Okay so I've been called out for my lack of movie-watching, mostly by Trev. What can I say, I can never seem to put in the effort to go to the theater and spend all that money to catch a flick when there's so many other options to spend my time on. I actually saw just two movies in theaters last year, and that list (Furious 7 and Trainwreck) doesn't exactly represent the cream of the 2015 crop. So here's the start of my serious effort to watch a lot of movies. There's an immediate focus on movies from 2015 as Stan's compiling some ranked lists and I'd like to give more input, but my first overall choice for a monthly movie post was 2003's Oldboy- an absolutely brutal movie out of South Korea that I always knew I would love. And I did. For those who don't know, Oldboy is about a businessman who is kidnapped and imprisoned seemingly at random- he has no idea what is happening to him or why. After fifteen years he finally manages to get out, and immediately his hunger for revenge makes him set out to determine who imprisoned him and why. Honestly, things were probably better for him in the prison. I did know the major plot twist at the end, which softened its likely devastating impact for me, but I didn't know about some of the other instantly iconic scenes and shots from the movie- the live octopus, the hallway fight, the photo album, the amateur dentistry. Okay if anything can convince you to watch Oldboy it's that hallway fight. Go watch it if you haven't.
Dope is an odd one, a movie that feels like a throwback to the 90s in style, but a story that's rooted in the present day. I don't know, I feel like in the 90's there were a lot of comedies starring black people set in the ghettos of LA, peaking with Ice Cube's Friday, but I feel like that sort of sub-genre doesn't exist anymore, or at least isn't nearly as popular. And to add to the 90's feel of Dope, the main characters, despite being right in the middle of the millennial generation, are all huge hip-hop fans who love to talk about how the 90's was the golden age of hip hop. The soundtrack features Nas, Naughty by Nature, and A Tribe Called Quest. And check out that flattop on Shameik Moore! In a way the movie almost feels like a nostalgic love letter to nineties black pop culture. And yet, it never loses sight of the fact that the movie is set in 2015- a time when being geeky can be cool, teenagers communicate in memes, and the virtual currency Bitcoin can be used for whatever illegal purposes you could want. The story here is light-hearted, despite the fact that it seems possible any of the main characters could be murdered at any time- our group of heroes are just trying to graduate high school when they accidentally come into a huge supply of molly, and they all fall for the allure of big money in dealing drugs. There's a nice coming-of-age story here though. Also Workaholics' Blake Anderson has a pretty significant role playing roughly the same character as his tv show, and it's great. Overall it's not a movie anyone needs to go out and see right now, but I enjoyed it enough to rank it my #4 movie of 2015, which speaks to how few movies in 2015 I saw and really liked. Most of the good ones will show up in this post.
I loved Ex Machina so, so much. I had seen ads for it and knew it was the type of movie I would enjoy, and when I finally watched it, it was exactly what I wanted it to be. In the simplest terms, Ex Machina is about a low-level programmer (Domnhall Gleeson) who wins a trip to the remote Nordic home of his company's founder (Oscar Isaac), and while there he can administer the Turing test to his boss's latest creation- an android (Alicia Vikander). Pretty quickly it's obvious that the Turing test isn't really necessary- the android very clearly has artificial intelligence and a personality of its (her?) own. A power struggle develops between the three characters, as the android pretty clearly wants to get out of her tiny apartment to see the world, the programmer believes he can help with this, and the boss reveals how terribly he's been treating his creation. Watching it all play out was tense and surprising, and the whole thing wrapped up with an ending that was both beautiful and horrifying. I was happy to call it my number one movie of 2015 (again, out of only nine movies I saw).
Stan gave Bone Tomahawk a strong recommendation as one of the best available streaming options from 2015, so I added it to my list with no other knowledge of what it was about. For a while it's a slow-moving Western, as four men set out from their town to rescue a kidnapped housewife and a deputy from a nearby group of cannibals. Again, "slow" is how I would describe the first 90 minutes or so- even though the pacing felt fine to me, admittedly very little happens as our crew assesses the situation and makes their way into the mountains, wondering what they might find there. And yeah, the movie bends over backwards to insist that it's storyline is more than "natives are scary!" by bringing the guy who played Hanzee from Fargo into the mix, and having him insist that these cannibals in no way represent Native Americans. If you have to add that to your movie, it's probably a bad sign. Still though, I ranked this movie highly anyway, and in my opinion Bone Tomahawk concludes itself with a very strong payoff, as long as you've got a strong stomach. It features literally the grossest scene I have ever seen in any movie- a scene where a guy gets scalped, and that's not even close to the worst thing that happens to him. I liked this, just don't expect to use it as a date night movie.
Hype City! I read the AVclub a lot, and holy shit did they ever love Mad Max Fury Road. And honestly, I thought the movie was great. It's a return to the Mad Max series after a thirty year absence, and replacing Mel Gibson in the title role is Tom Hardy, who honestly is second in command here to Charlise Theron's Imperator Furiosa. It's basically a two hour insane car-chase through the desert, not only touching on the survival themes of the original flicks but adding in a dose of feminism as well. It's very impressive how much of the movie features real, practical effects rather than CGI, and it shows- everything in the movie feels real. Still though, the hype was just too much- it got nominated for basically every award- so I only felt like this was my #2 for 2015.
Snoozers! I was mildly interested in this Will Smith/Margot Robbie con-man movie, again, mostly to add to my 2015 list, but this was really by-the numbers. Will Smith playing a cool con-man seems like a slam-dunk in casting, yet he didn't seem to bring all that much to the role. Margot Robbie fared a little better as the protégé, learning the ropes of the industry, while simultaneously either conning or being conned by Smith, while hooking up with him, and it's uncertain whether the feelings either show for each other are real. One beef I have with the movie is that at first, it does not try to glamorize the art of the con at all- Smith mentions that there won't be a huge flashy job that lands them enough cash to retire on, and that a high quantity of tried-and-true method jobs are enough to keep them busy and profitable. An interesting take! And yet, the movie spoils it by immediately following it up with two barely plausible high-stakes cons that make up the majority of the movie. I get that this makes a better movie, but it flies in the face of the logic our main character just laid out for us. Bah.
Beasts of No Nation
Ok I saw this a little under a month ago and I have to say I barely remember any of it. Idris Elba was great as always, but this drama about West-African warlords and child soldiers just didn't grab me. I mean, the warlords are brutal and the actions they get the child soldiers to take are heart-breaking, yet I don't think this really surprised me in any way. Oh well!
Glad to see you've upped your movie game.
ReplyDeleteOnly seen three films on the list here ("Oldboy," "Ex Machina," and Mad Max"), but your take on a few of these other films is much appreciated. Was very curious on "Beasts of No Nation," but informative to hear it doesn't really grab you. I felt like "Focus" was already going to feel slow and boring, but a little nonsensical too... might avoid that guy as well. I'm very interested in seeing "Dope" and I'm glad you like it. It also sounds like the drug of choice (molly) is also symbolic of the 90's -- raves were all the rave back in the 90's. And last, "Bone Tomahawk." Stan referred me to this one with a strong recommendation. So this along with "Dope" are both on my to-watch list.
I'll double-down on Sween's takes on both Beasts of No Nation and Focus - skip both!
ReplyDeleteBone Tomahawk is worth seeing for the scene Sween is alluding to alone. I'm probably overrating the entire movie because of that moment, but even before it becomes horrifying nightmare fuel, it's a well-made Western with four hey-it's-that-guy actors (well, three and Kurt Russell) doing some great work. It took me three nights to get through. Sween is right to call it well-paced but slow - not a lot happens until the 2/3 mark or so.
You also both liked Ex Machina way more than I did - I should probably give it another watch. But not yet...