Into The Wild (2007)

A look at one teen's attempt to toss it all and start again is the story behind Into the Wild. While it's based on a true story, and could have been fairly compelling, it simply is not.

Emile Hirsch plays Chris McCandless, a spoiled recent college grad. His parents are buying him a new car for his college graduation, and he is going to law school in the Fall. So what does he do? He carefully lays a plan to drive cross country, and escape out West. Along the way he spends all of his money, and abandons his car. He does meet a few interesting characters, and he mooches lives off other's generosity along the way, including some hippies that grew older, but never grew up. When it all gets to be too much, he seeks out the desolation of Alaska, and makes a home in the bush of Alaska (yes, that's the term according to the one person I ever met from Alaska, who drove to NY camping out along the way on what passes for a highway "up there" that was really a gravel road, but alas I digress). He spends what's left of an Alaskan winter camping out in an abandoned bus, believing he is finally free. He then realizes that he is trapped by the river of melting snow, eats some plants he found, and succumbs to their toxicity. His family (William Hurt as his father) had searched for him in vain, but eventually some moose hunters find him dead.

For starters, the timeline of the film is just too confusing. Rather than do a simple start to finish, they insist on going between the current Alaskan camp out, and the background story of how we got there. The result is a disjointed mess, despite liberal use of the text titles that are artificially flashing across the screen incessantly. My other criticism of this film is that it drags on like a miniseries that is trying to fluff in the scenes between commercials. It's got more long pans of nature scenes than the National Geographic Channel, but in this type of film it just delays the story. Speaking of delay, Into the wild is lopsided. While half the fun may be getting there, we spend like 75% of the film on getting to Alaska, and then maybe the remaining quarter on what happens there, the more compelling part. Had we equalized it some, or at least streamlined the journey, we could have kept my interest longer.

Into the Wild, while compelling in concept, fails to execute what it started, and is too slowly paced to recommend it.

Overall Grade: C-

Reviewed by Jonas

The Blue Butterfly (2004)

Since I saw William Hurt in the film, The Doctor, I've been a big fan of his work. That's what led me to watch The Blue Butterfly. In this film, he's an asocial entomologist who makes his living by sharing his love and knowledge of six legged creepy crawlies with his television audience. To get enough bugs, he makes trips down to the jungles of South America. Meanwhile, a wheelchair bound boy is diagnosed with brain cancer, and it's the terminal, really bad kind that even the local children's hospital realizes they've done all they can do, and it's simply not enough. The child decides he has one final wish before his imminent death: to see the rare blue butterfly.

Hurt becomes a reluctant hero as he gets cajoled into a trip way down South, and gives the disclaimer up front that in all probability they missed the butterfly season. Still, the kid's not making to next year's season, so why not give it a try, and give a dying boy his wish? What follows is a visually appealing journey through the Costa Rican jungle in pursuit of this most rarest butterfly. Without giving too much away, I was kind of surprised to learn that the child was cured of his cancer, and this was based on a true story.

“Huh?” I exclaimed. Next thing I know, I'm wondering exactly what type of cancer he had, and how aggressive it was. I'm starting to wonder how bad it had looked on CT, and what the resolution was like in 1989 when this reportedly took place. Also, this started in Canada, so maybe he didn't have the benefit of an MRI? Without having the benefit of rereviewing the path slides, or the original radiology, we can only guess if he was really cured of his cancer, or merely misdiagnosed somehow.

At any rate, it certainly was a worthwhile journey for the child, and Hurt grows in the process. I'm divided on the worthwhileness of this trip for the rest of us. It's visually interesting, but the end kind of left me flat. Still, unfortunately, I've seen far worse (with the writer's strike going on and on, maybe I'm running out of good films to watch).

Overall Grade: B-

Reviewed by Jonas

Mr. Brooks (2007)

Kevin Costner always plays the good guy in all of his films. In his memorable films, from Thirteen Days, to The Guardian, to on back to Tin Cup and Dances With Wolves, he's consistently been the all American guy that you'd want on your side. What makes Mr. Brooks immediately interesting is that in this film, Costner is the villain.

Costner plays Earl Brooks, who to all appearances has about as exciting an existence as Walter Mitty. He owns the local box manufacturing plant, is married to his wife Emma (Marg Helgenberger from "CSI"), has a daughter off at college, and when he wants to blow off some steam heads on out to his pottery shed. He even wins his town's "Man of the Year" award in the beginning of the film. This all makes it even more improbable that he'd be a serial murder so good at his craft, that he hasn't been caught for years. Hot on his trail is Detective Tracy Atwood, ably played by Demi Moore.

This duplicity is reinforced in that William Hurt plays his alter ego, known as Marshall. While Brooks loves to kill, unlike many serial killers portrayed on screen, he has a conscience and knows it's wrong. While Marshall encourages the kills, Brooks tries to suppress the urge, even going so far as to attend the local AA meetings to stay away from murdering.

As the film progresses, Brooks needs to do one more crime, this time to teach an apprentice killer, known only as the generic "Mr. Smith," played by rising actor Dane Cook. What follows becomes a sort of Serial Killing For Dummies as Brooks shows him the ropes of getting the job done and not getting caught. In addition, Brooks' daughter returns from college with plenty of additional drama that all ties in as the film progresses.

Mr. Brooks is a very strong movie. It is well acted, fast paced, and well plotted. True to a thriller, it has the audience guessing up to the very end as to how this will all turn out. While I wouldn't have guessed it, Kevin Costner plays a very good villain. If you're looking for a holiday rental, this is a good one, just don't watch it alone with the lights off!

Overall Grade: A+

Reviewed by Jonas

The Good Shepherd (2006)

If you want as much star power as any of the Ocean's films, than The Good Shepherd should be on your list. This film features performances by William Hurt, Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, Robert De Niro (who also directs it), and even a cameo by Joe Pesce.

The main protagonist played by Damon is a CIA agent. The crisis centers around a leak in the agency that allowed Cuba's Castro to squash the American backed rebels during the Bay of Pigs incident. To get to the source of the leak, we are taken on a multidecade journey. This starts from before World War II, and shows us how Damon got recruited for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services- the forerunner of the CIA during WWII). We also journey on through the end of the war, and into the Cold War, and the formation of the CIA.


The Good Shepherd tips the scales at a little under three hours, so it's definitely on the long side. It is also a little confusing at times as we start in the 60's, and then concurrently run the background story minced into the current crisis. Not helping either is that there are many characters, across many years, and many look similar. Seriously, couldn't at least one or two of them have something other than a buzzcut and brown hair? Still, this long film held my attention because it is the kind of epic filmmaking that Hollywood only rarely undertakes these days. The locations were very real, the costumes were excellent, and the props were all vintage. This type of film would make the Golden Age of Hollywood proud.

Matt Damon really turns in outstanding performance in The Good Shepherd. When you've got a spare three hours of undivided attention, grab some popcorn and enjoy a big budget film that only rarely gets made these days.

Overall Grade: A-