The Movie Guy

With the onset of autumn, the days getting shorter and the cool air closing in, we can all become introspective based on the physical nature of the weather around us. Sometimes that’s all you need to connect with a movie- a movie that has the same atmosphere as the world around you because the characters you’re watching are in a similar physical or psychological place. While there’s sunshine that has sporadic warmth, there’s also an underlying chill that can be as refreshing as it is numbing. Such was my experience with “The Skeleton Twins.” Continue reading →

Having read and enjoyed the book, the film adaptation of “Gone Girl” keeps the story intact, largely due to the screenplay being written by its author Gillian Flynn. Yet while some of the more in-depth character motivations or “red herrings” presented as clues in Flynn’s whodunit of a woman’s disappearance on the morning of her fifth anniversary are given superficial treatment in this movie, these shortcomings can be overlooked thanks to the strength that lies in the hand of director David Fincher’s dark touch.

We’ve seen this dark touch before, and this is something Fincher does well. Whether delving into the mind of a psychopath or sociopath in films like “Se7en,” “Fight Club,” “Panic Room,” or even “The Social Network,” his sure directorial hand grips you in his depiction of our cold, ruthless nature. “Gone Girl” is no exception.

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As a fan of the ‘80s television show, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the film version of “The Equalizer,” an above-average actioner that manages to maintain the heart of the series while beating an air of superhero mystique into its storyline pulse.

Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, a reserved man living in solitude within an urban environment. McCall leads a quiet life in an ordinary job; his inability to sleep routinely leads him to a diner in the early morning hours to sit quietly while reading a book and drinking tea. While this inability to sleep and his solitary life may hint at a past he’d rather not remember, McCall’s precision in preparing his tea by meticulously folding a tea bag into a napkin brought from home and arranging his place setting at the diner is more an ordered conditioning than O.C.D. After striking up a conversation with Teri (Chloe Moretz), a young escort who also frequents the diner at the same time as McCall, McCall learns of Teri’s ambitions for a life beyond her circumstances. Continue reading →

Something I had long suspected has now been confirmed with “A Walk Among the Tombstones”- Liam Neeson has comfortably slipped into the “unassuming tough guy” shoes left vacant with Charles Bronson’s passing.

Had this movie been made thirty years ago, it would have starred Bronson. After years of westerns and supporting roles in classic machismo films like “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Great Escape,” Bronson saw a resurgence in his cinematic career at the age of 53 with 1974’s “Death Wish” portraying Paul Kersey, a mild-mannered architect who goes on a vigilante killing spree after his wife and daughter are raped and murdered by some New York City thugs.

Neeson, a dependable actor and Oscar-nominated for his work as the ultimate mild-mannered businessman/Nazi vigilante Oskar Schindler in “Schindler’s List,” achieved bankable movie star status at the age of 56 with his role in 2008’s “Taken” portraying Bryan Mills, a retired CIA agent who tracks down and punishes the Parisian sex slave traders who kidnapped his daughter. Continue reading →

“The Drop” is one of those strong, character-driven crime dramas that don’t come along too often but, when they do and they’re done well, are worth the wait. Anchored in a great performance by Tom Hardy and written by Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River”, “Gone Baby Gone”), who knows how to fill an urban neighborhood’s microcosm of crime with sketchy characters that have dark pasts and hidden agendas, “The Drop” quenches the thirst and ends the drought experienced by fans of this type of movie since 2011’s “Drive” with Ryan Gosling was released.

The film centers around Cousin Marv’s, a Brooklyn neighborhood bar owned by the Chechen mob and used as an occasional “drop” for the collection of envelopes of cash produced through various illicit activities. Cousin Marv’s is just one of several bars owned by the Chechens and these bars serve as random “drops” for their cash to safe house their money and avoid someone getting wise to where their money is holed up and robbing their take. On a selected night, a random bar is chosen and the cash is delivered to that bar and handed to the bartender who slips the money into a time-release safe that is collected later that night by the Chechens- even the people working the bar can’t open the safe, assuring the Chechens that their money is safe.

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The most amazing thing about the James Brown biopic “Get on Up” is that it tells the story of a unique and energetic musical innovator in such a common and rudimentary way that it feels like studying a wild animal’s natural habits while the animal is doped on Thorazine. Sure, you can study the animal’s physical features and biology safely, but you really wouldn’t know what this animal is like in its natural state. While safe is a good thing, it’s not the style to choose in depicting the life of the man dubbed ‘Soul Brother Number One’ or ‘The Godfather of Funk.’ To take all of the danger and energy out of soul and funk leaves you with just a lifeless and drooling wild animal that is a pale imitation of what it truly is.

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  On June 13^th, Susan Sherry Miller posted a request on my Facebook page asking me to suggest something ‘smart and cerebral.’ I’m happy to report that I’ve found your movie, Susan. Your movie suggestion is Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” a movie that resonates with you long after it is over.

As impressive as I had heard Richard Linklater’s film “Boyhood “was, I have to admit my trepidation in walking into the theater. Though it had been well-reviewed, I was facing a movie with a 2 hour 45 minute running time and the only thing I had knew about the movie was that it took 12 years to make- Linklater used the same actors to depict the chronicle of a boy’s life through the ages of 5 to 18 years old. While this is an impressive feat and something never before seen on film, I was still skeptical. Continue reading →

If you were seated at a table with a pregnant woman eating pickles and ice cream, you might be disgusted by the combination and yet, if you liked both pickles and ice cream, would be curious as to how they both tasted together. While you’d never indulge in eating this yourself, you can’t fault the pregnant woman for satisfying her cravings and would never think of taking the dish away from her. You can’t take the dish away from her because you like her; she enjoys it so you sit back at the table and watch her enjoy eating.

That’s how I felt watching Luc Besson indulge in mixing an action thriller with a science fiction hook in his new film, “Lucy,” an interesting hybrid of these two genres that if you allow yourself to think too much about the “why” or ask too many logical questions, you’ll really get disgusted. But, if you watch Besson combine these two genres that he loves and has shown a talent for- with his action thrillers “La Femme Nikita,” “The Professional” and in his writing of “Taken” or in his passion for sci-fi evident in “The Fifth Element”- you’re better off just sitting back and watching the pregnant woman eat. Continue reading →

“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is a solid sequel to 2011’s “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, a smart and entertaining prequel to the “Planet of the Apes” franchise that started 46 years ago.

While I wasn’t a fan of this franchise, I did like the first “Planet of the Apes” from 1968 with Charlton Heston, mainly because I’m a Rod Serling fan and Serling wrote the original story. What followed were four sequels in the ‘70s as well as a subsequent TV series. Yet no matter how entertaining talking apes carrying semi-automatic weapons while riding horses and capturing humans may be, watching Roddy McDowall kiss/nuzzle Kim Hunter with a prosthetic monkey mouth just looked creepy. Even Tim Burton’s updated remake in 2001 had promise, but the rehash was just a novelty that made you remember how good the original really was. Continue reading →

     This past Tuesday, we lost an actor whose cinematic work spanned sixty years- Eli Wallach. Throughout his career, primarily in supporting roles, Mr. Wallach left an indelible impression. While his roles in two landmark westerns- “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Good, the Bad and The Ugly”- secured his place in movie history, I remember particularly enjoying his work in two movies from the ‘80’s: the Burt Lancaster-Kirk Douglas comedy “Tough Guys” and the Barbra Streisand courtroom-drama “Nuts”. In 1990, he appeared in two movies that were sequels to movies I love- Wallach portrayed the not-so-nice Don Altobello in “The Godfather III” and appeared as Cotton Weinberger in “The Two Jakes”. His roles in these films not only made me instantly remember these movies’ predecessors, but also the year in which these films’ predecessors were released- a year I feel was the best in American cinema. Continue reading →