The Private Lives of Pippa Lee **1/2

Director: Rebecca Miller
Cast: Robin Wright Penn, Alan Arkin
Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Julianne Moore, Monica Bellucci
Ryan McDonald, Zoe Kazan, Mike Binder, Maria Bello
Robin Weigert, Shirley Knight

How do you engage an audience and make them become interested in a character? First you have them believe said character has qualities we want to discover.
Pippa Lee (Wright Penn) is "a mystery, an enigma..." says one of her friends (Binder) minutes into the film.
So check, we have something to unravel.
Then you go and try to solve said mystery by putting together pieces of a puzzle. Therefore we go back in time as Pippa narrates her life to make us understand where she is now.
And since we don't really know what it is exactly we're trying to discover we let the characters engage us.
We learn how Pippa (played by Lively as a younger version) ran away from home, escaping her lunatic mom (Bello) and passive dad (Tim Guinee). She ends up living with her lesbian aunt (Weigert) and her girlfriend (Moore) only to end up becoming addicted to pills and falling in love with-and marrying-a publishing editor (Arkin) who's thirty years her senior.
And this is where we first meet her, she's just moved in with her husband to a retirement community trying to find something new to do, while learning that she might be going insane.
Written and directed by Miller (who also wrote the book the film is based on) "The Lives of Pippa Lee" is obviously its creator's lovechild and as such Miller has trouble knowing what to tell, what to conceal and she doesn't want to give us a bad impression about the people she so devotedly wrote, re-wrote and directed.
Therefore the characters are actually very interesting, even if sometimes they're stuck with ridiculous dialogues and selfconscious quips, but there is absolutely no real plot to follow.
She just keeps inserting new elements (even if they're old because they're Dickensian flashbacks) to make her heroine more appealing.
One of those elements includes new neighbor Chris (Reeves) who more than not turns out to be an excuse for Miller to pull all her deus ex machina moves.
But even with all her tricks and stylistic juxtapositions Miller can never really justify what she's doing and the "many" lives of Pippa Lee are reduced to her being single and then married.
Working with Wright Penn as top accomplice ("to be perfectly honest I've had enough of being an enigma" she teases) they make an event out of what turns out to be a not quite fascinating life.
The actress is at her best, she's tender and loving with Arkin, she's motherhood personified with the actors who play her kids (Kazan and McDonald) and she does her best Marcia Cross when she has to share scenes with her neurotic friend (Ryder).
Underneath her undeniable sexiness and appeal Wright Penn is above all bewitching. Try to take your eyes away from her and you won't be able to.
If only the movie had something else to say (we often wonder why do we need to know about this woman's life) instead of settling for facile resolutions and awkward quirk, then we would have been in for a real treat.
Because as it is, the movie comes, goes and Pippa is still as much of a mystery to us when the movie ends. "I feel like this is just the beginning" she says in the last scene, but perhaps only Miller is willing to go on this journey with her.

The Day the Earth Stood Still *

Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly
Jon Hamm, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Kathy Bates, Kyle Chandler

If there's something sillier than remaking a classic Hollywood film, it might be doing so without a reason.
Director Scott Derrickson updated Robert Wise's underrated 1951 sci-fi classic about an alien named Klaatu (Reeves) who comes to Earth to warn about the impending destruction of the planet only to be met by bureaucrats and skeptical people.
Jennifer Connelly plays Helen Benson, the good hearted scientist who helps Klaatu in his mission and eventually becomes the only person who can help save the world.
Jaden Smith plays her stepson, left under her care after his father's death and who still has trouble dealing with Helen.
Klaatu warns them that the human species has done enough damage to the planet and he's representing a group of planets that has come to the agreement that Earth can only be saved once humans are gone.
His aid is the giant robot Gort (whose design is "inspired" by the original one) who becomes the subject of scientists' studies as they prepare for destruction.
While the original film was a timely allegory for the Cold War, Derrickson's version with his "green" message comes off looking forced and preachy.
The biggest problem is that Klaatu's mission is constantly changing, first he wants to destroy the planet then he doesn't, as if Derrickson doubts exactly what he wants to say with his movie.
He avoids taking stances and is afraid to say something too pessimist but also lacks the vision to deliver hope.
The film features some nice visual effects, that somehow still don't make the impact of the rudimentary ones used in the original and completely forgets to worry about character development.
Connelly does satisfying job, Hamm is sadly underused and Bates takes herself too seriously giving her performance slight strokes of camp.
Smith is utterly annoying, you often wonder why Helen puts up with his tantrums in the midst of world destruction, which shouldn't be a natural thought, but this is exactly what the film's dull pace give you time to think about.
The action sequences are dull, the plot tries to be complicated and deep when it's quite the opposite and unlike the original version you never really understand why is it called that way.
And when it comes to Reeves, you wonder if he also is CGI. His expression remains completely blank throughout the entire film (as with most of his filmography), he delivers his lines with absolutely no interest, as if he just learnt them phonetically.
It's never revealed exactly what planet Klaatu comes from, this movie however must've come straight from planet unnecessary.

Street Kings *

Director: David Ayer

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie

Jay Mohr, Chris Evans, Naomie Harris, Common, Martha Higareda

John Corbett, Amaury Nolasco

From the land of bad pulp comes David Ayer's sophomore directing effort; a film about Tom Ludlow (Reeves), a corrupt LA cop haunted by his wife's death who becomes an unjustified hero after rescuing some hostages using unconventional and illegal methods.

After his former partner (Terry Crews) is murdered, Tom begins to investigate the causes and discovers a web of corruption under his very department.

He has to face an inquisitive Internal Affairs officer (Laurie) while protecting his superior (Whitaker) who he trusts and admires.

Ten minutes into the film you already know who the bad guys (i.e the responsible for the corruption) are, the problem is that the film doesn't really know it or doesn't care that we don't feel the need to discover why they did it.

Following the "L.A Confidential" rules of how to make film noir in our times, the filmmakers try to create an updated mood that still has the tortured souls, the dark cinematography and a femme fatale prospect or two, but in trying to pull off the "noir", they neglected the "film" and deliver something so by the numbers that it only thrills when you wonder how many times a man can be shot before he dies.

The ensemble work is all over the place, beginning with Reeves whose only leading man quality is the fact that he has the most scenes. In a way it's as if the whole movie sets the situations to work for him; you know he will find the exact clue at the right time or that he will find a way to work his way up to the good side of the law, because everyone else sets everything for him.

Unlike his character, Reeves doesn't need to do any dirty work to get what he wants.

Whitaker is loud and cliché, while Laurie didn't seem to bother to play his character at all, despite the fact that he should be the most ambiguous in terms of plot contribution.

The set pieces are nothing new and while the film has some good intentions, in all it's a perfect example of how to go from noir to nah.