by Christina Waters | Dec 10, 2014 | Home |
For two and a half hours I waited for something to pump energy, concept, or even engaging visuals into this bloated Hollywood block buster.
And for two and a half hours I waited in vain.
Interstellar is excruciatingly bad. Bad, B A D! Why do I say this? Here’s why! It pops up on our collective event horizon after the following truly engaging films: Alien, Contact, 2001, Gravity, The Right Stuff, Star Wars, hell, even Star Trek, to name but a few. Christopher (Inception, The Prestige) Nolan has gotten his knickers in such a twist paying homage to these earlier, far better films, that he seems to have forgotten that we’ve all seen them too.
We know about wormholes. We’ve seen spaceships leaving earth’s gravitational pull. We’ve watched scientists writing equations at the blackboards that somehow explain how relativity works. The very people who would be willing to sit through a new, highly-hyped sci fi film—for two and a half hours!—would be savvy about these basic space voyager tropes. What was Nolan thinking?!!!!
The only person who seemed to have forgotten these concepts (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 9, 2014 | Home |
Apparently while I wasn’t paying attention (i.e. during the second installment of the Hunger Games film trilogy, which I failed to view) Katniss has destroyed the very Games that put her, her buddies and her lumpen no-necked boyfriend Peeta in such deep owl pucky. But at any rate, Mockingjay Part I opens with a glassy-eyed Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) along with her mother and sister living in a giant silo community called District 13 many many levels underground. Somewhere, far away, the malicious leader of all this mischief, Snow (Donald Sutherland) is still wearing white Nehru jackets and wringing his hands like the Roman dictator upon which his character is styled. Donald Sutherland began life as an actor playing smug, cloying smart alecks (M.A.S.H., etc) and he’s never stopped.
I figure I had to watch this phenomenon if I wanted to crystallize my growing insight into the Millennial mind set. Don’t get me wrong. I certainly applaud the actress in Lawrence as much as the next aging girl. But at a certain point in Mockingjay I found myself wincing. Katniss isn’t simply a tough action heroine. She’s the Messiah. And all of the survivors (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 8, 2014 | Home |
I expected treacle, but The Theory of Everything turned out to be a beautifully-crafted biopic about astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, his intellectual ascent and his physical decline. Kudos to confident director James Marsh.
Made from a book by his wife Jane—who married Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) while he was a student at Cambridge and stood by him during the entire devastating course of the onset of motor neuron disorder — the film moves swiftly thanks to a superb cast and cinematic expertise. Hawking is a well-known figure, both in the rarified halls of cosmological theory, and in popular culture. His disease, his wheelchair, his electronically-generated “voice”, his impish grin—all are fairly iconic to anyone who can pick up a copy of People magazine.
Smartly photographed and well played, The Theory of Everything, reveals a bit of the back story we’re all keen to discover. As the sympathetic, brave, and ultimately weary wife, actress Felicity Jones is perfect. Her resolve, her deep interest in him and in maintaining his dignity, are all etched on the screen in the actress’ deft and very lightly-drawn portrait.
As Hawking, British theatrical wunderkind Eddy Redmayne outdoes Daniel Day Lewis’ left foot, if you know what I mean. It manages to avoid being the predictable freak show, and yet it also avoids shedding insight into the bold and controversial theories that have made Hawking the stuff off Isaac Newtonian legend.
A nice way to pass a few hours. Watch Redmayne, on the fast track to be next year’s Benedict Cumberbatch.
by Christina Waters | Nov 12, 2014 | Home |
I’m still trying to wrap my head around this surreal bit of brilliance. Michael Keaton’s performance in Birdman is blazing.
In one of the purest cases of art imitating life, this stunning film casts former action hero Batman Michael Keaton as a former action hero “Birdman” movie star Riggan Thompson. Like his character, Keaton seemed to have dropped off the big screen for the past decade, and in both metaphorical and literal senses Birdman is his comeback as a leading man. A resounding, unforgettable, Oscar-contender comeback!
Directed by Babel‘s Alejandro Iñarritu, with taut camerawork by Gravity‘s Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki, the film defies easy categorization. A mannered—at times surreal—black comedy of backstage egos, psychodrama, and promiscuity, the film follows the three final days of theatrical rehearsals and previews before Thompson’s opening night on Broadway. Starring in a play he wrote and directed, Thompson is an engaging mass of anxieties. His daughter (Emma Stone) fresh out of rehab is working in the theater and loaded with attitude. His co-star (Edward Norton) is gunning for top billing. Various current and former mistresses, as well as an ex-wife, continue to plague his last grasp at self-worth. Throw into this mix a stalwart producer buddy (Zach Galifianakis) and a caustic New York theater critic (Lindsey Duncan) determined to destroy his new show and you have every stereotype needed to explore the thorny jungle of theater.
Whether we get to be the hero of our own life, or whether we simply play that part, (more…)
by Christina Waters | Nov 10, 2014 | Home |
Travis Bickle—meet Lou Bloom.
In the nocturnal swamp-crawl through Los Angeles that is Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a sardonic psychopath against the gorgeous cinematic sweep of Don Gilroy‘s new film. Shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood) the film offers a riveting elegy on the loneliness of 21st century urbanity, a landscape upon which Gyllenhaal’s desperate, crafty opportunist Bloom fashions a career out of capturing news footage of grisly, graphic car crashes, suburban shootings, and blood-drenched explosions. “If it bleeds, it leads,” local TV station news director (played by Rene Russo) tells freelance photographer Bloom, who quickly convinces both her, and us that he can and will do anything to get his footage broadcast.
A sobering morality play fusing Yankee ingenuity with narcissistic ruthlessness, the film bristles with all the visual chill of a David Lynch dreamscape painted by Edward Hopper. Oozing eerie geek charm, Bloom and his ill-gotten video equipment stake out violent crime scenes and spectacular accidents, acquiring more skill and sensational footage the more he discards all shreds of decency or compassion.
Gyllenhaal’s gaunt glassy-eyed character thrives on this blood-drenched quest for (more…)
