In my review of Enough Said, I write that the performance of Albert by James Gandolfini was the perfect role for his final movie. Albert was such a likable character in that movie. There were no hidden agendas. The man had some flaws, but those flaws weren’t any worse than the flaws you or I have. I wrote that review when I believed Enough Said was Gandolfini’s final movie before he passed away. I still love his role in this movie, but I’m so glad there was still a movie in post-production that I did not know about. The Drop was a fantastic final film for him, and it could earn him a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. In this film, Gandolfini returns to what he is most known for as an actor. He’s a little shady, and there always seems to be more about him than meets the eye. With that sly smile of his eyes, his under-the-breath chuckle, and his ability to say something to one person that is so very endearing one minute, but something to another character that is so brutally honest that it makes the person who is speaking feel stupid the next, Gandolfini is a master of disguising his characters and their intentions. He may have turned in the best big screen performance of his career with his final one.
Continue reading The Drop (2014)
Category Archives: Hidden Gems
The Internship (2013)
The most overlooked movie of 2013 may have been Shawn Levy’s (Date Night, Night at the Museum) The Internship. The film reunited Vince Vaughn (Dodgeball, Old School) and Owen Wilson (Hall Pass, Midnight in Paris) for the first time since 2005’s box office mega-hit Wedding Crashers. Fans had been asking for the two to reunite for a movie. Many were calling for a Wedding Crashers 2. It was one of those scenarios where no matter what the pair decided to do, it was destined for failure because it would not be able to live up to the hype. In a way, it’s as if The Internship never got its fair chance, and I include putting myself in that lump sum. I remember when I first saw the trailer for the movie. I was utterly disappointed at the end of the trailer when I saw that the film was only PG-13. I was ready for some R-rated comedy between the duo. I wanted it to be as raunchy as Wedding Crashers. Unless the reviews for the movie were incredible, I knew I was unlikely to see the film in the theater, if at all, because of a rating that I deemed unacceptable for a Vaughn/Wilson comedy. However, I did decide to give it a go when it came on HBO, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a comic gem.
Continue reading The Internship (2013)
Sinister (2012)
Sinister is easily the creepiest movie of 2012, a year that did not feature much in terms of great horror movies. It was a movie that I thought I would easily pass on when I first saw the previews. I knew for sure I would not be seeing it in the theater. Ethan Hawke is a good actor who can sometimes be incredible (Training Day, Before Sunset) but also lay some serious duds (Brooklyn’s Finest, The Getaway). Seeing him in a horror film was a change for him and one I didn’t think he would be good at. I’ll be the first to say that I was wrong. He did well in this movie.
Disconnect (2013)
Following the pattern of such successful smashes as Crash, Traffic, and Babel (all of which earned Best Picture nominations, with Crash winning the top prize), Henry Alex Rubin’s (Murderball) first non-documentary film, Disconnect is a movie that tells three distinct stories at the same time that have little connection with each other and only minor overlapping, but one in which many of its main actors are not on the screen at the same time. It’s a formula that, when done correctly, is magical but when done poorly, can be a disaster. Disconnect was done right. It is a daring movie and deals with not just one but three of the most prevalent technological safety issues of the day, which are cyberbullying, security fraud/identity theft, and the predatory practices of recruiting minors to become online porn performers. Each story could be its movie, but Disconnect does an awesome job of telling all three and showing the raw emotion associated with each. On top of that, the performances are top-notch. And while this movie came in at 68% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, it earned only $1.4 million at the box office. Both are much too low for a movie of this magnitude, officially classifying Disconnect as a hidden gem I think everyone should see. Continue reading Disconnect (2013)