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Movie Reviews

The SIP Lifejim hinshaw

Hi and welcome back. Some of you have read my reviews for years, now we have them posted on the web site. Just a quick note: this is a work of love; we don’t get paid for being a movie reviewer, just like to go to movies. Started a couple of decades ago when we worked with 11 graders at North Phoenix Baptist Church, we would tell them to go see a great movie, warn them about the ones that would rot their brains. Pretty soon the parents asked if we could recommend a movie to see, and soon we were published in a local neighborhood paper. That grew to a couple of more local papers, now I am published in magazines and papers from New Mexico to Florida to Wisconsin, and in-between.

Another thing you need to know, we go to movies we want to go to. Nothing demonic, and we try to stay away from the downers, we get enough of that sort of thing in real life. I want to be entertained. I rate them as age appropriate, and up to 4 stars, but usually rate them with a item that ties into the movie. If it is an attorney movie, like Michael Clayton, we rate it with 3 Briefs. Not underware, lawyer briefs. We also let you know what the actor has appeared in before, usually the most famous, or the one we liked best.

Movie Review Menu

Charlie Wilsons War - No Country for Old Men - Michael Clayton

The Great Debators - JUNO (Coming Soon...)

 


The Great Debaters
Stars Denzel Washington (Inside Man, Manchurian Candidate), Forest Whitaker (Panic Room, Good Morning Viet Nam), Jurnee Smollett (Eve’s Bayou, Roll Bounce), Denzel Whitaker (no relation to either Denzel Washington or Forest, just one talented 14 year old!), Jermaine Williams (Stomp the Yard, Fat Albert), John Heard (the father in the Home Alone series), Kimberly Elise (Manchurian Candidate, John Q), and newcomer Nate Parker as a very smart young man who likes the dark side of life.  The movie starts at Wiley College, a black institution in Marshall, Texas, a rural town set in their ways in the south.  Denzel plays Melvin Tolson, a real professor who ran the debate team there.  He had a secret life as a union organizer for the farm workers, and was even thought to be a communist by some.  He became the poet laureate for Libya later on, he was a talented individual.  He is a strict task master, demanding a lot from his debate team, composed of a group of diverse individuals.  Young Denzel Whitaker is the son of Forest Whitaker, the Dean of the college.  He has started college at age 14, and really shows some intelligence.  On the other hand, he is still 14, and lacks the experience to deal with some racial issues that slap us in the face later on in the movie.  

About those issues.  We are dealing with racism in its most potent form.  This is not meant to be a scene stealer, but you should be aware, this is a graphic movie.  Denzel has lead his little band of debaters to great heights, winning more than a dozen debates in a row.  They get a chance to go head to head with a white school, and have to travel by car.  Late at night on the way, they run across a lynching.  When the locals discover who is in the car, they are in trouble.  It is the sort of thing that happened in parts of the south, most of us have never been witnesses to human behavior this dark.  Be warned.

We also see the debate team start to blend into a real team, with the 14 year old doing most of the research.  Young Denzel wants to be in the debate, and has his chance up against a tough opponent.  It doesn’t go well, and we see one of life’s lessons learned.  Nate and Jurnee develop a relationship that goes deeper than the debate team, if you get my drift.  This is an issue with young Denzel, who is smitten with the beautiful Jurnee.  Lots of things going on, not to mention the investigation of Denzel Washington as a union organizer in a town that is not fond of that.   

Now, the movie departs from reality at the end.  We see the “Great Debaters” locking horns with Harvard’s debate team.  Never happened in real life, they went up against the national champion debate team from USC, not Harvard.  But, on the other hand, it is a movie.  We get to see people do things they had never done before, get out of their comfort zone, and take a stand.  It is a truly great movie in that sense, and we are thrilled with how it plays out.  I’ll go with 3.5 resolutions.  That is how they start the debate!  

 

Charlie Wilsons War
Starring Tom Hanks (The Terminal, Cast Away), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich, Pretty Woman), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Mission Impossible III, Cold Mountain), Amy Adams (Enchanted, Catch Me If You Can). A very good movie, but one that May and I had a little trouble with. Tom Hanks plays Charlie Wilson, a real congressman from Texas who is a womanizer and hard drinker, a life-style we don’t condone. We know people like him, just don’t like that way of relating to women. Julia Roberts plays a wealthy woman in the Houston social scene who was at one time the honorary consul to Pakistan. Charlie is in Vegas when the movie opens, in a hot tub with some local strippers, sampling the local liquor and drugs, when he sees a Dan Rather special on Afghanistan. Dan is telling us the Russians have invaded Afghanistan and the local farmers are fighting for their lives. The big problem is they have no weapons. Charlie is head of a secret appropriations committee, and raises the funding for weapons from $5 million to $10 just on his say-so.

This starts a chain reaction; he is invited to a fund raiser at Julia’s home. She convinces him (the oldest way of convincing a man!) to get behind the Afghans and go for some serious money. He ends up working with Phillip Seymour Hoffman (is there a movie today he is not in?), a CIA department head with a boss who hates him. So he has nothing to loose, he agrees to help out. Julia hooks them up with the president of Pakistan, who will help fight if given the firepower. They don’t want to get American weapons, so they need Soviet weapons that have been stolen from the Russians. Through a long ordeal they get the shoulder mounted anti-aircraft missiles needed to take out the Russian helicopters that are ravaging their country.

All through this Charlie has Amy Adams playing his personal secretary, keeping him out of trouble. And he is close to the edge of the cliff many times. A story is released that there are witnesses claiming he was taking drugs and cavorting with hookers in Vegas, the sort of thing that can get you in trouble in Congress. He dodges one bullet after another; in real life it is even worse. May and I saw the true story on the Discovery channel, Charlie really had some close calls. At one point he was going to do a junket with a senior Congressman who had the power to really put some money on the table, the night before he drinks 9 Manhattans and hits another car, and then leaves the scene. Not a good idea. The police are after him, he will not get to leave the country, and the entire mission is on the line. This sort of thing happens to him often, he is colorful and easily tempted.

Not gonna give it away, but the truth is that with Charlie, Phillip Seymour, and Julia’s help the mighty Russian Army is defeated! By a bunch of Afghan tribesman who have some great personal missiles given them. We liked the movie, just wish he was a more loveable character. Three Congressional terms. By the way, go see Amy Adams in Enchanted, take the kids, it is a great movie, part animated, part real people. I would give it 3.5 fairy tales.

No Country For Old Men

Starring Tommy Lee Jones (Men In Black I & II), Josh Brolin (American Gangster, Into the Blue), and Javier Bardem (Love in the Time of Colera, Collateral), and a small part with Woody Harrelson (Ed TV, Kingpin). Here we go on a real rough ride. Set in a small town in Texas in the late 1980s, the movie starts with Tommy Lee Jones telling us in a voice over he is second generation lawman, his dad was a sheriff who never even carried a gun, and today he doesn’t understand the nature of evil in this world. We have Josh Bolin hunting elk and coming upon a drug deal gone bad. Real bad, lots of dead guys, a pickup with a ton on cocaine in it, and a briefcase with $ 2 million in it. He finds one guy in the pickup still alive, begging for water. Josh takes the money and runs, takes it home, hides it under the trailer he and his wife call home, and tries to forget about the one guy who was still breathing at the drug deal. Can’t do it, decides to go back. Not a good idea.

The bad guys are waiting, he is busted, shot at, finally gets away by swimming down a river and shooting the drug guy’s pit bull as he attacks. Yes, he kills a dog! Not a way to win our hearts. Not a lot of options. He now realizes he has to get away, these fellows are playing for keeps. The drug guys send out Javier Bardem to retrieve their money. He is with-out a doubt the meanest, most evil bad guy ever to hit film. Absolutely no soul, he is a killing machine. He uses a compressed air tank and a hand-held cattle killing thing that uses air to shoot out a projectile that will go through anything. And it does. When he comes to a door that is locked, it is not for long. When he wants a car from a guy on the road, he walks up to him and takes it. For keeps. He also has one of the niftiest rifles ever, has a 20 round clip (apparently), and a huge silencer, and he uses it well. A little too well. When he gets any sort of an idea that a person may have any clues as to where the money is, they are history. He shoots up motels full of folks, police stations, all kinds of things. The money men finally decide he is a wild cannon, send out Woody Harrelson to shut him down. A good idea, but not without some rough spots.

Josh has a huge future in film, he plays a great part here as a cowboy who decides to go back after this monster who leaves a path of death behind him. Tommy Lee still can’t believe this it happening in his little Texas town, and feels like he is ready to retire. Both play excellent parts, and have some great one-liners we will be saying years from now. This movie was done by the Coen brothers, who did Fargo and O Brother Where Art Thou? Two great movies that, like this one, are character studies. We just can’t get our minds around the character played by Javier, a guy who according to Harrelson “has his principles”. He just moves at a different level than any other killer we have seen. And has some incredible weapons to boot. So we enjoyed it, Tommy Lee Jones will carry any script; he is perfect for this role. I’ll go with 3.5 millions, and by the way, your mom will probably not like the movie, it is pretty graphic.

Michael Clayton

Starring George Clooney (Ocean’s 11, 12, & 13), Tom Wilkenson (The Full Monte, Shakespeare in Love), Tilda Swinton (Chronicles of Narnia, Broken Flowers), and Sidney Pollack (Changing Lanes, Eyes Wide Shut). This is an unusual lawyer story: George is not a partner with the firm; he is the clean-up guy. He goes in when something has gone wrong; they pay him for damage control, not court work. In this case, Tom Wilkinson has been defending a chemical company for years, and at a hearing breaks down. Now, you tell me, he takes off his clothes, runs through the parking lot, saying the company he has been defending for years is in fact a poisonous polluter. They actually may be, but the point is that they have been sued for billions and have been paying Tom’s firm millions to defend them. So this is a bad turn for the law firm. Tom is also George’s good friend who is bi-polar, and happened to go off his meds. George is sent out to put a lid on it, any way necessary.

Turns out there are some pretty nasty people involved in the chemical business, and they want the fellow who has been defending them (and who knows where the bones are buried) to go away. And while they are at it, George is on a short list as well. So we have cars blowing up, murders, and lots of mean people chasing our hero. I say our hero; George Clooney is sort of a good guy with issues. He is behind on payments for a restaurant, tried gambling to put some money together; the cards did not go his way. Bad things are about to happen if he doesn’t put $75 K together in a few days. Tough assignment, the lesson here is go to a bank to borrow your money, not Vinnie. He breaks legs.

Tilda Swinton is excellent as the lead defense for the chemical company; it is her job to make all this go away fast. And when billions are at stake, the tension is high. We see her get in over her head, and try desperate move after desperate move to get traction. Stick around for the end, it will make the two hours worth while. I would go with 3 affidavits, would be 4 except George is flawed, not the nice guy we want in a hero.

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