Drama

The Monuments Men

  • Title: The Monuments Men
  • IMDb: link

The Monuments Men

Originally planned for a Christmas release, The Monuments Men finally makes it into theaters this weekend. Directed and co-written by George Clooney, who also stars as George L. Stout, the film is a war-time picture highlighting an unusual group of heroes. Based on true accounts, The Monuments Men tells the story of Stout and other over-aged art experts and connoisseurs who were put together by Franklin D. Roosevelt to save priceless art being plundered and destroyed by the Nazis during WWII.

The group of Monuments Men includes Matt DamonBill Murray, John Goodman, and Bob Balaban, along with Englishman Hugh Bonneville, and Frenchman Jean Dujardin. A little bit Ocean’s Eleven and a little bit old school war film, Clooney’s latest project begins with Stout stumping for the need for such and organization and recruiting old friends on what many in both Washington and on the battlefield see as nothing more than a fool’s errand. From basic training through searching abandoned German salt mines after the end of WWII, the film follows the fate of the unusual band of art experts and historians turned soldiers and the treasures they seek.

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The Best Produced Lifetime Movie for Women Ever Made

  • Title: Labor Day
  • IMDB: link

Labor DayI’m a Jason Reitman fan. Young Adult made my Top Films of 2011, as did Juno a few years earlier. I consider Thank You For Smoking the best satire (by far) of the past decade, and Up in the Air was easily my favorite film of 2009. With a combination of wit, talent, and an eye for casting, the writer-director has produced some terrific films over the past few years. Sadly, Labor Day is not one of them.

Based on the novel by Joyce Maynard, Labor Day lacks Reitman’s usual flourishes or the trademark edge of the director’s previous work. Although competently acted and well produced, neither the director nor its stars (Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Clark Gregg, and Gattlin Griffith) can save the movie from trashy romance novel themes about the nicest escaped murderer (Brolin) this side of Mayberry and an implausible love story that is impossible to take seriously (but also not quite cheesy enough to laugh at or enjoy). It’s with neither malice nor spite, but with a heavy heart, that I dub the film the best produced Lifetime Movie for Women ever made.

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Lone Survivor

  • Title: Lone Survivor
  • IMDb: link

Lone Survivor

Based on Marcus Luttrell‘s (Mark Wahlberg) personal accounts, Lone Survivor chronicles a mission in the Hindu Kush mountain region of Afghanistan to find and kill high ranking Taliban member. Of the four-man initial team, and the first group sent in to retrieve them, Luttrell would be the sole survivor.

After a brief introduction to life on the base and the various Navy SEALS (most of whom will play only ancillary roles to the main tale) the film moves forward with the introduction and deployment of Luttrell, Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and Axelson (Ben Foster). Arriving at their destination without incident, the mission takes a turn for the worse when they are discovered by three locals.

Cut off from HQ, and with no standing orders for such a situation (something which seems a tad odd), the foursome argue over how to proceed knowing any chance of their mission succeeding means the death of the old man and two boys which the team is unwilling to do.

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August: Osage County

  • Title: August: Osage County
  • IMDb: link

August: Osage CountyAin’t family dysfuncion fun? If you could condense a single message from the two-hour running time of August: Osage County this, it appears, is all the film has to say. Having not seen the play of the same name by Tracy Letts I don’t know if the source material was any deeper, but since Letts alone adapted the play for the big screen I’m betting he didn’t make many significant changes.

The movie’s plot centers around the various troubled, bitchy, deceitful, and argumentative women of the Weston family who all return home to (theoretically) help their cancer-ridden mother (Meryl Streep) after their father (Sam Shepard) runs off and leaves her only a Native American nurse (Misty Upham) for support, because apparently Indians and racially-inappropriate comments from seniors are hilarious.

What follows, of course, is a series of fights, disagreements, the airing of family laundry and secrets, and the long overdue discovery by the entire group that they are all far better off separated by great distances.

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The Wolf of Wall Street

  • Title: The Wolf of Wall Street
  • IMDB: link

The Wolf of Wall StreetBased on Jordan Belfort‘s own accounts, The Wolf of Wall Street stars Leonardo DiCaprio as an aspiring stockbroker whose discovery of penny stocks, and how they could be used to earn a broker far more profit than an investor, led to his meteoric rise and eventual downfall. Reuniting with DiCaprio and choosing The SopranosTerence Winter to adapt Belfort’s book, director Martin Scorsese‘s three-hour comedy highlights the absurdity and tragedy of Belfort’s life on Wall Street while making a pretty strong argument for the entire industry’s inherently-flawed nature which only feeds on humanity’s worst impulses.

Three hours is too long for a comedy, any comedy, but I’ll give credit to Winter and Scorsese for producing the funniest movie I saw all year. Part of this is due to the nature of the story and how Scorsese chooses to frame it for maximum effect and part is in the casting. Jonah Hill (as Belfort’s best-friend and partner) and Matthew McConaughey (in the far smaller role of Belfort’s mentor) both provide bizarre, but also often hilarious, moments.

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