The Perks of Being a Wallflower

First Hit:  Despite the clichés of roles, it was easy to suspend belief and enjoy this film.

Entering high school can be traumatic as well as exciting.

I remember my first day, walking and gazing at 3 senior girls who were beautiful beyond belief and as I was walking and gazing, I turned to see where I was headed and I immediately ran into a metal pole – yes they all saw and laughed. I was embarrassed and tried to hide for a week while I licked my wounds.

Despite the good-looking main wallflower characters, it was the pain that each brought from within that made the film work for me. Charlie (played by Logan Lerman) is the main character from which we take this journey. He’s got problems which are not laid out to the audience when the film starts.

He talks of trying to find just one friend. The people he knows of through his older sister and a couple of childhood friends refuse to acknowledge his existence when in school. Maybe it is because he spent time in a mental hospital after his Aunt died – but we don’t know yet.

Charlie happens to meet up with Patrick (Ezra Miller) who is gay, having an affair with Brad (played by Johnny Simmons) - a football player, but Patrick sees Charlie's pain and reaches out to him. He introduces him to his step-sister Sam (Emma Watson) and their friends and they accept him.

For the first time in his life he feels at home and his internal demons subside for a moment. But his ghosts start coming back with memories of his aunt. The sub-plots with Emma and her choice in boys to date, his sister Candace (played by Nina Dobrev) and why she would let her boyfriend hit her we’re all engaging.

Lerman was very good as the guy trying to discover why he is so lost. Miller was truly outstanding as the vocal gay student who is trying to keep busy and his life together. Simmons, was good and convincing as the very confused gay football player. Watson was superb as Lerman’s heartthrob who also was trying to receive the love she deserves. Dobrev was strong as Lerman’s sister who was supportive when it really mattered while learning her own lessons. Stephen Chbosky both wrote and directed this film with a pretty good feel for the internal anguish of young teens.

Overall:  This was an enjoyable film but not a great one.

The Conspirator

First Hit: A very well acted, historically accurate, drama.

As the credits rolled on this film it struck me how much our government has not changed over the years and not in a good way.

This story is about the US Government railroading the prosecution and killing of a non-guilty person because certain high government officials needed to “show the public" that they are setting things right. A number of years ago, September 11th brought out actions by the US Government which killed thousands of innocent people because we needed to have a strong and definitive response.

If Osama Bin Laden was the perpetrator of the NYC tragedy then why have we killed thousands of Iraqis and Afghans instead of the guilty party? Why have we lost thousands of our own soldiers in this misaligned endeavor; because we ignored our own beliefs (being fair and democratic) and rules of our democratic society (the Constitution). 

We dropped thousands of bombs to make a point to our public that we're taking care of business. And to prove this we killed lots of people (innocent or not) and we've taken away some of your private rights (US Patriot Act). In the Conspirator, the Secretary of War, Edward Stanton (played by Kevin Kline) makes the point over and over again that we have to throw out the constitutional rights of citizens for the sake of getting the revenge he believes the public wants and entitled to.

The story is about a trial of Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright) whose son, John Surratt (played by Johnny Simmons) conspired with a group of men, including John Wilkes Booth, to kill President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. The group was successful in killing Lincoln but only injuring the other two.

Mary Surratt was put on trial because her son held meetings with these conspirators in her boarding home. She did not know what they were conspiring to and she wouldn’t tell anyone where her son was hiding out and because of this, she was hanged as a conspirator. The trial was a military tribunal and was not a civil trial of her peers.

The trial was unconstitutional. Her initial lawyer Senator Reverdy Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson), gave the case to Frederick Aiken (played by James McAvoy) who didn’t want to defend Mary because he believed she was guilty. But as a lawyer of people’s rights he changed his tune and saw the injustice that was being done to a fellow citizen.

After Mary’s conviction, he got a Writ of habeas corpus to have her tried in a civilian court as was her right but President Johnson denied the writ and she was hanged. Subsequently laws were passed to never allow this sort of behavior to happen again.

Wright was strong as a mother protecting her son and showed a wonderful clear grace in her faith as she was put to death. Great to see her on film again. McAvoy was excellent as a young northern Army Captain seeing clearly through his prejudiced beliefs as a union officer and being a fair lawyer. Kline was excellent as a government bully wanting to make believe might makes right. Wilkinson was good as a southern senator who was a Lincoln pallbearer and also supported the defending attorney. James D. Solomon wrote a very strong screenplay from his own story. Robert Redford directed this story with clarity of the story and not over dramatizing it for the sake of filmmaking. I appreciated the detail and clarity of this film and the point it was making.

Overall: I really liked the clarity and point of this story as Redford filmed it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

First Hit: Inventive filmmaking and acting made this a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I like when people take some risks. Edgar Wright took the story written by Michael Bacall, Bryan Lee O’Malley and Wright, himself, and turned it into a visual reality based on the combination of comic book graphics and real life.

Like in the very old days of TV Batman, Wright’s team used graphics in expressing actions and words while adding interesting patterns of staging and lighting to this story. Telephone rings and you see “rrrriiiiinnnngggg” super imposed on a wall or table. People fly through the air like they do in amazing Asian martial arts fighting scenes. Edgy music adds a powerful punch to the background visuals and adds to the fun and enjoyment of this film.

And I just loved the names of the characters including: Pilgrim (played by Michael Cera) who is in a band named Sex Bob Ombs, had an old girlfriend name Kim Pine (played by Alison Pill) that broke his heart (he was pining for her), finds Knives Chau (played by Ellen Wong) who is a high school girl who likes Pilgrim and cuts to the chase, runs into Ramona Flowers (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whom he falls in love with immediately and she changes hair color weekly, and discovers that to hang with Ramona he must defeat her seven evil ex’s.

The band members’ names are Stephen Stills (played by Mark Webber), Young Neil (played by Johnny Simmons) and Julie Powers on drums (played by Aubrey Plaza). When the band gets invited to play a "battle of the bands", Pilgrim also has to defeat the seven ex’s if he wants to keep his new girlfriend. In these scenes he is a martial arts master and as soon as he conquers an evil ex, a pinball score rises over the ex’s head and the person turns to coins (a payoff).

All through this, there are other amusing and funny moments as the story unfolds. There are lessons to learn for all the characters and the film is fun to watch. It has a level of freshness to it that felt like I was seeing something interesting on the screen that didn't measure its worth by how big the explosion had to be.

Cera is still playing the nerdy boy with some smarts which he occasionally uses. He plays this role often and someday he might want to try something totally different. Wong was fabulous as Knives. She captured the character extremely well. Winstead was also very strong as Ramona. Pill was good as the previous girlfriend who broke Pilgrim’s heart. Webber, Simmons and Plaza were great as band members who put up with and supported Pilgrim through the adventure. Kieran Culkin was fabulous as Pilgrim’s gay roommate. Wright directed with film with fun and an eye for color and scenes which spoke clearly.

Overall: Not sure I’d like to see a lot of films shot this way, but when one comes along that is this well crafted, it is definitely worth it.

The Greatest

First Hit:  This film is about grief and has some wonderful moments but it is overly melodramatic and manipulative.

I’m not sure why Carey Mulligan strives to play a teenager when she is clearly not one. Once again, just as in “An Education”, her age and maturity level are out of line with the part. That doesn’t make her a bad actress, in fact she’s rather good but she cannot play teenage parts.

Here she plays Rose, a high school senior, who passes the same boy, Bennett (played by Aaron Johnson), every day as they each leave school. For four years they’ve passed each other in the hallway always timing it so that they meet each other but don't speak.

It is the last day of their senior year at school and this time as they pass he speaks to her. As they both suspect, they are immediately attracted to each other and end up going off somewhere to make love. 

While driving back; he stupidly (naive urgency) stops in the middle of the road because he wants to tell her he loves her. Just as the words come out of his mouth, their car is hit by a truck and he dies, almost immediately (this is an important point). She lives and is able to make it to the funeral and there we see the pain of Bennett's family. Susan Sarandon plays Grace his mother and she is clearly devastated.

Pierce Brosnan plays Allen his father who is stoic, holding things together but clearly not processing his grief. And, then there is his younger brother Ryan (played by Johnny Simmons), who is struggling with his loss through mind numbing drugs.

All of this happens before film name credit awkwardly hits the screen on Brosnan's chest. The name comes from what Rose told him about his first time as a lover and what his parents think of him, “he was the greatest”.

This film is set up for boo hooing and tears. There are scenes that really work, like dinner the first night Rose comes to stay with them because she is pregnant with Bennett’s child.

Mulligan, as I said is too old for her part and although she does a fine job, I think it would have been better if she were a college senior and not a high school senior, but then again the story would have had to change as well. Sarandon is not very real to me in her expression of grief. It feels a bit contrived, forced and over manipulative. Brosnan, at times, is extraordinary in his role. I actually felt the pressure cooking within him as he attempted to hold himself and his family together as his grief slowly envelops him. Simmons is rather good as the younger brother who is struggling to deal with his own sadness as well as being the son who wasn’t “The Greatest” but is the only one left.

Overall: The film feels manipulative in the way scenes and dialogue are set up to make you feel something. I’d rather have an honest story be told in a real way and let me find my feelings rather than be manipulated into having a feeling.