We're at the start of a new month, which means the new batch of movies for February is now here! For the occasion I've posted ten of my favorite love stories as a tribute to romance in the month of Valentine's Day. They include some of my very favorite movies ever, like The Lady Eve and Trouble in Paradise, two romantic comedy classics that I really think you should look for, but also some modern ones, like Pride and Prejudice and Sleepless in Seattle. Head on over the the Movies of the Month page for the February description, and then click here for the list of films under February: Be My Valentine. Have a good time with the this month's love stories, everyone!
Maximilian Schell 1930-2014
The Austrian-born Old Hollywood star Maximilian Schell passed away today at the age of 83. He was most known for his Oscar winning role in the 1961 film Judgment at Nuremberg, where he played the attorney for Burt Lancaster's judge accused of collaborating with the Nazis during WWII. His other significant parts were in movies like Topkapi (1964), The Man in the Glass Booth (1975), Julia (1977), Deep Impact (1998), and in his later career he became a director of many German films, notably Marlene, the famous 1984 documentary about Marlene Dietrich.
Here he is winning his Oscar for Judgement at Nuremberg (which is an incredible movie, by the way- you should definitely seek it out if you haven't seen it):
TRAILER: "A Million Ways to Die in the West"
Trailer for the new Seth MacFarlane comedy western, seemingly a vehicle to finally launch himself as a personality rather than his disembodied voice through his various animated characters. The movie's written and directed by him and coming out May 30th:
Super Bowl TV Spots
There are always plenty of hyped up promos for the big spring movie trailers during the game on Sunday, so here's a preview for some of them.
First, it's an action-packed spot for Russell Crowe in Noah:
Now one for The Amazing Spider-Man 2:
Finally, a little tease for the preview of Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier:
Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor
In some truly baffling stunt casting, Variety reports that Jesse Eisenberg, of The Social Network fame, has been cast Lex Luthor in the Batman/Superman movie, and Jeremy Irons is Alfred. Lex is the big news though, because apparently they've decided to "modernize" the character by turning him into some kind of internet genius or something. I say that because when you cast Jesse Eisenberg of all people as a supervillain, clearly what you're going for is a more evil version of his Mark Zuckerberg. As much as I like him, that is what we're going to be getting here. Frankly, every new piece of news about this movie makes it sound worse, but maybe this could all turn out to be kind of gloriously entertaining in a "so bad it's good" kind of way?
REVIEW: "August: Osage County" (2013) Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts. Dir. John Wells
I went into August: Osage County expecting to be put off by the hammy acting on display from the big name cast, but honestly none of that bothered me in the slightest, as everyone on screen seem to be having a great time with the performances and the dialogue, and this movie is a wildly entertaining ride.
I say that everyone looked like they were having fun onscreen, which is surprising considering the bleakness of the material. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts (who also adapted script), August tells the story of a highly dysfunctional family who gathers together in the wake of the father's suicide (Sam Shepard), who seems to have finally given up after all these years living with his wife Violet (Meryl Streep), the matriarch who exists to make everyone's life a living hell. Violet's now dying of cancer (ironically, mouth cancer, as Shepard notes), succumbed to drug addiction, and things are only getting worse. When Shepard decides to remove himself from the situation, Violet's three daughters and their significant others all come home to face the monster, and family secrets start flying fast and loose.
This is a black comedy of sorts, as some of the insults are so over the top and mean-spirited it leads to full on physical confrontations that can't help but provoke astonished laughter (the scene where Violet's oldest daughter Barb lunges across the dinner table at her own mother's throat is particularly memorable), but the skeletons in the closet that are revealed are somewhat cliched of dysfunctional families in the movies (long ago affairs, etc.), and the fights that are provoked by character's interactions in the film are a tad predictable, in my opinion. Frankly, this material is extremely melodramatic and I'm shocked that the play won a Pulitzer Prize, but perhaps it plays differently on the stage. As a movie however, it's never less than entertaining because despite the familiar situation, the acting elevates the drama and Meryl Streep turns in another dominating performance as the nasty, manipulative Violet Weston who is never less than completely in control of everyone around her.
Streep sometimes has a tendency to draw attention to herself in her character roles, but I was always convinced that she flat out was this crazy woman, from her first scene to her last. She inhabits her fully and though the role is inherently big and showy, to me she felt like a real person, however awful and damaged that person may be. The poisonous barbs fly out of her mouth with a venomous glee and it's fun to watch, simply because when Mery Streep commits to a character like this, it is always something to see. For her part Julia Roberts is also very good in this movie as Barbara, the angry eldest daughter who is already on her way to becoming her mother. For me Roberts has always seemed to possess an underlying sardonic hostility beneath the surface of her smiling demeanor, and here she finally gets to let loose and the bitterness comes across as genuine and earned from the rotten childhood provided by living in such a disturbed household. Other standouts in the cast include Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper as Violet's sister and brother-in-law, who are more subtle in their performances (somebody had to be), but just as effective as part of the ensemble, and the two younger sisters and victims of Violet's wrath are Juliette Lewis and Julianne Nicholson, both very good as well.
The cast works well together in fact, and though TV veteran John Wells could be described as providing a kind of flat direction for the proceedings, I don't know how much more can be done with the material, which is primarily an actor's showcase set over a few scenes in one house. The most that could be said for this is that it's a movie that probably could have been on TV, given the inherent melodrama of the play itself- but for what it was, I was highly entertained from start to finish, and the actors make the experience worthwhile.
* * 1/2
TEASER: "Under the Skin"
The brand new red band teaser for the surrealist movie Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson. This made a big splash at the Venice Film Festival back in August, and is finally coming out stateside on April 4th:
The Academy Revokes Best Original Song Nomination
Ha! Apparently the Academy agreed with me that the Best Original Song nomination for "Alone, Yet Not Alone," from the movie of the same name (above) that no one has ever heard of, was a suspicious and embarrassing error, because they have now rescinded the nomination entirely. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Board of Governors convened last night to discuss stripping songwriter Bruce Broughton of his Oscar nod, and has now officially done it, declaring him as having "illegally lobbied" the music branch and used his own status as a former governor to influence others to vote for his song. Well, this little dust-up probably assures that more people will hear it than ever would have anyway, so despite Broughton's apparent "devastation," he can at least be happy about that.
NEW IMAGES: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"
Hype for the new X-Men movie coming out May 23rd has kicked into high gear. Empire has these new images, plus a couple more along with the set of covers for all the mutants (many of which have been derided by the fans). Looking at these pictures, I'd completely forgotten that Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde was back in this one:
TRAILER: "The Fault in Our Stars"
Shailene Woodley stars in the new romantic drama about teens with cancer falling in love. It's based on the novel by John Green, but it seems a bit Nicholas Sparks to me. Comes out June 6th:
Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Rush" (2013)
Another brand new film is your best bet this week on blu-ray, as Rush, Ron Howard's race car movie about Formula One, is finally out. This was a great movie, one of my favorites of the year actually, and it was sadly snubbed completely by the Oscars despite great reviews. Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl are the rivals James Hunt and Niki Lauda, who raced against each other in the 1976 Formula One season. It's an exciting, visceral thrill ride, so if you missed it in theaters (and you probably did), now's the time to give it a chance. Trust me, it's good.
Trailer:
REVIEW: "Her" (2013) Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson. Dir Spike Jonze
Her is a delightfully creative, sweet and refreshingly original movie from Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are), and the first that he wrote himself. Boasting two great performances, one from Joaquin Phoenix, who acts entirely alone on screen for most of the film, and one from Scarlett Johansson, who in a purely vocal turn, gives what's probably the best performance of her career.
In a near future that's the polar opposite of most depressing, apocalyptic futures we see in the movies, we are treated to a utopian, pastel colored Los Angeles, where high water pants are back in style and people walk around glued to their phones and handheld devices, usually talking to themselves in a crowd. The tech aspect of this future is not so hard to believe, as it's only a slight step forward from where we are now, and many will recognize the isolation that comes with constantly being wired in. The loneliness that persists in an otherwise utopian future is a fascinating idea that Jonze hooks onto, and Phoenix plays the protagonist, Theo, as a normal, friendly and sweet guy (a change from his usual eccentric characters), who's going through a divorce and wanting desperately to connect with someone, or something.
That connection comes with his new operating system, a device with high artificial intelligence named Samantha. Scarlett Johansson provides Samantha's voice, and astoundingly, with no visual or physical body to speak of, manages to create a fully formed, emotional, and functioning person out of the OS. Samantha is in many ways the ideal woman for any man- funny, sympathetic, encouraging and programmed to cater to his every need- yet Jonze also gives Samantha feelings of insecurity, jealousy and her own intellectual desires, meant to make her more endearingly human and convince us that Theo and Samantha can actually develop a real relationship of sorts. It doesn't require too much suspension of disbelief, since Samantha comes across so real (there are only a couple of moments where it crosses the line into silliness as you can't entirely forget that she IS an operating system, after all), and Phoenix's performance is so natural that you forget he's acting almost entirely alone in every scene.
Her is a meditation on relationships in general, a very personal movie that brings up ideas about how people relate to each other and what makes someone suited to one person and not another. What other supporting cast there is includes Amy Adams giving another great turn as Theo's nerdy best friend whose own marriage is breaking up, and Rooney Mara as Theo's bitter ex-wife who harbors resentments about the end of their relationship. The originality of the story is exciting to watch unfold, along with the look and feel of the production design that fills out all corners of the screen at every moment. The movie may be a tad long, as the middle section drags a bit before ramping up at the end, taking Samantha's journey to its logical conclusion- but this is a lovely romance and exploration of relationships, well worth seeing as one of the Oscar nominated films of the year.
* * * 1/2
