Kim Gentes

Crashing and Burning. Oh ya, and a plane goes down.

Summary: Denzel Washington is the everyman, superhero and legend that we all look up to. Except now. Flight is a brilliant detour of character for one of the best actors of our generation. In a film that looks like no airline movie you've ever seen, Robert Zemeckis and Denzel Washington both have their careers and modus operandi take a sharp turn from the past. Heroic and tragic, this very serious film about serious issues may be one of the top 3 movies of the year. An absolute must-see. NOTE: it is important for people read my rating caution at the bottom of this review.

Full Review: We've had nearly 100 years of commercial air flight in the modern world. And there has been some powerful and poignant issues to have been played out on the silver screen using the backdrop of an airplane. Flight is a new movie that takes hold of four topics in that sphere and plays them closely together in a deceptively simple plot. The idolization of pilots, the fear of crashing, the power of government regulators and investigators, and substance abuse are spun into a riveting yarn. Centered around pilot Whip Whitaker, who's rags to riches to addiction story unhinges the audience from loving the central character, this may be one of the best airplane movies ever.

Whitaker (played by Denzel Washington) is an airline captain with uncanny abilities. He grew up, mentored by his crop-dusting pilot father and doating grandfather, to be an expert Navy pilot. He made the dream of flying for a big commercial airline and successfully managed years of untinged record. Yet his family life was dismal. Divorced and bitter over the loss of relationship with his only child, Whitaker drinks and abuses drugs to prop his life up and keep him "flying straight".

[Mini-spoiler- the follow paragraph reveals some of the plot that is important in the story. It doesn't give away the outcome, but we wanted to warn you that it reveals a significant point of the plot]. When tragedy strikes and the plane he is piloting crashes, his amazing piloting abilities save most of the passengers and he is initially hailed as a hero. But toxicology records threaten to reveal his secret life and thus begins a descent into the hell of Whip Whitaker.

This movie is excellent. Denzel's performance alone is worth the price of the ticket. There is one small blip in the storyline that seemed slightly contrived, and left me from giving it my highest ranking (A+), but the direction and acting are so good you will not be disappointed.

That said, this movie is very intense in its treatment of drugs, alcohol and language. While I personally believe it could be a very poignant story, I understand the graphic representation of these topics in a film might be very offensive to some. I am warning you of this now- buckle up and sit down, or don't get on this plane. There will be turbulence- violent turbulence.

RATING CAUTION: For parents, this movie should be reserved for children that are actually 17 and over. With full frontal nudity, drug/alcohol usage and excessive swearing in parts, the movie rating is apt at MPAA "R" rating. I am highlighting this rating because it stretches the limit of what many people will be comfortable with seeing in a film. Overt and repeated drug & alcohol use, and an opening scene of nudity. You should know this going into the film.

Amazon DVD Link: http://amzn.to/VVKXc2

Review by Kim Gentes

Hunting the hunter.

Summary: In the Alaskan arctic north, where only oil companies would venture, work a group of men whose jobs are not only extracting resources from the bleak land, but protecting themselves from the elements and from the native killers- wolves. This film is about losing your defenses, and having to face the dangers not only of the outside wilderness but of the internal world of fear that some men leave unchallenged until they must fight for their lives.

Full Review:  John Ottway (played by Liam Neeson) is a hired sharpshooter and big game hunter who is supposed to kill wolves that threaten the work camp of the Alaskan oil-workers he is employed with. Ottway's internal dialogue provides the narration for the film and it introduces you to a troubled middle-aged man who is heartbroken over the loss of his wife. We aren't immediately told if she simply left him or died, but his grief is the prominent catalyst for his narrative.

Very quickly, Ottway and a group of other employees at the outpost are boarding a plane for a trip out of the north. The story begins full force when the plane crashes and most of the travelers are killed. The plot quickly establishes Ottway with a half dozen men trying to find their way back to civilization amidst the bone-chilling snow and the bone-crushing pack of wolves that pursue the cadre as prey.

Neeson's character gains strength by reciting advice and poetry handed to him from the memory of his father. As the seemingly obvious showdown with the wolves draws nigh, Ottway is challenged with the question of whether his courage will be enough to live up to the lines of the poem he recites:

Once more into the fray.
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live or die on this day.
Live or die on this day.

The journey for the men facing the winter and the wolves, while contrived, is still frightening, and even ghoulish, as limbs, wounds and wolves combine with enough blood to churn lighter stomachs. There are parts of the movie that even look a touch cheesy- for example, the "eyes in the dark" scene strangely reminds us of scenes from the animated 1994 Disney epic, Lion King.  And while the those directorial weaknesses remind you this isn't epic film-making, Neeson's unstoppable screen presence lifts the film on his shoulders and carries it home.

Again, it is Ottway's internal world that frames the best part of the intellegent conversation of this film.  His wife, his father, his self-evaluations- these are what give the movie its boyancy and life. The end-game is important enough that I won't give it away here. It's not a great film, but certainly well worth watching and is a solid B rating from this reviewer.

For parents, I recommend no one under 16 see this film. The violence, gore and language are too strong, vivid and constant. 

Amazon DVD Link: http://amzn.to/NDvfgf

Review by Kim Gentes

Life. Death. Joy. Pain.

Summary: Most films have a specific plot. They develop tension through the story, hoping to surprise you a bit with the conclusion and warm or thrill you along the way. Very few films try to approach a topic as broad as "the meaning of life" or as grand as "what happens when we die". The film "The Tree of Life" climbs into the ring with the epic Stanley Kubrick film "2001: A Space Odyssey" and tries to give us answers to what our universe is about. It is to be heralded for its attempt, though it will feel like its wash of ubiquitous meanderings may well leave viewers so unsure of what they just saw, they won't feel inspired to believe its premise. Some will get it, others simply won't stay interested long enough to wait out the proposals that the film makes.

Full Review: First, let me say that if my summary seems languishing and uncertain, you have just felt what most people will feel seeing the film. This creation of art is a truly breath-taking journey from no less than the beginnings of the universe until the virtual end of time (at least for our central family on which the story will finally rest).  If you are considering watching "The Tree of Life", you need to know that this film is not meant to give you a sharp, well defined 90 minutes of story. Rather, the movie is meant to draw a visual understanding of the entire history of the universe, how we fit into that, where it might all be going and how an individual families story might make sense in that continuum.

If you think that goal is lofty, you apparently haven't met Terrence Malick, the writer and director of this movie.  His vision of reality is certainly enthralling, though ultimately unsurprising. From a philosophical standpoint there is nothing new with his presentation. He is not breaking any new genres in origins theory or developing new ideas about life after death. What Malick does, though, is merge a good many of those ideas into a visual timeline that threads the viewer into a world that transgresses barriers of reality- from the ephemeral , physical here and now, to the eternal, other-worldly cosmic hereafter. 

The problem with the film is that you can lose site of what he is doing, primarily because he does nothing to prime the audience where he is starting, where he is going and where you might be stopping along the way. One has to construct that by watching. For example, there is one segment in which he travels to the origins of time and takes literally 15 or more minutes without a word being spoken. You travel in and out of earth "space" and only hear fleeting words from the narrator, who ends up being a boy who is found on both sides of the alive and eternal spectrum. 

What you eventually find out is that this boy has a story, and this film lands, finally, on his life and that of his family. The story arc progresses nicely then, with brief detours into cosmically other realities. The goal is for you to begin to see how everything is knit together, and yet how grand and important each person's life can be, if but for one proposition.

I won't give the point of the movie away, but it is certainly an insightful one. Not original, but certainly in agreement with many who have spoken on this topic of our grand purpose.

While the movie does have this vast self interest, it nonetheless does bring you poignantly into the world of a 50's reality in which a man and his family struggle with real life issues. Eventually, you come to the point of a death of one of the children. All this is beginning to make sense and gives context as you are occasionally flashed forward into a future time as well.  Actors Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain become the fully embodied examples of humanity, life, joy, struggle and pain that we can see both on the screen and in ourselves.  Pitt and Chastain are the best, and more prominent. Penn is cast as a brooding, lost man, still broken from some past event. He does well but remains too undeveloped to engage the audience other than perhaps feel as unsettled as his character does.

People who want a quick movie for a romantic date should avoid this film. People who want a heartwarming story with endearing clichés will also want to pass here. Creationists and evolutionists will each be enthralled and ultimately disappointed at a film that leaves room for literally a thousand interpretations. And that, I think, is the point. Malick attempts to draw such a grand vision that he leaves us asking far more questions just about his film than we had before we went into the theatre. I felt like this was good, and an inspiring journey along the way. There is a strong moral lesson at the end and I also think it is good (that helps when one agrees with it).

But there is something about the film that I also felt was contrived, especially where he looks to include symbols and metaphors from literally dozens of schools of thought from religion to science to philosophy to psychology. At times, it seems too much for a single film and loses potency with the over-reaching.

That said, it was one of the best films I have seen this year. I would recommend it to anyone wishing to see an engaging spectacle of thoughtful film with grand aspirations.  You may not agree with Malick's perspective, but that may actually be the point of the film.

Amazon DVD Link: http://amzn.to/pBFvPm

Review by Kim Gentes.

Money for nothing and your kicks for free... fall.

Summary: Imagine a world in which people are trading with so much money that tiny slices of a single percentage of a sale was millions of dollars. Imagine that same world run completely by decisions based a supremely complicated formula inside of a computer. You've gone from the world of The Wealth of Nations to The Wealth of Equations. Now imagine that formula is wrong. What kind of world is that? It's the world described in "Margin Call". But it isn't just an imaginary world, its scathing criticism that borders on political bashing of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. If all this sounds too technical to you, then you may not like "Margin Call". However, don't give yourself an easy out and ignore this movie, because it is actually the humanizing acting of its star-packed cast that brings the world of brokering mortgages backed derivatives down to a simple equation- are you greedy enough to do this? While this film could easily have been a political swing to demonize derivatives traders as a kind of Gordon Gecko meets Charles Keating meets LTCM company/persona (and I am not saying it isn't), the film has such great performances and personal stories that it engages the viewer and holds you captive throughout. Parental warning- excessive language in this film. Read full review before considering this for your children.

Full Review: I'll admit, if I hadn't been studying finance and economics for the last year I might not have found this film to be of interest as I pursued through the Netflix catalog. As I clicked "play" I was fully ready to stop and jump to some action film or brain teaser.  But right from the start, the intensity of this film was electric. Stanley Tucci's character, Eric Dale, is gripped with losing his job as a risk management manager at a trading company and you genuinely feel compelled by his loss and his sense of injustice. But as the story trails through its complicated introduction, each actor steps up with a believable (and sometimes powerful) character. Kevin Spacy is brilliant as director Sam Rogers, Jeremy Irons is commanding as the corporate CEO and Zachary Quinto plays his role as the brilliant young mathemetician perfectly. But it is actually Paul Bettany's work as the selfish, calculating and venomous Will Emerson (trading manager) that steals the show. His self-indicting script exposes what director/writer JC Chandor hopes will be a vilification of the greed of Wall Street.

The movie works well simply on the script and acting. No one dies (though you wish people would), no one is commiting espionage (though you think that might be where the film is going early on) and no actual crimes are being committed (though it seems hard to believe). Yet there is more tension and suspense in this movie than most action films I have seen. It is very well paced.

The weak parts of the movie are limited to a couple of peformances by Simon Baker (who seems like he is in way over his head) and Demi Moore (who can't act with any intensity in any scenario). Neither of them ruin their parts, but the comparitive weakness of their portrayals is obvious against the blistering performances of their counterparts.

Parent Warning/Rating considerations- This film is rated R. Because of the language, this is not a film I would let anyone under 13 watch, and anyone 13-17 should see it with parental supervision. I realize I am being more constrictive on my age recommendations than many people would be on such things, but this film says the F-word well over 50 times, and I wasn't counting. For adults who understand that films about the "real world" may have such language, this film will not seem any different than any other R film you've seen. I should note that there is no nudity in this movie, though there are references.

As a film, this is not a date-movie, guy-movie or chick-flick. It's most likely going to be one that is going to be passed on because it doesn't have content or themes appealing to "escapism in film". It's dreary, painful and even frightful in all the same ways that life can be- people losing jobs, people lieing to others, people doing things just close enough to be within the "law" but really avoiding moral guidelines. Not a popcorn-happy boost for an evening. But I hope that all that doesn't stop you from seeing this film.

If you give it a chance, I think it will end up being one of the best films you have seen in the last year.

Amazon DVD Link: http://amzn.to/RUsGmF

Review by Kim Gentes.

Robbins & Freeman are spectacular; writing perfect.

If you are seeing this review and have never seen this movie, it is likely you have missed one of the top movies in the last 20 years. Directed by Frank Darabont, The Shawshank Redemption is near perfect in its story telling, with a clear plot told in digestable portions. You never feel like the story loses pace or that the screenwriters are hurrying up in the end to fix something they have to resolve in the plot.

Robbins plays Andy Dufresne (a banker wrongly convicted of slaying his wife and her lover) with such perfection, you become convinced of not only the role of this protagonist, but the nature of his character. It is his unquestionable performance that ultimately leads us to be surprised by the changes in the character in the last third of the film. The changes are smart, clear and reasonable, but like real life, they are surprising. This is Robbin's best acting ever.

Morgan Freeman plays an inmate in the Shawshank prison that eventually befriends Andy and is the only one to gain insight into the real motivations of his friend.

Everything about this movie has a crisp and heartfelt message, but none of it is trite or condescending. Also welcoming about this film is the ability it has to convey subplots. Even the story of a released inmate and his struggles and trials to make it on the outside is an piercing potrayal of this world of incarceration and its members.

For those who want a plot to dizzy and spin them, they may find Shawshank Redemption is slow moving, but anyone with patience enough to enjoy this movie brew will be rewarded with perfect acting, screenwriting and directing.

This movie would not be suitable for small children, due to some abuse and violence in the prison setting that would be too harsh to have to explain to small children. But children old enough to watch it will gain great lessons from this cast on themes of honesty, friendship and perserverance. In my mind it is suitable for young people ages 11 and over to watch with the supervision of their parents. It will be a very good film to watch as a family, if you have children this age or above. A great discussion starting point about many important issues.
One of the all-time best films ever.