Logan Lucky - Movie Review

Starring Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston, Sebastian Stan, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson, Dwight Yoakum, Jon Eyez, Macon Blair, Farrah Mackenzie and David Denman.
Written by Rebecca Blunt.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

★★★½

This isn't as glitzy as Soderbergh's Ocean's 11 movies, but it's definitely better than the Ocean's sequels. By setting it in West Virginia instead of Vegas, it feels like the stakes are more real. These people actually need the money.

Channing Tatum plays Jimmy Logan, a blue-collar worker who can't seem to get ahead. "Logan lucky" refers to how unlucky his family is. He and his one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver) decide to rob a NASCAR event. They enlist their sister (Riley Keough) for help, and the plan grows from there.

There is such an ease to the flow of a Soderbergh movie. Throwaway scenes in any other film feel new here. he plays with timelines in a way that doesn't feel like cheating. There's also something about watching Daniel Craig let loose as a Southern safecracker. I can't remember the last time he looked like he was having this much fun onscreen.

Side Effects - DVD Review

Starring Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vinessa Shaw. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

★★★½

No one is as crisp a filmmaker as Soderbergh.  I love that now that he's doing these less ambitious projects, they're still every bit as professionally done as any "prestige" pic he might want to work on.

The 50-year-old director has threatened retirement a few times, and I hope that's not the case.  He's working on a TV mini-series now starring Clive Owen as a doctor at a New York hopsital in the 1900's, but no more movies are on his plate.

This is a straightforward mystery and it plays like a novel.  A young woman (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Rooney Mara) with anxiety and depression issues is waiting for her husband (Channing Tatum) to get his release from prison.  He'd been in for insider trading, and they're ready to get their life back.

Mara goes to a doctor (Jude Law) and he prescribes a fairly new medicine on the market for her symptoms.  But the prescription has some severe side effects. And it goes from there.  It flows at a Hitchcockian pace, and there isn't a wasted scene anywhere.

Magic Mike - Movie Review

Starring Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Olivia Munn, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodriguez, Riley Keough and Gabriel Iglesias.  Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

★★★½

Arguably the best male-stripper movie ever made.  Arguable because I can't think of another one.

Steven Soderbergh said after the long shoot and quick box-office death of Che that he wasn't going to be as concerned about "art" so much as just making movies that interested him.  When he filmed Haywire with Channing Tatum, he spoke with him about his stripping past and developed a movie out of it.  After Contagion and Haywire, this is Soderbergh's third movie to open in nine months, and none of the three looked rushed.

An engaging element in a movie that centers on a profession is to show us the behind-the-scenes grind of what doing that job actually entails.  Magic Mike is light-hearted in its approach, at first, and it makes being a male stripper look like a much more fun way to earn $200 a night that, say, construction.  The story comes together when Mike (Tatum) takes under his wing a teenage punk named Adam (I Am Number Four's Alex Pettyfer) who needs some money of his own.  We meet the other men who work there, a very unique foursome consisting of Matt Bomer (USA's White Collar), Joe Manganiello (HBO's True Blood), Kevin Nash (Rock of Ages), and Adam Rodriguez (CBS's CSI: Miami).  And they are all led by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), a southern-fried Fagin, fulfilling the fantasies of women all over Tampa Florida in his club.

Naturally, Mike knows he can't dance forever and his real dream is to start his own custom furtniture business.  This contrasts with Adam, who's dropped out of college and seems content for the quick score, eventually dabbling in the ecstasy business.  A movie with that element can only stay light-hearted for so long.

This movie made me appreciate the economy of Soderbergh.  His editing choices never feel too choppy, nor does any scene drag.  He also knows where to put a camera to allow for natural responses from his actors.  The stand-out performance belongs to McConaughey.  Getting away from Kate Hudson rom-coms has done him some good.

Contagion - DVD Review

★★★

Starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Ehle, John Hawkes, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould, Demetri Martin and Sanaa Lathan.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Steven Soderbergh is one of my favorite editors of a director. His stories are very succinct and compact, with nary a wasted scene. This 21st century Andromeda Strain warns us that, yeah, after a few overhyped diseases, there could still be a big one that hits and spreads.

We meet a couple, Mitch and Beth (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow), but dearie-me, she has a cough. We all know what happens to pretty ladies who cough in movies. Just that quickly, Beth is gone, and Mitch is stunned. "Wait, what happened to her?" Dozens of people who came into contact with Beth drop dead. Mitch is fine.

There's a disease spreading quickly all over the world. Agents from the WHO (Marion Cotillard) and CDC (Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne) try to trace its origins, figure out how it started and how to stop it.

I like the use of several stars to tell the story. By having Paltrow die in the first ten minutes, we know no one is truly safe. This will really make you want to wash your hands when it's over.

Random Movie Stuff - 12/26/11

- Here's the first photo from Magic Mike, a male-stripper comedy from director Steven Soderbergh.  It stars Matthew McConaughey, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer (Beastly), Matthew Bomer (USA's White Collar), and Joe Manganiello (HBO's True Blood).  It's loosely based on Tatum's experiences as a stripper before his acting career took off.  The movie's scheduled to open June 29.  Soderbergh also has Haywire opening next month.

- Dan Aykroyd has joined the cast of Dog Fight, a political satire starring Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis as two warring candidates.  It also stars Jason Sudeikis, John Lithgow, WIll Forte and Brian Cox.

- Alan Taylor, whose directorial efforts mainly comprise of HBO fare like Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, will be the new director for Thor 2.  Kenneth Branagh directed the original.

- Seth Rogen will star in The B Team, about a master spy who is kidnapped, so his support team must go in to save him.

- What do Tom Hulce (Amadeus), Jon Polito (Miller's Crossing), Derek Jacobi (Anonymous), Wesley Eure (TV's Land of the Lost), Guillermo Diaz (TV's Weeds), Sean Maher (Serenity), Roger Rees (TV's Cheers), Denis O'Hare (TV's True Blood), Jonathan Slavin (TV's Better Off Ted), and Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans) have in common?

- The Top Ten Movies according to Christy Lemire, of Ebert Presents At the Movies:

1.  Martha Marcy May Marlene
2.  50/50
3.  The Myth of the American Sleepover
4.  The Tree of Life
5.  Bellflower
6.  Melancholia
7.  Take Shelter
8.  Hell & Back Again
9.  Beginners
10. Bridesmaids