Cafe Society - Movie Review

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Ken Stott and Anna Camp.
Written & Directed by Woody Allen.

★★

Oh look, a movie about a nebbish Jew from New York who's contemplating adultery. Must be a Woody Allen film.

I enjoy the Windsor font of the opening credits playing over an old jazz tune. It tells you right away you're back in that world, no matter what time period. This one takes place in the late 1930's, when Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) heads to Hollywood to work for his powerful agent uncle Phil (Steve Carell). While there, he falls for Phil's secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Vonnie has a secret boyfriend, but she enjoys her time with Bobby.

Eventually Bobby moves back to New York to help run a nightclub with his gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll). Ben has killed many people to get ahead, and that aspect of him is played for droll effect.

There are some other twists and turns, but the plot moves along in haphazard fashion. The tone keeps shifting abruptly, and Allen seems to be aiming for the sweet spot of Crimes & Misdemeanors where he can go back and forth between comedy and drama. I would say Cafe Society was filmed before the script was really ready. There are themes he brings up which he then drops without really exploring them.

As for the cast, the standout was Kristen Stewart. She has a fresh-faced buoyancy to her performance that shows she's really put the Twilight films in her rear-view. With luck, her career will continue this crawl back to credibility.

The Shallows - Movie Review

Starring Blake Lively.
Written by Anthony Jaswinski.
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra.

★★★

This movie is exactly what it claims to be. It contains lots of shots of Blake Lively stranded on a rock 200 yards from shore, but she can't escape because she's being stalked by a shark.

The movie's only 87 minutes long, which feels novel these days. We see her make her way to the beach, we get just enough family bakstory to make us care about her, and the movie toys with our expectations until the shark finally arrives.

There's some clever, economical direction here from director Jaume Collet-Serra (Run All Night), but this movie will seek or swim on Lively, and she delivers. I never really thought about her that much as an actress. I've enjoyed her appearances here and there, in films like The Town or Savages. This is something she can parlay into being a star.

Savages - DVD Review

Starring Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Benecio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and Demian Bichir.
Directed by Oliver Stone.


★★


Stone, finally, has gone back to make a movie absent of political polemics.  He's just here to make some pulp fiction, a flashy, violent tale about a pair of small-time, successful marijuana dealers who find themselves at war with the Mexican cartel when they refuse to join them.

Even though the title makes me think of Pocahontas, it's fitting for this story, as this cartel is brutal in their punishments and scorched-Earth in their approach.  In a twist, the big mob boss is played by Salma Hayek, and she is where she is due to her willingness to kill people quicker than Scarface.

Kitsch (Battleship) and Johnson (Kick-Ass) are okay as the two "heroes." When their mutual girlfriend is kidnapped, they must hatch a plot to get her back, and it involves a shady federal agent (Travolta) who allows the drug war to flourish as long as he gets paid.

It's the kind of movie where there's little redeeming social value, and everyone deserves to die, but it loses the courage of its convictions in the last few minutes and offers a cop-out instead.