MOVIE REVIEW: Focus

The movie trailer did not give justice to Focus - it is actually a fun crime/caper comedy that puts Will Smith back in the game after some lackluster films (After Earth, Seven Pounds and that awful Winter's Tale anyone?). He plays Nicky, a 3rd generation con artist who trains a neophyte (Margot Robbie, on a roll after The Wolf of Wall Street) under her wings and eventually falls in love with. 

The film basically shows the pair dealing on with different groups that they live and thrive on from football games to auto racing. 

Smith and Robbie are joined by terrific character actors such as Major Dad and House of Cards' Gerald McRaney, Rodrigo Santoro (300), BD Wong (Father of the Bride) and scene stealer Adrian Martinez as Nicky's fellow conman and friend Farhad. As the title suggests, with a lot of things happening and each character trying to outsmart each other, one and even us the audience shouldn't lose focus. 

Credit should also be given to the film for choosing Argentina as one of it's locations - the only memory I have of the South American country in movie pop culture was in Evita. Buenos Aires was photographed well and it reminded us that there's more in that continent than Brazil alone. 

Focus is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the team who made the highly entertaining and smart comedies I Love You Phillip Morris and Crazy, Stupid, Love.

MOVIE REVIEW: McFarland USA

McFarland USA, the latest true to life sports inspirational film produced by Disney is the story of the 1987 McFarland, California High School cross country team coached by Jim White (Kevin Costner), who moved into town after being fired as a football coach in Boise, Idaho after being hot-headed and physical with one its student player.

The Hispanic dominated town of McFarland is a 360 turn for him, his wife Cheryl (Maria Bello) and their two daughters Julie (Morgan Saylor) and Jamie (Elsie Fisher). On their first dinner night out, the family went into the neighborhood Taqueria and were amazed and bewildered by it's menu and asked for the usual burger when they don't know what to order. They also had to overcome the usual character stereotypes for Hispanic folks and in true Disney fashion won them over by their openness and kindness in such an impoverished town whose students leave school early to work and help their parents in the field after doing the same thing before going to school early in the morning.

When Coach White or Blanco as the people in the town would call him, saw the potential of some of its students in running, he proposed to the high school principal (Valente Rodriguez) to create a cross country team for the school and focus on it instead of having a football team, hesitant at first but gave in the end, White formed a group of students to train and set it sights at the State Championship.

We have seen the underdog sports story before in films also produced by Disney such as Cool Runnings, Miracle, The Rookie and Invincible but ably directed by Niki Caro who helmed the Oscar nominated films Whale Rider and North Country, McFarland USA succeeds as a sports film anchored by Kevin Costner's performance. After Bull Durham and Field of Dreams, this is his best sports film compared to the recent Draft Day and Talent for the Game. We also see the Central California that we rarely see in the movies and the struggles of its mostly Hispanic residents who rely on picking fruits, nuts and vegetables on the field for their daily survival. This is the first feel good movie of 2015 and it deserves to be seen by many to be inspired.

MOVIE REVIEW: Black or White

Black or White starring Academy Award winners Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves) and Octavia Spencer (The Help) is a good intentioned racial melodrama that involves a custody battle amongst grandparents portrayed by the lead actors, of their granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell in a charming performance).

When's Costner's character Elliot's wife dies and Spencer's Rowena wants custody of her as well so that Eloise can live in a house filled with more relatives that she can count on.

This is Kevin Costner's best film role in years and portraying his alcoholic lawyer character is no easy task. A string of bad luck has always been on his side since aside from losing his wife in a car accident, he also lost his daughter while giving birth to Elaine. To add salt to the wound, his absentee granddaughter's Dad Reggie (Andre Holland) is a convicted criminal. Naturally Elliot despises him.

Octavia Spencer's Rowena might be a caricature of the black woman stereotypes that we usually see on the big screen but the Oscar winner rose above it and gave a performance that's a worthy foil to Costner's. Luckily the two have excellent chemistry and it makes Black or White rise above from a material that can easily mistaken for a Tyler Perry and/or a Hallmark movie if not for Costner and Spencer's performances.

MOVIE REVIEW: Two Days One Night (Deux Jours, Une Nuit)

In Two Days One Night, French superstar Marion Cotillard gave her best performance since she won the Oscar best actress as chanteuse Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. She portrays Sandra Bya, a worker at the Solwal solar plant who after being hospitalized finds herself with no job after her co-workers opted to vote her out for a bonus instead.

But when Sandra was able to persuade the company's head Dumont (Baptiste Sornin) to go on a second ballot after she found out that their supervisor Jean Marc (Olivier Gourmet) persuaded the workers, she together with her loving husband Manu (Fabrizio Rongione in an affecting performance) reached out to her co-workers to vote for her over the weekend hence the title.

Cotillard with her sad eyes and frail frame is perfection as Sandra. You can't help but be sympathize for her as she talks to everyone on the ballot uncertain on the outcome. The best thing about Sandra is that her character can easily be made a saint/martyr but her bouts with depression, relying on the pills she takes only makes her human.

Directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne showed the other side of present time Europe which we don't see in the movies. The struggles of the working class and their individual response on how to face it make Two Days One Night a socially relevant movie to come out of the region yet a highly entertaining one due to it being a highly unpredictable suspense film anchored by Marion Cotillard's amazing performance.

MOVIE REVIEW: Kingsman: The Secret Service

The TV ads and it's movie poster are misleading. Kingsman: The Secret Service doesn't fall into the Spy Kids and Agent Cody Banks genre of film aimed primarily on kids, this is venturing more into Kick Ass territory with a substantial amount of violence and profanity that makes any James Bond movie tame.

Make no mistake however, the film is a pure delight to watch which comes as a no surprise as the movie is directed by Matthew Vaughn of X-Men First Class (2011) which for me was the best one of the series and the first Kick Ass. 

When an old super-secret spy organization disguised as a tailoring shop named Kingsman in London's famed Saville Row lost one of it's membesrs, it's up to Agent Harry Hart aka Galahad (Colin Firth playing a well mannered British gentleman which is right on his alley yet who does all those fight scenes that is all new to us as moviegoers) to look for a new member as a tech CEO (Samuel L. Jackson) slowly plans to control the world.

Alongside with Michael Caine and perrenial villain playing a good guy for a change Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes), it is amazing to watch Firth and Jackson all together on the big screen having fun and newcomer Taron Egerton who played it's young new recruit Eggsy held up well on his own with his veteran co-actors.

MOVIE REVIEW: Selma

Selma chronicles one of the lesser known incidents in US history (as far as I'm concerned) in the 1960's, in the deep South when the Civil Rights movement attempted to march peacefully from Selma, Alabama to the State capital of Montgomery to demand voting rights for African-Americans in the time where segregation was still fully implemented and recognized in that State. 

Working from a wonderful unsentimental script by Paul Webb, and ably directed by Ava DuVerney, Selma is a powerful film in a chapter of Martin Luther King Jr.'s remarkable life as he fights the sitting US President at that time Lyndon B. Johnson to pass the Voting Rights Act. 

British actor David Oyelowo was born to portray the Civil Rights leader. Aside from some strking resemblance to MLK Jr., he gave a passionate performance that showed Dr. King was really a highly principled and charismatic man who never accepted violence as means to get their point across the nation and yet he was no saint. It is only in this movie that I found out that he was having problems with his wife Coretta (an elegant Carmen Ejogo) about infidelity. Selma proved that Martin Luther King Jr. was human after all. 

It's amazing that four of the major characters in the movie were portrayed by British actors. Oyelowo (MLK Jr.), Ejogo (Coretta), President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) and Alabama Governor George Wallace (Tim Roth). All of them were great. 

The heart of the movie though belongs to the film's producer Oprah Winfrey, who played Annie Lee Cooper. In one of the film's early scenes, she displayed firmness yet surrender as she was trying to register to vote. This is a different Oprah from her previous film The Butler as well as the talk show host the world has learned to love. She may not have much scenes compared to the other actors but when you're Oprah, you better make sure your supporting role would be a memorable one and she passed with flying colors.

Selma is a perfect companion piece to 2013's Oscar Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave, we can see how civil rights in the world's most powerful country has progressed and sadly until now there's still a long way to go.

MOVIE REVIEW: Into the Woods

Meryl Streep leads the all star cast of Into the Woods, the film version of Stephen Sondheim's 1987 Broadway musical that intertwines fairy tale stories that we all know and grew up with and this time with new characters such as Streep's The Witch to form an original story. 

When the Witch tasks a childless baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt who have great chemistry together) to find four items to reverse a curse, that's when the fun part of the movie begins. Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, Lilla Crawford as Red Riding Hood and Daniel Huttlestone as Jack all have great pipes but the biggest surprise of the film was Chris Pine, who was a scene stealer as Prince Charming. Who knew that he could sing well or even be funny??!! Acclaimed veteran comic actresses Christine Baranski as Cinderella's Stepmother and Tracey Ullman as Jack's mother provide great support

as well as Johnny Depp playing Mr. Wolf in a variation of his regular quirky character that he usually does in most of his films.

The songs aren't as memorable and the second half of the film which veers towards adult territory but aided by an excellent ensemble and great cinematography and costume design by Oscar winners Dion Beebe and Colleen Atwood repsectively, director Rob Marshall redeems himself from his last musical that bombed both at the box office and with the critics - Nine. Into the Woods is his best film since the Oscar winning Chicago.