I’m not privy to her financials, but I don’t think Jennifer Lopez is in dire straits. The woman is a corporation, J-Lo, Inc., complete with fragrances, a sunglasses line, and any number of money-making ventures. She’s being paid tens of millions of dollars to spout clichéd critiques and encouragement to starry-eyed aspiring singers on American Idol. She doesn’t need The Boy Next Door, and we certainly don’t need it, either.
I was just thinking the other day that I haven’t seen a good submarine movie in a while, when all of the sudden I find myself on the edge of my theater seat with Kevin McDonald delivering one of the most suspenseful undersea films I’ve seen in recent memory. Black Sea mashes up the standard conventions of a heist film with the standard conventions of an underwater thriller and yet still manages to feel fresh and invigorating through its strong cast and white-knuckle sequences of peril.
Cake was, sadly, a disappointing time in the cinema. I had looked forward to seeing it because of the buzz surrounding Jennifer Aniston’s performance as Claire Bennett – a woman struggling with chronic pain, drug addiction and the loss of a child.
Aniston has been nominated for a Golden Globe, Broadcast Film Critics Award and Screen Actors Guild Award. She did not receive an Academy Award nomination, and I must admit that I found none of those preceding nominations particularly deserved.
In director Peter Strickland’s last film, Berberian Sound Studio, he lovingly paid homage to Italian giallo films of the ’60s and ’70s but did so in a celebratory way, rather than simply mimicking their style. With The Duke of Burgundy he takes that same sentiment and applies it to the European sexploitation films of the same era, made popular by such filmmakers as Jess Franco. The end result is a gorgeous, decadent and strange fairy tale that sets the bar very high for cinema in 2015.
So 2015 is here, and, although we may be entering a new year, some of the more tired trends from 2014 are still lingering around, like that kid on the playground who was still playing with Pogs way after everyone else.
The specific trends I’m talking about today are found-footage and possession films, both of which The Atticus Institute is guilty. Although this mockumentary is technically proficient, capturing the look and feel of an actual doc, the overall experience is fairly drab and forgettable with the exception a few entertaining moments.
Cybercrime is a timely topic to be sure, but Blackhat isn’t interested in tapping into the paranoia and treats the digital front lines as a mere gateway into the artful universe of director Michael Mann. Granted, watching someone hack is not thrilling and inherently non-cinematic, evidenced here by a hokey CGI sequence early on that takes us inside a sever and visualizes a computer virus taking over. On the other hand, the terrifying notion of lives being altered (or lost) with a few keystrokes from a madman – like the nuclear reactor attack in the film’s opening moments – has heft.
While Appropriate Behavior is far from a perfect film, it still announces itself as a promising start for Akhavan, a multi-talented individual with a bright future; a wonderful mixture of humorous interactions (where buying underwear can quickly turn into a psychological evaluation), measured emotional drama set to a swift pace and an eclectic soundtrack, rounded out with a fantastic supporting cast.
It all started with that phone call in the trailer for 2008’s Taken. Liam Neeson’s intimidating, measured voice calmly relayed a “particular set of skills” to the unfortunate thugs who kidnapped his character’s daughter. Audiences were sold and an unlikely 50-something action hero was born.
Predestination is the latest adaptation from famed science fiction author Robert Heinlein who penned such classics as Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters. Directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, this mind bending time travel film features some very unique concepts, however many of the twists are too easily predicted despite some genuinely crazy things taking place. That being said, this does provide a very fresh spin on the quickly becoming overplayed time travel movie.
Big Eyes may be the least Burton-esque of all of Tim Burton’s films. There are a few touches that remind you that he is behind the proverbial curtain, but by and large, the film feels directed more by the performances of Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz than by Burton. This is not a criticism. Adams, Waltz and Burton have created a minor gem with their telling of this true story of one woman’s initial abdication of self to someone else’s control and ultimate rebirth as her own creation.
While watching The Imitation Game, I was reminded of two other British films from the last decade: The Queen and The King’s Speech. All three are similar in tone, have just the right amount of humor and pathos, present memorable moments in British history, and contain award-worthy performances. The mark made by this film is in celebrating a nearly unknown and tragic figure who played a key role in the winning of World War II.
[REC] 4: Apocalypse is supposedly the final entry in the popular Spanish zombie series originally created by writer-director team Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza. For the final two films in this quadrilogy, the duo decided to direct one each, on his own, with Plaza tackling [REC] 3: Genesis, and Balagueró finishing off the series. Considering the original film was released in 2007 and contained two horror mechanics that have well worn out their welcome – zombies and found footage, some might wonder if the fourth and final chapter could live up to the rest. For the most part, yes it can.
“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”
In Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III, Michael Corleone succinctly sums up how hard it is for a criminal to go legit. No matter how hard you try to escape that world, it will always be over your shoulder. In that sweeping crime saga, audiences knew what Corleone was involved in and can easily understand how hard it is to gain legitimacy. However, what if you were never in it in the first place and were merely guilty by association? That is just one dilemma of many that writer/director J.C. Chandor explores in his understated yet potent crime drama, A Most Violent Year.
It’s the mid-1960s. Racial intolerance and discrimination still permeate many parts of the country and possibly none more so than in the state of Alabama. While every man and woman of age is granted the right to vote by the Constitution, black citizens are denied the right due to excessively strict criteria that pretty much prevent them from registering. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo), a recent winner of the Nobel Peace prize, cannot stand idly by as this injustice unfolds.
Zvyagintasev’s LEVIATHAN works on a number of levels due to the carefully-curated script (co-written with Oleg Negin), along with the universality of the film’s themes focusing on the helplessness of the less powerful in the face of corruption and abuses of power. A definite Russian film in the sense of its topics, yet approachable in its execution.
Into the Woods can’t see the dark forest for the trees. The film gets so caught up in the minutiae of its clever constructs and unique spins on classic Brothers Grimm tales that the fun eventually fizzles and themes grow elusive and ineffectual.
Being over-the-top and simultaneously aware of its own ridiculousness isn’t enough to sustain the buzz from an ambitious opening musical number and a game cast that’s up for a rollicking time. When things turn solemn and the “…happily ever after” myth is shattered, it feels more like tacking on than subversion. The protracted third act makes us long for a more traditional ending, if only because it means the movie would be a half hour shorter, not necessarily because we care about the grim fates of some of the characters.
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