Ouija: Origin of Evil

This is so close to being a Lifetime Channel movie it’s uncanny. A widowed mom and her 2 kids struggle to make the house payments. An evil man (in the form of a ghost) shows up to wreak havoc on their lives. Only the fact that it’s a period-piece and the acting is pretty good distinguishes this from those Saturday M.O.W.s. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. Until the final moments, when a dogpile of twists undermines the skillfully rendered plot thus far, it’s pretty creepy. It almost feels like the final moments were filmmaking by committee -- lawyers or uncreative executive types forced ridiculous twists and sequel set-ups into a fairly solid story to squeeze every last dollar out of the project. It’s like a cake with way too much frosting. Be that as it may, this movie accomplishes exactly what I’m sure it aspired to do: scare 13-year-old girls and not embarrass itself in the process.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

There was a time when I couldn’t WAIT for the next Tim Burton movie. But I wasn’t that excited about this one, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I never read the book? Nevertheless, it feels like someone copied the style of Tim Burton, but it doesn’t feel like Burton, and again I’m not sure why. The characters, the children in the home for peculiar children, all seem very similar: Polite, well-dressed, well-spoken, and very British. They’re not peculiar as much as they’re horribly deformed, but are trying their best to fit in by dressing nicely. I think the “X-MEN: mutants are okay” theme gets a little lost, which is too bad. There’s a jumpy, time-travel plot, which always means the stakes are pretty low, since all setbacks can be corrected. And there are some MAJOR logic holes. But Eva Green is good, so there’s one in the win column. The bottom line is: special effects have peaked. We can do anything now FX-wise, so to fill a movie with visuals just isn’t enough. We need a return to storytelling. I felt very “meh” about this, which is not the way I want to feel about a “Tim Burton movie.”

Hell or High Water

Texas. Beer. Guns. Throw in a couple of well-meaning bank robbers and you got yourself a movie. The cast is great here. The pace is brisk. The action is tense. And there’s no bad guy. The bad guy is the bank that low-balls sick people and repos their houses. So it’s not even that the story is so original or that the plot is so strong. These are pretty conventional pieces. It’s the THEME that makes this so good. It makes you want to rob a bank.

The Magnificent Seven

So you have a black guy, a Mexican guy, a Chinese guy, a Native American, a guy with PTSD, a giant person, and an addict. Is that seven? Yep, that’s seven. And the message is clear: when the discriminated-against minorities band together, then they can defeat armies of the establishment – white males who marginalize everyone so they can keep their power. Spoiler alert: There might be some martyrs for the cause. But sometimes you have to force change. There were no women in the "seven." Maybe they’ll make a sequel: The Magnificent 8?

Don't Breathe

When you boil this down, it’s a pretty conventional horror movie. College kids wander into a place they’re not supposed to be and suffer the consequences. There’s excellent cause and effect here, and a great use of setting and space. But like all movies in this genre, the characters lack basic common sense, and that can be frustrating. Jane Levy carries this – she’s always been good. And the pace and short running time keeps you engaged. So it’s slightly better than the average version of this type of thing. It’s a hit. I’m happy for Ghost House. But reinvent the wheel? They did not.

Suicide Squad

I’ll be curious to see the David Ayer/director’s cut of this if it ever gets released. They say WB hired the company who cut the trailer to spice this up a little bit. But it feels hackneyed and rushed. Lengthy segments feel like they were skipped over. Bottom line: Margot Robbie is good as Harley Quinn, but it’s hard to know what her super villain power is. Is she just a super smart-aleck?? Is that enough? Oh, and also: Jared Leto was TERRIBLE as The Joker. It makes you wonder if that’s why they had to hack up the movie.

The D.C. universe is 0 for 3. Here’s hoping Wonder Woman can rescue them all.

Lo and Behold

Werner Herzog’s new doc is about the origins of the internet. But it’s also about how the internet changed and affected society, in positive and negative ways. It’s a thoughtful essay, narrated, of course, by Herzog himself, whose poetic, German-accented whispery-ness hypnotizes and coaxes, but never proselytizes about his subjects. Gripping and enlightening.

Sausage Party

Hot dogs look like penises! Yay!

War Dogs

What if the characters in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET were war profiteers? WAR DOGS takes the zany, foul-mouthed bro-mance approach, enticing and then destroying the young, money-hungry whippersnapper anti-heroes with dreams of riches and financial security. Better than most movies like this, filmmakers do a good job of explaining exactly how their business worked, and how it was possible for it to go completely off the rails. So, it was actually educational and informative. It won’t make a huge splash, but it’s well-acted, it moves quick, and it’s captivating.

Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie

I never watched this show, so there were a lot of inside jokes that I probably didn’t get. But the women are funny and I laughed. You can sense the desperation in the characters as they get older, but try to hang on to their old lives. Aren’t we all!

Jason Bourne

Overall, during a stale, disappointing summer of movies, this is a serviceable and enjoyable action movie. What was always different about the “Bourne” movies was the long takes and raw urgency. Unfortunately, Matt Damon doesn’t do the hand-to-hand the way he used to -- when the characters really seemed like they were trying to kill each other. But the raw urgency is still there. There are several epic set-pieces which are a thrill to watch, but what’s wild is: these are now becoming conventional. The new thing is: How does Jason Bourne hide from the evil higher-ups when there’s such a huge lack of privacy? Does he turn evil, government turncoats spying/privacy playbook against them? How? Has he been taking computer classes?

Batman: The Killing Joke

First of all, I’m proud to say I saw this in the theater.

Anyhoo… “Many critics consider the graphic novel to be the definitive Joker story and one of the best Batman stories ever published.” There was a lot of pressure on the DC/WB animation department to get this one right. They did a GREAT job with THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS. Using the cast from the 90’s era animated series is a great step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this kinda sucked. The original book is short. It wouldn’t even make a half-hour episode. So they added an entire prelude to this involving Batgirl, which wasn’t at all terrible, but, you know, it just wasn’t THE KILLING JOKE. So, it didn’t really fit. Also, spoiler alert, Batgirl and Batman have steamy hot cosplay sex in this, which to my understanding, isn’t canon and seemed really silly. The small section of the movie that actually followed the book was cool, but my mood was already ruined by the prelude. Hard to recommend this. Maybe the next one, with the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward, will be better?

Star Trek Beyond

I couldn’t recall the plot if I had a phaser to my head. Suffice to say, it was a new story with new villains. Which is refreshing, since everything else about the Star Trek franchise is so well-worn and engrained. It’s entertaining, and it feels new, even though, as I said, forgettable.

Swiss Army Man

At some point during this movie, I found myself thinking, “This is why I go to the movies.” Even though there are some previously used plot points and themes in here, lifted from Castaway, Weekend at Bernie’s, and every 60’s era, live-action Disney movie, there’s something about this that feels really original. A lot of that uniqueness comes from the commitment of the actors, Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliff. There’s something very sweet and endearing about their friendship. Filmmakers have sublimely emotional aspirations here. It doesn’t always work, and the ending is a little disappointing, but… If you want something funny and weird and completely different from a super-hero movie: dive on in.

The Lobster

I hated this movie, but I’m not sure why, because it seems like something I would like. I’m okay with quirky, but I’m annoyed by quirky for quirky’s sake. When the rules of the quirky universe don’t have inner logic, then it’s really just an artistic jerk-off with no real point. There are laughs and the performances are astute. But when the themes and motifs contradict one another and can easily be deconstructed and ripped apart, than I start getting angry. I hate leaving the theater angry.

Nice Guys

Funny, and lot of throwback, signature Shane Black-isms, if there is such a thing. There’s a great physicality to this film, and excellent, action-movie cause and effect. There are times when it almost feels like a Warner Brothers/ Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon; the McGuffin bounces around from person to person and bullets fly and guys go careening through plate-glass windows, cracking wise the whole time. It’s all good fun.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Andy Samberg has proven himself to be consistently funny in Brooklyn 99. So with nothing to “prove”, he can just go out and be as silly as possible. Last summer’s HBO movie Seven Days in Hell did just that, and it acts as a precursor to this: a still R-Rated but more mainstream spoof. Like most of the Lonely Island sketches on SNL, the appeal of the songs was always that they were a little bit catchy, actually somewhat competent. The same is true here, especially a love/booty jam about Osama Bin Laden. Like The Rutles and CB4, there’s interviews and performances with real popstars, doing their best to play it straight. Pink is great here. It’s everything you’d expect from a Lonely Island movie, it’s funny and catchy, and it might inspire you to get on Youtube and look back at their old catalog.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Underwhelming and unremarkable. Performance wise, Lawrence and Fassbender do the heavy lifting, but unfortunately they find themselves standing around waiting for Oscar Issacs to finish his long speeches. Funny enough, there’s not a lot of action for an action movie. Like the last movie, Quicksilver gets his solo, which works, and the cameo from Wolverine kicks ass, as it should. It’s not terrible, but it feels a bit phoned in.

X-Men always seems to work best when it serves as an  allegory for discriminated-against minorities. There’s little smatterings of that here, especially with Cyclops’ origin story. But there needs to be more. Weird, blue Egyptian Gods bloviating entertains only for so long.

Keanu

It’s no surprise that a "Key & Peele" movie would just be a bunch of sketches strung together. While the plot of the movie is thin, there are laughs and there is a little bit of social commentary. What does it mean to be black? What does it mean to be tough? Why are these things expected to go hand-in-hand? This won’t really resonate, but wasn’t a waste of time either.

Money Monster

George Clooney says it’s not about Jim Cramer. It’s about the system. But the problem with this is: it turns out not to be an indictment of the system. There’s one guy, an evil British villain who broke the law, mislead investors, etc, etc. That being said, for what it is: Dog Day Afternoon meets Network, is a decent thriller, well-acted and well-directed by Jodie Foster. But I can almost hear the studio notes as I’m watching it. “There has to be a villain. A system can’t be a villain.”

Captain America: Civil War

** SPOILERS**

We need to talk about Bucky. He’s not himself. He’s either being brainwashed or framed or something by a German dude, who has no superpowers. And we should all fight about it. But maybe that’s what the evil, German dude wants??

I guess that’s as good a reason as any for superheroes to fight. Bucky seems like a peripheral character, and whether or not he’s in control of his actions or not doesn’t seem like it would warrant all of this superhero posturing and hullaballoo. But revelations happen, as they often do, and now vengeances must be strenuously undertaken.

The huge cast of this movie is remarkable. There are a lot of really expensive Oscar-types in supporting roles. The abundant action is thrilling and also somewhat track-able (But it’s no Mad Max). The visual effects are, of course, unparalleled. The music is good. Someone cared about this movie. Someone wanted audiences to get their money’s worth. Is it a great movie? Nah. Not really. But it gets an “A” for effort.

It’s hard to really predict when the bombardment of superhero movies will end, and how they’ll keep people’s interest going forward. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to Marvel’s Netflix shows: The scaled-back, day-to-day life of a costumed vigilante (Daredevil, Jessica Jones). For now, the “battle of the network stars” business model is fun, but is it sustainable? Why am I worried about the business model??  

Everybody Wants Some!!

It’s classic Rick Linklater. Like Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Suburbia, and Boyhood before it, it’s a movie driven by characters and theme, but the plot is a little fluid. Strong themes exploring the nature of young men forming a team, bonding, trying to fit in, and trying to get laid proliferate. And at the end of the movie, after the college baseball teammates have been to a disco, a country bar, and a punk bar trying to meet women, you kind of get it: It’s all an essay about having a posse, a tribe. Like other Linklater movies, there are a couple of young actors who turn in classic, star-making performances here: (think Ethan Hawke, Matthew McConaughey): remember the names Juston Street and Glenn Powell. But everybody in the ensemble cast is solid.  Linklater seems to be determined to prove that you don’t need a strong plot to invoke strong feelings.

Batman vs Superman: The Dawn of Justice

Who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman? Superman, obviously. But what if Batman had a weapon made of kryptonite? Well, then all bets are off, right?? I know: let’s spend 400 million dollars to answer the questions that stump eight-year-olds.

There are images in this that are beautiful. Perfectly composed, spectacularly lit, sublime. It’s too bad Zack Snyder and his team won’t hold on these beautiful compositions for more than a nanosecond. It’s also too bad that the script makes zero sense and seems like it was written by the eight-year-olds that were asking all those tough questions in the first place. The plot is baffling. If someone who understands it could please call me and explain it to me, that would be great.

Batman and Superman are both having dreams in this. The dreams seem to be important, and function as Easter eggs for the fans of the Justice League canon. But they do nothing but bog this movie down, because they make absolutely NO SENSE. Thanks for playing to the fans, but come on, guys, the movie still needs to be cohesive!

Like a lot of superhero sequels, this movie is guilty of biting off too much. It was the same story with Man of Steel: Make a five-hour movie, then cut it down to two. Affleck gets to make his own Batman movie at some point. Maybe he’ll bring the storytelling chops he brought to Argo and The Town.

I Saw the Light

This biopic of Hank Williams obeys all of the musical biopic tropes with strict adherence. He’s talented. He becomes famous. He abuses his women. His life spirals down in a maelstrom of booze and pills. Repeat. Tom Hiddleston and Elizabeth Olson are top-notch, but the script is choppy and episodic. There’s no build up or crescendo to anything emotionally satisfying. So, it’s good for Hank Williams fans, I think, but just as a movie? Meh.

10 Cloverfield Lane

The only people who have bomb shelters and doomsday vaults are the conspiracy-nut kooks, right? So, when the apocalypse hits, which it inevitably will, all the normal people will be dead and only the bomb shelter kooks will be left alive, right? That’s the premise of 10 Cloverfield Lane. John Goodman masterfully realizes his paranoid rube, kidnapping, but also pretending to protect his captors. As an audience, it really makes you want the characters to try their luck on the outside world rather than deal with this nutball. Besides, was there even an apocalypse? How can you be sure if you’re not even allowed to look out a window? The pressure builds and the suspense piles on as the small cast of characters philosophically speculate over the fate of the world. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is strong here; resourceful and not the least bit victimy. Credit goes to the writer (Dan Casey) for straying from female victim stereotypes. It’s a big, satisfying ending, thankfully not too J.J. Abramsy, who seems to be intent on jerking his audiences around lately with a lot of questions and cliffhangers. It suffices to say: there’s answers.

The Perfect Match

Saw this again in a theater.

The Perfect Match

Watching Jorva’s theatrical release, on which I was Associate Producer. The ensemble elements of this work well. I wish Lionsgate had put this in more theaters.

Hail, Caesar!

Made as a love letter to all things Hollywood. Moments of this are hilarious, but seem to be laser-guided to people who know about or work in the movie industry. It’s essential satire too, and an appropriate companion piece to Trumbo. During the red scare, what did people think was going to happen? This preposterous what-if culminates in Channing Tatum, a closeted song-and-dance man, paddling out to sea to rendezvous with a Russian sub, carrying a headful of American “secrets.” McCarthyism brilliantly pushed to its illogical conclusion by the Coens, winking as fast as they can. Of all the Coens' rotating cast of repertory players -- the ensemble of nutballs -- there’s one standout: the new kid. Alden Ehrenreich nails his dopey cowpoke character, who’s way more sharp and sensible than his first appearances would demonstrate. There’s big laughs in this, at least for Hollywood types. Who knows if the rest of the world will get it?

Deadpool

Hey, hey! It’s an X-MEN comedy! There’s big laughs in this. A lot of fourth wall breaking and winking at the audience. It’s like a "Rocky and Bullwinkle" cartoon.  The action scenes aren’t all that original and kind of bereft of suspense and excitement. Typical punching and fighting and smart-alecky bravado is par for the course. But the zingers zing. And Deadpool gets to have a girlfriend, and she’s not so innocent either. So this is worth seeing for the gags, even if Deadpool gets tortured for a little too long, and the action is better on the Daredevil Netflix series. 

Spotlight

The journalists are the heroes, taking their jobs very seriously. They back up their stories with quotes, they verify and corroborate their sources, getting confirmations and second confirmations. You know: journalism. In this day and age, where TMZ style “journalism” rules, where the major news organizations prop-up and egg-on a clown candidate without asking any tough questions so they’ll see how outrageous he’ll become, we as a society could take a few lessons from these guys at the Boston Globe. The movie-making itself isn’t mind-blowingly original. The acting is subtle; not screamy. Scenes flow with suspense, drama, and finesse, but no one fights a bear. I guess you could say Spotlight is the polar opposite of The Revenant: it’s subtle, meaningful, and, most of all, relevant.

Steve Jobs

I’m a big, big fan of Danny Boyle. He has a true signature style. So it’s interesting to see his strong, bold style get trumped by someone with even MORE signature style: Sorkin. So this is really Sorkin-ish. Very Sorkiny. Fassbender and Winslet are both fantastic here and the rhythm of the dialogue and the scenes is like great jazz, it’s never anything but utterly gripping. But, I wonder what’s the PURPOSE of this movie? What does it teach us? Does it intend only to entertain and engage, like music? What should we take away? It makes you think a LOT about Apple and computers, and how much innovation happened in the span of 14 years. It also seems to be intent on branding Jobs as a big asshole with a lot of really nice people around him. A lot of questions about Jobs get asked, but a lot of answers are not provided. Worth watching for the cadence of it all, but as a drama, the final act seems like it’s missing.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Second viewing. 

More relaxing and enjoyable the second time around, and it’s more clear to me that this is obviously Rey’s story. Which makes it all the more infuriating that the filmmakers intentionally mislead about who she is and where she’s from. It’s not an episode of Lost, JJ. The only way that the filmmakers can reveal her origins is by introducing a series of flashbacks. So suddenly it’s an Alias episode. Most of the series hasn’t used the flashback as a narrative device, but then again I suppose you could argue that episodes 1, 2, and 3 are flashbacks after seeing 4, 5, and 6 first. Also, Rogue One will be taking place between 3 and 4, as does the TV show Rebels. So I guess we’re signed up for flashbacks and time jumps now, which means they never have to finish anything and they never have to explain anything. I’m sure the corporate big-wigs aren’t too worried about knowing who Rey is or selling the Rey toys. She is, after all, just a girl. Why would she be important? They even left her character out of the Star Wars monopoly game. One only hopes it’s just a mind game, and we all underestimate how important she’ll become in the galaxy.

Doug's Favorite Movies of 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road
Inside Out
The Martian
Amy
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
The Big Short
Kingsman: The Secret Service
What We Do in the Shadows

The Hateful Eight

Lots to admire about this 70mm print. It's beautifully filmed; you can practically see every snowflake in dazzling detail. Sam Jackson is great here, and is so much more memorable than the "Avengers" movies or "Kingsman." Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh are also captivating, as they bite into this three-hour Mexican standoff. But as fun as it was to watch, I’m not sure if it was ABOUT anything. There doesn’t seem to be a point or a theme. Revenge? Redemption? Violence is bad? The old west was terrible? Women had it rough? My favorite of Tarantino’s is still Kill Bill, in which the themes of revenge and motherhood are so strong.

The Big Short

If you told me that Adam McKay, SNL writer and director of numerous Will Ferrell comedies, would make one of the most biting, interesting, and incendiary movies of the year, I probably wouldn’t believe you. But here you have it: a comedy/tragedy, happily missing traditional narrative structure, featuring multiple protagonists, no real good guys, scheming, wheeling, and dealing to bet against the U.S. economy. There are frequent laughs as the ensemble breaks down the fourth wall to explain banking things to the audience. But it’s not like they’re heroes, right? They’re kind of scumbags. So, it’s morally very confusing, but also brilliant. Because the filmmakers know that most of us don’t understand these banking terms and this jargon. But the characters in the movie do, and they take advantage of this superior knowledge to make fools out of everybody for their own financial gain. The experience of watching it is light, breezy and funny. But the ride home is a little different, when we start to realize how much we all lost during the housing crisis. Purely original and creative filmmaking by everyone involved, this is guaranteed to garner a best picture nomination.

Revenant

I have never been crazy about Alejandro Iñárritu. I have found most of his movies to be irritating, self-indulgent, and derivative. I didn’t like Birdman. So I’m not a fan to begin with. While there are beautifully directed sequences, it just felt like a Terrence Malick rip-off to me. The New World meets John Ford. The acting is strong especially from Leonardo DiCaprio, who absolutely delivers, with full commitment, to his role as a tracker, surviving and bent on revenge. The moving camera is amazing. But this movie is histrionic and it lacks subtlety. It’s just not that entertaining. I found myself making wise-cracks in my head about the “bombast” of it all. I kind of wish Terrence Malik had actually directed it. It might’ve had some more quiet and interesting moments.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

** SPOILERS INCOMING! **

Volumes and volumes and volumes could be written about this. I don’t really know where to begin. Suffice it to say, I loved watching it, but felt let down at the end by the unanswered questions. I felt like the filmmakers were jerking the audience around a little bit by omitting key details to create suspense. A small example: the giant Sith lord was revealed to be a hologram. Then why did he have to be giant? Why couldn’t he have been the same size as the other holograms in the series? This kind of misdirection permeates throughout the movie, and after a while it gets frustrating.

It’s clearly Rey’s story, and Daisy Ridley is a revelation. It’s too bad the filmmakers leave much of her back-story off screen. Star Wars taught us more about Luke Skywalker in 30 minutes than this movie teaches us about Rey in two hours. Director Abrams is known for his TVish cliffhangers and ambiguities. I think he uses them as a crutch. It’s time to answer some questions, JJ.

The release of this movie has people in the media pissing on the prequels. The bad acting. The dumb stories. Jar-Jar. But there were positives to the prequels that people forget: Lucas never let you forget that you were in a galaxy far far away. The different planets and the different worlds were always foreign and beautiful. Giant, otherworldly buildings, waterfalls, oceans, and ships flying by painted the backgrounds in a way that the current movie does not. In The Force Awakens, efforts to set the scene were meager, and settings often just look like a field somewhere in England.

My other problem: How the hell do you make a Star Wars movie without R2-D2 in it?? The hero of the WHOLE SERIES as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, I could go on and on. I plan on seeing it again, and a lot of people say that the second viewing is better. I’m happy that Star Wars is back, but the jury is still out on JJ Abrams and the gimmickry of this particular chapter.

Legend

Ever-present Tom Hardy acts up a storm as the twin, British gangsters. His technique is fascinating, the differences and similarities between the two brothers. The post-production effects and editing team deserve some credit for this, melding the two performances together. But the device of the story, that it’s narrated by Frances, Reggie’s (spoiler alert) dead wife, feels confusing and gimmicky. That is not to say that Emily Browning doesn’t turn in an interesting performance either, especially since she’s up against the scenery-chomping Hardy. Worthwhile as a little slice of mafia history, but not remarkable.

Trumbo

Finally a movie about this ugly period of American history. It took long enough, but I can see why filmmakers might be reluctant to expose Ronald Reagan and John Wayne for the myopic hatemongers that they were. The movie itself is very conventional, almost intentionally so, as though it were made in the 50’s. Performances are all solid, especially Cranston, who embodies his noble screenwriter with technique and aplomb. I like the movies when the screenwriter is the hero.

Once Upon a Crime: The Borrelli Davis Conspiracy

A very powerful doc surrounding the frame-up of a restaurant owner and former NYPD cop, Mike Borelli, by the Denver Police. Not only did Denver police frame Borelli, mainly because he was Italian, but they framed his old friend Bob Davis, too, also a cop. It’s infuriating and an absolute travesty of injustice what happened to these men. The film is very well-made and highly emotional. Confusing at first, because of the barrage of names the audience is hit with early in the film. But the story becomes clear as Borelli and Davis emerge, both incredible models for patience and forgiveness. A highly admirable work of art, as it sets out to change minds and right wrongs. It will make you sad and it will make you angry, and that’s the point.

The Peanuts Movie

Many clever ideas went into this reboot/update of the beloved comic. Filmmakers understand the essence of Charlie Brown and Snoopy and give them each subplots capturing the innocence of Schulz's original strip but with modernized visuals. As much as people say they love the old cartoons, visually speaking, let's face it: they were a bit 2D and boring. Animators give this incarnation some dimension, some zip, and it works without robbing the world and characters of their timelessness. In fact, there are several very cool sequences incorporating the old comic strip look as a new device, which I won’t give away, but it’s very cool. Bottom line, this is a great kids movie. But by kids movie, I mean kids. 3-6. They’ll be moving on to superheroes after age 6. For nostalgic purposes, adults will see this, but studios won’t always be able to bank on that.

The Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

Competent zomedy. Could have been worse.

Spectre

** SPOILERS. LOTS OF 'EM **

... starts out with an amazing action sequence in Mexico, delivering all you could ever want in a Bond movie. But the rest of the movie is kind of by-the-numbers, never blowing the lid off of the genre the way Mission Impossible did over the summer. There are moments of levity that feel like throwbacks to the Roger Moore era, which is nice. But Craig seems like he’s playing it too deadpan, bored with his job, as an actor and a spy. The casting of Christoph Waltz and the guy who plays Moriarty in Sherlock feels lazy. Cast guys who have already played famous villains as villains? Meh. If you’ve got Mission Impossible and Mad Max to compete with, you’re going to have to surprise me a little.

Bridge of Spies

With Spielberg directing a Coen brothers script, you would think this would be a fireball. Instead, it’s a muted drama about negotiation. Hanks embodies his insurance lawyer expertly as he confidently negotiates with badass, cold-war spies and diplomats. What’s nice about this, too, is learning a little piece of American history that I never knew.

Unfortunately for Spielberg, Janusz Kaminski, and the rest of the highly talented artists who worked to depict the cold war era as moodily as possible, the projectionist at the AMC Cherry Creek mall cinema didn’t care enough to focus the projector in the theater, mostly ruining the look of the movie. It’s no wonder everybody’s staying home and watching Netflix these days. I should go on Yelp and complain. Yep. That’s what I should do.

The Walk

Joe Levitt is the consummate and dedicated professional, willing to fully commit to his roles, emotionally and physically. (50/50, Inception) When you’re listening to his French accent, you just have to trust that it’s accurate and he didn’t learn it from watching Peppy LePew, even though sometimes he sounds a bit like Peppy Lepew, and/or Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau.

Because we know the World Trade Center doesn’t exist anymore, every frame of this movie has to be made digitally from scratch. An amazing feat, and an emotional tightrope of sorts. Because this movie intends to move the audience to reimagine the twin towers as new, amazing pillars of architecture. Filmmakers attempt to help us forget, for a while, the images of the burning, crumbling, ground-zero targets that are constantly being used to re-justify the war in Iraq.

 So there’s a sense of child-like wonder here. Of optimism. And it’s a nice sentiment. As for the plot and characters, that’s all secondary to the experience of watching the movie. Having your knees buckle in the theater as the “camera” swoops up, down, and all around the high-wire act. It’s more like a ride than a movie. Don’t bother watching it on video, it won’t work. Ultimately, it’s an achievement in technology, not story-telling. There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But just remember, you can’t complain if you watch this on Netflix and it seems fluffy and a little boring.

Pan

Doing another adaptation of "Peter Pan" is tricky business, but if ever there was anybody to do it, it would be Joe Wright. The imagination here is incredible. Flying ships, flying children, and shit-ton of visual fairy dust. Unfortunately, the script and some of the choices are weird. There’s an awkward use of modern music that sticks out like a fart in church. The plot, and Peter’s "quest," is baffling and goes unfulfilled. The CGI is the star here, which is not enough.

The Martian

** SPOILER ALERT! **

 Ridley Scott has been hit and miss lately, but this is a hit and I recommend it. In a perfect, beautiful, laser-guided plot-point, 15 minutes into the movie Matt Damon’s character Mark Watney declares, “I’m not going to die here.” Filmmakers choose to avoid this astronaut’s personal life, and instead focus their terrestrial b-plot on the NASA scientists determined to get him home, but also avoid what seems like an inevitable P.R. disaster. Meanwhile, Watney’s Castaway on Mars adventure is tense and watchable; surviving with potatoes, duct-tape, and disco music. (There’s a surprising amount of levity in these scenes…) While it’s true you never think he’s going to die, it’s fascinating watching him stay calm as he leaps the next hurdle by the skin of his teeth. I’m happy for Sir Ridley, who’s made a couple of duds lately. (The Counselor, etc.) At 78, he’s still a maestro of science fiction, attempting projects most of his contemporaries would never touch, and occasionally succeeding far more visibly than his prodigy. (think Interstellar.) Nominations are forthcoming.

Pawn Sacrifice

... made me think a lot about mental illness. The movie implies that Bobby Fisher may have been mentally ill, but also that maybe some of his episodes were strategic ways to distract his opponents. Either way, like a lot of depictions of successful, money-making schizophrenics, the people around them seem to ignore the symptoms just to make more money. Toby McGuire’s strong portrayal of Bobby Fisher isn’t a cute and cuddly version of mental illness; he’s kind of a dick and he’s almost dangerous. It’s a worthwhile biopic about an interesting subject. It’s well-acted, well-directed, perfectly paced, and a strong think-piece about exploiting the mentally-ill. Kudos to McGuire, Knight, Zwick, et al.

Sicario

Another cop fable with lots of morally ambiguous characters. Cops in bed with criminals and cops breaking the law, but only to cut off the head of the snake. Lots of law enforcement clichés. It’s well-shot, and there are several really exciting sequences. Emily Blunt is like a new action hero, bringing a fully-formed character to the table; confused by the grey areas she’s been pulled into. Unfortunately, the story steers away from her for a while, and there’s a noticeable shift of who is the protagonist and what is the tone. It’s worth seeing for Blunt and the photography, but there’s no real resolution at the end, which is like being in the shower and running out of hot water, but still being covered in shampoo.

Black Mass

This movie wants so badly to be a Scorsese movie. Every frame feels lifted from Goodfellas or The Departed. But just copying Scorsese’s style may not be enough, despite of the best efforts of all involved. Turns out, the story may also be a factor. The story feels hacked-up, episodic, and never builds or crescendos into any kind of emotional climax. So what if the acting is good and the accents seem authentic? If there isn’t a satisfying ending, you’re going to feel… meh.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

I feel like I’ve seen a lot of spy movies lately, which is not necessarily a bad thing. This particular Guy Ritchie yarn is more of a comedy than an action movie, which is fine. Not that the spies here aren’t formidable or the action isn’t actiony. Superman and The Lone Ranger make for imposing agents, but the best moments are the ones that are going for laughs. Droll moments of physical shtick while the fuzes are lit. It’s unique, too, that it’s a re-boot, or re-hash, but it takes place in its original time period. So there’s a lot of 60’s clothes and 60’s tech. Will audiences like that? I’m not sure. (It reminded me a little bit of X-MEN: First Class.) Anyway, it’s a likeable and watchable movie. Ritchie cheats a bit by rewinding the timelines a little and showing you scenes from other characters viewpoints, so as to explain confusing plot-points. As long as you trust him, I suppose, he can do what he wants. The bottom line is, every summer movie should be AT LEAST this good.  

Straight Outta Compton

This music bio-pic starts out well, depicting how the members of NWA form and become hugely influential. The emphasis is more on the lives of the players rather than the music, which is fine because the drama is high, but I wish there was more music, too. Performances are all solid, especially from a relative unknown, Jason Mitchell, as Eazy-E, the drug-dealer turned record label owner who hates doing the paperwork. Important, also, seeing the reminders of the 1992 L.A riots, and how similar it was to current police protests in Missouri, etc. The way the police hassled people back then is infuriating. How much has changed?? It runs long and some of the arguments about contracts can get a little tedious. So, it doesn’t deviate that much from a typical music biopic, but during the too infrequent times when it is musical, the audience was rapping along.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

This was awesome. It’s not like we haven’t seen a car chase through the Moroccan streets. And it’s not like we haven’t seen a fight in the rafters while the opera is going on, but there’s just something better about this. I think it’s the directing by Christopher McQuarrie. He’s not the most experienced director, but he seems to care a LOT about where the camera is to make sure we can follow the action and that nothing is disorienting. "Mad Max" and "Mission Impossible" have made an old school return to continuity; a huge relief when most action movies are so shaky and cutty that you can’t follow what’s going on. There’s also a counter spy, played by Rebecca Ferguson, who essentially steals the show right out from under Tom Cruise. She’s a badass and never a damsel in distress, and either Cruise lucked-out by having her, or he’s a genius for getting her. Either way, we all know that Tom is batshit crazy. It’s all you can think when he’s clinging to the side of a plane mid-flight. But he aims to please. And if movies are going to be $19, they better be worth the money. This was.

Trainwreck

There are a couple of big laughs here, but I didn’t find this to be the mind-blowing, trail-blazing feminist masterpiece that the world thinks it is. There are bits in the movie that have nothing to do with the “story” and were clearly inserted just to be funny, which is fine. But when this supposedly raunchy comedy starts to get all serious and there’s group hugging, I start to tune out. No raunchy comedy should have crying and/or group hugging. Also, the cynic in me realizes that adding male sports stars brings in more of a male audience, which evens out the demographics in what would otherwise be a very female-skewing movie about sisters and dying parents and stuff. So I don’t feel like the comedy is coming from a place of real honesty. Anyway, I liked Spy better.

Ant-Man

The super-hero stakes here are small, no pun intended. The world is not about to end, and the super-villian isn’t a God trying to rule multiple dimensions. What this means is, thankfully, this is a comedy. Meaning it’s paced like a comedy. The action is light and quick, and the word play is snappy. It wouldn’t have worked without Paul Rudd, the least-likely super hero, who glides through the story like drinking a smooth, cold beer on a summer day. A likable movie that won’t really resonate in the Marvel lexicon, but there’s worse ways to spend an evening.

Amy

Unbelievably sad doc about Amy Winehouse, the singer whose only crime was that she was born too talented. Relentlessly hounded by the British paparazzi, her life lives-out like a cliché of a rockumentary: fame-hungry parents, drugs, abusive boyfriends, comebacks, and finally, the body bag wheeling away from the home. Great doc with great music and poignant insight. But sad. The wrong movie was called Train Wreck. When are we going to stop letting the tabloid press torment people to death?

Spy

We laughed. Melissa McCarthy’s spy character must suffer numerous indignities as she makes her first foray as a field agent. The script does everything it can to embarrass her, and in the wrong hands this could have been miserable. But like any good comedy, it’s a high wire act. The embarrassing things only work because of McCarthy’s funny and impatient reactions to them. And she never gives up, which makes her a hero. Also, thankfully, she’s a competent spy. She doesn’t accidentally stumble on solutions, the way they might in Get Smart or Spies Like Us. We went to see Train Wreck, which was sold out, so we saw this instead. It was a fine alternative.

Session Man

A screening at the memorial service of my screenwriting guru Seth Winston. It’s the look of glory in James Remar’s eyes when he realizes he might go on tour with his rock and roll heroes. And it’s the look of resigned disappointment in his eyes when he accepts that he may never be more than a session musician. A poignant, Oscar-winning short made by a funny, cantankerous, and deeply respected AFI prof.

Terminator Genisys

** So, So, So many SPOILERS!**

Time-travel machines are versatile. Not only can you travel through time to change the past, but they also allow you to change old movie plots. So somebody thought that the plot of the Terminator wasn’t good enough so they needed to change it. But this nullifies all of the other Terminators after the original Terminator. Meaning: T2, T2-3D (the ride), T3, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Terminator: Salvation are all nullified. Meaning that ANY time anybody wants to change anything, they can just hop in the ol’ time machine, go back, and change it. Meaning that these movies are devoid of suspense and are becoming more and more like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I was always willing to accept these paradoxes as dramatic license as long as the fights and effects were cool. Cameron’s movies were mind-blowingly innovative and beautifully cut, which raises expectations. But this. This is more like a b-movie with money. I kept waiting for the Carolco logo to roll up. There’s no risk, no innovation. It’s not a disaster, but… It’s so bereft of fun or drama, it’s like it was made with an action movie algorithm programmed by Skynet.

Inside Out

** SPOILERS **

For anyone who has seen this, it should come as no surprise that I wept like an Italian widow during the third act. It’s a profound metaphor interpreted beautifully by the Pixar studios. It’s not so much that we’re seeing anthropomorphized emotions. That’s been done before. It’s the realization that all of the human emotions deserve equal play. Riley is an eleven-year-old forced to move cities. Not really an Earth-shattering tragedy, but it is to her. Watching the emotional hierarchy in her mind is fascinating. At times there’s some chasing and hijinks in the middle that seems unnecessary. But by the final third, when the leader of the emotional core, Joy, excellently voiced by Amy Poehler, realizes that she can’t always be in charge, it’s an epiphany; a life lesson. Because she’s only eleven, Riley hasn’t yet learned that the instant she voices her sadness, she’ll feel better. To make a movie for general audiences (this is PG, which is weird) that aspires to have this much emotional resonance, Pixar not only deserves a best picture nomination, but they also probably deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jurassic World

So, it turns out, Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg, Michael Kahn, and John Williams actually bring something to the table. If you want proof, check out Jurassic World, a movie that looks like it was written, produced, and edited by a nine-year-old. All the science of Crichton’s science fiction is gone. The characters are dumb, have no common sense, and act like they’ve never seen a movie before. Bryce Dallas Howard fares the worst here, forced by filmmakers to run through the jungles in her high heels and deny that live dinosaurs are anything other than “assets.” It’s embarrassing. But she gets to do the bravest and coolest thing in the movie. Too bad Ian Malcolm did the exact same thing in Jurassic Park. It’s making a fortune, so clearly I’m out of touch.

Being Charlie

A work-in-progress by my employers. Sensitively directed by Rob Reiner based on a script written by his son Nick Reiner and his writing partner Matt Elisofon. Really strong performance by Nick Robinson as the kid with problems. And expertly edited by Bob Joyce.

San Andreas

"The entire state is collapsing in on itself, but let’s take a brief interlude to talk about our relationship. Why didn’t it work between us?"

"I don’t know. But let’s get to San Francisco where there are millions of people evacuating, so we can search for our daughter."

"Hey! Look! There she is!"

"Oh, no! A tsunami. Why is it moving toward the earthquake instead of away from it?"

"No time for questions! Just drive over it in the boat we “borrowed!”"

Journey to the South Pacific

Imax doc following a boy who fishes a lot and goes to school on a boat. Technically awesome, as always, but a dull subject.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Third viewing.

The last movie I saw three times in the theater is Casino Royale, so "Fury Road" is special. One of the topics that keeps coming up is that this movie is secretly a piece of feminism. “We are not things,” the breeders declare, as they try and escape. One of them cuts off a brutal looking chastity belt. Uttering two simple lines, you can easily conclude that Imperator Furiosa was one of those breeders; a sex slave who found a new job as a warrior when she reached a certain age. In this movie, women represent all things good. And they free the world from the tyranny of man. And Max helps out a little, but only when needed. Is it a piece of feminism? Ask yourself that after you tune into Jurassic World and watch Bryce Dallas Howard run through the jungle in high heels.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Second viewing. Spoilers galore.

There has been an uncharacteristically high number of people who have pulled me aside to talk about this movie. With both positive and negative comments, George Miller has made a big splash. You don’t hear these kind of passionate arguments, yay or nay, about Avengers 2. George Miller has lit a fuse, and it’s exciting. The second viewing helped me notice a lot more of the post-apocalyptic weirdness in the script. Many of the lines made me crack up with delight. Describing anything tragic or unfortunate as, “mediocre!” The warboys obsession with Valhalla and chrome. The slave drummers, and the slave with the flaming guitar. The cancer. Those kinds of quirks are forbidden by big studios. Which makes me think that Miller and company received less studio interference than normal. Which is great. I hope this movie makes a billion dollars.

Mad Max: Fury Road

**SPOILERS**

Boom. Here it is. The trailers promised us something, and behold. Like a shot of nitrous oxide straight into the pleasure center of the brain, George Miller and his wife, editor Margaret Sixel, deliver the daring, balls-to-the-wall summer movie we all so desperately needed. This makes Fast and the Furious look like "Winnie the Pooh." The minimal dialogue and complicated set pieces are exhilarating. But the people who say this movie is just one big chase are wrong. There is inner logic. There is cause and effect. There are bursts and lulls. During the brief periods of respite, filmmakers use their screen time judiciously giving us small tidbits of backstory; refreshingly simple and all we need to know. Maybe the best and most surprising thing about it: Mad Max isn’t even the hero! Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) is driving the war machine and the plot. Armless, covered in grease, and saving the slaves, she’s the best action hero, male or female, to emerge from the dust in a long while. She literally rips off the villain’s face!! Awesome. Thank you George Miller.

Avengers: The Age of Ultron

Enjoyable and entertaining to watch, but there’s nothing new or surprising here. I kept waiting for a big twist, or the introduction of a new superhero. Or a cameo. Something. It might be a while before a superhero movie surprises me with something different, but I’ll still keep buying tickets until then. 

Ex Machina

A nifty, little thriller with some familiar sci-fi tropes, but strong performances and a willingness to follow through on its themes.

Furious 7

This reminded me of a loony toons roadrunner cartoon. Physics and reality are left in the dust as the cars fly out of airplanes and through buildings, all while Vin Diesel gives speeches about how important family is. But at least it’s not about drag racing anymore, because that’s dangerous. That could kill you.

What We Do In the Shadows

This kiwi mockumentary about vampires is a confection that wants nothing more than to be as silly as possible. We laughed all the way through it. There are send-ups of specific vampire movies, send ups of reality shows, but also just jokes about vampire lore. There’s no gravitas, and it won’t win any awards, but Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi derserve kudos for aspiring to do nothing more than to make the audience laugh.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Spoofing James Bond to the hilt, the "Kingsman" supposes that the world can only be safe if we’re secretly protected by polite, well-dressed, extremely violent British dudes. The set-up and behind-the-scenes exploration of this secret spy organization is fun and hilarious. But it’s when the brawling starts to happen that director Matthew Vaughn really spreads his wings. Action scenes are incredible. Combining slow-motion and fast motion in violent and bloody mêlées 10 times more gruesome and visceral than his hyper-real, stunt-filled, splatter-fests in Kick Ass. The famous British dudes in the cast are all top-notch and play their dead-pan, dry-humored assassins with aplomb. Samuel L. Jackson was good as the villain, but I never really understood his plan. Lots of confusing villain rules made me enjoy him less than I should have, which is too bad. Nevertheless, one hopes for a sequel to this as well as many, many more head-exploding montages and berserker brawls from the talented Vaughn.

Jupiter Ascending

The visuals are amazing, but the story is goofy. The Wachowskis deserve major kudos for making original, big-budget, non-sequel sci-fi movies. But this movie becomes more about the action scenes, movement, and color than it does about the ideas. Without well-explored ideas about worlds beyond our own, sci-fi becomes more about the “fi” and less about the “sci.” One hopes that in the future, and maybe if they’re forced into a lower budget range, the siblings will continue to push the envelope without seeming pressured to fill the screen with action.

Big Eyes

There’s some squandered potential here. Amy Adams is always good, but Christoph Waltz misses his mark. As an abusive, sleazy, and domineering husband, he plays the part too comedically and never comes off as menacing as he should be. Without feeling like she’s in true peril, Amy Adams’ plight never seems harrowing enough. But the story of Margaret Keane is worthwhile. How often do we get to see a movie about a modern painter?

The Hobbit

It’s called the Hobbit, but it really about a bunch of dwarves, humans, elves and orcs and not much about Hobbits. Peter Jackson’s taste is still unsullied, though. Battle scenes are exciting and tense, staged in beautiful, rocky landscapes or crumbling castles. Warriors are noble, villains are evil, and the whole affair is worthwhile. This particular chapter is anticlimactic, though, and that might be the fault of the book. Bilbo’s journey is swallowed up by the various warriors and his triumphant return to the shire is a disappointment. It’s unfortunate that such a major achievement would end with a thud, but maybe that’s the cliffhanger that Tolkien intended.

Doug's Favorite movies of 2014

The Imitation Game
Whiplash
Boyhood
John Wick
Guardians of the Galaxy
They Came Together

Appendix A:

Movies that I hated that everyone else loved:

Birdman

A Most Violent Year

The rules are that I can't technically review this because I watched it on video, and only movies I see in a theater are allowed on the blog. But if I were to review it, my review would be: meh.

The Interview

It’s hard to see what all of the fuss was about. Critics complained that maybe this comedy was offending an entire culture, but I don’t agree. It only goes after the leaders, who deserve to be ridiculed. The Americans in this movie aren’t much smarter, and to say that this movie is a “declaration of war” is just ridiculous. But maybe that’s the point. If a dictator is so volatile he can be insulted by a dumb comedy, maybe he’s not fit to lead? Anyway, we laughed, we didn’t get blown up, and satire, it seems, has become the biggest threat of all.

Foxcatcher

Creepy. Creep-y. The filmmakers establish the creepy vibe in the first ten seconds of the movie and it never lets up. Channing Tatum embodies his desperate athlete with “Rocky Balboa” levels of pathos. You can sense the train wreck coming when he’s lured into the freaky world of the ultra-rich by the creepiest of rich creeps, John Du Pont, creepily portrayed by Steve Carrell. And the exposition of the theme begins in earnest. John Du Pont is one of those rich dudes who’s so rich that the rules don’t apply to him. He can revise history. He can call himself the coach of a team. “Don’t forget,” the film says. “Rich dudes can do whatever they want.” Money buys you power, even if you’re a creep.  And man, oh man, is he a creep. Unfortunately to the filmmakers, creepy also means slow. So there are times when you wish that this movie would quit it with the creepy mood and get to where the rubber meets the road. And it happens eventually, with adequately creepy results. But pacing is important. Foxcatcher understands its tone perfectly in the beginning, but squanders its good will earned in the set up by de-emphasizing the finale. Still, kudos go to all involved for sticking to their tone and their theme, even if they have to try our patients to do it.

The Imitation Game

While thousands of allied troops were storming Omaha beach, a small group of mathematicians were breaking the Nazi codes and quietly winning World War 2. It’s an amazing story; well-directed, beautifully acted, and historically reverential. It’s also heartbreaking how the British government treated Alan Turing, the genius cryptographer who built the machine that solved the Nazi puzzle. So while this is a superb and inspiring biography, it’s not a very uplifting one. But it’s a must see. Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch will earn lots of nominations and statues and stuff for this. You can bet on it.

Birdman

Unfortunately, the “hype” of this movie sabotaged it for me. I had so many people tell me how cool and wonderful it was. I had so many friends appalled that I hadn’t seen it yet. When I finally saw it, I was annoyed the whole time. It doesn’t help that I’ve never been a fan of Iñárritu. 21 Grams, Babel, and Biutiful were all style and histrionics, and felt inauthentic. Birdman feels like its trying way too hard to be cool; to be meta. Everything feels affected, precious, and forced. Yes, there are a couple of laughs, but they tend to get smothered by the inside-jokes and jerkoffiness of it all. The filmmakers seem so pleased with themselves, sticking it to the critics. I was not impressed or entertained.

The Shawshank Redemption

Always nice to see this on the big screen. A classic.

Dumb and Dumber To

The original Dumb and Dumber was not only really funny, but it was also really fresh. The Farrellys dared to go to some taboo places for laughs that most movies wouldn’t dare venture. This new iteration is still funny, but it isn’t really "fresh." It’s nice to see Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey together again, and the commitment of everyone involved is pure, but some of the gags feel a bit well-travelled.

Whiplash

It’s not like a movie about the relationship between a music student and a music teacher is so original. Student-teacher relationships are archetypal and have been explored in drama for centuries. But what’s different here is: Whiplash explodes with technique. The editor must have been freebasing “Five Hour Energy” drinks to make some of these cuts. The music scenes are frenetic, but also hyper-controlled – a lot like jazz itself, and a lot like the dick-ish band conductor skillfully played by J.K. Simmons. But I questioned his character’s motives occasionally. He seemed to cut off his nose to spite his face more than a reasonable person would deem practical. Nevertheless, his performance is electric. As is Miles Teller as the artist who is so eager to please his mentor that he’s willing to self-destruct. This is an extremely entertaining and technically superb movie, even if the exploration of the artistic dilemma hits uncomfortably close to home.

Marriage Italian Style

So, do you want to listen to people argue in Italian for two hours? Here's how:

Faults

An interesting, low-budget thriller about deprogramming a cult survivor. There are plenty of twists and turns, even though much of the movie takes place in a cramped hotel room. The money-saving techniques here are admirable. Performances are also strong, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead as the mysterious central figure. At times, the tone strays too far into slapstick comedy, which I think hurts the overall suspense. But that’s a minor qualm in an otherwise taut and suspenseful no-budget yarn.

The Homesman

What’s with all the sad movies at AFI Fest this year? Director and star Tommy Lee Jones turns in this very sad, bleak tale about an ugly, old maid(?), Hilary Swank (all-in), who agrees to transport three mentally ill women across the prairie to get help. She hires a tough old cowboy to protect her and hilarity ensues. Besides being so depressing, what this movie lacks is relationships between Swank and the ill woman. They stay quiet for the most part, which feels like a missed opportunity for some interesting drama. Falling somewhere between True Grit and Little House on the Prairie, I’m not sure who this movie is for. Western genre fans will be bored by all of the camping. Woman will be devastated by the awfulness of Swank’s situation. It’s not that it’s bad, it just lacks any hope.

The Gambler

What stands out in this remake of an old James Caan movie is that the gambler is so addicted to gambling and gets himself in so deep that you never believe he’s going to make it out of this jam alive. It becomes almost depressing to predict how much he’ll fuck up even more. Mark Wahlberg, looking scrawny and pale, delivers an unusually affecting performance. Brie Larson takes a token “girl-next-door” part and manages to make it compelling. The rest of the cast is good, too. Each loan shark and bookie more ominous than the last. While it's sometimes nauseating to watch this guy’s self-destruction, the resolution is surprisingly complete and satisfying.

Happy Valley

This is probably one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen. It’s sadder than Schindler’s List. While it’s initially sold as a documentary about the Penn State/Jerry Sandusky scandal, it becomes more about football culture and hero worship. The culture that makes football coaches into religious leaders is bound to be rocked by a scandal that mirrors the Catholic Church. When people pursue one reality too much for too long, they tend to lock-out other realities. Great movie about strong and worthy themes, but SAD. Oh, and not a date movie.

Interstellar

In the film geek world, there’s a lot of jibber-jabber about the 70mm format. Christopher Nolan is one of the filmmakers who has sworn to save film vs. video. So much of the discussion is about the format. But how’s the story? An amalgam of 2001, Contact, and the various time-travel paradoxes, it’s not very original, but it is thought-provoking. The idea of relativity plays into the plot, which makes for some exciting, imaginative hypotheticals. It’s thematically ambitious. But the science of it all keeps an arms length from the emotion. There are some boo-hoo, tissue moments, but they don’t really resonate. So while I can say it’s “cool” I can’t really say I loved it. It’s more format than function, I guess.

Inherent Vice

Sometimes a movie is a little too weird for its own good. It starts out pretty straightforward. Joaquin Phoenix is a P.I. and a woman in trouble comes looking for help. The detours from the case are numerous and nonsensical. Some of them are hilarious, some of them are just out of left field. It’s beautifully shot and the period costumes are cool, but you’re not sure what you just saw at the end of it all. Josh Brolin as an angry, broke cop is the most memorable thing about this. Otherwise, the case doesn’t make sense. Even in the masterpiece of unsolvable puzzles, “the Dude” just wanted his rug back.

Nightcrawler

A clever, low-budget potboiler in which Jake Gyllenhaal plays a sociopathic scumbag. There’s a strong and welcome opinion here about the state of TV news, but since there’s no likeable characters, it’s hard to connect with this movie on an emotional level. You watch from a distance. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it also means you leave the theater feeling kind of icky. Still, good performances all around, and it’s always nice to see Bill Paxton.

John Wick

There is something so satisfying about revenge. Something so primal and visceral. The filmmakers of John Wick understand this and skillfully tap into this primitive urge with aplomb. The filmmakers take their time, setting up Keanu’s sensitive guy – almost, but not quite, milking it. Then when the payback comes, it’s so deeply and necessarily violent. Never for a moment do you feel any sympathy for the dozens of thugs and goons Keanu wipes out on his crusade for payback. The underground world of hit-man camaraderie is also a refreshing twist on the proceedings. But it’s really the killing that matters. You can almost taste the blood. I loved this!

The Equilizer

I guess I always thought The Equalizer was about revenge and making wrong things right. There’s only a little of that here, but it’s mostly about reading books and/or shooting people and not a lot of righting wrongs. Which is too bad. Revenge is such a powerful and worthy theme, to squander that is a shame, which is what happened here. A better movie about this exact same subject, Man on Fire, also with Denzel, came out a few years ago. Check that one out instead.

Gone Girl

Any time a David Fincher movie comes out, David Fincher is the star of the movie. The actors are, for better or for worse, supporting players and the movie has visual style flying out the wazoo. But in the case of Gone Girl, it’s less of a “David Fincher” movie and much more of a “Ben Affleck” movie. Affleck has been in the movie star doghouse for a long time, and while his directing career has been going swimmingly, he hasn’t been the “star” of a big movie for a while. But he OWNS this movie and he’s pretty good in it. Yes, there is something dumb and wooden about his performance, but that’s also a big part of his character. You need to believe he’s the kind of guy who all of this stuff could happen to. It’s an old-fashioned twisty thriller and you might find yourself working out some of the logic points after the show. But it tracks, I think. Whether it does or not, it’s a fun night at the movies, albeit less “Finchery” than other Fincher movies.

Let's Be Cops

The thing that I’m not really able to get over is: this is the exact premise of an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode from season 3. That premise is slightly expanded here when fake cops begin to solve real crimes. But instead of these crimes being funny, writers take us down the well-worn and unfunny road of corrupt cops and arms dealers.  If you’re going to steal an idea, try to make it better, not worse. This was not painfully bad to watch. But it’s a re-hash, so it’s stale, and there’s no real point.