tjm225 Reviews

The International (I) (2009)

Better film than critics give it credit

[7/10 · 15 February 2009]

I was persuaded by my brother to see this film. I wanted to see another one but since he was visiting I agreed with his choice, and was surprised to find myself liking the film very much. OK, the script could be a little better, but the direction and acting were very good, even down to the supporting players such as the actors who portrayed the two NYC cops who assist the main character, Interpol agent Sallinger (Clive Owens), once the story moved to NYC. What I particularly liked was the way the story was told cinematically rather than through a lot of verbose dialogue. It seemed to me like a Bourne thriller for adults. No kinetic hand-held camera action, but smooth visually appealing cinematic exposition the way Hitchcock did it in his prime. Even the closing credits were used effectively to give a rather downbeat dénouement to the film.

In short, an entertaining movie that alleviated the February blues.

Transsiberian (2008)

Moody suspenseful thriller

[8/10 · 5 November 2008]

I've been complaining to my family and friends about the dearth of good movies lately, something an intelligent adult can watch and enjoy. Well, this is a very good movie. I picked it up on election day to make use of the dead time in the early evening hours before the significant returns began to come in. I became so engrossed in this moody suspenseful thriller that I momentarily forgot about the important issues of the day, and, for me, it was very pleasant to take such a break from reality. The other reviews in this forum lay out the plot and texture of this excellent film. To me the film was simply good storytelling, good writing, good direction and good acting all coming together for two hours of enjoyable entertainment.

The Weather Man (2005)

Too Hollywoodish for me

[5/10 · 9 March 2006]

All fiction is about the suspension of disbelief, but sometimes the divide between the real world and the created fiction is such a chasm that even those with noble purpose fail. And that IMHO is what is wrong with this movie.

The protagonist, a smiley-faced TV weather man named Dave Spritz (Nicholas Cage), is presented as a hapless soul who somehow, despite no really striking abilities, is very successful at earning a living, but is completely unable at understanding or accepting himself, and, as a consequence, is not able to be successful at being a good husband, father and son, although he desperately desires to be all three.

The script gives Spritz all the accouterments of upper middle class success including a big suburban home in which his ex-wife and children live, a trendy Chicago apartment for himself, and some quirks: a 14 year old son with a drug problem who is being hit on by his pedophile counselor, and a 12 year old daughter who is seriously overweight and bored with life. The ex-wife is is an attractive but bland individual with an equally bland boyfriend/fiancée. Spritz also has a kind but judgmental father, a famous writer, who is dying of cancer.

The drama centers around Spritz coming to an epiphany of sorts by accepting the mediocrity of himself and his life while at the same time pursuing a lucrative new job as the weatherman on a New York morning show. Along the way he learns archery, accepts the fact that he will never be a writer like his father, and gets sloshed by a lot of fast food thrown at him on the street by less than adoring fans.

There is no Hollywood ending, but this is nevertheless a Hollywood movie in its striking lack of reality, depth and complexity in the characters and the situations it creates. If you are going to make a downer of a movie, at least make it more interesting.

Walk the Line (2005)

Poor script results in Disappointing Movie

[5/10 · 3 March 2006]

I really wanted to like this film. It started off well enough with a throbbing rockabilly beat and Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash waiting to take the stage at Folsom Prison, but the film took too long a detour to get back there. I just could not understand the motivations of either Cash or his long pursued love interest, Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, specifically, as to why they made the choices they did. Cash comes across as an arrogant pill popping bully, and Carter as a very confused woman. I realize that biopics are hard to make. The old ones made in Hollywood in the 1930s were almost entirely fictional. This one I believe tried to be true to life. However, Cash's life was in truth and fact dramatic enough that a better story could have been told.

I Capture the Castle (2003)

Quirky affectionate coming of age film

[8/10 · 23 February 2006]

...set in the 1930s in the English countryside. The young protagonist, 17 year old Cassandra, sets down in her diary her thoughts and adventures growing up in a bohemian family living in a rented castle. Her father is a novelist who has suffered writer's block and whose declining fortunes have reduced the family to a bare pantry existence. Relief comes in the form of two American brothers who inherit the land on which the castle sits. Cassandra's slightly older sister Rose sets her sights on landing one of the brothers as a husband, and a lot of romantic complications follow. The film has many strengths, and a few weaknesses. The strengths include the beautiful photography and winsome performances by the actors who play Cassandra and other members of her family. The main weakness is some uneven pacing which makes the film stumble along in parts. However, the characters are well drawn and likable, and the film has a commonsensical ending which rings true.

Separate Lies (2005)

Very British, very stagey, very improbable

[5/10 · 22 February 2006]

I just didn't like it. I'll concede that the film has good actors, good production values, and a message of sorts: take responsibility for your actions. There is also a reasonably good plot teaser that runs throughout the movie, namely, who killed the house cleaner's husband by sideswiping his bike with a Range Rover; I thought it may be the first person who confesses even after the second person does. And then there is the story of upper crust infidelity that makes the movie a chick flick for women of a certain age. But, bottom line, the characters are such vacuous sh*ts that it was hard for me to care about them: Rupert Everett is the languorous cad, Emily Watson the emotionally needy woman, and Tom Wilkinson the uptight self-absorbed husband. You can have them, and the film.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003)

A total piece of cr*p

[1/10 · 18 February 2006]

This movie is only worth writing about to warn others not to waste their time watching it. From the title and the cover of the DVD box I thought it might be a good noirish thriller. But it's a complete mess of a revenge flick. Simply put, an older brother seeks to avenge the suicide death of his younger brother. A meandering script and sleepwalking performances by Clive Owens and Charlotte Rampling don't help much. It would have helped if the dead brother was not written as such a petty unsympathetic character, screwing everyone and stealing everything he can. It also would have helped to have given some explanation as to why the older brother fled London three years previously to live in the woods in a claptrap car trailer with little besides a bucket to urinate in. And then there are the non-sequitors: what is it with the scene of the thugs dumping a beaten man in the woods near the older brother's trailer? Who was the beaten man? Who were the thugs? What does it have to do with this movie? Who cares?

Junebug (2005)

This director won't be invited back for church supper anytime soon

[8/10 · 31 January 2006]

I've read the five pages of IMDb reviews and have to conclude I did not see the same movie others saw. I saw a movie that was so slow in setting up its premise that I nearly turned it off. I'm glad I didn't.

The movie is a bomb thrown at lower middle class southern womanhood. They are castrating bitches who devour their men's souls to create a son -- a little junebug -- whom they can adore to the exclusion of their husbands.

George was his mother's junebug. By movie's end he realizes how his "specialness" has ruined his family. His parting comment as he and his wife Madeline are on the highway driving back to Chicago says it all, "Goddamn, I'm glad we're out of that place." (I am paraphrasing, but that is the gist of what I remember). I wonder how their marriage is going to turn out. By the end of the movie, Madeline's feelings for her husband have definitely been dented by meeting his family.

The performances are excellent, as is the writing, direction, and casting. It is no accident that the eccentric primitive artist Wark is controlled by his sister who looks like a clone of George's mother, Peg. Both have the overweight features of older lower middle class women which makes them look oddly like the pregnant daughter-in-law, Ashley. Nor is it an accident that the artist's oeuvre consists of Chagal-like paintings of castrated soldiers and slaves from America's civil war era. These paintings mirror the pathetic state of the younger brother Johnny and the father Eugene who both appear to be passive unimaginative sorts who have been emasculated by their spouses in their civil marriages.

George's relationship with his wife is very sensual, and they have a give and take the other couples don't have. The other men are alternately in awe or anger at his relationship with his wife. He originally misreads the situation as to how his family has reacted to Madeline. But I think it is significant that it is he who makes the decision to leave, and very forcefully.

One reviewer suggested that George was the father of the baby who dies in childbirth, but I don't see that. I think he is just trying to be "family" in the hospital scene with Ashley. By the last scene of the movie, he realizes that his family is too dysfunctional to be around, and it is time to leave.

Not a perfect movie, but one you will think about for a long time.