2014 Capsule Reviews

 Interstellar

rating: *****

review: For me this was unquestionably Christopher Nolan hitting his highest note after The Dark Knight, and still his best film since, his most deeply piercing of the human experience, and the reason I personally became a big fan of Matthew McConnaughey.

Winter's Tale

rating: *****

review: Even before having recently having actually read a book by Mark Helprin, I fell heads over heels for this, which I saw because it stars my favorite actor, Colin Farrell, and costars two other favorites, Russell Crowe and Will Smith.  A truly transcendent fairy tale.

Locke

rating: *****

review: Back when there was still chatter of Tom Hardy being the best actor of his generation, there was a lot of interest in this hugely ambitious and yet incredibly simple movie: Hardy talking into a phone the whole movie, and that's it.  I find the results fascinating.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

rating: ****

review: Believe or not, but for those who are aware that Isle of Dogs later became one of my all-time favorite movies, I haven't really immersed myself in Wes Anderson's films.  This was very, very easy to love, and hits the kind of notes most other films don't even dream considering while employing Anderson's trademark all-star ensemble cast formula.

Miss Julie

rating: ****

review: Colin Farrell again, acting opposite Jessica Chastain in what is essentially a play staged directly to film.  I can't think of two actors I'd rather enjoy carrying a whole movie together.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's the movie that allowed everyone to love Michael Keaton again, a brilliant jazz case study of legacy and stage acting, filmed as one long cut.  It's hard not to be impressed.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's Ridley Scott waxing poetic about the sad lives of great men, on a biblical scale, but for me it's always been the showcase for Joel Edgerton's best performance.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

rating: ****

review: For a brief moment it really did seem that Jessica Chastain was going to be recognized as one of Hollywood's new giants, but that's not really how it's played out since.  This is arguably her greatest showcase, with an incredible three separate cuts with which to enjoy it.

Edge of Tomorrow

rating: ****

review: You may not realize this, but Hollywood really does go out of its way to try and make you hate its stars, after a while, and they'll do it in such a way that you think it was your idea.  Tom Cruise had already reached that point ten years earlier, and he had increasingly relied on action roles to keep his popular career going.  By the time this one came out everyone was tired of the act, but then enough people realized that it was actually pretty good that it deservedly became a cult hit.

Inherent Vice

rating: ****

review: Thomas Pynchon at last earns his Hollywood moment, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

The LEGO Movie

rating: ****

review: In what might have come off as a shameless plug for toys, it actually turns out to be one of the great Will Ferrell movies, among other things.  Everyone just assumes in animated movies these days it's a Disney Pixar world, but neither Disney nor Pixar is capable of something like this.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

rating: ****

review: Maybe you have to be the rare demographic that's familiar with both the western genre and Seth MacFarlane to appreciate it, but I found this hilarious, a spoof worthy of comparison with Blazing Saddles.

Noah

rating: ****

review: Russell Crowe brings so much weightiness to his performances it can sometimes seem difficult to justify.  I think this one does.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

rating: ****

review: I mean, sure, if you're worried so much about how the villains come off, you might worry about enjoying this one.  But everything else is literally amazing.  There are no better Spider-Man movies than the Webb/Garfield/Stone ones.

American Sniper

rating: ****

review: This is the last adult drama to top a year's box office.  It's probably Eastwood's last big statement.  And it's Bradley Cooper's biggest breakthrough.  This is the one that made him capable of doing whatever he wants.  He deserved it.  

Muppets Most Wanted

rating: ****

review: Everyone loved how the first one made the Muppets relevant again.  I love how this one just lets them be the Muppets again.

Monuments Men

rating: ****

review: Critics seemed baffled that anyone would waste time about making a movie around the guys who saved art during WWII.  I think the movie itself explains that, and does it entertainingly.  

Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

rating: ****

review: I love these movies.  I'm still astonished they even happened.

John Wick

rating: ****

review: I admit I was pretty late to this party, so I'm still working at fully appreciating the results, but c'mon, this is Keanu Reeves finding a third defining film series.  Who does that???

The Zero Theorem

rating: ***

review: Terry Gilliam is sometimes just weird.  This is him being weird without really nailing the magic he finds in his best work.

Hercules

rating: ***

review: The good news is that this is far, far superior to The Scorpion King.  The bad news is that Dwayne Johnson doesn't quite find the Greek myth equivalent of the Avengers he might have been looking for.

Guardians of the Galaxy

rating: ***

review: It's very enjoyable, a huge breath of fresh air in the MCU, but it ain't quite Star Wars and it ain't quite Princess Bride, both of which it kind of wants to be.  

Dumb and Dumber To

rating: ***

review: Even though Jim Carrey is one of my all-time favorite actors, I confess one of the movies he's best known for I don't really know that well.  So this sequel is greeted, by me, as funny, but maybe not the best way to try and salvage his career at that time.

Snowpiercer

rating: ***

review: Greeted as an instant cult favorite, I caught it later and enjoyed it, but not sure it's quite the treasure everyone says it is.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

rating: ***

review: This kind of became the franchise where popular film careers came to die.  Undeservedly so.  This was another fine Chris Pine showcase with a fun supporting cast around him.

The Drop

rating: ***

review: James Gandolfini must have been a very confused man.  He received endless praise for his TV work (hey, Bryan Cranston has received the same treatment, by the way), but anytime he did a movie he couldn't find any love.  This is another movie worth considering to try and figure out why.  Tom Hardy, meanwhile, does another accent job.  A movie I personally need to revisit at some point, too.

Deliver Us From Evil

rating: ***

review: At this point I had such high expectations for Eric Bana movies, it was disappointing to see that he had reached his brick wall, from which he has yet to emerge.

The Theory of Everything

rating: ***

review: Kind of the opposite of A Beautiful Mind, this is the Stephen Hawking movie that kind of asks you to be okay with the way his marriage ended.  Colors my whole perception of the results.

X-Men: Days of the Future Past

rating: ***

review: Hugh Jackman had become bigger than the X-Men franchise from the moment he first appeared in it, but at the same time he also forever found it difficult to outlive.  This is the exact moment in which he began to succeed, and it's all the more impossible to care about anything else happening around him.  Except Quicksilver.  That was the second brilliant thing these X-Men movies did.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

rating: ***

review: I originally thought of this as the Nick Fury movie.  Then I thought of it as the elevator fight movie.  Now I guess I really just have to rewatch it, and I still think it's one of the better MCU efforts, but it's still tough to think of the whole movie as a distinct achievement.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

rating: ***

review: I actually do really enjoy the Hobbit movies, but Jackson's decision to have that one guy make truly ridiculous efforts to try and get away with being a terrible person, it gets in the way.  It's the main reason I haven't made an effort to rewatch the trilogy, which on the whole I think is better than the first one.

The Expendables 3

rating: ***

review: I love how this one commits to Mel Gibson being the villain.  If he can't be a Hollywood star like he used to, he ought to at least have interesting roles available.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

rating: ***

review: I love how these movies suddenly just dive into a dystopian future in this one.  

Let's Be Cops

rating: **

review: If Jake Johnson had significantly changed his persona from New Girl for this, he might have gone on to have an actual movie career.  Still enjoyable.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

rating: **

review: I always thought the Transformers were far too big in their movies.  And essentially it's difficult to love these movies for the same reason.  Only here, it just seems more egregious.

300: Rise of an Empire

rating: **

review: On the one hand, it's great to just let Eva Green be the lead actor, but on the other, it's kind of disappointing that they did make an effort to replace Gerard Butler, but they didn't really try.

Divergent

rating: **

review: I love how I really did hear people at the time praising the concept.  But this is strictly a cash grab attempt on the heels of the Twilight movies, and everyone involved knew it.  could have been better if they'd actually made a commitment.  Still more worth watching the complete series than the even less inspired Hunger Games movies, which are laughably just full of themselves.

Left Behind

rating: **

review: Kind of technically the last time Nicolas Cage was in something the studio actually expected someone to see while making it, a remake of a prior set of films based on the book series.  Too bad the whole budget was blown on Cage, although it's still interesting to think he made it at all.  In some alternate reality there're people who equally believe the whole series will be filmed someday, much like the Narnia books.

Selma

rating: **

review: Still one of my biggest cinematic disappointments.  Someone finally makes a movie about MLK, Jr., and it's barely even a movie.  

Rewatches September 2021

 I rewatched Jackie Brown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (the latter because of its new, and very excellent, novel adaptation) from Quentin Tarantino.  In hindsight Jackie Brown is absolutely the beginning of Tarantino's mature career, when he wasn't just trying to be cool but make truly great movies, too.  The detour into Kill Bill led into a string of movies that truly went for the gusto.  There's no one who makes such complete statements as Tarantino, maximizing the skills of the considerable casts he assembles with the best storytelling and dialogue possible.  Visually there are better filmmakers, certainly, but Tarantino has been so consistent for so long and can do whatever he wants, and has.  And that began with Jackie Brown.

Also unofficial entries this month were Bram Stoker's Dracula (a highly underrated piece of Hollywood art) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (an undeserved poor reputation, though Robert De Niro again proves he's a great actor with a fairly limited range).

Now onto the catalog rewatches:

Red Cliff (2008-2009) John Woo's epic two-part meditation on the causes of war, including a defense of its necessity at times, is probably going to be very tough to top as my favorite Chinese movie.  I hadn't watched it since the first watch, so it was very much like watching it again for the first time, and again well worth it.

Rent (2005) In college the musical made sense, and in 2005 the movie did, too, but in 2021 it seems like a whole experience that was only possible from a community that only gazes back on itself, which at this moment feels too insular for me.  Still the right call to plug Rosario Dawson into a cast otherwise comprised of the original Broadway actors, including Idina Menzel before Frozen.

The Right Stuff (1983) I think even counting this one I have not technically stayed awake for the whole thing, which the filmmakers clearly saw as a potential problem the historic figures it chronicles couldn't figure out; the excellent cast makes them as lively as they can, but this is a long slog and most of it heads in a direction where the piloting skills that make these guys stand out isn't even necessary, so the story is one long effort to make the audience forget this.  But it's a worthy experience full of real heroes, including the guy who didn't even get to be an astronaut, Chuck Yeager, who drove an author and a director to distraction anyway, and rightfully so.

The Rocketeer (1991) After Tim Burton's Batman, comic book characters were seen as the next big thing, so Hollywood instantly sought whatever was available, and filmable, and the result was a decade that never once lived up to the potential, thanks in large part to relying on nostalgia acts with no connection to what people actually wanted to see.  Rocketeer is great, but it's exactly old-time movie serial material, with no effort at all to update it.  Indiana Jones it is not.

Russian Ark (2002) In the years since, Hollywood has been chasing the continuous tracking shot trick with increasing eagerness (Birdman, 1917), but this is the film that got there first.  Funny enough, it's exactly as Russian as you might expect, even going so far as to feel more like a Russian novel than a film, so keep that in mind (although in this realm you're probably more likely to be interested having it described that way, if you had any interest already).  For non-Russian, non-European audiences (read: American audiences) it's somewhat impenetrable.  But it's still a considerable achievement, and well worth experiencing at least once.  Like The Right Stuff, I still haven't technically made it all the way through, but this viewing left me more confident that I would be interested in doing so at a future date.