Rango (2011)

Posted on March 30, 2011 | 1 comment

For an animated film to thrive, it has to do something we haven’t seen an animated film do before. Back in the early aughts this was far simpler, as computer-generated animation was still novelty enough to stand more or less alone if needed. But as more and more studios get into the remarkably lucrative game of computer-animated flicks, we’re seeing more and more films that flirt with other themes and genres. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was more screwball comedy then kid’s movie, and the Neil Gaiman-sourced Coraline has a very eery and enjoyable darkness to it. This movement away from the center has not been lost on director Gore Verbinski in his first film in five years that doesn’t have Pirates in the title: Rango.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Posted on March 25, 2011 | 3 comments

There are films that you watch and there are films that you experience, and in almost every case, a Stanley Kubrick film will fall into that second category. This becomes clearer when you tell somebody that you recently watched one of his films and they ask you what it was about. Try and answer. Sure, you can give a plot summary, but trying to articulate what the film was about is like trying to describe color to a blind person. There’s simply too much there. Never is this truer than in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick’s legendary masterpiece devoted to the majesty and mystery of our universe. Kubrick himself said in a 1968 interview, “You’re free to speculate as you wish about the philosophical and allegorical meaning of the film—and such speculation is one indication that it has succeeded in gripping the audience at a deep level—but I don’t want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he’s missed the point.” His purpose was not to tell us what to feel, but simply to make us feel something immense. If, somehow, you come out on the other side of this remarkable piece of cinema without being moved, without feeling something, then friend, you’re doing it wrong.

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Classics, DVD/Blu-Ray, Five Stars, Full List, Oscar Nominee, Oscar Winner

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Citizen Kane (1941)

Posted on March 16, 2011 | 1 comment

My latest viewing of Orson Welles‘ career-defining masterpiece was a palette cleanser, pulling me with great finality out of the quicksand of the 2011 Oscar race and refocusing my scope. Sometimes it takes a great film to do this, and through most of my career as a watcher I’ve used tent-pole titles to widen my perspective. This is a necessary joy at times, but Citizen Kane is, obviously, far more than just a refreshing film from another era. It is a complex portrait of one of this country’s most successful and monstrous businessmen, and the starting gun of a media war. It is the shining achievement of Welles’ career, as well as his undoing. It is considered by many to be the greatest film of all time.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Classics, DVD/Blu-Ray, Five Stars, Full List, Oscar Nominee, Oscar Winner

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Town (2010)

Posted on February 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

60 Second Reviews

The night after my viewing of The Town, I had a dream that Jon Hamm was after me. It wasn’t a complex dream and I’ve mostly forgotten it, but I woke up feeling particularly tense. That dread feeling is what Ben Affleck‘s strongest film to date does so well; tension and anxiety and excitement, all are relevant adjectives for The Town, and all are present throughout. While Affleck may be a bit up-and-down as an actor, he seems to be finding a real niche as a director.

Ben Affleck is Doug MacRay, the leader of a professional foursome of thieves. Their heists are flawlessly executed, even on the occasion when MacRay’s partner James (Jeremy Renner) loses his head. In hot pursuit of Doug and his boys is Special Agent Adam Frawley (Hamm). Despite his better judgment, and a glimpse at a future with the charming Claire (Rebecca Hall), MacRay can’t get clear of the claws of local don The Florist (Pete Postlethwaite), or the depth of his Charlestown roots.

With his nomination, I assumed Jeremy Renner would be a scene-stealer, but the film’s biggest achievement is its ensemble. Renner is, as always, fabulous. He has a persistent restraint, a remarkable way of playing intense scenes at a slow-burn, and not just discharging his anger. Renner though, is hardly the key performance. Jon Hamm takes what could have been a rote “good guy” antagonist, and makes him a genuine villain. His Frawley is interested solely in bringing justice, and seems capable of literally anything to get at it. Meanwhile, plenty of smaller parts are delivered maximally. Blake Lively gets well outside of her comfort zone as a slutty addict; Postlethwaite is, as ever, a supreme talent and ominous creep; and Chris Cooper shows up for all of two minutes to steal a scene. As it turns out though, Affleck is perhaps the biggest surprise. Something about his performance here suggests he is finally coming into himself. A decade ago Affleck’s Doug MacRay would have been louder and sillier and more melodramatic, but here he is disciplined and subtle, and in complete ownership of one of his best roles.

After The Town, it’s clear that Ben Affleck is on the rise. Though perhaps a bit long in coming, maturity seems to have arrived in time to make him a genuinely exciting filmmaker.

Leave a comment

Posted in 60 Second Reviews, DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Animal Kingdom (2010)

Posted on February 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

60 Second Reviews

What Animal Kingdom does best is shock you. The violence of Director David Michôd‘s Australian gangster film is mostly sudden and stark. It comes out of nowhere, and once it has passed the film returns to an even-keeled plod, as though nothing has happened. This is certainly intentional, and the pie piece that makes Animal Kingdom worth watching.

Newcomer James Frecheville plays Josh “J” Cody, the nephew of the notorious Cody brothers; bank robbers, drug dealers, nice guy villains. As the local law close in on the Cody family, J finds himself caught in the middle, despite being essentially nonexistent in every interaction he has. Frecheville, presumably at the direction of Michôd, plays J with precisely the kind of permeating detachment you expect from a teenager. While this is an excellent theoretical choice for the tone of the film, it ends up leaving J a hard character to care about.

As J’s eerily manipulative Grandma Janine and the matriarch of this nuclear crime syndicate, Jacki Weaver has leapt out with an Oscar nomination as the most notable member of this cast. Certainly her performance is strong, though it takes awhile to get going, and even once she hits her stride it feels like equal parts performance and direction. A standout nonetheless, Weaver is not the only one in this performance-heavy composition. Guy Pearce, in one of his many recent minimal appearances, is as intriguing as ever. His Detective Leckie seems the only one in opposition to the Codys who has some idea of what’s going on. Meanwhile, Ben Mendelsohn as J’s Uncle Pope Cody is haunting and shadowy. Pope is the family’s active leader (behind its Oz-like grandmother) and his persistent mania keeps him unchallenged. The film’s one chief weakness is how much the story hinges on its final moment. Without revealing anything, this is a slow-paced film with a huge payoff. Without said payoff, it’s not much of a film at all.

Animal Kingdom is a relatively straight-forward genre film, with pacing deliberate and measured, and more than one career-defining performance.

Leave a comment

Posted in 60 Second Reviews, DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Posted on February 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

“It’s a fucking marathon,” says Julianne Moore‘s Jules of marriage in The Kids Are All Right. “You stop seeing the other person. You just see weird projections of your own junk.” This is nothing new, this stripped down reveal of the intimacies of marriage. If anything, the big screen is prime real estate for bared souls and uncomfortable break downs. Though Kids centers on a lesbian couple, the big picture problems of this marriage are no different then any other. Nor are the struggles with raising children ultimately any stranger. No, what makes Writer/Director Lisa Cholodenko‘s film worth watching is the monkey wrench of a sperm donor and the complexity of a family making room for one more.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Biutiful (2010)

Posted on February 9, 2011 | 1 comment

People always say that movies are a means of escape. Whether science fiction or a love story, the dark of a movie theater allows us a respite from the monotony of everyday life, right? If so, then where does Biutiful fit in? Who could call this an escape? Surely there’s drama here, and a kind of kineticism that’s as exciting as it is alarming, but the grief is almost too much to bear; a degree of sprawling sadness no one could ever be thrilled by or even prepared for. There’s little point to telling a story so heartbreaking that we as the audience are taken past our limits, nor is there much to be said for exercises in extremes. No, to justify doling out anguish with such abandon there must be a point. Grasping the purpose of Biutiful is a bit like pulling out a thoroughly-embedded splinter, and in the end, just as satisfying.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another Year (2010)

Posted on February 7, 2011 | 2 comments

Zero Stars

I generally avoid reading reviews until I’ve made my own conclusions. It’s a precaution against accidental plagiarism or having my opinion subtly altered. In the case of Another Year though, I felt safe. I was so convinced of my position, so sure of my assessment, I didn’t feel the usual need for prudence. I couldn’t imagine that the professionals would really have such a different viewpoint then my own. This assumption lead me to the Rotten Tomatoes rating of this film: 92%. It led me to rave reviews from Ebert and Travers and Scott. And more than anything, it entrenched my position that Mike Leigh‘s Another Year is one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a good long while. It is as smug and self-satisfied as its two chief characters, and leaves the viewer with nothing but questions. I don’t know what movie everybody else is watching, but Writer/Director Mike Leigh’s latest is a pretentious cipher of a film and, to put it plainly, not worth the film it was printed on.

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Bad, Bad Films, DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Restrepo (2010)

Posted on February 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

60 Second Reviews

Restrepo–-titled after the documentary’s pivotal outpost, which is named for PFC Juan Restrepo, a casualty of the war–tells the story of the armed forces men stationed in the Korangal Valley in Afghanistan and their agonizing day-to-day. The Korangal has been called the deadliest place on earth, and while filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger don’t shy away from the awful reality, it’s the human side of a serviceman’s life that ends up being documented most effectively.

As documentaries go, Restrepo is unique, if not terribly complex. Unlike so many documentaries that tell a story by editing together footage and interviews for the most compelling result, here the chronology drives the story. Like any war hero recounting a tale, the story moves in a straight line, from beginning to end. Along with the directors’ hands-off approach to the editing of plot, they employ an interview style that allows the interviewees a remarkable amount of freedom. These men aren’t giving an account of events as much as they’re giving an account of their emotional and mental journeys. This flexibility of topic means the men spend as much time talking about each other and their lives back home as they do the war itself and life in the Korangal.

We’ve all heard stories of disturbed vets; men unable to extract themselves from war without massive mental trauma. These are those men. The soldiers from the Korangal have seen death in war, and have killed, and trying to return to a life that doesn’t account for these two extremes seems to be as draining as the war itself. What Restrepo does so well is let the men tell their own stories without interfering. While the film does take a stance, it doesn’t manufacture one, and perhaps that is more impressive then anything else about it.

A beautifully heartbreaking and wholly true story, Retrespo is shocking in both its content and its lack of manipulation.

Leave a comment

Posted in 60 Second Reviews, DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Inception (2010)

Posted on January 31, 2011 | 1 comment

Sometimes, in some ways, it feels as though Christopher Nolan might be tricking us. After Inception‘s release there were endless conversations and references made to the film’s strenuous complexity. People spoke of it as though it were as mysterious as Lost, when the reality is that it just sort of feels that way. Sure, Nolan is weaving a complicated fiction, but are there really that many stones left unturned? Are there really that many elements of this story left ambiguous? It seems much more the case that Nolan has simply done a masterful job of convincing us that if we want to appreciate this story, we had better stay on our toes. Meanwhile, as we kill ourselves trying to appreciate every last technical tidbit, we become immersed in this: an astonishing action movie with a broken heart.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in DVD/Blu-Ray, Full List, Oscar Nominee, Oscar Winner

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,