I Make Movie Review-"Every Little Step"

Even if you aren't a theatre geek.
I'll repeat that a gajillion times in this review so get used to hearing it. But let's start with some theatre geek shtick:
'Chorus Line' is the glorious pinnacle of modern theatre, the show that turned the American musical on it's head. It's only appropriate, then, that a movie about the making of this show's great revival is equally awesome, perhaps the most truthful and touching movie ever made about acting of any kind...
Even if you aren't a theatre geek, I'll bet you're a human being (or maybe a Jew). And assuming you have a heart, there's no way it won't be tugged by the stories of the down-and-out performers auditioning for the newest production of Michael Bennett's masterpiece. This movie about music does 'American Idol' one better by banishing mean spirits and cheap laughs from the proceedings. (And by picking the right singers...but we won't go there.) For a movie that basically plays as a montage of audition tapes, backstories and clips from the 24-hour brainstorming session that birthed the original show, Every Little Step is surprisingly non-geeky, and totally accessible. It is also by turns the most emotional (Jason Tam's wrenching audition for the "Paul" role) and funniest (the phrase "Eat nails" will forever be engraved in your memory) movie of the year so far. Directors Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern have mercilessly cut down hours and hours of footage to make a lean, clean movie that introduces over 40 budding thespians and gets you to care about each one. If movies (and life) are about journeys, than what journey is more complex, more arduous than this one? And what payoff is sweeter than strutting your stuff in front of a full house?? This movie doesn't let us sit back and watch. It takes us on an engrossing journey with these people-every little step of the way. You'll love it. Even if you aren't a theatre geek. A.

I Make Movie Review-Star Trek

'Star Trek' cannot cure the common cold. It cannot raise your children, pay your mortgage, fill up your car, or patch up the economy. It is not, contrary to popular belief, the Second Coming. What this movie is, however, is two hours of peerless, light-as-a-feather, uninterrupted fun. I couldn't be more surprised. When I saw 'Trek' on TV, I was unimpressed--a bunch of men shouting orders and talking philosophy in what appeared to be spatulas with rocket engines. Leave it to 'Lost' empresario JJ Abrams and writers Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman to take the often soggy TV series (and it's 525, 600 reboots) and make a movie as fly-by-the-pants energetic as a shot of caffeine straight to the heart. Beginning with the opener-in which the mother of Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) gives intergalactic birth while a starlit battle rages around her-the movie plunges into warp-speed and never loses loft. Within minutes we are introduced to Spock (Zachary Quinto, who deserves some awards attention for adding some mournful emotion to the proceedings), Bones (Karl Urban, sharp as a tack), Chekhov (show-stealer Anton Yelchin), and the rest of what will eventually be the Enterprise Crew. This time, they're up against Nero (Eric Bana), a cold-eyed, punked-out baddie who wants to wreak havoc on the galaxy as revenge for...something that happens 130 years in the future. Just go with it. It's not the plot that matters here. It's the gut-level ride this crew takes you on. Every action scene plays like a promise the next big dogfight will have to deliver on-and they all do, especially an interstellar skydive-turned-swordfight that's probably the most enjoyable and volcanically geeky duel the movies have given us this millennium. And there are moments of genuine depth and wit (particularly from Simon Pegg's Scotty and the beginnings of the classic Spock-Kirk dynamic) that let us see the band of brotherhood and teamwork that binds those aboard the starship. Winona Ryder and even Leonard Nimoy show up for smaller but equally important parts. Sweet. Does it all work? No. Bana is never really any kind of scary as the villain, and I almost needed a dictionary to understand some of the wonky space jargon. But this is a movie where the beginning has you on the edge of your seat, the ending gives you goosebumps, and 99% of what's in between works--and a movie like that, especially in the heat of the summer, is worth cheering. A-

I MAKE MOVIE REVIEW-The Soloist

You can scoff at the story, which reeks of sappiness and Oscar bait-Lowlife reporter Steve Lopez (Robert "Iron Man" Downey Jr.) tries to reform diseased genius Nathaniel Ayers (Jamie Foxx). You can brush off The Soloist as more blah based-on-a-true story crap. Or you can leave your reservations at the door and experience the weirdest, smartest, most thrillingly alive movie biopic to come along in ages. Let's start out with Susannah Grant's script. As she proved with Erin Brokovich, Grant knows how to move and involve audience without clubbing them over the head with a Big Ass Message (TM). She paces the story nicely, and isn't afraid to journey into pitch-black corners of Ayer's strange mind--the kind that often get glossed over in this type of movies. However, Grant also knows when enough is enough-just when there's no light to be found in this roller-coaster ride of a story, she tosses in a rococo gag involving coyote urine (you read that right) or a uses a coffee cup to produce a much-needed chuckle. It all works. The standard of excellence continues to the production staff as well. Director Joe Wright works in tandem with composer Dario Marinelli and lenser Seamus McGarvey to create a thousand different visual tricks-anything from theatrical spotlighting to thoroughly creepy, repetitive, Lynch-esque images of crying children-to get at what's going on inside the head of a schizophrenic. Not all of them work, but when they do-a la the Kubrick-esque light show that translates Ayer's connection with music into a kaleidoscope of color and emotion-they're nothing short of magic. And then there are the actors. With the exception of a dryly funny Catherine Keener as an overworked colleague of Downey's, the entire movie belongs to the two men. A pairing such as this comes along rarely-think Pacino and Deniro in Heat. Both actors are known for their commitment to reality over preachiness, and they don't disappoint here. Downey shows unflinchingly how Lopez's desire to help Ayers overcome his illness turns into helpless frustration as he realizes not everything can be cured. Foxx deftly sidesteps cliche, delivering his lines with a loose off-handness, mutter feverishly in a confessional almost-whisper, so that when the Big Stereotypical Cray-Cray True Story Movie Mental Breakdown does arrive, it's a harrowing, wholly unexpected explosion that seems to knock the world as we know it straight off its axis. The film offers not one easy answer in its entire 117 minute run-time. What it does offer is a great, ripped-from-the-headlines tale, tears that are eased out with honestly instead of being forcibly jerked, and two of our greatest male actors doing a high-wire act of a duet that pays moving dividends. They make beautiful music together. A-