Category: Uncategorized

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

There was no need for “Mockingjay” to be broke into two sequels, but why does this hardly resemble a Hunger Games movie at all?

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1” started the unfortunate trend of major film franchises splitting tentpole books into two separate films. Though it may be a cash grab, that seventh Harry Potter film is actually one of the most distinct in the series. Six movies of being tied down to Hogwarts and Quidditch, the seventh film took the main characters out of a familiar world, threw them in the forest against insurmountable odds and allowed them to act. They grew up into adults and the whole franchise matured overnight. It’s the most unusual Potter film, yet also David Yates’s best.

The previous “Hunger Games” movie “Catching Fire” was the blockbuster everyone needed after Potter. It was dark, inventive and upped the stakes on the previous film, not an easy task when you consider the first film was about teenagers murdering each other for sport and survival. But it also ended in such a way that “Mockingjay – Part 1” could hardly repeat the successes of the second. Katniss had been thrown into the rebellion, separated from her love and Hunger Games partner Peeta and asked to serve as a symbol she never wanted to be.

“Mockingjay” was poised to rewrite the franchise, but Francis Lawrence’s opportunity to make “Part 1” into something more than a cash grab has been squandered. It’s the most unusual “Hunger Games” yet, but hardly for the better. The fantasy, the color, the intrigue and the creativity has all been sapped from this sequel to make a frustrating half of a movie, one that’s talky, filled with exposition and set pieces that hardly resemble what made either of the first two films memorable. Continue reading “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1”

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn and David Fincher have made the perfect adaptation.

One of the key moments at the onset of Gillian Flynn’s novel “Gone Girl”, and one of the key images in David Fincher’s film adaptation, is Nick Dunne’s “killer smile”.

Flynn’s description has a wry double meaning obvious to anyone. He’s flashed this plucky grin at a press conference for his missing wife, and it hardly bodes well for his appearance to the media, public or police.

In Fincher’s film, Ben Affleck splashes on the movie star charisma for that crucial second, just enough time to send our heads spinning.

Both Fincher and Flynn, who also wrote the screenplay, are receptive to the miniscule gestures that can shape perception. They recognize how timing and spin in the contemporary media can shift the tides in an instant. They understand that people are often only as bad as we perceive them. “Gone Girl” is all about these perceptions, and while one of the strengths of Flynn’s masterpiece novel rested in its structure of alternating POVs from Nick to his wife Amy, Fincher’s brilliance is in his ability to balance them both.

Watching “Gone Girl” is like gnawing at a nagging itch, with each detail of Nick and Amy Dunne’s unraveling marriage and her impending disappearance continuing to burrow into your skin and jab at your sides. Fincher is remarkably attentive to the expressions, emotions and tones of voice that in sensitive situations like this can make us conflicted, uncertain and on edge. His film is as aware of the ways we project ourselves in the modern age as “The Social Network” did before, but “Gone Girl” also combines the meticulous mystery of “Zodiac” and the feminist charge of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”. Continue reading “Gone Girl”

St. Vincent at the Riviera Theater, Chicago: Concert Review

St. Vincent is an alien from another world, and Annie Clark’s live show is direct proof.

St. Vincent is an alien from another world.

This much might be obvious to anyone who has digested the sonic mayhem of her albums, with guitars distorted beyond recognition, baritone saxes providing a funky bite and a Theremin being tortured in place of a solo.

And yet Annie Clark’s meticulously choreographed stage show for her self titled tour suggest that this alien has a scarily deep insight into our heads and a palpable tension as she readies an attack.

“Hello ladies and gentleman, and hello others,” Clark addresses the audience. “We’re not so different, you and I.” In between songs she’ll slyly suggest the questionable behavior and thoughts we all share while leaning heavily on her own creepy confessional. She’ll admit to fantasizing about seeing people naked on the L, about looking at her hands and believing there to be a mix-up, or telling a lie and fearing the universe might be punishing her.

Such is the way an alien might communicate, but Clark utilized the remainder of her near two hour set at the Riv Saturday night seducing, entrancing and terrorizing through her exotic dancing and strobe lighting used “extensively.”

Clark’s outfit makes her look like she came from the same planet Lady Gaga calls home. She wears an extremely short black frock with red plumage bursting from her chest, beset by silvery hair strewn in all directions and glowing, turquoise eye shadow made to clash. Continue reading “St. Vincent at the Riviera Theater, Chicago: Concert Review”

'Sugar Man's' Rodriguez at Arie Crown Theater, Chicago: Concert Review

A review of “Searching for Sugar Man’s” Rodriguez’s beguiling, unique performance at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago.

Rodriguez, the unexpected star of the Oscar winning doc “Searching for Sugar Man” and the folk legend who never was, is not an entertainer. Now at a “solid 70,” his whole life he has not been an entertainer.

“Two cannibals are eating a clown,” he says dryly in between tunes. “The one turns to the other and says, does this taste funny to you?”

This is how Rodriguez felt he had to keep his audience engaged, by punching it up with lame jokes. And that mentality combined with his performance’s whole nature was what made it so beguiling and unique.

His Friday night set at the Arie Crown Theater jumped from acoustic strummer to ballad to bouncy folk rock on a whim, his voice wavered and slowly softened as his 90 minute set wore on, and the far from sold out audience neither sang nor stood as he worked through his “hits.” So was Rodriguez mediocre and not the surprising legend that “Searching for Sugar Man” made him out to be?

Not in the slightest, because it would be wrong to put this 70-year-old on the same level as Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan. He doesn’t have the experience and iconic showmanship they’ve acquired over so long.

What he does still possess however is that mysterious, wise and even timid quality that neither of those superstars would be able to replicate. Here is a guy being walked out onto the stage by two women just to stand and perform for the next hour and a half. Donning the sunglasses and hat that characterized his album covers, he now masks his glaucoma and a difficulty to see. In between each tune, his lead guitarist leans in as though he were a nurse coming to his side.

And yet here he is, his voice identical to recordings from over 40 years ago, capable of intricate strumming and finger picking on his elegant ballads and out of place Cole Porter and Don Gibson covers he seems to have learned on the spot. Continue reading “'Sugar Man's' Rodriguez at Arie Crown Theater, Chicago: Concert Review”

Ok Cupid: A Normal, Nice, Non-Crazy Guy's Experience

What’s it like really being on a dating website? Find out from a normal guy who actually spent some time with it.

“Hi Brian, what’s your favorite color?”

Here is a unique example of an Ok Cupid message I received about 24 hours after browsing this girl’s profile, writing her a polite message expressing what I found interesting and asking if she would be interested in meeting up.

Now, a couple of things are going through my mind:

1)   This person is crazy. She genuinely wants to know what my favorite color is before she divulges her name, let alone decides if she wants to go out on a date with me.

2)   This is a test. I should be clever in my answer. Funny, if possible.

3)   TROLL! This girl is a troll!

But being a man who has been unlucky enough in love to resort to a dating website, I of course stumbled over my words and responded in none of the ways anticipating one of those responses would suggest.

“Um, blue? Why do you ask?”

Wait approx. 12 hours.

“Well is it blue, or isn’t it? I don’t particularly care, but I like a man with conviction.”

Here’s where I try to save myself:

“Conviction? Sure, got it covered. Blue? Meh.”

Wait 12 hours.

“Right.”

Now, I’m not entirely sure who’s in the wrong here. I am, after all, bad at this. But I would like to presume that the human proposal I sent initially did not return the polite, human response I expected. I don’t understand women. Tell me if I’m wrong.

What I am coming to understand is that a dating website, or Ok Cupid in particular, has nuances in communication just as any other social media platform does.

But what it does additionally is prove that although many people today resort to dating websites out of bad real-life experiences, shyness, rejection, fear, etc., dating online is no less difficult, frustrating or different than dating can be in person.

Continue reading “Ok Cupid: A Normal, Nice, Non-Crazy Guy's Experience”

Rapid Response: Father of the Bride (1950)

Vincente Minelli’s “Father of the Bride” plays like a This American Life essay. The dialogue’s descriptive, prose-like writing is observantly funny and amusing rather than ha-ha funny, but it finds a twist on the wedding movie genre by viewing it exclusively from one character’s perspective: Dad’s.

Spencer Tracy is probably the only person who could’ve played Stanley T. Banks, so thank goodness Minnelli outright begged him to take the part. His character is often wrong and jumping to conclusions about his daughter’s (Elizabeth Taylor) new boyfriend, but only Tracy could seem appropriately level-headed and convincing. His concerns aren’t rambling and idiotic but show how a father might genuinely feel and act as they quite literally give away the person in their life who means the most to them.

“She’ll always love us, but not in the old way,” Banks says as he watches his daughter stare longingly into the eyes of the handsome Buckley Dunstan (Don Taylor). “She’ll be tossing scraps.” This is Banks’s selfish view, but it’s not completely unwarranted. Her love belongs to someone else now.

We sympathize with him because Minnelli never leaves Banks’s side. Spencer Tracy is in every scene of “Father of the Bride,” and it’s funny because seemingly behind the scenes, the wedding that his family is planning has grown exponentially and all beyond his control. He doesn’t know how it all happened so fast, and neither do we. Minnelli suddenly places us in ungodly lavish sets and lets time and space rush by us in awkward wide shots and long takes. There’s one scene where the camera is placed looking out the front door as Banks stands in the hallway answering the phone. He can’t leave, but scurrying all around us and entering and exiting the frame from all four sides are dozens of movers and wedding planners turning the scene into chaos without any camera movement at all.

There’s a similar sensation when the wedding party rehearses the ceremony for the first time. The moment passes by in a blur. The camera is at a high angle looking down and trying to make sense of this whole fiasco, and the dialogue is all composed of carefully layered voices on the soundtrack that keep us from focusing on just one. The execution is tidy, but the feeling is of a big mess.

Best of all, “Father of the Bride” ends simply without a big moment of family love or a Stanley Kramer-esque speech delivered by Tracy. It’s just a calming conclusion to a long, hectic wedding.