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Anu Gulati on Creed

11/27/2015

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The news of Ryan Coogler confirming that he was going to direct Creed, the seventh installment of the Rocky franchise focused on Apollo’s son, was the best possible outcome. Coogler’s debut, Fruitvale Station, was a dramatized yet passionate look at a real incident that has gained too many similarities since it was released in 2013. Coogler captured the youthfulness and frustration of young black men in Oakland, doing everything he could to make his characters be as human as possible and triumphing in that aspect. He does much of the same in Creed, and his Philadelphia is noticeably different from the one shown in past Rocky movies. A city once covered in the industrial steel gray hues of Rocky is now brightened by colorful storefront logos, a jazzy nightlife, and vigorous young biker gangs who fearlessly zip through the streets. It’s a modern Philadelphia that has pushed away it’s Italian American population for African-American neighborhoods, a community that Coogler has proved he can depict so demonstratively. Creed is the obvious, logical next step for Coogler’s career.

Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) has fighting in his genes. He drifted in and out of juvenile delinquent centers as an orphaned child until being found one day by Apollo Creed’s widow (Phylicia Rashad). From there, Coogler shrugs off any cliches about films that heavily advertise leading black roles as Adonis grows up with his adopted mother’s money and didn’t have to fight his way out of poverty. He ditches his office job in Los Angeles to pursue his passion for boxing in Philadelphia, where he tenaciously seeks out the mentorship of Rocky Balboa.

Creed’s possibly greatest strength lies here. Reprising his career-defining role, Sylvester Stallone delivers a surprisingly excellent performance as Rocky Balboa, this time as a supporting role. Coogler defies the familiar tale of an aging movie star returning to his own franchise and being lauded by giving Balboa a tragic story of lost love and strength. He uses Balboa as a meditation on mortality and presents a refreshing take on how revival films can be their own movie and not just gaudy cash-grabs or rehashed stories with uninspired African-American focus.

Adonis Creed goes by Adonis Johnson for most of the movie because he wants to make a new name for himself rather than live up to his daddy’s. It’s a new internal conflict added to the series, like how Rocky’s biggest enemy was always himself. Creed pays homage to Rocky here and there, even having Adonis fight himself in the mirror and run past Adrian’s, but alternatively always steers it’s own way. Adonis’s romantic subplot with a local R&B singer (Tessa Thompson) evolves believably but doesn’t take up too little or too much of the movie’s time. The tearjerking parts aren’t focused on Adonis and his girlfriend, but on Adonis against himself and his legacy. He wants to be remembered more than just as Apollo’s illicit child, to make up for the childhood spent in prison cells. Coogler ditches his emotional manipulativeness from Fruitvale Station to just let the chemistry between Jordan and Stallone work itself into the audience’s hearts. Jordan gives a career-defining performance as he puts his grade-A sensitivity and toughness on display, and Stallone is also wonderful as he returns to the keen Rocky Balboa he was in the original film and not the half-present Rocky he was in all the following sequels.

Known also for her work in 2008’s The Wrestler, Maryse Alberti’s camera in Creed is sometimes dizzying but mostly meant to amp up the hype. She slowly circles around the boxing matches, gaining momentum as the fight does. As all other fighting movies, Creed is super visceral; making me wince at all the sucker punches to the jaw and feel the utmost relief to see an enemy knocked down. Coogler also waits until the best moment to drop the Rocky theme song and the audience around me (press members included) cheered and clapped as elation just washed over the theater.

Creed is a knockout with it’s performances, camerawork, and unique twists on the original Rocky movies. Coogler brings a much-needed energy with his direction, creating feel-good moments between characters and audiences alike with montages soundtracked by life-affirming rap music. Jordan is stellar as the conflicted but passionate Adonis Creed, and he has a true connection with Stallone’s Rocky. They march up the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art together, not at all in a show-off way but to prove to themselves that they can. Nothing in Creed is sugarcoated, it’s all pretty bloody and fierce; a character says to Adonis at one point, “We’re not singing, we’re not dancing- we’re fighting.” Every moment feels sincere and understood and Creed proves that not all revamps these days have to owe themselves to their predecessors.

GRADE: B+
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Carter Sigl on The Good Dinosaur

11/25/2015

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Oh, Pixar. Don’t get me wrong; I love your movies, and you seem like a pretty cool and personable company. But your movies suffer from something that for the sake of argument I will term “the Pixar Effect”. “But what is the Pixar Effect?” you may ask. Well dear reader, since you asked, the Pixar Effect is this: when a studio (or director or what have-you) makes such consistently amazing films as Pixar does, our expectations of Pixar movies become unrealistically inflated. We come to expect every movie they make to be the next Toy Story or Finding Nemo, and when not all of them do we turn our noses at otherwise good movies. This is the problem that The Good Dinosaur falls into; if made by anyone else it would have been a fantastic movie. But since it was made by Pixar, it’s only an average movie.

Taking place in an alternate history in which the asteroid which wiped out the dinosaurs never hit the Earth, the main character of The Good Dinosaur is a young Apatosaurus named Arlo. The smallest of three hatchmates, he lives with his family on a small homestead near the Clawtooth Mountains. In Apatosaurus society, every youngling needs to prove their worth to their families and thereby “make their mark”. Arlo’s larger and stronger siblings have no problem completing their tasks, but the small and cowardly Arlo lags behind them. One day Arlo’s father give him the task of killing a pest which has been eating their food supplies, but when he catches the pest in question- a young human caveboy, he can’t go through with. When Arlo and his father give chase, a tragic accident occurs and his father is killed. But the next time Arlo sees the caveboy, blind with rage, he chases him into a fast-flowing river and is washed many miles down-stream. Arlo needs to find his way back to his family and maybe conquer his fears along the way.

First, let’s talk about how this movie looks: absolutely gorgeous. Pixar’s rendering software seems to have taken another big leap forward, and this is the first movie to take full advantage of it. The film’s setting, which seems to be somewhere in the prehistoric American West, is absolutely stunning. There’s snow-capped mountains, swift-flowing rivers, and endless forests, all animated in stunning detail. (The water scenes are obvious beta-tests for Finding Dory of course, but they look incredible.) By contrast, the characters are animated in their characteristic simple, cartoony style. In fact, the visuals of this movie remind of the characteristic animation style of Studio Ghibli, with very simple human characters in front of incredibly lush backgrounds and settings.

But while The Good Dinosaur is a massive step-forward for Pixar in terms of visual and technical ability, it’s unfortunately a step back in terms of plot and characterization. Part of the problem is that this same basic plot, the main character goes on an epic journey and learns something about themselves along the way, is starting to wear thin. I mean Pixar themselves have done it themselves numerous times (Finding Nemo, Cars, Up…), and there’s nothing in The Good Dinosaur to differentiate it from all the other permutations. The film also fails to adequately develop its characters. Part of the problem with this is that Spot (the caveboy) doesn’t speak; he basically acts like an unusually intelligent dog, which is certainly cute but really limits the opportunities for, you know, dialogue.

The tone of the movie is also all over the place. I remember that at one point in the middle of the movie, there was a progression of scenes one after the other that proceeded like this. It starts with a scene that uses Spot to make a pee joke, followed by a (admittedly hilarious) scene where Arlo and Spot accidentally eat some mushrooms which send them on a drug montage right out of a Terry Gilliam film, and then followed by a scene where Arlo and Spot bond over their mutual dead parents. Seriously, the tone shift was so drastic and sudden at times I’m surprised I didn’t get whiplash. There are also some surprisingly dark moments for a children’s movie, including several instances of adorable furry creatures getting eaten by dinosaurs and one character who has a pet named Dream Crusher (“He keeps me from having unrealistic life goals”).

One last thing I want to mention, and this is admittedly minor, is that The Good Dinosaur is actually a pseudo-Western film. Both the setting (which seems to have been based off Yellowstone) and a few of the characters (at one point Arlo and Spot run into a family of Tyrannosaurus Rex ranchers) are based of the stylings and tropes of Western movies. But it’s not developed enough; the main character and supporting characters (sans the aforementioned T. Rexes) feel like they could have been dropped in from any other children’s animated movie, and there isn’t even any Western influence in the film’s score. Ultimately there’s only enough of it there to make it feel like a big wasted opportunity; I’d sure as hell like to see a real Western with dinosaurs from Pixar!

But like I said earlier for all its faults, The Good Dinosaur is not a bad film. It’s still visually stunning, adorable, and heartwarming. If it had been made by another studio, say Dreamworks for instance, it would probably be considered one of that studio’s best films. But the bar for Pixar movies has been set so high, especially since earlier this year they released Inside Out, which is still my personal favorite movie of the entire year. So go see The Good Dinosaur, you’ll almost certainly enjoy it. It just not one of the Pixar movies we’ll remember fondly forever the way we remember many of the others.

Grade: B-
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Gabrielle Ulubay on Legend

11/25/2015

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Here we have yet another crime-drama based on real life gangsters—Reginald and Ronald Kray, two of England’s most notorious crime bosses. Tom Hardy stars in this film, playing both twin brothers à la
The Parent Trap. Understanding this before viewing Legend, I predicted that it was either going to be horrendous or brilliant. Thankfully, it was the latter.


Some criticisms of the movie have claimed it is too violent and difficult to watch. However, it is one of the least graphic and most watchable gangster movies I’ve seen (also, how does one decide to watch a gangster movie and not expect violence?). Director Brian Helgeland shows that the Kray brothers’ lives were plagued with violence, but he clearly makes an effort to keep graphic images to a minimum. The camera will move, for example, to the face of the attacker or to witnesses’ reactions in the middle of a violent scene, making it more effective because the audience is left to imagine the brutality ensuing. The camera doesn’t draw attention to itself in the movie, which also makes it watchable. Tracking shots follow the characters so that the audience feels as though they are part of the movie, but Helgeland doesn’t shake the camera or exaggerate this perspective like Darren Aronofsky did in Black Swan.

Perhaps most importantly, Hardy’s acting was masterful. He captured the physicality of both brothers, which is evident if you watch the movie and then view images of the real Kray twins. Hardy manifests differences in the way each man stands and speaks, and even moves his mouth differently depending on the brother he’s portraying. The build and stature of each brother is also differentiated in the way Hardy adjusts his posture. Finally, he makes the audience sympathize with the Krays, which becomes an incredibly difficult task as the movie progresses.

Legend had a number of memorable lines. It is an undeniably funny movie, much of which is owed to Hardy’s comedic timing. Emily Browning is also a breath of fresh air as Frances Shea, Reggie Kray’s wife. Frances begins as a significantly bolder mob wife than what audiences are used to, and narrates the movie as well. This could have been an exciting perspective but was more often distracting and corny. The line “The Queen would survive, but God save the rest of us,” stands out as especially out of place, and would have been amusing if it had been said almost anywhere else in the film.

We witness Frances’ deterioration as the movie goes on, and Browning manifests this subtly yet strongly. When she asserts her devotion to Reggie in the end, calling him her “prince” despite the fact that he attacked her, it is difficult to tell whether the movie seeks to display the tragic, perverse logic of an abused wife or whether it means to laud Reggie as a misunderstood hero. Hopefully it is the former, but I’ve yet to discern what the true intentions were. Nonetheless, it seemed uncharacteristic and disconcerting, which speaks more to the movie’s writing than Browning’s acting.

Legend has all the British humor of a Guy Ritchie movie, all the rise-and-fall drama of a Martin Scorcese film, and the insane yet memorable leading characters of Brian De Palma’s Scarface. The usage of Frances Shea as a narrator was a great idea with disappointing results, but the narration is not constant and is therefore forgivable considering the captivating acting of the cast. Any fan of gangster movies should give this film a chance.
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Grade: A
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Arjun Agarwal on Trumbo

11/25/2015

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​Trumbo is a biographical film by Jay Roach that stars Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad, Malcolm in the Middle and Argo) as the titular screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, who becomes blacklisted for his political beliefs. It is the true story of a Hollywood icon that challenged the motion picture industry through his controversial alignment with the Communist Party in the United States, which coincided against the popular opinion of the country. Forced to work under several pseudonyms, Trumbo passes several of his screenplays to other writers in an attempt to ridicule the absurdity of the blacklist and expose its injustice in front of the entire nation. 

There is so much about the subject matter in this movie that is intriguing yet duly unexplored. Cranston has played many seminal characters in his career and his portrayal of Trumbo is no exception but even his superb performance doesn’t redeem the problems with the film. The first half is difficult to sit through as it establishes his storied failure before he takes it upon himself to change the way the film industry regulates itself. Trumbo and his fellow artists are viewed unfavorably by the majority of Americans, so much so that they view the admission of their Communist beliefs as reason enough to be imprisoned. As a filmmaker, Trumbo insists that any artist in this country has the right to challenge conventional wisdom but he faces opposition from gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) and actor John Wayne (David James Elliot). Louis C.K. plays a pivotal role as one of Trumbo’s comrades, Arlen Hird, and does a great job as the comic relief and occasional straight man against Trumbo’s irrational demeanor.

Eventually, the story hits its stride and evolves from the tale of one man’s struggle to one that shows an entire industry of writers who are crippled from speaking out for what they believe in. We see Trumbo’s energies directed toward ruining the credibility of the blacklist by coercing established screenwriters to use his screenplays to infiltrate Hollywood’s monitored operation. It is fascinating to watch the man produce masterful works like Roman Holiday and Spartacus and then pass them off as second rate scripts to other writers. Unfortunately, Trumbo suffers from the bland family drama that is brought about by this obsessive mission. Trumbo begins feuding with his loved ones and I didn’t care for the sudden change from espionage to soap opera-like drama that was projected on the big screen. 

I have mixed feelings about this film but it delivers in ways you’ll have to see for yourself to appreciate. Trumbo preaches the importance of sticking to your political beliefs despite the prevailing climate you find yourself in. If nothing itself, it serves as a reminder that this country is in a constant state of change but there will always be individuals who dare to stand up for what’s right and not bow down to the societal pressure of taking the path of least resistance. 
 
Grade: B
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Here's Some Movies (Week Four) by Eric Tatar

11/23/2015

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While trying to find five films that could fully represent this week’s theme of music, the issue I kept running into was what type of movie to include. Should I focus on musicals with their stories told through elaborate song and dance routines? Would a list of great concert or band documentaries work better? What if I only looked at films where music acted as its own character, forming the focal point of the surrounding plot? The ones I finally decided on draw from all these styles, with an overarching similarity: they portray the emotional influence great music creates in people. Each of them focus on a separate musical genre as well, so if you find yourself indifferent to a particular film’s score, there’s four others to try out.

Three Colors: Blue

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Directed by: Krzysztof Kieślowski
Written by: Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krzysztof Piesiewicz
Released in: 1993
IMDB Page

After losing her husband and daughter to a car accident, Juliette Binoche’s Julie doesn’t have happiness ripped out of her life so much as all emotion together. All she manages to feel is contempt for the classical piece her husband had been composing, despite the beautiful music it holds swelling past us as her life previous to the accident is slowly replaced with the new one she’s trying to assemble in Paris. Even with all her efforts to finish the transition, though, the incomplete work leaves her unable to fully sever the past. This is the first in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colors trilogy, a set of films known for being steeped in symbolism and recurring images, and Blue is certainly full of both. It’s also extremely engaging and not immediately digestible, a combination that demands repeat viewings.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston

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Directed by: Jeff Feuerzeig
Written by: Jeff Feuerzeig
Released in: 2005
IMDB Page

The notion that truly important art comes from pain and suffering encapsulates the tortured artist motif in Daniel Johnston: his pain is inherent, just as his music’s importance is. Jeff Feuerzeig’s documentary about the manic-depressive that produced thousands of individually recorded mixtapes in the early eighties comes across more like a folktale sprung from the indie music scene than an account of an actual person’s life, but Daniel’s story is real and the legacy he left behind with his career is a fascinating subject. As he swings from local Southern success to star record label prospect before being confined to a mental institution, Feuerzeig is able to find the path through Daniel’s hectic story with a wealth of content, using cassette recordings he made while dealing with his developing disease, archival footage of his public performances, and interviews with his friends, parents, and Daniel himself.

Almost Famous

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Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Written by: Cameron Crowe

Released in: 2000
IMDB Page

What else does a great coming-of-age story need besides classic rock and radiant girls? Cameron Crowe’s story of a young journalist touring around the Southwest with the fictional seventies rock band Stillwater comes from his own experiences on the road with acts like Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers, which could explain why the film he’s made is so enjoyable: he wants to relive those memories as much as we want to experience them. If you can forgo going straight to Netflix, look for Crowe’s extended cut of the film. It doesn’t add any new plotlines or characters, but it gives us an excuse to exist in the wonderful world he’s created for a little while longer.

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5styem

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Directed by: Kazuhisa Takenôchi
Written by: Daft Punk, Cédric Hervet
Released in: 2003
IMDB Page

Billed as a visual realization of Daft Punk’s second album, Discovery, Interstella 5555 is essentially an extended music video connecting their songs through the fantastically animated concept the duo created to honor their childhood hero Leiji Matsumoto, who they also brought on as a visual supervisor for the project. Following a blue-skinned alien band called The Crescendolls after their abduction at a concert, the story functions secondary to the music as each scene is designed chiefly to fit the next song, but the strength of the animation and the many great moments the band members share make the visuals as important as the music they’re created for. Obviously, if you don’t like Daft Punk, there’s really no reason for you watch this, but with the film being so enjoyable to the fans of their work, the only question is: why don’t more bands do this?

Dancer in the Dark

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Directed by: Lars von Trier
Written by: Lars von Trier
Released in: 2000
IMDB Page

Musicals are magic. With enough emotion packed into their numbers to lift any low spirit, they give Björk’s Selma, a single Czech immigrant living in the US, the necessary escape from her daily struggles in providing for her son. Working off the small noises provided by whatever place Selma finds herself in, Lars von Trier orchestrates her intricately choreographed daydreams to an environmental rhythm, and while the shift between these scenes and his Dogma-style camerawork of her actual life as a factory worker is initially jarring, their inclusion becomes the only comfort given to us as Selma’s situation becomes increasingly distressing. I’m avoiding specific details with this one because the film works much better if you go in knowing as little as possible, so please don’t let my lack of description turn you away from what is an exceptionally affecting movie.
While Almost Famous is on Netflix, they only have the theatrical version which, while still a great movie, I hope you’ll drop in favor of the longer cut. You can usually find it as Untitled: The Almost Famous Bootleg Cut. Interstella 5555 is on YouTube, and The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Dancer in the Dark, and Three Colors: Blue are all somewhere else. I was hoping to include Paolo Sorrentino’s new film Youth on the list as well, but unfortunately the screening I’m going to isn’t until Tuesday. If it’s anything like his last film, The Great Beauty, then I’m sure to recommend it in the future. In the meantime, enjoy these movies!
This article is part of an ongoing series; click here to read last week's article, and check back every Monday as Eric covers a new theme.
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Marguerite Darcy on The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2

11/20/2015

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The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 concludes the Hunger Games series. It begins directly where Part 1 ended, which is pretty unsettling. Big picture, the rebels are marching on the Capitol, and so is Katniss. Basically, it’s one ideology trying to overthrow another -- a painful reminder of the recent world events, by the way -- in this case, the poor masses rebelling against the privileged few, the Girl on Fire vs. President Snow.

If Part 1 made me think of communism starting a war on capitalism, Part 2 displays the hero Katniss alone in the world trying to fight both evils -- realizing the good guys aren’t that good after all. Well, somewhat alone at least, since she ends up stuck with a loyal squad in her determined crusade to Snow’s mansion. The love she is supposed to carry for her sister Prim, what started the very first Hunger Games, is almost completely overlooked in Part 2, with the exception of one grotesque dancing scene at Finnick’s wedding. In parallel, the love she is supposed to carry for either one (or both) of her two love interests has also gone missing, with unpassionate and quite pathetic kissing scenes on top of ridiculous dialogues.

I’m sorry to report that there was nothing in this movie, except terrible, terrible dialogue, maybe 15 minutes of actual combat scenes, unnecessary kissing, and the worst Hollywood-worthy ending you could possibly think of. There was no powerful and goose-bumping monologue like the other movies had, and there was no passion. This movie will make you laugh at its patheticness.

Grade: D

BONUS: Somebody at Vanity Fair has a different vision. He apparently liked it. Ah!​
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Kunal Asarsa on Secret in Their Eyes

11/20/2015

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In 2009, Argentine Director Juan Jose Campanella adapted the novel The Question in Their Eyes into a movie by the name The Secret in Their Eyes. Later in 2010, the movie won the Oscar for the “Best Foreign Language Film”. Five years later, Hollywood wants to bring the same story to a wider audience with its remake Secret in Their Eyes and here’s a take on what it has in store for us…

Secret in Their Eyes is a parallel narrative of three people from an anti-terrorism organization. The movie has two timelines set 13 years apart, which both revolve around a murder and pursuit of the killer. Jess (Julia Roberts) and Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are called to look into a murder nearby a mosque that they have been surveilling, only to discover that the victim is Jess’ teenage daughter. With the case being closely knit to the suspects being monitored, the DA (Alfred Molina) tries to shelve the case in order to prevent sabotaging operations at the mosque. But Ray, who holds himself partly responsible for not being able to protect Jess’ daughter, takes it upon himself to find the killer. With personal agendas, relationships and politics at play, the case only keeps getting buried deeper. Thirteen years after the death, Ray finds evidence and returns to reopen the case and find closure for Jess and himself.

With the movie being a mystery/thriller, it's hard to say that the previous paragraph aptly describes the story. Without giving out spoilers, all I can say is that it does have an unpredictable end. But what makes a mystery good is if the end is worth waiting for. Unfortunately, the 100 minutes you spend waiting to know what happens to the killer, feels just like the 13 years it took Ray to find him.

The A-list cast seems unnecessarily squeezed in. I literally tried to re-imagine the complete story sans Nicole Kidman, and except for one scene where she confronts the killer (which is great), the complete story stays unchanged. Julia Roberts doesn’t disappoint, but then again, she hardly has any screen presence (as the mother of the victim she isn’t allowed to be involved in the investigation). Chiwetel Ejiofor, who almost won the Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, is quite certainly not going to get it with his 13 year wait in Secret in Their Eyes.

A bigger disappointment for me was when I realized that the director of this movie, Billy Ray is the same guy who wrote Captain Phillips. The movie certainly raises a question on his directorial skills, evident from the badly executed parallel narrative. With the locations, scenario and people being the same in each narrative, the color of hair or absence of it are the only things that help determine what timeline’s currently occurring. I would probably also blame the editor Jim Page. As if the switching in between the timelines wasn’t painful enough, the scenes tend to get long, slow and boring. This is a movie that would definitely have benefited from some heavy chopping.

Secret in Their Eyes seems like an attempt to turn a good story into a shabby star studded vehicle that sadly underperforms. I look forward to seeing the original version; hopefully I can find a copy at the library. I advise you do the same.

Grade : B-
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Anu Gulati on The Night Before

11/20/2015

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Seth Rogen, America’s favorite Jewish manchild, returns with 50/50 co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and director Jonathan Levine for a night of decorated, druggy debauchery that gleefully skips down the line between crass and humorous. This year’s Rogen film is an improvement from 2014’s disputed The Interview, a movie that sacrificed good quality for it’s flashy existence and has no standout offensiveness other than the usual bros-will-be-bros attitude. The Night Before transforms the principled idea of the holidays into one sprayed with vomit and nosebleed-blood but still manages to feel utterly earnest.

Ethan (Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Rogen), and Chris (played by Anthony Mackie, who does expectedly play the token black guy) have a tradition of celebrating Christmas together ever since Ethan lost his parents at age 19, but the boys feel the tradition is starting to beat a dead horse now that they’re 33 and starting to settle. Their celebration trades in the usual holiday dinner for Chinese food, scavenging for open bars in NYC and getting shitfaced. Rogen and Gordon-Levitt have chemistry carried over from 50/50 and Mackie joins the best way he can in the group’s robust karaoke rendition of Run DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” or their totally bro-ish performance of Kanye West’s “Runaway” using FAO Schwartz’s iconic floor piano made popular by Big. Each actor delivers their own authentic, comedic performances that are bolstered by a slew of exciting guests, including Ilana Glazer (Broad City), Mindy Kaling (The Mindy Project), Jason Jones (The Daily Show), and my favorite celebrity ever Nathan Fielder (Nathan for You), whose off-kilter delivery had me laughing the hardest. Also especially memorable is Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire), whose performance as a deadpan, crusty drug dealer whose weed literally transports customers through time and space shines with Shannon’s menacing but misunderstood demeanor.

Despite the immoral self-indulgence and fun performances, The Night Before does fall flat on half of it’s jokes as Rogen and his crew seem to be giving out their last few breaths. An especially dry scene where Rogen, high out of his mind, receives a mysterious onslaught of dick pics from a “James” on his phone that he can’t help but find impressive felt like a fight against the homophobia in typical bro movies but ends up being pretty tasteless and still reminiscent of a 13-year-old boy’s writing. Jonathan Levine, known for his wondrous emotional pulls in comedy films, does bring The Night Before back around for a saccharine ending that reminds us what the holidays are all about: being brought together with family. The boys share an everlasting hug and Gordon-Levitt makes a few speeches that reminded me how blindingly charming he is for a typical holiday movie ending to an otherwise atypical holiday movie.

As if being quietly tucked away into the shelf with all the other Christmas stories, The Night Before’s three kings of the Orient settle into their roles of fathers, husbands, and sons. It’s the usual Rogen film that dares to juxtapose the naughty with the nice, like the line “swallow like a girl would” echoed in a church, but doesn’t make do with that boldness. Though not particularly memorable, The Night Before is a solid effort that nails the joke half the time and starkly reminds us that we can’t all be kids forever the other half. Make of that what you will, Mr. Rogen.

Grade: C
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Here's Some Movies (Week Three) by Eric Tatar

11/17/2015

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For this week’s list, I’m focusing on movies with tragic main characters, specifically ones who have their actions place them into unfortunate situations. One quick warning: most of these films, especially Come and See and Perfect Blue, contain some pretty disturbing subject matter and imagery. If you’re able to handle that, and I hope you can, you’ll find five extremely well-told stories, all with distinct looks at the nature of human suffering.

Calvary

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Directed by: John Michael McDonagh
Written by: John Michael McDonagh
Released in: 2014
IMDB Page

Casting a critical eye at the reputation assigned to anyone associated with the Catholic Church after the institution's years of abuse scandals, John Michael McDonagh casts Brendan Gleeson as a priest battling to keep his unruly town in order despite it’s growing resentment towards him. While Calvary retains the small Irish village setting of McDonagh’s comedic debut, The Guard, that film’s irreverent script is here placed into the hands of the townsfolk and becomes directed at Gleeson’s Father James, with the previously humorous lines now full of vitriol and bite. Like any tragic figure worth his suffering, the Father constantly strives to do the right thing, even in a time when the people around him fail to see any need for his teachings.
You can read Carter Sigl's and Brandon Isaacson's discussion of Calvary here.

Come and See

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Directed by: Elem Klimov
Written by: Elem Klimov, Ales Adamovich
Released in: 1985
IMDB Page

With a grin splayed across his face and a weathered rifle in his arms, the young Belarusian boy Flyora eagerly joins the ranks of the Soviet Partisan forces in this Russian film created as a commemoration for the 40th anniversary of the country’s victory in World War II. Writing with Ales Adamovich, whose teenage experiences the film is based on, Elem Klimov brushes past the massive battles at the front line in favor of depicting the backstage horrors of the war: roving bands of Nazis demolishing hundreds of small towns in Belarus, churches burning with corralled villagers inside, and bands of survivors sneaking through German lines in hopes of recovering any food. The roundabout ending of the film lets us know that what’s been shown is only a sliver of the atrocities the Germans left behind in those villages.

The Hunt

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Directed by: Thomas Vinterberg
Written by: Thomas Vinterberg, Tobias Lindholm
Released in: 2012
IMDB Page

A lie universally perceived as a truth is a powerful influence. In The Hunt, the misconstrued comments of a young girl at her kindergarten turn a close-knit Danish town against one of their own, leaving him out of control of his own life. Prior to the accusations, Mads Mikkelsen’s Lucas seems to have things going his way as his estranged wife finally allows their son to live with him and he finds a new girlfriend in one of his coworkers at the kindergarten. Once he’s labelled as a sexual predator, however, his friendships are destroyed, his son is shunned by the community, and he can’t go to the grocery store without the fear of being attacked. Even holding a trial where he’s proven innocent does nothing to lessen the hysteria against him, as his life previous to the incident has become shrouded by an accepted pretense.

Perfect Blue

Picture
Directed by: Satoshi Kon
Written by: Sadayuki Murai

Released in: 1997
IMDB Page

The diffusion of reality and dreams is a common theme throughout Satoshi Kon’s fantastic filmography, and Perfect Blue presents his take on the human psyche at it’s most paranoid. When a young Japanese pop idol’s decision to become an actress creates tension among her fans, a stalker obsessed with her old persona leaves her questioning which version of herself is real. Moments of Mima Kirigoe mistaking her apartment for a production set or having her side-long reflection turn to face her force her to wonder if she’s really uninvolved with the murders that have begun surrounding her show. After the filming of a rape scene thrusts her further into paranoia, Kon’s matched cuts and looping sequences present a shared psychosis to the viewer: will this day turn out to be real, or are we still lost in Mima’s mind?

Inside Llewyn Davis

Picture
Directed by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Written by: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Released in: 2013
IMDB Page

While decidedly less visually intense than the other films on this list, the Coen Brothers’ story of a despondent folk singer whose partner’s suicide leaves him alone in their act doesn’t shy away from expressing the pitiful depths of human existence. As a folk artist himself, Oscar Isaac portrays the turbulent Llewyn Davis perfectly: a man gifted with the talent to express his sorrows, but unable to stop them. With 1960’s Greenwich Village moving through the folk revival behind him, Llewyn travels from studio to studio looking for the music deal that’ll help him with his monetary troubles while his personal life continues to flounder. By the time he returns to the coach he began his journey on, it’s clear that Llewyn is stuck in the catch-22 presented by his profession: if everything worked out for him, he wouldn’t have anything to sing about.
You can read Brandon Isaacson's review of Inside Llewyn Davis here.
You can find The Hunt on Netflix, Come and See on YouTube (Part 1 and Part 2), and Calvary, Perfect Blue, and Inside Llewyn Davis somewhere else. Again, there is disturbing content in these films, but I’d ask you to at least try to watch them and then stop if you feel it’s too intense. Thank you for reading and enjoy the movies!
This article is part of an ongoing series. Click here to read last week's article, and check back each week for a new article covering a new theme.
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Gabrielle Ulubay interviews Saoirse Ronan on Brooklyn

11/16/2015

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After seeing Brooklyn, I had the opportunity to interview Saoirse Ronan in a college conference phone call. Here are the highlights from the conversation.
Moderator: Okay, there they go.  First we have Jasmine Kantor with College Time. 

Saoirse: Hi, Jasmine.

Jasmine: How are you?  I was just wondering, how emotionally invested do you think you were in the character of Eilis since you and her both come from New York and Ireland?

Saoirse: I mean initially that was the real personal connection for me was the fact that my mom and dad had made that trip over from Ireland to New York and had gotten married in City Hall just like Eilis and Tony did, and I was born there.  Yes, these two places really very much made up who I am, but by the time we actually made the film which was maybe a year or so after I had signed on.  I had moved away from home and was living in London and was going through home sickness myself and still trying to figure out where I stood in the grownup world.  It’s a very daunting feeling I think, and I was right in the middle of that while we were making the film, so it meant that every kind of stage that we see Eilis reaching and overcoming, I was going through myself. It was very scary because of that, because there was sort of nowhere to hide, but by the same token, once you actually get through something like that there’s nothing more gratifying.

Kate: This is your first role or one of your first roles playing an adult woman in a coming of age story where she’s adapting to a new country, could you speak about the role and the character, and how you feel about moving beyond juvenile roles?

Saoirse: I mean it’s interesting because even when I was a kid, I never was involved in children’s films apart from maybe one or two.  They were always quite grown up, and so when I got to the age of about 18 and 19, I was really ready to play someone older, and certainly by the time I reached 20.  It’s a tricky time because there’s a lot of execs and writers and studios and all the rest that can’t really pinpoint exactly what a journey would be for a young woman between the ages of 18 and 21, so it’s a tricky time to get the role that is interesting and still kind of matches your maturity and where you’re at in your own life.  When Brooklyn came along, it was perfect, and it was like a bloody guardian angel or something coming down and kind of going, “Okay, you’re ready now.”  I think just going through that experience, I felt quite changed afterwards, but I was very much ready to take that step.

Moderator: Next is Kelly Wells with Emerson College.  

Kelly: …my question is, when people go to see this movie what do you want them to take away from it?
Saoirse: I think honestly, I mean John has put it really well whenever anyone’s asked, just to be kind to people.  I think the real—if there’s any message with this film, apart from the personal connections that everyone has seemed to have to us in one way or another, the heart of this movie is that she gets on well in life and she grows, and she grows into this amazing young woman because the people around her have been kind to her and they’ve helped her and they’ve shared advice and wisdom and their experience. And because of that, she has been able to, as I said, ultimately stand up and announce who she is and realize that she needs to make a choice.  She wouldn’t have been able to do that at the start of the film, she wasn’t there yet.  It’s really—it’s the people around her that helped her to come out of herself in order for her to get the confidence and have that security in who she is.

Moderator: Next up we’ll go to Gabrielle Ulubay with Northeastern University. 

Gabrielle: Hello!  I’d like to start by thanking you so much for taking the time out to talk with us today,  I really do appreciate it.  My question is that Eilis arguably undergoes both a physical and an emotional transformation in this movie because she becomes confident, she becomes older, she’s more comfortable, she’s stronger because of what she’s been through, and you do a really great job in the movie of manifesting this physically. So I was wondering what preparation you took in preparing for this role and manifesting her physicality? Also, does it differ from the preparation you’ve taken before other roles?

Saoirse: When I did a film called Atonement a few years ago when I was about 12, the director on that, one of the first things that we worked on apart from the accent, was the way a character would walk.  And so that’s always been quite important for me, and I think from that it naturally meant that a character’s emotional face really reflected and fed into their physicality as well, and it kind of naturally starts to happen.  Yes, I guess it was just one of those things that sort of naturally, as you say, manifested through the course of the script, but the more confident emotionally the character was, I guess I just kind of naturally stood in a different way.  I think when a character has purpose as well, when a young woman has purpose and she knows where she’s going, your walk is going to always reflect that.  And so I think it was just one of those things that really kind of happened naturally.  I could feel that like when we brought Eilis back home to Ireland in the second half of the film, she was more in control of herself.  She, as you said, has been through quite a life experience since she’s been away, has gone through fear and grief and love, and has taken on so much responsibility for herself. And so, just like it would in real life, that just kind of naturally reflects or feeds into the way you hold yourself, I guess.

Gabrielle: Thank you so much!

Saoirse: Thank you!
You can read Gabrielle's review of Brooklyn here.
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