Out in Theaters: THE IMITATION GAME

December 24, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Allen Leech, Charles Dance, Keira Knightley, Mark Strong, Matthew Goode, Morten Tyldum, Out in Theaters, Reviews, The Imitation Game

At the onset of The Imitation Game, Alan Turing asks if we’re paying attention, not dissimilar from Hugh Jackman in Christopher Nolan‘s The Prestige.The Prestige played its B-movie twisty route with a kind of goofy, self-aware panache, knowingly stringing you along for a series of loony forks in the road. David Bowie played Nikola Tesla. We rightly paid attention. By point of comparison, The Imitation Game is dreadfully forthright. Almost unaware that the subtext that we’re supposed to be looking out for is already right there on the surface. There’s no code to track to understand the meaning of the film, it’s just all there. Plain and simple. And boring. That’s not to say the result isn’t an admittedly lovingly made historical piece destined for awards buzz. The thing has Oscar noms tramp stamped all over it. And yet with all its attention paid to the effect of the film, there’s no hiding the fact that it’s a contrived work of old-fashion non-fiction, one without much depth of intention. Believe me, there’s no need to pay close attention.

Benedict Cumberbatch again steps into the shoes of a man cripplingly bad at being normal (a la Sherlock and his turn as Julian Asange in The Fifth Estate.) He’s an unintentional misanthrope, a nerdy megalomaniac, a puzzle genius sans a lick of understanding for social graces. Back under the whip of imitating an existing figure, Cumberbatch offers his all but it’s a SSDD situation at best. We’ve seen the best of Cumbie struggling with crippling genius in the wingtip shoes of Sherlock. There’s simply no need to return to the well again, and again, and again. Seriously, this guy’s more typecast than Arnold.

Tasked with cracking the uncrackable German Enigma code, Turing must race against the clock (as American lives are lost by the second) all while withstanding political pressure from all sides. Add to that his secret homosexuality and you have a character who should be indefinitely rich in layers but winds up seemingly as complex as a Boston Creme Pie.

Morten Tyldum‘s old-fashion biopic finds an entry point into Turing by expounding upon three turning points in his life: his childhood, his secretive wartime activities and a post-war investigation into his private life. The three periods poke holes in a seemingly steely character but it’s most often only the meaty middle bits that are genuinely compelling. Young Al (Alex Lawther) develops a did-they-or-didn’t-they FWB situation with classmate Christopher and though the lil’ Lawther handles the material aptly, there’s nothing in those segments to propel the narrative forward without a dollop of clunky platitudes. The scenes exist to highlight the challenge of Turing’s latent gayness and suss out what makes him such an isolated being but it’s a hokey tactic that wrestles in even hokier speeches. “You know,” Christopher says to Alan, “it’s the people no one imagines anything of who do things that no one can imagine.” Thanks for the advice Lionel Logue.

Similar feel-good hokum can be found splattered throughout the bulk of Graham Moore’s tidy script, revealing The Imitation Game for the covetous awards hog it truly is. WWII? Check. Unsung but crucial historical figure? Check. Demons in closet? Check. “Wrap it up fellas, the Oscar’s in the bag.” Even the unwieldy CGI seems like an inside joke.

The idea of Keira Knightley as a era-smashing woman code-breaker threatens to upend the carefully formatted Oscar tedium but when she’s relegated to hiding her intelligence in the shadows, her character turns mostly moot. Knightley’s brainy Joan Clarke is certainly no Joan of Clarke, allowing the predominant belief that women can’t be nothing but seamstresses and baby-makers to shape her destiny. While Turing stuffs his unlawful preference in the closet (homosexuality was illegal in England until 1967) Clarke is his similarly secretive counterpart, solving puzzles by candlelight because the idea of a codebreaker with a vagina is just too much for those old snooty white guys to handle. Plus, cooties.

There’s an intriguing by-product to Clarke and Turing’s unorthodox union in which they both recognize and accept each other for who they are (Turing being gay and Clarke being…a smart woman?) but it’s mostly shadowed in an offscreen haze, only truly rearing its head for a late-stage Oscar moment scene. Clarke mostly becomes a fulcrum point around which Turing’s character evolves but is never substantial in herself, much like upper-decker officers Mark Strong and Charles Dance and inside team members Matthew Goode and Allen Leech. The pieces are all there but they’re as shaped and wooden as pawns, which Moore’s script plays them as.

In 1952, Alan Turing was convicted of gross indecency due to the investigation that bookends the film. In trying to prove that Turing was a spy, the local law reveled a romantic relationship with a 19-year-old boy. In a moment of Oscar glory, a discredited Turing admits he’s chosen to take “straight” pills rather than a prison sentence. Tears are had and I was reminded that this was the first time in the film that I actually felt much. For a film that tries to tackle so much within such a limited spectrum, The Imitation Game is as dated about its politics as it is about its filmmaking. Where it should have been brave, bold and pioneering, it’s clunky, squeamish and ultimately forgettable.

C

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Out in Theaters: FOXCATCHER

December 19, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Bennett Miller, Channing Tatum, Foxcatcher, Mark Ruffalo, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Steve Carell

On the most recent season of American Horror Story (Freak Show) there’s a depraved foil by the name of Dandy Mott, a highfaluting, affluent shut-in with a penchant for inflicting violence on those his physical inferior. His tailored suits and slickly oiled part stand in stark contrast to the tattered, deformed calvary of freaks that make up the namesake of the season, but beneath the perfumed facade of opulence and manicured sophistication is a reeking air of base barbarism. His is a most brutish proclivity nurtured utmost by an uninhibited sense of entitlement. In possessing all, nothing has value. Not even human life. With great money comes great power… and little responsibility. As King Joffrey infamously teased, “Everyone is mine to torment.”

Since the most recent economic collapse and subsequent Occupy movement, those in the upper echelon, the “one-percenters”, have become a sort of nationally derided myth. They jet around the world in lavish abandon, attending lush fundraisers, imbibing impossibly priced champagne and banging it out with gaggles of Eastern European models. Maybe slashing the throats of homeless vagabonds every once in a while for good measure. They’ve become caricatures, long teeth and all; braggarts removed from reality; personified wallets who can’t fold into the ebb and flow of middle-class normality. In this folklore view of the uber-wealthy, Patrick Batemans are hiding everywhere. If ever there was a symbol for the recklessly moneyed lifestyle of the criminally wealthy, it’s John du Pont. He’s pretty much the Batman of being a douchey trust-fund baby.

Watching interviews with Du Pont, it becomes immediately clear how out of his depth he is in just about any situation. From charities to coaching, he fumbles his way through his affairs unconvincingly. Writing checks his brain can’t cash. Like a special needs kid quoting Rudy. It’s almost heartbreaking how bad this guy is at being human. Droning on about discipline, responsibility, ornithology, or philately, there’s something to the way he speaks (so soft, so mindless) that makes you want to tune out. That demands it. His patterns of speech may be polished but they’re oh so hollow, like a Kenny G record. He’s basically a walking, talking Ambien with stubby teeth and a quality for malfeasance. There’s no question that were he not quite literally made of money, no one in their right mind would give this loon the time of day.

Foxcatcher follows the true story of du Pont and his relationship with Olympic gold medalists Mark and Dave Schlutz. After winning the top prize for wrestling at the 1984 summer games, Mark (Channing Tatum) still exists in the shadow of older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) until mysterious millionaire John du Pont invites Mark to take part in a training initiate known as “Foxcatcher”. While training at du Pont’s world class facility for the upcoming Worlds championship, Mark and Du Pont strike up an odd relationship that doesn’t fit neatly into a coach-pupil/father-son/boss-employee box. At times, their connection is that of an upsetting bromance. It’s odd but in a very specific, unclassifiable way. Picture an out-of-shape bag of man “pinning” down an Olympic athlete – who rightfully can’t mask his disdain for this lesser act of ego-masturbation – and you’ll get a general sense of their relationship. The whipping boy and the mutt seems as close as I can get.

If you didn’t live through the ’80s (or watch the trailer) you might not know how this story ends and I’m not going to spoil it for you here. We’ll just say that things get a little messy. In a first-degree kind of way. But it’s a quietly devastating tale, more than worth the journey.

As Du Pont, Steve Carrell is a frightfully vacuous vessel of self-righteous delusion. So he’s Michael Scott without the punchlines. (That’s what she said!) He’s the kind of guy who pats himself on the back and won’t stop until you join in on the patting. A pasty, flat-faced, shark-nosed, long-gummed mama’s boy with drug-fueled paranoid fantasies, he’s a misanthrope at an arm’s length from reality. Director Bennett Miller approaches his character with similar distance.

We’re never privy to the anecdotal insanity of Du Pont’s most colorful acting outs- the sociopathic multimillionaire reportedly drove around his property in a tank, paid off wrestlers to search his attic for ghosts, and “used dynamite to blow up a den of fox cubs” – rather our time spent with Du Pont is as vacuous as Carrell’s many thousand yard stares. It’s hollow by intention.

But this isn’t a movie interested in condemning a man for blowing up a den full of perhaps the most objectively cute critters in the world (though my heart whimpers at the thought of this heinous act), this is a film about a mental disease: affluenza. To call into question the legitimacy of said “disease” is part and parcel of the intrigue of Miller’s slow-moving character study. Miller invites us to form our own opinion on du Pont’s guilt, he avoids taking a definitive stance on the matter. Rather, we’re left to our own devices to piece together whether this man is really a monster. Or really even a man at all.

Du Pont’s numbered relationships and bipolar posturing clue us into a kind of deep-seated mental trauma and gives us a lick of sympathy for the character but it’s the same sympathy we feel towards Artificial Intelligence – like when you yell at Siri for misunderstanding the name of your favorite Mexican restaurant. He’s a character without character; a shell of a being that feeds on praise and trophies like sustenance.

Perhaps it’s the absence of any perceivable inner monologue that makes him such a distressing piece of work. Carrell plays him like a half-lobotized goof with cobwebs and dust bunnies kicking around his noggin with a physical stature to match. Not only is he a tabula rasa of talent, he demands praise for his talentlessness. A scene where du Pont “wins” a wrestling match for the elderly shows he’ll pay off competitors to lose and still do a victory dance in the end zone. There’s something severely twisted about that notion.

And while Du Pont may have traded in his tailored four-piece for a custom gold-and-powder-blue track suit, there’s still a kind of self-dignified manner to the way he slumps himself. The way he demands the love and respect of his wrestling team is that of a neglected boy torturing his stuffed animals. In his mind, he’s Atlas, balancing the future of the world on his checkbook. For Du Pont, it’s praise or die.

With a measured dose of restraint, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher offers ample insight into a complexly noncomplex character, staging an acting showdown for Steve Carrell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum (the former two should and will earn Oscar nominations.) It’s withdrawn and quiet – Rob Simonsen‘s melancholy score is a spider, trapping us in Miller’s sobering web; absent more often than naught – the kind of Oscar bait that clearly registers as such but is still ultimately devastating. Dandy Mott might be a parody of this type of affluent sociopath but there’s something much more terrifying to du Pont’s long silences and labored breathing, especially when it holds up against archival footage of the man himself.

Some people collect stamps. Others Beanie Babies. John du Pont wanted to collect talent. He wanted to bunch it all up in his verdant Pennsylvania farm and own it for good. The result is the quietly explosive Foxcatcher; a somber rough-and-tumble look at moneyed mannerisms; the banality of clean white tennis shoes. And if it doesn’t leave you shaken and stirred, you might just already be a Bond martini.

B+

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Out in Theaters: ANNIE

December 16, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Annie, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Jay Z, Will Gluck, Zachary Woodlee

There are three elements to Annie that sum up the 2014 remake: producer Jay Z, Glee choreographer Zachary Woodlee and Cameron Diaz‘s gum-smacking pie-hole. It’s a melting pot of bad taste that assumes putting a black girl in the titular ginger role is all it needs to account for its yucky existence. With music that’s bubblegum poppy even by Disney standards – all auto-tuned and ironed out to mimic the electro-caw of Billboard toppers – eruptions into song-and-dance that make no sense in the context of director Will Gluck‘s (Friends With Benefits) telling of the tale – sometimes other characters are cognizant of the songsplosions and they aid in propelling the narrative forward, other times the numbers are existential blobs of magical realism – and Cameron Diaz misunderstanding the difference between campy and straight up obtuse, Annie is a poorly intentioned money grab, pivoting away from family values and towards an indefensible thesis that dollar signs equal happiness.

The once adorable Quvenzhané Wallis of Beasts of the Southern Wild has sprouted into a proportionally adorable 11-year old and she’s the least to blame for the failure that is Annie. She’s not “good” in the role but she’s cute enough to make us go “Awww.” This being 2014 though, the concept of lil’ orphan Annie has gone out the window, replaced by a more contemporary and PC notion of lil’ foster kid Annie. Because orphanages are so 1982. But all the shady conditions of Ms. Hannigan’s orphanage carry over to Ms. Hannigan’s foster home – borderline child slavery, condescension more evil than snarky, a bevy of lil orphans dreaming of the day their parents will return. But with Gluck’s clumsy hand, these grim circumstances come wrapped up in pretty bows. There’s no authenticity here, only bold-faced mockery.

As Hannigan, Diaz spits her lines like a drunk on the subway, missing the mark of subtle commentary by a country mile. She is awful. Jamie Foxx, playing a twist on Daddy Warbucks, is Will Stacks, a cell phone mogul (and is inexplicably (secretly) bald)) intent on blanketing the city in cell phone towers. He’s even got one in the Statue of Liberty. Huzzah! For an update as seemingly significant as this, there’s no underlying purpose to his career or commentary about the fact that a business man has literally planted his product inside the physical representation of freedom. How is something like that brought up and just tabled?! I digress but for a reason; this misstep provides an ample example of just how clueless the film ultimately is. In the end, Stack”s driving force is boiled down to a desire that no calls will ever be dropped. He shares his motivation with the Verizon Wireless test man.

Foxx isn’t bad so much as tired-looking, like he’d rather be somewhere else, and his musical numbers – though aggressively affected and disparate stylistically (he’s straight soul baby) – provide a significant step-up from tuneless compatriots Diaz and Bobby Cannavale (who isn’t otherwise bad in the role.) Rose Byrne amps up her effortless charm even if she’s saddled with one of the most aggressively WTF dance serving of the film (arms swingin’, fingers snappin’) though her character struggles with a (never explained) crippling bout of friendlessness that’s hinted towards perhaps being schizophrenia (her only friends were imaginary…)

There’s more plot holes as big as the sun (Spoiler: why would Annie’s orphan friends help audition fake parents for her? Seriously, why?! Are they just the worst friends ever? Also, how the f*ck can she not read?! How is she texting her friends then? And why is Foxx bald? WHY?!) and an overt smugness to Gluck’s proceedings. It’s a sliced bread family film with blinders on, entirely lacking in the purpose department and that’s largely because Gluck’s is one big game of assumption – assuming existing fondness for the character will allow this redressing to gloss over a floppy script, assuming that a pop-update to all the songs is necessarily a good, or even welcome, thing, assuming that we won’t notice how much this stinks of white people trying to write black people (the honky jive is just embarrassing.) It’s false, it’s lifeless and it’s unnecessary.

D

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Out in Theaters: THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES

December 14, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Ian Holms, Ian McKellan, Luke Evans, Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Out in Theaters, Peter Jackson, Reviews, Richard Armitage, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

For all the huffing and puffing we’ve done over Peter Jackson‘s Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is one big juicy payoff. For story look elsewhere, as Jackson’s latest is a smorgasbord of VFX battle scenes, one right after the other for practically the entire running time. Those not looking for elf-on-dwarf-on-man-on-orc action ought to look elsewhere as this is literally the foundation, the studs and the dry wall of this movie. Those thinking that sounds pretty, pretty good, rejoice, as this third Hobbit installment is Jackson’s most bombastic to date. Somehow it’s also his most restrained and the tightest of the series as well; it’s shorter and battle-ier than any LOTR-related installment and only has one ending. Color me satisfied.

Picking up in the midst of the Smaug v. Laketown populace face-off that Desolation of Smaug capped off on, The Battle of the Five Armies wastes little time dispensing with the namesake of the second film. From the get-go, this is a narrative charged with finality and doesn’t purport to drag its feet getting there. In past Hobbit installments, Jackson has made brevity his enemy and this opening pre-title card sequence makes fast work of ejecting old habits while setting the stage for that golden payday at the end of the tunnel. Call it a marketing strategy if you must but I believe Jackson’s claim that this third entry is his favorite of the prequel trilogy. You can finally taste his passion again.

In the smoldering ashes of a battle equally won and lost, Bard the Bowman (Luke Evans) is now a certifiable hero while Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), atop an insurmountable pile of loot, battles a monkey on his back that’s poisoning him against his fellow Dwarf companions and the increasingly faithful Bilbo (Martin Freeman). Dragon’s gold is said to hold that kind of sway and within this internal battle Armitage is afforded the opportunity to flesh out the themes of paranoia and addiction that have been bubbling to the surface in these Lord of the Rings prequels. Studying the not-so-subtle nuance of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s source material and his very specific in-book relationship to the idea of addiction, it’s clear that there’s no short pathway to redemption in Tolkein’s Middle Earth. For all his struggles, Gollum is never redeemed. Boromir ends up a pincushion for his once ring-craving. And Frodo and Bilbo ultimately end up shipped off to Elf rehab because they can never escape the sway of the ring. Ownership always ends in bloodshed and torment.

Jonesing over a stupid amount of wealth, Oakenshield’s internal battles get a touch hokey (the golden whirlwind of bad choice) but it’s his character’s pig-headedness and his fellow race’s predilection towards greed that becomes the fulcrum point of this five armies affairs. Everyone’s got their own legitimate or illegitimate claim to the fallen Smaug’s treasury and even in light of advancing enemies forces, struggle to band together to defeat a far greater foe. It’s thematic even if it does hit the nail on the head.

But what am I on about? Jackson’s sixth never pretends to be anything more than smashing time at the Hulk convention. There’s enough f*cking battle to make Hitler jealous (guy was a big fan of CGI.) An intercut twofer of big baddie fights pretty much occupies the entire third act. Turns out Orlando Bloom engaged in more gravity-defying elf-crobatics matches up with Armitage playing CrossFit with Azog the Sword-Armed like peanut butter and chocolate. For once in this series, I wasn’t just waiting for it to end. I was engrossed.

In chaos, Jackson excels. He makes big spectacle set pieces look grand beyond belief. From Smaug’s beautifully-rendered firebreather to copious stretches of advancing Orcs, The Battle of Five Armies is earmarked by a preeminent sense of technical mastership. The large-scale cacophony of peoples is a marvel to behold. Though 48 FPS (rightfully) went the way of the Balrog, I can imagine that this action-hectic film would have been breathtaking under the cowl of those next-gen glasses.

Rather than bake everything in a long string of fanfare, Jackson manages to tie things up rather quickly once the armies and their battles subside. Thank goodness. I don’t think the franchise could withstand a Return of the King triple decker ending.

From the humble (boring) beginnings of An Unexpected Journey to the foot-dragging musings of Desolation of Smaug, Jackson and Co. have depended upon a sense of nostalgia for the far superior Lord of the Rings to propel events forward in this cousin trilogy. Old characters have lent their personages and many, many moments of foreshadowing have splayed themselves like a cheap whores (“They call him Strider but you’ll have to figure out his real name for yourself”) but while Five Armies hits on more of the same notes – more steely-eyed, bratty-boy Legolas, more “remember him?” Ian Holms, more Gandalf scraping his pipe and packing a bowl – it does so with a dreadful amount of fun.

B-

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Out in Theaters: TOP FIVE

December 10, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Adam Sandler, Cedric the Entertainer, Chris Rock, J.B. Smoove, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Romany Malco, Rosario Dawson, Top Five, Tracy Morgan, Whoopie Goldberg

Of Top Five, comedian all-star Chris Rock notes that he wanted to make a movie that felt like his stand up routine. Rather than divvy up the goods – this joke for the movies, this one for a live show – as he had done in the past, Rock melts all the goods down, like an aging alchemist performing a do-or-die swan song. He stirs a fair share of heavy drama amongst the renown comedic fare, throwing flashbacks to hitting rock bottom amongst games of jump rope, providing narration to stories that end in semen-stained bedsheets and rectal tampons while illustrating a battle with a wicked case of the alchies.

Back in 2003, Rock released his directorial debut Head of State – in which an inner-city politician (Rock) becomes president, pre-Obama era – to middling reviews. The bombastic, leather-jacketed motherf*cker from the stage had turned his style on its head, offering watery gags over ripe satire in a politically doltish comedy that stank of his Grown Ups‘ compatriots fare. 2007 wasn’t much kinder to his directorial work as I Think I Love My Wife was met with even less enthusiasm. It seemed the world had given up on Chris Rock the actor.

Since then, Rock has been seen lending his visage to the vacation-bait Grown Ups “franchise”, borrowing out his voice for Marty the Lion in the popular-with-kids Madagascar series and offering an unexpectedly potent dramatic turn in Julie Delpy‘s adroit 2 Days in New York. His return to the director’s chair could not have seemed less warranted and yet could not have been more inspired. With Top Five, he’s finally hit his groove.

Debuting at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Rock’s latest inspired a bidding war for the distributions right for his film, raising eyebrows across the nation as to just what Rock the director, the writer and the actor had in store.

The anticipation was warranted as Top Five arrives a bombastically hilarious, meaningfully introspective assault on the funny bone. Rock plays a shade of himself; a quasi-washed-up comedic actor famed as the title role in the critically flattened Hammy the Bear buddy cop films. Alfie Allen (Rock) has more recently turned his eye to dramatic roles, starring in a serious – and seriously awful – Haitian revolutionary film he keeps referring to as “the Haitian Django.” With a televised Bravo wedding on the uptick and a make-or-break interview with a noted NYT reporter, played by a half-shaved Rosario Dawson, Allen’s losing it.

Featuring a Who’s-Who of comedy cameos (Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin Hart, Tracy Morgan, Whoopie Goldberg, Adam Sandler, J.B. Smoove, Romany Malco, Cedric the Entertainer), Rock’s struggle is one of finding his voice. In the comedy cellars where he earned his bread and butter and became a fast rising star, he feels lost. As parallel, Rock hasn’t done a comedy special in half a decade. We’re well beyond the shouting, Chris is bearing his soul.

For a three-time Emmy winner who’s performed more sold out shows than The Beatles, Rock bears emotional welts – the scars of easy money; the busted ego of a sell-out. Here, he’s repenting for his comedic sins. Here, he proves he’s worth sticking around with.

As news of the Sony inner circle and their utter distain for Adam Sandler films makes the unfortunate internet rounds, there couldn’t be a better time for Chris Rock to split off and reassert himself as the proud, angry, shrewd, tender comedian that he can be. Top Five is a must – for Rock’s career and comedy fans both.

B

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Out in Theaters: EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS

December 10, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Aaron Paul, Ben Kingsley, Ben Mendelsohn, Christian Bale, Exodus: Gods and Kings, John Turturro, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Ridley Scott, Signourney Weaver

If there’s one thing Ridley Scott‘s Exodus: Gods and Kings gets right it’s the amount of hairstyles Christian Bale can rock in one movie. I stopped counting after about the eight iteration of mangy hair/trim beard to mangy beard/trim hair transformation. Eventually some gray enters the mix. It’s very life affirming.

That ever changing facial hairiness belongs to Moses, the badass war commander from the Bible. See you may mistakenly remember Moses as a peace loving, water-parting, commandment-carrying lover of all things Hebrew but Scott’s film reminds us of his true roots: slicin’ and dicin’ Barbarian hordes. Because what is a Ridley Scott movie without scene of “civilized” warriors running down rudimentary inferiors? In 3D, it’s all the more punishing.

Moses starts the film as a Prince of Egypt, a devout servant to the Egyptian throne and underling to the one and only Jesus (John Turturro with drawn on eyebrows). Moses is the cousin to hairless heir Rhamses, an antagonist with a serious case of the Charlie Browns and an even worse case of miscasting. Moses advices Rhamses in matters of … uh… untold things? and tries to quell his overly developed Commodus qualities by being sword twinsies. Plucked right from Gladiator, Jesus (ok fine, Turturro’s real name is Seti) tells Moses he wishes that it could be him who takes the reins after his demise, but alas! that vexing bloodline thing! After a fraudulent Ben Mendelsohn ousts Moses as a Hebrew with a birthright (that being a birthright to drown in a river like all those other pesky Hebrew babies), Rhamses throws a hissy and gives Moses the boot from his kingdom of pyramids and cat statues. Plagues follow.

For what feels like forty days and forty nights, the film is as much of a slog as its title implies. The diaspora of narrative is as thinned out as Moses’ herd of hungry hungry Hebrews. No stone is left unturned as the screenplay by committee (four credited screenwriters) make room for just about every uninteresting element in Moses’ 120 year long life. See Moses struggle with leaving his (Muslim?) family, Moses trekking there and back again and then back again and then back again, Moses’ teach his flock to rise and rise again until lambs turn to lions and, finally, Moses waiting horrified in the wings as God unleashes a lashing of super gnarly pandemics.

Squatting somewhere on a fence between super-naturalism and realism, Exodus never can make up its mind about how pragmatic it wants its divinity to be. The whole celestial curse comes with a footnote of “How the Plagues Could Have Actually Happened” (narrated by the film’s best Ewen Bremmer lookalike) that mostly involves alligator fights and acne. As things heat into a realm of “don’t mention it” magical realism, a deathly hallow of blackness consumes the lives of first borns a big fat dementor. When Scott gets around to revealing God as a neatly shaved, petulant child with an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, things get laughable.

Bale, as always, is up to the task, even if the film itself is not. He gives his all to Moses. Both the battle-worn soldier and the identity-confused harbinger of commandments are juicy with Bale’s overzealous commitment to character. The rest of the performances are disposable at best. Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul, who FEELS NO PAIN!!!!) peeks around corners and catch Moses in the act of talking to God (aka talking to a bush like a madman) not once, not twice but a heaving four times.

Ben Kingsley shows up because it’s a movie about Egypt so Ben Kingsley has to show up. Signourney Weaver is stuffed inside some horrendous Egyptian dress to spout out some vitriol about something or other and then never reappear. But it’s Edgerton who suffers most under the weight of Rhamses’ stupidly whitewashed part. The character is dumb enough before draping itself in pale yellow anacondas.

To watch Exodus is to endure exodus. At 150 mins, it’s easily one of the most taxing films of the year and surely one of its least inspired blockbusters. Darren Aronofsky struggled to find his footing in Noah and misstepped more than once, but at least there was some kind of palpable driving force behind that film. Here, it’s a challenge to make heads or tails of the intent. It seems like a $140 million dollar tax write off starring Christian Bale’s hair-growing abilities.

D+

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Out in Theaters: FOXCATCHER (2)

November 27, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Channing Tatum, Foxcatcher, Mark Ruffalo, Out in Theaters, Reviews, Steve Carell

Some people collect stamps. Others Beanie Babies. John du Pont wanted to collect talent. He wanted to bunch it all up in his verdant Pennsylvania farm and own it for good. The result is the quietly explosive Foxcatcher. a somber rough-and-tumble look at moneyed mannerisms; the banality of clean white tennis shoes. And if it doesn’t leave you shaken and stirred, you might just already be a Bond martini.

B+

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Out in Theaters: HORRIBLE BOSSES 2

November 24, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Charlie Day, Chris Pine, Christoph Waltz, Horrible Bosses 2, Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Out in Theaters, Reviews

A comedy sequel that slam-dunks over its predecessor, Horrible Bosses 2 is a sardonic, infantile laugh riot. Joke for joke, it’s more meaty than the 2011 original. The characters are churned up and the window dressings turned down. This has one and only one purpose: to make you laugh.

After decidedly not killing their bosses, Nick, Kurt and Dale have since gone into business for themselves, inventing a product known as the “Shower Buddy.” Their sudsy SkyMall idea lands them a spot on the nightly news (an appearance they accidentally botch with silhouetted sexual references) but not before production baron Bert Hanson (Christoph Waltz) notices opportunity.

After ordering thousands of units of the American made all-in-one shower companion, Hanson pulls the plug on NickKurtDale.com (don’t try to say it fast) assuming the company will collapse and he can buy their already manufactured goods for pennies on the dollar. Considering their background in amateur crime, the sloppy trio decide to take matters into their own hands and respond with a kidnapping scheme to bargain Hanson’s son Rex (Chris Pine) to cover their lost capital. Hilarity ensues.

Reviewing comedy is a fickle game and one given over largely to subjectivity but for me, the comedy here really works, improving on a formula that looked better on paper than it actually was the first time around. Horrible Bosses 2 delivers on that promise of unabashed retardation. The first film was a half rack of ribs, occasionally tasty but built on chalky bones, while this is pure brisket; a tenderer cut that trims the fat and leaves just the jokes. The dead air has been filled with sweat, nicknames, non-sequitor and flagrant exaggeration. The archetypes are racketed up well past the point of normalcy and from Kevin Spacey‘s left ear diamond earring to Jamie Foxx‘s Motherfucker Jones penchant for chewing on slurpee straws to Charlie Day‘s perma-coked out mania, the energy of the group is solidified in a sense of juvenile glee nothing short of infectious.

The main triptych were happy-go-lucky, fairly straight-laced dudes with a little bit of quirk but now their idiosyrnacies have been turned up to cable-network extreme. Jason Bateman is even more of a cowardly, self-righteous asshole. Jason Sudeikis drips numbness while pumping out a stream of off-putting sexual energy. Charlie Day is more, well, Charlie Dayish; his nervous energy and sweaty antics broadcast in all its kooky crack-baby glory. It’s the noisy, chaotic, dummy humor of It’s Always Sunny; the calculated misanthropy of dumb dudes doing dumb deeds.

Yes, Jennifer Aniston and her carnal explicitness busted my gut. Pine proved (yet again) that maybe comedy is what he was made for. And Day, Bateman and Sudeikis are all right on the money. It was a solution of funny people doing funny things and it had me laughing the whole way through. That’s not to say that what worked for me will necessarily work for you though. In fact, many will likely be put off by Horrible Bosses 2‘s short-order comedy. For me though, it’s one of the best studio comedies of the year; a hearty step up from their first outing and a nearly laugh a minute affair. Bring on number three.

B

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Out in Theaters: THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY – PART 1

November 21, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Out in Theaters Tagged Donald Sutherland, Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

From stadiums to tedium, the third entry in Lions Gate‘s multi-billion dollar franchise is decidedly half a story. Following up on what I like to call “Harry Potter Precedent”, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 takes us through the first half of Suzanne Collins‘ 390 page young adult dystopian fiction without ever getting to the fanfare of an actual conclusion. As point of comparison, “The Hunger Games” was 374 pages and “Catching Fire” was 391. So it’s no stretch to say that the material has been, er, stretched. However in that money-hustlin’ act of distention, something more singular and nuanced has taken shape. Mockingjay: Part 1 – though lax on events – rises up as easily the most thematically rich of the franchise, offering up characters actually worth exploring and a thoughtful meditation into the psychology of revolution. Those wanting explosions will undoubtedly be left cold as this quiet trek to the end is much more focused on emotional implosions.

Disbanded after the catastrophic conclusion of the Third Quarter Quell, Katniss is separated from Peeta and now takes refuge in the bombed out remains of District 13. While costumery, training and pageantry made up the bulk of the former chapters in Katniss’ previous stories, Mockingjay immediately unfurls a laundry list of political intrigue. Do not be mistaken, this is no longer a story about head-to-head combat, it’s one about sneaks in the shadows and stabs in the dark. As Peeta and Katniss drift further apart, a new rebel army must convince the population of Panem to band together and overthrow the tyranny of the Capitol and the serpentine President Snow. It’s an entirely new direction for the franchise, one unmistakably slower and more deliberate, that makes the absolute most of its substantially limited material.

The Hunger Games‘ central themes were rooted in power relationships, social class standing and public perception. Catching Fire‘s foot was placed firmly in the door of manipulation, loyalty and PDA. Mockingjay however is all about sacrifice; the sacrifice of life, self and artifice.

In a couple of visually powerful scenes, hordes of rebels bum-rush the Capitol Peacekeepers; men of violence in starched whites; faceless monkeys in sterilized jumpsuits popping off precise machine gun bursts like Call of Duty junkies. They are the Israeli tech to the Palestinian rocks. These troglodyte abandoning their lives in pursuit of the greater good, this is what the movie is about. If you need to put a face to the name of sacrifice, these be them. This proletariat working class rising against the elite bourgeoisie harkens back to Marxist theory and director Francis Lawrence knows it. And exploits it. He puffs Mockingjay‘s thematic elements into visually arresting kamikazes of epic scope. It makes for some potent scene work, conjuring up a science-fiction take on the French Revolution’s insurmountable odds and the death toll that accompanies such. It’s not quite peacocking but the man clearly knows what he is doing.

To a slightly more diminutive degree, Katniss too must sacrifice. But her loss is more emotional; more of a personal transformation (sans multiple fire-themed costume changes.) Her sense of self must be muted (though I’m not entirely convinced that she ever did have a very pronounced sense of self). At the behest of President Coin (Julianne Moore) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) she must rise into an unwanted leadership position, at the risk of putting those she loves in increasingly tight spots. It becomes clear by this point that Katniss is but a kid. A pawn. A pretty face to rally around. It’s both demeaning and complimentary. Buck up kid.

Her arc in this third chapter is about stepping into a role you don’t want; about being an emblem for something larger than yourself. Unlike Batman, she is the symbol that Panem needs and the one it wants. She pouts at first, and poorly acts her way through a to-be televised revolution campaign, but when the chips fall, she’s as game as the film’s namesake.

Another character – who from the get-go has hierarchically placed maintaining a sense of self above all else – bargains with losing his identity under untold torment. As Peeta, Josh Hutcherson is finally able to communicate something more than puppy dog devotion and his physical and emotional transformation is fittingly jarring. Pity the same can’t be said for pretty boy Liam Hemsworth.

In this whirlwind of sacrifice, even Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) must deal with the stylistic hell of a drab jumpsuit. In Maslovian terms, some sacrifices are greater than others but all sacrifices take their toll. To go without fuchsia eyeliner may be as taxing to Effie as an enthusiastic throttling may be to Katniss. We all must take our punches and roll appropriately.

Though I found much to appreciate within the thematic elements of Mockingjay – Part 1, I cannot deny that this first act is total foreplay. But it’s sweet, sexy foreplay. The kind of foreplay that seeks to remind you that sometimes the teasing is more gratifying than the climax. Sure, the next installment promises death and destruction and whiskers on kittens but there’s something sweetly satisfying about silent implosions in the eye of the storm.

Perhaps because Mockingjay – Part 1 marks the first time I’ve felt invested in Katniss’s many relationships, the performances shine more than ever. Jennifer Lawrence‘s Katniss is rounded out by attributes other than “hardened”, “resilient” and “badass.” Here she’s very much out of control – the antithesis of what the glorious icon the rebellion wants to present her as. For the first time, it feels like she actually gets to, you know, act.

A somber tribute to Phillip Seymour Hoffman denotes the end of the film and – not that it’s much of a surprise – his performance here is truly noteworthy. It won’t be remembered amongst his greatest but it’s a sweet, family-friendly reminder of what we’ve lost with his passing. Hoffman was able to communicate so much with so little; the sarcastic roll of an eye or a flick of the head that says, “Told you so” mean so much when rolled off Hoffman’s full shoulders.

As tensions mount in seat-hugging waves, a late-stage scene has President Snow transform into a full blown Star Fox villain. A bloated talking head grinning and cackling like a caricature, his white mane is that of a political tiger; his flesh-eating smile as poisonous as nightlock. It seems like the first time Donald Sutherland is actually chewing into the role.

But this is not a fun movie. Nor is it really geared towards kids. In the third outing of Hunger Games, you’re more likely to find subtext than battle. And yet Mockingjay – Part 1 is easily the most violent of the series. However, the violence isn’t physical so much as it is emotional; the taxing price of hope. This beginning of the closing chapter stomps out what it truly means to revolt; about the quiet minutia of a coup; the slogging footwork of a revolution. It’s not particularly eventful but it’s bloody well more interesting than more lathering, rinsing and repeating.