Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Blu-ray | DVD
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Starring Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max von Sydow, Jeffrey Wright, Viola Davis
Release Date: March 27, 2012

The opening image of Stephen Daldry‘s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is of an unidentified man free falling from the sky. Instantly we are reminded of Mad Men‘s logo indicating man’s fall from grace and even reminded of Vertigo‘s poster of man’s infatuation with an uncontrollable fear. Each of these instances depicts a man’s descent from a higher place. In Daldry’s opening, the man is falling out of the sky after trying to escape from one of the World Trade Center towers during the 9/11 attacks. The unidentified man is soon revealed as being Tom Hanks, the father of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), a boy with an intellect well beyond his years. It doesn’t seem to be of any useful assistance, only increasing his stress and worsening his emotional malady. Perhaps his superior intellect is a curse. He will soon fall out the innocence associated with childhood and begin his journey prematurely to adulthood, where uncontrollable fears and falling from grace reign supreme [...]

Wrath of the Titans
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
Starring Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Danny Huston, John Bell
Release Date: March 30, 2012

The anything but miraculous dexterity of director Jonathan Liebesman is once again extravagantly displayed to audiences undeserving of such a treat. We are once again pummeled by his explicitly maddening style of direction that is beyond intolerable and which has no sense of coherency. His Battle Los Angeles (one of the worst films of last year) is an absolute frenzy of wrath and an obnoxiously chaotic mess of a movie. Wrath of the Titans, his newest example of immeasurably poor filmmaking, is assembled in an all too similar way, frequently engaging audiences in unbridled foolishness on its way to engrossing an enormous income at the expense of its audiences [...]

The Hunger Games

Directed by Gary Ross

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson Wes Bentley, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland

Release Date: March 23, 2012

Dystopian visions of a once eminent society are a much reliable subject matter in cinema. When done properly the results can be dreadfully potent, resulting in audiences pondering endlessly the future of humanity. Such effectiveness can be traced back to 1929, when the silent film Metropolis shocked audiences with its unprecedented vision of a hopeless future. The Hunger Games, the most recent and disturbing foray into a terrifyingly vivid dystopian society, which is based upon Suzanne Collins’ universally renowned book of the same name, still retains the foundation Metropolis adhered to 83 years ago: a representation of a bleak future that offers little hope.

The Hunger Games is a vicious representation of an American society fiendishly obsessed with violence, spectacle, personas, gluttony, betting, and meticulously concocted relationships doomed for failure. Remembering the first Harry Potter film or Twilight film, one can unhesitatingly perceive how drastically the worlds of those films differentiate from the world Collins has created. Her world is a disenchanted one, sufficiently harboring harsh, painful abominations carried out by teenagers devoid of any semblance of facial hair. For the majority of the film sentimentality and childishness are inadmissible, a kind of drapery thrown upon them in favor of a behavior that some may find confounding, while others may find it, oddly enough, magnificent [...]

Safe House
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepherd and Robert Patrick
Release Date: February 10, 2012

Corruption at the top of any organization is a touchy subject for a director to be curious about. When done right, a film depicting corruption, like Polanski’s Chinatown or The Ghost Writer, is an impressive and immersive experience. Navigating through the hypocrisy and crookedness is an act of a polished director at the top of his craft who wants to enlighten audiences about reality, not entertain them. Swedish director Daniel Espinosa is introducing himself to American audiences with a hesitating and not so sharp portrait of corruption. He wants to exploit the supposed corruption occurring in intelligence units across the world, such as CIA agents and M16 agents. Instead of having a firm and confident command on a narrative structure that would get his point across, all of his energy is directed toward articulating sensational action scenes that reek of implausibility. Espinosa has an interesting foundation to build upon thanks to David Guggenheim‘s script. Coherency and logic, though, are neglected, and an overwhelming amount of dynamism is relied on to entertain audiences, dismissing words and dialogue for guns and fists of fury [...]

Cinema in 2011 saw the strikingly bold creation of the universe, as well as an artistic rendering of the universe coming to its bleak annihilation. Audiences were strung along decimated battlefields torn apart because of war, just as they were strung along corridors and offices only to encounter a few decimated souls of Wall Street executives emotionally torn thanks to the realization of a looming stock-market debacle. Trying to escape reality, whether it was by taking cover in an underground tornado shelter, a trip to a Hawaiian resort or engaging in a cult that promises enduring happiness, proved to be an impossible task. Individuals even went to such a distance where they would lock themselves in an octagon cage, attempting to beat the senses out of one another in order to become numb to reality. Reality imperceptibly arrives at our doorstep thousands of times faster than a Formula 1 racecar. Running from it is futile. We have to be fearless and self-sufficient, like Cistercian monks or a taciturn driver with an unruffled spirit [...]

The Grey
Directed by Joe Carnahan
Starring Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, Frank Grillo, Dermont Mulroney, Nonso Anozie, and Joe Anderson
Release Date: January 27, 2012

Unemotional deaths and the exaggerated ways in which death is executed are prodigious in the early months of the new year. Most films are determined to sink into an atmosphere that doesn’t demand any coherence or meaning to death. Audiences are forcibly taught to observe an uncountable number of deaths, each one determined to be more outrageous, blood-soaked, and meaningless as the next. Not only these early months but also throughout the entire year death is hardly handled appropriately. So when a director arrives with a film that is assuredly acquainted with dealing with death reverently, almost piously, it deserves our utmost attention [...]

The Descendants
Directed by Alexander Payne
Starring George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer, Barbara L. Souther and Robert Forster
Release Date: November 16, 2011

Director Alexander Payne‘s films aren’t fashioned with any hidden aims or methods. Slowly revealing to audiences instances that would provide instant revelation isn’t his main concern. He understands the importance of a matter and what the most essential points are to it. In his newest feature, The Descendants, which Payne and screenwriter Nat Faxon adapted from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ 2007 novel, the most essential point is capturing the many facets of humanity. Payne admires human behavior and the incredible yet emotionally painstaking adventures it provides for individuals to travel [...]

Hugo
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, Christopher Lee, Ray Winstone, Helen McCrory, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law
Release Date: November 23, 2011
 

Martin Scorsese encounters no intense turmoil as he thwarts his inner urge to make another violent picture and involves himself with a luminously adventurous 3D film that has a little orphan boy at its center, as well as an immense homage to cinema. In one of the most inventive films of the year, Scorsese’s Hugo is an indelible delight that is meant to enchant audiences of every age. The way he uses this immersive 3D technology is enchantingly beautiful, bringing a distant world and all of its once unexplored recesses into our immediate presence [...]

J. Edgar
Directed by Clint Eastwood
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench
Release Date: November 11, 2011

Submerged in sloppy sentiment, J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood‘s latest directorial effort, is unrelieved of its melodramatic characteristics, growing sappier as the film approaches its conclusion. Instead of getting an aggressively bold portrait of J. Edgar Hoover, a man undoubtedly built into the firmament of American history, we get a dreary and almost entirely lifeless (save for Leonardo DiCaprio‘s vigorous performance as Hoover) film that teeters on a precipitous cliff until it finally crumbles and dissolves into a pool of cheap melodrama.

Mr. Eastwood usually navigates keenly the narrow road that divides drama from melodrama. We have been accustomed, to the point of being spoiled, to witness him effortlessly depict his craft in top form in Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, two films that could have easily mingled with cheap sappiness but instead were rescued by assured direction and consistently intelligent scripts [...]

Melancholia
Directed by Lars von Trier
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgard, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgard and Charlotte Rampling
Release Date: November 11, 2011

To watch Terrance Malick’s distinct, creative rendering of the beginning of the universe in The Tree of Life and then experiencing Lars von Trier‘s incendiary vision of the universe plummeting to eventual debris is to witness two artists displaying unseen audacity as they tackle subjects (beginning and end of times) that once seemed un-filmable. The caustic, operatic, haunting and celestial opening shots to von Trier’s Melancholia, which are set to the Tristan and Isolde Prelude in slow motion, depict a world, from an intimate perspective, gradually proceeding to its imminent demise. These horror-laden images, which are intimations of what will transpire later in the film, are surpassingly beautiful and an overwhelming indicator of the astonishing horror and gloom that will pervade the entire film [...]

Warrior
Directed by Gavin O’Conner
Starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Campana, Kevin Dunn and Kurt Angle
Release Date: September 9, 2011

Warrior is a convincing look at a father and his two sons drowning in innumerable personal grief and universal issues, which result in each of them finding out who they truly are and were. Here is a film about the exploration of our true selves disguised as a mixed martial arts (MMA) movie. It is a visceral and blunt exploration into the anatomy of the alpha male. The subjects are the Conlons, from a working-class Pennsylvania town, who attempt to attain through any means necessary an anchor in which they can cling to when the emergence of reality becomes so widespread and ruthless. The Conlons, Paddy (Nick Nolte) along with his two estranged sons Brendan and Tommy (Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy), decided to dismiss reality and walk away from it, never imagining it would come back and eventually start a war between father and sons and brother against brother [...]

Drive
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Pearlman, Bryan Cranston, Oscar Isaac and Kaden Leos
Release Date: September 16, 2011

Immediately are we distanced from the majority of groggy thrillers as director Nicolas Winding Refn, working in astonishing form (he won best director award at this year’s Cannes Festival), achieves insistent thrills from the beginning of his new film Drive. Unfurling from the opening credits onward is an excellence and master-class in control and discipline that cannot be disputed. It is a simple chase scene, a getaway driver discreetly navigating a silver Chevy Impala away from the authorities, set during a gorgeously neon-lit night in the heart of Los Angeles. Refn establishes an atmosphere so distinctive that it calls to mind Mulholland Dr., a great atmospheric film with the same vindictiveness Drive has of Hollywood. Drive’s atmosphere is one that glorifies and harbors masculinity, violence, and existential crises [...]

30 Minutes or Less
Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Nick Swardson, Aziz Ansari, Michael Pena, Fred Ward, Bianca Kajlich, Dilshad Vadsaria
Release Date: August 12, 2011

Director Ruben Fleischer has a variety of unorthodox ways to evoke action, rampage, and chaos. After only two feature-length films (first being Zombieland) we can see that his forte may already be established and that his vision has become distorted by things that go boom. Innumerable are his whacked out and distinct ideas that somehow and some way get made into a film that either succeeds or misses the mark somewhat. Refer to Zombieland, in which that film sufficiently mapped out and exhibited more than a dozen extravagant ways to execute an approaching zombie.

His approach to 30 Minutes or Less is even more chaotic yet less coherent and blatantly contrived. The lack of regard for more details that he displays here (this deficiency can be attributed to the 83–minute run time) may represent his inability to structure a fully believable tale that consists of mindless individuals in incomparable circumstances. [...]

Friends With Benefits
Directed by Will Gluck
Starring Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Richard Jenkins and Woody Harrelson
Release Date: July 22, 2011

The imitation of previous romantic comedies has been extremely widespread, comparable to an artistic pandemic. It is almost as if Hollywood directors and screenwriters are admonishing their audiences that original ideas and concepts are a scarcity in the contemporary comedic landscape. The exactness to which certain films resemble other certain films encapsulates the mental impotence that is pervading and perpetuating in the Hollywood studios. No imminent sign indicates this hardship from ceasing. But instead of placing a profoundly effective emphasis on discovering new ideas that would beneficially propel comedic narratives toward a new and improved comedic dimension, individuals who are responsible for the construction of such films find such an endeavor to be fruitless. Most should be opposed to forking over ten dollars for a ticket to see an uninspiring film that prides itself on its unoriginality [...]

Cars 2
Directed by John Lasseter
Starring (voices): Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, John Turturro, Eddie Izzard
Release Date: June 24, 2011

Any human aspect or human presence cannot be located in the original Cars or in Pixar’s latest film Cars 2. This is the films’ biggest set back. We who have become transfixed by the genius behind the films of Pixar (which is celebrating 25 years of studio existence this year) remember all too vividly the ruthless food critic, Anton Ego, of Ratatouille swallowing a bit of ratatouille and immediately becoming reacquainted with a childhood he had seemingly forgotten. And who can forget Andy’s feeling of anguish and the sad grimace that takes over his face in Toy Story 3 when he finally figures out that he needs to give away his toys. Almost all of the successful Pixar films have an unbreakable relationship with all things human. Cars 2 veers from that ostensibly perfect trajectory to embrace a world where no existence of human life has ever been documented. This all sounds a tad bleak, but that is the world we are thrust into with the Cars’ films [...]

Super 8
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring: Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Ron Eldard
Release Date: June 10, 2011

In the general dismay of cinema during these hot summer months there is a movie hopeful enough to fly upon the road toward originality. It despises most stupidity and harbors and displays a profound contempt for the immense reluctance directors and screenwriters exhibit when trying to craft a “refreshing” summer film. Super 8 swerves sharply in its walk, detaching itself from the summer films that find it a necessity to stir its audience into a panic via overwhelming action scenes, and passes other uninspiring films because it never shows a reluctance to engage with the consciousness, sensibilities, and behaviors found evident in all children. By engaging itself in this childhood realm the film approaches an innocence unrealized in mainstream cinema and doesn’t hesitate in grasping it. The results are penetrating, illuminating, and ultimately moving.

Director and screenwriter J.J. Abrams is working in rarefied air for the bulk of his third feature (Mission Impossible III and Star Trek his other features), exclusively occupying Super 8 in a space where only Mr. Steven Spielberg, this film’s producer, successfully prevailed in films such as E.T. and The Goonies. Embarking on a journey to capture the essential emotions found thriving in children is a task that is difficult to exactly pinpoint and to make it engaging for an adult crowd is even more difficult [...]

The Rite
Blu-ray | DVD | On Demand
Directed by Mikael Hafstrom
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga
Release Date: May 17, 2011

The ability to actually frighten has been celebrated in very few films over the last decade. There has been a succession of horror films that induce nausea and sickness rather than soul-tormenting images that plague the brain long after the nightmarish vision has vanished from the screen. To come in contact with true horror one needs to dismiss all films in the Saw franchise, along with films such as Hostel and Turistas. These types of movies construct their entire existence around disgusting images of decapitations, the tearing of human limbs, and the devouring of human body parts. All of this is perverse, lacking any ingenuity that is necessary when trying to craft a potent and adequately effective horror film. Horror films with a singular reliance on gore wind up producing nothing of substance or distinction. They just exist — and maybe they are content with that existence — as being a film with a perverse fascination with violence [...]

13 Assassins
Directed by Takashi Miike
Starring: Koji Yakusho, Goro Inagaki, Masachika Ichimura, and Mikijiro Hira
Release Date: April 29, 2011

The lethal dose of violence in 13 Assassins is heightened to such a degree of ferociousness, and yet never does it come off as an overwhelming force that serves as an impediment to our enjoyment. Rather, it plays out to resemble a macabre, lyrical meditation that we gawk at, despite the many severed limbs and decapitated bodies. Instead of being confined to the suffering grounds of 19th century feudal Japan, where bodies writhe in perpetual anguish in the dirt due to swords piercing into human flesh, 13 Assassins identifies with human elements like integrity, devotion, self-sacrifice, and loyalty that all samurais universally adhere to. This is not to say that the film bypasses all things representing violence. There is a battle scene that lasts the film’s final 50 minutes. It is astoundingly coherent and enthusiastic in showing its infatuation with bloody violence, all while maintaining an artistically composed countenance [...]

Bridesmaids
Directed by Paul Feig
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Hamm
Release Date: May 13, 2011

Hollywood finally thought that a movie about women having fun should get made, and that this novel perception could be adequately funny. What a great idea! Not a pampered fun, though, the girls in Sex and the City have been relishing. Not even a subdued fun the girls in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants had. Let’s try for a fun that is manly, demeaning, and vulgar. Maybe this is the kind of comedy women will flock to see. Geez, such wishful thinking. Maybe the bulk of moviegoers fantasize about the deconstruction of the ideal beauty women rightly and proudly possessed for decades and millenniums. Truthfully, what’s not to admire when a woman bears striking resemblance to a character that Jonah Hill or Seth Rogen played? It is about time Hollywood let women experience the glitz and glamor not of Gucci or Vera Wang, but of the films Judd Apatow has had some influence on.

Striving for justice in a comedic world littered with uninspiring material that poses as comedy may seem like a daunting task. Genuineness is inapplicable in most comedies and the streak, sadly, continues with director Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids, scripted by co-stars Kristen Wiig, of Saturday Night Live fame, and Annie Mumolo. The script has no abundance of humor. It is scarce and limited. Scenes desperately seeking that elusive, original idea that permits and encourages the audience to revel in its inventiveness are nowhere to be found [...]

Thor
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Idris Elba
Release Date: May 6, 2011

“Can I come home?”

Rarely do we hear these words come from a man of enormous stature. It is hard to conceive a man who hasn’t felt the anguish of defeat utter these words while in a state of utter helplessness. It is only right that we become even more incredulous when we have a God asking “Can I come home?” Thor, the long blond-haired hammer-pounding God of Thunder, and zealously worshipped during the Viking Age of what is referred to as Norse mythology, has become overwhelmed by the time he asks the dejected question. Prior to this Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has endured brutal battles occurring in the magical realm of Asgard. He has dealt with familial angst between his father and King of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston). But all has taken an immense toll on Thor and he is unable to maintain any kind of emotional balance, causing his potency and permanence as a war-thirsty God to become less formidable. Instead, he is rendered humble, disconsolate, and love stricken. A once-fierce God enjoying the pleasures of immortality, Thor needs to redefine his life as he suffers, emotionally and physically, the uncomfortable truths of mortality [...]