Ed's Review Dot Com

DreamWorks SKG, Reliance Entertainment, Participant Media,

Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Dan Stevens, Alicia Vikander, Carice van Houten

The biographical story of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Daniel Berg, partner and usually the spokesman for Wikileaks and perhaps one of those who most tried to limit and control Julian without much luck. These folks started out disturbed by the way mainstream media repeated what they were fed, and didn’t really seek out the truth most of the time. The internet brought the idea of citizen news rather than big corporate news organizations, and Julian was fascinated with the idea of getting his hands on top secret documents and publishing them to the world without censorship of any kind. Others tried to limit that, as many names and addresses were published without blacking them out, causing a lot of dangerous situations for a lot of people. Some people praise him as a genius innovator, and others as a threat to humanity. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Is this movie a Documentary? Certainly not. It’s based on several books about Wikileaks, and is played by actors and dramatized. Is it true? I have no way to know that as I have no knowledge of what really happened. Julian Assange himself said it was lie upon lie and not much of it’s true. I don’t suspect that’s exactly the case, especially because he liked the way he was portrayed. What I figured out was that he was a very strange character, and rather creepy. As for the movie, I learned very little about the story that isn’t common knowledge, and I found it very difficult to sit through more than two hours of this stuff. I don’t think the story was done very well, and it certainly wasn’t very interesting. I think it probably could have been a lot better and is another of those lost opportunities. Perhaps there’s just not much to the story, but in that case, a totally fictionalized version would have been far more enjoyable than this movie. The phrase “watching paint dry” really describes how I felt watching this. I really didn’t get into the story, and I was relieved when it was finally over. I don’t recommend this story unless you’re really interested in the story, although a visit to Wikipedia might give you more information than this movie did.

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SimonSays Entertainment, Stephen Tedeschi Production, Intrinsic Value,

Isaiah Washington, Tequan Richmond, Joey Lauren Adams, Tim Blake Nelson, Cassandra Freeman, Leo Fitzpatrick

This biopic is the story of a young boy brought to the states and mentored by a bizarre substitute father who teaches him how to kill. The two of them set out in the Blue Caprice to kill 10 random people in the 2002 Beltway Shootings. [Here is the Wikipedia article on the shootings]

I was anxious to watch this film. I saw the news coverage of the crazy story that had everyone in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. are in terror back in 2002. I was sorely disappointed. The story was very poorly done. Granted, they wanted to make this look like a documentary, but when you’re done watching it, you’re more confused about the why of the story than when you started. With no apparent attempt to get into the minds of these two, this story just plods along like a reality TV show. Most of it is really boring, and we don’t get into the psyche of these guys at all. There is very little background info at all, and it’s a lot like a high school civics report on the subject. If you read the articles on the internet you’ll have as much understanding of this story as you will get from the movie. I was really bored silly and quite put off by the whole thing. I can’t believe I wasted the time I spent watching this. I kept thinking that it would get more interesting as we got to the climax of the movie. It never did, and when it was over, I just found myself wondering why they bothered with this. Skip this one. It truly wasn’t worth it.

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Walt Disney Pictures, Ruby Films, Essential Media & Entertainment,

Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Ruth Wilson, Annie Buckley, Melanie Paxson, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker

In the 60’s British author P.L. Travers (Emma Watson) found herself low on cash. Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) had promised his daughters that someday he would bring Mary Poppins, their favorite book, to the big screen. But Mrs. Travers was not about to let Mary Poppins out of her clutch as it was much to close to her own life to let it go. She insisted on absolute last say over the entire process. So Mrs. Travers arrives in Burbank to drive the story writers, music writers, and Mr. Disney himself nearly crazy trying to meet her demands. This biographical picture covers the bumps and bruises of trying to get arguably Walt’s most successful movie ever, to the screen.

Emma Thompson is marvelous as the formidable little lady Travers, and Tom Hanks does an amazing job as Walt Disney, but there is lots more going on to make this one of the greatest films I have ever seen. Granted, I was familiar with the struggles Walt went through to try to get Mary Poppins off the ground. One of the things Walt really wanted to do was to bring the world of cartoons and live action back together in the scene where Mary and Bert and the Banks Children enter the chalk drawings to a world of fancy with dancing penguins and all. Walt wasn’t really sure that Mary Poppins would ever be made, as Mrs. Travers constantly threatened not to sign the release. But a little known fact is that Walt hedged his bet with another really great film that was to be the Mary Poppins should Mary not get out of the book. He hired Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson (who also played Mr. Banks) to make probably one of the least known, but also really good Disney film “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”. This film featured a sequence (like the chalk drawings excursion in Poppins) under the ocean to visit the Island of Naboombu. Had Mary Poppins failed to get launched, Walt no doubt would have thrown all his backing behind this film, and it probably would have been a great film. As it turned out Mary Poppins was the big hit, and this film was left pretty much neglected. The same people who made Mary Poppins also made this film, including the Sherman Brothers (played by Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) in Saving Mr. Banks. Paul Giamatti also has a charming role in this film

Basically this is two stories in one. The major story of Walt’s efforts and Pam Travers resistance to letting Mary Poppins turn into the marvelous movie that it is. The hard work and determination that everyone put into the development of this project is vividly portrayed here. But the alternate storyline is the heartbreaking story of Mrs. Travers life as a small child in Australia and the things that led her to put the stories on paper in the first place. Mary Poppins was indeed a huge part of her life. Prior to watching the movie, the title “Saving Mr. Banks” sounded trivial to me, but after hearing her story, it became crystal clear why this is certainly a brilliant title and the crux of the entire story. This is an excellent film, one of the best stories I’ve seen in many years, and the fact that both Tom Hanks and the movie were snubbed by the Academy this year is dreadful. This could easily have been best film. I urge everyone to get a chance to see this fabulous story. Bring tissues, as it’s very sad in some parts, but well worth watching.

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Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures,

Harrison Ford, Alan Tudyk, Lucas Black, Christopher Meloni, Brett Cullen, John C. McGinley, T.R. Knight, Brad Beyer, Chadwick Boseman, Jud Tylor , Ryan Merriman

Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers saw an opportunity with the huge audience of baseball loving African American citizens who would flock to the Dodger games if there were an African American player in the game. At the time, African American players played in small cities in the Negro League. Branch brought Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) up to play for the Montreal farm team, and then to the Dodgers amidst a lot of resistance from the other players, the white fans, the other teams, and even the league and the umpires. Jackie was one of the greatest players of his time, but he faced a really hard time with all the racism and hatred thrown his way. This film exposes the trials and tribulations both the team and especially Jackie and his wife had to put up with with day after day, mixed with some really good baseball.

This film feels very much like a documentary and is unflinching in the racism that was so prevalent at the time. It was a shame in those days that in some cities it was so bad that the whole team could not stay in a hotel. The story is fairly well known, but there’s a lot of detail in this story that I wasn’t aware of, and though I realized that the first African American major league player would have to put up with a lot, I didn’t realize just how bad it really was. Chadwick Boesman did a great job as Jackie Robinson, although I really didn’t know what he looked or sounded like, so that was probably easier. Harrison Ford, on the other hand, tried really hard to become Branch Rickey, but throughout, I was painfully aware it was Harrison Ford, and the look and mannerisms just didn’t seem to fit. But I’m sure he did a good job. It was just a really hard job to do, and I’m sure he did a good performance.

I really did not expect to enjoy this film as much as I did. I thought it would come off really preachy and anti white people. But unfortunately I knew people like this. I wasn’t around in the 1940’s, but I remember some of the jerks that attended ball games when I was a little kid. I think they did a really fair job in presenting the story fairly, and I imagine it played out pretty much just like this. The baseball parts were really well done, and took me back to the old days when baseball was king! The rest of the story was very smooth flowing and went by really fast. It’s a very intriguing movie, very well done, and well worth watching to show what it was like in the early days. I enjoyed this movie very much.

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Fox Searchlight Pictures, Cold Spring Pictures, The Montecito Picture Company,

Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel, James D’Arcy, Ralph Macchio, Kurtwood Smith, Richard Portnow

This biopic is about Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma (Helen Mirren) and is set in 1959. Alfred has run low on ideas, and the studios are trying to force him into directing pictures that are really way too mainstream for Hitch. Meantime, he hears about a new book, a work of fiction based upon the life of serial killer Ed Gein and decides this novel has to be his next picture. The studio disagrees, so Hitch sets out to do the picture on his own, waiving his director’s fee, and paying the entire $800,000 budget on his own.

Anthony Hopkins does a great job portraying Alfred Hitchcock, one of my favorite directors of all time. This is just a small slice of the life of Hitch, and hardly mentions all the stuff that happened before this, with his British career, which was awesome, and by the time period of this film, Hitch is old. Most people think he ought to just retire, but he’s having none of that. It also was a time when his wife and partner got really tired of his stubbornness and failure to listen to her, so it is also a bad time for their marriage. Psycho is arguably Hitch’s best film, and it is a very interesting time when he redefined himself and horror cinema at the same time. Since Paramount had no plans to promote this debacle, Hitch did the promotion himself and developed some interesting methods of setting the buzz for this film in motion. As such, lines were huge, and the film earned over 33 million despite it’s $800,000 budget and no studio help promoting this film.

Warning! If you haven’t seen Psycho, the DON’T watch this film until you’ve seen it. Psycho is a very unique film and definitely one not to miss, but watching Hitchcock first will completely spoil the film as it gives away huge spoilers in the plot. This film also debunks several of the myths that surrounded the making of the film. Helen Mirren’s role as Alma, Hitch’s wife, is very well done too. This woman was his muse and he could never have done what he did without her, but she must have had to endure a lot keeping him happy. We’re watching the making of Psycho, so several other key characters have a lot to do in this film. Janet Leigh is played by Scarlett Johansson, one of the weak point of the film. Hopkins is much more Hitchcock than Scarlett is Janet Leigh, but she does at least look a bit like her. Jessica Biel is here too, as actress Vera Miles who played Janet’s sister in Psycho.

All in all, this film shows us a lot of the genius that was Hitchcock, and it is very entertaining. I’ve always been a fan of his work, but now I feel like I know the man a lot better. He was a complex man who has many facets, and this helps us get to know a lot more about him. The scene of Hitchcock watching Psycho in a theater with a packed audience is very touching and one of my favorite moments of the film. Though he was a genius, like all of us, he was very insecure and just couldn’t risk joining the audience, though their reaction meant the world to him.

This is a beautiful movie, and captures Hollywood of 1959-60 perfectly. I really enjoyed this film, and recommend it for anyone who is at all interested in either Psycho or Alfred Hitchcock. It’s a wonderful movie.

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