2014 was an awesome year for film, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We had a surplus of good and great movies of all flavors. To not find good movies, you either have to have terrible taste, or else be in need of trying harder to find the great material. This is one year where there was such a spectrum of interesting, engaging films, that there's a lot of variance in people's year-end lists.
When I started compiling my list, I was initially struck by how few films I saw this year that I truly hated. There were a few disappointments, to be sure, but not many outright dogs. There were plenty of films I avoided, mostly out of a sense that it wasn't my thing. I circled back and caught a few of those movies on DVD and most of them we so forgettable it took a look at a list of this year's releases to remember I even watched them. So take a lesson from that - you can still see plenty of movies and not waste too much time and money on outright crap.
(I'm not doing a Worst of 2014 list, but I will say my least enjoyable experience in a theatre this year was SIN CITY: A DAME TO KILL for. As I'm sure there were worse movies in release this year, it feels really disingenuous to claim that as the worst movie anyone could have seen this year.)
I made it a point to see a lot of movies this year and as I started taking stock, I realized that my list of favorite and recommended movies could not be contained by a mere top 10. In all honesty, I probably could have gone into the 20s, but at a certain point, a best-of list can be so long as to be ridiculous. I ended up drawing the line at a Top 20 because in looking at the movies represented, you could probably pick any five of them at random and I wouldn't be embarrassed to have them called out as the five best of the year.
These are all ranked, but any such list is going to be comparing apples-to-oranges to some degree. I did my best to figure out where everything fell, but in the end, is there really that much difference between being 3rd and 4th? Or 14th and 15th?
I haven't seen everything, but I've reached the critical mass where I feel comfortable standing on these picks. My yet-to-be-viewed films include THE IMITATION GAME, UNBROKEN, AMERICAN SNIPER and INHERENT VICE. I'm also really bummed I didn't get out to see WILD this weekend, as all indications are it probably would have landed somewhere on this list.
Also, FAULTS probably would have snuck into the high-teens somewhere, but as it's not getting a wide release until March, I'm treating it like a 2015 film. (This is also how MILLUS is listed with this year and how COHERENCE would have been on this list had it not been eventually nudged out.)
Today we'll cover 11-20 and then the Top 10 tomorrow.
11. Rosewater - The story of how journalist Maziar Bahari was imprisoned by the Iranian government on suspicion of being a spy after appearing in a satirical segment of The Daily Show that covered the 2009 Iranian election. Comedian and The Daily Show host Jon Stewart weaves an emotional and thoughtful mediation on torture, coercion and freedom. We see how torture can break a man, and how it doesn't necessarily have to be physical beatings, but just prolonged isolation and deprivation of hope. When Bahari is able to take a small victory against his captors despite being powerless, it's one of this year's most uplifting moments.
12. Captain America: The Winter Soldier - I don't know how coherently this plays to viewers who haven't seen at least the first CAPTAIN AMERICA or THE AVENGERS, but at least unlike most Marvel productions, its connections to the other Marvel films is a virtue rather than the worst thing in the film. (Few things were saddder than THOR: THE DARK WORLD's persistent name-dropping of events in THE AVENGERS, as if desperately saying, "You liked that film, didn't you? We're part of that thing you like!") Part superhero-film, part spy-thriller, CAP 2 uses it's lead character as a black-and-white counterpoint to the shades-of-grey world we live in today, particularly with regard to surveillance and national security. Yes, some of the logistics of the Helicarrier plot are goofy, but the pacing, themes and character arcs make that less of an issue than it could have been. This is also the comic-book movie that proved you CAN juggle a lot of major characters in a comic book film that isn't an AVENGERS-like team movie. Nowhere is that more evident than in the use of Black Widow, made far more indispensable here than she was in IRON MAN 2. (Honestly, the film easily could have been called CAPTAIN AMERICA & BLACK WIDOW, and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is also probably put to his best use here too.) I still love the goofy charm of seeing all the heroes rub shoulders in THE AVENGERS, so that's probably still my favorite Marvel movie, but this is a VERY close second.
13. Kill the Messenger - Few things disappoint me more than the total shrug this based-on-a-true-story film was greeted with upon release. Five years from now, people will be asking, "Why didn't tell me Jeremy Renner was so good in KILL THE MESSENGER?" Renner plays a reporter named Gary Webb, who exposes the CIA's role in supplying Los Angeles gangs with cocaine in the '80s, the sales of which went to fund Contra rebels. Webb's moment of glory comes at the middle of the film, and our expectations about the noble profession of journalism are subverted as the second half details a brutal smear campaign that wrongly destroys Webb's credibility, career and marriage.
14. Edge of Tomorrow - I still don't think the ending totally tracks, but that's about my only problem with this Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt vehicle that finds Cruise trapped in a GROUNDHOG DAY-like timeloop in the middle of an alien invasion. It's both smarter and funnier about time travel than the marketing indicated and Cruise again proves why he's one of the last TRUE movie stars. Dare we hope that Blunt's against-type performance here as a total badass signals a future for her as a major action star?
15. John Wick - JOHN WICK shows that just because an idea is old, doesn't mean it's dead. Break it down to its barest essence and it sounds like one of those script's you'd pass by for fear of it being generic: "A retired hitman is drawn back into the trade on a crusade of vengeance. Brutality ensues." The brilliance of the film is the way that first-time director Chad Stahelski moderates the tempo. For every intense, non-stop action sequence where Keanu Reeves takes out a small army of goons, there's a moment where the film takes stock of the stakes and allows characters to react to the fallout of the action orgy. There's actual emotional engagement here, and it's another case of a director using Keanu's occasional blankness to good effect.
16. 22 Jump Street - At this point, I need to stop being amazed when writer/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller totally stick the landing on something that seemed destined to disappoint. This sequel sends Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum undercover in college (where they are admonished "just do the same thing as before.") The script milks the meta-humor exactly long enough to keep from wearing it out and even manages to freshen up old bits like "sleeping with the boss's daughter." Ice Cube thankfully has more to do in this one (give this man his own vehicle!) Honestly, the rest of the movie could have been mediocre and the ending credits gag would still make this a must-see, as we're taken on a tour of about a dozen future sequels for the franchise.
17. The Theory of Everything - While I still have some script issues with this one, you can't deny that both Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne give amazing performances as Jane Hawking and Dr. Stephen Hawking. Redmayne especially, as he's forced to spend must of the film bent into a misshapen position, immobile and limited in every possible way that one could communicate emotion. That barrier presented Anthony McCarten with an unusual challenge when the time came to write one of the film's most emotional moments, the break-up between Dr. Hawking and his long-supportive wife. Though it feels like other moments bend over backwards to make both of them squeaky-clean in the separation, that moment is powerful, raw and honest.
18. The Fault in Our Stars - If this had a fall release date, would we be hearing Oscar buzz for Shailene Woodley? She gives an expectedly-moving performance as a teen fighting cancer who finds love with another cancer survivor. I've never read the John Green book which is adapted here by THE SPECTACULAR NOW's Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, but the film hits the right emotional beats by really understanding its teen characters. Neustadter & Weber really understand how to craft real people whose emotions can drive a scene, without having to rely on plot to provide all the urgency and heavy-lifting. That's got to be tricky when dealing with source material that is able to get inside both characters heads, something impossible to truly pull off in a visual medium. It definitely says something about their writing that fans of the novels generally come away satisfied with the screen translations. I once briefly met Neustadter and he jokingly suggested I give (500) DAYS OF SUMMER another chance. I'm thinking I might actually have to do a "second opinion" post about that sometime in 2015.
19. Neighbors - We need more of these. An original comedy idea with a premise that seems low-concept, but excels thanks to strong character. A married couple with a baby moves in next to a frat house and clashes with the college kids. The smart move is that the frat boys are allowed to be real people, likeable people, and not one-dimensional stereotypes. The couple - played by Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne - also are fleshed out more than you'd expect rather than just getting stuck playing dofusses mad at those damn kids. Expecially refreshing is the fact that Byrne's character is a total participant alongside Rogan rather than being relgated to a "nagging wife role." (The film even has a meta joke about that.) I'll always cheer for a film that doesn't fall back on the most dumbed-down execution.
20. Millius - Would you enjoy the experience of sitting down with a number of titans of filmmaking as they all share tall tales of a larger-than-life peer? Then rush off to Netflix and look up the documentary MILIUS in their streaming category. The real-life Bill Brasky in question is John Milius, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Apocalypse Now. He's also the writer-director of Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn. It would be a crime to spoil many of the great stories offered in this documentary. Though many tales paint him as a force of nature, there's also little doubt that few have a way with the pen as he does. When a producer needs someone to write "bigger speeches" to convince Sean Connery to sign onto a film, Milius's name alone sways the actor's opinion. When Milius is on his game, the pages seem to flow out of him like water over Niagara Falls. And when the writer falls on hard times, you feel the weight of that tragedy.
Come back tomorrow for the Top 10!
Showing posts with label The Theory of Everything. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Theory of Everything. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2015
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Strong performances are a fact in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING is a film that at first blush appears to be a biopic of the brilliant Dr. Stephen Hawking, but soon reveals itself as being more of an examination of the relationship between Hawking and his first wife, Jane. Rather than centering on the scientific breakthroughs that Dr. Hawking was responsible for, this is much more of a story about how Hawking's deteorating physical mobility altered the relationship between he and his wife, making Jane into as much, if not more, of a caregiver than a lover.
The film spans some 25 years of Hawking's life, starting with his pre-disease life as a student at Cambridge. It's there that he meets Jane, and the somewhat awkward Hawking manages to charm her with his wit. Before the relationship can get two serious, Hawking is diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative disease that will eventually rob him of his own mobility and even the ability to speak. His doctor gives him two years to live, which shatters Hawking so much that he pushes Jane away out of a desire to spare her.
The strong-willed Jane won't hear of it, and is determined to be by his side as long as he lives. While Hawking deteriorates, he and Jane marry and have two children. Hawking, who had already been recognized as brilliant by his instructors, continues his work. He proves that the universe had been birthed from a singularity, an astounding breakthrough. The script works to make Hawking's theories as accessible as possible to the layperson, and in one sly bit of writing, calls upon Jane to essentially translate Stephen's work for the audience. That scene is an exercise in both explaining rather abstract concepts to a general audience, but also in working in Jane's personality as she delivers what could have been dull exposition.
Felicity Jones imbues Jane with a great deal of strength and stubbornness, even as leaps forward to later years expose fault lines in the relationship. She and Eddie Redmayne as Hawking have strong chemistry, and I like the subtle exhaustion and sadness we start to see in Jane as she buckles under the weight of caring for Stephen herself. It's really hard to not get blown off the screen when placed opposite a performance like Redmayne's but Jones refuses to slip into the background.
Redmayne's performance is a remarkable bit of acting. One might quip that his job is easy because he just has to sit immobile in a chair for a good two-thirds of the film. To reduce the performance to that would be to show a profound misunderstanding of just how difficult it must be for Redmayne to be as immobile as he is. It's not just that Hawking can't move, it's that his body is contorted due to the specific muscles that are contorted and relaxed. Redmayne spends much of the film bending his body in awkward positions and then having to hold it as if he has no motor function at all.
That's not even adding in the challenge that this film wasn't shot in sequence. I saw the movie at a SAG screening that Redmayne and Jones attended, and during a Q&A it was revealed that some days, Redmayne found himself playing Hawking at as many as three distinct stages in his degeneration. Charting those nuances and making sure they add up to a cohesive performance is not easy. Doing all of that, and emoting while most of the actor's toolbox has been stripped away is pretty much setting the acting degree-of-difficulty about as high as possible.
A late scene in the script (kind of a big spoiler, so be warned) is one of those moments that every writer should aspire to pull off. Stephen is preparing for a trip to America. By now he's speaking via a computer voice box. We see him watching Jane pack things in the next room, and then we notice he's typed something to say, something he has held off from sending to the voicebox.
He's going to have his nurse accompany him to America, he says. The timing of how he executes that mechanical voice is wrought with subtext. He doesn't have to say it, Jane knows what this means. In so many words, he's declared that he's leaving her. And as I describe this, I realize I cannot possibly convey the depth of emotion that these two actors bring to this moment. One can only speak through a flat electronic voice and the other somehow has to generate emotion aside that inhuman affect. The words they exchange are simple, the electricity of that moment is not.
There are ways to reveal character without big speeches. Characters can reveal emotions without big showy performances and acting histrionics. The actors bring the weight to that moment through the history they've built with those characters. You might call the moment understated, but it's also a release of everything that has been building for some time. At some point, perhaps around the Oscars, we should give this scene a thorough examination, line by line. Absorb this moment, and you'll never again over-write.
This wasn't a totally flawless film for me. I felt that the movie could have been better at delineating some of the leaps forward in time. Though the movie spans 25 years, Jones and Redmayne aren't aged too aggressively in makeup for most of it.
I also felt that the script seemed to bend over backwards to keep both Jane and Stephen relatively "clean" in their post-marital affairs. Jonathan, the man who would become Jane's second husband, was long a friend of the family before the marriage ended. From the moment he's introduced, he and Jane are played as people who definitely want to hop into bed together. They have great chemistry, but in playing that up so fast and then soon having Jane deny any romantic feelings for him, it feels like the film is protesting too much.
It's understandable that Jane and Jonathan would develop a close connection while caring for Stephen, but something felt false about the way the film tries to claim they are "just friends" until it was acceptable for Jane to move on with him. The film is less charitable towards Stephen's nurse Elaine and later second wife. From the moment she shows up for a therapy session with Dr. Hawking, Elaine looks like she can't wait to jump his bones. It's almost as if she was directed to play it like a gold-digger. As I said, there's something about it that felt false and white-washed. Perhaps this is the way that Hawking and Jane prefer to remember it.
Other nitpicky notes include my surprise we get no real explanation for how Hawking has outlived his two-year prognosis by about five decades. I'm curious what scientific reasons might be responsible for this. Also, though Hawking's fame and work are a small piece of this story, it might have been useful to better explain when and how he became so famous to the world at large. There's a point relatively early in his disease where his mentor notes Stephen is world-famous. Stephen retorts that's "For black holes, not rock concerts." As this is before his book A Brief History of Time, I was left to wonder how his work made him so famous rather than just making his theories famous.
Script quibbles aside, this really is worth seeing for the incredible performances of the leads. And when the script works, it REALLY works. I don't know if I'll be motivated to revisit this any time soon, but there's at least one scene that had me hoping I could one day write something as good.
The film spans some 25 years of Hawking's life, starting with his pre-disease life as a student at Cambridge. It's there that he meets Jane, and the somewhat awkward Hawking manages to charm her with his wit. Before the relationship can get two serious, Hawking is diagnosed with ALS, a degenerative disease that will eventually rob him of his own mobility and even the ability to speak. His doctor gives him two years to live, which shatters Hawking so much that he pushes Jane away out of a desire to spare her.
The strong-willed Jane won't hear of it, and is determined to be by his side as long as he lives. While Hawking deteriorates, he and Jane marry and have two children. Hawking, who had already been recognized as brilliant by his instructors, continues his work. He proves that the universe had been birthed from a singularity, an astounding breakthrough. The script works to make Hawking's theories as accessible as possible to the layperson, and in one sly bit of writing, calls upon Jane to essentially translate Stephen's work for the audience. That scene is an exercise in both explaining rather abstract concepts to a general audience, but also in working in Jane's personality as she delivers what could have been dull exposition.
Felicity Jones imbues Jane with a great deal of strength and stubbornness, even as leaps forward to later years expose fault lines in the relationship. She and Eddie Redmayne as Hawking have strong chemistry, and I like the subtle exhaustion and sadness we start to see in Jane as she buckles under the weight of caring for Stephen herself. It's really hard to not get blown off the screen when placed opposite a performance like Redmayne's but Jones refuses to slip into the background.
Redmayne's performance is a remarkable bit of acting. One might quip that his job is easy because he just has to sit immobile in a chair for a good two-thirds of the film. To reduce the performance to that would be to show a profound misunderstanding of just how difficult it must be for Redmayne to be as immobile as he is. It's not just that Hawking can't move, it's that his body is contorted due to the specific muscles that are contorted and relaxed. Redmayne spends much of the film bending his body in awkward positions and then having to hold it as if he has no motor function at all.
That's not even adding in the challenge that this film wasn't shot in sequence. I saw the movie at a SAG screening that Redmayne and Jones attended, and during a Q&A it was revealed that some days, Redmayne found himself playing Hawking at as many as three distinct stages in his degeneration. Charting those nuances and making sure they add up to a cohesive performance is not easy. Doing all of that, and emoting while most of the actor's toolbox has been stripped away is pretty much setting the acting degree-of-difficulty about as high as possible.
A late scene in the script (kind of a big spoiler, so be warned) is one of those moments that every writer should aspire to pull off. Stephen is preparing for a trip to America. By now he's speaking via a computer voice box. We see him watching Jane pack things in the next room, and then we notice he's typed something to say, something he has held off from sending to the voicebox.
He's going to have his nurse accompany him to America, he says. The timing of how he executes that mechanical voice is wrought with subtext. He doesn't have to say it, Jane knows what this means. In so many words, he's declared that he's leaving her. And as I describe this, I realize I cannot possibly convey the depth of emotion that these two actors bring to this moment. One can only speak through a flat electronic voice and the other somehow has to generate emotion aside that inhuman affect. The words they exchange are simple, the electricity of that moment is not.
There are ways to reveal character without big speeches. Characters can reveal emotions without big showy performances and acting histrionics. The actors bring the weight to that moment through the history they've built with those characters. You might call the moment understated, but it's also a release of everything that has been building for some time. At some point, perhaps around the Oscars, we should give this scene a thorough examination, line by line. Absorb this moment, and you'll never again over-write.
This wasn't a totally flawless film for me. I felt that the movie could have been better at delineating some of the leaps forward in time. Though the movie spans 25 years, Jones and Redmayne aren't aged too aggressively in makeup for most of it.
I also felt that the script seemed to bend over backwards to keep both Jane and Stephen relatively "clean" in their post-marital affairs. Jonathan, the man who would become Jane's second husband, was long a friend of the family before the marriage ended. From the moment he's introduced, he and Jane are played as people who definitely want to hop into bed together. They have great chemistry, but in playing that up so fast and then soon having Jane deny any romantic feelings for him, it feels like the film is protesting too much.
It's understandable that Jane and Jonathan would develop a close connection while caring for Stephen, but something felt false about the way the film tries to claim they are "just friends" until it was acceptable for Jane to move on with him. The film is less charitable towards Stephen's nurse Elaine and later second wife. From the moment she shows up for a therapy session with Dr. Hawking, Elaine looks like she can't wait to jump his bones. It's almost as if she was directed to play it like a gold-digger. As I said, there's something about it that felt false and white-washed. Perhaps this is the way that Hawking and Jane prefer to remember it.
Other nitpicky notes include my surprise we get no real explanation for how Hawking has outlived his two-year prognosis by about five decades. I'm curious what scientific reasons might be responsible for this. Also, though Hawking's fame and work are a small piece of this story, it might have been useful to better explain when and how he became so famous to the world at large. There's a point relatively early in his disease where his mentor notes Stephen is world-famous. Stephen retorts that's "For black holes, not rock concerts." As this is before his book A Brief History of Time, I was left to wonder how his work made him so famous rather than just making his theories famous.
Script quibbles aside, this really is worth seeing for the incredible performances of the leads. And when the script works, it REALLY works. I don't know if I'll be motivated to revisit this any time soon, but there's at least one scene that had me hoping I could one day write something as good.
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