Martin's Musings

In the film Shame, Michael Fassbender plays a man with a real problem: He’s addicted to sex.

In all forms.

Gotta have it.

Each night he’s with a different woman, never forming any emotional connection with them, and he’s always on the prowl for his next encounter.

In fact, the guy’s so hungry he can seduce a woman just by looking at her the right way.

Could be worse, I suppose.

And yes, it could be better.

But first, Fassbender’s character, Brandon, has to realize that what he’s doing is wrong. That happens when Brandon’s sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), arrives and he begins to develop a conscience about what he’s doing. Suddenly he has to hide his addiction (not to mention his porn magazines, videos, and web sites), or else he’ll be exposed and he’ll have to deal with it.

That’s right: It’s good, jolly stuff, just in time for the holidays. Continue reading →

In the new film Young Adult, screenwriter Diablo Cody, director Jason Reitman, and star Charlize Theron have created one of my favorite movie characters in recent memory.

Mavis Gray is the girl you totally hated in high school but secretly wanted to be, and who surely hated you too (even if she barely knew you existed).

She’s the pretty girl who dated the hottest guy.

The one who told you she was going to leave town the second graduation happened, and did.

The one who got the big job as a writer — excuse me, author — and the condo in the big city (i.e., Minneapolis).

The one who ruled the school and made your life a living hell. Continue reading →

Here’s what I know about Tom Cruise: You just can’t count the guy out.

He’ll make an awful movie like Knight and Day, and you’ll be tempted to say his career is over, but then he’ll make a movie like Tropic Thunder that is so entertaining, and he’ll be back without even skipping a beat.

After Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the latter is true again.

The film — a big improvement over the third Mission Impossible film — finds Cruise back at the top of his action hero game, effortlessly saving the world again, and looking like he’s actually enjoying himself in the process. Continue reading →

In 1956, Marilyn Monroe, then the most wanted woman on the planet, flew to England to make a film with Laurence Olivier called The Prince and the Showgirl.

The hope was that the film would give Marilyn some credibility, but she was an insecure, nervous wreck and didn’t feel up to the task.

Reliant on drugs, dependent on her acting coach, and getting little support from her new, third husband (Arthur Miller), Marilyn frustrated Olivier and the crew, and nearly derailed the film entirely.

That is, until she struck up a friendship with a production assistant named Colin Clark. The story of Clark’s relationship with Marilyn, brief though it may have been, is the basis of the new film My Week with Marilyn. Continue reading →

It may not be easy being green, but according to the new documentary Being Elmo, red isn’t such a bad color.

The film, a look at the man behind the second-most popular Sesame Street character of all time (after Kermit, of course), tells the story of how Kevin Clash grew up in Baltimore dreaming of being a professional puppeteer, and eventually made his dreams come true when he got a gig working on Sesame Street under the tutelage of Jim Henson and Kermit Love.

Being Elmo uses archival footage and photography to show how Clash’s skill and ambition were evident early on, and how he gained recognition working first on local television and later on Captain Kangaroo and other films before moving on to the Street.

Like the show Clash works on, Being Elmo presents a cleaned up version of what is likely a more difficult story.

For example, it’s glossed over that Clash sacrificed his relationship with his own daughter to instead be a friend to millions of children around the world. Here, that’s treated as dedication to his craft rather than irony. And it’s spin like that that prevents Being Elmo from being a truly insightful film.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is a completely enjoyable portrait of the man who took Elmo from random puppet to multimillion dollar enterprise, and one of the most valuable and beloved properties in the entire Children’s Television Workshop family.

It’s a local boy makes good story that will have you smiling, and will make you appreciate Elmo as a character and an achievement in puppetry even more.

Actually, I found Being Elmo to be more enjoyable than The Muppets movie itself. Now that is irony.

I’m giving Being Elmo a B+.

True story: I grew up next door to Jim Henson.

One day, after I was scared by his family’s cat (no kidding), a teenage Brian Henson “rescued me,” and decided to cheer me up by bringing me next door to see some of his father’s things.

I don’t remember everything I saw, but I do remember a giant Ernie in the living room. To a child as small as I was, Ernie was literally larger than life, and I was so excited.

The experience made this Muppet fan an even greater one.

But you didn’t have to have an experience like I did to grow up a fan of the Muppets. You just had to be a kid once (though it would help if it was in the 1970s and 80s when Jim Henson was around, when The Muppet Show was a TV staple and The Muppet Movie was brand new).

And that’s why so many of us (and the Walt Disney Company, too) are excited about Kermit, Gonzo, and the rest of the gang’s return to the big screen in The Muppets.

Alas, I hate to break it to you, but the movie is ultimately a disappointment.

(I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?) Continue reading →

Films like Clint Eastwood’s latest, J. Edgar, really trip me up.

You see, J. Edgar, which, yes, tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is an ambitious, often well made film with some impressive acting.

But it’s also not one I felt much attachment to after the lights went up.

Days later, I felt more obligated to write a review than compelled. When movies don’t hit you on an emotional level after the fact, and don’t drive you to go home and write about them, then that’s kind of a bummer, even when they’re good movies.

That’s the predicament I find myself in with J. Edgar. Continue reading →

Watching the new film Like Crazy, it’s hard not to think that on at least a few levels, this is the movie (500) Days of Summer wanted to be. That is, a love story for young people, many of whom feel like they’re too cool for conventional Hollywood romances, and that those films just don’t speak to them. But whereas (500) Days had stars with indie cred (Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel), a hip soundtrack, and a contemporary aesthetic, it was just a little too self-aware to be as beloved as it so wanted to be.

On the other hand, Like Crazy tells a more realistic story of young love. Its stars are less well known (for now, anyway), the action unfolds without the hipster accompaniment of the Smiths, Feist, and Regina Spektor, and its natural aesthetic (handheld camerawork, completely improvised dialogue, etc.) make for an almost too obvious counterpart (despite a twee trailer that features music by Stars and Ingrid Michaelson). But is it a better movie?

In Like Crazy, two college students, American Tom and British Anna (Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones), fall for each other hard and fast. When the school year is over, and Anna must return to the U.K. (per the limitations of her student visa), she decides to disregard the law (and the advice of her parents and lawyer) to stay with Tom. This gets her barred from the U.S., and puts a real strain on the relationship (to put it mildly). Is the bond between these two strong enough to survive time and distance apart?

If you’ve ever been in a similar relationship, then you know just how challenging the situation can be, and how painful. Like Crazy doesn’t shy away from this, focusing on all the minutiae that can eat away at a couple (missed calls, ignored or poorly timed text messages, etc.), and presenting more-available options for both characters (X-Men: First Class‘ Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley, of the Twilight movies). I won’t spoil whether Tom and/or Anna remain loyal, but yeah … over the course of four years, it’s tough to be separated from the one you love.

Drake Doremus, Like Crazy‘s director, based the film on his own true life experience, and he’s clearly rooting for these two to make it. If only I could root as hard as he is. After a while, the initial spark that burns so brightly (between our heroes and the film itself) fades. Watching Like Crazy, I felt like Tom and Anna themselves had given up, so as hard as they try to make things work is as hard as I had to try to believe that they actually wanted to be together. In the end, I just didn’t buy it. And once I made the decision to not root for Tom and Anna to make it, I couldn’t wait for the movie to end. Like Crazy only has a 90-minute running time, but its last third makes it seem even longer.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy parts of the film. Like Crazy is frustrating, but it features a totally likeable and winning performance by Jones that announces her as an actress to watch (just like Martha Marcy May Marlene did with Elizabeth Olsen). Adorable, modern, real, and almost the anti-Zooey (in that she doesn’t have that dorky/cute thing going for her), Jones is a big reason why Like Crazy works when it does, particularly in the first third. Even though the film lets her down, Jones is someone viewers can easily fall for. Chances are good we’ll have plenty of other occasions to do so in the future.

For now, though, Jones is in a film that, like (500) Days of Summer isn’t as good as it wants to be. I’m giving Like Crazy a B–.