Film

Daydream believer

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The dream world and reality progressively and beautifully blend in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, the latest from director Ben Stiller. Stiller and screenwriter Steve Conrad based the film, just a little bit, on the short story by James Thurber about a man prone to elaborate daydreams. He uses that story as a springboard to something altogether new, and surprisingly intimate. This is essentially a $90 million art film that maintains a nice indie sensibility to go with its moments of grand spectacle. Stiller, in one of his best performances, plays the title character, an introverted man holding down a job handling photo negatives for Life magazine. After a vivid daydream where he saves a cat from a building moments before it explodes, he wanders into Life’s lobby late, and finds out the magazine will be ceasing publication and going to an online format (Incidentally, this already happened a long time ago in the real world. Life has been special-issue-only for years, and doesn’t even exist as its own full website anymore.) So Walter, in the digital age, is quickly becoming an unnecessary entity at his job. To add insult to injury, he’s getting harassed by Ted (a sinisterly funny Adam Scott), the super douche tasked with transitioning the magazine to an online format. Ted mocks him in front of fellow employees and throws paper clips as Walter daydreams about co-worker Cheryl (a sweetly charming Kristen Wiig) by the office coffee machine. Walter imagines epic battles with Ted involving their blasting out of the side of the office building and ultimately concrete surfing on the streets of New York City—all while battling over a Stretch Armstrong doll. Crisis looms when a negative from star photographer Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), the

negative meant for the magazine’s final cover, goes missing. Walter, with help from Cheryl, springs into action on a quest to find the negative that leads him through Greenland, Iceland, Afghanistan and the Himalayas. Along the way, he reignites former passions, like skateboarding and hiking, and those daydreams become more and more unnecessary. by Bob Grimm This movie qualifies as a nice love letter to Kristen Wiig, who represents possibly the bgrimm@ coolest love interest on screen this past year. newsreview.com Her Cheryl has a nice accessibility to go along with her beauty and humor, and it’s no wonder 5 Walter has a crush. Stiller and Wiig have a genuine chemistry together, with Wiig’s performance completely absent of her more zany comic tendencies. Penn is downright incredible in his one scene, of which I will give away no details. Patton Oswalt shines as an eHarmony consultant so friendly he could only be found in a movie. Shirley MacLaine is mighty convincing as Walter’s mom, no easy feat considering that many of us are aware that Stiller’s mom is Anne Meara. There’s nothing forced in Stiller’s depiction of Walter coming out of his shell, and nothing jarring about the transition. As we learn some of the reasons Walter lapsed into a life of daydreaming rather than dream fulfillment, Walter becomes a complete character rather than that fleeting representation in Thurber’s story. Stiller’s performance goes between subtle and extremes, with most of those extremes happening in the daydreams. In the quieter moments, it’s the sort of wellmodulated performance that ranks with his work in The Royal Tenenbaums and Flirting with Disaster. He’s also a pretty good skateboarder (that’s him riding at quite high speeds down a mountain road in Iceland). Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh deserves major kudos for his always stunning work here, whether his lens is on Stiller in an elevator or Stiller jumping into a stormy Atlantic Ocean. Also notable is the soundtrack, with a roster of artists like David Bowie, Of Monsters and Men, and Arcade Fire that truly bolsters the viewing experience. The message that Stiller delivers with his film is an obvious one: Many of our daydreams are just a hop, skip and skateboard away from being realities. With a simple message elegantly and majestically portrayed, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty winds up being one of 2013’s best movies. Ω

“Whoever heard of Danny Kaye, guys?”

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Poor

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Fair

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GooD

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Very GooD 5

147 Ronin Keanu Reeves drones his way through this disgustingly bad samurai movie, an expensive exercise in excess that will surely result in some people over at Universal losing their jobs. Who greenlit this thing? Reeves never seems to string more than five words together as Kai, a “half-breed” who is part human, and possibly part demon or something like that. He can’t really hang with the samurai warriors, so he basically mopes about, looking all sad and bowing to his masters, until somebody is being attacked by something or other, in which case he’s compelled to fight for their honor … or something like that. It’s a meandering, listless mess, and a clear sign that Keanu has worn out his welcome in blockbuster action films. It’s no wonder he’s pushing for a new Bill and Ted movie; the dude is no longer fun when he’s springing into action. It’s funny for all of the wrong reasons. And it’s one of the worst looking $200 million dollar movies you will ever see.

4American Hustle David O. Russell continues his impressive directorial roll with this semi-comedic look at the notorious ’70s Abscam scandal. This is basically Russell shooting for Scorsese glory here, and while the style of the movie seems copied at times, there’s no denying the power of the ensemble cast. Bradley Cooper scores laughs as a pathetic FBI agent looking to make a name for himself, and Christian Bale looks great in a comb-over as the conman forced into an alliance with the law. Amy Adams gets one of the strangest roles of the year as a con artist pretending to be British, and she pulls it off quite nicely, while Jennifer Lawrence steals her every scene as a seemingly dim Long Island housewife. You also get stand up comic Louis C.K. as Cooper’s field boss. (C.K. canceled a show I had tickets for to make this movie. I was pissed but, after seeing how good he is here, I’m OK with it now.) The film falls a little short of greatness due to its sometimes carbon copy feel, but the cast pulls it out of the fire. It also has the best use of Robert De Niro as a bad guy in many years.

4Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues After nearly a decade of being absent from our movie screens, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), the world’s greatest newscaster, has returned. This time, it’s the ’80s, and a new media craze called 24 Hour News has Ron and the boys (Paul Rudd’s Brian Fantana, Steve Carell’s Brick Tamland and David Koechner’s Champ Kind) working the late night shift in New York. The plot is basically just a place setter for weird, random humor involving bats, sharks, shadows, scorpions in RVs, and hair. Ferrell and the crew manage to sell the dumbest of things, and they make so much of it funny. Even the stuff that’s just strange has its own humorous appeal. Carell goes super dopey with Brick as he finds a love interest (Kristen Wiig), Champ still loves Ron in a dangerous way, and Brian has a new condom cabinet. I laughed my face off, with this being a sequel that continues the comedic legacy of the brilliant original, and even ups the ante when it comes to anchor-on-anchor battles in the park (the battle scene in this one is one for the ages, and involves fighter jets). The last time they made one of these, they had enough on the cutting room floor to release an entire other movie. I hope that happened here as well, because I don’t want to wait 10 years for more.

2Grudge Match Man, this should’ve been fun. Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro, riffing on their iconic boxing characters Rocky Balboa and Jake LaMotta, having one last boxing match. Sounds to me like the setup for something great nostalgic, and even funny. Instead, director Peter Segal manages to make this undertaking a morose, unfunny slog. Stallone plays a generally unhappy character, while De Niro plays a total asshole. Their characters wind up in a scenario that gets their near 70 year-old bodies into the ring for a rematch 30 years after their last fight. The fight itself is OK, with both men looking pretty fit for their age. Everything leading up to it is oddly paced, and sometimes painful to watch, especially when Kim Basinger is on screen as a confused love interest. Alan Arkin and Kevin Hart are wasted in supporting roles. This seemed like a sure thing, but the film takes itself too seriously, and doesn’t know when to smile. 1 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Peter Jackson’s decision to shoot his latest Tolkien trilogy in High Frame Rate 3-D is a tragic, disastrous choice. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, like its predecessor, An Unexpected Journey, is a task to watch. The look of the movie simply doesn’t jibe with the technology, resulting in a visual nightmare. As a middle chapter in The Hobbit saga, Smaug is guilty of the same flaws that marred the first film. It’s overstuffed, the dwarves are severely uninteresting, and the action scenes lack any kind of urgency. It’s just a big, boring stunt film with people looking silly in their getups. As Bilbo, Martin Freeman labors to make things interesting during action scenes that feel redundant. (Hey, it’s another giant icky spider attack!) He definitely stands out among a cast of bland actors playing bland dwarves. Oh Gimli, how you are missed! Jackson finds a way to bring back Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Bloom’s scenes are a bunch of sorry minutes that could be cut from the film’s running time. Too many scenes in this movie feel padded and bloated. With each passing minute, Jackson is doing further damage to his directing legacy. His original Lord of the Rings trilogy was a major triumph. These Hobbit films feel and look like parody. Smaug the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) finally shows up, and he is easily the best thing in the Hobbit films thus far. He should’ve arrived in the second half of the first film, and the whole damned thing should’ve been over in three hours.

4The Hunger Games: Catching Fire After a sloppy start, the Hunger Games franchise kicks into high gear with this solid, darker chapter. Jennifer Lawrence, looking a little more haggard and embittered, makes for a far more convincing war-torn survivor this time out. Her performance is great, as are the contributions of a bunch of new cast members including Jena Malone, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sam Claflin. The new look and feel of the series can mostly be attributed to new director Francis Lawrence and his cinematographer Jo Willems, who get rid of that dopey, baroque look of the first movie in favor of something darker. The plot involves Katniss and fellow survivor Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) being forced into another Hunger Games where former victors must compete against each other. This installment has a lot more meat on the bone, and the action is easier to follow thanks to a much less frantic editing style.

4Saving Mr. Banks Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson are charming as Walt Disney and Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers in this obviously whitewashed look at Disney’s attempts at getting Travers’ approval to make a movie out of her book. Of course, most of us know he succeeded, but many don’t know that Travers was quite the holdout. The movie splits time between the Disney/Travers business and Travers’ childhood, where we find out much of Mary Poppins was based on her troubled father (Colin Farrell) and actual nanny. B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman are wonderful as the Sherman brothers, who made Poppins into a musical, much to the chagrin of Travers. The movie takes a lot of artistic license with the situation. Even though Travers is depicted as difficult here, she was far more adversarial in real life and never approved of the movie (those animated penguins!). Still, the film is fun to watch, with Hanks and Thompson making it all very worthwhile and heartwarming.

5The Wolf of Wall Street Martin Scorsese’s latest explodes in your face like a mortar full of deranged bliss. Leonardo DiCaprio, in the performance of the year, plays slimeball stockbroker and convicted felon Jordan Belfort, a real life scumbag who made millions selling penny stocks at a Long Island, New York brokerage. The movie, based on Belfort’s own autobiography, takes people doing bad, bad things to such an extreme that the film doesn’t just stand as one of the best of 2013, but one of its best and most deranged comedies. Like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas, DiCaprio talks to the camera on occasion, often during the sort of highly elaborate tracking shots that have become a Scorsese mainstay. It’s in these moments, and during Belfort’s drug-fueled “rouse-thetroops, fire-breathing speeches to his crew, where DiCaprio does his most exhilarating, bona fide nuts acting to date. He is a formidable competitor for a Best Actor Oscar.

Our First

2014

We’ll be accepting entries noW through February 28

once more into the breach, my friends. the reno news & review is hosting a poetry contest.

Only a single submission per person will be accepted, and entrants must live within 50 miles of the Reno News & Review’s office. While there will be panel of judges from both inside and outside the newspaper, we won’t be announcing who they are until publication of the winners to prevent lobbying. We’ll only accept emailed entries, and the poem must be in the body of the email; we’ll not be opening attachments. email to renopoetry@newsreview.com and put poetry 2014 in the subject line. all entries must be received by 5p.m. on February 28. Winners will be published on april 3. Include contact information, including name, address and telephone number in the body of the same email as the poem. Nom de plumes will not be accepted. The individual who strips the names from the submissions will not be a member of the judging team. Other than the guidelines for submission, there are only two rules: Poems must be less than 500 words long, and poems must be submitted in a publishable form (for example, no one-line, 499-word submissions). While we’ll be mindful of intentional line breaks and word placement, we reserve the right to change if needed, so stay away from unusual fonts or formatting. We will presume all spellings and punctuation are intentional, and we won’t copy-edit. While we’ve tried to think of every contingency, we’re sure someone will attempt to game the system, so we reserve the right to reject any submission at the editors’ discretion.