Movie Review: Mr. Turner

Mr. Turner
Directed by:  Mike Leigh.
Written by: Mike Leigh.
Starring: Timothy Spall (J.M.W. Turner), Paul Jesson (William Turner), Dorothy Atkinson (Hannah Danby), Marion Bailey (Sophia Booth), Martin Savage (Benjamin Robert Haydon), Lesley Manville (Mary Somerville), Joshua McGuire (John Ruskin), Ruth Sheen (Sarah Danby).

Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner does something very unique for an artist’s biopic. It doesn’t start with the famed artist as a child to show his humble beginnings that he will overcome to become great. It doesn’t even show him struggling early in his career before making it. Hell, it doesn’t even show him overcoming any obstacles at all. The movie opens when J.M.W. Turner is already one of England’s most celebrated and famous painters, and follows him to his death years later. It’s an interesting film in that the Turner in this film is in many ways a horrible person – although Leigh doesn’t do anything as simple as judge him. He simply shows us Turner in all his good and bad behavior – how he could be a pig in one sense, who behavior could be so ugly, and yet he could see such beauty in the world around him that he created some of the masterpieces we see in the film.

This is one of the questions we are still asking ourselves, nearly two centuries after Turner lived – and that is about separating the artist from the art. In contemporary terms, what are we to do with the work of Woody Allen or Roman Polanski or Bill Cosby knowing what we know about their behavior. Do we separate the artist and the art they created? Do we only want art from perfect human beings? Again Leigh’s film isn’t that simple either – he makes it impossible for the audience to separate the artist from the art, because the two are in constant contact. Leigh edits together scenes, sometimes wordless ones, in which we watch Turner do something awful in one scene, and then create beauty in the next, and then back again. It may be clichéd to say that humans are capable of both ugliness and beauty – but that is the truth. And Leigh never really underlines or states these themes in Mr. Turner – he simply lets it all play out.

Turner is played in a brilliant turn by Leigh regular Timothy Spall, who after years of toiling as a character actor in movies large and small, is given the lead role of a lifetime here. He grunts his response too many of the questions he is asked – he never talks about his process, or what his paintings mean. When he does talk about painting, he talks about it in such dry detail that people are practically put to sleep. But he does have a process – and we see it, although sometimes it takes a long time for us to see it (as it does when we hear a man tell Turner about his time aboard a slave ship, and then more than an hour later, we see Turner’s painting that captures the same pain we heard in the man’s voice). Turner is crass and vulgar – although he knows how to behave in pleasant company. He uses women – we meet his ex-mistress, who bore him two daughters he barely knows (and doesn’t want to know) – that he cannot stand to be around. He treats his maid (Dorothy Atkinson) with zero respect – barely speaking a word to her, but expecting her to put up with having sex with him whenever he wants. And we learn he was partly responsible (along with his father) for putting his mother in an institution when she got too much to handle. But then, we also see Turner is capable of great tenderness with women – he weeps as he sketches her. He meets a twice widowed woman (Marion Bailey), and the two falls in love while barely speaking a word. He keeps the various parts of his life separate – so much so that people in one don’t even know he got married in the other.

This is, without a doubt, the most visually stunning movie that Leigh has made to date – and one of the most stunning of the year. The cinematography by Dick Pope uses the paintings of Turner as inspiration, and creates some very painterly images throughout. As we do expect from Leigh is that the details are just about perfect – the costumes, the production design, etc. Leigh doesn’t make it all look fancy – they don’t look like sets or costumes, but they seem lived in.

 
The film, like all of Leigh’s work can be funny (a scene with an art critic is hilarious – and better handled than the critic scenes in Birdman and Big Eyes this year for example, even though the critic here is even more a pompous ass), or sad, or tragic, or happy – but always remains subtle. He writes his films the same way each time – casting his actors, and giving them an outline, and then improvising his way into a screenplay. Here, that lack of structure sometimes allows the movie to meander (sometimes to its benefit, sometimes not) – but the film at two and half hours does feel just a touch too long. But it’s still a pleasure to spend time soaking up this movie – and Spall’s performance, that I hardly cared.

Movie Review: The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game
Directed by: Morten Tyldum.
Written by: Graham Moore based on the book by Andrew Hodges.
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch (Alan Turing), Keira Knightley (Joan Clarke), Matthew Goode (Hugh Alexander), Rory Kinnear (Detective Robert Nock), Allen Leech (John Cairncross), Matthew Beard (Peter Hilton), Charles Dance (Commander Denniston), Mark Strong (Stewart Menzies), James Northcote (Jack Good), Tom Goodman-Hill (Sergeant Staehl), Steven Waddington (Superintendent Smith), Ilan Goodman (Keith Furman), Jack Tarlton (Charles Richards), Alex Lawther (Young Alan Turing).

The Imitation Game takes it cue from its main character – who the film portrays as intelligent and methodical. Alan Turing was a genius, who during WWII, spent his days building a machine that he believed would one day break the Nazi Enigma machine – a machine everyone else thought was unbreakable. His working building those machines and others like it, and his theories made him the father of computers. The movie moves efficiently, if rather bloodlessly, from beginning to end. It mainly focuses on Turing’s wartime efforts – but flashes back to his time in boarding school as a child, where he figured out he was gay, and his time after the war, where he became the target of a police investigation, at first because the cop thought he may be a spy, when in reality he was just trying to protect the secret of his sexuality. When the truth comes out, it destroys Turing’s life.

The Imitation Game isn’t much interested in that however. The film makes no secret of Turing’s sexuality, and the role it played in his suicide, but it doesn’t much explore it either. To a certain extent, you can argue that this is because the movie focuses on his wartime years, when he was under close scrutiny, so he kept his secret close to the vest (although he confesses it to two people during the course of the movie). But the movie could have used a little bit more exploration of his sexuality, if for no other reason than to humanize Turing a little bit more – because for much of the movie, he is portrayed as Sheldon Cooper like emotionless genius who has trouble relating to anyone around him.

This isn’t really the fault of Benedict Cumberbatch, who delivers a fine performance as Turing, than is able to suggest deeper levels to the man than the screenplay really does. There is no doubt about it, Cumberbatch portrays him as socially awkward – a man who realizes that no one around him likes him, and doesn’t really care. He knows he is a genius – if there one thing Turing doesn’t lack, it’s an ego – but it isn’t until he meets Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) that he lets anyone into his confidence. It’s through Joan that he starts to relate to the others on his team, tasked with breaking the enigma machine. The team starts out hating Turing – but grows to realize that he is a genius as well. What drives them crazy is how little emotion Turing shows at all times. They are all trying furiously to break the code because it means saving millions of Allied lives – Turing sees it all as a puzzle –a game, and he’s good at games.

The film is a prestige picture, and it is made with skill at all levels. Director Morten Tyldum, making his English language debut after his breakthrough – the comedic, Swedish caper film, Headhunters, that played like Coen brothers-lite. The film moves with efficiency from beginning to end. The screenplay is well structured, although it does contain its share of rather clunky dialogue (and the final “title card” right before the end credits is almost laughably on the nose. The rest of the performances in the movie aside from Cumberbatch’s are all fine.

 
The Imitation Game is by no means a bad movie. It works extremely well. But I couldn’t help but feel slightly let down by it either. It’s one of the Oscar frontrunners this year, and while I try to separate Oscar buzz from quality, this time I couldn’t help but think that the film is one of those that wins Oscars one year, and is completely forgotten the next. There is nothing really bad about The Imitation Game. There is nothing really great about it either.

Movie Review: Big Eyes

Big Eyes
Directed by: Tim Burton.
Written by: Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski.
Starring: Amy Adams (Margaret Keane), Christoph Waltz (Walter Keane), Krysten Ritter (DeeAnn), Jason Schwartzman (Ruben), Danny Huston (Dick Nolan), Terence Stamp (John Canaday), Jon Polito (Enrico Banducci), Elisabetta Fantone (Marta), James Saito (Judge), Delaney Raye (Young Jane), Madeleine Arthur (Older Jane).

Tim Burton’s best film, to me anyway, has always been 1994’s Ed Wood. That film was Burton’s portrait of the “worst director in cinema history” – a man who made Z-grade sci-fi, horror and melodrama movies during the 1950s. Wood had all the passion of a true artist, but none of the talent. But Burton loved Wood just the same – and his portrait of him was extremely sympathetic, and in many ways help to rehabilitate his reputation. Burton was still in the first decade of his directing career when he made Ed Wood – and was at the height of his powers. Around that same time he made two great Batman films (in particular Batman Returns) as well as Edward Scissorhands. His films were always visually distinctive, but with a few exceptions, they were also somewhat hollow – great to look at, but without much underneath. In the two decades since Ed Wood, that has just become more and truer of Burton’s work. He has had a few triumphs since Ed Wood – Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) chief among them. But more and more it seems that as an artist, Burton doesn’t really have all that much to say – and since he has continued to repeat his macabre visual style in film after film, even that has somewhat worn thin. Personally, I think he should do more animation – his best film in recent years was Frankenweenie (2012), which indulged all of Burton’s obsessions, and allowed him to mine some nostalgia at the same time. But while there are things to admire about all of his recent films, they have increasingly become emptier and more soulless than before.

Perhaps that is what drew him to the story of Margaret Keane that he tells in Big Eyes – and why he choose to collaborate with his Ed Wood screenwriters, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, yet again. There is a little bit of Wood in Keane – whose paintings were critically despised at the time, and haven’t been rediscovered as anything other than kitsch in the decades since. But at the height of their popularity, they sold a hell of a lot paintings and posters and post cards, etc. of young girls with haunted and huge eyes. Some have interrupted Big Eyes as Burton’s statement in his own defense – the movie does after all quote Andy Warhol on Keane – that he loves it, and they have to be good. If they weren’t, why would millions of people love them so much?

Big Eyes tells a very bizarre story. It starts with Margaret fleeing one horrible marriage, her daughter in tow, and moving to San Francisco, where she immediately gets herself into another horrible marriage. When she first meets Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz) – he seems to be perfect. Another artist, like herself, but he also has a steady job making good money, while he tries to get his art career off the ground. They marry quickly, and he tries to sell both his and her art – and is amazed when her art starts to sell like hotcakes. Walter was a genius in some ways – a great salesman, he knows how to play the media, and sell himself as an artist, even if he isn’t one. Knowing that people like the meet the artist, he pretends that he painted all those waifs with the big eyes – and she goes along with it, in part because she’s too scared to do anything else. Besides, she is shy, and Walter isn’t. Their empire grows and grows, and she starts to be tormented by all the lies they are telling. And things start to fall apart – eventually culminating in a bizarre trail, where Margaret sues her now ex-husband Walter for slander for continuing the lie that he is the real artist.

There is a story, buried, here somewhere that Burton and his screenwriters only hint at. That is about what the meaning of being an artist really is. Margaret is an artist – she paints to express herself, and knows why she does it. Whether you think she is a good artist, or a hack, like many did, is really up to you – but Margaret is an artist, and her art is personal to her. There are a few moments where it seems like Burton is going to push this story somewhere deeper – a surreal scene in a grocery store for instance, but then he backs off – too in love with the bizarre story to dig past its surface.

Part of the problem is the performances by Adams and Waltz – which are both fine on their own, but don’t fit together at all. Adams plays Margaret quietly and subtly – although there are hints that she is more bizarre than the movie makes her. Waltz goes wildly, crazily over the top as Walter. Both performances are fine – but they belong in different movies.

So once again, we are stuck with the surface of a Burton movie to derive pleasure from. The film doesn’t have the same dark, macabre look that many Burton films do – instead favoring the brightly colored, phony happiness of the 1950s. The film does, for the most part, look great – although Burton indulges himself a little too much at times (a bizarre confrontation between Walter and a New York Times art critic, played by Terrence Stamp, for instance). The surface of the movie is all studied artifice, and unfortunately Burton doesn’t push far enough to see behind that surface. So, in general, it’s another Tim Burton movie – a wonderful surface, masking emptiness. What makes this more disappointing than other Burton movies is that the elements for something more are there – Burton doesn’t seem very interested in exploring them however.

Movie Review: Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher
Directed by: Bennett Miller.
Written by: E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman.
Starring: Channing Tatum (Mark Schultz), Steve Carell (John du Pont), Mark Ruffalo (David Schultz), Sienna Miller (Nancy Schultz), Vanessa Redgrave (Jean du Pont), Anthony Michael Hall (Jack), Guy Boyd (Henry Beck), Brett Rice (Fred Cole), Jackson Frazer (Alexander Schultz), Samara Lee (Danielle Schultz), Francis J. Murphy III (Wayne Kendall).

Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher is a precise and exacting drama – a film where the smallest, quietest gestures often speak the loudest. There isn’t a scene out of place, not a performance that hits a false note. It is a film based on a real life murder – but oddly, it doesn’t quite seem to build to that murder as inevitability, like many movies would. The murder, when it comes, is a little out of left field. There is no catharsis to it – just sadness that takes on tragic proportions in the final scenes that oddly, should be rousing, but come across as purposefully hollow.

The film centers on two men who were born with extraordinary, but completely opposite, gifts – but spend their entire lives searching for approval that they will never receive. Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) has already won an Olympic gold medal at the 1984 games, and is now training for next year’s 1988 games. He is the younger brother of Dave (Mark Ruffalo) – who won gold at the same games. The two love each other – in their way, but they are competitive, and there is bitterness and resentment that flows both ways, but is never commented upon. This dynamic is established in a brilliant opening sequence where the two train together, and without saying a word, you know everything you need to about these two and their relationship. Mark is shy and sullen – Dave is outgoing and charming. Everyone loves Dave – no one even remembers Mark.

The other main character, aside from Mark, is Jan du Pont (Steve Carell) – who was born, into the “richest family in America” – and seems to be the only descendant. When you have that much money, you can afford to be eccentric and no one will really question you. But eccentric would be a kind word to describe du Pont – who is clearly delusional to a huge degree, and begins the movie somewhat unhinged – and will only become more so as the film moves along. He reaches out to Mark – he wants him to train at his new, state of the art facility – Foxcatcher – he has built on his grounds. He will get a nice place to live, a lot more money than he’s used to, and can handpick the others he wants to train with. Du Pont also wants Dave – but Dave doesn’t come along at first. Unlike both Du Pont and Mark, Dave is married and has kids – he’s put down roots, and he doesn’t want to leave. At first, everything seems to be going good between Du Pont and Mark – but things slowly unravel. And when Dave eventually does join the trio, he also pushes the other two to extremes they otherwise wouldn’t go to. Dave doesn’t do anything to overtly undermine Mark, or challenge Du Pont’s authority – but he doesn’t have to do anything overt, for everyone to know what is happening.

The three central performances in the film are all among the best of the year. Tatum has never been better than he is here – it’s a quiet, restrained performance, and clearly the central one in the film. He plays a man forever in his brother’s shadow, who both craves his attention, and then resents it when he gets it. He wants to be more than just Dave Schultz’s little brother – and this could be his only chance. Mark is awkward around Du Pont, and around the world in which Du Pont lives in – he tries desperately to fit in, and never can. Carrel also does career best work. By now we shouldn’t be shocked when comedians do great dramatic work – they do it all the time – but this really is an extraordinary transformation. Yes, his nose has been covered in makeup, his teeth have been changed – but the performance goes far deeper than makeup. Du Pont, like Mark, has had to live in the shadow of an older relative – in this case his mother (Vanessa Redgrave), who loves her, horses, and hates wrestling and Jon’s obsession with it. In two scenes – one where she calls wrestling a “low sport”, and another where she simply observes Jon at wrestling practice, she completely breaks him down. Carell breathes heavy throughout the movie, is prone to make speeches about America and what it means, and he low level temper tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants. His speeches are ridiculous, and help to underline (although not so heavily that the film becomes preachy) the themes of American exceptionalism and capitalism that run through the movie. In many ways, Ruffalo’s performance is the most difficult of the trio – as both Tatum and Carell are holding a lot back, never really vocalizing much of anything. They get along, for a time, because they do have some things in common – things that Dave doesn’t. Dave is used to getting his way – just like Du Pont is – but Dave gets it because his is charming, and good at what he does. In a scene late in the movie – the one that really does setup the murder that will happen shortly (that hadn’t been setup too much before) – he sells out his brother Mark, and directly confronts Du Pont, at the same time, with both of them in the room, and with a smile on his face the whole time. Dave is the most instantly relatable character – the most openly charming – but like the other two, he is flawed – just in a different way,

This is Bennett Miller’s best film to date – following up Capote (2005) and Moneyball (2011). He works slowly, and methodically – and here he has found material that is perfect for him. There was a lot more dialogue in Miller’s previous two films – that spelled themselves out a little bit more. Here, the themes are buried in body language – where a lot if going on when seemingly nothing is. The editing is precise, the cinematography moody and atmospheric, the score subtly helps set the tone for the film. For two hours, the film is about these three characters circling each other – sizing each other up, and applying their various power plays. The murder, when it happens, is shocking – but also deliberately anti—climactic. I’m not sure it really means anything greater in the larger scheme of the movie. But the very end of the movie really does – and drives the point of the movie home with devastating effect. This is one of the best movies of the year.

Movie Review: Into the Woods

Into the Woods
Directed by: Rob Marshall.
Written by: James Lapine based on musical by James Lapine (Music and Lyrics by Stephan Sondheim).
Starring: Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Daniel Huttlestone(Jack), James Corden (Baker), Emily Blunt (Baker's Wife), Christine Baranski (Stepmother), Tammy Blanchard (Florinda), Lucy Punch (Lucinda), Tracey Ullman (Jack's Mother), Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood), Meryl Streep (Witch), Simon Russell Beale (Baker's Father), Joanna Riding (Cinderella's Mother), Johnny Depp (Wolf), Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel's Prince), Mackenzie Mauzy (Rapunzel), Annette Crosbie (Granny), Chris Pine (Cinderella's Prince), Richard Glover (Steward), Frances de la Tour (Giant).

As often happens when I watch a film adaptation of a stage play or musical, while watching Into the Woods I wished I was watching a stage production instead of the movie. There are just some things that work on stage that don’t really translate to the screen very easily – and the work of Stephen Sondheim seems to be one of them. I liked Tim Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd more than many did – but it still didn’t approach the level that I viewed of the same musical on stage. And from the first number in Into the Woods – the epic I Wish, which cuts together multiple different storylines, and probably close to a dozen characters singing. I could see how this could work on stage – but it doesn’t work nearly as well on screen, which takes a very literal approach to the cross cutting. This came up time and again throughout the film – numbers and moments that probably worked on stage. I cannot say for sure, as I never saw the play – but I now wish I did. I’m not saying that I thought that Into the Woods is a bad movie – it isn’t really, and for the most part the game cast makes much of the film fun to watch. It’s just that I wanted to like it more than I actually did.

The movie is combines elements of several different fairy tales. Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) wants to go the Kings Festival – but of course her wicked stepmother and stepsisters won’t let her. Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) is sent by his mother (Tracey Ullman) to sell their cow – and ends up with magic beans. Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) heads off to visit her grandmother, and is waylaid by the Big Bad Wolf (Johnny Depp). And Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) is locked in a tower. These different plot threads are tired together by three other characters. The Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), live next door to a witch (Meryl Streep) – who tells them they will never have the baby they desire, because years ago she placed a curse of The Bakers bloodline. But she will reverse the curse if they can secure her the four ingredients she needs to reverse her own curse – one from each of the other storylines – within the next three days. So all of these characters head off into the woods.

The play was neatly divided into two acts – the first in which everything we know will happen in these storylines, happen, and everyone gets their happily ever after – and the second act, in which we find out that none of these happily ever afters are actually all that happy. I assume, like most plays, this would run about three hours on stage. In the movie, it is crammed into two hours – with the second act in particular being hacked to bits. It almost seems like after the happily ever afters, the film rushes through their aftermath in the final reel, and the result is a muddled, somewhat confusing mess of a film.

All the flaws of the movie aside, I must admit that I enjoyed much of the film. Even in the first act, this is a much darker film than most fairy tales are. There are sexual overtones to some of the relationships (much muted in the film version, but still there). And the film doesn’t shy away from the darkness and violence in those stories. The music, as one would expect from Sondheim, is brilliant – and for the most part, the cast is game, and throw themselves into their roles with gusto. Emily Blunt is the standout for me – her Bakers Wife is probably the most complex of the characters, and although some of her actions in the second act don’t make much sense, she handles them well – and she has a lovely voice. We already knew that Anna Kendrick can sing – and she makes a great Cinderella – a more complex one than we are used to as well. Meryl Streep goes wildly over the top as the Witch – as she seemingly does in everything these days, but no one does over the top quite as well as Streep – and she does nail the Witch’s big moments. Chris Pine and Bill Magnusson are in fine form as two charming princes – who add some levity to the proceedings in their duet in the first act (although their matching duet in the second act is cut, which undermines things a bit). Johnny Depp on the other hand is pretty much a complete embarrassment as the Wolf – once again playing his character as a complete weirdo – and not a dangerous character in the least. To make matters worse, he apparently also insisted on designing his own costume – and he looks like an idiot. The rest of the costume – by the legendary Colleen Atwood – are brilliant. Luckily, Depp is barely in the film, so he doesn’t derail things too bad.

 
Into the Woods made for an entertaining, if somewhat frustrating, night at the movies. If anything, it made me want to see the play on stage as soon as possible. What works in the movie, works well. What doesn’t, doesn’t work at all. I enjoyed much of the film – but I wanted to enjoy it more than I did. There is the material here to make a great movie – but they only got half way there.

Movie Review: The Interview

The Interview
Directed by:  Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen.
Written by: Dan Sterling & Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg.
Starring: James Franco (Dave Skylark), Seth Rogen (Aaron Rapaport), Lizzy Caplan (Agent Lacey), Randall Park (Kim Jong-un), Diana Bang (Sook), Timothy Simons (Malcolm), Reese Alexander (Agent Botwin), James Yi (Officer Koh), Paul Bae (Officer Yu), Geoff Gustafson (Cole), Dominique Lalonde (Jackie), Anesha Bailey (Janet), Anders Holm (Jake), Charles Rahi Chun (General Jong).

I cannot help but wonder what future generations will make of The Interview. The film caused an international incident because it is a fictionalized story about an assassination attempt on the real North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who was none too pleased about it. What followed has now passed into movie lore – a hack on Sony`s system, which ended up humiliating the company, and generated threats about what would happen if the movie was released. The film was pulled from theaters just days before it was to be released – and then after a public outcry, went for a limited release instead, as well as VOD release for everyone in North America. The whole controversy around the movie won’t soon be forgotten – the movie itself however probably will. It isn’t a very funny comedy – and doesn’t really have any insight into anything either. At least when Chaplin stirred controversy with The Great Dictator (1940) – where he took direct shots at Adolf Hitler, and caused an international stir, he actually made a masterpiece. The Interview on the other hand is just another stupid comedy – that isn’t really all that funny.

The film is about David Skylark (James Franco), a shallow celebrity talk show host, and his producer Aaron (Seth Rogen), who once wanted to do real journalism, and is now stuck producing a show where they get Rob Lowe to show his bald head, and try desperately to interview a goat who may have been fucked by Matthew McConaughey. But then Aaron reads in the New York Times that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is a fan of their show – and thinks that perhaps if he could arrange an interview with the man, than people would have to take him seriously. He reaches out, and it turns out Kim is interested – and invites him and David to North Korea to give the interview. Before they can go however they are recruited by the CIA, fronted by Agent Lacey (Lizzy Caplan) – who has a plan where David can assassinate Kim, without anyone knowing what really happened.

No one should be surprised that The Interview is a stupid comedy, with more jokes about erections and feces that international politics. The film was directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who directed last years (much, much better) This is the End, and co-wrote Superbad together. Both of those films were stupid comedies as well – but they were `smart stupid`, and had the advantage of being very funny. The Interview isn’t.

Part of that is probably because Rogen and Franco have returned to this well one too many times. The two have an easy chemistry together – but this time, it feels forced. This is, in part, because Franco seems to be trying too hard. It isn’t enough for him to make Skylark into an imbecile – he goes so far over the top that his character is impossible to take the least bit seriously. Franco, who can be excellent (he deserved an Oscar for Spring Breakers), sometimes makes strange choices – and this is one of them. Rogen seems to try and overcompensate – as he basically sleepwalks through his role as Aaron. The two best performances, by far, are by Diana Bang, as Sook – Kim Jong-un's minion, who has the hots the Aaron, and by Randall Park, as Kim himself. He makes his Kim as ridiculous as Franco's Dave – but in a more believably vein. He's basically a shallow, egomaniac with daddy issues. It’s actually a very good performance.

 
But not much else about the film really works. There are a few sporadic laughs sprinkled throughout the film – but nothing that rises to the level of Rogen & Goldberg's previous work – and nothing to really make The Interview worth seeing. And yet, it will be seen by a lot of people – all of whom want to see what all the fuss is about. The sad truth is that it was much ado about nothing.

Year End Report - Timing Issues

You have probably noticed that there are a lot of critics top 10 lists being released right now – and they will continue for a few more weeks anyway. If you have been reading me for a while, you know that I go overboard with year-end coverage – doing a top 10 list, plus 20 runners-up, top 10 lists for each of the four acting categories, a top 10 Ensemble list, a top 5 animated films list, a top 10 for documentaries, my own personal Oscar ballot, a list of the most disappointing films and a list of the 10 worst films. Again, if you read me regularly you know that I normally do this in mid-January – but I feel the need to let everyone know by the end of the year that it is coming. The reason why it is later than most is simple – I need to see the year end glut of movies, in particular the ones that are not releasing themselves outside of New York and LA until January. I have already seen some of the year end movies, and will have reviews up of Foxcatcher, The Interview, Into the Woods, Inherent Vice, Mr. Turner, The Imitation and Big Eyes shortly – and I will get to Unbroken and The Gambler by next week as well.

In terms of the “major” films left to see there are Selma (Jan. 9), Winter Sleep (Jan.9), American Sniper (Jan.16), Still Alice (Jan.16), Cake (Jan.23), Leviathan (Jan.23) and A Most Violent Year (Jan.30) and The Babadook (who the hell knows, everyone in America can see it, but no one can or will tell me when its coming out in any format in Canada). I would love to see all of these before I do the year end features, but I don’t know if I will be able to. Those dates are the best ones I have, but if they are Toronto only releases, I don’t know if I can see them. I am planning a Toronto trip the week of the 23^rd – where Winter Sleep and Leviathan will be my top priority. I assume the dates for the other ones will be wider releases – they are holding back until they get Oscar nominations to use that as a marketing tool – no point staying limited after the nominations. Taking this extra time will also allow me more time to catch up on some of the smaller films I missed this year – and continue hoping that they release The Babadook.

Bottom line, yes, I am working on my year end report. And yes, it will be as much overkill as ever. But no, I don’t know when it will be released. Until then, if you want to get a brief preview head here: http://letterboxd.com/davevanh/list/best-films-of-2014/ . This has the top 30 films of 2014 that I have seen – ranked – that I will update as I see more, or decide to move things around a little (nothing is ever set in stone with me).

Until then, I will continue to try and catch up on more movies from 2014 - and perhaps even some 2015 releases.