LINCOLN

Twentieth-Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 150 Minutes




Click below to watch the Lincoln trailer.



In Twentieth-Century Fox's Lincoln, United States President Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Day-Lewis, tries to get the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed in Congress to abolish slavery in this country as the American Civil War continues to rage.

Produced and Directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, the film covers the final four months of Lincoln's life in 1865. This was a tour de force for Daniel Day-Lewis. For an Englishman, Day-Lewis had quite a presence as the American President Lincoln. I loved it when Lincoln/Day-Lewis started telling his stories. One of my favorite scenes was where Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Bruce McGill, complains that Lincoln/Day-Lewis is going to tell another one of his stories again and walks out as Day-Lewis tells his story. Sally Field's performance as Lincoln's wife Mary Todd Lincoln did not make me feel that she was the emotionally difficult woman that history had made her out to be, but just as a concerned wife and mother - especially when her oldest son Robert Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, wants to go enlist into the Army. She is just concerned about her family.

While there were two issues during Lincoln's Presidency, the main story in the movie was the campaign for the necessary Democratic votes in Congress for the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the abolition of slavery in America as a prelude to ending the Civil War. It is curious that Lincoln/Day-Lewis offered Federal jobs in his second term to the various Democratic congressmen in exchange for voting for the Amendment. There were heated debates on both sides in Congress, and even debates within his own cabinet, while Lincoln's people try to secure the votes necessary to pass the Amendment. There was even the joke about eventually giving women the right to vote, to the horror of everyone. During the vote for the Amendment, the names were changed on those in the United States House of Representatives who voted No on the Amendment to spare the family descendants of these representatives. There were several statements to the effect that the world is watching them, but you saw no actual scenes of the outside world. The scenes were totally focused on the American events. It is curious that I have always thought that it was the Democrats that supported the Amendment instead of the Republicans.

There was a battle scene at the beginning of the movie which to me was the most graphic Civil War battle scene I have ever seen, due to the fact that the fighting was basically hand to hand instead of people shooting at each other across a field. Half of the soldiers fighting in the scene were black. This battle scene was basically the only battle scene in the movie, despite what the trailer may imply - as the rest of the movie was about the politics of the 13th Amendment and the little known peace agreement between the Union and the Confederacy. This scene makes me incredibly sad as I realize that these are Americans fighting Americans.

The theme of the movie was Euclid's theory - which Lincoln/Day-Lewis spoke of - which is basically "Things which equal the same thing also equal one another." That was the basis of abolishing slavery. That was like a light bulb for me when Day-Lewis spoke of this. To think of the black people as unequal in the eyes of God was very prejudiced. Although the slaves in the movie acted and were treated more like servants rather than slaves doing drudge work, especially when there were black people for Lincoln/Day-Lewis and Sally Field. Although the pictures of black children of which their son Tad Lincoln, Gulliver McGrath, had with prices on their pictures brought home the idea of slavery. Tommy Lee Jones was great as Republican Abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. There was a scene at the end of the movie that made me understand Thaddeus Stevens/Jones better.

This was a long movie, especially with the long speeches at the beginning of the movie. I know that at least one couple left at the end of the voting for the 13th Amendment - and there was still the rest of the story of Lincoln to be told. The long speeches in the beginning made it difficult for me to concentrate as there was too much information being thrown at me and I was ready to fall asleep, but visually the movie was great under Spielberg's direction. There was a stylistic dream sequence in the beginning of the movie of a style that I have not really seen before. Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address in the beginning of the movie was too Hollywood for me for it to be believable, but it was a nice idea. With all the historical research that was involved, as the end credits indicated of all the museums and archives that were listed,  it makes you wonder how much has been done for Hollywood's sake and how much in depth history has been left out.

I saw the movie at a Black Friday matinee in it's second week. I just realized, it seemed rather appropriate to see it on that day. The theater was full with a more mature audience than the young people who normally go to the movies. At the end of the movie, everyone applauded - and where normally people immediately leave after a movie, there were several people staying behind and just talking about the movie while the end credits rolled. It felt more like a social event. When the movie was over, there was a line outside the door.

Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 150 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

TAKEN 2

Twentieth Century Fox

Rated PG-13

Running time: 92 Minutes

 

Click below to watch the Taken 2 trailer.



In Twentieth Century Fox's Taken 2, retired CIA operative Liam Neeson is on a business vacation trip in Istanbul with his wife Famke Jansson and daughter Maggie Grace - when Neeson and Jansson get kidnapped by the father of the man who had kidnapped Maggie earlier.

In this sequel to Taken, I felt the movie was uneven. This seems not surprising as the work of writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen are uneven. I did not see the original movie, but while the father Rade Serbedzija was good as the vengeful father targeting Neeson and getting revenge for the death of Serbedzija's son and the rest of the village gang involved with the kidnapping of Grace to use her for human prostitution in the first Taken movie - some of the plot points were totally unbelievable, mostly dealing with Neeson and Jansson. The scenes at home with Grace's driving test were nice and ordinary - but once Neeson and Jansson were kidnapped, it started to get a little like an ordinary action film and a little illogical. I did like the use of the Marines at the U.S. Embassy, however. I felt that they were more realistically used in the movie than in Argo. Seeing Grace being determined to go after her kidnapped parents from her hotel was great to see. Luc Besson claims that this is the last Taken movie.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 92 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

FLIGHT

Paramount Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 138 Minutes



Click below to watch the Flight trailer.



In Paramount Pictures Flight, after flying through a turbulant storm - a drunken airline pilot Denzel Washington makes a miraculous crash landing with his passenger airliner.

Produced and Directed by Robert Zemeckis, in his first R rated film since Used Cars, this is a tour-de-force performance by Denzel Washington. Similar to real-life events, the focus of the movie really is on Washington and his situation rather than on most anything else in the movie. Just as the rough weather was rougher than I thought it would be, the movie is much more dramatic than what the trailer makes it out to be. I could see an Oscar nomination for Washington for this role. With the media staking out his home and the National Transportation Safety Bureau, NTSB, hearing for the plane crash headed by Melissa Leo after him, Washington is in for a rough ride - with the possibility of going to jail. It is a shame that he has this situation as after such an incredible feat to save the plane because Washington, for a time, is called a real American hero for his relevant skills as a pilot. Even with the help of his airlines collegue Bruce Greenwood, his lawyer Don Cheadle, and his new girlfriend, addict Kelly Reilly, Washington is in for a rough time. Even being sequestered in a hotel does not help him. It is sad that it is a tradition that passengers are called souls by the flight crew. John Goodman was a lot of fun as Washington's hippie best friend.

Rated R for alcohol and drug abuse, nudity, language, smoking. Running time: 138 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews


 

SKYFALL

Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

Rated PG-13

Running time: 143 Minutes



Click below to watch the Skyfall trailer.



In Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's Skyfall, based on Ian Fleming's James Bond series, Daniel Craig as James Bond must protect M, Judi Dench, from becoming the victim of blond terrorist Javier Bardem.

With 2012 as the Fiftieth Anniversary of James Bond films, the relocation of MI6 headquarters to The Churchill Bunker System, and adding several new characters to the movie like Naomie Harris as intelligence officers being introduced in Skyfall - the movie will take the James Bond films into a new generation.

After Craig/Bond has been injured on an assignment to retrieve a computer drive, Dench comes under fire politically from Ralph Fiennes and Parliament when the drive was lost - as the drive contains a list of undercover agents embedded into terrorist organizations around the world. Watching an ousted agent being executed because his identity was released was rather sad. It was fortunate Craig was not on the list. Dench is also pursued by Bardem from Dench's past and wants revenge against her, targeting her office in one attack.

Dench finally gets to act in a Bond film as half of the movie is about her, thus making Dench one of the Bond girls. I have always felt that the Bond movies were wasting Dench's talents and this movie more than makes up for it. In Skyfall, Dench acts more like a Mother/authority figure to Craig/Bond as the movie explores their relationship. Young Ben Whishaw as the new Quartermaster is appropriately young and geeky enough to be the new Q. With more and more of technology going into information technology, as well as being more of a realistic film, there seems to be less need for gadgets in the field. As is tradition, Bond's gadgets are basically only used once in the movie and these are basically essential gadgets - like Bond's traditional Walther PPK gun, this time a PPK/S gun with palm-print encoding is given to Craig/Bond. The move toward signals intelligence espionage is a major issue for MI6 amongst Dench's inquiry after the lost of several human agents - as well as MI6 being hacked. But to paraphrase Dench, human intelligence is needed to fight in the darkness. While there are typical action chase scenes, having the first responders respond to terrorist aspect in London - such as the London Tube - gave rise to that fact of terrorism. The terrorism gives a more realistic feel - especially with real life newscasters from CNN and the BBC reporting on it - to the movie than other films in the Bond series.

While Craig drove several cars and motorcycles in Skyfall - it was great to see Bond's Aston-Martin DB5 car again, referring to Bond's roots as well as hearing the Bond music sting when you see the Aston-Martin, just as Skyfall refers to Bond's roots. With the first James Bond played by Scotsman Sean Connery - and with Ian Fleming's family once owning a Scottish estate, and Fleming loving the countryside of Scotland - having orphan Bond having Scottish roots seemed quite appropriate for a United Kingdom series. It was also nice knowing the names of Bond's parents. Skyfall is the third film in the unofficial trilogy of Bond's ancestry. As a tribute to the late Bond music composer John Barry, Judi Dench's house in the movie was the home of John Barry. It is funny that Fiennes is now part of two big franchise films, Harry Potter and James Bond. It was also cool to see the Agusta Westland Merlin AW101 helicopter used during the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremonies with Daniel Craig and the Queen Elizabeth II of England and their Skyfall used in the movie Skyfall.

With Craig/Bond being injured, the movie plays up to the fact both medically and physically that he is not up to the role of being a 00 agent physically as he was before - with Fiennes questioning Craig's/Bond's fitness. This ties into Craig aging as Bond, in that he may not be able to physically play the role of Bond much longer. There is also a scene where Craig/Bond, recovering his health, is having a drinking contest with a scorpion. I could barely watch this scene because of the scorpion - especially when my mother was bitten by a scorpion when she was a teenager, and her leg is still swollen by it.

Skyfall is a non Ian Fleming James Bond title used for a James Bond film. As there are very few Bond titles left, I would not be surprised if the producers start using original titles for the start of the next 50 years of Bond movies. As it is, Skyfall does not connect to the previous Daniel Craig Bond films.

The film was influenced by the Batman Dark Knight series, and this was most obvious to me during some of the music score. Both films are very complicated films, although there were a couple of plot points in Skyfall that did not make sense. The Asian element of Skyfall is the most obvious element of being opposite of the English world, especially since Shanghai is basically on the opposite side of the world to London.

The opening title credits sequence, while connected to the themes and story of the movie, is perhaps the darkest Bond title sequence that I have ever seen. The title sequence was very macabre and made me think that Skyfall was going to be a voodoo movie like Live and Let Die.

As stated during the end credits -

Bond Will Return.

Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations, language. Running time: 143 Minutes.

Pancho
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Pancho's Movie Reviews

ARGO

Warner Bros. Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 120 Minutes



Click below to watch the Argo trailer.



In Warner Bros. Pictures Argo, Ben Affleck is a CIA ex filtration expert who has to get six U.S. Embassy escapees out of Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. 

Based on a true story, the movie starts out with movie storyboards describing the historical background of Iran - then the movie goes into the story as the U.S. Embassy gets stormed by Iranian protesters during the Islamic revolution of 1979. Six of the Embassy staff sneak out the back of the Embassy during the takeover - and takes refuge at the Canadian Embassy with Canadian Ambassador Victor Garber. 

As the head of the C.I.A.’s Graphics and Authentication Division, producer, director, and star Affleck - as the real life Tony Mendez - was responsible for foreign agents and the agents cover stories. After watching a clip of Battle for the Planet of the Apes from his hotel during a phone call with his son Aidan Sussman who is sitting at home, Affleck comes up with the idea of getting the refugees out of Iran by having them pose as a Canadian film crew making a science fiction movie that needs exotic Iranian locales - so they can fly out of Iran after the "location scouting" trip. With the help of Hollywood makeup artist John Goodman as John Chambers - who had created Mr. Spock's pointed ears, as well as worked on the Planet of the Apes movie series - and Producer Alan Arkin, they create a production studio for the fake science fiction/fantasy film. Arkin takes this project seriously - if the story has a horse, "it's a western, not a science fiction film." I loved what Alan Arkin said, "If I'm doing a fake movie, it's going to be a fake hit." The audience laughed at all the Hollywood jokes. 

The juxtaposition between the intense real-life Iran and the fantasy land of lowest-common denominator Hollywood was quite ironic. The run-down Hollywood Sign, before it's renovation, stresses the fact that this is the time period of 1979. The costumes in Hollywood were straight out of a science fiction convention and were pretty funny, while the Iranian Anti-American protesters were very scary. I wished there was more of the Hollywood aspect in the second half of the movie with John Goodman and Alan Arkin waiting back in Hollywood, at least arranging more of the Hollywood support system needed for the refugees extraction considering how rushed the project was put together.  The Hollywood aspect would have lightened the tension of the intense second half of the film as the Iranians hunt for the refugees, which was very draining for me. Having the refugees not trusting Affleck and the Iranian military searching for the refugees definitely was intense. When refugee "location scout" Kerry Bishe takes location pictures as part of her fake ID job, she gets into a confrontation with an Iranian business owner for taking a picture of his business. This was just one of the intense scenes in the second half of the movie as Affleck is determined to fly the refugees out, despite a problem with their airline tickets. It was fortunate that one of the refugees can speak Farsi. 

Having the Embassy using strip paper shredders instead of cross-cut paper shredders did not make sense to me - especially when they also had a furnace for burning sensitive documents - and of course the use of strip shredders was used to the detriment of the Embassy hostages and refugees. I am sure, after this incident - and the Oliver North Iran-Contra affair - cross-cut paper shredders are part of government facilities now. 

While I understand the storming of the Embassy, there was no real resolution of the U.S. Marines stationed at the U.S. Embassy. It is implied that the Marines were overrun and taken hostage, but you never really saw that. Given the fact that the Marines had a no-shoot-to-kill order - it is sad, but not surprising that the Embassy and the Marines were overrun. 

It was interesting to see the archival TV news clips of the time about the hostage crises, with the nationally famous network newscasters looking so young - as well as seeing the news clips of President Jimmy Carter and U.S. and Canadian government officials. Iran government officials, as well as Iranian women reading statements denouncing the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. and Canadian governments in the aftermath of the incident is still rather disturbing. Affleck had the film processed in a way so that the movie looked like it came from that time period. The Warner Bros. logo used for the movie was the logo used during that time period. 

While in reality, British and New Zealand diplomats also had put their lives at risk to help the American refugees - but I do not recall any mention of them in the movie, so their involvement in the movie was very light.

The crowd in the theater was definitely and older crowd and the theater was pretty full for an afternoon matinee. This was definitely the type of crowd who were around during the Iran hostage crisis. While I remember the 52 hostages, I barely remember the release of the 6 refugees - so this movie was very suspenseful for me as I did not know the refugees story. I loved all of the Star Wars toys on Sussman's bedroom dresser shelves at the end of the movie as they ran the end credits crawl. During the end credits, there was a "where are they now" crawl of the people involved with the incident and a crawl of the involvement along with the Canadian government - as well as a voice-over statement from former President Carter describing the Argo incident. The credits also showed the movie shots being compared with the real-life pictures of the hostage crisis. At the end of the movie, the audience applauded. 


Rated R for violence and language. Running time: 120 Minutes

 Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.
 

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE

Warner Bros.

 Rated PG-13

 Running time: 111 Minutes



 Click below to watch the Trouble with the Curve trailer.

 

In Warner Bros. Trouble with the Curve, Clint Eastwood is an aging baseball scout, who had signed up some of the best ball players in the business, trying to convince everyone - including his lawyer daughter Amy Adams - that he can still scout baseball talent.

While in his last few movies, star and producer Eastwood has been playing characters who of course are old - this is the film that I have seen one of Eastwood's movie play up the fact that Clint Eastwood as being old the most. Directed by Eastwood's longtime associate Robert Lorenz in Lorenz's directorial debut - Eastwood came out of acting retirement for this role, and I think the role most suits him. This is the first time since In the Line of Fire that Eastwood has not both directed and starred in a movie.

The Trouble With the Curve mostly concentrated on Eastwood's decreasing eyesight and his possibly not being able to perform his job anymore, especially as Eastwood tries to scout a new high school "green power hitter" Joe Massingill in a small town in North Carolina as Eastwood and Adams stay in a local motel. The concern of Eastwood's boss and best friend John Goodman and Eastwood's daughter Amy Adams over Eastwood's condition showed their love for Eastwood, despite the dysfunctional father-daughter relationship Adams and Eastwood have throughout most of the movie, as Adams leaves home to go with her father Eastwood to look after him. Even young baseball scout Justin Timberlake's admiration and respect for Eastwood's experience added to Eastwood's aging and his inability to adapt to the changes in the business of Major League Baseball. Despite the high tech aspect of baseball, the fact that everyone still travels in cars instead of airlines while scouting shows that the game of baseball really still has not changed.

The juxtaposition between Adams and Eastwood's jobs on the line hit home to me for both father and daughter as smarmy General Manager wannabe Matthew Lillard, with his computerized tracking system of players, wants Eastwood with his old-school scouting experience of scouting real players out of the organization - and Adams is threatened by another lawyer taking her presentation her client as well as the lawyer taking her spot as a partner in her lawyer's firm.

This is a nice role for Timberlake. Timberlake is such a nice guy in the movie as a young baseball scout for another team that gruff Eastwood practically pushes his relationship-challenged single daughter Adams at his young prodigy Timberlake. I guess it was keeping baseball all in the family as Adams grew up with baseball - and has learned quite a lot from Eastwood - and also assists Eastwood in scouting and recruiting talent, despite not always being with her single father Eastwood as she was growing up. It was great to see Robert Patrick as the owner of Eastwood's baseball team the Atlanta Braves - but we really did not get to know Patrick as the owner, which I think is a shame. The other aging baseball fans were also a delight to see. Actually, I am not sure if they were fans or were scouts as well since I did not recall seeing them take notes.

There was definitely an older crowd for this movie when I saw the film. I am sure most of them were there for Clint Eastwood rather than were actual baseball fans. That is how I felt about the audience for Eastwood's Space Cowboys, where the audience were more of a fan of Eastwood rather than of NASA. While I understand movie reviews have been mixed for Trouble With the Curve - as a fan of both Eastwood and baseball, I enjoyed this sports movie. It would be a shame if more of the younger generation do not see Trouble With the Curve.

Rated PG-13 for violence, language, sexual situations. Running time: 111 minutes.

Pancho
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The Expendables 2

Lionsgate

Rated R

Running time: 103 Minutes



Click below to watch The Expendables 2 trailer.



In Lionsgate's The Expendables 2, Sylvester Stallone and his team of mercenary Expendables are sent on a secret mission by CIA operative Bruce Willis to recover the contents of a safe - which holds the key to an abandoned Cold War Soviet Union mine of five tons of weapons grade plutonium.

This is a fun action-packed sequel to the 2010 first movie of The Expendables. The Expendables 2 includes an ensemble of 1980's action stars as well as current action stars which makes for an incredible cast. The Expendables 2 is directed by Simon West and co-written by Stallone and by Richard Wenk, with whom I used to work with. I did not know Richard wrote the movie until I saw the credits on IMDB. However, when watching the movie, I can recognize jokes that are obviously Richard's.

This group of action stars - both old and new - which includes names like Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terry Crews, and Randy Couture look to be having fun on this movie, including newcomers Liam Hemsworth as the next generation Expendable, and Yu Nan (or Nan Yu, I have seen two different postings of her name. Yu Nan is posted on the official website) as a Chinese agent sent by Willis to join their team. It was great that Lundgren's history of chemical engineering was written into his character, making Lundgren perhaps the smartest character of the Expendables. I liked the fact that they played up on Norris's urban legend facts in the movie, as well as playing up Schwarzenegger's character as Stallone's action rival. Charisma Carpenter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer reprises her role as Statham's girlfriend.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was great as the villain. Van Damme is even credited in the movie as Vilain. The final face off battle between Stallone and Van Damme is a great hand to hand battle, worthy to see between the two action stars. Although since they were both basically wearing the same clothes, it was hard to tell the two of them apart when they were battling in silhouette despite their different tattoos and logos. Director West captures the essences of all the other 1980's action films that made these action stars famous.

While I would have liked Van Damme as an Expendable - someone has to be the villain and be strong enough to stand up to the Expendables and Van Damme fits the bill, especially with Van Damme's fighting style. Scott Adkins was sufficiently sadistic as Van Damme's henchman as he executes the various village slave workers. It is a shame that Jet Li left the film early, so you could not really appreciate his character -  although Nan took over the token Asian character aspect of the movie and she does hold her own as an action star, and Statham's knife fighting abilities made up for the missing Li's hand to hand fighting scenes as well as Statham being Stallone's best friend. Liam Hemsworth is not as well known as an action star as his older brother Chris Hemsworth, but Liam made a nice addition as the Expendable's young sniper. I liked that Terry Crews was the cook of the movie, but I do not remember much of Randy Couture, even though he was supposed to be the glue that holds the dysfunctional Expendables together. Watching all the 80's action stars firing off the big guns was a lot of fun. The shootout at the airport reminded me of a video game my nephew was playing with recently.

Having a village full of mothers such as Amanda Ooms defending their children from the Expendables and Van Damme's men was both comedic and heartbreaking and added some humanity to the story. There is a great bit with a Smart Car which is especially funny to me as we have a fleet of Smart Cars at work for promotional appearances for our company and to see a Smart Car being used in the movie was great.

Rated R for graphic violence. Running time: 103 Minutes.

Click below to watch a Top Five list of Action films to prepare you for The Expendables 2 movie.



Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews