Over the past week, I've seen a couple of movies that don't exactly warrant a whole post, at least because I wouldn't be able to stretch the words to make it worth writing. However, I still would like to share my thoughts on these movies no matter how few words I am able to write about them and the simplest way to do that is to combine them for one post. Today's selection is pretty diverse featuring two movies from 2014, one nominated for Best Picture and one lesser-known critically acclaimed film. The other two films are films from the past 20 years that include one nominated for Best Picture and one lesser-known critically acclaimed film. I didn't plan that, but this works well. And oh fuck it I'll share my thoughts on Straight Outta Compton too because why not.
Straight Outta Compton (2015)
I loved this movie unabashedly. I have seen far too few movies to be able to declare it one of my top movies of 2015 - because I think I can count on one hand the movies I've seen released in 2015 - but it wouldn't surprise me if it ended up there. Admittedly, I am the perfect audience member for this. I am heavily into rap and am a pretty big fan of NWA, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre (Here's where I confess I've listened to basically no Eazy E songs that aren't "Boyz in the Hood.")
Nonetheless, this is a great movie. I've seen people say that this is no different than other music biopics and here's where I am perhaps not the greatest to determine if it's actually good: I haven't seen many music biopics. They traditionally haven't interested me enough and the really acclaimed ones tend to take a backseat to really acclaimed original movies. (Documentaries suffer the same fate) So if it follows the traditional beats of a music biopic, I am not the one who can complain about that.
Another common complaint is that it completely ignores the real misogyny and violence towards women perpetrated by specifically Dr. Dre. (To say nothing of the casting call for A, B, and C grade looking females in the leaked casting calls for extras) I can't defend this. I will note that this is totally not uncommon for true stories, to completely shun aside terrible aspects of real people that tend to make them more interesting characters. But let's be honest. If we were to grade real life stories based off their true-to-life accuracies, not many would get a good grade. Hell, even if you want to be more specific and only include movies where real people have a known terrible view or action, it is not uncommon to completely ignore that.
I'm writing way more words on this movie than I expected, but the most complex and interesting character, not to mention the one that featured the best performance, was Eazy E. Do you have a problem with Dre? Fine, he's not really a major part of the movie. He gets his storyline and he's not irrelevant or anything, but this movie is definitely about the conflict between Eazy E and Ice Cube and the manager who got between them. It's not a new thing or anything, but it's well done. Oh yeah and the soundtrack is awesome. Never discount that.
(Oh yeah added point: I hated the Tupac cameo. Anachronistic as hell and unnecessary.)
Grade - A-
Theory of Everything
I don't have a lot of thoughts on this I swear. I thought the movie was ok, enhanced by how god damn beautiful it was and also by the performances. Eddie Redmayne gets all the love, but Felicity Jones is my MVP of that movie. I'm more fascinated by what she really went through and the love triangle in real life than I am by the actual movie. I wasn't a huge fan of when Hawking gets smitten with another girl because... I don't know it just didn't seem believable. Not that he would be smitten, but she's into him right off the bat because - well because it happened in real life, but they didn't seem to really earn it in the movie. Charlie Cox is also good because Charlie Cox is good in everything. (I had never seen him in anything before 2015 and then WHAM Daredevil WHAM Boardwalk Empire WHAM this movie. I am not complaining)
Grade - B
Election
Wow this movie sure goes through a lot of plot. If I were to try to summarize everything that happened I would not succeed. This was one of the more unpredictable movies I've ever seen. I had no idea where it was going. It's funny. Reese Witherspoon plays the role Reese Witherspoon seemed born to play. Matthew Broderick is actually good in something for once. Chris Klein is hilarious (what the hell happened to his career? How is his most recent work frequent guest star on Wilfred and TV movies. I love him in Wilfred, but he seems like he could be a star)
I also don't think I've seen a movie have a bunch of different perspectives from characters in voiceover. Sometimes it was overused. But what I liked about it - and it takes a little to get this tone - is that everything is completely skewed by who's speaking. Yes, it's a satire on elections, but it's also pretty spot on about how people can see themselves and how they actually are. I think I'll like this movie more on repeat viewings.
Grade - A-
Little Miss Sunshine
What an incredible cast. You know when you see a movie that has reached its absolute potential based on the writing? That's this movie. There is no way to have a better cast. My only complaint is that Alan Arkin died too early and he was in my opinion the funniest and best part of the first half. But it's a small thing. I also wasn't a fan of the ending as I'm not really a fan of those type of endings in general. It's also a movie where it's kind of distracting that EVERY character has this thing. Grandpa gets horny and does drugs. Kid doesn't talk for months. Uncle is suicidal. The other three are more normal. Hell, the only one I really have an issue with is the kid who doesn't talk, because it seemed like the writers had all the other characters figured out and needed a way to have this kid have a thing and he picked a thing that 99.9 percent of the population doesn't do. We have delusional asshole dads. We have moms who just want the family to stay together. We have horny, drug-abused old men. We obviously have suicidal people. People who refuse to talk for months? Not so much.
Also, Steve Carrell delivers a much, much better performance here than in Foxcatchers and while this is a comedy, he plays it like a drama basically. My two cents.
Grade - A-
Top Five
It's been a while since I've watched a movie as carefree and fun as Top Five. It's so enjoyable. It's charming, it's sweet, it's hilarious. It's absolutely hilarious. It's a movie featuring every comic black actor ever and all of them are used pretty well. Even Leslie Jones, who is extremely one note on Saturday Night Live, shines here and works. There is also a hilarious cameo that I did not see coming and there's no way I'm spoiling it for others. Rosario Dawson is of course fantastic. I was not a huge fan of how they wrote her boyfriend due to... well I want you to watch this movie so I can't really spoil anything. Great movie.
Grade - A- (I know popular grade, but there's always one thing I don't like about the movie to keep it from a perfect A)
Monday, September 14, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
I am not a comic book fan. It's one of those properties I'd probably enjoy, but I didn't grow up with them and there's no way I'll ever start. I have too many movies to watch, too much television, and too many books to read. Comic books are a distant thought to me. Comic book movies, on the other hand, I have seen. I'm tired of them, but I have seen more than a few of them. Of the X-Men franchise, the only movie I haven't seen is The Wolverine. (Apparently this movie contradicts that movie.)
I'm not sure I have many thoughts on this movie. I enjoyed it a lot. The special effects were breathtaking. The stakes were the end of the world, which is becoming increasingly common and thus increasingly dull. However, the movie made sure to keep the conflict personal. The time travel aspect, also weirdly an increasingly common trope to rejuvenate franchises, isn't too confusing. People who have a tendency to overthink time travel will probably find fault with it and I'm usually one of those people, but it never took me out of the movie while I was watching it.
I'm not sure how the X-Men comics are, but in the movies it's ultimately about the tragedy of Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier's doomed friendship. And because the actors playing them have been Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan - and now James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender - it's nearly always effective. I particularly liked how in the present, you see Erik saying how he wished he could have had a few years back being enemies with Xavier while in the past, he's unwittingly creating the future that will doom him. That's the surprising part about this movie. Magneto is, at least in my opinion, the most sympathetic character and one who breaks your heart.
If I have a problem with the movie, it's probably with Jennifer Lawrence's Raven, or Mystique. Despite moving the plot of the movie along, I felt she was underserved as a character. I was less affected by her internal struggle than I should have been, because it mostly felt like it was just a plot machination to me. I can see a future where she goes on a rampage and wants to kill the people who want to see her dead, but I don't think this reboot version had gotten her to that point yet. As presented in First Class, that's Magneto's thing, not Mystique's yet. The movie skipped over the part where she makes the "heel turn" in my opinion. And then at the end she sort of out of nowhere becomes a good guy. It's not really out of nowhere, but I don't know I didn't think it would happen at that point.
I also thought the ending was a little too pat and probably makes this movie suffer at least a little bit on rewatch. So none of the somewhat shockingly painful deaths for all the mutants mattered. It never even technically happened. (Those deaths.... damn is all I can say. Apparently saying fuck is more harmful than watching that.)
3/4 stars
I'm not sure I have many thoughts on this movie. I enjoyed it a lot. The special effects were breathtaking. The stakes were the end of the world, which is becoming increasingly common and thus increasingly dull. However, the movie made sure to keep the conflict personal. The time travel aspect, also weirdly an increasingly common trope to rejuvenate franchises, isn't too confusing. People who have a tendency to overthink time travel will probably find fault with it and I'm usually one of those people, but it never took me out of the movie while I was watching it.
I'm not sure how the X-Men comics are, but in the movies it's ultimately about the tragedy of Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier's doomed friendship. And because the actors playing them have been Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan - and now James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender - it's nearly always effective. I particularly liked how in the present, you see Erik saying how he wished he could have had a few years back being enemies with Xavier while in the past, he's unwittingly creating the future that will doom him. That's the surprising part about this movie. Magneto is, at least in my opinion, the most sympathetic character and one who breaks your heart.
If I have a problem with the movie, it's probably with Jennifer Lawrence's Raven, or Mystique. Despite moving the plot of the movie along, I felt she was underserved as a character. I was less affected by her internal struggle than I should have been, because it mostly felt like it was just a plot machination to me. I can see a future where she goes on a rampage and wants to kill the people who want to see her dead, but I don't think this reboot version had gotten her to that point yet. As presented in First Class, that's Magneto's thing, not Mystique's yet. The movie skipped over the part where she makes the "heel turn" in my opinion. And then at the end she sort of out of nowhere becomes a good guy. It's not really out of nowhere, but I don't know I didn't think it would happen at that point.
I also thought the ending was a little too pat and probably makes this movie suffer at least a little bit on rewatch. So none of the somewhat shockingly painful deaths for all the mutants mattered. It never even technically happened. (Those deaths.... damn is all I can say. Apparently saying fuck is more harmful than watching that.)
3/4 stars
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
The Longest Day (1962)
I'm impressed this movie exists. This is entirely too ambitious to have any right to actually have become a finished product -much less a non-embarrassing, successful, critically well-received picture with a few star actors committing remarkably little screen time in the service of the film. I really wish I had been able to watch this in 1962 though, because you can just tell it was a much better movie then.
Now? Well, it's a little unfair, because Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and The Pacific also exist. (I'm sure I missed a few as World War II is not a war lacking in representation in television and movies). Specifically, the whole beach battle scene was distracting because - through absolutely no fault of The Longest Day - Saving Private Ryan just captures the horror much better. It's really not fair.
The Longest Day is a movie that, for every positive I can come up with, a negative comes right along with it. The scope is insane. It's both a strength and a weakness. I've never seen a movie mostly successfully include as many sides of a war as it did. It was surprisingly fair to the Germans too. Of course they came across looking the worst in this movie, but not near as much as you'd expect. This pretty much came at the expense of the characters though.
It relied too heavily on us knowing the actors portraying the characters and that's sort of an issue when that includes Fabian in the year 2015. He's an admittedly minor character, but in what I think was his death - I don't know if it was - the movie treats it like it's a big deal and I had no idea who the fuck he was. That's essentially my problem with the movie. It's an hour and a half of war action scenes involving characters I am not remotely invested in which means I have to completely get drawn into the spectacle itself. That honestly probably would have been enough to get me to love the movie in 1962, but the technology has improved so vastly since then, it doesn't stand a chance of gripping me for an hour and half now.
Also, it's a smart idea to include comedy in your blockbuster war movies so that you aren't depressed the whole time. Problem: any time the movie attempts comedy, it's awful. I'm pretty sure they were going for a fair amount of comedic scenes and there may have been one or two scenes where I didn't laugh, but thought it was amusing. Maybe. I hate to keep harping on how much better certain things are in 2015, but comedy is certainly one of them.
There were a few scenes that were so spectacular that I was amazed. There is a scene where the German pilots - the two stranded ones who need to go alone against the entire opposing force - fly across the beach and it's one take. The camera goes along the beach, the machine gun fires, and you see the people fall as they should. And it keeps going and it must have been ridiculously hard to time and they pulled it off beautifully. The scene where a man lays stuck in his parachute hanging from the church building and he watches all his comrades get slaughtered was tragic. The scene where the nuns come and kick ass and just walk through battle to start healing the soldiers. These are scenes that will come with no such negative attached to them.
Also I will note that the cast is incredible. I do not however understand why John Wayne was cast. He's not bad. But you can't watch his scenes and think he's anything but John Wayne and that's super distracting when the movie is mostly going for authenticity. Robert Mitchum fares better, although I was not a huge fan of him just walking around the beach without a gun like he's fucking Superman. Henry Fonda really should not work, but he's playing a revered, mythical-like person in Teddy Roosevelt Jr. so you can get away with casting an actor with his ubiquity and star power and not get taken out of a scene. Plus, Fonda plays the everyman in his movies. John Wayne plays John Wayne. Sean Connery shows up too. He's energetic and barely in it.
A problem created by the ambition of the project is there's too many characters. It's not even necessarily the number of characters, but characters who seem important turn out to not be that important and other characters who seem important get ignored with an hour left in the movie never to return. The French resistance? Was that really worth showing? They blew up a train, presumably one that prevented reinforcements, but I wasn't ever sure what the train was for or how much it ended up helping. And I believe that's their last scene out of like three total scenes. I don't think Fonda's character got an ending. He found out they missed their landing and then directed the soldiers were to go and I don't believe he got another scene. It definitely didn't capture just how vital Roosevelt Jr.'s actions were to winning.
- This is a three hour movie so I have a lot of thoughts apparently. I really liked the introduction scene where they kept cutting to different characters with snappy music and their title popping up on the screen. Kind of wish they somehow maintained that tone.
- Possibly unfair complaint, but I don't remember a movie where deaths seemed to matter less than in this one. I don't know how to explain that, but at the least this movie doesn't come close to giving death the proper weight it deserves. (This is fairly typical in movies that glorify war admittedly and this movie certainly glorifies war)
- The acting in this is... inconsistent. I said it has a strong cast and it does, but some of the time I was impressed by the acting and some of the time it was off-putting when the actor went into over-the top 40s war soldier mode. (I like Richard Beymer a lot in Twin Peaks, but not so much in this movie until the last scene)
- The movie also had a tendency to explicitly express something that was already obvious by the way it was filmed. And I didn't like the scenes where the characters seem to know way too much about the future - "People will laugh at us because we will lose the war because Hitler was sleeping" - I mean come on...
- For all my complaints this is wonderfully directed. Action was clear, it was not boring for the most part despite its length, and a few shots were magnificent.
3/4 stars
Now? Well, it's a little unfair, because Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and The Pacific also exist. (I'm sure I missed a few as World War II is not a war lacking in representation in television and movies). Specifically, the whole beach battle scene was distracting because - through absolutely no fault of The Longest Day - Saving Private Ryan just captures the horror much better. It's really not fair.
The Longest Day is a movie that, for every positive I can come up with, a negative comes right along with it. The scope is insane. It's both a strength and a weakness. I've never seen a movie mostly successfully include as many sides of a war as it did. It was surprisingly fair to the Germans too. Of course they came across looking the worst in this movie, but not near as much as you'd expect. This pretty much came at the expense of the characters though.
It relied too heavily on us knowing the actors portraying the characters and that's sort of an issue when that includes Fabian in the year 2015. He's an admittedly minor character, but in what I think was his death - I don't know if it was - the movie treats it like it's a big deal and I had no idea who the fuck he was. That's essentially my problem with the movie. It's an hour and a half of war action scenes involving characters I am not remotely invested in which means I have to completely get drawn into the spectacle itself. That honestly probably would have been enough to get me to love the movie in 1962, but the technology has improved so vastly since then, it doesn't stand a chance of gripping me for an hour and half now.
Also, it's a smart idea to include comedy in your blockbuster war movies so that you aren't depressed the whole time. Problem: any time the movie attempts comedy, it's awful. I'm pretty sure they were going for a fair amount of comedic scenes and there may have been one or two scenes where I didn't laugh, but thought it was amusing. Maybe. I hate to keep harping on how much better certain things are in 2015, but comedy is certainly one of them.
There were a few scenes that were so spectacular that I was amazed. There is a scene where the German pilots - the two stranded ones who need to go alone against the entire opposing force - fly across the beach and it's one take. The camera goes along the beach, the machine gun fires, and you see the people fall as they should. And it keeps going and it must have been ridiculously hard to time and they pulled it off beautifully. The scene where a man lays stuck in his parachute hanging from the church building and he watches all his comrades get slaughtered was tragic. The scene where the nuns come and kick ass and just walk through battle to start healing the soldiers. These are scenes that will come with no such negative attached to them.
Also I will note that the cast is incredible. I do not however understand why John Wayne was cast. He's not bad. But you can't watch his scenes and think he's anything but John Wayne and that's super distracting when the movie is mostly going for authenticity. Robert Mitchum fares better, although I was not a huge fan of him just walking around the beach without a gun like he's fucking Superman. Henry Fonda really should not work, but he's playing a revered, mythical-like person in Teddy Roosevelt Jr. so you can get away with casting an actor with his ubiquity and star power and not get taken out of a scene. Plus, Fonda plays the everyman in his movies. John Wayne plays John Wayne. Sean Connery shows up too. He's energetic and barely in it.
A problem created by the ambition of the project is there's too many characters. It's not even necessarily the number of characters, but characters who seem important turn out to not be that important and other characters who seem important get ignored with an hour left in the movie never to return. The French resistance? Was that really worth showing? They blew up a train, presumably one that prevented reinforcements, but I wasn't ever sure what the train was for or how much it ended up helping. And I believe that's their last scene out of like three total scenes. I don't think Fonda's character got an ending. He found out they missed their landing and then directed the soldiers were to go and I don't believe he got another scene. It definitely didn't capture just how vital Roosevelt Jr.'s actions were to winning.
- This is a three hour movie so I have a lot of thoughts apparently. I really liked the introduction scene where they kept cutting to different characters with snappy music and their title popping up on the screen. Kind of wish they somehow maintained that tone.
- Possibly unfair complaint, but I don't remember a movie where deaths seemed to matter less than in this one. I don't know how to explain that, but at the least this movie doesn't come close to giving death the proper weight it deserves. (This is fairly typical in movies that glorify war admittedly and this movie certainly glorifies war)
- The acting in this is... inconsistent. I said it has a strong cast and it does, but some of the time I was impressed by the acting and some of the time it was off-putting when the actor went into over-the top 40s war soldier mode. (I like Richard Beymer a lot in Twin Peaks, but not so much in this movie until the last scene)
- The movie also had a tendency to explicitly express something that was already obvious by the way it was filmed. And I didn't like the scenes where the characters seem to know way too much about the future - "People will laugh at us because we will lose the war because Hitler was sleeping" - I mean come on...
- For all my complaints this is wonderfully directed. Action was clear, it was not boring for the most part despite its length, and a few shots were magnificent.
3/4 stars
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