Ed's Review Dot Com

Toy Fight Productions, Brightlight Pictures, Sayaka Producciones Audiovisuales,

Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a young woman with a serious drinking problem. She lives with her boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) who is fed up with her constant partying and drunkenness and finally kicks her out of the apartment. Gloria has nowhere to go except to her old home town where she settles in. She quickly runs into Oscar (Jason Sudekis) who is an old friend from elementary school who owns a bar and kind of takes Gloria under his wing, giving her a job. She’s trying hard to clean up her life, but still finds herself blacking out, and drinking after work until dawn. Meanwhile, a couple huge monsters are attacking Seoul Korea, a giant monster and a giant robot. But gradually as Gloria keeps reflecting on her past and the events in Seoul, she gradually comes to the understanding that someway she’s connected to the happenings across the world and is having trouble dealing with it, and the sinister secrets Oscar is hiding.

This is an ODD movie. There is very little here that makes sense, and it does require a complete suspension of belief as there is no logical connection to what is going on here. This is sort of like a cross between a fairy tale, and perhaps an allegory or message movie of some sort. Hathaway is very good in this most unusual performance I’ve seen her pull off, although you may recognize a couple of her past characters in the mix. Jason Sudekis is hard to rate, as he does fine in portraying his character, but his character is so very disturbing and unlikable so it’s hard to put your finger on his performance. This movie is advertised as a comedy, but I can’t see it. It’s dark, and disturbing, and certainly not a comedy at all in my opinion. But I found it a very entertaining movie with lots of good things to sink your teeth into. I found it very compelling, even though I still don’t understand it, that actually works for this movie. There is a wrap up in the end, but you’re still left with a “What the Heck” kind of feeling when it’s over. There’s certainly not a very happy ending for Gloria, but it’s certainly understandable. All in all, I found this a good movie and I really enjoyed watching it, although if you go into it looking for a light comedy like Ella Enchanted, you’re going to be seriously disappointed. Likewise, you could try to pin it as a horror or monster movie which it isn’t either. The creatures only take up a few percent of the screen time, and they are rather unimportant to the mood and message of the film. Don’t go in looking for either of these, but look for a very unusual independent film, not much like anything you’ve seen before, and if you can suspend belief and stop looking at the scientific truths of the movie, you’ll see an entertaining film.

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Worldview Entertainment, Marc Platt Productions,

Anne Hathaway, Johnny Flynn, Mary Steenburgen, Ben Rosenfield, Lola Kirke, Paul Whitty, Dan Deacon

Fanny (Anne Hathaway) is estranged from her family, busy with her career and with her own life. But she returns home when her brother Henry (Ben Rosenfield) is in an accident and ends up in the hospital in a coma. Fanny stays beside him day after day hoping for a sign of recovery. Her brother was into music and his favorite artist was James Forrester (Johnny Flynn) who is at the crossroads of his career and on the brink of taking off. Fanny decides to go meet James, and brings a book of song lyrics that her brother had written and asks James to put some of the lyrics to music, and hires him to come and play the songs at the hospital. Franny and James are not alike very much, but they hit it off and find they are strangely attracted to each other.

There is one word to describe this film. Anne Hathaway. This young “Princess Diaries” star has become one hell of an actress. Her performance in this movie pulls it out of the gutter and turns it in to an enjoyable film. They were certainly lucky to cast her in this role. Secondly, the music, of course, is a major player in this movie as well. It is dark and sad, but becomes hopeful as Fanny and James learn much about life from each other. It is a pretty decent drama that has a lot going for it. This was not a blockbuster film, and won’t make anyone’s best films of 2014 list, most likely, but is very worth taking a look at. It was a pleasure to watch the performances, both acting and musical, and if you’re a fan of the quirky independent Brooklyn music scene, this is a big plus for the film. I would say take a chance on it, and you might find it an enjoyable time.

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Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures,

Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, William Devane, Michael Caine

Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) lives at home with his parents and the kids and is a farmer. It’s a futuristic world where the dust bowl has returned and all efforts toward technology and science has turned to survival by growing the only crop left, corn. But Cooper was trained as a space engineer and a pilot, and though he misses it, he grows corn. But accidentally he and his daughter stumble upon a secret NASA location and before you know it they are on the way to distant planets to discover if there is a safe place for what’s left of humanity to survive in and call home.

This is one excellent film. This one is right up my alley. (Is that a bowling reference? I always wondered what alley stuff is up and why). Anyway, this is a really good sci-fi thriller with some sketch science and lots of fiction. If it had been a bit more probable scientifically I might have gone for the 5 star rating I enjoyed this so much. But I bought into it when they flew a space ship out to an asteroid to blow it up with an atomic bomb, so why not a short cut through a worm hole? The casting is pretty good. This is not the role I would have picked for McConaughey, but he actually pulled it off pretty well. Also Anne Hathaway was really good as a book scientist without any practical experience. The main relationships of the movie are between Anne’s character and her father, Professor Brand, played well by Michael Caine. the second one is between Cooper and his daughter in several different time periods. This is truly an all star cast, for sure. This is a long film, nearly 3 hours, but it flies by and is very suspenseful. The story struggles at the end with some very insane “Lake House” type time warps but they pull it all together with love and understanding and trust for each other. As my daughter used to say when she was very little, “Another happy ending”. This is a praiseworthy sci-fi film, like we haven’t seen in a long, long time. Many attempts have fallen short, but this one is hitting on all cylinders. If you have any heart at all for Sci-Fi, pick this one out at your nearest Redbox and give it a look. It’s very satisfying.

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Twentieth Century Fox Animation, Blue Sky Studios,

Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Jesse Eisenberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Jemaine Clement, Jake T. Austin, Jamie Foxx, Kristin Chenoweth, John Leguizamo, Amandla Stenberg, Andy Garcia, Rita Moreno, Bruno Mars, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez

You may remember from the first film, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) thought they were the last Blue Hyacinth Macaws left, so when they find out there may be others deep in the jungle along with their 3 children, they set off to find others of their species. The find their family, including Jewel’s father, and her ex-boyfriend, Nigel (Jemaine Clementa) who goes to head to head against Blu all the way. The Blu family are happy to find others of their kind, but there is trouble in the Jungle and Blu finds himself in the middle of it. It seems like there are too many problems to go around.

This sequel to the original Rio, Rio 2 was probably not as good as the first, but it was nice in many ways. This was more about the birds and much less about the humans which I found refreshing, and it is beautifully drawn. The scenery and colors are truly splendid, and the sound track was typically nice and tropical sounding. There’s an awful lot of Bruno Mars, so that’s a plus or a minus, depending on how you feel about that, but I couldn’t find fault with the music. The story is a little weaker. The battle between sides of the jungle is a lot like many of the old Our Gang shorts, and is nothing new, and we get preached at about the environment and taking care of the Earth which I find annoying, but I was able to enjoy the story and get past that. All in all, it was really well put together, and though they could have used a bit more work on the script, the voices, not only the ones who returned, but all the new characters, added a lot to the story. This is a who’s who of animation voice over characters. I really enjoyed watching this, and I think the folks at Blue Sky Animation did a good job for a sequel.

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Working Title Films, Cameron Mackintosh Ltd.,

Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, Colm Wilkinson, Bertie Carvel

Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is a prisoner, arrested for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s child. Once paroled, Javert (Russell Crowe) vows that if he misses checking in at parole, he will hunt him down for the rest of his life. Due to the kindness of a priest at the monastery, Jean Valjean changes his life and becomes an honest business owner and Mayor of the town. But true to his word, Javert hunts for him year after year. Valjean meets Fantine (Anne Hathaway) and her poor child Cosette (Amanda Seyfried) who Jean Valjean raises as his own daughter while staying one step ahead of Javert. This is finally the movie version of the Broadway musical.

Certainly Victor Hugo wrote a stunning story. I have heard the story before. I really loved the dramatic version with Liam Neeson and Geoffrey Rush in 1998. I have never seen the musical. I found the music off putting, certainly. There are a ton of musicals with dialog and then they burst into a song which helps to forward the story. I am used to that, but in this musical, they sing everything. I think there are probably less than 25 words spoken in the whole film. As a result, much of the dialog which is sung is really annoying, and pretty senseless. I just wanted these people to talk a little bit. Furthermore, besides the Susan Boyle classic, “I Dreamed a Dream” and a song called “On My Own” there was nothing much else recognizable at all. The strength of the story helps to make up for it quite a bit, and it is a wonderful tragic drama after all, with lots of excitement. It’s just the singing is way too much. Then they hire actors that are fantastic dramatic actors and ask them to sing. I agree with Adam Levine when he asked, “But the score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers.” Why not hire singers who can act, if they’re going to sing everything. When the last time you sat down to purchase a Russell Crowe or Hugh Jackman album? Because of the strength of the story and the beauty of it all, and based upon the fact that it brought me to tears several times, even though I knew what was going to happen, I still gave this a good rating. But there are weaknesses, and truth be told, if you’re not familiar already with the Broadway version, and you’re also not familiar with the story, go for the 1998 version with Liam Neeson.

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