10 December 13
I am anit-commercial, so I rarely watch television and never listen to the radio. Instead I go the movies to study the art and craft of motion pictures. I am not a big fan of CGI (computer special effects) or kids animation but try to watch a wide variety of independent and foreign films. I am a story guy and love to watch a good one unfold.
For me a trip to the theater has always been a two-hour escape, and every visit gives me a chance to learn as well as be entertained. Like all moviephiles, I emerge from each film with an opinion about the feature film I paid to see.
Listed below are November and early December’s one-sentence reviews for eleven recently released motion pictures , each judged by my almost famous “5-finger” scoring system.
Ratings: 5 fingers = a great film. 4 fingers = excellent and well worth the money. 3 fingers = just a movie. 2 fingers = disappointing. 1 finger = well, decency demands that I skip using a single finger to score a bad film. Instead of 1 finger I skip down to 0 fingers (a closed fist). A zero rating means that every paying customer should be allowed to do two things: get his or her money back, and punch everyone involved for foisting such a dreadful mess upon a gullible and unsuspecting public.
As we swing through winter and listen to the beginning of Oscar drumbeats, here is my take on these eleven current releases:
Wadjda – 5 fingers. This wonderful film by Saudi Arabia’s first female director is the story of a young girl determined to ignore social taboos and buy her own bicycle — and as it unfolds it does what all great movies do: invite us into an unfamiliar world and seduce us into caring so much we hate to leave.
Escape Plan – 3 fingers. Sly Stallone stars as a prison security specialist and delivers a workmanlike effort, and although the film weakens as it unfolds, this is still an enjoyable diversion for fans of the muscle bound action star who is now closer to 70 than 60, his good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a strong supporting cast.
About Time – 3 fingers. British romantic comedy legend Richard Curtis’s roster of global mega-hits has set the expectation bar so high that this — a high concept time travel yarn that turns into an ordinary film so ambitious it loses sight of its core storyline — easily slips beneath, leaving our hopes and expectations disappointingly unfulfilled.
12 Years A Slave – 4 fingers. Chiewet Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender give outstanding performances in this (at times) too graphic adaptation of an 1853 autobiography written by a man taken hostage and illegally sold into slavery.
A Messenger from the Shadows – 0 fingers, the Dreaded Clenched Fist of Unwatchable Badness. Hawked as a documentary about silent film star Lon Chaney—who made 161 films during the silent era, earning him the nickname “the Man of A Thousand Faces—this complete mess of a “film” is easily one of the worst movies ever made.
Michael H., Profession: Director – 2 fingers. A dull and plodding documentary about Austrian film director Michael Haneke, tedious in sharing his boring and near-fanatical approach to making what has become his trademark style of grim, painful dramas.
Philomena – 4 fingers. Thanks to the wonderful Judy Dench, this film about an elderly mom looking for the child she lost by forcible adoption is like Antarctica: On the surface it doesn’t look like much but once you submerge and immerse, a riveting new world unfolds.
One Chance – 3 fingers. This gentle British film is based on a true story about an odd fellow with seemingly little going for him who sells cell phones by day and dreams of opera every other moment of his life – and eventually gets one big chance to swordfight his nerves and chase his ultimate dream.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire – 3 fingers. Stanley Tucci and Jennifer Lawrence stand out in this otherwise ho-hum second installment of the money machine supergirl franchise that leaves the audience empty, unfulfilled, and expecting more.
Sound City – 2 fingers. Foo Fighters founder Dave Grohl’s vanity film is an homage to an old and since deceased Van Nuys, California recording studio whose heroes were a record producer’s mixing board and a hot, sexy brunette; but despite the tunes and talking heads the movie comes up way short of similar genre efforts like Standing in the Shadows of Motown and Muscle Shoals.
Nebraska – 3 fingers. Alexander Payne’s ponderously slow black and white slice of Midwest Americana showcases Bruce Dern as a lost senior citizen who thinks a piece of magazine subscription junk mail is his ticket to a million dollars, but is hampered by the awkward performance of Saturday Night Live alum Will Forte as Dern’s tail-wagging son.
When it comes to movie reviews no one’s opinion is as important as yours, so get out of the house this holiday season and disappear for a couple hours supporting an actor, filmmaker, or story of choice.
See you at the movies!