The Concert

The Concert is an excellent movie filmed in both Moscow and Paris. In The Concert we travel back 30 years to when the main character, Andrei, a talented young conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra, was humiliated and fired by Breshnev for refusing to get rid of his Jewish musicians. Fast forward to the present, and we find him still working at the Bolshoi, but as a janitor. One lucky day he finds himself alone with the fax machine in the office of the head of the Bolshoi Ballet. What follows is an audacious plot, without the knowledge of the Bolshoi, to get his old musicians to Paris, using borrowed instruments, hired suits and fake passports for a concert at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. These muscians were the Jews and Gypsies that were thrown out of the Bolshoi long ago.

This is a funny movie that can also move you to tears. The music is great whether it's Roma dance jigs in the street or Tchaikovsky in the concert hall. I recommend that you see this movie is you like an excellent comic drama.

Last Night

I always enjoy a well-acted drama no matter what the central theme may be. Last Night is the story of Joanna Reed (Keira Knightley), a writer who works freelance and spends much of her time at home. Joanna is married to Michael (Sam Worthington) who works in a construction contract company and often goes out of town for business purposes. They live in a apartment in New York City and have a fairly normal relationship with the usual small arguments. After attending an office party Joanna notices that Michael spent much of the evening with a coworker, Laura. As expected the fireworks begin when they return home and she accuses him of having an affair with Laura. This is when the movie really begins because the next day Michael and Laura are off to Philadelphia for a business trip. Things become complicated the next day when Joanna runs into a former flame who only has one day remaining in the city. Let your imagination go to figure out what may or may not happen. I recommend Last Night as a good relationship movie that does not have a Hollywood ending.

Hemingway & Gellhorn

Hemingway & Gellhorn follows the lives of Ernest Hemingway and the journalist Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's third wife. It takes place during during most of the important historical events spanning their relationship including: the Spanish Civil War in Franco's Spain, WW II complete with the Allied Invasion of Europe at Normandy Beach, the Russian Invasion of Finland, the turmoil in China as Communism rose in reaction to the Japanese invasion, and in pre-Castro Cuba. 

Martha Gellhorn, the Collier's reporter who becomes a war correspondent and marries Ernest Hemingway as she travels up the ladder of fame, is by far the main character here. A very well made-up aged Martha (Nicole Kidman) opens the story as she is being interviewed for a TV program. We immediately are in flashbacks to how this stern woman met Hemingway in a Key West bar, matched him quip for poorly written quip and finally follows him in a very phony setup: Hemingway (Clive Owens in a poor performance) is traveling with John Dos Passos (David Strathairn), Spanish patriot Paco Zarra (Rodrigo Santoro) and crew to shoot a film by Joris Ivens (Lars Ulrich) to show the public the atrocities of Franco in the Spanish Revolution. Everyone drinks a lot and Hemingway finally gets Gellhorn to his bed in Madrid (he is currently married to the very Catholic Pauline (Molly Parker) who upon discovery his adultery refuses to divorce him). As the situation in Spain declines, Hemingway and Gellhorn are inspired to write--Hemingway to complete For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Martha flies off to various war fronts as a war correspondent. Together they fight their way through experiences in China and other hot spots until ultimately Hemingway remains drunk in Cuba 'fighting off German U boats' and Gellhorn gives up on him.

While the videography is great placing Owens and Kidman in old footage of the historical events, this is a mediocre film with less than stellar acting. Nonetheless, it is a good movie to think about the turbulent world during the middle of the 20th century.

Water For Elephants

I was glad to see that Water For Elephants was showing on HBO because I knew that it was a best selling novel and had received good reviews when it was released as a movie. Last night I learned why Water For Elephants was so popular. It stars Robert Pattinson, Reese Witherspoon and Christoph Waltz. Robert Pattinson plays Jacob Jankowski, a young man in the Depression who loses everything when his parents die in a car accident. Jacob leaves his veterinary studies at Cornell University and goes on the road. He jumps on the first freight train that goes by. Little does he know that this is the train of the Benzini Brothers Circus. The director and dictator of the circus, August, allows Jacob to stay because of his veterinary education, allowing him to care for the many animals in the circus.  August turns out to be a charming, capricious sadist who is not afraid to kill people who disappoint him. The focus of the story is that Jacob falls in love with Malena, August's wife, and sparks begin to fly. I highly recommend this movie.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I had not really heard of this movie when it was released, but found it as I perused iTunes. I am glad that I found it because it is charming movie that is well acted. It stars Thomas Horn (Oskar Schell), Tom Hanks (Thomas Schell), and Sandra Bullock (Linda Schell). How can you go wrong with such a cast.

Extremely Lound & Incredibly Close is a story of young, possibly autistic, boy, Oskar, who loses his father on 9/11. His father owned a jewelry store in Manhattan and on any given day would normally have been at work in his store, but was attending a meeting in the WTC on 9/11. On the first anniversary of 9/11, the boy wanders into his father's bedroom closet, which his mother had left unchanged after 9/11, and finds a key in a vase. Oskar decides to find the lock that this key fits because he believes that it be a message to him from his father.

Shame

Shame is a movie about Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a lonely man in his thirties who tries his best to appear when he is in public as your average New York office worker. However he has a tragic flaw. Whenever he finds a minute of privacy, he hastily delves into his own fabricated reality: a world of excessive sex, pornography, and masturbation. Things go downhill for him when his distressed, disruptive sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) barges into his condo looking for a place to stay until things wind down and her sorrows disappear. At this time Brandon's life begins to spiral out of control. He grows increasingly frustrated with her as he feels her invasive presence will bring about the exposure of his deepest and darkest secrets. However, we see that this is just a manifestation of his feelings of intense shame and regret for leading the sad, artificial life he believes is the only one fit for him.

Michael Fassbender delivers the performance of a lifetime, worthy of an Academy Award. For nothing else I would recommend this movie, but there is so much more. It should be noted that I am surprised that such a highly sexual movie would not be the focus of our Puritanical Right.

A Dangerous Method

Who would have thought that they would produce a movie on psychoanalysis. To accomplish this A Dangerous Method looks at the professional relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). Nonetheless, A Dangerous Method is really more concerned with the bond between Jung and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley, a young woman sent to his clinic in Zurich since her mental condition was ideal for his research. Sabina, it turns out, is incredibly well-read, and soon progresses from patient to assistant, much to the amusement of Freud, who corresponds regularly with Jung about their mutual scientific interests and also meets the young woman on a few occasions. The relationship between the three evolves in even stranger ways as time passes, with Sabina taking an unexpected place in Jung's heart . . . If you like historical movies that deal with mental illness, sex between doctor and patient, and the turbulent relationship between top researchers, then I recommend this movie.

After Fall, Winter

I have had a really good run on selecting movies. After Fall, Winter was selected for my recent flight to D. C.. While the flight was too short to finish the movie, I could not wait to see the last part that evening. After finishing I was thinking about this unique film for days. Later I discovered that this movie is a sequel to a 1990s flick entitle Fall.

After Fall, Winter is a beautifully written film. It was gorgeously shot by director, actor, writer Eric Schaeffer in one of my favorite cities, Paris.  The film stars Eric Schaeffer and Lizzie Brochere. These two skilled actors had an undeniable chemistry. I found myself rooting for them from the moment they met. Some of the scenes are dark and disturbing, and not for the easily offended. But overall After Fall, Winter is a sweet and sexy love story that will stay with you long after its over.

The Descendents

The Descendents is a very well constructed and interesting film about a dysfunctional family. Actually it has three sub-plots. First, the coma and fast-approaching death of the wife of Matt King (Clooney) and the subsequent dealings with his family with how to tell them his wife Elizabeth was soon going to die. The next sub-plot is the selling of the last virgin piece of Hawaiian land owned by the King family since the 1860s (hence the title: The Descendants) and of which Matt is the sole trustee. Finally, the discovery and confrontation with the guy who was sleeping with Matt's wife. The stories flow seamlessly and logically, keeping my attention throughout. However, The Descendents is principally about bad parents and the effect of these parents on their children. In this movie Matt has two daughters, the teenager Alex and the younger Scotty. I recommend that you should put this film on the top of your list-to-see movie. It is truly worthy of an Academy Award.

Like Crazy

I have had a run of good luck picking some really good movies to watch. Last night I saw Like Crazy, and I thought it was great. I guess many at the Sundance Film Festival agreed with me because it was selected best picture at Sundance. Before I tell you a little of the plot, I really liked the simplicity of the film sans special effects, computer graphics, high budget, . . .

The stars of Like Crazy are two young talented actors, Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin (Chekhov in the "Star Trek" reboot).  Yelchin and Jones play Jacob and Anna, senior-year college students in LA who fall in love shortly before the latter is to return to her native London. However, Anna makes a big mistake, because of her love for Jacob.  She overstays her visa, and is denied entry when she attempts to return to LA to be with her lover Jacob. The heart of this story is what happens most often in a long-distance relationship--entropy. I will not continue from this point but I will tell you that Felcity Jones is a beautiful and highly skilled actress who will become one of Hollywood's elite. If you like a romance and love story that is not the usual Hollywood fare, then I recommend Like Crazy.