Everest is the what you get when you ask yourself, “What if the shark from Jaws was a mountain?” Why the hell you would be asking yourself that, I have no idea, but still it is. The film’s opening has a foreboding shot of the mountain, and you kind of just know that this isn’t going to be a happy movie. That it would be so scary, and upsetting, I didn’t expect. I watch horror films all the time, and Everest gave me the type of feelings I wish I got from horror movies. I wanted to cry. Yeah it’s just about that disturbing. And just like any good horror movie, it hasn’t got the best characters. Well, technically if the characters were bad then I couldn’t say that the film is as effective as it is. If we didn’t care it wouldn’t be scary. But it’s terrifying, so that for all I’m about to say, the characters are built up enough. They just aren’t built up well. This is a film about the 1996 Adventure Consultants Everest Disaster that killed 8 climbers, and injured quite a few more. That means that a lot of characters have to get set up in a short amount of time, and that the audience has to care enough by the time that people start to die. And I did, but the way that characters were established was pretty messy. There’s no real established tone at the beginning of the film, and that leads to characters just spending the entire time throwing around exposition, and describing themselves. This fare better for some, like Jason Clarke’s Rob Hall, who get’s a lot of screentime mainly because that’s where the film’s emotional punch comes from, but worse for others (Jake Gyllenhaal as Scott Fischer whose entire arch is really flimsy). There’s a sense of the group still, but not a sense of individuals… yet. That comes in a little bit later. The audience is never really given a chance to connect with these people in the first 30 minutes of the film, and that’s a pretty large problem. It’s a good thing that an early sense of dread pervades these few minutes, giving the film the needed weight during this section. And then all hell breaks loose. In the interest of not spoiling the entire film, I will not reveal the specifics of how or why it all goes to hell, but it does. However, I will say the following sequences have a lot to do with the individual which is certainly helpful in allowing the audience connect with them more. This is also the section of the film where everything gets really freaking scary. There’s a sense of hopelessness combined with spectacle to the final parts of this film that I haven’t felt in a film since Titanic, and the film is smart enough to play its scary moments quietly rather than full of jump scares. It allows things to play out, quietly soaking horror from the quiet scenes, and small details of body horror. It’s more brutal, and hard hitting this way, and I left the theatre a wreck. It helps the characters become more personable too. I’m glad that that direction was up to par in these scenes, and basically everywhere else. This film has beautiful cinematography, and even though I didn’t see it in IMAX, I kind of wish I had; it's a big screen spectacle of a horror show that deserves to be seen. The characters are not quite up to par, but the rest is all great. I give Everest an 8 out of 10.
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The Intern: Written and Directed by Nancy Myers, Starring: Robert De Niro, and Anne Hathaway9/26/2015 The Intern is an ok movie for the most part. It’s enjoyable, and you can smile at it’s relative inoffensiveness. It’s nice. It’s not all that compelling though. What’s awfully good about the film though, is definitely the actors that are portraying the characters in the film. The two stars of The Intern are Robert De Niro, and Anne Hathaway, and they both do a pretty nice job. De Niro is always a very reliable actor, and I enjoyed his very earnest portrayal of a man who is bored of retirement, and then becomes an intern at a very prestigious company. This company is run by Anne Hathaway ,who is starting to feel the pressure of the large company around her. Her performance is admirable too, with her being kind of on a safe autopilot mode throughout the film. She gets moments to shine, especially in a late film monologue, but I think once a person has seen The Devil Wears Prada, they’ll get an idea of what her performance in this film is like. De Niro, and the others equip themselves well, but to be honest, not much of full interest happens in The Intern. The structure of the story is actually the film’s main shortcoming with an Act 3 twist kind of coming out of nowhere, and pushing the film into about 15 minutes too long category. What’s there is not really bad, it just goes on a little too long, and the thin veneer of “the fluffy charming film” fades away. The film fights that though, really. Nancy Myers has always made films that were funny, and at times The Intern is very funny. There’s a scene with a masseuse that is incredibly staged, and I laughed my ass off at it. Though, there’s not enough of these to really make the movie. So here we have a sweet, fluffy movie about an old man becoming an intern, and helping the people around him. And he’s played by Robert De Niro, who is super reliable. The film itself does kind of fall apart in it’s third act, but it’s charming enough. I’ll take it. I give The Intern a 6.5 out of 10. I hear a lot of gangster flicks have been based off the actions of James “Whitey” Bulger. Heck I heard that Jack Nicholson was trying to imitate him in his incredible role in The Departed. All of this means that while Black Mass certainly tries to escape seeming very familiar in it’s genre it can’t escape feeling like Goodfellas, and the aforementioned The Departed. Those are two of the greatest films of all time. Now ask yourself this “If a movie per say feels like two of the greatest movies of all time then what’s wrong with that? NOTHING. Ok, yes there are scenes in Black Mass that seem very much like scenes in those other films. For example one at a dinner table scene that has Whitey messing around with his compatriots, but Black Mass is doing it’s own thing mainly due to its approach. While most gangster movies really do depend on dense plotting, and intrigue Black Mass kind of goes the other way. It’s a lean picture that is more focussed on actors, and you soon start to see their quirks. There are multiple scenes playing out in oxymoron ish fashion that draws all their suspense from the fact that you the audience has just noticed a slight change in the tone or mood in each of the characters in the scene, and that is terrifying. Most gangster movies would want to hide from you that a person is going to get killed to maybe make it more shocking, but Black Mass doesn’t play chicken. It knows Whitey Bulger was bad, and the effect of when you suddenly feel his mood change right before someone is killed is genuinely frightening. And you have to be good to sell that. You really do. If the actors would have been off then the scenes like these, and the leaner state of the story would’ve taken the entire film down. It almost does in the first 20 minutes or so when you are not used to the the characters yet. However it all becomes pretty damn apparent that the actors are awesome, and Johnny Depp’s first few minutes on screen are pretty memorable. Actually everything that he does is pretty damn memorable. He shoots back and forth from nice guy to psycho in style. He’s Johnny Depp (of course he does), and he’s pretty amazing. And everybody else is too. Joel Edgerton puts on a great performance as Whitey’s friend in the FBI, and Benedict Cumberbatch, though he has a small part, is excellent. Soon these actors, and the story that they are telling becomes something that you can sink into, and I think that’s why I liked Black Mass as much as I did. I sank into it, and lived with these men. It’s this engagement that also allows the audience to somewhat sympathize with Bulger, and his compatriots, if only a little, allowing the ending of the film to play out like a tragic event. This just bolstered any emotions that the film had given us allowing the events of the film to feel epic even while it’s scope is kind of small. Black Mass may seem like it wants to be every other gangster film out there, but it’s got the actors, and crazy nature of itself to differentiate it. This is one heck of a good gangster film, and I was completely satisfied. I give Black Mass a 9 out of 10. Reviewed by Stephen Tronicek Spoilers...little ones
Grandma is "almost great", and I don't say that lightly. It's not great. I really can say that much. It's to much of a low key effort to be great. It's too subtle, but for those who can realize that "almost great" still means "pretty damn good" I'm glad you've stumbled across this review. Grandma stars Lily Tomlin as a grandmother named El. Well not the conception of what you usually think of as a grandmother. Her character is really quite good because it play against conventions. She's not the whole "holy are thou" or "cold, and resentful" type of grandparent that I'm sure we've all encountered. She couldn't give a shit about anyone, and will support being a full and openminded person. So when her granddaughter played by Julia Garner shows up, and asks for $600 to pay for an abortion El simply says ok, and more gets mad at her for only addressing the money problem about 7 hours before the abortion is about to happen. I just realized how funny that actually is. You expect the El to be upset because the granddaughter is pregnant, and that she's getting an abortion, but she couldn't care less. She gets mad because it's 7 hours before the procedure, and the kid has only just addressed the situation. But El doesn't have the money, and this leads her to take the granddaughter on a trip around town to see some old friends, and get money. Each of these people will reveal the character of El through the way they knew her in the past, or the way she acts around them now. And that's where Grandma kind of stumbles. See the big problem is while all the characters that director Paul Weitz has written are most definitely interesting, some of them unfortunately feel redundant. Most of them are just perfect honestly. Great character actors such as Judy Greer, and Sam Elliot are given powerful, and actually very funny scenes. That said the comedy of the film does decide to be somewhat acidic, but it still manages to be hilarious. It's much to serious to ever be fully funny. But back to the people. Yes Greer, and Elliot are given things to do, but a visit to a tattoo parlor run by Orange is the New Black feels like it may be padding. Not that it's entertaining. Tomlin doesn't let it be unentertaining, it just feels unnecessary in a film that's 72 minutes long, and for that length that's not particularly a good thing. I feel that may seem too negative. That really does because Tomlin cannot be understated. Elliot, Greer, and Garner can't be understated. Any of the actors can't be understated. But the movie is slightly, and coming out of it wanted more. Haha there's the unnecessary negativity again. I give Grandma an 8.5 out of 10. NOTE: To those living in the St. Louis Grandma is playing at the HI POINTE theatre down near Forrest Park. They just redid the front auditorium, and it's great. The HI POINTE is my favorite place personally to see a film, and you should certainly check it out. Hey guys, This weekend I will be seeing Grandma and The Visit. American Ultra: Directed by Nima Nourizedeh, Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, and Kristen Stewart9/7/2015 It has been a good number of hours since I have seen American Ultra, and my opinion of it has been lowering within that time. I had a good time watching it—that was evident to me in the theater, yet as I comb over what little I remember, I keep thinking of one thing. American Ultra ultimately fails as an entertaining film because it tries to walk the fine line of being a cringe worthy, and ugly film, and being a fun somewhat comic booky film. That’s actually much the same with it’s characters. A few of them I quite liked including Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) the main character. He’s a weak, soft spoken seeming guy at first, and even when he get’s outed as a sleeper agent and starts to brutally kill people, he is still that soft spoken guy. His girlfriend, named Phoebe, played by Kristen Stewart, is also a great character. She’s the more reasonable, and is a good foil for Mike. This makes their chemistry flawless, and actually really sweet. However then the characters fall apart, and for the most part become that “ugly” I was talking about. John Leguizamo shows up, and is not really doing anything. Connie Britain is given stuff to do, but it’s not all that good. She’s not given anything charming to say or do. And then there’s Topher Grace. When watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I realized that the reason why I hated it was because the person who played Umbridge in it was so good at being an asshole that it brought the movie down. THIS IS TOPHER GRACE IN AMERICAN ULTRA! He shows up, and kills the entire thing...by being a perfect asshole. For all the charm that comes with the two leads, Grace does a lovely job of getting rid of it. It’s the same with the action too. On one hand the cartoonishly violent action is great, and exhilerating. There’s a scene inside of a grocery store that is so well filmed, and crazy that I guarantee you will have fun seeing it. Also, the fact is Jesse Eisenberg can in fact pull off action, and does it hilariously. He’s a reserved actor, and to see him go all berserker on some people is something that has to be seen. The same goes for Kristen Stewart. You know, and the fact is that all the action is actually pretty great, but some of it does get just “ugly.” There’s a cut in the film that has someone getting choked that just about soured the entire thing for me. That’s all I can really say about American Ultra. I realize this is bare bones, but so is the movie. It seems mostly concerned with getting from action scene to action scene, but it still does it interestingly, if not nicely sometimes. I liked Eisenberg and Stewart quite a bit, but they can’t save this. I give American Ultra a 5 out of 10. |
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |