Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Stalag 17" (1953)

The great Billy Wilder is one of my top five favorite directors of all time, and this movie one of his best and possibly most underrated. Willam Holden won a Best Actor Oscar for this story about a group of Americans in a German POW camp in WWII, who come to suspect one of the guys in the camp is an informant. It's one of the great prison break movies and Otto Preminger, most known as a director in the 50's and 60's, here turns in a terrific acting performance as the Commandant. Definitely check this one out.

Original trailer from 1953: 

TRAILER: "The Armstrong Lie"

Documentarian Alex Gibney, the director of movies such as Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Dark Side and Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, has a new film out that chronicles the lies perpetrated by Lance Armstrong over his steroid use in the course of his career. Even just looking at this trailer makes it hard to see how you could ever believe anything he says as you observe how easy it was for him to lie to everyone. The movie's out this month in limited release and has already gotten some great reviews.

'Walter Mitty' Gets Divisive Reviews in New York

The premiere of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the New York Film Festival on Saturday met with what looks to be the year's most polarizing response from the critics. Ben Stiller's fantasy, based on the James Thurber story about an uninteresting man who imagines himself in fantastical situations to impress the woman of his desire (Kristen Wiig in this movie), was labeled by many as simply not a festival movie, and should have waited to debut on its scheduled wide release date, which is Christmas Day. From all the mixed response (some championed its sentimentality while others pretty much despised it), there's no way to tell what the ultimate critical consensus will be in December. But its Oscar chances look fairly dismal at this stage, unless the movie manages to become a massive success with the public, which is always possible.

"Rather than channeling James Thurber's satirical tone, Stiller plays it mostly earnest, spinning what feels like a feature-length 'Just Do It' ad for restless middle-aged auds, on whom its reasonably commercial prospects depend." (Variety) 

"The film's pleasures may be too minor key and its pace too meandering to conquer the mainstream. But audiences willing to tune in to its blend of surreal fantasy, droll comedy and poignancy may be rewarded." (Hollywood Reporter)

"Unfortunately, this 'Mitty' tries too hard, and as a result his many adventures- both real and imagined- are neither intriguing nor amusing." (The Wrap)

"Ben Stiller's aesthetics blend overly manicured imagery with soaring rock songs that underline every emotion, lest the film's corporate logo-driven message-making didn't get the point across clearly enough." (Slant) 

"'Walter Mitty' employs hackneyed and mawkish methods to achieve a false sense of joyfulness." (The Playlist) 

TRAILER #3: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

The best trailer yet for the new Coen Brothers movie, which I can't wait to see. It's already been lauded by critics since its debut in Cannes, but still isn't set to come out until Dec 6th. Sigh. Also getting a lot of attention, unsurprisingly, is the music, which was produced by T-Bone Burnett, who previously worked on the soundtrack to O, Brother Where Art Thou? with the Coens. The soundtrack for this movie is due out Nov 6th. 

TRAILER #2: "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"

New trailer for the Ben Stiller fantasy, this time with dialogue. The movie premiered to wildly polarizing responses on Saturday at the New York Film Festival, bordering on negative even (more on that later), but despite that could still do well with the family audience when it comes out on Christmas Day.

REVIEW: "Gravity" (2013) Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. Dir. Alfonso Cuaron

Believe the hype. Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity is a stunning achievement, guaranteed to leave you breathless as you walk out of the theater, and running back to see it again. It's not often you see a film that leaves you gobsmacked, wondering how did they even do that? But this is a film that qualifies more as a full on experience, and demands to be seen in a theater, preferably on the biggest screen possible.

Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on her first space mission, with George Clooney as veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski on his last, and the first time we see them they're floating miles above the earth, working repairs on the Hubble Telescope. The film drops you right into the experience as we feel instantly that we're floating along with them, in awe and completely enveloped by the CG effects that never for one moment feel less than perfectly real. It's only a few minutes before disaster strikes however, when debris from an exploding Russian satellite comes hurling into their path and setting them on an emergency course to survive in any way that they can.

It's a simple plot really, like an old-fashioned disaster movie set in space, but with just two characters in an environment that most of us will never see, and have never seen on screen with this kind of effect. In that respect, the casting is crucial, and taking a page from Hitchcock's playbook, Cuaron cast two big movie stars that we already know and immediately connect with, which is a brilliant move in a movie that's set in a place so foreign to us. I don't think it would have worked as well with unknown actors, and both Bullock and Clooney are aces in this. George Clooney basically plays himself in space but it's never been more reassuring to see someone we know in a position of authority on this dangerous thrill ride, and Sandra Bullock really steps up and delivers the best performance of her career by far. The movie is carried entirely by her more than Clooney, and she evokes our sympathy, terror, and emotional identification as she undertakes what's really the story of her personal evolution in this harrowing journey, experiencing every emotion under the sun (pun intended) in her fight to survive. Not to mention how unique and notable it is that a woman can be the hero in this kind of adventure (not since Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Alien have we seen it), and she doesn't even have to act like a man in order to elicit the audience's involvement in her situation. It's a great performance, and I'd never thought I'd say this a few years ago, but by this time next year Sandra Bulllock may have two Oscars under her belt.

Of course, even with the great acting, Alfonso Cuaron is the true star of this film, and the feat of direction here is nothing short of astonishing. The effects are seamlessly edited, with long tracking shots showing all angles of the action at all times and placing us in a "you are there" state of being never before felt in a motion picture that amounts to science fiction. The cinematography is breathtaking (with the great Emmanuel Lubezki set to finally win his long overdue Oscar for this I'm sure), and the technical achievement at all levels, from the score to the sound effects, is really quite something to behold. The great thing about Cuaron's filmography (Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, A Little Princess) is that as much of an effects master as he is, he never loses the emotional component at the heart of his character's journeys, and as a result you care more about Ryan Stone's personal triumph than you do, say, any of the big blue people in Avatar.

It's an astounding cinematic achievement, the best movie of the year and at a lean 90 minutes, begs to be seen on a big screen again and again. I think I'll go back this week.

* * * *

BOX OFFICE 10/04-10/06: 'Gravity' Soars to Record Breaking Heights

Gravity took off in a huge way this weekend, debuting with $55.55 million, the biggest October opening of all time (passing Paranormal Activity 3's $52 million in 2011). It also marks the biggest opening weekend of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney's careers (although funnily enough, not director Alfonso Cuaron, whose Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban did $93 million back in 2004). The film overperformed with audiences and made 80% of its money from 3D screens, along with $11 million from IMAX, but the real sign of strength came from the 32% increase from Friday to Saturday, which means word of mouth is extremely strong, and spread across the board among all ages. The movie played 59% over the age of 35 this weekend, and  split 54% male, 46% female, which shows that it's going to have real legs, and the success solidifies its surefire Oscar frontrunner status in multiple categories, including Picture, Director, and Actress. Audiences also issued the film a great "A-" Cinemascore.

The other new release, Runner Runner did not fare well despite stars Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, earning just $7 million and getting a weak "C" from audiences, while Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 held on ok with $21 million, but also seemed to lose some steam to Gravity. It's going to be an interesting fall as we see how Gravity holds up against competition from other adult targeting films in the coming weeks, like Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave, but I have a feeling the "event movie" nature of the film is going to keep this one going for while.

TOP 5: 

1. Gravity- $55.55 million
2. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2- $21.5 million
3. Runner Runner- $7.6 million
4. Prisoners- $5.7 million
5. Rush- $4.4 million

Prisoners and Rush filled out the rest of the Top 5, but Prisoners' $46 million total so far shows how hard it's been for that film to hold onto its audience with the arrival of direct competition, while Rush has severely underperformed despite excellent reviews, and will not make back its budget in the end. Next week, it's Captain Phillips, which had sneak previews this weekend to 75% full audiences and played with a mostly older crowd, so that could start well, and the camp sequel Machete Kills, with Danny Trejo. 

POSTERS: "American Hustle"

The character posters for David O. Russell's new movie are out. Combining the casts from The Fighter (Christain Bale, Amy Adams) and Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence), the highly anticipated film is coming out nationwide on Christmas Day. 

TRAILER #2: "Out of the Furnace"

The second trailer for the Scott Cooper directed ensemble drama Out of the Furnace has been released. The movie is set to come out in limited release over Thanksgiving and expand on December 6th. The knockout cast includes Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard.

TRAILER: "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit"

The new Jack Ryan movie finally has a trailer. Starring Chris Pine and Keira Knightley, and directed by Kenneth Branagh, it's set to come out on Christmas Day and serve as the holiday action movie choice when there's mostly just adult dramas in release. It's also appropriate timing, given that Tom Clancy just passed away recently at the age of 66. 

Halloween Month on Screen It Now!

It's tradition to load up on scary movies for October, and here we've dubbed it the month of "Creature Features" over on the Movies of the Month page. Head over to check out the description for our selection of monster movies this month, and click here to see the ten horror movies we've picked out for Halloween this year. Some perennial favorites of mine are Shaun of the Dead, American Werewolf in London and as always, the original Exorcist. It really can't be beat. Happy horror movie watching!

TRAILER: "Lone Survivor"

The trailer for Peter Berg's Lone Survivor, which happens to be the first war movie about Afghanistan, based on a true event that took place in 2005. Berg has a mixed track record (he did Friday Night Lights but also Battleship), so let's hope this is one of his hits. The movie's coming out in limited release Dec. 27th.