Rust and Bone is a gut-wrenching, aching collection of poignant scenes. Two lost souls from different worlds, Stephanie and Ali, meet in a club. Stephanie (played brilliantly by Marion Cotillard), a whale trainer, has a horrific accident during a Seaworld-like whale show, in which she loses both her legs. The scene in which Stephanie wakes up and finds that she is missing her legs is rattling and devastating and made me cry out. Ali is a lower-class single father who used to be a kickboxer. He seems fed up with life and doesn't care about anything or anyone very much.
Marion Cotillard has become one of the strongest actresses of right now. She handles this role with care and just with her eyes we can see Stephanie journey from being haunted to being hopeful.
Stephanie and Ali develop an unlikely bond driven by Ali's lack of notice of her disability and her pull towards his physicality and roughness. This bond is also driven by Stephanie's desire to reach out and hold on to someone, anyone, that will make her feel like she didn't fully disappear. They come to rely on each other as partners. It takes one more tragic event, though, for Ali to finally understand what's important and to admit his love for Stephanie.
Stephanie's transformation from the dark depths of despair to an unrelenting strength is both painful and astounding to watch. Although my situation is nowhere near to Stephanie's, I felt like I was crying for her and for me. We are finding a new way to walk and we are defined by our wounds and scars. These characters are all damaged in their own way. Through our breaks we become whole though, for to be human is to be (slightly) broken.
I saw The Great Gatsby in an early premiere. I had mixed feelings before I saw it as I had been extremely excited to see the movie when I learned Gatsby would be played by Leonardo DiCaprio but I grew worried when Carey Mulligan (although an excellent actress) was cast instead of Scarlett Johansson as Daisy, Tobey Maguire was to be the eternal observer/our eyes for that era as Nick Carraway, and especially because Baz Luhrmann was to direct the film. Luhrmann is unpredictable and I am not the biggest fan of Moulin Rouge!. I did enjoy his version of Romeo + Juliet, punk and angsty, is interesting with two great leads, Leo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Needless to say I went in with expectations lowered. Luckily, I liked The Great Gatsby more than I thought I would and more than the critics' reviews allowed us to believe people would. Originally the film was supposed to come out in December before the Oscars and got pushed back to May.
Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby takes too long to get started. It also seems to take too much pleasure in the excessiveness it purports to show for the purpose of paying homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald's analysis of the time. It's a world where the takers take all and those who wish to be a part of that world never truly are.
I didn't particularly care for Luhrmann's cartoony, garish direction. For Gatsby, it's easier to picture a darker vision. The middle and the end of the film is gripping, though.
Gatsby and Daisy show us what truly tragic, destructive love looks like
Most of the actors do seem to be miscast, but they try their best. Mulligan's Daisy isn't totally wrong, but Daisy is supposed to be more aware, shallow and selfish rather than skittish and overly sensitive or vulnerable. Maguire is not right as Nick. An actor with more depth is needed; perhaps like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, or (go along with me here) Gabriel Mann. DiCaprio steers the film and is simply excellent. He is also beautiful to withhold as he brings that era to life and seems to have been born in the wrong time. His clothing fits him effortlessly and his golden, sleek hair shines in the sun. Joel Edgerton, who plays Tom Buchanan (Daisy's brutish husband), comes the closest to matching DiCaprio's strength.
The soundtrack was built up more than the movie itself. The theme song, Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Rey, to Daisy and Gatsby's love affair is both haunting and epic.
Funnily enough I came across this poem that I had written in high school during an academic program to Oxford, England. I had read The Great Gatsby in then and I remember writing about what it meant to me. I remember feeling for Gatsby and seeing that utter humanness in him; he just wants to belong.
Oblivion is a surprise in the midst of the many misses that are spring movies. It is sci-fi with some heart, what is so often missing in the genre (please don't make me mention Prometheus again). The heart comes mainly from Oblivion's lead, Tom Cruise.
Cruise is so vastly underrated as an actor. Like Brad Pitt he can drive blockbusters as well as smaller films. Arguable Cruise is an even better actor than Pitt, able to show great range of emotion and more depth.
Oblivion is set in the future after an alien race has defeated much of the human race. Earth is largely uninhabitable and Jack Harper (Cruise) and partner, Victoria, are under the impression that everyone has relocated to different moons. Jack soon learns that they have not been told the full truth.
The cinematography of Oblivion, especially the scenes of Jack
and Victoria's living quarters high up in the sky with a pool almost
suspended in air, is beautiful. Something that truly stands out about
the film, though, is the musical score. Grand and lovely, it stays with
you long after the movie's final credits roll.
Pain & Gain is an unpleasant film to watch, start to finish. I am not a big fan of Michael Bay's work, particularly because of all the problems Pain & Gain illustrates. Bay tends to focus more on style than story or substance.
The way the movie is filmed is interesting, very Miami with bright, nauseating colors and glitz. I could not believe it was based on a true story and I can see how it was hard to choose the tone of the film. Pain & Gain can be classified as a black comedy. Three fitness junkies come up with a plan to make quick money by kidnapping and torturing a mogul. They are inept at everything and the film goes on from there. There is no one to root for as all the characters are unlikable and unsympathetic.
Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) try to provide some comedic effect. Where the film fails is taking too much joy in the violence it shows, making the movie seem like it is on the substance Johnson's character, Paul Doyle, becomes addicted to. This makes the movie seem like a bundle of absurdity and leaves us with the questions, why and what was the point?
When I first saw the preview for the film Mud on TV I was surprised because there had been little promotion for it. Mud looked interesting, though, and had good actors in it, including Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon. It looked like one of those films that serves as a portrait of the south, and from some reason I am particularly drawn to those.
Mud did not disappoint. It is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale, of a couple of best friends. Ellis and "Neckbone" learn about love, loss, and how people are complicated and live in an eternal grey area-where it's difficult to tell exactly what's wrong and what's right.
The setting is as complex as the people in the movie. Set in the deep south, Mississippi, there is a clash between city and life on the river.
Matthew McConaughey is great as the title character, a man with a good heart who is misguided and usually on the losing side in life. He is also a bit self-destructive as he keeps saving and sticking with Juniper, a childhood love (Witherspoon). I'm not sure what happened to make McConaughey snap out of the 8ish years of soulless rom-com hell he was stuck in, where he wasted any of the talent he had, but whatever it is he should keep it up. This is the McConaughey we had hoped for, the one in Amistad and A Time to Kill. This is the actor who can play flawed characters that are ultimately good and who can also play men who are anything but good and live on the outskirts of life. In The Lincoln Lawyer I started to wonder if he could only give impressive performances when he plays lawyers. Then came Killer Joe and Magic Mike. He also has Dallas Buyers Club coming out later this year that already has him talks for being an Oscar contender.
The two young boys, Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, are excellent in the film. Their performances are so natural, and like the film, stoic and subtle. Mud is a hidden gem indeed.
