"Dallas Buyers Club" Review

Dallas Buyers Club is based on the true story of Ron Woodroof, an electrician from Dallas, Texas who discovers he's contracted HIV. Doctors give him 30 days to live. What ensues is Woodroof's seven-year struggle against, not only his disease, but the malpractice of doctors and the FDA (In the film, the drugs required for proper HIV/AIDS treatment were not legally sanctioned by the United States government.) To fight back, Woodroof smuggles the necessary drugs across international borders and opens a "buyers club" - afflicted members could gain access to as much treatment as they needed, without a prescription, as long as they paid their $400 membership fee.

That's chump change when it comes to saving your own life.

DBC has been heralded as one of the top films of 2013, and I think that's a reasonable judgement. This is a stellar film with an intriguing story that's bolstered by knockout performances from Matthew McConaughey as Woodroof and Jared Leto as Rayon, co-manager of Woodroof's operation and fellow AIDS patient.

Continuing a strong 2013 track record that includes memorable performances in Mud and The Wolf of Wall Street, McConaughey gives the finest outing of his career in Dallas Buyers Club. His role as Woodroof required that he lose 45 pounds, which means that the once beefy beach bum with a special place in the hearts of women around the world is nowhere to be found in this film. But it's a perfect role for McConaughey because the character matches the actor's nuances perfectly. By night, Woodroof is a rodeo cowboy, so McConaughey still maintains a bit of that gruff, wild-west swagger he's always been known for.

In his role as Rayon, Leto reminds us that he can do more than just sing. The 30 Seconds to Mars front man hasn't made a feature film in at least four years, and this rivals his turn in Requiem for a Dream as his best role. It's no easy task showing up to work in drag every day, but Leto pulls it off with a feisty, nuanced, emotionally arresting performance. He has been earning recognition for his performance from the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with SAG and Golden Globe awards, respectively, for Best Supporting Actor. Leto also has an Oscar nomination for his role as Rayon.

I liken Dallas Buyers Club to fellow Oscar nominee 12 Years a Slave based on the fact that both are sturdy, well-acted stories that submit their characters to some of the most trying circumstances that any human being should ever have to face. Both are such emotionally taxing films that I can't see myself rushing back to watch either one again anytime soon. You won't see me rushing out to the store on the first day to pick up these Blu-Rays. They're both amazing films; they're just difficult to watch. You won't find the entertainment value of, say, a Gravity or Captain Phillips here.

It's hard not to root for characters like Ron Woodroof in DBC or Solomon Northup in 12 Years because they're normal folks who find their lives changed for the worse in an instant. If these normal folks can't triumph over abnormal circumstances, who can we look up to? Everyone needs a hero, but oftentimes the most intriguing aren't the ones wearing a cape.

B+

"Her" Review

If any filmmaker could make an audience buy into a story about a man who falls in love with his computer operating system, it's Spike Jonze (Where the Wild Things Are, Being John Malkovich). With his new sci-fi romantic drama-comedy Her, Jonze manages to do just that. He makes the most bizarre premise of the year work in a way that's profoundly original, yet feels like a place that anyone who's ever been in a serious relationship is familiar with. The conversations that Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) has with his OS girlfriend Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) feel like talks I've had, or could have, with my own girlfriend. This is how Her earned my emotional investment and kept me entertained for two hours.

Aside from that, it's just a wonderfully written story from Jonze. At times, it's laugh-out-loud hysterical, especially when Theo plays a video game involving a vulgar alien companion. At others, the movie plucks ever so gently on your heart strings. Phoenix turns in another bravura performance, but what I liked more about his character in Her than his recent turns in movies like The Master or Walk the Line is that Theodore isn't an asshole. He writes handwritten letters for people to send to loved ones for a living. He's still a sad, melancholy man at times, but there's a sense of joy in his life that I found refreshing after watching Phoenix, for years, shout at his family and play several "lone wolf" characters.

Johansson, oddly enough, deserves an Oscar nomination even though she's never present in physical form. Her voice work as Samantha is astounding, and nearly makes the audience fall in love with her just as Theodore does. Together, the unlikely couple are a joy to watch and somehow manage to be relatable. I think that's why the story works so well. 

I was irked only on one or two occasions involving Theo & Samantha's sex life. I can't spoil anything, but I will say that if the idea behind the film wasn't odd enough, it gets uncomfortably weird in a couple brief scenes. Nothing that ruins the overall experience though. 

Her is a stellar picture that's poignant for our time as we search for what it means to connect with real people in an ever-changing world dominated by technology. This isn't just the finest romance of 2013; it's a perfect romance for the current state of the human condition.

A-

"Inside Llewyn Davis" Review

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

This weekend marks the nationwide release of several big awards contenders that have previously been limited to small releases in other territories. Audiences everywhere can now see Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, and Lone Survivor at their local theaters.

First on the list, for me, is Inside Llewyn Davis - the Coen Brothers' latest foray into black comedy and a movie I've been waiting months to see. It tells the story of a young folk singer, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), as he navigates the folk music scene of early 1960s New York.
Davis is one of the Coen's best, thanks to Isaac's star-making performance, a script riddled with the brothers' classic black humor, and another killer soundtrack from T-Bone Burnett.

This is the first I've seen of Isaac since 2011's Drive, which is another one of my favorites. As Llewyn Davis, Isaac reminds us of the tempestuous nature of the world and how different circumstances & experiences contribute to one's character. Oddly enough, he doesn't give us much to root for because, frankly, he's a bit of an asshole. Llewyn's story is told in such raw, simplistic, melancholy terms that it's hard to predict where exactly his life will take him, but that's all part of the appeal. It's not your classic "rags to riches" story.

Along the way, he meets a colorful cast of supporting characters, including an ex-flame (Carey Mulligan), her husband (Justin Timberlake), a crippled jazz musician (John Goodman), his mysterious, grizzled valet (Garrett Hedlund), and a hard-pleasing club owner (F. Murray Abraham).

The cast itself is remarkable, in particular, Isaac for the complex emotional range he displays in the lead role. I just had fun watching him exist onscreen because he always has something to say or do. Inside Llewyn Davis is as entertaining as any movie I've seen in the past year.

As for the soundtrack, frequent Coen collaborator T-Bone Burnett (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ladykillers) assembles another stellar roster of folk songs that, altogether, sound iconic. Marcus Mumford, lead singer of Mumford & Sons, also boasts an associate music producer credit on Inside Llewyn Davis. These two need to work together more often.  

If you make it out to see Davis, and you really should, be on the lookout for some key plot devices. It may take a couple viewings, but I'm interested in determining the significance of the cat as well as the seemingly circular narrative. I think the cat, which Llewyn loses before the animal finds its way home, represents the title character as he struggles to find his identity  as a solo folk act before returning to play one more gig at home - the Gaslight Cafe. But the seemingly circular narrative might suggest a repeating routine in Llewyn's daily life. It's possible that he stays on the same couches in the homes of the same friends and plays shows at the same locations all the time, which is hinted at when Llewyn says "Au revoir" to a man in an alley. As suggested on the film's IMDb message boards, "Au revior" means "until we meet again," which indicates that he might've been beaten up before.

Inside Llewyn Davis is fraught with melancholy, but it's a beautifully-made treat that finds the Coen Brothers in their finest form in years.

A-

"The Wolf of Wall Street" Review

New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort is the type of guy who likes to have his cake and eat it, too. He's such a junkie for mayhem and excess that it's easy to liken him to a Goodfella-Gatsby wannabe. With The Wolf of Wall Street, director Martin Scorsese faces a task unlike any he's ever attempted - bring Belfort's Olympian true story to life with all the pomp and circumstance that it deserves. The director succeeds to a fault.

This is Scorsese's funniest, most ambitious, most energetic film in years - if not of his career. The film never boasts a boring moment, and at three hours, The Wolf of Wall Street is more than a movie - it's a marathon experience. Just like in a real marathon, the film runs on sheer adrenaline - the richest runner's high coming from Leonardo DiCaprio's dynamic, energetic performance as Belfort. However, fatigue sets in by the film's final act, which makes me think how much better TWOWS might've been if it had been trimmed by even a half hour. (It's no secret that the film has faced controversy regarding the editing of its content. Scorsese was forced to cut several sex scenes to avoid an NC-17 rating, which would've effectively doomed the picture to box office hell and ruined practically any chance at Oscar gold.) 

There's simply far too much crammed in here, and not all of it is consistently realistic. Belfort's life is full of so much off-the-wall stuff that it's hard to distinguish fact from fiction. I could've done without a few sex scenes that were played for laughs, but really served no purpose in the overall narrative, like the butler's orgy. There's also an absurd sequence which takes place on Belfort's 170-foot yacht during a storm that looks and feels like something out of Titanic. It just doesn't seem true at all. If the plot was as smooth and streamlined as that ostentatious yacht, TWOWS might be the year's best film. It's certainly the most original I've seen thus far. However, for me, Scorsese's best since Goodfellas remains Shutter Island - a seriously underrated psychological thriller, also starring DiCaprio.

Leonardo DiCaprio's performance in TWOWS may be the best of his career, but I doubt it will be enough to finally earn him an Oscar. There have been too many great leading performances this year. The Gold will most likely go to Chiwetel Ejiofor for 12 Years a Slave or Tom Hanks for either Captain Phillips or Saving Mr. Banks. 

As for The Wolf of Wall Street's other players, Jonah Hill's character is an annoying douchebag, as well as all the other sleazy individuals with which Belfort aligns himself. My favorite supporting performers were Rob Reiner as Jordan's tough-loving father, Max Belfort and Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna, Jordan's mentor at his first ever Wall Street job. For. McConaughey, this is a hilarious bit part that allows him to show off some of the classic cowboy charisma that made him famous. I wish he was in it for longer than 10 minutes. Margot Robbie also fares nicely as Belfort's femme fatale, Naomi, with a performance that hearkens back to Lorraine Bracco's in Goodfellas. 

Believe it or not, The Wolf of Wall Street makes a strong case for being the funniest movie of 2013. Lots of it is gleefully self-referential, and DiCaprio does his best Henry Hill impersonation with a clever, razor-sharp voiceover. He even breaks the fourth wall on occasion. That said, this is strictly a guys-only night at the multiplex. The film is jacked up on so much testosterone and adrenaline (among other, more synthetic substances) that it'll leave you ready for a workout by the end. That is, if it doesn't burn you out on a three-hour marathon of sex, drugs and alcohol first. 

B-

"Saving Mr. Banks" & "American Hustle" Pocket Reviews

Saving Mr. Banks presents the untold story behind the making of Walt Disney's Mary Poppins. Emma Thompson makes a stellar turn as the persnickety author P.L. Travers, who refuses to sell the Poppins rights to Disney for fear of his presenting her as "twinkling". Tom Hanks counterbalances with a strong portrayal of Walt Disney, the mogul's first appearance as an acted-out character in a feature film. Saving Mr. Banks also boasts a strong supporting cast, including Colin Farrel, Bradley Whitford, Paul Giamatti, and Jason Schwartzman. The story itself has a delicate balance of humor and catharsis, making the audience roar with laughter just before tugging at your heartstrings. Parts of the dramatization may have been fictionalized in order to be intentionally sappy, but I cried nonetheless. One of the finest films of the year, and possibly Disney's best live-action picture since the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

A

As the latest picture from David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter), American Hustle is a loose dramatization of the FBI's famous Abscam operation from the late 1970s and early 80s. Christian Bale plays a sleazy con man who, together with his seductive partner in crime (Amy Adams), works with an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) to expose bribery and corruption in the New Jersey state legislature. The ensemble cast is the best I've seen all year including the players already listed, as well as Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro.

The script, from Russell and Eric Warren Singer (The International), is full of hilarious moments, but the plot itself feels a bit convoluted at times. There are so many cons and jobs being played out on screen that, at times, it feels like the moviegoers are the ones being hustled. I still don't know if Adam's character really was British or not. And just what exactly was the purpose of Lawrence's character? It's as if Russell and Singer just wrote a silly part specifically for her so that Russell could work with her again. Lawrence is a great actress, but this might be the least deserving Oscar nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category.

American Hustle has fleeting moments of brilliance but it just isn't as endearing a story as Russell's previous two efforts. Following the trend started by last year's Zero Dark Thirty, I find American Hustle to be the most overrated film of 2013. Give Mr. Banks a nomination instead.

C

"Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues" Review

(SPOILERS AWAIT)

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues

Grandiosity and bombast have been the name of the game in 2013 for major studio productions. This past summer brought us perfect examples with Pacific Rim and Man of Steel. The Hobbit could be considered another, more recent culprit. It's as if everyone's just demanding more special effects, more destruction, more gunfights, more, more, more... But for Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 news team, more [of the same] ain't such a bad thing - especially not after nine long years.

The 70s are now a thing of the past, and what lies ahead is the dawn of 24-hour cable news. Leaving San Di-AH-go behind them, the Channel 4 news team (Will Ferrell, David Koechner, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell) moves to New York City to begin work at Global News Network - headed by the feisty Linda Jackson (Meagan Good). In their time spent together at GNN, Ron and his cohorts haphazardly reinvent the standards of broadcast journalism. 

Sure, a handful of jokes can be written off as shameless retreads (Brian Fantana's cache of cologne is now a collection of condoms / another news team battle) but there's more than enough original material to make up for it. As much as I hoped deep down for another a capella version of a classic rock song, I'm glad that the singing, if there really needed to be any, is relegated to an original song. Ferrell sings a sweeping rendition of "Doby" as he laments the departure of his pet shark. Additionally, Kristen Wiig brings a fun dimension as Brick Tamland's muse. 

I also noticed a stronger plot at work here than in the previous Anchorman film. While the sequel manages to maintain less of the first movie's looseness, Ferrell and director/co-writer Adam McKay lace a sharp commentary on the current state of cable news into their story here. By the condescending frown of Bill O'Reilly!

The amount of surprise celebrity cameos greatly out-tallies the first Anchorman, and it gets a little absurd when some of them are introduced. It starts to become less of a gimmick and more of an annoyance when Kanye West shows up wearing a Jheri curl or when Harrison Ford turns into a werewolf. But with the amount of quality players involved, it's hard not to have fun with each of their different parts. 

Anchorman 2 is just as funny as it's riotous predecessor. Time will tell if it's as quotable, however.

B+

"The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" Review

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Why can't every fantasy epic be like Game of Thrones or even the original Lord of the Rings movies?

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - the second film of Peter Jackson's L.O.T.R. prequel trilogy - panders too much to the video game crowd with superficial storytelling and ridiculous stunts that come off far-fetched, even for a big-budget fantasy picture like this.

In what may be the greatest sequence of controlled chaos ever captured at 48 frames per second, we see dwarves riding in barrels careening down a whitewater river and haphazardly taking out hordes of orcs as they go.

You wouldn't have seen that ten years ago, and it makes one wonder the kind of lowly chord Jackson has now struck in Tolkein's grave. After a certain point, all I could think to myself was, "Seriously?"

Throw in some giant spiders (been there, done that) and The Desolation of Smaug puts Legolas's hokey-but-badass shield surfing in The Two Towers to shame in the worst possible way.

To add insult to injury, I found the CGI to be mediocre at best.

The biggest set pieces look cartoony, as do the orcs who are no longer portrayed by live actors as they were in the Lord of the Rings films.

The combat felt much more raw and realistic with the actors as orcs.

Now it just looks and feels like a three-hour Whack-A-Mole game.

The plot, while not all that dissimilar from the earlier movies (get a group together / venture to this place in order to do this thing / meet folks along the way), simply lacks the emotional panache of the Lord of the Rings. I could care less about what happens to Bilbo, Thorin (Richard Armitage), Bard (Luke Evans), or any of the other characters because all their actions and reactions feel skin-deep. I sense no true change in the film's hobbit hero, who seems just as squirrelly as he was six hours and two movies ago at The Shire. Hell, Frodo started finding his own autonomy by the end of Fellowship.

For a story that's supposed to be about finding your courage and embracing the unknown, Martin Freeman's quasi-douchey Bilbo makes finding a reason to embrace this prequel story impossible. The fact that his character seemingly takes a back seat to Gandalf, Thorin, Bard, the elves, or any of the other dwarves, except for when his "burglary" skills are needed, makes matters even worse. "The Dwarves" would be a more apt title for this movie.

The Hobbit's sole saving grace is Benedict Cumberbatch who doesn't even appear in person.

He plays the voice of Smaug - the fearsome dragon who guards the dwarves' gold and inhabits the desolate mountain kingdom that they hope to reclaim.

It's clear that the bulk of the special effects budget was spent on making Smaug look just right. The amount of detail on his hide and scales is impeccable, looking every bit as gnarly and battle-scarred as Tolkein could have envisioned.

Cumberbatch's voice work is outstanding; it makes the film's final act both frightening and engaging. Just a casual conversation with the dragon had me on the edge of my seat more than any of the big action sequences did.

The introduction of Smaug alone makes this sequel better than The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Though it finishes strong and leaves fans hungry for the final chapter, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is unlikely to convert franchise newcomers as the series continues to devolve into an emotionless shell of its former cinematic glory.

C+