The Dark Knight Rises

Has it ever been done? Has the third movie in a trilogy ever been as good as the first two films? Is that even possible? I can only think of three instances where the third film was as good as or better than it's predecessors. The Lord of the Ring: Return of the King was as good as the first two movies in my opinion, but you have to take into account that those three films were all filmed at the same time. This one may cause a little consternation but I firmly believe Rocky III was better than II and maybe even better than the original. I know, I know, Rocky wasn't a trilogy, it was more like a serial but in my mind there were just three of them and if you know anything about movies, there was just three of them in your mind too. Then there was Return of the Jedi (where Lucas should have STOPPED, but I digress). Jedi was better than A New Hope but in my opinion The Empire Strikes Back was the best of the three. Now, we can add Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises to the list.

Rises is just an amazing movie, so much so that I don't even know where to begin. Starring the usual suspects of Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine these for four man were aided this go round with some new blood. Anne Hathaway plays Selina Kyle aka Catwoman (who knew Anne would look so good in that one piece?), Joseph Gorden-Levitt plays the young noble detective Blake, Marion Cotillard plays Miranda, Matthew Modine plays the ambitious but wimpy cop Capt. Foley and rounding out the case is Tom Hardy (who I have been a fan of for a long time) as the lethal Bane. It's quite the collection of talent but they've all worked with Nolan before. If it wasn't on a Batman movie it with him on Inception so going in he knew how to handle the ego's, the characters, and the divas.

This time around our hero is a shell of his once glorious self. After doing battle with The Scarecrow, Ra's al Ghul, and The Joker, Bruce Wayne is hobbled. He's become a recluse, barely seen anymore by anyone even by his own wait staff that he's become some sort of urban legend. He's met every threat Gotham has faced and he's thwarted them all but at a price. Now however, there's a new threat to the peace that Gotham is under and it comes in the form of Bane who, like Batman was trained by The League of Shadows. Bane is physically imposing, the likes of which Batman has never seen. Bane is able to kill with his bare hands and does so damn near every time he's on screen. The first confrontation between Batman and Bane just seems so unfair. Bane toys with Batman like a cat toys with a dead mouse until it gets bored. When Bane gets bored, he breaks Batman's back.

While Bruce Wayne recuperates in a hellish prison, Bane threatens to blow Gotham off the map, finishing what Ra's al Ghul started but never got the chance to do in Batman Begins. There is also a very strong Occupy Wall Street sentiment running through this movie as Bane feeds on that anger of the people. Lash out at the rich and the wealthy for they are the ones responsible for your lowly lot in life. While in prison Bruce is visited by a vision of Ra's al Ghul and comes to some idea that Bane is the child of Ra's al Ghul and as Bruce is berated by the vision he uses his anger to snap his back back into place. He then proceeds on getting body in shape to make the long climb out of that hell hole prison and get back to Gotham.

Christopher Nolan doesn't allow Batman to ride the streets of Gotham in a new Tumbler (the last one was destroyed by the Joker. This time Batman is flying in his Batwing courtesy of Freeman's Lucius Fox character which is a good thing because there's a bomb that needs to be disarmed and flying is the only way to make that happen. I won't get into anymore plot but just know that some people aren't who they seem to be. And not that this movie needed it but Hans Zimmer kept the pace humming with his pulsating score, a perfect companion to the visuals on the screen. This is definitely one superhero movie worth seeing because it has everything for everyone, which is probably why is probably why it clocks in at close to three hours. In closing I have three words for you...SEE THIS MOVIE and I'll see you at the theater (wait, that's actually ten words but whatever).

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai

I love Japanese cinema. Wait, let me clarify that. I love a certain style of Japanese cinema (yeah, that's better). The style I love is usually in the Akira Kurosawa vein. Full screen action, marvelous symmetry, magnificent costumes, emotional close-ups, and the occasional overacting (no one's perfect). Kurosawa was a master and like all masters, they spawn, for the lack of a better word disciples. Now to be fair and honest, I don't know if legendary director Takahi Miike is a disciple or for that matter, even a fan of Kurosawa but his latest film, Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai certainly makes him appear to be. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai is a remake of the 1962 classic Harakiri (Seppuku) directed by the award winning Masaki Kobayashi. Now I never saw the original but I am certainly glad I got to see the remake. Takahi Miike is known for his over the top method of film making (see his marvelous 13 Assassins if you doubt me) but this time around he has found remarkable restraint. If you can get past this film being in 3D which I still don't understand why that is, it is a very easy film to love. The key cast includes Eita as Motome, Hikari Mitsushima as Miho, the talented Koji Yakusho as Kageyu, and the enigmatic Ebizo Ichikawa as Hanshiro Tsugumo. Those four carry this move across the finish line in such a way as I have never seen done before. It was an honor to watch them at their craft.

The story is a peculiar one and at first, if you haven't seen the original, you won't have the foggiest idea what's going on or where you are being taken. The story begins with a man, a Ronin...wait, are you familiar with Samurai and Ronin? Brief edification, Samauri are warriors who are led by a Shogun or Lord and if that Lord dies (or in most cases) killed then the Samauri become Ronin. Ronin are vagabonds, penniless wanderers who have lost face in the eyes of society because they allowed their lord to be killed. In the case of this story a Ronin comes to the noble house of li and asks to use their courtyard to commit seppuku (suicide). If a Ronin kills himself in a noble house then they regain some of that respect they have lost.

While there the Ronin who is played by Ebizo is told a tale how last year another Ronin who claimed to be from his same clan came to the house of li making the same request. Ebizo's character Hanshiro was told that the Ronin was actually there for a "suicide bluff" which was all the rage those days since one Ronin took money from a Shogun instead of killing himself. That started a new trend and this other Ronin tried the same thing. Then the movie takes you in a completely different direction, one you don't see coming and it's so heart warming and heartbreaking sometimes at the same time. The morale of the tale is if tradition is what brings you to this point, what good is tradition?

Ryuichi Sakamoto, the man behind the music for Babel (a score I own) is responsible for the sweet yet sparse score and this film was shot so gracefully by Nobuyasu Kita. I highly recommend this film if you have a thing for feudal Japan like I do, have a thing for Samurai (again like I do), or you have two hours to spare and you're looking for something worthwhile to do with them...see this movie and I'll see you at the theater.

Trishna

Okay, so to get the bad taste that was The Amazing Spider Man out of my mouth I decided to go independent. I figured what better way than to get over something as rancid as Spider Man then to see something small and sweet? When I saw the trailer for Michael Winterbottom's latest offering to the world cinema I thought perfect, that's what I'll see. I've enjoyed Michael's films before, especially Code 46 so I thought I would give Trishna a go. Plus the amazingly beautiful Frida Pinto was in it so that didn't hurt its chances. I figured this movie would be a solid hour and a half to two hour stretch of interesting film making. I won't say I was wrong about that, what I can at least say is that this movie was something I certainly did not suspect.

Like I stated, this movie based on the book Tess of the d'Urbervilles stars the beautiful Frida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire and Rise of the Planet of the Apes fame. She of course plays Trishna and it seems Michael Winterbottom fell in love with her look because Frida is in practically EVERY frame of this film. If it wasn't a shot of the countryside, the shore of a beach, or the urban landscape then it was a shot of Frida. Now of course she wasn't in this film alone, her co-star is the very talented, and charming Riz Ahmed who plays Jay. He was in the hilarious Four Lions film (which I highly recommend by the way). Those are the primary players in this movie, everyone else has a bit part including the great Roshan Seth. If you saw the classic Mississippi Masala then you know him, he played Meena's father. He was there and gone in almost a blink of an eye.

Michael wanted you to focus on Trishna and Jay and no one else. That may have been this movies slight downfall. I say that because you get to see Frida emote only two emotions, sad and sadder. Trishna was a character that embodies the phrase "the power of subtlety" which is what makes the ending of this film all the more shocking. The story isn't a remake of Tess but more of a re-imagining and instead of the story taking place in 19th century England, it's set in the India of today. Danny Boyle did a great job showing you how profound the class system is in Slumdog and Michael picks up on that here. Trishna is poor, poorer than poor while Jay is...not. Jay takes one look at Trishna and in enthralled and since Jay gets whatever Jay wants he finds a way to get Trishna. Operating one of his dads hotels he hires Trishna, who is working part time in a hotel already is hired by Jay to work full time at his.

Jay eventually seduces Trishna after rescuing her from two very aggressive men in the dark streets of the village they are in. They have a night of passion and Trishna leaves the next day for home without a word to anyone. Jay finds her and asks her to move with him to Bombay where "no one will care that we're together" and she agrees. Trishna basically agrees to everything Jay asks or says so I am still scratching my head at the ending. Maybe Trishna did what she did because she knew Jay would never let her go. Maybe she knew that because of the differences in their statuses that no one would encourage her to leave Jay, not even her family. Trishna was the primary bread winner for her family and basically being Jay's sex slave has allowed her did to buy a new jeep and allowed her younger siblings to go back to school. In that case I can see why she did what she did to Jay but I can't see why she did what she did to herself. :Insert headscratch here:

Visually the movie is stunning but I would think it would be hard to make a movie in India and have it not look amazing. The colors abound as does the chaos of the city. It looks like frenzied madness actually, captured very well by cinematographer Marcel Zyskind. The music defies words it was that good. There was one central theme playing throughout that was impactful whether it was upbeat and happy or mournful. It was a masterful job by Shigeru Umebayashi as well as Amit Trivedi who was the man behind the songs of Trishna. Their music set the tables perfectly for the film.

Do I recommend Trishna, over Spider Man absolutely. Would I recommend it on it's own? I am not really sure. If you like Frida Pinto then see it (the only actress who was in almost every scene as Frida was in this movie was Nicole Kidman in Birth). If you want a tragic love story and have two hours to spare, see it. If you want something meaningful, something impactful then see something else and I'll see you at the theater.

The Amazing Spider Man

Have you ever watched a movie and when it was over you wondered "what the hell were they thinking?" Like, did you ever want to be in the room when the story was being crafted and when something didn't make sense or just sounded off you could be the one to stand up and get them to stop the madness? I certainly wish that was the case after seeing The Amazing Spider Man. After seeing this movie, there were times during the movie where I was scratching my head and wondering WTF? I couldn't help but wonder if any of the producers behind the movie ever even read a Spider Man comic book because this reinterpretation was, in some ways, wildly off the mark. Directed by the aptly named Marc Webb, the man behind 500 Days of Summer, I couldn't help but feel that this man was completely out of his element.

Don't get me wrong, The Amazing Spider Man got it right in so many other ways. The movie is visually arresting and the cast is absolutely perfect (with one possible exception). This time around on the Peter Parker carousel we have Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy (the love interest before Mary Jane Watson), Rhys Ifans as the sullen and desperate Doctor Curt Conners, Sally Field as the irrepressible Aunt May, and Martin Sheen as lovable Uncle Ben. Like I said, they did get the cast right. In fact, there's even a few surprises like Campbell Scott as Peters dad Richard Parker, Embeth Davidtz as his mother Mary Parker, and Dennis Leary as Police Captain Stacy (Gwen's dad and in my opinion, the first of a few missteps to come).

Now in this retelling of Spider Man there is no J. Jonah Jameson, no Daily Bugle, and there is no wrestling (which is an integral part of Peter Parker's life) among other things. What they, the producers have chosen to give us instead is Peter at six playing hide and seek with his parents and finding out his fathers study has been broken into. Peter is then suddenly whisked away to Uncle Ben and Aunt May and the parental units are never seen or heard from again. WHAT? How come I don't recall any of that in the comic book of my youth? Or how about not ever remembering that it was Peters dad who was responsible for the radioactive spider that turned his son into the web slinging wall crawler in the first place. That's right folks, this movie wants you to buy the fact that Richard Parker worked at Oscorp before his death and was doing miraculous things with spiders and it was one of those spiders that bit his very own son.

There were SO many other things that were just so wrong with this movie, to sit here and nit pick at them would be a waste of time. Like I said, it's a nice movie to look at and Andrew Garfield does his best quiet, sullen, stand up for the bullied teenager turn super hero. I LIKE Andrew Garfield, I thought he was great in the social network but it seems this guy is surrounded by algorithms, and in the case of this movie, saddled with really choppy and sometimes really bad dialogue. The one thing they did get right, the one thing I was truly impressed with was Spider Mans fearlessness. He goes after that giant lizard with gusto and no matter how many walls he gets thrown through, he comes back fighting. Sadly though, they missed on practically everything else that made Spider Man, well...Spider Man. Especially that one very important line delivered by Uncle Ben all those years ago in the comic books and repeated in the Tobey Maguire Spider Man movie. Something about with great power comes...damn, what was the rest of that line?

I'm sure this movie probably looked great in 3D but I wasn't paying 3D ticket prices to see it and I'm glad I didn't waste my money. 3D wasn't going to jazz up the dialogue and 3D wasn't going to make the story any saner either. Now here is usually around the time where I talk about the score, that added ingredient that gives a movie more emotional impact. Well after seeing this movie, I have NOTHING good to report on that front. Scored (if you choose to call it that) by James Horner, the music is an absolute swing and miss. Whatever they paid the man was money lost because the score was atrocious. It sounded at times like parts of it was lifted from Danny Elfmans score of the Sam Raimi Spider Man mixed with Horners horrible Avatar score. Quite simply, I wanted to gag.

If you are a true Spider Man fan and have been from day one then you'll SKIP THIS MOVIE!!! If you aren't that big of a Spidey fan and you want to get out of the heat and into a nice air conditioned room, then see this or better yet, see Savages! You'll get more bang for your buck if you do. I swear and I'll see you at the theater.

Savages

There are a few things in this world we know are a certain fact, right? Like we know the sun rises in the east and it sets in the west and that water freezes at thirty two degrees Fahrenheit. We know that every four years we elect a new President and the Olympics happen somewhere on this planet. We also know that rarely, oh so very rarely is the movie better than or equal too the book it was spawned from. In fact the movie is usually SO bad that it turns you off from wanting to even read the damn book afterwards. Well boys and girls, I can honestly sit here today and tell you that what I just saw in the way of Oliver Stone's celluloid interpretation of Dan Winslow's amazing novel Savages is not only better than the book, it far exceeds it...and I LOVED the book!

In fact I would recommend you read it before seeing the movie, don't worry, you'll tear through the book in a day or two. That's how well it's written and that's how fast it moves. Then check out Stone's movie and I am pretty confident that you will feel the same way. Now in a lesser director would have taken this movie down a dark and violent path which would be understandable given the nature of the story. However, this movie, in the hands of the man behind Scarface, Platoon, and Natural Born Killers takes this movie to the line, to the edge of that violent cliff but never allows it to fall over. It was a masterful job. It also helps that Dan Winslow helped write the screenplay, just saying.

Starring Aaron Johnson as Ben, Taylor Kitsch as Chon, and Blake lively as O, Savages is a love story involving those three characters wrapped up in an intriguing tale of drugs, money, and violence. Ben and Chon supposedly grow the best weed...anywhere and they have a dedicated customer base and an extremely profitable business, so profitable in fact that it's caught the eye of the Baja Cartel from Tijuana, Mexico. The cartel, headed by the always impressive Selma Hayek playing Elena Sanchez Lauter is ruthless and at war with El Azul's crew and they are losing. They need to expand and who better to bring into the fold than the two best pot growers in the great state of California? Elena sends an email that can't be misinterpreted and demands a meeting with her representatives. The cartel says welcome, Ben and Chon say no thanks and then things get interesting.

Did I say this was a love story? It is, just not in the conventional sense (and yeah, sorta conventional). Elena is pissed because no one tells Elena no, except her daughter. She sent the carrot to the gringos and they spit in her face so then she unleashes the stick. She sends her "hammer" Lado played by the amazing Benicio Del Torro who is in his element in this movie. Lado carries out his orders to the letter which forces Ben and Chon to rethink things which just ramps the movie up even more. John Travolta plays Dennis, the back stabbing, double crossing DEA agent who plays both sides of the fence, to stay alive and to stay paid.

If you've read the book then you know what happens at the end of the movie but fret not, that ending is not this ending, so smile. If you haven't read it then don't worry about it, act like I said nothing about the ending, comprende? Now the one thing you can always say about an Oliver Stone movie is that the score is seldom if ever remembered, this time around that thankless job is handled by Adam Peters. And yes, you will NOT remember the score once you leave the theater. Why? Because the images on the screen, the vibrant colors that clash with a few hits of Black and white and the violence won't allow you to focus on his score. Don't blame Adam, it's all Olivers fault, his and his cinematographer's Dan Mindel.

Like I said, there are a few certainties in this world (at least in America, anyway) but this movie has the sun rising in the west and setting in the east. No, I'm serious...read the book then see the movie and you'll see the sun rise in the west just like I do (and I am NOT smoking any of Ben and Chon's weed either). See you at the theater!