It's a Rush -- see it!

I finally saw Ron Howard's Rush.  It is my favorite movie of the year (admittedly, it may not be "the best").

Disclosure: in 1976, when the movie's central action takes place, I was big into cars, had a subscription to Road & Track (this was before every sports event was televised somewhere live), and I followed Grand Prix racing as best I could from the American Midwest.  The Hunt-Lauda rivalry that is the movie I followed like some followed Ali & Frazier.

Sports movies are often pretty good, given that sports provides that story arc with the tension needed to drive a good story.  With car racing, you add the visual element -- it doesn't take a lot of special effects to have you into the event (we all drive, but none of us THAT fast).

Then you add two complementary characters like James Hunt, the brash, playboy Brit, and Niki Lauda, the reclusive, mechanical Austrian, and you've got a great mix.

Add Lauda's tragic accident and the great talent the two possessed, and you've got quite a film.

You are caught up in their rivalry; you are caught up in Lauda's recovery; you root for Hunt's success, because he's so forthright & charming (does he really say to the press that he's pulled quite something being able to divorce without paying a thing because his wife has taken up with Richard Burton?  does he really beat in a reporter's face after a heartless question about Lauda's marriage and command, "ask your wife what she thinks of your face now"?)...and you don't know who should win.

Howard does an excellent job of portraying them both, with screenwriter Peter Morgan's script using voice-over narration from them both to understand them both and their mild animosity for each other.

The racing shots are great.

Thor (Chris Helmsforth) is good as Hunt;  Daniel Bruhl is excellent as the up-tight Lauda.

It's taut, exciting, and thrilling.  See it.  It may not win an Academy Award nomination (it's probably not high-brow enough), but it's quality film-making: an intense story, well acted, written, and beautifully shot.

Movie Reviews: Gravity says Enough Said

I know the title sucks, but when you got nothing, you force the connection.

It's been awhile, but I've recently seen two movies worth recommending.  So, here it is.

First in order of my seeing it, as well as order of release, was Enough Said.  I knew it'd be a "meet cute" RomCom, with "adult"...errr..."mature" actors, and it was.

The surprise is that it's actually pretty funny; I mean, how can you do better with low humor than a reference to James Gandolfini's penis hanging out?

Okay, get this (spoiler alert, I'm about to ruin most of the movie's setup, skip this paragraph if you don't want to know): Gandolfini & Elaine...err...Julie Louis XIVth...meet at a party.  Right.  Turns out his ex is there.  Who knew?  Well, the thing is, it's an important plot device that Louis...err...Elaine, doesn't.  They end up dating.  Amazingly (who could have seen it coming?), Elaine...errr...Julie fouls up the relationship by complicating it by trying to keep a relationship with both of them.  But this is a grown up film.  They don't have some denouement to get them back together.  But there comes a final scene where they admit to having driven by each other's houses since the break up.

Cute. Well done.  Elaine is...errr...Elaine (has she ever played anyone different?) and Gandolfini is pretty good as a modest, divorcee -- you wonder why he's divorced -- who doesn't have Brad Pitt's looks or body, but seems just a decent enough guy.  No, not a gangster.  No wonder he died -- got too far out of type.

Gravity is completely different.  If you haven't heard, it's Sandra Bullock's movie.  George Clooney is in it, but those of you who want to see a lot of him, well, he's in a space suit the whole time.  Too bad.  Sandra isn't.

I'm not sure Bullock is any better in this movie than Elaine is in Enough Said.

But the movie is A LOT better.

You do know they get stuck in space? (is that a spoiler? whoops! alert)

You are not sure they are going to make it.  You are not sure Bullock is going to make it (like the movie, Clooney may reappear in a moment).  Bullock is the outsider, the scientist who has brought her experiment into space (you can ponder whether you buy Bullock as a one-of-a-kind inventor-scientist if you dare) & who doesn't know how to fly a capsule.  This makes for some of the suspense as she tries to not only figure out how to do the mechanical thing, but, of course, nothing done in space these days is American, so she has to cope, too, with the language barrier.

Bullock has a very bad day.  If it could go wrong, it does.  She's bright, athletic &...well, that's par for the course -- would you send a klutzy idiot into space (sort of rhetorical) -- so has a chance.  But there seems to be everything against her.

Of course, it's space.  Oxygen is in short supply.  So, if you missed this, is gravity, which makes a a whole series of things weird and different -- you wonder how they did the shots.  Cuarzon is masterful with the cameras, with the story, with the CGI.

Is she going to make it?  Where's George?  Will you hear from Earth?

It's tense, taut, visually appealing, and Bullock, if not exactly exhibiting the Ms Einstein persona, is appealing.  You care if she survives.  You root for her.  When there are complications (gee, weren't there some of those in the other movie, too!?!?!?), you want her to resolve them.

It's worth seeing.

They both are.  For different things.  But they are both well done.  But my recommendation is see Gravity first.