Buried

The Gist: An American truck driver working in Iraq wakes up in a buried coffin with no idea how he got there.  Soon, he will find out the how and the why.

I am a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock and I started feeling the vibes of the maestro from the opening titles.  Director Rodrigo Cortés is someone to keep an eye on.

And my first impression wasn’t mistaken either.  The whole movie has a distinct feel of the kind of edge-of-your-seat, enhanced suspense that used to permeate so well the thrillers from long ago, when the bombast of visual effects, 3D, and extremely gratuitous gore and violence weren’t de rigueur.

The Bottom Line: Buried is a great thriller that is very well orchestrated.  The incredibly handsome Ryan Reynolds holds his own and proves he’s not just another pretty face.

Grade: 8

12 Years a Slave

The Gist: Before the Civil War, a free black man from upstate New York is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South.  Will he succeed in regaining his lost freedom?

12 Years a Slave was the 2014 recipient of the Best Picture Academy Award and well worth the title.  It also took home Best Writing and Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o.

Nyong’o gives us a very powerful performance and is joined by the equally excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor.  His portrayal of a man who suddenly loses the freedom he was taking for granted and is thrown into the hellish inferno of slavery is heart wrenching and unforgettable.

Also of note are Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, and Sarah Paulson.  In their roles as slave owners you can see all the moral turpitude and lack of rectitude that helped the slave owners of the time justify their foul deeds.

I just found out that “12 Years a Slave became the first film directed and produced by a black filmmaker (Steve McQueen) and also the first to be written by an African-American (John Ridley) to win the Academy Award for Best Motion Picture of the Year.” (from IMDb)

The Bottom Line: 12 Years a Slave is an instant classic that doesn’t shy away from showing us the ugliness of “civilization.”  An excellent cast and direction make this a must-see.

Grade: 9

The Purge

The Gist: In a more “enlightened” America, every year, for 12 hours, all crime is legal and all emergency services are suspended.  It’s always at night.  Either you purge, or you try to survive the night.

I admit that I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, but I still found the premise behind it worth checking out.  Imagine if we were legally authorize to do anything we wanted (there are very few limits on what can be done) for 12 hours.

I know it sounds ridiculous, and it is, because the body count in the morning would be unthinkable and just imagine the clean up costs and the damages to businesses, but it really made me think about the chasm between the haves and have-nots.

The Purge is all centered around a well-off family that finds itself in the crosshairs of a gang of young yuppies lusting for blood and the morality of helping an innocent homeless man escape a certain and brutal death for no purpose but a desire to kill and maim.

The problem worsens when the family’s envious neighbors also decide to “exercise their rights and duties as Americans” and purge their souls of their jealousy.  All morality is thrown out for a night, so the assailants simply expect the victims to willingly play their part.  You either support the purge and act upon your instincts or you must submit to the others’ needs to purge.

The Bottom Line: The Purge is not a particularly good movie but it has an interesting, if extreme, premise and a few times here and there it actually succeeds in generating some good thought-provoking points.

Grade: 5

Her

The Gist: Theodore’s rather dull and solitary life suddenly changes when he falls in love with a new operating system based on a very life-like artificial intelligence named Samantha.

Director Spike Jonze, who took home the Oscar for Writing for Her, presents us with a very plausible not-too-distant-future in which we’re mostly alienated from one another.  We still go out into the real world, but the majority of our interactions are with our own digital devices.  Can we not see where we might conceivably be headed?

Joaquin Phoenix reminds us all of the very profound and genuine actor he can be when he stops acting like an ass by pretending to leave acting and fame behind him for the sake of an art experiment.

The OS is voiced by Scarlett Johansson, but other than her voice, Phoenix is pretty much carrying the whole movie on his shoulders, and he does a very nice job.

The Bottom Line: Her is a great window on a very possible future for humanity that gently reminds us of how important human interaction actually is.  The movie was nominated for Best Picture and deserves a viewing.

Grade: 8

The Theory of Everything

The Gist: The story of how world renown physicist Stephen Hawking met his future wife Jane, found out about his terrible illness, and kept on doing what he loved to do in spite of the setbacks.

The Theory of Everything is one of those “minor” movies that open a small window on someone’s life that sometimes turn out to be unforgettable thanks to one or more extraordinary performances.

Here not a single performance is flawed, but of course it is Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones who tower above everyone else.  Jones is strong and contained but no matter how good she is, she’s always eclipsed by Redmayne.

Eddie Redmayne took home the Best Actor Oscar (along with a slew of other awards) and very much deservedly so.  Towards the end it looked like Michael Keaton was going to beat him for his turn in Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), but I’m glad it didn’t happen.

One might say that portrayals of people with disabilities like this one end up winning all the awards and so become stereotypical, but when one sees the work Redmayne has done on screen all I have to say is, Who cares!!  His was hands down an unforgettable performance and he deserved the Oscar for it.

A clear example is from a particular scene towards the end when Redmayne has a daydream in which he gets up from his wheelchair and starts walking.  The shift from the Hawking we all know to the one who could have been is amazing.  Hands down a fantastic actor.

The Bottom Line: The Theory of Everything is a wonderful movie for the story it tells, the way it tells it, and the performances on screen.  A must see.

Grade: 9

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

The Gist: A washed-up actor that once had a brush with stardom by playing a costumed superhero is trying to recapture fame and fortune by writing, directing, and starring in a serious play on Broadway.

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) was this year’s winner of the Best Picture Oscar and it was deserving of the honor.  The movie is original, flawlessly acted and directed, and its continuous-take play is awe-inspiring.

The one-take approach is pulled off so seamlessly that I actually only noticed it after about 50 minutes.  At that point, I had to rewind a bit, then a bit more, and then a bit more still, just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken.  I wasn’t.  Sure, the whole movie isn’t done in only one take, but there are very few cuts and they are almost impossible to find.  That’s ballsy, and it took a lot of planning and rehearsing.

Alejandro González Iñárritu took home three Oscars for Birdman: Picture, Director, and Writing.  Appropriately, Emmanuel Lubezki was named best cinematographer for his artistry.

The only one left empty-handed was Michael Keaton, whose chances of winning Best Actor rose dramatically towards the end of the voting period.  Did he deserve to win?  Not compared to the guy who ended up winning.  Keaton is good for sure, but before awarding him such a prize I’d like to see more top notch work from a guy who’s been in the industry for decades but never particularly wowed me.

The Bottom Line: Birdman is a great, original movie that might require a couple viewings and an open mind, but ultimately, it’s a must see.

Grade: 9

Whiplash

The Gist: A drummer shows a lot of promise to a rather unorthodox music teacher.  Will the latter be able to help the former’s greatness come to the fore?

After hearing nothing but praises for J. K. Simmons’ Oscar-winning performance in this movie, I was expecting a dazzling display of raw talent and I got it in spades.  He more than deserved all the awards and accolades.

Miles Teller is a very promising actor whose talent and performance are actually partially eclipsed by Simmons’ turn, but he’s definitely someone to watch, just like Damien Chazelle, who wrote and directed this gem.

The editing is great and the music is so bewitching it becomes a character in itself.

The Bottom Line: Whiplash is a movie so good, you must see it, and not just for the performances but for the score too.  It would have easily been deserving of winning a Best Picture Oscar.

Grade: 9

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

The Gist: Now that the dwarves have recaptured the treasure under the Lonely Mountain, a whole new host of pretenders wanting their share shows up.  This will lead to the spectacular battle of the title.

The final chapter of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, unexpectedly, left me underwhelmed.  The script strictly adheres to the book and expertly and organically expands on those parts that I most found perplexingly lacking and rushed in the book itself so I’m not sure what didn’t work.

The technical elements are impeccable as always, the acting doesn’t disappoint, the action is often relentless, and when it’s not it’s a welcome rest, and the connection between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is further strengthened by key scenes.

Again, I’m not sure what left me a little disappointed, but this chapter was definitely my least favorite of the whole, which is a pity as I was looking forward to watching the completion of Jackson’s Middle Earth oeuvre.  I can only think that maybe too much is happening and ultimately the movie lacks some “heart.”

The Bottom Line: If you’ve come to this point, you’ve likely seen the two previous movies and the Rings trilogy so for you this is a must see as it was for me and there’s no way you should miss it.  Hopefully on a second viewing I’ll end up re-evaluating it a bit, but for me it felt uneven.

Grade: 6

The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug

The Gist: Bilbo and his dwarves companions continue their trip towards the Lonely Mountain and the stakes keep rising.  They will encounter, among other things, a lethal spider colony, a less than amicable race of Elves living in a forest, a less than hospitable race of humans living on a lake island, and even a very mysterious shape-shifter.  Nothing however, will compare to Bilbo’s face-to-face with Smaug.

Peter Jackson’s second chapter in his trilogy adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit keeps up the admirable work of blending together a faithful adaptation of the short novel with both additional Tolkien material and original ideas.

The end result is an adrenaline jolt that engages the viewer a lot more than An Unexpected Journey, saddled with the duty of introducing all the characters to the audience, could do.

Just like with The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I found the first chapter more intimate and the second more boisterous.  By the end, when Bilbo finally meets Smaug and they have their terrific confrontation, one is overwhelmed by the visual treats and the many goings-on.

Overwhelmed is good though, at least in this case.

The Bottom Line: If you’ve enjoyed the first chapter, you won’t be disappointed.  I think there’s more original material in Smaug than there was in Journey, but it’s expertly sawed into the story and I liked the end result.

Grade: 8

Togetherness

HBO’s latest entry in the comedy series, Togetherness, is a very relatable show that I started watching for the oddest of reasons.

I happened to read an article mentioning how the three current comedies on HBO, Girls, Looking, and now Togetherness, are located in three different cities that all play a definite role in the shows themselves, respectively, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Given that Los Angeles was actually the city I visited on my last Road Trip and ended up liking it considerably more than I expected, I decided to give it a try.

Unlike my experience with Girls, which I stopped watching after one season because I really couldn’t bring myself to like any of the characters, Togetherness’ four main residents are all funny, good, and flawed in their own unique ways.

The show was renewed for a second season, so we’ll see how their relationships progress.

Grade – Season 1: 7