We Are the Best

You know what punk rock is? It’s about not caring. It’s about being spontaneous. It’s about knowing you’re awesome even though you suck and can’t really play a note. It’s about using exclamation points!!!! “We Are the Best!” is an inspired combination of a punk rock mentality with a joyous and fun kids movie free of cynicism, full of spirit and willing to have fun.

Lukas Moodysson’s Swedish drama follows two 13-year-old girls in ’80s Stockholm still dressing like punk rockers. They listen to trashy loud music and read underground mags, and they roll their eyes at their older brothers who only now listen to Joy Division. There’s the innocent and quieter Bobo (Mira Barkhammar), who wears glasses and short, spiky hair, and then there’s her best friend Klara, a Mohawk wearing spitfire who’s pushy and fast talking but always fun to be around. Continue reading “We Are the Best”

Foxcatcher

Steve Carell’s chilling performance as John Du Pont anchor the great work of Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo.

The characters of “Foxcatcher” act as a somewhat grotesque portrait of America. Channing Tatum plays a hulking, brutish mass who is really just a lost puppy looking to please. Mark Ruffalo plays a compassionate, tender and measured leader for which things don’t go as planned. And Steve Carell, in a villainous, sinister turn, is transformed into a wealthy, privileged and cold man of delusion.

That director Bennett Miller (“Capote”, “Moneyball”) has packaged them all into a tense, skin crawling thriller and sports movie says something about how rooted American culture is in these institutions. Continue reading “Foxcatcher”

Wild

Jean-Marc Vallee’s follow up to “Dallas Buyers Club” features a great performance by Reese Witherspoon and makes a strong feminist statement.

The beginning of Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Wild” shows Cheryl Strayed at the top of the world yet screaming at the top of her lungs. She’s made it an impressive, remarkable distance on her own and overcome pain so unbearable she can’t even remove her socks. And yet she’s knocked her boot off the edge of this cliff she’s conquered, and she may as well be stuck in a hole.

Vallee’s film grapples with the inspiring nature of Strayed’s mission and the more harrowing, cynical nature of her mental adventure. Reese Witherspoon plays Strayed as a negative, bitter and sharp-tongued woman ready to quit at any moment, but her sheer resolve and toughness on the trail make her feel real, not just some strong female movie character conquering impossible odds.

Based on Strayed’s own personal memoir and adapted by novelist Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity”), “Wild” tells the story of a woman who hiked 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail through California, Oregon and Washington. The journey itself is not spectacular or unusual for many who have tackled the trail before, but Strayed took it upon herself to make this journey after a series of personal hardships that left her far down the road in the wrong direction. This hike is a spiritual journey above all. Continue reading “Wild”

Obvious Child

The films, shows and articles about poor, hipster, 20-something millennials from New York have told their stories by subverting the tropes of the genres to which they belong. You can’t make a romantic comedy unless you make one “ironically”.

Gillian Robespierre may have cracked that nut with her film “Obvious Child”, a story of a poor, hipster, 20-something millennial from New York trying to figure out what to do with her life, until she gets pregnant and is forced to grow up just a little bit.

“Obvious Child” takes the attributes of the coolest rom-coms and the most popular, trashy ones and combines them in a way that’s earnest, funny, heartfelt and real. It supplements the ambitious and quirky blonde working girl with the slacker and potty-mouthed brunette and doesn’t miss a beat. Instead of wackily falling into fountains and poorly choosing work over true love, “Obvious Child’s” lead is her own sort of fuck-up, basket case, choosing less awkward moments and blunt honesty as a way of teetering on good decisions and bad. The film even plucks a best friend and token gay friend from Brooklyn to fill in the rest of the genre’s blanks. Continue reading “Obvious Child”

Young and Beautiful

Francois Ozon’s main character Isabelle is a cold, mysterious teen, providing the film mostly ambiguity.

This year’s “Nymphomaniac” tackled a seriously controversial subject, sex and lots of it, with style and perverse humor in the way only Lars von Trier can. So if you can’t make that movie full of cinematic flourish, you might consider making one much more, for lack of a better term, stripped down.

Francois Ozon’s “Young & Beautiful” removes the religious symbolism and outrageous behavior from von Trier’s film to make something much more real, but he’s also sapped it of its sexier qualities. It’s “Nymphomaniac” without any of the humor, style or strong sense of ideas. Continue reading “Young and Beautiful”

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”

Big Hero 6

Disney and Marvel’s kids movie comic book adaptation is exploding with color and imagination.

With apologies to Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-man or any of the X-Men, “Big Hero 6” is the best superhero movie of the year. No film in the genre this year was as exciting or as colorful as this charming kids adaptation of yet another Marvel comic.

It’s a film that takes the genre back to its roots of training, imagination, possibility, heroics and best of all, fantasy. The space opera visuals of “Guardians of the Galaxy” or the gray doom and gloom of Zack Snyder’s Superman pale in comparison to this new Disney classic, in which the fantastical story, the diverse cast of characters and the charm really do feel ripped from a comic book. Hey, even Stan Lee gets his quick cameo. Continue reading “Big Hero 6”

Updated 2015 Oscar Nomination Predictions

A lot has changed since the last time I made Oscar predictions back in late September. So much has been discussed in these few months in fact that I could’ve been making new predictions just about every other week. But then who has the time for that? I’ve been not-so-steadily continuing my Hype Cycle column over at Sound on Sight, charting the rise and fall of these various films, but now that we’ve finally gotten some actual precursors in the bank, it stands to reason that I can make new picks and not wind up with egg on my face for declaring a movie dead when it clearly isn’t. Not so many other Oscar pundits will be so lucky, but I don’t think they’ll mind. An asterisk denotes films I’ve seen.

Best Picture

Likely

  • Boyhood*
  • Birdman*
  • The Imitation Game
  • Selma
  • Gone Girl*
  • Foxcatcher
  • Whiplash*
  • The Grand Budapest Hotel*
  • Unbroken

Possible

  • The Theory of Everything*
  • A Most Violent Year
  • Interstellar*
  • American Sniper
  • Wild
  • Big Eyes
  • Nightcrawler*
  • Inherent Vice
  • Into the Woods
  • Top Five
  • Turner
  • Still Alice
  • Citizenfour*

Long Shots

  • Vincent
  • The Homesman
  • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes*
  • Love is Strange
  • Exodus: Gods and Kings
  • Fury*
  • The Fault in Our Stars*
  • Get on Up
  • The LEGO Movie*
  • Annie

I should first point out that in just about all of these categories, it’s a safe bet to rule out almost any of the ones I’ve listed as “Long Shots”. If one of these movies show up, expect it to be a surprise to everyone.

With that said, there’s been an awful lot of movement on the charts. The first big shift you’ll notice however is that there’s been a swap between “Boyhood” and “Unbroken”. For Angelina Jolie’s movie, it was the on-paper winner until recently when people actually saw it. Funny how a movie called “Unbroken” now looks so much weaker and easily beaten. Now people are wondering if it can even get in, although it has enough pedigree and is riding its narrative and impressive display most of all. I’d say it can still find a lot of love in the Academy. “Boyhood” on the other hand looked initially like a movie that was just too modest to actually be a front runner. Now everyone can’t stop talking about it, and it’s the unusual front runner in that it seems averse to any sort of real criticism or scandal.

And yet the love has been spread pretty far this year, and the Best Picture race could belong to anyone. “Birdman” and “The Imitation Game” look like the strongest bet based on early awards performance, but I even wonder if anyone truly loves “The Imitation Game” enough to vote for it in the number one spot.

Keep in mind, this applies to all the films. Last year pundits looked pretty silly when “Saving Mr. Banks” found itself on the outs. It was a populist title, but who could honestly call it the best of the year? Can anyone say that about “The Theory of Everything”? Or “Wild”? Or “Big Eyes”?

It’s why I think “Gone Girl” and “Foxcatcher” still look strong, why “Whiplash” is packing a lot of heat and why “The Grand Budapest Hotel” could finally break Wes Anderson into the Best Picture race where he rightfully belongs. If there’s a spoiler among the bunch though, it’s “A Most Violent Year,” which a lot of people haven’t seen yet, but won the National Board of Review prize in a surprise whirl. Continue reading “Updated 2015 Oscar Nomination Predictions”

Locke

Tom Hardy gives a fiery but misguided performance in Steven Knight’s minimalist experiment of a drama.

When Roger Ebert wrote that he could watch a Fellini movie on the radio, he meant it as a compliment. Steven Knight’s “Locke” feels like it was designed for one. It’s a labored, 85-minute long experiment in audio-visual (mostly audio) storytelling in which a man gets into a car, takes incessant phone calls, and drives. What aims to be a test of minimal storytelling ends up feeling like one long trailer. The headlights along the road always dance and try to set the mood, but “Locke” ultimately never arrives anywhere.

The man driving the car is Ivan Locke, played by Tom Hardy, and he is the only person who will appear on camera throughout the film’s duration. Upon leaving his job at a construction site as a foreman for pouring concrete, he makes a last minute decision and sets off driving from Birmingham to London, never looking back.

His destination? Locke is traveling to a hospital to visit a woman having his baby. Along the way he will speak with his wife and family waiting for him at home, his boss and colleague freaking out over how he’s abandoned a major job, and his mistress going through labor pains in the hospital. Continue reading “Locke”

The Best Albums of 2014

With the movies forever dying and being uncool and me unable to get into any cool TV shows beyond “The Daily Show” and ones that star Dave Grohl, music has become my second passion. From seeing multiple concerts a month to working on a piece on “Sonic Highways” to actually getting good at guitar, I’ve not only been thinking about music a lot more but also trying to write about it.

2014 was about as good a year for music as it was for movies, in that most years are pretty good when you actually stop to turn it into a list. This year I’d like to think my Top 10 actually mildly resembles a real critic’s. Enjoy!

StVincent

  1. St. Vincent – St. Vincent

“Am I the only one/in the only world”? St. Vincent may be from another planet, with polyrhythm synths, funky baritone saxophones, vicious and witty lyrics and squealing guitars that hardly resemble one peppering the entire album. And yet it’s worth begging Annie Clark’s question heard in “Rattlesnake”, as St. Vincent’s self-titled album is her most accessible while unleashing this white-haired monster to the world. “Digital Witness” bounces with a searing attack against the Internet age. The elegant “Prince Johnny” weaves a haunting tale about a vile monarch who brags who he’s “going to bed next.” The sensual “I Prefer Your Love” has a near sacrilegious chorus and an introspective set of verses. And “Bring Me Your Loves” erupts with a flurry of robotic catcalls. The bizarre, ugly energy behind St. Vincent has elevated Clark to the throne of an indie queen and made us worship an alien who really is the only one in the only world. Continue reading “The Best Albums of 2014”