Day 264: The Wolf of Wall Street

"Sell me this pen."

Martin Scorsese has taken a lot of detours in his career since winning his first Academy Award for directing 2006's The Departed. He's dabbled in horror (Shutter Island), television (Boardwalk Empire), fantasy (Hugo), and returned to documentaries as well (George Harrison: Living in the Material World), but all indications from the subject matter and trailers of his latest film The Wolf of Wall Street indicated that he was returning to the crime sagas that had made him famous in the first place. So was this a "return to form" so to speak, or would he struggle to recapture the magic that made films like Goodfellas, Raging Bull & Taxi Driver famous? Read on to find out...

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) enters the world of stock trading as a wide-eyed optimistic young man in the early 1980s, and is given a crash course in how to survive the industry by his first boss Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey). After acquiring his license to trade, his first day at his new job is October 19, 1987, otherwise known as Black Monday. With the industry in turmoil, and the agency he worked for shuttered, he struggles to find a new avenue to go down. He answers an ad in the paper looking for stockbrokers to sell penny stocks to poor saps dumb enough to buy them, but with a 50% commission as opposed to the 1% commission he was making for blue chip stocks, Jordan sees a while new world open up for him.

He begins to acquire a faithful following as his talents as a broker begin to make him lots of money, and he takes as his partner a young furniture salesman named Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill). Together they expand their business model and begin making money hand over fist off of lower and middle class people. When they combine their tactics for selling these junk stocks with the higher end blue chip stocks, they hit on a way to start selling to the top 1% of money makers in the country. They become overnight sensations, but not without attracting the attention of the SEC and the FBI. 

The electric first hour of this film pulsates with the energy and vitality that Scorsese has brought to all of his best films, and it seems as if he has slipped right back into this world without missing a step. However, the film grinds to a halt a little past the one hour mark, and never recovers. Scenes begin to drag on for an eternity, and while there are some inspired set pieces such as an hysterically funny scene where DiCaprio & Hill overdose on quaaludes, the film becomes an interminable slog towards an inevitable conclusion. Scorsese's gift for keeping things tight and focused is noticeably absent from the latter two-thirds of this three hour saga, and it truly hurts the overall film as you begin to wonder when, and before long if, it will ever recover.

Unfortunately it doesn't, and what began as a riveting and zippy tale of excess and greed turns into a never-ending saga of a man who simply doesn't know when to say when. The major problem with the film is that Belfort is such a despicable human being that it becomes hard to care about what happens to him, and any foreknowledge of his fate only makes the film's conclusion that much less edifying. Scorsese has made a career out of turning despicable people into anti-heroes from Travis Bickle and Jake LaMotta to Henry Hill, but there's something especially sleazy about Belfort that makes spending this much time in his company all the more unpleasant. 

Rumors circulated that Scorsese was having trouble editing the film down to a consumptive level, and it truly shows as the film plods along with no sense of momentum. The film is full of colorful supporting characters but none of them help to redeem this journey through a period of enormous irresponsibility and excess. There's ultimately a lesson here in the rich never really getting their comeuppance no matter what just because of their status in American society, but that message is buried beneath layers of awful people behaving terribly towards one another which only aids in diminishing that point. I'm not saying that Scorsese is celebrating this behavior, and he doesn't take strides towards making Belfort a likable or relatable character (one scene that attempts to do so is laughably ridiculous, but very much on purpose), but he does seem to linger too long on the merriment of it all. 

DiCaprio turns in an admirably powerful performance in the film, giving the film a strong core from which to build around, but he seems to be trying a little too hard at points. His early scenes and his later scenes are the strongest, but he falters the most in the bloated middle portion of the film (save one fantastically funny sequence that I've already mentioned). McConaughey steals the whole film with his character who disappears completely after two memorable scenes, and his might be the best one man show since Alec Baldwin taught the salesmen of 

Glengarry Glen Ross

 to always be closing. Margot Robbie is also a bright spot in the cast as Jordan's second wife Naomi, and her character really comes to life in her final two scenes after early bits of the same "trying too hard" syndrome that plagues some of DiCaprio's performance. 

Jonah Hill is firmly out of his element in this film, and while he has stood his ground well in dramatic roles in films like 

Moneyball

, he overcompensates for his lack of dramatic training by either doing too much or not enough, and always at the wrong times. His goofy fake teeth don't help things much, but the moments when he tried to fall back on his Apatovian improv riffing were cringe inducing. The rest of the supporting cast does admirable work, and fleshes out the world well, they're just all pretty awful people and it's hard to cling to any of them. 

The script by Terence Winter, based on Belfort's book, is a mixed bag of strongly written scenes, and ones that go on for the length of a bible. It's somewhat unfair to compare his work to the work of Scorsese's past collaborators like Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), Nicholas Pileggi (Goodfellas), William Monahan (The Departed) and John Logan (Hugo), but this film lacks the drive and brevity that those scripts had in spades. Scorsese's work here produces similarly mixed results, balancing masterfully done sequences with ones that seem to have absolutely no one at the helm. You could show someone any of a handful of scenes from the film's second or third hour and easily convince them that they're the work of a Scorsese imitator.   

After an amazingly strong and often hilariously funny first hour, The Wolf of Wall Street turns into a film about excess that falls victim to the very thing it sets out to caution against. A handful of very good to great performances aren't enough to redeem the overall film, and I'm sorry to say that this is Scorsese's least satisfying film in a long time. While it will likely grow on me with successive viewings as so many of his films have, there's nothing here that's instantly memorable or iconic in the way that his best films are, and I'm left feeling terribly hollow after this first viewing. At best, it's his next Casino or Gangs of New York, and honestly, that's really not saying very much. 

GO Rating: 2.5/5

Top 5: Christmas Movies

It's almost that time of year again, and it got me thinking about my favorite Christmas movies. There are so many films, tv shows, made for tv movies, and tv specials about Christmas, but so very few of them are high quality product, typically because they're dashed off in an attempt to cash in on the Christmas season before it's over. But there have been some great films made either about Christmas or set during the season, and I wanted to look today at my top five favorite feature length Christmas movies. For the purposes of simplifying, I've eliminated everything that did not play first in a movie theater, so no made for tv or direct to video movies, and nothing that runs shorter than an hour. It took me some time to narrow it down, but these are my five favorites, with five more honorable mentions.

5. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, dir. Henry Selick)

While one could mount an argument that this film does not belong to one holiday, as it spans both Halloween and Christmas, it is ultimately about Jack Skellington's discovery of Christmas, which leads me to classify it as a Christmas movie. As the Pumpkin King, and de facto ruler of the fictional Halloweentown, Skellington wanders off from the festivities of October 31 one year to find himself in a gateway to many different worlds, and is instantly taken by the one that looks like a Christmas tree. It's from here that he discovers what Christmas is and returns to Halloweentown to try and rally the denizens of his home to create their own Christmas celebration. Though it sprang from the mind of Tim Burton, the film belongs to director Henry Selick (Coraline)'s unique sensibilities, and the score by Danny Elfman is second to none in his long and distinguished career. This is a film worth revisiting any time of year, but holds a strong place among the best films ever made about Christmas. 

4. Bad Santa (2003, dir. Terry Zwigoff)

There is no more scathing satire of all that Christmas has come to represent in modern times than Terry Zwigoff's biting and caustically funny Bad Santa. Part-time department store Santa and full-time drunk Willy (Billy Bob Thornton) has been running a safe cracking scam with his friend and partner Marcus (Tony Cox) for several years, and is at his most unreliable when the film opens. That he actually manages to devolve even further is a testament to how bleak this film is, yet through his relationship with a parentless kid (Brett Kelly) Willy manages to glean some meaning from the season. Or maybe not, it depends upon which version of the film you watch as there are no fewer than three different cuts of the film floating around. Any way you slice it, this features two great performances from the late John Ritter & Bernie Mac, and also manages to be one of the best performances of Thornton's career. Though it's decidedly for adults only, it wouldn't be Christmas without Bad Santa.

3. A Christmas Story (1983, dir. Bob Clark)

It's hard to imagine now, but A Christmas Story was almost universally derided when it debuted in 1983, and seemed destined to be consigned to "forgotten film" status, but a strange thing happened on the way to obscurity. The film found new life through repeated airings on cable and is now of such revered status that it shows for 24 hours straight every December 25th on TBS. The story of ten year old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and his quest to get a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas has endeared itself to everyone who's ever had that one toy they couldn't live without on Christmas morning. Though he gets cock blocked by every adult in his life with the "you'll shoot your eye out" argument, his single-minded determination makes him instantly relatable and has helped the film to find new life. Though cries of overrated have begun to seep into the arguments made against the film, it's heart is undeniably in the right place, and it stands the test of time for a reason: it's just that good.

2. Miracle on 34th Street (1947, dir. George Seaton)

When it comes to the classics, everyone has their favorite, and for some Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life takes that slot, but for me that film falls victim to Slumdog Millionaire syndrome: two hours of misery followed by ten minutes of uplift does not a heartwarming movie make. For me, the film with the truest Christmas spirit from the golden age of filmmaking is Miracle on 34th Street. The story of a man (Edmund Gwenn) who takes over as Macy's official Santa Claus of the season and claims to himself be the "real" Santa Claus is the original screed against the rampant commercialism that had already begun to make its way into the holiday some 66 years ago. Those who don't know the particulars of the story would do well to discover it for the first time themselves without me spoiling them here, but the dramatic courtroom scene can still bring a smile to the face of even the Grinchiest among us. 

1. Scrooged (1988, dir. Richard Donner)

It may not be the definitive telling of the Ebenezer Scrooge myth (for that see the 1951 film with Alastair Sim), but for those who came of age when I did, Bill Murray's Frank Cross will forever be intwined with the story of the hard hearted man visited by three ghosts in order to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Filled with memorable ghosts played by David Johansen & Carol Kane, as well as the Bob Cratchit-esque character played by Bobcat Goldthwait, Scrooged remains my favorite Christmas movie as it seamlessly updates the Scrooge story to (then) modern times. It's the funniest and the most touching version of this story that I've ever seen, and it's one of the very few Christmas movies that can be watched at any time of the year, thanks to Murray's amazing performance and transformation from ultimate evil to redeemed sap. The best Christmas movie ever made by a wide margin. 

Honorable Mentions: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), Elf (2003), March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934), Home Alone (1990), and Scrooge (1951).

[Photos via 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Day 263: Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

"By the hymen of Olivia Newton John!"

Few movies have maintained the kind of staying power over the last decade that 2004's Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy has. One of the most oft-quoted films in all of pop culture, Anchorman became a phenomenon after it was released on dvd as its summer slot in 2004 wasn't terribly lucrative (it made somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million). A sequel seemed like a sure bet, but Paramount was hesitant to give one the green light until early last year when they came to their senses and announced that a sequel would be coming this Christmas. So could Anchorman 2 possibly live up to the lofty expectations that nine years of waiting had built up? Read on to find out...

Picking up several years after the first film, Anchorman 2 opens with Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) co-anchoring the 6:30 news in New York City. Word comes down that legendary prime time anchorman Mack Tannen (Harrison Ford) is retiring, and he selects Veronica to replace him and fires Ron. Ron splits with his wife and moves back to San Diego, finding himself as an announcer at Sea World. He is paid a visit by a man (Dylan Baker) looking for anchors to cover air time at the first ever 24 hour news channel being started up back in New York City.

Ron accepts the job and reunites with his old news team of Champ Kind (David Koechner), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) to once more dominate the news. Upon their arrival, however, they learn that they will be taking the graveyard shift of 2-5am as they are nobodies in a world dominated by even classier news anchors like Jack Lime (James Marsden). Ron and his team decide to take a radical approach to journalism, and begin reporting on all manner of nonsense that doesn't necessarily qualify as news, but their ratings are so astounding, the network begins to morph around them. 

As a satire of the 24 hour news cycle and corporate run "news" channels, Anchorman 2 works surprisingly well, better than it has any right to actually. The direct attacks on the current state of television journalism are sharp, if a little obvious, and give the film a reason to exist beyond the "more of the same" formula that most belated sequels fall victim to. For about 75% of its running time, Anchorman 2 more than lives up to its predecessor, combining hilarious one-liners with callbacks to a lot of the bits that worked in the first film.

At right about the eighty minute mark, however, the film takes a left turn that the audience will either willingly follow or completely abandon, and while the film didn't completely go off the rails for me, nothing about the film's final forty minutes worked for me as well as anything that came before it, including the entirety of the previous film. Part of me admires the bold direction that Ferrell and co-writer/director Adam McKay take things, but the other part of me began to wonder just what the hell was going on. A late film attempt to one-up one of the most classic bits from the first film also fell curiously flat for me, though I imagine most people will eat it up.

Ferrell, and all of his returning co-stars to be fair, slips comfortably right back into the skin of this blowhard, and it's nice to spend more time in the company of Burgundy and these characters. None of the new additions to the cast stood out in a bad way, but none fit right into the existing stock company with any ease either. Marsden in particular flounders, and Kristen Wiig's introduction as a love interest for Brick seemed oddly out of step with an already absurd film. 

I truly do have to hand it to McKay & Ferrell for making such bold choices. They could have rested on their laurels and just given us a ninety minute rehash of the first film, but they chose to take things in new and sometimes interesting directions, but it's virtually impossible to sustain absurd comedy for ninety minutes, let alone this film's close to interminable running time of two hours. The wheels come off eventually, and while they manage to stick the landing, some of the getting there is a bit too far out of left field for my taste. 

I have no doubt that my opinion of this film will change with time and multiple viewings, but as of right now, I'm more bothered by the odd developments of the film's third act than I am enamored with the stuff I really loved about the first two. Fans of the original will find a lot of stuff in here to love, and I'm sure that new converts to the series will find enough bits to enjoy, but I leave this first viewing of the film a tad underwhelmed by what could have been. This is a film that can only benefit from lowered expectations.

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 262: Her

"The past is just a story we tell ourselves."

For his first two feature films, director Spike Jonze paired his unique visual sensibilities with one of the most original and high concept screenwriters of all time, Charlie Kaufman. For his fourth feature film, Jonze borrows a page right out of Kaufman's playbook and created Her,  a film that is ostensibly about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) living in the not-too-distant future falling in love with his new hyper-aware computer operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). And of course, as with all truly great high concept stories, that log line is merely a jumping off point for an incredibly well-told story.

Theodore Twombly (Phoenix) works as a writer for a company, composing personal letters for people who are not articulate or artistic enough to express their feelings for one another. He has an incredible gift for crafting these letters and expressing emotions through these letters, but he is an introvert in his day to day life, often making no more than small talk with his boss (Chris Pratt) or his neighbors (Amy Adams, Matt Letscher).

On his way to work one day, he sees an advertisement for a new operating system that promises to be the most intuitive and personalized one available. After purchasing it and answering a few questions about himself, he is connected to his new OS Samantha (Johannson), who proves to be immediately personable and helpful with helping him get his life organized. It isn't long before Samantha discovers that Theodore is going through a divorce, and begins to try and help him navigate more than just his virtual life.

To reveal any more of the plot would do the film a terrible disservice when you see it, and I cannot recommend you seeing it any higher. The film presents us with a future that doesn't seem all that far off from our present, and makes things that seem implausible highly possible. The connectivity that our current society has with technology will evolve again within the next ten years to a future that likely resembles this one in which people connect to their devices and almost completely disconnect from one another. An operating system that can fulfill our emotional needs is the only void that has yet to be breached, and the ease with which this film take that leap is astounding.

The film is also about more than just a simple "guy falls in love with his computer" conceit. It's about deep emotional scarring that occurs when we give our lives and our hearts to someone and don't want to risk being hurt again. Theodore seems, on the surface anyway, to be a man looking for something, for a connection to someone after his marriage to Catherine (Rooney Mara) fell apart, and the way that the film presents their past through mostly wordless flashbacks is absolutely devastating and ground the film in such a way as to make it undeniably real and painful.

It's also exceedingly clever in the way it presents a future society where entire industries develop around ever advancing technology and ever disconnecting human interactions. The desire for the tangible begins to creep in to a society that has made real human connection a luxury, and it is a powerful storytelling device. A handful of scenes are terribly off-putting at first, but in retrospect lend the film a verisimilitude that very few other love stories have ever had.

After his triumphant return to acting in last year's The Master, Joaquin Phoenix hits it out of the park once again as a very differently damaged soul. His Theodore is almost the polar opposite of Freddie Quell, so crippled by his own fears and desires that he refuses to act on them, rather than being impulsively dangerous as he was in The Master. He plays damaged goods better than almost anyone else, yet he gives us a protagonist worth rooting for here, and you can't help but want him to find true love.

I've never thought much of Scarlett Johannson the actress, other than to say the requisite "she's easy on the eyes," so for Jonze to take the risk of completely cutting that aspect of her off from the audience is bold and pays off incredibly well. You can easily understand why Theodore would fall in love with Samantha, and her child-like desire to experience everything to its fullest makes her performance truly great. It's the best possible outcome for such a ballsy casting move.

And as for Jonze's writing and direction, it has frankly never been better. The script captures so many complicated emotions and distills them in such a way that it devastates the audience with its simplicity. It never fails to be honest, and that's what makes it so impactful and memorable, and you'll find yourself replaying lines and scenes in your head long after the film is over. The film's final ten minutes are its best, wrapping things up in such a way as to make your head spin with how beautifully elegant the resolutions are, and showcase a true synergy between script, performance, direction and editing.

It's been almost ten years since I connected with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in ways I never thought I could connect with a film, and I think I may have finally found its heir apparent, and if you know me (which, who else reads this blog), you will understand how potent that statement is. All of the things I am going through in my personal life likely played such a large part in my connection to this story, but I can see through that as well to recognize how well done everything is, and I have no doubt that every viewer will connect to different aspects of this film in their own way.

Her is nothing short of the finest film produced in 2013, and will likely stand the test of time as one of the greatest love stories ever put on film. If any of what I've just said doesn't make you want to run right out and see it, then I will go ahead and just say it. Run right out and see this movie. I am beside myself with the desire to see it again. 

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 261: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

"We're going 'round in circles. We're lost."

It's no secret that I flat out hated last year's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. As a fan of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy (but by no means a fanatic), I was disappointed by how much filler Jackson seemed to put in the film in an attempt to inflate a slim and jaunty novel into the epic beginning of a brand new trilogy. It felt like five pounds of sausage in a ten pound casing. While I haven't come around fully on the film, I enjoyed it more on home video, finding it's leisurely pace to play better at home than it did on the big screen. So would the second (or fifth) trip to Middle Earth, The Desolation of Smaug, bring things back into focus, and get down to the business of telling a story worth telling, or would it be more of the same? Read on to find out...

The Desolation of Smaug begins with a scene that attempts to bolster the background for the character of Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and it feels like Jackson is attempting to set things right from the onset. The major complaint about this secondary hero in the first film is that he just came across as an arrogant, single-minded jerk that didn't have the same qualities that made Aragorn such a popular co-protagonist in The Lord of the Rings. And for the first forty five minutes or so, the film continues in this vein, keeping a firm focus on the story of this company of dwarves and their quest to reclaim their home. The first portion of the film culminates in a fantastic sequence with the dwarves in barrels, hurtling down river and fending off a band of orcs, that rivals any of the best action sequences in Jackson's original trilogy.

Then everything goes to hell almost instantaneously. The constant fracturing of this group and the almost non-stop introduction of additional characters from the various Tolkien ephemera divides the audience's focus and makes this quest so unwieldy that it's hard to care about anything that happens to anyone. Someone needs to sit Peter Jackson down and point to the first two words in this film's title, because he seems to have lost any semblance of where this series started out. Bilbo Baggins becomes a supporting character in his own story for so much of this film's running time, it really shouldn't be called The Hobbit, it should be called Middle Earth's Greatest Hits: The Hobbit and Other Assorted Nonsense. Even bringing the focus back onto Baggins, in the film's first of several climaxes, and his encounter with the dragon Smaug ends up looking like a weak attempt to recreate the first film's best sequence where Bilbo and Gollum faced off. 

So much of what made The Lord of the Rings an instant classic is that it kept the focus small enough, and the stakes of the heroes'  journey ever present, making it easily digestible and a breeze to follow. This series, and this film in particular, is all over the map, and it's never clear whose quest is the most important. The introduction of Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt), Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and an absolutely interminable sequence set in Laketown only further prove this point. Whose story is this anyway? Jackson's attention to detail in his original trilogy has turned into attention deficit disorder, and every character speaks in platitudes and stands around spouting off information about how they fit into the narrative arc of this series that it becomes exhausting after a while. 

It's hard to critique the performances in a film like this when they're in service of such a messy and diluted narrative, other than to say that everyone is perfectly serviceable and there are no stand outs on either side of that line. Ian McKellen is barely present in this film, but I actively worried for his safety at times as he looks like he's well past the point of being too old for this shit. Jackson has become so reliant on cgi at this point in his career that I was surprised by the number of orcs and various other characters that appeared to be fully made-up human actors, which was a pleasant diversion from the first film. The cg continues to be a mixed bag of decent looking creature designs, like Smaug, and half-assed attempts to finish things off and get the film into theaters by the deadline, which would consist of virtually every scene where a human character is morphed into cg for some impossible stunt.

The design elements are more or less the only things to write home about at this point. Thank goodness they spent top dollar on realizing these worlds, otherwise it would be a long, slow slog to the Lonely Mountain. Homes, costumes, weapons, etc all look appropriately lived in and fully realized, and as I mentioned earlier, the make up effects are top notch. But none of it is in service of a story worth telling, and that's where the real problem with this film, and this series, comes into play. I don't mind the extended versions of the original films, but I never saw them in the theater, where they likely would have felt like the bloated messes that they actually are. These films already feel like they've been extended past the point of human consumption, and they're only weaker as a result.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was not the turnaround I had hoped it would be going in, or even that the first forty five minutes lead me to believe it would be. It's just more of the same, more shuffling of feet, more cramming in things that either don't matter or don't belong, and it's beginning to feel like there's no end in sight. I'm not even sure it would've worked as the original two films that were promised as it features so many diversions, subplots and side quests that it would have still felt like a bloated mess at six hours. As such, my thought process has changed from will this series transcend mediocrity to will it ever end?

GO Rating: 2/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 260: Out of the Furnace

"There's nothing wrong with working for a living."

Scott Cooper's 2009 film Crazy Heart garnered a ton of attention after star Jeff Bridges won the Best Actor Academy Award. Cooper suddenly became a director that everyone wanted to work with, and he's assembled a hell of a cast for his second feature film Out of the Furnace. It's a veritable who's who of Oscar winners like Christian Bale and Forest Whitaker, and nominees such as Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, and Willem Dafoe. So could lightning strike twice for the new wunderkind of scuzzy character studies? Read on to find out...

Russell Baze (Bale) is a small town Pennsylvania mill worker who grinds out a living the same way his father did before him. He's got a beautiful girlfriend Lena (Zoe Saldana) and a troublemaker brother Rodney (Affleck) whose gambling debts are beginning to mount. Russell attempts to settle his brother's gambling debts with local bookie John Petty (Dafoe) behind his brother's back, and on the eve of Rodney shipping out for another tour in Iraq, Russell drives home from a bar drunk and crashes into another car killing a mother and child.

Russell gets sent to jail, and upon his release, Lena has left him for the local sheriff (Whitaker) and his brother has gotten into the world of bare knuckle boxing in an attempt to settle substantial debts. Rodney goads Petty into letting him box in the Ramapo region of NJ where a drug kingpin (Harrelson) reigns supreme. But Rodney's inability to take a dive when there's money on the line may spell trouble for him and those he loves.

Gritty is a word that gets bandied about a lot these days, but Out of the Furnace has a truly gritty feel that makes it the only appropriate word to describe the film. Thank goodness that Cooper was able to secure the cast that he did as they all bring their A-game to the proceedings and lend the film a verisimilitude it wouldn't have had otherwise. The backwoods, small town life that he depicts here has a ton of truth to it, and this cast of superstar actors flesh it out in such a way that validates the bold choices made by Cooper and Brad Ingelsby in their screenplay. It feels very real and honest, never pulling any punches for the bulk of the film's running time.

However, the film's biggest problem is that it has a ridiculous third act that totally spoils the very good first two acts. As a matter of fact, the film's final half hour is so awful, it's likely to make you forget how good the rest of the film actually is. I won't delve into any spoilers here, but the film is almost entirely reminiscent of another film from a few months ago, A Single Shot, that similarly wandered off the range in the third act, but was redeemed to an extent by its stellar cast. Out of the Furnace doesn't suffer from that film's Winter's Bone copycat syndrome, but one begins to wonder if this was really the best possible way to end this story.

As mentioned several times now, the film's cast is outstanding, headlined by a remarkably turned down performance from Bale. He's an actor that always manages to surprise the audience with his choices, and just when you think you have him pegged, he takes a left turn you didn't see coming. Harrelson continues his hot streak of playing fantastically lived in characters, and you never doubt for a moment that he wields the kind of power that he does. This is an actor that is so unlike any other working today in that he can do virtually anything and make it truthful. I defy you to name me another actor that could be equally believable in films as diverse as Kingpin, Seven Psychopaths, The Hunger Games, and Now You See Me.

Dafoe, Affleck, Whitaker, Saldana and Shepard are equally good in their roles, as are the many periphery characters that flesh out this world. Cooper & Ingelsby's script is a model of economy for its first two thirds, and doles out information in a way that should make other writers envious of how well it handles exposition. The cut from the car accident to Russell in jail is masterfully done, as is the opening scene that beautifully sets up Harrelson's character, it's just a shame that the film had to wander off a cliff at the end into a climax that makes literally no sense.

Part of me wants to recommend Out of the Furnace for its fantastic first two acts, and it's honest performances, but it takes such a turn at the end that I can't in good conscience recommend it as a whole. Certain people will connect with the film and forgive its final narrative messiness, but I just can't look past its truly awful conclusion. Give me this cast, this director and these writers in another film and I will wholeheartedly give them a chance to make good on this film's promise, but as it stands, Out of the Furnace ends up a film of majorly squandered potential. 

GO Rating: 2.5/5

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]

Day 259: Philomena

"Well, I don't believe in God, and I think he knows it."

One of the hardest tightropes to walk when making a film based on a true story is how much to embellish the facts of the story, and whether or not to give in to the stylistic trappings that bog down most conventional films based upon true events. Stephen Frears' new film Philomena manages to maintain an even and steady handed pace across this tightrope for the bulk of its running time, making it something of an anomaly in this day and age. It presents a story so unbelievable, it could only be true, but it also keeps things honest enough that it makes for an amazingly edifying viewing experience, even when it does fall back on convention in its final minutes. 

The film opens with Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) a journalist working as Communications Director in the Tony Blair administration, having just been dismissed from his job due to something he said being taken out of context. Martin wanders aimlessly through the days following his dismissal, saying that he's going to write a book on Russian History, though a human interest story lands in his lap and he decides to run with it. He's put in touch with Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) who, as a teenager in Ireland, had birthed a baby while staying at an Abbey. The nuns forced her to work for four years at the Abbey, doing hard labor, while they would watch over her son Anthony.

The nuns were, however, running an adoption program where wealthy Americans could come to the Abbey and adopt these children born out of wedlock. Philomena's son is adopted, along with her friend's younger daughter, and she is given no information on the whereabouts of her son. She hopes that sharing her story with a journalist like Sixsmith will help her to once more get in touch with her long lost son, and the journey that the two embark on together is filled with twists and turns that neither of them could have possibly seen coming.  

For the bulk of its running time, Philomena manages to be an engaging and emotional two hander that shirks easy answers and simple conventions. The script, co-written by Coogan and Jeff Pope based on Sixsmith's book, infuses the story with a ton of laughs that make the heavy subject matter that much easier to digest. Coogan is no stranger to the road trip genre, having done the masterful miniseries The Trip with Michael Winterbottom and Rob Brydon a few years back, and he and Pope streamline the narrative down to its barest essentials, making the film fly by in a breezy 98 minutes. But as much as The Weinstein Company has been billing the film as a comedy (it says so right there on the poster), it's got a rather serious agenda on its hands, and I fear that's where it will lose some viewers.

The film makes no bones about being an attack on the devious and deceptive practices of these Abbeys whose actions were more or less endorsed by the Catholic Church. The history of the church's attempts to sweep history under the rug and move on without a second glance back is abhorrent, and the film goes for the jugular in the third act. The much more subtle balancing act of the discussions of faith between Sixsmith and Lee that paper the film's first two acts are much more resonant and resourceful, allowing the audience to engage in their debates between Lee's unwavering faith in the face of despicable behavior by members of the church at her expense, and Sixsmith's agnostic, or even atheistic tendency to write off the collision of church and faith as another system designed to keep people from questioning anything bad that happens to them.

The film ultimately puts the debate to rest with a powerful gesture by Lee in the film's final moments that resolves the more heavy handed moments that preceded it quite nicely, but those looking at the film as an attack on the Catholic Church, from whatever angle they approach it, will find plenty of ammunition here. I was not bothered by the more cloying elements of the film than some might be, but I could have done without the film's overbearing score by Alexandre Desplat, a composer I usually like. The film's score is leading at times, and feels as if it doesn't trust that the audience will feel the full weight of certain moments, sometimes even taking me out of otherwise incredibly powerful scenes in the film.

As for the performances, the two leads are sublimely good. Coogan is able to maintain his usual bitterly sarcastic manner while also sharing glimpses of a man who hides behind that facade because it's the only way he's ever dealt with the world. His softening in the face of a true believer is powerful and makes his somewhat contrived character arc land with more resonance because he plays everything honestly. Dench is fantastic, as always, but here plays against the usual type we've grown accustomed to seeing from her. She settles incredibly well into this woman's skin and never makes you doubt for a moment that you're watching a real woman with a powerfully turbulent inner life. She brings very little to the surface, making the moments in which she does let her emotions get the best of her all the more resounding as a result. 

Frears brings a light touch to the proceedings, and always keeps things moving, which truly aids the film's overall demeanor. The way he films the flashbacks and memories like home movies gives the film an emotional resonance and immediacy that will linger with you long after the film is over. He lands so many moments with just the right balance of humor and pathos that it's easy to overlook the more saccharine elements that begin to creep into the narrative as the film goes on. It's a wonderful collision of a great script, great performances and great direction. 

Philomena works best when you know as little as possible about its narrative, and in the internet age, it's virtually impossible to escape spoilers, particularly considering it's based on a true story. But I encourage you to go into the film with as little foreknowledge as you can, as the film works best when discovering the secrets and revelations of the story at the same time the characters do. It's a lovely little film that will play great to a variety of audiences, and it's almost always smart enough to buck familiar storytelling trends, making the moments when it does fall victim to them all the more upsetting. Audiences don't get to really discover films anymore, and I encourage you to go discover this one. It's well worth the effort. 

GO Rating: 4/5

[Images via ComingSoon]

Day 258: Oldboy (2013)

"I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word and thought throughout our lifetime."

The first time that the idea of an American remake or re-imagining of the 2003 Korean film Oldboy was floated, it was to star Will Smith and be directed by Steven Spielberg. Once the notion of something as heinous as that film was sure to have been settles in, you find yourself much more open to the notion of someone, anyone else doing the American version. Therefore the announcement that Spike Lee would direct the film with Josh Brolin in the lead role was greeted with much more anticipation than would have been otherwise reserved for such a film. So could Spike Lee's version stand on its own two feet without the specter of the original looming large above it? Read on to find out...

Joe Doucett (Brolin) is a nasty bastard working in the advertising industry circa 1993. We know he's nasty because he hits on his client's wives and tells his ex-wife that he's not coming to his daughter's third birthday party because she wouldn't remember if he showed up or not. After a drunken bender one night, Joe wakes up in a strange hotel room that he cannot leave. No reason is given for his imprisonment, but a news broadcast on the television in his room shows that he has been framed for the murder of his ex-wife. The only thing that keeps him going is the hope that he may one day escape and reconcile with his now orphaned daughter.

Twenty years pass, and in the midst of an attempt escape, Joe is drugged and wakes up in a steamer trunk in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a pillowcase full of letters he wrote to his daughter and several thousand dollars in cash. Joe sets out to find out who imprisoned him and why, teaming with an old friend (Michael Imperioli) and a nurse (Elizabeth Olson) who is sympathetic to his plight due to her work with an organization that seeks to clear the names of innocent people convicted of crimes. 

I'm giving a warning ahead of time that I will be dealing with slight spoilers in my review, and though I won't reveal the major twists of the film's final half hour, anyone wanting to go in fresh to this film would be wise to skip the next two paragraphs that follow this one. The original film Oldboy is itself based on a manga which I have not read, so I cannot say whether this film is more or less faithful to it than the Korean version. What I can say is that this version of Oldboy is not the disaster I thought it could have turned out to be, and I rather liked it for many reasons. The first of which is that it's just a flat-out crazy film that doesn't have a Hollywood gloss all over it. Quite a lot of American remakes of foreign films have a veneer of safety built into them that allows the audience to feel safe in the knowledge that a lot of the more "foreign" concepts that make films like Oldboy a success in their native countries will be white washed to a certain extent when translated for American audiences.

This film felt like the right balance of homage and originality, and didn't kowtow to fans expecting a shot for shot remake, but also didn't change its identity so much as to make it unrecognizable to fans of the original. Gone are the octopus and the tongue cutting, but they are referenced in the film. There is an odd addition to the villain's backstory that frankly made very little sense to me, but didn't distract me so much that it made me dislike what they did. The changes and references went hand in hand in service of the overall story, making it a much more edifying film than say this year's awful Evil Dead remake that couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to honor the original or have its way with its defiled corpse. 

And as for the aforementioned villain in this film, Sharlto Copley's characterization was hands down my favorite thing about this version of the film. The bold and often bug nuts choices he made on how to play this character made me enjoy the film more than I would have otherwise. It's refreshing in this day and age to have an actor that's so dedicated to playing thoroughly insane characters with little thought of vanity or self-image (also see his crazy performance in Elysium for another example of this), and I absolutely loved everything he brought to the table. It will not play as well for everyone as it did for me, and I can see some audience members, and certainly fans of the original, finding a ton of faults in what he does, but for me, his performance worked like gangbusters. 

As for the rest of the cast, Josh Brolin is good, if not great, in the lead role. He's an actor that can play a morally dubious character like this and make him still work as the hero. He goes full blast into the role, and it pays off for the most part, though he's likely a bit too stoic to win over the unconverted. Elizabeth Olson is fine in a largely thankless role, and does the most she can, though her motives for helping Joe are muddy at best and contrived at worst when you remove a key element from the original that American audiences would have likely scoffed at. It's also nice to see Samuel L. Jackson back in a Spike Lee film (their last collaboration was Jungle Fever more than twenty years ago) and he does his usual Sam Jackson schtick in this film which you either like or you don't. 

The film's script by Mark Protosevich is smart without being clever, and has some nice flourishes, though I'm not sure what was in his script, and what was brought to the film by Lee. As for Lee, he does an impressive job of keeping the action moving (though the jarring cut before the big centerpiece action sequence of the film is inexplicable). He also does a fantastic job of showing and not telling with the flashback sequences, which is a welcome addition since the film's final half hour requires a ton of explanation. It's solid work that falls squarely in the middle, not his best, but certainly not his worst. 

My biggest gripe with Spike Lee's Oldboy is that it's almost too foreign of a story to work in an American film. It retains enough of the original's spirit to appease the fans, but it's concepts and storyline are almost so Eastern-centric that they don't translate well to Western sensibilities. It's not a bad film, but anyone unfamiliar with the original is going to be thrown by how violent, nasty and taboo it is, and it's likely the reason the film has had an impossible time finding an audience. It's the rare film that will work best for people who are fans of the original, yet those are the exact people who won't hold it in as high esteem as its predecessor. It's a truly strange film.

[Images via BoxOfficeMojo]

Top 5: Coen Brothers Films

For years the Coen Brothers seemed destined to forever operate on the fringes on filmmaking, getting acclaim but never getting the box office love or awards triumphs that would push them into the elite stratosphere. All that changed over the course of three years when their 2007 dark thriller No Country For Old Men won four Oscars, including two for the brothers themselves, and then their western remake True Grit broke through at the box office, becoming a major hit and nabbing 10 Oscar nominations to boot. With the release of their latest film Inside Llewyn Davis, I thought I'd take a look back at my personal top five favorite Coen Brothers films. This is one of the tougher top fives I've ever done, and could easily have rearranged these or added others. In other words, this is my top five for the moment in which I'm writing this article, and could easily change tomorrow.

5. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Like so many of the brothers films, this one took time to grow on me, but I can now confidently call it one of my favorites. The depression era retelling of Homer's Odyssey finds escaped convicts "Ulysses" Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson) traveling through the South, encountering sirens, a cyclops, and a musician who sold his soul to the devil and helps the boys become a radio sensation. The film's soundtrack is hands down the best to come out of a Coen Brothers film, and this was the film that made me think that George Clooney was actually a great actor (keep in mind he was most famous for ruining Batman at this point in his career), and it still stands as his best performance. Couple all that with fantastic cinematography by long time collaborator Roger Deakins, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? stands the test of time as one of the goofiest comedies of all time.

4. Miller's Crossing (1990)

The Coen Brothers have proven to be masters of whatever genre they're working in, and while they bring their unique sensibilities to every film they make, it feels like a bit of a cheat to say that Miller's Crossing seems the least like a Coen Brothers film of any they've made. It's likely because they were able to craft such an impeccable crime saga and it's verisimilitude in its design elements make you forget you're watching a Coen Brothers film. There's none of their usual quirkiness to be found, and apart from the film's relaxed manner and their usual stable of actors like John Turturro and Steve Buscemi, there are none of the hallmarks of their other films to be found here. Albert Finney and Gabriel Byrne have also never been better in this prohibition era film about warring factions of the Irish and Italian mafia. This film is, for my money, a slightly more successful companion piece to their acclaimed No Country for Old Men. I place this film slightly ahead of that one mainly for its amazing cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld in their final collaboration together before he left to become a director himself.

3. The Big Lebowski (1998)

It's funny to say it now, but The Big Lebowski was far from successful when it was released in 1998. As I covered in my article about least deserving box office flops, Lebowski took a while to find its audience, but it's now rightly recognized as a masterpiece. It's certainly the Coen Brothers' most revered film, and rightly so. Their Raymond Chandler-esque story of mistaken identity and a man getting in over his head by trying not to do anything at all has its roots in film noir, but it's a much goofier, yet no less cynical, look at the underbelly of society. Bowling, performance art, porn, surfing, nihilists, kidnapping, rugs that tie the room together and white russians all collide in this sublimely silly film that features a career best performance from Coen regular John Goodman.

2. Fargo (1996)

Still the gold standard for its collision of comedy and shocking violence, Fargo retains almost all of its punch some seventeen years after it was made. In the wake of Pulp Fiction there was a wave of pale imitators, and many initially wrote off Fargo as just another one of those, but this is a film in a genre all its own. Billed as being based on a true story, this wholly fictional film tells the story of a down on his luck car dealer (William H Macy) who hires two suspicious characters (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in hopes of collecting on a ransom from her rich father (Harve Presnell). When the thugs murder a cop, a pregnant small town cop (Frances McDormand, in her Oscar winning role) begins to investigate and uncovers more nefarious things than she could have imagined. The film is the perfect blending of the Coen's comedic sensibilities (Raising Arizona) and their hard edged, cynical view of the world (Blood Simple). I selected it as the best film of 1996, and I stand by that today. Fargo is a masterpiece.

1. Barton Fink (1991)

If there's one film that best sums up the Coen Brothers sensibilities, it's Barton Fink. Created in the aftermath of a terrible case of writer's block, Barton Fink tells the story of the eponymous playwright (John Turturro) whose most recent show "Bare Ruined Choirs" has attracted the attention of a Hollywood studio that offers him plenty of money to write under contract for them in Los Angeles. Holing himself up in a seedy hotel, Barton soon encounters shady insurance salesman Charlie Meadows (John Goodman), and he begins losing his mind. Or maybe he doesn't. Barton Fink is the most convoluted and difficult to decipher of all the Coen Brothers films, but it also rewards multiple viewings more than any other film they've made. Is it about the dangers of fascism or capitalism? Is it about how living inside your own mind can drive you insane? Or is it about the ills of Hollywood and its once popular vertical integration system? Who can say for sure, but it may just be about all of those things and more. Anyone who's ever struggled with writer's block will instantly connect with Barton's dilemma, and even if you don't, there's something here for you to latch on to. It's got so many layers, it's truly unbelievable.

Just Missed The Cut: Raising Arizona, No Country For Old Men, The Man Who Wasn't There

[Images via 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Day 257: Frozen

"Let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway."

I've documented the bizarro flip-flop that occurred between Disney Animation Studios and Pixar right around 2010 in my reviews for Wreck-it Ralph & Brave, so I won't dive into it again here, other than to say that after the lackluster Monsters University this summer, expectations were high that Disney could save the studio that once saved it with their fall offering Frozen. Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen, Frozen was being touted as a return to the musical extravaganzas that Disney churned out with regularity for most of the 1990s. So could it possibly live up to these outrageously high expectations that people has placed on it, even going so far as to deem it the front-runner for the Best Animated Feature Oscar some eight months before it's release? Read on to find out...

The kingdom of Arendelle has two princesses, the elder of which, Elsa (Idina Menzel) has the powerful ability to create snow and ice from her fingertips. When playing together as children, Elsa nearly kills her younger sister Anna (Kristen Bell), and a powerful spell revives her, but erases her memories of Elsa's powers. Elsa is convinced by her parents to keep her powers secret from her sister, and therefore Elsa grows distant and cold, protecting her sister by avoiding her altogether. After a shipwreck kills their parents, Elsa is to be crowned the Queen of Arendelle, and at her coronation, Anna falls in love with a handsome prince, Hans (Santino Fontana) from a nearby kingdom.

When Hans and Anna seek Elsa's blessing to marry, she refuses as they've basically just met. When Anna pushes her sister, Elsa inadvertently reveals her powers to everyone, and retreats to the mountains, blanketing her kingdom in snow and ice. Hoping to make things right and save the kingdom, Anna sets out to talk to her sister, and enlists the help of an ice merchant named Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) to reach the ice castle that Elsa has created. They're joined on their journey by a snowman named Olaf (Josh Gad), a relic of Anna & Elsa's pre-accident childhood, and proof that Elsa may not be the evil person everyone is painting her to be. Anna must try and convince her sister to end the curse she's put on her kingdom before everyone freezes to death.

The film that Frozen has the most in common with of all the Disney Animation Studios films since The Little Mermaid is Tangled, and if that statement is taken as the compliment I intend it to be, you'll have a good sense of what to expect from this film. Frozen and Tangled are incredibly similar in their structure, story, plot devices and romantic lead characters, but Frozen has a slight edge in my book for one major reason, and I may lose some of you when I say this, but bear with me. Frozen is by far the greatest screen parable ever created as a metaphor for someone dealing with their homosexuality. Now, I don't know for sure that the filmmakers ever intended this to be exactly what I just said that it is, but the points of comparison when looking at the character of Elsa are just far too many for me to ignore, and it deals with the issue in such a way that those too righteous to ignore the similarities can easily write them off.

Elsa has a secret that from a young age she is forced to suppress. Her parents go so far as to erase her sister's memories of her secret, and Elsa is forced to grow up in shame, learning to "conceal it, don't feel it," from her parents. So scared is she of the person that she is becoming that she hides away from the world, and when she does "come out" so to speak, she's immediately shunned by society and forced to retreat from the world altogether. Those who seek to understand and love her for who she is are eventually gotten the best of by those seeking to destroy her and what she stands for, causing more shame and humiliation for a person who cannot change who she is no matter what. This is heady stuff for a kids' film, and reminds me of Happy Feet, another masterful film that dealt with a similar subject matter.

For all that Frozen ultimately does, it succeeds most when it shirks convention and plays out in surprising ways that you won't be able to predict. It's a flawed film in that it still consolidates its narrative to fit into a neat and tidy 100-minute running time, but it manages to pack enough twists to what you think is going to happen to feel fresh despite its often woefully ordinary narrative predictability. These may sound like backhanded compliments, and in a way they are, but this film feels like the farthest any filmmaker will be able to push the boundaries in a Disney animated film. Every step forward is followed by the slightest, most hesitant half-step back. But even a horrendously contrived character like Olaf has enough genuinely great moments to make him a welcome addition to the film, and my daughters (along with every other kid at the screening we attended) absolutely adored his antics.

The voice work is superb, and if Idina Menzel weren't already a nouveau gay icon, her work as Elsa would cement her status as such. Her soaring ballad "Let it Go" is by far the highlight of the film, and will likely reduce many an audience member to tears with its lyrical fleetness and brash delivery. Kristen Bell is also good in her role as Anna, managing to turn an fairly run-of-the-mill princess character into one with a bit more depth than you might expect. Josh Gad & Jonathan Groff also deliver top notch work that allows them to call on their training as stage actors to great effect, and Alan Tudyk is clearly having a blast voicing another character of dubious morals, The Duke of Weselton.

The songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and her husband Robert Lopez (who also created the fantastic songs for 2011's Winnie The Pooh) are wonderful, displaying a classic show tune sensibility infused with the clever wordplay that Robert displayed a gift for with his Broadway compositions for Avenue Q and The Book of Mormon. The score proper by Christophe Beck is also very good and calls to many of the song's melodies in a solid way. The film is also gorgeously animated, and although I did not see it in 3D, I could tell that the compositions were framed with 3D in mind, and if I see it again, I will most assuredly shell out the extra money to see how well they used the technology.

Frozen is a very good film in a year that's seen a dearth of originality in feature length animation. It's theme of being yourself in spite of what the world thinks basically ensures that it will remain a vital film for generations to come, and I think I will only grow to love the film more over time. While it's not the masterpiece I had hoped it would be, it's still got much more going for it than against it, and I feel that it will play well to just about every demographic out there, and will have a long shelf life after it leaves theaters. I can't think of any reason not to recommend Frozen, and if you are concealing or have concealed a secret about yourself, this film will speak to you in ways I cannot imagine. 

[Photos via BoxOfficeMojo]