Some Movies Out This Weekend, November 14, 2014

Some Movies Out This Weekend, November 14, 2014

There are some big ones opening this weekend, folks. There's the off kilter romance, the decades later comedy sequel, the dramatic feature film directing debut by one of our least dramatic media figures, and another dramatic turn – zany makeup and all – from a guy best known for being America's dumb boss. And that's not even everything. As usual, there's so much to see this weekend at the movies.

Beyond the Lights

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Writer: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Nate Parker, Minnie Driver, Danny Glover

From a surface glance, this looks like an case of Lifetime's influence stretching to a wide Hollywood release. But for every moment that could be an overwrought mess – in the trailer, at least – it is underplayed. There doesn't seem to be much over acting going on in this enterprise, which is a sign of a good cast.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays a pop star in the Rihanna/Britney Spears mold, with a domineering stage mom played by Minnie Driver. In a bout of depression, she tries to commit suicide, but before she can jump from her hotel balcony, a police officer, played by Parker, grabs her. Then they fall in love.

This sounds dreadful on paper, but there's something going on in this short preview that's enticing. The mismatched couple, the means by which they met, and ideas about duty and ethics are present. That doesn't mean the movie will explore these themes, or explore them well, but it's ripe for drama.

Dumb and Dumber To

Directors: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly

Writers: Sean Anders, Mike Cerrone, Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, John Morris, Bennett Yellin

Starring: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Rob Riggle

The sequel I've been clamoring for since I was five years old is finally here. Harry (Daniels) and Lloyd (Carrey) reunite 20 years after their last adventure to Aspen, “California,” which formed the basis for one of the most re-watched movies of my life. Turns out Harry has a daughter he never knew about, and she might be able to help him out with a kidney. He and Lloyd, who is “hot for [Harry's] daughter,” try to find her.

Could be good, right? I sure hope so. I really do love the original. It was one of those movies I snuck my way into watching with my older cousins when I shouldn't have been allowed, and it has stuck with me, probably because I watch it about once a year. But I have seen the trailers too many times. It's one of those weird situations where, if you go to the movies enough, you get stuck with that one film whose preview you see before everything. I can't get that “na na na na” song out of my head, no matter how many times I plead with my brain. And sadly, the trailers all seem to be the same jokes as the first movie, but said in different locations. But I'm holding out hope the rest of the movie has new material to offer.

Foxcatcher

Director: Bennett Miller

Writers: E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman

Starring: Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo

Bennett Miller has made two of the best films of the last 10 years. Capote may mostly be remembered for Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning inhabitation of Truman Capote, but there is some astonishing, austere filmmaking on Miller's part that opens the film up to being more than an acting showcase. Same thing with Moneyball, based on a book about the least cinematic part of baseball: the analytics. Miller made a movie about mindfulness, fatherhood, and outside-the-box thinking that is one of my favorite sports movies.

And now here we are with his third non-documentary, a based-on-a-true-story drama about an mentally unstable multimillionaire John du Pont and his unhinged foray into funding a wrestling team in the 1990s. Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo play brothers, with Tatum being the Foxcatcher Wrestling top prospect and Ruffalo his trainer. There's some disturbing stuff on display in the trailer, and Carrel is in a neat transition in his career where he's developing into a pure character actor rather than a comedic heavy hitter. I'm very excited for this one.

Rosewater

Director: Jon Stewart

Writer: Jon Stewart

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Kim Bodnia, Dimitri Leonidas

In a roundabout way, Rosewater is responsible for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – if Stewart hadn't been off shooting this movie last summer, Oliver would not have filled in at the Daily Show desk and likely wouldn't have been offered the HBO gig, which is one of the best and most unexpected places for investigative journalism in television – so I am already eternally thankful for its existence.

Now, whether Stewart has the chops to direct a movie, let alone one not in his comedic wheelhouse, I can't be sure. But he has brought with him Gael García Bernal, whose turns in The Motorcycle Diaries, Y Tu Mamá También, and The Crime of Father Amaro, among others, have made him one of the strongest actors of his generation. Rosewater's story – a journalist is kidnapped while covering the failed Iranian “Green Revolution” and held by government forces because of trumped up charges he may be a spy – is a harrowing one. We'll see if the king of late night satire can make this work.

Whiplash Review: Genius is Harsh

Whiplash Review: Genius is Harsh

Whiplash

Director: Damien Chazelle

Writer: Damien Chazelle
Starring: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons

Genius is rare, perhaps even fleeting. It is also not about talent alone. Platitudes about the duration of Rome's construction apply even to the most brilliant people, and it's an unpleasant, sometimes unhinged exercise where things like real life and social pleasantries fall by the wayside in pursuit of greatness.

Writer-director Damien Chazelle's Whiplash unpacks that idea with laser focus. Miles Teller's Andrew is a first-year jazz drummer at the best music school in the country. He's more than raw talent, as established by the film's opening shot, a dolly push-in from a hallway to the practice room where Andrew toils away, sweaty and exhausted. A cut reveals the camera's point of view to be that of Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the conductor of the school's prestigious jazz band. Their first encounter is not the easiest first impression scene to sit through, and the movie only gets harder from there.

Andrew and Fletcher spar throughout the film. Fletcher is the worst case scenario negative reinforcement teacher, with a motivational style that includes throwing chairs at his pupils' heads and never once offering a word of encouragement. Mirroring the drumming depicted in the film, Fletcher's behavior is constant, repetitious abuse of their physical, mental, and emotional faculties. Even in his more “teacherly” moments, he is a calculating monster, only asking about Andrew's family background to gain an emotional cudgel moments later when Andrew makes a miniscule mistake in practice.

But is Fletcher really the bastard he seems to be? This is where Chazelle moves the film from straightforward character drama into a thesis on the manipulative nature of cinema. Despite the opening shot, most of Whiplash is shown through Andrew's subjective, go-getting eyes. He is not a heroic character. This is not an example of Chazelle showing how his protagonist is flawed or bringing a level of “real world” humanity to him while retaining likeability – he does and says some despicable things to the people who surround him. This may not be on the same abusive level as his teacher, but his tunnel vision to perfection sends him into callous fits of egoism. He emotionally tramples his girlfriend and holds an air of superiority over his father's dinner guests for not having his gifts, which pale in comparison to the way he treats his bandmates, with belittling statements about their abilities and a possible bit of sabotage to gain early sway with Fletcher. Even the climax of the film revolves around an act of spiteful showboating that makes it about the conflict between these characters. This is uncompromising storytelling, some of the best film has to offer. But from a character standpoint, and for the other musicians who have to be bystanders to this drama, with their futures just as much on the line as Andrew's, it's selfishness.

This calls into question Andrew's emotional stability and maturity, as he cannot see at times obvious tricks, cruel as they are, to put him on the right path. One of his rival drummers, of a good natured personality, reminds him that Fletcher is “all bark, no bite,” which could be closer to the truth than Andrew's mind allows him to perceive. There are pointed scenes where Chazelle shows some non-grotesque aspects to Fletcher's personality, cracks in the mask, with the camera pausing on Simmons's face during moments of horrible self-realization/public deception, or voyeuristic peeks at a good nature outside of his practice room behavior. Fletcher even goes so far as to lay out his ethos in clear terms to Andrew in a third act scene, but his pettiness makes it worse for both of them, setting up the grand finale of selfish oneupmanship. Or is it just another Fletcher motivational ploy to wring greatness from Andrew? That's the wonderful mess Chazelle leaves for the audience to decide.

Andrew's goal is to be “one of the greats,” and he'll probably do it if he doesn't collapse under his own and his teacher's pressure. Chazelle, the first-time director, might be on the same route, and his first features is probably already there.

Stream Oscar Season Now: Snowpiercer Review

Stream Oscar Season Now: Snowpiercer Review

It's Academy Awards season. Halfstack's resident film critic, Rob Samuelson, has been hard at work catching up on many of the year's most important movies through on-demand and streaming services.  You all want a great top 10 list, don't you? As a way to join in the fun, read his reviews of movies you can see right now on a variety of platforms. First up, this summer's Snowpiercer, now available to rent on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Prime, and YouTube.

I can't use copyrighted material here according to our blogging service, so enjoy my artistic rendition of the movie.

Snowpiercer

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Writers: Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterson

Starring: Chris Evans, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Kang-ho Song, Ed Harris

Anytime a powerful body starts making claims about the necessity of everyone knowing their rightful place, they should be viewed with supreme skepticism and, sometimes, outright opposition if their policies begin to demean, subjugate, and effectively dehumanize the less powerful. But these policies often spring from the minds of those looking to preserve something about humanity, and in their fear, stress, and yes, sometimes greed, their choices can become hellish. That doesn't mean their initial urge to protect the system was necessarily wrong, but an unquestioning faith in a system or ideology leads one to miss its imperfections and cause problems. Those not in power aren't always altruistic victims, either, often making choices for survival that are contrary to any human decency. And if, by some miracle of chance, the roles get reversed, the allure of power almost always prevails. In Snowpiercer, director Bong Joon-ho – in his American filmmaking debut – explores these themes to their wrenching logical ends, never losing control of any aspect of cinematic storytelling in the process.

In the decades following the worldwide climate collapse, caused by a catastrophic decision to flood Earth's atmosphere with a cooling chemical, what's left of humanity resides on a gigantic train, the Snowpiercer of the title, barreling through an uninhabitable tundra. Like in any social system, winners and losers emerge in this deal. The wealthy, the opulent, the gilded reside up front, with all the markers of high society bestowed on them. Snowpiercer shows how they are probably not bad people, per sé, rather blissfully lucky and unwilling to lose the relatively nice situation they've found themselves occupying.

But they're not Bong Joon-ho's primary concern. He's worried about the lowest ebbs of the order, those at the back of the train, greedily consuming – eating is not the right word for it – bars of gelatinous protein and biding their time to move up in the world by force if necessary, and those tightening their grasp of power at will. The back of the train world is reminiscent of a nightmarish coal mine, dank, frozen, barren yet overcrowded. Worse, the train's overseers, headed up by a gleefully twisted Tilda Swinton, don't show any kindness when these poor creatures get out of line, like opposing the theft of their children for reasons they aren't aware of. Questioning in any way the logic or morality of the powered leads to torture-as-public-service-announcement, a way of saying, “We're in charge – The More You Know.” Limbs are lost, the children are taken anyway, and Chris Evans's Curtis, the caboose's reluctant leader, begins an assault to upend the social order and take control of the train's undying engine.

What follows is one of the most functional films in recent memory. Every train car takes a different shape, the colors and costumes change dramatically, Joon-ho's camera moves more fluidly to take in an aquarium and rigidly in a claustrophobic, yellow steam room when the cronies of power are bearing down on their diminishing rebellion.

But it's not just production design and camera movement that makes Snowpiercer such a strong film from a pure cinema standpoint. Joon-ho has one of the deftest hands in modern movies at dispensing vital plot points. Characters mention a threat, the train's constructor and conductor, Wilford (Ed Harris), but they don't need to explain his role to each other. They already know. In a lesser filmmaker's work, the characters would say something clunky like, “Wilford, the man who built this vessel and has kept us in chains for years.” But Joon-ho understands this is silly and unnecessary. At Wilford's first mention, we get a statement of purpose from Curtis to kill him and a subtle tilt pan up to a Wilford Industries emblem forged on the walls behind him. This tells the audience everything they need to know about who this man is, and what he stands for has already been established by the brutality of his army. It doesn't talk down to the audience with momentum-crushing exposition, but it realizes it's also not the type of movie that can thrive by willfully obscuring information from the audience, either. Joon-ho finds the perfect use of his visual medium to explain who the MacGuffin-villain is. It is the simplest, most efficient way to impart these useful messages and it almost never happens in movies. This should be taught in introductory film classes.

Joon-ho's staging and fight choreography changes throughout the journey, too, never once relying on a trick multiple times. There are blunt object brawl-a-thons, gun fights, stabbings, a bit of parkour, and one central set piece in the middle of the train involving an army of ninja-reminiscent men donning night vision goggles and cutting the lights. Besides the stunning technical nature of the fight sequences, this violence always derives from or informs character motivation while working as their own miniature narratives. Losses are cut, eyes are kept on the prize, order is instilled, and personal spite enters the equation multiple times to raise the stakes higher.

Evans's superhero film background has prepared him well for those fight scenes, but where he truly matters to the film is in his quiet moments. He's wracked with guilt over the horrific things he did as a younger man, the ways he pushed aside his basic humanity for sustenance. The rage in his eyes can almost scorch through the final door to meet his adversary. But it's not just rage at Wilford. It's a cancer inside him, growing because he allowed it. He had the chance to say no to his urges and keep his dignity and goodness intact, but the situation corrupted him. He is livid at himself and the world for what those two entities combined to make him do.

But even the darkest of pictures need some levity. Swinton is the perfect slippery public face of the Snowpiercer, always looking for the positive, propagandized spin on things to keep the caboose people in check. The noises that come out of her when things startle her are hilarious, and her constant clumsy self-preservation provides many of the film's laughs. Ditto Kang-ho Song's drug addict security expert and his daughter (Ah-sung Ko), who can't stop sniffing noxious bits of what amount to large wads of gum while performing dangerous, complex tasks, always asking for more as a pat on the head for a job well done.

If there is one qualm with this film, it is the unnecessary clairvoyance angle Joon-ho takes with Ko's character. She can see the future but is unable to stop it, noticing several threats before they arise and then watching in horror as they commence anyway. A supernatural subplot doesn't make much sense here, given the hard sci-fi trappings of the setup. It doesn't work and it isn't integral to these characters reaching the engine room. The movie could have cut these mentions of her powers, lost maybe two minutes of screen time, and been just as functional in the end.

But that minor quibble aside, Snowpiercer is an extraordinary piece of cinema. It's gorgeous, with unending innovation in mise en scéne, framing, and camera movement. It wrestles with some of the biggest themes we have to contemplate in society – how to treat each other and what is fairness – and lets these themes embody actors perfectly suited to personify them. Bong Joon-ho is a modern master.