Review “Spectre”

The Broccoli’s got almost all of the “Skyfall” team back together with Hoyte Van Hoytema replacing Roger Deakins as cinematographer, Van Hoytema has a very tough follow up considering that in “Skyfall” there was the LED fight between Bond and an assassin. The cinematography in “Spectre” is not an issue.

“Spectre” is the culmination of “Casino Royale” “Quantum of Solace” and “Skyfall” plot lines that are to be tied up from Vesper Lynn’s betrayal to LaChiffe, whoever the villain was in “Quantum of Solace” and Silva in “Skyfall”. The problem I have with “Spectre”? The script is very bloated is there a tangible/valid reason that this movie is nearly two and a half hours long? Not really, all Bond films traditionally run long and how about trimming it back to maybe an hour and fifty five minutes? Could we try that? I have no issue with the technical aspects of the movie everyone is at the top of their game.

The film opens in Mexico City Bond is tracking down someone that causes an international incident, that results in…….Are you sitting down? Bond getting suspended by M (Ralph Fiennes) and he is to stay in London. Does he stay in London? Of course not, before 007 leaves England he stops by to see “Q” (Ben Whishaw) who promptly low jacks 007 with nano-bots in Bond’s bloodstream which is a tiny bit new of course being lo-jacked doesn’t prevent Bond from taking off for Italy for a funeral. Before that there is a scene in Bond’s very sparsely furnished apartment. How Sparse is it? It’s just sparse and yeah I could buy that as Bond’s place, however he sits in a chair in front of a window and if he is a wanted assassin wouldn’t there be someone with a scope on him? Are his windows bullet proof? Probably.

Other than getting suspended turns out the “00” program is getting shut down by “C” (Andrew Scott “Moriarty” from “Sherlock Holmes”) who is as poorly as disguised as villain as Obdiah Stone (Jeff Bridges) was rolling in on a segway for one of his first scenes for “Iron Man”. “C” is the new head of MI:6 “C” is attempting to have intelligence agencies around the world join together, specifically their data is to be consolidated into one place. The old headquarters of MI6 is set to be demolished, the new headquarters is a spiraling six story Apple store with no lens flare like in “Star Trek”.

In Italy Bond seduces Monica Belluci who appears for maybe five minutes or so she is a widow and Bond of course seduces her, Belluci tells Bond about a meeting that consists of nefarious people. The cabal of nefarious people is led by the mysterious Blofeld (2 time Oscar Winner Christoph Waltz) Blofeld is an ok character and his earth shattering revelation is that he is Bond’s adopted brother is just not that suspense filled.

“Spectre” has all the Bond trappings henchmen who don’t know how to aim, a villian’s lair built out of a crater in the middle of nowhere. “Skyfall” was a lot of fun that has its issues still however “Spectre” is just ehh runs way too long and if this is Daniel Craig’s last go around as Bond, well? He deserved better kind of, the only thing missing in this Bond flick is an invisible car.

Review Big Eyes

Tim Burton’s latest movie is quite a pleasant departure stylistically, with “Big Eyes” the true story of Margaret Keane (Amy Adams) well before that she was Margaret Ulbrich, who in the beginning is in the process of leaving her husband, with her daughter in tow. Keep in mind this is California sometime in the 1950’s and a single Mom trying to eke out a living on their own is very unheard of.

Margaret heads to San Francisco to meet up with her friend DeeAnn (Krysten Ritter). Before she can settle in she has to find a job. To show how naïve she is and to drive a point home her first interview goes disastrously, Margaret eventually gets a job painting cribs in a smoke filled sweatshop, or a 1950’s smoke filled sweatshop.

Margaret has a knack for painting; she uses her daughter as her muse, with wonderful portraits of children with gigantic eyes. There was a time when a single mother living in San Francisco could spend the weekend at The Palace of Fine Arts doing self-portraits for customers; this is where she meets Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), who is trying to sell his paintings. Walter is enamored with Margaret and has a silver tongue, unlike anyone she has met; she agrees to have dinner where Walter tells her of the time he spent in Paris as a starving artist, a fantastical life unlike any other.

After a fight in a nightclub/restaurant with Enrico Balducci (Jon Polito) due to the area given to him to sell Margaret’s paintings gets to the fingertips of the local paper’s gossip/social columnist Dick Nolan (Danny Huston) people eventually start buying up these paintings, so much so that Walter (not Margaret) takes credit for the paintings because it is signed by “Keane”.

Somehow someway Walter convinces his now wife, that no one would ever buy her paintings if the buying public found out that a woman was the artist. I know that sounds absurd, Margaret seeing how much money is rolling in and that there is some stability in her life buys into this lie. Keane’s paintings become so popular, that Walter needs to open an art gallery directly across from Ruben (Jason Schwartzman) who Walter had failed earlier to have his paintings put up in his gallery.

From there you’d think things would go well for Margaret and her daughter. They don’t go that well, especially when it comes to light that Walter Keane is the biggest true to life bull sh**ter this side of Saul Goodman.

In the hands of Tim Burton and the screenwriting duo of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, they bring Margaret’s story to light, with loving kindness, the same way they did “Ed Wood” twenty years earlier. Granted “Big Eyes” wasn’t a hit financially that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t check this film out, they should, Amy Adams continues at her craft and should’ve been nominated for an Oscar, goes toe to toe with two time winner Holtz and actually pulls off the better performance. Yeah this movie might not be for everyone, if you want to see what the “power” of a lie can do, look no further than this film.

Review “Horrible Bosses 2”

It took five people to attempt to rekindle the chemistry of Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis have with “Horrible Bosses 2” a comedy that doesn’t go “The Hangover Part 2” route in rehashing the script of the first movie, cutting and pasting the same scenes except that it is “In Thailand”.

Nick (Bateman) Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) are now entrepreneurs and have developed “The Shower Buddy” and in quick exposition Dale has triplets, Nick is the sane one of the bunch and Kurt is still Kurt. You would watch this movie basically for the banter between the three. As for the “plot” itself? Well it isn’t cutting and pasting “murder” for “kidnapping” it is very close to that. The cast of the whole movie are not phoning their performances in. After a semi-disastrous demonstration of their product on an LA morning talk shows, flames erupt when Bateman says the name of the company’s website, “Nick Kurt Dale.com” and Keegan-Michael Key suggests politely they should reconsider changing the name of the website.

That doesn’t stop Rex Hanson (Chris Pine) from inviting the boys into a meeting to pitch their product, turns out Rex is messing with the guys and the real villain Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz) steps in and finances, the manufacturing of the shower buddy.

Shortly after the first product rolls off the production line, they find out that they will be losing their business, because the loan that Bert gave them is going to default, in order to repay the debt Kurt will bid pennies on the dollar for the 100 thousand shower buddies, that he ordered.

This doesn’t sit well with Nick, Kurt and Dale, and in desperation hatch a scheme to kidnap Rex for the exact same dollar amount of the loan, that they are set to default on. By this time two of the three bosses show up and drop out. Dave Harken (Kevin Spacey) gets the best lines and proceeds to emasculate the boys, ok I know that didn’t sound right, trust me Spacey gets the best lines, meanwhile there is an attempted robbery of a tank of laughing gas from the dental office of Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston)at night, things get complicated when Dr. Harris support group meet up at the office and Kurt and Dale are in a storage closet and Nick tries to bail everyone out.

There is nothing in the way of character development for anyone, Nick as I said earlier is still the sane one of the group, Kurt is the crazy one, with a one track mind and Dale is still frantic, channeling Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” Aniston’s Dr. Harris still has her same addictions from the first movie, Spacey is still mean, I would to if I were in prison and “Mother F**ker” Jones (Jamie Foxx) is still, well a………..actually he is wanting to open a Pinkberry, but needs start up capital.

There is a twist of sorts, with Rex hatching a kidnapping scheme luring the three into the scheme kicking and screaming. A welcomed addition to the cast is Detective Hatcher (Jonathan Banks) who brings the growl of Mike Ehrmantraut from “Breaking Bad” with a mild lighter touch.

If you’ve seen the trailer, sadly you’ve seen a majority of the best parts of the movie, as far as sequels go, you could do a lot worse than “Horrible Bosses 2”, you could check out “Smokey and the Bandit 2” or “Another 48 Hours”. Like I said it took five people to cook up this sequel, I would like to see in the future perhaps, Day, Bateman and Sudeikis take on another comedy and go in different directions, for example Bateman directed and starred in “Bad Words” and Sudeikis had “We’re the Millers” last year, which also is headed for a sequel, I have no idea how they will pull that off. There are a few laughs here the movie isn’t terrible, by any stretch, just go in with very low expectations.