This Hugh Grant romantic comedy looks like a throwback to the kinds of movies he used to do- hopefully it turns out decent. I miss the days when likable romantic comedies could actually be made- the term does not have to be synonymous with crap, you know. This one's coming out February 13th, right in time for Valentine's Day. I do like that it's an age-appropriate pairing for once (no Colin Firth/Emma Stone issue with this one).
REVIEW: "Citizenfour" (2014) Dir. Laura Poitras
If you're not necessarily someone who believes Edward Snowden was a hero or a patriot, or are not sure you believe in what he and other whistleblowers have been doing these last few years, the good thing about Citizenfour is that it's such a compelling and superbly made film that you can watch this without agreeing with it and still be entertained by it.
Laura Poitras was one of the three people in personal contact with Edward Snowden at the time that he decided to leak thousands of government documents that he stole from the NSA in 2013- and her new film shows us what it was like to be on the inside with the man in question, the one everybody was talking about as he dealt with the events of that week in real time. It's a fascinating and intensely gripping thriller, if not exactly revelatory, except perhaps about who Snowden is as a person. We all remember when this happened, it was less than two years ago- what Poitras' film shows us is what was going on on the other side. She pulls together footage of interviews with Snowden as he hid out in his hotel room in Hong Kong, while she and handpicked blogger Glenn Greenwald were the only people with access to him. He explains to them why he's doing this and why he thinks it's important- and he comes across as not disingenuous in his intentions, while also not exactly a firebreathing crusader (unlike say, the self-aggrandizing Greenwald, who spends the movie practically salivating at the chance to publicly take credit for his once-in-a-lifetime scoop).
We don't find out a whole lot about Snowden personally, and perhaps that's because he wanted it that way. What he thinks is the story, and the most important factor, is the content of the documents he's handing over to the journalists, and the revelations about widespread wiretapping and spying the NSA and other governments (the UK comes across just as bad if not worse) have been doing to their own citizens in the years after 9/11. This is a documentary with a clearly articulated point-of-view, and Poitras airs the arguments of Snowden, Greenwald and others who feel adamantly that civil liberties are being not just infringed upon, but systematically chipped away at. It's a debate that will be familiar to anyone who's been following the news for the last year and a half, and no real effort is made to indulge the other side of the argument ("national security" is a term practically scoffed at and dismissed entirely by Greenwald in one particularly long, sanctimonious lecture he gives to the Brazilian press late in the movie).
But films with a point of view can lead to better filmmaking, and the politics of this movie, while of course important and essential to our national debate, are beside the point no matter what side of the spectrum you fall on, because the movie is just so entertaining and frankly, exciting to watch. Poitras' footage being in real time allows us to feel the urgency and anxiety that Snowden felt as he sat around for days in that hotel room, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her secret communications with him after he's smuggled out of the country give us a sense of anxious anticipation, felt on her side when she realizes she's being followed. And the various cameos by familiar figures like Julian Assange and Jeremy Scahill provide the plot with complications and twists as it makes a bigger point about the new atmosphere of crusading whistleblowers and civil liberties champions who promise to continue taking on powerful governments in the name of preventing what they see as potential dictatorships forming in an era where power is accumulated through secret surveillance.
The tension is expertly wrought and the movie is so professionally put together in the order of the actual chronological events that it feels less like a documentary and more like a real life conspiracy thriller. For the entertainment value alone, this is a great movie to see- and whether or not it teaches you anything new about the state of government surveillance in our society (for me it didn't), it still raises the questions and keeps the debate relevant, which is indeed a worthy goal.
* * * 1/2
TEASER: "Fantastic Four"
So here's the teaser for the Fantastic Four reboot coming in August. Gotta say, it looks pretty generic to me. I bet it won't be all that much better than the one that came out in 2004. The director is Josh Trank, who did Chronicle, but nothing about this teaser looks exciting in the slightest.
'Birdman,' Eddie Redmayne, Julianne Moore Win at SAG
So there you have it- the movie that seemed like the logical SAG ensemble winner has won, but the bigger surprise to me is Eddie Redmayne stealing this award from Michael Keaton. The SAG winner for Best Actor almost always wins the Oscar (the last one who didn't was when Johnny Depp won for Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003), so that Best Actor race is really close. Unfortunately (and even though I think it's a bullshit win), with the Globe, SAG and very likely BAFTA to come, I'm probably going to have to swallow the bad taste in my mouth and predict Redmayne for the Oscar now. Gross (I may have mentioned before how bad Theory of Everything is, and I don't intend to stop dissing it as Redmayne gets closer to the statue that should belong to literally any other nominee in that category. Seriously, go Bradley Cooper, even). The other winners went as expected.
- BEST ENSEMBLE: Birdman
- BEST ACTOR: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
- BEST ACTRESS: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
- BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
- BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
As for what this means for Best Picture, well...I have to admit, SAG + PGA is a pretty powerful combo. With those wins, it's clear that Birdman has the support of the industry, and now it comes down to DGA, historically the strongest Best Picture predictor of the guilds. If Linklater wins, I'd say Boyhood is still in the running, and the votes are very close between that and Birdman. If Inarritu wins, then yeah- I think it's all over and Birdman will definitely win the Oscar as well. All eyes turn to the DGA now (which hasn't even voted yet), and is set to announce Saturday, February 7th.
BOX OFFICE 1/23-1/25: 'American Sniper' Stays Strong with $64 Million
The box office beast that is American Sniper kept chugging along this weekend, dropping a miniscule 28% to bring in another $64 million to pass $200 million in two weeks. That's pretty amazing- clearly the buzz, Oscar nominations, and now all the controversy and partisan political bickering it's brought up in the media has led to increased interest. I think there's no doubt now that it will quite easily become the highest grossing movie of 2014, beating both Guardians of the Galaxy and Hunger Games to do so (even though it will have made most of its money in 2015). For me that's actually a good thing, simply because it's not a superhero/franchise movie or sequel- and it shows that that original, adult-oriented movies can and will connect with the public if there's interest. That's a good sign for the future too.
The other new releases this weekend didn't do much, aside from J-Lo's The Boy Next Door, a cheap thriller which made it to No. 2 with $15 million. Good for her, but expect it to vanish by next week, as these kinds of January releases do. George Lucas' animated film Strange Magic opened soft with just $5 million, and Johnny Depp's Mortdecai becomes his latest flat out bomb, coming in with a terrible $4 million. Depp seems to be in career free fall; maybe his mob drama Black Mass later this year will be a return to form? The rest of the top five were holdovers, with Paddington doing fairly well as the family audience movie of choice.
Top 5:
- American Sniper- $64.4 million
- The Boy Next Door- $15 million
- Paddington- $12.4 million
- The Wedding Ringer- $11.6 million
- Taken 3- $7.6 million
Several of the limited release Oscar indies came back into theaters this week to receive their nominations bumps, but other than American Sniper, the highest grossing of the pack is now The Imitation Game, which crossed $60 million and landed in 6th place with another $7 million- it's still on track to cross $100 million by Oscar night. Most of the new arthouse releases had disappointing openings this week, including Jennifer Aniston's Cake, which probably would have benefited from a nomination for her, especially as it got dreadful reviews overall. Come back next week for what will undoubtedly be American Sniper's continued reign, because it's another pretty dead weekend for new releases, with only the thriller The Loft opening, along with Kevin Costner's drama Black or White.
'Birdman' Pulls off an Upset Win at the PGA
Wow. After last year's first ever tie, the PGA gives us another shocker when the movie no one expected had a chance at winning the top prize actually pulled it off. Seriously, most assumed this was Boyhood, but if not that then The Imitation Game, The Grand Budapest Hotel, or maybe even American Sniper (producers like box office success, after all). But Birdman? Things just got very interesting.
BEST ANIMATED FILM - The Lego Movie
BEST DOCUMENTARY - Life Itself
BEST PICTURE - Birdman
It was actually a surprising night all around, as the PGA also rewarded the two nominees in Animated and Documentary feature that didn't receive Oscar nominations. But what does this mean now? Well, to me it signals that Boyhood's support is soft, and clearly vulnerable to an upset. I told you before, the PGA winner has matched Oscar's Best PIcture the last six years in a row, because they use the same kind of voting system. That means Birdman has to be considered a real possibility now, and the other guilds become more important as well, just like they were last year. Does Birdman pull off the SAG win tomorrow, or will it be something else, confusing things even more? Can Linklater still win DGA, or does Inarritu suddenly come out on top? The last time the industry significantly breached from the critics and Golden Globes was when The King's Speech took out The Social Network back in 2010. This may be the beginning of another year like that one...but I have to say, even with this shocking upset, Birdman would still be one of the weirdest, most bizarre Best Picture winners ever. Then again, it is about Hollywood people, so maybe that makes up for all the dark stuff? Come back tomorrow to see if SAG throws another wrench into this now very close race.
REVIEW: "Inherent Vice" (2014) Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin. Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
There's something to be said for having such a distinct vision that no other mind could possibly produce the kinds of films that spring from that of one Paul Thomas Anderson. Yet, in creating such an insular, uninhabitable universe you're bound to alienate many who might otherwise find something to grasp for themselves in this world. Is it not the point of filmmaking to expose others to the kinds of worlds, people and stories you see as special? Perhaps the world of Inherent Vice will be within reach for some (probably not many) and if they manage to get something profound out of it, more power to them. For me, it worked in fits and starts, and though we are undeniably in the hands of a major talent, it still ends up ultimately frustrating, because of how much potential greatness there is in the scenes that do work.
P.T. Anderson went about the chore of adapting Thomas Pynchon's epic novel for this film, a neo-noir set in 1970 Los Angeles, right as the hippie scene was beginning to burn out. This is a counterculture world post-Manson murders and Nixon's election, and the feeling of entrenched atmosphere in this movie may well be the best thing about it. Joaquin Phoenix is a stoner PI who gets involved in a case at the behest of his former flame Shasta (newcomer Katherine Waterston), who appears to him in his shaggy wasteland of a living room, begging him to come to her aide, and then just as quickly disappears without a trace, leaving us to question whether she might ever have really been there at all. You question the reality of many of the events of this film, as Phoenix's character Doc Sportello (great name) spends virtually the entire time stoned and sometimes talking to an invisible (except to him) narrator, played by Joanna Newsom, whose baby-talk voice relays us a form of narration with words that border on meaningless in retrospect.
I can tell you right now that this plot is impossible to follow, so you might as well not even try. Most noirs dwell on overly complicated plots (famously, the screenwriter of The Big Sleep had no idea how his own story ended and didn't care), but this one takes the cake, as it spends excessively long scenes explaining details of characters and actions I could not keep track of, or know at any moment what anyone is talking about. The selling point is simply the moodiness and the post 60's paranoia and culture that permeates every frame- if it's possible to obtain a contact high from a film, this is the closest one comes to giving you that since at least 1998's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. My advice is to let it wash over you and lose yourself in the period setting, spot on production design and far out costumes, not worrying about what's actually occurring onscreen, because if you do you're bound to be driven mad.
That may be the best way to experience this movie, but is that really the best way to go about making one? I'm not sure that the intent of any filmmaker can be to deliberately baffle and perplex his audience- at times I wished Anderson had thrown out the plot entirely and purposely languished in the moodiness, ala another classic neo-noir (and one of my favorite movies) Altman's The Long Goodbye, which this recalls in spots. And yet, buried within the fog of hallucination are some fantastic scenes, most having to do with Doc's still burning love for Shasta, who occasionally re-appears in flashbacks or hallucinatory conversations, to reignite their long lost love and ponder the meaning of what they were or could have been. This angle of the story is so profoundly beautiful and emotionally resonant that it makes you sit up and pay attention in a way the rest of the film demands that you not- and you're suddenly involved and engaged just as quickly as you're jerked back into a state of daze and confusion. It seems a shame in that sense- perhaps the slavish faithfulness to the book prevented a more cinematic focus that might have drawn Anderson's interest more than the incomprehensible plot details that seem designed to make eyes and ears glaze over, especially the longer they go on. But for the funny moments, the atmospheric detail, and the haunting love story buried deep in the heart of it, I do recommend Inherent Vice overall. Some of it is just too good to miss out on.
* * *
Movie of the Day: "Fair Game" (2010)
Our last movie this week is a docudrama from Bourne Identity director Doug Liman that chronicles the Valerie Plame scandal of the mid-00's. Remember that one? Plame was a CIA agent whose name was leaked to the press by the Bush White House as revenge for her husband Joe Wilson's publication of the non-evidence he found of weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq War. This scandal seemed to go on forever, and the movie combines both Valerie Plame's and Joe Wilson's books on the affair to tell us what happened from their point of view. Naomi Watts is nearly perfect casting as Valerie (she looks just like her), while Sean Penn takes on Joe, kind of perfect as well as the outspoken, openly anti-war journalist. Watching this movie puts us right back in the early years of Iraq and the Bush administration, and it's actually disheartening to remember how vengeful and toxic the atmosphere was in the country back then, as an administration filled with incompetent liars did everything it could to ruin those who disagreed with them, while pushing the country into one disaster after another in its panicked and idiotic response to the 9/11 attacks. This is a good movie to watch to remind yourself of how things used to be, so that you can be even more grateful for where we are now, and the best thing about it is that it didn't sugarcoat facts or obscure any names in the telling of this story. The culprits are all right there on the screen, as they deserve to be.
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2015 SAG Predictions
So, this weekend's big awards show is SAG, or the Screen Actors Guild Awards (you know, the one on TBS & TNT, that starts out with random people talking to the camera saying, "My name is blah, blah, blah..and I'm an actor"). It's cheesy, but at least it's short. I think I have a seriously decent shot at getting these all right this year too (at least on the movie side), so here we go.
Female Actor in a Supporting Role
- Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
- Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
- Emma Stone, Birdman
- Meryl Streep, Into the Woods
- Naomi Watts, St. Vincent
So, yeah- Patty Arquette takes this in a walk, as she will every televised precursor award (maybe there's a tiny shot Keira can upset her at BAFTA, but I doubt it). It's all hers.
Male Actor in a Supporting Role
- Robert Duvall, The Judge
- Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
- Edward Norton, Birdman
- Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
- J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Funny how this category repeated 5 for 5 at the Golden Globes and the Oscars, but I guess no one was willing to be creative this year with the supporting men. Another lock- Simmons all the way.
Female Actor in a Leading Role
- Jennifer Aniston, Cake
- Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
- Julianne Moore, Still Alice
- Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
- Reese Witherspoon, Wild
I assume it's vet Julianne Moore, right? There's maybe a slight chance for Jennifer Aniston here, because of all the TV actors in SAG- but I think that would have been higher if she'd gotten the Oscar nod (everyone likes to be right). Predict Moore for this.
Male Actor in a Leading Role
- Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
- Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
- Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler
- Michael Keaton, Birdman
- Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Ok- so this one is the one spot with an upset possibility. Keaton fits the SAG profile very well- he's a veteran actor (they love those) in a comeback role, etc. But I'd say there's at least an equal chance for Redmayne or Cumberbatch here. Frankly, the SAG Best Actor winner almost always goes on to win the Oscar, so if it's anyone other than Keaton, we'll know that this category isn't quite locked yet. But Keaton's the safe bet, so I say stick with him.
Ensemble
- Birdman
- Boyhood
- The Grand Budapest Hotel
- The Imitation Game
- The Theory of Everything
This is the most interesting category at this awards show, because the SAG ensemble doesn't always match up with Best Picture- sometimes they vote for it that way (like when Slumdog Millionaire and Argo won), other times they really do go for the biggest cast or the most interactive ensemble work (Little Miss Sunshine, The Help and American Hustle all won this award). Basically, whether or not they go for the actual cast depends on how strong the love is for the Best Picture frontrunner. I'm going to say that the love for Boyhood isn't that passionate and Birdman takes this one. I don't think the kind of passion that carried Argo and Slumdog to those best ensemble wins exists for Boyhood (frankly, the acting of the kids in the movie borders on bad). Outside chances exist as well for Grand Budapest and Imitation Game (there are actually quite a few TV actors in Imitation's cast), but since Birdman is about actors it gains the upper hand here.
Another thing to note this weekend is that Saturday night is the PGA awards dinner, in which the Producers Guild gives out its top prize. The PGA winner has been the Oscar winner every single year since the Academy expanded its Picture nominees from five upward, so whatever wins that is very likely our Oscar winner as well (the PGA is roughly the same size as the Academy and uses the same kind of balloting system, which is why the winners tend to match). My money's on Boyhood there for sure- if it wins at PGA there's nothing that will stop it. The only other films with a chance to take it down are The Imitation Game and The Grand Budapest Hotel, so we'll see what happens.
Movie of the Day: "Charlie Wilson's War" (2007)
Mike Nichols' last movie was this comedy-drama written by Aaron Sorkin that showed how Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) partnered with a CIA operative (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to launch a long-running operation that helped to organize and arm the Afghani mujahadeen against the Soviet Union during the 1980's. The operation lasted years of course, and ultimately led to the creation of the Taliban, which is something the movie kind of glosses over, but for anyone paying attention it's all definitely there on the screen. The actors are great in this, but Philip Seymour Hoffman kind of steals the show as the disgruntled CIA guy (he was nominated for another Oscar for this performance). A political film peppered with Aaron Sorkin's dialogue could never fail to be entertaining at the very least.
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REVIEW: "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" (2014) & "The Boxtrolls" (2014)
Two animated films to definitely check out this year were from studios besides American powerhouses Disney and DreamWorks, and the reason people should see them is because both push the art form beyond the generic, bright colored, snarky-funny corporate formula that has utterly entrenched American animation in the last half dozen years. If you see either one of these films you'll be seeing something different, and thereby special, which is a word I can't remember the last time I used to describe an animated film from this country.
The first is The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, from Japan's Studio Ghibli, and famed writer/director Isao Takahata, who hasn't made a movie in 17 years. His work was known for its darker, depressing, more realistic themes (check out Grave of the Fireflies if you're feeling in a melancholy mood). This one veers away from that though, and into more magical areas, having been based on the Japanese folktale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter." It tells the story of a man who finds a small, human-like creature in a bamboo tree, and takes her home to raise as his own child. She turns out to have vaguely magical powers of her own, and the answer to her mysterious background gradually reveals itself as she's raised to be a "noble princess." The look of this film is absolutely stunning, relishing in the hand drawn style of storybooks, as you can practically feel yourself turning the pages as the princess grows from a girl to a woman. You can get lost in the art itself, but the what's most welcome is the story, which is a radically feminist tale of a young woman wanting to choose her own destiny and her own fate, from her biological origins to her adopted family, all of whom want to decide her future for her.
This is a wonderful story with a terrific message, and a beautiful film for kids to see- I may have to make an exception to my "no dubbing" rule, if only so that English-speaking children can be exposed to the wonders of this magnificent world. It would be a shame to limit their imaginations to the increasingly "same-y" quality of CG movies, especially with alternatives like this available, even if you have to make the effort to seek it out. I encourage you to do so. The other animated film that made it into this year's Oscar race (at the expense of The Lego Movie) is The Boxtrolls, a delightful little frolic that also boasts a stunning visual palette, even more so because most will probably watch this movie and assume it's the normal CGI animation, but it's all stop-motion, another field entirely, and one that's far more difficult to accomplish.
Based on the British novel Here Be Monsters!, this was produced by the new studio Laika, which has established itself as one of the only studios in the business dedicated to producing stop-motion animated films, and previously released Coraline and ParaNorman. The Boxtrolls tells the somewhat routine story of a baby boy named Eggs, who's raised underground by the little troll monsters of the title, and when years have passed eventually has to fight to save his adopted family from the evil pest exterminator Archibald Snatcher (voiced by Ben Kingsley and seemingly modeled after the creepy childnapper from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang- remember him?) Set in the early 1800's in the fictional city of Cheesebridge, the movie is peppered with the quirky British humor that recalls movies like Chicken Run (one of my favorites), and through its tone is willing to go to darker and slightly grosser places than you'd see in any other animated movie (whether that appeals to you or repels you may depend on your sensibilities) and the look of every frame of this film is so crowded with breathtaking detail, lighting and particular shapes and expressions that you could watch this entire thing with the sound off and still be taken with it.
Luckily the story is engaging enough that that's not the case, and the experience is a fun, funny and wondrous little detour through a fantasy world unlike any other. You can't go wrong with either of these films, and Princess Kaguya I would especially recommend as a masterpiece of the form. For the animators that go out of their way to single out unique expressions of the art, frankly I don't think that their choices in this year's Oscar race constitute a snub of a certain lego-oriented hit, but more an endorsement of movies that want to take themselves and their medium much more seriously. Both of these do just that, and pack a considerable punch.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya: * * * * / The Boxtrolls: * * *
Movie of the Day: "Milk" (2008)
Our next movie dealing with real life political events is 2008's Milk, which won Sean Penn his second Oscar, and was by far the most deserving of his two wins (not a huge fan of Mystic River). He carries this movie as famed gay rights activist Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, as San Francisco's city supervisor. The movie's actually not all that different from Selma in its attempt to document a particular time and place, recreating the atmosphere of late 1970's San Francisco and the political battles the gay community waged against people like anti-gay crusader Anita Bryant. Gus Van Sant directed it with a sure hand, blending real life footage and fictional narrative seamlessly, but Penn's performance is utterly dominating- you don't see him in any inch of this movie, it's all Harvey Milk. One of the great biopic performances ever.
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