Movie Review: 12 Years A Slave & August: Osage County

12 Years Of Slave
Directed By: Steve McQueen
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong’o, Scoot McNairy, Alfre Woodard

It’s hard to watch a movie like this and not compare it to Django Unchanged. I mean it’s the same setting, similar themes, big name stars, and unsettling images. However, unlike Django, 12 Years A Slave is extremely subtle in its powerfulness and Chiwetel Ejiofor is definitely one to watch come Oscar time, despite the difficulty in spelling his name.

In the 1800’s Solomon Northup, a hard working New York State citizen is kidnapped and sold into slavery and abused for 12 years despite his free status. While routinely punished for his rebellious behavior he has passed from family to family in the south, 12 Years A Slave is a recount of his time and the nefarious characters he encountered along the way.

Yes is wracked full of impressive guest stars, all who stay on screen a short time with minimal character development. However, the imagery, the themes, and the brutality of the entire frustrating and degrading situation is captured perfectly by astute directing and incredible acting. But nothing in this movie will affect you more until the final 10 minutes of the movie. When the moment you have been holding your breath for finally happens, you’ll be shocked at how easy the tears come. It’s a release you never knew you were holding on to. Rating 3 ½ Stars

August: Osage County
Directed By: John Wells
Starring: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Juliette Lewis, Julianne Nicholson

The best thing about August Osage County is the raw performance by Meryl Streep. Her performance in this movie is unlike anything I’ve seen from her in a long time. Streep plays matriarch Violet Weston of a dysfunctional family that gets together upon the disappearance of their father. She is a woman filled with rage and bitterness with absolutely no filter so it’s ironic that she is terminally ill from cancer of the throat.

The fact that this movie is based on a play makes me wonder just how awful it must be to watch it as one. The movie isn’t bad, persay, it’s just these people have pro-blems! And it’s depressing, and frustrating. It’s never easy dealing with sick parents, and stubborn parents, and parents who have belief systems that are old school and out dated. But it’s another thing to deal with a mother who is belligerent at making her daughters’ lives miserable. And it’s not even like the daughters are angels, they have their own twisted and complicated issues. But seriously, there is not one happy moment in this quiet little movie.

This isn’t exactly a rave review and a movie like this isn’t for everyone. But Meryl Streep commands the screen and watching her fight with Julia Roberts is quite entertaining. Now I know a lot of people who have been raving about Julia Robert’s performance, but honestly, I’ve heard so many bad things about her as a person, I couldn’t help but think of her tantrums on screen as a little glimpse of what it is to work with her when she’s in a bad mood. Rating: 2 ½ Stars

 

 

Movie Review: The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug

Many of the same issues I found with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I still find with this new installation. While Desolation of Smaug is clearly the better movie, I felt it was still missing the magical and enchanting charm of the Lord of the Ring Franchise.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug
Directed By: Peter Jackson
Starring: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, James Nesbitt, Ken Stot, Stephen Fry

Premise: Desolation of Smaug picks up where the first movie left off. The gang is still on their quest to reclaim Erebdor, but now being persued by Azog and his Orc gang from An Unexpected Journey. After escaping the Orcs with the help of the elves, they enlist the help of a man named Bard to sneak them into the town where descendants of Thorin Oakensheild’s people reside. With the town’s help they finally make it to the mountain in search to steal back the Arkenstone from a dragon named Smaug who took over the mountain long ago.

I loved The Lord of the Rings Franchise. After Return of the King was released, my friends and I built of fort out of couch cushions and blankets and watched all three back to back to back –the complete 4+ hours extended version. (I was in college FYI, so yeah, we were super cool.) But that’s how into the series I was. Unfortunately, I don’t feel the same about The Hobbit series. It’s a letdown. Okay, so the special effects are amazing, the visuals and the production design and just the vastness of this massive world is really quite an extraordinary feat, but yeah, as a movie: It’s a letdown.

 

Ending this movie on such a major and important cliffhanger did the movie a great disservice. It made the audience…ok well me…feel as if the rest of the movie were pointless. I understand that the movie is one book split into three parts, but I feel like it still needs to have a beginning, middle, and an end. Even if that ending is a cliffhanger. Harry Potter split Deathly Hallows into two parts, and I felt as if it ended at a good spot, where I was satisfied with the movie on its own, and yet salivating for the rest of it. (Then again, my bias can’t be trusted since I’m also a bigger fan of Harry Potter than I am this LOTR/Hobbit series.) Bilbo, Gandalf, and their dwarf friends travel to a mountain in to steal back the Arkenstone, but instead find a dragon. Everything in the movie leads up to the dragon then…end scene. Seriously? I’m as big of a fan as any at screaming WTF the second the screen cuts to black (re: LOST became the master of that. Scandal has no too.), but it just wasn’t satisfying. That’s like a movie ending mid fall after the main character falls off a cliff.

That being said, Desolation of Smaug was far better than the first movie. I love the incorporation of the elves. I enjoyed the love triangle between Kili, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and a female elf named Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly). I adored the dwarves great escape in wine barrels down a river, and the dragon vs. Bilbo scene was pretty excellent. Just give me more to hold on to. I couldn’t describe this movie to you without looking up the premise once again. And that’s bad. Also, Bilbo still isn’t as charming as Frodo.

 

Rating: 3 Stars

 

 

PS: I will show up for the final piece to the trilogy, because seriously, who doesn’t want to watch a dragon terrorize people?

 

 

 

 

Movie Review: Iron Man 3 & Star Trek Into Darkness

I’ve been behind in my movie reviewing. I admit it. I’m a slacker but working 16 hours a day in a state that’s not your own living out of a suitcase.

So here are my reviews in a hurry, Part 1:

 

 

Iron Man 3
Directed By: Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favvreau, Ben Kingsley, James Badge Dale

Review In A Hurry: After almost dying during Avengers, Tony has been suffering from PTSD. So when he finds himself being hunted by A new evil, The Mandarin, he is caught at a vulnerable time. He’s forced to be a stripped down version of himself, hiding in a small town while at the same time investigating how the Mandarin is causing such destruction. Teaming him up with a kid was a genius move, it not only made Stark relatable it also made him sympathetic.

Unfortunately the ending climax didn’t have enough heart to it, and a big plot point was basically looked over diminishing its emotional impact.

I wanted it to be a better movie than it was, but at times it felt like a jumbled mess. Though it took some interesting twists and turns, in the end, the villain just wasn’t that terrifying. While it got Tony Stark right, it seemed to get a lot else wrong.
Rating: 3 Stars

 

 

 

Star Trek: Into Darkness
Directed By: J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, Alice Eve

What I didn’t like:

• Sometimes I wish the villain you think is the villain is the actual villain because unless its done right, often times the true force behind everything isn’t very exciting. Plus this thematic repetition gets old seeing it in movie after movie. (See Iron Man, White House Down The Dark Knight Rises).
• Kirk is becoming unlikable. I know he has to grow up. I know that’s the moral to the story, but in this movie I found him annoyingly arrogant. I want to see him be more of a leader than whiny teenager. Self pity is not appealing.

What I liked:

• J.J. does character so well. No matter what you think of the characters, he gives each of them a developmental arch. Even the smallest of characters. This why you not only care about them because you know them, you care about them because you do.
• Great emotional beats. I shed a tear nearing the end of the movie. And the twist to the original version was pretty damn cool.
• Visuals – I like JJ’s lens flares. I do. I think his camera work is so great. And he works well with the 3D with out making it cheesy. Those arrows coming at you in the opening sequence were genius whether you watched it in 3D or 2D.

Star Trek was an overall top-notch movie that I need to see again. JJ took a new twist on an old classic that was fun and fresh at the same time.

Rating 3 1/2