Movie Review: Looper

Looper

Directed by: Rian Johnson.

Written by: Rian Johnson.

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Joe), Bruce Willis (Old Joe), Emily Blunt (Sara), Paul Dano (Seth), Noah Segan (Kid Blue), Piper Perabo (Suzie), Jeff Daniels (Abe), Pierce Gagnon (Cid), Summer Qing (Old Joe's Wife), Tracie Thoms (Beatrix), Frank Brennan (Old Seth), Garret Dillahunt (Jesse).

There’s a scene in Looper where Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sits down with his older self (Bruce Willis) in a diner and starts asking questions. Old Joe says “Let’s not start talking about time travel shit, or else we’ll end up diagraming everything out with straws”. That’s good advice, not just to Young Joe, but the audience watching Looper as well. I guarantee you that you won’t have to look very hard on the internet to find someone who will point out all the time travel contradictions in Looper – and to find others who disagree with them, and “prove” them wrong, only to have someone else correct them. This is true of pretty much every time travel movie ever made. But delving too deep into all that crap would, for me anyway, spoil the fun of Looper – which is a great time travel story. It sets up its own rules, and doesn’t really violate them in any way that became immediately apparent to me. Looper, like all time travel films, requires the audience to take a leap of faith for it to work at all. But if you take that leap, than Looper rewards you handsomely.

Joe is a Looper. What that means is that although it is 2044, he works for the mob from 2074. When they need someone killed, they send them back in time; Joe kills them and disposes of the body. Time travel is highly illegal in 2074, and hasn’t been invented yet in 2044, so eventually the mob will decide to end the contract with their loopers. The loopers have no idea when this will happen – they just know it will eventually. What happens when they end their contract is simple – they end up killing their future selves. Because everyone who gets sent back is bound and has a hood over their head, the loopers don’t know they’ve just killed their future selves until they go to the body to get their payment, which has been strapped to their victims – in place of the regular silver bars are gold ones. You’re now down being a looper, and know that in 30 years, you’ll be sent back in time and you’ll kill yourself. The profession, as Joe admits, doesn’t attract many forward thinkers. The consequences of NOT killing your future self are dire. But when Joe comes face to face with his future self – something is off. He isn’t bound, and has no hood on. Joe hesitates, and that’s all the time Old Joe needs to get away. I could explain more of the plot, but it would fruitless – and unfair to you, as one of the pleasures of the movie is the unexpected twists and turns it takes. Needless to say, Young Joe is being pursued by his employers as he pursues Old Joe – who is also pursued by Joe’s employers, and Joe himself. How Young Joe ends up on a farm, with Sara (Emily Blunt) and her young son, and what they mean, I’ll leave it for you to discover.

Looper is writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film – and his best to date. His debut Brick was an immensely entertaining high school noir, where all the characters talked like they were the stars of a 1940s classic noir. His follow-up with the caper comedy, The Brothers Bloom, in which Johnson seemed to be trying too hard to be Wes Anderson, instead of just being himself. Looper is his first film where he seems to be working on his own level – that isn’t as beholden to his influences as his previous films were. This is intelligent sci-fi, a movie that takes itself and its implications seriously. It is also a stylish action movie – with more violence, that at times is disturbingly realistic even when it seems outlandish. If his first two films showed promise, than Looper delivers on that promise.

The acting also helps a great deal. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has been with Johnson since the beginning, delivers an excellent performance as Young Joe – even under all the makeup and special effects applied to his face to make him look more like Bruce Willis. He may start the movie as a soulless killer and drug addict, but he transforms throughout the movie – into someone willing to see the big picture. As Old Joe, Bruce Willis is perfectly cast. Johnson doesn’t spend anywhere near as much time with Old Joe, so having an actor like Willis – who we are used to seeing as a kick ass action star, does some of the work for him – and Willis does the rest. Often, Willis sleepwalks through roles, but not here. Emily Blunt is also terrific as the young, single mother – devoted to her child. The supporting cast – Paul Dano as Gordon-Levitt’s sniveling friend and Jeff Daniels as the mob boss in particular – are also terrific fun.

The real star here though is Johnson – especially his screenplay, which is one of the more original works of the year. This is an intelligent sci-fi action movie – that tackles some interesting issues, while still managing to be a superb, mainstream entertainment.

Movie Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Directed by: Stephen Chbosky.

Written by: Stephen Chbosky based on his novel.

Starring: Logan Lerman (Charlie), Emma Watson (Sam), Ezra Miller (Patrick), Nina Dobrev (Candace), Mae Whitman (Mary Elizabeth), Erin Wilhelmi (Alice), Johnny Simmons (Brad), Paul Rudd (Mr. Anderson), Dylan McDermott (Father), Kate Walsh (Mother), Melanie Lynskey (Aunt Helen), Nicholas Braun (Ponytail Derek), Tom Savini (Mr. Callahan), Adam Hagenbuch (Bob), Reece Thompson (Craig), Joan Cusack (Dr. Burton).

There are times when, against all reason, you simply feel like they made a movie just for you. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those films for me. I find most movies about teenagers to be silly, hollow entertainments – even the good ones – that pretty much forget what it was like to be a teenager – raked with insecurities, shy, nervous, lacking confidence. At least that’s what my teenage years were like – and that’s what they’re like for Charlie, the “hero” of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. No, I wasn’t as screwed up as Charlie was – but I relate to him much easier than most stars of movies about teenagers.

Charlie (Logan Lerman) is about to start high school – and is anxious about the prospect. His best friend killed himself late in the previous school year, and now Charlie is left with no friends. His brother was a football star, but graduated last year, and Charlie doesn’t play. His sister Candace (Nina Dobev) is a senior, and as such doesn’t want to hang around with a loser freshman. So Charlie is all alone- left sitting at a table in the back of the cafeteria, by himself, reading a book – and wanting to join in with everyone else, but having no idea how to do so.

That is until he meets Patrick (Ezra Miller). Patrick is also a senior, but for reasons unexplained, is taking freshman shop class with Charlie. Patrick is different from other seniors – mostly because he is not really popular. When the shop teacher calls him Pattycakes, Patrick tells him to call him Patrick or nothing – to which the shop teacher replies “Okay, Nothing” – and everyone else at the school follows suit and starts calling him Nothing as well. Charlie sees Patrick sitting alone at a football game, and joins him. Soon, Patrick’s step sister Sam (Emma Watson) joins them as well – and Charlie soon figures things out. Patrick is gay and is seeing the captain of the football team, Brad (Johnny Simmons) on the down low. Sam is pretty and sympathetic. Both seem to like Charlie – so he is adopted into their crowd.

The film is written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, based on his own novel (making him one of the few examples of a writer who gets to direct the film version of his own book). The book is better, of course, a little harsher, a little crueler, but Chbosky does an excellent job of adapting it. The book has become a classic of Young adult literature – in fact it fits in nicely with all the books Charlie’s supportive English teacher (Paul Rudd) gives him to read – like The Catcher in the Rye. The book is “controversial” in some circles who deem it unsuitable for teenagers because of Patrick’s homosexuality, the novels frank depiction of sex and drug use and because of an abortion (that has been excised from the movie – most likely because it’s inclusion may have gotten the film a R Rating, meaning the target audience of the film would be unable to see it). But the people who think it’s not suitable for teenagers are those idiots who seemingly have no idea what teenagers today are going through – or for that matter, what they have always gone through.

Like many writers making their directorial debut, Chbosky’s visual style is limited. He pretty much shoots the movie in a simple, straight-forward style – but it’s still effective. This is a movie that relies heavily on its writing and performances – both of which are excellent. Logan Lerman, who I didn’t think much of in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is quite good here. Shy and awkward, sometimes barely able to get the words out of his mouth, Lerman embodies the movies theme of passivity vs. participation – sometimes sitting back too much, putting everyone else ahead of himself. When he does participate – as in the wonderful sequence where he slowly comes off the wall during a school dance to join Patrick and Sam dancing to Come on Eileen, it’s a thrilling moment. Emma Watson successfully distances herself from Hermione here – although of the three major roles hers is the most underwritten – but that’s by design. Since the movie is told from Charlie’s point of view, and he sees her as perfection personified, it isn’t until late in the movie when we see her as more than that – as a fully, three dimension person. Undoubtedly the best performance in the movie is by Ezra Miller, so good as the teenage psychopath in last year’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, whose Patrick is flamboyant, without going over the top. It would have been easier to make him yet another gay stereotype, but Miller goes further than that – to show the intelligent, sensitive, screwed up person Patrick really is. They are surrounded by a good supporting cast – especially Mae Whitman as a girl who has a crush on Charlie, along with Rudd, who is the type of teacher we all wish we had, and Melanie Lynsky, seen only in flashback, as Charlie’s beloved Aunt.

To a certain extent, The Perks of Being a Wallflower contains many clichés of the coming of age genre. And yet, to me anyway, the film felt fresh, original and fun. Had I seen it as a teenager, I would have loved it even more – but watching it now, as a 30 year old, The Perks of Being a Wallflower made me remember what it was like to be a teenager – and all the good and bad that entails.

Movie Review: Arbitrage

Arbitrage

Directed by: Nicholas Jarecki.

Written by: Nicholas Jarecki.

Starring: Richard Gere (Robert Miller), Susan Sarandon (Ellen Miller), Tim Roth (Det. Michael Bryer), Brit Marling (Brooke Miller), Laetitia Casta (Julie Cote), Nate Parker (Jimmy Grant), Stuart Margolin (Syd Felder), Chris Eigeman (Gavin Briar), Graydon Carter (James Mayfield), Bruce Altman (Chris Vogler), Larry Pine (Jeffrey Greenberg), Curtiss Cook (Det. Mills), Reg E. Cathey (Earl Monroe), Felix Solis (A.D.A. Deferlito), Tibor Feldman (Judge Rittenband).

Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage wants to be an update of Tom Wolfe’s brilliant novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. Both Wolfe’s book and Jarecki’s film are about a “Master of the Universe” on Wall Street, who are in over their heads financially but believe they can get away with anything. Both have at their center men whose success affords them a beautiful, younger mistress, and involve a car accident where someone is killed – and the Master of the Universe thinks he can get away with it. But Jarecki’s film is even more cynical than Wolfe’s novel. Where Wolfe’s character eventually has to face the music, Jarecki’s proves himself right – he really is above the law.

Richard Gere gives a very good performance in Arbitrage as Robert Miller, who runs a successful investing firm worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He keeps his wife, Ellen (Susan Sarandon) in the style in which she is accustomed, loves his grandkids, and seems to be a good father – especially to his prized daughter Brooke (Brit Marling), who is following in his footsteps. He has been a big success on Wall Street – smart enough to avoid collapse when the bottom of the market fell out in 2008. A big bank wants to buy his company – something that will make him even richer than he already is, and will finally let him retire. But Robert has some secrets.

For one thing, he isn’t as smart as he thinks he is – he lost hundreds of millions in a deal on a copper mine in Russia, and has been covering up these losses – with the deposit from a friend who wants his money back. Robert just has to make it until the deal closes, then he can replace the money, and no one will know the difference. He also has a mistress on the side – Julie Cote (Laetitia Casta), a beautiful French woman, who he has set up with an apartment and an art gallery. She, like all mistresses, thinks that eventually Robert will leave his wife for her – and is starting to get antsy and demanding. But all of that pales in comparison to the trouble Robert is about to get into – while driving his mistress, in her car, one night he falls asleep at the wheel and crashes. She’s killed instantly – but rather than call in the accident and face the music, he decides to run for it. He calls a friend – Jimmy Grant (Nate Parker), a young African American son of his former driver, who he helped out. He needs a ride – and he needs no one to know about it. The police, led by Detective Bryer (Tim Roth) aren’t fooled by any of this – but they need proof. And like Robert, Bryer is not above breaking the rules to get it.

Arbitrage flips the idea of a traditional thriller on its head. This is not the story of an innocent man, wrongly accused just trying to prove his innocence. This is the story of a guilty man, rightly accused, trying to cover his tracks. You find yourself cheering for Robert – hoping that he’ll get away with everything, even though you know he’s guilty and he damn well should be punished. This is partly because of Gere, who is so good in the lead role. He looks and acts the part of a Wall Street millionaire – he is affable and charming. And we’re used to liking Richard Gere, so you go with it, even though you know it’s wrong.

But, for me, something is holding Arbitrage back from being a truly good movie. I think writer/director Jarecki’s film is lacking a real sense of urgency – of outrage. Oliver Stone may lay his contempt on Wall Street types a little too thickly in his films on the subject, and goes overboard with the stylistics, but Jarecki has gone too far in the other direction – making a strangely matter of fact film. There is also so little complexity to any of the characters, that even though the entire cast is good – they never truly seem like three dimensional people. The best one if the cast is Roth, who contempt for Gere is palpable, and who doesn’t play his cop as a typical “just the facts, ma’am” movie detective, but something altogether more unique. Nate Parker has some nice moments as well as Jimmy, who wants to do the right thing, but doesn’t know what that is. The rest of the cast is too one note – and I never bought that Marling’s Brooke could be so naïve, and you spend the whole movie waiting for Sarandon to do something – which you know she will because why the hell else would you cast an actress like Sarandon in such a seemingly throwaway role?

There is an interesting idea at the heart of Arbitrage – something that should have made a very good movie. And yet Jarecki’s film, in trying to be realistic, sucks the tension out of it. Arbitrage is still an ok film – an engaging one in which I was never bored. But it never grabbed hold of me the way good thrillers do.

DVD Review: Klown

Klown

Directed by: Mikkel Nørgaard.

Written by: Casper Christensen and Frank Hvam and Mikkel Nørgaard.

Starring: Frank Hvam (Frank), Casper Christensen (Casper), Marcuz Jess Petersen (Bo), Mia Lyhne (Mia), Iben Hjejle (Iben), Lars Hjortshøj (Hjortshøj), Tina Bilsbo (Tina Bilsbo), Mads Lisby (Mads), Anne Moen (Kathrine), Niels Weyde (Ole), Elsebeth Steentoft (Pykker), Roger Kormind (Fætter Andreas), Michael Carøe (Carøe), Dya Josefine Hauch (Susan), Marie Mondrup (Ronja), Claus Damgaard (Skolelærer), Bent Fabricius-Bjerre (Bent Fabric), Jørgen Leth (Jørgen Leth).

The Danish film, Klown, is the type of comedy for those who think that the gross out comedies made by Hollywood don’t go nearly far enough. The movie fits comfortably into the wave of comedies Hollywood has produced in recent years about overgrown man children – but at this one doesn’t perpetuate the myth that its characters will change or grow with the help of a good woman. The two men at the center of the movie are selfish assholes at the beginning and selfish assholes at the end, no matter how patient and loving their significant others are. The movie gleefully ignores other standards of decency that most Hollywood comedies adhere to – sometimes with hilarious results but more often than not, I sat there stone faced, not finding a running gag about an old lady blinded by semen particularly funny. And there are a few moments that cross the line altogether and simply felt downright creepy. There is a reason why some lines aren’t crossed.

The movie is based on a popular Danish TV show (making me wonder what the hell else is on TV in Denmark) and was co-written by its two stars. Frank Hvam plays Frank, a balding, middle aged man who fears he is losing his girlfriend because she is pregnant, but doesn’t consider him to have “father potential”. In order to get back in her good books – which will take some doing because it was his semen that blinded that old lady, who happened to be his girlfriend’s mother – he decides to take her nephew Bo with him a canoe trip with his best friend Casper (Casper Christensen). This upsets Casper because they weren’t really going on a family friendly canoe trip – they are only going in a canoe at all because it’s the one thing his wife wouldn’t want to tag along on – and he has dubbed the trip the “Tour de Pussy”. Casper, it seems, will fuck anything that moves, and during the course of the movie he’ll put the moves on some high school girls, have sex with a lonely housewife (with the help of one of Frank’s fingers), go to a high priced brothel, and even be caught in a compromising position with those high school girls chaperone. Frank tries really hard to make all this somehow appropriate for Bo, but he’s so incompetent that he never really had a chance.

I have to admit that part of me admires Klown, and its writer/stars and director, Mikkel Norgaard for their willingness to push the material as far as they do. There seems to be absolutely nothing they will not do to try and get a laugh as they gleefully bust every taboo they can think of, and push the movie to its breaking point. The movie is so far past good taste they cannot even see it in the rearview mirror, and that’s the way they like it. I don’t have a problem with pushing the boundaries of comedy, but the cardinal rule when you do is simple – if it’s likely to offend someone, it damn well better be funny. And therein lies the problem with Klown – I didn’t laugh all that much. Sure, the movie gave me a few laughs, but certainly not enough to sustain the movies rather slim running time. And then there is the final shots in the movie, that go well beyond “pushing the boundaries” or being daring, into an area that is just plain creepy and, lord knows I don’t want to be a censor but, wrong. There are some things that are just never funny.

My Most Anticipated Films for the Rest of 2012

Oscar Season is upon us once again – and it is my favorite time of year. Not some much for all the awards, which in all honesty I grow tired of quicker each passing year. But because of the films themselves – you always get one or two Oscar contenders coming in September (like The Master), but for the most part, they roll out in October, November and December – with a few stragglers hitting in January after a “qualifying run” in LA in December. If there is good news about the Academy moving their cutoff for receiving ballots to January 3^rd, and the announcing nominations on January 10^th, it is that after that point, there is no damn reason NOT to release films that won acclaim in order to capitalize on awards success. This will, hopefully anyway, mean that people who don’t get to see things well in advance can see everything earlier.

So with Oscar season here, I thought I’d look at the 10 films I am most looking forward to this season. Had I done this just a week ago, The Master would have been on this list, and had I done it before TIFF, Amour would have been here too.

There are many others I also anticipate including – Flight, Frankenweenie, Hitchcock, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Holy Motors, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, On the Road, Promised Land, Seven Psychopaths and Skyfall. But these are the 10 I most anticipate – and I hope that even at this “late stage” something may come out of nowhere and surprise us all.

10. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley) – October 12

I for one welcome Polley’s transformation from actress to director. It’s not that she wasn’t a good actress – she was, and is if she decides to do that again – but she is a better director. Her debut, Away From Her, was beautiful and heartbreaking, and while Take This Waltz (released just a few months ago) wasn’t as good, it was still very good – and contains a great performance by Michelle Williams, which at this point in the year is still one of my favorites. Her latest is Stories We Tell, which received raves at Telluride and Toronto this year, and is Polley’s first documentary – a look back at her own tumultuous family history. I usually don’t look forward to docs as much as I am this one.

9. Lincoln (Steven Spielberg) – November 9

I really, really hope that Spielberg’s Lincoln is a return to form for Spielberg. After coming off what was arguably his most interesting, darkest period of his career in the early 2000s – with great films like A.I., Minority Report and Munich – Spielberg has since taken a step back – the less said about the 4^th Indiana Jones movie the better, and even though I was thoroughly entertained by his 2011 double dip of Tintin and War Horse, both were merely throwbacks to yesteryear, and as entertaining as they were, do not constitute Spielberg at the height of his powers. I am sucker for political biopics however, and Daniel Day-Lewis is the best actor in the world, so the idea of him playing Lincoln in a Spielberg film has me itching to see this. No, I don’t mind Day-Lewis’ Lincoln voice in the trailer (which is an interesting choice), but hope that perhaps John Williams’ score is quite as bombastic as it was there (then again, it is John Williams). Still, Spielberg deserves respect, so I’m waiting anxiously on this one.

8. Anna Karenina (Joe Wright) – November 16

When I first heard Joe Wright was making a version of Leo Tolsoy’s Anna Karenina, I assumed it would be another classy period piece like Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, which was good enough for me. But then the reviews out of Toronto came in – and were decidedly mixed – because apparently Wright’s version is daringly stylistic – and some love it, and some despise it. That only made me more intrigued at the prospect of seeing this. Who knows if I’ll love it or hate it, or something in between, but count me in on wanting to see it.

7. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow) – December 21

One of the films that remains unseen by anyone, Katherine Bigelow’s follow-up to her Oscar winning The Hurt Locker is about the decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden, from 9/11 until he was killed earlier this year. The film has already generated controversy in the political spectrum – with some saying the White House gave the filmmaker access to information they shouldn’t have had to help make the film more pro-Obama in an election year (but since the film won’t be seen by voters until AFTER the election, I don’t see how that makes sense). The trailer tells us very little, I have no idea who is playing what characters, or what the movie will be like, but I still cannot wait to see this.

6. Rust & Bone (Jacques Audiard) – November 21

Jacques Audiard’s last film was the great A Prophet, one of the best prison movies of all time, and the film that launched him to greater, widespread acclaim. He’s back in this strange sounding drama about a whale trainer (Marion Cottilard) who suffers a terrible accident. Debuted at Cannes, and then played in Toronto, the film is said to guarantee Cottillard another Oscar nomination, but has received some rather mixed reviews for the film as a whole. But after A Prophet, I cannot wait to see what this filmmaker does this time around.

5. Argo (Ben Affleck) – October 12

Ben Affleck is a better director than he is an actor. His first film was the great crime story Gone Baby Gone, and his second another fine crime drama, The Town. Those films received some acclaim, and Oscar nominations for supporting cast members, but Argo is said to be a major step forward for Affleck as a filmmaker. It’s about the strange plan to get six embassy workers out of Iran back in the 1970s, and has received rave reviews in Telluride and Toronto  - and is pretty much assured Oscar nominations. The trailers make it look like an old school political thriller, something Hollywood doesn’t make enough of anymore, so I’m looking forward to this one.

4. Cloud Atlas (Andy & Lana Wachowski & Tom Tykwer) – October 26

Any film that generates the kind of intense passion – whether it be in love or hate – that Cloud Atlas generated in Toronto immediately becomes one of my must see films. I’m halfway through David Mitchell’s epic novel now, and have no freaking idea how the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer transformed this into an movie, but I have to say, I cannot wait to see what they did. There is a good chance I’ll hate it – but also a good chance I’ll love it. I want to see which one it is – and soon.

3. Killing Them Softley (Andrew Dominik) – November 30

Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was one of the best Westerns ever made – and one of the best films of the last decade. It has taken him 5 years to follow it up, with this gritty crime drama, with apparently overt political overtones. The film was greeted with more respect than passion in Cannes, but any film by Dominik is going to be anticipated by me – especially one starring Brad Pitt who did the best work of his career in Jesse James. Now stop moving the damn release date back!

2. Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell) – November 21

David O. Russell is a fine filmmaker – and one I admire when he does he strange, offbeat comedies like Flirting with Disaster, Three Kings or I Heart Huckabees. After a detour into a more mainstream film – The Fighter – which won Oscars and got big box office, he seems to have returned to his quirky comedic roots with this film, which won the People’s Choice Award in Toronto, about two mentally unstable people (Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence) and their relationship. What intrigues me the most however may just be the fact that apparently Robert DeNiro has awoken from his slumber and decided to actually ACT in this movie. DeNiro has always been my favorite actor, but his work for more than a decade now (aside from his directorial effort, The Good Sheperd, and the underrated performance in Stone) leaves much to be desired. Here’s hoping for a return to form for DeNIro and Russell.

1. Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino) – December 25

Without Quentin Tarantino, I’m not sure I would love movies as much as I do. His Pulp Fiction hit me an impressionable age, and fuelled by love of movies, and my desire to delve into their history. And the man keeps on making some of the most entertaining genre mashups in film history – films that somehow manage the trick of being highly influenced by film history, and yet come across as completely new, unique and original. His last film was Inglorious Basterds, which I maintain is the best film he has ever made, and the previews for Django Unchained look, at the very least, to be another huge entertainment, with Tarantino’s trademark dialogue and ultra-violence. December 25^th cannot get here fast enough.

Movie Review: Trouble with the Curve

Trouble with the Curve

Directed by: Robert Lorenz.

Written by: Randy Brown.

Starring: Clint Eastwood (Gus), Amy Adams (Mickey), Justin Timberlake (Johnny), John Goodman (Pete Klein), Matthew Lillard (Phillip Sanderson), Robert Patrick (Vince), Joe Massingill (Bo Gentry), Chelcie Ross (Smitty), Raymond Anthony Thomas (Lucious), Ed Lauter (Max), Clifton Guterman (Neil), George Wyner (Rosenbloom), Bob Gunton (Watson), Jack Gilpin (Schwartz), Scott Eastwood (Billy Clark), Jay Galloway (Rigo Sanchez), Brian F. Durkin (Matt Nelson).

I don’t care how many chairs he talks to, I’ll always be a Clint Eastwood fan. He keeps threatening to retire as an actor and only work as a director – Million Dollar Baby (2004) was supposed to be his last in front of the camera, but then he returned for Gran Torino (2008), which again was supposed to be his last, but he’s back again in Trouble with the Curve. While from a prosperity stand point, he may well have been better served by making Million Dollar Baby his acting swan song – probably his best performance ever – and while Gran Torino and now Trouble with the Curve are really more of Eastwood playing on his own iconic image, I can’t say I wish he hadn’t done them. Trouble with the Curve is a standard issue baseball movie about the clash between old ideas and new, and a standard issue relationship drama between a quiet father and his adult daughter (Amy Adams) yearning for a connection with her father, and also a standard issue relationship drama about an overworked young woman (that would be Adams) falling for a guy who makes her loosen up and have fun (Justin Timberlake). There is nothing in this movie you don’t see coming from a mile away. But because all three of these actors, not just Eastwood, are so damn good, I find that I don’t really care about that. I just sat back and enjoyed watching them work.

Eastwood plays Gus, who has been a scout for the Atlanta Braves for decades, signing some of the best players in their franchise’s history. But he’s getting old – his eyesight is going. There’s a new kid in the scouting department, Philip (Matthew Lillard), who, like the characters in Moneyball, uses his computer to analyze players. Gus hates this – he says you need to see a player to know who they are and how they play. A computer can’t tell you that. Gus’s one friend in the organization is Pete (John Goodman), who argues that Gus knows baseball scouting better than anyone – and he’s still up for the job. In a last ditch effort to save his career, Pete sends Gus to see Bo Gentry (Joe Massingill) – a hotshot high school prospect that Philip believes is the next Albert Pujols. The Braves have the second pick in the draft, and if the Red Sox pass on Gentry, Phillip wants to take Gentry. Nervous about Gus’s ability, Pete reaches out to his daughter Mickey (Amy Adams), and tells her it would be nice for her to spend time with her dad on this trip. She is a lawyer, busy preparing a big case that could make her a partner – but she decides to go along with Gus anyway – over his strenuous objections. On the road they meet Johnny (Justin Timberlake), a once hotshot pitching prospect signed by who blew out his arm and never had much of a playing career. And wouldn’t you know it – he’s now a scout for the Red Sox – also looking at Gentry.

You know where all this is going, don’t you? Eastwood has to do very little except be his old, gruff, no nonsense self for an audience to like him. He can do that in his sleep, but he doesn’t here. Yes, he is playing off his iconic image here – not as much as in Gran Torino, but still an awful lot. But you cannot help but like the guy, even if you, like Mickey, wonder about his actions in the past. And Adams, such a wonderful actress who is able to add intelligence and fun to every role she takes on. In short, in a role like this, she is a joy to watch. And Timberlake continues his strong of solid performances.

Yes, Trouble with the Curve is about as clichéd as it comes. And it romanticizes a past in baseball that is long gone. Directed by Robert Lorenz, a longtime AD for Eastwood making his debut, the movie even has its share of clunky moments. I’m sure the cynics out there will hate it. But Trouble with the Curve is a fun, charming, sweet little movie.

Movie Review: End of Watch

End of Watch

Directed by: David Ayer.

Written by: David Ayer.

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal (Brian Taylor), Michael Peña (Mike Zavala), Natalie Martinez (Gabby), Anna Kendrick (Janet), David Harbour (Van Hauser), Frank Grillo (Sarge), America Ferrera (Orozco), Cle Shaheed Sloan (Mr. Tre), Jaime FitzSimons (Captain Reese), Cody Horn (Davis), Shondrella Avery (Bonita).

The two LAPD Officers in End of Watch are good cops. Yes, they may be full of cocky bravado, but they take their jobs seriously – and do them well. They are not crooked; they don’t abuse their prisoners or plant evidence. They may bend a rule or two, but they do not break them. Most movies about cops are about bad cops – even the previous work of writer/director David Ayer, who wrote Training Day and Dark Blue, directed Street Kings and wrote and directed Harsh Times. He is obviously interested in the inner workings of the police – especially in LA – and perhaps the reason he made End of Watch is as simple as the fact he wanted to show the police in a positive light for once. And he succeeds. End of Watch is a wonderfully entertaining cop movie.

The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena as officers Taylor and Zavala. They have been partners for years now, went to the academy together, and have become pretty much like brothers. Taylor knows and loves Zavala’s wife Gabby (Natalie Martinez), and when he finally settles down with Janet (Anna Kendrick), Zavala is right there with him. Their relationship consists of friendly banter, much of it mocking each other, but they do love each other like brothers – we never doubt that either of them would be willing to die for each other.

The movie is largely shot through cameras that Taylor brings along with him for a film class he is taking. While there are some boring days, there aren’t that many. There always seem to be a gunfight or a fire or a confrontation with a gang – mainly a Latino gang, who start to hate Taylor and Zavala, because although they are just beat cops, they always seem to be harassing them. We know how the movie will end – a violent confrontation between these two cops and the gang – who like Taylor, always seems to have a camera on recording their activity – which is stupid, of course, because they are really documenting crimes. But this gang isn’t exactly high on intelligence.

End of Watch works because of the performances by Gyllenhaal and Pena. We like these two characters and get to know them, and because of that, when they get into gun fights, or running into a burning building or get into a car chase (which, let’s be honest here, happens way more often to these two than to any cops in history), we want them to make it out alive. Ayer is a smart enough writer and director to know that we’ll stick with the movie if we actually like the characters. They are not cookie cutters, but real guys. Gyllenhaal still has traces of that boyish charm he does so well, but there is something darker in Taylor as well. Pena is a little goofier, a little more relaxed. Both are excellent in the film, and together they make a great team.

How you feel about End of Watch may well come down to how you feel about the camera work. End of Watch is not quite a “found footage” movie, as for some reasons Ayer does give us some establishing shots numerous times throughout the movie, but it comes pretty close. It used to be that found footage was only used in low budget horror movies – but this year has seen several examples of other genres getting into the action – the sci-fi action film Chronicle and the teen comedy Project X for example. Ayer uses the shaky camera work inherent in the genre better than most – not quite as nausea inducing as others I have seen, and still with a definite sense of style. In short, I doubt most amateurs could actually make a film that looks as good as End of Watch.

End of Watch is not a great movie, and really isn’t a very original movie either. You know what you’re getting into from the previews – and if you don’t, the profanity laced tirade that begins the film will surely let you know. But it is a well-made, well-written and especially well-acted example of its genre. And an effective one.