One of my five favorite previews for 2015 has been for the movie Carol which is, more or less, Cate Blanchett narrating a quick story about her life in 1952 New York City. We don’t learn much about it other than she’s married to Kyle Chandler and that not everything is what it seems to be. At the start and then again at the end of the trailer, Blanchett mentions how everything comes full circle. The trailer is captivating and made me want to see it. It’s directed by Todd Haynes, who has filmed just one movie (I’m Not There) between 2015’s Carol and 2002’s Far From Heaven. In Carol, Haynes returned to what worked in Far From Heaven. We return to 1950s Northeast America. In both movies, Haynes craftily tells the stories of lives that are less perfect than they appear.
Continue reading Far From Heaven (2002)
Category Archives: Genre
Brooklyn (2015)
Hands down, the best romance of 2015 is John Crowley’s (Intermission, Boy A) terrific Brooklyn. Note that I did not say that this is the most romantic movie of the year, but rather the best romance. This movie features no wining and dining. There are not the passionate, hot and heavy, sometimes stir a little in your seat scenes that you might be used to in movies like Titanic, The Notebook, Pretty Woman, Before Sunrise, (500) Days of Summer, Dirty Dancing, or Ghost. This isn’t R-rated. It isn’t PG-rated. It is very appropriately rated as a PG-13 movie. It’s the closest thing that well resembles the process of two people meeting each other by chance, getting to know each other first casually and then on a much deeper level before falling into an intense and meaningful love that is both believable and beautiful. I did not know this was a love story going into the film. My mantra this year is to know as little about a movie as possible going into it. That doesn’t mean I’ll see just anything. I do have to see first that the film is getting positive reviews. But if it does have decent reviews and it does have Oscar buzz, I’ll make every effort to see it. Brooklyn was a movie that was the most straightforward film in the world to understand, but at the same time, almost impossible to truly comprehend. And in a word, that is love.
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Spotlight (2015)
There are a couple of different ways to start the review for Spotlight. I could talk about the cast (quite possibly the ensemble cast of the year). I could talk about the hypocrisy that is organized religion. I will mention both of these in this post. But I will start with the old-fashioned newspaper reporting that used to be our number source of reliable news. In many ways, it is unfortunate that newspapers aren’t what they used to be, nor will they ever be again. With the invention of the Internet, it was only a matter of time before most newspapers folded while others had to majorly trim their staff, editions, and the number of pages produced with each issue. Where will The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The New York Times be in 20 years? Well, if the changes in the previous 20 years are any indication, I’m not sure these newspapers will even be around in 20 years. If they are, they might be entirely electronically based. There will still be a place for prominent metropolitan newspapers, but it will not be in the print variety. There are still things that I am interested in in the Washington DC area that I feel can only be fully addressed in something like The Washington Post. Still, I haven’t purchased a physical newspaper in over a decade and only read one if I saw it sitting at a bar when I’m eating dinner, in the school library, etc. Likewise, I go online to The Washington Post to get the same information that I cannot find elsewhere, but their website isn’t nearly as user-friendly as some other sites I go to. And finally, after I read several articles, I’m told that I reached my limit for the month and that I need to pay for a subscription to read anymore. Well…how hard is it to use a different device that hasn’t yet recognized me to access the same material? And am I going to need to read more than five articles a month? Nope. I have other resources that I still have at my disposal. Long story short…I still want and need these major newspaper articles to survive. Yet, I haven’t given a cent towards any of these papers in over a decade, and I don’t plan to. If these newspapers are going to survive, they need to do something to tap into my monetary resources.
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Suffragette (2015)
I’m not entirely sure how Sarah Gavron’s (Village At The End Of The World, Brick Lane) Suffragette could have been a film that I truly enjoyed. I’m not the biggest fan of British historical dramas, and this was not a movie I went to see for enjoyment. It was a film I went to see just because I always try to see every movie that potentially could receive a nomination for a Best Six Academy Award. I think it’s unlikely that this film will get any recognition, but there was some buzz surrounding it before its release. In any regard, I knew this would be a movie I would end up seeing. Is it a bad movie? Not at all. It’s actually a very educational movie that has some above-average acting performances. But, unfortunately, it was very predictable (which I expected) and not nearly as riveting as it probably could have been (also something that I expected). Also, if you are hoping to experience the annual Meryl Streep (Doubt, The Devil Wears Prada) Oscar nomination, this isn’t it. She has all of one scene and is on the screen for less than two minutes.
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The Railway Man (2014)
The biggest flop of 2014? Possibly. Jonathan Teplitzky’s (Burning Man, television’s Broadchurch) grossed under $5 million in the theaters but cost $18 million to make. This movie should have been great. But then again, so should have been Unbroken, the underwhelming Angelina Jolie vehicle that showcased the 47-day survival of two men living on a raft after their plane was shot down during World War II only to be held in a prisoner of war camp. This movie did just fine at the box office (doubling its budget costs), but it still did not come close to expectations. The Railway Man had lesser expectations than Unbroken, but it did have a better cast and weaker competition at the time of its release. A 66% on Rotten Tomatoes isn’t bad, but usually, you want to see a slightly higher (at minimum) for a true story-based historical drama. I am uncertain of why I watched this film. I had convinced myself I was not going to. But it showed up on my Showtime OnDemand list one day when I was trying to find a movie to watch and decided to give it a chance. I’m glad I did. It is certainly not a great movie but is better than expected. It is a much more complete film than was Unbroken.
Continue reading The Railway Man (2014)