The Skin I Live In

First Hit:  Odd and interesting film about obsession, retaliation and redemption.

Almodovar does some interesting films, some are oddly funny while other films are unique in their view of life and behavior.

Here Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas) is a surgeon who performs magic on burn patients. Additionally he performs sex change operations out of his own operating room in his home. His wife dies from suicide because she is horribly burned and when she sees her reflection in a window for the first time, she cannot stand what she sees.

His daughter gets raped by a young man named Vincente (played by Jan Cornet) and because she is traumatized, commits suicide as well. Legard, as part of his research, is working on how to replace and grow skin as a replacement for burn victims.

In his anger at losing his daughter, he kidnaps Vincente the boy who raped his daughter and changes him into a woman named Vera Cruz (played by Elena Anaya). Because she is with him for years they develop a relationship.

However, this film is about revenge and redemption so it has its twists. The one thing that amazed me was how perfect Vera’s skin was. I know that this must have been the expert use of makeup as well as special effects.

The skin was amazing.

Banderas is very good as the somewhat mental, yet intelligent doctor. Cornet was well cast as the troubled rogue young man. Anaya was superb as Vera. Pedro Almodovar wrote and directed this interesting and thoughtful film.

Overall: A good film and worth watching.

In Time

First Hit:  The concept of this film is outstanding and the acting very good; however the film isn’t memorable.

What would you do if you knew that you only had 1 year to live?

What would society do if everyone only had 1 year to live after reaching age 25? How hard would you work to gain more time? What would it be like to always look 25 no matter how old you really are? What would you do to live longer if you could get other people’s remaining time?

These are the primary questions this film asks audience members to think about. To keep you posted on your remaining time everyone has a digital clock imbedded in their left forearm. The clock stars the day you turn 25 years old. Your remaining time is always on your arm.

Will Salas (played by Justin Timberlake) is 3 years over his 25th birthday. He lives day to day. He gets other time by working hard. He never steals or inappropriately takes anyone else’s time. Other people rob people for their time. He meets up with Henry Hamilton (played by Matthew Bomer) who is over a century old and is done with living. He wants to die.

Will saves him from being shot. While hiding out Henry gives Will all his remaining time (hundreds of years) while Will is sleeping and then goes out and commits suicide. Chasing Henry are Timekeepers, led here by Raymond Leon (played by Cillian Murphy).

The Timekeepers track people who are giving away too much of their time and also track people who pass through time zones. In this world time is the only currency and is used for everything (instead of money), people trade time for food, coffee, and bus rides. If the master planners think there are too many people alive, they raise the price of everything thereby reducing the available time for individuals.

With his new gained time, Will travels to a fancy part of the city and meets Silvia Weis (played by Amanda Seyfried) who has a very rich (time wise) father Philippe Weis (played by Vincent Kartheiser). Philippe is a controller of time in a specific geographical area and he has a lot of time. In fact he has a 1,000,000 years in a bank vault in his office. Silvia falls in love with Will and because the timekeepers are after him, he has to run and she decides to run with him, living day by day for time.

The lesson Silvia imparts to the audience is that loving someone and living fully may require her to only live each day at a time. Good films need to stay with me and have me think about them a day or two (or even weeks or months) after I see them.

This film left my memory banks within 24 hours. And even though it was a great subject, and wonderfully acted, there was something missing – real questions about the real mystery of life, like what is time (outside of a human “concept by which we measure our pain” – John Lennon)?

Timberlake was excellent and really seemed to embody the part. Bomer was good as the disillusioned guy with more time than he needs. Murphy was excellent as the driven Timekeeper who just did he job the best he could and had a difficult time changing his point of view. Kartheiser was strong as Seyfried’s father although he almost looked younger than her. Seyfried was very good as the girl who needed to wake up from her sheltered existence. Andrew Niccol wrote and directed this. He did get strong performances and the film was well put together and crisp. It just seemed to lack the depth necessary to make it memorable.

Overall: In Time was good to watch and very entertaining, but with such a meaty subject why did it fade from my mind so quickly when a film like "Margin Call" still has me thinking. If you want entertainment this is a very good film to go see.

Margin Call

First Hit: This smart educational film opens the door to understanding the mortgage crisis of the late 2000’s.

What this film does is give the audience a human flavor as to why the mortgage crisis happened.

Human not in the context of the mortgage holders, but the guys in a Wall Street house who created bundling of the subprime mortgage packages and sold them.

In this Wall Street firm, recent losses have created firings. One of the fired, Eric Dale (played by Stanley Tucci), has been working on some numbers which concern him. When he leaves he gives a thumb drive to a young new Analyst, Peter Sullivan (played by Zachary Quinto).

Sullivan works for Will Emerson (played by Paul Bettany), who works for Sam Rogers (played by Kevin Spacey). Will is smart and has about 10 years with the firm and when Sullivan finishes the analysis that Dale started, he immediately sees that the company is overexposed and is exposed for more than their capital worth.

Like the mortgages of many, they are underwater. This brings in the heavy weights. Rogers calls Jared Cohen (played by Simon Baker) who calls the CEO John Tuld (played by Jeremy Irons). A 2:00 AM meeting between all these players and lawyers, the meeting starts with Sullivan explaining what he discovered.

The Head of Risk Sarah Robertson (played by Demi Moore) indicates that they tried to tell Tuld this could happen but Tuld indicates that this is now water under the bridge. What can they do to save the company now? Tuld decides to sell all of their positions at a loss, even though they know that doing this will destroy the market for mortgages, their relationships with all other brokerage companies they work with, and maybe destroy the company.

However, by leading the charge to sell this bad debt they will lose less than the others. To do this they know what they are doing and that is where the morality of their decision comes into question.

Tucci is great as one of the guys who complies with the end decision, all for money. Spacey is wonderful as the head of sales who motivates the crew for the last selling spree, he does it for the money as well. Quinto is sublime as the smart analyst. Irons is absolutely dead on as a ruthless player. Baker is very good as the guy who didn’t listen enough and is mostly responsible for the company’s plight. Moore is OK as the woman who pushed for a change but was unconvincing enough. Bettany is very good as the guy who thinks he knows it all but really relies on the smarts of others. J.C. Chandor wrote and directed this film which was intelligent, educational, well scripted, and provided excitement and interest.

Overall: This was a wonderful film to see and provided enough of a layman’s language explanation to shine light on the financial mess we’re now in.

Killer Elite

First Hit: Some action between long bouts of boredom based on a poorly written script.

Not all films based on a true story play well on screen or are interesting. I would have like to think this one would have been good if the story had been told well.

The actors are all good actors. Jason Statham (here as Danny - perfect name as the all-around good guy) and Clive Owen (here as Spike – good name for the party spoiler) both are proven and capable of being great action actors. With Statham being one of the more capable physical action actors right now. His soft voice, intense look and great coordination keep him on the forefront of action films.

Owen is very capable as a physical action actor but his overriding hook is his intelligence and commanding voice. In this film his intelligent nature was left on the back porch leaving him to come off as out of character with both himself and the story.

Robert De Niro (here as Hunter – perfect name for older assassin) has a history of being very good as a dramatic actor and good enough as an action hero. Here he plays the older wiser assassin who has wife and kids he cares about.

Unfortunately we only hear about his family at the end of the film, why? I don’t know. It seemed to be thrown in to make a point but it was lost on me. Early on in the film, Danny decides to get out of the killing business because he almost kills a young girl in a hit he is doing with Hunter. Then he gets drawn back in to save his friend Hunter from being killed by a powerful Arab, but to do so he must kill three people.

This is where Spike comes in because he doesn’t want these killings to happen. Poor plot construction, and at times very poor execution. I dislike the experience of sitting in a film wondering how much longer it will be until it is over. This was one of those films.

Statham is solid but his character isn’t quite fleshed out and there is nothing to know why he took the job of assassin. De Niro is really a bit old for parts like this even though he is supposed to be the role of wisdom. I don’t think it was wise for him to take this part. Owen came off as more blindly stupid (yes, his character took a bullet in one eye) in this role than he can actually muster. He’s naturally an intelligent person and playing stupid is not up his alley. Gary McKendry wrote this poorly constructed script from a novel by Ranulph Fiennes which is supposed to be based on some truth. Gary McKendry directed this and it failed to be a cohesive smart action film.

Overall: Barely worth watching on DVD some lazy Sunday evening after a long baseball game.

Contagion

First Hit: Interesting, scary, overcomplicated stories and created questions of realism.

What would happen if a new disease came to this world that had a high R 0 factor (R Naught). Although it was explained as a primary part of the film, it wasn’t reinforced enough throughout the film for me to understand the some of the dialogue they used later.

From what I understood a high R Naught means that for every one person who dies multiple more will die. Anyway this was just one of the confusing things in this film. Then I kept having questions while the celluloid rolled. If they created a contagious area, sealed it off a whole city, who would man the electric power stations? Who controls all the other social utilities if the city (Chicago) is dying from a disease?

And although the film-makers showed a society degenerating by having people breaking into banks, grocery stores, and pharmacies; I kept wondering who’s running the electrical grid. Anyway, outside of the problems in this film because it compromised the way society would breakdown with this disease, it did bring up great questions about what would happen if a devastating disease struck the world.

Beth (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) is ground zero for this disease (we discover this at the end of the film). She stops on her way home and has a quickie with an ex-boyfriend (why was this important?), comes home to her husband Mitch (played by Matt Damon), who ends up being immune to the disease but her son isn’t and both the son and wife die.

The film includes the involvement of the WHO and a bunch of other agencies which lets us know that this is important and out of control. The way the WHO and the US Government methodically find a cure and plan how to immunize a lot of people was interesting, but overall this film tried to make drama in too many places which dissipated the energy of the film. I would have rather stayed with just a few of the people and not try to give us so much about so many.

One of the opening scenes when they cut Beth’s scull open to analyze her death, I found myself cringing but ready for a film that would be more focused, it fell off the table and became a different film from there.

Paltrow has a small but critical part because she is ground zero. Damon was good as the caring father. Marion Cotillard as Dr. Orantes was very good and probably did the best acting in this film. Jude Law was very good at playing a blogger named Alan Krumwiede as someone who was skeptical of the government’s action on the disease but he was worse in his lying to his public. Laurence Fishburne was OK as Dr. Cheever and I really thought the story was overplayed when he gave his wife a heads up to leave Chicago. There were lots of other actors but this film didn’t require it and in fact dissipated its energy. Scott Z. Burns wrote the script and made it too complicated by adding lots of strong parts. Steven Soderbergh directed this film and, to me, it needed simplification in some areas to create a more powerful effect.

Overall: This was a good film but too many stories with big time actors dissipated the strength of the idea.