Movies Spotlight – 2016 Movies – May 2016

So what have I seen so far in 2016? The answer is not much, really. Most of my movie-watching time has been spent on the endless catching up on the classics of the past (and revisiting my favorites). There is seemingly an infinite amount of films from the past I am curious to see. Also, my desire to go to the movies has waned a bit. Watching most things at home is just as pleasurable, basically because it is easy. (Here is a link to all my reviews for reference).

But what have I seen – well… twelve films. That is it. Let me just go through them quickly: Loved Captain America: Civil War. We do not get too many massive blockbusters that have characters and story arcs that resonate emotionally while also keeping the promise of fun and entertainment. The airport fight scene is wonderfully joyous. Suddenly, I am just as interested in the new Spider-Man and Black Panther films as I am Thor 3 and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Marvel, once again, hit homeruns with their casting for these new characters. Deadpool is a riot. Ryan Reynolds does the best work of his career. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is disappointing (big surprise). Zack Snyder has so much visual talent; he just struggles with story and character. He really needs to bring on people to help him craft and structure his future DC films. I am, however, interested to see what Ben Affleck does with his solo Batman film.

The Jungle Book was far better than I would have ever imagined it could be. I even enjoyed its use of 3D. Disney’s other early release, Zootopia was also surprisingly good. I thought it was there “B” animiated project for 2016, with Moana being their “A”; but, Zootopia is funny, sweet and has a good message for children. It is a very good family film.

My favorite indie film so far this year is The Witch, Robert Eggers’s period horror film. It is a beautifully made and acted film that is scary and hits all the right aesthetic beats. I doubt there will be a better horror film this year. Anya Taylor-Joy is a star in the making. I also really enjoyed Hush on Netflix. It is a great horror/thriller from Mike Flanagan (who also made Oculus). 10 Cloverfield Lane was a fun thriller highlighted by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Making something work when in most takes place in one room is very tough. Midnight Special, from Jeff Nichols, is also a thematically interesting sci-fi drama. Very strong performances from his cast.

All the Way, which just debuted on HBO, is a good period drama about LBJ’s first year as President of the United States following President Kennedy’s assassination. Wonderful performances from Anthony Mackie and Bryan Cranston. Hail, Caesar! the new quirky comedy from the Coen Brothers is good, but probably one of their weaker efforts. It reminds me of A Serious Man (which I liked a lot more). And finally, Ricky Gervais’s new comedy on Netflix Special Correspondents is probably his worst project to date. Even his biggest fans can skip it.

There three films I missed in theaters earlier this year that I am very much looking forward to seeing at home. First, Sing Street, the new musical from John Carney about a young boy who forms a band to impress a girl in 1980s Ireland. I loved Once and also enjoyed Begin Again (more the second time I saw it). Second, Everybody Wants Some, the seemingly thematic follow-up to Dazed and Confused from Richard Linklater. The film looks like a fun, cool hangout which a bunch a guys playing college baseball. And third, Green Room, the new horror/thriller from Jeremy Saulnier (who also made the intense Blue Ruin). Saulnier, along with Mike Flanagan, Adam Wingard and Ti West, has really rejuvenated the American indie horror film.

Now, what am I most excited to see for the rest of 2016? Let me start with the blockbusters. Rogue One, the new Star Wars one-off from Gareth Edwards (who also made Monsters and Godzilla), looks fantastic. I really enjoyed The Force Awakens, but it is still somewhat bogged down in being an origin story for its new characters and paying so much fan service (I think Episode VIII is going to be much stronger). Rogue One may fall into the same trappings, having to introduce us to a bunch of new characters and hopefully it will not fall back on characters we do know (like Darth Vader, Han Solo and so on) too much (or at all), but it looks like a great action thriller. Ben Mendelsohn as the villain is going to be incredible; he very well might be our best character actor right now. I love the Harry Potter films; they are among my very favorite adventure genre films. That said, I was out on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for most of its preproduction. I just was not into the casting choices and I feel like it is generally a mistake to go back in time (because, ultimately we know what happens in the end, which reduces the stakes – I mean, how bad can the events of this new series be if we have never heard about them once during Harry Potter?). But the latest trailer has me all the way back in. It looks good. Doctor Strange has a phenomenal cast, but the teaser trailer did not grab me at all. In fact, the Inception-like elements of it felt like a big letdown, lazy. I hope it turns out well in the end. I imagine D23 will give us a new, and hopefully better, trailer. Suicide Squad has had a few great trailers and Margot Robbie looks brilliant as Harley Quinn. Will DC and Warner Bros. get this one right? Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are both back for Jason Bourne the Bourne sequel that no one knew they wanted until they saw the teaser. I hope Alicia Vikander has more to do they talk at monitors though.

Disney has some great animated films upcoming too (and their remake of Pete’s Dragon, which is totally random. I grew up with that film on a VHS my mom made recording Marry Poppins and Pete’s Dragon off the TV, but I never thought anyone saw it as essential or a major Disney project. Disney is also remaking Mary Poppins incidentally). Their Walt Disney Animation Studio release is Hawaii-set Moana, from Ron Clements and John Musker (who also directed/wrote The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules). The voice cast features Hawaii’s own Auli’I Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson. Their Pixar release is Finding Dory, which is both awesome and disappointing. Awesome because everyone like Finding Nemo and the same creative team is making this sequel. Disappointing because I think we all want Pixar to focus on original projects like last year’s fantastic Inside Out (although, their “B” film The Good Dinosaur was poor by Pixar standards).

Hollywood has a few very good looking films as well this Fall/Winter. Passengers sounds amazing on paper. A sci-fi film from Morten Tyldum (who also made Headhunters and The Imitation Game) starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt (who will hopefully have the best chemistry of all, as they are maybe our two most likable stars right now). It is about a man who prematurely wakes up from cryogenic sleep, years too early, during space travel. Instead of facing his life alone, he decides to wake up another passenger. I like everything about this film. I hope it is great. Robert Zemekis is back with a new film, which is generally a good thing, a very good thing. Allied stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard and is about spies during WWII (I am 100% in). The Girl on the Train looks like a potentially superb thriller (even if Tate Taylor is doing his best David Fincher impression). This also has a great cast, highlighted by Emily Blunt and Rebecca Ferguson. Out right now is Shane Black’s The Nice Guys. I am a big fan of Black’s films (as a writer: Lethal Weapon and The Last Boyscout; as writer/director: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3 and now The Nice Guys). He really just makes the same film over and over, but I am not tired of it yet. His LA detective stories, his plots that are really about something else, his great dialog, and his very funny humor.

The best films from 2016, however, seem to be the prestige indies coming this Fall/Winter. The Light Between Oceans, the new drama from Derek Cianfrance starring Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz, feels like the way-too-early frontrunner for best film of 2016. The trailer showcases the heartbreaking drama and incredible performances of the film. Ang Lee’s new drama, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, very much looks to take its place as a definitive narrative on the Iraq/Afghanistan War and the soldiers who come home from the horror faced over there. Sundance favorite The Birth of a Nation (I assume very specifically titled as a comment on the D.W. Griffith film) should make a big awards season impact. Nate Parker, who writes, directs and stars in the film, seems to have emerged as 2016’s brightest new talent. J.A. Bayona’s family film A Monster Calls also promises to be aesthetically and thematically just right (like a better version of Steven Spielberg’s summer release The BFG), feeling akin to Pan’s Labyrinth.

There are also a number of films that do not yet have trailer that sound potentially great. James Ponsoldt (director of Smashed, The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour) has a new sci-fi drama due out starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks. Martin Scorsese has long been working on a period drama called Silence about priests in Japan. It stars Andrew Garfield, Liam Neeson and Adam Driver. Terry George (director of Hotel Rwanda) is finally making a new film, the drama The Promise with Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac. Denis Villeneuve (director of Incendies, Prisoners and Sicario) has a new drama called Story of Your Life with Amy Adams. Damien Chazelle (director of Whiplash) returns with a musical called La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and J.K. Simmons. Jeff Nichols (releasing another film this year) just won a ton of acclaim at Cannes for his new romance drama Loving. And, Kenneth Lonergan’s new drama Manchester by the Sea was also a darling of Sundance, many naming Casey Affleck’s performance as an awards season must.

Much like last year, the blockbuster season/summer releases feel a little disappointing and all the best stuff will come out in the Fall/Winter – even the best blockbusters still to come do not come out until November (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and December (Rogue One).

Begin Again (2014) – Review

Review: Begin Again is a sweet music drama about picking yourself up off the ground when life gets you down (while also taking a few shots at the commercial music industry).

The film is about Greta and Dan. Greta is a songwriter who comes to America with her boyfriend Dave, a singer on the verge of becoming a rock star. As he blows up, they break up after Dave cheats on her while he is on the road leaving her alone in New York City, with only a friend’s couch to sleep on. Greta is devastated because she had always felt like they were a team (even working on music together) and he abandoned her. Meanwhile, Dan is a record producer and co-owner of an indie label; however, things are not going well for him either. He has been on a long slide and is an alcoholic. Things have become so bad that his ex-wife and daughter feel slightly estranged and his music partners have thrown him out of the business. He has nothing left. Greta and Dan come together when Dan sees and hears Greta (in a state of anguish) perform one of her songs. It seems to pull him out of his stupor and invigorates him to make and album with her. Maybe they can help each other move on and begin again (see what I did there…).

Writer-director John Carney presents Begin Again as a modern musical – one in which the music aspects of the drama come in the form of performed songs by musicians, songs that also double as emotional outlets for the characters. In this regard, Carney has done quite well. The songs and music work very well within the construct of the narrative. The music is by no means groundbreaking or amazing, but it seems to fit nicely into today’s rock/pop genre, and most importantly it gets its message across (speaking for what the characters are feeling). I also did enjoy the typical musical cliché montages (they are almost always great) like “finding the band” or “making the album”.

Carney also uses his narrative to raise very directed criticisms with the commercial music industry. Carney certainly finds himself on the side of musicians and artistic integrity. The film to some extent berates the industry for over commercializing and focusing on other aspects than the music (which theoretically should be the most important aspect). Carney is a proponent of what seems like music’s future: one in which there are no all-powerful record labels and bands promote themselves and solely release music online (basically turning every band into an indie band), theoretically doing away with the commercialization of music and musicians (major labels to some extent dictate what gets played on the radio, which then in turn seems to force popular music to all sort of sound the same so that it may appeal to the masses, and thereby artistry, creativity, and the soul of music is lost – this is what Carney is fighting against). This viewpoint is nice in theory, but also feels a little naïve.

The strongest feature of Begin Again is its characters Greta and Dan (but especially Greta). Carney goes out of his way in the narrative to fully flesh out the characters and make them relatable for the audience, by giving them many character moments and full back stories. This works very well and pays off, especially when the characters then perform their music. I also liked that Carney does not feel the need to make the film into a clichéd romantic comedy with Greta and Dan falling in love. That is too easy, and it would not have allowed the characters to really grow and move on with their lives past the low points that the audience first finds them in. Their narrative arcs would feel cheapened.

Begin Again, however, does not quite have the emotional weight that it could have or probably should have. Carney seems intent on keeping things rather light, when the emotions and issues that Greta and Dan face are fairly heavy. This, thusly, creates sort of an emotional disconnect and leaves the film feeling less satisfying on an emotional level. Carney also has a big issue with the ending feeling very unsubstantial (something that he tries to rescue with a decent scene during the credits). There is not a sense of real closure to the film, which is disappointing because the audience does care about Greta and Dan and wants to see their story(ies) tied up in a meaningful way, and Carney just seems to miss this narrative moment. Possibly, this unsatisfying feeling stems from Carney not having Greta and Dan end up together when we, as the audience, are somewhat hardwired by film’s narrative language (especially based on hundreds of recent similar narrative films) to expect and maybe even want that ending. Mostly, however, it feels like Carney just could not come up with a strong enough ending while keeping the tone light throughout.

Overall, Begin Again works and succeeds on what its sets out to be. It is an entertaining lighthearted musical drama with strong character performances and good (enough) music. What is disappointing, however, is that it could have been very powerful. It just never really seems to have that ambition.

Technical, aesthetic & acting achievements: Many film fans know John Carney for his amazing and emotionally powerful film Once, and thus probably hoped that Begin Again would follow suit; however, Carney has seemingly sought out to make a film with a broader appeal and has thus made something far more lighthearted tonally (which is somewhat ironic, considering the film’s clear appeal for artistic integrity over commercialization). That said, however, I do not see this cynically as Carney chiefly trying to make a generic Hollywood film, as Begin Again clearly is not that; it stylistically and narratively firmly has its roots in independent film. I just think he tried to make something different and it just did not come off quite as well. Fans of his work should still enjoy the film though.

As mentioned in the review, the film’s music is well suited. The score and songs mostly written by Gregg Alexander (of the New Radicals) have some very good moments and are performed beautifully by the cast. Yaron Orbach’s cinematography is also very good. The film has a very naturalistic look and takes full advantage of New York City’s inherent charms. Chad Keith’s production design too is naturalistic, creating a world that feel very authentic for the characters to inhabit (doing part of the actors’ job for them).

Begin Again features a few musician cameos like CeeLo Green and Yasiim Bey and good work from actors in small roles, chiefly from Catherine Keener. Hailee Steinfeld is good as Dan’s daughter Violet. Her character seems to serve Dan’s character arc more than her own, but Steinfeld nonetheless brings her to life with fun, slightly edgy energy. James Corden is fantastic as Greta’s friend Steve. He is very funny and seems to steal all his scenes by pulling all the attention. Adam Levine is also good as Greta’s rock star boyfriend Dave. I am not very familiar with his work with Maroon 5, but he sure can sing. Mark Ruffalo brings a lot of depth to Dan. His performance to some extent feels like a clichéd caricature of the typical sort of wacky “indie music guy” but Ruffalo also has a real sadness, making the first level feel like it is just an act to try and hide his immense pain. He brings layers to what would in most cases been a fairly straightforward performance and character. Keira Knightley is easily the best part of Begin Again. She can sing (despite not being a singer in any regard), helped along by songs that suit her voice. She is incredibly charming and likable as Greta, pulling the audience in, and nails all the dramatic moments as well. I will say, however, that she is maybe not completely right for the character. She is far too inherently cool. Throughout the film, she is stylishly dressed and seemingly effortlessly alluring and fashionable (reminding me of Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face a bit), when Greta feels like a woman that would not be very fashion forward, not necessarily ugly or unkempt, but just not as put together in terms of style and overall look. But regardless of all that, Knightley is wonderful in the film.

Summary & score: Begin Again has a good set of songs (a key ingredient to any musical), strong leading performances, and a good message, but is a little let down by its upbeat nature when deeper emotion would have made it all the more dynamic. 6/10

Movie of the Week – Once

This week’s movie is Once (2006).

The pseudo musical romance drama is about two musicians who meet in Dublin and have a connection. It is written and directed by Irish indie-filmmaker John Carney (who has just started work on a new musical in Hollywood called Can a Song Save Your Life?), and he worked with cinematographer Tim Fleming and production designer Tamara Conboy. It stars musicians Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, both of whom also write (almost) all the music in the film for which they won an Oscar (Best Song). Their naturalist acting and chemistry mixed with Carney’s direction creates a sweet love story and wonderful characters (that really connect with the viewer). However, it is the music in the film that makes it so special. Songs like When Your Mind’s Made Up and Falling Slowly (the song that won the Oscar) are just brilliant making for a beautiful soundtrack. The songs play into the feelings and emotions of the characters and tell the deeper story, while being great songs too. This is the best musical of the last decade without question and a must-see for fans of both musicals and romances. Check out the trailer.

Film available on Blu-ray, DVD and Streaming

Soundtrack available on CD and Digital Download