2014 @ The Movies Archives - May

Below is a monthly compilation of my 128 2014 film reviews originally published on Facebook:

May 2 2014 through May 31 2014:

2014 @ the movies take 39: "Nymphomaniac Vol.2" And now for the sadomasochistic portion of our program... Now you know what to do with your pennies. Too bad this part doesn't feature Uma Thurman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY05rcPrAss

2014 @ the movies take 40: "The Other Woman" This movie is absolutely true to its trailer. Everything that is shown in the trailer is in the movie, too bad there is nothing else...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDcaZ3StTfI

2014 @ the movies take 41: "Hateship Loveship" An impeccably acted about how truth can be buried in deception. It is also how to connect with one another through house cleaning. A must-see. It is this year's "Enough Said" for the indy romance genre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zN05QECAtQ

2014 @ the movies take 42: "Amazing Spider-man 2" (IMAX 3D) except for the too-many-villains syndrome that is a staple of the Spidey franchise, Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker are pitch-perfect. We will pass on daddy Parker's ridiculous underground lab, and praise the amazing use of 3D throughout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlM2CWNTQ84

2014 @ the movies take 43: “The Killing” (1956) Stanley Kubrick’s third feature film. A noire gem that will make you rethink what suitcase to choose while convoying the loot of a heist gone awry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDUFG56wT4

2014 @ the movies take 44: “Joe” Nicolas Cage’s best performance in a long time. Rural noire tragedy even darker and sometimes more human than last year’s excellent “Mud". Must see! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WPLVEUx5AU

2014 @ the movies take 45: “Finding Vivian Maier” A superb documentary exploring the meaning of art production without an audience. Shall we betray the wish of an artist to reveal her talent?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er8-Vq__cRE

2014 @ the movies take 46: “Two Men in Town” (La Voie de l’Enemi) A Franco-American production! They don’t happen very often. The age-old life after prison theme carried by a great performance by Forest Whitaker. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ_ZHJfTWxQ

2014 @ the movies take 47: “Homesman” Tommy Lee Jones takes on the Old West and focusing on the plight of females on the frontier. A powerful tale of often an overlooked piece of US history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6uQkoXKGxM

2014 @ the movies take 48: “Zwei Leben” (Two Lives) A norwegian look at the offsprings of nazi soldiers left behind in Norway after WW2. Great acting with themes reminiscent of last year’s German import “Lore” but overall more accessible. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWQ3cAYWoNg

2014 @ the movies take 49: “Maps to the Stars” David Cronenberg takes on Hollywood - brilliant and slightly disturbing with a milestone performance by Julianne Moore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsFnwgUlrxs

2014 @ the movies take 50: "X-Men: Days of Future Past (3D)" In this installment, your favorite mutants take on a little-known verb tense. The largest grammatical crossover of all times! The best installment in the series packed with comic-geek Easter eggs. Icing on the cake thanks to this time-traveling feast the horrendous “X-Men 3: The Last Stand” never happened :) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2zYHWDZKo

2014 @ the movie take 51: “Deux Jours, une Nuit” (Two Days, One Night) "The film follows Sandra, a young woman assisted by her husband, who has only one weekend to convince her colleagues to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job.” That the pitch of a Franco-Belgian blockbuster. More real that than, it would be a documentary where Marion Cotillard becomes everywoman. Sign me up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk146VbQ0yA

2014 @ the movie take 52: “Only lovers left live” Jim Jarmusch brilliantly explores the boredom that comes with vampiric immortality. Twilight fans might be confused. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbxI_oRSKI

2014 @ the movie take 53: “Under the Skin” Here is a contender for best film of 2014 on my list. An observation of humanity from a external vantage point that will makes the skin crawl (literally). What Scarlett Johansson achieved with her voice in “Her” she achieves here again with her body. Second viewing needed - blu-ray pre-ordered. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSWbyvdhHw

2014 @ the movie take 54: "Locke" Every possible way to film a guy driving a car at night in real time. Tom Hardy delivers a great performance facing his handsfree phone kit. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdaofZfgV_Q

2014 @ the movie take 55: "Godzilla (3D)" Bryan Cranston & Juliette Binoche appear at the beginning. They die and a giant lizzard takes over and eats the plot… 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc

2014 @ The Movies Archives - April

Below is a monthly compilation of my 128 2014 film reviews originally published on Facebook:

April 4 2014 through April 26 2014:

2014 @ the movies take 30: "Enemy" a solid performance by Jake Gyllenhaal in this disturbed thriller. It has the polished creepy ambiance of a Lynch film, but too much transparence in its overarching metaphor to be as thought-provoking. Re-watch "Lost Highway" instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJuaAWrgoUY

2014 @ the movies take 31: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" A high-risk endeavor to be sequel and to tackle a beloved story line. The result is probably the best Marvel super-hero movie or is it a gigantic spy thriller with no identifiable super-villain? I may even see again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvD6clUAWdA

2014 @ the movies take 32: "Veronica Mars" The fan-financed return of the high-school sleuth is a huge fan-fest steeped in self-reference porn for the 2004 nostalgic. A fun no-brainer even if you were never in the targeted demography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwW5_0myXI

2014 @ the movies take 33: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Told you I would see it again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvD6clUAWdA

2014 @ the movies take 34: "Transcendence" Johnny Depp as a somewhat benevolent super-nanotech-powered demigod doesn't capture my imagination as much as Scarlett Johansson's voice finding the limits of language. Watch "Her" again instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCTen3-B8GU

2014 @ the movies take 35: "Raid 2" The sequel to "Raid: Redemption" the 2012 Indonesian sequestered martial art fest, remember? The sequel ups the ante in a giant bare-knuckle ballet. Exhausting, but still enjoyable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MuXrN8L9ro

2014 @ the movies take 36: "The Grand Budapest Hotel" It captures the energy and square format of the best silent movies, and encases it in Wes Anderson's colorful doll house. Brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zru-1DbbcsA

2014 @ the movies take 37: "Nymphomaniac Vol.1" The (non-sexual) scene with Uma Thurman is the most interesting part of this first opus that is often too chatty and crowded with a wide array of genitalia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdxzno5Xp2Y

2014 @ the movies take 38: "Noah" This should be entitled "Noah and the Thunder-dome" A bore of biblical proportions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmj5mhDwJQ

2014 @ The Movies Archives - March

Below is a monthly compilation of my 128 2014 film reviews originally published on Facebook:

March 1 2014 through March 27 2014:

2014 @ the movies take 21: "Le Passé (The Past)." A perfectly acted piece on being intimately isolated from the ones we love. Never listening when we should and paying too much attention to what does not matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLKpTRilMFc

2014 @ the movies take 22: "300 The Rise of an Empire (3D)." It is faithful to the source material (Frank Miller's unfinished sequel to "300"). Too bad the source material is a tired graphic novel with a dubious ideological subtext.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zqy21Z29ps

2014 @ the movies take 23: "Need For Speed 3D." Visually boring with an equally unimaginative plot, this first main bill for Aaron Paul should be entitled "Need for Script." I hope Paul will soon land a project that is worth his talent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3wtVI-aJuw

2014 @ the movies take 24: "The Lego Movie" A very pleasant surprise with a clever script where every brick counts (sorry, couldn't resist). To me, Legos have always been about building a landscape for our imagination to take flight. This film exploits and explores this process brilliantly. Where is my 1978 Fire Station set? I need to turn it into a space-faring Pirate ship!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ_JOBCLF-I

2014 @ the movies take 25: "Gloria" This Chilean dramedy works because it feels so real. Even when breaking up via a paintball execution, Gloria never becomes a caricature. Let's hope we never see a Hollywood remake of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9PrVESAYeA

2014 @ the movies take 26: "Divergent" This is the Chicago version of "Hunger Games." They just replaced the chariot with the EL Train. A strong female lead questioning a dystopian future... just read Greg Rucka & Michael Lark's comic-book series "Lazarus" and go beyond the "be all you can be" super pc tagline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutgWjz10sM

2014 @ the movies take 27: "Tim's Vermeer" Beyond Tim's obsessive compulsive drive, this documentary brings out the missing link between painting and the advent of photography. It starts blurring the lines between what is viewed as "great art" and supposedly lesser mechanical reproduced imagery. I wish it had taken the debate a bit further by involving the Vermeer purists in the conversation, but it is still a fascinating doc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS_HUWs9c8c

2014 @ the movies take 28: "Is the man who is tall happy?" A must-see for any linguistics geek! I also enjoyed the honesty of the conversation. Gondry even acknowledges the misunderstandings and Chomsky's digressions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBaEjIzDhgg

2014 @ the movies take 29: "Kaze Tachinu" (The Wind Rises) (Japanese with Eng Sub) Even more powerful in glorious Japanese. Miyazaki's mastery is also in his voice casting choices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5dB_9dW2SQ

2014 @ The Movies Archives - February

Below is a monthly compilation of my 128 2014 film reviews originally published on Facebook:

February 1 2014 through February 28 2014:

2014 @ the movies take 10: "Oscar Live Action Shorts 2014" a so-so selection this year. The strongest entries were from France and the UK. "Avant que de tout perdre" has a great narrative structure and never falls into the syrupy pathos trap that comes with portraying victims - trap where the Spanish & Danish entries jump with both feet... The British entry pokes at religion in a very unique an funny way. The last short of the selection is an honest and fresh laugh from Finland :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpGOaR1bTac

2014 @ the movies take 11: "Labor Day" I believed in you during 1h31m and you died like a over-baked peach pie in your last 20 minutes. You were subtle, well-acted, thought-provoking (in spite of spider-man delivering a redundant voice over), but you couldn't stop, you had to wrap up everything in a pretty bow and turn Spider-man into a pastry chef. We don't care! The film is not about him! I should have known that the mention "and Tobey Maguire" in the opening credits was a bad omen... Sorry Kate Winslet & Josh Brolin even my rant is all about Spider-Tobey... Go see it and walk out when Dawson picks the kid up for a ride along...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOQL3Xi8dPE

2014 @ the movies take 12: "Sundance Shorts 2014" A very diverse and thought-provoking selection - overall much stronger than the Oscar Live Action Shorts 2014. Bring them back next year Mike Stevens! :) 

My fave - visual poetry:

UNTIL THE QUIET COMES (Kahlil Joseph, USA, 4 min) Shot in the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in Watts, Los Angeles, this film deals with themes of violence, camaraderie and spirituality through the lens of magical realism.

My picks (tie) for best formal deviation for short documentaries:
SKINNINGROVE (Michael Almereyda, USA, 15 min) Photographer Chris Killip chronicled his time spent among the fiercely independent residents of a remote English fishing village.
&
IRISH FOLK FURNITURE (Tony Donoghue, Ireland, 8 min) In this stop-motion animated documentary, 16 pieces of old hand-painted furniture are repaired and returned home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ccO0WAfHnE

2014 @ the movies take 13: "The Monuments Men" It feels like a disjointed "Ocean's 1944" with a token French guy as well. Yes, it is an interesting historical event, but it did not need to be Clooneyified. A well-done documentary would have sufficed. Sorry, Terry Miller Barakat even Bob Balaban gives a lackluster performance. The most thought-provoking aspect of the film remains the plural noun "monuments" used as adjective in the title... but I digress...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CreneTs7sGs

2014 @ the movies take 14: "Robocop" It's slightly better than I thought it would be AKA a solid watchable C+. It is as scary as Fox News, but with imperialist robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuVphAuRo7Q

2014 @ the movies take 15: "Her" (second viewing, but at The Moxie). Still very strong on a second viewing. It is even more subtly layered than I caught the first time. The use of silent scenes and references to silence oddly jumped at me this time. Hush…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTzCSDOM0JQ

2014 @ the movies take 16: "The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza)" a visual and auditory feast wrapped up in Italian political surrealism and vice-versa. Friends of the beaten paths, stay away. It's good to see there are still vanishing giraffes in Cinecittà.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dyt430YkQn0

2014 @ the movies take 17&18: "Oscar Documentary Shorts 2014 Programs A & B" - strong selection this year. Despite the choice of the Academy, my pick of the lot is "Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall." A very powerful study in redemption and the absurdity of incarceration. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14uR69tbdxY

2014 @ the movies take 19: "12 Years a Slave" (2nd viewing). Still powerful and subtle a second time around. I especially love how Steve McQueen takes the time to paint the south as a completely different environment. A fully-deserved best feature film Oscar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrDg_6rxCzs

2014 @ the movies take 20: "Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)." (English Dub) Hayao Miyazaki's last opus should have been the recipient of the Oscar for best animated feature, and also nominated for best feature. The Wind Rises is not about plot, sirupy singing or snappy dialogues, it captures the drive to create: how craft can lead to beauty and destruction, flight and death. It also captures the Japanese people of the time animating the most vivid and beautiful crowd scenes I have seen. Poetic and realistic, intimate and universal, mechanical and organic, it lifts you like a gust of wind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGr8XDxB-9I

2014 @ The Movies Archives - January

Below is a monthly compilation of my 128 2014 film reviews originally published on Facebook:

January 3 2014 through January 31 2014:

1st movie of 2014 "Dallas Buyers Club" at the Moxie of course! All around amazing acting and a great script that never dissolves into sappy mush. I especially liked the small random moments that punctuate the story like the butterfly sequence and the disrupted masturbation scene. Special thanks to Mike Stevens for showing Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" trailer and Shelley Scanlon for putting up with our confusing payment and card punching sequence :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs1kpGNSRVka

2014 @ the movies take 2: "Mandela a Long Walk to Freedom" Yes, Mandela was a great man, but the biopic only timidly touches on the complexities of the man to favor the myth. The all thing ends up being very high-school-class friendly with some very bad curly white hair wigs and a sappy score. Gosh, I miss me some Stringer Bell!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAglZjX3HOk

2014 @ the movies take 3: "Inside Llewyn Davis" rarely failed dreams looked so beautiful. Struggling for recognition is tough when people can't even pronounce your first name. Even tough the script is brilliant, the actors impeccable and the directing masterful, this film should be nominated for best sound design & mixing - each door slamming resonates with the story like a perfect note of humorous despair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXMuR-Nsyl

2014 @ the movies take 4: "Her" First of, Scarlett Johansson expresses more with the slightest inflection of her voice than Tom Cruise & Keanu Reeves in their entire acting career. Second, if you dug Jacques Derrida's "Of Grammatology" (De la Grammotologie), rejoice: the movie version just came out! Spike Jonze explores this broken tool that makes us: language. I know I should write poster blurbs and trailer voice overs. There is so much going on in this film, my brain feels small an inadequate. Repeat viewing coming up..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl4

2014 @ the movies take 5: "August: Osage County" It's like the Oklahoma version of "Nebraska" - you will laugh and regret it a second later and laugh again or maybe cry. This is "ensemble cast" done correctly for those of us who miss Robert Altman. A special mention for Benedict Cumberbatch who will break your heart. This film probably needs a shelf of acting Oscars, though. See, Terry Miller Barakat, I didn't even whine about the cheesy Hallmark ending credits. Well, I kind of just did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hd_uO72h1s

2014 @ the movies take 6: "Lone Survivor" The proposition of me seeing this motion picture had it not been nominated for best sound editing and sound mixing was dubious at best. Now, I have to say this cliché-ridden fare is definitely punctuated with moments of intense acoustic prowess. Unfortunately, they do not make up for the equally intense platitude of the plot and acting. Mark Wahlberg has the range of a basic stovetop with two settings: [^_^] (fun) and [*=*] (not fun). I hope the actual late Navy SEALS the film is dedicated to were not cinephiles, for it is a sad cinematographic homage they are celebrated with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoLFk4JK_RM

2014 @ the movies take 7: "Frozen" Yes, another Oscar contender I had to sit through. Right off the bat, I cannot stand singing cartoons, but that's my problem. However painful the singing parts, I am kind of glad I saw this. For one thing the Mickey short "Get A Horse!" that precedes it is a small marvel of politically incorrect 30's humor teleported to 2014- very odd. More on that when I see it again at the Moxie as part of the Oscar animated shorts series - thank you Mike Stevens. Frozen is very a chatty ride for fleas with ADD. Even though it is about the advent of the coldest winter imaginable, the slow stillness of frozen land is surely absent from this cavalcade. I got the fact this winter is a metaphor for the woes of the human heart that can hurt the most beautiful sisterly friendship. Nevertheless, the topic of climactic changes cannot be completely metaphorical in 2014, Walt! Under this perspective, Frozen presents a world where a character, Elsa, controls the weather. There is apparently no other natural force at play. When Anna finally understands how to control her deadly winter powers, she creates an unnatural environment where snowmen never melt and people can ice-skate outdoors in summer (because the first thing town folks want to do after the harshest winter on record is ice skate!!!). This is very disturbing, like the ski slopes in Dubai. This added to the fact that her kingdom is courted by a bunch of politicians with foreign accents including a villain obsessed with trade and a handful of others who do nothing except sounding very French and I think Spanish or Italian - it must be the EU!! What a mess! Kids, stay home and re-watch Totoro!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbQm5doF_Uc

2014 @ the movies take 8: "The Invisible Woman" Yet another contender (best costume design) on my slate. This is a very elegant film, aptly acted and directed. The most interesting part for me was the portrayal of Dickens as the first literary super-star in the modern sense - that he surely was. It's a film about the pitfalls of celebrity more than a biopicky love story. The scene at the horse race track is the best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDMHb3GetIc

2014 @ the movies take 9: "Oscar Animated Shorts 2014" - a great selection this year. "Get a Horse" is still strong on a 2nd viewing (it also fronts Frozen). I still love how inappropriate it is : Mickey in the nude, Clara-belle constantly flashing her udders and the fact that the whole things is an extended violent torture scene for Peg-leg. A side note: notice Horace wearing a Captain America shirt in his 2014 3D incarnation, a reminder of whom owns Marvel Comics. The French "Mr. Hublot" is gorgeous albeit a tad longish. "Feral" is powerful, but too experimental to get an otherwise well-deserved gold dude. The Japanese entry "Possessions" has some superb moments, but is plagued by a clunky character design for the protagonist, and the same theme was tackled way better in "Spirited Away." Weirdly enough, my fave of the lot is not even nominated: "Blue Umbrella" the best Pixar effort since Wall-E…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws54EoxJQU8

See you in February!

2014 @ The Movies - BEST to WORST

2014 at the Movies Final Cut: One of my 2014 resolution was to write a review of every film seen at the theater. Mission accomplished with 128 reviews posted to FB... smile emoticon Now it is time for my year in review video - 109 films organized from worst to best (I excluded double viewings and films not released in 2014 hence the discrepancy with the number of reviews) et voilà:

2013 @ The Movies - BEST to WORST

The curtain has closed on 2013 - I spent about 8 days of it in a movie theater. It all started with "Promised Land" and ended with "The Desolation of Smaug." That comes to 93 movies, which really pisses me off, because it is [11] shy of [two] a week - to paraphrase Jordan Belfort a tad. Once the repeat viewings and pre-2012 re-releases removed, 85 films remain. Here is my ranking