Cosmopolis (2012)

Director: David Cronenberg

 It's not everyday you leave a movie theater confused on whether or not the movie you just watched was a brilliant masterpiece or psuedo-intellectual soulless crap. But this is close to what happened when I finished watching Cosmopolis. It's a movie that is mostly just all conversations, and some very odd, nonsensical ones at that. For example, there is one in which two characters talk about rats becoming the new world currency. My dilemma became "is there legitimate meaning behind all this dialogue or is it all just a fake attempt to try to say something meaningful without actually showing it?" After putting some thought into it, and admittedly giving  Cronenberg the benefit of the doubt, I lean towards actual intellectual rather than psuedo-intellectual. But even if you don't quite understand the concepts and conclusions of the economic and existential conversations, you understand the film because of Cronenberg's direction.

The movie can definitely be defined as soulless, but I'm not sure that's a knock against the film because it suits the subject matter quite well. The film is an examination of a soulless man, a man who has become so cold and distant due to his very sudden rise and fall in wealth and class, which has isolated him from the rest of the world, something that Cronenberg captures extremely well with the many claustrophobic scenes in his limo. He is now experiencing a new feeling of loss, which seems to catapult into an existential yearning for his past, something familiar. The whole movie is him trying to get across the city to go to the barbershop where his family used to get haircuts. Robert Pattinson was made to play the main role. All the negative criticism his acting received for the Twilight movies is a positive in this film. His distant, expressionless performance matches perfectly with Cronenberg's almost-robotic direction.  I'm still not completely sure of what it all means, especially the last scene which appears to turn the film on its head a little too much, but I think Cronenberg got across exactly what he wanted to get across. The feeling of non-feeling.

Grade: B+

Red Hook Summer (2012)

Director: Spike Lee

 There are very few well-known black filmmakers working in Hollywood, or even the independent scene, in America who actually take on serious issues that affect the black community. Spike Lee is really the only one I can think of who has achieved some success. There are many who want Lee to diversify and take on other subjects, but I cherish his films because there is no one doing what he's doing. Lee's new film is just another example. Red Hook Summer is vintage Spike Lee. It's an independent film set in Brooklyn taking on issues like race, religion, poverty, and gentrification. It's style is spontaneous, improvisatory, and almost television commercial-like at times. His style makes his serious themes easy and even fun to digest, and that's why he's such a beloved filmmaker.

The film is about a low-income community that is being over-run with middle class white Americans. It's a community of people that have gotten the short straw for their whole lives and there's no hope for their future. In a community such as this you'd think the local church has a large congregations, but this is not true. Clarke Peters (from The Wire) plays the local reverend and in between his fiery topical sermons that lay out Lee's ideas, we see him trying to increase the congregation and struggle to get people to attend his church. Religion is usually the main source of hope for low-income and poverty-stricken people, so it is a bit befuddling at first he has such a hard time. But by the end of the movie, due to a late twist that is honestly a little too unexpected, you know why the church is having such a hard time. I don't want to spoil it, but I think the film raises a great point with the events of the third act, though I think the first two thirds of the movie are a little meandering and don't lead in at all to the third act. The movie isn't the most focused, the most thought-out movie, but a lot of effort went into creating a spontaneous feel that reflects real life and also actually taking on important issues that affect a specific community.

Grade: B

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Director: Benh Zeitlin

 The American independent movie has become a genre unto itself. They're usually comedic films with some drama mixed, stylistically bare and low-key, and usually starring young 20-something year old people dealing with "relatable" human issues that speak to the modern day. But here comes Beasts of the Southern Wild to give American independent cinema a jolt of life. It's a film filled with magical realism and a folksy but lyrical tone. It's set in a island off the coast of Louisiana in a small community with no connection to the outside world. They are self-sufficient and proud of it. Our lead character is actually the opposite of the cultured, privileged, whiney college graduate whose trying to learn how to function in the world that we see in so many American independent films. Our lead character is Hushpuppy, a six-year-old girl who is learning to come to terms with how nature works. It's a coming-of-age story, only the person who is coming of age is only six years old.

When stripped from the lyrical camerawork, the historic mythology, and the cultural tics the film is essentially about the spirit of individualism and a celebration of independence. It can be construed as a libertarian movie, but even if you're not a libertarian the film will still ring true because the independence of the characters comes from a distrust of others that I think all of us can understand. People leave us, whether it's voluntarily or through death, and we all need to get used to that just as Hushpuppy learns. While the movie never explicitly references Hurricane Katrina it does call back to it quite obviously and the effects that it had on the people who called that area home for so many years. The movie humanizes those who stay behind with their homes during a hurricane, because it emphasizes the importance of a place called home, especially in a community that gets no support from the outside world. As you can tell there's a whole lot of allegorical analysis that can be done with this film, but I still believe that the reason this film is powerful is because of the journey of Hushpuppy as little girl trying to make sense of the world. Beasts of the Southern Wild does something that should be impossible. It combines childhood imagination and naivete with the very adult qualities of responsibility and independence.

Grade: A-

The West Wing: Season One (2000)

Creator: Aaron Sorkin

 Spending my summer interning on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC seemed like a good time to start watching this loved and popular Aaron Sorkin show about the minutiae of daily life in the west wing of the White House. There are a handful of main characters, all of whom work for the President of the United States. In true Sorkin fashion the characters are definitely idealistic, but the show recognizes that the world they occupy is not a world of idealists. I was most impressed with the fact that the show is not afraid to display the characters struggling to get things done the right way. It's the ultimate conflict between compromise and principles (Sorkin's new show The Newsroom mostly fails at this, but more on that in another post). Throughout the season the main arc seems to be this battle between playing it safe to stay alive and taking risks by doing the right thing. It's a conflict that's been present for as long as politics has existed and Barack Obama is proof that it's definitely still a huge issue today.

One of my best ways the show displayed this conflict was the personal issues of the staffers. Sam Seaborn loved a call girl, and even though there's nothing wrong with that, it's still going to be a problem because of how it might be viewed by the press. Another great thing the show did is make sure the personal stories and personal relationships of the characters were focused on the effect they had on the job they were doing. This is a show about the job these people are doing first, and the people who have the job second. We see the negative effects the time and energy the important job has on the personal lives of the characters (though I wish we would have seen more of this). While the conflicts in the job is shown very well, I do think the characters are a little too-good-to-be-true. This is most evident when it comes to President Bartlett. There are a few moments where he does things that make him out to be some Gandhi-like figure. There is a scene early in the season in which the President lets his emotions get the best of him and almost orders an attack on hundreds of innocent civilians, and I would have liked to see more of that side of the President. But I will say one thing, all of the characters on this show are incredibly likable, and because you enjoy spending time with these people it makes it so much easier to watch the show. You'll know what I'm talking about when the season-ending cliffhanger occurs and you find your heart beating a million times an hour.

Grade: B+

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Director: Christopher Nolan

 There are two different ways someone could view this film. As a standalone film or as the third and final movie in a trilogy. As a standalone movie The Dark Knight Rises is mostly just a bloated wanna-be epic with a seriously confused stance on authority. But when the two preceding films are taken into consideration, then it becomes an immensely satisfying end to an epic trilogy on heroism. How the movie ends and what happens to Batman and Bruce Wayne is absolutely perfect. If you were to end the Batman saga the last five minutes of this movie are pretty much exactly how it should happen. But the plot and the events that it took to get to that ending and to make those thematic points were not executed as well as they could have been. The plot is filled with holes, weak assumptions, and cliches. None of the revolution and nuclear winter stuff really was that impressive. Even Bane as the villain felt mostly like a plot device than a real menace and antagonist to Batman (the exception being the initial harrowing underground encounter between the two).

But I still believe that ultimately this is a satisfying ending to a great trilogy. This is because the film emphasizes the ideals that created Batman in the first place. Hope, heroism, and inspiration. All of that muddled and bloated plot was all for one reason and that was to raise the stakes against Batman so high that he would never be able to come back from it the same way. The film highlights the fact that Batman is above all a symbol that is meant to inspire hope. Bruce Wayne never thought he could change his city by individually taking out every single criminal for the rest of his life, and even if he could do that, he would die someday because after all even Batman is mortal. Back in Batman Begins Ra's al Ghul was the one who taught him that he has to be more than a man, that he has to become an ideal, and that idea is taken full circle in this film. The politics of this trilogy are confusing, and if you spend any time trying to figure out what this film believes about authority, government, if it's fascist or anarchist, you'll get a lot of conflicting messages. But that's okay, because I feel like Christopher Nolan is mostly apathetic to all of that. Instead, The Dark Knight trilogy is a story about the power of the individual. It's about how one individual can rise up and inspire others to do the same and create real social change. Even if it does so with some lackluster execution, this final movie does cement those themes.

Grade: B+

The Wire: Season Four (2006)

Creator: David Simon

 After three seasons in which the scope of the urban American problem was expanded each season, the fourth season of The Wire takes a few steps back and shows us the root of the problem. It all begins with the children on the street. Maybe you were wondering what all the gangsters on the street did wrong as kids to get into this situation. Why did they end up on the corner with drugs and a gun? And why can't one of these kids just focus, go to college, and make a life for himself? Well here is your answer. These kids are smart, clever, good-hearted, and innocent, but the environment they live in draws them into the harmful sludge of urban society. It's not even that these specific kids were at the wrong place at the wrong time, because the thing is, every kid in their neighborhood is in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fates of these children were planned since the day they were born.

The season follows four kids, all of whom take very different paths that seem to end up in places not too far from each other. They all display a potential to do something, to be something more. But if you've seen The Wire you know not to expect a happy ending where one of the kids from the ghetto grows up to be that astronaut he always wanted to be. But the show doesn't shy away from showing success, we see a relative win with the fate of one of the kids. But even then, we see how the system makes that success so much harder than it needs to be. The ending of this season will have you in tears, and it won't be because of some kid having a cathartic breakdown or someone dying, it will be because of the overwhelming sensation that comes over you in which your emotions finally take in the realization about how messed up everything is. It's a feeling that I've honestly never had before watch any TV show or movie. I've never felt a grander sense of tragedy than I did when I finished season four of The Wire. This is why that out of all the great seasons of The Wire, this season is the greatest.

Grade: A

Magic Mike (2012)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

When it comes to how prolific he is, Steven Soderbergh is like the new Woody Allen. But where Soderbergh differs from Allen is his versatility. Allen's movies are consistently good, but they frequently feature similar characters and similar themes. With Soderbergh you never know what you're going to get, and there's no better example of that fact than Magic Mike, a movie starring Channing Tatum about male strippers. There was an automatic stigma attached to the movie just on the basis of the cast and its subject matter, but anyone who knows Soderbergh's work knows that this movie isn't going to be some cheap lady-pandering fluffy Channing Tatum vehicle.

The movie is less about male stripping and more about the recession. It's very much a movie from this time. If there was never a recession we probably wouldn't see a movie about two financially struggling good-looking white men. It's also a unique film because of the bait-and-switch Soderbergh pulls by changing up the concept of the male gaze and by almost using a female gaze in certain scenes. The audience settles into the world of male stripping with ease, and that's helped by Soderbergh's style which keeps the editing and the visuals interesting always reminding us of the "different-but-not-quite" world the characters reside in. Soderbergh has so much knowledge on the craft of film that if you're a film buff you'll never be bored during his movies, and when he takes on fascinating subjects like male stripping then it's even better. He's been making so many movies recently that none of them are truly masterpieces, but they're all fascinating and extremely well-made. Whenever I see a Soderbergh I gain a renewed hope for mainstream Hollywood filmmaking.

Grade: B

Ted (2012)

Director: Seth Macfarlane

If it wasn't for Judd Apatow this movie would have been one of the comedy highlights of this year, but the raunchy R-rated comedy is something we've seen so much of recently that it's not as shocking or hilarious when we see it now. You might initially think that if Family Guy was allowed to do whatever it wanted without any television restrictions it might be better, but Ted is basically that, and it's really not that dissimilar from Family Guy. Like Macfarlane's television show, there are moments where the movie is absolutely hilarious, but also like the show there are moments where the pop culture references and "politically incorrect" ethnic jokes just drag on.

The best parts of the movie are definitely when Ted interacts with Mark Wahlberg's character, where they're just sitting around and interacting. Even the initial story about Wahlberg's character having to choose between Ted and his girlfriend is actually not bad, but the final act of the movie becomes some weird thriller that is basically Macfarlane trying to be cinematic for the sake of being cinematic. I certainly laughed a lot while watching, but I also laughed a lot during 21 Jump Street, but that movie was much more clever and had better performances. You'll probably laugh quite a bit while watching Ted but unlike 21 Jump Street it's not one of those comedies that sticks around afterwards.

Grade: C

To Rome With Love (2012)

Director: Woody Allen

 I don't think you can technically call this an "omnibus" film because the film has one director, but the short stories within this film are all unrelated enough to the point that you could actually think of it like that. There are four stories, and the only thing connecting the four is that they're set in the same city and they're all written and directed by Woody Allen. Critics rarely find these kinds of movies masterpieces because they like the movies to work as a whole and for there to be a reason that we're seeing them all in one sitting. While I do agree, I find that attitude to be more nitpicking. In my view, I'm quite glad that I get to see four new short films made by Woody Allen and starring some wonderful actors all for the price of one movie.

And it's certainly a bonus that all four of the stories are really well done. Allen fully flexes the Italian influences that have been scattered throughout his career (Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni to name a few). Italian films of the 1960's were especially obsessed with upper class and celebrity culture, and Allen comes up with a story in which Roberto Benigni becomes famous literally overnight involving exactly those themes. But perhaps the best story of the film was the one involving Alec Baldwin as some sort of subconscious stand-in giving life advice to a character played by Jesse Eisenberg. It's a unique story about recognizing wisdom from elders but being unable to accept it. The other two, one in which Allen himself stars as an opera director and another where Penelope Cruz is a hooker pretending to be a wife are not as insightful, but are very funny and show that Allen knows humor like he knows the back of his hand. Allen is an incredibly prolific filmmaker, but more impressive is that he rarely has a misstep. To Rome With Love continues this consistently solid tradition.

Grade: B

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Director: Marc Webb

Many in the audience came into this movie already disliking it for being an unnecessary remake of a movie that came out not even ten years ago. Th first and second Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire Spiderman movies were good movies, but it's not like they were perfect and couldn't be improved upon. Which is why I welcomed the re-do, especially with Marc Webb, director of the wonderful (500) Days of Summer at the helm. So is this Spiderman better than the previous ones? I'd say the results are mixed. Story-wise and plot-wise, this movie is a mess. The screenplay seems like it was revised and cut up into smithereens by multiple writers. The conspiracy regarding Peter Parker's parents that's introduced early on is completely forgotten (I guess it's "saved" for a sequel), the main villain Curt Connors is not explored at all, and the genetic swapping is pure contrivance. It's like they filmed using an unfinished screenplay.

But while the plot is mediocre at best, the characters are realized characters and the actors bring their best to the roles. Webb brings the ability he showed in (500) Days of Summer to create real romantic relationships between young people to this film. The moments between Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone building their high school romance are endlessly watchable. I'd actually like this movie better if it was just a romance between Garfield and Stone without any superhero business. Martin Sheen and Sally Field as Parker's uncle and aunt also rise to the challenge and elevate the mediocre script into something much more emotional. Even when Parker is Spiderman, the movie does have some great moments. A climactic moment involving cranes, and one great scene involving a boy hanging over a bridge are two scenes in which Webb and Garfield succeeds at establishing the pathos surrounding Spiderman and creating real emotion and tension. This is a movie that has a lot of plot, but instead succeeds at character instead of plot. But because character is a rare aspect in superhero movies, The Amazing Spider-Man is a movie I ultimately value.

Grade: C+

Girls: Season One (2012)

Creator: Lena Dunham

This show about a mid-20's aspiring female writer living in modern-day New York City initially caught my attention due to its refreshing authenticity. The main character, Hannah, was slightly overweight who was definitely not your average Hollywood starlet. There was sex, and it was not glamorous and wild. The cast of characters were people who I could imagine meeting in the real world, flaws and all. Much of this is because creator/writer/director/actor certainly brought much from her own life into the show and that brings a lot of authenticity and honesty into the characters and situations.

Hannah is by no means the greatest person and is certainly not very "likable," and that's not a flaw. It's actually a strength. Hannah is self-obsessed and she believes that the problems she has in her life are unique to her, even though clearly they are not. This self-obsession is the main constant of the season. It's the reason she has most of the problems in her life, and it's the reason she can't solve most of those problems. While Hannah and her friends represent a small slice of humanity, this theme is what enables it to expand into other facets of culture and different types of people. The show does comment on society occasionally, but it's above all about individual problems (if it could do both it would be as good as Mad Men). As good as the show is, there is definitely room for improvement as well. The momentum of the narrative could be done better, and there are lots of moments on the show that could have a greater impact with a better visual eye. But Dunham is young, and if she is someone who learns and improves from the past, then she is definitely going to be a filmmaker to watch.

Grade: B+

Mad Men: Season Five (2012)

Creator: Matthew Weiner

 The 1960's are famous for having been the era of great social change, and Mad Men has been well aware of this during its run, but we haven't seen it manifest itself completely. Up till the fourth season it was mostly hints of what was to come. But now that we're in the second half of the 1960's we're seeing a lot more of the actual social change and seeing how it is affecting both the young and old characters. This season takes on this divide between the young and old workers head-on. The first half of the season is about the old making way for the new. We see people like Don Draper and Roger Sterling struggling to keep up with society's new trends, something that's pretty important to their jobs. The second half of the season we see their responses to that struggle, which ends up being denial. They have an increased ambition to keep up with the younger people and try to get back what they once had.

For the main character, Don Draper, we see this not only in his professional life, but his personal life as well. The beginning is the best of times for Don. He gets rejuvenated when he starts a new firm, a new account, a new family. But once that beginning ends, the dissatisfaction comes back, and a search for a new beginning begins once again. This season shows us the negative consequences that come with ambition, which is a constant sense of dissatisfaction. Mad Men goes deep into the human psyche like no other show has done before, and it does so in a sophisticated, artful, and subtle way. The show has created such complicated characters in a world that is so much like our own that makes it so easy to react to even the smallest of changes or events in their lives because we know exactly what they're going through. This is because Mad Men is a show about one of the most universal things there is, the endless pursuit of happiness. And what is Don's definition of happiness? "It's the moment before you need more happiness."

Grade: A

Moonrise Kingdom (2012)

Director: Wes Anderson

 Children want to grow up. Adults want to become kids again. This is what Wes Anderson's newest film is primarily about. It's not something new to his films (you can read my examination of his whole filmography here), but it's done better in this film than before. The two idealistic kids in this film who elope together believe they are in love and are mature enough to take the world on. The two kids seem to act more like adults than the actual adults in the movie. The adults that are looking for them are sad and filled with melancholy. They're fed up and yearn to go back to the innocent days of their youth when they believed in things like love. Moonrise Kingdom is a movie filled with sadness through its adult characters, but through the younger characters we see hope and idealism. Getting these two disparate elements to work together in the same film is a perfect example of what makes Anderson such a marvelous filmmaker.

Anderson displays this all with his trademark idiosyncratic style, and he can get away with it in this film more so than previous ones because of the time period and the fact that it's set in a pretty small town, and small towns have a knack for being idiosyncratic in their own ways. The cutesy Godardian style also fits the storybook aesthetic and substance of the film, as our two lovebird characters share a storybook love. Anderson displays that love through some marvelously humorous but oddly beautiful moments between the two. Anderson has a knack for drawing you in with his unique sense of style, and keeping you invested through the real and affecting characters. This is a film that Anderson gets completely right. The writing, the visual style, the acting, and even the music is all flawless, and they converge together as whole as well as any Anderson film has to date.

Grade: A-

Your Sister's Sister (2012)

Director: Lynn Shelton

If you had only seen the first scene of this movie and had to judge it on that, you'd think that it probably be as good as Lynn Shelton's last movie Humpday, but unfortunately the great realistic social awkwardness of that first scene does not last. There are later scenes of social awkwardness, but the awkwardness veers more towards melodrama. Like many improv-heavy films with good actors, the dialogue is a joy to listen to, mostly because you feel like you're actually listening in on someone's private conversation. But as the "getting-to-know-the-characters" part of the movie comes to a close, and the melodramatic plot comes into focus, that real life dialogue starts to get pushed out of the way in favor of some fairly contrived plot points.

I won't spoil it, but I will say that everything that happens in this movie is entirely predictable but also very inconsequential. The movie just doesn't feel important. Even for a low-key "mumblecore" filmmaker like Shelton, this is a pretty minor effort. Most of the movie is set in one house, and it only features about three characters for 90% of the running time. But that's not why the movie doesn't have much of an impact. The movie feels lackluster because nothing of any consequence happens, and the big events that do happen don't feel unique or special in any way. I saw this film in a movie theater, and this was one of the few times I've thought to myself that the movie experience would not be diminished at all if I had seen it on a small screen.

Grade: C-

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Director: Colin Trevorrow

A man in a mullet posts a classified ad in which he is looking for someone to go back in time with him. It's a real ad that you've probably seen before (apparently the real one was a joke), and when making a movie about it you can go a few different ways. Colin Trevorrow decides to take a semi-serious stab at the story while still poking some fun at the concept of the ad. The movie has a lot of comedy in it, but ultimately it takes the character of Kenneth, the guy who posted the ad, and the situation fairly seriously. The whole romance aspect and the nostalgia for the past aspect has all been done before and the tone is your basic standard Sundance indie/comedy, but this one earns its emotion by being fairly effective in creating a real romance between two people affected by past sadness.

Aubrey Plaza's familiar apathetic character (she's basically the same as her Parks and Recreation character) takes a turn for the serious in a very good performance in her first ever lead role. Even though she's basically playing the same character she always plays, we see a different side of that character. On the other end is Mark Duplass playing Kenneth, and Duplass puts in one of his better performances playing the character whom the whole movie depended on. Safety Not Guaranteed is an effective film only because both lead actors embody their characters and make the relationship between them completely believable. But there are aspects to the movie besides the relationship between the main characters. There is also Plaza's character's boss, played by Jake Johnson, who figures into the nostalgic theme of wanting for the past through his quest to find a girl he was with in high school. It's not a bad story line, but it is a bit unnecessary and almost seems like filler. If Trevorrow was challenging himself with this project by trying to take a concept and making a serious quality movie out of it, I'd say he mostly succeeded. Yes it could have been better, but it's impressive that it's as good as it is.

Grade: B