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…)
by Christina Waters | Oct 12, 2014 | Home |
Director David Fincher has done some competent, stylish B movies in the past, e.g. Zodiac, The Social Network, and I guess you could call his latest, Gone Girl, a competent, stylish B movie.
I went to see the film because as a writer I was curious about the plotting of the original story. And I came away impressed with the intricate, he says/she/says twists and turns of this lurid domestic saga. I also came away with the sobering lesson that it doesn’t matter how smart your story is, if you don’t deliver an ending that satisfies all of your plotline teasing, your reader (or in this case, viewer) will come away feeling unsatisfied and ripped off.
First off, could anyone tell me why Ben Affleck is allowed in front of a camera? Listless and wooden, he is impossible to like. Yes, I know. His character was supposed to be questionable. Is he telling us the truth when he says he doesn’t know where his wife is? Did he kill her? Is he hiding some huge horrible secret? Maybe Affleck is fine for that character — typecast even. But he is almost unwatchable.
I was curious to see what the fuss was about—the book by Gillian Flynn is such a huge hit.
Okay we meet the couple and their first five years together, mostly in flashbacks told by the wife’s diary. Amy and Nick Dunne have been a dream couple, until (more…)
by Christina Waters | Sep 4, 2014 | Home |
Joan Rivers – wow – how many times did I use her “Can we talk?” line when I was a smart aleck kid?
A brilliant, genuinely funny trailblazer who definitely did it her way. Admit it, the world is a less edgy, less honest place without Joan’s witchy tongue and spot-on zingers. Such brazen chutzpah! Such cheek! What a woman!
Thanks for the laughs!
