Fruitvale Station

First Hit:  Fantastic film about a young man who was beginning to find his way.

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area we are familiar with the dramatic killing of Oscar Grant III and the ensuing riots, trial and verdict.

Although this film does not really address any of these three things, it does tell an enormously effective story about Oscar the man. The film frames the story we’re about to witness by beginning with the actual video from a camera phone of New Year’s Day killing of Oscar.

Then it reals back one year when Grant (Michael B. Jordan) was in jail and his mother Wanda (Octavia Spencer) come visits him. What you get in this latter scene is his quick temper which tended to get him into trouble and softness for his mother, which gives you some of his sweetness.

The film then plays out Oscar’s trials and tribulations during the year before his death. You see his love for his daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal), wife Sophina (Melonie Diaz), and family. Oscar loses his job, again, by being tardy, and thinks about selling his stash of pot to make money to pay the rent.

There are well crafted scenes of Oscar helping out people, a dog, and himself, but it is Jordan that makes Oscar come alive. I admired the way the story stayed away from the trial of the officer that shoots Oscar and the ensuing riots in Oakland.

Jordan is fantastic. He shows a depth of character and evolvement not normally attributed to a depiction of true events. Spencer is, as she always is, fully engaged and engaging. Diaz is very strong as Oscar’s girlfriend. Ahna O’Reilly is wonderful as the woman Oscar befriends in a grocery store and who films him being shot. Ryan Coogler wrote and directed this film with a complete vision and excellent execution.

Overall:  This is a strong excellent film.

Elysium

First Hit:  Well-crafted film about the future while keeping humanness as part of the story.

The future is clear, there are the haves and have nots.

The haves do not live on Earth any longer. They live on a spinning wheel space station just out of the atmosphere called Elysium. It can be seen from Earth. On this space station people do not get diseased and if they do, their machines make them well.

On Earth there is overcrowding, theft, crime, and denigration of humans and their spirit. Max (Played by Matt Damon) has been a thief, imprisoned, and now just is trying to get by. When he makes a joke to one of the robot policemen, he gets beat. His childhood friend, Frey (Alice Braga) is a nurse and was serving on Elysium but had to come back to Earth because her daughter Matilda (Emma Tremblay) had leukemia and wasn't a citizen.

Not being a citizen (meaning someone with an embedded code in their arm) means that you don't really exist to the people of Elysium. Frey and Max meet up again and she wants him to help her daughter to Elysium to get healed and he wants to get there because he just got a lethal dose of radiation and will die in 5 days.

Of course the heads of Elysium, especially Secretary of State Delacourt (Jodie Foster) who has eyes for more power, don’t want their world contaminated so no non-citizen gets to the space station.

This film explores, where are we going as a human race and what will we do to create equality among people. It explores the question of what will become of us in the year 2154.

Damon is, as he always is, sublime. He makes his role so real and effortless that you can’t help but be on his side and believe his rightness. Braga is great as his longtime friend. She brings such humanness to this film as does her daughter Tremblay. Foster is powerful and spot-on as the politico who wants control and to politically move up the ladder to President. Neill Blomkamp both directed and wrote this story. His extraordinary use of special effects on space vehicles and landscapes were well thought out and implemented.

Overall:  Although this film is well done, it may not do well at the box office because it just may be too smooth and the name doesn't help it.

The Spectactular Now

First Hit:  I thoroughly enjoyed this film and thought it was well crafted.

I had a friend in high school who acted a lot like Sutter (played by Miles Teller). My friend had a quick smile, drank quite a bit to become the life of the party, and didn’t seem to want to plan something for his future. He became a drunk and died, for the most part, alone.

Sutter drinks all the time. He’s a very young functional alcoholic. He goes to school, he works and attempts to have relationships, but all his girlfriends end up seeing the light that there is no future for them with him, so they drop him and move on.

This film is about his beginning to see how he is screwing up his life. What helps him? Aimee (Shailene Woodley) is a girl he actually begins to care about. In helping her stand up to her mom, she helps him find out about his dad Tommy (Kyle Chandler) as he begins to reconcile the truth and his mom’s version of the truth of his father.

His mom Sara (Jennifer Jason Leigh), had kept Sutter sheltered from his father because, his father didn’t care, drank too much, and never cared about the future. When he glimpses his future through his father he begins to realize that his life of drinking, blackouts, and non-commitment won’t work.

Teller was fantastic as the guy who doesn’t care except to have a good time, only to find out his life may add up to little in the end. Woodley is sublime. Her subtle opening up as the plain unpopular girl have her first time boyfriend was extraordinary. Chandler was perfect as the good-time guy who didn’t and won’t make anything of his life. Leigh was great in her one major scene as her son begins to figure out that if he keeps doing what he’s doing, he’ll keep getting what he is getting. Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber wrote a very strong pointed screenplay. James Ponsoldt crisply and confidently directed this story and the actors.

Overall:  This was a very thoughtful film and experience.

Passion

First Hit:  Poorly acted, mindlessly conceived, torturous, and a waste of time.

As a take off on a better acted “Love Crime” with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier, there are many films about protégés and assistants transforming into their bosses and then turning the tides on them. What would make this one different?

Here Christine (Rachel McAdams) as a high level executive just didn’t work. She wasn’t believable in her role in any way shape for form. The way she talked about budgets and demanding certain work be done in a short period time was more of a laugh than anything else. There is no way her threat to do their work for them was believable.

The conflict in the story is that she takes credit for Isabelle’s (Noomi Rapace) work and then humiliates her in front of the whole staff. The extra wrinkle in this film is that Isabelle’s assistant Dani (played by Karoline Herfurth) is in love with Isabelle and does what she can to help her get through the problems and eventual murder of Christine.

The story adds a male wrinkle by having Dirk (Paul Anderson), who works for Isabelle as well, being blackmailed by Isabelle for stealing money from the company. Her payment is his availability to her for sexual reasons.

This film becomes more torturous because there is a supposed twin of Isabelle’s, who is dead, non-existent or out to seek revenge.

McAdams was totally unbelievable as a senior executive; however she was great as someone who can work an audience. Rapace did what she can in her role but I’m not sure it was one that fit her. Herfurth was the best of the bunch and felt her engaged in this role. Anderson was simply drama and not interesting in this role. Brian De Palma and Natalie Carter wrote the script. I couldn’t tell whether it was a poor script or bad acting or directing that made this film almost unwatchable. De Palma directed this film and needless to say it was no “Scarface” or “Carrie”.

Overall:  Almost unwatchable and wouldn’t suggest anyone trying.

Blue Jasmine

First Hit:  Wasn’t impressed with overall script but thought Cate Blanchett was amazing to watch.

For some reason the film doesn't delve too much into the cause of everyone's anguish; the defining event being the arrest and prosecution of Hal (Alec Baldwin) for deceiving all his family and friends with investment schemes that ruin their lives.

Therefore, I found it hard to "get" that Hal actually had the smarts to be deceitful. Despite this obvious slight of hand, the prominent focus of this film is the subject of lying and self deceit. His wife, Jasmine (Blanchett), is the cause of his fall from grace because she deceived herself by ignoring until she decided to call him out.

As Blanchett as the vehicle of the story, director and writer Woody Allen hopes you forgive the lack of background and gives you snippets of the past by having Jasmine zone out into an alternate reality to fill in the story. In much of the film, it works well enough, but in other aspects it doesn’t. Jasmine blames Hal for her current life of no money and no friends, while taking no responsibility for any of it herself.

Arriving at her sister Ginger’s (Sally Hawkins) in the semi-downtrodden neighborhood on South Van Ness in San Francisco, she is lost and wants to try to make something out of her life. The story is that she spent time in a mental hospital after being found talking to herself on the streets of New York City. The first lie she tells her sister is that she flew to SF in first class; the scene showing her in her seat we can easily see she wasn’t in the first class section at all. She cannot let go of the life she use to have.

Throughout the film we watch Jasmine fade in and out of past stories and her current reality. In the end we don't really know the truth of whether she was complicit in her husbands story or just didn't want to accept the truth as her reality.

For the most part Blanchett was very good and I also felt she was limited by the script. Baldwin wasn’t very believable as the master manipulator. Hopkins was superb. She was refreshing, alive and well suited to the role. Andrew Dice Clay, as Ginger’s former husband Augie, especially in his first scene, seemed like he was reading script and didn’t embody the character very well. Bobby Cannavale as Chili was very engaged in his character and was fun to watch. Allen wrote and directed this effort. The background was week and made believability of the story weak. He got some strong performances out of Cannavale, Blanchett and Hawkins.

Overall:  Not Allen’s best but not his worst either.