Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line:  Another “only you can save us” teen drama.  Pretty well done, but in a crowded field.  An enjoyable movie with not much else to comment on.

“Tomorrowland” starts of in the realm of a kid’s movie.  Fluffy, light, and enjoyable for all ages.  I was worried.  It got better.  It follows the predictable teen movie pattern that is all the rage these days since Harry Potter first appeared on the scene.  Special teen kid.  Destined for greatness.  Doubts self.  Finds confidence.  Saves day.  Sure, we’ve seen it all before, but it’s a damn successful formula.  All it takes is a bit of nuance and some originality thrown in and you have yourself an acceptable movie.  And acceptable “Tomorrowland” is.

Unsurprisingly, the movie got good when George Clooney showed up.  He plays Frank Walker, a man exiled from Tomorrowland who must help Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) get to Tomorrowland so she can save the world.  Clooney is just a hell of an actor and he and Robertson have some decent chemistry together.  I’m not sure how they got Clooney to star in this movie.  Or Hugh Laurie for that matter.  It really doesn’t seem like their thing.  The movie must have looked much better on paper than in execution.

The story is interesting enough.  The bad guy, Nix (Hugh Laurie), is actually a sympathetic villain.  Almost all his motivations, I’m thinking to myself, “Well, that’s totally reasonable.”  This is a formulaic movie so they also must make him do formulaic bad guy stuff, but Nix is really just a guy with good intentions which had unfortunate side effects.

There is a surprising amount of violence in this movie and quite a bit of death, especially for a Disney tagged movie.  Much of it is gratuitous.  It’s all people being evaporated so there’s no blood, but the callousness of it is still surprising.

Is “Tomorrowland” worth seeing?  Meh, maybe?  It was certainly enjoyable and much of the futuristic effects were pretty cool.  If you enjoy all the other “teen saves the world” stuff like “Hunger Games” and “Divergent”, you’ll likely get something out of “Tomorrowland” as well.  If not, you should probably find your entertainment elsewhere.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A taut non-stop action packed extravaganza.  Sharp visuals.  Perfect soundtrack.  Deeply interesting mythos.

You want to see this film.  I want to see this film again.  Not since the original “The Matrix” movie has there been such beautifully choreographed action scenes.  I’ll have to watch the two together when “Fury Road” gets released on DVD to see which reigns supreme.

The world of Mad Max is perfect for the big screen.  It is both shallow and easy to understand while hiding a lot of depth and complexity just ripe for exploring.  “Fury Road” tackles both aspects of the mythos for maximum effect.  It is amazing to me how much is packed into the two hour run-time of this movie.  Normally, two hours would be a really long time to sit through what can only be described as a single chase scene, but so much interesting story matter is thrown in that you don’t feel like you’ve sat in your seat for two hours.  The pacing is near perfect.

What’s also very interesting is how little dialogue there is in the movie.  Tom Hardy, who plays Max, grunts his way through the entire movie more than he speaks and yet he speaks volumes.  It is a shame that he won’t be nominated for Best Supporting Actor because he does such a good job of emoting.  It really is brilliant.  And notice that I say Best SUPPORTING Actor because that’s what he is in this movie.  Max is more a bystander thrown into events beyond his control than the instigator of the story.  The star is without a doubt the war machine driving, ass-kicking Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron).  Furiosa does quite a bit more talking than Max does, but it is again the emoting that shows through the most.

What makes the movie even better is all the women kick all the ass.  The damsels in distress are rescued by a woman and don’t waste any time jumping into the fight as they race their way to freedom.  They are eventually joined by motorcycle riding grannies who also kick so much ass.  It’s sad that it is so rare for Hollywood to produce a movie, let alone an action movie, with a plethora of three-dimensional women that it becomes necessary to note it when it happens.  More of this please, Hollywood.

This was such a fun movie.  It is certainly one that can be enjoyed again and again.  There are also almost certainly aspects of the movie that will be missed on first viewing since there is so much going on.  It is without a doubt a visual extravaganza.  Go experience it.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A very effective minimalist movie with high production value. A character driven look into what it means to be human.  The ending is a bit flawed.

What does it mean to be human?  Where is that line and when does one cross it?  “Ex Machina” provides a compelling narrative that focuses on those questions.  A young programmer, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), works at a fictional Google-like company and he wins a lottery which allows him to visit the reclusive brilliant owner of the company, Nathan (Oscar Issac), at his isolated retreat for a week.  It is soon revealed that the real reason Caleb is there is so he can perform a Turing Test on Nathan’s super-secret artificial intelligence, Ava (Alicia Vikander).  A Turing Test is a thought exercise in which a human interacts with an artificial intelligence (AI) to see if the AI exhibits any traits of being non-human.

The movie is broken down into a series of meetings between Caleb and Ava and then a follow-up on the events between Caleb and Nathan.  When you have a movie that consists almost entirely of one-on-one interactions, the dialogue better be good and “Ex Machina” provides a wonderful script.  To back up the wonderful writing, there is a perfectly themed musical score that helps establish the mood and leads to a deeper sense of tension and foreboding.  Movement, language, and music combine into a single on-screen entity.  It is near masterful.

Then comes the ending.  The ending isn’t bad, it’s just kind of unfulfilling.  There are a bunch of loose ends that don’t make much sense.  There is a moment when the end should have occurred, but it kept on going.  I always blame endings like this on test audiences and studio executives.  A good movie got made, but the ending was the price the director paid to get it made in the first place.

Despite the less than fulfilling ending, “Ex Machina” is worth seeing.  You don’t get many compelling, dialogue driven movies these days what with the superheroes and the explosions so it’s good to see the United States is still capable of creating compelling movies that deviate from the norm.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Too many heroes spoils the plot.  Sufficiently comic-y action sequences.  Some good self-effacing humor.

This is the Avengers I was afraid of.  “Age of Ultron” is a “cram everything in so it’s stuffed full of what everyone wants” type of movie that leaves you feeling a bit empty.  It’s not that it wasn’t fun, because it certainly was at times, it’s more that it’s forgettable.  The movie is also not helped by the flimsy narrative which doesn’t give much to build on for the Marvel uninitiated.  I am somewhere in between and I was often left with a questioning look at various parts of the movie.  This often happens with the closing credit easter eggs that foretell the next movies, but to have these moments in the middle of a movie is inexcusable.  For instance, there is a new superhero introduced over half way through the film.  If like me you do not know the mythology, you will be completely lost as to how they fail to give him a name throughout even though he ends up joining the Avengers at the end.

The action in the movie is equal parts fun and sensory overload.  There’s lots of comic-y stuff going on for the overly geeky.  Lots of combo moves that you know damn well have names to them that “in the know” comic book geeks everywhere are cackling gleefully about as they occur on the screen.  The problem is that when you have a group of superpowered superheroes doing battle with a mostly pedestrian villain, the only way to make fights even remotely interesting is to throw the kitchen sink at them.  This leads to a garbled mess of a fight that can only be enjoyed by showing a once in the while slow motion vingette of action.

The one part where “Age of Ultron” shines is in its humor.  This is all Joss Whedon.  He is equal parts superfan and able to recognize the absurdity of the genre and he uses that gift with great results.  There is some great Thor’s hammer humor as well as Hawkeye’s self-effacing recognitions of how underpowered he is.

The biggest problem is Ultron.  His creation is poorly explained, his motivations are childish, the Avengers’ reactions to him make little sense, and he’s just not that interesting of a villain as a result.  I blame this on having too many A-list superheroes in the same movie all of whom need their individual moments of glory.  That’s how you end up with a two and a half hour movie with a shoestring plot.

Yes, the movie was fun.  Yes, you should see it if you’re a fan of superhero movies.  No, you will likely not look back at it with the fondness of the first Avengers movie.  Ultron ain’t no Loki.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: An unusual movie with unusual stars.  Well acted.  Well paced.  Some parts don’t fit well into the narrative.

I knew next to nothing about this movie going in.  Only that it starred Jonah Hill and James Franco.  Despite that starring duo, this is not a comedy.  So not a comedy.  James Franco has long since established himself as a versatile actor so seeing a great dramatic performance by him is not surprising.  Prior to “True Story”, Jonah Hill has been mostly a comedy guy.  Even in “Moneyball”, which is considered more of a serious movie, he was still the comic relief.  With his performance in this movie, Jonah Hill will likely open up many doors to more serious roles.

Shockingly enough, “True Story” is based on a true story.  And it’s one of those truth is stranger than fiction stories.  Reporter Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill) accidentally discovers a story about a man named Christian Longo (James Franco) who is accused of killing his family and then assuming Finkel’s identity while on the run.  Finkel and Longo then strike up a parasitic relationship of sorts.  Much of the movie’s time focuses on that relationship.

This is a movie with a lot of subtleness in it so it requires your full attention.  As this is mostly a duel of words between Finkel and Longo, phrases and facial expressions become important.  There are some great moments of creeping realizations and mock emotions showing across the faces of both Finkel and Longo throughout.  Can Finkel trust Longo?  Can Longo trust Finkel?  They both have much to gain and little to lose from their relationship so we look to their faces for subtle clues that may lead to the truth.

My only real problem with the movie is the unusual amount of time spent on Finkel’s girlfriend, Jill Barker (Felicity Jones).  She is used to great effect as a sort of tension builder and she also has a pretty effective confrontation scene near the end of the film even if it doesn’t quite make sense.  She just seems to not belong to the movie, though.  She’s kind of outside of the story looking in.  It works, but even after the film was over I was left wondering why she was there.

The creepiness factor of James Franco alone makes this movie worth seeing.  Add the good performance by Jonah Hill and the strange but true plot line and you have a movie worth seeing.  It’s definitely not a light watching movie, though, so be prepared to pay attention and watch out for some creepy pictures of dead children.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: An interesting true story of one woman’s fight to get back a painting that was taken from her family.  It’s got Helen Mirren, so yea, good acting.  Even Ryan Reynolds is surprisingly good.

The recent 100 year anniversary of the Armenian genocide is a stark reminder of how difficult it is to get a government to admit past wrongdoings, let alone make amends for the worngdoings that would otherwise be easily fixable.  Nationalism has a lot to do with that.  It allows you to turn a blind eye to both.  Thus was Austria in the 1990’s.  Germany was forced to reconcile its wrongdoings after World War II, but Austria was able to claim it was a conquered nation, which is technically true except for the fact that the Nazis were welcomed with open arms by a good portion of the population.  This allowed Austria to blithely keep tons of treasures stolen from Jewish families that were exiled, escaped, or were murdered and claim ignorance of the fact.  “Woman in Gold” is the true story of one woman’s fight to force Austria to confront its demons and make right what it got so very wrong.

At the center of the story is a Gustav Klimt painting called “Portrait of Adele”, or for a short time because of the subject’s Jewishness “Woman in Gold”.  Yep, that’s right.  The Nazis changed the name of a painting because it portrayed a Jewish woman.  Sick fucks.  Maria Altman (Helen Mirren) is the daughter and rightful heir of both “Portrait of Adele” (who also happened to be Maria’s aunt) and other Klimt paintings and despite the obviousness of this fact, Austria continued to maintain ownership.  The movie is about her fight to get her possessions back.

The movie is very well acted (because Helen Mirren) and strikes a very good balance between uplifting and depressing.  Even Ryan Reynolds turns in a good performance as Maria’s unlikely lawyer, Randol Schoenberg.  It’s not quite the role you’d expect Reynolds to play so kudos to him for successfully branching out.  It was very interesting how they took what is really an incredibly boring and technical real life courtroom drama and just used the necessary bits and pieces of that drama to tell a wide-ranging and emotional true story.

I am a sucker for well told true history movies so obviously I would recommend this movie to just about anyone.  It tell a story that would normally fall through the cracks of history and tells it well.  States need to confront their past and make amends for their future.  If only we were capable of such.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A silly but fun movie.  A little too long for an action movie.  Yes, you will roll your eyes at times, but that’s to be expected.

Believe it or not, this is the first of the “Fast and Furious” movies that I have seen.  I took the extremely easy gamble that there was very little backstory worth knowing for the cast of returning characters and lo and behold I was right.

The movie opens with Dekard Shaw (Jason Statham) in a hospital room talking to his injured and presumed comatose brother and vowing revenge upon those who put him in the hospital.  Then Dekard Shaw leaves the hospital.  I mention this scene because, as you will see if you watch “Furious 7”, it sets the stage beautifully for the kind of film you are in for.  All flash and style and very little substance.  Knowing this from the beginning can be the key to enjoying this type of movie.

The movie has lots of cars, lots of action, lots of hardbodies (both male and female), and lots of ridiculousness.  The latter is ok because everyone is in on the joke.  And speaking of jokes, there are none in this film.  Check that.  Roman (Tyrese Gibson) is supposed to be the comic relief but everything he does falls flat.  In fact, the only way you will know that Roman is supposed to be the comic relief is everybody’s repeated insistence that Roman is the comic relief.  On some level, the writers must have known this and used the other characters as a sort of “Applause” sign to tell the audience when to laugh.

There is a little bit too much setup and, at 137 minutes, “Furious 7” tries the patience somewhat for an action movie with little story to tell.  Somewhat disappointingly, most of the cool scenes can be viewed in the trailers for the movie and you are just treated to longer versions of the trailer.  All of this is ok because you know what you’re getting into when you sit down to see a movie like “Furious 7”.  It is light, fluffy, forgettable, and fun to watch once.  Once.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom line: Some interesting glimpses at obsession and compulsion. Otherwise, a story that falls flat and refused to hold my interest.

Lynn is a chambermaid in a hotel.  As the movie begins, she is just getting her job back after a mysterious absence.  It is soon revealed that she was self-institutionalized for some reason and as the movie progresses, that reason becomes clear.  Lynn has compulsions.  Luckily (?) for her, cleaning is one of them.  The other has to do with her hiding under guests beds and getting a voyeuristic look into various guests’ habits.  During one of her under bed adventures, a guest has a dominatrix over and the session so piques Lynn’s interest that she steals the dominatrix’s contact information and starts sessions of her own.  Lynn’s compulsions gradually get worse as the film progresses and then the film kind of just ends on a very strange note.

There is a lot of film student stuff going on in this movie that I can recognize, but just not appreciate without a compelling story to go with it.  A vast majority of Lynn’s time under the various beds are shot solely from Lynn’s under bed perspective.  The use of camera angles and lighting and strategic mirrors is very well done.  The musical score is also noticeably appropriate.

Whenever I don’t get a film as much as I didn’t get “The Chambermaid”, I always attempt to see what actual critics think and the consensus seems to be general praise.  Strangely, many picked up on a blurb from somewhere that called “The Chambermaid” the “Fifty Shades of Grey” of Germany.  They seemed to be saying that as a compliment, but I can only imagine that they know nothing about “Fifty Shades” or were using it as a backhanded compliment while still rightfully praising the cinematographic accomplishments of the film.

I really can’t recommend “The Chambermaid” unless you’re all into that fancy technical directorial stuff.  I’m pretty sure at this point I should just give up on seeing German films.  Of the three German films I saw for the film festival, only one was any good and that one was only nominally German.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A wonderful, positive, realistic look at what it’s like living as a transwoman in Finland.  Starts with an unusual premise and roll with it into a beautiful character study of all the people the main character interacts with.

I am way behind on my EU Film Festival movie reviews.  “Open Up To Me” is the last of the films, but it’s fresh in my memory and was so delightful and such a great way to end the festival that I wanted to get it down first.

Maarit (Leea Klemola) is a transwoman trying to get by in Helsinki.  Despite formerly being a school counselor, she faces discrimination after her transformation and must work as a cleaning lady to make ends meet.  When going to clean the office of a therapist, she discovers that the therapist must go out of town for a couple of weeks to deal with an emergency.  Using this newfound guaranteed privacy, she decides to try on some of the therapists clothes.  (As an aside, this marks the second movie of the festival that features a cleaning lady trying on other people’s clothes.  Strange that.)  While in the therapist’s clothes, a new client, Sami (Peter Franzen) shows up asking for marital advice and Maarit poses as a real therapist and helps him.  They develop a relationship through this and the movie blossoms into a character study of a handful of the individuals in Maarit’s life.

I obviously have no experience being a transwoman, but this movie feels perfectly organic the way it portrays trans issues.  There’s the daunting dating scene.  There’s the discriminating job market. There’s the angry and confused ex-wife.  There’s the teenage daughter who barely understands the new dynamic thrust upon her.  All of it is handled wonderfully and it is the key to what makes this movie work.  There is humor and love and heartache and betrayal and confusion all rolled together to form the life of Maarit.

My one complaint about the movie is a brief fifteen minute or so bit of disjointedness.  The movie kind of loses its way at this point, but it picks it up quickly where it left off and ends on one of the better feel good movie ending lines I’ve witnessed.  If you have a chance to see this foreign film gem, I highly recommend it.