12 Years a Slave (2013)

I've said a few times recently that a certain film is one of those good films that I never want to watch again.  Well, 12 Years a Slave takes the final prize for that crown.  No film this year will come close to matching the intensity, dread and emotion I felt.

It's kind of ironic that the film begins with a phrase I usually dislike, "based on a true story".  When I see that, I expect some wildly embellished story that only vaguely resembles the actual one.  Here you can't shake the feeling that this is pretty much exactly what happened.

This is based on the experience of Solomon Northup in his published book, Twelve Years a Slave.  Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free-born man living in Saratoga, NY, was a respected violin player.  After his wife and kids take a job out of town for a few weeks, he's approached by a duo that offers him a job playing for a circus.  After they arrive in Washington, D.C., Northup awakens after a night a drinking to find himself chained and sold into slavery.  With no way to prove he was a free man, he's advised by others to keep his mouth shut, do as he's told, and not even let on that he's educated.  He's forced to adopt the name of Platt as he's transported down south.

I never realized that it wasn't uncommon for a free man to be kidnapped and sold back into slavery.  It's absolutely crazy to me, but in those times without papers or someone to vouch for you, there wasn't much one could do once in that situation.

He's first sold to William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who realizes Northrop's skills and treats him fairly well all things considering.  However, he butts heads with one of Ford's underlings, John Tibeats (Paul Dano).  After one particular encounter, Northrop suffers in one of many scenes that's truly difficult to watch.

Northrop is eventually sold to Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), a slaver known for his ability to break slaves.  Epps along with his wife, Mary (Sarah Paulson), are the living embodiment of evil.  Epps has his eyes on Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), a slave that consistently picks the most cotton, but his affection towards her doesn't go unnoticed by Mary.

Finally, Northrop befriends Bass (Brad Pitt), a Canadian carpenter working for Epps.  At great risk, Bass is able to contact Northrop's family and they are finally able to get a lawman down to the plantation to prove who Northrop really is.  I debated telling that part as a spoiler, but considering Northrop wouldn't have been able to write his account if he wasn't free again, you already know from the beginning what the eventual outcome is going to be.  Trust me, it won't affect your feelings during the film either way.

12 Years a Slave focuses much of Northrop's experience on Epps plantation, as this is when you truly see the ugliness of slavery and their condition.  The Epps' cruelty seemed to know no bounds.  Already a drunk, Epps is a twisted person, but he's equally matched by Mary, who takes almost any opportunity to turn her wrath towards Patsey.  You'll be shocked and appalled at that brutality of their treatment.  There are several very graphic scenes that make The Passion of the Christ look tame.  These moments are painful and agonizing to get through.  I'm not exaggerating when I say this is the most physically uncomfortable I've ever been watching a film.  You'll likely hear many people around you crying, and I defy anyone to not have a dry eye by the end of the film.  It's conclusion is absolutely heart breaking.

This is a rated-R film and not something I recommend for the faint of heart.  I was surprised to see many families with small children with them.  It's an important film though, so if you have an older kid that you think that'll be able to handle the images, then you will want to consider taking them.

It's a good thing they got recognizable actors that you normally like to play these roles, or otherwise you'd hate them for real.  I sometimes feel for actors that take on roles where they are forced to be so horrible, say the n-word and have to mean it.  It must be very uncomfortable to them at first, but kudos goes to the whole cast for their performances.  Paul Dano once again manages to play a creepy weirdo that you just want to see get the tar beaten out of him, and love it when it does.  Paul Giamatti and Benedict Cumberbatch are are great as they always are.  Alfre Woodard stands out in her lone scene.  Fassbender and Paulson are also fantastic.  Like I said earlier, they personify evil with their performances.  I get this feeling that Fassbender is going to one of those actors that's always great, but slightly overshadowed by another performance in the same film.  He's gonna deserve some hardware at some point for all these great performances.  Another standout performance belongs to Lupita Nyong'o.  Just her first major role, she shows that she's another actress to look out for in the future.  However, this is all about Chiwetel Ejiofor.  I've been a fan of his for a while, but this is finally the role that I think is going to put him up at the top of short list.  Every scene he's in captures your full attention.  There's one particular scene towards the end where he's just looking around, thinking, and it's so powerful.  It is truly a commanding performance.

I think you're going to see many, many Oscar nominations across the board for this film.  The screenplay by John Ridley is note-perfect.  There's no throwaway dialog here.  After just three films, Steve McQueen has proven to be a brilliant director, and this is his masterpiece.  Every shot in the film seems to say something.  He's gonna have hard time topping this, but I can't wait to see what he does next.  Even the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer is haunting, and I was surprised to see that Zimmer did the music, as it didn't feel like one of his typical scores.  It felt more like the score from a horror film, which this is in a way.

Because of what 12 Years a Slave is about, I hesitated initially to call it great.  It feels wrong to call a film about slavery great, but that's what it is.  Brutal, emotional and powerful, it's a film that's going to stick with you long after viewing.  12 Years a Slave is a flawless film that's masterfully acted, written and directed and completely unforgettable.  I give it my highest recommendation.

5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Prisoners (2013)

The moral of the story is that you are so gonna get your ass kicked if you steal Wolverine's kid.

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) is a family man who runs his own carpentry business.  His family attends Thanksgiving dinner at the house of his neighbors, the Birch's.  After dinner, the youngest daughters of both families, Anna and Joy, take a walk back to the Dover's home, only they never return.  While looking for the kids, Keller's son recalls a parked RV the kids were playing on, but is no longer there.  When the police find the RV, they arrest the driver, Alex Jones (Paul Dano), but can find no trace of the kids.  Making this more difficult is that Alex has the intelligence of a 10-year-old, so getting any kind of useful information out of him isn't likely.

Not having any real evidence to hold Alex, the police are forced to let him go.  Convinced that Alex knows the location of the kids, Keller kidnaps and plans to torture him until he reveals where they are.  Meanwhile, the detective that's in charge of the investigation, Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal), looks into every possible lead, even Keller.

Prisoners is a super intense film that had me on the edge of my seat throughout.  Hell, I jumped more times watching this than I did when seeing Insidious: Chapter 2, and that's a horror film.  I heard several gasps from those sitting around me.  The reactions from the audience added to the experience, and is why I love seeing movies like this.

I was a little nervous when I saw that Prisoners was two and a half hours long.  Considering the weight of the subject matter, I thought it might drag.  While I did notice the length in a few parts, overall it didn't feel like a two and a half hour movie.  It's barely 5-10 minutes into the film before the kids are abducted, and once that happens the tension escalates and never lets up.  Prisoners is also not bogged down with needless exposition.  For example, you get closeness of the Dover and Birch families without having to be told how they met or how long they've known each other.

Much like the characters, you'll go through a range of emotions and opinions throughout the film.  There are times you'll feel bad for Alex as Keller is torturing him, but then you'll think he's hiding something, so maybe this needs to be done.  Franklin (Terrence Howard) struggles with the morality of what they are doing to this guy, where his wife, Nancy (Viola Davis), goes along with it as a necessary evil to get their kids back.  Meanwhile, Keller's wife Grace (Maria Bello), has taken to medicating herself as she can't deal with it at all.  Even your opinion of Detective Loki will change.  At the beginning, he's a little cocky and seems like he's going through the motions.  He even does that patronizing, "Sir, what I'm gonna need for you to do for me is calm down", when dealing with the raw emotion of Keller. Then you see his own emotional investment in the case develop the longer he works on it.

However, the character I most identified with was Keller.  While his methods are extreme, I look at it from the angle of the father.  I don't have any kids myself, but I have two nephews roughly in the same age range.  If they ever went missing, I would tear the world apart to find them.  That's Hugh Jackman's Keller Dover, and I totally understood the lengths he was willing to go to get his daughter back.

Hugh Jackman may have been nominated for an Oscar for Les Miserables, his role in Prisoners is easily his best.  It's such a passionate performance that I couldn't help but get wrapped up in it.  As we're getting towards the end of the year there's already Oscar buzz about Prisoners and expect to see Jackman's name in the mix again.  While Jackman is going to get the lion's share of the buzz, I wouldn't be surprised to Gyllenhall's name thrown around, too.  The entire cast is fantastic and there isn't a weak link in the bunch.  Even Melissa Leo has a small role, and once again she proves to be chameleon.  I don't know what it is about her that I never realize she's in a movie until I see her name in the credits.

If there's anything about the film I thought was a little weak it was that there a bunch of red herrings, and it all wraps up a little too neatly.  Some of them are obvious from the outset, like when they go out of their way to mention that Keller has an old, abandoned building left to him from his father.  I wonder where he's going to hide Alex away?  Others are a little more subtle and don't pay off until much later.  It's a minor complaint though, and they weren't handled in a clumsy way.  I thought Aaron Guzikowski's screenplay was very smart overall.  I also have to applaud director Denis Villeneuve, not just for the pacing, but how balanced everything was.  Even how many shots were framed were very well done.

Prisoners is an emotional, haunting ordeal.  It's the kind of intense and disturbing that makes you feel like the film punched you in the gut after.  Despite the weight of the film, it features powerhouse performances that make this a must watch.

4.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Looper (2012) - Movie Review

I think if Bruce Willis really came back in time, he'd want to stop himself from making The Whole Ten Yards or Look Who's Talking, Too.

The year is 2044.  Time travel hasn't been invented yet, but in 30 years it will be.  It's already been outlawed, but that doesn't stop the mob from using it.  What does the mob use it for?  Killing people, of course.  Why, you say? Apparently, disposing a body has become extremely difficult in 2074, so the only way to really get rid of someone is to send them to the past where there will be no trace.  It's a little confusing at first, but Looper doesn't spend a ton of time dwelling on the details, and just gets on with the story.

Loopers are contracted by the mob to do the killing in the present, and Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of the best in the business.  They get paid well for their work, but there is a drawback: when the mob decides your contract is up, they send your future self back to be killed by your younger self.  This is called 'closing the loop'.  You're paid off, and then you're free to live your remaining 30 years.  At first I thought that would suck, but then I realized it's kind of cool knowing how many years you have left and when you're going to die.  Plus, you're basically retired in your prime with a pile of money.

It's very bad when a Looper lets his future self get away, which you see an example of when one of Joe's friends, another Looper played by Paul Dano, lets this happen.  This shows you an early example of how the movie uses the cause and effect relationship of time travel in their world. Shortly after, Joe is awaiting the arrival of his next hit, but hesitates when he realizes that it's his future self (Bruce Willis).  Future Joe uses this hesitation to get away, but he has a bigger goal in mind than just staying alive.  This is about the end of where I talk about that plot, as I really don't want to spoil anything for you.  Looper has lots of nice surprises and is a movie you'll enjoy all the more the less you know about it.

Looper is one of the few time travel movies that didn't make my head hurt or confuse the hell out of me.  It never gets into the specifics of how the time travel worked or any of the science, and it's really not important to understand that.  There are all kinds of nice touches to make it work in our world.  Like, modern cars that all appear to be retrofitted with an alternative powersource, solar panels affixed to almost everything, and the occasional gadget shows up from time to time.  They didn't go overboard with futuristic elements, so it felt more realistic and like it was still set in our world.

It's great when you watch a sci-fi film that touches on a familiar subject, but does it in a way that it still feels fresh and original.  They do many cool things throughout, like how they handle memory. As with many time travel movies, you see characters struggling with their fate, but it takes time to stop and show you the motivations of why they behave the way they do.  While being serious and thought-proviking, it's much funnier than I would have expected and the dialog is very sharp.

Another thing I loved, is that without even trying, this becomes a much better origin story for Darth Vader than any of the Star Wars prequels.  I can't say why without spoiling a huge plot element, but you'll know what I'm talking about once you see it.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt does his best Bruce Willis impression, and they even did a good job with the makeup to make him look like a younger version of Bruce Willis.  His performance makes the whole thing more believeable, since you don't have stray thoughts of how the old and young versions of Joe don't look or act enough like.  When these two square off, they play off each other well and have some great moments.  Willis shows emotional depth as he struggles with doing things he knows are wrong, but necesary to preserve his future.  Both are great and made the movie worth watching.

It's a great supporting cast as well.  Jeff Daniels plays a mob boss that's in charge of the Loopers, and he has the weariness of someone that's living in the present knowing how the future going to turn out.  You can tell he had a lot of fun with the role.  Joe eventually hides out in a country home where he slowly befriends a mother (Emily Blunt) and son (Pierce Gagnon).  Blunt was good as a tough mother that is just trying to protect her son, and Gagnon was surprisingly good in a role that plays a large part in the plot.  Garrett Dillahunt and Piper Perabo have small roles as well.

After having critical success with smaller films like Brick and The Brothers Bloom, writer/director Rian Johnson has a hit on his hands.  I think he's ready to move into Christopher Nolan territory, and I expect much bigger things from him soon.  I would love to see what he could do with a known sci-fi/fantasy franchise.

Looper is a smart, fun and thrilling sci-fi film that succeeds on multiple levels.  Because it doesn't hammer the audience with the sci-fi elements, and has some emotional depth to it, it will appeal to a much broader audience.  It'll make you think, and I'm already looking forward to seeing it again. This is something you shouldn't miss in the theater.

4.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Ruby Sparks (2012) - Movie Review

How much easier would dating be if you could just dream your ideal woman/man into existence?

When we first see Calvin (Paul Dano) wake up in his very nice, Los Angeles pad, I was worried that this was going to be yet another movie where someone is somehow living in an expensive place well beyond their means.  This has always been a huge pet peeve of mine in movies. That's actually not the case here, as we learn that Calvin is an author that had the fortune of writing a very successful novel at a young age.

Calvin lives alone, and recently had a bad break-up.  His only real friend is his brother, and he went as far to get a dog to help him socialize.  This hasn't helped though, as his dog is scared of strangers.  His therapist (Elliott Gould), trying to help him through a bad case of writers block, gives him a simple writing assignment.  Calvin's been having a recurring dream about a mystery woman, so he begins to write about her.  Newly inspired, he flushes this character out to the point where she feels real and starts to fall in love with her.

One day, he wakes to find this girl, Ruby Sparks, in his kitchen having breakfast.  The movie never explains how or why, other than basically explaining away it away as magic.  They don't really fixate on this though, and the movie just asks you to go with it.  Calvin initially thinks he's going insane and Ruby is a product of his imagination, but he quickly realizes that she's real and is exactly how he's written her.

Writer Zoe Kazan, who also plays the title character, took a pretty interesting concept and played around with it.  She took the indie movie trope of the quirky, dream girl and put her in a normal relationship.  Things are great until you realize that Calvin really isn't all that great of a boyfriend. He's possessive, socially awkward and not very outgoing.  Ruby starts to get bored and attempts to make her own friends and do things on her own.  Unable to deal with this, Calvin tries to change Ruby.  At this point, the movie takes a turn for the dark and a little creepy.  You genuinely feel bad for Ruby the more Calvin interferes.

The film gets a nice boost from all of the supporting characters.  Calvin's brother, Harry, played by Chris Messina, has a lot of fun being the only other person that's aware of Ruby's true origins. There's another great part of the movie where they all go visit Calvin's mother (Annette Bening) and her current boyfriend (Antonio Banderas).  They are all just having fun enjoying life, except for Calvin, who does nothing but read and seem embarrassed by his family.  It's really hard to like Calvin at this point.  Steve Coogan has a small role and I always enjoy seeing him.

Paul Dano is an actor I've never quite been able to get into.  I just don't see what it is about him. However, I think this was a role tailor made for him and he did a good job with the rule.  I also came away really liking Zoe Kazan's performance.  Her script forces her to be all over the place as her character changes, and she showed a lot of range.  While not 'conventionally beautiful', she has a special quality about her, and it's hard to take your eyes off her anytime she's on screen.

One of the cool things about Ruby Sparks is there are a lot of different ways you can look at this movie.  It's very smart in that regard.  For me, the movie was as much about how flawed Calvin is and his idea of an ideal girl, as it is about Ruby.  Nobody is perfect, not your current girlfriend, and not your ex, even when she's "Baby Jessica" from True Blood (Deborah Ann Woll).  Trying to forcibly change them never has good results.

After a six-year hiatus from directing Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are back to direct Ruby Sparks.  I'm not sure why they took so much time off from directing, but I hope they continue to make films.  This is someone from someone that is in the small minority of people really didn't like Little Miss Sunshine.

My biggest problem with the movie is that it leads up to an ending, which while cute, didn't feel earned and I think it undermined the film a bit.  I would have preferred an ending that was a little more in line with the rest of the film's tone.

I really enjoyed Ruby Sparks.  It's one of those movies that kind of sticks with you, and I'm still thinking about it days after.  This is one of the smarter, and despite the magic element, more realasitc looks at romance and relationships that you're going to see this year.  Sure, it can be a little dark at times, but it's still something you can have fun with.  As this is in limited release, most of you likely won't have a change to see this in the theater, unless you have access to a place like The Vine.  It's worth a matinee, but I highly recommend renting this otherwise.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars