Meet Phil and Claire. Boring people with busy lives and eccentric offspring. They’re looking for a way to spice up they’re marriage. So they do what any other couple would do: seek therapy.
However, Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire (Tina Fey) have a different idea of what constitutes therapy: running from dirty cops and hitmen while bringing down a mob boss and a crooked politician. Who needs counseling when your life is in peril?
This movie would fail if it's only redeeming qualities were the wild stunts. The couple’s excape from central Park is peppered with humor, but it’s not believable. The chase sequence featuring Carrell crawling between the drivers seats of two cars welded together is beautifully shot - filled with suspense and witty dialog, but the whole thing reeks of improbability. The awkward dancing in the gentleman’s club leading to the ultimate end of the Foster’s adventure will make you laugh (or blush) yet it is so far beyond unlikely to be plausible in anyone’s imagination.
Yet this mash up of a romantic comedy and action thriller succeeds. I was amused and entertained. Date Night is a great movie for a date night.
What makes this movie work is the relationship between Phil and Claire. They’re normal people with an imperfect marriage and spastic children. They could be any of us. Their predictable dinner dates are much like the date nights of most married Americans. Their conversations (while being slightly funnier than the typical human) are natural and wholly believable as conversations that transpire between two married individuals. They react to stress like anyone else. And the many dangers they endure throughout the movie are not remedies, they’re reminders. This isn’t a movie about how Phil and Claire fix their marriage, it’s about how much Phil and Claire love each other. Whatever (hypothetically) happens after the final scene, they will still be boring people with busy lives and eccentric offspring. Yet they are busy and boring people in love.
Showing posts with label Mila Kunis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mila Kunis. Show all posts
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Book of Eli
"What movie are we going to go see?" Bekah asked.
"Book of Eli."
"Who's in it?"
"Denzel Washington."
"You know I love me some Denzel. What is it about?"
"30 years after a cataclysmic war..."
"Is it another post-apocalyptic movie?"
I nodded my head, "Yes."
"What is it with you and post-apocalyptic movies?!"
This is how our conversation started as my wife and I left the house on Saturday afternoon. Yes, it is a post-apocalyptic movie, but it’s got Denzel and Bekah is a fan of Denzel.
Now to finish the thought: 30 years after a cataclysmic war, we meet Eli (Denzel Washington). He’s been walking for 30 years because God told him to take the only remaining Bible west to someplace where it would be safe. Religion was blamed for the war and all known religious texts were destroyed. (However, both Mussolini’s biography and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code survived.)
All is going well. Eli has cat for dinner (which he shares with a mouse), acquires a new pair of boots from a corpse, and falls asleep while listening to Al Green. All Eli has to do is stay on the path. But his MP3 player’s battery dies and needs recharged. He passes through a town that has the ability to recharge electronics and access to clean drinking water (aka – the good stuff). It is at this point that Eli’s path is broken.
The town is ruled by the intelligent yet diabolical Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who is hungry for power. He is an avid reader, and is searching for a Bible. When he finds out Eli has one, Carnegie pursues Eli to forcibly take it. To complicate matters, rebellious girl Solara (Mila Kunis), the daughter of Carnegie’s blind servant wants to go with Eli to where ever he is going. Eli is reluctant (for her own protection) but agrees to her company.
The movie is a sci-fi homage to the western genre (including a mid-town standoff and ensuing shootout). It is also a morality tale filled with religious allegory. God’s word is presented from two diametrically opposite view points: Eli believes the Bible has the power to save humanity, and Carnegie sees it as a weapon. Eli’s violent methods of self defense (and the lengths he takes to protect the Bible) are a stark contrast to his beliefs. In a short explanation for his actions, Eli admits that after reading the Bible every day for 30 years, he’s missed the message it teaches.
Graciously, the film makers do not use the religious tone to harangue non-believers into becoming God-fearing believers. While the message of the movie is about the power of faith, the only condemnation portrayed is a discourse on modern consumerism. Solara asks what life was like before the war; Eli explains we had more than we needed and we threw away stuff that people now kill for.
Coloring is as much a part of the cast as Denzel or Oldman. The Hughes Brothers drained the film of color leaving mostly sepia tints of brown, gray, and green. It is an interesting lesson in using color to tell a story, but in the long run is a burdensome. The desert landscapes and burnt skies set the mood for the movie but it adds a sense of somnolence to an all ready despondent plot. The Hughes Brothers play this aspect of film making to a maddening degree – exploiting it with wide panoramic shots of clouds, distant injections of barren wastelands, excessive close ups, and silhouetted action sequences.
While the coloring is overbearing, it also highlights moments of poignant grief – most memorably (without spoiling the plot) is Eli reading from Second Timothy chapter four in the final scene.
There are bits of biting humor. Eli smelling roadside bandits. Eli sending Solara to retrieve his sunglasses. The crazy old couple serving tea. And in one of my favorite scenes, Solara asks Eli to read the Bible to her (she – like most people under the age of 30 can’t read because they were born after the war). Eli quotes Psalm 23 which Solara states is beautiful. She asks Eli if he wrote it; he answers “yes” before admitting he’s joking.
However, neither heartbreak nor humor is the vehicle that carries this mission of faith. This is more Bekah’s warning than mine: it is a little violent. And by a little, I mean it is violent on an epically gratuitous scale. Limbs are severed, heads are decapitated, the air is filled with gunfire and explosions, and there are several references to cannibalism. Eli handles his weaponry (machete, bow & arrow, pistol and sawed-off shotgun) with surgical accuracy. Carnegie uses a brutally destructive arsenal to hunt down Eli (rocket launchers and gatling guns). And it is all done with the stylistic finesse of the gospel according to Kill Bill.
Be prepared. The pacing is slow. In the first ten minutes of film, the only dialog is Eli talking to a mouse. The tenor of the movie is also unsettling (likely done intentionally). Watching Eli sharpen his machete while listening to How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is a little disconcerting.
The acting is as good as it the post-apocalyptic genre gets. Gary Oldman is convincing in his maniacal thirst for power. Denzel Washington’s devotion (and ultimately compassion) proves his worth in Hollywood. Even Mila Kunis (despite looking like she’s dressed in the best Banana Republic the apocalypse has to offer) perfectly portrays the dichotomy of naïveté and emotional strength. There are also a couple of great cameos from Tom Waits (musician) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange).
Bekah recommends it as a movie worth watching but not one she’d want to see more than once. I want to see it again – if only to see if Denzel’s character stays true to the story’s final twist. The Book of Eli is also a great way to launch conversations about matters of faith. This movie sparked more discussion between Bekah and me than any other movie since... well... that I can remember.
Our dialog continued from the theater to the car (and for most of the drive home from Spokane Valley).
“Would you do that? Would you walk for 30 years?” Bekah asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It was a little too violent... and too much swearing.” Yet she likes the Die Hard movies which expels more bullets than a trigger happy NRA member at a shooting range and drops more f-bombs than a drunken sailor.
“Well,” I rebutted, “most of the violence was in self defense, and the vulgarity was from the bad guys.”
“True. And Eli’s motivation made sense. But still... did they have to show the guys head getting chopped off? And with a machete? It’s just so much more personal.”
PS: for the record, I’ve satisfied my post-apocalyptic fix for a while.
"Book of Eli."
"Who's in it?"
"Denzel Washington."
"You know I love me some Denzel. What is it about?"
"30 years after a cataclysmic war..."
"Is it another post-apocalyptic movie?"
I nodded my head, "Yes."
"What is it with you and post-apocalyptic movies?!"
This is how our conversation started as my wife and I left the house on Saturday afternoon. Yes, it is a post-apocalyptic movie, but it’s got Denzel and Bekah is a fan of Denzel.
Now to finish the thought: 30 years after a cataclysmic war, we meet Eli (Denzel Washington). He’s been walking for 30 years because God told him to take the only remaining Bible west to someplace where it would be safe. Religion was blamed for the war and all known religious texts were destroyed. (However, both Mussolini’s biography and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code survived.)
All is going well. Eli has cat for dinner (which he shares with a mouse), acquires a new pair of boots from a corpse, and falls asleep while listening to Al Green. All Eli has to do is stay on the path. But his MP3 player’s battery dies and needs recharged. He passes through a town that has the ability to recharge electronics and access to clean drinking water (aka – the good stuff). It is at this point that Eli’s path is broken.
The town is ruled by the intelligent yet diabolical Carnegie (Gary Oldman) who is hungry for power. He is an avid reader, and is searching for a Bible. When he finds out Eli has one, Carnegie pursues Eli to forcibly take it. To complicate matters, rebellious girl Solara (Mila Kunis), the daughter of Carnegie’s blind servant wants to go with Eli to where ever he is going. Eli is reluctant (for her own protection) but agrees to her company.
The movie is a sci-fi homage to the western genre (including a mid-town standoff and ensuing shootout). It is also a morality tale filled with religious allegory. God’s word is presented from two diametrically opposite view points: Eli believes the Bible has the power to save humanity, and Carnegie sees it as a weapon. Eli’s violent methods of self defense (and the lengths he takes to protect the Bible) are a stark contrast to his beliefs. In a short explanation for his actions, Eli admits that after reading the Bible every day for 30 years, he’s missed the message it teaches.
Graciously, the film makers do not use the religious tone to harangue non-believers into becoming God-fearing believers. While the message of the movie is about the power of faith, the only condemnation portrayed is a discourse on modern consumerism. Solara asks what life was like before the war; Eli explains we had more than we needed and we threw away stuff that people now kill for.
Coloring is as much a part of the cast as Denzel or Oldman. The Hughes Brothers drained the film of color leaving mostly sepia tints of brown, gray, and green. It is an interesting lesson in using color to tell a story, but in the long run is a burdensome. The desert landscapes and burnt skies set the mood for the movie but it adds a sense of somnolence to an all ready despondent plot. The Hughes Brothers play this aspect of film making to a maddening degree – exploiting it with wide panoramic shots of clouds, distant injections of barren wastelands, excessive close ups, and silhouetted action sequences.
While the coloring is overbearing, it also highlights moments of poignant grief – most memorably (without spoiling the plot) is Eli reading from Second Timothy chapter four in the final scene.
There are bits of biting humor. Eli smelling roadside bandits. Eli sending Solara to retrieve his sunglasses. The crazy old couple serving tea. And in one of my favorite scenes, Solara asks Eli to read the Bible to her (she – like most people under the age of 30 can’t read because they were born after the war). Eli quotes Psalm 23 which Solara states is beautiful. She asks Eli if he wrote it; he answers “yes” before admitting he’s joking.
However, neither heartbreak nor humor is the vehicle that carries this mission of faith. This is more Bekah’s warning than mine: it is a little violent. And by a little, I mean it is violent on an epically gratuitous scale. Limbs are severed, heads are decapitated, the air is filled with gunfire and explosions, and there are several references to cannibalism. Eli handles his weaponry (machete, bow & arrow, pistol and sawed-off shotgun) with surgical accuracy. Carnegie uses a brutally destructive arsenal to hunt down Eli (rocket launchers and gatling guns). And it is all done with the stylistic finesse of the gospel according to Kill Bill.
Be prepared. The pacing is slow. In the first ten minutes of film, the only dialog is Eli talking to a mouse. The tenor of the movie is also unsettling (likely done intentionally). Watching Eli sharpen his machete while listening to How Can You Mend a Broken Heart is a little disconcerting.
The acting is as good as it the post-apocalyptic genre gets. Gary Oldman is convincing in his maniacal thirst for power. Denzel Washington’s devotion (and ultimately compassion) proves his worth in Hollywood. Even Mila Kunis (despite looking like she’s dressed in the best Banana Republic the apocalypse has to offer) perfectly portrays the dichotomy of naïveté and emotional strength. There are also a couple of great cameos from Tom Waits (musician) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange).
Bekah recommends it as a movie worth watching but not one she’d want to see more than once. I want to see it again – if only to see if Denzel’s character stays true to the story’s final twist. The Book of Eli is also a great way to launch conversations about matters of faith. This movie sparked more discussion between Bekah and me than any other movie since... well... that I can remember.
Our dialog continued from the theater to the car (and for most of the drive home from Spokane Valley).
“Would you do that? Would you walk for 30 years?” Bekah asked.
“I don’t know.”
“It was a little too violent... and too much swearing.” Yet she likes the Die Hard movies which expels more bullets than a trigger happy NRA member at a shooting range and drops more f-bombs than a drunken sailor.
“Well,” I rebutted, “most of the violence was in self defense, and the vulgarity was from the bad guys.”
“True. And Eli’s motivation made sense. But still... did they have to show the guys head getting chopped off? And with a machete? It’s just so much more personal.”
PS: for the record, I’ve satisfied my post-apocalyptic fix for a while.
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