The Great Gatsby

DRAMA, ROMANCE

Old Sport

9.0 out of 10 | MOVIE, DVD

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Rated: PG-13 Some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language
Release Date: May 10, 2013
Runtime: 2 hours 22 minutes

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Director: Baz Luhrmann
Writers: Baz Luhrmann, Craig Pearce, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki

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SYNOPSIS:  A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor.

REVIEW: Baz Luhrmann, famed screenwriter/director of Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, and Strictly Ballroom, returns to feature films in a big way after a string of short films. Re-teaming with longtime writing partner Craig Pearce, they adapt the frequently remade story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire, Brothers) stares out the windows of a sanitarium, morbidly unhappy with his life. When the doctor tries to coax out of him a memory of a better part of his life, Nick reminisces about a man he once met that was filled with hope and vigor. That idealistic young man was named Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio, Django Unchained). Carraway describes Gatsby as being of the new wealth, meeting him in the summer of 1922 on Long Island, New York. Throwing more than lavish parties at his home for the greater populace, Gatsby holds a mystery close to his vest that Carraway wonders about. Carraway rents the smallish cottage next to the Gatsby estate where both of them are able to look across the bay at Carraway's cousin Daisy Buchanan's (Carey Mulligan, Drive) house. Spending most of his time trying to become a decent stock and bond broker on Wall Street Carraway soon finds himself swept up with the extravagant parties that Gatsby throws. Where did this man named Gatsby come from? What are his motivations? What are the mysteries behind the man who some say is a relative of the German Kaiser, an assassin, or a secret agent? And what is his fixation on the lovely Daisy Buchanan, wife of old money heir Tom (Joel Edgerton, Zero Dark Thirty)

Writer/director Baz Luhrmann, known for his inventive interpretation of Romeo + Juliet, takes on one of America's most treasured pieces of literature. Robert Redford and Alan Ladd have made their mark in versions of The Great Gatsby. Luhrmann uses his unique style of directing to weave an original tapestry of his own. Using the backdrops of the heady days of the early 1920s Luhrmann creates the gorgeous locales of Long Island and New York City, adding in wonderful costumes, and all the glamour and glitz that the Roaring 20s provided.

The cast is spectacular, spectacular! Although DiCaprio's Gatsby doesn't appear right on away in the story he does steal the show as the title character. With every slick back of his hair, every reference to his friends as 'Old Boy', and every glance or glare speaking volumes more than the elegant Fitzgerald dialogue, DiCaprio proves again why he is an A-lister. Joel Edgerton holds his own as he Errol Flynn-esque Tom Buchanan who Gatsby battles against for a specific treasure that he owns. Edgerton is both imposing and charismatic as a heir of old money. Tobey Maguire is the perfect choice of the young man Carraway trying to make his way to world caught between these two titans of wealth. The female cast is equal to the task as objects of affection and of objectification by these men and their boys club. Isla Fisher (Rise of the Guardians) is Myrtle Wilson, a kept conquest of Tom Buchanan who knows how to party to excess. Carey Mulligan, a busy young actress, sparkles with innocence and a secret knowledge of how the world works as the object of affection, Daisy. And rounding of the main cast is Elizabeth Debicki as the golf starlet Jordan Baker, poised and postured as if made of porcelain. 

As one who was never forced to read 'The Great Gatsby' in high school literature class I was able to go into the viewing of this film with complete innocence. Like Nick Carraway I was wide-eyed with wonder at the decadence and debauchery that came with money. I could go on about The Great Gatsby as a literary allegory for the 20s and the gateway to the Great Depression of the 30s, but I am more impressed with what I enjoy onscreen. From the cinematic spectacle of it all, to the musical score and use modern rap, pop, and R and B, to an incredible cast roaring with the 20s, The Great Gatsby enthralls with mystery, misdirection, lost romance, and the excess that preceded a depression that proved greater than Gatsby could ever become.

Old money or new money, it doesn't matter. No matter what social and economic circles we travel, there is always drama that exceeds our great expectations. The Great Gatsby is one of the best dramatic and visually appealing films so far this year.

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Zero Dark Thirty

Manhunt

★ ★ ★ ★ out of 5 buckets | Matinee or DVD

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Rated: R Brutal disturbing images, strong violence and language.
Release Date: December 19, 2012 (expands January 11, 2013)
Runtime: 2 hours 37 minutes

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Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writers: Mark Boal
Cast: Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Kyle Chandler, Harold Perrineau, Fredric Lehre, Edgar Ramirez, James Gandolfini, Joel Edgerton, Chris Prat, Frank Grillo, Mark Strong

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SYNOPSIS: A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May, 2011.

REVIEW: Kathryn Bigelow won the Oscar for Best Picture for her film The Hurt Locker.  Before that she had big with successes with Point Break, Near Dark, and Strange Days. Returning to the deserts of the Middle East, she reteams with The Hurt Locker scribe Mark Boal to tell the tale of the biggest manhunt of the 20th century.

Maya (Jessica Chastain, Lawless), a CIA field analyst, is sent to Pakistan two years after the attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001. Taking part in the brutal interrogations of middle eastern detainees with ties to Alcaida and other terrorists groups, Maya uncovers a network of couriers who may lead to Osama bin Laden. After several years and several other successful bombings around the globe, Maya has to fight the war to capture Osama bin Laden on several fronts, including against a change complexion of terrorism, a United States government with a changing policy concerning interrogations and detainees, and a ticking clock against more pain and death.

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow's second film to take place in the conflicts of the Middle East. From Jeremy Renner's turn as a bomb disposal expert in the hateful sands of the region to the long pursuit of the terrorist Osama bin Laden, Bigelow's captures the tireless persistence of American patriots who fight for the freedoms of their homeland at a cost that may be too lofty to truly commiserate.

Bigelow opens the film with complete darkness and the iconic date of "September 11th, 2001". All that is heard is various recordings from officials, air traffic controllers, 911 operators, and workers in the World Trade towers. As American society was plunged into a pessimistic darkness, Bigelow hurls us two years later where a young CIA agent recruited straight out of high school and into a CIA Black Site where seasoned agent Dan (Jason Clarke, Lawless) interrogates a money man with ties to the 9/11 attacks. We do not stay anywhere too long, as the hunt for Osama bin Laden and twenty of the top leaders of the Alcaida terror network. Maya is the fulcrum - with agents, detainees, soldiers, technicians, analysts, and terrorists changing around her over the years she struggled and sacrificed in her pursuit for bringing bin Laden to justice.

Jessica Chastain starts off her career as Maya as a tough, but new recruit assigned to overseeing CIA Black Site interrogations. As the years go on, Chastain hardens her character into a woman with a singular diamond point focus against the man who is a ghost in the Middle Eastern sands. As the pressure to find bin Laden grows, Maya butts heads and egos against her station chief Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler, Argo) for more resources, mourns for the loss of interrogative freedom along with Dan, and constantly struggles against the slow grind of political red tape against supervisor George (Mark Strong, Green Lantern) and the CIA Director (James Gandolfini, Killing Them Softly). Will the government move on intel that in less than 100%? Even the Seal Team 6 members, although well trained, are skeptical of the mission parameters. Squadron Team Leader Patrick (Joel Edgerton, The Odd Life of Timothy Green) and DEVGRU Justin (Chris Pratt, Moneyball) follow orders on the instincts of a woman who may be the singularly most knowledgeable person on who and where Osama bin Laden is.

Coming in at 157 minutes, you can feel the emotional toll that the ten years have on main character Maya in the story. The pace is slow and even, plodding along with the teams and analysts as they miss opportunities to capture key personal with knowledge of bin Laden's network. They unravel around the edges as terrorist cells continue to plot and carry out their destructive missions. As the end nears, the tension rises in the CIA bunkers in Langley, Virginia and in the Pakistan darkness. But the actual incursion by Seal Team 6 on the bin Laden compound seems too real world slow and methodical to work as the climatic ending on the big screen.

Bigelow and Boal use Chastain's Maya as an amalgam of a public suffering immense loss of its innocence, as well as the sometimes quiet, sometimes volatile outrage and frustration of American agencies trying to achieve a measure of closure against a single man whose orders and decisions changed the cultural outlook of a nation. The film pulls back the curtain of what America had to become in order to get this dirty job done, showing the raw methods necessary and rawer nerves that result.

Zero Dark Thirty is a hard and objective look at a decade-long hunt for one man. The men in the employ of the terrorists are not made monsters unnecessarily. In the same light, America is not left with virtuous clean hands either. We know how it ends, but we may know what it took to get there.

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The Odd Life of Timothy Green

Change of Seasons

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Rated: PG  Mild thematic elements and brief language
Release Date: August 15, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 44 minutes

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Director: Peter Hedges
Writers: Peter Hedges, Ahmet Zappa
Cast:  Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, CJ Adams, Odeya Rush, Davis Morse, M. Emmet Walsh, Lois Smith, Dianne Wiest, Ron Livingston, Common, Shohreh Aghdashloo

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SYNOPSIS: A married couple bury a box in the garden with all of the traits written on paper for the child they cannot bear. The same night they are visited by a boy with leaves growing out of his legs ready to call them mom and dad.

REVIEW: Writer and director of Steve Carell's Dan in Real Life, Peter Hedges returns to pen and helm a new film about a childless couple who are magically granted the chance to raise a young boy who had sprung out of the couple's garden. Helping with the writing duties is longtime actor and first time writer Ahmet Zappa. 

Jim Green (Joel Edgerton, Warrior) and his wife Cindy (Jennifer Garner, Arthur) sit at a conference table across from Evette Onat (Shohreh Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog) and her assistant, waiting nervously for Ms. Onat to review their adoption application form. When Ms. Onat questions the gaps in their submission, Jim and Cindy plead for Ms. Onat to let them tell their story about a young boy named Timothy (CJ Green, Dan in Real Life) who came into their lives to change it forever. So they begin their tale, telling the case worker that they were told that their efforts to conceive a child had become fruitless. To get over the disappointment and pain of never having their own child, Jim and Cindy wrote down all of the qualities that their child would have possessed. Burying the attributes in a wooden box in Cindy's garden and going to bed, a spot shower in the middle of a drought results in the sprouting of a boy with leaves growing out of his legs ready to call Jim and Cindy dad and mom. At first unsure of the miracle before them, Jim and Cindy soon warm up to the boy named Timothy and raised him as their own. The new parents keep secret the fact that Timothy has real leaves growing from his legs by using tall wool socks, Timothy still uses all of the best traits that Jim and Cindy wrote down for him to engage with friends, coworkers, and friends to bring a little hope and laughter into their lives.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green could be compared to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, taking a seemingly impossible magical premise of a boy with a strange affliction and his life among the rest of us. But while Benjamin Button was a sweeping epic and a love story, Timothy Green is a more intimate family tale centered in a small struggling town. I see Timothy Green closer to Sean Patrick Flanery's Powder, where a strange sensitive kid affects those around him. In the small town of Stanleyville, the 'Pencil Capital of the World', the town lives and breathes and thrives by the success of a specific No. 2 writing implement. With the decline of the need of their pencils, hope is in short supply, but Timothy Green more than makes up for it with his sensitivity, honesty, and charms. But even comparing The Odd Life of Timothy Green to Powder is too different a comparison as Disney's film is quiet, retrospective and light - like the sun peeking through the clouds to warm outstretched arms and faces.

Director Peter Hedges goes into his stable of go-to actors to find the perfect sprouting boy. CJ Adams, from one of Hedges previous films, embodies the natural wide-eyed innocence that Timothy Green needs. With every gesture, nod, or gaze, CJ Adams melts hearts. And as a character that is not from the norm, CJ makes sure that everything he experiences is looked upon as unique and mind-opening. Joining Adams is a young lady cast as outcast Odeya Rush and as Timothy's nature crush Joni Jerome (Curb Your Enthusiasm). Together they see the world in a similar fashion, but different than those around them. Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner bring just the right mix of passion, drama, humor, and belief in magic to make the perfect couple to deserve a magical son like Timothy. On the flip side, Shohreh Aghdashloo's adoption case worker brings plenty of healthy skepticism to bear against the strange story that Jim and Cindy need to share. The rest of the cast is pitch perfect, from David Morse's Big Jim, to Dianne Wiest's stoic curator of Stanleyville's pencil museum, to Ron Livingston's (Office Space) run as the struggling pencil factory boss Franklin Crudstaff.

As the change of season and a drought turn the leaves to vibrant pre-Autumn colors, and rumors of layoffs threaten to cast a storm cloud of despair over the town, Timothy stands tall, bending but not breaking, against doubters and bullies. Timothy is a lesson to be learned about humanity and how we should treat each other.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a sweet tale of a new boy and new parents, trying to find a natural balance between the three of them, and the rest of family and the community that they encounter. The film is not as odd as you would think, but as heartwarming, sweet, and a little sad as you would expect.

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WORTH:  Matinee or DVD

The Thing (2011)

It's Not Human... Yet! 

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr

Writers: Eric Heisserer, John W. Campbell Jr (short story "Who Goes There?")
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paul Braunstein

SYNOPSIS: At an Antarctic research station, scientists discover an alien spacecraft and a frozen specimen from within its chambers. After taking a sample from the block of ice, it becomes apparent that members of the team may be affected or infected.

REVIEW: Hard to pronounce and spell new feature film director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. takes on a cult classic thriller. Any sci-fi fan will instantly recognize character names Childs, Blair, Nauls, Windows and MacReady. In 1982, John Carpenter reinvented and remade an earlier film, 1951s The Thing from Another World from John W. Campbell Jr's short story "Who Goes There?". John Carpenter's and screenwriter Bill Lancaster created The Thing and raised the bar on sci-fi thrills with practical and stop-action special effects from industry veteran Rob Bottin that still hold up today.

Many fans would have loved to see what happened to Kurt Russell and Keith David in the snow and dying flames of the research station.  Dark Horse Comics released a two-part comic series that extended the mythology of MacReady and the thing from outer space, but it wasn't the same as having Russell and David return to the silver screen and the white wilderness. Dark House Comics also released three other The Thing miniseries. Now, we are treated with what comes before Outpost #31. At the beginning of John Carpenter's The Thing, two Norwegians with rifles in a helicopter try to shoot a dog running across the Antarctic tundra. In the 2011 version of The Thing, Heijningen Jr. and Eric Heisserer take on the events and prequel story that lead up to everything we know.

After a scientific research team responds to a strange signal in the Antarctic wilderness, Dr. Sanders Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) and his research assistant Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen - NCIS: Los Angeles) requests the skills of paleotologist Kate LLoyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to assist in the ice retrieval of an unknown specimen found outside a mammoth structure buried under the snowy terrain. Coptered out by American helo pilots Braxton Carter (Joel Edgerton - Warrior), Jameson (Adewale Akinnupye-Agbaje - Lost, Killer Elite) and Griggs (Paul Braunstein), Kate joins up at the Norwegian research station with the rest of the science team. After the successful retrieval of the specimen and the controversial tissue sample requested by D. Halvorson, the team celebrates their discovery. Soon, though, the life-form awakens and escapes, putting everyone on high alert. One by one the creature absorbs members of the research team, replicates their cells, impersonates the host body, and hides within until the chance to attack and convert another unsuspecting person. Kate realizes some of the staff is "off" and tries to uncover who is human and who is an alien, all while keeping the entire base under quarantine.

The predominantly Norwegian cast gives the film the authenticity that it deserves. If you are going to tell the tale of a Norwegian scientific research station, you certainly have the right cast. Thomsen's Dr. Halvorson is ambitious and brooding, Trond Espen Seim's base chief Edvard Woiner is both commanding and deferential. Jorgen Langhelle's Lars doesn't speak English, but does pack quite a punch. Kristofer Hivju's Jones is delightful with every wide-eyed look. Throw in a couple of other Europeans with Juliette (Kim Bubbs) and Colin (Jonathan Walker), and the Americans (Goodman, Winstead, Edgerton), and you have a melting pot of boiled over tension. The only downside to authentic Norwegians is that there are plenty of sub-titles to read along the way.

Using many of the same devices from John Carpenter's film, The Thing focuses on two things. The first is the claustrophobic tension that comes from a isolated location where the people do not know who is human and who is almost human, Even the host body doesn't know that they have been replicated. The second is the ever-changing alien life-form, a gory and fluid symbiotic parasite that combines and tears apart the very flesh it embodies, or has embodied in the past. The story runs along the same lines as MacReady and Childs - paranoia, suspicion, and tension ever building once the alien thaws out. Arms with guns and flamethrowers, it seems that every Antarctic outpost, or research station, whether American or Norwegian, comes with the same armaments. Finding out the who is human or not starts off with the same thought of blood tests, but takes a more scientific turn when that avenue fails, opting for inorganic material rather than a heated piece of copper wire in a petrie dish.

The Thing (2011) may not be what the fans have been waiting for, but the film does entertain and fill in plenty of back story leading up to a helicopter, a Norwegian rifleman, and an escaping Husky. The mix of CGI and practical FX effects may not have the complete look that Bottin brought the screen in 1982, but the new work doesn't disappoint. What The Thing does show is that we were very lucky that the spacecraft crashed into the Antarctic. Because if the alien had found its way out of the craft in a warmer, more populated climate, we would be done for.

NOTE: Be sure to stay for the first part of the credits so you can see how 1982 and its 2011 prequel tie together.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD (for the franchise fans)

Warrior

Gripping and Powerful

Director: Gavin O'Connor
Writers: Gavin O'Connor, Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo

SYNOPSIS: A huge Mixed Martial Arts tournament puts a financially struggling family man on a collision course with his ex-boxer, ex-alcoholic father and his driven, hate-filled ex-Marine younger brother.

REVIEW: Gavin O'Connor, director of Miracle and Pride and Glory, takes a script he wrote with Anthony Tambakis, Cliff Dorfman for Warrior. A drama based on two brothers, their ex-boxer father and a quest for one brother to proof his worth and the other to provide for his family. Is it the upbringing of violence that drives these men to make the decisions they do - or something else?

Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton from Kinky Boot and the upcoming The Thing prequel), the oldest son of ex-boxer Paddy (Nick Nolte), struggles to keep his family afloat on his salary during the depressed economy. Youngest son and ex-Marine Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy from Inception and the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises) returns home a reluctant hero and looks to train for a Mixed Martial Arts tournament with a huge pay day. Returning to the sport as an amateur to make extra money, Brendan finds himself on a collision course to face his brother in the tournament and deal with all of the bad blood between his father and brother.

A gripping, exhilarating and powerful sports drama, Warrior shows the extent a man will go to protect and provide for his family, and well as the possible physical and emotional implications of a broken, dysfunctional upbringing. Can Paddy gain forgiveness from his sons for the drunken abuse he dished out on his wife and sons? Can Tommy let go the hatred for Brendan and his father for the deep-seated feelings of abandonment and being forced to become a man too soon to protect his now-deceased mother? Can Brendan gain the respect of his brother? Although Warrior is being touted as a uplifting sports drama, the film delves deep into the psyche of a broken, near-irreparable family whose only only emotional release seems to come from violence and brutal physical contact.

The cast is superb. Nick Nolte, with his piercing eyes, worn face and gravelly voice intact, embodies an old weathered broken man haunted by his past sins looking to gain even a small measure of forgiveness from his sons. Almost 1,000 days sober when the movie begins, Paddy has turned to listening to Moby Dick on audio book - a direct parallel of a man chasing something that may be at once both unattainable and ultimately the source of his own destruction. Tom Hardy, as Tommy, bulked up to the Nth degree, casts a unnerving and unflinching shadow against his father and brother, driven to the tournament to atone for his own past sins. Every scene between him and the men in his family is an instruction on conveying a bottled-up rage. Joel Edgerton, as Brendan, remains stoic, knowing that fighting is the only way to ensure that his family will not be forced into foreclosure due to bank recommended over-extension and an upside-down mortgage.

Warrior is akin to the original Rocky in that the film is as much about the drama between people as it is about the sport of fighting. Dramatic, empowering, brutal and, at times, funny, Warrior is an example of how a film extends past what its commercials claims it to be. A brutal, hard look at a family's dysfunction, Warrior shows how the healing of old deep jagged wounds can only be achieved by the opening up of new ones.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD