MUD - Review

Mud

2 hours, 10 minutes

Drama, 2013

Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols

Starring

Tye Sheridan

Matthew McConaughey

Jacob Lofland

Reese Witherspoon

Michael Shannon

Sam Shepard

Stuart Greer

Sarah Paulson

"Go get your tip wet."

I just want to say this right off the bat: this ain't the Matthew McConaughey show like the trailer might have you believe, no sir. This is the Tye Sheridan show. 

Never heard of him? You're about to. 

Mud is the story of a couple of kids in Arkansas who one day discover a boat stuck in a tree. How it got there, no one knows. Soon after they meet a man who goes by the name of Mud, played by McConaughey. They quickly find out that Mud is not quite what he seems to be, and the boys find themselves in a world of danger. 

Keep in mind that this isn't an action or dark drama like the poster or trailer would have you believe. If anything, it's a coming of age story for the two young boys. Tye Sheridan takes the lead role in this movie, and holy-fucking-shit is this kid good. He's got some great acting chops for a 16 year old. He pretty much carries the entire movie. The performances around him are pretty great as well. McConaughey is fantastic, Witherspoon makes good use of her screen time, and Jacob Lofland, the other kid, has some pretty funny moments. I would've liked to see more of Michael Shannon who felt like he was just kind of there for comic relief.
Overall, Mud is an exceptional third outing for director Mike Nichols. Much like his other works, the story plays out like a novel, and you can actually see this playing out like an adapted screenplay. It does seem a bit lengthy at times, but it's like reading a book. It's a wonderful coming-of-age story, and I expect to see a lot of Mud in the far off awards season, as well as great things in store for young Tye Sheridan.

9.6/10

TRANCE - Review

Trance

1 hour, 41 minutes
Thriller, 2013
Written by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge
Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring
James McAvoy
Rosario Dawson
Vincent Cassel



I actually don't have a lot to say about Trance. It had the potential to be a crazy psychological thriller, but it falls short of greatness due to some major exposition problems.
Trance is about an art auctioneer played by James McAvoy who gets involved with some criminals in order to wipe away his gambling debt. His mission is simple: steal an expensive painting. But when he receives a nasty blow to the head, he suffers from amnesia, and can't remember what happened to the painting. He is taken to a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) to pull the truth out of him. This is where things get kind of crazy.
The only real issue with this movie is the script. There isn't anything inherently wrong with the performances, but the writing needs work. It does that annoying thing where it drops an atom bomb's worth of exposition within the span of maybe five minutes before the finale. For a psychological thriller such as this, it's very frustrating. Yes, the exposition contains a few good twists, but it's poorly delivered.
Overall, it's just a thinly written psychological thriller that was almost awesome... aaaaand I got nothing else to really say about this. If you're looking for a good thriller, this isn't really the best. It's just an okay movie.

6.8/10

The 365 Day Movie Challenge: The First 100

Today I realized that I had just watched my 101st movie. Kind of a big deal for me in a sad and depressing kind of way, knowing that I've spent that much time watching movies since the start of the year 2013.
Oh, I should mention that those 101 movies have been watched since the beginning of the year. One for each day. There are currently 840 total since the start of 2010.
So yeah. Lotsa movies.
I figure I might update people on what I've watched in these first 100 days if anyone is interested. Here it goes. 

I've watched SEVEN samurai movies (not including Seven Samurai), THREE back-to-back Daniel Day-Lewis movies (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father,  and The Last of the Mohicans), 14 foreign language films from Korean to Japanese to French to Spanish, THREE Kevin Smith movies (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, and Red State), and THREE Ryan Gosling Movies (Half-Nelson, Blue Valentine, and The Place Beyond the Pines).
I also watched a bunch of indie movies that came out within the past couple of years. They're short and good to watch if I don't have a lot of time. The shortest movie I watched ran at 67 minutes, which was Killer's Kiss.
Movie #100 was Darren Aronofsky's Pi. Very good movie. 9/10.
But if I had to rank the top 5 movies from the last 100 days, it would look something like this.

5. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Fantastic revenge flick from the always excellent Park Chan-wook. You can't go wrong with this guy, he always manages to make thought provoking films, even if they seem a bit extreme. Strong performances and a strong ending put this movie high up.

4. Take Shelter
Unquestionably Michael Shannon's best performance in a film to date. While the set-up isn't terribly exciting, the execution is brilliant, with a completely unforgettable ending that makes up for any mishaps along the way.

3. Moon
Can we give Sam Rockwell some damned recognition already? This guy does all the work in this intelligent sci-fi mystery. Thought provoking and well crafted that is only made better by Rockwell's sensational performance.

2. Harakiri
The best samurai movie I have seen to date. Constantly keeps you guessing and on your toes. It goes into some seriously emotional territory, and it's just a damn fine piece of filmmaking.

1. Blue Valentine
My only impression going into this movie was when my grandma told me "I don't like it, it has a sad ending." Not all movies have to have a happy ending. Blue Valentine reminds me that not every story has a happy ending, even if none of the characters win in the end of the story. It's a tragedy. We don't see enough tragedies in film today. Yeah, we might see movies that are sad, but ultimately someone in the end will come up with something positive from their experience. This movie says "fuck that" and nobody gets a happy ending. And that's why I love it.

Honorable mentions include:
Man on the Moon
Pi
Y Tu Mamá También
My Left Foot
Escape from Alcatraz

So yeah, I'll throw something up when my overall list hits 1000, which should happen sometime in the summer.

Something I Will Never Forget

I am trying to remember this to the best of my ability, so please forgive me if you were there and I forgot something.

A long time ago in Saturday religious school, when I was about... maybe nine years old, everything was as per usual. We spent the day discussing whatever it was we were talking about. Suddenly a couple teachers barged into the room. They demanded silence and unrelenting cooperation. \
Everyone was confused and afraid.
They lined us up and led us through the hallways. Talking to one another was not tolerated and was met with harsh tones from the teachers.
We arrived at a classroom. I couldn't quite see inside, but I could tell that it was dark.
As we shuffled into the dark classroom one by one, we were stamped on the hand. Our shoes had to be removed and thrown into a disorganized pile in the corner of the room. The seats were arranged in rows.
I only recall a few things after that. One of the teachers spoke to us in a terrible tone. There were candles in the center of the room and some kind of banner on the wall. I don't recall much after that except for my thought process.
I remember being frightened. Had we done something wrong? Had I done something wrong? Were we all in trouble? Why on earth would these teachers throw us into a room with no explanation? Why would the talk to us as if we were nothing but scum? What the fuck was going on?

As a 9 year old, I didn't really know what the Holocaust was. Until that day.

The whole being led into a dark room and being silenced with speeches and six candles and all that had been repeated several times after that. It happened several times in Haganah to the point where it was just annoying and unoriginal. Hell, I've even lead one of those ceremonies. We always would do it on Holocaust Remembrance Day, or at least around then.

But nothing ever came close to that first time. We were a bunch of innocent kids scared shitless by people that we trusted and in a place that we had grown up in. Suddenly this synagogue was so foreign to us. We were little kids!
There are moments in your life that will define how you see something. The first time I saw ET I was terrified. I was maybe six years old at the time, but I could never watch it after that. I don't see it as frightening now, but every time someone mentions that movie I feel a small bit of fear rising up. I can't help it. Now, I actually enjoy ET.
I think the same goes for the Holocaust. When I hear that word, I always think back to that fateful day in Saturday school. I don't think I will ever forget it. But as an adult, I have a better grasp of what really happened. You study it not just in Saturday school, but in history and english classes in grade school. As a Jew, you study it. As someone who watches a lot of movies, films like Schindler's List, The Pianist, Life is Beautiful, and so many others give you an in depth look at the terror that the Nazi's brought upon the Jewish people.
It is important that we remember the lives lost. What people often forget is that the six million are just the Jews. There are six million non-Jewish casualties in the mix too. The Nazi's slaughtered 12 MILLION human beings. Each of those 12 million human beings had their own dreams, hopes, beliefs, families, histories, and LIVES that were taken away from them without compassion.
It's not like anybody even saw this coming. It just happened. After centuries of persecution, it only took a couple of years and dedicated followers to kill 12 million people. And to this day we still have racism plaguing the world.
One last thing to all of my Jewish friends out there: Please watch Schindler's List. I always try to get people to view this movie. It's difficult to watch it even once, it really is. But it's a powerful movie, it's without question one of the most incredibly and hauntingly beautiful movies that I have ever seen. As a Jew, it's just something that you ought to see. Just once in your life.
I know I'm not the most observant Jew, but remembering the Holocaust is very important to me. Not just as a Jew but as a human being. We can't let anything like this happen ever again.

Never forget. Don't you ever forget.

THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES - Review

The Place Beyond the Pines

2 hours, 20 minutes
Crime Drama, 2013
Written by Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, and Darius Marder
Directed by Derek Cianfrance

Starring
Ryan Gosling
Bradley Cooper
Eva Mendes
Ben Mendelsohn
Ray Liotta
Rose Byrne
Dane DeHaan
Emory Cohen



"If you ride like lighting, you're gonna crash like thunder."

I had really high hopes for The Place Beyond the Pines. Saying that doesn't mean that I dislike it, but I wish I could like it more. It really is a beautiful film. It's compelling and very well acted, but some of the story elements feel very forced. There were a few moments in the film where I kept thinking "it's gonna cut to black right... now? Nope. Nevermind." While the movie does have a graceful exit, it missed an opportunity to do it earlier in a more appropriate place. It does run a bit long, and the fact that beats feel forced doesn't help much.
The story is told in three parts: the story of Luke, played by Gosling, as he discovers that he has a son. He wants to be there for his boy and does what he can, robbing banks to provide for him. The second act of the story is about a police officer played by Bradley Cooper who deals with corruption in his unit. The third act is about the sons of Cooper and Gosling, and how they cope with the events of the first and second acts as teenagers.
This is where the film feels forced: in it's message. It's all about the relationship between fathers and sons, and while the third act really hits this home, the previous acts don't really set it up well enough to feel like there's a ton of weight. It's pacing is just a little bit off. Despite the entertaining 3rd act, it just feels very forced, and I can't help but to overlook that. The first act is definitely the strongest part of the movie, which is unfortunate because nothing else in the film quite matches it.
So basically, aside from very strong performances (particularly form Gosling and his buddy played by Mendelsohn, who just seems to be sticking to shady gangster-like roles as of late) and a solid narrative, the themes in the movie just seem too forced and messy to ignore. Other than that gripe, it's worth checking out.

9/10

A Tribute to Roger Ebert - 1942 - 2013

Today is a sad day for the movie industry.
Roger Ebert wasn't an actor or a director. He was just a movie critic. I know you're thinking "well he wasn't just a movie critic, he was the movie critic." And you're right. He was the movie critic. His opinion mattered more than anyone else. It's mattered for almost 50 years.

I would be lying if I said that I read Ebert's reviews on a weekly basis. I don't even know what the most recent review of his I've read is. Mostly I've seen his name on DVD covers and snippets on wikipedia and other sites.
What I did read was old reviews from the archive on his site. If I found myself enjoying a well made movie then I would just look it up on his archive and read the whole thing. I never went out of my way to read a full review of newer films except for those that I was really curious to see what he thought of them. Occasionally I would watch a little bit of his old TV show, some of them with Roeper and some of them with Siskel. I was a casual fan, but his opinion mattered.
But his opinion always mattered. I've never really known why, but it just always has. He's been reviewing movies since my parents were babies. That's, like... a long time ago. He even worked as he fought cancer, which ultimately took his life.
What am I trying to say? Roger Ebert has been so prolific in his writing that he has influenced thousands of movie critics over the decades. Myself included, even though I don't take it too seriously. He reviewed movies in the Sun-Times, but ultimately will be remembered for his television times with Gene Siskel before he died in 1999.
Reviews from critics can make or break the success of a film with a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
If Ebert says a movie is bad, are you going to want to see it?

But yeah. I don't have much to say about the guy other than I enjoyed reading his reviews. Not often enough, but other than Peter Travers and the people at Entertainment Weekly, I don't bother to read too many reviews...

Anyway...
I've been seeing a lot of "thumbs down for Roger Ebert's death" and stuff.
I disagree.
I say "two thumbs up for a beautiful career."

Rest In Peace 1942-2013