Just Keeping It Real

 

by George Wolf

 

From the opening moments of Lone Survivor, it’s clear writer/director Peter Berg kept one goal above all others: honor the Navy SEALS at the heart of this harrowing true life tale.

By most accounts he’s done that, and his adaptation of the 2007 memoir by SEAL Marcus Luttrell emerges as a single-minded war movie of both power and intensity.

In 2005, “Operation Red Wings” sent a four man SEAL team into Afghanistan to eliminate a  senior Taliban leader. The mission was compromised, a firefight ensued and an attempt to rescue the team turned tragic. Only Luttrell was left alive.

It’s a riveting tale, and Berg (Friday Night Lights/The Kingdom) anchors it with the brotherhood among the men involved, and the unflinching devotion to their duty. We don’t get intimate profiles of any of the characters, but we get enough to feel we know them, and more importantly, we see how deeply they identify with each other, with their team, and with their respective places in it.

Though Mark Wahlberg stars as Luttrell, Berg wisely does not tilt the screen time in his favor, and we fear for each member of his team equally, even though we already know what the eventual outcome will be. Credit Wahlberg, and co-stars Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, and Emile Hirsch with solid performances that are able to resonate collectively, yet still illustrate the anguish of a fallen comrade.

Berg’s touch with the battle scenes is equally focused, filming with an intentional frenzy full of gut-wrenching stunt work.  Keeping these sequences nearly absent of background music or superfluous pageantry, the unmistakable aim is to present this hellish scenario as the men themselves knew it.

Of course, as a war film, Lone Survivor carries instant baggage, seemingly destined to be labeled either jingoistic, un-American or misinformed. Clearly looking to avoid the “that’s not how it’s done” barbs slung at Zero Dark Thirty, Berg spent a month embedded with a SEAL team in Iraq, and his film offers no apologies for its abundant machismo or respectful salute.

The catch-22 is, this approach works at the expense of a layered dramatic narrative that makes movies such as Zero Dark Thirty so compelling.

To be fair, though, Lone Survivor never aims that high. It is a film that mainly wants us to understand what it takes to do a job that most of us can’t even fathom.

Consider that mission accomplished.

 

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

 

For Your Queue: Best Documentary of 2013

 

Available today on DVD and Blu-ray is the most breathtaking, mind boggling documentary of this or perhaps any year, The Act of Killing. Director Joshua Oppenheimer, along with dozens of filmmakers who remain anonymous for their own safety, work with the people who slaughtered more than a million Indonesians in 1965 to reenact their own crimes – or heroics, as they see it. The result is absolutely unlike anything you have ever seen. A jaw dropping act of discovery, the film is a masterpiece, a brave and confrontational effort, and essential viewing.

We usually pair new releases with backlist titles that match up well, but honestly, there is nothing on earth quite like The Act of Killing. The best we can do is to recommend Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991). The documentary looks at the making of Coppola’s extraordinary film, detailing the unsavory chaos on set and the madness of the shoot – another peek inside insanity.

Countdown: Winter Weather Lunchtime Options

Some people eat sauerkraut to begin the New Year, but if weather predictions hold true, we may be looking at snowbound isolation, even power outages. How long will your provisions hold out?! After enough time homebound and desperate, you might find yourself contemplating roasting a leg of neighbor over an open fire.

Should you find yourself in such a state, here are a few films you can think of as how-to’s.

7. Motel Hell (1980)

Super cheese director Kevin Connor teamed up with low rent 80s staple Nancy Parsons and 50s heartthrob Rory Calhoun – not to mention Elaine Joyce and John Ratzenberger – to create one of the best bad horror films ever made. So gloriously bad! Farmer Vincent (Calhoun) makes the county’s tastiest sausage, and runs the Motel Hello as well. Now if swingers (note: cannibals are always eating swingers) keep disappearing from the motel, and mysterious, bubbly moans are coming from those sacks out back, that does not necessarily mean anything is amiss. Motel Hell is a deeply disturbed, inspired little low budget jewel.

It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.

6. Eating Raoul (1982)

This bone-dry black comedy plays like an early John Waters film made with less money and more irony. The sexually repressed Mary and Paul Bland need to generate capital to open a restaurant and get away from the customers, patients, and neighbors constantly trying to have sex with them. They team up with a scam artist and thief named Raoul, played with almost shocking aptitude, considering the film itself, by Robert Beltran. Together the threesome knock off perverts and swingers, rob them, and sell their bodies for dog food. But when Raoul gets a little too ambitious, not to mention lucky with Mary, well, the couple is forced to eat him. And live happily ever after.

It’s amazing what you can do with a cheap piece of meat if you know how to treat it.

5. Soylent Green (1973)

Soylent Green may not be the most famous of Charlton Heston’s sci-fi cult classics, but his granite-jawed overacting is so perfect for this melodramatic examination of human nature, greed and desperation that it is still an amusing genre study.  Heston is a cop in this urban nightmare of an overpopulated future where the elderly are wooed into euthanasia by the same company that produces the only food available. You do the math. You’ll undoubtedly do it faster than Heston does, but that doesn’t undermine the fun.

You’ve got to tell them!  Soylent Green is people!

 

4. Titus (1999)

Director Julie Taymor glories in the spectacle of Shakespeare’s bloodiest play. Considered a pot boiler when it was written, it compares favorably in this century’s ultra-violent landscape. Titus, (Anthony Hopkins, perennial man eater), returns victorious from war, but the violence he wrought revisits him when he becomes entangled with a diabolical widow/war spoil (the ever-luminous Jessica Lange). Cannibalism, incest, rape, mutilation, infanticide, and an enormity of assorted carnage take on a surreal beauty under Taymor’s artistic direction.

Hark, villains, I shall grind your bones to dust, and of your blood I shall make a paste.

3. Delicatessen (1991)

Equal parts Eraserhead, Motel Hell and Amelie, Delicatessen is a weird, wild film. Set in the apartment building around a macabre butcher shop in a surreal, post-apocalyptic France, the film addresses the same cannibalism catalyst explored in many films: a human race that destroys everything required to sustain life and must turn to the only nourishment left. The carnival funhouse approach to cinematography predicts the absurdly funny take this black comedy has on humanity and its future.

Answer me meathead.

 

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The action in this granddaddy of all cult films turns on one dinner scene. (Now you yell “Meatloaf again?!”) Creator Richard O’Brien’s raucous, once-controversial film about a sweet transvestite, a slut, an asshole and a couple of domestics who sing, time warp, throw rice, animate monsters, swap partners, and finally put on a show is still as much fun as it ever was. Once a subversive take on the classic musicals and sci-fi films of the 30s and 40s, Rocky Horror is now a high-camp icon of its own.

I’m afraid you’ve touched on a rather tender subject there, Dr. Scott. Another slice, anyone?

1. Silence of The Lambs (1991)

Why miss any opportunity to watch one of the most perfect horror films ever made? The fact that a movie about a man who eats human flesh tracking down a man who wears human flesh could win all five major Academy awards is itself a testament to how impeccably this film is put together. From the muted colors, haunting score, and meticulous cinematography to the shockingly authentic performances from Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine, Silence of the Lambs is a stunning achievement in any film genre.

I do wish we could chat longer but I’m having an old friend for dinner.

Covens: Less Fun than TV Suggests

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

by Hope Madden

Covens are fun! Not to join – that would just be poor decision making on your part – but for sheer entertainment value, they make fine fodder. Just ask Jessica Lange.

And so it was with cautious optimism that I approached the 5th installment in the Paranormal Activity franchise, The Marked Ones.

What do we know so far? There’s a demon. It likes Katie. It hates Micah (who doesn’t?!). It and Katie took Hunter. Back in the day, that demon knew the very wee Katie and her sister Kristi because of a coven. Back to present time, Katie and a weird little boy move in next door to a family, who meet the coven. (It doesn’t go well for family.) What next?

We now leave the inner Katie/Kristi/Hunter circle for a moment because the demon is casting a wider net, with the mysterious coven’s help. That net has nabbed Electronic Simon Game enthusiast Jesse (Andrew Jacobs).

Longtime PA screenwriter (and son of Highway to Heaven star) Christopher Landon takes on directing duties this go-round. Thanks to his writing beginning with the first sequel, the series has taken on a reasonable franchise narrative. Unfortunately, he is still saddled with the found footage gimmick that made the original so effective.

Jesse gets a camera for his high school graduation, and he and his BFF Hector (Jorge Diaz) film a lot of crap. While dancing with Jesse’s dog, they notice some nutty sounds coming from the downstairs apartment – where the witch lives. They investigate. Bad plan.

Landon evokes some decent scares, and has fun with the handheld while Jesse first learns of the otherworldly visitor who is much less fun than he originally seems. Bursting with the misguided belief in their own indestructibility, both Jesse and Hector seem realistically teenaged and their terrible choices actually feel relatively honest given the fact that kids are stupid.

The film takes some time to get rolling, and it saves too many of its scares for the third act – at which point the handheld camera becomes a real distraction because most people would put down the camera and flee.

Note to regular PA fans:  there’s no point waiting through the credits on this one, as there is no extra scene. That, coupled with the full circle aspect of the ending, suggests that PA5 might just put a ribbon on the franchise. Not likely – the series will release another installment in October.

Slow in spots and hardly groundbreaking, The Marked Ones still manages to entertain and startle.

It’s January. This may be the best we do for a while.

 

Verdict-2-5-Stars

 

 

And the 2013 COFCA Award Winners Are….

Gravity pulls in top prize at 12th annual Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards

 

(Columbus, January 2, 2014) Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity has been named Best Film in the Central Ohio Film Critics Association’s 12th annual awards, which recognize excellence in the film industry for 2013.  The film also claimed two other awards.  Cuarón was honored as Best Director.  Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki won for Best Cinematography.

 

Columbus-area critics recognized these screen performers: Best Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave); Best Actress and Breakthrough Film Artist Adèle Exarchopolous [Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)]; Best Supporting Actor James Franco (Spring Breakers); Best Supporting Actress Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle); and Actor of the Year Matthew McConaughey for his exemplary body of work in Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall Street.

 

Other winners include: American Hustle for Best Ensemble; The Wolf of Wall Street’s Terence Winter for Best Adapted Screenplay; Her’s Spike Jonze for Best Original Screenplay and Arcade Fire for Best Score; Best Documentary The Act of Killing; Best Foreign Language Film and Best Animated Film The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu); and Short Term 12 as Best Overlooked Film.

 

Repeat COFCA winners include: Jennifer Lawrence (2012 Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook); Matthrew McConaughey (2012 Actor of the Year for Bernie, Killer Joe, Magic Mike, and The Paperboy); James Franco (2010 Best Actor for 127 Hours); and Emmanuel Lubezki (2011 Best Cinematography for The Tree of Life).

 

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of 20 print, radio, television, and internet critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

 

Winners were announced at a private party on January 2.

 

Complete list of awards:

 

Best Film

1. Gravity

2. Her

3. American Hustle

4. Frances Ha

5. The Wolf of Wall Street

6. 12 Years a Slave

7. Inside Llewyn Davis

8. Before Midnight

9. Upstream Color

10. Nebraska

 

Best Director

-Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

-Runner-up: Spike Jonze, Her

 

Best Actor

-Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

-Runner-up: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Actress

-Adèle Exarchopolous, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-Runner-up: Brie Larson, Short Term 12

 

Best Supporting Actor

-James Franco, Spring Breakers

-Runner-up: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Supporting Actress

-Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

-Runner-up: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Ensemble

-American Hustle

-Runner-up: The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall Street

-Runner-up: Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

 

Breakthrough Film Artist

-Adèle Exarchopolous, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle) (for acting)

-Runner-up: Brie Larson, Don Jon, Short Term 12, and The Spectacular Now (for acting)

 

Best Cinematography

-Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

-Runner-up: Hoyte Van Hoytema, Her

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

-Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street

-Runner-up: John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Original Screenplay

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Runner-up: Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12

 

Best Score

-Arcade Fire, Her

-Runner-up: Steven Price, Gravity

 

Best Documentary

-The Act of Killing

-Runner-up: Stories We Tell

 

Best Foreign Language Film

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

-Runner-up: Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

 

Best Animated Film

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

-Runner-up: Frozen

 

Best Overlooked Film

-Short Term 12

-Runner-up: Mud

 

COFCA offers its congratulations to the winners.

 

Previous Best Film winners:

 

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:    Lost in Translation

2004:    Million Dollar Baby

2005:    A History of Violence

2006:    Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

2011:  Drive

2012:  Moonrise Kingdom

 

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mail info@cofca.org.

 

The complete list of members and their affiliations:

 

Richard Ades (Columbus Free Press); Kevin Carr (www.7mpictures.com, FilmSchoolRejects.com); Bill Clark (www.fromthebalcony.com); John DeSando (90.5 WCBE); Frank Gabrenya (The Columbus Dispatch); James Hansen (Out 1 Film Journal); Nicholas Herum (Columbus Underground; Movies Hate You Too); Brad Keefe (Columbus Alive); Kristin Dreyer Kramer (NightsAndWeekends.com, 90.5 WCBE); Joyce Long (Freelance); Rico Long (Freelance); Hope Madden (Columbus Underground and MaddWolf.com); Paul Markoff (WOCC-TV3; Otterbein TV); David Medsker (Bullz-Eye.com); Lori Pearson (Kids-in-Mind.com, critics.com); Mark Pfeiffer (Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema; WOCC-TV3; Otterbein TV); Melissa Starker (Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch); George Wolf (Columbus Radio Group and MaddWolf.com); Jason Zingale (Bullz-Eye.com); Nathan Zoebl (PictureShowPundits.com).

Intriguing and Surprising…Until It’s Not

Open Grave

by Hope Madden

The film Open Grave immediately brings to mind Adrien Brody’s underseen 2010 flick Wrecked. In it, Brody wakes from a car crash in a daunting patch of geography with no memory of who he is or how he got there, but evidence suggests that maybe he’s not the film’s good guy. We spend the next 90 minutes with him as he pieces together clues to his identity and situation and tries to survive pretty inhospitable circumstances.

Likewise, in Open Grave, Sharlto Copley awakens with no memory. He’s not in a car, though. He finds himself deep in a pit atop a heap of dead bodies.

The trajectory is similar, but director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego does not have a tense man-against-nature thriller in mind. He throws a lot of clues at Sharlto’s confused Jonah, all of them tinged with enough blood and barbed wire that our protagonist doesn’t just believe he may not be a good guy. He knows he may be a very, very bad man.

Jonah is not alone, though. In the house not far from the body pit is a rattled group of amnesiac survivors, all of whom are trying to puzzle their way through the gory evidence to figure out what the hell is happening to them.

There is one other film that clearly inspired Open Grave, but to mention it by name would be to give away too much because the grim clues, anxious sleuthing and varying possibilities keep this film suspenseful and queasyingly entertaining.

Copley, whose career has been an act of diminishing returns since his magnificent feature film debut in District 9, offers a solid, grounded turn here. His characterization evolves as his character’s experiences demand, and Copley conveys the proper instincts at each point in Jonah’s quest for survival.

Screenwriters Chris and Eddie Borey take the cabin in the woods premise and layer it with numerous additional horror tropes to pull together a surprisingly engaging picture. It’s full of grim twists and imaginative surprises….until it isn’t.

Lopez-Gallego keeps his storytelling one step ahead of the audience for most of the journey, but when we catch up and are given the big reveal, the film has too little left to offer. It then falls back on nothing more than standard horror fare, providing an unfittingly clichéd ending to what had been a clever braiding of familiar threads.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

Countdown: Best Films of 2013

10. Blue is the Warmest Color

The engrossing and immersive romantic drama may be best known for its NC-17 rating, but the beauty and heartbreak in this loose narrative make it one of the best films of 2013. Adele Exarchopoulos provides among the strongest performances onscreen this year in a love story that is as emotionally explicit as it is sexually frank.

9. Stories We Tell

Sarah Polley proves her mettle as a documentarian with a private story that becomes universal, entertaining and genuinely moving. Through a profoundly personal investigation, Polley looks at the validity of those comfortable truths that live in every family, and it’s all clever, fascinating, funny stuff. Polley has quickly become a filmmaker you cannot ignore, and it is a testament to her own storytelling skill that even as she turns her focus inward, you can’t help but look at your own world in a different way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytq4VZ2Nyxg

 

8. The Wolf of Wall Street

Director Martin Scorcese’s three hour showcase of unchecked hedonism is a terrifically frenzied, wickedly funny ride. Leonardo DiCaprio is electric as Jordan Belfort, the real life Wall Street wizard who made millions before the Feds brought him down for rampant securities fraud. This is no hand-wringing reflection on the wages of sin, just a swaggering, appropriately superficial and completely entertaining lesson in the American dream.

7. Nebraska

The great Alexander Payne exceeds admittedly high expectations with this gracefully restrained father/son journey. The Oscar favorite will no doubt pull in a nomination for its lead, an unforgettable Bruce Dern, but the entire ensemble – June Squibb as Dern’s spitfire of a wife, in particular – beautifully convey the spite, regret, hilarity and insanity of family. Wistful and rambunctious, the film packs a dramatic punch but still leaves you smiling.

6. Gravity

Alfonso Cuaron redefines SciFi with a jaw-dropping interstellar adventure – undoubtedly this year’s most surprisingly tense action flick. He untethers a novice astronaut in outer space, and his audience with her, in the most intimate and epic journey of the year. His stunning directorial achievement reminds us of why people started making movies in the first place.

5. Her

Though it won’t hit many theaters until January, this film is too magnificent to be relegated to the category of afterthought. Spike Jonze has written and directed this year’s most poignant love story, cast it impeccably and set it just far enough into the future to let breathe. The eternally underappreciated Joaquin Phoenix breaks your heart as the lonesome lover in a world that encourages isolation, while Scarlett Johannson – in her second excellent turn this year, following Don Jon – delivers an award worthy performance with just her voice. It’s a beautiful, imaginative, relevant image of love in the modern world.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis

The Brothers Coen offer just another nearly flawless film, this time immersing us in the tribulations of a struggling musician in the 1961 Greenwich Village folk scene. Boasting a beautifully nuanced lead performance from Oscar Isaac and populated with hilarious and touching supporting turns, the film is the brothers’ most impeccably crafted character study. It’s also another great exploration of the artistic connections possible between cinema and music, reminding us again of that Coen genius.

3. The Act of Killing

Those responsible for exterminating more than a million Indonesians during the 1965 government overthrow re-enact their savagery for Joshua Oppenheimer’s camera in the most surreal and riveting documentary of this year, or perhaps any other. You simply cannot believe what you are seeing. The film is absolutely not what you expect it to be, regardless of what those expectations may be. It is essential viewing.

2. American Hustle

With a dream ensemble, wickedly sharp writing and an explosive pace, director David O. Russell gives us a con movie that explodes with heart and humor. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper erupt while Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner anchor a very human, impossibly captivating comedy/drama.

1. 12 Years a Slave

Intimate storytelling and flawless acting come together to eliminate the distance of time and create a powerful, visceral, unforgettable cinematic and human experience. Director Steve McQueen has created a film that makes all others set during the shameful American history of slavery seem almost precious. His film is a profound and brutal experience, and an awe-inspiring feat of moviemaking. There is no close second in a list of the best films of 2013.

2013 Central Ohio Film Critics Assoc. Awards Nominees

 

The Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA) is pleased to announce the nominees for its 12th annual awards.  Winners will be announced on the evening of January 2nd, 2014.

Founded in 2002, the Central Ohio Film Critics Association is comprised of film critics based in Columbus, Ohio and the surrounding areas. Its membership consists of 20 print, radio, television, and internet critics. COFCA’s official website at www.cofca.org contains links to member reviews and past award winners.

Note on the nominees: ties in the nomination round produced six nominees in the Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Documentary categories.

The 2013 Central Ohio Film Critics Association awards nominees are:

 

Best Film

-12 Years a Slave

-American Hustle

-Before Midnight

-Frances Ha

-Gravity

-Her

-Inside Llewyn Davis

-Nebraska

-Upstream Color

-The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Director

-Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave

-Alexander Payne, Nebraska

-David O. Russell, American Hustle

-Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Actor

-Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave

-Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

-Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station

-Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

-Joaquin Phoenix, Her

Best Actress

-Amy Adams, American Hustle

-Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine

-Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha

-Brie Larson, Short Term 12

 

Best Supporting Actor

-Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips

-Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave

-James Franco, Spring Breakers

-Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street

-Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

 

Best Supporting Actress

-Scarlett Johansson, Her

-Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle

-Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave

-Julia Roberts, August: Osage County

-June Squibb, Nebraska

 

Best Ensemble

-12 Years a Slave

-American Hustle

-Nebraska

-Short Term 12

-The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Actor of the Year (for an exemplary body of work)

-Amy Adams (American Hustle, Her, and Man of Steel)

-Benedict Cumberbatch (12 Years a Slave, August: Osage County, The Fifth

Estate, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and Star Trek Into Darkness)

-Leonardo DiCaprio (The Great Gatsby and The Wolf of Wall Street)

-Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire)

-Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club, Mud, and The Wolf of Wall

Street)

 

Breakthrough Film Artist

-Lake Bell, In a World… – (for acting, directing, and screenwriting)

-Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station – (for directing and screenwriting)

-Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12 – (for directing and screenwriting)

-Adèle Exarchopoulos, Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle) – (for acting)

-Brie Larson, Don Jon, Short Term 12, and The Spectacular Now – (for acting)

 

Best Cinematography

-Sean Bobbitt, 12 Years a Slave

-Emmanuel Lubezki, Gravity

-Hoyte Van Hoytema, Her

-Bruno Delbonnel, Inside Llewyn Davis

-Benoît Debie, Spring Breakers

-Shane Carruth, Upstream Color

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

-Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater, Before Midnight

-Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, The Spectacular Now

-Billy Ray, Captain Phillips

-John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave

-Terence Winter, The Wolf of Wall Street

 

Best Original Screenplay

-Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis

-Destin Daniel Cretton, Short Term 12

-Spike Jonze, Her

-Bob Nelson, Nebraska

-David O. Russell and Eric Singer, American Hustle

 

Best Score

-Arcade Fire, Her

-Thomas Newman, Saving Mr. Banks

-Mark Orton, Nebraska

-Steven Price, Gravity

-Hans Zimmer, 12 Years a Slave

 

Best Documentary

-20 Feet from Stardom

-The Act of Killing

-Blackfish

-Leviathan

-Room 237

-Stories We Tell

 

Best Foreign Language Film

-Beyond the Hills (Dupa dealuri)

-Blue is the Warmest Color (La vie d’Adèle)

-The Grandmaster (Yi dai zong shi)

-The Hunt (Jagten)

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

 

Best Animated Film

-The Croods

-Despicable Me 2

-Frozen

-Monsters University

-The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu)

 

Best Overlooked Film

-Mud

-Short Term 12

-The Spectacular Now

-Stoker

COFCA offers its congratulations to the nominees.

Previous Best Film winners:

 

2002:  Punch-Drunk Love

2003:  Lost in Translation

2004:  Million Dollar Baby

2005:  A History of Violence

2006:  Children of Men

2007:  No Country for Old Men

2008:  WALL·E

2009:  Up in the Air

2010:  Inception

2011:  Drive

2012:  Moonrise Kingdom

 

For more information about the Central Ohio Film Critics Association, please visit www.cofca.org or e-mailinfo@cofca.org.

 

The complete list of members and their affiliations:

 

Richard Ades (Columbus Free Press); Kevin Carr (www.7mpictures.comFilmSchoolRejects.com); Bill Clark (www.fromthebalcony.com); John DeSando (90.5 WCBE); Frank Gabrenya (The Columbus Dispatch); James Hansen (Out 1 Film Journal); Nicholas Herum (Columbus UndergroundMovies Hate You Too); Brad Keefe (Columbus Alive); Kristin Dreyer Kramer (NightsAndWeekends.com, 90.5 WCBE); Joyce Long (Freelance); Rico Long (Freelance); Hope Madden (Columbus Underground and MaddWolf.com); Paul Markoff (WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); David Medsker (Bullz-Eye.com); Lori Pearson (Kids-in-Mind.comcritics.com); Mark Pfeiffer (Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema; WOCC-TV3; Otterbein.TV); Melissa Starker (Columbus Alive, The Columbus Dispatch); George Wolf (Columbus Radio Group and MaddWolf.com); Jason Zingale (Bullz-Eye.com); Nathan Zoebl (PictureShowPundits.com).

 

An Intimate Battle

 

by George Wolf

 

Rarely has the Battle of the Sexes been more confined than in Neil LaBute‘s Some Velvet Morning.

In fact. in writer/director LaBute’s latest look at the subject, all of the drama occurs at the tastefully decorated residence of one young woman.

Velvet (Alice Eve) is surprised one morning when Fred (Stanley Tucci) appears at her door, with several pieces of luggage in tow.  After four years, Fred has finally left his wife, he says, and he wants to again explore the chance of a life with Velvet.

Over the next 83 minutes, we learn about all the dark corners of their relationship. History is relived and ugly acusations are unfurled as Fred and Velvet take turns wielding the power in their exchanges.

That Tucci is wonderful should comes as no surprise, but it is Eve’s performance that should open some eyes to the depth of her dramatic talent.  Velvet is a young woman with secrets, and Eve strings us along deliciously in the emotional dance with her old flame.

At its core, the film is a return to LaBute’s early roots as a playwright, as his favorite theme of the dark, cynical nature of relationships is explored using just two characters, but from rotating perspectives that constantly surprise.

As the meeting escalates toward the ending you think you know, LaBute throws the ace he’s been holding back since Fred rang the doorbell, but it doesn’t result in quite the jackpot he may have been seeking.

Often absorbing and sporting two fine performances, the final reveal in Some Velvet Morning ultimately leaves you wondering if LaBute’s destination was worth the journey.

 

Verdict-3-0-Stars

 

 

 

Countdown: Best in Horror, 2013

 

At one point, it looked like 2013 was going to be a bloody banner year for horror. Remember that time? We’d already seen the magnificence of the Evil Dead remake as well as the spooktacular glory of the original The Conjuring, and we still had You’re Next, The Purge, Insidious: Chapter 2 and Carrie to go? Too bad those last few couldn’t live up to expectations.

The year did produce a handful of really excellent horror flicks, though. Here is our Top 5.

5. Byzantium

Director Neil Jordan returned to the modern day/period drama vampire yarn this year. Thanks to two strong leads, he pulls it off. Saoirse Ronan is the perfectly prim and ethereal counterbalance to Gemma Arterton’s street-savvy survivor, and we follow their journey as they avoid The Brotherhood who would destroy them for making ends meet and making meat of throats. Jordan’s new vampire drama attempts a bit of feminism but works better as a tortured love story.

4. Simon Killer

The effortlessly creepy Brady Corbet plays the title role in Simon Killer, a college kid alone in Paris after a messy break up. He’s loathsome and  cowardly and impossible to ignore as he hatches a plan with his new prostitute girlfriend – a wonderfully tender Constance Rousseau – to make some quick cash. The film draws you in like a thriller before morphing into a sinister character study that will leave you shaken.

3. We Are What We Are

Not enough people saw this gem, and even fewer saw the brilliant Mexican original, but both are essential horror viewing. The reboot takes a very urban, very Mexican tale and spins it as American gothic, with wildly successful results. From the same writing/directing team that brought forth Stake Land (if you haven’t seen it, you really should), this is one of the few Americanized versions of foreign horror to satisfy – although you may not be hungry again for a while.

2. Evil Dead

Naming #1 was a tough call because of this one, among the all time best reboots in horror history. Fede Alvarez (with some help from the Oscar winning pen of Diablo Cody) respects the source material while still carving out his own vision. Goretastic, scary, and unexpectedly surprising given how closely it aligns itself to its predecessors, the movie has it all – including more gallons of blood than any film in history. Seriously.

1. The Conjuring

James Wan mixes the percussive scares of modern horror with the escalating dread of old fashioned genre pieces, conjuring a giddy-fun spookhouse ride guaranteed to make you jump. And he did it all without FX. A game cast helped, but credit Wan for the meandering camera, capturing just what we needed to see at the exact second that it would do the most damage.

Hope Madden and George Wolf … get it?