January is usually a dump month for cinematic turkeys that no studio wants to hold onto, so imagine my surprise when, in watching Project Almanac, I discovered a solid – not game-changing, but certainly solid – genre pic with a capable cast and enough sci-fi gobbledygook to more than pad out its runtime.

As directed by first-timer Dean Israelite and penned by Jason Harry Pagan and Andrew Deutschman, this found-footage pic, about teens who discover plans for a time-travel device and decide to build it, is an agreeable mash-up of Primer (for all the head-scratching that comes about as a result of their “temporal relocations”), Chronicle (for its progressively serious tone and, moreover, its sometimes unconvincing presentation) and, interestingly enough, Project X (seeing as much of the film is spent watching narrow-minded teens exploit time travel to achieve their dreams of success and popularity).

The mixture works for the first two-thirds, with nerdy David (Jonny Weston, endearingly awkward if physically unbelievable as a social outcast), sister Christina (Ginny Gardner), best friends Adam (Allen Evangelista) and Quinn (Sam Lerner) and unattainable crush Jessie (Sofia Black D’Elia) forming a likable team of heroes. As they mess around with the device, first cautiously but then with greater confidence and creativity, Israelite displays a knack for depicting teenage friendship and romance. For once in a found-footage thriller, these characters feel real. There’s an entertaining amount of comedy along with some romance, and the writers handle the balance with confidence.

It’s once Project Almanac moves into darker territory that it begins to lose its way. After watching David and his friends make light of time travel for most of the film, it’s not entirely plausible when one of them (no spoilers) goes down a murkier moral path, ‘jumping’ alone in order to correct his past mistakes and mucking up a great deal in the process. Even less satisfying is the ending, which might have been predicted by some but only serves to reinforce Project Almanac’s commitment to just scraping the surface of its topsy-turvy subject matter.

As much potential as its premise has, the film is content to play in shallow waters, never truly investing in time travel as anything other than a way for teens to better their own lives and ultimately learn that it’s a really (really) bad idea to screw around with time. Project Almanac doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Some might hold that against it. Others, like me, will be entertained enough by its strong cast, relentless pace and infectious energy to just go with it.

Grade: B

Read Carter Sigl's review of Nightcrawler here.

I would never do a combined TV/movie list, simply because for me, TV rarely matches the artistry of the best movies. Given the way that TV shows are made from a business perspective, it's not hard to understand why it never works in the long run. They make it up as they go, and that lack of planning degrades each series (with the sole exception of The Wire, the only TV show that is among my favorite movies).

True Detective shook me to the core, and stood above most of the year's cinema. I’ve seen it three times, and I’m still not quite sure what to say. Moments of the show, like the glorious Rust Cohle philosophical tangents or brilliantly filmed scenes, have wandered in and out of my mind for the last six months since I first watched the show. Anything that becomes a part of my life in that way exemplifies the deep connection I’m always hungry for at the cinema.

I’m still not a believer in TV, and I don’t expect to be content with season two of True Detective, however this show has created an obligation to work through the next year in TV.

-Edge of Tomorrow for being incredibly entertaining.

-Obvious Child for being funny, charming and moving.

-The Unknown Known for being a fascinating study of a very powerful man in modern American history.

-Snowpiercer for being a haunting yet entertaining action film

-Jodorowsky’s Dune for being a study of mythology and the romanticization of what could’ve been.

-Transparent, because if I’m to include True Detective, I must be honest about another show’s inclusion. This one is too obvious in its intention at times, but nonetheless poignant, true and important.

-The Babadook for being a beautifully shot horror movie with a marvelously demonic pop-up book

-Boyhood for being truly, deeply moving, even though much of it felt artificial to me.

Hayao Miyazaki's swan song (kind of) is unlike anything he's done before, but at the same time it's exactly what we expect from the Japanese animation master. The world he creates here isn't one where cat buses roam the countryside or where witches deliver packages or where spirits let off steam in bathhouses, but it's no less fantastical. Rather, it follows Jiro Horikoshi, the creator of the Zero plane used by Japan during WWII. In Jiro's eyes—and Miyazaki's—his planes are living, breathing, fantastical creatures, sputtering and whirring and growling with real acapella sound effects and soaring across fields of grass and endless oceans. It’s a film only Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli could make. 

*I’m counting this for 2014 because it had its wide theatrical release this past year, even though it was technically considered a 2013 release by the Oscars.*

Birdman is a lot of things. It’s a glimpse at the creative process and the immense amount of work that goes into putting on a stage production. It’s a surprisingly critical look at the state of the blockbuster movie industry and the glut of CGI-laden explosion orgies that get pumped out every summer. It’s the thundering return of Michael Keaton to the spotlight with an Oscar-worthy performance. But, maybe more than anything, Birdman is a cinematic experience unlike anything this year. If there was any production feat to rival that of Boyhood’s 12-year creation, it's Birdman's seemingly continuous single take for the duration of the film. It's so compelling to watch, and it works not just as a show-off-y gimmick. In a movie about a production of a Broadway play, seeing the action unfold in real time before our eyes couldn’t fit any better.

If there were an award for Best Movie No One Expected To Be This Good, The Lego Movie would win by a landslide. A perfectly mediocre movie about one of the most popular toys in the world, with this many licensed properties and this much star power behind it, would still have been a hit. And yet Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s creation is nothing short of spectacular. Every single aspect of The Lego Movie is filled with joy and creativity: the characters, the stellar voice acting, the unbelievably meticulous world building (pun definitely intended) and attention to detail. The Lego Movie is by far the most fun I had at the movies this year, and it stands as one of my favorite animated movies ever.

Tired orangey streetlights illuminate dark, twisting, hilly alleyways in the desert city of Tangiers as Eve strolls from bar to bar, twang-y lutes playing in the background. Detroit at night is shrouded in a blanket of pitch black, and Adam’s house, where he covertly makes slow, sexy post-rock records, is a collection of scattered relics of music technology of the past century. Jim Jarmusch’s moody tale of immortal vampires in love doesn’t have any special-effects-laden action sequences, or any mind-bending plot twists, or even any steamy sex scenes. No, Only Lovers Left Alive just follows Adam and Eve around, and we see a glimpse into the pair’s little world: what a love hundreds of years old looks and feels like, how two beings that have existed for so long interact with the world, and how they see each other and humanity. And, more than anything, Only Lovers Left Alive is a love story, sensual and dark and lazy and fascinating, beautifully realized with gorgeous cinematography and incredible music and brought to life with two stellar lead performances in Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. It’s the most quietly unique movie of the year.

Boyhood is unquestionably the most ambitious movie of the year, its 12-year production crazy to even think about. (Richard Linklater had no way of knowing that an offhand remark about Roger Clemens or about how there would never be another Star Wars movie would have made a good joke five, ten years later.) But Boyhood is the best movie of the year because the finished product makes the incredible production worth it. Unfolding like a series of vignettes that bleed into each other, the story of Mason Jr. and his family is so powerful because of how real it is. It’s the most accurate and powerful snapshot of American life in the 2000s because it’s not a snapshot—it’s a photo album. There are no clear demarcations from year to year; the movie just happens. And as the film progresses, Boyhood becomes not just the story of a boy growing up into a young adult. It's about a sister who goes through phases in looks and attitudes. It's about a rebellious father who learns that he, too, needs to grow up. It's about a single mother who jumps from husband to husband while trying to savor each and every moment with her kids, who are growing up way too fast. Boyhood is about life, how the moments that we remember are the ones in the interstitial space, and that message resonates in a way only a film like this can make it. Boyhood is an incredible achievement, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and one that will be remembered for years to come.

Someone's havin' doubts, huh? Hell, I'm just trying to keep this thing interesting. You can't write me off like that. You're just a voice, pal! YOU DON'T KNOW A DAMN THING ABOUT RACING!
-JP

Film at-a-glance:
Genres: Racing, Sci-fi
Creators: Takeshi Koike and Katsuhito Ishii
Studio: Madhouse
Length: 102 minutes
Year: 2009
Highlights: White-knuckles racing action

In the world of high-stakes racing, there is one race which towers above all others: Redline. It is the fastest, most prestigious, and most dangerous race held anywhere in the galaxy. It is held only once every five years and always on a different planet. In order to qualify, racers have to win one of the series of preliminary Yellowline races. One such hopeful is a young man called JP, but his hopes are dashed after his car suffers an “accident” 10 feet from the finish line. But as luck would have it, two racers have dropped out of Redline, and JP is voted in through a popularity contest. But the race is going to be held on a fascist, militaristic planet called Roboworld, which has vowed to stop the racers through any means necessary.

The feature-film debut of director Takeshi Koike (he previously directed one segment of the anthology film The Animatrix), Redline is an absurd, over the top racing film produced by Madhouse. Similar to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Kill la Kill, Redline has become known for its insanity. It has been called “Speed Racer on crack” and described as "as if the cast of Top Gear raced through minefields on the North Korean border”. However, despite the gratuitous use of car-mounted weapons, the races are not particularly gory or graphic; this is not the anime equivalent of Death Race. Rather, Redline is simply pure fun, full of unbelievable racing stunts and larger-than-life characters. The cars range from JP’s relatively ordinary TransAM 20000 through cars which float above the ground to cars which transform into small mechas. It does not take itself particularly seriously, but it is not mindless action either, possessing surprisingly well-developed characters and a (mostly) coherent plot. Interestingly though, there is a large section in the middle of the film with no racing, which serves to build up tension for the insanity of the Redline race at the end.

The animation is also highly noteworthy. Unlike virtually all anime made in the present day, Redline was drawn almost completely by hand, with minimal use of CGI technology. This is especially unusual as it has been standard practice among anime producers to animate most vehicles using CGI for about 15 years now. As such, the film took over seven years to complete. The film’s art is of a unique style which combines traditional anime visual conventions with a heavy influence from Western graphic novels, which harkens back to the glory days of science fiction comic books. The high-octane racing recalls live-action race films such as The Cannonball Run and The Fast and the Furious, and the science fiction elements often invoke the spirit of Star Wars and other classic sci-fi action flicks. This creates a visual and narrative style that is at once very familiar and highly original, mixing up its recognizable parts in new and unique ways.

Redline is not only the best anime racing film ever made, but one of the best of all racing films ever made. It’s fast, it’s crazy, and it’s larger than life. And above all, it’s fun. Its white knuckles racing at its fastest and most intense. Between that and its groundbreaking visual style, Redline is set to be a landmark film in the realm of anime for years to come. 

I can hardly contain my praise of this movie to a few sentences, but I will do my best. Interstellar combines the best of humanity and science, blending complex scientific theories such as string theory and special relativity, along with a man’s quest to save the Earth for his daughter. The visuals are simply out of this world (pun intended), from a beautiful flight around Saturn, to a mind bending journey through a wormhole.  Nolan proves, however, that the film is not completely about visuals, and creates a complex emotional narrative as well. Nolan closely follows Cooper (Matt McConaughey) as he races through another galaxy to find the key to save Earth all while trying to get home in time to reunite with his daughter. Despite his journey to another galaxy, Cooper’s love for his daughter keeps him tied to Earth and the audience. The performances by Matt McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are emotional, complex and most certainly Oscar worthy. I was unable to look away from the screen till the end of the movie. If you haven’t seen this movie, get to the theater NOW!

After the disaster that was Man of Steel, and Marvel’s many announcements of movies to come in the future, I became concerned that superhero movies would become dark, brooding, and cliché. Then I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, and my faith was fully restored. James Gunn creates an off-beat adventure with Chris Pratt as the leading man, better known for his other comedic roles in works such as The Lego Movie and Park and Recreation. Pratt’s lack of a serious career makes him the perfect choice to play the goofy and clumsy Peter Quill. Peter Quill, I mean, “Starlord” danced his way into my heart to the beat of “Awesome Mix 1” which adds a delicious dose of nostalgia through amazing music to the movie. Chris Pratt shines as the comical Peter Quill, with amazing performances from Bradley Cooper as the incredibly sassy Rocket Racoon and Zoe Saldana as the deadly yet loyal Gamora. Guardians of the Galaxy was everything a summer movie should be: fun, quirky, and ludicrous.

So, it’s that time of the year again. It’s time to look back on the previous year in cinema, this medium that is so near and dear to our hearts. It’s time to look at the successes, the failures, and the mediocrity. We need to evaluate acting, grade storytelling, and assess technical achievements. We need to discuss the significance of this year’s films in the wider context of cinema history, and we need to carefully analyze the philosophical and narrative meaning of the year’s most well-loved movies.

But you know, we really don’t have time for that. So instead, here’s a series of vastly simplified lists of our writer’s top movies of 2014. Important note: no one is claiming these are the objectively best films of the year, but merely that they are our favorites. Also, for my list, we start at 10 and then work down to my favorite film at the number one spot. 

As I detailed in my review, Inherent Vice is much different than I was expecting. Instead of being a goofy period comedy, it’s actually a subtle spoof of Film Noir films with a dose of subtle stoner comedy. Now, while I do feel like much of the film went over my head because I’m not a stoner, Film Noir is one of my favorite genres, and I very much appreciate Paul Thomas Anderson’s affectionate parody. In addition, I simply love the eccentric little world that Anderson has crafted out of 1970 Los Angeles. Every single character is a certifiable Cloudcuckoolander, from Joaquin Phoenix’s hippie stoner private detective Doc to missing musician Owen Wilson to Joanna Newsom’s distinctly unreliable and flaky hippie narrator. The narrative makes about as much sense as Doc’s drugged-out consciousness, and the film runs on a sort of dream-logic, never quite making complete logical sense, but in my opinion the film is all the better for it. Many have criticized Anderson’s latest work as valuing style over substance, but that is the one thing about the film that does make logical sense. What’s important about the film is not the plot but the bizarre and colorful little world that Anderson has crafted out of Film Noir and 1970s Los Angeles. And that’s a world I want to see more of in the future.  

This film deserves mention on my list simply because it is the first film that Marvel has made that is (in my opinion) actually good rather than merely being entertaining. The main reason for this is that it is their first film that does not take itself too seriously. All the past Marvel movies have always managed to feel overly serious, yet at the same time possessing characters that by their very nature are extremely campy. They tried to get the best of both worlds (the fun of the original comic books with the seriousness of films such as The Dark Knight) and got the worst of both. Guardians, though, is the first film which fully admits how ridiculous it is. Not only that, it revels in it. It is completely aware of its own absurdity and has fun with it. Yes, one of the main characters is a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper. He’s also a pyromaniac and has someone steal a guy’s prosthetic leg for shits and giggles. The film’s soundtrack is made up of 70s pop songs. And Vince Diesel voices a humanoid tree. It also helps that, despite its own claims, it’s really more of a space opera film than a superhero film. In the end, Guardians of the Galaxy is a beacon showing what Marvel can do when they’re at their finest, and I can only hope their future releases live up to it. 

Studio Ghibli’s newest offering deserves notice on this list purely for its visual innovations. For many years now, the Studio has refined a style defined by extremely simple human characters and extremely lush and detailed backgrounds, producing a style which has been widely emulated in the anime community. This film throws all of that completely out the window and instead creates a style based off ancient Japanese paintings as well as watercolors. It’s absolutely stunning and gorgeous, and highly unique; the only comparable film I've ever seen is The Secret of Kells, which is based off of ancient Celtic art. The Tale of the Princess Kaguya also returns Studio Ghibli to their classic fairytale stories, which they have tended to move away from recently. Telling an ancient story of a bamboo cutter who finds a divine child and raises her as his own, Princess Kaguya is a classic Ghibli story, this time acting as an allegory for the trials and triumphs of fatherhood. It’s a beautiful story that will be remembered as one of Ghibli’s finest for years to come.

Much like Inherent Vice, this is a film more about feeling and atmosphere than about plot. The story of Adam and Eve, two ancient vampires, most of the movie consists of them just sitting around doing very little. But oh, they just seem like the coolest people to hang out with. Watching them lounge around in Detroit or Tangiers, casually referencing people like Christopher Marlow and Nikola Tesla, is just cool. They seem like the sort of people that it would be great to just sit around and shoot the breeze with, maybe watch TV and then listen to some music. Oh, and the music! A haunting mixture of electronica and Middle Eastern strings supposedly composed by Adam, it lends the film a sort of hypnotic aspect which draws you in, and it even sorts of becomes another character with its richness and depth. Anchored by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston’s fantastic acting, Only Lovers Left Alive is a film of half-felt emotion and seductive sound, which really feels more like a hang-out session with some really cool friends rather than a story, but oh what a great hanging out it would be. Also, props to this film for actually making vampires cool again. 

Birdman first off deserves enormous praise for the sheer technical skill required to make it. I mean, the film looks like it was a single shot. This would be physically impossible, and in fact the film is made up of hundreds of shots like every other film. But the fact that they made it look like one seamless shot is in many ways even more amazing, considering the filmmakers actually had to edit the colors within and between shots to make them continuous. Seriously, if this film doesn’t win the Oscar for best cinematography than I’ll eat my own socks. But it’s not just the technical aspects that are fantastic, but the acting as well. Michael Keaton and Edward Norton, especially, are downright amazing. And just to illustrate how amazing it is, it was released in mid-October and the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Cambridge is still playing it. Seriously, if you haven’t seen Birdman yet, than you’ve been seriously wasting the last three months. 

I think I’m beginning to sense a theme here. Directed by acclaimed Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski, Ida is yet another film which puts style over substance, and which yet again is better off for it. The story of a young girl about to take her vows and join a nunnery who finds out she’s actually Jewish, the film is absolutely haunting. I can think of no other word to describe it. Even over half a year later and after seeing it multiple times, Ida continues to haunt me. That lost, vanished world of 1960s communist Poland, shot in gorgeous black and white, continues to tug at my imagination. The vales of mist in the dark forests and the shadowed alleys of the even darker crumbling cities keep following me. Ida and her aunt Wanda keep recurring in my dreamspace, their quest and journey replaying endlessly in my mind. And I know that the siren call of this completely and utterly beautiful film will continue to exert its influence on my imagination for a long time to come. 

This is the X-Men film that we’ve been waiting a decade for. The first and second films in the series (in 2000 and 2003, respectively) are fantastic and some of the best superhero films ever, while the conclusion in 2006 was distinctly disappointing. Since that time, other superheroes have reigned supreme, but now the X-Men are back, and with a vengeance. Uniting the cast of the recent First Class film with the their older counterparts we know and love, Days of Future Past has everything that we wanted in an X-Men film, and it’s better than ever. It’s dark, it’s violent, it’s stepped in themes of intolerance and prejudice, and its kick-ass. Every member of its massive cast gets at least one bad-ass moment, and it’s frankly awesome to see so many characters on screen working together. This is the film that Marvel wishes it could make. Stand aside Avengers, the X-Men are back. 

Probably the most unknown film on this list, Calvary was created by Irish director John Michael McDonough. The story of a priest called Father James, the film is an extraordinary character study and exploration of the themes of sin and forgiveness. Firmly rooted in the Catholic faith in both narrative content and thematic topics, Calvary is really the story of one man. But this one man is absolutely enrapturing. I was completely and utterly engrossed with Father James as he went about his week in service of the Lord and his parish, while grappling with the knowledge that he might be murdered on the following Sunday. A modern allegory for the story of Christ, Calvary is one of those films, and Father James one of those characters, that other films should look up to and hope to learn from. Never did I think that I could be so enchanted by a simple priest. 

Why do you want to be a lobby boy?

Who wouldn’t, at the Grand Budapest sir.

Wes Anderson’s latest masterpiece, The Grand Budapest Hotel continues the evolution of his extremely distinctive style, featuring garish colors, stilted dialogue, and numerous symmetrical shots. But what really sets this film apart from his previous works is the new subject matter. Most of Anderson’s works, from The Royal Tenenbaums to Moonrise Kingdom, tend to focus around dysfunctional and eccentric families. While this is not a negative in and of itself, the fact of the matter is that many of Anderson’s films feel very similar not only because they look so much alike but also because they deal with highly similar subject matter. The Grand Budapest Hotel, by contrast, throws that theme out the window and instead is a goofy and off-the-wall caper film featuring flights from the authorities, pursuit by shadowy criminals, and gunfights and sled chases. He also infuses into the film a distinct feeling of nostalgia for the past, and a melancholy that many characters seemed to have been born in the wrong time and would have been more at home in an earlier era. All of this combines with his trademark visuals, huge cast, and fantastic writing and acting to produce a movie which is at once whimsical, sentimental, and just plain fun. I am extremely happy that Wes Anderson will finally get an Oscar (although I’m still annoyed that Ralph Fiennes wasn’t nominated for Best Actor).

The reason I love Interstellar is because it is a film of grand ideas. It is a film about the enormity of space, the endless depths of time, and our minuscule place amongst all of it. It is a return to the vast science fiction movies of yesteryear, films like 2001 which challenged our conceptions and dared us to move away from the safety of our tiny blue planet and carve a place for ourselves in the vastness of the cosmos. There hasn’t been a film like this in many years, and cinema and has been worse off for it. But Christopher Nolan has resurrected the space epic with a vengeance, and it shows just what we’ve been missing. Interstellar is a perfect example of the power of the cinema to make us wonder, to inspire our imagination. Once again, we have a film that aspires to heights unattainable on Earth. Finally, we have a film which inspires us to reach for the stars. 

Film at a glance:
Genre: Drama, Science Fiction
Creators: Mamoru Hosoda, Satoko Okudera, and Yasutaka Tsutsui
Studio: Madhouse
Length: 98 minutes
Year: 2006
Highlights: Time travel as art

In this series, we have made a point to shine a light on some of the most acclaimed and successful of creators in the anime production industry. So far, these luminaries have included Hayao Miyazaki, Shinichirō Watanabe, and Makoto Shinkai. Now, we are adding another name to this list: Mamoru Hosoda. Working originally at Madhouse and now at his own production company Studio Chizu, Hosoda has made a name for himself in the last decade for creating visually beautiful and intellectually thoughtful films. The first one of these was The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

Acting as an adaption and loose sequel to the 1967 novel of the same name by Yasutaka Tsutsui, the film stars Makoto Konno, an ordinary high-school student living in Tokyo. She enjoys visiting her aunt, an art restorer at the National Museum, and playing baseball with her friends Kousuke and Chiaki. Her life is completely normal, until one extremely unlucky day. Makoto oversleeps, has her favorite pudding eaten by her sister, is late for school, flunks a math quiz, accidentally sets the home-ec room on fire, and has a weird accident in the science lab. To top it all off, the brakes on her bike give out on the way home, and she gets thrown in front of a fast moving train.

Then, much to her surprise, Makoto finds out she is not in fact dead but has actually gone back in time. With a little experimentation, she discovers that she has somehow gained the ability to quite literally leap through time, giving her the ability to relive her life and fix the mistakes she made. She uses it to get to school early, ace that math quiz, and even relive the same karaoke session ten times in a row. But as time goes on, Makoto starts to realize how her ability is affecting other people, and how her knowledge of the future affects her ability to repeat the past. Furthermore, she soon discovers that her ability might not be limitless.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is at its core a drama film, which just happens to examine the effect that time travel has on an ordinary girl’s relationships. Specifically, the film speculates upon the nature of action and consequence, and how knowledge of the future would affect both. As Makoto soon finds out, being able to change your own past actions to something more favorable to yourself often has adverse effects on others. She also realizes that it is often impossible to relive the past if you have knowledge of the future. She can never fully repeat and enjoy those past moments if she is aware of their consequences. Makoto loses her innocence, in a sense, which can never be regained no matter how far back in time she leaps.

This film is also a great science fiction film in that it takes a lofty scientific concept such as time travel and brings it down to the everyday and ordinary, postulating about how our lives would be effected by such a radical technological advancement. Despite gaining this amazing power, Makoto doesn’t use it to change world history, kill Hitler, or anything so dramatic. Instead, she uses it to make sure she gets to eat her favorite pudding. This creates a personable and relatable tone that an epic historical drama never could. Rather, by focusing on an individual and that individual’s actions, we learn more about the topic of time travel than we ever could from a work that merely uses it for action and adventure. In that sense, it is science fiction is purest, most distilled from.

Take a work like Back to the Future, Terminator, or Doctor Who. As fun and entertaining as all of them are, in the end they don’t connect on a personal, intimate level, because they are stories about heroes and villains and adventure. The time travel aspect is just a set piece, and if you whittled them down to their base components, those stories would make sense in numerous other settings and genres. I can’t relate to a man who travels back in time to save the world because I have no personal connection to that. In that sense, it is escapism and fantasy. But what I can relate to is a girl who goes back in time to spend more time with her friends. I can relate to her going back to fix the mistakes on a test she knows she got wrong. And I can relate to her wanting to go back to before she knew something that changed her world, that changed who she was, but knowing that she can’t. This is what separates fantasy from art. And this is why I love The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, because if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t use it to kill Hitler or save the world. I would use it to eat the pudding I never got to eat. 

New York City, 1981. The city is being engulfed in a crime wave the likes of which have never been seen before. Every day there are more robberies, more rapes, and more murders. The ordinary people of the Big Apple deal with as best they can while going about their lives, working and living and dying. One of these people is Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), who is the head of one of the city’s heating oil companies. Just as he is about to strike a major business deal, disaster strikes as his delivery divers start being attacked and their trucks and the valuable oil being stolen. Even worse, the District Attorney (David Oyelowo) is investigating the company for supposed criminal activities. It’s all Abel can do to keep his head above water, and protect his wife Anna (Jessica Chastain) and children.

Directed by J.C. Chandor, creator of the acclaimed All is Lost, A Most Violent Year is a drama film about both crime and family. The key word of the film is subtlety, in all departments. The colors are muted under a weak winter sun, and the palate consists almost entirely of whites, greys, and tans. The film thankfully averts stereotypical 80s wardrobes, dressing its characters in similarly subdued outfits, although Oscar Isaac’s phenomenal coat deserves a Supporting Actor nomination for the sheer amount of focus Chandor gives it. The writing is realistic and understated, which only serves to further condense and channel the film’s well-developed sense of drama and suspense.

However, where this film really shines is the acting, particularly that of Isaac and Chastain. Isaac continues to prove that he can put on a fantastic performance in any role and situation, whether as a morally questionable businessman to a struggling folk musician; sadly he does not sing in this film. But while Isaac is very good, Chastain is phenomenal. Rather than being a simple housewife, her character is actually the most ruthlessly terrifying character I’ve seen on screen in quite a while. She’s cutthroat and quietly menacing. The film’s subtlety generally extends to the acting as well, which makes the occasional unexpected outburst all the more surprising and memorable. Make sure especially to keep an eye out for one particular scene involving Jessica Chastain and a deer (trust me, it makes sense on context), which for me was one of the most memorable scenes of the year.

And this creates the primary problem of the film. While there are a number of phenomenal individual scenes, all the parts in the middle just aren’t quite as good. There are in no way poorly made, they just seem a little boring in comparison. If the film had been able to keep the pace and suspense that those select scenes possess running through its entire run-time, then it would have been a great movie. The rest of the film just didn’t do as much for me, and while it is certainly worth seeing, I feel absolutely no need to watch it again. Except for that one scene with Chastain, which I could watch on repeat till Hell freezes over.

Grade: B-

Well, it seems like Kevin Hart does know how to put on a good party. The Wedding Ringer had its highs and its lows, but it was an overall enjoyable movie to watch. I usually hate the dark and cold associated with winter, but The Wedding Ringer was funny enough to really brighten my day.

The Wedding Ringer features Doug Harris (Josh Gad), a friendless international lawyer who is about to get married. After his numerous attempts to find a best man for the wedding all fail, Doug turns to “Best Man Incorporated.” Doug manages to hire Joshua Callahan (Kevin Hart) to be his best man, and after some substantial groveling, convinces Josh to hire seven other men to be his groomsmen. Shenanigans ensue as Doug, Josh and the hired groomsmen try to convince Doug’s fiancée (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) that they are the real deal. Despite Josh’s insistence that his relationship with Doug is purely professional, the two men quickly become best friends.

The acting in this movie was mixed. Josh Gad does a mediocre job playing a fat schmuck. Doug is the stereotypical, naïve friendless loser who just feels lucky that he found a girl willing to marry him. Most of Doug’s comedic scenes involve him tripping over objects or numerous fat jokes. Doug’s lack of humor and personality is particularly evident when compared to Kevin Hart’s character. Hart nails the role of a professional best man for hire with his trademark sass and motor mouth. Gad and Hart have occasional moments of onscreen chemistry, evidenced by their hilarious dance routine during a rehearsal wedding. The main issue is that Hart gets to deliver almost all the funny lines, while Gad is mostly forced to perform physical comedy. Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting does an acceptable job playing the ditsy Gretchen, but playing a dimwitted blonde is hardly breaking new ground for her, thanks to her regular role as Penny in The Big Bang Theory.

One aspect of the movie that I unexpectedly enjoyed was the metahumor. The Wedding Ringer slyly references other famous movies as Doug and his hired gang try to pull off the wedding. The flag football game, played on a muddy field, is an homage to Remember the Titans and the background music is “You’re the Best Around” from The Karate Kid. My favorite scene was the revelation scene, where Gretchen begins suspect that there is something suspicious about Josh. This scene is a shot for shot recreation of the climactic scene from The Usual Suspects, which is one of my favorite thrillers. Even Jorge Garcia, best known for playing Hurley on Lost, gets a funny quip before getting on a flight to Tahiti. These understated references to other movies and television shows made me sit up and pay attention in the theater.

I really have conflicted feelings for the movie. On one hand, I felt that the characters were a bit one-dimensional and the numerous fat and gay jokes made the humor a little lowbrow. On the other hand, Kevin Hart’s sarcasm and slick dialogue delivery kept me laughing, and the metahumor only made the movie more entertaining.  At the end of the day, this movie is great to watch with some friends, or a date, but probably not worth watching more than once.

Grade: B-