And So It Goes (3/10): And down it goes

“You have a beautiful voice, particularly when you make it all the way through a song.”

Rob Reiner has directed some fantastic films over the years, but he has also delivered some terrible ones as well, and “And So It Goes” might just be his worst yet. Reiner is still a director I admire for his fantastic work in When Harry Met Sally, one of my favorite romantic comedies, and Misery an engaging thriller starring a phenomenal Kathy Bates. His most beloved films however are The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, and This is Spinal Tap. His filmography proves that he has directed a wide variety of genres successfully. Unfortunately it has been almost two decades since he has directed a decent film and he has lost a lot of his credibility. It’s as if he really doesn’t care anymore about directing creatively unique films and only goes for generic commercial films. Over the past few decades he’s directed Alex & Emma, Rumor Has It, Flipped, and the Magic of Belle Isle. The Bucket List was the last from him that I actually enjoyed, but I’m on the minority with that one, so you’d have to go all the way back to the 90’s to recall his latest success. Considering how much I enjoyed his earlier films, I still have hope he will give us another masterpiece. 

For the time being, Rob Reiner seems to be enjoying his retirement by making generic films aimed towards specific target audiences. In his latest film, And So it Goes, he targets the senior adults, which is somewhat an ignored target. I found it to be a very bland and generic film, but most senior adults in my family enjoyed it so I guess he accomplished his goal. It is basically a chick flick for senior adults because it follows the same predictable premise. I found the story rather dull and formulaic. Michael Douglas plays his usual grouchy self. He’s a widower and self centered realtor who doesn’t care about what others think about him. All he wants is to sell his last house and retire to a quiet place. His life changes however when his estranged son leaves his daughter in his care while he serves his prison sentence. Diane Keaton place the loving and sweet neighbor who helps take care of the granddaughter. She also plays her usual lovable self smiling and crying a lot on screen. I love Diane Keaton and she was my favorite thing about this film. Without doing anything unique the chemistry between the two lead roles is what works best in a very predictable and silly script. Mark Andrus’s screenplay is probably my least favorite thing about And So it Goes. The way the story is told never makes much sense as to how these two characters would fall for one another. The film doesn’t really go anywhere and the sentimentality is forced upon the audience in a cheap way. Reiner even has a small role in this film making the film look more awkward than it already was. Sterling Jerins plays the beautiful young girl that is left in Micheal Douglas’s care, and despite being very cute she doesn’t really act too well. The narrative felt offbeat at times as well, and despite some few funny scenes and a strong chemistry from the lead roles, the pacing was a bit tedious.

My Review: The Big Wedding (2/10)

"Would somebody just punch me in the face again?"

The best thing I can say about The Big Wedding is that it is only 80 minutes long. If it were 10 minutes longer I don't think I could've made it through the entire thing because it is such a forceful mess with cliches thrown all over the place. At least in other mainstream romantic comedies you have a main story that reaches its conclusion nicely wrapped up with a beautiful ribbon on top, but here you have like five different conflictive stories that magically reach their resolution in less than 10 minutes. Not even Houdini could pull off a trick like that. The entire film focuses on this one messed up family where each member is going through some difficult moment in their relationship and after hearing them ramble for 70 minutes they all peacefully find their resolution and live happily ever after. The Big Wedding is class 101 in Introduction to Mainstream Movie Cliches. What made things even worse is that director Justin Zackham (whose major film credit is writing the screenplay for The Bucket List) had an all-star cast to work with here and none of the characters felt like a real human being. Everyone played a one dimensional and stereotypical character. This is one of the laziest and most shameful movies of the year and I doubt many people will enjoy this "comedy."

Alejandro (Ben Barnes) and Missy (Amanda Seyfried) are a young couple preparing for their big wedding, which means that Alejandro's dysfunctional family has to come together for this special occasion. Alejandro was adopted and raised by Don (Robert de Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) until they were divorced and Don's mistress, Bebe (Susan Surandon), moved in. Don and Ellie had two other children prior to adopting Alejandro: Lyla (Katherine Heigl) and Jared (Topher Grace). Apparently after their divorce Ellie abandoned the country and Lyla broke ties with her father. Now 10 years later everyone gets together for Alejandro's marriage. The only problem is that Alejandro has always kept close ties with his real mother from Colombia, Madonna (Patricia Rae), a devout Catholic who disapproves of divorce and therefor he has never told her anything about his adoptive parents separation. He asks Ellie and Don to act like a married couple and that pretty much leaves Bebe out of the picture thus creating a bit of chaos and building tension along the way. 

There isn't anything nice I can say about this movie so I will keep my review short. There are several other stories and things going on in this film that barely get touched on the surface or are simply used as a gag and not dealt with. Robin Williams plays the priest who is going to marry the couple (we've seen him play this same role in the past). Alejandro is not a catholic and doesn't want to lie to the priest about his beliefs because he doesn't think it would be right, but on the other hand he is capable of lying to his mother about his adoptive parents. I had an issue accepting this and I guess it was a main concern because at one point this is addressed in the film, but it is resolved rather lazily like pretty much every conflict that arose in the film. Everything just felt so fake that it was hard to really identify with any of the characters because none of them played a real human being. This isn't the way conflicts are resolved. Nothing about this film is recommendable, and what makes matters even worse is that such a talented cast was put to waste with this terrible screenplay. The Big Wedding is one of the worst films of 2013.

My Rating: 2,7/10

My Review: The Godfather Part II (10/10)

¨Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.¨

Coppola´s (or should I say Puzo`s) The Godfather Part II is considered by many as the best sequel of all time, and some even consider it to be better than the original. In my opinion it is not as good as the first part, but there is no denying this is a great film nonetheless. Coppola did a great job with the direction once again, and has created a timeless film that movie fans go back to time after time. There are several things he did well with this film. First of all he took a completely different approach towards romanticizing the Corleone`s. In the first film we were attracted to Vito for his strong family beliefs and loyalty to his friends, in this film we see how Michael completely begins to lose control of his family and friends. Michael, who I admired in the first film, has become so blind in his lust for power that he losses the strong values his father had taught him. He has grown cold, distant, and even goes as far as to hitting his wife (something Vito would never have dreamed of doing). The parallel story of young Vito and how he became a Don also works really well as it is told in flashbacks during Michael`s present reign as Don. This story serves as a reminder of how distant Michael has become from what his father wanted of him. Part II is more of a nostalgic movie as we see the decline in the once strong and united Corleone family, and Nino Rota`s score is a perfect example of that. The final scenes of the film only confirm this sentiment. The performance from the cast is as equally as brilliant as it was from the first, and Gordon Willis`s cinematography is also equally impressive with its dark scenes that help set the mood of the film.

The Godfather Part II continues where the first one left off with Michael (Al Pacino) as head of the Corleone family and Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) as his personal adviser and lawyer. They are living in Nevada now and running the gambling business in that state during the late 50`s. While we follow the present storyline, Coppola introduces a series of flashbacks beginning all the way back in 1901 following the early life of Vito (Oreste Baldini) in Sicily. Vito´s father, brother, and mother (in that specific order) have been killed by Don Ciccio (Giuseppe Sillato), but Vito is able to escape to New York. The film later jumps forward to 1917 where Vito (Robert De Niro) is making a living working as a clerk for a small store in New York. The movie jumps back and forth between both stories. On the one hand you have Michael trying to expand his empire travelling to Miami and Cuba, meeting with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), a successful Jewish businessman, who Michael isn`t sure he can trust. On the meantime he has problems back home with his wife Kay (Diane Keaton), problems with Nevada Senator Pat Geary (G. D. Spradlin), and problems in New York with Frankie Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), Clemenza`s replacement and friend of the family. After an attack on his life Michael isn`t sure who is after him (or maybe he is and we don`t know it). On the other hand, the other story continues to follow young Vito as he meets Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) and Tessio (John Aprea) and begins his imminent rise to becoming the Don.

Marlon Brando was a huge part of the success of the first film, but Coppola, along with Puzo, did a great job introducing new characters to the story that contributed to the success of the sequel. Michael V. Gazzo as Frankie and Lee Strasberg as Roth were great in this film and gave it a fresh new look. Another contributing factor was the addition of the flashbacks because Robert de Niro was the right man to play young Vito. His Oscar winning performance was outstanding and he just stood out in every scene he was in. Al Pacino continued with his transformation in the first film, and now he portrayed a much darker and colder Michael. He didn`t have to say anything and we already knew what he was feeling. There are several memorable scenes in which he speaks louder with his facial expressions than he does with his words. The opening scene in Nevada where the family is reunited celebrating Michael`s son`s First Communion is reminiscent of Connie`s wedding scene in the first Godfather, and the same thing can be said of several other scenes as the final one. The sequel serves as a nostalgic memory of what the Corleone`s once were (or at least what Coppola wanted us to think of them in the first romantic movie), it is much darker, but it still works and compliments the first part really well. The Godfather Part II is not better than the original, but it is still a masterpiece.

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