Every once in a while, you see a series of trailers that convince you that a movie will be fantastic. Sometimes this holds to be true, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, you convince yourself that a film is going to be amazing based on the trailers alone. And then, when the critics support your belief by giving the movie high praise, you head into that movie thinking that you are about to see something exceptional. I thought Todd Haynes (
Far From Heaven, I’m Not There) was about to strike gold with
Carol. He had the players. With apologies to Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett (
Blue Jasmine, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is the current leading lady in Hollywood. When I first heard Blanchett’s soothing voice-over speaking to an unidentified character during a trailer filled with drama, strife, and unpopular decisions involving the leads, I couldn’t help but be engrossed. I don’t know who created this trailer, but this individual should have directed
Carol rather than Haynes because they brought more drama to a two-minute snippet than Haynes brought in two hours. This isn’t an exaggeration. The trailer is THAT good, and the movie is THAT disenchanting. Blanchett’s dramas are heavy, and she is at her absolute best when she plays a character who is lost in her confusion. So why wasn’t
Carol the movie of the year?
Continue reading Carol (2015) →
Continuing the theme of the 2015 awards season, where movie releases have failed to meet expectations due to a lack of emotional audience engagement, comes Concussion, a true story dealing with the effects of professional football concussions. The movie, set in 1982 Pittsburgh, begins with one of the city’s most recognizable faces (Mike Webster of the Super Bowl-winning Steelers teams of the ’70s) living in his truck and slowly losing his mind. Mike (David Morse – The Green Mile, Disturbia) gives the most poignant performance in the entire movie. In a film where we could and should care for all sorts of characters, Mike is the only supporting character who evokes any emotion in us or allows us to feel any empathy. In just a few short scenes, Mike can convey to us that despite what his doctors say, he has significant life problems that are a result of something that happened to his mind from the time he retired in 1990 until the time frame at the start of the film (2002). His 14-year career included 150 straight games as a starting center from 1976 to 1986.
Joy is the epitome of a very average movie with a standout lead performance. Jennifer Lawrence (
The closer that each of my reviews is to awards season, the more unconventional they become. For the past four or five years, I’ve tried to see as much as I can. If a movie gets nominated in one of the big six awards, I will see it regardless of how I feel about it. Sometimes this can be a painful experience, but it’s part of what I’m trying to do. So, before I get into my review of The Danish Girl, I want to talk about the Best Actor Academy Award nomination category. In a year where male lead performances have fallen short of the caliber they have achieved in recent years, the battle for Best Actor comes down to two individuals. These include Eddie Redmayne (