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.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - Movie Review

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Harry Lennix and Scoot McNairy.
Written by Chris Terrio & David S. Goyer.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

★★

How to explain the most controversial movie of the year? It's not that bad, but it's not that good either.

For my money, the best Zack Snyder movie is Watchmen. Watchmen was a dense graphic novel, and Snyder was as faithful to it as about anyone possibly could be. I liked his artistry with that, and the darkness of the characters lent itself to Snyder's style. I also liked Dawn of the Dead. I also liked 300. I thought his Owls of Ga'Hoole movie was challenging.

But when he had his chance to make something wholly original, he came up with Sucker Punch, which exposed every flaw that better material had managed to hide.

Now I thought Man of Steel was okay the first time I saw it. The second time around, I hated it. The moroseness, the resurrection of Zod rather than going somewhere new, the destructo-porn finale.

Snyder, in ways, is trying to make up for the sins of Man of Steel, but it's as though he learned the wrong lessons. He's trying to bend the beginning of the Justice League into another Watchmen.

BvS has a lot in common with Amazing Spider-Man 2, a movie stuffed with characters and dense with Easter eggs alluding to futher movies, but by being so stuffed with franchise fillers, it forgets to be its own movie.

The movie picks up 18 months after the climactic events of Man of Steel, when thousands of people were killed in the final battle in Metropolis. Bruce Wayne blames Superman for what happened, as one of his buildings was destroyed in that battle, killing some of his employees. From afar, he's trying to find a way to defeat Superman and any other Kryptonians that will inevitably show up.

Superman (Henry Cavill) meanwhile, is trying to remain a good guy while his actions keep resulting in unintended consequences.

Throw into this mix Alexander "Lex" Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), a chirpy Millennial tech genius who's moving some chess pieces to keep Bats and Supes at odds without their noticing.

Eisenberg's Luthor is a quirky, twitchy guy. It's a different take on the character, and his first scene is one where you have to decide if you're going to go with it or not. My expectations were low coming into this movie, and I chose to go with it. I knew what I was getting into. I actually liked his Luthor.

In fact, most of the cast is pretty good with what they're given. I liked Affleck's Wayne. I continue to be okay with Cavill's Superman. I thought Amy Adams was better this time around as Lois Lane. The jury's still out on Gal Gadot as Diana Prince (I had a hard time understanding some of her dialogue with whatever accent that was), but her arrival as Wonder Woman is the highlight of the movie. Jeremy Irons doesn't get to do anything as Alfred.

The movie feels like it has too boxes to check. The action grinds to a halt so one character can spend two minutes watching security footage of Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. Sure, those characters look like they'll be interesting in future movies, but there's no justification for the scene other than to advertise future movies. Can we focus on the one we're watching now?

It may be too late to pull Snyder from the director's chair of Justice League Part 1, but I would think the reviews will underline to Warner Bros. that they're going in the wrong direction and they should get different eyes on JL2. They already have a great director in the cast in Ben Affleck. I would love him to be able to take over.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice - New trailer

Trailer 1
Trailer 2

Even though Man of Steel was not a good movie, and this sequel looks like it's going to make many of the same mistakes, I was still hyped by the second trailer in spite of myself. Hyped for parts of it. Overall, my guess is still that this movie won't be that good. Here's 5 thoughts on the new trailer.

1. I really like Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne; it looks very interesting. We've had Bruce in his 30's with Christian Bale, but now Bruce is in his 40's, and he looks a little more weary and angry. He looks like the Bruce that would be sick of dealing with the Suicide Squad. I like the way he stares through Clark Kent. He knows he can crush anyone physically or with his wealth and power, and he constantly has to stay the good guy. After all the destruction from Man of Steel, he's a Bruce who deeply resents the existence of Superman. This is a Bruce you really hope doesn't develop a drinking problem.

2. I'm not sure what Jesse Eisenberg is doing quite yet as Lex Luthor but I'm willing to go with it. I've never pictured Luthor as a squirrely guy, but Eisenberg seems to be going for evil-geek-genius. He looks like he'll be the main source of humor from the movie, which is fine. Gene Hackman was hilarious as Lex in the first film. There's still a great chance that this Lex is a wild misfire.

3. The film still looks too much like a Zack Snyder film. I've liked some of Zack's films in the past (Watchmen, 300, Dawn of the Dead), but after Man of Steel, I thought it was pretty clear he shouldn't be the one in charge of Superman. Therefore this movie looks like it's going to repeat many of the mistakes MoS made. Way too dark, self-conscious action sequences that go too long, and general black-red sheen that depresses the viewer the longer they're trapped in this world. That sheen's great for dark movies like Watchmen, but for Superman and the Justice League, can't we lightnen up a little?

4. Turning General Zod into Doomsday might have sounded like a good idea on paper to someone somewhere, but he looked like a cave troll from Middle Earth. Doomsday has a brain; he's not some randomly-roaring monster.

5. I'm a little worried about Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. Her acting hasn't jumped out to me in the Fast & Furious movies, and here all we've seen so far is her posing. She looks great in the part, but is there going to be more to it?

To Rome with Love - DVD Review

Starring Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page, Alessandra Mastronardi, Alessandro Tiberi, Allison Pill, Ornella Muti and Flavio Parenti. Directed by Woody Allen.

 ★★½

This is middle-of-the-road hit-and-miss Woody Allen.  I mean, I'm still a big fan.  Seeing that white Windsor font against the black screen while a really old song plays is the best kind of introductory cinematic comfort food.

This is an ensemble piece where we have four stories going on that don't bother to link to each other, save for that they all take place in Rome.  We meet a newlywed Italian couple where the uptight husband (Alessandro Tiberi) is the young-Woody stand-in, nervous and insecure.  We meet an architect (Jesse Eisenberg) who runs into an old pro (Alec Baldwin) who may just be an older version of himself.  We meet two nervous parents (Woody Allen, Judy Davis) flying to Italy to meet their daughter's Italian fiance. We also meet Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni), an office drone who is suddenly famous and stalked by paparazzi for no discernible reason.

The success of the movie depends on how successful each storyline works in its own right and how they come together as a whole.  Well, they don't come together as a whole, so how are the parts?

The Benigni thread worked best for me.  It had the whimsical what-if fairy dust of Purple Rose of Cairo or Deconstructing Harry.  I enjoyed Penelope Cruz popping into the newlywed thread as a high-priced call-girl, even if it never lived up to its premise.  The Woody Allen thread had one good gag.  The Eisenberg/Baldwin thread was a waste. I blame some of it on the miscasting of Ellen Page, but the older Baldwin, seeing the trainwreck coming, doesn't really try to stop it.

So it's not a nailgun to the skull like Whatever Works or Curse of the Jade Scorpion, but there are a good twelve Woody movies I'd recommend over this one.

30 Minutes or Less - DVD Review

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Michael Pena, Fred Ward, Dilshad Vadsaria and Bianca Kaljich.  Directed by Ruben Fleischer.

★★

Danny McBride has made a living playing self-centered louts, to the point that I wonder how annoying he is in real life. Has he ever played a nice guy? Here he plays a colossially amoral idiot, heir to a million dollars if his Vietnam vet dad (Fred Ward) would just die already. He decides he can't wait, so he's going to hire a hitman (Michael Pena) for $100,000 to whack his dad. But he needs the money first. So what do he and his dimwit friend do to get the $100,000?

They kidnap a pizza-delivery guy (Jesse Eisenberg) and strap a bomb on him. He has ten hours to get the money or the bomb will go off. So what's the fastest way to do get a hundred grand? Rob a bank.

As you can guess, this movie is overflowing with geniuses. And dumb people doing dumb things is often funny. This movie is scattershot in achieving those.

The director's Ruben Fleischer, and he and Eisenberg previously had wild comic success with Zombieland. Here, the characters never grow from their one-dimensional start-off points. I like Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation) generally, and yeah, there's some fun parts, but ultimately this 78-minute caper is very skippable.

Rio - Movie Review

These are done by me holding my iPhone. Someday I should really put more effort into it, but let it never be said I take myself too seriously.