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Web Exclusive…
Film Reviews
By Bill Newcott
Bill Newcott, entertainment editor for AARP The Magazine, host of the
Movies for Grownups® weekly radio program, and a former New York and
Los Angeles film critic, presents his film reviews
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Despite Hollywood's infatuation with youth, half of movie tickets are
bought by people over 30. "Youth-oriented movies make or break themselves
on their opening weekends," says Movies for Grownups® host Bill Newcott. "But three of the
highest-grossing movies of all time—the grownup-oriented My Big Fat
Greek Wedding, Dances with Wolves, and A Beautiful
Mind—never reached number one at the box office. How did they manage
that success? It was thanks to mature audiences, who kept those movies in the
theaters for months."
June 2009
 Photo by Kerry Hayes,
Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures
The Proposal (PG-13)
There are lots of good reasons to enjoy the delightfully stupid romantic comedy The Proposal: Sandra Bullock once again proves herself one of the screen's most gifted comic actresses; Ryan Reynolds emerges as a first-tier lightweight leading man; and some very nice Massachusetts scenery doubles admirably for, of all places, Alaska. But the best reason of all is the glorious Betty White, who steals the movie from the younger folk with such ease it isn't even fair.
Bullock stars as a barracuda-like book editor, who suddenly learns her career is toast because she's about to be deported from Manhattan back to Canada where, apparently, they do not publish books. In an act of desperation, she impulsively announces she is engaged to marry her assistant, played with wonderful cluelessness by Reynolds. I feel like we've heard this one before, along with the rest of the ensuing jokes. In fact, the old marry-to-avoid-immigration plot line is so well worn we can't quite believe the characters don't know exactly what's going to happen next. But the cast is so engaging we really don't give it a second thought.
To make the charade look good to Immigration, the pair head off to the groom-to-be's home in Alaska for his grandmother's 90th birthday party and at last we get to meet Betty White—and from here on all bets are off. The script throws every old-lady gag in the book at White, who hits each one out of the park with a mighty swing of her thin little arms. She's a hoot encouraging the kids to make some babies, innocently feeling up Bullock as she measures her for a wedding gown, and making the inevitable inappropriate observations. And while she's not asked to be a rapping granny, White does perform a pretty convincing Native American dance around a campfire. Her character even ends up providing the final plot twist that ensures a happy ending. It's nice to see a movie giving a real comic role to an older actress for a change, and White makes the absolute best of it. Let's hope Bullock gets the same kind of chance when she's 87.
 Photo by François Duhamel,
Courtesy of Focus Features
Away We Go (R)
Turns out the best movie about parenthood to come along in some time features a couple whose baby isn't even born yet. A deeply thoughtful, unexpectedly riotous comedy for grownups, Away We Go explores every parent's fixation on making a perfect world for their children, the inevitable landmines that blow every such plan to smithereens, and the ultimate realization that life's small disasters can be every bit as reassuring as a mother's embrace
Burt and Verona (John Krasinski of The Office and Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live) are an attractive young unmarried couple about to have their first baby. Their excitement takes a distinct blow when his parents (a delightfully self-absorbed Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) announce they're going to live in Antwerp—a month before the baby's due.
"You're moving three thousand miles away from your grandchild!" Burt gasps.
"Oh," says Mom, "I think it's farther than three thousand."
Since Verona's parents are both deceased, and the couple desperately want their child to grow up near extended family, they head out across the country, visiting friends and relatives, trying each one on for size. They map out a trip to Arizona; Madison, Wisconsin; and Montreal—where, naturally, none of the target couples or their lives turn out to be everything they'd hoped for. For Burt and Verona, that's bad news. For us, the various pairs constitute a wonderful jumble of human foibles. Verona's aunt and uncle in Arizona (Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan) are cheerfully embittered by life's disappointments, chirping endlessly about their personal and physical declines, locked in a parent-child relationship which seems, at best, to consist of mutual apathy.
Next it's off to Madison, where Burt's old college friend Ellen (who now spells her first name "LN") and her ponytailed husband (Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton) have pushed their New Age lifestyle way beyond even a Shirley MacLaine fever dream. The gift of a stroller from Burt and Verona draws shock and thinly veiled derision from LN, delightfully played by Gyllenhaal with earnest creepiness.
"I love my babies," she says condescendingly. "Why would I want to push them away from me?"
Final stop is Montreal, and a couple whose home rings with the happy sounds of their adopted children. And here Away We Go finds its way off the well-worn comedy path that it has followed thus far. At first glance Tom and Munch (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) seem to have it all, but there emerges a sadness about them—explained poignantly and beautifully in an impromptu dance by the wife, played with a haunting emptiness by Lynskey (you know her as the psycho/sexy neighbor on TV's Two and a Half Men).
We can see the conclusion of Away We Go coming from a few thousand miles down the road Burt and Verona travel. Slowly it dawns on them that the perfect place for raising a child cannot be found via MapQuest, but in the heart of a family. Not a perfect family; just a family populated by human beings.
 Photo by Teresa Isasi,
Courtesy of Fox Searchlight
My Life in Ruins (PG-13)
In case you're not going to find yourself traipsing around Greece this summer (Anyone? I thought not.), you could do a lot worse than to spend an hour or so in a dark theater with My Life in Ruins, an enjoyable tour bus comedy that wends its way among lofty Greek temples and bustling street markets, never far from the unspeakably blue Aegean.
Nia Vardalos, whose My Big Fat Greek Wedding remains one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time, stars as a love-starved American stuck in a dead-end job as a tour guide in Greece. So jaded is she that she can glance at her newest group of tourists and expertly pigeonhole them: the businessman who can't leave his cell-phone home, the rude Americans, the surly teen, the man-hungry divorcee, the would-be comedian. Luckily for us, the last is played by Richard Dreyfuss, who wrings from his character's wisecracks a lot more mileage than they deserve.
Off they all go into the Grecian sun for a week-long tour, and we well know that by journey's end the businessman will chill out, the teen will crack a smile, the jokester will reveal the tender heart behind his barbs, and the tour guide will find love and fulfillment. In fact, My Life in Ruins plays to the hope that just about all vacationers pack along with the suntan lotion: that somewhere along the road they will find that elusive little puzzle piece that will make them truly, enduringly happy.
Vardalos brings much of the awkward charm that endeared her to audiences in Greek Wedding; in fact, Ruins feels in some ways like an alternate story for the character she played before. My Life in Ruins lacks the undercurrent of social tension that gave Wedding its surprising heft, but the gags are funny, the denizens of the bus are appealing, and Vardalos makes a sweet ringmaster. Besides, I'm willing to give every benefit of the doubt to the film's first-time movie scripter Mike Reiss, who has written and/or produced some 175 episodes of The Simpsons plus two of TV's lost masterpieces, Sledge Hammer! and It's Garry Shandling's Show.
And as for the movie's real star, well, from Zorba the Greek until now, Greece has never, ever given a bad performance.
May 2009
 Photo by Nick Wall,
Courtesy of Story Island
Entertainment
Is Anybody There? (PG-13)
As a retired magician struggling to find continued meaning in life—even as he feels life slipping away—Michael Caine works his own special brand of magic in Is Anybody There?
When we first meet Clarence (formerly known as "The Amazing Clarence") he's turned up, unshaven, cranky, and distraught, on the steps of a retirement home in the English countryside. It's the last place he wants to be, a sentiment shared by the owners' young son Edward (Bill Milner). But at least Edward has a hobby: he secretly tape records the last moments of the home's dying residents, then replays the tapes through, trying to discern some audible clue as to what happens at the moment of death—and perhaps beyond.
Edward treats Clarence with the same indifference he bestows on all the residents until he spots the old man quietly performing a card trick in his room. A tentative friendship takes root, then blossoms as the two gleefully share their discontent and comfort each other about their day-to-day problems, most of them born of their refusal to conform to the rules of the house.
The wonder of Is Anybody There? lies in the subtle development of the relationship between Clarence and Edward. They're both misfits—Clarence because he feels his storied past should entitle him to a more convivial twilight than this, Edward because he suspects his present state is stunting his future. The retirement home is their common ground, and it provides a fertile plot for their flourishing relationship.
We're more than halfway through Is Anybody There? before we understand the serious health problem dogging Clarence. It becomes apparent during an impromptu magic show, performed for the residents, that goes hideously and hilariously wrong (and how wonderful it is to see some familiar faces in the crowd: the great Sylvia Sims, the radiant Rosemary Harris, and the inimitable Peter Vaughan, who stole the show a few years back as awful Uncle Alfie in Death at a Funeral).
From this point on, young Edward assumes the role of mentor, stretching beyond his years for a maturity that will help reconcile his friend to his personal demons before it's too late.
Of course, it's Michael Caine's show, and he disappears into Clarence as magically as a rabbit vanishing into a top hat. Proud, frightened, showy, and shy, Clarence is every man facing death: desperately trying to fit the puzzle pieces of his life into a meaningful picture. He invites us to laugh with him, to cry with him, and to be infuriated, as he is at his follies. In short, Caine's Clarence is human in a full, satisfying way. It is a masterly achievement by one of the screen's true masters.
Read AARP Bulletin Today's article "Crossing Generations" by Michael Caine >>
April 2009
 Photo by Francois Duhamel,
Courtesy of DW Studios
and Universal Studios
The Soloist (PG-13)
As uplifting and beautiful a film as you will see this year, The Soloist soars as a testament to friendship, loyalty, and the surpassing power of music.
When we first meet Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx), he is standing before a statue of Beethoven in downtown Los Angeles playing a violin with just two strings on it. Anyone who lives in a city has seen him thousands of times: the disheveled, vaguely confused, rambling homeless guy with whom you desperately try to avoid eye contact.
On this particular day, however, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) can't afford to stay aloof. He's desperate for something to write about, and he suspects this unfortunate fellow might just be grist for his mill. What ices it for him is the revelation that this particular homeless man, now a shopping cart-pushing paranoid schizophrenic, was once a promising student at Juilliard.
After his column runs, Lopez finds himself drawn back to Ayers' sidewalk sonatas. He decides to try and help Ayers get back on his feet, and so begins a rocky, wonderful relationship. At first Lopez approaches the task from a decidedly superior position. It is his personal journey from savior to mentor to friend, and Ayers' concurrent pilgrimage from dependent to student to equal, that make The Soloist so much more than a standard-issue rags-to-riches sickness-to-restoration saga. Indeed, by the film's end—aside from Ayers' transition from the street to a mental health residence—the characters' apparent lots don't change all that much. It is deep in each man's soul, despite the private demons that dog them both, that the true transformations take place.
Based on the Los Angeles Times columns of the real-life Steve Lopez, and a resulting book, The Soloist supplements the author's rich prose with an element only the movie could add: the music that lifts Ayers from his mental haze. Director Joe Wright proves to be a cinematic visionary in that regard: An impromptu cello recital in an LA underpass becomes a religious experience as the camera pulls back, then soars upward, high above the city and into the clouds. At a Los Angeles Philharmonic rehearsal at the Walt Disney Concert Hall (the orchestra plays itself, adding a nice touch of authenticity), Ayers closes his eyes and with him we "see" the music: abstract, delicate lights reminiscent of the opening segment of Disney's 1940 classic Fantasia.
At the center of The Soloist stand two astonishing performances. Foxx won an Oscar for his portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray a few years back. But I always felt that performance was a little gadgety, informed a bit too easily by Brother Ray's distinct styles of speech and movement. Here Foxx creates a fully defined character of his own, a man determined to overcome his disability, yet oddly comfortable with the ways in which it has helped define his personality.
As for Downey, he continues his steady middle-age march to becoming the go-to guy for virtually any role that demands a mixture of cockiness and vulnerability. The Soloist, in the end, triumphs as a lovely duet by two supremely gifted stars.
Watch Bill Newcott's interview with Steve Lopez, journalist and book author >>
Listen to Mike Cuthbert's Prime Time Radio interview with Steve Lopez >>
 Roadside Attractions
Alien Trespass (PG)
There's a goofy goodwill that makes Alien Trespass irresistible from the outset. At once a send-up and loving homage to 1950s sci-fi flicks, the movie takes its retro premise and galumphs along not just predictably, but inevitably, toward its dumb conclusion. Along the way we get to revisit a bunch of stock characters we remember vividly from those old Saturday TV matinees but never dreamed we'd ever meet again.
Setting his story squarely in the Eisenhower years, longtime The X–Files director R.W. Goodwin happily limits his cinematic resources to mid-century film technology (Alien Trespass includes some of the least-convincing rear-screen projection effects this side of The Blob). The story is pure '50s pulp: a mysterious craft crashes outside a remote Western town. Soon the countryside is terrorized by a flesh-eating monster—and mankind's only hope is an intergalactic cop trying to capture it.
All the essential character types are on hand: the "nice kids" who stumble upon the awful truth yet cannot convince the local adults that the planet is in grave danger…the hard-boiled cops whose cluelessness is exceeded only by their confidence that they have things well in hand…the street-smart hoodlum kid with a heart of gold…a truly cheesy monster…and, of course, the mysterious good-guy alien who must convince a trigger-happy skeptical world that he comes in peace.
The last role is wonderfully played by Will & Grace star Eric McCormack, who brings the perfect blend of humanity and alien-ness that Keanu Reeves tried to achieve, but couldn't quite muster up, in the recent play-it-straight remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Also along as a nice casting move is Robert Patrick—who as the replicating robot in Terminator 2: Judgment Day remains one of the scariest movie monsters ever—as a grunting, somewhat lecherous small-town cop.
Probably best viewed from the back seat of a ’57 Chevy, Alien Trespass is a warm-hearted visit to a time when those Americans who were worried about aliens gazed nervously skyward—not toward the nation's borders.
March 2009
 Samuel Goldwyn Films
Brothers at War (R)
You can tell a movie is really good when it makes you forget every other film in its genre. So, if only for brief moments, last year Mamma Mia! became for me the greatest film musical ever, Slumdog Millionaire was the best rags-to-riches story, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ranked as the top film about a baby who ages backwards (oh, wait, it still holds that position).
That's why I can state categorically that the new documentary Brothers at War is hands down the best war movie—documentary or fictional—ever made. So what if temporary amnesia wiped away all conscious memory of the barrel-chested heroism of Sands of Iwo Jima and the raving antiheroes of Apocalypse Now. Populated with unforgettable characters, shot with edgy assurance by first-time director Jake Rademacher, Brothers at War immerses us in the Iraq war experience with an intimacy born not only of technical and artistic achievement, but also of a profound personal connection with the soldiers in the field.
Director Rademacher, you see, has two brothers—both of whom happen to be fighting in Iraq. Isaac and Joe are a couple of all-American GI Joes; Jake is, by comparison, something of a film school nerd. When we see them all together at a family function, it's clear that although the three are loving brothers, only two also share membership in a separate brotherhood. As odd man out, Rademacher decides to go to Iraq, embedded as a documentarian. Ostensibly, he's there to cover the war from the inside. In his heart, he's trying to understand what it is that makes his brothers so different from him.
In Iraq, Rademacher nervously starts heading out on missions. We meet his brothers' buddies—guys with nicknames like Mongo (the commanding officer dubs Rademacher "Hollywood"). There's a tense patrol along the Syrian border. Later, hunkered down with a team of snipers in the Sunni Triangle, Rademacher lets his camera roll while the riflemen put distant figures in their crosshairs—and hope against hope they'll get the order to pull the trigger. "Everyone wants a kill," says one. Still, in the movie's single most devastating moment, one sniper, his boyish face filling the screen, tells of the day he very nearly blew the head off a child carrying a gun that turned out to be a toy. For the rest of his life, he confesses, his worst memory of Iraq will be the kid he didn't kill.
The deadly drudgery of war takes up much of the film: The soldiers trudge across the countryside seeking enemy combatants, occasionally setting a suspicious car or truck ablaze, questioning the locals, then moving on. Through it all, the Americans patiently—and sometimes not so patiently—try to train their Iraqi comrades to take over the fight. At times it seems a futile task. The language barrier alone causes repeated delays and misunderstandings that could prove lethal.
Finally, Rademacher finds himself dodging bullets in a full-fledged firefight. Side by side, the American and Iraqi soldiers hurl themselves into the ditch along a highway, aiming their rifles at an enemy that seems invisible. Rademacher's single camera seems to be everywhere, swinging wildly, fortuitously finding soldiers at the precise moments when they must make the snap life-or-death decisions that blend together in the fog of war. Suddenly, it's all over. Rademacher's camera dashes up the road, revealing some seriously injured Iraqis. But nobody on our side dies today and later, when the American commander praises the Iraqis for their professionalism and courage, the camera focuses on their faces—proud of their accomplishment, determined to make this victory stick.
Executive-produced by actor Gary Sinise, an outspoken supporter of American soldiers and their missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brothers at War serves as a valuable reminder. No matter how fiercely the debate over the wars rages at home, in those desert and mountain outposts, a singular focus never wavers: Kill the bad guys; give the good guys a chance to succeed.
In the end, Rademacher feels he knows his brothers a lot better. They in turn feel their civilian sibling has at least tried to understand who they are. And we come away, silently and reverently, awed by the mystery of such casual courage.
February 2009
 Touchstone Pictures
Confessions of a Shopaholic (PG)
It’s great to be pleasantly surprised by a movie. Even better is to skulk into a film expecting the absolute worst and then emerge so utterly delighted, you’re a bit disoriented. So it is with Confessions of a Shopaholic, a shockingly smart comedy about the perils of living in an überconsumer society.
Isla Fisher—who stole Wedding Crashers a couple of years back with her turn as the sexy-crazy sister of the bride—plays Rebecca, a recent journalism school graduate who is hooked on buying stuff. Expensive stuff. Stuff she can in no way afford. And so as her New York apartment swells with Gucci, Armani, and Yves Saint Laurent, so does the number of dunning letters and phone calls arriving from her credit card companies. She knows she’s in trouble, but at every turn she surrenders to the need to indulge with her similarly stricken best friend (huge-eyed, raven-haired Krysten Ritter) or impress the man of her dreams (Hugh Dancy, looking as if he has ripped himself from one of those inscrutable Vanity Fair fashion ads).
Now, it’s at this point that most Hollywood films will jump off that cliff that lies just on the other side of Hypocrisy Hill: they roundly condemn materialism while at the same time wallowing in it. For a while, it looks like that’s exactly where Confessions of a Shopaholic is heading. As Rebecca gazes longingly—no, lustfully—at the shoes and dresses and handbags that (literally, in this case) beckon from the windows along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, we begin to buy into in her plastic-fueled mania. But as she spirals into economic ruin, and a truly sleazy debt collector comes ever closer to exposing her dilemma to the world, we begin to catch on: It’s okay to want that Gucci purse. But it’s also okay to wait and—get this—save up the money until you can afford it! What, you find that moral a tad simplistic? Well, check out the worried looks on all those people you’re riding the bus with these days, and you might realize it’s a pretty profound lesson. Just try passing this message on to the girls of Sex and the City, or even The Princess Diaries. They’d probably claw your eyes out. And some measure of kudos must be offered to the big-name fashion houses that allowed themselves to be attached to a film with such a revolutionary outlook.
Fisher is rapidly proving herself to be the most reliably inventive young comic actress working these days—and her status is implicitly affirmed by the presence of some truly gifted women in supporting roles, including Lynn Redgrave, Joan Cusack, Wendie Malick, and, perhaps best of all, the too-seldom-seen Julie Hagerty, who after 30 years remains known mostly for her wondrous work in Airplane!, and that’s enough. John Goodman and John Lithgow also show up as additional grownup anchors for the youthful lead cast.
So don’t worry, go see Confessions of a Shopaholic. And as you spill out of the multiplex into the shopping mall, remember to just keep going.
January 2009
 Warner Bros.
Gran Torino (R)
Somebody call the cops (where’s Dirty Harry these days, anyway?). Clint Eastwood has stolen his own movie, scowling and growling his way through Gran Torino. And while we're not quite talking grand theft here, it's a long-overdue guilty pleasure to see the director/star allow himself to be the center of attention for a change.
In some ways, Eastwood's Walt Kowalski—a grumpy former Detroit autoworker who hates everybody and seems ever on the verge of pulling a gun on just about anybody—could easily have been written as Dirty Harry in retirement. The disdain with which he sees his crumbling world, and the slit-eyed gaze through which he views it, are unsubtle shadows of the cop who defined the term "loose cannon." Newbie screenwriter Nick Schenk has plopped this hopelessly Neanderthal guy down in an overwhelmingly ethnic neighborhood, populated mostly by Hmong families—whose southeast Asian heritage Walt seems to keep confusing with that of the Koreans he fought nearly 60 years ago.
A story develops, for sure: A neighbor kid is trying to avoid being sucked into the local gang culture, but not before he gets caught trying to steal Kowalski’s meticulously preserved Gran Torino (Kowalski, it seems, installed the car’s steering column back in his days on the assembly line). But really, what keeps us riveted to Gran Torino is Eastwood’s fierce performance. With age, his long frame is indeed slowly curling, but here he seems more coiled, ready to spring—or snap—at the slightest provocation. In the face of his neighbors' emerging humanity he softens, and Eastwood pulls off the neat trick of making us appreciate his newfound embrace of his fellow man while wistfully missing his old, craggy self.
For an Eastwood film, the supporting players are surprisingly weak. It may be due to many of the cast members being first-timers (or close to it) and at times the proceedings bear resemblance to a big star slumming at a community theater. Still, running full-bore, Eastwood is positively magnetic. He doesn’t act nearly enough these days, and when he does—as in Million Dollar Baby and Space Cowboys—he seems content to let his costars take center stage.
In Gran Torino Eastwood, who in recent years has distinguished himself with the best movie directing of his life, reminds us definitively that he is, first and foremost, a movie star. And for that, we should all feel lucky…punk.
 Overture Films
Last Chance Harvey (PG-13)
The movies generally try to tell us that lovably awkward love is just for teens and twentysomethings—but in the charming new comedy Last Chance Harvey, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson fumble their way through midlife romance with all the endearing uncertainty of two kids fretting over their junior prom.
Not that the two seem for one moment infantile in their uncertainty. The ingenious distinction here is that rather than sailing into uncharted romantic territory, these two know the waters all too well. Harvey is a divorced composer discovering, too late, that his lifetime of aloofness is being returned to him in kind by his family and the world at large. Kate has had her heart broken so many times, there's no place left to apply another dab of Krazy Glue. And so when they find themselves drawn to each other during a chance encounter in London (he's in town for his daughter’s wedding, only to learn she wants her stepfather to give her away), the pair's wariness is palpable. Yet Harvey can't resist Kate’s downright decency; she finds his mumbly rumpledness oddly attractive. And when he sits down to play piano for her, well, there's no turning back.
Hoffman and Thompson, as appealing a couple as you'll ever spend an hour and a half with, make Last Chance Harvey an authentic grownup romance: giddy with hope, mellowed by experience.
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