Cinderella

March 19, 2015March 19, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Miracles happen! I actually liked a live action Disney fairytale offering. It’s shocking after such dismal failures as Maleficent and Alice in Wonderland but I’ve always said if I was going to like one it would probably be Cinderella. As I explained in my previous post I am a huge Cinderella fan and have become a bit of a collector of versions over the years. To me it’s remarkable how the same story can be taken and molded in different ways with equally satisfying results. Each version makes choices on what it is trying to teach its viewers and how the basic tale plays out.

So what about this latest version? Well, I’m delighted to say I loved it!

It starts off differently than any other version I can recall by spending a lot of time with Cinderella and her Mother and Father. They teach her to be ‘kind and courageous’ in all things.

After Cinderella’s mother dies they spend time with just her and her father and then when he marries Cate Blanchett’s Lady Tremaine we see her try to elevate the house with parties and gambling. I don’t think I’ve seen a version with as much time spent with Cinderella, her father and Stepmother.

Lady Tremaine is very jealous of the relationship between her husband and his daughter and we learn later that it is because she once had such a love but he was taken from her. She feels she never got her happy ending which I thought was a clever spin on the character.

Blanchett is so good as Lady Tremaine. It feels like she is enacting her revenge on life on Cinderella and it makes her a deliciously complex and fun villain.

They stick pretty closely to the animated version (thank goodness) once the story gets going and I enjoyed seeing little easter eggs to the original throughout. For instance, she is getting eggs and is humming ‘Sweet Nightingale’ which is a number I love with the bubbles in the original.

Cinderella works very hard as always and she has friends with the mice who thankfully don’t talk but are just cute squeakers. Lily James is much better than I expected her to be as Cinderella. She is is fine in Downton Abbey but shines much more here. There is a warmth to her that reminded me of a young Kate Winslet.

One day she is out riding and meets the Prince who she convinces to not kill a magnificent steer in his hunting party. The Prince played by Richard Madden gets a fair amount of time here and I thought he did a good job. He wants to marry for love and maybe even a nice country girl which I thought was cute.

Cinderella’s kindness towards the steer is what impresses him the most and he can’t get her out of his mind. When his father the King insists he get married he proposes a ball where all the eligible maidens in the land can attend. This is, of course, a ploy to get to see and hopefully woe Cinderella again.

The announcement is made and Lady Tremaine and her daughters get right to work. The stepsisters are played with a lot of nasty humor by Downton Abbey’s Sophie McShera and Hayley Atwell and the costumes are magnificent by 3 time Oscar winner Sandy Powell (I think there are like 3 women who have won all the costume Oscars…).

I was kind of hoping the sisters would have the big bustles like in the original. That would have been hilarious but their costumes were so bright and colorful I enjoyed it.

Then we get to the devastating moment of Cinderella trying to go to the ball. In this the mice don’t make the dress and nothing is stolen. She refits her Mother’s dress in pink which makes Lady Tremaine all the more angry at Cinderella for both presuming to go to the ball, compete with her daughters for the Prince and for bringing up her Mother. She quite viciously tears the sleeve off the dress and Cinderella is devastated.

And this is what most people get wrong about this moment- Cinderella is not devastated about the ball and her chance to meet the Prince. She is devastated because the story her Mother taught her about ‘kindness and courage’ seems to have been a lie. It does not win in the end and that’s the hope which has been shattered.

Haven’t we all had such a dark moment where we are in need of rescue? Well, I believe like Cinderella if we are good people the rescue comes and so it does here with the Fairy Godmother played by Helena Bonham Carter.

When she’s not in a Tim Burton movie I really like Carter (such as in The King’s Speech). Here she is magical, silly and a little absent minded. I also really liked the way they did the transformation of the lizards, mice and geese. It was a slow change and you could still see characteristics of the animals in the final creations.

When I had seen trailers I didn’t care for Cinderella’s dress. The animated dress is like liquid diamonds, so beautiful but the way they explain is actually touching and the look grew on me.

The scene at the ball is gorgeous and there is genuine chemistry between the Prince and Cinderella. Mostly just a sense of freedom for our heroine and that she is getting a break from all the hardness in her life (don’t we all need a break from the hardness!).

As I said, Lily James is so likable in the role and you root for her without her feeling cheesy or preachy. It really does feel like she believes in kindness and courage and is trying hard to lead a good life.

I won’t spoil any more of it for you but I thought the way it played out with Cinderella and Lady Tremaine was brilliant and I loved how they handled the glass slipper sequence.

The supporting cast is all great and I liked there was a little bit of diversity for this kind of story. Stellan Skarsgard is good as the Duke, Derek Jacobi as the King and my particular favorite was Nonso Anozie as the Prince’s Captain who was funny in every scene he’s in.

There will be some who will claim Cinderella isn’t modern enough. That it doesn’t show an empowered independent woman and that may be true (although not in every version of the story). They will often claim it tells young girls marriage to a Prince is the answer to all of life’s problems. In my view that is the an extremely superficial reading of Cinderella and a story which has persisted in popularity since the Middle Ages deserves a little more pondering.

The reason Cinderella is powerful is because it teaches young girls that no matter what happens to them they should never give up hope. In that sense it is very empowering. In this version it also teaches us that kindness and courage always win over cruelty and deceit. Cinderella is not valued merely on her looks but her goodness and that is why she is rescued from her unhappy state. May we all have that hope in our dark times.

After all a dream is a wish your heart makes…

Overall Grade- A+ Content Grade- A+ (nothing offensive in this at all)

My youtube review

Night at the Museum 3 Review

March 16, 2015March 17, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

Not every movie is a masterpiece but you can still enjoy it and that’s how I always felt about the Night at the Museum movies. They weren’t ‘good’ movies but I liked them and they had enough laughs and overall charm to make them worth a watch. I kind of feel the same about the National Treasure movies. I can imagine that back in the day lots of movies were made like them. Whether it was a stock shoot em up western or a fun action adventure show Hollywood has always made campy family friendly movies that are entertaining if not particularly memorable.

Unfortunately even these innocent franchises can strain the tenuous chord of likability they have and I’m afraid that is what Night at the Museum 3: Secret of the Tomb has done. Even with such marginal expectations I was really disappointed by it. Especially with the talent, it is a really lame film.

If you are unaware of the series it is a pretty simple set up. Basically Ben Stiller plays a night watchman at the Natural History Museum in New York and each night the characters from the museum become alive including a strange mixture of history and natural history that I don’t think any museum actually has. We have everything from Atilla the Hun to Teddy Roosevelt to a T-Rex. It is basically a Toy Story premise with various challenges threatening to shut down the museum and end the nightly lives of our heroes. The key to making it work is having enough characters and a witty enough script to keep it moderately entertaining. For instance, Night at the Museum 2 was helped immeasurably by Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart and Bill Hader as General Custer.

Unfortunately in Museum 3 the script isn’t funny enough and the new cast is woefully underused. The new challenge to the cast of characters is the magical tablet is starting to get a green mold on it and the magic is starting to lessen. Through convoluted series of events they all have to go to London to find the Egyptian home of the tablet and they all come with Ben Stiller’s Larry. The main new additions in London are Rebel Wilson as a security guard who doesn’t get one good joke sadly and I love her so much. She tries so hard to get the laughs but the material just isn’t there.

They also meet Lancelot played by Dan Stevens who isn’t campy enough. He isn’t fun enough. I kept thinking- “You left Lady Mary with a baby for this!”

There was one funny scene where Lancelot storms in on Hugh Jackman playing King Arthur in Camelot on a stage. Got to hand it to Jackman for being willing to laugh at his Wolverine character and public persona.

I kind of felt like Night at the Museum 3 was trying to make a touching send off without giving us a good story on its own. It’s really a shame because it is our last appearance of Robin Williams and he is the one spot where the goodbye tone feels earned. I wish there was more for him to do than just say goodbye.

To show how this movie wastes talent we have Steve Coogan and Owen Wilson as the miniatures- two of the funniest men out there and their humor just falls flat. This movie even resorts to characters getting urinated on. I mean that is Adam Sandler territory and with such talent it is a real shame.

The worst part is the time spent with Ben Stiller and his son who wants to skip college and become a DJ. That’s just what I want in my campy family comedy, teenage father arguments. I mean how is that fun for kids?

In the end, I went in with very modest, measured expectations but Night at the Museum 3 couldn’t even meet those. It was just a waste and the only time I laughed was the Hugh Jackman bit and I did like saying goodbye to Robin Williams even if I wish he’d gotten more.

As far as content aside from the urinating monkey there isn’t anything offensive or bothersome. That said, I really don’t think it will have much to entertain kids. I think they will be bored by a lot of the relationship stuff and Egyptian tomb mumbo jumbo. I’d say Penguins of Madagascar is much funnier recent family comedy or even Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day.

So in the end I can’t see giving it any higher than a D+

The Giver: A Review

March 10, 2015March 10, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

I guess this is just the weekend for me to watch drab sad movies based on popular books. Any person would have to admit that Fault in Our Stars is a better movie than the Giver but it angered me more where The Giver was just uniformly bland. It’s a shame too because I love the novel and have been to a Lois Lowry lecture and heard her talk about the characters and world so lovingly. It pains me to say it but The Giver is not a very good movie.

In truth it should never have been made in the first place. It’s basically a book about a boy who sits in an office, receives memories and then decides to leave. That works in the book but in the movie it feels like a dystopian therapist session that’s not very interesting.

They actually get the world pretty good except they invite color way too early and the appearance of color isn’t nearly shocking enough for Jonas. He doesn’t seem to be really effected by what he see’s until the war when in the book every session is jaw dropping for him. It is also way more of an emotional journey for The Giver where here it seems like he decides last minute to go along with Jonas’ plan. In the book he tells him about his daughter earlier and they seem like son and father deeply connected.

I thought they handled the baby ‘release’ about as chillingly yet not grotesque way as they could and the father never seemed trustworthy where in the book he totally does. Katie Holmes is terrible and I am all the more convinced she cannot act to save her life.

I guess I’m jumping ahead of myself. If you are unfamiliar with The Giver it is a dystopian novel (written long before the recent trend yet the last one to make it to the big screen…) about a society which has removed all choices, memory and emotion from human experience. Each day the residents are given injections to dull their senses and all abnormalities, even pleasant one’s like twins or babies who cry too much, are removed so all conformity is ensured.

The residents have lost the ability to see colors and are living in black and white, happy with the choices they are given. They are also taught to use ‘precise language’ such as talking about why they love someone not just saying ‘I love you’. They also are taught to never lie and to always apologize for everything.

At the beginning the graduating seniors are given their assigned roles and careers and young Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is given the rare responsibility as ‘The Receiver of Memories’. He is assigned to the current receiver or The Giver played by Jeff Bridges. He is told he will live by different rules than everyone else and he stops taking the pills and injections.

The Giver then gives Jonas all the memories of society- the wars, joys, and colors, and this naturally causes him to feel conflicted. Everything is heightened when he finds out more about his father and they have a new baby assigned them named Gabe. There is also a girl he wrestles with feelings for named Fiona played by Odeya Rush.

Meryl Streep is a convincing villain as The Chief Elder who is the only one besides The Giver who knows what is really going on. However, she like any despot convinces herself that the suffering is for the best. “When people choose, they choose wrong” she says.

Evidently this was a passion project for Jeff Bridges and he is good as The Giver but the structure of the story just doesn’t work as a movie. It’s too much people sitting talking and sharing random events and that works in the book but not in the movie. I don’t think there is anything they could have done to have made it work. Once Jonas breaks free and is out of the Giver sessions I felt it gets some momentum and I started to care more. That last segment and the last scene with the sled was very good.

Maybe a really artistic director like Terry Gilliam or the way Ridley Scott directed Blade Runner it could have worked but I think you’d have to work a little more action into the story or find a way to narrate the memory giving so you get the emotion shared in the book into the movie.

I actually think it could work very well as a TV series where each week he confronts a new memory and things build bit-by-bit. You could really get to know the characters and the memories a little bit more than you can in a movie. Thoughts?

I really love the book so it’s a shame. It’s the kind of book 100 people could read and get 100 different messages out of it. Some see it as very religious. Others as agnostic and according to Lowry both are right. That’s what makes it a great book but a challenging movie.

The movie also does embrace the Biblical allegories more than the book. We see apples and the idea of original sin is discussed more than memories on their own. I didnt mind that but I also like the subtlety of the book a little better

Everyone tries and it isn’t terrible, but like The Book Thief movie it has all of the pieces but none of the magic. Read the book instead. In my opinion it is a much better book than The Hunger Games (and much less cynical).

As far as content a baby is killed but it is mostly off screen. Jonas is chased with a baby and war and other pain is depicted in the memories. Other than that it is pretty tame. No language that I can recall.

Overall Grade- C Content Grade- A

I wrote this post and then looked at an old comment I made when it first came out. Looks like I thought it could be a good TV series then and still do now! Some things never change! Funny. (And I was right on about Lowry focusing more on characters than setting which is unusual for dystopian novels)

McFarland USA Review

February 25, 2015February 2, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

I got the chance to see a very special film today, McFarland USA. I know you see the pictures and you probably think it’s like every other motivational sports movie but I’m telling you it is a special movie. I happen to love sports movies like Warrior, Hoosiers and Miracle and this is right up there with those great films but it has a human component that you don’t always see which I found very moving.

McFarland starts out kind of like Hoosiers with Kevin Costner’s Jim White getting in an altercation with a football player and getting fired. As a last resort him and his family get a job in McFarland, California, a poor crop picking agricultural mostly latino town.

His wife played by the always lovely Maria Bello and daughter Julie (Morgan Saylor) and daughter Jamie are at first disgusted and a little scared of living in McFarland. It is a seemingly dangerous neighborhood in a foreign land.

One of the things I learned on my 20 month mission for my church was in every poor ‘scary’ neighborhood there are families trying desperately to make things work and to make things better for their children. We have this idea you cross the tracks and it leads to inherent gang activity just isn’t true. McFarland USA does a good job showing this reality. That there are good neighbors in every neighborhood in America. That’s a great lesson for kids.

Costner ends up getting fired as assistant football coach but the principal (Valente Rodriguez) who I loved every scene he was in can’t lose any teachers so he keeps Costner around.

As he teaches PE he starts to notice many of the kids can run and he gets the crazy idea to start a cross country team.

The boys initially resist being on the team because they have work crop picking to do before and after school. Costner even goes out to work at the picking one day and he says it was the ‘worst day of work in his life’ but he vows to make it work for the team and the more time together the more bonded he and the boys get.

This material could have so easily veered into caricature and simplistic portrayals of a white man in a latino world but it doesn’t. The conversations and personalities felt authentic and real. Each of the boys has their own personality but not in the archetype way of Mighty Ducks. These are individuals and we root for every last one of them.

I particularly liked Carlos Pratts as team captain and star runner Thomas Valles. It is a subtle conflicted sweet performance and character.

I also thought the home drama as Costner’s family tries to find a home in McFarland and his daughter Julie turns 15 and gets a quinceanera.

There was a point at the end when I was worried it was going to go the Pay it Forward route and give us an awful ending but then it didn’t so all was well.

It’s really quite the feat because I can’t think of a sport that is more boring to watch than cross country but the sport is just window dressing to a movie about teens, our failing educational system, family, culture, poverty and giving people something to dream about.

I really can’t say enough good things about it. It has huge heart, good performances, and shows a side of urban life we rarely see- the functioning happy families that do exist and add so much to our country.

I think everyone should see and take your kids. It’s a real winner. Trust me on this. It’s great.

There are a few tense moments but other than that nothing to offend or be concerned about. A family film that will inspire everyone.

Overall Grade- A, Content Grade- A

Last Five Years: A Review

February 24, 2015February 24, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

After venting my annoyance at yesterday’s Oscars I decided to watch the new film version of one of my favorite Broadway musicals- The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown. Faith now restored in movies 🙂

The show and movie are about a couple whose relationship lasts 5 years. Cathy played by the luminous Anna Kendrick dreams of being a Broadway star. Jamie played by Jeremy Jordan is a young novelist whose first novel is a big hit.

The timeline for the movie is very clever. It starts out with Cathy getting the break up letter and singing. While Jamie begins the movie at the beginning of the relationship and then it flips back and forth. I thought that was neat. (The play is divided into separate segments on the stage and they get together for a duet at the proposal)

Here’s the trailer

I love, love, love, love, love the music and they translate it to the movies very well. We know from Pitch Perfect and Into the Woods Anna Kendrick can sing but her voice is at its best here. Jeremy Jordan isn’t quite as good but he still holds his own.

The music in Last Five Years sounds like simple narration but trust me it is very tough to pull off and they do a great job here. See I’m Smiling is my particular favorite. It is such a well written song that goes through every emotion from hope, happiness to anger to despair.

One word of profanity in this but I just love it. (I like every song in this show. They feel so authentic, human and real)

The show and movie does a great job showing the complete journey of a couple with the highs and lows. Jordan and Kendrick have wonderful chemistry and it feels like they love and hate each other depending on the moment. Kind of like Boyhood on the surface it is simple, just the story of a couples ups and downs over 5 years, but it tells us so much about love and life along the way.

It is also not a downer with very funny sequences like ‘In Ohio’ when Cathy is working trying to catch the eye of someone who can give her a part in New York.

For someone who is a die hard musical fan I don’t find that many new movie musicals I like. Most are either too explicit, vulgar or dopey. Into the Woods was great until the 3rd act and then the tone went all wrong. However, The Last Five Years is the exception to the rule. I loved it. You can watch it on demand or in theaters so please check it out! (Wish more movies did that).

As far as content it has a little profanity, sensuality and a character has multiple affairs but it is pretty tame. Certainly appropriate for teens and up.

Content Grade- B, Overall Grade- A

Imitation Game: A Review

February 21, 2015February 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

As I said in my American Sniper review I saw it and Imitation Game on the same day and they are more similar than you might at first think. They are both about unusual men who saved lives in time of war.

The Imitation Game is about the mathematician Alan Turing who invented an early computer that helped the British to solve the enigma coding machine the Germans used.

At the end of the movie they say Christopher (Turing’s machine) saved 14 million lives and helped end the war 2 years sooner. That is pretty amazing especially for someone I’ve never heard of before this year.

The reason why we haven’t heard of Alan Turing is his untimely death in 1954 and the fact the entire code breaking enterprise was kept secret for 50 years.

In a lot of ways The Imitation Game is a lot like The Theory of Everything. Both about geniuses who aren’t appreciated at first but end up making great contributions. Both have personal struggles that make it even harder for them to be accepted- Stephen Hawking his disability and Alan Turing being gay at a time where it was illegal to do so.

Both are good movies but I would say The Imitation Game is better although it falls into some of the same standard biopic formulas we’ve seen before.

Of the 4 biopics nominated for best picture I’d rate them- Selma, American Sniper, Imitation Game and Theory of Everything. And they are all good movies just Game and Everything are a little predictable and formulaic.

Benedict Cumberbatch is very good as Alan Turing and I thought Keira Knightley was pretty good as his fiance and friend. The rest of the cast is good with the exception of Charles Dance playing the obligatory stick in the mud boss who doesn’t recognize genius we’ve seen in a million other movies. I could have also done without the cop interviewing Turing narration throughout that felt extremely phony. I don’t think anyone had to tell a gay man in 40’s England to keep quiet about their homosexuality. This is a genius we are talking about.

Matthew Goode and Allen Leach (from Downton Abbey) take small parts as members of the code breakers and all the sets and costuming is very well done. Alexandre Desplat’s music is also very moving and not over the top like so many biopics.

The movie ends on a very sad note that is necessary as it is the real events but I couldn’t help but wish the movie had been a little less formulaic to help absorb that sadness- it kind of came out of left field. But it was tragic for sure.

Cumberbatch is great as Turing. He is basically playing the same role as he is in Sherlock so if you like him there you will like him here. He is vulnerable and awkward yet still likable in a way few actors could pull off. The parts with the codebreaking were new and I learned something. And like I said the rest of the performances are great. Overall a very entertaining enlightening film.

It is also nice that it tells the story of a gay man without an agenda or vulgarity being shoved at the screen. It’s just his story. I love that and think it is perhaps more impactful than some films that are more blatant and heavy-handed in their messaging. I certainly was moved by it.

As far as content it is pretty clean. There is a little bit of PG-13 level profanity and one sexually explicit joke I’m surprised they could slip by with but other than that a film appropriate for middle school and up and a worthwhile message and story to learn about.

Overall Grade- B+, Content Grade- A

American Sniper Review

February 21, 2015February 21, 2015 | Rachel's Reviews

So I just saw American Sniper and Imitation Game so will post both reviews in the next little bit. It was quite the downer of a double header I must admit but they actually have more in common than you might think. Both movies are about men in times of war who’s unusual excellence saved soldiers lives.

American Sniper is the story of Chris Kyle played by Bradley Cooper, the greatest sniper in Navy Seals history who was referred to as ‘The Legend’ by other seals. There is lots of controversy over the wars overseas, Chris Kyle, his book, and some of his statements. I’m really not going to get into all of that. I am just judging the movie. It is God’s place to judge Chris Kyle and any others who had the guts to do something I could never do for a cause they believed in.

To those that feel American Sniper is a propaganda piece for a war that is a mistake, I would make this counter argument. Imagine if you had a movie about a German WWII soldier. The soldier may do great and admirable things for what most believe is a wrong cause but that doesn’t make the actions themselves and the way HE see’s them any different than any other soldier. Chris Kyle is a man who did what he was told to do and saved many of his Navy Seal brethren lives and far be it for me or anybody else to put the condemnation of a cause on the shoulders of one man.

I happen to believe there was value in the cause and what we did over there but that is a conversation for another day on another blog. American Sniper does not really turn Chris Kyle into a hero. It is clear he is very uncomfortable with such recognition. He is a man who did his job and that job was saving Navy Seals and Marines.

The movie is brutal. It’s a tough sit through, and I had many a moment where I had to look away or close my eyes because it was too intense. That’s not a mark against it. War and its horrors are the one type of violence that I think is important and worth seeing. Director Clint Eastwood does a great job helping you feel like you are there with Chris Kyle and the other soldiers in Chris’ four tours of duty. For a man famous for being a sniper you feel on the ground with the troops a lot.

Al-qaeda has their own sniper called Mustafa which kind of puts both sides on equal playing field (if you can call it that) in the movie. It is clear the conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq is one of individual houses and skirmishes with neighborhoods. Not the rows of cavalry or the mass of soldiers we see in other war movies. It makes sense why a sniper would be needed because it’s such an individual version of warfare.

The only other movie I can think of which has shown this type of conflict was the Hurt Locker and I personally think American Sniper is much better. I certainly felt way more invested in Chris Kyle’s story than anyone in that movie.

I thought that Clint Eastwood does a good job keeping a narrative throughout each tour and Chris’ time at home. At each intense period of fighting there will be a call to his wife played by Sienna Miller, thus bringing the family into the action and then at home he will have flashbacks bringing the action to the home. I thought it was interesting how both times seemed equally intense but in different ways. In war Chris seemed to wish he could save more men and at home Chris wished he could save more men.

Like I said it is a brutal movie. It is graphic, violent and disturbing but it is war people. I would have been more bothered if it wasn’t all of those things. Again it felt like you were there with Chris on the ground and Clint Eastwood does a great job of building a comradery with Chris and his men quickly so that way when things happen you as a viewer feel the loss or fear along with Chris. It’s pretty remarkable the way he does that sometimes in just one conversation or smile you feel bonded to a soldier.

The movie doesn’t really make Chris Kyle into a hero. If it was a Stephen Spielberg movie there would have been soaring music and dramatic speeches. There isn’t any of that. Just a man who did what he had to do in his worldview.

The language is very bad but what you might expect out of a bunch of soldiers risking their life everyday. American Sniper is the kind of movie I won’t ever want to watch again but I am very glad I saw once. I feel I got a tiny bit of insight into what our brave men and women do over there. I know it is still a movie but it’s at least more insight than I had this morning before seeing it.

The ending when you’ve just seen Chris Kyle growing and changing is devastating. It just doesn’t seem right with all he went through for it to have come to that.

Again it is not our place to judge a man like Chris Kyle. He did what he had to do and he saved many lives. That is the story of American Sniper and it tells that story well. The rest of Chris Kyle or the value of the war itself is for another movie, another discussion. I was very moved by American Sniper and I’m glad I saw it. It’s brutal but I’m glad I saw it.

Bradley Cooper is terrific as Kyle. He’s proud, stoic, vulnerable.

Overall Grade- A Content Grade- F (although I don’t think it is Adults only. It’s war! Teens should be able to appreciate that).

Interstellar Review

February 17, 2015April 9, 2016 | Rachel's Reviews

I just finally got back from seeing Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi space movie Interstellar and my response is WOW! In a way my experience with this movie was kind of unique when compared with other bloggers and reviews you might see. Most people were extremely excited for this movie and then when it was different and more challenging than they expected they were disappointed (at least most people I know). I on the other hand because I had waited had the opposite situation. I was expecting to be bored and was totally engrossed. So perhaps chalk it up to low expectations but I thought it was great! I am also not a Christopher Nolan fangirl. I love Inception but his other very popular movies I am more mixed on because I do not like scary or violent movies.

I also am a huge fan of 2013’s Gravity and I wondered if I could tolerate another space movie since that one was done so well. Well in my opinion Interstellar is an entirely different experience from Gravity. It is like a combination of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Wrinkle in Time (wrap your brain around that). Gravity is more of a thriller in space where this is a sci-fi drama.

I will try and tell you the plot but I actually don’t think the plot matters that much. It’s about the experience of characters more than the intricacies of black holes and tesseracts. It’s kind of like in Star Wars we didn’t need to know all the mumbo jumbo about midi-chlorians and how the force works. We just need to see that it is working. We didn’t need to know about trade alliances and intergalactic treaties. We just needed to know these are the good guys, this is the obstacle and these are the bad guys. That’s the difference between the prequels which fail and the originals that succeed (and terrible acting, special effects and writing…)

With Interstellar I do not need one more minutia explained to me. I just need to see it happen and how the characters react as they face challenges. That’s it and it does it very well with stunning imagery and relationships that feel genuine and sincere. Some have said it is boring. I honestly did not feel that way. I was engrossed the whole way. To me Interstellar checks every box of a great sci-fi film. It has characters I like, cool setting, action, mounting tension and strong allegorical or teaching plot elements. Again, I do not need to know anything about the science. It could be complete hokum and it wouldn’t matter because within the world of the movie it works. A lot of people hate the ending but I found it emotionally moving and again right what I wanted in a good sci-fi movie.

The heart of the movie is a man named Cooper played by Matthew McConaughey. He is an engineer/farmer who lives in Texas with his 2 children and father in-law (Mackenzie Foy, Timothee Chalamet and John Lithgow respectively). It feels like a real family and the movie does a good job building up their relationships in the early sections.

They are living in a dust-bowl world where crops are dying and the human race is in danger. It is unclear what the timeframe for the world’s destruction is but again that doesn’t matter. All that matters is we have an ending and a reason to go into space. Cooper had been a skilled pilot and through various means he and his daughter named Murphy meet a man named Prof Brand played by Michael Cain and his daughter Dr Amelia Brand played by Anne Hathaway. They have been operating NASA under secret with a plan to dive into a wormhole to find 3 potentially habitable planets. The hope is they can move the human race to these planets as earth is dying.

Cooper is recruited to lead the mission but he knows going into the wormhole will likely mean his family will age ahead of him because of the theory of relativity. His daughter Murphy tries to get him to stay but he goes and she is very bitter for some time. Eventually she grows up to be both Jessica Chastain and Ellen Burystyn who actually all look a lot like little Mackenzie Foy so it works. Casey Affleck plays the son Tom as an adult. He stays hopeful longer but eventually is forced to give up on his father but he stays in the old home running the farm.

Amelia, Cooper, 2 other astronauts and 2 robots (who I loved. They have different comedy and truth telling settings. I kept waiting for them to be creepy robots but they weren’t) are on the mission. Fairly quickly they get through the wormhole and must decide what planet to try and visit first (astronauts had been sent to all the planets previously). They end up meeting up with another astronaut played by Matt Damon and have one challenge and adventure after another. Their relationships are tested and they have to make difficult decisions to save themselves, their family and the human race. Now that is drama! I don’t want to give much more away about the plot. But again I really thought the ending worked for this kind of story and movie.

It hopefully goes without saying that the special effects are astonishing and they feel palatable and real not like a green screen world. There is humor mixed in with tense scenes where I honestly did not know what was going to happen. That’s a real accomplishment in 2014 to make a sci-fi movie that surprises people. There are very few character tropes and contrivances needed. Just a story about relationships, family and exploration in space! It’s like the Lewis and Clark of space movies.

Most movie fans that I know look back at 1969 Oscars and wonder ‘how the heck did 2001: A Space Odyssey not get nominated for Best Picture?”. I mean it might not be everyone’s cup of tea but to not even get nominated is ridiculous. After all, how many people are still talking about Oliver! these days! I have a funny feeling we will have the same experience in 2061 with Interstellar. We will wonder what the heck were they thinking nominating a forgettable movie like The Theory of Everything over Interstellar? It’s kind of sad actually. I only wish I had waited to do my best of 2014 because this and several other recent views would certainly have made the list.

The only problem I had with the movie was I did not care for the score. Hanz Zimmer is great but I found the music to be overbearing, too loud and at times distracting. I would have gone with a more soft, subtle score like they had in Gravity which had long stretches with no music at all.

But that is a very small complaint. I loved it! A great sci-fi movie.

As far as content there isn’t much to offend. It does have tension and maybe one swear that I noticed but it’s pretty clean. Kids might find it hard to follow but it just depends on the kid. If they like sci-fi movies than they may love it. It’s certainly always good for kids to see movies that challenge them and make them think in new ways. Interstellar will totally do that.

Overall Grade- A+ Content Grade- A

Birdman: A Review

February 16, 2015July 30, 2018 | Rachel's Reviews

Recently I had the chance to watch the Oscar nominated film Birdman: or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance and I’m afraid, like with Gone Girl ,my opinion is not as positive as the public at large….It has many strengths but some problems I have a hard time ignoring.

Let’s start with the positives. Birdman is about a man named Riggan Thomson played my Michael Keaton who used to be a superhero action star for a franchise called ‘Birdman’. Evidently at one point he could have done Birdman 3 but stepped away from the franchise out of artistic integrity and his career never recovered. Now years later he is trying to make a comeback in a broadway play based on a Raymond Carver short story.

Edward Norton also stars as a young, high strung method actor who thinks he’s better than Riggan and condescends to be in the show because of his friendship with a first time actress Lesley played by Naomi Watts. Emma Stone plays Riggan’s daughter who is recently out of rehab, Andrea Risenborough is his girlfriend and Zach Galifianakis is his lawyer and best friend.

Birdman has very good performances especially from Keaton. He is great, vulnerable, believable, authentic and tragic. The whole rest of the cast is great and nuanced in their roles (although actors playing actors may not be that much of a stretch…).

Birdman’s cinematography is also a huge accomplishment. It is edited to look like the whole film is done in one take so there are very few cuts from one person shot, to 2 person shot like in a normal movie. The camera just moves fluidly from a scene to another scene as if someone was walking from one area of the hallway to another hearing different gossip along the way.

Here’s my issue with the film. It really bothered me the way women are treated. Now before you roll your eyes at another feminist movie review hear me out. I don’t care if a movie has weak, shallow women. That’s fine and certainly the strong empowered woman can be equally clichéd. However, I do have a problem when every female in a picture is weak, shallow, mean, petty and shrill.

Let’s go over quickly the women we get in Birdman.

1. Andrea Risenborough as Riggan’s girlfriend Laura who pretends to be pregnant in order to manipulate him into committing to their relationship. She is shrill and judgmental and a real jerk

2. Next we get Lesley played by Naomi Watts who has always dreamed of being on Broadway. The movie seems to judge her for this dream as if Riggan’s is the realist and Lesley is the naive simpleton. We see so little of her acting that it is hard to say one way or another. What really upset me is in an early scene Edward Norton tries to force himself on Lesley in an attempted rape on stage so that he can be “in the moment” and then the movie forgets about this far too quickly. It was extremely distasteful. I’m not saying the movie endorses Norton’s choice but it doesn’t take it seriously enough.

3. There is a lesbian kiss between Lesley and Laura which I felt was only there to titillate men not for any plot device or importance. To be clear I am not offended by the kiss but haven’t we moved on from when gay/lesbian kisses and relationships were included to sensationalize or for comic relief? Apparently not. There is no relationship between them and it means nothing. I saw no reason to include it and it was never discussed again.

4. Emma Stone playing Sam, Riggan’s daughter, is probably the best female character in the movie but she is still very judgmental and preachy to her father. Can’t she see that he is trying to do something important and good? You would think she would appreciate that but instead she lectures him about how he is worthless and nobody cares.

5. Amy Ryan has a few scenes with Riggans as his ex-wife who hates Riggan but is still attracted to him. She’s very shrill with a couple softer moments. (not in the movie much).

5. The worst of it all is a woman named Tabitha Dickinson who is a famous theater critic from the New York Times. She knows she can make or break a Broadway show by her review and she tells Riggan she is going to destroy him and his play before even seeing it. She feels this way because she resents celebrities infringing on the Broadway scene. This was outrageous. Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think there is a critic worth their ticket stub who would decide on a review before seeing the play. And if they did they certainly wouldn’t admit it to the show creator and star. That sounds like a good way to lose your job. There is a little redemption for her character but still she was unbelievable from the start. And why did she have to be a woman? Couldn’t the movie have made one judgmental jerk a man?

Again, it’s just another example of the shrill, judgmental, mean-spirited women the movie seems to think are the rule.

The men on the other hand are more positively portrayed. Zach Galifianakis is the good friend who still believes in Riggans despite all the junk he does. Edward Norton is a pig but has softer moments with Emma Stone. Riggans is a sympathetic character surrounded by all these maniacs. He is depressed and mentally ill, hallucinating and running around in his underwear in Times Square but is still likable.

I don’t know. I just couldn’t get passed these depictions of women throughout the film- especially Lesley’s near rape and Tabitha’s condescending review threats. It made the movie unpleasant and frustrating.

It also has lots of profanity, some nudity, and mature content. Adults only. It took me two go-arounds to watch the whole thing because I wasn’t invested in it.

I know many love it and it may win Best Picture (a travesty if it does IMO) but I didn’t care for it. Sorry!

Overall Grade- C- (only because of the strong performances and cinematography). Content Grade- F