Even the Rain

My Rating:	5 / 10
Date Seen:	Saturday, April 15, 2011
Theater:	Regal Arbor Cinema
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

A Spanish film crew is in the process of making a historical drama about Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the new world. It prominently features the Spanish conquest over the Indians, and they've decided to go to Bolivia where they can cheaply get Andean natives that more or less look like American Indians. When they arrive, they find plenty of people eager to try out for the movie, and one man in particular (Daniel, played by Juan Carlos Aduviri) who would be perfect for a key role. However, there is also a lot of unrest in the area, as the government has decided to dramatically raise the price for water and also to forbid people from getting water from other sources. They have locked up wells and are even forbidding people to capture rainwater. The situation is quickly escalating, and Daniel is a key man in the citizens opposing the government's oppression.

This is a slowly-paced and tedious movie. It focuses much too heavily on the process of making the movie and not enough on the civil unrest. For some reason, it also includes a third aspect, which is the concurrent process of filming the "making of" for the movie that is seemingly without any point whatsoever, as neither it nor the people involved are significant to the story line. It also contains a very abrupt and unexplained reversal of the feelings of two of the characters involved in making the movie. Further, the movie is in Spanish and subtitled in English, but the subtitles are rather poorly done, containing a few grammatical errors and often difficult to read against lightly-colored backgrounds. I didn't get any real enjoyment from the film, and am somewhat puzzled by how well reviewed it has been from others who have seen it.

The Conspirator

My Rating:	6 / 10
Date Seen:	Saturday, April 16, 2011
Theater:	Regal Arbor Cinema
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

On the night that President Lincoln was shot, there were also failed attempts to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. John Wilkes Booth was the ringleader, but there were a number of others involved in the plot. Some of them, including Booth, were killed in the resulting manhunt but a number of others were captured and subjected to a military tribunal. John Surratt, believed to be Booth's right-hand man, was able to evade capture, but his mother Mary (played by Robin Wright Penn) was taken into custody. She ran a boarding house where Booth and the conspirators met to plan the assassinations. Even though there's not much in the way of strong evidence to suggest she knew about the plot, she's being railroaded toward a conviction and death sentence by a rigged trial more interested in calming the nation than learning the truth.

Fredrick Aiken (played by James McAvoy) fought heroically for the North during the war, but as a lawyer he now finds himself saddled with the responsibility of defending Mrs. Surratt. This is an uphill battle given that the military tribunal has no presumption of innocence and she's not allowed to testify in her own defense, but it's also a virtually impossible position for a lawyer because if he loses then he's hated by the South for not doing enough, but on the off chance he wins then he's hated by the North for freeing one of those responsible for killing the President.

This is a movie based on a true story, but one that is surprisingly not well known by most people. I was fairly familiar with the story of the conspiracy after having read the book "The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth" about a year ago, although the trial was definitely a much greater part of this movie than it was in the book. The movie is informative, although heavily dramatized with a lot of room for artistic license. It feels pretty long and there are things that could have been cut out to make it move more quickly, most notably all scenes involving Justin Long who was an absolutely horrible choice for a completely meaningless character. It also seemed a bit too heavy-handed in emphasizing just how unfair the trial was, and they could have gotten that point across with less effort. However, it's still a movie that I think is worth seeing, particularly if it's a story you've never heard.

Kill the Irishman

My Rating:	7 / 10
Date Seen:	Friday, April 15, 2011
Theater:	Regal Arbor Cinema
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Danny Greene (played by Ray Stevenson) never finished high school, but he is nevertheless a smart man. He reads every book he can get his hands on, and more importantly he is very street smart. He's also got a rather flexible view of morality. Although he started working as a day laborer, he rather quickly ascended to become president of the local union. In 1970's Cleveland (which is the setting for this movie), that position includes quite a bit of interaction with the mafia, and Danny took to that rather well. Organized crime was on the rise, and so was Danny's position in it. But he also began to acquire a number of enemies.

This was a very entertaining movie based on a true story with which I was completely unfamiliar. It's got a fairly distinguished cast of bad guys, including Christopher Walken, Vincent D'onofrio, Vinnie Jones, Steve Schirripa, Paul Sorvino, Bob Gunton, although some of them weren't around all that long. Val Kilmer was also featured as a police detective (albeit largely irrelevant in the story line) and Linda Cardellini as Danny's first wife. The cast was solid across the board, and the story was interesting if not always easy to believe. Stevenson in particular did a great job at being both a good guy and a bad guy. It's not a perfect movie, but it exceeded my expectations.

Scream 4

My Rating:	5 / 10
Date Seen:	Friday, April 15, 2011
Theater:	Alamo Drafthouse Village
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

It's been ten years since Sidney (Neve Campbell) left Woodsboro, and things have quieted down. Dewey (David Arquette) has been promoted to sheriff and his wife Gale (Courtney Cox) has gotten out of investigative journalism and is trying to get started as a fiction writer. Sidney has been doing some writing of her own, and she's come back with a self-help book. It just so happens that it's around the anniversary of the earlier killings and everyone's talking about them. But someone has decided to do more than talk about them. The killings have resumed, and Sidney, what's left of her family, the police, and everyone else once again have reason to be afraid.

The original Scream can be considered a kind of meta-horror because it acknowledges and builds on many classic horror movies. The second and especially third parts are more like meta-meta-horror because they go further and reference movies created from the first. I'm not sure how many "metas" to use for the fourth installment, as it calls itself a meta-movie and also features movies within movies and makes a rather lame attempt to create a paradox from that. In some cases, it also seems like it's trying to call itself a remake rather than a sequel, but that really doesn't fit at all.

Beyond the meta-madness, there are two big problems with Scream 4. The first is that it is not, and cannot possibly be, scary. The first three movies have so completely conditioned us to suspect everyone and expect an attack at any time. They've already done multiple killers, false redirects, the return of people those thought dead, and double crosses, so any time there's even a hint of a chance that something could happen, you expect it. There were plenty of times during the movie when something could have happened but didn't, but there wasn't anything that did happen that I hadn't anticipated. Since there's no chance at anything scary, then at least we could hope for some gore or some innovative writing, but it falls short there as well.

The other serious problem with this movie is the ending. It actually does have a decent ending, complete with a fade to white, which both gives a sense of closure to the Scream franchise and leaves you thinking about the outcome. Unfortunately, the movie keeps going. It destroys the finality it had previously achieved and replaces it with a cliche. It tries to wrap things up too neatly and in doing so loses all sense of subtlety. One of the characters makes a mistake to reveal something they shouldn't have and comes back to bite them soon after, but it's so blatantly obvious that the audience can't help but see it coming. It also ends on an embarrassingly bad joke that we could see coming a mile away and made me hang my head in shame before it had been delivered. Hopefully the cast and crew feel the same kind of shame about what they've done to the movie and to the series.

Win Win

My Rating:	7 / 10
Date Seen:	Sunday, April 10, 2011
Theater:	Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Mike Flaherty (played by Paul Giamatti) is a lawyer who is generally a nice guy, which largely explains why he's also broke. He is having a hard time making ends meet and supporting his family when an opportunity arises for him to make some extra money. One of his wealthy older clients, Leo (played by Burt Young) has just been diagnosed with dementia and declared legally incapable of caring for himself. Although Leo has a daughter, he hasn't seen her in decades and no one can get in touch with her, so Mike has himself declared Leo's legal guardian (for which he will receive $1500 every month), and moves him into a retirement home where they can care for him.

As fate would have it, shortly after being moved into the retirement home, Leo's grandson Kyle (who he didn't even know anything about) shows up hoping to be able to live with him. His mother (Leo's daughter) is a lifelong screwup who is now in rehab, and Kyle (played by Alex Shaffer) can't take any more of her. While they try to figure out what to do, Mike and his wife Jackie (played by Amy Ryan) take Kyle in. Mike also happens to serve as a wrestling coach for the local high school, and he brings Kyle along to one of the practices only to find that he's had some experience and has a chance to help turn things around for their losing team.

This movie has a great cast (which also includes Jeffrey Tambor, Bobby Cannavale, and Melanie Lynskey) and is well acted. I generally enjoyed it, but at times it stretches believability well past the breaking point. I also found the ending to be somewhat unsatisfying. It's still a good movie, but less dependence on coincidence and a better ending would have greatly improved it.

Your Highness

My Rating:	5 / 10
Date Seen:	Saturday, April 9, 2011
Theater:	Alamo Drafthouse Ritz
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Prince Thadeous (played by Danny McBride) has always been second fiddle to his older brother Fabious (James Franco). Some of that is because Fabious is the firstborn and next in line to be king, but it's mostly because Thadeous is completely without ambition and is perfectly content to eat and get high while his Fabious goes out on numerous conquests. On his most recent trip, Fabious rescued the beautiful Belladonna (played by Zooey Dechanel) being held by the evil magician Leezar (Justin Theroux). Fabious intends to marry Belladonna, but Leezar has other plans and steals her back. While Fabious prepares to go after her, the king orders Thadeous to go along.

This movie depends heavily on the idea that vulgarity is funny when it's delivered with a crappy old English accent. It turns out that's not so much the case. Most of the jokes in this movie were given away in the trailer, and the handful that weren't usually fell flat. The plot is very predictable and unremarkable and might as well have been written by a teenager. I was hoping that the movie might have been better than the trailer made it seem, and early reports from people who had already seen it suggested that might be the case, but this one really didn't do anything for me.

Hanna

My Rating:	7 / 10
Date Seen:	Friday, April 8, 2011
Theater:	Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Erik (played by Eric Bana) is a former government agent who has been in hiding for several years with his daughter Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan). Hanna has never known civilization, or even anyone other than her father, and he's had her in a rigorous training program for her entire life, giving her an extensive education including fluency in several languages, and teaching her to hunt and fight. He knows that they can't hide forever, and when she's ready he feels that it's best for them to come out of hiding and let the government (led by Marissa Weigler, played by Cate Blanchett) come to them for a final showdown.

This movie is definitely not perfect. There are issues with believability, the ending seems kind of weak, and Cate Blanchett uses a ridiculous accent. However, it's also a lot of fun to watch, so it's not that hard to overlook some of its problems. There are some good fight scenes in which Ronan is pretty convincing as a deadly kid, and there are a few good laughs in between the fights. The movie is a lot better than the trailer makes it seem, but still could have been better.

The Concert

My Rating:	7 / 10
Date Seen:	Saturday, April 2, 2011
Theater:	Regal Arbor Cinema
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Thirty years ago, Andrey Filipov was on top of the world as the conductor of Russia's world-famous Bolshoi symphony. However, when the Communists decided to remove all Jews from prominent positions, including a number of members of the orchestra. As an act of defiance, Filipov decided to hold one last concert with the full orchestra to play Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. He never got the chance to finish the concert, though, as the authorities interrupted the performance. They imprisoned the Jewish members of the orchestra, and they punished Filipov by demoting him from Maestro to janitor.

One day, after decades of cleaning the concert hall in which he used to perform, he sees a chance at redemption. While he's cleaning the current conductor's office, a fax comes in from the Chalet Theater in Paris with a request to have the Bolshoi give a concert there. He grabs the fax before anyone else gets a chance to see it and sets off on a mission to get the old gang back together and have them give the concert they never got to finish.

This is a bit like the Armageddon of orchestra movies, in which a rag-tag group of screw-ups and undesirables conspire to pull off a miracle. Of course that's not really fair, since The Concert is quite a bit better. The ending is definitely not a surprise, but it's fun to watch the movie progress. There's a good amount of humor, and fortunately not too much politics. The Russian side of the cast didn't have many familiar faces, but Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) is prominently featured as a French violinist. This movie is as good as I hoped it would be, and is definitely worth checking out when it becomes available on DVD since it's not going to be easy to find in theaters.

The Music Never Stopped

My Rating:	8 / 10
Date Seen:	Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Theater:	Regal Arbor Cinema
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

In the 1960s, Gabe (played by Lou Taylor Pucci) was a typical hippie teenager. He was really into rock and roll and really against the war in Vietnam. He also had a pretty strained relationship with his father (J.K. Simmons), and after a particularly big fight, he left home and broke off all contact with his parents. They hadn't heard from him in nearly 20 years they got a call saying that he had turned up and was in a hospital with a brain tumor. Fortunately, the tumor was benign, but it had gone untreated for so long that it had grown very large and had done some damage.

After surgery to remove the tumor, they found that he had lost the last several years of his memory and was no longer able to form new memories. He was now completely withdrawn and it wasn't clear that he could understand what anyone was saying. However, one day one of the nurses gave him some music to listen to and it was like turning on a switch. While the music was playing, he was almost completely lucid and could recall details from his past, often somehow connected to the music that was playing. When the music ended, he switched off again and reverted to his waking comatose state.

I'm surprised by how much I liked this movie. It wasn't always easy to watch, but it was heartwarming and well done. The end was fairly predictable, but that didn't make it any less effective or enjoyable, and there was a lot of happiness and sadness along the way. It's unfortunately not going to have a long theatrical run, but it's one worth checking out if you get the chance.

Source Code

My Rating:	5 / 10
Date Seen:	Friday, April 1, 2011
Theater:	Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek
Movie Site Links:	IMDB,Netflix,Rotten Tomatoes,Flixster

Captain Coulter Stevens (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) suddenly finds himself on a train heading for Chicago. He has no idea how he got there, since the last thing he remembers was flying a combat mission in Afghanistan. He doesn't recognize the woman across from him on the train (played by Michelle Monaghan), but she seems to know him and keeps calling him Sean. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom, and is shocked to see someone else's face in the mirror. His confusion doesn't last long, though, because just as he steps out of the bathroom, the train explodes.

Captain Stevens then wakes up in some kind of capsule, where a woman on a monitor (played by Vera Farmiga) explains to him that he has just experienced what they call the "source code", which is a mechanism that can allow someone to experience the last eight minutes of someone else's life. It's a secret military project, and Captain Stevens has been tasked with investigating the train explosion because it's believed that the person responsible for it is also planning on detonating a dirty bomb in downtown Chicago in the very near future. Captain Stevens needs to keep going back on that train to see if he can figure out who is responsible in the hope that he can be apprehended before doing something far worse.

When I first heard the premise for this movie, it sounded surprisingly similar to the 2006 movie Deja Vu, in which Denzel Washington plays an investigator looking back in time to try to figure out who is responsible for a ferry explosion. There is in fact a lot of overlap between these movies, and I found Deja Vu to be much more believable and more compelling. The explanation given for the technology being used is far more realistic in Deja Vu than it is in Source Code, and I also I also liked the constraints that technology imposed. Source Code (which is a horrible name for the "technology", and therefore the movie) is so riddled with plot holes that it can't be taken seriously. It would have been far better if they hadn't tried to explain the technology at all and just left it up to the viewer to assume they had found some way to do it. I was also put off by the almost sickening level of military pandering near the end of the movie. I really enjoyed Duncan Jones' previous movie Moon, but Source Code is not at all what it could have been and probably shouldn't have even been attempted since it doesn't attempt anything that hasn't already been done.