Movie Day: Atonement, There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard, Juno

My wife and I haven’t had a lazy movie Sunday in God knows how long. But this past Sunday’s circumstances — rainy outside, Jennifer feeling ill — made for the perfect Movie Day opportunity.
Seeing that neither of us had seen any of the Academy Award-nominated “best pictures,” we rented three of them Sunday (and I added Walk Hard for my own amusement).
Mini-reviews below, albeit extremely belated.

ATONEMENT

I admit, this isn’t one I wrote on the list, but it held its own on Movie Day.
Set in England during WWII, Atonment is the story of Cecilia and Robbie, she of wealth and he is the son of a servant of the home. The two are obviously in love — that kind of “meant to be” love — and when Cecilia’s younger sister Briony accuses Robbie of raping her cousin (a lot of things lead up to her accusing Robbie of doing it, even though she’s certain he did not) … he is sent to prison, and eventually to war.
As London gets bombed and bombed and bombed, Cecilia is a nurse and Robbie a soldier. The movie’s about their longing to get back to each other, and Briony’s ever-building regret for keeping them apart.
There are slow parts to the movie — like a scene with Robbie and two other soldiers milling about the countryside and coming upon their army. You learn later in the movie why the director chose to focus on this part for so long, and eventually, it pays off.
A slight twist of an ending will tug at your emotions, and even the guys out there will end up wanting these two to find each other.
I see why it was Oscar nominated (and can see why it didn’t win much, except Best Score).
My Score: *** 1/2 out of 5 stars

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THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as Daniel Plainview is enough reason to see this movie, which many critics declared a “masterpiece” after its release.
I’m not sure of “masterpiece,” but it’s reminiscent of some of the more grand movies of our time — Gone with the Wind, Godfather come to mind. Day-Lewis’ performance takes it there, but without him, it’s just a pretty good movie.
There Will Be Blood follows Plainview as he is tipped off to an “ocean of oil” in a small town in California. He, his men and his son, whom he actually “adopted” after the boy’s real father was killed in a drilling accident when the boy was an infant, go to the town and buy up land owned by the father of a local preacher, Eli Sunday.
Sunday is skeptical, but when Plainview begins promising new schools, new roads and a new church, the townsfolk back him, and Sunday does as well.
While the plot revolves around oil and wealth, the two big parts of this movie are Plainview’s hatred toward most people (we’re never really certain if he loved his son or just “used” him to tell people he ran a family business) and Plainview’s lifelong battle with Sunday — one of morals, lies and backstabbing.
Watching the wheels fly off of Plainview’s sanity is a joy, and while many didn’t know what to think of the film’s ending (which begins with the now famous “I drink your milkshake), I thought it was brilliant. The ending brings a conclusion to Plainview and Sunday’s relationship. There is no need for a movie after that, because we really don’t care to see Plainview succeed … because we know he already did.
My score: **** out of 5 stars

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WALK HARD

Walk Hard had everything I wanted in a movie before I saw it — John C. Reilly in a lead role, directed by the “people who brought us Superbad” and pretty good reviews from major critics (a 74% “certified fresh” rating).
So you can imagine my disappointment when the closing credits came up.
In other words, I didn’t like it.
Meant as a spoof to movies like Ray and Walk the Line, Walk Hard “walked the line” of funny and amateurish … more often falling on the wrong side. Too many jokes fell flat, too much was hurried and when the writers couldn’t come up with anything creative, they resorted to penis jokes (and shots), John C. Reilly in his underwear (a carbon copy of Will Ferrell) and too many songs that weren’t funny.
Don’t get me wrong, the music was good, and Reilly’s Dewey Cox was a surprisingly good Johnny Cash knock-off, but when it was all said and done, I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe everybody hyped it up too much for me.
Sure, I laughed at times. I liked the on-running joke of Dewey Cox walking in on his drummer doing drugs, which always led to Cox doing drugs (until the end, when he finally said no, only the drug was Viagra) and I liked Cox’s tantrums, and the unbelievably-easy-to-break sinks. But even the “say everybody’s full name and where we’re at” joke got old.
I won’t beat this review to death. I’ll just say I was very “meh” at this movie. I expected a lot more.
Score: ** out of 5 stars

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JUNO

I’m probably the last person in the U.S. to see this movie, and now I see what all the buzz was about.
It was better than Little Miss Sunshine, the movie that — like Juno — came from nowhere and garnered Oscar nominations.
It’s a film that took a serious subject — teen pregnancy — and went a completely different route with it. Not all pregnant teens are misfits, not all parents completely flip out when their child makes a mistake, and not all “perfect couples” are perfect.
Juno got a lot of notice for the lead character’s quirky charms (and new pop culture expressions), but what I liked most about her was she was real. I’ve known people like her, and I know they would handle a complex situation like that the same way.
Sure, there is some drama in the movie (Jason Bateman managed to make me hate his character, which is hard for him to do since I’ve liked just about everything he’s been in), but in the end, it’s a feel-good film.
Plus, it had Michael Cera in it … which deserves an extra star in and of itself.
My Score: **** out of 5 stars