Life of Pi Review

4.5 Stars

Based on the best selling novel by Yann Martel, Academy Award Winning Director Ang Lee brings the story Life of Pi to the big screen. Pi is the son of an Indian Zoo Keeper who's family has decided to take their trade to Canada and has hitched a ride on a Pacific tanker ship to do so.  Tragedy strikes when the ship goes down leaving the 16 year old Pi to fend for his life adrift in the ocean with his fellow survivors: a Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra.

Ang Lee is best known for his works directing such films as Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Lee has enlisted unknown actor Suraj Sharma to play the principal role of Pi.  Quite the opportunity for a young actor's first role.  And he nailed the role, and Ang Lee nailed this film. Every shot of film in this movie could be clipped from the reel and blown up to a poster sized print and sold as art is was that beautiful, that breath-taking.  And that's exactly what the preview leads you to believe it will be.  However, unless you read the book, you wouldn't know from the preview that this isn't just a survivor story; but it's also a story of identity, discovery and doubt.  Young Pi is a smart and inquisitive boy, qualities that both get him into trouble, and ultimately save his life.  Some of the biggest questions he has are about religion.  Instead of rejecting anything, Pi seems to find the best of every religion to which he is introduced and ultimately becomes a devout Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim.  While his family is looking to start a new life in Canada, a tragic shipwreck and an unfortunately crew of co-survivors, Pi finds himself looking to not only survive with his castaway crew, but also survive from his castaway crew.  As if that wasn't enough to worry about every day, he was also looking for answers to his questions about God.

Along the lines of other best-selling spiritually reflective books like The Shack, Tuesdays with Maurie and The Alchemist, Life of Pi is a beautiful albeit familiar story, but it's told in such a beautiful way through the artful direction of Ang Lee.  This was a solid movie that completely accomplished what it set out to do and was quite accurately portrayed in its preview.  4.5 stars and I can't wait to see this again, and most likely add to my home collection.  So what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Life of Pi Preview

Based on the best selling novel by Yann Martel, Academy Award Winning Director Ang Lee brings the story Life of Pi to the big screen. Pi is the son of an Indian Zoo Keeper who's family has decided to take their trade to Canada and has hitched a ride on a Pacific tanker ship to do so.  Tragedy strikes when the ship goes down leaving the 16 year old Pi to fend for his life adrift in the ocean with his fellow survivors: a Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra.

Ang Lee is best known for his works directing such films as Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  Lee has enlisted unknown actor Suraj Sharma to play the principal role of Pi.  Quite the opportunity for a young actor's first role.  And that's really about all we have to go on from the preview as well.  A no-name actor with no lines in the trailer makes it a little difficult to make any kind of prediction as to what this movie will actually be like.  The two minute preview, however, has enough gorgeous cinematic picturesque moments to fill a two-hour movie.  That alone makes me curious and I'm looking forward to seeing this film by Lee.  I am predicting a touching, reflective and introspective movie that is visually stunning.  As for the story, it seems it will be along the lines of Tom Hanks in Castaway where is mostly about survival and what it takes to stay alive and sane.  It will be interesting to see how well the story can keep me captivated and if it lives up to the beautifully painted scenes from the preview.  I'm willing to take a leap of faith and say this will earn a solid 4 stars, maybe even 4.5.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Django Unchained Review

4 Stars

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is the story of a slave name Django (Jamie Foxx) who's freedom is bought by Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz).  Schultz trains Django to become a bounty hunter.  Django then uses his skills to confront the brutal Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) to rescue his wife. 

Best known for his uncomfortably brutally funny movies like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and From Dusk Til Dawn, Django Unchained is bound to be another over-the-top gory and violent movie that is smart, well-acted, and so cleverly put together that you find yourself laughing and cringing at the same time and wondering how you could possibly be doing both.  The answer is simple: Quentin Tarantino.

And Django Unchained was exactly that.  Perhaps I'm getting a little old for movies like this, or maybe this movie was just particularly violent, but I really did find it to be uncomfortably violent at times and did find myself cringing in my seat.  I know Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were violent movies, but I don't recall being this disturbed for this long at what I saw in a movie.  As for the laughing, it was more brief moments of well-timed brevity that were a much welcomed and much needed break from the otherwise non-stop bloodshed. 

That being said, it was still done very well.  It was smart, gritty, gruesome, but a touching albeit unconventional love story.  Jamie Foxx was sharp as the slave with a vengeance Django.  Christopher Waltz was perfect and stole the show for me as the dentist turned bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz.  I even enjoyed Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as the business man Calvin Candie.  Django Unchained gets a solid 4 stars for the original script, the well shot movie, the amazing acting performances, the choice in music accompaniment, and even the brutality which was probably more accurate than most movies dare to show about this era in our history.  Well worth the money, highly recommended, though not 100% sure I will add this to my collection, it's something I could see myself watching again . . . when I can stomach it.  So what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Django Unchained Preview

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is the story of a slave name Django (Jamie Foxx) who's freedom is bought by Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz).  Schultz trains Django to become a bounty hunter.  Django then uses his skills to confront the brutal Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) to rescue his wife. 

Best known for his uncomfortably brutally funny movies like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and From Dusk Til Dawn, Django Unchained is bound to be another over-the-top gory and violent movie that is smart, well-acted, and so cleverly put together that you find yourself laughing and cringing at the same time and wondering how you could possibly be doing both.  The answer is simple: Quentin Tarantino.  I'm a big fan of Tarantino's style of directing and Django looks to be right on par with one of his best.  I admit, I'm not a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio and I know that will make me unpopular with most of the world, especially the ladies, but that's even more credit to Tarantino for making me want to see this movie still.

From the previews, Django Unchained looks to be a cross between the bloody, action-packed, uncomfortably brutal scenes of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs and the hilarious irreverence for a very serious topic (slavery) of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.  I predict Tarantino will work his insane magic once again and deliver on at least a 4 star movie that will have me waiting anxiously for the Blu Ray release to either watch again, or actually add to my collection.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Won't Back Down Review

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a single mother and bartender struggling to provide a life for her daughter who is struggling in school in Won't Back Down.  She teams up with one of the teachers (Viola Davis) to not only bring light to the problem of the failing school, but take head on the corrupt bureaucracy that is running the school. 

The preview starts with Jamie's (Gyllenhaal) daughter standing in front of her classmates being belittled by her peers and her teacher for not being able to read.  In fact, the teacher (sure to be a representative of the bureaucratic public school system that has failed our children) puts her in a supply closet to teach her a lesson. We also see another one of the teachers (Davis) at home with her own son struggling to perform at his grade level.  And the fight begins to fix the failing and corrupt school system.  Jamie teams up with the only honorable teacher around (Davis) and takes on the president of the teachers' union (Holly Hunter - returning to the screen after a seven year hiatus) and the principal (Bill Nunn) of the school.

So the preview for Won't Back Down is a little misleading.  Holly Hunter doesn't play the president of the teacher's union, she's a representative.  And she's not evil.  She is really caught between a rock and a hard place trying to truly do what's right and what's best for both sides involved.  The preview makes it look like Jamie (Gyllenhaal) is going head-to-head with her.  The preview also makes it seem like Viola Davis' character is the only teacher in the school who still cares and is willing to do anything about the situation when the truth is, the majority of those teachers are good people who readily stand up to make things right.  There is really only one teacher spotlighted as being completely void of compassion and completely inept at her job, rude to her students and often more interested in playing on her phone rather than the state of her classroom. 

The movie is two hours long, yet I felt there was a lack of scenes between parents and kids or kids in school to raise our emotional connection to the characters and their plight.   There was really only one scene between Davis' character and her son that really I found quite touching.  There have been so many more successful movies about failing schools and the few who dared to take a stand to make things right: Stand and Deliver, The Principal, Lean On Me.  This one pales in comparison as far as execution of the story and emotional attachment to the film.  Though Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis gave great performances, as usual, the film was a disappointment and will only be getting 2.5 stars, at best a renter.  So what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.

Won't Back Down Preview

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a single mother and bartender struggling to provide a life for her daughter who is struggling in school in Won't Back Down.  She teams up with one of the teachers (Viola Davis) to not only bring light to the problem of the failing school, but take head on the corrupt bureaucracy that is running the school. 

The preview starts with Jamie's (Gyllenhaal) daughter standing in front of her classmates being belittled by her peers and her teacher for not being able to read.  In fact, the teacher (sure to be a representative of the bureaucratic public school system that has failed our children) puts her in a supply closet to teach her a lesson. We also see another one of the teachers (Davis) at home with her own son struggling to perform at his grade level.  And the fight begins to fix the failing and corrupt school system.  Jamie teams up with the only honorable teacher around (Davis) and takes on the president of the teachers' union (Holly Hunter - returning to the screen after a seven year hiatus) and the principal (Bill Nunn) of the school.

Won't Back Down is based on the true events in Los Angeles, California that lead to what is known as The Parent Trigger Law which gives control to the parents to make administrative changes in the public school system when the current administration demonstrates they are unwilling or unable to perform their duties with the best interest of the students in mind and fails to show positive results.  Some have critiqued the movie as nothing more than an emotional simplification of the problem with the agenda of propagating The Parent Trigger Law.  I hope that's not the case.  The preview for Won't Back Down certainly portrays the movie as highly emotionally charged; but I have to admit, I'm a sucker for these kinds of movies where the underdog stands up to corruption,  especially where children's education is concerned.  And I'm also a sucker for Maggie Gyllenhaal and can't think of anything she's done that I haven't enjoyed.  I'm predicting an infuriating movie, emotional ride with tearful moments and moments of joy.  I don't have expectations for an Oscar movie, but am hoping for a solid 4 star experience.  Am I right?  We shall see.

Prometheus Review

Director Ridley Scott returns to his Science Fiction roots with the alien thriller Prometheus. Prometheus is an exploratory vessel that is used to accept the "invitation" of an alien race documented by several civilizations on earth throughout history.  Only now do we have the technology to do so.  The plan was simple: go to their world, explore, report back, and leave.  While the crew of Prometheus hoped to discover clues or maybe even the answer to the oldest question ever "Where did we come from?"; instead they find they were lured into a trap.  This alien race isn't the answer to our origins, but the very real threat to our existence and it's up to them to stop the aliens.

 I was delightfully surprised at the restraint in the use of digital technology to create this film; and the computer graphics used were tastefully done and added to the effectiveness of the movie rather than distracted you from the story.  While watching Prometheus, it was more than just a little similar to Scott's Alien movie from over 30 years ago.  The plot of Alien is that the hibernating crew of the ship Nostromo is awakened while returning to earth when they intercept a strange transmission.  They go to investigate and find an egg chamber and one of them releases an alien that attacks one of the crew.  Breaking protocol, they bring it back on the ship where it ultimately begins to aggressively kill all of the crew.  One of the crew, Ash, is an android that is ordered by their corporate employers to bring the alien back to earth at all costs.  Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) foils that plan and decides to trap the alien on the ship, activate the self-destruct, and escape in a pod. Ripley finds the alien made it onto her escape pod and ultimate kills it leaving only herself and a cat to survive.

The plot of Prometheus is that a crew voluntarily spends two years in hibernation while traveling to an alien planet they believe to have the answers to their origins. The expedition is funded by a corporate employer who has his own agenda with the aliens.  They have their own android on board who is programmed to do the corporate bidding even at the expense of the crew's lives.  They discover a chamber of tubes that contain alien DNA that can use human bodies as incubation hosts.  In this chamber, they find a decapitated alien head and the android secretly stashes one of these DNA tubes, both of which are brought back onto the ship.  Ultimately they find the aliens are not looking to provide answers but to destroy earth and mankind.  One last alien is about to escape but the surviving crew of Prometheus decide to use their own ship to destroy the alien and ultimately we are left with one female crew member, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and one final alien who bears more than slight resemblance to the creature in Scott's film from 30 years ago.

Upon further investigation, I found that originally Prometheus was to serve as a prequel to Alien.  Scott didn't want that, so they re-wrote the script so this story "precedes" the Alien movie, but isn't directly linked to that series.  Right.  Without even reading that, it was obvious this was more of an Alien re-make than a brand new original thought.  That being said, the previews are pretty accurate in what you get out of the movie.  It's a sci-fi scary alien movie.  Honestly, I would have liked to have a little more explored about our origins as a race rather than an abrupt turn into a violent alien war, but that's not what this movie was ultimately supposed to be about.  It was entertaining, moved right along, but still had the sense of "I swear I've seen this all before" throughout.  That being said, I was pretty close to my 3 star prediction, but think I will ultimately give it 2.5 stars.  It was worth renting, I don't think I'd see it again and it won't be in my collection.  So what movie will be on my mind next?  We shall see.