"Eat Pray Love"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
You've read the book or know someone who has. Oprah endorsed it and it spent more than three years on the New York Times Bestseller List before Brad Pitt snapped up the rights, hired Julia Roberts and turned it into one of the most anticipated movies of the summer. "Eat Pray Love," the picturesque story of one woman's search for enlightenment, is part road trip movie, part self help guide and part food porn. By the movie's end you may have reservations about her journey, but you'll also want to make reservations -- for a trip and a visit to a great Italian restaurant.
Julia Roberts plays Liz Gilbert, a New York City writer with a seemingly perfect life. Career wise she's in demand, she has a loving husband (Billy Crudup) and a beautiful home. Under the surface, however, she's unhappy and one day makes the shocking decision to leave it all behind and spend a year travelling, first to Italy, then India and finally Bali. Along the way she learns to build meaningful relationships, how to forgive herself and how to nourish not only her body but her soul as well.
"Eat Pray Love" is a big expensive movie about introspection. The film's style is sweeping and bold -- ie: lots of crane shots and clever editing—but director Ryan Murphy keeps the focus of the story where it should be, on Liz's internal search. He has found smart ways to illustrate her various epiphanies, visualizing her mental breakthroughs. For instance on the Indian ashram where she learns to forgive herself for breaking her ex-husband's heart, Murphy stages the scene between Roberts and Crudup as a conversation during the wedding dance they never had. It's magic realism, which unless you're Terry Gilliam, is very hard to pull off, but the scene works remarkably well. It's both cinematic and intimate, all set to the tune of Neil Young's "Harvest Moon."
At the heart of the film is Roberts. She brings her movie star likability to a character that could easily be written-off as self centered in her single minded search to figure out her life. Her presence helps separate the "Eat Pray Love" from the run-of-the-mill big screen romance. This would have been a much different movie if Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson had signed on to play the lead, but Roberts brings with her a light-gravitas. I know it's a contradiction, but she knows how to play the comedy aspects of the story but also wades in knee deep for the dramatic scenes. She's in every scene -- almost every frame -- of the picture providing an anchor for the film's flighty story.
She's working opposite some heavyweight performances. Richard Jenkins as the plain talking Texan searching for enlightenment in India is a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination and Javier Bardem oozes charisma and vulnerability as Felipe, the love interest. He says the words "It's time," with more romance there than in any ten rom coms we've seen recently.
At one point during the film a character says, "Americans know entertainment but they don't know pleasure." "Eat Pray Love" proves that the two aren't mutually exclusive.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:
Richard's Review: 4 ½ stars
Comic books and graphic novels have provided the inspiration for loads of movies but rarely does a film really capture the spirit of its pen and ink muse. "Sin City" used a mixture of live action and digital trickery to bring its film noir story to visceral life and the "Spider-Man" series wisely focused on the characters for their big screen outings but "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" is the evolution of both these techniques. Director Edgar "Sean of the Dead" Wright strikes a balance between live action, manga, video game imagery and music videos to conjure up a wildly entertaining, if some what sensory assaulting pop culture confection that works as a film and stays true to the source material.
Based on Bryan Lee O'Malley's graphic novel series, "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" stars Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, a 22-year-old Torontonian who is rebound dating a 17-year-old high school girl named Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knives loves Scott and his band, but Scott only has eyes for Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a recently transplanted New Yorker whose habit of changing her hair color from shocking pink to blue to green every week leads Scott to believe she is unpredictable. He may be right, but her fickle behavior is the least of his problems. As soon as they start dating he discovers he has to pass a test -- actually seven of them -- if he wants to be with her. He must first defeat her Seven Evil Exes in wild video game meets "The Matrix" fights scenes.
The experience of watching "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" is not unlike that sonic rush that accompanies walking into a videogame arcade. It's noisy, flashy and somewhat disorienting. Director Wright flips from scene to scene with the speed of light, filling the screen with sight gags, surreal graphics flying on and off the screen and much visual mayhem.
It's nonstop but unlike movies that are all style and no substance the look of the film is crucial to the spirit of the story. Some suspension of disbelief will be necessary when watching the movie -- extras lives can be gained à la video game rules -- but the underlying reason for all this flash is Scott's journey toward self awareness. He's a video game nerd and a comic book geek whose life is marked by the constant flow of information and stimulation that we're all inundated with every day and the movie's hyperactive style inventively portrays that world.
It's a cool looking movie but that doesn't mean that much if the characters aren't engaging, and here again Wright steps up. Cera (the year's most unlikely movie warrior) is treading familiar ground here -- the sweet geek -- but brings with him razor sharp comic timing and a likeable screen presence. His realization that you must fight for what you believe in and those you love may be presented in an outrageous fashion, but the underlying message is bang on.
"Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" is a unique piece of work. It's a wild ride that nails the pop culture zeitgeist but also tells a universal human story.
"The Expendables"
Richard's Review: 2 ½ stars
"The Expendables," the new film starring every action star known to man, including Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and that's just the Ss!), is a nostalgia fest celebrating those cinematic days of yore when gangs of mercenaries led by action heroes like Dolph Lundgren could bring down governments and spread the American way of life armed only with an arsenal of guns, knives, grenades and one liners. That the heyday of this kind of movie, and most of the actors in it, was twenty-five years ago is not going to prevent "The Expendables" from kicking butt and lots of it.
In this blood and testosterone splattered story Stallone leads a group of freelance soldiers -- knife tosser Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) hand-to-hand expert Ying Yang (Jet Li), sniper Gunner (Dolph Lundgren), big gun toter Terry Crews and MMA superstar Randy Couture -- whose motto is "if the money's right we don't care where the job is." When they take a job to bring down a dictator (David Zayas who plays Angel on "Dexter") and American drug lord (Eric Roberts, whose sister Julia has a very different kind of movie opening on the same day as this one) on the South American Isle of Vilena, however, they may have finally found one hotspot worse than Bosnia, Sierra Leone and all the other hellish places they've fought for pay, combined. The only thing than can get them to go back there is -- you guessed it -- a woman. Cue the explosions.
Like the classic rock that makes up the bulk of the soundtrack from "The Expendables" the whole movie has a familiar ring to it. All the usual direct-to-video action movie clichés are well represented from big guns—6' 5" Dolph's guns and knives are almost as big as he is -- to tricked out motorcycles and tattoos to tough guy talk -- "I'll cut you up into dog treats!" says one character -- but despite guns big enough to turn anything that gets in the way into "instant red sauce and jello" the action scenes aren't as over-the-top as they should be. Any movie where Action Stars from Another Age©--Stallone, Lundgren, Arnold -- meet the up-and-comers -- Couture and Crews -- should be ninety minutes of trigger happy, mindless manish boy fun, but screenwriters Stallone and David Callaham had to go and ruin the enjoyment by inserting character arcs and God forbid, subtext. Way to ruin a perfectly good action pic Sly.
Not that there aren't some retina scorching action scenes. Stallone (who also directed) uses each of the individual talents of his actors well -- it's always a pleasure to see Jet Li in action -- and several things blow up real good, but when the movie tries to go deep it stumbles. When Mickey Rourke, who plays Tool, a former soldier of fortune who now sets up their engagements -- think Charlie on "Charlie's Angels" -- drones on about trying to "save what was left of my soul" it grinds the movie to a near halt.
Luckily the movie's climax should give action fans what they're looking for -- lots of punching, kicking, flying bullets and knives and a spectacular explosion -- but like its Action Stars from Another Age© the rest of film seems a little long in the tooth by that point.
"The Disappearance of Alice Creed"
Richard's Review: 4 ½ stars
Three characters, three, maybe four sets and one hundred minutes of unrelenting tension. That's the best way to describe "The Disappearance of Alice Creed," the feature film debut from British director J Blakeson. It's a small, low budget thriller, but nonetheless is as thrilling as any movie we've seen this summer.
The risk with reviewing "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" is in giving you enough detail to whet your appetite but not enough to spoil the movie's many unexpected twists and turns. I can tell you that Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton) is a woman kidnapped by ex-cons Vic and Danny (Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston) because her father is wealthy, she's an only child and she's, quote, slim enough to carry, unquote. After following a meticulously planned abduction they demand a ransom of two million pounds while Alice is trussed up in a soundproof room. Enter complications. End of synopsis.
Like "Shallow Grave," another English suspense with more twists and turns than Piccadilly Circus, "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" in addition to the tightly written script, uses music and clever editing to create an atmosphere thick with tension. Its taut construction and claustrophobic feel are typical for the genre, but director Blakeson steps outside the conventions of kidnapping movies to add in elements that are truly surprising. For instance, and this isn't a spoiler, when a stray shell casing can become the catalyst for not only humor but anxiety you know the movie is connecting. On the surface it feels like a 70s exploitation flick -- the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino would rescue from drive-in obscurity to release on DVD -- but there is much more here than schlock.
Beneath the movie's sheen of tension and brutality is a story about how complicated kidnapping can turn out to be when feelings become involved. It is a psychological drama about trust, power and what happens when you deviate from the plan.
As the puffy-eyed Alice, Gemma Arterton proves there is more to her than just the pretty face we've seen in "The Prince of Persia," "Quantum of Solace" and "Clash of the Titans." Despite spending most of the film in chains with a bag over her head she manages, by times, to convincingly convey vulnerability, genuine fear and strength. It's a complicated role that sees her go through a lot, both mentally and physically, and she pulls it off.
Equally strong are Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston as the kidnappers. Marsan's Vic is an intriguing bad guy—controlling, unpredictable but also mannered and meticulous. Best known as Scott, the angry driving instructor in "Happy-Go-Lucky," his presence supplies much of the movie's feeling of unease. Compston's Danny seems like a more standard criminal type, but reveals unexpected deeper dimensions to the character when the twists start flying. Is he a callous opportunist or a victim of the domineering Vic?
"The Disappearance of Alice Creed" is a nasty little piece of work. It is remorselessly bleak but carefully crafted enough to be intriguing.
