The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn. As in The Trip, the two British comics are sent off on a hedonistic road trip to review spectacular restaurants – this time in Italy’s most stunningly beautiful destinations. Along the way, they needle each other and virtually any occurrence can trigger a very funny riff. As in The Trip, they compete for the funniest Michael Caine impression; but this time, their funniest impression is of a harried Assistant Director trying to give notes to the mask-wearing Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises.
And – if you enjoy travel and fine dining – the restaurant scenes are unsurpassed. The Trip to Italy is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
Now here’s an amazing true story: those ubiquitous but creepy images of waifs with exaggerated eyes were created by painter Margaret Keane, but the credit for them – and income from them – were taken by her con man husband Walter Keane. In the entertaining Big Eyes, the couple is played by Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz.
Adams’ performance is perfectly tuned, so we can understand how Margaret could be charmed and bullied into such a disadvantageous situation. Waltz does a good job in the first two-thirds of the movie, when he depicts Walter’s charm and chutzpah; but his performance in the final third of the movie seems very broad. Big Eyes also features especially fun supporting turns by Danny Huston and Terence Stamp.
Big Eyes does a good job of illustrating the overt sexism of the pre-Women’s Lib 1950s. And the serious issue of domination and control in a relationship lurks in the background. But Big Eyes has been distilled down to a simplistic Good Gal/Bad Guy story.
Denizens of the San Francisco Bay Area will enjoy the familiar Bay Area locations, especially the recreation of North Beach in the Beat Era and Woodside in the Sunset Magazine 1960s.
Bottom line: Big Eyes is a satisfying audience-pleaser, but not a movie I’ll be thinking about tomorrow.
Talk about “overlooked” – there were some great movies this year that didn’t even get a meaningful theatrical release. Let’s start with Blue Ruin – a completely fresh take on the revenge thriller.
Then there’s the romantic drama a la Twilight Zone, The One I Love, with brilliant performances by Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass.
The year’s best documentary – Alive Inside – didn’t even get shortlisted for the best Documentary Oscar. I dare you to watch this movie without tearing up.
I thought that the Canadian comedy The Grand Seductionwould become a long running art house hit like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or The Full Monty. But, despite being the year’s funniest and most audience-friendly comedy, it came and went quickly.
I loved the darkly droll German slacker comedy A Coffee in Berlin, but only a few other folks saw it in this country. It was a big hit in Europe – for a reason.
Fortunately, Blue Ruin, The One I Love, The Grand Seduction and A Coffee in Berlin are all available on DVD and/or streaming. Follow the links above to find out how to watch them. But two wonderful films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom dramaClass Enemy are not currently available to US audiences. When they are, I’ll let you know.
This year we’ve seen an unusual number of actors playing multiple roles in the same movie. Jesse Eisenberg in The Double and Jake Gyllenhaal in Enemy play guys who encounter their dopplegangers – and the fun is in the contrasting personalities of the lookalikes.
In The Face of Love, a grieving widow falls for the exact double of her late husband (but she doesn’t tell the new boyfriend about the resemblance). Ed Harris plays both roles.
In the The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy plays a couple who have experiences a tragedy. In a Rashomon-like manner, part of the movie is told from her perspective and part from his, so McAvoy and Chastain are playing the same character, but shaded by the differing viewpoints.
And here’s my favorite. In The One I Love, Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass each play two characters, but I’m not going to spoil,the movie by telling you who they are. It’s a superb Twilight Zone-like experience. Just watch the movie.
The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
Set in the macho world of Olympic wrestling, Foxcatcher is really a relationship movie with a stunning dramatic performance by Steve Carell.
J.K. Simmons is brilliant in the intense indie drama Whiplash, a study of motivation and abuse, ambition and obsession.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the thoughtful dramedy The Skeleton Twins – a mostly hilarious movie that seriously explores the subject of depression. The Skeleton Twins is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On New Year’s Eve, set your DVR for one of my FAVORITE movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent grad. Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself. It’s such a personal favorite because just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner. It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his “”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.
The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential) and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR). All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits. The Paper Chase is also available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu and Xbox Video.
I do this for fun. This year, my most fun at the movies happened at film festivals (Cinequest, San Francisco International Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, Noir City), the SFFS French Cinema Now film series and my movie club, the Camera Cinema Club.
These gave me an early look at some of the Best Movies of 2014 – Ida at Cinequest, Dear White Peopleand Calvaryat SFIFF and Alive Inside at Camera Cinema Club. The screening of Dear White People, with a packed, appreciative audience and a Q&A with writer-director Justin Simien, was a howl! And I hope that two foreign films from Cinequest, Heavenly Shiftand Class Enemy, will become available – on DVD or VOD – to US audiences.
And I always value my steady companion Turner Classic Movies. TCM always turns me on to new favorites in film noir; this year TCM introduced me to Pitfall with Dick Powell and I Wake Up Screaming with Victor Mature and the irreplaceable Laird Cregar.
Keira Knightly and Benedict Cumberbatch in THE IMITATION GAME
So – here’s a pretty good true story: the guy who invented the computer and played a key role in defeating the Nazis was hounded for his homosexuality. And The Imitation Gametells that story very well and is a pretty good movie. Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who was able to create a proto-computer that could break the codes of the German Enigma cipher machine. To make his character even more interesting, Turing had appalling, almost Asberger-like personal skills and needed to conceal his sexual preference. Cumberbatch nails the role, and will reap an Oscar nomination for his efforts.
It’s a top-to-bottom excellent English cast. Keira Knightley is especially good as Joan Clarke, the real life female codebreaker who overcame sexism and who became, briefly, Turing’s fiance.
Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD
Instead of waiting for my year end Top Ten list, I keep a running list throughout the year: Best Movies of 2014 – So Far. That list is shaping up, though, and my recommendations are getting validated by the early critics awards.In the last two weeks, both the New York Film Critics Circle and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle recognized my #1 film, Boyhood, as the top film of the year and my #2 film, Ida, as the top foreign film. And the New York Times’ A.O. Scott picked Boyhood and Ida #1 and #2 on his top ten list.
Boyhood is pretty much out of theaters, awaiting a DVD release in January. So is Dear White People, out on DVD in February. But you can see almost all the rest right now:
Birdman, Gone Girl and Force Majeure are in theaters right now. And Ida, Locke, Calvary, Alive Inside, A Coffee in Berlin, Borgman, True Detective and The Grand Seduction are available on DVD and/or streaming. Check my Best Movies of 2014 for DVD/streaming availability.
To get on my list, a movie has to be one that I’m still thinking about them a couple of days later. I’m still mulling over whether to add A Most Wanted Man, The One I Love or Whiplash.
I’m still waiting to see several contenders for my year-end list: A Most Violent Year, Big Eyes, Inherent Vice, Selma, American Sniper, The Overnighters and Two Days, One Night. From what I read, any or all of these might end up on my final list. [Although it’s likely to be nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar this year, most of us won’t get a chance to see the Russian Leviathan until well into 2015, so I’ll leave it for next year’s list.]
For some reason, Under the Skin,Snowpiercer, Grand Budapest Hotel, The Lego Movie and Love Is Strangeare all showing up on some top ten lists. I really can’t understand why. At least Under the Skin and Snowpiercer were entertaining, but none of these were great.
The term “dramedy” has never been more apt – The Skeleton Twins is a serious exploration of two complex and textured characters with depression, and yet most of the movie is very, very funny. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig play adult twins who haven’t spoken in ten years; they share a troubled upbringing, bitingly wicked and often morbid humor and serious melancholy. Their blues manifest in different, but serious ways. Brought together when the sister invites the brother to move in with her and her husband, past memories are evoked, each calls the other on their bullshit and everyone’s serene routine is overturned.
The two stars are excellent – and this is Hader’s best film work so far. His monologue about how far he’s come since high school is heart-breaking.
There is lots to like about The Skeleton Twins:
perhaps Luke Wilson’s best performance as the ever-decent and upbeat husband, hopelessly out of his depth with his troubled spouse;
a hilarious Wilson monologue about “land mines”, which will make everyone who has been either a boyfriend or a husband fall out of his seat laughing;
a sparkling turn by Joanna Gleason as the twins’ insufferably self-absorbed New Agey mother;
watching Wiig finally outshine Hader in lip-syncing to Starship’s execrable power ballad “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”. (BTW, on YouTube, you can find Starship’s original video for “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” – Mickey Thomas at his most insincere and Grace Slick in 80s Big Hair – YIKES.)
So the film works overall, but I was left a little short on the mental health aspect (see, if you want, under SPOILER ALERT below). Nevertheless, I recommend The Skeleton Twins for its intelligence, honesty and humor. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
[SPOILER ALERT: The main characters are both clinically depressed. I didn’t buy the ending where – without any medication or talk therapy – the two seemed to trending hopefully because they have embraced honesty and the support of each other. Now The Wife, who is a trained therapist, DID buy the ending, saying that the movie didn’t show them to be OK, just doing well with each other’s support. The critical consensus seems to be with her.]
Based on the popular memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Wild is the story of how Strayed dealt with her own emotional collapse. Suffering emotionally from the death of her mother, among other issues, Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) had become a red-hot mess, playing around with heroin and destructive serial sex and, in the process, dooming her marriage to a solid guy (Tomas Sadoski from The Newsroom). To cleanse herself from her demons, Strayed embarked on a solitary thousand mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.
Hiking the Pacific Coast Trail is a mighty quest – both an ordeal and an achievement. But walking it alone as a woman – that’s a whole different deal. The camera is on Reese Witherspoon in every scene, and she carries the movie with her performance – both as Cheryl implodes in the flashbacks and as she overcomes her fears and inexperience on her hike. It’s been eight years since Witherspoon won the Oscar for Walk the Line. Recently, she’s been reinventing her career with high quality fare like Mud,Devil’s Knot, Wild and the upcoming Inherent Vice. Her work in Wild is top rate.
Laura Dern’s performance may be even better than Witherspoon’s. She plays Strayed’s mom, a woman who has been dealt a shit sandwich every day of her life, but who relentlessly insists on appreciating life’s small pleasures. It’s a compelling and heartbreaking performance.
Now I have done some back country hiking and I know what it’s like to walk for 15 miles in a day. It can be pretty damn monotonous. But not this movie. Writer Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy) and director Jean-Marc Vallée do a fine job in presenting the scope of a thousand mile journey by pulling out the most compelling components – the moments that illustrate the impressiveness of the feat and the depths of Strayed’s emotional damage and healing.
It’s pretty fine piece of filmmaking overall, and I’m going to start looking for the work of Jean-Marc Vallée. As he did in Dallas Buyers Club, here he tees up extraordinary performances while avoiding what could have become trite and sentimental audience manipulation. Watching Witherspoon and Dern in Wild is a good use of anyone’s time.
