2014: The Year in Film: "Foxcatcher" Review

The story of John E. Du Pont and the Schultz brothers is one of the truly bizarre tales of our time. I distinctly remember watching SportsCenter when the stand off between du Pont and police was taking place. (Wikipedia says this happened in January, 1996) Filmmaker Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) next set his sights on this strange modern American tragedy, focusing on the eccentric multimillionaire and one of the heirs to the famed Du Pont fortune and his relationship with Olympic wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz.

The Good: the cast is simply great all-around. Steve Carell, nearly unrecognizable in prosthetics and makeup, is creepy and twisted as the truly strange character of John E. du Pont. At turns manipulative, creepy, charming, childlike and charismatic, Carell turns in a career-changing performance. Honestly, I never would have thought that he had this type of performance in him, and I'm truly excited to see where the next act of Carell's career takes us. Former model and pretty boy Channing Tatum continues his evolution into serious and quality actor, as his depiction of Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz is brooding and simply great. As du Pont manipulates this great and underappreciated athlete into his personal lemming and whipping boy, we see the change reflected in Tatum, as Schultz's brooding turns self-destructive. But the true highlight of this film is Mark Ruffalo as Mark Schultz's brother, Dave. The more self-assured and successful of the brothers, Dave Schultz was the star of the U.S. wrestling program, and Ruffalo's performance is understated, charming, and completely anchors the film. If he would have won Best Supporting Actor for his performance, no one would have batted an eye. The plot meanders, with Bennett clearly preferring to "show" rather than "tell", and while that may seem random at times, I feel it makes the entire enterprise feel unsettling and adds to the impending sense of dread underlying the film. This is basically a horror movie masquerading as a drama, and as such, Bennett Miller makes a lot of interesting choices with the color and tone of the film that really make the whole thing feel like a modern American noir. (Not unlike Capote in that way)



The Bad: Carell's makeup and prosthetics aren't great, and were frankly a little distracting at times. His performance was outstanding, but it seems odd that in 2015 we aren't able to make better makeup to create the illusion of a person looking differently than they actually do while also still like a human being. The film is a little longer than I'd have preferred, and tends to jump around in ways that can be a little confusing. For instance, it's difficult to tell that years have passed between the '88 Olympics and the crime itself. While it's not necessarily difficult to follow, it can be a little jarring.

Ultimately, this is the tale of a modern American tragedy told through three central performances that all rise above the typical work of the actors involved. For Carell and Tatum, this film represents a significant step forward in their work as actors, and for the always quality Ruffalo, this film represents a career highlight. The best word I can use to describe this film is creepy. It's unsettling, and uncompromising in the way it depicts mental illness, manipulation, and the tragedy of this story. You're definitely going to feel like you need to take a shower afterwards, but for the quality of its performances, the artistry of the filmmaking and the genre-bending and unique story, it's wholly worth watching. How many other prestige true-crime wrestling dramas would someone have the guts to turn into an Oscar contender?

8/10

2014: The Year in Film: "22 Jump Street" Review

So 21 Jump Street, the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum reboot of the late 80's TV series, was one of the more pleasant movie surprises of recent years. Directed by the awesome Phil Lord and Chris Miller (LEGO Movie), the flick accomplished several things: it continued the resurrection of the action/comedy genre in the style of Beverly Hills Cop, and it revealed that Channing Tatum is secretly an uber charismatic dude with a great sense of humor.

In the sequel, the stars and creators don't even bother with pretending that this one is anything other than more of the same, shamelessly making meta comments on the bigger budget and "more of the same" approach. In the hands of lesser talent, that would be obnoxious and grating, but the filmmakers pull it off here.  After 21 Jump Street, where Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) successfully brought down a major drug trafficking operation in a chaotic and mad-cap way, the department has decided to continue the undercover operation, only across the street at 22 Jump Street, with Schmidt and Jenko being sent to college in order to investigate another dangerous new drug.

The Good: the "bromance" hetero while pretty damn homoerotic love story between friends should be played out at this point, a solid 10 years after 40 Year Old Virgin, but owing to the chemistry between Hill and Tatum, the film makes it work. This is a story about the enduring bond between friends/bros through the turmoil of new relationships, new places and new friends wrapped in a college film wrapped in an action cop movie. The film never fails to recognize that everything happening is preposterous, but Hill and Tatum are so charming and hilarious in their roles that everything feels funny, smart and fresh. Several supporting characters are given more to do in this iteration, especially Ice Cube, who really relishes the opportunity to play a father, boss and badass police captain in this ridiculous universe. There's an extended post-credit sequence that provides the most LOL's I had in any movie all year.



The Bad: as much fun as everyone involved is clearly having, it's still undeniably lazy to just do the SAME THING over again. This flick is basically a complete rehash of the first one, and while that's a lot of fun, I think there would have been something to be said for letting this one breathe a little more, as it kind of treads the line of tedious and lazy on occasion.

Ultimately, despite being the EXACT SAME movie as 21 Jump Street, and making a ton of lazy bromance jokes, everyone involved is charming and funny enough to still make everything work. The chemistry between Tatum and Hill is palpable, and the flick offers a ton of laugh-out-loud worthy moments. If you liked 21 Jump Street, you'll like this one... and if you didn't, why would you want to watch this one anyway?

7.5/10.

2012: The Year in Film: "21 Jump Street" Review

To be perfectly honest, I had less than no interest in seeing this one, I thought it looked like absolute toilet.. but then a crazy thing happened: the reviews were actually damn good. (As a nerd, I check the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores of basically all upcoming releases. Here's a pro-tip: Rotten Tomatoes scores by themselves aren't all that helpful. For instance, a movie like "the Town", which is undoubtedly good but not great, has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%. So I look at a combination of the RT score and the average rating, listed right below. Anything over 7 is good, anything over 8 may well be great. Obviously movies are a subjective business, but if you're deciding whether or not you want to see something, you could do worse than considering the Rotten Tomatoes scores.) So something like "21 Jump Street", that I would have expected to have a RT score in the 30's, comes out with an 86% and 7.1 average? This requires investigation, and said investigation took the form of a slightly hungover weekend matinee. Going in, I knew that I liked Jonah Hill and have long been a fan, but I sort of hate Channing Tatum.. the dude is largely a rubbish actor and was pretty stiff on SNL, so my expectations for his comedic abilities were.. nil? This has been a passion project of Jonah Hill's for years and is basically the reason he got freakishly skinny, so let's check it out.

First, I have no familiarity with the late 80's show that 1.) launched the career of Capt. Jack Sparrow himself and 2.) served as the inspiration for this flick. According to my mom we used to watch it, but I have spent the last 10 years of my life memorizing trivial facts and drinking, a combination that's highly non-conducive to retaining childhood memories. However, from what I know, the show was an earnest police procedural featuring young police going undercover in high schools and other teenage settings. Jonah Hill and co. have reimagined 21 Jump Street as an action comedy in the "Pineapple Express" vein.

Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are high school acquaintances (Jenko being a cool jock and Schmidt being a nerd) who become friends in the Police academy and eventually partners assigned to bike cop duty. A bumbled bust leads them to be reassigned to a revived undercover operation from the '80's, where they discover they'll be placed undercover as brothers in a local high school in pursuit of a new drug. A mix up over their identities leads to the two having vastly different high school experiences than they did the first time around as they bumble through the case and their lives.

First, this flick is significantly better than it has any right being. Hill and Tatum have great chemistry, and you really believe that this modern day odd couple are in fact good friends despite their obvious differences. There's also an undercurrent of sweet sentimentality and nostalgia as our protaganists use their second high school go-around to make up for lost time. The changes in teen culture over the last decade ("nerds" are now "cool", for one) throw our erstwhile heroes for a loop, and Jenko and Schmidt soon find themselves in over their heads in their new environment.


This flick contains a lot of funny moments and features solid comedic performances from Tatum (I know.. I was shocked as well), the always-strong Jonah Hill and Rob Riggle as a gym teacher/coach. The film is unafraid to confront certain tropes head-on and if anything is a bit TOO knowing with its snarky satire. The action scenes are over the top and feel a bit out of place.. but I'm not a huge fan of the whole "comedy/action" genre as a whole. This flick is at its best when it's being an actually strong high school flick featuring believable characters and interactions. It's often sweet, usually funny, and all in all, well worth a watch. 21 Jump Street is plenty decent, you guys.

7/10.