out of his rolodex and rubber bands the cards up in another desk drawer.     It's heartbreaking to see how quickly the cards multiply.    

Julia Roberts is also on hand as Dr. Emma Brookner, who treats AIDS patients by the boatload despite her physical limitations caused by polio.     She passionately pleads with the gay community to stop having indiscriminate sex and pleads with the federal government to fund treatment.      She believes it to be a sexually transmitted disease, despite no available test.      Dr. Brookner only confirms if someone has the disease when they show up at her office with Kaposi's Sarcoma or any number of telltale signs.     Back then, such symptoms would lead to death in a short time.     

The Normal Heart covers ground also covered with Longtime Companion (1990) and And The Band Played On (1993) about the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic.     But The Normal Heart is angrier and lays blame on the outbreak with the Reagan administration.     It is not a timid film and finds a way to juxtapose personal heartbreak with frustration caused by bureaucratic red tape.     It is not afraid to debunk the ongoing myth that somehow the Reagan presidency were "the good old days."     Reagan is seen nowadays as a conservative god filtered through revisionist history.      Try telling Larry Kramer about Reagan's legacy.