6047 POSTS 187 COMMENTS

Into the Woods Review – 3 out of 5 Stars

You can say that I’ve seen a lot of three star movies this year. To the credit of Into the Woods, this is the best movie that I’ve given three stars to in a while. This movie has aspects that are amazing and has songs and performances that I loved yet there are problems with the movie that are too big for me to ignore. Still, this is an entertaining film and should be seen even if my rating for the film is disappointingly low.

For those like me who didn’t know about the beloved Stephen Sondheim Broadway play walking in, Into the Woods is a musical that connects most of the famous Brothers Grimm fables into one story. A Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) want to have a baby but a witch (Meryl Streep) has a curse on the Baker’s family that keeps him from having a child. To have the curse reversed from the witch, they have to find a red cape, a golden slipper, a white cow and golden hair.

When I was hearing about this movie, a lot of people were calling Steven Sondheim a genius and we’re praising how great the music is. Having seen it, Into the Woods truthfully has some of the most impressive numbers I’ve seen in a musical maybe since the 60’s. Stephen Sondheim has an extreme talent in writing catchy as hell songs and lyrics. Don’t be worried that most of the story is told in song. Unlike Les Misérables, all the songs here feel necessary in moving the story forward and revealing character and they don’t come off as cluttered and lacking in atmosphere. I had no problem with the story being told with music and the movie soars when it’s doing just that. All the actors maybe with the exception of Lilla Crawford do an exceptional job singing the songs and Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt are especially on their A game. Whatever problems I had with Into the Woods aren’t the problem of the music and you should look beyond that if that’s the things that keeping you from checking this out.

This is a movie that seems to have had a lot of people working on it in the technical field that clearly cared about the material. All of the areas like the production design and the costume design do a good job getting a classical fable tone to the setting with the houses look and especially with what different characters are wearing. The make-up is top notch and what they did to Meryl Streep in particular is awesome in making her go from a very hideous witch to a beautiful witch. As with most musicals, you have to admire the sound design because they have to mix together what is happening in the scene, the singing of the performer and the music throughout. Seeing how stable this musical was in comparison to others I’ve seen as of late, this makes the sound design that much more worthy of praise.

I mentioned above that the cast is really great and I stay with that statement. I think Meryl Streep is extremely talented but she has been doing a great job in fairly mediocre films for some time. While her character is the messiest, she still is given a lot more here and she delivers her best performance since Doubt. The witch has the most memorable songs in the movie and Streep rises to the occasion whole-heartedly. She is putting her heart into every note and it’s a perfect mixture of dedication and sheer fun with the part she has to play. The Last Midnight song is probably my favorite scene and that part alone makes it one of the best supporting actress performances of the year. Meryl Streep will get an Oscar nomination and for once it’ll be in a role that challenged her and showed a different side of her acting chops. Meryl Streep isn’t the only great actor in the films ensemble. Emily Blunt shines every time she’s in it and much like Streep she seems to be putting her heart into it. Chris Pine as Prince Charming and Anna Kendrick as Cinderella both have moments where they get to show off their acting and singing chops. I haven’t seen James Corden in a lot but between this and Begin Again; he shows a charisma and confidence that shows the potential of a future strong leading man. And while they’re the weakest singers, Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone both give strong enough debut performances as Little Red Riding Hood and Jack. I didn’t even mind Johnny Depp as The Wolf. This is coming from a guy that thinks Depp one of the weakest actors working in Hollywood today. You get the sense that it’s made up of actors who really enjoyed the source material and wanted to present it in the best way they were able. This kind of enthusiasm from an entire cast is rare and really nice to see every once in a while.

From the first chunk, you’re probably curious why I’m giving this such a low score. My praise comes from a genuine love I had towards a lot of things about Into the Woods. For the first maybe 90 minutes or so, this movie is around a 4 star rating. It’s this huge, epic blend of music, story and performances and it does a great job mixing together these different ideas and showing the different morals these people learned and how they are all connected. You have a lot of fun but at the same time it can be serious and it can say things about responsibility and ambition. There are a lot of sympathetic characters and it’s one of the quickest sits this year. All this movie needed to do was stick the ending and it might even have made my top ten. Unfortunately the film doesn’t end well…oh boy does it not end well.

There’s a point where the director obviously wants you to think that it’s going to end soon. And when they’re just about to conclude, something big happens and it doesn’t end for another thirty or so minutes. I’m not saying that some of the themes and ideas it tries to express in these final thirty minutes aren’t valid. In a better scenario, I can see some of the stuff it brings up being used brilliantly to show a contrast between the lighter first half and a much darker second half and how life really is. In the actual play, the stuff in the last thirty minutes makes up part two of the two part play. I haven’t seen the play, but from this you can assume that equal time is spent on these areas. Here’s the gigantic error with the film, 90 minutes are spent on the first act and a measly 30 minutes are spent on the second act. This stuns me that they even thought they could make a stable, well-paced play in going this route. I don’t care whether it was them trying to keep from making a three hour movie or whether it was them trying to keep it PG, it doesn’t matter and the fact remains the same. Act two is a complete train wreck.

I shouldn’t even have to explain why this didn’t work, you’re trying to tell this deep, powerful message and you’re jamming everything together in a very short amount of time. Important characters die in the most rushed and confusing ways possible and the other characters aren’t given enough time to fully react to what has happened in way that makes the audience care. Whatever chances are left of giving The Witch a solid character arc are gone and the way she exits the story makes no possible sense. You’re given all these things that are meant to mean something but I got so much whiplash from what was happening that none of it affected me or felt very successful in being impactful. Whatever momentum was built by the first act collapses in this cluttered mess of a second act. If the first act is 4 stars then the second act is probably around two stars. The sad part is that the music gets even better in the second act and you can see how in a three hour play these songs would be awe inspiring, here they just feel wasted. It fascinates me why they did this and why they would throw away what had for a while been a true return to a once proud genre.

There are plenty of things that are amazing about Into the Woods like the performances and the A+ music. The first act alone is definitely worth a watch. Sadly, to imitate one of the most famous song lines of the musical, I wish they hadn’t tried to squish an epic, big second act into a short period of time. Into the Woods isn’t just a disappointment for what it could’ve been but also for at a point what it actually was.

Rating:[star rating=”3″ numeric=”yes”]

Review by: Ryan M.

Release Date: 12/25/2014

Rating: PG

Cast: Anna Kendrick, Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, Daniel Huttlestone, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Christine Baranski, Tracey Ullman, Lilla Crawford and Johnny Depp

Directed by: Rob Marshall

Screenplay by: James Lapine

The Theory of Everything Review – 2 out of 5 Stars

Every year there’s that one movie, you know which one I’m talking about. It’s that film that no one loves yet gets nominated and receives a ton of awards because it’s the safe crowd pleaser. Everything about it is just average and it couldn’t possibly offend anyone. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Blind Side all belong in this category and this year’s new edition to that collection of mediocrity is the dull, uninspired Stephen Hawking biopic The Theory of Everything.

This is the kind of biopic where you could probably guess every beat that’s going to happen in it. Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) is a brilliant scientist who is going places until he is told he doesn’t have long to live after being told he has Lou Gehrig’s disease. Luckily, with the help of his wife Jane (Felicity Jones), Stephen is able to keep living and continue exploring his theories.

Let me say this clearly before I get started. This review is in no way a criticism of the life or challenges Stephen Hawking has faced in his life. I’m certain he is an extraordinary and a kind human being who has lived a challenging life. That being said, that is even more reason to be disappointed by what this ultimately is. Honestly, this isn’t going to be a very long review. The Theory of Everything has nothing outwardly wrong with the screenplay or the storytelling or the characters. But at no point in the whole thing was I ever compelled or moved or impressed by anything that was happening on screen.

Everyone seems to be going through the motions and the scenes you usually predict to spot in this sort of stuff. You’ve got the pretty montages that allow the writers and directors to skip over periods of time and not to dig to a deeper level of Hawking’s love and issues. There’s a big, drawn out speech where Hawking sums up all that were supposed to have learned from the past two hours. You even have the third act break up followed by the “uplifting” connection between the two. The film fails where previous films like 12 Years a Slave, Fruitvale Station and Foxcatcher (I’ll get to that movie later) succeeded. Every big moment that would’ve given us a deeper insight into the mind of a surely interesting person seems to have been left out for what becomes a numbing experience. The movie does in two hours what could be achieved in 4 minutes by haphazardly reading over a Stephen Hawking Wiki page while listening to the most stock, inspirational music you can find on YouTube.

Director James Marsh doesn’t help make this anything original either. Much like the writers, Marsh seems to be reading the biopic for dummies book and he seems to stray from the recipe as little as possible. Things like costume design and production design are as great as you would expect from a big historical drama but all else is reminiscent to say the least.

Something I was actually looking forward to was the score by Jóhann Jóhannsson. I first learned of him last year while listening to his near perfect music for Prisoners. I was hoping he would be able to bring some energy to this because of how amazing that score was. Sadly, even what I was looking forward to with this has disappointed me. The score is the same sappy, schlock you’ve seen in every other heavy handed movie that’s based on a true story. Music can make or break a film and here Jóhannsson makes sure that he hits every single message over the head with a hammer. You don’t need a stirring, loud song to be playing when Stephen Hawking is seeing his baby; it’s a much more powerful moment kept in subtlety.

Another poorly used technical aspect besides the music is the showy cinematography by Benoît Delhomme. It’s not the worst looking movie I’ve seen all year but it all seemed like it tried way too hard to look really, really pretty but failed. Theory lacks natural light and tries to make an overly colorful world. Unlike films by Wes Anderson and David Fincher, this visual style feels out of place and seems more distracting and artificial than beneficial.

The worst part about all of this is that Eddie Redmayne is actually pretty good. Sure, a role like this can come off as overly Oscar baity and can make any sub-par actor look impressive. But it seems as though Redmayne genuinely did care about doing a good job playing Stephen Hawking. It’s a performance that is based a lot on physical actions, but Redmayne manages something fantastic that hints at a much more raw and memorable movie. He presents a man holding on to his humanity even as his body becomes weaker and weaker over time. Whatever is wrong with this movie cannot be blamed on Redmayne and I would even argue it is only he that keeps the movie relevant in the awards season. Charlie Cox is also really sympathetic in a supporting role as Hawking’s best friend and later on Jane’s husband. A lot of people have given high praise to Felicity Jones for her role as Jane Hawking and while there’s technically nothing wrong with her performance, she’s just okay personally. I guess she played the part well enough but she didn’t do anything that stood out or ultimately affected me afterwards. I have no clue why people are so over the moon with the performance. Nonetheless, she is fine and as already mentioned Redmayne’s great.

There are so many amazing movies that aren’t going to get attention because of stuff like The Theory of Everything. Eddie Redmayne is impressive but it’s not nearly enough to save this thoroughly boring experience. Theory leaves very little to the minds of its audience and what it does reward to them is unimpressive and has done before to better effect. Be sure to check the much more rewarding films that are out this holiday season.

Rating:[star rating=”2″ numeric=”yes”]

Review by: Ryan M.

Release Date: 11/26/2014

Rating: PG-13

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones and Tom Prior

Directed by: James Marsh

Screenplay by: Anthony McCarten

Based on the Book by: Jane Hawking

Wild Review – 3.5 out of 5 Stars

With Wild and Dallas Buyers Club, Jean-Marc Vallée has proven himself to be making some of the best dramas today. What I enjoyed about Dallas Buyers Club was the raw, up close take that it had that made it feel extremely personal. Vallee made a very down to earth movie and it was that style that probably helped lead the film to its two academy award wins last year. This same praise of authenticity can be rewarded in a somewhat lesser degree to Wild. Featuring one of the strongest performances of the year, Wild is a movie with a dedication to capturing the spirit and struggle of the real life of Cheryl Strayed in a way that overcomes it screenplay flaws and leaves you touched.

Based on a true story, Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) overcomes her hard childhood, the death of her mom (Laura Dern), drug addiction among other things by traveling the Pacific Crest Trail. Along the way, she will meet interesting people, reflect on her past and overcome many of her demons.

Let’s get the part out of the way that you are probably expecting. Yes, Reese Witherspoon is amazing and deserves an Oscar nomination for her role here. Everything you’ve heard about how she is in the film is correct and she does a fantastic job diving into the troubled soul of her character. You can tell how much she was interested in this story because she seems to giving it her all. Every scene where she had to cry, scream or talk about what is destroying her feels real and it makes Wild a strong character study. There’s a scene where she is reacting to her mom’s death and all while this is happening the movie splices this with a time in her hike when she is having a hard time. Thanks to her performance, this is easily one of the most devastating and moving scenes I’ve seen this year. In fact, all of her scenes where she has to overcome the unexpected death of her mom were as powerful as anything I’ve seen this year and it makes the connection she had with her mom the true highlight of this story.

The movie rounds itself off with a really great cast to support Witherspoon along the way. In the few scenes we get with her, Laura Dern leaves a touching impact playing Cheryl’s mom Bobbi. All of her scenes are in short flashbacks but in that time we get enough from her to see that she is someone Cheryl loved and tries to imitate in her own life. Thomas Sadoski stands out as Cheryl’s ex-husband Paul and the relationship she shares with Cheryl even after they have left each other is pretty poignant.

The film also impressed me with its ambitious editing. While the main focus is to show Cheryl’s hike, we also get to see some of the things that brought her to where she is now. The movie tries to tackle a lot of things but the way it does this is different than the way you would think. Most movies that go back in time do this by presenting flash backs in order from oldest to latest and making them go on for long periods of time. Wild is much more psychological and non-linear in giving the audience Cheryl’s past. Flashbacks here go on for only two minutes at a time, often have just music over them and aren’t featured in order. By doing this, Vallee isn’t attempting your standard based on a true story movie but instead a look at its hero that goes much deeper. Presenting Strayed’s like this allow you to understand the troubled psyche of our protagonist and helps make clearer how these scattered memories are haunting her and battling her on her journey.

What the films main theme is may also surprise you. While aspects of it are about her battling her demons and learning to live again, the conclusion is far quieter than you’d expect. Strayed’s win isn’t some strong, big yell of survival like Gravity or Captain Philips (not to dismiss those as bad movies in the slightest) but more like a moment of rest or peace within herself. Cheryl’s passion is nature and when everything in her life falls apart and she hates everything about her, she uses it to come to terms and seek tranquility. The walk isn’t about proving anything but instead being able to look at all that you have done and being okay with it. These things from her past all in one way or the other come back to haunt her on her travels but by the end of the hike her soul is at rest and all has come to pass.

On the hike, she is away from all her friends and all technology and all she has is the earth and the few, memorable friends she finds every once in a while. In viewing a more raw and bare lifestyle, she can find the things that matter the most and escape from all the issues that she has. This idea of seeking comfort within is something we rarely see in movies to this extent and it’s what makes Wild truly memorable.

I have a couple of issues with Wild that keeps this from being as good as Dallas Buyers Club though. I think the movie loses some momentum and gets a bit aimless near the end and by the last 15 minutes you’re kind of waiting for the final scene to happen. The ending scene is luckily outstanding but a large chunk of some of the stuff before it could’ve been left on the cutting room floor.

Something you have to understand going into this is that through and through this is supposed to be a character study. Because of this, Wild builds up a fascinating character but doesn’t deliver so easily on a real storyline surrounding her. It allows the movie to succeed in a lot of different areas but it also makes the movie fall short in some also important areas and it keeps me from falling head over heels for the thing.

Other than that, Wild is a movie I would give a recommendation to. The lack of a storyline is made up for by the astounding performance of Reese Witherspoon and the interesting way it presents the mind and demons of Cheryl Strayed. Vallee’s filmmaking continues to be excellent and we get to see a beautiful and touching look at finding peace with yourself and what is around you.

Rating:[star rating=”3.5″ numeric=”yes”]

Review by: Ryan M.

Release Date: 12/19/2014

Rating: R

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Gaby Hoffmann and Thomas Sadoski

Directed by: Jean-Marc Vallée

Screenplay by: Nick Hornby and Cheryl Strayed

Final Conflict, The (1981)

TITLE: The Final Conflict (aka. The Omen III)

RELEASE DATE: 3/20/1981

RATING: R

The now adult Antichrist plots to eliminate his future divine opponent while a cabal of monks plot to stop him.

What did you think of this film?

Amazon

IMDb

During Credits? No

After Credits? No

Damien: Omen II (1978)

TITLE: Damien: Omen II

RELEASE DATE: 6/9/1978

RATING: R

Damien the Antichrist, now thirteen years old, finally learns of his destiny under the guidance of an unholy disciple of Satan. Meanwhile dark forces begin to eliminate all those who suspect the child’s true identity.

What did you think of this film?

Amazon

IMDb

During Credits? No

After Credits? No

Omen, The (1976)

TITLE: The Omen

RELEASE DATE: 6/25/1976

RATING: R

Mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the anti-christ? The devil’s own son?

What did you think of this film?

Amazon

IMDb

During Credits? No

After Credits? No

Predestination (2014)

<br /> TITLE: Predestination

RELEASE DATE: 1/9/2015

RATING: R

The life of a time-traveling Temporal Agent. On his final assignment, he must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time.

What did you think of this film?

IMDb

During Credits? No

After Credits? No

Special thanks to Frank S. for this submission

World Made Straight, The (2015)

TITLE: The World Made Straight

RELEASE DATE: 1/9/2015

RATING: R

In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.

What did you think of this film?

Official Site

Amazon

IMDb

During Credits? No

After Credits? No

Special thanks to Frank S. for this submission

Taken 3 (2014)

<br /> TITLE: Taken 3

RELEASE DATE: 1/9/2015

RATING: PG-13

Ex-government operative Bryan Mills is accused of a ruthless murder he never committed or witnessed. As he is tracked and pursued, Mills brings out his particular set of skills to find the true killer and clear his name.

What did you think of this film?

Official Site

Amazon

IMDb

During Credits? No

NOTE: The credits start with the camera pulling away from the pier featured in the last scene.

After Credits? No