"99 Homes"

"It's not your home anymore."  The words that would cut any homeowner's heart.  It's any family's nightmare, the loss of the American dream.

The blood-splattered opening scene where a homeowner ends his life than being dragged out of his home sets a unnerving tone for the film.  When the market crashed and housing bubble burst in 2008, thousands of homes went into foreclosure.  This is a fictional story, yet it will feel all-too-familiar and hit close to home for many.

Dennis Nash (Andrea Garfield,  "The Amazing Spider-Man," "The Social Network"), a young single father, along with his son (Noah Lomax) and mother (Laura Dern), find themselves having merely minutes to gather their most important belongings and get out of their lifelong home.  They're being told that they're now trespassing.

Serving the eviction notice is a real estate shark, Rick Carver (Michael Shannon, "Man of Steel," "Premium Rush").  Not merely serving a notice, Rick is manipulative and merciless, evicting people from their homes coldly and swiftly, profiting from their miseries and legal loopholes.

When a cleanup job opens up unexpectedly in one of the foreclosed houses, Rick presents Dennis, an unemployed construction worker and skillful handyman, with a bottom-of-the-barrel opportunity.  Dennis begrudgingly takes it up as a means to put food on the table for his  homeless family.

One simple job opens up a world of shady dealings.  Rick justifies and the stealing and scamming from the government and banks as being no different than the people who buy homes they can't afford and are not able to pay back.  As he plainly puts it, "America doesn't bail out losers."  It's a rigged system made for and by winners.  Of course, there are those honest, hard-working people who fall on hard times due to the recession.  And people who get snared in the reckless lending practices and don't understand what it is they're signing on the dotted lines or told to do certain things by those in charge.

Dennis learns fast, rises to the top and makes real cash.  He cuts a deal with Rick that he will do his bidding as a way to get his family home back.  Internally conflicted with transparent anguish, Dennis the evictee becomes the very person serving eviction notices and getting people out to the curb.  One heartwrenching scene after another inexorably play out.

While the details of the latter dealings may not be entirely clear than the earlier scams, it is deeply distressing as livelihoods, and in some cases, people's lives are at stake.  Dennis is left with a choice to stand up or turns a blind eye.  Garfield is exceptional in conveying Dennis' crisis of conscience.

There's no Hollywood ending and it does feel less satisfying, but just like in real life, there's not always a happy ending.  Directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani, "99 Homes" is a dreary story worth telling, unfolding through realistic, powerful acting all around.

While no "Inside Job" (a must-see documentary), "99 Homes" is a sobering reality and concrete byproduct of our time.

http://www.sdentertainer.com/movies/movie-review-99-homes/

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"The Walk"

Talk about walking the talk.

On a clear summer day in 1974, one man crosses the immense space between the World Trade Center towers.  The only man who has ever accomplished and will ever accomplish such feat.

Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Lincoln," "Premium Rush," "The Dark Knight Rises," "Inception") narrates the film, perched on  the Statue of Liberty, taking us back to that glorious day.  Gordon-Levitt, sporting a French accent, plays the role with believable zeal.

In the earlier days in France, French street performer Philippe charms a musician, Annie Allix (Charlotte Le Bon) with his flair and quirkiness in the streets of Paris.  Annie becomes his biggest cheerleader to pursue his impossible dream of the high-wire act.

From the trees to the light poles to the grand Notre Dame walk, the time is right at last for Philippe to go to New York.  The construction of towers is almost finished.  He's also come to learn the ropes of being a tightrope walker from a circus patriarch, Ben Kingsley ("Iron Man 3").  More than knowing about the right cables, bolts or knots, and obviously having the extreme balancing ability, it's also about having the right mental attitude.

With Annie as his first "accomplice," a photographer and a friend, Philippe recruits several New Yorkers, intrigued enough by his insane obsession and ambition, to set the stage for the high-stake wire-walk.

Played like a heist, the team works together covertly; researching the specs of the towers, smuggling and testing equipment, all the while trying to evade security from getting caught.  The all-night rooftop-rigging pays off when the sun comes up and Philippe realizes his dream.  An illegal, crazy dangerous stunt.

Must-see in 3-D, the height and depth dimensions are absolutely incredible, allowing you to experience the wonder of it all.  As if you're there, witnessing or  walking alongside Philippe, marveling in the sights, feeling the rustling breeze and hearing the traffic noise from a distant.  110-story, 1,350-feet tall.

What a magical walk it was.  There are moments that will take your breath away.  From the first moment when Philippe balances his body, standing with one foot on the ledge of the tower and the other on the wire to finally stepping on with both feet.  No safety net or harness.  And he doesn't just walk across.  Suspended in the air, he kneels and salutes, feeling the joy and expressing his gratitude. Sitting and looking down in awe.  Lying down and looking up in peace.  And turning around, shuffling his balance bar in daring mischief, again and again.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the movie is filmed in a whimsical, hyper-realism style, reminding me a bit of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."  It is no fable, however, as "The Walk" is based on a true story.  And the final scene, before everything fades away, is a shining homage to one of America's greatest landmarks.

The greatest artistic, daredevil coup of the century is gracefully breathtaking and magnificently elegant.  "The Walk" giddily ascends the skies and reaches for the clouds.

http://www.sdentertainer.com/movies/movie-review-the-walk/

DVD: http://tinyurl.com/thewalkvideo
Book: http://tinyurl.com/thewalkbook

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Upcoming Movies: January 2016

[Originally posted on 1/01/16]

January 8
"Anomalisa" (http://www.anomalisa.com/) - A man crippled by the mundanity of his life experiences something out of the ordinary.

"Anesthesia" - Multiple lives intersect in the aftermath of the violent mugging of a university philosophy professor.

January 15
"The Benefactor" - A philanthropist meddles in the lives of newly-married couples in an attempt to relive his past.

January 22
"The 5th Wave" (http://www.the5thwaveiscoming.com/) - Four waves of increasingly deadly alien attacks have left most of Earth decimated. Cassie is on the run, desperately trying to save her younger brother.

"The Boy" - An American nanny is shocked that her new English family's boy is actually a life-sized doll. After violating a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.

"Synchronicity" (http://www.magnetreleasing.com/synchronicity/) - When a physicist invents a machine that can fold space-time, a rare flower appears from the future. He discovers that the flower lies in the hands of a mysterious girl. He travels back in time and uncovers a surprising truth about the machine, the girl and his own reality.

January 29
"The Finest Hours" - The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.

"Kung Fu Panda 3" (http://www.dreamworks.com/kungfupanda/) - Continuing his "legendary adventures of awesomeness," Po must face two hugely epic, but different threats: one supernatural and the other a little closer to his home.

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"The Martian"

Two years post the groundbreaking "Gravity" and a year after the stellar "Interstellar," along comes "The Martian," based on a best-selling book by Andy Weir and directed by Ridley Scott ("Prometheus").

During an exploration in Mars, a fierce sandstorm forces a team of astronauts, led by commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain, "Zero Dark Thirty," "The Debt") to abort their mission and evacuate the base.  Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon, "Elysium," "The Adjustment Bureau") is impaled by a satellite antenna, left stranded and presumed dead.

Mark is injured but makes it back to the base safely.  Alone and alive, he quickly realizes his predicament.  Millions of miles away from home, four years until another manned mission, severed communication and supplies to last only for 31 days.  The odds are overwhelmingly unfavorable.  He could suffocate in a toxic air, freeze to death, or die out of starvation or thirst.  But instead of giving up, Mark decides to survive by making the best with what he has, while attempting to establish contact with NASA.

What happens next is what distinguishes "The Martian" with the other space movies.  This one is rooted in 'hard' science, courses of actions done based on real science and technology.  In a hostile, arid planet and encased in solitude, Mark uses his expertise as a botanist and resourcefulness to generate oxygen, create heat, produce water, grow crops and ration his limited food.  And perhaps just as important, not losing his sense of optimism and wry humor to keep his sanity and spirit alive.  In an overlong movie (2 hours and 21 minutes) filled with 'science speak' and solo time, Damon does an admirable job in moving things along in an engaging fashion.

On Earth, the wheels start turning when NASA realizes that Mark is still alive, even as officials try to keep the news from his teammates, en route home, still in space.  Each communication brings both clarity and confusion.  Even if they're able to build and launch a supplies craft, time is not on their side.  A setback occurs in Mars where Mark is no longer able to harvest more plants, which means he will run out of food.

Nobody is giving up, however.  A lively group of really smart, passionate people working together tirelessly to develop solutions to rescue Mark.  It is not without discord.  It's a matter of highly calculated risk; it could pay off big time or fail catastrophically, which would cost more lives.  And to a lesser extent, a public outcry and end of the space programs.

Meanwhile, when news reach his crewmates, the rest of the astronauts pledge to launch their own daring mission, severely risky as it may be and against the officially sanctioned plan to bring one of their own home with them.  The last stretch is a tense scene involving a remotely controlled, open-top capsule and spacecraft trying to make the right trajectory toward each other with astronauts hurling into space.

Since comparisons are inevitable, it's worth mentioning that "Gravity," "Interstellar" and "The Martian" are very different movies.  "Gravity" is a singular space survival tale and as close you could probably get to being in space.  "Interstellar" (also starring Damon and Chastain), a celestial tapestry of space exploration and heartfelt human story, is clearly a fantasy adventure with the time--bending element.  "The Martian" is a space procedural drama, looking like a real planetary operation gone wrong in a not-too-distant future, plausible survival and rescue mission somewhere near the realms of possibility.  Interestingly, it's not a grim film.  The filmmaker takes a unusual approach, telling the story with a lighter touch and air of levity.

Drawing upon science, intelligence, collaboration and imagination, it shows how the brightest minds can accomplish great things together.  "The Martian" is a crowdpleaser, hopefully one that may inspire the next generation of space explorations.

http://www.sdentertainer.com/movies/movie-review-the-martian/

Book: http://tinyurl.com/themartianbook

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2015: Year in Movies

[Originally posted on 12/10/15]

A look back to 2015... hundreds of movie releases in 6:39 minutes.

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"Bridge of Spies"

[Originally posted on 10/18/15]

In 1957, a New York insurance lawyer, James Donovan (Tom Hanks, "Saving Mr. Banks," "Cloud Atlas"), gets pulled back into criminal law, called to represent an accused Soviet spy, Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance).

James, an honest, principled man finds that justice can be relative, even as America showing to the world that we provide due process and capable defense for everyone.  He presses on with integrity, sticking to the principles of the U.S. constitution, doing his job as best as he can even with pressures mounting from the system and the public to seal his client's fate.

On the other side of the continent, an American spy plane went down and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is captured by the Soviet Union.  Just as the Berlin Wall is going up, an American student, Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) lands himself on the wrong side of the wall and gets thrown in prison.

The U.S. government would like James, acting as a private citizen, to negotiate a swap, Rudolf for Francis.   James takes him upon himself to add Frederic into the mix; 2-for-1 exchange.  It's a lone clandestine mission that could go wrong in many ways.  A skilled negotiator, James intuitively understands his opponents and pushes the right buttons to make things happen in tricky political waters and hostile climate.

This is a story about doing the right thing even when it doesn't suit your purpose and having respect for people for doing their job honorably for their country even when you don't agree with what they do.

Not as tension-filled as one might think, it's a serious slow-burn, surprisingly sprinkled with mordant humor. Based on real events and helmed by Steven Spielberg ("Lincoln"), "Bridge of Spies" is classily crafted, directed and acted.  Steady, measured and assured historical Cold War drama.

http://www.sdentertainer.com/movies/movie-reviews-bridge-of-spies-and-the-gift/

DVD: http://tinyurl.com/bridgeofspiesdvd

Book: http://tinyurl.com/bridgeofspiesbook

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