The one obvious question is: Does this, yet another war film, an amalgam of “Saving Private Ryan” and “Platoon” deserve a stellar “88” rating from rottentomatoes.com? The answer is yes, with a couple of caveats.

The characterizations are stellar. The principals unconditionally depict the emotions, stress and tragedy of brutal war scenarios that seemingly never end. Yes, Brad Pitt is excellent (and has clearly ascended to the A-List) as the stalwart that holds his flock together through it all. Shia LaBeouf), as loader Grady Travis is outstanding. Jon Bernthal and Michael Peña evolved to steely eyed, unrepentant killers with no concept of a future other than more of the same.

The other actors support the premise with excellence but it’s Logan Lerman as Norman Ellison, a benign clerk/typist pulled from the ranks to be a rookie tank driver, wholly unprepared for combat, that steals the show. Norman’s horror at the perpetual atrocities his fellows treat as a routine part of their day are mirrored by the audiences horror at watching him progressively acclimatize to it. Director David Ayer captures the suppressed agony of men in brutal combat with immediacy and accuracy, which brings up an interesting paradox.

What is the real value of violence in film, especially video game computer-graphic interface that festoons half the films out there? Normally, nothing other than to sell tickets to those attracted to that sort of thing. However, “Fury” is remarkably different, I think. The particular species of violence in the film seems necessary to bring out the reactions to it from the gifted cast. So, the violence in this film is part and parcel of the performances. Without it, none of those emotions would have the same intimacy and congress. It works for “Fury”.

Extras: Look for Michael Peña in the new series “Gracepoint”. Also keep your eye out for Clint Eastwood’s son from 1987 from a flight attendant, Scott Eastwood who plays Sgt. Miles. The birth certificate of Scott Eastwood bears the notation of “Father declined” and he has gone by his mother’ last name, Reeves.

Best part: Tender moment between Norman and a frightened German refugee girl and the aftermat

Weakest part: Not much. A little too long, as most of them are.

Disclaimer: Very, very violent.

I give it four of five vivid tracer bullets.

This review will be somewhat different than usual in that I cannot divulge much if anything about the intricate, convoluted plot without risking spoilers.

So I will say that the plot is exceptionally intelligent and imaginative and brought to the screen quite accurately from the book of the same name by Gillian Flynn, (who wrote the screenplay). So imaginative I think, that this writer mush have had some personal experience in this kind of story line. It’s difficult to conceive of an individual dreaming up something this labyrinthine. That gives you an idea of how this plot goes.

Several things do stand out:

1. A very interesting and very scary view of relationships, the giddy, hormonal beginnings followed by waking and smelling the coffee years later. The soft underbelly of the most superficially shining relationships that could be any one of us.

2. This film lays out a very accurate picture of how tiny bits of otherwise meaningless information congeal together to form a coherent plot (sort of a media version of “Zero Dark Thirty”) expertly guided by the impeccably evil tabloid media. The film accurately mocks Nancy Grace, but made her more or a caricature than the truly evil queen bee of all things tabloid she is.

3. It also reaffirms the age old advice of every attorney I have ever known and even, truth be told, most cops, that anyone under even the slightest suspicion of anything must never, NEVER answer any questions from a police officer without an experienced defense attorney by their side.

4. Rosamund Pike as Amy is exceptionally good in this role and very believable. An excellent performance. Ben Affleck serviceable but not quite up to Pike.

Some shortcomings:

1. Like most films today, it’s too long, straining the audience’s ability to follow the plot for the full length. Two and a half hours of this intricate plot is a long sit-through. The book was 400 pages.

2. They work the tabloid press angle to a bit of an extreme, washing half the film in satellite dish-carrying local news trucks parked outside everyone’s house, swarms of screaming, microphone-carrying drones pushing and shoving to demand statements.

The audience is left with the uneasy feeling that the tabloid media depicted in the film totally controls all the outcomes and even our own reality. Not the “real” truth but its perspective. All that matters is how it’s portrayed on a screen

That’s the argument made with Gone Girl, and it’s done very convincingly.

David Crippen, MD, FCCM.

I stumbled on this after the star, Maggie Gyllenhaal showed up as a guest on Craig Henderson’s late, late night show and briefly discussed the film. She was incredibly articulate and described the film in such a way that I really got interested in it.

Set in Israel, the story line consists of a brother and sister who took over their father’s extensive business in the Middle East after he was assassinated. The series focuses on Nessa Stein (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the British daughter of a Jewish businessman who dealt weapons to Israel and was subsequently murdered before her eyes as a child. When Nessa inherits the company, she decides to take it in a more altruistic direction, contracting with a Palestinian to lay cable that would provide high-speed Internet to Gaza. Nessa is catapulted into a conflict with spies and terrorists that leaves her struggling.

Nessa’s warm, fuzzy intentions are sucked up into the vortex of the region’s conflict: a history of violence, distrust and uncertainty. The evolving situation is made infinitely more complicated by the interaction of several spy groups heralded by the great Stephen Rea as a seedy M6 spy trying to get to the bottom of the intricate mess.

The plot is exceptionally complex, made more so by trying to decipher heavy foreign accents. The double-crossings, the complex machinations, the flashbacks gave some exceptional performances room to breathe, creating characters both compellingly flawed and very human. There is a full bill of phenomenal female characters including Lubna Azabal as Atika (right), Nessa’s translator and companion that would directly lead to political actions replete with murder and mayhem along the way. The power-plays between the sneaky and ambitious Monica (Eve Best), the gutsy intelligence chief Julia (Janet McTeer) and morose Hugh (Stephen Rea) directly participate in the unravelling of the Stein family.

Excellent writing. The tension and suspense of this eight part series, punctuated by unexpected violence and murder is heavy enough to cut with a knife. The dense narrative thickets, moral entanglements and damaged complex characters are beyond compelling. Be prepared to run the film back frequently to understand subtle things easily missed first time around due to heavy accents. This is an excellent film in virtually every regard with fine performances from the characters.

I give it 4.5 of 5 heavy beards. (Can be found on Comcast)

Disclaimer: Contains exceptionally offensive and violent scenes involving women, and also contains a significant amount of Middle East politics without pointing fingers at either side.

Today for no particular reason and having little else to do, I chose to catch a film I knew little about simply because 84% of the Rotten Tomato viewers liked it. That film, “The 100 foot journey” was simply a gem.

Thrown out of India because of violent politics, the Kadams end up wandering around France looking for their fate. The brakes give out on their jalopy within view of a charming French village and after they are assisted into town, they open an Indian restaurant right across the street from a very haute French place boasting on Michelin star. The strategy and tactics of war begin.

Papa veteran Indian actor Om Puri plays Kadam to perfection. Helen Mirren convincingly conjures up a character we has devoted her entire life to running one of the finest restaurants in France. Manish Dayal as Hassan is desirous of learning about French cooking. Charlotte Le Bon as Marguerite rounds out the cast as the obligatory pretty girl.

Perhaps you might remember a while back I tried to analyze a really bad film for what made it so (Anatomy of bad film:“Divergent”)(2014). This time I’ll analyze what makes a good (and underrated) film.

1. There are no computer-generated effects, explosions, rattles of automatic gunfire, exploding universes and green monsters with tentacles.

2. The director has world-class credentials. Lasse Hallstrom directed the Oscar nominated 2000 film “Chocolat”.

3. The film contains understated performances from every single actor working together to interpret a plot that is well constructed, interesting and holds up through the entire film.

4. The cinematography is vivid, beautiful and captures the European countryside and kitchen interiors with style and accuracy.

5. Everyone ends up with a partner of sorts in the end. 🙂

Of course, there are always excesses. The film is too long and the final third enters a realm that doesn’t quite fit tithe the beginning. But all things, considered, it’s an excellent film, well crafted, thoughtful and devoid of hype and glitz. A film you can just relax within and enjoy.

Best quip: Restaurateur in Paris showing the dining room to Hassan: “This is the beast with 1000 mouths. To please it, you must be innovative”

I give it four of five newly picked mushrooms. Must-see for my Indian friends

A chronicle of James Brown’s rise from poverty to become an influential musician in the funk style, a different universe of music of the 60s but quite a bit of crossover from white audiences. James had some extremely complex moves, rivaling those of Michael Jackson, including quick-steps unique to his performance art.

Given the challenge of reproducing the intricacies of James Brown, Chadwick Boseman gets it stunningly right. Boseman looks just like James and has all the right moves (however, he did not sing). Viola Davis is incredible as his mother, a stellar performance. Brandon Smith as “Little Richard” gets a great spot. The rest of the characterizations were superb with the exception of Dan Aykroyd who sleepwalked through his few spots.

Minimized during the film was Brown’s trademark on stage collapse during the performance of “Please, Please, Please”. Brown sagged to his knees in tears after working himself to exhaustion, prompting one of his flunkies to come out, drape a cape over his shoulders and try to escort him off the stage. As Brown was escorted off, his vocal group, the Famous Flames continued singing the background vocals. Brown then ostentatiously threw off the cape and staggered back to the microphone emitting a blood-curdling scream to continue the song. He did this several times. The crowd went totally bat shit crazy.

However, the progress of the film is muddied by with repetitive flashbacks, noncontributory visual gimmicks, and vapid fantasy sequences creating a disjointed, more ambitious film than it’s ability to produce.” But watching Boseman in action simply electrifying. He doesn’t imitate James Brown, he inhabits him. He has Soul Brother #1, Mr. Dynamite, the Godfather of soul and the hardest workin’ man in show business nailed from A to Z.

Best feature: Chadwick Boseman. One can’t help but wonder if he’ll be an awards-season contender.

Not so best feature: Disjointed flashbacks to Brown’s childhood detract from the progression of events.

Notice if you’re quick: The early Beach Boys in their blue flannel shirts in a side room awaiting their performance.

Big technical mistake: one of the Famous Flames plays a Fender Telecaster several years before they were in production.

The film has some weak points but Bozemans and Viola Davis’s performances are worth the price of admission.

I give it four of five toothy refrains of “Please….Please….Please….”.

Eagerly awaited in the future: Andre Benjamin as Jimi Hendrix in “All Is By My Side”. Amy Adams as Janice Joplin in “Get it while you can”.

The situation with late night comedian/talk shows has reached an all time low in my estimation. Leno’s stock in trade was stand-up and he was funny but his 11:30 PM schtick was highly scripted and predictable, probably crafted by the same corporate structure that brings us such gems as “The Bachelorette” and “Two Broke Girls”.

Yes, Leno’s and Letterman’s monologs are usually funny until you see the Que cards. Then you see the line of film personalities all only there to hawk their new film or other media masterpiece. Letterman is clearly tired and bored, long past time to quit. I haven’t even bothered to watch the Kimmel clone. Seth Myers wasn’t funny for the 30 or so years Saturday Night Live hasn’t been funny and isn’t funny now. Poor flash in the pan Conan got the short end of the stick and now reposes on a cable site no one watches. Jimmy Fallon isn’t inherently funny. He’s a Saturday Night Live relic and tainted by it. He tries but tries too hard.

Then, a night of temporary insomnia and a thunderbolt out of the blue. The Late, Late show on CBS with Craig Ferguson. It was a bolt of lightning and a stone at my feet engraved: “salvation”.

Cut to the chase, Craig Ferguson is quite possibly the most spontaneously funny human on the planet.  The funniest the fewest humans on the planet have ever seen. Sitting comfortably at the table with Richard Pryer, Robin Williams and Steve Martin, but improved on all the former.

Richard Pryor was and continues to be the platinum standard of stand-up comedy in his prime (1980 or so). He blew audiences away. There was no one one remotely in his league. Then he got bogged down in bad film roles, drugs and faded way too soon. Difficult to know if his white-hot talent could have lasted much longer than it did.

Robin Williams was brilliant for about the same length of time as Pryor then he burned out from the necessity to become more frenetic to hold audience’s limited attention span. Crowing from the rafters and the audience moved on. Now endless “guest appearances”.

Steve Martin was brilliant in that he figured out that the audience was bored with frenetic comedy and was ready for “silly”. His late 70s stand-up was brilliant, “happy feet”, “cat handcuffs”, “Getting small” and “cruel shoes” are simply brilliant.  Then he got bogged down with really bad movies “Father of the bride” (1991) and now occasionally appears on Letterman offering a pale clone of his former brilliant self.

Ferguson is a fresh amalgam of Prior, Williams and Martin. He has no cue cards and no scripts. He paces back and forth aimlessly as spontaneous quips flow freely. Who could have possibly thought up a gay robot skeleton as a co-host and a silly full sized puppet circus horse as a foil. And who could have possibly believed these things “work”.

Ferguson has been effortlessly charming the pants off viewers for something like 7 years now. His signature tossing away of his note cards when a guest sits down is a pointed slam at other late night hosts. The talk stays focused on and is the master of simple conversation rather than pre-digested research.

Craig doesn’t need an audience. He barely needs guests. He is what he is and it works. Ferguson is thoroughly engaging long before before he brings out a guest.  He clearly enjoys himself and it shows. He can speak intelligently about anything. He can occasionally dive into a personal, soul-searching monologue demonstrating he’s a “real” person without becoming maudlin.

It’s difficult to imagine what it must take to deliver a totally spontaneous diatribe that’s simply hilarious and brilliant without so much as a pause. Ferguson is not just the undiscovered king of late light, he’s Richard Prior incarnate, warts and all, peripherally mention multiple marriages, substance abuse and therapy. Somewhere Richard must be smiling.

Why Ferguson is not properly recognized for his contributions to spontaneous, brilliant comedy is something that is beyond logical comprehension.  He’s truly the quirky alternative to the formulaic crop of talk shows with the word “late” in them. That alternative is simply genius. He has no peer in the realm of the simply funny.

Highly recommended by me.

Here are some quips that highlight his talent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th4KpMubJ04

“Jersey Boys” is the motion picture version of the Tony winning play starring three of the four members of the Broadway version.  This film got a mediocre review in USA today from critic Claudia Puig, AGE TWENTY-FIVE who lives in Walla Walla, Washington. Culturally about as far from New Jersey as it’s possible to get.  Claudia wasn’t a gleam in her daddy’s eye when all this took place at the turn of the 60’s decade. Her daddy was probably kicking the sides of his playpen during all of it too so it’s quite possible she’s out of her range.

I think critics who have never been there for a social phenomenon should leave it alone. George F. Will “reviewed” the death of Jim Morrison for Time in 1971. Essentially, he said he had no idea what the fuss was about, and clearly he didn’t because he was alive then but isolated from any of the culture. He was like a Bornean headhunter reviewing a Boeing 747.

I was there for all of it in 1962 and I play in a musical group that came together by the same Brownian motion as Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons. I listened to them live playing all their songs as they became symbolic of a generation. I can render you a very insightful picture of the temper of those times and the desultory factors that make a successful musical group. So can Clint Eastwood.

Eastwood’s genius is portraying details and the meticulously nuanced flow of events.  Singing the songs in their own voice, each of the Four Seasons tell various aspects of the story, sometimes stepping out of context to speak to the audience. Unlike what “Ray”(2004) and “Walk the Line” (2005) did for Ray Charles and Johnny Cash, Jersey Boys isn’t so much about the personalities but the ingredients that combine in a random and illogical manner to create magic.  The birth of a “sound” greater than the sum of its parts.

Eastwood takes his time meticulously building the story, ignoring the usual Hollywood imagery and formula as he did in “Flags of our fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” (both 2006).  At first the audience needs to be dragged into the unfolding story that starts out more like an old cops & robbers film, but as the story proceeds, they witness emerging genius. Some critics complain the film is too long. I say it takes exactly two hours and fourteen minutes to build the nuances of the story.

John Lloyd Young gives an outstanding performance as Frankie Valli, not just with vocals but also with bringing to life the youthful ambiance of the early years, the inevitable descent into excess, and the emotionally battered period that followed. The rest of the cast deliver solid performances, especially Vincent Piazza as Tommy and as always, Chris Walken as their Godfather.

Best part:  The aging group appears in New York City in 1990 to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A quietly beautiful scene.

Not so great part:  Californian Eastwood directs in just a little too laid back fashion, missing some opportunities to allow the characters to leap out of the screen.

Most if not all of the critics that give this film so-so review don’t understand the culture and especially don’t understand what Eastwood is trying to do here. Yes, if judged by Hollywood Spectacular Epic benchmarks the film fails. This film was clearly not written by Joe Eszterhas (Showgirls: (1995).

Accordingly, I strenuously disagree with some of the mediocre reviews of this film by critics who analyze it using benchmarks that don’t work. Yes, this is a bit of a long film but the length is needed and necessary to build characters the audience believes in and can absorb. This film builds a story line full of carefully constructed nuances that work as builds toward enchantment. If accepted for what it is, this film is a masterpiece.

I give it four and a half of five falsettos. Must See.

I’ve always thought Tom Cruise was underrated as an actor. He should have gotten an Oscar for Risky Business (1983). He consistently turns in a wide range of performance art.

Cruises last film, Oblivion (2013) flopped at the box office, but he’s back in a new sci-fi effort, Edge of Tomorrow, a melding of “Groundhog Day (1993) and “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) with a dash of “Aliens” (1986).  Most such derived creations are sold to HBO two weeks after opening, but “Edge” is surprisingly good.

Cruise plays a reluctant soldier who, after being killed in combat, awakens the day before the battle and must relive, over and over the events leading to his death. Each path to his death is variable and he can choose paths.  Cruise’s curse is to die again and again affording him a limitless capacity to learn on the job, each return to battle another chance to probe the enemy’s vulnerabilities. The premise is similar to Groundhog Day but very ingenious and creative.

The film contains plenty of obligatory computer generated graphic bang, boom and destruction, which normally assault the senses, but the characters effectively, stand out. Edge of Tomorrow with a budget of over $175 million is said to be one of the biggest box-office risks for mid-2014. I saw it in an IMAX theater yesterday Saturday for an afternoon showing and there were ten people in the theater. It might do better in foreign venues as many of Cruises films do.

Best part: Southern fried top sergeant Bill Paxton smirking: “May I help you. Sir?”

Least best part: An attempt to superimpose a love story onto Cruse and Emily Blunt’s relationship which stands out like a sore thumb during a “lets do anything possible to kill the enemy” scene.

It’s a good film, consistently interesting and novel. I give it three and a half Tom Cruise toothy grins.

Directed by Neil Burger (“The Illusionist,”), this adaptation of Veronica Roth’s novel is a variation on the current theme of young girls living and surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (“The Hunger Games”). A society in which everyone is divided into five groups matching their personality (basically: smart, brave, honest, selfless, or kind) based on a psychological test.

Most young people choose what their parents are but they don’t have to. The groups are segregated and members and choose an occupation commensurate with that faction, lawyers and judges in the Candor group, teachers and scientists in the Erudite group and so on

The heroine, Beatrice (a very Katniss-like Shailene Woodley) discovers she’s “divergent,” she doesn’t fit into any discreet category, making her unpredictable in a society that thrives on predictability. This puts her at risk from being killed by cold-blooded utopians like Kate Winslet (a throw-away role). She survives using the same dangerous qualities that can kill her if discovered.

Here’s what makes a BAD QUALITY FILM and “Divergent” qualifies:

1. Films made from good books rarely succeed. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to translate the intricacies of a book to a two-hour film. The classic crash and burn was the film version of “Catch-22” (1970) that flopped despite an all-star cast, a ton of money and a Director fresh from his success in “The Graduate” (1968). Even “The Godfather” book was much more intense.

2. Beware messages about the evils of conformity wrapped in big budget packages. A script marked by pre-digested, post-adolescent wish fulfillment trite in a nonsense futurist premise is what it is, too busy warning us about the dangers of conformity to develop a unique persona of its own.

3. Jumping on the bandwagons of similar films that came before rarely succeed. Plucky, post-adolescent heroines learning to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances has been done. That the public embraced “The Hunger Games” is no guarantee they will embrace a similar concept with look-alike stars.

4. The story line isn’t even by a stretch possible or believable in real life. It’s silly and contrived especially for the film’s plot. Further, it doesn’t adequately inform the audience to the basic premise it’s built on, making it unwieldy and repetitive. The audience gets lost as they are forced to fill in the blanks, then they get perplexed and then bored.

5. Interjecting an obligatory and ever-so-brief sex scene into an otherwise austere story line doesn’t work except as a thinly veiled contrivance to be sure guys in the audience don’t get too bored. It’s as out of place as yarmulkes on biker gangs.

6. The film is too long. There is little or no sense of story progression in a two and a half hour film that could have adequately explored the premise in 2/3 the time. The story line bogs down, usually to extend CGI pyrotechnics that get overwhelming quickly.

7. If the producers desire a sequel (said to be in the works), leave some twists at the end to build on. This film comes to a climax that seems pretty much self-contained. Any sequel will not continue the model and so will be a totally different production, using the same characters to work an unrelated plot.

For all the above reasons, this film is not recommended by me. Watching a poodle recite Tennyson would be more interesting. Definitely don’t pay to see it.

Unrated.

“House of Cards” was an astonishing risk for film streaming outfit “Netflix”, who six months earlier was in deep financial trouble, teetering on the brink. Netflix literally pushed the few chips they had to the center of the table and bet the farm on a hastily accumulated political drama starring a very expensive Kevin Spacey and relatively overlooked Robin Wright. A new concept of viewing, the entire season out in one big chunk for series gluttons. They succeeded beyond their expectations.

Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) schemes way through convoluted shenanigans as the (very) Southern Democratic Senate majority whip out to get revenge on a new administration that promised him a cabinet position, then reneges. His reptilian wife Claire (Robin Wright) aids and abets from a different perspective. House of Cards portrays the protocol of political power differently than “The West Wing”. The Byzantine plots are a much more complex chess game in which progress is planned five moves ahead and the baroque parliamentary gerrymandering is fierce to the point of brutality. Francis chillingly mentions to one of the characters: “Generosity is its own form of power.” Remember that the next time someone does you a favor.”

Underwood and his wife share a spooky relationship in which much of their communication is unspoken, but between the two of them, they relentlessly decide the fates of others with Machiavellian cunning. Their interaction with victims is meticulously crafted to gently facilitate their self-destruction. Those investigative journalists ferreting out the couple’s guilt fall into artful traps that brutally assure their own destruction. The result is a masterpiece of intrigue with a minimum of suspense. The viewer always knows where the path leads, and the series takes its time getting there, wringing out the intricate details along the way.

Kevin Spacey pauses along the way to step out of character and wink at the camera, offering up snarky quips: “I love that woman. I love her more than sharks love blood”.

“House of Cards is an unexpectedly brilliant masterpiece that probably single handedly pulled Netflix out of receivership. Spacey’s delivery of menacing charisma is the freshest character on TV. Wife Clare’s emotional link marinated with ruthlessness augment the series’ magnetism. The other characters are perfectly placed.

Best part: Frank’s to-the-camera quips: It’s so “Refreshing to work with someone who’ll throw a saddle on a gift horse rather than look it in the mouth”.

Inferior part: If you choose to absorb this series, you MUST begin with Chapter 1 of Season 1. The story line is entirely too complex to pick it up in the middle. At the end of Season 2 there are now 26 one-hour chapters so this will be a long haul.

I give it 4 of 5 sneers. Highly recommended if you have the time and attention capability.