South Florida Reviews

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Recent DVD Release: Prisoners

Published January 28, 2014 by mrsrag

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Paul Dano, Melissa Leo, Dylan Minnette.

Rated: R.  Crime/Drama.  Running Time: 2 hours 33 minutes.

Hi everyone, hope you all had a great holiday season.  We’ve been away a while with family, work, vacation etc., but we’re ready to get back into the swing.  We rented Prisoners last night, an intriguing (albeit a bit too long) morality play that makes you contemplate some serious issues and has you asking the question, “what would I do?”  Keller Dover (Jackman) is an outdoorsman, survivalist and decent family man.  His best friend and neighbor, Franklin Birch (Howard), seems equally decent and both men are married with two kids.  The families have a little Thanksgiving day gathering, and before long the two little girls (one from each family) end up wandering off unsupervised.  This is where Prisoners begins in earnest, as the families desperately search for the missing girls.  The focus quickly centers on a beat up camper that was seen parked nearby earlier.  The camper’s driver, Alex Jones, another damaged man/child played by the seemingly one-dimensional Paul Dano, is apprehended by local cop, Detective Loki (Gyllenhaal) and becomes the prime suspect.  Extensive searching and questioning turns up nothing and the police eventually have to let Alex go.  The clock is ticking and Keller decides to take matters into his own hands.     

Prisoners has a similar feel to Mystic River or Gone Baby Gone.  These films share that initial moment when your heart sinks and you feel nothing but absolute sympathy for the family involved.  Then your mind wanders and you think, “what if it was me?”  Suspenseful, intriguing and in its totality quite clever, Prisoners is a moral dilemma.  The audience won’t know whether to encourage Keller Dover or to lock him away.  Personally, I am a bit of a sucker for vigilante justice (i.e. my love of the Death Wish movies), but it strikes a different chord when you’re unsure of the recipient’s guilt.  Jackman gives a truly electrifying performance as the desperate Keller Dover, alongside some fairly forgettable characters.  Ross is right about the length, it ran a bit too long for my taste, especially in the middle.  The ending was worth a wait, but not the wait they imposed on us.  Prisoners kept us guessing and questioning ourselves for a good while, but no one can keep Ross Gallo guessing too long.  The man is a savant.

I’m not sure about savant; idiot maybe.  If you have kids, you have to relate to Keller Dover’s plight.  I’m pretty sure if you’ve seen the previews for this movie, that I’m not ruining the plot by telling you that he tortures the hell out of Dano’s Jones.  If it was my kid missing, would I go that far?  My guess is yes.  The filmmakers make it extremely uncomfortable, because there are serious doubts about Jones’ guilt.  The race against time is on though and I found myself being unable to decide if I wanted him to continue or not.  I’m certain this is the place where they wanted the viewer to end up.  Hugh Jackman is excellent and carries the movie.  It is through him that we “live” the anger, doubt, horror and anguish.  The supporting cast is mostly wasted, though for you Saving Grace fans, it was cool to see an all grown up Dylan Minnette who played Grace’s nephew Cole on the TNT hit.  Too long, but worth a watch for sure.  Maria hit it on the head with the Mystic River feel.  Though not the exact same plot, the cold, drab winter and tortured father are similar; as is the “did he do it or didn’t he?” suspect.  Check out Prisoners to find out the movies answers, and probably some within yourself as well.

Prisoners was no shining cinematic achievement, but if you’re in the mood for a suspenseful mystery, it’s worth a try.  It had a few good twists and turns.  And Jackman’s emotionally charged performance cements his place as one of Hollywood’s eminent talents.  He single-handedly keeps Prisoners above average.  But the combination of the lengthy plot and forgettable supporting cast bumps it back into mediocrity.  This isn’t the genre of movie I would rush off to see in theatres anyway, but it was a good RedBox investment.

Ross’ Rating- 3.25 Gummy Bears out of 5.

Maria’s Rating- 2.75 Gummies.

Movie Review: Frozen.

Published December 11, 2013 by mrsrag

Starring the voices of:  Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk.

Rated: PG.  Animated.  Running Time: 1 hour 48 minutes.

If you follow MRSRAG at all, you know that we see a lot of kids movies with my son Ethan.  You also know that Maria longs for the musical animated classics of her childhood: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King.  Well, her wish has come true with the amazing Frozen.  During the very first scene when we meet the two young princesses Anna and Elsa, discovering that one has the gift of creating frozen wonders with just the touch of her hands; I was rolling my eyes when they broke into song.  I’m not the fan of the musical genre that Maria is (I found the recent remake of Les Miserables unwatchable), but quickly Frozen won me over in a huge way.  In predictable Disney fashion, they killed off the parents, The King and Queen tout de suite, orphaning our two heroines.  That is the last predictable thing about Frozen, the writers expertly use our preconceived notions “against” us, and we’re left with a delightfully witty, funny, twisty tale that is sure to become another Disney classic.

I loved it.  I’m not a huge fan of musicals either, but Disney musical?  Oh yes, thank you.  I have been missing all the wonderfully written little ditties that used to be the signature addition to any ’90’s Disney feature.  I am so happy that they waited until they had a tale worthy of featuring some musical accompaniment.  The songs were funny, poignant and impressively belted.  The story of these two sisters who are so much the same and yet very different has an effortless charm.  It beautifully depicts the depth of love, hostility and confusion that make up sisterhood.  You can believe that assessment coming from the youngest of six children, three of them being girls.  Frozen follows these two young royals as they venture on the path of finding out who they truly are as individuals and they end up finding out a lot about each other as well.  Of course, Disney includes a sweet love story, a couple of bad guys and a few surprises along the way.  My favorite thing about Frozen is that it follows along a similar path as Brave.  It portrays its female characters as two strong and independent women.  We are no longer being poured into the mold of damsel in distress.  And it focuses on the bond of sisterhood and the importance of family, something that I personally believe will benefit the children who are lucky enough to view it.  Even if the themes are over their head at this point, they may find a lasting appreciation for the movie and rediscover it again in later years.  It was as close to a classic as anything I’ve seen in years.

Earlier this year we reviewed Despicable Me 2 (which will be released soon on DVD), and I felt that movie was a leading candidate for animated film of the year.  I still feel that way and would recommend you rent or buy it this Xmas season, but Frozen is now easily my new frontrunner.  While the cast list of many of Pixar and Disney’s animated offerings are loaded with A-List movie stars, a quick peruse of the Frozen crew yields nary a one.  No need to fret, every voice was perfectly cast, with my personal favorite (and I’m guessing most who see it) being the plucky, hilarious, heroic snowman Olaf (Gad).  Sure to join the likes of Zazu, Apu, Tow Mater, Donkey, The Genie, King Julian, et al, as a beloved sidekick for the ages.  He sings a solo about his eagerness to see summer that will leave you in stitches.  Far from a one man show, Anna (Bell), Elsa (Menzel), and Kristoff (Groff) carry us along on this non-stop, action packed, laugh-fest with heart and soul.  The songs don’t get in the way, they blend seamlessly with the story.  Animated movies just don’t get better than Frozen, young, old, girl or boy, you will all love it.  In my opinion, a lock for the Oscar.  

I agree with everything that my writing sidekick has said.  Olaf was hysterical.  I haven’t laughed this hard at one of the kid’s movies in ages.  I don’t want to ruin anything for our readers, but a line from one of the songs has stuck with me throughout the weekend.  “I’m not sure if I’m gassy or just elated.”  What a clever touch it was to have one of the girls sing out this gem.  Another great lesson for children: chicks fart.  The animation was not to be ignored either.  Technology has come a long way since “Steamboat Willy”.  Frozen embodied all the best things about children’s film: great moral value, emotionally evoking storyline and incredible fun.  This movie is a must-see, especially for the family.  It has certainly kicked off our holiday cheer this season.  Happy holidays…and do yourself a favor – go see Frozen and melt away any holiday blues.

Ross’ Rating: 5 Gummy Bears out of 5.

Maria’s Rating: 5 Gummies.

  

Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Published November 30, 2013 by mrsrag

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz, Paula Malcomson, Willow Sheilds, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Rated: PG-13.  Action/Adventure/Science Fiction.  Running Time: 2 hours 26 minutes.

My girl crush stars in this second installment of The Hunger Games trilogy.  Katniss Everdeen is unbelievably radical.  And the actress they cast to play her, Jennifer Lawrence, literally IS a girl on fire.  She’s been having a moment since early last year when the first ‘Games’ was released.  Then we saw her in Silver Linings Playbook delivering Robert DeNiro a tongue lashing – and my crush grew deeper.  Now she’s overexposed, plastered on every magazine with that pixie cut and somehow I still love her.  Obviously, she steals the show here as bow wielding and reluctant poster girl Katniss, “the Mockingjay”.  But as with most trilogies, this is just a means to an end.  I pose this question: Why can’t we just produce all three movies and release them all at once with a combined lower ticket price?  Oh, that’s right, because the film industry is full of money grubbing whores who enjoy playing with our emotions and sucking us dry at every opportunity.  I’ll step off my soap box for exactly 1 minute to get back to the movie.  I loved it.  But why wouldn’t I?  I read all the books.  I know what’s in store.  And it’s a tale about a girl who kicks major ass and ignites a revolution.  BOOM.  My one regret about this latest viewing: we didn’t rent and watch the first one.  It must be amateur hour!

Even though we’ve seen the first movie several times, it’s been so long we absolutely should’ve watched it again before we went to Catching Fire, a refreshed memory would’ve helped immensely.  Everything eventually came back to me of course, Maria and I are both huge fans of Suzanne Collins wildly successful books.  I read all three in three days and I remember thinking they could make wonderful movies if done right.  They did a great job with the first movie.  So much of the book was inside Katniss’ head, how she figured things out as she struggled to survive during The Hunger Games.  They utilized Stanley Tucci’s character Caesar Flickerman perfectly in his role as MC of the insane games with a manic enjoyment that seemed somehow natural.  Using Caeser to explain what she was thinking was genius.  Catching Fire was not as good, but it really is the nature of the second movie of a trilogy.  They are generally weigh stations to the climax of the story, and almost always the worst of the three.  Think, Back to the Future 2, Matrix Reloaded, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, to name a few.  All decent but definitely inferior to their celluloid siblings.  Regardless, I have high hopes for the third installment, Mockingjay, which should be out in a couple of years or so.  Hopefully we’ll remember to rent Catching Fire before we go see that one. 

I am extremely interested to see how they plan to pull off this final movie.  And I’m sure, if you’ve read the books, you’re probably wondering the same.  My best friend Gina initially turned me onto the book series, during a stint where each of us was addicted to a YA (young adult) novel.  Read the books!!  Even if you’ve seen these movies, this series reads well and quick.  Collins hooks the reader immediately and never lets go.  Plus, it vastly improves your viewing experience.  Catching Fire focuses on Peeta’s realization that Katniss was just playing up their romance to survive.  She finds herself in a predicament as she tries to accept her role as a defiant revolutionary and still serve to protect those she loves.  The film explores how drastically her life has changed since winning the games.  Including, but not limited to the constant nightmares and terrifying flashbacks that plague her everyday thoughts.  The title speaks for itself.  Unrest is spreading and Katniss is left with no choice, but to accept her destiny as ‘the Mockingjay.’

You can certainly enjoy these movies without reading the books, but I found my self wondering how confused I might be if I hadn’t.  It really is a great story of courage and perseverance against staggering odds.  Donald Sutherland is unapologetically evil as the main antagonist “President” Snow.  The leader of the controlling government centered in The Capital, where the privileged have everything they need to excess, he leads The Districts with a dictatorial hand.  The common people who populate these areas are starving and ensconced in slave-like servitude.  The Hunger Games bring together each year two young people from each District to participate in a winner take all fight to the death, to remind them that “resistance is futile”, to borrow a phrase from Star Trek’s penultimate villains,  The Borg.  Katniss unlikely journey from just trying to stay alive to eventual reluctant leader of the uprising is the heart of the story, and I can’t imagine another actress today pulling it off with such perfect aplomb.  Who does she really love?  Who can she trust?  How can she hope to succeed?  An underdog story with some familiar themes that are part of our heritage as Americans.  Read the books, they’re target audience are YA, but they’re a great read for all ages.  And go see the movies, Catching Fire missed a bit for me, but ultimately worth it, I hope, when the finished body of work has been viewed.  Jennifer Lawrence has “It”, and The Hunger Games is just the beginning for her.  She also seems to be a real person who says pretty much anything she wants without worrying about being PC.  Hollywood could use a dozen more just like her. 

Maria’s Rating:  4 out of 5 Gummy Bears.

Ross’ Rating:  3 Gummies.

  

Recent DVD Release: Before Midnight

Published October 24, 2013 by mrsrag

Starring:  Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke.

Rated: R.  Drama/Romance.  Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes.

There are supporting actors in Before Midnight, the third installment of the saga of Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy).  And they are more involved here than the fringe players in the previous two movies; but this story has always been a two person show.  We met Jesse and Celine when they met, on a train in Europe in 1995’s Before Sunrise.  Two strangers with an undeniable attraction who end up wandering around Vienna and talking through the night.  They do eventually sleep together, but this was no one night stand.  At the end, as they prepare to go their separate ways, they set a date to meet there again exactly a year later.  Flash forward nine years to 2004’s Before Sunrise.  Jesse is in Paris promoting his best selling book, which is of course based on their one magical evening.  He’s at a book signing and Celine shows up.  You see they didn’t get together at their planned rendezvous, as Celine’s grandmother had died.  Jesse, now married (unhappily) had showed up, but only now finds out why Celine didn’t.  Their walk this time takes them through the streets of Paris, and we discover that neither has ever forgotten the other.  At the end Jesse visits Celine’s apartment, she sings him a song she wrote, and he misses his flight home to New York.  Another nine years have passed and in Before Midnight Jesse and Celine are finally together.  They have twin girls and are visited by Jesse’s son, as the whole family vacations in Greece.   We soon discover that these two are not living a fairy tale life.  Not too far in, they are again off on another of their trademark walks through some truly gorgeous surroundings.  No two actors, in my recollection, have the unique chemistry of Delpy and Hawke.  Their intellectual banter on subjects from love to work to philosophy to you name it, have had me mesmerized from the beginning.  Their comfort with one another feels so natural that it doesn’t seem like they’re acting at all.  I believe this third collaboration with director Richard Linklater is supposed to be the last in the trilogy, but I for one am left wanting to know more of what happens.  Here’s hoping they can come up with one more “Before” for 2022.

Before Midnight catches up with the couple who seem a little less happy and a little more chunky.  Like two busy parents with full time jobs their wardrobes mimic their disheveled frame of mind.  There’s one scene during their walk when Jesse’s shirt is half tucked in and half out.  It was driving me crazy, but it’s an authentic depiction of how people in long term relationships just stop caring at some point.  It seems as though reality has finally caught up with our free spirited pair.  But there’s still hope for Jesse and Celine as they embark on a familiar stroll and begin a stimulating conversation.  The couple have been granted a night alone in a fancy hotel and the scene is set for a romantic evening.  But reconnecting and shutting out the rest of the world may not be so easy.  I have a special affinity for these films because when Ross and I were first dating he pointed out similarities between Jesse and Celine’s chemistry to our own.  Predominantly the fact that we spent our first date talking throughout the night.  We watched the first two together and I really enjoyed them.  But Ross realizes that these movies are not for everyone and he’s absolutely right.  All three of these films focus on the two main characters and the majority of each movie is just the two of them talking.  I find their conversations captivating and enlightening.  But I could definitely see where an audience could be bored.  Especially if they had no idea what they’re walking into.

Definitely not for everyone.  However, if you have a romantic side and appreciate fabulous acting; if you could enjoy a story that can take you from the possibility of “happily ever after” to the reality of true love when life gets in the way.  If you have a modicum of intelligence, and like thought provoking conversation that has you contemplating both points of view, then you absolutely MUST see all three of these movies.  Jesse and Celine are two of the greatest characters ever created.  Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy have been involved in the writing since the beginning, and you can tell it is a labor of love for them.  There is a scene around a dinner table in Greece that is especially well written and planned out.  A young couple early in their relationship, love burning bright.  Celine and Jesse, a bit further along, but not so far removed that they can’t remember and long for those feelings again.  An older Greek couple who have been together 20+ years, who are happy but pragmatic in where their relationship is, they put up with each other mostly.  An older woman who lost her husband some years ago and worries that she is beginning to forget what he looked like.  An older man who is a writer, philosopher, has a missing wife (unexplained), and plenty to say about male/female relationships and life in general.  This one dinner scene gives the audience a glimpse into the human condition from A to Z.  The facial expressions of the characters give as many incites as the words themselves.  I love the movies en masse a bit more than Before Midnight on it’s own, but it’s as important, if not more so, than the first two.  Like Maria said to me while we were watching, “if this had just been them sailing off into the sunset all kissy-kissy, everything’s great, it would have sucked.”  She’s right (almost always is), a finish like that would have been pure merde.   

The best thing about these movies is that they have an authentic feel.  If they just presented some fairytale life in this third installment it would have felt forced and disingenuous.  Instead they give us these two people we’ve literally watched grow together and now apart, on-screen.  I am a hopeless romantic.  But in this day and age, this depiction seems the most realistic portrayal of a couple in these circumstances.  I wouldn’t dare ruin the ending for you, but let’s just say – there is always hope.  Hope that two people in love can find each other again.  Hope that the future can be better than the past.  And hope that love will endure.  Hope is a powerful thing…and so is love.  Love can span over months, years and decades.  The most fitting analogy I’ve heard about love is that it is very similar to a plant.  It needs to be watered and cared for, or else it dries up and wilts.  Jesse and Celine just need a little sun and some water.  Lastly, I want to say “Happy Anniversary” to my parents, married 44 years this past Tuesday.  Congratulations and thank you for being an example of lasting love.

Ross’ Rating:  4.25 Gummy Bears out of 5.

Maria’s Rating:  4 Gummies.