Barry Wetcher/Columbia Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Annie (2014)
The 1982 “Annie” was my first experience in the cinema. I thought the whole experience was wonderful. Basically I was Annie: I was a little girl, mistreated by the adults in her life, who deserved to be plucked from nothing and set up in the big time. I wanted red hair; I wanted the red dress; I wanted a smelly old dog. And at the big finale — when Annie is chased up the crane and has to be rescued by the Sikh bodyguard — I was so frightened that I had to be removed from the theater in screaming and crying disgrace. We then got the movie on Betamax and I watched it approximately a billion times before I turned 10 years old, without any further disgracing, as I believe. Although I have not seen the original for some time, “Annie,” as was, remains one of the cleverest movies aimed at little girls, who are natural hams perfectly happy to believe that their parents/guardians are big meanies and a better life is waiting for them, if only someone would see how special they are. As a child, the original political satire of the comic strip on which all is based was utterly lost on me. But I never did understand why, when it was obvious Daddy Warbucks had the ability to take all of them on, only Annie was adopted.
The new “Annie,” directed by Will Gluck, time-shifts the story to right now while keeping many of the original elements almost the same. Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) now lives in the overcrowded apartment of her alcoholic foster mother Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) in Harlem. Safely in midtown, cell-phone billionaire William Stacks (Jamie Foxx) is running for mayor on a platform of “never drop a citizen” (as if citizens were calls) while definitively not being a man of the people. One day he saves Annie from a traffic accident; the resulting viral video and bump in the poll numbers causes his chief-of-staff Guy (Bobby Cannavale, who has finally made the big time and visibly enjoys every second) propose that he foster Annie to ensure he wins the election. Stacks’ lonely assistant Grace (Rose Byrne, who is quietly carving herself one of the most interesting career paths in modern Hollywood) is of course roped in to do the practical stuff, as she is a woman. And of course spoilers follow: Kids, go play outside or something!
Continue reading “Something Was Missing” »
Niko Tavernise/Columbia Pictures
It was a huge relief to many comic-book fans that Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” was such a charming, witty and enjoyable return to form, after the action-packed but plot-mangled mess that was “Spider-Man 3.”
It’s hard enough to reboot a series that is only five years old, but even harder to supply a worthy sequel. Much of the success of the first film was down to the on-screen chemistry between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, a sharp script and a few logistical changes (mechanical rather than genetic web slinging for example). The temptation would always be to go bigger and throw in everything in an attempt to stun the audience into submission, and this has resulted in some of the common problems that sequels always face.
Continue reading “Turned Off by the Dark” »
Niko Tavernise/Columbia Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)
Some superhero stories can shoulder excess baggage with ease, but by rights a Spider-Man film should drill down to their simplest essences: the transformed human body; the exhilaration of flight; urban strife; youthful revolt; hubris. “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” isn’t really into simple essences, obliged instead to do that modern thing of providing $200-million-worth of mild legal highs, via scripts in which all relevant bullet points are actioned. The only properly new element is an air of collective panic about Disney, judging by the fractured clip from the next “X-Men” film shoehorned into the end credits of this one to try and bolster a mutual defense. Would-be wild and crazy cinema with all strings attached, “ASM2” is an average superhero film in every way, and so has to shoulder its share of the blame for the fact that the average is now decaying with a pretty rapid half-life.
Continue reading “A Mangled Web” »
MOVIE REVIEW
White House Down (2013)
Reiner Bajo/Columbia Pictures
First things first: Is “White House Down” essentially the same movie as “Olympus Has Fallen”? The answer is a resounding yes. Here you have Channing Tatum standing in for Gerard Butler as the unlikely (read: non-Secret Service) saver of the day. Then you have Jamie Foxx stepping into the Aaron Eckhart role of the incorruptible president of the United States. Richard Jenkins is the Morgan Freeman House speaker/acting president. As Mr. Tatum’s daughter, Joey King here functions as the adolescent liability much like the president’s son in “Olympus” played by Finley Jacobsen.
Beyond the two films’ obviously shared premise of a White House under siege, their villains are similarly motivated by the prospect of controlling America’s nuclear arsenal. Then again, both are basically “Die Hard” set inside the White House, so it’s not like “Olympus” could lay claim to originality just for hitting the multiplexes three months earlier. The most pronounced difference between the two movies is a political one: Whereas the antagonists in “Olympus” were North Koreans, in “White House Down” they are radical right-wingers, racist zealots, wanton hackers, cracked soldiers and the entire military industrial complex at large. So which of the two you would find more enjoyable is dependent entirely on whether you’re a hardcore xenophobe or a hardcore liberal.
Continue reading “Olympus Has Fallen Into Habit” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Horrible Bosses (2011)
John P. Johnson/Warner Brothers Pictures
Hollywood used to be much better about dealing with issues of class. For starters, class used to be an issue addressed in its movies. During the Great Depression, when studios took the trouble to dress up their leading actors in glamorous and ridiculous situations, they also ensured the characters were at minimum aware of their privilege. Hollywood also used to be able to differentiate between people deserving of the audience's sympathy and a bag of tools. "Horrible Bosses" proves conclusively that Hollywood nowadays can do neither.
Continue reading “Swimming With Sharks, or Sinking to Their Level” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
John Baer/Overture Films
In director F. Gary Gray’s revenge thriller “Law Abiding Citizen,” the vengeance is front and center. Acts of payback that range from robotic sniper machines to limb dissection keep the momentum in gear, the gory red stuff smeared like graffiti in surprising amounts. The plot’s crux involves a loving suburban father (Gerard Butler) who waits 10 years to wage violent retribution against the legal-system players (led by Jamie Foxx as a hotshot assistant district attorney) that let a murderer — the greasy, abhorrent deviant who killed the father’s wife and daughter — walk free. That Mr. Butler is behind bars as the plan unfolds lends an air of implausibility.
Beyond that, it’s difficult to grip any semblance of narrative fat. The cat-and-mice game orchestrated by Mr. Butler’s Clyde Shelton is so overpowering that any human elements are lost in the bloody translation. As his 2003 action triumph “The Italian Job” showed, Mr. Gray certainly knows his way around stylish anarchy, and the glossy brutality of “Law Abiding Citizen” is at times quite enthralling. Higher stakes, which could have been upped if the characters existed as more than archetypes, just aren’t in the cards.
Continue reading “Collateral Savage” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Soloist (2009)
Francois Duhamel/Paramount Pictures
“The Soloist” is an impressive technical achievement, a unique visual portrait of Los Angeles and a creative evocation of the orgiastic power of Beethoven and Bach. Still, although the film features many elements conducive to a compelling human drama, it never quite gets there. With a premise that relies heavily on dynamic characters whose dynamism is never tangibly felt, irreparable discordance develops between the high caliber craft and a narrative that’s frankly less affecting than it should be.
Continue reading “Homeless Schizophrenic Easier to Save Than L.A. Times” »