Tag: catch-up reviews

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Abrams, Benson and Moorhead, Fosse, Jones, Roach

Dan Seeger

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015). As a piece of nostalgic reclamation, the latest “Episode” of the Star Wars saga does its job so efficiently that its hard to get overly enthused about it as cinema. In a strangely fitting turnabout, the film series that fundamentally changed the business of U.S. moviemaking has turned into a follower, adhering closely to the mighty Marvel model. There’s little indication that The Force Awakens is laying the groundwork for vaster, interconnected stories, but it’s all introduction and reassurance, a tapping of the baton before commanding the symphony to life. The sense of … Continue reading Abrams, Benson and Moorhead, Fosse, Jones, Roach

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Carey, Harvey, Hill, Maloof and Siskel, Shepard

Dan Seeger

Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962). The film begins with a car crash, the vehicle careening off a cliff into the murky drink. Though the authorities are unable to find the vehicle’s female occupant (Candace Hilligoss), she eventually emerges, carrying no memory of how she survived. She proceeds with her plan, traveling to Utah for a job as a church organist. From there, writer-director Harvey, along with co-screenwriter John Clifford, comes up with downright ingenious ways to build scenes with unsettling layers with an obviously meager budget. The movie is ticklishly amusing given some of its more dated elements and amateurish … Continue reading Carey, Harvey, Hill, Maloof and Siskel, Shepard

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Broomfield, Demme, Radice, Safdie and Safdie, Truffaut

Dan Seeger

Ricki and the Flash (Jonathan Demme, 2015). By the last third of the film, it seems clear that Demme’s chief motivation for taking on this project is the opportunity to apply his extensive experience directing concert films to this fictional story of a derelict mother (Meryl Streep) who fronts a bar band. He certainly demonstrates only passing interest in the tepid familial drama in the script, written by Diablo Cody with a equal freedom from her previous dialogue quirks and recognizable humanity. When Streep’s bedraggled singer returns to her former home, responding to a suicide attempt by her daughter (Mamie Gummer), every … Continue reading Broomfield, Demme, Radice, Safdie and Safdie, Truffaut

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Baker, Baumbach, Endfield, Hall and Williams, Jacobs

Dan Seeger

Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014). Like just about everyone else, I believe The Lego Movie should have been Best Animated Feature Academy Award nominee (and I appreciate the creators’ inspired cheeky resilience in the face of the snub). After seeing Big Hero 6, though, I’m not sure naming the most worthy victor in the category was quite as simple as the chagrined consensus suggested. Developed after Disney Studios rummaged through the big trunk of misfit concepts stored up by their acquisition Marvel, the computer animated film about a young robotics genius who responds to personal hardship … Continue reading Baker, Baumbach, Endfield, Hall and Williams, Jacobs

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Enright and Berkeley, Garbus, McQuarrie, Van Sant

Dan Seeger

Promised Land (Gus Van Sant, 2012). This is exactly the sort of appalling earnest, dramatically inert fare that makes many rightly cringe when they think about the sort of medicine-tinged movies Oscar season might bring. With a story credit for Dave Eggers and a shared screenplay credit for Matt Damon and John Krasinski, who also start in the film, Promised Land takes the issue of fracking and tries to spin a sort of Capraesque fable with a dose of twenty-first century cynicism and a gotcha plot twist for good measure. Damon plays an ambitious employee of a global energy concern who … Continue reading Enright and Berkeley, Garbus, McQuarrie, Van Sant

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Banks, Bergman, Hamilton, Limon, Polanski

Dan Seeger

1971 (Johanna Hamilton, 2014). Clearly positioned as a history lesson for those who venerate Edward Snowden for his digital freedom fighting in bringing to light information about the U.S. government’s shady spying on its own citizens, 1971 focuses in on a break-in at a Pennsylvania FBI office in the year of the title. Those who are shocked by the modern transgressions against privacy can watch this documentary for a bracing reminder that federal crime-fighting agencies are in full-scale same-as-it-ever-was territory, Patriot Act or not. Of course, that doesn’t make current abuses acceptable, but the indignation is best shaped as part of … Continue reading Banks, Bergman, Hamilton, Limon, Polanski

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Garland, Howard, Mangold, Ross, Taylor

Dan Seeger

Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2015). Novelist and screenwriter Garland makes his directorial debut with this smart, chilly science fiction film about a reclusive tech magnate (Oscar Isaac) who flies up an employee (Domhnall Gleeson), supposedly selected at random, to help him test out some remarkable new artificial intelligence he’s created. Complicating the test subjects reactions is the little detail that the A.I. has been loaded into an android with a notably lovely female form and visage (Alicia Vikander). Garland builds his script with almost malicious psychological cunning, fomenting uncertainty as to whether the genius inventor is a simmering madman or … Continue reading Garland, Howard, Mangold, Ross, Taylor

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Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

Dan Seeger

Focus (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, 2015). There are a whole lot of film folks trying to pivot their careers with this strangely aspirational con job drama. Star Will Smith is clearly trying to put After Earth completely behind him by staking a claim on the territory of smart movies for adults that George Clooney has made his whole grain bread and artisan butter. At the same time, filmmaking partners Ficarra and Requa endeavor to demonstrate they can do more than comedies with a slightly twisty edge. Everyone fails in their attempt to stretch. The film is notably tepid, even as … Continue reading Edwards, Ficarra and Requa, Levy, Stoller, Wyatt

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Amirpour, Asante, Dobkin, Glatzer and Westmoreland, Roskam

Dan Seeger

Belle (Amma Asante, 2014). Based ever so lightly on real history — the only real source is a 1779 painting — this period drama tells the story of Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a young woman who is the offspring of a British naval officer (Matthew Goode) and an African-born slave. She’s raised among the British gentry by her grandparents (Tom Wilkinson and Sarah Gadon), treated as a beloved member of the family but also relegated to diminished status in her own home because of the conventions of the day. If the unconventional story elevates the film a bit past its restrained … Continue reading Amirpour, Asante, Dobkin, Glatzer and Westmoreland, Roskam

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Bendjelloul, Bobin, Boone, Lee, Stiller

Dan Seeger

Muppets Most Wanted (James Bobin, 2014). Once the cinematic franchise is revived, the next task is to prove it can be prolonged and maintained. Muppets Most Wanted is agreeable but oddly inconsequential. Lacking the fanboy passion that Jason Segel seemed to inject into The Muppets all by his lonesome, this new installment is drab and prone to drifting. The plot manages to evoke The Great Muppet Caper, the original Muppet sequel, while also playing around with a mistaken identity gimmick that takes full advantage of the pliability of the characters’ identity. Yes, it’s amusing at times, and the celebrity “guest stars” are … Continue reading Bendjelloul, Bobin, Boone, Lee, Stiller