Tag: review

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) had opened in my neck of the woods last October/November. It was only playing in 2 or 3 places around town; down at the arty theatre and its off shoot, the slightly well to do theatre uptown. Then it was showing at the whitey mall in the suburbs near me. I was planning to catch a viewing when I took the day before Thanksgiving off. When I checked the listing on that Wednesday morning, the film was gone. I was unable to catch it. I believe it played for only a week there, and I was unable to catch it.

It won the Oscar for Best Picture last month.

Now its on BluRay and DVD, but I had to watch it in theatre. In the last few weeks, its been playing right next door in its victory lap. I went this past weekend. I was finally able to catch it.

The film revolves around an actor whose starred in a trilogy of superhero films about Birdman some years ago. He wants to be a more legitimate actor, so he writes, stars, and directs an adaptation of a Raymond Carver story on Broadway. Except his past haunts him as well as the present difficulties in staging the play. His cast gains a “ACTOR.” His show is lacking funding. The critics are readying to rip the show to shreds. And he’s only hearing Birdman egg him on. Is he crazy?

Maybe, he was. The story suggests it isn’t reality, but a figment of the lead’s imagination. The Birdman follows him around. He floats in the air in his tight-whiteys. He exhibits telekinesis. He was crazy!

This one winning the Best Picture fits the trend of ‘meh’ that the last few have been. It doesn’t knock you out as a film. It doesn’t scream classic. Let’s give it another few years and re-evluate if it is any good. Maybe in a decade.

All I know is I saw 2 of the 8 Best Picture nominees and this was the worst of the two.

3 of 5 stars.

Still Alice was a horror movie.

That’s not what you say about the film which won Julianne Moore the best actress Oscar, but it was very horrific.

Moore stars as the eponymous Alice, a young Columbia professor who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She’s in her early fifties, but she inherited the disease from one of her parents. The film follows her descent into the horrors of this disease. It was especially tough for her character, because she was an intellect.

It was also tough on her, because she could pass it along to her 3 children, two of whom took a test to discover if they had inherited it. The youngest daughter didn’t, and she kept leading a care free life coming back to help her degenerating mother.

I had a friend who went crazy. He became erratic and delusional. When you looked into his eyes, you did not see him there. That is frightening like the Alzheimer’s in this movie. The person you know is gone but is still physically there. They are living ghosts.

3 of 5 stars.

I was ready to be appalled by the violence in Kingsman: The Secret Service, because of the reviews I read about it. Guts spilling out everywhere, heads exploding, decapitations, mangled bodies. I was expecting Quentin Tarantino levels of blood. The movie had it all, but I wasn’t appalled. After a while, it was pure spectacle. It became hilarious and hard to believe. It was cartoony violence.

The movie revolves around a secret spy organization which keeps the world safe from Saville Row in London. They are the tailors who tinker and spy. To be a part of the organization, one had to be born in high class. The kid in this one wasn’t high born but was given a chance because his dad was a trainee who gave his life to save Colin Firth’s life. The film follows the kid’s journey from novice to international super spy. He saves the world.

The film reminded me of James Bond movies with Sean Connery. It was kitsch in that sense. The cartoon violence was part of that. It couldn’t take itself too seriously. It was like Quentin Tarantino decided to do an Austin Powers movie. Still, there was violence, but come on, it was ridiculous. There was even a secret lair in what should’ve been a volcano. Plus heads asploded in it. ASPLODE!

3 of 5 stars.

Jupiter Ascending is a movie that would’ve been better released in the heady days after the first Star Wars film. It wouldn’t have been considered a disaster and a bomb as it is nowadays, but a better of a cash grab of a movie riding on the coat tails of the epic Sci-Fi films in the wake of the seminal genre defining space epic. We would’ve all went gladly hoping for another Star Wars, but would’ve been disappointed with the lackluster film. It is two films removed from what it could’ve been.

Jupiter Ascending is basically a princess film in the Disney vein. It has Mila Kunis’s Jupiter finding out she is actually space faring royalty. She is out of her leagues caught in the middle of galactic intrigue. She needs to be the Queen of Earth for Earth’s sake. Except the film kept making her the princess needing to be rescued. And that is what is wrong with it. She should’ve been kicking ass and taking names, like a shojou heroine. Unfortunately, she became the princess to be saved like a Disney Princess. Come on, she should’ve been a better character.

I would rather watch Speed Racer than this…

2 of 5 stars.

The Wedding Ringer is terrible. I was hoping for a romantic comedy. What I got was a bromantic comedy!

The love achieved was between two men. Not love, in the homosexual way, but in the bro way, bro.

Josh Gad and Kevin Hart found love between themselves. Bromantic love!

I didn’t like the third act twist that turned the film into a bromantic comedy. I thought it was really condescending.

2 of 5 stars.

I went to the theatre twice over the recent Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday in hopes to catch Selma. I went the Sunday morning before, I went on Monday evening, but I only saw it once, the Tuesday after the holiday. Both showings I tried that weekend were sold out. I settled for the day after the holiday.

Selma tells the tale of the Civil Rights marches for minority voting rights in Selma, Alabama. It was centered around Martin Luther King’s machinations to get the White House to push for the voting rights act. It showed lots of background to get things in motion. It also showed how the Civil Rights movement worked.

It was a good movie about an important time with really important people. I was the wrong person to watch it. I already believe many of the things that was espoused in the movie. That what was history is still relevant today. That our voting rights are still under assault. That minorities are mistreated by the establishment even thought of as second rate citizens. That police assaults are real.

I should’ve not been the one to have watched this, but I am satisfied that I did.

4 of 5 stars.

The Woman in Black 2: The Angel of Death. Meh.

Not at all scary. Could’ve been, but there is no there there.

The film starts a few decades after the original in the midst of the bombing of Britain in the second World War. A bunch of school children are sent to the English countryside to escape the bombs. One of the kids had just lost his family in a bombing a couple of days before departure. His teachers act as chaperones expected to look after this orphan as they arrive at Eel Marsh House.

Before continuing the review, let me say how awkward it would be to send kids to the very town where nothing but children death occur because of the haunting at Eel Marsh House. Could someone consult the townsfolk before having plenty of ghost cannon fodder arrive? No, because the dang town was abandoned! (Hint, hint.)

Anyhow, because the original one had a real Woman in Black as the ghost, so does this installment. Yet, the filmmakers don’t bother to make the atmosphere creepy or even Victorian. They just muster up some scares that you can see a mile away. Woman in black in the window. Check. Woman in black in the mirror. Check. Nothing new. Nothing scary.

I will say that they did bring harm to a few of the children which I was not expecting. I thought there was a taboo against showing children harm themselves?

Anyhow, this one didn’t scare me. The first one creeped me out. The second not at all. I need a good scare. The last couple? Disappointing.

2 of 5 stars.

I like art. I guess. I’ve studied it in high school (and college!). I’ve dabbled in it. I’ve been to some of the most renowned museums in the world. I’m not sure my tastes are worth anything, but I do have two SHAG prints, several fading Ragnar prints, and 3 or 5 more prints/paintings hanging on the walls of my house. I like what I see.

I sort of liked the art in Big Eyes, Tim Burton’s latest film about outsider artist, Margaret Keane. She painted big eyed waifs, but had her credit taken by her husband at the time. It is a very low brow style: slightly crude and not professional, but when you see them, you’ll be enraptured by their big eyes, too.

The movie as I mentioned is about the artist trying to find herself after clashing with her husband who has passed off her work as his. It is a lambasting of Walter Keane, the husband, who comes off as megalomaniacal. He’s played by everyone’s favorite dastard, Christoph Waltz, whose portrayal doesn’t seem far from his own character in your mind. He makes Keane somewhat sleazy and somewhat sympathetic because he thought he was an artist himself, but stole the art from his actual artist, his wife.

Sadly, this movie will slowly fade to obscurity as a curio only to be revived the next time we all go for outsider art. Watch it as biopic. Then get me one of her prints!

3 of 5 stars.

I read interviews of Chris Rock about his film, Top Five, which he wrote and directed, in which he said he loved Woody Allen. You can see it in this film.

Top Five is about a comedian who, in his bid to be taken seriously, has done a movie about the slave uprising in Haiti where lots of white people were killed. The comedian is spending the day doing promotional stops with a New York Times reporter tailing him in order to write a profile/review. The comedian is also engaged to a reality TV star and is about the be married in a televised wedding. In this one day, he tries to find out who he is and what he is about.

Chris Rock is most everyone’s favorite comedian. He’s not really any one’s favorite director. I’m kind of interested in what he’ll be doing for the future. I wonder if he’ll follow in Woody Allen’s footsteps. He may become an interesting director.

My top 5: De La, Tribe, Rakim, Grand Puba, Guru.

3 of 5 stars.