25 June 2014

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

by Kevin Powers

A stage actor, two unknowns, and Vincent Piazza as The Four Seasons in Clint Eastwood's  Jersey Boys
“Jersey Boys,” based on the Broadway musical, stars a talented lead in John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli (Tony Winner for the original play). He does a mean impersonation.

There are some surprisingly funny references, especially in the introduction of Joey (Joseph Russo), actually Joe Pesci of “Goodfellas” fame, who in real life played a role in getting The Four Seasons their big break.

Vincent Piazza, perfectly cast as criminal/guitar player Tommy DeVito, kicks off the story, which uses a broken fourth wall having the other three members of the foursome tell Frankie’s story directly to the audience. An interesting idea that I’m sure works even better on the stage.

That’s about it for this entire movie. It is, in fact, sometimes just bad. Most of the first act seems to be a sort of “Goodfellas” story, slowly playing up the rags-to-riches theme. It is nice and polished. Why, then, should there be a scene where characters are in a convertible that’s obviously been shot on a sound stage?

Clint Eastwood, a fine director, can’t quite seem to figure out where he stands on the production. Is this a gangster movie or a musical? And why waste Christopher Walken?

Franki Valli and the Four Seasons are known for some of the best pop songs of the early ‘60s. It’s exciting to hear them, but why are they so muted and underdone.

Which brings us to the ugly…

The makeup work in the later scenes is atrocious, most notably in the fake facial hair of Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen). It jumps around in time uncontrollably. Frankie Valli’s “family drama” comes out of nowhere and doesn’t land at all.

Biopics are often very good. This one is barely okay. When the musical number at the closing credits played, I was finally seeing the movie I had hoped for.

“Jersey Boys” is a missed opportunity.  



Produced and Directed by Clint Eastwood

Screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, based on their play “Jersey Boys: The Story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons”

Starring John Lloyd Young, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza, and Christopher Walken

Rated R for language throughout

Now Playing at: Cinemark Tinseltown USA (Oak Ridge), Regal West Towne Mall, Regal Pinnacle 18 (Turkey Creek), Regal Riviera Stadium 8 (Downtown Knoxville), and Carmike 10 (Millertown Pike)

10 June 2014

Not Widely but Deeply

by Kevin Powers 


Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort are a perfect match in "The Fault in Our Stars."

In “The Fault in Our Stars,” Shailene Woodley delivers a perfect performance as the protagonist, Hazel Grace Lancaster. But the antagonist is cancer, and Hazel is dying.

She has a form of lung cancer and carries an oxygen tank in a little roller backpack. She is 17. Witty, intelligent, a reader. The cancer has made her wise beyond her years.

Woodley plays this to perfection. She has this gaze and half-smile that exudes worldliness as if she’s seen it all before. It’s the same sort of power she brought to her performance in last year’s “The Spectacular Now,” my favorite movie of 2013.

Augustus (Ansel Elgort) is 18, in remission from his cancer but at the cost of one of his legs, yet totally unshaken. He is charming, good-looking, smart, and when he sees Hazel at support group for the first time, it is love at first sight, despite the oxygen tube across her face. Hazel is instantly attracted but reserved about getting into a relationship with the knowledge that, well, she’s dying and all.

As their love story plays out, they will grow closer, find themselves on a Make-A-Wish trip to Amsterdam, gaze at the stars and even drink them from a glass.

But when it all comes down, I expected to be shaken a bit more. At one point, Hazel and Gus talk about being remembered. Is it better to be loved widely by all or deeply by few? That’s how I feel about this movie. In the end, I wanted it to hit me harder with the deep emotions it so expertly builds in the beginning. Instead, it softly widens at the end and loses its punch.

Don’t let my one little criticism deter you. “The Fault in Our Stars” is perfect for its teenage audience and will likewise touch adults of all ages. It is beautifully written and directed and powered by the chemistry between two talented young actors. 






Directed by Josh Boone

Screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber

Based on the novel by John Green

Starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Nat Wolff, Laura Dern, and Sam Trammell








Note: This is a review for The Courier News, Clinton, TN. 

09 June 2014

Underprivileged

by Kevin Powers

Brie Larson and John Gallagher, Jr. chase down a troubled youngster in Short Term 12.
Early on in this film, a new counselor at a juvenile inpatient treatment center introduces himself and makes the mistake of saying that he "always wanted to work with underprivileged kids." A quiet, sad-looking kid named Marcus blows up. "What do you mean by that!!?" Marcus knows he is "underprivileged," yet he also knows he must defend himself from that label. That is the power of this film. It raises the ultimate questions one finds when dealing with teens from bad home lives. Those being:  Can I make it out? Will I have a good life? Am I doomed to be miserable?







Written and Directed by Daniel Destin Cretton

Starring Brie Larson, Frantz Turner, John Gallagher, Jr., and Kaitlyn Dever
Destin Daniel Cretton's Short Term 12 is a rewarding movie experience. It follows a week in the life of a twenty-something teen counselor named Grace (Brie Larson), who finds herself dealing with her own abusive, troubled past when a new girl named Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) arrives at the facility. Grace is good at her job, even loves it. She shares a small house with her co-worker boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher, Jr.), a loving, supportive man. She finds out she's pregnant and that her abusive father, who went to prison on her testimony, will be released in the coming weeks. It's a brutal week on top of the fact that she works and deals in the most basic, harsh human pain. 

I realize I'm making this movie sound like a dark, depressing slog-fest. Not the case. Cretton's direction is assured. Simple, realistic, he and his director of photography, Brett Pawlak, use handheld cameras, everything is close, in your face, real. It has all the trappings of an "indie film," yet it's elevated by the simple power of the story being told. Destin Cretton, once a youth counselor himself, obviously lived this life. In that, Short Term 12 is a labor of love.


Brie Larson is a phenomenal actress. She has done some great supporting work in recent years. In the Showtime dramedy United States of Tara, she played the quick-witted, rebellious daughter of a woman with multiple-personality disorder. She has also delivered a some solid work in feature films like last year's The Spectacular Now and Don Jon. She plays characters with a quiet, confident calm. This, her first starring role, is no different. Only this time, tasked with carrying a movie, she proves that a long, quality career awaits her. I honestly don't see, in a year with pretty weak performances in the Leading Actress category, how Oscar missed her. Her performance here is certainly worth a nod. 


The rest of the cast shines as well. John Gallagher, Jr. of HBO's The Newsroom shows a different side of himself . Whereas his Jim in The Newsroom is a sharp and quick, clean-cut news producer, here his scruffy, shaggy-haired Mason is calm and understanding. As the girl put in the charge of Grace and Mason and the team at "Short Term 12," Kaitlyn Dever is daring and real. In her, Grace sees herself and must face the demons that have haunted her for so long, that now haunt young Jayden. 

How hard it must be to have lived through abuse and neglect and abandonment. We see the ensuing rage of "the kids" at "Short Term 12." The tantrums, the outbursts, the bad attitudes, the self-harm. Cretton's screenplay and confident direction make us feel that feeling. The feeling of being alone and unsure and scared. Luckily, there are people like Grace and Mason, people in our real world existence that live to create safe environments and comforts for those forced to deal with such pain, people who sit down and listen to what these kids have to say, admires their rap lyrics or drawings or stories. 


As a middle school teacher, I've seen my fair share of troubled youths. You can easily spot them. They're the ones who argue, who defy any authority, who seem sad and beaten down, who build barriers of protection around themselves. If you're lucky, you get through to them. You become one small, yet significant, piece of brightness, hope in an otherwise hard life. This is what people like Grace and Mason, counselors and teachers and therapists, try to do. So, maybe you have to chase down a screaming kid running across the lawn once in a while, let a kid cry on your shoulder, cuss it out of their system. Helping a troubled kid takes guts and stamina and empathy and understanding. Some have those qualities, some don't. Grace does.

Short Term 12 is an underprivileged movie. Made on a low-budget, digging into subject matter that is difficult and challenging, movies like this hardly see the light of day. This is a film that is perfect for teenagers, yet I guarantee you if I polled my local high school, none of them would have heard about it. I often find that the smaller, more intimate movies are often better. I know of several young people who could benefit greatly from a viewing Short Term 12. I can only hope that they will rise above and seek out the movies that cruise underneath the hype. 

02 June 2014

Time in a Bottle

by Kevin Powers

Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto and Evan Peters as 
Quicksilver in "X-Men: Days of Future Past."
The most striking thing about “X-Men: Days of Future Past” is that it has somehow figured out how to seamlessly put all the pieces together taking elements from the original trilogy, the “Wolverine” origin movies, and 2011’s reboot, “X-Men: First Class.” All of the characters we’ve come to really love through this series are here.

In the near future, man and mutant have been destroyed by an army of robots called “Sentinels,” created originally to protect humans by replicating the abilities of the mutants. The world is a dark, deathly place in the future. Under the guidance of perennial frenemies Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen), Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) uses her transformative powers to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back in time to 1973. There he is to convince the younger versions of Professor X and Magneto, a drunk, downtrodden Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and a Pentagon-incarcerated Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), to stop the shape-shifting Raven a.k.a. Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the man responsible for designing the life destroying “Sentinels.”

Along the way, a new X-Man (if you will) is introduced and thus begins the funniest, most entertaining half-hour of movie I’ve experienced all year. The character is Quicksilver (Evan Peters), a teenaged, kleptomaniac with supersonic speed, so much so that he can slow down time. His performance alone is worth the price of admission, and I missed him when his screen time was up.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” is of the best superhero movies ever made (see “Spider-man 2,” “The Dark Knight,” the original “X-Men”). It is an absolute blast that I would recommend to anyone even if you haven’t seen the others. And as a time-travel movie, it only makes your head spin in a good way. 






Directed by Bryan Singer

Screenplay by Simon Kinberg; Story by Jane Goldman & Simon Kinberg & Matthew Vaughn

Starring Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, and Jennifer Lawrence







Note: This is a review written for The Courier News, Clinton, TN.