Every once in a while, I’ll see a preview for the first time that I have absolutely no interest in. The movie looks cheesy, bland, weird, and so on. But then the film earns a solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and I’ll read what a couple of critics who liked the movie have said about it. And then I’ll watch the same trailer again and try to watch it with a different set of eyes. And between my first and second viewing, something convinced me to give the movie a chance. With Tim Burton’s (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands) Big Eyes, my chief complaint was that the film would be a little too weird for me. However, after a couple of weeks, I convinced myself I would see that movie. I hoped to catch this one in the theater (generally speaking, I am far less distracted in a theater than at home, but then again, I’m Captain Obvious with this statement). However, Big Eyes grabbed my attention from the get-go and held it through the 1-hour 45-minute viewing.
Category Archives: Genre
St. Vincent (2014)
Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent, his first full-length feature film, is a movie I 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, 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 I hadn’t seen before, and I liked the avenues each of the five movies mentioned earlier explored.
Top Five (2014)
The short. Skip Birdman. See Top Five. It’s the same movie with a couple of exceptions. Top Five has humor, is much more realistic, and you can relate to it more. It also isn’t the most over-hyped movie in the last five years. In fact, despite its 88% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and lots of word of mouth on the street, it still surprisingly didn’t do all that well at the box office (just $23 million domestically). I did not see this movie in the theater, though it tempted me. The most significant thing going against the film was its release date. It opened on December 12th, right in the middle of when all of the big-time award movies were in the theaters. As a result, it got lost in the shuffle. If the studio could go back in time, they might have released this movie in August.
Transcendence (2014)
After months of hype, Wally Pfister’s directorial debut, Transcendence, received a 19% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I remember looking forward to this movie when I first heard about it. However, my hopes quickly extinguished when I saw how poorly it was received by critics and how poorly it did at the box office. It grossed only $23 million domestically (though it went on to gross $103 million worldwide, surpassing its $100 million budget by a hair and making it a slightly profitable movie). That movie was not disappointing at all, but maybe misunderstood. It was slow (one of its significant gripes), but honestly, not any slower than Interstellar (which critics loved, made a ton of movies in the United States, and was released just a few short months earlier). I know I am in the minority when I say that, despite its limitations and shortcomings, which I will discuss, you should give the movie a chance.
The Equalizer (2014)
Geez, The Equalizer was going very well through the first half. And then it unraveled. Denzel Washington (Training Day, Flight) was great, but this movie had many holes, most of which couldn’t have been avoided. Based on the television series of the same name. I was unaware it even existed before the film’s release. This wouldn’t exactly be a show I would be watching when it aired between 1985 and 1989 (I was too busy watching shows like The Cosby Show, Family Ties, and Alf during that time). It was inferred that those watching this movie had seen the television show, which was not the case. More important than the lack of knowledge of its lead character and how he got to be the way that he is would be the movie’s unevenness. How it starts is certainly not how it ends up. It’s an entertaining movie with Denzel taking out bad guys, but then again, so was Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin doing the same.