feral days.

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Films Watched in 2014:

15. Short Term 12 dir. Destin Cretton, 2013

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Films Watched in 2014:

14. Her dir. Spike Jonze, 2013

I think I've finally hit critical mass on films about Dopey Sad Dudes Who Just Can't Find Love (Please Won't A Woman Just Love Him Back?). 

The best part of this movie is the incredible world-building that Spike Jonze has done. It all seems credible and believable and above that richly interesting. The worst part of this movie is his main character. God, I hated Theodore Twombly. And I hated that beneath all the twee music and the breathy OS cooing at him and the gorgeous color palette there lurked this hideous cynicism to this future world and the story being told. It's a world where we pay strangers to craft love letters (the whole subplot that someone wanted to publish those love letters was so unnecessarily dumb to me for a million reasons, but namely – do the people who received those letters know they're phony or is that book basically announcing the jig is up?) for our loved ones and where we buy OSs and gadgets in order to seek out a connection. And I get it: that's the point. But it struck me that the entire rendering of love in this movie was a version of love I found so untrue to me: that we love people to get a reflection of ourselves back that we can love, that love is a selfish pursuit. That's a dimension of love certainly, but there's an entire other selfless side, where it's about the other person and that aspect never came about in the film (except perhaps the scene when his child bride ex-wife Rooney Mara tells him off). Every single woman, including Samantha, in this movie was just a foil for Theodore (their love story in this movie was to me just so self-involved, narcissistic and selfish I had a hard time even dealing with it, let alone buying into it as genuine). They're all essentially objects for him to project on and potentially love. And I think that's my greatest problem with this movie: the female characters were all painfully two-dimensional and there solely for Theodore. 

I sound like a killjoy. There were parts of this – lines of dialogue that didn't sound like rejected Bright Eyes lyrics, the lunch with Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde's entire mini-arc, Amy Adams's subtle performance – that I truly liked. But man, if I never have to see another self-indulgent movie about sad men and the women who won't love them, I'll be thrilled.

C-

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Films Watched in 2014:

12. In A World ... dir. Lake Bell, 2013

The entire time I was watching this I found myself thinking, "please let this help usher in more female-helmed comedies like this, PLEASE." Is it a perfect movie? No, but it's certainly charming, thoughtful, funny, and full of great fleshed-out characters. Lake Bell was great in the lead role – in fact, all the acting was uniformly fun and great, especially Michaela Watkins and Rob Corddry as her sister and brother-in-law. 

While there were some weaknesses in the script (pacing in particular), I enjoyed so much the story Bell told about family and how that love and those relationships were at the very center of the film. I'm very excited to see what else she comes up with in the future.

B

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Films Watched in 2014:

10. Austenland dir. Jerusha Hess, 2013

I tried to read the book this was adapted from over the holidays and legitimately could not make it through the first chapter. I watched the entire movie, so in that sense, it was a success over the source material already. 

There's a lot of really unforgivable bad business about this movie (the broadest drawn characters in the world! surprise assault! surprise horse birthing?!?!) and I've admittedly never been anything close to a diehard Jane Austen fan so parts of this were probably lost on me, but there were bits that pleasantly surprised me (in particular that the romantic relationship(s) didn't go the route I had initially anticipated). Keri Russell was fine in this, though I think she's better served by roles like she has in The Americans, and JJ Feild was super dreamy. I think that was my big takeaway from this movie: JJ Feild should be in a lot more things. 

C-

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Films Watched in 2014:

9. Inside Llewyn Davis dir. Joel & Ethan Coen, 2013

Arguably my favorite movie from last year, there's no way I can talk about it objectively (or rationally). You know when critics say things like, "this was a movie that reminded me why I love movies!" – I wholly and unironically felt that way about this movie. 

Oscar Isaac is incredible in this. He was knock-out great, both his acting and his singing (and the juxtaposition between the two: the man he is to everyone else and the man he becomes when he performs, some of that assholery eroding away belying a whole lot of emotion and pain), and probably my favorite male performance of the year. I've long been a fan of the Coen Bros and their work but I especially loved this film, all the darkly comic beats, the music (the music!!!), but most importantly how much it moved me on a crazy emotional level. I told you I can't talk rationally about this movie.

A

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Films Watched in 2014:

8. Frozen dir. Chris Buck, 2013

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Films Watched in 2014:

7. August: Osage County dir. John Wells, 2013

As much as I love a good dysfunctional family yarn, this was just one escalating scenery-chewing ear-splitting shrieking monologue after the other. Watching this, I could definitely see it working better as a stage play than a film, but even then, this family was so irredeemably toxic it got to a point where it was hard to watch. Add to that the kitchen sink approach to Dysfunctional Family Drama Tropes (cancer! drug abuse! physical abuse! incest! pedophilia! suicide!), and the story really didn't have much to offer me.

I was surprised by how much I disliked Meryl Streep in this, considering she's, well, Meryl Streep. Chris Cooper and Margo Martindale were the big standouts, but then I love the both of them in just about everything. Also worth a mention: Ewan McGregor's hot mid-life crisis/incipient divorcé look. 

C-

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Films Watched in 2014:

6. The Wolf of Wall Street dir. Martin Scorsese, 2013

This fucking movie.

Three hours of rampant debauchery, drugs, misogyny, more shouting than an episode of New Girl (that's a lot of shouting) and white collar crime is a lot. And I'm sure there's a point meant to be found in that – hey! even living this large gets to be exhausting and banal! disgusting humans in their natural habitat! – but this stopped being fun to watch an hour in. I really just don't give a shit about these assholes and this movie did absolutely nothing to make me want to care.

(There were parts I really liked, namely the scene when FBI Agent Kyle Chandler stops by Leo's yacht. The dialogue and the pacing of that scene was perfect, and if the whole movie had been that, I would've been thrilled. Also obligatory mention of the Quaalude scene because how can you not. And last but not least Beni-fucking-hana. "I'm never eating at Benihana again. I don't care whose birthday it is."). 

C-

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Films Watched in 2014:

5. Blue Jasmine dir. Woody Allen, 2013

Cate Blanchett, man. There's something kinda wonderful in how unsympathetic a main character she plays, and even when I was cringing in secondhand embarrassment (guys, I have this problem where if characters lie about themselves and I know they're going to get caught I start squirming, it's terrible) or disgusted, I wanted to keep watching her. 

And then there's the rest of the movie. I totally get the modern Streetcar comparisons and all that, but where Jasmine is this wonderfully complex character, and her sister is too to a certain extent (Sally Hawkins was great), the world her sister occupies is so caricature-y in a way that annoyed me to no end. While the flashbacks to Jasmine's Park Avenue days can be considered a caricature as well there seemed to be so much more depth to it that it didn't come across as so hackneyed (what was Bobby Cannavale's character even doing in San Francisco he seemed like he wandered off the set of a 70s film shooting in the Bronx). The movie in general left a bad taste in my mouth that I'm completely failing to articulate.

But how shocked was I that Peter Sarsgaard didn't play a creep? Totally shocked. 

B-

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Films Watched in 2014:

4. Mud dir. Jeff Nichols, 2013

While the runtime was a little too long for me (and I definitely found my attention span wandering somewhere in the middle), by the end I was so charmed and moved and invested in the movie, I didn't really mind. There's a real surprising crime genre bent to the movie I hadn't expected (especially given the setting and how the story was established as coming of age on the river or whatever) but found I enjoyed that element a lot. 

The acting though (and the dialogue) was what I truly loved about this movie. My sister and I rewatched How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days over this weekend because we're those humans and it's kinda mind-blowing how awesome Matthew McConaughey's role choices have become. I loved him in this, and thought he not only walked the line between charismatic and dangerous but fully embodied it. The rest of the cast was just was wonderful and felt just as lived-in, especially the two young kids (though what kind of name is Neckbone? lol). Michael Shannon, Sarah Paulson, Sam Shephard and Ray McKinnon were great supporting additions I would have been more than happy to see more of.

B+

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Films Watched in 2014:

3. The Spectacular Now dir. James Ponsoldt, 2013

I'm so pleasantly surprised/impressed by how high school this movie felt. The performances, the setting, the characters – all of it felt incredibly genuine and authentic to me in a way most high school-set stories, be it film or TV, rarely come across. Which is maybe why I felt ultimately disappointed by the end of the film, because as great as the characters and the setting might have been, I didn't really care for the story being told.

The movie especially lost me around the point when Miles Teller's character seeks out his father. The entire tone of the movie shifted at that point, and the act that followed and ultimately led to the conclusion of the story felt out of place and rushed to me. 

Though, hey! Surprise Bob Odenkirk, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Kyle Chandler! That's always welcome!

B-

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Films Watched in 2014:

2. About Time dir. Richard Curtis, 2013

Time travel in general makes my head hurt just trying to make sense of it. The time travel in this movie? Extra whacky. I still don't get exactly how it works or why only the dudes of the family get to time-hop through their lives to relive/edit/improve their experiences or why you need time travel to learn the most well-worn life lesson there is: live every day fully! carpe diem! table tennis!

I will say that I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I would? Though at about the midpoint I found myself wishing that this storyline had gone the "weird and creepy" route rather than the "nauseatingly sweet Kay Jewelers" route lol, namely because the main dude was all but stalking his love interest and altering her own timeline to ensure she falls in love with him (that's so messed up I'm just going to ignore it because I'm getting a Time Travel Headache). But the good of this movie: Domhnall Gleeson is super charming! Tom Hollander stole the show for me! Bill Nighy! The father-son stuff in this made me cry!

... and the bad: Rachel McAdams's character shouldn't even be called a character. She was just a girl with bangs and an inexplicable love for Kate Moss (???) who for some reason Gleeson's character decides is the love of his life because the swelling soundtrack told him that's what should be happening, I guess? And then spent the rest of the movie fixating on her despite the fact that everything we're shown of her "character" makes her distinctly unlikeable. There was legit negative chemistry there. He had more chemistry with Margot Robbie's bit character and it made me wish the movie had gone down that path instead – which brings me to another point: what a conservative and boring use of time travel! If you can redo your life's events, and keep redoing them (until you procreate, which, time travel nonsense, forget about it), why wouldn't you do the most dramatic and crazy stuff you could do if all it took was finding a broom closet to erase those events from having happened?

Lastly, Tom Hughes has a very nice face. I figured we should end this on a good note.

C-

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Films Watched in 2014:

1. Enough Said  dir. Nicole Holofcener, 2013

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