Drama

The Family

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  • Title: The Family
  • IMDB: link

The FamilyAfter mixed success in the low-rent action genre, writer/director Luc Besson turned his attention to dark comedy with 2013’s The Family. The results of an American mobster (Robert De Niro) and his family (Michelle Pfeiffer, Dianna Agron, John D’Leo) in Witness Protection in small town in Normandy, France, is actually better than some of Besson’s other recent efforts (such as Taken 2).

Centered mostly on the family’s inability to adapt to new surroundings yet again after being forced to relocate by the FBI agent (Tommy Lee Jones) in charge of their safety we see several instances of “The Blakes” using violence, intimidation, and even explosives to get what they want.

De Niro has fun with the mobster’s selfish actions involving attacking both a plummer and the head of a local chemical plant polluting the water supply while working on memoirs no one in the FBI ever wants to see the light of day. He even agrees to speak at a local film debate where his real personal experience comes in very handy.

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Noah

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  • Title: Noah
  • IMDB: link

NoahObsessed with the story of Noah since he was 13 years-old, writer/director Darren Aronofsky finally sees his vision of a quasi-fantasy/religious take on the biblical tale of the Genesis flood crash into the big screen today like a tidal wave. Sadly, as the characters of Aronofsky’s films usually learn, obsession leads to trouble.

Noah is certainly a labor of love and quite a bit of talent went into the creation of Noah, the ark, and the flood which washed away the sin of man from the face of the Earth. Equally certain, despite the skill on display both in front and behind the camera, is the fact that Noah is a mess on the level of Waterworld. Its grand expectations and epic scale simply can’t find a way to balance its stark character study of a man fighting to do the will of his God against the film’s more fantastical and sci-fi elements which include fallen angels in the form of giant rock creatures, the existence and use of magic, and never-ending storyline that keeps going long after it’s jumped the rails and taken a nosedive into the watery abyss which consumes so many (nameless) characters.

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The Grand Budapest Hotel

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  • Title: The Grand Budapest Hotel
  • IMDB: link

The Grand Budapest HotelFor his latest film writer/director Wes Anderson takes his trademark style to the fictional Republic of Zubrowka and a once-proud mountainside resort known as The Grand Budapest Hotel with a rich history to share. Relying heavily on narration, the film struggles a bit to get going by beginning in the present and slowly peeling back layers (each jumping 20 years or so into the past) until we finally arrive in the pre-World War II 1930s and the story of fastidious old-school concierge M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes) and his the new lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori).

During the overly-elaborate and unnecessarily complicated (although certainly not boring) first 20-minutes or so as the movie introduces an elderly author (Tom Wilkinson) beginning his own flashbacks to his time at the hotel as a younger man (Jude Law) when he happened to meet the elderly version of Zero (F. Murray Abraham) and thus learned his story, Anderson relies on a variety of his usual bag of tricks involving beautiful cinematography and set design highlighted by the use of some marvelous miniatures.

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We Used to Be Friends, a Long Time Ago

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  • Title: Veronica Mars
  • IMDB: link

“Always.”

Veronica MarsSeven years after going off the air creator Rob Thomas and the cast of Veronica Mars reunite (with the help of an insanely productive Kickstarter campaign) to bring Veronica (Kristen Bell) back to Neptune just in time for her 10 year high-school reunion. Oh, and to help an ex out of a pesky murder charge. It’s just like old times, in the best possible way.

The script by Thomas and Diane Ruggiero finds Veronica living with Piz (Chris Lowell) in New York and interviewing for jobs at prestigious law firms when a voice from the past reaches out in need of help. Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring) is the lead suspect in the murder of his girlfriend (Andrea Estella). Yep, it really is like old times.

Long ago hanging up her camera and spy gear, Veronica agrees to return only to see her father (Enrico Colantoni) and help Logan find a good lawyer. Things don’t go according to plan. Of course she also have time to reunite with several old friends and enemies, make an enemy of the new sheriff (Jerry O’Connell), and even (against her wishes) attend her class reunion.

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The Wind Rises

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  • Title: Kaze tachinu
  • IMDB: link

“All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful.”

The Wind RisesOver a lifetime in animation Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki has made a name for himself as one of the premiere filmmakers of his generation. Although I haven’t always loved his films, I found Princess Mononoke too bizarre for my tastes and a bit unwieldy with its 133-minute running time, it’s impossible to come out of any Miyazaki film without a profound respect for the talented man who brought them to the screen.

For his final film Miyazaki delivers a love story to aviation in the fictionalized biography of Japanese aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi (Hideaki Anno), a young man with dreams of building beautiful flying machines who would design the Mitsubishi A5M and Mitsubishi A6M Zero which Japan used during WWII. Adapted from the novel by Hori Tatsuo, The Wind Rises may not quite be the all-ages adventure some might be hoping for, but it beautifully captures the fire of imagination that drives Jiro in his designs and the lively but ill Naoko (Miori Takimoto) whom he falls desperately in love with. As he approaches his life’s ambition he feels the other great love of his life slowly fading away.

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