Movie 43 (2013)

1/5

Movie 43 is an abomination of filmmaking. It is an offensive assault on the senses for 90 straight minutes. This thing--which I refuse to call a movie--is a collection of unrelated images and scenarios designed to disgust and disturb. It is the kind of thing created for reaction videos, with no inherent value. From neck testicles to cartoon cat masturbation fantasies, from parental abuse and incest to graphic leprechaun violence, from gratuitous nudity to yellowface surgery, there is no line it won't cross. I'm disappointed that so many quality actors have sullied their names by taking part in this evil transgression of cinema, this shameful plague of a thing. It makes me shudder just thinking about it. Ugh.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333125/

Titanic (1997)

4.9/5

James Cameron's Titanic is an engrossing film, epic in scope yet focused on the individual players. It is a romance, certainly, but a classic one that will appeal even to non-romantics because it is a good story first and foremost. While there is nothing particularly original about the plot, it is a universal and timeless tale, well-told: doomed love attempting to escape the shackles of modern society; man's hubris resulting in their inevitable demise. Where it succeeds is in allowing the plot to go where the characters find themselves, instead of forcing the characters down the writer's pre-ordained path.

The technical achievements in the film are extraordinary for the time, and mesmerizing still. The cinematography and special effects are awe-inspiring, and the editing keeps the 3 hour movie surprisingly brisk and fast-paced. The acting, however, is where the movie really shines. Not only impressive for their ages, but impressive in their own right, DiCaprio and Winslet give heart-wrenching and breathtaking performances. I somehow forgot that they can make your heart skip with anticipation, with dread, with hope. You really care for the leads, and the stakes are raised that much higher when the big ship starts its slow descent.

The movie isn't perfect. It has a somewhat silly narrator structure wrapped around the perfectly self-sufficient story, and Bill Paxton's acting therein just left me cold. The script is also full of sailing cliches and movie tropes, from the captain sinking with the ship to the overly noble orchestra playing waltzes while the Titanic literally sinks inch by inch. Even if that stuff actually happened, that shouldn't have been the focus of the movie. Regardless, I finally appreciate why this movie holds such power to nearly everybody who watches it. It is a phenomenal achievement all around.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/

Contagion (2011)

4.9/5

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion is a phenomenal, finely-crafted film. This doomsday thriller uses an exquisitely contagious pathogen to intertwine the lives of people around the world. The movie starts with Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) after she develops an annoying cough. She flies home from China to meet her husband (Damon) in Minneapolis and manages to spread it across Kowloon, Guangdong, Chicago, and San Francisco within days. Scientists at the CDC (Ehle, Martin) and WHO (Cotillard) are racing against the clock to find patient zero and treat the disease. Dr. Cheever (Fishburne) and Dr. Mears (Winslet) begin isolating known contacts, quarantining the sick, and dealing with the press while an internet blogger (Law) proclaims the miracles of a homeopathic drug. Seemingly minuscule actions rapidly spiral out of control and we cannot help but try to follow along at its breakneck speed.

There is an intensity and urgency to everything about the movie; its feverish pace is electrifying. The film manages to pack a lot of content into its 90-minute running time, and luckily this movie has some very intriguing thematics and hypotheticals from every sphere of society for you to ponder. Technically, the filmmaking is exceptional. Soderbergh switches between storylines swiftly and smoothly without it feeling startling or obnoxious. The acting is pristine and believable, which is difficult to do considering the somewhat alien and unpredictable scenario. The writing is equally authentic. The challenge in medical films is getting the science right, but Contagion does it with aplomb. There is nary a misstep in sight, despite a few improbable stretches of the imagination for the sake of artistic license. It's not quite a perfect movie, but Contagion has just about everything you could want in a movie and I can't wait to watch it again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1598778/

The Holiday (2006)

4/5

Nancy Meyers's The Holiday is a remarkably tender and touching movie that covers the entire gamut of human emotion. The plot follows Amanda (Diaz) in Hollywood, CA and Iris (Winslet) in Surrey, England as they switch houses for the holidays after having their hearts broken by their boyfriends. Amanda meets Iris's good-looking brother, Graham (Law), and they begin a physical relationship knowing they won't see each other again once the holidays are over. Iris befriends the elderly scriptwriter Arthur (Wallach) and the young and goofy musician Miles (Black) to help her get past her emotionally draining ex. It seems fairly easy to predict what happens next, but the movie paces the emotions so perfectly that you are completely taken in by the story.

The script is tremendous. From the opening voice-over to the final feel-good shot, the script manages to manipulate your heart to feel happiness and sadness within seconds of each other, much in the same vein as Casablanca. Meyers directs the vibrant script into something more than just filmed words. The editing is amazing, effortlessly integrating the two stories and transitioning the scenes visually. She uses music brilliantly to enhance the emotions without forcing unwanted ones on the viewer. The acting is terrific, making the strong characters that much more vivid. Kate Winslet is as good as always, but here all the other leads turn in extremely powerful, empathic performances that just make your heart fill up. Despite some imperfections, this movie is absolutely wonderful. Even if you don't like chick flicks, all it takes to fall in love with this movie is a desire for a good story. Because this movie delivers that in spades.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457939/

The Reader (2008)

2/5

The Reader is, if nothing else, an intriguing movie; it follows the relationship between Michael Berg (David Kross and Ralph Fiennes) and Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), starting from their first torrid love affair when he was 15 and she 33 and ending some 30-40 years later. The film is a romance, I suppose, with elements of the legal drama thrown in to make it more exciting. But it is a romance fraught with confusion and misunderstanding, by both those participating as well as us audience members watching. Many of the characters' actions and motiviations appear hidden, vague, or unknown by even the writer. To me, it was all too illogical to be believable. (Not illogical in the way that love can make people act irrationally, but illogical in the way that the character's mere existence is a baffling conundrum.)

To its credit, the movie has some compelling performances. All three main actors were stellar. And I found myself attracted to the idea of one man's entire life being defined and destroyed by a single adolescent summer. It is the writing and the directing that I have trouble accepting. The screenwriter merely combined hackneyed ideas like concentration camps and suicide that he thought might produce melodrama instead of filling the script with realistic characters or creative concepts. The director chose to include gratuitous nudity in the hopes of appearing artistic instead of using it tastefully and tactfully for emotional impact or some other legitimate purpose. The Reader is one of those movies that I feel caters to an audience that likes to feel smart for "understanding" it, but is in reality a movie that cannot stand on its own merits. Perhaps those people do get something out of it, but I think they're putting in most of what they're getting out. I for one got very little out of it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976051/

Revolutionary Road (2008)

5/5

Revolutionary Road is an expansive blue ocean. It appears beautiful from afar, but roiling underneath it is sorrow and anger erupting in ferocious waves. It touches all of us, pooling at the feet of some, submerging others. I am in the latter camp; I am a victim to this devastating film. I get jitters remembering everything that happened. My pulse quickens and my knees weaken. And I can't get that nightmare out of my head.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple that recently moved into a suburban house on Revolutionary Road in the 1950's. Their happiness is a facade for the hopeless emptiness they're experiencing. Frank works at a job he can't stand and comes home to a wife who can't stand being home. They hate each other. They remain together for the sake of their children, but realize it's worse for everyone to stay in that situation. Separation is not an option. What can they do to escape their self-imposed, once-desirable imprisonment?

The acting is impeccable, heart-felt, and full. It makes the pitch-perfect writing all the more unbearable. The music infiltrates your subconscious. The cinematography stays on the sideline, subtly affecting your perceptions and focus. The editing is tight; it plays with time fluidly but intuitively. And for all the movie's effectiveness, for all of Sam Mendes's brilliance, it hurts. This is not an enjoyable film. This is not entertainment. This is a condemnation of all we hold dear in America. This is a searing indictment of our success, our greed, and even our appearance. By the end, we simply want to stop listening, to ignore it and hope it disappears. What a sorry, tired answer that is. But it is our only chance.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959337/

Little Children (2006)

4/5

Todd Field's Little Children dramatizes the dark and sometimes dangerous underbelly of suburban parents and their interactions. The large cast of characters is well-envisioned, well-developed, and well-acted, although Patrick Wilson's performance sometimes felt a bit affected and rang false. Detailing the minutiae of these people's lives was oddly magnetic and hid the beginnings of an ominous foreboding. The plot follows some surprising avenues, heavily describing characters that at first seemed secondary. The editing was excellent. It propelled the movie forward, paced each story equally and fully, and still managed artistic flourishes here and there. There are scenes of incredible tension starting in the middle and increasing in magnitude as it nears the finale that hold the audience's attention and breath. I found myself emotionally involved with the characters as well.

Onto the parts I hated. I cannot get out of my head the completely unnecessary and distracting voice-over narration. I've said before that it's an excuse for sloppy filmmaking and that a good filmmaker can show visually what the narrator is saying. In this case, the narration actually adds nothing to the plot or characters and only serves to distance the audience from the events on-screen, reminding us that this was based on a book. There is not even anything to replace with images. Every single line the narrator was saying should have been simply excised. Also, I thought the film sort of chickened out from a satisfying ending, but in a way it also reaffirmed that it was trying to depict real life and that normal events happening in the span of a two hour movie cannot elicit life-changing decisions from real characters (or at least these specific events). And everything gets tied up in a bowtie a little too nicely at the end. Some of the director's decisions are just impossible for me to approve of. The slow-mo football game that reminded me of the homo-erotic mud/rain football scene in Invincible is one. Another is the overpolishing of scenes, separating them from reality. Despite these many problems, however, the film is engrossing and keeps you watching. If it sounds interesting, give it a spin.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0404203/