MatM '15-'16: #22 & #21

#22 Spectre

Daniel Craig's 4th time out as 007 boasts probably the best beginning of the bunch; armed and hanging out in Mexico City during the Dia de los Muertos parade, he spots his target and makes a move. Unfortunately, he's spotted. So he gets shot at, runs, avoids explosions, jumps some rooftops, avoids some rooftop collapses, launches himself onto the foot of a helicopter, wrestles the man he was after, 'copter spins around wildly over Mexico City. Visually stunning, super badass.

The man he takes out in Mexico City leads him to Rome and to infiltrating the criminal organization SPECTRE, led by a shadowed man named Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) and his henchman Hinx (Dave Batista). They are looking to take out the "Pale King", who, thanks to some research from Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), ends up being someone from Bond's past. Cue wild car chase through Rome, recon trip to the Austrian Alps, Cape Town crater hideouts, gunfire, more explosions, seduction, gadgets. The usual.

The campy vibe of all the old Bond flicks? Gone. Spectre continues treading the path of new-era Bond--utterly serious, reflective, lonely and way too long (3 of the 4 Craig movies are 2.5 hours). That doesn't necessarily make it bad, just different. Sam Mendes, back for round 2 after Skyfall, had previously worked with Craig on Road to Perdition,  and it seems there is a mutual trust and a desire to take the endearing protagonist to his darkest parts. It plodded to the end, but the first two-thirds were hyper-engaging, thanks also in part to the supporting cast. Monica Belucci still has it at age 50 as the dangerous, perplexing Italian Widow. Léa Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Color) brings depth and intellect to go along with the good looks we've come to expect in a Bond girl. And Ralph Fiennes is exceptional as always, this time as the new M, who's left to constantly explain to his superiors why Mr. Bond has decided to blow various tourist destinations and/or national landmarks to rubble.

#21 Spy

"X Melissa McCarthy Vehicle" is usually not a filmic genre that appeals to me, nor characteristically has it been a critically viable one. Identity Thief. The Heat. Tammy. I'm cringing as I type this.

Something about this one looked better, though. My first inclination was that it had to do with McCarthy's re-teaming with Paul Feig (Bridesmaids). Even though he is the same Paul Feig who directed The Heat, he actually wrote this one. Once the positive acclaim began to roll in, I was sold.

Good thing, too, because Spy was a gut-buster throughout. McCarthy is Susan Cooper, a CIA desk jockey who is the voice in Bradley Fine (Jude Law)'s earpiece. When Fine is tragically capped by Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), Cooper, once a promising recruit, volunteers herself for field work to get revenge on Boyanov and her business associate De Luca (Byrne's real-life beau Bobby Cannavale). She and her ridiculous costumes are partnered up with Rick Fine (Jason Statham, who has never been funnier), much to his chagrin. Right around halfway through the movie, McCarthy's character lets loose, dropping F-bombs and other wildly inappropriate insults at anyone who gets in her way. And it's awesome.

This, friends, is a Melissa McCarthy vehicle worth seeing.

See you tomorrow!

MatM '15-'16: "#24" & "#23"

One nice thing about teaching at a school that starts weeks before other districts is that we have a couple of extra week-long breaks thrown in throughout the year, including our first annual "President's Day Break" this past week, in which I spent the entirety of my free time studying the accomplishments of Zachary Tyler and Martin Van Buren, visiting the James K. Polk Ancestral Home in Columbia, Tennessee and launching my conspiracy theory about the "pneumonia" related death of William Henry Harrison.

Yes, readers, I could have done all of those things. Instead, I went to a bachelor party for a dear friend in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Obviously we skied some slopes, took a dip in some hot springs and participated in some light partying/general revelry. But we were not behaving like your garden variety bros. It was classier than the image you're currently conjuring up in your head. In our rented lodge's kitchen, I played chef's assistant to my buddy as we cooked up steak, asparagus, full roasted chickens, garlic and rosemary red potatoes and broccoli for the eleven total dudes. We used words like "red wine reduction" and "shallot". On Saturday night we got super fancy and went to eat stuff like this:

It was excellent to catch up with folks I don't get to see too often, but I am happy to be back to home base.

Thus, back to the countdown!

MatM Power Rankings, Week 3:

#51 Aloha 
#50 Entourage 
#49 Terminator Genisys 
#48 Pitch Perfect 2 
#47 Dope 
#46 Kingsman: Secret Service 
#45 Ricki & The Flash 
#44 Woman in Gold 
#43 Paper Towns 
#42 Truth 
#41 Minions 
#40 Jurassic World 
#39 Vevé 
#38 The Connection 
#37 Trumbo 
#36 The Avengers: Age of Ultron 
#35 Far From the Madding Crowd 
#34 Focus 
#33 Sleeping with Other People 
#32 He Named Me Malala 
#31 Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (-1)
#30 Southpaw (-1)
#29 Everest (+2)
#28 The Wolfpack (-1)

From here it gets wonky: I had misinterpreted my notes that were with me in Colorado, and so the current 27-25 will all be moving up in lieu of a couple that I missed. So bear with me.

#27 Tomorrowland

Young Frank Walker is at the 1964 World's Fair turning in his jet pack into the invention convention. Main judge David Nix (Hugh Laurie) isn't impressed, but a young judge named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) thinks it's great. She gives him a pin and tells her to follow. While on the "its a small world" -esque boat ride,  a laser hits the pin and he finds himself shooting like a bat out of hell out of a tunnel and onto a platform where he watches robots, flying cars and bright skyscrapers. 

"Whoaaaa,” says young Frank Walker.

In the present, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) and little brother Nate (Pierce Gagnon, the creepy telekinetic kid from Looper) are living with their NASA dad (Tim McGraw, there to prove that cm stars can indeed play rocket scientists). She is snooping around NASA and is arrested. When she is handed her worldlies after being bailed out, she ends up in possession of the same strange pin; when she touches it, she is transported to a field boasting the same future skyline in the background. In an attempt to figure out what the hell is going on, Casey and her brother find that a store called blast from the past will know what to do with the pin. In probably the best sequence in the film, the store clerks (Kathryn Hahn and Keegan Michael - Key) play dumb at first before attacking Casey, until Athena (still same age as in 1964...whaa?) intervenes and gets her out of there. She tells Casey that a) she is a robot, b) she gave her the pin, c) people and machines alike are after the pin, and d) they need to drive to upstate New York to see present-day Frank Walker (George Clooney).

From there, it's a wild ride back to track down Tomorrowland. Does it exist? Is it just in their conscious? Why are a who's-who of sci-fi baddies after them? It's a solid effort with fun action that at times gets convoluted and murked-up in self-seriousness. Tomorrowland was written by Damon Lindelof (LOST, The Leftovers) and Jeff "Doc" Jensen (a former "Entertainment Weekly" columnist who met Lindelof while churning out the LOST weekly recaps, always full of farfetched and highly comical theories), and directed by Pixar mainstay Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles). It fell way short of recouping its almost 200 million dollar budget, which is fitting--even though it was a good flick overall, it felt like the sum of its parts was actually greater than the whole.

#26 The Diary of a Teenage Girl (up two spots)

#25 Chappie 

There are sophomore slumps, and then there are sophomore slumps. Robert Griffin III's second season as a Washington Redskin. The Beach Boys Smiley Smile, Brian Wilson and co.'s attempt to counterpunch the high-flying success of their biggest competition and their landmark Sgt. Pepper's album. And who can forget Too Legit to Quit and Mind Blowin', the albums that would go on to bankrupt MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, respectively?

(Side note: I thought about including Kriss Kross' follow-up to Totally Krossed Out, which was entitled Da Bomb, but thinking back I had it on cassette, and it was actually quite decent.)

Anyone who loved the exhilarating, genre-bending, sly social commentary District 9 as much as I did was sorely disappointed by Neil Blomkamp ' s second effort, Elysium. Clunky and at times even nonsensical, it was a dud. A couple years later comes Chappie; the previews for it looked awesome, and I was hoping it would represent a return to form. Turns out, it was somewhere in the middle--not nearly as well-done as D9 but much more together than Elysium.

Blomkamp returns to JoBurg with his muse Sharlto Copley voicing the titular robot, a police machine known as a "scout", programmed and developed by Deon (Slumdog Millionaire 's Dev Patel). Crime is down a ton and the police continue to order more of the scouts. Despite this, Deon is constantly being antagonized by the psychopathic Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), who has developed what he believes to be the best weapon against the Johannesburg riffraff, a human-controlled war machine called the Moose. 

During a drug raid, Ninja and Yo-Landi (of South African rap duo Die Antwoord, playing themselves) escape as a scout robot gets hit by a rocket launcher in the line of duty. They are fascinated by the thought of securing their own robots to assist them in various illegal activity. Meanwhile, the scout robot is put in the scrap pile back at the police office. Deon has been working on a consciousness program for robots, and he asks his boss (Sigourney Weaver) if he can test it out on the fried robot, but she denies his request. Deon steals it from the lab anyhow, and on his way back home is kidnapped by Ninja and Yo-Landi and their gang of ne'er do wells. With a gun (literally) to his head, Deon installs the consciousness program and turns the robot back on. They name the frightened robot Chappie with Yo-Landi acting as mother. They take him under their wing and teach it to talk and behave like a thug, even instructing him in the ways of the ever-popular sideways gangsta grip. They need his skills to help them pull off the heist that will pay back the dealer who is looking to extinguish them, but training is slow-going. In maybe the most upsetting scene of any movie I saw this year, they drop him off in the worst recesses of the JoBurg ghettos to toughen him up, and he proceeds to get assaulted with fists and feet and rocks, all while calling out for "mommy" and yelling to his attackers that he wants to go home.

The movie worked for me for two main reasons: 1) Writer-director Blomkamp obviously feels very much at home in Johannesburg and in the cases of both District 9 and Chappie, he has created a viscerally intimidating world; and 2) Sharlto Copley manages to bring authentic emotion to the confused, often-scared, adolescent robot, which is a feat in and of itself. In fact, all of the performances (yes, even Die Antwoord) worked (Jackman is great as the loosest-of-cannons antagonist), but none more so than the one meant to be the least human of all.

So now we have Ant-Man and Trainwreck, previously ranked as #26 and #25, bumped up to:

#24 Ant-Man

#23 Trainwreck

Back with another post either tonight or tomorrow!

MatM '15-'16: #27-25

But first, a few quick hits on the grammies:

-Taylor Swift over Kendrick Lamar? Beyond stupid. Unfathomable, even. A good pop album that sold a bunch but will ultimately be forgotten vs. a consensus classic, hip-hop or otherwise. Dumb. Nice to see her call out Kanye, though, in a pretty professional fashion.

-Speaking of Kendrick, his performance was rad.

-Adele wasn't at her strongest, but she owned it well.

-Alice Cooper's jowls haven't aged at all since Wayne's World. "Alice, I gotta say--your jowls don't look a day over 46."

-Lady Gaga was actually damn impressive in her best impression of Mr. Bowie. No one else in today's musical landscape would have made sense, either.

Movies.

#27 The Wolfpack

In 2010, film student Crystal Moselle was walking down the street in New York City when she bumped into a peculiar sight. There on Manhattan's First Avenue were six boys, all with long hair down toward the middle of their backs, black suits, RayBan sunglasses. She got to talking with them. It turned out they were brothers and they were paying homage to characters like Mr. Pink and Mr. White from one of their favorite movies, Reservoir Dogs. After Moselle befriended them, some strange details began to surface about the Angulo brothers and their home life. Beyond the six boys also existed a mentally handicapped sister, all homeschooled, all seven of them living in a high-rise with their parents. They had barely gone outside, unless on lockdown supervision. For 14 years.

This chance happening for Moselle occurred not long after Mukunda, the second oldest (then 15), had decided to go exploring Manhattan. It was nighttime, he had chose a rather odd form of dress, and he didn't make it terribly far before being escorted to the apartment by NYPD. This act of defiance, though, triggered the curiosity of the rest of the clan and before too long, they were venturing out as a group.

The Wolfpack captures the Angulo boys' (Mukunda, Narayana, Govinda, Bhagavan, Krisna and Jagadesh) move toward independence in a captivating, but often extremely disjointed fashion. Their father, Oscar, has been holding the one copy of the key all these years, and the level of hatred and disgust pointed at him varies from brother to brother. Through interviews with both parents, though, you find two people who legitimately care about their family; despite how misguided the actions, the intentions were to keep them safe. Was he a monster? You'll have to decide for yourself.

Without school or any sort of socialization, they turn to watching copious amounts of film and television, memorizing their favorites and then filming their own versions (Reservoir Dogs, The Dark Knight) all with very elaborate props and costumes. It's how they relate to people outside of their brethren (you'll see a lot of this toward the end). For as fascinating as the film and its bizarre subjects are, I wanted more. How did this situational captivity last as long as it did? Have there been any repercussions for their father? Maybe Moselle opted to paint an objective picture of strange rather than instigate a moral discussion on nature v. nurture, and I guess, ultimately, I respect that.

#26 Ant-Man

Paul Rudd, never one to waste a second of his signature charm, is Scott Lang, a small-time burgalar who is gets out of jail and attempts to go on the straight-and-narrow for his daughter's sake. When he can't get hired anywhere worthwhile, he takes his pal Luis's (Michael Peña, excellent as always) offer to burgle a house with the help of crew members Dave (T.I.) and Kurt (David Dalstmachian). Something important is guarded with fingerprint technology in the basement; that something important ends up being a hi-tech suit owned by scientist/developer Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). Back at Luis's place, he tries on the suit, presses a button and Presto-Changeo! He's tiny. After avoiding getting stepped on/washed down a bathtub drain/stabbed by a record needle/swallowed into the guts of a vacuum cleaner/pummeled by a raindrop, he is finally able to hit the "back to normal size" button and goes to return it to Pym. Leaving the house, he is arrested. Pym visits and jail and says, more or less, either rot away in here or become my ant-man. What a tough choice.

Ant-Man is easily the best offering from the Marvel Studios juggernaut this year. That doesn't mean it's perfect. Rudd has certainly been better, and there is hokeyness to spare in the I-must-redeem-myself-to-my-daughter subplot that drives the action. Still, the supporting cast (also including LOST heartbreaker Evangeline Lilly as Pym's daughter and House of Cards' Corey Stoll as the power-hungry tech nemesis) brings it, especially Douglas and Peña, making the tiny, tiny ride a fun one.

#25 Trainwreck

For as nice as it is to see Ms. Schumer get her own starring vehicle beyond her eponymous Comedy Central gig, I have to admit I am a little Amy Schumer'd out. There was a period a couple of months back where she was everywhere. Magazine covers. Billboards. Guest-appearing on everything, even "The Bachelorette" (appointment television, obviously). Don't get me wrong. I am all for I Am Woman Hear Me Roar. Just kiiiinda got a little too much Schumer this year.

Thankfully saw this one before the overdose, and it was a solid first script. She plays Amy, a journalist who works alongside Nikki (Vanessa Bayer, her dependable self, constantly nailing the confused face) for "S'Nuff" a men's magazine run by the insane Dianna (Tilda Swinton, tanned and eye-shadowed and long-haired, basically unrecognizable) who, thanks in large part to her dad (Colin Quinn), doesn't believe in monogamy. She is "sort of dating" Steven (John Cena, never better) but still gets drunk, gets stoned and performs the walk of shame on a near-daily basis. The overly sensitive Steven can't handle this, so back to square one. Enter Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), a sports doctor who regularly hangs out with LeBron James (playing himself) and Amaré Stoudemire (playing himself), who is getting profiled for the mag. Dianna assigns this to Amy and though she is clueless when it comes to sports, they hit it off. She likes him--like, a lot--but will it be enough to change her trainwreck ways?

Judd Apatow's movies always operate on the notion of its protagonist, often hindered in some way, demonstrating personal growth. This one is no different, and just like Apatow's others, it's a half an hour too long. That said, there is plenty to like here. Lots of spots to laugh uproariously, more-than-passable acting turns from King James and Stoudemire, a great supporting cast (besides those previously mentioned, Brie Larson as the moral compass of a sister and Mike Birbiglia as her doofy husband) and of course, plenty of Bill Hader, who is pretty much the best.

Agreed? Thought so.

More tomorrow!

MatM '15-'16: #30-28

Which romantic comedy/dramedy did you watch on Valentine's Day? Was it Bride Wars? Did you feel the need to revisit Say Anything and Jerry Maguire, i.e. back when Cameron Crowe made decent movies? Was it the thematic, intertwining titular Valentine's Day? ...When Harry Met Sally? Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason? Or the staple Love Actually, which is really more of a Christmas movie?

Some people have their romantic staples for this time of year, whether they are single, married, or just beginning to 'ship.

Not me, though. The closest thing I have to something like that is Garden State, and it's not like, a Valentine's tradition.

For the record, I think it's kind of cute if people do have a Valentine's Day movie they come back to over and again. There are countless movies that are watched on or around Christmas, if you think about it: The aforementioned Love Actually; Home Alone; Miracle on 42nd Street; It's a Wonderful Life. The TNT network essentially puts all of its efforts over a 24 hour period onto glasses-faced Ralphie and his bb gun. And macho networks such as FX tend to, whether financially or philosophically-driven, agree with the (correct) assumption that Die Hard is a, in fact, a Christmas movie.

Halloween? Fuggetaboutit. (Personally, I alternate years between Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II and Donnie Darko, but that's just because my eleven-year old brother has a better tolerance for horror movies than I do.)

So can there be a Valentine's Day tradition of sitting down with your loved one while dipping  recklessly into a giant bowl of Pop Secret, hoping to perhaps graze your significant's buttery hand? Interested to hear if any of you have any go-tos.

MatM Power Rankings-Week 2

#51 Aloha (-1)
#50 Entourage (-1)
#49 Terminator Genisys (-1)
#48 Pitch Perfect 2 (-1)
#47 Dope (-2)
#46 Kingsman: Secret Service (even)
#45 Ricki & The Flash (-1)
#44 Woman in Gold (-1)
#43 Paper Towns (-10)
#42 Truth (new entry)
#41 Minions (even)
#40 Jurassic World (+1)
#39 Vevé (+1) 
#38 The Connection (even)
#37 Trumbo (even)
#36 The Avengers: Age of Ultron (-2)
#35 Far From the Madding Crowd (+4)
#34 Focus (+2)
#33 Sleeping with Other People (+2)
#32 He Named Me Malala (even)
#31 Everest (even but trending upward)

And onto...

#30 Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

We had Lea Remini's tell-all scientology memoir lying around the house, so I read it. Over the course of the x amount of pages, I learned a lot about her life as a scientologist, from spending time as a troubled youth in Clearwater, Florida to eventually moving to Los Angeles and working her way up the ladder of the organization (i.e., completing various courses and donating a shit-ton of money) to become one of its most esteemed members, so much so that she got an invite to the Cruise-Holmes nuptials in Italy. I won't give anything away--maybe you know already--but certain events at this celebration got Remini in a lot of hot water with "The Org" and her already faltering relationship with scientology began to crumble.

What was remarkable to me about how her various anecdotes and ghost stories regarding Mr. Cruise was not that they happened, but how unsurprised I was, by really any of them. Remini posits that he holds more power within the religious group than David Miscavige himself; that, in so many words, he holds Miscavige by the balls. She's probably right. What a wild scene, scientology.

Scientology's figurehead does basically all of his own stunts in MI:5. Far and away the most impressive was

this one, in which this tiny individual jumped onto a wing and attached himself for the takeoff. It was totally real--no digital Tom or fake plane, just cable attached via the door and digitally remastered--and it looked outstanding. The leaping over Oprah Winfrey's couch of stunts, if you will.

From there, it's mostly a mess. Brandt (Jeremy Renner) has to testify before a group about IMF's involvement in the Kremlin being blown to smithereens (from MI: Ghost Protocol, which I will only ever refer to as either a) Protocolo Fantasma, since I saw it in Barcelona where it was heavily advertised in every subway station, or b)"Ghost Protes") and since the "secretary" is not present at the meeting to back his story, he has to face the onslaught of CIA Director Hunley (Alec Baldwin) who decides right then and there to disband the IMF. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is considered largely responsible, so he goes rogue (read: the movie's title) and ropes Benji (Simon Pegg) and Luther (Ving Rhames) in with him to track the Syndicate, a group of evils who Hunt believes is more or less running the world (too easy, I won't go there). In the film's other cool sequence, Hunt and co. stop three would-be assassins (including the mysterious Ilsa, played by Rebecca Ferguson) from capping the Austrian chancellor. She of course comes into the fold with somewhat ambiguous intentions; you know the drill.

Liked Protocolo Fantasma better. This one gets slowed down by lots of over-explaining and governmental hoop-jumping, which, let's be honest...

#29 Southpaw

Two big-budget boxing movies hit the multiplex in 2015. One was Southpaw, and the other was far, far superior. More on that later.

Southpaw's writing and directing duo is literally a who's-who of unapologetic machismo. Written by Kurt Sutter, the showrunner and creator of Sons of Anarchy and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Let's see here-Training Day, Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest, The Equalizer, etc.), Southpaw falls the all-too-predictable rise and fall of boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal). Keep in mind that what I'm about to tell you ruins absolutely nothing. As pointed out by a certain someone to me "the entire movie is in the preview, so I don't really need to watch it."

Hope, once an orphan, is living stupid-large in a mansion with his wife/orphanage-school sweetheart Maureen (Rachel McAdams) and daughter Leila (Oona Laurence) He's coming off a giant win and getting ready to get giant money through his promoter Jordan (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson). Not too long after his victory, he is speaking at a benefit when he is confronted by Miguel 'Magic' Escobar (Miguel Gomez) and his goons. He says he's too afraid to fight him, calls his wife something unspeakable, infers that he plans to do unspeakable things to his wife, etc. In the ensuing kerfuffle, a gun goes off and hits Maureen, who doesn't exactly fare well. Neither does Billy, in the aftermath, who suffers countless on-screen fits of rage, disbands himself from his friends, loses his house and fly cars, loses custody of his daughter. Can cinematic magic, brought to you in the form of grizzled trainer Tick Willis (Forrest Whitaker) get Billy Hope back on top again and in shape to fight--yes, you guessed it--Miguel "Magic" Escobar?

You can indeed get all of that from the preview. However, being a big Gyllenhaal fan (Nightcrawler was my #2 last year), I wanted to give it a shot. And yes, he does indeed singlehandedly carry the otherwise seen-it-a-million times plotline. His last two starring roles went from deathly skinny to putting on x amount in pounds of muscle, so I guess you could say he's method. He also happens to nail the emotional side of things, pulling off several stops on the everything-to-lose down to nothing-to-lose spectrum in a pretty convincing fashion.

You can do this, Billy Hope! Never give up, Hope! etc. etc.

#28 The Diary of a Teenage Girl

And now, for something completely different...

No, this critically-acclaimed movie is not about say, oh, who's a relevant teen these days...Elle Fanning? One of the gals from Pretty Little Liars, maybe? It's not about a silver-spoon high school senior driving around in convertibles, eschewing duties and meeting hunks.

No, dear readers, this is San Francisco in the seventies. We first meet 15-year old Minnie (British newcomer Bel Powley, actually 22 years old, but nonetheless pretty outstanding) walking through Golden Gate Park and, via voiceover, saying "I had sex today." This isn't alarming considering the time period and the age, by any means. What is alarming is the candid and lurid nature of her tape-recorded admissions in her bedroom for someone of her age set.

Considering her boho and loose, experimental home life, it's no wonder that she is driven to explore. Her mother Charlotte (Kristin Wiig) smokes cigarettes, drinks and rips lines of cocaine right in front of her and her sister. Her mother's boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård) starts to feel neglected and Charlotte encourages him to take Minnie out in her absence. Feeling suddenly confident, Minnie propositions Monroe, and though he doesn't go for it at first, he eventually relents and they begin a clandestine affair.

There are parts of Diary that are uncomfortable to watch, even for an adult. If ever there is a movie NOT to rent and watch with your parents, this is it. Don't go accidentally thinking that it's some sort of teen formula movie, because you will be sorely disappointed.

Despite the large dose of awkward, the movie works as a realistic-feeling coming of age story which feels largely empowering, considering the kind of teen girl protagonists that are usually getting thrust (no pun intended) onto the silver screen. Also, the partially animated sequences add a sense of fervent imagination to the story (Minnie is an aspiring cartoonist). Powley is great, and I have a feeling, considering the heaps of critical praise being lumped onto both her and writer/director Marielle Heller, that this isn't the last we'll see of her. I saw this one really recently and am still processing it, somewhat. I could see it rising in the power rankings when all is said and done.

Back with more tomorrow!

MatM '15-'16: #33-31

I watched a movie last night that actually brought the total of movies that I saw this year to 50. One of those movies that I'll review now will actually come down quite a bit from it's current ranking during the next "Weekly Power Rankings" section and thus bringing up quite a few movies by one spot or two.

Will you forgive my error, dear readers? My miscalculations? To err is human, they say.

Anyhow,

#33 Paper Towns (estimated Monday rank: #44/43)

I have an 86-mile round trip to work every day. Some might say "Ugh, dude! Sounds awful!" And yeah, sometimes it is. But on the plus side, I listen to a lot of books on tape (CD). Thanks to this wonderful advent, I read/listened to a combined 29 books in 2015. Did it make me any smarter? More read, if you will? That, friends, is debatable. These sonic adventures ran the gamut from intellectual to totally stupid. The point is, you have to make the most of your commute, even if that means it sometimes includes young adult fiction.

I really liked John Green's Paper Towns as a book, and I liked about half of it as a movie. More accurately, the first half. The second half veered too far from the trajectory of the narrative for me to take it seriously. I won't bore you with why-especially because it's my duty to be keeping it #spoilerfree for those who read and have not yet viewed.

The story goes like this: 

Quentin "Q" Jacobsen (Nat Wolff) is an Orlando-area high school senior who has, since he was a kid and actually hung out with her, obsessed over the legendary Margo Roth Spiegelman (British multimillionaire model Cara Delevigne), his across the street neighbor who somehow manages to constantly defy authority and commit various offenses all while being like, the most popular girl in school with the most popular hunk boyfriend. Q, on the other hand, spends his time hanging in the band room with his lifelong pals Ben (Austin Abrams) and Radar (Marcus), much further down on the Jefferson Park H.S. hierarchy. One night Margo shows up at his window (just like she did when they were kids, awwww) and asks to use his car, i.e., his mom's van. What transpires from there is a revenge plot against her now ex-boyfriend, her now ex-best friend and more involving, among other items, catfish, Nair hair removal product, saran wrap and vaseline. During their suburban Orlando terrorism ("We bring the RAIN, not the scattered showers," she says to him at one point), he feels alive and excited and different. The next day, she is not in school, not at home, not hanging around-she is gone. Through a series of clues she leaves him, he decides to forgo prom (in the book, it's graduation) to track her down, possibly a number of states away, and his posse decides to show their solidarity and come along.

The old adage is that the book is always better than the movie. In this case, it holds up. Some of the same snappy dialogue from the novel is present, as are some of the plot devices. I just don't get why they decided to make the changes that they did, because said changes were stupid and disappointing.

#32 He Named Me Malala

Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani teenager/speaker/Nobel Peace Prize recipient, is the subject of Davis Guggenheim's (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for 'Superman') latest intellectual romp. You may know the story by now: Malala begins writing a blog at age 11 detailing the Taliban occupation of Pakistan and her life surrounding the occupation, it gets picked up by BBC and distributed all across the world and, as a result of her outspokenness, she is shot three times by the Taliban on the bus ride to school. Miraculously, she survived the attack and has gone on to become a worldwide name in the fight for woman's equality, especially when it comes to the educational rights of women.

It seems like the aim of Guggenheim is to paint a portrait of Malala as a normal teenager who couldn't have a normal life if she tried. Throughout, there are animated sequences to tell stories from her childhood and fill in the blanks for the parts of her life that have not been covered by the ever-present cameras and scrutiny that come with being a worldwide hero. A lot of these carefully-scored sequences felt cheesy, as did the montages of her shaking hands with various world leaders. I would have traded them for more interviews with her and her father, both fascinating people who didn't necessarily need the cinema-magic treatment.

#31 Everest

A certain someone I know has a very good friend from college who is the daughter of Dr. Beck Weathers of Dallas, Texas. Why is that important? He is one of the characters profiled in nonfiction guru John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, the story of a 1996 Mount Everest expedition that ends in tragedy and would eventually become the basis for the movie Everest. Weathers is portrayed here by Josh Brolin, and yes, his daughter (our friend) is featured in a scene, rocking some decidedly '90s overalls and portrayed by British model-actress Mia Goth, age 21, currently dating Shia LeBoeuf.

Along with Dr. Beck Weathers on the ill-fated trek are: Rob (Jason Clarke), a New Zealander and expedition leader; Scott (Jake Gyllenhaal), an American expedition leader; Doug (John Hawkes), a mailman attempting for the second to summit Everest after failing the first; Yasuko Numba (Naoko Mori), trying to knock out the very last of the worldwide Seven Summits; journalist Krakauer (Michael Kelly, House of Cards' Doug Stamper); and base camp mother/cook/secretary Helen Wilton (Emily Watson). In layman's terms, and this certainly isn't a spoiler, things start out going fine for the crew until they are hit by a blizzard upon returning from the summit. This is not good. Will they make it back down to base camp before they run out of oxygen/freeze to death/get buried in football field's worth of snow?

For all of its faults (at times overdramatic, spread out among far too many characters), Everest was a pretty solid cinematic foray about people who risk everything for the thrill and the chance to plant a flag. It looked great, so much so that I had physical reactions to the height, namely shaky-ass knees when they extended a metal ladder over a crevasse and scaled across it. There's beauty in the near-vomit, folks.

Join me next time as we careen haphazardly into the top 30!

MatM '15-'16 #36-34

Sorry for hiatus. Here goes.

#36 Focus

Over a decade ago, the Onion put this kind-of bogus but also accurate and hilarious label on the Fresh Prince (see link). Considering this, it has been interesting to see him at the forefront of the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. I'm sure he's awesome in Concussion, and I hope to see it before the season is over to see if, in fact, he was robbed of a nom, despite it being largely trashed on the critical front. I can think of at least one other actor (another white one, unfortunately, coming way later on the countdown) who should have gotten the nod over either Cranston or Damon, who were both good but have been much better in the past. We'll see if Jada was right or just being spurned after all.

In looking over Will Smith's filmography, it should be noted that as he has gotten older he has tended to choose the interesting stuff (I, Robot, Pursuit of Happyness, I am Legend) with a little more frequency than the paycheck movies of yesteryear (Men In Black, Independence Day, Wild Wild West, the latter being the film he chose to make over The Matrix.) The year in Smith '15 has shown a little of both sides, the risk-taking, quiet Concussion and the safer-bet, full-on-Hitch-charm-mode Focus, where he seems to be at his most comfortable.

He is Nicky and she (Margot Robbie) is Jess, con artists forever on the hunt for the perfect grab. They meet after she tries--and fails--to rob him with her partner and he then coaches them on what they should have done differently. He takes her in as his protégé and (duh) lover, but he lets her in a little at a time, on guard, untrusting, making sure not to get burned. After a big job involving a degenerate gambler and the Super Bowl comes scary-close to failing, they part ways. Three years later, their paths cross again, this time at a party in Buenos Aires, where she is playing the long game on a wealthy race car owner (Rodrigo Santoro) and he is called in to help said owner con his biggest rival.

It's a fun one with not a hell of a lot of depth and some serious suspension of disbelief, but if you like throwback Will Smith and, you know, looking at Margot Robbie (actually, she's a pretty good actress), it's a solid way to spend 1.75 hours.

#35 Sleeping with Other People

Even though we have seen this movie in about a thousand different iterations, there are things about Sleeping With Other People, besides just showing up to a 8-year old's birthday party whilst rolling on Molly, that feel like a somewhat fresh take on the we're-best-friends-but-obviously-we're-attracted-to-each-other and will-there-ever-be-a-scenario-in-which-we-are-forced-to-confront-our-feelings-and-move-from-platonic-to-romantic storyline.

One drunken college night, Lainey (Alison Brie) shows up at the dorms, attempting to bang her T.A. (who shows up later in the form of Adam Scott) when Jake (Jason Sudekis) claims her as his guest so that she does not get kicked out. They get to talking and smoking some ganja on a rooftop couch and he convinces her to instead sleep with him, as the T.A. is apparently a real snoozefest. She relents. Years later, we catch up with Jake, getting thrown in front of a cab by his girlfriend for cheating on her and Lainey, breaking up with her boyfriend at a restaurant via telling him that she is cheating on him. Having not seen each other since that faithful night (everyone has a person or two like that), Jake and Lainey run into each other at a, we'll say, "intercourse addicts" meeting. They decide to hang out and though he puts the moves on pretty hard, she wants to just be friends--she's applying to med school in Michigan anyhow. Then they become pals, share everything with each other while dating others, etc. etc. You know how it goes.

There are plenty of genre conventions, certainly, but it is set apart, at least a little bit, by dialogue and situations that feel somewhat truthful. Brie and Sudekis are mostly convincing, chemistry-wise, Adam Scott is villainous as the past she can't seem to shake, and other side characters (Amanda Peet as Jake's boss, The League's Jason Mantzoukas as Jake's cleverly-quipping, token married/jealous of his single life character Xander) move the familiar story along nicely.

# 34 Avengers: The Age of Ultron

Thor broods. Iron Man provides hilarious and smarmy situational banter. Bruce Banner ponders and is occasionally forced to Hulk-smash the hell out of stuff. Captain America walks around puffing his chest out and insisting that he is the leader. Hawkeye runs around and hides behind objects. Black Widow trots about in black leather and makes grave faces. And they all team up against robot James Spader as Ultron, a Bruce Banner/Tony Stark collaboration that gets a mind of its own, and his pals the Maximoff twins (Elisabeth Olson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, telekinesis and super speed, respectively).

As you can see, there is an Avengers formula, and it certainly applies in this over-serious, way-too-long movie that clocks in at just under an unnecessary two and a half hours. There are, of course, some outstanding CGI action sequences, including Hulk beating an entire city to rubble while under lady Maximoff's mind control until giant-suit Iron Man intervenes, which looks like this:

And this:

Great action sequences that involve some pret-tay, pret-tay sweet Avengers combo moves (I think the other Avengers use Cap's shield more than he does), and of course, the tao of Robert Downey, Jr., save this worldwide blockbuster from being a total waste of time.

Stay tuned for more!

MatM '15-'16: #38 & #37

#38 The Connection

Jean Dujardin, he of the large chin and unwavering charm, stars as Pierre Michel (in all of the possible French names in the lexicon of French names, the most creative they could come up with was Pierre Michel?) in a companion piece to 1971's The French Connection. The purpose: to show the crusade against heroin that Popeye Doyle cinematically took on 45 years ago, only from the French side, i.e., in the country of France.

No, there was no rehashing of the monumental car chase from the original, nor was there any Gene Hackman. Instead, Pierre Michel's taking down of "La French" is slow, methodical and full of various bureaucratic obstacles. There is some well-orchestrated action and a couple of nice car/motorcycle chases through some thin European style roads and alleyways, but doesn't hit the same fever pitch as the original. Perhaps the biggest positive about The Connection is that looks great, like a true seventies noir. The French Riviera's bright beaches are a beautiful backdrop, a sunny canvas with seediness under the surface, if you look close enough.

#37 Trumbo

I read a pretty fascinating article in Entertainment Weekly about casting and how movies and television shows would have been drastically different had x actor/actress starred rather than y actor/actress. Al Pacino was at one point considered for Han Solo, Meg Ryan (!) for Pretty Woman, and, as many people know, Will Smith was offered Neo before Keanu Reeves was. Bryan Cranston, known only at that point as "dad from Malcolm in the Middle", was actually the third choice for Walter White, behind Matthew Broderick and John Cusack. Can you imagine? Ferris Bueller cooking up that blue? Though Broderick's can go dark (Election), I don't know...it's hard to imagine anyone else doing this:

Since Cranston is, by all reports, a super good guy off-camera, he is easy to root for, and so it's been nice to see him vaulted to the upper echelon. He's really-good-not-quite-great as Dalton Trumbo, but it's not enough to save the film.

It's 1947, right when Russian-American relations are starting to reach a boiling point, and Dalton Trumbo is the most sought-after writer in Hollywood. He is also a Communist sympathizer, outed with others by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). This is not exactly great timing, considering the heaps of money about to be offered to him by MGM, who begin backpedaling. Then the Hollywood Ten are rounded up one by one, arrested, and put on trial. Amidst the grueling legal battle, Trumbo continues to write, at this point inking his most famous work Roman Holiday. Only he can't take credit for it-putting his buddy Ian McClellan Hunter (Alan Turdyk of Firefly fame) on the front page instead in exchange for a 30% payout. It sells, but there are plenty of further complications ahead, least of which winning an Oscar for a movie he couldn't claim. (He would win again with 1957's The Brave One, this time writing under pseudonym Robert Rich.)

There is a solid supporting cast to back Cranston, including Louis C.K. as the sardonic Arlen Hird (another one of the ten), Michael Stuhlbarg as Edward G. Robinson, the star that raises money for their defense fund and Diane Lane as his wife. None, however, match the gonzo performance from John Goodman as B-studio head Frank King. Despite this talented bunch, the movie never quite hits its stride and seems to land somewhere between entertaining throwback to the studio age and self-aggrandizing statement on freedom of speech.

It's crazy to think things like this happened in our country barely more than half a century ago.