Film: The Dark Knight Rises

GENRE: Action
RATING: PG-13 for violence and language
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 42 minutes
STARRING: Christian Bale (The Fighter, The Prestige)
Tom Hardy (Inception, Warrior), Anne Hathaway (Get Smart)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan (Inception, Memento, The Prestige)
WRITERS: Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan (Memento)
David S Goyer (Dark City, Blade, Batman Begins, Dark Knight)
PLOT: The Dark Knight resurfaces when Bane, a new terrorist leader takes over Gotham. But has Batman met his match?

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 Wow! Now that’s how you end a trilogy. What a great ride! This film is full of action, emotion, character development, grit and class. Great job following the trilogy rule of tying in the first film. There are even some fun surprises as well. Nolan is adept at making everything work so well. Kudos.
2 I love that this trilogy kept Bruce Wayne/Batman human. Wayne gets injured. He isn’t invincible. I also like that Catwoman is not a result of cats licking her as in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Thank you Nolan brothers for humanizing these characters.
3 I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick, 50/50, Inception) has come a very long way from Third Rock from the Sun. He is sensational in this movie. He has this earnestness that keeps me mesmerized. He deserves a lot more recognition for his roles.
4 Way to keep your masks on! Spiderman can learn a lesson from this film. A round of applause to Tom Hardy who keeps his face-obscuring mask on for the entire flick with only a two second reveal in a pre-Bane flashback. Now that’s commitment.
5 I don’t want to spoil things for people seeing this film, but I feel that Nolan ends his trilogy perfectly. It is so satisfying! I dare say it’s brilliant.

RECOMMENDATION: Definitely a theatre movie
UPCOMING REVIEWS: Ruby Sparks, Bourne Legacy

Film: Moonrise Kingdom

GENRE: Comedy/Drama
RATING: PG-13 for sexual content and smoking
RUNTIME: 1 hour and 34minutes
STARRING: Jared Gilman & Kara Hayward (newcomers)
Bruce Willis (Red, Die Hard), Edward Norton (Fight Club)
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Royal Tenenbaums)
WRITERS: Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic)
Roman Coppola (The Darjeeling Limited)
PLOT: Two very young lovers run away from home together which causes a local search party to look for them.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 I think the best word to describe this film is ‘charming’. So damn charming. You can’t help watching this film and get a big grin on your face. Most of that is owed to newcomers Gilman and Hayward as the two kids in love. They play it so straight with a way-beyond-their-years maturity that I almost found myself giggling quietly throughout the film. Kudos to Anderson and Douglas Aibel, the casting director who found these wonderful young actors.
2 Wes Anderson films are so well put together and so particular. You get everything you expect from an Anderson film: the inventory checks, the bird’s eye views of items, the quirky music and dialogue, the matter-of-fact tone of almost every character, Bill Murray, beautiful panning shots of house interiors. So if you love Wes Anderson films, this one will not disappoint.
3 It’s always great to see Bill Murray & Jason Schwartzman do their stuff. They both have relatively smaller roles but they milk them for all they are worth. Norton and Willis do admirable job of joining the Anderson family and seem to have fun in their positions as well. I enjoy seeing Norton lightening up after all those recent darker films.
4 I love what Anderson, cinematographer Robert D Yeoman, and set decorator Kris Moran do with their backgrounds. There is always some fun things to find behind the action in the foreground. While taking a short walk with Schwartman’s character, we see an entire boy scout camp in action through various activities. The beautiful scenery also takes center stage, especially when narrator Bob Balaban speaks to the audience and only takes the bottom fifth of the screen so you can enjoy the background.
5 Two highlights that stick out for me among many, many moments, is the fact that they call the boy with a patch over his left eye, Lazy Eye throughout the film and Norton & Willis response to an accusation by shouting ‘That was the girl’ in unison. Funny stuff.

RECOMMENDATION: Watch the DVD as soon as it comes out
UPCOMING REVIEWS: The Dark Knight Rises

Film: The Amazing Spiderman

GENRE: Action/Adventure
RATING: PG-13 for scenes of violence
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 16 minutes
STARRING: Andrew Garfield (The Social Network)
Emma Stone (Easy A, Crazy Stupid Love), Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill)
DIRECTOR: Mark Webb (500 Days of Summer)
WRITERS: James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Rundown)
Alvin Sargent (Spiderman 2 & 3), Steve Kloves (Harry Potter series)
PLOT: Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider while looking into his missing father’s former partner who has an obsession with lizards.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 The film isn’t awful but I also don’t think the Spiderman movies were in need of a reboot. There are some entertaining parts but it just seemed too emo for me. Sam Raimi’s trilogy was packed full of fun even if the third one faltered a bit. The story elements are very similar with slight variations however the bad guy still has really loud voices in his head.
2 I will say that this film is shot incredibly well. John Schwartzman (The Rock, Pearl Harbor) does a great job making certain scenes epic and other intimate. Also, nice job of swinging through the streets, even though this film had ten more years to perfect Raimi’s already stellar job of webslinging. Interesting to do some of it as first person, which I guess is awesome if you watch it in 3D (I didn’t.).
3 Emma Stone gives an awesome performance as Gwen Stacy. She’s the bright shiny light in this story. Actually Denis Leary also does a great job as Captain Stacy. I didn’t like the Stacys in Spiderman 3 but in this film they are golden. Martin Sheen is dependable as Uncle Ben but Sally Field seems misplaced as Aunt May, she looks too young. Points go to Raimi for the casting of Rosemary Harris.
4 Andrew Garfield does a commendable job of playing a teenager in highschool even though he’s 29 years old. He stumbles nicely and has the look of an emo kid. Unfortunately, I didn’t like him as Spiderman; his quips are a little too cocky and void of true fun. Tobey Maguire may not have had the look but he definitely had the right attitude when he donned the mask.
5 Speaking of masks. Leave the frickin’ mask on! What’s the point in making a mask if you take it off all the time? Does it itch or something? Or is the actor so vain that he needs more facetime on screen? Is it meant to be symbolic? We get it! You’re human. Leave the mask on!

RECOMMENDATION: Theatre for action, DVD for emo
UPCOMING REVIEWS: The Dark Knight Rises

Film: Brave

GENRE: Animated/Adventure
RATING: PG for some scary action and rude humor
RUNTIME: 1 hour and 40 minutes
STARRING: Kelly Macdonald (Boardwalk Empire)
Billy Connolly (Boondock Saints), Emma Thompson (Love Actually)
DIRECTORS: Mark Andrews & Steven Purcell (newcomer)
Brenda Chapman (Prince of Egypt)
WRITERS: Mark Andrews (John Carter), Brenda Chapman (new)
Steve Purcell (new) & Irene Mecchi (The Lion King)
PLOT: Princess Merida defies custom and brings about a curse that she must undo before it’s too late.

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:
1 The animation in this film is breath-taking. Pixar outdid itself visually with all the Scottish landscapes. Four images made me whisper ‘wow’ – the pan across the lake, the waterfall mist, the moss on the trees and the rain trickling down a castle wall. How do they do that?
2 When it comes to Pixar they are known for their compelling stories. I thought Cars 2 floundered and Brave does great at the start but then peters out. The first 45 minutes of this tale is fantastic and hugely entertaining as they set things up and use every aspect of the Scottish culture. The second half of the film just didn’t work for me. It’s hard to root for the hero when they make such a colossal mistake that you could see coming a mile away. Oh well.
3 I love Celtic music. This movie is full of it.
4 The triplets who don’t really talk are quite entertaining. I wish they had more screen time. Don’t make a sequel that’s all about them (Like Cars did with Mater) but I would liked to see them more. The suitor fathers needed more funny lines; although I did enjoy hearing Craig Ferguson (Late Late Show) as Lord Macintosh.
5 ‘Brave’ does not seem like an appropriate title for this film. It would be different if Merida was trying to overcome shyness or gain courage but she’s just an adventurous soul. Just sayin’.

RECOMMENDATION: See it in theatres, it’s Pixar!
UPCOMING REVIEWS: The Amazing Spiderman