Rush

I wanted to like this. But every single creative decision is middle-of-the-road and dull. The techniques designed to keep the plot moving are obvious and amateurish. Car race announcers don’t highlight the action in the races, they narrate the plot. It’s embarrassing. “What a historic rivalry these two racers have...”, ad nauseam. We get! It’s a rivalry. Quit announcing that to us! The whole affair has the sophistication of an old Speed Racer cartoon. Too bad Tony Scott died. He could have crushed this.  

Don Jon

Taking into account all the things that could be said about modern human reproduction, Don Jon doesn’t blaze some radically new trail. But seeing as he’s one of the FEW mainstream filmmakers to even breech some of the taboos, Joseph Gordon-Levitt deserves credit. It’s unusual, too, that the structure here is unconventional. Normally, a movie would establish a main characters problems in the first few minutes, then he would spend most of the movie solving them. But here, filmmakers spend at least an hour establishing the main character, his wants and his obstacles, then the resolution presents itself surprisingly quickly. While the results are not totally unexpected, the briskness of the resolution is refreshing, and you leave the theater feeling satisfied. We all know JGL is talented. Now he can add directing to his resume. It’s a good movie.

The Grandmaster

In martial arts movies, I love it when two opponents have a rational discussion about their Kung fu styles. “I understand you are a master of cannon fist! I am a master of pumpkin palm! You should challenge me!” The Grandmaster is the quintessential example of that. But with all of the talk about fighting styles, there’s very little character development. Although the battles are choreographed beautifully, one often forgets WHAT the characters were fighting about in the first place. It’s a nice escapist dream, but unfortunately it’s an unemotional one.