Category: Movie

Obvious Child

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 4

Obvious Child is an entertaining romantic comedy.  Jenny Slate plays Donna Stern, a stand-up comedian who gets dumped, loses her day job,  gets pregnant and decides to have an abortion.  Slate, whose claim to fame before this movie was saying the F-word on her Saturday Night Live debut (before not being brought back the next year), does a great job showing a range of emotions as she tries to get her life together.

The movie is funny, while also dealing with tough emotional issues.  The film has a good supporting cast of most unknowns playing her mother, best friend,  and new beau.

The film dealt with the topic of abortion from where Donna was with her life and what was best for her, and didn’t feel preachy to me. But if you’re strongly (or maybe even moderately) pro-life, this movie is probably not for you, but others might enjoy it.

Bill I’s Review – 3 out of 4

I enjoyed this film. Jenny Slate is naturally interesting, and plays very very well a young woman who combines aspects of intelligence, ambition, laziness, incredible candor and courage, of course humor and personality, as well as a lack of fortitude to confront her problems head on.  Most of the movie I felt like I was waiting for something to happen, but this is more of a slice of life, albeit during a time when she has to make a tough choice, as Bill described above.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

obvious-child

Edge of Tomorrow

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 5

The Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi Groundhog Day during an Independence Day like war with aliens.

As Tom Cruise goes back in time he needs to keep learning so he can get further and hopefully progress to lead the defeat of the aliens.  He is aided by Emily Blunt who had a similar ability, became a hero  at a key battle but eventually lost the power.

I really liked the first 95% of the movie.  The plot is good, they threw in a lot of good humor and showed the progression towards the goal in a clever way.

Blunt and Cruise were both good although Cruise is probably reaching the point where he should leave this role to younger people (but if Liam Neeson can  do action stuff in his 60s why not? And I see Mission Impossible 5 and a Top Gun sequel are coming up for Cruise!).

The very ending to me seemed like a big cop out.  I don’t want to give it away but would be interested to know if others agreed.  Despite the ending I thought this was a good summer action movie.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

EdgeOfTomorrow

X-Men Days of Future Past

Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

Things are looking bleak for the X-Men sometime in the future.  They are losing a Terminator like war as humans have come up with these killer machines.  So what are you going to do?   Time to send an X-Men (X-Man?) back in the past to try to unite the X-Men at a pivotal time in history and alter the key event that led to the present situation.

I didn’t think this was the best X-Men movie but I thought it was a pretty good one.  The action was good  and included some humorous action (although the first time travel sequence was sort of confusing to  me until they explained it).

At this point you know the key characters pretty well with Wolverine, Raven/Mystique, Charles and Magneto getting most of the screen time.   Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence stand out with most of the tension coming from the need to get Magneto to conform.  Jackman has been playing Wolverine for almost 15 years now and you wonder how much longer he can do that role but so far he can still handle it.    While a ton of X-Men are in the movie some just have cameos (Rogue/ Ann Pacquin being  probably on screen for about 5 seconds).   Peter Dinklage handles the evil non mutant role and they find a Richard Nixon impersonator for some of the scenes in the 70s towards  the end of the Vietnam war.

I did not see this in 3D although I heard that was pretty good.  If you’re a fan of the series you should definitely see this one.  If you have an extra 8 minutes stick around for the closing credits  and teaser for the next X-Men movie (and let me know what it means).

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

X_Men__Days_of_Future_Past_13838035762671

Locke

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 5

Locke is  pretty good for a movie that totally takes place during a 90 minute car ride.  Just the lead character (along with  occasional views of the dashboard and road)  is ever on screen as he juggles conversations with his wife, kids, boss, subordinate and others on the phone.

Locke has a great family and career that appear to be crashing down around him as he tries to step up and do what he views as the right  right thing in a tough personal situation.  During the course of the movie you learn about  events in his past and present that drive him as well as get to know the people he is dealing with.

The writing and acting are excellent.  Tom Hardy does a great job as Ivan Locke.  I never would have guessed he was the same actor that played Bane in the last Batman movie.

For a movie with such a simple premise and setting  this turned out to be a tension filled movie with a performance that was definitely worth watching.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

locke-tom-hardy-21

Million Dollar Arm

Bill I’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I loved it. Great story, based on real-life events, of a sports agent holding a nationwide contest in India to find a couple of cricket players who could throw a baseball with “juice” (i.e. fast and accurate), awarding them with a trip to the US to get professional training and a major league tryout. Jon Hamm is pretty perfect as the down on his luck agent, kind of like a 2008 version of Don Draper gone out on his own: arrogant, but with likable potential if he slows down from his fast track business focus enough to appreciate the people around him. The scenes in India give just enough local flavor to keep it interesting, while the secondary characters stand out, especially Alan Arkin as the jaded scout, Bill Paxton as the coach Tom House, and Pitobash as the volunteer translator and gofer who’s got big baseball ambitions but tiny stature. Lake Bell is good as the tenant neighbor love interest and wise voice of reason, while the two potential pitchers are realistically quiet and intimidated by the fish out of water experience, and end up doing a realistic version of pitching so it doesn’t look like typical Hollywood actors trying to be athletes. Finally, I must mention that the film was inspired by my college friend, Will Chang, who in real life funded the contest and helped initiate the film. The character that portrays “Mr. Chang” is quite harsh, which is very unlike Will in real life, so I assume they needed it for dramatic impact. Some critics have called the film corny and boring. I agree it’s no Jerry McGuire, and no Slumdog Millionaire, but it’s very enjoyable and I was never bored. Bring kids of all ages and you will have fun.

 

Chef

Bill C’s Review – 3.5 out of 5

I originally reviewed this  back in March when I saw this at SXSW.  It opens this weekend (at least in Austin).

Chef is a small indie effort written, directed and starring Jon Favreau.  It’s not up there with Swingers but is a  light hearted comedy about a high profile, stressed out chef who loses his job and goes back to discover the basics that made him happy by opening a food truck and reconnecting with his son and family.

The movie picks up and is more entertaining and touching  in the 2nd half when he, his son and friend go on a road trip in the food truck.  This had a great cast (Favreau,  Jon Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman,  Sofia Vergara, Oliver Platt, Robert Downey Jr. and more).   The kid who plays Favreau’s son did a great job and helps give the movie it’s heart.

About 10 minutes of the movie was shot in several spots in Austin (Franklin’s, SoCo and others).  If you’re looking for something other than Godzilla or X-Men give this one a try.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

chef_movie_still

The Final Member

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 5

As followers of this blog know, I like documentaries, and I especially like quirky, funny ones.  Three of my favorites in the past few years have been:

The Final Member is in the same vein—a documentary about an off-the-wall topic that, due to circumstances, personalities, subject matter,  whatever,  becomes interesting, funny and compelling.  For 40 years, “Siggi” Hjartarson has run the  Icelandic Phallological Museum (after his wife made him remove his growing collection from their house).

The collection has all mammal species on display except for the final phallus to make the exhibit complete—that of a human.  The first part of the movie goes through the history of the museum  and the rest focuses on Siggi’s effort to get the final exhibit for his museum.  He ends up with two competing donors. Pall Aronson is a 90+ year old WWII hero in Iceland and, according to legend, is the greatest lover in Iceland history.  He has agreed to donate his penis at his death.  Tom Mitchell is a 60-year-old Californian who is willing to donate Elmo, his self-named penis, before his death.

Obviously a lot of people will be turned off by the subject matter.  But the movie  is pretty funny and interesting, but the director does not make fun of the people involved and it’s interesting to get to hear their story.  While this is not as good as the three movies above, I still enjoyed it.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

The-Final-Member

Under the Skin

Bill C’s Review – 2 out of 5

In the Skin is a science fiction movie with Scarlett Johansson as an alien that picks up men and lures them to their death.

The film is directed by Jonathan Glazer who made Sexy Beast several years ago, but is also famous for the music videos he has directed.  While the movie is visually interesting and the soundtrack is good,  the movie is pretty boring and Glazxer never really explains why things are happening. Sometimes that is ok, but not in this case.

Johansson is good in a role that requires her to be emotionless (if they remade this with a male alien, I’d recommend Keanu Reeves).  In addition, Johansson has several nude scenes which, for many, will be the best thing going for this movie.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

Cinema-roundup-March-13th

Joe

Bill C’s Review – 3 out of 5

Joe is a character driven study set in the deep south.

Joe (Nicolas Cage), leads a tree clearing crew.  For the most part Joe is a lovable guy who helps everyone but he has anger issues which have gotten him into trouble/jail in the past.  He  hires and then befriends Gary (Tye Sheridan from The Tree of Life and Mud), a 15 year old with an alcoholic and violent father.

I liked the feel of this movie.  The setting in the deep south and the scenes in the woods with the tree clearing crew were great.  The interaction between Joe and his crew and the performance of his 2nd in command was excellent.  The performances by Cage and Sheridan were also very good.  Normally, you’d expect Cage to overact, especially when his anger issues are on display.  But he kept things under control.  Sheridan was excellent in Mud and he is also excellent here.

There’s a fair amount of tension throughout as Joe has plenty of enemies as well as friends and it’s not clear what path Gary will take.  This was worth seeing.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

joe-movie-picture (1)

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Bill C’s Review – 2.5 out of 5

I’m definitely in the minority as I just considered this an ok super hero movie.  Maybe if I was more of a Captain America fan I would have liked this more.

I enjoyed the first half better but the film lost me as more of the character motivations and plot were revealed.  I simultaneously thought some of the plot was too over the top while other parts were too predictable.   Other movies have done a better job of commenting on current events like shrinking freedoms in a dangerous world and disclosures of government secrets.

While the action was ok I also didn’t think that was outstanding.  Maybe the great reviews and my anticipation of the first summer blockbuster (summer keeps coming earlier and earlier! ) set my expectations too high.

IMDB

Rotten Tomatoes

15-action-packed-photos-from-captain-america-the-winter-soldier