August Rush

Starring: Keri Russell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and Freddie Highmore
Directed by Kristen Sheridan
Year: 2007
IMDB / Wikipedia

Most music is not about having all the notes and putting them in the one right order, it’s about taking the notes you do have, arranging them in the way you like, and see who else can feel the connection. This film, while it is not original in pretty much any way, is like music: the notes are familiar, the ending is certain, but there is an arrangement and a tone that makes it unique in its own way.

The story is a telling of Oliver Twist with the orphan boy (Highmore) who goes searching for his parents only to end up in a band of street musicians organized and brutalized by The Wizard (Robin Williams). The entire time his parents, a concert cellist (Russell) and a rock icon (Meyers) spend one night together, fall madly in love but, because of social differences, are torn apart. The separate but intertwined journeys these three take to try and find their way back to one another is almost too serendipitous at times but the film warms the heart nonetheless. Plus, the music is good, so that’s not bad. The thing you must realize when watching this film is that sometimes the journey is better than the destination, and that rings true here.

Most Valuable Actor: It’s hard with this one because, while the acting is well done, there isn’t one character that really stands out. Pressed to it, I think that Terrence Howard‘s social worker character, Richard Jeffries gets the nod because the part is almost tailor-made for Howard and it is the lynchpin cog in this story that makes everything work and, believe it or not, plausible.

Trailer:

Argo

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, and Alan Arkin
Directed by Affleck
Year: 2012
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every now and then, I will find it necessary to break protocol to tend to my extremely large Netflix queue. This is one of those times.

Those who know me and have read this blog know I’m not a fan of Ben Affleck. This saddens my wife because she enjoys his work (a bit too much, but that’s another post) so when she got this from Netflix I shocked her by saying I wanted to watch it with her. Despite myself, I broke down Affleck’s career and I find myself liking his work more than I’m willing to admit. After seeing this film, I feel two things: he got robbed of a Best Director Oscar nomination (and probable win) and Affleck is probably better behind the camera than in front of it. That last one’s not a dig, it’s the truth.

The movie tells the true story of how a CIA operative helped free six American Foreign Services worked trapped at the Canadian diplomat’s house in Iran in 1980. The mission hinged on building a cover for the operative and the six Americans behind a fake movie location scouting mission. The story could have been cut-and-dry showing only the plan and its details, but Affleck did a good job on his end showing the complex emotional and political strife happening on both sides of the issue and the underlying cause of it all. Though some details were embellished for the sake of drama, the movie is a cohesive drama that delivers in both action, suspense, thrills and, most importantly, reality.

Most Valuable Actor: Alan Arkin makes any movie he is in better. He has a way to play a role that seems larger than life but does not pull focus from the film itself. Playing the role of aging Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, he plays the “juice” behind the fake movie to make it all seem plausible. If you watch this film and don’t believe he was the best part, you can Argo-fuck yourself.

Trailer: