Third Person

First Hit:  Three intellectually and emotionally charged stories that become one in the end.

Liam Neeson plays Michael a successful Pulitzer Prize writer in Paris trying to write another book.

Flash - we’re in another story where we have Scott (Adrien Brody) making a deal to purchase stolen clothing designs – he’s a thief. Julia (Mila Kunis) is a young woman charged with intentionally harming her child. Although it wasn’t proven in court she cannot see her child.

Each story starts and is grown from here. In Michaels’ case he has a wife Elaine (Kim Basinger) who calls him from their home in the US and is worried about his welfare. There is pain in their voices when they speak. He also has a lover – Anna (Olivia Wilde) who is both loving and heartlessly mean. Scott hates being in Italy, goes to an “American” bar expecting something like home and doesn’t find it.

He meets Monika (Moran Atlas) at the bar and ends up getting mixed up with her trying to get back her daughter from some street thugs. Then there is Julia’s story of trying to see her son who is living with a famous artist Rick (James Franco) and his live-in lover Sam (Loan Chabanol). She is being defended by Theresa (Maria Bello) who really tries to help Julia see her son but Julia keeps getting in her own way.

As each story evolves the screenwriter slowly brings them together as a singularity. The film is long and at times, I wondered when it would end - and I also was staying engaged.

Neeson’s story is the focal point of the entire film as it begins and ends with him. My perception is that his character creates feelings about things for himself, through the creation of characters in the stories he writes about. His performance was strong. Kunis was amazing as a young woman who tries hard to do the right thing but gets in her own way almost all the time. Brody was divine, in the way he worked through the trials of his life. Wilde was very strong as a heartless woman who wanted to really be loved and cared about while learning to trust. Chabanol was very good and her scene with Kunis in the women’s restroom was very good. Franco was OK as the distant creative artist. Atlas was sublime as the Roma woman trying to get her child back. Her movement between hard and openly soft was amazing. Bello as Kunis’ attorney was very good and her franticness were perfect for the part. Basinger was very good as Neeson’s wife who holds his struggles with equanimity. Paul Haggis wrote and directed this film. He likes complex stories which require the audience to work to understand as well as touching on sensitive subjects – he does this in this film as well. Overall, it boarded on overly complex and trite.

Overall:  I was touched by the acting in this film.

Snowpiercer

First Hit:  Odd story, interesting scenes, and generally unsatisfying.

Global warming has us (humans) attempting to fix the problem with a pill (sort of speak). We spray stuff into the atmosphere to cool down the planet and we send ourselves into a deep freeze. All but a few hundred people remain, alive, on a perpetual motion train on an endless loop. Odd story – yes.

The train is divided into different sections, by classes, whereas the first class people get real food, alcohol, and have a good life as this train drives around this year long circle. However, the people in the back of the train get blocks of protein to eat, live in squalor and lose their limbs with infractions against the other classes. Wilford (Ed Harris), who is the person in charge of the train, believes that everyone has their place and their duty/job. Cutis (Chris Evans), who lives in the rear of the train wants to get control of the train and create a more equal environment among its passengers.

The film is about a social revolution. Some of the scenes where Mason, (Tilda Swinton) Wilford’s speaker and emissary, speaks to the trains’ passengers are priceless. 

Although many of the characters are interestingly unique like, Namgoong (Kang-ho Song), Tanya (Octavia Spencer) Yona (Ah-sung Ko), and Gilliam (John Hurt) and a number of the battle scenes to overtake the train are of interest, it was generally unsatisfying story and execution of the story.

Harris does a good job of being arrogantly omnipotent yet there was a lack of depth in his performance that took away from the film. Evans did a very good job of carrying his character through this odd story and making it work. Swinton was unique, flamboyant and engaging when on the screen. Song was enigmatically interesting in his role as the one who thinks he knows what is going on outside the train. Spencer was wonderful as the mother and lover of the movement to change the status quo. Ko was incredibly engaging in her role. Hurt was excellent as the knowing old man who was once the partner of Wilford’s. Joon-ho Bong and Kelly Masterson wrote this imaginative and unfathomable story. Bong also directed the film.

Overall:  Although it was an interesting film, I left the theater not thinking much about the experience of watching it.

Jersey Boys

Hit:  Music was memorable and most everything else wasn’t.

Jersey Boys is the story of the “Four Seasons” a group that started in the 1950's and lasted through much of the 1960's before they imploded.

This film is supposed to provide the biographical history of this Jersey based group while providing entertainment. On the musical entertainment end – I really enjoyed the film as anyone, who was around they threw out hit after hit, would have.

The worst parts of the film were incorrect historical references: The first reference to Topo Gigio as an act on the Ed Sullivan show was many years too early. There are also wording references that were not used until the 1980's or 1990's. One segment that felt a bit creepy to me was his singing “My Eyes Adored You” to his daughter. Knowing the song, these two lines alone make it a bit weird: “though I never laid a hand on you…” “playin’ make-believe you're married to me….”

Another aspect that didn’t work was that I never got the sense that they loved the music. I know they must have, but there was nothing in the film that provided that depth of character. What drove them to create the group, as an alternative to being thugs?  

Because this is what the film suggests, I wondered where the story was that had me "get" this. To be in the music business and go through all the ups and downs, you've really got to love music. Yes, they made a great and unique sound for that era - but why did they want to be musicians?

Other parts that were missing had to do with how did Valli's home life fall apart? We didn’t really see the failings of the marriage but were told what they were. In film “show don’t tell” are by words.

Piazza played Tommy DeVito who was the ringleader of the group and of the illegal activities. Piazza did a great job of being arrogant, ignorant, slimy and controlling. Although I didn’t like the character – I wasn’t meant to. John Lloyd Young played Frankie Valli. Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice wrote a week script because it skated around the deeper aspects of the people and story. Clint Eastwood did a poor job of taking this story and making it watch worthy. I did think he did a great job of presenting the music and it appears that was the only thing he was interested in.

You will have to be old enough or fond of old music to sit through this film.