Godzilla

Actors:  Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn

Rating:  8 out of 10, This current movie is sneakily very, very good.  I’ve always taken the stance that the name “Godzilla” should always be uttered with a deep guttural Japanese accent.  It was therefore with intense pleasure that the first time it was said in the movie was in just that fashion by the excellent Japanese actor, Ken Watanabe. This flick is successful because it stays with the human story and uses the huge monsters as a plot device instead of the focus.  Godzilla emerges as nature’s response (much to San Francisco’s detriment) to two large nuclear feeding monsters called MUTOs.  The monsters are forces of nature and the movie is about the way humans would react to this immense challenge.  There are no sinister corporation rabbit holes to explore.  There were some pretty dumb tactical decisions made but this was obviously done to keep the story moving forward.  The young actors were especially good, the Olsen twins’ younger sister and Kick Ass himself, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, were effective as the young couple the story centers around.  You wouldn’t want to stand around his character in a thunder storm though as wherever he happens to be standing is ground zero for something extremely bad to happen.  This is definitely the best Godzilla movie ever made which says a lot, nostalgia wise.

MVP:  Taylor-Johnson in his best performance since the first Kick-Ass

High Anxiety

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn

Rating:  8 out of 10, Brooks' heartfelt and extremely funny parody of all things Hitchcockian where every single scene is tied to one of Alfred’s classics.  He’s brought along some of his funniest collaborators who pick up the slack for what Brooks lacks as the lead actor.  Brooks as an actor is a great writer.  The movie became a great trivia test as I tried to spot which movie was being parodied in each scene.  The scenes between Leachman and Korman are comedic genius.

MVP:  Cloris Leachman as the scary Nurse Diesel.

Silent Movie

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar, Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Marcel Marceau, Paul Newman

Rating:  7 out of 10, This hasn’t aged well because all of the big stars that were one of the movie’s gimmicks are either dead or not that big a deal any more.  It still remains a loving tribute to the silent movie era and resurrects a lot of the typical scenarios prevalent in that genre.  Brooks is better behind the camera and/or writing than as a lead actor.  It could have been a better movie if the maniacal Marty Feldman was allowed more free rein as well.  The plot involves a has-been movie director trying to convince a studio head and A List actors to make – a silent movie.  If nothing else this was a nice trip down slapstick memory lane.

MVP:  Feldman as the slightly perverted Marty Eggs

Captain America, The Winter Soldier

Actors:  Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo

Rating:  9 out of 10, Each Marvel film seems to get bigger and yet they’re still immensely entertaining.  This film was every bit as much Johansson’s movie as the redoubtable Captain.  The action is virtually non-stop as the Captain and his crew confronts an infiltration of Shield by an old nemesis from World War 2 days.  This film is heavy on CGI but still amazes.  They somehow superimposed the massive Shield headquarters right across the Potomac from the Kennedy Center and made it look real.  I used to run through the area daily so it was especially jarring.   I liked the message (yes Marvel movies can have a message) that security shouldn’t be purchased at the cost of freedom and a few million assassinations.   There’s a lot more of Samuel L. Jackson (without a single M.F. that I can recall) and a coolly evil Robert Redford.  You had to know any organization that has Garry Shandling as one of its leaders is in trouble but I digress.  A great thrill ride. 

MVP:  Johannsen as the Natasha, the Black Widow is the perfect foil for the 1940’s mentality of Cap

The Twelve Chairs

Actors:  Mel Brooks, Frank Langella, Ron Moody, Dom DeLuise

Rating:  7 out of 10.  This was the only Mel Brooks movie I had never seen and while it’s a bit dated (especially with all the USSR jokes) it still has Brooks’ manic humor underlying all the dialogue.  A couple of dispossessed Russian noblemen are competing with a corrupt priest to find a chair where a fortune in jewels was hidden.   This doesn’t have the hilarious one liners most of his later work but has a more subtle comment on the human condition and greed.  Frank Langella looks impossibly young here, it’s almost as if he voicing over a young actor.  It was interesting seeing this early Brooks’ effort before he was freed up to be himself in the later, funnier ones.  

MVP:  Dom Delouise as the Russian priest trying to steal the jewels – best line in the entire movie – “God, you’re so strict!”

Draft Day

Actors:  Kevin Costner, Jennifer Garner, Denis Leary, Frank Langella, Tom Welling, Sam Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Chadwick Boseman

Rating:  8 out of 10,  I wasn’t too sure what to make of Draft Day when I first saw the previews, a movie about the NFL college draft.  Since Kevin Costner was in it I knew I was going to see it since my wife has a serious, almost troubling crush on him.  I was pleasantly surprised by a very strong movie which is kind of a comedic drama.  Costner plays the general manager of the Cleveland Browns (poor bastard) who’s trying to build a better team while also dealing with the recent death of an iconic father and a pregnant girlfriend as well as the whirling maelstrom of the college draft.  Costner is so good in sports related movies and he delivers again as a force of reason in the unreasonable world of professional sports.  Jennifer Garner is a great foil as the supportive and strong willed girlfriend. The film does a great job of building up suspense as we’re kept wondering to the final scenes whether he’ll succeed or fail spectacularly. This turned out to be one of the best movies I’ve seen all year.  My wife even said she wants to watch this year’s college draft day now that she knows what it’s all about.  At some point I’m going to have to tell her that none of the NFL’s GMs even remotely resemble Costner.

MVP:  Costner as Sonny Weaver plays the beleaguered GM with appropriate gravitas and humor