My Week With Marilyn (2011)

my week with marilynMichelle Williams (Blue ValentineBrokeback Mountain) once again proves she is one of the finest actresses in her generation in Simon Curtis’s endearing drama My Week With Marilyn. Williams shines as Marilyn Monroe. Williams is so good at portraying the perplexing and often misunderstood sex symbol of the 1950s. With her blond hair, red lipstick, recognizable little giggle, and famous wiggle, it is easy to see how boys and men of all ages could fall in love with this woman they knew they would never meet. I can’t think of a better actress who could have played Monroe and the talented Williams.
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Shame (2011)

shameShame was that 2011 movie that most people heard about but few people saw. It happens to at least one film each year. In 2009, the movie identified with this label (The Hurt Locker) won a Best Picture Academy Award, putting the talented Jeremy Renner on the map for the first time. In the case of Shame, there was more of a reason for its obscurity than in some of the movies in other years. Shame is rated NC-17, and rightfully so. It chronicles the day-to-day lifestyle of Brandon (Michael Fassbender – A Dangerous Method, Haywire), a 30-something-year-old man addicted to sex. After earning similar recognition at other awards ceremonies, including The Golden Globes, Fassbender was considered a lock for an Academy Award Best Actor nomination. Fassbender, however, was not one of the five finalists for acting’s most prestigious award.
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Brothers (2009)

brothers movie posterBrothers, the Tobey Maguire/Jake Gyllenhaal/Natalie Portman collaboration, had the opportunity to be the very best movie of 2009. The trailer, showing a mentally unstable Maguire as a decorated soldier returning home from Afghanistan after being purported dead, shows us one thing is for sure…this isn’t the Tobey Maguire we are used to seeing in Spider-Man, Seabiscuit, or The Cider House Rules. From the three-minute movie trailer alone, I knew I would see this movie the day it came out because I was gripped by Maguire’s turn from a loving husband and nurturing father to a menacing psychopath.
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Carnage (2011)

carnage movie posterRoman Polanski’s (The Pianist, Rosemary’s Baby) star-studded Carnage, a movie adapted from the successful Tony Award Winning God of Carnage, translates on the big screen as unsuccessfully as the play, I imagine at least) plays successfully on stage. I envision Yasmina Reza written One Act as an intriguing character study that unfolds before our eyes on stage, something we don’t get much chance to see in a play. Though I have not seen God of Carnage and do not plan on doing so, I imagine it as being similar to Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman in the sense that there are just a few characters which, in turn, allows us to see these characters developed deeper and in a more meaningful way than would a play like Romeo and Juliet. The whole time I was watching this movie, I kept asking myself why this play was made into a film and how it drew the interest of Polanski and the four (including three Academy Award Winning) actors. As a play, I envision this being great. As a movie, I asked myself, “Why?”. Continue reading Carnage (2011)

50/50 (2011)

50/50 movie posterJoseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra) further exemplified what I predicted of him after seeing 2009’s (500 Days) of Summer, which was that he was the next big thing in Hollywood. Gordon-Levitt (just 29 at the time) had already shown his abilities as a supporting actor in several critically acclaimed movies, including Stop-LossThe Lookout, and Brick. However, these movies failed to top $11 million at the box office. (500 Days of Summer generated $32 million domestically and earned Gordon-Levitt a Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Golden Globe Nomination. Though he did not win the award that year (Robert Downey Jr.’s won for his role in Sherlock Holmes), it opened the door for more starring roles for the young actor. This included the opportunity to star in 50/50, a movie where he earned his second Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical Golden Globe Nomination.
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Movies I Watch That Inspire Me to Critique!