I was really hoping to like Kingsman: The Secret Service. First of all, it’s directed by Matthew Vaughn, who made two movies I really like: Layer Cake and Stardust. And the trailers made it look fun. And who doesn’t like Colin Firth, right?
Well.
Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first. The film is indeed snappy, has some visual punch, and a fun cast. It also has a few very big laughs, which is always a good thing. And it’s got Mark Strong in the cast, which of course makes any film better.
But.
The movie has a tone problem. It’s trying to be this veddy veddy British 007 pastiche, which is fine, but that can’t hide the fact that it’s just another remake of Men in Black with Firth in the Tommy Lee Jones role and buff newcomer Taron Egerton as Will Smith. Ripping off a famously terrific movie is risky business, because if you’re not careful, we’ll just sit there and think about how much better the original was.
Birdman. I don’t even like this director. And the drum solos were too loud and obnoxious. And I’m no fan of Michael Keaton. However, Birdman is filmmaking of the highest order. An extremely smart and funny script, high-octane acting from a magnificent cast, and utterly epic cinematography make this the film of the year.
Boyhood. Yeah, it’s a gimmick. But maybe the greatest gimmick in the history of fiction film. Writer/director Richard Linklater actually filmed for a week every year for twelve years to create this tapestry of a very normal Texas boy growing up. There’s really no other movie like it.
The Grand Budapest Hotel. Director Wes Anderson’s latest puppet-show-with-real-actors-movie is probably his best. It’s a deliriously entertaining contraption, full of humor, humanity and sadness. The craftsmanship is of the highest order, particularly in the acting, design, and score. The fact that the production designers got to show us the hotel in three different time periods really pushes this one over the top.
The Congress. It’s not just weird, it’s out of its mind. And that’s why I loved it. Robin Wright playing herself and selling her image to be used to make movies is the least weird thing that happens in this deliriously inventive fantasy.
Selma. A smart and disturbing look at the Civil Rights Movement.
Whiplash. An off-the-chain meditation on the artistic impulse.
Nightcrawler. One of the better LA movies in a great while, anchored by a stunning lead performance by Jake Gyllenhaal.
The Drop. Down and dirty crime drama, Brooklyn-style.
Wild Tales. A spectacular collection of hilarious and horrifying revenge stories from Argentina.
Pride. The most fun you have at a movie about a wrenching coal miners’ strike.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. The only blockbuster on the list. It gets extra credit for not being a comic book superhero movie.
If you’re a theater person anywhere near my age, there’s a good chance that you have strong feelings about Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson’s famous Bob Fosse musical Pippin. I’m one of the folks who love it, but for many, the mere mention of the fey, pop-tune-driven faux medicine show prompts violent eye rolling.
Why is this? I think it’s because the show became both a victim of its time and a victim of its own popularity. It was, after all, the first Broadway musical to employ television advertising, and it ran on Broadway for six years. But the warm, catchy tunes developed arthritis after too many bad high school and college and community theater productions. After too many young j
uveniles auditioned with “Corner of the Sky” or “Extraordinary” (guilty!). As one of the shows boosters, this has always made me sad.
Perhaps one of the reasons the show hasn’t aged all that well is that so many of the numbers depend on irony. Very few of the songs in Pippin are about what they are actually about. If you know what I mean. Fastrada’s “Spread a Little Sunshine” is about spreading chaos, not love. “Glory” is about how awful war is not how glorious it is. “Extraordinary” is really commenting on a clueless young man’s inflated sense of his own importance. And “With You, ” a beautiful love ballad that I actually sang in my big sister’s wedding, is about an orgy. Good irony isn’t that easy to pull off, and when it gets tired it can devolve into a deadly coyness.
That’s why the current tour version of the Broadway revival version of the American Repertory Theater’s reimagining of Pippin is such great news.
On paper, I don’t like the high concept ART used: Basically, a Cirque du Soleil Pippin. I cringed at the thought. I remember how much I dislike that concept when I’ve seen used in various disappointing productions of Bernstein’s Candide.
Hi, Friend or Relative who thinks my liberal friends and I are just too mean in our political discourse:
Sorry you feel that way.
If you are upset by the fact that people are disagreeing with you strongly, well, that’s political discourse for you.
And I hope you are not saying that the people on my page are being unusually or uniquely shrill in their political tone. Because if you are, you need to understand the ridiculous, relentless onslaught of lies, fabrications and downright seditious comments we see posted about the President EVERY DAY. He’s a Muslim, he hates America, he is working for the Muslim Brotherhood, he’s bisexual, he’s a Nazi, he’s a communist, he’s a socialist, he’s a Kenyan. Whatever. We NEVER DID THAT TO BUSH. We complained about his ACTUAL failings, not made-up ones.
We see government officials calling for Obama to be assassinated. REGULARLY.
Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón’s startling vision of a very bad day in outer space knocked my socks off.
The Past: Asghar Farhadi’s emotionally devastating look at the power of secrets and the painful struggle to overcome our own questionable decisions.
Captain Phillips: Paul Greengrass created a thrilling and harrowing sea adventure.
Mud: This unusually involving coming of age story features stunning writing and an tremendous supporting performance by Matthew McConaughey.
The Way, Way Back: This oddly nostalgic story of painful youth had tons of zip and freshness, with a knockout career highlight performance by Sam Rockwell.
Blue Jasmine: Woody Allen’s best film in years delves painfully and irresistibly into Streetcar Named Desire territory, with spectacular results.
Her: Spike Jonze film manages to be authentically weird, accessible, and romantic.
Stories We Tell. Not sure if this is a documentary or what, but it’s a weird and marvelous film about family secrets from the talented Sarah Polley
Prisoners: A story that at first seems familiar but gets stranger and stranger. Plus Roger Deakins’ stunning cinematography.
Short Term 12: Simple and sincere film about second chances.
Honorable Mention: Fruitvale Station, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street; The Reluctant Fundamentalist, 42, Blancanieves, The Company You Keep, Dallas Buyers Club, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
When I passed a certain milestone birthday a few years ago, I made a few resolutions. One of them was, talk to strangers more. This has generally worked out very well. It’s particularly good advice when speaking to working people.
By that I mean, people you encounter during your normal day-to-day routine who are busy doing their jobs. In particular, the people who are serving you. Sales clerks. Waitresses. Toll booth and parking lot folks. Fluffers. Parole agents.
Talk to them Look them in the eye. Speak to them as your peers (because they are). Talk to the tired host at the restaurant like you’d be inviting him to join your table if his shift was about to end.
I’m serious. It’ll make you happier and it’ll make them happier.
There’s an added benefit. Several times lately, I’ve been given freebies by salespersons I’ve been chatting up. Let me emphasize that this isn’t generally my goal, but it can be a surprise fringe benefit.
Please allow Henry and me our privacy.
I was at one of my favorite health food establishments in Santa Rosa, California recently, and the girl behind the counter was enjoying chatting with me so much that she deliberately served me a treat that was a size larger than the one that she charged me for. And just today, after I lavished praise on the clerk at a steakhouse in Midtown Sacramento for the business’s practice of including Diet Dr. Pepper among their soda selections, she gave me two drinks and charged me for one.
Of course, it’s not life-changing when you get these freebies, but they are a) nice surprises and b) handy reinforcements that you’re doing something right.
Also, let’s not forget the lesson we learned from Scott Prouty, the bartender who basically lost the election for Mitt Romney last year by filming and going public with the Governor’s “47%” remarks. One of the reasons he was loaded for bear against Romney was because of an earlier incident in which Romney was rude to him when he served him a Diet Coke. It simply didn’t occur to Romney to treat a bartender like a human being. Perhaps if Romney had followed my advice, he’d be President now.
So trust me on this. Talk to the people who are doing jobs for you every day. It’s an easy way to improve your day.
And what of my other resolutions? Well, out of respect for his privacy, I choose not to discuss the key “Start Returning Henry Cavill’s phone calls” resolution at this time.
Average Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 282 user reviews.
Lincoln – Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner took a big, complicated story from history and crafted a riveting political procedural out of it.
Argo – Ben Affleck successfully transported us to the late 1970s in this fictionalized but thrilling retelling of a long-classified true story.
Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell reboots the movie romance with this tale of damaged people trying to work through their baggage and make a connection.
Django Unchained – In his best movie since Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino fearlessly takes on slavery, using the tropes of the spaghetti western and blaxploitation films.
Cloud Atlas – This dizzyingly ambitious film adaptation of David Mitchell’s novel sweeps us along through six interconnected stories about freedom, slavery, justice and human progress.
Life of Pi — Ang Lee took a tricky book and made an absolutely beautiful movie of it. Go see it.
Moonrise Kingdom – It’s been a long time since I’ve even liked a Wes Anderson movie, and I LOVED this one. It’s quirky, dear and features production design to die for.
Compliance – One of the most disturbing movies I’ve ever seen, particularly because it’s based on actual incidents. Watch the movie, then go to the internet and read about it.
Safety Not Guaranteed – Perhaps the first film inspired by a Craig’s List ad, and for a time traveler, yet.
Sound of My Voice – An eerie, ultra-low-budget psychological time-travel thriller starring and written by the beautiful and talented Brit Marling.
HONORABLE MENTION: Robot and Frank, Chronicle, The Impossible, End of Watch, Arbitrage, Not Fade Away, Les Miserables, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Stand Up Guys, 21 Jump Street
Lead Actress
*Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emanuelle Riva, Amour
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Lead Actor
*Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Jack Black, Bernie
John Hawkes, The Sessions
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour
HONORABLE MENTION: Denzel Washington, Flight; Frank Langella in Robot and Frank; Richard Gere in Arbitrage; Tom Holland, The Impossible
Compliance's Ann Dowd
Supporting Actress
Susan Sarandon, Jeff Who Lives At Home
*Ann Dowd, Compliance
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Melissa McCarthy, This is 40
Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, Skyfall
Robert DeNiro, Silver Lining’s Playbook
The glorious Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Walz, Django Unchained
*Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained
Honorable Mention: Jake Johnson, Safety Not Guaranteed; Ezra Miller, The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Francois Cluzet, Little White Lies; Domhnall Gleeson, Anna Karenina
Director
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
*Ben Affleck, Argo
Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom
Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, Cloud Atlas
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Adapted Screenplay – it’s a TIE
*Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)
*Lincoln (Tony Kushner)
Original Screenplay
*Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Safety Not Guaranteed (Derek Connolly)
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola)
Moonrise Kingdom
Foreign Language Film
The Intouchables (France)
*Amour (Austria)
Snabba Cash (Sweden)
Generation P (Russia)
Documentary Feature
The Queen of Versailles
The Imposter
*How to Survive a Plague
The Central Park Five
Production Design
Moonrise Kingdom
*Anna Karenina
Anna Karenina
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Cloud Atlas
Underrated!
Haywire
Hysteria (the vibrator movie!)
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World
Ruby Sparks
Liberal Arts
Best Action Thriller
Premium Rush
Funniest Movie of the Year
21 Jump Street
Okay This Has to the VERY LAST Documentary about the West Memphis Three
West of Memphis
I Know It Wasn’t Exactly GOOD, But That Director Tarsem Singh Can Sure Bring the Pretty
Mirror, Mirror
Most Misnamed Movie
Bully: A documentary about bullying in which almost no bullies appear.
What a Great Career He’s Having
Mark Duplass, who’s directing films (Jeff Who Lives At Home) and acting in them (Zero Dark Thirty, Safety Not Guaranteed). Go Mr. D.!
What a Great Career SHE’S Having
Not only does Jennifer Lawrence have a huge big-budget franchise going, but she’s got TWO Best Actress Academy Award nominations. At age twenty-two.
Show Me Something, Spurlock
While Morgan Spurlock is still appealing and handsome, his film Mansome was shallow and inconsequential. He still hasn’t put out a feature that fulfills the promise of his superb debut Super Size Me.
Ray And Tayler “Get In Shape For Your Movie” Award
Not Totally Sure He Can Actually Act, But He Can Sure Heat Up the Screen
Garrett Hedlund
Everyone Loved It But Me
The Avengers. I’m so tired of comic book superhero movies. They simply devolve into CGI showcases. Yawn.
Special “Three Strikes, You’re Out” Award
To the hilariously named Taylor Kitsch, who brought his great looks and charisma-free presence to THREE expensive bombs in one year: John Carter, Battleship, and Savages. Hope you have a Plan B, handsome!
Further Proof that Pixar’s Best Days are Behind Them
Brave
Worst Theatrical Trailer for a Good Movie
Amour. The trailer gave you no inkling of what the damn movie was about. Except that it was about old people.
By a Large Margin, The Most OVERRATED Film of the Year
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Worst Movies I Saw This Year
John Carter
Seven Psychopaths
Keep the Light On
Rise of the Guardians
Absolutely Positively the Worst Film of the Year
Prometheus. It was shockingly, swinishly bad. It was stupid and virtually incoherent. I did not enjoy it.
Boo
Trends That Need to Be Over
No title card at the beginning of a movie (it’s pretentious)
Unnecessarily jerky handheld camera work (also pretentious)
Too much frantic energy on the screen (I’m looking at you, Hobbit and Rise of the Guardians)
In Memoriam!
Davy Jones (66)
Marvin Hamlisch (68)
Hal David (91)
Andy Williams (84)
Dave Brubeck (91)
Ben Gazarra (81)
Kathryn Joosten (72)
Richard Dawson (79)
Ann Rutherford (94)
Ernest Borgnine (95)
Celeste Holm (95)
Sherman Hemsley (74)
Tony Martin (98)
Phyllis Diller (95)
Michael Clarke Duncan (54)
Herbert Lom (95)
Larry Hagman (81)
Jack Klugman (90)
Charles Durning (89)
Robert B. Sherman (86)
Nora Ephron (71)
Richard Zanuck (77)
Whitney Houston (48)
Tony Scott (68)
Dick Clark (582)
Comments? Complaints? Fawning compliments? Leave a comment!!
Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 202 user reviews.
I know we’re supposed to be easing up on political posts, but I am really disgusted by the desperate attempts by the some to turn Benghazi into a scandal. Or to turn Susan Rice into a villain. Things happen, intelligence changes as you learn more. At every point, Rice emphasized that what she was saying was the best information available at that moment.
The inevitable and shockingly obvious comparison to Condi Rice shows what a sham this whole thing is. Rice repeated her “Mushroom Cloud” talking point OVER AND OVER. Didn’t keep the Republic party from confirming her as Secretary of State.
Even better, McCain is calling her “unqualified.” This from the man who picked, as his running mate… do I have to actually say it?
Go home, Lindsay Graham. Go home, John McCain. Strap on a Depends and yell at those pesky kids to keep off of your lawn.
Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 189 user reviews.
Morning, Republican Party. Thanks for coming. Have a seat. Can I get you some coffee? Tea? How about a joint? Sorry, a little joke lol.
I won’t keep you long. I just want to make sure you understand what happened yesterday. Yes, I know it was a very upsetting day for you all around. Yes, we can wait a moment. No problem. Do you need a tissue?
Okay. So here goes.
I want to help you, Republican Party. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes in 2016 that you made yesterday.
It’s important that you understand that your Angry White Man Anti-Gay Anti-Woman Anti-Immigrant Anti-Anything-That’s-Not-Your-Brand-of-Christian Anti-Science Anti-Fact campaign, which came very close to winning yesterday, will never come this close to winning ever again in a National Election.
I’ll explain.
Let’s take those stances in reverse order.
THE ANTI-FACT THING.
Let’s look to history for a little perspective. When Bill Clinton was President, you HATED him. But the things you went after him for were actual things. Whitewater was an actual situation. Travelgate was actually based on a real incident. Clinton’s roving genitals were a REAL problem. Next, during the Bush years, our people hated Bush, but we went after his REAL failings: A trumped up phony war, the treasonous outing of an acting CIA operative, clueless economic policies.
All that changed when it appeared during the Democratic primary process that The Magic Negro was overtaking lefty favorite Hillary Clinton. From that moment, until the present day, you have engaged in a shameless campaign of fabrication about Barack Obama. You’ve branded him a Kenyan, a Muslim, a Nazi, a Socialist, a Communist. You have claimed he’s after your guns. You’ve claimed that he’s after your religious freedom. It was all lies, and despite the best efforts of Fox News, yesterday you were shown that…
AMERICA DIDN’T FALL FOR IT.
THE ANTI-SCIENCE THING/THE ANTI-ANY BRAND OF CHRISTIANITY BUT YOUR OWN THING
Global warming is real. Women’s bodies don’t have magic Rape Sperm Detectors. It’s not curtailing your religious freedom when the law prevents you from discriminating against other people or trying to impose your religious ideas on other people.
Perhaps the biggest mistake you made in this area was your cynical and transparently hypocritical embrace of Mitt Romney as a “good Christian.” He’s not a Christian. He’s a Mormon, and if you’d turned Fox News off for five minutes and done just a tiny bit of reading about the Mormon church, you would know that this man believes stuff even YOU would consider wacky. And yet you branded Obama, who’s an ACTUAL Christian, a Muslim. Again, if you knew four atoms worth of facts about Islam, you’d know there’s no such thing as a “stealth Muslim.” No President would be able to hide the fact that he prays towards Mecca five times a day and keeps a halal kitchen in the White House (look it up).
Scariest of all, guess what the fastest-growing religious demographic in our country is? Yep, it’s us non-religious folks. We’re gaining ground at a dizzying pace, as young people reject the Bronze Age superstitions of their parents. In every election going forward, the “Christian” base you think you can play to is going to be a smaller and smaller slice of the electoral pie.
But you tried to sell all this nonsense to the American People and ….
AMERICA DIDN’T FALL FOR IT.
THE ANTI-IMMIGRANT THING.
Bush got 40% of the Hispanic vote! McCain got 30%. Guess how much Romney got last night? 20%. Yeah. It turns out all those Hispanic voters were listening when you spewed all that anti-immigrant hate, and as a consequence…
AMERICA DIDN’T’ FALL FOR IT.
THE ANTI-WOMEN THING
Romney was TROUNCED by women voters last night. And two of the most notorious Republican lawmakers who made stupid and hateful remarks about rape were defeated as well. It turns out, women DO vote in this country. And they’re not going to vote for you if you don’t think they know when they’ve been raped, and you don’t think they own their own bodies.
You counted on women, and people who LIKE women (like me) to hate the Black Nazi more than they loved themselves, but…
AMERICA DIDN’T FALL FOR IT.
THE ANTI-GAY THING
This one must REALLY chap your ass, because it’s been such a bountiful Golden Goose for soooooo long. In days gone by, you could whip up your electorate by spreading lies about gay people for free. No more. When the President came out for equality for gay people, it HELPED him, it didn’t bury him. Your candidate, on the other hand, maintained a position that no longer reflects a majority of the American public: He supported an amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would have made gay people second class citizens forever.
Even more dramatic, America elected its first openly gay senator last night. And in an unprecedented series of victories, marriage equality was on the ballot in four states and WON IN ALL FOUR STATES. So there. Gay people are here to stay, my homophobic Republican friend. You tried to demonize us once again, but…
AMERICA DIDN’T FALL FOR IT.
THE ANGRY WHITE GUY THING
This one is probably the hardest one for you to take. But please understand the reality of the situation. This was the LAST presidential election in our history in which white voters are the majority. Which means the blaring voices of your Tea Party are going to grow dimmer and dimmer in the coming years. You counted on xenophobic white guys to clinch the election for you, but…
AMERICA DIDN’T FALL FOR IT.
For four years, your entire focus has been on making sure Barack Obama was a one-term President. Not on making the country better, not on creating jobs, not on expanding freedom. You’ve been obsessed, like a stalker, at neutralizing The Magic Negro.
To defeat him, you nominated, by default, a Rich White Empty Suit. A man so conviction-free that if he had won it would have been essentially having a lobbyist for President. A man more comfortable with lying than I am with sitting through double features. A man you KNEW wasn’t really a good man. You just thought he might be an ELECTABLE man. It was a cynical move on your part, and you’ve paid the price.
All of your lies, and all of your billions of Rich White Guy dollars, didn’t work yesterday.
Now that you’ve utterly failed, I hope you decide to find some wisdom in this failure.
I hope you come back in 2016 with something better than the Klown Kar of crazy candidates you had this time. I hope you start ignoring the crazier members of your party. I hope you decide to grow up and embrace policies that actually benefit the middle class.
While you’re casting about for new techniques, I discourage you from studying the Democrats. We really kind of suck at politics. We did not do a very good job at selling the President’s many accomplishments during this campaign. We only won because we had the better candidate.
So, in closing, I’d like to thank you, Republican Party. Thanks for the enormous stimulus package your rich sugar daddies just infused into the economy. Thanks for being my fellow Americans. I want America to be a great place for you just like I want it to be a great place for me. We’re all in this together.
Now get out of my office. I’ve got a conference call with Lady Gaga, Cris Kluwe and Elizabeth Warren in a minute.
Average Rating: 4.9 out of 5 based on 294 user reviews.
If you’re like me (and, really, who isn’t?), then you absolutely loved David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas. It was a dazzling, kaleidoscopic treasure-box of a novel that lingers in your memory long after you finish it.
It’s not a book that at once struck me as remotely filmable. First of all, it’s six different stories, told in six completely different writing styles. Next, there’s the book’s odd, nesting, Russian-Doll-like structure. Finally, there’s the unavoidable fact that it’s a challenging book. The novel’s riches require a bit of patience and focus from the reader. It’s not exactly a beach novel.
I can’t believe anyone would put up a pile of money to film such an odd book. But I guess when you are the creative force behind the $1.6 billion Matrix franchise, you can get the suits to cough up some dough.
This book feels about as unfilmable as Kurt Vonnegut’s legendary time-travel odyssey Slaughter-House Five. And that makes sense, because that’s the film that Cloud Atlas most reminds me of. I was shocked at what a beautiful and coherent film director George Roy Hill made of Vonneguts’s book, and I am happy to report I am quite happy to report that, despite all expectations, Cloud Atlas, the film, is a splendid and worthy work.
To tackle the six stories, Lena and Andy Wachowski have joined forces with the uber-talented German director Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run). The Wachowskis directed three of the stories, and Tykwer the other three.
The interconnected stories concern: 1) an ailing doctor trying to survive a long sea voyage back to San Francisco, 2) a disreputable young composer trying to advance his ambitions by assisting a retired legend, 3) a crusading reporter tries to uncover a scandal at a nuclear power plant, 4) a cynical publisher on the lam from thugs, 5) a Korean clone gets swept up in a violent revolution and 6) survivors of civilization’s collapse attempt to call for help from off-world colonies.
To help reinforce what, in the novel, are subtle connections between the stories, the directors have cast familiar and not-so-familiar actors in a dizzying array of roles. And before you raise your hand and refer to the idiotic “controversy’ regarding some Caucasian actors playing Asian roles, please note that in this ensemble piece men play women, women play men, white and black play Asian, Asian plays white, etc. It’s all over the map.
The filmmakers also wisely ditched the shells-within-shells structure of the took to tell all six stories at the same time. This, naturally, also helps you understand the resonance and connections between the stories.
While this all may seem a bit too ambitious for their own good, the fact is, the three directors pull off something rather miraculous. Just as when you read the book, you’re not quite sure what everything is about, but it’s never less than fascinating for a minute. Its puzzle-like structure actually invites multiple viewings. What is the story trying to tell us? Is it about reincarnation? Fate? Revolution? Maybe it’s about all of those things.
Just as the novel provided author David Mitchell a great showcase to show off six very different writing styles, the film allows the directors to simply go crazy with film genres. There’s 19th century seafaring adventure, melancholy period drama, crackling 1970s thriller, modern situation comedy, high-tech futuristic action, and post-apocalypse survival. The remarkable thing is that every sequence is effective and vivid. Rather than getting annoyed with all the jumping around between stories, it’s thrilling to watch each develop and approach their climax at the same time.
It’s also a gas to watch Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon (Oscar winners all), Hugh Grant, Keith David, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Hugo Weaving, Ben Wishaw, James D’Arcy, and many others showing up in a stupifyingly diverse range of roles.
It’s also fun to simply sit there and connect the dots. Watch how many times the number 6 is woven into the story, for instance. And the concept of falling. And slavery.
Does it add up to a masterpiece? Only time will tell if we consider it that, but even if it isn’t, Cloud Atlas is a gloriously entertaining heap of a movie that no one should miss.
Average Rating: 4.6 out of 5 based on 278 user reviews.
The movie has a tone problem. It’s trying to be this veddy veddy British 007 pastiche, which is fine, but that can’t hide the fact that it’s just another remake of Men in Black with Firth in the Tommy Lee Jones role and buff newcomer Taron Egerton as Will Smith. Ripping off a famously terrific movie is risky business, because if you’re not careful, we’ll just sit there and think about how much better the original was.
