AT THE MOVIES 2015
2015 provide some excellent movie entertainment. I was
riveted by Spotlight, detailing the Boston Globe’s exposé of the Catholic
Church scandal. Spotlight featured a
cast of A-list actors all keeping their performances reigned in to allow the
audience to focus on the importance of the story. The writing was superb,
handling difficult subject matter while balancing perspective and dramatic
integrity.
Joy was a
revelation. Based on the career of Joy
Mangano—a self-made millionaire who created her own business empire during the
early days of cable shopping channels—the writing in the opening ten
minutes was word perfect. Within this short time span, the dysfunctional
relationships and interactions of every family member in relation to each other
was highlighted and referenced back to Joy,
who is caught in the eye of the cyclone. As Joy,
Jennifer Lawrence again displayed her immense talent, transitioning emotionally
and physically though the demands her character arc without an off note.
Brooklyn was a
beautifully filmed, understated, and layered love story. With a screenplay by
the great Nick Hornby, Brooklyn
details the journey of Eilis (Saoirse Ronan), an Irish immigrant who lands in 1950s Brooklyn where she is
confronted by choosing between two countries, two great loves, and the lives
existing within each realm. What could have been nothing more than a
chick-flick, becomes elegant, engaging, and emotionally involving.
The Big Short had
to have been a very difficult screenplay to write. This is an important story
detailing the events surrounding the 2008 housing/market crash—but how do you
take something so financial and numbers heavy, with numerous financial terms
the average person couldn’t define if their life depended on it, let alone
understand and make it entertaining? I’m almost falling asleep thinking about
it—but I did not fall asleep in this film. Like Spotlight, I was completely engrossed in the narrative and the
inevitable, criminal, ‘unthinkable’ outcome. The acting here is more showy than
in Spotlight, but it needs to be in
order to keep the audience on board. Christian Bale and Steve Carell do the
heavy lifting (brilliantly) while Ryan Gosling pulls everything together…The Big Short also breaks the fourth
wall on numerous occasions to great effect.
There were a number of other highly rated films I chose not
to see in 2015 because of the level of violence. I have no doubt The Revenant and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi were excellent, but aimed
at an audience with different tastes than my own.
2015, however, also premiered a number of new entries in
established movie franchises. I am very happy Star Wars fans/fanatics appear to be delighted—despite gaping plot
holes—with The Force Awakens. While I
enjoyed the latest entry in the Star Wars
saga, I am a casual fan unconcerned with minutia and finding all the hidden Easter eggs. Despite being gobsmacked and outraged by the marketing
idiocy of leaving Rey out of the Action Figure—Star
Wars Monopoly—Millennium Falcon line-up, my personal Star Wars-style fandom has always been reserved for other film
franchises. As such, 2015 held low, satisfactory, and high points for me.
Let’s start with the low…
After Skyfall
rebounded positively from the dreck of Quantum
of Solace (Quantum of Crap in my
opinion), I held high hopes for the latest James Bond film, Spectre. Unfortunatley, those hopes were
dashed against the rocks of a clunky, derivative, mess of a screenplay
(basically a rip-off of Quantum of Crap),
and an insipid villain who couldn’t even bother to wear socks—how can you take
over the world wearing carpet slippers?
Spectre disparaged
fans by leaving their willing-suspension-of-disbelief
in tatters with too many scenes of overblown, obviously ridiculous, action—like
blowing a helicopter out of the sky by firing a handgun at long range while
plowing down the Thames in a bumpy speedboat. I love James Bond, but Spectre did little to endear me to the
franchise’s current detour into an imitative, derivative collection of CGI
heavy action scenes connected by thin to non-existent plotting.
The other franchise crushing aspect of Spectre is the lack of witty dialogue—or any dialogue with more
than two-syllable words. My understanding is this change was made to satisfy
the foreign markets—in particular the ever growing and money important Chinese
market. Apparently, English wordplay and quips lose their humor when translate
into foreign languages (especially Chinese) for dubbing or voiceovers.
And would Daniel Craig please just take his millions of
dollars and Bond created worldwide stardom and stop whining to the media about
hating James Bond. Get over yourself or get out…Let Idris Elba have his shot in
the role…
Deep breath…Deep
Breath…Smile…
Leaving the trainwreck of Spectre behind, let’s move on to the satisfactory category…
I’ve been waiting fifty years for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. to be rebooted. Despite fan howls over the
casting and abounding naysayers, I enjoyed this big screen version of my
favorite childhood television series. It wasn’t a great film, but in my opinion
it was an entertaining film—much more satisfactory than the more than triple
budgeted Spectre. I would have
appreciated more nods to the original series, but I enjoyed the romp.
Directory Guy Ritchie’s reinterpretation of the original
series, via this origin story, changed a number of things about the character’s
backgrounds. While purists wrung their hands and gnashed their teeth, I felt
Ritchie honored the original characters’ relationship while making each
character more three dimensional than was ever required by ‘60s television.
Both Henry Cavil and Armie Hammer appeared to be having a
good time on screen. Their chemistry worked well for me, especially when played
off Alicia Vikander’s rookie agent character. And Hugh Grant was perfect in his
limited appearance as Mr. Waverly.
The film was filled with the witticisms missing from Spectre, but the humor went deeper than
quips. The original show had a unique drollness, which is hard to describe let
alone reproduce. Whether by design or luck, the U.N.C.L.E. big screen reboot somehow captured the original series
balance of dry humor, character, and plot, which made U.N.C.L.E. the standard for all other ‘60s spy series—even if it
did lose the magic in its heavy-handed third season. U.N.C.L.E. regained its footing in season four, but it was too late
to save the show from cancellation.
With its brilliantly captured ‘60s setting, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie is a
satisfactory romp, but hope for a sequel is nothing more than a failed THRUSH
plot.
As for my movie franchise high point for 2015, you’ll have
to check back next week…But to give you a hint, it’s the hardest hitting movie
of the year…
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