Wednesday, October 30, 2013

MOVIE REVIEW ENDER'S GAME


Carole Mallory

GET UPDATES FROM CAROLE MALLORY

Movie Review--Ender's Game...Thought Provoking

Posted: 05/09/2005 3:00 am

Why War? Why unnecessary death? How do we know what the enemy is thinking? Ender's Game poses these questions and many more about war. Our Iraqs. Just what and whom did we destroy besides one of the great art museums of the middle East. All the people. The children. Why? Why can't we communicate?
Ender's Game based on the best selling novel by Orson Scott Card is about training a boy to lead our troops composed of children into battle in a near future space age war. Humanity is being threatened to the point of extinction by an alien race. Harrison Ford who is his usually competent self is the highly esteemed Colonel Hyrum Graff. Asa Butterfield last seen as Scorcese's Hugo, magnificently portrays Ender Wiggen. 
A shy, but brilliant boy Ender can strategize with the best of them and is pulled out of school to attend the elite Battle School. Ender who is being tested and turned into an empathetic killer quickly masters increasingly difficult war games and soon is chosen to be the next great warrior for humanity by Colonel Graff and promoted to Command School.
We never know what the enemy wants. Our best trained child warriors can not ask questions. They are just trained to kill. Like drones. Sitting at machines preparing to kill the enemy ,the Formics, who have ravaged earth. The legendary heroics of international Fleet Commander Mazar Rackham (Ben Kingsley) prevented all from being lost in the last battle. Kingsley with a tattooed face is meant to be menacing and efficient in his role. His performance is a kind of exclamation point of military at its most formidable and most ludicrous.
Water is mentioned as a reason for the enemy to be after our nation. We're taught to be afraid of them, to hate them, to want to eradicate them. 
Viola Davis is Major Andersen and assists Colonel Graff, but as with all of her well chosen characters, she has a fierce independent streak and disobeys her Colonel when she sees fit. Abigail Breslin plays Ender's sister in a part too small for her talent. No longer the child fromLittle Miss Sunshine, she has grown up into a beauty . One hopes her maturity does not impede her career and she is not forced to do a Miley Cyrus to get better roles. Hailee Steinfeld, as a fellow soldier, befriends Ender and they have a winning relationship as they support each other flying through space. The direction by Gavin Hood is spellbinding and while the special effects work, the music is too obvious and the usual ploy of an IMAX Sci fi film to lay it on thick. 
As to the plot, it is about the indoctrination of children being taught to fear and to hate by the military, but they can't question their superiors. Never question. Just kill. War games are a way of life. Always told they are games, not real. Training. Until one day...
Ender Games poses real questions in a make believe IMAX world. These questions are important and thought provoking. But, please, with such a serious message, why do we have the stereotypical sci fi monster that we've seen so many times before that we feel he is our neighbor instead of an Alien.
 

Friday, October 25, 2013

MOVIE REVIEW, LAST VEGAS,,.IT WORKS!


Carole Mallory

GET UPDATES FROM CAROLE MALLORY

Movie Review..Last Vegas--It Works!

Posted: 05/09/2005 3:00 am

Viva Douglas, De Niro, Freeman and Kline. This gang pushing seventy takes off for Vegas to celebrate the wedding of its only single member, Billy (Michael Douglas). Paddy (Bobby De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman) and Sam (Kevin Kline) are retired and on the verge of packing it in, but decide to give Billy a bachelor party. While the cast of four mega stars has Oscar reverberations, this film would be a clone of The Hangover without its clever script packed with crisp pistol whippin'dialogue written by Dan Fogelman and the agile direction by Jon Turtletaub. Fogelman (The Guilt Trip) has written a celebration of seniors not just for seniors that has start to finish laughs. Genuine heartfelt laughs. The plot is thin, but you won't really care. Sure we have the Medicare gags, a few Viagra gags, but the comedic chops these guys display by working off of each other like an Oscar-worthy -improvisational-volley -without -a -pause, makes the price of admission inconsequential and the script's flaws forgivable.
Billy (Michael Douglas) is engaged to a 32 year old cutie Lisa (Bre Blair) though he is coming up on seventy. Wealthy and a playboy extraordinaire, he arrives in Vegas and accidentally hears a sixty something (Mary Steenburgen) singing in a small almost empty cocktail lounge. Diana provides the sensuality and independent spirit needed to make an impression on Billy. The other bachelors also are attracted to Diana, but it is Billy and Paddy who spar for her attention. Steenburgen is splendid, singing beautifully in a way that shows her serenity and inner peace. 
Last Vegas should spawn a sequel of four women going off to Paris for a bachelorette party. Let's give the girls a movie like this one! With the exception of Diana and Sam's wife, Miriam (Joanna Gleason), women are objects in Last Paris. Vegas is hardly the city known for liberated women. Alas Steenburgen's character is a welcome breath of feminism.
The script falls short when these swinging geriatrics enter a disco after Freeman wins $100,000 at black jack, as there is not much forward plot movement or pizzazz and the dialogue turns to boring. But it quickly picks up when our boys judge a beauty contest (sure we've seen this before but not with this gang) and when Paddy and Billy lock testosterone over Diana. Dean (Jerry Ferrara) surfaces in the disco, but he is merely a vehicle to supply women to the boys for the final party they will throw and to illustrate that while our boys are close to seventy, they have more sex appeal in their pinkies than youthful Dean with his adolescent macho view of women. Dean does not know how to talk to a woman he fancies and Archie, Mr. Smoothie, gives him clues. Watching Morgan Freeman dance and gyrate those hips is one of the highlights of Last Vegas. He is the only one of these aging swingers to get out there and strut his stuff. It's scenes like this that keep you smiling and rooting for this group facing the Pearlie Whites on their terms. Smiling as they enter. No self pity here. Last Vegas is about a love of life no matter what the age. And this joie de vivre is contagious. The theatre was packed and laughs were loud and easily had. Analyzing this film is silly. Just as silly as the plot. This film is to be enjoyed. Just sit back in your seat, dig into that pop corn and let the boys entertain you. This film is more like the Full Monty than Hangover Three.
Douglas looks swell for his age. Freeman does not seem to age. DeNiro still has sex appeal at his age. Kline becomes sexier as the film progresses. Kline's disheveled white locks give him an elder statesman allure. These guys still have it and this is why it is a wrong to say that Last Vegas-- with its terrible title --is only for seniors and that when one reaches sixty or seventy, life is over. These handsome men are still going strong and showing us how to laugh at it all.
 

Thursday, October 10, 2013

MOVIE REVIEW--DON'T MISS THIS ONE-- CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

You will be on the edge of your seat even though you may know this story. Thanks to the spellbinding direction of Paul Greengrass, director of The Bourne Ultimatum, and Tom Hanks as Captain Richard Phillips who delivers an over the top performance, this film is a winner. The actors who portray the Somali Pirates are first rate and portray a stupidity that can terrorize because of its determination and desperation.
This true story is based Captain Richard Phillip's biography "A Captain's Duty," written by Stephen Talty. It is about four Somali Pirates hijacking the US flagged MV Maersk Alabama off of the coast of Somali in 2009 and holding Captain Phillips hostage. This was the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years. Once more the multi-talented Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, as an executive producer, is to be thanked for helping to bring this heroic story to the screen.
The cinematography is mindboggling as Barry Ackroyd had to film in such tight quarters as a lifeboat and succeeded in capturing Tom Hanks' many expressions of terror. I do believe some shots linger too long on Hanks and milk his emotional close-ups. To have cleaned this up was the responsibility of director Greengrass and editor Christopher Rouse.
The Somali actors Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali are excellent and have cheek bones that remind me of peaks on Mt. Everest. Captain Phillips' wife is played by the talented Catherine Keener though her role is far too brief.
Crew members are portrayed by actors Michael Chernus (Shane Murphy), Yul Vazquez (Captain Frank Castellano), David Warshavsky (Mike Perry), but there are many more gifted performers and vital members of the crew. Max Martini as SEAL Commander, whose true name is obviously not disclosed, portrays an intelligence and grace under pressure in dealing with the hijackers. His calm reassuring yet threatening voice shows us how an American negotiating Seal wizard saves the day. The hijackers become buffoons in his hands. You will be on the edge of your seat during Martini's performance and that of the US Navy SEAL Commandos.
Of course this is Tom Hanks' film as he portrays the heroic Captain Phillips. However controversy surrounds the veracity of Captain Phillips' account. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/08/showbiz/captain-phillips-movie-controversy/ Many crew members are bringing a lawsuit against the Danish ship maker Maersk claiming Captain Phillips sailed intentionally into dangerous waters off the coast of Somali to shorten the trip and save money.
Captain Phillips said in a court deposition last year that the real heroes are the Navy SEALS and the crew, who stayed calm, followed orders and instincts, and prevented a tragedy. "They did a wonderful job."
And so do Tom Hanks, Max Martini, Paul Greengrass and the terrific Somali actors. Don't miss this one.