The typical moviegoer of America will soon be introduced to one of the next big names in feature film directing when the Academy Award nominations come out in a few weeks. Steve McQueen will undoubtedly earn a Best Director nomination for 12 Years A Slave, a movie that some say is the greatest movie about slavery ever told. While those who have seen the film have talked a lot about the acting (and rightfully so), this movie, like any great movie, needs a captain to steer the ship and bring the story together. McQueen does just that. In a few weeks, the typical moviegoer will ask what else McQueen directed. Well, this is just his third feature film. He has 23 “Shorts” that he is credited with directing, but only two feature-length films. But these two other films weren’t just any movies. Much like Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento), everything that McQueen has touched in his young career has had a purpose. He doesn’t have any “throw away” movies. The movies he has tackled thus far in his full-length directorial career have been on slavery, sex addiction (Shame), and the true story of an Irish Republican Army activist who, in 1981, protested the way British guards were treating him and fellow inmates by embarking on, perhaps, the most internationally recognized hunger strike since Gandhi (Hunger). While Shame and Hunger earned critical acclaim, many people didn’t see them. Shame is a brilliant movie about the taboo topic of sex addiction. As a result, I expected much more when I saw Hunger after this. While I appreciated many aspects of Hunger, I found it rather dull. So now, with 12 Years A Slave, McQueen has three movies I admire and two that I think are brilliant.
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Category Archives: Year of Release
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
I suspended my beliefs at the door when I stepped into the theater to see Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend, Water For Elephants) sequel to The Hunger Games. I couldn’t do this for the first movie and was dissatisfied. I wanted the film to be more of a survival movie and less a fantasy/science fiction movie. When I wasn’t able to do that, I just started to question everything that was happening. I liked The Hunger Games but did not love it. I liked it enough to continue with the franchise, though. Every successful fantasy book franchise is being made into a movie these days. I have never read a word of a book or seen a second of the film in either the Harry Potter or Twilight series. I get the cult-like following to both of these movies, though. I do understand how you can be engrossed in a franchise like this. I have not read, nor will I read, any of The Hunger Game books, but I will continue to see the movies, even though I am upset about the franchise’s finale Mockingjay, split up into two movies. I am also lukewarm about the Insurgent franchise coming to the theaters. They showed a trailer for the first Insurgent movies before Catching Fire, and I was disappointed to see Kate Winslet on the screen. In these movies, you don’t need superstars outside the main character or two.
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Out of the Furnace (2013)
Finally, a gritty drama for 2013 to win you over with complex characters and excellent acting performances. This movie is, first and foremost, about flawed characters who want to do the right thing but don’t always know how. Well…I say that except for Woody Harrelson’s (The Messenger, Rampart) character. He is as vile, violent, and rotten to the core as he’s ever been. There are no redeeming qualities in Harrelson’s portrayal of Harlan DeGroat, a fight organizer/crystal meth dealer who drinks way too much, dabbles a little too much in his product, and looks to physically hurt anyone and every one every time they do anything to set him off, regardless of what it is. He is a ruthless jerk to the nth degree. Unfortunately, he plays his role perfectly. Without giving anything away, he dominates the movie’s first scene and makes him the person we are to fear for the next two hours.
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This is 40 (2012)
This Is 40 is an incredibly depressing movie that is not really funny. I love a good, raunchy comedy as much as anyone, but when it’s raunchy and not funny, it becomes dumb. I say this with lots and lots of love for director Judd Apatow. Apatow has written and directed two of the funniest movies of all time (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up). He has also helped produce some of the other major comedies of the last decade, including Superbad, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Still, this is just the fourth movie he is directed, and one of those, Funny People, was anything but funny. This Is 40 should have been a big hit. Apatow is talented enough to make a movie surrounding this topic into something funny. But ultimately, This Is 40 is a failure. I have yet to talk to someone who has seen this movie and said, “I loved it and can’t wait to see it again.” I’ve heard, “I didn’t like that.” I’ve heard, “I saw it, and I’m glad I saw it, but I wouldn’t watch it again.” My thought on the movie was, “I saw it, and I’m not sure that I’m glad I saw it because, being near 40, I found parts of it to be too real and parts of it to be not real.” I’ll try to explain.
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Dallas Buyer’s Club (2013)
Dallas Buyer’s Club was a movie I thought I would like, wanted to like, and started off liking until it became a biopic that just started to bore me. This movie will get lots of recognition during awards season and, in many cases, deservingly so. The performances of Matthew McConaughey (Mud, Killer Joe) and especially Jared Leto (Requiem for a Dream, Girl Interrupted) are top-notch. I could see McConaughey getting a nod for best actor for portraying the real-life HIV-positive Ron Woodroof, even though I thought his performance in Mud was better (note, he might get a best-supporting actor nomination for that movie). Leto is a lock for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. His performance as Rayon, a transsexual HIV-positive drug addict, named Rayon, is out of this world. The chemistry between the two main actors was top-notch. While Jennifer Garner (13 Going on 30, Juno) underwhelms as a local doctor whose specialty is working with patients infected with HIV or AIDS, Steve Zahn (Joy Ride, Rescue Dawn) is nearly unrecognizable (in a good way) as Ron’s brother and a local police officer. Jean-Marc Vallee did a pretty good job directing this movie. The cinematography is awesome. The movie takes place in 1985 Texas and feels like 1985 Texas. McConaughey is a cocaine-addicted womanizer who earns money as a small-time electrician, part-time rodeo rider, and small-time drug dealer. His lifestyle is reckless, and his body shows its wear and tear. He looks like he is about 30 pounds underweight the entire movie.
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