Tag: review

MOVIE REVIEW: Spy

In general, I didn’t find the film Spy laugh out loud funny.

spy-posterThis, I suppose, is an embarrassing admission for someone who purports to care about movies: I have not seen, all the way through, any James Bond movie. I’ve seen bits and pieces on TV occasionally, mostly from the Sean Connery era, but never from beginning to end.

There, I said it.

Yet I recognized the spy movie tropes that ran through the movie comedy Spy, which I saw with my friend Mary at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany a few weeks ago.

Not familiar with the level of violence in an R-rated comedy, I was briefly taken aback by the first good joke, which involved the failure to take one’s allergy medication. Once that happened, I said, “OK, so it’ll be THAT kind of movie,” and I went with it.

This is the story of behind-the-scenes CIA analyst Susan Cooper (Melissa McCartney), who fed information through the earbud of super slick spy Bradley Long (Jude Law). But when Bradley is feared dead, and another top field spy, Rick Ford (Jason Strathan), goes rogue, Susan convinces her boss Elaine Crocker (Allison Janney) to allow her to go undercover to infiltrate the world of a deadly arms dealer, Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne).

I didn’t find the frumpy aliases and clothing the agency gave to Susan, on assignment in various cities, all that hilarious. More humorous was when Susan bought her own clothes and Rayna found them inadequate.

In general, I didn’t find the film laugh-out-loud funny. I’m told that Strathan, e.g., is playing on the roles in series for which he’s best known – Transformers, Fast & Furious, The Expendables, etc, – except that I’d NEVER seen him in ANY movie. And with all the double-crossing and triple crossing, I was a tad muddled in the middle about who was on whose side. I confused one dark-haired woman with another for a time.

Yet I enjoyed the movie as a whole, as an empowerment treatise, that the “behind the curtains” spy got to ultimately shine. The character of Nancy (Miranda Hart), who was Susan’s backup person, was appropriately awkward. Rose Byrne, who played the Bridezilla in Bridesmaids, also produced and directed by Paul Feig, was even more over the top here. Actually, the best comedy may have been in the end credits, which much of the audience missed, naturally, detailing Susan’s future spy exploits.

I’m glad I went, and I understand why the critics liked Spy, but I doubt The Wife would have enjoyed the language and violence.

MOVIE REVIEW: I’ll See You In My Dreams

The critics really liked the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams more than the public.

ill see youBefore I can even begin to write about the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams, which The Wife and I saw on a Tuesday night at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, I have to talk about the MAKING of this film.

It was a Kickstarter project, in which Brett Haley, a 2005 University of North Carolina graduate, was able to promise Blythe Danner and Martin Starr to be in his film. Haley managed to raise $61,365, or 102% of the $60,000 goal. All 127 people who have put in $100 more, were listed in the end credits.

In recent years, Blythe Danner is probably best known for plugging Prolia, an osteoporosis drug for a condition she is said to have had. Too bad: in the Northeast US, she’s known as a fine stage actress, on Broadway, and especially on the stage of the Williamstown (MA) Theater Festival, where my spouse had seen her perform more than once.

The first time I ever saw Blythe Danner was on Adam’s Rib, a 1973 “TV adaptation of the Tracy/Hepburn classic” film, where she played opposite Ken Howard. Howard, incidentally, would go on to play the coach in the high school basketball series The White Shadow; the executive producer of that show, and of the hospital drama St. Elsewhere, was Bruce Paltrow, Blythe’s husband until he died in 2002. They had two children, Gwyneth and Jake.

Martin Starr, I first saw as arguably the geekiest of the Freaks & Geeks on that too-short-lived TV show. Here’s a short scene from that show.

I mention all of this because I’d be fascinated to find out how Haley got Danner, a woman now in her early 70s, and a widow for about a dozen years, to play Carol, a woman in her 70s, and a widow for a few decades.

The critics really liked the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams (94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), more than the public (72% positive), and I think I know why. It’s rather well-acted, particularly by Sam Elliot as the charming Bill, and Rhea Perlman from Cheers, Mary Kay Place from Fernwood 2night and June Squibb from the movie Nebraska as Carol’s friends. But the script, by Haley and Marc Basch, is perhaps too subtle. too low-key.

Somehow, I think the story might have fared better as a play. The movie, as good as it was, had a low-budget feel. Other than a scene on a boat, a few golf scenes, and a walk home from the supermarket at night (which easily could have been replicated), it might have been better on stage.

The story had some interesting twists, including conversations between Carol and the directionless pool man Lloyd (Starr), who interestingly seemed to be somewhat in the same boat. I never felt quite as invested as the narrative suggested I feel, about the tricky nature of aging.

At 92 minutes, I was glad to spend the time seeing pros at work but was left wanting more…something. On the other hand, I always cared about Carol’s specific journey, and on that basis, I mildly recommend the film.

MOVIE REVIEWS – Love & Mercy; Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me

The last major scene was Glen Campbell recording a song Gonna Miss You, for his wife,

love-mercy-movie1You don’t have to be a fan of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys to like the film Love & Mercy, but it may enhance an appreciation of the music.

After The Wife and I saw it at The Spectrum Theatre in Albany when we both had a Monday off, she asked to borrow Pet Sounds, for she had never heard the album, while I might put it on a Top Ten list. She was most struck by I Guess I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times [LISTEN], which, for her, seemed to encapsulate the message of the movie.

In the mid-1960s, as the creative soul of the Beach Boys, Brian was hearing sounds that he just had to get out, even if they weren’t the songs about cars and surfing, the themes most associated with the group.

As Brian quit touring, he got Hal Blaine and other professionals, known collectively as the Wrecking Crew, to help produce the intricate music. The band had fired Murry Wilson, the abusive father of Brian, Dennis, and Carl, but Brian went literally crazy still trying to please him.

In the 1980s, a quack named Dr. Eugene Landy (a brilliant and hirsute Paul Giamatti) controlled Brian with pills and an ever-present coterie of bodyguards. Brian meets Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks) while trying to buy a car, then their relationship gets more complicated.

This movie works, and works well, even though perhaps it should not. Paul Dano as the younger Brian and John Cusack as the older version don’t especially look alike. Yet during the weaving back and forth between past and present, the narrative was clear, as clear as a story about a man who suffered a mental breakdown can be in painting a portrait of a brilliant, complicated man.
***
Glen_Campbell_I'll_Be_Me_PosterCountry-music legend Glen Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011. Glen and his wife Kim shared the news with the world.

The farewell tour, with his three youngest children in the band, was documented in the film Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me (2014), which I watched on CNN recently. It showed how the music, for a time, may have slowed down the ravages of the disease, for his guitar skills remained intact for much of the journey.

But as the three-week engagement turned into 151 shows, we see how nerve-wracking it was, especially for Kim, her kids, and the crew he’d worked with for years but could not always remember their names. It was quite telling that, early on, he mocked the disease, saying that he was happy to forget some things, notably his failed marriages.

When he got a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys in 2012, he could not remember why we were going. I wondered when Paul McCartney hugged him afterward whether Glen, best known for songs such as Rhinestone Cowboy, Wichita Lineman, and Gentle on My Mind, even knew who he was. He didn’t even always recognize films of himself.

The Campbell saga was broken up by other musicians, such as Kathy Mattea and Bruce Springsteen, talking about how they dealt with their family members dealing with the illness. The last major scene was Glen, who was briefly a Beach Boy, recording a song, Gonna Miss You [LISTEN], for his wife, backed by Hal Blaine and others from the aforementioned Wrecking Crew, of which Glen Campbell before he became famous, was once a member.

Despite the sadness of the disease, this was an emotional, intimate, and triumphant look at life fully lived. Here’s Mark Evanier’s take; since it’s probably not CNN anymore, catch it on video.

MOVIE REVIEW: Inside Out

The kudos for Inside Out, and great box office to boot, are well deserved.

Inside-OutAs luck would have it, The Wife, The Daughter and I attended the same Sunday afternoon showing of the new, animated Disney/Pixar film Inside Out at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany as our friend Jon with his kids.

Afterward, we went to eat supper, and Jon, who is a therapist, noted how well the movie did in capturing the various human feelings, as understood by the psychological community. This is because Pixar used consultants to infuse what scientists have learned about the mind, emotion, and memory and worked to get those childhood emotions just right.

Everything was going great for an 11-year-old girl named Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) until she has to leave her beloved Minnesota when her father (Kyle MacLachlan) gets a new job in San Francisco. Mom (Diane Lane) and Dad try to make the transition easier, but the emotions in Riley’s mind get off-kilter.

The emotion voice actors were fabulous: Amy Poehler (Joy), Phyllis Smith from the US version of The Office (Sadness), Bill Hader (Fear), Mindy Kaling (Disgust), and, appropriately, Lewis Black (Anger). Props too to Richard Kind as Bing Bong.

About halfway through, I heard some bored or perhaps scared three-year-old behind me who was ready to leave, but the kudos for this movie, and great box office to boot, are well deserved. In fact the Daughter has already seen it a second time, she liked it so much.

In that conversation with friend Jon, I hit upon a fundamental truth being expressed in the film, something even we nice adult people unfortunately tend to do a lot. The few critics who did not like the film totally missed the point of the journey, which came from a real, recognizable place, of dislocation.

This movie isn’t as bright and shiny as some other PIXAR films, which I realized only in retrospect. We saw the 2D version, so I can’t speak to what enhancements the 3D version might have brought.

The preview movie was Lava, about two singing volcanoes, which my daughter thought was “cheesy,” my wife thought it was too long at seven minutes, but I thought was cute, clever, and geologically informative.

MOVIE REVIEW: Tomorrowland

tomorrowland-movieIf it’d been up to me, I might have passed on seeing it. Tomorrowland was beset by middling reviews.

Worse, the (not unusual) manipulation of the Disney audience to see the film was quite impressive but really irritating. “Get your backstage pass” to this great film, the network promotion machine hawked on several programs The Daughter watches.

Its box office (relative) failure – as of June 14, 2015, domestic box office of $83,607,000 and foreign box office of $93,500,000, against a production budget of $190 million – put the kibosh on more Disney science fiction.

Still, The Wife, The Daughter, her friend Kay and I went on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany.  The movie was down to two showings a day, and rightly so; there was only one other person in the theater, a middle-aged woman.

If I say I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would, it’d be damning with faint praise. In fact, I did like good chunks of it.

For one thing, the film looked really cool, a function, I assume, of director and co-writer Brad Bird, best known for fine animated films such as Ratatouille, The Incredibles, and The Iron Giant. The 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, which I attended, is where a boy named Frank (Thomas Robinson), a would-be inventor, gets invited by Athena (Raffey Cassidy) to be a part of the REAL title place.

Sometime later, teenager Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a saboteur for good, ends up with a button that seems to, briefly, provide a gateway aid fabulous-looking place… oh, heck, read the narrative HERE.

I liked that this movie was attempting to be an antidote to all the dystopian rhetoric that does seem to dominate popular culture. Perhaps the best part of the narrative may be a speech by Nix (Hugh Laurie, of the TV show House, MD) in the latter stages of the film.

It asked some important questions, more than occasionally in a ham-fisted way, such as none of the teachers answering Casey’s questions about the issues they’ve laid out. Still, the Daughter was inspired by Casey, who almost never gave up, and who even inspired the much older Frank (George Clooney) to keep trying as well.

The actors, including Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key as the shopkeepers, were entertaining, and especially young Raffey Cassidy. It is true, though, that Britt Robertson, in the middle stages of the film, looked a lot like someone attempting to react to a blue screen.

If the story didn’t make complete sense, generally blamed on cowriter Damon Lindelof, the showrunner for the TV program Lost, I wasn’t as bothered by it as some. It was more coherent than the first two hours of Interstellar, which may be a low bar.

I’m musing over the complete, and therefore bloodless, annihilation of some people in this film, not to mention the intense fighting with the bad guys, which really warranted a PG rating, as opposed to a PG-13. Maybe I’m just overthinking this.

Anyway, it’s not a great film, clearly. Still, parts of it will likely stick with me, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

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