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Movie Reviews

The SIP Life jim hinshaw

Hi and welcome back. Some of you have read my reviews for years, now we have them posted on the web site. Just a quick note: this is a work of love; we don’t get paid for being a movie reviewer, just like to go to movies. Started a couple of decades ago when we worked with 11 graders at North Phoenix Baptist Church, we would tell them to go see a great movie, warn them about the ones that would rot their brains. Pretty soon the parents asked if we could recommend a movie to see, and soon we were published in a local neighborhood paper. That grew to a couple of more local papers, now I am published in magazines and papers from New Mexico to Florida to Wisconsin, and in-between.

Another thing you need to know, we go to movies we want to go to. Nothing demonic, and we try to stay away from the downers, we get enough of that sort of thing in real life. I want to be entertained. I rate them as age appropriate, and up to 4 stars, but usually rate them with a item that ties into the movie. If it is an attorney movie, like Michael Clayton, we rate it with 3 Briefs. Not underware, lawyer briefs. We also let you know what the actor has appeared in before, usually the most famous, or the one we liked best.

Movie Reviews...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

We just saw one of the most hyped movies this year, Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, starring Harrison Ford (the first three Indy movies), Karen Allen (his heroine from the Raiders of the Lost Ask), Ray Winstone (Beowolf, The Departed), Shia LaBeouf(Transformers, Disturbia), and Cate Blanchett (Notes on a Scandal, The Aviator).

The movie revolves around another artifact, a mysterious crystal skull. It is reported to give the one who returns it to its proper resting place incredible powers. So we find a lot of people interested in it.

The movie starts out with Indy and Ray Winstone being held captive by a group of Russians. This takes place in the 50's, so they are the bad guys. The Russians are lead by non other the Cate Blanchett, wearing a nifty wig and talking with a thick accent. It took us a while to recognize her, and we are professionals.

We enjoyed seeing Indy again. He still has the quick barb and a fast whip, still enjoys going down dark holes looking for stuff you and I could not imagine going after. In this case, the crystal skull belongs to a alien, as in outer space guy. They came to earth years ago, and settled in a small village in some remote country. You see how we get there by Indyís plane going across the map, till it cannot go any further, then we get on a boat, then donkeys, you know the drill. The Russians are either right behind or right in front of Indy, trying to retrieve and understand the skull. Shia LeBeouf meets up with Indy and enlists his help by telling him he Russians have his mom. When Indy finds out it is Karen Allen, he decides to get involved. The chase is on, Shia and Indy vs the Russians. They actually get it first, and then force Indy to help them discover the meaning behind it.

We see some of the same old stuff, tipping gates into dark caves, pillars that are sand trapped and sink when a trigger is pushed. It is still good to see what Indy is up against, we have missed him these last few years. For 60+, he still has some great moves. The movie is rather intense for young ones, hence the pg-13 rating. It would not offend adults, they actually have a script that is not all four letter words, something rare today. My mom would probably not enjoy it, it moves from continent to continent at rather a fast pace. Shia does have a nifty Harley that he first picks up Indy on, and we have a great race right through Yale or one of those old schools, the Russians right behind.

There is also a fun scene where Indy and Karen and Shia are all chasing or being chased by Cate and crew in old WWII military vehicles. They are in a Duck, the amphibious car/boat that proves to be a wise choice. There are also about 200 monkeys and a couple of billion ants involved, if I told you more it would spoil it. We think they left it open for a sequel, when Spielberg is asked that he says he just needs another artifact and it is ready to go. May and I give it 4 whip lashes, it is a positive experience.

Leatherheads

Just saw a good movie, Leatherheads, starring George Clooney (Michael Clayton, O Brother Where Art Thou), Renee Zellweger (Cold Mountain, Chicago), John Krasinski (License To Wed, The Office from TV), and Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean, At World’s End and Dead Man’s Chest).

The movie is good, not great, but today we need more movies that we can just watch and not have to worry about what the hidden meaning of each scene is. So here is the Reader’s Digest version of this movie. George Clooney is a manager of a football team back in 1925, before there was a NFL, or even a league of any kind. This is 1925, the players were paid by the game, just enough to go from town to town, playing just about anyone who wanted to show up. While on the road, the team learns the owner has decided not to bankroll the company. So everybody goes back to their jobs on the farm, in the factory, the mines, where they were before they went on the circuit. So George goes on the road, trying to put together a new plan. He sees a war hero, John Krasinski, who is now at Princeton playing football for the college team. His nickname is the Bullet, because he is really, really fast. The story is that in the war, he single-handedly captured an entire platoon of German soldiers. All by himself. Saved his platoon. George hooks up with John and his manager, Jonathan Pryce. Who happen to be in the middle of a road trip themselves with Renee, a reporter who is chasing the big war hero story. Soon George has convinced Jonathan Pryce to put up some the financing to start a new team with the bullet as the main man. They decide to get the old team back together, and the games are on.

They begin to win, and win big. The bullet is unstoppable, George is a great quarterback. Now, George used to use all kinds of tricks to win in the old days. Now he doesn’t have to resort to tricks, they win honestly, really playing by the rules. Along the way, both he and John K develop feelings for Renee, and soon a rivalry has started that she enjoys, playing both at the same time. The plot thickens when John decides to move to the Chicago team, and George’s team has to play him the very next weekend. The thick plot gets solid when the war story is brought out, and the fun starts.

Not going to spoil the movie, it is worth seeing. Renee is excellent as a reporter who does what is needed to get the story. She is also a reporter who is conflicted as to what to do with the story. George is a guy who has always worked on the dark side, an expert at deception, and now he has fallen for the beautiful woman, and not sure how to act. He is also a good friend to John, and doesn’t want to hurt him. The script is great, lots of one-liners, they do a good job of going back and forth. Football action is OK, this is 1925, so the moves are dated. I really wouldn’t know if the moves are new or not, but I am guessing. We enjoyed the movie, it was fun not having to worry about the hidden meaning, you got to see what they were thinking all along the way.
So, this is similar to one of the Ocean’s movies. A plot that has a couple of twists, and the bad guys get it in the end. I would go with 3 field goals, the end of the movie is worth the ticket in.

The Great Debaters
Stars Denzel Washington (Inside Man, Manchurian Candidate), Forest Whitaker (Panic Room, Good Morning Viet Nam), Jurnee Smollett (Eve’s Bayou, Roll Bounce), Denzel Whitaker (no relation to either Denzel Washington or Forest, just one talented 14 year old!), Jermaine Williams (Stomp the Yard, Fat Albert), John Heard (the father in the Home Alone series), Kimberly Elise (Manchurian Candidate, John Q), and newcomer Nate Parker as a very smart young man who likes the dark side of life. The movie starts at Wiley College, a black institution in Marshall, Texas, a rural town set in their ways in the south. Denzel plays Melvin Tolson, a real professor who ran the debate team there. He had a secret life as a union organizer for the farm workers, and was even thought to be a communist by some. He became the poet laureate for Libya later on, he was a talented individual. He is a strict task master, demanding a lot from his debate team, composed of a group of diverse individuals. Young Denzel Whitaker is the son of Forest Whitaker, the Dean of the college. He has started college at age 14, and really shows some intelligence. On the other hand, he is still 14, and lacks the experience to deal with some racial issues that slap us in the face later on in the movie.

About those issues. We are dealing with racism in its most potent form. This is not meant to be a scene stealer, but you should be aware, this is a graphic movie. Denzel has lead his little band of debaters to great heights, winning more than a dozen debates in a row. They get a chance to go head to head with a white school, and have to travel by car. Late at night on the way, they run across a lynching. When the locals discover who is in the car, they are in trouble. It is the sort of thing that happened in parts of the south, most of us have never been witnesses to human behavior this dark. Be warned.

We also see the debate team start to blend into a real team, with the 14 year old doing most of the research. Young Denzel wants to be in the debate, and has his chance up against a tough opponent. It doesn’t go well, and we see one of life’s lessons learned. Nate and Jurnee develop a relationship that goes deeper than the debate team, if you get my drift. This is an issue with young Denzel, who is smitten with the beautiful Jurnee. Lots of things going on, not to mention the investigation of Denzel Washington as a union organizer in a town that is not fond of that.

Now, the movie departs from reality at the end. We see the “Great Debaters” locking horns with Harvard’s debate team. Never happened in real life, they went up against the national champion debate team from USC, not Harvard. But, on the other hand, it is a movie. We get to see people do things they had never done before, get out of their comfort zone, and take a stand. It is a truly great movie in that sense, and we are thrilled with how it plays out. I’ll go with 3.5 resolutions. That is how they start the debate!

Charlie Wilsons War
Starring Tom Hanks (The Terminal, Cast Away), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich, Pretty Woman), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Mission Impossible III, Cold Mountain), Amy Adams (Enchanted, Catch Me If You Can). A very good movie, but one that May and I had a little trouble with. Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, a real congressman from Texas who is a womanizer and hard drinker, a life-style we don’t condone. We know people like him, just don’t like that way of relating to women. Julia Roberts plays a wealthy woman in the Houston social scene who was at one time the honorary consul to Pakistan. Charlie is in Vegas when the movie opens, in a hot tub with some local strippers, sampling the local liquor and drugs, when he sees a Dan Rather special on Afghanistan. Dan is telling us the Russians have invaded Afghanistan and the local farmers are fighting for their lives. The big problem is they have no weapons. Charlie is head of a secret appropriations committee, and raises the funding for weapons from $5 million to $10 just on his say-so.

This starts a chain reaction; he is invited to a fund raiser at Julia’s home. She convinces him (the oldest way of convincing a man!) to get behind the Afghans and go for some serious money. He ends up working with Phillip Seymour Hoffman (is there a movie today he is not in?), a CIA department head with a boss who hates him. So he has nothing to loose, he agrees to help out. Julia hooks them up with the president of Pakistan, who will help fight if given the firepower. They don’t want to get American weapons, so they need Soviet weapons that have been stolen from the Russians. Through a long ordeal they get the shoulder mounted anti-aircraft missiles needed to take out the Russian helicopters that are ravaging their country.

All through this Charlie has Amy Adams playing his personal secretary, keeping him out of trouble. And he is close to the edge of the cliff many times. A story is released that there are witnesses claiming he was taking drugs and cavorting with hookers in Vegas, the sort of thing that can get you in trouble in Congress. He dodges one bullet after another; in real life it is even worse. May and I saw the true story on the Discovery channel, Charlie really had some close calls. At one point he was going to do a junket with a senior Congressman who had the power to really put some money on the table, the night before he drinks 9 Manhattans and hits another car, and then leaves the scene. Not a good idea. The police are after him, he will not get to leave the country, and the entire mission is on the line. This sort of thing happens to him often, he is colorful and easily tempted.

Not gonna give it away, but the truth is that with Charlie, Phillip Seymour, and Julia’s help the mighty Russian Army is defeated! By a bunch of Afghan tribesman who have some great personal missiles given them. We liked the movie, just wish he was a more loveable character. Three Congressional terms. By the way, go see Amy Adams in Enchanted, take the kids, it is a great movie, part animated, part real people. I would give it 3.5 fairy tales.

No Country For Old Men

Starring Tommy Lee Jones (Men In Black I & II), Josh Brolin (American Gangster, Into the Blue), and Javier Bardem (Love in the Time of Colera, Collateral), and a small part with Woody Harrelson (Ed TV, Kingpin). Here we go on a real rough ride. Set in a small town in Texas in the late 1980s, the movie starts with Tommy Lee Jones telling us in a voice over he is second generation lawman, his dad was a sheriff who never even carried a gun, and today he doesn’t understand the nature of evil in this world. We have Josh Bolin hunting elk and coming upon a drug deal gone bad. Real bad, lots of dead guys, a pickup with a ton on cocaine in it, and a briefcase with $ 2 million in it. He finds one guy in the pickup still alive, begging for water. Josh takes the money and runs, takes it home, hides it under the trailer he and his wife call home, and tries to forget about the one guy who was still breathing at the drug deal. Can’t do it, decides to go back. Not a good idea.

The bad guys are waiting, he is busted, shot at, finally gets away by swimming down a river and shooting the drug guy’s pit bull as he attacks. Yes, he kills a dog! Not a way to win our hearts. Not a lot of options. He now realizes he has to get away, these fellows are playing for keeps. The drug guys send out Javier Bardem to retrieve their money. He is with-out a doubt the meanest, most evil bad guy ever to hit film. Absolutely no soul, he is a killing machine. He uses a compressed air tank and a hand-held cattle killing thing that uses air to shoot out a projectile that will go through anything. And it does. When he comes to a door that is locked, it is not for long. When he wants a car from a guy on the road, he walks up to him and takes it. For keeps. He also has one of the niftiest rifles ever, has a 20 round clip (apparently), and a huge silencer, and he uses it well. A little too well. When he gets any sort of an idea that a person may have any clues as to where the money is, they are history. He shoots up motels full of folks, police stations, all kinds of things. The money men finally decide he is a wild cannon, send out Woody Harrelson to shut him down. A good idea, but not without some rough spots.

Josh has a huge future in film, he plays a great part here as a cowboy who decides to go back after this monster who leaves a path of death behind him. Tommy Lee still can’t believe this it happening in his little Texas town, and feels like he is ready to retire. Both play excellent parts, and have some great one-liners we will be saying years from now. This movie was done by the Coen brothers, who did Fargo and O Brother Where Art Thou? Two great movies that, like this one, are character studies. We just can’t get our minds around the character played by Javier, a guy who according to Harrelson “has his principles”. He just moves at a different level than any other killer we have seen. And has some incredible weapons to boot. So we enjoyed it, Tommy Lee Jones will carry any script; he is perfect for this role. I’ll go with 3.5 millions, and by the way, your mom will probably not like the movie, it is pretty graphic.

Michael Clayton

Starring George Clooney (Ocean’s 11, 12, & 13), Tom Wilkenson (The Full Monte, Shakespeare in Love), Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia, Broken Flowers), and Sidney Pollack (Changing Lanes, Eyes Wide Shut). This is an unusual lawyer story: George is not a partner with the firm; he is the clean-up guy. He goes in when something has gone wrong; they pay him for damage control, not court work. In this case, Tom Wilkinson has been defending a chemical company for years, and at a hearing breaks down. Now, you tell me, he takes off his clothes, runs through the parking lot, saying the company he has been defending for years is in fact a poisonous polluter. They actually may be, but the point is that they have been sued for billions and have been paying Tom’s firm millions to defend them. So this is a bad turn for the law firm. Tom is also George’s good friend who is bi-polar, and happened to go off his meds. George is sent out to put a lid on it, any way necessary.

Turns out there are some pretty nasty people involved in the chemical business, and they want the fellow who has been defending them (and who knows where the bones are buried) to go away. And while they are at it, George is on a short list as well. So we have cars blowing up, murders, and lots of mean people chasing our hero. I say our hero; George Clooney is sort of a good guy with issues. He is behind on payments for a restaurant, tried gambling to put some money together; the cards did not go his way. Bad things are about to happen if he doesn’t put $75 K together in a few days. Tough assignment, the lesson here is go to a bank to borrow your money, not Vinnie. He breaks legs.

Tilda Swinton is excellent as the lead defense for the chemical company; it is her job to make all this go away fast. And when billions are at stake, the tension is high. We see her get in over her head, and try desperate move after desperate move to get traction. Stick around for the end, it will make the two hours worth while. I would go with 3 affidavits, would be 4 except George is flawed, not the nice guy we want in a hero.

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