Quick takes on 5 films

Two remakes that couldn’t be more different. Annie is a true attempt at a modern redo, moving the setting up to the backdrop of a present day big city. Everyone liked the old original, but the syrupy, overly cutesiness of that film does not hold up today, and it is challenging to watch. There was so much sugar dripping from this one I had to start fast forwarding to see the highlights. If ever a film that shouldn’t have been made, this is it.

Cinderella on the other hand is supremely enjoyable. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel like Annie, and sticks mostly to the known script with only minor changes, but it is done extremely well. The actors are charming in their roles, the scenes and costumes are brilliant, and I’m not ashamed to admit I was fairly enthralled. Whereas I knew what was coming in Annie and couldn’t wait for it to be over, in Cinderella I knew what was coming and still enjoyed the ride along. This one is a great family film.

Even having just finished Inherent Vice, I’m not exactly sure what I saw. I can’t decide if this a deep, engrossing film or just a thorough mess from the opening scene. The film follows Doc, a drugged out hippy played by the talented Joaquin Phoenix. He is pulled into a convulted plot by his ex­girlfriend, to find out what happened to her missing current boyfriend, a rich real estate developer, someone who had a lot of girlfriends, whose wife had a lot of boyfriends, all while Doc is constantly harassed by a local LAPD detective, followed by a drug ring kingpin, and somehow trying to avoid entanglement with the Aryan Brotherhood, a black guerilla group, and others. If it sounds like you need a map to get through it, you sort of do, or just watch it when you are really high as the lead character is throughout. A very strange movie, with more plots and subplots that many season­long tv shows. It is chuck full of great actors in all roles from main to supporting to cameos, but I’m still not convinced it is worth the effort.

The Water Diviner stars Russell Crowe, and is also his directorial debut. He plays Connor, an Australian man who has lost his sons to World War I and his wife to her subsequent grief. He takes a trek to present­day Turkey to find his sons’ bodies. Though the war is over, there is still major conflict between the local Turkish people, the British, and the Greeks, all fighting over land as the Ottoman Empire is falling apart. Connor pleads, threatens, and begs his way onto the site of his sons’ final moments, only to find his journey doesn’t stop there. It is heartwarming if a bit (or more than a bit) predictable. Crowe is fantastic as an actor, but the movie is a little choppy. Good for a single watch for sure, maybe not the kind of movie you’d watch more than once though.

Tomorrowland had a ton of potential, but it never pans out. It takes place in modern day with flashbacks to 40ish years ago. In the movie, a city was built in an alternate dimension, a place called Tomorrowland, where the world’s best minds could come together and invent, just for the pure joy of working with other like-minded people, without interference from politics, nation rivalries, race, or religion. Now in present day, something is wrong in Tomorrowland (I can’t say what without giving away the “twist”) and they reach out for help to George Clooney’s character. He “grew up” in Tomorrowland inventing things, but was banished years before for some transgression. The idea of the film is really good, and visuals are there as well, but the directing and story are pretty awful. I *think* it is supposed to be a family film directed towards kids, who might like the quirky dialogue and action, but some of it is very violent and might be scary to young kids, and some of the plot elements would be hard to grasp for many adults! The ending is good enough, if a little abrupt.