"End of Watch"

 4.5 / 5 

Jake Gyllenhaal delivers his best performance to date, matched at every turn by Michael Pena in the harrowing and vivid stunner End of Watch, a movie that suffers only from the overbearing conceit of using a "found-footage" shaky-cam style that director David Ayer struggles to keep believable.

In every other way, End of Watch is exemplary, and a stark reminder that Gyllenhaal may be one of the most underrated actors working in film today.  As beat cop Brian Taylor, assigned with his partner Mike Zavala to keep a non-existent peace in crime-ridden South Central Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal is the star in every respect, but shares an easy and comfortable rapport with Pena -- the best early scenes are those in which we see how close the two partners have become: They are brothers, they are partners, and maybe even more than they are with their respective spouses, they are soulmates.

For its first half, End of Watch simply presents the various calls they respond to, depicting with unflinching realism how impossible it is to be a "peace officer" in a place that does not want peace.  Slowly, the story meanders into a cohesive whole, but by the time it finally does, you'd be just as content to watch these two work.

This is, we suppose, what police work is really all about: cruising the streets, responding to calls that are both mundane and shockingly complex -- and interrelated.  A gangland drive-by shooting, a strung-out mother convinced her babies are missing, an elderly woman whose daughter says she has not seen her for days.  The work they do is fraught with peril, and they do exactly the work they need to do -- some of it is heroic, but neither Taylor nor Zavala understands what a hero is, or how a hero should feel; these men do their jobs, that's all.

They have personal lives, and they talk about them in between calls. They reveal that they are cops first, and people second -- but real people, with rich lives into which we get tantalizing glimpses.

For the first half of End of Watch, maybe more, it's hard to know where it's all going -- but it is going somewhere, to a place that is as inevitable as it is agonizing.  There is a plot, it's a compelling one, but it's anchored by the only thing that really matters in End of Watch: the relationship between then men. They aren't committed to their jobs, they are their jobs, and like few fictional films in the past couple of decades, End of Watch effortlessly reminds us that police officers are doing their jobs, too, to the best of their ability.  They're hampered by the system, by jaded and angry co-workers, by a set of rules too byzantine for even a longtime cop to truly understand.

And they live in a world far beyond the comfort and confines of their own homes.  Through seemingly unconnected ways, they innocently stumble into something far bigger than the every day work of responding to calls and filling out paperwork, and that something is what propels the film's final third -- expertly hinted at during the opening, harrowingly real by the end.

This is an admirable, gut-wrenching, visceral movie; it envelopes you in a world it's unlikely many of us will ever see, a world that, as much as we'd like to believe otherwise, exists.

A good portion of End of Watch consists of Taylor and Zavala talking as they cruise from one call to another, and it's to the enormous credit of writer-director Ayers that it's the central relationship we care about most, not the mechanics of a crime scene, which so many cop films forget.  It's raw, it's powerful and it's finely wrought, played perfectly and shot with ...

Well, there's the film's only major flaw.  End of Watch contrives a story that Taylor (Gyllenhaal) is shooting video of his work for a class project as part of his Pre-Law studies.  But how many people can carry video cameras?  Are the bad guys so obsessed with video that they have a camera present all the time?  One key scene is shown by using a third-party camera, one that has never figured into the story before and won't again.  In the few shots that can't be covered by the "found-footage" structure, there's an omniscient camera, available when it suits the story.

Your tolerance for End of Days may seem in part by limited by your willingness to give into the found-footage concept.  Fortunately, the story becomes so riveting, it scarcely matters -- though it would have been an interesting experience to use more mainstream techniques.

There's also a wonderfully disconnected quality to the opening 40 minutes or so.  Some of the stories in End of Watch seem important, and turn out to be; others are used simply to show the interplay between and the common sense of goal these man have.

End of Watch ultimately ranks one of the very best movies I've seen so far this year -- but might have been even better that it used more traditional photography techniques.

That's a quibble, really.  At the heart of End of Watch are the private moments between these two men; we've seen them in action, we understand why these guys love each ofther -- and so much. The best compliment I can pay to End of Watch is: I'd sure like to know more about these guys.  They're wonderfully drawn characters, with a sophistication and ease seen in far too few recent films.

These cops do their work and sometimes even get medals for it.  But the medals aren't ther purpose. They believe in their jobs, they are defined by them, but they can't imagine being a real "hero."  Heroes aren't beat cops, but, as End of Watch prove -- some beat cops are more heroic than we will ever know.

Profane, violent, disturbing and compulsively watchable, End of Watch is not to be missed.

Viewed Sept. 23, 2012 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
730

"The Master"

 2 / 5 

Watching Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, I remembered reading about a European art museum that hung an important painting upside down for something like three or four months before anyone noticed.  But once they did, did it matter?

I wondered, because if someone told me now that The Master had been shown to me with three reels out of order, it wouldn't make much difference.  I'd like to ask Anderson, a director whose work I often admire, what he set out to accomplish and whether he thinks he did so.  And just as I'd be curious to know how art critics reacted to news that a painting they liked was upside-down when they wrote positive reviews, I'd love to know what film critics praising The Master as "challenging," "brooding" and "complex" mean by those words.  The Master is a bore.

At least Anderson himself is honest, admitting in interviews that The Master came about partly as a result of writing a character in search of a story.  Here's what he told The San Francisco Chronicle: "I was just sort of messing around writing, and then about four or five years ago, I started becoming more specific, 'What is this? Where are these pieces going?'"

Apparently he never did find out, and for nearly two and a half hours The Master moves at a glacial pace, partly proving Einstein right: Those two and a half hours feel very different in the theater than they might in any other activity.  Finally, it comes to a conclusion, or at least a final scene, about as pointless as one of the pseudo-psychological exercises that are the core of The Cause, the pseudo-psychological cult at the center of The Master.

The character Anderson wrote is certainly a vivid one, a pained loser so emotionally scarred by his experiences in the South Pacific during World War II that he's addicted to sex and to alcohol-like concoctions (formaldehyde, Lysol, paint thinner, whatever happens to be close by).  After one of his cocktails nearly kills a man, on-the-lam Freddy literally stumbles onto a yacht chartered by Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic crackpot who has started a small cult that bears more than a passing resemblance to Scientology.  Dodd believes an astonishing number of random things -- that humans are trillions of years old, that answering a bizarre series of unconnected questions will help you become a better person, and that people should call him "Master" when they address him.

Dodd is played with winning appeal and an uncomfortable gaze by Philip Seymour Hoffman, while Joaquin Phoenix is Freddy -- delivering a performance that is either uncompromising or a goofy riff on his David Letterman performance-art appearance; take your pick, either definition works.

In smaller, no-less-off-kilter roles are Amy Adams as Dodd's wife, and Laura Dern as a wealthy acolyte.  Neither female performance amounts to much -- throughout the movie, women are either sexual partners or irritating nuisances, or both.  The only two characters that matter to any degree are Dodd and Freddy, and it's their interplay that is, I guess, supposed to be enlightening.

But about what?  The Master offers no insight into the origins or precepts of Scientology -- er, The Cause -- doesn't have much of a perspective on whether it's helpful or harmful to Freddy, and shies away from the moments that might have been most illuminating.  Freddy may be simple-minded, but does he really believe that his problems were "implanted" in his soul millions of years ago?  What must he think when he comes to the conclusion that his Master is a sham?  For that matter, what of Dodd's adherents, who do, at various points in the movie, offer up their own questions?

As much as I appreciate the ambitious melodrama of Magnolia, the discomfiting sleaze of Boogie Nights and (to a much lesser degree) the bizarre epic of There Will Be Blood, nothing in The Master works this time around.  This is a plodding bore of a movie, one whose 65mm photography and meticulous set design can't save.

This is not an exploration of a cult, an examination of a religion, a story of two lonely men who make a connection, a survey of 1950s morality, a closely observed character study, or ... well, that's the problem: It's way too easy to define all the things The Master is not rather than anything that it actually is.  Except, maybe, it's upside down.  That wouldn't excuse it, but it would explain some things.

"Robot & Frank"

 3 / 5 

Robot & Frank is a genial, unsurprising little film that plays a little bit like Short Circuit for the senior set.  It's entirely dependent on the central performance of Frank Langella, and he's completely winning as an old curmudgeon who comes to depend on technology in unexpected ways.

It's set in the convenient near future, a time that looks more or less like ours but has just enough differences to suit the slight, pleasant story.  One of those differences is that robotic technology has advanced enough to make robots acceptable substitutes for humans in everyday life.  This should put to rest the Republican concerns about using undocumented workers as hired help.

One of those robots is put into service as a health-care aid for Frank, a retired but not reformed cat burglar who has started suffering from a bit of dementia -- the last place he broke into was his own house.  He doesn't want the robot, it's a guilt-reducing exercise by his too-busy son (James Marsden), and the presence of the little mechanized man incurs the wrath of Frank's liberal-minded, globe-trotting daughter (Liv Tyler), who interrupts her travels to Turkmenistan to Skype with Frank and tell him how accepting the gift is contributing to a variety of earth-shaking declines.

But the reality is, robots are taking over everything, even working in the local library, as Frank discovers on one of his daily trips to see the pretty, almost age-appropriate librarian (Susan Sarandon).  Her job and the library itself are being taken over by a tech-happy little twerp.  Frank doesn't like this, and he doesn't like the robot, and both of these frustrations come together in the film.

The story isn't much, and it's contrived in such a way that the two plot strands will come together in ways that defy credulity in many ways.  If the film were bigger and more ambitious, that might be troublesome -- but it's hard to be offended by anything that happens in Robot & Frank, it's too little and too airy a concoction.

Frank doesn't like the robot, whose borderline-twee voice is provided by Peter Sarsgaard, but they come to an understanding and, wouldn't you know it, by the end of the movie they're friends.  They've also gotten themselves into a little caper, the kind that can only happen in the small East Coast towns in which these kinds of films are invariably set.

The considerable charms of Robot & Frank are supplied almost entirely by Langella, whose determination to be self-sufficient is like a large, male version of Driving Miss Daisy.  Indeed, Robot & Frank bears much resemblance to that little gem, if Miss Daisy and Hoke had decided to embark on a caper or two.  But Robot & Frank is not particularly thought-provoking or moving, it's just a charming lark, anchored by the considerable presence -- both in character and in physical appearance -- of Langella.

There's absolutely nothing new here, but it's cute and engaging nonetheless.

Viewed Sept. 2, 2012 -- Sundance Cinemas West Hollywood

"Hope Springs"

 4 / 5 

After 31 years, they live in the same house, they inhabit the same space, but they no longer sleep in the same bed, they hardly acknowledge each other, maybe they have even come to be a little afraid of each other.

She has reached her breaking point, but in an affable, gentle way; she could never bring herself to say such a thing.  Probably, she even shocks herself a little bit when she does something entirely uncharacteristic: She forces his hand and plunks down $4,000 on a weeklong couple's counseling session in Maine.  They live in Nebraska, and he'll be damned if he's going to go.

But this is it.  They've reached the end.

And so, here is a couple like others you may have encountered, at 31 years, at 10 years, at two years -- people who are surprised one day to discover they don't know what happened.

Hope Springs is mostly about this "intensive couples counseling," and it approaches the situation with a mature urgency mixed with humor that shines in the hands of the three lead actors.  Tommy Lee Jones is the husband, Arnold, a man who hasn't exactly lost sight of himself, he never knew there was a self there to see.  Meryl Streep is his wife, Kay, the kind of woman who you wouldn't be surprised to find is actually named "Kate," it was just too embarrassing to ever correct anyone.  They sit on opposite sides of the couch, but the gulf between them is wider than that, and to the great credit of its screenwriter, Vanessa Taylor, Hope Springs doesn't try to pretend their problems are any less serious than they are.

This is a marriage that is about to fall apart.  It's a marriage that has caused Kay, in particular, years of anguish and regret, which is no way to live.  Meryl Streep won the Oscar for her more technically difficult performance as Margaret Thatcher in last year's The Iron Lady, but her performance here is superior.  She could be any woman, she is familiar and comfortable in that way, but she is very much this specific woman: Desperate, sad, hopeful and, it turns out, not nearly as much a victim as she has thought. Quite the opposite -- Kay has been an active participant in the destruction of her marriage, and director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) wisely lets his camera linger over her finely wrinkled face, her confused, darting eyes, her embarrassed smile, watching as her expressions change, as she hears what's being said, as she considers things she had never considered before.

Keeping pace with her as an actor at every step, Tommy Lee Jones is resentful, defensive and exasperated -- everything Arnold would be.  He has provided for this woman and his family at every turn, he has never denied her anything she asked for, but, then again, she hasn't asked for much until now.

Jones and Streep would be worth watching on their own, but the real revelation of Hope Springs is Steve Carell as the therapist, Dr. Bernard Feld, whose self-help books and twee office in coastal Maine scream quackery as far as Arnold is concerned.  But he's the real deal, played by Carell: a man who wants to help his patients.  He asks hard questions in soft, non-threatening tones, he listens ... and he knows what his clients need to do and exactly why they're not going to do it.

Carell has never shown this intelligent, quiet side of himself; he is not the buffoon here, he is wise and kind and patient, and here's where the movie plays the biggest trick that puts it on a different level than other relationship comedies -- when Dr. Feld asks his questions of Kay and Arnold, every single person in the audience silently considers his own answers.

When was the last time you had sex?  Were you ever attracted to her?  Can you remember the last time you were in love with him?  When did the marriage stop working?  Did it ever work?

The therapy is infuriating and sometimes frightening.  Hope Springs slyly gets us wondering if maybe the esteemed Dr. Feld won't be successful this time. Arnold's hangdog reactions and Kay's last-ditch-effort approach leave the film with some real dramatic ground to explore.

At times, it gets a little too pat.  Is it really possible that, in 31 years, Arnold's only real fantasy has been a three-way with the owner of the neighborhood corgis?  Or that Kay has had no fantasy life at all?  She's charmingly embarrassed by the question, the reaction gets a great laugh, but maybe she's hiding a little more than she lets on.  The possibility is there in Streep's mischievous looks.

There are some scenes set in an EconoLodge, a couple of scenes at other locations in the little Maine city, others in an upscale boutique hotel and restaurant, but most of Hope Springs takes place there in Dr. Feld's quiet, neatly appointed office with just the three actors.  They captivate.  Streep, Jones and Carell let us see how this couple, whose divide seemed to be uncrossable, slowly begins to trust each other, to learn that there is another, with his or her own thoughts, dreams, wants, needs.  No, neither had ever really taken the time to think about that before, maybe never in 31 years.

But will it be enough?  Hope Springs doesn't shy away from trying to answer that by showing us Kay and Arnold after they return home.  The answer it gives is as simultaneously sunny, uncertain and contradictory as the movie itself.  This a happy movie about sadness, a love story about divorce.  It's an unapologetically "grown up" movie, and it's laudatory to see real adults actually anchoring a major studio film.  Thanks to Streep, Jones (watch carefully for the first time he smiles; it's contagious) and the equally good Carell, it's also a movie in which, throughout, those adults get to be adults.

Seeing that alone is rare enough these days.  To see intelligent, thoughtful adults starring in a movie that is so big-hearted, happy, considerate and well-crafted is almost unheard of.  This is a summertime treat for adult audiences, and the messages of love, of effort, of caring that are in its big, gigantic heart make Hope Springs the best choice for moviegoers of a certain age ... an age, the movie reminds us, it's really not so bad to be, and one that is filled with more possibility than we might recognize.

Viewed Aug. 8, 2012 -- ArcLight Hollywood

"Celeste and Jesse Forever"

2.5 / 5 

Do we grow up to be who we want to be, or do we grow up and become bigger versions of what we were before?  And if, in growing up, we learn more things about ourselves and others, how do we square those with what we already know?  In short: What do we do when our lives move on, but we don't?

Celeste and Jesse Forever is an always-charming, always happy-tinged look at two people who woke up one morning, after being married for six years, and came to the mutual conclusion that the marriage itself was the problem.  It had changed them; living apart, having separate lives into which the other could be invited -- that had worked so well.

Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) were the quintessential BFFs, so romance seemed the next logical step.  But romance was never there, and now they have to move on with their lives, a next step complicated by Jesse still being Celeste's roommate, by the fact that they spent all their waking moments with each other.  It was the sex part, we're led to imagine, that just didn't work.  Oh, and the fact that Jesse is a stoner surfer dude who would rather scope the waves down in Malibu than finish a project whose deadline has long passed.

Celeste has a good job, Jesse has none, but that's been OK -- it's the other looks they get, the judgments of others, that lead them to believe divorce is the best option.  Being friends, hanging around with each other, doing things together all the time, that's just too ... messy.  And it's pretty darned cute, which is why Celeste and Jesse Forever often feels a little like a John Hughes film for 21st-century adults.

That's because these characters by and large act like teens.  They can't get their home life together, they can't do grown-up things like finding time for sex (not just mocking it with a ChapStick tube), for exploring each others' wants and needs, for building off the memories they have.  They want the fun of a relationship, not the work that goes with it, and they realize that far too late.  But unlike Annie Hall or the luminous Before Sunset, Celeste and Jesse Forever can't find its own moment of absolute clarity, of recognizing the inanity of the situation: They're keeping themselves away from the one person with whom they work best.

 Like a 1980s Hughes movie, Celeste and Jesse Forever has dialogue that sparkles, lines that are deserving of the big, big laughs they get, and beautiful lead actors who are smart and compassionate.  But, like the central relationship itself, it all never really comes together.   Mostly, it works like this: Celeste says something inappropriate.  Then regrets it.  Then feels sheepish.  Then wants to talk about what she could have done better.

Trouble is, we need our heroine to know what she wants and go after it.  When she doesn't, when she isn't ready ... it leads to a film that is dramatically inert.  Fortunately for Celeste and Jesse forever, what the movie does have is wildly appealing stars, some sharp and memorable dialogue, and an opportunity to make us question what we'd do in the same situation.

It's got a lot going for it, but it lacks focus and a dramatic fire in its belly to create something that feels urgent and raw.  Had it stuck with it just a little while longer, it could have taken us even deeper, it could have become the 21st century "Annie Hall."  Instead, it's a perfect date movie, which is the problem, since it's about divorce.

"Ted"

 3 / 5 

There's no reviewing a movie like Ted -- it doesn't matter if the movie is well or poorly constructed, if the cinematography and the score are any good, if the editing is noteworthy, it just matters if you laugh, and Ted will certainly make you laugh.

It's not as naughty as Seth MacFarlane, the mega-millionaire writer-director-actor who's behind it, probably thinks it is -- because it's got far too sweet a heart to be truly bad or subversive.  Watching Ted is very much like watching a smart, decent kid spout crude language and make fart jokes because he thinks it's endearing.  Well, yeah, in a way it is, when it's the right kid doing it.

So, yes, Seth MacFarlane is able to do things beyond the capabilities or sensibilities of many writers and directors, and he does it gleefully.  Beneath the smut, behind the potty-mouth, there's someone who both likes movies very much (maybe a little too much) and has an optimistic, happy heart.

It's also what makes Ted just a tad exhausting and about 15 minutes too long.  The concept is just a little too -- sorry -- high here: A little boy wishes his teddy bear would come to life and be his friend forever, and it does ... forever.  Eventually, they're both reluctant adults who have kept each other down by staying in each other's lives.  Back in1985, the media got wind of Ted's story, he even did a guest spot on Johnny Carson -- then, pfft.  Now he's just a child star who gets recognized, mostly for his irrelevance.  But Ted and John (Mark Walhberg) swore to be best friends.  What happens now that Ted is an unemployed pot-head and John's beautiful girlfriend (Mila Kunis) really wants her boyfriend to, you know, grow up?

The story of Ted is paper thin, it depends on execution, much like 1980's Airplane!, which it quotes unexpectedly and bizarrely.  Indeed, it works best as a pop-culture pastiche, a live-action version of MacFarlane's Family Guy, stuffed and ready to explode with random asides and jokey non-sequiturs.

There are times when you almost begin to worry that MacFarlane's only cultural reference point is blockbuster movies from the mid-1980s.  Starting from its pitch-perfect, Spielberg-and-Donner-esque opening shots, through to the fascinations John has as a child, all the way up to the climactic car chase and the movie's pivotal falling star, Ted pauses every few minutes to throw in a reference from a 1980s movie or TV show.  It name-checks Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Aliens, Flash Gordon, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Top Gun, Diff'rent Strokes and of course the Star Wars movies over and over.  And over.  And over.  Enough already, we get it, John and Ted live in a state of suspended animation; but so do the filmmakers, it seems, only theirs have led to nine-figure paydays.

"Ted" is the raucous 1991 comedy that would have been perfect if it actually were released in 1991, when it would have seemed relevant.  Now it's just anachronistic and undeniably charming, a straight-male fulfillment-fantasy about a man who meets a woman who ultimately wants him to remain a teddy-bear-loving, pot-smoking adolescent forever.  On some level, it's disturbing, though oddly Ted seems to recognize this; its makers just find it hard to reconcile that they get a lot of money to remain exactly this way forever with the reality of a real world they just observe but don't really live in.  (John's girlfriend is introduced as an "SVP at a PR agency," but works in a cubicle; John works at a car-rental agency but lives in an apartment filled with lovely things; even the hourly grocery-store cashier can afford designer dresses for a swanky evening out.)

But, that's carping.  What it comes down to is: Is Ted funny?  You bet.  And as lunkheaded as it may be, it presents a world view that says finding someone who loves you is important, and believing in the impossible is good.  It's a little technical marvel that's innocently offensive, surprisingly un-subversive, and a sure-fire source of laughs.

(Note: Unsurprisingly, the MPAA gave Ted an R rating for "crude and sexual content, pervasive language and some drug use." Ted is a generally sunny and happy look at the world and, with parental supervision and perhaps discussion afterward, I'd much rather show this to a kid than have him see more PG-13-rated violence and destruction.)

Viewed July 21, 2012 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks

"The Amazing Spider-Man"

 3.5 / 5 

Other than trying to breathe new life into an aging "franchise," there was no terribly compelling reason for The Amazing Spider-Man to be be made, and that redundancy is a big liability that the movie struggles heroically to overcome, and does so only fitfully.  Though it's better than The Avengers, it's still not the year's best super-hero movie -- that would be the micro-budgeted Chronicle.

What that small-but-mighty film showed so memorably is that no matter the special-effects budget, what really makes a super-hero movie work is what makes any film work: a strong story, believable characters and an honest heart.  More often than not, The Amazing Spider-Man gets those things right, and it doesn't always feel like a carefully packaged marketing exercise, which, under the circumstances, is pretty high praise.  But, still, haven't we seen this all before?

It sure feels that way.  Rather than following the tradition of James Bond movies and replacing the actor but continuing the story, it's once again all played out -- orphaned high-schooler Peter Parker (now the charming, stammering Andrew Garfield) is sent to live with his aunt and uncle, visits a lab, gets bitten by a mutant spider, gains spider-like super powers, falls in love (this time with Gwen Stacy, played by Emma Stone), becomes a crime-fighter and protects New York against a crazed mad scientist.

So, as Hollywood and movie audiences have learned, with great budgets comes great familiarity.  It is good news, then, that The Amazing Spider-Man is quite often a lot of fun, and manages to avoid the trap of so many recent super-hero films by taking itself way too seriously.  This movie shares some DNA with the classic Superman: The Movie in its tone and spirit; it knows that there is some inherent silliness in the story, along with some inherent grandeur.

Its very best moments have nothing to do with digital wizardry or the arch-villain or even the web-slinging, but are found in the interaction between the characters.  The love story between Peter and Gwen comes across as a sweet, awkward teen romance (though they are the most impossibly good-looking and well-coiffed kids in the school).  The interaction between Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Peter is particularly touching this time around.  Even the villain, Dr. Curtis Collins, aka The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), feels like a fully fleshed-out character, at least in a comic-book sort of way.

But at more than 2 hours, 15 minutes, The Amazing Spider-Man sometimes feels like it's never going to end, especially during a completely superfluous fight on the high-school campus between Spidey, Gwen and The Lizard.  On the other hand, the climactic duel is a rarity for a modern big-budget action film: there's some real suspense, and the stakes feel higher because the characters have been so well-drawn.

Watching The Amazing Spider-Man is a little like seeing a revival of a classic Broadway musical; you can be captivated and find something new and worthwhile in the staging and performances, you can even really love it -- but that doesn't change the fact that you've seen it all before.

Viewed July 4, 2012 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks