They were so close.  Ides of March is gripping at times, somber and thought provoking at others but when the core of the film is revealed, it’s hard to find comfort or care in its primary characters.   Ok, I have to exclude Philip Seymour Hoffman from that generalization; his character and performance were the most true to life, which inherently doomed him in the film.  The others, not so much.

Ides of March follows Stephen Myers (Gosling), a charismatic, energetic campaign organizer working to win the Presidential primary for incumbent Governor Mike Morris (Clooney).  Leading such a harried campaign, there’s no time for relationships until Myers, quite surprisingly, strikes up a relationship with a staff intern, Molly Stearns (Evan Rachel Wood).   When Molly seeks Stephen’s help with a sensitive issue from her past it only adds to the enormous pressure of leading the campaign.  Sadly when it rains it pours for Stephen – along with the Primary of the century and Molly’s angst, he’s pursued by a smart and resourceful campaign manager for the opposition, Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti).  Tom is a master of subterfuge and flirts offers of a place on the other side’s administration while feeding seeds of discontent about Stephen’s own staff.    Caught between his loyalty to the Governor, his duty to help Molly and his own idealism about politics, Stephen traverses the rocky waters of the Capital Hill process while learning the true nature of the job and what he has resigned to let his life become.

Gosling (Half Nelson) is the spotlight role here.  I’m making my first Oscar pick of the year by saying that he will get a nod (but not a win).  Clooney (The Peacemaker) does average at best as Governor Morris.  He appears more to be a walking headshot than a believable candidate.  His running platform is filled with naïve public pandering which you have to attribute to the script, not necessarily to him.  Giamatti (Sideways) is ripe and passionate.  Playing a seasoned veteran of the campaign game, you really get a feel for his characters position within the film and its’ portrayal as he manipulates Gosling’s character.  Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen) gave a strong performance, but I question why she would take a role like this that only perpetuates her limited ability to play teen angst characters (even though here she’s supposedly 20).  Super hot, manipulative like a teen – I expect and want more from such a fresh faced beauty.  Marisa Tomei (Four Rooms) and Jeffrey Wright (Source Code) round out what appears to be a stellar cast on paper; the issue for them, and this film, is that the plot will cause audience rejection.  You’ve got a great string of powerful performances throughout the film, but it’s lost in the idealism within its execution.

When screening audiences are laughing during a funeral sequence that is supposed to broody and heartfelt…you know you went wrong with the characters.  ‘Ides’ gives you one solid performance to the next, but when the true nature and reality of the characters are revealed, you lose any interest in caring what happens to them and even more so about the eventual outcome of the people they play onscreen.  It’s a shame, because some great performances may get lost in the mix on this one.  Let’s hope moviegoers and Oscar voters can see through the subterfuge.

3 Stars Out of 5

The Ides of March is rated R for pervasive language.  Running Time: 101 minutes

It’s October.  A time when Ghoulies, Ghosties and Long-Legged Beasties roam the earth.  But if you start seeing the ghost of a World War II Japanese kamikaze fighter pilot, you’re probably Enoch Brae, the central character of Restless.  And that’s not a bad place to be.

Enoch is an odd kid.  If your name is Enoch you probably have to be a loner slack indie hipster.  It’s probably the law.  Enoch traces his outline in chalk, as you’d do for someone who has died.  He hangs out with a ghost that regularly beats him at Battleship.  And Enoch crashes funerals.  One day, during his usual round of funeral-hopping, he meets Annabel, a beautiful little Mia Farrow doppelganger that is almost as quirky as he is.  The two strike up a friendship, Enoch finds out Annabel has terminal brain cancer, and the rest of the film is about the time they spend together.

This ain’t your momma’s “terminally ill pretty thing heading for the light” kinda film.  Annabel isn’t raging against the dying of the light (or if she is we don’t see it), instead she’s trying to enjoy the time she has left by doing whatever she wants.  Mostly that’s dressing like a cross between Audrey Hepburn and Zooey Deschanel — I’d like 15 minutes in the costuming room of this movie, a big bag, and a lack of security — and trying to get Enoch to realize that he’s in love with her.  She succeeds on both counts.

Relative newcomer Henry Hopper plays Enoch, and he does a good job of playing a messed up kid that spends so much time pushing others away he doesn’t even like himself very much.  Pixie-like Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) plays Annabel, and her not-entirely-here beauty is tailor made for the role.  Ryo Kase (Letters from Iwo Jima) is Hiroshi Takahashi, the ghostly kamikaze pilot that is Enoch’s best friend, and Gus Van Sant (Milk, Good Will Hunting) does an amazing job weaving their stories together to form a cohesive tale that builds toward it’s tragic, but ultimately satisfying conclusion.  Van Sant gets quirky, and lets the story unspool at it’s own pace, something that movies rarely do in today’s crash-bang-boom era.  In a world where viewers are pulled along at warp speed through all sorts of stories, it’s refreshing to have a tale that finds it’s own rhythm and sticks with it.

A lovely, quirky score by Danny “Somebody Give This Dude An Oscar” Elfman, ties scenes together and gives a light touch to the darker aspects of the film.  And have I mentioned how the costuming of Annabel has pulled all the strings on my covetous, baser nature?  All the costuming should be commended for lending a timelessness to the film, instead of going for the easy on-trend pieces that would date this piece by the end of the year.  Yes, there’s an unusual amount of pretty in Annabel’s terminal illness, but there’s a surprising lack of sap that makes Restless head and shoulders better than sobfests like Terms of Endearment and Love Story.

Relax, slow down, and let yourself meet the speed of this curious little film.  You’ll be glad you did.

“Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots” get their day on the big screen in Real Steel, a movie that transcends the one-joke premise and is instead a heartwarming, fist-pumping mechanized fairy tale of a father and son coming together amid some of the baddest technology you’ll ever wish was really available.  Not to bad for a few plastic robots from the 60s.

Okay, so Real Steel isn’t based on the old game you played with and trashed back when you were a kid, it’s actually based on the story “Steel” by the amazing and incredible Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, Hell House, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet).  But the storyline sure quacks like a toy robot: it’s sometime in the not-too-distant future, a time where boxing has ditched humans and amped up the amazeballs factor by using robots.  Big, powerful, amazing robots, that are controlled/worked by human handlers and treated like superstars.  Robotics engineers are the new cool kids on the block, and as with all types of fighting there’s the legal big-leagues, and the shady underground scene.  Cue Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman, looking scruffy but gorgeous; does the man ever look bad?), a poor schmuck whose every decision seems like the wrong one.  After hurting himself in human boxing, he’s a robot boxing promoter, but he’s been reduced to staying one step ahead of the law and his myriad of creditors.  When Charlie finds out that he’s the father of 11-year-old Max, his son from a girlfriend he only barely remembers, having to take care of a kid puts a cramp in his style.  So he makes a deal with his dead girlfriend’s sister Debra; Charlie will watch Max over the summer so Aunt Debra and Uncle Marvin can go away to Europe, then Deb and Marv will take Max off Charlie’s hands for good.  But when Max, a kid who’s already a huge robot boxing fan, gets his first taste of competition, he decides to try his hand at the sport himself, along with a robot he finds in a spare-parts dump.  If you think Charlie and Max don’t bond over this, you obviously don’t get out much.

Jackman is in rare form here, and that’s saying something.  The man could literally act his way out of a paper bag and onto the Globe Stage if he wanted to, thanks to his ability to handle just about any role, from musical lead to a certain sideburned superhero.  He can even make a craptastic movie…well, palatable from time to time.  (I’m looking at you, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  Kate and Leopold.)  Evangeline Lily has a small but important role as Bailey Tallet, Charlie’s engineer and former love interest.  She’s not given much to do beyond solder parts and tell Charlie he’s a screwup, but as with Lost, Lily adds an openness and sincerity to her character.  The truly breathtaking performance comes from Dakota Goyo as Max, who holds his own with the A-List  actors he’s working with.  The three leads manage to rise above the Sci-Fi trappings and turn what could have easily been a quick cash-in (*coughTransformerscough*) into a film with real heart underneath all that metal.  It’s the answer to every prayer sent out by someone who has a significant other who won’t go to touchy-feely films.  It’s two treats in one; a feel-good movie with plenty of ass-kicking action.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the date night of the season.

Ahh action.  It’s here, and in spades.  Director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum, Date Night) knows how to mix his genres without sacrificing one for the other.  Film editor Dean Zimmerman keeps the pace quick when it needs to be, but slows things down in just the right places.  Legacy Effects handles the robot action, blending special effects with live action so well I couldn’t see an edge or warp anywhere.  Though to be honest the movie’s action sequences are so well done viewers won’t be doing much more than staring at the screen, transfixed.  I’ve gotta say that when I first heard about this movie I had my doubts.  Big, strong, fighting robots-sized doubts.  But Real Steel put those doubts to rest.  Real Steel is the movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon wishes it could have been.  That’s because Real Steel takes the time to deliver a touching father-son story along with it’s whizbang effects.  The result is a movie well worth your hard earned rivets.

CW, Kathleen, Corinne and Wendy are the typical family, maybe even better; they’re goofy with each other, mom & dad are still sexy crazy for each other, with a closeness that you just don’t see every day.  Then tragedy strikes, and the shockwaves send young Corinne to a wild life, and then to salvation with a capital S.  But who’s salvation has she found, and how does one keep a hold of his or her faith in an oppressive society?  Higher Ground takes a look at fundamentalist Christianity and it’s growing pains, paralleling the changes in that belief system with the changes the Baby Boom generation went through.  It’s a powerful film that has at it’s center a strong willed woman of deep faith, a unicorn in today’s overbearing, male-centered church.  That Higher Ground manages to simultaneously convey Corinne’s deep respect and love for her faith and with the troubling changes certain segments of the Protestant religion has undergone in the past several decades is a stunning achievement, especially for first-time director Vera Farmiga.

Based on Carolyn S. Briggs’ memoir, This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost (which has now been re-printed under the title Higher Ground), Higher Ground follows Corinne (Vera Farmiga; Up in the Air) from a young girl who sees going to church as just something to do, to a rebellious teen pregnant and hurriedly married and then to a woman who has put all her trust and hope in God.  But as the decades change, the groovy veggie hippies for Christ she joined as a teenager slowly become more dogmatic.  Adding to her troubles is a husband (played by Joshua Leonard of The Blair Witch Project) who sees no problem with the way their church has changed, and a sister and mother who have shed their earlier beliefs.  The film takes these characters from the personal, sexual and spiritual freedom of the 1960s, all Jesus Christ Superstar and tofu patties, to the close-minded demagoguery of 1980s “spirituality”.  As Corinne passes through the years, she must make a decision to stay with her faith, or to find her own way to be in the world.  ”Lord, it’s either inside with you, or outside with the dogs”, one church member says early on, a softly worded threat that anyone doing, saying or feeling anything different from those of the church would burn in H-E-double-hockey-sticks.  With all that fear of damnation thundering on a person 24-7, is it any wonder so many fundamentalists are batshit?

The character of Corinne is a refreshing change from all the half-crazed Bible-Belters that have become cliché over the years.  Here is a woman with strong beliefs that is also open minded and loving.  In my mind every single hyper-judgemental fundamentalist should be tied down and forced to watch this movie, if only to show them how they should really be living.  Then again they probably wouldn’t get it.  Farmiga pulls off the double duty of director/lead actress admirably, giving a nuanced performance that may well be overlooked by the Academy for it’s low-key style.  Which would be a shame, but we all know the Academy loves histrionics.  Dagmara Dominczyk (Kinsey) plays Corinne’s best friend Annika, a woman who sees God in everything, even in the drawings she makes of her husband’s penis.  “Christ-like sex!”, she exclaims, as the women collapse into giggles.  Meanwhile, Joshua Leonard as Corinne’s husband Ethan is sort of the Everyman of the Fundamentalist movement, and how he goes from a pot-smoking hippie to a crunchy believer to a flat-out shunning “Christian” is probably scarier than anything the horror genre will whip out at moviegoers this year.  It’s a sneaky, moment-by-moment change, and to see him become someone entirely different through Corinne’s eyes is heartbreaking and horrifying.

Higher Ground takes a look at many of the problems destructively fundamentalist movements have; blatant sexism, brainwashing, clannish/cultish behavior, and shows you how they’re used to keep the flock in line.  It seems all are not equal in His sight.  Have a gift of preaching?  Well, if you’re a woman that’s out.  (I hope nobody’s told Joyce Meyer.)  Wanna read Lord of the Flies?  Fuggetaboutit.  Piece by piece we see the negativity of their fundamentalism, a stark contrast to Corinne’s all-accepting faith.  She is a segment of the population that goes unnoticed; the open, accepting person of any faith.  Hey, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the judgemental self-righteous saved of any religious denomination makes better press, right?  Absolutely.

Corinne’s struggles to reclaim the faith she feels she’s lost leads her to therapy (faith-based of course), crushing on the hot mailman, and finally acceptance.  Her faith is a part of who she is, not the sum of everything she is.  That’s gotta be a difficult message for any extremist to swallow, but it makes for amazing filmmaking for those open to it’s message.  Higher Ground is a lot like Corinne’s faith, a quiet thing that is no less powerful for the lack of bells and whistles.

Hey there entertainment fans!  Since I’m tapping this out just before the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards show (and am I watching the pre-game show to see the dresses?  Doees Tim Gunn make it work?) this will be super-quick.  But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of cool stuff that you may have missed last week….

* You wish the folks that YOU like would win an Emmy?  Me too!  And we’re not alone; EW has coome up with the EWwy’s, a salute to the people and shows folks wish would get a what-what from the Emmy voters.

* Joan Rivers dead?  Oh hell no.  But Betty White, Joan sees you baby…. Sleep with one eye open, she’s on to you.

* An absolutely fantastic article from The Guardian about Cameron Crowe’s look at Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam Twenty, and his huge amount of Pearl Jam tsotchke.  Nice!

* Yeah, so the Muppets have now spoofed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.   Hilarious, as always.  But you know what’s really cool?  This poster of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, with Daniel Craig half-hidden by Rooney Mara.  Beautifully done!

* I have no problem admitting that American Horror Story is intriguing me, and I can’t wait to see it (though a few early peeks have been say it’s so-so, my hope springs eternal).  If you’re right there with me, check out a sneak peek of the American Horror Story house and some of it’s secrets.

* Trailer?  You bet — I’ve been looking forward to taking a peek at We BoughtA Zoo.  So here it is!

Too busy last week recovering from Labor Day & commemorating September 11th to keep up with the latest in entertainment news? Here’s a look at some of my favorite stuff from the news and my twitter feed so you can catch up!

* Box Office Top 5: Contagion infected the top spot (yeah, I had to go there), but The Help is close behind at number two. Warrior enters the list at number three, with The Debt and Columbiana rounding out the top 5. (Thanks Box Office Mojo!)

* The 20 Worst Lines in Movie History! Yay!!! (?)

* All the zombies, plagues and Acts of Whomever scare the body organs outta you? Wanna know how to survive the end of the world? The Baltimore Sun’s Jordan Bartel breaks it down for you. And we thank you, Jordan!

* From HufPo: Netflix shares drop after Starz decides it may not re-up their contract with the stay-at-home streaming co. And I gotta say that I feel really good about that. You double my fees and cut my service, Netflix? I blow my nose at you!

* A first-look at American Reunion! What a perfect teaser; I can’t wait for this to hit theaters next year!

* Trailers? You betcha!

The Amazing Spiderman:

And…The Avengers trailer, just in case you need it again for comparison:

Finally, a trailer for a movie that opens this year! Well, this December. Behold Justin Timberlake & Amanda Seyfried in…In Time!

Zombies are the big thing nowadays.  But what if the world went out with a whimper instead of a bang?  What if it went out with a cough?  It may not have the cool kids cachet of the stumbling dead, but Contagion‘s well thought out scientific underpinnings make it a compelling thriller for the brainy set, those who are aching for a different kind of action movie, or anyone who has a love affair with medical procedural shows.

As the film starts, you hear a cough.  Then another, and another.  Beth Emhoff, a businesswoman who is returning home to the States from a trip to Hong Kong, isn’t looking so good.  That’s pretty damn serious, considering she’s played by Gwyneth Paltrow, a woman that would look good after a 3-day cheesecake and whiskey bender.  Anyone who has seen the trailer for this film knows that Beth isn’t recovering from this business trip bug, and quickly other people come down with the illness.  Before long, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are racing against time to stop the pandemic before it’s too late.

The beginning of Contagion is much like the start of Stephen King’s novel The Stand in how it shows just how easy it is to pass along a virus.  We see Beth pick up a drink, then put it down.  The busboy picks up the empty glass, he grabs onto a bus rail on his way home…and suddenly millions of people are dead or dying.  But this film plays down the horror aspect, going instead for a fast-paced thriller focused on how to find a cure while the world is falling apart.  Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Syriana) uses his skill working with an ensemble cast to show many different points of view; from CDC doctors and WHO officials to janitors and families in far-out villages, there is hardly a social demographic that is missed.  Writer Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) amps up the audience’s adrenaline by crafting scenes that show how government, big business and the blogosphere all strive to come out of this smelling like a rose, regardless of the toll it takes on humanity.  Meanwhile, humanity ain’t exactly holding hands singing Kumbaya, and scenes with crowds of frightened people pushed to their limits have a frightening ring of truth.

Yes, there are themes here, but they don’t beat you about the head to get you to submit, they slide into your conscious bit by bit as the action progresses.  They’re also grounded in common sense; think for yourself, take care of yourself and those you care about, take care of the world.  It’s easy to see why H2O Africa Foundation co-founder Matt Damon signed onto this project; it’s a wake-up call cunningly disguised as an action-packed thriller.  It’s also easy to see how this film attracted it’s all-star cast, as Soderbergh’s deft touch with subject matter that shoots off in many directions at once, and Burns’ ability to craft a thriller that takes time to let you care about the folks in the thick of it, was probably catnip to these stars.  Everyone rises to the occasion, giving performances that are believable in their humanity.  Bonus points for getting Dr. Sanjay Gupta to play himself in a cameo piece.

There are problems with any movie that tries to cover such a broad scope, and Congation isn’t immune.  Although Paltrow’s character isn’t on screen — alive, anyway — for long, the connection audiences build with her after her Psycho-esque early end gets shattered by a revelation that is wholly unnecessary.  And Lawrence Fishburne’s Dr. Ellis Cheever puts himself on the line for someone, and we find out after this storyline is almost entirely played out that someone is Cheever’s wife.  But for these flaws there are many more positives.  Jude Law’s blogger Alan Krumwiede, who is trying to do the right thing but can’t seem to help being a dick about it.  Matt Damon as Beth’s husband, who will stop at nothing to keep his daughter safe.  Marion Cotillard as WHO official Dr. Leonora Orantes, a woman that gets a first-hand look at how things are going outside of the big cities.  Not everyone lives, but not everyone dies either, and that gives viewers the hope they need to keep rooting for the world to survive.

With cold and flu season hitting us right about now, I’m sure there will be quite a few people who will be a bit more careful this season after seeing this film.  Meanwhile, I picked up a bug at the screening, and can’t seem to shake this sore throat.  I’m trying not to freak out about it, but after seeing what can happen if a bug gets nasty?  I think I’ll be staying in to rest this weekend.

Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain play a Mossad agent that has to come to terms with her actions in The Debt, John Madden’s (Shakespeare In Love, Mrs. Brown) latest piece of low-key drama. But unlike his earlier pieces that dealt with serious decisions people make in their day-to-day lives, The Debt deals with life-or-death decisions made in the hopes of settling a Debt that could never truly be repaid.

The Debt is a remake of the 2007 film of the same name, but with a star-studded cast, and probably a much higher budget. But the story is much the same; in 1997 Rachel Singer, a Mossad agent that has become famous in Israel for her part in the capture of “The Surgeon of Treblinka” in 1966 (with the help of fellow agents Stephan Gold and David Peretz) finds out that the “surgeon” is still alive. All those years ago, the three agents covered up the fact that the Nazi war criminal escaped their custody through a series of chance occurrences, and so Rachel, Stephan and David decide to give their country what it so desperately needs; a happy ending. The three come together to figure out what to do, and to come to terms with the lies they’ve told over the past several decades. But they come to discover that revenge never, ever has a happy ending.

Writers Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Snatch) and Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, The Woman in Black) keep the action and story flowing well, even though the film cuts from 1966 to 1997 and back again repeatedly. It’s a mystery that gradually unfolds, and the characters make the same mistakes no matter how many years go by. The question is, are they able to stop themselves and do what’s needed, instead of what they think should be done? Vaughn and Goldman’s writing, along with Madden’s direction and the brilliant acting by the stars of the show, keep the audience invested. What makes The Debt rise above the usual espionage thriller is the complicated love triangle between Rachel, Stephan and David, and how that plays in to their assignment, and their cover-up.

Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds play the older versions of Rachel, Stephan and David, haunted by the choices they didn’t make, and the regrets they’ve taken with them through the decades. All three give amazing performances, as you’d expect from such well regarded actors. The real eye-opener is the way the younger actors, playing the 1966 versions, handle the task. Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life), Marton Csokas (The Lord of the Rings) and Sam Worthington (Avatar) deliver stunning performances. The three play agents so full of their own belief in what’s right that they can’t see what actually needs to be done. These actors get down and dirty in their roles, and performances like these make me want to see what more they can do if they’re given an entire dramatic movie to run with, instead of bits and pieces (or B-level movies; I’m looking at you, Clash of the Titans). It’s easy enough to just kick back and enjoy performances by Mirren, Wilkinson and Hinds; you know you’ll be getting real quality. But from young stars like Chastain, Csokas and Worthington, it’s a breath of hope for the future. Keeping your eyes on the stars of the show will rob you of another brilliant performance here from Jesper Christensen, as the “Surgeon” himself. Christensen plays Doktor Bernhardt with a quiet menace; he’s the guy that lives on your street whose creepy past would shock you because he’s such a nice guy…*now*. When he’s found out, however, his low-key heartlessness is chilling.

As the movie unspools, viewers see how the decisions those young agents have twisted their lives in ways they had never imagined when they were young and ready to take on the world. The question for these three is, in order to make things right, must you stoop to the level of the truly evil? Or do you rise above? I can’t even imagine how exhausting it must have been to be a young Mossad agent in those first few decades after World War II, but The Debt paints a pretty good picture. The moral issues in the movie keep things intriguing, and the cast pulls off the sometimes unbelievable coincidences while maintaining credibility.