Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Jenny (played by Carey Mulligan) is a 16-year-old high school student whose father Jack (Alfred Molina) is always reminding her to study so she can get into Oxford. Jenny handles the pressure relatively well and is an exceptional student whom teachers such as Miss Stubbs (Olivia Williams) believe will go far in life.

Jenny’s track to Oxford takes a significant detour, however, when she meets David (Peter Sarsgaard). Despite their age difference — David is in his thirties — the two pursue a romantic relationship that involves concerts, nightclubs, fancy restaurants, and weekend trips with David’s friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike). As Jenny spends more time with David, she spends less on her schoolwork and her grades begin to slip. Surprisingly enough, parents Jack and Marjorie (Cara Seymour) don’t seem to care, as they are as much charmed by David as Jenny is.

As the story progresses, we see Jenny and David becoming more serious about each other. Jenny loses her virginity to David, and he eventually proposes to her. Jenny, accepting the proposal with her parents’ blessing, decides to drop out of school and skip her college entrance exams. But then a shocking revelation changes everything and sends Jenny’s life into a tailspin.

Liked:

• Carey Mulligan was brilliant in the lead role. She managed to make Jenny a sympathetic character, and made me care about what happened to her. The Oscar nomination was well-deserved.
• All the characters were intriguing in this film. Indeed, this was mostly character-driven, so it was important that everyone be well defined and substantial. I was expecting only David and Jenny to have any sort of substance to them, but got so much out of Jack, Marjorie, and Helen — as well as Miss Stubbs and Miss Walters (Emma Thompson) in their limited roles.
• I absolutely loved the scene where Jenny went to Miss Stubbs’ apartment to ask for help. As someone who has had close relationships with teachers in the past, the situation really resonated with me. Plus, Miss Stubbs’ response of, “I was so hoping you’d say that” was pitch perfect.
• I had to admit that I was caught off-guard by the reveal about David. I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. I mean, I knew something was not quite right about him, but couldn’t guess the cause.
• I also liked how Jenny’s mistake didn’t mean her life was essentially over. The things you do at 17 sometimes have lifelong consequences, but usually not. You can make mistakes and move on, which is precisely what she did.

Disliked:

• How is it that none of the main characters commented about the age difference between David and Jenny? He was twice her age, for God’s sake! And though this might not have been as bad as Humbert and Lolita (who was 12), Jenny was still a schoolgirl, no matter what the age of consent was. But no one, not even the parents, so much as batted an eye about David’s age despite the fact that he looked like he should be checking into medicare supplement plans while Jenny was as fresh-faced as you might expect a high school girl to be. Very, very odd.

Rating:

Overall, I thought An Education was a surprisingly good film. The acting is top-notch, the story is engaging, and the characters are worth watching for 95 minutes. I really liked this one and give it 5 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) is the kind of man who has commitment issues, which is not unheard of for a good-looking guy pushing 50. But Ryan is not your typical womanizer. Instead, his commitment issues have manifested in a different way: he basically lives life out of a suitcase and doesn’t have any real friendships or relationships.

Ryan is a “reorganization specialist”, which means he travels the country firing upwards of 30 people per day for bosses who can’t stomach such proceedings themselves. Though Ryan doesn’t particularly like the job, he does love the constant travel. In fact, his secret goal is to achieve 10,000,00 frequent flyer miles — a feat that has only been accomplished by seven other people. He’ll get all sorts of special perks once he reaches the milestone, so he doesn’t spend a single dollar unless it earns him miles in some way.

Life starts to get complicated when two women enter his sphere. The first is Alex (Vera Farmiga), who seems to live much like himself. They begin hooking up whenever they cross paths and end up in the same city. The second woman is Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a recent Cornell grad who is assigned to follow Ryan around to learn the ropes. Natalie’s big idea for the company is to start conducting firings via video conference without so much as giving the terminated employees a little handbook with Velo binding explaining their severance package and health insurance continuation options. But thi will save on travel expenses, which is appealing to the higher-ups, so initially Natalie and Ryan are at odds. But once they get to know each other, a mutual respect develops.

As the film progresses, we see Ryan’s priorities gradually change. He begins to think that perhaps he has wasted his life chasing 10,000,000 miles when he should have been establishing meaningful relationships with people. He thinks Alex could be the one, so on a whim, he turns up at her door in Chicago — only to get a nasty surprise.

Thus, just when the viewer thinks Ryan might have changed his mind about the way he lives his life, he goes right back on the road and relishes being rootless once again.

Liked:

• On paper, this story doesn’t sound all that interesting, but it worked very well on the screen. I think it’s because the acting was absolutely superb. All three main actors (Clooney, Farmiga, Kendrick) were nominated for Oscars, and deservedly so. They were excellent — and this is coming from someone who doesn’t ordinarily pay attention to acting. But these actors managed to make me care deeply about what the characters were going through, and that was quite a feat.
• I liked seeing the perks that high-end travelers get. I just wish we had gotten more of a glimpse of what a 10,000,000 club member would receive (besides a glass of champagne and a visit from the copilot).
• I loved when the three of them crashed the tech conference and got drunk. That was a fun, amazing scene that really served to flesh out the characters.
• The Amelie reference made me smile, as did that whole cheesy shtick about photographing the married couple in random places.
• The scenes where Ryan and Natalie had to fire people were suitably uncomfortable and awkward. Wow. That is definitely the worst part of the job for anyone in a managerial position.

Disliked:

• The wedding stuff went on a bit too long for my tastes. That was the only blemish in an otherwise excellent film.

Rating:

I’m very surprised by how much I enjoyed Up in the Air. It’s easy for character studies to go astray, but director Jason Reitman did a wonderful job of keeping everything on track. This film could have been a disaster with the wrong actors or wrong director. Fortunately, everyone involved was top-notch. Up in the Air deserved every major award nomination it received, and probably should have won a few Oscars. I give it 5 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Set in a future where we have the technology to share dreams and invade people’s minds, Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is one of the best extractors out there. He is usually hired to perform corporate espionage. One high-powered billionaire pays him to invade the dreams of another high-powered billionaire to steal secrets buried deep in the mind as though they are confidential documents hidden in a vault.

This time, however, Cobb has a different kind of assignment. Instead of getting paid to extract a secret, he is getting paid to plant one. The client is Saito (Ken Watanabe), who wants rival Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy) to break up Fischer Sr.’s energy company once Fischer Sr. dies. Otherwise the Fischers’ company would become a powerful monopoly that will squeeze Saito out of business. But this planting of an idea, called “inception”, is much harder than extraction because people can always trace back an idea to its root. Fischer Jr. not only has to get the idea to break up the company, but he has to be convinced that it’s his idea.

Cobb assembles a team that will invade Fischer Jr.’s dreams with him. They are Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt), Cobb’s right-hand man and the guy who makes sure things run smoothly; Eames (Tom Hardy), a forger and master of disguise; Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist who will concoct a sedative strong enough to keep everyone in a dream world for as long as it takes to get the job done; and new recruit Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who will construct the layouts of Fischer Jr’s dream worlds. Saito also tags along on the mission, which will take place on a 10-hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles, because that’s the only way he can verify the success of the thing.

In return for completing the inception, Cobb doesn’t want a huge payday. Instead, he wants Saito to make a phone call to a high-ranking official that will clear the way for Cobb to reenter the United States. Later on in the film, we learn that Cobb was framed for murdering his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), and hasn’t been able to see his children since then. He wants nothing more than to be able to go home and be with them again.

Once the basic setup is established, the action unfolds like in most traditional heist films. We see Cobb’s crew planning the mission, training for it, making sure everyone understands their roles, and then executing it. There are a number of twists and turns along the way, however, so it’s important to pay close attention to what’s happening in every scene.

Warning: spoilers below

Liked:

• I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to follow the action of Inception because I’d heard about the dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream conceit (that’s 4 deep!). But Christopher Nolan did a wonderful job of explaining everything that was going on so the viewer never feels completely lost.
• This was a highly original script with an intriguing concept that was executed to near-perfection. In a summer season filled with sequels, remakes, and other junk, Inception clearly stands out. This was one of the most anticipated movies of the year, and it really lives up to the hype.
• As the film went along, I realized that I didn’t care whether or not the inception succeeded. Then when the end came, I understood why. The job itself wasn’t Cobb’s main goal. His goal was getting to see his children’s faces again. That was when the emotional impact really hit home.
• For the record, I believe that the ending was reality, not Cobb’s limbo or another dream world. I know there are compelling arguments for both sides. I’ve spent several hours reading comments about the ending on various message boards, so I do understand the arguments. I choose to believe things ended happily in the real world. Now let’s see if Nolan gives us a definitive answer in the DVD.

Disliked:

• The only complaint I have about the film is that it ran a bit long. I hate having to sit through long movies at the theater because I have bad knees and need to get up and stretch every once in a while. But I guess that’s not Nolan’s fault!
• Oh, I just thought of another complaint. The Bond-like third dream level was kinda dumb and felt out of place compared to the rest of the levels. I could have done with a different setting there.

Rating:

Inception is the kind of film that you have to see multiple times in order to appreciate all the nuances and clues. I have only seen it once, and was pretty much blown away. I’m not sure how it will hold up after subsequent viewings, but I have a feeling I’ll appreciate it even more. I give the film 5 stars out of 5.

It’s not often that I watch 60-year-old movies, and even rarer for me to pick up a foreign film. But when I saw 1948′s Bicycle Thieves (alternately known as The Bicycle Thief) available as a free rental from the public library, I figured I might as well give it a try. After all, the film is almost always mentioned on “Best of” lists and I do like to take a break from relentless CGI from time to time, so why not? As it turns out, I enjoyed the experience much more than expected.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): In post-World War II Rome, jobs are scarce and poverty is rampant. Eligible workers wait in throngs outside the employment office every day desperately hoping that their name will be called for a position. Antonio Ricci (played by Lamberto Magggiorani) is just such a man, and when he finally is offered work, he can’t help but think of all the nice things he can buy for wife Maria (Lianella Carell) and son Bruno (Enzo Staiola).

The work entails hanging posters around the city and requires the use of a bicycle. Ricci has a bicycle, but it’s in the shop being repaired. He doesn’t have money to get it out, but Maria soon solves that problem by pawning her wedding sheets for the cash. Ricci’s relief at the prospects of becoming financially stable again is almost palpable, and he eagerly looks forward to his first day at work.

Very early in Ricci’s shift, he meets with a major setback: someone brazenly steals his bicycle right there in broad daylight on a crowded street. Ricci gives chase, but soon loses sight of the thief, dejectedly returning home to explain what happened. A few of his friends tell him that if he doesn’t find the bicycle that day, there would be no hope of ever recovering it again, as the thief will strip it down and sell the parts as quickly as possible.

The rest of the film then shows Ricci and Bruno grimly going from market to market in a futile attempt to find the stolen bicycle. After it becomes clear that they will never get the bicycle back, Ricci, in an act of utter desperation, steals a bicycle himself. He’s caught, however, and humiliatingly threatened with arrest right in front of his son. Realizing that he ended up no better than the first bicycle thief, Ricci dejectedly returns home.

My Reaction: Sometimes the simplest stories can be the most powerful, and I think Bicycle Thieves definitely fits into this category. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like a whole heck of a lot transpires during the 95-minute running time, but Ricci’s character arc is the obvious focus. The way he is reduced to a thief himself, the way he suddenly sees how a man can be driven to such actions is a telling statement about human nature, and is beautifully handled in the film.

Certainly, Act II of Bicycle Thieves will seem incredibly boring to many modern viewers, so I doubt that this title gets much play outside of film school or snobbish viewing groups. More’s the pity, as the basic precept of this story is every bit as applicable today as it was 60 years ago.

Overall, Bicycle Thieves is deserving of its place on all of those “Best of” lists that directors and film societies release every few years. So-called classics are often hard to sit through, but that’s not the case here. I give the film 5 stars out of 5.