THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE Ablaze With Blockbuster Filmmaking
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) – *** As far as blockbuster sequels go, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is about as good a follow-up as we can expect these days. The Empire Strike Back, it is not. But the second film in The Hunger Games series is great is ways the first film isn’t. And it’s lacking in many ways the first film is. But if there’s one constant between this film and it’s predecessor, it’s the consistently outstanding Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence returns here as Katniss who is back in District 12 after winning the 74th Hunger Games with her fellow tribute, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). The pair are getting ready to embark on the annual Victory Tour, when Paneem autocrat President Snow (Donald Sutherland) pays her a visit. After her victory by apparent defiance of the Capitol...
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12 YEARS A SLAVE Is Exploitation Masquerading As High Art
12 Years a Slave – ** Director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave is a horrifying motion picture in two ways. First, it lays bare the brutality of slavery in a way rarely, if ever, seen on film. It’s graphic, often disturbingly so, but that leads right into number two. The experience of watching 12 Years a Slave is uneven, falling somewhere between seeing a torture porn horror flick and a classic historical melodrama. It’s like a combination Django Unchained and The Passion of the Christ without all the fun. That makes it hard to take seriously. And 12 Years a Slave is a serious motion picture to a fault. In its attempt to be the Schindler’s List of American slavery, the film overreaches, developing what can only be called a sadomasochistic relationship with the audience. (This isn’t the...
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Review: Hugh Jackman’s Performance Elevates PRISONERS
Prisoners (2013) — *** When it comes to thrillers, there are the ones that feel so thoroughly contrived that it’s hard to accept them as legitimate pulp entertainment. (Think anything adapted from James Patterson or Dan Brown.) Then there are the ones that take themselves seriously enough to engross an audience with the artistry of the pulp narrative that contrivances don’t matter. (Think David Fincher or David Mamet’s films.) Prisoners is could have easily fallen into the first category, but doesn’t quite commit itself to the genre enough to fall into the second. And though comparisons have been made to Mystic River since the film debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, Denis Villeneuve’s English language debut isn’t nearly as clear cut a revenge drama. No, there’s a subtlety to the character development that plays in tandem with outsized performances,...
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Quickie Review: SHORT TERM 12
Short Term 12 (2013) — **** Quickie Review A counselor at a group home for abused and abandoned youth must confront the demons of her past when a girl from a similar background joins the community. This small wonder is indie filmmaking at its finest. Director Destin Cretton tells Grace’s story with an extraordinary intimacy thanks to the film’s modest scale. But there are still flourishes of great filmmaking that underscore the big drama. As Grace, Brie Larson gives a delicate and vulnerable performance that will bring you to tears of both grief and relief. It’s beautiful acting in this tiny film deserving of a huge audience. Short Term 12, written and directed by Destin Cretton and starring Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever and Rami Malek, is in theaters...
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Review: THE BUTLER Serves Up A Civil Rights Saga For The Ages
Lee Daniels’ The Butler — **** In Lee Daniels’ The Butler, Forest Whitaker plays Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), a black man who has served white Presidents as a White House butler through the most tumultuous era in the 20th century. And as Gaines explains it, black domestic help had two faces, the one put on in front of the people he or she was serving and the one worn behind the scenes. That idea is what makes The Butler a quietly revolutionary film. Most movies about that deal with racial politics have only put on one of two faces. There’s the face for white people, one where black people exist through their relationships with whites, both good and evil. (In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Ghosts of Mississippi, etc.) And then there’s the behind...
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Review: FRUITVALE STATION Is Hardly The Movie It Could Have Been
Fruitvale Station — ** There’s no question about it. Oscar Grant’s story had to be told. In 2009, this young black man was fatally shot by a white BART police officer at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station sparking protests and even riots. It was a tragedy, and that his killer only served 11 months in prison is an injustice. His murder, not unlike Trevon Martin’s, brought about the simple truth that even Barack Obama’s America is hardly a post-racial nation. Yet that’s not the conversation Ryan Coogler wants to have with Fruitvale Station. The film, which follows the final day in Oscar Grant’s life, doesn’t tread into uncomfortable territory and serves as a tribute to a martyr rather than a movie that investigates the true nature of the crime. If it’s an attempt at a docudrama, it’s a rather inauthentic one....
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