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Reviews
The Blind Side (2009)
The Blind Side tells the story of good old fashioned Christian charity.
The Blind Side tells the story of good old fashioned Christian charity. In an age where charity is defined by its tax exemption, where giving of money is a poor substitute for giving of self, Christmastime is the right time for the feel-good movie of the year.
And that is what you have here... a big-budget feel good movie of the year. Will it challenge the way you think? Probably not. Will you learn something new? No. Will you be able to identify cliché conventions for telling a story? Yes (If I have to see one more movie where the actual coach from an actual school shows up to make a pitch for a recruit, I'm gonna throw up).
That being said, the movie is well-put-together and is non-offensive. It is easy to see how it could be a crowd-pleaser and weekend box office champion. Watching Sandra Bullock do her best Julia Roberts impression was certainly entertaining.
Not every movie can move us and challenge us and change the way we think. Once in a while, you have to settle for mildly entertaining from the production company that brought you The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Hence, The Blind Side. You will have a hard time hating it and you may just crack a smile, but feel free to wait for cable.
www.justinalpert.com
Away We Go (2009)
A Wonderful Movie
There is a reason why comic actors become our best dramatic actors (see Williams, Robin and Hanks, Tom). There is some pain deep inside every comic that needs to be dealt with. The comic masks the pain with humor, but when he learns to embrace it, he is able to go to a place that is very real, which makes for very effective drama.
When Maya Rudolph started as a featured player on Saturday Night Live in 2000, it was immediately obvious to me that she would become a full cast member for the dedication that she gave to her performances. During and after her SNL career, we did not see much of her in the movies. I am sure that this is about to change with her very real performance in Away We Go. Actresses need more opportunities for roles like this.
Away We Go is a wonderful movie that follows the journey of a young couple that is deciding where to raise their impending daughter. The style of the movie plays out in vignettes amongst a cast of characters, like Broken Flowers... but picture Bill Murray being a young couple and the movie being good.
Director Sam Mendes, being renowned for his distaste for the monotony of suburbia as shown in American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, has crafted a beautifully shot experience of different slices of life across North America. In lesser hands, the movie could have played like a farce, but Mr. Mendes slows the pace so we can appreciate the young couple's experiences. Writer Dave Eggers, who so painfully memoired A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, has co-scripted a movie that gingerly pulls in character qualities from his own life. Cinematographer Ellen Kuras, frames the movie beautifully, showing something lovable about each of the locations, and taking the time to show the little quirky things that one might find when she stops and smells the roses.
But what ultimately carries the movie is the genuine love between Miss Rudolph's Verona De Tessant and John Krasinski's Burt Farlander, a homely couple about to have a baby. When you think about movies that follow a couple, it inevitably follows their trials and tribulations, and the couple think that they are splitting up, and they realize that they can't do without one another, and they get back together. Away We Go is uniquely not that kind of movie. Verona and Burt are a loving couple who appreciate each other's pluses and faults, who together as a single entity make their way through the world. A couple like this doesn't come around often. You know them when you see them. They are on the continuing adventure as partners, seeking to grow together. There is no rooting for them to work it out. Their is no obstacle that they must overcome. All that Verona and Burt have to do is be the best people that they can be and raise their daughter in a loving manner.
Because Verona and Burt are so endearing, the audience is able to fully enjoy the various people whom they encounter on their journey as different yins to their yang. This is the buttercream icing of the movie. Each vignette is filled with wonderful, vivacious characters upon which we use to reflect the life and potential life of Verona and Burt and their impending daughter... from Burt's parents, played by Catherine O'Hara and a mature Jeff Daniels (whom you cannot recognize from Dumb and Dumber), to an affected Allison Janney (whom you will not recognize from Juno), to a whimsical Maggie Gyllenhaal, to very touching roles played by Carmen Ejogo, Chris Messina, and Melanie Lynskey.
It seems like every year (2006's Little Miss Sunshine, 2007's Juno, 2008's The Wackness and The Wrestler), a small-budget, whimsical/slice-of-life movie comes along that is something that people say, "I wish Hollywood would make more of these." So far, Away We Go is that movie for 2009. See it in the theater for the full experience of enjoying it with an audience.
www.justinalpert.com
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
Emotional Honesty
It would be easy just to dismiss He's Just Not Into You as a chick flick, but it deserves some greater attention. Here is an ensemble piece where one can easily picture Drew Barrymore cashing in all of her chits to pull this cast together. The effort, under the competent direction of veteran director, Ken Kwapis, was well worth it. The movie stylistically borrowed unapologetically from heavyweights of the romantic comedy genre (When Harry Met Sally, Thirtysomething), but succeeds in reaching points of honesty and uncertainty that one wouldn't normally expect to see from the genre.
Quite simply, what can be taken from the movie, is that what ultimately makes any relationship successful or unsuccessful is unique to that relationship. There are stumbling blocks that cannot be overcome and there are road blocks that we are destined to forge through. The answer is never a general rule for everyone, but when the issues are dealt with in an all-too-hard-to-grasp state of emotional honesty, our comfort with the resolution, no matter how difficult, is assured.
Having Jennifer Connelly and Jennifer Aniston together in a movie is a real treat for any red-blooded American man. I have had a crush on Miss Connelly since her debut as a young teenager in one of my all-time top films, Once Upon a Time in America, and spent most of my teen years formulating what I would say to her when I inevitably ran into her (still hasn't happened). Miss Connelly, as she always does, reached deep with this movie. It really is a shame that we never saw all that much of her in the past twenty years. Miss Aniston must be commended for the career choices that she has made. She continuously challenges herself with the roles she chooses and has differentiated her career from that of her other five "Friends." It is a pleasure to see Miss Aniston share the screen with Ben Affleck and show genuine affection for each other.
Justin Long (I'm a Mac) takes a nice turn against type. Scarlett Johansson, as always, is genuine and wonderful. Bradley Cooper makes a fine performance and I am sure that we will be seeing him in leading roles in the future.
Ultimately, it is great to see an ensemble piece with A-list actors actually work. This was not, emotionally, an easy movie to watch, but it dealt with relationships so honestly and effectively, and kept surprising me, that it was a wonderful movie to watch unfold. So, yes, it sure was a chick flick, but it was really one of the good ones.
www.justinalpert.com
Undiscovered (2005)
There is a reason why this movie was undiscovered
So, I'm looking through Hulu for something to watch and I come across Undiscovered, the long awaited reuniting of Kip Pardue and Shannyn Sossamon after The Rules of Attraction. A delectable Pell James, Ashlee Simpson, Carrie Fisher, Fisher Stevens, and Peter Weller. A 2005 movie. Very artful cinematography. Why am I first hearing about this movie on Hulu? It has so much going for it.
Well, it was distributed by Lions Gate... a warning flag goes up. I think of Lions Gate and I think of a studio that built itself with signing the rights to bottom of the barrel movies and successfully distributing them.
Ah, despite the compelling cinematography, which compels me to keep watching, and the great presence of Miss James, and the fairly decent directing job, the story just plain blows. It comes close to being compelling but in each instance, falls to cliché, and even does a poor job at that. Miss Simpson gives a nice performance. Miss Sossamon's talent is sorely wasted in this movie. It makes sense why it went straight to Hulu, but with so much going for it, it doesn't make sense why it turned out to be such a poor movie. I am sure that a lot of people put their hearts into this movie. There was a lot of talent here. Just sometimes, it's not enough... you need that stroke of lightning.
I will say this though... as we get older and we live our lives in the suburbs, we have to remember that there are people, like the characters in this movie, who are really living life, and experiencing the world and new things every day. We need to keep that sense of adventure, otherwise, we are the walking dead of suburbia.
Stealth (2005)
Almost Good
Stealth started out brilliantly, like 2001 meets Top Gun, but then it became Dr. Strangelove meets Iron Eagle. It only took a minute to figure out that "the black guy" wouldn't make it to the end of the film.
Here is the thing, director Rob Cohen can direct brilliantly. The movie, much like his previous effort, The Skulls, starts with so much potential, giving you the feeling that you are in for something special. The scenes of Jamie Foxx in Thailand, are beautifully shot. The edit from the ocean to the floor of the ship is equally brilliant. The storyline with the plane seeing the pilot ignore instructions had so much potential. However, they left the writing of the second half of the movie to amateur hacks and $130 million went down the drain.
All that being said, I dig Jessica Biel in a bikini.