II listened to Thomas Savage’s The Power of the Dog on a whim earlier this year. I loved the first couple of chapters, but it ultimately went nowhere. I understood the idea and thought it had the potential to drive home an important point. However, despite its setup, it missed its landing entirely. Shortly afterward, I saw that there would be a movie based on the novel. Not only that, but it was set for release later that year. On top of that, there has been some early Oscar buzz surrounding the movie, both for Best Picture, Best Director (Jane Champion), Best Actor (Benedict Cumberbatch), Best Actress (Kirsten Dunst), and Best Supporting Actors (Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee). Even in 2021, which has proven to be one of the worst years for movies in my lifetime, The Power of the Dog deserves some of the praise it’s already receiving and will likely continue to receive.
Category Archives: Benedict Cumberbatch
1917 (2019)
1917, the latest venture from director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition), is a stunning achievement in cinematography, visual effects, sound editing, sound mixing, production design, makeup and design, and direction. While not everyone will be all in on the story, it is hard to discredit this movie’s technical accomplishments. I found the story to be a gripping piece of narrative. Still, I completely understand why some will have problems with the sequencing of events, the placement of props, or the overall mission in general. If, like me, you can let yourself become immersed in all this movie brings to the table, you will have one of the more emotional movie-theater experiences of your lifetime.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Why did the Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin – W., Labor Day) feel the need to grab hold of the power of the six Infinity Stones to destroy the universe? I think it’s important to understand what causes a villain to do certain actions rather than just to have a bad guy. The stronger the arc of the villain and our ability to sympathize with them on any level allows us to understand further and appreciate the underlying of who they are. In this Avengers: Infinity War (directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo), we have a powerful bad guy motivated by a tortured past and willing to destroy all of the good guys in the universe to atone for it. After the planet Titan that is no longer inhabited because he was not allowed to prevent the things from destroying it, he thought he would prevent it. Instead, he lost his planet and everyone on it. Vowing not to let something like that happen again, he makes it his mission to balance out the universe by wiping out half of it completely. But to do so, he’ll need all six of the Infinity Stones that will power his Infinity Gauntlet, which will then allow him the ability to bend time, space, energy, and the laws of physics and reality.
Black Mass (2015)
Black Mass? More like Black Mess. This movie was not just a story that most of us could care less about, but it’s boring. It reminded me of American Hustle in that it was set in the same time period; it had a fantastic cast and, most importantly, the high expectations coming into it. I wouldn’t say that this movie was as disappointing because it didn’t have the Oscar expectations going into it as American Hustle did. Nonetheless, like the Christian Bale-led movie, I expected big things from this Johnny (Finding Neverland, Chocolat) endeavor. I don’t know if this movie was trying to be a combination of The Godfather/The Departed/Public Enemies and others, but it didn’t succeed outside of making Depp look like an old Jack Nicholson. I liked seeing Depp outside of the quirky roles he has been performing in as of late. And while he was pretty good, I did feel like the movie was brought down, in part, to how boring his character was. Unlike American Hustle, in which the performances were good (yet still overrated), the performances in Black Mass were flat. A terrific cast is wasted here. It is a disappointing movie in every sense of the word.
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The Imitation Game (2014)
The one movie of 2014 that I was not looking forward to seeing but knew I had to see was, without a doubt, The Imitation Game. I learned early in the year that this would end up being one of the movies to beat, but there was something about the trailer that told me that the movie would probably be well made and tell a great, true story but also be incredibly dull and long. I was wrong. The first thing to point out was that this movie was only 110 minutes. I love a film that can tell its story in under two hours. I understand the standard tends to be closer to 2 hours and 15 minutes (with many movies pushing or exceeding 3 hours), but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Secondly, this movie was never dull. In the wrong hands, this movie as being a complete snooze-fest. It was anything but. This is why I am ready to give without having seen some of the probably Oscar-nominated movies yet to be released (notably Unbroken, American Sniper, Selma, Mr. Turner, and Into the Woods), Morten Tyldum a Best Director nomination. The only other nomination I have cemented is Richard Linklater (Boyhood). The direction in this movie was outstanding, and I am confident there will not be three better-directed movies in 2014 that I have yet to see.
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