The Official Review Thread of 2014

Big Magilla
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Big Magilla »

I really liked Duvall in the 1970s and early 1980s, bit except for A Family Thing in 1996 and Get Low in 2010, I haven't really liked him in anything since his Oscar win for Tender Mercies thirty-one years ago.
Uri
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Uri »

ksrymy wrote:Robert Duvall joins Melissa McCarthy as the only people to be nominated for a performance in which they shit all over themselves on camera.
Another proof Europeans are far more subtle than Americans – All Emmanuelle Riva did in Amour was soiling herself with urine for her nomination.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by ksrymy »

mlrg wrote:
flipp525 wrote:I'm so annoyed that I have to watch The Judge now.
x2
Robert Duvall joins Melissa McCarthy as the only people to be nominated for a performance in which they shit all over themselves on camera.
"Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by mlrg »

flipp525 wrote:I'm so annoyed that I have to watch The Judge now.
x2
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by flipp525 »

I'm so annoyed that I have to watch The Judge now.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by ITALIANO »

Sabin wrote:
...my first attempt at watching The Judge was not successful. ... This isn't an awful script
I saw it on my third attempt. I literally couldn't do it - twice. So you should insist - if you REALLY wish. And if you do you'll realize that the script IS awful - it gets worse in the second part.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Sabin »

Quick ones...

...I got about as close as I think I'll get to loving Birdman. It feels like we've already had the one for a while in the short months it's been out. It's an entertaining and funny piece of work. It's not as deep as it'd like to be but everybody represents a different form of delusion and the film is full of private moments that bit by bit work very well for me. Two viewings in and I can't tell you when Riggan decides to [SPOILER]. When he wakes up after his binge, the voice in his head pushes him towards the realm of commerce and shallow success but what he does in the second act of the play is the opposite of that. Whatever change he goes through possibly the most meaningful change in the film happens off-screen during the day-to-night transition while we're looking at the marquee, which is to say the trickery that the film insists upon in some ways is its own undoing in that department. I don't really feel anything after he runs into the theater and I'd like to. I also keep failing to find what Riggan is doing noble. Instead I just think it's comically misguided, which I like more. Mike Shiner has him pegged with his first or second line of dialogue with that off-hand "That's ambitious." The film also has a small Mike Shiner problem. Edward Norton is hilarious but I hate that I have to take his impotency seriously. If he can't get it up unless he's on-stage then he's doing that to himself and that means he's too much of a self-important fool for me to wish him cure. It's almost as though Mike Shiner himself took control of the film and wrote his part. And yet this will absolutely not be the last time I see this film.

..I wish I saw Mr. Turner in theaters but I didn't. I watched a screener. It's a gorgeous film, immersive in period detail, and there's innumerable moments to savor in every scene. And yet when I talk about what I liked about the film, I'm just describing things about it rather than how it made me feel because I didn't feel a lot. Again: that's on me but I don't have much desire to watch it again.

...my first attempt at watching The Judge was not successful. Not sure if I'll try again. I found The Judge to be somewhat infuriating. This is a $50 million movie. Those aren't easy to make. While I'd never call it a fantastically shot film, Janusz Kaminski was the Director of Photography so it's good looking enough that it feels like one of biggest wastes of a great cinematographer's time since Vilmos Zsigmond shot Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl. Thomas Newman's score works its ass off to touch us emotionally. And in the service of what? I'm sure it's possible that somewhat like Clint Eastwood could have wrung some truth out of this bland screenplay, but David Dobkin isn't the guy to do it. This isn't an awful script but it isn't anything particularly good. It teeters back and forth between pander and uninspired. Did Robert Downey Jr. think he'd win an Oscar for this? If so then I bet a lot of the first act got cut out and the original draft didn't open with him using a urinal. There was probably something there that was intended to be a little more touching, homespun, I don't know. Then they realized what a goddamn long boring movie they'd made. Or maybe I'm wrong and they honestly thought that they were making a strong clash between high energy city octane and back home tempo. Either way what I saw was not successful. I'm no longer an Oscar completist to the degree that I need to watch another hour and a half of this to see if Robert Duvall does or does not deserve his seventh nomination. I can fill in the blanks in my head what he does for the rest of the movie.
"How's the despair?"
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jessica Chastain, Albert Brooks, David Oyelowo, Alessandro Nivola, Elyes Gabel, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Peter Gerety.
Dir: J.C. Chandor.

I read a review of this film saying that it feels like it's straight out of the '70s. It does feel like one of those grown-up thrillers mainstream Hollywood studios used to do before audience's attention spans demanded shiny things that go boom. This one is about a man trying to expand his oil business but is getting violent resistance from a mysterious competitor attempting to ruin him. The film feels more like a mob movie than anything even though there are no actual mobsters. It's oil people! It's a crime film but instead of drugs or guns, it's oil. It's an excellently acted, refreshing and thrilling piece of cinema. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain are both terrific. J.C. Chandor is indeed one of cinema's most exciting directors.

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

Post by flipp525 »

The screenplay for Big Eyes is a bit weak. You can see Tim Burton, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski straining to come up with enough story to fill a two-hour movie. The set pieces and dialogue become repetitive. Christoph Waltz's hammy, Razzie-level performance (my God, he got a Golden Globe nomination for that?! Embarrassing) plays to the absolute back row...of the cineplex parking lot, his German accent fully on display whereas the character is supposed to be Midwestern. I'm beginning to think that his acting doesn't work outside of the Quentin Tarantino universe which is sad because I thought he was well used in both of his Oscar-winning roles.

But Amy Adams survives the carnage to create an incredibly believable and honest portrait of a woman whose artistic signature has been co-opted and commercialized by her husband. Margaret Keane's painting of wide-eyed waifs may be treacly kitsch but they are hers and people love them. As she gives more of herself away, you can see the fire also leeching out of her, but also fueling a new one. She modulates her voice work in this film to create an entirely new character from any I've seen her as before - it's not simply a variation on past work of hers' (rather similar to the surprise of her work in The Master.) I'm not sure why the Golden Globes thought to categorize this as a comedy when it's more like a domestic horror, reaching a climax when Adams and her daughter have locked themselves in the Keane studio, surrounded by the "big eyes" paintings and are trying to avoid being set on fire by Walter Keane.

It may be more wishful thinking than anything, but I hope that Adams comes through with a surprise nod for her work in this film. Against all the odds against her, her performance successfully emerges from the wreckage with an aura of truth. She actually succeeds in making you root for the triumph of her kitschy creations.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by flipp525 »

Reza wrote:Better yet if Amy Adams gets in for Big Eyes. She is incredibly good.
Well, she definitely got a bump last night.
"The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely in her shoulders. She was twenty five and looked it."

-Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

FORCE MAJEURE
Cast: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent Wettergren, Clara Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius, Brady Corbet.
Dir: Ruben Ostlund.

This is the Swedish entry to the Best Foreign Language Film race. Personally, I slightly prefer this to Ida. A Swedish family goes on a ski vacation. While dining on a restaurant patio, they witness a controlled avalanche which seemed to be headed for them. The husband panics and immediately runs away. The avalanche stops. The family survives. And things get AWWWWWKKKKWARRRRDDDD to say the least. Yes, everyone is safe and sound but the near-miss might revealed some cracks in their relationship which may almost be as life-changing and devastating. This film is thought-provoking, sometimes sad and even surprisingly funny (darkly funny but funny) and will surely inspire conservations when seen with a significant other (I'm not joking when I say that this film might make or break some couples!). The cast is strong and I have to remark on the great cinematography. Despite being a ski resort, it managed to make it look stark and somewhat foreboding. It is one of the best films of the year.

Oscar Prospects: Should get in Foreign Language Film. Deserves Cinematography as well.

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

Post by Reza »

Better yet if Amy Adams gets in for Big Eyes. She is incredibly good.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Mister Tee »

I'd pretty much be willing to get to my knees and beg AMPAS not to nominate this film, so I don't have to waste time/money seeing it. Months down the line on DVD, fine. But spare me now.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by The Original BJ »

Cake has one of the more interesting award season strategies I've ever seen (and if it works, it must be acknowledged as a pretty brilliant one): make sure that screener is available to any group voting on acting awards, campaign like hell with your lead actress for a spot in that weak Best Actress field...and make sure that no one else is actually able to see the movie. Even for audiences living in Los Angeles, it's difficult to see -- it started its one-week qualifying run on December 31, and is playing in only one theater...in Torrance. (Translation for those outside LA: that's about as far south in LA county as you can get to qualify for the Oscars, and it's about an hour drive from my house WITHOUT traffic. And there ALWAYS is traffic.) Luckily, I was able to see it much closer to home at a Guild screening, but it's hard for not to feel like the actual movie is basically an afterthought to this entire Oscar campaign.

That's because -- surprise -- there's not really much of a movie here at all, certainly not one critics are going to celebrate. This strikes me as the kind of thing that's sometimes ballot filler in an acting category at the Independent Spirit Awards -- quality-wise, it's just quite a bit lower than even the weaker major Oscar contenders. (Okay, it's still probably not as bad as The Judge.) First of all, the filmmaking is pretty much the definition of bland. Anyone complaining that Still Alice isn't much of MOVIE better steel themselves for the we-couldn't-afford-a-cinematographer look of this thing. However, I'm at least willing to be more forgiving of visual blandness in these low budget efforts if the material is something compelling. But this script is just a collection of tropes from plenty of other movies -- the grief-stricken protagonist shacking up with the grief-stricken survivor's spouse, the snarky pill popper obsessed with overly medicating herself, even the big reveal about what Aniston's character is dealing with (and how it affects the relationship with her husband) explores subject matter that has been depicted to death in far more interesting movies than this one.

I also feel like, structurally, the movie is sort of a mess. There aren't a lot of characters, and yet, so many of them feel underexplored and undernourished, like the movie isn't even doing a good job of keeping track of its own cast. Felicity Huffman is around a lot, but the entire support group subplot didn't go much of anywhere for me (and I also thought Huffman, who I usually like, was a bit too broad for what the movie needed). I thought just about every scene with Anna Kendrick fell flat on its face, as I didn't think the filmmakers had worked out the concept/purpose for these fantasy scenes in a successful manner. There's some slow teasing out of information about past events, but the movie never really provides the necessary context for the central situation, so it all just feels like less is less, like the story is lacking in specificity. When William H. Macy shows up for a very key scene, I felt like we were going to start to get more information about the past, but...nope, then we just go back to more pill popping. (I also thought casting a well-known actor for this one moment was absolutely the wrong choice -- it completely took me out of the scene, because all I could think was, oh, that's funny, Macy's in this movie too?) And characters keep showing up only to serve minimal purpose -- I couldn't begin to tell you what the point of the wannabe actress character was who showed up in the last reel. (There could have been a much more graceful way to get to the movie's final moments than using this suddenly-introduced character in such a clunky manner.) And, this is probably a lame complaint, but the title's kind of dumb, referencing a way too literal symbol in the story for my taste.

But what of Jennifer Aniston, perhaps on the cusp of an Oscar nomination? Well, I always admire an actor's attempt at a stretch, but I can't say I found this to be any kind of breakthrough performance. This isn't exactly her fault -- she doesn't have that much of a character to play here, as her part is basically consistent glum-ness spiked by some snarky asides, plus one emotional crying moment near the end (which, admittedly, I thought she played well.) On the whole, I felt the way I do about some other mostly comic actors' attempts at going serious -- it all just feels a little bit blank. (And, in this case, a bit unappealing -- I can't say I much found this character an exciting one to be around for two hours.)

Will she get the Oscar nod? My hunch is the answer is yes -- there was a wide-open void, and all of a sudden Aniston was all anyone could talk about over the last couple weeks, though I do still think she's an on-the-bubble candidate, given how unexciting I think her movie is. Personally, I think Marion Cotillard (for either performance) and Emily Blunt would be WAY more deserving.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

PRIDE
Cast: Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Paddy Considine, George Mackay, Ben Schnetzer, Dominic West, Joseph Gilgun, Andrew Scott, Jessica Gunning, Faye Marsay.
Dir: Matthew Warchus.

I'm surprised by how much I loved this movie. It's the true story of a group of gay rights activists who lent a helping hand to striking miners during the turbulent Thatcher administration. Lots of things can go wrong in this type of film. It could have been too manipulative, too preachy, too sappy, too formulaic, etc. But it's none of those. What it is, as it turns out, is an honest, sweet, funny, moving portrait of how two different groups of people can get together and make a difference, united by their common humanity. Again, it sounds corny but the script has enough bite and intelligence and the cast is so great that it earns its feel-good status. It manages to avoid most pitfalls that films of this ilk tend to commit. More people should see this. I highly recommend it.

Oscar Prospects: For God's sake, this is yet another better option than The Theory of Everything.

Grade: A-
Last edited by anonymous1980 on Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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