At the Cinema April 2013

Oblivion – 9
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  Space Operas
b.  Tom Cruise
c.  Dazzling effects

There are certain things you can usually count on in a Tom Cruise movie.  You’ll usually get a good script that he’s paid top dollar for.  You’ll get high production values.  You’ll get the Tom Cruise smile.  You’ll get at least one scene where he takes his shirt off.  You’ll get plenty of close-ups of Tom as he tries to convey his character’s story. 

All this is present in Oblivion, a mesmerizing view of earth’s future.  It seems earth won a war with some invading aliens, but the battle pretty much destroyed the planet.  The population is being moved to a moon of Saturn, and Tom’s character Jack Harper and his girlfriend are part of the mop up crew, repairing the scary drones that protect big machines that are sucking up the earth’s resources for transport to the new home. 

The war with the scavengers is over, but a few roam the earth, and the drones and Jack do some eradication from time to time.  It won’t be a spoiler to tell you all is not what it seems to be.  As Jack’s mission is coming to a close, he winds up in some landmark locations which trigger memories. 

Cruise famously never flew an airplane for Top Gun, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t fly a spaceship here.  But the effects are so well done, and the plot is original enough to provide some cool entertainment for a couple of hours, you’ll just go along for the ride. 

Cruise is 51 now and his high profile success has of course made his private life not too private.  Three divorces and a religion that’s even crazier than most, has left him scarred in the public eye.  Not Woody Allen-scarred mind you, but still not as popular as he once was.  None of this has kept him from delivering top notch films and roles year after year.  He gets no awards, few accolades, plenty of grief,  and buckets of money.  We should all be so lucky.

Sound City – 9
You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  Rock n Roll
b.  Rock History
c.  Great Soundtracks
My attempts to see this rockumentary in a theatre were futile, so I was thrilled to find it out quickly on blu-ray.  I’m glad I got to see it in my home theatre, blasting as loud as I wanted.

Dave Grohl directs and navigates us through the story of the legendary Sound City studio in Van Nuys California, where analog greatness was recorded from 1973’s legendary Buckingham-Nicks to Nirvana’s Nevermind.  Through interviews and rare footage Grohl takes us on an amazing musical journey.  There were so many great albums recorded here, that the first half of this doc will be a thrill for any rock and roll music geek.  Odds are one of your favorite albums was recorded here.  For me it was the Buckingham Nicks album, which I’ve been listening to for 40 years, and the way they bumped into Mick Fleetwood one day, and pretty soon there was a whole new level of magic at Sound City.  You still can’t buy BN on compact disc, and you’ll wonder why after watching this. 

The second half focuses on the star of the studio, the Neve mixing console, which Grohl eventually buys  and moves to his own studio.  Some recorded sessions with the likes of Trent Reznor and Paul McCartney are filmed.  If you don’t like rock, you won’t like this.  If you do, don’t miss it.  Terrific stuff.

42 – 7

You’ll like this movie if you like
a.  Terrific Acting
b.  Languid Pacing
c.  Historical Drama

The amazing story of Jackie Robinson deserves better than this languishing treatment.   His story would have certainly been worthy of a mini-series.  What we get here is a just a peek that ends with his first season.  It’s a glossy once-over of a rich and critical story essential to the evolution of modern America.  What could have been epic is rather pedestrian. 

Most of the problem in this movie is in the pacing.  Director Brian Helgeland won an Oscar for his script of L.A. Confidential, which is one of the great scripts and great movies of all time.  Had he utilized the amazing speed of that movie, this would have been a classic.  Instead the movie, particularly in the baseball scenes, moves so slowly, that I couldn’t help worry about the future of baseball.  If it were really this slow, nobody would ever go to a game.  If Jackie Robinson’s home run trots were really this slow, he’d have been hit by even more pitches.  Pitchers don’t take kindly to being “shown up” with leisurely trots.

The story of the breaking of the color barrier in Major League Baseball has always been as much about Brooklyn Dodger General Manager Branch Rickey as it was about Jackie Robinson.  By signing terrific Negro League ballplayers Jackie Robinson, then shortly after that Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, Rickey achieved a trifecta of social justice, team improvement, and monetary success.  The story of baseball in the 50’s is largely the story of the intercity rivalry of the Dodgers, the New York Yankees and New York Giants.  It was a golden age of baseball.  Rickey accurately anticipates what Robinson will go through with teammates, opponents, and fans, wisely requiring Robinson to have the “courage to not fight back.”  The scenes of harassment and discrimination are jolting and while they’re difficult to watch at times, there is a little bit of an echo of current times and the treatment of our President when one of the players says, “this isn’t the America I know.”

Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, and disappears into the role.  Ford has always been a box office success, but never considered a great actor.  The gamble of casting him in this role pays off, as he delivers the best performance of his career.  Also terrific is Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson.  Many sports pictures suffer from unrealistic skills of the actors.  That’s not the case here, as Boseman and everyone else looks like they’ve actually played baseball.

The baseball scenes are mostly accurate but there are some quibbles.  The late jumps Robinson gets when he steals a base would have gotten him thrown out every time.  A baseball film editor was needed.  If you are going to CGI Forbes Field in Pittsburgh (where I feel like I grew up), why not do it accurately?  The hardest thing to recreate in a baseball movie is the speed of a thrown pitch.  The best film pitcher was Charlie Sheen in Major League – the worst was Tim Robbins in Bull Durham, and the movie pitchers here fall somewhere in between.  More accurate in the movie was the depiction of the attitudes of those who tried to derail the progress, from umpires, to policemen, to a vile manager.  The manager, played here to great risk by a fantastic Alan Tudyk, exemplifies the resistance Robinson endured.

Because of the rich heritage of baseball and its impact and importance during this era, the magnitude of Jackie Robinson cannot be under stated.  The reaction to this movie has been positive so I still recommend seeing it.  I was just hoping for so much more.

The Place Beyond the Pines – 7
You’ll like this movie if you like:
a.  Ryan Gosling
b.  Bradley Cooper
c.  Melodrama
The best thing about this movie is the acting, as Gosling and Cooper are riveting in their portrayals of a bank robber and the cop who tracks him down.  Their brief and conclusive confrontation is the beginning of complications that reach far into the future.  Unfortunately, the films skips ahead 15 years so we don’t get to see Cooper’s transformation from beat cop to state political candidate. 

I can give a simple explanation of this movie.  It is a brilliantly acted, wonderfully scripted, perfectly edited, with a terrific score and production values and it interested me not one bit.

Scanning the Satellite
I swore I was done.  I resigned my American Idol viewership after last year’s tepid season.  But the final four sucked me in.  The four finalists, all women, are so terrific that I really don’t have a favorite.  They’re awesome, and I’m back on the bandwagon.

In case you don’t have Showtime, you probably didn’t get the memo that there are no taboos on TV anymore.  Shameless has shown everything I can think of to show.  No taboos left.