With Brie Larson winning the Oscar this year for Best Actress, she’s catapulted herself into the rarified air of A-List Hollywood. Her leading role in the forthcoming King Kong should help seal the deal, but it’s Larson’s ability to leave a significant impact even in small supporting roles that makes it an easy bet that she will likely …
An observant script and amazing performances make ‘Room’ one of 2015’s most gut-wrenching viewing experiences
Room Written by Emma Donoghue Directed by Lenny Abrahamson Ireland / Canada, 2015 Following the quirky yet deeply satisfying Frank, director Lenny Abrahamson brings us a wholly different cinematic entity with Room. Brie Larson (Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now) and Jacob Tremblay (Before I Wake) suffuse the screen with tenderness as a mother and …
Amy Schumer already cemented her place on my year’s favorite entertainment list when she managed to loosely remake 12 Angry Men for the fourth episode of Inside Amy Schumer, but not satisfied with owning television, Schumer decides to revive the romantic comedy for 2015. Lazy writing has cursed the genre for much of the last few decades and studios have responded in kind by not pursuing that market with the gusto they used to.
Usually the first thing added to a film when it is remade is glitz. American films from the 1970s had their own distinct, philosophical quality to them, something that inevitably gets lost in translation when the material is put to screen again by a new team of filmmakers. Still, the one thing I didn’t anticipate while watching screenwriter William Monahan and star Mark Wahlberg tackle The Gambler was a lack of visceral thrills. Director Rupert Wyatt’s film nails the look of 1974’s The Gambler, but it lacks the feel of the original.
Day Two of Ebertfest began early (9 am), with a discussion panel titled “Challenging Stigma Through The Arts”, which focused on Short Term 12 and its depiction of struggling teens. The panelists, a combination of artists, critics, and social work professionals, explored the connection between trauma, expression, and the arts, as well as the progression …
After screening at both Sundance and South by Southwest, this weekend sees Don Jon hitting theaters. It is a well-crafted and confident debut for Joseph Gordon-Levitt who stars, directs, and writes. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, and Tony Danza; it follows a man and his addictions as they bleed into various parts of …
It is hard not to wonder, while watching Don Jon, exactly how much Joseph Gordon-Levitt can’t stand the culture of which he is a part. His directorial debut (which he also wrote) is a deeply cynical portrait of what he must consider the shallowest elements of pop culture.
The life sacrificed for your fellow man is at the heart of Short Term 12, a new film focusing on a foster-care facility run by a group of passionate young people, many of whom come from broken homes of their own and are trying to offer safety and shelter where once there was none.
The most difficult part of making a movie about troubled teenagers is authenticity. With inferior films of this type, either the teenagers won’t seem particularly troubled, or the adults’ attempts to help them will seem insincere and ineffective. Destin Daniel Cretton’s new effort Short Term 12 developed sizable buzz at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year as a film which evades those traps and provides a convincing vision inside a group home. Sundance buzz is not always justified, but in this case the film more than exceeds whatever the Colorado audiences might have said about it.
Short Term 12 Directed by Destin Cretton Written by Destin Cretton US, 2013 Trauma and abuse in a child’s formative years undoubtedly create ripple effects throughout their adult lives. Everyone talks about making choices, but what happens to those kids who are unfortunate enough to grow up in an environment where that choices are not …