JJ Abrams Heads to a Galaxy Far Far Away

For the last few months I, like many other nerds I know, have been fixating on the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney and the new film entries into the Star Wars universe. Actually fixated isn’t the right word; more like obsessed. There definitely hasn’t been a day since the news broke on October 30^th that I haven’t thought about this at least once and it’s not like I haven’t had other things to focus on during that time. We’ve had three major holidays since then, I had to put my dog down, there were like a billion films released in theaters, and, oh yeah, I have a kid on the way in just over three months so the fact that Star Wars has remained such a priority in my mind is a strong indication of the level of dedication I have to this series. I might have a disease, actually. In that time, I would say the thing I have thought about most as it pertains to this subject is the question of who would direct the first film in the new series. This is because, in my mind at least, everything else about this film will fall in line with the director. I am, of course, incredibly interested in what the actual subject matter of the film will be, who will be cast in the leads, if Chewbacca will be a part of the cast (oh please oh please oh please), etc. but all of that will come together regardless. What I really needed to know, above all else, was who would be in charge of one of the seminal moments of my moviegoing career. Well, yesterday we got our answer in the form of JJ Abrams, a far bigger fish than I could have ever hoped for.

SIDE NOTE: There are people out there who have been quite snarky and whiny in their complaints about Abrams being handed this project. Comments about “lens flares” abounded on social media almost as soon as the news broke and reminded me about the dark side of social media. To those people I must say this: Today is not the day. When production on Episode VII begins, there will be plenty of occasion to lament Abram’s involvement or pine for a darker, more independent mind like Darren Aronofsky if you so choose. But today is a day for celebration because, at the very, VERY least, fanboys like myself can at least have faith that this movie will be well-made and enjoyable and not a money grabbing disaster like the last trilogy was and like many of Disney’s recent tentpole films have been.

When the news on the Disney acquisition came down, I wrote a longwinded piece on the events of the week and what it meant to the franchise. A big focus of this column was on the list of directors that could be targeted for this film. My list of the top four, all of whom I wrote off as impossible to obtain, included Abrams. Since then, I have become convinced that outside of Spielberg, Abrams was the best choice for the job (at least in the context of legitimate choices) and now that it’s actually happened, I remain convinced that this was the right way to go. There are certainly other directors who could have done an excellent job with this franchise. Brad Bird (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), Jon Favreau (Iron Man), Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy), and others constitute a list of big name directors who may have been considered at one point or another and all of them would have brought certain skills to the table that might have worked quite well. Many of the film nerds I know and follow would have preferred to see the job go to a newer, riskier filmmaker like Neill Blomkamp (District 9) or Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code, and my personal number one choice in this category) but that was never going to happen because Disney wasn’t about to hand over such a huge project to someone who hasn’t handled a similar project before, especially after the failure of John Carter under the direction of Andrew Stanton.

Of all the big names that were bandied about (and seriously considered, apparently), the two that stood out for me (after Spielberg definitively turned the whole thing down) were Abrams and Ben Affleck. Affleck would have been a bolder choice, I must admit, and seeing as how he’s gotten better behind the camera with each effort and how Argo was my second favorite movie of 2012, I would have been pretty stoked about his involvement. If we were talking about a standalone Star Wars film (which is apparently in the plans once this next trilogy has concluded), Affleck would have been at the top of my list. His ability to craft and flesh out a great story would be a welcome asset to, say, a Boba Fett movie, a Young Han and Chewie movie, or an origin story about the founding of the Jedi Order (all of which should absolutely happen at some point). I hope at some point Affleck gets a chance to make one of these films. But since Disney is keen on starting their foray into the Star Wars universe with a brand new trilogy, I think Abrams makes the most sense.

For one thing, Abrams has history on his side. The Star Trek franchise was dead in the water when he came on board and completely rejuvenated it with his 2009 film that very well might be the best of the series. He showed a healthy respect for the mythology of the material while still taking steps to revamp it and give it room to breath away from the hardened rules that had been established through 40 years of exhaustive development through 10 movies and at five TV series’. His second film in the series, Into Darkness, is one of the most anticipated films of the year and looks to be incredible. Abrams is a guy who knows how to start a franchise and, more importantly, to restart a beloved franchise, a skill that will come in so very handily with Star Wars. Abrams also has a flair for sci-fi. He has produced two of the best sci-fi-related TV shows ever in Lost and Fringe and his cinematic stop off between Star Trek movies was 2011’s Super 8, a movie that I absolutely adore. On top of all that, Abrams is an incredibly smart guy (not that Affleck isn’t, of course) who understands the fanboys, from both the content and marketing standpoints. His recent bit on Conan, in which he released the first footage from Into Darkness, was a stroke of genius and served as a reminder that the guy understands his market.

In the interest of fairness, I understand the desire to see Disney go with a risky choice (which Abrams DEFINITELY isn’t) or to push the franchise in a darker direction with an edgier director. I think (and hope) that once this trilogy is over, we can look forward to something darker in a standalone, smaller budget sort of setting, which is a truly exciting proposition. But for now, let’s just revel in the glory of Disney avoiding a directing disaster (I have had nightmares about Gore Verbinski or Jon Turteltaub getting their respective hands on this project) and stealing Abrams away from the Star Trek franchise, thereby upping the odds that Episode VII will be the Star Wars film that I’ve been waiting for for almost 30 years. Now bring on the lens flares!

Review Gangster Squad

There’s a famous line in Macbeth in which the titular character laments on a purposeless life by indicating that it is, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I am now open to the idea that Shakespeare wasn’t actually speaking about life in general but rather on the future meaninglessness of a little movie called Gangster Squad. In 1949 Los Angeles, Eastern mob Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has undertaken a brutal takeover of all organized crime on the West Coast. With a mind on stopping this epidemic at any cost, police sergeant John O’Mara (Josh Brolin) forms a group of like-minded cops who leave their badges at home in order to wage outright war against Cohen, a group that comes to be known as the Gangster Squad. Things are complicated, however, by Sergeant Jerry Wooters’ (Ryan Gosling) involvement with Grace Farraday (Emma Stone) who happens to be Cohen’s current squeeze. As the Gangster Squad puts more and more pressure on Cohen’s organization, the stakes get higher, leading to a final showdown that will put more than one body in the ground.

Gangster Squad has two big selling points. One is the gangster storyline itself. I, like any good American male, love gangster movies, partly because gangsters are (somewhat disturbingly) cool and partly because most gangster movies involve a cop or other hero who will stop at nothing to bring the villain down and I am a serious sucker for that character trope. Two, Gangster Squad brought together an impressive cast. If Penn, Brolin, Gosling, and Stone aren’t enough for you, quality supporters like Robert Patrick, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, and Michael Pena round out the squad and a handful of other solid character actors make appearances from time to time. I think everyone involved did the best they could under the circumstances (see below) but Penn and Gosling stand out head and shoulder above the rest. Penn completely bought into his character and he does his dead level best to sell it the audience. And Gosling, who is rapidly becoming one of my Hollywood favorites, is charismatic and dynamic, at times the only truly memorable performer on the screen. It’s a fairly light weight character compared to the rest of Gosling’s resume but he does a lot with it and I would have enjoyed Gangster Squad far more if he was the focus of the film throughout.

It would be disingenuous to say that I disliked everything else about Gangster Squad. There are some good action shots, it’s a very pretty and stylish movie, and I can’t say it is a complete loss. But the missteps made in the process of producing Gangster Squad were large and severely debilitating. Given the success (and hilarity) of Zombieland, I believe that director Ruben Fleischer is capable of making a good film. Unfortunately his two follow up efforts (this one, along with 30 Minutes or Less) have shown him to be a man who may be in over his head. Gangster Squad is a checklist of filmmaking mistakes. It cannot decide whether it wants to be a comedy or an action drama and it often switches tone mid-scene. Some of the action sequences are cartoonish, some shaded through a noir-ish lens, some done in Matrix-style slow motion that seems completely out of place. It struggles mightily to maintain pacing and momentum and as such, very little tension or drama is carried over from scene to scene, leaving the whole seeming like disconnected parts that probably don’t together all that well in the first place. I was prepared for a lot of things with Gangster Squad but I was not prepared for the boredom that set in quite quickly or the lack of investment I felt toward most of the characters. The dialogue is a joke, except when it’s supposed to be a joke in which case it almost always falls completely flat. The whole movie is flush with clichés, resulting in a predictable narrative that just about anyone could have pegged from the start. And let’s not forget the brutal voiceover that sits over the opening and closing credits like a cloud of smog and serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

All of this makes Gangster Squad a grab bag of mistakes that not even Gosling, Penn, and the rest can work around. It looks great and all but it seems to me that Fleischer and the rest of his crew got too caught up in the way the film appears and the awesomeness of the cast and forgot to actually put together a worthwhile script that would highlight these assets. Above all else, Gangster Squad is a wasted opportunity that just made me want to go home and watch LA Confidential or The Untouchables.

Gangster Squad Director: Ruben Fleischer Cast: Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone Rated: R (occasionally explosive and graphic violence, language, some innuendo) Recommended For: I’m leaning towards “nobody”

Review Les Miserables

It’s more than fair to say that I do not count myself in the target market for Les Miserables. When I sat down in my seat, I thought back to the last time I saw a true, live action musical in a theater and I’m pretty sure I had to go all the way back to 1992, when my grandmother randomly took my brother and I to see Newsies at the dollar theater. Suffice it to say, I’m not a big fan of the musical. As such, I consider this to be about the strongest statement I can make about Les Miserables: it’s probably about as good as a musical can be for a guy like me. I guess. How’s that for a ringing endorsement? In case you’ve never heard of the book, the play, or the previous film adaptation, (I’m talking to you, older Hispanic lady who sat next to me in the theater who didn’t know this was a musical) Les Miserables is the story of Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a desperate man who turns back to thievery only days after being released from France’s horrifying prison camp. After being caught with his ill-gotten goods, Valjean is shocked when the priest he stole from pardons him and uses this break to flee his whole life and start anew as a respectable businessman. Somewhere down the line Valjean becomes aware that he has wronged a former employee, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), and seeing the horrible life he has unknowingly subjected her to, he agrees to take in her child, Cosette (Amanda Seyfried), who he treats as his own. Eventually, however, Valjean’s past catches up with him as police captain Javert (Russell Crowe), who apparently has nothing better to do than to spend years focusing on a single parole violator, tracks him down and attempts to bring him in, all against the backdrop of the French Revolution.

Because of the nature of the film (mainly the fact that this is a bloody opera), I’m going to cut Les Miserables at least a little slack up front. If I chose to, I could focus in on the NUMEROUS plot holes that are glossed over with a pretty song and the utter lack of any sort of character development or at least the kind of character development you usually find in a film. Characters and even narrative structures fall apart when you’re singing through the years and the audience is forced to choose whether or not to let this become a road block right off the top. Fantine loses her job, sells her hair, becomes a prostitute, catches syphilis or something, and dies in the span of approximately one song. It’s a bit jarring, really, and I don’t think director Tom Hooper did much to make this passage of time clear (more on Hooper in a bit) but once I got adjusted to the way this thing was going to go, it didn’t bother me near as much as I might have expected it to (until the conclusion). This sort of fast forward viewing is not something I want in a film usually but I decided early on that if I did not accept it, I would hate my life for the next two hours and let my complaints drift away.

Beyond these issues, however, there’s a much bigger problem at the heart of Les Miserables and that is the MISERABLE direction of Hooper and a host of weird choices made behind the camera by everyone involved. I quite liked Hooper’s last film, The King’s Speech, and I don’t get nearly as upset about its Oscar win as some of my contemporaries do. Even still, I wasn’t all that impressed with Hooper’s directorial style in that film and obviously I’m even less impressed this time around. The shot selection is questionable at best and quite quickly I became thoroughly put off by the staggering number of close ups Hooper decided to go with. Seriously, Tom, we get it, you want to show the audience the emotions of the characters. It is possible to do that without Hugh Jackman’s nose taking up the entire screen. This approach works wonders when Hathaway sings “I Dreamed a Dream” (probably the highlight of the whole movie) but he goes back to this technique over and over again, resulting in an obnoxious, distracting experience that simply didn’t need to be. Then there’s the set design which looked like a stage production, a fact that I did not appreciate, and which helped lead to a feeling of uncertainty as to whether Les Miserables was supposed to be the stage production shot for the screen or a film adaption of the stage production. And no Les Miserables review would be complete without spending a moment on the casting of Russell Crowe which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Amongst a cast of magnificent voices (and I truly mean that, by the way), Crowe stands out like an ugly, sore thumb. It’s not that he can’t carry a tune; he’s a far cry from Pierce Brosnan in Mama Mia. But he definitely isn’t GOOD, he struggles particularly in the opera-talk sequences, and moreover, it appeared to me as if he was trying so hard to not stink at singing that he forgot to display any kind of emotion. Jackman, Hathaway, and the rest SELL their performances without almost more precision than they sing them but Crowe proved completely incapable of keeping up. There’s really no excuse for casting him, to be quite blunt.

But Les Miserables has three things going for it that overshadow most of the issues. For starters, the story is engrossing, despite the haphazard nature of the storytelling itself. You immediately find yourself rooting for each of the lead characters and hurting right along with them. Second, the performances (outside of Crowe) are all excellent. Jackman owns his part as we all knew he would and Hathaway steals the show for her ten minutes of screen time but it doesn’t end there. Seyfried is captivating in her limited scenes and Eddie Redmayne is a commanding presence, both vocally and physically. This is his coming out party and it’s darn good. Even the first appearance of Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter plays well, though after that I would have liked it better if their characters were marched out in front of a cannon and done away with once and for all. Third, and most importantly, Les Miserables comes equipped with four or five tremendously powerful, Goosebumps-inducing, brilliant moments that build enough momentum to carry the audience through the rest of the film. All of these moments revolve around the film’s best musical numbers and these songs made a far greater impact on me than I anticipated. It’s possible that I downloaded the better songs and have had them in my head for weeks now. That makes Les Miserables a bit of a roller coaster but the highs of that roller coaster ride are incredible and, most of all, memorable.

All of this makes Les Miserables a mixed bag. I grew tired of opera talk by the third act and the conclusion takes FOREVER to unfold, issues that couldn’t have been helped with better direction, but Hooper could have and should have put his film in a better position from the beginning. Still, though, the extreme highs that this film takes you to are so great that I think they win out over the rather lackluster slough of the rest of the film. If nothing else, Les Miserables made me want to see the play it is based on, a feeling I can honestly say I’ve never had before.

Les Miserables Director: Tom Hooper Cast: Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe, Eddie Redmayne Rated: PG-13 (Intense and depressing themes, some sexuality, and a bit of language) Recommended For: Fans of the play/book, musical fans, and anyone who can bear to sit through Russell Crowe singing for two and a half hours 13 and up

The Collected Works Arnold Schwarzenegger

Today The Last Stand will open in theaters and while the film itself is not one I’m particularly juiced up over, it does hold some interest in that it will be Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role in almost a decade. Once the world’s biggest movie star, Arnie now returns to an industry that has changed dramatically since his departure and didn’t exactly treat him well in the years leading up to his run as California’s governor. I’m not sure that Arnie’s return will be truly triumphant but there’s no denying the pull he has with a good chunk of moviegoers who hold on to his glory years. Last week I attended a screening of The Last Stand which Arnie attended and stood amongst a crowd of hundreds, possibly thousands, who went absolutely bonkers the second he stepped onto the red carpet. It was a reminder of what a strangle hold this guy once had on the industry and gave me cause to take a look back at the first act (or so he would hope) of a true movie star’s career. (If you’re unfamiliar with The Collected Works, the object is to rank the subject’s films from worst to first, with first regard given to the films themselves and then the performances of the subject. I also exclude cameo/limited support work unless it’s a supremely memorable part.)

Films I haven’t seen: Hercules in New York, Stay Hungry, Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonja, Raw Deal, Red Heat (I’ve seen Red Heat at some point but not so recently as to remember anything about it, which I am thankful for)

21. Batman and Robin – Mr. Freeze Rotten Tomatoes score: 12% This is an easy pick for the bottom of the list as I have long held that Batman and Robin is one of the worst films ever made. It’s not Schwarzenegger’s fault, per se, that the movie is so appallingly bad but he also doesn’t do much to make it better. At this point (1997) things hadn’t been great for a few years but this was a sad indication of what was to come.

20. Last Action Hero – Jack Slater Rotten Tomatoes score: 38% Last Action Hero is one of the biggest disappointments of my young life (I was 10 when it came out) and one of the biggest flops in the movie history. This movie was EVERYWHERE. There were ads, there was a video game, there were action figures, I think they even had a deal with Burger King or Pizza Hut or something. It was built up as an event film. Then it came out and it was horrible and, oh by the way, it opened against Jurassic Park, the biggest movie of my childhood.

19. Junior – Dr. Alex Hesse Rotten Tomatoes score: 32% This was Arnie’s attempt to show that he could do comedy. And what’s funnier than a pregnant man, haha! As it turns out, a lot of things.

18. Collateral Damage – Gordy Brewer Rotten Tomatoes score: 18% I think this movie showed the limit to Schwarzenegger’s range. On paper, Collateral Damage should have been his change to show a grittier, more intense side than had been on display in most of his absurd action movies but he just couldn’t muster up the acting ability to make it work. It wouldn’t have been a good movie regardless but Schwarzenegger did nothing to help it.

17. The 6^th Day – Adam Gibson Rotten Tomatoes score: 41% This is the movie that spelled the end for me with Schwarzenegger. I remember my friends and I renting it, thinking, “Hey Arnie’s in this, it’s gotta be fun, right?” We probably hadn’t really paid attention to a Schwarzenegger movie in a few years and had blocked out all memory of Batman and Robin. And then we watched this and found new regret for our choices in life.

16. End of Days – Jericho Cane Rotten Tomatoes score: 11% If, in 1999, you’d never heard of End of Days but I came to you and read the movie’s plot summary, you’d definitely guess it’s a Schwarzenegger movie, right? “At the end of the century, Satan visits New York in search of a bride. It’s up to an ex-cop who now runs an elite security outfit to stop him.” Now that sounds like a movie that would HAVE to star Nicolas Cage but in 1999, that had Arnie written all over it. It’s a terrible movie but it gets a few points for Gabriel Byrne’s solid take as the devil.

15. Eraser – US Marshal John “The Eraser” Kruger Rotten Tomatoes score: 36% Every time I make one of these lists there’s always at least one movie that I know I’ve seen, probably a couple of times, that I just don’t really remember all that well. Eraser is that film here. I can recall thinking it wasn’t that bad but that Vanessa Williams was a beating. I’ve got pretty much nothing else here, sorry.

14. Jingle All the Way – Howard Langston Rotten Tomatoes score: 17% It seems that those of you just a few years younger than I am count this as one of the truly great Christmas movies the world has to offer. I was a little too old to be in the target market and wasn’t too interested in it when it came out and as such, only saw it for the first time a few years ago. It was…um…very Sinbad-y.

13. The Expendables – Trench Rotten Tomatoes score: 41% I included this one even though it took me longer to write this post than it did for Schwarzenegger to film his part because it was the first time we’d really seen the big guy on screen in a long time. He famously took a huge sum of money to walk in, say a few cliché lines, and walk out but his cameo was one of the highlights of the “film.”

12. Conan the Barbarian – Conan the Barbarian Rotten Tomatoes score: 77% It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen Conan and it definitely hasn’t aged that well but there’s an undoubted appeal to it from a guilty pleasure standpoint. This was basically the film that put Schwarzenegger on the map and he’s not half bad in it considering he was a body builder and not an actor.

11. Commando – John Matrix Rotten Tomatoes score: 69% I only just watched Commando for the first time and OH MAN WAS THIS MOVIE MADE IN THE 80s!!! This movie has everything ‘80s. Montages! Horrible pop music! SUUUUPER cheesy one liners! Close ups of Schwarzenegger’s ripped biceps! A completely worthless love interest! Dan Hedaya! It isn’t a good movie in my mind but boy, is it fun.

10. Kindergarten Cop – John Kimble Rotten Tomatoes score: 50% Unlike Jingle All the Way, I think I was in the target market for this one but my parents wouldn’t let me see it when it debuted. It does serve as perhaps Arnie’s best comedic work as he is actually and genuinely funny in a couple of places and of course it did come equipped with one of Schwarzenegger’s best lines. It is, in fact, not a tumor.

9. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines – Terminator Rotten Tomatoes score: 70% I was a little shocked to learn that T3 stands at such a lofty score on Rotten Tomatoes as I pretty much assumed most people hated it. It’s an easy target if nothing else. But I’ve always kind of had an appreciation for the movie and if nothing else I think it holds up as one of the better years-down-the-road-do-we-really-need-this-sequels of the last decade.

8. Total Recall – Doug Quaid Rotten Tomatoes score: 84% Some Schwarzenegger fans may consider it sacrilege to list Total Recall so far down the way but I hold firmly to the belief that your opinion of the film depends on when you saw it. If you saw it in 1990 when it opened you think it’s a great sci-fi action piece that should never be questioned. If, however, you stumbled across it on basic cable 8 or 10 years down the line like I did, you recognize its abject cheesiness pretty quickly.

7. The Expendables 2 – Trench Rotten Tomatoes score: 65% I recognize the hypocrisy of decrying one film for its cheesiness in the last spot and then celebrating that very quality here but I’m going to do it nonetheless. Expendables 2 is one of the most ridiculous movie going experiences of my entire life and I kind of love it for that. I will say, though, that my enjoyment of the movie has almost nothing to do with Schwarzenegger and in fact, I think he showed his age more than any of the other stars.

6. True Lies – Harry Tasker Rotten Tomatoes score: 72% There is a LOT to love about True Lies but it took a couple of viewings (many years apart) to truly grasp its value. The concept is brilliant and outside of the movie in the top spot, I think True Lies contains my favorite Arnie performance. He sold out for this movie and I don’t think he really had to at the time. Less Tom Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis would have helped, however.

5. Twins – Julius Benedict Rotten Tomatoes score: 36% Alright, you got me. This is where my memories of watching a movie as a kid come into play. I don’t know why exactly but I watched Twins, like, once a week when I was younger. It’s funny because Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito look nothing alike but they’re still twins! Get it?! Seriously I have no idea why I liked this movie so much but I created so many good memories with it that I can’t let it go.

4. The Running Man – Ben “The Butcher of Bakersfield” Richards Rotten Tomatoes score: 63% This is one of the most strangely and unexpectedly solid movies of the ‘80s that actually turned out to be a not-so-bad predictor of our future. Sure we don’t yet televise the deaths of our worst criminals for the entertainment of the nation but are we that far from it? Anyway, as social commentary it’s not so bad and as sheer entertainment, I’ve always thought Running Man had a lot to offer.

3. The Terminator – Terminator Rotten Tomatoes score: 100% If Conan the Barbarian launched Arnie’s career, Terminator made him a movie star. Easily one of the best sci-fi films ever, it also gave Schwarzenegger the opportunity to not only play a villain but to play one that so keenly allowed him to use his strengths. He was cold, robotic (duh), and menacing and that made him cool.

2. Predator – Major Alan “Dutch” Schaefer Rotten Tomatoes score: 78% I missed out on Total Recall until it was no longer relevant but I certainly never missed an opportunity to watch Predator. As a kid, this movie ran on TBS every other Saturday and I watch it EVERY OTHER SATURDAY and loved it every time. The special effects are sort of a letdown looking back at it now but Arnie was in his element and man, when he was in his element, the dude was stinking awesome. Also, “Hasta la vista” has nothing on, “Stick around” in my book.

1. Terminator 2: Judgment Day – Terminator Rotten Tomatoes score: 98% A film that absolutely deserves its place amongst both the best sci-fi films and the best action films of all time, T2 is, for me, the unquestionable top movie of Arnie’s career. It is smart, it is epic, it is state-of-the-art, it holds up tremendously well over 20 years later, and it contains Schwarzenegger’s most iconic performance. Say what you will about the man’s actual acting ability for most males my age, Schwarzenegger IS the Terminator and he did a tremendous job of embodying that character. It’s a modern classic and one that I dare say Arnie will never be able to top.

In Home Viewings: Blue Like Jazz

Naïve 19 year-old Don Miller (Marshall Allman) has his life pretty well planned out. After working hard to get through two years of junior college, he’ll head off to a Bible college near his South Texas home town and then head off on a nice career path, probably as some sort of minister. But a last minute admission to Reed College, a prestigious but incredibly liberal school in the Pacific Northwest gets him thinking and when he finds that his mother is having an affair with his friend, who also happens to be the church’s youth minister, he hits the road and takes his place at Reed. Here he discovers a world far different than he could have ever expected, a place where he doesn’t fit in and his beliefs have absolutely no place. Don jumps into this exciting new world with reckless abandon, prompting a crisis of faith that will force him to choose once and for all whether or not he’ll continue to hold to the values of his youth. Confession: I have never read “Blue Like Jazz”, the book that was of course the inspiration for this film. At least, I’ve never read it all the way through though I’ve picked it up a few times. It’s possible that this makes me the only Christian under the age of 30 in the whole of America that hasn’t read this book but I fought my way through one of Miller’s books in the past and I can’t bring myself to do it again. Nothing against the guy, I just don’t like his style of writing. Nevertheless, I’m keenly aware that this is a beloved book that has changed a lot of people’s lives, both Christians and non-Christians. The outpouring of support that Donald Miller and his book have received has never been more evident than when it came time to make a film adaptation as Blue Like Jazz was almost entirely funded through a Kickstarter campaign. So to the supporters of the book and the film, let me just say now that I thoroughly respect your love of the material and I’m glad that you got the movie you clearly wanted. It would probably be best that those of you who helped fund this film would stop reading now.

Despite the great story of how the film got financed, in its finished state, Blue Like Jazz is not exactly a rousing endorsement for the Kickstarter system. It is, in fact, a borderline terrible film that I almost turned off within the first 10 minutes. I’m not sure when I last had the occasion to quit on a movie I paid to see but the last one I can remember was 2008’s Be Kind Rewind which almost made me hate all movies. In its early stages, there is absolutely NOTHING redeeming about this film. It looks, feels, and plays like a student film developed by a bad student at one of the country’s worst film schools. I particularly loved (read: “loathed in a manner similar to how Voldemort felt about Muggles”) a strange section in which director Steve Taylor chose to show Don’s choosing of his path (Reed College or Bible College) by converting him, his car, and his surroundings into horribly animated cartoon form as a rabbit version of Don followed a carrot with arms and legs up to Portland. I cannot explain this sequence nor will I try but suffice it to say I almost hit my DVD player with a hammer to make it stop.

Most of the characters, on both sides of the equation mind you, are painted in the most one dimensional, heavy-handed manner possible making every single person in this film outside of Don seem completely unrealistic and moreover, thoroughly unlikable. I hated them all, really, whether devout Texas Christians or hard-drinking college intellectuals. There’s almost no craft to Blue Like Jazz whatsoever and even though it’s only 108 minutes long, the first 90 feels like an eternity. Now, I will say that the story is an appealing one so I can understand the love the book has achieved but in film form it unfolds in such a worthless way as to become almost embarrassing for everyone involved. The one thing Blue Like Jazz really has going for it is its conclusion. The last 10 or 15 minutes in which Don wrestles with and ultimately comes to a decision regarding his faith and the way he represents that are definitely the high point of the whole affair. It’s still not great and it might not even be good but compared to the first two acts, the final piece is a ruddy masterpiece, though that wasn’t nearly enough to keep it from finding a place amongst the ten worst films I saw in 2012. Please don’t watch this movie.

Blue Like Jazz Director: Steve Taylor Cast: Marshall Allman, Claire Holt, Tania Raymonde Rated: PG-13 (some language, drinking, some of the most offensive animation ever) Recommended For: People who helped fund the film through Kickstarter

In Home Viewings: Taken 2

Synopsis: Seeking revenge for the demise of his son (which transpired during the events of Taken), Serbian criminal Murad (Rade Serbedzija) enacts a plan to capture retired CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), his ex-wife (Famke Janssen), and his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace). Just before being taken, Mills gives Kim directions on how to evade capture and she in turn provides outside support for Mills as he wreaks havoc on his would-be killers from the inside, culminating in a final confrontation with Murad in a Turkish bath house. What I Liked: Um…not much. Taken is an incredibly satisfying, enjoyable film that I can watch over and over again. It’s like a giant episode of 24 in the best way possible. Taken 2 has almost none of that appeal. Neeson is always a selling point for me and really he’s the only thing that keeps Taken 2 from being the worst movie of the year.

What I Didn’t Like: As an unabashed fan of Taken, I readily admit that it is, on its simplest level, incredibly dumb. There’s very little to the plot and it really is just Liam Neeson killing half of the Serbians in France with an array of neck chops and dirty tricks. AND THAT’S AWESOME because the key to everything within Taken is that it’s all very over the top and ridiculously fun. Taken 2 forgot the fun part and as such, you become keenly aware of how brutally stupid everything and everyone in this movie is. There’s also far too much screen time handed over to Maggie Grace who, bless her heart, is just not very talented as an actress. And if all that wasn’t enough, the very concept of the movie is foolish at best. It’s shocking (and sad) that nowhere in the process of this film receiving the green light did someone say, “Wait, so this guy killed LITERALLY every dude who crossed his path the last time around and now they’re going to try to force a SECOND confrontation with him? And the whole thing is based on a criminal being angry because someone killed his CRIMINAL son after his son kidnapped this person’s daughter and tried to sell her as a sex slave? That doesn’t work AT ALL, guys.”

The Verdict: This is the very definition of lazy filmmaking that I thought only the people behind the Twilight series were capable of. But hey, get ready for the sequel in 2014!

Taken 2 Director: Olivier Megatron Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Rade Serbedzija Rated: PG-13 (violence) Recommended For: Pre-adolescent males

My Top 10 Films of 2012

On Monday I will publish my extensive list of every single 2012 film I saw with a full ranking from first to last (which is currently somewhere around 90). I make that list every year and usually allow that to account for the obligatory “top ten list” that every movie website is required to publish. But since loads of people have been pining for an official list this year (read: “one guy casually asked if I was going to do one and then immediately stopped listening to me”), I bit the bullet and bought even further into the list making madness. A word on these rankings: Favoritism plays a part. In years past, films like The Muppets and MacGruber have made their way into my top 10 and while I stand wholeheartedly behind those picks (MacGruber is a comedic masterpiece), I would never include those films in the Best Picture discussion were I given a vote in the Academy Awards (or Golden Globes, or Critics Choice, or BAFTAS, or whoever else would like to give me a vote). Rewatchability has a say in these factors so while Midnight in Paris is probably a better film than The Muppets (and it did receive a nomination), The Muppets made my top 10 and Midnight in Paris did not. Blockbusters and popcorn films have their place in this world and as an unashamed fan of those films, they often find a place in my top ten, even if I wouldn’t necessarily consider them Oscar contenders. That said, 2012 was a particularly strong year for high quality blockbusters and as such, I’m moderately confident that nine of these ten films would have made my hypothetical Best Picture ballot (and the other wouldn’t qualify in the traditional sense). Take that as you will as we delve into my top ten films of the year.

Honorable Mention Wreck-It Ralph – John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer Lincoln – Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones In all seriousness I should make this list a Top 12 every year instead of the Top 10. It always seems like I go through physical pain in excluding about two films every year and this year is no different. Wreck-It Ralph was a true achievement in animated filmmaking, a Pixarian adventure wrapped up in a tidy Disney bow. I loved it and if I’m being honest I will probably watch it more times in the future than any other movie on this list. Lincoln loses points (and drops out of the top ten) for one reason and one reason only: rewatchability. It’s a tremendous film (and the favorite to win Best Picture given yesterday’s Oscar nominations) but it is one that I don’t imagine I’ll want to take in many more times.

10. Moonrise Kingdom – Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis When I first set out to put this list together last week, Moonrise Kingdom was on the outside looking in and suffered from having been pushed back in my memory by all the great films that dominated the end of this year. But I watched it again this week and was reminded of what an utterly joyous experience it really is. The dialogue is absolutely EXQUISITE and the charm of the young leads is undeniable. I am of the opinion that Moonrise Kingdom is Wes Anderson’s best film to date and that, my friends, is saying something.

9. Beasts of the Southern Wild – Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry I have been championing this film since I first saw it back in July and I’m so glad to see the love it has been getting from the award committees. My excitement about most films tends to level off a bit over time with more viewings and more time to consider their merits. Beasts is the rare film that actually got better over time. It stuck with me for a week after seeing it and I legitimately spent time wrestling with it before coming out feeling like it was a tremendous achievement. Wallis, a tiny Oscar nominee for Best Actress, gives perhaps the year’s most gut-wrenchingly sobering performance of the year. I implore you to seek Beasts out.

8. Looper – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt A young director with a vision, a tremendous and dedicated cast, and probably the year’s best concept equals out to a straight-up awesome movie. Looper is bold, sci-fi filmmaking at its best and prompted me to declare this era as a golden age for sci-fi. The performances are fantastic as JGL and Willis match each other perfectly and the script should have been nominated for an Oscar. Maybe best of all, Looper stands out as an example of great marketing as the trailers gave the viewer a taste of what to expect but kept a key plot point completely out of all the ads. Great, great piece of work.

7. The Other Dream Team – Arvydas Sabonis, Sarunas Marciulionis, Rimas Kurtinaitis I have a great love for documentaries but this is the first one to make my top ten in a given year since It Might Get Loud grabbed the top spot in 2009. The Other Dream Team represents what a friend of mine refers to as “Stolen Moments”: those little unexpected moments in life where you get to be a part of something spectacular. In this instance, some friends and I were able to see this inspiring little film at a screening attended by the filmmakers and some of the people featured in the film. It’s a beautiful film and one that resonates on a number of levels. 

6. Skyfall – Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench I confess that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the James Bond franchise. I’m slowly making my way through the entire catalog and I’m still having trouble differentiating between some of the earlier films. Skyfall, though, stands out in a class all its own. It has everything you want from a Bond film: spectacular action, pithy dialogue, and a great villain to push our hero. Skyfall also came equipped with a dynamic script and some of the best camera work of any film this year. For me, this is the best Bond movie to date and the first one that I want to watch over and over again.

5. The Dark Knight Rises – Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy I walked out of my midnight viewing of TDKR completely blown away and was so disappointed to see the backlash it received from critics and fanboys alike. I confess you haters had me doubting my judgment. So I went back and watched it again last week and reaffirmed my initial feeling: this movie is great. GREAT. Maybe it doesn’t live up to the standard of The Dark Knight but come on, that’s the best superhero movie of all-time so it would be unfair to expect such a lofty feat. I found this film to be incredibly satisfying and packed with emotions. I think The Dark Knight Rises is phenomenal and I’ll hear no further arguments to the contrary.

4. The Avengers – Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans The Avengers tops The Dark Knight Rises thanks to the all important element of sheer entertainment. If I’m being truthful I think TDKR is a better film but dadgumit, The Avengers is fun to watch. It’s also a very smart film, especially for a mega-blockbuster of this caliber and the fact that Joss Whedon (and really everyone involved with the Marvel franchise) was able to pull it altogether into a movie that was not only a huge hit with audiences but also an almost unprecedented level of critical acclaim. Kudos, too, to Whedon and his team for finally casting the right guy to play The Hulk and giving that character the treatment he deserves.

3. Django Unchained – Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonard DiCaprio To tackle the subject matter that Quentin Tarantino dove into is an accomplishment in and of itself. To do so while simultaneously making your movie one of the funniest of the year is another thing entirely. Django Unchained is one of the finest examples of screenwriting that 2012 has to offer and puts Tarantino’s boldness on full display. Moreover, Django features some of this year’s most memorable performances and despite the fact that only Waltz received an Oscar nomination, all of the main actors involved with this film were deserving of the award. Simply put, this is just a ridiculously well-crafted film that was only a step or two shy of becoming a masterpiece.

2. Argo – Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Scoot McNairy I wrestled with the order of these final two films for a long time and to tell you the truth I’m still not sure that this is right. Regardless, Argo is one of those films that leaves such an impression on you that you never forget the first time you saw it. Very few films are able to keep the intensity going the way Argo does to the point that when the film finally reached its conclusion I took a deep breath and felt as if I hadn’t breathed in two hours. The pacing is PERFECT and I think the entire cast was absolutely spot on. And there are a ton of little details that Affleck and his crew nailed in an effort to make the movie as real and lifelike as possible. It’s a brilliant film that may very well be the best of the year…

1. Zero Dark Thirty – Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Chris Pratt But, for now at least, the top spot belongs to the film that is freshest in my mind and therefore has an unfair advantage. Sorry, Argo. There are any number of things that I could point out regarding the excellence of Zero Dark Thirty but I think the master stroke is Kathryn Bigelow’s ability to make the story personal without playing on artificial emotions. There’s nothing manufactured about what this movie is able to do and SO MUCH of its success depends solely on the performance of Jessica Chastain who handles this conundrum by giving us what I consider to be the year’s best portrayal. It’s a hard-hitting, intense, and expertly crafted film and one that I will never forget. Brilliant work by every single person involved.

The Ten Worst Movies I Didn't See - 2012

Of all the lists I make each year, this one is probably my favorite. It started out as a bit of a joke between a friend and myself but after a moment of consideration I decided it wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever had. I have made mention in the past that I pride myself on my ability to avoid truly awful movies. I’ll deliberately watch a bad movie from time to time just to mix things up (see: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and occasionally a movie catches me off guard with its awfulness (see: Trouble with the Curve) but for the most part, I steer clear of the junk that crowds the yearly movie calendar. The good part about this is that I am able to keep my sanity but on the other hand my “worst of the year” list is usually fairly weak. With that in mind, two years ago I started writing this column, a collection of the worst movies I didn’t see in a given year, all of which are truly putrid and deserve to be treated as such. In making this list, I exclude the following three film genres for various reasons:

1.)    Horror movies. Since I have no love for the genre as a whole, I feel it is unfair to judge these movies so harshly when even a “good” horror movie probably wouldn’t resonate with me. 2.)    Limited release films. Excluding these films helps whittle down the list a bit and forces me to focus on the studio-backed films that most of my readers are acquainted with. 3.)    Nicholas Cage movies. This is a new exclusion but one I felt necessary given that Mr. Cage has clearly lost his mind (and he wasn’t the most sane personality in the first place) and his film choices have become downright depressing.

So with those exclusions in mind (and with the understanding that the ten worst movies I did see this year will be coming your way tomorrow) please enjoy the Ten Worst Movies I Didn’t See in 2012.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlR_vDzDNyE

10. Joyful Noise – Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, Keke Palmer Rotten Tomatoes score: 34% Domestic Gross: $30.9M Razzie Nominations: none Let’s start this list off with a film that clearly wasn’t aimed at me but appeared to be incredibly awful regardless. When I saw the trailer for the first time I felt like I could feel the rest of the men in the audience going through a mental checklist. “Queen Latifah: check. Dolly Parton: check. Musical: check. Jokes about menopause: check. Oh sweet goodness this is the worst thing ever!!!” No thanks.

9. Here Comes the Boom – Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler Rotten Tomatoes score: 38% Domestic Gross: $44.1M Razzie Nominations: none I’ll admit up front that I was unquestionably biased against this movie from the very beginning. It has almost the exact same base plot as 2011’s Warrior, one of my favorite films ever, only it’s watered down into a middling, played-out mess. But maybe more importantly, I feel I need to put it out there to the rest of America: Kevin James is not funny. AT ALL. Nothing he has ever done, from King of Queens right on down to this knock-off of a good movie, has been any funnier than your run of the mill episode of Two and a Half Men, which is just about the lowest form of comedy in my opinion. Stop buying into this guy’s brand of crap, people.

8. The Guilt Trip – Seth Rogen, Barbra Streisand Rotten Tomatoes score: 38% Domestic Gross: $31.8M Razzie Nominations: 1 For starters, I’m not a big fan of Rogen. I think he can be great in the right circumstances but like most of the group of young comedy stars he has made himself a part of (Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, James Franco, etc.) I consider him to be VERY hit or miss. Putting him in a movie with Barbra Streisand (who received the film’s only Razzie nomination) is a surefire way to keep me away. I’ve heard that there is a softer, sweet side to The Guilt Trip but if this is the case then the marketing campaign did nothing to put that out there as I was completely turned off the very first time I saw that awful trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Two1IvWjibM

7. The Lucky One – Zac Efron, Taylor Schilling, Blythe Danner Rotten Tomatoes score: 20% Domestic Gross: $60.4M Razzie Nominations: none There will probably come a day when I exclude films based on the books of Nicolas Sparks from this list. It’s just too easy. But for now, let me just saw that The Lucky One is particularly offensive because, judging by the trailers of these respective films, it is just a hybrid of The Notebook and Dear John. BECAUSE WE DIDN’T GET ENOUGH OF THIS IN EITHER OF THOSE MOVIES.

6. Playing For Keeps – Gerard Butler, Jessica Biel, Dennis Quaid Rotten Tomatoes score: 4% Domestic Gross: $12.8M Razzie Nominations: 1 Let’s just be honest: Gerard Butler has made some horrible films. The man who just a few years ago seemed like an appealing leading man for both men and women with his turns in Phantom of the Opera and 300 (spawning one of the greatest bits Saturday Night Live has come up with in years), Butler has followed up those successes with some of the worst credits a man could possibly add his name to. This may be the one that finally does him in. Almost no one saw this movie and the reaction by those who did has been nothing short of scathing. Butler has a few projects in the offing but if any of those fare as poorly as Playing for Keeps, he may find himself a regular on a bad TV procedural very soon.

5. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 – Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner Rotten Tomatoes score: 48% Domestic Gross: $289.3M Razzie Nominations: 10 My favorite part about the release of this film is that for a short period of time it held a “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes which allowed proponents of the series to smugly say things like, “See? These movies are good! (Or at least not that bad!)” But when you read those early reviews, every single one basically noted that in comparison to the four other films in the series, this one wasn’t the worst. So kudos to the “film”makers who have attached their names to this series over the years! Your final, epic conclusion “wasn’t as bad” as the previous films! What an achievement! Worst long-running film franchise EVER.

4. That’s My Boy – Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester Rotten Tomatoes score: 21% Domestic Gross: $36.9M Razzie Nominations: 8 The only good thing about That’s My Boy is that it lost a healthy chunk of money. That’s always been the rub with Adam Sandler movies: Yes, they’re bloody awful but people keep going to see them so there’s no real incentive for him to change his stripes. Well, this one flopped miserably, something we can all cheer for. Beyond that fact, however, there’s nothing good that anyone can say about Sandler’s career right now. He seems to be on the warpath to make every adult who spent any time as a youth enjoying his films feel very, very foolish. Hi, my name is Brian, and I used to like Adam Sandler movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlzMcs_hVyc

3. A Thousand Words – Eddie Murphy, Kerry Washington, Cliff Curtis Rotten Tomatoes score: 0% Domestic Gross: $18.4M Razzie Nominations: 3 Of the two films that spent years collecting dust on a shelf, Red Dawn is the one that drew the most boisterous reaction but for my money it was A Thousand Words that truly deserved the hate. Shot in 2008, this may very well be remembered as the film that effectively ended Eddie Murphy’s career. Sure, he’s been heading down that path for a while now and there’s always a chance that someone will throw him a bone that turns into something big but even for Murphy apologists (of which there are many, who still hold on to and proclaim his greatness, which I would suggest he threw away over 20 years ago), this movie was a disaster. It’s bad enough that the film got released four years after its completion but it’s much worse that Murphy agreed to do the movie in the first place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn1PpRgUaeU

2. One For the Money – Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, John Leguizamo Rotten Tomatoes score: 2% Domestic Gross: $26.4M Razzie Nominations: 1 When I saw the trailer for One For the Money for the first time, I literally thought it was a TV movie, like something that would show up on Lifetime on Super Bowl Sunday to provide the womenfolk with an alternative. I’ve been up front about my great dislike for Heigl (her name being attached to a movie is probably the quickest, most immediate “out” for me of anyone in Hollywood outside of John Travolta) but even for her, this is BAD. Even worse, the ad campaign behind it played out with a smugness unbefitting of such a miserable film, as if the suits behind the movie thought, “Oh, EVERY woman will love Katherine Heigl as a bounty hunter!” and went about business as if this was an absolute truth. Once again, however, Heigl proves to be a completely unlikeable, unbankable “star” who makes truly horrible movies. At least she’s consistent.

1. The Movies of Tyler Perry Alex Cross, Madea’s Witness Protection, Tyler Perry’s Good Deeds Rotten Tomatoes scores: 12%, 21%, and 32% Domestic Gross: $25.8M, $65.6M, and $35.1M Total Razzie Nominations: 5 Where to begin? I guess I should note right off the top that I am not the target market for the films of Tyler Perry so perhaps it’s unfair that I judge them in the first place. Once we’ve bypassed that caveat, let me then denote that regardless of the target market, the various heaps of garbage that Tyler Perry repeatedly attaches his name to are so brutally and unrelentingly appalling that they could be used by the CIA as a means of torture. One day locked in a cell with Madea’s Witness Protection playing on loop would break any man, hardened terrorist or otherwise.

But here’s my favorite part about this collection of junk: On the opening weekend of Alex Cross, I went to the theater for a repeat viewing of Argo. As a MoviePass owner, I can see any movie I want for free at any time, provided it is not in 3D and there are tickets available. On this particular night, however, Argo was sold out and I had to choose another movie. The only film I hadn’t seen that was available this night was Alex Cross…so I decided to go home. I was already at the theater with a card that allowed me to see the movie for free and I chose, instead, to drive home in the rain. That’s a powerful brand of awful right there and serves as plenty of reason not only for Tyler Perry’s collected works to take the top spot this year but for us as a nation to band together and bring this man’s reign of terror to an end.

Favorite Performances of 2012

For all of its many, MANY merits overall, I don’t think 2012 stands out as a particularly great year for performances. Whereas 2011 was a seriously weak year for films (see: the Best Picture win for The Artist) but packed full of great performances, I think 2012 was the exact opposite. Despite the number of high quality films that made landfall in theaters, much of the year’s greatness did not depend as much on the performances, per se, as they did on a more well-rounded strength. This is not to suggest that there weren’t a number of excellent portrayals that caught my eye this year, but rather that I was more impressed by, say, Argo as a whole than I was by Ben Affleck’s acting itself, and that’s not always the case. That said, while I didn’t think this was an especially great year for individual acting performances, I openly admit to cheating, not once but twice, in order to get everyone in on this list that I wanted to commend. So perhaps my opening hypothesis is flawed. Regardless, I present to you my 10 favorite performances of 2012. NOTE: Please keep in mind the terminology in that sentence: this is my list of FAVORITES, not necessarily the list of the BEST. More than once the two come together but this is my opportunity to highlight some performances that I truly loved even if they won’t show up in any award nominations.

HONORABLE MENTION Mel Gibson – Driver, Get the Gringo John Goodman – John Chambers, Argo Joaquin Phoenix – Freddie Quell, The Master Each of these esteemed actors did excellent work in their respective roles but fell just short of making this top 10 for one reason or another. Gibson was tremendous in the underseen gritty action piece Gringo but if I’m being honest, I couldn’t decide whether his performance was really that great or if it was just so good to see him getting back to what he does best. American Treasure John Goodman was the most charming presence in one of the best unconventional ensemble films in recent memory but his role was so small that I felt other actors/actresses should be highlighted. And Phoenix truly is the litmus test between “favorite” and “best” because while his performance is magnificent, it’s not one that I ever want to sit through again.

10. The Major Surprises Channing Tatum – Jenko, 21 Jump Street Jack Black – Bernie Tiede, Bernie Mark Ruffalo – The Hulk/Bruce Banner, The Avengers

Obviously I’m exercising my right to cheat here but all of these actors deserve a mention and all of them caught me completely off guard.

Going into the year Channing Tatum was a guy I had very little respect for and of all the reasons to be nervous about 21 Jump Street, he was at the top of the list. Lo and behold, the guy is SERIOUSLY funny and owned his role completely. I’ve thought long and hard and I’m not sure there’s a single name actor in Hollywood who could have replaced Tatum and gotten that much out of it.

Bernie is one of the weirdest movie watching experiences I’ve ever had as it has you rooting for a man who, in real life, killed an innocent woman and was sentenced to life in prison. Yet Black presents him with such charm and nuance that you can’t help but wish him well. Bernie is available on Netflix Instant and is worth watching just for Black, whom I’ve never really been a big fan of, by the way.

Ruffalo was perhaps the biggest surprise for me. I was bummed when Marvel pushed Edward Norton out of the Hulk’s green skin before the production of The Avengers and even more bummed when they replaced him with Ruffalo, an actor whose appeal I have never understood. I was wrong to be upset, as Ruffalo brought BOTH sides of his character to life in ways they never have been before. From an acting standpoint, he’s the best part of the year’s biggest movie.

9. Michael Fassbender – David, Prometheus I may be in the minority but I really liked Prometheus. What I’m not in the minority about is Fassbender’s performance, which even the film’s biggest haters pointed to as a positive. As a curious android, Fassbender is truly magnetic and only left me wanting more. It’s a supporting role but still the one that stands out as the film’s most important.

8. Robert De Niro – Pat, Silver Linings Playbook I have openly pined over the years for Robert De Niro to do something, ANYTHING, significant. He is, in my opinion, the greatest American actor of his generation and it has broken my spirit to see him working on junk like Righteous Kill and New Year’s Eve. His role in Silver Linings Playbook is undoubtedly significant, a weighty piece of acting that takes the viewer through a gamut of emotions. It’s his best work in perhaps 15 years or more and reminds you of just how great the man can be.

7. Jennifer Lawrence – Tiffany, Silver Linings Playbook It takes a talented woman to play a teenage heroine in a tentpole blockbuster and troubled widow in an awards-bait drama (and I think we can all pretend House at the End of the Street never happened) in the same year. Obviously Lawrence is that woman. Her character is a mixed bag of ups and downs, highs and lows, and with each shift in behavior or attitude, Lawrence is perfectly balanced and spot-on in her performance. You could make a case for Lawrence as the biggest actress in Hollywood right now and I wouldn’t argue with you.

6. Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Joe, Looper In the future it’s likely that, given the chain of events in the closing act, JGL’s turn in The Dark Knight Rises will be remembered as the one that launched him into a different stratosphere as an actor but for me, his performance in Looper is the one to remember. Not only was the film an incredibly cool sci-fi action piece, JGL drove it most of the way with a powerful portrayal that took it to a higher level than even I would have expected, and I expected a lot quite frankly. And while the prosthetics and effects helped to make him look like a young Bruce Willis, it was his painstakingly meticulous method of adopting Willis’ mannerisms and facial expressions that really set his work apart.

5. Martin Freeman – Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey This is probably an unconventional choice for anyone who hasn’t spent a significant amount of time immersed in the literary version of The Hobbit. But since I have, let me just say that stepping into the shoes of an iconic character who many people, including (and perhaps especially) myself, have been looking forward to seeing in real life is a tall order. To absolutely and completely nail said character in every way, shape, and form is another thing entirely. Freeman’s interpretation of Bilbo Baggins was, to be blunt, PERFECT and I can’t wait to see what he does with the character in the following installments.

4. Quvenzhane Wallis – Hushpuppy, Beasts of the Southern Wild It doesn’t get much better than what Wallis gives the audience in Beasts and the fact that she’s able to do it at nine years old is almost unbelievable. This is a movie, and by proxy a performance, that cannot be properly summarized in a space like this unless you’ve seen it for yourself (so…like…maybe you should do that) but suffice it to say that the mix of vulnerability and power that Wallis demonstrates is both haunting and inspiring.

3. Daniel Day Lewis – Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln What can you say about a performance that is almost assuredly going to score not only a Best Actor nomination but a win in the category? DDL does not bring to life the most important president in the history of the United States; instead, he really and truly BECOMES Abraham Lincoln to the point that if you were to send him back in time to 1864, his own family might not have been able to tell the difference.

2. The Cast of Django Unchained Alright, so here’s my second instance of cheating. I opted for this route because otherwise, at least three spots on this list would be taken up by actors from this film and then what sort of boring list would it be? Django Unchained won’t wind up as my favorite of the year (though it’s close) but it is undoubtedly my favorite from an overall acting standpoint. Other than a casual cameo by Mr. Tarantino himself, there is not a weak link in the varied cast and if it were up to me, just about all of the main cast members would receive Oscar nominations.

My hunch is that Leonardo DiCaprio, as a light-hearted plantation owner with a mean streak, and Samuel L. Jackson, as his diabolical house slave, are the most likely to pull in nominations. These would, of course, be well deserved. But while Jamie Foxx, in the role of the titular character, is at times overshadowed by his supporting players, the dynamic flair and ruthless power that grows within Django as the film goes on is spectacular and builds the momentum exquisitely. And Christoph Waltz, in a role so very different from his Oscar-winning turn in Inglourious Basterds is an absolute joy to watch. That’s not to mention the smaller but still strong performances by Kerry Washington, Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, and Jonah Hill. In a year that stands out for well-rounded, ensemble casts (Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, etc.), Django Unchained takes precedence at the top of the list thanks to a collection of great actors who all turn in memorable and incredible performances.

1. Jessica Chastain – Maya, Zero Dark Thirty Hers is the most recent in my memory, having just seen Zero Dark Thirty, but I imagine I’ll still be thinking about it many months from now. Chastain’s performance is powerful, passionate, and almost overflowing with intensity but more importantly, she serves as the voice for an entire nation. I saw myself in her character and it is that trait that makes this such a remarkable piece of work. Get this woman a Best Actress trophy right now and while we’re at it, let’s just put her in all of the movies from here on out.

Review Zero Dark Thirty

NOTE: The historical accuracy (or lack there of) of Zero Dark Thirty played no part in my evaluation of this film. Nor did the film's supposed stance on torture which has been a hot topic of late. It is not, in my estimation, a film's job to tell THE story as much as it is to tell A story and neither is it my job to judge it based on how closely it follows the real events. My concern is whether or not the movie itself is good and in this case, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" of the highest order. Making a movie about the tracking and killing of Osama bin Laden could have been a rather easy endeavor. Just about anyone could have made that movie and turned it into a blockbuster sort of film that would have brought people to the theater even if the quality was low. Turning that movie into an award-winning, dramatic spectacle, though, was quite a tall order. When virtually the entire audience knows the ins and outs of your story right on up to its conclusion, it can be very difficult to create drama and intrigue that doesn’t seem false. Katheryn Bigelow’s ability to do just that takes Zero Dark Thirty over the top and propels it into the discussion for best of the year.

Zero Dark Thirty begins two years after the bombing of the World Trade Center with the brutal torture of an al-Qaeda prisoner at the hands of CIA interrogation expert Dan (Jason Clarke) and a young special agent named Maya (Jessica Chastain). The information gathered through the interrogation leads Maya on an eight year quest with only one goal in mind: the location and apprehension, by whatever means necessary, of Osama bin Laden. This process proves more difficult than finding the proverbial needle in a haystack and costs Maya a great deal throughout her time on the case but the effort is finally justified on May 2, 2011 when SEAL Team 6 is sent in to take down America’s number one adversary.

Zero Dark Thirty opens with a black screen backed by a 911 call from the World Trade Center on 9/11, a choice that sets the tone for what is to follow in no uncertain terms. To call this movie “intense” would require a new definition for the word. It’s more like “mega-intense” or “my-blood-pressure-will-never-recover-intense.” Bigelow throws the audience into the torture sequence that made me squirm not for its gratuitous depiction but for its realism. The man being interrogated is BROKEN and that hits home fast and hard. From there, the pace slows at times but the tense urgency of that opening scene never wanes, leaving you on the edge of your seat even when there’s virtually nothing happening. And if you do make the mistake of putting your guard down, Bigelow is quick to comeback with an action sequence that reminds you of this film’s stakes. Perhaps the finest moment is in the final scene in which SEAL Team 6 invade bin Laden’s compound. The sequence takes over 27 minutes to unfold and even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, Bigelow still drove the moment home with a quiet yet furious injection of natural adrenaline that kept my pulse up throughout.

What really sets Zero Dark Thirty apart, however, is the performance of its lead. I don’t know who discovered Jessica Chastain and gave her the big break she needed but that person should be given a large sum of money and some sort of medal. To think that Chastain could go from completely unknown to the woman who gave the year’s best performance (which is what I would call this portrayal) in less than 18 months is a true Hollywood success story if ever there was one. Maya is an awesome and complex character to begin with (a credit to Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal) but Chastain takes that character and runs with it, creating a persona that serves as the driving force behind the entire movie. Chastain shows Maya to be a brash, single-minded personality and in the wrong hands the character could have EASILY become abrasive and obnoxious. Instead, Maya is truly dynamic and begs to be embraced by the audience.

It goes much further than this, though; it isn’t enough for Maya to be strong and likeable. Bigelow puts the entire film on the shoulders of Maya and Chastain by making her the in-movie representation of the audience and moreover, the American people. Chastain is our window into the hunt for bin Laden and the emotions that she goes through are, I believe, symbolic of the ones the audience has gone through over the last decade. Zero Dark Thirty is built with remarkably strong beams in the form of terrific writing, an engrossing and familiar story, and outstanding supporting work from a strong cast of actors (most particularly Jason Clarke who should receive award attention for his role), not to mention a host of technical attributes that serve to heighten the experience. But Chastain is the load-bearing beam of the film and even a great performance might have left the film wanting. Well, it isn’t great but instead a powerhouse portrayal that reverberates with far more emotion than I expected to find going in. The relief that Chastain exhibits in the closing moments washes over the audience in a way that can only be described as surreal and, for me, it is this final shot that solidifies Chastain’s performance as the best of the year and Zero Dark Thirty as one of the more iconic films of the last decade.

Zero Dark Thirty Director: Kathryn Bigelow Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Chris Pratt, Joel Edgerton Rated: R (language, violence, brutal torture sequences, and all around intensity) Recommended For: Mature audiences who don’t have heart issues

Review: Jack Reacher

Synopsis: When an ex-Army sniper is brought in for the seemingly random shooting of five civilians, a former military policeman and current ghost named Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) appears on the scene to investigate the murder. Initially going under the assumption that the sniper is guilty, he soon finds evidence to the contrary and begins working in conjunction with defense attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pink). As his investigation draws him closer to the truth, Reacher discovers a much bigger cover-up than he expected and soon runs up against an enemy he may not be able to defeat. What I Liked: As stated numerous times in this space, I love Tom Cruise. The man just tries so stinking hard and I appreciate that. Fans of the Reacher books have noted that Cruise’s real life diminutive size is not in keeping with the monster of a man depicted in the novels but for his part, Cruise does an excellent job of selling Reacher’s physical and mental prowess. Like any red blooded American male I always appreciate the rogue cop/soldier/criminal/vigilante/what have you who takes justice into his own hands without concern for the law and Jack Reacher does a solid job of pushing that agenda throughout. Most of the action sequences, while thoroughly unrealistic, are exciting and well-designed and there are a couple of car chases that, while unspectacular, hit their marks with the requisite adrenaline punch.

What I Didn’t Like: Having not read any of the Reacher books, I have no idea how closely Jack Reacher follows along to the written word. That said, I found the plot in general and Reacher’s entire persona to be lacking. As the film goes along we find out more and more about Reacher and it’s always presented in a rather smug, “Oh by the way he can also do this!” sort of way that wore on me after a while. This is part origin story in a way but this information seemed forced and cliché. By the time we find out that Reacher is also an expert marksman I’d about had my fill of his greatness. Meanwhile, the way the film is laid out lends itself a little too much towards becoming a TV law procedural which left me a little hollow. Jack Reacher is almost completely devoid of a score and while that has worked well for some films of this sort, this time around I found it to be a little off-putting and it only added to the feeling that the whole thing could have been pared down by 15 or 20 minutes. Most importantly, Jack Reacher has trouble finding itself as it jumps, uncomfortably I might add, between a gritty thriller and a tongue-in-cheek action piece and after a while this becomes frustrating.

The Verdict: Part European-style action film, part outtakes from The A-Team, part origin story for a franchise that probably isn’t going to happen, Jack Reacher has its moments but never fully finds a groove that allows it to excel in any one area.

Jack Reacher Director: Christopher McQuarrie Cast: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Jai Courtney, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog Rated: PG-13 (violence, language) Recommended For: Action fans 12 and up

Review: Django Unchained

I have a complicated relationship with Quentin Tarantino. He is a craftsman with a pen and paper if ever there was one and his writing is impeccable. His love for film is widely known and while ostensibly all filmmakers share a passion for the film, Tarantino is one that stands out as true believer, as it were, one who needs the cinema the way most of us need air. And he is a master when it comes to crafting a scene. Even still, Tarantino does everything in an all-out, no holds barred, aggressive style that is, I believe, designed to run off those viewers who don’t love what they’re watching. There can be no fence-sitting with a Tarantino movie; either you love it and consider it a triumph or you find it vile and want nothing to do with it and I think that’s the point. He tends to push the envelope further and further as his film goes on and at some point you are presented with the choice to get on board or stay at the station. I was left at the station with Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill 1 & 2, and Jackie Brown and while I recognize its genius, I must admit that Pulp Fiction left me behind as well. His last film, Inglourious Basterds, is the only Tarantino film to date for which I can say I was fully on board for and it is the film I hold up as his best work. Django Unchained follows in the footsteps of its predecessor and comes dangerously close to “masterpiece” territory. A would-be escaped slave who is sold to a new master apart from his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), Django (Jamie Foxx) has his fortunes reversed when he is acquired by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). A bounty hunter by trade, Schultz proposes a deal: Django will lead him to and identify a group called the Brittle Brothers and in return, Schultz will give Django his freedom. After their partnership proves profitable, Schultz agrees to help Django find Broomhilda, a trail that leads them to the plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonard DiCaprio), a well-known slave owner who has made a name for himself by running Mandingo fights. Schultz and Django come up with a ruse to catch Candie’s notoriously fickle attention and soon find themselves in the belly of the beast at Candie’s plantation where they run afoul of aging and crotchety house servant, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), whose suspicion leads to great trouble.

The relationship between Django and Inglourious is obvious and one which, for my money, this film benefits from immensely. For all its war violence and Hitler killing, Inglorious is a subdued movie compared to Tarantino’s other works and that same spirit runs through Django and suites the Western (or “Southern” if you prefer) sensibilities quite well. Save for the first explosive bit of violence at the very beginning of the film, the majority of the film carries on in a relatively realistic manner, meaning it is filled with violence, language, and racial slurs and yet none of it seems out of place in the slightest. It’s a brutal world our characters live in and that is portrayed unconditionally (to the point of discomfort at times) but not, in my opinion, gratuitously through the first two hours. In fact I almost forgot at times that I was watching a Tarantino film as Django runs much closer to a Coen Brothers picture than anything else for a long stretch.

This illusion of subtle realism is shockingly and brutally brought to an end, however, in the film’s concluding act, in which our titular character engages in a gunfight that quite literally covers the walls in spilt blood. In retrospect, perhaps this shouldn’t have come as a shock as this is a Tarantino film and it is, after all, a story of revenge. But in my mind, so much was done through the majority of the film’s runtime to present the action in a realistic way that when it suddenly erupted into an explosion of entry wounds, Monty Pyton-esque blood splatter, and over-the-top cries of death, I was distracted and a little put off. Personally, I think some of the prospective power of the scene (and those that follow) was lost in the blatant Tarantinoization of the violence that just didn’t quite fit the overall tone of the film. In this way, Django is reminiscent of last year’s Drive, a film that I would have considered perfect without the random scenes of hyper-violence that weren’t in keeping with the rest of the movie. It’s a minor complaint all-in-all but without them, I think I would proclaim Django as the best movie of the year. As it is, it’s only a slight downgrade.

Whatever complaints I or anyone else might have about Django, however, there can be no disputing the abject brilliance of the film’s many performances. Foxx embodies his character with a cocky flair that almost any other actor would have missed on. He manages to have a little fun with his role but never so much that the character loses his purpose. Moving forward, however, I will almost certainly remember Django more for the supporting work than for anything Foxx does. It is an absolute pleasure to watch Waltz at work in a role that is so very different from the Oscar award-winning turn in Inglourious that put him on the map in Hollywood and yet one that is just as strong. Schultz is a more layered character than anyone else in the film and Waltz illuminates each of those layers beautifully. Then there’s DiCaprio in a delicious role that had many of his fans salivating during the trailers. Candie is an odd, flighty sort of guy, personality traits which DiCaprio nails over and over again, and yet he has a hidden fire that allows DiCaprio to get worked up in a lather in that glorious way he does. Surely this is the role that wins him his first Oscar. Perhaps most surprising of all of Django’s many fantastic portrayals is the turn by Jackson that is undoubtedly the most significant role he’s taken on in a long, long time. The complexities of his character are immense and he manages to steal the show on many occasions. If all of this weren’t enough, you’ve also got truly enjoyable work from Jonah Hill, Walton Goggins, and even Don Johnson. In a year filled with great ensemble casts, Django features what I would consider the best collection of performances of the year, all of which deserve attention.

When you combine all of these outstanding portrayals along with the tremendous writing, a host of gorgeous shots and locations, and a soundtrack that just might be Tarantino’s best yet, what you get in Django is an incredible movie going experience that remains only a step or two away from perfect.

Django Unchained Director: Quentin Tarantino Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson Rated: R (strong and continuous language, brutal violence, brief nudity, and general mature themes) Recommended For: 17 and up

Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2013 - Part I

This will be, I believe, my fifth year writing this column. It’s one that I look forward to writing (twice) each year and one that I hope some of you, my dear readers, get at least a little something out of. If you’re a longtime fan of The Soap Box Office, you know that two years ago I started breaking this column up into two parts, one (the likes of which you are about to read) to cover January through June and one to cover the back half of the year, allowing me to highlight a few more films and protecting me from having to judge a late-November movie I haven’t even seen a poster for yet. As always, it should be noted that this is far from a science. I avoid bad movies like a champ but it can, of course, be difficult to peg a stinker six months out (see: the prominent place of Green Lantern in 2011 and the unfortunate miss on Taken 2). Also, let me say right now that the front half of 2013 looks like a real kick in the pants. Now, the back half…that’s a solid six months for film! But this section…not the best. So read on at your own peril. Honorable Mention – The Great Gatsby (May 10) – Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carrie Mulligan I really, really, really want to like The Great Gatsby. It’s one of my favorite books and DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors in the business, not to mention that the trailers forecast it to be a beautiful film. But man, I am just not a fan of Baz Luhrmann’s style. This leaves me quite wary of the finished product.

10. 42 (April 12) – Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Kelley Jakle It is SHOCKING to me that it’s taken over 60 years to get a legit, modern biopic for Jackie Robinson. I’m not entirely sold that 42 is going to be the landmark film that a hero like Robinson really deserves; it looks entirely too much like The Express for my tastes. Even still, it’s a tremendous story that needs to be told and I’m digging Ford’s involvement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hww-Xxbud0

9. A Good Day to Die Hard (February 15) – Bruce Willis, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jai Courtney Look, I know I shouldn’t be excited about the fifth entry in a series that probably should have stopped after the first one. But what can I say? I need more John McClaine in my life. Die Hard is the greatest action movie of all time and while none of the sequels have measured up, I have a healthy appreciation for all of them, especially Live Free or Die Hard, which I find to be incredibly rewatchable. At the end of the day, Bruce Willis in his element is never a bad thing, even when it isn’t a GREAT thing.

8. Warm Bodies (February 1) – Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, John Malkovich For the last I don’t know how many years, I have repeatedly made it clear that I am not the sort of nerd who goes in for all this zombie stuff. And yet, I now find myself deeply enthralled with The Walking Dead, defending the literary integrity of World War Z in the face of a movie adaptation I already loathe, and putting a blasted zombie rom-com on my “anticipated” list. I guess I’ve changed. Warm Bodies looks BRILLIANT to me and its pedigree (written and directed by Jonathan Levine of 50/50 fame) is superb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07s-cNFffDM

7. Monsters University (June 21) – Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi Two years ago, there’s a very good chance that Monsters University would have topped this list. Monsters Inc. is one of my favorite Pixar films and if you know of my affinity for Pixar you know that that is really saying something. But with the near-travesty that was Cars 2 and the good-not-Pixar-great turn by Brave, I find myself much more leery of the studio than I ever thought I would be. That said, decent Pixar is still better than almost any other animated film so, of course, I’m still on board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYTE2_W2O00

6. Fast and Furious 6 (May 24) – Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, The Rock You know what’s awesome, almost in spite of itself? Fast Five. I have probably watched all or parts of Fast Five two dozen times over the last 18 months and I am 100% not ashamed to admit it. Okay, maybe 90% not ashamed. Seriously, though, I love this franchise and it seems to me that everyone involved, from Diesel and Walker on to director Justin Lin and writer Chris Morgan are just now hitting their stride on how to make this series work. I can’t wait. I. CANNOT. Wait.

5. Oblivion (April 19) – Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko I had this movie flip-flopped originally with Fast Six but a viewing of the trailer in a theater today changed the order. I'm fully intrigued now. I don’t fully understand what’s happening in the first trailer for Oblivion and I think that’s part of why it’s so exciting. Is Morgan Freeman an alien or some sort of survivor from our species that was, assumedly, sort-of wiped out? Either way, I’m excited! And, as the leader of the “Movie Bloggers Who Love Tom Cruise” coalition, the prospect of Cruise in his first sci-fi turn in 8 years is exciting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmIIgE7eSak

4. Gangster Squad (January 11) – Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Emma Stone Obviously the reasons why Gangster Squad was bumped from the fall to January are awful. But if they were going to move it, it was awful nice of the studio to give it to us early in the year when it will be surrounded by absolutely nothing worth seeing, providing a nice little stop over to get us through to the warmer months. The more times I watch this trailer, the more I become convinced that, regardless of how the overall movie turns out, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are both going to be INCREDIBLE in their roles. Also, I don’t know when exactly Gosling became one of my Hollywood favorites but I now look forward to his films sight unseen just because of his involvement.

3. Iron Man 3 (May 3) – Robert Downey Jr., Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley This is the mark at which 2013 stars to get itself in gear. Like most fans of this series, I was disappointed that Jon Favreau left the director’s chair empty instead of finishing at least a trilogy with a strong final chapter (though, if memory serves, RDJ will be back for a fourth film). Marvel wasted no time in replacing him, though, with Shane Black, who collaborated with RDJ on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a seriously underrated film that put its star back on the map. I am truly excited about seeing them work together again and the additions to the cast are fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBhYULqQsdM

2. Man of Steel (June 14) – Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Kevin Coster, Russell Crowe The fact that Man of Steel finds such a prominent place on this list is a testament to the ability of anyone and everyone involved with this film’s marketing campaign. Truth be told, Superman bores me to tears. I’ve never really and truly enjoyed any of the previous films and teaming director Zack Snyder with a relatively unknown Brit in the cape was not the best way to pique my interest. But the trailers, posters, etc. for Man of Steel have been otherworldly-great, bringing about a sort of giddy anticipation that I never would have expected a year ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMLX2ddR874

1. Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17) – Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch 2009’s Star Trek was one of my favorites of the year (in a very strong year I might add) and since then, it has become one of my favorites, period. It is constantly in my home viewing rotation. This sequel has the potential to be better, maybe even significantly better. As I noted when the trailer first arrived, it definitely has a different, much grander tone than the first film, which makes me nervous. But if JJ Abrams (in whom I place great trust) can pull it together, Star Trek Into Darkness could be a landmark sort of sci-fi blockbuster and could FINALLY make Benedict Cumberbatch a household name on these shores.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WzJXmY2xrg

In Home Viewings: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

In this historically accurate cinematic document… Wait, what’s that? Abraham Lincoln was NOT a vampire hunter? Oh. Well that’s disappointing. Old Abe was a whiz with the axe, though, and was basically the original American ninja, yes? No? Bummer. But vampires did play a significant part in the Civil War, correct? NO?! Are you freaking kidding me?! So none of this stuff is true? All Lincoln did was free the slaves and reunify a country that was almost fatally shattered and in doing so became the greatest president in the history of the United States of America? Well that’s a pretty darn good story in and of itself, why didn’t they just make a movie about that? They did? Daniel Day-Lewis, you say? Alright, see you guys later. There are two questions one must consider when evaluating the merits of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter:

1.)    Is this a GOOD movie? (As in, are the characters relatively well defined, is the story fleshed out appropriately, etc.) 2.)    Is this an ENJOYABLE movie? (Are the visuals, special effects, fight scenes, and the rest entertaining enough to make up for any flaws it might have otherwise.)

The answer to that first question is most assuredly, “Sweet goodness, no.” For my money, this is one of the worst screenplays of the year, the kind of low-rent writing that should be reserved for Syfy movies and James Patterson novels. (That’s a cheap shot, Mr. Patterson, and I’d be happy to apologize if you’ll agree to only publish 12 books this year instead of 27.) The plot itself is ridiculous, which is fine, but it jumps from scene to scene in the spirit of an arcade game, not a movie, and gives absolutely no thought to story or character development. Most scenes could have started with a background player saying something to the effect of, “Oh, hey, (insert plot point) just happened!” allowing Abe a reason to spring into action. The cast of Vampire Hunter is solid enough, with Benjamin Walker (Lincoln) surrounded by Rufus Sewell, Anthony Mackie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, but none are given much to work with and almost all of them seem to be keenly aware of what a horrible career decision they made when they signed on for this film. Walker is perhaps the only member of the main cast who appears to be working hard but, bless his fake-bearded heart, he’s just not an especially talented actor. And while some directors might have chosen to patch the holes together with time and skill, Timur Bekmambetov instead chooses to bludgeon his material with a heavy hammer until it’s all a mashed together into a barely-coherent whole.

But like many smaller scale would-be blockbusters, that second question is almost more important for Vampire Hunter than the first. And the answer to that one is resoundingly…NO. It is NOT enjoyable, nor is it worthwhile from an effects/visuals/action standpoint. This is clearly a film that was designed to be a 3D “spectacle” which means that if you’re not seeing it in 3D, you’re constantly going to be confronted with moments of, “WHOOOOOAAAAA! THIS GUY WOULD TOTALLY BE FLYING OUT OF THE SCREEN RIGHT NOW IF YOU HAD A 3D TV!!!” and numerous shots that serve no purpose other than to pander to the 3D gimmick. To me, that sort of filmmaking is just the worst, right up there with the guys who make the Scary Movie spoofs and anything that involves Katherine Heigl. It’s a bit, not a film, and that makes me angry (Hulk smash). Moreover, Abraham Lincoln has little to offer in the way of genuine fun. I am an unabashed supporter of films like The A-Team that have little to offer in the way of good old fashioned quality filmmaking but score major points in the, “I know I shouldn’t like this but it’s so stinking fun” department. This movie has NONE of that sort of dimwitted charm. Screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote the book) acts as if the audience is automatically going to have a swell time with his movie so there’s really no point in bothering to write anything that is inherently enjoyable or fun, which begs the question: What is the bloody point? Answer: There is none. By my count I’ve seen about 80 films from 2012’s crop and I would say about 76 of them are more worthy of your time than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Director: Timur Bekmambetov Cast: Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie Rated: R (Gory violence, some language, and one completely unnecessary example of, “Let’s make sure this gets an R-rating” nudity) Recommended For: Pretty much no one

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Of all the many wonderful and decidedly nerdy things my parents introduced me to, two pop culture entities stand out among the rest: Star Wars and The Hobbit. I fell in love with The Hobbit at a very early age and have never wavered in my devotion to it. I watched that ruddy cartoon adaptation a million times, I read the book for the first time around age 8, and I spent many nights falling asleep to the BBC dramatizations of either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. It is the only book that I make a habit of reading repeatedly having finished it countless times over the years and each time I think I love it a little bit more than before. As such, the very idea of a true-to-book film adaption has excited me for nearly 25 years and the closer we’ve gotten to this film, the more uncontrollably enthusiastic I have become, to the point that nothing short of a Phantom Menace-like event would be able to prevent me from loving this film. And so it is: despite the flaws which are certainly evident and despite the narrative “bloat” that so many of my colleagues are complaining about, I love The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and expect I will only come to love it more with future viewings. Our protagonist and titular character is Mister Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a Hobbit (or a Halfling to the uninitiated) of average appearance but great heart. After coming in contact with a wandering wizard named Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Bilbo is brought into just the sort of adventure that he didn’t know he needed. Bilbo is asked to join a group of 13 dwarves, led by the would-be king Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), as they attempt to take back their home (and their treasure) from the clutches of a monstrous dragon. Without really knowing why, Bilbo agrees to join and through encounters with elves, goblins, and a particularly vicious pack of orcs, comes to find that there is more within him than he ever would have imagined.

The prequel (as it were) to Peter Jackson’s smashingly successful franchise LOTR, The Hobbit focuses less on the weighty issue of good versus evil and more on adventure. It’s a much different tone that may catch unsuspecting viewers off guard but this sense of whimsy holds absolutely true to the book on which it is based. The Hobbit is a children’s book, or at least was intended as one when it was written, and those sensibilities carry over to the film. There’s a bit of goofiness mixed into the film and that comes through both in the narrative and the actions/appearances of the characters. Simply put, The Hobbit (at least in this early stage) is a lighter affair than the darker nature of LOTR and Peter Jackson goes out of his way to highlight that difference early on. My instinct tells me that as this franchise builds and expands, it will take on more of an edge but for now, An Unexpected Journey is first and foremost concerned with fun and adventure and little more.

As many critics and bloggers have noted, the setup for this film takes a while. A long while, actually. Those unfamiliar with the book or who have read it but do not hold it in high regard will undoubtedly find this exposition to be tiresome and longwinded and I would say that’s fair. For me, however, the setup and the exposition served as a glorious reintroduction to the source material that I hold so dearly and if you could have seen my face in the dark of the theater, I imagine I didn’t stop grinning like a schoolchild for a solid hour. Much of the early going is taken directly from the novel, to the point that many lines of dialogue are quoted verbatim, and I loved every minute of it. From our introduction to the characters, The Hobbit meanders a bit (or more than a bit, depending on your position) but never does it lose its way or bog down. I found the exposition to be rather delightful, really, though there is certainly little action to keep the heart pounding. About half way through, the adrenaline is pumped up to a higher level and Jackson takes us through a series of exciting and perilous encounters that bring our adventures to the brink of death many times over. For me, this culminates in the Riddles in the Dark segment in which Bilbo comes in contact with Gollum (Andy Serkis), a twisted creature that will play a significant part in the future. This was a THRILLING scene for me that thoroughly lived up to everything I would have hoped it would be.

From a purely cinematic standpoint, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey succeeds on most fronts. The casting and subsequent acting are, in my mind, nearly perfect. I don’t know when exactly Freeman became a name that caused me genuine excitement but if he hadn’t reached that point before this film he certainly has now. His approach to Bilbo is exquisite and he illuminates a complicated character with great flair. Frankly, I think his performance alone is worth the price of admission for any fan of the book. McKellen’s performance is more familiar but it is nonetheless a quality portrayal and I will say that he does an excellent job of not only navigating the change in tone from LOTR to this but in leading the way to the audience accepting this shift. Armitage’s role in this film is slightly smaller than it will be in the future installments but he displays why he was chosen in the first place by bringing a sense of grim determination to the role that it requires. The film as a whole is beautiful, filled with the sort of outstanding photos and shot selections that helped make LOTR such an achievement. There is perhaps an overreliance on CGI but it is good CGI and did little to hinder my enjoyment overall. I think Fran Walsh and the rest of her team did an excellent job of blending scenes and lines directly from the book along with the addition content. There are only two real additions to the plot mix and while I could take or leave one of them, the other will serve a valuable purpose in the series moving forward. And, as expected, Howard Shore’s score, one of the key elements in LOTR, is utterly magnificent.

In its present state, I would not say that An Unexpected Journey quite lives up to the spectacle of any of the LOTR films. But then again, those are some of my very favorite films and it is unfair to hold a film to that standard. As it stands, I would say that this film a good starting point that at times borders on great and I believe I’ll appreciate it even more once the entire series has been released and I can look at it as one giant and complete film. Regardless, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey should more than satisfy fans of the book, even if it isn’t as easily accessible as the previous series.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Director: Peter Jackson Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage Rated: PG-13 (battle-related violence and a few dramatic and intense sequences) Recommended For: Anyone could enjoy this film but I would say those who have no familiarity with the source material would enjoy it less

In Home Viewings: Ruby Sparks

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is your stereotypical brilliant-but-troubled writer. His first (and only) novel became an American sensation when he was only 19 years old and that success has haunted him ever since. Friendless and lonely, Calvin spends almost all of his time with his brother Harry (Chris Messina) or in the office of his shrink (Elliot Gould) who also happens to be his father. His chronic writer’s block begins to clear, however, after a dream and he spends one glorious and productive night writing a story about a manic pixie dream girl named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan). But just when his story begins to get good, he awakens to find Ruby in his kitchen, a manifestation of his mind that walks, talks, breathes, etc. like any other human. Calvin and Ruby embark upon what seems like a wonderful journey together, made complicated by the fact that Calvin can control Ruby’s emotions, actions, and behaviors simply by typing them out. For the most part, Ruby Sparks is a harmless, fun, and quirky tale that comes equipped with some quality performances. It’s an interesting concept that certainly borrows at times from other films and stories but still manages to come across as fresh. It is often playful and it takes its subject matter lightly which in turn makes Ruby Sparks enjoyable if not particularly noteworthy. The conclusion ventures into significantly darker territory and to be honest with you I’m still not entirely sure if that works for it or not. It is a definite departure from just about everything else the film brands itself as throughout the first two and a half acts. At the same time, Calvin’s melancholy nature does lend itself to the character having an edgier side and that certainly comes out as the film draws to a close. Part of me would have liked to have seen Ruby Sparks take a more dramatic, darker approach to its subject throughout its runtime rather that coming to that place in a rather abrupt manner but then this would have been a decidedly different film and much of its charm would have been lost.

The cast of Ruby Sparks does an excellent job of adding depth and value to characters that are fairly thin on paper. They are all made up of stereotypes and generic traits but Dano, Messina, and Kazan all bring some weight to their roles that make the film much more substantially than it would have been otherwise. Dano is superb, hitting the “troubled loner” nail right on the head. He personifies the right balance between successful and fear of further success, as well as a desperate need for attention, love, companionship, etc. Calvin is much the same as Dano's character from Being Flynn in many ways but his performance here is much stronger. Messina, whose career is absolutely taking off between The Newsroom, The Mindy Project, and his small role in Argo, gives his character a slight air of seediness without becoming the overdone, “Just use this for sex!!!” guy that I kind of expected. For me the best scene in the movie is of Messina’s reaction to realizing the implications of Ruby’s existence. It’s funny and perfectly measured. Kazan, who also wrote the film, is cute and charming and touches on each of the emotions Ruby goes through appropriately. I very much look forward to seeing what she has in store for us in the future, both on screen and behind the camera.

Overall, Ruby Sparks does what it sets out to do and brings together an interesting and quirky narrative nicely. It’s nothing that I would consider particularly special or far-reaching in its aspirations but it is a nice little film that should go over well with most viewers.

Ruby Sparks Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris Cast: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina Rated: R (language, some innuendo) Recommended For: Fans of quirky, indie movies 16 and up

Review: Silver Linings Playbook

It’s safe to say that Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has some issues. After savagely beating his wife’s lover, Pat is diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder and placed in a mental hospital for ten months. He returns home to a father (Robert De Niro) who is at the end of his rope as a bookie, court mandated therapy that he resents, and a manic desire to reunite with his ex, despite the restraining order that stands between them. His life is further complicated when he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow with a whole string of psychological issues of her own. The two strike up a very unlikely relationship that culminates in a dance contest (yes, a dance contest) for the ages that puts all of Pat’s many issues into a vacuum, forcing him to pick a path. Let’s take a brief look at some of the things Silver Linings Playbook had going against it.

1.) Its main subjects suffer from some form of mental illness, which can (read: “does”) lead to an uncomfortable experience for the audience; 2.) Due to the nature of this subject, the tone of the film is decisively uneven at times, skipping willy-nilly from comedy to heavy family drama and back again with reckless abandon; 3.) The overall plot (adapted from a bestselling book) is underwhelming and at times even a bit silly (see the aforementioned dance contest); 4.) Cooper, while extremely talented, is far from a sure thing at the box office and, given his recent history, might even be an audience deterrent; 5.) The age gap between the two stars, 15 years, is somewhat off-putting, made even more so by the fact that Lawrence played a naïve 16 year old in one of the year’s biggest films just a few short months ago; 6.) And if all of that wasn’t enough, a good chunk of the film revolves around the Philadelphia Eagles and their fan base, one of the most reviled franchises in American sports.

To stand in the midst of such an onslaught of potential problems and keep a film’s head above water would be quite an accomplishment. But to turn those problems on their respective heads and put together a good film that even borders on great is a remarkable achievement for which director David O. Russell and his cast deserve great acclaim. This is a film that absolutely should not work but somehow comes together beautifully against all odds.

Much of the success of Silver Linings Playbook comes down to the outright brilliance of the cast. I’m not the first to say this and I imagine I won’t be the last but this is the Bradley Cooper performance I’ve been waiting for. A highly trained, supremely talented and intelligent actor, Cooper routinely makes odd (or downright bad) choices in roles and then tends to sleep walk through material that he clearly believes himself to be better than. Here, though, he is fully engaged and brings Pat to life perfectly. He is all at once likeable, unlikeable, pathetic and interesting, and almost immediately you find yourself rooting for his success despite his flaws. This appreciation is brought about organically and there are few actors who exude the sort of charisma and vulnerability that this role requires. It’s a fantastic portrayal that makes me despise movies like Limitless all the more for how much of Cooper’s time has been wasted.

Cooper is not alone in his greatness, however. Lawrence is in every way his equal, playing Tiffany with a sense of tormented strength that commands attention on screen at all times. Just like Pat, she is a bit unpredictable, which is not an easy trait to portray but one that Lawrence hits on the head over and over again. Tiffany is haunted and as a result she jumps from normal to fits of emotional outbursts that I never really got used to but came to love regardless. The relationship between the two is sort of an acquired taste more than it is “natural chemistry” but this fits the film perfectly and only makes their bond seem more meaningful. To date, Lawrence’s is the strongest female performance I’ve seen this year and one that will undoubtedly factor in during awards season.

If these performances weren’t enough, Silver Linings Playbook also contains two supporting portrayals of particular interest. This is, by far, the most substantial work De Niro has done in at least a dozen years and maybe longer. As someone who considers him to be the greatest American actor of his generation, it has been painful to watch him waste away in terrible movies like Righteous Kill and Analyze That and I’ve often wondered if he even had anything left in the tank. This is a strong reminder that yes, he is still a great actor who is capable of tremendous work under the right circumstances. Less significant but no less important to the film’s strength is Chris Tucker in his first role since 2005 and his first non-Rush Hour role since 1997. His screen time is limited but he adds to the depth of the film overall and left me wondering what I should expect from him in the near future.

My feelings toward Russell’s direction, and perhaps even the film itself, are a bit more complex than my feelings toward the exquisite acting. There are a number of big name directors who would have struggled to navigate all of the potential pratfalls Silver Linings Playbook had in front of it from the get-go and still turn in a quality product and yet there’s a part of me that wonders if this film still could have been better. The story doesn’t always equal up to the actors working within it and the dialogue is at times middling and unimpressive. Some of the background characters are inconsistent which adds to the already up-and-down nature of the film as a result of the tone. I was left with the feeling that Silver Linings Playbook would have fallen incredibly flat if not for the great performances, which is exactly the same way I felt coming out of Russell’s last film, The Fighter.

With that in mind, however, what Russell does extremely well is putting his actors in a position to succeed. Wahlberg and Bale gave the strongest performances of their careers in The Fighter and this is certainly the best we’ve ever seen from Cooper or Lawrence. Russell’s films tend to live or die by the actors and while that isn’t always the best way to go, it gives said actors the chance to shine in ways they never have before. Russell also impressed me herewith his willingness to keep Silver Linings Playbook on the same track for the entire film, to ride out the many ups and downs that come along the way. This film doesn’t come along with much in the way of a soft landing or any artificial emotions and it also doesn’t become quirky which would have been an easy way to ease the natural discomfort that comes along with the narrative. I wasn’t sure that this movie was going to work with me until the very end because it is such a roller coaster of emotions but the way in which Russell brings it altogether strikes a perfect chord, making this an altogether enjoyable experience in spite of all the odds.

Silver Linings Playbook Director: David O. Russell Cast: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Chris Tucker Rated: R (Language, overall discomfort) Recommended For: Ages 15 and up

Review: Life of Pi

Like most moviegoers over the age of 14, I despise the prominent part that 3D technology plays in many of today’s films. It’s a rather stupid technology, in my opinion, and yet the industry spends billions of dollars every year to push it upon us and like fools we buy into it, albeit it perhaps begrudgingly. I consider the 3D treatment to be a gimmick (and not a particularly good gimmick at that) and most of the time I go out of my way to make sure I avoid it. Occasionally, however, word begins to circulate that a particular movie MUST be seen in 3D and in those instances I generally find myself reluctantly acquiescing. So it is with Life of Pi, a beautiful and touching film in its own right that is brought to life even further by one of the best uses of 3D we have seen yet. After falling on hard times at home in India, 15 year-old Pi (Suraj Sharma) and his family decide to relocate to Canada to start anew. Pi’s father sells the animals he housed at the family’s zoo and arranges for freighter passage for his family along with the animals. But a few days into their journey the freighter is beset by a terrible storm and sinks, leaving Pi stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He is not alone, however, as his boat is also occupied by a zebra, a hyena, a chimpanzee, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Nature takes its course quickly and soon Pi is left with only Richard Parker to keep him company, a relationship that takes some getting used to for both parties. With a very long voyage ahead of them, Pi and Richard Parker are forced to find an accord as both need the other to survive.

I haven’t read the bestselling book on which this film is based but I know that it was deemed by many to be a near unfilmable piece of work and I can see why. Told from the perspective of an older Pi (Irrfan Khan) telling his story to a young writer (Rafe Spall), Life of Pi builds its drama not through the lens of whether or not our hero will survive but through what sort of man he’ll be when he reaches the other side. Pi is as much about our protagonist’s struggle to know and understand the mind of God as it is about pure survival and it is in this arena in which the film makes its most indelible mark. But there are many themes at work within this film: spirituality, survival, Darwinism, among others, and each of them are wrapped up in a layer of symbolism, which I’m sure I only grasped a fraction of. It raises a lot of questions but it often allows the audience to ponder them for themselves rather than force feeding an answer. Director Ang Lee juggles many balls at one time and the way in which he is able to bring balance to his film, to give each of the varied themes an appropriate amount of attention and still bring it together into a cohesive whole should be commended. Pi tells a very difficult, complex story and yet Lee manages to boil it down to its simplest and most dynamic form, leaving the audience to delve as deeply as they care to go without hindering the spirit of hard-earned triumph that seeps through every aspect of the film.

From an acting standpoint, Life of Pi is perhaps a little underwhelming. I would call Sharma’s performance slightly above adequate: never bad, never obnoxious (which can be a problem when yours is the only character on screen for extended periods of time) but also never truly inspiring. He does his job satisfactorily but it isn’t quite as strong as I might have expected going in. Khan’s is the much more powerful performance for me as I thought his work brought the story home in a way that Sharma couldn’t quite manage. To be fair, however, Life of Pi isn’t an actor’s movie as much as it is a filmmaker’s movie.

Pi represents Lee being given the green light to create and he does so with incredible flair. I’ve seen a handful of beautifully shot, gorgeous films this year (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Skyfall, and The Master come to mind) but Pi is unquestionably the best of the bunch and one of the more awe-inducing, visually stunning films in recent memory. Lee pays particular attention to the animals in his film and as huge sucker for nature programs, I greatly appreciated the creative and glorious way in which he highlights the beasts, whether Richard Parker or the meerkats that inhabit a remote island. It is also full of vibrant, glorious colors and those colors are used splendidly to help Lee set the tone. Some of the shots, in particular a pair in which the sky is reflected on the water in such a way that the only way you can tell where one ends and the other begins is by pinpointing Pi’s lifeboat, are poster-worthy, magnificent moments that stand out in spite of the overall strength of the rest of the shots that surround them. Lee uses the 3D technology in an innovative way, making his film immersive in the background but also bringing his main subjects (Young Pi, Old Pi, and Richard Parker) into the forefront, making them seem all the more real and more relatable. To this point, I would say Avatar and Hugo best represented the efficient use of 3D but Pi very well may have surpassed them both. This movie is a technical wonder and a well-paced, intelligent one at that.

The nature of the narrative lends itself to a few ups and downs that rock Life of Pi from time to time. It always keeps the audience on edge and while this works most of the time, occasionally I felt as if the constant shifts interfered with the film’s momentum. In addition, while I though the somewhat ambiguous conclusion was perfectly fit for the film, I can imagine that some will find it unsettling or at least confusing. But overall, I found Life of Pi to be an affecting and beautiful film and an experience that won’t soon be forgotten.

Life of Pi Director: Ang Lee Cast: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall Rated: PG (intense situations and subject matter throughout) Recommended For: Ages 12 and up (Boring for younger audiences and possibly too intense at times)

Review: Killing Them Softly

One of the quickest ways to insure that I will pay no heed to your opinions is to insert your political affiliation and beliefs into a decidedly non-political conversation. Recently a friend of mine posted a Facebook status asking for advice as to where she should go on vacation, to which some twit responded, “Just stick to a red state.” Despite living in a red state and at least vaguely supporting the general ideas that tend to fall into the “red state” category, I would like to punch said twit in the face for bringing his personal politics into a conversation that most certainly did not involve them. So it is with Killing Them Softly, a giant and droll political sermon disguising itself as a crime drama, and a film that I would like to punch squarely in the face. Set against the backdrop of 2008 Detroit, Killing Them Softly centers around Frankie (Scoot McNairy), a small time crook looking for an easy score. Through an associate he comes across a job holding up a mob-run poker game overseen by Markie (Ray Liotta). Of course no one is stupid enough to knock over a mob game but here’s the catch: a few years earlier, Markie hired a crew to hold up one of his own games, a move that earned him a sizeable profit but the distrust of those around him. If Frankie and his partner Russell (Ben Mendolsohn) can pull the job correctly, the blame will be placed on Markie, leaving Frankie to get off clean. But, as will happen with this sort of thing, the job goes sideways and before long Frankie finds himself at odds with hitman Jackie (Brad Pitt) and the group he works for.

In an effort to be fair, let’s first have a look at the positives that Killing Them Softly brings to the table. Namely, Brad Pitt is excellent. This is a good role for him, one that allows him to show off the charisma that makes him such an appealing lead but which requires him to get a little grimier than he usually gets. Jackie is a cool customer who pines for the good old days when, as he would have the audience believe, things were more civilized. In another life he might have been a decent guy to hang out with but years of killing for a living and hanging around in this crowd has left him only half human. It’s a quality role and Pitt plays it well. McNairy, too, hits all the right marks, albeit in a smaller role than I envisioned going in. Fresh off a fabulous turn in Argo, McNairy is putting together a solid resume for himself that one can imagine will only lead to bigger and better things in the very near future. On top of these performances, some of the shots, particularly the (few) action sequences within Killing Them Softly are gorgeously captured and put together. These scenes serve as a reminder that director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James) has real talent behind the camera.

The rest of the film, however, is a total waste. The opening credits are obnoxious and come jam packed with so much political vigor that I almost immediately thought to myself, “I’ve made a huge mistake.” I guess I should thank Dominik for letting it be known so quickly what Killing Them Softly would be all about; whatever I might have imagined for the film coming in, within five minutes or so it became clear that what I would be getting is a sermon and there’s no attempt to hide this. Even still, the heavy-handedness of the background statements are so strong as to completely and totally overwhelm any other point the film might have been trying to make, leaving me to wonder why I didn’t just stay home and watch CNN or listen to Glenn Beck. Dominik hammers his point over and over, bringing to mind the old saying about beating a dead horse, only by the end I felt like the dead horse.

But don’t leave here today thinking that the overtly and embarrassingly political nature of Killing Them Softly is the only real problem. No, instead this repetitive drum banging only serves to distract from the films other flaws of which there are MANY. Namely, it’s exceedingly boring. I enjoy a good slow burn (which I expected this movie to be) but in actuality, this is closer to a no burn. NOTHING HAPPENS. It’s a wonder that Killing Them Softly even got a wide release because it feels like the sort of art house feature that a few critics love but the masses never bother with. There are multiple scenes that could have and should have been scrapped altogether and do absolutely nothing to further the plot. Moreover, entire characters have no reason to exist within this narrative. James Gandolfini plays a prominent role and yet (and I am not exaggerating here) his character accomplishes and adds, literally, NOTHING. He flies in town to do a job, he acts like a tool, he doesn’t do his job and then OFF CAMERA his character gets in trouble and has to bail. I’m still scratching my head as to what purpose his character was supposed to hold. The music often feels forced and comes across as just plain annoying after a while. Killing Them Softly drags painfully, too, somehow making 97 minutes seem like three hours. For once I can forgive the rude moviegoer in the row in front of me who spent the entire back half of the film playing with his phone because, quite frankly, I was doing the same thing. Then there’s the matter of that pesky title which is downright terrible. Of course I knew going in that the title was bad but once I actually sat through this thing its horribleness struck me even more. Unless the title was meant to be foreshadowing for what this film would do to its audience, in which case Killing Them Softly hit the nail on the head.

Killing Them Softly Director: Andrew Dominik Cast: Brad Pitt, Scoot McNairy, Richard Jenkins Rated: R (Heavy and suggestive language, moments of harsh violence, general awfulness…) Recommended For: 17+ hardcore indie movie buffs

Review: Red Dawn

I want to make a couple of things clear right up front with you dear reader. First, Red Dawn is in no way, shape, or form a good movie. By almost any measure it is, in fact, a pretty terrible movie. Second, by no means would I recommend any of you spend your hard earned money to see it. If you choose to ignore this advice I will not be held responsible for your loss of $10 and 95 minutes. Third, I was in an emotionally damaged state when I saw this film having just had to put my beloved dog down. As such, my brain was probably not in a trustworthy state. Please keep all of these disclaimers in mind now when I tell you that despite all of its many, MANY, plot holes, absurdities, and general foolishness, I enjoyed the crap out of Red Dawn. There are really only four things you need to know about the “plot” of Red Dawn:

1. Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth) is home in Spokane on leave from his duty with the Marines; 2. The North Koreans (all 24 million of them) attack and invade the United States, knocking out all of our communications and (apparently) rendering our military incapacitated; 3. Jed and his brother Matt (Josh Peck), along with a group of untrained teenagers, form a resistance group known as the Wolverines who fight back against the insurgents who have taken over their town; 4. Despite being completely new to this whole “warfare” thing, the Wolverines cause serious problems for the North Koreans and eventually force a major confrontation that will decide the fate of our country.

And that is all.

If I were to turn my appraisal of Red Dawn into a pros and cons list, the cons would FAR outnumber the pros. It’s an absolute mess, really. It isn’t enough that the premise itself is ludicrous. The idea that the North Koreans would invade and find some level of success in taking over this country is absurd. Nuke us, maybe. Engage in biological warfare, maybe. But outright invade and take over? Not so much. Byond that, though, the rest of the plot is rife with holes to the point that you actually find yourself surprised in the few instances when it manages to string together two consecutive scenes that sort of make sense. It is constantly jumping from one place to the next and you’re just supposed to fill in the gaps on your own. The dialogue is painfully cliché and cheesy and most of the time it is delivered in a manner more befitting a Disney channel pilot than a major motion picture (the budget for Red Dawn was $65 million by the way). Several of the actors are incredibly bad and while some of that can be chalked up to inexperience (Josh Peck) or lack of talent (Connor Cruise), I know some of these performers are capable of more than what they exhibit in Red Dawn (Adrianne Palicki). Some of the blame for this can probably be pinned on the haphazard way in which this film was edited after the fact (it’s been sitting on a shelf for almost three years) and some should be aimed at first time (and probably last time) director Dan Bradley whose entire career has been dedicated to stunt work (so you know it was in good hands!). The tone of Red Dawn constantly fluctuates between campy and overly serious, rendering the film completely devoid of an identity. And if all of that wasn’t enough, the movie comes to a conclusion with all of the precision of a bad Saturday Night Live bit at the end of the show and none of the charm.

All of these missteps (and a dozen more that I don’t have time to note) should make Red Dawn an utter disaster. But it does have two things going for it. One, it’s got Chris Hemsworth and at the end of the day, if you have Chris Hemsworth, you’re not completely worthless. This is pre-Thor Hemsworth and he’s definitely a little rough around the acting edges but that doesn’t keep him from being a presence on the screen. He brings sincerity to his role and he does his best to sell his (terrible) movie to you and because of this, he makes what would be an unwatchable movie at least partially watchable. Two, in spite of all of the screw-ups, missteps, and “How in the world did they expect us to buy this?!” moments that plague Red Dawn, it is still, at the end of the day, entertaining. Not entertaining enough to make it good or even overly enjoyable, but enough to make the theater experience relatively fun. It is very much an 80s movie and with an experienced filmmaker at the helm, it might have been made to play like an 80s action movie homage which probably would have worked quite well. As it stands, it doesn’t go nearly far enough into the realm of the over the top ridiculousness that makes films like The Expendables and Taken so much fun and so worthwhile. But for me, it was entertaining enough to stick with it and I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that when Red Dawn makes its way to HBO, I’ll probably watch it again…and again.

Red Dawn Director: Dan Bradley Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki Rated: PG-13 (lots of violence, language including the big one to ensure that all-important PG-13) Recommended For: Teenagers who don't know any better. And me, apparently.