Every monument, every idol eventually crumbles. The white knight v dark knight both tumble from pedestals of glory to writhe in puddles of shame and rise again to fame in yet another comic feature film.
Zack Snyder will give every film canvas his graphic glimmering oil painted 300 kiss. Viewers should expect this. Therefore, giant Doomsday miracle magic ooze and lengthy cinematic visions and previsions of glowy-eyed bat monsters and super villains duking it out should be expected.
What I didn’t expect was increased respect for the writing, for Amy Adam’s lame Lois to play well in this her sophomore attempt, for Ben to work as the older angrier Bat, for Wonder Woman’s boots, lasso, & wrist bands to get their proper dues or for Eisenberg’s crazy-cruel quick wit and face-twitch to succeed. But they did. They all did. 
Don’t believe everything you read. Go see it for yourself. Just know what to expect, and maybe you too will be surprised to find yourself enjoying another hero flick that humanizes the super and normalizes the surreal making us all feel a little closer to cape-clutching hero status.
Based on the true story that few truly understand well, this film offers consistent sidebars with laymen’s tips for digesting the basic inside scoop of heady Wall Street jargon. They make it palpable using Jenga games that represent mortgage company strategies, fish soup comparisons, bubble bath exposition, and famous cameos throughout.
So, despite crass language and nudity, this is one incredible film. The brilliant script proves its worth every minute as dialogue rings true and exposition hides in plain sight below a universal and personal, visual story. Behind the truth, that in the end, being right and gaining obscene amounts of money can’t buy any of them what they really want: joy.
Oscar nominated Saoirse Ronan plays staunch, teary Eilis on her way to America. From glum to gadabout, she must choose to define home for herself. Both she and this film remain almost static: a pleasant and pensive thoughtful saunter to and from Ireland .
All of the brave souls who cross seas and continents to start afresh meet with root-shaking challenges and must choose which road truly leads home.
The Silver Linings director offers real-to-life hand-cam perspectives, inside scoops, and deliciously complex…cartoon characters. Almost caricatures. We love them for their hearts mired deep in the muck of their flaws. We love them because we don’t know them. We get to watch the ditches they dig fill up with possibilities. They have potential and they win on some level, so we go back in for another dose as soon as he releases one.
Joy begins perfectly. Set up, character development, story, buy in and build. The soap opera scenes stand alone as genius.
We wait for payoff …until the very end, but by then we are tired and older because it is a long movie.
Honest, real, alive, funny, and heartbreaking. The lines oddly give so little insight into the characters. A film teacher once told me, “Characters are what they do.” No film seems to present that in a truer way. These teens speak in circles but it’s what they do that moves you.
Friends are just there. They stay there and keep coming over. They enter your world and learn about you. They may try to keep you laughing, they may say they don’t care. They may be dumb and you may be too, but it doesn’t matter. This movie is about real friendship, real grief, real life. If you’re not ready for that, don’t see it.
The film offers sweet narration from the child’s perspective, from Jack on the day he turns five. He wakes up to greet the day and each object in Room: “Good morning Chair. Good morning Sink.” He and his mama exercise and wash clothes and bake a birthday cake. Almost all seems lovely from the boy’s eyes, but even he can see his young mother’s far off, wounded, fearful expressions. Her sorrow is not his yet. For that they are both grateful.
Everything shifts when Mama reveals her precious secret one day: there is World outside of Room.
Yes, they escape. It may be important knowing that before you watch a film like this. The painfully dark, horrifying concept of abduction is lightened only somewhat by escape as reentry takes as much if not more gumption for survival.
Hope is a strong word. Hope is weapon against despair. Hope grows, like the leaf on Room’s skylight that showed them seasons, change, future flight, and rebirth. There is life outside of Room. Goodbye Room. Hello World.
The team of reporters followed every lead they could. Each rabbit trail lead to new victims who called themselves survivors, and for good reason. Many of the now grown children who had been molested had killed themselves. Most had turned to drugs or another kind of stimulant, perhaps to numb themselves from the painful truth.
The three reporters Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes,, and Matt Carroll were brilliantly played by Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Brian D’arcy James. In an interview with NPR, (
Their bold boss Walter “Robbie” Robinson, played brilliantly by Michael Keaton, said that he didn’t know that he ever came across as harshly as he did, and after seeing “himself” in the film, he called Sasha to apologize for ever treating her rudely. I didn’t see rudeness. I saw and empathized with the entire team as they spent a year or more of their lives buried in painful interviews and research. The topic alone would exhaust any group of reporters, but the Spotlight team sat neck-deep in it for years in order to bring truth into the light.
A few weeks ago, my class had the rare and incredible opportunity to Skype Mr. Matt Carroll. Hosted brilliantly by another teacher who used to write for the Boston Herald, she fielded questions that students posed so Matt could talk about the personal pain of writing a story like this. He spoke of the difficulty of his particular job and the excitement of finding evidence that they could finally print. He spoke of and his fear for his family and community at the time knowing one of the priests lived down the street from him. He talked about long days and months of answering phones after the story broke. He mentioned how wild it was seeing someone play him in a movie. His doppelgänger hated the mustache but conveyed the gentle intensity, sorrow and stubborn search for truth perfectly.
Carroll said that the actors had one dinner out with the Spotlight team and in that short time picked up their mannerisms, accents, quirks. They all said that watching themselves on-screen was odd since the actors were so spot on.
This difficult topic makes your blood boil, and rightfully so. You want to fight with the Spotlight team. You see the hours, days, years that they poured over old newspaper clippings, record books, information outlets, and their own notes before they ever printed a story. Journalism, it seems, is mostly about research, interviewing honest sources and getting the facts straight. Or, at least it used to be.
Until now, the blonde Bond has never cracked a smile, but what’s this? Could his Grinch heart have grown three sizes? Perhaps three to accommodate his number of female conquests per show. He’s still Bond…like a traveling salesman with a woman at ever port. Always the wanderer with a savior complex.
Ever suave, adjusting cuff links, ever walking calmly away from burning buildings and exploding cars, shoulders first like an underwear model mid-photoshoot. His pristinely pressed and combed remains unscathed, and yet, the assassin Bond has perhaps grown a conscience about his occupation. His sins and the faces of those he hunted and killed haunt him more now. Therefore the inner conflict of this film seemed to be Bond’s choice: when to pull the trigger or more so when not to. The audience gets the view from the scope many times thanks to director Sam Mendes. Don’t assume that Bond doesn’t still leave a massive body count in his wake, but somehow now he cares and needs to prove that mercy can triumph over justice sometimes and that killing isn’t always the answer. New leaf for a Bond film. For any film, actually. This one plays out more like a Mission Impossible or Borne film with a host of action scenes and stunts as our man lifts off from one helicopter to the next, half smiling and saluting, ready to take one more fist to the face to save the world. Yet amidst the action and excitement, it posits the moral quandary making each life valuable. 
Still rather violent, but comparatively less blood than we’ve seen in the past. So many nods to classic Bonds, this one played more like Sean Connery’s Dr. No in certain scenes. Ralph Fiennes brings such perfect contrast in his role as the savvy and sorrowful new M. You feel his helplessness, and yet you trust that he has a trick up his sleeve. Christoph Waltz brings a quiet sophistication with his broad grin and brilliant bad guy persona. Sadly, his case is just a little too easily solved, this conflict easily taken care of. Holes in the plot seem to matter less than if the suit has been properly laundered. So relax. All is proper. All is lovely. All is calm and bright and classically shaken not stirred in Bond’s world.
War inevitably results in collateral damage. Legs, arms, minds, whole lives forfeited while the opposition resets and plans next moves. Desperate times force characters to choose allegiances, values, alliances. Gamemakers reset within the city walls. None are safe. The victor hero and spokesperson, Katniss Everdeen, remains the ugly-crying face of the rebellion carrying her personal vendetta against President Snow up the steps of the Capitol. Leading rebels in civil war proves more difficult post Peeta’s mind meld with Snow. Battle rages. Mine fields are set. With every step, detonation or success?
No more showstopping costumes aflame, no more fake romance drama and lies, no more appeasing the Capitol viewers in the old ways. Or so they think. All is televised, all is heresay and henchmen. Faceless guards rack up the body count while Districts unite to attack one final time.
It’s all difficult to watch. I struggle through war films, question everything. I wonder, when do we audience members become like the Capitol? When does a well made film turn viewer into voyeur?
Katniss defends. She has killed, but is she a killer? Motives muddle. Pressure mounts and armies assemble. When is a single life expendable? In war, do the rules of morality change? When do soldiers forget that war is not a game?
Some would say these are just movies. Action and sci-fi adventure. Drama and a nice blend of peace and romance amidst explosions and chaos. In my opinion, these are not simply films. They are not made for entertainment alone. They cannot be. They are perhaps cautionary tales. Story and history mimic and repeat, ebb and flow. We pray the world will never repeat in history this story of Panem.
Splatter: on FILM 