G.I. Joe: the Rise of Cobra

After so many years, and all those TV cartoons, we finally have a real Joe movie.

Saw it with my son at Paramount - he's a Joe fan, and website manager, so he was invited to a special screening in the Executive Screening Room at Paramount - about 25 folks sitting comfortably in big red leather chairs ... and he invited his Pop to go along - a pretty good deal.

I loved it, but my son's review is worth the read - click HERE for it.

He critiques it from a fan-boy's point of view, and then the movie itself.

Enjoy the review, and enjoy the movie.

The Hurt Locker

Aren't we all supposed to love our work?

Haven't we all been regaled by preachers and teachers: "Love what you do, and do what you love" "Find a job you love, and then do it with all your heart"?

What happens if you're a professional soldier?

A specialist in disarming bombs? The infamous IEDs of Iraq?

Staff Sergeant William  James (Jeremy Renner) is just such a man. Living on the edge 24/7 - a bag full of bomb pieces - timers, fuses, wiring harnesses - puzzle pieces, souveniers, from earlier assignments - the man is a genius with an uncanny curiosity and confidence. He loves his work, putting himself in harm's way time and again. His own bomb squad is skeptical - is Sergeant James hotdogging it? Putting himself, his team, at risk, with his feats of daring-do?

While on patrol in the bleak countryside of Iraq, the unit comes under sniper fire. Quickly taking cover, and taking a few hits, the unit digs in and begins to look for the source of the sniper fire. They quickly discover a small block building hundreds of yards removed, and now begins a cat and mouse game.

Sergeant James is on the binnoculors - a unit member with a 50 caliber sniper rifle with scope begins to track the snipers - one in the building, the other on the roof. A long hot waiting game begins. The weapon jams; there's blood all over the magazines taken from a fallen comrad. With a measured determination, a strangely detached approach - a job has to be - the Sergeant takes charge of cleaning the magazine.

Loaded and ready, the enemy located, the weapon is fired.

Sergeant James, "You're high and to the left." Adjustments are made - and the first kill of the day is made. More waiting. It's hot - dessert dust coating everything. And then another kill - the final kill of the day, or is it? They wait, and finally Sergeant James says, "We can go home now."

As the days of his tour wind down, we want this incredible specialist do his job - his unit pull together and weather the various storms of the soul.

In one of the most powerful moments of the film, an Iraqi citizen approaches a check point with his arms up, shouting - "I have a bomb strapped to me." And not just strapped, but locked with heavy padlocks - the man is clearly a sacrifical lamb.

The sergeant, dressed in a heavy bomb suit, approaches and calms the man - succeeds in cutting off one of several padlocks, but the whole cage-like affair is just too much. The timing mechanism, a cheap watch, is ticking down. Trying furiously to disarm the bomb, Sergeant James has no more time left in the tangled web of wires. He looks at the man, tells him there's no more time, turns and hurriedly walks away.

With great editing, we watch the Sargeant, from a variety of views, lumber away to safety, while the Iraqi, resigned to his fate, falls to his knees, hands outstretched, praying, the camera on his face - we're there.

In a moment, the man disappears in a violent explosion ... a sad, heart-wrenching moment, but just another moment in this incredible job.

Sergeant James loves his work.

The film shifts to the Sergeant back home, tour ended - with a woman he loves - in a grocery store. She's doing the shopping, but she's asked him to get some cereal, and there he stands, with his empty shopping cart, all alone in the cereal aisle, 10,000 boxes from which to choose - frustrated and bewildered, he finally grabs a box of anything. From the streets and deserts of Iraq to the cereal aisle.

In a few weeks, he says, "They need bomb disposal people." He returns for another year of duty, to the helter-skelter world of Iraq, to this land of adreniline-pumping, death- defying, winning and losing, blood and guts, world of the professional.

 The final scene - dressed in his bomb suit, he's walking down a deserted street toward a bomb - he's alone. A man with job to do. A job he loves.

Without being political, this film successfully explores the world of the professional soldier and what it's like to love a dangerous, violent, job.

The film, lovingly, gives us an insight into the strange world of men and women asked to kill or be killed - living with death, with blood on their hands, metaphorically, and literally, as they cradle a dying comrade in their arms.

The grocery store cereal aisle is as befuddling to them as the streets of Bagdhad would be to us.

I came away from this film with a greater love for the professional army we've created over the years - these people are precious. They are doing a job we've asked them to do, and many of them do what we all try to to do - behind the desk, at the assembly line, wherever - to do what we love, and to love what we do.

And if the news is accurate, we're not doing enough to honor them - forget the schmaltz of parades and medals - I'm talking about taking care of their families back home, for one thing: that housing and medical care for spouses and children would never be a question. That proper armament and everything they need is readily available. That we understand their role and how hard, if not impossible it is for them, to re-enter a civilian world.

We have created a professional army. We have asked them to do a terrible job, and like human beings anywhere, and Americans especially, they love what they do, and they do what they love.

No wonder the suicide rate is so high. The cereal aisile is a dangerous place, a strange and forboding zone in which the professional soldier feels trapped and alone. He's not qualitifed for cereal; he is qualified, more than qualified, to join his unit in war - to face the enemy the politicians have created, and to love what he does and do what he loves.

Can we ask of them anything more?

And can we not do better by all of them?

This is a powerful film with a message about our professional army.

Hats off to Kathryn Bigelow (director) for bringing this fine piece of film-making to the screen. Without romance or schlock, without glorifying anything, she tells a basic story of a man who loves his work!

See it when you can!

Public Enemies

Something is wrong with this film.

It doesn't work very well for me.

Technically, everything is here, and it's all good ... but put it all together, and it's a ho hum film.

I think too much was attempted - it's tough to do a bio-pic - how do you reveal a huge characters like Dillinger and Purvis?

Johnny Depp, of course, as Dillinger ... but the portrait is flawed - too nice a guy - the reality: Dillinger was a killer. I think Depp is a terrific actor, but something didn't click here. The cold-blooded character of a killer didn't emerge. Sure, Dillinger might have been a nice guy now and then, but the raging fires of a troubled childhood and a life of prison and crime never emerges. This is not a role to be played with the elan of "Pirates of the Carribean." Perhaps a bit too cavalier.

Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, the man who "gets his man" does a far better job then he did in "Terminator." Cool, calm, collected, relentless, and maybe that's the issue for the whole film - just too cool! Bale reminded me of Robert Stack - cool and calculating. A good role for Bale, but again, the characterization lacked fire - Stack had it, so did Kevin Kostner playing Elliot Ness in "The Untouchables." Is this lack of fire a question for the director?

The love between Dillinger and Billie Frechette  (Marion Cotillard) is muted ... somehow or other, the desperation of two lovers in a losing game of life never makes it to the surface - there's no fire, no passion, not even any good old fashioned lust. In every relationship, something is at stake - something vital, powerful, even crazy. But what's at stake here? Was Bille trying to escape a life of being a coat-check girl? Was Dillinger looking for true love? None of that emerges. It's like, okay, so what? Who cares?

As I watched the story unfold, I wasn't rooting for anyone ... too little was at stake.

I think of Ron Howard's "Apollo13" - we all knew how it was going to end, but as the story unfolded, Howard had us all on the edge of our seats. We all suspected that maybe there'd be another ending.

We all know how it's going to end for Dillinger, but no seat-suspense here. No suspicion of another story. No hope that maybe Dillinger and Billie will find true love after all.

As for movie-going enjoyment, can't beat old cars careening through a city, bad guys and good guys standing on the running boards, trench coats streaming, firing away with a Thompson machine gun.

The music is terrific ... I think ... and maybe that's a good sign - I felt the music, as good film music should be.

The sound is awesome - the harsh crash of big caliber weapons ... the sound of prison doors closing ... assorted thuds and bumps ...

The period is beautifully captured  ... but even here, everything seems too stylistic, too clean, more Disneyland than real. I wanted more grit, smoke and dirt; this needed to be a dark film, searchings of the soul - anger, power, hatred - everything here just too cool.   

Clearly, some Oscars here for Michael Mann in terms of technique - maybe sound, maybe music, maybe costuming, but not Best Picture, and I doubt if any of the actors will even be nominated ... but, then, who knows.

The line-up of actors is impressive - how much did Mann pay for this stable?

But the story didn't cut it.

Is this one to see in the theater?

If you're looking for a movie to fill in the gaps, sure.

But otherwise, get it on Netflix.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

I saw it in IMAX - up close and personal.

As for story, well, not as tight as the first one.

This film is all about the special effects, and they are amazing. If you want to see robots fighting, this is the one for you.

Music, sound, editing - it's all done superbly.

Acting in this one wasn't as vibrant at the first, either, but it'll do. I thoroughly enjoy LBeouf - there's a marvelous understatement to his acting - he exudes a sort of "common guy" demeanor, but with an edge of passion - he's fiercely loyal and willing to go the extra mile.

Is this one to see in the theater?

If you like action, special effects, you bet - a good rousing night at the movies! See it now, and see in IMAX if you can.

Food, Inc

What has happened to America's food supply?

It's been fast-fooded and corporatized, with decisions made in board rooms on the 20th floor in a building a 1000 miles away from the chickens and pigs and cows and grains that form the foundation of our diet.

There was a time when meat processing jobs were mostly union, and good jobs they were, equivalent to the auto industry.

But along came the fast food concept - workers hired on the cheap, no unions, trained to do one monotonous task, like putting pickles on the bun, with a demand for huge amounts of beef that all tastes the same.

The meat processing unions were busted a long time ago, and wages fell. Butchering is no longer an art; it's just a factory job now, with tens of thousands of immigrant laborers hired, many of them "illegals". There are now only 16 slaughter houses in the United States; in one of them alone, 32,000 hogs a day are killed.

To satisfy the public, raids are conducted late at night in trailer parks near the slaughter houses. Ten, fifteen immigrants are rounded up and deported. But does anyone go after the corporations?

Did you know that it's a crime to have a beef about beef? Remember the trial of Oprah Winfrey? She won it, but the laws remain on the books. If you publicly have a beef with beef, you could be sued.

Some of the most carefully guarded secrets in America - the giant feed lots wherein cattle stand ankle deep in manure infected with e-coli. Where chickens by the millions are raised in darkness, never seeing the light of day, growing so fast with hormones, their legs can't support them.

And all that e-coli stuff - a cow's gut is made for grass, not corn. Corn, with all of its sugars, breeds e-coli, and it spreads and it spreads and it spreads. And rather than treat the cause, science and technology have now produced an ammonia-treated beef additive to counteract e-coli bacteria, and we're eating it now. 

Corn, which is subsidized by our taxes, is cheaper to raise than its cost.

Cheap American corn, underwritten by our tax dollars, has put a million Mexican farmers out of work, and millions more around the world, putting billions more into a very few pockets.

Here in America, a farmer can no longer save seed for the next year, something farmers have done forever. Because Monsanto has had laws passed making seed-saving a copyright infringement in the last 15 years. Monsanto owns the seed, the DNA design. Even if a farmer uses non-Monsanto seed, if a neighboring Monsanto pollen enters the field, it's copyright infringement, and the farmer can be sued. Yes, it's all legal!

And on and on it goes.

Teddy Roosevelt broke up the beef trust.

But like some ugly wart on the bottom of the foot, the beef trust has grown back, with more chemicals and garbage in the American food chain.

Our children are suffering. We all are.

Obesity and diabetes.

Why should broccoli and carrots cost more than beef? Because we underwrite beef and corn with our taxes.

Everywhere they can, the four giant corporations who control America's food supply do everything they can to put independent growers and producers out of business.

It's a terrible thing. The government seems helpless. The American people are addicted to fast food. The only folks who seem to be doing anything are the unions, and it's time for Americans to realize that unions have done more than anything to keep the workplace safe and blow the whistle on corporate greed.

But like a junkie on the street corner, as long as we can fire up the barbie and have our beef, we close our eyes to the horror of what we're eating, and the human tragedy unfolding across the land and the world, not to mention the inhumane treatment of all the animals. And, as one of the farmers said, "If you begin to treat your animals as a product, you begin treat people in the same way."

Hats off to Michael Pollan ("In Defense of Food) and Eric Schlosser for bringing us this important and rarely heard story.

P.S. check out this New York Times review.

The Proposal

A perfect film, if there can be one. All the elements fit, and fit very well.

First of all, Sandra Bullock has mastered the craft - from the lift of an eyebrow to a catch in her voice, I've never seen anyone with a better sense of timing - the little bits and pieces that add up to a huge screen impression, without being overblown.

Ms. Bulluck plays Margaret Tate, a Canadian immigrant at the top of her profession - a book editor in New York City. There's only one small problem: before her immigration status was resolved, she headed overseas to secure a client, and now immigration officials are deporting her!

Into the office walks her secretary, Andrew Paxton, played ever so well by Ryan Reynolds, her faithful gofur with his own ambitions to be a writer. He's worked, or perhaps slaved, three years for her.

And now when she's about at the end of her career here, headed back to Toronto, unable to work for an American company, she says, "We're getting married."

Immigration jumps on this quickly - if there's any fraud here, it's deportation forever, and jail time for her guy. "Have you told your parents yet?" the sneaky immigration official asks. "I don't have any parents," says Margaret. "But we're going to tell his parents this weekend."

"And where do they live?"

"And where do they live?" says Margaret.

"Sitka. Sitka, Alaska," says Andrew.

Here is where Ms. Bullock offers one of the great moments of film: "Ahhh -las-ka?" with a slight catchin the voice. How she did it, I don't know. But it was one of those remarkable cinematic moments for me.

Bullock and Reynolds are the perfect match, playing skillfully off of each other. He's the nice guy from Alaska; she's the conniving crawl-to-the-top-at-any-price corporate slug. He's at home in a boat; she can't swim. Getting off the plane in Alaska, she's dressed to the nines, as if she were headed to a New York City cocktail party.

And it only gets better - off to Alaska they go to meet his wealthy and powerful family, with one ditzy grandmother played by Betty White. Ditzy or not, she knows a whole lot about life and love.

Andrew's Mom, done by one of my all-time fav actors, Mary Steenburgen, brings a gentle and loving presence to the screen. Her husband, Mr. Paxton, who owns the town, and wants Andrew to return home and take up the reigns of the family business, is done really well by Craig T. Nelson. He captures the character of a man used to getting his way, a man who never has to apologize, a man who believes that his wealth and position confirm his self-opinion - he's right about everything.

Along the way, Oscar Nunez, who's a waiter at the party, a male-stripper and the grocery story manager - he's a hoot, so watch for his performance.

At the heart of the story, Margaret Tate's loss of family and the promise of finding family again.

In one of the most touching moments of the film, she weeps, "I've forgotten what it's like to have a family."

And Andrew, with a family, strong and loving, trying to work out his love for the father, and what the father's love means for him.

The ending?

Oh, you'll have to see it.

Be sure to stay for the credits.

For the guys, don't worry - this isn't a chick flic ... this is a story, this is a film, worth seeing and enjoying, with lots of hearty laughter all along the way.

Hats of the director, Ann Fletcher, who put this one together.

This is one to see in the theater, soon!

Up - Reviewed by Michele Welker Scott

In America’s can-do, make-it-happen-at-any-cost culture, failure is not considered an option. Only the weak surrender; or so we’re lead to believe. But as Walt Disney/Pixar’s latest movie Up shows, sometimes giving up takes more courage than hanging on.

Up tells the story of two men who have spent their lives striving for a dream. One, dashing explorer Charles Muntz , has circled the globe making amazing scientific discoveries. But when a terrible rumor tarnishes his reputation, Muntz is determined to clear the shadow from his name. The other, Carl Fredrickson, has spent his life dreaming of adventure. But while he’s longed to go exploring, somehow life has always gotten in the way.

Both men are determined to live out their dreams, but only one is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish them.

Although children will enjoy the silly antics of the animals and giggle over the humorous dialogue of the talking dogs, Up is ultimately a grownup’s film. Just as The Incredibles dealt with middle-aged angst in the form of aging superheroes, Up tackles the even tougher issues: the anguish of childlessness, the wearying grind of daily life, and the grief and loneliness that follow the death of a spouse or the abandonment of a parent.

Death and abandonment are not new topics to Disney films, of course. In The Lion King, little Simba’s father is murdered; and in Toy Story, Woody the cowboy purposely turns his back on Buzz Lightyear, letting the space ranger fall into the hands of the bully next door. But the tragedies in Up hit much closer to home, and – as a result – closer to the heart as well. The first twenty minutes of this movie are, at times, almost too painful to watch.

But the movie, however sad, does not wallow in its troubles. As with any Disney film, there are moments of pure magic .

The scene in which Mr. Fredrickson releases of his attic full of balloons and sends his house soaring above the city is filled with such beauty and child-like wonder that it outshines any children’s movie I’ve seen in a very long time. Russell, the earnest chubby-cheeked Wilderness Scout, also has his share of humorous moments. And the dim-witted but pure-hearted Dug the talking dog is as endearing a character as Jiminy Cricket. No, Up may be an adult’s movie, but there is just enough laughter and zaniness to make the even the youngest viewers love it as well. And the nostalgic touch of nineteen-forties style adventure will make audiences of any age enjoy it.

The crowning achievement of this movie, however, is not the silliness, but its affirmation of selflessness and sacrifice. The movies tells us that giving up on ambition is not cowardly; in fact, it may be the most heroic thing a person can do.

For when it comes to dreams, sometimes it’s necessary to let go of one in order to be free to grab onto another.