Writer/director J.C. Chandor makes the kind of debut that assures we’ll be seeing more from him, and that’s a very good thing. Part “Wall Street,” part “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Margin Call” takes us back to 2008, just before the economic collapse, and throws a dozen or so terrific actors into a situation where, over the course of one very long night, they will face the end of their world as they know it — and an impossible choice.

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Things are already bad at the 107 year-old Manhattan-based investment firm, bad enough that specialists who know how to manage those being unceremoniously laid off have been brought in to do just that. Eric (Stanley Tucci) works in risk management and has been with the company 19 years. Today he’s been given six months severance at half pay and a humiliating escort out the door. Before he reaches the lobby, his passwords have changed and his company phone’s been shut off. Before Eric leaves, though, he hands a thumb drive to one of his young protégés who wasn’t let go, Peter (Zachary Quinto), a 28 year-old Ph.D. graduate who decided to trade in the opportunity to be an actual rocket scientist for the money and action on “The Street.”

Thinking the worst is over after the layoffs, those who remain are able to exhale and get back to the business of buying and selling. But this is just the beginning. After work, Peter opens Eric’s thumb drive and discovers that his mentor was close to finishing a risk assessment report on the firm’s current holdings.  Curious, Peter finishes the report and is horrified to learn that the kind of worst case scenario no one ever dreams of is not only possible but inevitable.

To be sure his calculations are correct, Peter calls Seth (Peter Badgely) , a 23 year-old hollow man-child obsessed with money, and Will (Paul Bettany), a senior trader who could walk out of a mine field without mussing up his hair, back into the office only to have them confirm that the sky is indeed falling.

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In addition to the critical hit “October Sky,” Joe Johnston has previously directed several fun action movies including “Jurassic Park III” and “The Rocketeer.” With that in mind, it’s difficult to see where Johnston went so wrong in directing “Captain America: The First Avenger,” a lifeless and clichéd action film that never lives up to its title or its title characters’  ideals.

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“Captain America” tells the story of a scrawny kid named Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who wants to join the military during World War II. Rogers, who weights in at around ninety pounds,  suffers from multiple medical conditions but his noble ambitions push him back time and time again to the recruitment office. Despite being rejected by the military repeatedly, he still wants to serve his country. After noting that people are dying in the war overseas, Rogers notes that he has “no right to do anything less than them.”

The story’s beginning has potential but the bizarre decision to use Evans’ head on a thin-rail body detracts from the film itself. It’s difficult not to focus on this “special effect,” which is awkward and out of place.

As the story continues, Rogers is recruited to be a test subject for a science experiment performed by Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a doctor who finally gets Rogers accepted into the armed forces. Erskine’s experiment strengthens Rogers and makes him a powerful physical weapon that can be used against the dreaded Nazis. When the experiment ends, Evans can start acting in his real body again, a welcome relief for viewers. At first, the military uses Rogers, who is now known nationwide as “Captain America,”  to help sell war bonds but when he realizes that one of his friends is missing behind enemy lines, Rogers decides to take on the Nazis himself.  He eventually goes up against Hydra, the Nazi’s science division, which is led by the repulsive Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving).

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A year ago Big Hollywood’s John Nolte expressed his “predictable heartbreak,” and I did likewise, over disappointing interview comments by Captain America: The First Avenger director Joe Johnston. They seemed desperately designed to reassure his patriotism-hating peers in Hollywood that his superhero “wants to serve his country, but he’s not this sort of jingoistic American flag-waver. He’s just a good person.”

As recently as last week, the film’s star Chris Evans chimed in with more apologies about his intrinsically patriotic character. “He might wear the red, white and blue, but I don’t think this is all about America. It is what America stands for. It could be called ‘Captain Good.’” You read that right. Captain Good.

The Los Angeles Times echoed the hand-wringing that a film with “America” in the title and a protagonist swathed in red, white, and blue might not be groveling enough to suit their leftist self-loathing:

Of course, setting ‘Captain America’ in the storied past [WWII] helps avoid some of the more charged political questions that accompany releasing a patriotically themed production around the world at a time when the U.S. is perceived in certain places as somewhat less than heroic.

As I settled in my seat for a screening of Captain America (next to my esteemed Big Hollywood colleague Alex Marlow, who posted his own review yesterday), my expectations – based on all the preemptive apologies from the filmmakers and critics – was that I was about to witness Hollywood’s ruination of the most iconic of American comic book heroes. (more…)

It’s the middle of the Christmas movie season, and you’re likely aiming to see escapist romps like “Sherlock Holmes” or family fare like “The Princess and the Frog.” Is anyone out there ready for a holiday film about the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the impact it has on her family?

Apparently Paramount Pictures thought it was a fine time to release “The Lovely Bones,” Oscar-winning writer-director Peter Jackson’s (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy) first film since creating the vastly overblown remake of “King Kong” in 2005. Sure, it’s based on the novel by Alice Sebold, which has proven to be one of the decade’s biggest best-sellers, but considering how unpleasant and jarring much of the film is, it joins the list of works that suffer in translation from the page to the screen. (more…)

I don’t recall liking much of Nora Ephron’s work other than “When Harry Met Sally.” In fact, if I knew she made “Julie and Julia,” I probably would have avoided it, since “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail” just kind of mash together in my mind. But “Julie and Julia” is more than good: it’s brilliant cinema.

The first thing that grabbed me was the character work. The hero, Julia Powell (her real life blog is here) is a foodie blogger played by Amy Adams. I’m used to watching Amy Adams over my kid’s shoulder in “Enchanted,” which plays in our house on continual loop. I didn’t know Amy knew how to turn down the volume and play a “plain-Jane, yet interesting”… but she’s awesome. This isn’t her usual glowing, perky role where she turns it on like a fire-hose. And she doesn’t turn invisible like when she played a piece of cardboard in “Doubt.” (more…)

It’s rare enough these days to see a movie in which one story is well-told, much less two stories. It’s even more rare when a filmmaker is able to balance two completely different plotlines and make both equally enjoyable and compelling. Yet with her new film “Julie & Julia,” writer-director Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail”) pulls off such feats so impressively that the movie could possibly wind up with an Oscar nomination at the end of the year now that the Academy has expanded the awards to ten nominations and will likely finally include a couple of comedies each year.

“Julie & Julia” follows the amusingly parallel lives of chef Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep), who achieved worldwide fame while revolutionizing the art of cooking starting in the ‘50s, and Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a young New York City woman searching for identity in 2002. Powell longs to be a successful writer like her friends and yet is trapped processing insurance claims from victims of the World Trade Center attacks. (more…)