Rush (2013) [R] ****/*****

A film review by Richard Roeper, Movie Columnist, September 26, 2013.

In the individual sports, it’s nearly impossible to become a champion for the ages if you don’t have a fierce and lengthy rivalry with an opponent of near or equal skill and heart. Jack Nicklaus needed Arnold Palmer. Muhammad Ali needed Joe Frazier. Nadal/Federer, Hagler/Hearns, Earnhardt/Waltrip, Duran/Leonard... 

And in the 1970s on the Formula One racing circuit, it was Niki Lauda vs. James Hunt. They needed each other.

Even if you don’t know Formula One from the Soap Box Derby, Ron Howard’s Rush, like all great sports movies inspired by true events, is foremost about getting to know and understand the characters. By the time we get to the inevitable Big Game/Race/Match, the stakes are so high and the drama so real we find ourselves tensing up — even though we’re watching a re-creation of events long since in the record books.

Rush ranks among the best movies about auto racing ever made, featuring two great performances from the leads, who capture not only the physical look of the racing legends they’re playing, but the vastly different character traits that made their rivalry, well, made for the movies.

At first blush the brusque, detail-obsessed, virtually emotion-free Austrian Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) and the cocky, womanizing, partying Brit Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, his blond locks only slightly shorter than Thor’s) are such polar opposites they make Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed seem like kindred spirits. But as we follow their rivalry from the stepping-stone Formula Three circuit to the big stage of Formula One, we see there’s more to Lauda than his relentless quest for perfection, while Hunt learns the hard way he’s not immune to heartbreak — and he uses that pain to dedicate himself to the world championship.

Lauda’s a perfectionist in the garage, tirelessly working to build a better machine. Hunt figures he’ll floor it when you’re easing off on a turn and he’ll roar past you. When Lauda proposes to his girl Marlene (Alexandra Maria Lara), he says he’ll probably forget her birthday and he’s not much for holding hands, but if I’m going to do this with someone, it might as well be you. Hunt also gets married, but he proposes to supermodel Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde) because they’re two of the best-looking and most fabulous people on the planet, so why not go for the fairy tale? (Even when the marriage falls apart, it’s in spectacular fashion. Richard Burton steals Suzy while James is brooding and boozing over his stalled racing career.)

Director Howard expertly sprinkles in the domestic scenes while giving us just enough inside baseball sequences to familiarize the non-fan with Formula One racing without getting bogged down in the detail. The terrific script by the great Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon, The Last King of Scotland) keys in on what makes these men risk their lives every day when they go to work — and then we get another cool, 1970s graphic establishing the next European or South American or Asian stop on the 1976 circuit. (Rush is rated R, and it should be. If you’re going to show the horrific crashes, not to mention Hunt boffing his way through half the stewardesses, models and groupies of the time, you can’t just hint at it.)

As Hunt puts it, these Ferraris and McLarens are coffins sitting on high-octane fuel. And though Hunt’s the risk-taker, it’s Lauda who winds up in the hospital, his face horribly burned, his lungs so filled with soot and smoke they have to be vacuumed via a long tube inserted into Lauda’s mouth — while he’s conscious. Less than two months later, Lauda is back in action, against all medical advice. He’s not about to let Hunt take away his title by piling up the points while he’s sidelined. Lauda needs Hunt. Hunt needs Lauda.

Chris Hemsworth is so comic-book handsome it takes a while to realize what a fully realized performance he’s giving, playing a guy who loved the celebration as much as he craved finishing first. Hunt isn’t some empty-headed himbo. He loves racing because it makes him feel like a modern-day knight.

As for Bruhl’s work as Niki Lauda: This is nomination-level acting. The Austrian perfectionist role could have been the stuff of caricature — and indeed Lauda gets most of the laughs in the movie by virtue of his near total lack of social graces. But we also see flickers of playfulness in Lauda’s eyes during a hilarious hitchhiking scene that winds up with him behind the wheel in the Italian countryside, much to the rapture of two fans in the back seat. Bruhl is also magnificent conveying Niki’s maddeningly analytical philosophy (Happiness is the enemy, because when you’re happy you have something to lose) and his relentless determination.

Ron Howard has an Oscar and he’s been one of our best storytellers for 30 years. This is one of his most impressive efforts, with an edgy, kind of Euro feel, especially in the harrowing racing sequences.

Real-life spoiler alert: Niki Lauda passed away in May, 2019 at age 70. James Hunt is long gone. Mr. Lauda had expressed his regrets Mr. Hunt wouldn’t be able to experience Rush.

It would have been great to see them see it together.

Email: rroeper@suntimes.com

Labels: action, auto-racing, biography, drama, Ferrari, history, romance, rom-drama-faves, sport

Internet Movie Database 81/100 

MetaScore (critics=74, viewers=85)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=75, viewers=82) 

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Script

Certified Copy (2010) [NR] ****/*****

A film review by James Berardinelli for reelviews.net on April 27, 2011.

SPOILER WARNING: Discussing the meaning of Certified Copy demands providing an interpretation of certain actions and motivations that could prejudice a viewer who has not seen the movie before reading the review. Take this into consideration before proceeding, especially if you intend to see the film.

For roughly the first 50 minutes of its running time, Certified Copy progresses like a straightforward drama with romantic inclinations. Two characters, a well-known British author named James Miller (William Shimell) and a local art dealer named Elle (Juliette Binoche), spend an afternoon together in her antiques shop, taking a road trip in her car, and wandering the streets of a little town in Tuscany. They discuss philosophy, often returning to his assertion that, in art, a copy can be as good as the original. To bolster his argument, he points out that the Mona Lisa isn't an original - it's Leonardo Da Vinci's copy of a real woman's face. And when a copy is more beautiful than its source, why should it be denigrated? These are issues that co-writer/director Abbas Kiarostami lays out for the audience during the movie's first half. Is there a payoff? Perhaps. It depends on individual interpretation of what happens beyond the mid-way point.

While in the village, James and Elle visit a coffee shop. He steps outside to take a phone call while she remains within, chatting with the lady who owns the place. The proprietress mistakes her customers for a married couple and remarks that James is a wonderful husband. This mistaken identity allows Elle to reveal a catalogue of deficiencies attributable to her husband. When James returns, she tells him of the proprietress' assumption and he decides to play along. For the rest of the movie, they interact and argue like a married couple whose fifteenth anniversary has recently passed. She's annoyed with his rarely being home, with his cold demeanor, and with his having left her to raise their son on her own. A viewer who starts watching Certified Copy around the mid-point will experience nothing more radical than a simple story of a man and a woman assessing the state of their marriage.

The central puzzle is, of course, how to reconcile the two halves - something that can be done, but not seamlessly. One interpretation is that the first 50 minutes represents role-playing on the part of the husband and wife - a way to spice up their marriage. Another interpretation is that the final 50 minute segment is when the role-playing takes place - these two are strangers but the woman is using the man as a stand-in for her husband, and he is a willing participant. The evidence - such as the reaction of the teenage son - weigh in favor of the latter, although not overwhelmingly so. And perhaps the title offers a clue. Consider: could it be that the marriage between James and Elle is not real but a copy of her actual marriage?

It's possible that neither interpretation is correct. Kiarostami has left this intentionally obtuse, almost maddeningly so. Perhaps the best way to watch Certified Copy is to simply accept the disconnect and focus on the particulars of the conversation at any time - including the dialogue, the filming technique, and the superb performances. The level of artifice is high - it's impossible to lose oneself in the story because the framing tugs at the viewer, reminding him that the reality of the film's world is not consistent. The basic plot - a man and a woman traveling and talking - is reminiscent of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise/Before Sunset/Before Midnight trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, but the way in which Certified Copy calls into question the nature of reality is more reminiscent of Inception.

Juliette Binoche, who is an international star, and William Shimell, who is not, are effective foils for one another. Binoche's performance resonates forcefully because her character is on an emotional roller coaster. If there's an arc, it's for her character, not his. She begins as a star-struck fan then passes through a gradual phase of disillusionment as James doesn't live up to her expectations. Then she's the aggrieved wife who has been left alone while he travels around the world putting work on a higher pedestal than his family. The audience sees things more through her eyes than his, which lends credence to the possibility that, in the second half, he has become a stand-in for her husband, not the real thing. At any rate, both performances are strong; in spite of how the script contorts their world, we care about them.

Kiarostami, the acclaimed Iranian director whose canvas has moved beyond his native country, directs with a slow, unhurried pace. He favors long, unbroken takes and close-ups. Often, he will use unexpected angles, such as when his camera focuses not on the person speaking but on someone peripherally involved in the scene. Kiarostami's approach intensifies intimacy but, in a movie of this sort, it also creates a deeper sense of unease.

Certified Copy doesn't offer easy answers, although it asks plenty of questions. In some ways, it's a simple character drama, but the central conundrum disallows an uncomplicated interpretation. I was never bored. The first half is just long enough to get us to know the characters and, after that, my mind was working overtime rationalizing what was happening. Ultimately, understanding is not the most important thing about Certified Copy; making the effort to understand is. [Berardinelli’s rating: 3.5 stars out of 4]

Labels: drama, romance
IMDb 72/100
MetaScore (critics=82, viewers=79)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=78, viewers=72)
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Berardinelli’s review

The Big Wedding (2013) [R] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on April 26, 2013.

Despite being adapted from a generally well-liked French film (Mon frère se marie, 2006), The Big Wedding feels like nothing more ambitious than a big screen sitcom. It's tired and dated with too few laughs to justify the stultifying attempts at drama and the impossible-to-swallow plot contortions. The justification for the central narrative conceit, a divorced couple pretending to still be married, is sufficiently absurd to make one question the intelligence of all those involved. Sympathetic characters are few and far between and, when one does show up, he/she is afforded minimal screen time.

The humor in The Big Wedding is sufficient to elevate it from the completely unwatchable category into the disappointingly mediocre one. That, I suppose, is damning with faint praise. There are some amusing one-liners and punch lines that result in half-hearted laughter, but those instances don't come frequently enough to camouflage the film's numerous, obvious deficiencies. The only way for a comedy to work when the screenplay makes no attempt to build emotional connections between audience and characters is for it to offer nonstop hilarity. That doesn't happen here. The Big Wedding's attempts at relationship-building are embarrassing and the situation isn't helped by a roster of high-profile stars (Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfried) going through the motions. The only ones who seem to be trying are Topher Grace and Ben Barnes. Robin Williams has what amounts to a very odd cameo (reminiscent of his similar role in License to Wed) and Ana Ayora's skinny dipping scene serves as The Big Wedding's lone highlight.

Like most wedding movies, this is all about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that go on leading up to the big event. Don (De Niro) and Ellie (Keaton) have been divorced for a number of years. Don lives with Bebe (Sarandon) in the palatial (but not overly ostentatious) house he once shared with Ellie. The three haven't seen one another since the divorce but they seem chummy enough. Don and Ellie have come together for the wedding of their adopted son, Alejandro (Barnes), to his willowy girlfriend, Missy (Seyfried). Also on hand are the couple's other children, Jared (Grace) and Lyla (Heigl). Jared is a 29-year old virgin eager to lose that distinction and Lyla is smarting from the breakup of her marriage. Complications arise as a result of the arrival of Alejandro's biological mother from Columbia. Madonna (Patricia Rae) is a devout Catholic who views divorce as sinful. In order to put up a good front for his mother and sister (Ayora), Alejandro asks Don and Ellie to pretend to still be married. Much to the chagrin of Bebe, they agree. Hilarity ensues. Well, not really, but that's what the filmmakers would like viewers to believe.

There's not much to say about the movie because there's so little there in the way of substance. As wedding-related movies go, it's closer to the worst than the best. It's pretty obviously targeted at middle-aged women, which makes it ideal counterprogramming for the male-oriented Pain & Gain, which opens the same weekend. Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Big Wedding is how many A-list actors signed on to be in the production of a relatively unknown director - Justin Zackham's only previous credit is the forgettable (and forgotten) 2001 feature, Going Greek. Still, none of them does stand-out work - they come, say their lines, and get their paychecks. Everything about The Big Wedding is generic from the title to the plot to the payoff. Even clocking in at a skinny 90 minutes, it's a waste of time. [Berardinelli’s rating: *½ out of 4 stars]

Labels: comedy, cross-cultural, drama, reunion, romance, satire, wedding

Internet Movie Database 5.6/10 

MetaScore (critics=28, viewers=45)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=32, viewers=60) 

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Red Obsession (2013) [UR] ****

A film review by Sheila O’Malley for RogerEbert.com on Sept. 6, 2013.

When the CEOs and proprietors of the great wine chateaux in the Bordeaux region of France talk about what they do in Red Obsession, a new documentary directed by David Roach and Warwick Ross, they sound like poets and mystics. One says that you need to bring so much love to your vineyard. Standing amidst the vines, another says, there’s a vibration here. One speaks of having a visceral sense of the history of the area, of the early ancestors who figured out the proper way to bring the grapes to fruition. Narrated by Russell Crowe, Red Obsession takes us through the background of the wine-producing capital of the world, its history, its dependence on capricious elements (like the weather, the global economy), and the challenges facing the area due to rising prices and crumbling markets.

Red Obsession opens with an elegant tracking shot of a dark warehouse filled with wooden barrels, as Joss Stone moans I Put a Spell on You. It's sexy, a fitting opening for a film about obsession, about wine-mania, about people who live, breathe, eat, think, and drink wine. The footage of Bordeaux is awe-inspiring, with aerial shots of the great chateaux and the vineyards. Close-ups of the labels from the different chateaux abound, along with luscious shots of glimmering wine being poured. The obsessive nature of the entire industry is reflected in these shots, a good marriage of theme and form.

Through interviews with wine journalists and chateaux proprietors (including Francis Ford Coppola), we learn about the business, its ups and downs, its competitions. Journalists talk about how difficult it is to describe wine, even though it is their business to do so, and they too sound like poets or mystics. A wine is like a voice, an instrument with a timbre… The chateaux work with the journalists, holding wine-tastings of each new vintage, waiting for the verdict. The proprietors of the chateaux are clearly international businessmen and women in one respect, but in another respect they are farmers, who understand that you have good years and bad years. Much is out of your control. The pressure is enormous to keep producing stellar wines, but when you are dealing with nature you cannot always guarantee the results. One of the real issues in recent years is that the prices of the bottles of wine have risen so astronomically that they have become too valuable to drink. People now buy bottles of wine as investments, rather than something to be shared at a special occasion.

The economic collapse of 2008 and 2009 has impacted the Bordeaux region in an immediate way. Americans stopped buying expensive wine en masse, and up until then America was the major market for Bordeaux wines. But another market has exploded, almost overnight, in China. The second half of the film is devoted to the wine-mania in China, the cutthroat wine auctions in Hong Kong, and the entrepreneur (he made his fortune in sex toys) whose wine collection is worth 60 million US dollars.

Bordeaux wine-manufacturers may talk like poets and mystics but they are practical people of trade, and recognized that China was a new market with unlimited possibilities. The cities in China are shown with a frenetic speeded-up film, lights buzzing along the highways and glittering off and on in the skyscrapers, quite a different dynamic from the stately footage of Bordeaux. Wine is going for such high prices in China that the folks back in Bordeaux are concerned. The prices are becoming divorced from reality, a clear sign that a speculative bubble may be forming. This is a controversial issue, and the talking heads, Chinese and French, argue it out from across the globe.

The narration is simply done, providing us with the necessary context to understand the interconnectedness of this world, its history, its reliance on weather, politics and trade agreements. Informative though it may be, Red Obsession is a moody and emotional piece of work. Clouds race over the French chateaux, clouds of change. Obsession keeps Bordeaux in business, but obsession can be unreliable. What happens if China loses its interest in wine and moves on to something else?

Coppola describes the experience of drinking a glass of Chateau Margaux that was bottled four years after the French Revolution. It was a profound experience. He wonders if Lafayette had had a glass of it. He wonders if maybe Thomas Jefferson, a famous wine-lover and wine-obsessive, had had a glass. The glass of wine connected Coppola to those earlier times. Wine tells a story, he says. [O’Malley’s rating: *** ½ out of 4]

Labels: documentary, history, winemaking

Internet Movie Database 

Metacritic 68/100

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=70, viewers=72) 

Now You See Me (2013) [PG-13] ****

A film review by Scott Bowles, USA Today, May 31, 2013.

While hawking his latest film Now You See Me earlier this month, Morgan Freeman nodded off during a live television interview that became a viral sensation. Consider it Freeman's stab at mentalism, a telepathic warning about this clumsily-executed story of magicians with a penchant for bank robbery.

Boasting a terrific cast and a flimsy plot whose logic disappears faster than a rabbit in a hat, Now You See Me struggles to pull off its cinematic sleights of hand. Jesse Eisenberg plays J. Daniel Atlas, a David Blaine-styled stunt magician who leads a crew of devious prestidigitators through a series of bank heists that catch the attention of the FBI and Interpol. Joining the crew are mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and street magician Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). Soon the group, known as the Four Horsemen, is ripping off banks across the globe — and spreading the wealth among audiences like levitating Robin Hoods.

But the story, as directed by Louis Leterrier (Clash of the Titans), can't quite get off the ground. That's something of a surprise, given a cast that should be able to make any story defy gravity. In addition to the Horsemen, we meet Thaddeus Bradley (Freeman), a former magician turned TV host who pulls back the curtain on illusionists. The Horsemen are assembled and led by the wealthy and mysterious Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), whose ultimate goal remains a mystery.

The crux of Now You See Me's woes is the illusions themselves. Magic is never easy on film — just ask the folks behind The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, the recent ill-fated Steve Carell story of magicians that made audiences disappear from theaters. Similar woes afflict Now You See Me, whose secrets are apparent: computer-generated effects and plot conventions. The mentalist can hypnotize over the phone; the mind-reader flashes your thoughts on building facades. Good magic is plausible; these tricks are too outlandish to make you ask how did they do that?

There are flashes of razzle-dazzle. Harrelson, in particular, gets laugh-out-loud lines, and Eisenberg seems to know real sleight of hand. But it's mostly smoke and mirrors. After Freeman's snooze became a YouTube fixture, the actor jokingly dismissed the nap, saying he was using Google eyelids to check his Facebook account. You may find yourself attempting the same feat, because Now You See Me has little up its sleeve. [Bowles' rating: ** out of 4]

Labels: crime, mystery, thriller

Internet Movie Database

Metacritic 50/100

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=57, viewers=76)

Blu-ray

Big Sur (2013) [R] ***

A film review by Elizabeth Weitzman, on Oct 31, 2013.

One day I will find the right words, Jack Kerouac wrote, and they will be simple. And perhaps one day a director will find the right way to adapt his words, and the solution will seem simple. But not today.

Today we are faced with yet another well-meaning but unsuccessful attempt to translate Beat poetry into big-screen beauty. Kerouac (portrayed by Jean-Marc Barr) published Big Sur in 1962, after his overwhelming popularity drove him to hide out in California with pals Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Anthony Edwards) and Neal Cassady (Josh Lucas). Barr drones much of the text in voice-over, while director Michael Polish trains his camera on spectacular Big Sur scenery.

The men drink, proclaim and complain in impressionistic, though rarely memorable, fashion. Kate Bosworth and Radha Mitchell are lovelorn and lovely as the perpetually overlooked partners. But with Kerouac declaring that the only thing that matters is the conceptions in my own mind, we’re still left waiting for the filmmaker who can take us there.

Labels: drama, Fifties, Sixties

IMDb 58/100

MetaScore (critics=49, viewers=38)

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=45, viewers=60) 

1 (2013) [NR] ****

A film review by Martin Liebman for Blu-ray.com on Feb. 18, 2014.

Ready drivers, revving engines, squealing tires, burning rubber, a harmony of moving parts, man and machine bound together by a few straps, both moments from glory and inches from death. 1 shares the tragic history of Formula One racing, a sport dogged by death and fueled by passion, innovation, and a need to test the limits of man and mechanical endurance. It's the story of the men who build the cars, the men who drive the cars, the violent deaths many suffered, and the progress in safety into the modern era. It's a straightforward and oftentimes blunt history of man's fascination with moving fast and building a better product that can propel him faster and further than others, but at the risk of an untimely demise and for the satisfaction of doing something better than anyone else. The film, directed by Paul Crowder (The Last Play at Shea), written by Mark Monroe (The Tillman Story), and narrated by Michael Fassbender (X-Men: First Class), paints a vivid and captivating picture of the juxtaposition between sport and tragedy, desire and mortality, and life and death.

1 covers several decades of Formula One triumph and tragedy, a large roster of rising talent and fallen stars, and a detailed examination of car improvements, failures, and improved safety measures over that time span. The film opens with a study of Formula One's formative years and its first premiere driver, Juan Manuel Fangio, who dominated the sport throughout the 1950s and held a world-record five titles, a total that would not be surpassed for more than forty years. The picture examines the thrills and dangers of racing, focusing on car development and increased speeds which yielded an increased number of fatalities. The picture focuses on a number of drivers over the years and their place in the sport's triumphs and tragedies, including Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Lorenzo Bandini, Jochen Rindt, Jackie Stewart, Roger Williamson and François Cevert. The film focuses heavily on the Niki Lauda - James Hunt rivalry, Lauda's accident and quick return to the sport, and his refusal to finish the 1976 Japanese Grand Prix, citing track safety concerns, a pivotal moment in racing's history and engendering a new push for driver safety. The film follows through to the modern day and the death of Ayrton Senna, the sport's last casualty as of 2012.

1 builds the story of Formula One through the prism of its tragedies and the drivers who befell them. Through driver profiles, interviews with their peers, and vintage footage, the picture assembles a troubling history that speeds towards a more stable present. While it's a relevant approach, it grows difficult to watch in quick order. Even for those unfamiliar with the sport, it becomes clear early on that almost each driver who is a focus will perish in an accident. It's an overload of tragedy, but then again, that's the point. Formula One's history is one of innovation and the daredevils who perished because of those innovations. The film's feeling of despair and hopelessness accentuates that history and drives home the point with relentless and unforgiving bluntness, saved only by the sport's transition to safety-first protocols in the later years and a brief depiction of the joys of competing and winning in as much safety as the sport allows.

The film's rapid-fire depiction of the horrific rate at which drivers died is balanced by a fascinating story of automobile evolution and the greater push towards improved safety measures, measures that were initially road-blocked by money and politics but that were eventually embraced with Formula One's emergence as a force on television and Niki Lauda's injury and refusal to race in unsafe conditions that propelled the sport to better, more advanced safety-first measures that are now a staple of the sport, a sport that's become one of the safest in the auto racing world. The film is smartly assembled in, for the most part, chronological order. It's well-versed and accessible, foregoing an overload of tech terminology in favor of a more audience-friendly, almost casual approach. It will certainly speak more to viewers who are intimately familiar with Formula One and its history, but newcomers or casual race watchers shouldn't be put off by anything in the film. [Liebman’s rating: *** ½ out of 5 stars]

Blogger’s comment: While I enjoyed this documentary, my favorite film on the subject of Formula One racing remains the Ron Howard film Rush, with Chris Hemsworth in the role of British racer James Hunt and Daniel Brühl in the role of Austrian racer Niki Lauda. I would treat documentaries like 1 and Ferrari: Race to Immortality as complementary and supplementary.

Labels: action, auto-racing, documentary, Ferrari, history, sport, tragedy

Internet Movie Database 8.0/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=80) 

Blu-ray