The Sessions

Whoever thought a movie about a 40 year old virgin trying to get laid would feel so sweet and oddly innocent? The Sessions manages to take a very common subject in romantic comedies and add a refreshing twist to it.

The Sessions stars John Hawkes as Mark O'Brien, a man diagnosed with polio at a very early age. As a result, he's lived his entire life with an iron lung, and enough machinery attached to fill up a Best Buy. He's decided he wants to lose his virginity, and with the help of a local priest (William H. Macy), he soon finds an opportunity with a local sex surrogate named Cheryl (Helen Hunt).

One of the biggest surprises about The Sessions is how hillarious it can be. All of Mark's encounters with these situations are hysterical due to his childlike innocence and unawareness. When he first meets Cheryl his initial reaction is to brand her like a hooker, "The money's on the table". As opposed to most rom-coms where the main character tries to lay on the charm, Mark actually goes in the entirely opposite route, providing humor at every chance he receives to go against to norm in these situations.

Every performance in The Sessions is spot on. John Hawkes is brilliant as the lead character, transforming himself into the role. It never feels like you're watching a performance or someone putting on a show. You're just watching a man who wants to get an opportunity to do something that so many people take for granted; a chance for intimate relations with someone else. Helen Hunt is stellar as Cheryl also, receiving many well-earned nominations at all of the prestigious award ceremonies. Her portrayal is sympathetic yet strong. She doesn't baby Mark, but she shows her emotions through the tough love approach. Their scenes together are stellar.

Even when The Sessions starts going from less comical to more romantic/serious, The Sessions never gets sappy. It remains authentic and heartwearming until the credits roll. Thankfully, The Sessions starts strong and ends strong, never falling into sticky/gooey grounds at all. The Sessions hits all four bases. Pun intended.

4/4

Prometheus

It's probably one of my biggest movie UO's that I absolutely despised Alien. I found it to be terribly slow, way too long, definitely not scary, and poorly written. But when the previews for Prometheus began to air, I thought it was going to be tons better considering the pace of most science fiction movies these days moves a lot faster then back in the day. I was certainly right, in that I did appreciate Prometheus 1,000 times more than Alien, however I felt a bit disappointed overall. I was expecting Prometheus to blow me away but something didn't add up to that.

Prometheus stars Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green as Elizabeth & Charlie, two archaeologists on a mission to discover the first documented forms of human existence and how/why the human race was created. Their journey leads them on a mission lead by Vickers (Charlize Theron) that finds the team on a foreign planet with intrigue at every corner. Unfortunately for them, they're far from alone, and whatever was already on the planet is certainly not welcoming them with open arms.

I feel like I should love Prometheus so much more then I should. The visuals are astounding; the atmosphere is beautiful, the set pieces are immaculate, and in some scenes (most noteworthy being the C section), there's not one ounce of artifice involved. Charlize Thereon as the robotic leader and Michael Fassebender (as an actual robot) deliver the goods with their characters as well, easily becoming the two most intriguing characters of the film. And for the most part I would say I was entertained, despite a few draggy bits and a length that arguably could have been trimmed a bit.

I think my biggest issue with Prometheus is that it just doesn't take the leap from good to great. There aren't any great risks of surprises here. When I think of movies I would label as superb/excellent, there's at least one scene that knocks my socks off and I don't think Prometheus contains one of those. It's definitely good from beginning to end but it's not something that has an element that makes me count down until I watch it again. Solid, but Prometheus fails to really knock it out of the park, or the planet in this scenario.

3/4

Mama

Previews can be damn dirty liars in some cases. Mama is certainly one of them. The previews make it look like one of those good old-fashioned horror movies that rely on genuine scares as opposed to loud noises and bloody deaths to get the point across. And considering Guillermo del Toro's name was all over any advertisement associated with the movie, I was extra excited. That anticipation was shot directly to hell, as Mama unfortunately fails to provide scares and just comes off across as silly and unintentionally hillarious way too often.

Mama stars Jessica Chastain (The Help, Zero Dark Thirty) as Annabel, a punk rock musician whose boyfriend has now brought in his brother's children after years of them being missing. There's only one little problem; the children have been raised by an overprotective monster named Mama, who has sucked every ounce of human out of the girls, reducing them to monsters who growl, crawl, and eat bugs like fritos. Once Annabel begins to become closer to the children, Mama isn't having it, and you won't like Mama when she's angry.

Mama does have some redeeming features. Jessica Chastain is easily the best part of this movie. She's sympathetic and humorous as the lead getting screwed over by her boyfriend's overprotective tendencies of the girls. Her reactions alone to the girls' tendencies to well, act like animals...are easily the best parts of the movie. And I would say that despite most of it failing to provide thrills (which I will explain more in the next paragraph), there are some good scares in this movie and none of which have any gore in them. Which is always pretty impressive.

Now for the less solid parts of Mama, and I felt there were a few which stopped the movie from being stellar. My biggest issue with Mama lies in the plot and the writing. I felt like the story ran out of gas rather quickly. The central idea of a paranormal entity following around two girls like a paranoid, homicidal mother, feels like a 30 min episode of Twilight Zone/Tales from the Crypt. There's not enough material or places to go with the story, so turning it into a 90 minute movie feels like stretching a piece of gum to a different planet. There's too many scenes of the girls crawling around, playing with someone that isn't there, or looking over at someone just to give a quick look, that after a while it just becomes tiresome, and rather funny. There's only so many times you can watch two 9 year old children running around like dogs before it just feels like...well, children running around like dogs. And it doesn't help that the ending seems to take a turn for the worse. Things could have ended in a rather creepy way, making the audience feel that despite its' flaws, that this twisted horror fairy tale ended on the right note. But like it's antagonist, the movie just takes a jump off the cliff and never comes back.

2/4

Silver Linings Playbook

Love is crazy. Men are crazy. Women are crazy. Add all of those factors together and you wind up with insanity, resulting in Silver Linings Playbook, a nutty, dysfunctional, hillarious, and pitch perfect movie that's easily my favorite film of 2012 so far. It's a damn shame if this movie is overlooked at the Academy Awards.

Silver Linings Playbook (or SLP as I will be lazily referring to from now on) begins with Pat (Bradley Cooper) being picked up from a mental institution by his mother. He's being released after discovering his wife cheating on him and beating the shit out of the history teacher that was teaching her a lesson in the shower. He's a bipolar mess and being around his parents, especially his OCD father (Robert De Niro) certainly isn't helping him feel any better. Things are looking down for him, until he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), the sister of his best friend's wife, who just might happen to match his amount of crazy with her blunt offering of sex and lack of anything similar to a filter. He's still hung up on his wife, failing to notice what the audience sees is right in front of his face the entire time.

SLP has so many strengths it's difficult to determine where to start. Both of the leads are getting a ton of attention for these roles for good reason. This is easily the best performance from Cooper and Lawrence to date. Both are absolutely pitch perfect as the hot mess, yet oddly sympathetic and lonely leads. Supporting performances from Robert De Niro and Chris Tucker also provide additional comic relief when things begin to tense up. SLP also manages to provide what many romantic comedies fail to provide; a perfect mixture of romance and comedy. Granted, you know how things will end up with the two, but the romance feels sweet and unusually authentic with a surprise or two along the way. And luckily it doesn't ever cross the territory into mushy. Thank God. SLP is also quite hillarious. The script is witty, intelligent, and fresh. Everything about the movie feels like a gift from the cinematic gods. Crazy perfect.

4/4

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

High school seems to be a difficult subject to capture on film. If it isn't depicted as all sunshines and rainbows like a Disney channel movie, then it's shown as a depressing time from beginning to end. Neither I feel are accurate as high school is a time of many stressful and positive moments. One of the rare movies to get it 100% right is The Perks of Being A Wallflower, one of the best movies of 2012.

Perks stars Logan Lerman as Charlie, a shy, social outcast starting off high school with no friends and a bad tendency to turn off his brain before acting in a stressful situation. He's completely alone until he meets Patrick and Sam (Ezra Miller & Emma Watson from Harry Potter) two seniors that will drastically change Charlie's life for the better.

Every performance in Perks is top notch. Lerman is sympathetic and charismatic as Charlie and Watson is downright loveable as his love interest Sam. The most noteworthy performance comes from Ezra Miller as Charlie though. He steals every scene that he's in and transforms this role from a character in a movie to an actual human being, quite the rare accomplishment in a teenage comedy.

The screenplay is brilliant as well. Unlike a lot of movies these days, the script actually feels a lot like something you would hear real people saying. Authentic is certainly an adjective I would use to describe the overall tone and direction of Perks, a movie that manages to balance the great and shitty moments that life brings especially in youth. Perks is a stellar movie for those who want the realism of life mixed in with the magic of what a great movie can provide.

4/4

Smiley

Technology will be the death of us all but so will generic movies that do nothing with that premise. 

1/4

Killer Joe

When you're strapped for cash and in desperate need for quick money, what's the simple solution to this problem? If your solution is hiring a hitman/cop to kill your mother for her $50,000 that she's worth, then you're in a similar boat as the premise of Killer Joe, the latest entry from the director of The Exorcist and Bug, both highly suspenseful and unforgettable thrillers.

Killer Joe stars Emile Hirsch as Chris, a local broke-ass who needs quick money in order to avoid the wrath of the local loan sharks. He finds a solution with Killer Joe (Matthew McConaughey) whose a cop and also ironically enough, a killer for pay. Chris's mother is worth $50,000 dollars which is just enough to get Chris out of hot water and also be split amongst Chris's father and new wife. So if the murder is successful, everyone gets bank. There is obviously complications, mainly involving Killer Joe's extreme interest in Chris's younger sister Dottie (Juno Temple), who happens to be a few screws loose.

Killer Joe's biggest strength lies in the performances. Emile Hirsch holds his own as the lead and Thomas Hayden Church manages to deliver some comic relief as his clueless father as well. But the entire show is stolen by McConaughey as Killer Joe. Every scene is dominated by his prescence, and every noteworthy scene is one involving him. This could have been quite the hammy and OTT portrayal in the wrong actor's hands, but McConaughey actually manages to keep his delivery quite subtle. He's chilling and menacing without even really having to try.

Killer Joe, unfortunately, does have some enormous problems though. The biggest one is the definitely the tone. It's obvious that the director was shooting for a quite dark, punishing, and grim tone but the execution is problematic. There seems to be a general opinion about being mean and how it's acceptable if it's enjoyable for those viewing it. And that's the problem with Killer Joe, it's nasty and demented, without being any fun. People are beaten to a pulp, killed, and in one especially nasty scene, forced to suck on chicken, but it just feels punishing to watch. It's kind of hard to tell if the director wanted the material to be funny or scary, but a lot of the time, with the exception of the humor provided by Church and the thrills by McConaughey, it just feels like it belongs in neither category. Watching people get the shit knocked out of them isn't really scary or funny. It's just punishing.

Editing is also something I feel Killer Joe could have used a bit more of. The first half of the movie is terribly slow, you keep waiting for something to happen that just won't come. It's build up for something that has potential to be stellar but just isn't. Kind of like a roller coaster with a giant hill that just keeps winding and winding and winding up. It could have used a bit more excitement in the first half because the last half just feels rushed as a result. Add on a completely puzzling ending that will leave more questions then answers, and you have a movie that feels deadly dull when you look back.

1/4

Brave

It's no secret that Pixar is easily one of the most popular and generally well-liked franchises of the 2000's, for good reason I might say. In this case though, with Brave, something feels oddly missing. While most other entries from Pixar captivated the brain, heart, and funny bone, Brave just feels unwilling to really capture any of the three.

Brave is about a girl named Merida (Kelly Macdonald) whose parents are the king and the queen. Merida is someone who wants to do her own thing in life but that goal couldn't be in any larger opposition than the one her mother plans for her. Her mother wants her to find a suitor to marry her so that Merida has someone to take the throne with. After meeting up with a witch in the hopes that something will change her mother's mind about the marriage, Merida finds herself in a drastic situation to save her mother from the unexpected transformation that she has taken on.

One of the strengths of Brave, as with all Disney movies, are the visuals. Absolutely stunning, Brave is a movie that you can definitely tell was created by someone who pays attention to the little details. It's really inspiring in terms from a visual perspective.

What Brave lacks though, is real power. For such a short movie (it clocks in a bit over 90 minutes), Brave has the tendency to drag, especially in the last 30 minutes or so. The pacing is definitely off, and I feel a big reason for this is the story, which doesn't really feel fleshed out enough to carry an audience from beginning to end without checking their watches once or twice. After reflecting on it, not much in Brave really happens, and unfortunately it's certainly not anything I would call hillarious or captivating. It's certainly not a bad movie, but it's disappointing because of how much better it could have and should have been. Brave could have had the strength of a superhero but instead it decides to just lay there and surrender.

2/4