Tom Cruise fans might enjoy ‘Oblivion,’ all others beware
By Steve Crum
An infrequent discussion topic, when I was in the Army, concerned being stationed in a lonely, faraway place like the Arctic. “But the good thing is you’d get isolation pay,” someone would always comment. In the sci-fi thriller Oblivion, central character Commander Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) definitely qualifies for isolation pay. But there is no talk of any kind of payment, even though his job location isolates him. That includes his assistant and soul mate, Victoria Olsen, played by Andrea Riseborough. Jack and Victoria have not seen another human, face-to-face, for a long time.
Not to mention, but I will, the audience’s isolation. Viewers of Oblivion deserve a refund just for withstanding the movie’s 125 minutes of shattering blasts, explosions, and soundtrack music drum crashes. Oblivion is a visual treat, however, from futuristic flying machines to stark landscapes. It looks good, particularly on an IMAX screen, but the flick is ultimately style over substance. Involving it is not.
And that is too bad, particularly because the 50-year-old Tom Cruise, still a virile, dashing action-romantic star, will attract many unsuspecting patrons to this film. His laser gun-toting Earth protectorate, Jack Harper, is also a superb pilot who repairs large, globe-like drones. They are killing machines, lethal flying robots that patrol what is left of Earth. Oh yes, our good ol’ planet in 2077 has been decimated after a world war. Even the moon is a casualty with chunks missing.
And that is too bad, particularly because the 50-year-old Tom Cruise, still a virile, dashing action-romantic star, will attract many unsuspecting patrons to this film. His laser gun-toting Earth protectorate, Jack Harper, is also a superb pilot who repairs large, globe-like drones. They are killing machines, lethal flying robots that patrol what is left of Earth. Oh yes, our good ol’ planet in 2077 has been decimated after a world war. Even the moon is a casualty with chunks missing.
Jack, aka Tech 49, has spent a never divulged number of years patrolling his part of the planet, repairing drones, and obliterating any Scavs lurking about. Scavs, slang for scavengers, are enemy beings presumed to be threats to Earth’s struggling existence. They certainly look Goth-evil, sporting dark clothing and Predator heads. It is later revealed the Scavs have a humanity basis, which has to be referenced at spoiler risk, since Scav leader Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman) emerges. Oblivion’s trailer already reveals the very human looking Freeman character.
At plot core is the tenuous relationship between Jack and Victoria. Her lifestyle, besides sleeping with Jack and daily nude swims, is as a communications officer who checks in daily, via table-flat computer, with a rather sinister control central lady, Sally (Melissa Leo). Victoria also tracks all of Jack’s flights, lending help by spotting Scavs who tend to live in caves and underground. Jack and Victoria are short-timers, since their duty time is soon ending, and they will return “home.”
Their routine existence is disrupted when a spacecraft with humans aboard crashes, and Jack rescues Julie (Olga Kurylenko). Factor in resulting jealousy, deception, and revelation involving Scavs, drones, Jack and Julia, Jack and Victoria, and–awk–reproduction. Four writers, led by director Joseph Kosinski, had their hands on the screenplay, and it shows. The slowly paced script rambles on and on, and is rather bland, particularly the cliched conclusion. Overall, the movie plays like a fairly good Twilight Zone episode, but padded to fill two hours. Oblivion rests in the same cocoon as Tree or Life and last year’s Cloud Atlas: glitzy, high tech movies that amount to nothing more than pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Stirring in ingredients like cloning and a federal government literally controlling citizens’ lives pander to conspiracy theorists big time.
In actuality, Oblivion is much to do about…very little.
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GRADE on a scale of A to F: C-
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This trailer for Oblivion will give you an idea of what I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmIIgE7eSak
Give much more than slight-of-hand applause to ‘Burt Wonderstone’
By Steve Crum
There is a great deal more than magic and laughs to The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. It also says a hatful of bunnies about audiences and the pervasive, decadent state of entertainment in our society. The fact is many of us have regressed to a gullible, Honey Boo Boo leering bunch. Presto chango, and this Wonderstone comedy touches on that very bar-lowering through one of the wittiest, original, and downright hilarious scripts in years. Add a super cast, headed by Steve Carell.
TIBW is directed by Don Scardino, a name fresh to feature films but veteran to dozens of TV series, 30 Rock among them. He and screenwriters Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley have fashioned a story centering on trust and brotherly love between two Las Vegas magicians. The illusionists, Burt Wonderstone and Anton Marvelton, are deftly played by Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi. After 10 years as headliners at the same hotel, their act has grown repetitive and stale due to Burt’s sexist and demanding demeanor.
In the film’s opening scenes, Burt is shown to be a bullied loner in grade school. That changes when he receives a Rance Holloway Magic Kit as a present. Holloway (Alan Arkin) explains the magic tricks inside the box via a VHS tape, and Burt’s life immediately changes. He performs magic tricks at school and becomes a popular spectacle of sorts, acquiring fellow classmate Anton as both an admirer and magician’s assistant. Years pass, and things have gone very well for the two, who now share top billing in Vegas. Unfortunately, thanks to Burt’s demeaning comments and actions, their female assistant quits. Making magic matters worse is the street magician, Steve Gray (Jim Carrey), who performs on the sidewalk outside their hotel. Gray’s act is more “Jackass” sadism than magic illusion. (See opening paragraph regarding the dumbing-down of audiences.)
Hotel/casino owner Doug Munny (James Gandofini), aptly named, pressures his headliners to change the act, since receipts mirror a change in audience taste from sublime illusion to ridiculous bloodletting.
Enter Olivia Wilde’s Jane, a magician’s assistant who divides her loyalties between the two acts. Factor in the now retired Holloway, wiling away in a senior citizen home. Without divulging anymore, I have to applaud the ensemble cast for their extraordinary comedic acting. Jim Carrey’s work is his best in years; Steve Buscemi is both sympathetic and funny; and Alan Arkin’s curmudgeonly role fits perfectly. A friend recently said to me that this Wonderstone movie should indicate whether or not Carell made the right decision to leave The Office and pursue a film career. After this terrific performance as well as successes in films over the past two years, Carell is definitely big box office.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is mostly predictable, but the finale is unique–and hilarious–to the max. Admitting such, I have to include myself as enjoying sadistic humor, at least to a degree. Hey, I am still a Three Stooges fan.
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GRADE on a scale of A to F: A-
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The film’s trailer isn’t magical, but it covers basic territory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zLhkW-oKY8
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The film’s trailer isn’t magical, but it covers basic territory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zLhkW-oKY8
‘Oz’ may not be ‘Wizard of,’ but viewing is storybook stunning
By Steve Crum
Seventy-four years after the fact, that being 1939’s opening of The Wizard of Oz, much of the movie magic is realized again in Oz the Great and Powerful. What a stunner it is.
Presumptuously speaking, this new take (a prequel) is/will be a modern classic. Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-Man) is in his fantasy-adventure element here, creating an Oz world for the new millennium: ultra-colorful, storybook sets, and spectacular 3D. (If a 3D showing is available, go for it.) L. Frank Baum, author of the original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, would surely be proud of this incarnation.
Presumptuously speaking, this new take (a prequel) is/will be a modern classic. Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, Spider-Man) is in his fantasy-adventure element here, creating an Oz world for the new millennium: ultra-colorful, storybook sets, and spectacular 3D. (If a 3D showing is available, go for it.) L. Frank Baum, author of the original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, would surely be proud of this incarnation.
The storyline, by Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire, tends to follow Baum’s book more than MGM’s Judy Garland take. Still, there are numerous lifts and references from the ’39 movie, despite MGM’s (now Warner’s) copyright protocols. For one, the opening sequence of Oz TGP is framed in conventional non-widescreen, and in black and white. (Studio hype describes it as “sepia,” but it really is not.) Set in a traveling circus during 1905, somewhere in Kansas, central character Oscar Diggs (a surprisingly effective James Franco) is a disreputable sideshow magician who literally takes flight (a balloon) to escape bodily harm. Enter an MGM-looking tornado that whisks the top-hatted Diggs away to the widescreen, vibrantly colorful Land of Oz.
Crash-landing safely, he is immediately mistaken by good witch Glinda (Michelle Williams) as the prophesied Wizard who is expected to rule as King of Oz. Diggs’ con man persona sees it as an opportunity to grab the kingdom’s gold and return home. Two evil witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz), will do their nastiest to prevent the declared wizard from surviving even a day. Cue the needle-toothed, flying baboons!
There is one flying monkey in this movie, a cuddly, sympathetic, and funny kind. The animated “Finley” is voiced by Zach Braff.
The plot is predictable to those familiar with the 1939 movie, which should be 99% of the audience. So expect an ultimate battle between the Wizard and the bloodthirsty witches, attacks by airborne simians, and singing Munchkins. The vertically challenged folks sing and dance to a brief and forgettable song, which is definitely not a reprise of something from Arlen and Yarburg’s 1939 score. No copyright infringement here. In other words, do not expect a hint of Over the Rainbow anywhere in this movie.
As in The Wizard of Oz, actors perform as different characters in both settings. For example, Joey King is both the girl in a wheelchair in Kansas during Diggs’ magic act, and the voice of the computer generated China Girl during the Oz part of the film. Incidentally, China Girl provides a real plus to the film, a major character not included in the ’39 story. By the same token, do not expect seeing a man of tin, a shaking lion, or scatterbrained scarecrow in the new story. (Dorothy meets them later, on her own terms.)
There is a sideways homage to Dorothy, however. During a Kansas scene, Diggs’ girlfriend Annie (MIchelle Willams, who also plays the good witch) jilts him by saying she is engaged to a guy named John Gale. Hmm, could he be related to our Dorothy aka Dorothy Gale? Maybe Anne will eventually be nicknamed “Em” as in Auntie Em? Maybe the next Oz flick will cover that territory.
There is a sideways homage to Dorothy, however. During a Kansas scene, Diggs’ girlfriend Annie (MIchelle Willams, who also plays the good witch) jilts him by saying she is engaged to a guy named John Gale. Hmm, could he be related to our Dorothy aka Dorothy Gale? Maybe Anne will eventually be nicknamed “Em” as in Auntie Em? Maybe the next Oz flick will cover that territory. Action sequences, set design, and interactions between live actors and digital images are top notch. James Franco, essentially playing a Johnny Depp-type role, handles the whimsical wizard role very well.
If you do see Oz the Great and Powerful on a 3D screen, expect river fairies to spit in your face (I literally flinched backwards) and butterflies hovering overhead. The effects are that good.
Check out the name of the circus, Baum Brothers, since it obviously refers to author L. Frank Baum. Also notice Evanora’s witch makeup, which is slightly different than Hamilton’s witch look in 1939. Due to legalities, the 2013 witch has no facial wart, and her skin color is a shade different green.
It is no surprise that actor Bruce Campbell has a cameo (Winkie the Gate Keeper), since his friend and mentor, Sam Raimi, has for years cast him in small roles in all his movies. It’s a director thing, you see.
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GRADE on a scale of A to F: A-
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We’re off to see the film’s trailer!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DylgNj4YQVc
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We’re off to see the film’s trailer!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DylgNj4YQVc
It makes for a bad day to see ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’
By Steve Crum
Mr. Willis has done wonders to redefine the word “Bruce.” But his name and presence in the latest and surely last Die Hard franchiser, A Good Day to Die Hard, directed by John Moore, is a no-gainer. It is not his fault he has grown more than a tad too old to play John McClane (for the 5th time since 1988), but he can be blamed for signing on to such a script-shallow, decibel-deafening blast-fest. What a disappointment for die-hard fans of Die Hard, yours truly among them.
This time police detective McClane heads off to Moscow, no less, to check on or rescue (it’s never clear which) his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), who has somehow gotten himself convicted of high crimes and is pending a very public trial. By the way, Papa John’s daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), briefly appears at the beginning and end of the film. (She was more prominently featured in the last Die Hard movie, so she has had her minutes of fame.)
Soon after McClane arrives outside the Russian court building, all hell breaks loose as explosions ensue, making a literal shambles of everything and everyone inside. As luck would have it (and there is a myriad amount of luck and coincidences in this movie), Jack and political prisoner Komarov (Sebastion Koch) escape. All this leads to a seemingly two hour, frantic chase (actually it takes about eight minutes) through downtown Moscow’s jammed streets.
A Good Day to Die Hard is not the first, nor will it be the last, action movie to feature rock’em, sock’em car chases through downtown streets. By now, the bar has been raised so high in stunt and CGI driving and crashing that one wonders where do we go from here? In Good Day, that means including three humongous transports in the chase, a destructo truck rally gone mad.
Prepare to put your disbelief in overdrive suspension, because not once is there indication of any bystander actually being hurt, let alone obliterated, during the explosions and chase scenes. Oh, but there are cars upon cars crunched and mangled big time. Absent too are any emergency vehicles like paramedic or fire trucks. And it is alarming that Russian police are non-existent. What a country!
Skip Woods’ cliched screenplay involves the CIA, corrupt Russian politicos, good guys who are bad, bad guys who are good, and spies who will do anything for the sake of loyalties. That is, some operate that way. It’s way too convoluted for my critical brain. Like Stallone, Schwartzenegger, and similar genre movies, A Good Day to Die Hard features (in this case) two heroes, father and son, who withstand explosions, car wrecks, falls through multiple floors in buildings, beatings, and gun shots with nary a bruise. The hero might be bloody from stem to stern in one scene, and then patched with a Band-Aid in the next. I always marveled at Kiefer Sutherland’s resilience to do likewise in TV’s 24. These guys go far beyond their fellow men in fighting evil and remaining unscathed. John McClane is such a mythical being.
Incidentally, there is neither an appearance nor mention of Mrs. McClane, significantly portrayed in the first couple of Die Hard flicks by Bonnie Bedelia. I had hoped for a happy reunion featuring the entire McClane clan at the conclusion. Maybe she couldn’t make it due to her incarceration in India or somewhere. Look for her rescue in A Good Delhi to Die Hard.
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GRADE on a Scale of A to F: D
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Hopefully it’s a good day to see this flick’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9uT2wQFC0
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Hopefully it’s a good day to see this flick’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW9uT2wQFC0
Hoffman’s ‘Quartet’ charms with last hurrahs of elderly opera singers
By Steve Crum
Director Dustin Hoffman’s charming musical drama (with some comedy), Quartet, spotlights the terrific Maggie Smith. The ensemble star of two recent films (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel being the other) and a TV series (Downton Abbey), she is again playing an elderly woman of feisty spirit. As the celebrated opera diva Jean Horton, she is the driving force in this story of former opera singers and musicians who deal with their pasts and present situation while living at Beecham House, a stately senior citizen residence in the English countryside.
Before she arrives at Beecham, however, we meet an array of talented eccentrics, including the three who were her friends and fellow singers, Reginald Paget (Tom Courtenay), Wilfred Bond (Bill Connolly), and Cecily Robson (Pauline Collins). Reggie, it seems, has his own set of memories since he and Jean were once married. Their reunion via living in the same residence sparks the central conflict in Quartet. Both try to avoid each other, but inevitably it is not possible. After breaking up with the quartet, as well as her marriage, Jean became a solo star with ego extreme. Her egomania accompanies her to the new surroundings.
However, Jean’s snootiness does not deter old friends Wilfred and Cecily from trying to reignite their friendship with her. The reserved Reggie, no surprise, mulls about and takes long walks to avoid any confrontation with his ex. Wilfred maintains his reputation as an outspoken wit and womanizer, not that he has any attraction other than friendship with Jean. His daily rowdiness consists of flirting and sexual innuendo with the waitress and Beecham manager. Billy Connolly is perfect for the role, and really the needed comic relief for this otherwise bittersweet love story. On the other hand, Cecily is rather dowdy and suffering from bouts of dementia.
Adding to the mix are the other residents, particularly Michael Gambon’s Cedric Livingston, who sing and play instruments around the house grand piano almost constantly. A few appear to be more so English music hall performers than opera singers. This is particularly evident during the film’s last act when the annual Beecham House gala concert occurs.
That is also the crux of the subplot which begs the question: Will Jean re-team with her quartet to perform at the gala?
Based on Ronald Harwood’s play of the same name, Quartet explores relationships, the world of music, and the challenges of growing old. It makes for fascinating plot elements that mesh well. Harwood also penned the screenplay. Director of Photography John de Borman, who shot Dustin Hoffman’s movie Last Chance Harvey), shared Hoffman’s motivation for choosing Quartet as his directorial debut. At 75, Hoffman “is so reflected in (Quartet) itself,” says de Borman. “Here’s a man who was the most well-known and the best actor of his generation, and he’s very human. He has a huge sense of humor and he’s life enforcing. And those are the elements of this film. It reflects Dustin completely. This could only have been done as it is now with Dustin.”
While Quartet seems to be part of a double feature with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Maggie Smith’s other recent feature about living in a retirement home, it does lack Exotic’s breadth of characterizations and humor. Yet Quartet has its element of music, which can also be used metaphorically. After all, life is about being on the same page.
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GRADE on an A to F Scale: B
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