SAVING MR. BANKS (2013)

While author P.L. Travers may not be a household name, her creation Mary Poppins is. Likewise her book series’ title character has been overshadowed by the Julie Andrews personification in Walt Disney’s beloved 1964 movie. Even less well known (until now at least) was the torturous process by which Disney secured the rights to use the character and thereby create his benchmark live-action film. John Lee Hancock directs from a script by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, which toggles primarily between early 1900s Australia and 1961 Burbank. At the film’s opening Travers Goff (Colin Farrell) relocates his family to a remote village for a banking job but spends more time bonding with young daughter Ginty (Annie Rose Buckley) and hitting the bottle than attending to work; while Travers (Emma Thompson), some 50 years later, travels to Hollywood from London to finalize the rights deal with Disney (Tom Hanks) and oversee (meaning approve) the final script. Travers periodically drifts into reveries, and we soon surmise that Ginty is the memory of herself as a girl, and Goff her father. Upon arrival the prickly Travers clashes with everyone, from personal chauffeur Ralph (Paul Giamatti) to screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) to song composers Robert (B.J. Novak) and Richard Sherman (Jason Schwartzman) to Disney himself. She has adamantly resisted the mogul’s offers for two decades, but money concerns softened her resolve. However, she intends to extract a pound of flesh before signing on the dotted line. The scenes in the story conference room, based on historical recordings, are the film’s highlight. They are filled with thrilling insight into the painful push and pull of the creative process. The flashbacks, on the other hand, are maudlin and posit unconvincingly that Travers clings to Mary Poppins as she does to the memory of her long-dead father. The performances run from strong (Thompson and Hanks) to serviceable (Giamatti and Farrell), but they and the film struggle against the Disney ethos of redemption. As Mr. Banks was saved in the 1964 film, the filmmakers save Travers here. I’m not sure she would approve.

AMERICAN HUSTLE (2013)

Everyone wants something. And in director David O. Russell’s bracing new comedy everyone will go to great and often unethical lengths to get it. More than money, con man Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) wants dignity and respect, if his careful coiffure speaks true. His lover and partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams) presents herself to marks as a British financier and wants to escape who she was or at least reinvent her past. This criminal romance is further complicated by Irving’s marriage of inconvenience to the spitfire Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) who wants, against all indication, stability for herself and her young son. Irving and Sydney coast along comfortably until they try to scam FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), who wants promotion and glory. In lieu of prosecution Richie convinces the couple to use their skills to nab bigger fish. His initial target is well-intentioned New Jersey mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who wants to foster local economic growth for his constituents but is not above bribery to do so. They enlist Paco Hernandez (Michael Peña) to pose as Sheik Abdullah who plans to invest in a high-class hotel but requires favors from high-level politicians to facilitate this. When the mob takes an interest in the sham venture, Richie presses the con deep into dangerous territory. Bale has never been this touching and funny, while Adams reveals Sydney’s vulnerability beneath her tough veneer. Cooper is all misguided ambition and manic desperation, while Renner projects basic decency and a reluctant pragmatism. Meanwhile a too-young Lawrence and a nicely understated Louis C.K. (as Richie’s put upon supervisor) nearly steal the movie. Eric Warren Singer and Russell based their script very loosely on the Abscam sting circa 1978, but Russell is less concerned with the mechanics of the operation than with the treacherous waters of the human heart. While there are ample crosses and double-crosses, twists and betrayals, Russell is a generous enough filmmaker to love the player (or hustler, if you will) and the game.

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013)

When last we saw our intrepid hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), he and thirteen stalwart dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), en route to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their lost home and a treasure hoard stolen by the dragon Smaug, had barely escaped the clutches of a band of Wargs and mercenary Orcs with the help of the resourceful wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and a convocation of Eagles. After a brief respite with the shape shifter Beorn the company continues its journey following a treacherous path through Mirkwood Forest sans Gandalf, who departs to determine the doings of the Necromancer. Except for Bilbo, who vanishes using the magic ring he took from Gollum, the company is captured by elf warriors Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly) and taken to their king Thranduil (Lee Pace) deep in the wood. Bilbo breaks the dwarves out of their cells and sends them down river via wine barrels to Laketown, which lies in the shadow of the Lonely Mountain. With the help of Bard (Luke Evans) the company dodges the corrupt Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry) and makes its way to the mountain. Thorin sends Bilbo into the dragon’s lair to find the Arkenstone, a precious family heirloom, but the hobbit must first match wits with the dreaded Smaug (the voice of Benedict Cumberbatch). Like the film’s first installment, writers Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson & Guillermo del Toro pack the tale with so much extra material it feels as though J.R.R. Tolkien’s modest book plays only a small part in the whole. At least this time around director Jackson’s brisk pacing allows the film to carry its excess girth with a modicum of grace. Nevertheless, despite excellent special effects (Smaug is a jaw-dropping marvel) and an appealing cast, this excess diminishes the heart of the story. Here the filmmakers want the journey of Bilbo and the dwarves to have the same emotional and world-altering heft as Frodo’s quest to destroy the One Ring in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But Tolkien’s “enchanting prelude” cannot support that much weight, and the film smothers the considerable charm of its source material.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET (2013)

Excess is the subject and style of Martin Scorsese’s new film based on the memoir of and by Jordan Belfort, a Wall Street broker who spent much of the ‘90s bilking investors out of millions before his indictment for securities fraud and money laundering in 1998. We first meet Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) in October 1987 as an eager up-and-comer mentored by veteran Mark Hanna (a deliciously unhinged Matthew McConaughey) just before Black Monday hits. This sends the newbie desperately reeling to a penny stock company where he thrives by selling junk to unwary investors. From this success he gains a willing student in nebbishy Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and soon gathers a motley crew of the ethically-challenged with visions of dollar signs dancing in their collective heads, including his accountant father Max (Rob Reiner) and friend Brad (Jon Bernthal), to form Stratton Oakmont. Along the way he acquires beautiful, high maintenance wife Naomi (Margot Robbie) and the unwanted attention of Patrick Denham (an underused Kyle Chandler) of the SEC. In between Belfort’s meteoric rise and fall we are treated to a cavalcade of debauchery that would give Bacchus pause, including sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (the soundtrack is stellar), as well as a helicopter crash and a shipwreck. Writer Terence Winter consciously apes the criminal confidential structure of Scorsese’s classic GOODFELLAS, but the source material never feels substantial enough to earn comparison. Nevertheless director Scorsese attacks his subject with vitality but relies too heavily on unpruned improvisation, contributing to a bloated run time. A sequence in which Belfort and Azoff cope with the delayed effect of Quaaludes, however, is a minor masterpiece of physical comedy. DiCaprio gives a fearless, full-throttle performance, and Hill makes an apt foil. Surprisingly the filmmakers refrain from moral judgment and, had this been released before the 2008 crash, it may have felt daring. Instead, in 2013 as we watch Belfort, now a “chastened” motivational speaker, demonstrate his sales technique to a crowd of eager acolytes at film’s end, the restraint feels like a cop-out.

MUD (2013)

Ellis (Tye Sheridan) spends his day much as you’d expect a 14-year-old would. He lives on a dilapidated houseboat with parents Senior (Ray McKinnon) and Mary Lee (Sarah Paulson) and, when he’s not helping his father sell fresh catches of fish in town, he explores the rural Arkansas environs with best friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who lives with uncle Galen (Michael Shannon), an oyster fisherman. One morning the boys set off to a nearby island in the Mississippi River where Neckbone found an abandoned boat in a tree (left by a recent flood) to which they plan to stake claim. When they arrive a disheveled, enigmatic man named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) has already moved in. At first he only asks Ellis to bring him back food while he waits for a mystery woman. But each time Ellis visits the requests increase, and Mud parcels out more of his strange story. He has been obsessed with Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) since high school, and throughout their troubled history she has become involved with abusive men and turned to Mud for help, usually by him beating them up. The last time, however, he shot the man dead, and now he hides on the island. Ellis becomes fixated on this less than requited love story and agrees to acquire various parts and supplies to make the tree-bound boat seaworthy so Mud can run away with his dream girl. In town Ellis discovers Juniper holed up at a nearby motel, but also learns that the murdered man’s father has hired thugs to kill Mud. Relative newcomer Sheridan has a natural, commanding presence, and McConaughey gives his opaque drifter an earthy charm and a menacing reticence. Writer/director Jeff Nichols’ film starts out as a boys’ adventure tale and gradually evolves into a bittersweet coming-of-age story that forgoes cheap nostalgia. Like Ellis we want to get swept up in his romantic idealism, but events and Nichol’s world-weary parental figures remind him (and us) that adults are as adept at casual deceit and emotional blindness as feckless youths. Despite an ending that nearly succumbs to action film tropes, Nichols maintains an enveloping tone of almost magical realism.

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES (2013)

The original ANCHORMAN was the first Will Ferrell movie I could recommend without reservation. With the terrific comic chemistry between Ferrell and Christina Applegate (as rival and lover Veronica Corningstone) Burgundy became the most endearing of film blowhards. The sequel, again directed by Adam McKay, moves the story from ‘70s San Diego to ‘80s New York, where the anchor couple faces a marital crisis when the network promotes Veronica and fires Ron, sending the egomaniac into a tailspin. Then Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) offers him the chance to gather his old news team – Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) and Champ Kind (David Koechner) – and join the Global News Network’s innovative 24-hour program. Because Ron feels threatened by GNN’s handsome star anchor Jack Lime (James Marsden) he makes a foolish wager. However, in his desperation to win Ron stumbles upon the novel concept of giving viewers the news they want, and his ratings go through the roof. This sudden success boosts Ron’s already inflated ego and wins him a new girlfriend in GNN’s black station chief, Linda Jackson (Meagan Good). But soon our Icarus with salon-quality hair flies too near the sun. Kristen Wiig and Greg Kinnear are welcome cast additions, but the movie is overstuffed with celebrity cameos and gives Applegate little to do. McKay and Ferrell’s script never attains the original’s narrative cohesion and too often evokes and attempts to surpass sublime moments from its predecessor. The advent of the 24-hour news cycle creates dispiriting comedy and mainly serves to remind viewers of the depressing state of current television news. The original movie used feminism to spark Ron and Veronica’s professional and emotional friction. Except for a dinner in which Ron meets Linda’s family and a love scene in which a Jackie Robinson film clip appears, the sequel’s interracial romance doesn’t provide much kick because Ferrell and Good never ignite comically. While some may “agree to disagree” that the movie has plenty of laughs (which it does), I found it more strained and less of a “big deal” this time around.

THE CONJURING (2013)

Modern horror movies have become little more than fictionalized snuff films, with few scares and less humanity. While horror need not satirize society as George Romero’s seminal zombie pictures did or tap into a zeitgeist anxiety like THE EXORCIST, it should at the very least frighten its audience. This gripping tale of paranormal terror does just that. Based ostensibly on a true story, the film is set primarily in 1971 in and around a Rhode Island farmhouse with a past that includes witchcraft and filicide. Unaware of this Carolyn (Lili Taylor) and Roger Perron (Ron Livingston) move into the rustic home with their five lively daughters. Strange noises, sentient doors opening and closing, and frequent sleepwalking by one of the girls, quickly fray the family’s nerves. After they begin to explore the cluttered, dusty cellar, the phenomena increase and become more malevolent, so the Perrons turn to paranormal experts Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson). Lorraine, a psychic recovering from an exorcism gone awry, persuades her husband, a demonologist with ties to the Catholic Church, to verify the claim. The Warrens surmise that a demon has attached itself to the Perrons and soon discover it has done the same to them when it starts threatening their daughter as well. With admirable restraint writers Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes parcel out hints of the impending horror in the film’s first half. Director James Wan shrewdly follows this example, using off-screen sounds and vague shapes lurking at the edge of vision or just out of focus to foment anxiety. As the demon begins to manifest itself Wan uses misdirection and asymmetrical framing to create a palpable sense of dread and keep the viewer off balance. His most potent tool, however, is his remarkable cast. Wilson’s wonky sincerity and Livingston’s flannel-shirted stability lend credibility to the escalating events, while Taylor and Farmiga, with their ferocious commitment within the film’s genre trappings, draw us in. We experience their desperate terror when the scares come and, in the end, their relief, and take comfort in the triumph of human decency.