The Best Movies You Didn't Watch This Year

                Being a writer for a southeast Idaho publication, I have tried to review and discuss films that are going to play to the southeast Idaho audience.  But, being a movie fan, I have also been watching plenty of other movies that I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on. With the year coming to a close, I would feel remiss if I were to deny Journal readers my recommendations for the amazing output in this year’s limited releases. Though many of the films in this article may have not played first-run in our region, the year’s most interesting, groundbreaking and entertaining films, released in independent, foreign, and/or boutique markets, are now or will soon become perfectly available through rental or streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

                 Early in the year we were treated with a smattering of interesting crime movies that not only broke the traditions of their genre but also broke the predictability of the typical three-act movie structure. Director Danny Boyle reteamed with his old “Trainspotting” screenwriter John Hodge and released the tenchnodelic brain caper “Trance” and reminded people that complicated plots and disappearing MacGuffins are not nearly as precious if you have three capable leads like James McCavoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassel to carry you through. You’re never sure if what you are watching is actually happening or what character’s perspective you’re viewing the events through, but Boyle’s energy never lets up and the movie never gets boring. Similarly, Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers”—perhaps the most controversial and divisive film of the year—transforms a simple good-girls-gone-bad heist thriller into a fragmented, neon nightmare parable. James Franco makes a peculiar but refreshing turn as a white-trash, rapping Big Bad Wolf and Disney tween actors (Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez, respectively) stand in as a satirical representation of the hopelessly duped and shallow Gen-Y marketing demographic.  In a more sober representation of American hopelessness, Derek Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines” tells an intricate collection of stories about families, fathers, murder, and secrets, highlighting an ambitious screenplay that manages to fit all the drama and operatic tension of the Godfather trilogy in just one feature.  

                This has also been a terrific year for movies about women.  Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha”, a modern black and white indie about a young New Yorker (Greta Gerwig) who can barely make ends meet or even hold on to a stable living situation in her post-academic life, perfectly captures the plight of the overqualified, jobless 20-somethings of our era. “Enough Said”, with Seinfeld’s Julie Lewise Dreyfus and James Gandolfin in his last role, is a warm and clever rom-com throwback about middle-aged second chances. In Woody Allen’s latest, “Blue Jasmine”, he wisely gives Cate Blanchett a meaty enough character and a light enough screenplay to let her take hold and command the screen for its entire ninety-eight minutes. Blanchett plays the complicated Jasmine with heartbreaking sympathy and sociopathic wit in such a way that the movie, refreshingly, never condemns the character or begs the audience for her redemption.

                If you’re like me than you probably can’t resist a good coming of age movie.  “Mud”, by Jeff Nichols, frames a criminal-on-the-lam plot with a teenage story about first loves and broken homes. Matthew McConaughey continues his impressive winning streak and Nichols’ southern world-building feels fully realized and lived in, creating something like a cross between “Huckleberry Finn” and “E.T”.  “The Spectacular Now” is a confident coming of age film about a young alcoholic (Miles Teller) who, in trying to mend a freshly broken heart, finds companionship in a geeky loner girl (Shalene Woodly) from his high school. In giving her the confidence she needs to make things happen in her life, he also exposes her to his most destructive tendencies. It’s a real film about real teenagers and it doesn’t promote or judge the character’s choices. Of course, when it comes to this category, one can’t not bring up the lyrical beauty of the French, Palme D’Or winner “Blue is the Warmest Color”, a young love story that isn’t afraid to take its characters or its actors anywhere.  Unlike many American coming-out dramas, this doesn’t end after our heroine figures out her sexual orientation gets the girl. Instead, the movie continues to follow both the pragmatic Adele (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and her artsy, bohemian lover Emma (Léa Seydoux) as they learn about who they are and what they need out of a long term commitment. Both leads give fearless performances and by the movie’s end you will feel like you have gone through the couple's most intimate highs and lows.

                Lastly, this year has also treated us too some wonderful oddball, genre-bending films such as the horror-comedy “John Dies at the End”, a film that crosses the slacker, pizza-breath vibe of “Wayne’s World” and “Idle Hands” with the shadowy and nonsensical terror of films such as “Donny Darko” and “Lost Highway”. And then, in what is probably still my favorite motion picture of 2013, one should not miss seeing the tragic sci-fi romance “Upstream Color”, about a young couple who find each other after unwillingly undergoing a psychic treatment that involves pigs, worms, orchids and the writings of Henry David Theroux.  It’s a puzzle box narrative without an instruction booklet, but it’s hard work pays off in an intensely interior and emotionally engaging way.  Self financed and self distributed, “Primer” director, Shane Caruth, not only makes one of the most impressive sophomore efforts by an indie filmmaker but he practically creates a whole new cinematic language in which to tell his story.  It’s on Netflix. And you’re welcome.

                 So, even though I have spent a lot of time ragging on the Hollywood blockbusters and the star vehicles from this year, 2013, film for film, has proven to be one of the most engaging years in movies. I also want to remind readers that I chose not to spotlight the obvious awards-season indies such as “Inside Llewyn Davis”, “Dallas Buyers Club”, or “Nebraska” because, while all of those films are fantastic and deserve your attention, they certainly don’t need my help. Also also, I want to remind those who may think my tastes lean so far left that I can’t enjoy a popcorn movie anymore, that Alfonso Cauron’s “Gravity” deserves just as much praise for its expressive storytelling as it does its special effects and sometimes it feels like I might be the only person left who will admit to unabashedly loving “Star Trek into Darkness”. So there.

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2013

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug review

               First of all, I want to say that as someone who has always struggled with his weight, I think it's great that Peter Jackson has been able to successfully shed much of his excess body mass and find ways to remain healthy and lean. I only wish that he could apply the same kind of discipline to his filmmaking. 3D, wicked-high frame-rates and motion capture have become his new indulgences and these technologies have apparently now taken precedent over coherent storytelling and character development.  

                As a fan—and sometimes defender—of Jackson’s ambitious Lord of the Rings trilogy, I’m at a loss at how the same man behind that behemoth of a juggling act, who, for three films, was able to keep all of his balls in the air at the same time, now can’t manage to competently tell a simple point-A to point-B plot.  I left last year’s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” with the bare-minimum level of satisfaction and a heap of better-luck-next-time reservations.  Within “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”, despite spending its entire running time throwing CGI things at the camera, whatever story was set up in the first film has now been shoved aside for a two hour and forty minute, fantasy, tech-demo.

                The plot of this second installment—as it barely exists—continues to follow Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and his merry gang of dwarves, led by the brave but stubborn Thorin (Richard Armitage), as they make their way through the dangerous pockets of Middle Earth on the way to the Lonely Mountain to reclaim their home and treasure from a massive dragon named Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).  On the way, they run into an army of Orks, racist wood elves, and a downtrodden fishing community, ruled by a corrupt master (Stephen Fry). 

                Seems modest enough, right? Well, added in, we also follow the wizard Gandolf (Sir Ian McKellan) as he is sneaking around caves and forests in search of a non-related prophecy, as well as a wooden will-they-or won’t-they, romantic strand dealing with Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and an arrow-wielding elf named Taurial (Evangeline Lilly).  All of these story bits, along with the main journey, struggle for air between a number of bloated, video-game action set-pieces. 

                Despite Jackson stretching this relatively short novel into three separate films by including side-mythology from Tolkien’s other writings, this movie couldn’t be less interested in the story.  Through most of the it the characters are bounced from one set-piece to another with hardly any narrative tissue holding them together.  There are far too many goofy names and magic scrolls and foretold something-or-others to keep up with, and the film’s complete inability to slow down and let the plot breath prevents any of these elements from progressing.  We don’t even have a particular interest in Bilbo’s involvement in the story anymore since the movie continually shifts the center of consciousness, digressing into uninteresting and irrelevant subplots and over designed and aggressively choreographed green-screen action sequences.

                What will inevitably trick audiences into thinking they got what they paid for is the fantastic, well-paced conclusion of the film, involving the dragon Smaug; a completely believable and awe-inspiring CGI creation that steals the entire show. Cumberbatch’s voice is used to good effect here and the scene, unlike the rest of the movie, is based in its characters and their interactions.

                Back in 2005 I would have never called “The Lord of the Rings” series subtle, but compared to these exponentially disappointing Hobbit prequels they now feel like Ken Burns documentaries.  Whereas those films knew how to use their long running-times to build brooding atmosphere and explore the different character dynamics, this movie just feels like being led on a track through a spook house, passing one visual thing after another, in way that seems arbitrary and inconsequential. 

Grade: D+

Originally published in The Idaho State Journal/Dec-2013

Out of the Furnace review

               The characters in Scott Cooper’s “Out of the Furnace” have everything working against them. They’re under paid, they’re incarcerated, they’re deep in debt, they have cancer, and worst of all, they are they are living in the genre confines of a bleak rural noir. Like 2010’s “Winters Bone” or even this year’s “Prisoners”, crime and revenge has bled from the urban streets into the red-neck hills, where the consequences of human betrayal are met with even more brutality.

                Cooper’s follow up to his country music character-study “Crazy Heart” is quite a departure in style.  Even though the understated quietness of his scenery and the subtle direction of his actors are still intact, this movie moves away from the tangible warmth of the county-western bars and plunges deep into a dower underworld of drugs and murder. While Cooper philosophizes on America’s post Iraq psychology and the economic weight burdened on blue-collar culture, when the plot finally kicks into gear , his film settles confidently into its base interests as a nail-biting, pulp thriller--and an occasionally brassy one at that.

                Christian Bale and Casey Affleck play Russell and Rodney Baze, two brothers who live  in a rust-belt, steel town, and who each have their own crosses to bare. Russell is sent to prison for 5 years after a drunk driving accident and Rodney is sent to war in Iraq, where he hopes to make some money for the family. When Russell is finally set free, he finds his girl (Zoe Saldana) remarried and his brother is forced to lose bare-knuckle boxing matches to pay off his ever growing debt with a local drug syndicate. After Rodney goes missing and the cops are tied-up by jurisdiction to move forward with the case, Russell decides to investigate the rotted underbelly of this dangerous world himself.

                 “Out of the Furnace” isn’t nearly as profound or as A-level as it thinks it is, but the sincerity of the performances and a seat clenching third-act saves it from being an unrelenting downer.  Bale and lil’ Affleck are both effective without overplaying things and their instincts are tuned well enough know which note to play each scene.  Side performances from Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard and the recently revived Forest Whitaker fill out their roles nicely as well. But it is Woody Harrelson as the tobacco stained, meth-head, hillbilly heavy, who drips with intimidating menace in every scene he steals.

                While spending the first half of the film stacking conflict on top of complication against the protagonists, the story feels a bit loose and shaggy, and slow to get going. But when the pawns have been put into place the despair truck is finally done unloading, all of this character work pays off in an old fashion man-hunt.  The violence is treated just a blunt as the emotions are approached with tenderness and the mechanics of the cat and mouse set-piece’s between Bale and Harrelson and genuinely exciting and unpredictable. 

                If you can wade through the woe-is-me grunge in all of it, there’s a half-way decent revenge movie to enjoy in here. I can’t say Cooper gives us anything we haven’t seen somewhere else done better—“No County For Old Men” and the Aussie gangster film  “Animal Kingdom” comes to mind—but sometimes when you get a respectable director and talented cast together you can end up with something pretty watchable.

Grade: B -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2013

Frozen review

               Despite the fact that Disney is still remembered for its quality family entertainment, it has been some time since their primary animation studio has produced anything of lasting relevance. Sure, Pixar, their digital-animation sister company, has occasionally been able to approximate the glory days when  Disney could so perfectly balance sentimentality with  sincerity, in a narratively compelling way, but with the expansion of their ever-splintering markets, the studio’s proper animation department has been on a steady decline for last 20 years.

                “Frozen”, a 3D reworking of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen”, cleverly plays on the nostalgia of the classic Disney musical by simulating the Broadway infected melodrama of films like “Beauty and the Beast” and  “The Little Mermaid”, as well as the visual aesthetics of older selections from their repertoire like “Cinderella”.  But does “Frozen” manage to carve out a niche for itself among the pantheon of Disney standards or is it simply an empty pastiche?

                This loose adaptation of Anderson’s fairytale tells the story of two sisters who are emotionally separated after the enchanted snow-bender Elsa (Idina Menzel) almost kills her younger sister Anna (Kristen Bell) in a childhood accident. Years later, after Anna's been healed and her memory of Elsa’s powers have been wiped, they are reunited at Elsa’s coronation. When Anna announces her hasty engagement to the young Hans (Santino Fontana), Elsa again reveals her hidden powers in an argument, causing her to leave the kingdom in embarrassment, unintentionally cursing the land to fall into a summertime snowpocalypse.  With the help of a burly traveler named Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) and an enchanted snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad), Anna must find where her sister is hiding and convince her to end the oppressive cold weather and come back home.

                Many elements of the trademarked Disney magic is recognizable in this digitally animated princess story. The characters motivations are clear, the animation is visually impressive but never too busy or over-designed, and the musical numbers, though tinted in modern-pop, occasionally reach the emotional heights of the Alan Menken/Howard Ashman collaborations of the early 90s. Without out a doubt, there is no shortage of charm in this movie.  Where the film does lack is in its plot construction and storytelling.

                Much of movie’s conflict has to do with finding mechanical ways to separate or main characters and bring them back together. Because Elsa isn’t the actual villain in this peace, and her character is as distant to us as she is to her sister, we neither fear her nor strive for Anna’s yearning to reconnect. When the final act starts and the true antagonist is revealed it’s already too little too late to properly build adequate tension into the story. The side characters introduced in the middle of the film are cute enough, fun to watch and they keep things light, but the film could have definitely benefited with a more substantial B-plot following Elsa as she is snowbound in her ice castle, away from everyone else.

                As captured in any of the behind the scenes footage of how the old Disney masterpieces were made, you can see that every screenplay was closely scrutinized and subject to multiple drafts and storyboard sessions before they were approved by Walt or any of his fruitful successors. For all of the nostalgic posturing and magical evocation in “Frozen” it ends up feeling more like Disney’s greatest hits than an original piece unto itself. But that isn’t to say that the experience, as surface-oriented as it may be, isn’t totally enjoyable while you’re in the moment.

                What’s important about the success of this film is that people want to like it even if it isn’t nearly as timeless as the movies it’s trying to be.  Though “Frozen” doesn’t totally put Disney back on track it’s at least an admirable step in the right direction.

               

Grade: B -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2013