Tag Archives: Viola Davis

The “We Hope We’re Wrong” Countdown

There are a few shoe-ins for awards contention this year, and they deserve the attention. We expect to see Michael Keaton, Jake Gyllenhaal, JK Simmons, Reese Witherspoon, Ralph Feinnes, Patricia Arquette and Emma Stone, plus a slew of likelies from films we haven’t seen yet.  But – premature as it may seem – we’re already worried about the magnificent performances we have seen and fear will go overlooked this awards season.

Brendan Gleeson

The always magnificent Gleeson lands the role of a lifetime in Calvary as the good priest who learns during a confession that an abused man intends to make a martyr of him. It is an awe inspiring performance of turmoil, skepticism, hope, struggle, faith and resignation.

Jenny Slate

Slate could not have been any better than she was in Obvious Child, a deeply different twist on the romantic comedy. Slate is so natural, awkward, hilarious and vulnerable – exactly what was needed to make the film work, and it does more than work. Thanks to her turn, it soars.

Viola Davis

Chadwick Boseman may get some deserved attention, but Davis’s turn as James Brown’s mother in Get On Up is a masters class in acting. The always formidable Davis is raw and magnificent. We hope awards voters don’t overlook the performance the same way audiences overlooked this gem of a movie.

Carla Juri

Her fierce and fearless turn in Wetlands may actually turn Oscar voters away in droves, but we’re hard pressed to think of a lead performance that was more impressive. We hope Oscar grows a pair and takes note.

Michael Fassbender

Fassbender will be an awards favorite for the rest of his life, but since not a living soul saw his magnificent, tender, funny and heartbreaking turn inside a giant head in Frank, it’s not likely he’ll get the notice he so deeply deserves this awards season.

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

Tilda Swinton

What a year for Swinton! She crafted fully formed, utterly different characters in four films this year. Which one deserves an award? Pick one: Snowpiercer (Be a shoe!), Only Lovers Left Alive, Zero Theorem and/or The Grand Budapest Hotel. Swinton is wonderful in every one of them.

Tom Hardy

Hardy deserves attention for two lead turns this year, the one man show Locke and the understated drama The Drop. He is truly one of the very most compelling talents working today and it is high time he get some notice.

Scarlett Johansson:

The undeniably gorgeous A-lister finally does a nude scene in the most underseen film of her career – Jonathan Glazers hypnotically unnerving SciFi gem Under the Skin. Johansson shoulders the entire film, mesmerizing from beginning to end.

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

 

Soul Power

 

Get On Up

by George Wolf

 

As a broke college student at Ohio State in 1985, I saved my pennies and stood in a line halfway down High St. to see Mr. Dynamite live at the Newport Music Hall.

My first cellphone ringtone was “Sex Machine.”

The point is, I love me some James Brown, and I really liked Get On Up.

It’s a bit of a relief, because with director Tate Taylor at the helm, I feared Brown’s story would get the same clichéd, soccer-mom-feel-good treatment Taylor gave The Help. Instead, buoyed by a meaty script from veteran writers Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Edge of Tomorrow/Fair Game) he takes some chances that pay dividends.

Get On Up breaks the “fourth wall” early and often, as Brown (Chadwick Boseman) looks the audience in the eye and reminds everyone how big a musical influence he remains to this day. This ignites a swagger that anchors the entire film, which, considering the subject, is the absolutely perfect vibe.

It ain’t braggin’ if you back it up, and Brown, warts and all, was one of the most important musical and cultural figures of the 20th century.

Taylor shows us Brown’s rags to riches story – from growing up in a Georgia brothel to easing tensions after Martin Luther King’s assassination – in scattershot fashion, dropping in on different periods without regard to chronology. Not only does this offer a stylistic alternative to similar films such Walk the Line and Ray, but it presents Brown as a sum of equal parts while also ensuring that any overt sentimentality is never given time to add weight.

Boseman is flat-out terrific, serving notice that his fine performance as Jackie Robinson in 42 was just a warm-up act. Boseman has Brown’s speaking voice, cocksure attitude and his incredible moves down cold, combining them all for a portrayal full of an electric charisma.

Anyone who remembers Eddie Murphy’s classic “James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub” from SNL knows how easily a Brown impersonation could slip into parody, but Boseman avoids any hint of it. His is a completely authentic performance that needs to be remembered in the coming award season.

From the early “chitlin circuit” tours, to the Apollo Theater to the legendary T.A.M.I. show, Taylor frames the live performance sequences with the cracking, cold sweat-inducing urgency that music this great demands. Kudos, too, to the sound editing department, frequently mixing Brown’s original vocal tracks into new arrangements, enabling wonderfully seamless film recreations.

Okay, so Brown’s personal demons could have been given more gravity, and there are a few biopic crutches (soul- searching in a dressing room mirror, for instance), but Taylor and the Butterworth boys score with the humanity they bring to two profound relationships in Brown’s life:  his longtime friend Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis) and his mother Susie (Viola Davis).

There’s true poignancy to the moments that find Susie, after a long absence, visiting her triumphant son backstage. It’s the film’s non-musical highlight, and yet another reminder of how little screen time Davis needs to be unforgettable.The same can be said for Brown’s music, and while this film will certainly thrill the fans, it’s good enough to win him plenty of new ones.

Get on up?

It’s pretty damn hard not to.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 

Game Over, Man! Game Over!

Ender’s Game

by Hope Madden

A gawky adolescent plays video games and saves the world. It’s easy to see why Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game is so popular with young boys. But the truth is that this SciFi thriller is more than just a simple adolescent male fantasy. It’s an intricately written coming of age story that pulls readers in, not just with the video game storyline, but a video game structure, as the hero defeats certain challenges before moving on to the next level, so to speak.

Though his screenplay is often inelegant in its adaptation, clunking through sections that must have been quite impressive in novel form, writer/director Gavin Hood’s affection for the source material is evident. So, too, is his skill with FX as well as casting.

Asa Butterfield (Hugo) leads the cast as Ender Wiggin, the pinch-shouldered spindle hoping to make it through the ranks of the military academy to help defend earth against an impending alien invasion. Butterfield’s vulnerability – physical and emotional – and obvious intelligence provide the character the compelling internal conflict the role requires.

SciFi legend Harrison Ford shows some effort as Ender’s commanding officer, while the always wonderful Viola Davis gives the film its emotional core, and allows Hood an opportunity to mine this story for some social commentary. “It used to be a war crime to recruit soldiers younger than 15,” she scolds Ford’s Colonel Graff.

Though visually impressive, the film’s cosmic FX pale in comparison to the entirely superior Gravity. Still, Hood knows how to put a crowd in the middle of a video game without giving off the immediately dated feel of Tron.

Though sometimes derivative, (Act 2 feels a bit too much like Top Gun, if you substitute teenaged video game nerds for hot, ambiguously gay volleyball players), the film eventually packs an emotional wallop. The climax is effective, but the resolution is rushed. These issues are symptomatic of the effort as a whole – fitfully entertaining, absorbing and gorgeous, and yet tonally challenged and poorly paced.

Hood’s greatest failing is that he settles for a thrill ride when he was handed a beloved, epic coming of age tragedy. Oddly enjoyable and intermittently wonderful, the film still feels like a mild letdown.

Verdict-3-0-Stars

Make Sure You’re Prepared

 

by George Wolf

 

Pre-game warmups aren’t usually part of the moviegoing experience, but Prisoners may require a little preparation.

Quite simply, it will wear you out.

Director Denis Villeneuve and writer Aaron Guzikowski have crafted a relentlessly intense, utterly engrossing mystery/thriller that will bludgeon your nerves, tease your sensibilities and leave your morals in disarray.

Hugh Jackman is unbelievably great as a father desperate for answers after his daughter, and his neighbor’s daughter, are abducted on Thanksgiving Day. The assigned detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) believes a troubled local man (Paul Dano) is to blame, but can’t find the evidence to hold him. Jackman’s character, overcome with rage, takes matters into his own hands.

That’s all the info you need, but just a tiny fraction of the complex chain of events set in motion by the crime. Guzikowski, who adapted the Contraband screenplay last year, delivers a twisting, intelligent script that lulls you with the familiarity of the premise all the while it’s leading you places you may not want to go.

Villeneuve, best known for writing and directing the Oscar-nominated Incendies three years ago, makes a stunning English language debut that succeeds on many levels. If a thriller was all it was, it would be a good one, relying on a substance that recalls years of Hollywood films from Death Wish to Gone Baby Gone.

Prisoners transcends the genre in the way it forces its audience to face the same moral ambiguities the characters are up against. The stupendous cast, which also includes greats such as Terence Howard, Viola Davis and Melissa Leo, fills each character with gritty realism, allowing actions that seem justified in one set of circumstances to be easily called into question.  As surprises mount,  the film lands solid blows to perceptions of torture, fear-mongering, religious fanaticism, and even basic parenting.

Sound like a lot? It is, and the film earns every minute of its two and a half hour running time. It is a dark, cathartic journey that is not for the squeamish, and the film’s length only serves to reinforce the hell these people are going through.  They want it to end, and so do you, but only because the film has hooked you so deeply.

You’ll need to pay attention and listen hard, and though you probably won’t figure things out early, the clues are all there in front of you. Prisoners is a breathtaking ride that rewards the effort it demands, ultimately providing a satisfying payoff, capped by an unforgettable final scene that may very well find its way into your dreams.

 

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars