Noah - 3 smiles

If you can suspend your disbelief and go with Darren Aronofsky’s vision for “Noah,” you’ll find a compelling drama. Clearly, a story based on the Bible is going to need some gaps filled and don’t hold Aronofsky to a literal translation. Genesis mentions Noah’s sons but not his wife. We know that God had to flood the earth to punish humanity’s wickedness, but how does Noah deal with the guilt of killing so many people? Aronofsky is good at capturing the essential human conflict between good and evil and Russell Crowe’s Noah makes a decision that turns him into the villain for a good portion of the film. (Especially that moment with a knife and a baby.)

The story begins ten generations after Adam and Eve’s exile. In this movie, God is always referred to as ‘The Creator’ (or ‘He’), and his chief motivation seems to be to get humans to appreciate what he has made for them. Stone giants, that give a section of the movie a Lord of the Rings feel, are called Watchers. They protect Noah and his family from the marauding hordes f the evil Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone). It seems that Aronofsky links the Watchers to the Nephilim and that they are beings made of light that God created to protect humanity from sin. When they failed God punished them by turning them into stone Giants. The production, which took place in regions of Iceland, features as ark that was built to Biblical specifications. While the script allows Crowe some range – bravery, intensity, remorse, redemption – the same can’t be said for the rest of the impressive cast. Jennifer Connelly as Noah’s wife gets little more to do here than be the supportive wife. The sons are essentially interchangeable. But Anthony Hopkins as Noah’s grandfather Methuselah provides a few rare moments of levity. “Noah” is a moving story with a message abut the fine line between mercy and justice. 3/28/14

Blood Ties - 3 smiles

“Blood Ties,” a strong character study of two brothers in the guise of a crime thriller, creates a panorama of broken lives trying to put themselves back together. Director Guillaume Canet, who made the mesmerizing 2008 French mystery-thriller Tell No One, sets his story in 1970s New York. Clive Owen plays Chris, a man of violence who doesn’t have to issue warnings to make that known. All he has to do is walk into a room and the threat of violence comes off him in waves. Chris’s brother, Frank (Billy Crudup), is a veteran police officer and it’s clear that the brothers don’t like each other. Chris is just getting out of prison after serving time for murder. He wants to go straight, but he’s stuck in the dead-zone of low-wage employment that goes nowhere. We know as soon as Chris meets up with an old friend (Mark Mahoney) that Chris is going back to a life of crime. So we have a lifelong crook with murder in his blood and a devoted cop tied to him by blood. The situation is primed to explode.

Meanwhile, Frank worms his way back into the life of his ex-lover, played by the beautiful Zoe Saldana, who acts with a powerful, teeth-baring fury. Marion Cotillard plays Chris’s ex-wife, who’s a junkie and a prostitute and she gives this saddened woman a believable hard core. James Caan plays the dying father to the brothers. At 127 minutes, “Blood Ties” ambles in some places, but it’s also got some real action, including an explosive street heist and a car chase through Manhattan. It builds to a payoff that’s pure Hollywood and I’m not sure I agree with Canet’s ending. 3/25/14

Tim's Vermeer - 3 smiles

“Tim’s Vermeer” is a fascinating documentary that poses an interesting question: did 17^th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer use optical devices to achieve his gorgeous, photo-realistic, light-filled artwork? This is a question inventor Tim Jenison wants to answer. It’s part mystery, part academic odyssey, part tinkerer’s obsession. Directed by Teller (the silent half of the magic team of Penn & Teller) and co-produced by Penn Jillette, the movie follows Jenison, a man with a voracious curiosity and the resources to follow it wherever it leads him. Jenison is a digital-video pioneer; he invented tools to convert film into digital form. It earned him two Emmys and a fortune.

In 2002, Jenison read British artist David Hockney’s book Secret Knowledge, which detailed how the Old Masters used technology to make their works realistic. He also read Philip Steadman’s Vermeer’s Camera, a book that upset art historians by suggesting that the painter had used optical tools to create his works. Jenison became obsessed with figuring out what tools were available to a painter in Holland in the 1660s and how they contributed to Vermeer’s growing body of work. Jillette convinced Jenison, his longtime friend, to pursue his interest figuring out how Vermeer captured that pure light. Teller’s cameras were rolling as Jenison took 213 working days to re-create the room depicted in the Music Lesson, the 1625 Vermeer he set out to replicate and 130 days to replicate the painting. “Tim’s Vermeer” is an impressive proof of a concept. And when it’s over, even knowing that Vermeer probably used optics to create his masterpieces, you have to admire an artist who used every tool at his command in the service of beauty. 3/20/14

Need for Speed - 1 smile

“Need for Speed” is a Fast and Furious wanna be and not a good one at that. The main problem is that there is no character development and little plot.  But what can you expect from a movie based on a video game? It stars Aaron Paul (Jesse on Breaking Bad). Paul is a good actor with two Emmys to prove it, but he lacks big screen presence to carry a movie. The action sequences are spectacular (and, according to other articles, not CGI enhanced), but with the various stunts speeding through regular traffic, resulting in horrific crashes and spinouts that could only be fatal, you have to wonder about the ethics involved. Michael Keaton opts for shrieking insanity as Monarch, the organizer of the climatic race in California. Only Rami Malek and Scott Mescudi manage to distinguish themselves as members of Tobey’s support team.

Paul plays Tobey Marshall, a street racer just out of prison for a crime he did not commit. He blames his rival Dino Brewster (Dominic Cooper) for leaving the scene of a racing accident so Tobey ends up taking the rap. Now Tobey wants to beat Dino at his own game by winning the De Leon, the epitome of street-racing contests. With the help of a pert Brit partner, Julia (Imogen Poots), Tobey breaks parole to travel from New York to San Francisco in just two days so he can compete in the De Leon. Scott Waugh is a former stuntman with a demonstrably stunted gift for directing actors, but a good eye for car racing action. You don’t need to hurry out to see “Need for Speed.” 3/16/14

300: Rise of an Empire - 1 smile

“300: Rise of an Empire” is the weaker stepbrother to 300, the 2006 success starring Gerard Butler. In that film, director Zack Snyder put his gifts to use bringing ancient Greece to a mesmerizingly synthetic version of real life. It was a stylized mash-up of graphic novel narrative and video game imagery. “Rise of an Empire” isn’t a sequel as much as a parallel story, catching up with the Athenian-led Grecian forces at the same time that 300’s King Leonidas and his Spartans are making their stand at Thermopylae. While no big stars are likely to emerge from the gruesome swordplay of this installment, the film does feature at least one genuinely memorable performance by Eva Green, playing Persian naval genius Artemisia with such gothic bloodlust that the only thing missing is her actually drinking her enemy’s blood. Artemisia has been sent by Persian god-king Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) to defeat Greece and avenge the death of Xerxes’ father, Darius, at the hands of soldier Themistokles (Sullivan Stapleton). Suffice it to say, things don’t go exactly according to plan.

Based on a still-to-be-published graphic novel by Frank Miller, “Rise of an Empire” is directed by Noam Murro, focusing on a series of crashing sea battles with a monochromatic palette barely enlivened by syrupy blood that spurts, squirts and gushes. In addition, Murro uses and re-uses (to the point of being boring) slow-motion shots of blood, water and sweat, as well as sundry dismemberments, impalings and decapitations. Even those admirable six-pack abs in the original seem to be missing a can or two, especially on our hero and although Stapleton gives it the ol’ college try, he lacks Butler’s charisma (and physique). And his supporting players are little more than anonymous shirtless guys. It’s the women of “Rise of an Empire” who make the most impact: Lena Headley, as Spartan Queen Gorgo, makes effective use of her lamentably limited time on screen and Green savors her role as the ruthless anti-heroine. However, even they can’t save “300: Rise of an Empire.” 3/11/14

Non-Stop - 2 1/2 smiles

Liam Neeson’s skill as an actor lends credibility to his action movies even when the script piles implausibility upon implausibility. “Non-Stop” finds Neeson fighting his way through the ludicrousness of an airplane-hijacking thriller, which exploits our fears of post-9/11 travel. This time out, Neeson plays Bills Marks, a U.S. air marshal assigned to a New York-to-London flight, undercover, of course, who heads straight to the lavatory once the jetliner is aloft – to gulp whiskey and smoke a cigarette (duct tape over the smoke detector). Back in business class, he chats up a neighbor, a frequent flier played by Julianne Moore. And then the text messages start coming: someone on the plane knows who he is and is demanding $150 million, or else he, or she?, will start killing passengers, one every 20 minutes. The catch is that all signs point to Bill himself as the hijacker. The account the money must be sent to turns out to be his. But he’s the innocent one, wrongly suspected and trapped 35,000 feet in the air. Bill must find the real perp and save a planeload of travelers.

Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra paints everyone as a suspect. Is it the mystery woman (Moore) or New York cop (Corey Stoll) with the surly attitude? Perhaps it’s the flight attendant (Michelle Dockery) or the bookish teacher (Scoot McNairy). Eventually, it’s best to stop trying to figure anything out and just let the silliness roll. And at the end, Collet-Serra tries to throw a political twist into the mix that really doesn’t make any sense. If you’re willing to suspend a lot of disbelief because you’re a Neeson fan, then “Non-Stop” is the movie for you. 4/8/14

The Grand Budapest Hotel - 3 1/2 smiles

“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” co-written and directed by Wes Anderson, is full of humor, heartbreak and a romantic look at the past. It’s also a rollicking caper that mixes theft, murder, a prison break and pastry into a rousing free-for-all. Set in a fictional European spa town between the world wars, with Nazis on the march and an elegant way of life fading, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” revolves around one character, Monsieur Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes), the hotel concierge who believes that etiquette and order helps define civilization. Gustave’s morals are no match for his manners as he enjoys sexual congress with guests of both sexes and Fiennes is masterful, exuding verbal dexterity and comic nuance. The movie is a little slow getting started as Anderson frames his central story first with an older writer (Tom Wilkinson) in 1985, reminiscing back two decades to when he was young enough to be played by Jude Law. When Law sits down for supper with the mysterious Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) to learn the story behind the Grand Budapest Hotel, the story jumps to 1932 and our fun begins.

Anderson surrounds Gustave with an extraordinary supporting cast. Newcomer Tony Revolori excels as Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy Gustave takes under his wing. The vain Gustave flirts with Agatha (Saoirse Ronan), Zero’s true love, who carries a facial birthmark shaped like Mexico. Agatha works at Mendl’s bakery, where her famed pastry, Courtesan au chocolat, helps thicken the plot. Tilda Swinton, covered in wrinkly latex, is Madame Celine Villenuve Desgoffe und Taxis, an 84-year-old dowager with a thing for Gustave. It’s the murder of Madame D and a stolen Renaissance painting that puts Gustave and Zero on the run from the authorities, led by a military officer (Edward Norton) and Dmitri (Adrien Brody), Madame D’s ruthless son, and his killer henchman, Hopling,  (Willem Dafoe). The film hits a peak of hilarity when Gustave escapes prison with the help of a tattooed Harvey Keitel. Other characters include Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” is visually sumptuous, filled with quirky characters and thoroughly enjoyable. 3/9/14