***

Café Society-rm

This movie is set in the 1930’s, which is more of the generation of Woody Allen’s parents than his own. Yet the film is in the voice of Allen who not only actually narrates the movie but also directed and produced it. The central character, Bob, played so well by Jesse Eisenberg, speaks and acts with Allen’s inflections and mannerisms.

The story opens in the Bronx (Allen’s hometown) and we see Bob is leaving to seek his fortune in Hollywood where his uncle Phil Stern (Steve Carell) is a successful movie agent for the stars and he hopes will give him a job. Stern is seemingly happily married for 25 years but he’s having an affair and falling in love with his very young secretary (Kristin Stewart) who no doubt is half his age (sounds familiar?). Complication of complications, young Bob meets Veronica and there is much chemistry between them.

As is typical for an Allen movie, there is an intriguing plot but also great character development. The action of the film shifts back and forth between Hollywood and New York and we get to know Bob’s family. We meet his mother, as you would expect, his father who is a failed jeweler, his sister and her husband who is a outspoken communist, as well as Bob’s brother who is a gangster who occasionally kills people.

Hollywood and New York of the 1930’s are vividly brought to life with clothes, cars, and people as real and true to life as they could be. The casting is wonderful (by Juliet Taylor as usual) and as would be expected, there is period music throughout the movie.

This may not be Allen’s best film but Allen aficionados will not be disappointed and everyone will be reminded about how wonderful and complicated it can be to fall in love. (2016)

***

The End of the Tour – sp

David Foster Wallace was a highly acclaimed author who was cited by Time Magazine as one of the hundred best English language novelists. His life was cut short by depression and suicide at the age of 48 in 2008. Several years prior to this tragic event, David Lipsky, a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine and a novelist himself, of less acclaim, convinced his editor to let him accompany Wallace on the last five days of the book tour for his latest best selling novel, Infinite Jest, in order to write an article for the magazine.. Lipsky, in 2010, wrote a book about his encounter with Wallace on this tour, which subsequently inspired David Margulies to write a screenplay for this movie and bring onboard director James Ponsoldt.

The resultant film is a fascinating study of the chemistry and interaction between these two men as depicted by Jesse Eisenberg, as Lipsky, and Jason Segel, as David Foster Wallace. This famous author is shown to be a paradox of a confident, brilliant writer but yet as someone who consistently is concerned that he will not be found to be authentic. He desperately wants to be successful with women and yet has difficulty in establishing relationships and his best friends at this point appeared to be his two dogs. He cares that Lipsky will find him interesting and relevant. Yet, he was afraid that he, himself, would become addicted to fame and what people thought about him. Lipsky admired the literary giant that he was spending time with and yet we see an evolution of his understanding of the subject of his interview. The reporter began to identify with the struggle of the subject and was drawn to him perhaps as a comrade-in-arms. They become, for a while buddies hanging out, with two women connected with the tour (Mickey Summer and Mamie Gummer). There is also comic relief provided by another woman, their book tour escort, played very well by Joan Cusack.

Most of the movie is set in the snowy Midwest which is shown to be cold, crisp, and beautiful. The director, James Ponsoldt, has blended together this unique story and magnificent acting by Eisenberg and Segel plus a musical score background put together by Danny Elfman, which will cement your interest in what is happening on the screen.

It is interesting that we know very little about the psychological history of Wallace or the nature of his fatal depression. Many of the audience also may not be familiar with his writing. However, the connection between the two main characters sustains the movie and will hold your interest.(2015)

**

Now You See Me- rm – The opening scene is a great magic trick which you in the movie audience can participate if you pick a card, any card from the deck being shown to you. It is the first 40 seconds of this trailer for the movie- after the commercial . What comes next is a thriller caper with lots of magic. The first trick was people at a gigantic Las Vegas show robbing a bank in Paris . Everything seemed to get more grandiose from there. The screenplay by Ed Solomon and Boaz Yakin and directed by Louis Leterer built one preposterous gimmick after another. The key magicians Jesse Eisneberg, Isla Fischer and Woody Harrelson seemed to be one step ahead of the FBI and Interpol led by Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent. What might have been a great car chase through Manhattan’s highways and bridges was known to anyone from New York as unrealistic as the cops never weave in and out of traffic dangerously risking innocent people’s lives – especially just to catch a potential money thief. Michael Caine of course is always great as some rich guy entwined with tricky magicians seemingly getting away with lots of money. Morgan Freeman is intriguing as usual, this time as the ex-magician who exposes other magicians (perhaps based on the real life “ Randy, the Magician ”). Do we have very clever magicians, an inside job, get rich quick artists or a bunch of robin hoods?? In the end there is a good chance you are not going to care that much. Now that we have seen it, you don’t have to. (2013)

*****

The Social Network-rm – Every aspect of this story and film is handled just about as well as it could be done. The subject matter has to be of interest to the 500 million people who are on Facebook or the millions who are not and are wondering how did all of this ever get started. The captivating story comes from a book titled Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich but the brilliant dialogue comes from the screenplay of  Aaron Sorkin who also wrote the great TV series West Wing. We get a very realistic trip back a few years to the Harvard campus where the very contemporary version of the great American dream is being hatched in a college dormitory. Mark Zuckerberg somewhat of a social misfit himself, is developing this idea for what will ironically become the greatest social networking concept of all time. He is played extremely well by  Jesse Eisenberg whom we remember as the older son in The Squid and The Whale, plays Zuckerberg. The fascinating part of the story is that a bunch of other guys  at Harvard also had some roles in stimulating and developing what was to become a world wide phenomena. While Zuckerberg clearly is the genius here, the Winklevoss brothers and Divya Naregra provided some of the nuclei of the ideas and Eduardo Saverin one of Zuckerberg’s friends actually started off as the business manager and then CFO of the fledgling enterprise. Saverin initially invested the $1000 to start it and then another $18,000 before several the big venture capitalists found it.  In contrast, this movie, about their story cost $50 million. But we digress here because the essence of the story, which will suck you in, is how all these Harvard students plus Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake), a Stanford dropout who himself invented Napster, became entangled ultimately in a multimillion lawsuit at the time that Facebook was worth billions of dollars. The film is directed by  David Fincher, who knows how to transition episodes of time, having directed The Strange Case of Benjamin Button. He cleverly moves back in forth from the high stakes deposition of a law suit being waged about who owns Facebook and how much do they own, back to the events of their college days a few years previously. Zuckerberg is the center of attention here. This film is successful in giving us a good glimpse under the hood of this determined person who is one of those 21^st century people who is changing the world as we know it.  (2010)