It always amazes me that with all the movies I see in a year, very few of them end up nominated for anything important.
Case in point, I have seen only 4 of the 9 Best Picture nominees for 2014 - American Hustle, Gravity, Her, and The Wolf of Wall Street. I was not even aware of three of the movies (Dallas Buyers Club, Nebraska, Philomena), missed one (12 Years a Slave), and decided not to see the other (Captain Phillips).
I have seen only two of the five performances nominated for Best Actor - Christian Bale in American Hustle and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street - and two of the five for Best Actress - Amy Adams in American Hustle and Sandra Bullock in Gravity.
I saw two of five for Supporting Actor, and only one of five for Supporting Actress.
Amazing. I will see if I can do better in the coming year.
I am confused by the presence of The Wind Rises on the Animated Feature Film nomination list. If it ever played in 2013 I'm not aware of it. IMDB lists it with a US release date of February 21.
Based on only the information I have right now, here is a list of the films or actors I think will win each category, followed by the one I would like to win, if different.
Best Picture
12 Years a Slave (Gravity)
Actor in a Leading Role
Matthew McConaughey (Joaquin Phoenix, who was not even nominated)
Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett (Sandra Bullock)
Actor in a Supporting Role
Bradley Cooper (Bradley Cooper)
Actress in a Supporting Role
Jennifer Lawrence (Jennifer Lawrence)
Animated Feature Film
Frozen (Normally I would vote for any Miyazaki film, but I haven't seen it, and Frozen was brilliant)
Cinematography
Gravity
Costume Design
The Great Gatsby (I didn't like the movie, but it looked good)
Directing
David O. Russel for American Hustle (Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity)
Film Editing
American Hustle (Gravity)
Makeup and Hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club (The Hobbit, which was not nominated)
Music - Original Score
Gravity
Music - Original Song
"Let it Go" from Frozen ("Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from Frozen)
Production Design
Gravity
Short Film - Animated
Get a Horse! (This is the short that played before Frozen)
Sound Editing
Gravity
Sound Mixing
The Hobbit
Visual Effects
Gravity
Writing - Adapted Screenplay
The Wolf of Wall Street
Writing - Original Screenplay
American Hustle (Her)
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Friday, January 10, 2014
2013 Year in Review
I saw 40 movies in the theater in 2013. Well, two of them were in 2014, but they were 2013 movies.
At the beginning of the year, I made a forecast. It's time to revisit that. First, there were only 20 movies on the list, and I saw only 17 of them (Jack Ryan and 300: Rise of an Empire were delayed to 2014, and Movie 43 disappeared from theaters before I had a chance to see it).
The five movies I thought would be very good (Ender's Game, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Monsters University, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) ended up 7, 9, 19, 31, and 35. Man of Steel probably deserves a lower spot than that. Except for Ender's Game and Star Trek, this portion of the list was a huge disappointment.
The movies on the "good" list ended up 2, 10, 14, 16, 29, and 37. I think what we're learning here is that I'm not very good at this prediction business.
I did much better on the not-quite-good portion: 26, 27, 30.
All three of the movies I did not see were in the "bad but still enjoyable" category. The ones I did see finished 20, 32, and 39, and while the first two were indeed enjoyable, Lone Ranger was terrible.
At the beginning of the year, I made a forecast. It's time to revisit that. First, there were only 20 movies on the list, and I saw only 17 of them (Jack Ryan and 300: Rise of an Empire were delayed to 2014, and Movie 43 disappeared from theaters before I had a chance to see it).
The five movies I thought would be very good (Ender's Game, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Monsters University, and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) ended up 7, 9, 19, 31, and 35. Man of Steel probably deserves a lower spot than that. Except for Ender's Game and Star Trek, this portion of the list was a huge disappointment.
The movies on the "good" list ended up 2, 10, 14, 16, 29, and 37. I think what we're learning here is that I'm not very good at this prediction business.
I did much better on the not-quite-good portion: 26, 27, 30.
All three of the movies I did not see were in the "bad but still enjoyable" category. The ones I did see finished 20, 32, and 39, and while the first two were indeed enjoyable, Lone Ranger was terrible.
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Wolf of Wall Street can be described in a single word: excessive. This covers both the subject matter - the life of stock fraudster Jordan Belfort - and the running time - three hours. There is nothing wrong with the acting or the technical aspects of moviemaking, but the characters and events depicted are incredibly repugnant and difficult to relate to.
Jordan Belfort is a real person, and the movie is based on a book he wrote with the same title. This goes a long way toward explaining why the movie glamorizes his depraved, stupid, and illegal actions, though not why the movie was made in the first place. I went to the movie largely based on the names involved, and I am disappointed in all of them for contributing money to a man like Belfort. Fun fact: the budget of this film, at 100 million dollars, is about the same as the amount that Belfort still owes as a result of his 2003 settlement, and is a fraction of the amount he actually stole.
The movie follows the career of Belfort from his beginnings as an ambitious and talented but naive stockbroker through his years of living high (literally) as a result of his penny-stock fraud scheme at a company he founded, to his fall and subsequent resurrection as a clean and honest motivational speaker, at least according to him. Along the way the film depicts a truly staggering amount of drugs, depravity, and idiocy in rather explicit detail. While it isn't a porno, it is fairly surprising that it only has an R rating.
Much of the movie rides on Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as Belfort, and he does not disappoint. The man can act. Margot Robbie is quite good as Belfort's second wife, as is Jean Dujardin in a small part. The rest of the actors are competent enough, except for Jonah Hill, who has never impressed me. Almost the entirety of Matthew McConaughey's part can be seen in the trailer.
As one expects from a Martin Scorsese film, the direction is excellent. Much credit also goes to the locations and props departments, both for providing the excess that the story calls for and for matching details like changing phone and computer technology through the late 80s and 90's.
Despite the quality of the acting and filmmaking, I do not recommend that anyone see this movie. It is billed as a dark comedy; while it is dark, it is not funny - it is excessive.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Her
16. Kick Ass 2
17. American Hustle
18. 47 Ronin
19. Man of Steel
20. Jack the Giant Slayer
21. Beautiful Creatures
22. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
23. The Family
24. RIPD
25. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
26. Oz the Great and Powerful
27. Epic
28. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
29. The Wolverine
30. Elysium
31. Monsters University
32. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
33. The Grandmaster
34. Machete Kills
35. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
36. The Wolf of Wall Street
37. Carrie
38. The Great Gatsby
39. The Lone Ranger
40. This is the End
Jordan Belfort is a real person, and the movie is based on a book he wrote with the same title. This goes a long way toward explaining why the movie glamorizes his depraved, stupid, and illegal actions, though not why the movie was made in the first place. I went to the movie largely based on the names involved, and I am disappointed in all of them for contributing money to a man like Belfort. Fun fact: the budget of this film, at 100 million dollars, is about the same as the amount that Belfort still owes as a result of his 2003 settlement, and is a fraction of the amount he actually stole.
The movie follows the career of Belfort from his beginnings as an ambitious and talented but naive stockbroker through his years of living high (literally) as a result of his penny-stock fraud scheme at a company he founded, to his fall and subsequent resurrection as a clean and honest motivational speaker, at least according to him. Along the way the film depicts a truly staggering amount of drugs, depravity, and idiocy in rather explicit detail. While it isn't a porno, it is fairly surprising that it only has an R rating.
Much of the movie rides on Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as Belfort, and he does not disappoint. The man can act. Margot Robbie is quite good as Belfort's second wife, as is Jean Dujardin in a small part. The rest of the actors are competent enough, except for Jonah Hill, who has never impressed me. Almost the entirety of Matthew McConaughey's part can be seen in the trailer.
As one expects from a Martin Scorsese film, the direction is excellent. Much credit also goes to the locations and props departments, both for providing the excess that the story calls for and for matching details like changing phone and computer technology through the late 80s and 90's.
Despite the quality of the acting and filmmaking, I do not recommend that anyone see this movie. It is billed as a dark comedy; while it is dark, it is not funny - it is excessive.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Her
16. Kick Ass 2
17. American Hustle
18. 47 Ronin
19. Man of Steel
20. Jack the Giant Slayer
21. Beautiful Creatures
22. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
23. The Family
24. RIPD
25. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
26. Oz the Great and Powerful
27. Epic
28. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
29. The Wolverine
30. Elysium
31. Monsters University
32. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
33. The Grandmaster
34. Machete Kills
35. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
36. The Wolf of Wall Street
37. Carrie
38. The Great Gatsby
39. The Lone Ranger
40. This is the End
Her
The easy way to summarize Her is to say it is about a man who falls in love with Siri. On some level that is an accurate description, but for the most part it misses the point. The story was conceived before Siri existed, when writer/director/producer Spike Jonze interacted with a chat bot via instant message. Her reminds me strongly of a Philip K Dick novel in the way that it takes real, current technology, extrapolates how it might affect our near future, and therefore encourages us to consider the present and our place in it.
This movie is not for everyone. It is slow, quiet, and deeply and often uncomfortably personal. It reaches for profundity and, for me at least, does not quite get there. It is an excellent character study, but the character is odd enough that viewers might have trouble relating to him.
Him, in this case, is Theodore as played by Joaquin Phoenix. The staging and his performance remind me of James Franco in 127 Hours. This is a compliment; I think it is possible that Phoenix will get an Oscar nomination for the role. The titular Her is capably voiced by Scarlett Johansson. While her character and arc are interesting, her lack of embodiment rests the bulk of the performance duties on Phoenix. In a sense, he needs to act for both of them, and he is brilliant - extraordinarily vulnerable and human. Though I have to note that the mustache he wears is distractingly creepy.
For me, as a sci-fi and technology enthusiast with a degree in Cognitive Science, there is nothing especially innovative or surprising about the plot. We have been thinking about artificial intelligence for a long time now, and its potential ramifications should we ever achieve a truly aware system have been pretty well explored. So I found the film to be fairly predictable, even safe at times. Your mileage may vary.
Regardless of that, this film is extraordinarily well executed. There is artistry in the camera work, in the acting, even in the color palette. Filming a movie in which a substantial portion of the dialogue is delivered off-screen must be difficult, but they make it work.
In sum: reminiscent of what might have happened if Philip K Dick had written a romance novel. Artistically shot and brilliantly acted, but somewhat short of profound. Also, rather explicit in places, though not visually.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Her
16. Kick Ass 2
17. American Hustle
18. 47 Ronin
19. Man of Steel
20. Jack the Giant Slayer
21. Beautiful Creatures
22. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
23. The Family
24. RIPD
25. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
26. Oz the Great and Powerful
27. Epic
28. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
29. The Wolverine
30. Elysium
31. Monsters University
32. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
33. The Grandmaster
34. Machete Kills
35. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
36. Carrie
37. The Great Gatsby
38. The Lone Ranger
39. This is the End
This movie is not for everyone. It is slow, quiet, and deeply and often uncomfortably personal. It reaches for profundity and, for me at least, does not quite get there. It is an excellent character study, but the character is odd enough that viewers might have trouble relating to him.
Him, in this case, is Theodore as played by Joaquin Phoenix. The staging and his performance remind me of James Franco in 127 Hours. This is a compliment; I think it is possible that Phoenix will get an Oscar nomination for the role. The titular Her is capably voiced by Scarlett Johansson. While her character and arc are interesting, her lack of embodiment rests the bulk of the performance duties on Phoenix. In a sense, he needs to act for both of them, and he is brilliant - extraordinarily vulnerable and human. Though I have to note that the mustache he wears is distractingly creepy.
For me, as a sci-fi and technology enthusiast with a degree in Cognitive Science, there is nothing especially innovative or surprising about the plot. We have been thinking about artificial intelligence for a long time now, and its potential ramifications should we ever achieve a truly aware system have been pretty well explored. So I found the film to be fairly predictable, even safe at times. Your mileage may vary.
Regardless of that, this film is extraordinarily well executed. There is artistry in the camera work, in the acting, even in the color palette. Filming a movie in which a substantial portion of the dialogue is delivered off-screen must be difficult, but they make it work.
In sum: reminiscent of what might have happened if Philip K Dick had written a romance novel. Artistically shot and brilliantly acted, but somewhat short of profound. Also, rather explicit in places, though not visually.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Her
16. Kick Ass 2
17. American Hustle
18. 47 Ronin
19. Man of Steel
20. Jack the Giant Slayer
21. Beautiful Creatures
22. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
23. The Family
24. RIPD
25. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
26. Oz the Great and Powerful
27. Epic
28. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
29. The Wolverine
30. Elysium
31. Monsters University
32. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
33. The Grandmaster
34. Machete Kills
35. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
36. Carrie
37. The Great Gatsby
38. The Lone Ranger
39. This is the End
Saturday, December 28, 2013
47 Ronin
I was not planning to see 47 Ronin. The very idea of Keanu Reeves (whose multi-ethnic background includes Chinese but not Japanese) in a period Japanese story is rather off-putting. The addition of fantastical elements into a story with historical basis is another strike against the movie. Then I read Howard Tayler's review, which was both positive and encouraging.
That review is entirely accurate. I was not familiar with the story of the historical 47 ronin before seeing this film. I just read the Wikipedia article, and recommend it. Interesting stuff. The movie does change historical events in rather substantial ways, but the core of the story remains. Most importantly to me, while many details do not feel very Japanese, the story as a whole very much is.
This is a very pretty movie, especially in earlier portions when large numbers of people are in formal garb. I am not an expert in period Japanese clothing, but while I'm not very convinced that the costuming is accurate, it does look good. I appreciated the color-coding of the different factions.
This is not a subtle movie. The evil people are gratuitously evil, and the good people are noble and virtuous. It does not have great depth of character or character development. It does have superfluous Keanu Reeves, extraneous pirates, and unnecessary magical elements. But it was entertaining, and I enjoyed it.
I do not normally refer to Rotten Tomatoes when writing reviews, but someone mentioned that this movie was getting 12% so I thought I'd attempt to explain how that can be, when I've given it a positive review. The answer, I believe, is that this film has much more in common with Japanese samurai films and Chinese martial arts films than it does with a movie like The Last Samurai, which Warner spent $140 million on in 2003. That film had Tom Cruise headlining (and some justification for his presence) and still only grossed $111 million domestically (though it did do rather well overseas). This movie does not have mass appeal - it has the slowish pace of a foreign film, a dark tone, and subject matter that a general American audience does not know or care about.
So, if you are looking for an exciting action film, this might be slower than you want. If you are looking for a historical drama, this is wildly inaccurate. If you are looking for a samurai film, this has Keanu Reeves. But if you are looking for a historical-ish film and bring to it an appreciation of Japanese culture without a great deal of concern for strict accuracy, then you will probably enjoy this film as much as I did, which was quite a bit.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. American Hustle
17. 47 Ronin
18. Man of Steel
19. Jack the Giant Slayer
20. Beautiful Creatures
21. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
22. The Family
23. RIPD
24. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
25. Oz the Great and Powerful
26. Epic
27. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
28. The Wolverine
29. Elysium
30. Monsters University
31. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
32. The Grandmaster
33. Machete Kills
34. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
35. Carrie
36. The Great Gatsby
37. The Lone Ranger
38. This is the End
That review is entirely accurate. I was not familiar with the story of the historical 47 ronin before seeing this film. I just read the Wikipedia article, and recommend it. Interesting stuff. The movie does change historical events in rather substantial ways, but the core of the story remains. Most importantly to me, while many details do not feel very Japanese, the story as a whole very much is.
This is a very pretty movie, especially in earlier portions when large numbers of people are in formal garb. I am not an expert in period Japanese clothing, but while I'm not very convinced that the costuming is accurate, it does look good. I appreciated the color-coding of the different factions.
This is not a subtle movie. The evil people are gratuitously evil, and the good people are noble and virtuous. It does not have great depth of character or character development. It does have superfluous Keanu Reeves, extraneous pirates, and unnecessary magical elements. But it was entertaining, and I enjoyed it.
I do not normally refer to Rotten Tomatoes when writing reviews, but someone mentioned that this movie was getting 12% so I thought I'd attempt to explain how that can be, when I've given it a positive review. The answer, I believe, is that this film has much more in common with Japanese samurai films and Chinese martial arts films than it does with a movie like The Last Samurai, which Warner spent $140 million on in 2003. That film had Tom Cruise headlining (and some justification for his presence) and still only grossed $111 million domestically (though it did do rather well overseas). This movie does not have mass appeal - it has the slowish pace of a foreign film, a dark tone, and subject matter that a general American audience does not know or care about.
So, if you are looking for an exciting action film, this might be slower than you want. If you are looking for a historical drama, this is wildly inaccurate. If you are looking for a samurai film, this has Keanu Reeves. But if you are looking for a historical-ish film and bring to it an appreciation of Japanese culture without a great deal of concern for strict accuracy, then you will probably enjoy this film as much as I did, which was quite a bit.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. American Hustle
17. 47 Ronin
18. Man of Steel
19. Jack the Giant Slayer
20. Beautiful Creatures
21. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
22. The Family
23. RIPD
24. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
25. Oz the Great and Powerful
26. Epic
27. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
28. The Wolverine
29. Elysium
30. Monsters University
31. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
32. The Grandmaster
33. Machete Kills
34. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
35. Carrie
36. The Great Gatsby
37. The Lone Ranger
38. This is the End
American Hustle
I went to see American Hustle primarily because Jennifer Lawrence is in it. She doesn't even have that much screen time, but I've enjoyed her acting and irreverent interview style so much that it was enough to get me into the theater. So, I had very little in the way of expectations for this film. What I got was an entertaining and sometimes bewildering story of con artists, the FBI, and politicians in the late 70s when casinos were legalized in Atlantic City.
The movie opens with the line: "Some of this actually happened." This refers to the FBI's Abscam operation, which ran from the late 70s to the early 80s and did indeed cover some of the same ground as the movie. Many characters in the movie are based on real people, and some of the events depicted did take place. According to what I've read, though, the movie version has rather a lot more sex and drugs than the real operation did. I'm okay with that, though - the way the disclaimer is worded makes it clear that the filmmakers were not going for a faithful retelling of history.
Notably, I did not know going in that American Hustle was made by David O. Russell. While I thought his The Fighter was a good movie, I ranked it 5th of the 9 Best Picture nominees that I saw in 2010. I rather disliked his Silver Linings Playbook despite a good performance by Jennifer Lawrence (for which she won an Oscar). He makes movies which feature good actors giving great performances while playing characters who are terrible human beings, but who we are apparently supposed to like despite their lack of redeeming qualities.
Despite that, American Hustle is quite entertaining. The caper plot is suitable twisty (and twisted). The relationship plots are appropriately sordid. Mostly, though, the acting is fantastic. From the long opening shot of Christian Bale as con artist Irving Rosenfeld adjusting his hairpiece and comb-over, it is obvious that the movie is about performance. When the camera is not awkwardly zooming or panning, it tends to stay on a given character for extended monologues or physical acting, and this is where the movie is best.
The other male lead is Bradley Cooper as FBI agent Richard DiMaso. His acting is not in the same league as Bale, but he's good enough, and at least his character isn't as repugnant as the one he played in Silver Linings Playbook. The female lead is Amy Adams, who is fantastic as Rosenfeld's sidekick and lover Sydney Prosser. Jennifer Lawrence gets far less screen time as Rosenfeld's wife Rosalyn, but she dominates the scene whenever present.
This movie features depravity, drugs, infidelity, and generally terrible people doing awful things to each other. It is R for good reasons. I liked it, and while I'm hardly a fan of Russell, I at least appreciate his ability to draw truly fine performances out of his actors.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. American Hustle
17. Man of Steel
18. Jack the Giant Slayer
19. Beautiful Creatures
20. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
21. The Family
22. RIPD
23. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
24. Oz the Great and Powerful
25. Epic
26. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
27. The Wolverine
28. Elysium
29. Monsters University
30. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
31. The Grandmaster
32. Machete Kills
33. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
34. Carrie
35. The Great Gatsby
36. The Lone Ranger
37. This is the End
The movie opens with the line: "Some of this actually happened." This refers to the FBI's Abscam operation, which ran from the late 70s to the early 80s and did indeed cover some of the same ground as the movie. Many characters in the movie are based on real people, and some of the events depicted did take place. According to what I've read, though, the movie version has rather a lot more sex and drugs than the real operation did. I'm okay with that, though - the way the disclaimer is worded makes it clear that the filmmakers were not going for a faithful retelling of history.
Notably, I did not know going in that American Hustle was made by David O. Russell. While I thought his The Fighter was a good movie, I ranked it 5th of the 9 Best Picture nominees that I saw in 2010. I rather disliked his Silver Linings Playbook despite a good performance by Jennifer Lawrence (for which she won an Oscar). He makes movies which feature good actors giving great performances while playing characters who are terrible human beings, but who we are apparently supposed to like despite their lack of redeeming qualities.
Despite that, American Hustle is quite entertaining. The caper plot is suitable twisty (and twisted). The relationship plots are appropriately sordid. Mostly, though, the acting is fantastic. From the long opening shot of Christian Bale as con artist Irving Rosenfeld adjusting his hairpiece and comb-over, it is obvious that the movie is about performance. When the camera is not awkwardly zooming or panning, it tends to stay on a given character for extended monologues or physical acting, and this is where the movie is best.
The other male lead is Bradley Cooper as FBI agent Richard DiMaso. His acting is not in the same league as Bale, but he's good enough, and at least his character isn't as repugnant as the one he played in Silver Linings Playbook. The female lead is Amy Adams, who is fantastic as Rosenfeld's sidekick and lover Sydney Prosser. Jennifer Lawrence gets far less screen time as Rosenfeld's wife Rosalyn, but she dominates the scene whenever present.
This movie features depravity, drugs, infidelity, and generally terrible people doing awful things to each other. It is R for good reasons. I liked it, and while I'm hardly a fan of Russell, I at least appreciate his ability to draw truly fine performances out of his actors.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. American Hustle
17. Man of Steel
18. Jack the Giant Slayer
19. Beautiful Creatures
20. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
21. The Family
22. RIPD
23. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
24. Oz the Great and Powerful
25. Epic
26. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
27. The Wolverine
28. Elysium
29. Monsters University
30. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
31. The Grandmaster
32. Machete Kills
33. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
34. Carrie
35. The Great Gatsby
36. The Lone Ranger
37. This is the End
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
Anchorman 2 is awkward-funny, cringe-inducing, entertaining, and a surprisingly harsh commentary on the state of new media. If you liked the first Anchorman, you will almost certainly like this one. It has the same characters and and same style of humor and storytelling, but isn't the same movie shot again. If you have not seen the first Anchorman, I recommend renting it first. You probably don't strictly need to know what happened, but it's a good idea anyway.
The humor in the Anchorman series is not the sort that I normally enjoy - it is crass, sexist, racist, awkward, and generally offensive. Somehow, though, it manages to be charming enough to make it watchable, and then passes beyond that to actually funny. Maybe the obviousness of the parody is what makes it work, I don't know.
The sequel shifts the setting from San Diego to New York, resets the person-professional conflict that drove the first movie, and introduces a plethora of new characters to go along with the new plot. Notable among these are James Marsden's character, Jack Lime, as Ron Burgundy's news rival, and Greg Kinnear's character, Gary, as his love rival. Both of them are able to stand up to Will Ferrell's outsized screen personality, which can't be easy.
The movie is, of course, absurd. This is its main selling point. Along the way it also takes a pretty hard shot at the current newscast business model. Explaining more would trend toward spoiler territory, but I appreciate that the filmmakers recognized the opportunity to use their period comedy movie to point out something that is wrong with our world.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
23. Oz the Great and Powerful
24. Epic
25. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
26. The Wolverine
27. Elysium
28. Monsters University
29. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
30. The Grandmaster
31. Machete Kills
32. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
33. Carrie
34. The Great Gatsby
35. The Lone Ranger
36. This is the End
The humor in the Anchorman series is not the sort that I normally enjoy - it is crass, sexist, racist, awkward, and generally offensive. Somehow, though, it manages to be charming enough to make it watchable, and then passes beyond that to actually funny. Maybe the obviousness of the parody is what makes it work, I don't know.
The sequel shifts the setting from San Diego to New York, resets the person-professional conflict that drove the first movie, and introduces a plethora of new characters to go along with the new plot. Notable among these are James Marsden's character, Jack Lime, as Ron Burgundy's news rival, and Greg Kinnear's character, Gary, as his love rival. Both of them are able to stand up to Will Ferrell's outsized screen personality, which can't be easy.
The movie is, of course, absurd. This is its main selling point. Along the way it also takes a pretty hard shot at the current newscast business model. Explaining more would trend toward spoiler territory, but I appreciate that the filmmakers recognized the opportunity to use their period comedy movie to point out something that is wrong with our world.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
23. Oz the Great and Powerful
24. Epic
25. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
26. The Wolverine
27. Elysium
28. Monsters University
29. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
30. The Grandmaster
31. Machete Kills
32. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
33. Carrie
34. The Great Gatsby
35. The Lone Ranger
36. This is the End
Friday, December 13, 2013
The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug
There will be spoilers later in this review. There will be a clearly marked break.
The second installment of the Hobbit trilogy is a disappointment. I have been willing to give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt - when he added or changed things in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I always found excuses. I could always think of a reason for the change - pacing here, tension there. I am good at distinguishing between a book and a movie as two different media with different goals, strengths, and weaknesses. With some reservations, I rather liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Without a doubt, Jackson and Weta Workshop greatly improved the quality of all fantasy movies by setting a high bar.
I gave the first Hobbit movie a positive review, and I still like the film, but the things I didn't like then I like less now. Radagast is Jar-Jar level bad. Darth Maul was a better villain than Azog. In general the Hobbit trilogy is starting to remind me of Episodes 1-3, and this is not in any way a good thing.
So, what is good about this movie? The music remains excellent. I like what they did with Thranduil - he's arrogant and petulant in a way that seems very right. Some of the scenery is pretty. Benedict Cumberbatch is good as the voice of Smaug, and the parts of his interaction with Bilbo that are from the book are lovely. That's about it, honestly.
In the negative column, large parts of the story were rushed, and other parts expanded to ludicrous proportions. The action scenes were repetitive and interminably long. The 3D added absolutely nothing. More in the spoiler section.
Speaking of which, spoilers follow. Skip to the end for the ranking.
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The second installment of the Hobbit trilogy is a disappointment. I have been willing to give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt - when he added or changed things in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I always found excuses. I could always think of a reason for the change - pacing here, tension there. I am good at distinguishing between a book and a movie as two different media with different goals, strengths, and weaknesses. With some reservations, I rather liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Without a doubt, Jackson and Weta Workshop greatly improved the quality of all fantasy movies by setting a high bar.
I gave the first Hobbit movie a positive review, and I still like the film, but the things I didn't like then I like less now. Radagast is Jar-Jar level bad. Darth Maul was a better villain than Azog. In general the Hobbit trilogy is starting to remind me of Episodes 1-3, and this is not in any way a good thing.
So, what is good about this movie? The music remains excellent. I like what they did with Thranduil - he's arrogant and petulant in a way that seems very right. Some of the scenery is pretty. Benedict Cumberbatch is good as the voice of Smaug, and the parts of his interaction with Bilbo that are from the book are lovely. That's about it, honestly.
In the negative column, large parts of the story were rushed, and other parts expanded to ludicrous proportions. The action scenes were repetitive and interminably long. The 3D added absolutely nothing. More in the spoiler section.
Speaking of which, spoilers follow. Skip to the end for the ranking.
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To begin at the beginning, I actually didn't mind the flashback to Bree, except that there is something wrong with the perspective scale between Gandalf and Thorin. Beorn, on the other hand, is terrible. The book has a whimsical quality to it. The first movie had some of this, a lightheartedness, a sense of fun. The Beorn section of the book has this, especially in his introduction. This movie does not have it at all, anywhere, and especially not in the scene with Beorn. The best that can be said for this part of the movie is that Beorn is there, and he delivers some pretty good lines.
The time scale of this movie is horribly compressed. Everything happens much too fast. There is a sequence of the party walking through Mirkwood that implies some amount of time, but by appearances they go from the edge of the wood to the spiders to the elf prison all in the same day. This compression loses some of the grandeur of the journey. Sure, a number of things happen, but they all happen so fast that the sense of scale disappears. The river-crossing in the wood is cut completely, which is fine, but also missing is Bilbo's banter and taunting with the spiders. Instead, that scene is just another action sequence.
Meanwhile, there are the orcs. They served a purpose in the first movie, to provide urgency. In this movie, the party already has urgency - more than they should, on the compressed time scale. So the orcs just extend the running time and add action scene after action scene. The barrel ride is the most egregious example of this. They could have gone for long, beautiful helicopter shots of the barrels drifting down to Lake Town, with Howard Shore's score driving home the epic scope of the journey. Instead, we get a long, long fight scene which, while it has some inventive parts, largely consists of Legolas performing fan service.
I don't mind Legolas being in the movie. The character belongs in that place at that time. But he's basically a jedi in this movie, right up until he conveniently forgets that he has a bow in his - and I'm not kidding here - climactic fight scene with a named orc in the middle of Lake Town. Yeah, that happens.
I've heard a lot of preemptive complaints about Tauriel (also known as "the only female elf other than Galadriel"). In some ways, she is actually one of the better characters - she has motivations and emotions. On the other hand, giving her both a potential romantic involvement with Legolas and also a strong flirtation with Kili is a bit overboard.
And speaking of Kili, what was the point of splitting the party? I suppose we will find out in the last movie if there is some reason, but I don't expect to like it.
Bard is okay. I liked his family, and much of the interactions between people in Lake Town that didn't involve the Master. The Master and his lackey were ridiculous caricatures that I would like to ignore.
Finally, Erebor. In the book, as I recall, they spend a long time on the mountain looking for the door. Once they finally find it, Bilbo goes in and steals a cup. Smaug wakes up, notices the cup is missing, has a hissy fit, flies around and tries to burn the dwarves, then destroys the door when they take shelter, trapping them inside. He then flies off to Lake Town, and the dwarves don't actually find out what happens for a while. In the movie, there are chase scenes, and then more chase scenes, and then forges and a statue that defies physics and more chase scenes. Did I mention there are chase scenes? I'm guessing that Jackson wanted to make the dwarves more responsible for the outcome than they were in the book, but he went way, way overboard. Everything in Erebor took much too long and had no point, except for the parts that were actually in the book, which is to say Bilbo's conversation with Smaug. And even then, in the movie much of that conversation happens with Bilbo not wearing the ring, which is silly - Smaug should have just killed him. But the filmmakers backed themselves into a corner ten years ago by making the Ring so obviously linked to the spirit world.
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In conclusion, this is a deeply flawed movie that erodes any trust I still had in Jackson after he thought it was a good idea to cover Radagast in bird crap. I will still see the final movie next December, but I no longer have faith that the completed trilogy will be at all worthwhile.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
32. Carrie
33. The Great Gatsby
34. The Lone Ranger
35. This is the End
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
32. Carrie
33. The Great Gatsby
34. The Lone Ranger
35. This is the End
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Carrie
I saw Carrie back in October. I have not seen the original, and am not a horror fan or a Stephen King fan (though his time travel book 11/22/63 was very good). I primarily went to see the movie because it stars Chloe Grace Moretz, who has been fantastic in every movie in which I have seen her (Kick Ass, Let Me In, Hugo, Kick Ass 2).
After I got home, I posted the following on Facebook: Carrie: well, it passes the Bechdel test...
Then I sat on the review. The problem is that I didn't like the movie very much, and my problems are with the plot. Unless the remake has substantial plot changes from the original, that means I don't like that either... and yet the original Carrie is one of those films that everyone is supposed to know and like. I haven't seen a surprising number of those films, and I decided that I would hold off on a review of the new Carrie until I had seen the original, so that I could judge it fairly.
A month and a half later, it seems unlikely that I will actually do so. So, my review for the Carrie remake in the absence of any substantial knowledge of the original:
Chloe Grace Moretz once again turns in a find acting performance. Unfortunately, the role she is given has some pretty serious logical problems (not to be confused with the character's psychological problems). I was willing to overlook the movie's many shortcomings until the ending, which was atrociously bad.
So, I can't recommend the movie on its own merit, and though I can't usefully compare it to the original, I can't imagine that the new one improves on the old. It ranks as high as it does only because of Moretz's performance.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. Carrie
32. The Great Gatsby
33. The Lone Ranger
34. This is the End
After I got home, I posted the following on Facebook: Carrie: well, it passes the Bechdel test...
Then I sat on the review. The problem is that I didn't like the movie very much, and my problems are with the plot. Unless the remake has substantial plot changes from the original, that means I don't like that either... and yet the original Carrie is one of those films that everyone is supposed to know and like. I haven't seen a surprising number of those films, and I decided that I would hold off on a review of the new Carrie until I had seen the original, so that I could judge it fairly.
A month and a half later, it seems unlikely that I will actually do so. So, my review for the Carrie remake in the absence of any substantial knowledge of the original:
Chloe Grace Moretz once again turns in a find acting performance. Unfortunately, the role she is given has some pretty serious logical problems (not to be confused with the character's psychological problems). I was willing to overlook the movie's many shortcomings until the ending, which was atrociously bad.
So, I can't recommend the movie on its own merit, and though I can't usefully compare it to the original, I can't imagine that the new one improves on the old. It ranks as high as it does only because of Moretz's performance.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. Carrie
32. The Great Gatsby
33. The Lone Ranger
34. This is the End
Frozen
Frozen is an animated musical from Disney which is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen. Really, really loosely. The two stories do not even share any characters as far as I can tell.
Regardless, the story that Disney has come up with is a good one. Really good. The screenwriter, Jennifer Lee, also wrote Wreck It Ralph, which ended up number four on my 2012 list. Briefly, the plot centers on two princess-sisters, Anna and Elsa. As children they are close friends and playmates, but Elsa's magical gift/curse causes their parents to separate them.
Frozen succeeds for three reasons: the screenplay, the visuals, and the performances of the two leads. I saw it in 3D, and recommend the experience. Animation does 3D better than live-action to start with, and the 3D in this movie is particularly good. The two leads are Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell. You might know Menzel as the original Elphaba in Wicked, for which she won a Tony. She also had a good part in Enchanted. Kristen Bell is best known for Veronica Mars, but has a musical theater degree and has been on Broadway twice. Both of them are marvelous in this movie.
The movie is at times whimsical and fun, and at times heartbreakingly sad (the 40-ish mother to my right cried several times). It is a kid's movie, obviously, but one that adults should enjoy as well. As long as you are not categorically opposed to musicals, and your heart isn't frozen, I think you will like this movie.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. The Great Gatsby
32. The Lone Ranger
33. This is the End
Regardless, the story that Disney has come up with is a good one. Really good. The screenwriter, Jennifer Lee, also wrote Wreck It Ralph, which ended up number four on my 2012 list. Briefly, the plot centers on two princess-sisters, Anna and Elsa. As children they are close friends and playmates, but Elsa's magical gift/curse causes their parents to separate them.
Frozen succeeds for three reasons: the screenplay, the visuals, and the performances of the two leads. I saw it in 3D, and recommend the experience. Animation does 3D better than live-action to start with, and the 3D in this movie is particularly good. The two leads are Idina Menzel and Kristen Bell. You might know Menzel as the original Elphaba in Wicked, for which she won a Tony. She also had a good part in Enchanted. Kristen Bell is best known for Veronica Mars, but has a musical theater degree and has been on Broadway twice. Both of them are marvelous in this movie.
The movie is at times whimsical and fun, and at times heartbreakingly sad (the 40-ish mother to my right cried several times). It is a kid's movie, obviously, but one that adults should enjoy as well. As long as you are not categorically opposed to musicals, and your heart isn't frozen, I think you will like this movie.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Frozen
5. Now You See Me
6. The World's End
7. Ender's Game
8. Despicable Me 2
9. Star Trek: Into Darkness
10. Thor: The Dark World
11. Oblivion
12. Pacific Rim
13. Rush
14. Iron Man 3
15. Kick Ass 2
16. Man of Steel
17. Jack the Giant Slayer
18. Beautiful Creatures
19. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
20. The Family
21. RIPD
22. Oz the Great and Powerful
23. Epic
24. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
25. The Wolverine
26. Elysium
27. Monsters University
28. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
29. The Grandmaster
30. Machete Kills
31. The Great Gatsby
32. The Lone Ranger
33. This is the End
Friday, November 22, 2013
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
My review of the first Hunger Games movie looks reasonably positive, but it ended up number 20 of 28 on my list for 2012. The two main problems with it were the obnoxious overuse of shakycam and a certain lack of punch. It was certainly violent, brutal, and depressing, but I wanted it to be more violent, more brutal, like the book was.
Catching Fire is everything I wanted it to be. Mercifully, the new director only uses shakycam for scenes with frenetic motion, not for stationary dialogue. And, with the work of setting up the world and the characters out of the way, the second movie can spend all of its time dwelling on how awful awful the world is, and how desperate and unhappy the characters are. This is a good thing. It does mean that if you didn't see the first movie, you're likely to be completely lost, so go see it first.
This movie, as with the first one, rides on the performances of its two main actors. Josh Hutcherson is good as Peeta - not brilliant, but it's not a part that lends itself to brilliance. Peeta is important, but the books are first person, and he is not the viewpoint character. That is Katniss, and Jennifer Lawrence is perfect. She was good in the first movie and is better in the second. This is not at all an easy character, either. Peeta is pretty straightforward, without much in the way of complexity. Katniss is cold, stubborn, distrustful, strong and yet fragile, terrified and trying not to show it, and is still magnetically likable. That is a remarkable achievement. Also, do yourself a favor and watch or read some of Lawrence's interviews. She plays the press game like no one else.
The rest of the cast is mostly the same, with a couple notable additions. For the returners, the most notable are Donald Sutherland, who turned in a magisterially understated performance as President Snow; Elizabeth Banks, whose Effie Trinket was just obnoxious in the first movie but in the second becomes an interesting character; and Lenny Kravitz, whose capable acting was a huge surprise the first time around and who continues to impress. The important newcomers are Sam Claflin's Finnick, Jena Malone's Johanna, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's Plutarch Heavensbee. The former two are capable and entertaining, but the latter is superb as the new Games master.
I won't say anything about the plot except to say that it stays true to the book as far as I remember. You are fairly likely to leave the theater cursing Lionsgate for their decision to split the final book, Mockingjay, into two parts, which means we will have to wait until 2015 to see the end.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Now You See Me
5. The World's End
6. Ender's Game
7. Despicable Me 2
8. Star Trek: Into Darkness
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Oblivion
11. Pacific Rim
12. Rush
13. Iron Man 3
14. Kick Ass 2
15. Man of Steel
16. Jack the Giant Slayer
17. Beautiful Creatures
18. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
19. The Family
20. RIPD
21. Oz the Great and Powerful
22. Epic
23. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
24. The Wolverine
25. Elysium
26. Monsters University
27. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
28. The Grandmaster
29. Machete Kills
30. The Great Gatsby
31. The Lone Ranger
32. This is the End
Catching Fire is everything I wanted it to be. Mercifully, the new director only uses shakycam for scenes with frenetic motion, not for stationary dialogue. And, with the work of setting up the world and the characters out of the way, the second movie can spend all of its time dwelling on how awful awful the world is, and how desperate and unhappy the characters are. This is a good thing. It does mean that if you didn't see the first movie, you're likely to be completely lost, so go see it first.
This movie, as with the first one, rides on the performances of its two main actors. Josh Hutcherson is good as Peeta - not brilliant, but it's not a part that lends itself to brilliance. Peeta is important, but the books are first person, and he is not the viewpoint character. That is Katniss, and Jennifer Lawrence is perfect. She was good in the first movie and is better in the second. This is not at all an easy character, either. Peeta is pretty straightforward, without much in the way of complexity. Katniss is cold, stubborn, distrustful, strong and yet fragile, terrified and trying not to show it, and is still magnetically likable. That is a remarkable achievement. Also, do yourself a favor and watch or read some of Lawrence's interviews. She plays the press game like no one else.
The rest of the cast is mostly the same, with a couple notable additions. For the returners, the most notable are Donald Sutherland, who turned in a magisterially understated performance as President Snow; Elizabeth Banks, whose Effie Trinket was just obnoxious in the first movie but in the second becomes an interesting character; and Lenny Kravitz, whose capable acting was a huge surprise the first time around and who continues to impress. The important newcomers are Sam Claflin's Finnick, Jena Malone's Johanna, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's Plutarch Heavensbee. The former two are capable and entertaining, but the latter is superb as the new Games master.
I won't say anything about the plot except to say that it stays true to the book as far as I remember. You are fairly likely to leave the theater cursing Lionsgate for their decision to split the final book, Mockingjay, into two parts, which means we will have to wait until 2015 to see the end.
1. Gravity
2. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Now You See Me
5. The World's End
6. Ender's Game
7. Despicable Me 2
8. Star Trek: Into Darkness
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Oblivion
11. Pacific Rim
12. Rush
13. Iron Man 3
14. Kick Ass 2
15. Man of Steel
16. Jack the Giant Slayer
17. Beautiful Creatures
18. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
19. The Family
20. RIPD
21. Oz the Great and Powerful
22. Epic
23. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
24. The Wolverine
25. Elysium
26. Monsters University
27. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
28. The Grandmaster
29. Machete Kills
30. The Great Gatsby
31. The Lone Ranger
32. This is the End
Friday, November 15, 2013
Thor: The Dark World
I saw Thor: The Dark World on opening night, with Thor and The Avengers before it, all in 3D. The Avengers was #2 on my 2012 list, while the first Thor almost made the top ten in 2011. The second Thor is better than the first, but not as good as The Avengers. That movie is wonderful. The three movies together do feel like a trilogy, since Thor and Loki feature prominently in The Avengers, so it was nice to see them all in a row.
The things that work in Thor 2 are mostly the same things that worked in the first, but all the actors are more comfortable in their roles, and the story is better. Which is not to say that the story is fantastic - the Dark Elves don't have much in the way of depth. They exist to be villains, and otherwise there's not much to them. They do make pretty decent villains, though, and I rather like their ship designs.
In general, the set design and costuming are very good. I still get a bit twitchy at the obviously fake armor, but it's a fantasy/sci-fi movie and everything fits in that context. There is quite a bit more of Asgard in this movie than in the first, and it looks much better, like an actual place rather than a set painting.
As with the first movie, I was least impressed by the most decorated actors: Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins aren't bad, they're just not great. The fault for that lies partly in the writing, of course. Odin gets to chew scenery now and then, but the movie isn't about him, and Jane just isn't very interesting. She is actually much improved in the sequel, but for my taste Thor, Loki, Frigga, Darcy, and even Ian the intern are better characters.
Chris Hemsworth is outstanding once again as Thor. He is the perfect combination of brooding, brave, childish, and heroic. He's also incredibly good looking, and while the long slow shot of him walking around shirtless was certainly gratuitous, the man deserves it for the amount of work he put into getting that body.
Tom Hiddleston has quite the fan following, and while I don't think he's that attractive, he is very very good at the part of Loki. I appreciated having a more nuanced role for him, in which he is not the primary villain. He gets scenes that are both wonderfully emotional (one involving an illusion in his cell, in particular) and comic (the walking scene with Thor is probably the best part of the film). And while that last scene is great for reasons other than Hiddleston's acting, he did help pull it off.
This movie sort of passes the Bechdel test - there is a scene where two women exchange words that aren't necessarily directly about a man. It is still a very male-centric movie, though, given that the main characters are Thor, Loki, and Malekith (the main Dark Elf). Jane has her moments as the only female major character, and Darcy, Frigga, and Sif all have good parts in limited roles.
As far as racial representation, this movie is somewhat confusing. As in the first Thor, the Asgardians are mostly white except for Heimdall, who is inexplicably black. The token Asian character, Hogun, is revealed to come from an entire world of Asians. I don't know what to make of that.
But is it fun? Yes. Thor: The Dark World has some good action sequences, once of which is quite inventive; it has romance, some of which is cute; it has a surprising amount of humor - not too much, but of high quality.
I liked it rather a lot.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Ender's Game
6. Despicable Me 2
7. Star Trek: Into Darkness
8. Thor: The Dark World
9. Oblivion
10. Pacific Rim
11. Rush
12. Iron Man 3
13. Kick Ass 2
14. Man of Steel
15. Jack the Giant Slayer
16. Beautiful Creatures
17. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
18. The Family
19. RIPD
20. Oz the Great and Powerful
21. Epic
22. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
23. The Wolverine
24. Elysium
25. Monsters University
26. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
27. The Grandmaster
28. Machete Kills
29. The Great Gatsby
30. The Lone Ranger
31. This is the End
The things that work in Thor 2 are mostly the same things that worked in the first, but all the actors are more comfortable in their roles, and the story is better. Which is not to say that the story is fantastic - the Dark Elves don't have much in the way of depth. They exist to be villains, and otherwise there's not much to them. They do make pretty decent villains, though, and I rather like their ship designs.
In general, the set design and costuming are very good. I still get a bit twitchy at the obviously fake armor, but it's a fantasy/sci-fi movie and everything fits in that context. There is quite a bit more of Asgard in this movie than in the first, and it looks much better, like an actual place rather than a set painting.
As with the first movie, I was least impressed by the most decorated actors: Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins aren't bad, they're just not great. The fault for that lies partly in the writing, of course. Odin gets to chew scenery now and then, but the movie isn't about him, and Jane just isn't very interesting. She is actually much improved in the sequel, but for my taste Thor, Loki, Frigga, Darcy, and even Ian the intern are better characters.
Chris Hemsworth is outstanding once again as Thor. He is the perfect combination of brooding, brave, childish, and heroic. He's also incredibly good looking, and while the long slow shot of him walking around shirtless was certainly gratuitous, the man deserves it for the amount of work he put into getting that body.
Tom Hiddleston has quite the fan following, and while I don't think he's that attractive, he is very very good at the part of Loki. I appreciated having a more nuanced role for him, in which he is not the primary villain. He gets scenes that are both wonderfully emotional (one involving an illusion in his cell, in particular) and comic (the walking scene with Thor is probably the best part of the film). And while that last scene is great for reasons other than Hiddleston's acting, he did help pull it off.
This movie sort of passes the Bechdel test - there is a scene where two women exchange words that aren't necessarily directly about a man. It is still a very male-centric movie, though, given that the main characters are Thor, Loki, and Malekith (the main Dark Elf). Jane has her moments as the only female major character, and Darcy, Frigga, and Sif all have good parts in limited roles.
As far as racial representation, this movie is somewhat confusing. As in the first Thor, the Asgardians are mostly white except for Heimdall, who is inexplicably black. The token Asian character, Hogun, is revealed to come from an entire world of Asians. I don't know what to make of that.
But is it fun? Yes. Thor: The Dark World has some good action sequences, once of which is quite inventive; it has romance, some of which is cute; it has a surprising amount of humor - not too much, but of high quality.
I liked it rather a lot.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Ender's Game
6. Despicable Me 2
7. Star Trek: Into Darkness
8. Thor: The Dark World
9. Oblivion
10. Pacific Rim
11. Rush
12. Iron Man 3
13. Kick Ass 2
14. Man of Steel
15. Jack the Giant Slayer
16. Beautiful Creatures
17. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
18. The Family
19. RIPD
20. Oz the Great and Powerful
21. Epic
22. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
23. The Wolverine
24. Elysium
25. Monsters University
26. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
27. The Grandmaster
28. Machete Kills
29. The Great Gatsby
30. The Lone Ranger
31. This is the End
Friday, November 1, 2013
Ender's Game
Executive summary review: In my opinion, they did not screw it up. If that's all you were looking for, go ahead and go see it and let me know if you agree.
For those who are now confused, Ender's Game is based on a book (which in turn was based on a short story). The book won the Nebula and the Hugo awards, has been suggested reading for the Marine Corps, and was extremely influential in my youth. It's kind of a big deal.
Before I get into the rest of the review, a word about Orson Scott Card. I'm well aware that Card's political and social views are controversial at best. Much worse can be said about them. I do not condone his positions, and will not defend him. If you object to seeing this movie because you dislike Card's opinions and actions, I will not try to argue you out of it.
One of the worries that has often been expressed about a movie adaptation of Ender's Game is that the main character is mostly nine or ten years old in the book. Asa Butterfield, who plays Ender in the movie, is 16 as of this writing, and was probably 15 for the majority of filming. Clearly, this is a very significant difference, especially because Ender's youth, and the nature of childhood, is a central focus of the book. While some of the impact is indeed lost because of Asa's age, he does an extraordinarily good job of expressing vulnerability even while his character is strong, and innocence even while he is the smartest person in the room. This is the fine acting performance that I was hoping for when I heard he was cast as Ender, based on his work in Hugo.
The rest of the children are mostly solid, but with few standouts. There are a lot of them, and very little time and screen to establish personalities. One of my minor gripes with this film is that Petra was not as strong a character as I had hoped she would be. She has a prominent part, as she should, but played more as a mentor/almost romantic interest than as a person in her own right. This is especially disappointing because the actress playing her, Hailee Steinfeld, was brilliant in True Grit.
This is the most ethnically diverse cast I recall seeing in a major Hollywood movie. The driving force of the plot is the International Fleet, and I am very glad that the studio actually used the right actors for the jobs. There is the matter of casting Sir Ben Kingsley, who is Indian and British, as the half-Maori Mazer Rackham, but he does a fine job in the role. His tattoos, while not mentioned in the book, serve a purpose in the narrative of the movie.
Women don't fare quite so well in the movie. While there are a number of girls in the background, there are only four female characters to speak of, and only one of those is actually her own character. Petra, Valentine, and Mrs Wiggin all exist to support Ender, and have no narrative role other than this. Only Major Anderson is really a strong character, though she is quite good. Interestingly, her role is the most substantially changed from the book, in which Major Anderson was male, and was the officer in charge of the game, not a psychologist.
There are, of course, other changes from the book. A number of plot points were rearranged or compressed in order to fit into the movie format. There are two changes that I consider particularly important, though. One is the complete removal of the Locke/Demosthenes plotline. I understand that this needed to be done for time, but it's still disappointing, as its absence removes much of the context of what is going on in space. The second is the removal of Command School to a place a bit farther than the one in the book, and the apparent introduction of faster-than-light travel. While the movie can (and does) gloss over this point, it's a pretty significant change to the setting.
The visual effects in the movie are good, but not awe-inspiring in the way that Gravity was. The Battle Room sequences, which are still crucial to the plot even though they're compressed heavily, are quite good. It looks like the weightlessness simulation was done with wires, but well done. Since actual microgravity is hard to come by for filming purposes, and the kind of tricks they used on Gravity couldn't work on this scale, I think they did the best they could.
Ender's game is a story about youth, intelligence, humanity, and violence. The film is not as moving as the book, and misses out on a good deal of the political commentary, but is still powerful.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Ender's Game
6. Despicable Me 2
7. Star Trek: Into Darkness
8. Oblivion
9. Pacific Rim
10. Rush
11. Iron Man 3
12. Kick Ass 2
13. Man of Steel
14. Jack the Giant Slayer
15. Beautiful Creatures
16. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
17. The Family
18. RIPD
19. Oz the Great and Powerful
20. Epic
21. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
22. The Wolverine
23. Elysium
24. Monsters University
25. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
26. The Grandmaster
27. Machete Kills
28. The Great Gatsby
29. The Lone Ranger
30. This is the End
For those who are now confused, Ender's Game is based on a book (which in turn was based on a short story). The book won the Nebula and the Hugo awards, has been suggested reading for the Marine Corps, and was extremely influential in my youth. It's kind of a big deal.
Before I get into the rest of the review, a word about Orson Scott Card. I'm well aware that Card's political and social views are controversial at best. Much worse can be said about them. I do not condone his positions, and will not defend him. If you object to seeing this movie because you dislike Card's opinions and actions, I will not try to argue you out of it.
One of the worries that has often been expressed about a movie adaptation of Ender's Game is that the main character is mostly nine or ten years old in the book. Asa Butterfield, who plays Ender in the movie, is 16 as of this writing, and was probably 15 for the majority of filming. Clearly, this is a very significant difference, especially because Ender's youth, and the nature of childhood, is a central focus of the book. While some of the impact is indeed lost because of Asa's age, he does an extraordinarily good job of expressing vulnerability even while his character is strong, and innocence even while he is the smartest person in the room. This is the fine acting performance that I was hoping for when I heard he was cast as Ender, based on his work in Hugo.
The rest of the children are mostly solid, but with few standouts. There are a lot of them, and very little time and screen to establish personalities. One of my minor gripes with this film is that Petra was not as strong a character as I had hoped she would be. She has a prominent part, as she should, but played more as a mentor/almost romantic interest than as a person in her own right. This is especially disappointing because the actress playing her, Hailee Steinfeld, was brilliant in True Grit.
This is the most ethnically diverse cast I recall seeing in a major Hollywood movie. The driving force of the plot is the International Fleet, and I am very glad that the studio actually used the right actors for the jobs. There is the matter of casting Sir Ben Kingsley, who is Indian and British, as the half-Maori Mazer Rackham, but he does a fine job in the role. His tattoos, while not mentioned in the book, serve a purpose in the narrative of the movie.
Women don't fare quite so well in the movie. While there are a number of girls in the background, there are only four female characters to speak of, and only one of those is actually her own character. Petra, Valentine, and Mrs Wiggin all exist to support Ender, and have no narrative role other than this. Only Major Anderson is really a strong character, though she is quite good. Interestingly, her role is the most substantially changed from the book, in which Major Anderson was male, and was the officer in charge of the game, not a psychologist.
There are, of course, other changes from the book. A number of plot points were rearranged or compressed in order to fit into the movie format. There are two changes that I consider particularly important, though. One is the complete removal of the Locke/Demosthenes plotline. I understand that this needed to be done for time, but it's still disappointing, as its absence removes much of the context of what is going on in space. The second is the removal of Command School to a place a bit farther than the one in the book, and the apparent introduction of faster-than-light travel. While the movie can (and does) gloss over this point, it's a pretty significant change to the setting.
The visual effects in the movie are good, but not awe-inspiring in the way that Gravity was. The Battle Room sequences, which are still crucial to the plot even though they're compressed heavily, are quite good. It looks like the weightlessness simulation was done with wires, but well done. Since actual microgravity is hard to come by for filming purposes, and the kind of tricks they used on Gravity couldn't work on this scale, I think they did the best they could.
Ender's game is a story about youth, intelligence, humanity, and violence. The film is not as moving as the book, and misses out on a good deal of the political commentary, but is still powerful.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Ender's Game
6. Despicable Me 2
7. Star Trek: Into Darkness
8. Oblivion
9. Pacific Rim
10. Rush
11. Iron Man 3
12. Kick Ass 2
13. Man of Steel
14. Jack the Giant Slayer
15. Beautiful Creatures
16. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
17. The Family
18. RIPD
19. Oz the Great and Powerful
20. Epic
21. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
22. The Wolverine
23. Elysium
24. Monsters University
25. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
26. The Grandmaster
27. Machete Kills
28. The Great Gatsby
29. The Lone Ranger
30. This is the End
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Machete Kills
Machete Kills is a B-movie. It's Mexploitation. It's stupid, vulgar, and ridiculous. I enjoyed it.
This is a sequel to 2010's Machete, which was based on a fake trailer that was part of Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino's 2007 B-movie homage Grindhouse. It stars Danny Trejo, who is Hollywood's go-to man when they need a Mexican villain. He plays the titular Machete and, as the title suggests, his main function is to kill people.
The plot is basically unimportant, not very coherent, and insanely unrealistic. But if you go into this movie looking for coherence or realism, you're doing it very, very wrong. If you're looking for a movie where guys with guns routinely run into machete range instead of shooting, you're on the right track. And if your idea of a good movie includes the electrocution scene in the trailer, you're the target audience.
The acting is nothing to write home about either, though Rodriguez does manage to once again get a lot of big names for his low-budget film. The best of these is Charlie Sheen, and I love that his credit is "and introducing Carlos Estevez." Speaking of budget, the first Machete cost $10 million, and I really hope they didn't spend much more than that on this one, considering it has the 8th-worst opening weekend among movies released in 2500 or more theaters.
Sadly, the terrible box office results for this film might deprive us of the final installment in the Machete trilogy, Machete Kills Again: In Space, the trailer for which runs in front of Machete Kills. Hopefully Rodriguez has enough money and influence from his Spy Kids and Sin City franchises to get the third film done. It will be as terrible as the first two, but it seems a shame to leave this mesmerizingly bad series unfinished.
Explaining why I enjoyed this movie is somewhat difficult; it doesn't have much in the way of good qualities. It is, however, enthusiastically invested in its badness, which I find charming. I can imagine the cast and crew enjoying making a film that doesn't even try to be good, and laughing that someone spent millions of dollars so they could do so.
More concretely, I enjoyed the brainless-action-movie aspect of Machete Kills, and the spy parody aspect. There were actually some pretty good action bits, and some really inventive ways of killing bad guys. I've seen movies with ten times the budget of this one that weren't much better, though they did have better production values of course.
If you're in the mood for a B-movie some time, Machete Kills might be worth watching, though it's probably a good idea to wait for Netflix.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Pacific Rim
9. Rush
10. Iron Man 3
11. Kick Ass 2
12. Man of Steel
13. Jack the Giant Slayer
14. Beautiful Creatures
15. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
16. The Family
17. RIPD
18. Oz the Great and Powerful
19. Epic
20. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
21. The Wolverine
22. Elysium
23. Monsters University
24. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
25. The Grandmaster
26. Machete Kills
27. The Great Gatsby
28. The Lone Ranger
29. This is the End
This is a sequel to 2010's Machete, which was based on a fake trailer that was part of Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino's 2007 B-movie homage Grindhouse. It stars Danny Trejo, who is Hollywood's go-to man when they need a Mexican villain. He plays the titular Machete and, as the title suggests, his main function is to kill people.
The plot is basically unimportant, not very coherent, and insanely unrealistic. But if you go into this movie looking for coherence or realism, you're doing it very, very wrong. If you're looking for a movie where guys with guns routinely run into machete range instead of shooting, you're on the right track. And if your idea of a good movie includes the electrocution scene in the trailer, you're the target audience.
The acting is nothing to write home about either, though Rodriguez does manage to once again get a lot of big names for his low-budget film. The best of these is Charlie Sheen, and I love that his credit is "and introducing Carlos Estevez." Speaking of budget, the first Machete cost $10 million, and I really hope they didn't spend much more than that on this one, considering it has the 8th-worst opening weekend among movies released in 2500 or more theaters.
Sadly, the terrible box office results for this film might deprive us of the final installment in the Machete trilogy, Machete Kills Again: In Space, the trailer for which runs in front of Machete Kills. Hopefully Rodriguez has enough money and influence from his Spy Kids and Sin City franchises to get the third film done. It will be as terrible as the first two, but it seems a shame to leave this mesmerizingly bad series unfinished.
Explaining why I enjoyed this movie is somewhat difficult; it doesn't have much in the way of good qualities. It is, however, enthusiastically invested in its badness, which I find charming. I can imagine the cast and crew enjoying making a film that doesn't even try to be good, and laughing that someone spent millions of dollars so they could do so.
More concretely, I enjoyed the brainless-action-movie aspect of Machete Kills, and the spy parody aspect. There were actually some pretty good action bits, and some really inventive ways of killing bad guys. I've seen movies with ten times the budget of this one that weren't much better, though they did have better production values of course.
If you're in the mood for a B-movie some time, Machete Kills might be worth watching, though it's probably a good idea to wait for Netflix.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Pacific Rim
9. Rush
10. Iron Man 3
11. Kick Ass 2
12. Man of Steel
13. Jack the Giant Slayer
14. Beautiful Creatures
15. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
16. The Family
17. RIPD
18. Oz the Great and Powerful
19. Epic
20. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
21. The Wolverine
22. Elysium
23. Monsters University
24. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
25. The Grandmaster
26. Machete Kills
27. The Great Gatsby
28. The Lone Ranger
29. This is the End
Monday, October 7, 2013
Rush
Rush is a movie about car racing. If you don't care about cars or racing, odds are pretty good you won't like this movie. You're also unlikely to enjoy this movie if you're squeamish - there's a fair amount of graphic depiction of injuries. There's also gratuitous nudity.
All of those things definitely belong in the world of this movie, though. Rush is based on a true story, and appears to mostly follow what actually happened. The main characters are James Hunt, a British playboy, and Niki Lauda, a cerebral Austrian. Their rivalry was the central story in the 1976 Formula One season, which is also the focal point of the movie.
I am assured that the cars themselves are accurate, and certainly the major crash which is mentioned in the trailer is faithfully reproduced. The video is on YouTube, so it's easy to check. Some off-track details are apparently less accurate, but in general the film appears to capture the spirit of the two drivers. Their polar opposite personalities are a large part of why the story is compelling.
And it is compelling. The two main characters are both broken in fascinatingly different ways, and watching their lives collide and shatter is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes infuriating, sometimes funny, but never boring.
The movie's main flaw is that neither of the main characters are likable. Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt is charismatic and irritatingly good-looking (though not as good as he looks in Thor), but the character is so obviously self-destructive that it's hard to root for him. Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda is surly and rude (and eerily resembles the real Niki Lauda, complete with overbite), so it's hard to root for him. Neither one is a hero, and while this is depressingly realistic, it makes for frustrating cinema at times.
Regular readers will know that I complain frequently about shakycam. This movie has shakycam, and I had a bit of a headache coming out of the theater, but I have no complaints about the camerawork. It was painful and disorienting at times, but it wasn't done without reason. These cars were monsters, and the rough camerawork during the racing scenes conveys that in a visceral way that nothing else could have.
In sum: Rush is a racing movie that is really about the interactions of two talented but deeply flawed men whose rivalry played out on the world stage and back stage, with lives and large amounts of money at stake.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Pacific Rim
9. Rush
10. Iron Man 3
11. Kick Ass 2
12. Man of Steel
13. Jack the Giant Slayer
14. Beautiful Creatures
15. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
16. The Family
17. RIPD
18. Oz the Great and Powerful
19. Epic
20. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
21. The Wolverine
22. Elysium
23. Monsters University
24. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
25. The Grandmaster
26. The Great Gatsby
27. The Lone Ranger
28. This is the End
All of those things definitely belong in the world of this movie, though. Rush is based on a true story, and appears to mostly follow what actually happened. The main characters are James Hunt, a British playboy, and Niki Lauda, a cerebral Austrian. Their rivalry was the central story in the 1976 Formula One season, which is also the focal point of the movie.
I am assured that the cars themselves are accurate, and certainly the major crash which is mentioned in the trailer is faithfully reproduced. The video is on YouTube, so it's easy to check. Some off-track details are apparently less accurate, but in general the film appears to capture the spirit of the two drivers. Their polar opposite personalities are a large part of why the story is compelling.
And it is compelling. The two main characters are both broken in fascinatingly different ways, and watching their lives collide and shatter is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes infuriating, sometimes funny, but never boring.
The movie's main flaw is that neither of the main characters are likable. Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt is charismatic and irritatingly good-looking (though not as good as he looks in Thor), but the character is so obviously self-destructive that it's hard to root for him. Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda is surly and rude (and eerily resembles the real Niki Lauda, complete with overbite), so it's hard to root for him. Neither one is a hero, and while this is depressingly realistic, it makes for frustrating cinema at times.
Regular readers will know that I complain frequently about shakycam. This movie has shakycam, and I had a bit of a headache coming out of the theater, but I have no complaints about the camerawork. It was painful and disorienting at times, but it wasn't done without reason. These cars were monsters, and the rough camerawork during the racing scenes conveys that in a visceral way that nothing else could have.
In sum: Rush is a racing movie that is really about the interactions of two talented but deeply flawed men whose rivalry played out on the world stage and back stage, with lives and large amounts of money at stake.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Pacific Rim
9. Rush
10. Iron Man 3
11. Kick Ass 2
12. Man of Steel
13. Jack the Giant Slayer
14. Beautiful Creatures
15. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
16. The Family
17. RIPD
18. Oz the Great and Powerful
19. Epic
20. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
21. The Wolverine
22. Elysium
23. Monsters University
24. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
25. The Grandmaster
26. The Great Gatsby
27. The Lone Ranger
28. This is the End
Friday, October 4, 2013
Gravity
Gravity is a science fiction film which takes place in space, but this is not Star Wars. This is hard science fiction, as realistic as the filmmakers could manage. It is an intimate, personal story which reminds me strongly of 127 Hours. Both movies are set in inhospitable wastelands and follow characters who are stranded in dire circumstances with little hope of survival and less of rescue.
Also like 127 Hours, Gravity relies on strong performances from its very small cast of actors. George Clooney is perfect as Matt Kowalski, the veteran astronaut on his last mission. Sandra Bullock is outstanding as Ryan Stone the scientist out of her depth. The movie depends on their skill as actors, and they are up to the task. I expect award nominations, at least for Bullock and maybe for both.
This movie is gripping, tense, absorbing, and absolutely gorgeous. I saw it in 3D on one of the fancier screens, and I recommend paying extra to do the same. The views of and from space are tremendously beautiful and should be seen as large as possible.
This movie is also a work of art from a filmmaking perspective. I don't know how the low-gravity effects were done, and I don't really care. I care that they were good enough that I didn't want to nitpick at moments where the physics might have been a bit off. Along with the technical achievement of the gravity effects, Alfonso Cuaron chose to film in long, long takes. I'm a sucker for long takes - anyone can take miles of film and chop watchable bits out of it, then string them together into something watchable, but it takes real discipline and planning on the part of the entire cast and crew to film a ten-minute continuous shot. These were beautifully complicated shots, too, with lots of moving and panning and dialogue and effects. Best of all, it was the perfect artistic choice: long scenes to compliment the vast setting. Wonderful work.
Gravity easily takes the top spot on the list so far this year, and I expect it to stay in the top five. I have nothing negative at all to say about it. The only way I can think of someone not liking it is bad expectations. So understand that this is a character-centric thriller/disaster movie, not an action movie or a sci-fi film with fantastical elements. And see it on the biggest screen you can find.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Iron Man 3
9. Pacific Rim
10. Kick Ass 2
11. Man of Steel
12. Jack the Giant Slayer
13. Beautiful Creatures
14. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
15. The Family
16. RIPD
17. Oz the Great and Powerful
18. Epic
19. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
20. The Wolverine
21. Elysium
22. Monsters University
23. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
24. The Grandmaster
25. The Great Gatsby
26. The Lone Ranger
27. This is the End
Also like 127 Hours, Gravity relies on strong performances from its very small cast of actors. George Clooney is perfect as Matt Kowalski, the veteran astronaut on his last mission. Sandra Bullock is outstanding as Ryan Stone the scientist out of her depth. The movie depends on their skill as actors, and they are up to the task. I expect award nominations, at least for Bullock and maybe for both.
This movie is gripping, tense, absorbing, and absolutely gorgeous. I saw it in 3D on one of the fancier screens, and I recommend paying extra to do the same. The views of and from space are tremendously beautiful and should be seen as large as possible.
This movie is also a work of art from a filmmaking perspective. I don't know how the low-gravity effects were done, and I don't really care. I care that they were good enough that I didn't want to nitpick at moments where the physics might have been a bit off. Along with the technical achievement of the gravity effects, Alfonso Cuaron chose to film in long, long takes. I'm a sucker for long takes - anyone can take miles of film and chop watchable bits out of it, then string them together into something watchable, but it takes real discipline and planning on the part of the entire cast and crew to film a ten-minute continuous shot. These were beautifully complicated shots, too, with lots of moving and panning and dialogue and effects. Best of all, it was the perfect artistic choice: long scenes to compliment the vast setting. Wonderful work.
Gravity easily takes the top spot on the list so far this year, and I expect it to stay in the top five. I have nothing negative at all to say about it. The only way I can think of someone not liking it is bad expectations. So understand that this is a character-centric thriller/disaster movie, not an action movie or a sci-fi film with fantastical elements. And see it on the biggest screen you can find.
1. Gravity
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Now You See Me
4. The World's End
5. Despicable Me 2
6. Star Trek: Into Darkness
7. Oblivion
8. Iron Man 3
9. Pacific Rim
10. Kick Ass 2
11. Man of Steel
12. Jack the Giant Slayer
13. Beautiful Creatures
14. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
15. The Family
16. RIPD
17. Oz the Great and Powerful
18. Epic
19. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
20. The Wolverine
21. Elysium
22. Monsters University
23. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
24. The Grandmaster
25. The Great Gatsby
26. The Lone Ranger
27. This is the End
Friday, September 13, 2013
The Family
I decided to see The Family on the strength of its trailer. I was expecting a dark comedy with violence and a mafia theme. I love it when a film delivers on the trailer's promise. I also appreciate that most of the trailer's good scenes are relatively early in the film and therefore not spoilery.
What I wasn't expecting was a foreign film. Despite the American cast, the movie was shot in France and directed by Luc Besson. This is neither a negative nor a positive, just not what I was expecting.
This is not a complicated movie. It's light fun - as long as you're okay with sociopaths and mob violence. Briefly, the plot follows a family of four - parents and their teenage son and daughter - who are in the witness protection program, and have taken refuge in France.
Much of the movie's action (and charm) derives from how completely terrible they are are keeping their heads down and not making waves. Their ineptness is a direct result of their insanity, which is to say their lack of impulse control and basic morality. If De Niro and Pfeiifer weren't such great actors, their characters would probably be really unlikable.
The children are in some ways more interesting than the adults. They are distinct, complex characters, and while for the most part their plot arcs are merely side stories, they play relevant parts in the resolution of the main plot. They are also less cliched than the adults, which is a nice bonus.
The remaining major character is Tommy Lee Jones' FBI agent. The interaction between him and De Niro is quite lovely. They effortlessly bring a familiar tension which fits the relationship of the characters, who are allies but not friends. Bonus points to the screenwriter for giving them witty, snarky things to say to each other.
I enjoyed the movie. It is more laid-back than I think an American production of the same story would be. It drags a bit in the middle. But its parts are well-constructed, and the climax was satisfying, with one caveat: given my earlier assertion that the four main characters are all sociopaths, I thought some of the emotional reactions in the ending were out of character.
This movie is rated R for a reason - it has plenty of violence, much of it gratuitously bloody, and also a fair amount of swearing. The swearing wasn't gratuitous, though.
It ranks as low as it does on my list because while it was fun, it wasn't all that memorable.
1. Much Ado About Nothing
2. Now You See Me
3. The World's End
4. Despicable Me 2
5. Star Trek: Into Darkness
6. Oblivion
7. Iron Man 3
8. Pacific Rim
9. Kick Ass 2
10. Man of Steel
11. Jack the Giant Slayer
12. Beautiful Creatures
13. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
14. The Family
15. RIPD
16. Oz the Great and Powerful
17. Epic
18. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
19. The Wolverine
20. Elysium
21. Monsters University
22. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
23. The Grandmaster
24. The Great Gatsby
25. The Lone Ranger
26. This is the End
What I wasn't expecting was a foreign film. Despite the American cast, the movie was shot in France and directed by Luc Besson. This is neither a negative nor a positive, just not what I was expecting.
This is not a complicated movie. It's light fun - as long as you're okay with sociopaths and mob violence. Briefly, the plot follows a family of four - parents and their teenage son and daughter - who are in the witness protection program, and have taken refuge in France.
Much of the movie's action (and charm) derives from how completely terrible they are are keeping their heads down and not making waves. Their ineptness is a direct result of their insanity, which is to say their lack of impulse control and basic morality. If De Niro and Pfeiifer weren't such great actors, their characters would probably be really unlikable.
The children are in some ways more interesting than the adults. They are distinct, complex characters, and while for the most part their plot arcs are merely side stories, they play relevant parts in the resolution of the main plot. They are also less cliched than the adults, which is a nice bonus.
The remaining major character is Tommy Lee Jones' FBI agent. The interaction between him and De Niro is quite lovely. They effortlessly bring a familiar tension which fits the relationship of the characters, who are allies but not friends. Bonus points to the screenwriter for giving them witty, snarky things to say to each other.
I enjoyed the movie. It is more laid-back than I think an American production of the same story would be. It drags a bit in the middle. But its parts are well-constructed, and the climax was satisfying, with one caveat: given my earlier assertion that the four main characters are all sociopaths, I thought some of the emotional reactions in the ending were out of character.
This movie is rated R for a reason - it has plenty of violence, much of it gratuitously bloody, and also a fair amount of swearing. The swearing wasn't gratuitous, though.
It ranks as low as it does on my list because while it was fun, it wasn't all that memorable.
1. Much Ado About Nothing
2. Now You See Me
3. The World's End
4. Despicable Me 2
5. Star Trek: Into Darkness
6. Oblivion
7. Iron Man 3
8. Pacific Rim
9. Kick Ass 2
10. Man of Steel
11. Jack the Giant Slayer
12. Beautiful Creatures
13. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
14. The Family
15. RIPD
16. Oz the Great and Powerful
17. Epic
18. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
19. The Wolverine
20. Elysium
21. Monsters University
22. Hansel and Gretel, Witch Hunters
23. The Grandmaster
24. The Great Gatsby
25. The Lone Ranger
26. This is the End
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