Annihilation - Movie Review

Starring Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Oscar Isaac, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny and Benedict Wong.
Written & directed by Alex Garland.

★★★½

Alex Garland is 2 for 2 when it comes to delivering smart, suspenseful sci-fi. His debut was Ex Machina, now this. He's already established himself as a must-see filmmaker.

Natalie Portman stars as Lena, a biologist whose soldier husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has been missing in action for months, presumed dead. But then one day he shows up in their house, not quite himself. Soon they find themselves in a government facility where they are questioned, and she learns it's by a phenomenon they call "the shimmer," a section of land covered by shimmering lights that are surely alien.

The government's sent several teams inside to discover what's in there, but so far, Kane's the only one who's come out. Lena volunteers to be part of the next team that goes in, an all-women crew led by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a psychologist who mainly just wants to see for herself what's in there.

I liked that feeling of the unknown going in, like getting into a haunted-house ride and you go through the first dark door. Part of the enjoyment comes from not really knowing what will happen next.

Jackie - Movie Review

JACKIE (R) Starring Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, John Hurt, Richard E. Grant, John Carroll Lynch, Beth Grant and Max Casella.
Written by Noah Oppenheim.
Directed by Pablo Larrain.

★★★

This movie daringly focusses on the immediate after match of JFK's assassination, but it does so in a framework that jumps between that, and an interview she gave with Theodore H. White (Billy Crudup) a week later. We simultaneously feel the shock of the moment and the week-after dread, which is how memories work. It's a good job from the makers, but the success of this movie is hands-down because of Natalie Portman.

This is no straightforward biopic. This breaks down some of the worshipping walls around the Kennedys to try to convey what it was like for Jackie to remain poised even while dealing with death and the sudden loss of power. Her main shoulder to cry on belongs to her brother-in-law Bobby (Peter Sarsgaard), who as attorney general also has to deal with the politics of the smooth transition of power.

This movie made me want to look up the 1961 White House tour footage again. I've seen clips, but Portman's so good here, I wonder how close her impression really is. In fact, I would have no problem with Portman winning her second Oscar for this.

Knight of Cups - DVD Review

KNIGHTS OF CUPS (R) Starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Wes Bentley, Antonio Banderas, Brian Dennehy, Freida Pinto, Isabel Lucas, Teresa Palmer and Armin Mueller-Stahl.
Written & Directed by Terrence Malick.

★½

Malick's still determined to make stream-of-conscientious plot-free movies. He has a really beautiful eye, but his movies are like fuzzy memories as you watch them. Images, voice-over whispers, ocean waves drowning out dialogue, suggestions of a story without really telling one. They're dreams.

This one centers around Christian Bale's Hollywood player, who visits sets and attends parties but doesn't seem happy. Some familiar faces pop up and I don't know if they're a character or they're playing themselves. At one party we see Jason Clarke, Joe Mangianello and Nick Kroll, but that's it. I suppose you could say they're cameoing like many did in Robert Altman's The Player, or they could have had bigger parts that Malick just cut out.

After a while, I was like "Quit moping, rich man!"

I loved Badlands. I still hope someday Malick will tell a story again in one of his movies, but every new one has less plot than the one before. What can I say? If you thought To the Wonder had too much story, you'll love this.

Jane Got a Gun - Netflix Review

Starring Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich, Boyd Holbrook and Rodrigo Santoro.
Written by Brian Duffield, Anthony Tambakis & Joel Edgerton.
Directed by Gavin O'Connor.

★★

This is one of those projects that went through many cast members and directors before it finally got made, and there were so many troubles surrounding this movie that it was ultimately dumped in theaters in January.

Natalie Portman plays Jane, a frontier woman who's hooked up with an outlaw on the run from his old gang. When he comes home shot up, Jane looks to hire a mercenary to help her defend her home before the gang inevitably shows up. And the only man she can think of for the job is her ex-fiance (Joel Edgerton).

Most of the movie then has us, the audience, waiting for the gang to show up so we can have our showdown. We get flashbacks here and there that explains backstory and previous relationships. The leader of the gang is a dangerous man named Bishop (Ewan McGregor, doing an unconvincing Southern accent).

The showdown comes at night, and there were times I couldn't tell what exactly was happening. I have a soft spot for Westerns, as they rarely are profitable these days, but this suffers from the same flaw as Slow West. Not enough story in the first two-thirds before we get to the third act.

Top 10 Worst Written Female Characters in Film History

This doesn't necessarily mean worst acted. Sofia Coppola was terrible in The Godfather Part III, for example, but had the original actress - Winona Ryder - not dropped out, that part wouldn't seem so bad. Some very good actresses made the list (in fact four of them are Oscar winners), but their characters deserve dubious distinction.

*Dishonorable mentions to half the female parts from the Twilight Saga and any movie that starred Elvis Presley or Freddie Prinze Jr.

*Also, Demi Moore's Hester from THE SCARLET LETTER. Completely changed the ending and therefore the point of the story.

10. Bronte (Andie MacDowell), GREEN CARD - An uptight woman really, really wants her greenhouse. And at the last second, for no reason, she says "I don't care about the greenhouse" because she's fallen for the cave troll played by Gerard Depardieu. Probably the least convincing "okay they really love each other" moment in rom-com history.

9. Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet/Gloria Stuart), TITANIC - Kate's a great actress. She and Leo and most of the rest of the cast really had to work to make James Cameron's one-dimensional characters come to life. Rose is a spoiled rich girl engaged to a cartoon villain, but she falls for the lower-class dude on the ship. All of that's fine. But when the ship starts sinking, does she stay on her lifeboat? No! She gets back on the sinking ship. If she'd stayed in her lifeboat, Jack would've been alone on the driftwood and would have lived! Then eighty-five years later, old Rose reveals to the audience that she had this giant expensive jewel in her possession which could have made her kids' and grandkids' lives easier, but instead she just throws it in the ocean. Boooo!

8. Lucy (Emily Browning), SLEEPING BEAUTY - Nothing much to a character who makes her living by taking knockout drugs and letting creepy rich men do whatever they want to her body while she's out cold.

7. Mrs. Cooper (Mercedes Reuhl), LEADER OF THE BAND - This was a "star" vehicle for Barney Miller's Steve Landesberg, and all there was to Reuhl's character is that she had extreme lust for him the second she laid eyes on him.

6. Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), SUPERMAN RETURNS - They destroyed Lois by making her a mopey single mom who acts like a corporate lawyer at work.

5. Jennifer (Camille Keaton), I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE - The ultimate exploitation film (which inexplicably got a remake) about a woman who gets raped by a group of young men, and then raped again, and then again, and then it tries to redeem itself by her getting bloody revenge at the end.

4. Abby (Katherine Heigl), THE UGLY TRUTH - Maybe Heigl thought she was going to get some Apatow karma in this "farce" on romance. In truth, no actress could have made this work, paired opposite a chauvanistic Gerard Butler making her go through a series of humiliating romantic "tests."

3. Amidala/Padme (Natalie Portman), STAR WARS I-III - So let me get this straight. She lives in a society where they elect 14-year-olds to be queen, and those queens have actual power. Ah, but when her term is up, she later gets elected to the more responsible role of senator, but she's too busy going on picnics to fulfill most of her duties, so she lets the single stupidest creature in the galaxy vote on her behalf. Then when she gives birth to her twins, instead of having mama-bear maternal instinct kick in, she dies "of a broken heart."

2. Kate (Eva Longoria), OVER HER DEAD BODY - A woman dies on her wedding day before she can actually exchange vows. She follows her mopey fiance Henry around until he consults a medium named Ashley. Ashley is a fraud, except she can actually see and hear Kate. Ah, but when Ashley starts to fall for Henry, Kate does whatever she can to sabotage it. Like making giant fart noises. She has no curiosity about anything else in the universe or eternity, and no actress on Earth could have saved it.

1. Miranda Hillard (Sally Field), MRS. DOUBTFIRE - This movie needed a situation where a loving father resorts to a drag disguise to be near his kids, but in order to set that up, that had to split up the parents. Robin Williams' Daniel Hillard is obviously a loving father; maybe he could make safer career choices, but his shrewish wife decides she wants a divorce after Daniel throws a party that's too big. She isn't exactly honest in court at the beginning, but then at the end, she lets the judge get everything wrong when he decides Daniel only gets supervised visitation. This movie had its laughs but it was a terrible message to kids. Divorce is really, really easy, and it's all Mom's fault.

Thor: The Dark World - Movie Review

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Rene Russo, Christopher Eccleston, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi and Jaimie Alexander.
Directed by Alan Taylor.

★★★

The sequel to the superhero movie is the one with the most opportunity to be interesting. You've done your origin-story heavy-lifting in the first one, now give us a regular adventure.  Superman II, Spider-Man 2, and The Dark Knight are some examples of the successful superhero sequel.  Was Thor able to achieve the same success?

For the most part, yes. While The Dark World won't be hailed as a classic, it's still a ripping yarn that combines elements of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings with the already established Marvel sensibilities.

Thor is a little grounded after his first film and his detour helping The Avengers.  Now he must restore peace in Asgard and the nine realms, but a new, ancient menace has reawakened.  There's this billion-year-old space blob of destruction hidden in the middle of a distant planet, but when Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) finds herself sucked through a wormhole, she lands next to it and wakes it up.  Ruh-roh.

It takes us a while to get to that point.  I appreciated that most of this movie took place away from Earth, and it gave Jane the chance to be the fish-out-of-water this time around.  Portman seems to be having a lot of fun, and Hemsworth is more relaxed in his role. The real star though is Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  The villain in Thor's story the past two movies, he's been imprisoned for life in Asgard's dungeons, but Thor hits a point where he needs Loki's help, and I liked watching the whole time wondering if Loki was capable of turning a new leaf, or when was that inevitable betrayal going to happen?

Anthony Hopkins and Rene Russo make fine godly parents, and they actually gave Russo a little more to do.  Idris Elba's back as the Guardian, although I could have sworn his character died in the first one.  No complaints.  Jaimie Alexander should be the next Wonder Woman. This movie had a little too much Kat Dennings for my taste.  She's fine here and there, but her shtick grew tiresome for me, like she still expected to have her 2 Broke Girls laughtrack follow her every line.

Hesher - DVD Review

★★

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, Devin Brochu, Rainn Wilson and Piper Laurie.  Directed by Spencer Susser.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he of 3rd Rock from the Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You and Brick and 500 Days of Summer and Inception, is a really good actor, and here comes another character he can sink his teeth into, a headbanging, vandalous squatter, a dangerous grenade who throws himself into other people's lives.  He's clearly having fun. 

Add to that the touching work of Devin Brochu as TJ, the real protagonist, a quiet kid whose mom just died.  He gets bullied at school, his father's too depressed to get off the couch, and they live at his grandmother's, who's suffering from the dementia.  When TJ runs into Hesher, Hesher follows him home and moves in, like a much more assertive Nick Nolte in Down & Out in Beverly Hills.

Then comes the leap of faith the movie asks that I could never quite make.  The dad's so depressed and beat up by life that he doesn't insist Hesher get out of his house, he doesn't call the cops, and he lets TJ go whereever with this clearly bad influence.  The movie made me sympathetic and angry at the struggles that TJ's going through, but it made me more angry at the total lack of concern on the part of the dad.

The movie's very profane and goes back and forth between dark comedy and depressing drama, and while it has its elements, it's not worth wallowing through the ones that don't.  But remember the name Devin Brochu.

The Other Woman - DVD Review

l 1/2

Starring Natalie Portman, Scott Cohen, Lisa Kudrow, Charlie Tahan, Lauren Ambrose and Anthony Rapp. Directed by Don Roos.

I've seen it a million times. Rich man leaves his wife for younger woman. But I don't know if I've ever seen a movie from the younger woman's point of view, right after she's become Wife #2. In some ways this is a public service announcement warning women thinking of sleeping with married men - the aftermath ain't all sunshine and roses.

These are selfish, wounded people, bouncing against each other. Portman plays Emilia. She slept with her married boss Jack (Scott Cohen), and later married him and had a baby with him. That baby only lived a few days, and now Emilia is an emotional shell, dealing with a manipulative stepson (Charlie Tahan), a vindictive first wife (Lisa Kudrow), and an increasingly distant husband.

This soap opera features several opprtunities for the three adults to lash at each other, usually in front of the kid, surely scarring him to become a sociopathic shark when he grows up.

This movie is the perfect punishment to show adulterers. Sure, it features some good acting, but what have I done to deserve this?

No Strings Attached - DVD Review

ll 1/2

Starring Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Kline, Greta Gerwig, Lake Bell, Cary Elwes, Ludacris, Jake Johnson, Mindy Kaling and Abby Elliott. Directed by Ivan Reitman.

Sex is nothing. Sex is meaningless. Sex is just something fun people engage in, no big deal.

These are the lies the characters tell themselves, and while many of them may bounce around in hedonistic fashion, eventually, if they sleep with the same person, and that person is someone they like, feelings may develop. (Oh, no! Not feelings!)

Despite the best efforts of the main two players to dehumanize intimacy, they just can't. It is a rom-com, and you know where it's going, and while I like seeing Kevin Kline get work (as Kutcher's father), and see Natalie Portman in something without special effects, I couldn't shake the going-through-the-motions of it all.

Ever notice how many rom-coms are about unhealthy relationships that end with them breaking up, one running to the other, saying they're sorry, and then ending on an upbeat note where in the back of your head, you're thinking, "Based on the previous 90 minutes, I'm not really sure that relationship's suddenly going to be healthy and ever after"?

No? Well, I have.

P.S. This movie - at 47% RotTom ranking - is the best-reviewed movie of Ashton Kutcher's career. I certainly understand why he took the Two and a Half Men job. He'll make more doing two episodes of that show than any movie he'd star in.

Thor - Movie Review

lll

Starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Clark Gregg, Rene Russo, Jaimie Alexander and Colm Feore. Directed by Kenneth Branagh.

I was going to say I'm a sucker for superhero movies, but I realize I'm pretty much a sucker for any genre as long as the movie's good.

Managed to catch this in 2D (yay!) and Thor did not disappoint. It had the grand special effects, the clashes of titans, the character journey, the Girlfriend and many of the tropes you'd expect. But they still have to be done well, and for the most part, yeah, it worked.

I find myself wanting to address my problems first. Many of the actors aren't given anything to do. Rene Russo is barely there as Thor's mother. The Warriors Three seem like a merry band I should want to hang out with, but I never cared about them. Idris Elba was cool as the gatekeeper, to the point that I wished his part was bigger. Stellan Skarsgard just has to follow Natalie Portman and fill in exposition points. The Hawkeye cameo was poorly executed and should have been cut entirely. The New Mexico town the Earth action takes place in is clearly one giant shooting set.

But I liked that it was family-friendly. I liked Chris Hemsworth as the central character. It's not a revelation or anything, I just find myself looking forward to his Thor bouncing off Downey's Iron Man or staring down the Hulk. Coming Summer 2012 - The Avengers Part VI: They're Finally Together! (Iron Man was Avengers I, Incredible Hulk was Avengers II, Iron Man 2 was Avengers III, Thor is Avengers IV, and we have Captain America in July...) I liked the unknown Tom Hiddleston as Loki, a complex villain that has more going on than at first revealed, and we're therefore not distracted by Famous Name playing him.

I liked the Asgard stuff. Done poorly, it could've generated Chronicles of Riddick flashbacks, but it had a solid design and I liked walking down its halls and flying over its towers.

Portman's Jane Foster as written isn't more than The Girlfriend, but she was able to get a couple moments out of her, like her self-surprised reaction to when Thor kisses her hand.