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Movie Review: Jersey Boys

TwitView: A fascinating, fun film that shows the rough edges around those smooth melodies. B+

The Four Seasons. Mostly, I knew of ‘em thanks to the overuse of some of their 70s hits at the neighborhood pool where I grew up. Then there’s the fantastic 1994 remix of “December 1963 (Oh What A Night)” that is still rockin’. In 2005, there’s the Broadway peek into the inner workings of the band, a little musical called Jersey Boys. Seems like everybody and their mother (especially their mother) headed out to see that, everyone but me. So this is a long-winded way for me to say that I’ll be reviewing this film as a stand-alone entity.

Jersey Boys sometimes feels like a “Behind The Music” episode, with it’s ups-and-then-downs storyline. But director Clint Eastwood steers clear of the maudlin and instead goes straight for the jugular more than once, giving Boys more heart than VH1 could ever muster. This isn’t a gloss job to blow smoke on Hall of Fame rockers, it’s a fictionalized look at real people with tons of true tales mixed in. That means there’s the good (Number 1s! Fame! Fortune!) and the bad (financial irresponsibility, relationship problems, and death). Eastwood’s a smart cookie here, casting performers from Jersey Boys’ Broadway and touring cast (Michael Lomenda, Erich Bergen, and Tony winner John Lloyd Young; Boardwalk Empire’s Vincent Piazza is the only non-stage Season here), and keeping much of the “book” (storyline structure, for non-theater nerds out there) from the original musical.

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Movie Review – Trouble with the Curve

See the ball, hit the ball. A common phrase heard around baseball for years. See the ball…if you see the ball your mind is clear and able to process what’s happening around you. Hit the ball…with your mind clear you’re able to make contact, get a hit, take your base. See the ball, hit the ball. Seems simple enough. Yet this is where Trouble with the Curve misses the mark as it so badly wants to hit a Home Run at the bottom of the 9th, with the bases loaded, your team down by three runs, and you’re at the plate with a full count (3 balls, 2 strikes for those not in the know). When in fact it keeps hitting a foul ball early at bat and eventually when the hit happens, there’s no coming back from the deficit your team finds itself in.

 

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Movie Review: J. Edgar

A brash young upstart rising up the Government ladder thanks to a little bit of skill and a whole lot of being at the right place at the right time.  Someone who liked to throw on a pretty frock every now and then, and lived with a dashing young man amid much speculation.  A touch insecure, lived with Mommy for way too long, but managed to hide most personal foibles under a thick cloud of Type A….  Oh, enough about me in my twenties, let’s get on with the review.  Clint Eastwood’s look at J. Edgar Hoover is one that skims the span of his life and shows not a cross-dressing laughingstock or a larger than life hero, but a man, the good, bad and sometimes downright ugly.  It’s not the most organized movie ever made, but it’s an interesting look at a powerful man, and his efforts to create one of the most powerful Bureaus in the United States.


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