The Lost City of Z (2016)
DIRECTOR: James Gray
CAST: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland
REVIEW:
James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, an adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction book of the same name, chronicles in docudrama fashion true events surrounding British explorer Percy Fawcett, who was sent to Bolivia and made several attempts at finding an ancient lost city in the Amazon and disappeared on an expedition in 1925 along with his son under mysterious circumstances. The film, which may have been as or more engaging as a straight documentary, is a sporadically compelling but muddled and uneven biopic that remains hindered by the need to condense a twenty-year span of events into a two and a half hour film. Continue reading
Denial (2016)
DIRECTOR: Mick Jackson
CAST: Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott
REVIEW:
Denial is a courtroom drama that relies less on ostentatious Oscar clip wannabe closing speeches and theatrics than meticulous cross-examination, and a true story that doesn’t embellish the material to up the ante. The result is a stately, dignified film that will bore those without an interest in the subject matter but may appeal to fans of courtroom dramas or for those with an interest in the true story. Continue reading
Snowden (2016)
DIRECTOR: Oliver Stone
CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, Rhys Ifans, Zachary Quinto, Tom Wilkinson, Melissa Leo, Nicolas Cage
REVIEW:
Given his attraction to controversial, politically-charged fare, it’s no surprise that Oliver Stone would end up being the one to make a film about Edward Snowden, the NSA/CIA analyst-turned-whistleblower who became an internationally wanted fugitive (currently living under temporary residence in Moscow) after leaking thousands of classified files exposing unconstitutional government wiretapping and mass surveillance programs. Whether Snowden deserves the label “hero” or “traitor” (or to some extent maybe even both) varies widely depending on who you ask, but the content of his leaks, whatever one may feel about his methods or the man himself, should give anyone a moment’s pause. Perhaps Snowden‘s biggest drawback as a film is that it doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the table that can’t already be gleaned from a documentary on the same subject, Citizenfour (ironically the same complaint that can be made of another Joseph Gordon-Levitt vehicle, last year’s The Walk), but it’s still a compelling biopic/docudrama that doesn’t require one to be particularly familiar with the real Edward Snowden to find the film interesting viewing. Continue reading
Anthropoid (2016)
DIRECTOR: Sean Ellis
CAST: Cillian Murphy, Jamie Dornan, Charlotte Le Bon, Toby Jones
REVIEW:
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL “SPOILERS”
Anthropoid is a spare, gritty historical thriller chronicling in unvarnished fashion the true story of the operation (code-named “Anthropoid”) to assassinate high-ranking Nazi Reinhard Heydrich. To that end, it’s not necessarily the definitive film adaptation of the event (1975’s Operation Daybreak provides a more comprehensive overview), but it’s a tense and unromanticized docudrama illuminating one of the less famous stories from WWII. Continue reading
The Danish Girl (2015)
DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper
CAST: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander, Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard, Ben Whishaw, Sebastian Koch
REVIEW:
The Danish Girl arrives in theaters at a time when it’s virtually guaranteed to be rewarded with Academy Awards attention. Transgender issues are prominent in the news, and it’s easy to be cynical about feeling there’s something a little opportunistic in the timing and subject matter of director Tom Hooper and star Eddie Redmayne clearly aiming for what would be each man’s second Oscar, but more visible representation for the transgendered community in high-profile Oscar contender motion pictures isn’t a bad thing. Based on the same-named 2000 novel by David Ebershoff, itself a somewhat fictionalized account of the true story of transgender pioneer Einar Wegener/Lili Elbe, The Danish Girl, like Hooper’s Oscar-winning The King’s Speech, is a somber, stately, and sedate period film, and while its subdued tone sometimes mutes its emotional impact, it’s still a poignant and handsomely-filmed semi-biographical drama. Continue reading
In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Tom Holland, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson
REVIEW:
In the Heart of the Sea got a lot of promotional mileage out of its loose connections to Herman Melville’s literary classic “Moby Dick” (it’s based on the true incident of the 1820 sinking of the Essex that in turn inspired Melville’s magnum opus), but at least as brought to the screen here, the true story is less compelling than its fictional counterpart. The studio pushing its release date back from the original March to December, presumably to put it in awards contention, seems ill-judged and pointless. The movie might have fared better in March, and risks getting lost in the shuffle in November-December’s crowded and highly-anticipated field of movies. There are things to appreciate for fans of seafaring adventure, but the movie isn’t Oscar material, and there’s a generic, by-the-numbers feel that holds it back from ever becoming as powerful or compelling as it feels like it should have been. Continue reading
Legend (2015)
DIRECTOR: Brian Helgeland
CAST: Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, David Thewlis, Christopher Eccleston, Chazz Palminteri, Taron Egerton, Paul Anderson, Paul Bettany, Kevin McNally, Sam Spruell
REVIEW:
My opinion of Legend is much the same as that of another true crime docudrama, Black Mass, a few months earlier; a tour de force lead performance(s) and some memorable individual scenes doing too little to enliven an otherwise dull and generic gangster flick. If you’re a big enough fan of the gangster movie genre, or of Tom Hardy, Legend may be worth a look, but “legendary” it is not. Those hoping for a gangster epic conveying the true story of 1960s London’s notorious Kray twins will be left wanting. For writer/director Brian Helgeland, who made a name for himself with 1997’s LA Confidential (and also wrote and directed 1999’s deliciously hard-boiled crime caper Payback), this is a disappointingly uninspired and generic effort that like Black Mass comes across as “Scorsese-lite”. LA Confidential won Helgeland an Oscar, but while a case could easily be made for a nomination for Tom Hardy, the rest of Legend is far from Oscar material. Continue reading
Spotlight (2015)
DIRECTOR: Tom McCarthy
CAST: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci
REVIEW:
While the true stories they chronicle have little in common, Spotlight might appeal to those who enjoy the likes of Zodiac; like the earlier film, Spotlight is an unvarnished, no-frills docudrama which places its focus on the details of investigative procedural without relying on overdramatic embellishments or histrionics. To that end, it’s compelling viewing (at least for those who appreciate this kind of movie, which won’t be everyone) and chronicles the origins of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal we surely all remember seeing on the news. Continue reading
Steve Jobs (2015)
DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle
CAST: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston, Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, Perla Haney-Jardine, John Ortiz
REVIEW:
Steve Jobs is a bit to the late Apple Inc. founder and CEO as The Social Network (directed by David Fincher and like this written by Aaron Sorkin) was to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and while the laurels heaped on Danny Boyle’s character study hasn’t quite equaled that showered upon Fincher’s, one trait they share is that, just as The Social Network was able to shape such a seemingly dry and mundane topic as the founding of Facebook into a compelling character-driven drama, Steve Jobs does not require one to be an Apple aficionado or a particular fan of the real Steve Jobs to find this interesting viewing. As brought to the screen by Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs is not a dry docudrama, but a near Shakespearean morality play that leads us to reflect on the gift/curse of genius, the costs of limitless ambition, and the ways in which being a great mind does not necessarily equate being a great person. Continue reading
The Walk (2015)
DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis
CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon, James Badge Dale, Steve Valentine, Clement Sibony, Cesar Domboy
REVIEW:
During their twenty-eight-year lifespan, New York City’s iconic Twin Towers were host to their share of newsworthy occurrences, including a 1993 terrorist bombing that did fairly little damage but in hindsight would serve as foreshadowing of their eventual demise. A more uplifting (albeit death-defying) incident, and one of the most amazing spectacles they or any other building in the world had ever seen, came when the towers were still under construction, on the morning of August 7, 1974, when a French high-wire walker named Philippe Petit spent approximately forty-five minutes walking back-and-forth on a 200 foot cable suspended 1,370 feet above the ground, without benefit of net or safety harness. Petit’s audacious stunt got him arrested (though he faced only a slap on the wrist), but also made him at least briefly an international celebrity and helped make the new Twin Towers icons in their own right (before Petit’s stunt, many New Yorkers disliked the new towers, considering them oversized eyesores that towered over the city and blocked the sun, but Petit’s walk helped usher in their status as iconic NYC landmarks). Petit’s walk was already the subject of a 2008 documentary, Man on Wire, directed by James Marsh and narrated by Petit himself, and now Robert Zemeckis has brought the story back to the big screen as The Walk, working off of Petit’s memoirs “To Reach The Clouds”. While it’s debatable whether The Walk really brings anything new to the table that can’t be gleaned from Man on Wire (apart from recreating the titular walk through state-of-the-art technical wizardry), it serves as an entertaining and engaging, albeit flawed, docudrama and a love letter to not only Philippe Petit, but the towers he crossed. Continue reading