Director: David Cronenberg. Cast: Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, John Cusack, Evan Bird, Olivia Williams, Carrie Fisher. 111 min. Rated R. Canada/USA/Germany/France. Drama.
David Cronenberg's films so far can be divided into three phases: gooey body-horror sci-fi, intense crime dramas, and ... crap about rich people. After the obnoxious Wall Street boredom Cosmopolis, now he's ventured into picturing celebrities' schizophrenic lust for Hollywood stardom. We've all heard and read stories of annoying Kardashian/Bieber/Hilton lifestyles, but what is portrayed in Maps is an exaggeration even from a cynical point of view. It's just sad that the once great Cronenberg is stooping to such low levels.
Director: Gregg Araki. Cast: Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, Thomas Jane, Angela Bassett, Gabourey Sidibe, Sheryl Lee. 91 min. Rated R. France/USA. Drama.
Teenage girl comes home from school to find her mother is gone - and never comes back. So the whole mystery is where she went. Full of terribly directed artificial scenes where youngsters sit around and chat about nothing, and characters with ambiguous motivations coming and going without any effect in advancing the story. After several noteworthy films (The Descendants, The Spectacular Now, The Fault in Our Stars), Shailene Woodley suddenly seems to have become the representative of all teenagers on the planet. At the end, the solution to the mystery is not only nonsensical and pointless, it's disgusting. Stay away.
Director: James DeMonaco. Cast: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford. 103 min. Rated R. USA/France. Horror/Thriller.
After the original film didn't exploit enough a dystopian future where once a year any crime is permitted for 12 hours, now the sequel is getting there. As opposed to confining itself to one house defending against intruders, this one shows the street side of the annual event, exploring the social and political ramifications of the night through a Snowpiercer/Hunger Games conceptual combination, showing how the rich 1% rules the clueless 99%, and how American lust for guns can breed such a "patriotic" ritual. But then, maybe I'm impressed because it's a far cry compared to last year's film.
PS: The Annual Purge is on March 21st, which is Nowruz, the Persian New Year, or the first day of Spring. Hmmmmmm ...
Director: Michaël R. Roskam. Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaerts. 106 min. Rated R. Crime/Drama.
Written by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) in a story Ben Affleck might have directed in Boston or one Cronenberg might have made in the 2000s, a bar-owner and his cousin bartender are victims of a robbery in the bar - a "drop" site where the dirtiest money in Brooklyn is regularly delivered. Revelation after revelation after revelation make this one of the smartest heist/crime movies I've seen, to the point that I wouldn't mind watching a prequel to these characters' life stories. And how can you avoid seeing Tom Hardy paired up with Gandolfini in his last movie?
Director: Gillian Robespierre. Cast: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann. 84 min. Rated R. Comedy/Romance.
A young stand-up comedian is dumped by her boyfriend, and is notified the next day she'll soon lose her job at the local bookstore. Before any chance for recovery, she learns she's pregnant from a boy she just met, and wants an abortion she can't afford. Newcomers Jenny Slate and Jake Lacey are the most charming couple in recent years, in the very first feature of its director, which is a bitter satire that will break your heart more often than you expect. Looking forward to Gillian Robespierre's (whose?) next projects.
Director: Jack Plotnick. Cast: Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Matt Bomer, Marisa Coughlan, Jerry O'Connell Keir Dullea. 93 min. Rated R. Comedy/Drama/Sci-Fi.
This one is full of surprises. It starts out as a postmodern sophisticated version of Spaceballs, and what 70's B-movie sci-fi thought the future would look like, with some prominent stars (including 2001's Keir Dullea in a small role). Then, it becomes a space soap-opera with no specific plot in sight (i.e., it becomes boring). Then, it ends with very tense drama in a final scene that left me hanging. You'll likely disagree with my score on this indescribable comedy/sci-fi/melodrama. All I can say is, it's fairly new, and thought-provoking. The opening monologue says it all:
"I've always been amazed that asteroids can fly in groups for millions of years, and never touch each other or connect. They're dead rock, so they find their perfect orbit, and stick to it. We also want to find that place of perfection. But we're not asteroids; we change, and that's the problem. The more you try to create a paradise, the more you will resent the prison, and all you're left with is dreams of a future that never happened."
Director: Matthew Saville. Cast: Joel Edgerton, Tom Wilkinson, Jai Courtney, Melissa George. 105 min. Australia/USA. Drama.
Honest good cop (actor/writer Edgerton) hits a bicycle-riding Indian boy while drunk-driving, and is ridden with guilt in a racially-divided Sydney. Older experienced good cop (Wilkinson) wants to cover it up because he believes in "team" more than the law. Younger inexperienced good cop (Courtney) has suspicions and wants the matter investigated because ... he's interested in the boy's young mother? The drama creates a very palpable moral dilemma, forcing you to take a side, but I felt the ending more of a cop-out of the difficult situation the screenplay had created. Expecting an Oscar nomination for the great Wilkinson.
Based on a true story, mother abandons her 12-year-old son and his three younger siblings in a Tokyo apartment to survive on their own. Another one of those instances where cinema miraculously creates empathy for humans living in a distant world thousands of miles away, and the young actor who played the son won the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. But boy ... is this movie slow. At least half an hour could have been cut to reach its inevitable dark ending. But then again, a slow rhythm may be the whole point, to 'feel' these kids' lives.
Director: Costa-Gavras. Cast: Gad Elmaleh, Gabriel Byrne, Céline Sallette, Liya Kebede. 114 min. Rated R. France. Drama.
Before 2008, there used to be only Wall Street. Now, there's a flurry of movies about the evil power-hungry CEOs who act as Robin-Hood-for-the-rich. Costa-Gavras' new film does much better than Cronenberg's boring Cosmopolis and Stone's underachieving Wall Street 2, but isn't as insidiously creepy as Margin Call - and Scorsese's later Wolf of Wall Street has pretty much sealed the deal. In lieu of a few loose ends blamed on an imperfect screenplay, I still found this story of a newly-appointed CEO of a powerful French bank engaging - acting as another warning about larger financial storms yet to come.
Documentary aiming at signifying the importance of voice acting as an art. No doubt that the people interviewed (as they demonstrate) are incredibly gifted artists, but the film bogs down to a compilation of innumerable interviews with artists among whom, as expected, I only knew the screen actors (Mark Hamill, Hank Azaria, Ed Asner) - in contrast to a film like Side by Side, which delves into the painstaking technicalities of its subject, and as a result shows why the subject is important. The voice actors here complain why they aren't taken seriously; this documentary is unable to resolve that complaint.
Director: Woody Allen. Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Anjelica Huston, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Sam Waterston, Jerry Orbach, Daryl Hannah. 104 min. Rated PG-13. Drama/Comedy.
Now that I look back and watch a Woody Allen movie made 25 years ago, I'm able to assess where it stands in his overall career. Obviously inspired by "Crime and Punishment", here the director shows the tragic and comedic sides of "infidelity" (via the Landau/Huston and Allen/Farrow relationships, respectively), and presents a lighter and slower-paced version of a plot he later perfected in the much darker Match Point. Still, Crimes and Misdemeanors is more thought-provoking than his usual comedies, with a significantly less number of funny one-liners. Landau's ruminations and guilty conscience will bother you for awhile.
"If necessary, I will always choose God over truth."
A friend recently sent me a clip, which I was trying to avoid watching for a few days at all costs. But then I watched it, and when you compare it to the real glorious event, it makes you think: what a fascinating concept film music is, and how (as shown in this simple example) it defines some of the cinema's greatest moments.
I mean, how can you even imagine a shark fin rising from the waters, a knife (supposedly) stabbing a girl in the shower, or a prehistoric ape smashing an animal's bones ... without hearing the soundtrack in the back of your mind? Those scenes don't exist without the soundtrack.
So I thought, for the occasion of the blog's fifth birthday, how about spicing it up by posting my 10 favorite soundtracks of all time? I'm neither counting movies with a compilation of songs as soundtracks (so unfortunately Grease and Saturday Night Fever and all Tarantino movies are out), nor any musicals (sorry, Sound of Music). The list is composed of original music written purely for the movie. Each composer gets only one chance - otherwise, John Williams would have grabbed at least 7 of the 10 slots.
And for each movie, I'll post the track the film reminds me of the most, ... so get ready for things to get a little strange here. In alphabetical order:
1. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (Vangelis, 1992)
Vangelis has quite a few great moments in the movie world, primarily the soundtracks of Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire. But Ridley Scott made this incredible Christopher Columbus film (which I'm not sure why it bombed), and Vangelis composed its even greater soundtrack. Among the tracks, the actual moment Columbus and his crew set foot on America is made both victorious and menacing, because of Vangelis' music.
2. Dances With Wolves (John Barry, 1990)
I know, John Barry means James Bond soundtracks. But the guy got five Oscars for his works, and none of them were for Bond movies. Among the Oscar winners, I have some incredible sense of nostalgia for Dances With Wolves, and although this would be considered the film's most recognized theme, the following track resonates with me the most: the film is almost over, the Indians' lands will soon be lost, and their struggle was for nothing.
"Dances with Wolves! I am Wind In His Hair! Do you see that I am your friend?! Can you see that you will always be my friend?!"
3. Edward Scissorhands (Danny Elfman, 1990)
This movie seems to end up on all my ten favorite things of everything. But I can't elude its magic - especially the ending scene, where we finally realize where snow comes from (Edward is making ice statues on the hilltop). Listen to how the dream-like main them walks you through the climactic last scene, and blends in with the end credits, in "The Grand Finale":
4. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Ennio Morricone, 1966)
How can any favorite movie soundtrack list be complete without a mention of Ennio Morricone? In my very humble opinion, the entire Western genre culminates in this one greatest scene, when after hours (in our time) of searching ... Tuco is finally there. He's finally found the cemetery where the treasure is buried. All he needs to do, is to find the gravestone. So he keeps on looking - in circles and circles. Listen to how the music crescendos at a dizzying speed as he runs; how the glory of this moment would have been impossible without Morricone's music. Fortunately, I found the actual scene:
5. The Message (Maurice Jarre, 1977)
I guessed Maurice Jarre specialized in composing foreign melodies: Russian for Doctor Zhivago, Arabic for Lawrence of Arabia, Indian for A Passage to India. But he also wrote the Arabic-themed soundtrack for this lesser known movie in Western countries, The Message, about the life of Mohammad, which by some estimates is the most-seen movie of all time. Geographical setting aside, I've never heard of a soundtrack more appropriately "spiritual". And considering that Jarre also wrote the mesmerizing soundtrack for Jesus of Nazareth, I guess you can infer a certain amount about the man's spiritual side:
When it comes to Bernard Hermann, not mentioning Psycho's soundtrack (chopped up lines in a background of choppy music, describing a shattered mind) would be a crime. But I can't help it. When I think of the names Hermann and Hitchcock, I hear the opening rumbles of North by Northwest first.
7. The Omen (Jerry Goldsmith, 1976)
As soon as I mention hardworking Goldsmith's only Oscar-winner, you may think of Ave Satani. But nothing matches the scene where Gregory Peck and David Warner are attacked by dogs at the cemetery. (Second mention of a cemetery; cemeteries must be very soundtrack-prone.) Without watching the film and just by listening, you can follow step by step what is happening in the scene. Which is actually the beauty of a great soundtrack.
I couldn't find a separate YouTube clip, but the above-described track starts from minute 32:30, ending at 35:50:
8. The Rock(Hans Zimmer, 1996)
With all his improvisations, Hans Zimmer is getting up there as one of the highest ranking soundtrack composers in movie history. But this was the one that introduced me to him first. The entire Rock soundtrack is an incredibly energizing experience, and if you listen to the music for the San Francisco chase scene (Nicholas Cage driving a Ferrari in hot pursuit of Sean Connery's Hummer), you may achieve road rage status. So seriously, don't listen to this while driving.
9. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (James Horner, 1982)
Interestingly, as crappy as the first Star Trek movie was, Jerry Goldsmith's music was so good, they used it for the New Generation TV series. But then James Horner (of later Aliens and Braveheart and Legends of the Fall and A Beautiful Mind and Titanic and ... soundtracks fame) came along, and wrote music of such power and allure for the second installment, that combined with the movie's memorable story, surpassed all expectation, and made The Wrath of Khan the best Star Trek movie to this day. You can find the entire soundtrack online, but my favorite track belongs to the film's most pivotal scene: a parallel editing between Kirk in the Enterprise, and Khan in the Reliant, when after so many years, Khan's moment of revenge has come, and he utters the lovely sentence:
"Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space ..."
10. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (John Williams, 1980)
When it comes to John Williams, how can one possibly choose? Which soundtrack? Which track? Do you go with the music accompanying ... humans communicating with the Mother Ship? The bicycle flying into the night? Indy on the rope bridge? Seeing the brachiosaurus for the first time? Or Oskar Schindler having a nervous breakdown? Utterly impossible.
So the best you can do, is to come up with the best compilation - the best "whole".
In that regard, three movies shine: Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. ANH is probably John Williams most recognized achievement, but when assessing a movie soundtrack in its entirety, I believe ESB is 'slightly' more profound. This soundtrack has so many everlasting moments: the Imperial March, the battle in the snow, the asteroid field scene, and even Yoda's beautiful theme. But in terms of movie background music, one track stands out, and I told you, this will get strange: "The Duel".
Starts out with Vader using the Force to hurl huge objects at Luke, then moves to Leia and Lando fighting their way through Bespin's corridors to reach the Millennium Falcon, R2-D2 decoding and opening the platform gate, and the ship swooping away with four uplifting notes. Listen, and you can actually "see" these events happening right before your eyes.
Director: James Ward Byrkit. Cast: Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon. 89 min. Sci-fi/Thriller.
Group of people gathered at a night party gradually realize the house across the street is a mirror image of their own reality - same people, some actions, ... and same frightened interactions with themselves. This creates a very bizarre philosophical situation, where people start forgetting which guest belongs to which side, which side is reality, and which side the alternate reality. With some suspense/horror undertones, this is an entertainingly complicated story, but other than the small point of "don't take anything for granted", the take-home message was lost on me. Of course our lives can take infinite alternative paths; so what?
In 'found footage' format, young couple hikes deep into California forests to visit the Patterson-Gimlin site where the only known footage of Bigfoot/Sasquatch was shot in 1967, and possibly even see the beast itself. The Blair Witch Project comparisons are inevitable, and the ending is predictable just by reading these few words. Still, the last third of the movie is a feat of "artistic terror" I've rarely experienced, and includes an extended night-time tent scene, with a completely still camera on its protagonists, and the sheer madness of forest noises ... for a full 16 minutes! Must-see for horror gurus.
Director: Phillip Noyce. Cast: Brenton Thwaites, Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Odeya Rush, Taylor Swift. 97 min. Rated PG-13. Sci-fi/Drama.
The whole Hunger Games/Divergentteenager-chosen-among-crowds-of-a-post-apocalyptic-dystopian-future is getting so out of control, even stories written 20 years ago are jumping on the bandwagon. Actually, this one has interesting concepts, about a society that maintains peace by injecting memory-erasing drugs to their subjects, but preserves history by one "Giver" transferring memories to a "Receiver" (but then again, why not also eliminate the Giver-Receiver system?). The fatal flaw, is that the movie spends an hour defining the territory, but then as soon as the narrative starts gaining momentum, the ending is so rushed, you suddenly go: "Whaaaaa? What happened?" Deadly sequel-hungry screenplay.
PS: If you don't already know before the movie, you deserve a prize if you can spot Taylor Swift.
Director(s): Georg Maas, Judith Kaufmann. Cast: Juliane Köhler, Liv Ullmann, Sven Nordin, Rainer Bock. 97 min. Germany/Norway. Drama/Thriller.
If you've seen (and loved) The Lives of Others, this can act as a companion case. Without spoiling anything, it asks: Remember the GDR Stasi agents in that movie? What happened to them after the Berlin Wall fell? Do they feel guilty, and if they do, how do they cope with their past? That guilty feeling can be material for great cinematic drama - excavated for its potential in Two Lives. The protagonists here act as movie "heroes" do (and not necessarily as most criminals against humanity do in real life), but still, it's a story you can strongly root for.
PS: Thank you, Kaleem, for the fascinating recommendation.
Director: Lasse Hallström. Cast: Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon. 122 min. Rated PG. India/UAE/USA. Drama.
There are food movies, and there are feel-good movies. But then there's a feel-good-food-movie from a seasoned director, which you haven't seen the like of in years, about a charming culture clash in a small French village, which literally "feasts" the eyes with breath-taking panoramas and numerous close-ups on its mesmerizing actors, and charms the ears with a mixed Eastern/Western soundtrack. Even if it didn't have a story (which it actually does), I don't remember the last time I felt so elated for a full two hours. There would've been more peace in the world with more movies like this.
"Maybe the brakes break for a reason."
PS: Thank you, Emmie! Your very first recommendation got the highest honor!
George Takei's life has three prominent aspects: his role as Sulu on Star Trek, his childhood internment in an Arkansas camp during WWII, and his gay activism. Mostly people know him for the first, and I was interested in the second; to understand how he overcame the bitterness for his own country, and become such a positive figure. Well, the film is almost entirely about his gay activism. Not only that, it appoints a significant portion to his partner, who doesn't seem like a very pleasant guy, or at least isn't too bankable for artistic purposes. Somewhat prejudiced and disappointing.
Director: Lenny Abrahamson. Cast: Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal. 95 min. Rated R. UK/Ireland. Comedy/Drama.
Rocker wannabe joins an eccentric band (aren't they all?) lead by a musician with a big fake head. I know, it's so odd. But with some patience, you'll find this an extremely brave and poignant film. Some of the symbolism ("fake" head, shattered head) is obvious, but the film is mostly open to interpretation. My take: it's a more complicated rendering of one Woody Allen film, that some eccentricities are better left untouched. As with any Fassbender movie (even when he has a big fake head on), I found this recommendable. Guaranteed to hum the ending song when it's over.
Director: Kelly Reichardt. Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard. 112 min. Rated R. Drama/Thriller.
Based on bizarre theories ("... hundreds of salmons are killed to power up an iPad"), three nerdy environmentalists plan a terrorist attack to explode a dam, with consequences that apparently are only unknown to the protagonists, as the massive risks of blowing up dams are quite obvious. Well-directed drama with nicely-spaced moments of nail-biting suspense, starring Jesse Eisenberg (currently the "go-to guy" for nerdy characters) has an anti-climactic ending that leaves the viewer hanging - as expected from the artsy director of Wendy and Lucy.
Director: Peter Bagdanovich. Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Randy Quaid. 118 min. Rated R. Drama.
A desolate Texan town in the 1950s is dying, and the sudden death of one of its locals exponentially accelerates the process. Some movies provide a very detailed snapshot of how it must have been to live in a certain time and place, and although I wasn't around at the time, this film with its bleak black-and-white cinematography (which oddly lost the Oscar to Fiddler on the Roof that year), offers the atmosphere of such a life, and what people do when there's nothing to do in a very small town where every single move is known to everybody.
Director: Woody Allen. Cast: Woody Allen, Mira Sorvino, Helena Bonham Carter, F. Murray Abraham, Olympia Dukakis, Paul Giamatti, Peter Weller, Jack Warden. 95 min. Rated R. Comedy.
The good thing about Woody Allen is that he's directed up to 50 films, so you can always go back and watch the ones you've missed. Among them, this was a pure delight. In addition to Allen's usual neurotic characters, memorable dialogue, and twisted couple relationships, this also adds the spices of a very unpredictable ending (exactly how fate works), Mira Sorvino's dominance as the "hooker with a heart of gold" (actually the leading actress, but shoved in as a supporting to get her an Oscar), and an immensely creative Greek chorus line that acts as Woody's usual reproaching conscience.
- "Achilles only had an Achilles heel, I have an entire Achilles body."
- "Who is the boss between you and mommy?"
- "Who is the boss? You have to ask that? I'm the boss, okay? Mommy is only the decision maker. You know, there's a difference between ... Mommy says what we do, ... and I have control of the channel changer."
- "I'm not a violence person! I write about boxing and hockey and football!"
- "My father's brother was supposed to be a genius. I never met him, but everybody said he was brilliant."
- "Really? What did he do?"
- "He was a serial rapist. He spent his whole life in jail, but if he had gone straight, he might have been very good in math."
PS: So I still need to see Crimes and Misdemeanors, Alice, September, Broadway Danny Rose, Interiors, ...
Director: Michael Winterbottom. Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon. 107 min. Not Rated. UK. Drama/Comedy.
Here's my roller-coaster ride with Steve Coogan: I found his 90% rated Tristram Shandy (also directed by Winterbottom and co-starring Brydon) obnoxious and boring to death, but then his role in Philomena a lovingly obnoxious performance. So when this year The Trip to Italy, the Winterbottom/Coogan/Brydon sequel to The Trip opened, I gave Coogan another chance. Again, I was bored to death. I don't see the point of making a movie about two people eating in fancy restaurants and (artfully) impersonating famous actors. If I ever do watch the sequel, it will be just to watch more impersonations.
PS: Let me save you some time. Watch some of the incredible impersonations here.
Director: Hossein Amini. Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac. 96 min. Rated PG-13. UK/France/USA. Thriller.
Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), the directorial debut of Oscar-nominated screenwriter Hossein Amini (Wings of the Dove, Drive, Snow White and the Huntsman), is a well-directed, well-acted, and well-written love triangle thriller in a far away land, with the intricate mysteries of not knowing the good guy from the bad, till the very last scene. This makes the structure full of surprises, and the story completely unpredictable. Mortensen and Dunst are as fascinating as always, but newcomer Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis) is strangely reminiscent of a young Al Pacino. He's got star power.
Trivia: The month of January is named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions, beginnings, gates, doors, doorways, passages and endings, and as such is usually portrayed with two faces, one looking to the future and the other to the past.
Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo. 124 min. Rated R. 124 min. Japan. Animation.
Apparently, the landmark of Japanese anime. Being unfamiliar to the territory, the whole feature was strangely both original and post-modern to me. There's a theory (probably my own) that when grown-ups are unable to implement their ideas into an adult/live-action movie, they resort to children's medium/animation - and this two-hour-plus film, which contains extreme violence, nudity, and extravagant sci-fi concepts that would make James Cameron shiver from thoughts of the live-action budget, is a testimony to that effect. With stunning visuals throughout, the story was so wild with imagination, even a sci-fi-lover like me needed some urgent Wikipedia research.
Director(s): José Padilha, Felipe Lacerda. 122 min. Rated R. Brazil. Documentary.
Another example of movies showing glimpses into lives in other countries, that would be impossible to see in a lifetime. In the wake of all the Brazilian World Cup glamour, here's the story of a man whose mother was slashed to death before his eyes as a kid, grew up in the streets, was incarcerated several times in Rio's hellholes, and ended up taking hostages on a bus in an infamous 2002 event that was televised live. The documentary analyzes how the system breeds these criminals, and how the public supports the eradication of these "invisibles" ... by merely killing them.
Unforgettable quote:
"A nation's true identity is revealed in a hostage situation."
