I have to admit that this is yet another video that I initially assumed was about vampires. Apparently, it’s not.
My second guess was that it was about the Russian mafia but then they started breaking those plates and I decided that it was more likely that the club was owned by the Greek mafia.
Actually, I think the video’s just about Kristen Stewart doing what she wants and generally kicking ass. That’s why I like this video. The meaning is less important than the style.
Enjoy!
The Big Short is a film that is so critically acclaimed and that has been so passionately embraced by those who enjoyed it that it’s a bit intimidating to admit that it really didn’t do much for me. (It’s even more intimidating for me to admit that I nearly included it on my list of the 16 worst films of 2015.) It’s a big, angry movie and, even though it’s not really that good, it definitely taps into the zeitgeist. It captures the anger, the frustration, and the fears that people (including me) are feeling right now. It didn’t do much for me but I can understand why others have so passionately embraced it.
As for the film itself, it’s about the housing collapse and the financial crisis of 2008. The main characters are all people who realized that the economy was about to collapse and who managed to make a profit off of the crisis. For the most part, everyone gets at least two scenes where they get to rail about how angry they are that they’re making a profit off of other people’s misery. However, they all still collect their money at the end of the film.
For the most part, our main characters are the type of quirky eccentrics who always tend to pop up in ensemble films like this. They’re all played by recognizable actors and they all have an identifiable trait or two so we can keep them straight. For instance, Christian Bale has trouble relating to people socially, plays drums, and looks like he probably has terrible body odor. Steve Carell has a bad haircut and spends a lot of time yelling at people. He’s also haunted by the suicide of his brother and he’s married to Marisa Tomei but she only gets to appear in two scenes and doesn’t really do much because this is a film about menfolk, dagnabit. (I love Steve Carell but this is probably the least interesting performance that he’s ever given.) John Magaro and Finn Wittrock are two young investors and they especially get upset when they realize that the economy is about to collapse. Their mentor is played by Brad Pitt. Since this is an important film, Brad Pitt plays his role with his important actor beard.
And then there’s Ryan Gosling. Gosling plays a trader and he also narrates the film. And really, Gosling probably gives the best performance in the film, perhaps because his character is the only one who is actually allowed to enjoy making money. I think we’re supposed to be outraged when he brags about making money while people lose their houses but Gosling’s so charismatic and the character is so cheerful that it’s hard to dislike him.
(Of course, listening to Gosling’s narration, it’s impossible not to be reminded of The Wolf of Wall Street. And it’s appropriate because The Big Short is kind of like The Wolf of Wall Street for people who don’t want to have to deal with ambiguity or nuance.)
The film has gotten a lot of attention for Adam McKay’s direction, which is flashy and always watchable but, at the same time, also rather shallow. For the most part, McKay’s directorial tricks only served to remind me of other movies. The narration, of course, made me think about The Wolf of Wall Street. The scenes where characters look straight at the camera and say, “This isn’t the way it really happened,” only reminded me of how much more effective it was when the same thing happened in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People.
And then there’s the celebrity cameos. These are the scenes where a special guest celebrity is brought on screen to explain to us how Wall Street actually works. The first time, it’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath and it works well because it admits the debt that The Big Short owes to Wolf of Wall Street. (Plus, it ends with Robbie telling the viewers to “fuck off,” which is probably what I would do if a huge group of strangers interrupted my bubble bath.) If McKay had limited himself to just doing it once, it would have been brilliant. But McKay drags out three more celebs and, with repeated use, the technique gets less and less interesting.
But I guess it’s debatable whether any of that matters. The Big Short taps into the way people are feeling now. It’s a zeitgeist film. People are rightfully angry and The Big Short is all about that anger. A decade from now, it’ll probably be as forgotten as Gabriel Over The White House. But for now, it’s definitely the film of the moment.
Ultimately, Unbroken is a victim of expectations.
From the start of last year, Oscar watchers and other film critics were united in fully expecting Unbroken to be a great film. No sooner had 12 Years A Slave won best picture then we were all predicting that Unbroken would be named the best film of 2014 and that Angelina Jolie would be the 2nd woman to win an Oscar for best director.
And can you blame us?
Unbroken seemed to have everything that you would expect to add up to Oscar glory. Not only was it directed by a celebrity (and, ever since Argo, everyone has been under the impression that all performers can also direct) but it starred an exciting and up-and-coming actor. It was not only a war film but it was a war film that took place during the only war that everyone agrees was a good one, World War II. It was based on a true story and what a story! Louis Zamperini was an Olympic medalist whose athletic career was put on hold when he joined the U.S. Air Force. After a plane crash, he and two other survivors spent 47 days floating in a lifeboat. They were finally captured by the Japanese and Louis spent the rest of the war as POW. During that time, he survived terrible torture. When the war finally ended, Louis set aside his anger and publicly forgave those who had nearly killed him. When he was 80 years old, he returned to Japan and carried the Olympic torch. It’s an incredibly touching story and it should have made for a great movie.
And, ultimately, that’s Unbroken‘s downfall. It has all the ingredients for being a great movie but instead, it’s only a good one.
That’s certainly not the fault of Jack O’Connell, who plays Louis and gives a strong and sympathetic performance. Actually, the entire film is well-acted, with everyone fully inhabiting his role. Perhaps the film’s best performance comes from Miyavi, who plays “The Bird,” the sadistic head of both of the POW camps where Louis is held prisoner. The dynamic between The Bird and Louis is an interesting one, with the film emphasizing that The Bird is in many ways jealous of Louis’s previous fame and Miyavi plays the character as if he were a high school bully who has suddenly been left in charge of the classroom.
That the cast does well should not be a surprise. Actors-turned-directors can usually get good performances but often times, they seem to struggle with shaping a narrative and this is where Unbroken struggles. It’s not that Unbroken doesn’t tell a worthy story. It’s just that it tells it in such a conventional and predictable way. The entire film is full of scenes that seem like they were lifted out of other, more memorable movies. The scenes with Louis growing up and competing in the Olympics feel like they could have come from any “inspiring” sports biopic. (It doesn’t help that Louis’s brother and coach has been given dialogue that sounds like it should be surrounded by air quotes.) When Louis is joking around with the guys in the plane, it feels like a hundred other war films. When Louis is floating in the ocean, it’s hard not to compare the film’s static and draggy approach to what Ang Lee was able to do with Life of Pi or J.C. Chandor with All Is Lost. Miyavi brings a feeling of real menace and danger to the POW scenes but it’s not enough. Jolie’s direction is competent but there’s not a single moment that feels spontaneous or truly cinematic.
In fact, I sat through Unbroken totally dry-eyed, which is somewhat amazing considering how easily I cry at the movies. However, towards the end of the film, there was a clip of the real-life, 80 year-old Louis running down the streets of Tokyo with the Olympic Torch and, at that moment, his story became real for me. And that’s when the tears came.
I really wish Unbroken had been better because Louis Zamperini seems like someone who deserved to have a great film made about him. Angelina Jolie’s heart was in the right place but, ultimately, it’s just not enough to make Unbroken the film that it deserves to be.
Was Noah a good movie or not?
That’s a question that was first asked way back in March. At the time, the answer depended on who you asked. For instance, Noah is one of Arleigh’s favorite films of the year. My reaction, however, was far more mixed. Noah was one of those movies that I thought I would review as soon as I watched it but that proved to be a lot more difficult than I expected. As I found myself wondering what I should say in my review, it became very apparent to me that I wasn’t sure whether I liked the film or not.
By the time that I finally decided that I was, overall, disappointed by Darren Aronofsky’s controversial and spiritual-but-not-quite-biblical version of the Deluge, over a month had passed and we had all moved on to different movies.
And so that review remained unwritten. And, at first, I thought it wouldn’t matter. As much as I try to review every single movie that I see, I know that the world is not going to end if I miss a film or two. After all, I’ve never specifically written down just how much I hated the latest Transformers movie and the world has yet to plunge into the sun…
And yet, for all of its flaws and the fact that it left me feeling underwhelmed, Noah has stuck in my mind in a way that many of the films that I saw this year have not. It would be a struggle for me to remember much of anything about Dracula Untold but Noah … Noah has stayed with me.
Thinking back, it’s easy for me to say what did not work about Noah.
As opposed to Aronofsky’s best films (Requiem for A Dream, The Wrestler, and my beloved Black Swan), Noah felt oddly paced with certain scenes ending too quickly while other scenes seemed to drag on forever.
The film’s environmental message was delivered with such a heavy hand that it ultimately did not make much of a difference whether you agreed or not. For a film that went out of its way to establish itself as not being a traditional biblical film, Noah was certainly preachy.
While the film deserves credit for not flinching in its portrait of a surly and self-righteous Noah, it still doesn’t change the fact that the movie was essentially 138 minutes spent with a very unlikable character.
Anthony Hopkins gave perhaps the worst performance of his career as Methuselah. In the role of Tubal-Cain, Ray Winstone was such a one-dimensional villain that I half expected him to invent trains just so he could tie Emma Watson to the tracks.
And, of course, there were the Watchers — fallen angels who had been turned into sentient piles of stone by a vengeful God. I know that some people loved the Watchers but to me, they looked ludicrous…
And yet, that’s the reason why we love Darren Aronofsky, isn’t it?
Obviously, it was a risk to portray the fallen angels as being a bunch of talking rocks. It was also a risk to take a character who is mentioned only once in the book of Genesis — in this case, Tubal-Cain — and then use that character as a representation of everything that’s wrong with the human race. It was a risk to make a “biblical” film that openly questioned both the existence and wisdom of God. We expect and demand that directors take risks but, at the same time, we also want to ridicule and judge when those risks don’t work out. That’s the issue that we, as film lovers, often face. Do we celebrate and perhaps excuse a director for his intentions or do we solely judge him based on the results?
And the thing with Noah is that, as much as the movie did not work for me, it also did work for me. For all of those flaws that I listed above, Noah is full of images that are so beautiful and so memorable that I can still visualize them as if I saw them yesterday:
Noah and his sons walk across a gray and blasted landscape, stopping just long enough to stare at a foreboding city in the distance.
Noah walks through a decadent settlement and briefly, this somber film is so full of bright colors and flamboyant characters that the viewer is almost as overwhelmed as Noah.
That Ark, looking small and isolated, floating across an endless blue ocean.
And finally, Noah talking about the horrors of humanity and briefly, we see that the shadows that he’s visualizing are dressed in modern clothing.
For all of my issues with Noah, it’s such a visually impressive film and takes so many risks that I can’t help but respect it. I don’t consider it to be a great film but, after all this time, I can say that it’s a film that only a true artist could make.
And, considering the current state of American film, that’s one of the best compliments that one can give.
I liked Winter’s Tale.
And I don’t care what anybody else says!
And that’s a good thing too because, critically, Winter’s Tale has been one of the most maligned movies of 2014. It came out on Valentine’s Day, at the same time as Endless Love. And the critics absolutely hated it! For a while there, the online film community was taking bets on which one of the two Valentine’s Day releases would end up with the lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes. And, though it was a close race, Winter’s Tale actually ended up with the lower score, coming in at 13% as opposed to Endless Love‘s 15%.
That’s right — according to most mainstream film critics, Winter’s Tale was actually worse than Endless Love.
Well, those critics were wrong. That’s how I felt when I first saw Winter’s Tale and, after watching it a second time on HBO, that’s still how I feel. Winter’s Tale is not a bad movie!
(Incidentally, Winter’s Tale has a 6.2 rating over at the imdb, which would seem to indicate that I’m not the only person who knows better than Peter Travers.)
Admittedly, the plot of Winter’s Tale does not make much logical sense but that’s kind of the point. It’s a tale and tales are not about being realistic. Tales are about emotion and the whole point of listening to or telling a tale is to inspire feelings. To truly appreciate Winter’s Tale, you have to understand that this is a fairy tale that happens to be set in the most mythical of American cities, New York.
Opening in 1895 and ending in 2014, Winter’s Tale tells the story of Peter Lake (Colin Farrell). When Peter was an infant, his immigrant parents were refused entry into Manhattan because they both had tuberculosis. So, they put Peter in a toy boat and dropped him into ocean and watched as the boat slowly floated towards America.
Jump forward 21 years and Peter has grown up to be a thief, working for a gangster named Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). What few people know is that Pearly is actually a demon who regularly visits his boss, Luicfer (played by Will “Yes, that Will Smith” Smith). Pearly is immortal as long as he stays in New York City.
When Peter decides that he wants to leave Pearly’s gang, Pearly orders that Peter be killed. However, while fleeing from the rest of the gang, Peter is rescued by a flying white horse. While Peter’s first instinct is to fly the horse out of New York and spend the winter in Florida, he instead decides to rob one more mansion. (It helps that the horse literally takes him to the mansion.)
While robbing the mansion, Peter meets Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), a passionate and talented pianist who is dying of tuberculosis. In what is literally a case of love at first sight, Peter forgets about robbing the mansion and instead has a cup of tea with Beverly. They discuss their lives and Beverly tells Peter that everyone has a miracle inside of them and that everyone becomes a star after dying.
Soon, Peter and Beverly are a couple and Peter even manages to win over Beverly’s suspicious father, Isaac (William Hurt). Peter and Beverly spend the winter at her family’s summer home. Peter believes that his miracle is to save Beverly. Meanwhile, an angry Pearly waits for his chance to get revenge…
Now, I will admit that there are some obvious flaws with Winter’s Tale. Russell Crowe goes totally overboard, with his accent wildly going from Australian to New Yorkish to Scottish and back again. Meanwhile, Will Smith is not necessarily a bad choice to play the devil and he actually gives a pretty good performance but it doesn’t chance the fact that, whenever he’s on screen, all you can think about is that he’s Will Smith and he’s playing the devil.
But, honestly, who cares? This is an amazingly romantic film and Farrell and Findlay have a lot of chemistry. When you see them together, you have no doubt that Peter and Beverly are meant to be together. You care about them as a characters, even if you don’t always understand everything that’s happening around them. Their love feels real and, when it comes to telling a love story, isn’t that the most important thing?
(Add to that, does any actor fall in love as convincingly as Colin Farrell?)
And the film itself is gorgeous! From the costumes to the set design to Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography, the film is just beautiful to look at. Undoubtedly, cynics would argue that the film is almost too glossy in its appearance but Winter’s Tale is not a film for cynics. It’s a film for romantics.
So, yes, I did like Winter’s Tale and I am not ashamed to admit it.
Through the Shattered Lens 