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Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
Thrilling adventure like '77 Star Wars but missing creativity
After a decade long hiatus, Star Wars is back in a big way, this time directed by JJ Abrams, who does a yeoman's job of continuing the swashbuckling saga by re-connecting to the original trilogy. Back are Han Solo, "Princess" Leia, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2, even if some do a cameo.
The newcomers, Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn, jump right into the action. Rey is found to be a highly skilled fighter pilot and Finn must battle with his own purpose as a defects from a Stormtrooper to a Reistance Fighter. Rey and Finn are thrown together fighting for the same cause, the free Resistance against the evil First Order. Through an unexpected meeting with Han Solo, they are astonished to discover that the mystical Force they believed myth, and The Resistance leaders—Skywalker, Leia and Solo—whom they were told were legends, are indeed real!
The camaraderie that made these characters fun—the wisecracks, sarcasm, fly-by-the-seat of-your-pants heroics—are back as well. Kidnapping and rescue missions, unlikely heroes, saddening emotional loss, the underdogs skillful planning to destroy a much larger enemy and escaping impossible traps are all elements from the first trilogy that JJ Abrams cleverly and nostalgically incorporates into "The Force Awakens."
The special effects in the battle scenes are breathtaking. The scene with the two TIE fighters chasing the Falcon as it careens off the ground, twisting through canyons, and doing backward loops into an abandoned battleship, all while firing shots at the enemy, is thrilling. Their new nemesis, Kylo Ren, is cloaked in the same wicked manner as his grandfather, Darth Vader. The power he wields with The Force is awesome. With a wave of the hand he not only controls his enemies like puppets on strings but can stop a ray from a blaster in mid air. He terrifies his adversaries with his telepathic ability to extract secrets from their belligerent minds. Kylo reports to an intimidating dictator, The Supreme Leader Spoke, in the form of a grotesque five story high hologram.
Finn and Rey's mission is to find a map inside a droid that leads to Luke Skywalker, the key to The Resistance, who has the ability to use the Force to train Jedi knights that can overtake the First Order. "The Force Awakens" takes us on a journey to find Luke. But, The First Order's army and new "weapon" stands in the way.
When Rey's curiosity leads her to open a sort of Pandora's box containing a relic belonging to a former Jedi knight, she unleashes a harrowing flashback that terrifies her to refusing confronting the First Order. The brainwashed Finn is resolute he cannot win a fight against those he defected from. Han Solo is trapped by Stormtroopers. Will Luke ever be found? Will anyone battle the First Order?
While the reminiscence of the former Star Wars scenes seems fun, it unfortunately demonstrates the director's own reservations with innovation and creativity that made the original Star Wars great. The story line lacks depth and hence drama. For instance, when Kylo Ren removes his mask there is no shock and awe as in "The Empire Strikes Back" when Darth Vader reveals his true identity. How does Rey, naive of The Force, with no Jedi training and unfamiliar with the light-saber suddenly match the skilled Kylo clash-for-clash? How does Finn, a former sanitation worker, suddenly have insight into the inner workings of an entire space station and possess incredible marksmanship with a gun turret? Hopefully, Abrams will remedy these lapses in future episodes.
Despite these flaws in the script I still strongly recommend the film for its immense escapist entertainment.
The Age of Adaline (2015)
A most unusual, original and wonderful love story
What a wonderful love story based on an original story. I've never seen a dramatic fantasy love story told in this way before and this one I found captivating. Soon after Adaline Bowman becomes a mother and then, tragically, a widow, a freak San Francisco snow storm in 1935 causes her to crash into a lake and drown. She is age 27. When a lightning strike to the car revives her, she is unaware that it mysteriously halted her aging process. In order for Adaline to live life without being questioned by inquisitive friends, relatives and authorities, every ten years she changes her name, her residence to another state and her job, essentially becoming an entirely new person. The knowledge she gains from living so long she uses to her advantage to make wise investments that pay off over decades. This enables her to live a life of leisure. This blessing of eternal youth has a curse. Because she cannot allow anyone to learn the truth of her real age, she must live away from her beloved daughter (only reached by phone) and she can never fall in love again. But she does in the 1960's with an astronomy major (Harrison Ford) and she knows how this will end. From then on Adaline constantly dismisses would be male suitors with charm and quick wit. Her only real friend is a blind lady who is years Adaline's senior. She must live a life of heartache and loneliness. Aside from the paradox of her looking age 27 but being 107, there is the one of avoiding acquaintances from the past. Despite her intelligence and resourcefulness, Adaline is unable to provide a logical explanation for her youth and vows not to cause men heartbreak when she must leave them unexpectedly. Just as nature is unpredictable so can be human destiny. Little does Adaline realize in present day when she meets her equal, a young intelligent college graduate, whom she allows to befriend her and develop a relationship with, that she has opened Pandora's box. That first fleeting moment of eye contact between the two across a crowded room foreshadowed their destiny for a reason. Her simple life becomes inextricably complicated. The unpredictable climax between Lively and Ford centers on whether she will again flee an impossible circumstance or fight for her feelings of unconditional love. The irony is brilliantly directed. The film moves along through decades seamlessly. The script is tightly written and the beautiful Blake Lively does a masterful acting job with sincere cunning dialogue, refined inflections of her voice and nuances of her facial expressions that elicit empathy. The writing and directing are so good here that I was pleased by this film's lack of love-hate relationships and violins in the background that have traditionally enhanced romantic films. "Age of Adaline" is now on DVD.
Steve Jobs (2015)
What were Sorkin and Boyle thinking when they made this?
This film is nothing about Steve Jobs, Chairman of Appple Computer, as 99% of the public knew him. Imagine casting Pee-Wee Herman as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather and you can get a sense of how badly cast Michael Fassbender was as Steve Jobs. Imagine showing just a glimpse of the newest Apple products on a stage in a packed auditorium of enthralled spectators without telling how Steve and Apple created them. Omitted is Steve Jobs' uncanny ability to create, drive for perfection, and his effective "reality distortion field" management methods (borrowed Star Trek). Imagine focusing a film about this brilliant and highly admired inventor on his rationale for refusing child support, when he's a millionaire, to his first wife instead of on the unique story of his extreme passion for building revolutionary products and his influential and antagonistic management tactics pushing his staff to achieve beyond their own expectations for greatness. Who cares about his personal life? How did he invent such great products? How did he motivate his employees and negotiate with companies to revolutionize multiple industries? How was he so innovative when other companies simply copied each other? How was the new Macintosh so ground-breaking for 1984 that no one knew how to write software for it? The subsequent low sales from lack of Mac applications and Steve's rebellious personality led to infighting at Apple and Jobs' firing. How was this so integral to Steve's success? These are questions I've asked myself since 1980 when I first learned of Apple Computer.
Danny Boyle could not have done a worse job if he had planned to, which does not do Steve Jobs nor Apple justice. Steve Jobs revolutionized the personal computer industry with the Apple II in 1977 and Macintosh in 1984, the music industry with iTunes and iPod in 2001, the telecommunications industry with the iPhone in 2007, the mobile computing and book industries with the iPad in 2010. Steve invented the desktop publishing industry with the Macintosh computer and new Laserwriter printer in 1985. He transformed the animated film industry with Pixar in 1995, when Toy Story was released. He married art and technology in ways no other person or company in history has done. He made technology accessible to everyday consumers through state-of-the-art electronics, remarkable forethought of market potential and simplicity of design. He brought Apple Computer, the company he founded and was famously fired from, back from the brink of bankruptcy to be the world leader in consumer electronics and one of the largest companies in the world. Apple's innovation was many years ahead of the leaders of the industries it expanded into. Through imagination and sheer will Steve influenced the entire telephone industry to change, the animated film industry to change, and the publishing of books to change. No one has had a more diverse impact on so many industries since Thomas Edison, who to this day still holds the record for most individual patents for inventions.
But Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin chose to ignore this since they believe the public is more interested in the soap opera drama of Steve Jobs private family life. Sorkin obviously fails to comprehend Walter Isaacson's biography on Steve Jobs. He obviously never saw one videotaped interview with him and he certainly never read a single magazine article about him. What terrible film preparation for a biography on such a remarkable inventor.
Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Titillating cinematography but non-climatic story
Curious to know what the public's interest was for this movie, I decided to spend the $12 to watch it. Done in the style of other erotic dramas—ie. 9-1/2 Weeks, Eyes Wide Shut, Unbearable Lightness of Being and Last Tango in Paris—this film differed by focusing more on the fringe life style of sadomasochistic sex. Unfortunately, even the most brilliantly filmed sex acts are a bore without a story to support it—no exposition of characters, no climax, no conclusion.
Former model Jamie Dornan portrays Christian, a successful and confident telecommunications executive and self-made millionaire who is so intrigued by Anastasia, a recent college graduate who interviews him on his biography, that he manipulatively seduces her into his private sanctuary of sadomasochism.
The lead characters spend so much time exploring each other's animal appetites that there is little time for dialogue. And, what dialog exists leads the audience on and on with no explanation of why the dominant Dornan became such a recluse that he compels his submissive mistresses to sign a lawyer-approved unorthodox non-disclosure agreement for engaging in a sexual relationship with him.
While newcomer, Dakota Johnson, does an amiable job of portraying Anastasia, an intellectual virgin probing the enlightening world of power and sex, Jamie Dornan's character is so unemotional and so lacking in personality that he should stay out of movies and stay on magazine covers. I expected at least some kind of interesting plot justifying Christian's perpetual rebuking of Anastasia's affection and his contempt for her curiosity in her trying to learn about his "troubled past." The movie seemed to be building to some sort of thematic climax but the ending was so abrupt that I was surprised and disappointed to see the credits roll. This was no Last Tango in Paris and not even in the same league with 9-1/2 weeks. This film is as much of an enigma as its title.
By Chris Kaufmann
Noah (2014)
outstanding acting, cunning dialogue, lame storyline, discordant special effects, poor character development
The strengths of the movie were the outstanding acting and moral precepts. Russel Crowe was made to play Noah just as Charlton Heston was Moses and Mel Gibson was William Wallace. Anthony Hopkins as a mythical grandfather was convincing and Jennifer Connelly was powerful as a tormented trusting wife. The moral dilemmas that Noah battled to justify his actions, especially the conflict between his head and his heart were fascinating. His single-minded devotion to the portents of the Creator often conflict with his love of humanity. Noah's wife and children must blindly accept Noah's sacred visions as being received from the Creator, thus they must dutifully follow Noah's orders. Yet, she and her sons challenge the very purpose of justice in their duties to him when Noah follows the Creator's command to cleanse the world of man's evil so it may be born anew. This was more climatic than all the special effects combined.
Overall, a weak story failed to engage me to the film. No rationale is given to explain why the Creator chose Noah for building an Ark to save all of earth's living creatures. How do all the animals arrive at the ark in unison two by two without anyone or any deity summoning them? Characters lack crucial development. When I see Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, being respected and followed like nobility I feel like I'm watching Luke Skywalker follow Yoda in Star Wars. How did Noah come to be so skilled in shipbuilding? Why is Noah's adversary, Tubal-Cain, a greedy, destructive barbarian? The failure to establish these characters own stories left their actions lacking in drama.
Even more incongruous was the sudden introduction of the biblical Watchers -- giant "Transformer-like" beings with six arms made of stone that walk with the gait of a Star Wars Imperial Walker, and radiate beams of bright orange light when struck in battle. A colossal anachronism and mistake. When the Bible tells of Watchers being "mighty beings" one would expect mortals with the strength of Hercules, not 100 foot high monsters. Then, to build the ark in eight years, instead of Noah summoning craftsmen from villages the director, Darren Aronofsky, has these biblical watchers build it, hewing trees like they're toothpicks. Absurd! The battle scene at the end looks like a war scene from Transformers, not one fought by mortals. And, months of rain from the sky would justify a great flood but to have cataclysmic gushers sprout from a barren ground like a volcano is nonsense.
The scenes of flooding waters were the only believable special effects I saw and really were the only special effects necessary to tell Noah's story. For reasons I fail to understand, filmmakers think louder and massive are more important than a convincing story. As a biblical film it is about 20% of what the Ten Commandments was and as an action adventure film it is about 10% of what Raiders of the Lost Ark was.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
A cross between Sherlock Holmes and Forrest Gump
Consider this a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Forrest Gump – a compelling search to save professional integrity erases an awkward search for social acceptance. What is life like for Walter Mitty, an asset manager of film negatives? It's so dull, monotonous and unsocial, working in a dark basement with albums of film, that he is given to frequent daydreams of fun, excitement and adventure in the middle of conversations. He cannot even manage a profile on e-Harmony to meet women because he has no life outside of work. Walter is a fumbling, socially awkward, pushover who is sadly the butt of jokes. But all this is about to change when his publishing company transitions from paper magazines to the Internet. They are scheduled to publish the last cover but somehow the negative from their solitary geographic photographer, Sean, goes mysteriously missing. To save his job and the reputation of the magazine, Walter is thrust into the impossible position of covering for the lost negative while privately investigating clues for the whereabouts of the adventurous photographer and hunting him down. He must solve the puzzle of elusive clues in Sean's negatives to find his trail. In so doing, Walter travels the world taking unexpected life threatening risks with every opportunity. He is relentless and determined to save face yet ironically he builds a repertoire of experiences for his e-Harmony profile. In his pursuit he befriends his co-worker, Cheryl, with whom he has always had a secret crush. He uses every conceivable resource one can imagine, including Cheryl, to find Sean, even giving up at one point when the trail runs cold. Like Forrest Gump, Walter Mitty never knows what life will throw his way. The ending is quite unexpected and I won't give it away. The film gets off to a slow start but the script, acting, outstanding cinematography and storyline make up for this. Although far-fetched, I find this to be a believable dramatic and funny story. I recommend it.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Good acting overshadowed by bad directing and predictable script.
I give DiCaprio a thumbs up for his impeccable portrayal of the perpetually greedy Jordan Belfort, but overall I disliked the movie. This is based on the memoirs of Jordan Belfort, a notorious stockbroker and self-made millionaire who's penny stock brokerage defrauded 1,500 clients of $200 million during the 1990's. He used aggressive sales tactics and adrenaline charged locker room motivational chants to persuade his vagabond group of 1,000 wannabes to follow his lead, get rich at any cost, especially to the client, and make a name for their brokerage, Stratton Oakmont. At three hours the movie is overly long given the numerous scenes of drug use, drinking, sex and raucous office parties, not to mention the nonstop foul language throughout. One clearly gets the message that Mr. Belfort is a debaucher, gluttonous, disloyal, lewd, immoral, fanatical, corrupt, demanding and ambitious, hence the title. Two hours would have been sufficient for this intense roller coaster ride of greed. I wonder if Mr. Scorsese is vicariously trying to relive the wild '60's in this film.
Jobs (2013)
"Jobs" could have been "insanely great" but instead gives a lackluster glance at the highlights and lowlights of Steve Jobs' life.
"Jobs" could have been "insanely great" but instead gives a lackluster glance at the highlights and low lights of Steve Jobs' life.
While the film is factually accurate from the events cited and statements Steve Jobs made down to the realism of the characters appearances, it lacked character development and a cohesive story. It is well cast and well acted. However, with major events being presented in the film like news headlines, there is no story justifying their existence. Steve Jobs is portrayed giving repeated quoted monologues instead of engaging in real dialog between himself and his co-workers to illustrate the chemistry of their relationships that lead to their success.
Since 1982 I spent most of my adult life using Apple's products, writing thousands of lines of code on the Apple II computer and reading every news story about Apple. The film fails to capture the grueling work and the pride programmers and engineers feel for designing cutting edge hardware and software to create Apple's superior computers and software.
For such a prolific inventor and complex man that Steve Jobs was, I am surprised that a veteran director like Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg didn't direct this. I really wanted to know how Steve Jobs' father-in-law inspired him and instilled in him his drive for perfection. I wanted to learn how Steve started iTunes and invented the iPod. These were not in the movie.
There are many key events in Apple's history the film omitted that were crucial to understanding Apple's success. Steve's idea for the Mac originated with his engineer, Jef Raskin, showing him a prototype bitmapped GUI of Alto computer at the Xerox PARC think tank in 1979. It had the first personal desktop interface of windows, icons, menus and a mouse, a major advancement over the millions of existing command driven PC's in the market using green screen monitors with mono-spaced fonts of 40 characters by 24 lines. Jobs was immediately convinced the Alto interface is the direction Apple Computer must go, so he bought it from Xerox and designed the Lisa and, later the Macintosh on this concept. The film omitted this visit to Xerox.
There was fierce competition in the personal computer industry. A decades-old storied rivalry between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs began in 1985, one year after the Mac debuted. Except for one scene in the film, this rivalry was completely omitted from it. Jobs' was irate that Gates stole Apple's graphic user interface (GUI) from the Macintosh but the film fails to show how this happened. Jobs previously went to Microsoft to hire Bill Gates to write business software (Word, Multiplan, etc.) to enable Apple to sell its new Macintosh computer. In doing so, Microsoft learned how Apple's GUI worked, reverse engineered it and created a similar interface for Microsoft's new Windows operating system to work on the existing millions of IBM computers running Microsoft's Disk Operating System (MS DOS). Microsoft would compete directly against Apple Computer. Though the film does portray Steve Jobs as a disciplinarian, a perfectionist and temperamental, it never shows why he was this way.
The film was remiss of major events and details needed to explain Apple's success story. Jobs got his start in electronics working for Hewlett-Packard after calling founder William Hewlett on the phone at his home. Jobs met Wozniak at HP. And, Jobs used "The HP Way" as a blueprint for starting Apple Computer. Steve Jobs' miraculous turnaround of Apple from near bankrupt to profitable in three years and to the world's largest company in 13 years, business leaders consider the biggest ever success story in the history of American business. How the film could leave out this turnaround (inventing the highly successful iMac, PowerPC, iPod, iTunes and iPhone) is astonishing. Even before coming back to Apple, Jobs re-invented Pixar animation after buying The Graphics Group from George Lucas, revolutionizing animated movies for Disney that were created on NeXT graphics workstations (the most advanced in existence) that Steve Jobs invented. This, too, was omitted from the film.
In one of his biographies, Steve Jobs explains succinctly how the iPod epitomizes Apple Computer, "it combines Apple's incredible technology base with Apple's legendary ease of use with Apple's awesome design." This is the premise upon which "Jobs" should have been based. I recommend the film but with reservations.
Chris Kaufmann