Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

Science fiction has hit a bit of a roadblock in the last two decades. Nobody really seems to know what it is anymore, in our culture of radically evolving technology, and so most of the mainstream sci-fi flicks have done little more than adapt and expand older franchises. Think of Alien, War of the Worlds, even Star Wars. These may be the staples of the genre, but they have also become the go-to narratives for sci-fi, and so the genre has become conflated with horror, adventure, and even fantasy to such an extent that "sci-fi" as a category can really only be found now in independent films. Sometimes.

Jupiter Ascending is no different. The Wachowskis' newest enterprise feels like a bizarre mash-up of Star Wars concepts and Matrix style, and it flies along at a breathless clip from fight to fight to climactic fight. Its premise is a tad too familiar: sad, hardworking girl is targeted by assassins, hunky hero comes to save her and reveals her true royal identity, and together they fight a vague evil ruler to reclaim the throne and fall in love along the way. Now please excuse me while I gag.

AND YET -- I really liked this movie. Why? Despite its shortcomings in plot and dialogue, its visuals are some of the most striking and beautiful I've seen from a mainstream adventure in years. The costumes are incredible. And (!) the cast: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean. Why wouldn't you want to see a bunch of sexies camping up the galaxy and generally being badass? Oh, and I guess it would be worthwhile to mention that, for how much she is objectified through the film (and by the camera), our heroine also asserts herself as a strong, articulate, and intelligent woman without losing her femininity or sex appeal. That's a tough balance to strike, if we look at the history of female leads in this type of film.

That's really about all I can say about the movie. It's not the smartest adventure we'll see this year, and it doesn't have the bright colors of a Marvel Studios picture. But it has a specific brand of comedy -- a sort of pure entertainment -- that stops it from ever getting dark and morbid. And if you allow the pulsing energy to guide you over the faulty logic and vagaries of the script, I promise you'll walk out smiling. Which, if we're being honest, is also a rarity among our millennial sci-fi adventures.

IMDb: Jupiter Ascending

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Score: 5 / 5

Wes Anderson is a unique and fascinating visionary, and this film is certainly his best yet. It would be remiss of me to note that his style is not for everyone -- and that even after a certain point in any of his films I've had about enough -- but his incredible aesthetic and sense of pace in this particular production are pure genius. Shall we check into the hotel, then?

Anderson's greatest strength, in my opinion, lies in his ability to amass an irresistible cast and then turn them loose in a surreal/hyperreal/[insert descriptor] environment. This film alone boasts an enormous ensemble including Adrien Brody, Williem Dafoe, Jude Law, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Wilkinson, Saoirse Ronan, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Jason Schwartzman, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Almaric, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, and Owen Wilson. I mean, honestly. And then there's our leads. Ralph Fiennes in yet another character role, and the young (and, to me, totally unfamiliar) Tony Revolori. These two men balance each other flawlessly, and their volleyed energy is both captivating and endlessly entertaining.

Our story concerns a devoted concierge Gustave (Fiennes) who runs the fabulous titular hotel. His service includes special attention to the intimate desires of aging women, one of whom (Swinton) mysteriously dies and leaves to him a valuable painting. After Gustave steals the lady's painting, her furious family (Brody) hires an assassin (Dafoe) to track it down and eliminate rival heirs. Meanwhile, Gustave is arrested under suspicion of murder and escapes jail with help of his protégé lobby boy, Zero (Revolori). The two team up to prove Gustave's innocence, which of course happens after many chases and shootouts.

The plot can get a bit thick, but the film doesn't much count on the plot to carry it. It also doesn't do much for character; to be sure, Gustave and Zero are wonderfully realized, but the remaining characters are loose archetypes intended for comic revelation, and often rely on the actor's celebrity or aesthetic résumé. Instead, Anderson gives us so many visual pleasures in each frame that the whole film becomes a sinfully rich buffet of images. He divides time periods with different aspect ratios, and transitions between miniatures, sets, and effects with intoxicating ease. The intense complexity of visuals in this film mirrors (and arguably glosses over) the great thematic depths to which the film dives. Its sharp wit centers on a narrative of unlikely friendship and personal redemption, framed against an atmosphere of change and unrest (as the fictional setting is seen to be an isolated European mountainside in the years between the World Wars). Anderson uses a pseudo-farcical caper as a vehicle to carry our leading men on a journey that ultimately legitimizes their daily efforts in service of their occupation. I was most satisfied, though, with the frame story, in which we see a larger context for the adventures of Gustave, including the effects of war and poverty and the importance of having one's story told, especially if that is your primary legacy. The last shot is a powerful punch on that front.

IMDb: The Grand Budapest Hotel

A Most Violent Year (2014)

Score: 5 / 5

Easily the most undeservedly understated film this year, I am convinced that A Most Violent Year is also one of the best. Perhaps its late release resulted in its being almost entirely ignored by the awards circuit, but then we all know how much that actually means. Just think of all the truly amazing -- and awards-snubbed -- films just last year: Enemy, Under the Skin, Locke, Love is Strange, Snowpiercer, Only Lovers Left Alive, and many others. Besides the otherwise familiar romantic drama Love is Strange, these films aggressively bend genre conventions and even filmmaking techniques, resulting in abstract, experimental film less approachable by Academy voters. So why do I push A Most Violent Year into their company?

A Most Violent Year follows the odd but welcome strain of crime dramas and neo-noir/art films of this past year, including A Most Wanted Man, A Walk Among the Tombstones, and The Drop. It also continues this year's seemingly universal cinematic meditation on moral compromise and, well, fifty shades of gray-area ethics. (Stay tuned for more on that, in my pre-Oscar post. Forthcoming.)

This film concerns a young business man (Oscar Isaac) -- aptly named Abel Morales, in full artistic/allegorical significance -- who seeks expansion and security. His product, fuel oil, is a hot commodity in 1981 New York, and his truck drivers are subjected to attacks from hijacking competitors, and a district attorney (David Oyelowo) targets his business for intense scrutiny. Meanwhile, the Morales household is tested repeatedly by both gangsters and cops, resulting in Abel's wife, Anna (Jessica Chastain), taking matters into her own hands. So now let's talk about why I'm crazy about this picture.

EW's Esther Zuckerman said it best: "History will remember it [because...] the film will stand as evidence of major talents whose careers are still on the upswing". Leading is Oscar Isaac, a personal favorite, whose successes haven't been much recognized (remember Inside Llewyn Davis?) perhaps because his greatest talent lies in his ability to restrain and nuance a performance. Isaac flawlessly gives his character a powerhouse journey through being a husband, father, and successful business leader. He carries his paternal strength into the workplace and makes an otherwise dirty and dangerous job profoundly intimate and validating. The film is worth watching just for his performance (but also everything else). Because he's so wonderful, please take some time to get to know him before he becomes a mainstream sensation in this year's Star Wars: Episode VII and X-Men: Apocalypse. Good starting places might be The Nativity Story (2006), Won't Back Down (2012), or The Two Faces of January (2014).

Following his lead and matching him at every turn is Jessica Chastain, easily one of the most versatile  and prolific actresses of the last five years: Coriolanus (2011), The Help (2011), Lawless (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Mama (2013), Salome (2013...okay, I haven't seen it yet, but I am actively hunting for it!), Interstellar (2014), and the forthcoming (or, should I say, selectively released) The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. Sorry about the lists, but I'm crazy about these people. Chastain transforms her chameleonic self yet again into a bizarre character who desperately seeks strength in a world that will not permit it. She seeks social power by throwing a party, only to have it ripped from her by a police raid; she seeks personal security by keeping a gun handy, only to use it to put a deer out of its misery. She plays into an older, almost campy, type of leading woman, allowing her costume (and veritable fingernail-talons) to become an extension of her while she perfectly owns the tricky accent and dutiful housewife/co-conspirator role. She is a marvel.

Director and writer J.C. Chandor -- Margin Call (2011), All is Lost (2013) -- is, for me, perhaps the most promising director of the last three years because he has only directed three feature films, and each has been an utter success. Each has also, and more importantly, been radically different from the others. Chandor hasn't established a distinct style of filmmaking, which for me makes him a more intriguing director and one with undeniable artistic integrity. He films A Most Violent Year with attention to delicate emotional beats and a rhythmic visual pulse that mirrors his beautiful dialogue. His style is augmented with the stunning costumes: fitted, clean suits and coats, coats, COATS. Cinematographer Bradford Young (also unrecognized for his killer work in this year's Selma) keeps things hopping in an otherwise slow, taut drama, and works to shade the screen into subtle dusk. Chandor and Young work together to make the film dark, seductive, and meditative, with through-lines of razor-sharp wit and cruel tension. It is, truly, a most brutal viewing experience.

IMDb: A Most Violent Year

Cake (2014)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I was not expecting much sweet stuff from Cake. I haven't seen Jennifer Aniston do much, so I have no real opinion of her, and this film looked mostly like an award-grasping vehicle. But after her Golden Globe nomination, I thought I'd give it a go. And holy crap, I was wrong.

To be sure, the film works almost entirely because of Aniston's performance. She is Claire, an apparently kind, clever, and successful woman who has survived a car accident. Her son, however, did not survive, and Claire is left severely scarred and in chronic pain. Aniston poignantly and not-so-gently embodies the pain and bitterness of her character, both in her amazing physical work and in her desperate struggle to reconcile her past with her future. In fact, I would consider her journey to be not unlike that of the bereaved parents in David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. But I won't describe much of the movie here, because it's quite long and involved. Just take my word that it's an engaging, intelligent, and occasionally funny "story", if you're one of those people who obsess over plot.

Cake features a most unlikely cast, and yet the actors work in remarkable unity. Adriana Barraza skillfully mirrors Aniston's every move, though her character Silvana, Claire's hired help, is almost Claire's opposite: kind, motherly, affectionate, and fiercely loyal, even when she is obliged to help her boss smuggle drugs. The rest of the cast only appears in passing, but each performs with such strength in their few scenes that they balance the film's focus on Aniston. Felicity Huffman hilariously plays the support group's leader, William H. Macy pops in as the other party in the Accident, and Anna Kendrick plays the funny/creepy ghost of another woman in Claire's support group who committed suicide. The real treasures in this incredible ensemble are Chris Messina and Sam Worthington, who gently provide a male presence in the film and a romantic motivation for Claire.

The rest of the film isn't particularly novel in content, but it has several important stylistic and thematic characteristics. Director Daniel Barnz (Won't Back Down, 2012), of whom I expect even more great things in years to come, trains his focus on Aniston in moments of quiet isolation, giving Aniston the time to perfect her performance. These moments are contrasted sharply with her carefully guarded social presence: We see her acerbic aggression in the first scene, wherein she harnesses intense gallows humor to mock the group. In this way, Barnz works seamlessly with writer Patrick Tobin to craft a film with remarkably little "comfort" or sentimentality; instead, we get a clear, brutal picture of a life (of privilege, to be sure) plagued by pain and loneliness. One of the most shocking -- and, I think, timely -- moments happens as Claire is attempting therapy. After Claire yells, curses, and gives up, her trainer asks her if she even truly wants to get better. That moment felt like a great centerpiece to the film, wherein Claire recognizes that her identity has become this wounded, scarred shell of a woman, dictated by pain and painkillers and devoid of joy, love, or even hope.

Perhaps the greatest evidence of the filmmaker's intelligence is not allowing Aniston an "Oscar scene" of great weeping, shouts, and revelation. In fact, Barnz carefully allows Aniston the freedom to create a holistic performance, by which I mean that in watching the film I felt more like I was watching a stage play. Whether by some magic of the editors, the director, or the actor herself, we get a clear, unobstructed view of Claire through her tumultuous journey and achieve a certain release with her at the end.

IMDb: Cake