It’s official: Liam Neeson has cemented himself as the world’s favorite new action star. Ever since his ultra-macho turn in Taken, people just love to see this guy kick ass. So when I heard of a film about Liam Neeson fighting wolves in the wild, my first thought was: “Well, that’s ridiculous” -- and my second thought was: “But I’ve got to see it!”
Thankfully, The Grey is more than just that. At its core, it’s a survival story. When a plane carrying a group of oil drillers crashes and leaves only seven alive, they must find a way to survive in the Alaskan wilderness amidst freezing weather and a bloodthirsty pack of wolves. This is absolutely not a movie for the faint of heart. It’s a somber film that’ll put your nerves into overdrive, keeping you constantly on edge; scenes of contemplative quiet quickly revert back to turbulence, and then back again.
The plane crash in the beginning of the film is one of the most intensely overwhelming scenes I’ve seen in a damn long time. True terror personified. When it finally ended and we were treated to a moment of silence, there was a scattering of “whoa’s” heard around the theater. It’s that kind of movie, one that’ll have you verbally reacting to what you’re feeling. 
And then there’s the wolves. When we’re first introduced to a pair of glowing white eyes in the darkness of night – which then turns into a LOT of glowing white eyes – we feel the danger just as sharply as the men do. As the human numbers slowly start to diminish, the already potent tension increases, constantly keeping us in the story even when nothing is going on but a bunch of guys marching through the snow.
Liam Neeson gives a riveting, tormented performance as Ottway, the “Alpha” of the group. And bonus! He gets to say things like “I’m gonna beat the shit out of you in the next five seconds and you’ll swallow blood!” Seriously? Only he could pull off saying such a thing.
While the cinematography is a visual treat (just thinking about that snowy vast whiteness makes me feel cold!), it is actually the sound editing and mixing that makes The Grey stand out. With ear-shattering sound effects (once again, the plane crash!), I can’t remember the last time I felt so present during a film. Director Joe Carnahan exhibits a thoroughly impressive ability to create a distinct and memorable atmosphere and tone. We’ve seen movies that take place in similar settings before, but Carnahan gives the entire film its own edge, with music that bends and molds itself into its grim setting.
There are a surprising amount of laughs – some intentional through cheeky dialogue, and some that’ll inevitably stem from the constant presence of the wolves. It can’t help but feel just a bit too campy at times – something I have no reason to believe the filmmakers were going for. Regardless, by the end of the film I was pretty firm on my belief that there is no sound more frightening (and simultaneously humorous) than the howl of a wolf.
Rating: B
Some people think that if a movie makes them cry, then it automatically makes it a good movie. They don’t think of it in such black and white terms--it’s something that happens subconsciously. They sit through the film, they cry their eyes out, and then once the film is over and they’re emotionally drained, all they’re able to focus on afterwards is what a wonderfully emotional experience they just went through. If I were to judge ‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ by such a shallow, vapid rubric, then it would be a phenomenal film. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of film that is overflowing with emotional manipulation to such an extent that I felt extreme resentment towards the filmmakers, and anyone remotely involved for that matter, for using such a heavy subject for easy tears.
‘Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close’ tells the story of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), an eleven-year old whose father (Tom Hanks) died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. A year after what he calls “the worst day”, Oskar finds a mysterious key in his father’s room, and sets out on a journey to find the lock the key opens. Based off Jonathan Safran Foer’s acclaimed novel by the same name, it’s evident right from the get-go that this story is one that translates much better on paper than it does on screen. Oskar is certainly an interesting character and worthy narrator (though I’m sure his mannerisms will drive some people crazy), but his trips all around New York City are mostly uneventful and are often accompanied by voice-overs to constantly bring us into Oskar’s psyche, making everything feel all the more forced. Thomas Horn, with his velvety-smooth voice, plays the precocious, oddball Oskar with delicacy and heart, making him the best part of the film. In fact, all of the performances in the film are applaudable, including Sandra Bullock as Oskar’s grieving mother and Max von Sydow as the mute who becomes Oskar’s companion on his quest.
But despite the cast giving it their all, it doesn’t change the fact that ‘Extremely Loud’ is a film that does nothing but upset. Why, why, would anyone want to see people jumping out of the Twin Towers? Why would anyone want to hear Oskar replay the messages his father left while trapped in the second tower, the messages that Oskar ignored? I found myself pressing my fingers against my ears to block out the noise of Tom Hanks’ panicked voice. No, it’s not because the film is effective; it’s because it’s simply something that I have no reason to want to experience. It has been over a decade since the September 11th attacks, yet the question of “is it too soon?” is undeniably still a relevant one. To make matters worse, the end is so syrupy sweet and artificially hopeful that not only did it make any genuinely touching moment that came before it ring false, but it made me angry that the filmmakers tried to shove a beam of light down my throat after one of the most morose movie-going experiences in recent memory.
Rating: C-
Every year has its share of good movies, but when looking back on 2011, I found myself feeling very – mehhh – about the year that just came to an end. Maybe it’s just that 2010 was such a spectacular year, but while 2011 left me with a handful of movies I loved, very few stuck out as movies I’ll remember 10 years from now. Maybe 2012 is here to make up for the lackluster year, because not only is it filled with promising Oscar-worthies, but a ton of huge blockbusters that actually look like quality stuff. So here it is, my list of my top 10 most anticipated movie of 2012:
10. Django Unchained - Leonardo DiCaprio. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Christoph Waltz. Samuel L. Jackson. Sacha Baron Cohen. All starring together in the same Quentin Tarantino film. While I love Tarantino, I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of western movies (with the exception of a few, of course)…but with this much talent behind a film, I don’t know how to not be pumped for what is sure to be a badass movie!
9. American Reunion - American Pie will always hold the title as one of the favorite sex comedies, and while I enjoyed American Pie 2 and American Wedding, I did find that they, like most sequels, decreased in quality. But American Reunion seems to have waited long enough since the release of ‘Wedding’ that it has the potential to reboot this franchise and be as funny as the original. Plus who doesn’t want to be reunited with Stifler, Jim, and Jim’s dad?
8. The Woman in Black - I’m always down for a good horror movie, but in the past couple years it seems that movies with actual scares have mostly been replaced with torture porn and extreme gore…and I’m not into it. So when I first saw the trailer for The Woman in Black, Daniel Radcliffe’s first movie since the end of the Harry Potter films, I was hooked. Watch the trailer and tell me you don’t get goosebumps!
7. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 – I admit it, I’m a Twihard. While I’m not a big fan of the final Twilight book (it’s silly beyond words), I cant help but be excited to see the second half of the immensely enjoyable Breaking Dawn – Part 1. AND we get to see Bella as a vampire! 
6. The Avengers – I don’t know much about comic books, but I do know that Thor, Captain America and Iron Man were all crazy awesome movies…so add them all together into the same movie, and you have what is sure to be one of the biggest movies of 2012.
5. Snow White and the Huntsman – There are two live action Snow White movies coming out this year, which is absolutely ridiculous. Especially since I find Snow White to be one of the least interesting Disney films. But with a dark new spin on the classic children’s tale, and what looks like an electrifying performance from the perfectly-cast Charlize Theron as the evil queen, Snow White and the Huntsman looks like it could be one of the best films of the year.
4. The Great Gatsby- Baz Luhrmann, the wonderfully over-the-top director of Moulin Rouge and the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet, takes on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby. Throw in Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and 3D (what?!), and one thing’s for certain: The Great Gatsby will be an absolute visual treat. 
3. Les Miserables- As a huge fan of the musical, I can’t express my excitement over seeing this Broadway show hit the big screen. With some incredibly powerful songs (I Dreamed a Dream, On My Own) and a cast of big-name actors more than capable of singing them (Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried), if done right, Les Miserables can be a truly fantastic, magical experience. 
2. The Dark Knight Rises – I’m not going to lie, I’ve been amongst the people that don’t see how Christopher Nolan’s third and final Batman film can possibly top The Dark Knight. How can the next villain even compare to the Joker? And to take it further: how can anyone top the late Heath Ledgers iconic performance? But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Nolan is a visionary who not only knows what he’s doing, but refuses to make a film unless it can top the one that preceded it. So say it with me: In Nolan we trust.
1. The Hunger Games- First off: if you haven’t read The Hunger Games trilogy yet…GO DO IT NOW! This film adaptation of the first book in the series it set for ‘Twilight’ status fame – the main difference between the two though? Anyone who has watched the Hunger Games trailer can attest to the fact that not only does it pack an emotional punch, but has the production value to actually make a quality movie. Not to mention an Academy Award nominee as heroine Katniss. (Take that Kristen Stewart!)
Honorable mentions:
Taken 2, Lincoln, Prometheus, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Gravity, The Five-Year Engagement, The Cabin in the Woods, World War Z, 21 Jump Street, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Amazing Spider-Man, Wanderlust
Thoughts? Movies i'm missing? I want to know what movies you guys are most looking forward to!
“One, two, three, four/ Bradley Cooper is a bore/ Five, six, seven eight/Ryan Gosling's super great.” No, this isn’t my halfhearted attempt at rhyming; these are the words that were chanted outside People Magazine’s headquarters at NYC’s Time-Life building after Bradley Cooper was named "Sexiest Man Alive" over fan-favorite Ryan Gosling. Around 15 individuals gathered together, equipped with Ryan Gosling masks and signs – in the rain – to protest the celebrity magazine’s lapse in judgment.
Hot off the heels of his incredible, heartbreaking performance in “Blue Valentine,” Gosling took 2011 by storm with three critically acclaimed movies (“Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Drive,” and “The Ides of March”), and scored Golden Globe nominations for two of them – he was the only actor nominated for best actor in both the comedy (“Crazy, Stupid, Love”) and drama (“The Ides of March”) categories. That’s not enough, you say? He was named Time Magazine’s "Coolest Person of the Year," has conquered the world of Tumblr memes (Feminist Ryan Gosling, F**k Yeah Ryan Gosling), and a video of him breaking up a street fight in New York City went viral (how heroic!).
So what is it about this guy that has suddenly captured everyone’s attention? Before this year, he was often referred to as “the guy from ‘The Notebook’” and was rarely mentioned at all. Still, ask any girl who her dream guy is, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his name comes up. He’s handsome, charming, polite, sensitive, and has that sort of bashful smile that gives off the vibe that he’s slightly embarrassed at all the attention he’s getting. So of course he’s a desirable choice to play the romantic lead.
Interestingly, Gosling has said in interviews that director of “The Notebook,” Nick Cassavetes, told Gosling he wanted him for the role for an entirely different reason, stating: “You're not handsome, you're not cool, you're just a regular guy who looks a bit nuts." Come again, Cassavetes?! While Gosling protestors (and every woman in America, for that matter), will vehemently disagree with Cassavete’s first two points, the third certainly has some truth; Gosling has the ability to communicate so much with just one intense look that words are often deemed superfluous.
This is especially true when he’s playing a character that’s not completely in his right mind. It is this attribute that most sets him apart from all the other leading men in Hollywood today. Gosling barely spoke in “Drive,” yet his ability to jump from sensitive and caring to a guy who could stomp someone’s brain in -- and his ability to make the transition to such violence not seem out of place -- is a great deal of what made the film work so well in the first place.
By the looks of it, this year isn’t going to be much different for Gosling. He has three films slated for 2012, including “Gangster Squad,” which he’ll star alongside “Crazy, Stupid, Love” co-star Emma Stone, as well as “The Place Beyond the Pines,” starring current girlfriend Eva Mendes and "Sexiest Man Alive" rival Bradley Cooper.
No matter the film, there are a few things we can always count on: His ability to make silence into an art form, that adorable Brooklynish accent (did you know he’s from Canada?!), and a overall aura of cool that makes him the closest thing our generation has to a James Dean figure.
If there was any doubt that director David Fincher would take The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and make it entirely his own, those inklings were quickly crushed within the first two minutes of the film. In typical Fincher fashion, Dragon Tattoo starts out with an opening title sequence set to Trent Reznor and Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” paired with wicked, psychedelic images drenched in oozing black liquid, making it loud and clear: this is not a remake of the 2009 Swedish film. And get ready for one hell of a ride.
Labeling itself the "feel-bad movie of Christmas" (which has to be the best tagline of the year), Dragon Tattoo really is a story devoid of any happiness, and jam-packed with the most detestable topics this cruel world has to offer – a series of brutal murders being at the forefront. By circumstance, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a skilled computer hacker, and Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a disgraced journalist, come together to investigate these heinous crimes in this stylish, intense, and razor-sharp adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller.
If there is one thing that takes this from a good film to a fantastic film, it’s Rooney Mara’s fearless performance as Lisbeth. She captures Lisbeth’s mix of quiet intensity and subtle compassion flawlessly; so quietly badass she makes “badass” a technical term. It would be a harsh injustice if she doesn’t get nominated for an Academy Award amongst all the Oscar-bait performances there were this year. Craig's Blomkvist comes off somewhat flat and uninteresting in comparison, though this is more a testament to Mara’s tremendous performance rather than much fault on his part.
More than anything, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a work of extreme intensity. The atmosphere and tone is quiet and tense, not unlike Salander...but any moment can and often does go from disquieting to full on shocking and disturbing – most notably a graphic and utterly unnerving rape scene early on in the film.
The mystery investigation was treated as a secondary character, and the end revelation was missing that little punch that’ll make you audibly gasp (which isn’t at all helped by a silly change that was made to the original ending), but with a character as fascinating as Lisbeth and an actress as dynamic and mesmerizing as Mara playing her…can you blame Fincher for prioritizing?
Rating: A-
What kind of warped world do we live in where we can see movies like The Human Centipede easily, but films that portray graphic nudity and raw, realistic sex scenes get slapped with NC-17 ratings? Having known little about Shame outside all the praise, I can’t say that I wasn’t intrigued by the prospect of it being one of the first NC-17 films to be seriously packing theaters and getting major awards buzz since The Last Tango In Paris in 1972. I mean, I can’t even remember the last time I’ve seen a movie with an NC-17 rating in a major theater chain. Most either fight it (like last year’s Blue Valentine), or grudgingly re-edit until it’s given an R-rating.
This, however, this isn't a film that’s been cursed by the movie god’s with the dreaded rating…but one that views that rating as, in the words of Fox Searchlight co-president Steve Gilula, “a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter”. And that’s exactly how it’s treated in Steve McQueen’s new festival darling, Shame. When the film begins, one of the first things we see is a full-frontal nude shot of star Michael Fassbender. His character, Brandon, is a sex addict. He goes to the bathroom to masturbate during work, has endless amounts of porn on his computers, regularly hires hookers, and trolls bars looking for one-night stands. Then Brandon’s life is interrupted when his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) unexpectedly arrives to stay with him for an indefinite amount of time, sending him into a dangerous downward spiral.
Filled with shots that linger far longer than is customary (especially during a scene where Sissy sings a slow version of “New York, New York”), this is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. Because of the way it’s shot, Shame is slow paced – not boring, by any means – by certainly not action-packed. I’ve heard some complain that not enough actually happenes, but to me this isn’t a criticism at all. Shame is purely about Brandon and Sissy. Fassbender, who has just recently taken the film world by storm, gives the best male performance of the year. When he’s staring down a potential hook-up on the subway, his face morphs from interested and handsome, to brazen and maybe even a little frightening. There is very little warmth to his character; he pushes his sister away and can’t deal with emotional intimacy. But when we finally see him break down, it feels far more revealing than any of the number of crotch shots before it. Sissy is in some ways Brandon’s total opposite; she’s needy, emotional and extroverted. But there’s one thing that irrevocably links them: the inner pain they both share. There’s something about Mulligan’s face that communicates sadness so beautifully and clearly, an attribute that makes her the perfect person to play a character as lost and vulnerable as Sissy.
The bravest thing about Shame is that it feels no need to give us answers. Of course it’s irritating, and of course we want to know the details behind Brandon and Sissy’s painful past. But McQueen doesn’t bother much with exposition and lets us find things out whenever it would naturally come up, giving this character study far more realism than it would have otherwise. If you’re prepared to put your thinking cap on, there’s a lot to mull over. When Brandon first sees his sister, he accidentally walks in on her in the shower, where she makes no attempt to cover herself up as they talk. A similar thing happens later on in the film where Brandon gets on top of Sissy during a yelling match with his towel barely still clinging to him. To the audience it’s clear: this is definitely not a normal brother/sister relationship. Was there some sort of forced incest between the two? Abusive parents? Like I said, no concrete answers. Perhaps the biggest indicator of how effective the film really is: I’ve spent the entire day trying to come up with answers to questions that can never really be answered in the first place.
Rating: A
All you have to do to establish that a character is dead-beat, no-life, loser: begin the film with a series of cuts of the lead lounging around in a ratty Hello Kitty shirt and sweats, smeared makeup under her eyes, with Kendra and Keeping up With the Kardashians playing in the background. Yup, Mavis Gary has fallen a long way since the glory days of high school. She’s the ghostwriter for a once-popular young adult book series that has just been cancelled, may very well be an alcoholic, and is single after a failed marriage. What could possibly push someone that’s hovering over the edge of insanity overboard? Getting a baby announcement email from her former high-school sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson), that’s what. In the similarly mean-spirited vein as another film that came out this year, Bad Teacher, Mavis has less-than-honorable intentions at the heart of the plot of Young Adult; after receiving that baby announcement, Mavis decides to pack up and head to her small hometown of Mercury, Minnesota to try and end Buddy’s marriage and win him back.
Charlize Theron throws herself into the role, playing the prom queen bitch perfectly. She has this squinty-eyed, sour scowl on her face for so much of the film, that I genuinely forgot how damn pretty she is when she smiles – which we see for the first time when she reunites with Buddy at a bar with the intention of getting this family-man good and wasted. And it’s unsurprising that when we first see her smile, it’s not even a real smile at all; when she see’s Buddy for the first time in years, her face and voice contort into an image of false cheer. She’s putting on an act. When she’s not around Buddy, Mavis speaks in this sort of chill, almost stoned way – she’s like the ridiculously unkind, adult version of Juno. Which is actually fitting, seeing as Diablo Cody, the acclaimed writer of Juno, wrote the screenplay. (And while we’re on the subject -- what is with this this writer and branding her characters with horrendously unreal and weird names? Juno? Mavis? But I digress.)
Filled with dark humor, Young Adult isn’t the movie to run out and see if you’re looking to laugh out loud. You’ll chuckle at an inappropriate crack a character will make occasionally, and you may even feel slightly unfulfilled by the end. Where Young Adult succeeds is in the same place where Bad Teacher ultimately failed: showing the human side of this beautiful, bitter, bitch of a woman. Mavis is anything but likeable, but in this case, it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t have to like Mavis, but getting into her mindset definitely let me feel pity for her. Yes, I felt pity for someone that looks like Charlize Theron…that’s how I know she did one a hell of a job.
Rating: B