Review: Foxcatcher (2014) - Steve Carrell is not in a comedy

(Spoiler Alert Potential Ahead)

It's time once again for another festival review. There would've have been one yesterday but I woke up with a migraine so unfortunately I had to skip. But we're back at fighting strength, and we're here today to talk about Foxcatcher. Now Foxcatcher has been on my radar for a while but I didn't even watch a trailer for it. I mostly wanted to see it for who was in which I will get to in a moment but usually I'm not looking out for a movie like this for two reasons.

1. I hate slow dramas.

Okay, I don't hate them, they're just slow. I can appreciate them for the most part hell my favorite slow drama is Mud (although I wouldn't call Mud a slow movie.) Now, what do I mean by slow drama? I mean a dramatic film that mostly builds up to one climatic moment with a few small dramatic shifts in tone along the way (DVD Review of Joe comes to mind.) There's also another thing about Foxcatcher I usually don't like in films.

2. It's a sports film.

I don't watch sports film. Of any genre, usually. The only one I can remember and like is Moneyball, but it is also not a slow drama. Moneyball has a lot of humorous momoents through out. Ohter than that if you're a sports film, I have no interest. Oh and space jam, space jam is alright. So two basically.

Now, if I hate both of those genres, why did I watch Foxcatcher? Well, like I said for the people involved and plus if I avoided the two genres all the time I'd be a lousy film geek. So this was a good way to cross off two types of film for this year at once. Plus I figured if it could intrigue me despite that, that it would score higher as a result. And what are those results? We'll find out. As always, summary, pros and cons, final score.

Summary

The year is 1987. Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is a gold medal winning wrestler, desperately trying to come out from under his brother Dave Schultz's (Mark Ruffalo) shadow. He gets this opportunity when John Dupont (Steve Carrell) asks him to coach his private wrestling team for a shot at the world championships. After winning them, John eventually hires Dave to coach the team to lead them to the 1988 olympic games, much to Mark's dismay. End of summary (see what I mean about building up to one event)

Pros - Mark Ruffalo, despite being barely mentioned in the promo material I saw, is awesome in this. I also want to bring this up because I want to point out that he should get his own Hulk movie at some point. Anyways, Channing Tatum I think gives off one of the most intense performances of his career. Steve Carrell is unrecognizable as dupont, seemingly losing himself in the role (for the most part.) The movie has this bleak, muted look to it, but it mostly pulls it off. Did I mention this is also based on a true story? and they didn't try to muddle down with overdetail and straight up making up parts of it. That's always great.

Cons - Oh boy, there's no easy way to say this. Steve Carrell, while trying his best, should not have gotten as many laughs as he did, mostly because I don't think he was trying to be funny. At least not in a way were you should be laughing. Creepy, is not a card he can pull 100% because sometimes he himself seemed like he was just doing a bad Michael Scott impression. Also, the film feels like it's all build up for one pay off that I knew was coming (because I knew the true story behind it) that still didn't really satisfy, as the ending kind of feels rushed. It leaves you with a sense of wait that's it?

Final Score - 8/10

I know, I said the ending sucks and Steve Carrell's has some issues but, I didn't hate it. Seriously, Channing and Mark are awesome, Carrell is mostly good and despite containing two elements I usually don't like in movies, I wasn't bored. So basically, it wins heavily by not boring me. Will you like it? if you think you like sports, drama, or a combination of the two, I say go for it.

So there we go. Now, the next two days I'll be seeing shorts that I worked on, so no reviews for those. But, I might try to get in one more feature on the last day of the festival. If not, expect a review on a wide release coming out this weekend.

Until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies.

Retro Review: Blood Simple (1984) - The first film by the Coen brothers.

(Potential Spoilers Ahead.)

One of the things that the Atlantic Film Festival offers as part of it's activities is a retrospective of certain filmmaking genres, or the films of certain filmmakers for free. Basically it's a chance to see free older films. This year the theme is the coen brothers, and they began the retrospective with their first film Blood Simple. I am a huge coen brothers fan, but I've never seen Blood Simple.......until now. As always, plot summary, pros and cons, final score. Let's do it.

Plot Summary 

Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) hires private investigator Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to see if his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with his bartender Ray (Ray Getz). Upon confirming his suspicions, he then asks Loren to kill them both. That's it. It's a 99 long minute movie and it really doesn't get too complex.

Pros - Frances McDormand is awesome as always, and the film does look like a neo noir style of film for the most part.

Cons - The pacing is awful. If feels slow even at 99 minutes, and there's this long kid of awkward scene with no dialogue whatsoever. Now I'm not saying no dialogue is bad, but one of the Coen Brothers strengths in later films is their great dialogue. As for the acting, the only other person who seems to not be phoning it in slightly is M. Emmet but everyone else seems like they took a zoloft. Also the story is kind of simplistic, but they try to shake it up a bit but it mostly doesn't work or it's kind of dull.

Final Score - 6/10

You shouldn't be having pacing problems at 99 minutes. Frances McDormand is the only reason this film doesn't get a 5, but I'm also not in a real hurry to watch it again any time soon.

I know this is a shorter review, but if you want to read more, why not check out some of my other articles on the side of the page. It's a shameless self promotion I know but I'm trying to get my view numbers up, so why not help out? Also, I plan on putting up a few more festival reviews, so keep an eye out for those.

Until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies.

Review Double Feature: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby:Them (2014) and Nightcrawler (2014) - My first film festival review

(As always, spoiler alert.)

The Atlantic Film Festival has begun. And man was the cinema packed yesterday, there were lines all over the place. Luckily I managed to get in there early enough to be able to see the two films I'm reviewing above. But before I get into that, I kind of have to explain one of them first.

Specifically, I want to talk about why the highlighted word in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby:Them is in the title. See, this film was originally made as two seperate films in 2013. Instead of Them at the end of the title, you could watch this film about a couple from either just his perspective (Him) or from her perspective (Her) and the titles would've been adjusted accordingly. Them was edited togehter using footage from both Him and Her and was only released this year, hence why I marked it 2014. I also want to mention that I haven't seen Him and Her, so I will reviewing Them based solely on it's own merits. If I do see Him and Her will it alter my thoughts on it? No, I'll think of them as seperate films about the same thing. Each film will work entirely on it's own merits. So that being said, let's get to the reviews.

Now, I will be reviewing Them first, then Nightcrawler. If you want to skip over Them, I'll mark a point where you can stop scrolling and start reading. And as always, summary, pros and cons, final score.

1. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby:Them

Summary - Our story begins when Eleanor Rigby (Jessica Chastain) seperates from her husband Connor Ludlow (James Mcavoy) after (remember what I said about spoilers) she throws herself off of a bridge because of a life changing incident. Afterwards, Eleanor finds herself wondering what do to with herself, while Connor tries to find how she's doing while also struggling to keep his restaurant afloat. That's all I'm going to say, it's a romantic drama of sorts it doesn't need much more of a plot summary than that.

Pros - James and Jessica are both really solid acting wise, although Jessica does most of the emotional weightlifting of the film to a surprisingly good effect. The film is also paced well, and manages to mix tearjerker moments and the occasional bit of comedy in as well. When you find out the catalyst for the film it'll definitely make you put everything happening into perspective. The film also looks fantastic as well, as there are plenty of great shots in the beginning where they almost run into each other.

Cons - Only one really. I honestly wish we could've seen more of James in the beginning of the film. Most of when we see him alone he's concerned about the restaurant, or he's looking for or asking about Eleanor. Although it does get better as the film goes along, I did find it a bit odd at first. He also barely talks about the catalyst, but I guess he's trying to be the rock of the situation. Also, at a little over two hours it feels a tiny bit long. So it's mostly minor nitpicking I know, but I still have to acknowledge them.

Final Score - 9/10

Had it not been for the minor issues, this would've been perfect. I hate to let a film go by 100% even if it's just minor nitpicks but to me there are movies out there that are flawless so it just misses getting a 10. But, if you love romantic dramas that heavily favor the drama or are a fan of tearjerkers, this one I can easily recommend.

NIGHTCRAWLER REVIEW BEGINS HERE

2. Nightcrawler

Plot Summary - Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a driven, sociopathic, thief, who one night comes across a bad accident on a highway and it's there that he's introduced to the work of Los Angeles freelance crime journalism or "Nightcrawling." Deciding to try and make it in the industry, he hires Rick (Riz Ahmed) as his assistant and heads out into the night. Along the way he starts selling his tapes to Nina (Rene Russo) a local station news director, while trying to outdo his competitor Chris Day (Bill Paxton.)

Pros - Jake is so fantastic in this, he not only steals the show, he's declaring himself king of the mountain. I can't describe his character perfectly, but he's clearly sociopathic and everything he says makes himself sound like one of those guys who goes around making really impressive sales pitches about really shitty jobs. He's smart, manipulative, driven, and he'll do whatever it takes to stay on top. The films plays out and  looks fantastic as well. And this might be my favorite part, the film is basically just another underdog rising to the top stories. Except they replaced the underdog with a sociopathic nutcase, and that changes the context of everything that happens drastically and it is awesome. I was looking around the theatre and I saw people on the edge of their seats. Even the minor characters for the small amount of time most of them had were amazing.

Cons - Cons? What Cons this movie is awesome.

Final Score - 10/10

Go see this movie. It comes out on Halloween, go see it. Seriously. This is a solid movie. And the only 10 for a new movie that I've given a review for (Had a done a review for it Guardians of the Galaxy would've been a 10 also.)

So there we go. A 9 and a 10. Man film festivals have some good stuff playing. In fact I'm seeing another film tonight, but that one is going to be a retro review. Of what? you'll have to wait.

Until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies.

Review: A Most Wanted Man (2014) - R.I.P Phillip Seymour Hoffman

(As always, possible spoilers ahead. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED)

Did you know that this past weekend was the slowest box office since the weekend after the 9/11 attacks? Why? Because nothing interesting is being released for weeks. So I've been trying to find stuff that hasn't been given as much attention. Just like when I went to see Swearnet, A Most Wanted Man falls under the category of movie I went to see because fuck it why not. It got good reviews in the limited release circuit and It'll be sadly one of the last time we'll get to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman do his thing. So always, summary, pros and cons, final score.

Plot Summary - Günther Bachmann (Hoffman) leads a german espionage team who try and develop intelligence from the local muslim community. When Chechnyan refugee Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) enters the country, Bachmann (Na na, na na, na na, na na, sorry couldn't resist) decides to track him, while also keeping an eye on Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi) a muslim philantropist who is believed to be funneling money to terrorists. He also has to deal with other agencies who want to do things their way, so he is forced to try and get his targets as soon as possible.

Pros - It's not a complex film. That is a compliment, because with Dramatic Thrillers, you run the risk of boring people with too much plot while also being slow. A good example would be the bourne movies. Sure I know the general idea of what's going on in the story, but could I tell you all the little details of who and why? Not really, but those movies were still good (and still are) because they had Matt Damon kicking ass so you didn't have to remember the little details. So keeping this films story simple is good, because then it can play out better and you don't have to worry about the audience missing important information. Oh, and the story is well acted (especially Hoffman), the story is solid (albeit a bit on the extreme dumb luck side for part of it) and the pacing is mostly good.

Cons - I know I used bourne as my example, this isn't a bourne film nor does it have to be. That being said, the film plays out pretty much exactly how you would expect it to. The agents are tracking a bad guy, some other department also wants the bad guy, they disagree on how to deal with him, hero decides to do it his way, etc. I stand by the simple plot being a good thing, but if you don't do something different to the formula then you're not really gonna wow people. The film does try to throw in what it thinks is a twist ending, and while I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't really surprised when it happened either. That kind of hurt the ending for me a bit.

Final Score - 7/10

Hoffman's great, the story is mostly solid, and it's predictable but not boring. I recommend you see it once, and maybe get the DVD if you're a hoffman fan. It's certainly a nice break from the nothingness of the past few weeks, and a good send off for Hoffman (Aside from what apparently might be a cgi made cameo in Mockingjay.)

In two days (at time of writing) it'll be the Atlantic Film Festival. I'll be sure to review a few movies from there, but until then, I'll see you folks at the movies (I wanna say siskel and ebert said that first.)

Netflix Movie Review: Stoker (2013)

(Potential spoilers as always)

So, right now it's a bit of a dead zone release wise. Oh sure there are a few limited releases every now and then, but nothing for wider audiences. So I figured I'd try something a little different and do a review of a movie I saw on Netflix. Now this is American Netflix, so it might not be available on the Canadian Version.

I decided the first one of these to review would be Stoker, the english language debut of South Korean director Park Chan-wook. I went with this one because Mr.Chan-wook actually wrote and directed my second favorite film of all time, Oldboy (The 2003 original, not the so-so Spike Lee remake, also available on Netflix.) We'll do the normal review, but for Netflix titles, I will not let the fact that is available if you already the service influnece my recommendation. I'll treat this as any other film you might have to watch in a theatre or buy on DVD. That said, let's begin.

Plot Summary

Our story begins on the 18th birthday of India (Mia Wasikowska) who, after finding his gift, learns of her fathers death. At the funeral, she spots a man watching from a distance, who arrives at the wake and reveals himself to be her Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode). He stays with India and her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman), to the discomfort of the head house keeper and others. This is where I stop because everything past this point would just ruin the rest of the film, and this is one of those rare times where I refuse to divulge even a little.

Pros - Mia and Matthew both turn in very good performances. Mia as the shy girl coming into her own, and Matthew as the stranger who you can't quite pinpoint what his intentions are. The look of the film is very good as well, making heavy use of muted colours, in what almost feels like a strangely gothic look of the world despite the fact there's not just huge amounts of the colour black all over.

Cons - It's supposed to be a psychological thriller, but I have to admit it that, at least for me, it didn't have too many tense moments. But then again, I don't think it was going for tension, it's supposed to make you think. It plays out more like an art film in the sense that you have to really watch it. Unlike an artfilm though it does at least fill in the blanks for you rather than it leaving it up to you. The only other complaint I have is I feel Nicole Kidman does an excellent job, but is under utilized a bit.

Final Verdict - 8/10

I have to admit, any movie that takes a psychological thriller type idea, and plays it out as an art film walks a really tight rope. This movie does pull it off, but I get a feeling a lot of people might not like it. It's one of those films that you sort of have to go back and piece it together, although the film does help with that mostly. I actually really like it, and if you think you can handle a sort of strange hybrid of a film, I can easily recommend it.

Don't expect a lot of these Netflix reviews, I mostly did this because I'm going through a bit of a blank spot movie watching wise due to upcoming stuff. But I will be doing reviews on films playing at the Atlantic Film Festival coming up soon. So between the 11th and the 18th expect some reviews of stuff not yet out on the mainstream circuit, I'm really looking forward to it.

So until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies. (Still sure I've heard someone else use that phrase before.)

Summer blockbuster season is over, how'd we do?

(As always, potential spoilers just in case.)

My favorite movie related website, is rotten tomatoes. They take every review and balance it out a final score out of 100 on their website. Every year, after summer blockbuster season, they list all the films (Wide release and select limited) released during that period in order of score. So I figure why not look it over and see how we did.

The list can be found here: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/summer-movie-scorecard-2014/

Now, first of, out of 53 movies on the list, only 23 of them have a score of 60% or over which the site considers a good film. That's about 43% good films. Now how does that compare to let's say, 2013?

2013 had 57 films released during the summer. 32 of them were 60% and over, which comes out to about 56%. So a thirteen percent drop in quality. 

However, both were better than 2012 (The year the Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, and Moonlight Kingdom came out) which had 17 films out of 44, which is about 39%

But 2012 had the lowest number of summer films, so what does that mean? In theory it would say that the good films were that much better. And looking at the list, the scores for the good films jump drastically, usually between 3 - 8% difference.

2013, the biggest percentage change from film to film (for the ones 60% and over) was 5%. Which basically means that the good films weren't too distinctive quality wise. Basically they were good movies, but on a scaled difference, they were of very similar quality. Now obviously you can tell the difference between a film at 60% and one at 90%, but what I'm saying is you would only notice the drastic differences more.

Now, 2014, also had the biggest percentage difference be only 5%, but then why are there fewer good movies over all?

Let's look at the films on the border of good and bad for 2014.

Good: Hercules 61%

Bad: The Purge: Anarchy 57%

A four percent difference. Now, what happens if we look at the next three worse films after that?

The Amazing Spiderman 2: 53%

Jersey Boys: 53%

Maleficent: 48%

Another 4% drop, then nothing, then a 5% drop. Interesting. So what this basically means is that the bad films, were more distinctively bad. Sure there are plenty of 1% differences, but the biggest percentage difference for the bad films was 8%. The same amount as the best films of 2012.

So what does all this tell us? Basically, the bad films of 2014 were really bad. If the good films of 2012 were good because they were distinctively good, then the bad films of 2014 were distinctively bad.

Three examples from lower on the list

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For: 45%

Tammy: 24%

Blended: 14%

But what about the good films?

We had a pretty good mix of good films for 2014. Big dramas, Comic Book Films, Science Fiction, Comedies, so much stuff. This was the year we got 22 jump street, Godzilla, Xmen days of future past, Boyhood, Guardians of the galaxy. Hell some of the films from this year might even make my personal top 10 (that's a list and a long internal debate for another day.)

For reference, the top three films and their scores according to rotten tomatoes

3. Guardians of The Galaxy: 92%

2. Snowpiercer: 95%

1. Boyhood: 99%

So as for the year over all? Sure the bad movies might be bad, even really bad. But the good films were just that much better. So even though i'd argue the summer sort of just trickled off, I say we did alright overall.

I'm not sure how the rest of the year will go (no really big releases for at least two to three weeks) so it's too early to judge the whole year. But if we were to judge the year by the summer alone, like I said, we did alright. So many of these films will be in my dvd collection when they come out.

So there we go, an alright summer. Sorry if this is a bit more nerd number crunching than usual, also I'm bad at math so most of this might be gibberish. But that's my thinking, we do okay.

So until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies. (I swear I've heard someone else say that.)

 

Review: Swearnet (2014) - The trailer park boys movie....without the trailer park boys.......sort of

(Potential spoiler warning, as always)

So, the next few weeks movie wise are looking, pretty blah. Hell even this weekend was pretty much pointless. It was either another crappy found footage horror film (I could write a thesauras about this genre) or a pierce brosnan spy thriller where he isn't James Bond. I only debated seeing it because I could make a pun about the name of the film and it's relevance to my birthday and that would've been the lamest reason ever for me to see a movie. 

So I decided to watch something off of the beaten path. I joined something called the first weekend club, a group that goes and watches the limited released Canadian films on opening weekend to try and improve their chances for a wider release. I get updates every once in a while when a new one is nearby. Since this was a slow weekend, I decided to watch one of the news one out this weekend. I chose, Swearnet, made by the same guys who made the trailer park boys.

Now, I currently live in Nova Scotia, where the show is based. I've even met some of the crew of certain seasons. They're basically considered a treasure and an industry around here. Swearnet and Don't Legalize were very heavily advertised here. I have no idea about the rest of the country, also, I've never actually watched trailer park boys. I don't really like television, so I went into Swearnet completely blind. Oh boy, where do I start?

Plot Summary - There's basically one plot and two subplots, but I couldn't tell you which one's which. The three guy play themselves though so that helps....I think. But for those of you who don't know their real names, I'll out their TPB names next to them at first.

All three of them are trying to move on from Trailer Park Boys, but when CNT (Canadian National Television) rejects their new ideas, Mike Smith (Bubbles) decides to make their own internet channel swearnet. And for the rest of the movie he films stuff to upload to the site, and there is a thing where he owns a loanshark money for financing the thing, but he basically does what we the audience do and mostly ignore him for 99% of the movie.

John Paul (Julian) is going to compete in a road rally with the ashes of his dad by his side, and Robb Wells (Ricky) has to deal with a psycho girlfriend. Honestly, these are barely worth going into, even though the race is the central event in this movie, again sort of.

And that's basically the thing with this movie, it's all over the place. Like it's never bad eough that it breaks your concentration but at the same time it just feels sort of......flat.

Pros - Honestly, I still have trouble figuring out whats really good about this movie. It was marketed as a comedy, but aside from a few laughs it wasn't over the top funny or anything. It did actually feel really heartfelt for John Paul's story, ad the three guys get along well. Hell I didn't even mind the swearing, supposedly they broke the record but I haven't checked that. I guess the best thing I can say about this movie is that it isn't awful. It also used a Queens of the Stone Age song in the credits which was awesome. Actually that might have been the best part.

Cons - The three story lines barely raise above average. The stakes feel really low. Also Tom Green and Carrot Top are very heavily present in the last half of the film. One of Tom's lines also has him trying to defend Freddy Got Fingered. I had only one finger to present to him when he said it. Also one of the songs they use in the movie was from the Ride to Hell video game. Swear to god. Also Robb Wells story ends when they shoe horn in a love interest practically out of nowhere. Like they barely talk to each other and then in the end they start dating. What the fuck?

Final Score - 4/10

I struggled with the score, even while writing this. But in the end, if your story has no stakes, fails as a comedy, and has Tom Green trying to defend his shitty career, I can't even call it average. It's meh, it's a thing that exists that I can barely recommend unless you like TPB. If it was flat out bad, it would've gotten a 2 or 3, but I can't give it a 5 in good conscience.

It's going to be a slow few weeks folks, expect DVD and Retro reviews for the next while. Unless I decide to go back and watch some of the releases I didn't catch.

Until next time, I'll see you folks at the movies.