Martin's Musings

How do you know when the movie you’re watching is not worth your time?

Here are the first 10 answers that come to mind: Continue reading →

Don’t go to see Rabbit Hole expecting a comedy. Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart star as Becca and Howie, two parents still coming to terms with the death of their four-year-old son. Whereas he is fixated on the past and trying to deal with his emotions, she is letting go rather than dealing with the loss. Becca finds comfort in the high school student who was driving the car that killed her son, and Howie bonds with another member of a support group (Sandra Oh). As you may assume, the film is not big on laughs. Thankfully, it’s not a total tear-jerker, either, but it won’t be the lightest moviegoing experience you have. If you’ve seen Ordinary People or In the Bedroom then you know what to expect.

Rabbit Hole, which was adapted by David Lindsay-Abaire from his play and directed by John Cameron Mitchell, is an intimate, poignant look at grief, and the differing ways it plays out. Kidman, in the role that won Sex and the City‘s Cynthia Nixon a Tony award, is very good, as is Eckhart, but for me, it’s Dianne Wiest, as Becca’s mother, who gives the better performance. It’s hard to say I enjoyed this movie, and I thought there were some moments and scenes that didn’t work, but the whole thing ends nicely, and I walked out of the theater thinking positively about the movie. So I’m giving Rabbit Hole a B.

Here’s the weird thing about True Grit, the Coen brothers’ remake/reimagining of the classic Western tale: About an hour after seeing it, I couldn’t remember much about it. The film just didn’t stay with me. And it’s not that I didn’t like it or anything. It just didn’t have any lasting impact on me. And that’s a shame, because I love the Coen brothers (Fargo remains one of my all-time favorite movies, and last year’s A Serious Man ranked number three on my list of favorite movies), and I’d had high hopes for True Grit. Oh well.

In the film, young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires U.S. Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, in the role that won John Wayne an Oscar) to help her find Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the man who killed her father. Also on Cheney’s trail is Texas Ranger La Boeuf (Matt Damon). Bridges speaks in such a heavy drawl that after a while it’s really off-putting. Damon does his best to keep up with Bridges, but he’s just not a strong enough presence. That leaves Steinfeld, who at the age of 13, blows the other two guys away. She’s really the star of this movie, and the reason I’d give anyone to see it. It’s all the more remarkable when you realize this is her first movie.

Anyway, I wish I had liked True Grit more than I did so I’d have remembered more about it. That’s why I’m only going to give it a B–.

If you want to know what Sofia Coppola’s latest film, Somewhere, is about, the first two minutes provide a handy (and not too subtle) synopsis.

In those opening moments, actor Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) drives his Ferrari around and around in a circle, and then finally comes to a stop and realizes how much he’s missing when he gets out of the car and looks around.

The real plot of the movie is about how Marco’s life is going nowhere until he’s visited by his 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), and he decides to change his self-destructive lifestyle. Continue reading →

Was anyone really asking for a third film in the Meet the Parents series? I guess someone was, because in theaters now is the totally unnecessary Little Fockers. In this latest go-round, Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) is feeling mortal, so he dotes on his son-in-law Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) to make sure he’s got the stones to take on the mantle of family leader. Essentially, the jokes are as broad and old as they were in 2000, and some of the references are just as dated (for example, when Jack learns how to Google himself, and when he looks up someone on the web and finds her MySpace page). Essentially, the film comes off like a desperate attempt by Universal for a holiday hit, and a paycheck gig for the actors. I’m giving Little Fockers a C–.

The King’s Speech is one of those good-for-you movies that feels like it’s been made and engineered to win awards. (Kind of like a Tom Hanks–Steven Spielberg production for HBO.)

It’s got an Oscar-pedigreed cast above the title (nominees Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter and winner Geoffrey Rush), it’s being distributed by the Oscar-hungry Weinstein Company (see Shakespeare in Love, Inglorious Basterds), and it’s about that veddy British of subjects, the Monarchy.

Oh, and it’s a period drama set during the 1930s. What about that doesn’t scream high-quality Oscar bait? Continue reading →

Jeff Bridges just doesn’t look right in Tron:Legacy, and it’s not just because he’s been stuck in a computer game for 20 years. In this sequel to the 1982 film, we learn that Bridges’ character, Kevin Flynn, has been trapped inside the game he created, and he’s been held captive by the avatar of himself that he created. The “real” Flynn has aged, but the avatar, called Clu, has not — and quite frankly, it looks creepy. Worse, the “real” Flynn has gone all Lebowski, with his beard and his propensity to attach “man” to his speech. It’s just not right.

The original Tron wasn’t any kind of masterpiece or anything (not that I’ve seen it in 25 years), and this new take likely won’t be perceived as a classic, either. It’s got some cool special effects, but those are mostly in the first half when Flynn’s son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), has first entered the game. The dialogue is often stilted and clunky, and even Bridges can’t save the material. I wish I could say Tron: Legacy was at minimum a fun movie, but I think all the good stuff is still stuck in the machine. I’m giving the movie a C+.

I Love You Phillip Morris begins with the statement, “This really happened.” And it sets the tone appropriately, because the story that’s told in this movie is so absurd, so unbelievable, that it just has to be true — and it is. Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey) is a charming, charismatic con man who gets sent to prison for fraud and meets Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). The two fall in love, and Russell attempts con after con to free Phillip and build a perfect life with him.

Written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the pair behind the equally twisted Bad Santa, Phillip Morris is an offbeat love story, to put it mildly. It gives Carrey one of his best roles in years, and he does a nice job with it. The film has some good laughs, some charming moments, and again, it’s so unusual, so absurd, that I found it quite enjoyable. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and in those cases, it makes for fun films. I’m giving Phillip Morris a B+.