This month, with no particular holiday that symbolizes all of January, in order to kick off the new year, the theme is movie musicals. Listed on the Movie of the Month page is the description for the January theme, with its celebration of music, and click here for the list of ten diverse movies that have something to do with music, be it an old-fashioned musical, concert documentary or even rock mockumentary. Have fun with the movies this month, as all are exciting, vibrant, music-filled events that will hopefully fill your life with song. The list includes one of my favorite comedies, A Hard Day's Night, as seen above.
BOX OFFICE 1/04- 1/06: "Frozen" Tops in its 6th Weekend
The unstoppable Frozen returned to #1 this weekend with $20 million, taking it just $3 million shy of $300 million, to become Disney's second biggest animated hit of all time, behind only The Lion King. The movie's performance has been pretty astounding, as it will almost surely continue to chug along, with awards success coming up and no other family film on the horizon. In second was Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (above), following the recent trend of releasing horror films in January, which took in $18.2 million, the lowest ever debut for a Paranormal Activity movie. It also received a dismal C- from audiences, but given the fact that these movies are so cheap, pretty much all of them are profitable in the end, no matter how bad.
In third was The Hobbit, which took a steep drop with $16 million, amassing $229 million total, and unlikely to cross $300, making it the first Peter Jackson Middle Earth movie not to do so. The controversy-ridden Wolf of Wall Street came in at #4 with $13 million, which is actually a pretty decent hold from last week, considering its bad Cinemascore. It could be that the headlines have helped spark curiosity towards it, or that it's attracting the right crowd now, with people who know what to expect going in. The total so far is $63 million, while American Hustle is doing even better, right behind it this weekend but already with $88 million and guaranteed to cross $100 in the next week (and that's before its possible victory at the Golden Globes).
Top 5
- Frozen- $20.7 million
- Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones- $18.2 million
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug- $16.3 million
- The Wolf of Wall Street- $13.4 million
- American Hustle- $13.2 million
In other holdovers, Anchorman 2 pulled in $11 million this weekend for a total of $109 million so far, one of the big comedy successes of the year, and Catching Fire has now made $407 million at the domestic box office and is certain to beat Iron Man 3's $409 million total to be the #1 movie of the year (incidentally, the first time that spot's been held by a movie starring a woman since the 1960's!). Next weekend it's The Legend of Hercules, but January continues to be a dead month for any new films, with the Oscar movies in wide and limited release continuing to kick around and televised awards season about to start off with the Golden Globes on the 12th. See you then!
REVIEW: "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2013) Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill. Dir. Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street has been under fire for the last couple of weeks, embroiled in what's essentially the same controversy that last year's Zero Dark Thirty was tangled up in. That's whether or not the directors of these films took a hard enough stance on an inflammatory moral issue, whether it was appropriate for them to document in a non-judgmental fashion the behavior of individuals that we know for a fact took place, and took place right in front of us. In Kathryn Bigelow's case, it was the sanctioned torture practices that government officials engaged in, and here it's the outrageous and frankly obscene partying, misogyny and reckless and illegal practices of scamming people out of their money that stockbroker Jordan Belfort had a hand in on Wall Street in the 90's (and he may have been one of the small-time criminals compared to recent years, as the movie itself points out).
It's not fair to ask artists to be the ones to take a moral stance, to depict and judge the culture in ways that it hasn't been reconciled with by society. We want justice done in our movies because we haven't gotten it in real life, and films like this rub our faces in that fact in a way that makes many uncomfortable. Yes, the behavior of these men was and is infuriating, and the fact that they escape virtually unscathed even more so. But then we have to ask ourselves why then, if this kind of behavior is so universally reviled and repulsive and morally wrong, has none of it been dealt with as of yet in our society? No prosecutions or convictions for Wall Street criminals who brought down the economy, none for those in the highest levels of government who sanctioned war crimes. Like it or not, this is the society we've become, where certain kinds of people live in a consequence free world and are immune from the kind of justice the rest of us can't escape, and rather than reveling in their behavior, Martin Scorsese in the final shot reflects a mirror back at us, conveying his belief (although open to interpretation) that we're the ones who allow this kind of thing to happen.
Unfortunately, any time an artist portrays a culture in a way that's ambiguous it has to be left open to interpretation from those who are going to take the opposing view- that it glorifies what's being portrayed. In this film, we are essentially treated to a three hour romp of orgies, drugs, and outlandish recklessness from Jordan Belfort and his cohorts, and it's they who revel in their money, toss it away, spend their time in a constant state of drug induced euphoria and clearly treat women as objects to be used and humiliated. If people are appalled by this behavior, that's probably a credit to their own morality, as I'm sure there are wannabe bankers who will seek to emulate it, just as Scarface's Al Pacino stands as an icon to a whole generation of gangsters and rappers (in other words, those who missed the point). But at the risk of attracting that crowd and in order to make a film you can sit through, this is all treated as a black comedy of the highest order, and Leonardo Dicaprio gives what's arguably the greatest performance of his career.
He certainly gives the role everything he's got, and commits fully to the drug crazed, narcissistic Jordan, who enters Wall Street at age 22 and about two seconds later is immersed in the manic, alpha male lifestyle, with Quaaludes and hookers his vices of choice. It's a hilariously committed, very physical performance that has him doing things on screen you probably never thought you'd see him do (the final Quaalude scene had my theater in stitches), and he's joined by Jonah Hill in a slyly funny turn of his own as his weaselly little pal Donnie. The movie itself is basically three hours of debauchery that, while entertaining, does grow tiresome after a while, although it can certainly be argued that depicting excess in an excessive manner is the point of the whole exercise. But I think that the film could have shaved 45 minutes off its running time and still made its point in style.
You have to give credit to the 71-year-old Scorsese, who after all these years has lost none of his edge in making a movie so daring as this one, and is still able to ruffle feathers of those who find it so blatantly offensive. But to them I would say, is it the movie that's offensive, or is it the reality of Wall Street culture and the consequence/ risk free lives these crooks live every day, right under our noses, that bothers you more? Because as Scorsese and Jordan Belfort tell us, this happens, and we do nothing. And to me, therein lies the real outrage.
* * *
"Inside Llewyn Davis" Sweeps the National Society of Film Critics
Finally, the last of the four most important critics groups in the country has their say (after New York, LA and NBR), and they give Inside Llewyn Davis nearly everything, including Picture, Director, Actor and Cinematography. I had a feeling this might happen, considering the fact that it seems to be falling out of favor within the industry, so the last big critics group felt they had to step in and save it.
- Picture: Inside Llewyn Davis (Runner-up: American Hustle)
- Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis (Runner-up: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity)
- Actor: Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis (Runner-up: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave)
- Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine (Runner-up: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color)
- Supporting Actor: James Franco, Spring Breakers (Runner-up: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club)
- Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle (Runner-up: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years a Slave)
- Screenplay: Before Midnight (Runner-up: Inside Llewyn Davis)
- Cinematography: Inside Llewyn Davis (Runner-up: Gravity)
- Foreign Film: Blue is the Warmest Color (Runner-up: A Touch of Sin)
- Documentary: The Act of Killing and At Berkeley (tie)
- Experimental Film: Leviathan
Since the industry awards are well under way, with Oscar ballots due on Wednesday, the only thing this might do is draw some last minute attention towards pushing Llewyn Davis to an Oscar nomination. We'll see.
2013 WGA Nominations
The Writers Guild is usually the least important of the guild awards, simply because there are so many scripts every year that are ineligible for recognition because they were written by non-Guild members. This year 12 Years a Slave, the likely Oscar winner in this category, is ineligible, as well as Philomena. But the original screenplay contenders were mostly eligible here this year, so these nominees do tell us something:
Original Screenplay
- American Hustle
- Blue Jasmine
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Her
- Nebraska
Adapted Screenplay:
- August: Osage County
- Before Midnight
- Captain Phillips
- Lone Survivor
- The Wolf of Wall Street
What this shows us in the Original category is that Dallas Buyers Club took out Inside Llewyn Davis, which was eligible, and continues the all around strong guild support for that movie, as well as the total lack of it for the Coen Brothers film. If Inside Llewyn Davis comes up empty at the BAFTA nominations on Wednesday, I'll have to assume it may be snubbed for Best Picture after all. The only other surprise nominee here is Lone Survivor filling an empty slot in Adapted, but I think both that and August: Osage County will be replaced by Philomena and 12 Years at the Oscars. However, that Original category may be duplicated exactly at the Oscars, unless Llewyn Davis suddenly has a resurgence within the Academy. The WGA winners are presented on Saturday, February 1st. The next guild up is the Directors Guild, the most important one of all, which announces its nominees on Tuesday.
TRAILER: "Veronica Mars"
At long last, the trailer for Veronica Mars is here! It's mostly footage fans have already seen from the first look a while back, but it's still exciting! The movie's coming out March 14th.
REVIEW: "Prisoners" (2013) Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal. Dir. Denis Villenueve
There are certain kinds of material that, especially if not having the advantage of being "based on a true story," always runs the risk of veering into melodrama. Stalkers, serial killers, and stories of children being kidnapped and parents enacting revenge are the kinds of topics that Lifetime movies are often based on, and it takes a good director who can elevate this kind of material into gripping suspense without camp seeping in. That's essentially what French-Canadian director Denis Villenueve tries to do with Prisoners, and he only occasionally succeeds.
The movie starts off on a normal Thanksgiving in dreary Pennsylvania, with one family joining another for dinner, as the kids play with each other outside. The families are made up of good actors, with Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello as one couple, and Terence Howard and Viola Davis as the other. All of them give convincing portraits of ordinary people, Jackman especially in a role that's different from any other he's ever played- Keller Dover is an angry, conservative, doomsday preparer who already seems on edge as the holiday approaches. But things take a turn for the worse when the 6-year-old daughters of both couples disappear after wandering outside, and seem to have been snatched by the creepy guy in a nearby RV where they were playing (he's Paul Dano of course, who's now been completely typecast as "the creep" in every movie he appears in). A manhunt goes into effect, and police Detective Loki is called in, an interestingly tattooed expert who happens to have solved every case he's investigated (played very well by Jake Gyllenhaal).
This is a long movie, and we spend a lot of time following Keller's continual crisis and descent into madness (although it's not much of a descent, seeing as the guy was already stacking bags of lye in his basement), which gives Hugh Jackman a chance to go big with the fury and emotion, which he does. And he does it well, coming off as a genuinely scary and threatening guy when he kidnaps Dano's character and starts torturing him for days, convinced he's the culprit despite no evidence and that he'll eventually talk. Gyllenhaal is especially good as the conflicted cop, and the actor seems to have taken on certain mannerisms and tics that suggest a more interesting backstory than what's explained about Loki (which is nothing), so all credit for that goes directly to him. But the movie does sink into that pulp crime area despite Villenuve's attempt to restrain the material with a constantly gray and/or rainy Pennsylvania setting and methodical procedural storytelling. This is an attempt to make a David Fincher movie without David Fincher behind the camera and it shows. The last half hour or so especially veers off into silliness, with Melissa Leo in overly hammy mode as the creepy aunt of Paul Dano, and some extremely convenient coincidences take place in order for everything to wrap up just right.
As a routine thriller this is better than your average offering, and it may be worth seeing if you're a fan of the actors, but the self-seriousnesss reveals itself as slightly pretentious, especially as it approaches the climactic third act and the cliches start piling up. I wasn't fooled.
* *
Central Ohio Film Critics go for Gravity
It's been a while since a critics group weighed in, so here comes Ohio with their winners. Gravity wins big here:
- Picture: Gravity
- Director: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
- Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
- Actress: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color
- Supporting Actor: James Franco, Spring Breakers
- Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
- Actor of the Year: Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, & The Wolf of Wall Street)
- Ensemble: American Hustle
- Original Screenplay: Her
- Adapted Screenplay: The Wolf of Wall Street
- Breakthrough Film Artist: Adele Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color
- Cinematography: Gravity
- Score: Her
- Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
- Foreign Language Film: The Wind Rises
- Documentary: The Act of Killing
- Overlooked Film: Short Term 12
2013 Producers Guild Nominations
Well, the all important Producers Guild has announced its Best Picture nominees:
- 12 Years a Slave
- American Hustle
- Blue Jasmine
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Nebraska
- Saving Mr. Banks
- The Wolf of Wall Street
The PGA is important because it's roughly the same size as the Academy (a little smaller) and this is the only guild that uses the same ballot of preferential voting for Best Picture that the Academy does, so for the past four years (ever since the Academy upped its nominees from 5-10) the winner of the PGA has also won Best Picture. This also makes a strong argument that Dallas Buyers Club has enough support from both the actors (SAG) and the producers to make it into Best Picture at the Oscars. Everything else was pretty expected, although I'm surprised The Butler didn't make the cut. As well as the Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis, but I think that will be the one that replaces Blue Jasmine in the Oscar lineup. The PGA announces its winners January 19th. Next up, the Writer's Guild announces its screenplay nominees tomorrow.
PGA Animated Film Nominees:
- The Croods
- Despicable Me 2
- Epic
- Frozen
- Monsters University
Movie of the Day: "When Harry Met Sally" (1989)
This all time great romantic comedy classic is also my favorite New Year's Eve movie. You've probably seen it, but this is one of those that's incredibly easy to watch again and again, at least for me. Billy Crystal is Harry and Meg Ryan is Sally of course, as the two friends who meet in their twenties and spend the next 12 years arguing over whether men and women can ever really be friends. Directed by Rob Reiner but written by Nora Ephron, it's really Ephron's movie, because the dialogue sparkles back and forth perfectly between Harry and Sally and even though some say it's a bit of a knockoff of Annie Hall, if it's true it's one of the great knockoffs of all time, because it stands clearly on its own, even 25 years later. See it again. And Happy New Year everybody! See you in 2014!
Original Trailer:
REVIEW: "American Hustle" (2013) Christian Bale, Amy Adams. Dir. David O. Russell
American Hustle is a dizzying array of spectacularly colorful characters interacting with each other in various ways through varying combinations of cons and cons on top of cons- it may be a puzzle to keep up with, but it's a grandly entertaining time at the movies, and David O. Russell's best film to date. Russell's coming off a hot streak lately, with The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook both popular hits that took traditional genres (boxing movie and romantic comedy) and gave them a new spin in the form of Russell's specialty- a kind of manic energy he infuses in his actors by directing them in an improv heavy manner where he shouts new lines from off screen as they work take after take. It's a method that gives his films a unique feel, but this one in particular feels most unique of all, because he's not so boxed in by the genre trappings of what the last two films ultimately were at their core.
The movie is based on what was an actual scandal in the 1970's, known as ABSCAM, where an FBI agent used a con artist to entrap several corrupt politicians in New Jersey, but Russell gets around the true story aspect by stating flat out at the beginning, "some of this really happened." How much is a question mark, but it doesn't really matter at all, because he takes the character of Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), based on the real life con artist Mel Weinberg, and creates several fictitious ones around him in order to conduct romantic triangles, emotional entanglements, crushed friendships and hilarious interactions that are the real focus of all of his films- as he said himself to Christian Bale once, "I don't give a damn about plot- I'm all about character." I would advise you to keep that in mind while watching this, because it comes across, and the delight we feel in seeing these characters interact is really what the movie's all about, and what makes it so special.
Whatever plot there is involves Rosenfeld and his mistress/partner-in-crime Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who are coerced by FBI agent Richie DeMaso (Bradley Cooper) into going after the mayor of Atlantic City, Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), who's actually a goodhearted guy with genuine intentions, and whose shady mob ties are only employed to help the people of his city. One of the more intriguing undercurrents in the film is how Irving, Sydney and Carmine all come across as the real good guys in the story, while the crusading FBI agent feels more like a villain in the way he attempts to entrap (through some very ethically questionable procedures), the crooks and congressman he's targeting. Rosenfeld's wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is the wild card in their schemes, as the unhappy yet irresponsible mother to Irving's adopted son, and she gets a lot of the loudest, most attention grabbing lines, which she plays perfectly (even if for me she was a little overhyped, as I didn't find that Lawrence necessarily stole the movie from anyone else in the cast).
All the actors are a blast, with Christian Bale and Amy Adams best in show, giving their characters depth and layers, piled under the various disguises and bogus identities they live to show off. One of the best scenes in the movie is early on, when their characters meet and fall in love while dancing in a laundromat, entranced by all the different outfits circling around them, representing their one wish to be, as Adams' Sydney puts it, "someone other than who I was." That description applies for just about every character on one level or another, whether through actual fraudulent identity, elaborate costume changes (Irving's first scene shows him putting together the world's most complicated combover) or simple personality shifts. Amy Adams does a great job at living two characters- herself and Lady Edith Greenslee, the British noblewoman she makes up as her alter ego, whom she cleverly keeps slipping in and out of.
The film is Russell's most vibrantly alive to date, with the atmosphere, costumes and setting of 1970's New Jersey hurling itself at you so fiercely that you can practically taste the hairspray in the air- all while the soundtrack kicks in with perfectly timed renditions of 70's hits as the camera swirls in circles, capturing the very essence of the manic lives these people live in the wake of other well known government corruption scandals of the decade. On first watch, you can take this film as an entertaining con movie, a kind of companion piece to the The Sting in all its twists and revelations- but upon further reflection it reveals more layers than you might at first realize, and you wonder whether the film itself was playing an elaborate con disguising greatness as goodness, the way its characters get lost in their own false identities. It's a question worth pondering, and worth asking again.
* * * 1/2
Movie of the Day: "The Apartment" (1960)
Today's movie is Billy Wilder's The Apartment from 1960, a movie that I consider to be absolute perfection. It stars Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter, a poor shmuck who's constantly used by his associates at work for his bachelor apartment, so that all these married men can have their affairs in a safe place. One of those affairs is Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) who, like Baxter, is also being used by a married man. When she tries to commit suicide in the apartment it's Baxter who takes care of her, and a perfect friendship is born. Billy Wilder was one of the best writers in movie history, and his dialogue is so perfect in this one it's a joy just listening to it. A smart, cynical and yet ultimately optimistic story about sad people prone to holiday blues (this is also set between Christmas and New Year's) learning how to take a step forward in life. As I said, it's perfection.
Original 1960 Trailer:
