Les Miserables

After serving 19 years as a prisoner in Post French Revolution France, Jean Valjean(Hugh Jackman) is released to be a free man, but he finds freedom to not be very freeing. His crime, stealing bread to feed his sister's dying kid, does not seem to warrant the reaction he has received. No one will hire a former felon, and he cannot find a place to sleep. After he is given food and bed from a Bishop, Valjean steals all of the valuables from the Church. He does not believe in the good of man and who can blame him. However, when he is caught, the Bishop tells the police that Valjean was given the valuables and he left without taking the candlesticks as well. Valjean realizes here he is at a Crossroads, he can use these valuables to better his life, but it means throwing away his papers and not going to his parole hearing. He must become a fugitive. Cut to a few years later, and Valjean is living as a business owner and mayor of a small Parisian town. The gruff Law officer, Javert(Russel Crowe) has been dispatched to Valjean's town, and Javert quickly thinks something is up with Valjean, but he cannot quite place it. In this town, Fantine (Anne Hathaway) loses her job at Valjean's factory and because she has to send money to innkeepers who are watching after her little girl Cosette, Fantine sells her hair, her teeth and eventually her body. When Valjean realizes what has happened, he promises Fantine that he will protect her daughter. Cut to another few years later and Valjean and Cosette(Amanda Seyfreid) live a quiet life in France, but revolution is brewing. And love is brewing as well. Cosette has met Marius(Eddie Redmayne)and they instantly fall in love, but Marius is a man of the revolution and once Valjean decides he and Cosette have to leave because Javert is on his trail, Marius throws himself fully into war. Oh and the whole thing is sung.

I am much more of a film guy than I am a musical theater guy, and I believe that in reviewing a film adaptation of anything, you have to stick to the film. It has to stand on its own merits. So in thinking of that I have to say that I do not love Les Miserables. Yet, I am completely in love with this movie. It succeeds on almost every level and I connected emotionally to it in so many different ways. Every time I thought I was done crying, something would trigger another sobbing emotion. It did not even feel like nearly 3 hours to me. From the moment Jackman started singing to the very end, I was completely hooked by the people on the screen. Once I let the movie wash over me, I was completely enthralled, which is saying something because the director (Tom Hooper) tried his best to ruin the entire experience.

Jackman not only gives his best performance ever, but he gives what is easily the best performance of the year and the best in quite a few years if you ask me. His gravitas mixed with a deep sensitivity leads to one of the most heartbreaking male lead performances I have ever seen. I found his vocals to be exactly what they should have been. His performance ripped me apart in a number of ways. From the start as a completely broken man to a man searching for redemption for the rest of the film, Jackman is perfect. His rendition of "Bring him Home" crushed me. The softness of his voice in that vulnerable moment was enough to make me literally weep. And to follow it up with a rugged determination to Marius away from the war was such a stark difference, but he handled both with ease.

Eddie Redmayne is another guy who I felt gave a knockout performance. Facebook is griping about his Kermit voice or his jaw wiggling, but I was too ripped apart during his "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables" performances to notice. He was diligent, romantic, full of great ideals and it is not difficult to understand how love completely sweeps him up. I know people wish that Aaron Tveit has just been cast as Marius not Enjolras, and honestly, that probably would have been great casting, but I think it would have robbed people of Tveit's great Enjolras and it is truly a great performance in a role that could easily be a "whatever" role. It is a pretty thankless role, if you ask me and Tveit turns it into a powerhouse supporting role worthy of the epicness of Enjolras's fate as Hooper shoots it. As Cosette, Seyfreid is fine. She is super pretty and her voice, while a bit thin, does not deter from the show and she and Redmayne have a nice chemistry. Samantha Barks as Eponine, a childhood friend of Cosette's and a hopeful lover of marius, just kills "On my Own" but in my opinion, she is too pretty to be Eponine. Not that Eponine has to be ugly, but Barks is stunning and it is a little weird for her to be the scorned.

Anne Hathaway, sweet lord is she phenomenal. I love her, and have loved her for a while. I think she was robbed in Rachel Getting Married. This year she has had two wonderful, and completely different performances. Here, as Fantine, she has the best single moment in the movie. Her "I Dreamed a Dream" is a serious showstopper. It was gut wrenching, heart breaking and superb. I wanted to applaud when it was done. She completely owns the movie every time she is on screen and you want so much more of her. Hathaway's Fantine not only rips you apart, it puts you back together, just to rip you apart again. Then you have Russel Crowe. The man is getting torn to shreds by everyone, but I do not really get it. His vocals are not as strong as the others, but he does not have a bad voice. It just does not fit as well as the others. I actually found his controlled performance to be quite effective. He also looked great in the costumes. He looks like an officer of the law. His "Stars" was not as epic as I think many always hope it is going to be, but he did not bother me. I know that is not a ringing endorsement, but he does not take away from the movie.

Through all of that, I have to say Tom Hooper does his best to ruin this movie with some of the most egregious uses of dutch tilts I have ever seen in a movie this side of Doubt. Why oh why must you tilt every shot Hooper? Why must you take the camera away from these great, simple shots and do awful things to them? You have these great actors giving heart breaking performances left and right, just leave the damn camera alone. It was so frustrating to watch these awful tilts when I was trying to just watch these songs with such great gusto. This reaffirms my hatred for Hooper.

I have seen every complaint possible about this movie from my musical theater friends, and of course, everyone is entitled to think what they. I found the film to be an arresting and emotional three hours that I want to experience again. The performances are so strong and the emotional connection to the characters so exquisite that it overcame Hooper's obnoxious dutch tilts. The costumes is excellent, the color palette for the backgrounds took some getting used to, but for me, this movie is all about the performances. Seeing all of the Facebook comments also reaffirms that I am not really a musical theater person. I am a movie person. I think if someone had just put a stage version onto the screen, I would have hated it, like I often hate the musical on stage when I see it. On stage the performances are always too broad, the singing too big and pretty to be emotionally arresting and the set never looks as good as it should. In this film, all of that is solved, for me.


Oh I just realized I left out Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, if only they were left out of the movie...

Final Grade: A-

The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey (H:AUJ)

After peter Jackson completed his perfect Lord of the Rings trilogy, it was no surprise that he wanted to take a crack at The Hobbit. Rumors swirled about how he would tackle it. Would it one movie, or two movies? Would he create a whole movie from scratch to bridge the gap between LOTR and The Hobbit? Honestly, I did not care what he did, as long as he did something. Peter Jackson showed a comprehensive understanding of how Tolkien's world worked. Then he was just going to produce, but he brought in Guillermo Del Toro to direct, which was also fine with me. After years of hold ups, Del Toro left the project to pursue Pacific Rim, an amazing looking Science Fiction movie, and Jackson was back on as a director. Then it came out it would be three movies which just threw the world off its nerd axis. But, The Hobbit is a short book and how could he possibly find a way to make it three movies. Yes, the Hobbit is a short book, but Middle Earth is rich with characters and stories. I have trusted Peter Jackson. The extended versions of the LOTR movies are actually better than the theatrical cuts. However, after the disappointment of Lincoln, I wanted to lower my expectations, but that was hard when I was getting to go back to Middle Earth!

Bilbo was once a hobbit who had a great adventure. Now an elder hobbit, Bilbo Baggins(Ian Holm) starts writing his story so Frodo will be able to read it. As a young hobbit Bilbo (Martin Freeman) was approached Gandalf (Ian McKellen)but not really given a reason. A few hours later Bilbo starts getting visitors and soon his house is overrun by 12 dwarves and Gandalf the Grey. These Dwarves are setting off on an adventure to get their underground kingdom back from the dragon Smaug. Smaug took it decades ago after the Dwarf king got greedy and started stock piling his riches. Dragons love treasure and the Dwarves were no match for the fire breather. However, signs have started to appear that make the Dwarves believe the time is now. They have to take back their home. Led by the great Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the dwarves appear fearless. Gandalf believes Bilbo is the right person to fill out their group because Hobbits can go along being unseen. It gives them a surprise. Bilbo has no intention of laving his home, and this puzzles Gandalf because as a young hobbit Bilbo was quite adventurous. Bilbo gives in and they head off to find the Dwarves old kingdom.

Much like the LOTR trilogy, H:AUJ is, at its core, a road trip movie. We have a big group of people trying to get from point A to point B and encountering the most insane predicaments. In the Hobbit, our group of heroes are being chased by a Pale Orc with a grudge against Thorin, they get mixed up with rock creatures, and an underground army of Goblins. There is also a big bad unknown Necromancer looming, probably giant spiders and the mostly unseen Smaug. However, the Hobbit has to stand on its own and not just lean against the LOTR trilogy. As a first picture in a new trilogy set in the same world as LOTR, H:AUJ is quite successful. I am not as blindingly positive about this as I was about the original trilogy, but I am still full of wonderful raves. H:AUJ gives me precisely what I wanted it to give me. There is this great sense of epic adventure and wonder, which had to be difficult to cultivate because, in a sense, we have seen all of this before. The sweeping helicopter shots of the great New Zealand landscapes are still as stunning now as they were 10 years ago, Howard Shore's sweeping score still sends shivers down my spine as a signal of a magical journey to a magical time. Peter Jackson uses motion capture and CG graphics in a stellar fashion, even if the Pale Orc's movements were not as fluid as they would have been if it was a human in make up. I loved the sense of danger and revenge and honor and duty that these movies are supposed to fill me with.

That is not to say there are not some issues to be found. Luckily for me, the entirety of the issues come within the first hour and they were long out of my head as the film picked up steam. As we are introduced to these characters and reintroduced to this world there is some serious clumsiness in terms of tone and pacing. The Hobbit is not as serious a story as LOTR, and Peter Jackson has always had a twisted sense of slapstick humor. Here the slapstick is more traditional. The introduction to the Dwarves is incredibly wonky. They are characters we are supposed to believe in battle later, but they are all goofy characters. They are vaguely gross, they eat everything, show no care for Bilbo's stuff and it just was a wonky way to get going. The pacing in the first hour is also a bit jerky. The Prologue soars, then the movie slows down, then the dwarves come in and the pacing gets exploded. It felt like Jackson was still trying to figure out where he wanted the movie to go and what he wanted it to be. The first hour feels like the first hour of a two hour innocuous adventure film. I would not say I was bored by it, just uneasy about what it spelled for the rest of the film.

However, once the group set off on their adventure, the movie sidesteps the wonky pacing, save for an unfortunate turn to the Brown Wizard Radagast and his sled of bunnies. And even the Radagast thing did not bother me too much especially when he turned out to be helpful in a scene that was both amusing, and thrilling. The second hour of constantly changing scenery was a great trip through middle Earth. We get to see Sarumon, Elrond, and Galadriel again. We get an extended look at the gorgeous Elf kingdom of Rivendell and of course all of the gorgeous shots of the New Zealand landscape. In all honesty, there is not a ton of battle sequences until the final hour, save for a flashback as to how Thorin Oakenshield got his last name and why he understands better than anyone why the Orcs are so problematic. The second hour is, though, where we get the incredible action sequence set on these giant rocky cliffs that are actually rock creatures hurling rocks at each other causing these insane avalanches. It is a stunning work of CGI, and editing and cinematography. Hour two is also where we get a kind of ridiculous scene with three idiot Orcs that I have heard many people complain about. I actually liked this scene because it was funny, and it also showed why Gandalf wanted Bilbo on the journey. He is smart and thinks on his feet. However, it does start a trend of Gandalf being absent, then coming in at the last second and saving the day.

The final hour is a spectacle of frenzied action, and one quiet intimate scene that will live inside for a long time. That scene, the most important scene in the film and the scene that launched the LOTR trilogy is between Bilbo and an unnamed creature. We, of course, know his name to be Gollum (Andy Serkis). After being separated from the group during a Goblin invasion, Bilbo falls down a dark hole and winds up near a creature who he witnesses kill and Orc. This creature finds Bilbo and they begin a back and forth that is funny, quietly intense, subtle and brilliant. During the course of the scene, Gollum loses a ring and Bilbo, without Gollum knowing, picks it up. Bilbo is looking for a way out and Gollum offers him a deal. They will engage in a game of riddles and if Bilbo wins, Gollum will show him the way out, but if Gollum wins, he gets to eat Bilbo whole. It is the most stunning work in the film. The writing is crisp, Serkis' work s Gollum is as good as it was 10 years ago, the direction and blocking are excellent and Freeman is perfect. It slows the movie down in the best way possible and when it ends, you are left breathless and even sad. It is a monumental moment for the entire world of Middle Earth and I loved how patient Peter Jackson was with it.

The final hour features two just outstanding action sequences. And they transition into each other so incredibly well. We get the heart of the film in the end here and it sets up the next film perfectly. I loved how Jackson takes the action seriously, but also has fun with it. The entire battle sequence between our heroic group and the underground Goblins is quite a feat of fight choreography and then to follow that up with a more brutal and rough action sequence is brilliant because the heroes go from looking like superheroes, unstoppable in any situation, to destroyed and beaten to mere inches from death. That contrast makes it even more thrilling for me. I found Martin Freeman's Bilbo Baggins to be funny, risky, and full of great character tics. I love his facial expressions. They fit within this world very well. I admit, I was hoping for Thorin to be just a bit more mysterious like Aragorn, but that might have been my inability to disconnect from the LOTR trilogy. I also liked that Jackson is not afraid to put in some Hobbit songs. One of them was too goofy for me. but they are a huge part of Tolkien's world and it was nice to hear some of them.

H:AUJ is not the perfect film I hoped it would be, but when it was over I was ready for the next one to start. I was ready to stay in the world of Middle Earth and to still crave that after a three hour movie is quite a feat. I am disappointed I did not get any real great shots of Smaug, but I am willing to wait, if that is what I have to do. The movie really soars once the group of heroes sets off, but I would not be surprised if people out there do not take to it. I do believe it is a movie that is more for fans of Middle Earth. It does not necessarily leave the impact the original trilogy made, but I think it sets the story up for a great next chapter. I am not at all sure where a third chapter fits in, but Tolkien's writings about Middle Earth are rich with material. There are definitely things in this movie that do not technically appear in The Hobbit book. He is pulling for all of Tolkien's Middle Earth writings and that is why I know Jackson understands Tolkien's world. I will probably see HAUJ twice more, with on of those being in the High Frame Rate with 3D, just I can see if it really is the future of cinema.

Final Grade: A-

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg has long been my favorite director. It probably has a lot to do with Jurassic Park being the seminal movie of my life. I believe my desire for film began with that movie. It was the movie that made me realize exactly what movies could do. Spielberg is responsible for many of my favorite cinematic stories and even his mediocre movies have big shiny bright spots. He has wanted to make this Lincoln picture for a decade it seems. At one point Liam Neeson was attached to play Lincoln, but as time went on he got too old, or maybe just changed his entire career trajectory. Either way Spielberg ended up winning the Lincoln lottery with Daniel Day-Lewis. Often touted as the best actor alive, you know you are going to get a live wire performance out of Day-Lewis. With Spielberg at the realm of a slice of real life History, chances are you are in for a treat. Look at his real life history track record: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List and Munich (watch Munich again and tell that movie does not rock). Spielberg knows this terrain. The reviews are overwhelmingly in favor of Lincoln as one of the year's best. It has become a must see for the educated film goer. It is leading the charge in circles that believe smart well made movies can make money with movies like Argo and Flight as well. It is a no-brainer! right?

Opening up weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln focuses on our 16th President's bid to get the 13th amendment added to the constitution and therefore ending the Civil War. He has just been elected to his second term and he wants to throw his weight around and do something he truly believes in, even though the odds are stacked against him. he has to get the 2/3 majority vote in Congress and that means turning Democrat votes from no into yes and they are not much inclined to do that. The majority of the film is this fight. It is a fight with words and stories and it is a valiant fight to be sure. Lincoln is the focus of the film. It is through his eyes that we see this process. We meet his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (A sublime Sally Field), his two sons, Robert and Tad (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gulliver MacGrath, respectively) and his trusted staff played by a host of wonderful actors like David Strathairn, James Spader, Bruce McGill and Tim Blake Nelson. Also along for the ride are John Hawkes, Tommy Lee Jones, Lee Pace, and Hal Holbrook as well as a host of other really great character actors.

Lincoln is a great film. It is intense, well crafted, well acted and mostly, well written. Every scene has dialog that just pops and reveals deep insight to the characters and their motives. The film unfolds like a play, which is not shocking because Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay. Spielberg and Kushner trust the audience and the audience is reward with phenomenal scenes strung together into a great movie. The scenes are long and intensely played and intensely shot. No one making this movie was afraid of long scenes, or scenes where there is nothing but talking and it works. Everything about this movie worked, so why when it was over was I just left feeling kind of "whatever" about it?

Expectations. They are a bitch. For weeks I had been hearing about how this was the best movie of the year. 2012 is a killer year for movies. Every critic and pundit tend to agree on that. In a year that is so full of great movies, for so many to call Lincoln the best, well that just raised my expectations and Lincoln fell short of them. Lincoln delivered on every promise. The team for the film is remarkable they all succeeded. John Williams' score soars, Spielberg's directorial touches show restraint when needed, Kushner's words jump off the screen, and every single actor does exquisite work. Day-Lewis is beyond captivating as Lincoln. He embodies everything we know and things we did not know about Lincoln, and he clearly loves Kushner's words. Yet, there was something just not there for me. There was a quality I was expecting and it was missing. I have no idea what that missing quality is. I am stumped. The movie is great. it will deserve any awards it is nominated for, especially the acting from Day-Lewis, Sally Field and especially Tommy Lee Jones. I think James Spader might have been my favorite among all of those. he is so weird and to see him in something so traditional, but add his weird flare to it, was brilliant.

I loved the care with which they handled Lincoln's death. I loved how intimate the whole movie was even though it was about the ugliest of times in American History. I loved the idealism, the hope and the optimism Spielberg has for America and how Lincoln embodied all of that. I loved the touches in the script where Day-Lewis got to show Lincoln the comedian, and Lincoln the story teller. I have nothing bad to say about the film. It does everything right and I have no doubts that I will watch it a second time. it just did not do the things to me that Argo or Looper did. There is nothing that I didn't expect. There is a world of care within the film. It is a personal film for everyone involved, or at least it comes off that way. I believe it will stand the test of time and who knows, maybe I will love it later in life. For now though, it is a wonderful film that I just cannot seem to fall in love with. It is almost as if it is too on the nose. Maybe that is the problem, it is too technically perfect? Who knows, I am strange.

Final Grade: B

Red Dawn

A few years ago I heard about someone wanting to remake Red Dawn. I was unsure how this was going to go because Russia is not really our biggest threat these days. Okay not really, I was pretty much excited. Who would not want to watch another movie where a rag-tag group of teenagers essentially stop the world from fully going into WWIII? I mean seriously, who would not want to watch that movie? In the 80s it was a brilliantly cheesy concept and in 2012, it is still a brilliantly cheesy concept. You take a group of known young actors, mix with a couple of up and coming young actors, put in some ridiculous action sequences, shake well and serve with a side of AWESOME and enjoy the feast. It should be the perfect empty calorie meal.

Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth in full action stud mode) is home from the Marine Corp, for reasons unknown. Is he just on leave? Did something happen? These are pesky questions not answered. His younger brother, Matt (Josh Peck) is a punk high school kid who does not understand teamwork. A football game happens, awkward family exchanges happen and then 5 minutes later, BAM!!! North Korea invades their hometown and we are off to the race. Jed, Matt and a group of teenagers escape the attack and head for the Eckert family cabin. This scrappy group of young people decide, with Jed as their leader, that they need to fight back. They cannot defeat them head on, but with sneak attacks and trickery they can put a dent into the terrorists. Go 'MERICA! But, they are just teenagers, how can they possible understand how to attack trained terrorists? Silly movie goer, there is a serious montage of Jed teaching everyone how to shoot, fight, listen for footsteps and how to dress wounds. Matt, though becomes an issue because he wants to sacrifice the team to save his gorgeous girlfriend, Erica (Isabel Lucas) and he is still angry at Jed for running to the military after their mom died many years ago. Do not concern yourself with how she died, it is not important, because...EXPLOSIONS!!!

If it seems like I did not enjoy Red Dawn, please know that I loved it. It sacrifices character, story, exposition, in favor of an awesome car chase, great explosions and a doozy of a climatic action set piece. I was not expecting a life changing event with this movie, I just wanted a good time and I was treated to just that. Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck and Josh Hutcherson are all likely going to have great movie careers. Hemsworth is this decade's best pure young action stud. He is likable, but distant. He is charming, but cold and he is believable as a man who can out-action everyone else. Peck is a bit whiny in this, but the character is at fault for that. He proves he work as part of an ensemble, but also shows he can probably hold a big movie on his own. Hutcherson already has big budget cred with The Hunger Games, but I really thought he was under the radar in this movie. I was hoping he would have more to do, but when he does get a chance, he shines and he gets the best moment in the movie, if you have an affinity for the original. Connor Cruise (Yes, Tom's son) is solid without too much to do and Lucas is stunning, but she is not much of an actress. Adrianne Palecki is the true female star of this one. I have loved her since Friday Night Lights and keep hoping she will find the right vehicle to break out. This is probably not it, but she plays a tough, yet vulnerable girl very well. You believe she will get down in an action scene, but also that she is break down and cry if needed.

Red Dawn moves quickly, which is probably its best asset. It gets going in the first five minutes and does not really spend much time away from keeping the action moving. There are a lot of speeches, but they are almost all voice overs as the Wolverines are setting up a sneak attack, or setting bombs up to explode. The actions scenes are shot a bit too frenetically for some, I imagine, especially anytime they are running in the woods. The opening car chase is especially frenetic. It might be too much for some people, but I actually loved it. It really helped sell me on the kind of improvisation of the group of teenagers. By filming so haphazardly, I got the sense that the danger was real. Even Jed, who is pretty calm throughout, loses his crap during the initial invasion. The shot of the Korean's parachuting into this town was also pretty outstanding. It was almost a first person account, as if to say, what would happen if we looked up and saw a bunch of Koreans dropping from the sky like rain? The key sequence though, is that climatic action set piece. Set inside a fortified jailhouse, guns blaze, gas bombs explode and there is also some awesome hand to hand combat. It has a little bit of everything you want in an action scene. I loved how it was staged. The levels of the building are perfectly utilized and the writers does a great job of spreading out the cast, so the action can constantly move from one person to the next. The director does a good job of keeping the action from getting too messy as well. We never lose sight of who is who and what the motivations for each characters are. it is very well done.

There is not a lot of explaining why all of this is going on. The opening credits gives us exposition as to why North Korea is our biggest threat and during some of the scenes, we can hear speeches from the Korean's to the American prisoners about how America needs someone new to lead it because we have gotten too much freedom. It looks as if some sort of brainwashing might be going on, or an attempt of it. The Wolverines offer all of the people hope. They become a symbol of a nation refusing to give up. Yes, the movie is very pro-military. It is very conservative thinking in that way, but honestly, it is a dumb action movie about a group of teenagers who destroy a terrorist plot to take over the USA, so please do not take it seriously. No, Red Dawn is not a great movie. Anyone who says so is probably an idiot, but it is a fun action movie and I think it does exactly what it set out to achieve. I had a great time for 110 minutes and there are times when that is all I want.

Final Grade: B-

Life of Pi

Life of Pi is the kind of movie that almost dares you to love it or hate based on the ending. When it is over, you are left wondering if a great, powerful movie can be entirely altered by the final 15 minutes. It makes you question what is important in a film: is it the journey or the destination? I do not have answers for you, or for myself, but I can say this, Life of Pi is exactly the type of film that makes me happy because I know, deep down, I will think about it for quite some time. In the 5 days since I have seen it, it still lingers over me, it still haunts parts of my brain, pulling at me to think about it, analyze it. It has a reverence to it, which is fitting because it is a spiritual adventure. It does not require a belief in a Deity, but the movie exists in a spiritual realm. I am new to the material, having never read the book. I know much about the long arduous process of turning it into a movie though. Once thought to be an unfilmable novel, 4 different directors and 3 different leading men were attached at various times. Well, I can only say they appeared to have got the right people for the job.

Pi(Suraj Sharma) is a young man full of life and spirit until his dad rips the innocence from him. His father, a man of science and logic, did not like that his son was a believer in multiple faiths. Pi had a great capacity for the beauty in the world. He believed in Judaism, Christianity, and is a follower of Islam. He just believed that God existed and found lessons everywhere. He believed everything had a purpose and all creatures had a soul and his father crushed that when the family got a tiger for their zoo. The tiger, Richard Parker, would soon be a bigger part of Pi's life than he could have ever imagined. When the family is forced to move, they get on a ship and in the midst of a giant storm, Pi is lost at sea with only Richard Parker as a companion.

Life of Pi is a survival story. It is Castaway with a tiger instead of a volleyball. Pi is stranded on a boat with this giant tiger, and the film takes place almost entirely on the water in that lifeboat. It is not a movie about plot, but about character, faith, and survival. The structure of events is not the point, the destination is not necessarily the point. His survival might not even be the point since we know at the very start that he survives the ordeal. He is telling the story to a story writer. Life of Pi tells the story of a remarkable young man who tell a remarkable story. And it is a remarkable story, and it is remarkably told.

Ang Lee, director of such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, does amazing things with this film. I audibly gasped at the beauty of the film at least 5 times. There are gorgeous shots, amazing landscapes, the storm is mind boggingly phenomenal. Lee's steady confidence allows for all of this to happen. He trusts the beauty around him. There is a scene where the ocean is lit up by jellyfish and we see this gorgeous whale and it looks like a screensaver, it is that stunning. The reverence Pi has for God and beauty is felt throughout this entire film. Lee understands this is Pi's story and shoots it as Pi would see it. He sees the beauty, and the frailty, and the Godfulness in everything. This is not just the God we think about as being a old guy with a beard in Heaven, no this is the God who is all around in nature. The God who could allow devastation to happen, but also surround this young man with the beauty of the world. Maybe that does not make sense, hell, I am not sure it makes sense to me as I write it, but while watching the film, it made complete sense.

Ultimately though, I was left with this ending. This ending that threatened to completely erase the first 110 minutes of the movie. I will not spoil it here, but something happens that completely turns the movie around. I get the point. I understand what the story is trying to get at with the ending. I am not immune to this idea of God in our lives. Or more precisely, this idea of survival by believing in God. I was behind it and it makes a gorgeous story. It has a power behind it. I also get why there is this ending. I am just not sure how I feel about it. It forces you to question the motives of the author. However, I think what it mostly does is it makes you question you. It makes you question humanity and what we are really about. If you think I am being hyperbolic, well, I do not think I am. Life of Pi has grand ambitions. It operates from a place of "Why are we here" and when a movie sets that lofty type of journey, I do not think it is a stretch that is asking us about our own humanity. I am glad I took the journey, for I am left with these questions and when a movie leave me with questions about humanity, I think it is a good thing.

Final Grade: B+

Skyfall

I have always had a sort of "ehhh" reaction to James Bond. I enjoy the movies for what they are, but to be completely honest, every Bond movie looks like the last Bond movie. I am not a Bond fanatic. I will never argue who the best Bond is, and when Bond is a category on Jeopardy, I never do well. They all run together and they leave no real impression on me. Also, I think I am different from most people who are Bond fans because I prefer this new more intense Bond. When Pierce Brosnon drove an invisible car as Bond, I thought it was time to put the character to bed, and they did, sort of. Bond got reimagined, taken back to the beginning with Daniel Craig as a more serious, more weathered looking Bond. That caught my attention. Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace were more Jason Bourne than James Bond and I preferred that. However, I cannot recall a single thing in Quantum of Solace in this moment. Skyfall has pedigree though. Sam Mendes in the director's chair is always going to grab my attention. Reviews called it the best Bond. Others said it married the ridiculous of early Bond with the grittiness of recent Bond. My best friend, who is not easy to please in action movies, raved. I was pumped.

Bond, James Bond (Craig) is in the middle of a case when the film opens. This case eventually takes him on a rooftop chase, but not on foot, no on motorcycles! The chase eventually ends up on a train and after some seriously intense fighting and great editing, Bond is shot and presumed dead. However, Bond is never dead. Enjoying vacation by banging a super hot chick and engaging in a drinking game involving a scorpion, it looks like Bond has found peace. However, like the Godfather, he keeps getting pulled back in! When he realizes someone may be targeting his boss, M (Dame Judi Dench), Bond goes back to work. After passing a series of tests, Bond is deemed ready to go back to work and he is quickly on the trail of Silva(Javier Bardem) who has a personal vendetta against M. Silva was once an agent of MI6, like Bond, but after a case went awry, he became vengeful. Silva does not believe in weapons though, he believes in technology. He can clear an island using just a computer. He can hack anything at any time. He is always one step ahead, as villains often are. In order for Bond to get the upper hand he has to face his personal demons and face who he really is.

Skyfall has everything you want a Bond film to have. Hot girls, awkward sex scenes, great fight scenes and a sexy car. it goes over the top, but is also gritty and reality based. Craig makes the perfect Bond. I know that is a controversial opinion, but his stoicism makes Bond fallible. He actually looks like he is in trouble when things looks bad. He does not take things in stride and know he is going to win like every other Bond. Craig's Bond is human. He suffers real pain, both physical and emotional. His Bond is quick witted and great with ladies, but he also wears his damage in his eyes and I think that is key for me with a character in so much danger. I want to see the stakes in his face. I want it to register that death is possible. Bond is human, and normally he is treated as a super hero. I think that is why I respond so well to the new Bond movies, it makes Bond relatable. Craig wears the suit very well, he is believable as a womanizer, and he is belivable as a kick ass spy, but his face is tired. He wears the weariness of a spy so incredibly well.

Javier Bardem is no slouch in the villain department. Our introduction to him is the stuff of legendary villains. He is theatrical, menacing, slimy and unbelievably damaged. The crackling homoerotic nature of Bond and Silva's first meeting is jarring in any setting but in a testosterone fest like Bond it is shockingly disconcerting. Bardem and Craig play that first scene like a gay chess match, neither character budging an inch, wondering who will flinch first. It really is the scene that sticks with you when the movie is over, in my opinion. Bond is so full of manly driven desires, to see Bardem flamboyantly unbutton Bond's shirt and make homoerotic quips while Bond deadpans "who says this is my first time?" is unsettliingly comical. Bardem has made a menacing villain before and won an Oscar for it, but here he is going to over the top and he succeeds at every turn. He never loses the comic touch you always want a Bond villain to have, but like Craig's Bond, he grounds his emotions in reality. His vengeance, while not noble, is almost understandable. He is not out for world domination. He just wants payback. Who cannot relate to payback, even if his is on a grand scale?

Skyfall includes some great action set pieces as well. The roof top motorcycle chase ( it is like the screenwriter watched Bourne and thought, this is cool, but motorcycles would make it awesome) sets the stage, and leads to a great top of train fist fight, but we also get an incredibly intense gun fight in a public place that looks as at home in a heist film like Heat as it does in a Bond film. It is very in your face. My only problem with the movie is in the climax. It is a great action set piece, set in a gorgeous castle with explosions, bullets, a car being demolished and a helicopter crash, but it plays a lot like Home Alone. Without very many weapons, Bond, M and another guy set traps, create weapons from household materials and rig doors, Ala Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Once the climax gets going, I was able to push that aside and just enjoy it, but as the set up was going on, I was giggling a little bit in thinking of Bond and Kevin McCallister teaming up.

With Mendes' steady confident hand, Roger Deakins' always solid cinematography (especially in the final 35 minutes), Thomas Newman's gorgeous score and solid performances, Skyfall is definitely the best Bond movie I have ever seen. It is memorable, action packed, has personal stakes, and finally puts Bond in a context I can grasp. Often times we see movies that fill in back story for characters we do not want (Darth Vader, Michael Myers for example), but giving Bond just a bit of back story helps raise the stakes of the film and make it all the better. It sets up the story of the Bond we have known for decades, while giving us a sliver of the humanity found deep inside.

Final Grade: A-

Oh, Adele's title song is gorgeous.

Wreck-it Ralph

Toy story worked because it played off an idea most kids have at one time: what if my toys were real? Wreck-it Ralph asks the question what if video game characters were real? It is the exact same premise as Toy Story, but instead of Pixar's usually flawless story telling, Wreck-It Ralph is coming from Disney who has been incredibly hit-or-miss lately, emphasis on miss. The trailers were cute. They played on my generation's 8-bit nostalgia. It gave us some of the characters we grew up with and promised video game jokes of all kinds. The animation looked good, the voice work looked good, but the movie was not selling a story. It was selling nostalgia. The problem with nostalgia is it has a short shelf life. A 90 minute that is nothing but "remember this character..." would be an awful movie experience. Toy Story worked because nostalgia was merely a hook for a brilliant story told incredibly effectively. Wreck-it Ralph was high on my to-see list, but I was concerned about how effective it would be.

Wreck-it Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the villain in a Donkey Kong style arcade game called Fix-it Felix. Somehow the game has remained popular enough to last in one arcade for decades, seeing flash in the pan games come and go. The problem is, Ralph is not actually a bad guy. When the game turns off for the night and the characters go back to their own world, all Ralph wants is to be liked. he wants to have friends and prove he belongs next to Felix(Jack McBrayer) as a hero. In the game, when the hero wins he gets a medal. This gives Ralph the idea that he should go into another game to get a medal. The next morning he game jumps and ends up in Hero's Duty, a first person shooter that looks like a video game version of Spaceship Troopers. Breaking all of the rules of a first person shooter, Ralph gets his medal, but things go awry and instead of being back in his own game, he ends up in Sugar Rush, a race car game. The rest of the movie takes place in Sugar Rush, a lushly colored video game littered with candy. Imagine CandyLand as a video game. Ralph meets a precocious young girl, Vaneloppe(Sarah Silverman) and they become friends. Vaneloppe is a glitch, and in her game if she is allowed to race, odds are the kids playing will complain and the game will be unplugged and the characters will end up bums in the Grand Central Station of video games. However, all she wants to do is race. This is the key story, there are a few side plots involving a bug jumping from Hero's Duty to Sugar Rush and threatening to consume the game and destroying all games.

Wreck-It Ralph succeeds on every level without question. The animation is top notch. The movie pops off the screen (in 2D) with vivacious life and fluid motions. Sugar Rush could have been too cutesy, too, well...sugary, but it works. I was worried when I heard the majority of the game was going to take place in this Sugar Rush world, but it works. It lends itself to great gags, great visuals and awesome racing. However, it really is the story that gets you. Much like Toy Story, the nostalgia is cute. It really gets you into the world, but once you are in the world, you become attached to Ralph. Ralph is like the big dope who is well intentioned but cannot help but screw everything up because of his size. John C. Reilly could not be more perfect in the role. He has a gentle sweetness to his voice, but also an over-arching melancholy that permeates his entire being. Sarah Silverman tones down her annoying to give a very warm, feisty and fun voice performance to a character that could have easily derailed the entire movie. These two have a gentle and warm chemistry and watching the friendship between the two characters is what gives this movie its beating heart.

There are great video game jokes for people who love video games, and there are great jokes and slapstick for kids and there is a sophistication for the parents of all generations. I have a hard time believing people out there not enjoying this movie. It is a good time for everyone, but it is also heartfelt and has great underlying themes. It tells us not to let other people define who we are. Ralph has a job, and it takes him being away from that job to make others appreciate who he is and what he does. He looks like the villain and is programmed to be the villain, but he has a giant heart. On the other end, Vaneloppe is told by her entire game that she is a mistake, but she knows in her heart who she is and when all of the truth comes out, it is a very touching thing to see. She uses her "glitch" to her advantage. It teaches kids, and all of us, that maybe we are who we are meant to be. We are not mistakes and maybe our "flaws" help make us the beautiful people we are supposed to be. Am I reaching? I do not think so. I think every good movie aimed at kids has a great message under it and Wreck-it Ralph has plenty. However, more than anything else, it is a great heart warming movie that had me falling in love with my youth all over again.

Final Grade: A-

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The history of film is littered with authors who try to adapt their own novels and fail. Generally speaking, authors should not direct movies based on their own stories. For years I heard rumors of a Perks of being a Wallflower adaptation and for years they were just that, rumors. However, once casting got underway the adaptation appeared inevitable. Author Stephen Chbosky had written the screenplay and was going to be directing his own adaptation and he was going to take R-Rated material and turn it into Pg-13 material. I truly believe adaptations have to be judged separately from the source material, but the PG-13 knowledge scared me. Plus, the book means so much to so many people at a very specific time in their lives, I was not sure how it would translate to film. The very epistolary nature of the novel did not seem like it could translate very well. Well, The Perks of being a Wallflower bucks all of those trends because it is fantastic.

Charlie( Logan Lerman) is a total loner entering high school. He eats lunch by himself and is as depressed as a teenager could possibly be. His favorite aunt died in a car crash, his best/only friend killed himself and Charlie himself had an unknown episode prior to the events of the film. His brother was a big time football star, his girlfriend is popular, but has a jerk for a boyfriend and Charlie's dad is not terribly understanding to his situation. he keeps to himself and spends most of his day wishing himself gone. That changes when he meets a pair of step-siblings: Patrick (Ezra Miller and Sam (Emma Watson). Patrick is a brash flamboyant class clown and Sam is a gorgeous, but damaged girl who immediately catches the eye of Charlie. Patrick and Sam help Charlie to come out of his shell. They give him friends, a purpose and help him laugh and be happy. The story unfolds as we get a, intimate look into the lives of misfit teenagers trying to find their place in the world, and the story is being told to a "friend" in a series of letters from Charlie. Charlie is trying to figure out why he is so sad. Why he has these flashes of memories and why he does, at times, nearly black out with rage or sadness.

The Perks of being of Wallflower left me a blubbering mess. For days I thought about how perfectly crafted it was, how wonderful the acting was and how easily Chbosky managed to adapt his story, but mostly I thought about all of the emotions I felt watching it. Patrick and Sam appear to have everything together, but their lives are just as messy and sad as Charlie's and the performances from Miller and Watson are simply stunning. Watson is a revelation in a stripped down very vulnerable performance of a character that could easily move into the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Lerman's Charlie, though, is the reason this movie works so well. he makes Charlie a character we are endlessly rooting for. He is sweet, likable, wounded, funny, heart breaking and most of all, honest. This movie only works if the honesty of the characters shine through and it is a credit to Chbosky that he pulled amazingly honest performances from his trio of leads.

Charting one full school year, the film shows up every possible up and down you could imagine. We have love, heart break, holidays, warmth, distance, deep sadness, acceptance and mostly friendship. yes, this is a story about one young man realizing why he is damaged, realizing that the entirety of his memory betrayed him and that the reality of his life is so dark and sad that he has to black out just to forget it, but deep down it is about this great friendship. Patrick and Sam rely on each other, but they come to rely on Charlie as well. They love Charlie and Charlie loves them. What gets them through all of it is the friendship they share.

This film does not rely on you having read the source material. It may cause you to devour the source material afterwards, because it is an easy read, much like this is easy viewing. Chbosky does not have many directorial tricks up his sleeve. He allows the words, the characters and the emotions to speak for themselves. He had a great editor who could cut the flashback sequences in the perfect place, but he does not need any camera tricks because this is an intimate look at a slice of teenage life. He gives us tight shots and lets the actors do the rest. We laugh with them, we cry with them and we hope they find whatever they are looking for. We desire to feel infinite the way they do in those perfect moments. It is all made possible because of the stunning trio of performances. Miller is a star in the making. Watson shows she is definitely worthy of having an outstanding post Harry Potter movie career and Lerman really gives us a Charlie that we can all relate to no matter what our personal high school experience. I will be surprised if this film is not in my top 10 at the end of the year.

Flight

It is kind of amazing how often trailers can be misleading. The trailers set out to make Flight look like a pretty intense thriller about a plane crash and the hero of the crash. I read reviews playing up the intense and brutal nature of the crash and I was prepared to watch an intense legal (ish) thriller featuring Denzel as a wounded hero. What you actually get with Flight is a full on character drama. The plane crash almost becomes nothing more than a plot point used to jump start the real film. This is not a complaint, or an endorsement, just letting you know that if you go see Flight expecting a thriller or a big effects driven plane crash, you are going into the wrong movie.

Captain Whip Whitaker(Denzel Washington) wakes up to his phone ringing. At first everything is just slightly out of focus. As things come into focus, what appears is a hotel room full of empty alcohol bottles, a super sexy naked woman(Nadine Velazquez) and clothes strewn everywhere. Whitaker is loudly and crassly arguing with what appears to be his ex wife over money for his son. To calm himself he takes a swig of beer, presumably luke warm beer from a half finished can. After he hangs up the phone, he snorts a line of cocaine and he and the sexy flight attendant go on their way. Hungover and high on cocaine, Whitaker proceeds to get behind the wheel of a commercial airplane and fly through rough turbulence. Once they get to clear skies, Whitaker sneaks 3 mini bottle of vodka into some Orange juice, and drinks some more. Without warning the plane starts to go down. In a freefall nose dive, Whitaker finds a way to miraculously land the plane with only 6 passengers dead. Whitaker himself suffers pretty minor injuries for a crash like that. Because people demand answers from plane crashes, we get a story of one man's severe alcoholism, with the plane crash serving as our out entrance into this man's life. If Whitaker could just manage to stay sober he can probably stay out of jail and retain his pilot's licence.

Flight asks some very tough questions. Whitaker is a hero. he saved nearly 100 lives and very early on we know that his drinking/drug using had nothing to do with the plane crashing. He is a true hero, but is he? His ex-wife hates him, his teenage son hates him. He pushes away his only friend (Bruce Greenwood) and eventually he pushes away his love interest (played tenderly, but toughly by Kelly Reilly). Do we root for this man to get away completely free? Do we want this hero to go to jail for flying under the influence and breaking his ethics code and the law even though he saved the lives of 100 people? There are no easy answers and Flight is not interested in easy answers. Flight is simply presenting its audience with this series of questions. Whitaker is a man on the brink of losing everything in his life and all he has to do to make it out is not drink. It was that simple. Stay sober and keep your life. Alcohol has a strangle hold on him though. Flight quickly turns into the story of addiction and how it does not care if you are a good person, a bad person, or anything in between. it simply just latches onto someone and hangs on for as long as it can.

Denzel is simply amazing as Whitaker. He is arrogant and damaged. He is both hero and villain, at the same time. he takes Whitaker to very dark places, getting rid of vanity, hope, and charm. he lives inside this alcoholic to the point where I completely lost Denzel. Playing drunk on screen is not easy. People ham it up all of the time, but Denzel plays drunk with more conviction, more sadness and more embarrassment than I can remember seeing from anyone. As the movie goes on we start to see ourselves conflicted with Whitaker because we do not understand his addiction. We see a man who saved lives fall further and further away and be replaced by a man who passes out on the floor next to his television because he cannot get himself up from his drunken stupor.

Robert Zemeckis, the director of this film is also in top form. After years of only directing motion capture movies, Zemeckis' return to live action is triumphant. Many directors would have gone for the big money shot of the plane landing. Not Zemeckis. We only see the plane crash after the fact on a handheld camera phone. It was in that moment that I knew I was in for a treat. Zemeckis has made us so far removed from the plane landing that it allows the movie to move focus on Whitaker's addiction. His pacing is excellent and the way he lingers the camera just long enough on a bottle of alcohol is stirring in the right moments. When you add John Goodman's brilliant three scenes, Don Cheadle's always solid acting work and some of the best music picked for a movie, you are in for a treat.

Flight is gripping, but not in the way I expected. It is not a traditional character study, but it is not a plot driven movie either. It falls somewhere between those two things. It asks us where we are morally, instead of telling us where we are morally. It features one of Denzel's best performances and one of Denzel's best moments in a movie. His final courtroom scene is breathtaking. Every thing he says and does not say means something. Every pause for water is wrenching. He is on the edge of a cliff and we spend 2 hours wondering if he will jump and when the times to find out what he is going to do, oh man he knocks it out of the park. If there are 5 performances better than that this year, then this might be the best year for male performances ever. That is how good he is.

Argo

It is not stretching to say that Ben Affleck has really found where he belongs and that place is in the director's chair. If you have not seen Gone Baby Gone or The Town, do yourself a favor and seek them out. Both are tight, well written, well crafted thrillers. Affleck showed a knack for capturing the blue collar world of the Boston area in both films, which should not come as a surprise since he grew up in that area. After years of being a Hollywood joke, Affleck has really transformed himself into an A List director. Argo does not seem like a logical next step for him, and that is why I was so stoked for it. Expanding his scope could give Affleck a real chance to shine even brighter.

Argo opens with one of the more intense opening scenes you are going to find. Set in the late 1970's and early 1980's, Argo gets off to a stellar start. After a quick comic book style exposition sequence catching us up, we open on the American embassy in Iran being overrun by the angry Iranian people. 6 members of the embassy escape, and the rest are taken hostage. They will remain hostages until the United States returns the exiled former leader of Iran who has gained asylum in America, since America put him in power in the first place. cut to 69 days later and in comes Tony Mendez(Affleck). Mendez is the C.I.A's best man at getting people out of sticky situations and it is time to get those 6 people who escaped and having been hiding at the Canadian embassador's house in Iran. If they are found, they will surely be killed. The State department wants to send in some bikes and have the 6 people bike to the border where they will be picked up. Mendez comes up with the crazy idea of having them pose as a film crew scouting locations. Mendez heads to Hollywood and with the help of a make up wizard (John Goodman) and a veteran producer (Alan Arkin)sets up a fake production company, finds a script for a Science Fiction fantasy film called Argo, and then Mendez has to head to Iran to get the people out. If they are unsuccessful, death is a forgone conclusion.

The last time my heart pounded more during a movie, it was The Hurt Locker. The climatic sequence, spanning roughly 25 minutes was some of the most intense I can recall. The pacing is exquisite all the way through, but towards the end, the pacing was so perfect, I was exhausted when the final credits rolled. Affleck just knocked it out of the park with this film. The performances are great, the script is excellent, but it is everything else that is just perfect. First of all, the look of the film is brilliant, grainy yet focused. The set dresser deserves all of the awards. Everything you see on the desks, the walls and in the houses is perfectly placed and looks perfectly 1980's. The costumes, facial hair, and sets are perfectly out of that decade. The attention to detail is phenomenal. It really enhances the experience. You are immediately placed exactly where you need to be to understand the world of the film.

However, great set dressing and costumes do not make a movie. They enhance it, but in order to really have an affecting movie, you need characters, motives and an emotional pulse. This movie has all of those in spades. Mendez is the only character we spend an extended amount of time with, but the actors playing the 6 escapees all do great work giving us individual characters with desires and hopes. It raises the stakes that it is a real story, and I had no idea the outcome, so that helped the suspense as well. Goodman and Arkin give the film a comic jolt to balance the intensity of the Iranian moments. Goodman has really found his groove over the years in these bombastic supporting roles where he just waltzes through a few scenes and gives them life. I am excited for Flight this weekend.

Affleck infuses Argo with a keen eye for camera shots. He loves to give us tight closed shots of people and objects. We rarely get pulled back from the action. He wants to put us in the action. The camera hovers, but never overtly shakes. It is just enough to make us a part of what is going on. He and his editor do a great job of splicing shots together. We get these intense images of the rough Iranian hostage situation, that leave a remarkable impression without seeming too much. His camera never lingers longer than it needs to. He has become a total pro.

The life and death stakes make the climax one for the ages. Every look is important, any wrong move could mean the firing squad or a public hanging. Affleck captures every single moment flawlessly. I was literally on the edge of my seat for the final 25 minutes. My heart was racing and I was pleading with the characters to keep their cool and trust in Mendez to do his thing. You will be hard pressed to find a more realistically intense climax in cinema this year or in many previous years. By setting his scope higher and pushing himself, Affleck has assured himself a spot as a top director in Hollywood. Honestly, if he is not nominated for best director this year, I will be shocked. This movie is completely his. It is a directorial wonder.

The Great review reboot!

If you are reading this, and you used to read this when I was posting frequently, you may notice things have changed. I am going to make a diligent effort to revive this blog. I miss being critical of popular culture. I miss putting my thoughts about movies somewhere for people to read and then engage with me either here or over on Facebook. I am going to attempt 2 or 3 posts a week. I am going to update this thing 5 or 6 days a week like I once did. I am going to review films and books for sure. I may occasionally review an entire season of a television, or do a list or some other things. Also, at the end of this year, I will review my top 10 like I used to do. I hope there are still people interested in this. If not, well, I have it for myself.

The Avengers

I am not going to spend too much time giving my own personal back story on the level of excitement for this movie. I am exactly the target audience for The Avengers. I was worried it would be a muddled mess, but Joss Whedon being on board really calmed me down. He has a history of creating stories that involve a big ensemble, but giving everyone a chance to shine. That was going to be key for me. I loved Ironman and Captain America. I really enjoyed Thor, Ironman 2 and Incredible HULK. I love the characters, I love the comic books, and I love the animated Avengers comics. Marvel was doing a big risky thing here and Avengers was meant to be the pay off, but was it?

LOKI(Tom Hiddelston)the viallain from THOR, is back, with a vengeance. After appearing at the secret lair of SHIELD, getting it destroyed and high jacking Clint Barton (Hawkeye, Jeremy Renner) and Prof. Selvig, LOKI puts them all to work to get the Tesseract up and working so he can create a portal that cannot be closed and then big nasty alien monsters can come through and destroy Earth. LOKI believe believes humans do not like the freedom they have and should be ruled by him. Agent Nick Fury (Sam Jackson) is not cool with this, so he attempts to round up a group of remarkable people, beginning with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). After dispensing of some Russian thugs, Widow heads off to find "The Big Guy." Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) has been trying to stay off the radar helping those in need and trying to keep "the other guy" in check. He resists, but eventually he gets on board after he is told they just need his help locating the tesseract, and not to turn in HULK and fight things.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is busy creating cleaner, more efficient energy sources, but after a surprise drop in from series favorite Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Stark is on board. Captain America (Chris Evans) is the first to meet up with LOKI, and with help from Stark, they capture him. The capture is short lived at first because THOR(Chris Hemsworth) grabs LOKI and takes off. This leads us to our first super awesome. THOR and IRONMAN fight it out, with CAPTAIN getting in on the action. Eventually they settle in and LOKI is transferred to the aerial base and stuff goes crazy from there.

If that appears a bit confusing, it is not, it is just tough to write out. If you know the characters the film is incredibly easy to follow. Whedon has written and directed a breezy, perfectly paced summer extravagnaza. It is a summer movie version of a big theme park. If you think fo that as a critique, it is not. I mean it in the very best way possible. However, unlike many theme parks, AVENGERS is totally worth the money. Downey Jr. swoops in with his snarky perfection and creates this perfect chemistry with every single member of the team, Evans remains the calm, quiet confident CAPTAIN AMERICA. Hemsworth delivers the second funniest line in the movie, proving he is not just all biceps, but I want to talk about Ruffalo for a little bit. I have always found Ruffalo to be an actor in search of a great defining role. He is very talented, but it never quite clicked. That is no longer the case. Ruffalo nails Banner's duality even though he only bodies half of the character. He is never quite sure of what he can do and he emotionally drives this movie, I think. He also gets to deliver the best line of the movie, a line so perfect, it completely changed my view on who Banner was. I cannot wait to go watch the movie again with this new Banner lens.

All of this is well and good, but if the action did not deliver, what would be the point? LOKI's entrance is totally bad ass, his fight with Captain and IRONMAN, while short is very cool. I loved the fight between THOR and IRONMAN. The aerial base attack was breathtaking and manages to give us all of our heroes doing something. How kick ass is black widow? But also, how kick ass Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders)? But they are all just teases for the humdinger of a climatic battle.

For roughly 35 minutes, New York feels the wrath of an alien monster race reigning down and wrecking shop. Havoc is their game and they are excellent. However, a newly focused AVENGERS are on the case. Shot with dazzling clarity, insane swiftness and never without losing the Whedon trademark humor, this action sequence is about as perfect as they come. The stakes are perfectly raised, each hero gets to do what he/she does best and the audience never gets to catch its breath, but it is never overwhelmed. CAPTAIN and Black Widow do insane hand to hand combat, HAWKEYE's bow and arrow tricks are awesome, THOR goes toe to toe with LOKI and takes on quite a few aliens. IRONMAN never stops his one-liners as he flies through New York dodging buildings and weaving through the skyscrapers and it is wonderful. However, it is all topped by HULK. For two films I have been waiting for someone to do HULK the way HULK is meant to be used. Finally, I get my pay off. WOW!!! Watching HULK smash everything, was beyond epic for me and for everyone else in the theater. The Motion Capture is gorgeous, as you can see Ruffalo in there, and the way he moves and emotes, makes him my favorite Motion Capture character after Gollum and Ceasar.

For 150 minutes I was in nerd heaven, yes. I am perfectly okay with that. The relationships built in this movie are going to carry this Marvel thing for years and years and I hope they can keep coming back and doing the AVENGERS thing. If the movies come out like this, I will never tire of them. Summer movies in their purest form are supposed to be just like this. It was thrilling, genuinely hilarious, and for a brief moment, it even choked me up. I have a feeling this movie is going to require a few viewings just to hear everything I missed over the sound of my own laughter.

P.S. STAY ALL THE WAY UNTIL THE END!! SO many people left after the first credit sequence scene, but there is a second one and it is perfection.

The Hunger Games

Not that I really have the time to completely bring back this review blog in the way it once was, but I miss writing movie reviews and what better way to jump back in than with the movie biggest opening non-sequel ever. Granted, inflated ticket sales help, but hey, at least this thing was not in 3D, right? I was first turned on to The Hunger Games when Borders was going out of business and I was able to pick up the first book for $4.00. I had heard much about how great the first book was, but my hesitation stemmed from hearing about how unimpressive the final book was. Who wants to invest in a trilogy when it appears a foregone conclusion that the ending was going to suck. I picked up the first book was hooked pretty instantly. However, that does not always translate into a good movie. Before I go on, those of you who have read this blog over the years and anyone who converses with me on a regular basis knows this, but for any newcomers, I will not spend this review comparing the book to the movie. It is a feeble and pointless act and I have no time for it. They are completely different animals that do different things to my imagination and enjoyment.

In a future North America where everything is controlled by The Capital, a competition exists. This competition exists as a reminder to the 12 districts of what happened 74 years ago when the districts tried to revolt against the leadership. The games are called The Hunger Games. 1 boy and 1 girl between the ages of 12-18 are "reaped" from a lottery to represent the district in a fight to the death game for the enjoyment of the national audience. These games are carefully crafted by the Capital so that they get the best show possible. Katniss Everdeen(Jennifer Lawrence) of District 12 volunteers herself to be in the games after her 12 year old sister is "reaped." District 12 is the outermost district, therefore the most poor and unhealthy. Katniss, though, is incredibly skilled with a bow and arrow and survives on her hunting skills. The male from District 12, Peeta(Josh Hutcherson), does not look like he presents much of a threat, but he is strong and as the competitors prepare for the games, Peeta turns out to be incredibly charming and intelligent. On the other hand, Katniss is a fiesty, seemingly unlikable girl, but that all changes once Cinna(Lenny Kravitz) gets his hands on her and styles her to look like the knockout she does not believe she is.

The show is where The Hunger Games really starts to gain traction. The film wastes no time introducing us to the world of Panem and taking Katniss and Peeta swiftly from the bleak greys of District 12 to the eye popping colors and gorgeously futuristic capital. The colors and designs of the set pop off the screen and the faceless crowds in bright pink wigs, luxurious clothes and ridiculous make up provide a wonderfully biting satire on current American life. Katniss has to learn to play a part, the way the best reality television stars of our time have learned to play a part. The only difference is, Katniss has to try not be killed by the other 22, or 23, contestants. The training before the games does not offer much in the way of developing the other characters, but it gives us 2 good villains, 1 small girl to care about and allows us to see Katniss practice her skills.

This first half of the movie may seem like mere filler for those desiring bloodlust, but I found it to be completely fascinating. Lawrence's Katniss is a strong female role model and Lawrence really owns this picture. The scene where volunteers as tribute had me choking up. It is a stripped down and honest performance, which is even more of a feat when everything about the character is done up. She never loses this laser focus on who Katniss is and what she wants. She is a superstar on the verge of shooting into the stratosphere, but she never shows it. She remains completely within the world of The Hunger Games. It is a true testament of her talent. There was never a moment where I wandered from her story. For his contribution, Hutcherson turns Peeta into a more rounded character than I would have imagined from him. The hair is ridiculous, but his Peeta is thoughtful, soulful and just the right amount of charming without seeming too fake. Their chemistry is not as bristling with sexual sparks as I would have liked, but they clearly work well together.

The supporting cast just adds extra fun to the film. Stanley Tucci is pitch perfect as Ceasar the talk show host. If he seems superficial, look deeper. Tucci really flushes him out in just his reactions to everything going on. I cannot wait to see what Kravitz does with Cinna in the later movies because here he was exactly what I hoped he would be. I was hoping Anthony Mackie would be Cinna, but Kravitz did a great job. Wes Bentley, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks (stealing every scene) and Woody Harrelson all did great work without too much screen time. T his is truly a case of me not being able to wait and see what these actors do with the progression of these characters.

One cannot review The Hunger Games without talking about the game itself. From the grueling (how great that they counted down from 45 and not just 10) countdown, to that brief quiet moment before the frenzied insanity, Director Gary Ross knew exactly how to let tension build. Then when the clock hit 0 and the tributes started their quest, wow, what insanity. This is a PG-13 movies, but it was not without brutality. Blood splattered, helpless teenagers fell and the body count rose with such furious tenacity that people in the audience were definitely flinching and trying hard not to look straight on. The pacing in the jungle was exquisite. I had a fear that everything in the jungle would be too quickly paced, but Ross was not afraid to let the action breathe. Our point of view remained Katniss, and Lawrence's ability to portray a girl who is lost, but confident, bruised but determined really shined through in the final hour.

I have 1 issue with the movie and that is the very end, but that is because I was expecting the book ending. It changed a bit here and it is difficult for me to remark on it before I see where the series goes from here. Therefore, I do not feel right making a big deal out it. Our expectations are not the fault of a film. If this was a totally original screenplay, I probably would have been completely satisfied with the ending of the film. I am ready for the next installment already. I hope the studio does the right thing and lets Gary Ross direct each installment because he has really taken great care in this world. The camera work was top notch, especially in the frenzied jungle. The film was not afraid to get gritty. In fact, it was often gritty. The Hunger Games is a top notch cinematic adventure with rich themes, a star making performance, and great attention to detail. It is devastating blockbuster entertainment in the middle of March. It has explosions, sci-fi technology, sexy people, and a big blood pumping heart right in the center. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Final Grade: A