Martin's Musings

What is it lately about lowlifes and their cute little dogs?

In Seven Psychopaths, Woody Harrelson’s shih tzu was a focal point of the plot.

And now, in Killing Them Softly, some of the film’s laughs come from a supposed tough guy who walks around with a puppy.

Of course, that’s just about the only sensitive side on display in this movie, which is one of the grittiest, grisliest, toughest pictures of the year.

You’ll be forgiven if you call it this year’s Drive, but thankfully, Killing Them Softly is a much better, much more enjoyable movie.

Continue reading →

Alfred Hitchock is having a moment.

In October, 15 of his films were released on Blu-ray in a Masterpiece Collection.

HBO recently aired The Girl, a docudrama about the director and his relationship with Tippi Hedren.

And now there’s Hitchcock, a big-screen look behind the scenes at the making of Psycho.

You might call this latest film a prequel to The Girl, which focused on The Birds and Marnie. Either way, Hitchcock is an enjoyable look at the man behind the movie, and how he did things his way and changed the game forever. Continue reading →

There’s a right way and a wrong way to add 3D effects to a movie.

When done right, as in the Pixar movies, 3D can add depth to the picture, subtly enhancing a film’s visual appeal. In Hugo, Martin Scorsese skillfully used it to recreate the feeling of seeing motion pictures for the first time. And in Avatar, James Cameron used 3D to completely immerse us in a totally new world. It was showy, yes, but never distractingly so.

And then there’s the wrong way to use 3D, as evidenced by the unnecessary addition of effects in so many movies in recent years (The Avengers and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, for example), and the gratuitous effects used in cheesy movies like Piranha 3D.

Unfortunately, the new movie Life of Pi falls more in that latter category.

Continue reading →

When we first meet Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) in the new movie Silver Linings Playbook, he’s fresh out of a mental institution, where he was being treated for bipolar disorder and anger management issues (he beat up the guy who was sleeping with his wife).

Those issues are still unresolved, as we see when, frustrated about the ending of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, he throws the book out the window and vents to his parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro) in the middle of the night.

If Pat doesn’t like that ending — or any ending that disappoints — he probably shouldn’t see this movie. Continue reading →

The new James Bond film Skyfall begins with an awesome, high-energy sequence in which 007 takes part in a car chase, a motorcycle chase, and a shootout, uses a crane to rip open a moving train, and then fights with an assailant on top of that train.

Then he’s accidentally shot and left for dead (which, of course, he isn’t).

And all that happens before the opening credits (which feature that gorgeous theme song by Adele). Whoa.

To quote another famous Bond theme song, nobody does it better.

So why, then, is our hero in danger of being put out to pasture?

Continue reading →

Here’s the thing: I don’t always need my movie characters to be likeable.

In a film like, say, Bad Santa, a truly unlikeable guy can be very enjoyable to watch.

But it’s a fine line, and the new movie Flight unfortunately lands on the wrong side of it.

The film tells the story of Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington), an airline pilot with a serious alcohol and drug problem, who miraculously saves 96 out of the 102 passengers aboard his plane when a mechanical failure causes it to go down. But the movie’s not so much about Whip’s heroism as much as it is about his addiction and his unwillingness to admit it or get help. (Think The Sully Sullenberger Story, if Sully had a drug problem.) Continue reading →

Calling Chasing Mavericks a cross between Blue Crush and The Karate Kid seems a bit too easy.

But it’s a pretty good description of the film, which tells the story of real-life surfing phenom Jay Moriarity (Jonny Weston), and his friend, mentor, and fellow surfer, Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler).

In the film, Jay is a Santa Cruz, Calif., teenager who enlists the help of local legend Frosty to train him to survive the mythic Mavericks surf break, one of the biggest waves on Earth (crests can range from 25 to 80 feet high). Frosty’s methods are not always what Jay expects — including when he’s asked to write thoughtful essays. (As Frosty explains, surfing is not just about physical athleticism, it’s about mental toughness, too.) Continue reading →

“Extend your patience for just a moment,” we’re told early on in Cloud Atlas, the new film from the folks who made The Matrix trilogy and Run Lola Run. “There is a method to the madness of this tale.”

Well, if that doesn’t clue you in right away that you’re about to see some gonzo filmmaking that won’t always make sense, then maybe you’d be better off seeing a different movie.

Over the course of nearly three hours (which, in my book, is not really a “moment”), co-writers/directors Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Twyker take audiences on an exhilarating journey of space and time, all to prove the point that we’re all connected. The film is based on a book by David Mitchell that many have called unadaptable, and if the big-screen version sometimes proves that point, it’s still an entertaining technical achievement. Continue reading →