Oldboy (2013)

OLDBOY  (2013)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Spike Lee
    Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley,
    Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Max Casella
Josh Brolin plays an ad salesman named Joe Doucette, an asshole who only changes character when he drinks and becomes an even bigger asshole. Then one night, after blowing a big sale (by being an asshole) and getting drunker than usual, Joe's inexplicably  kidnapped. When  he comes to, he's locked in what looks like a drab hotel room, where he's fed a steady diet of Asian dumplings and vodka, and that's where he spends the next 20 years, not knowing who put him there, but determined to get even once he gets out. And then he gets out. This almost gets by as a cinematic exercise - it's a remake of a Korean movie from 2003 - but it's hard to engage in a story that's not remotely believable, or a lead character who's not remotely worth caring about. Maybe the context is wrong, or maybe it takes a Tarantino or a John Woo to shift something like this from Asia to the West and get it right. "Oldboy" leaves plenty of blood on the floor. What it needs is more tongue in its cheek.

The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time! (1982)

THE WEAVERS: WASN'T THAT A TIME! 
    D: Jim Brown                         (1982)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
A tuneful documentary centered around a reunion concert by the Weavers at Carnegie Hall in 1980. With a string of hits that included "Good Night, Irene" and "On Top of Old Smokey", the Weavers - Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays and Fred Hellerman - were the premier folk act in the country in the early 1950s, till the blacklist caught up with them. Their influence on other socially conscious folk musicians was enormous. Any one of them could anchor a song and hold the stage, but the commanding presence here is Hays, the group's bass and resident storyteller. Confined to a wheelchair after losing his lower legs to diabetes, Hays talks jokingly about being laid to rest in his compost pile, and in a bit of inspired gallows humor, gets a ride to New York for the Carnegie Hall gig in a limo borrowed from a funeral home. Hays gives the concert and the film a resonance they wouldn't otherwise have: the realization, unspoken but all too clear, that this isn't just another chance to sing the old songs and try out a few new ones. It's the last go-round, the last time these folks would sing together, ever, and there's a sense of joy and fun and affection in every fleeting second of it. Hays died eight months later. His ashes were scattered on his compost pile.

Pete Seeger

(1919-2014)

The 2013 Scobie Awards

Picture: "Nebraska"
Actress: Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
Actor: Bruce Dern, "Nebraska"
Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "Her"
Supporting Actor: Harrison Ford, "42"
Cameo: Jane Fonda, "The Butler"
Ensemble: "The World's End"
Director: J.C. Chandor, "All Is Lost"
Cinematography: Dion Beebe, "Gangster Squad"
Musical Score: Aaron Dessner, Bryce Dessner 
                           and Kubilay Uner, "Big Sur"
Foreign Language Film: "Wadjda"
B Movie: "Machete Kills"
Documentary: "A.K.A. Doc Pomus"
Revival: "Manhattan"
Title Sequence: "Red 2"
Trailer: "The Grand Budapest Hotel"
Print Ad: "Beyond Naked"
Career Achievement Award: Harry Dean Stanton

Down To the Sea In Ships (1949)

DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS  (1949)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Henry Hathaway
    Richard Widmark, Lionel Barrymore, Dean Stockwell,
    Cecil Kellaway, John McIntire, Gene Lockhart,
    Harry Morgan, Harry Davenport, Jay C. Flippen
Life lessons and the laws of the sea, with three generations aboard a 19th-century whaling ship. Barrymore's the crusty old captain who refuses to retire. Stockwell's his grandson, just promoted from cabin boy to ship's crew. Widmark's the new first mate. It starts out slow, but gets exciting once the first whales are sighted, and especially once the ship sails into the fog and ice. Widmark's first sympathetic role, after starting his career as a specialist in outlaws and psychopaths. 

The Armstrong Lie (2013)

THE ARMSTRONG LIE  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Alex Gibney
How Lance Armstrong, premier cyclist, cancer survivor and hero to millions, won seven straight Tour de France titles, doping and lying about it all along the way. Gibney's original idea was to make a documentary about Armstrong's comeback to compete in the tour in 2009, but the controversy surrounding his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and his repeated, emphatic denials wouldn't go away, and that's what the movie ended up being about. It's a little long, and it might be more effective if Gibney had figured out a way to keep himself out of it, but the access he had gives Armstrong plenty of screen time to make his case, or undermine it. There's a lot of footage of Armstrong dissembling - ducking, dodging, spinning and trying to evade the mounting evidence against him. What's striking isn't the lies as much as the viciousness behind them, and Armstrong's obsession, on the race course and away from it, not just to win but to destroy anybody who gets in his way. It's a toxic combination of ruthlessness, spite and egomania that earns Armstrong some outspoken enemies in a sport where a traditional code of silence would normally protect him. The same pathological drive that makes him great is the thing that does him in.

As Long As You've Got Your Health (1966)

AS LONG AS YOU'VE GOT YOUR HEALTH 
    D: Pierre Étaix                               (1966)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    Pierre Étaix, Denise Peronne,
    Simone Fonder, Sabine Sun
A compilation of four comic sketches, each starting with some simple activity and moving on to practically anywhere. One begins with a man in bed reading a book. Another involves a trip to the movies. In the third, some jackhammers pound away at a city street. In the last, a man drives a post into the ground to fix a wire fence. This is where Jacques Tati meets Ernie Kovacs. Étaix is practically unknown in the United States, and his films were tied up for years in legal disputes over ownership and distribution rights. His humor is mostly visual, and his movies play by their own cracked rules, in a universe where, of course, if a sheet of music gets knocked around enough, the notes will just naturally start to drop off the page. The films are hard to describe, really. You've just got to see them. And it's probably no coincidence that the guy in episode four trying to repair the wire fence is dressed like Buster Keaton.

Before Midnight (2013)

BEFORE MIDNIGHT  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Richard Linklater
    Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Walter Lassaly,
    Xenia Kalogeropoulou, Athina Rachel Tsangari,
    Ariane Labed, Yannis Papadopoulos, Panos Koronis
The last time the screen went dark on Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) was nine years ago in Paris. Nine years before that, they were talking the night away, walking through Vienna. This time, they're in Greece, and the young lovers of the first two films are a middle-aged couple now, with twin daughters, dealing with issues and baggage their younger selves never had to think about. The conversation continues and it's as sharp and funny as ever, but there's a different edge to it now, a sense of time passing and dreams not entirely realized. They haven't completely grown up, but they've grown older, and they've had enough time together to figure each other out. So they play games. They're evasive. They get on each other's nerves. And they've reached a point where there are compromises to be made, big ones. Life's become complicated. After that rendezvous in Paris nine years ago, I wasn't sure I wanted to see Jesse and Celine again. I wanted to leave them with their dreams and ideals intact. Now, after this one, I'm curious. It's hard to know where they'd be in another nine years, and questionable whether they'd even be together, but if Linklater and his stars want to bring them back to hash things out in some picturesque European location, I'm in. At least one thing's for sure. The conversation will be worth tuning in.