I know I am woefully behind due to vacation and moving house, so I'm going to put my most recent reviews into one here. Luckily, two of them don't warrant much attention anyway ;).
Diane Keaton's schtick has finally gotten old and tired and Michael Douglas has simply gotten old and tired. The story of an grumpy old man forced to evolve by having a young cherub thrust upon him is an overused gimic. Combine that with poor dialog and a total lack of direction and you get this movie. It's like "How Do You Know - the Golden Years". Skip it.
2 out of 5 stars
Tammy was actually a pleasant surprise from what I expected, but still didn't qualify as "good". This is a case of mis-marketing. The commercials made it seem like a crude spin off of Bridesmaids, capitalizing on what some think is Melissa McCarthy's only appeal to audiences: being bawdy. (Here is where I insert my objection to movies being rated R just for language again, probably done in this case just to attract the Bridesmaids crowd as well). However, it turns out that her character is the most sympathetic and Susan Sarandon as her grandmother is the somewhat repulsive secondary character. It's a bit of a madcap road movie (much of it in the midwest and Missouri in particular) with colorful characters and circumstances thrown in along the way, but the acting is far too real to allow it to be funny in most cases. This movie had heart and a good cast - see it for that...or don't see it all.
2.5 out of 5 stars
The Hundred Foot Journey must have looked tremendous on paper to get the likes of Helen Mirren, Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg involved, and it almost is, but that doesn't count in movie making. It's a pleasant story combining cultures, generations and palates, the third subject being my favorite part, which includes a sequence of competitive chopping and beautiful cinematography, but it never quite achieves the right chemistry of the three genres together. There are a few moments of humanity that pull at the heart strings, but the only greatness is Helen Mirren who is wonderful as a starched French restaurant owner. The rest of the cast cannot rise to her level and those mismatched feeling lingers throughout the film. The leads are very appealing and could do better on their own, so a spinoff might be called for.
3 out of 5 stars
Boyhood is a fairly bold experiment in movie-making. Filmed for a week or two each of 12 consecutive years, we actually see the actors age and evolve almost in real time - the most pronounced being the young boy who we see turn into a man. The barely scripted improvisational style of the film also lends to this heightened reality. It's not a reality show or a documentary, but at times feels that way. (Also, in reality, people curse, even children, so this is how even this movie attains the R rating). My favorite aspect of this approach is that when they made current pop culture references to ground the film, they actually WERE current. They didn't need to look in the archives and go figure out what would have been popular at the time - it simply was. However, with such an open minded approach to making this story of a boy growing up, the (very long) movie at almost 3 hours doesn't end up having a story arch or even a climax. At the end there is no lesson behind the plot, or even a plot. So again, I applaud new ways of evolving the cinematic experience, but I would think most audiences would not appreciate that aspect alone enough to consider it one of the best films of the year. Perhaps the Oscars should add a category for "Most Innovative Filmmaking Endeavor". I would definitely sign up to see all of them.
3.25 out of 5 stars
