Carol (2015)

Score: 5 / 5

Carol left even my highest expectations behind in the dust. A dazzling adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt (1952), the film is a thoroughly grounded romance, lacking any unnecessary subplots, sentiment, or melodrama. More important, and unlike the other big queer film this season, The Danish Girl, it ends with affirmation, joy, and a rapturous sense of hope.

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett are pitch-perfect as the lovers, fiercely aware of social norms but flagrantly challenging their constraints. Digging deep into every nuance and subtlety, Blanchett is the more entrancing of the two, performing as a goddess in a role only she could fully realize. Her striking beauty aside, she has a rich presence and rare command of the screen as we watch her character confront adversity with not an ounce of vulnerability. Pairing her with less fervent energy, Mara plays the less entrancing character, which makes it more difficult to compare the performances. Less of a socialite and more obviously introverted, Mara blends in with the scenery, immediately recognizable as a wallflower in a culture that doesn't approve of her desires. Caught up in her sudden romance, she ekes out strength from her quiet character and, as the film follows what we might call her "coming of age" plot, takes the reins of the movie. The magical chemistry between the two women is hypnotizing.

No less hypnotic, the film's craftsmanship rivals even some of the most breathtaking films this year. Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) has done it again with his signature attention to detail, creating a period world that is at once stark reality and timeless fantasy. He mirrors the complex performances in lighting subtleties and richly layered set pieces. Cinematographer Edward Lachman (The Virgin Suicides, Erin Brockovich) follows the romance with a fluid camera and, in turns, passionate and compassionate attention to its players, lingering over their faces as the world turns around them to catch every tiny reaction. The editing is no less masterful, perfectly blending the characters into their world and drawing our attention to the most stirring of juxtapositions. Frequent Coen brothers and Spike Jonze collaborator Carter Burwell's score is also worth its salt (I was trying to make that match the book's title, but it's just not working), so pay attention to that as you go along, too.

There's not much more to say. It's beautiful. An absolutely beautiful movie. It's one of those that is, from beginning to end, a transcendent pleasure to watch again and again. And I don't usually say that about romances.

IMDb: Carol

The Danish Girl (2015)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It's difficult to criticize the most mainstream queer movie this year and one of the most recognized trans movies ever. And I didn't hate it. I actually rather enjoyed it. But as I left the theater, I felt distinctly unfulfilled, because The Danish Girl leaves a lot to be desired, and worse, leaves a lot to be forgotten.

I'm not going to criticize it on its grounds as an adaptation of a fictionalized account of a real-life trans woman, because that's complicated and ultimately silly. And I won't complain about its joining the long list of films that use cisgender actors to portray transgender people; that I can forgive because, for me (and my privilege), the whole point of acting is pretending to be what we are not. I do take some issue with the film ending in our protagonist's death. Of course, her real-life counterpart, Lili Elbe, died after one of her experimental surgeries, so it's not entirely a fantasy ending. But the film neither explains her death nor justifies it. Despite the script's repeated attempts to describe the dangers involved in early sex reassignment surgery, Lili is shown to be coping well with her recovery in one scene, and then in the next, she is (apparently unsurprisingly) fatally ill.

I can probably just write this off as one of director Tom Hooper's bad directorial movements. We've seen before that he doesn't really care about plot timelines or editorial continuity -- remember Les Miserables, anybody? But it's a bit more problematic here, because mainstream queer cinema has a nasty history of its subjects dying. A good question here might ask why. Maybe the deaths of queer characters bring more gravity and sentiment to their stories (read: so the hegemony can pity them). Maybe the filmmakers are hoping to recreate tragic real-life stories (read: preventing stories of hope from reaching the mainstream). But I think the real issue is that the privileged masses don't want to see or hear a story of successful, affirming, lively queer characters who aren't bogged down in procedures and policing, who don't succumb to ostracism and brutality, and who self-determine their identities and behaviors in a safe and sane manner. I think we can all agree that we've seen maybe two or three big-budget, A-lister queer films that end in happiness. If that.

And yet, my frustrations with this trend don't really have much to do with this movie specifically. My annoyance with Tom Hooper's style very much applies. He seems to think that severe close-ups on bleary, teary faces make a movie Oscar-worthy, and he often delays in the hopes that he'll strike gold in the silences after dialogue. I wish he'd take some notes from his great success in The King's Speech instead and realize that, with the material he chooses, the gold is often found in the dialogue and when his actors bounce off each other. There are some real gems in the dialogue here (not many, but a few), and it's as if he skates over them so he can have another long shot on Eddie Redmayne's face.

Speaking of Redmayne, he is of course dazzling. I wasn't really feeling his character, though, probably partly because the script does not give him much to work with. Lili as she is portrayed in the film is just not very likeable. Apparently lost in her own mind, she is constantly downcast, weepy, and prone to bizarre turns. Redmayne's performance is fine, to be sure, but I never felt much attached to his Lili, and so her death was more a sentimental indulgence than plot point at the end. Alicia Vikander, however, steals the whole movie away from him, bringing an intense personality to each and every moment, digging into every subtle moment with fierce emotional awareness. She takes tough moments of vulnerability (tough because they aren't always fleshed out well by the dialogue) and makes them profoundly real. Her nuances I would compare to Felicity Jones's in The Theory of Everything in how well she reacts to her leading man. And yet, from her first appearance to the final shot of her over a bluff, she is in many ways the beating heart of the movie. It is her presence, and hers alone, that makes the film a romance, and it is only in her scenes that I ever felt tears come to my eyes. Strange that a movie about a trans woman actually finds its strength in a supporting cis woman.

What else? The production design is everything. Beautiful costumes, intricate details in the sets and props, the makeup and hair. It's gorgeous. Matthias Schoenaerts and Ben Whishaw pop in for a few lovely scenes, though I might have wished for more Whishaw. The score is, on the other hand, pretty underwhelming. I'm usually a staunch fan of composer Alexandre Desplat, but for some reason his string-heavy work here felt recycled and unbalanced. Let's just finish by saying the film got the Oscar nominations it deserved. No more, no less.

IMDb: The Danish Girl

The Revenant (2015)

Score: 5 / 5

It's everything we hoped it would be.

A daring, dazzling adventure-revenge-thriller, The Revenant marks a magnificent triumph for a director who has already challenged our ideas of what a film can be. Much like he showed us in Birdman, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu shows us his flawless execution as a master of the art, fusing realism and fantasy together in a brutal, poetic epic that sweeps away other contenders in this year's Oscar race. He also, and much more to his credit, allows audiences less attuned to the technical excellence of his film to take profound pleasure in the rich material, atmosphere, and effects he presents. I heard screams, laughter, and sobs in the theater during the entire two-and-a-half hours -- I may have participated -- until the lights came up again and everyone left in stunned silence. This isn't just a film. It's an experience.

The otherwise thin narrative serves the film all the better, eliminating any unnecessary plot devices by streamlining our focus to the two leading men. The lack of meandering plot threads allows our awareness to spread not to extraneous characters but to the beauty and thematic powers at work, facilitated by the actors' performances and by the impeccable cinematography.  The latter, perfectly handled by master Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, Birdman) is perhaps the most engaging I've ever seen. Finding uncanny relations to the characters, plot, and theme in nature, his images of snowy mountain ranges, stark winter forests, and even fog on the water are so perfectly suited to the film that I felt as though I were there (and I suspect the film would be even more immersive in 3-D, one of the few times I would ever suspect that!), suffering in the frigid cold and basking in awe of nature. The lighting is also hauntingly good, all the more so with the knowledge that there was no artificial lighting in this movie; all shots feature completely natural lighting. Moments in firelight, watching embers against the night sky, dawn breaking through the fog, torches through the trees. It's breathtaking.

And that's to say nothing of the action sequences. The movie is a thrill ride, from one disaster to another, and each presented by a beautifully fluid camera, weaving in and out and around the action but never straying far from the actors' faces, allowing us to experience the horrors of the frontier while remaining firmly anchored to their effects on the terrified men. Lengthy action shots -- not as lengthy as Birdman, though -- keep things taut and raw, and the special effects cast each shot in magic. I don't know how any of the effects were done so convincingly and seamlessly, and obviously the winner of that cake is the bear attack scene. But there are others that aren't getting as much attention, and I'd like to highlight the opening battle scene as well as the one in which our protagonist flees attacking natives on horseback right over a cliff.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are the secondary heroes of this movie, and both are fierce in their portrayal of rough frontier life. DiCaprio's All is Lost or Cast Away performance will likely win him the Oscar this year, and though it may not be as emotionally articulate as in The Wolf of Wall Street or The Aviator, it accomplishes something even more profound here. Having had his throat ripped open by the bear, he makes it through the film mostly in groans and grunts, relying mostly on physicality and endurance to embody the man who becomes so much more than a man. And, even more intriguing, he somehow lets his eyes do all of the dramatic work in the film, and through some arcane power he projects his inner turmoil out from his eyes and onto the screen, brilliantly highlighting the pain, fear, hatred, and love his character experiences until he finally becomes an extension of the brutal forces of nature around him. His eyes mirror the flames, the starlight, the snow drifts, and ultimately the soul of man in the face of impossible odds. Howl, howl, howl, howl!

The real surprise for me here was Tom Hardy. Not because I don't think he's good  -- on the contrary, after Leo, he's one of my favorites -- but because the movie is basically Leo's and he's been getting all the hype. But here, Hardy matches Leo in flawless marriage of talent to physicality, and of intelligent character work to poetic strength. His eyes are no less telling than Leo's, wide and glassy, darting to and fro in shifty guile, lapping up greed and weakness like a wolf in the wild, ever calculating his heinous crimes. His voice work is also stunning, arrestingly effective, at once both calming and wicked, calculated and fierce, the stuff of nightmares while also slightly singsong in its lilting rhythm. I don't know how he did it, but it's brilliant. Perhaps my favorite moment in the film is his story to a young companion (Will Poulter) of finding God in the forest. I wish I could recall the exact quote, but essentially suggesting that when you're starving, maybe God is a squirrel, meaty and spry, and you can shoot and kill and eat him. Hardy is entrancing and cruel, and his moment of contemplation after relating the story is one of the most chilling shots on film this year.

I could go on and on about how much I loved this movie. You may notice it's earned a place on my top 20 favorite films list. I would compare my pleasure upon seeing it to the pleasure I found in Gravity two years ago. It's one of those rare films that I feel has inextricably grafted itself to my soul, one that I will never tire of watching or contemplating. It's hard to watch, painful even, in moments both emotionally violent and physically brutal. Do yourself a favor and go see the best film of the year. You'll remember that come Oscar night.

Oh, and I almost forgot. The score is amazing, too. Actually, I'll compare that to Gravity as well. Never overstepping its bounds, it swells and drifts in flawless union with the film and echoes the operatic grandeur it accompanies. I'll be buying this soundtrack soon. Bravo, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto!

IMDb: The Revenant

Joy (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

It's a David O. Russell movie, take it or leave it. Despite lacking much of its titular emotion, Joy is a love letter to both women and capitalism, complex in its emotional terrain but trying really, really hard to be the feel-good movie of the season.

Leave it to Russell to let the movie rest on Jennifer Lawrence's performance. She nails it, as we might expect, and does so with great fortitude and endurance. But she also isn't given much to work with. Based on the real life story of Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, the movie follows its protagonist through her dysfunctional household and her repeatedly sabotaged business breakthroughs to her final victory. Lawrence pushes through her chores with verve in what might be the best Cinderella story we've seen in the last few years. Which really isn't saying much.

And what a Cinderella story it is, one replete with Russell trademarks: bizarre character turns, dialogue that tries to be more important than it is, and occasional outbursts of cathartic, comedic agony. While I say it reads as a love letter, I don't mean to ignore the rather caustic worldview Russell still employs in his films. It's a profoundly melancholy look at a particular slice of American life, far from the reaches of the upper crust. Unlike this year's earlier Cinderella, this film doesn't delude itself into playing a classist irony, nor does it prevent its characters from articulately exploring their motivations. But that doesn't relieve the tension we feel looking at the generations of a dysfunctional family living in the same small house, with the charming but lazy ex-husband in the basement, the monstrous father attempting to reclaim some lost power, the knowing grandmother who cares for everyone in her own small ways. It's claustrophobic and noisy, with bits of dialogue (probably partially improvised, as in American Hustle) shouted and overlapping in its own perverse kind of musical score.

I think my only real takeaway from this movie is that it's not as cerebral or artful as Russell's last two hits, but it really wants to be. It's stylized and interesting, to be sure, but in a way more befitting a coming-of-age story or an adventure movie than a family drama or even a feminist manifesto. It's got good performances that are mostly washed over by cheap dialogue and meandering, inconsistent plot devices that turn the film into a tonally chaotic mess. And the final act plot turn (a watered-down deus ex machina) is so gimmicky that I found it hard not to snort aloud in the theater.

IMDb: Joy

Concussion (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

I really liked this movie. It's not nearly as good as it tries to be, but it does several things that I think deserve a lot more attention than they're getting.

First let's start with the basics. This is a melodramatic biography film that centers on the life work of one Dr. Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-born forensic pathologist who researched brain trauma in football players and fought the NFL's efforts to silence him. Of course, all this is based on reality, and I can't say much about the factual basis for any of this, because I don't football.

Concussion, though perhaps misnamed, focuses on the efforts of Dr. Omalu and the effects of his fame/infamy on his personal life. Will Smith. Yes, Will Smith -- and I can't believe I'm saying this -- gives an amazing performance. Sure, maybe his accent falters here and there, ringing a little thin when it counts (not unlike Chris Hemsworth's faulty Nantucket effort), but it doesn't take long before you realize that the character's accent is one of the least important things in this movie. Smith imbues his eccentric character with idiosyncrasies and nuances that left me speechless, only to then add layer upon layer of unbridled passion and compassion. He captures first your attention and then your heart, and he carries the film with grace and finesse. Bravo.

A few other high points, shall we? David Morse delivers a heartrending performance as Mike Webster, a tragedy of the sport who incites the main plot when he dies in disgrace at only 50 years of age. Our protagonist uses Webster's fame and fans to repeatedly declare that football is killing people, even as the memory of Webster remains fresh and vivid in his psyche.

And then, of course, there are my favorite elements of the film. Though it is structured as a typical sports drama, its primary antagonists come from the highest levels of the sport in question. The NFL is presented as a sort of ubiquitous, monolithic Goliath, while our hero-David is a doctor. A foreign doctor. Who speaks differently. Who acts differently. This isn't another "Oh, he's black, but he's the same as us, I get it" discussion. This is a "Oh, he's not American, but he's in America and he's trying to destroy an American institution, but he's smart and kind and right" discussion. Timely? Hell yes. I love the little moment when Dr. Omalu's comrade says that he'll be an American hero: But you're not even American? Even better. (I should note that the often-repeated use of the identifier "American" is a little overkill, but it's not as bad as certain other words we might hear in theaters this week).

The supporting actors are all solid, no question there. But the plot suffers from being a little too unspecific. It seems that, in trying to be sweeping and grand, the film loses some of its footing and begins to tumble in a chilly Pittsburgh breeze. And it falls into a few shallow pitfalls of the genre, namely toying with a thriller-genre subplot, such as when Omalu's pregnant wife Prema attempts to evade a car seemingly tailing her, or when their phone rings with (presumably) yet another hate-call and the lights dramatically shift and they look at each other like the killer's in the attic. I get why the filmmakers included these bits, but it takes away from the face-to-face drama when Smith's character confronts his adversaries.

It feels a little weird, seeing this movie in the last stretch of Oscar season, but then this Oscar season is just generally weird. It started too early, it's ending too late, and there was a lot of trash in the mix. As far as Concussion goes, it's a melodrama, for better and for worse. It's a streamlined, straightforward story, and it tries to be more artful and important than it is. But it's also timely and daring, two qualities I would not expect from a "sports drama", though I'm not sure that's even an accurate descriptor here. It's a feel-good movie, and yet ultimately it left me feeling worse (which is not a bad thing here!). Because this problem is happening now. Because the wealthy owners and the quasi-religious spectators are so fervently determined to let the game go on that they don't care about murder. Because, overblown as it may sound, we in 2016 America enjoy throwing our strongest men into arenas to attack each other while we watch and cheer. Because we enjoy watching heroes get "jacked up", and we ridicule them when they stumble, and we forget about them as they die.

Even as Dr. Omalu celebrates his victory, he sees young kids playing football on a field. And he knows that he will continue to perform autopsies on those battered bodies that America tosses aside.

IMDb: Concussion

The Big Short (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

It's a strange thing to enjoy a film but have no idea what's happening. The Big Short is all about the housing market, Wall Street, and the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008. Basically, a lot of things I don't expect to ever really understand. But the film works precisely because it caters to those of us who share that bewilderment. Of course, it also caters to people who do understand the crisis and vilify the villains behind it.

Hell, I even got angry with them. I didn't always know exactly why I felt that way, but director Adam McKay (in what might be the first film of his I've ever seen) shares his outrage so bountifully that even his kinetic directorial style here serves to heighten the anxieties and tensions at work. We flit from brokers and bankers to salesmen and victims with such fervor that we feel vexed not only by the duplicitous and voracious money-mongers, but by the filmmakers and their fierce understanding -- and criticism -- of the crisis.

If that makes sense to you, you're already a step ahead of me. But the primary way McKay caters to us know-nothings is by breaking the fourth wall in periodic, stylized exposition monologues. We have Ryan Gosling delivering voiceovers, trying to help us understand the forces at work. When even he needs help, he presents us with celebrities in various comical situations who then explain in hilarious and somewhat less-than-totally-enlightening terms a particular concept or construct. The logic, I suppose, is that Margot Robbie in a bubble bath can explain something as dull as subprime mortgages (??) in an entertaining and pleasant way, while maintaining a sort of aloof, satirical manner. Similarly, Selena Gomez stacking chips in Vegas can explain synthetic CDOs (??) about as well as Anthony Bourdain can make fish chowder out of three-day-old fish while explaining something else. It's a sly move.

It's also one that laughs at us as much as we laugh at it. I mean, isn't part of the problem with these complex business concepts that the majority of Americans really have no idea what's happening? I think it's one of the characters early in the film who decries Wall Street for coming up with big words and complex procedures simply so that its grip on international finance remains firm. So whereas McKay and his team seem to know what's going on, and while he seems willing and able to share it, he does so by condescending to a populace that only really cares about "reality" television, breaking down the fourth wall on celebrity life, and sipping champagne in a bubble bath.

It's a damning judgment of a couple institutions, to be sure. And all this has been to say nothing of the biting dialogue, razor-sharp and with more wit than it can sometimes handle. We see young men calculating their way into the field from their garage, and we see those same men later lounging in their commercial offices while the financial world collapses. Their performances -- particularly those of Christian Bale and Steve Carrell -- are stunning, even (and perhaps especially) when they prove to be less than heroic. Of course, this is movie almost exclusively concerns white men, but then I suppose that's a bit of a statement in itself, even with the likes of Melissa Leo in supporting roles. And by the end, they all work together, through perfect timing and flawless dark comedy, to infuriate the audience.

This movie isn't a drama thriller that carries a warning, like Margin Call. This is a white-hot, scathing indictment against all kinds of things I just don't understand. And it's one of the funniest movies I've seen this year. And that's exactly the point.

IMDb: The Big Short

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Score: 1.5 / 5

Quentin Tarantino's hyped-up newest (and, yes, eighth) film, The Hateful Eight, is conceptually and visually impressive, and it is also uncompromisingly ugly. Essentially Reservoir Dogs done in a fake-Western style, the film collects nine (yes, nine) horrible characters together in a cauldron that boils over into cruelty and violence during a beastly three-hour detention span. The unlikely and unlikeable characters spin webs of lies and slurs at each other from the get-go, and by the final act bloodbath, the only catharsis I felt came with the lights rising in the auditorium.

We begin with a stagecoach journey through Wyoming snow, shown in delicious 70mm film that only really works for shots like this. The remainder of the film takes place inside a cabin that, while improbably spacious like Hermione's handbag, does not need a 70mm presentation. It seems that Tarantino is trying to do a Hitchcockian Lifeboat, and he is ruining his own claustrophobic concept by expanding his vision. Even the wideshots of the coach outside are empty, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing, which makes me wonder why so many critics are applauding that camera choice. I might also add that the pretentious scope comes across as though the movie presents itself as a masterpiece. Which it most certainly is not.

One by one, the characters pile up. We have a full cast, from Kurt Russell (performing with a strange John Wayne swagger) to Samuel L. Jackson (being Samuel L. Jackson), and from Michael Madsen (doing his thing) to Tim Roth (playing an effete Brit, "the Hangman", a part probably intended for Christoph Waltz). Most curiously, we have Jennifer Jason Leigh as a treacherous outlaw, spending the entire film chained to her captor, face perpetually smeared in blood, and the constant recipient of brutal attack. I "understand" the violence against her in terms of the plot. I do. I do not, however, understand the repeated face-punches that Russell's character delivers to her. I also do not understand the laughter such violence elicited from the men in the audience around me. Sure, its shock value is undeniable, but laughter?

Now before you attempt to reenact "The Hangman" and (spoiler alert) lynch me like Jennifer Jason Leigh, let's get a few things straight. I am generally fine with Tarantino's penchant for movies featuring an underdog getting ultra-violent revenge; I may not clamor for more, but I can appreciate his style and his sentiments for what they are. But this film is not a revenge narrative. Not really. Rather, it's an excuse for a bunch of men to get together and toss around vicious slurs with no merit, little purpose, and bad payoffs. It's an excuse to paint the main woman in the film as a villain, chain her up, torment and torture her, and ultimately hang her, all while calling her a "bitch." In fact, I challenge you to time all the deaths in the film. Hers is the only one that takes longer to see, as the camera lingers pornographically on first her bloodied, prostrate frame and then on her wide eyes as she is slowly strangled from the rafters. Hers is the only death in the film that is not only witnessed by the camera, but celebrated. And if you think I'm being oversensitive, check out the only other two women in the film: Both are black, kind and hospitable and endearing, and both are coldly murdered after just a few minutes of screen time.

Still not convinced that this movie is ugly? Let's try the racial slurs that fly around like the snow outside. At least Django Unchained had historical and dramatic reasons for its incessant use of "nigger", and at least the leading black character in that story enacted revenge on the evil white slaveowners. I already knew Tarantino loved that word almost as much as blood, but I wasn't prepared for its tedious and provocative use here. I was also unprepared for Tarantino's lazy and crude flourish before intermission, when Jackson's character recalls, with perverted relish, capturing, raping, and murdering a white man who is revealed to be the son of another one of the so-called hateful eight/nine (being Bruce Dern's character, a former Confederate general). The story, whether true or untrue, serves its purpose in leading to the general's death.

But it's an oddly childish scene, with two stellar actors tossing insults at each other like snowballs. Jackson's lengthy monologue describing his prodigious penis is both stupid and unnerving to hear and to contemplate. Jackson's manic and watery eyes bulge and shimmer while Bruce Dern looks on in horror, and meanwhile I was yawning. It was, like the rape scene in Pulp Fiction, an obvious and lackluster attempt by Tarantino to make us wonder, "Wow, I can't believe we're going there," and applaud the director's use of taboo. But what it also does is perpetuate that very taboo. It creates a spectacle out of a tragedy, simply for audience reaction. It strips away any guise of historical accuracy or political commentary from that moment, and reveals the man behind the curtain: Tarantino, self-appointed knight in white, who sweeps in from a place of privilege to rescue the bitch and nigger and faggot from their weaknesses and then display them as trophies, whereby he may further declare himself a friend of the "underdog".

In fact, this film was so insensitive and ironic, that I'm questioning almost all of Tarantino's declared solidarity with oppressed people. Sure, some of his movies are revenge flicks of women, Jews, and American slaves; but I'm wondering what's really at work in them, if this new vision is a culmination of their disparate messages. For the first time in a Tarantino film, I don't see any moral framework whatsoever. I don't see any justification, causation, or even merit to the evils at work. Instead, I see a gleeful pit of vipers, slithering over each other as they bite, wallowing in the venom and the gore, and ultimately crying out not for compassion but for still more violence.

Ultimately, this film is little more than a dare. A cruel dare made by a man who feels impervious to criticism. He is daring us to hate this film. He is daring us to declare our hate, and then wallow in it while his hardcore fans will no doubt object to criticisms like mine with a simple, "Of course it's an ugly movie, just look at the title! Hateful!" As if, as long as the production team admits its ideological faults, it's okay to put trash onscreen. As if being offended by that trash makes us prudish. As if we should either get off on these images of gore and filth or challenge him and all he declares to be righteous. In fact, as I begin to glimpse that man behind the curtain, I suspect that his much-lauded style of lavish sensation is little more than just that. That his only goal in filmmaking is sensation. I suspect that his years of identifying with underdogs and minorities and outsiders is little more than a ploy to get acclaim and praise for the same trash he'd be making anyway.

I don't see Leigh, in this movie, as a strong female role in a man's movie, holding her own and fighting back; I see Tarantino holding a misogynist leash and pretending that the woman on the end is a trophy. I don't see Jackson here as an ironic counterpoint to our cultural discussion on racism; I see Tarantino in blackface using language that he has no business using. Tarantino is daring me to hate The Hateful Eight. I don't. But I don't have to like it.

P.S. There are elements of the film I do like. Channing Tatum in the wild west is one. Ennio Morricone's fabulous score is another. And frankly, some of Tarantino's dialogue is one. My issue with that last one comes in when we don't have, for example, Christoph Waltz and his icy, ironic eloquence to deliver it. It also comes in when Tarantino himself thinks his dialogue is the best ever when, actually, it's not. He should read some O'Neill if he wants to do another long day's journey like this.

IMDb: The Hateful Eight

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Score: 3 / 5

**Fair warning: I don't care about spoilers for myself, so I won't worry about censoring my thoughts here. If you haven't seen the film, and get violent when someone else reveals plot points, stop reading now. You should also probably just avoid the Internet until you've seen the movie.**

The most obnoxiously advertised movie event of the year, the new Star Wars regime opened with great fanfare and packed auditoriums. If you had the pleasure (?) of seeing it opening weekend, you no doubt shared with the enthusiasm of the multitudes as I did, and cheered aloud at appropriate points. It's undoubtedly a fierce spectacle, dazzling in its precision and flair, encouraged by the sentiment and nostalgia brought to it by both filmmakers and audiences.

There isn't much I can say specifically in praise of the movie, because technically it's pretty darn fabulous. The effects are killer, the score is lovely, the production design is interesting, and the camerawork is fine. There are some sizable holes in plot and characterizations, but as a part of a planned trilogy, I can't really fault the film for that; we can certainly expect to know more with the next installment. That said, I always prefer films (as sequels, prequels, and trilogies too!) to be able to stand on their own. I'm not so sure this one does. There's almost no exposition and new ideas pop up without preparation or, sometimes, merit. For example, early in the film, villain Kylo Ren uses the Force to stop a blaster's fire in midair. When has that ever been a thing? And apparently a renewed Empire (the obtusely named "First Order") has taken charge, led yet again by a mysterious Sith, though we don't know anything about what happened after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi. I guess time will tell. But in most of these respects, The Force Awakens is very reminiscent of A New Hope.

Of course, it's also reminiscent of A New Hope in ways that aren't so admirable. In fact, a few times I wondered if I wasn't just watching a remake of that iconic first film. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I felt thoroughly disappointed at least half a dozen times in this movie. I mean, where's the creativity? If I wanted to see a poor orphan on a desert planet looking for adventure, a masked magic man with a sinister artificial voice, a superweapon the size of a planet, or a mysterious alien whose short stature belies supernatural knowledge, I could have watched the originals.

And before you start saying, "Well, it's better than the prequels," think again. I've never had a serious problem with the prequels, and I've not heard many sound arguments against them, other than personal preference. Sure, Jar Jar Binks is the worst, but so were the Ewoks. Sure, Darth Maul dies in the first movie, but so did Alec Guinness. No, I think the real reason people like the prequels less is because the script and its themes are far more complex and aloof; in having to rapidly expand the galaxy and its denizens, the prequels have precious little of the raw humor and "realistic" sense that defined the originals. Which is fine in my books, but not so with everybody. But that humor and grounded awareness is what J. J. Abrams's new film has in abundance, thereby winning over so many original fans. For example, when one tough pilot is dropped before the intimidating figure of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), he glances up and asks who speaks first. It's the little moments like this that present us with a believable sense of humor, one that sparkles with wit amidst operatic galactic warfare.

In any case, it's not this film's (lack of) creativity that's winning anybody over. For all their editing faults and effects-heavy spectacle, the prequels matched the originals in sheer imagination and creative output. The Force Awakens just looks like Abrams's scrapbook of images and sensations from the original movies, recycled in order to win over doubters. I might add that, as a fan of the original expanded universe, there were extensive plotlines established before, after, and during the films' plotlines, written in both novels and graphic novels. I love reading the books, so it's a little hard for me to swallow that virtually all of them are suddenly irrelevant. That's a barrier I'll have to overcome on my own, but it certainly made me bitter while watching this new movie. Of all the brilliant stories and characters in the expanded universe, to have the filmmakers here just pirate plot points and images from an old movie is pretty irritating. But I suppose that's just a matter of personal preference, not unlike the disdain some feel toward the prequels.

Maybe I'm harping on something that doesn't matter much. Maybe the new Empire (Disney?) is planning on making the second and third films (plus more, apparently? God, I hope it's not overkill) wildly novel and imaginative, so they had to make this one familiar. I guess we'll have to wait for episode eight. For now, it's a nice excursion, and one that promises even more boons in the coming years. And speaking of boons, let's praise the amazing cast ( and casting director) here for a moment. Yay, the movie isn't only full of white people! Yay, we have a badass female protagonist! Yay, Oscar Isaac is my favorite! But seriously, the cast is great and their work is great, especially the newbies. I'll happily follow any mainstream sci-fi adventure with a cast that can impress me this much this quickly. Focal point: My favorite scene in the film is when Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John Boyega) are attempting to fix the Falcon, and BB-8 is withholding the location of the Rebel base. It's a fast and charming verbal dance between the three, and one that had me giggling for minutes afterward. It's scenes like that that won me over. Let's hope Abrams has more of those up his sleeve.

Here's a list of other objections some have had with this new film. Some are far more problematic than others, but generally I felt most of these ideas while watching the picture. Check it out: http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/274463/episode-vii-sucks/.

IMDb: The Force Awakens

In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

There were three movies I was most looking forward to this year. Jurassic World, The Revenant, and this one. The first exceeded my expectations, the second probably will. This one was a fine film, and it didn't really disappoint, so at least there's that.

I haven't read the book, but I knew most of the story. And, of course, Moby-Dick is one of my favorite books. But I think this movie is getting pretty mild reviews because viewers are expecting an epic like Moby-Dick. FUN FACT: This isn't an adaptation of Moby-Dick. So if you, like the multitude of critics out there, are expecting a sweeping odyssey for god and glory, for vengeance and vanity, you can skip this movie rather than bash it.

Ultimately, this is a pretty intimate film. Focused on the crew of the Essex and its doomed voyage in the desert-like mid-Pacific, this film concerns itself with practical matters and personal conflicts. Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Chris Hemsworth, and Cillian Murphy play the captain and mates of the ship, ever at odds and determined to lead the crew to success. Of course, one poor decision leads to another, and eventually the crew find themselves adrift in small whaling boats on trackless seas, preyed upon by a whale with a vendetta. Madness and desperation follow, as the men roast under an equatorial sun and resort to cannibalism to survive. The performances are intense and focused, and their physical transformations are no small wonder. Of course, their accents are all over the board, and Hemsworth's is cringe-worthy at times, but it's not the worst sin imaginable.

Especially wonderful in the film are Ben Whishaw as Herman Melville and Brendan Gleeson as Thomas Nickerson, Melville's main source in crafting his masterpiece. I could have hardly asked for more this holiday season than seeing Whishaw and Gleeson sitting opposite each other, each tearing up as the story unfolds, each battling inner demons. And young wonder Tom Holland (The Impossible, Wolf Hall) holds his own amidst the grown men. Unfortunately, there is little time to dwell on any particular character, as the film is rather action/adventure oriented, and the script is so streamlined.

We move along at a quick clip, which is fine in encompassing a journey that takes at least a year (I lost count of the subtitles and voice-overs declaring that yet 3 more months had passed), but it certainly limits the impact of themes at work. Though the film certainly plays with themes from Moby-Dick, such as suggesting divine or demonic motivations behind the antagonist, the abilities of men in the face of nature, and the relativity of sanity, it never really delves deeply into any of them. I suppose that's alright, and it more effectively informs the character Melville's final moments of dialogue.

I could wax ad nauseam on the tonal curiosities (and, at least in my opinion, ambiguities) of the film, and my feelings about them, both positive and negative. But I won't here, because it will take me at least another viewing to understand how the film works as a whole. But I would like to talk a bit about Ron Howard. Though many of his films tend to be tonally, well, curious and inconsistent, there can be little doubt about his aesthetic approach to each film. Like a chameleon, he alters his visual style for each picture; always distinctive, always different. This film is no different, as it takes an almost handheld approach to the action on the high seas, shaking from point of interest to point of interest with great speed and gritty hyperrealism. Dipping below the waves and above, we are always reminded by the camera that we are in the heat of the action. Interspersed are a few wide shots that remind us how small these men are in the vast stretches of ocean. There are also no small amount of curious close-ups to details -- a quill in an inkwell, the wheel that pulls the anchor, the tip of a harpoon -- as well as super close-ups to faces. I'm not sure why Howard strung together so many  different kinds of shots in such specific ways, but my impression was simply that of hyperrealism and of drawing the audience in. Every shot is gritty and often even the lens is dirty or water-spotted. I expect this is simply to satisfy the 3-D crowd, but I found it effective in 2-D as well.

This isn't going to be a big award winner, but I expect it to at least get a nomination for production design, special effects, and maybe cinematography, make-up, and score. Maybe even adapted screenplay, but as I said, I haven't read the source material. It's certainly a worthwhile film to see in theaters, and sure to please everyone who likes action, adventure, drama, history, and cannibalism.

IMDb: In the Heart of the Sea

Krampus (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

If you know me at all, you probably know that Halloween is my favorite holiday. If you know me well, you probably know that my favorite Halloween movie is Trick 'r Treat, the 2007 festive anthology film directed by Michael Dougherty. Its brilliant script, flawless pacing, subversive themes, and dark humor make it a perfect celebration of the holiday as well as an effective horror flick. It's a spellbinding concoction that ties together traditional tropes with terrifying new ideas, all presented with a vicious glee and fierce understanding of the cult audience it aims for.

When I heard that Dougherty was making a Christmas movie -- and that it took its title from the Germanic character of legend -- I was ecstatic. I was thinking that he would make the same kind of film, just shifted to focus on Christmas.

That's not what he did.

Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. But in enjoying it, I had to take several factors into account. To begin with: It's a Christmas movie. That implies, by definition, a certain sentimentality, and often a distinctly campy flair. Just look at the remake, Black X-Mas (2006), which largely ignores the raw horror of the 1974 original and replaces it with a (no less terrifying) materialistic vision of the holiday, replete with stupid characters under hallucinatory holiday lights, decorations and treats turned into weapons, and a dazzling set design drenched in kitsch and blood. Krampus shares a similar flair, from its opening sequence of a department store holiday fight in slow motion, to an almost giddy sensation we feel as demonic toys devour the children on Christmas night. It's a full-fledged horror comedy, but the comedy is tempered by sentiment and the horror is tempered by a PG-13 rating.

Maybe I just don't understand some bizarre subtleties of the film, but it also just doesn't always make sense. It's as though Dougherty, in order to keep his PG-13 rating, was forced to tone down the sheer horror of the film, and so instead he just smashed the little bits of horror he had to spare into a relatively tight frame of time, to make the film more fast-paced and kinetic, and thereby more "exciting". If only he had been able to take his time and let the horror unfold on its own terms, the film might be able to stand on its own a bit better. As it is, it feels like a snowy fever dream wrapped up in a nice bow and placed under a tree. It's a little too nice for its own good.

And maybe I'm just a bit desensitized, or maybe I'm just hungry for another sacrilegious Christmas movie after so long, but I really think pushing the rating up to an R would have helped. At first I thought extending the running time would have helped, but a 90-something minute horror film is generally enough time to work some magic. But with an R, we could have had that little bit of violence that might make certain characters' deaths more believable, or at least less silly. We also could have had a bit more real child endangerment (which is, unless I'm mistaken, a central point to the Krampus myth anyway), which might sound callous, but when the characters end up simply swallowed whole by monsters, it's about as "terrifying" as seeing the Sarlaac eat Boba Fett. Which is to say, not.

There are some real gems in here, though. There's a sequence (my favorite in the picture) where Omi, the grandmother, relates a story from her youth, in which her family was tormented by Krampus for losing the spirit of Christmas before being dragged to hell. The sequence looks not unlike the Tale of Three Brothers from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, being an animated scene with amber lighting and apparently 2-D shadow puppets. And between sequences of gingerbread men attacking the family, and dark elves peering at them from behind wicked-looking snowmen (that I'm pretty sure come straight from Calvin and Hobbes: Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons), I was never not utterly entertained. There's another moment when a character first sees the figure of Krampus, perched atop a snow-covered roof, which then gives chase by leaping across roofs as the girl runs, screaming, to her fate. Oh, and the design of Krampus is brilliant. Just spectacular. If only he had a more direct role in the film, and not his many minions. Alas.

I guess my final takeaway here is that it's the little things that matter. There are a lot of little homages here, from an attack with a nail gun (from the Evil Dead remake) to the dreamlike ending (A Nightmare on Elm Street), and from the sister's unpleasant family (Christmas Vacation) to Krampus's calling card (The Polar Express), the film is full of conversation for cinephiles. It'll take me a couple more viewings, I'm sure, to catch all the details. That's one area where Dougherty did not fail me here.

So, if you're going to see this one, try and go in expecting a comedy. That's mostly what it is, albeit a dark comedy, and one with some fantasy fun and a strong theme of family. Toni Collette and Adam Scott are a charming couple, and do a damn fine job as parents caught in chaos. And if you're expecting fun, the scare elements will be far more effective in adding some chills to your cold winter nights.

IMDb: Krampus