Robot & Frank (6/10): An original futuristic take on aging.

"The human brain, a lovely piece of hardware.”

Jake Schreier won the Feature Film Prize at Sundance in 2012 for this original dramatic comedy and it’s easy to see why. There are few films in Hollywood that deal with aging and when they do they are usually handled in an overly sentimental or poorly manner. By simply looking at the poster alone, I thought I knew what this movie was going to be about: an odd pairing of a grumpy old man refusing to accept the assistance of a robot but who would eventually get to befriend it and accept it. Robot & Frank however was nothing like I expected and the story had a very original premise with a strong central performance from Frank Langella. It also stands out in its depiction of the future, which seems much more believable and approachable than most futuristic dystopian movies. It is a simple movie that approaches the subject of aging in a rather simple but realistic manner. 

Frank (Frank Langella) is a former jewel thief who has served time in prison, but is now living on his own in an upstate New York town. His son, Hunter (James Marsden) takes long drives to come visit him during the weekends to check up on him and during one of those visits he brings him a robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) to assist him. The robot specializes in healthcare, but Frank isn’t too keen about having him around. Not knowing how to shut if off he eventually gives in and allows it to do the chores in the house. During the course of the movie we realize Frank is beginning to have trouble remembering things (showing early signs of dementia), and that is why his family is concerned for him. His daughter, Madison (Liv Tyler), is a philanthropist who is always traveling to foreign countries but also tries to check up on him when she has a chance. Frank’s robot wants him to begin a new project in order to improve his health and it believes that Frank should take on gardening and establish a daily routine. But Frank has other ideas, he wants to plan for a new heist and he easily convinces the robot that it is a good idea. Susan Sarandon also has a supporting role in this film as a local librarian that Frank frequently visits, but there isn’t much of a romantic arc. The film is basically a dramatic comedy centering on the relationship Frank forms with his robot and how his family deals with his illness. 

Langella is the true stand out here and he carries this movie with his solid performance. There were moments were the pacing seemed to drag, but his character simply captivated me and got me through some of those patches. I had some issues with the ending as well, which seemed a bit too neatly wrapped for a film that basically was staying away from genre formulas and conventions for almost its entire runtime. But for a film that centers on a relationship between an old man and a robot it does feel quite fresh in that unlike with most sci-fi films, here there is no conflict as to if the robot will develop a consciousness or not. It never seems to be an issue here and he constantly reminds Frank that he is not alive. This isn’t a man versus machine type of movie, it is more interested in showing how technology can help improve our lives as is the case with Frank, although there are of course dangers implied with it, depending on how we use this technology. The screenplay focuses on that intimate relationship between Frank and his robot, and that ends up being the highlight of this film.        

My Review: Draft Day (6/10)

"How is it that the ultimate prize in the most macho sport invented is a piece of jewelry?"

Draft Day seems like a film aimed towards a specific target audience considering it takes place during one of the most important days for NFL fans. However, it actually spells out everything in such detail (Cleveland home of the Browns, and so on) that it seems its trying to attract audiences who aren't really familiar with the NFL draft or what it all means. Why they decided to take this approach I don't know. Perhaps they were aiming to attract Kevin Costner fans around the globe and hoping that the American Football theme wouldn't be too heavy handed. That explains why the screenwriters tried to introduce familiar dramatic elements such as giving Costner a love interest and having him go through the struggle of dealing with the loss of his father a few days ago. I wish they would have focused this exclusively to NFL fans and didn't spend so much time trying to spell out the rules of the league in order to attract a wider audience. I mean why go through all the trouble of acquiring the rights to use the NFL franchise players and names if you are later going to aim it towards a wider audience that may not know the difference. As a follower of the NFL I would have enjoyed it if they didn't spell everything out, but it was just a minor issue I had with this enjoyable film. Despite not liking the subplot surrounding Costner's character and his relationship with Jennifer Garner's Ali, I really enjoyed the premise revolving around the draft and the tension created as the clock was winding down and a decision had to be made. I think I'm just a bit biased towards sport movies, but I actually had a good time with this film despite all its major flaws. 

Kevin Costner comes through in his role as his character has to come to a crossroad in his professional and personal life in less than 24 hours. His charisma comes through and saves a premise that may turn viewers off. With a stronger subplot this film could have been great, but it was just too generic and predictable. Jennifer Garner's character had no depth and she could have been given a stronger role. The film basically relies on Costner's lead performance and he manages to make this movie enjoyable enough for a mild recommendation. The few attempts at comedy involving the intern (played by Griffin Newman) also failed. Draft Day may not rank amongst director Ivan Reitman's best work, but it is an improvement from his recent films. Don't get me wrong, this isn't the football version of Moneyball, it isn't even close, but it's still a small enjoyable film and an opportunity for Kevin Costner fans to see him shine again in a sport film (with which he's had success in the past). Reitman overuses some technical shots at times, like the split screens which had a novel feel to them at first but he repeats them over and over again. The build up surrounding the events of the draft is very intriguing, but the subplot involving the family drama is what pulls Draft Day down. 

My Review: Unknown (5/10)

¨Do you know what it feels like to become insane? It`s a war between being told who you are and knowing who you are. Which do you think wins?¨

I really wanted to like this movie after watching Liam Neeson single handedly conquer Europe in Taken, and I had my hopes up for another one of his one-titled-European-action-thriller films. Unknown however is no Taken. Neeson plays kind of an opposite character this time because he spends most of the time confused and helpless while in Taken he was always smooth and in control of the situation. He was sort of a James Bond, while in Unknown he is more of a Jason Bourne, although way less gifted. This film was directed by Spanish filmmaker, Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan and House of Wax) and at some points during so many twists and turns I think he loses the direction. I really didn’t see the twists coming and thought the movie would take a completely different turn, but each time I thought the movie was going to go a certain way the film caught me by surprise again. For this I have to give the film credit, but the problem for me is that I didn’t really like the path Collet decided to take. Liam Neeson is a great actor, but I enjoy him much more when he is in control of the situation. There is something about him that just exhales confidence. Unknown is based on Didier Van Cauwelaert`s novel: Out of My Head, and it was adapted by relatively unknown screenwriters Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell. I don’t know how the story played out in the novel, but in the screenplay some of the dialogue felt a bit forced, and some situations felt unbelievable.

The movie opens as Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) arrives at Berlin along with his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones). He`s travelled for a very important scientific conference, and plans out his schedule in Berlin while taking a taxi to the hotel. Once there he realizes that he has left a briefcase in the airport so takes a taxi back before getting a chance to tell his wife where he`s heading. On the way to the airport he has an accident and the taxi ends up running off a bridge and landing in the water. Martin bumps his head and is saved by the taxi driver, Gina (Diane Kruger). He awakens from a coma after four days and is surprised his wife isn’t by his side. Doctors say that he wasn’t carrying any identification so that they couldn’t contact any family members. The first thing he does is go back to the hotel and look for Liz, but once there he finds her with another man claiming to be Martin Harris (Aidan Quinn). Liz says she doesn`t know who this man is and security officials escort him out of the hotel. Martin is still dizzy and confused, but he is sure of his identity and will stop at nothing to prove he is the real Martin Harris. He searches for Gina to see if she can help him and together they begin to work with a former East German spy named Ernst Jurgen (Bruno Ganz) who is willing to help Martin by looking at every particular detail of his situation. The movie then takes several unexpected twists.

Frank Langella also has a secondary role as Rodney Cole, a long time friend of Martin who could point out he is the real Martin, but who can`t be located. It`s always a plus to have someone like Langella in a secondary role because they can bring so much to a movie, but in this particular case he goes by unnoticed. He only serves the purpose of revealing to the audience an important twist the film will take. I thought that entire scene was totally unbelievable. I really enjoy suspenseful thrillers, but I just wasn’t pleased with this one because the pace of the film was to slow and the ending just didn’t pay off for me. I don’t have a problem with slow films as long as the wait pays off at the ending, but in this case it didn’t. I was disappointed because I really like Liam Neeson and consider him to be among the best actors in the industry, but this just wasn’t the right movie for him. He was meant to play cool characters in control of their own destiny. I really missed the Neeson from Taken who destroyed entire cities in search of his daughter. In Unknown he is just lost, confused, and less scary. Unknown isn’t a terrible movie, it has its moments and had me hooked for a while. It’s better than Jaume`s debut film House of Wax, but it’s still far from being a great film.

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My Review: Wall Street Money Never Sleeps (6/10)

¨So, does Blue Horseshoe still love Anacott Steel? ¨

This quote was from Charlie Sheen`s cameo in Oliver Stone`s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which only served as a reminder of how good the original film was and how distant the sequel is from it. The film began with a lot of promise and I thought there was little anyone could do to mess it up considering Michael Douglas was back with one of his best roles as Gordon Gekko. The problem is that with time and life in prison Gekko has changed and he isn`t that powerful person he once was. The major problem I had with this movie was the ending which I thought was way too soft and it seemed as if Stone sold out to the typical Hollywood ending, which was nothing like the finale in the first part. However this isn`t a bad movie, it just isn`t as good as Wall Street because Gekko isn`t as bad a villain as he was in 1987. If you`ve seen this and haven`t seen the first film then make sure you do because I guarantee you will enjoy Douglas`s Oscar winning role as Gordon in that movie more than in this one. Oliver Stone is known for always bringing the best out of his cast and this movie is no exception. I really enjoyed the supporting cast, especially Frank Langella, Josh Broslin, and Eli Wallach who were really great in every scene they were in. Shia LaBeouf is no Charlie Sheen, but he wasn`t bad in this film either, and one can say Carey Mulligan is a much better actress than what Daryl Hannah was in Wall Street. I know they are different characters, but they are similar players in similar roles. The screenplay was written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff, but it wasn`t as powerful as Weiser`s original screenplay.

The movie begins in 2001 with Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) being released from a long jail sentence. No one is there to pick him up and it is obvious that things have changed for him over the years. The movie then jumps forward to 2008 and introduces us to Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf), a young man who works at a banking institution named Keller Zabel Investments and who is trying to raise money for a fusion research project. His boss is Lewis Zabel (Frank Langella) and he is like a father figure for him because he has taught him everything he knows about being a broker. Zabel gives Jacob a bonus for his work, but at the same time he seems depressed because the company has been losing money due to the financial crisis that has hit everyone. Jacob decides to buy a nice ring with the money given to him and propose to his beautiful girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan) who actually happens to be Gordon`s daughter who has broken all ties with her father after his arrest that led to her brother`s death from drug overdose. Gekko wrote a book during his time in jail and now he finds himself promoting it throughout different colleges. Jacob goes to one of these lectures and tells Gordon that he is planning on marrying his daughter. They begin to hang out secretly and Gekko explains to Jacob what may have caused Zabel to have recently committed suicide. He says that Bretton James (Josh Broslin), a successful broker, began rumors to hurt Zabel`s company and benefit from its demise. Jacob swears he will get his revenge, but the question is whether his relationship with Gordon will affect his relationship with Winnie, and whether or not he can actually trust him.

Gordon Gekko was a true villain in the 80`s although many people actually bought into his philosophy once the movie was released. Now a couple of decades later he is more of in a grey area. The true villain is Bretton James, and I thought that was one of the things that hurt the film, because Gekko made a terrific villain and there was no need to soften him in this film. One of the best scenes in this movie is the lecture that he gives at Jacob`s alma matter about the foreseeable financial crises. It was reminiscent of the speech he gave in the first film about money and greed. That was the highlight of the film, while on the downside you have the washed down Hollywood ending. The film had the potential to be a lot better than it actually was if it focused more on the economic aspect and less on the melodrama and relationships between Gordon and his daughter and Jacob with Winnie. This isn`t a bad movie, but I still recommend the first one over this any day. One thing is certain, Michael Douglas won`t win another Oscar for this version of Gekko.

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My Review: Good Night, and Good Luck (8/10)

“There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. The instrument can teach, it can illuminate. Yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely lights and wires in a box”

Good Night, and Good Luck is a very intelligent film and it has some great performances as well as it focuses on real events from the 50`s dealing with TV journalist Edward Murrow and his confrontation with Senator McCarthy. It is a political film and one of the best movies about television journalism as well. Murrow was one of the pioneers in journalism when TV was in diapers and he set the standard for serious and intelligent news reports. This film was nominated for Best Picture in 2006, and received five other nominations although it went home empty handed. George Clooney directed this film and co-wrote it along with Grant Heslov (who later directed Clooney in The Men Who Stare at Goats) and received two nominations for it as well. His portrayal of the CBS studio feels so real and it is enhanced by filming it entirely in black and white. The atmosphere and set really contributed to the success of the film as did David Strathairn`s performance as Murrow. Clooney manages to enlighten us as to the importance of Murrow`s stand against McCarthy and warning us that sometimes patriotism disguised can be used for evil. It is not wrong to question certain acts just because we fear to be labeled unpatriotic, we must learn to question things and television can be an important instrument when serious and fair journalism takes place. The problem is that most of the time it doesn`t and TV just becomes an entertainment device. The same can be said for Hollywood and its movies, but Good Night and Good Luck is one of those rare films that enlightens us and isn`t just another popcorn flick.

We all remember studying from History class about the communist scare in the 50`s and hearing about Senator McCarthy`s communist witch hunting tactic. Clooney directs this historical event focusing on Edward Murrow´s (David Strathairn) confrontation with Senator McCarthy (himself since newsreel footage was shown every time he appeared) during his TV show on CBS. Murrow decided to expose the Senator for using the public’s fear of communism and exploiting it to accuse people of being communists without having credible evidence. CBS boss, William Paley (Frank Langella), gave Murrow and his producer, Fred Friendly (George Clooney), liberty to attack the controversial Senator despite losing some important advertisers for it. The struggle came at a great cost for CBS and its crew. The film focuses entirely on this issue as we see glimpses of the early years of television and know now how several news shows have modeled themselves after this one. The only side story the movie has is that of the relationship between CBS reporters Joe Wershba (Robert Downey Jr.) and Shirley (Patricia Clarkson) who had to keep their marriage secret because CBS policy prohibited spouses to work together.

The film works very well and it sometimes has a documentary feeling to it because of the way the movie was shot in black and white. Robert Elswit does a great job with the cinematography. David Strathairn really captures Edward Murrow`s mannerism and impersonates him very well, and he is one of the reasons this film works so well. George Clooney has directed a great movie focusing on an important era for television and has written a decent script along with his close friend Grant Heslov. Overall the film works really well and manages to entertain while enlightening us at the same time. Good Night, and Good Luck is a rather short film, barely over 90 minutes long, and its title comes from Murrow´s classic farewell signature after ending each show. Dianne Reeves is shown several times throughout the film singing jazz music while we see in the background several journalists smoking and drinking margaritas, and I guessed it served to evoke the era. Clooney really did a great job of making the film look real and overall it has a nostalgic effect on the viewer over that time period where television was just being discovered.

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My Review: The Box (2/10)

¨Your home is a box. Your car is a box on wheels. You drive to work with it. You drive home with it. You sit in your home, staring into a box. It erodes your sole, while the box that is your body inevitably withers... then dies. Where upon it is placed in the ultimate box, to slowly decompose.¨

(2/10) The Box had a pretty interesting premise: A mysterious man comes to a home and offers a family an opportunity of a lifetime. He gives them a box that has a button on it and tells them that if they push the button two things will happen. First they will receive a million dollars, and second somebody they don`t know will die. So in a way the entire movie focused on this Shakespearean dilemma: To push or not to push the button, that is the question. Richard Kelly, better known for directing the cult movie Donnie Darko and then later on the less successful Southland Tales, directs this movie based on Richard Matheson`s short story entitled ¨Button, Button.¨ I was expecting a lot more from this sci-fi mystery movie, but The Box drags during almost the entire two hours. The characters are just not that interesting and we actually don`t care about them. There are several weird characters and a lot of questions that the movie raises and then fails to answer. When The Box finally ended I felt that there had been so many things unsaid and way too many unnecessary elements introduced in the movie. The dialogue was horrible as well and there were very few rescuable moments in the entire film (one being Frank Langella). In order for a mystery film to be successful some of the questions raised during the movie should have to be answered, and in The Box this wasn`t the case.

The movie begins with a ring at the door of the Lewis family. Norma (played by Cameron Diaz with a sort of southern accent) opens the door and finds a box lying on the floor with a note saying it is from Arlington Steward. She shows the box to her husband, Arthur (played by James Marsden from Enchanted) and neither of them have any idea who the man is. The movie moves on and we follow each of these characters to their jobs. Norma is a school teacher who has a problem with her foot as she only has one toe due to an incident she suffered years ago. In one of the weirdest scenes of the movie one of the students asks her to show them her foot and she agreeingly does so. From this point on I was a bit disappointed with how the story was developing. The movie lost me when Cameron Diaz`s character decided to show off her foot to the entire class room. Norma ends up losing her job because they are reducing some of the classes for the next semester. Arthur on the other hand works for NASA and he is a well known scientist, but something goes wrong with his psychological test and he isn´t allowed to travel. From this point on it is obvious that the Lewis`s are being played and forced into a position in which they will have to push the button. After these strange things occur, Arlington (Frank Langella from Frost/Nixon) visits Norma and explains to her the consequences of pushing the button. He has a strange appearance since he is missing part of his face (his appearance is the closest thing I have seen to Harvey Dent when he turns into Two Face in the Dark Knight). The reason Arlington is missing part of his face is because he was hit by lightning and declared dead for a couple of hours before waking up at the morgue. What happened to him continues to be a mystery. The plot continues from this point on dealing with the box and the consequences their actions might bring.

Richard Kelly does try to make interesting and original films; no one can argue that his movies are different from most mainstream Hollywood films. However being original is one thing and being entertaining is another and The Box isn`t entertaining at all. The movie leaves too many questions unanswered that it shouldn´t have even risen in the first place if they were not going to tackle them later on. Who was Arlington working for? Was he simply a messenger like he said he was? Who were his employees actually and where did they come from? I just found many of the mysteries the movie had to be pointless. All I can say is that Arlington will not have to worry about us spending all our time staring at a box if more movies like this one continue to come out. I think the highlight of the movie was Frank Langella`s performance, but that was about the only positive thing about The Box. I would definitely recommend people to skip this movie.