“Am I the story of the Negro in America?” asks a German major in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” as he tries to guess the name written on a card affixed to his forehead in a bar game. He gets a resounding “no” after running through a series of questions that could just as easily describe the importation of slaves. But he quickly pivots and rattles off, “Well, then, I must be King Kong.”
Traditionally in cinema – and fiction as a whole – our monsters mean something. They reflect the deep fears and anxieties of a society, ones that might not obviously rear their heads but can find vicarious expression through metaphor and transitive representation. In 1933’s version of “King Kong,” Tarantino saw a deeply symbolic tale about race in America. It’s too bad that “Kong: Skull Island,” the latest spin on the giant ape, arrives at a time of no racial tension and the complete absolution of prejudice based on ancestral origin. (Ha.)
But what kind of monster is Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ film? At first, the behemoth primate seems to be something between a colonialist allegory given the backdrop of the Vietnam War and a cautionary tale for human overreach in a technology-heavy era. The longer the film goes on, the more these aspects reveal themselves as clear offshoots of Vogt-Roberts’ key touchstones, “Apocalypse Now” and “Jurassic Park.” Then the real question of “Kong: Skull Island” arises. Is it worse if the filmmaking team (which includes four credited writers) have an undercooked meaning of the monster … or if there’s just no meaning at all?
We get the answer – it’s the latter of the two options – in a post-credits zinger. No spoilers about the contents of the scene, but Warner Bros. deliberately robs King Kong of any allegorical meaning to strip him down to pure commercialism. He’s now just another branded property, another franchise toy who can be trotted out in any number of series without being weighed down by cultural baggage. The ape who loomed large in the American imagination is now just another large CGI creation in a veritable zoo created by the VFX wizards that be. The whole film amounts to a less neon-bathed “Avatar,” a creature feature full of empty spectacle (and even less politicization).
Kong’s presence in the film is practically nonexistent, too. That includes implied appearances, a method to which Spielberg acolyte Vogt-Roberts fondly makes homage. The majority of “Kong: Skull Island” consists of a ragtag band of people who have been in too many action movies (Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman) and those whose careers could use an action movie (Brie Larson, Thomas Mann, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell) trying to make it to the top of a mountain for rescue after a military mission goes south. Their journey has its enjoyable moments, but who really buys a ticket to a King Kong movie for pithy banter between photojournalists and cagey war veterans? B- /
Raoul Peck’s “I Am Not Your Negro” is a documentary, yes, but it likely bears little resemblance to the kinds of non-fiction works you imagine. Watching the film does not feel like reading a textbook, which comes pre-loaded with conclusions drawn and lessons to learn. Instead, Peck’s work captures the sensation of reading a novel by its subject, James Baldwin. In this format, we must connect the dots ourselves and draw our own meaning.
Peck structures the film around the spine of an unfinished novel Baldwin left behind tracing the history of America through the lives of three black activists: Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. As Baldwin so succinctly and accurately states, “The story of the negro in America is the story of America.” His history charts the friction that results in a society unable to assign roles for its black members once they no longer pick the cotton. And since whites lack the imagination to see black revolutionaries, America suffers from a kind of “emotional poverty.”
To use too many of Baldwin’s words or summarize his ideas only serves to bastardize your own experience of grappling with them. Peck makes Baldwin’s prose easy to understand but never simple to digest, in part because it maintains a stubborn relevancy to our current moral malaise. From the white denial of racism to the myth of colorblindness, “I Am Not Your Negro” practically drips with modern applications. There’s an angle and a foothold for just about everyone.
Mine was Baldwin’s fascination with popular culture and how it at once plays out our national conflicts and presents a fantasy of social arrangements. Culture has a way of numbing us, blinding us from seeing our real issues and covering our racial fault lines. But at the same time, the underlying tensions can reflect the country as a whole. His analysis of cinematic heroes as white people who took vengeance into their own hands because they saw it as theirs to take is a scary perspective that will not soon leave my head when viewing classical Hollywood cinema. B+ /
At its core, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is very much a political thriller. The film concluded production around the time of the Edward Snowden leaks, so any correlation between the two would have been primarily atmospheric in the editing bay. But the nods of screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to the kind of political unrest and institutional mistrust of the 1970s feels totally applicable to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s SHIELD and Hydra, themselves proxies for the present day surveillance state.
The good news for audiences is that this kind of smart throwback is attached to a Marvel movie. The bad news, though, is that the movie still has to be a “Marvel movie.”
Every time the film starts developing its ideas or delving into the ramifications, it has to start hitting the predictable comic book movie beats. The need to have a big action set piece every 25-30 minutes ultimately becomes oppressive and counterproductive to the film’s intelligent ambitions. Though the sequel bears the subtitle “Civil War,” the name seems as applicable to that film’s content as it does to the form of “The Winter Soldier.”
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo struggle against the Marvel formula to interesting and more thoroughly entertaining effects. They fail to break the mold, however. The real auteur of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Kevin Feige, the company’s president. What is commercial will likely continue to prevail over what is artistic or iconoclastic. Looking at the numbers, sadly, can anyone blame him? B- /
Snappy dialogue and intricately planned-out scenes put Quentin Tarantino on the map as a generation-defining talent, so it sure is nice to see him once again embracing that spirit in his eighth film, “The Hateful Eight.” After the bloated, mangled mess of “Django Unchained,” operating within his usual wheelhouse of tension ratcheting conversations and raucous bloodshed feels more welcome than usual.
In many ways, however, “The Hateful Eight” is somewhat of an anomaly in Tarantino’s canon. Sure, it bears the usual stamps of expressive language, scrambled chronology and unapologetic gore, but he appears to eschew his favored postmodern pastiche in favor of a more classical vibe.
This proclivity appears most obviously in his selection of music. Apart from “Kill Bill,” Tarantino has never commissioned a composer to score his films. Repurposing aural cues from other films or cultural products has served as a thread running throughout his filmography, reinforcing Tarantino’s DJ-like position as director. He blends, appropriates and remixes to unify and synthesize disparate styles and genres into something entirely new.
Tarantino does not abandon this approach completely in “The Hateful Eight,” although the majority of the sonic landscape in the film comes from a brand new Ennio Morricone score. The very musician whose compositions Tarantino has deployed to great effect in each of his films made this millennia gets to express himself on his own terms. Morricone grants the production a heightened level of prestige and legitimacy with his participation, allowing it a certain measure of independence. “The Hateful Eight” does not rely on referencing other films to imbue the proceedings with meaning. Rather, Tarantino casts his gaze inwards toward the dark, beating heart of his own work.
Subtlety has never been a strength of Spike Lee’s, and his latest film “Chi-Raq” is all the better for him not even attempting. From its opening scene, where big red letters and a booming voice declare “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY,” we know exactly how he feels about his chosen subject – the epidemic of gun violence in urban Chicago. Removing any guesswork just makes the political commentary come through all the more clearly.
Lee reworks the Greek comedy of “Lysistrata” into the modern day. Now, the women are not on a sex strike to end a war; they are withholding their carnal secrets to stop the carnage on their streets. Admirably, he tries to keep the sounds of verse in tact from Aristophanes’ plays, though they often times strain or falter altogether. Many times, a line will pierce with its accuracy. But at others, the exaggeration and hyperbole becomes unintentionally comical.
Though Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) and the movement she leads are undeniably the primary focus of “Chi-Raq,” Lee also has other balls in play. Chiefly, he follows a grieving mother, Jennifer Hudson’s Irene, who seeks justice after her young daughter was shot down in the streets by an unknown gunman. These segments have nothing outlandish or overblown about them. Hudson brings genuine, moving pathos to her character’s struggle (perhaps informed by what happened in her own life).
The inclusion of both stories might serve as a testament to the urgency Lee feels in getting people angry about this issue. Heck, the film shot over the summer and includes reference to the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston and the Cecil the Lion kerfuffle – meaning he got it out of the editing bay in just months. Viewers would likely find one character more interesting and identifiable, meaning Lee could maximize his reach with a single film. Yet as a result, “Chi-Raq” feels wildly uneven … and that’s not even mentioning the musical numbers that constantly disrupt any narrative momentum.
Nonetheless, it’s encouraging to see Lee legitimately up in arms about something once again. His recent work, disciplined thought it might have been, has felt somewhat passionless. In “Chi-Raq,” he’s mad as hell and very much alive in letting us know. He provides, with rather blunt didacticism, solutions to Chicago’s bloodshed from both without and from within. And he even seems hopeful that a change is going to come, which might be the most shocking turn of the entire movie. B /
At this point, I am unsure how much good it does me to review “Avengers: Age of Ultron” as I would a movie. I feel like it would be more useful to write up the experience of the film as a writer for Consumer Reports would describe a car – with matter-of-fact bullet-points and statistics. What is the point of trying to capture the artistry of a film in the intricacies of prose when that film is little more than a top-of-the-line product?
The latest item off the “Avengers” conveyer belt amounts to little more than an 150 minute billboard for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Perhaps the one notable difference between “Age of Ultron” and its predecessor is that the events tend to sow discord that cleaves a wedge between the heroes as opposed to uniting them. (I can only assume that was a decision that arose organically from the material and not as some kind of tie-in to the impending “Civil War.”)
Maestro Joss Whedon ensures that the film matches all the tech specs any fan looks for in a comic book movie. It has action sequences the way cars have cupholders. To top it all off, he assembles a climax that feels like it could (and maybe should) just exist as its own movie and is probably fetishized in the same way automotive aficionados value a powerful engine. Maybe some of this would be exciting if it were not so painfully predictable. Rather than inspiring me to marvel at the screen, it just made me feel numb.
Earlier in 2015, Matthew Vaughn hit a nerve with many movie fans when he took a giant crap on the face of reigning blockbuster king Christopher Nolan. “People want fun and escapism at the moment,” said Vaughn in an interview, “I think Nolan kick-started a very dark, bleak style of superhero escapism, and I think people have had enough of it.”
I take issue with his statement for a number of reasons. First of all, it just reeks of bitterness over Nolan’s success; the total worldwide gross of Vaughn’s combined filmography does not even come close to equaling the haul of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Second, it implies that serious action films are shoving lighter fare out of the market on both the level of the corporation and the consumer.
For me, I tend to prefer Nolan’s films because they so boldly test the boundaries of what our entertainment can be. But at the end of the day, I do not want to live in a world where I cannot kick back and enjoy a blissfully funny, irreverent, and exciting movie like Matthew Vaughn’s own “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” There will always be a place for well-crafted entertainment that knows the role it wants to play and fulfills its duties with gusto.
Vaughn’s film, co-written with his frequent collaborator Jane Goldman, strikes a rarely found balance between spy movie classicism (like a Bond flick) and outright parody (a la “Austin Powers”). They find the right times to shift gears, and the result is an experience that plays like all the fun of two movies for the price of one. Overall, I found myself reminded of the hero’s quest of Luke Skywalker from “Star Wars” hybridized with “Agent Cody Banks” (throwback – bet you haven’t thought about that movie in a while).
With the 2012 Oscar race now immobile until nominations are announced Thursday morning, January 10, now it’s time to take one last look at the contenders and the pretenders before the dust settles. Today, I’ll be looking at Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, two categories replete with former winners and nominees all vying for Oscar glory.
The race is Anne Hathaway’s to lose, and I’d be amazed if she did. Even though so many critics are against “Les Misérables,” few can deny the power of her performance. Some of the snootier groups have snubbed her, but take a look at this impressive domination of the category!
Safe to say, wins from the Critics’ Choice Awards, Golden Globes, and SAG Awards should lead her charge to take the stage at the Kodak Theatre. Or they will hear the people scream.
Although, in the event of a “Lincoln” sweep (and me sticking my head in an oven), Sally Field could go 3-for-3 and win here for “Lincoln.” She’s certainly had her fair share of recognition along the precursor circuit, including a high-profile win from the New York Critics’ Circle.
But in a year that could crown Daniel Day-Lewis (and maybe Robert DeNiro) a three-time champion, people will be aware that they would be ranking Field in an elite pantheon with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson, I bet they think twice and vote Hathaway.
Or maybe they vote Hunt, who’s all but assured a nomination for her work in “The Sessions.” It’s the kind of role the Oscars eat up (good-hearted woman who likes to let loose), and the Best Actress of 1997 for “As Good As It Gets” has picked up the Big 3 nominations (Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe, SAG) along the way. I think lukewarm support for the movie hurts her chances to win. So does the fact that she’s competing against Anne Freaking Hathaway.
Beyond Hathaway, Field, and Hunt, the other two nominations are pretty much up for grabs. The way I see it, there are 3 women vying for those two spots are Amy Adams for “The Master,” Maggie Smith for “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” and Nicole Kidman for “The Paperboy.” Each has missed a key stop on the circuit: Adams crucially at SAG, Smith with the Globes and Critics’ Choice, and Kidman only with Critics’ Choice.
On paper, the smart money would be on Nicole Kidman to snag a nomination. SAG is always the best indicator of actors’ sentiment, and she also has a key Globe nod.
But the Golden Globes are notorious for sucking up to stars so they have to show up to the ceremony. They are also notable for having many favorite actresses who seem to get nominated for just about anything they do, and this goes well beyond your obvious Meryl Streep. Nicole Kidman has been nominated for a whopping 10 Golden Globes and has won 3. So I take their nomination with a grain of salt.
SAG also usually throws a major out-of-left-field nominee into the fray, which at first sight could be considered Kidman. (Then again, since Maggie Smith has shown up nowhere else, maybe that would be her.) Last year, it was Armie Hammer for “J. Edgar,” although most thought it was Demian Bichir for “A Better Life” … until he got an Oscar nomination. In 2010, it was Hilary Swank for “Conviction.” 2009 gave us Diane Kruger for “Inglourious Basterds.”
But “The Paperboy” is, well, quite frankly a bad movie. And a part of me thinks the Academy will recoil at just how trashy and terrible it is. There’s certainly precedent for an actor being nominated for a bad movie: Cate Blanchett got a Best Actress nomination for “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” which had a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Sean Penn was nominated for the 34% fresh “I Am Sam.” “The Paperboy” currently sits at 39%.
I predicted the snob factor would keep out Melissa McCarthy of “Bridesmaids” last year because she was crass and defecated in a sink. I was wrong. McCarthy didn’t even have the Globe nod that Kidman earned. So, with that in mind, I will predict Nicole Kidman to get a bizarre Best Supporting Actress nomination for a role that involves her urinating on Zac Efron’s face.
The other spot, I believe, will go to Amy Adams for “The Master.” Yes, the SAG snub hurt. But she’s a new Academy darling, garnering three Best Supporting Actress nominations in six years. And I’ll continue to assert that the Academy, though perhaps not quite ready to anoint her with a statue quite yet, wants to increase the inevitability of her win. At four nominations, the cries of “why hasn’t she won yet?” will grow louder and louder.
Although don’t get me wrong, maybe they will not go with a perennial Oscar bridesmaid but rather a crowned Oscar queen.
Two-time winner Maggie Smith’s SAG nod makes her a formidable foe, though the fact that the Globes didn’t nominate her is troubling. They were big fans of “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” nominating it for Best Picture (musical/comedy) and Judi Dench for Best Actress. If they loved it so much, where was Maggie Smith? I suspect SAG got sentimental for a more senior member, like they did in 2010 for Robert Duvall in “Get Low.”
Another possibility I wouldn’t count out is Judi Dench for “Skyfall.” It’s a sentimental swan song for Dench in the M role, and it will be one of her final roles since she’s going blind. She won in 1998 for “Shakespeare in Love,” which she was in for all of six minutes. In this meaty, tragic role, could the Academy be won over? The BFCA was and gave her a Critics’ Choice Award nomination, although that was in a field of six. I don’t think Dench is out of the question, but I would still be shocked if she cracked this field.
The BFCA also nominated Ann Dowd of “Compliance,” a character actor who has paid her dues … and now is paying for her own campaign. She won Best Supporting Actress from the National Board of Review, although that group has faded in relevancy since they are no longer first out of the gate. Perhaps a surprise nomination is in store for a hard-working non-star, in the Demian Bichir/Richard Jenkins mold? A more relevant precedent, however, might be Jacki Weaver in “Animal Kingdom.” However, she had the awards machine of Sony Pictures Classics working for her all fall.
But I’m sticking with Adams and Kidman. I don’t have strong enough of a gut feeling to predict Dench or Dowd, and I don’t think Smith has enough heat to make it in the field.
There are four set nominees in the field: DeNiro, Jones, Arkin, and Hoffman. The latter three all scored the trifecta of nods from the BFCA, SAG, and HFPA, which essentially assures them nominations. Last year saw two such actors, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tilda Swinton, get snubbed by the Academy. I can’t pinpoint precisely why they got knocked out other than a strong field for DiCaprio in Best Actor and a strong competitor for Tilda Swinton in Rooney Mara.
The person I would assume is in the worst position is Philip Seymour Hoffman for “The Master” since it isn’t a slam-dunk Best Picture nominee like DeNiro, Jones, and Arkin’s movies are. But Hoffman, the movie’s only SAG nominee, appears to be the one performance everyone can line up behind for the film. And he’s been nominated for movies that did not play well with the Academy at large, as demonstrated by his nod for 2007’s “Charlie Wilson’s War.”
Argue as you might about the former being a sure thing because he missed out on a Golden Globe nomination, but watch his acceptance of their highest honor, the CecilB. DeMille. Now tell me if you think the voting body of less than 100 would want to nominate someone after he essentially slapped them in the face a la Ricky Gervais?
If he’s nominated, I think DeNiro could win. Though he has won twice, he hasn’t been nominated in two decades. There’s a comeback narrative for one of the greatest actors of our time, and it may be too soon for Arkin and Hoffman to win again. In the event of a “Lincoln” sweep, a rising tide could lift all ships including that of Tommy Lee Jones.
But who gets the fifth slot to compete against these four prior winners? I had hoped it would be Eddie Redmayne or Russell Crowe for “Les Misérables,” but those are highly unlikely now. If they were to pop up, put all your money on “Les Misérables” to win Best Picture.
Could it be Critics’ Choice nominee Matthew McConaughey for “Magic Mike?” He’s had quite the career turnaround in 2012, and a nomination would be a nice pat on the back. A nomination would be in the pattern of Robert Downey, Jr. in 2008 for “Tropic Thunder,” another unconventional comedic role from a resurgent actor.
McConaughey is unlikely, however, because the SAG Awards and Golden Globes overlooked him, two groups key to making people take Downey, Jr. seriously. Though he won prestigious prizes from the New York Film Critics’ Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, McConaughey might have to wait until next year for his shot at Oscar glory. Something tells me his massive weight loss for “The Dallas Buyer’s Club” is screaming Oscars 2013.
SAG didn’t leave off Javier Bardem for “Skyfall,” on the other hand. Bardem, himself a prior winner in the category, would fit right in with the rest of the nominees. His Silva from the movie would be the first Bond villain ever to be nominated for an Oscar, and though I was averse to his creepiness, others don’t seem to share my reservations.
Villains have been dominating the Best Supporting Actor category since Bardem’s win for “No Country for Old Men” in 2007. There was Heath Ledger’s posthumous win for “The Dark Knight” and Christoph Waltz’s victory for “Inglourious Basterds.” We’ve also seen nominations for Josh Brolin’s murderous monster in “Milk,” Stanley Tucci’s creepy rapist in “The Lovely Bones,” and Jeremy Renner’s tough-as-nails Jem from “The Town.” Being bad has never been so good.
But the same argument could be made for Leonardo DiCaprio’s vile slave owner Calvin Candie in “Django Unchained.” Tarantino wrote the despicable Hans Landa, the character that won Christoph Waltz an Oscar. Could he earn DiCaprio his fourth Oscar nomination – or perhaps his first win? I’d love to see it, but I’m worried about vote-splitting between DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz, back in the race for a character in “Django Unchained” not all that different than his Oscar-winning Hans Landa.
Both DiCaprio and Waltz received nominations from the Golden Globes, but neither showed up on the Critics’ Choice list nor the SAG. The latter can be explained by a lack of screeners being sent to the nominating committee, but the former is troubling. I considered “Django Unchained” to be a non-factor in the season until it found some very vocal critical supporters and a large audience. So I have to think at least one actor from the movie will show up, but I don’t think there’s a consensus on who that should be.
Waltz has won from a number of critics’ groups across the country, but none of them are particularly worth noting. DiCaprio won from the National Board of Review, which is a far more significant accolade than anything Waltz has received. If it was just Waltz from “Django Unchained” that DiCaprio had to contend with, I would predict him to receive his first Oscar nod since 2006’s “Blood Diamond.” But there’s also Samuel L. Jackson from the movie, and many people are also a big fan of his performance.
Had “Django Unchained” unfurled earlier in the season, perhaps there would have been time for consensus to form around one actor. DiCaprio could have helped himself by doing some press for the movie, yet he’s been remarkably silent. The moment just doesn’t feel right for him either; I suspect 2013 will be more fortuitous for him with a juicy role in ‘The Great Gatsby” and another re-teaming with Martin Scorsese in “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
So, in the absence of consensus, I think vote splitting will knock out all Tarantino’s performers, paving the way for Javier Bardem’s fourth Oscar nomination.
Check back tomorrow, January 7, for my final predictions in the leading acting categories!
Quentin Tarantino’s name is now a brand, one with hallmarks of dialogue and style widely recognized by all cinephiles. It’s an accomplishment achieved not only by Tarantino’s incredible virtuosity but also by the scores of cheap rip-offs who have solidified his status as a major figure in film history. Yet with “Django Unchained,” Tarantino proves that the greatest of all these impersonators is Tarantino himself.
The experience is not unlike that of watching “Jackie Brown,” the only other film of the Tarantino canon that “Django Unchained” manages to stand next to in quality. Both films followed major artistic breakthroughs for him that scored with audiences and critics alike, “Pulp Fiction” and “Inglourious Basterds.”
But rather than use the forward momentum to lead to further exploration of his craft, Tarantino chose to take a victory lap fueled by the high of inhaling too much of the exhaust fumes of his own success. “Django Unchained” just feels like Tarantino on autopilot, lacking the vibrancy or surprising eccentricity of his prior films. There are plenty of laughs to be had, sure, but it just feels like far too much of the same stylized dialogue and aestheticized violence; popping in the DVD of “Reservoir Dogs” would probably yield more satisfaction.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those that prefer “The Dark Knight” and Christopher Nolan, and those that “The Avengers” and Joss Whedon. I count myself absolutely and unapologetically in the first camp.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to like both; indeed, I did enjoy “The Avengers.” That point might be lost in this review since I will be attacking the ideology of filmmaking that produces movies like it, but Whedon recaptures the fun spirit that has been lost in Marvel films since Jon Favreau’s original “Iron Man” in 2008.
He doesn’t provide nearly enough justification for the wasting of four hours of my life on “Thor” and “Captain America,” but then again, I’m not the target audience. Just the sight of those figures will undoubtedly bring joy to many fans; I need a little bit more of a reason to care. I need to know why a purely expository story for “The Avengers” with little drama of its own is worth my time and money.
Whedon definitely embraces the inherent childishness of the comic books and places that as the center of the film; Nolan merely uses the familiar characters of renowned series as a facade to explore important social and cultural issues. There’s no discussion of serious issues in “The Avengers,” unless you count how New York would recover from the $160 billion of damage done to the city in the movie’s bloated climax.
Most movies that we eagerly anticipate, we run out to see in theaters in the first few weeks of release. Those that we leave for video are ones that we expect to be trash or those which we had no real desire to see in the first place. Why do we have these low expectations? Because, for the most part, Hollywood perpetuates them. What we save to see on video is rarely any good.
But then again, with these low expectations, it’s just that much easier for a movie to sneak up and floor us. Such is the case of “Mother and Child,” Rodrigo Garcia’s hyperlink drama intertwining three different stories of maternity. As the style becomes slowly hackneyed by the system, it’s a nice ray of hope that someone can still get it right with a story built around three strong female characters and hard-hitting situations.
As Karen (Annette Bening) prepares herself for the imminent death of her mother, she can’t help but wonder what has become of the daughter she gave up for adoption when she was 14. As she and her mother were never particularly close, she finds herself overcome by guilt and wistfulness, wishing she could have the time back to repair the mother-daughter relationship. It doesn’t help things that Karen discovers post mortem her mother found the daughter of their Hispanic maid to be more like her child.
Then, there’s Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), whose hard-knock childhood has led her to be a family-spiting woman driven only by rationalism and furthering her career. Her life is exactly as she wants it to be: unsentimental and free of unnecessary relationships. But love finds a way into her life in the form of her boss, Paul (Samuel L. Jackson), and she soon finds that what she avoided for so long arrives on her doorstep.
Dead-set on adopting a child, infertile Lucy (Kerry Washington) has her mind on nothing else but becoming a mother. Desperate to feel that maternal bond, she lets her marriage fall by the wayside in the mere hope that Ray (Shareeka Epps) will give her the child inside her womb. The need to be a mother ultimately drives her to emotional extremes that alarm her friends and family.
Bening, Watts, and Washington all turn in performances so emotionally charged that it stings. They bring so much passion and feeling to the project, and it exudes from the screen like a bright beam of light. But it’s Garcia’s script, so thoughtful, beautiful, and heartbreaking that “Mother and Child” makes for one emotionally wrenching watch. Providing three distinct takes on what it means to be a mother, it’s a deeply moving moviewatching experience – even sitting on a couch. A- /
Will Ferrell made a name for himself playing in the movie industry by playing some crazy larger-than-life characters, such as Buddy the Elf and Ron Burgundy. Recently, he has been tarnishing that name by playing Will Ferrell, or at least how we have come to perceive Will Ferrell: a lazy, pathetic, and fairly eccentric bum. After a series of unintentionally humorless flops, it’s hard to have confidence that “The Other Guys” could end the slump.
The movie isn’t great, certainly nowhere near the likes of “Elf” or “Anchorman,” but it’s a definite improvement from “Step Brothers” and “Land of the Lost.” The story and the characters still aren’t quite back in full force, yet there’s some comfort in seeing the return of a crucial ingredient – laughter. Fairly often, a joke will fall flat or just not work quite right. But more often than not, they manage to work, and we laugh more than we wince.
This isn’t the movie to break Will Ferrell’s slump; however, it’s definitely a step in the right direction and hopefully the beginning of an upward trend. It definitely helps that he’s not playing some ridiculous moron but rather a regular Joe Schmoe moron, someone who might actually exist out there. While we’ve been there done that with Ferrell’s one-note comedy of bizarre characters, there’s something refreshing and, dare I say, exciting about watching him go off the beaten path for a while.
But there’s more to this movie than just reporting that Will Ferrell can be decent again. We can’t forget Mark Wahlberg, who plays a cop that is a complete polar opposite of his Staff Sgt. Dignam from “The Departed.” While he got to play the ultimate hard Boston police officer in the 2006 Best Picture winner, he’s tackling a decidedly different role as Holtz, the paper-pushing officer stuck working with Ferrell’s pitiful Gamble. Wahlberg has never been in a comedic movie before, yet it’s amazing how he blends right in as if we’ve been seeing him do these types of movies for years. I won’t go as far as to call he and Farrell a new “odd couple” (a new favorite critical comparison), but they certainly do play off each other well throughout the movie.
It’s the two marquee names that carry the movie. They don’t get any help from Eva Mendes, who plays Gamble’s smoking hot wife, or Steve Coogan, the Brit who plays the Wall Street scumbag who is meant to remind us of Bernie Madoff. Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson, the Dignams so to speak of the movie, aren’t in the movie long enough to produce many laughs, and the ones that they do were ruined in the trailer. There are some nice running jokes with Michael Keaton, the police chief who moonlights at Bed Bath and Beyond, that wind up being funny after a few tries. But have no doubt about it – this is Mark Wahlberg’s movie and it is Will Ferrell’s movie, for better or for worse. B- /
Ok, just ignore the graphic to the side. It’s just meant to look good … it doesn’t have what I want to talk about in it. I couldn’t find any picture with what I needed, so I picked the one with Samuel L. Jackson. He’s usually good enough to make up for flaws.
Anways, ever wonder what people do that you see in the credits? Whenever the director decides to put the key figures in the opening credits, we get to see a whole bunch of assorted production figures first in the ending credits.
When that happens, the first person we see is almost always the “unit production manager.” So the other day, I started wondering to myself, “What on earth does a unit production manager do?”
Well, for those of you wondering like me, here’s what they do (according to IMDb):
An executive who is responsible to a senior producer for the administration of a particular movie. Unit Production Managers only work on one film at a time. Only DGA members can be called Unit Production Managers.
If you didn’t know, now you know. So the next time you go to the movies, brag to the people you came with that you know what a unit production manager does.
Raoul Peck’s “
Subtlety has never been a strength of Spike Lee’s, and his latest film “
Although, in the event of a “Lincoln” sweep (and me sticking my head in an oven), Sally Field could go 3-for-3 and win here for “Lincoln.” She’s certainly had her fair share of recognition along the precursor circuit, including a high-profile win from the New York Critics’ Circle.
On paper, the smart money would be on Nicole Kidman to snag a nomination. SAG is always the best indicator of actors’ sentiment, and she also has a key Globe nod.
Although don’t get me wrong, maybe they will not go with a perennial Oscar bridesmaid but rather a crowned Oscar queen.
Could it be Critics’ Choice nominee Matthew McConaughey for “Magic Mike?” He’s had quite the career turnaround in 2012, and a nomination would be a nice pat on the back. A nomination would be in the pattern of Robert Downey, Jr. in 2008 for “Tropic Thunder,” another unconventional comedic role from a resurgent actor.
Both DiCaprio and Waltz received nominations from the Golden Globes, but neither showed up on the Critics’ Choice list nor the SAG. The latter can be explained by a lack of screeners being sent to the nominating committee, but the former is troubling. I considered “Django Unchained” to be a non-factor in the season until it found some very vocal critical supporters and a large audience. So I have to think at least one actor from the movie will show up, but I don’t think there’s a consensus on who that should be.
Ok, just ignore the graphic to the side. It’s just meant to look good … it doesn’t have what I want to talk about in it. I couldn’t find any picture with what I needed, so I picked the one with Samuel L. Jackson. He’s usually good enough to make up for flaws.
Marshall and the Movies 
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