Drama

The Neon Demon

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Neon Demon
  • IMDb: link

“Beauty isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

The Neon Demon

In what is likely going to be one of the more divisive films of 2016, the latest from writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive) casts Elle Fanning as a naive 16 year-old girl just breaking into the model business in Los Angeles. Blessed with an ineffable quality no one can quite explain, Jesse (Fanning) soon becomes the hot new girl, much to the dismay of a pair of models (Bella Heathcote and Abbey Lee) seeing their careers flash before their eyes.

Jesse’s journey will lead her into contact with a wide variety of people including her creepy apartment manager (Keanu Reeves), jealous models, designers, photographers (Desmond Harrington and Karl Glusman), and a makeup artist (Jena Malone) all of whom want something from the young woman.

Refn’s film is a metaphor for how the modeling industry celebrates physical beauty in the absence of any other quality while slowly devouring the very objects of their devotion. The film takes the metaphor one step too far in the final act leaving the film with an ending that satisfies the movie’s message but not necessarily the audience.

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Mother’s Day

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  • Title: Mother’s Day
  • wiki: link

Mother's DayFollowing the pattern of his last two films (Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve) director Garry Marshall‘s Mother’s Day is a cookie-cutter ensemble dramaedy set around a particular holiday. Filled with paper-thin characters who all can be described by a single characteristic who are marginally connected through themes of mothers and their daughters, Mother’s Day is a lazy film filled with sitcom humor and blase drama that asks the bare minimum of its cast. If it were a meal, Mother’s Day would be a lukewarm McDonald’s extra-value meal that no one bothered to put under the heat lamp. If it were a color it would be beige.

The stories include divorced mother (Jennifer Aniston) of two sons (Caleb Brown and Brandon Spink) struggling with the news that her ex-husband (Timothy Olyphant) has married a much younger woman (Shay Mitchell), grown sisters (Kate Hudson and Sarah Chalke) hiding their romantic relationships from their conventional parents (Margo Martindale and Robert Pine), a widower (Jason Sudeikis) and his two daughters (Ella Anderson and Jessi Case) struggling to move on a year after his wife’s death, a career-minded Home Shopping Network star (Julia Roberts) with what passes for a dark secret in this movie, and a waitress (Britt Robertson) unable to commit to her boyfriend (Jack Whitehall).

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Eddie the Eagle

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Eddie the Eagle
  • IMDb: link

Eddie the EagleIt’s fitting that at one point during Eddie the Eagle a sports announcer mentions the Jamaican bobsled team. Taking place during the same 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, the story of Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards (Taron Egerton) proves to be a fair companion piece to 1993’s Cool Runnings about outsiders making their mark and earning a place in a sport that wanted nothing to do with them.

In truth there aren’t that many sports stories. There’s the tale of the underdog making good (Rocky, Rudy, Major League), the comeback (Rocky III, Cinderella Man), a team coming together to overcome incredible odds (We Are Marshall, Hoosiers, Miracle), and an old athlete given a last chance at redemption (Rocky Balboa, The Wrestler). We like these stories because the characters are recognizable, their goals are understandable, and journeys are worth rooting for. Eddie the Eagle uses several of these themes in presenting Eddie’s story. The script by Sean Macaulay and Simon Kelton colors far less outside the lines than it’s protagonist ever did, but Edward’s story of a dreamer chasing the impossible simply works. It’s exactly the feel-good sports movie you expect it to be.

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Anomalisa

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  • Title: Anomalisa
  • IMDb: link

AnomalisaBased on his play, Charlie Kaufman‘s stop-motion feature focuses on depressed self-help author (David Thewlis) in a Cincinnati hotel the night before the latest stop on his book tour. Alternatively charming and tedious, Anomalisa delivers a collection of mundane and awkward experiences and conversations highlighted by the author, who hears everyone he’s ever met speaking in Tom Noonan‘s voice, meeting an insecure young woman (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whose voice breaks the self-help guru out of his melancholy.

Centering a film around a lonely puppet with questionable sanity who hears the world in monotone makes for an unique film experience. That said, Anomalisa is a film I could never quite wrap my arms around and embrace. Kaufman and co-director Duke Johnson certainly tap into some real human emotion, but with the focus on the boredom, monotony, and depression of the life of our schmuck of a protaganist all Kaufman really has to explore is that same boredom, monotony, and depression with no end in sight. Dragging its way through several scenes, Anomalisa is a 90-minute film that often feels quite a bit longer.

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The Revenant

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  • Title: The Revenant
  • IMDb: link

The RevenantWriter/director Alejandro González Iñárritu offers a straightforward tale of survival and revenge based on the true experiences of a frontiersman left for dead in 1823 in South Dakota. Bleak may not be a strong enough word for the film’s tone, but Leonardo DiCaprio makes it work as fur trapper Hugh Glass who struggles to survive after being attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead by a member (Tom Hardy) of the group who had sworn to look after the wounded man.

The Revenant is the type of movie you are more likely to appreciate than enjoy, and I don’t see myself returning to the film any time soon. That said, Iñárritu unquestionably delivers a stunning film of personal survival that is completely engrossing to watch. It’s impossible not to root for Glass and his struggle to make it back home and exact some measure of revenge for what was done to him.

Entirely DiCaprio’s film, with the exception of one or two scenes which Hardy steals, the other notable members of the cast are Domhnall Gleeson as the leader of the company fur trapping expedition and Forrest Goodluck as Glass’ son Hawk.

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