Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World picks up where your average asteroid threatens the planet movie leaves off, or rather where it would leave off if the heroic last ditch effort to save the Earth had failed. The movie begins with a grave radio broadcast reporting on the loss of the Deliverance, the shuttle and its crew blew up in space and with them so did mankind's last hope of diverting the impending impact of 'Matilda'. "Matilda" is the common name given to the  massive piece of space rock whose collision with the Earth will wipe out all human life in a mear three weeks time, but at least the radio stations promises to keep playing your favorite oldies right up until the end. This sets the tone for the movie, the varied, often ridicules ways mankind copes with impending extension.

The movies lead character Dodge Petersen is played by Steve Carrell, he's the sort of sad sack, endearing, semi-looser you'd expect from Carrell, and not only is his world literaly ending, but his wife's just left him. Dodge is one of the last people to continue to show up for his job at an insurance company, a pointless exercise, much like the time he continues to spend in the company gym. He attends a party with some friends, one of whom (the cleavage bearing Connie Britton) wants to set him up with a needy friend played by Melanie Lynskey. Dodge is not interested, he has no desire to spend his remaining weeks getting to know someone new, that is until he meets Penny, played by Kira Knightly.

Steve Carrell and Kira Knightly, not a naturally credible pair, but it works, because the end of the world is the sort of situation in which people seem likely to keep a very open mind dating wise. Carrell and Knightly actually have good chemistry, and she's quite the charmer in this, she doesn't usually get to play comedy. Penny insists on taking Dodge on a final quest to reunite with his old high school sweetheart, she feels she owes him this do to her failure to deliver a letter sent to Carrell from his ex months earlier when it was delivered to her apartment by mistake. The two embark on a road trip, meeting interesting cameo's along the way, including a suicidal William Peterson, a survivalist Derek Luke, and a very friendly waitress played by Gillian Jacobs.

It's dark comedy, and it's also a rather sweet love story, and it does both well, but it can't help but awkwardly mesh. If anything could use reworking it would have to be the last act, but I don't know if any ending to a story like this could really find the right tone, though this one feels increadably close. Seeking a Friend is a likable movie, though it left me rather melancholy, an admirable and worthwhile effort to make something rather different, more people should really see it. ***

The Alphabet Murders (1965)

Lose adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel the A.B.C. Murders. The movie starts rather strangely, and I'm not referring to the murder of the diving clown, but rather to the introduction of the protagonist Hercule Poirot, in which the actor Tony Randall comes on screen as himself at a sound stage and tells you he is going to play Poirot, and then flash he's Poirot on a street in London. It's an odd, pointless introduction, for what proves to be an odd and rather pointless movie. You get the sense that the producers were not so much interested in making an Agatha Christie film, despite the little cameo of Miss Marple, but rather wanted to turn Poirot into something like a more competent Inspector Clouseau. The film emphasise is on comedy, though it largely fails to be funny, in fact I don't think I laughed once. They brought Robert Morley into the thing to be an oft humiliated comic foil for Randell, but in the end I just felt sorry for Morely having to play this undercooked part. Anita Ekberg's also in this, so there's that. Anyway a waste. *1/2

Brave (2012)

The expectations and performance of Pixar films have maintained such a high standard for so long that any 'lowering' of their reception or perceived quality, even just a little bit, was bound to seem greater then would likely be truly warranted. Now I haven't seen Cars 2 yet, and my expectations for that are not high, so it was Brave that for me was the let down movie. Now it is in fact a good movie, I enjoyed it, it just wasn't the ground breaker, or the emotional experince that so many of the previous Pixar movies have been. The movie looked beautiful, I even liked the characters, and the underlining theme, but the story was not quite up to snuff. In fact there is a reason that you don't get much of an impression from the previews as to too what the second half of the movie may hold, that's because you've seen it before, in another Disney movie.

The protagonist Princess Merida (voiced by Kelly MacDonald, who I'm rather fond of), is a head strong, feminist princess, if ever Disney had one. She's refreshing, I like her, and with the mother/daughter rift (the Queen being voiced by Emma Thompson) being the overriding emotional though line of the picture, it certainly was something I don't remember Disney doing before, also I loved the Scottish setting. The villain here is a dues ex machina, he's not really worth talking about, and in fact I can't think of another Disney film in which the villain has been less important then, well, the other Disney movie this one borrows from. Anyway I can recommend Brave, but I suggest you approach it primarly as a Disney film rather then a Pixar one. ***

The Mysterious Mr. Wong (1934)

Slight, kind of racist programmer about an herb shop proprietor in an American China town (played by all purpose period menacing ethnic Bela Lugosi) who is in fact an evil gang lord, who has his men conducting a killing spree in search of twelve mysterious coins that legend holds will give the bearer great power over a certain Chinese Provence. Yes I know, that's quite a plot. The evil Mr. Wong's efforts are complicated not so much by a well meaning Irish stereotype cop, as they are by C-string leading man Wallace Ford's wise cracking investigative reporter, whose love interest (Arline Judge) is just there so that he can have a love interest. I love how Mr. Wong has this palatial residence hidden behind his shop, how'd the police miss this? Anyway, not good. *1/2

Boxcar Bertha (1972)

Director Martin Scorsese's second feature film, his first being Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967), Boxcar Bertha is based on the fictionalized autobiography Sister of the Road by Bertha Thompson, who had been a political radical and transit during The Depression. The film was made for Roger Corman's low budget American International Pictures, and Scorsese credited his work on the project with teaching him how to make a movie quickly and economically, it was filmed in about 15 days for $600,000. The film stars Barbara Hershey as Bertha, a beguiling, wild innocent, and David Carradine (who would become Hershey's real life lover) as the labour agitator with whom she falls in love. The movie also features Carradine's father John as a railroad baron, and both halves of the writer/director team The Archers, Micheal Powell and Emmrich Pressberger have cameo roles, Scorsese himself appears in a scene as a brothel customer. The slow and low key combine with periods of energy, while the films characters and creative execution outweigh whats really a slight story. Though all around an impressive exploitation feature. **1/2

The Tree of Life (2011)

When a Terrence Malick film comes out you know its going to be visually amazing, and The Tree of Life does not disappoint. It's a tapestry of visuals and story, particularly so around the beginning and the end of the film. It's a reflection on life, its meaning, its beginning, and its ending. There are impressive sequences of the cosmos, the formation of our solar system, the rise of life on Earth, and a much commented on sequence involving dinosaurs and mercy. The framing of the story, or one of them because the birth and death of the universe is also a frame, involves a middle aged architect (Sean Penn, who's not in the movie that much) reflecting on his childhood in Waco, Texas. You get see his birth, toddler hood, birth of his siblings ect. and then it all slows down considerably to focuses on the events of one summer, when he is about 13 years of age (this sequence being set in the 1950's or maybe early 60's).  The boy Jack (Hunter McCracken) has a complicated relationship with his father, who he loves, but also fears. What's interesting about the father (Brad Pitt) is how complicated he is, ostensibly an engineer obsessed with getting ahead, he is also a frustrated classical pianist, heartbroken that he didn't get the career that he really wanted. This frustration is a major factor in his anger, but he's really not abusive, well not in a physical way, psychologically a bit, but not intentionally.

Jake's mother and father are presented as a duality, one that's made pretty explicate at the beginning of the film if you pay attention. Jack's father's way is the way of nature, the hard grueling struggle, while his mothers (Jessica Chastain, again in house dresses) is the way of grace, nurture, unconditional love. The film juxtaposes what can be called religious imagery (I'm thinking particularly of the heavenisque gathering at the beach near the end of the film) with colder, scientific imagery, volcano's erupting, microbes evolving. The film doesn't give you an answer, or at least it doesn't hit you over the head with one, you have to work it out and interpret it yourself.

If the cosmological aspect of the film is not your cup of tea, its still worth seeing for that whole middle sequence, which is a beautifully done, loosely structured, collage of childhood. Long summer nights, testing your brother, choirs, punishments, discoverers, fears. Though it may not get as much attention as some of the more showy aspects of the film, this stretch of childhood is among the most innovative, well realize, and fresh seeming pieces of film making I've seen in some time. The Tree of Life is an experiential film worthy of your attention, and on as big a screen as you can get ahold of. ****

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Martha Ivers was orphaned young and taken in by her wealthy aunt (Judith Anderson) who wanted to mold her into the kind of cold matriarch that could run the family empire (Iverstown, PA and the associated factory).  Martha tried to run away with a local boy but the police found her and took her back to her aunts, the two then have a dispute about a cat, and Martha accidentally on purpose causes the old lady's death. Martha's tutor (Roman Bohnen) takes custody as a sort of regent, and in a kind of blackmail more or less forces Martha to marry his son Walter, who had been long smitten with her.

Flash forward from Judith's death in 1928 to the present day (1946). A grown Martha Ivers (Barbara Stanwyck) has herself become a cold, powerful matriarch. Under her leadership Ivers Industry's has grown six fold, and her husband (Kirk Douglas, in his first screen role) is the district attorney, and if Martha can help it, bound for much larger things politically. Walter alas is unhappy, he drinks, cuts corners, and is tragically in love with his wife who is cold to him and has taken many lovers over the years. The boy who young Martha once tried to run away with is now grown and has taken the form of Van Heflin. Heflin stumbles unintentionally into Iverstown (the old car trouble plot device), where he meets Lizabeth Scott, they become quite taken with each other. Lizabeth is in a little legal trouble so Heflin goes to visit his old friend Walter and see if he can't work it out. Walter thinks Heflin knows about the circumstances of Judith's death and wishes to blackmail him and Martha. Martha wants to take Heflin as a lover, Heflin kind of wants too to do that, but then there's Lizabeth, and what about poor Walter? That Miss Ivers is pretty deep in some strange love.

Anyway this is a real good movie, kind of a classic in some circles. Heflin's good but the Douglas/Stanwyck dynamic is what fascinates. A strong first performance by Douglas, he keeps up well with Stanwyck who was already very established at this point. Lizabeth Scott, a Lauren Bacall type, nuff said. A fair amount of psychological complexity, a noir, but not a particularly dark one, mostly character study stuff. It's in public domain so you can see it just about anywhere. Worthwhile. ***