micromoviereviews

because life's too short to watch bad movies

[micromoviereviews]

Beasts of the Southern Wild - LIVE from Sundance

Sundance's big feature award winner in 2012 is a post-Katrina-apocolypse-meets-Beyond-Thunderdome-meets-Newt & Ripley & pre-historic-beasts-as-aliens in the swamps of the Bayou-south.

Did you get all that?

Said another way...gritty-magical-apocolype-realism that is totally unique and unforgettable. Filmmaker, Benh Zeitlin, has succeeded in creating a film that even the most hardened film-buffs will be asking, "how does someone even THINK of a story like that" and - even more so - "How did they SHOOT that?" (The reported sale price to Fox Searchlight for $2 million seems like it wouldn't even cover the costs to produce the film!)

And...write this down...Quvenzhane Wallis, as the child-hero, "Hushpuppy" - is an early Oscar favorite next year...Her performance is off-the-charts can't miss.

[micromoviereviews]

Live From Sundance 2012: "Save the Date"

Stop the presses - we have a winner!

It's hard to have a fresh, original take on the "awkward fumbling-into-adulthood of 20-something's in L.A." genre, but "Save the Date" nails it with a story & performances that are as surprising and pitch-perfect as "Juno" - and that's high praise.

Can't remember the last time I was in a theater when there was - literally - such a buzz of positive feedback, and the under-the-radar cast won't be out of the spotlight for long. Lizzie Caplan is a star and filmmaker Michael Mohan is worth rooting for.

What a wonderful, warm surprise on a ten-degree night in Park City, UT!

[micromoviereviews]

Live from Sundance 2012: "The Comedy"

Add the term, "recreational cruelty" to your vocabulary, and if you're confused about what that might mean, wait for this polarizing indie film to hit your local cineplex.

This hard-to-stomach, but sometimes funny film, is a raw look at the trust fund babies from the Beavis & Butthead generation. Talk about a niche! And boy...are these guys best in small doses.

While most bankruptcy stories are about money and flow from the lower / middle class with the occasional high flying Wall Street collapse, this film looks at an altogether more brutal moral bankruptcy of human nature at its lowest, most mean, numb, and devoid of compassion for...anything!

Tip your hat...it will make you uncomfortable...but you've never seen anything like it.

[micromoviereviews]

Midnight in Paris

Pitch-perfect Woody Allen - more nostalgia & romance than humor, but a delightful 90 minutes. Plenty of love letters have been written about all things Paris - particularly Paris in the 20's - but Woody Allen has the courage and the chops to one-up all of them. Owen Wilson perfectly cast, and the historical characters come to life - from Hemingway to F. Scott and Zelda - are just as you'd like to imagine them. Great performances all around and a brave message at the core: yearning for the "golden days gone by" is a human nature flaw that is doomed to repeat itself from generation to generation.

[micromoviereviews]

Moneyball

Swing and a miss! This movie tells the wrong story! In fact, Michael Lewis wrote the book too soon as history has shown Moneyball focuses on the SECOND most interesting success story of the "stats will set you free!" baseball era.

On the surface, this is baseball for stat-geeks with Brad Pitt maxing out his "aww shucks I may be wrong but I'm gonna do it my way" charm and Jonah Hill continuing to build a career as a scene stealer.

Michael Lewis - the book's author - was right when he said he didn't think the story would make a good movie. And - at its core - this movie is a tragedy! Hear me out...

The stats-will-set-you-free theory that the story is rooted in comes from Bill James. Pitt and Hill's characters are the first to follow the gospel of Bill James to the letter, and - to their credit, they amass a 20 game winning streak with a bunch of no-names, but ultimately...lose in the first round of the playoffs.

(spoiler alert!) In the final act, Billy Beane, Pitt's character, then gets courted by the RED SOX - who have HIRED Bill James himself - in an attempt to bring Boston their first World Series in 100 years...and Beane turns them DOWN. Let me say that again: HE TURNS DOWN THE CHANCE TO WORK WITH THE MAN WHO WROTE THE GOSPEL and to take on the biggest challenge in baseball (at the time) which was to "reverse the curse" and bring a championship to Boston! HEROES scale that mountain!

Instead, the A's go on to return to mediocrity under Beane, and the Red Sox win not one, but TWO World Series with Bill James...and the history now shows that Beane and his bean counter couldn't leverage the Bill James advantages as much as Bill James himself!

No need to mention the forced-shoe-horn sub-plots of father / daughter, husband / ex, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in thankless role as "bad guy" manager of the A's. The "data" shows that this movie is a swing and a miss and all the marketing to the contrary won't change the fact that the REAL story of baseball-data-junkies as the new titans of industry has yet to be told...and it happened in Boston!

[micromoviereviews]

Another Year

Mike Leigh makes interesting movies, with fully fleshed out characters, and some of them ("Happy Go Lucky") can really surprise and delight, but this one...not so much. It's pretty dark with the only light coming from the tired hopefulness of the every-men and every-women that fill out the story. Special kudos to Leslie Manville for playing one of the most desperate and sad characters I've seen on film in some time. She's a train wreck, but you cannot look away.

[micromoviereviews]

Super 8

Never has word-of-mouth about a movie been more spot on. This is a little too much of a Frankenstein monster of Spielberg's greatest hits, but the performances of the kids in this cast are pitch-perfect and upstage everything else. Special nod to the best train crash sequence since The Fugitive!

[micromoviereviews]

The Help

This is straight Hallmark movie-of-the-week stuff, folks, perfume'd up to be "art film / critics darling / blockbuster"...whatever works, just pay at the cash-register. And have you bought the best-selling novel, yet? How about the action figures?...err...Crisco cook book? It all seems so vanilla - and at 2 and a half hours - how much vanilla can one digest before they need...well...HELP! There are some fine performances, no doubt, but they pale in comparison to other similar-themed flicks like "Driving Miss Daisy" - "Steel Magnolias" - "The Color Purple" - and can I get a "Fried Green Tomatos" to cut thru the after-taste? Did I mention that poop-pie is a critical plot device? Open wide, sista...

[micromoviereviews]

The Future

Miranda July is a completely original artist, film-maker, and performer. Her films are as unique as her translucent blue eyes, and definitely an acquired taste...like tofu. Talking cats (yes, really) and a comforting-lecturing-moon (oddly, it works!) meet raw private moments from top-notch actors in The Future. Fell asleep - twice! - watching this film...but rooting for the film-maker...there's nothing else like her!

[micromoviereviews]

How Do You Know

James L. Brooks has made some of the best, smartest, adult, drama-comedies in the last 30 years. His "Big 3": "Terms of Endearment," "Broadcast News," and "As Good As It Gets" = yes, please!

"How Do You Know" is...horrible.

It's hard to imagine how such a talented film-maker, and a world class cast, could make such a dud. And no one escapes the carnage. From a grossly mis-cast, Reese Witherspoon, to a phoning-it-in minor role from Jack Nicholson, this film also shows the limits of two of America's "leading men" - Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson. As a viewer, you'll find yourself straining to find elements that resemble Brooks' award-winning films, and even imagining the shared embarrassment that all these talented artists had to feel when the credits rolled at the red-carpet screening. Facing "the press" and "selling" this film was the most impressive performance by anyone involved in "How Do You Know."...Save yourself 121 minutes of your life and choose to watch one of the Big 3 from Brooks for a guaranteed enjoyable movie-watching experience.

[micromoviereviews]

Everything Must Go

Will Ferrell begins the long, slow "Bill Murray journey" of evolving from A-list comic star to legit dramatic actor. As with Murray's earliest efforts (Razor's Edge, anyone?) it's not always a smooth journey, but Ferrell has "you can't teach that" likability and shows the same potential in this short-story-turned-indie-film. Slow? Yep! Some honest, touching moments? You betcha. Makes you appreciate the fine line between hit and miss...and gives you confidence that Ferrell has some Murray's-best "Lost in Translation" and "Get Low" type performances in his future. Rebecca Hall and Laura Dern shine in small roles. Christopher C.J. Wallace is perfectly under-stated as the drifting neighborhood kid in search of a parent. Keep swinging Will!

[micromoviereviews]

Cary Barlowe on Gigging & Grubbing

Hit maker behind Lady Antebellum's #1 hit, "American Honey," tells all and shares his new single, "Helpless" which he says is the best song he's written so far. Whiskey Kitchen and Piranha's sandwiches look like good grubbing in Nashville, too, next time you're swinging thru Music City. Who's hungry?!

www.giggingandgrubbing.com

[micromoviereviews]

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Hmm...O.K., I get it. 89 mins of the strengths and weaknesses of Conan all captured during his exhausting, thrown-together tour in the wake of his $45 million settlement after getting the shaft from NBC. Ironically, you almost get a taste of why Conan wasn't up to the challenge of carrying the Tonight Show torch, but grow in appreciation of his indie comedy chops and tireless, ego & fear driven work ethic. Even if the TBS show doesn't work out for him, there'll always be someplace on the dial for Team Coco.

[micromoviereviews]

Buck (doc)

Sundance award-winning darling is exactly as advertised: a real life horse whisperer. He's as authentic as we'd like to believe all emotionally-wounded cowboys should be. And if you've never seen a wild horse bite a trainer in the face...this documentary will show it in shocking color.

[micromoviereviews]

Page One: Inside the New York Times (doc)

A smart, focused look at the strengths / weaknesses of "legacy media" - the painful financial shift of readers to "new media" - the ignorance / arrogance of new media that survives off the backbone of "old media" - and the truly impressive teamwork and talent of world class JOURNALISTS at the top of their game.

The only risk most bloggers or new media start-ups take is investment of "time" producing opinions that aren't held to any standard of fact / accuracy. "Legacy" media is the soul of democracy in that it strives to be fair, balanced, thorough and PATIENT in determining IF there's a story to tell, and - when they tell it - that it's well researched and accurate. Who will PAY for that in the future?

Ironically - I think investigative, long-form journalism will come from documentary film-makers.

[micromoviereviews]

Paranormal Activity 2

OK...the tension / release of this franchise needed a little more tweaking in this follow up to the original. I understand the need to lull the audience with scenes of everyday life with a touch of foreshadowing here and there so you can set up the "big scares" but...too much lull leads to dull. I think what makes this whole franchise work is that Katie looks like a thick tree-stump who could really snap some necks like a screw top off a 40oz. Demon-bent-on-collecting-first-born-son plot point works fine, and the family of victims was likable, but...the teenage daughter magically disappears at the peak of the movie for some field trip? Nope...Get the ghost-hungry teen back in the pic and...more demon-Katie rocking the bloody wife-beater!

[micromoviereviews]

Hanna

Uninteresting European pseudo-thriller about a teen girl reared by, and as, a super spy, on the run from the CIA. ASC-led by C Blanchett, who has an AWFUL (southern?) American accent- and ambitious direction can't do a thing with a dull, implausible script that has too many "huh?" and "wha?"'s to count. (submitted by Pittboy87)