My Top 10 Metal Albums of 2014

Posted on January 5, 2015 by necromoonyeti

I don’t think a New Years rolls by that I don’t say something amounting to “odd-numbered years produce better music”. The trend inexplicably holds true once again. I actually listened to a good bit of new music this year–far more than I did last year at least–but when it came time to recap, my options felt… a bit lacking. The best of the best are still grand indeed, but the quality drifts away rapidly if I dig beyond a top 10. I’m pretty happy with the list I ended up with though, and I hope you’ll find something new and inspiring in the tracks I’ve sampled below:

10. Agalloch – The Serpent & the Sphere (track: The Astral Dialogue)

Marrow of the Spirit was a pretty bold divorce from everything we’ve come to expect out of Agalloch over the years, for better or worse. On The Serpent & the Sphere, the band make a return to a more direct evolution of their regular sound. The album offers a nice mix of vintage Agalloch and further dabblings into the post-rock/metal sphere. It didn’t grab me by the balls and thrash me upside the head like say, Pale Folklore or Ashes Against the Grain, but it’s definitely a solid entry in the band’s formidable discography.

9. Cormorant – Earth Diver (track: Daughter of Void)

I was a bit more critical than complementary of Earth Diver when I reviewed it a few months ago, but that mostly boiled down to the feeling that it could have done with better production. Honestly, if I don’t own the cd proper I have no business speaking of such things, because for all I know my copy is just a bit lossy. The raw songwriting on this album is stellar, and I hope to hear more out of this band in years to come.

8. Bast – Spectres (track: Outside the Circles of Time)

I am not sure where Spectres would have placed on my year-end list had I had a bit more time to listen to it, but it could only have moved up from here. I’ve only had about two weeks to check this out and make a call, but I was dead convinced that it belonged somewhere in my top 10. The freshman album by this dirty doom trio does it all, and better than your band. With ease they develop a post-rock build-up into a bassy doom dirge, bust into a stoner metal rockout, and then fuse it into some pretty sinister black metal sounds. When black metal leaks its way into headbanging rock, really awesome things happen. Case in point: “Outside the Circles of Time”.

7. Blut Aus Nord – Memoria Vetusta III – Saturnian Poetry (track: Clarissima Mundi Lumina)

A bit more down to whatever planet these guys hail from than the 777 trilogy, Saturnian Poetry is still a bizarre journey into another dimension that only Blut Aus Nord can seem to access. Its constant whirlwind of motion blasts us into a haze of celestial chaos, wherein the band’s synth chords and clean vocals command us to stare in awe and reverence. Few black metal bands on the market can claim to have forged as unique a sound within the genre as Blut Aus Nord, and they’re still breaking my brain in 2014.

6. Saor – Aura (track: The Awakening)

I tend to think of Aura as a straight-forward album that serves its purpose beautifully. Top-notch woodwinds and string paint a majestic Scottish landscape where the old gods still tread in all their glory, at one with the earth and its people. Without ever really breaching any new territory beyond the tried and true boundaries of pagan metal, Andy Marshall has managed to craft what is probably the most grand Gaelic/Celtic variant of the genre I have ever heard.

5. Boris – Noise (track: Melody)

I fucking love Boris. You know that. They could literally shit on an LP and I’d claim it shear brilliance. But thankfully, they keep pumping out one masterpiece after another instead. Noise is so layered in the band’s two decades of perpetual evolution that I don’t think you could begin to grasp what the hell is going on here if you didn’t already know half their discography by heart. It’s a little bit of everything they’ve done before all crammed together in yet another novel new way. No other band in existence sounds anything like this, and at the same time few bands have borrowed more liberally and diversely from other musical scenes than the bastion of badass that is Boris. Boris Boris. Boris! God damn, this is awesome.

4. Woods of Desolation – As the Stars (track: Unfold)

As the Stars is 2014’s Aesthethica, albeit of more modest proportions. If the obscure Welshman known simply as “D.” could append to his public image anything approaching the epic douchiness of Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, it might even be popular. (Ok, I’m one of the few people who’ve actually read Hunter’s writings and think he makes some valid points, but whatever.) This album is a bloody mess in the least figurative of ways, and it’s exactly the sort of raw sincerity that I love about post-black metal. In a new scene that divorces black metal’s brink-of-the-abyss soundscape from its machismo closet-bound harbingers, the bands that play with their hearts on their sleeves tend to touch closest to home. As the Stars offers neither the epic intensity of Liturgy nor the refined sound quality of Deafheaven, and the metal world is sure to forget it in time, but my brief love affair with Woods of Desolation will be remembered fondly. Its humble reach is part of what makes it endearing.

3. Harakiri for the Sky – Aokigihara (track: Jhator)

I hold my top three choices for 2014 in a league far above the rest. Aokigihara is an absolutely enormous bastion of sound that presses the weight of its world on your shoulders from start to finish. And that world is heavy indeed, because it is firmly rooted in reality. Harakiri for the Sky doesn’t play that tried and true metal game of glorifying violence. It shoves some real modern nightmares in your face and says “this is really, really terrible, and there’s nothing we can honestly do about it.” I can see this album attracting a “DSBM” label, which is typically shorthand for “wallowing in self pity”, but Aokigihara is the real deal. If it doesn’t leave you feeling a little sick inside, you aren’t paying enough attention.

2. Spectral Lore – III (track: The Cold March Towards Eternal Brightness)

At more than a dozen listens through this album, I am still not sure what to make of it. 87 minutes of music crammed into seven tracks is pretty hard to swallow, and to make matters worse, the first two tracks are its weakest by far. I find it next to impossible to commit myself to a full attentive listen from start to finish, and it’s not an album that offers much on the surface. Yet, I can’t escape the feeling that something really special is going on here. My mind may drift away for three or four minutes at a pop, but I am always drawn back into some beautiful synergy that dances on the brink of euphoria. 2014 might be at an end, but I haven’t finished listening to III by a long shot. I am going to keep plugging away until I’ve got it fully within my grasp, and when I do I think I might regret passing it by for the #1 spot.

1. Panopticon – Roads to the North (track: The Long Road Part 3: The Sigh of Summer)

The first time I heard Roads to the North, I was routing a rather lossy early leak through my Droid into the particularly horrendous sound system of my wife’s Mazda 6. (My 2006ish Nissan Sentra has godlike audio and the car was half the price. What’s up with that?) I definitely did not think on that initial listen that it would end up my favorite album of the year. With a properly purchased copy through my headphones, it’s easy to tell why an album as subtly mixed as this would translate to crap when pushed through crap. I am absolutely captivated by the melding of sounds on this album. It’s simply beautiful, and you couldn’t ask for a more conscientious artist to craft its folk, post-rock, black metal, and melodic death metal melodies than Austin Lunn. The lyrical and thematic content of Kentucky showed him to be one of the most honest musicians in the metal scene. On Roads to the North, he translated the spirit of Kentucky into sound. Kentucky is the album I think about. This is the one I actually listen to, over and over and over again.

Happy New Year!

What Lisa Watched Last Night #108: Damaged (dir by Rick Bota)

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the first Lifetime movie of 2015 — Damaged!

Chris Klein in Damaged

Why Was I Watching It?

You guys know me and how much I love Lifetime movies! Damaged was the first Lifetime movie of 2015 so it’s less a question of why was I watching it and more a question of how could I not watch it.

What Was It About?

Damaged is yet another Canadian thriller that has found a home on Lifetime. Sam Luck (Chris Klien) is the big, affable, and quite frankly dumb teacher who has a nice house in the suburbs with a dog and a wife (Tasya Teles). He also is co-owner of a diner because … well, why not? (I got the feeling that the filmmakers just happened to have a diner set available.)

Anyway, Sam’s luck changes when the new teenage neighbor moves in. Her name is Taran (Merritt Patterson) and, along with frequently flirting with Sam (who also happens to be one of her teachers), she also constantly has flashbacks where she’s either watching her mother have sex with an unseen boyfriend or standing in a cemetery while it rains.

As Sam grows closer to Taran, strange things start to happen. His car is stolen but fortunately, Taran offers to allow him to drive her never-seen father’s car. His dog disappears. He’s informed that a student has accused him of sexual harassment. His partner in the diner accuses him of embezzling money. With all this happening, who else can Sam turn to for comfort other than ~~his wife~~ the teenage neighbor girl next door?

What Worked?

Damaged was an example of my favorite type of Lifetime movie: A complacent couple in the suburbs has their life destroyed by a malevolent outside force. There’s something always fun about watching these smug suburbanites discovering just how easily their domestic bliss can be destroyed.

Merritt Patterson did a pretty good job in the role of Taran. At the very least, she seemed to be having more fun than anyone else in the cast.

Finally, Damaged deserves some credit for not shying away from giving us a properly dark ending. If this was an old grindhouse film, Damaged would be advertised as being a movie that “goes all the way.”

What Did Not Work?

So, here’s the thing. If you, as a filmmaker, want us to sympathize with your lead character or, at the very least, hope that he doesn’t end up getting totally destroyed, it might help to not make the character a total moron. As I watched the film, it was hard for me not to think about all the things that Sam could have done that would have prevented him from getting into this situation.

Here’s just a few examples:

1) When you’re a teacher and one of your students offers to give you her daddy’s car, don’t accept the car. Why? Because you’re a teacher and she’s a student in your class! Yes, I understand that it was a really nice car but again: Student. Teacher.

2) When you’re a teacher and you’re feeling depressed because someone has suggested that you’ve been sexually harassing your teenage students, don’t pour your heart out to the teenage girl who lives next door.

3) When you’re a teacher and one of your students offers you an expensive watch, don’t accept it!

4) When you’re a teacher and one of your students says she wants to go out and have fun with you, don’t go!

Seriously, it seems like most of Sam’s problems could have been avoided if he had bothered to read the Rules For Teacher/Student Interaction booklet that I’m sure he was given when he was first hired. As such, it was hard to have much sympathy for Sam. (Or his wife for that matter because, as badly as things turned out for her, she is the one who married the idiot in the first place.)

However, just to make clear: part of the fun of a movie like this is shaking your head at the stupid things some of the characters do. And overall, Sam’s stupidity just made the film more fun. So, I guess it’s debatable whether this is something that did not work. (Though it certainly didn’t work that well for Sam, personally…)

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

At first, when I thought Taran just had an obsessive crush on Sam, I related to her because it reminded me of when I was in high school and I had a crush on Mark, who was engaged to our speech and debate coach. One weekend, Mark accompanied us all on a road trip to a speech tournament in San Antonio. One night, at the motel, I slipped on this pink Victoria’s Secret nightie that I had specifically bought for the trip and then I sneaked out of my room and pulled down on the fire alarm so that I could specifically meet Mark when he came running out of his room in his boxers and I could pretend to be all panicky (and in need of comforting) about the fire. Ah, memories.

But anyway, as the movie progressed, I realized that I actually had less in common with Taran. For instance, I’ve never tried to kill anyone.

Lessons Learned

The main lesson I learned was one that I already know. If the police ever catch you doing something wrong, be sure to cry. I already knew that crying was a good way to get out of speeding tickets but, according to the final scene of Damaged, it can get you out of a lot worse as well.

As for any teachers who may have been watching, I think the main lesson would be to read your code of conduct.

2014 In Review: 14 of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Songs of 2014

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It's funny — most of my fellow TSL editors are over there listening to Death Metal and meanwhile, I'm over here listening to Taylor Swift.

— Lisa Marie Bowman (@LisaMarieBowman) January 4, 2015

Continuing our look back at 2014, below you’ll find 14 of my favorite songs of the past year. Now, you should understand that I’m not necessarily saying that these are the best 14 songs of the year. Instead, they’re just some of my personal favorites. These are the songs that either made me want to dance or that I inevitably found myself singing off-key while I was in the shower. These are the songs that got stuck in my head and which I found myself singing whenever I was stuck in traffic.

These are 14 of my favorite songs of 2014.

(By the way, click on the links in this sentence if you want to see my favorite songs of 2013, 2012, and 2011.)

14) Everything is Awesome — Tegan and Sara featuring The Lonely Island

13) Mess Is Mine — Vance Joy

12) Summer Nights — Kaskade featuring The Brocks

11) Chandelier — Sia

10) Take Ü There — Jack Ü (featuring Kiesza)

9) Blank Space — Taylor Swift

8) Runaway (U & I) — Galantis

7) Blue Sky Action — Above & Beyond featuring Alex Vargas

6) Fancy — Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX

5) Stolen Dance — Milky Chance

4) Get Low — Dillon Francis & DJ Snake

3) Don’t Leave — Seven Lions (featuring Ellie Goulding)

2) Shake It Off — Taylor Swift

1) Long Way Down — Robert DeLong

And finally, here’s my pick for the worst song and video of last year. In the past, I’ve defended some of the notoriously awful songs that have been produced and promoted by Patrice Wilson, just on the basis that they were, at the very least, memorably weird. Friday remains one of my favorite singing-in-the-shower songs and it’s fun to sing when you’re trying to annoy people on Monday. Chinese Food is — well, Chinese Food sucked but I do love Chinese food so I could at least relate to the song. But then, in 2014, came both the song Sush Up and the video featuring 11 year-old Alison Gold playing a sexualized criminal who gets electrocuted in the electric chair. And, of course, Patrice shows up to rap. And seriously — BLEH!

While I’m not going to share the video for Sush Up because it’s really creepy and icky, I will share another video that’ll make my point about Patrice Wilson.

Tomorrow, my look back at 2014 will continue with 20 good things that I saw on television in 2014!

Previous entries in TSL’s Look Back At 2014

The National Society Of Film Critics Honors Goodbye to Language!

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier today, the National Society of Film Critics announced their picks for the best films of 2014! By one vote, they named Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language as best picture of the year.

Thank you, National Society of Film Critics, for reminding us that, occasionally, unexpected things do happen!

Check out the winners and the runner-ups below!

BEST PICTURE

*1. Goodbye to Language 25 (Jean-Luc Godard)

2. Boyhood 24 (Richard Linklater)

3. Birdman 10 (Alejandro G. Iñárritu)

3. Mr. Turner 10 (Mike Leigh)

BEST DIRECTOR

*1. Richard Linklater 36 (Boyhood)

2. Jean-Luc Godard 17 (Goodbye to Language)

3. Mike Leigh 12 (Mr. Turner)

BEST NON-FICTION FILM

*1. Citizenfour 56 (Laura Poitras)

2. National Gallery 19 (Frederick Wiseman)

3. The Overnighters 17 (Jesse Moss)

BEST SCREENPLAY

*1. The Grand Budapest Hotel 24 (Wes Anderson)

2. Inherent Vice 15 (Paul Thomas Anderson)

2. Birdman 15 (four co-writers)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

*1. Mr. Turner 33 (Dick Pope)

2. The Immigrant 27 (Darius Khondji)

3. Goodbye to Language 9 (Fabrice Aragno)

BEST ACTOR

*1.Timothy Spall 31 (Mr. Turner)

2. Tom Hardy 10 (Locke)

3. Joaquin Phoenix 9 (Inherent Vice)

3. Ralph Fiennes 9 (The Grand Budapest Hotel)

BEST ACTRESS

*1. Marion Cotillard 80 (Two Days, One Night)

2. Julianne Moore 35 (Still Alice)

3. Scarlett Johansson 21 (Lucy; Under the Skin)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

*1. J.K. Simmons 24 (Whiplash)

2. Mark Ruffalo 21 (Foxcatcher)

3. Edward Norton 16 (Birdman)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

*1. Patricia Arquette 26 (Boyhood)

2. Agata Kulesza 18 (Ida)

3. Rene Russo 9 (Nightcrawler)

Film Review: Venus in Fur (dir by Roman Polanski)

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of the best films to be released in American theaters last year was also one that never really got as much recognition as it deserved.

Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur (which, itself, is based on a play by David Ives that was loosely adapted from a novel written by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose name and book would inspire the term masochism) features only two characters. Thomas (Mathieu Almaric) is a neurotic playwright and director whose latest production is based on Sacher-Masoch’s book, Venus in Furs. Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) is an actress who shows up late to audition for a lead role.

At first, Thomas is annoyed with and condescending towards the actress. After all, she shows up late for the audition and gives a rather long and convoluted explanation as to why. (It involves a dog wanting to fuck her.) Despite the fact that she’s auditioning for a play set in the 19th century and featuring repressed members of the upper class, she shows up for the audition wearing leather and a dog collar. (“I’m usually really demure and shit…” she assures him.) At first, Thomas refuses to allow her to audition and says that there’s nobody in the theater for her to read with. Vanda suggests that he read with her. Reluctantly, Thomas agrees…

And suddenly, Vanda goes from begging for his permission to taking control of the situation. It turns out that she’s brought a period costume with her. Before going up to the stage, she skillfully sets the stage lights to create the perfect effect. (A stunned Thomas admits that he’s not even sure how the lighting board works.) And when they’re on stage together, Vanda stuns Thomas by suddenly transforming herself into the character that he wrote.

The audition itself quickly becomes a not-quite friendly game between the two. (This is a film that anyone — even little community theater actresses like me — who has ever auditioned for a role should be able to relate to.) Vanda frequently interrupts the audition to question what Thomas has written and Thomas finds himself growing more and more disoriented as he’s frequently pulled out of the world he created and into reality.

Whenever challenged by Vanda, Thomas argues that the play has no deeper meaning. It’s simply an adaptation of a work of literature. However, as the audition continues, it becomes apparent that there’s more to the play and to the two people on stage than was originally apparent…

Venus in Fur is a fascinating film. In its way, it’s also a playful one. (You have to love the scene where a lingerie-clad Vanda suddenly takes on the role of therapist and perfectly psychoanalyzes Thomas’s fiancee. Never has the invoking the name of Jacques Derrida led to so much laughter.) Intelligently filmed by Polanski and wonderfully acted by both Amalric and Seigner, the power struggle between Thomas and Vanda makes for compelling viewing.

And hey, it’s currently on Netflix so you can watch it anytime you want. Of course, it is subtitled but so what? If you don’t know how to read, how did you make it through this review?

Seriously, find 93 minutes to spare and watch Venus In Fur.

2014 In Review: Lisa’s Picks For The 16 Worst Films Of 2014

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Continuing our look back at the previous year, today I present you with my choices for the 16 worst films of 2014!

I have to admit that 2014 was a strange year for me. While I saw a lot of films that I didn’t think were very good, none of them quite inspired the amount of loathing that I felt while watching previous TSL worst film “winners” like Love and Other Drugs and Man of Steel. Looking at the 16 films below, I’m struck by how many of them were simply films that failed to live up to my expectations. (The Judge and Endless Love are obvious examples.) Some of the other entries are films that we all knew ahead of time would never be good but they made the list because they represent everything that annoys me about mainstream film making. (Case in point: Transformers: Let’s Deafen The Audience or whatever the Hell that thing was called.)

Of course, some of the films listed below are on the list because they just plain sucked. In fact, one made-for-Lifetime movie was so mind-numbingly awful that it made the list despite having never actually been released in theaters! That’s pretty bad!

(Be sure to click on the links in this sentence if you want to see what I considered to be the worst of 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013!)

Without further ado, here’s the list!

16) Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart
15) Ride Along
14) The Judge
13) Into the Storm
12) Endless Love
11) Nuse 3D
10) Barefoot
9) The Best Of Me
8) I, Frankenstein
7) Left Behind
6) Paranormal Activity — The Marked Ones
5) The Legend of Hercules
4) Transformers: The Age of Extinction
3) A Million Ways To Die In The West
2) The Unauthorized Saved By The Bell Story

And finally, without further ado, here is the worst film of 2014!

1) April Rain

Agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments!

Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting my 10 favorite songs of 2014!

Others Entries In TSL’s Look Back At 2014:

REC 4: Apocalypse (Official Trailer)

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Arleigh

Found footage horror films have always been hit or miss with me. When done well they’re quite effective horror films that really pulls an audience in. When done as a way to exploit the current craze for it then one just gets nauseous both intellectually and physically (I think Lisa Marie would agree).

The [REC] found footage horror franchise by Jaume Balagueró has been leading the way of late, but a decision to switch from found footage to traditional filming halfway into the third film in the series was a disappointment to fans. With the fourth film now set for a U.S. release such fans may find themselves yearning for the franchises found footage roots as the fourth and final installment will dump the found footage technique altogether and just go for straight out traditional style.

REC 4: Apocalypse also sees the return of the franchises heroine from the first two films, Manuela Velasco, as the trailer shows her being on a ship out to sea for testing. Anyone who has watched the first two films in the franchise knows that she may or may not be a carrier of the demonic plague accidentally cooked up by Vatican researchers who wanted to find the biological source for demonic possession.

REC: Apocalypse is set for an early January 2015 release at selected theaters in the US.

Here Are The Eddie Nominations!

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Eddies! Isn’t that a perfectly adorable name for an award?

Anyway, the Eddies are given out by the American Cinema Editors and they honor the best editing in film and television. The Eddies make for an interesting precursor because (much like the SAG awards), they’re a guild award and the nominees and winners are being determined by many of the same people who will be voting on the Oscars.

Add to that, films that get a nomination for best editing often also get nominated for best picture. (One huge exception to that rule would be David Fincher’s rehash The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which actually won best editing despite not being nominated for best picture.)

The big news from the Eddie nominations is that potential Oscar front-runner Selma was snubbed. However, American Sniper was not. While I doubt that the makers of Selma have anything to worry about, this does seem to indicate that — despite not making a huge showing as far as the critics awards are concerned — American Sniper might still be a factor in the best picture race.

(Then again, Oscar watchers like me are notorious for overanalyzing stuff like this…)

The film nominees can be found below.

Best Edited Feature Film (Dramatic)
“American Sniper” (Joel Cox, ACE & Gary Roach, ACE)
“Boyhood” (Sandra Adair, ACE)
“Gone Girl” (Kirk Baxter, ACE)
“The Imitation Game” (William Goldenberg, ACE)
“Nightcrawler” (John Gilroy, ACE)
“Whiplash” (Tom Cross, ACE)

Best Editing Feature Film (Comedy or Musical)
“Birdman” (Douglas Crise & Stephen Mirrione, ACE)
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” (Barney Pilling)
“Guardians of the Galaxy” (Fred Rasking, Hughes Winborn, ACE & Craig Wood, ACE)
“Into the Woods” (Wyatt Smith)
“Inherent Vice” (Leslie Jones, ACE)

Best Edited Animated Feature Film
“Big Hero 6” (Tim Mertens)
“The Boxtrolls” (Edie Ichioka, ACE)
“The LEGO Movie” (David Burrow & Chris McKay)

Best Edited Documentary (Feature)
“CITIZENFOUR” (Mathilde Bonnefoy)
“Finding Vivian Maier” (Aaron Wickenden)
“Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me” (Elisa Bonora)

Film Review: Big Hero 6 (dir by Don Hall and Chris Williams)

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the longest time, I thought that there would never be an animated film that would make me cry as much as I cried at the end of Toy Story 3.

And then I saw The LEGO Movie and I thought that I would never cry as much as I did when Will Ferrell acknowledged that he hadn’t been a very good father and that his son should be allowed to have fun while playing in the basement.

And then, way back in November, I saw Big Hero 6 and there was big, goofy-looking, kind-hearted Baymax asking, “Are you satisfied with my service?” and I sobbed and sobbed.

Baymax, of course, is a big, balloon-like robot that was specifically designed to provide medical care to the citizens of San Fransokyo. After his original creator, Tadashi Hamada, is killed in a mysterious explosion at the local university, Baymax becomes the property of Tadashi’s younger brother, Hiro. Hiro, naturally enough, designs some armor for Baymax and programs him to fight so that he can get revenge for his brother’s death…

And you know what?

The exact plot doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Baymax is probably one of the most memorable and kind-hearted non-human characters to ever appear in an animated film. Significantly, Baymax resists Hiro’s attempt to turn him into a killing machine, making Big Hero 6 into one of those rare films that ultimately celebrates peace over war.

It’s also an incredibly sweet film, one that earned every tear that I shed.

And, as a result, I was very satisfied.

Film Review: Foxcatcher (dir by Bennett Miller)

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What a long and strange trip it has been for Foxcatcher.

Originally, Bennett Miller’s latest film was scheduled to be released at the end of 2013 and it was expected to be a major player in the 2013 Oscar race. And then it was suddenly announced that Sony Pictures would, instead, wait an extra year to release the film. Usually, this is a sign of a film that’s not expected to live up to expectations. (Case in point: The Monuments Men.) But, in this case, it was seen as being the exact opposite. Sony had such faith in the Oscar prospects of Foxcatcher that they were willing to hold off a year so it wouldn’t get lost in all of the attention that was being given to American Hustle, Gravity, 12 Years A Slave, and Wolf of Wall Street.

And, in many ways, it was a smart move. Overnight, Foxcatcher went from being that weird movie with Steve Carell to being one of the most anticipated film of 2014.

Then, during the summer, Foxcatcher premiered at Cannes and was one of the hits of the festival. With the notable exception of the A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd, the reviewers at Cannes were rapturous in their praise of Foxcatcher. And, though it failed to win the Palme d’Or, it did win best director for Bennett Miller and it cemented it’s status as the Oscar front-runner.

And then, something started to happen.

There was backlash against Foxcatcher. As more and more critics saw the film, we started to hear more and more speculation that the film would fail to live up to all of the hype. Critics generally praised the performers but many complained that the film was too cold and detached for its own good. At first, it was easy to say that this was partially the result of unrealistically high expectations. But, as more and more reviews came in, it became almost fashionable to speculate that Foxcatcher would be left out of the Oscar race.

Of course, most of us who were doing the speculating were doing so without actually having seen the film for ourselves. After all, film critics and festival goers aren’t the ones who actually vote on what films will be nominated for and win Oscars. One need only look at the nominations for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to realize that.

Well, Foxcatcher has finally been released and we’ve all finally gotten a chance to see it. I saw it last week, while I was in Fort Worth for the Christmas holidays. And my reaction…

Well, there’s a reason why it’s taken me nearly a week to write this review.

Ultimately, Foxcatcher is a good film. In fact, on a purely technical level, it’s probably one of the best films of the year. If it is nominated for best picture, the nomination will not necessarily be undeserved. Bennett Miller comes up with some hauntingly chilly images. Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo all give excellent performances. It’s a film that stays with you, a powerful depiction of a true crime.

But it’s still not an easy film to enjoy.

Those critics who complained that Miller’s approach was too cold and detached have a point. You watch the film with a sense of dread, knowing what’s going to eventually happen. (Though I didn’t know anything about the murder of Dave Schultz before the film, I had read the reviews and I knew that eventually Mark Ruffalo’s kind-hearted family man would end up being gunned down in front of his family.) But Miller always keeps the characters and the story at a distance. You watch the characters and you struggle to understand them but, by the end of the film, you’re no closer to understanding why John E. du Pont (the eccentric millionaire turned murdered, played by Steve Carell) murdered Dave Schultz than you were at the beginning.

Instead, Miller is more interested as looking at John du Pont as being an example of American exceptionalism gone crazy. Throughout the film, characters frequently comment on the fact that the du Ponts are one of the oldest and richest families in America. (Not coincidentally, we’re also told that they initially made their fortune by producing and selling gunpowder.) Du Pont is an outspoken and proud American. Along with training wrestlers on the grounds of his estate (the Foxcatcher of the title), he also frequently invites the police to use the grounds for target practice. Though Miller couldn’t have realized it when the film was originally shot in 2013, the scenes of the obviously unstable du Pont hanging out with the cops take on an extra resonance in this time of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice.

John du Pont frequently talks about how his plan to open a world-class wrestling training facility is, at heart, a patriotic act. The world wrestling championship, du Pont believes, belongs in America and he’s going to make sure that it gets there. In order to achieve this goal, he hires Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) to be his wrestling coach. Mark, who has always lived in the shadow of his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), jumps at the chance to establish his own identity. At first, du Pont is like the father that Mark has never had. They even become friends. (Du Pont, at one point, talks about discovering that all of his childhood friends had been paid to be his friend.) Mark shows du Pont some wrestling moves. Du Pont introduces Mark to cocaine.

But, ultimately, it becomes apparent that du Pont’s friendship with Mark was really just a ruse to get Mark to convince his older brother to come work for du Pont. When Dave finally does join Mark at Foxcatcher, it causes Mark to turn self-destructive and du Pont to eventually turn into a murderer.

And, as I said, it’s a powerful film. Channing Tatum gives the performance of his career and Steve Carell is frighteningly believable as John du Pont. (One minor complaint: Carell is being promoted for best actor, even though his performance was clearly a supporting one.) Mark Ruffalo, as well, does great work as Dave and somehow manages to make innate human decency compelling.

But the film itself is so cold and detached that, ultimately, this is a film that you end up respecting more than you end up enjoying.