Arbitrage

Just when I thought I had it all over Richard Gere, my dear spouse muttered, "Boy, is he handsome!"  So much for this reviewer's ego, or what's left of it!  Seriously, Gere seems to get more dashing with each film he does, but more importantly, I would argue, is how much his acting improves.

Richard Gere has earned his stripes:  he has been around Hollywood for a long time.  He has done some great work. I remember when he played the wayward bum in Breathless.  He swaggered his way through the streets, chasing a naive young thing with believable arrogance and eventually taking on a cop when he had no way out.  I remember when he played, with fine aplomb, the rich businessman who courts the sickeningly sweet prostitute in Pretty Woman (sorry, sports fans, I never liked this one.)  I remember when he portrayed a lawyer committed to saving a supposedly crazy client in Primal Fear.  Gere was outstanding as the gullible defense attorney. And then, when I thought, what can Richard Gere NOT do, he impressed me mightily with his singing and dancing in Chicago.

Ok, that's the buildup.  Does Gere live up to his rep in Arbitrage?  As a once-famous political candidate once quipped, "You betcha!"  In fact, Richard Gere is so darn good that I'd say he acts up to Best Actor standards.  Yes, readers, I would nominate him for an Oscar for this one.

What's his role?  He's simply, as one reviewer noted, a BILLIONAIRE WEASEL!  Yup, he's the guy you go the movies to hate.  He's chauvinistic, self-centered, corrupt, and scarily unethical.  Lest you think Madoff has something on Gere's character, you might go and see the film to judge for yourself!

As usual, I will refrain from offering details that might spoil the movie.  Let me say, however, that Arbitrage is sophisticated and makes us think.  It teaches us how a clever business icon can manipulate books, situations, and people in such a way that the bigger the lie, the greater chance of success there is.

Susan Sarandon is strong as the misled wife, and Tim Roth (who will never be as good as he was in Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction), deftly plays a wily and determined detective.

Arbitrage is A+ entertainment.  The film grabs like a vice.  Not so sure I like the ending, but that's for you to weigh in on, dear readers.

Premium Rush

Print image just doesn't do here.  MUST SEE TRAILER BEFORE PROCEEDING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcQibDNxHjI

So, anyone remember Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver (1986)?  He played a bike messenger in San Francisco.  Well, Premium Rush is Quicksilver on steroids!

Most movie FUN I've had in a long time.  I kept looking for a seatbelt in the theatre!  It is exhilarating, suspenseful, and breath-taking.  A bonus for me were all the NYC sites, particularly as our bike messenger, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who's evolved very nicely as an actor from early 3rd Rock From the Sun days), takes us through my daughter's old neighborhood on Upper B'way.

Fabulous camera work!!!  Amazing stunts.  Supreme athleticism on the part of the actors.

Michael Shannon (whom I don't know at all) was scene-stealing in the supporting role as Nasty Nemesis.  He combined just the right blend of very scary dude whom we can actually laugh at.  Go figure.

Go OUT to the movies and see this one in a dark theatre with a large screen.  You will think you are on a speed rocket in Manhattan.  It is, indeed, a premium rush for film-goers.

Enjoy!

Thinner

I'm a Stephen King nut.  I enjoy every mystery/horror book/film he has created.  My favorite was, and might always be, The Langoliers.  It loops quite often on TV.  If you have not seen it, go back and enjoy!  Like most of King's work, it's more scifi than horror.

Back in 1996, the gifted spook writer helped produce a film based on one of his short stories.  It's called Thinner.  The title grabs you.  Why?

Without giving away details, the unlikely hero of the film, an unscrupulous lawyer named Billy, is played by Robert Burke (who, after this starring role, seemed to go nowhere in his acting).  That's him above, next to the better known Joe Mantegna.  Burke's character is big...300 pounds!  He likes to eat!  His wife is trying to get him to diet.  To no avail.

Billy the Lawyer unintentionally gets on the wrong side of an old gypsy, who has the power to put curses on others.  He curses Bill.  How?  By making him thinner!

OK, isn't that good news for the fat man?  Well yes, to a certain point.  But what if there's no stopping the weight loss?  What if Billy just keeps getting THINNER?

Haha!  Interesting premise.

No more on the plot.  Kari Wuhrer plays the gypsy's granddaughter.  In one of her very best roles. she is slinky and scary as the mean-spirited image of temptation.  Joe Mantegna plays Billy's gangster friend who deftly leads a revenge motif.

The story really pulls you in.  It's a bizarre tale, but what else would you expect from the Great Master of Mystery?

I loved the film until the very end.  Somehow, the last few minutes let me down.  If you see this one, dear viewers, please weigh in on the ending.

Falling Down

Back in 1993, Michael Douglas made a whopper of a film!  I recently saw it again, and I was so impressed I thought my readers might like to know about one they might have missed.

Falling Down is about a guy going bezonkers.  Poor fellow.  He's divorced, unemployed, hot under the collar, and just downright mad at society!  That's all I'll say, because I don't want to give anything away.

Let me simply address the acting.

First, Michael Douglas.  He may well be one of the most talented actors ever.  Yes, this sounds a bit long on hyperbole.  But go back and look at some of his work.  He absolutely gripped viewers when he played the cop smitten with the slinky writer in Basic Instinct.  He just about outdid himself in The Game.  But in Falling Down, he IS the creepy, violent, weird, unbalanced man with a gun!

If that is not enough, Robert Duvall plays one his finest roles as the officer nearing retirement who feels out of place among his peers and senses a kinship, of sorts, with the killer he is chasing.  And watch for Tuesday Weld who plays a late-career, powerful role as the neurotic wife of the cop.  The former beauty shows she could always act.

WOW!  The plot is taut.  The acting is superb.

I have no idea why Michael Douglas was not nominated for Best Actor and Robert Duvall for Best Supporting Actor.

Falling Down is an overlooked masterpiece.

Happy Accidents

Back in 1999, prior to the Great Stock Decline and 9/11, both of which would soon occur, we entered the 2nd Millennium in a mild state of euphoria.  The stock market was at an all-time high, Bill Clinton was making us smile with his Monica Lewinsky capers, and the big question of the day was how would computers manage to function with the the BIG DATE change?  Not since the Roaring 20's did America seem so giddy.

Happy Accidents, made in 1999, reflects America at its frothiest best before the catastrophes of 2001.

Want a very light, and very funny, comedy?  With Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio, you can't go wrong.  Remember Marisa in My Cousin Vinny?  She won a Best Supporting Actresss Oscar for that extraordinary role.

Here's the gist of the film, with no spoiler, as usual:  Sam Deed is from the future, and he has come back to the present to meet the pretty Ruby Weaver.   Sam is frank: he tells Ruby he is from the future.

Ruby, in therapy to quell her quirky neuroses about men, nearly flips when she hears such an outlandish story from a guy she sort of likes.  The humor, which is over-the-top funny, lies in her crazy reactions to his crazy tales.

So where will the romance go?  Will there be true love in the end?  What happens when she finally realizes he's telling the truth?  Will future-man and present-woman stay together?

And what about the psychiatrist?  Is she a player in this weird, offbeat movie?

Enjoy, dear readers.  This one is fun.

Little Traitor

Films teach so much history!  They take us back in time and throw us into a world that existed way back when.

The Little Traitor brings us back to Israel, that is, Palestine, as it was in 1947.  For readers who might not be acquainted with this past reality, here's the basic situation:

Jews and Arabs lived side by side in relative peace after WWII, because the British were assigned by the League of Nations to watch over Palestine.  The British were caught in the middle between two feuding people.  The Jews were trying to establish a place where the survivors from the Nazi death camps could live.  The British tried to stem the flow of Jewish immigrants, as related in the film Exodus (if you have not seen Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint in that historical masterpiece, that's a must!)

In this very tense setting, a young boy of about nine, a member of a family of Polish Jewish immigrants who lost all their relatives in the Holocaust, grows up hating the British soldiers.  He defies the curfew every night.  He plots to drive out the evil British with the red hats!

NO spoiler, so I can't go much further.  Suffice it say that the hate-filled boy meets a very warm, father-like soldier, played brilliantly by Alfred Molina.  The friendship turns him around.  Soon, he finds a best friend in an older man who takes the boy under his wing.

What do fellow Jews think about a kid cavorting with the "enemy?"  Is the kid just friendly toward the British soldier or a traitor?

The film is taut.  We are on the edge of our seats for the majority of the story.  We fear the worst.  Then the plot takes a little different twist.  A good one?

For you to discover, dear readers!  If you want a great story and a fine history lesson about pre-1948 Israel, this film is for you.

The Ritchie Boys

After reviewing The Wave, my dear spouse and I happened upon another WWII-related movie, The Ritchie Boys.  The title did not particularly tempt me.  The description was also not too appealing, something about some soldiers who were trained in intelligence during the war.

Was I wrong!  This amazing documentary is powerful, jolting, and very, very uplifting.

Normally the non-spoiler, who hates to give details that might ruin a film for the audience, I will for once do otherwise, thus this rare David-caution:  SPOILER ALERT!

Why?  Because the story, which is gripping, requires an adequate description to convince my dear readers that this film is worth seeing.

Back in the late 30's, as Europe was watching Hitler and the Nazis gain in strength, and we stayed cautiously neutral, Jews who could see the handwriting on the wall and who had a spirit of adventure, left Europe for America.  Among the brave immigrants were young men who, wanting to fight the Nazis, joined American military forces.

The services, realizing the value of American boys who were fluent in German and who knew Germany well, recruited the brightest of the men for special intelligence work.  The military sent the chosen few to Camp Ritchie, an isolated rural area, for training.

What was the major task of the Ritchie Boys?  Simple.  They were to return to Europe, with their American units, to interrogate the Germans who were captured and to engage in anti-Nazi propaganda. The "boys" were just that: Generally between 18 and 24, anxious to serve their new country, and also to fight against the Germans who were slaughtering their people.

In order to be where the action was, the Ritchie intelligence units were actually present at almost every major WWII event:  The invasion of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the uncovering of the Nazi death camps.

So what is the film?  It's a series of interviews with the Ritchie boys as they are today, much older, somewhat wiser, and able and willing to share what they actually did.  The interviews, and the flashbacks to WWII, are captivating and often mind-boggling.

I had a connection of sorts with one of the Ritchie Boys.  He's shown in the picture above.  Who is he?  Victor Brombert.  As a graduate student many years ago studying 19th Century French Literature, I constantly came across the writings of the most famous literary scholar of French literature in America, and probably the world....none other than Professor Victor Brombert, of Yale University.

I recently wrote the great professor to thank him for what he did for both Americans and Jews.

I am touched by what the brave young soldiers did for all of us.