Lone Survivor (2013)

At the start of Ben Stiller’s terrific 2008 comedy Tropic Thunder, there is a lengthy sequence depicting the exact type of over-the-top war movie its characters are seeking to create. There is copious gore, the dialogue consists only of the usual military clichés shouted at top volume, and those who die happen to perish in the most cinematic and grandiose way possible. All of this, of course, was meant to poke fun at what most war films have become in the post-Saving Private Ryan era, and while watching Peter Berg’s Afghan War film Lone Survivor I found myself constantly thinking that this the exact type of movie Stiller was mocking. Berg has made a thundering, intense, flag-waving war film that is never boring but also frustratingly strains to create “big” moments. The genre doesn’t get much more emphatic than this, but it does get a whole lot better.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I will try to write longer about this film at a later date. This short review will do for now.

Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have collaborated numerous times in the past decade, but never have they come up with a more memorable creation than this fictional version of Jordan Belfort, the ostensible “protagonist” of the new film The Wolf of Wall Street. Belfort is the founder of Stratton Oakmont, a firm that deals mostly in penny stocks. Ever since he opened his firm out of the garage, Belfort has had one goal: take as much money from his clients as possible. His business is instantly successful, and over the course of several years he becomes something of an icon in his field. There is nothing honorable about what he does for a living, and even less is honorable about what he does in his off time. His is a life of partying, booze, drugs and prostitutes, and with The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese has made a hilarious, scathing film that isn’t about Belfort so much as it’s about a society that allows him to not only exist, but thrive. There will inevitably be much talk about whether the film presents Belfort as an aspirational figure, but in my eyes that’s missing the point. The Wolf of Wall Street is a film about Belfort being an aspirational figure, and over the course of three extravagant hours Scorsese viciously explores this demented version of the American dream.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

As a director, Ben Stiller has always had a tendency to make his films look and feel as “big” as possible. That makes sense when you’re dealing with material like Tropic Thunder, which is actually about making an overblown action movie. However, that tactic ends up working against his adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which is so singularly focused on being grandiose that it becomes incoherent. It’s still a harmless, well-meaning creation, and Stiller clearly has an enthusiasm for this material that is infectious even in the worst of sequences. The problem is he’s never able to translate that enthusiasm into something audiences can connect to. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty spends too much time straining for something to say and not enough time actually saying it.

Grudge Match (2013)

The recent careers of Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro haven’t exactly been defined by prestige pictures, so it is saying something that even they should be above Grudge Match, a cynical, laborious piece of so-called “comedic” filmmaking that barely even bothers to shoot for the lowest common denominator. It’s not a surprise that director Peter Segal has two Happy Madison projects under his belt, since Grudge Match similarly piles on the crass, uninspired gags until it abruptly decides it wants the audience to take its characters seriously. The actors look like they’re being held hostage, and the only time the film has any life is when Kevin Hart shows up to do his usual Kevin Hart thing. At least he seems happy to be there. Everyone else wants out, and it’s hard to blame them.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013)

Sequels often have a difficult time justifying their existence even in the best of conditions, and for whatever reason comedies face an even more daunting uphill battle. As I mentioned in my reaction to the new season of Arrested Development, which I liked more than most, creations like that are often the result of the right people coming together at precisely the right time, and to try and recapture that magic many years later is like trying to grab steam out of the air with your bare hands. The 2004 comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy would seem to be an obvious case of this, since what Will Ferrell and Adam McKay accomplished with that film was so wonderfully bonkers that any attempt at a sequel would undoubtedly feel forced. The greatest challenge facing the belated follow-up Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues would almost certainly be the justification of its existence.

American Hustle (2013)

Right from the very first scene, David O. Russell’s American Hustle establishes itself as a film about deception. It doesn’t take much in the way of brainpower to figure that out, since there seems to be only one honest relationship in the entire thing. As the title suggests, this is an ensemble film featuring characters constantly attempting to play—or “hustle”—each other to varying degrees of success. This first scene is a brief glimpse into all the work that goes into this life of duplicity, as Christian Bale’s greasy con man artfully puts together his "elaborate" comb over for the day of work ahead. It’s a small detail, but it’s a vital one, and it sets up a universe in which no one can be wholly trusted. In American Hustle, there are always ulterior motives at play.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

As filmgoers, I believe the one thing we want more than anything is the sense that a movie is taking us somewhere worthwhile. It must have an clear sense of direction and purpose, and even if the destination turns out to be compelling it’s bound to feel hollow if the journey wasn’t of equal quality. This is the problem that has faced Peter Jackson throughout his return to Middle-earth, and his decision to split J.R.R. Tolkien’s 300-page The Hobbit into three 150-minute blockbusters has come under fire right from the get-go. As it turns out, last year’s first installment An Unexpected Journey was more slog than spectacle, and while it rebounded impressively in the final act it was unable to justify Jackson’s method of adaptation. The new middle installment, subtitled The Desolation of Smaug, is at the very least a considerable step in the right direction. There is still an abundance of filler to be found, and it ends on a frustrating cliffhanger that only accentuates how incomplete these first two installments feel, but with this film Jackson seems much more in command of the overblown epic he is creating. It still doesn’t need to exist as it is, but at least now it is a lot more fun to sit through.

Review Roundup: Prestige Season Edition

Hello, everyone. The end of the year is now upon us, and because of that I’ve decided to finally stop neglecting you all and get back to work. I know I’ve said that several times before, but now I mean it! Really! Anyway, how about I catch up on a few notable recent releases? No? Well too bad, you don’t have a say in the matter. Let’s begin.

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

In the world of the Coen brothers’ new film Inside Llewyn Davis, everything seems to revolve around a single venue known as the Gaslight Café. Every night, a slew of folk acts take the stage and attempt to make an impact in an environment full of performers just like them. One such performer is the eponymous Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), who is so determined to make this his life but cannot find a way to do it for an actual living. He sleeps on a different couch every night, and he gets regular gigs at the Gaslight, but no matter how many times he tries to take a step forward he never actually goes anywhere. This is a phenomenon the film makes explicitly clear, since it more or less begins and ends in the exact same place.

Nebraska (2013)

For a comedy about a father and son road trip, the world of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska feels strangely post-apocalyptic. The roads are barren, the buildings are boarded up, and the few people that are left feel less like inhabitants and more like survivors of some massive disaster that nobody talks about. This is a world without much of a future, but its one redeeming quality is that it has a rather fascinating past. As the action travels from Montana to the titular state of Nebraska, our characters seem to get a clearer view of what their history was like. At the center of it all is a man near the end of his life. He is obviously disappointed in what he has done so far, and when he sees one last chance at leaving an impact he becomes so engrossed that he is unable to see reason. His life has blown by so quickly and without ceremony that he overreacts when faced with even a tiny glimmer of excitement. It’s a rather bleak view of Midwestern America, but Payne is able to find some beauty in it all the same.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Even to those of us who were unfamiliar with Suzanne Collins’ source material, 2012’s original The Hunger Games was a mostly suspense-free affair. It was entertaining enough, and it skillfully introduced audiences to the world of Panem, but the plot itself was predictable and the action sequences were both overly sanitized and often incoherent. It was the cinematic equivalent of a television pilot, consisting of a whole lot of introduction and not much else. Now, with the second installment Catching Fire, the larger pieces of the story’s puzzle are officially set in motion, and the result is a surprisingly bleak and gripping film that shows the first steps of a seemingly impossible revolution. The games themselves remain the least interesting part of the universe, but the stakes are now much higher.

12 Years a Slave (2013)

First off, thank you for dealing with me through my break the last few weeks. I’m done with everything I discussed in my last post, so I should be free to resume semi-regular blogging. It won’t be crazy frequent because I’ve still got a few things I’m going to be working and waiting on, but at least I’ll be, you know, doing it. Anyway, onward and upward.

One of the most striking moments in Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave acts as a fine microcosm of what makes the film work as a whole. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), now known only as the slave “Platt,” finds himself in a scuffle with white overseer John Tibeats (Paul Dano). As an act of vengeance, Tibeats returns with two cohorts and begins to hang Solomon from a tree. They are scared off before they can finish, but no one comes to Solomon’s aid for quite some time. Director Steve McQueen captures this prolonged agony in one long, distant shot. As he hangs, feet barely touching the ground and the rope still around his neck, people walk by him in the background going about their daily business. He is there for hours, and McQueen makes us feel like we’re experiencing every last second of it right with him.

Captain Phillips (2013)

One of the most incredible and chilling moments in Paul Greengrass’ United 93 comes near the end, as the film cuts between the prayers of the passengers in the back of the titular flight and the hijackers at the front. In that one haunting moment, Greengrass unites the two groups and depicts how their respective faiths drive them to take the actions that they do. One of the great triumphs of that film is that it explores the motivations of the September 11 terrorists. It does not sympathize with them, obviously, but in the midst of the chaos Greengrass is able to create a transcendent moment that brilliantly draws one parallel between two ostensibly opposite groups of people. Greengrass’ new film Captain Phillips feels like a two-hour extension of that one moment, as he brilliantly explores the circumstances that lead a group of Somali progress to attempt a hijacking that will inevitably end in their defeat. The film may be named after the American protagonist, but Greengrass’ fascinations seem to lie elsewhere.

Gravity (2013)

Filmmakers are often quick to remind us of our insignificance in the universe, and that is never more apparent than when human beings are literally thrust into the middle of the universe itself. This is the central idea of Alfonso Cuarón’s terrific Gravity, a meticulously crafted thrill ride of a movie about one person’s fight for life in the brutal, uncaring vacuum of space. This is an unrelentingly exciting theatrical experience that works both because of its visual mastery and because of its simplicity. The latter may be an odd thing to say about an $80 million special effects extravaganza, but through all the chaos Cuarón keeps the focus almost exclusively on his protagonist. There are no extraneous characters or plot points; Gravity is a ruthlessly efficient 90-minute journey from point A to point B, but there is more wonder and excitement in these 90 minutes than most of this summer’s blockbusters combined. There may not be much past the surface, but that surface is unique in almost every way.

Rush (2013)

It’s rarely a great idea to define characters by one trait, but Ron Howard’s Formula One drama Rush actually makes the broad strokes work by becoming a film about two radically different approaches to racing and life. It’s not a remotely complex piece of work—Howard doesn’t make too many of those—but it’s a good, engaging story slickly packaged by the director into an efficient and constantly exciting drama. Add on two wonderful lead performances by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, and you’ve got a film that works simply because everybody involved is doing their job at a high level. There’s not a lot of mystery to what makes Rush tick.

Salinger (2013)

A photographer sits in a car, which is parked across the street from a small post office in Windsor, Vermont. He begins talking to no one in particular about a job he was assigned several years ago. He was told to track down and take a picture of J.D. Salinger in his natural habitat, despite the fact that the author long ago ran away from the spotlight. After two days of waiting around and getting nothing, he is able to finally capture an unknowing Salinger as he leaves the post office with his mail. It’s an interesting enough anecdote, but in Shane Salerno’s frustrating documentary Salinger it is treated with all the weight of an impending nuclear explosion. The music is like something out of The Dark Knight Rises, the cuts come fast and furious, and when the photo finally reveals itself its as if the audience is supposed to collectively gasp and fan their faces at what the movie has just shown them. This is a movie much more obsessed with the mystery of J.D. Salinger rather than the man J.D. Salinger, and Salerno treats every so-called revelation in his film as if he is doing work just as important as The Catcher in the Rye itself. Salinger gives the caffeinated celebrity treatment to a man who had very little interest in celebrity, and the result is a tone-deaf piece of work that would have been drastically improved if it just took a couple seconds to breathe once in a while. Not that it would have solved Salerno’s wrongheaded approach to just about everything.

The Family (2013)

By all accounts, Luc Besson should know what he’s doing by now. Since the early ’90s, he has attached his name to scores of European/American action movies that have usually gone on to considerable financial success. (The most notable recent example is Taken.) As a producer, he is enormously successful. This was also true of his directorial career at one point, but since the days of Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, Besson hasn’t been quite as prolific behind the camera. Even so, Besson has been around far too long to make a film as confused and pointless as The Family, a potentially interesting but thoroughly botched comedy (maybe?) about a ex-mob family who find themselves hiding in Normandy thanks to the Witness Protection Program. No two people involved in this film seem to have the same idea of what exactly they’re making, and based on what wound up on the screen it stands to reason that Besson himself was equally clueless.

Don Jon (2013)

Just about every character in Don Jon, the directorial debut from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, can be defined by which screens they most frequently utilize in their daily lives. Some characters like going to movies, others like watching sports on their television, and one in particular spends just about the whole film on their cell phone. Then, of course, there is the titular protagonist Jon Martello, whose addiction to Internet pornography has kept him from connecting with human beings on any significant level. That is the theme of Don Jon in a nutshell: it’s about a world where people’s expectations are so altered by the entertainment surrounding them that life no longer begins to feel organic. It’s an admirable goal, and Gordon-Levitt is able to find some interesting moments within this world, but the film is hampered by a group of characters that don’t feel like people as much as a cavalcade of stereotypes. Perhaps that’s the point of what Gordon-Levitt is going for, but the result is a layer of abrasiveness that detracts from what is otherwise an impressive debut.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

A common complaint about many blockbuster movies in the Michael Bay era is they are so wall-to-wall chaotic that watching them becomes a numbing experience. In order for a movie to be engaging, there must be metaphorical peaks and valleys. Stuff can't just be happening all of the time. However, the other end of the spectrum doesn’t get nearly the same amount of criticism. Just as Transformers shouldn’t be a 150-minute sprint, smaller independent ventures like David Lowery’s new Ain’t Them Bodies Saints need to do something to generate forward momentum. Lowery has all the skills to be a great filmmaker, and his first feature showcases his great eye and his ability to perfectly capture the ’70s Texas setting. Except as of now, his faux-Malickian style only has this one gear. It’s a watchable gear, but just because you can play some pretty notes doesn’t mean you’re making music.

Review Roundup: End of Summer Edition

Welcome to a late summer Review Roundup, in which I briefly take you through some of the small or independent films that have been released the last several weeks. These movies are Blue Jasmine, The Canyons, Lovelace and Prince Avalanche. Enjoy.