The Official Review Thread of 2014

flipp525
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by flipp525 »

Love is Strange
cast: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei, Charlie Tahan, Cheyenne Jackson
dir. Ira Sachs

In Love is Strange, an older gay couple who have just been married after forty years together (played beautifully by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) have their newly blessed relationship put to the test when the vagaries of old age and economic hardship abruptly enter their lives. The film then becomes—not some meditation on the merits and normalcy of gay marriage—but a kind of gay version of UAADB favorite Make Way for Tomorrow with the two lovers separated from each other, forced to live with family and friends on opposite sides of Manhattan.

The script allows these complicated characters to breathe and inhabit the very real-life situations that arise with the universal dilemmas of aging. One of the things I found really interesting about this movie was the level of detail it was willing to donate to the pitfalls of locating housing in Manhattan, a plot point which ultimately drives the narrative arc of the story. The married couple must create their own space in a world that is, on the surface, more free and open to their kind of relationship, yet also proves unwelcoming in other ways. Marisa Tomei is a standout as Lithgow's niece.

Love is Strange is a quiet little movie that takes its time in letting small details accumulate contributing to an emotional finish.
Last edited by flipp525 on Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:01 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

BOYHOOD
Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Lorelei Linklater.
Dir: Richard Linklater.

This film has been very much hyped up and talked up ever since people have laid eyes on it. Almost everyone I know loves it. I tried my best to lower my expectations so as not to be too disappointed. I have to say: The praise is definitely earned. Beyond its hook of filming the same group of actors for a couple of weeks once a year for 12 years and with the children literally growing up before our very eyes, this is a journey in the lives of not just a young boy but that of a family (a divorced mom and dad and their two children). All the happy, sad, painful, scary, tragic, triumphant, funny moments that growing up bring. Richard Linklater somehow manages to encapsulate a something magical and universal as seen through the prism of what's essentially someone who's kind of ordinary. There's drama, for sure but Linklater never falls into the trap of being emotionally manipulative or sentimental. Wonderful performances (though, yes, the kid kind of becomes the weak link once he got older but that's an extremely minor quibble). These are one of those films that remind me why I love the cinema. I can't wait to see it again. Best film of 2014 so far.

Oscar Prospects: I'm pretty sure it might get Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. If they REALLY love it, they might give it nominations for Best Supporting Actress for Patricia Arquette and Best Film Editing.

Grade: A.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Sabin »

In its fourth week of release, Guardians of the Galaxy is en route to being number one at the box office for the second time. By the end of the weekend, it will likely surpass Transformers as the number one movie of the summer.

I'll say this. It's a longshot. But if 2014 ends up looking a lot more like 2009 than 2012 in terms of quality, don't be surprised if Guardians of the Galaxy ends up on the PGA list of ten nominations.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Sabin »

In its fourth week of release, Guardians of the Galaxy is en route to being number one at the box office for the second time. By the end of the weekend, it will likely surpass Transformers as the number one movie of the summer.

I'll say this. It's a longshot. But if 2014 ends up looking a lot more like 2009 than 2012 in terms of quality, don't be surprised if Guardians of the Galaxy ends up on the PGA list of ten nominations.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Mister Tee »

I'm mostly with BJ: it tells you how far expectations have dropped for summer movies, that something like Guardians of the Galaxy is seen as some kind of triumph. It's got some amusing moments, and the actors are mostly likable, but the plot is utterly negligible, and for at least the first half hour my head was swimming trying to keep up with all these weird sounding names (most of which felt like they were pilfered from Tolkien). I'm not quite as down on the visuals as BJ is -- I felt like the battle sequences were interestingly conceived (the "all ships stand side by side and form a barrier" felt like something I'd never seen before), and I thought the director did a fair job of keeping the characters from being lost in among the zapping. But it's all in the service of not particularly much.

I will say, though: while we should never underestimate the ability of the make-up branch to ignore obvious candidates, if this film gets nominated for make-up, it's got to have a hell of a chance of winning.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

LOCKE
Cast: Tom Hardy and the voices of Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland, Bill Milner.
Dir: Steven Knight.

A construction manager on a 2-hour drive to London takes care of personal and professional problems on his car cellphone. The film is set entirely inside the car and it focuses only on this one character the entire running time while we only hear the voices of the other characters. When I first heard of this film, three questions came to mind: Will this kind of thing be compelling and interesting for most if not all of a feature-length running time? Will it be cinematic? Will it stand as a nice piece of drama instead of just a gimmick? The answer is surprisingly yes to all of that. Tom Hardy who's pretty much the entire movie, makes it work. There's a temptation to over-direct this type of one-man minimalist film to compensate but Steven Knight does just enough to make it cinematically dynamic but not intrusive. It's not the best but it's a very good piece of work.

Oscar Prospects: Tom Hardy SHOULD be a contender for Best Actor but that's doubtful. An argument could be made for Film Editing and Cinematography.

Grade: B+
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Precious Doll »

I'm probably wrong, but is this the only film where Philip Seymour Hoffman played a European?

I can't recall any other non American role he played. He was something on a quintessential American actor.

I found his accent a little grating at first but I got used to it quickly and thought he did quiet well overall, unlike Rachel McAdams who was all over the place. She even sounding English from time to time plus she had the disadvantage of a rather thankless role.

What also makes it hard for Hoffman, McAdams & Dafoe is that they were surrounded by a largely German speaking cast and had to hold their own against 'the real thing' so to spread.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Mister Tee »

A Most Wanted Man is a thoroughly decent film, but not much more than that. I think the fairly high critical praise can be attributed to relief that Philip Seymour Hoffman's last major role (Mockingjay discounted) didn't come in a dud, which has been the fate of any number of other passing-on actors. The film unfolds engrossingly enough -- if without much excitement -- but when I got to the end, I had the same "Is that all it was?" feeling as I did with another LeCarre, The Constant Gardener.

Hoffman is solid -- with a commendably unobstrusive accent -- but it's not going to get him a posthumous nomination. Everybody else is fine.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

BARBER'S TALES
Cast: Eugene Domingo, Eddie Garcia, Iza Calzado, Gladys Reyes, Shamaine Buencamino, Noni Buencamino, Sue Prado, Nicco Manalo, Daniel Fernando, Nora Aunor.
Dir: Jun Robles Lana.

Set in a rural province of the Philippines, during the Marcos dictatorship, this is about a widow of the small-town barber who takes over her late husband's job but soon she becomes entangled into getting involved with the resistance movement. Eugene Domingo is a well-known broad comedienne in my country. She takes the lead in a drama and runs away with it. She's supported by an excellent supporting cast especially Gladys Reyes as her perpetually pregnant neighbor. In the surface it is a film about the struggles under Marcos dictatorship but it's really more of a feminist tales of women, in the rural Philippine provinces, in the 1970's taking charge of their destiny the best way they can. Though they're wildly different, the film sort of reminds me of the TV series Mad Men in a way without much of the male storyline. The film falters in the third act but still a wonderful film.

Oscar Prospects: Actually, I think they're considering this as our Oscar entry since the director also directed Bwakaw, a past Oscar entry.

Grade: B+

WHAT IF
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Adam Driver, Rafe Spall, Megan Park, Mackenzie Davis, Jemima Rooper, Lucius Hoyos, Oona Chaplin.
Dir: Michael Dowse.

I thought I'd try my first romantic comedy after seeing the film They Came Together. I have to say that film pretty much would ruin most romantic comedies from me from now on. This film steps on a lot of the cliches, tropes and story beats that most romantic comedies follow that that film poked fun of mercilessly. Which sort of puts a damper on my enjoyment of this flick. The film itself is not bad per se but it ain't great either. As far as rom-coms go, it's got funny stuff, there are funny lines and Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan both give perfectly good performances and have nice chemistry but it's all kind of meh. There are twee flourishes here that sort of reminds me of (500) Days of Summer which reminds me how much better that movie was.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: C.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

LUCY
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Choi Min-sik, Amr Waked, Pilou Asbaek, Analeigh Tipton.
Dir: Luc Besson.

People who are even a little science-literate would most likely know that this film's entire entire conceit, that humans only use 10% of our brain, is a myth. However, once you get over that, this is a pretty enjoyable film. Preposterous and ridiculous, yes. Filled with plot-holes and contrivances, yes. But still a hell of a lot of fun. Scarlett Johansson actually gives a strong central performance as a woman who acquires super mental powers after ingesting a large dosage of a new designer drug that unlocks unlimited mental capacity. This is probably Luc Besson's strongest film in a long time but that's not saying much since he's largely on a downward spiral post The Professional. It's still slickly made fun.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: B.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Sabin »

Guardians of the Galaxy is the rise of post-plot cinema?

I remember in 1997 or so, William Goldman wrote an article about 'The Rock' in his year in review or whatever. He talks about this one chase scene where Sean Connery breaks from his captors and then is just immediately returned. He didn't understand how that forwarded the plot. Somebody corrected him that the chase is the plot. This article is just tossing darts at news of the week. It's a tall glass of haterade, no more so than when it somehow compares the plot of 'Guardians of the Galaxy' unfavorably to Sam Raimi's 'Spider-Man' and Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins', both of which are far more plotless than 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. Currently (not permanently, but currently), Marvel and a few others are finding success on character not plot, banter not catchphrases, irreverence and not stoicism. That's a bad thing? Steven Zeitchik is acting like summer has been smooth sailings for intelligent plot cinema even since 'Jaws' came out, and then here comes 'Guardians of the Galaxy' shitting on everything.

Pretty soon the pendulum will swing back and I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts. Totally fine if 'Guardians' isn't your bag. I think it's swell. My current tally is I love one Marvel film, I really like two ('The Avengers' and 'Iron Man'), I'm fine with two ('Captain America: The Winter Soldier', 'Iron Man Three'), I can't stand three ('Iron Man 2', 'Captain America: The First Avengers', and 'Thor'), and I skipped 'Thor: The Dark World'.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Greg »

Ah yes, all these plotless-storyless-box-office blockbuster taking over Hollywood. It makes me nostalgic for the god-ol' days of Inception and Gravity.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by The Original BJ »

This article in the LA Times -- from a writer who enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy -- pretty much hit it on the head for me. Narrative pleasure has become a thing of the past in so many contemporary blockbusters, and for someone like myself who enjoys being hooked by a compelling storyline, these plot-doesn't-matter movies just consistently feel pointless to me.

'Guardians of the Galaxy' and the rise of post-plot cinema
'Guardians of the Galaxy'
By Steven Zeitchik

Movies
'Guardians of the Galaxy,' starring Chris Pratt, is the latest film to put quips and spectacle ahead of story

Like many people this past weekend, I went to see “Guardians of the Galaxy” at a nearby multiplex. I bought some concession snacks, donned a pair of 3-D glasses and sat through the half-hour of previews that preceded the James Gunn romp with a fair bit of anticipation, stoked by my returning to the U.S. after three weeks of work abroad to a stack of effusive reviews, as well as email bulletins that the Marvel movie was killing it at the box office.

In many ways, my high expectations were met. Chris Pratt brought the right amount of swashbuckler to his prototypical boyish dolt, the wisecracks and meta references landed with some frequency, and the action set pieces looked cool and seemed like they’d be fun to live through.

But about 30 minutes in, and for nearly every minute after, something else became increasingly clear: The movie had no clear or compelling plot. Hard-core Marvel enthusiasts, versed in the 1960s comic where it all began, may disagree. And maybe even some fellow Marvel newcomers might feel differently. For me, from the first moment a Yondu was dropped and a Ronan was feared and a Thanos was intoned — all of them playing Very Important Roles to the people in the movie but, it seemed, amounting to little more than a mythic mishmash to those of us outside it — I was turning up my hands.

I don't mean to suggest there aren't discernible narrative developments in the film. Yes, there's an important orb whose owner controls the fate of the universe. And there are various factions trying to get their hands on it, each with varying degrees of financial, psychological and megalomaniacal motivation. Characters even have, in a few cases, a semi-coherent or moving back story. But it is not easy to explain, crisply and without descending into a certain kind of obfuscatory mumbo-jumbo, what is actually happening. In fact, it's far from clear that the characters can explain, crisply and without descending into a certain kind of obfuscatory mumbo-jumbo, what is actually happening.

More important, I’m not sure we’re supposed to be able to explain it. The way the film is structured, coherence of any kind — why people are literally doing what they’re doing, or what the plausible psychological explanations are for what they're doing — seem beside the point. This all seems to be less a question of whether "Guardians” makes sense as it is that it doesn't much matter in the first place. The movie was built to be consumed without any holistic understanding of what’s happening or why—without any sense that one should want a clear understanding of what’s happening or why. (There is a strange, perhaps super-meta irony in the film making frequent reference to cinematic classics like “The Maltese Falcon,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Star Wars," all movies in which storytelling matters very much.)

This is not a new trend in big-budget filmmaking, though it is a particularly notable example of it. In fact, "Guardians" seems to be the logical convergence point of two distinct trends that have been growing for a number of years now — in which spectacle on the one hand ("Godzilla," "Transformers" et al.) and quippy reference on the other take pride of place, effectively crowding out traditional storytelling. “Guardians” just happens to do each of them really big, and at the same time.

That Hollywood's other major outsized success this year — “The Lego Movie” — is characterized by this same marriage seems like no coincidence. (I was tempted to say it does seem like a coincidence that both movies star Chris Pratt, but the fact that he’s not a traditional story-centric hero who you nonetheless want to spend time with suggests it may not be.) Like “Guardians,” “Lego” — which I saw several times and rather enjoyed — involved some misfits who go on the run, have lots of quippy fun and get mixed up in some big action set pieces whose actual import doesn’t matter.

Nor did this all of this just begin. Despite the hate mail some of you may send, I’d put “The Avengers” — the most popular of popular commercial movies — in this category too. The film had a number of virtues. But quick, what was its main plot twist? What were even its main plot points? If you’re a hard-core aficionado, you can probably cite them after thinking about it for a minute. I mostly came up with an orb-like item that some people really want. Breaking down the story in the same way ‎as you might, say, “E.T.” or “Star Wars — or even films in more recent franchises like Sam Raimi's “Spider-Man” or Christopher Nolan's “Batman” — is nearly impossible. To even try to do so feels like it misses the point.‎

(I also don't think it's an accident, by the way, that a number of these post-plot films exist within the expansive but hermetic Marvel Studios universe. While before "Guardians" few of such movies that were produced by the Disney-owned company (the "Spider-Mans" of the world of course are not) offered quite as many jokes‎, these movies' stock-in-trade is nonetheless a kind of inbred mythic reference not entirely conducive to conventional storytelling. And of course there are the "Transformers" and other mega-tentpoles, which are often plot-agnostic beasts in their own right.)

You could sense a lot of critics struggling with these competing impulses when it came to evaluating “Guardians.” We've all spent years thinking that commercial filmmaking depended at least in part on strong storytelling — “Jaws,” "The Terminator” and countless others. And yet here was a seemingly pleasurable commercial film in which the storytelling didn’t seem to matter at all.

So critics used deft language to describe this apparent paradox — “encourages you to enjoy yourself even when you're not quite sure what's going on” (my colleague Kenneth Turan), “an interlocking passel of villains I couldn’t begin to explain” (Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir), “confusing and generic by turns” so maybe best to just “shake off the bonds of narrative coherency” and allow “the weird words — Yondu, Necrocraft, Sakkaran — [to] just slide right past you” (the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis).

Some filmgoers may similarly want to just let the whole idea of a post-plot film slide right past them; enjoyable is enjoyable, no matter the reasons. There's something to that. But I can't help noticing that there’s also something clever about the whole enterprise. A strain of world-weariness has permeated cinema in recent years — evident in the crowing/laments about how great stories have migrated to television — a belief that there are simply no new filmic stories left to tell. These sorts of comments usually lead to a heated back-and-forth about supposedly great new movies that either do or don’t tell a new story.

“Guardians,” though, has done something different — it has slyly obviated the whole question. Who cares, it asks, if any of this is new or even a story as long as there are some cool visuals and laugh-worthy quips — as long as there are people, in the end, who are fun to hang out with? (There seems to be a parallel of sorts across the cinematic aisle in the rise of the post-joke Hollywood comedy, documented brilliantly in this Adam Sternbergh essay from a few years back.)

There’s another clear advantage achieved by the post-plot film, though I’m not sure it’s entirely conscious on the part of its creators: constructing a film with utter immunity to the dreaded spoiler.

Some of the best narrative efforts of earlier chapters of this modern era — “The Sixth Sense,” “The Usual Suspects” — relied on us not knowing a critical detail until the end of a film, and then, once we did, looking at all the scenes that came before it differently.

In “Guardians,” the critical details revealed at the end don’t make us look at all that came before differently — they don’t even make us look at the scene in which they’re revealed differently. The two main reveals in "Guardians" (I would say spoiler alert, though, again, I’m not sure the term applies) include a shopworn switcheroo you could see coming from a planet away and an emotional payoff involving the opening of a childhood gift that has to be the least illuminating or surprising of emotional payoffs in the history of emotional payoffs. If you attempted such a reveal in a screenwriting class, your teacher would have you rewrite it.

Yet this lack of narrative surprise doesn’t matter, and in fact it may be a good thing as far as the release of the film is concerned. In an age when coverage on fan blogs and social media can sometimes ruin the fun of a good movie, what better way to get around the problem than to make sure the fun can’t be ruined? You could spend an hour trying to spoil the end of “Guardians” for someone you don’t like and still not succeed.

There is, of course, still plenty of room in big-budget Hollywood for story-driven films (though there may be something to the fact that the most lauded indie movie of the year, “Boyhood,” traffics in its own kind of plot defiance). Nolan’s “Interstellar,” to take one example, suggests from its marketing materials that traditional storytelling is alive and well.

Still, a great swath of big Hollywood entertainment used to consist of story with other trappings hung on it. Now it's been reversed — the story can just be tacked on wherever you find room. And if it doesn't fit, no big deal, since it’s not really what people are looking for anyway. It also hardly seems like an accident that “Guardians,” a movie with one of the least coherent plots of the summer, nonetheless earned one of the highest CinemaScores of the summer.

All of this is, depending on your point of view, either a tragic sign of the movie apocalypse or the ultimate postmodern trick that has fans laughing all the way out of the theater. Hollywood, though, has already made its choice. And given “Guardians’ ” success, it will no doubt continue down that path, with literal sequels and plenty of spiritual heirs to follow. In that regard, this is the same old story — not that we need one.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Sabin »

Who is viewing this film as a spoof or a satire?

The plot of Guardians of the Galaxy makes sense, it just doesn't care about it that much. The first act is pretty talky (except for a wonderful title sequence of Chris Pratt robbing a tomb as he dances to "Come and Get Your Love") and basically serves to get these guys together as quickly as human possible. It operates from the Star Wars playbook of exposition. It felt clunky, but so does Star Wars. Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't really care about its plot. The stakes are made very generically clear: this is a powerful weapon, it cannot fall into the hands of this guy. This provides for my money a much stronger throughline than in The Avengers where those aliens just kind of come out of nowhere for me. It's about having fun with these misfit personalities. As both writer and director (along with co-screenwriter Nicole Perlman), James Gunn is very conscious to have every joke serve as set-up for a later joke: Rocket pranking Peter into stealing some guy's prosthetic leg for an escape plan; Peter Quill teaching Gamora about the legend of "Footloose", etc. The filmmakers didn't have to do this but that's what audiences are responding to. This film is smart with its time and its jokes. Yes, this group bonds a little too quickly but you can easily chalk up Peter Quill's desire to help Gamora escape from her persecutors from his lingering regret from his dying mother. It's not perfect, but it works well enough to keep things moving along.

I had a great time. It's strange that you thought the screen was cluttered because I think this is probably the best looking Marvel film I've ever seen. Shots stand out to me as beautiful. Gunn's decision to film all the space scenes in water was fantastic. The characterizations are archetypes but the dialogue and set-pieces are strong. I had a stupid grin on my face throughout. The parts of the film that I can't really defend (plot, villain, world-building, etc.) I don't feel like I really need to because it's not really the point. I have had strong reservations about every Marvel film that I have seen. Let me put it this way: I have had strong reservations going into every Marvel film that I have seen that ultimately I'm about to be subjecting to a more of a plan than an actual film. I'm not sure if I can call Guardians of the Galaxy a great film but it's absolutely a great time.

(Also, Dancing Baby Groot is the cutest goddamn thing)
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