Agatha A. Nitecka
MOVIE REVIEW
45 Years (2015)
After “Weekend” cast a nonjudgmental eye over the couplings of people savoring their early decades on Earth, “45 Years” looks with equal tolerance at a married couple hovering around their seventh — in the process confirming Andrew Haigh as one of current British cinema’s rarely-spotted authentic humanists. With the domestic industry’s choices too often amounting to use of the heritage card, indulgence in histrionic aggro or a swing the other way into micromanaged oxygen starvation, Mr. Haigh once again proves to be one of those searching for a fourth way.
Continue reading “That’s Amour” »
Graeme Hunter
MOVIE REVIEW
The Legend of Barney Thomson (2015)
Robert Carlyle gets a bad case of the accidental serial-killer blues in “The Legend of Barney Thomson,” playing a sad-sack Glasgow barber with an unfortunate tendency to stab people with the styling shears. Poorly suited to employment burnishing other mens’ self-image and tied to the apron strings of a potty-mouth mother whose manner could alarm the horses, Barney’s impotent frustration with life’s unfairness leads him into a new sideline as what looks like Scotland’s least ingenious murderer. Unfortunately for him, another — rather more skillful — one of those is on the prowl already, sending victims’ severed body parts through the post and confounding a police force of Keystone-level uselessness.
Continue reading “Bad Hair Day” »
Sony Pictures Classics
MOVIE REVIEW
Grandma (2015)
Stereotypes are inherently unfair, but they have a way of perpetuating themselves because of the few people who fit them to a T. The angry lesbian was only a thing within gay circles until the one-time Queen of Nice, Rosie O’Donnell, stopped being polite and started getting real following her very public coming out. Given the double dose of homophobia and sexism, the anger is certainly justifiable — it is just sometimes misdirected at allies instead of those who deserve it.
“Grandma” is a film about one such angry lesbian: a rude curmudgeon whose poetry anthologies were taught in women’s studies courses. But she’s not your typical man-hater: She’s an equal-opportunity hater. In the opening scene, Elle (Lily Tomlin) inexplicably kicks her starry-eyed much-younger lover, Olivia (Judy Greer), to the curb; curtailing their May-December romance after just four measly months.
Continue reading “A Lesson in Egg Sucking” »
Kingsway Films
MOVIE REVIEW
Anti-Social (2015)
You know how when someone means well; and his or her heart is in the right place; but he or she just doesn’t quite get it, right? “Anti-Social” is that, in film form. It wants to be a commentary on the fine line between legal and illegal ways of making a living and ends up being a budget fantasia about both. It doesn’t quite succeed, but it’s a film that’s impossible to hate.
Continue reading “Blood Thick as Thieves” »
Concorde Filmverleih
MOVIE REVIEW
The Face of an Angel (2015)
With daunting synchronicity, Michael Winterbottom‘s sideways meditation on the Meredith Kercher murder trial arrives just as Italian justice passes another milestone on its lengthy process of failing to get to the bottom of the case. Mr. Winterbottom and writer Paul Viragh aren’t heading in that direction either, since “The Face of an Angel” has more abstract fish to fry than who precisely stabbed whom. Its business is the male heart and ego; specifically the ones inside Thomas (Daniel Brühl), whose efforts to navigate the fallout from a very similar legal case are derailed by neuroses, heartbreak, an inability to keep his pants on and a prodigious intake of gak. He is, needless to say, in the movie business.
Continue reading “The Italian Mob” »
Frank Masi/Warner Brothers Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Focus (2015)
After the critical drubbing given to the flawed but earnest “After Earth,” Will Smith returns with “Focus,” playing a character that seems like natural territory for one of Hollywood’s most charismatic leading men. Mr. Smith is Nicky, a quick-witted veteran con artist who recruits inexperienced crook Jess (Margot Robbie) to join his team of professional thieves, with things quickly getting personal between the two of them when romance blossoms.
Continue reading “Con Me if You Can” »
Warner Brothers Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Jupiter Ascending (2015)
After debuting with “Bound” in 1996, followed by the worldwide phenomenon of “The Matrix” in 1999, the Wachowski siblings have consistently followed their own path instead of resting on their laurels, writing and directing films that have pushed the boundaries of what is expected of the Hollywood blockbuster — both in terms of storytelling and in technical prowess. “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” were elaborate deconstructions of the traditional hero’s journey seen in the first film; “Speed Racer” was a candy-colored computer generated wonderland in which the traditional family values faced rapacious corporate interests; while the ambitious epic “Cloud Atlas” — co-directed with Tom Tykwer — featured a multitude of characters and actors whose stories spanned centuries.
Now there is “Jupiter Ascending,” which at first glance may seem like an attempt by the Wachowskis to create a more conventional science-fiction saga. Despite appearances, though, this new film is not just the first, unresolved part of a franchise blockbuster or action filmmaking sound and fury signifying nothing. Instead, the film takes topics relevant today, such as genetic engineering, unregulated capitalism and consumption, and a privileged few exploiting an impoverished mass, and mixes them into a tale of intergalactic rivalry and intrigue, topping it off with striking images and sequences that delight the senses. This is unmistakably a film by the Wachowskis, splicing together elements from movies, television, comics, philosophy, politics and gaming, as well as mixing styles and tones, to create a singular cinematic universe.
Continue reading “Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a Blue Blood Flies” »
Universal Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Trash (2015)
Depictions of child poverty in well-meaning screen entertainments are bound to end up fudging the heart of the matter, since catching even five percent of the true grinding horror would bring an audience to its knees. “Trash” can’t really do anything about that, substituting instead a YA tone of earnest adolescent adventuring in a landscape of adult corruption and violence — ultimately the easier option.
Although Andy Mulligan’s source novel described a slum of imprecise location, Stephen Daldry‘s film plants its flag in Rio de Janeiro, giving the greedy politicians and murderous cops an imminent Olympic bonanza as extra rationale for lining their own pockets and ignoring the kids rummaging through their garbage mountains. Three of those — Raphael (Rickson Tevez), Gardo (Eduardo Luis) and Rato (Gabriel Weinstein) — find evidence of high-level corruption in a discarded wallet somewhere in there, and the chase is on.
Continue reading “Modern Life Is Rubbish” »
Universal Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Ex Machina (2015)
When young computer coder Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition to visit the secluded home of solitary tech entrepreneur Nathan (Oscar Isaac), head of the search engine company Bluebook, it seems like a dream come true for the star-struck employee. Caleb arrives at Nathan’s hideaway home and discovers the reason for the competition, a chance to meet Ava (Alicia Vikander), an android created by Nathan.
Continue reading “None Is Full of Love” »
David Dare Parker/A24
MOVIE REVIEW
Son of a Gun (2015)
This Australian crime caper doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. It has Ewan McGregor, perfectly cast as a man who remains a fundamentally decent human being even while murdering villains left and right. It has Alicia Vikander — about five minutes before she becomes a global superstar — as an appealingly vulnerable combination of curdling sexuality and stifled intelligence. It has one of the most inventive settings for a robbery in cinema history. And somehow — somehow — the movie blows it.
Continue reading “Teacher’s Pet” »