Tag Archives: Frank

Outtakes

Best Movies You Missed Countdown

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2014 was actually a pretty great year, movie-wise. Most of the biggest box office smashes were worthwhile films – Guardians of the Galaxy and The LEGO Movie, for example. But it’s hard to track down every really great film, and this year, we’re betting you missed a lot –  A LOT – of outstanding movies. But you can make up for that with this list of the films you may have missed and need to see. It’s our post-holiday gift to you!  You’re welcome!

Only Lovers Left Alive

Jim Jarmusch’s trippy vampire classic needs to be seen, but in all likelihood, you did not. You should remedy that situation.

Get On Up

How is it possible that this wonderfully acted biopic promising wall to wall great music drew such a tiny audience? Tragic! See it tomorrow when it comes out for home entertainment viewing!

Calvary

This surprising, wearily funny, gorgeously filmed and spectacularly acted gift from Ireland did not get the reception it should have.

We Are the Best!  (Vi ar bast!)

Two young girls with no musical experience start a punk band. This film is an absolute joy.

Whiplash

Hopefully its inevitable Oscar nomination for J.K. Simmons (and very likely win!) will give this remarkable little film second life in theaters. If so, do yourself a favor and see it!

Locke

It’s a tough sell: Tom Hardy, alone in a car for 90 minutes, but man, what he can do with a show to himself!

The Drop

Another underseen Tom Hardy gem! His versatility is amazing, and here he gets a great supporting assist from James Gandolfini.

Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson reminds us again of the superb talent she possesses in this hypnotic alien adventure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoSWbyvdhHw

Dear White People

Witty, incisive and one step ahead of you, this excellent indie comedy needs to make everyone’s home entertainment watch list.

Frank

Michael Fassbender as you have never seen him – stuck inside a giant false head. Funny, tender and woefully underseen, it’s another reason to be amazed by Fassbender.

Snowpiercer

Tanked by its own studio, the film found a market in home entertainment. If you haven’t found this ingenious piece of SciFi, do so right now!

Outtakes, Slider

Countdown: Weird Trend of 2014

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Weird theme for great 2014 movies: one word titles. The oddest trait we saw emerge in great films this war was the one-word title film. A full 15 of the best films of 2014 had single-word titles – who knows why? Whatever the reason, in no particular order, are the best of the one-word-title films (and some of the very, very best films of the year.

1. Wild: Reese Witherspoon will no doubt garner her second Oscar nomination and quite possibly her second Oscar starring as a woman who walks 1100 miles solo to get her head together.

2. Selma: Ave DuVernay’s powerful, painfully relevant biopic on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the marches on Selma, Alabama delivers all the punch it needs with one word.

3. Unbroken: Angelina Jolie returns to a spot behind the camera for this true tale of Olympic athlete and WWII POW Louis Zamperini.

4. Birdman: Meta-magical-realism at its finest, Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu’s look at the transience and transcendence of fame will scoop up some Oscars this year.

5. Calvary: Woefully underseen, this wry, weary and brilliant look at the affects of Catholicism’s abuses boasts the great Brendan Gleeson’s best performance.

6. Whiplash: Holy shit! JK Simmons gets the role of a lifetime as an abusive music teacher who is either trying to push his students to greatness or is trying to get away with absolute sadism. This may be the most tense film of the year.

7. Nightcrawler: Another amazing film, this one positing a weirdly sometimes likeable sociopath (Jake Gyllenhaal at his absolute best) in the context of local news – what better fit could there be?

8. Frank: Another underseen gem, this one has the great Michael Fassbender hiding inside a giant plastic head in an exploration of madness and music.

9. Foxcatcher: Bennett Miller returns with another masterpiece in understatement, a true crime tale of Olympic wrestlers and insane billionaires that could bring Oscar nominations to the unlikeliest of actors: Steve Carell and Channing Tatum.

10. Rosewater: Jon Stewart proved his mettle behind the camera with this touching, insightful and underseen true story of a journalist jailed during the Iranian elections of 2009.

11. Boyhood: The best film of 2014, Boyhood’s filming spanned 12 years and let us glimpse something no other film has ever captured.

12. Wetlands: Underneath the shock and body fluids is a deeply human story boasting a fearless and nuanced performance.

13. Snowpiercer: The best SciFi in a year of especially great SciFi, the film was sabotaged by its own studio and still wound up wowing audiences everywhere.

14. Interstellar: Not Christopher Nolan’s best, but when his intergalactic epic is working, it is a mind-bending ride.

15. Locke: A one man show that highlights the talents of perhaps the greatest actor of his generation, Tom Hardy. See it. Do it!

For Your Queue

Two of 2014’s Best For Your Queue

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Let’s assume you saw Guardians of the Galaxy while it was in theaters. If you didn’t, you should probably not admit that out loud. So, seein’s as how you already saw the best, most fun intergalactic misadventure in years, you can look around for something you might have missed with this week’s Queue. We recommend two new releases: Frank and Calvary.

In Calvary, filmmaker John Michael McDonagh may have found his muse in the endlessly wonderful Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson plays Fr. Michael, a dry-witted but deeply decent priest who has a week to get his affairs in order while a parishoner plans to kill him. Sumptuously filmed and gorgeously written, boasting as much world-weary humor as genuine insight, it’s an amazing film and a performance that should not be missed.

And speaking of magnificent performances, please see Michael Fassbender’s tender, funny, beautiful turn in Frank. Inspired by an enigmatic musician who performed and lived wearing a giant, fake head, Frank is a wry yet intimate film that offers a thoroughly entertaining, wholly odd journey into relationships, fame, mental illness, and the mad magic of music.

New In Theaters

It’s All In His Head

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Frank

by Hope Madden

An interesting cinematic trend is emerging: cast the best, most talented, best looking performers in roles where we can’t see them. As counterintuitive as it appears, it has been wildly successful. Scarlett Johansson was never better than in her disembodied role in Her, while Bradley Cooper was a laugh riot as a pissed off raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy. And now, the great Michael Fassbender dons a huge, smiley, fake head for nearly the entire duration of his new film, Frank.

It definitely works.

Of course it does, he’s Michael Fassbender, exactly the actor who’d be drawn to such a role. Fassbender is wonderful, naturally, this time with a delicate charm. His gesturing, physical presence, and endearing vocal delivery outline a beautiful performance that drives the film and, eventually, breaks your heart.

Though this film is hardly a tragedy. It’s wryly funny, at times satirical but routinely quite intimate. Co-written by Jon Ronson, the film is inspired by the enigmatic musician/comic/giant-head-wearer Chris Sievey, to whom the film is dedicated and with whom Ronson briefly played.

Writing with Peter Straughan – his collaborator on The Men Who Stare at Goats – Ronson recreates himself as the everyman character Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), an aspiring musician who stumbles into eccentric frontman Frank’s band when the previous keyboardist tries to drown himself. Then Jon’s off to the woods for 18 months to record with a group who mostly loathe him.

As Clara, the Lady Macbeth for this band on the fringes, the always magnificent Maggie Gyllenhaal controls every situation with a withering glare. Gyllenhaal’s weary expression carries with it the untold baggage and band history that Jon just isn’t interested in understanding.

Lenny Abrahamson’s utterly masterful direction first draws you in with Jon’s artistic voyage, but a slyly evolving storyline populated with playful but authentic performances leads you somewhere surprising yet inevitable.

Frank, though joyous, odd and thoroughly enjoyable, slowly exposes the limits of talent, the weight of enduring relationships, and the corruptively seductive power of fame.

It’s also an insightful ode to the transcendent, mad magic of music.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dcLw6CPzIs