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Crazy Heart

February 3rd, 2010
Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart

Rating: ★★★★★

Movie: Crazy Heart (2009)

Studio : Fox Searchlight

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 112 min

Website : foxsearchlight.com/crazyheart

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb7utw



Review:

As of this writing, Jeff Bridges has already won a Golden Globe for his performance in Crazy Heart, and he is expected to receive an Oscar nomination, if not win the award entirely.

And he deserves it. Bridges disappears completely into his portrayal of Bad Blake, a 57-year-old alcoholic former country star whose career has been reduced to playing in front of small crowds in bowling alleys and bars. Subsisting on a steady diet of cigarettes, whiskey, and longnecks, Bridges can still entertain the crowds of loyal fans who request songs, and he’s still suave enough to be able to take groupies back to his hotel room.

Things begin to look up for Blake when he meets Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a reporter for a small New Mexico paper, who wants to interview him. They talk about music and life. Soon enough, predictably but endearingly, they’re soon doing more than talking. She has a four-year-old son and has made mistakes in her life as well, but has held it together. We see that there’s potential for change in Blake, but he’s so worn down, so accustomed to the hard-drinking, nomadic lifestyle that change can be just out of reach. There’s a heartbreaking scene where he takes Jean’s son for some quality time at the playground, and he shows here that he could just be an effective father figure. Upon bringing him home, he sneaks away to take a swig from his flask.

This is a wonderful movie. Bridges doesn’t play Blake; he embodies him. He and Gyllenhaal create a convincing chemistry, and we root for the relationship to drive Blake to throw away the bottle and settle down with a family. Colin Farrell does a good job as the country star who was mentored by Blake and is still loyal to him, and Robert Duvall has a small but powerful role as an old drinking buddy of Blake’s who’s sober. Duvall’s presence was no doubt inspired by his Academy Award-winning performance in Tender Mercies, a similar film about a down-and-out country singer. I haven’t seen it, but now plan to.

I’ll also add the music. The soundtrack, which I also intend to find, had my head bopping throughout. I’m not a huge country fan, but I do have Toby Keith on my iTunes, and I’m listening to him as I write this review. Like most of the country songs I’ve heard, Blake’s revolve around alcohol, heartbreak, and regret, strong themes in his life. One of his songs goes, “I used to be somebody, but now I’m somebody else.” But does he need to stay that way? We know the answer, but the center of the film revolves around whether he learns it. It’s a masterpiece.

-Craig Wynne

Drama, Mystery, Romance , , ,

Up in the Air

January 21st, 2010
Up in the Air

Up in the Air

Rating: ★★★★☆

Movie: Up in the Air (2009)

Studio : Paramount

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 109 min

Website : upintheairmovie.com

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xavvdg



Review:

I once read an article in which George Clooney revealed that he sometimes sleeps in a closet with only his pet potbelly pig to keep him company. All that fame and adulation, I remember thinking, and yet he still sounds like a lonely guy. The same may well be said of Ryan Bingham, whom Clooney portrays so admirably in Up in the Air.

Bingham’s job is firing people on behalf of employers who haven’t got the chutzpah to do it themselves. An upmarket loner, he prowls the sterile airports and corporate offices of the nation, stoically clocking up as many employee scalps and air-miles as he can manage. Like any good sociopath worth his salt, he uses an expert line of bullshit to convince himself that he performs all of his duties with the utmost respect and humanity. Once he meets Alex, his soon-to-be lover and fellow traveller, however, cracks in the charming but smugly emotion-free facade begin to show.

The notion of home, and all that it entails, forms the gentle backdrop to the abrasive foreground of this movie. What is brave and refreshing about how Reitman depicts Bingham’s estrangement from ordinary life is that he does not ram it down your throat. It would have been an easy target perhaps to simply accuse Bingham of being the bad guy for firing people in recession-era America and to leave it at that. Instead Reitman builds a subtle web of choices into which Bingham treads at the same time as the viewer. How will he treat Natalie, the snot-nosed young Stanford upstart as he brings her out on the road for training? Will he ever have the balls to step up to the plate and declare his growing feelings for Alex? Thanks to Reitman’s taut and cliché-free direction, we learn the sometimes uneasy answers to these questions at the same instant as Bingham does and this keeps you on your toes throughout. In an age of predictable plots and unearned emotional resolutions this sort of approach to character – where you’re genuinely not sure what he will do in the end – is almost revolutionary.

Interestingly, the people you see being fired by Bingham throughout the movie are in fact all real-life employees who have recently been let go from their jobs. Up in the Air doesn’t lay out the political or economic reasons why this has happened – but it does successfully burrow under the surprisingly sensitive skin of the kind of character that eased it right along.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters, Reviews by Genre, Reviews by Status

A Serious Man

January 14th, 2010
A Serious Man

A Serious Man

Rating: ★★★★★

Movie: A Serious Man (2009)

Studio: Studio Canal

Info: Click Here

Runtime: 105 min

Website : filminfocus.com/a_serious_man

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xadxvj



Review:

The Coens appear to be in overdrive at present, spitting out cinematic gems with phenomenal speed and style. From the intimidating and enigmatic No Country for Old Men to the anarchic and whimsical Burn After Reading, there appears to be no end to their ability to redefine both themselves and, in the process, American cinema. A Serious Man is no exception.

The story focuses on the seemingly mundane life of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a neurotic college professor with a domineering wife, two self-obsessed kids and an idiot-savant brother. Gopnik is a man who likes to live his life with precision and regularity – he is after all a mathematician. However, when the unexpected begins to muscle its way into the cosy but dysfunctional life he has created for himself, the good professor quickly starts to unravel.

Cue his cheating wife and her nauseating but hilarious suitor; cue the son who spends his time finding ways to raise cash to buy marijuana and Santana albums; cue the temptingly sexy neighbour who likes to sunbathe naked in her back yard. In search of a way to overcome his troubles, Gopnik visits a series of Rabbis, two of which offer pretty much useless advice (but the second of which provides the Coens with the opportunity to deliver one of their most dazzling cinematic sequences yet). The third, and allegedly wisest, Rabbi refuses however to see Gopnik, who becomes obsessed with the idea that, if he can just talk to the Rabbi, then his problems will be over. This desperate search for answers, as his marital and financial problems continue to mount, seems though to only lead to more questions.

Channelling the despairing spirit of The Big Lebowski’s German nihilists, A Serious Man carries forward the same brutal themes about the random nature and cruelty of life that were laid out so bleakly in No Country for Old Men. Tapping into their own Jewish upbringing, the Coens deftly manage to portray the rituals and traditions that people invent for themselves as both a perfectly worthy and a perfectly ridiculous way to spend their time. It’s as though they are saying, enjoy the show for now – but don’t forget that the big, bad wolf is waiting outside the door to devour you.

And yet, the way they tell you these cruel truths still makes you laugh and marvel at the beauty of it all.

-Paul Meade

Comedy, Drama, Family, In Theaters

Tetro

September 17th, 2009
Tetro

Tetro

Rating: ★★★½☆

Movie: Tetro (2009)

Studio : American Zoetrope

Info : Click Here

Runtime : 127 min

Website : Tetro

Trailer :http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x96i8n



Review:

It’s been a long and tortuous decline for Francis Ford Coppola since his heady days as the confirmed Titan of the 70’s movie-brat scene. Who else has reached so high (Godfather 1&2 and The Conversation) only to fall so low (Jack)? Redemption (of a kind) now arrives, however, in the form of his latest film, Tetro.

The story centers on 17 year old Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) as he arrives in Buenos Aires in search of his estranged older brother Tetro (Vincent Gallo). Initially hostile and suspicious of Bennie, Tetro slowly welcomes his kid-brother into his world and introduces him round to his colorful coterie of artist and writer friends (which makes the carnival-like first act of the movie seem like a slightly cheesy cross between La Dolce Vita and the high-camp 1960 film version of Kerouac’s The Subterraneans). Starker family secrets soon emerge though to put the drama on a darker footing.

Through the poetry of Coppola’s renewed filmic passion, we learn of Tetro’s shattered past, his apparent failure as a writer and his subsequent breakdown. The bond between the brothers is what drives this story forward yet some of the most revelatory moments are when Coppola reaches back into their shared history to explore the deep family wounds that kept them apart for so many years. Some of the most inspired scenes of the film are those depicting their tyrannical musical genius of a father and the stunningly cruel games he played against his sons.

Another of the films intoxicating charms is how it celebrates the women that keep both brothers sane and (literally) alive – from opera-singing mothers to Buenos Aires bubble-bath beauties, the role that women play as the eternal muse again echoes Fellini. That is not to suggest that the female characters are merely window-dressing. As fine and refreshing a performance as the always electrifying Vincent Gallo delivers, the best moments in the film belong to the brilliant Maribel Verdú (as Miranda).

Tetro is no masterpiece – Bennie’s underwritten character and a slightly disappointing “twist” finale both hamper the Coppola comeback – and it’s overtly “arty” style will certainly not appeal to all cinematic tastes. Nevertheless, if you are looking for something out of the ordinary and which is laced with a desire to tell simple human truths in a stylish way, Tetro makes you an offer you can’t refuse.

-Paul Meade

Drama, In Theaters ,