REVIEW: Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 (2013): Dir. Shane Black. Written by: Drew Pearce and Shane Black. Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley. Rated PG-13 (Comic book explosions). Running time: 130 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

“You know who I am,” reads a name tag worn by multi-billionaire and generally charming egomaniac Tony Stark (played for a fourth time by Robert Downey Jr.) in Iron Man 3. After two Iron Man movies and last summer’s super-crossover mega-hit The Avengers, there will be few in the audience who do not already know this character.

This flippant, you-know-the-deal attitude runs throughout the film. The script, written by Drew Pearce and director Shane Black, takes a number of shortcuts, assuming (correctly) that we have seen enough superhero movies in the last ten years to fill in the blanks.

When an international terrorist known as The Mandarin (a bearded Ben Kingsley looking like Osama bin Laden) hijacks the nation’s TV stations, we only need to see a brief glimpse of viewers’ shocked reactions. The rest we can remember from when the Joker did the same in The Dark Knight. And when a brilliant geneticist named Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) begins talking about tampering with human DNA to enhance the body’s regenerative powers, we know to be suspicious of him after seeing the mad scientists in Batman Begins, Captain America and just about every Spider-Man movie.

We have also heard enough of those concisely worded nuggets of advice that were so eloquently doled out by Michael Caine’s Alfred in the Batman movies. So Iron Man 3 does not subject us to any more of those. In fact, the characters in this film are particularly dismissive of that sort of pithy, fortune cookie wisdom. (The movie even takes an unintentionally silly moment to decry the very existence of fortune cookies.)

Part of this resistance to flowery phrases and grand themes comes from the brazen playboy persona of Tony Stark, who has no patience for sentimentality. The rest is the result of this movie’s sheer laziness. Like most of the Marvel Avengers movies before it, Iron Man 3 is almost pompously devoid of any real substance. This light-as-popcorn approach has worked in the past, notably in the first two Iron Man movies, but it is becoming less effective. This movie cannot cover up its own hollowness.

And as for Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is still the best part of this franchise but there are signs his shtick is getting old. We can predict the rhythms of his witty comebacks before he says them and his dialogue feels written when it used to feel ad-libbed. We do see a few new angles to the Tony Stark character – he has a terrifically badass moment of James Bond gadgetry wearing not a suit (iron or otherwise) but a black hoodie, and he even does a bit of Sherlock Holmes sleuthing (a role Robert Downey Jr. is very familiar with) – but little real character development. There is a sudden shift in the final scenes that tries to give the character an arc but it feels forced and I didn’t buy it.

So should you spend your money to see this movie in theaters? Marvel Studios has gone through a great deal of effort and untold millions in marketing to convince moviegoers that every film in the Avengers franchise is essential and should be watched in order. This is, however, little more than a way to hide the fact that these movies’ plots are virtually interchangeable, that they are derivative of one another, and are each wholly disposable entertainment.

This is not to say that Iron Man 3 is bad entertainment but that at this point in the series a critical review of it is less applicable than a Consumer Reports checklist:

Love Interest: Good. Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, underused.

Villain(s): Fair. Mostly forgettable.

Sidekick: Poor. Colonel James Rhodes, played by Don Cheadle, underused and unimportant.

Humor: Good. Frequent and usually funny.

Action scenes: Fair. Muddled and difficult to follow but plentiful.

If you are shopping around for a decent superhero movie at an affordable price, Iron Man 3 is a solid option. If you are looking for a movie that surprises and engages, this is not your movie. This movie is… Well, you know what this movie is.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/6/13

REVIEW: Pain & Gain

Pain & Gain (2013): Dir. Michael Bay. Written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen Feely. Based on the magazine articles by Pete Collins. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris and Rebel Wilson. Rated R (Brawn, boobs and bad words). Running time: 129 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

There’s a good satire somewhere in Pain & Gain, a based-on-a-true-story (loosely) crime caper about three bodybuilders who kidnap a filthy rich sonofabitch and steal all his money and assets.

The mastermind of the operation is Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), a personal trainer at a Miami gym who sees a deserving victim in Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a high-rolling client. Kershaw is a grade-A asshole. He doesn’t appreciate what he has. So says Lugo, at least. If someone were to rob the guy, there’s no question he’d have it coming. Following a tough-love motivational seminar from a dubious authority named Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong), Lugo becomes convinced that the only way to get what you want in life is to be a doer. Getting what you want is, after all, the American Dream. He hatches a plan.

His pal and fellow employee at the gym, Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), is down for it. Doorbal has just come back from the doctor where he found out his steroid use has made him impotent. There’s a cure, a serum injected directly into the penis, but it’s expensive. Maybe a kidnap-and-robbery heist is exactly what he needs.

But they need one more guy if this tricky scheme is going to come to fruition. Enter Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson), an ex-convict and former coke addict with a chest as wide as a pick-up truck. Doyle is going to take some convincing. In prison, he found God and reformed his life. He cut out booze and drugs, and now preaches the word of the Lord. Doyle believes in second chances, another proud American principle. Old habits die hard though and for reasons that are neither convincing nor entirely clear, ­­­Doyle joins the team.

The only hitch in this trio’s plan is, of course, that they’re all idiots. The kidnapping is amateurish and sloppy but – astonishingly – they pull it off. That's when the real trouble starts. These scenes have a lot of comic potential and though the film gets its share of laughs, director Michael Bay does not have the light touch and deft comedic timing to get the most out of a good script. He doesn’t always give the space for a joke to land and I wonder what this film might have been like in the hands of a director who knew how to milk the material for everything it was worth. The scenes don’t have time to breathe; Mr. Bay hurries things along, spending more time on action than on the witty banter between the crooks, which should have been at the heart of this movie.

Michael Bay’s flashy style gets in the way too. The script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely has bite but by amping up the energy at every possible moment, Mr. Bay misses opportunities to dig into his character’s inept interpretations of the American Dream. The superficiality of Doyle’s born-again religious transformation, Doorbal’s obsession with his shlong, and the whole group’s fixation on body image are all ripe with satirical potential but the movie is not interested in pursuing or exploring these ideas. It prefers instead to indulge in the more shallow pleasures of a good chase scene (and there are a few pretty good ones here). The movie is too juiced up for its own good.

But Pain & Gain does show off the comedic skills of its stars, particularly Dwayne Johnson whose nimble work as a heavyweight dunce is a lot of fun. Rebel Wilson as Robin, Doorbal’s girlfriend, admirably checks off the film’s dirty jokes box, and Tony Shalhoub is excellent as the mean and nasty love-to-hate-him victim. Ed Harris also makes a welcome appearance late in the film as a private detective. Anchoring the cast is Mark Wahlberg, who is capable of effortlessly shifting gears from action hero to comedian. He is an impressive physical specimen in this movie but remains an endearing and likable everyman.

Too bad that the skills of this cast are held back by their director. A more subtle filmmaker than Michael Bay might have really let them rip but what can you do? The characters in Pain & Gain are always talking about the importance of getting what you want but sometimes you have to settle for what you’ve got.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/13

REVIEW: To the Wonder

To the Wonder (2013): Written and directed by: Terrence Malick. Starring: Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem and Romina Mondello. Rated R (Fleeting glimpses of breasts). Running time: 113 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

Offhand, I can only recall one instance – no, wait, I’ve just thought of another – when a character walks at a pace faster than an idle stroll in To the Wonder, Terrence Malick’s dispiritingly limp new film. As Mr. Malick’s ever-moving camera swirls about his subjects, you may find yourself wishing someone would take a sure step forward and walk with something resembling purpose and conviction.

But this is not a film that places much value on certainty. To the Wonder, though it is not to be confused with the imperative Lil’ Jon refrain, does actually feature its share of characters moving to the windows. Standing beside the windows of homes, churches and motel rooms, they sometimes caress and kiss one another but more often they simply gaze outside looking for… for what?

For happiness, I suppose. Also empathy and love. The film’s characters are trapped inside themselves, longing for a lasting and meaningful connection to another person. This is, at least, how I saw the movie but it is abstract enough to invite multiple interpretations.

To the Wonder follows, in mostly linear fashion, a relationship in decline. A French woman (Olga Kurylenko), abandoned by another man some years earlier, decides to move to a rural Midwestern town where she and her daughter (Tatiana Chiline) will live with an American man (Ben Affleck). Terrence Malick also interweaves memories from the past, chases tangents by following the lives of other townspeople and ends on what I understood to be a fantasy.

We never learn how the two met but it is soon clear that the romance is now gone and the love was perhaps never there to begin with. Ben Affleck’s character as we see him is cold and detached. He is usually down for some fondling (beside one of those windows) or sex but we can see from the anguished expressions of Olga Kurylenko that something vital is missing from their relationship.

This man remains at a distance, not only from Ms. Kurylenko, but from us as well. His presence looms large over the film but we never get a sense of his internal emotions, not even when he is alone. He wanders through the muck and dirt of construction sites, apparently surveying the damage being done to the town’s water, which has been tainted by chemicals, but no expression ever crosses his face. Is he weary? Defeated? Indifferent? Mr. Malick does not offer any clues. Ben Affleck has hardly any lines in the entire film; he just walks around stone-faced and vacant-looking.

Call it an artistic gamble, an experiment, a bold choice, but it drains the emotional power from the movie. And with the heart of the film missing, its curious diversions are all the more frustrating. The midsection of the film, which depicts a romance between Ben Affleck and an old flame played by Rachel McAdams, adds nothing new. He is the same with her as with Ms. Kurylenko. An opportunity to flesh out a new side to this opaque character is lost.

Javier Bardem, as a priest, walks around town, speaking with and blessing the impoverished. Some are physically deformed from the contaminated water. His scenes in this ostensible leper colony offer some fascinating images worth chewing on and mulling over but they feel too disconnected from the rest of the film. It is difficult to know what to make of them.

And this is what makes To the Wonder such a tantalizing but ultimately underwhelming film. Mr. Malick is known for shooting lots of material and whittling it down to its final form in the editing room, and the results are usually mesmerizing. His films are lyrical suites of images and naturalistic moments caught on film; structurally, they resemble musical compositions more than narrative storytelling. But something is missing this time.

You get the sense that the raw material of To the Wonder has potential to make a very strong movie but that Terrence Malick has cut the film in a way that dampens this material’s impact and mutes the emotions. There are at least a dozen breathtaking shots in To the Wonder and I find myself thinking about the film days later, recalling images from it the way one does a dream. All the more disappointing then that the actual experience of watching To the Wonder was such a chore.

The exception is Olga Kurylenko who, particularly in the film’s second half, gives a forceful performance. She is lonely and desperate for love, and cannot understand why the man who invited her to live with him continues to deny her any kind of real intimacy. In one scene, a friend (Romina Mondello) visits her and the two stroll through the wide streets of this flat Midwestern town (leisurely of course). The friend yells out. Where is everyone? Is this whole town dead? Where is the life? The passion? All valid questions.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/2/13

REVIEW: Evil Dead

Evil Dead (2013): Dir. Fede Alvarez. Written by: Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. Based on The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi. Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore. Rated R (Endless brutal gore). Running time: 92 minutes.

3 ½ stars (out of four)

Given the recent spate of tired horror retreads, you will be forgiven for assuming that Evil Dead, a remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic schlockfest The Evil Dead, is another attempt to cannibalize and dismember a beloved horror franchise by taking only its name and leaving behind its heart and soul. But Evil Dead is far from an uninspired hack job. Scene by scene, from its blisteringly over-the-top opening to its certifiably insane finale, Evil Dead makes a forceful case for its own existence: A horror movie need not break new ground or reinvent the genre in order to feel fresh and new. It just needs to be bigger and badder and better than its peers.

Compare Evil Dead with last year’s The Cabin in the Woods, which was more of a genre deconstruction, pointing out its clichés as they happened. That film was undeniably clever but also kind of smug and I prefer Evil Dead’s classicist approach. Director Fede Alvarez, who co-wrote the script with Rodo Sayagues, revels in the contrivances of the plot. The story is of course familiar but rarely is it told with such zeal.

Five doomed twentysomethings meet at a dilapidated shack in the middle of the woods for a weekend retreat. The trip is actually an intervention for Mia (Jane Levy), whose heroin habit, we learn, has nearly killed her. Joining her for moral support as she tries to get clean is her estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) who left her years earlier to single-handedly take care of their dying mother.

The cabin was a family vacation spot for Mia and David in happier times and it has no doubt seen better days. There never used to be, for example, dozens of dead cats hanging from the basement ceiling, not to mention the stench of burnt hair, the loaded shotgun and an ominous book sealed shut by barbed wire. Leave it to their know-it-all friend (Lou Taylor Pucci) to crack the thing open, start reading aloud and awaken an ancient evil.

There aren’t many surprises in Evil Dead, at least not in the broad strokes of the story, but what makes it so effective is its relentlessness. Once the demonic activity gets under way (and the film wastes very little time getting there), it keeps building momentum, getting wilder and crazier. And despite the presence of two attractive but thoroughly expendable beauties (Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore), the movie is notably devoid of sex.

Evil Dead focuses its energies instead on its unrelenting gore. The violence is extreme but pitched at just the right level of ridiculousness to elicit laughter from the audience amidst the disgusted screams and shocked gasps. The various bodily mutilations in the film have the same anatomical graphicness of torture porn but Evil Dead has none of the mean-spiritedness that marks those films. Fede Alvarez comes from that school of horror that combines well-made prosthetics with gallons of fake blood all in the pursuit of a trashy good time. This is the same school Sam Raimi came from and judging by Mr. Raimi’s producer credit on this film, Mr. Alvarez’s approach must have met his approval.

Fede Alvarez and his team delight in some wonderfully nasty details that take Evil Dead up a notch in terms of pure horror craftsmanship. Take one scene, where a character vomits an unholy torrent of blood on another, and notice how chunks of god-knows-what linger in the recipient’s hair for the remainder of the scene, making for a disgustingly hilarious sight gag. Or listen on the soundtrack to the wail of what sounds like an air raid siren, used during a few select moments of terror.

Also crucial to the film’s success is a breakout performance from Jane Levy. She is a remarkably versatile actress, playing the tormented and the possessed tormentor at different points, and is the clear standout in a cast of cardboard cutouts. (A lack of depth in the other characters is not exactly the actors’ faults, though I could have used a little more charisma from Shiloh Fernandez who gets the bulk of screen time in the film’s midsection). And while Ms. Levy is hardly Bruce Campbell, the star of The Evil Dead and its two ultra-campy sequels, she does help the movie maintain that delicate balance between horror and comedy.

I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun squirming in my seat, wincing at the screen and smacking my girlfriend’s arm. I had a blast at this one.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/8/13

In Memoriam: Roger Ebert

On Sunday afternoons in my house growing up, we made a ritual of watching “Ebert & Roeper.” The show usually aired early that morning or late the previous night, so around noon my father and I would go to the VCR and rewind the tape we had recorded the show on to see which movies Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper had reviewed that week. If a movie looked good and day’s schedule was clear, we went to the newspaper, looked up showtimes and tried to catch a matinee.

In this way I saw countless movies, always on Roger Ebert’s recommendation. There is no question that I have read or watched more of his reviews than any other single critic. His genial presence on TV and the candid, conversational style of his writing gave you the sense he was a friend telling you which movies were worth your money and which you should avoid. He died Thursday of cancer and he will be missed.

During my formative movie-watching years, he helped shape my taste in movies. (The first time I was ever outraged by a movie review was in reaction to his two-star panning of Attack of the Clones. Unbelievable! Blasphemous! I thought as a twelve-year-old. Years later, looking back, I realize now he was right about that one.)

He was an immensely knowledgeable critic but always emphasized the subjective nature of film criticism. Analyzing artistry and craftsmanship was important, of course, but in the end all that really mattered to him was his personal, gut-level response to a movie. That was what interested him, what was worth writing about, what made a movie worth arguing about (first with Gene Siskel, then with Richard Roeper, on the “At the Movies” TV show). He freely shared details of his personal life if they changed how he saw a given movie and openly confessed his biases and preferences. He shamelessly gushed over his favorites and scorned the films he had no patience for.

He was also a forward-thinking man. One of the first critics to embrace the web, he reveled in the internet’s ability to foster opinion-sharing and debate. He did not believe, as many do, that the golden age of film criticism was forty years ago, when he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize – a first for a movie critic – and rose to fame. We are currently living in that golden age, he said. For as long as the thoughtful discussion and heartfelt enjoyment of movies exists, Roger Ebert’s spirit will live on.

- Steve Avigliano, 4/5/13

Best of 2012: My Top 5 Movies of 2012

Here are my Top 5 Favorite Movies of 2012. (I’ve also included one Wildcard Pick and an Honorable Mention so I suppose altogether this is my Top 7.)

The Wildcard Pick: Savages (Original Review)

My wildcard pick this year is Oliver Stone’s addictive, blistering Savages about the weed business. Depending on how you look at this brash and reckless movie, you may deem it a frustrating failure or an exhilarating entertainment. Then again, why choose? Oliver Stone does the equivalent of bringing an Uzi to an archery range. He makes quite the mess of things but you can’t say he doesn’t hit his target. The movie is too long and the ending is a strange, ungainly disaster but I can’t say that any other movie this year shocked or thrilled me more. If you’re looking for the most bang for your buck, look no further.

Honorable Mention: Argo (Original Review)

A terrific audience-pleaser and perhaps the best thriller of the year, director Ben Affleck’s Argo is great, edge-of-your-seat entertainment. It tells the absurd, true story of a CIA mission that faked a movie production to retrieve a group of American citizens during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. The movie acknowledges the fraught international politics of the time but is first and foremost a daring rescue movie. This one is loads of fun and smart to boot.

5) The Master (Original Review)

At the end of The Master there are loose ends left untied and mysteries that go unexplained. Frustration with the film’s anticlimax and lack of a resolution is perfectly natural. But part of the fun of this movie – and this is assuming you share my idea of fun – is sifting through this strange and fascinating drama and guessing at what it could all possibly mean.

This is not to say the film is some sort of scholarly exercise; it’s much better than that. Watch the bizarre bond that forms between a mentally unstable WWII veteran named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, unhinged and with a wild look in his eye) and Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, never better), the charismatic leader of a dubious New Age church. Their relationship twists and turns as the two men gain power and leverage over one another. The Master is a half-mad swirl of sexual impulses, pseudo-scientific babble and violent outbursts. I can’t say I understood it all but I was never bored.

4) Zero Dark Thirty

There are a number of thorny issues at play in Zero Dark Thirty – the use of torture on political detainees, the gender politics of women in government – but the heart of the film drives at a larger, more encompassing question: Is the ultimate objective of the War on Terror to protect the homeland from future attacks or to punish those responsible for 9/11? For Maya (an intensely focused Jessica Chastain), the distinction is irrelevant. Either way the goal is the same – take out Osama bin Laden.

The film is a historical approximation of the leads and events that resulted in bin Laden’s death on May 2, 2011, but what elevates it beyond the level of a made-for-TV movie is director Kathryn Bigelow’s remarkable craftsmanship and eye for poetic detail. The final assault on bin Laden’s compound – a flurry of night vision green and fiery explosions set against the darkness of night – is as tense as any action movie. When the dust clears, the human drama ends on a note of bittersweet uncertainty. Whether bin Laden was killed for the sake of homeland security or justice may not matter from a military perspective but emotionally how does one reconcile the two and move on?

3) Amour

Amour is a movie of few words so it seems wrong to use too many here to describe its greatness. This quiet, poignant love story follows an elderly couple as the husband grapples with the deteriorating health of his wife. Through the keen direction of Michael Haneke the film reveals intimate depths of its characters’ emotional lives often with little or no dialogue.

Amour is a devastating study of life and love in its final stages. It explores the difficulty of dying with dignity and of finally letting go when the time is right, but it is not all doom and gloom. Few movies are this honest and true. Every moment in it feels real and its message is ultimately life affirming.

2) Lincoln (Original Review)

There’s no sense in hiding it. Director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s Lincoln is a history lesson. But what this impressive, entertaining movie shows us is that the participants of history were real people with large personalities, not some culmination of dates and facts like our high school curriculum might have us believe. They were politicians who were as prone to grandstanding and as stubbornly biased as today’s elected officials are. Lincoln’s thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery, was an ambitious piece of legislation and its passage required bravery and political cunning, but also bribery.

There is no mistaking that Lincoln is a Steven Spielberg prestige picture – it is beautifully shot and features a slew of exceptional performances that will no doubt make the Oscar voters swoon – but it is also vibrant and alive in a way few period pieces are. Abraham Lincoln and the congressmen of his time understood they were making history but for them it was a very real present where victory was far from certain. History lessons are rarely as fascinating and exciting as this one.

1) Moonrise Kingdom (Original Review)

Moonrise Kingdom has the warm feel of a half-forgotten childhood memory and director Wes Anderson brings it to life with the visual whimsy of a picture book. The movie breezes by, telling the story of Sam and Suzy (Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward, each pitch perfect), two lovesick kids who run away from home to be with one another. They are mature beyond their years and yet also heartbreakingly naïve, blissfully unaware of the crushing reality that awaits them outside the bubble of childhood.

This sad fact of life is not lost on the other inhabitants of the small New England island where the film takes place. The remaining cast of characters, a motley crew of melancholic grown-ups, drift in and out of the picture, desperate to find Sam and Suzy while also preoccupied with their own adult problems. Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s script finds bittersweet humor in their characters’ lives but never condescends to them. This blend of comedy and pathos is a delicate balancing act but Wes Anderson and his terrific cast – including Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Ed Norton and Bruce Willis – walk the tightrope wonderfully.

Much like the private cove its young heroes discover and seek refuge in (and also gives the film its name), Moonrise Kingdom is an inviting paradise. One visit is not enough.

- Steven Avigliano, 2/24/13

Best of 2012: My Favorite Performances

The Oscars have it all wrong. By trying to determine “the objective best” performances of the year, the same sorts of roles get nominated year after year and a lot of strong work gets overlooked. What follows are my favorite performances of 2012. Are they the best? I’m not sure I even know what that means. These are the performances that made bad movies decent and good movies better. These are the actors I was talking about with my friends as I left the theater. These are the ones I’m still thinking about.

I’ve listed them in alphabetical order, selecting one as my favorite of the year and one bonus prize for the best ensemble.

Josh Brolin – Men in Black 3

Doing his best Tommy Lee Jones impression, Josh Brolin as Agent K’s younger self was the highlight of the second, time-traveling sequel to Men in Black. He may even play the straight man to Will Smith even better than Jones did. Getting laughs with nothing more than a mean mug and a dry Southern drawl, Brolin made this thoroughly unnecessary movie a pleasant surprise.

Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln

At the heart of Steven Spielberg’s superb film is Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. He disappears into the role as he always does but he doesn’t dominate the movie. The performance is low-key, painting the former president as a thoughtful, intellectual man. Of course, Lincoln is known as a great orator and Day-Lewis gets a few moments to shine in this capacity. But note also the quieter moments when he jokes with cabinet members or discusses with his wife the fate of their enlisted son. The performance is another in a line of great ones in the actor’s impressive career.

Andrew Garfield – The Amazing Spider-Man

There’s a moment in The Amazing Spider-Man when Andrew Garfield shakes his head, grinning, mouth agape, apparently speechless. I imagine I’d look much the same way were I lying in the arms of Emma Stone while she tended to my wounds. Garfield is thoroughly convincing as a teenager suddenly given super powers – a little cocky and a little clumsy but well intentioned. His Peter Parker is a charmer in a way Tobey Maguire never was in the role and his performance helped make The Amazing Spider-Man the most fun I had at the movies this summer. 

Salma Hayek – Savages

A wildly over-the-top Salma Hayek devours her role as a drug kingpin in Oliver Stone’s Savages. Cursing in two languages and wearing some fantastic wigs, she gives a movie that is already high off its own supply an added jolt of adrenaline.

Anne Hathaway – The Dark Knight Rises, Les Misérables

Yes, Anne Hathaway steals the show with her stellar rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” in Les Misérables, but I enjoyed her turn as the sexy, wise-cracking seductress Selina Kyle (a.k.a. Catwoman) in The Dark Knight Rises even more. The movie, which very nearly collapses under the weight of its own seriousness, is actually a lot of fun whenever she’s on screen and if there’s one thing it could have used more of, it’s her.

Philip Seymour Hoffman / Joaquin Phoenix – The Master

Any interpretation of Paul Thomas Anderson’s maddening new film hinges on how you view the relationship between Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman) and Freddie Quell (Phoenix). Is their bond that of a father to his son? A teacher to his pupil? A scientist to a lab rat? All of the above? Each actor makes his part nuanced and complex. We can never pin these men down and this inability to fully understand their relationship is what makes the movie so compulsively fascinating.

Samuel L. Jackson – Django Unchained

In a film that mostly ignores the complexity of race relations in the Old South, Samuel L. Jackson fearlessly digs into some very tricky material as Stephen, the loyal servant of a cruel and violent plantation owner. He is frighteningly intense but, being a Tarantino veteran, Jackson is more than capable of navigating the sudden tonal shifts from drama to comedy and back. Stephen is a fascinating variation on the Uncle Tom archetype, muddying the waters of Tarantino’s overly simplistic morality and enlivening the movie’s last act.

Jennifer Lawrence – Silver Linings Playbook

A far cry from her solid-as-a-rock performance as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence shows off her range playing the romantic foil to a manic depressive Bradley Cooper. She is emotionally guarded and prone to mood swings but watch how her face shows you everything her character is thinking and hints at the sudden outbursts just before they happen.

Channing Tatum – 21 Jump Street

Channing Tatum is hilarious. Who knew? He has comedic timing to match his good looks and his presence here helps freshen up Jonah Hill’s fast-talking shtick in one of the year’s most unexpectedly funny movies.

My Favorite Performance: Martin Freeman – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

If Peter Jackson’s first Hobbit movie wasn’t quite perfect, there was at least one aspect of it that was: Martin Freeman’s Bilbo Baggins. Freeman gets the part exactly right. His Bilbo is a homebody, curious about the outside world and with an impish streak in him, but mostly content to curl up by the fire with a good book. Whenever the movie threatens to get lost in a computer-generated frenzy, Freeman can be counted on to right the ship’s course. Though he is too often relegated to the sidelines in this first film, the next two parts of the trilogy would be wise to turn to Mr. Baggins more often.

Best Ensemble – Moonrise Kingdom

The cast Wes Anderson collects for his latest feature is an enviable one. Some of them play roles we’re familiar seeing them in. Bill Murray is as reliable as ever playing a sad sack and Frances McDormand is a joy to watch as his wife, a Type A personality who wears the pants in the family. But others play refreshingly against type. Ed Norton is a lot of fun as a scout leader who is still a boy at heart and Bruce Willis is touching as a lonely police officer. Add to that some fine supporting roles from Bob Balaban, Harvey Keitel, Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton, not to mention some excellent young newcomers (including Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the eloping young lovers), and you have an excellent ensemble led by Wes Anderson, one of the best maestros around.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/23/13

Best of 2012: My Favorite Reviews I Didn't Agree With

When did we stop engaging in good-hearted debate? Whatever happened to the lost art of agreeing to disagree? Personally, my favorite part of analyzing a movie is never writing the review. I enjoy the conversations that follow, the heated discussions and debates. I like trying to convince someone to give a movie they hated a second chance and I love when someone forces me to reconsider an opinion of my own.

So in the name of that lost art, here are my favorite professional reviews I read this year that made me reconsider and reevaluate a select few movies.

Though the movie didn’t do much for me, I understand why people enjoyed The Avengers. But I’ll always be amused at the outrage some people felt when they found out someone actually could have been unimpressed by the movie. I thought it was the same old product I'd seen a hundred times before (except this time a little bigger, a little louder and a lot longer) but Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe gave what I found to be the most persuasive argument for its existence. The movie, he writes, “is as close as a movie can come to the fantastical reality of a really good comic book.” And the fact that the movie offers no surprises isn't important. “I might not remember any of the sequences in The Avengers, but I’ll remember the rush. I don’t need anything else.” Fair enough.

And besides, how I felt about The Avengers is pretty much how a lot of other people felt about The Amazing Spider-Man, a movie I had a blast at. Its story, writes Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, is one “that many moviegoers older than 10 may think they’ve seen because they probably did when the first movie burned up the box office.” The filmmakers, she contends, “weren’t allowed to take true imaginative flight at a company that’s conspicuously banking on a resuscitated franchise to carry it through its next fiscal quarters.” Ouch. I suppose corporate products are as prone to subjective interpretation as art.

Speaking of art, I was one of many left in awe by Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, The Master. But I completely understood the reactions from friends and critics alike who were left cold by what they felt was a pretentious mess. Richard Corliss of Time magazine points out a number of issues that he feels holds the movie back from greatness. It “violates the cardinal rule of the father-son or master-servant plot: that the acolyte will somehow change his mentor” and once this becomes clear, “after about an hour, the story flatlines into repetition without development.” It’s a solid argument and one that I can't yet counter. But I suspect that this lack of change, while certainly counter to any intuitive sense of what drama should be, is part of the film's challenging message.

On the other end of the spectrum, I was thoroughly disappointed by Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. But I found New York Times critic A.O. Scott’s scholarly defense of the film enlightening. I felt Tarantino’s characters were flat and one-dimensional. Scott argues, however, that Tarantino “does not hesitate to train his revisionist energies on some deep and ancient national legends” and “exposes and defies an ancient taboo” – that a black man can be the agent of that classic literary motive: revenge. And the violence is not exploitative as much as it embodies Tarantino’s “moral disgust with slavery, instinctive sympathy for the underdog and an affirmation (in the relationship between Django and Schultz) of what used to be called brotherhood.” Scott views the movie from an interesting perspective, one I wouldn’t have thought to take. I’m still not sure the movie clicks for me but let’s just say I agree to disagree.

- Steve Avigliano, 2/23/13

REVIEW: Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012): Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Rated R (All the blood and racial epithets you'd expect of the antebellum South and then some). Running time: 165 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

The genius of Quentin Tarantino has always been his ability to pull off scenes that should never work. Take for example Kill Bill, that sprawling two-part tribute to his favorite exploitation flicks and a one-stop deposit for all his craziest ideas. In Kill Bill, he drags his characters through one extravagant set piece after another and indulges in all sorts of ludicrous action. Yet somehow, miraculously, he makes them feel human. He convinces us they are worth rooting for and we actually feel invested in his lunacy.

Watching his work in recent years – both Kill Bill films, Inglourious Basterds, and now his latest, Django Unchained – has often felt like watching a man juggling live sticks of dynamite. At any moment, it seems, he could trip and the whole thing would go kablooey right in his face. To top it off, his style is wildly brash and self-assured, as though he never doubted anything less than the complete and total success of his manic creations.

His most recent creation is a rescue-the-girl western set in the Old South two years before the Civil War. A slave named Django (played with grim, one-note determination by Jamie Foxx) is trudging through the Texas wilderness on a chain gang when a traveling German dentist appears out of the darkness. Dr. King Schultz (a delightful Christoph Waltz) introduces himself to the two slave traders escorting the chain gang.

Like so many Tarantino characters, Schultz has a large vocabulary and a flair for theatricality. He dances around the subject a while but eventually makes his intentions clear. He is going to buy Django from them whether they agree to it or not. This opening scene, cheerfully overwritten and crackling with tension, is a thrill. Quentin Tarantino neatly lays out the stakes and has fun letting the situation slowly play out.

Django and Schultz soon ride off in a carriage that has a large white tooth on its roof bouncing on a spring (a wonderfully goofy and inspired sight gag that, judging by how often we see it in the film’s first act, Mr. Tarantino is clearly very proud of). We learn that Schultz is not a dentist but a bounty hunter. He needs Django to identify a trio of wanted men who previously worked on a plantation where Django was once a resident.

What follows is a series of amusing, if needlessly drawn-out, episodes that feature Don Johnson as a mustachioed plantation owner and Jonah Hill as Ku Klux Klan leader. There are some good nyuks had over the Klan’s homemade white hoods but this leg of the movie doesn’t quite have that Tarantino magic and the movie plods along for a while until it finds its real story.

Django wants to rescue his wife (Kerry Washington), who is currently a house slave for the wealthy and debonair Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio having a lot of fun with a Southern accent). Candie runs a profitable business pitting slaves against each other in fight-to-the-death matches at his manor – named Candyland (nyuk, nyuk) – so Django and Schultz devise a plan to dupe Candie into selling them Django’s wife by posing as slave traders interested in buying one of his prize fighters.

Django Unchained is on more sure footing in the scenes at Candyland, largely thanks to Mr. DiCaprio’s effortless charm and a fine turn by Samuel L. Jackson (under some fantastic old man makeup) as Stephen, Candie’s head slave. Stephen, it turns out, is actually the most interesting character in the film and the whole third act turns on the keen observations of this loyal family servant.

Quentin Tarantino is a master at crafting plots that gradually build in tension and complexity, and for a while Django Unchained seems poised for some last unexpected turn to resolve Django and Schultz’s crafty bait-and-switch scheme. But instead, Mr. Tarantino opts for a lazier ending. In the final half-hour, the movie devolves into a gratuitous and numbingly uninventive bloodbath that cheapens everything that came before it.

Quentin Tarantino, usually such a smart writer, embraces all his worst impulses here. The violence is bloody and over-the-top but the final product resembles something a Tarantino imitator might have churned out – stylized and violent but devoid of anything thematically substantial.

The cast is also noticeably lacking in female roles. Sure, the worlds of Mr. Tarantino’s characters are typically male-dominated but he is usually good about writing at least a few strong women into his films. Kerry Washington, however, is relegated to playing the weeping damsel in distress and the other women in the film are little more than pretty faces.

And while no one expected this film to be racially sensitive, there is no doubt that a major point of contention for many will be Mr. Tarantino’s overuse of a particular racial slur. Granted, the movie’s historical context does allow him to use the word but it gets tossed around so frequently and with such relish, it’s distracting. It is easily the most said word in the film, which reduces the impact it might have had if uttered less often.

There are moments when Django Unchained clicks and might have held up as a solid, if not classic, Tarantino film. Mr. Tarantino’s comedic timing is still sharp and his love of dialogue is as apparent as ever. But the ending is such a disappointment it nearly ruins the whole movie. Though it pains me to say it, for the first time, Quentin Tarantino drops the dynamite and blows himself up.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/5/13

REVIEW: Les Misérables

Les Misérables (2012): Dir. Tom Hooper. Written by: William Nicholson, Alain Boubil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer. Based on the musical by: Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, Sacha Baron Cohen, Samantha Banks, Isabelle Allen, Aaron Tveit and Daniel Huttlestone. Rated PG-13 (Hopes torn apart, dreams turned to shame). Running time: 158 minutes.

2 ½ stars (out of four)

For a big-budget, end-of-the-year musical spectacle, director Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables is surprisingly light on spectacle. The film indulges in its share of sweeping cityscape views and crowds of costumed extras but spends far more time on close-ups, especially during its performers’ solos.

It’s a technique used to particularly devastating effect in Anne Hathaway’s show-stopping first act number, “I Dreamed a Dream.” As she laments a dream long gone and faces the cruel reality of her life, tears stream down her face. We can hear the pain in her voice and see it too. It is the sort of jaw-dropping moment that freezes time and is the reason musical fans flock to movies like this one and their stage counterparts. Nothing else in the film matches its emotion.

Ms. Hathaway’s Fantine, a prostitute who sends money regularly to a daughter she never sees named Cosette (the sweet and very talented newcomer Isabelle Allen), is but a minor player in a large cast of miserable men and women in nineteenth century France. There is the story’s hero, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman, commanding the screen as always), a former slave who has spent half his life in bondage as punishment for stealing a loaf of bread. Valjean is given a new lease on life from a gracious and forgiving bishop (Colm Wilkinson) who catches Valjean taking silver from the church in the middle of the night.

Then there is the emotionally tortured Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), a man wed to the law and desperately (even bizarrely) committed to catching Valjean, who has broken his parole, and seeing justice served. Mr. Crowe lends the role a certain sense of dignity and authority but, regrettably, is the weak link vocally in the cast. He doesn’t embarrass himself or anything but the disparity in talent is clear whenever he shares the screen with Broadway darling Hugh Jackman.

The themes in the film’s first half – justice, honor, duty, forgiveness – are well-suited to the grandeur and beauty of the songs, taken from the 1980s musical which was, in turn, based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo. But rather than painting on an huge canvas, where the pain and heartbreak of these characters might have gotten lost, Tom Hooper focuses closely on his actors.

There is a raw quality to the performances, which were recorded live on set. The actors’ expressions match their intonations, and the songs become intimate in a way they could never be on stage.

Despite his best efforts, however, Mr. Hooper cannot overcome the weaknesses of his source material. In the final act, the film leaps forward in time and is hijacked by a new generation of miserable people. Two young men, Marius (Eddie Redmayne) and Enjolras (Aaron Tveit), lead a revolution to overthrow the government, but Marius becomes distracted by a beautiful girl he sees in the marketplace – Cosette all grown up (a lovely Amanda Seyfried). Marius is so overcome with puppy love that he barely notices the girl next door, Éponine (Samantha Banks), who longs for his love and affection.

But the sting of unrequited love pales in comparison with what Valjean and Fantine had to endure. (OK, so he likes you but he doesn’t like you like you… Try being a slave! Or a prostitute! Kids these days have no perspective…) And speaking of Valjean, where is he in the last act? Why is he sidelined and not a major player in the revolution?

Even when the story falters, however, the movie looks great. Cinematographer Danny Cohen beautifully films production designer Eve Stewart’s sets, and though Tom Hooper resists overplaying the epic qualities of the movie, there is no mistaking the hugeness of the production. This is prime Oscar bait and no expense is spared.

Les Misérables is also bolstered by a strong ensemble cast, including a wonderful Sacha Baron Cohen as a pickpocketing innkeeper and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife and partner in crime. Watch too for that little scene-stealer Daniel Huttlestone as a young boy scampering through the gutters who assists the revolutionaries.

Now is probably a fair time to acknowledge that I’m not big on musicals like this. I’d be surprised if a fan of the stage show was disappointed but then, having never seen the original production myself, I have nothing to compare the film to. And at 158 minutes, boy, is this movie long. I’ll never say I didn’t get enough Les Mis for my money.

- Steve Avigliano, 1/5/13