Creatures Of The Night

Year: 2016

Director: Tom Ford

Cast: Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon

Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Fashion designer Tom Ford would not seem like the obvious candidate for a prestigious movie career, but his debut film A Single Man was just the right blend of overwrought ambigu-drama and stunning aestehtic that he caught the eye of the Hollywood elite. Now, 7 years later, we’re getting his sophomore feature, the thriller Nocturnal Animals. This is the most important movie of his career, the one that defines the direction of his narrative and aesthetic development to see if he can actually sustain a directorial career. Let’s see how that went.

So far so good.

The plot: Grotesquely rich visual artist Susan (Amy Adams) lives in Los Angeles with her husband Hutton (Armie Hammer) one of those moneyed types in suits who has a job so above the scope of day-to-day labor that you’re not actually sure what it is that he does. Also his named is f**king Hutton, so who needs more description than that.

Susan is reaching a personal crossroads, doubting every choice that she’s made in her life when her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal) sends her the manuscript of his new novel, which she reads over the course of one sleepless weekend while F**king Hutton is on a “business trip” with some slinky model.

In the novel, which contains some disturbing parallels to her own life, West Texas father Tony Hastings (also Jake Gyllenhaal) works with local policeman Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) to track down the man (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who murdered his wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber) on the lonely highway one night. He attempts to overcome his own lack of strength to bring justice back into the world.

And take lots of showers.

Basically, Nocturnal Animals is a Western disguised as a prestige drama, which is actually pretty nifty. Did it need three layers of narrative to achieve this (her reading of the novel is also intercut with flashbacks of their life together)? Absolutely not. Does Amy Adams need to be involved? Well, definitely not as much as she is, but she’s a gorgeous canvas for Tom Ford’s most dazzling aesthetic, so we’ll let it slide. It’s a deliriously messy structure, but the story at its core is strong enough to survive the worst lashings of narrative incompetence.

First, let’s take a closer look at that core story, the Western thriller novel, also titled “Nocturnal Animals.” It’s definitely a narrative that would have made a decent film on its own, depicting the bond between two men who have nothing to lose and how their differing personalities chafe against a tense situation.

The roadside thriller sequence that opens this particular story is exquisitely terrifying, dominated by an unhinged Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who Deliverances it up without going too over-the-top. You can sense Tom Ford’s preference for grounded, character-driven drama in the way he nervously fumbles the film’s one true-blue action sequence: a car chase with no discernible geography that feels like two or three cars are just singular points barreling through the void with no particular relation to one another (seriously – I could have sworn three cars were involved, but only two come into play as the scene closes out) – but his work with the actors up-close and personal is phenomenal.

Jake Gyllenhaal is a marvel here, depicting his entire arc within a tremendously tactile performance that seamlessly differentiates his two characters through subtle physical cues.

And I don’t just mean shaving his beard, though that helps.

Gyllenhaal might be an offscreen character during the “present day,” but Nocturnal Animals is nevertheless all about him and he knows it. The only reason I’m not frustrated by the overused narrative-within-a-narrative conceit is that the film is explicitly taking a look at how we use fiction to cope with and redefine our reality. I really can’t overstate the subtlety of his performance in getting his message across.

But then you zoom out one tick more and land on Amy Adams. This section of the film is immensely frustrating, slashing up the flow of the novel with constant insert shots of her reading and looking sullen. Her performance is solid, but the script serves her extremely poorly. Her struggles add a frisson of social satire and four film-stealing, one-scene-only cameos from Laura Linney, Michael Sheen, Andrea Riseborough, and Jena Malone, but the tone is all over the place. These scenes are the mostly overtly comic, yet the atmosphere so clearly yearns to be dour and repressive.

This is also the area where Ford busts out his most self-consciously composed frames, using lush color blocking and glammed-up costume design for  carousel of poster moment that are stunning but don’t add up to much. When two-thirds of the film works so well, it feels wrong to complain about the rest – especially when it’s as well-composed as this- but this stuff just kind of fails to work. It sputters and stalls the film over and over and over again, in its desperation to be noticed (as evidenced by the opening credits, which rest on a truly shocking image that adds nothing to the film, existing just for its own sake).

Nocturnal Animals is far from a failure, but its just barely an improvement on A Single Man. Ford’ll have to work a little harder than this if he really wants to prove himself. But maybe he doesn’t, and that’s fine too. Nocturnal Animals is good enough to just be itself.

TL;DR: Nocturnal Animals is a gorgeous thriller that's a tentative step forward for director Tom Ford.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 941

Universal Language

Year: 2016

Director: Denis Villenueve

Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker 

Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

I don’t even know how Denis Villenueve found time to direct Arrival, between Sicario and his commitment to Blade Runner 2049. In the context of his career, it feels like a bonus film. Honestly, that’s also kind of how it feels in the sci-fi genre, too. It’s an intelligent, easy to like film that will completely alienate general audiences. But while it’s a terrific one-time watch, I don’t feel the need to ever revisit it. So, a bonus. A brief, ephemeral respite from this year’s cavalcade of horrors.

For our troubles, 2017 owes us the f**king best movie year since the form was invented.

In Arrival, 12 massive alien pods descend form the sky and hover over scattered regions of the Earth. Linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is conscripted by the U.S. military to learn the aliens’ language and figure out why they’re here, as the rest of the world panics. Together, she and scientist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) attempt to reign in the military’s itchy trigger fingers while finding a way to connect with a life form and culture they know literally nothing about.

Like teen movie directors, only sci-fi-ier.

Arrival is a spectacularly dry sci-fi film. It’s more mood piece than actioner, which is what I was anticipating, but it even defied my expectations by being less of a linguistic procedural and more a polemic against our current state of international affairs. And that’s fine, but it devolves into a bit of sci-fi mysticism that could have been meaningful, but mostly smoothes over plot holes and teaches a lesson that seems like should be attached to some other movie.

This is another one of those films that, like Moonlight, are more fun to dissect than sit through. Its shades of Slaughterhouse-Five are intellectually stimulating, but they lack the wit and verve of Vonnegut’s masterpiece. In fact, most of its attempts to wring any sort of emotion from the audience fall flat, from the Up-esque opening that attempts to make us weep for a character we’ve never been properly introduced to, to the vague kinship between Renner and Adams that has the chemistry of a second grade science set.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re both fine actors and they do a great job (especially Adams, who holds the entire thing together and lands some comic relief that just shouldn’t work), but these two characters aren’t human beings. They’re science-spouting automatons, mere conduits for the larger themes of Arrival. There’s next to no human connection between them, and any time a scene hinges on that it misses the mark. Arrival is too cold for that.

The only heartwarming going on here is the result of alien experiments.

Other than that, though, Arrival is a pretty great movie. A chilly human element is totally fine when you’re presenting such sci-fi marvels as the gravity-defying entryway to the alien pod, a simple but stunning piece of design that never fails to wow. And while the design of the aliens themselves is intentionally obscured for the most part, the appearance of their written language is a stunning bit of truly inhuman creation that emphasizes the massive challenge our heroes are facing.

Arrival is a monument to genre aesthetic, highlighting the alien in everyday life Villenueve’s direction is slick and stylish, making frequently bizarre choices that feel organic yet extremely odd at the same time. One shot in particular, a silhouette that makes Dr. Banks’ profile look like one of the mythical Greys of alien lore, is just plain marvelous, visually underscoring the film’s themes.

You wouldn’t think that visual metaphor should be a marvel in the cinematic medium, but you haven’t seen as many slasher films as I have.

It’s a good thing the good stuff here is great, because there’s actually a lot of sneaky little elements that kinda suck. We’ve already covered the useless human element, but there’s also a bizarre scene jammed sideways into the middle of the movie, in which Jeremy Renner narrates a montage (despite the fact that his character is nowhere near important enough to break the fourth wall like that), skipping over months of plot that would have actually been very interesting in a bizarre clip show that feels like a commercial for some sort of alien liberal arts university. This scene is never mentioned or replicated again, which is for the best.

Then there’s Jóhan Jóhansson’s score, which is mostly adequate but occasionally slips into twee a cappella that feels like a direct lift from Swiss Army Man. That score was terrific, but it fits with the tone of Arrival like a rusty knife. But, hey. I found it interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Sometimes a movie exists just for aesthetic reasons and sometimes that’s good enough.

TL;DR: Arrival is an aesthetically and intellectually pleasing sci-fi movie, but it's still an ephemeral lark.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 832

Men In Tights

Year: 2016

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams

Run Time: 2 hours 31 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

F**k Christopher Nolan, am I right? The man is pretty much solely responsible for the current whiplash dichotomy in superhero movies today. It’s either the peppy smirking of the Marvel empire or the dour bleakness of DC, and that’s entirely the result of the success of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. And while I admit the first two are good films, the gritty superhero genre already folded up its own ass with the uniquely baffling Dark Knight Rises. Yet they keep on pumping this crap out.

The thing is, when a Marvel movie is bad, at least it still has a sense of fun (it’s no coincidence that Marvel’s biggest recent failure, the Fox-produced abortion Fantastic Four, is also the darkest film in their slate). There’s a bit of that comic booky cotton candy flavor that at least makes it bearable. Unfortunately, “fun” is a four-letter word when we’re in Zack Snyder’s wheelhouse, even when presenting a team-up that has been caramelizing in comic book fans’ fevered imaginations for half a century: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The court case of the century.

In BvS, Batman (Ben Affleck) is the vigilante alter ego of Bruce Wayne, a wealthy playboy whose company was turned to rubble during the highly destructive Zod battle at the end of Man of Steel. He has since vowed revenge on the caped crusader what wrought this devastation. Batman lives in Gotham, a crime-riddled city located just across the river from the bustling Metropolis, in a lunatic bit of comic book world-building that has no place in this relentlessly serious film.

Metropolis is the home of Superman (Henry Cavill), who works as a reporter for the Daily Planet as his alter ego Clark Kent. His elaborate disguise, a pair of glasses, is even more ridiculous considering that even wearing a suit and a nerdy tie, Cavill looks like a WWE wrestler crammed into a tube sock. Anyway, Superman has a distaste for batman because he’s been running around f**king branding people like he’s Immortan Joe. I think that’s fair.

Anyway, when Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane (Amy Adams) – who sucks at everything she tries to do, constantly tripping into life-threatening situations – gets a hard-hitting interview with a Middle Eastern crime boss (her first and only question: “Are you a terrorist?” Now that’s journalism!), things go south and Superman saves her. For some reason totally obscured by a poorly edited action sequence, Superman is blamed for several deaths and called to trial by Senator Finch (Holly Hunter) as the public begins to doubt their trust in this literal superman who could crush their skulls without breaking a sweat if he wants to.

This crisis is being whipped into a frenzy by wealthy magnate Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), who is the screenwriter’s mouthpiece for approximately a quarter of a billion twitchy monologues about the stunted themes the film tries to force on us about power and man’s goodness or whatever. Also Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) shows up to toss in some Justice League promo, but she has fewer than twenty lines and exists solely to be hit by things, only to swing her hair in sexy slomo as the dust clears to reveal that she’s indestructible.

Go feminism!

Oh man, where the hell do I begin? I suppose we should start with the obvious controversy: Ben Affleck as Batman. The masses were certainly upset by this decision, but I have no beef with the man. He turns in a solid world-weary performance, and he’s about as impossibly, gay porn buff as Cavill so at least our heroes match.

The real problem is that the actual character of Batman is spectacularly ill-defined. Other than a needless repetition of his “dead parents” backstory, this Batman is nothing but a haphazard collection of iconography the film assumes we already know (Alfred, batmobile, Bat signal, etc.). But this ain’t a continuation of Christian Bale’s character. This is an entirely new personality that we are given no face time with because this is through and through just a Superman sequel. But Affleck? No, he’s not even a blip on the radar of the tremendously bad things this movie provides in spades.

While we’re on the topic of casting, let’s talk Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg is not Lex Luthor. And I don’t mean that in the “oh, he’s not bald, oh he’s too young” wailing tone of the hopelessly obsessed comic canon advocates. I mean he’s the single worst casting choice made by a major motion picture studio in perhaps a dozen years. And I actually like Jesse Eisenberg. But his work here is a plumb embarrassing retread of his Mark Zuckerberg persona (The Social Network weighs heavily on Luthor’s characterization in this universe) performed via a weak Robin Williams impersonation, rapidly shifting from silly voice to silly voice in a palsied, irritating frenzy, sometimes just kind of yipping like a Chihuahua for no reason. It’s bad, you guys.

He makes Kylo Ren look like genius casting.

It’s not like any of the cast is up to any truly great work (Cavill contents himself with strangled teeth-gnashing, Adams is profoundly boring – though she’s given zilch to do, and a random extra gives a portentous line reading with all the misplaced emphasis of a second grader attempting to read Shakespeare aloud), but Eisenberg sinks every scene like a cement brick. It doesn’t exactly help that the film hangs on his every word like it’s the divine gospel.

Actually, that’s a problem inherent to the entire film, and to Zack Snyder’s career if you think about it. Whether Batman is decrypting a hard drive or Lois is checking into a hotel, the film treats it like The Single Most Important Thing That Has Ever Happened. My problems with this are twofold. 1) They ignore the actual most important scene (Superman cooking breakfast shirtless), and 2) if everything is important, nothing is important. Junkie XL’s percussive score worked for Mad Max: Fury Road because every frame of that movie is the most exciting thing ever filmed. But here it just drives home how unimpressive nearly everything you’re watching actually is.

And boy is this film just a pile of unimpressive nonsense. When it’s not overexplaining itself like you’re 8 years old (“I need Kryptonite. I’ve got to get back to Gotham. Because that’s where the Kryptonite is.”), it’s launching into an inscrutable barrage of gobbledygook that is either forced promo for Justice League films three years down the line or one of a million useless dream sequences that endlessly repeat the film’s puerile themes. 

And the action scenes for which the film was ostensibly created are too-dark jumbles of half-hearted punching with absolutely no juice. Plus, you know how people complain about Hollywood movies being all explosions and no plot? Well, if you took every explosion from one of those movies and crammed them together, you would have a single frame of Batman v Superman, which at certain points seems to take place in a whirling firestorm. You sometimes can’t even see the action through the smokescreen of orange and yellow flames.

Let’s take a moment to relax and realize that the substandard action makes sense when you remember that the movie is actually just gay porn.

I suppose the biggest flaw of Batman v Superman is that it’s at odds with itself, attempting to be both a superhero battle film and a hoo-rah teamup Justice League prequel. The reason there’s almost zero motivation to their fight is that they have less than half a movie before they have to be BFFs, [SPOILERS which would explain Batman’s on-a-dime turnaround during the patently ridiculous scene where he discovers that Superman also has a mom named Martha. That’s even more embarrassing to write down than it was to watch.]

This weakens the already thin characterizations, leaving us with nothing but a bombastic sludge of dreary overexertion, filled with deeply unthreatening villains, a preponderance of sloooooow ominous zooms, and a rich undercurrent of misogyny that may or may not especially hate Asian women for no discernible reason.

Oh, and because this is leading to an Avengers-style team movie, we have a handful of attempts at quips and winking barbs that either fall flat from the get-go (like the syntactically spurious “Firm grip. You should not pick a fight with this person.”) or were so clearly retrofitted to be in the trailer that they reek of flop sweat (the famous “Is she with you?” “I thought she was with you!” exchange re: Wonder Woman actively defies pre-established plot mechanics).

But I suppose I should say something nice about the film before I get the hell out of here. The opening credits are pretty. Well, not the actual font, which is punishingly bland, but the sequence that they play over has some interesting visuals. And a couple images that deify Superman actually deserve the film’s pretentions of grandeur. But the single best thing about the film was that it definitely didn’t feel 2 ½ hours long, so I must have enjoyed it on some level. Right?

There’s a scene in Batman v Superman where a woman discovers a jar of piss on her desk, which causes her to babble incoherently. I couldn’t think of a more perfect analogy for this review. Don’t see Batman v Superman if you can help it. Don’t let my sacrifice go to waste.

TL;DR: Batman v Superman isn’t the worst superhero flick ever made, but that doesn’t mean it’s not infuriating.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 1608
Reviews In This Series
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Snyder, 2016)
Suicide Squad (Ayer, 2016)

Is There A Word Yet For Old Friends Who've Just Met?

Year: 2011

Director: James Bobin

Cast: Amy Adams, Jason Segel, Chris Cooper

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

At last, it has come to this. Although the last film in the extant theatrical Muppet franchise is technically 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted, I reviewed that film when it first came out. So that leaves us with 2011’s The Muppets as the finale of this long-winded retrospective. Really, it couldn’t be more serendipitous. We’re finishing in the very place where my deep-seated love for the Muppets began.

The Muppets took such a hold on me that I saw it twice in the theater and even wrote a glowing review of it on an ancient, prehistoric blog that has long since washed away on the tides of the Internet. One boy who couldn’t care less about Jim Henson and his legacy walked into the theater, and out came a man with a heart made of felt.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.

In The Muppets, Gary (Jason Segel) is happily dating Mary (Amy Adams), and they’re heading to the tropical paradise known as Los Angeles for their tenth anniversary. But there’s one small problem. One very small, ping-pong ball-eyed problem. His name is Walter (Peter Linz) and he’s Gary’s tagalong little brother/puppet. Mary is mildly perturbed that he will be joining them, but bears it with good, Amy Adams-esque grace. However, during a visit to the run-down Muppet Studios, thing get about as un-romantic as they could possibly be. Walter learns that wicked oil baron Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is planning on razing the Muppet Studio and Theater to drill for oil unless the Muppets can raise enough money in one week to buy it back.

There’s only one way to do that, and it’s getting the gang back together. With the help of one Mr. The Frog (Steve Whitmire), they gather up the old crew, including Animal (Eric Jacobson, taking over for Frank Oz, who was finally broken by Muppets from Space), Gonzo (the steadfast Dave Goelz), Fozzie Bear (Eric Jacobson), and the reluctant Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobson , who seems to have made a pretty solid career move). The Muppets are unsure if they’re still relevant to modern audiences, but they give it the old college try (and they actually did go to college in Muppets Take Manhattan, so it works) and put on a show.

It’s time to get things started.

The Muppets operates primarily on nostalgia, much in the vein of the recent explosion of revival media: Arrested Development, The X-Files, Fuller House, Terminator: Genisys, Jurassic World… The list goes on and on, but The Muppets stands out for two reasons in particular. Primarily, it got here first. But it’s also one of the only films to use that nostalgia as more than a gimmick, weaving it into the very thematic structure of the film. The Muppets have always been particularly devoted to self-referentiality, so it’s no surprise that its structure is so well-integrated with its reason for being. But the only other recent film that even comes close to achieving that level of metatextual awareness is Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which is pretty explicitly about Star Wars fanboys/girls getting to have their own space adventure. And I think we can agree that, at least thematically speaking, it ain’t a patch on The Muppets.

Yes, there is a large part of The Muppets devoted to recreating and or fawning over classic moments from The Muppet Show and their previous theatrical features (Muppets from Space, tragically, does not get a shout-out), but it’s also about the act of nostalgia and whether or not the Good Ol’ Days can be resurrected in the cynical modern world. It takes a good hard look at the Muppet legacy, only using rose-colored glasses where Muppet Treasure Island is concerned. This oddly unfiltered scrutiny is married to a ludicrously cheery tone that should work but effortlessly, ineffably does. It’s just one more facet of the inestimable magic of the Muppets.

Someday we’ll find it, the Muppet connection.

Even if The Muppets operates in large part as a nostalgia piece, it does have a charming, original story to tell. Gary, Mary, and Walter’s storyline is shoved roughly aside when the A-list Muppets are reunited, but their characters are painted in such broad strokes that they can withstand the hit. The blankness of their characters is not a liability because they act as the channel through which the audience gains exclusive front row seats to the “real live” Muppets. They perform a vital function, and they do it with grace and good cheer. Walter’s inherent blandness (and boy, is he ever the most boring Muppet ever cooked, all drab flesh tones with a limp flop of hair) would become an issue in Muppets Most Wanted, but in the context of this story, he’s an excellent bridge between the human and Muppet world, as this film more than any other seeks to explore that relationship.

By far the best original contribution to the film is its musical numbers, by Flight of the Conchords vet Bret McKenzie. Although Tex Richman’s rap is a little too 90’s for my taste, compositions like the deeply silly crooner “Man or Muppet” and the rousing opening number “Life’s a Happy Song” are tremendously satisfying. And Kermit’s solo number, the doleful, yearning “Pictures in My Head” is the single best Muppet performance since “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” way back when in 1979. The music and its tone fit the Muppet ensemble perfectly – sprightly yet wistful; full of dreams, humanity, and list for life’s ups and downs.

Really, The Muppets is a perfectly imperfect evocation of the anarchist Muppet comedy credo. The pacing might be a smidge wonky, and the variety show performances have a tendency to lean toward the twee, but this is a welcome whirligig of meta movie humor, offbeat celebrity cameos, and a deep, abiding love for the world and the people in it, even the bad folks. It’s an excellent vehicle for the Muppet renaissance we’ve thankfully found ourselves in, a grand introduction for new fans, and a fond love letter to old ones. It’s the most consistent, wholly coherent and entertaining Muppet feature film ever released, and I thank it from the bottom of my heart for pulling our felt-covered friends smack dab into the middle of the pop culture conversation once more.

TL;DR: The Muppets is an excellent, self-reflective revival of a classic family franchise.
Rating: 10/10, which it probably doesn’t deserve, but I couldn’t care less.
Word Count: 1098
Reviews In This Series
The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979)
The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981)
The Muppets Take Manhattan (Oz, 1984)
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Henson, 1992)
Muppet Treasure Island (Henson, 1996)
Muppets from Space (Hill, 1999)
The Muppets (Bobin, 2011)
Muppets Most Wanted (Bobin, 2014)

Thinking Outside The Box

Year: 2010

Director: David O. Russell

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams

Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Thanks to Sergio’s ineffable commitment to attempting to make me a more culturally fluent person, I have finally seen a David O. Russell film. My firm resistance has been plied by a series of ice cream cones, not far enough to get me to watch Silver Linings Playbook, but with enough resolve to get me in front of the director’s 2010 effort, the “based on a true story” boxing flick, The Fighter.

Or, should I say, “boring” flick. Zing! OK, the fact that I actually liked the film diminishes the effect of this joke, but I had it locked and loaded and I couldn’t resist.

The film tells the true story of the rise of boxing champ Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), a down-on-his-luck boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts. He is tired of being a stepping stone for other, better boxers and longs to emerge from under the shadow of his older brother Dicky (Christian Bale), a careless tweaker who is still coasting on his knockout of Sugar Ray Leonard over a decade ago.

When Mickey gets together with the sexy, supportive bartender Charlene (Amy Adams), who encourages him to pursue training away from his current coach – Dicky – and his current manager – his mother Alice (Melissa Leo) – he struggles to choose between escaping his overbearing family who he believes might be crushing his last chance for a championship or staying with the people who have always loved him and stood by his side, albeit in their strange disjointed way.

I know which side I’d choose, but only because I honestly believe that Amy Adams could kick Christian Bale’s ass.

Usually, one’s enjoyment of this type of movie is entirely contingent on one’s appreciation of the sport at the center of it all. The reason for this is, with the exception of the modern masterpiece Cool Runnings, the vast majority of athletic competition films devote themselves to a pornishly detailed depiction of the intricacies of the game.

Yes, there are plots and characters, but they can only conjure fleeting emotions before being dragged back by the inevitable tide of dudes in shorts chucking balls at each other. It’s all very hetero-masculine and it’s utterly exhausting if you can’t muster enthusiasm for dudes in shorts chucking balls at each other.

Don’t get me wrong. Some of these films are terrific. And some of them are Space Jam. But I am not a part of their loud, nacho-swilling demographic. I bring this up because The Fighter spectacularly avoids these pitfalls, focusing almost exclusively on family drama and character study.

If you love sports and family dramas, you are a beautiful person and I envy your worldliness.

What is most surprising about The Fighter is that, sandwiched between the drama and the punching is a not inconsiderable vein of humor. This is largely provided by Micky’s mother and his sisters, a gaggle of loudmouthed Bostonians with hair like an SNL sketch about suburban moms. Without this, The Fighter would be a much flatter, more dour film. But as it stands, the humor elevates the film completely, allowing one to easily forget about its uninspiring technique, which only once aspires to do something new with the filmmaking tools at its disposal.

The moment I’m referring to is a doozy though, underscoring a frantic Dicky with the pounding of Micky’s boxing bag while he trains alone at a session that was supposed to be with the two of them. Beyond that, the filmmakers don’t attempt anything particularly ambitious (save for one moment that flirts with emphatic musicality and is soundly rejected), generally letting the dialogue and performances speak for themselves.

Luckily for everyone, this turns out to be enough. The Fighter is helmed by a quartet of admirable actors giving varied, but equally stable and committed performances. The best is probably Bale, who is up to his favorite trick of completely altering his body and wrecking his physique to inhabit Dicky’s body physically. But he doesn’t just stop there and coast, thankfully. His Dicky comes alive in a mélange of tics and infinitely shifting emotions, performed with the grace and precision of a master ballerina.

The other three performers don’t go the whole hog like Bale, but they show admirable verisimilitude in their willingness to perform in unflattering conditions, drenched in summer sweat, a picture of grubby “real America.” Melissa Leo shines as the film’s tonal switchboard, effortlessly balancing and rerouting the drama and humor in perfect proportions, Amy Adams plays against type, reveling in a character that’s rough-and-tumble, fiery, and aggressively loyal, and Mark Wahlberg is Mark Wahlberg.

Hi.

Wahlberg turns in an utterly adequate performance, as he rarely fails to do when allowed to use his native accent, but he just can’t compete with the high caliber talent that outshines his more fundamental acting style.

So that’s The Fighter in a nutshell. A sports film with unusual tendencies, solid talent, and unremarkable atmosphere. It doesn’t stand out amidst the roar of Oscarbait cinema, but neither does it sink into the much. It’s uniquely fun for a film of its stock (there’s a little nerd pun for ya, you’re welcome), and it’s worth a look, as long as you’re a fan of Amy Adams and punching.

TL;DR: The Fighter is a remarkably funny and rewarding sports film.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 906

Bad Habits

Year: 2008

Director: John Patrick Shanley

Cast: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned.

I have promised Sergio that I would watch Doubt with him since possibly the first microsecond of our relationship, but have managed to delay it a year and a half down the line. Now, any frequent reader of this blog knows that dramas, especially religious period dramas are absolutely not my forte, although I'm a big Meryl Streep fan (if you're not, thank you for visiting this blog from your home dimension, because you don't exist in mine).

But some higher power decided that I should labor on Labor Day, so Sergio and I decided to make the most of the preceding day (which was, appropriately, Sunday) by sitting down and achieving this hard-won dream. And you know what? I didn't hate it.

I mean, it's hard to hate someone so fashion-forward.

Doubt tells the story of Catholic school principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep). Her stern, old-fashioned ways have no place in the modern cultural climate of 1964 (what's more modern than Meet the Beatles! and My Fair Lady?), or so thinks Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a more progressive priest who performs such sacrilegious acts as (gasp!) listening to "Frosty the Snowman" and (my stars!) forgive errant altar boys.

One such altar boy, Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) becomes the source of a whirling controversy by nature of 1) being the first black student accepted into the school and 2) Sister James' (Amy Adams) early suspicion that his relationship with Father Flynn might have dipped into impropriety. Sister James is caught in the crossfire as Sister Aloysius attempts to bring down Father Flynn with all her might for what she perceives to be a case of molestation.

And that's about it. Doubt is based on the play of the same name by John Patrick Shanley (also the film's director) and retains much of the same presentational limitations of the form, especially the musty, fussy, staging typically exhibited by off-Broadway plays full of ambiguity and religious metaphor.

Nope, nothing Jesusy here, move it along.

Doubt is a film about the power of words, and is thus filled to the brim with conversations: Conversations between Aloysius and her nemesis, Father Flynn, conversations between Aloysius and her unwitting mentee Sister James, and conversations between Aloysius and Donald's mother (Viola Davis), sometimes lasting ten minutes or more. To mix it up a bit, there are brief interludes for Father Flynn's lengthy sermons and Sister James' classroom lectures.

For a film this strapped for alternative content, it is absolutely crucial to feature a host of terrific performances, which it thankfully receives through the deity-channeling vessels known as Steep, Davis, and Hoffman, in that order. Adams is terrific, but too green to make an impression when pitched against these three giants. In the hands of people like, say, Keanu Reeves or Jessica Alba, the film would undoubtedly be a dismal failure.

Obviously thanks to its overwrought intellectual content, it teeters on that knife's edge for general audiences, especially those with no particular interest in religion. But for those who appreciate the art and craft of cinema, Doubt is a near textbook example of filmmaking done right, even if the story is a bit slack at times. 

The use of cinematography (especially judicious use of canted shots), color design (color is eked out only in very strict measures), and delicious lighting schemes allow the sufficiently invested viewer to interpret subtextual meaning and symbolism (even beyond the obviously religious) in a more immediate and rewarding way than many films of its ilk.

 You know what they say... Those who can't do, cant.

Doubt is full of resonant themes to be parsed out by any viewer with a keen eye and a willingness to meet the material halfway. Those who don't wish to can't be blamed, especially because the plot is so achingly measured and sedate. But for those willing to go the distance, Doubt provides some terrific performers at the top of their game and an interesting cinematic text to study.

TL;DR: Doubt faces the constant threat of receding into dullness, but survives on the strength of terrific performers and a strong cinematic style.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 720

Best Picture Roundup: Siri Not Siri

I actually watched another Best Picture nominee! This might be the highest proportion of contenders I've seen in any Oscar year!

...I'm not a great film major.

Year: 2013

Director: Spike Jonze

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams

Run Time: 2 hours 6 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Before I dive into some of the harder to swallow nominees like Dallas Buyers Club or 12 Years a Slave, I thought it best to start with the soft, pastel embrace of Her, Spike Jonze's tale of love in the not too distant future. A strangely divisive movie, this love it or hate it story details a future world in which a newly divorced man, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with an artificially intelligent operating system named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

That's about all there is to the plot, really. Chris Pratt magically appears (inexplicably dressed like Ron Swanson) in a couple scenes because he is contractually obligated to show up in the exact places you'd least expect him. Also Theodore's friend Amy (Amy Adams) has troubles with her husband (Matt Letscher), a man who proves that no matter how much things change, douchebaggery is eternal.

Although it doesn't commit the Wolf of Wall Street sin of stretching a diaphanous plot to an unbearable three hours, it can hardly make it to two without tearing somewhat, despite the strengths of the screenplay and performances.

Although any movie with Amy Adams deserves at least two hours of your time.

Largely a one man show, Her relies entirely on credible interactions between one man and a disembodied voice and Phoenix sells it utterly, packaging it all in a man full of tics and an invisible complete backstory hidden behind every gesture and expression. Not to be petty, but he certainly deserved that acting nomination far more than Leo ever did. Sorry, Shannon.

Johansson also does a terrific job, exuding effortless Rashida Jones charm and singlehandedly steering a script that loses track of her character around the beginning of Act Three. All without being onscreen for a single second! It's hard to synthesize naturalistic emotions on a soundstage stool clutching a bottle of mineral water, but she owns it.

And oh, the production design! All creamy pastels and just a touch beyond modern architecture, Her imagines a future seamlessly attached to the direction of the world as we are living it. The set design is soft, smooth, tactile, and pleasant - the exact culmination of a society that is slowly collapsing inward as people find newer and newer ways to ignore each other.

And what else could this film possibly be about but the way in which modern technology provides us enough comfort to ignore those niggling feelings like loneliness or unfulfillment? Don't get me wrong, I love technology. But there people who use it as a crutch to avoid ever having to interact with people and, well, the metaphor isn't too difficult to unpack.

Nope. Nothing metaphorical here.

What Her does best is casual and relaxed world building, one of my favorite elements of sci-fi/futuristic films. Only one of the technological advancements of this future is important to the story, but there's enough information in the dialogue and background to provide a complete and credible universe for this technology to exist within.

I guess I'm just a sucker for well thought out alternate universes. But the way Theodore's video games can interact seamlessly with his AI and his desktop files makes me yearn just a little bit. Really incredible production design that was put together with great care and love makes me proud.

But anyway. The rest of the movie. There's some great cinematography at work here that actually enhances the story instead of clouding it with artsy squartsy nonsense (although it does have its fair share of inscrutable visual symbolism) and the screenplay is sprinkled with Oscar bait nuggets of wisdom tailor made for inspirational Tumblr blogs.

The third act is where things begin to unfortunately unravel. The enjoyable premise loses a lot of its flair past the 90 minute mark and begins to drag as the plot scrambles to find an ending (which I won't spoil here but I will say that the company that makes the OS's should prepare for a hell of a class action suit).

There's several problems inherent in being in love with the device that's in charge of your entire computer.

Her always operates at a base level of pleasantness that it rarely departs from, but it finds it difficult to be both pleasant and meaningful for the entirety of the run time, although it does come close. I certainly enjoyed it and would recommend it, but maybe it's not such an important film as all that, despite the many high quality efforts put into its production.

TL;DR: Her is a tad overlong but never unpleasant.

Rating: 7/10

Did It Deserve Best Picture? Probably not, but it was an interesting piece of intellectual cinematic fluff.

Word Count: 833

November Cleanup

As we exit the month of November and hurtle full force into finals, Christmas, and New Year's I am struck by something: I have seen hella movies this month. Because I have a personal commitment to write about each of these films, I am going to expedite the process somewhat by releasing this series of mini-reviews for the older films I've seen that have already received a lot of coverage by reviewers and thus require my expert opinion somewhat less than the new releases I've seen. Or the important horror stepping stones that I'm still working on covering. Or my special holiday features.

I have a lot to do, is what I'm saying. So I'm spending this morning catching up.

The Apartment

Year: 1960

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray

Run Time: 2 hours 5 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

The Apartment, an early 60's sex farce by master of the form Billy Wilder (best known for his comic triumph Some Like It Hot) is the lurid tale of an everyday working bachelor (Jack Lemmon) who lets his superiors at the Company use his apartment for their extramarital trysts. When his tyrannical boss (Fred MacMurray) seduces the woman of his dreams (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator worker in his building, he begins a path to finding his courage and putting his foot down.

It's a silly comedy that still holds up fairly well today (his neighbors can hear through the walls and think the shy bachelor is some kind of ladykilling Lothario) but it is also notable for being decades ahead of its time with its discussion of sex, suicide, and short haircuts. In a pixie cut straight out of that same year's French masterpiece Breathless, Shirley MacLaine wows as a woman on the verge. 

Wilder was always one to push the envelope (just the year before he had made a mainstream comedy about cross-dressing) and his depiction of a suicide attempt is heartbreaking and tender in a way that had certainly never been explored in many films before. It's certainly unexpected in a sexy comedy but it adds depth and beauty to an already quite well done film.

Rating: 7/10

Crash

Year: 2005

Director: Paul Haggis

Cast: Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton

Run Time: 1 hour 52 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Perhaps my favorite moment in Crash is in the very beginning. A very self-serious Oscarbait monologue about how humans crash into each other just to feel alive turns out to be the delusions of an addled man waking up after a fender bender. Although Crash would end up taking those Important Themes very seriously, a moment of levity is very welcome.

Basically a racism-themed version of Love Actually, Crash follows a multitude of different storylines about Los Angeles residents of every imaginable race and how their lives intersect. The theme seems to be "everybody is a racist prick, even the people who know what it's like to be discriminated against," which is a compelling and heartbreaking thematic center point.

It's really not my cup of tea (I usually prefer movies that are either more lighthearted or feature more decapitations), but Crash is a good piece of "slice of life" storytelling and I always appreciate films that make it their goal to both tell a story about humanity's eternal struggle to stay afloat and make you feel something while they're at it.

Rating: 8/10

Elf

Year: 2003

Director: John Favreau

Cast: Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel, James Caan

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Elf is a charming movie that is always welcome at Christmas time. Will Ferrell's over-the-top antics have a habit of landing on the more annoying side of things, but they fit in perfectly with this film's comic register. It's hard to take a film about a human who was raised by elves and returns to New York to find his biological father seriously and the film paints its emotional beats with enormous broad strokes that highlight the hyperbolic comedy.

Zooey Deschanel has a starmaking turn as a sarcastic love interest, but this is Ferrell's show. His childlike glee and lust for life are the backbone of a funny and loving film about bringing joy back to the New Yorkers stuck in the Rat Race. Like most children's comedies the directing and editing are mostly anonymous but the forced perspective visual effects and the epic and cheerfully wintry orchestral score by John Debney are platinum.

Rating: 7/10

Enchanted

Year: 2007

Director: Kevin Lima

Cast: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden

Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Possibly the most entertaining live action Disney film to this day. Amy Adams shines as a cartoon Disney princess who is transported to real life New York City by a wicked stepmother. Much like Elf, this story is about a fantasy character learning to come to grips with the harsh realities of urban life while bringing her own brand of joy and love to the bitter city folk.

Perfectly cast and featuring wonderful songs by genre veteran Alan Menken (in one of the many many overt and subtle Disney references that pepper the film), Enchanted is endlessly rewatchable and features one of the most memorable production numbers in recent history. 

An exploration of the Disney film and its impact on society and their perceptions of love as well as a rollicking fish-out-of-water romantic comedy replete with dancing rats and poison apples, Enchanted is effervescent fun no matter how old you are.

Rating: 9/10

Clueless

Year: 1995

Director: Amy Heckerling

Cast: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Brittany Murphy

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Although I've never been as much of a fan of Clueless as the bulk of my generation, it is unavoidably a high school classic. A decade before Mean Girls, Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) ruled the campus with her matching plaid ensembles and boxy cell phone. 

This film is the celluloid embodiment of the 90's and the hairstyles, fashions, slang, soundtrack, and brown lipstick only increase the film's hilarity as time goes by. Based on Jane Austen's second-tier classic Emma, Clueless tells the story of a vapid California teen who discovers her place in the world after the matchmakes herself into a catastrophe.

Although the 15-year-old characters are rendered totally unbelievable by an obviously adult cast, the jokes are funny, the boys are cute, and the highway scene will strike fear into the hearts of anybody less than a stone's throw from age 16. Tremendous fun.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1096

Archive: January 26, 2013

14 More Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were in Slasher Movies

I had a ton of fun writing my original list, but as I thought about it, I realized there were a lot of omissions that I had overlooked at the time in my haste to discuss Johnny Depp’s midriff. So now I present an addendum.

Read on in horror and see all your favorite stars slum it. Hey, you gotta pay your dues.

Round 1: Leatherface Double Take - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Franchise

Viggo Mortensen

Famous for: The Lord of the Rings, A History of Violence, The Road

Skeleton in the Closet: Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III(1990)

Our dear friend Aragorn is the first of many now-famous stars to have rubbed shoulders with our friend Leatherface. His character’s name also wins the award for Least Effort Put Into a Pun in a Horror Film: Tex. True story.

Renée Zellweger

Famous for: Jerry Maguire, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Chicago

Skeleton in the Closet: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation(1994)

This woman has won an Oscar for her performance in Cold Mountain.

This woman has dated Jack White.

This woman was once engaged to Jim Carrey (OK, maybe that one’s not so good to brag about).

And months before she hit the big time, she starred in this grubby little horror reboot that almost never saw the light of day.

Matthew McConaughey

Famous for: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, People’s Sexiest Man Alive 2005

Skeleton in the Closet: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994)

Twist ending: He’s insane. 

Following Renée’s footsteps, McConaughey starred in TCM:TNG, became famous shortly afterward, and became the bane of Hollywood reporters before the invention of spellcheck.

He actually fought to keep the film out of theaters, effectively killing any slim chance it had to make money.

Jessica Biel

Famous for: 7th Heaven, The A-Team, Valentine’s Day

Skeleton in the Closet: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

This one isn’t too embarrassing, the movie was actually pretty good, and it’s only Jessica Biel. But still, worth noting.

Matt Bomer

Famous for: White Collar, Magic Mike

Skeleton in the Closet: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

And instantly legions of teenage girls become Leatherface fans.

Round 2: Rap ‘n Slash - A Brief History of Rappers in Horror Cinema

Ice-T

Famous for: “O.G: Original Gangster”, “6 ‘N the Mornin’ “, “Colors”

Skeleton in the Closet: Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

Ice-T stars as rap producer Mack Daddy whose success comes about by harnessing the leprechaun’s magical flute, which makes people appreciate rap music. I can’t believe I just typed that sentence. 

LL Cool J

Famous for: “Mama Said Knock You Out”, “Doin’ It”, “I Need Love”

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween H20 (1998)

The Halloween franchise was getting pretty desperate at this point, already having retconned four films to bring back Jamie Lee Curtis, so it makes sense that they would use this kind of novelty casting.

Dirty little secret: The movie, directed by Friday the 13th: Part 2’s Steve Miner, is actually pretty darn good.

Busta Rhymes

Famous for: “I Know What You Want”, “Break Ya Neck”, “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Now this is desperate. Busta Rhymes stars as the obnoxious host of a web series who traps a group of teenagers in Michael Myers’ old house and broadcasts their brutal murders online. 

He seems like a standup fellow.

Honorable Mention: Tremaine “Trey Songz” Neverson, who appeared in Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), earning him a place in both rounds 1 & 2. Unfortunately, his film is too recent to be considered for this category. Better luck next time.

Round 3: Bikini Death Toll - The (Not So) Final Girls

Tyra Banks

Famous for: America’s Next Top Model, The Tyra Banks Show

Skeleton in the Closet: Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

To top things off with what is one of the most awful movies in a franchise that previously featured the magic of Stonehenge turning children’s heads into bugs, Tyra Banks is here. She plays Busta Rhymes’ assistant, and isn’t even murdered onscreen. What a shame.

Amy Adams

Famous for: Enchanted, Julie & Julia, The Muppets, being perfect

Skeleton in the Closet: Psycho Beach Party (2000)

That’s her in the middle! Amy Adams is a gem in this quirky slasher sendup that’s actually pretty great. She is far too adorable to play her role, a sex-crazed vixen who tries to stab her best friends in the back and win the affections of Nicholas Brendon (whom she also appeared with in a season 4 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).

Katherine Heigl

Famous for: Grey’s Anatomy, Knocked Up, 27 Dresses

Skeleton in the Closet: Valentine (2001)

This was a good one. There’s some quality movies on this list, weirdly enough. At least on the very narrow adjusted scale of slasher grading. David Boreanaz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Angel) stars as the loveable alcoholic boyfriend, and Katherine Heigl is mowed down within the first ten minutes.

Not to be confused with the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, although I’d love to see the look on that horrified Heigl fan’s face.

Round 4: OK Seriously? - These Guys?

Leslie Nielsen

Famous for: Airplane!, The Naked Gun series

Skeleton in the Closet: Prom Night (1980)

This actually happened. Nielsen is the fourth lucky star on this list to have worked alongside everyone’s favorite Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis. If you don’t like Jamie Lee Curtis, you don’t exist.

In Prom Night, Nielsen plays the principal of the high school which is host to both the prom and a teenage blood bath. Did I mention he’s Curtis’s father? Glorious.

Also, be sure to check out the fantastically overlong dance breakdown in the middle of the film.

God, I love the 80’s.

Seann William Scott

Famous for: American Pie, Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Dukes of Hazzard

Skeleton in the Closet: Final Destination (2000)

Steve Stifler’s at it again in this zany teen comedy! After a botched European vacation, the Stiffmeister hangs around town with his wacky friends until he is abruptly decapitated by flying shrapnel.

David Copperfield

Famous for: being a magician

Skeleton in the Closet: Terror Train (1980)

Jamie Lee Curtis gets around. Terror Train is another entry on the list that is unexpectedly high quality. It might actually even be considered “good” in terms of actual real life movies.

Featuring a New Year’s train party/murderfest and about 10 minutes of David Copperfield alternately being creepy and showing off, Terror Trainperfectly sums up the slasher boom of the early 80’s.

In conclusion: Nobody is safe. One by one, the slasher genre will claim all of your favorite stars. You never know who might be next!

Word Count: 1170