American Hustle ****1/2

Short Take: A smart, entertaining con job with a glossy 70’s veneer and solid gold soundtrack.

REEL TAKE: Fresh off the shining success of Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell delivers another goodie that’s bound to warm critic’s hearts and deliver box office gold (lamé that is!). Very loosely based on the Abscam scandal of the late 1970’s, American Hustle is a smart, entertaining cinematic con job.

The real Abscam scandal resulted in an FBI sting that nabbed a handful of U.S. Congressmen, a senator or two, the mayor of Camden, New Jersey and a smattering of other colorful characters. But rather than present a historically accurate depiction, Russell dances in the ambiguous morality of the sting itself. And what a dance it is, complete with apropos soundtrack.

At the center of the shenanigans is Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a crooked businessman and small time con man with a ‘bad comb over’. Irving is in love with his mistress and cohort in crime, Sydney (Amy Adams), but can’t get a divorce from his hilariously crazy, hot mess of a wife, Rosalyn (a scene stealing Jennifer Lawrence). When Irving and Sydney are busted by an ambitious FBI (Bradley Cooper) agent with a coke habit and a penchant for permanents, they find themselves putting their talents to work for Uncle Sam in exchange for their freedom.

What ensues is too convoluted to possibly try to relay. Essentially it’s an elaborate shell game designed to entrap several politicians and possibly a mob boss. American Hustle occasionally falls victim to its own con, thinking it’s more clever than it actually is, but it’s such a rollicking good ride it doesn’t matter.

As usual Russell gets vibrant, wiry performances from his actors. Re-teaming both Bale and Adams (The Fighter) and Cooper and Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) in an ensemble was a stroke of genius.

Bale has never looked less appealing and never been better or seemed more at ease. Bradley Cooper delivers a bit of a hyperbolic performance but, while annoying, it suits Richie’s hot headed personality. Lawrence was a revelation in Winter’s Bone and last year’s Silver Linings Playbook. Here she damn near steals the show, showing off some serious comedic chops.

Adams has the more difficult and less amusing female role, but pulls it off with ease. Sporting a magnificent pompadour, Jeremy Renner rounds out the cast as the affable, empathetic dupe in Richie and Irving’s scheme. Louis CK and Robert DeNiro enjoy small but juicy parts, and everyone seems like they had a great time making the film.

Ultimately Russell makes a statement without heavy handing it. American Hustle is one of the best movies of 2013 and is a must-see.

Rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence

Review by Michelle Keenan

Her *****

Short Take: Beautiful sci-fi romance of a lonely, sensitive man and the all purpose Operating System (computer) that he falls in love with and vice versa.

Reel Take: I really wasn’t looking forward to watching Her. I’m not a huge fan of Spike Jonze’s movies and I still had images of Joaquin Phoenix’s turn in last year’s The Master which was one of my most unpleasant viewing experiences. I am more than pleased to report that not only did I like Her, I LOVED it.

It is so well done in every department that I don’t know where to begin. Jonze’s original screenplay takes the old story of humans falling in love with an artificial intelligence and totally makes it his own. The dialogue is to the point and sometimes unbelievably poignant. His social observations are spot on and incredibly chilling because of being just that.

Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is a complete 180 from The Master which shows just what a range he has as an actor. Other performances from Amy Adams and Rooney Mara are up to his high standard but the voice work by Scarlett Johansson, as the Operating System named Samantha, is in a class by itself. I actually nominated her for Best Supporting Actress on my SEFCA ballot.

In the L.A. of the near future, Phoenix composes sympathy letters for others. He’s recently divorced and trying to cope when he purchases a total control Operating System that is designed to meet his every need. As he becomes more and more to depend on the O.S., it (she) is developing her own personality independent of his basic needs.

The creation of a not too distant future is brilliant and disturbing. Here is a world where everyone is either watching or plugged into their own personal device. There’s no real interaction between people anymore and you can imagine the toll that will eventually take. The world that Jonze has put together on film is so original that it will eventually become timeless.

I was totally captivated from first frame to last and actually watched it again (I have an advance screener) something I rarely, RARELY do. It’s science fiction, it’s a social commentary, and it’s a love story. It’s a lot more than that but you’ll have to see it and decide for yourself. I’ve done my part, now it’s up to you.

Rated R for language, sexual content, and brief nudity.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Inside Llewyn Davis ***

Short Take: Another one of the Coen Brothers movies that you’ll either love or hate. Put me in the latter category.

Reel Take: Whenever I go to see a Coen Brothers movie I’m never sure as to exactly what I’m going to get and I’m sure that’s intentional. I’ll go on record as saying that I have not enjoyed the last several Coen Brothers films (The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man). The one exception was their remake of True Grit. If truth be told, out of the 18 films that they have directed, there are only 4 (Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, O Brother, Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn’t There) that I would ever want to see again. You can put Inside Llewyn Davis in the NOT category.

The film is set in 1961 in the Greenwich Village folk music scene. Oscar Isaac plays the title character, a less than stellar folksinger who is the personification of Bonzo Dog Band co-founder Neil Innes’ famous utterance, “I’ve suffered for my music and now it’s your turn.”

Actually it’s more than the music that suffers. Everyone in this movie suffers, and it doesn’t take long before you join them. The film is shot in the bleakest possible colors with several sequences of glistening streets and escaping steam that create a hellish atmosphere.

We follow Davis on a Sisyphus journey where things go from bad to worse to “Ya gotta be kiddin’me” and then start all over again. Along the way we encounter his pregnant bitter ex-girlfriend (Carey Mulligan), her talented boyfriend (Justin Timberlake), and an old oddball couple (Ethan Phillips & Robin Bartlett). Then there’s an obese junkie jazz musician (John Goodman) who is truly a character from Hell. It WAS nice to see F. Murray Abraham again as a Chicago agent who knows a loser when he sees one.

As with all of Ethan & Joel Coen’s movies, this one is superbly photographed, sublimely acted, and beautifully scored (by T-Bone Burnett). The one problem, and it’s a huge one, is the script. It’s so downbeat and unrelenting in its grimness and so full of unsympathetic characters that before long I didn’t care and the movie became an endurance contest. Inside Llewyn Davis may not turn out to be for you but don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

Rated R for language including sexual references.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Nebraska ****1/2

Short Take: Nearly perfect slice-of-life drama from director Alexander Payne features a strong script and great ensemble performances from its entire cast.

Reel Take: I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Nebraska when I first heard about it. I knew that it would deal with coping with an aging parent and that was about it. I thought “there’s no new ground being covered here” so imagine my surprise when the film opens with a retro Paramount logo and then the film turns out to be in black & white. It was like watching Lonely Are the Brave or In Cold Blood or The Misfits or any number of movies from the mid 1960s. It features simple, straight forward cinematography, lots of location shooting, and quality performances from everyone in the cast.

The story concerns an old man (Bruce Dern) living in Montana who mistakenly believes he’s won $1,000,000 in a contest. The problem is he has to go to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his “prize.” No one in his family wants to take him so he plans to walk there. His younger son (Will Forte) relents and agrees to drive him.

They stop off in his old hometown where, once the word gets out, everyone starts being nice to him including his old business partner (Stacy Keach) who has an ulterior motive. When the older son (Bob Odenkirk) and his outspoken mother (June Squibb) arrive, then things really get interesting.

Director Alexander Payne (The Descendants) is first and foremost a writer so that all of his movies are character driven. Substance, not style, is what he’s after and Nebraska is the deepest character study that he has yet produced. Payne’s characters are always on a voyage of self-discovery but unlike a number of movies that follow that path, the discovery in Payne’s movies result in lifting his characters up rather than dragging them down.

Yet Nebraska is not without its own style thanks to Payne’s decision to shoot the film in black & white. This helps to accentuate the bleakness of the mid-Midwest where the towns are incredibly small and the life is boringly repetitive. Nevertheless the people manage to go about their daily lives because there is little else to do. How they interact with Bruce Dern and with each other is the heart and soul of Nebraska and what makes it a very special movie.

Rated R for some language.

Review by Chip Kaufmann

Philomena *****

Short Take: The true story of an Irish woman’s struggle to find her son 50 years after his birth and the journalist who helped her.

REEL TAKE: I’ve been a lucky girl this month. I was thoroughly entertained by American Hustle, completely smitten with Saving Mr. Banks, and utterly undone by the Philomena. Philomena is the latest film from director Stephen Frears (The Queen) and it is quite possibly one of the most perfectly made little films I’ve seen this year. It’s not the most entertaining film nor everyone’s cup of tea. But for those for whom it appeals, it is an absolute gem.

British comedian Steve Coogan co-wrote the screenplay based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by journalist Martin Sixsmith. The story was born from an unlikely partnership between a worldly celebrated veteran journalist in need of a career jump start and a not-at-all worldly retired nurse. Coogan stars as Sixsmith and Judi Dench stars as Philomena.

In the 1950’s Ireland an unwed Philomena gave birth to a son at a convent. She worked as an indentured laundress there and was allowed to see her son for one hour a day. At the age of the three, without warning, her son was adopted (or sold more likely), leaving Philomena with only her brief memories and one photograph. On her son’s 50^th birthday, Philomena confides her long held secret to her daughter. When her daughter meets Sixsmith at a party, she pitches Philomena’s story and asks him to help. Sixsmith, who doesn’t do human interest stories, eventually comes around and off they go on a journey that ultimately changes both of their lives.

To tell you more about their search would ruin the experience from Philomena’s eyes. What I can tell you is that Coogan and Dench are pitch perfect. He is complicated, an agnostic and a cynic. She is simple (not to be mistaken for simple-minded) and holds to her faith even in light of the perfidy of the church. While elements of the story are not surprising, Frears stays above the fray, never falling prey to a more typical berating of the evil church, but simply rewarding us with nuanced reveals throughout the film. He also does a beautiful job interspersing flashbacks and present day.

Dench is a lock for a Best Actress nomination. Coogan deserves a nomination for acting and Best Screenplay Adaptation, and while the director’s circle is a tight race this year, Frears should certainly be among the ranks. Philomena is a must-see. See it in the theatre. See it soon.

Rated PG-13 on appeal for some strong language, thematic elements and sexual references.

Review by Michelle Keenan

Saving Mr. Banks ****1/2

Short Take: The backstory of Mary Poppins.

REEL TAKE: Saving Mr. Banks is the sweetest treat of the season this year. The film tells the backstory of Mary Poppins, who she really was and the hoops Walt Disney jumped through to bring the story of the umbrella toting nanny to the big screen.

Jaded, cynical, uptight and unhappy, P.L. Travers, author of the Mary Poppins, was the complete and polar opposite of Walt Disney. For twenty years, Disney pursued Mrs. Travers for the rights to Mary Poppins books. For ‘Uncle Walt’ a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. For Mrs. P.L. Travers, a spoonful of medicine probably helped the sugar go down. In 1961, facing financial ruin, Travers, ever so reluctantly, agreed to finally meet with Disney. This is where John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks starts.

Tom Hanks plays the legendary Walt Disney. Hanks doesn’t really look like Disney, even with the trademark thin mustache, but it’s what he embodies in bringing the role to life that must have ‘Uncle Walt’ smiling from the great beyond. Emma Thompson plays the dour, stiff upper lipped Brit. Travers is such a misery, one wonders how this emotionally contorted human being could possibly have created such a beloved character.

Brilliantly alternating between early 1900’s Australia and 1961 Burbank, California, we learn how the nanny came to be and what she represents. In sun dappled flashbacks, we see Travers as a young girl enjoying a magical childhood and the doting affection of her loving father (played effectively by Colin Farrell). Unfortunately this picturesque world is short-lived. Her heart irrevocably breaks as she watches her father succumb to alcoholism and her family crumble.

Back in 1961, Uncle Walt and his team work on cracking Mrs. Travers’ stony façade. Watching it crack, if not completely but even a little, is a sheer delight. The scenes between Travers and the Disney creative team are some of the best in the film.

Hanks turns in a fine performance, balancing the façade of the Disney brand and the man behind the mouse. There are cheeky hints throughout including his smoking and pre-signed autograph cards always at the ready. But make no mistake, Saving Mrs. Banks is Thompson’s movie and it’s a nomination-worthy performance.

The supporting cast, including Rachel Griffiths as the aunt who is the inspiration for Poppins, Paul Giamatti as a chauffeur who winkles his way into Travers shriveled heart and Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak as the Disney’s creative team all contribute to the magic. John Lee Hancock is a perfect call by Disney. Hancock deftly handles the light and dark elements while still giving the film a shiny Disney finish without overly sugar coating it.

Is Saving Mr. Banks emotionally manipulative? Yes. Do I care? Not a bit. Let’s go fly a kite! P.S. Stay for the end credits.

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some unsettling images.

Review by Michelle Keenan

The Wolf of Wall Street ***1/2

Short Take: A movie about 1980s excess that is as excessive as its subject. In fact it’s even more so.

Reel Take: I have a running joke with my colleague Michelle Keenan that any movie over 2 hours is too long (the recent Great Expectations is an exception). Imagine my delight when I saw that the running time for Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street clocked in at a whopping 180 minutes. My worst fears were confirmed as this movie REALLY was too long with numerous scenes of personal excess stretched way beyond what they needed to be. In fact, I haven’t seen this much sexual activity in a movie since Malcolm McDowell’s Caligula was released in 1979.

Speaking of Malcolm McDowell, another element of The Wolf of Wall Street that is troublesome is Leonardo DiCaprio’s voiceover narration. Just as in A Clockwork Orange, the narrator’s tone is geared to make us condone the outrageous acts that we are witnessing onscreen. There’s nothing admirable about these characters or their actions over the course of the film’s bloated running time. I’m sorry but stockbrokers getting rich at the expense of the small time investor and then spending it all on toys and sex and drugs just bugs the hell out of me.

What makes it all so appalling is that this actually happened. The Wolf of Wall Street is based on Jordan Belfort’s book about his rise and fall as an unscrupulous stock trader during the 1990s. His firm Stratton Oakmont defrauded investors out of more than $200 million which he and his cronies spent on themselves. All of this lavish expenditure is graphically and lovingly portrayed throughout the film. Belfort was eventually caught and spent 22 months in prison. Since his release he has paid backed approximately $12 million of the $110 million he owes.

As one now expects from a Martin Scorsese “picture,” it is expertly photographed and edited, effectively scored, features dynamic performances in even the minor roles and revels in its down and dirty characters. Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort channels his inner Jack Nicholson for a wild ride of a performance but it is Jonah Hill who really scores as his second-in-command. It’s a complex performance of a shallow individual. The Wolf of Wall Street will probably appeal to a great number of people. I’m just not one of them.

Rated R (down from NC-17) for just about everything imaginable.

Review by Chip Kaufmann