The Official Review Thread of 2014

anonymous1980
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

INHERENT VICE
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Katherine Waterston, Benicio Del Toro, Owen Wilson, Reese Witherspoon, Joanna Newsom, Jena Malone, Martin Short, Maya Rudolph, Eric Roberts, Jeannie Berlin, Michael Kenneth Williams, Jordan Christian Hearn, Hong Chau, Serena Scott Thomas, Jefferson Mays.
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson.

They should have released this under the title The Big Sleep Lebowski (LOL). But seriously, I can see why some people hated this. Is it incomprehensible? Sure. But I do believe that's kind of the point. I have a feeling this was written to make the spectator feel like they're in a haze of marijuana smoke. The plot goes through all sorts of directions. It's best to just pay attention to the scenes in front of you and what scenes are they. It's often very funny, superbly acted by a game cast and featuring crisp direction by a filmmaker who, in my opinion at least, finally found his voice in his recent films. The film is basically about a perpetually high private investigator who is asked by his ex to find her current older boyfriend whose wife seems to be plotting to have him committed to a loony bin then it just spirals into something more convoluted. It will definitely frustrate some but I loved most of it. I have a feeling I might grow to love it even more as time goes on.

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

Post by FilmFan720 »

I think I'm younger even than Greg, and I also had a really strong reaction to this film. Very, very well made, traditional yet overwhelming just in the amount of footage it has and the way that it supports the narration so well. Did they reuse a single shot?

Maybe because this is a piece of the Vietnam puzzle that isn't talked about as much, or at least I had missed, the film felt a lot more fresh than most docs. Of the four I've seen, this is far and away my favorite of the nominees (haven't seen Salt of the Earth, the hardest to find).
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Mister Tee »

Greg, I'm glad to see someone younger responding to Last Days in Vietnam. I was pretty overwhelmed by it, but of course it's an era with which I'm intimately familiar, and I didn't know if it would have the immediacy for anyone who wasn't around then.

And, in fact, though I remember the central events pretty well, I've never seen such a detailed recounting of, especially, those last 48 hours. The Ambassador, as you say, is a compelling character: for much of the film, you're ready to scream at him (and you can easily argue he cost lives with his level of denial) -- but then in the end he acts with an incredible amount of nobility. I was also hugely taken with that sequence of the helicopter dropping passengers onto the carrier...something that seems right out of a present-day action film, and a rare uplifting moment amid the chaos. And I was surprised -- as I think most of my contemporaries would be -- to find out the famous shot of "the helicopter on top of the embassy" is, in fact, not shot at the embassy at all.

I assume Citizenfour is going to win the documentary category, on the basis of far wider exposure and "stand up to the man" sentiment among many voters. However, if the old (pre-last year) rules were still in effect for docs and foreigns -- voting limited to those who attended screeenings, meaning mostly older folk -- I'd look to this film as a spoiler in the category, both because I think the older contingent is less likely than the young to view Edward Snowden as unadulterated hero, and because Vietnam is such a searing part of many people's lives. In fact, watching this film, I half-understood why the older crowd has been so seemingly relentless about voting for WWII docs -- when something's that vivid a part of your life, you can be partial to re-living it.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Greg »

Last Days In Vietnam

I took the opportunity to watch this free on PBS.org yesterday evening. It turned out to be much more than I was expecting.

What made this documentary, even as it is a conventional mixture of archival footage, voice-over narration, and talking heads, although it does contain some animation, is the archival footage itself.

There is footage of Vietnamese boarding planes and helicopters, waiting in the U.S. Embassy compound, huddled on a U.S. ship, even of a pilot swimming from a downed helicopter to a ship. I kept asking myself how did the filmmakers obtain all this footage from 1975? There must have been a great deal of footage that reporters there at the time shot, much more than would have made it into the news reports at the time. This film reminded me of how the current technology with YouTube, etc. not only provides a before-unthought-of ability to document what is happening now, but also an invaluable way to preserve what has already been documented with earlier technology. I thought about this when watching someone who was in the U.S. military at the time mentioning how he started sending, I think, home movies from Vietnam to his wife because he was so bad at writing letters.

The individual who stood out me for was Ambassador Martin. At first, he steadfastly opposed any effort to evacuate people from Vietnam because he was unwilling to admit to himself, and then engage in action that would publicly admit to the world, that the United States and its ally were about to lose a war after the Paris Peace Agreements were signed. When the inevitable finally happened, though, he took extraordinary pains to make sure as many could be evacuated as possible. If only he had faced reality sooner, how many more lives could have been saved? Martin struck me as a true Shakespearean tragic hero.

In addition to the editing by Don Kleszy, the craft work that really stands out for me is Gary Lionelli's score. He would have been worthy to be the first composer to win a Best Original Score Oscar for a documentary.

A masterpiece.
10/10
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

FOXCATCHER
Cast: Steve Carrell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave, Sienna Miller, Anthony Michael Hall.
Dir: Bennett Miller.

Fascinating, gripping film about the bizarre relationship between rich philanthropist/ornithologist/wrestling enthusiast John DuPont and the Brothers Schultz who are Olympic gold medalists in wrestling. The film is deliberately paced with an odd sense of foreboding all throughout and if you know the true story (which I won't spoil here), you'll probably know why. The three main performances are outstanding. If there's anyone out there who doubts the credibility of Channing Tatum as an actor, this film will definitely erase those doubts away. He definitely gives his career-best performance in this film. I've always thought Steve Carrell is an excellent actor and it's great he gets the chance to stretch. I don't think Bennett Miller has made his definitive masterpiece yet but he's definitely a directorial voice to watch.

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

Post by anonymous1980 »

INTO THE WOODS
Cast: Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp, Christine Baranski, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, MacKenzie Mauzy, Billy Magnusson, Tammy Blanchard, Lucy Punch.
Dir: Rob Marshall.

I'm a huge musical and I'm a huge Stephen Sondheim so I was really looking forward to this one. Count me as one of the fans of the film version of Sweeney Todd, This adaptation of the popular Broadway musical which reinvented and deconstructed fairy tales way, way before Disney started doing them is not perfect. But goshdarnit, it is still a pretty damn good one. Though it does have the tendency to be a bit stagey in parts, I think Rob Marshall and James Lapine managed to adapt it pretty well on film. It IS Rob Marshall best film since, well, Chicago. The actors are excellent with everyone nailing their songs, speaking as someone familiar with the score and knowing a lot of the songs by heart. Meryl Streep, Chris Pine and Anna Kendrick most especially.

Grade: B+

BIRDMAN (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Cast: Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Zach Galifianakis, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Lindsay Duncan, Merritt Wever.
Dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu.

Ever since Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu burst into the scene with Amores Perros, I thought he was an interesting filmmaker to watch but after not being too impressed with subsequent films all of which seem to think that piling on misery and misfortune equals artistic brilliance or something. So it is very refreshing for him to do a black comedy for a change. And it paid off. I loved this movie. The film's gimmick of sorts: Making most of the film appear like one long tracking shot is not just a gimmick, it works to illustrate the urgency and frustration of an aging has-been actor (who used to play a superhero in movies) trying to mount a big Broadway play. Michael Keaton makes use of his entire range as an actor in this one and every one of the cast supports him ably with Edward Norton and Emma Stone almost stealing the movie. The awards love this one is getting is merited. It does come off as self-consciously arty but it does so in such an exciting, entertaining way. One of the best films of the year.

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

Post by Big Magilla »

ITALIANO wrote:
flipp525 wrote:Two Days, One Night follows a working-class wife and mother over one weekend as she attempts to navigate a work re-vote in her favor, one that has the potential to leave her unemployed. The film follows Sandra as she tries to woo her co-workers back to her side after she took a leave of absence because of depression. After awhile, the repetitiveness of the scenes in which she visits her co-workers becomes a testament in itself to Sandra's inner strength, even when she thinks she has nowhere left to turn. She always seems on the verge of collapsing back into the depression that cost her her job, but is occasionally emboldened by small acts of kindness. I don't think there was a more humanistic scene in all of this year's nominated films than the one where her co-worker breaks down and tells her that she has his vote because of something she did for him once on the job.

Marion Cotillard's now Oscar-nominated performance in the cinéma vérité style film sneaks up on you with such quiet power, such deeply felt emotional ferocity, it's enough to knock the wind out of you by the film's end. Simply unforgettable. I know she probably doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the Oscar, but I think her work in the Dardennes film definitely tops her Best Actress performance in La Vie en Rose.

Kudos to the Academy for going out of their way to recognize this very non-traditional-for-the-Academy performance.
It's a nice, little movie, less tough than others by the Dardennes, but still, obviously, committed, sincere. The style is direct, typically essential (one can only balk at the idea of an American remake - with Sandra Bullock in the leading role..?), and the message is urgent, if maybe a bit too obvious. I liked it - it's not a masterpiece, there are moments that I found unnecessary, but it's a good movie, and with a strong sense of a place, of a community. Cotillard is very good, as always, and the camera clearly loves her, but she's maybe too healthy to be really convincing as a woman suffering from depression - she's always a star, believable as a factory worker, but a star. This year, I would have probably nominated her for The Immigrant instead, and I think her performance in 2012's Rust and Bone (which the Dardenne brothers sort-of co-produced) is still her best. But let's face it - this is one of the best actresses working in movies today, and if she were American and hadn't won before, a win for THIS movie wouldn't be impossible.
This was one of the best films I've seen about overcoming depression. I loved Cotillard's performance and the little vignettes provided by each of the co-workers she talks to, as well as the ironic ending but there were a couple of things about it that bothered me.

I found the film's premise unrealistic. Setting aside legal ramifications, it seems illogical for a business in Belgium or anywhere else to allow sixteen employees in a department to vote on whether they want to take back an employee from medical leave or receive a one-time bonus of $1,000 each for themselves. I can see the business making a decision not to take someone back and instead pay bonuses to the people who have been doing his/her job and having the employees offer to give the money back so she can have her job back but that would be a different movie altogether.

The other thing I found unrealistic was the way that husbands and wives told her where to find their spouse if he/she wasn't there when she rang their bell. The natural response would be to say he/she isn't here, can I take a message and if she insists on seeing them right away, asking her what she wants. Not one of them did that.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Johnny Guitar »

Mister Tee wrote:I can understand why Spall’s performance was such a hit with the critics and also why it failed to crack the Academy list – it’s very lived-in work, but doesn’t have the individual fireworks that tend to inspire the actors’ branch. The cast as a whole feels immersed in a Dickens-like environment; it’s not easy sustaining that sort of period feel, but Leigh and company pull it off, in one of his better films.
Very well said, Tee (all your comments on the film, not just what I've quoted). The acting in particularly is indeed "immersive," probably what I would cite as some of the best ensemble work of the year. These people were really inhabiting their roles with full commitment.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

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Uri wrote: think of films from 1980, such as The Coal Miner Daughter, Raging Bull or Melvin and Howard - remember Lynn and La Motta in the audience at the Oscars that night? – these people allowed the filmmakers to explore their stories in a way which seems to be denied nowadays. Maybe it has something to do with the extreme evolvement over the past 35 years of the awareness of self promotion, the cultivating and preserving of one’s image, the seemingly lesser boundaries between one’s private and public personas which more and more cause people to be constantly putting on well calculated and engineered facades
This is actually interesting - I am not sure that The Coal Miner's Daughter was that tough on the real life people it was based on, but I guess that compared to today's movies of the same kind it WAS tougher. And the reasons you mentioned are extremely correct. Plus, there was, back then, a respect for cinema as a medium, for the work of directors, for the integrity of directors, which today probably, simply, doesn't exist anymore.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Uri »

Mister Tee wrote:... but the filmmakers gloss over that, and concentrate on the more prosaic you-go-girl element of Margaret Keane getting her due. This undercuts the sense of irony the concept seemed to offer, making it all too sincere/inspirational. It also prevents the creators from exploring a potentially deeper theme...
Add the cases of other films such as The Theory of Everything and American Sniper - when a film, based on a true story, is made with the protagonist very much present and even involved with the creative process, can the film escape being an elaborate PR piece and can a real complex and multi faced depiction of the characters and issues involved really be achieved? It used to happen – think of films from 1980, such as The Coal Miner Daughter, Raging Bull or Melvin and Howard - remember Lynn and La Motta in the audience at the Oscars that night? – these people allowed the filmmakers to explore their stories in a way which seems to be denied nowadays. Maybe it has something to do with the extreme evolvement over the past 35 years of the awareness of self promotion, the cultivating and preserving of one’s image, the seemingly lesser boundaries between one’s private and public personas which more and more cause people to be constantly putting on well calculated and engineered facades (that's what the point of social networks is, or the so called reality shows which are about “real” people lamely writing their own shity fictional life stories and appallingly perform them). So probably it’s not that surprising people are not willing to surrender their lives to be freely interpreted by anyone, filmmakers included. Another reason to make less films “based on true stories” and bring back good old fiction.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by Mister Tee »

Short takes on two art world movies:

Unlike Sabin, I saw Mr. Turner on the big screen, and its visual sumptuousness was undeniable. Leigh managed to catch much of Turner’s distinctive look, and not just for show-off prettiness. On one or two occasions, Leigh would start a shot in the upper sky, and you’d swear it was a canvas, but the pan down disclosed, no, it was natural landscape – which made clear what Turner instinctively realized about nature and how it ought to be portrayed.

Narratively, the film has some of the same episodic/elliptical quality that gave me so much trouble in Topsy Turvy, but here I didn’t mind it. Perhaps it was because I found the film so refreshingly unlike any other previous artist’s biography I’ve ever seen (it’s not a thing like Lust for Life). We’re spared the years of struggle/breakthrough to success syndrome; in fact, through most of the film we have little idea what level of success or failure Turner has achieved. The film is instead concerned with the things that make his life what it is, from the mundane (domestic arrangements, spats with fellow artists) to the sublime (his search for genuine art reaching some sort of peak when he’s lashed to a mast to experience the feel of a storm) to a combination of both (his realization of what the invention of the camera will do to artists everywhere). The elliptical style makes for some interesting narrative effects (as when the doctor unmasks Turner’s disguise, and we’re surprised that Mrs. Booth appears to have already known). And individual scenes are often extremely well-written – my favorite Lesley Manville’s prism experiment; I liked her more here than in her entire storied Another Year appearance.

I can understand why Spall’s performance was such a hit with the critics and also why it failed to crack the Academy list – it’s very lived-in work, but doesn’t have the individual fireworks that tend to inspire the actors’ branch. The cast as a whole feels immersed in a Dickens-like environment; it’s not easy sustaining that sort of period feel, but Leigh and company pull it off, in one of his better films.

Dropping down several notches: Big Eyes.

I was excited by the idea behind the film, because the Keane paintings are such a vivid memory from my youth (if you weren’t around, I don’t know if you can imagine how ubiquitous they were), and because the combination of the pure kitsch of the paintings with the nearly-unbelievable later revelations of Walter Keane’s fraud seemed perfect material for the collaborators of Ed Wood.

But it turned out the combination didn’t really work. The movie’s truest moment comes when Terence Stamp shouts out “Why would anyone want credit?” – but the filmmakers gloss over that, and concentrate on the more prosaic you-go-girl element of Margaret Keane getting her due. This undercuts the sense of irony the concept seemed to offer, making it all too sincere/inspirational. It also prevents the creators from exploring a potentially deeper theme: Given that the paintings were lousy art, and the chief reason for their fame was the way Walter Keane hucksterized and merchandised them…isn’t it possible to look upon Walter Keane as the actual auteur of the craze, regardless of the fact that he never put a brush to canvas?

Just taking the film at face value: I found it mostly not boring, but also not unique in any way; I can imagine a standard TV movie treatment emerging looking much the same. Amy Adams is good, as always; I kind of regret that she’s become such a regular fixture on the Oscar lists that to merely have given a respectable performance means she has to be mocked in certain places for not getting (or rating) a nomination out of it. Waltz remains a conundrum: I think he’s absolutely terrific and deserving in both his Oscar performances, but every other thing he’s done seems hambone in the extreme.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by anonymous1980 »

AMERICAN SNIPER
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller, Luke Grimes, Jake McDorman, Keir O'Donnell, Navid Negahban.
Dir: Clint Eastwood.

Now, I am a card-carrying bleeding heart totally anti-war liberal. This is NOT an Army recruitment propaganda film nor is it a jingoistic pro-Iraq war MURICA! type of film. It is the story about one guy in the war: Chris Kyle, the American sniper who's had the most confirmed kills. I knew going in that it wasn't going to be what some critics say it is because Clint Eastwood is a much better filmmaker than that. That said, this IS his best work since Letters from Iwo Jima. The film does not take a political stand for or against the war and instead allows the audience to make their own choice (and sadly, some people I've read are just plain stupid). Bradley Cooper probably gives his career-best performance here. He portrays Kyle as a flawed, damaged human being whose black & white view of the war serves as a defense mechanism to let him keep some semblance of sanity. It's far from Eastwood's best work though but it is an interesting film.

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

Post by Big Magilla »

FilmFan720 wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:
ITALIANO wrote: Original BJ is right - the Academy at least has given her an Oscar already (a decision which back then was mostly greeted on this board with insults...).
Insults? I don't think so. Most of the criticism had to do with her in-your-face campaigning vs. the non-campaigning of Julie Christie which is what probably cost Christie the award. Since then Cotillard has not campaigned for any of her films which is probably what cost her a nomination for Rust and Bone. What is so satisfying about her nomination this year is that it was honesty earned while at the same time her peers rejected Jennifer Aniston's in-your-face campaigning which had she been nominated instead would have completely turned me off the Academy.

The only reason she won't win this year is because she has won before and Julianne Moore, nominated for the fifth time, hasn't. It's ironic that Cotillard won an Oscar she shouldn't have over an actress playing a woman suffering from Alzheimer's only to lose a win that should easily be hers by another actress playing a woman suffering from the same disease.
So in 20 years when Marion Cotillard plays an alzheimer's patient, what is going to happen?
She will lose to the latest hot thing.
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by ITALIANO »

mlrg wrote:
Big Magilla wrote:At least two. Katharine Hepburn's third and fourth Oscars were for UK/US co-productions. Meryl Streep's second was for a UK/US co-production and her third was for a UK/French co-production.
all of them in english language....

Exactly, Not to mention the obvious fact that Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep last time I checked weren't French, or Italian, or Brazilian...
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Re: The Official Review Thread of 2014

Post by mlrg »

Big Magilla wrote:At least two. Katharine Hepburn's third and fourth Oscars were for UK/US co-productions. Meryl Streep's second was for a UK/US co-production and her third was for a UK/French co-production.
all of them in english language....
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