Movie Review - The 33

The 33 (2015)

Starring Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Mario Casas, Jacob Vargas, Juan Pablo Raba, Oscar Nuñez, Tenoch Huerta, Macro Treviño, Adriana Barraza, Kate del Castillo, Cote de Pablo, Elizabeth De Razzo, Naomi Scott, Gustavo Angarita, Alejandro Goic, Bob Gunton, and Gabriel Byrne

Directed by Patricia Riggen

**This film is currently available via HBO Now***

While I was mostly captivated while watching The 33 - the true story of a group of 33 Chilean miners trapped for 69 days 2300 feet underground -- I was more entranced by the story as opposed to the film itself which feels too constrained by stereotypical movie tropes to really allow an emotional connection to the characters.  Director Patricia Riggen's film is admittedly hindered by a large cast of characters, but perhaps because of the abundance of possible stories, the movie never creates a visceral impact that I expected a film of this ilk to have.

The lead of the film is certainly Antonio Banderas as Mario Sepúlveda, a husband and father whose steadfast belief that they would be saved placed him in a leadership position with his trapped group.  Banderas does fine work here, but the film doesn't allow us to really connect with him in any way.  Sure, we get the requisite opening act in which we get a cursory overview and understanding of many of the lives of the miners before the fateful day, but these moments don't create a bond between the viewer and the characters.  Perhaps there's just too many people in play to really make this film work, or perhaps it would've fared better in the hands of different writers.

In addition to the darkness and oppressive heat 200 stories underground, The 33 also allows us to glimpse the troubles facing the rescuers and family members above ground.  Once again, there are too many pieces to the puzzle here for things to really click.  Riggen does a decent job of balancing both sides, but part of me wonders if the film would've succeeded if we'd never left the constricting confines of the miners' temporary habitat.  The 33 is undoubtedly an intriguing story and one that deserved to be told...I simply wish it was in a little better film.  It's not that what's presented is particularly bad, it's just a bit too generic for its own good.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Clouds of Sils Maria

Clouds of Sils Maria (2015)

Starring Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, and Chloë Grace Moretz

Directed by Olivier Assayas

There is an enormous level of pretentiousness that runs rampant through Clouds of Sils Maria.  That's not necessarily a death knell for director-screenwriter Olivier Assayas' film, but it does create some issues in terms of the audience connecting with the characters who perhaps may have interesting stories to tell, but are oftentimes burdened with dialog-driven scenes that reek of pompousness.

Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is a famous movie star who started her career by starring in a play by (fictional) Swiss playwright Wilhelm Melchior.  The play -- Maloja Snake -- revolves around the tempestuous relationship between the fiftysomething Helena who begins to fall for Sigrid, a young girl who is working for her.  Eventually, the verbal and emotional battle between the two women leads the older Helena to suicide when her feelings are not reciprocated.  When traveling to Switzerland to accept an award for the now-reclusive playwright, Maria learns that Melchior has died.  She also speaks with a young director who wishes to revive Maloja Snake on the London stage with Maria playing the older Helena now and up-and-coming actress Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz) as the younger Sigrid.  Reluctantly, Maria agrees to the revival and in order to prepare for the role, she goes to Melchior's Swiss house where she and her personal assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) spend a lot of time talking about how age affects women among other things.

Ultimately, the problem with Clouds of Sils Maria is that it feels flat, failing to really create meaningful, interesting arcs for both its characters and its story.  The film thinks it's deep -- and maybe it really is -- but it meanders so mind-numbingly slowly that any metaphorical or psychological importance is lost as the viewer loses interest.  Juliette Binoche is fine and Kristen Stewart (who received rave reviews and the French equivalent of the Oscar for this role) is playing her most natural role yet, but the latter just doesn't have a whole lot to sink her teeth into and the former is mired in depressing malaise for 120 minutes that the audience simply doesn't want to have anything to do with her despite the fact that she's onscreen for every moment of the film.  While nicely shot, the boredom Clouds of Sils Maria inspires in the viewer just can't be overcome.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Words and Pictures

Words and Pictures (2014)

Starring Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Bruce Davison, Navid Negahban, Amy Brenneman, Valerie Tian, Adam DiMarco, Josh Ssettuba

Directed by Fred Schepisi

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Although I hadn't seen the preview for Words and Pictures in over a year (the film was released in Spring 2014), I could tell by the pictures on Netflix that I was in for a romantic comedy.  Had Words and Pictures instead decided to eschew that angle, I think it would have been a better flick, but as it stands now, this tale of two warring English and Art high school teachers is good, though it's hampered by the romance angle thrown at it in the final half.

When English teacher Jack Marcus (Clive Owen) first meets famous artist-turned-art teacher Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) upon her arrival at an expensive private school in Maine, they don't hit it off.  Dina's deadpan seriousness won't stand for his bombastic and cocky personality.  After multiple romantic refusals, Jack decides to take Dina to war and use his students as pawns setting up a battle of words versus pictures.  Is the written word more important in the grand scheme of things than art or is a picture really worth a thousand words?

As someone with an English degree (I know...sometimes it's not easy to believe that with this blog), I found the faux war surprisingly intriguing.  There's a lot of somewhat intellectual talk on the gravity of words and the emotions of art that played nicely against each other thanks to what Owen and Binoche bring to their characters.  However, as I mentioned, during the film's final hour, it shifts to a typical "opposites attract" romance that admittedly the film had been telegraphing from the get-go, but I had hoped it might bypass.  The depth of the battle between Jack, Dina, and their students is infinitely more thought-provoking than the very basic and obvious puppy love between the two teachers.  While this aspect certainly isn't a reason to completely dismiss Words and Pictures, the courtship is a bit of a detriment.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Godzilla

Godzilla (2014)

Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Juliette Binoche

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Perhaps being my most eagerly anticipated film of the summer (which looks incredibly weak overall movie-wise) did Godzilla in, but I found this reinvention of the classic Japanese monster movie a pretty big disappointment.  Part of me respects the fact that director Gareth Edwards and screenwriter Max Borenstein were ballsy enough to keep the title figure off the screen for all but (seemingly) ten minutes of the film, but the other part of me can't help but think they squandered away their money shots with the creature.

However, let's just say that I'm fine with Godzilla not being the film's focal point.  That notion would be totally true if the film's centerpiece -- the humans who are facing an epic battle between Godzilla and to Mothra-esque creatures -- had any modicum of interesting storyline to latch onto.  There's actually been much talk about Aaron Taylor-Johnson (whose US solider character is the lead) and his inability to emote properly, but I found that the script didn't give him a damn thing to do.  For a film that follows this guy around and tries to make us connect with him by giving him a plotline about returning home to his wife (Elizabeth Olsen) after visiting his crazy father (Bryan Cranston) in Japan, Taylor-Johnson is in this movie solely to react to the CGI-ness of the monsters rampaging around him.  Without being the impetus of a single plot point, I found myself detached too much from his character and the story.

In the film's opening act, we are given a bit of background which admittedly does a decent job about setting up how Godzilla and these two gigantic winged creatures he fights manifested themselves thanks to radiation in the 1950s.  This is essentially where the rest of the film's cast -- Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, and Juliette Binoche -- come into play.  Watanabe and Hawkins are here simply to elucidate the scientific goings-on, Binoche is essentially a walk-on cameo, and Cranston -- well, I'm warning you that I'm about to say something that Breaking Bad fans (myself being one of them) may find utterly sacrilegious -- overacts to a point of oddness.  Cranston's character is the first major player we meet in the film and at first, I actually thought Cranston was paying homage to the 1960s Godzilla films of yore.  However, as the film progressed, I realized that no one else was playing up the "corny factor" and that Cranston was just doing some schticky overly dramatic thing on his own accord.

If the fact that I've not talked about Godzilla much in this review seems a little odd that's because, as I already mentioned, Godzilla isn't in the flick all that much.  Once again, for me, this would've been a perfectly acceptable conceit had the humans in this story been given any type of emotional arc I could've looked to for some meatiness in terms of plot.  With that not being given to me, Godzilla ends up falling flat.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Elles

Elles (2012)

Starring Juliette Binoche, Anaïs Demoustier, Joanna Kulig, and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing

Directed by Malgorzata Szumowska

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I guess Elles is supposed to be a provocative female-centric view of sexuality, but when you look beyond the graphic sex scenes, there's an odd story that I just can't comprehend.  Magazine columnist Anne (Juliette Binoche) has been doing research on college students willingly turning to prostitution in order to earn money to both go to school and make a decent living.  We join her for a day in her life as her deadline is fast approaching and she remembers back to her interviews with the French-born Charlotte (Anaïs Demoustier) and the Polish Alicja (Joanna Kulig).  As she remembers the accounts of some of the girls' escapades (which we see in explicit detail...although with surprisingly less nudity than I expected given the subject matter), Anne realizes that neither girl really has any regrets with their lives.  Sure, it has caused some tension with boyfriends and family, but their lives at the moment are okay.

This realization makes Anne ponder that her "suburban" lifestyle as a wife and mother is binding her to a more puritan mindset than she'd maybe like.  As she burns her hand with her wedding ring or slices her ring finger while doing the "wifely duty" of preparing a meal for her husband (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and his boss, the symbolism of "marriage" equaling "pain" couldn't be more obvious.  In that regard, I just really didn't grasp what exactly I was supposed to be feeling after I finished watching director and co-writer Malgorzata Szumowska's film.  Is the freedom of prostitution supposed to be an ideal situation for a woman?  Is marriage a prison sentence?  Or is there an in-between that's more balanced and suitable?  Are the clients of a prostitute and the husbands in a marriage the equivalent in that they have control over the women in their lives?  And are women simply fooling themselves into thinking they're anything other than pawns of men, constantly dependent on them to maintain any type of lifestyle?

In the end, what I came away with was utter confusion.  I didn't know what Elles wanted me to feel after watching it.  The performances are fine (I particularly like Anaïs Demoustier whose character is given a bit more heft than her Polish counterpart), but they aren't spectacular enough to warrant a rave.

I will admit that as a guy, the only reason I even gave this a try was because of the subject matter.  A French film with an NC-17 rating has to equal nudity...and who doesn't want to watch that?  [Call me a sexist pig if you must, but I must also admit that this wasn't simply an "out of the blue" choice...I had read about it when it came to local arthouse, but didn't find the premise interesting enough to actually pay for it.]  But then when it finished, I couldn't help but think that it's a movie that has high aspirations of being something important and provocative (both sexually and intellectually), but fails to communicate its true intentions in any manner.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Damage (1992)

Damage (1992)

Starring Jeremy Irons, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Rupert Graves, and Leslie Caron

Directed by Louis Malle

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

This is another one of those flicks that's been on my list to see for quite a while.  One of those movies that looked much too risqué to even think about asking the parents to rent from Blockbuster as a teenager, but still looking like it had a sense of class and maturity that drew me in even as a young(er) film aficionado.  In the end, Damage is a fine film, but one that takes an interminable amount of time to get where it wants to go.

Although Damage wants you to think it's much deeper than this, it's basically the story of a British politician who has a torrid affair with a younger woman behind his wife's back.  The kicker is that the mistress is also his son's fiancé.  That's all you need to know because that's all that there is here.  Stretched out to two hours, the film fills its time with a bunch of talking between the guilt-stricken though sexually awakened Stephen (played quite well by Jeremy Irons) and the serious and emotionally damaged Anna (played unappealingly like a stone wall by Juliette Binoche).  A little talking would've gone a long way here.

Still, there is a considerable amount to like here and it revolves around Irons in particular.  His character's relationship with both his son Martyn (Rupert Graves) and his wife (Miranda Richardson) is an intriguing aspect of the film and, in the final act, makes the moments of boredom for the preceding 90 minutes almost worthwhile.

The RyMickey Rating: C+