Infinitely Polar Bear

Maya Forbes, 2015

IMDB

3/5

While everyone is spending the year gushing over Mark Ruffalo's performance in Spotlight, they really should instead gush over his performance in Infinitely Polar Bear. And just like Spotlight, he plays a conflicted man in a dysfunctional marriage living in Boston. But while his Spotlight performance is a more subdued one, his Polar Bear performance is anything but.

Ruffalo plays Cam, a father struggling with bipolar disorder while trying to raise his two young daughters while his wife is in law school. The first moments of the film show him in the middle of a manic episode, chasing his wife down the driveway mostly naked on a bicycle while they rush to drive away in their old car to escape his chaos. Funny, but serious. Which is sort of the tone for the rest of the film. Funny at times, serious at times. Ruffalo manages to juggle the two quite remarkably. The back and forth, the ups and downs are displayed on screen like a constant battle he endures on a daily basis.

Ruffalo really steals the show, as he is capable of doing these days. There are black comedy elements, especially when approaching the whole problem of codependency that the family faces. The two daughters are clearly not brought up in a healthy household, but there is a distinctive tumultuous energy that keeps them engaged with each other. Kind of sweet but also unsettling. It's sweet how Cam stays up all night to piece together a dress for his daughter but also very unsettling how he can so quickly run out of the apartment to go drinking while they vulnerably sit at home.

That's the one of the problems with Infinitely Polar Bear. It's a little too indecisive, too disorganized. It gives you something to laugh at and something to ache for, but doesn't balance the two enough to make a lasting impression. Zoe Saldana, who plays Cam's wife Maggie, is not as composite as Cam's. Her ability to constantly (and conveniently for the story) leave the family feels unbelievable. Part of the film is Cam filming things on a handheld camera, with constant jumps to the amateur footage, but it feels kind of unneeded. But one thing it does do is approach mental illness in an endearing, non-judging way that isn't so often done, and for that it definitely deserves some praise.

Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn, 2014

Can I Stream it?

2/5

A group of space criminals team up to defeat Ronan the Accusor (Lee Pace) from destroying the galaxy with a small orb that he is in pursuit of.

Guardians provides some star-gazey visuals on a scale not really seen since Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. In fact, the movie itself has some of the workings of a modern day Star Wars (mostly due to the brisk battle scenes and diabolical antagonist), but because of the elementary dialogue - it ultimately becomes a not-as-funny version of Spaceballs starring the Blue Man Group. Much of the jokes fall flat, almost as if the closest punch-up writer was literally in another galaxy. To be fair it's a movie clearly written for 12 year old boys. Chris Pratt continues his 2014 campaign of being the Seth Rogen of 2010, or the Zach Galifianakis of 2012. His success is understandable, he has the sort of every-man charm that puts an audience behind it's hero. But on-screen charisma is not given the right amount of fuel to really take it far, like he did in 2014's great/much-more-compelling The Lego Movie. Instead, Guardians becomes mostly masturbation fodder for boys that have grown sick of seeing Zoe Saldana in Avatar blue and now warmly welcoming the idea to see her in green. But while the dialogue weighs the movie down, the cosmic scenery and incredible visuals are probably enough to justify a single viewing. There is a scene in which the ship is cruising through the remains of an old giant which has turned into a mining capital. David Bowie plays in the background as they glide through the glittering metropolis, and the scene is quite spectacular. The movie explores the tired trope of a bunch of characters in pursuit or defending a single item. We've seen it many times: in Men in Black, The Fifth Element, The Lord of the Rings. Guardians will probably expose a new generation of kids to songs that would be better heard while watching Reservoir Dogs, but they will discover that later on in life. But for the adults of the world who endured the two hour watch, it's disappointing that the massive $170M budget was spent on CGI and music licensing and not on better writing.

Out of the Furnace

Scott Cooper, 2013

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Russell Baze is struggling to make ends meat while also trying to take care of his ailing father and reckless veteran brother who struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder from his tours in Iraq.

You are immediately faced with the paint-peeling working-class rust-colored backdrop of North Braddock Pennsylvania. The obvious sense of blue-collar gloom is evident throughout the picture, as if everyone in the film is connected to the steel mill in one way or another and worried that it can close it’s doors and put set off a domino-effect of depression. Bale brings more of a restrained energy to his Russell character. Instead of a salient effect to his voice there are traces of a Pittsburgh(ish) accent that glints from his marble mouth here and there. Bale’s character Russell is most certainly connected to the mill, where you see him grueling over fire pits covered in grime. He draws an immediate sense of sympathy for his character when you see how he looks out for those close to him and how hard he works to do so. You get a sense that there is inescapable hardship for him, as if he can never leave the doomed industrial town he’s certainly residing in. He’s loyal to his family. He sees the damage that the war caused on his brother Rodney has endured both physically and psychologically and rather than continue to press him on it, he quietly tries to assist him however he can (most of the time being financially). Most of the time it’s just by being loyal to him. But there’s an obvious sense of protection that he feels for him, as if its a promise he made to his father. But more than likely it’s a promise he has made to himself. Although his character is a man with mistakes, he is willing to pay his debts to society and attempt to right his wrongs. He carries his guilt like it’s a ten pound weight strapped to his soul. And even with the unforgivable things he may have done, he has a sense of warm loyalty and Bale manages to keep you engaged in his Russell character and stay on his side. While Rodney takes his hits on the face, Russell takes them to the heart.
 
Cooper succeeds in developing nuanced characters rather thoroughly than just making a action-packed revenge piece after a character gets wiped out in the first twenty minutes. In one sense it’s a story about a man’s misfortune, but there are many other forces at work and every actor involved in the film really contributes a multi-layered performance. It’s a heavily masculine piece as well. There is an overt lack of estrogen flowing, as you only see one or two female characters. We finally get another taste of Woody Harrelson working on the dark side. He never disappoints as a villain, and his Harlan DeGroat character is something right out of the evil forces his character attempts to track down in HBO’s True Detective. Out of the Furnace is pure drama, providing us with the lasting image of a strained man mired in the melodrama of personal conflicts in a struggling city.