Fish and Cherries Productions

Das Boot: Director’s Cut is a movie well deserving of all its accolades. However, its greatest enemy is its running time, which clocks in at three and a half hours. The interactions between all the characters were great and I appreciated the sense of camaraderie during wartime, but it was about the halfway point where I realized that I didn’t remember any of their names and that was really distracting for me. They were likable, but after the fifth time I checked my watch, I really wasn’t that invested.

And that’s a shame because the tension aboard the u-boat is really great, especially near the end. I wrote a piece a few months ago about terror coming from people being trapped in environments that will kill them if they’re exposed and this definitely takes advantage of that near the end. People have also commended this film for its accuracy of depicting life and perils serving on a u-boat. I can’t really comment on this because I wasn’t alive when u-boats were in service, but if it’s true, that’s certainly great. Come to think of it, this movie really is a masterful work of art. The only problem here is me. I don’t always have the patience for long movies that move slowly, so who am I to dismiss something just because it doesn’t smash my own personal hurdles? Conclusion: it’s a great movie, just not for me. I’ll probably see it again if other people are watching it, but it’s not one I’ll seek out on my own.

21 Jump Street was a damn funny movie, even if it became tripped up by the tropes it was trying to parody. It’s odd because you wouldn’t think that a remake of such an old and obscure property would warrant such high praise. But with the writers of The LEGO Movie on board, we get a really clever and really funny send-up to buddy cop and high school coming-of-age movies. True, they unfortunately have to go through the clichés of the third-act break-up between multiple parties and the hero’s reward kiss, but the film plays with them enough to not make them too insufferable. I’m not sure what else to say other than it was a really funny movie worth a watch and I’d be happy to check out the sequel.

Wait, there is one other thing. A criminal is not released from custody just because they weren’t read their Miranda Rights! That is complete crap invented by Hollywood for tension just like the one phone call rule! The event that kicked off the entire plot is complete bullshit! There, I’m done now.

Divergent Series: Insurgent was a huge jump up from the previous movie. While Divergent dragged in quite a few places, Insurgent seemed to fly right by. Part of it was that Triss and her companions actually had a goal that the audience could get behind, which was to put a stop to the killings and crimes against humanity that the council was committing. Also improved were the special effects, which go to absolutely ridiculous degrees in Triss’ mind simulations.

The plot is also cleverer, throwing out a lot more twists in the story and giving us more insight into the world. One of my big complaints with The Hunger Games is that we’re only given a bare outline of the other Districts and are not made privy to what it’s like for people there. Here, though, you get to see how people live in the factions that weren’t touched upon in the last movie and the setting felt richer for it. For all my praise, though, I have one big gripe; the arc of Caleb, Triss’ brother, was very confusing and I was seriously at a loss in figuring out why he was doing what he did. It’s a huge shame too, because a different character who was a heartless piece of crap in the last film got a really brilliant arc with some great payoff.

Overall though, unlike last time, I’m really excited to see where the series goes after this movie. It’s broken away from feeling so derivative and I give it a glowing recommendation, even if that means you have to watch the average first movie to get context.

The following was viewed at a special screening and was in no way obtained illegally.

Serenity 2: Still Flying was a massive breath of fresh wittiness as Joss and the Firefly cast reunited for another trip into the Verse. Admittedly, the recasting of Jayne as Chris Hemsworth was a little jarring at first, but considering Adam Baldwin’s involvement in starting the #GamerGate scandal and Whedon’s own feminist views, it’s easy to see how conflicts would have forced a change. Also, Chris’ Southern drawl is quite convincing once you stop asking yourself when Thor ever spent time in the sticks. On the subject of returning faces, however, not only do Wash and Sheppard Book return in a brilliant scene where River is forced confront her own tortured psyche, but in the form of Adelei Niska, coming right off of the Firefly series to provide a chilling antagonist.

What’s really amazing is that after all these years, the cast still feels so natural together and can work off each other so well. There’s a scene involving Mal, Zoe, Simon, two angry clients, and a coffee maker that I won’t dare spoil. In lesser hands, this scene would have fallen flat, but the actors and Whedon’s writing work so well together that the entire audience, myself included, were rolling in the aisles. That said, it is a Whedon film and even though we were all prepared to get our hearts stabbed, nothing could have prepared us for who died here. If you played the Red Wedding scene from Game of Thrones twenty-seven times in a row, it still wouldn’t compare to the emotional gut wrench that scene provided. Suffice to say, this comes highly recommended. Fans will surely get a kick out of it, but newcomers will not only find it accessible, but incredibly engaging. Buy your tickets soon when it comes out because I’ll bet my life that they’ll sell out fast. It’s funny, some people at the special screening remarked how they weren’t sure that people would be interested in this universe continuing, that it was too old for people to latch onto. But it’s like Kaylee says in a line that’s sure to be famous on release, “The ship keeps stalling, but she’ll never stop flying.”

Divergent, on the whole, was okay. There was nothing truly bad in it, but that doesn’t mean it was all that good either. For one thing, a lot of the world felt underdeveloped and the characterization of the characters ranged from sparse to negligible, leaving us with jackasses who have no reason to be jackasses. The male lead in particular was quite cardboard and didn’t seem to have any chemistry with our female protagonist Triss, apart from when they were close and intimate. I’d even argue that a good chunk of the first half, in which Triss is trying to make it through the preliminary trials, felt unneeded and investment-free. Why should we want her to make it into this organization that resembles a fraternity in all the worst ways with a clearly corrupt leadership?

The movie really starts to shine in the final act where there were a lot more clever bits of the narrative, like dialogue and conflict resolution that I won’t give away. The resolution at the end in particular was well executed and, to its credit, was actually one of the things that I couldn’t see coming a mile away. So yeah, as far as young adult novel adaptations go, it’s passable. It’s not as good as The Hunger Games, but it’s certainly not as awful as The Mortal Instruments. Would I go see Insurgent? Yeah, but more out of curiosity and not because this movie made me a diehard fan.

Cinderella (2015) is a very easy film to turn one’s nose up at, but the end result is surprisingly pretty good. It’s not great, but sometimes you’ve just got to take what you can get. I’ve had a long-standing philosophy that if a remake has to be made, it should be of a bad movie so that there can be some actual improvement. This seems to justify this film’s existence quite nicely because if memory serves, the original Cinderella wasn’t that good. For the most part, the story’s a lot more fleshed out, giving us an insight into Ella’s early life, her relationship with her parents, actual motivation for Lady Tremain and her daughters, character for the prince and his entourage, and what motivates everyone to do what they do. The story’s a lot less shallow too; Ella isn’t going to the ball to meet the prince because he’s a prince, but a friend she met in the woods that she became quite taken with. The stepsisters are also great fun, as they have a good comedic dynamic when they work off of each other rather than being stock bullies like they were in the original.

However, I think when the movie has to adapt the fantastical and kiddie parts of the original, it falls a little flat. Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother just doesn’t do it for me, feeling like she stepped out of a completely different movie. The stuff with the mice also felt very superfluous. I realize that they were a big part of the original, but it’s a real jarring shift when you go from the prince and his father talking about the future of the kingdom to the antics of CGI mice. By the way, those CGI mice were just creepy. Ella also felt a little too squeaky clean at times. I understand that she’s supposed to be a pillar of virtue in the midst of adversity, but the times where she was talking to animals and acting overly whimsical was just too much.

The film was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who gave us Thor and a previous Hamlet adaptation. His talent for gorgeous sets comes into full force here, as everything is extravagantly designed and adds to the fairy tale feel. Branagh’s influence also pulled in a lot of big British names to this production, all of them bringing their own bit of flair and class to the production (and while I don’t watch Downton Abbey, I’m sure a lot of fans will get a kick out of the two actors from the show essentially swapping societal classes for this). I’ve had a rather chilly relationship with Disney’s new trend of remaking old classics into live-action and this isn’t exactly going to set the world on fire, but I think it has a lot more reason to exist than Maleficent did (my heart’s hardened toward that one as of late). I don’t know if I’d see it again on my own, but I’d say it was worth the first watch.

Into the Woods was… okay. I think my biggest issue was that the pacing felt so rushed and there wasn’t really enough time to get to know these characters. I wouldn’t have minded so much if the performers blew me away with their acting and their singing, and while they weren’t bad, they weren’t spectacular either. Similarly lackluster was the cinematography and the set design. On stage, it’s different because the sets in the woods can go for a lot of artistic license. But in the film, it’s just a bunch of gnarled trees that look all the same and it simply get exhausting to look at. I know the woods are an odd thing to complain about in Into the Woods, but I’m sorry, by the end of it, I was so sick of those fucking woods.

The frustrating thing is that none of it’s bad, it’s just not spectacular. for an adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim work, that’s a huge step down. And what really hurts it is the stuff from the play that doesn’t translate to screen, like the several strips of nonstop songs (which is puzzling considering that quite a few were cut). There’s some nice original stuff like Cinderella’s song where time stops for her and Little Red Riding Hood’s journey into the wolf’s stomach, but they’re few and far between. Moreover, it feels grim where it should be colorful, colorful where it should be grim, and a lot of the bite and the serious bits were left by the wayside (including my favorite part which concerned the narrator… you all know the one). Overall, I feel like this worked way better on the stage than it does on the screen. I can’t say I regretted seeing it, but I’m not exactly sure I took that much away from it either. If you need to see it, do so as a way to tide yourself over before the play comes to your town.

Selma was probably written with the old Voter ID laws in mind, but with the recent events of Ferguson and Michael Brown in mind, this movie becomes more pertinent now than back in 2008 when they started writing it. In fact, the song at the end hammers the similarities of the acts of today to the segregation state of mind from the Civil Rights Era. The movie itself was very powerful, not shying away from the brutality that awaited the protestors of the time. It delivers a gut punch in the first two minutes and the blows kept coming throughout the movie. It was also really good to show that not all of the violence victims were black, like violence and hate aren’t directed towards only one race.

David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King is great, capturing the full gravitas of someone who has the weight of an entire race on his shoulders in both his vulnerable moments and his inspiring moments. He’s not perfect, either; he makes some mistakes and even a few calls that a lot of people question. In fact, that’s another thing the movie does right: showing that not all of the protestors are fully behind King. It paints the group as dynamic and diverse and shows that they aren’t completely unified, that they’re still people with their own values and points where they won’t bend. Also, Oprah does a great job at playing the beleaguered woman who is denied the right to vote and attacked. The makeup artist was really superb in making her look old and haggard, while the lady herself brought the weary personality to make the whole thing complete.

Since this is a story of true events, it’s hard for me to criticize anything about the script that doesn’t veer too far from history. That said, my one gripe with the story is that Malcolm X shows up and talks to King’s wife about being a counterpoint to King’s methods to get more people following the good reverend and it’s treated as a big deal. A few scenes later, it’s revealed that he died off-screen. It’s such a bizarre choice and I have to wonder what the point was to bring that character in. Regardless, this is still a great movie and it’s great that they found a story to tell about Dr. King that didn’t involve his famous speech, as that seems to be a writer’s go-to for the man. It’s a pity I saw this after I made my Top 13 list or this definitely would have made the cut. As of now, consider it tied with The Imitation Game at number 4, both great stories about great people who face injustice and discrimination for their differences, be they invisible or as plain as their skin color.

The Imitation Game is a great biopic about a great man and also a very poignant one. The movie doesn’t just focus on his breaking of the Enigma cypher in World War II, but also his struggles against the isolation of being homosexual and autistic (though the latter is never explicitly stated). In fact, Turing’s speech about the nature of the Imitation Game, known to us as the Turing Test, could very well be seen as criticizing how society treats those who think and behave differently.

On the subject of Turing, Benedict Cumberbatch plays the part of Alan Turing beautifully. There are some similarities to his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and some may be tempted to say the two are the same, but that isn’t necessarily true. Holmes is a lot more smug in his attitude and dialogue while Turning seems legitimately oblivious to social cues, subtext, and interaction in general, which is why I drew the conclusion about his autism. My only real gripe is that Charles Dance feels a little underused. Then again, he represents only a part of such an involved, tragic story. With great acting, beautiful writing, and a heart-wrenching look into the mind of an ostracized man, this movie is surely worth a watch.
14 ponies reached

Whiplash was a very intense movie, but it wasn’t a murder mystery or any kind of thriller. It was about music, specifically jazz drumming. In fact, it goes a long way to show how music isn’t all fun and games and involves a lot of work. Struggle, even. Some of the more memorable scenes are when the main character is practicing so hard that his hands bleed. Most of the tension comes from J.K. Simmons’ hard nosed teacher character. I’ve had a lot of strict and hard teachers in the arts, but this guy is on a whole new level of extremity, pushing his students in such a way that you wonder if it qualifies as abuse. Then again, the main character’s behavior sometimes borders on obsessive masochism, drumming past his body’s limit and undergoing some pretty deadly risks just to become a great musician. Yet through all of this, you can understand where they’re coming from. It’s a sparring match of ideologies and expectations, culminating in a finale so intense that I could hardly breathe until it was done. Rarely do I see a movie where I feel I absolutely have show it to people and get it more widespread. Whiplash is that movie.