Movies for June

Hugo  (2011) - OK let's see just how brave I am.  Take one of the greatest directors of my lifetime, add in 11 Oscar nominations and 5 wins and what do you get?  A nice if rather underwhelming movie.  This is Martin Scorsese's first 3D movie and his first family movie in many years.  It is the story of a boy named Hugo in 1930's Paris.  Orphaned he lives in a Paris train station, attempting to fix an automaton (a simple kind of robot) that his father had been working on at the time of his death.  He will meet a young girl and French film legend George Melies (played by Ben Kingsley).  Melies is based on the historic French movie innovator.  To be honest the first third of the movie is slow and dull.  Once young Hugo gets involved with the old man and Scorsese can start to explore the history of film (a favorite subject) it gets much more interesting.  Kingsley is always worth watching as well. The movie also features Christopher Lee in a small role and Sacha Baron Cohen plays the station cop and is easily the worst thing about the movie.  In the end the movie is only OK at best (which is supported by the fact the movie lost money worldwide).  Which really feels like a failure given all the things it had going for it.
Rating - ** Not Impressed

The Adventures of Tintin  (2011) - Well let's just re-run the last review.  Great director (Stephen Spielberg) doing something new (first animated movie) and exploring a favorite topic (Spielberg fell in love with the French language original comics when Raiders of the Lost Ark was compared to them) all done in 3D.  Neither of these movies make me change my mind about 3D.
  Tintin is a reporter with a nose for trouble.  With his faithful pooch Snowy he explores the mystery of a sunken treasure with assorted adventures that require chases, explosions and even a dead body or two.  The movie didn't do as well with the awards as Hugo but did much better at the box office.  It was fun but not great.
Rating - *** Worth a Look

Capote (2005) - Then you get a movie like this.  I remember seeing Truman Capote on TV when I was growing up.  The words I have always associated with him are "strange little man".   Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of the American author is all of that and a whole lot more.  This is an Oscar win that makes perfect sense when you see the movie.  The action follows Capote's research into the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family of Kansas.  Along the way he enters into a strange relationship with one of the murderers.  In the end you will have to decide who used whom more.  The reality is that Capote never completed another book after the enormous success of In Cold Blood (which is a brilliant and chilling book if you like true crime stuff.  Capote at his best, which is astoundingly good).  Hoffman, Catherine Keener as Nelle Harper Lee (yes, THAT Harper Lee.  At the same time as the movie events To Kill A Mockingbird was also published.  The shallow fashionable crowd that flocked around Capote in New York never really grasp the fact that a second brilliant writer is in their midst) and Clifton Collins Jr as murderer Perry Smith are all wonderful.  But the star is Hoffman.  His performance is nuanced and chilling.  Capote cajoles and lies and plays the diva to get his story.  In the end it nearly destroys him.  An astounding movie.
Rating - **** Gotta See It

The Man Who Never Was (1956) A pretty nicely done piece about one of the greatest intelligence deceptions of World War II.  The goal was to fool the Nazis into believing that the Allies were going to invade Greece rather than Sicily as the southern front.  The problem was that no one in their right mind would think anything of the sort.  Sicily was the obvious choice.  What British Intelligence came up with was the simple trick of letting false plans fall into enemy hands.  The hard part was creating the false identity for the body that was to wash ashore in Spain.  Oh yeah, and where to find a dead body that looked like it had died in a plane crash and drowned.  Clifton Webb does a nice job as the brains behind it all Ewen Montagu (who appears in the film early on as an Air Warden.  Even gets a line!).  I've read the book several times and the movie really does a nice job of turning the history into a compelling movie story.  The identity of the body was a closely guarded secret for many years at the family's request.  Today the grave site carries both the real and assumed names of the man who never was.
Rating - Worth A Look ***

The Gold Rush - (1925) Time to catch up on some of the classics of the early cinema.  This is perhaps the greatest of all of Charlie Chaplin's movies.  It features his trademark character The Little Tramp this time in Alaska during the gold rush years.  If you've ever seen footage from a Chaplin movie the chance is about 1 in 3 that you saw something from this movie (probably the dancing dinner roll section).  What still catches me about the best movies from this time period is how well the movies really hold up.  Yes there is a naivete that we don't have any more that is easy to mock.  I think that probably says more that we are less than we were rather than that we've become more sophisticated.  The version I watched was a 1940s re-release where Chaplin had added music and a narration track.  The idea was to get some more mileage out of a silent film at a time when no one wanted to see them any more.  I don't know that it helped much at the box office.  I certainly can't say that I thought it added a lot to the movie other than the chance to hear Chaplin's voice.  The movie is worth seeing simply because it was Chaplin at the peak of his story telling skills and some of the best of the silents.
Rating - *** Worth A Look (for the average movie viewer)  ****- Gotta See It (for the serious movie fan)

The Big Lebowski - (1998) As a committed Coen Brothers fan I'm not sure how I've never seen this movie the whole way through.  I know I've seen parts of it but this was the first time beginning to end.  Those sentences will no doubt elicit a burst of amazement and outrage among the Lebowski fan clan.  As much as its a cult hit now it's interesting to note that in 1998 it was 96th on the list of gross movie earnings that year.  The initial reaction was lukewarm with several critics comparing it unfavorably to Fargo, the Coen's previous movie.  This is classic Coen to me.  Perfectly ordinary America seen through a lens that is just slightly out of focus.  A world that is just a half a bubble off plumb.  Language will be a problem for some folks.  The "F-Bomb" gets dropped 292 times according to IMDB.  There's also some nudity. But the characters are true classics.  Everyone has a very definite idea of exactly what reality looks like except The Dude.  He simply wishes to live his life quietly which is the one thing that everyone including his friends seem to be determined not to allow.  In the end what can you say other than The Dude Abides.
Rating - *****  Put It In Your Collection