Change Your Image
1-0
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Indie Game: The Movie (2012)
Young white males stress out about making video games
It's not that I can't imagine how making new video games for major platforms would be stressful, but what seems life-threatening and intensely personal to the subjects of this documentary can often come off as a bit myopic/borderline-narcissistic. Ultimately, this movie illustrates not so much the sometimes-heroic, often frustrating creative process (and life in general), but good old-fashioned growing pains.
And that's just it. Essentially, these guys are still kids; they obsess about reviews, social media interaction, their futures in an industry they've only begun to participate in. I can understand that. But I could also tell they hadn't yet seen the other side -- that we can fail utterly, and yet come back in one piece to do something even better.
Still, there are certainly moments I rooted for the developers (except for that dude from Braid -- never complain publicly that people don't appreciate your work for the same reasons you do, *sheesh* NAGL). In particular, the bearded guy from Super Meat Boy comes off as humble, quirky, genuinely happy and surprised that people liked his game. Even the Fez developer, who at the beginning seemed practically a poster- boy for First World Problems, learns a lesson about life and perspective by the end. And maybe that's how best to enjoy this movie: as a snapshot of super-creative, ambitious young people dealing with adult problems, while wielding the emotional skill-sets of adolescence.
Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)
ground rule double instead of a grand slam
Fun movie. To believe director Richard Linklater's "spiritual sequel" to DAZED & CONFUSED, you'd think going to college was a free ticket to girls, beer and nightly all-niters. And hey, it kind of is, right? Except for the classes. And the awkwardness. Or social failings of any kind. I guess those wouldn't have made for such an entertaining movie though.
All of that is to say that while EVERYBODY WANTS SOME is fun, it isn't exactly true to life, even while offering an authentic look at 1980- era young adulthood. The characters are a baseball team, conveniently rooming in their own pair of off-campus quasi-frat houses: there's the wide-eyed freshman pitcher, the upperclassmen who love hazing and boozing almost as much as they love balls and strikes, the misfit 30-year old stoner (remember, this is Linklater we're talking about), the p-whipped hick.... you get the picture-- it's essentially an Animal House-style ensemble cast where the audience never gets a chance to tire of any one character in particular. Further, because the writing avoids clichés for the most part, each character gets a few good punchlines, and chances to endear himself to the viewer.
And I emphasize HIM-self. Despite the fact that I heard girls chuckling at jokes in the theater, this movie is basically about boys, in college, age 18-22. Lots of scenes about various kinds of male bonding. Others about various forms of competition and/or one- up-man-ship. I wouldn't go so far as to say the movie is sexist, but it's certainly biased towards a male perspective.
All of that said, the characters are like-able. The apparent protagonist, a young pitcher by the name of Jake (All-American looking Blake Jenner), arrives a few days before classes at a Texas university to meet his teammates and new (well-stocked) abode. He's a nice kid with lots of talent, a great smile, and a way with girls. Just like all his teammates. Throughout the film, he scores at the disco, entrances young lasses at the C&W bar, slam dances at the punk show, and just generally aces life. He even wins the heart of a young drama student (played by Zoey Deutch) the day before classes start. Talk about an overachiever!
His teammates run the gamut from witty/charming (Finnegan, in an effortlessly funny performance by Glen Powell) to jockish (Tyler Hoechlin's McReynolds -- a great baseball name to be sure) to a mixture the two. The weirdest character is probably Jay (Juston Street), an over-compensating, aggro pitcher who constantly brags about his fastball and major-league talent. Still, the team members work well and play off each other, and again Linklater demonstrates his ability to assemble a great cast of mostly unknown actors who not only gel, but come off as fun, likable dudes.
The problem is this: there's no real story. Some stuff happens -- mostly fun stuff, to be sure, but I could probably sum up the plot of the movie by saying young, attractive athletes score chicks in a variety of situations pretty easily. Entertaining enough, maybe (especially if you're a hot dude), but compared to DAZED & CONFUSED (or this movie's *real* spiritual partner ANIMAL HOUSE), it comes off a bit one-dimensional. The boys go from one party to the next, making out well pretty much every time -- I kept waiting for the conflict, the consequence, the B part to all the A parts, but it never happened.
In truth, the movie felt like one, long first act. I could almost see this as part of some massive cycle where the next installment would be a 90-minute come-down: bad 2nd dates, hangovers, failed classes, losing seasons. Call me cynical, but even college kids have bad days.
Or course, I might be expecting too much. This movie takes place in 1980 (and rightly, retains a lot of the 70s in its look/feel), so if you judge its story and characters by the kinds of flicks college kids flocked to back then -- PORKY'S, REVENGE OF THE NERDS, ANIMAL HOUSE -- it comes off as intelligently written with good performances. But even NERDS had conflict. Hell, one of bros at ANIMAL HOUSE partied harder *and* bedded the mayor's wife.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this movie. I might even be into a sequel, if it promised a little more character depth, and a story arc that actually, er, arc'd. EVERYBODY WANTS SOME is a good time, and not much more. From a different director that might be enough, but from Linklater, it feels like a ground-rule double instead of a grand slam.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Great film for misanthropes
Barry Lyndon, 18th Century gadabout, is an idiot. Like the Count Bullingdon says in the movie, he's a "common opportunist", and it's kind of amazing he succeeded as well as he did. Barry gave little to the world— only took. He lied when convenient, and abandoned when the going got tough. Even when he might have righted his course and made something of himself, Barry ducked out to chase more exciting (though less legitimate) prospects. As I get older, it becomes impossible to sympathize with the character, and yet the film about him seems no less great, no less significant.
Stanley Kubrick's directorial follow-up to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (after a failed attempt to make a feature based on Napoleon) offers little of the visceral excitement of the previous movie, and even less of the cosmic significance of the one before that (1968's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), but is nevertheless one of the legendary director's great films. BARRY LYNDON is based on an 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, charting the development (and eventual demise) of a young upstart originally known as Redmond Barry— from his humble beginnings as a dim-witted Irish country boy, to his misadventures in English high society. How Barry gets from one place to the other is the plot of the movie, and as much as I cringe at the character's various life decisions, Kubrick's pacing (and gorgeous period imagery) keeps me glued into this movie throughout its generous duration.
Since the movie is so well made, it's easier to forgive the fact that the title character is basically a scourge to society. Ryan O'Neal's Barry is a mildly charming parasite, offering no real concession to endearment to the audience (or his fictional peers), other than a vague, naive charisma, and occasional personal victories along the way to ruin. I don't feel particularly bad spoiling that Barry's end is a tragic one, because Kubrick's arc for the movie is almost precisely 50% rise and 50% fall, which means a brutal, extended descent for viewers. Maybe you have to be a misanthrope to really love this movie, or maybe it's just fun to watch people fail so spectacularly. Either way, the film succeeds in spite of its downwardly spiraling story.
Big wins for this movie include: - Good acting. O'Neal has sometimes been criticized for his performance (including suspect Irish accent), but in my view, he plays Barry very well, right down to the s**t-eating, vacant charm. Hardy Kruger (as the Prussian Captain Potsdorf) is also great, and in the scenes between his character and O'Neal's, comes off as both very intelligent, and equally open to ambiguous corruption. Very Kubrick, really, and the entire cast serves its purpose to a tee. - Great cinematography. Famously, Kubrick used only lighting that would have been possible in the late 18th Century, which means candle-lit shots and gorgeous, widescreen landscapes of England and Ireland. - Great period score, including pieces by Handel, Vivaldi and traditional Irish folk music played by the Chieftans. Handel's "Sarabande" in particular features so heavily in the film as to seem a supporting character
Things about BARRY LYNDON that *might* make it hard to love: - Not only is O'Neal's Barry not smart or particularly interesting, he's also not well-liked. Most of the movie finds him succeeding through sheer dumb luck or opportunism, while his observers notice and (justifiably) resent his fate. Barry's not even a good underdog, because he gets MANY chances to right his way, but manages to screw them all up. - It's a long movie, 3 Hours, 4 minutes. And it's a slow one too, though that could be considered one of its strengths, if you consider how close to "period" Kubrick tried to make this movie. Still, as a viewer, you need to be in this for the long haul if you want to extract its charms.
All of that said, I've loved BARRY LYNDON from the first time I saw it. Of course, I'm a Kubrick fan, and his senses of pacing and sly, black humor are all over the film. His movies (discounting anything starring Kirk Douglas) don't typically offer heroic protagonists, and this one's no different. The magic is in the exquisitely dark story, and of course, the beauty of the visuals and music. I rank this movie behind only 2001 and PATHS OF GLORY in Kubrick's canon, and recommend it whole-heartedly to neophyte Kubrick fans, or anyone into great black comedy.
Boyhood (2014)
Maybe you had to be there
Richard Linklater (Dazed & Confused, Before Sunset) directed this. I actually like him -- or at least I think I do. I LOVED Dazed & Confused. I've re-watched it so many times, those characters are basically friends of mine at this point. D&C was nostalgic for an age I didn't actually experience much, but it resonated with me instantly. I didn't even necessarily like all of the characters, but I "knew" them.
However, I can't really say I love any other Linklater movies. Or even like a lot of them. He's a strange director. His style of movie is generally a quasi-real time, warts-and-all, slice of life; a funny/awkward look at creative class Whites-- they're young (or young at heart), though all seem to be experiencing mid-life crises. On paper, it actually sounds pretty terrible, but when it works, as in D&C, it's unique, uplifting and empathetic.
Linklater's latest, Boyhood, is about a kid called Mason, covering moments of his life from age 5-18. His sister (played by Linklater's own daughter) is featured as well, but not quite to Mason's degree -- hence the title. And it was a good movie. However, for such an ambitious concept, in the hands of a director who's shown he can wring a good story out of mundane details, I don't think I really cared about the characters for most of it.
The idea of filming someone over such a long stretch is pretty cool in theory (though years of people doing this on their own via Youtube or Facebook selfies has perhaps stolen some of Linklater's conceptual thunder). I was interested to see how Mason changed, both physically and personally, but again, the concept was probably more interesting than the result. Mason, however well might get to know him in the film, turns out to have most of the issues you'd think a smart, shy, creative kid would. And he gets through them (predictably) awkwardly.
For me, the most interesting character in the movie was actually Mason's dad, played by Ethan Hawke. He's a reckless, "edgy" musician who wears (and drives) black. Sounds cliché, right? But Hawke's character changes over the course of the film, eventually becoming a vaguely grizzled, but wise middle-aged guy. Despite never really amounting to much in his own life, he sees the error of his ways, and is happy to pass on any "wisdom" he thinks might help Mason.
Likewise, Mason's mom (Patricia Arquette) was a good, strong character -- struggling as single mom with two kids, going back to college, and working to upgrade her family's life. She eventually has some bad luck with subsequent husbands, but it's easy to root for her.
Mason himself, played by Ellar Coltrane, seems like a curious, perceptive boy. He's shy, but not so much that he won't go biking with friends as a child, or camping with bros in high school. He likes photography, and girls seem to like him more than he realizes. And that's pretty much it-- which brings me to the only real issue I have with Boyhood. The movie never hooks me with Mason's life beyond the narrative of the movie, or to become curious about what might happen next. Without spoiling the ending, I'll say that although it hit the right note in the theater, I feel as if I might have been able to predict it had someone asked me 10 minutes before it happened. Or not -- but it didn't feel any more less significant than other events in the movie.
In fact, I might just predict what happens next, should Linklater keep the story going, and continue filming Mason into college, marriage, midlife crises, second marriage, etc. Perhaps Mason follows his parent's footsteps into relative stability. Or, maybe he develops a drug problem after moving to Portland when he drops out of college. Boyhood is a relatively engaging slice of life alright, but not much else.
As a side note, Coltrane reminded me of D&C's Wiley Wiggins, both in his character's traits and various life events. Wiggins' Mitch Kramer was a wide-eyed kid who got swept up by life, friends, girls, and somehow lucked into a pretty epic night through no effort of his own (but to be willing to go along for the ride). Coltrane's Mason didn't have such a breakneck adventure, but he did generally seem to come out okay, both with girls and life. Unfortunately, neither actor is terribly "expressive", and for me, Linklater's track record for leading men is questionable.
Of course, if Linklater is merely telling the story of one boy's life, I won't feel obligated to make any value judgment at all. However, if I'm supposed to be taking something away from these characters, it would probably be along the lines of "life is hard, make the most of it, we all make mistakes, you never know what'll be". That's good, I guess. It also sounds like something your, er, dad would impart, in a particularly embarrassing fit of earnestness.
Ultimately, perhaps "life" can only ever be intermittently interesting. Boyhood is likable, poignantly funny, and surprisingly justified in its 3-hour length. And like life, no matter how fascinating, frustrating, exhilarating or crushing, is also sometimes forgettable. It just happens. Linklater's captured magic before, and Boyhood is hardly a bad movie, but...maybe you had to be there.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Fast, loud and morally ambiguous: the Scorcese way
Entertaining, fast-paced, funny and morally ambiguous -- in a lot of ways, very typical Scorcese, and as usual, it's tough to dislike despite generally despicable characters. When I first heard about this movie, I was surprised the director had chosen to take on the story, because Wall Street greed seems like one of the easiest things to hate these days, full of real-life "despicable characters" and shady behavior. That this movie was based on truth is almost beside the point: nobody likes guys like Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort. In fact, most people hate guys like this.
Of course, Jordan Belfort is a real person, and the larger-than-life escapades of drugs, hookers, big money stock trading, and (many) more drugs make for easy eye candy in Scorsese's hands. He's done it before -- Wolf of Wall Street resembles nothing so much as the director's 1990 masterpiece Goodfellas, from the charismatic protagonist who worked his way up from nothing to obtaining huge power, the backdrop of glorified crime, the FBI investigations, the gluttonous vices, to the faithful wife who finally has enough, and the soundtrack full of classic rock, blues and punk. Some of these things are tried and true Scorcese hallmarks, while others do admittedly feel a bit retreaded.
There are two main differences between Wolf and Goodfellas: the first is that despite a breakneck pace (featuring more varieties of coke snorting and pill-popping than I actually knew existed), the film is too long. There is a lot of good (and truly funny) dialogue in the movie, but a couple of scenes simply seem to go on too long, slowing the movie down without adding much depth to the story. Wolf is three hours long, and had it been edited into a Goodfellas-esque two hours or so, it might have stood along side the earlier film as kind of a sub-masterpiece in a genre that Scorcese pretty much owns.
The other difference is that unlike Henry Hill, you never get the feeling that Jordan Belfort learned any real lesson. He eventually loses everything: his wife, his house, his company, money and friends (one of which is the monstrously and comically greedy Donnie Azoff, played by Jonah Hill) -- and at the end, though taken down a peg as far as monetary success is concerned, doesn't seem particularly emotionally different than when he started. He's a gifted (albeit slimy and terminally selfish) salesperson, and that's probably all he could ever be.
All this said, Wolf is very entertaining. There are lots of funny moments, and plenty more scenes that make your pulse race, if only out of suspense of when someone's going to have a heart attack from doing so many drugs. It does arguably glorify the lifestyle of these traders, but at the same time, it's hard to come out of it thinking you'd ever want to be a part of that world. Scorcese, perhaps better than any filmmaker in history, again demonstrates how success/failure and good/evil are nothing more than sides of a coin, and one's reaction to Jordan Belfort and the other wolves on Wall Street could very well be down to where one stands at the end of the trading day.
Heaven's Gate (1980)
style over substance
Style over substance. So much work must have gone into this, but to serve not much of a story, and even less "meaning". I think the movie would have gone over much better had it been made 5-10 years earlier, when the Wild West had the kind of romantic appeal that made hippies and post-beatniks pine for days they never saw. It's extremely well-shot, presenting a sepia-toned, almost impressionistic view of late 19th Century Western American life full of horses, trains, whiskey and cockfights in likely a more flattering light than they deserve. Still, this movie is a) too reliant on pretty imagery and Americana nostalgia, and b) too long. Cut to a reasonable length (say 100 minutes, 46% of its original run-time), it still wouldn't be a great movie, but would at least be a fun, classy guilty pleasure.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Slightly disappointing
I think given my love of the story, and great respect for Peter Jackson, some amount of disappointment was to be expected. Perhaps I was expecting too much, and since there was so much plot and character development in the book, whatever movie Jackson produced was going to have a difficult time fleshing out all the elements.
That said, I did enjoy the movie. It's getting great reviews, but I wonder how folks who never read the book could follow everything. My biggest complaint is that it seemed to move so quickly through lots of details that would seem to be important when establishing the "epic" nature of the story. Of course, it may be that the plot carries itself, and that you don't necessarily need to know all the back history and whatnot to enjoy the film, but who knows.
In any case, I'm still a Peter Jackson fan and hope the next two installments can bring out more of his genius, as well as building on the rich detail of the story.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Frustrating and honest
This intense, often frustrating film details the pain, jealousy, and rationalizations of marriage. This is not to say that it won't appeal to single people, but the movie will most likely resonate most powerfully with anyone who has been in the middle of a marital crisis, or even divorced.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (of course, a real-life married couple) play a couple, flirtatious with strangers, casually flexing their independence, all the while clinging to their marital bond rather for granted. It's not until a marijuana-induced confession by Kidman's character of a sexual fantasy that the couple's crisis is unveiled, and Cruise's character takes to the streets of NYC looking for answers or relief (by way of any number of sexual situations).
Neither character is given the saint treatment, and the ugly truth that marriage neither means undying devotion or even a promise not to think of sex with another is revealed.
In the end, the characters come to grips with their actions, and attempt coming to grips with each other. I suppose it's an optimistic ending, wherein they agree to stick with each other for as long as they can, and Kubrick has definitely never been so "domestic" on film.
Of course, the film looks beautiful, and the music can be really effective at setting the mood. The film is not an overly creepy movie, and I doubt many people are going to be tearing down theaters about the sex. Truth be told, most people, unless drawn to Kubrick's technical mastery, will have little need to see the film more than once. It offers a powerful message of the strengths, pains, and trials of marriage -- how you see the movie will depend on your point of view.