Best Picture Part 8: Philomena

Philomena

I’ve always wanted children. I don’t say it very often but it is something that drives me crazy on those nights when I lay up at night and think about how far behind I am in life. For Philomena Lee, she grew up way too fast at a young age and then paid penance for 50 years. She liked the sex you see. He was so handsome and he chose her. What came from that blessed union of two people is a tragedy and another shameful moment for the Catholic Church. It seems the more you look at the choices and cover ups, the more troubled you get. I’m sure they always mean well but the things they did to cover up molestation and here, the selling of children to wealthy Americans is shameful. It makes me wonder if they spent any time in confession telling the Lord of their sins and expected a reprieve.


Philomena, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan (who also wrote the script) is based on the 2009 book by BBC correspondent Martin Sixsmith, "The Lost Child of Philomena Lee." It opens with Sixsmith (Coogan) having been disgraced as a government advisor and unemployed as a result. He is quite lost and depressed until he meets the daughter of Philomena Lee, who asks him to do a story on her mother. Fifty years ago, Philomena had conceived a child out of wedlock. The church, which her Irish Catholic father had sent her too in disgrace, had adopted the baby without her consent and in following church doctrine and believing that what she had done was a grave sin, Philomena had signed a contract that wouldn’t allow her to inquire into her son Anthony’s whereabouts. Sixsmith is not immediately interested in writing a human interest piece which he deems the lowest form of journalism but as he thinks on Philomena’s story he finally agrees to write it and meets with her to uncover the truth about her son’s “adoption”. This leads Philomena and Martin to travel to America to try to find Philomena’s son.

I was struck by the honesty of Philomena as portrayed by Judi Dench. She sees the good in people and always tries to connect with someone whether it be the cook in the hotel cooking her omelet or someone who knew her son. As the truth begins to unravel and I became more and more angry, I wondered how she could forgive and be so calm. This small woman with such grief and pain in her heart. Judi Dench is stunning in a role that I didn’t picture immediately when I thought of Dame Judi Dench. She seems able to melt into any role, becoming the person written for her. With a slight cockney accent and a fascination with people, she became someone you rooted for. Steve Coogan, known mostly for comedic work, for his part is good in a serious role and carries the gravitas of a man who has lost his faith in everything and is trying to get past all the anger he still has pent up inside him. Coogan plays him as a man with a quick smile and a one liner who considers himself better than others. Throughout the movie, Coogan begins to lose his anger and narcissism, letting his ego and what happened to him go. In the face of this woman and what was done to her, his life is quite easy.

Most eye opening of anything in this film is the practice of shaming and self hatred the Catholic church threw upon these frightened young girls who had made a mistake. I know it isn’t indicative of the entire church but seeing how they handled these women and stole their children is sickening. They were sent to this church to have a safe place to have their children and live. Instead they offered no guidance and shamed these women who had to suffer dearly for their choices. Early on Martin finds an overgrown field with the graves of the children and mothers who did not survive childbirth. One he sees, is 14 years old. Do these girls deserve less respect in death because of the one sin they committed while alive. Philomena herself was forced to deliver a breech baby ( a baby who comes out feet first) without painkillers so she could receive her punishment from the Lord. That this was a regular practice in Ireland is shocking. To steal babies from young women who don’t know any better and believe they need to in order to atone for their sins. It pisses me off.

Philomena is a great movie. One in a million, as Philomena might say, and is definitely worth the price of admission.  Judi Dench is brilliant (which I’ve kind of come to expect) and Steve Coogan more than holds his own. Stephen Frears, the director, has a knack for making movies that appeal to the heart in people. I will forever owe him for the work done on High Fidelity (John Cusak’s best work as far as I am concerned) and Philomena does the same thing. He creates a solid method of telling the story while interspersing home movies of Anthony as he grows up. As Martin's editor says when Martin pitches her the story that a good piece can end really happily or end up really sad. I’ll let you see what the ending of this story is for yourself. The movie earns it’s ending and so should you. Whether or not those nuns who judged their charges so harshly deserve to be forgiven is not for me or you to decide. I'm sure their higher power has a few choice questions for them.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Philomena is another surprise movie that I wasn’t sure I’d like. Is it the Best Picture? No. Yet it has a reason to be on the ballot. This is a great heartwarming movie that takes a tragedy and redeems it. If you think I may have spoiled the movie with that last line, I didn’t. See it for yourself.

Best Picture Part 7: Twelve Years a Slave

Twelve Years A Slave

Solomon Northup was a free man. He had a wife and two children, a life in Saratoga Springs, New York and made a living as a violin player who was respected and treated as an equal in the community in which he lived. At least as much as a African American man could be treated equally in 1841. Twelve Years a Slave is a powerful story. One that shouldn’t have happened and yet it isn’t the story of one man, it is the story of slavery in general. As a white man I am embarrassed and ashamed at the treatment of people purchased into slavery. It shames me to my core and yet the point of  Twelve Years a Slave is not to point a finger at the white devil but to show this shameful and sad part of American history. When I set out to write these reviews of all the Best Picture nominees, I was scared of watching Twelve Years a Slave. Like many movies that show a disgraceful moment in history, I was scared of being bummed out. Simple as that. Yet the movie itself is not a bummer of a movie. It deals with a horrific story and the shameful acts of people in the South but it is a story of survival and the ability of all men to suffer horrific acts put upon them and to endure.

The story opens with Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor in an Oscar worthy performance) living as a free man in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children, who earns a living as a violinist. He is respected in the community and happy. Sadly this will be one of the few happy moments in the film. When his wife goes on a three week job, cooking, she takes his children and Solomon tells her that he will not be idle while she is gone. Shortly after seeing them off, he meets two men who are looking for a violin player to play their “circus” down to Washington and then they will pay his way back to New York. Instead he finds himself drugged and sold into slavery in the deep south under the name Platt, the name of a runaway slave who bore a resemblance to him. After being beaten and witnessing the death of another slave, he decides that cooperation is the only way to survive. He is sold to a man named Ford (played by Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch) who is kinder than most and impressed with Solomon’s work sets him up with a more pleasant ( I shudder at using the word pleasant) life on the plantation. After a bad incident with an overseer, Ford is forced to sell him to another plantation run by the chilling Edwin Epps (played ferociously by Michael Fassbender) and he is driven further into the world of slavery in the South. 

Facing the cruelty of Epps, Solomon attempts to send word to his family and free himself but every effort is thwarted by Epps or the general notions of the world he lived in. He is less than a man and therefore as property of Edwin Epps, he is forced to the whims of a madman. Oscar nominee Lupita Nyong’o, receives the worst of Epps and his whims. Throughout the film Solomon struggles to not only stay alive, but to retain that shadow of the man he once was. Finally after presumably twelve years at the mercy of this system of corruption, cruelty and despair, Solomon meets up with a Canadian abolitionist (played by a Quaker bearded Brad Pitt) who listens to his story and though scared for his own well being, offers to help Solomon.

Ejiofor is an actor that can play any scene and tell you what he feels with very little dialogue. Here he seems to watch from outside his body the calamity that has become of his life. There is little he can do to change his fate but try to survive. He fights hard to retain the free man inside of him and succeeds in telling Solomon’s story. Every moment of his life in this film is a horror that he can only look upon with incredulity. The same can be said for Michael Fassbender’s Epps. He convinces you of Epps’ belief that the men and women he bought are his property and therfore his to use. Perhaps the most powerful moments involve Nyong’o and his absolute love of a woman who despises him. Every touch adds a new level of his growing hatred for her. Nyong’o , for her part, is capable to stand with these actors and deliver powerful moment after powerful moment. Through the film, she is the helplessness that Solomon feels and the inability to change where you are and what you must do to survive.

Twelve Years a Slave is a shocking and powerful movie that pulls no punches when it comes to slavery. Every horror and tragedy is examined and brought to light. This is a movie that should be seen. It isn’t a pleasant romp or a great love story or a tale of triumph in impossible odds. Solomon Northup’s life was robbed. Every slave in the South was robbed of the ability to be free and the right to be treated as a human being. This story needed to be told. I, for one, am better and more compassionate for having seen this film. Facing intolerable cruelty (personified by Michael Fassbender), Solomon Northup struggles through 12 years of trying to stay alive and retain his humanity. Some had to live their entire life in the shadow of cruelty and misery. Twelve Years A Slave is a story everyone should see and one that I will root for as the Best Picture of 2013. I haven’t seen many of Steve McQueen’s films but now I will search out for them because he so powerfully and painfully moved me. I hope that everyone who reads this will go to see this movie. Solomon Northup was a hero and his story deserves to be told to anyone and everyone. Thanks to Twelve Years A Slave (the book and the movie), no one will ever forget it.

Mr. Unhappy sez: In the race for Best picture, Twelve Years a Slave should win. It is a movie that deserves to win, has a story that needs to be seen and in the end is the only movie I’ve seen in this group that personifies the term “Best Picture”. I still love “Her” and personally it will be my best picture but Twelve Years a Slave should be the world’s Best Picture.

Best Picture Part 6: American Hustle

American Hustle

Last year I fell in love with a movie by David O. Russell. Silver Linings Playbook was a great movie about the craziness of finding love and the crazy people in it. This year, Mr. O. Russell is back with the good but not stellar American Hustle. I went into this movie with high expectations and throughout it I was curious as to whether I really wanted this movie to be good or if it was actually good. It was a movie made to live up to expectations and then once I made it through the entire length of the movie I thought “Well. That was something.” I’m not sure if the build up to the movie and the praise heaped upon it had built it up into something I had no realistic chance of enjoying but I digress.

American Hustle is the story of con men. Beginning with Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale), a brilliant con man who has built a life for himself defrauding people but being mostly harmless. He is smart, sexy unto himself and has a really intricate hairstyle. At a party he meets a equally cunning and seductive partner Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), who he falls for immediately and confesses his schemes to. Scared to death that she may run away forever, he is hopelessly and completely in love with her. Instead of ratting on him, she joins his con and as the wealthy British aristocat...I mean aristocrat “Lady Edith Greensly” and steps up his operation bringing in more money than either one of them could have hoped for. Unfortunately it also brings them into view of the FBI and Irving has to make a deal to work for wild FBI agent, Richie DiMaso (played by Bradley Cooper) to keep Sydney out of jail. DiMaso pushes them to a world of Jersey power-brokers and mafia that's as dangerous as it is enchanting. Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) is the passionate, volatile, New Jersey mayor who gets caught between the con-artists and Feds through his complete trust and friendship with Irving. Then there is Irving’s unpredictable wife Rosalyn (played by Jennifer Lawrence) who Irving loves but really only for her son and as a result he is stuck with her. DiMaso begins as a cop looking to make a name for himself but the case keeps getting bigger and bigger and he begins to fall for Edith (Adams) who allows herself to be fallen for. In the end, Irving has to play a dangerous game between Ritchie and the two loves of his life to someway find a way out of his own mess.

I liked Christian Bale and thought he did a great job keeping the movie going and all the plates spinning. The crime story, the FBI story, the wives story and the political corruption scandal story. For the most part, Bradley Cooper is there to throw wrenches into his operation but I never really feel like he poses a major threat to Irving or Sydney. Jennifer Lawrence is perhaps the most under utilized in the entire movie. She is captivating in every scene she appears in (as always) and  perhaps owns the best scene in the movie as she dance/cleans her house to Wings and Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die”. The movie is a great collections of scenes and as a whole they make a good and entertaining movie. Please don’t think that I didn't enjoy it. I still think this is a better movie than The Wolf of Wall Street. It resonates on the same wave length though. It is a spyglass to the 70‘s and a story that makes itself seem smarter than the audience. Perhaps it is, I just didn’t get it and I didn’t want to. I enjoyed myself and left the theater happy to have spent the $11.50 I paid.

The most under appreciated performance in the movie is comedian Louie C.K. as Bradley Cooper’s  superior officer in about title only. The scenes between DiMasso and Louie C.K. are smart, funny and entertaining. I just wish there had been more too it. I went into the movie thinking it was going to be something other than what is was. The trailer made me believe that Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale were confidants and that the con was all they were about. The live a large and lavish lifestyle and love 1970‘s style. Instead I was given this movie. It was like being set up on a blind date with a girl you have seen as a supermodel and then arriving to see a normal, attractive girl there. It isn’t bad and the girl is really pretty but you keep looking for the supermodel. You don’t want to, you want to see the beautiful girl in front of you who makes you smile and laugh and dance with.... but what happened to the supermodel? American Hustle is a fine movie and I can’t say that you wouldn’t be entertained by it. There is plenty to like but it feels like the soul from Silver Lining’s was sucked out and breathed into this movie but some was lost in the transfer. I still like the movie and would gladly repeat view it. American Hustle just conned me a little and maybe I’m still a little bitter about it. Should’ve known it was coming. This movie is filled with cons.

Mr. Unhappy Sez: As far as Best Picture goes, in the Unhappyverse  “Her” is still the frontrunner but American Hustle entertains. I just think it does so by telling you that you should be entertained and not by actually entertaining you.

I also sez that Jennifer Lawrence looks sexy in anything... 

from cleaning the house

To sexy time...

Damn... and that is all that Mr. Unhappy has to sez about that.

 

Best Picture Part 5: Captain Phillps will be OK

Captain Phillips

Like Titanic, going into “Captain Phillips” I knew that at some point the ship was going to be taken by Somali pirates. These are not the eye patch wearing “shiver me timbers” type pirates. These are desperate men looking for money and riches without any real hope of finding them. They are fishermen who have search for fish that aren’t in their waters because the big fishing boats came and swept them all away. They are children who are growing up into a world that they know is stacked against them and the pirates offer them a way out.  Going into this movie, I also knew that by the end of the movie they would not succeed. The genius of this movie is that knowing the outcome of the movie, you still sit riveted and hope that Captain Phillips finds his way back to the shores of America. Yet you also hope that the pirates can be brought to justice rather then taken out as though they never existed. I wonder if anyone in Somalia misses them, shed tears for these men or lost the person they loved most in the world. Something tells me that it is doubtful. These men were soldiers in a war they can’t win. All my American idealism says that surely someone will miss them but in real life sometimes people just go away and no one misses them. Therein lies the tragedy of this story.

It starts innocently enough as Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) says goodbye to his wife at the airport and reports for duty aboard the Maersk Alabama. All seems like it will be an easy trip. You do sense that Captain Phillips feels something as he reads the map showing their route through Somali waters. It is not something he wants to do but he has signed up for this trip and the route. Reading an email warning of pirate attacks, Captain Phillips is wary enough to perform a drill with his crew regarding a pirate attack. During the drill, Phillips notices that the vessel is being chased by Somali pirates in two “skiffs” or small boats. Captain Phillips succeeds in outrunning the pirates after one boat hears Phillips bluffing on the radio calling for immediate military air support and the other boat loses engine power while trying to gain speed under the rough water of the Alabama’s wake. The next day one boat returns carrying four heavily armed pirates led by Abduwali Muse played by Barkhad Abdi in what should be an Oscar winning performance. They attach a ladder and board the ship. Despite the best efforts of Phillips and his crew, the pirates board and take control of the Maersk Alabama, capturing Captain Phillips after he cuts the ship's engine power and tells the crew to hide in the ship's engine room. Phillips offers Muse the contents of the ship's safe ($30,000), but under orders from his boss (the local Somali faction leader) Muse's plan is to ransom the ship and crew in exchange for millions of dollars of insurance money from the shipping company. He says for the first time “That everything is OK. No one will be hurt.”

First time actor Barkhad Abdi is electric as the leader of the pirates that boarded the ship. Director Paul Greengrass found someone who can embody the fearlessness of a pirate and yet still make you care about how he fares in the movie. As the movie develops and Captain Phillips is removed from the Maersk Alabama and things get more and more desperate, Abdi keeps telling Phillips who he calls “Irish” that there is “no problem "Irish", everything gonna be OK.” It is a mantra of the movie. As the ship is surrounded by the U.S. Navy, surely he must know that his plans are not going to succeed. No problem "Irish", everything gonna be OK.  As they begin to negotiate with them, surely he knows that he is most likely not going back to Somalia and his village. No problem "Irish", everything gonna be OK. As Navy Seals come onboard the lead ship and take over the operation requesting that he come aboard to negotiate for the money, he has to know that his life as he knows it is over. No problem "Irish", everything gonna be OK. Yet you feel as though maybe he knows better. The Americans are not going to kill him. He will be taken to America and imprisoned. It is a happy ending. His life is over and yet you can see that it doesn’t bother him a bit. What life did he really have?

Paul Greengrass has done this type of movie before. “United 93“ was a great movie that I dare anyone who watched the actual events of 9/11 happen live on TV to watch without shedding a tear. I could barely watch it because it felt so real. In both movies, the camera moves as though a member of the crew and follows the action about as well as someone trapped aboard Flight 93 or the Maersk Alabama could. You don’t see it all. You don’t get a perfect angle shot on a steady camera that lets you stay outside the story. You are forced into the cockpit of Flight 93 or forced into a life raft with Captain Phillips and 4 pirates. The atmosphere of these movies is palpable and it forces itself on you. Unlike “United 93“ I knew that Captain Phillips would survive. The power lies that Paul Greengrass makes a film where you really are not sure. The Navy Seals move through this movie as a last resort. The President was not gonna let the boat reach Somalia and have Phillips held hostage in a Somali prison. The Maersk Alabama crew follows the lifeboat as best it can until the Navy arrives and they are escorted to their final destination. What Captain Phillips does in the movie can be considered either brave or incredibly stupid. He saves the lives of his crew and tries to save the pirates too. He doesn’t want to see these people dead. He has no malice in his heart and simply wants everyone to be OK.

This is not a happy story for the pirates or even Captain Phillips. The emotional scars (though he does return to running a ship a little over a year after the events in this movie) he will carry for the rest of his life. He is alive and he can go home to his family. Tom Hanks is great as Phillips (despite the hokey Kennedy accent that makes him sound like Mayor Quimby from the Simpsons) and really brings realism to the story and Phillips. Like he did in Cast Away, he gives you a sense of what he is thinking without a word. Hanks anchors this story in our world. You don't want to see Tom Hanks hurt or killed. You root for him instinctively. This is a story you should see and want to see. It is not only about how bad ass America is (judging by the Seals in this movie we are pretty bad ass) but about the problems in the world that we can’t solve with guns and violence. Captain Phillips left me wondering how we could help the Somali people without invading their country. I don’t have any good answers but surely the world at large could figure something out. I’m just a schmuck with a poorly read movie blog. As I finish that last line, I hear the heavy accent of Barkhad Abdi saying with a cocksure smile. No problem "Irish", everything gonna be OK.

Mr. Unhappy sez: You should see this movie and surely it can in awards during the Academy Awards. Best Picture of the year though... I just don’t see it.

Best Picture Part 4: Gravity

Gravity

 

Gravity is a movie that needs to just be seen to get why everyone is talking about it so much. It is a completely visual movie. So much of it is shown without dialogue and based purely on the emotions of Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Ryan Stone as she floats through space, scared and alone. The story is simple.  Ryan (Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first space shuttle mission aboard the Space Shuttle Explorer. She is accompanied by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney), who is commanding his final expedition. During a spacewalk to service the Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Control in Houston warns the team about a Russian missile strike on a defunct satellite, which has caused a chain reaction forming a cloud of space debris. Mission Control orders that the mission be aborted, and the shuttle begin reentry immediately. They scramble to get back but soon the cloud of high-speed debris strikes the Explorer and Hubble, and detaches Stone, leaving her tumbling through space. She manages to control her tumble and Kowalski soon comes to save her and using Kowalski’s sweet jetpack, they make their way back to the Space Shuttle. When they find it, the Shuttle has suffered catastrophic damage and the crew is dead. They use the thruster pack to make their way to the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit only about 900 miles away. Kowalski estimates they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again. So that is the setup. That is the objective of the film. Find a way to get back to Earth or get real comfortable with no air, a cold death and a pile of junk hurtling towards you.

Like most space movies, there is a constant barrage of problems that seem to only go wrong when someone is filming a movie in space. Could all of these things actually happen in space during a crisis? Maybe. I think when you go to the movies you have to give up on trying to find scientific certainty from the fiction. Just roll with it. I think the reason I liked Gravity (which is so much of a visual movie) was how Alfonso Cuaron told a story of a woman who was so damaged by life that she didn’t care if she lived or died is reborn through adversity. There are plenty of moments when you can see the literal transition from Ryan floating in the fetal position to her final moments in the film. There is little surprise in the story and doesn’t really go beyond the basic story elements of a space movie. All you need to know is that when you see this typical story, there is a different feel to the film. It has a fresh feel and tells you a story you’ve heard before in a new way.

Sandra Bullock recently has either become a much better actress or is figuring out her wheelhouse a little better. Either way she has transformed in my eye. I used to look at her movies with a slightly disgusted and annoyed eye. Now I look at them with a slight nod and my hand held out with the agreed upon amount of money in it. The same can be said of George Clooney. I find him smug and arrogant. Sure if I had the life he had I might be arrogant and a little smug. There is a part of me that just hates him for having the gravy train with biscuit wheels that he has. Again seeing his movies are an eventuality to me rather than a pain in my ass. I can’t root for him but I will support his work on film. I feel slightly dirty saying that but it is true. Gravity is not a groundbreaking story but it does have a groundbreaking visual element that makes it worth the price of admission alone. I saw it in 3D and I enjoyed it. I don’t think (as I’ve said before) that it is necessary to enjoy the movie. Overall...

Mr. Unhappy Sez: It is a great motion picture. I am not sure if it is the Best Picture but you certainly won’t feel bad after seeing it. Enjoy yourself. See this movie and have a good time. Also, fuck space. Fuck it in it’s black dark hole...

Best Picture Part 3: Dallas Buyers Club

 

Dallas Buyers Club

To “Shia LeBeouf” Rod Serling a little.. Imagine if you will... It is the early 80‘s. You are a strong virile Texas man who has a lot of pride in him, a bit of a homophobe, a bit of a racist but you love your whiskey, women and rodeo. You go to work one day and have an accident that knock you unconscious. When you wake up in the hospital, doctors come in, wearing facial masks and tell you that you have HIV, your t-cell count is 9 and in all likelihood you will be dead in 30 days. Go! What do you do? 

In the Dallas Buyers Club, this is the exact scenario presented to Ron Woodroof (played with Texas machismo by a gaunt Matthew McConaughey) and to help you out he immediately hires two hookers and buys a bottle of whiskey. Not the most responsible way to go but he doesn’t have sex with them.

Going into a movie with this scenario, you expect it to be a down movie about dying and the tragedy of AIDS in those early days and even now. It was considered a homosexual disease, a drug users disease and at that time, they were hardly people you cared about helping. They were just beginning the trials of AZT on people though they had really no idea what it did to people. All these things lead you down the I’m gonna weep my way through this category of movie. That’s where the movie surprises you. It is all about as McConaughey said in Dazed and Confused “L-i-v-i-n.” Ron is desperate for anything that can help him and he goes to Mexico to get medications. There he meets a doctor who teaches him a new way to ease his suffering. Vitamins and minerals that six months later have Ron running full Ron speed with a new idea to bring the medication from Mexico and help more people (while making a tidy profit). As he tries to sell his medicine to a largely homosexual population he finds a problem. Homosexuals don’t want to talk to a man who so clearly hates them. Enter Rayon, a transgendered woman played by Jared Leto of My So-called Life fame, who sells his meds to the homosexual community for 25% of the profits. Soon the Dallas Buyers Club is founded. For 400 dollars per month (AZT was $10,000 dollars worth of poison according to th movie), you could receive all the meds you need.

The true joy in this movie is watching Ron and Rayon slowly become bonded in a way that certainly Ron never thought of. They keep selling their drugs while the FDA and a local doctor try to shut them down through various schemes. Ron is a strong man and Matthew McConaughey was born to play him. You could see the vitality in his eyes even when he looked close to death. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both lost a lot of weight to play these characters. Ron’s skeletal frame is frightening to look at but the man bubbling out through his Texas drawl is filled with life and a belief that he will not go down easy. For Rayon, Leto is a pitch perfect character. I can see why the Academy is expected to recognize the performance because he carries her grace and defiance while showing how devastating the disease is to her. Perhaps my favorite moment is a half naked Leto looking in the mirror and holding up a piece of lingerie to her (I say her to respect the transgendered out there...I know Jared Leto is a man) body and saying (and I am paraphrasing because I cannot find the quote anywhere) “God, when I see you I am going to be beautiful.” It is such a beautiful acceptance of fate while still being herself.

This movie is emotional. There are some great moments of pure emotion. Ron is not a quiet character and he will not pass into death without screaming for any and all to hear. This story is not only important to see but  really can change your view of things. AIDS has fallen by the wayside a bit with the new cocktails and I think I heard a rumbling about a cure out there somewhere but people are still dying out there. Children are dying out there of this disease. The story is very today. I can’t say you won’t hate Ron Woodroof at the beginning of the movie but I can probably guarantee that by the end of it you can see the humanity in him. He may not always be the best person in the world but he was, for this time (and it was much longer than 30 days) a person that many people needed in Dallas. I think that is worth remembering and honoring. Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, and the rest of the cast have done that here.

Mr. Unhappy sez: See this movie. It is the type of movie you want to win the Best Picture Oscar but it will likely be honored in other ways such as supporting actor, possibly Best Actor or screenwriting. After seeing 5 movies of the 9 nominated, Her is still my favorite but Dallas Buyers Club is a strong number 2.

Best Picture Part 2 - The Wolf Of Wall Street

The Wolf Of Wall Street

Jordan Belfort was a bit of an asshole. That is the truth that the Wolf of Wall Street never just flat out tells you but hints at throughout. He wasn’t always that way. He started off an idealistic young potential stock broker who got seduced by money. It seems like a simplistic way to look at the world. The Wolf of Wall Street (based on the novel by the real Jordan Belfort) is the tale of Jordan’s rise from wide eyed Leonard DiCaprio to drug addled Leonardo DiCaprio, a man so far gone by his desire to make money that he couldn’t leave well enough alone and facing 20 years in prison.

  

The film begins at the end of the 80‘s when a young Jordan Belfort finds his calling as a stockbroker. He passes his series 7 exam and becomes a stock broker ready to make the real money. That day happens to be what the wall street people call “black Monday” and Jordan ends up unemployed in an economy which does not support stock brokers. People are wary of investing and as a result no one wants is hiring. He considers going to work in retail until his first wife (played by How I Met Your Mother’s Mother Cristin Milioti) finds an ad in the paper looking for stock brokers to sell penny stocks. Jordan is a hell of a salesman and elevates the small time scam to a big time business. When he meets his partner in crime, Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), they decide to go into business for themselves and create Stratton Oakmont so he can sell the worthless penny stocks to the 1 per-centers. So are they criminals? Not really other than the pounds of drugs, hundreds of hookers, and insider trading. I know I wanted to root for Jordan to get his act together. He just didn’t. As the movie goes on there are very funny moments, the parts are all well acted (just wait until you see the Quaaludes scene) but I just didn’t want to root for these people. They are equally depraved, sad, pathetic human beings who love being rich. In a world of economic inequality this movie just reinforces that the rich get away with whatever they want.

Put in the hands of Martin Scorsese, you know The Wolf of Wall Street is going to be a good movie and it is. I liked Martin Scorsese. Goodfellas is a top 10 movie in my personal Hall of Fame. I even loved the more recent Shutter Island...brilliant movie. I just don't get The Wolf Of Wall Street. The acting is top notch and the story could have been intriguing enough to carry the bloated 3 hour runtime if there was a point to it. I just never cared about one person in this movie except Jordan's Dad Max (Rob Reiner). But Jordan Belfort is not someone worth rooting for. Donnie Azoff is a horrible human being who may or may not be married to his cousin but he loves to get fucked up. Isn't that awesome? Naomi Belfort is a horrible person who ruins Jordan’s marriage to his first wife and stays with him solely because she enjoys the lifestyle he provides. FBI Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler) and Teresa Belfort (Cristin Milioti) are people worth rooting for but the movie uses them as plot devices to show how clever Belfort is. Belfort is just a criminal who while charming, good looking, rich and getting away with everything he does is a joyless man. He cheats people out of their hard earned money and  spends the money buying things and drugs for himself. His life is mostly joyless and he spends the majority of the movie drunk, stoned or both. It is a joyless movie. Even the copious amounts of sex. It seems thrown in as though it shows that all of the horrible things Jordan does are all worth it. There is dark humor and some genuinely funny moments but they are not always funny when you look back on them. 

This is not the first movie based on Stratton Oakmont and Jordan Belfort. The movie “Boiler Room” is based on the events in this movie. The only difference is that in Boiler Room, there is a moral to the story. Punishment is meted out for the crimes they commit. I enjoyed The Wolf of Wall Street, I really just felt it was a well acted/directed movie about a group of people I didn’t want to hang out with. It is O.K., they probably wouldn’t want to hang out with me either. This movie is like seeing the cool kids in high school get a movie praising all the bullying and excluding everyone out of their coolness bracket. I get it. You did all the drugs you could want. You flew helicopters and had a big yacht. You ditched your pretty "normal" wife for the upgraded blond with legs for miles. You played with others people money, lost a lot of it, stole some of it and made yourself sickeningly rich. You got a lot hookers, tossed little people at dart boards and created a multi million dollar company all built on lies and salesmanship. If the movie set out to tell the story of a morally ambiguous person who learns in the end that what he did was wrong, it failed. If it decided to tell the tale of a man who is a monster to his wives, kids, friends and colleagues, it succeeded. I just don't see why we needed to see it. Even a private plane crashing and killing 3 people is treated as an aside and not really important.

I guess it was not a movie for me. Do I think it is a bad movie? Not by any means. I liked the movie... it was good. I'll keep telling myself that over and over again. Maybe some day I’ll actually believe it. Not today though.

Mr. Unhappy sez:  A well crafted tale of moral ambiguity but Best Picture? Not even close.

Best Picture Part 1 - Her

 Her

Is it possible to fall in love with someone you’ve never met? A lot of people would say no. Yet it happens. Online people fall in love from thousands of miles away or even next door without a single look passed between them. People would look upon this love as lesser than someone who has exchanged secret glances with their love. Is it really that hard to imagine that someone could stimulate you in a way that makes you love them despite the lack of looks, kisses and the feel of their body pressed against you. The latest movie and Best Picture Nominee from Spike Jonze, Her, tries to answer that question and in return gives us one of the most romantic and complex movies of our time. I truly feel that he has raised the bar for what a love story should be and in turn, makes you want this story to be true.

Her opens with Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a lonely and introverted man stuck with the memory of his ex-wife (played by Rooney Mara). He writes letters for other people, ghost writing their love story but not having one of his own. His friends are worried about him and want the happy Theodore to come out to play again. As he broods through life listening to melancholy songs (literally) and not connecting with anyone he sees and purchases a new operating system which promises an artificial intelligence that is customized to each user. Enter Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johannson), Theodore’s A.I. Operating system, who learns and listens to everything Theodore has to say. Samantha and Theodore seem to instantly connect (as she is supposed to) and they become friends. She has a desire to learn and Theodore likes to show her new things. Samantha even helps him start dating again. His friends set him up with a woman who is perfect (played by Olivia Wilde) for him. But she wants something from him that Theodore can’t give her. When she finally see how lonely and scared he is of being alone, she realizes how far gone he really  is. Theodore is searching... for comfort, touch, feelings, and connections but never wanting love with any of them. Seeing through all this she labels Theodore a “creepy dude.” He attempts to object but can't. She has cut to the core of who he really is and she sees through him. Completely lost and looking for something, Samantha offers him an outlet. 

They can feel each other in a way that Olivia Wilde's blind date couldn't, as no other person could. In a moment of weakness, Samantha and Theodore make love. I know what you are thinking but even this seems organic and real. Unsure of what his O.S. wants, they stumble through the early stages of a relationship. He takes her on adventures and she opens him up to the world again. He is genuinely happy again. As Samantha and Theodore grow closer, and they do really grow together as a couple, they fall in love. It really is a voyeuristic tale of Theodore and Samantha’s love. As improbable as it is, it is love. You cannot doubt that and you feel their happiness and even their pain when they argue. We steal moments from his life with "her" and are given the joy of watching love happen. It is truly a singular movie. I can't recall ever seeing anything like it and I can't believe anyone will ever capture the magic and chemistry these two have. Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant and in a voice only performance, Scarlett Johannson truly makes Samantha a living character. 

When I first read the idea for this movie I looked at the idea of a man and an Operating System falling in love with a cold eye. It offended me a little. Surely there can be no real sparks, no romance between a man and his computer. I thought that there was no way to empathize with a man who loved his computer or make a viewer believe a computer could fall in love with a man. Here’s where the true genius of the movie comes in. Scarlett Johannson and Joaquin Phoenix play the movie with such earnest emotion that it does happen. The story doesn't force them to fall in love, it just happens. You watch it happen and  as a viewer you fall in love with their story like a good book. I kept looking at my watch as the movie played but not because I was bored. I was greedy. I wanted the story to slow down, I wanted more moments and most importantly, I didn’t want it to end. I think that is the best praise someone can give a movie. When you feel sad that the movie ends and you have to go back to your own life, the movie has succeeded in transporting you into the world of the film. You've literally watched something that has changed you.

Her is one of the most beautiful and emotional films I’ve ever seen. I would share it with everyone and anyone who asked me “What is the best movie you’ve seen this year?” More importantly I would want to pass on that this movie really gets love in a way that I have never seen depicted on film. It is a one in a million movie that captures you and sucks you into the world. So when I ask myself whether you can fall in love with someone over a computer, I don’t look at it as skeptically as I once did. I think you can fall in love with a mind, a personality, a person no matter how complex or corporeal they really are to you in real life. Her is a movie that I cannot wait to share with people, which is why at 5:30 a.m. I am still writing this review. Her feels real and you want it to be so badly that you wish it to be real. I cannot recommend this movie enough. See this movie, see it often and as soon as you can. This movie is literally a work of art on screen. I plan on seeing more of the Best Picture nominees but they will have to be amazing to even hold a candle to Her. It is literally the best picture I’ve seen in 10 years.

Mr. Unhappy sez: 1978's Superman made you believe a man could fly, 2013's Her will make you believe a computer can love.


Part 1 of a 9 part Best Picture review

RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

6/23/1967 - 2/2/2014

My Facebooked Quick Hits...

So I've been doing a lot on Twitter ( @MrUnhappy1331 Follow me!) and on Facebook (Mr. Unhappy's Movie Blog.... Like me!) and I haven't been writing full reviews. As a service, I will post these posts here as well. Hopefully you'll like em...

December 7, 2013

To further prove my 14 year old girl movie taste watched The First Time and much to my dismay I really liked it... Is it a great love story along the lines of Nicholas Sparks? Not at all but it is a sexy, fun, humorous take on love. Oh and can I say Britt Robertson is just adorable. I just want to give her a big hug...and a kiss...and a back rub...and maybe...this is getting away from me.


December 19, 2013

Watched the movie Freeway today... It is an underrated movie and an interesting telling of Red Riding Hood... Better than that awful movie with Amanda Seyfried. Keifer Sutherland gives good wolf and it is perhaps the sexiest Reese Witherspoon has ever been...at least until she opens her mouth.

January 17, 2014

Iron Man 3...perhaps the worst of the trilogy and still 90% a good movie. Shit gets blowed up...can't complain too much. It's not so much Iron Man as it is Tony Stark Superspy....and where the hell were the Avengers? Fricking Hulk is listening to the story.... what Cap and Nick Fury don't wanna get involved with it after the President of the United States is kidnapped? Sure leave it to the guy with a heart condition.

January 20, 2014

  

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit delivered all the required elements and added a love story...of course most love stories don't end up with her being kidnapped and having a light bulb shoved in her mouth... at least not mine...maybe I am doing it wrong.

January 21, 2014

Watched This Is The End tonight... RIP James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robertson, Michael Cera, et al... Wait...are you telling me they didn't all really die? I feel cheated... I saw Michael Cera's ass! Not one Hermione boob... but a good 5 minutes of demon penis!


January 25, 2014

 

Watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows... Damn you Dobby... Always makes me tear up like I'm a five year old being left at school for the first time. And again...No Hermione boob....what is it gonna take?

January 27, 2014

 

 

I watched Bronies, a documentary about men/women who watch/love My Little Pony...while I can't say I am going to be comfortable with this, I do have a new understanding about bronies... That being said, I am still slightly skeeved out by adult men trying to get a life size plushy of Twilight Sparkle to call their own but I am willing to brohoof it out...

 

 

January 28, 2014

 

 

Watching The Day after Tomorrow on Spike TV. This movie tries to convince you that by the end that you will now not only understand climate change but you will learn how to outwit a wolf on a ship that runs aground in front of the New York Library. It's a multipurpose movie. Complete and utter bullshit but multipurpose.

February 1, 2014

If you have Comcast/Starz on demand, check out the documentary West Of Memphis. It is the story of 3 small children and the 3 teenagers who were convicted of killing them but did not. The sad part to this crime is not only the fact that 3 teenagers were convicted because they were loners who liked Metal music but that three children were killed and no one is looking for the killer. Powerful, angry and ultimately justice served for the West Memphis 3. They are now free but there is still no justice for Stevie, Michael, and Christopher and there is no real chance it will happen. It never ceases to piss me off. Why are there not more people pissed off about this?

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I will eventually get back to writing full reviews and of course my upcoming Golden Unhappy Awards for the 2013 movies. Also I am going to venture to see more Oscar nominated movies so I can give you my choices for who should win.  For now, I hope I gave you a few things to check out. All of these movies are worth seeing... some for sheer horrible delight... and some because they are really well done.