Whiplash (2014)

This terrific story of a driven young jazz drummer pushed to the limit by his abusive teacher is not something to see if you need to relax. The performances are outstanding and the movie is starting to bring in awards (Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance and more). Miles Teller (last blogged in The Spectacular Now) is incredible as the single-minded Andrew and J.K. Simmons (most recently in, appropriately, The Vicious Kind) terrifying as the mercurial conductor Fletcher. Paul Reiser (perhaps best known, and certainly most awarded, for 162 episodes of Mad About You (1992-99), he was also wonderful in Diner (1982), My Two Dads (1987-90), Bye Bye Love (1995), One Night at McCool's (2001), The Thing About My Folks (2005), and "the old guy" in Married (2014--now on hiatus but renewed for a second season)) lends a warm touch as Andrew's caring father.

Here's my personal Paul Reiser anecdote. A close friend of my mother's was close friends with Florence Stanley, who played the judge on My Two Dads, and I dined with her several times. At an Italian restaurant in London, England, in the 1980s, I saw Reiser holding court with a group of about ten people. I walked up to him and said I was a friend of Flo's and a fan of the show. He couldn't have been nicer. Earlier this year I met him again here in the heartland after his stand-up comedy show, but didn't try to remind him of the story because I was with someone who actually knew him personally and they had only a minute or two to catch up in the book-signing line. Still nice, though.

Fletcher is inspired by a band instructor who terrorized director/writer Damien Chazelle (Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, which we didn't like, was his first feature and this is his second) and the school is supposed to be a blend of Juilliard, Eastman, and Lincoln Conservatory. We have a completely different view of Chazelle now!

My heart pounded with adrenaline for Andrew, combined with the jumpy (and excellent) editing, the occasional wild camera moves (motion picture motion sickness, or MPMS, sufferers, sit in the back), the high energy big band numbers, and my musician's knowledge of the difficulty of the rhythms, including 14/8 (the title track) and 15/8. Teller and Simmons do their own playing (Teller took a lot of extra lessons before shooting), but all the other musicians are pros. My preferred jazz forms are vocals but the music in this is first rate. Most of the songs are written by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's classical-piano-trained friend from their days at Harvard, and they collaborated on Guy and Madeline. Tim Simonec, conductor and/or orchestrator of 98 other projects and composer of 12, contributes a few songs as well. You can listen to the entire 54 minute soundtrack on Spotify via this link (with commercials). Or watch this 5 minute youtube video for a taste.

Glad to report that we're on the same page with Rotten Tomatoes: 96% all around. Join the choir and see this before the Oscars.

Rosewater (2014)

Jack and I throughly enjoyed comedian Jon Stewart's feature directing/writing debut, a drama based on the memoir of Maziar Bahari's 2009 imprisonment in his native Iran. Gael García Bernal's portrayal is so positive that it lightens what could have been a deeply depressing movie. We may have wondered at the casting of Bernal (last blogged in Casa di Mi Padre), a Mexican, as the Iranian journalist, but his acting skills are so developed that we had no problem once we saw what he did with it. The co-star, playing Javadi (no relation, I think, to the character in Homeland) but referred to as Rosewater for his scent, is also not Iranian but a Dane named Kim Bodnia (he was in the fabulous In a Better World (Hævnen) but I failed to write about him). Dimitri Leonidas, who plays Davood, is English, there's a Turk and an Egyptian, too, but the rest of the cast that's supposed to be Iranian is. I did instantly recognize the lovely voice of Iranian Shohreh Aghdashloo (Oscar-nominated for House of Sand and Fog (2003)), as Bahari's mother, when I heard it in the very beginning.

Bahari appeared on Stewart's Daily Show in that year, which had a direct impact on his imprisonment, and the segment is recreated in the movie with Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones playing himself. After his release, Bahari wrote the book Then They Came for Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival with Aimee Molloy. Stewart has a sure hand behind the camera, and uses a few inventive cinematic techniques, such as displaying his character's thoughts on the sides of buildings as he walks down the street.

If you listen to the clips on amazon of the Howard Shore (most recently scored A Dangerous Method) soundtrack, you'll hear Aghdashloo's voice over most of the first track.

I've read nothing but raves, but Rotten Tomatoes' critics are averaging only 74% and audiences are at 80. But, like Birdman, it's in the top fifteen (#13 to Birdman's 10) at the box office despite showing in a fraction of the number of screens as the bigger earners. Check it out. It's worth your time and money.

Men, Women & Children (2014)

Critics hated, but Jack and I did not, this ensemble story of the internet's impact on human relationships of teenagers and adults in a Texas town. Out of the huge cast the standouts are Rosemarie DeWitt, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Kaitlyn Dever, and Ansel Elgort. DeWitt (last blogged in Promised Land) and Adam Sandler (most recently in these pages for his Razzie nominations for That's My Boy (2012), Jack & Jill (2011), and Just Go with It) play an unsatisfied couple, Garner (last in Draft Day) plays a horribly controlling mom, Dever (during the whole movie I was sure she was the girl from Homeland--look at the pictures--one, two--and see if you agree) her good daughter who doesn't deserve the psychopathic scrutiny, Greer (most recently in Jeff, Who Lives at Home) the well-meaning but dumbly permissive mother of Olivia Crocicchia (last in Palo Alto), and Dean Norris (Hank the DEA brother-in-law on Breaking Bad) the befuddled dad who can't figure out why his son, played by Elgort, has quit the football team, or, for that matter, why his wife left them. Elena Kampouris also does a nice job as the anorexic kid, as does Travis Trope (I've just seen his first episode in a series arc on his season of Boardwalk Empire) as DeWitt and Sandler's son. Dennis Haysbert (profiled in Dear White People) has a nice cameo in a few well-shot scenes with DeWitt.

Director Jason Reitman (last helmed Labor Day) and Erin Cressida Wilson (Chloe) adapted the 2011 novel by Chad Kultgen (credited for the story in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone). Wikipedia says that Kutlgen has been vilified for his writing being sex-obsessed, which makes me wonder how true this movie is to the original book. There's some sex obsession, but it doesn't permeate the entire picture. One thing the author got right that the movie doesn't is the use of the Oxford comma (it goes before the word "and" in any series of more than two things) in its title Men, Women, and Children.

I don't remember much about the soundtrack (no composer is listed), but on this link you can read the names of the songs and hear clips if you click the play arrow on the album cover.

Here are the awful Rotten Tomatoes reviews--29% critics, 53 audiences. This is definitely not the first movie you should see nowadays (Oscar season has officially begun), but it has plenty to recommend it if you happen upon it after its DVD release in January.

Dear White People (2014)

Jack and I loved this edgy, cringy satire about black students at a mostly white Ivy League college. Director/writer Justin Simien is making a big splash in his feature debut and began racking up wins with the Sundance Special Jury Prize for Breakthough Talent early this year. Tyler James Williams (88 episodes of Everybody Hates Chris (2005-09) and 19 of Go On (2012-13)) and Tessa Thompson (new to me) star as Lionel Higgins and Sam White, ably supported by Teyonah Parris (played Don's secretary Dawn in Mad Men with radically different hair) and Brandon P Bell (haven't seen him before, either) as Coco Connors and Troy Fairbanks. I'm giving you their last names because I think the contrast between "Lionel Higgins" and "Troy Fairbanks" is both vast and humorous. Dennis Haysbert (of his 113 credits I remember liking best Love Field (1992) Waiting to Exhale (1995), Far from Heaven (2002), a lot of TV including President David Palmer on 24, and his Allstate commercials) lends his gravitas and booming bass voice to the role of Dean Fairbanks.

Simien has a twitter page for the movie and I read somewhere that he used quotes from it in the movie. However, now that the movie is out, the twitter feed is different and I can't get far enough down to verify.

Although a composer, Kathryn Bostic, is in the credits, nothing by her is on the album, and her own website features an alternate trailer with classical music. Here's the more oft-played trailer. They're both very funny, and, if you like them, you're likely to agree with Jack, me, and the Rotten Tomatoes critics, who are averaging 91%, as opposed to its less agreeable audiences, coming in at 71%.

Don't run out of the room before the credits are over, because there will be photos of actual events at actual colleges that relate to the story.

The Judge (2014)

Ann and I liked this drama about a cocky Chicago attorney who returns to his Indiana hometown for his mother's funeral and stays to defend his estranged father, a respected judge, against a murder rap. Roberts Downey and Duvall are very good and the cinematography, music, and production design are stunning. As I recall, two weeks later, it was too long, however. Downey (last blogged for his cameo in Chef) is no stranger to playing arrogant characters but, of course, he softens after a while. Duvall (most recently in Get Low) doesn't let us down as the hard-to-please father. Vera Farmiga (last in Higher Ground) is lovely and warm as Downey's high school flame all grown up, and Vincent D'Onofrio (who can forget him as the alien made of bugs in Men in Black (1997)? I also liked his work in Full Metal Jacket (1987), Mystic Pizza (1988), The Player (1992), Household Saints (1995), Strange Days (1995), The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002), Thumbsucker (2005), and the 2009 Oscar nominated short The New Tenants) is also convincing as Downey's frustrated brother.

David Dobkin (The Change-Up) directs from a screenplay by Nick Schenk (Gran Torino) and Bill Dubuque (his debut). Janusz Kaminski (Lincoln) is behind the beautiful pictures.

My Rule #8 declares that Ohio is where hicks live in the movies. This time it's Indiana that Downey's character denigrates. That said, the design team does a lot with the small town sets and locations.

Thomas Newman (last scored Get On Up) remains one of my favorite film composers. Listen to tracks on youtube, beginning here.

Rotten Tomatoes critics didn't care much for it, averaging 47%, while the audiences are coming in at 78. Jack couldn't join us when we saw it, but I think he would've given it about a 70, as we would.

The Change-Up (2011)

Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman play best friends who are a playboy and a family man, respectively, and, when they each express envy at the other's life, they magically switch bodies. I know we saw it, I know we liked it, but it was released 3½ years ago and I forgot to write about it. It was silly fun, with Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, and Alan Arkin, among others. Also with Mircea Monroe, who plays Morning Randolph on Episodes, one of my favorite series ever. Directed by David Dobkin, who helmed the hilarious and successful Wedding Crashers (2005).

Gone Girl (2014)

Jack and I liked this thriller about a man whose wife seems to have been abducted on their anniversary. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike turn in good performances for director David Fincher from a script adapted by Gillian Flynn from her bestselling 2012 third novel (we didn't read it). The story is satisfactorily complex but the author's having written the screenplay may explain why it was 149 minutes long--we writers sometimes love our own words too much.

Affleck (last blogged in Argo) and Pike (mentioned in The Big Year and linked to her previous work in Made in Dagenham) are convincing as Nick and Amy falling in love and then becoming a bickering couple in various flashbacks. Fun trivia: Nick is a New Yorker and was supposed to wear a Yankees cap in one scene. Affleck, a Yankee-hating Red Sox fan, refused, and compromised on a Mets cap. Carrie Coon (haven't been following The Leftovers, nor have I seen her on Broadway) is wonderful as Nick's sister and Neil Patrick Harris (most recently in these pages in A Million Ways to Die in the West) excellent as a nice guy who gets creepy later. Also noteworthy are Tyler Perry (we haven't seen a single Madea movie) as a savvy lawyer and Scoot McNairy (after Argo I liked him in the AMC series Halt and Catch Fire) as a scam victim.

Fincher (after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake he produced all 26 episodes of House of Cards and directed two) is quite the powerhouse and his power is on the screen with high production values and another compelling soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (also did Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) (listen to the whole Gone Girl score here with occasional commercials). Apparently Fincher asked the composers to create music that's supposed to be relaxing but is unsettling, like something he had heard at a massage parlor. There are plenty of songs, too, but I think you'll remember the Reznor/Ross score.

That said, we saw this three weeks ago and my memory isn't all that sharp. Rotten Tomatoes is good with 88% critics and 90 from audiences.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Surprisingly funny and intense as all get out, this story of an angry, desperate, hallucinating, ex-action hero mounting a serious play on Broadway is a flat-out masterpiece. Jack said Michael Keaton's layered performance was one of the best he's ever seen. There's a certain symmetry to the choice of Keaton (last blogged in Robocop) for this role of Riggan Thomson, as Keaton played Batman in 1989 and 1992. My friend Judy worked on the movie One Good Cop (1991) and happened to be present for the first table-read of the script. She told me that each person introduced him-/herself. When it was Keaton's turn, he gruffly said, "I'm Batman," and the room cracked up.

That funny man should get an Oscar nomination for this role. He's already been nominated for a Gotham Award, and the movie for Best Film, plus four wins and a Golden Lion nomination at the Venice Film Festival. It's early yet.

Ed Norton (most recently in these pages in The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Zach Galifianakis (last in The Campaign, and last in a serious role in It's Kind of a Funny Story) also bring magnificent work to their high-energy characters: the mercurial and brilliant actor Mike and the hard-working, take-no-prisoners lawyer Jake, respectively.

I don't want to discount the women in this cast. Emma Stone (most recently in Magic in the Moonlight) is wonderful as Riggan's troubled daughter Sam, Naomi Watts (just in St. Vincent) great as insecure actress Lesley, Andrea Riseborough (last in Disconnect) very good as Riggan's girlfriend and co-star Laura, and Amy Ryan (was in Clear History with Keaton) grounded as the sanest person in the movie, Riggan's ex-wife and Sam's mother, Sylvia. That covers the seven faces on the poster, but I must mention Lindsay Duncan (Le Week-End) whose few scenes as a feared critic are important.

It's such a cliché to say that New York City is a character in the story, but even so, this couldn't take place anywhere else. In fact, it's narrowed down to the St. James Theatre on West 44 Street, where we saw Bullets Over Broadway earlier this year, and the block where it's located.

Director Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu (last in these pages in Biutiful) co-wrote the script with Nicolás Giacobone and Armando Bo, who both collaborated with the director on Biutiful, and Alexander Dinelaris in his debut. The cinematographer responsible for the moody pictures is Emmanuel Lubezki (Oscar nominated for A Little Princess (1995), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The New World (2005), Children of Men (2006), and The Tree of Life, and winner for Gravity). Apparently Iñárritu told Mike Nichols he was planning to shoot the entire movie in one long camera shot but Nichols advised against it, saying it would decrease the chance for editing in some comic timing. Nonetheless, the movie appears to be made that way, and I do advise those afflicted with Motion Picture Motion Sickness (MPMS) to sit in the back and bring your ginger or remedy of choice to counteract the constant use of hand-held cameras.

There are songs, but most of the soundtrack is drum solos, improvised by Antonio Sanchez, whose other job is drummer for the Pat Metheny Group. It is remarkable. Here's a Vanity Fair article about the score. No spoilers in the article but possibly one in the video. The album, with 15 drum tracks and six classical ones, can be previewed in its entirety here. In the very first moments of the movie, you'll hear someone speaking Spanish. That is Sanchez. The drummer you see on the screen in the movie is not.

Here's Rotten Tomatoes agreeing with us at 94% critics and 89 audiences, but it's been out only three weeks in limited release. This weekend's grosses obviously aren't posted yet, but by last weekend, when it was showing in 231 theatres, it was still number 12 in earnings. You won't regret adding to that total.

Before I Go to Sleep (2014)

Despite its dismal reviews Jack and I enjoyed this thriller with Nicole Kidman as an amnesiac and Colin Firth as her husband. The acting is outstanding, the English settings at once dreary and beautiful, and the story full of twists. Jack said Kidman (last blogged in The Paperboy) is always good at that deer-in-the-headlights look and Firth (most recently in Magic in the Moonlight) charming and earnest. Somewhere I read "What woman, amnesia or not, wouldn't be thrilled to wake and find Colin Firth in her bed?" Supporting actors are Mark Strong (last in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and Anne-Marie Duff (Nowhere Boy).

Directed and co-written by Rowan Joffe (we didn't like The American) from the novel by S.J. Watson, this features a soundtrack by Ed Shearmur (most recently scored Mother and Child). Here's a link to a playlist from others of his extensive catalog of soundtracks. Sorry about the ads, unless you see the very funny one for Poo-pourri.

When we saw it Wednesday the Rotten Tomatoes ratings were 37% critics and 53 audiences. One day later it's slipped to 36. Ugh. We think differently.