ARRIVAL: A Perfect December's Film

In the month of December, equally important to re-watching our favorite holiday films and sampling ones we’re unfamiliar with is getting to the theater to see new releases. And that is because of the glorious Oscar season (early November to late December), when studios release the most critically touted films of the year. I am here to discuss one particularly interesting and thought-provoking film that is considered a “frontrunner” for the Best Picture Academy Award in 2017. That movie is Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival; and it is spectacular.

Arrival follows Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), who is teamed with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), and recruited by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to decode and interpret a foreign language used by aliens who have peacefully landed in 12 different locations across the globe. To tell more would be to spoil any of the fascinating twists and turns that the movie makes. That would be a grave mistake, for Arrival is a masterful sci-fi film that demands a totally uncorrupted viewing.

I must first note what entered my mind upon my viewing of Arrival: here is a movie that took a few ideas out of Steven Spielberg’s playbook. It undeniably resembles Close Encounters of the Third Kind with respect to plot, characters, and set design. And I couldn’t have enjoyed it any more. The great Martin Scorsese once said that directing is what one can “smuggle in” from other films. That is evidenced here by director Denis Villeneuve, who successfully pays homage to “Close Encounters” while at the same time creating an original work all his own.

Among Villeneuve’s other work includes 2013’s Prisoners. Like in that absorbing drama, in Arrival, Villeneuve creates a cerebral, chilling atmosphere and fills the screen with soft grey colors. The musical score is enigmatic and repetitive. All of the necessary components for the foundation of a disturbing, thoughtful sci-fi film are here. Fortunately, the movie takes advantage of them.

One of the ways in which Arrival excels is its performances. Amy Adams has the most screen time and gives one of her more memorable performances as the reputable professor and linguist. She articulates the complex emotions of her character through her aware facial expressions and her sensitive delivery of lines. Jeremy Renner is solid, as always, as her supportive and caring colleague. His character has more everyman values than his usual roles do; and I believed him for every second. What’s more, Forest Whitaker as the order-following colonel is extremely effective and his convincing performance here is yet another testament to his versatility as an actor.

It almost goes without saying that most first-rate sci-fi films of the 21st century offer knockout visuals. Arrival is no exception. Beyond the incredible CGI, the movie offers a certain mystique to what we see. We never quite get a full view of the aliens because of an eerie white mist and, in many close-up scenes, there is only focus on certain portions, or characters, on screen. This manipulation of background and camera focus is used to great effect by the director to produce an additional layer of intrigue.

My uncle and colleague wasn’t as enthusiastic about this film as I was. He complained that it was like a puzzle with a number of pieces missing. I obviously disagreed. But I did feel that the movie wasn’t long enough. Some of the most memorable sci-fi films of the recent past, like  Interstellar, run at well over two-and-a-half hours and Arrival is only 118 minutes long. This is not to say that a contemporary sci-fi film cannot be successful with a short running time. This is just to say that when Arrival’s credits rolled, I was settled back into my chair expecting at least twenty more minutes of elaboration.

Arrival is PG-13, family-appropriate for the most part, and certainly targets a more general audience than Interstellar (a more intricate and complex sci-fi film) did. Perhaps this shorter length that irked me will make viewing Arrival a more enjoyable experience for a family.

Written by Cole Pollyea

GOOSEBUMPS

★★★

I’m an older brother of three, each of whom have taken up my old viewing habits―they have more or less seen all of the TV shows and movies that I watched when I was their age because, well, that seems to be how it goes for big families. An essential component of childhood media consumption was the campy, low budget, cringeworthily acted TV series, "Goosebumps." Jump forward 20 years (the show aired from ‘95 to ’98), and original creator of the series, R.L. Stine, and director Rob Letterman helm a 125 minute, Jack Black-starring reboot of the series that, at the very least, demands our attention.

Black plays the everwatchful father whose new next door neighbor, a teenage boy who’s just trying to fit in, stumbles upon what he believes to be Black’s character abusing his daughter. This, of course, just turns out to be nothing, and, over the next few hours, one thing leads to another, and the two teens wind up nosing their way into Black’s character’s things, which includes a sacred Goosebumps book collection that, if opened, can summon all of the evil characters to life. This, naturally, is exactly what happens.

Now, it’s obvious that Goosebumps never tries to reinstate the same scares that Stine did back in the day, and it’s obvious that the same mood, that claustrophobic sort of inescapability, is never achieved. Despite this, the charming cast, made up of Dylan Minnette, Black, Odeya Rush, and countless others, along with the largescale CGI, make it an enjoyable enough family moviegoing experience.

Having made its DVD release in late January of this year, Goosebumps is currently hunkered down into most DVD hubs and On-Demand streaming services. Ultimately, it’s worth a rent, just as long as the family keeps in mind the roots of Stine’s genius. This 2015 entry is a playful companion to the enduring series, despite the fact that this spectacle doesn’t quite feel like it did when we were young and witnessing the horror of the “Cuckoo Clock of Doom."

- Written by Cole Pollyea

FINDING DORY

★★★

As far as animated movie sequels go, "Finding Dory" is far from a letdown. It’s a vibrant, often times hilarious sequel that successfully incorporates the characters we grew so fond of inits predecessor, "Finding Nemo", and manages to add new ones that are easy to fall in love with. And needless to say, it is also a perfectly enjoyable viewing experience for all members of the family.

Taking on a familiar plot, "Finding Dory" follows the adverse tasks taken on by Dory in her herculean attempt to find her long lost parents. Why adverse or herculean? Because, for those of you who haven’t seen “Nemo” since its release in 2003, remember that Dory suffers from short term memory loss, but since this was early onset, as the movie reveals, this also means that she has forgotten many aspects of her childhood, which could be considered long term memory loss as well.

This attempt starts one day in the quaint life that she leads with Marlin and Nemo,

exactly one year after Nemo’s rescue. Dory has an epiphany and all of a sudden can remember the address of her parents, which happens to be in California. This is on the other side of the world, however, and so, because of her condition, she enlists the help of many to get there, including Marlin and Nemo, the turtle Crush, an octopus named Hank, a whale shark named Destiny, a neurotic bird named Becky, among others. It’s a pleasure to watch and cheer on our beloved Dory in an effort that we can all hold near and dear if for no other reason than for the emotional plight that we were a part of in "Finding Nemo".

But as far as animated movies go, "Finding Dory" is not on par with its wildly imaginative and unequivocally sentimental predecessor. Since it is more or less a retread of the same story,it doesn’t have the originality of “Nemo”. Since the movie’s climax is out of place and since its ideals are just not as compelling, its conclusion is simply not as impactful as “Nemo”’s. The bottom line is that "Finding Dory" is neither as grand nor as rewarding as one might hope. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not a fun ride.

- Written by Cole Pollyea

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

★★★ ½

Review by Cole Pollyea

2016 is looking strong for movies―and I’m not just talking about Scorsese’s Silence, scheduled for a November release. Rather, I’m talking about the future based on what’s already been released. In February, we had what I called “The movie’s movie” in Hail Caesar, and in early March we had Zootopia, a brilliant children's film that will no doubt receive attention from the Academy next year. In the latter half of the month of March, we get one of the most unexpectedly enthralling, suspenseful moviegoing experiences in recent years in 10 Cloverfield Lane. This unique, part-abduction, part-possible-apocalyptic tale will no doubt remind those of you who have seen it of 2014’s Edge of Tomorrow, a movie that also caught me off guard (in the best possible sense).

10 Cloverfield Lane follows the misfortune of Michelle, our protagonist, who is driving along on mission to abandon her rocky relationship when she is hit by a maniac driver and wakes up in the confines of a small basement bedroom, chained to the bed. While convinced that she is being held captive, her “captor”, played marvelously by John Goodman, tries to tell her that he has saved her life, that there is a nuclear war and that the air is contaminated; in short,  this compels her to stay, along with the fact that her leg is injured from the car accident. To divulge any more would be to corrupt the seamless string of events that play out perfectly, ebbing and flowing to the haunting denouement.

While Goodman doesn’t have a whole lot of leading roles under his belt, you wouldn’t know it when you watch him on screen here. His portrayal of the sincere-appearing yet more or less strange survivalist is enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen. Several scenes of physical acting (hands shaking vigorously, cornering Michelle) are just as captivating as his chilling delivery of the acute dialogue. His prowess, though, is not all that does, however. In addition to the compelling performance of Mary Elizabeth Winstead, which doesn’t disappoint in any single frame, we also have an endearing portrayal of a clueless local by John Gallagher Jr. who is also sharing the shelter with the two of them.

Newbie Dan Trachtenberg (and by newbie I mean that he has never directed, produced, or written a feature film before) does a marvelous job of getting the most out of the eerie tone that was so well captured in the screenplay and production design of the movie. To say that he has a bright future is an understatement; with a debut like 10 Cloverfield Lane, it’s likely that his contribution to the mystery genre of filmmaking is going to be tremendous.

Now, 10 Cloverfield Lane isn’t going to win any Academy Award (it’s not on a great enough scale). But it is nonetheless quality filmmaking. In my best effort to describe it, I’d say that it has equal parts Agatha Christie, J.J. Abrams, and Barton Fink. It cannot be emphasized enough, though, that 10 Cloverfield Lane is a wholly original film.

ZOOTOPIA

3.5 Stars

Written by Cole Pollyea

I read somewhere that 2016’s early release, Zootopia, is this year’s Inside Out. Almost, but not quite. With that said, it is one of the finer animated pictures in recent years. It’s likely that this exceedingly entertaining family movie is going to be a contender for best animated feature in 2017’s Academy Awards for its bright screenplay, insightful political allegory, and most effective voice performances in recent memory.

In terms of outside-the-box thinking, February gave us Hail Caesar! and, now in March, we have Zootopia. It exerts a genuine craft and ascends in its own league due to its original storytelling and its ability to truly entertain every member of the family. I went with my own, ages 3, 5, 11, 17 (myself), and my parents; all were satiated.  

Zootopia chronicles the unlikely endeavors of bunny Judy Hops (energetically voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) who refuses to be “settled” by the traditional lifestyle that her parents, community, and co-species pressure her to adopt: carrot farming. Contrarily, she wants to make a difference in the world and feels that by becoming a police officer, she’s sure to do just that. When old enough, she enlists in the police academy, completes her training, and is assigned to the heart of Zootopia (the Chicago of Illinois).

Enter Jason Bateman as a sly fox who makes his living by tricking innocent passersby into paying for his “child”’s large popsicle because he forgot his wallet at home. Once out the door, he takes the popsicle, turns it into smaller popsicles, sells them for a profit (because he has no explicit costs), and reuses the popsicle sticks from his customers’ nearby recycling bin. He then bundles the sticks up, sells them as infrastructure to smaller species, and calls it a day. It’s all a part of his ‘hustle’. This, at least, is as much as he tells one of his innocent passersby, officer Judy Hops, who chases him down to see what he’s up to. Bateman’s voicework done here is pivotal, and so spot-on.

So when she is made responsible for finding a missing otter, she enlists his help (blackmail, she threatens to expose his tax evasion) and uncovers a conspiracy that may compromise the civility that defined what animals of Zootopia had based their coexistence upon for years.

At a time in our lives when all we see when we turn the TV on is the face of Donald Trump or scathing political debates, Zootopia’s timely release provided a unique, underlying perspective on heroism, underdogs, and the generalization of demographics. While it doesn’t stuff it in our faces, it’s there, and it’s intelligent.

A few more notable things about Zootopia can be chalked up to its wonderful costume design, aesthetic CGI work, and its ability to capture this period of American culture. The mafia polar bears sport black coats with white shirts and black ties, our sly fox wears a hawaiian shirt with a yellow tie, and Hops herself always has a cut police uniform. It’s crafty through and through. It also boasts exuberant CGI and brings the world of Zootopia, and all of the characters in it, to a sort of life we’ve never before seen. Lastly, the movie employs a relatable usage of technology that shows the screenwriters’ grasp on today’s culture―Hops uses her iPhone camera, everybody’s using a face-swap app, Hops “FaceTime”’s her parents back home.

Zootopia is almost perfect except for that it stumbles along the way. It gets needlessly strange in its final moments, yet it manages to recollect itself and celebrate at the finish line. With a million different hilarious, reference-worthy scenes―sloths working at the DMV, confronting a childhood bully years later, parents casually telling Hops that she’ll never accomplish her dreams, small rodents imitating Don Corleone―Zootopia has all of the vision, voicework, meaning, and entertainment value of Inside Out. What it doesn’t have is the potency and the sentimentality of it.

Nonetheless, of course, it is a marvelous film and I certainly expect it to be one of the best animated movies of the year.

Cole's Assessment and Ranking of 2016's Academy Award Nominees

With 2015’s filmmaking season coming to an end this evening with the 88th Academy Awards, it is important to recognize the tremendous creative talent on display this year and every year, and that’s what tonight is all about. Below is my take on this year’s finest, with the exception of Brooklyn, which I was unable to get around to seeing.

1. The Revenant: ★★★★

Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s filmmaking reign lives on with his latest film, The Revenant, a captivating, hard-edged testament to the director’s style, prowess, and pursuit of perfection. It boasts large scale production design, two brutally well-done performances (by DiCaprio and Hardy, the frontrunners in their categories, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively), and it is ultimately the most memorable, most precise, most impressive motion picture of 2015.

2. Carol: ★★★ ½

Carol is a chillingly romantic tale whose main characters are brought to life by the enchanting Cate Blanchett and the exuberant Rooney Mara. Among the film’s assets are the talented supporting cast and the equal mix of real-life and work of art that makes the story so unique. 

3. Room: ★★★ ½

Brie Larson is nominated for her heart-wrenching portrayal of the young woman abducted and kept in a garage shed for seven years in Room. That’s not the only thing to marvel at, though. Larson’s screen partner, the nine year old Jacob Tremblay, delivers a ground-breaking performance, and ultimately, the two leads carry us through one of the most memorable true-life stories told through cinema this year.

4. Bridge of Spies: ★★★ ½

The Tom Hanks starring, Coen Brothers written, Steven Spielberg directed (wow!) cold war drama, Bridge of Spies, is exactly as fulfilling as the savory credits would indicate. It is captivating, well-acted, and gets everything right from the get-go. It also adds a serious amount of insightful perspective towards how we should treat enemies of the state.

5. Spotlight: ★★★ ½

Spotlight is Zodiac meets All the President’s Men, about the Catholic church child molestation charges and, quite possibly, with better performances. Unfortunately, it sacrifices the impending sense of danger that the two other films harbored so effectively. Nonetheless, however, this is a chilling newsroom drama that makes all the right moves.

6. Steve Jobs: ★★★ ½

Despite the fact that this year may finally be Leonardo’s year―having undeservedly lost for at least two of his Academy Award nominations in past years―Michael Fassbender delivers the strongest performance in any film of 2015 as Steve Jobs. What’s more, the movie takes on a unique approach to portraying a chunk of his life story by chronicling Jobs’ social and professional turbulence at three different moments in his life: right before his presentation of the Mac, the Black Cube, and the iMac. 

7. The Big Short: ★★★ ½

The Big Short is a dazzling portrait of the individuals with the ability to foresee the collapse of the housing market in the few short years leading up to 2008. It is engrossing and entertaining to the nth degree, and it harbors a wide array of cast members who make the relevant proceedings that much better. 

8. The Martian: ★★★

While not quite as impactful as 2014’s Interstellar, The Martian is a bona fide sci-fi entry into this year’s Best Picture nominees. It is fueled by Matt Damon’s dedication to his craft and it is a heart-racing, supremely entertaining two hour and some minutes. 

9. Joy: ★★★

Joy is, without doubt, among director David O’Russell’s most engrossing and straightforward films. He doesn’t meander, and he doesn’t lose focus for a second. With a moving performance by the O’Russell regular, Jennifer Lawrence, the movie is a well told, important slice of life. Nothing more, nothing less.

10. Straight Outta Compton: ★★★

Straight Outta Compton is a long, well made biographical film about the rise and fall of the N.W.A (Ice Cube, Eazy E, Dr. Dre) and it boasts a particularly good performance by Paul Giamatti, playing the group’s producer. While slightly overlong and weakened by a repetitive (but still impressive) screenplay, it is an important movie that ultimately addresses the roots of a large aspect of American culture. 

11. The Hateful Eight: ★★★

The Hateful Eight is among director Quentin Tarantino’s most undisciplined, most cynical work. That said, it’s also among his most mysterious, hilarious, and exciting. If the second half of the film went exactly the way the first half did, we’d have a movie of Pulp Fiction’s Caliber. (Needless to say that, instead, it indulges in cynicism and drags the proceedings out over an unnecessarily long running time of 167 minutes).

12. The Danish Girl: ★★ ½

Despite two moving performances by Redmayne and Vikander, The Danish Girl is a boringly conservative telling of a compelling life story. Every scene plays out exactly the way one would expect, and director Tom Hooper directs exactly the way one would expect him to as well. 

Written by Cole Pollyea

CAROL

3.5 Stars

I heard a saying once that goes like this: there is magic in excellence. I pondered that for a while, ingesting it and observing events encompassed by it, and eventually decided that it must be a two-way street. Namely, there is a high degree of excellence in magic. Whichever way this notion is considered, it’s evident that the intersection is passed through by Todd Hayne’s marvelous Carol, a film that contains wondrous amounts of both excellence and magic.

Taking on an old-fashioned stylistic approach, Carol captures the love affair between two women at starkly different times in their lives, whose attraction to one another is untimely for Carol (Cate Blanchett), who is in the middle of a divorce with her husband, and confusing for Therese (Rooney Mara), who, to put it lightly, can’t even make up her mind about lunch. That last line was stolen from the film itself, from a scene where the two have lunch together, meeting each other for the first time in a non-professional environment. It is one of the film’s finest moments, as it showcases nearly every one of the film’s merits, but above all, its powerful screenplay.

By old-fashioned I first mean that the movie does little with sound and camerawork. Despite that the proceedings take place in the city, in bars, restaurants, hotels, parking lots, and busy streets, all we really hear are the soft voices of the leads and all we really see is a traditional series of tight shots, medium close ups, and mid shots. What the movie really relies on is the chemistry between actors Blanchett, Mara, Kyle Chandler, and a number of other supporting roles who unquestionably provide. They keep the fire lit from start to finish.

Secondly, the movie captures the 1950’s in a way that is both fresh and intoxicating. From costume design to screenplay accuracy to production design, Carol just gets it right. It also allows its main characters’ issues to fit in with what was going on in society in an entirely believable way, which adds to the depth of the movie’s emotion.

My only complaint about Carol is that, for a while, it’s hard to grasp what is drawing the two women together. Until a certain series of events transpire, there is little that matches the magnitude of their first meeting. This is made unimportant by the fact that once these events do transpire, we can again understand what is drawing these two towards one another, and the movie returns to its bona fide status as the marvelous, chillingly romantic film that it is. In fact, it’s safe to say that by the end of it all, we feel more strongly about the plight of the two women than we ever imagined we would; that is a sign of a true work of art.

Written by Cole Pollyea 

JOY

Cole's Rating: ★★★
Jesse's Rating (And Review): ★★★ ½

Director: David O. Russell

Year: 2015
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: PG-13

Over the last four years, Jennifer Lawrence has teamed with director David O. Russell and actors Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper to produce three notable films. These are 2012’s Silver Linings Playbook, 2013’s American Hustle, and their latest, 2015’s Joy. All three have undeniable merit, for certain, but the result of their latest collaborative effort is Jennifer Lawrence’s finest performance to date and the initiation of a three way tie for O'Russell's second best film (behind I Heart Huckabees).

Yielding an unjustly low Tomatometer score of 58%, Joy follows the plight of an innovative and exceedingly capable young woman, Joy Mangano, who is burdened by her uncooperative, soap opera-addicted mother, her dim-witted father (De Niro), her broke ex-husband, two kids, and the sole responsibility of paying the bills. After years of working her hands to the bone to keep up with the livelihood of the family living under her roof, she comes to the realization that she has been spinning her wheels with no forward progress since she graduated from high school, and, with the slight support and cooperation of her father, controlling sister-in-law, and ex-husband, she embarks on an entrepreneurial journey in an effort to move up in the oppressive and capitalistic world and to redeem all of her lost time.

Joy is, without doubt, O’Russell’s most engrossing and straightforward piece yet. He doesn’t meander, and he doesn’t lose focus for a second. He successfully incorporates crushing themes of consumerism and bigotry, and lets said themes play out in the despair of the viewer’s eyes. He constructs the characters in Joy’s life very simply, but gets away with it. They are cardboard-cutouts in the best sense possible because they leave the viewers very sure about Joy’s family dynamics and the way that she feels about each person in the film. He leaves all of the film's complications to the obstacles that she faces along the journey, and this results in seamless and absorbing plot development.

Bradley Cooper comes in after a decent amount of screen time, and he plays the QVC rep through which Joy is able to advertise her product on television. His role, as her personal connection to the non-personal realm of business, is key and his performance is exactly what you’d expect from Cooper. From a wardrobe/makeup perspective, his appearance properly conveys the high stakes associated with his job along with the same level of anxiety that the audience experiences during the majority of his screen time. Despite being draped in professional clothes with his same, great haircut, he looks like he’s operating on three to four hours of sleep and his tie is loosely tied in every frame. De Niro performs on the same level; he delivers lines with gusto and adheres purposefully to the character of Joy’s father: a dim-witted, but good-hearted man who has accepted into his heart the same condemning ideology that threatens to corrupt Joy’s success: that successful business is done by only the elite male.

Make no mistake, however, it’s all about Lawrence here. From her first scene, it was clear that she was going to shine as the housewife-turned-entrepreneur who is tested on every level. She wears anguish on her face when duty calls and kicks butt when she has to. It seems as though this is the role she was meant to play, as her portrayal feels comfortable and just plain right every step of the way. I foresee strong Oscar consideration for her work here.

All merits aside, Joy does have two setbacks that keep it from being a near-perfect film, and those are its obligatory ending and its imprecise voiceover. Seen many times before in many different movies, this aggravating sort of ending didn’t hurt Joy but certainly didn’t send itself off effectively by any stretch of the imagination. It was an attempt by the filmmakers to encapsulate all of the movie’s ideals and the characters’ denouements in one extremely unsatisfying scene which was suppose to affirm our faith in what we had just seen for the last two hours. Furthermore, the movie is sort of narrated by Joy’s grandmother who, from an early age, was the only person in her life who voiced her support of Joy. Many times over, she is shown conveying her faith in Joy and telling her that she can be an amazing young entrepreneur or a great woman or a strong matriarch or a wonderful parent or a good person… Or something like that. And this is the problem; her presence in Joy’s life is too vague and her effect on Joy’s path and self-image is undefined if at all evident. Maybe her effect on Joy was more profound in real life, but based what we see in the movie, she was simply not influential enough to have the sole narration over the proceedings, which was sporadic at best.

Conclusively, Joy is a wonderful tale of a strong woman who made her way in a man’s world and, unlike the filmmakers’ and actors’ previous movies, it is suitable for a family viewing. From me, it garners a thre (out of four) star rating and ranks highly on the list of O’Russell’s works. In addition to serving as an inspirational biopic, it is also a film that harbors a moving performance and one that divulges formidable themes about society. It’s one that won’t be (completely) ignored by the Academy this year, and one that shouldn’t be ignored by anybody else either.

Written by Cole Pollyea