Due Date

Peter Highman just wants to get back to LA in time to be there for the birth of this child, but meeting Ethan Tremblay throws that plan out the window. Through a series of unfortunate events Ethan and Peter end up on a no fly list and decide to road trip together to LA. What ensues is a road picture that would make Bob Hope & Bing Crosby die laughing; Todd Phillips does not disappoint with his follow-up to The Hangover as Due Date does not disappoint.

The best thing about Due Date is the interaction between Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. Comedy chemistry can’t be faked and these two actors have it in spades. While I am partial to the talents of Downey, I have to say that this film would be nothing if Galifianakis couldn’t match him turn for turn. My single favorite scene in the film would have to be the acting exercises Downey’s Highman puts Galifianakis’s Tremblay through to prove his chops; it’s the kind of scene that you know the actors had to loose it in more than once during filming.

The one thing that Due Date suffers from is that it is Phillips follow-up to The Hangover. Too many critic’s and audience members have gone in expecting The Hangover 2 instead of this film, and that’s affected how they viewed it. Due Date presents a whole new sets of scenario’s and jokes than The Hangover and is proof that Phillips can turn out comedy, and not just one comedic film.




Director: Todd Phillips

The Soloist

If you have seen The Soloist you know that it is in fact a message movie. If you read this blog you know that I loathe message movies to the very core of my being. However, if all message movies were more like The Soloist I would not hate message movies like I do.

The Soloist does what a message movie should do. Instead of beating their message into the audience every few minutes and making the actual story and characters of the film secondary, Joe Wright & Susannah Grant found the way to make their message resonate to the viewer – they focused on the characters and where their journey was taking them. By participating in their journey we not only connect with Steve & Nathaniel, but see the problem of the homeless population the way that Steve sees it and this is what makes The Soloist an effective message movie.

In my initial review of The Soloist I stated that I was slightly upset that even though the film is as beautiful as it is that the ending was a slight downer. Since that review I have seen the film two more times and I no longer feel that the ending of The Soloist is a downer. In fact, I think quite the opposite. The ending is not uplifting but it is inspiring; Steve & Nathaniel both end the film in a new and more enlightened place in their lives and their journey with one another will continue. It is a natural ending, and one befitting of the real-life plight of Nathaniel Ayers.

I am glad I have been able to add this masterpiece to my collection. I can only hope that when awards season comes around that Joe Wright, Robert Downey Jr, and everyone else on this film are not swept aside.

The Soloist

Poster The Soloist
Originally uploaded by Cine Fanatico

I went to The Soloist with some friends. We had all ages in our little group: my friends daughter was the teen, my friend was the middle-aged range, her mother was the senior and I represented the twenties. I have to say that it was a lot of fun.

On thing that this viewing proved was that we all think that the performances of Downey and Foxx sell The Soloist. However, what our teenage contingent did perfectly illustrate for me is that the more experimental sections of the film will throw audience members off of the film.

What we all did agree on is that Joe Wright made an amazing movie and we hope that people won’t forget about it.

The Soloist

I try to post about the movies I watch in the order that I watch them, but I just left The Soloist and I feel the need to break that pattern and right about this movie while it is very fresh in my mind.

As you can pick up from the trailers The Soloist is based on the true story of L.A. Time writer Steve Lopez and his coverage of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a Juliard musician who has ended up homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. It is a story of a city, a group of people, and an unlikely friendship. However, more than anything this is a movie about faith.

The faith theme that runs through this movie is not limited to the traditional “god” or religious faith that will immediately spring into people’s minds, though that is in the film; The Soloist deals with faith in a great many forms – the faith between friends, faith that there is a purpose to life, faith that you can push past struggles, and most importantly the need to have something to believe in to go forward every day as the world tries to fight against you. In this movie Steve tries to find the sense in Nathaniels situation in life and he struggles to reach out to the confused, the lonely, and those whom he would never interact with if he didn’t have Nathaniel in his life; Steve operates on the faith or belief that Nathaniel has a story that is worth discovering and to understand that he needs to see part of the world that Nathaniel is in.

What kills me about The Soloist is that the release date is going to kill this movie. This is a movie that should not have been pushed into a month so near summer. It’s going to alienate the audience this movie deserves because they are going to expect a much lighter, cheerier movie that they will see. Parts of The Soloist are down right experimental and that is going to force The Soloist into a much smaller audience than it might have received in a fall/awards season month.

Jamie Foxx will be lauded for his performance as Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, as he should because he is in the Dustin Hoffman/Rainman category of greatness, but I have a feeling that because of this Robert Downey Jr. will not get as much credit as he deserves. The character of Lopez is real, the straight man trying to pull his life together and though he goes through quite an arch in the film the transformation of Lopez from beginning to end is much more subtle than the character of Ayers. My favorite scenes in the film were actually when Downey was reacting to his situation with Ayers; two notable ones were when he first listens to Ayers play the cello and the emotions that run through his eyes alone are the kind that make you think he has become another person, and a scene where Lopez quietly breaks down to his ex-wife about how Nathaniel has slowly broken his heart. I know Downey is a phenomenal actor but he never ceases to amaze me.

The only think that disappointed me about The Soloist is that the film is a bit more of a downer than it appears to be in the trailers. However, the film hits perfect notes all the way through, and tacking on a “uplifting” ending would not be true to the characters or the film.

Director: Joe Wright
Writer: Susannah Grant
Steve Lopez: Robert Downey Jr.
Nathaniel Ayers: Jamie Foxx
Mary Whitman: Catherine Keener