Meru

First Hit:  Extraordinary film about an amazing, heartfelt adventure of perseverance, courage, and fortitude.

Conrad Aker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk share their amazing story of how they came together to tackle, twice, the famed shark finned peak called Meru in North India.

The film effectively documents, each of their separate paths to work through their fears while challenging their physical abilities to tackle the steep ice covered path they created leading to the final shear smooth granite face, edge to the summit.

You will be entranced when you see the avalanche that challenges Chin, or the fall that tests Renan’s ability to rehab back into shape. Their friendship and trust permeates this film just as their trek will transfix you.

The photography, mostly by Chin, is absolutely superlative. Knowing that he and Ozturk filmed this adventure while attempting to complete a climb that has never been done before is truly outer worldly.

Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi did an astonishing job of directing and editing this historical footage.

Overall:  What a story.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

First Hit:  Great view of the 70’s and how one young girl grows through her budding sexuality.

The late 1960’ through the mid-late 1970’s were ripe with open sexuality and drug use. This film captures the mood and feeling of this era with some spot on dialogue, scenes and cinema-graphic feel.

The story is about a young girl, Minnie (Bel Powley), who wants to be touched, love and be loved. Her father Pascal (Christopher Meloni) is long out of the picture and his former wife Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) lives the life of partying with drugs and drink. Minnie’s younger sister Gretel (Abby Watt) and she lead their own lives although they are just teenagers.

Charlotte's boyfriend, joining her in this chosen lifestyle, is a vitamin pill producer named Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). When Monroe makes slight advances towards Minnie, she responds with enthusiasm and their affair starts. Minnie likes her budding sexuality and her sex with Monroe becomes her life's focus. Monroe just cannot seem to help himself around Minnie.

She documents this new adventure and change in her life by drawing cartoons in her notebook and recording her thoughts on cassette tapes. When her mom finds out what has happened, the expected blowup transpired and then takes some odd turns. Minnie works through her pain in her own way. What struck me about the film was the way it was shot.

The director and cinematographer, really captured the way films looked back in the 1970’s. The strengths of the performances effectively carried the theme and attitudes of the era.

Powley was fantastic as the girl looking for love and affection. She created a strong feeling of young angst while also displaying the ability to grow into a new level of maturity. Wiig was strong as a mother of the 70’s. She was able to exemplify the sense of the era. I know because I was a young father in the 70’s as well. Skarsgard was very good as the guy who couldn’t help himself around the young sexually charged Minnie. Watt was perfect as the annoying, yet loving, sister. Meloni was effective as the guilt-ridden intellectual absent father. Marielle Heller wrote a strong script displaying a great feel for the era as well as Minnie’s view of the world. In her direction, Heller did a great job of creating a perfect sense and feel of the times.

Overall:  Although a difficult film to watch, the strong story makes up for it.

American Ultra

First Hit:  The abilities of Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart made this film work.

When we are introduced to Mike (Eisenberg) he sits bloodied and being questioned by a law enforcement officer.

Then we quickly reel back to where his voice over tells the audience that he is a major screw-up. He gets high all the time, he’s afraid to leave his town. He works at a “Cash and Carry” convenience store in a small, sleepy, and uneventful town. He lives with his girlfriend Phoebe (Stewart) who seems to really care about him and doesn’t seem to mind Mike’s inabilities to function at a very high level.

What we end up learning that Mike and Phoebe are both CIA agents, with Mike being a secret weapon. He’s in hibernation, but when he becomes activated he’s a killing machine. Supervising CIA Agent Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) decides he want to eliminate Mike and begins a plan kill him with his own brand of psychologically modified agents. Protecting Mike and Phoebe is Agent Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) who activates Mike so that he can protect himself. Some of the funniest scenes are short scenes with Mike’s friend Rose (John Leguizamo).

Eisenberg is perfect for this role, introverted, intense, physically adept and fully in-charge of his character. Stewart is wonderful as the agent who falls in love with the person she was assigned to protect. Their chemistry and interaction is wonderful. Grace is very good as the guy trying to make a name for himself. Britton is good as the protecting agent. Leguizamo is fantastic as Mike odd-ball, drug dealing friend. Max Landis wrote a strong, interesting and funny script. Nima Nourizadeh did a wonderful job of making the script come alive with action and dark comedy.

Overall:  I enjoyed the ways kitchen items can be used to create harm.

Listen to me Marlon

First Hit:  It was very interesting to hear Marlon Brando speak about his acting and his life.

Two performances of Brando’s still stand out to me; “On the Waterfront” and “Godfather”. My reason for these two among many powerful roles, was that the first captures him young and new to the profession, while the latter was after years of experience and the subtly and strength of his ability to be at the top of his game showed through.

This film has many still pictures of Brando, a few film clips of him in a particular film and clips of him outside of film-making. For the most part the voice overs are minimal and it is Brando’s voice taken from recordings he made for himself. There are also voice mail recordings from his answering machine and a couple interview segments.

What struck me about this was how strongly he felt about bringing a character to life through the use of facial expressions, looks, and an embodiment of the person in his own body. He commented on how many actors before him just gave their personality to each role they played. He didn't feel that they brought a character to the role and he found that disdainful.

The film also documented his personal life and the difficult things that happened to his son and daughter.

Steven Riley and Peter Ettedgui wrote this with a strong focus towards telling Marlon’s story. Riley did a great job of piecing together snippets of film and audio material into a great story.

Overall:  It was a fascinating look at a great actor.

The End of the Tour

First Hit:  Intelligent dialogue in a very well-acted film.

This is a simple intelligent film about David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) a Rolling Stone reporter who works his boss to get an assignment to interview the current hottest writer David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel). Wallace has a past and history that Lipsky wants to better understand but mostly, because Lipsky, a writer himself, wants to find out why Wallace’s book is so much better than his  recently published book.

A number of their conversations take place in the car driving to various book readings, café’s, and Wallace’s home. Because of the physical closeness, their relationship grows to reveal a lot about each of the men. Wallace talks about learning about himself the hard way. He’s deeply explored his depression, has and continues to learn what is important to him, and how to deal with how the public views him, which often is far from the truth. He’s learned what his reality is and how to reconcile all of his life’s difficulties.

Lipsky gets challenged by someone who is as smart (maybe even smarter) as him. His respect and admiration occasionally gets in the way of interviewing Wallace, but those items also create a way to deeply learn more about Wallace and himself.

Eisenberg was his usual high intensity, high speed intellectual self. He’s is smart that he picks roles that display his natural strength. Segel gives a performance of a lifetime. He is stupendous, superb, and sublime. He embodies the character and dialogue. Donald Margulies wrote an incredibly strong script. James Ponsoldt created a great watchable film through his direction.

Overall:  This was a very watchable film by having intelligent dialogue.