The Tree Of Life (2011) *

Directed by:  Terence Malick

Starring:  Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain

The Tree Of Life is a wonderfully complex film which is awe-inspiring...if you're on dope or just dropped some serious LSD.    Since I do none of those things, I'm stuck watching a boring mess of a film which inspired me to see how well the fast-forward button works on my DVR.   

The last Malick film I saw, 1998's The Thin Red Line, was a long, absolutely mind-numbingly boring existential piece focusing on American soldiers in the Pacific in World War II.     I'm not one for hyperbole, but it was one of the worst films I had ever seen.   13 years later, the newest Malick film will be in the same company.

The Tree Of Life stars Penn as Jack, an architect who suffered a recent familial loss and is now thinking back to his childhood.    During his flashbacks, he visualizes his mother, father, brothers, and if I'm correct, the big bang, the creation of life, single-celled organisms growing into larger organisms, dinosaurs, etc. etc.   All the while, questions are being asked of God.   I don't know what all of this is supposed to mean.   Malick probably does but he isn't sharing so I wind up sitting through this slog.

I don't really know how to judge the performances.    Very little dialogue is spoken and there is no really character building here.    It seems Dad is stern but loving, Mom is quiet and loving, and that's about it.   They are seen in dreamy flashbacks with lots of camera movement reminiscient of an acid-trip, or at least how such trips are portrayed in movies.    The film has a dreamlike quality and like most dreams, you wake up having forgotten most of it and remember only the outlines.

Many critics fawned over The Tree Of Life as a masterpiece.   What am I missing?   I see it as absolute junk.    I don't know what others see and they have their opinions.    I guess if a film is "different" in some way that makes it more a critical darling, especially since film critics have seen them all and are maybe weary of the same-old, same-old.    If same-old, same-old means a film with a definable plot, characters, and reason for existing that doesn't require psychotropic drugs to understand, then I'll be happy with that.  

  

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) * * *

Directed by:  Kathryn Bigelow

Starring:  Jessica Chastain, James Gandolfini, Joel Edgerton

Osama Bin Laden's death on May 1, 2011 came probably as a shock to most people.    The trail had gone so cold that it was assumed American intelligence had given up on searching for him.     According to the narrative of Zero Dark Thirty, the search continued all over the Middle East in an effort was years in the making.     Some leads were followed, others not, and some captured detainees were tortured for information that was sketchy at best.   As one CIA agent says to another during a coffee break, "How's the needle in the haystack coming along?"   Actually, trying to locate Bin Laden in that morass was equivalent to finding a needle in a stack of needles.

Zero Dark Thirty's protagonist is Maya (Chastain) whose single-minded, tireless hunt for Bin Laden resulted in his death during a raid on his compound in Pakistan.   At least, that's according to the movie, and although there is a disclaimer in the film's prologue stating the film was based on firsthand accounts, you never quite know what was beefed up for dramatic license.  

My feelings on the film are mixed.   I admired the technical aspects and its professionalism, but I wasn't as emotionally involved as I expected.    The film runs nearly 2 hours, 45 minutes and I wouldn't have minded the first hour being condensed into a briefer narrative.    The opening of the film contains jargon and names thrown about as if we should be instantly familiar with them.    The film picks up more momentum when, while tracking a known Al-Qaeda courier, the CIA stumbles on a compound which may house the hiding Bin Laden. 

The compound, to the surprise of Maya and the rest of the CIA, was located in a residential area and only about a mile from "Pakistan's West Point".    Did the neighbors know that Bin Laden stayed there?   The compound blew the belief that Bin Laden was hiding in a cave somehwere right out of the water.    It was learned that Bin Laden didn't go out at all and only had contact with the outside through a courier, but it was a relatively comfortable living arrangement.    Beats a cave that's for sure.

Maya is convinced that Bin Laden lives there.   The rest of her colleagues, including CIA chief Leon Panetta (Gandolfini), have their doubts and with good reason.   Imagine what a foreign & public relations nightmare there would've been with Pakistan (an ally) if the compound was invaded and Bin Laden wasn't there.    One of the elements that adds to the suspense of the Navy Seals raid is that, according to the film, there wasn't 100% certainty (except from Maya) that Bin Laden was actually there.    The SEALS were sent in as "canaries" which essentially meant they were going to find out for the CIA whether Bin Laden was there.

The performances are solid here.   I felt Chastain's character was one-dimensional and thus the performance can only hit so high of an emotional arc.   She handles it well, however.    The film mostly sees the characters in terms of their jobs and their search for terrorists.   I suppose it's a blessing that we're not inundated with scenes depicting the characters' family lives, since they wouldn't have really added much.    Zero Dark Thirty is focused on one thing, much like Maya, which is documenting how Bin Laden was found and what we now know historically was the outcome of that tireless search.  

Les Miserables (2012) * * *

Directed by:  Tom Hooper

Starring:  Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham-Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen

Tom Hooper's version of the legendary Broadway musical is likely the best version possible considering the logistics involved.     Based on Victor Hugo's novel,  it diligently covers the ground the musical covers and even adds a new song, "Suddenly".     For years, the film was stuck in development because the material was considered unfilmable.    Hooper and his cast do an admirable job of creating a visually pleasing and occasionally rousing musical.    I'd have to consider this a comedown from the stage version.    The stage version had an emotional sweep that the film doesn't have.    Certain parts and songs here are emotionally charged, but other points aren't nearly as well handled as in the play.

The film concerns the travails of Jean Valjean (Jackman), a hardened convict who spends 19 years in prison after stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family.    He is released to the world as a bitter man and after days of walking to Paris to meet with his parole officer, he is taken in by a kindly bishop.
Valjean steals the bishop's expensive silverware and vanishes like, well, a thief in the night.

Valjean is arrested by police and brought to the bishop, who in an act of compassion, lies in order to free Valjean.   A grateful Valjean begins his life anew and the parole officer is no longer in his plans.
He is hunted by Inspector Javert (Crowe), who has a black and white view on the law and morality.    He sees Valjean as a criminal incapable of change.    However, Valjean does change.   He becomes the mayor of a Paris suburb, (under a different name of course) and becomes wealthy running a factory.    One plot quibble is that Javert isn't that great at his job.   He is forever chasing Valjean for years on end and even though they live in the same city, he can never find him except by accident.    Just saying...

Another character is Fantine (Hathaway), a factory worker who is fired from her job and forced to prostitute herself to support her child Cosette, who is boarding with the evil Thenardiers (Cohen and Bonham-Carter).   Valjean comes across Fantine on the street, rescues the now sickly woman and promises her on her deathbed that he would rescue her child and raise her.     Another plot quibble in this film is that there is a lot of accidental bumping into going on here between characters.    Does Paris only have 100 inhabitants in 1832? 

I will not reveal much more of the plot, probably because doing so would take up a huge number of paragraphs.    I will say Cosette grows up a sheltered young woman and falls in love at first sight with Marius (Redmayne), a soon-to-be revolutionary who will start a revolution with a group of students and drinking buddies.    To say this revolution (based on fact) is ill-advised is an understatement.    Actually, it seems to be a revolution that takes place in one part of Paris while the rest of the city goes about its everyday business.     Strangely, the film really doesn't see Paris as a whole.   It doesn't seem as if there is a giant metropolis out there.      

Upon reflection, the plot to Les Miserables is absurd.   If the characters didn't keep accidentally running into each other at crucial times, nothing would happen.    However, this musical is more about the emotional truth than anything else.   It is epic in scope and has many more good songs than bad; songs which explain secrets, dreams, and harsh realities.    I admired the performances, although I don't think the Thenardiers were handled well.    In the play, they are the comic relief.   Here after they part with Cosette they have little to do.    They aren't seen as comic as much as desperate and ugly con artists.   

And although love at first sight happens plenty in fiction and I know I should just go along with it, would it be too realistic to expect Marius and Cosette to at least have a conversation before declaring their eternal love?   I picture the couple in a year or so at a very quiet dinner table because they have little to say of any interest.    And let's not forget Marius' friend Eponine (Samantha Banks) who is more attractive than Cosette and more interesting, but must play the role of sidekick with unrequited love for Marius.      

This is a strange review for me.   Les Miserables is a film with a silly plot, good performances, and a lot of costumes.   It has mostly good songs and is brilliant in parts while other parts reveal plot holes you can drive a truck through.    I'll stick with the three star rating because what's good here is very good.    However, I'll take the stage musical anytime. 

Django Unchained (2012) * *

Directed by:  Quentin Tarantino

Starring:  Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Kerry Washington


Once again, Quentin Tarantino applies revenge fantasy to a sickening time in history only this time the results aren't nearly as effective.    In Inglourious Basterds, a group of Jewish soldiers get to kill Adolf Hitler and the rest of the Nazi hierarchy.    Here, the scale is smaller, involving a freed slave who gets to rescue his wife from the clutches of a slaveowner and take out dozens of his henchmen.    Imagine John Wayne appearing in Gone With The Wind and you'll have a good idea of how Django Unchained turns out.

Everything in the film is done to excess, including the killings, how people are killed, the dialogue, and the running time.    The film is 2 hours, 45 minutes long and upon reflection, barely had enough plot to carry a short film.     The characters could've saved themselves a lot of time and energy ( and us too) if they followed things to a more logical end.    Tarantino is not interested much in logic.   He wants to put his style on full display and that's not always a good thing.   

I'll describe the goings-on here as succinctly as possible without ruining plot points.    Foxx plays Django, who in the beginning of the film is a slave chained together to other slaves walking through a cold, dark forest.   Along comes Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter who rides with a stagecoach in tow.   This is no run-of-the-mill stagecoach, but one with a cardboard molar hanging atop its roof.    Why this?  Well, it appears Dr. King Schultz used to be a dentist.   What relevance does this have to anything?  I guess it's an excuse to put that strange tooth on the stagecoach roof.    Dr. Schultz's past as a dentist has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

He discovers that Django would be able to recognize the quarry he is tracking and frees him along with the other slaves.   Dr. Schultz shoots the captors and plenty of blood squirts out.   This is a recurring theme with the killings in this film.   Lots of blood erupting from whatever body part is shot.   Why is this necessary?   It's over-the-top. 

Django assists Dr. Schultz in tracking his quarries.   In return, Dr. Schultz will assist Django in locating his wife, who was sold to a wealthy plantation owner specializing in mandingos.   His name is Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio as a smooth, mannered businessman with over-the-top panache who likes to see returns on his investments.   So what exactly is the scheme to get Django close to his wife and rescue her?   He and Schultz pose as potential buyers of a mandingo.    They offer an absurd amount of money to get Candie's attention and on to his plantation, which is overseen by shifty Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who is allowed a certain latitude in his dealings with his boss.

The plot is discovered by Candie and Stephen and instead of killing Django and Schultz, they insist that the money originally suggested for the mandingo be paid to free Django's wife instead.    Why didn't they just approach Candie saying something like, "You have a slave there and we want to buy her freedom.   How does $12,000 sound?"  (Or even, say, $2,000).   Simply because Tarantino wants to contrive the situation and allow for Django to kill dozens of her captors.

Before the ruse is discovered and Django starts killing folks, the film is already absurdly long.    Django and his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) are one-dimensional.    I found myself not caring much about their dilemma and when their long, long-awaited reunion happens, it lacks emotional impact.    The only unusual thing about Broomhilda is her ability to speak German, which comes in handy in a later scene with Schultz in which they speak German to avoid detection.   This was used to much better effect in Basterds, in which Waltz's Landa spoke English to a farm owner to avoid detection by Jews hiding under the floor.

Waltz is terrific here.   He has the ability to be disarmingly polite while hiding more devious intentions, which makes him fascinating to watch.   Yet, he is also basically a good man who wants to help Django.   DiCaprio is fine here, but his character only allows him to do so much.    Samuel L. Jackson is evil, loyal, and knowing, all the while hiding under an Uncle Tom facade.

The most disappointing thing about Django Unchained is that it is style run amok.   Sometimes less is more, but Tarantino seems to be too in love with his creation to dial down.    It's a mistake he made in Kill Bill Volume 1 and Reservoir Dogs.    Much has been made about Tarantino's overuse of the "n" word here.   I agree that it is used far too much.    Like everything else in this film, it is excessive and overdone. 

The Three Stooges (2012) * *

Directed by:  Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly

Starring:  Chris Diamontopolous (Moe), Sean Hayes (Larry), Will Sasso (Curly), Sofia Vergara, Craig Bierko


I'm at the age now in which I realize that The Three Stooges should be taken in small doses.   If I were to stumble across them on TV, I would probably watch one short and be satisfied.    Any more than that would be overkill for me.    Such is my feeling about this movie, which is technically three episodes, but the entire process is about 90 minutes.     It's more than enough Stooges.

This film is nearly a decade in the making.    At first, Moe, Larry, and Curly were to be played by Benicio Del Toro, Sean Penn, and Jim Carrey, but all eventually dropped out.     Unless the film was a biopic of the Stooges,  I wouldn't be much interested in seeing actors of that caliber slapping each other around.     The actors playing the Stooges here are very good impressionists and are convincing enough, but I couldn't muster up a lot of enthusiasm for the whole enterprise.    I guess for me there is only so much face-slapping, ear-pulling, and sledgehammer-hitting I can watch without becoming bored.

The film isn't without a couple of laughs and a very appealing sequence in which Jersey Shore cast members get smacked around by Moe.   How Moe hooks up with the Jersey Shore cast I will not reveal, except to say that it mixes in nicely with the plot of the guys trying to raise $830,000 to save the orphanage they grew up in and lived in until the present day.    Why is the amount so much?   If you factor in all the years the Stooges were there causing havoc, you can imagine the costs that incur.   

The Three Stooges isn't a terrible movie.    If you're watching a Three Stooges movie, you expect certain things and this movie delivers on those expectations.    It has no real interest in being anything other than what it is.    That's fine, not every film has "Oscar" written all over it.    But you either enjoy what you're seeing or you don't.    For me, it's all one big "meh". 

Your Highness (2011) *

Directed by:  David Gordon Green

Starring:  Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel


Here is a spoof of medieval adventures that contains zero laughs.   Since spoofs are supposed to be funny and this one is not, what are we left with but nearly two hours of our lives stolen that we can't get back?

Some of the people responsible for Pineapple Express were involved in this woeful production.    Like Pineapple Express, some of the characters spend a great deal of time smoking weed and this is expected to be somehow funny in itself.   Granted, people smoking weed in medieval times is odd, but that doesn't translate to laughs,   Neither do jokes about child sexual abuse, homoeroticism, or a giant monster that is really five fingers and four of them are cut off during a battle.    No points for guessing which one remains.

Was there a clamoring for medieval spoofs that I wasn't aware of?   My understanding is that this film's budget was $50 million.   $50 million?   The visual effects are rather ordinary here and I can't imagine star and co-writer Danny McBride would have the cajones to demand a high salary, so where on Earth did the money go?  

It's baffling to me how certain movies ever get made and find mass distribution while other lower budget but infinitely better films struggle to find an audience.   I have a hard time believing that there weren't any better scripts to be filmed than this one.   Movie studios make only a handful of movies each year, so it's amazing how $50 million was thrown to the winds like this. 

I won't even waste my time explaining the plot of Your Highness.   There is one scene worth mentioning and I know I sound like a typical guy here, but Natalie Portman strips to a thong in one scene and looks really good.    If I'm not going to get any laughs, at least I got a visual feast for a few moments. 

Skyfall (2012) * *

Directed by:  Sam Mendes

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes


After viewing this 23rd installment of the 007 Bond series, I'm left to wonder if there is really anything more that can be done to make the series fresh.    The players change, technology is updated, and there are newer computer-savvy villains, but to me Bond films are becoming like any other spy thriller.   They're well made, the performances are well done, but the entire enterprise is about to outlive its necessity.   We have enough Bond films so I wouldn't mind if they never made another one.

Skyfall is a film with a slow, drawn-out first half vs. a better second half.    The opening of the film begins with a very long chase scene, involving cars, trains, and construction equipment.   I'm rather weary of chase scenes by now.    During it, Bond is accidentally shot by one of his fellow agents and presumed dead.    Of course he isn't, otherwise there would be no movie.   But upon reflection, I don't even know why this angle was even introduced.    It went nowhere and has little effect on what follows.

Soon enough, MI6, helmed by M (Dench) is under siege in more ways than one.   First, M is forced into early retirement by the department's new overseer Mallory (Fiennes) and then MI6 headquarters is blown up into a million pieces via the aforementioned computer-savvy villain (Bardem).   Bardem is a former MI6 agent with a grudge against M which is later fleshed out in a jail scene eerily similar to Silence Of The Lambs.

As villains go, Bardem is fine, but I have to admit I was puzzled by his actions in the film's climactic shootout on the Scottish moors.   There are lots of chases and shootouts here which don't really distinguish themselves in Bond lore.    M is given more dimensions here than in previous Bond films and Fiennes' Mallory is also allowed some character wiggle room to make him interesting.   

The Bond series is trying very hard to keep up with the times, but is it even effective anymore?    Bond has been up against every kind of terrorist, drug lord, empire, and super villain you can throw at him.   He always comes out clean on the other side with a fresh tux and sipping his martinis.    There is really only so much that can be done before Bond grows stale.    Oh, and there is even a new Q.  And perhaps a whole new generation of gadgets.