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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:18 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| inla--Thanks for referencing The End of the Tour, one of my favorites of the year as well. Cannot begin to imagine why both Messrs. Segel and Eisenberg have been totally, utterly, completely shut out of any consideration for year-end awards. It's just another indication of how ridiculous the whole shebang can get. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2015 1:53 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
Posts: 1949
Location: Lawrence, KS
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billy, if I knew that, I'D be Honorary Mayor of Hollyweird. It's probably too intelligent, too unconventional and too Too for that, um, film society, or most of the awards bestowing organizations. All I know is I was riveted -- My Dinner With Andre meets Almost Famous by way of Sideways on Philomena's dime, or sump'n, and its own exceptional, unclassifiable animal at the same time. And, yes, Mssrs. Segel and Eisenberg never missed a beat, to put it extremely mildly -- incredible interface and investment. Not to mention the delicacy of touch helmer Mr. Ponsoldt maintained, or the understated naturalism of the surrounding players -- notably a delicious Joan Cusack, and the tag-team of Mamie Gummer and Mickey Sumner -- or the ripe, literate spontaneity of the reams of dialogue, deceptively simplistic narrative arc and subtly shifting construction of Mr. Margulies' script. It seemed a defining post-millennial Film of Ideas, a striking dual character study, a subtextual parable about the conflict between artistry and ambition, humanity and celebrity, and an instant indie classic.
Edited for dyslexic repetitions |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:54 pm; edited 3 times in total
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2015 8:56 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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If they ever get a chance to see a film so half-heartedly distributed, there will be some, perhaps many, who will dislike the Sarah Silverman starrer I Smile Back, for denying them the usual catharsis associated with addiction stories. In most of these movies-of-the-week-style tellings, the addict goes to rehab, finds AA, and lives a day at a time forever. Music swells, tears swell, everything's swell. Well, I Smile Back has different, more honest, more tough-to-take things on its mind, and so does Silverman, who gives a merciless, direct, honest, and spectacular portrayal of a middle-class housewife caught in the throes of addiction to practically everything--including booze, sex, drugs, you name it.
The most impressive thing about Silverman's acting is how understated it all is. You might expect that a comedian as successful as Silverman would try to use her comedic skills to soften a character. But not here. Though traces of her comic skill peek out in the wry spin she gives to certain lines, she plays it so straight it hurts like sin. Not since Michael Keaton (Clean and Sober) and Nicolas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas) have I seen addiction played so stunningly. (She's supported by some great actors, too--Josh Charles as her husband, Thomas Sadoski as the sleazy "friend" she sleeps with, and Chris Sarandon as her long-estranged father.) Kudos to the SAG nominating committee for giving her a nod as Best Female Actor in a movie so far under the radar. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:58 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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I had low expectations for Trumbo going in. Because it's a sort-of-biography of the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee but went on to victory and became a kind of pioneer in fighting McCarthyism, I was expecting to see a snoozer--part canonization, part dry history lesson, a modern-day (well, 1950s-day) version of Gandhi (which you should know I pretty much loathe).
Surprise. Trumbo is none of the above. In the hands of Bryan Cranston, the character of Dalton is not a saint; he's very funny in a self-dramatizing way which makes him simultaneously irritating and enjoyable. Cranston doesn't hold back, and though hambone acting is not exactly his comfort zone, he handles it expertly, backed by a good supporting cast inclding the ubiquitous Dame Helen Mirren as the toxic right-wing gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G, Robinson, Diane Lane and Elle Fanning as his wife and daughter, and John Goodman as a Z-movie producer who hires Trumbo when no one else will. The movie is above all a lot of fun, the last thing I predicted it would be. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Dec 31, 2015 10:20 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6963
Location: Black Hills
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| Going in, I thought The Big Short might be in similar territory to 2011 film, Margin Call, and it was...but better and going for the big picture in a way that MC could not manage. TBS might be my favorite in the madness-of-Wall-st. genre. It's truly an ensemble performance and everyone does a fine job without stopping to have an Oscar moment. The 4th wall breaks are great fun, too...and informative on the workings of shoddy financial instruments. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 11:25 am |
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Joined: 30 Oct 2014
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Location: Winnipeg: It's a dry cold.
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I saw The Big Short last Tuesday. I really liked it, but I had a problem figuring out all the business the different groups were working at. I did understand it though. And the acting was excellent. The only thing I didn't care for was that it had very many close-ups.
I also so Brooklyn the week before. Very good movie, and the actress was excellent. I've got a feeling that some people who have watched it, didn't care for it. Hope I'm wrong. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 4:18 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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Ubiquitous Year-End Film Faves Dept.:
Saw far too little film in the flesh in 2015, not a single foreign language film and far too few documentaries, our favorite genre; but fortunately, what one did see was more choice than not. As always, our mantra: it's all so subjective....
In the cinema, no film hit us harder nor lingered longer than Room, with Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay beyond praise, setting the bar for dual playing, not to mention Preternatural Commitment to A Formidable Technical Challenge; at that, author/adapter Emma Dongohue, director Lenny Abrahamson and all concerned were no less commanding in executing an unforgettable, run-the-gamut experience, as harrowing and intense as it was transformative and uplifting. All these months later, can still recall it in the cerebral cortex and solar plexus. A Great Film.
And then, barreling out of the blue at year's end, came Anomalisa, which found Charlie Kaufman yet again burrowing his iconoclastic, completely incomparable mindset into the deepest, most mundanely trenchant aspects of the human condition, and with stop-motion puppets, to boot. Together with co-director Duke Johnson, Mr. Kaufman took what might seem a gimmick and turned it into the driving force for an existential parable that defied, and continues to defy, easy classification or even description. David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh and the indefatigable Tom Noonan stood apart from any other performers of the year, for reasons both obvious and obscure, as did this inexplicably gripping, unquestionably Groundbreaking Film for, if not The Ages, certainly The Age in Which We Live. Extraordinary.
Nipping at its heels, The End of the Tour, wherein Jason Segel, revelatory, and Jesse Eisenberg, atop his game, gave The Second Tandem Turn of 2015's Great Tandem Turns, their interplay the raison d'être of as idiosyncratically original and riveting a Film of Ideas as any to come down the rapids in some time. Thanks as well in no small part to director James Ponsoldt and a delicious supporting cast, notably Joan Cusack, Mamie Gummer and Mickey Sumner. Unlike anything else out there in tone, theme and realization, it made us think, react, listen and reflect, and what more can one ask of a film?
And then, there was/is Brooklyn, in sum and parts as precise, fulfilling and fulfilled an Old School motion picture as any we've seen in ANY year, beautifully adapted by Nick Hornsby, invisibly directed by John Crowley, executed to the hilt by a top-drawer production team and a marvelous ensemble -- plus-perfect in every particular, from the great Julie Walters and the entire Irish contingent to Bona Fide Finds Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson as the two romantic points on the ostensible central triangle -- surrounding the luminous Saoirse Ronan, here unequivocally establishing herself a Leading Lady of the First Order as its heartfelt, ineffably moving emotional apex.
And then, there's Spotlight, which wasn't just the best film about the journalistic process since All The President's Men -- which it most assuredly is -- but a benchmark film about why print journalism remains unparalleled in its value to civilized society. Director/co-screenwriter (with Josh Singer) Tom McCarthy's years in the small film milieu serve him and the subject royally in terms of keeping a real-time feeling to the engrossing proceedings, with all creative factions integrated into the whole with remarkable taste, reach and genuine intrigue. The starry cast could hardly be more effective, an ensemble in every sense of the word, and the understated, inexorable grip of the narrative and topic couldn't be more incisive or compelling. Exceptional.
Speaking of Leading Ladies of the First Order, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, the Third Great Tandem Turn of 2015, radiated an unalloyed, deep-dish investment in Carol (seen a rare second time, which it rewards immensely) that, by virtue of the deliberate restraint and nascent assurance in which director Todd Haynes enveloped them -- and the whole watershed High Art enterprise. for that matter -- registered from beneath the Classic Hollywood patina with seismic force, through the subtlest, palpably felt of means, into the viewer's subconscious. A triumphant masterwork of Style as Substance, Nuance as Narrative, from Ed Lachman's lensing throughout the entire creative and acting roster. The final series of shots is perhaps our favorite sequence of the year.
Ex Machina slides in after that, all of a resolute, resourceful, post-millennial psy-Fi piece. Though not a genre we automatically warm up to, an unrecognizable Oscar Isaac, the aforementioned Mr. Gleeson and the uncanny Alicia Vikander brought absolute, enigmatic conviction and gravitas to writer-director Alex Garland's exceptional debut, all the more haunting and chilling because of the calm, post-Kubrick plausibility of its premise, narrative and effects. Spare, specific and unsettling, an off-handed dystopian cautionary of no small visceral and philosophic impact.
Next up in Last-Minute Catch-Up of Films We Have A Hunch We'll Dig: Amy, at last, and the rest of the unseen, from Joy, Inside Out, Straight Outta Compton, Beasts of No Nation and The Martian to BIg Short, Grandma, Suffragette, Son of Saul, and Trumbo, et al, can shake down as they will in 2016. Happy cinematizin', all, oh, and
inla out |
Last edited by inlareviewer on Wed Jan 06, 2016 8:19 pm; edited 9 times in total
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| Syd |
| Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 8:44 pm |
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| I've seen Joy, Straight Out of Compton, and, of course The Martian and Inside Out, and you've got some good viewing coming out. The last two are my favorites of the year. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Fri Jan 01, 2016 11:11 pm |
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Syd wrote: I've seen Joy, Straight Out of Compton, and, of course The Martian and Inside Out, and you've got some good viewing coming out. The last two are my favorites of the year.
Syd: All of that is good to hear. Will be editing the Year-End post to incorporate Anomalisa, which quite literally beggars description in any rational sense, nor is it like any film I'VE ever seen -- groundbreaking, in fact. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 7:32 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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Can't wait to see Anomalisa, about which I have heard great things from everyone including (now) inlareviewer, who is currently tied with Matt Zoller Seitz as my fave film scribe.
You really should all see I Smile Back, in which Sarah Silverman gives as unsparing yet underplayed a depiction of addiction as I've yet seen on screen. She's right up there with Brie Larson and Cate Blanchett (for Truth, not Carol) as Best 2015 Female Lead in my book.
Picky proofreader's note for inla, btw: Jason spells it S-E-G-E-L, not Segal. Sorry for being such a prude. But thanks for the shout-out for The End of the Tour, one of my favorites of 2015. As is the woefully undersold Infinitely Polar Bear, in which Mark Ruffalo gives (yes, it's all so subjective) the Male Starring Performance of the Year. |
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| inlareviewer |
| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 4:32 pm |
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Joined: 05 Jul 2004
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Location: Lawrence, KS
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| willybeeds, you make us blush, Segel typo corrected, adore The Silverman, Mr. Ruffalo seldom disappoints, added to the (packed) Catch-Up list, and yes, The Latest Kaufmania is mandatory viewing. |
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"And take extra care with strangers/Even flowers have their dangers/And though scary is exciting/Nice is different than good." --Stephen Sondheim |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 5:36 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: Can't wait to see Anomalisa |
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 11:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: AZ
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I found Carol unpleasant viewing. I didn't like the small smoke filled rooms and the harsh cold of the road trip. I did not feel a genuine connection between the two women. Of course they were stylish and the settings had a vintage feel but passion? Not what I witnessed. Compared to the two principals in The Danish Girl. You could feel their intensity and delight in each other. And as the movie went on you could sense the confusion the gender issue created.
My favorites were Spotlight and Steve Jobs. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 11:51 pm |
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The Hateful Eight features nine people trapped in a lodge during a blizzard. Two of them (Marquis Warren and John Ruth, played by Samuel Jackson and Kurt Russell, are bounty hunters. Jackson is transporting three corpses. Russell is transporting only one, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is worth more than the three put together. He is keeping her alive because he likes to see his captures hang. Along for the ride is Chris Mannix (a very good Walton Goggins), a member of a family of lost-causers currently raiding black settlements, but his job is to be the new sheriff of Red Rock. When they arrive at the inn, all the usual inhabitants are gone, except for General Smithers (Bruce Dern), who is most notable for being on the losing side of the Battle of Baton Rouge (Jackson's character was on the other side) and massacring black troops. Mannix's family idolized him; Warren has a different opinion. There are also a Mexican who claims the owner of the lodge left him in charge, and a cowboy who claims he is writing his autobiography, a Brit who says he's the new hangman for Red Rock. The ninth person is the stagecoach driver, who is not one of the hateful eight.
Note: we have four Southerners (the General, cowboy, sheriff, and prisoner) three northerners (The bounty hunters, who soon have a monopoly on firepower--we think, the stagecoach driver), the Mexican (who favors the Southerners) and the Englishman, who wants to keep things peaceful-like. So we have an explosive situation, but not in the way it first appears.
For much of the movie, it is one of those dramatic set-pieces which allow Tarantino to amp up the tension (the opening and nightclub scenes from Inglourious Basterds come to mind), but for some reason, he didn't quite have me on the edge of my seat this time. He has solid performances, excellent cinematography, and a twisty plot that he has to resort to flashbacks and omniscient narration to resolve. It takes quite a while for violence to erupt, but when it does, it's extreme.
I didn't find it as compelling as Tarantino's last two movies (perhaps it needed Christoph Waltz), but it's certainly worth checking out. Jennifer Jason Leigh, by the way, starts out with a black eye, gets elbowed, punched and progressively bloodier, but as the movie goes on, you see how she earns it. She's quite a piece of work. She also supplies a lot of physical humor as she spends a good part of the movie handcuffed to Kurt Russell but tries to act nonchalant. This may be one of those Oscar nominations given for service above and beyond the call of duty. I can't say how good she is, but it's a demanding and decidedly strange role.
PS: Am I seriously the first person here to review this film? |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2016 1:37 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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whiskeypriest wrote: billyweeds wrote: Can't wait to see Anomalisa ...because if there is one thing I would think you would be eager to see it is a Charlie Kaufman production.
ROTFLMAO. Though I did find Adaptation more than watchable. As for the three other Kaufman "masterpieces," one of them (S.NY) is forever on my Least Favorite List and the other two are on my Most Overrated List, so yeah, Kaufman ain't my cuppa.
But I'm still looking forward to Anomalisa. Hope springs eternal. |
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