Silver Linnings Playbook (2012)

This is the movie for which Jennifer Lawrence won her Oscar, and I think she probably deserved it, she's a great actress, a beautiful woman, and has an unusually strong presence on screen, were talking just short of Richard Harris levels so astounding for someone so young. Lawrence actually plays the secondary character in the film, not introduced until 20 or so minutes in, Tiffany Maxwell, a young widow who has dealt with her grief by having sexual relations with a lot of people. She meets the films male lead at a dinner set up by her sister (Julia Stiles) and brother-in-law (John Oritz), Pat Solatano, Jr. (Bradley Cooper) was a high school history teacher, who after walking in on his wife (also a teacher) in the midst of a tryst with another teacher, beats said other teacher quite severely. As a result of this he ends up in a plea-bargain arrangement where he spends eight months in a Maryland psych hospital, before being released to the custody of his parents (Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver) in Philadelphia. Pat Jr. is still obsessed over his wife (who has a restraining order against him) and convinced the he can somehow save his doomed marriage. Tiffany, who through her sister can gain access to Pat's wife, agrees to slip her a letter from Pat, which he's been desperate to get her but can't because of the restraining order, on the condition that he be her partner in dance competition she intends on entering, and the story goes from there.

Based on a book by YA novelist Matthew Quick, Silver Linings also won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and is near perfectly directed by David O. Russell, with an all around excellent cast including Shea Whigham (a character actor I've grown to quite like) and Chris Tucker who I can actually stand in this. De Niro has an important storyline here as a man who is as obsessed with the Philadelphia Eagles as his son is with his wife. I have no qualms in saying that this is a great movie, totally got me, satisfying on every level, and I highly recommend. I will be keeping an eye out on nearly everybody involved in this thing, I just loved it.  ****

How Did This Get Made?

Gregory's Girl (1981)

There is really not a lot of outputting coming from the Scottish film industry, which in part is why Gregory's Girl is a standout in it. There are two factors that make Gregory's Girl a landmark in Scottish film, one is that it was pretty well received over-seas (Roger Ebert had some nice things to say about it) and two it has a contemporary suburban setting (a community somewhere between Edinburgh and Glasgow) and was not castles and kilts fair like most Scotland based films. The title character of Gregory Underwood (John Gordon Sinclair) is a gangly 16 year old, the middle child of a suburban family of three where the mostly absentee parents are always working. Gregory is the nominal star of his school football (soccer) team which isn't doing very well, the coach (Jake D'Arcy) repeatedly threatens to replace him, but Gregory doesn't take him seriously. Eventually the coach holds open auditions for the team and to everyone's surprise the player who does the best is a girl, Dorothy (Dee Hepburn).

Gregory is instantly smitten with Dorothy and doesn't mind his demotion to goalie because it means he gets to spend a lot of time with her practicing. Dorothy is a very popular girl with lots of suitors and isn't interested in Gregory, but her friend Susan (Clare Grogan, the lead singer for the British group Altered Images) is. Susan, Dorothy and their friends cook up a scheme to get the clueless Gregory and Susan together, which happens at the end. Most of the film that doesn't have to do with Gregory's romantic pursuits is occupied by his interaction with side characters, like his cooking obsessed older brother, wise beyond her years younger sister, the football coach, and various friends. Gregory's Girl deals with various 'high school types' the popular girl, photography nerd etc. as well as the sub-culture of Scottish teendom (dates to the fish and chips shop), and for the most part keeps an even and believable keel. An enjoyable little film somewhere between Napoleon Dynamite and Freaks and Geeks. ***

The Man in the White Suite (1951)

Ealing Studio's comedy stars Alec Guinness as Sidney Stratton, an eccentric chemist who develops a synthetic fabric that not only repels stains, but is nearly indestructible (delightful scene where a blow torch must be used to cut a piece of string). Stratton's discovery threatens to send the whole textile industry into a panic, and in a enjoyable reversal of the capital vs labor divide often played for laughs in English comedy's of this era (see for example I'm All Right Jack) both the workers and the suites are desperate to keep Stratton's suites off the market. Joan Greenwood is great as one of Stratton's two love interests, and the cast is studied with great English character actors of the period like Michael Gough and Miles Malleson. An enjoyable 85 minutes. ***

The New Centurions (1972)

I first became aware of the existence of this movie when I read a recent interview with actor Stacy Keach in an issue of Shock Cinema magazine, so when the movie showed up on Dish I made a point to DVR it. The New Centurions is based on former Los Angeles police officer Joseph Wambaugh's 1971 debut novel of the same name. Wambaugh would go on to write a number of novels concerning LA police work as well as to help develop a poplar 1970's police drama uninventively titled Police Story.

The movie has a lot in common with the various cop shows of the 1970's, its episodic in structure, ensemble in cast, and is as much about the personal lives of its cop characters as the cases they solve and the crooks they bust. The cop show this movie is probably most reminiscent of is The Rookies, in that it concerns three rookie cops played by Scott Wilson (Herschel from The Walking Dead), Erik Estrada (I know right) and Stacey Keach. All of these characters get there own screen time and stories, but the character of central focus is Stacey Keach's Roy Fehler, a young man who joins the police force to get some on the ground experience with criminal law before going to law school. Fehler is partnered with veteran police officer Andy Kilvinski (George C. Scott) a stern but fair cop whose a bit cynical and  willing to bend the rules a little when it will benefit the people he's charged to protect. Fehler comes to almost worship Kilyinski and finds that he really enjoys being a cop, so he keeps putting off law school and thus putting pressure on his marriage to his wife Dorothy (Jane Alexander).

Over the course of the movie Fehler is shot but then recovers, Kilynski retires, Roy transfer to the Vice Squad for a while, his marriage to Dorothy breaks up, and in what was a big surprise to me (spoiler) Kilyinski ends up killing himself. This event unhinges Roy for a while and he starts to drink a lot, but eventually finds solace with a nurse played by Rosalind Cash. There are actually many more interesting events in this movie, I'm surprised they could fit so much into a 103 minute running time. I found this film to be surprisingly enlightening and effecting, with good performances all around, it actually stayed in my thoughts for days after viewing. A nice little find which I recommend. ***1/2

Pompeii (2014)

Sometimes a bad movie just looks good, and the moment I first saw the trailers for Pompeii I concluded that movie looked enjoyably terrible. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson of Resident Evil and Death Race fame, Pompeii is a surprisingly conventional movie, my guess is it was kind of a vanity project, a retro genera picture that the director 'just had to make', and in 3D. The story and characters are stock, or to be generous archetypal. This movie is the love triangle from Titanic melded to Gladiator and in the end blown up with a volcano (oops, spoiler).

Kit (I've never heard of him either) Harington is Milo our lead, a captured Celt brought to Pompeii to participant in the gladiatorial games. Aussie actress Emily Browning is Milo's love interest Cassia, the daughter of prominent Pompeian's played by Jared Harris (son of Richard) and Carrie-Anne Moss. Cassia has just returned from Rome trying to get away from the romantic advances of Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland, just the thought of whom in any kind of  period piece almost makes me chuckle), who follows her home hoping to use the prospect of his investing in Cassia's fathers (ironically ill-timed) re-development plans for the city, to basically purchase her as his bride. Milo and Cassia cross paths, become interested in one another, but Corvus (among others) stands in the way, and it turns out that 17 years ago he was the Roman officer responsible for the destruction of Milo's village and the death of his parents (Sutherland by the way steals this movie he's so over the top).

There's also Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Atticus, a slave who is at first Milo's rival and then his friend, as well as Jessica Lucas who plays Cassia's loyal servant Ariadne, who director Anderson does not skimp on the generous cleavage shots of. There are a few other characters and various dramatic goings on, including a cool gladiator fight prior to Vesuvius erupting, after which there is a lot of running and trying to get away, with occasional breaks to wreak petty vengeance. All in all, it was the kind of craptastic movie I was looking for, fun, but obvious and clichéd, just made to be a guilty a pleasure, and it succeeds. **1/2

Billy Joel: Trust (2014)

Showtime documentary on Billy Joel's 1987 concert tour of the Soviet Union, one of the few concert tours ever that can legitimately claim to be historic. Billy was the first American pop artist to be allowed to tour the U.S.S.R, the documentary recounts this event through footage of the concerts and media events that surrounded them, as well as present day interviews with Joel, his ex-wife Christie Brinkley (still looks amazing) and various members of the tour. I really enjoyed this doc as I'm a fan of Billy Joel's music and am fascinated by the late Soviet period, such a time of rapid change and potential, one of history's quickly forgotten great turning points. The only disappointment I have with this production is there is no follow up on what happened to Victor, the Leningrad based circus clown and rock music fan who Billy Joel befriended and eventually wrote a song about (Leningrad), I really wanted to know what happened to him. ***

The Negoitator (1998)

This thriller seems like its on TV a lot so I've seen bits and pieces of it over the years, but I never watched more then a minute or two  because I'd heard it was real good and wanted to see it from the beginning,  so cue DVR. The Negotiator stars Samuel L Jackson as a talented Chicago PD hostage negotiator who is wrongly accused of the murder of his partner (Paul Guilfoyle) and embezzlement of police funds. So wanting to prove his innocence Jackson decides to put his skills to work and takes the Internal Affairs agent whose been coming after him (J. T. Walsh) and an number of other people (including Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Paul Giamatti) hostage in a downtown high-rise. It's roughly an hour into the film before a fellow and equally skilled hostage negotiator (played by Kevin Spacey) is brought in to deal with Jackson. Now I'm kind of partial to hostage pictures, they are innately dramatic, and when done right are some of the most enjoyable kinds of movies to watch. Well The Negotiator is done right, well written, well paced, and boasting a enviable cast with David Morse, Ron Rifkin and John Spencer among the supporting players. A film I can just tell will be very re-watchable. ***1/2

Nebraska (2013)

Nebraska was originally intended to be Omaha born director Alexander Payne's follow up to his successful and critically acclaimed 2004 film Sideways. I even remember reading online the names of Richard Dreyfuss and Dave Matthews being attached to the project, but for some reason unknown to me the movie didn't happen at that time. It wasn't until 2011 that Payne would release another film, that was the excellent family drama The Descendants staring George Clooney. Well the success of that picture must have been what it took to get Nebraska out of  'development hell' and back on track. I for one believe that the delay helped the finished product, the eventual cast turned out to be unconventional but perfect for the movie and  Payne had also progressed more in his subtlety as a director by in this time.

Nebraska is shot in clean black and white against a backdrop of the stark upper plane states. The film features Brue Dern in a deservedly Oscar nominated turn as Woody Grant, a septuagenarian and retired auto mechanic living in Billings Montana with his wife Kate (About Schmidt veteran June Squibb). Woody seems to be in the early stages of dementia and has become fixated on a mailer he received stating that he has wib a million dollars from a magazine publishing concern in Lincoln, Nebraska. Unable to drive Woody attempts several times to set out for Nebraska on foot, his wife and oldest son Ross (Bob Odenkirk) attempt in vain to convince him that its just an ad and he hasn't really won anything, Woody's youngest son David (played by Will Forte in what is unexpectedly the perfect part for him) tires to convince him as well, but eventually decides that the only way to get his dad to stop setting off for Nebraska on his own is to take him there himself and prove to the old man that he didn't win anything.

So David plays hooky from his go nowhere job as a stereo salesman for a couple of days to take his dad in his Subaru down to Lincoln. On the way the two become involved in a few misadventures and Woody suffers a fall at a motel after doing some heavy drinking. So after a brief hospital stay David re-routes them to Woody's old hometown of Hawthorne, Nebraska to stay with extended family for a few days. While in Hawthorne despite David's pleas for his father not to mention the million dollars, word spreads and before long the whole town thinks Woody has struck it rich. Ross and Kate arrive in town just as old family and friends start to circle around Woody in the hopes of getting some of the money they think he is going to be getting, paramount among these is Woody's devious former business partner Ed Pegram (Stacy Keach, wonderful).  David  comes away from his experiences in Hawthorne having learned a lot about his fathers past that he simply did not know, he gains greater respect for his father and the two become closer as a result. This is an endearing and subtly powerful film about family bonds and the virtue of decency. I won't spoil the ending for you but its beautiful and perfect and Nebraska  takes my vote for the best movie of 2013. ****