Thin Ice

Midwest insurance salesman Mickey Prohaska (Greg Kinnear) hatches a get-rich-quick scheme that depends on him gaining possession of a rare and precious violin, but his planned score results in wild and unexpected consequences. Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup and Lea Thompson co-star in this meditation on lying and its consequences, written by sisters Jill and Karen Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing).

Matt
Rating: 8 out of 10

The only reason I watched this movie is because it popped out of the Red Box by mistake. I literally knew nothing about this movie when I started watching. But the Red Box machine’s mistake became my surprise fortune. Now that’s good movie karma!

Greg Kinnear leads an excellent cast as a truly unlikable human being. He swindles people in business, cheats on his wife, doesn’t take care of his finances or family, and when pushed to his limits, will cover up a murder. This is one of those movies where there’s no good guy to root for. It’s definitely not filmed like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but the script has the feel of it. Kudos to the Sprecher sisters for writing an intriguing script that unfolds very nicely, keeps the intensity at a great level, and inspires great performances by Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup, David Harbour and Lea Thompson.

This is a movie where nothing goes right, there are no heroes, and no possibility of a positive outcome. Sounds bleak, right? Well, it works very well with the balance of some humor. Bad deeds lead to more bad deeds, and they keep piling up. As the audience, we feel the tension build. the danger grow, and the risks get higher. It’s an entertaining movie, for sure.

Brian’s Review – “The Tree Of Life”

Brad Pitt and Sean Penn star in Terrence Malick’s 1950s adventure about a confused man named Jack, who sets off on a journey to understand the true nature of the world. Growing up in the Midwest with two brothers, Jack has always been torn between his mother’s guidance to approach everything he encounters with an open heart and his father’s advice to look after his own interests. Now, Jack must find a way to regain purpose and perspective.

Brian-

Rating-3 out 10

The Tree of Life, Terence Malik’s Palme D’or winning film, is the most beautifully shot, well acted, and well directed piece of shit I have ever seen in my life.  How can a film with this much talent miss this badly?  It contains so many elements that could have worked well but because the original concept was so enormous, it literally crushed the story under its own weight.  It’s a shame because it might have been an interesting examination of two parents with completely contrasting personalities struggling with the loss of a child. Instead, we are given an entire history of the creation of planet earth complete with volcanic activity creating land, dinosaurs, an ice age, and the formation of sea life.  Now, you’re probably wondering why this choice was made.  Some may say that it’s an examination that all life and death is part of the evolution of creation.  Others may say that it shows how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things when compared to the vast infinity of space and time.  I, however, think that it’s the conception of an arrogant director who wrote a script about a Midwestern family and it just wasn’t “big” enough a story to fit the vastness of the ideas contained within his massive ego.

I have read some reviews where the film was compared to 2001 and I couldn’t disagree more.  2001 was about how machine caught up with man and how we were forced to evolve to keep up.  It was relevant, poignant, and challenging.  The Tree of Life is more of a cross between Ordinary People and a Planet Earth special on the Discovery Channel.  It’s a complete waste of a director who has proven he has talent and a terrific cast that brings great work to the table.  Instead of getting a modern day risk taking masterpiece, we get one of the most pretentious films ever made.

Cyrus

Indie favorites Jay and Mark Duplass co-direct this wry look at modern love and family dysfunction. John C. Reilly plays a divorced man who thinks he’s found just the right woman (Marisa Tomei) to help him recover and move on. Unfortunately, the woman’s son, played by Jonah Hill, has no interest in allowing another man into their lives — a stance he proceeds to demonstrate in a variety of obnoxious ways.

Matt
Rating: 7 out of 10

This is a movie that works because of the excellent cast, directing, and a smart script that is patient and respectful of its audience.

“Cyrus” has the potential to be a silly movie about the adult son of a single mother who torments his mother’s new boyfriend with ridiculous stunts that make you uncomfortable to watch. Certainly, there are uncomfortable moments, but it’s because they feel like you could know insane people like this. The film’s characters react with emotion, and there is some drama that gives it a backbone  that set a foundation of reality.

This film may not be what many hope it is, and I think that’s a virtue.

Buffalo 66

Writer-director Vincent Gallo stars as Billy Brown, who — fresh from a five-year stint in stir — heads home to Buffalo, N.Y., to visit his kin. Eager to impress his insouciant parents (Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston), Billy kidnaps buxom Layla (Christina Ricci) and makes her pose as his wife. As the day wears on, Layla falls for Billy, even as he lays plans to knock off the place-kicker whose botched field goal sent him to the slammer.

Kyle
Rating: 8 out of 10

This is one of my favorites. I’m not a huge fan of Vincent Gallo. Based on what I’ve read about him, he’s kind of full of himself and is very difficult to work with. I believe Ricci said she’d never work with him again; I think he was really hard on her. “The Brown Bunny” was not good at all, as we discussed briefly in one of our podcasts.

At any rate, “Buffalo 66” is a really good film. We can’t help but sympathize with Gallo’s character, while laughing and hating him at the same time. He had a hard upbringing and has made a few mistakes. At the surface, he’s offensive, aggressive and wants to impress his parents for some sort of approval he knows he’ll never get. Deep down, though, he’s broken and just wants to be loved. He’s misunderstood and alone.

I don’t really care why Ricci’s character is attracted to Billy but she is and puts up with his nonsense. Isn’t that what happens to most of us? Meet someone you like a lot or love and put up with their weaknesses and bullshit? Maybe not as fast as her but I think so. The scene where they are just laying with each other is envious. Yeah, sure most of us want sex or just be in a relationship but there many times where you just want to lay with someone and feel comforted; that scene and one or two others captured it fully. Though this came out in 1998, I loved how vintage this film made Buffalo look.

Okay, so maybe my rating is a bit subjective but I don’t really care. To me, this is the perfect film to watch with someone. I don’t want to call this a date movie but a good one to watch with someone very close. A film to watch with someone whose worthy of “spanning time” with.

Hobo With a Shotgun

This gory, gleefully over-the-top revenge fantasy stars Rutger Hauer as the Hobo, a bum who rolls into town hoping to start over, only to find his adopted city saturated in violence and ruled by a vicious crime lord known as the Drake (Brian Downey). The Hobo’s answer? Pick up his handy pump-action scattergun and start laying waste to crooks, corrupt cops and every other lowlife who crosses his path.

Brian
Rating: 5 out of 10
Warning: This review contains minor spoilers.

I literally spent half the day trying to figure out how to rate this movie. Do I rate it a 7 and praise its audacity to offend and repulse its audience or do I go the other way and rate it a 3 for its lousy production value and over the top antagonists? I decided to take the easy way out and go right down the middle.

There’s a lot to like and lot to dislike about “Hobo with a Shotgun.” I’ll start with the praise by saying that the movie delivers exactly what the title implies. It’s a hearkening back (similar to the Tarantino and Rodriguez’s recent efforts) to the 1970’s grindhouse cinema that was known more for shock than substance. Rutger Hauer is perfectly cast as the title character and adds an element of humanity to a film containing extremely little of it. It has been interesting to see these Grindhouse resurgences starring extremely talented actors. It definitely goes against traditional films of this type. Only a few of them contained even a shred of acting chops. Nowadays, we have Rutger Hauer, Kurt Russell, Robert Deniro, and others starring in them.

But, I digress. The other elements that worked are the over the top action scenes — one containing two assassins sent to a hospital dressed like a cross between an S&M dominatrix and Darth Vader is particularly good. Another is a montage of scenes where the hobo gets revenge with… well, you guessed it… his shotgun. Blood flies, limbs are severed, decapitations occur, and the film is off to a terrific and bloody start. Then, something terrible happens. The three main antagonists, all played horribly over the top, decide to “shock the people.” Two of them enter a school bus with a flame thrower and taunt a bus full of 6-9 year old kids. It ends with the flame thrower mowing them all down and a young girl half on fire pounding on the bus window and screaming. All of a sudden, I wasn’t having fun anymore. There are certain lines you don’t cross while trying to make a fun and bloody romp and the #1 amongst them is leave the kids out of it. It’s impossible for almost anyone to laugh and have a good time during a grindhouse flick when they’re watching young children screaming while they’re being burned to death. It’s clear that director Jason Eisener was trying to cross every line he could find. I’ll never knock anyone for trying to go places others won’t go but it ruined a film I was starting to like. I think “Hobo with a Shotgun” is going to be a cult film for a long time, but it won’t get a repeated viewing by me.

Blue Valentine

Once crazy about each other, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) have now grown apart. Cindy is bored and disenchanted with her life while Dean languishes in the emotional emptyness of their sexless, routine life in rural Pennsylvania. As they muddle through their marriage, they hearken back to the golden days when life was filled with possibility and romance. Derek Cianfrance writes and directs this drama.

Matt
Rating: 5 out of 10

I understand that every romance doesn’t end with rainbows and doves flying through a crisp, blue sky, as children frolic in a meadow… You get the idea.

“Blue Valentine” is not one of those movies. The film has some wonderful acting, but I didn’t care about the characters all that much. They’re the sort of people who jump blindly into terrible situations, make awful choices, and I’m supposed to feel sympathy for them. Or maybe I’m not. Perhaps the director wanted me to sit and watch two very naive souls colide in terrible trajedy. The film is the deconstruction of a love story gone wrong.

There’s some very honest writing and acting, but it just didn’t work for me. There was also way too much handheld camera work. It’s a style that’s being used to death. Handheld works in very intense moments. It brings you close. But with this film, it’s an intimate portrait you’re forced to stare at from 2 inches away. I don’t always need to be sitting on an actor’s shoulder to appreciate the situation of their character. It was like going to a museum and standing 6 inches from every painting.