Atsushi Nishijima/Fox Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014)
“Birdman” continues Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s shift from gritty realism toward surrealism, first signaled at the end of “Biutiful.” Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed-up actor desperate to shed his signature role in an eponymous ’90s Hollywood superhero franchise by writing, directing and starring in a Raymond Carver adaptation on Broadway. What’s surreal is the fact that Riggan does in fact possess Birdman’s superpowers.
Continue reading “Batshit Crazy” »
Jack English/The Weinstein Company
MOVIE REVIEW
The Imitation Game (2014)
There is something disconcertingly unsatisfying in the fact that the complex life of master mathematician, cryptanalyst and key figure in the outcome of World War II, Alan Turing (played by a magnificent Benedict Cumberbatch), is relayed here in such formulaic fashion. Turing was an enigmatic man: fiercely intelligent but emotionally distant, impersonal and difficult — yet his very genius relied on him being just so. While Morten Tyldum does attempt to unravel Turing’s tale and character by touching on his formative years at school and his ultimately tragic postwar fate, the focus here is on Turing’s work at Bletchley Park during World War II and his pioneering work on cracking the Enigma code.
Continue reading “Breaking a Code of Conduct” »
John Sturrock/Bad Bonobo
MOVIE REVIEW
Still the Enemy Within (2014)
The British miners’ strike of 1984 to ’85 was a wholly divisive and socially transformative industrial action that threatened to paralyze the country and bring down Margaret Thatcher’s government. It was the last great battle cry of the socialist unions, fed up with the Tory diktat of rampant privatization of British industry but ultimately one that served to signal the end of overt unionist power. The struggle was pitched as “Arthur’s army” (after influential National Union of Mineworkers’ leader Arthur Scargill) versus the enemy within, a vicious moniker coined by Thatcher to describe the striking miners. “Still the Enemy Within” is the unashamed and wholly single-minded story from the miners’ perspective of those dark days that came to define Thatcher’s decade-long reign and that changed a country forever.
Continue reading “In the Pits” »
Simon Mein/Sony Pictures Classics
MOVIE REVIEW
Mr. Turner (2014)
A biopic on 19th century British painter J. M. W. Turner, “Mr. Turner” is unequivocally the most visually arresting film to date from Mike Leigh. The co-steward of kitchen-sink British realism here proves beyond doubt that he’s capable of more than just one trick, unlike his Belgian counterparts.
Continue reading “Under Canvas” »
Michael Muller/52nd New York Film Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
Inherent Vice (2014)
Let the conspiracy theorizing begin: Paul Thomas Anderson must not have gotten over “There Will Be Blood” losing the Oscar race to the much inferior “No Country for Old Men.” That would explain him going all Coen brothers on us with his latest, an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s “Inherent Vice.” Inherently a Coenesque film noir, it features an uncannily Coenesque universe of cartoonish oddballs and a distinctive vernacular.
Continue reading “There Will Be Blow” »
Entertainment One Films US
MOVIE REVIEW
Maps to the Stars (2014)
Bruce Wagner’s novel “Dead Stars” — the sister-mother to his script for David Cronenberg‘s “Maps to the Stars” once the production process had run its course — is fevered and fixated: a tirade about the sight of Hollywood parents and their kids locked in self-destruction. Its presiding spirits could include Terry Richardson, who’s miraculously never actually mentioned; and whoever first hacked into Jennifer Lawrence’s iCloud, whose coming is practically foretold. If Mr. Cronenberg had made his film equally feverish it might be easier to embrace, but instead he applies a bucket of cold water. Any actual zeitgeist is given such a wide berth that everything happens in a safely isolated sandpit, somewhere in a Never-Never-La-La-Land.
Continue reading “Burn Hollywood Burn” »
Dale Robinette/Disney Enterprises
MOVIE REVIEW
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014)
In spite of its marquee-name stars and once-hip indie director, Disney’s “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” is essentially a bloated TV movie better suited for the Disney Channel. You’d find this enjoyable if you were very young.
Klutzy tween Alexander (Ed Oxenbould) can’t seem to do anything right and also suffers from the classic middle-child (technically he’s the third out of four) syndrome. He somehow gets the idea that everyone else in his family has it much better and easier than him, despite the fact that his dad, Ben (Steve Carell), is presently unemployed and caring for toddler Trevor (Zoey and Elise Vargas) full-time and his mom, Kelly (Jennifer Garner), works for a horrible boss. Regardless, Alexander wishes on his birthday for everyone to experience that eponymous terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day so everyone will finally have an appreciation for what it’s like to be him.
Continue reading “Misery Loves Company” »
Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox
MOVIE REVIEW
Gone Girl (2014)
After failing to inspire warm fuzzies or much Oscar gold with “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Social Network,” David Fincher seems to have resigned himself to familiar territory. But his ambition for recognition doesn’t seem to have subsided, as he has attached himself to genre material with a literary pedigree like “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and now “Gone Girl.”
Continue reading “House of Cards” »
Universal Studios
MOVIE REVIEW
The Riot Club (2014)
“The Riot Club” wants to mortify and astonish, presenting a bunch of Oxford University’s finest on an apocalyptic privilege-fueled binge through a country pub which leaves no prole uninsulted, no woman unmistreated and one well-meaning innocent on a saline drip for the crime of social climbing. But the satire is surely old news, certainly for anyone primed by the gloriously awful old photo of David Cameron and pals in the preening outfits of the Bullingdon Club, an image that no copyright lawyer can now stake through the heart — the film recreates a version of it, just in case. Most of Lone Scherfig‘s movie is spent shaking the English establishment so warmly by the throat that it summons up Monty Python’s “Upper-Class Twit of the Year” as much as anything else.
Continue reading “Let England Shake” »
Scott Garfield/Columbia Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
The Equalizer (2014)
Proponents of above-average 1980s TV shows may recall a gruff and mysterious Edward Woodward in a stellar turn as shady agency-type Robert McCall meting out deserved vengeance on all manner of ne’er-do-wells. Its premise revolved around McCall — haunted by his past life — offering to put things right by helping those in need against forces of evil, in effect equalizing rights and wrongs. It was an interesting concept, legitimizing violent revenge by instilling its hero with a fierce moral compass. No wonder then that the show has been afforded a big screen adaptation, bought into the 21st century by “Training Day” tag team Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington.
Continue reading “The Help” »