Lincoln - Review

Lincoln
(2012)
Biography | Drama | History
2 hr. 29 min.
 

Rated: PG-13 Intense Scene of War Violence, Brief Strong Language and Some Images of Carnage: Common Sense Media says OK for kids 13+ Read More Grade: C

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Tony Kushner (screenplay), Doris Kearns Goodwin (book) (in part)
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and David Strathairn | See full cast and crew

Steven Spielberg directs Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. -- (C) Walt Disney

I expected something remarkable judging from the previews over the past months. I really wanted to like it BUT, it was BORING! BORING!! BORING!!! Had I been watching it at home on TV I would have changed the channel. Of course, Hollywood and the critics are falling all over themselves in praising this film, and we have come to expect something special, of high quality from Steven Spielberg but not so much this time. It was an overproduced, melodramatic, pretentious, pompous, pontificating, costume drama, riddled with awful writing and boorish over acting. The period costumes, makeup and wigs became a distracting entity of their own. Spielberg has been working on this film for about 15 years (originally to star Liam Neeson who along the way became too old for the part) and the film feels like he didn't know when to stop, too much tinkering and tweaking.

Lincoln is not about the president's life in general, from rail splitter to the White House. It is about the last few months of his life, his battle to pass the 13th Amendment and his personal family struggles. Tony Kushner's screenplay, carries a lot of the blame, based on the Doris Kearns Goodwin award-winning book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Rather than a bi-pic it is about political machinations of his administration. Woopie! There is a good deal of profanity including several G** D***s and one F*** and Lincoln tells a lot of 'folksy wisdom' stories including one revolving around a privie and S**t, all of which apparently, misters Kushner and Spielberg felt were absolutely essential in portraying Lincoln's story, it just can't legitimately be done without vulgarity, blasphemy and profanity.

I expected at least a good performance from Daniel Day-Lewis and he certainly looks the part, most of the time, other times the makeup is too obvious. Acting wise he did a good job too...if you think Walter Brennan from the 1957 TV series The Real McCoys would make a good President Lincoln. Sally Fields has become a screeching caricature of herself, over acting like Bette Davis at the end of her career (or should I say most of her career). David Strathairn was as unconvincing as he normally is and you have your standard Hal Holbrook. The only standout in the cast was Tommy Lee Jones and it was only noteworthy in contrast to the lackluster performances surrounding him.

At least they got it right that it was Republican Conservatives that fought for the 13th Amendment, that Democrats including Northeastern Liberal Democrats that opposed the amendment, as well as opposing black suffrage. They also got it right that President Lincoln abused his executive authority and skirted the constitution in order to achieve his goals (something we see over and over again today).

I suppose there is some value to the film but I would have a difficult time recommending it. It is long, slow, tedious and dull.

Plot

Lincoln wants to pass the 13th Amendment against seemingly impossible odds. His republican party is not united and the democrats are united in their opposition. How can he make political deals and strong arm opponents into supporting him, blah blah blah. You know the outcome.

Cast

 

           Daniel Day-Lewis       Sally Field       Joseph Gordon-Levitt     

Abraham Lincoln        Mary Todd Lincoln          Robert Lincoln

 Tommy Lee Jones      David Strathairn          Hal Holbrook  

Thaddeus Stevens            William Seward                Preston Blair

    James Spader       Tim Blake Nelson         John Hawkes   

        W.N.Bilbo                 Richard Schell                Robert Latham  

Looper - Review

Looper
(2012)
Action/Adventure, SciFi/Fantasy
Runtime:1 hr 59 min

Rated: R Some Sexuality/Nudity, Language, Drug Content and Strong Violence

Grade: B+

Director: Rian Johnson
Writer: Rian Johnson
Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt | See full cast and crew

In the futuristic action thriller Looper, time travel will be invented - but it will be illegal and only available on the black market. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target 30 years into the past, where a "looper" - a hired gun, like Joe - is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good... until the day the mob decides to "close the loop," sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

Looper is very original, creative, and well crafted storytelling. It has a sort of Twelve Monkeys / Blade Runner / Total Recall feel to it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. In my opinion the best Sci-Fi movie of recent years, and perhaps one of the top 10 of all times. I'd have given it a higher grade if not for the unnecessary nudity and profanity. Although it is still early, according to the movie tracking website 'Rotten Tomatoes', both critics and the public agree on this film by a positive rating of 92% and 91% respectively. (Read more)

Old Joe (Bruce Willis) and wife Summer Qing (Qing Xu)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis are excellent. Pierce Gagnon as the little boy Cid is also a standout performance by a child actor. Emily Blunt (like Collin Farrel) does a great job of obliterating any trace of her English accent. The script and direction by Rian Johnson (in his second film) keeps you engaged throughout. It certainly didn't feel like a 2 Hr. movie, I never once checked my watch.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Beatrix (Traci Toms) and Old Joe (Bruce Willis) at the diner.

The trailers tell you enough of the story without giving away anything that will ruin the ending. Joe is a looper, a hired assassin, who a criminal syndicate from the future pays, in bars of silver, to get rid of people they want eliminated so they end them back in time to the 'looper' to kill and dispose of the body erasing any trace of that person in the future. When the syndicate no longer needs the services of a particular looper, they close the loop.  This is done by locating the looper in the future and sending him back in time with bars of gold strapped to his body as payment to the looper himself to be killed. The gold bar retirement program is to provide a good lifestyle for the looper for the next 30 years at which time he will quickly begin to disintegrate until he vanishes into oblivion. Joe suddenly finds he has just been 'retired' but Old Joe escapes and now he has a real problem on his hands and must hunt is future self down and eliminate him before his boss (Jeff Daniels) has him killed for his screw-up. Entanglements with an assortment of other characters complicates this task even further.

I don't want to write a spoiler here, so I won't do a synopsis. Suffice it to say that I recommend it, with the considerable caveat of the nudity and language, which is really unfortunate because I think it would be intriguing to teens, but I don't approve of subjecting them to those negative elements. Yes, I know they have heard it all and worse from the mouths of their peers at school, at the the mall, well...practically everywhere but that's no reason to tacitly condoning such conduct by paying to subject them to more of it.

Cast

Joseph                    Bruce

Gordon-Levitt             Willis

Joe                                   Old Joe

 Emily Blunt          Pierce Gagnon

Sara                                     Cid

 Paul Dano             Noah Segan

 Seth                                Kid Blue

Jeff Daniels           Garret Dillahunt

Abe                                   Jesse

Premium Rush - Review

Premium Rush
24 August 2012 (USA)
91 min - Action | Thriller

Rated: PG-13
Foul Language

Director: David Koepp

Writers: David Koepp, John Kamps

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Shannon and Dania Ramirez | See full cast and crew

Grade: C+

In Manhattan, a bike messenger picks up an envelope that attracts the interest of a dirty cop, who pursues the cyclist throughout the city.

The tag line on the poster gives and indication of what is most important, gutter language or the title of the film (Of course Ride like Hell is mild as compared to the unnecessary use of foul and profane language that permeates the film's dialogue). It would have been a much more enjoyable film without the trash talk.

Dodging speeding cars, crazed cabbies, open doors, and eight million cranky pedestrians is all in a day's work for Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the best of New York's agile and aggressive bicycle messengers. It takes a special breed to ride the fixie - super lightweight, single-gear bikes with no brakes and riders who are equal part skilled cyclists and suicidal nutcases who risk becoming a smear on the pavement every time they head into traffic. But a guy who's used to putting his life on the line is about to get more than even he is used to when a routine delivery turns into a life or death chase through the streets of Manhattan. When Wilee picks up his last envelope of the day on a premium rush run, he discovers this package is different. This time, someone is actually trying to kill him. -- (C) Sony

Judging from the trailer this looks like a fast paced, cool, story about a hip bike messenger in the Big Apple innocently caught up in a dangerous web criminal intrigue. Well, that assumption is at least partly right, but if you have ever had to navigate the streets of New York (either driving or on foot) you have almost certainly had a brush with one of these haughty, sweaty, smelly, obnoxious bikers who arrogantly claim the streets of Manhattan as there own expecting absolute impunity for their utter disdain for traffic laws and the safety of anyone else on the street.

Certainly the bike riding is amazing and exciting for about 30 minutes or so, but it gets old pretty fast and with a paper thin formulaic plot it runs out of steam as the events get more and more unbelievable.  The best moments of the Premium Rush are the 'stop time' moments where Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in a split second must decide his course through a congested intersection...with his eyes squinted in close-up, he decides whether to peel to the right (nope, he'd hit a baby in it's carriage), peel to the left (nope, he'd get flattened by a UPS truck) or find some alternate crazy route kinked with twists and turns (yep, by the skin of his teeth he squeaks through with his life intact).

Sadly, Detective Monday (Michael Shannon) is like a caricature from a Roadrunner cartoon, totally unbelievable. Wilee's girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) also gives a paper-doll performance. The frustrated Bike Cop (Christopher Place) turns in a decent comic relief cameo performance but there aren't really any good performances in the film aside from Joseph Gordon-Levitt and that simply isn't enough.

Then we get to one of my pet peeves. Gutter language. If I must be subjected to trashy profanity on a daily basis in real life...I certainly don't want to pay good money to be subjected to more of it. What ever happened to the idea/art of 'creative writing'? Are real-life bike messengers going to use trashy language...in New York? Are you kidding? As they say in the Big Apple, "Forget about it!", still, motion pictures are fictional. They don't have to use constantly use the 'F bomb' in order to relate an intriguing story.

One other thing I'll give the writers credit for is that they chose to make the bad cop just that 'a bad cop', for once at least there isn't some contagion of corruption in the police department, it's just one bad cop. I am so tired of the Hollywood morality that dictates that all authority figures must be on the take. Just because Hollywood has the morals of alley cats (with my apologies to alley cats everywhere) it doesn't mean the rest of the world subscribes to 'Moviland's' cesspool standards.

Cast

Joseph Gordon-Levitt           Dania Ramirez    

 Michael Shannon             Christopher Place