Movie Review: The Lincoln Lawyer

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 25 March 2011 18:52

Written by Super User

The Lincoln Lawyer
Directed by Brad Furman
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Philippe, John Leguizamo, William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Josh Lucas, Bryan Cranston

Actor Matthew McConaughey has always perplexed critics. Clearly he has talent but in too many films he seems content to merely wing it, that is, get by on his Texas “good old boy” charm and looks. Always in great physical shape, McConaughey has become an industry joke because directors seem to insist that he take his shirt off at least once in his films as a favor to female fans.

With his latest starring vehicle, The Lincoln Lawyer, McConaughey has the last laugh as he turns in a fine performance as Los Angeles defense attorney Michael “Mick” Haller.

Mick has not made a lot of friends defending clients who are the antithesis of high society. Every drug dealer, mugger, and murderer in East L.A. has his phone number on speed dial. Ironically they can’t walk into his office because he works out of a classic Lincoln automobile, hence the title and his nickname.

Haller is no saint -- he doesn’t do pro bono work. He makes it clear to his lowlife clients that if they want his services they'd better be prepared to pay. In an early scene, one of his jailed clients, a motorcycle gang member who desperately wants out of the slammer, informs him that he doesn’t have the cash. Mick senses he's being played so he goes before the judge and tells him that he's not ready to start the trial and that it may have to be postponed since he's trying to track down a key witness, “Mr. Green.” Mick quickly receives his retainer.

Greasing palms is de rigeur for Mick. It seems as if every LA County bailiff and bail bondsman has been a recipient of his largesse over the years. One of those bail bondsmen, Val Valenzuela (John Leguizamo), tells him that a rich kid from Beverly Hills named Louis Roulet (Ryan Philippe) got arrested for assault and that he recommended Haller to defend him.

While Mick happily pocket a hefty fee, he wonders why a blue blood from arguably the wealthiest community in the world is seeking his services. As Mick learns more about Louis, the more he realizes that he is dealing with a guy whose dark side is far worse than that of any of his low life clients.

Even worse, Mick begins to suspect that Roulet may actually have committed a murder years ago to which he had a former client, Jesus Martinez (Michael Pena), cop a plea, because he didn't think a jury would acquit his client on a Murder One charge. Martinez had even pleaded with him not to take the deal with the DA.

McConaughey is aided by a terrific supporting cast that includes William H. Macy as an offbeat investigator; Marisa Tomei as Mick’s exasperated ex-wife who is an assistant DA; Josh Lucas as a straight-laced prosecutor; and Bryan Cranston as an old school detective who despises Mick for finding ways of getting criminals acquitted. Philippe may not have much dramatic range but he is Hollywood’s go-to guy for yuppie sociopath roles, and for good reason.

Director Brad Furman makes excellent use of Los Angeles as he showcases middle class neighborhoods as Echo Park and Silver Lake (located just north of Dodger Stadium and downtown LA) as well as hardscrabble communities as Inglewood and Boyle Heights while eschewing the more familiar glitzy LA that we see from film premiers and awards shows.        

As is the case with most film and television whodunit procedurals, there are plot twists which make little sense or seem a bit contrived. Though saddled with a few of those here, The Lincoln Lawyer, nonetheless, is a very fast and enjoyable two hours.

Music Review: NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 25 March 2011 05:00

Written by Jack Angstreich

On March 21st, 2011, I attended an excellent concert given by the superb NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo, under the direction of celebrated conductor (and composer) André Previn, at Carnegie Hall, a part of the JapanNYC Festival.

The program began with an unscheduled, beautiful rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach's haunting and renowned "Air" from his third Orchestral Suite, in tribute to the victims of the recent disaster in Japan.

The first scheduled work was a magisterial reading of extraordinary composer Toru Takemitsu's early, uncanny Green from 1967. (Takemitsu's remarkable body of work was surveyed earlier in the festival.

Legendary soprano, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa then took the stage to join the orchestra for an sensitive performance of Richard Strauss's moving, late masterpiece, Four Last Songs. While Te Kanawa's voice has now lost some power, she evidently has a keen understanding of her limitations as a singer, and within them, she succeeded in achieving a luminous account.

The concert concluded with a solid, accomplished reading of Sergei Prokofiev's popular, great Fifth Symphony. Previn and the musicians received an enthusiastic response.

Performers

NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo

André Previn, Principal Guest Conductor

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Soprano

Program

"Air" from third Orchestral Suite by JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

 Green by TŌRU TAKEMITSU

Four Last Songsby RICHARD STRAUSS

Symphony No. 5 by SERGEI PROKOFIEV

Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
212-247-7800

www.carnegiehall.org

Music Review: Ute Lemper and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 24 March 2011 10:00

Written by Jack Angstreich

Ute Lemper Performs the Music of Kurt Weill
Featuring the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
Vibraphonist Warren Wolf,
Music Director Ted Nash

Ute Lemper brought her avant garde, "mannerist", Weimar-era stylings to an arresting, mostly chronological tour through the career of the great composer Kurt Weill in exciting jazz orchestrations, on the evening of Thursday, March 3, 2011 -- the first of three dates -- at the Rose Theater of Lincoln Center, joining eminent bandleader and jazz trumpet virtuoso Wynton Marsalis, and his spectacular Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. At age 47, Lemper seems to have lost none of her vocal power or purity of tone.

The first half of the program surveyed the Weimar era and Lemper opened with "Alabama Song" -- popularized by The Doors -- from the relatively unsung Bertolt Brecht collaboration, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, the instigation for one of the playwright's most important theoretical writings as well as the basis for a legendary unfinished film by the master-animator Harry Smith. This number featured a superb trumpet solo by Marsalis.

Lemper commented that while Weill was probably observing from Heaven, his wife and muse, Lotte Lenya, was most likely watching from Hell, "drinking her whiskey and smoking her pipe".

The historical sequence proper began with the "Kanonen Song" and "Pirate Jenny" from the most famous Brecht-Weill collaboration, Threepenny Opera. Lemper jokingly remarked that the hard-core Marxist Brecht only shared 30% of the royalties with the composer.

Weill's less well-known collaboration with the German Expressionist dramatist Georg Kaiser, Silbersee, was featured with "Lotterieagents Tango", sung in German. Then Lemper performed "Surabaya Johnny" from the final Brecht-Weill Brecht collaboration, Happy End.

She closed the first half of the program with three songs from Weill's relatively unknown French musical, Marie Galante: "Le Grand Lustucru", "Youkali" -- sung in French and the highlight of the sequence and of this part of the evening -- and, finally, "J'Attends un Navire".

The second half surveyed Weill's extraordinary American career, opening with "My Ship" from the composer's interesting collaboration with the great lyricist Ira Gershwin, Lady in the Dark, a musical about psychoanalysis later filmed by Mitchell Leisen with Ginger Rogers.

She then beautifully sang the magnificent "September Song" -- one of Weill's best -- made famous by Walter Huston, in the composer's first collaboration with playwright Maxwell Anderson, Knickerbocker Holiday, here presented in an unusual arrangement which relied musically upon the gorgeous Gymnopedies by Erik Satie.

Lemper then performed "The Saga of Jenny", one of the best songs from Lady in the Dark, memorably sung by Julie Andrews in Robert Wise's undervalued musical, Star! Weill's collaboration with S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash, One Touch of Venus -- later filmed with Ava Gardner -- was represented by the lovely "Speak Low" and this number proved to be one of the highlights of the evening.

The composer's late collaboration with celebrated lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, Love Life, was then featured with "This is the Life". Lemper concluded the evening with a showstopping rendition of "Mack the Knife", which she sang in both German and English.

Ute Lemper - Jazz at Lincoln Center
March 3 - 5, 2011

Rose Theater at Lincoln Center
33 West 60th Street
New York, New York 10023
212-258-800
www.jalc.org
Opens March 3, 2011; closes March 5, 2011