Reviews

"Black or White" had a lot going for it but perhaps it bit off more than it could chew. As the plot of the movie began to settle in I thought, wow we are in for an interesting ride. So many themes that are ripe for exploring seemed present in the first few minutes of the film. In the context of this movie, instead of looking at these as themes, let's look at them as plot devices or obstacles for potential conflict and tension. There is the single parent, in this case a grandparent, raising a child. There is the generation gap between grandparent and grandchild. There is the gender challenge, in this case a male raising a female. There is the idea of loss and what it is to keep moving in this world after we have lost a loved one and partner that shared our life with us. Finally there is the theme of race, again in this case a white man raising a biracial granddaughter.

So much potential is here, yet for 80% of the film I felt I was watching a made for Lifetime melodrama. Everything from the mournful saxophone soundtrack straight from a 1992 slow burn thriller to the clunky and forced comments on race, to the too on the nose comparisons between the grandfather (Kevin Costner) and the girl's father (André Holland) to the un true to life court scenes made me shift restlessly in my seat and wonder how much more time was left until I could depart this sinking ship of a film.

There was some interesting casting choices made. Comedian Bill Burr plays Rick Reynolds, Elliot Anderson's (Kevin Costner) friend and lead lawyer in the custody battle of Elliot's granddaughter. Community's Gillian Jacobs makes a couple appearances early in the film as Rick's other half and to provides a bit of comedy relief but oddly disappeared from the 2nd half of the movie for no reason other than a purposeful tone shift, but the disappearance has no on screen explanation provided.

The tension and drama of the film was too meandering and did little to engage the audience and when the stakes were finally raised for a scene here or there it felt too much like a paint by numbers approach. In other words I found the film boring, it made me only care about closing my eyes and when it tried to break from being boring it was just too predictable. It was like seeing the bad guy in a play waiting in the wings ready to make his next stage appearance.

Kevin Costner financed this film and it was very important for him to make. I thought the topics he wanted to tackle were worthy and some of what the script had to say was important for us to discuss as viewers. It just was clumsy in its presentation which is frustrating when thinking about what the film could have been.

Blarv Rating out of 10: 3.5

"A Most Violent Year" is a good slow smolder full of restrained tension and nuance. It is one examination of the "American Dream" and what it takes to achieve it.

Oscar Isaac is perfect as Abel Morales, understated at most times yet believable and charismatic. He has his own moral code, following "the most right choice". He says that the end result is never in doubt, the trick is in choosing the most right way to reach it. He lives and breathes his personal ambition to the point that it is not ambition but rather a natural thing build into his genetic code. At one point he is asked why he wants all this (success) to which Abel responds that he doesn't understand the question.

Abel's wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), provides the on the surface emotion. Where Abel can be cool, calculated, and focused, Anna is the fire in the family. Flashy with her Armani dresses and long fingernails, she is also the mama lion, ready to draw blood when her territory is infringed upon. Her performance is a lot of fun to watch.

Visually, the film is great. Plenty of background and depth for the characters to inhabit. This film takes place in 1981 and has somewhat of the gritty feel of films such as "The French Connection". The background never overshadows the characters and the framing never constricts the performances. The scenery is there to set this film in a time and place, one real enough to feel, hear, and smell.

This film may be "too slow" for some, those that need the instant jolts, the unnecessary and illogical twist endings, or unrealistic and over the top shootouts. The few visceral thrills the film provides are very effective within the steady realistic pacing of the film. Avoid this film if you don't like the idea of considering what motivates people and psychologically evaluating what actually makes people tick. Definitely check this film out if you like good character pieces and performances with beautiful yet unobtrusive cinematography. This is a hidden gem among the 2014 crop of films.

Blarv Score: 8.8 out of 10

I've often been in a group situation where I have felt smug and confident in my film opinion, an opinion that has fallen short of matching up with the group consensus. I don't mind to say why I think the Transformers movies have been huge disappointments or why another movie was not in "too slow" but rather it was moody and atmospheric. However, after watching American Sniper I was sheepish to admit that I had felt more than just a bit restless and bored in the theater. I felt a little bit like I just "didn't get it" which made me feel bad and I felt a little perhaps unpatriotic in not clapping in admiration when it was over (there was clapping and one guy upon exiting the theater remarked about he was surprised that the applause wasn't more exuberant).

I will not pose this review as a conversation on what the message of the movie was or if it did not paint a true picture of Chris Kyle, although those are both rich topics to delve into. Even if this were not based on a true story, if Chris Kyle had been a fictional character, I do not feel the film did enough to investigate him. There was the scene that from his childhood where his father told him that in that family they did not raise sheep or wolves, but rather sheepdogs. This was our evidence that Kyle had a savior complex, but I don't think it was enough. There was the scene, again as a kid, where Kyle's dad praises his son's take down of a deer and that he had a special talent. Again, not enough depth to explain what made Kyle ticked. Instead we have four tours of duty played out in full and monotonous detail. I became more invested when Kyle was between tours and back home, trying to fit into life. If these tours were used more as flashbacks and related more through comparison and contrast into that "ordinary" life a better pacing would have been achieved.

I read that Steven Spielberg had almost made this move and that he had taken a slightly different approach as an entry point. He would have brought the enemy sniper more into focus. Showing that the two snipers were two sides of the same coin and that perhaps war isn't about good and evil or if it is, it is from the vantage of where you stand. Maybe this would have been too similar to Enemy at the Gates, I'm not sure. I do think it would have made the movie more interesting for me at least.

I do know several people that liked this movie. People that are reasonable and intelligent and who hold opinions that I would usually consider. For me, even with a worthy performance from Bradley Copper, the movie was too one dimensional and for that I would not be fast in recommending it.

Blarv Score: 5.8 out of 10

I approached "Into the Woods" with mild apprehension. As a heterosexual male I love musicals, but have often felt burned by the screen adaptations. The flatness of a non-live performance really takes the magic and encompassing feeling I get from seeing a show in person. One thing going for me is that I was not too familiar with the play, so no real first person expectations were set, although I had heard that the Disney movie failed to deliver on many of the themes and content of the stage version. It was only after having seen the movie that I put myself through a crash course of the Sondheim play via YouTube clips and online reviews.

This review won't strive to reconcile the differences found between the stage and the screen version, but mainly to focus on the film only. In a nutshell the catalyst of the story is as follows: a baker and his wife are tasked by a witch to collect four items (Cinderella's shoe, Red's riding hood, Rapunzel's hair, and Jack's cow) in order to lift a curse that keeps the couple from having a baby. There are some good performances, topped by Meryl Streep's witch, some interesting and slightly surprising performances as I wasn't sure what I was going to get out of Chris Pine, and some performances that were over-hyped and under satisfying in the guise of Johnny Depp. Although Disney did lighten up and rewrite some elements, there was still plenty of dark elements- stepsisters mutilating their feet so that the fabled slipper would fit, Prince Charming successfully seducing the Baker's wife (although he only kissed her and didn't outright hump her as in the play), and there was also death relatively devoid of romanticism.

The film made the protagonist narrator (the baker) and the male roles as a whole difficult to identify or sympathize with. The baker was a near incompetent without a generous heart and only slight parental instincts. Jack was an idiot boy. The Wolf was a voracious pedophile. Prince Charming was a dim light bulb and adulterer. Even the prince's steward and the Baker's father got into the act as an arrogant (accidental) murderer and a family deserter respectively. The female roles on the other hand were either that of nurturing mother or of a smothering, destructive nature, or sometimes as in the case of the witch, a Shiva-esque combination of creator and destroyer.

Just as the film seems to be wrapping up, we have another 30 minutes or so of a third act that feels like an hour and a half. Maybe I just had reached full song saturation by that point.

In my opinion it was fortunate to have seen the movie first in much the same way as having read the book after is less disappointing than the other way around. It was harder to feel let down, frustrated or dissatisfied. The film had well thought out, engaging musical numbers. It did seem to fail on following through entirely on its "be careful what you wish for bit" but was more successful on its "you are nice not good" theme. The overall theme of child-parent relationships and parental failings (regardless of intention) was well covered across various characters.

If you like musicals, then give this a shot, especially if you are not very familiar with the play. If you like twists on fairy tales, give this a try. If you are not game for either one of those, then not sure what else this movie has to offer.

Blarv Score: 7 out of 10.

Top Five is Chris Rock's mirror pointed back at comedy, pop culture, and the entertainment industry. The movie resembles a Woody Allen film in many aspects, with Rock taking on the role of auteur- he wrote the script, directed the film, and is, of course, the star.

The basic plot is that of former comedy super star, Andre Allen (his Hammy Bear III movie made $600 mill). Allen, after having gotten sober, wants to be taken seriously. More specifically, after having gotten sober he feels he must be taken seriously as he does not think he can be reliably funny unless he is in an altered state. His story is parsed out bit by bit with the insistent probing from newspaper profiler, Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson). Of course the inevitable romantic complications arise between Allen and Brown as typical in this type of movie. Allen who is in a symbiotic relationship of remaining relevant with reality star, Erica Long (Gabrielle Union), begins to feel something more grounding, real, and connective with the reporter he has been sharing his recent hours with. His fiancée, Erica, lives a preplanned, prearranged, highest ratings only life for the cameras.

The film is full of a great revolving cast of cameos including fellow top comic Jerry Seinfeld, SNL current cast members Michael Che, Jay Pharaoh, and Leslie Jones, SNL alumni Tracy Morgan and Adam Sandler, and current "it boy" Kevin Hart, among several others. These cameos are often integrated into the conversation via a personal top five list of hip hop artists, hence the title of the movie.

This was a fun movie that I more or less sat back and consumed. I didn't interact with it too much on an intellectual level, rather I was there to be entertained. I was expecting a bit more of the hilarious, but instead of going for the home run with the chance of whiffing on the ball, it was relatively inconstant. Rock, although basically playing a version of himself, isn't the best actor in the world. I am not sure we can expect a better performance from him in the future, but he obviously has the gift of comedic writing and did a fitting if innocuous job at directing. He has earned the right to share more of his cinematic view with the world.

Blarv Score: 6.95 out of 10

John Wick had been out awhile and at first I had little interest in seeing it as, for me, Keanu Reeves is generally whatever the opposite of a selling point is. However I kept hearing about how this was a bit of a throw back of an action movie and upon reading the connection between the director and Keanu, I thought I would have to put aside my preconceived notions and give this movie a shot.

The movie had two ex-stunt men (one of which was Keanu Reeves' former stunt double) helming this film. This resulted in a lot of practical effects instead of heavy reliance on green screen. Also familiarity with Reeves likely left the directors with a base knowledge with how far they could push the star. This left the film's action scenes clean, realistic, to the point, and a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

If I was going to break down the film's format, well it is of the "semi-generic Punisher type, ex bad ass comes out of retirement to take on other bad asses" type variety. It was 75% Japanese yakuza film, 20% Film Noir, and 5% video game. One stylistic element that jumped out at me right away was the choice to go with a narrow scope of field for focus. At first I thought maybe this was the projector in the theater but then I realized it was a choice made for the film. Normally this would annoy me slightly, and I suppose still did, as I am a big fan of depth of field, mise–en–scènes set ups (Citizen Kane is one of my favorite films). I came to terms with the stylistic choice made for this film as it reminded me so much of Eastern influences, in this case it was reminiscent of Zen ink and brush compositions, where the sharpness lies in where the brush first touches down and the edges disappear into an almost mist like effect.

While Keanu sold the action pieces well, he wasn't asked to do too much to stretch his stoic emotional range, which is just what the film required. He was pretty much perfect for this part if I had been for some reason been asked to recast this film, I would be hard pressed to find a better fit. This would have been right up Jason Statham's alley, however there is nothing more he could have added to it. There was something quietly instance about Reeves that made you feel that he was one not to be trifled with. Statham will always remind me of the character he played in Snatch, which was not at all overly menacing or intimidating. Rather, if I had my choice of an alternative, I would delve further into the Japanese gangster genre and extract Chow Yun-fat. Reeves was 49 in this film and still convincing as an ass kicker. Chow Yun-fat would have been ten years older, but that would have further added to the realism of a retired hit man that is unwillingly dragged back into the 'business'.

Speaking of performances, this film was full of great character actors from the action genre and otherwise. One of these performances that I was not overly fond of was that of Alfie Allen. You probably know him as the dickless Theon Greyjoy. He worked in the part in that he was highly unlikable, however I was not sure which accent he was trying to commit to. This brings me to another flaw of the film. Many of the baddies simply did not measure up to be worthy of the John Wick challenge. A spoiled brat son of a crime boss nor the crime boss himself, an old man that the film gave no hint as to any physical prowess until the anticlimactic final battle gave any feeling that the fight would go any other direction except to a single minded John Wick killing stroke.

I highly recommend this film if you are a fan of good action. This easily ranks as one of the pure action movies of 2014. Judged as just a movie, it is simple in story structure, but what it does it does very well.

Blarv Score out of 10: 8.8

The Theory of Everything (review)

Every week the Sierra Nevada Movie Club meets up to catch a flick. This week's offering was the James Marsh directed "The Theory of Everything" with Eddie Redmayne undertaking the role of Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones, the part of Hawking's first wife. I had been waiting for this film to reach Reno. The biggest little city in the world is growing, but can still be a little bodonk when it comes to receiving some of the smaller pictures (one member of the movie group decries every film that is short of a generic action film as being "bizarre".) I went into the theater already primed, having recently watching the excellent PBS documentary from earlier in the year simply entitled "Hawking". "The Theory of Everything" matches much of the arc of the documentary, both choosing what to highlight. Stephen Hawking, who apparently enjoyed "Theory" did describe the picture as "broadly true." The film begins shortly before Stephen show serious symptoms as he struggles with in which way he is going to finish his academic career. He meets Jane (Felicity Jones) at a party and immediately begins courting her in earnest. Not long into their relationship Stephen has a serious fall and is diagnosed with motor neuron disease that leaves him with a life expectancy of two years. What follows is a force of mega adaptation for both of them. In one scene between Jane and Frank Hawking, Stephen's father, she tells him that she may look like a weak girl but she will prove that she is strong. This she does in a herculean effort. Although Redmayne has garnered most of the buzz for his performance and physical transformation, Felicity Jones is the heart and pulse of this movie. We can see her love, her struggle, her determination, and finally her frustration and heart break. This is not done through dialog, but shown through minute visuals, the type of acting that motion picture was made to capture. Although the emotional arc of this movie largely follows a man and woman falling in love and then eventually losing touch with each other, I never felt overly dragged into these pangs myself. The points that were meant to be visceral daggers, I felt were just a tad bit forced, pushed, as typical in many films, by a manipulative score. It's not as much that these scenes didn't feel sincere as much as they just tended to not dig deep and the scenes fell away like dead leaves in a gentle breeze. This film is definitely worth a watch, if for nothing else than at least a snippet view into the life of an amazing, determined, humorous, brilliant man. I am very curious what projects come Eddie Redmayne's and Felicity Jones' way now that the world is even more aware of these actors and their ability. Again, I highly recommend looking into the PBS documentary that is narrated by Hawking himself to contrast with "Theory" which is adapted from Jane's Hawking's biography.

Blarv Score 8.6/10

The Sierra Nevada Movie Club members don't tend to show up in large numbers for horror movies or animated films. However I had heard buzz about Big Hero 6 in regards to being nominated for best animated picture and I am one of those weirdos that enjoys seeing all the nominated films before the Oscars. Also the movie had been out awhile and this further kept some of our movie going numbers down. Four of our group came out for this one on our usual Tuesday night movie meet up.

I went into the theater with mixed expectations. The previews had not won be over but as I said, I had heard good things about it. Also just because a movie has been deemed "good" doesn't mean that I will enjoy it. I was under the impression that the humor and story would be a bit too childish for my sensibilities. However, I was mistaken. It may have been the influence of the rum in my big gulp size cup, but I felt although the humor, characters, and plot would appeal more to children and was too geared toward adults, it was, nonetheless, a film with universal appeal, nether too simplistic nor too complicated. It was sweet without being sappy. It was emotional without being heavy handed. It was formulaic only to the extent that it may be one of those instances that the sequel may be better than the original. The original has to introduce you to the "team", where hopefully the sequel can build off of the personalities we have been introduced to and give us a full formed adventure. The team of course being the Big Hero 6: Baymax- the squishy robot programmed for health care, Hiro Hamada- the main protagonist of the film and robotics genius, Go Go Tomago- the tomboyish tough girl that gets around via wheels attached to her feet, Wasabi- the intimidating looking Rasta locked martial artist that gets spooked easily, Honey Lemon- the upbeat alchemist, and Fred- the sign twirling fan boy in a lizard suit.

The film takes great liberties with the comic changing characters, locations, and the general look. It is not one of the best recent films to come from Disney animation, but it is good and compared to some of the other properties, lends itself well toward sequels. If you are feeling like watching something light that is likely to keep you in a marshmallowy good mood, check out Big Hero 6.

Blarv Score: 7.7/10