End of Watch (2012)

Pretty darn good, this veers wildly yet successfully between being a goofy buddy picture and a violent cop drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal (last in these pages in Source Code) and Michael Peña (covered in The Lincoln Lawyer, then in Everything Must Go, 30 Minutes or Less, and Tower Heist). There are some bloody images that will stay with you. Directed and written by David Ayer (wrote Training Day (2001), wrote and directed others I haven't seen), it pulls us in to the close relationship between these colleagues and the others in their lives, including Anna Kendrick (most recently in Pitch Perfect).

I wanted to flesh out the "placeholder" I wrote for this movie (we saw it October 18) because it's been nominated for a Critics Choice Best Actor Award for Gyllenhaal, and they will be handed out this Thursday evening. The National Board of Review has put this on its list of Top Ten Independent Films for the year and it has two nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards: Peña for Supporting Male and Roman Vasyanov (new to me) for Cinematography. The latter nomination is ironic to me because it's a serious MPMS (motion picture motion sickness) inducer, partly due to a subplot of Gyllenhaal's character documenting his life with a hand-held camera. Apparently I was warned but didn't look at my notes before we picked something to see while we were out of town back then.

Its expected DVD release is January 22 and with rottentomatoes' critics averaging 85 and audiences 88, you might want to put it in your queue if you don't mind violence and its dubious distinction of being sixth in the all time profanity list, with 326 instances of the F word in 109 minutes.

Placeholder for 6 movies

Yeah, I was behind in blogging when I left town on September 22, and since then I've been home for about 10 non-consecutive days, so here are brief summaries in the order in which we saw them, which I hope to flesh out soon, randomly. Please don't judge me for quoting myself later--a gal gets only so much inspiration. As of tonight three* are still playing on first-run screens in this area and one** in a second-run movie house.

Farewell My Queen, seen on 9/5. Beautiful costume drama about the spoiled Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger), her devoted servant (Léa Seydoux), and her best friend (Virginie Ledoyen) with both of whom she cuddles every chance she gets. Noémie Lvovsky has a wonderful turn as the head ladies' maid who speaks volumes wordlessly. We liked it a lot.

**Premium Rush, seen 9/14. Awesome special effects of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a bicycle messenger appearing to weave madly in and out of Manhattan traffic. An inventive action movie with Michael Shannon playing yet another crazy guy, this one evil.

Celeste and Jesse Forever, seen 9/19. A grown-up romantic comedy co-written by and starring Rashida Jones as a career woman pulling away from her Peter Pan husband played by Andy Samberg. We loved it. Shot mostly with a handheld camera, this induces motion picture motion sickness (MPMS) on the big screen. Lucky for you, it isn't playing on any now and you'll be fine watching it at home.

*The Master, seen 10/3. Oscar-worthy performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cult leader and Joaquin Phoenix as his angry protégé. Amy Adams supports as the cult leader's wife. Beautiful photography, wonderful period (1940-50s) set dressing and costumes.

*Looper, seen 10/5. Joseph Gordon-Levitt again, this time playing a young Bruce Willis, much the same way Josh Brolin played a young Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black III. Only here, in addition to imitating the voice, Gordon-Levitt's eyebrows and certain facial characteristics have been altered digitally so that he resembles Willis. Good acting and well-crafted story about time travel in the near future--the third feature from director/writer Rian Johnson.

*End of Watch, seen 10/18. Pretty darn good, this veers wildly yet successfully between being a goofy buddy picture and a violent cop drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña. There are some bloody images that will stay with you. It's also a serious MPMS inducer since a subplot is that Gyllenhaal's character is documenting his life with a hand-held camera. Apparently I was warned but didn't look at my notes before we picked something to see while we were out of town last week.

Completed full posts will be linked to the titles as I complete them.