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Boyhood

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  • Title: Boyhood
  • IMDb: link

BoyhoodShot over the course of 12 years, Boyhood is one of the most ambitious projects any filmmaker has attempted to tackle. It’s also easily one of the best films of the year.

Starting the project at age 5 we witness Ellar Coltrane grow-up as Mason over the filming of Richard Linklater‘s latest film which began production in 2002 and finally arrived in theaters in 2014. Over its 165-minute running time Mason’s scripted tale delves into his relationships with both his divorced parents (Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke), the complexities of modern-day extended families, and the journey of Mason from grade school to college.

Begun without a finished script, but with an established beginning and ending, Linklater adapted the story by the changes he saw in his cast over the years. Arquette and Hawke carry much of the early scenes of the movie while Coltrane takes over a larger part of the story as he grows as an actor.

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Obvious Child

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  • Title: Obvious Child
  • IMDb: link

“I think a lot of people learned a lot about the Holocaust tonight.”

Obvious ChildWritten and directed by Gillian Robespierre, Obvious Child is the harsh look at modern life and romantic relationships that the more ballyhooed Enough Said never had the balls to be (choosing instead to fall back on basic romcom clichés). Jenny Slate stars as a struggling stand-up comedian whose recent break-up leads to a drunken hook-up with a man (Paul Briganti) she barely knows. Despite having the best night she can remember (even if she can only remember tiny pieces of it) the shamed Donna attempts to move on which becomes more difficult when she discovers she’s pregnant weeks later.

What could easily have been made in an unwatchable Hollywood tripe, Robespierre steers clear of the pitfalls of the genre focusing almost entirely on Donna and her friends and family, keeping the romantic possibilities on the back burner. The movie is about Donna’s reaction to a pivotal moment in her life not an excuse for pratfalls and over-the-top romantic gestures.

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Young Justice: Invasion

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  • Title: Young Justice: Invasion
  • wiki: link

Young Justice: InvasionSet five years after the show’s First Season, the Second Season of Young Justice introduced older versions of the original show’s characters while expanding the team with a new set of young heroes as well. Invasion‘s overall arc involves the behind-the-scenes manipulations of The Light as well as the arrival of The Reach on Earth whose true purposes are far more nefarious than the aliens let on.

With Dick Grayson moving onto the role of Nightwing (Jesse McCartney) the team gets a new Robin (Cameron Bowen) along with Batgirl (Alyson Stoner), Wonder Girl (Mae Whitman), and Impulse (Jason Marsden) all becoming a part of the team. Aqualad (Khary Payton) and Artemis (Stephanie Lemelin) will both spend a large portion of the season undercover with The Light, the truth about Red Arrow & Arsenal will be discovered, and another founding member of the team will give his life to save the world from The Reach in the series finale.

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The Skeleton Twins

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  • Title: The Skeleton Twins
  • IMDb: link

The Skeleton TwinsWritten and directed by Craig Johnson and Mark Heyman The Skeleton Twins, is a holiday release staple of a awkward family dramedy starring Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader as estranged twins who both contemplate suicide on the same day.

Brought back together after Milo’s unsuccessful suicide attempt, Maggie and Milo get to know each other again after being apart for nearly an entire decade as Milo struggles to fit into Maggie’s life with her optimistic go-getter husband (Luke Wilson) while discovering his sister’s life is just as fucked-up as his own as she continually cheats on the man she professes to love while hiding the fact that she’s still on birth control as they try to get pregnant.

Neither as dramatic nor humorous as you might first assume given the subject matter and its two former Saturday Night Live stars, splitting the difference The Skeleton Twins mixes in some dark humor to balance out the siblings’ poor life choices which lead them both to consider taking their own lives.

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Snowpiercer

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  • Title: Snowpiercer
  • IMDb: link

SnowpiercerI had a very mixed reaction to writer/director Joon-ho Bong‘s Snowpiercer. One one-hand I’m increasingly tired dramas using the trappings of sci-fi to offer up dystopian futures and thinly-veiled class struggle that offer no message other than the fact that such inequality is wrong and ultimately disastrous to the human species. My rebelling against the form isn’t really Snowpiercer‘s fault other than the fact it adds to the glut of similarly-themed films in recent years. On the other hand the film certainly embraces the literal interpretation of rising above your class to offer a bizarre struggle of less fortunate train passengers attempting to climb their way upward.

At its worst Snowpiercer feels preachy and overreaching in its visual style presenting each train car as a bizarely impossible worlds for the voyagers to walk through. It’s also not well served by a performance so over-the-top by Tilda Swinton it’s amazing she doesn’t hit her head on the roof in every scene. At its best the film does serve its message and offer Chris Evans a role as a would-be hero forced to face the deficiencies in both himself and the world he hopes to make more equitable through his struggle.

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