kcunning

Jason Bateman’s excellent (& brave) performance was the only redeeming aspect of this film. If Juno had been a boy, then that absurd, non-sexual forced sex-act imposed upon the Michael Ceramic character would have been considered assault. The sex had to be depicted as non-sexual because in American films sex must have disastrous results, & we viewers needed to view Ellen(now Elliott) as an innocent who stumbles into pregnancy, so that the rest of the ridiculous plot could unfold.

All the Sturm & Drang of World War I seems to be presented merely to show the beautiful face of Alicia Vickander going through emotions from A to B. A rather bloodless display of a lot of Lost Generation blood.

This is an intense (& sometimes funny) story about scholarship and competition between a father & son researching & writing in the same academic field The academic tensions & jargon are enough to warrant a trip to the theater, but the complex family relationships give the film just the right amount of emotional content. Scholarship is shown as active, intellectual work, & I've never seen the painful act of writing & striving for just the right word depicted as well. The rivalries & betrayals that academia engenders are violent in their passionate intensity. I'm looking forward to more films by Joseph Cedar.

This is an underrated romantic comedy with a warm and complex theme of friendship, love, betrayal & redemption. What a great debut as director by Edward Norton. I'd love to see him direct more films as charming & warm-hearted, & funny as this one. This was such a delightful film. Stiller is at his most charming & sexy as a rabbi who falls in love a non-Jew yet doesn't want to hurt his mother(a poignant & funny turn by Anne Bancroft) nor endanger his job as a young rabbi. Stiller & Norton as his lifelong friend, a priest, both fall for their childhood friend, played by a charming, & complex Jenna Elfman. This was her role of a lifetime & it deserved much more positive recognition. Norton gave Stiller a great role. His rabbi has many social & family obligations, but he & Norton's priest have a lifetime of friendship, & competition, & their relationship is completely believable. Elfman's blond, high-powered businesswomen returns to their life from their long-ago childhood friendship & turns both of their worlds upside-down. Anne Bancroft's Jewish mother, who has damaged her relationship with her eldest son because of her refusal to accept his Christian wife, now realizes her mistake. Bancroft gives her last, great performance which is funny & nuanced. When she & Elfman weep about the love & pain that Elfman & Stiller's relationship has caused & the difficulties they may encounter, you believe these strong women love & respect each other & will help themselves & the man they both love to move through their problems toward a new family. I must also point out the great soundtrack, with Tom Waits, & other wonderful singers, and note that Elmer Bernstein composed the lyrical & haunting movie's theme.

This was a mess of a movie. The dialogue didn't ring true, the plot was absurd, & most of the actors seemed to be acting alone, declaiming their lines, rather than working in an ensemble. I went to see "Twelve Thirty" because I had really liked "Flannel Pajamas," but this film was a great disappointment.

This was an excellent film with Ryan Gosling giving another riveting performance. I do have a couple of criticisms about details that the director, or actors, or someone should have noticed. In the first scene the adorable child is seen with a very expensive, & hard to maintain, haircut. This family would not be able to afford such a haircut. In a later scene, Michelle Williams French manicure is very prominent. First of all, her character works in a doctor's office & her manicure would not be appropriate, secondly, the character would not have the money, time, nor energy to have & maintain such a manicure. I find it hard hard to understand why someone involved in the film would not have noticed such jarring improbabilities.