Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Touch of Evil" (1958)

Another movie that actually came out two weeks ago, but it's too good to skip over. Orson Welles' Touch of Evil is a classic film noir about corruption on a Mexican border town, starring a big cast that includes himself, Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh among others. Filled with typical Orson Welles flourishes, most famously that 3-minute opening tracking shot, this is a movie that was butchered by the studio upon initial release and not restored to the director's full vision until 1998- but when it was it was, the plot was finally somewhat comprehensible and now it's surely one of the best and most out there movies the eccentric Welles ever made. Check it out.

Original Trailer from 1958:

New Star Wars Cast Announced

Well, here they are. The studio has made the official announcement of the full cast for the new Star Wars movie, and it includes original trio Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, along with Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), and new additions Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson and Max Von Sydow. Rumors of Lupita Nyong'o possibly getting a part turned out not to be the case, as it appears they went with only one woman (kind of disappointing, in my opinion, although I'm guessing the girl is the daughter of Han and Leia). Here's the officially released picture of the table read with everybody. Star Wars Episode VII is coming out Dec 18, 2015. Are you excited?

TRAILER #2: "The Fault in Our Stars"

The second, extended trailer for the teen tearjerker coming out this summer makes it look slightly less cheesy than the first one did (but only very slightly). It still reminds me of that movie, A Walk to Remember, where Mandy Moore was dying of leukemia (remember that one?). That was also based on a bestselling book at the time. But I guess there's a chance this could be moving and not overly sentimental, right? Maybe? We'll see. It's coming out June 6th.

BOX OFFICE 4/25-4/27: 'The Other Woman' Knocks 'Captain America' Off its Throne

The critically savaged female revenge comedy The Other Woman pulled in a surprising $24 million over the weekend, to take the top spot away from Captain America finally. The movie attracted an audience that was more than 75% female and got a "B+" Cinemascore, so Fox is now hoping the movie will keep doing good business based on word of mouth-  a sad comment on the tastes of female moviegoers (and I say that as one of them) but good news for Cameron Diaz I suppose, who remains something of a box office draw despite the terrible movies she stars in.

Meanwhile, Captain America 2 fell to second place, earning $16 million for a $225 million total, showing strong resilience as two new superhero movies are set to come out over the next month- first The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and then X-Men: Days of Future Past. It's a question mark how well those movies will do now- Spider-Man has already opened to big numbers overseas but the early word on it is mixed-negative (we'll finally get major reviews this week), while the X-Men movie is currently reeling from the recent sexual assault accusations leveled against director Bryan Singer, who's dropped out of all promotion for the film. Rounding out the top five was Heaven is For Real, with 13 million (also showing strength), Rio 2 with just under that much, and Brick Mansions, Paul Walker's last completed film with $9.6 million.

Top 5:

1. The Other Woman- $24.7 million
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier- $16 million
3. Heaven is For Real- $13.8 million
4. Rio 2- $13.6 million
5. Brick Mansions- $9.6 million

Next week the big release is Amazing Spider-Man 2, which will I'm sure be a huge draw, but I'm more interested in how good it turns out since I kind of hated the first one, along with some low buzz, independent releases, so other than Spidey it'll be pretty quiet.

TRAILER: "Boyhood"

Richard Linklater's Boyhood was a smash hit at the Sundance Film Festival and a highly ambitious personal film from the director, who spent 12 years filming the same kid as he grew into a teenager. I can't wait to see it- the critics went pretty crazy over the results and it looks good from what you can tell in this trailer too. A coming of age story that promises to be unlike any other, Boyhood comes out July 11th.

REVIEW: "All is Lost" (2013) Robert Redford. Dir. J.C. Chandor.

Some movies require nothing but to simply sit back and let the story entertain you- whether that entertainment comes from the actors, action, visuals, whatever it may be that grabs your attention on the screen. And then there's a film like All is Lost, a very ambitious project to be sure, and one that demands the audience do practically all the work, and depending on what you bring to the experience, every person is likely to see a different movie.

Robert Redford stars as an old man lost at sea, and that is literally all we get of his character. We have no name, no back story, no characteristics for this man- I'm liable to describe him as not being a character at all, but a representation of all humanity, struggling to stay afloat against the forces of nature which are constantly knocking him down. This metaphysical reading may be the best way to interpret the film, as there is virtually no dialogue aside from a prologue read by Redford at the beginning, in which he reads what sounds suspiciously like a suicide note. With that bleakness assured from the start, the entirety of the film has us watching Redford in an epic struggle for survival after his boat is capsized by a floating cargo nearby. This is the opening scene and from then on we see the old man do everything possible to stay adrift for the next eight days, first in his boat and then in a life raft. Every move he makes is an endurance test, as he does everything right but is thwarted at every turn no matter how much time he buys himself. We feel that he's fighting the inevitable.

The film can be read as a metaphor for the aging process in some ways- Robert Redford is in his late seventies and at least coming closer to the end than many of us would like to think of ourselves as being. I have a feeling that particular aspect of the  journey may help this movie to resonate stronger with viewers of a certain age, while others will undoubtedly grow impatient with the pacing, lack of story and especially the lack of other characters on the screen. Redford must survive storms, sharks, and come to terms with what is very obviously the end of his long life. With no character arc to speak of, I think identifying with the end-of-life through natural causes element is crucial to connecting with this story, which will limit its appeal.

And yet the movie is undeniably an admirable achievement on a filmmaking level. This is only director J.C. Chandor's second film (his first was 2011's Margin Call),and  he shows great technical skill in having made this entire movie on the open seas in highly contained, small space areas. Redford himself has an incredibly difficult task with no real person to play, and for a performance he can only rely on his star power and ability to command the screen as he goes about the menial tasks of eating, drinking, attempting to repair his boat and consistently readjusting his expectation levels of what he's able to accomplish. It's a very physical performance, which one imagines is tough to extract from a nearly 80-year-old man, especially as he gets tossed around in the stormwaves and later in a lifeboat, but there's hardly one single instance of emotional reaction to any of these events. 

The lack of character beats and usual moviemaking techniques make for a film that does indeed turn out cliche-free, but forces itself on the viewer as a meditational experience, possibly requiring too much from the audience, which insists on some level of storytelling in their entertainment. On the other hand, what comes across is no less than exactly the movie Chandor and Redford intended to make and maybe that's enough for many. I'm of mixed feelings on All is Lost, respectful of the technical achievement but left coldly distant from what should have been a rather moving experience. This movie probably requires you to experience it for yourself in order to discover your own individual response to it.

* *

TRAILER: "The Trip to Italy"

Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon and director Michael Winterbottom are back in the follow-up to their 2010 movie The Trip, where they traveled the countryside, tasting foods and improvising jokes (and impressions). This was a hit at Sundance, so it's probably at least going to be as good as the first one, which contained an unexpected bit of poignancy to it as well. This time there's a change of scenery, as the duo cruises through Italy. I personally can never get enough of Coogan's Michael Caine.

Jessica Chastain to play Marilyn Monroe

I don't really know how many Marilyn Monroe biopics we need, but I suppose it's inevitable that there's another one in the works, as fascination with the late sex symbol and cultural icon never seems to die down. This time Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly) is slated to direct the project, entitled Blonde, and Jessica Chastain has just been signed to play Marilyn.

Actually though, I think this is pretty good casting. Chastain's already shown she has range as a character actress and if you saw her in The Help you know she can be that sort of effervescent blonde- I bet she'll do a good job with this. Blonde is set to come out in 2015, and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about it- what do you think? Can Jessica Chastain pull it off?

Lupita Nyong'o Named Most Beautiful Person

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o was announced as People Magazine's Most Beautiful Person Alive when they revealed their annual cover on The Today Show this morning:

Other usuals made the list too, like Julia Roberts, who I think has been on it almost every year since its inception. But a good choice, no?

Happy Birthday Jack Nicholson: His Five Best Performances

The icon turns 77 today, which is nuts, because you think about all the great movies he's starred in and so many of those classics (especially from 1970's) haven't aged at all. It's tough to narrow down a list, and before I do I've got to give shout outs to all the ones that could have easily made it on- Easy Rider, Reds, Five Easy Pieces, The Shining, Batman and The Passenger (I know leaving out both The Shining and Batman may be somewhat blasphemous), but here are my five favorite Jack performances out of all the movies he's made:

1) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Probably the quintessential Jack Nicholson performance and maybe the first one he gave that established that sly, rebel persona that he himself has imitated many times since then. As a guy in a mental hospital who's not crazy, he leads the rebellion against the evil Nurse Ratched, and you can't help but root for him, even though I always think when I watch this movie that all the other patients in this hospital probably should be in there, even if the nurse lady is evil.

2) Chinatown (1974)

This amazing neo-noir sees Jack playing it pretty straight actually, as a PI who uncovers the horrible mystery and secrets that lay among the seedy Los Angeles underbelly. But he's perfect as the man to uncover the truth and the audience is with him right through to the devastating, despairing ending.

3) Terms of Endearment (1983)

This is a role that might have been pretty easy for him to play, as it's another one of his "Jack being Jack" parts, but he's so good in it that it will always be one of my favorites. As drunken former astronaut Garrett Breedlove who brings the uptight Shirley MacLaine out of her shell, his comic timing is perfection and he's so funny, charming and subtle as he exposes just a hint of melancholy in accepting his own flaws, that he more than deserved that second Oscar he won for this movie.

4) Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Definitely one of the darkest characters he ever played, and he really goes all out as the misogynistic sex addict who ruins all the women he comes in contact with, and creates a deeper and more miserable hole within himself as keeps doing it. His performance in this movie is really daring, as he shows a total willingness to go deep into the bowels of misery and depravation, making it a character study that exposes a certain kind of man's feelings of entitlement and self-loathing. It's pretty raw.

5) About Schmidt (2002)

One of the more surprising movies in his later career, because he sheds all the typical Jack mannerisms (this was long after he'd quit being anyone other than himself onscreen) and I honestly didn't see him in this film, but rather the sad, tired old man he was supposed to be. For managing to strip away that devilish twinkle in the eye and turning in a quiet character performance more in line with what he would have tried in his earlier career, I wish he hadn't won his third Oscar for As Good As it Gets and instead gotten it for this. It would have been earned.

Happy Earth Day

To mark the occasion I've got a special recommendation, although it's not exactly a movie. For Earth Day I encourage you to watch Planet Earth, the eleven part documentary series commissioned by the BBC's Natural History Unit. It's an amazing show that takes you to a different part of the planet for each episode, where they look at the habitat, history and wildlife of the area. It aired back in 2006 and was narrated by David Attenborough, although when it was on the Discovery Channel in the U.S., for some reason Sigourney Weaver took over the narration duties (does it really make people want to watch a nature documentary more knowing that a celebrity's voice is talking over it?) It was actually filmed in High Def and now that the complete series is on blu-ray, looks absolutely incredible on your TV. Trust me, if you start one episode, you'll be hooked on the whole thing.

Here's a segment from the series that shows a pride of lions going after an elephant. It's crazy how they managed to obtain that footage at all:

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Double Indemnity" (1944)

This was actually released on blu-ray last week, but it's a far better selection than anything that came out today. One of the all time great film noirs with the woman who practically created the femme fatale at the center of it. Billy Wilder wrote and directed this story of a man (Fred MacMurray) who falls prey to the wiles of a dangerous woman (the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck) who gets him to conspire to murder her husband. Everyone knows this story by now (there's also a really good remake of this in 1981's Body Heat), but this is the original and every inch of it is cool, cunning perfection. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

Original 1944 Trailer: