The Impossible

J.A. Bayona, 2012

IMDB

4/5

There are disaster movies that focus on the disaster, and then there are disaster movies that aren't really disaster movies because they focus on the characters that are victim to the disaster. The Impossible is definitely the latter of the two. A disaster film with a heart. Focusing on an English family of five, they are on Christmas holiday in Thailand in 2004 when the historic tsunami hit their beachside resort. The images of this natural disaster have been in my memory for the past 13 years since it happened. Seeing the beautiful country decimated by Mother Nature so quickly. I remember seeing the amateur footage on Youtube back when the disaster occurred.

Bayona's immediate accomplishment with this film is getting you invested in the characters so quickly. Without this they would be nameless faces dealing with the destruction. But instead, you are familiar with them very early on. You see their vulnerabilities as they sit on an airplane on their way to their vacation spot. Maria (Naomi Watts) has anxiety from the turbulence. Henry (Ewan McGregor) has some OCD tendencies with trying to remember if he had set an alarm at home before they left. These elements cleverly humanize them and help to generate empathy early.

When the tsunami hits, it doesn't feel like a bastardized CGI construct. It feels like an authentic force. The film doesn't heavily lean on the CGI though. It feels completely necessary, like its just enough. How it should be. A supplemental tool in the absence of the real thing. There is an obvious sense of panic. You are left with no real answers as to which members of the family have survived and which members have perished. The film then evolves into more of a gripping survival film as a wounded and incomplete family desperately tries to become complete again.

The sense of desperation and heartbreak resonates throughout the film and I can't remember the last time that a 2 hour running time passed by so quickly. Watts and McGregor deliver remarkable performances as they usually do. Surprising to see that Watts was the only one that received attention from the Academy with a Best Actress nomination (she lost to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook). McGregor really deserved a nomination too. It's actually quite surprising to realize that McGregor has yet to receive a single Oscar nomination in his entire career when you remember his performances in films like Trainspotting and Big Fish. The Impossible is a really gripping film, rich in detail. History should be kind to this film. A really accurate look at one of the most tragic and destructive natural disasters in our modern era.

The Imitation Game

Morten Tyldem, 2014

IMDB

5/5

Just when you think that maybe the World War II period drama can't be approached differently on film, you see a movie like the Imitation Game come along. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as tortured genius Alan Turing, the film focuses on his attempt to crack the Enigma code - the encryption language used by the German forces for all war communications. The British feel that if they can decrypt the code, they could win the war by anticipating all battle plans. Tyldem interestingly depicts Turing at three different stages of his life. So the story of Turing is told without linear narrative. It examines Turing in middle school at a British prep school. During this time he is bullied by his peers and is a social outcast. He has a very intimate friendship with his one friend whom shares the skill of cryptography, allowing them to secretly communicate with each other. It shows Turing in the main plot thread, when he working with a team of highly intelligent peers trying to crack the code. The third period is later in Turing's life - 1951 to be exact when a suspicious police officer starts to dig after discovering Turing's military records have been completely destroyed.

Those hoping to get recieve a history lesson with this film will be disappointed and not well serviced. There is an ample amount of artistic licence used with the Enigma story. In fact, only 41% of the story is actually factual as charted in detail on Information is Beautiful. If you can get past that, this is a surprisingly exceptional film. There is such a remarkable balance and pacing. The way that they depict Turing is as a distant, cold, arrogant genius that appears to be on the spectrum. Not exactly the hero that is easy to get behind. But by using his tortured childhood, along with the fact that he is forced to remain a closeted homosexual in his adult life - you are forced to feel sympathy for him. It's upsetting to be reminded of how horribly ostracized someone could be simply for their sexual orientation back then. Imitation keeps you in it's grip the entire length of the film. Of course you know how the war turns out, and you can make some assumptions as to how the film will play out in terms of their success in decipehring the code. But it's the execution of it all that makes it so excellent. The commanding officers breathing down their neck creates the ticking clock that maintains tension. The consistently rising death toll from the Hitler regime as he blasts his way through Western Europe raises the stakes to an ultimate high. And you just sit there on the edge of your seat waiting for a breakthrough. 

The End of the Tour

James Ponsoldt, 2015

IMDB

3/5

First off, I must admit that I am a person that entered this film not being completely familiar with David Foster Wallace. I knew of him, was familiar with the name but had no read his body of work. But there was a lot of intrigue surrounding this film. Jason Segal's dedication to the figure. The structure of the film has a unique construct, focusing solely on the final moments of Wallace's book tour for Infinite Jest - where he spent a week with Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg).

The film explores the Wallace figure, through the eyes of Lipsky. Eisenberg is probably the perfect casting choice. Lipsky is persistent, sharp, starstruck, but also a bit abrasive and aggressive at times. He occasionally presses Wallace to a point where not only he feels uncomfortable, but he becomes distant and despondent. This creates an environment in which it's not just two guys who meet and become friends, and quickly disassemble the boundaries. Instead you get a sense that Wallace is ALWAYS aware of Lipsky's agenda, and when they have moments of intimacy it's due more to him being a lonely person and wanting someone to confide in.

Although there aren't any real BIG moments in the film, the exploration is interesting enough to keep you engaged. There's an enigmatic quality to the Wallace character, and being someone who isn't so familiar with the actual person, I have to rely on Segal's performance to provide some depth. But Segal is really impressive here, feels committed to the role. The End of the Tour is a film that's not going to push me to go and read Wallace's work, but it provides a glimpse into an interesting literary character that struggled with some real demons.

The Big Short

Adam McKay, 2015

IMDB

4/5

Adam McKay’s The Big Short is a bunch of things. It's explanative, it’s sobering, and it’s thorough. But its also erratic and a bit messy as well. But it still works. Maybe it’s because Mckay, who is normally more focused on making more goofy comedic movies, is able to channel some of that silly energy into the film. Because it’s definitely a funny movie. Maybe its because of the ensemble cast - with really superb performances by Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Steve Carrell. Gosling brings an energy to his Jared Vennett character that reminds you of the cockiness of his Jacob character in Crazy Stupid Love. Jared is certainly a cocky guy, but also a funny cocky guy. His quick wit is able to draw laughter from people on the other side of the room who are feeling screwed over by him. Bale, who plays genius money manager / on-the-spectrum Michael Burry, is completely immersed in his role as usual. Something different for him, playing a guy who rarely wears shoes and locks himself in an office with heavy metal blaring. But he pulls it off, because he always seems to pull everything off. Carrel is someone who clearly is in a different chapter of his career. A chapter in which he wants to take more bold roles in more dramatic environments. The days of waxing his chest and screaming are behind him, as funny as those days were. He continues to show that he has a lot more to offer. His Mark Baum character is fueled by a manic myopic energy, a workaholic that is constantly pressing the gas pedal hard. He is grieving over the loss of his brother, attempting to right many wrong things on Wall Street - where there are many wrong things that may never be right.

McKay is doing a lot of interesting things with this film. The constant injection of clips of Americana. Music videos, news footage. It blends real life with grand fantasy, trying to blur the lines between the two. The real life vs. fantasy is something evident in the film. Lots of people taking advantage of a system with a real short-sight. Not really worried about the ramifications, or the domino effect that it may have. The ones that are truly aware of the effect it will have feel insulated from the consequences. Clearly the most frustrating aspect of the mortgage crisis to begin with, the fact that the higher-ups on Wall Street weren’t threatened that they would face any real prosecution. Worstly, they would be bailed out at the expense of the average American taxpayer. The Big Short is really similar to The Wolf of Wall Street in that sense. This sort of greedy carpe diem. The subconscious thought that at some point the party is going to come to an end. But who cares, everyone is making money today. That sort of mindset. Both stories play with themes of taking advantage of loopholes in a currently unregulated environment. When the one loophole is closed, another one will likely exist and be penetrated.

The American mortgage crisis was a complicated one, with a lot of trade-lingo and layers of confusion. The Big Short attempts to boil it down and succeeds in a lot of ways. It certainly puts you in the action, makes you a part of the conference room conversations, and revives an inner frustration that you haven’t felt since 2008.

The Walk

Robert Zemeckis, 2015

IMDB

2/5

Robert Zemeckis has had a long career of directing unique / interesting films that have a lasting impact. Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away.. the list goes on. So much of his work is open for multiple viewings. So for me personally, he’s someone who I will see everything he does.

His latest work is a biopic of famed wire-walker Philippe Petit. Petit gained recognition for his daring stunt when he walked on wire between the two Twin Towers shortly after their construction in 1974. The stunt was the focus of the popular 2008 documentary Man on Wire. So going into the film you already know that it’s going to be a period piece / computer-generated simulation of the event, seeing as virtually everyone on Earth is aware that the Towers are no longer in existence. The casting of Joseph Gordon Levitt is welcomed, seeing as he is one of the more consistent modern working actors. 

But The Walk isn’t able to maintain that lasting impression that Zemeckis’ other films do. It’s a CGI-scape filled poor accents and not enough substance. First off, the Petit character comes off a purely arrogant, selfish man who doesn’t appreciate the people around him. One of which is girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) who is nothing more than a extension of Petit’s huge ego. She, like the other partners, are barely allowed to show any identity. Petit is a person with tunnel vision. He cares about nothing more than walking the wire and making the front page. So you are forced to spend a great deal of time with someone who is really not all that like-able and challenging to become invested in. The only redeeming qualities of Petit’s character is really Levitt’s natural charm that sneaks through. 

It becomes obvious that the only real reward of the film is going to be his inevitable wire-walk in the end. At that point it’s just frankly hard to believe that Levitt is suspended above anything but a green screen. And his defiant back and forth across the wire while the police wait anxiously on both buildings actually feels dragged out and aggravating. Not to take away from the quality of the effects. It's quite amazing that buildings like the Twin Towers can be so beautifully reconstructed on film. It all looks real, no doubt about that. The cars below, the 1970's Manhattan skyline, the ant-sized cars slowly moving 100 stories below. Maybe it's the fact that the buildings themselves cause such an visceral reaction because of their historical importance, that it's difficult to the trick the mind into believing what you are seeing - specifically with those buildings. It’s understandable that Zemeckis would be interested in making the picture because it’s certainly an interesting story. But maybe it’s better preserved in the documentary category.

Spotlight

Tom McCarthy, 2015

IMDB

4/5

There are some films that have a sole purpose. A sole purpose to highlight a particular moment in time, a notable event of sequence of events. Spotlight is one of these films, fulfilling a duty to highlight the Catholic sex abuse scandal of the (year) that was uncovered by the Boston Globe. When new editor Marty Baron is hired from Miami, he immediately starts to put pressure on the staff to maintain core readership. He urges the Spotlight investigative team to focus on some accusations of local priests abusing boys. When they start to realize that there is some validity to the accusations, he urges them to follow it higher and higher - not really concerned about which powerful figures he angers along the way. The fact that this is going on in the city of Boston adds even more weight to the scandal, as half of the city is Irish Catholic and holds their Priest's in very high regard. 

The Spotlight team itself is a showcase of solid acting by Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, John Slattery and Brian D'Arcy James. There is such balanced chemistry between them all, it's just alluring to watch them all just work their craft. Perfect casting decisions in that regard. Stanley Tucci is also remarkable as attorney Mitchell Garabedian. They are all laser focused on the task. Some of them working longer hours than others. Some of them having families to go home to, some of them choosing career over family. But they are all thorough. 

They manage to maintain their journalistic professionalism while also taking the abuse claims to heart. When Matt Carroll's (D'Arcy James) character is scouring through the pages of the Catholic directory and discovers that one of the "treatment centers" is around the corner from his house, he realizes how close to home this problem really is. It is not wrong to draw comparisons of Spotlight to All the President's Men. They are both serious films, impactful in nature, covering scandals that everyone was already knowledgeable of. Both films feel academic to a certain extent. They both remind us of the importance of whistle-blowers in American culture. But sometimes its a film's duty to simply highlight a negative event in history. This way it will have it's place in cinematic history. And as the Spotlight staff realizes, some things should not go unnoticed. No matter how big the cages are that are about to get rattled. Spotlight isn't a movie filled with stylistic flair. It's a movie, completely serious in tone, with a job to do. And just like the Spotlight team, it maintains that steady pace until the job is done. 

The Conjuring

James Wan, 2013

IMDB

4/5

Sometimes with horror films, scary movies in general, it's not about the monsters and the creatures jumping out at you from the screen. Sometimes the real consistency of the scares is in the subtle notes. The build-up, the tension, the things you don't see. Sometimes it's something ambiguous, a shadow in the corner of the frame. A resonant sound. Or maybe it's something from your own life experience that you are bringing to the film. Maybe the house looks like yours. Maybe the layout of your bedroom is the same as the one in the scene. The Conjuring plays with a bunch of these concepts. Effective pacing, visual elements, creepy scenery, shadows, sounds. Splat-packer Wan has gotten a lot of movie-blood on his hands in the past, working on films like the original Saw and the first two Insidious films. Both of those films in their early incarnations were original and creative. Saw was certainly a more innovative horror film, Insidious played on a similar theme as the Conjuring with demonic forces at work in a home.

The Conjuring is a period piece set in the 1970's. When you enter the Rhode Island historical home in the early moments of the film, you realize right away that the house itself, even in the absence of anything floating through the hallways, is a damn creepy place to be. The walls are cracking, there are exposed lathe boards in some of the rooms. Aged kitchen, a certain layer of grime to most of the surfaces. Everything creaks and squeaks. But this is because it's an old house bought at an auction on the cheap by their truck-driving father Roger (Ron Livingston). He admits to having spread himself really thin financially, and purchasing the home with an effort to please wife Carolyn (Lili Taylor) who wants her children to grow up in the ambiance of the rural country. Dogs can see ghosts, as anyone who saw the original Poltergeist knows, and when their family pet refuses to enter the house we know right away why. The film is actually not really that ground-breaking or revolutionary in terms of story. It's a blend of a haunted house-possession sub-genres (with nods to the found-footage sub-genre as well), which doesn't feel all that fresh. But it's the execution of it all that works. And in this age of torture films and cheap slashers and CGI-monsters, it's refreshing to watch something that has lingering qualities.

Films like the Conjuring prove that a horror movie doesn't have to be revolutionary to still be effective. If you are a fan of the genre, sometimes you just a want a scare, and you get that here. And as far as memorable elements, whenever someone claps twice you are sure to think of this film.

American Sniper

Clint Eastwood, 2014

GoWatchIt

2/5

Adapted from the biography of the same name, This biopic tells the story of Chris Kyle, considered the deadliest sniper in American History with 160 confirmed kills out of 255 probable kills.

To call the opening portion of American Sniper excessively Patriotic would be an understatement. It is like a Budweiser commercial starring Kenny Chesney with two Bald Eagles sitting on his shoulders. Bradley Cooper delivers a restrained, subdued energy to his Chris Kyle character. He's a man that keeps his feelings bottled up, a tradition pased on by the now-overly-cliched 1950's style father. There are attempts to show the origins of Chris Kyle the person, but they are short. They show you the beginnings of his shooting skills with a quick opening hunting scene with his father. They show you his strong devotion to his country when he sees the 9/11 attacks on television, and he is basically on the next plane to Iraq. They are light touches. Instead of constructing a layered protagonist you are served a mumbling Cowboy. You never get a true sense of his sniping numbers piling up. The battle scenes themselves are largely one-sided and never really cut into the complexity of the Middle Eastern conflicts.

To be fair, it is still an important story without question worthy of a movie. If it continues the national dialogue about PTSD sufferers than it succeeds. People like Chris Kyle need to be commended and praised for their service to our country. If it weren't for him, soldiers like him, we would all be living a much different life. Heck, we'd probably be speaking German. But this movie fails to properly examine Chris Kyle the person. Instead it creates a hollow hero image but its a character thats lacking. And in terms of judging this as a Great War film, it isn't even in the conversation. It doesn't have the intensity or impact of a Hurt Locker or Zero Dark Thirty. Instead, it belongs in the same category as not-so-good also rans such as Jim Sheridan’s 2009 PTSD drama Brothers starring Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. Eastwood is likely to blame. He’s certainly not Kathryn Bigelow. He’s an 84 year old filmmaker whose sensibilities have probably changed. He probably doesn’t have the energy to piss anyone off anymore. Even with the ending of the film, he takes the Werner Herzog approach. It feels like a cop-out. Chris Kyle was an American Hero, and his story would have probably been served better through the eyes of a different filmmaker.

Heat

Michael Mann, 1995

Can I Stream It?

4/5

A group of elusive professional robbers have met their match when there is a unexpected slip-up on a job and they find themselves suddenly in the sights of hot-headed homicide detective Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino).

Michael Mann's action thriller pits DeNiro vs. Pacino (one of three films that the two co-starred in together) to satisfy any movie-lovers dream. Set in the backdrop of the concrete jungle of 1990's Los Angeles, much of the film consists of night shots littered with thousands of squared lit windows as one of the many police helicopters present in the city drift through the sky. When present in the day hours, you are probably looking at a contemporary structure that seems to be holding on to the side of a southern California cliff. If you aren't there, you're in a bank or close to money which at that point you are probably muffling your ears from the sounds of automatic rifle fire. Much of the film is the robbing crew on the move, with Vincent's men hot on their tail. The best of the best. Not many bank robbers are pulling architectural plans before a job, and not many detectives are meeting criminals at a club at 2AM for a ambiguous tip that may or may not even pay off. Dedication on all fronts. It's that cat and mouse concept that keeps the film compelling, although there are so many layers to this great picture to follow. Heat is home to one of the great bank robbery scenes of all time, and if you haven't seen this film you've probably heard about it. It's a lengthly action drama that's not without some over-dramatization, some over-acting by the wavering Pacino (although he provides some of the most memorable quotes on film that are forever in your brain), and some questionable plot-holes here and there. But you're willing to let the imperfections go. Even if you've seen this film a few times and you revisit it years later, you are bound to find something new.