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Sicario (2015)
Sicario is dark, broody, and beautiful.
I still remember how my heart leapt when I saw Sicario's trailer for the first time. Emily Blunt as a baddass FBI agent taking on the drug cartel? Sign me up! I had known the premise for sometime before I saw the visual, though, being that I'm an avid stalker of Blunt's IMDb page. This, along with the sterling critics reviews got my hopes up to astronomical heights.
Let's talk about Emily Blunt for a second. Honestly, I could talk about her forever, but for your sake I'll try to keep my love fest brief. I first saw her in The Devil Wears Prada in which she took a supporting role opposite the very talented Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep. Blunt was an absolute scene stealer. Yes, she stole scenes from MERYL STREEP. She is truly one of the more versatile actresses I've ever seen. She's never played the same role twice, in fact, she seems to not even try the same genre twice. Blunt can go from portraying Queen Victoria in the very sweet and well made The Young Victoria (2009), to battling futuristic robots with Tom Cruise as the "Full Metal Bitch" (Edge of Tomorrow, 2014) seamlessly. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see her cast as the sympathetic and ambivalent FBI agent Kate Macer in Sicario.
You should know, she has that facial expression for like 50% of the movie. You should know, she has that facial expression for like 50% of the movie. Sicario boasted a cast of accomplished and critically acclaimed actors: Emily Blunt (Golden Globe), Josh Brolin (Oscar), and Benecio Del Toro (Oscar), and each of them more than pulled their weight. However, the best performance in the film was not by anyone in front of the camera, but rather the director Denis Villeneuve. This film did not feature a lot of dialogue, so instead, every facial expression, eye twitch, cough, and tear had to move the story along. Moreover, the cinematography and score became characters in themselves. They established the tone, carried the plot, and breathed emotion into what would otherwise be a dark, but relatively "empty" story. The format reminded me of the movie Zero Dark Thirty, but with a less impassioned leading lady.
The movie opens on a raid that Agent Macer (Blunt) is leading in search of hostages. What she finds instead is that the walls of the house are riddled with dead bodies. This raid puts her on the map for shady might-be-CIA Agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin). Macer is quickly swept up into the dangerous and corrupt world of the drug cartels in Juarrez, Mexico. This is not what she signed up for, though, so she spends most of the movie infuriated with the amoral goings-ons of American government agencies on Mexican soil, and on the verge of a mental break down. Yes, she even has a "what have you become" mirror scene.
Agent Macer is a far cry from the futuristic war goddess that Blunt played in Edge of Tomorrow in terms of combat effectiveness, but she's human, and her inclusion serves a specific purpose for the film maker, audience, and supporting characters.
Not a lot is known about the man who recruited her, Agent Graver (Brolin), other than he's not telling Macer the full truth. His objectives and motivations remain shrouded in mystery for the majority of the film. He's cocky, with an irreverent sense of humor and a belief that the ends justify his means.
The third member of this talented trio is Benecio Del Toro as Alejandro, a non-American former lawyer who now runs with Agent Graves. Revealing too much about his character and back story will major plot points away, so unfortunately I can't give you much insight other than he's relatively standoffish and very serious. At the beginning, Macer attempts to befriend him, which should tell you how desperate she was for some semblance of a human connection. I will say this: Benecio Del Toro played his role to perfection, and the last scene between he and Blunt was by far my favorite of the movie.
Sicario is dark, and broody, and beautiful. It gets my recommendation.
Brooklyn (2015)
Every member of the cast pulls their weight, but Ronan carries Brooklyn in her eyes
Brooklyn is the story of a young Irish immigrant in the 1950's who moves across the ocean to Brooklyn, NY in search of a better life at the behest of her sister.
Saoirse Ronan (of The Lovely Bones and Hanna fame) plays Eilis, an intelligent and relatively ambitious young woman who wants for more than her uneventful life in her home country of Ireland. Her sister, through oversees connections, secures Eilis a visa and urges her to take the opportunity, even though it means leaving her family behind and saddling her sister with the responsibility of caring for their aging mother.
The filmmakers succeed in making Eilis instantly sympathetic, creating an atmosphere for Ronan to further engross audiences with her inherently endearing nature. She seamlessly glides through her performance as Eilis struggles through her first New York winter terribly homesick, and eventually comes to terms with her new reality. She's helped along on that journey by the charming Tony (Emory Cohen), who falls head over heels in love with her the moment that they first lock eyes. With the help of Tony and with her roommates as a support staff, Eilis she is able to make a life for herself in Brooklyn and keep the pangs of homesickness at bay.
Special attention is paid to Eilis' character development, something that as a viewer, I really appreciate. 30 minutes into the film I felt like I knew Eilis personally, like I was a guest at the diner table.
Tragedy strikes back home in Ireland and halts her new found happiness. She's forced to examine her direction in life and furthermore, evaluate her choices.
The film's greatest accomplishment is the connection it fosters between the characters and then extends to the audience. Every member of the cast pulls their weight, but Ronan carries Brooklyn in her eyes, which she uses to display a plethora of emotional reactions that not only provide insight into Eilis as a character, but move the story forward as well. I wouldn't be surprised to see her name on the Oscar ballot this year.
Brooklyn is without a doubt my favorite love story of the year. You will laugh, you will cry, but you'll ultimately leave the theater with a smile on your face.
The Martian (2015)
The Martian is a blast! (Pun very much intended)
I read the book The Martian by author Andy Weir a few months ago, and my excitement for the film adaption was through the roof. I stood in line to watch it on opening night and had to sit beside a stranger in the front row (no I did not go alone, my sister was with me. Whatever, I don't have to explain myself to you) because the theater was so packed.
SPOILER ALERT for my review, IT WAS WORTH IT.
There was a lot of reason for my excitement.
1. Read the book. Loved the book.
2. Set in space. I'm a SciFi fan (as evidenced by my 5 part review of the X- Files), although it's only slight fiction.
3. THE CAST
4. Ridley Scott directed it
The novel reads like a laymen's science text book with profanities sprinkled in. The film stayed true to that idea with a little Hollywood magic sprinkled in. Matt Damon said it was meant to be a "love letter to science". I promised myself that this review wouldn't be a movie vs. book argument, so I'll move on.
The Martian is set in space, but it's more realistic with a greater attention to detail than any movie since Apollo 13 (1995). Although I did prefer the visuals in Gravity (2013), I'm aware that there were a few scientific inconsistencies in that film. As a result, I would describe the genre as more "science" than "fiction".
I'm a half decent writer, I used to do some acting, and I love the idea of directing, but I've always believed that my real talent is in casting. It's almost the only thing that I think about when I read a book. This is a blessing and a curse. Well, just a curse really because I highly doubt I'll ever actually be a casting director. 9 times out of 10 I'm supremely disappointed by at least one actor in the movie. I am happy to report, though, that this movie was PERFECTLY cast. Not a single actor was lacking or out of place. After watching the trailer the first time, I went through a period of uncertainty about the Kristen Wiig choice, but I am happy to report that aside from Matt Damon, she may have been the highlight of the film for me.
Although her screen time was somewhat brief (less than it was in the book) she brought wit and intelligence and heart to her character Annie Montrose, NASA's PR Director.
She wasn't the only actor that surprised me. Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) of Community fame was also great in his role as a socially awkward genius Rich Purnell.
I was happy to see Kate Mara in the film as well, what with the disaster known as The Fantastic 4 not yet behind her. I won't go into that, but I would like to state for the record that I liked that movie and thought that she was adequate as The Invisible Woman. Although a very dark part of me was happy when Kevin Spacey pushed her in front of a train in House of Cards, it wasn't because she's a bad actress, it was because I hated her character which is a testament to her talent. She didn't have many lines, but still came across as endearing here.
It is my expressed opinion that Jessica Chastain is one of the greatest actresses of our time. Anyone who can go from The Help (2012) to Zero Dark Thirty (2013) without missing a beat should be rewarded with all the parts ever. OK, so that's an overstatement. But she really is quite the scene stealer. As great as this movie is, it's inevitable that there was going to be some cheesy dialogue (space odysseys and survival stories have a tendency to include that). Unfortunately for Chastain, all of that dialogue seemed to land on her. She executed it with poise and a commanding presence though. Although, it's possible that the dialogue was very realistic. It makes since that the Commander of a manned mission to Mars would probably take themselves and their job very seriously, especially under the circumstances that Commander Lewis is subject to. She was the first character in the book that I associated with a certain actor, and reading her I immediately thought of Chastain. She is Commander Lewis.
I would be here all night if I went in to each individual performance because they really were all quite impressive, so I'm going to skip to the guy putting the people in the theater seats: Matt Damon. I've been a Damon fan since seeing Good Will Hunting in the 5th grade. Like Chastain, he is one of the better actors of our time and I thought his performance here was electric. Some people were concerned that teaming he and Chastain up and sending them to space so soon after Interstellar was a mistake, but I doubt that anyone was thinking about Matthew McConaughey after they saw this movie. Damon was completely captivating as Astronaut Mark Watney, a man who's marooned on Mars after his crew is forced to evacuate the planet. It truly is one of the better performances of his decorated career.
I give the film a solid 9/10. I'm not giving it a perfect score because my opinion was tainted by having read the book first. Definitely a must see and a lot more visually rewarding in theaters. Bottom line? The Martian is a BLAST! (Pun very much intended).
Crimson Peak (2015)
Crimson Peak definitely has its "jump out of your seat" scares, but it's the tormented psychological motivations of the Sharpe siblings that leave your skin crawling.
Crimson Peak, is NOT a horror movie, according to its director, Guillermo Del Toro that is. Instead, Del Toro would like it to be categorized as a "Gothic Romance." I'm sure if you've seen the trailer you would beg to differ, but I side with Del Toro here. The film is breathtakingly beautiful, story driven, deliberate, and well acted- not exactly the usual ingredients of a horror movie.
Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, a young, ambitious author in a time when it was expected that women celebrate their husband's careers instead of their own.
Edith makes it very clear that she's more interested in the ghost story that she's writing than with finding a man. This, for some reason, changes almost immediately upon meeting Sir Thomas Sharpe, a once wealthy engineer from England. The first 30-45 minutes of the film is supposedly dedicated to making the audience believe that she did in fact fall madly in love with Thomas. All I was convinced of, though, is that she loved her father and he believed in her dreams. Wasikowska came off as more impressed with Thomas's worldliness than head-over-heels in love, which would make sense had they stuck to her earlier narrative. But because they attempted to go with the "blinded by love" rationale, all of her decisions from that point forward seem inauthentic.
Before Thomas whisks Edith away to his creepy mansion in the desolate English countryside (Allerdale Hall), he introduces her to his frighteningly even-toned sister, Lady Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), who also happens to be a talented pianist. This comes in handy later when creating the unsettling ambiance of the haunted mansion.
Yes, there are ghosts in this film. Ghosts that have been beautifully crafted by advanced special effects. Seeing this movie in the theater alone, was probably not the wisest idea. The trip back to my car through the dark parking lot was certainly a tense experience.
*Spoiler* Although the ghosts are visually terrifying, they have no malice in their intentions. The only beings that mean to inflict bodily harm at Allerdale Hall are human beings. Dun dun dun dun!
The mystery is fairly easy to solve, but that dosen't mean that those theories aren't horrifying when physically manifested.
*Spoiler* Although I assume that Del Toro meant for his "gothic romance" to be between Edith and Thomas, the far more compelling love story was Thomas and Lucille's (no matter how twisted it was).
Jessica Chastain (as per usual) stole the show. In fact, I'd like to see her name on the Oscar ballot for supporting actress. Her Lucille was passionately monstrous, with enough restrain to make her measured dialogue as unsettling as her gruesome actions.
Crimson Peak definitely has its "jump out of your seat" scares, but it's the tormented psychological motivations of the Sharpe siblings that leave your skin crawling.
The X Files: Roadrunners (2000)
My Favorite
This is my favorite episode of the series. It represents the best of what the X-Files brought to TV: reasonably graphic science fiction activity. The X-Files can be separated into a few different categories: Aliens, Supernatural Monsters, Products of Bizarre Mutation Monsters (including parasites, insects, and plants), Ghosts, and God. My favorite being the Bizarre Mutations. This episode, I feel, is the cover girl for that category. Although I did miss Mulder's presence in the 8th and 9th season, I think that his absence really allowed Scully (who in my opinion was far less developed than he was) to flourish. This episode is dark, it's twisted, but most of all, it's BAD ASS! A more modern and personal play on "The Host"(S2E2), I would describe it as "Deliverance meets Prometheus Ft. Gillian Anderson." Truly the best the X-Files had to offer. #ScullyForTheWin
Hannibal (2013)
Season 3 and Characters
*SPOILERS*
Let me start out by saying that The Silence of the Lambs is my favorite movie of all time. So I put off watching this show for 2 years in fear that it would ruin the Clarice character even more than Julianne Moore did. I was overjoyed to see them not even touch her (aside from some references to her in the Miriam Lass character). Additionally, I found Hugh Darcy's interpretation of Will Graham to be far more endearing than Edward Norton's. They strayed from the original material with the Freddie Lounds character, who in Red Dragon is a man. This was a brilliant move, Freddie was scheming and borderline psychotic without adding to the relative sausage fest that would have ensued had they stayed true to the source. They also used Freddie to help deliver the writer's plethora of sexual innuendos. My favorite character, though? Bedelia, and not just because I'm a huge X-Files fan. I found myself becoming impatient at the gap in the second season that she's away after she wisely "peaces out." For this reason, as well as Alana Bloom's character development (which I will touch on in a second), the first 6 episodes of the 3rd season were my favorite of the series. in fact, I think a spin off is in order: "Hannibal and Bedelia's European Adventures." My theory is that Bedelia is in fact the most twisted character in the series. Most would argue that that award should go to Hannibal, and rightly so, he's a sociopath, but Hannibal knows exactly what he's doing, and is fairly open about it. Bedelia on the other hand is either lying to herself, or has effectively tricked every character that she's come into contact with (including Hannibal) that her "dark passenger" (dropping a Dexter reference) is a product of peer pressure and professional curiosity as opposed to an all encompassing darkness akin to (but more controlled then) Hannibal's. I sincerely hope that Bedelia's feast in the closing seconds of the finale is her own doing, rather than Hannibal's revenge. In a perfect world, eating her leg is an act of compensation for the adrenaline vacuum that Hannibal left her when he ended the chase by jumping off a cliff. Now onto Bloom. I thought she sucked in the first two seasons, so naive. Not stupid, but certainly a narrow and fairly sunny world view (an interesting thing to have in her line of work). Her being the only real female character (Kats died) up until Margot was introduced became rather trying on my patience. I mean, really Alana? Jack got with the program. I understand that she had more history with Hannibal than Jack did, but good lord, she literally had to be pushed out a window to figure out what was really going on. In season 3, though, she did a complete 180. Alana 2.0! and I loved her. Baddass, decisive, a sense of humor drier than Arizona, it was awesome to see. I think the wardrobe shift to the "modern noir" genre helped with her transformation into basically a mobster hellbent on revenge (she used Mason's money to pay off the cops, remember?) Mason Verger was the perfect Hannibal bad guy. Creepy, twisted, and totally crazy. His relationship with Margot was instrumental in the writers teaching their audience to truly hate him, not begrudgingly, but "he got what was coming to him when he ate his own face" kind of hatred. Like the TV.com reviewer, I preferred the first half of the season and honestly could have watched the Hannibal/Bedelia, Vergers/Alana, Will/his own insanity dynamic for at least an entire season and possibly even a movie. In fact, somehow throw Bedelia in the final Verger show down scene and I'd put that DVD right next to The Silence of the Lambs on my shelf.