Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Assorted film reviews (see bound volume)

3:10 to Yuma

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Synopsis: A rancher (Christian Bale) struggles to support his ranch and family during a long drought. Desperately needing money to build a well, he takes an assignment to transport a notorious felon (Russell Crowe), in the hands of authorities, to Yuma for imprisonment. But, once the two meet, the interactions between the two men and those surrounding them reveal surprising facets of each.

The “Western” genre in film has pretty much always been about morality in the setting of armed participants. Free agents exploring what’s possible or likely when will is authenticated by firepower. This modern re-make of the original 1957 film explores the interaction of evil and good, peeling back the layers of each to expose complex shades. The film has been criticized as “boring” but that superficial observation misses the subtlety. The principal actors, Christian Bale, Russell Crowe and especially Ben Foster as Crowe’s faithful henchman, literally burn with understated intensity for which one must develop a taste. I think Christian Bale is the most remarkable actor working today. Consummate pro Russell Crowe never disappoints. You can’t take your eyes off Ben Foster.

The point of film is to move the observer to a different world and make them an active participant. You feel what the actors feel and you live in their world for a time. This goal isn’t limited to “good” film. It is equally intense in incredibly bad film like “Patch Adams” or “What Dreams May Come”, films so bad they threaten the concept of film. This is “Good” film because you become part of a texture of intensity that leaves you emotionally exhausted but optimistic as to the basic nature of man. A very subtle but powerful exploration, performed by masters. Possibly the second best Western ever made, after “One-Eyed Jacks (Brando – 1961)

I give it four and a half out of five steely eyed glances.

Crazy Heart

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Crazy Heart is remarkable for what it might teach regarding aging in a world that categorically values youth, and the resulting anger and frustration engendered. The film riffs on others that came before with the same theme, most notably Tender Mercies (Robert Duvall-Oscar Best Actor 1983). -Jeff Bridges as weary, self-destructive country singer Bad Blake is at once heartbreaking and the stuff of legend. I see a lot of Kris Kristofferson in Bridges.

At age 57, Bad has been relegated to singing in bowling alleys while his mentored acolyte Tommy Sweet breaks into the big time with a song Bad wrote. Maggie Gyllenhaal is excellent as a small town journalist looking for his story. Pony tailed Colin Farrell is magnificent. The musical performances are great, especially the big concert in Phoenix. Both men perform their own songs (with some help from a voice coach).

Bad doesn’t quite understand the circumstances that that put him on the road to destruction, but he certainly lives them in excruciating real time. It’s difficult to know if continuous booze and cigarettes were the harbinger of Bad’s deterioration or the other way around. One of the first lyrics is “I used to be somebody/ Now I am somebody else.” Who is there left to blame?

This is probably the film that will win The Dude his first Oscar after four previous nominations. I think Bridges deserves it. The key in this particular film isn’t so much the story line; it’s the little things that Bridges does to make Bad Blake come alive on the screen. You feel what he feels and you don’t know if there was ever any out of this self fulfilling prophesy.

I give it four Gretsch Country Gentlemen out of five.

But wait……………

SPOILER AHEAD……………

I read the book (Crazy Heart) by Thomas Cobb on the way back from a trip. The film was faithful to the book right up till the ending, where it significantly deviated. For those that do not plan to read the book, here is the alternate ending. READ NO FURTHER IF YOU CONSIDER THIS A SPOILER.

After Bad loses Jean, he falls off the wagon and starts drinking again. One night on his way to somewhere out of the way, drunk, in a driving rain, he loses control of his truck and slides into a deep gully, where he’s stuck. He decides to start walking back toward the nearest town. It’s raining hard. His smooth leather sole cowboy boots slip and slide on the slippery asphalt and he slips into a deep gully, injuring himself in the process. He can’t climb out. It isn’t stated but strongly implied that no one will find him there. He’s left to consider his life and the likely conclusion.

Is there a “Love of my Life”?

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Film Review: “Falling in Love” (1984).

A bit of a departure for me as this is an older film, didn’t last long in theaters, got mediocre reviews and now only appears occasionally on late night flick cable. Much like the characters in the film, I stumbled into it last night reading some journals. The TV was on providing background noise and I wasn’t paying any attention to it until I was drawn in.

The film stars Meryl Streep and Robert Di Nero as happily married (not to each other) upscale New Yorkers going about their life as usual. They bump into each other exiting the door of a book store each laden with Christmas gifts. Each inadvertently picks up a gift package the other had purchased. Months later, Di Nero happens upon Streep again on a commuter train, vaguely remembers her and remarks about the wrong gifts.

This completely spontaneous and random collusion then sets about changing their lives. They connect in some unexplainable fashion and start to find reasons to see each other again. Innocently at first, but they both know what’s happening and are helpless to stop it. The viewer can feel the resistance coupled with the inevitability. Slowly but progressively the viewer is drawn in with them rushing headlong to the self-fulfilling prophesy. The intensity of the bond renders them helpless. (That’s all you get – no more spoilers).

A quote from the story line:

(Meryl Streep): “No, I think about him every day. Last thought before I fall asleep and first thought when I wake up. I talk to myself all day about him, even when I’m talking to somebody else, even when I’m talking to you now I’m talking to myself about him. Brian thinks I’m ill, he thinks that it has to do with my father, he thinks the stress and, you know, all that… Thinks I’m having a breakdown, but I’m not, there’s nothing wrong with me. Except that I love him”.

This fascinating story, immaculately performed, especially by the greatest actress of our generation, Meryl Streep, explores some interesting social issues, specifically that of “falling in love”, which has radically changed in the new millennium.

In antiquity, marriage had little to do with love. It was business arrangement whereby two people became better equipped to survive in a hostile world and protect the few children that survived birth to self-reliance. The hormonal urge to marry was built into the genome as a facilitation to get people together who would normally kill each other on sight. Now, the necessity of the male to fight the wolf from the door and the female to maintain home and hearth has all but vanished. The genome still insists the necessity of marriage, but after the hormones drain away, the genetic imperative doesn’t define longevity. It exists only to bring together. Once that happens, the couple is pretty much on their own. So what we see now is an insistent hormonal imperative to marry, marked by recurring cycles of burnout and re-awakening.

Hollywood personalities tearfully declare they are joined at the hip with the suitor-de-jour and cannot conceive of life without each other followed by tearful requests to respect their privacy as they part six months later. Frequently, the intensity of the original bonding is equally matched by that of the breakup. Jon & Kate plus Hate.

Part of this has to do with the relatively new emergence of females who have little or no need for men. They no longer feel the nesting urge as intensely as they might have in times past and statistics show they are waiting longer to marry and marrying older.

Quote from Bryan Sykes, Professor of Genetics at Oxford University and author of “Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men.”

“The Y chromosome is passed from father to son, it’s what makes babies into boys. Basically the human template is a female: the Y chromosome kicks in a few weeks after conception and makes a boy. “Men are genetically modified women,” explained Sykes. But unlike other chromosomes, the Y chromosome can’t repair itself and will, says Sykes, disappear altogether in about 125,000 years”.

“Every generation one percent of men will have a mutation which reduces their fertility by 10 percent,” explained Sykes. Unlike most chromosomes, the Y does not travel through the generation in pairs, so can never repair itself from a mirror. Flaws are never repaired. “So if that goes on for generation after generation,” Sykes argued, “eventually there are no functioning Y chromosomes left.”
“So no more men … sparsely populated sports bars, Ferrari would lose the lion’s share of its business, and Hooters would probably go out of business”.

There are now more females in the work force than males. Medical and Law School classes are approaching a female majority. It seems possible that social evolution favors females and some scholars have predicted the possibility that men may become extinct, or evolve to Charlie Sheen. Impotent bluster.

Highly recommended by me as an intensely thought provoking, interesting and superbly performed film that deserved better. You can probably find it on DVD or Netflix. You can also easily download the Torrent off The Pirate Bay.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087233/

I give it four of five Meryl Streep smiles.

FL, I love your movie reviews. This one is particularly interesting. Do you really think it actually happens in real life that two people bump into each other in a bookstore and become instantly connected for life?

Sure. It probably happens every day. No one ever “connects” with a potential lover consciously, which is why dating services don’t work. The ingredients of a “connection” continue to mystify the most imaginative poets. I suspect there is a template inside everyone’s unconscious brain, built by genetics and experience that spells out “the love of your life”. Everyone applies that template to everyone they come in contact with, like the range finder inside a camera. Most are rejected. When all of the points click, or even a majority of them, that’s the person that gets the interest. The conscious mind doesn’t comprehend how the points are spatially constructed, but definitely takes instructions from the click. If it clicks solidly enough, a jack hammer can’t shake it.

All of which begs the question of whether there is one true person you are destined to be with for life.

The answer is probably yes, just like there is probably someone else in the world that looks just like you. A much bigger question is how long that one true person will be the love of your life. Psychologists say that a person changes his or her personality completely about every seven years and I believe that. It is pretty shaky that the love of your life at station zero will necessarily be the same love of your life at station seven, and highly improbable at station 14. The probability they are is no better than chance.

This is borne out every day in the entertainment media. Every one of the following list loudly and publicly declared their partner-de-jour was the love of their live till the end of time and beyond. These are just the ones I can think of off the cuff:

JON & KATE PLUS HATE
JENNIFER ANISTON – BRAD PITT
SONNY & CHER BONO
MADONNA – SEAN PENN
ROSEANNE – TOM ARNOLD
KIM BASINGER – ALEC BALDWIN
TOM CRUISE – NICOLE KIDMAN
BEUCE WILLIS-DEMI MOORE
ANGELINA JOLIE-BILLY BOB THORNTON
JENNIFER LOPEZ-BEN AFFLECK
PAUL McCARTNEY – HEATHER MILLS
RENEE ZELLWEGER-KENNY CHESNEY
BRITNEY SPEARS-KEVIN FEDERLINE
MADONNA-GUY RITCHIE
JESSICA SIMPSON-NICK LATCHEY

That said, the LOYL probably does exist somewhere. As I sit here, I know several couples that have been married for a very long time and are totally devoted to each other. My father met my step-mother in 1969 and married her in 1970. They were never separated for more than a few hours at a time for the rest of his life (died in 2008). To this day she sits and cries every day, rarely going out of the house. It’s depressing to call her on his birthday.

What is the probability that you will get that deal? Possibly up through station 7, unlikely to make it past station 14. Look at the statistics.

Aren’t you glad you’re a member of CCM-L for this fascinating information on Sundays 🙂
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David Crippen, MD, FCCM