There is a moment between the previews and the opening credits of Top Gun: Maverick where Tom Cruise appears as himself, seated in a director’s chair, and welcomes the audience to the film. This is not the first time a film’s lead actor has welcomed an audience and thanked them for coming since the Coronavirus Pandemic began in March 2020. John Krasinski famously did this in the spring of 2021 before the much-delayed A Quiet Place Part II, arguably the biggest and most anticipated movie (with all due respect to Tenet) that made its return to a wide-release audience.
Category Archives: Miles Teller
Thank You For Your Service (2017)
Miles Teller (Whiplash, Bleed for This) is an actor that I find myself liking more and more with each passing role. Since arriving on the scene in 2010 with memorable roles in Rabbit Hole and the well-made remake of Footloose, Teller has starred in the forgettable 21 and Over, Two Night Stand, and That Awkward Moment. Furthermore, his time has been consumed with the Veronica Roth Divergent / Insurgent / Allegiant franchise, a series that fell way short of the fantastic Hunger Games franchise as well as the lesser The Maze Runner series. Now, I’m not going to knock a guy for picking movies that are going to bring him a hefty paycheck, especially if there’s part of me that believes he’s doing it so that he can take lesser money in independent movies that can showcase his skill, evoke emotion, and that I can enjoy. Nonetheless, these three movies probably took the better part of a year and a half to make (just guessing). It’s something I think about when an actor that I really like does reoccurring roles in movies that I really don’t like. Now I’m not saying that Teller is Christian Bale, Jennifer Lawrence, Ryan Gosling, or Emma Stone, but still. Also, for as much love as The Spectacular Now got both with critics, I was not a fan at all. And mostly, it was because of him. As much as I’m starting to like I’m, I don’t see him as A) a leading man or B) a heartthrob. And I thought his character was a complete douche in The Spectacular Now because he was a douche. They made his character out to be this big player, and it just didn’t work for me. Now with that said, I absolutely would see this movie again. I have a different take on Teller than when The Spectacular Now came out five years ago. Of course, everyone knows about Whiplash and the incredible counter-performance he gave to J.K. Simmons, the eventual Oscar-winning Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role that year. But, he has also impressed with Bleed for This (a pretty good movie with a pretty good performance that was overshadowed by the breadth of amazing boxing movies that have been made over the years), Only the Brave and, now, Jason Hall’s (screenwriter for American Sniper) directorial debut Thank You For Your Service.
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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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Divergent (2014)
In the mold of The Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Maze Runner, and other young adult book franchises comes the surprisingly good Divergent. A surefire box office success because of the successful book series, Divergent did not do quite as well with the critics (41%) as well as the first Hunger Games (84%), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (80%), or The Fellowship of the Ring (91%), but was comparable with the other two. Interestingly, the Divergent franchise has the best cast of any of these movies, even though it is probably the least known. The franchise is four books, and it looks like we’ll get four movies from them.
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Whiplash (2014)
There’s one main reason to see Damien Chazelle’s (Grand Piano) Whiplash. Despite its outstanding 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s not a movie that offers anything original. It’s a good film, but not a great movie. However, it does deliver one of the finest (if not the finest) supporting performances of the year. We’ve seen this story in books, on television, and the big screen hundreds of times. The content changes, but the story stays the same…a young person trying to do whatever they can to win the approval of someone they are trying to impress. In this case, the young person is Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller – The Spectacular Now, 21 and Over), a first-year drumming major at New York’s Shaffer Conservatory of Music, one of the top music prep school’s in the country. And the person he is unsuccessfully trying to win over is Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons – television’s Oz, television’s The Closer), the school’s most well-known teacher and maestro of the school’s top jazz ensemble. It’s well-known that if you can succeed in Fletcher’s group, you’ve got the potential for a great career as a musician. The movie is good. Continue reading Whiplash (2014)