RICHARD’S REVIEWS FOR June 13, 2014 W “CANADA AM” HOST Beverly Thomson.
“Canada AM” film critic Richard Crouse gives “22 Jump Street” 3.5 stars, “How to Train Your Dragon 2” 4 stars and “The Double’ 3 stars.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Posts Tagged ‘Jesse Eisenberg’
THE DOUBLE: 3 STARS. “like it was made by David Lynch and Terry Gilliam’s love child.”
“The Double” plays like a movie made by the love child of David Lynch and Terry Gilliam. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky novella about a man who finds his life being usurped by his doppelgänger, it is a quietly surreal story about the existential misfortune of a man (Jesse Eisenberg) with no sense of himself.
Eisenberg is Simon, an insecure twenty-something trying to make a name for himself, personally and professionally, to no avail. His boss (Wallace Shawn) ignores his ideas and even his mother isn’t a fan. He’s in love with co-worker Hannah (Mia Wasikowska), who lives in an apartment across the street from him, but like everyone else Hannah looks right through Simon.
“I have all these things that I want to say to her,” he says, “like how I can tell she’s a lonely person, even if other people can’t. Cause I know what it feels like to be lost and lonely and invisible.”
Everything changes when James (Eisenberg again) is hired at work. Physically he’s Simon’s doppelgänger, an exact match, but personality-wise he a polar opposite. Confident and charismatic, he excels at work and worst of all, Hannah wants to date him.
In front of the camera “The Double” writer-director Richard Ayoade is best known for playing computer nerd Maurice Moss on the much-loved British sitcom “The IT Crowd.” Behind the camera his work takes a much more darkly comedic approach. His first film, “Submarine,” was an edgy coming-of-age story that earned him a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
“The Double” strays into even stranger territory. Imagine “The Nutty Professor’s” Professor Julius Kelp / Buddy Love filtered through Dostoevsky’s “mystery of spiritual existence.” Ayoade creates a personal dystopia, inhabited by Simon, Hannah and James; a stylized study of paranoia with a few laughs thrown in. It’s an unabashedly weird movie that lets its freak flag fly.
This is Eisenberg’s film. He and Michael Cera (who tread on similar dual character territory in 2009’s “Youth in Revolt”) have made careers playing up the socially awkward nature of their characters, so half of “The Social Network” actor’s performance is no surprise. His work as Simon is something we’ve seen before from him, but his take on James is fresh, accomplished with shifts in body language. He effectively plays two characters in one movie.
In the end “The Double” stands as a unique movie, rich in Orwellian details and with good performances, but marred by a difficult, confusing story that may alienate less adventurous viewers.
Metro In Focus: More birds flock to Hollywood with Rio sequel
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Hollywood’s two most famous birds must be Donald Duck and Woody Woodpecker. Between them they’ve starred in almost three hundred films.
This weekend Donald and Woody are joined by Tyler Blu Gunderson, a rare male Spix’s macaw, voiced by Jesse Eisenberg making his second big screen appearance in Rio 2. He’s joined by a cast of fine feathered friends, including a Yellow Canary (Jamie Foxx), a rapping Red-crested Cardinal (will.i.am) and a sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Jemaine Clement), as they leave their home in Rio de Janeiro for the Amazon rainforest.
The colorful co-stars in Rio 2 are animated which makes them a much more agreeable lot than Tippi Hedren’s cast mates in her most famous movie. In the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds she plays a wealthy socialite visiting Bodega Bay in Northern California when hundreds of ravens, seagulls and pigeons begin viciously attacking the townsfolk.
Some of the birds were props, but many of them were all too real. Actors with ground meat and anchovies daubed on them to entice the birds escaped with nips and scratches but Hedren took the worst of it during the shooting of the movie’s famous attic scene.
She had been told mechanical birds would be used to in the sequence that sees her trapped in a small room while birds attack her. When she arrived at the shoot she saw a cage built around the set and realized the plan had changed. For a week real birds were thrown at her by stagehands. Pecked and scratched by birds attached to her by elastic bands she screamed and sobbed as one of them gouged her eye. It was such a traumatic sight Cary Grant, who dropped by the set to say hello, said, “You’re one brave lady.
It’s no wonder Hedren chose Marnie, and not The Birds, as her favorite Hitchcock leading role.
As distressing as the shoot for The Birds might have been, the movie is now considered a classic.
That can’t be said for a film inspired by Hitchcock’s avian terror.
Birdemic: Shock and Terror director James Nguyen says the inspiration for his movie dates back to 2006 when he saw a flock of seagulls flying toward him at Half Moon Bay south of San Francisco. The sight reminded him of Hitchcock’s film, but he thought, “What if I make a movie where instead of seagulls and crows, it’s birds of prey? There’s nothing more shocking than eagles and vultures.”
The self-financed film took four years to finish and laid an egg in theatres before it became a cult hit as one of the worst film ever made.
When asked what Hitchcock would have thought of Birdemic Nguyen told Empireonline.com, “I think Mr. Hitchcock would forgive a lot of its imperfections and say, ‘James, you did what you could. Do another one and try to do it better.’”
NOW YOU SEE ME: 2 STARS
To fully enjoy “Now You See Me,” a new magical heist film starring Jessie Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson, it’s best to leave your sense of disbelief at the door. Or at home. Better yet wrap it in cellophane, lock it in a box and hide it under the bed.
Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco play magicians collectively known as The Four Horsemen. Brought together by a mysterious benefactor, they make their debut in front of a sold out crowd at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In front of an enthusiastic crowd they perform a wild illusion that seemingly transports an audience member to a bank vault in Paris. Soon three million Euro are sucked out of the vault, only to reign down on the crowd in the Vegas theatre. This and other spectacular, but illegal illusions attract the attention of not only a magic debunker (Morgan Freeman) but the FBI (lead by Mark Ruffalo) and a French Interpol agent named Alma Vargas (Mélanie Laurent).
“Some things are best left unexplained,” says Alma. Yeah, like who plotted this mess.
“Now You See Me” is the silliest movie of the year. It’s fun and mostly entertaining, but with its talk of secret societies, “bringing magic back to the people” and leaps of logic, to call it far fetched is an understatement akin to saying Houdini is kinda tricky.
Filled with likable actors giving flamboyant performances it speeds by in a blur of swirling cameras and “tricks” that are like David Copperfield on steroids… and CGI. For a movie about bringing magic back to the people, it’s more about bring computer generated trickery to the big screen.
There is a wizard battle that would make Harry Potter envious but by the time our magical Robin Hoods–they don’t keep any of the stolen money for themselves– end their run with the sentiment “Even if we spend the next twenty years in jail it was worth it,” you’ll be wanting to make a disappearing act of your own.
RIO: 3 STARS
In “Rio” nerd actor du jour Jesse Eisenberg plays, what else, a nerdy birdy—a domesticated macaw—small-town Minnesota named Blu. He’s never learned to fly, but enjoys a happy and healthy life with his owner and BFF Linda (Leslie Mann). When they discover the last remaining ladybird blue macaw (voice of Anne Hathaway) in the world lives in Rio de Janeiro they make the journey to find her, but their plan lays an egg. Instead they encounter kidnappers and an evil cockatoo named Nigel (Jemaine Clement). On the upside perhaps Blu will finally learn to fly.
Let’s get the 800 pound elephant—or in this case, the big blue bird—out of the way right away. Let me say that “Rio” has an OK story and sparkling animation but it really lacks the depth of a Pixar film. Maybe I’m spoiled, but when I watch animated movies, whether they are Dreamworks, or, like this one, from Fox, I can’t help but think, “What would the wizards at Pixar have done with this story?”
Don’t get me wrong, “Rio” is perfectly serviceable. It’s colorful and filled with nice little touches like a little bird who warms himself against a traffic light, flitting back-and-forth between the red and green lights, in snowy Minnesota, but for all the nice little touches and exciting flying scenes the movie isn’t particularly memorable. It’ll keep the little ones occupied in the theatre—although very little kids may find some of the action a bit too intense—and has a good enviro message about wild animals and their treatment, but there’s no real sticky content here.
The lead voice work is adequate, nothing special from the above the title stars, but will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Tracy Morgan—as a drooling bulldog in a Carmen Miranda fruit salad hat—and particularly Jemaine Clement—who has a show stopping song—help the movie take flight with fun supporting vocal work.
“Rio” is a good enough Saturday afternoon matinee with the kids, unfortunately for me it lacks the zip I have come to expect from animated entertainment. Sorry “Rio” but I can only imagine Pixar could come up with a more imaginative name for a blue macaw than Blu.
THE SOCIAL NETWORK: 4 ½ STARS
As you might imagine the story of a socially inept computer nerd who created the world’s most popular social networking website isn’t chock-a-block with action. Occasionally cursors fly across computer screens and fingers tap out code on keyboards, but that is about the limit of the action. But that’s OK when the dialogue is as entertaining and well delivered as it is in “The Social Network.”
Adapted from Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book “The Accidental Billionaires,” the movie is the story of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) the genius computer programmer behind facebook. Bookended by the legal case (or more rightly put, cases) filed against Zuckerberg by an unsocial network of jilted business partners, including co-founder Eduardo Saverin (future Spider-Man portrayer Andrew Garfield) and a pair of well connected twins who claim the original idea was theirs, “The Social Network” charts the rise and, well rise of facebook from its humble beginnings in a dorm room at Harvard to its current evaluation of $25 billion.
The opening scene of the movie sets the tone for the rest of the film. Zuckerberg and his soon-to-be-ex girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) engage in a long, awkward conversation that reveals his disconnect from regular society. He’s the smartest guy in the room, but has a chip on his shoulder and an attitude. Their exchange, beautifully written by former “West Wing” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, displays the kind of verbal fireworks that propels the movie.
Sorkin and director David Fincher have done a great job of taking a complicated story with loads of computer jargon and making it accessible. They treat the audience and the story respectfully by not dumbing down the details but unlike Oliver Stone’s recent attempt to explain the financial meltdown in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” the drama of the story is allowed to take center stage, not the mechanics of the lawsuits or the computerese.
At the center of it All is Jesse Eisenberg, a young actor who, in the past, was often written off as the poor man’s Michael Cera. No more. This is a daring performance that shows Zuckerberg’s detachment while not turning him into a nerdy stereotype.
Also nicely cast are Andrew Garfield as Savein and Rooney Mara, who will soon be seen in the lead of the American remake of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” but the biggest surprise may be Justin Timberlake. His film career has been a bit spotty to date, but playing Napster co-creator Sean Parker with equal parts charisma and smarm suggests that when properly cast he can shine.
Mark Zuckerberg is a polarizing figure but love him or hate him, his story has made one the best films of the year.
ZOMBIELAND: 4 STARS
Making a horror comedy is tricky business. Do it right and you get a classic like “Sean of the Dead,” a movie whose body count is offset by just the right amount of laughs. Do it wrong and you’ll wind up with “Repossessed,” a movie that is neither funny nor scary, just dull. “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer (whose next movie is to be called Psycho Funky Chimp) understands that horror comedies are neither fish nor fowl—they are both. For every decapitation you have to have a giggle and “Zombieland” delivers on both counts.
This post-apocalyptic zom com stars Jesse Eisenberg as a teenage curmudgeon who has survived a fast acting viral plague that turned his neighbors (and everybody else) into ferocious flesh eating zombies. Mad cow became mad person which became mad zombie disease! It should be a paradise for this videogame playing hermit—no facebook status updates!—but a life spent killing ravenous zombies has left him starving for human contact. When he meets zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), and two dishonest sisters, Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), he realizes for better or worse, they must stick together to survive.
“Zombieland” has the same over-the-top silly vibe that makes movies like “Killer Klowns from Outer Space” such guilty pleasures. It’s gross-out funny with plenty of action and zombie kills for the hardcores, but underneath the absurdity is a message about humanity. At the end of the movie Eisenberg’s character realizes that his solitary life was turning him into the thing he feared most. “Without other people,” he says, “you might as well be a zombie.” The sentiment may not be as powerful as George A. Romero’s zombie metaphors but it puts a nice little bow on this coming of age story.
Also strong is the casting. Eisenberg, a young actor second only to Michael Cera in playing awkward teens on film, is an unlikely action movie hero, but here he plays to his strengths—playing the witty self-conscious teen—and expands his range to include zombie serial killer.
Equally fun is Woody Harrelson as the Twinkie loving zombie hunter Tallahassee. Harrelson brings a swagger and some unexpected twists to the character and delivers many of the film’s funniest lines.
Both are ably supported by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin who don’t have as have much to do as the boys, but do a great deal to keep the story moving forward.
The showiest role in the film, however, belongs to a Hollywood superstar who has one of the most surreal cameos in recent memory. I’m not going to tell you who it is (it’s funnier if you don’t know) but his wild scenes alone are worth the price of admission.
“Zombieland” breathes a bit of new life into the sometimes stale zombie genre.
Now You See Me, and other Robin Hood style heist movies By Richard Crouse Metro Canada Wednesay May 29, 2013
In just 12 minutes The Great Train Robbery tells the tale of a group of bandits who hold up a train and rob the passengers.
Made by Edwin Porter in 1903 it’s been placed on the United States National Film Registry for its innovative use of composite editing, camera movement and on-location shooting.
It was one of the first narrative movies and it introduced moviegoers to the heist movie, a tradition that continues to this day.
This weekend Now You See Me presents an elaborate crime story of a team of magicians — led by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Isla Fisher — who abracadabra their way into bank vaults.
They are Robin Hood-style crooks, stealing money and giving it back to their audiences.
The “steal from the rich to give to the poor” is a common theme in heist movies. Recently Tower Heist saw a rag tag group clean out a Bernie Madoff type in order to refund money to the people he swindled.
The Maiden Heist stars Christopher Walken as a museum security guard infatuated with the painting that gives the movie its name.
When it is announced that the artwork has been sold to a Danish gallery he’s distraught — “Do you know how far away Copenhagen is?”— and ropes Morgan Freeman and William H. Macy into stealing the painting and two others so they can enjoy them together. Not exactly Robin Hood — they’re stealing from the rich to give to themselves — but their motives are artistically pure.
Not so pure are the reasons behind the heist in The Good, the Bad, the Weird — an Asian take on the similarly named Sergio Leone spaghetti western.
It’s a chaotic two-hour chase for a treasure map — and then the treasure — in 1930s wartime Manchuria between a bounty hunter (the Good, played by Jung Woo-sung), a leader of evil bandits (the Bad, Lee Byung-hun) and a train robber (the Weird, Song Kang-ho).
Director Ji-woon Kim calls this a “kimchee western,” after the national dish of Korea because the plot and film, like the people of Korea, he says, are spicy and vibrant.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird has a few laughs but A Fish Called Wanda’s story of armed robbery is a full-on comedy crime caper.
It has a 96 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was named one of the greatest British films of all time by Total Film.
ADVENTURELAND: 2 ½ STARS
Adventureland is one of those movies in which the setting—the time and place—are more interesting than the characters that populate it. Set in a rundown amusement park during the Regan years, it’s a coming of age story of James (The Squid and the Whale’s Jesse Eisenberg), a sensitive teen whose plans of moving to New York to attend grad school at Columbia are derailed when his father is downsized and money becomes tight. To get out of Pittsburgh and his stultifying suburban life he needs to get a job. Trouble is he has no skills, just a degree in Renaissance studies and, “Unless someone wants help restoring a fresco,” he says, “I’m screwed.” He eventually lands a gig at Adventureland handing out stuffed animals to the few carnival goers lucky enough to beat the amusement park’s rigged games.
The characters at the park seem like an interesting bunch. There’s the part-time musician, womanizer and maintenance man Connell (Ryan Reynolds), who claims to have jammed with Lou Reed, even though he refers to one of Reed’s best known songs as Shed A Little Love instead of Satellite of Love; his best friend from grade four Tommy Frigo (Matt Bush) who wears a t-shirt that says “I’m Frigo! Kapeesh!!” and has the unsettling habit of punching James below the belt two or three times a day; the pipe-smoking Joel (Martin Starr), a self loathing Gogol obsessed intellectual who characterizes their jobs as the “work of pathetic morons” and Em (Kirsten Stewart) a pretty but dour tomboy who favors baggy Lou Reed t-shirts.
It’s an interesting canvas but director Greg Mottola, who based the screenplay on his own experiences of working at the real-life Adventureland, doesn’t bring the same kind of zip to the situations or characters as he did in his last movie, the sublime Superbad.
Adventureland breathes the same air as its predecessor but is much different in tone. The goofy guys in Superbad are gone, replaced by James, a young boy who early on makes a mixed tape for Em of his favorite bummer songs, including Lou Reed’s doleful Pale Blues Eyes, which sets the movie’s downbeat tone.
This is not to say there aren’t humorous moments. Bill Hader shines as the larger-than-life park manager and James’s story about his mom reading his diary—he had to start writing it in Italian to throw her off—is hilarious but the overall tone is sweet rather than funny.
As James Eisenberg is appealing enough, but I’m guessing after the success of Twilight this movie will find an audience based on the popularity of co-star Kristen Stewart. Since playing Bella in the vampire franchise she’s become a hot item, and with her naturally down turned mouth she does sullen like no other young actress working today.
Adentureland, with it’s carefully picked 80s soundtrack and close attention to period details is an interesting time capsule of the decade of greed from a teenager’s perspective. I just wish I had cared more about the characters and less about the set decoration.
