I love a good survival film. Before starting a recent movie, the trailer for Małgorzata Szumowska’s (Never Gonna Snow Again) Infinite Storm instantly caught my attention. After watching the first half of the adrenaline-inducing preview, I closed my eyes and plugged my ears for the rest. I had seen enough to know that this was a movie that I wanted to see, and I didn’t want anything more to spoil that future experience. Infinite Storm surprised me. While it didn’t have nearly the extended intensity that the preview suggested, it also didn’t follow a predictable formula that would have left this movie lost in the shuffle compared to other survival movies. While a decent film with heartfelt ambition, Infinite Storm failed to wow and was doomed by a lousy script.
Category Archives: Naomi Watts
The Glass Castle (2017)
2017 has been a year that started as strong as any year in recent memory when it comes to movies. From the January and February box office smashes of Split (which, personally, I wouldn’t say I liked as much as many others) and Get Out to the successful continuations or reboots of franchise movies such as Kong: Skull Island, Alien: Covenant, War of the Planet of the Apes, and Logan to the absolutely captivating Life and Wind River, we had about ten movies heading into September, whereas in a normal year, we might have half that many. Now, if I asked a common moviegoer to name five non-animated movies released before September, the five could not include any of the ones I have just listed. They may have said Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Dunkirk, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Transformers: The Last Knight. Notice I did not list any of these films. Sure, Wonder Woman was fun and well-made, but it offered nothing that any other superhero origin movie in the last 10 years hadn’t already offered. Spider-Man Homecoming I didn’t even give a chance. Homecoming is the sixth Spider-Man release and third “origin” movie in the last 15 years. Eventually, you have to throw your hands up in the air and say, “Enough is enough. Stop taking my money.” The only one on this list of five that I had any real expectations for was Dunkirk and, while I didn’t dislike it, it failed to overwhelm me and certainly failed to live up to the lofty expectations I had set for it. There was also the little surprise of Baby Driver, which I have so much appreciation for because of its originality. Still, one that ultimately fell off the tracks the deeper it got into the movie. And as we head into Oscar season, I’m worried that 2017 will be a forgotten year. I hope to be surprised, but I feel that the movies nominated for Best Picture this year are going to disappoint. I hope to be wrong. I mention all of this because there have been some diamonds in the rough, and one of those is Destin Daniel Cretton’s (Short Term 12) The Glass Castle.
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Insurgent (2015)
As I mentioned near the end of my review on Divergent, what is Kate Winslet (The Reader, Little Children) doing in a movie franchise like this? Anybody could have played the role of this minor character. There isn’t any depth to her character. The movie isn’t going to win any awards. And Winslet could be spending her time in movies that bring out her acting prowess. I understand it from the film’s standpoint. Why not get another big name? Even if it costs 10+ times as much money as getting an unknown actor, it makes sense. The movie, more or less, covers its costs in the first week or two anyway. I’ve always come back to that appearing in movies such as Insurgent allows her to sustain her way of life to take on more roles in independent films that can’t afford to pay her as much because they won’t make as much at the box office. And if this is the reason, then I am cool with it. I am willing to give Naomi Watts (The Ring, The Impossible), who also appears in this movie, the same leeway. It does bother me that these talented actresses are merely supporting less talented actors and actresses in a film that relies on young adult fantasy and adventure scenes rather than the performances of its leads. Nonetheless, I’m willing to accept this with the hope that Winslet and Watts will continue to put out Oscar-contending performances in future films.
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St. Vincent (2014)
Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent, his first full-length feature film, is a movie I should have probably liked a little more than I did. Unfortunately, though it did it better than many of its predecessors, it follows a very familiar been there, done that approach. It’s no wonder that, despite some great performances (especially from its lead), it got lost in the shuffle and ultimately got shut out from any Academy Award nominations. There is only so much you can do with portraying a down-and-out lead character who hits rock bottom and then has to fight to be again. In some flicks, we see these characters have bottomed before the movie begins (Crazy Heart, The Dark Knight Rises), and in others, the characters hit rock bottom throughout the film (The Wrestler, Shame, Leaving Las Vegas). St. Vincent is more like the latter, and while some might like it better, I thought it came nowhere close to any of the five movies I mentioned in the previous sentence. While Bill Murray (Groundhog Day, Lost in Translation) gave his best lead performance in over a decade, the film offered nothing that I hadn’t seen before, and I liked the avenues that each of these five movies mentioned earlier.
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Birdman (2014)
For all the hype surrounding Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (Babel, Biutiful) Birdman, I was highly unimpressed. Yes, it was an above-average movie. Yes, the directing was good. Yes, the acting was good. But I never felt anything remarkable about this movie, its directing, or its acting. According to www.indiewire.com, Academy Award nominations are certainties for the film and for Iñárritu, Michael Keaton (as Lead Actor), Edward Nort-on (as Supporting Actor), Emma Watson (as Supporting Actress), and a host of others. I know this has been a terrible year for movies thus far, but there are still two months left. I still have incredibly high hopes for films like Interstellar, Nightcrawler, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, American Sniper, Wild, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Foxcatcher, and Unbroken. I am hoping more than a few of these movies can break through and be the movies of 2014 that you have to see. So far, I’ve been told that Birdman, Gone Girl, and Boyhood were the movies that would be these movies that you HAD to see. So far, those who have said this have been 0 for 3. Each of these movies has been above average (B- to B range), but I will not have lasting memories of any of them.
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