Director: Todd Haynes
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Kyle Chandler, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy
Running Time: 118mins.
The Weinstein Company
Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

At the outset of Todd Haynes’s latest film Carol, two women meet up in a restaurant in 1950s New York City before they are interrupted by a good natured young man. He ultimately escorts the stylish younger lady off to a party and then we drift back in time. It’s a simple start to a beautifully crafted romantic drama which spends the rest of its runtime loading up this and many other minute interactions with infinite complexity. Working from Phyllis Nagy’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking novel The Price of Salt, director Haynes (of 2002’s lauded Far From Heaven) once again showcases the 1950s as the backdrop for simmering social tensions and stellar work by his lead actresses.

As with everything in Haynes’s gorgeous film, the beginning of Carol and Therese’s relationship is sold in loaded small talk. Carol Aird (Blanchett), looking every bit the glamorous fifties socialite, inquires after Christmas gift suggestions from shopgirl Therese (Mara, saddled with a management-enforced goofy Santa hat). Carol eventually settles on a train set, providing Therese with all her relevant contact info to ship her order. She then sashays away with a compliment to the Santa hat. To the outside shopper, this was just a cordial transaction between two ladies but the dialogue sold through Mara and Blanchett’s eyes screams of a mutual attraction. Not to mention the lingering shots of Carol’s perfectly manicured hands that hint at a world struggling photographer Therese can only aspire to be part of. Conveniently Carol forgets a pair of gloves at Therese’s counter, offering Therese an excuse with which to follow up with this intriguing customer. Under the guise of gratitude, Carol is enabled to take Therese to lunch and from there they’re off and running. Or rather roadtripping.

It’s fitting that a trainset and a roadtrip are at the crux of Therese and Carol’s encounters with

one another because Haynes’s film is so much about these women in transitions. It’s unclear what exactly Carol sees in Therese at first except that Carol knows where her desires lie at this point in her life (a past girlfriend in the form of Sarah Paulson’s Abby remains Carol’s strongest bond besides her young daughter) and she will soon be officially divorced from her husband. Her world’s seemingly coming apart and she’s trying to grasp onto something new. Meanwhile Mara is simply heartbreaking as the younger Therese. Navigating this time period, Therese doesn’t even know how to articulate what she wants from Carol or why. A stunning Mara, who won Best Actress with this film at this year’s Cannes festival, is magnetic as her quiet turmoil eventually spills over into a teary outburst before Therese can reform into something stronger.

The leading ladies are capably supported by their would-be male counterparts who are at a loss as to what to do with these women. Kyle Chandler as Harge, Carol’s ex-husband-to-be, launches an attack of sorts on Carol’s ‘morality’ with his legal team in a move that smacks more of desperation than maliciousness. Meanwhile, Therese fends off the over eager advances of Richard (Jake Lacy) and her peers with indifference. To add to it all, Haynes is in his element with period production design along with costume designer Sandy Powell (coming off this year’s triumphant work on Cinderella) and the result is an all around marvelous drama to behold.

Carol was screened as a part of the 2015 New York Film Fest.
I got the chance to speak to Blanchett at Carol’s NY Press Conference, which you can read here.

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth
Directed By: Francis Lawrence
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 137 minutes
Lionsgate

Our Score: 3 out of 5 Stars

It’s a sad day for diehard fans of the “Hunger Games” series, while people like me will remember it for its long drawn-out speeches about war and the long clarifying conversations about the plot after heroine wakes up after getting knocked out. The conclusion to the much beloved series doesn’t go out with a whimper, but it doesn’t go out on a high note either. The “Hunger Games” movies will end as they started, just alright; nothing spectacular.

“Mockingjay – Part 2” picks up right after the ending events of “Mockingjay – Part 1”. Peeta (Hutcherson) has been brainwashed by the Capitol and Katniss (Lawrence) is in shock that man she once began to develop feelings for expresses hate and displeasure to the mere sight of her. Meanwhile the resistance, made of all the Districts, is planning their final assault on the Capitol. They’re led by the suspicious President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore).

Coin plans to keep Katniss safe and out of harm’s way, mainly wielding Katniss as a propaganda piece, much like Katniss was in the first “Mockingjay” movie. That doesn’t sit well with Katniss who stows away, joining soldiers on the front line as they prepare for an invasion. Her ultimate goal for this final chapter is to kill President Snow (Donald Sutherland) with her own bow and arrow.

The real fun, a block by block journey through the heart of the Capitol while alluding deadly booby traps and fighting creatures, doesn’t come until we trudge through long bits of tediously familiar dialogue. The middle of “Mockingjay” should have come sooner, or at least began the movie. Teasing the inevitable action for half an hour is disingenuous for fans and viewers of the movies, adding to the complaint that the “Mockingjay” sequel is too long. While parts of “Mockingjay” work on a superbly entertaining level, too much of it feels like unnecessary filler.

The excessive length takes away from the main theme of the movie, which is fairly basic: war is hell. For being a somewhat anti-war movie, it seems to solve a lot of its problems through violent conflict and murder. The hell aspect of that statement gives viewers some of the series best emotional scenes. The mature content of how painful and heartbreaking war can be, isn’t explored enough. Its message about how difficult the civilian toll during war can be, on either side of the battle, is sandwiched between expositions, taking away from the gut punch it should be. For a series that prides itself off its adult themes, it seems to misjudge how to present its most interesting topic in its final movie.

Overall, I’m not disappointed that I watched these movies. At times I quite enjoyed them, and I think that the series has multiple, bold adult messages directed at an audience with a young, developing mind. Like the others, I have to praise the acting throughout. It’s the best of any young adult franchise, save for the “Harry Potter” series. At the end of the day though, “Harry Potter” handled the split of its final book into two movies, incredibly well, while “Hunger Games” overcompensated for how much content they had to stretch into four hours. “Hunger Games” is another instance where the story would have been much better off as one impactful final movie than two alright flicks.

Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams
Directed by: Tom McCarthy
Rated: R
Running time: 2 hours 8 mins
Open Road

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

Boston. 1976. In a small police station we overhear a woman speaking with a man. In another room sits a priest. A young rookie remarks to his sergeant that what has happened will be hard to keep quiet. The senior officer remarks it won’t be a problem…no one will find out. “What about the arraignment,” the rookie asks? “What arraignment?”

A powerful look at how a team of reporters from the Boston Globe took on the Catholic Church in 2001, “Spotlight” is not only gripping but a great introduction to Journalism 101, making it easily the best “newspaper” film since “All the President’s Men.”

The story jumps to 2001, where new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schrieber) is brought to the newspaper from Miami to jump-start the paper’s performance. With fewer people turning to the paper for their news, and the Internet taking away a lot of the advertising dollars, it’s important to have a paper that people want to read. Among the various departments is the small, investigative unit known as SPOTLIGHT. Overseen by Walter “Robby” Robinson (Keaton), the unit is made up of a few reporters who often spend months investigating a single story. While working on an issue with the police department they are alerted to a story alleging rampant abuse of children by a local priest. Intrigued they begin investigating, slowly uncovering victims and learning that higher members of the Church conspired to keep things quiet. In order to get some necessary court documents they suggest going to court. The outrage is almost universal – “you’re going to SUE the CHURCH???”

Co-written by director McCarthy and Josh Singer (“The Fifth Estate”), the film, like the actual investigation, reveals secrets little by little, keeping you fully engrossed in the story. The script is helped by an amazing cast. Ruffalo seems to be Oscar-nomination bound here, and Keaton is equally strong. Supporting players, from McAdams to John Slattery to Len Cariou, also excel. Stanley Tucci does well as a rather un-orthodox attorney while Brian d’Arcy James rounds out the pack of reporters. Heck, even the smaller roles deserve a shout out. If there were an Oscar for ensemble work this film would grab it. Put it all together and “Spotlight” is one of the year’s best films!

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen and Anthony Mackie
Directed By: Jonathan Levine
Rated: R
Running Time: 101 minutes
Columbia Pictures

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Not since “Bad Santa” has a vulgar comedy elicited this much holiday joy. If you’re looking for something besides the network television claymation specials and the obligatory “A Christmas Story” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” showings on TV, “The Night Before” is a much welcome sight at the box office.

While Christmas is sweet like milk and cookies for most, the holidays are a spoiled milk time of year for Ethan (Gordon-Levitt). That’s because when he was younger, his parents passed away on Christmas Eve. There to help pick Ethan up that day were Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Mackie). Like any good (or bad depending on how you view it) friend, they helped Ethan get over the tremendous loss with drugs and alcohol, and thus a tradition was born.

Every Christmas Eve, the three young wise men head out into New York City, do drugs, check out Christmas lights while high, get drunk, sing karaoke, and consume massive amounts of Chinese food. But something has evaded them, the Nutcracker Ball. It’s a mysterious event that takes place in a secret location one day a year, barely known amongst the general populous. Flash forward 14 years later, Isaac is preparing for his first child, Chris is dealing with football fame, and Ethan is dealing with another holiday tragedy. It’s time for one more drunken hurrah for the three, including some stolen tickets to the coveted Nutcracker Ball.

“The Night Before” spikes the eggnog and laces the mistletoe with hallucinogens, but it accomplishes that rare Christmas miracle, of making my Grinch heart grow three sizes. Most holiday movies feel unnecessarily cheesy with their forced warmth, but “The Night Before” has a genuine heart. A lot of that credit can go to Jonathan Levine, who struck pay dirt with Gordon-Levitt and Rogen before in “50/50”, another film that plucked the right heart strings.

What Levine’s movie tragically suffers from is an ADD direction. It feels a bit long as the script hurriedly goes from idea to another. Some of those ideas are a wonderfully constructed laugh riot and at other times those ideas seem like everyone was comfortable settling for a predictable chuckle. Rogen handles the bulk of comedy, while Gordon-Levitt handles the emotion, and Mackie completes the trio by being the bridge and glue between the two extremes.

The three are complemented by a slew of others. There are some shameless appearances by real life stars that feel more forced than natural. But the real gem of the movie is Michael Shannon. Shannon plays a prophetic drug dealer that crosses paths with the three and serves as a spiritual leader for the three, with pot of course. Jillian Bell does a great fill-in as Rogen’s pregnant wife and helps set-up some of the best jokes for Rogen to spike to the audience.

“The Night Before” is a familiar movie, but that’s because it enriches itself with an understanding of what makes a Christmas movie. It takes the plot devices from holiday stories like “A Christmas Carol” and others, but it adds its own flavor to them. Some are more obvious than others while some are clearly used to make that one person in the audience smile. “The Night Before” is a complimentary movie to the upcoming holidays, whether it be to laugh with friends and family or to alleviate the mounting stress we face.

Starring: Diane Keaton, John Goodman and Alan Arkin
Directed by: Jessie Nelson
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hr 46 mins
CBS Films

Our Score: 2 out of 5 stars

The holidays are the time to rekindle friendships and spend with your family. Unless you’re the Coopers. After spending time with them you won’t know whether to hang the mistletoe or yourself!

Charlotte (Keaton) and Sam (Goodman, in a very strong supporting turn) have been married for 40-years. But the magic is gone and they have decided to split up. However, with the holidays approaching, Charlotte convinces Sam to wait until Christmas, so that the entire family can be told the new. Sam agrees. Cue the family.

A mismatch of a movie if ever I’ve seen one, “Love the Coopers” is full of incomplete characters and so many cliché’s stolen from other holiday films that it could have been called “Love Actually 2 – This Time it Sucks!” And let me quickly take the time to apologize to filmmaker Richard Curtis for daring to mention his perennial Holiday gem to this lump of coal. You have the old man (Arkin) who, for whatever creepy reason, has a crush on the young girl (Amanda Seyfried) who brings him his breakfast every day at the local diner. You have the unemployed son (Ed Helms basically playing Ed Helms) divorcing from the shrew, with kids they barely look at. The hot but misunderstood daughter (Olivia Wilde) who can never seem to find love. And the sister (Marisa Tomei) who spends her days shoplifting but is easy to talk to. How can this busy film be any worse? By making sure that none of the characters, with the exception of Keaton and Goodman, are fully fleshed out, you end up hoping would come and go so you could die the same. Not sure to blame screenwriter Steven Rogers, who is no Captain America here, of director Nelson, who in the past has written such depressing films as “Stepmom” (with Rogers), “The Story of Us” and “I Am Sam.” There are a few fun moments, many of them brought about by the great June Squibb as Aunt Fishy, but the rest are as depressing as pumpkin pie without whipped cream!

Starring: Antonio Banderas and Rodrigo Santoro
Directed by: Patricia Riggen
Rated: PG 13
Running time: 1 hrs 27 mins
Warner Bros

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars

It was the major story on the news five years ago. Thirty-three workers trapped a half-mile below the earth in a gold mine in Chile. The world watched for sixty-nine days and cheered as the men were finally rescued. But what happened during that almost seven-weeks is the story of “The 33.”

August 5, 2010 started like most every day in the small town of Copiapo. A group of men, led by Mario (Banderas) heads to work in the local mine. Among the delegation is a man about to retire after 46-years and a new man starting what will be the rest of his life working below the earth. Despite warnings by the safety official (Lou Diamond Phillips), things are not up to code and, when an explosion rips through the mine, the men find themselves trapped. With only three days of food to survive on, the men wait for help to arrive. And wait. And wait. And wait.

Based on true events, and well balanced, the story of “The 33” may be a surprise to many who only know the basics of the event. While things seemed to be going swimmingly on television, it took an amazing amount of red-tape cutting to succeed. Because the world already knows the outcome, it’s this story that holds your attention as you root for the right things to be done.

Banderas is strong as the group’s leader, and the supporting cast of characters each manage to relate the direness of their situation. Diamond Phillips is also well cast as the safety officer. It’s a little under 700 miles from Argentina to Chile, so I guess that is why Bob Gunton was hired to play the Chilean president, though he seems to be channeling Juan Peron, who he played in “Evita.” And as much as I like Gabriel Byrne, I had to chuckle to myself as he tried to hide his Irish brogue with a Spanish accent. The film is well paced and director Riggen gives you the required feeling of claustrophobia needed. I should also note that this is the final film score by composer James Horner, who passed away earlier this year.

Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay and Joan Allen
Directed by: Lenny Abrahamson
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hr 58 mins
A24 Films

Our Score: 5 out of 5 stars

I can’t remember where I heard it, but I recall someone having a conversation and the subject of someone that lived in a remote village came up. The person appeared happy living his very simple life and the one converser commented that this guy’s life must be horrible, because he didn’t have any of the modern conveniences. The other replied that the fact he wasn’t aware of what he was missing is why he was so content. I’m paraphrasing here, of course, but in a nut-shell, this is the story of “Room.”

We meet Ma (Larson) and 5-year old Jack (an amazing Tremblay) as they get ready for the day. Ma makes breakfast while Jack watches television. As we watch them go about their day we notice that the scenery never changes. We later hear the fumbling of locks and an unseen male voice. This goes on for what seems like an eternity. Eventually we learn that many years ago Ma was kidnapped. She has been living in “room” for the past seven years, with only a small skylight in which to watch the time go by. But she has been planning. Planning for the day when she and Jack will be free. But when will that day come?

Emotionally exhausting, “Room” is a film that you will continue to think of long after you’ve left the theatre. Based on the best-selling book by Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the screenplay, the film is an acting tour-de-force for both Larson and young Mr. Tremblay, who should certainly be on the Oscar short list for their performances. Though the story sounds as if it was based on the tragic events that occurred in Cleveland it was actually inspired by the Fritzl case in Austria. No matter where the idea came from, the story is harrowing. Director Abrahamson makes it even more tragic by making the audience feel the claustrophobia. This continues throughout the film, even when circumstances change. To Jack, “room” is, at times, comforting. To me, “Room” is an emotional roller coaster that I’m still riding!

Paul Bettany may be known as one of our finest English actors, with roles in such major films as A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander, The Da Vinci Code and of course, Marvel’s Avengers franchise. What he also is however is now a fifteen year resident of New York City with Oscar-winning wife (and Beautiful Mind co-star) Jennifer Connelly. The city, which Bettany loves, is currently facing a homeless crisis which sees 60,000 people seeking public shelters nightly. The majority of them families.

The actor had been developing a story about judgment and redemption for his feature directorial debut, but it wasn’t until Hurricane Sandy hit his home city that Bettany honed in on filtering his story through the lens of the homeless experience. The result was Shelter, which Bettany describes as a “moving optimistic story,” and stars Connelly as Hannah and Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Civil War) as Tahir, a pair of homeless people from completely different worlds now residing in New York City. They come together to help each other face their pasts and the everyday trials of living on the streets. An impassioned, opinionated Bettany joined Connelly and Mackie this week at the New York press conference for the film.

One particular homeless couple focused Bettany on where his story would go:

Paul Bettany: “I live in a really nice apartment I moan about because I’m now a New Yorker…outside this apartment was this homeless couple. A black man and a white woman, she was blonde. And I would see them, we would see them, we would pass them on the school run. My children would say hello to them, they’d say hello to us, and that was kind of the extent of it. And I have to, I’m ashamed to say, that day by day, their poverty became more and more acceptable to me and they became invisible. Before they actually disappeared. And then Hurricane Sandy hit and we never saw them again. There was a mandatory evacuation of our area of Tribeca and they used to live in a tiny little piece of like a ‘park’–it’s laughable, it’s smaller than this room–on the corner of Canal Street and the West Side Highway. And they used to live under a plastic tarpaulin and I noticed that they seemed to complain a lot less about their circumstances than I did and I admired that. And then I really couldn’t see them anymore and I felt the instinct to write about them. But I didn’t know who they were. And then I thought, well wait a second, maybe that would be a really good way to discuss judgment because I find our response to homelessness really puzzling. It’s a peculiar response that people have.”

This “peculiar response” was loudly voiced this week by New York’s own Police Commissioner Bill Bratton who had advised city dwellers to ignore panhandlers and not spare them any change in order to get them off the streets. At the press conference Bettany, who spent three years developing the script for Shelter and by extension working with and researching organizations that support the homeless, was asked to address this idea, firing back:

Bettany: “I’m not one to say anything rude about anyone else but, that’s a fucking stupid idea. To ignore a homeless…The homeless. Especially when there’s 60,000 of them on the streets—staying in shelters—in a city that’s home to more billionaires than any city on Earth, you know…I can’t believe that someone would say ‘ignore homeless people.’ And frankly, it’s absolutely the reason I feel it’s urgent. Obviously I spent three years bleeding it into a movie that’s trying to talk about exactly that. So forgive me if I get a little bit heated about it. Because that sort of mentality just drives me up the wall.

They’ve been ignored for too long. I’ll just tell you this, if you are a family on the brink of eviction, you’re 80% less likely to be evicted If you have legal counsel. But there is no right to legal counsel in a housing court. It would cost the city $12,500 to grant that family legal counsel. The average stay in a shelter for a homeless family once they have been evicted costs the city $45,000. So not only does it seem to be morally the right thing to do, it also just seems fiscally a smart thing to do, right? You’re thinking outside the box…

All of these figures that I have my head you know because I’ve been really thinking about this for a long while, I say them in front of audiences and I can just—I know that they’re mind blowing and then kind of numbing and that’s the interesting thing about narrative. Narrative can breath life into those figures that can be baffling. And peculiarly they become more meaningful the smaller they get. Which is why Shelter is just about two people. And two people who need forgiveness and who are deserving of forgiveness. Cause you know what? It’s not just those 24,000 children [staying in shelters] because when I say it, I always I feel the audience go ‘[gasps] Not children!‘ but actually we’re all innocents. We’re all worthy of forgiveness. And we’re all fundamentally deserving of a home”

For Connelly and Mackie, working on Shelter refocused their perspectives on the struggles people face.

Jennifer Connelly: “There’s no group of people that isn’t entitled to the same basic human rights as the rest of us…It reminded me how much I need to strive to remain aware and to keep seeing those people. And to keep seeing what’s happening around the world. And to keep you know, to be conscious of how blessed we are to worry about the silly things that we worry about most of the time. When people are worrying about where they’re going to sleep and how they’re going to feed their kids and will they make it through the day. Important to think about.”

Anthony Mackie: “The level of judgment and the lack of humanity I saw in myself was disgusting. Every time I would walk past a homeless person I’d be like ‘Get up, get a job! Get off drugs!’ I never took into account what that person had been through or what happened to get that person to that place. And it just really blew my mind, you know, learning what I learned about homeless shelters and just the idea of finding a warm place to sleep at night, it reminded me of the prison system. And the idea or the lack thereof of rehabilitation in the prison system. You know just trying to get a good night sleep within incarceration… And it was just troubling and eye opening. And I never really took into account the number of families.

You know when I was a kid we used to do this feeding the hungry at my church every other Saturday and it blew my mind one day when I was you know, like scooping out food and this kid from my school was there. I was like ‘Holy sh—shibbity jibbit! That dude we go to school together!’ And somewhere between that moment of realization and appreciation for what my dad sacrificed for us to have and me becoming ‘Anthony Mackie’ I lost it. And this movie really made me realize. And it was very humbling and very sickening to see that within yourself. And so now I make my kids go and scoop chicken on the weekends. And if they don’t do the right thing, I take their shit from them and give it to other kids. [laughs]”

Connelly immersed herself in organizations that reached out to those struggling:

Connelly: “Coalition for the Homeless, that group of people were really helpful to me. I spent time with them, talking to them and visiting shelters and going out on their food runs. Which, every night they deliver meals and stop at set points around the city and people rely on those meals so you can meet people coming in. And I heard a lot–I met and watched and learned from a lot of people. There’s a place called the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, which started out just as a needle exchange program, and it still is and also has health support services and outreach programs, and overdose prevention and a number of other programs. I spent a lot time there at their location, and going on their walkabout talking to people. Yeah, people were very generous with their stories and with their time. So I was really listening to people, watching people and hearing their stories.”

As for the actual making of the film, Bettany made the considerable leap from acting to directing. I asked him if he’d turned to any of the impressive directors he’s worked with in the past (a list including Joss Whedon, Ron Howard and Peter Weir) for advice when he began this project.

Bettany: “No. No I didn’t but they were the biggest resource for me in showing them early cuts of the movie. Ron Howard, Darren Aronofsky, lots of people that I know–David Koepp, and not just directors, Joss Whedon, Johnny Depp…Just loads of people that I’ve worked with and trust and really whose–who I really admire. But I did that afterward.

You know, I really kept my eyes open as an actor, I’m really interested. You know I see it, you see it when you meet a young actor first day on set, you can see whether they’re gonna be the sort of actor who’s gonna bullshit that they know what they’re doing [laughs] or asked loads of questions. And I was really inquisitive and I wanted to know ‘hey, what’s that do?‘…I was that sort of an actor when I was them at that age. And so I’ve been watching and one of the things that I’ve really noticed with the great directors and actually I first saw this, recognized in Peter Weir, is he knows who’s telling the story. Whether it is the actors holding the responsibility or whether it’s the camera crew holding the responsibility. And if it’s the actor holding the responsibility, every take is the actor’s. And by that I mean there is no complicated techni-crane move that’s going to move in on you during your speech and come in and catch a tear rolling down your cheek and eight out of ten of them are out of focus. ‘Cause all of those takes are for the crew, because there’s this complicated camera. Every scene that is held by the actors is just simple simple camera work. Nothing can be out of focus, every take can be going to you the actor. Just generous, every take. Every take. And then when it’s the camera crew, you better be on your fucking mark. Because they’re the ones telling the story, right, they’re the ones responsible for it. So I thought about that a lot and tried to figure out who was the most important. (It was me. [laughs])”

Connelly was asked if she’d like to turn the tables and direct Bettany eventually, but it seems unlikely:

Bettany: “Do you want to direct me? I can’t imagine anything worse, I’m very difficult.”

Connelly: “I have no eminent plans to direct anything although I’d imagine it’d be something that I’d find–it intrigues me but I’m not nearly ready to, I don’t think–”

Bettany: “I’d be terrified!”

Shelter opens in limited release and on VOD November 13th

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Finn Wittrock and Robin Tunney
Directed By: Angelo Pizzo
Rated: PG
Running Time: 118 minutes
Clarius Entertainment

Our Score: 2 out of 5 Stars

Sometimes after a come from behind win or a miraculous season in sports, you’ll hear the announcer utter the phrase, “You couldn’t have written a better ending.” Usually the coach or player saying this is describing the improbable odds they faced, but still overcame. Generally I don’t like the line because of how inherently silly it is since some of the best movies are about the impossible. This phrase could have been said during the events of “My All American”, but someone should have written a better script for it.

“My All American” follows Freddie Steinmark (Wittrock). His journey starts in Boulder, Colorado during the 60’s. Steinmark is a good natured Christian boy with aspirations about playing college football for Notre Dame and being drafted by an NFL team. His dreams are consistently hampered by everyone else around him who sees him as too short or too thin to stack up with other players on the gridiron, regardless of how dominant he is under the Friday night lights.

Darrell Royal (Eckhart), the coach for the University of Texas, is given some game tape of Steinmark and quickly recognizes the teen’s massive heart. He sees what we see, a boy who puts his heart and soul into everything and sometimes leaves it on the field. He offers him a scholarship and we slowly watch as Steinmark goes from a wide-eyed college freshman to a legitimate force on the Longhorn football team.

The main problem with “My All American” is the length and the pace at which it moves. The film seems transfixed with reminding us that we’re in the late 60’s and that the Vietnam War, hippies, and landing on the moon, were a thing. It also crams in a Wikipedia entry worth of unnecessary information about Steinmark like his high school sweetheart, his dad’s dreams and aspirations, his partner in crime throughout the whole movie, and a myriad of other things that don’t help the overall message.

“My All American” has the heart and soul we’ve seen in other sports movie, but it doesn’t deliver it in an entertaining or touching fashion. Angelo Pizzo, who wrote “Hoosiers” and “Rudy”, may have written a script that would be best suited as a televised re-enactment of real life events for PBS. It’s so unnecessarily dry at time, its sucks the juices out of the crisp sports sequences and the beauty that was Steinmark’s life. “My All American” feels more like a two hour long advertisement to enroll at the University of Texas.

A little bit of digging reveals that Steinmark was a real person and a genuine human being. The University of Texas still remembers that young man’s time with the football program and the impact he left behind. His story is one worth remembering if every giblet of human endearment and compassion is 100% true. I just wish it was condensed into a “30 for 30” on ESPN so that someone could have trimmed the unnecessary fat and hokey TV movie moments out.

Starring: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz and Lea Seydoux
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Rated: PG 13
Running time: 2 hrs 28 mins
MGM/Sony

Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I’ve been a huge fan of Daniel Craig since he held his own against Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in 2002’s “The Road to Perdition.” When I heard he had been cast to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, I knew he would do a good job. What I didn’t know was that he would reinvent the role, make it his own and, in this writer’s opinion, is second only to Sean Connery in bringing Bond to life. In his fourth (and rumored last) time as the man with the license to kill, Craig continues to add more to the legend of 007.

After an incredible pre-credit sequence that sees Bond taking matters into his own hands both running from, and battling inside, a helicopter. We learn that Bond, and the rest of the 00’s, are about to be decommissioned. An agency calling itself the Centre of National Security has absorbed the British MI6 agency and soon all of the familiar faces; M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Wishaw)…even Miss Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) could soon be looking for work. While this is going on, Bond receives a cryptic message from the past that implores him to undertake one more mission. One that is more personal than he knows.

Unlike a lot of the previous films in the series, “Spectre” attempts to tie all off the Daniel Craig films together. Faces and names from “Casino Royale, “ “Quantum of Solace” and “Skyfall” show up here, which is great if you’re a fan but could leave first time viewers a little confused. Director Mendes, who helmed the amazing “Skyfall,” keeps the action coming as Bond travels all over the world in his quest for satisfaction. The film is beautifully shot and the set pieces amazingly presented. And, as in the previous films, the characters are fully drawn out. Except for one. The bad guy! Christoph Waltz owns two Oscars and when I learned he was going to be the villain I jumped for joy. And don’t get me wrong. He’s great! But for some reason he’s kept in the shadows and doesn’t really make his appearance until the film is almost two-hours long! That’s right. In a film that feels about 20 minutes too long you don’t get to the money shot for almost two hours! And with that much time to kill you may find yourself dreaming of a few martinis – be they shaken or stirred!

Starring: Noah Schnap, Hadley Bill Miller and Bill Melendez
Directed by: Steve Martino
Rated: PG
Running time: 1 hour 33 mins
20th Century Fox

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

For those of us from a certain time, the “Peanuts” comic strip is a definite part of our growing up. I collected the paperback books, read the daily comic strips and can proudly say that I am so old that I can remember watching “A Charlie Brown Christmas” when it debuted! Five decades of memories are treated with the respect they deserve in the new film “The Peanuts Movie.”

As the film begins, the gang are celebrating a new snow fall, which signals a snow day. We gradually meet all of the familiar characters (Linus, Lucy, Sally and, of course, Snoopy). And we meet a new one when a moving truck shows up. The family consists of a mother and father and a pretty little red-headed girl. Cue the arrows to the heart – Charlie Brown is in love.

A production from the same group that made the “Ice Age” films, I have to give great credit to the filmmakers for keeping the look of the characters the same. Even though the animation is done via CGI, the way the characters move and interact is similar to the original hand-drawn films and television specials from the past. Each character is given their familiar traits (Lucy’s vainness, Schroeder’s piano playing, Linus and his blanket) and situations. Each character is given their due, almost as if the film was a true ensemble piece. The story is straight-forward but will be entertaining for both young and old viewers.

Sometimes when my wife and I go to Walmart we’ll go near the aisle that has the musical Snoopy figures. We have been known to press “on” occasionally and do the Snoopy dance in the middle of the store, much to the enjoyment of the other customers. Go see “The Peanuts Movie.” You’ll be doing the Snoopy dance up the aisle when it’s over!

Film review by Mike Smith
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and Daniel Bruhl
Directed by: John Wells
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hour 41 mins
The Weinstein Company

Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars

A man stands behind a non-descript counter in a New Orleans restaurant. His hands are a blur as he shucks oysters. One by one by one. In a voice-over we learn that he was once a famous chef, whose substance abuse and diva attitude lost him his restaurant, his reputation and his dignity. His self-assigned penance. Shucking oysters. He stops, pulls out a notebook, and writes a number. He then takes off his apron and walks out the door. One million is enough.

Built around a strong performance by Cooper, “Burnt” is a story of redemption. Adam Jones (Cooper) finds his way from New Orleans to London, where he drops in on his former maître’ D (Bruhl), who is now running his father’s hotel. When they were a team in Paris, their restaurant earned two prestigious Michelin stars. Adam maintains that he can get three. After getting Adam to consent to see a therapist weekly, as well as submitting to random drug and alcohol tests, the two form a partnership. Adam spends his days visiting other restaurants, sampling the foods and recruiting from the respective kitchens. He also visits a restaurant owned by a former cooking colleague (Matthew Rhys), who is now the top dog on the restaurant scene. As Adam begins to achieve his goals, his adversary begins to flounder and soon it is a battle-royal in the kitchens. Both men learn lessons, many of them non-food related.

Six years ago, Bradley Cooper was best known as the handsome Phil from “The Hangover.” Since then he’s earned a Tony Award nomination for his role in “The Elephant Man” on Broadway and is currently on a streak of three consecutive Academy Award nominations, an achievement only done nine times previously by such talented actors as Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton, Al Pacino and Russell Crowe. While I don’t think “Burnt” will bring another nomination, Cooper is superb in the role. His passion for food burns in his eyes. Joining him is Miller, who he recruits and soon makes his chief assistant, and Bruhl, whose character we soon learn has had a long time crush on Adam.

Director Wells keeps the film flowing smoothly and the scenes of food being prepared and served are like little visits to a museum. I’m not one for fancy dishes but even I started getting hungry. Every detail is brought out to be marveled at. If there is a film to compare it to it would be Jon Favreau’s “Chef” from last year. Well known fiery chef Gordon Ramsay served as an executive producer on the film so I have no doubt Cooper based his performance on him, one that is strong but not over the top. Like the food it highlights, “Burnt” is a film to savor. Save room for dessert!

Film review by Jeremy Werner
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Miller
Directed By: Christopher B. Landon
Rated: R
Running Time: 93 minutes
Paramount Pictures

Our Score: 2 out of 5 Stars

Among the four credited writers for “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse”, one must have known what they were doing. One of those writers must have grown up watching movies like “Dead Alive” and “Return of the Living Dead” on late Saturday nights. For every hilarious scene “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” conjures up, there’s at least two or three that don’t even nip at the funny bone.

Ben (Sheridan), Carter (L. Miller), Augie (J. Miller) are the last of a dying bunch, the scouts. Ben and Carter realize that the scouts are the lowest part of the social totem pole at high school. They can’t even get an AV geek to join their ranks. Augie however, lives and dies by the scout code. Ben and Carter are only in it because they’re still friends with Augie and they know it means a lot to him. So Ben and Carter decide to humor Augie for one more overnight in the woods.

Ben and Carter, hoping to salvage their adolescence, plan to sneak out during the overnight and head to a party across town. Meanwhile, an unexplained virus breaks out of a lab, and slowly seeps into town. Within that time frame of our three heroes going out for the night and Ben and Carter sneaking off, the townsfolk are turned into zombies. The build up is expected, but it still takes it sweet time before the carnage starts.

Once the carnage does start though, it seems a bit tame. There are some decent zombie kills, but nothing that hasn’t been done before. As for the jokes, they’re small hits or wide misses. A lot of jokes come too quickly to be enjoyed and those that linger are clearly taken out of someone’s better written script. While “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” is rowdy, it’s not rowdy enough for the full 93 minutes.

For every inspired moment of comedy or gore, there’s a really long waiting time for something to happen. It doesn’t have a strong enough character presence like “Zombieland” to carry the story. It’s hard to relate with teenagers who individually represent horny, courageous, and heartfelt. It’d work better if all three he had these qualities. There’s also a couple of weird loose ends that never go anywhere, like the fact that zombies will sing if they hear their favorite song.

“Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” may suffer from peak zombie in pop culture. We’ve nearly seen it all and while the title is cool, there’s not much else that we haven’t seen in other movies. For those looking from the bleak pessimism of “The Walking Dead” this weekend, “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” may come as a pleasant surprise. For seasoned horror and zombie fans, it’s disappointing this couldn’t have been more.

Starring: Vin Diesel, Elijah Wood and Michael Caine
Directed by: Breck Eisner
Rated: PG 13
Running time: 1 hour 45 mins
Summit Entertainment

Our Score: 2 out of 5 stars

Let me say right at the start that I am a big Vin Diesel fan. While the majority of his movies are not the greatest, there is something about him as a personality that makes you want to root for him. Here we find him making the rounds as an immortal witch hunter, protected and watched over by a certain faction of priests. Kaulder (Diesel) is officially known as a witch hunter, brokering the peace between bad witches and good humans. But when the peace is threatened, only Kaulder (and his partners in peace) can save the day.

The movie starts out in olden times, where a band of warriors, led by Kaulder decides to take out a coven of witches. Kaulder does the job but is cursed with eternal life by the witch queen he has just dispatched. Which takes us to modern times. Kaulder lives in a beautiful high rise apartment which is lavishly furnished. He also drives a flashy car. Good thing he’s keeping a low profile. He is about to watch the 36th priest who has protected him (Caine) retire and meet number 37 (Wood). It all unravels when #36 is found dead, which can only mean one thing…WITCHES! If only we knew someone that hunted them.

I’m tempted to say this movie blows and leave it at that but, dammit, I can’t. First off, it’s made by Summit, which gave us the “Twilight” series of films (sadly, the special effects utilized by the studio are still achingly bad). Second, the cast does try hard. And third…Vin Diesel and his screen presence. He’s not doing Shakespeare here, which is a good thing. Early in the film he must discuss the “ancient rooooons” he has been looking for. Things get better when Wood shares the screen, his wide-eyed young padawan getting serious while looking like a psychotic Chris Kattan. The special effects are poorly designed and the laughs are readily found, though probably not intentionally.

My advice: see it for Vin Diesel. If you need to, just pretend he’s driving around in a fast car! I’ve never seen the “First” Witch Hunter. Unfortunately, I did see the “Last” one!

Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen, Michael Stuhlbarg
Running Time: 122mins.
Universal Pictures

Our Score: 4.5 out of 5 stars

No one removes a limb nor falls in a pit beneath an Indian outhouse in Danny Boyle’s new awards-season biopic Steve Jobs, but I do suspect many people will accuse it of dragging the late Apple CEO through the mud. Working from a fast-paced script by Aaron Sorkin (aren’t they always?), the film pulls no punches when it comes to Jobs’ pseudo-Machiavellian pursuit of his Mac computer. Unlike Sorkin’s previous computer-minded outing, The Social Network, Steve Jobs feels even harsher for the span of time in which we’re tuning in. We stay with Mr. Jobs’s and his collateral damage, the loved ones and colleagues frequently left floundering in his wake, over the course of fourteen years and three epic product launches. It pits Jobs’s minor launch glitches against far greater interpersonal struggles and the suspense lies in what will finally warrant his attention. The small acting ensemble revolving around Michael Fassbender’s fierce portrayal of Jobs–including Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels and Michael Stuhlberg–ensures that it’s a fair fight. In this highly focused fashion, Boyle has delivered not the complete biography of Jobs, but an energetic strong impression of the man behind the curtain. And the iPod.

The three ‘acts’ that occupy the real-time action of Boyle’s film see Jobs as he successfully launches Macintosh, then outside of Apple with the disastrous NeXTCube and as the prodigal son returning with 1998’s iMac. To see the launches go off without a hitch is Jobs’s goal but through Boyle and Sorkin’s film, Steve’s launch is like a juggling act where more balls keep getting thrown into play. The major crisis with the first Macintosh is that Andy Hertzfeld (Stuhlbarg) can’t get the demo computer to say ‘hello.’ And Steve is much scarier than Yoda in the “there is no try” department. Hovering on the sidelines of the epic hello struggle is Joanna Hoffman (Winslet), Apple marketing guru and the only person able to wrangle Steve’s attention for any quantifiable amount of time. She doesn’t see why the computer must say hello, oh and also Steve should do something about his daughter and her mother waiting for Steve in the wings. The daughter he’s so publicly denied fathering, and half blames for his losing Time Magazine’s Man of the Year title. Priorities. Meanwhile Steve Wozniak (a deeply touching Rogen) just wants Steve Jobs to say thank you to the Apple 2 guys, an earlier model that the company thrived on. And for good measure, a stoic Jeff Daniels as exec John Scully steps in to remind Steve of his own parental issues (he was adopted) at exactly the wrong times.

These basic components are tossed in and out of focus over the course of the launches, with Boyle slyly throwing in the occasional additional flashbacks in time to further flesh out Steve’s relationships–especially with Wozniak and Scully. As a fiery Fassbender plays young Jobs, it’s easy to see how he sold his team of people on going on these technological ventures under his leadership. Important for us to see considering present-Jobs can so often be despicable. Jobs’s chief struggle in most of his interactions, whether he admits it or not, is with common human decency. Long-suffering Wozniak seeks only acknowledgment while Joanna is frequently going to bat on behalf of Jobs’s daughter Lisa since her mother (Katherine Waterston in a small but effective part) is drifting further away. In this core struggle, Winslet emerges as the film’s heart when its protagonist doesn’t have time for his. In Joanna, Winslet is both fearless and vulnerable. She knows Steve the best, she’s knows she’s too valuable to his enterprise to be cast off and she uses this to stand her ground. If audiences find it hard to root for Steve as he is ruthlessly scripted by Sorkin, they will definitely side with Joanna who only wants Steve to be a better person. It’s clever and Winslet is no doubt as awards-worthy as Fassbender is in this film.

Boyle and Sorkin shy away from actually showing their version of one of Jobs’s epic announcements–we have youtube for that–but at every juncture the Mac masses are omnipresent. We see stamping feet and full theater lobbies of faceless groupies which only serve to amplify Steve’s power in these spaces. While other realms of Jobs’s life were out of his control, at least at these launches every minute detail could be dictated by him. To situate the whole story around these launches is to show Jobs at his most intense. The resulting film is a vibrant, unsympathetic portrait of a man whose work continues to evolve how humans connect with each other whether or not he ever mastered that skill in his own life.

I saw Steve Jobs at this year’s New York Film Fest, the film receives its nationwide release on October 23rd.