Regular readers have surely noticed that the Amblog hasn't been updated in a long time. I still can't say for certain what the future holds for this space: consider it a very long, indefinite hiatus. (And don't forget to check out the What Were We Watching podcast!)
However, I am bound by tradition and ego to give my thoughts on the movies of 2015. As always, my disclaimer: Awards are silly. I like to think of this as more of a journal for posterity.
Top Whatever
Many big Hollywood blockbusters, even when they succeed in giving us a visceral thrill, still come across as programmed and choreographed. But Mad Max: Fury Road was anything but safe: it was a runaway semi truck that smartly used its franchise pedigree as a springboard instead of a crutch. Because while we don't need any more detailed explanation of honestly-who-cares mythology, we definitely need more pustulous warlords, fiery car crashes, and electric guitars that are also flamethrowers.
Vampire mockumentary: those two words accurately describe What We Do In the Shadows, and also sound like a half-hearted attempt to chase an old trend using one of the most exhausted conceits of the past few decades. Shadows is a miracle, a lively comedy about a boarding house for undead bloodsuckers in New Zealand that uses vampire lore as a starting point to exaggerate and examine the dynamics of friendship.
There are few friends on the grimy streets of Hollywood for the struggling transgender sex workers of Tangerine. Yet even in an environment that breeds despair, hardship, and heartbreak, they are able to build a world that sustains a simulacrum of family life - a reserve of humor and camaraderie to ward off the pain caused by manipulative pimps and insecure johns.
The characters of Mistress America, Noah Baumbach's latest whip-smart farce of the modern leisure class, come from more privileged backgrounds, which makes cracking their facade of sophistication a conspiratorial affair for the audience. We ultimately root for its protagonists, a wide-eyed college freshman and her dilettante stepsister, because we see a way to forgive our own silly preoccupations and fantasize about finding such opportunities to embrace true personal growth.
The truth is hazy in Sicario, a dark dispatch from the Mexican drug cartel wars. There is intense metaphoric potential in an idealistic FBI agent trying to suss out the agendas of her new partners, a smirking CIA operative and a local ally with a shadowy past, but the film admirably embodies the spirit of realpolitik. It's not a journey of heroism or cynicism - it's an innocent's initiation into a world of hard-won knowledge.
One of the best gearshifts in recent memory occurs about halfway through Room, a story told through the eyes of a 5-year-old boy who has lived his entire life as a captive in a cramped emergency shelter with his mother. While that experience is dramatic enough, Room is truly about an individual's ability to not only withstand trauma but absorb it, to let it stand as a separate part of herself and find reasons to endure beyond basic survival.
There is no way that Steve Jobs can be an accurate depiction of the events it portrays, and that is exactly why it is an essential piece of cinema. It's a breathless theatrical broadside pitting the Apple co-creator against a Greek chorus of friends and enemies (though most people are often both to Jobs) during his rise, fall, and rebirth in a natural evolution of the biopic form: taking license with the subject's chronology to gain a deeper, more meaningful understanding of his philosophy.
Don't mistake the investors and financial analysts of The Big Short for white knights - their investigation of the percolating subprime mortgage crisis that eventually brought the national economy to its knees was done in the spirit of making the rich even richer. But that only adds another layer of complexity to an already compelling, zany, and almost-unbelievable story of capitalist hubris and the average American's yearning for a slice of the good life.
As a competition between man and nature to determine which can be the harshest, The Revenant would be one of the grittiest survival stories of all time. On top of this, however, the film considers the calculus of revenge in a mountain man's quest to avenge his son despite a constant array of mortal danger, and what physically animates the body and mind after the soul has been decimated.
Finally, Anomalisa shows how the mundane can transform into the sublime, as in its tale of a motivational guru incapable of seeing individuals as anything besides dull, unimpressive automatons until he befriends a beguilingly shy fan. It's a reminder that whenever we cast ourselves as the protagonists in our own dramatic narratives, we risk ignoring the potential of the supporting players.
Other Good Stuff
Inside Out explored the complex world of human emotion with sensitivity, humor, and insight, while Ex Machina wondered if the wrong combination of those brain impulses could create something monstrous. Both Brooklyn and Carol followed budding romances in 1950s New York, one an affirmation of courage and pluck, and the other dealing with the sometimes difficult consequences of exposing one's true feelings.
Joy made a live QVC product pitch seem as tense as a scene from Network; its depiction of a modern-day Cinderella who acts as her own fairy godmother was just as refreshing. The Hateful Eight reckoned with the dubious mythology of the American West, as well as its enduring archetypes of outlaws and lawmen.
And Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the perfect kind of comfort food, basking in the warm glow of nostalgia while introducing a group of new, charismatic friends to invite into our imaginations.
Small Things In Movies That Brought Me Joy
- Mortdecai's description of The Standard, a trendy hotel on the Sunset Strip, as "a concrete brothel"
- Seth Rogen's video selfie freak-out about impending fatherhood in The Night Before
- the guy taking a moment to save his margaritas from attacking pterosaurs in Jurassic World
- Kate Winslet's subtle Eastern European accent in Steve Jobs
- the visual effects of Pixels, a benchmark in CGI/live action integration that almost nobody noticed
- Jeff Bridges using his natural accent to portray a medieval wise man in Seventh Son
Just the Worst
The lazy stereotypical humor of Get Hard, the dumb machinations of The Visit, and the overall incoherence of The Last Witch Hunter all rank as lowlights from 2015. But the top of the dung heap belongs to The Boy Next Door, a sleazy sub-Lifetime thriller starring J.Lo as a high school classics teacher sexing up a student who goes from exploited teenager to manipulative psychopath overnight.
Flawed But Fascinating
I loved the premise of It Follows without caring much for the execution - a horror film that possessed the heart of a sensitive indie drama, and managed to contain the most annoying elements of both. Some peace and quiet might have improved Tomorrowland, as its worthy message about imagination as motivation gets lost in a lot of clamor.
But how could I settle on anything other the patron saints of flawed-but-fascinating movies, the Wachowski siblings, and their baffling space opera freak-out Jupiter Ascending. Featuring a byzantine plot about extraterrestrial bloodlines, genetically-spliced human/animal hybrids, and Channing Tatum in anti-gravity rollerblades, it's completely out of sync with conventional popcorn movie tastes - which is exactly why it demands to be seen.
Biggest Disappointments
Though I already began to sour on the Marvel Cinematic Universe last year, the overstuffed and underwhelming Avengers: Age of Ultron didn't exactly inspire a change of heart. Crimson Peak was a big bummer, squandering the panache and vision of Guillermo Del Toro on a half-baked story. And while Magic Mike XXL likely met any reasonable person's expectation of a male stripper movie not directed by Steven Soderbergh, it's strange how the movie not only downshifted into guilty pleasure mode, but also was designed to disavow the existence of its more thoughtful, melancholic predecessor - a choice that reveals XXL's unflattering perception of its audience.
Most Pleasant Surprises
An adaptation of a little-known comic book starring an unknown lead and an against-type star more comfortable in romances than shoot-em-ups sounds bad on paper, yet Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the most kinetic and confident films of the year. The Gift flew under the radar during the summer, so not many appreciated how this nasty, low-key thriller subverted typical genre expectations. We already knew the deft and humorous Ant-Man was going to have a different vibe, but even after the high-profile firing of director and co-writer Edgar Wright, it still turned out to be a much-needed change of pace in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Best Performances
If you think I'm missing some heavy hitters, that's by design. I try to omit some of the obvious to make room for the not-so-obvious.
MVPs
Brilliant on both sides of the hero-villain divide, it's difficult to say which Tom Hardy performance I enjoyed the most in 2015. Though he spends much of the first act of Mad Max: Fury Road bound and captive, his Max Rockatansky is the ideal pulp hero: an man of action who commands the narrative, but doesn't dominate it. Despite his character's name being in the title, Hardy performs a version of heroism that leaves plenty of room for the contributions of his allies. A greater subtlety is on display in The Revenant, this time in a murderous fur trapper trying to cover up his many misdeeds. Hardy handles the big monologues with aplomb (and a Baltimore-ish accent), but his genius is in the way he physically inhabits his villany, haggard and hunched and wild-eyed, as if evil is slowly consuming him from the inside.
Samuel L. Jackson is known for his prolific filmography, but rarely does he get a truly meaty role like his button-pushing bounty hunter in The Hateful Eight. Nobody delivers Quentin Tarantino's bruising dialogue quite like Jackson, and it's refreshing to see the actor get to expand his range beyond anger and annoyance, and ensnare his rivals thanks to his mind instead of his muscle. Similarly, his idiosyncratic bad guy in Kingsman: The Secret Service could have come across as a bundle of quirks, but Jackson successfully tones down his natural menace to create a memorably kooky billionaire. (And his drive-by in Avengers: Age of Ultron proves that the straightforward, suffer-no-fools Jackson is alive and well.)
Men
Steve Carell walks a fine line as an abrasive hedge fund manager in The Big Short, and succeeds in perfectly balancing his character's repellent qualities with a strangely ennobling tenacity. Speaking of determination, few leading men were as ferocious and assured as Michael B. Jordan in Creed - it would be easy to root for him even without Rocky Balboa's endorsement. It's even harder to step out of Han Solo's shadow, but John Boyega nearly stole Star Wars: The Force Awakens with his infectious glee and big personality. The future of the Force is in good hands.
Women
The high-stakes drama of Room wouldn't be as effective if not for Brie Larson, keeping both the audience and her young co-star, Jacob Tremblay, grounded in the tender, complex relationship between mother and son. Familiarity was the strength that Greta Gerwig brought to her scattered hipster socialite in Mistress America, reflecting the lives and Instagram accounts of a million Millenial strivers. And kudos to Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez for animating a largely unseen world and giving Tangerine a much-deserved sweetness among the tart disappointments of life on the streets.
Group
While the characters portrayed by Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders, and Kevin Corrigan in Results initially appear to be plucked from different movies, their slow-burning chemistry mirrors how real-life friendships are often forged through uncommon bonds. On the other hand, the differences between Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, and Domhnall Gleeson in Ex-Machina strain their little collective until it must collapse in a shocking and thought-provoking fashion. Finally, praise be to Charlize Theron, along with the Wives and Vuvalini of Mad Max: Fury Road for effortlessly slipping into the role of distaff wasteland warriors and upstaging the dude who essentially becomes their valet.
The Golden Ham
Last but not least, a distinction that might be my personal favorite: the year's most superlative scenery-chomper.
Though I relished Jason Statham's return as a hyper-masculine wrecking ball in both Furious 7 and Spy, as well as Tobey Maguire's raging paranoia and cartoony Brooklyn accent in Pawn Sacrifice, there is one performance that (quite literally) screams for recognition.
Playing an evil alien plutocrat in Jupiter Ascending, Eddie Redmayne seemingly loses all control over the volume of his voice, shifting from "old man whisper" to "pre-pubescent drill sergeant" at the drop of a hat. It didn't affect his Oscar buzz for The Theory of Everything, however, as Redmayne won Best Actor honors just weeks after Jupiter debuted in theaters. Not bad, 2015.
Showing posts with label Wide Angle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wide Angle. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Wide Angle: 2014 in Review
Awards are silly.
Still, that hasn't stopped me from posting an annual recap for the past three years. And it won't stop me from doing it again. Consider this an attempt to commemorate the year in film - to beat back the receding tide of memory and acknowledge all the good, bad, and weird stuff that showed up onscreen in 2014. Simply put, this is my best attempt to contextualize another year of seeing, feeling, and believing in the movies.
Top Whatever
Since adding new feature articles and a podcast to my docket, I sadly don't have the time to review everything I see, but I'm glad I caught up with Blue Ruin - a propulsive revenge thriller that corkscrews its way through a brutally simple yet thoroughly compelling narrative about the sins of our loved ones unfolding across generations. On a completely different tack, The Grand Budapest Hotel continued Wes Anderson's stellar run, a melancholy comic romp that dazzles with both pure sentiment and continental cool.
Are ambitious international collaborations the future of action movies? While the idea certainly isn't new, two 2014 films took it to the next level. The first, The Raid 2: Berendal was a mind-blowing beat 'em up of epic proportions - the ideal marriage of video game action with cinematic verve. And the second, Snowpiercer, was the freaky, fancy-free blockbuster that Marvel wishes it could make; it's a shame that it was barely released in theaters, but it's already well on its way to cult classic status.
"Lifetime achievement" took on a couple different meanings in Life Itself, a moving tribute to the reigning people's champion of cinema, the late Roger Ebert, and in Boyhood, the poetic longitudinal study of life's milestones and the sometimes profound mundanity that surrounds them.
Frank introduced us to one of the most fascinating characters of 2014, a troubled musical genius trying to navigate his headspace by enclosing it in a giant fiberglass facsimile. It's a movie about letting the right ones in, however tentatively - which is also the subject of the documentary Harmontown, a portrait of an admittedly self-destructive personality and his army of misfits moved to embrace their own shortcomings as part of themselves.
A trio of voices debuted last year in three films that struck at the gut and the brain with equal force. Dear White People combined two decades' worth of art-house sensibilities to poke holes in the post-racial myth of the Millennial generation. Whiplash presented a rivalry for the ages in a story of pride and perfectionism, nicely resolving its central feud while somehow allowing both antagonists to look strong. And Nightcrawler made satirical hay of a toxic meritocracy arising from the unfiltered spillage of content that's propelling the new American culture.
Finally, A Most Violent Year spun compelling tragedy out of the harsh truth that one person's survival sometimes must depend on another's suffering and sacrifice. The nobility of our intentions has little bearing on the outcome of our actions - the opposite of which is true in the exemplary Selma, which refused the easy catharsis of other tasteful museum pieces for a full, honest embrace of the interplay of emotions, deeds, and dreams in one pivotal series of events. If that isn't the definition of great filmmaking, then I don't know what else to tell you.
Other Good Stuff
Quality was found in all corners, from formally and intellectually challenging salvos like A Field in England and Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 & 2 to the pure pop pleasures of Gone Girl and Guardians of the Galaxy.
There was a great film for every mood in 2014. The quietly devastating The Immigrant and the achingly personal Documented showcased how the other half lives, while Inherent Vice played a swan song for the '60s in an intoxicating, offbeat key.
Other Things I Liked That Deserve A Brief Mention
- the diabolically catchy The LEGO Movie anthem "Everything Is Awesome"
- Muppets Most Wanted's Constantine, the give-zero-fucks poster boy of 2014
- Kathy Bates dancing at a lesbian barbecue in Tammy
- the sound editing and mixing during the crash sequences in Unbroken
- the robot buddy voices of Scott Adsit (Baymax in Big Hero 6) and Bill Irwin (TARS the robot in Interstellar)
- Anders Holm's increasingly ludicrous O-faces in Top Five
- the garish rococo set decoration of the du Pont estate in Foxcatcher
Just The Worst
To be the worst, you've got to really want it, and only one film last year could combine the incompetence of Vampire Academy, the needy indulgence of Chef, and the hackery of A Million Ways to Die in the West in a single foul globule of cinematic antimatter.
That movie is Dumb and Dumber Too, a soulless, depressing cash grab that's best described as a Dadaist simulation of humor meant to expose the bone-deep desperation and moral emptiness behind the human need for laughter.
Flawed But Fascinating
Let's take a moment to mourn what The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and The Giver might have been had they not been as hamstrung by poor execution or the lame demands of the marketplace. However, my choice for so-confounding-it's-good(?) goes to Lucy, a heaping scoop of Luc Besson insanity about a party girl who has drugs sewn into her body that turn her into an increasingly intelligent and vengeful human computer. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?) Spoiler alert - she eventually morphs into a flash drive containing all the secrets of the universe. And Morgan Freeman is there to explain it all via PowerPoint lecture. It's audaciously entertaining stupidity of the highest order.
Biggest Disappointments
Hyped over the moon, The LEGO Movie was essentially a feature-length commercial that dispensed with any satirical pretense after its first 10 minutes. It's not a bad film by any means, but it had the potential to be so much more. I was similarly bummed by The Sacrament, which seems like a big step back for horror prodigy Ti West as he hops onto the found footage bandwagon and loses his unique voice in a musty Jonestown: The Movie premise.
And at the risk of exposing myself as an apostate, I must admit that I was incredibly let down by Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In truth, I've never been fully on board with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Winter Soldier shattered any illusions that these films are anything but a salable product line, a way to string people along with half-resolutions and vague promises of cooler things to come - a way to make individual stories less satisfying. That's an incredibly worrying trend. To many, Cap 2 is the current apex of the MCU; to me, it looks more like the beginning of the end.
Most Pleasant Surprises
"Fat people comedy" is usually a slippery slope toward ridicule and/or condescension, so I was understandably wary when approaching Cuban Fury, a rom-com starring the stout Nick Frost as a former salsa dancing champion who rekindles his passion to impress his office crush. But the movie hits all the right notes of sweetness and silliness thanks to Frost's effortlessly charming performance and a genial tone that lets its characters just be themselves without pushing them to extremes.
Whatever you decide to call it, Edge of Tomorrow was one of the freshest summer blockbusters in years, a strange brew of influences from other visual media - manga and video games - that typically have not lent themselves to cinematic adaptation. Edge has style to burn, yet it's the rare popcorn flick that keeps you thinking after the credits roll; Tom Cruise's playful tinkering with his action hero persona is just the cherry on top.
Best Performances
As always, my watchword here is inclusivity, which is another way of saying that I try to avoid the performances that have already been lavished with plenty of attention and awards.
MVPs
Is there anything Tilda Swinton can't do? From the doddering heiress of The Grand Budapest Hotel to a globe-trotting vampire in Only Lovers Left Alive to a gender-bending fascist martinet in Snowpiercer, Swinton's consistently positive contributions deserve greater recognition. The word "chameleon" is used to describe a lot of actors who bring a physical affect - a paunch, a walk, an accent - to a role, but Swinton is one of the few who can also change their emotional timbre just as drastically. Meek or assertive, compassionate or cruel, Swinton makes it all look easy.
Let's be honest: Jake Gyllenhaal has been a very good actor for quite a while. Those who are trying to frame his 2014 as a renaissance of McConaughey proportions have either forgotten his filmography (there are more Zodiacs than Prince of Persias) or are ignoring the importance of both good timing and good material. Gyllenhaal guided the audience through the inscrutable Enemy as a timid college professor and his more aggressive doppleganger, an arrogant actor with serious relationship issues. Yet it's his amazing performance in Nightcrawler that impresses the most, a for-the-ages portrait of an ingratiatingly weird sociopath in which Gyllenhaal is bends the movie to his will the same way his character convinces the world to accept and reward his insanity.
Men
One of these days - perhaps as soon as the release of the next Star Wars and X-Men installments - people are going to revisit the oeuvre of Oscar Isaac and discover gems like A Most Violent Year, where he gives another understated yet immensely impactful masterclass. Playing a character who's both a beguiling rascal and a sympathetic underdog, Ralph Fiennes is the key cog in the clockwork comedy machine that is The Grand Budapest Hotel. And Tyler James Williams is the not-so-secret superhero of Dear White People, a shy, gay black nerd who doesn't want to have to answer to any of those labels but finds it necessary to validate his identity in the face of ignorance.
Women
Jenny Slate finally gets a showcase for her comedic gifts in Obvious Child, combining a flair for vulgarity with a low-key vulnerability that gives the film its unexpected emotional punch. In a similar way, Melanie Lynskey elevates the generational comedy of manners in Happy Christmas by portraying a complex counterpoint to Anna Kendrick's self-involved Millenial - it's obvious that we're supposed to see the future of Kendrick's character in Lynskey, but she pulls it off with grace and subtlety. Finally, Marion Cotillard absolutely nailed the "costume drama realism" vibe of James Gray's The Immigrant, a film that benefits immensely from her quietly heartbreaking performance.
Duo or Group
Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck were a pleasure to watch as they spun yuppie love into something cracked and twisted in the marital farce that was Gone Girl, simultaneously portraying and defining 21st century archetypes. Type-A personalities clashed in Whiplash, where J. K. Simmons and Miles Teller took an exaggerated academic deathmatch and made it believable. Bickering musicians also took center stage in Frank, but Michael Fassbender and his band ultimately showed that blood runs thicker than water, even in a makeshift family unit.
The Golden Ham
It's really difficult to overlook the inspired craziness of DMX singing/barking Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" during his brief cameo in Top Five for my annual salute to superlative scenery-chewing. However, Alison Pill's manic turn as a pregnant schoolteacher cheerfully indoctrinating little ones on the brutal caste system of Snowpiercer is an all-timer. In the space of just a single breathless, bug-eyed monologue, Pill unequivocally establishes herself as the most batshit character in a movie full of lunatics - an impressive achievement on any actor's résumé.
Still, that hasn't stopped me from posting an annual recap for the past three years. And it won't stop me from doing it again. Consider this an attempt to commemorate the year in film - to beat back the receding tide of memory and acknowledge all the good, bad, and weird stuff that showed up onscreen in 2014. Simply put, this is my best attempt to contextualize another year of seeing, feeling, and believing in the movies.
Top Whatever
Since adding new feature articles and a podcast to my docket, I sadly don't have the time to review everything I see, but I'm glad I caught up with Blue Ruin - a propulsive revenge thriller that corkscrews its way through a brutally simple yet thoroughly compelling narrative about the sins of our loved ones unfolding across generations. On a completely different tack, The Grand Budapest Hotel continued Wes Anderson's stellar run, a melancholy comic romp that dazzles with both pure sentiment and continental cool.
Are ambitious international collaborations the future of action movies? While the idea certainly isn't new, two 2014 films took it to the next level. The first, The Raid 2: Berendal was a mind-blowing beat 'em up of epic proportions - the ideal marriage of video game action with cinematic verve. And the second, Snowpiercer, was the freaky, fancy-free blockbuster that Marvel wishes it could make; it's a shame that it was barely released in theaters, but it's already well on its way to cult classic status.
"Lifetime achievement" took on a couple different meanings in Life Itself, a moving tribute to the reigning people's champion of cinema, the late Roger Ebert, and in Boyhood, the poetic longitudinal study of life's milestones and the sometimes profound mundanity that surrounds them.
Frank introduced us to one of the most fascinating characters of 2014, a troubled musical genius trying to navigate his headspace by enclosing it in a giant fiberglass facsimile. It's a movie about letting the right ones in, however tentatively - which is also the subject of the documentary Harmontown, a portrait of an admittedly self-destructive personality and his army of misfits moved to embrace their own shortcomings as part of themselves.
A trio of voices debuted last year in three films that struck at the gut and the brain with equal force. Dear White People combined two decades' worth of art-house sensibilities to poke holes in the post-racial myth of the Millennial generation. Whiplash presented a rivalry for the ages in a story of pride and perfectionism, nicely resolving its central feud while somehow allowing both antagonists to look strong. And Nightcrawler made satirical hay of a toxic meritocracy arising from the unfiltered spillage of content that's propelling the new American culture.
Finally, A Most Violent Year spun compelling tragedy out of the harsh truth that one person's survival sometimes must depend on another's suffering and sacrifice. The nobility of our intentions has little bearing on the outcome of our actions - the opposite of which is true in the exemplary Selma, which refused the easy catharsis of other tasteful museum pieces for a full, honest embrace of the interplay of emotions, deeds, and dreams in one pivotal series of events. If that isn't the definition of great filmmaking, then I don't know what else to tell you.
Other Good Stuff
Quality was found in all corners, from formally and intellectually challenging salvos like A Field in England and Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 & 2 to the pure pop pleasures of Gone Girl and Guardians of the Galaxy.
There was a great film for every mood in 2014. The quietly devastating The Immigrant and the achingly personal Documented showcased how the other half lives, while Inherent Vice played a swan song for the '60s in an intoxicating, offbeat key.
Other Things I Liked That Deserve A Brief Mention
- the diabolically catchy The LEGO Movie anthem "Everything Is Awesome"
- Muppets Most Wanted's Constantine, the give-zero-fucks poster boy of 2014
- Kathy Bates dancing at a lesbian barbecue in Tammy
- the sound editing and mixing during the crash sequences in Unbroken
- the robot buddy voices of Scott Adsit (Baymax in Big Hero 6) and Bill Irwin (TARS the robot in Interstellar)
- Anders Holm's increasingly ludicrous O-faces in Top Five
- the garish rococo set decoration of the du Pont estate in Foxcatcher
Just The Worst
To be the worst, you've got to really want it, and only one film last year could combine the incompetence of Vampire Academy, the needy indulgence of Chef, and the hackery of A Million Ways to Die in the West in a single foul globule of cinematic antimatter.
That movie is Dumb and Dumber Too, a soulless, depressing cash grab that's best described as a Dadaist simulation of humor meant to expose the bone-deep desperation and moral emptiness behind the human need for laughter.
Flawed But Fascinating
Let's take a moment to mourn what The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and The Giver might have been had they not been as hamstrung by poor execution or the lame demands of the marketplace. However, my choice for so-confounding-it's-good(?) goes to Lucy, a heaping scoop of Luc Besson insanity about a party girl who has drugs sewn into her body that turn her into an increasingly intelligent and vengeful human computer. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?) Spoiler alert - she eventually morphs into a flash drive containing all the secrets of the universe. And Morgan Freeman is there to explain it all via PowerPoint lecture. It's audaciously entertaining stupidity of the highest order.
Biggest Disappointments
Hyped over the moon, The LEGO Movie was essentially a feature-length commercial that dispensed with any satirical pretense after its first 10 minutes. It's not a bad film by any means, but it had the potential to be so much more. I was similarly bummed by The Sacrament, which seems like a big step back for horror prodigy Ti West as he hops onto the found footage bandwagon and loses his unique voice in a musty Jonestown: The Movie premise.
And at the risk of exposing myself as an apostate, I must admit that I was incredibly let down by Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In truth, I've never been fully on board with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Winter Soldier shattered any illusions that these films are anything but a salable product line, a way to string people along with half-resolutions and vague promises of cooler things to come - a way to make individual stories less satisfying. That's an incredibly worrying trend. To many, Cap 2 is the current apex of the MCU; to me, it looks more like the beginning of the end.
Most Pleasant Surprises
"Fat people comedy" is usually a slippery slope toward ridicule and/or condescension, so I was understandably wary when approaching Cuban Fury, a rom-com starring the stout Nick Frost as a former salsa dancing champion who rekindles his passion to impress his office crush. But the movie hits all the right notes of sweetness and silliness thanks to Frost's effortlessly charming performance and a genial tone that lets its characters just be themselves without pushing them to extremes.
Whatever you decide to call it, Edge of Tomorrow was one of the freshest summer blockbusters in years, a strange brew of influences from other visual media - manga and video games - that typically have not lent themselves to cinematic adaptation. Edge has style to burn, yet it's the rare popcorn flick that keeps you thinking after the credits roll; Tom Cruise's playful tinkering with his action hero persona is just the cherry on top.
Best Performances
As always, my watchword here is inclusivity, which is another way of saying that I try to avoid the performances that have already been lavished with plenty of attention and awards.
MVPs
Is there anything Tilda Swinton can't do? From the doddering heiress of The Grand Budapest Hotel to a globe-trotting vampire in Only Lovers Left Alive to a gender-bending fascist martinet in Snowpiercer, Swinton's consistently positive contributions deserve greater recognition. The word "chameleon" is used to describe a lot of actors who bring a physical affect - a paunch, a walk, an accent - to a role, but Swinton is one of the few who can also change their emotional timbre just as drastically. Meek or assertive, compassionate or cruel, Swinton makes it all look easy.
Let's be honest: Jake Gyllenhaal has been a very good actor for quite a while. Those who are trying to frame his 2014 as a renaissance of McConaughey proportions have either forgotten his filmography (there are more Zodiacs than Prince of Persias) or are ignoring the importance of both good timing and good material. Gyllenhaal guided the audience through the inscrutable Enemy as a timid college professor and his more aggressive doppleganger, an arrogant actor with serious relationship issues. Yet it's his amazing performance in Nightcrawler that impresses the most, a for-the-ages portrait of an ingratiatingly weird sociopath in which Gyllenhaal is bends the movie to his will the same way his character convinces the world to accept and reward his insanity.
Men
One of these days - perhaps as soon as the release of the next Star Wars and X-Men installments - people are going to revisit the oeuvre of Oscar Isaac and discover gems like A Most Violent Year, where he gives another understated yet immensely impactful masterclass. Playing a character who's both a beguiling rascal and a sympathetic underdog, Ralph Fiennes is the key cog in the clockwork comedy machine that is The Grand Budapest Hotel. And Tyler James Williams is the not-so-secret superhero of Dear White People, a shy, gay black nerd who doesn't want to have to answer to any of those labels but finds it necessary to validate his identity in the face of ignorance.
Women
Jenny Slate finally gets a showcase for her comedic gifts in Obvious Child, combining a flair for vulgarity with a low-key vulnerability that gives the film its unexpected emotional punch. In a similar way, Melanie Lynskey elevates the generational comedy of manners in Happy Christmas by portraying a complex counterpoint to Anna Kendrick's self-involved Millenial - it's obvious that we're supposed to see the future of Kendrick's character in Lynskey, but she pulls it off with grace and subtlety. Finally, Marion Cotillard absolutely nailed the "costume drama realism" vibe of James Gray's The Immigrant, a film that benefits immensely from her quietly heartbreaking performance.
Duo or Group
Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck were a pleasure to watch as they spun yuppie love into something cracked and twisted in the marital farce that was Gone Girl, simultaneously portraying and defining 21st century archetypes. Type-A personalities clashed in Whiplash, where J. K. Simmons and Miles Teller took an exaggerated academic deathmatch and made it believable. Bickering musicians also took center stage in Frank, but Michael Fassbender and his band ultimately showed that blood runs thicker than water, even in a makeshift family unit.
The Golden Ham
It's really difficult to overlook the inspired craziness of DMX singing/barking Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" during his brief cameo in Top Five for my annual salute to superlative scenery-chewing. However, Alison Pill's manic turn as a pregnant schoolteacher cheerfully indoctrinating little ones on the brutal caste system of Snowpiercer is an all-timer. In the space of just a single breathless, bug-eyed monologue, Pill unequivocally establishes herself as the most batshit character in a movie full of lunatics - an impressive achievement on any actor's résumé.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Wide Angle: 2013 in Review
The important thing is not to rank, but to remember.
That's been the guiding principle behind my "year in review" articles and, as in 2011 and 2012, the following is intended to call attention to the embarrassing surplus of "good things” in cinema. Once again I've eschewed a conventional top 10 because it's nearly impossible to rank works with such disparate goals - deciding whether Fast and Furious 6 is “better” than Stoker is like officiating a soufflé bake-off between LeBron James and Joan Didion.
Top Whatever
In a year that was very good for people behaving badly, Spring Breakers sets the bar high by reflecting the American Dream in a funhouse mirror of Millennial generation hedonism, reveling in debauchery while questioning the motives behind unfettered pleasure-seeking. The youthful Scottish rascals of The Angels’ Share are more traditional but still have plenty of chutzpah, a bunch of have-nots using the haves’ sacred values (work ethic, determination, courage) and not-so-sacred values (clever manipulation of the free market) against them to obtain a modest piece of the pie.
Iron Man 3 breaks many of the rules governing big summer movies; its genre-bending audacity and crackling wit make the rest of the year’s effects-heavy blockbusters seem like lumbering dinosaurs in comparison. It was definitely a good climate for intimate films, as proven by Frances Ha and its charming tale of a footloose young woman just trying to find a place where she could belong.
Of course, appropriately-scaled ambition works, especially when it’s as sensual and seductively confounding as Shane Carruth’s sci-fi romance Upstream Color. You’ll never look at a pig the same way again. And the jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing examines the heady collision of violence and entertainment, vis à vis the perpetrators of decades-old atrocities in Indonesia, to wonder whether who’s the most complicit in letting the guilty off the hook.
Short Term 12 is a thinking person’s tearjerker, its sensitivity grounded in an easy humor and recognizable human emotion (as well as the director's actual experiences as a staff member at a group foster home). But only The World’s End makes the apocalypse seem personal in a rollicking rebuke to nostalgia and mindless gratification, its themes expertly embedded even in throwaway lines and minor background details.
It’s a testament to the incredible quality of 2013’s movies that I’m just now getting to the so-called Oscar contenders, led by the amazing technical wizardry (and compelling human drama) of Gravity - a film that perfectly defines the meaning of “shock and awe.” From one grueling experience to another, 12 Years a Slave engages the past on a visceral level and tackles weighty historical issues from the perspective of flesh-and-blood human beings.
Finally, a pair of compelling jerks: the antihero of Inside Llewyn Davis is a bit more sympathetic due to the tragicomic nature of his (perhaps unending) fight against the riptide of his own life, even though his troubles only enhance the bittersweet beauty in his sad, soulful folk music performances. The sleazy stockbroker of The Wolf of Wall Street, however, is a more difficult matter; chronicling a life of entitled excess with nihilistic glee, the film still takes care to note the difference between the symptoms and the causes of a society more interested in personal indulgence than personal accountability.
Other Good Stuff
2013’s deep bench includes the mesmerizing conspiracy theorists of Room 237, the feisty verbal sparring of Much Ado About Nothing, the brazenly entertaining The Bling Ring, and the pitch-perfect nerd opus Zero Charisma.
Two films showcase legendary actors still at the top of their games - Tom Hanks in the harrowing trauma tale Captain Phillips and Bruce Dern the offbeat family photo album Nebraska - while American Hustle features an entire cast relishing their turns as fumbling '70s schnooks. And the one-two punch of Monsters University and Frozen shows that there’s still plenty of life in Dixnar, though The Wind Rises is the cream of this year’s animated crop (even if it has to wait until 2014 for its English-dubbed release).
Other Things I Liked That Deserve A Brief Mention
- Ramin Djawadi's score for Pacific Rim, especially the main theme
- the amazing troll creature suit from Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
- Chung Chung-Hoon and Park Chan-wook's shot composition in Stoker
- the opening and closing zooms of Side Effects
- the fate of Lou Taylor Pucci's Evil Dead character, the dumbest know-it-all in the world
- San Diego Comic-Con 2013
- Stan Lee's cameo in Thor: The Dark World ("Can I have my shoe back?")
- the profane video game avatar of the future in Her
- the clothes, coifs, and needle drops in both American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street
Just the Worst
Wither Ryan Gosling? First he's lost amid the clatter of the abysmally dumb Gangster Squad. Then his taciturn charms can't save the blood-and-neon trolling of Only God Forgives. At least those films give the appearance of effort, which is more than can be said about A Good Day to Die Hard, a joyless slog that makes the original Die Hard seem ever more miraculous.
But nothing this year compares to the mirthless Movie 43, a comedy where the relationship to actual humor or entertainment is entirely coincidental. Ugly, mean-spirited, and misogynistic, Peter Farrelly’s omnibus film is a massive tragedy of wasted time and talent.
Biggest Disappointments
Not that I expected an instant classic, but it was kind of disheartening to see the damp squib that was Admission, especially considering the pedigrees of its two likable leads. I did expect more from Star Trek Into Darkness, which distracted everyone with bright colors and fast action while trampling all over the covenant established in the great 2009 Star Trek reboot and squandering goodwill at warp speed.
But Neill Blomkamp's Elysium remains my biggest head-scratcher of 2013, bungling an intriguing premise by forcing it into a rather dull sci-fi action template, then garnishing the whole thing with ham-fisted social commentary. And I’m not sure whether to credit commercial pressure or creative exhaustion for Elysium’s uncanny resemblance to District 9, from the look of the dusty future slums and ratty technology to its general plot and structure.
Most Pleasant Surprises
The combination of sports film and biopic is typically a recipe for cash-in treacle, but 42 defied the odds in presenting a well-acted, gorgeous-looking, and surprisingly intense tribute to Jackie Robinson that was worthy of the civil rights pioneer's amazing life.
A big-budget superhero character study is quite rare, but that's essentially what we got in The Wolverine, which weighted action and drama equally to add an extra layer of depth and a sense of urgency to what is now unquestionably Hugh Jackman's signature role.
There are all sorts of lurid places that Alexandre Moors could've steered Blue Caprice, his debut feature inspired by the events leading up to the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks. Instead, he crafted a restrained and haunting tale about the banality of evil and the unseen rivulets of criminal life that can potentially lead to catastrophe.
Best Performances
This was a difficult section to write. We all know that Blanchett and Bullock were spectacular in Blue Jasmine and Gravity, respectively; ditto Hanks and Ejiofor in Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave. In the spirit of inclusivity, I've taken a different tack and tried to include some underseen or lower-profile performances while blending in some personal favorites.
MVPs
Sam Rockwell has quietly built an impressive career as one of cinema's best utility players, always making the most of his screentime whether in a limited supporting role or as an underrated leading man. His versatility is on display in The Way Way Back (a classic wiseass performance full of humor and pathos) and A Single Shot (as a rural loner facing several crises of conscience). Both showcase his greatest skill as an actor: knowing exactly how he fits into the bigger picture of a film and pitching his performance to command precisely the right amount of attention.
James Franco breathes life into the most memorable (and quotable) character of 2013 - the rapper/gangster/hoodrat philosopher Alien in Spring Breakers. Precious are the actors who can make a recitation of their possessions endlessly compelling. His adorably winking turn as himself in This Is The End and a brief appearance as a slick sleazeball in a key scene of The Iceman add to the positive side of his ledger. (Plus it's not entirely his fault for being horribly miscast as Oz the Great and Powerful.)
Brie Larson shines as a group home counselor in Short Term 12, projecting strength and maturity beyond her years, and combining them with a vulnerability that allows her to bend but not break. Now the ball is in the industry's court to hire her for more than just the stellar work she does in obligatory (and nearly silent) girlfriend/sister roles in the likes of The Spectacular Now and Don Jon.
Men
Leonardo DiCaprio pulls off a nifty trick in The Wolf of Wall Street, a role that not only tests the limits of his charisma in getting us to care about an irredeemable douchebag, but also reveals his prowess for physical comedy. Similarly, Oscar Isaac finds the humanity in the prickly protagonist of Inside Llewyn Davis, and complements it with excellent singing performances. And Michael B. Jordan shoulders the burden of Fruitvale Station's commentary on race and justice, compressing a multitude of heady issues into a single human life.
Women
Amy Acker shows that there is a world of possibility beyond the limited perception of the actress-as-ingénue in Much Ado About Nothing, playing the romance game with fiery cunning and whip-smart comic timing. Greta Gerwig is utterly winning as Frances Ha, even when she's losing, a platonic ideal of the endearing fuckup. Judi Dench is a legend, but it takes something special for an actress who's normally so regal to work in subtle markers of a different social class and level of intelligence as she does in Philomena.
Duo or Group
12 Years a Slave didn't lack for depictions of cruelty, but the toxic coupling of Michael Fassbender and Sarah Paulson so encapsulates the many horrors of slavery - both physical and psychological - that it becomes difficult to tell which one is the bigger monster.
Edgar Wright excels at getting large groups of actors on his wickedly clever wavelength, but the main cast of The World's End - Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman, and Rosamund Pike - barrels through the material with a confidence that makes the film's escalating insanity seem like a perfectly natural progression of events.
The Golden Ham
With apologies to Javier Bardem's facial expressions in The Counselor, this year's award for the most exquisite scenery-chewing goes to Jonathan Pryce in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Pryce is vastly overqualified for his role as the evil shape-shifting duplicate of the U.S. President and knows it, so he proceeds to act like the least qualified authority figure that he can imagine. Purring lines such as "They call it a waterboard, but...I never get bored!", he's on a rogue mission to add flavor to the thin gruel of the movie's dull machismo.
That's been the guiding principle behind my "year in review" articles and, as in 2011 and 2012, the following is intended to call attention to the embarrassing surplus of "good things” in cinema. Once again I've eschewed a conventional top 10 because it's nearly impossible to rank works with such disparate goals - deciding whether Fast and Furious 6 is “better” than Stoker is like officiating a soufflé bake-off between LeBron James and Joan Didion.
For the next 2,000 words or so, we'll look back at 2013, including both the lows and the highs, noting the letdowns and the surprises, and, hopefully, end up affirming our faith in film. Because I believe in movies. I believe that they matter. And I believe that all of them - well, almost all of them - are worth someone's time.
Top Whatever
In a year that was very good for people behaving badly, Spring Breakers sets the bar high by reflecting the American Dream in a funhouse mirror of Millennial generation hedonism, reveling in debauchery while questioning the motives behind unfettered pleasure-seeking. The youthful Scottish rascals of The Angels’ Share are more traditional but still have plenty of chutzpah, a bunch of have-nots using the haves’ sacred values (work ethic, determination, courage) and not-so-sacred values (clever manipulation of the free market) against them to obtain a modest piece of the pie.
Iron Man 3 breaks many of the rules governing big summer movies; its genre-bending audacity and crackling wit make the rest of the year’s effects-heavy blockbusters seem like lumbering dinosaurs in comparison. It was definitely a good climate for intimate films, as proven by Frances Ha and its charming tale of a footloose young woman just trying to find a place where she could belong.
Of course, appropriately-scaled ambition works, especially when it’s as sensual and seductively confounding as Shane Carruth’s sci-fi romance Upstream Color. You’ll never look at a pig the same way again. And the jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing examines the heady collision of violence and entertainment, vis à vis the perpetrators of decades-old atrocities in Indonesia, to wonder whether who’s the most complicit in letting the guilty off the hook.
Short Term 12 is a thinking person’s tearjerker, its sensitivity grounded in an easy humor and recognizable human emotion (as well as the director's actual experiences as a staff member at a group foster home). But only The World’s End makes the apocalypse seem personal in a rollicking rebuke to nostalgia and mindless gratification, its themes expertly embedded even in throwaway lines and minor background details.
It’s a testament to the incredible quality of 2013’s movies that I’m just now getting to the so-called Oscar contenders, led by the amazing technical wizardry (and compelling human drama) of Gravity - a film that perfectly defines the meaning of “shock and awe.” From one grueling experience to another, 12 Years a Slave engages the past on a visceral level and tackles weighty historical issues from the perspective of flesh-and-blood human beings.
Finally, a pair of compelling jerks: the antihero of Inside Llewyn Davis is a bit more sympathetic due to the tragicomic nature of his (perhaps unending) fight against the riptide of his own life, even though his troubles only enhance the bittersweet beauty in his sad, soulful folk music performances. The sleazy stockbroker of The Wolf of Wall Street, however, is a more difficult matter; chronicling a life of entitled excess with nihilistic glee, the film still takes care to note the difference between the symptoms and the causes of a society more interested in personal indulgence than personal accountability.
Other Good Stuff
2013’s deep bench includes the mesmerizing conspiracy theorists of Room 237, the feisty verbal sparring of Much Ado About Nothing, the brazenly entertaining The Bling Ring, and the pitch-perfect nerd opus Zero Charisma.
Two films showcase legendary actors still at the top of their games - Tom Hanks in the harrowing trauma tale Captain Phillips and Bruce Dern the offbeat family photo album Nebraska - while American Hustle features an entire cast relishing their turns as fumbling '70s schnooks. And the one-two punch of Monsters University and Frozen shows that there’s still plenty of life in Dixnar, though The Wind Rises is the cream of this year’s animated crop (even if it has to wait until 2014 for its English-dubbed release).
Other Things I Liked That Deserve A Brief Mention
- Ramin Djawadi's score for Pacific Rim, especially the main theme
- the amazing troll creature suit from Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
- Chung Chung-Hoon and Park Chan-wook's shot composition in Stoker
- the opening and closing zooms of Side Effects
- the fate of Lou Taylor Pucci's Evil Dead character, the dumbest know-it-all in the world
- San Diego Comic-Con 2013
- Stan Lee's cameo in Thor: The Dark World ("Can I have my shoe back?")
- the profane video game avatar of the future in Her
- the clothes, coifs, and needle drops in both American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street
Just the Worst
Wither Ryan Gosling? First he's lost amid the clatter of the abysmally dumb Gangster Squad. Then his taciturn charms can't save the blood-and-neon trolling of Only God Forgives. At least those films give the appearance of effort, which is more than can be said about A Good Day to Die Hard, a joyless slog that makes the original Die Hard seem ever more miraculous.
But nothing this year compares to the mirthless Movie 43, a comedy where the relationship to actual humor or entertainment is entirely coincidental. Ugly, mean-spirited, and misogynistic, Peter Farrelly’s omnibus film is a massive tragedy of wasted time and talent.
Flawed but Fascinating
It’s no great surprise when a Baz Luhrmann film garners mixed reactions, but The Great Gatsby is a especially strange creature: while its aggressive theatricality ruins the beautiful subtleties of the source material, I must admit that some of Luhrmann’s choices also heighten the story’s emotional impact to a level impossible to achieve in a straightforward interpretation of the text.
Man of Steel might be the weirdest Superman movie we’ll ever see. It’s a poorly paced story that's curiously obsessed with alien mythology and the consequences of Kryptonian eugenics. It handles a well-known backstory in a refreshingly natural fashion, but de-emphasizes the human element so much that by the end it feels like a freaky space vendetta movie that just happens to be taking place on Earth.
I only recommend The Counselor if you, like myself, sometimes enjoy movies that embrace a mission to make as little sense as possible. Alternating between philosophical monologues about the existence of evil and a handful of brutal little action sequences, The Counselor kind of works as Ridley Scott’s tribute to his late brother, Tony, as well as a dodgy experiment in force-feeding literary opacity to multiplex audiences who just wanna see the new Cameron Diaz movie.
Biggest Disappointments
Not that I expected an instant classic, but it was kind of disheartening to see the damp squib that was Admission, especially considering the pedigrees of its two likable leads. I did expect more from Star Trek Into Darkness, which distracted everyone with bright colors and fast action while trampling all over the covenant established in the great 2009 Star Trek reboot and squandering goodwill at warp speed.
But Neill Blomkamp's Elysium remains my biggest head-scratcher of 2013, bungling an intriguing premise by forcing it into a rather dull sci-fi action template, then garnishing the whole thing with ham-fisted social commentary. And I’m not sure whether to credit commercial pressure or creative exhaustion for Elysium’s uncanny resemblance to District 9, from the look of the dusty future slums and ratty technology to its general plot and structure.
Most Pleasant Surprises
The combination of sports film and biopic is typically a recipe for cash-in treacle, but 42 defied the odds in presenting a well-acted, gorgeous-looking, and surprisingly intense tribute to Jackie Robinson that was worthy of the civil rights pioneer's amazing life.
A big-budget superhero character study is quite rare, but that's essentially what we got in The Wolverine, which weighted action and drama equally to add an extra layer of depth and a sense of urgency to what is now unquestionably Hugh Jackman's signature role.
There are all sorts of lurid places that Alexandre Moors could've steered Blue Caprice, his debut feature inspired by the events leading up to the 2002 D.C. sniper attacks. Instead, he crafted a restrained and haunting tale about the banality of evil and the unseen rivulets of criminal life that can potentially lead to catastrophe.
Best Performances
This was a difficult section to write. We all know that Blanchett and Bullock were spectacular in Blue Jasmine and Gravity, respectively; ditto Hanks and Ejiofor in Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave. In the spirit of inclusivity, I've taken a different tack and tried to include some underseen or lower-profile performances while blending in some personal favorites.
MVPs
Sam Rockwell has quietly built an impressive career as one of cinema's best utility players, always making the most of his screentime whether in a limited supporting role or as an underrated leading man. His versatility is on display in The Way Way Back (a classic wiseass performance full of humor and pathos) and A Single Shot (as a rural loner facing several crises of conscience). Both showcase his greatest skill as an actor: knowing exactly how he fits into the bigger picture of a film and pitching his performance to command precisely the right amount of attention.
James Franco breathes life into the most memorable (and quotable) character of 2013 - the rapper/gangster/hoodrat philosopher Alien in Spring Breakers. Precious are the actors who can make a recitation of their possessions endlessly compelling. His adorably winking turn as himself in This Is The End and a brief appearance as a slick sleazeball in a key scene of The Iceman add to the positive side of his ledger. (Plus it's not entirely his fault for being horribly miscast as Oz the Great and Powerful.)
Brie Larson shines as a group home counselor in Short Term 12, projecting strength and maturity beyond her years, and combining them with a vulnerability that allows her to bend but not break. Now the ball is in the industry's court to hire her for more than just the stellar work she does in obligatory (and nearly silent) girlfriend/sister roles in the likes of The Spectacular Now and Don Jon.
Men
Leonardo DiCaprio pulls off a nifty trick in The Wolf of Wall Street, a role that not only tests the limits of his charisma in getting us to care about an irredeemable douchebag, but also reveals his prowess for physical comedy. Similarly, Oscar Isaac finds the humanity in the prickly protagonist of Inside Llewyn Davis, and complements it with excellent singing performances. And Michael B. Jordan shoulders the burden of Fruitvale Station's commentary on race and justice, compressing a multitude of heady issues into a single human life.
Women
Amy Acker shows that there is a world of possibility beyond the limited perception of the actress-as-ingénue in Much Ado About Nothing, playing the romance game with fiery cunning and whip-smart comic timing. Greta Gerwig is utterly winning as Frances Ha, even when she's losing, a platonic ideal of the endearing fuckup. Judi Dench is a legend, but it takes something special for an actress who's normally so regal to work in subtle markers of a different social class and level of intelligence as she does in Philomena.
Duo or Group
12 Years a Slave didn't lack for depictions of cruelty, but the toxic coupling of Michael Fassbender and Sarah Paulson so encapsulates the many horrors of slavery - both physical and psychological - that it becomes difficult to tell which one is the bigger monster.
Edgar Wright excels at getting large groups of actors on his wickedly clever wavelength, but the main cast of The World's End - Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Eddie Marsan, Martin Freeman, and Rosamund Pike - barrels through the material with a confidence that makes the film's escalating insanity seem like a perfectly natural progression of events.
The Golden Ham
With apologies to Javier Bardem's facial expressions in The Counselor, this year's award for the most exquisite scenery-chewing goes to Jonathan Pryce in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Pryce is vastly overqualified for his role as the evil shape-shifting duplicate of the U.S. President and knows it, so he proceeds to act like the least qualified authority figure that he can imagine. Purring lines such as "They call it a waterboard, but...I never get bored!", he's on a rogue mission to add flavor to the thin gruel of the movie's dull machismo.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Wide Angle: 2012 in Review
Last winter a friend and I went to the local multiplex to catch the superhero found-footage movie Chronicle. In the middle of its explosive climax, a fellow theatergoer leaned over to us across the empty seat buffer and gave us this cheerful analysis of the film:
“Somethin’ different!”
From unsolicited opinion to rallying cry, those two words are appropriate approbation for my movie year 2012. This being the year that I finally caved in to Twitter (and because I should have launched the #somethingdifferent movement much earlier), I thought it would be fitting to come up with hashtags for the trending topics of the year....
#ChanningTatum
You just can’t argue with People magazine
#alrightalrightalright
Matthew McConaughey gets the last laugh
#realmenarefierce
Effeminate Southern civic boosters are the toughest guys in Bernie and The Campaign
#cringecomedy
A banner year for Messrs. Heidecker and Wareheim along with Girls star Alex Karpovsky's Red Flag
#docsrule
Another stellar year for unsung non-fiction: The Imposter, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, West of Memphis + more...
#fatherfigures
Paternal issues loom large in Men in Black III, The Master, and Lincoln (aka ‘America’s Dad’)
#unclefrankisdroppingin
Macabre animated family films abound with ParaNorman, Frankenweenie, and Hotel Transylvania
#alt.lit
Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights shatter conventions for adapting classic literature
#legitimatejournalism?
With @ScreenInvasion connections, I attend an alphabet soup of festivals and interview actual film professionals
One note about this post: my picks for 2012’s best films are arranged chronologically by release because I don’t really like the construct of a ranked list, mostly because I hate making difficult decisions. Lovers of concrete truths can see my personal rankings for Screen Invasion’s year-end list. I also mention some other stuff, including the year’s worst films, biggest disappointments, most pleasant surprises, and humans who were the best at playing pretend.
Top Whatever
In Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim successfully ported their often-alienating brand of comedy from TV to the big screen and created a masterpiece of absurdist satire, provided you were on its bizarre wavelength. Pound for pound, however, the quotable hockey comedy Goon is the funniest movie of the year. Featuring a lovable Seann William Scott as an on-ice pugilist with a heart of gold, it's a perfectly-pitched underdog tale that’s also an unexpected meditation on the role of violence in modern society.
I've already seen The Cabin in the Woods three times, a testament to its impeccable script and pacing, hands down the most purely entertaining film of 2012. From the head to the heart, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a feast for the senses, a marvel of old-fashioned visual storytelling anchored by a kindergartner with a poise and charisma well beyond her years.
An enthralling pair of documentaries arrived in the summer: one a lighthearted portrait of wealth that morphs into a quintessentially American story of massive hubris (The Queen of Versailles), the other a searing investigation of rampant sexual abuse in the U.S. military (The Invisible War). Both coincidentally feature female protagonists - Jackie Siegel and Kori Cioca - whose steely resolve refuses to let them be underestimated or ignored.
The Master is a film you handle at your own risk, an antagonistic, multi-layered character study from Paul Thomas Anderson. Its story of the relationship between a cult leader and an impressionable drifter isn't nearly as important as the raw, naked emotions it evokes in its look at the dark heart of the American Dream. Looper was nearly as ambivalent about the future as The Master was about the past, at least for its first two-thirds, before a resolution for its workaday hitman that feels wholly appropriate and earned. Rian Johnson's impressive time-travel film is by far the sharpest popcorn movie of the year.
I will always be jealous of anyone watching Disney's Wreck-It Ralph for the first time, if only because I wish this animated gem could cast its spell on me all over again. In a year when Pixar's best effort left something to be desired, Ralph delivered a classic story of self-acceptance applicable to all ages, cleverly transmitted via the milieu of video gaming's past and present. Holy Motors was equally magical but in a different way - Denis Levant's shape-shifting performance drives Leos Carax's brilliant, bizarre opus about the alchemy of cinema.
The mold-breaking romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook declared war on the genre by positing its main couple's quirks as the byproducts of mental illness; even as it softens into something more familiar and comforting, it never betrays the dysfunction that makes it so refreshing. And 2012 ended with the year's best Christmas present - a new film from Quentin Tarantino. His raucous revival of the spaghetti western, Django Unchained, is an expertly-crafted joyride that showcases a master storyteller at the top of his game.
Other Good Stuff
More films worthy of acclaim include the gripping Zero Dark Thirty, the lovely Moonrise Kingdom, the dazzling Life of Pi, and the puzzling (in a good way) Sound of My Voice. The Prohibition-era thriller Lawless was one of the most artful "summer movies" in years, while The Perks of Being a Wallflower lent an emotional honesty to its teen melodrama.
And two very different spy flicks enjoyed a well-deserved popularity at the box office: the exhilarating James Bond adventure Skyfall, which created a seismic rift in the series' fanbase by inviting viewers to have serious discussions about what was once merely a bankable cartoon character; and Argo, Ben Affleck's rewind of the Iran hostage crisis and the Era of Malaise that was a textbook example of old-fashioned Hollywood filmmaking at its finest.
Just the Worst
It’s not surprising when unwanted sequels turn out to be lazy cash-ins with very few redeeming qualities. But even the cast of American Reunion looks unhappy to be stuck in a movie with a staggering lack of creativity, simply rehashing all the jokes that seemed hopelessly sophomoric over a decade ago. Its ennui is rivaled only by Wrath of the Titans, which at least piggybacks on a more recent mediocrity, in terms of bland, nap-inducing predictability.
However, neither film can match the standard set by Jeff, Who Lives at Home, which elevates audience condescension to an art form. The painfully twee story of a hapless stoner man-child wandering out into the big, scary world on an errand for his mother, Jeff somehow manages to hit every cliché of both Hollywood and indie filmmaking. The Duplass brothers’ film is also the year’s biggest poison pill. It was advertised as a quirky comedy even though it's actually a preposterous “everything is connected” smug-fest, as if the Duplasses were trying see how many plot contrivances they could cram into one movie. If we are to believe in the everything-happens-for-a-
Flawed But Fascinating
Cloud Atlas is an obvious choice here, though enough has been said about its strange brew of the ambitious and the awkward. A couple of much less expensive films cornered the market on unrealized raw potential: Kill List, Ben Wheatley’s supremely angry hitman movie with horror elements that ends just as it seems to be gaining steam, and Beyond the Black Rainbow, a tantalizingly weird piece of sci-fi psychedelia that rewards viewers who can stand its pretentiousness and its excruciatingly slow pace.
And let’s add Casa de mi Padre, an uneven Spanish-language prank from comedy A-listers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay that’s admirable for being so aggressively uncommercial and for inspiring giggle fits with its intentionally cheap production values. (The underwhelming box office performance of Padre and the equally watchable The Campaign is presumably why Ferrell is punishing us with Anchorman 2 in 2013.)
Biggest Disappointments
I’d never call them ‘bad’ films, but The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Brave didn’t quite meet the lofty expectations promised by a return to the gorgeous vistas of Middle-Earth and a parent-child bonding tale from Pixar, respectively. And I wasn’t that moved by the charms of Safety Not Guaranteed, an OK indie dramedy with a career-best performance from Mark Duplass; for all its critical hosannas, I was hoping for something deeper than a modestly entertaining lark with a tacked-on “rowdy guy tries to help nerd lose his virginity” subplot.
Finally, not necessarily disappointing - but definitely baffling - is the love for The Grey, another entry in Liam Neeson’s late career “renaissance” of phoned-in action star turns. Several months after its release, I saw a bicycle parked outside of a Ralph’s supermarket whose tire was inscribed with the entire “live and die on this day” poem that Neeson recites in the film - enough to make me remember the movie’s misplaced affection for a regressive Victorian-era masculinity and start shaking my damn head.
Most Pleasant Surprises
Every year there’s a summer blockbuster that defies low expectations or awful-looking trailers or the presence of Will Smith and turns out to be pretty entertaining. This year that movie was Men in Black III. 2012 was also a good year for nifty B-movies, most notably Ti West’s legitimately terrifying send-up of ghost hunting in The Innkeepers and the RZA’s kung-fu homage The Man With the Iron Fists. But holy hell did I have a blast watching Premium Rush, a script that David Koepp probably shoved into a drawer sometime in the ‘90s, then exhumed when rude, radical antiheroes doing sweet BMX tricks and taking on Chinese gangs and corrupt cops became commercially viable again.
And one final curveball: for all of his real-life image problems, Shia LeBeouf has always been a competent, natural actor. Watching him in Lawless - where LeBeouf is perfectly cast as a wannabe player who fails miserably before learning the requisite skills and tact - was a pleasant reminder of his still-limitless potential, and I foolishly predict that he’s going to be nominated for an Oscar someday.
Best Performances
Best All-Around
’Twas the year of Matthew McConaughey, who escaped from formulaic rom-com hell and reminded us what a brilliant actor he could be by, well, acting. He was dynamite in no less than four movies this year, nailing his roles as a grandstanding district attorney in Bernie and a predatory lawman in the delightfully nasty Killer Joe, and he even brought a sense of pathos to the overheated mess that was The Paperboy (which desperately needed someone who could act like an adult). But the crown jewel was his much-celebrated turn as a sleazy strip club owner/exotic dancer in Magic Mike, a performance so deeply committed and flat-out perfect that it shatters the boundaries of self-parody. Not bad for someone who was once struggling to fight the perception that his zonked portrayal of Dazed and Confused’s laid-back burnout Wooderson wasn’t an act.
The Fellas
Jack Black's performance in Bernie as a beloved mortician who murdered the wicked witch of a small Texas community is award-worthy, but faces an uphill battle because of the actor's prior reputation for nonstop mugging in lowbrow comedies. In Bernie, however, Black subdues his trademark manic tics and outbursts just enough to suggest that they're the coping mechanisms of an extremely repressed and stressed-out individual.
The comedian Tim Heidecker has an even smaller chance of awards recognition, given that his star-making turn comes in the acerbic character study The Comedy. As a vile hipster layabout who revels in making other people uncomfortable, he gives a fiercely unglamorous performance that invites hatred and pity and, against all odds, a touch of sympathy. The discovery of Heidecker's acting chops here is nothing short of stunning.
The Ladies
The musical Les Misérables hits plenty of emotional highs in its two and a half hours, but it's Anne Hathaway who steals the show early on with her heartbreaking rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream." It's far and away the most successful product of the film's ambitious plan to have its cast belt out their tunes live on set, meaning that Hathaway is simultaneously killing the vocals and the acting.
Jessica Chastain carries the sprawling Zero Dark Thirty through a decade of clandestine meetings, gut feelings, and the ever-present threat of terrorist attack. Representing everything that made it possible for the American intelligence community and its allies to locate and kill Osama Bin Laden - determination, willpower, confidence - without turning into a jingoistic stereotype, she epitomizes what it means to bend but never break.
Rashida Jones' maturity and poise has been typecast as "seriousness" in both film and television for years, acting as the calming and slightly frowny presence in a sea of wackiness. But she finally gets the meaty role she deserves in the break-up comedy Celeste and Jesse Forever. Of course, she had to write the part herself, but it's far from a vanity project as she proves that "grown-up" and "funny" aren't mutually exclusive characteristics.
Best Screen Couples
Much of the success of Silver Linings Playbook starts with the chemistry of its leads, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, who convincingly play two people all too familiar with losing control, and the way that complicates the equally uncontrollable process of falling in love. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman have their own issues in The Master, two men slipping away from the mainstream who need each other to give some sense of where their lives are going. Lastly, Shannon Beer and Solomon Glave perfectly capture the heightened emotions of young love as the doomed couple in Wuthering Heights, laying the foundation for generations of retribution and reconciliation.
Lions in Winter
Good roles for older actors can be hard to come by, so it's all the more pleasing to see Judi Dench redefining the role of "Bond Girl" in Skyfall and Frank Langella as a retired cat burglar losing his memory but not his sly instincts and distaste for authority in Robot and Frank. But it doesn't get any better than Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens dispensing mellifluous insults to his congressional colleagues in Lincoln, a performance that's secretly better than Method poster boy Daniel Day-Lewis'.
The Golden Ham
To all those who still don't consider Michael Shannon a national treasure, let his performance as the impeccably-named Detective Bobby Monday in Premium Rush remove all doubt. Known mostly for his ability to project a preternatural self-control, Shannon's silly turn as a hapless, sniveling corrupt cop with an explosive temper and a serious gambling problem is like watching the dentist's kid finally get a few minutes alone in the candy store. The most impressive part? Even when he's delivering lines with a quasi-Bugs Bunny accent, Shannon is still creepy menace personified.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wide Angle: The Canon Conundrum
Occasionally I will take a break from reviewing movies to complain about something else: this is "Wide Angle"
That's largely because it seems like the main function of a film canon is not celebrating greatness, but identifying and re-affirming consensus. That goes double for the Oscars. By winning the Academy Award for Best Picture this past February, The Artist entered what is perhaps the most widely-recognized artistic canon in the world, whether we like it or not. (Consider this post a very belated Oscars postmortem.) The fact that much of this year's Oscar narrative revolved around how underwhelming the nominees were - a common complaint, year after year - again revealed the disparity between the our expectations of a Best Picture's worthiness and what this choice actually represents.
Let us abduct you into our world of whimsical nostalgia
The Artist's canonical authority is derived from a quality that a great many past winners have also possessed: electability. As much as they are about popularity, everyone admits that the Oscars are also a contest of political will and consensus-building. So it only makes sense that we often discuss them in political terms. It's not coincidental that studios launch "campaigns" to raise a film's profile within the electorate and turn their nominees into front-runners. (If you extend the analogy to include a kind of Oscars Electoral College, the directors are the progressive upper Midwest and the actors are the solidly sentimental Sunbelt.)
Thompson echoes this sentiment in her post, comparing John Ford's How Green Was My Valley to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane to illustrate how even film critics - a group that should feel the least unencumbered in expressing its sincere opinion - are guided by the search for consensus. Though How Green won the big prize at the 1941 Academy Awards, it is Kane that has endured as a staple of lists of the greatest films ever made, to the point that Ford's classic suffers from an inverted halo effect. Entertainment Weekly had the gumption to include How Green on a list of "most overrated" Oscar winners, mostly because it had the temerity to be released in the same year as Kane.
Man, I really wish I was watching Citizen Kane instead
Frankly, I have no patience for the kind of ex post facto exercise that EW indulges in here. (How is it possible for the winner of a democratic vote to be "overrated?") Any fair and balanced reckoning of Kane should note that its ubiquitous presence on best-of lists is as perfunctory a narrative as a nakedly "sentimental" film temporarily distracting Academy voters from recognizing the great artistic triumph right under their noses. But we forget that the Academy's decision is made by a relatively minuscule group of people, with a scant few months to locate the films in their proper historical and artistic context. With time, it's become clear that Kane and How Green are each great films in their own right. It's slightly insane that we invest so much in an either-or proposition. Why can't our canon make room for both?
Well, we love the speculation, we love the competition, and we love the fact that, though capable of producing idiosyncratic results, the output of our collective critical machinery is usually as predictable as the process of nominating a presidential candidate. The contenders on the margins are initially exciting, but suffer under greater scrutiny. We end up with a winner that represents a collective compromise and best resembles a "classical" form. It's a process designed to vet our fiercest and messiest passions, for better or worse, and preserve our prudence for posterity.
Charles Foster Kane and all the publications that have declared his biopic the best film of all time
Given that the walls of good taste can be torn down as quickly as they are built up, consensus isn't a terrible foundation to build a canon on. Maybe the self-curating film buff plowing through his or her Netflix queue doesn't care a whit about the year's best middlebrow dramas, but for a great many people an Academy Award is a film's ticket to a cinematic Shangri-La. And despite several choices that may appear subpar or uninspired, even the stuffiest of snobs has to admit you could construct a formidable Film Appreciation 101 syllabus from the Academy's selections. Casablanca. The Godfather. All Quiet on the Western Front. Annie Hall. The Lord of the Rings.
In the end, neither they nor we should sweat what's not on that list, especially when the vast majority of the public is excluded from its assembly. Rather, we should focus on the canons that include us as decision makers. The Library of Congress's National Film Registry is unique in this regard. Anybody can make a nomination for the list of up to 25 films that are added to the Registry every year. The main criteria for inclusion are that a film must be at least 10 years old and should be "historically, culturally, or aesthetically significant." Thus, we have a comprehensive, continuously expanding list where James Cameron can rub shoulders with John Cassavetes, and Mrs. Doubtfire is as viable a candidate for inclusion as Mulholland Dr.
In the end, neither they nor we should sweat what's not on that list, especially when the vast majority of the public is excluded from its assembly. Rather, we should focus on the canons that include us as decision makers. The Library of Congress's National Film Registry is unique in this regard. Anybody can make a nomination for the list of up to 25 films that are added to the Registry every year. The main criteria for inclusion are that a film must be at least 10 years old and should be "historically, culturally, or aesthetically significant." Thus, we have a comprehensive, continuously expanding list where James Cameron can rub shoulders with John Cassavetes, and Mrs. Doubtfire is as viable a candidate for inclusion as Mulholland Dr.
And isn't this the best example of what a canon can be - inclusive, diverse, and personal? Not a hierarchy, but a level playing field? It all boils down to a simple choice: we can decide on a film canon that easily anticipates the old arguments, or we can endeavor to create our own.
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