Silver Linings Playbook

It's not that often that a film so highly touted as a romantic comedy graces the Oscars with its presence. Why? Because no one can take them seriously. Comedy has no place with the best of the best. However strong this feeling in the academy is, it didn't stop them from nominating Silver Linings Playbook, which is more of a drama than a comedy. And thank God because it is far and away my favorite movie of 2012.

Pat (Bradley Cooper) has just been released after spending eight months in a mental hospital for almost beating to death his wife's lover. The incident triggered a largely dormant bi-polar tendency inside of him. While his father (Robert DeNiro) thinks that Pat could have spent a little more time in the hospital his mother (Jacki Weaver) thought it was time for him to re assimilate into society. Forced to go to therapy, Pat remains under the impression that his wife still loves him and that he must find the silver lining in life and get her back, despite a strong restraining order. But a friend introduces him to his wife's sister Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who, despite not going to a mental hospital) has some serious issues ever since her husband died. They bond over their respective problems and then enter a dance competition.

Wait, what? Yeah, it sounds like screenwriting 101 where the teacher tells you there needs to be a climax where the characters work towards something and can change their lives around through the moment. Is it predictable? Yes, but it is still amazing and it is because of a clever script and an excellent cast.

Who would've guessed Bradley Cooper was so good? I remember him as the bad guy from Wedding Crashers and then the goodlooking one on The Hangover. But here we have a powerful, powerful performance that is certainly worthy of an Oscar. At the same time Jennifer Lawrence is way better than I have ever given her credit for. I know she was decent and that she has a wonderful personality (seriously watch any of her interviews) but I never knew that she could act. Well she can. She can do it very well and she can hold her own against Cooper and DeNiro who is playing one of the best characters he has in a long time. Throw in a mentally unstable Chris Tucker and you have a fantasmic cast that just gets better as the film progresses.

There are some parts of the film that kind of detract from it. There's a whole betting/Philadelphia Eagles subplot that seems important at sometimes and at others feels shoehorned in. The whole situation that leads to the end, while supposedly being the inciting incident, just feels random. They needed the story to progress so they kind of just put it in. It isn't bad, it just feels out of place.

But all is forgiven. I laughed and I very nearly cried as well. My Oscar for basically all the categories it has been nominated in. Their respectful yet revealing treatment of mental disease and finding unexpected love is a moving tale and shouldn't be classified as just a rom-com.

This is grade-A drama and you should go see it.

3 1/2 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell

Zero Dark Thirty

Ask if I liked The Hurt Locker. Go on, do it. I dare you.

I didn't like it. Boom. Come at me bro.

And now we have Zero Dark Thirty which is essentially being touted as The Hurt Locker with Bin Laden. I would agree. And for me that is a bad thing. Because I think Kathryn Bigelow is a very overrated director and her win for The Hurt Locker blew me away. Zero Dark Thirty has the same kind of buzz, rightfully so detailing one of the most intense manhunts in the history of everything, and is looked to as one of the Oscar frontrunners.

The story of Osama Bin Laden is one that can be traced back to the early 90's at least. Perhaps even farther. But this isn't the story about him. It's not even entirely about the manhunt to find him. It's about the CIA operative who spent the majority of her life hunting him down. Maya (Jessica Chastain) starts out in the American embassy in Pakistan and quickly shows that she can handle torture and is very motivated to find Bin Laden. Over the course of ten years she watches multiple leads slip through her fingers, watches friends die in the hunt, and has to sit by while the government doesn't act on what she believes is rock solid information. I wonder how much of it is true and it certainly is a debate everyone will be having. Of course we all know how it ends. The good guys win and Osama takes a one way trip to the ocean floor.

It's going to be hard to review this movie because there was many parts I didn't like. And just because I don't like Bigelow doesn't mean she doesn't know how to make a film. The first 5 minutes of the film is a black screen with the sounds of 9/11 phone calls through the speakers. It was tense, heartbreaking, and set up the entire reason why everyone is so motivated to find this man and kill him. And at the very end of the film, when the helicopters take off to insert Seal Team 7 is a mastery example of visual effects, pacing and tense drama.

But the middle is a muddled experience. There is a lot of torture. And I was never sure of the film was supporting it or saying something against it. In all reality it probably wasn't saying anything at all, just that it was the necessary evil they took to find those responsible for the hijackings. But if this is how we treat prisoners of war, it's not surprising the U.S. isn't exactly revered in the Middle East.

Characters are come and go. The only constant is Maya. And the only reason I knew her name was that her AIM screenname was Maya147 or something like that. I never learned anyone else's name. Characters who seemed important would disappear and then show up years later with important stuff and never be shown again. Even Maya's character isn't developed that well. Sometimes she's really serious and intensely analyzes information and then she says "Shutup!" like a mean girl when a colleague finds a new lead. What the hell? Is the CIA high school?

Honestly, it just felt sloppy. There was a loose conglomeration of scenes that seemed only slightly related. I'd much rather watch the documentary about the whole thing coming out this year. The beginning and ending scenes were great but this film doesn't do nearly as much as it should and all of its praise is highly overrated. I will certainly be rooting against it this Oscar season.

2 1/2 out of 4 stars.

-Christopher O'Connell

P.S. Chris Pratt? As a Navy Seal? As Maya would say on instant messenger "LOL".

Django Unchained

Now it's no secret that Quentin Tarantino is one of my most despised directors. Not because he is a bad director (case in point: Reservoir Dogs) but because he considers himself God's gift to directing. Meaning he can do whatever he wants because Tarantino does what he wants. And then critics shower him with praise for being adjectives like bold and daring.

With that said, Django Unchained is very unlike other Tarantino films, but very similar to one in particular: Inglourious Basterds. And I want to say I like it, but at the same time I don't and both options make me feel a teensy bit racist.

But let's sum up the plot. Right before the Civil War, former German dentist turned bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys former slave Django (Jamie Foxx) to help him find three criminals who only Django knows look like. Upon killing them, Schultz takes it upon himself to train Django in the ways of bounty hunting. But Django's wife has been sold into slavery to a known horrible plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Django and Schultz hatch a quite complicated scheme to buy her back from Candie.

Complicated? Yea for sure. Long? Getting there. Bloody? Holy hell. This film is tinted in red. The action buff in me was kind of pumped. The excess blood is almost too much at times but boy is it satisfying to see a bad guys stomach shoot out a stream of blood all over the room. The blood budget must have been more than what they paid the actors.

Of course I'm joking. Tarantino decided to do a little homage to the spaghetti western of old. And the first half of the movie accomplishes that. We have a terrific black superhero here, delivering hot lead justice to an oppressed south. And this would have been a fine movie if Django Unchained didn't take some different paths with its storytelling.

Django doesn't seem to know what to do with itself. We have this uber violent revenge/rescue story that uses a slavery ridden south as a clever backdrop to motivate both the audience and the characters. But then the movie seems like it's trying to say something. And no one can figure out what the hell it's trying to say. Very violent scenes like a mandingo fight to the death and dogs ripping a runaway slave apart seem to be just violence for violence's sake and it is quite uncomfortable, and not in the good, makes you think about oscars sort of way.

On the one hand, this is the sort of movie everyone wants to see. African-Americans, at least if I was one, would want to see a strong black hero rising up against the, quite-literally, most violent slavers in existence. Whites want to see the same thing because they want to symbolically see that part of their past wiped out in gruesome fashion.

But where Inglourious Basterds succeeds in that fashion, Django fails. And I honest to God wish I could explain why. Tarantino just seems to glorify violence for violence's sake without sparking the necessary discussion or dealing with the seriousness of what he is doing.

Django is still quite entertaining full of good performances and ironically, the least like any Tarantino film I've seen. Don't expect any oscars though.

3 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell

P.S. I looked it up. Leo actually cut his hand when he slammed his fist on the table. All that blood all over his hand? Actual blood. Now there's an actor.

The Guilt Trip

Barbra Streisand may be 70, but she is showing no signs of retiring anytime soon.  Which is great news for people like me who love her music and like the random movies that I have seen her in.

Anne Fletcher, who directed the poorly reviewed, but well-cast and quite funny box-office hit The Proposal, is the nice lady in charge of directing Streisand in her first starring role in 16 years.  Seth Rogen stars as her son...at first they seem like a weird combination...who knows?...maybe they still are a weird combination, but as I watched the movie I got used to it.  Eventually I was willing to accept that Barbra may have given birth to Seth Rogen.  

The premise is pretty simple.  Rogen plays Andy Brewster, an inventor who is traveling across the country to show off his fancy, scientific, and non-toxic cleaning spray.  Yep, that is a major plot point...something else that I had to accept.  Andy asks his widowed mother Joyce to come along for the ride, because it is pretty obvious that everything in life is more enjoyable if you do it with Barbra Streisand.  The truth is that Andy wants his mother to see the man whom she fell in love with before marrying Andy's father and whom she has not seen in decades. Throughout the film all sorts of crazy and random things happen, including seeing the Grand Canyon, Barbra eating a gigantic piece of steak, and stumbling upon an exotic dancer who happens to be a car expert.

To be completely honest the two leads have very little to work with.  Naturally, the plot is pretty thin, but with a better script, it could have been much more entertaining.  The movie was severely lacking jokes.  When someone does decide to crack a joke it is often amusing, but was probably already used in the trailer.  Also, I am pretty indifferent to Seth Rogen, but he was not obnoxious or gross in this, so he did not bother me.  As far as Barbra Streisand goes, I wish she had channeled a little bit of "Roz Focker," from Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers.  By the way she is the only part of the last one that is not horrifying crappy and awful.  That character was just crazy and hilarious to me and I loved her with Dustin Hoffman.  Lastly, I felt that her previous two starring roles, both from the 1990s (Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces) displayed her acting abilities more.  However, my favorite scenes with her in The Guilt Trip involved her crying and dropping the token f-word in this PG-13 movie.   

The film also needed a better supporting cast...or a supporting cast at all.  Rogen and Streisand are to my knowledge in every single scene of this movie and they can only do so much with the lines they are given.  The Proposal benefitted from a great supporting cast, especially the scene stealing Betty White.  The Guilt Trip on the other hand has other actors who serve no purpose in the whole of the film, but merely fill a couple minutes of screen time and are never heard from again.  

I do love Barbra Streisand...but I'm going to give this 1 1/2  out 4 stars.  It is infinitely better than Little Fockers, like most things in life are.  It is not a terrible movie, mainly because I did not leave the theater infuriated and I did get to see Barbra Streisand on the big screen.  However, it is not as funny as it should have and could have been and the plot was not the strongest.  Most people who read this blog probably won't even watch this...since this is definitely geared toward older people or perhaps parents.  But if you like either or both of the leads...then obviously you should Redbox it for a dollar or so.

-Joseph Sbrilli 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

“Well, I’m back,” I said, plopping into my cushioned movie theater seat. Back again for another journey into Middle Earth.

To say that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a buzzy film would be like trying to admit that it didn’t have a ridiculous name. It was the event of the holiday movie season. Especially after the news that Peter Jackson would split the film into three parts AND had filmed the movie in 48 Frames Per Second versus the usual 24 fps. I was mostly excited to see Martin Freeman of Sherlock fame get introduced to American audiences.

But unfortunately, due to the 2D showing being sold out (BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS 2D IS WAY BETTER HOLLYWOOD) I had to see it in 3D. UGH. In line with that, all 3D showings are shown in 48 FPS which I had heard makes scenes look really fake, like a soap opera. Double whammy right?

Sort of. In many ways it was as awful and horrible as I had imagined it to be, but in others I was slack jawed, drooling over the cinematic effects exploding in front of my undeserving pupils.

Let’s recap the story for all you nerds who didn’t read The Hobbit or just haven’t seen it. About 60 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the dawrven realm under Mt. Erebor (The richest in all the land) was utterly decimated by the dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) who envied the Dwarve’s gold for himself. Smaug took the mountain as his own and the remnants of the Dwarf people wandered Middle Earth looking for a new home. By a chance meeting, Gandalf the Grey (Ian Mckellen) and the remaining Dwarf royalty Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), grandson of the king that lost Erebor hatched a plan to take back the mountain. Along with the 13 dwarves, Gandalf picked Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) an unassuming, proper Hobbit from of the Shire that never went on adventures, to join them.

For those that read the book, this particular film ends right after the group escapes from the mountains and is attacked by wolves. They look forward to Mirkwood (also known as the Greenwood) in the next film and a conversation between Bilbo and Smaug (MEANING WE GET A SUPER AWESOME SHERLOCK REUNION).

After The Lord of the Rings was met with much success, it wasn’t a question of when The Hobbit would be made, but a question of when. It took a while but I am glad that Peter Jackson eventually took the helm again with all major characters that could return, joining the cast. But then the dreaded news, PETER JACKSON SPLITS THE HOBBIT INTO 3 PARTS! This was preceded by the news that Jackson was going to split it into TWO parts. Gasp! Traitor. He is obviously just giving in to those wallet molesting baddies in Hollywood. For shame! I yelled, the loudest of detractors. Until I read an interview with Ian Mckellen who basically said that if anyone thought Peter Jackson did this because of Hollywood then they are sorely mistaken. The film split into 3 parts because Jackson decided to incorporate an incredible amount of detail that was included in Tolkien’s appendices to The Lord of the Rings but not in the original books.

All right Jackson, I’ll put up with it. But it better be good!

Guess what? It was. The Hobbit was originally intended as the children’s book it has turned out to be. But the events that occur within shaped everything that occurred in The Lord of the Rings, and not just the discovery of the ring. There’s so much more happening in the background, the Necromancer in the ruined castle of Dol Guldur, the Dawrven assault on Moria and Gandalf’s efforts to strengthen the Northern kingdoms in time for Sauron’s assault (Which didn’t just occur on Gondor, he attacked Erebor and the free city of Dale at the same time). It really adds a wonderful amount to the story and makes me want Jackson to do The Lord of the Rings again and make that EVEN LONGER! Yes, I am a Tolkien nerd. Don’t hate. So for now I am entirely pleased with the decision to break these films into three parts.

But now let’s get back to those visual hangups. The very first scene in the movie (between an old Bilbo and Frodo) looked awful. I regretted it entirely. Everything looked fake. You can tell they are acting. And this happened throughout the movie, you gradually get more used to it. But with very personal scenes the effect is very offputting. Backing up though, the effect is marvelous. Combined with 3D the scenery effects were mindblowing. I couldn’t get enough of them. I wish there was an option to switch back and forth. I honestly can’t decide if I would do it again. I’m going to go with no, but don’t let that drag you out of doing it. As an aside, I had a humongous headache afterwards from the 3D.

At the end of the movie I needed more. I craved more. Even though I knew it was almost 3 hours long, I wanted it to keep going. And that’s the problem, it doesn’t feel like a complete story because they never reach their destination. I would much rather watch all three at the same time then sit through one and not continue. I doubt I will watch it again without the other ones in hand.

It’s hard to return to a world that you loved so much the first time. But Jackson has definitely done the best he possibly could. Ian Mckellen and Martin Freemen were powerhouses, dragging me into the film. While there are some characters that weren’t in the original book (Rattagast the Brown, Azog, Saruman, Galadriel) their additions have added so much more to an incredibly complicated story.

Lord of the Rings fans should see this movie at once and recognize its brilliance within the overall story. They should forgive the childish tone, especially since it is still quite violent, and enjoy the incredible scenery. But wait for the next two before you buy it.

3 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O’Connell

P.S. The rock people were not in the book and totally weirded me out. Also, sorry for this length.

Lockout: A Quick Review

This is a terrible movie too. Actually when I searched for the Act of Valor poster, a poster for Lockout popped up.

Who greenlit this? There is quite literally the worst CGI sequence I have ever seen in a movie. It completely sets the tone for the eyeballmicrowaving awfulness that follows. Are all badguys in the future Irish terrorists?

On the plus side, Guy Pearce is super cool and should definitely become an action hero. And Maggie Grace is pretty attractive.

1/2 a star out of 4

-Christopher O'Connell

Act of Valor: A Quick Review

God, what a shitty movie. And a terrible way to celebrate veterans. Don't see it, go see Zero Dark Thirty or something. I've seen youtube videos with better quality that don't waste an hour of my time. Seriously, search Freddiew and thank me later.

On the plus side, at least they weren't afraid of killing off characters, props to that.

0 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell