Today's Special

First Hit: An overall satisfying film which is about listening to oneself.

I was surprised at the engagement I had with this film. Although Samir’s (played by Aasif Mandvi) relationship with his family was typically and culturally based, the rest of the film was engaging.

Samir is a sous chef with a fancy New York restaurant with hopes of being a chef at a new offshoot of his current restaurant. However when his current chef and manager tells him he doesn’t carry the soul or drive to be a chef, he quits.

Samir makes plans to go to Paris and work for top chefs so that he can become better. But his father, who owns a rundown Indian restaurant, has a heart attack and he decides to stay home and help. Taking over his father's restaurant is a nightmare for him and he ultimately fires the cook and then hires a taxi driver named Akbar (played by Naseeruddin Shah) to be the cook.

Akbar told Samir that he once cooked for Indira Gandhi. Akbar cooks with his head, heart and stomach. He doesn’t use recipes to create his meals he uses his understanding of taste. As he cooks great food for the restaurant, the word starts to get out and it becomes more popular.

Samir is slowly learning from his friend Akbar on the ways of cooking Indian food and in a moment he is left to be the chef of his father's restaurant. Joining him is an assistant from his old job. Carrie (played by Jess Weixler) meets up with him and after they have a few dates they begin to grow something together.

At the end of the film Samir is learning his profession from his heat, heart and stomach and and learning about love of a woman and his family.

Mandvi is believable as a cook who cooks by cookbooks and not his heart. As he begins to turn his thought process around you can really sense this in the way he changes his character. Shah is outstanding as the guy to has tried everything and know what life is really all about. He is a patient teacher and a lover of life which he shares in his fortune cookie philosophy. Weixler is wonderful as the love and life interest. The film is rounded out by numerous other characters which are fun and add to the flavor of this film. Mandvi co-wrote this with Jonathan Bines and their script was crisp and to the point. David Kaplan directed this little independent film clearly and with the love of life it needed.

Overall: This was a wonderful little film which tells a nice story.

Love and Other Drugs

First Hit: Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal have an on screen chemistry that works.

Even with many of the good lines already previewed in the trailers for this film, there are many more spoken by the actors as the film unfolds.

Maggie Murdock (played by Hathaway) is a young woman with 1st stage Parkinson’s disease. She takes a number of drugs to help her get by without most people seeing her symptoms. She is independent, strong and doesn’t want to be messed with.

Jamie Randall (Gyllenhaal) plays a smart unfocused guy who the ladies are drawn to and, in turn, he loves to bed them. While pretending to be an intern he watches an examination of Maggie. She finds out that he wasn’t an intern and lets him have it.

They find out they have a lot in common; a need to feel free from entanglements, they both like sex, and they have fun together. As with all setups like this, we know they are going to find out they really care about each other and are meant for each other.

The way this story goes about it is really fun and entertaining. It also gives the audience a glimpse of Parkinson’s disease. I would have enjoyed more of the scenes when Maggie goes to an “unconvention” of Parkinson’s patients. Their self-deprecating humor was wonderful and insightful.

However, as the film moved along I didn’t feel we know enough about Maggie, where her family was, what her life was like before the onset of Parkinson’s.

The film seemed to lack some character development. What also didn’t work for me was Josh Gad as Josh Randall, Jamie’s brother. I’m not sure why this character was needed throughout the film.

Hathaway was wonderful to watch and her beauty and openness was engaging. Gyllenhaal was perfect as the guy who can always find a way to get the girl. He carries that air about him that makes life a rollick. Gad was good as the nerdy younger brother, I just didn’t get why he was in the film so much. Oliver Platt as Bruce Winston, Jamie’s sales mentor was funny and on target as a sales motivator. Charles Randolph and Edward Zwick wrote a witty screenplay and Zwick did a very creditable job of directing this in a lighthearted yet thoughtful way.

Overall: This was a satisfying film to watch and it was great to see good screen chemistry at work.

Burlesque

First Hit: Some great singing in a film with a thin plot. But is was very entertaining.

Cher has always been able to project something good with her singing. In her one full song, she knocks it out of the park.

Cher plays Tess half owner of a slowly fading Burlesque theater in Los Angeles. The other half owner is Vince (played by Peter Gallagher) her former husband. Unfortunately, the club is losing money and Vince is trying to find a way to get some money out of it for himself and Tess. His drive comes off as desperate and we never really know why.

But Tess “will never let the theater be sold”. All the girls lip-sync their songs except Tess. Their show is bawdy, clean and fun. In comes Ali (played by Christina Aguilera) who has ventured out from Ohio looking to find a place to sing and dance. She eventually gets her chance when Nikki (played by Kristen Bell) shows up drunk one too many times.

In a fit of anger Nikki unplugs the lip-syncing music and Ali is standing on the stage with no music. So, she improvises and finishes the routine by singing in her own voice. Of course she is a sensation and Tess decides to build a whole new routine around her.

Also Ali is attracted to an engaged bartender named Jack (played by Cam Gigandet). The scene stealer during the film is Stanley Tucci who plays Tess’ confidant and stage manager Sean. When he is on the screen he is the one who grabs your attention.

Cher is very good as the mothering woman who’s seen it all and knows what it is she wants to spend her time doing. Gallagher is good but there is no real depth as to why he’s so panicked about getting his money. Aguilera is wonderful as Ali and her voice shows flexibility and strength. She was perfect for this role. Gigandet was good as Ali’s romantic interest and they have some fun scenes together. Tucci is fabulous. He is the soul of the Burlesque house and this film. Steve Antin wrote and directed this film and for the most part he got it right except the ending number could not have been held in the club we first saw during the opening sequence. Somewhere continuity was lost.

Overall: This is very good entertainment – no more, no less.

The Next Three Days

First Hit: Much better than I anticipated.

The trailers for this film didn’t seem very interesting nor am I a big Russell Crowe fan.

This film starts out oddly as John Brennan (Crowe) and his wife Lara (played by Elizabeth Banks) are out to dinner with friends. They are discussing working with a boss who one doesn’t respect. The next morning as they and their son Luke are having breakfast in the kitchen; the cops come to the door and burst in to arrest Lara. This moment in the film is unrealistic.

I just don’t think they would have burst in with that sort of aggressiveness. It takes a bit of time for the crime to be revealed in this film as it is more of a side note. With appeals long past John seeks out advice on how to break his wife out of prison.

Liam Neeson plays Damon Pennington a former prisoner who broke out of prison 7 times and with this experience plays a short but pivotal role in John’s path to break his wife out of jail. The next hour plus is about how he slowly finds the right people with the right information (including using YouTube clips) to help him make his plan. Here the film stays interesting.

The story doesn’t give too much away but does provide enough information to drive the audience into wondering what choice is John making and how is he constructing the plan. When the plan is executed, it takes some intense discussion for his wife to go along with the plan. In the end, she does and they successfully get to where they can spend their lives all together and in some relative peace.

As a twist, at the end of the film a detective tries to find the one clue that would have exonerated Lara, but he just misses, but the audience seeing the clue allows us to know Lara was innocent.

Crowe is effective at keeping his intensity under wraps and not overdoing it. Banks is very good as the mother who understands her son enough to let him find his way back to her emotionally. Neeson is wonderful in his short 5 minute scene. Paul Haggis, Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans wrote a very strong script. Haggis did a really good job of directing this giving Pittsburgh the feel of being a long time blue collar town with an intelligent law enforcement team.

Overall: I was surprised at how much I liked it.

127 Hours

First Hit: For a film which mostly takes place in a few square feet it was very well done.

This is an amazingly difficult story to think about let alone watch. Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) is an avid climber, dirt bike rider and chance taker who enjoys his own company.

He rarely did things with people nor did tell anybody where he was going and what he was going to do. He also was an avid picture and video taker. On one of his journeys into southern Utah, he starts down into a crevasse and falls when a boulder gives away.

The boulder then lodges itself between his right forearm and the crevasse wall. Trapped he works on moving the boulder to free his forearm. Realizing that this isn’t going to happen we take the journey with Aron from the possibility of dying in the crevasse or finding a way to survive and to be free.

The process of finding a way to survive took 127 hours. During this time he rationed his water, was inventive at attempting to find ways to move the entrapping boulder, and suffered from visions of family and friends. We spend about an hour in this small space and this is where the director Danny Boyle worked some interesting magic.

I never felt as trapped as Aron did. This was an amazing feat of cinematography. To be able to experience what Aron was going through, think about my own choices between life and death, and to bring in the beauty and tragedy of the scene to crystal clear focus was very well done.

There were times towards the end of the film I had to divert my eyes. Listening to a bone break and the severing of nerves left me cringing behind by closed eyes.

Franco was beyond excellent. He created a very real event out of a very real and almost unbelievable story. Boyle did an outstanding job of giving you the full flavor and feel of this loner who, through a vision, discovered he needed to live. Not many directors could have made this film this well.

Overall: This was a difficult film to watch and an amazing story of survival. It isn’t for everyone and isn’t ordinary film fare.