Cake

First Hit:  Jennifer Aniston was great in an OK film.

The pain Claire Bennett (Aniston) is in is palpable. Although we don’t learn what caused her to be in this pain until much later, we do piece the possibilities together during the 92 minutes.

The film consists of us following Bennett from support group, to physical therapy, and to home while she pops pills from her hidden stashes. Her former husband Jason (Chris Messina) feels for his former wife, but cannot save her from her self-destruction.

Her mainstay is housekeeper Silvana (Adriana Barraza) who helps to keep the ship upright. She cooks, cleans and mostly cares about Claire and does this in extraordinary ways. She is haunted by dead fellow pain prisoner Nina Collins (Anna Kendrick) who decided she couldn’t stand it any longer and had committed suicide. Nina’s husband Roy (Sam Worthington) is just barely hanging on, with his son Casey (Evan O’Toole) and Claire finds some solace with him.

Aniston is wonderful in this role. I fully believed that she was in pain and she held the space of pain and addiction in an amazing way. Wonderful acting. Barraza was fantastic as Claire’s housekeeper and friend. Messina with a small and meaningful role, done wonderfully. Kendrick was perfect. Although being a hallucination she was perky and intelligently perfect. Worthington was very good as a lost husband of grief. O’Toole was perfect. Patrick Tobin wrote a strong scrip, however it seemed to labor at times. Daniel Barnz did a good job of directing Aniston’s extremely strong performance.

Overall:  Although there were strong performances the subject and pacing won’t have this become a crowd favorite.

Man on a Ledge

First Hit:  Parts were fun and interesting others just poorly constructed.

At the end of this film, it is all supposed to come together and it does, but it was not satisfying nor did it feel complete.

Nick Cassidy (played by Sam Worthington) is a former cop and in prison because he’s been accused of stealing a $40M diamond from David Englander (played by Ed Harris). However he claims he is innocence and was set-up and wants to make his name right. He attends his father’s funeral and escapes from his guards.

After being in hiding for a few weeks, he checks into an expensive hotel, eats a fancy meal, leaves a note (claiming his innocence) and climbs out on the ledge 21 floors up. While the cops, news people, news people, and public are focused on him from the street below, his brother Joey (played by Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend Angie (played by Genesis Rodriguez) are breaking into the building across the street actually stealing the diamond. In this way Nick can prove his innocence.

Englander is characterized as someone having some of the arrogance and stupidity of Donald Trump and the controlled focus and untouchable qualities of a mobster. He uses cops as his dirty work guys whom will kill for him at a price.

This is the underlying scenario as the film unfolds as it includes Nick's working partner as one who was dirty as well.

Lastly, the film also has a focus on a police psychologist Lydia Mercer (played by Elizabeth Banks) who just recently lost one of her “jumpers” and is struggling with the pain. Nick specifically asks for her as a way to help her move through her past event.

The film has enough good shots in it to make it very interesting. The overhead, looking over the ledge and Worthington’s ability to make it seem he could have fallen at any moment, was very good. What didn’t work was that it was far too easy to see, and know, which cops were crooked - they even looked crooked. In other words, in some places the movie, had little too much telegraphing of characterizations and situations.

Worthington was strong and believable in his role although the film teetered as not being believable. Harris was a wonderful arrogant ass who felt entitled to his arrogance. Bell was very good as the brother who wanted to do right for his family. Rodriguez was strong, funny, and vulnerable in her role as accomplice and girlfriend. Banks was OK as the psychologist who is charged with talking down a jumper. Edward Burns, played another police person charged with talking down jumpers and I didn’t think this was of his better work. He seemed to not have a mind of his own and wasn’t convincing why he changed to support Banks role. Pablo F. Fenjves wrote a fairly interesting script. Asger Leth directed some of the ledge and robbery scenes with aplomb while other sections didn’t quite work as well.

Overall: It was interesting while watching it, but it has no legs because the very next day – it is forgotten.

The Debt

First Hit: This is a film about how important it is to live the truth.

The film flashes between 1966 and 1997 with ease. Not many films do this without some jarring of the senses and story logic but the direction by Jon Madden on the screenplay by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman was superb.

Rachel Singer (played by both Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren), Stephen Gold (played by Marton Csokas and Tom Wilkinson) and David Peretz (played by Sam Worthington and Ciaran Hinds) are sent to find Doktor Bernhardt (played by Jesper Christensen) who was a Nazi surgeon that experimented on people in WWII.

The Jewish Israeli government sent these three to East Berlin to capture him and bring him back to Israel to try him for war crimes. In 1997’s time, Rachel and Stephen’s daughter Sarah (played by Romi Aboulafia) has just published a book on this attempt to critical acclaim, but something is brewing.

As the story goes back and forth between the two times zones, we slowly begin to figure out the real story and why there is such deep sadness and fear in the main characters.

The strength of this film is the strength it gains through interlocking segues between time, the story line, and the truth.

Chastain showed strength and mettle in her wonderful portrayal of young Singer. Mirren was extraordinary as the older Singer. Csokas was overtly powerful as young Gold while Wilkinson carried this strength pointedly as older Gold. Worthington was immensely focused and sublime as the single minded Peretz and Ciaran had minimal presence as the older Peretz. Christensen commanded screen presence as the powerful and brutish Nazi surgeon. Aboulafia was very good as Sarah. Vaughn and Goldman wrote an outstanding script. Madden wove this immensely powerful story with an adroit hand and understanding of how to create a logical and comprehensive story spanning 30 years.

Overall: A powerful film which was well made.

Clash of the Titans 3D

First Hit: What a waste of time and energy.

This previously made story has finally hit its zenith of being bad.

Seeing Liam Neeson take on the role of Zeus was simply shocking. Why would he downgrade his resume with this? He did speak one fine line, “Release the Kraken” but I saw this in the previews. The same almost goes for Ralph Fiennes as Hades.

Except with Ralph there were a couple interesting moments which lasted more than one line long, but mostly it was a waste of his talent as well. Sam Worthington plays Perseus (son of Zeus) and the promise he showed in Avatar was totally absent in his role here.

I won’t go into the story here as it has been done before and the bottom line is Perseus saves the human world… ta-da (the end).

Louis Leterrier directed this mess and one would think that with the abilities of computer animation, Neeson, Fiennes, and Worthington something interesting might have been made of this remade film. But what we get is mediocre 3D (lots of shadowing), bad costuming, and ash people riding scorpions. Even the Kraken got little full face screen time.

Overall:  I’d much rather watch the 1981 version; at least I could laugh in good conscious.

Avatar 3D

First Hit: A visual extravaganza and a very satisfying 160 minute film.

I went to the theater skeptical of this latest James Cameron film. His last big film, Titanic, was one of the most boringly long and overdone films I’d ever seen. However, he more than made up for it with Avatar.

Sure, there was some clunky dialog (“We’re not in Kansas anymore” – In the year 2154 they wouldn’t know about this line from the Wizard of Oz) and there were some overly staged and orchestrated scenes (Sitting around the Tree of Souls), however all in all this was a wonderfully entertaining film.

In brief; the story line is that humans, from a dying earth, are mining “Unobtanium” (a substance which is expensive but we are never told how humans will use it), on this phantasmagoric planet called Pandora (Yes, Pandora like the box).

The Na’vi, who are about 10 - 12 feet tall and have blue skin,  live on this beautiful planet. They live in harmony with the nature of their planet and reside in a tree that is over a thousand feet tall. In this operation to mine Unobtanium, the company supports and tolerates some scientists who are attempting to learn about and live within the spirit of the Na’vi people by using Avatars (A body made of both Human/Na’vi chromosomes).

Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington), a paraplegic Marine, is pressed into action to control one of the Avatars. He slowly befriends Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana) who is the daughter of the spiritual leader of the Na’vi. She sees something special in Jake and teaches him their ways.

While he learns their culture and earns their trust, his human military leader Colonel Miles Quaritch (played by Stephen Lang) is pushing him to either negotiate with the Na’vi to move their home to make room for more mining of Unobtanium or to provide him with enough information to destroy the Na’vi in their home.

Cameron did an outstanding job of keeping this long film moving (he learned from Titanic). Although clunky at times, the dialog, storyline and action were well gauged. However, the thing that impressed me the most about this film was the use of the digital 3D. Cameron didn’t use the 3D as a gimmick to push stuff in your face. It was used to put you, the movie goers, into the film. It made you part of it. It was not distracting it was enhancing. The small touches of flying bugs popping up here and there along with the depth it added to each scene was amazing. The digitalized enhanced Na’vi were wonderfully created and did not seem false or unreal in any way. The creatures and fauna created as part of the planet’s life were beautifully created and represented.

Overall: This film was very satisfying. It was fun, visually stunning, and the story was adequate enough to push this full blown film forward. I really enjoyed it.