All 4 Films available on Blu Ray and DVD...
“August: Osage County” – (2013) – Watching Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts scream and launch F bombs at one another for the majority of this two hour, family-in-crisis/Drama’s run-time was not my idea of entertainment- it feels manufactured, inauthentic and hollow, piling charged altercations and shocking revelations upon one another until a viewer is suffocated into no longer giving a damn. Adapted from a popular Broadway play, I have a feeling something was lost in translation.
August... is a thoroughly unrewarding and unpleasant experience which consistently misses the mark in its intended moments of poignancy while wasting a very good cast in the process. Only Chris Cooper shines through the material, albeit briefly. Those who require resolution with their family-in-turmoil features will absolutely starve.
One of the more highly overrated films of 2013.
5.5 out of 10
Director: John Wells
Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Margo Martindale, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch and Misty Upham
Run-Time: 121 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for language including sexual references, and for drug material
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“Blue Jasmine” - (2013) – The movie that desperately wants you to feel sorry for a condescending, rich, materialistic bitch (Cate Blanchette) who suddenly finds herself penniless when her ponzi scheming husband (Alec Baldwin) faces the music- this is middling Woody Allen fare at best, pretentious and dull to the core, with the accomplished Writer/Director reheating old material and passing it off as new.
Blanchette’s performance lands somewhere between good and very good, yet there’s absolutely no way that it was the best performance from a leading actress in 2013- that distinction should have been awarded to Adele Exarchopoulos for her turn in "Blue Is The Warmest Color". Politics as usual for the Oscars, the biggest awards sham in showbiz.
As with most of Allen’s films there’s a solid cast on display, though there isn’t much of a chance to provide significant depth to any of the co-stars who periodically (and briefly) saunter in and out of the narrative. Love him or hate him, I thought it was cool to see Andrew Dice Clay again.
6.5 out of 10
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Cannavale, Max Casella, Michael Stuhlbarg, Louis C.K., Peter Sarsgaard
Run-Time: 98 minutes
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for mature thematic material, language and sexual content
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“The Great Gatsby”– (2013) – Bloated, downright gaudy and filled with a cast seemingly hell-bent on overacting in an insufferable, hammy manner- even the usually stellar DiCaprio (as the titular man of mystery) flashes a look of embarrassment now and then. The visual gimmickry, obvious blue-screen aided sets and unintentionally goofy situations grows wearisome in rapid fashion. Top it off with a soundtrack supplied by Executive Producer Jay-Z, himself… complete with modern Jay Z tracks… C’mon, Man!
I didn’t care for the 1974 original attempt to bring F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel to the big screen (Starring Robert Redford as Gatsby) and I cared even less for this one. Haunting treatments of Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful", which riffs throughout the film, would be the only element of soul on display.
Director Baz Luhrmann needs to stick to musicals.
6.0 out of 10
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Amitabh Bachchan, Jack Thompson, Adelaide Clemens and Richard Carter
Run-Time: 143 minutes
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language
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"Labor Day"- (2014) – Set in 1987, Josh Brolin’s (Mimic) escaped convict forces his way into the home, the lives and the hearts of Kate Winslet’s (Titanic) depressed single mother and her teenaged son, played by Gattlin Griffith. The well-meaning fugitive slowly but surely brings the haunted recluse out of her shell and becomes a father figure to the juvenile boy in the process. Apparently a small child recently watched several movies based off of Nicholas Sparks novels and decided to craft their very own tale- this Drama/Romance is so sweet, so milquetoast, so manufactured and manipulative that it had me rolling my eyes within five minutes. The sappy, melodramatic material doesn’t let up for the film’s entire run-time and could easily choke a more hardened soul to death.
The other feature films in Director Jason Reitman’s filmography are: “Thank You For Smoking” (overrated, but Ok), “Juno” (enjoyed it), “Young Adult” (off-kilter misfire) and “Up In the Air”- (my pick for best film of 2009) I consider Labor Day to be his runaway worst. How this avoided The Lifetime Channel to end up on the silver screen, I'll never know...
Skip it and clip your toenails instead.
4.5 out of 10
Director: Jason Reitman
Cast: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Tobey Maguire, Clark Gregg, James Van Der Beek and J.K. Simmons
Run-Time: 111 minutes
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for thematic material, brief violence and sexuality
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