Rust and Bone (2012)

2/5

Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone is an overwhelmingly punishing film. The movie is filled with relentless sadness. It's not so much a love story as it is a character study. Two, in fact. We are introduced to Ali (Schoenaerts), an unemployed father who makes money participating in street fights, and Stéphanie (Cotillard), a whale trainer who loses her legs after a freak accident. They begin an uneasy friendship that progresses to an unhealthy relationship. The duo are hit time and time again by pain, hardship, and bad luck. It seems to never end. And love does not conquer all, if there is any to be found in this movie.

Cotillard, as always, plays her role to perfection, eliciting subtleties and complexities that could not have been written in any script. The range she is capable of in her face alone seems limitless. She puts Schoenaerts to shame, making him about as forgettable as his character. Thanks to its tremendous performances, the movie strikes deep. Far too deep. I hated it when I saw people make the wrong decisions, when they acted selfish or hurtful, when they got what was coming to them. It all seemed too human and honest and genuine.

I don't say this lightly, because I am a huge fan of Audiard's other works (The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet), but Rust and Bone was a disappointing and unwelcome film. Not because it's a bad movie, but because it is too effective. It devastated me. It's hard to articulate how I felt at the end of the 2 hours: exhausted, frustrated, with just a tinge of hope to make sure nobody commits suicide after watching it. It's not a pick-me-up so much as it is a put-me-down. And you will be depressed for some time after watching it. If this does not seem like your type of movie, then avoid it. If this does, then let me know and I can recommend some good psychiatrists to go with it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2053425/

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

2/5

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises is a middling experience from conception to execution. The plot is absolutely ridiculous, starring a bad guy with a more preposterously complicated and ludicrously conceived plan than a James Bond villain. The web is littered with countless reviews describing the innumerable plot holes in this film; my favorite is the "prison" that has no guards whatsoever and has an open hatch where everyone is allowed to attempt escape. (Luckily, this prison also apparently neighbors Gotham City!) In the bad science department, I think it actually one-ups Batman Begins, with its notion that someone's broken vertebrae can be realigned as if it were a shoulder dislocation (you know, because there's no spinal cord running through the "out of place" vertebrae that might be irreparably damaged). Also, our protagonist is absent for about half the film, during which time it turns into a WWII Nazi Germany movie.

And that's just the storyline. The technical aspects of the movie fared no better. Similar to the first one, the action is unintelligible thanks to close-ups, quick cuts, and poor lighting. The intro sequence is, quite honestly, unnecessary garbage. The acting is its own form of mess, except for Caine--who truly blew me away with a performance that should have been reserved for a far better film--and Hathaway. Despite the remarkable failure of the individual cinematic elements, The Dark Knight Rises kept me glued to my seat. Nolan is able to achieve an indescribable anticipation and a palpable excitement, an aura of cool. Unfortunately, it lacks any substantive backing to that nebulous quality, which would surely disappear if I were to see the movie again. Honestly, I cannot recommend this film. Despite all the hype and popularity, it is destined to become a cult classic, loved by a few and forgotten by everyone else.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/

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/

Midnight in Paris (2011)

4/5

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris is a delightfully light fantasy comedy that takes place in Paris over the course of several magical midnights. The plot follows Gil (Wilson) and Inez (McAdams) tagging along with Inez's parents in Paris for a few weeks. They bump into one of Inez's old pseudo-intellectual friends (Sheen), who is absolutely infuriating to Gil (and the audience), and Inez naturally wants to spend as much time with him as possible. After a few frustrating nights together, Gil decides to walk home by himself only to find himself wandering the streets of Paris utterly lost. An old Puegeot stops by at midnight and picks him up to take him to a very different kind of Paris (which I will let you have the pleasure of discovering for yourself).

The movie is very similar to Allen's previous works, especially The Purple Rose of Cairo, albeit with literary references instead of filmic ones. And it is just as charming, airy, and melancholy as that film. Unfortunately, because it feels so identical, I felt I didn't get much out of the film. It's hilarious in that Woody Allen way, but not much more. It's a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon, but nothing compared to Allen's best work.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1605783/

Inception (2010)

5/5

Christopher Nolan's Inception is a near-perfect film. It follows a thief named Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team of extractors (Gordon-Levitt, Hardy, Rao, Page) as they invade people's dreams and steal their secrets. They are hired to carry out a new kind of job called inception: implant an idea in someone else's head through their dreams. In order to do this and convince the dreamer that it is their own idea, they must go three levels deep--a dream within a dream within a dream. With each level removed from reality, time slows down exponentially, such that entire lives can be lived within mere seconds. Imagine the life you're living now; imagine dying 80 years after being born and then waking up to find yourself still young. And that is the idea from which this entire movie stems, from which it will no doubt be compared to the likes of The Matrix. But what Inception has over The Matrix is that we all dream, and we all know what it's like to wake up from a dream. We can imagine that what we're living in now is just a dream, and maybe--just maybe--we can wake up and get a second chance at life.

The cinematography in this film is crisp and direct. Except for the impressive and awe-inspiring gravity-defying action scenes in the hotel, it's merely adequate. It's not particularly cumbersome nor is it particularly artistic, but it gets the job done. The acting feels much the same. It is written well enough to make the characters distinct and separate, but they never feel like more than just archetypes. Even DiCaprio's character, by far the most complex and mature, feels like a rehashing of the tormented soul he played in Shutter Island. And Marion Cotillard, whose acting I fell in love with in Nine, plays a representation of an idea instead of a real human being. But these are the weakest aspects of the movie.

Inception's strengths are its storytelling, directing, and editing. The story, as I've described above, is what will win this movie its fans and its cult following. The plot, compelling as it is, exists solely to propel the idea that the world we think is real may just be a dream. And as Cobb warns us in the film, an idea is the most dangerous, insidious, persistent threat to our health and wellbeing that we can imagine. The story is combined with precise editing to create an airtight film that never lets you catch your breath or blink your eyes. It is nonstop intellectual and visceral action from beginning to end, with stunning efficiency and economy. And Nolan's directing puts this movie together into an unforgettable whole, with nary a missing piece or unseen error. This is a movie that was not thrown together in a day; it took years of planning and execution and is all the better for it. No, it's not a perfect movie and it may not be for everybody, but it's one of the most riveting, revolutionary movies I've seen come out of Hollywood in a long, long time. I suggest you watch it as soon as possible, before all the water cooler chatter about it ruins the film for you.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

5/5

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement is a brilliantly-conceived and impeccably-created tapestry of emotion and perception that transcends its individual setting and story. The movie takes place around World War I and it concerns the young Mathilde (Tautou) and her lover Manech (Ulliel). In 1917, Manech had been traumatized by the vulgar and violent sights and actions of trench warfare. He got himself shot in the hand by the Germans in the hopes of being sent home injured. But instead he was court-martialed for self-mutilation and sentenced to No Man's Land at Bingo Crepuscule with four other unlucky souls. Three years later in 1920, Mathilde believes against all odds that Manech is still breathing and keeps her hope alive with simple superstitious gambles. She hires detective Germain Pire (which ironically translates to "Germain the Worst") to find out where he is. While following the winding trail, she soon discovers that Tina Lombardi (Cotillard), another soldier's lover, is also tracking the five men from Bingo Crespuscule. But instead of reuniting with her man, she ends up killing the soldiers involved in his unjust sentence.

This movie, like all of Jeunet's movies (and Tim Burton's), contains within it a fully-realized alternate world filled to the brim with small oddities and assumed rules. After watching for just a few minutes, you get an intimate sense of the beauty and hope of the people inhabiting this macabre and sinister environment. Both Tautou and Cotillard pull this off masterfully, putting the utmost heart and honesty into their decidedly disparate but equally compelling roles. They show the vast variability love can take on, from revenge to forgiveness. Their sadness--and their happiness--is seemingly palpable and absolutely heart-wrenching.

Technically, the film is incredible. It is so well-constructed that many of the shots and scenes seem airy and natural, despite their being planned down to the degree of the camera angle. The lights, the special effects, the cinematography, the sets, the costumes, the makeup; everything is pitch perfect and as beautiful as it could possibly be expected to be. The editing is precise down to the individual frame. The only complaint that could be lodged against the cinematics of the movie lie in its complicated storyline. It is easy to get lost in its labyrinthine plot. For me, however, that just made me want to watch the movie again and again so I could gather all the subtle details and clues and piece them together.

There are two things I absolutely love about this movie. The first is the concept of point of view and the unreliable narrator. It takes Rashomon on in a different and new light. It examines illusion in the absence of deception and hope in the absence of reason. With different points of view come different stories and different conclusions, but you soon realize that you can't always trust what you see... or what you think you see. The second is the relationship between Mathilde and Manech. Something about it--in its entire breadth and depth--is so pure and so innocent that you simply cannot believe for a second that war or even death can destroy it. It is somehow unbreakable, and the ending to the film incorporates that concept so fully and so brilliantly that I cannot speak about it highly enough. It is the perfect ending to a perfect movie. Watch this movie. And then watch it again. I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/

Nine (2009)

4/5

I am a huge fan of Rob Marshall's Nine. It has been poopooed on by Negative Nancy film critics on each and every print and web publication, but I don't really care for their elitist perspectives, and neither should you. Nine is engaging, entertaining, and enlivening. It is full of energy and style and does not apologize for being in your face. I loved absolutely every minute of it. The movie is an adaptation of a Broadway musical based on a classic Italian film by Federico Fellini called 8 1/2. For any true lover of cinema, you are pretty much required to see 8 1/2, but that doesn't mean you're required to appreciate it or even like it. For my part, I both liked and appreciated it, and yet I find Rob Marshall's Nine to be a more accessible and more enjoyable version. No, it's not "better" than 8 1/2, but I feel more inclined to watch Nine with my friends (especially non-cinephiles) than 8 1/2.

The plot follows director Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) as his producer is pressuring him to make a new movie by creating a gigantic set, a poster, and a press conference even though Contini has no script and no concept. Stressed out, he runs away from Rome and tries hiding in a spa resort, asking his mistress (Cruz) to come while suggesting his wife (Cotillard) stay home. Eventually his producer finds him and brings the crew and set over so that he can continue his work. I'll leave the rest of the plot unstated and let you enjoy the rest of the movie yourself.

The acting was magnificent, as expected based on the Oscar-heavy cast. Marion Cotillard is a marvel, and I have become a complete fan of her acting after seeing this movie. She is soft and tender and fierce and sweet and everything you can imagine all wrapped up in an angelic visage and portrayed to perfection. I don't think I would have loved this movie nearly as much had she not been cast. Technically, the movie is more than competent. From his experience adapting musicals, I expected the costuming and makeup to be excellent--and it was. However, the cinematography, lighting, and editing impressed me because I never considered Marshall to be a particularly cinematic filmmaker. But here he has proved me wrong. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the songs blew me away. They're catchy and powerful and memorable.

However, the picture is not all rosy. I feel like some characters were miscast, specifically Daniel Day-Lewis. He does a fine job to the best of his ability, but he just doesn't fill out the character as I would have expected and would have liked. Javier Bardem (Marshall's original choice) would have been perfect, and would have given Cotillard a run for her money as the best part of the movie. Additionally, Nicole Kidman's role was relatively minor and the love between her character and Day-Lewis's didn't resonate as being believable. Still, even as it is, the movie is phenomenal. Watch it in theaters while you still can.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0875034/

Public Enemies (2009)

2/5

Michael Mann's Public Enemies is a disappointment from start to finish. The plot follows bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) in the early 1930's and the rising crime spree that spurs the police to declare a war on crime. Melvin Purvis (Bale) is put in charge of the Dillinger Squad and is responsible for taking him down, dead or alive. Where Mann's films usually succeed--tense action--here he fails. The gunfights are little more than confusing cuts and annoying noise. The fact that everyone looks, dresses, and talks the same makes it even harder to tell what's going on and who's getting shot. It completely deflates the tension. Mann's use of digital cameras at night without lighting worked in his modern revision of Miami Vice, but the grainy picture feels anachronistic in this film. The romance with Billie Frechette (Cotillard) actually feels slightly stronger here than in his previous films, although love stories were never his strong suit. But all in all, it's a fairly frustrating film and simply doesn't live up to my expectations. I don't know who should see this film, but I would not recommend it.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1152836/