Review: "Spotlight"

Director: Tom McCarthy
Runtime: 128 minutes


A meticulous dramatization of real events, Tom McCarthy's Spotlight makes a compelling case in favor of journalism done right. Though the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals have been in the global limelight for nearly two decades, this trip back to the explosive 2002 Boston Globe story remains queasily relevant. Without giving into either lurid spectacle or a traditional white knight narrative, McCarthy's new film exhibits the very journalistic qualities that it celebrates. In Spotlight, American cinema has produced a work of cinematic journalism that deserves to sit on the same lofty shelf as All the President's Men. 

Like President's Men or Zodiac, what Spotlight does so well is fully throw itself into the tedium of the story's details without becoming tedious itself. Montages can be a cheap shortcut to cut through large amounts of time or activity, but McCarthy and editor Tom McArdle incorporate them without ever making a false move. Spotlight runs just over two hours, and every scene is carefully orchestrated to build to the next. This can make the initial set up seem a bit dry (seeing as we know that yes, the Globe's Spotlight team will eventually take on the case). But the eventual payoff is, like a great work of news writing, compelling because it keeps a level head, and lets the facts speak for themselves.

That last bit is especially important when we consider the horrific crimes at the center of the story. The rather academic tone gives enough emotional heft to the story without amping up the material to make it "juicier." The Spotlight team (played by Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, and Brian D'Arcy James), as well as the audience, hear the disturbing details, but McCarthy and Josh Singer's script leaves enough to the imagination to avoid exploiting the situation. There are plenty of famous faces in Spotlight, but none of them are conveyed as being of equal importance to the greater impact of the story. 

But even though the film doesn't stand out as a performance showcase, McCarthy's actors bring respectable gravitas to the material. As a unit, the Spotlight team is basically different shades of a single character, and that ends up working in the film's favor. These men and women have outside lives, but those outside lives only intrude upon the central narrative when absolutely necessary. Every look we get inside the lives of these reporters adds fuel to the physical and emotional trajectory of the story. 

Beyond the performances, most of the below-the-line contributions do little to steal focus as well, which is for the best. Masanobu Takayanagi's camera frequently moves, but in a way that further draws one into the immensity of the investigation. In one of the simplest, and most expressive shots, the camera merely drifts backwards as the Spotlight team listens to a source over a speakerphone. As we learn what the characters learn, the frame widens, visually complementing the sudden expansion of the abuse scandal's scope. Spotlight may rely heavily on talking, but it still finds room for subtle (even invisible) moments of thoughtful visual composition. 

Other tech contributions, including Howard Shore's simple score, are appropriately invisible. Beyond the screenplay and direction, McArdle's deft cutting deserves the most praise for stitching together so much information all while allowing it to develop so smoothly. As it is in journalism, so it is in filmmaking: having a sharp eye in the editor's chair is crucial into shaping a well-intentioned vision into a legitimate work of impactful art. 


Grade: A-

Review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

Director: Joss Whedon
Runtime: 141 minutes

"This doesn't make any sense," remarks Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) during the climax of Avengers: Age of Ultron. But whether or not it makes sense shouldn't matter. What matters is whether or not enough of this is engaging at all. When Joss Whedon assembled the Avengers for the first time in 2012, he reinvigorated Marvel's cinematic universe. Yet now, at the end of Phase II of Marvel's master plan, Whedon has let quite a bit of wind out of the sails. 

Solo adventures for Captain America (Chris Evans) have been the most recent standalone films before both Avengers films. Yet after Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel was looking a bit weary post-Iron Man. Going into Avengers 2, Whedon is picking up after last year's shockingly good Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which has understandably set expectations higher. And this time, earth's mightiest heroes merely sharing the screen just isn't enough. Rather than close out Phase II with a brilliant end, Age of Ultron comes across as an extended denouement. 

When Age of Ultron opens, we're witnessing the end of the insidious Hydra organization. Once the Avengers dismantle the group's last fortress in eastern Europe, they start looking forward to a world at something resembling peace. Eager to make this dream into a reality, Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) expands his Ultron program, a team of cyber soldiers designed to act as a shield for the planet, as well as an agent of peace on the ground. Things go south, however, when Stark's technological meddling creates genuine AI, which takes on the form of an android (James Spader) who claims the Ultron name for himself. With the corrupted AI on the loose, the next step is inevitable: the rise of the machines. Well, it would be inevitable if there was even an ounce of tension present on screen.

A good villain is a terrible thing to waste, but that's exactly what Age of Ultron does. Spader does a wonderful job of voicing (and providing motion capture work) Ultron, but the hulking metallic fiend registers only as powerful, but never threatening. Ultron's strength grows, but the danger he poses is stagnant. At every turn, the Avengers stop Ultron to some degree. Ultron never leaves our heroes broken. He simply runs away to plot his next move. With Ultron's seemingly limitless technological capabilities, the world's machinery should be turning on the Avengers. Instead, it most plays the neutral card, and Iron Man and co. go on their merry way chasing the demon robot across the globe.

The featherlight plotting wouldn't feel like such a weakness had Whedon been able to better sort out his cast. By now, Stark's snark is played out, and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) have settled into solid supporting roles. Despite his bland, all-American boy scout attitude, Evans' Captain America has emerged as the most reliably engaging lead from the franchise. When paired with Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, it becomes all too clear who really deserves to be at the head of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

And then there's Renner's Hawkeye, who has always felt like the sixth wheel of the ensemble. Whedon tries to change that by taking us behind the character's mysterious black-ops facade, but what comes to light only makes him blander. Compare this with the frustratingly-brief peeks at Black Widow's upbringing, and Age of Ultron's priorities only seem more out of whack. As for super-powered twins Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver (Olsen and Aaron-Taylor Johnson), the former is wasted in a potentially cool role, while the latter barely holds a candle to Evan Peters' perfectly-utilized take on the same character in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

So even though the number of plates that Whedon has spinning is impressive, watching this act again is starting to grow old. Just when Marvel seemed ready to move forward, Age of Ultron falls back into old habits. Spending time with these characters still has its pleasures, but this super-sized super-hero flick is, sadly, as bland as many of the standalone films in the series that paved the way. It's a dandelion of a blockbuster; with just the tiniest breeze, it all scatters to the wind with little consequence or merit. 

Grade: C+

Review: "Foxcatcher"

Director: Bennett Miller
Runtime: 134 minutes

An impressively reigned in dramatization of actual events, Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher represents another winner for the director following Capote and Moneyball. Plenty of attention has gone to Steve Carrell being cast against type, not to mention his prosthetic nose. Foxcatcher, however, has no need to rely on publicity-tailored gimmicks of casting and make up. Somber, but not suffocatingly so, Miller's latest is a stately yet steadily engrossing tale of a toxic struggle for recognition.

Despite owning an Olympic gold medal, wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) isn't exactly living the high life. He trains away in a dingy facility presided over by his older brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo), an Olympic medalist as well. Yet only Dave seems to get proper recognition. Early on, Mark gives a speech to a local elementary school, but only because his older brother had to cancel at the minute. Ever when you're an Olympic gold medalist, it's still possible to be the understudy. To Mark's relief, that changes when multimillionaire John Du Pont (Carrell) lures him to his mansion and future training site. Though Dave takes longer to convince, Mark jumps at the chance to take the spotlight at the head of Team Foxcatcher, which Du Pont wants to be America's representative at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. 

For all of the footage of wrestling practice and talk about the Olympics, it's clear that Miller has no intention of making a traditional sports drama. The wrestling scenes aren't given any sort of glamorous make over. Instead, Miller and cinematographer Greig Fraser shoot everything in a distant, observational manner. The wrestling scenes play out like dialogue exchanges, rather than heart pounding fights for supremacy. 

As in Moneyball, Miller's real goal is to use a story rooted in the world of sports to get into the enigmatic heads of his characters. Deftly juggling the story's focus, Miller and his three editors carefully assemble the story so that every change in direction feels completely natural. We start following Mark, but then Du Pont creeps onto center stage, only to hand things off to Dave as the story winds down. Shifting focus across multiple characters is nothing new, but Miller's execution is so methodical that it never becomes a distraction when one of the three main actors vanishes for significant periods of time. 

Carrell, to his credit, never lets the fake schnoz do all of the acting for him. The real Du Pont's eccentricities and instability were toned down for the film, so the performance isn't especially showy. Yet Carrell still dons the man's off-kilter ego elegantly. Even in scenes that focus on other characters, Du Pont hovers around as a hook-nosed harbinger of vague existential doom. Ruffalo, initially a supporting player, turns in nuanced and compassionate work as Dave, the big brother protecting Mark from Du Pont's unsettling father figure.

Tatum, however, is the film's MVP. The role plays on and then subverts his lunkhead, masculine persona. Foxcatcher's most affecting moments, the ones that break through the gloomy grey visuals, are rooted in Tatum's portrayal of Mark's inferiority complex-saddled psyche. Moreso than the other performances in the film, Tatum's is built on an intricate marriage of an insecure center surrounded by the lumbering, hulking form of a world class wrestler. The actor has proved himself as a viable comedic leading man, but in Foxcatcher, he proves that he can also tackle a layered dramatic role given the right material.  

Additional aspects of the film are just as thoughtful and subtle. The detailed production design gives life to the Du Pont mansion and communicates its obsession with greatness without drawing attention away from the story. Spare musical contributions heighten the overcast, autumnal mood and subtly underscore the film's notion of warped patriotic fervor. Fraser's visuals, though initially nothing special, come to possess a stoic, haunting quality as Foxcatcher wades into unstable psychological waters. 

Foxcatcher has several compressions of time, most notably at the end, but never shortchanges the development of its characters. Du Pont's mental decline is never thoroughly explored, yet Miller and writers E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman manage to get their point across. Foxcatcher could have easily become the John Du Pont Show, but the film stays true to its intentions by not sensationalizing its events. Indulging would have made the story's truth too strange to work as fiction. By scaling back on the tabloid-ready details, Miller turns Foxcatcher into an austere, sobering look at the madness that can befall those who strive for greatness. 

Grade: B+/A-

Review: "The Avengers"

You have to admire Marvel for their dedication. Over the past four years, they've poured a lot into building up the four distinct big players who make up The Avengers, as well as an array of smaller roles. So, with so many big characters set up, The Avengers faced the challenge of bringing a lot of larger than life personalities, the film needed someone at the reins who could effectively juggle all of the film's pieces. Enter Joss Whedon, beloved creator of TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. What Whedon achieves, thankfully, is a lively balance of comic book fan service and capable cinematic vision, even if it lacks anything to make it more than a fun ride. 


And, despite a 140 runtime that could have given us a bloated mess a la Transformers 2, Whedon actually moves the pieces of the plot with enough verve to keep the film from falling into indulgence. Though the opening is easily the weakest part, it doesn't last long and is at least efficient in setting up a critical part of the story, Tom Hiddleston's returning villain, Loki, last seen in 2011's Thor. From there, things generally get better and better, and even when the film stalls, it's never for long enough to really make an impact. Whedon's script isn't as smart or witty as it thinks it is, but it does do a good job of playing the characters off of each other. Particularly well-utilized are Iron Man/Tony Stark's (Robert Downey Jr.) clashes with Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), two men who represent two very different manifestations of what America stands for. Less interesting is Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who fights with the above-mentioned characters along with Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. As these fights are kept purely physical, they do little to add to film's presentation of the Avengers as a bit of a rough-around-the-edges group. The two less flashy characters - Scarlett Johannson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye - are also less interesting in general, although at least Johannson has plenty to do, while Renner is sidelined for a great deal of the plot. More fun is Hiddleston as Loki, who actually brings a fun sense of menace to the role that seemed missing in Thor. His motivation is as standard as they come, but at least the actor gives the role some presence.


So even though it does a better job of handling its characters than the average summer spectacle, it still falls short in this department. Much is forgotten (though not forgiven), however, in the massive climactic battle, in which Manhattan is, as always, brought nearly to ruin. Though there are a few edits that puzzle, Whedon's staging of the sprawling battle covers all of the heroes so comfortably that the battle never grows tiresome. The stakes are never quite there - Whedon keeps things a little too safe - but at the very least it's always watchable, engaging, and throwing enough at you to hold your interest without becoming bombastic nonsense. What's really missing though, outside of one hilarious scene involving the Hulk, is anything memorable, either in the laughs or the drama. It's a fun ride, and certainly worth seeing on the big screen, but don't be surprised if you don't find much to talk or reminisce about a day later.


Grade: B-

"The Kids Are All Right" - REVIEW

I'm having a little trouble processing my thoughts on The Kids Are All Right, not because it's some headache-inducing story or thematic puzzler, but because after all of the acclaim, it just struck me as, well, alright. Well, no, it's significantly above "alright," but it's not the masterpiece some have hailed it as since Sundance. Lisa Cholodenko's exploration of family values in relationships has its shining moments of humor and drama, and its buoyed by work from its cast that ranges from "nice" to "great". The biggest problem, of the two big concerns that I have, is simply that Cholodenko's script feels like a surprisingly good first draft that still has to undergo a fair bit of polishing when it comes to execution.

Nic and Jules (Annette Benning and Julianne Moore - Oscar, please take note), a couple in California, get a bit of a surprise when their two kids (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson) track down the sperm donor who made their existence possible. That donor is Paul (Mark Ruffalo), and his involvement (specifically, the fact that both kids want to see him again after their first meeting) is what drives Cholodenko's film. Now, before I start sounding like a nitpicker with a grudge, let me say that I found Cholodenko's presentation of the lesbian family refreshing. This is not a political "issues" movie by any means; it's a matter of fact look at the fact that gay couples with children *gasp* exist and they go through the same highs and lows as everyone else (much like TV's Modern Family). For that, Cholodenko deserves praise. She never condescends to her audience, nor does she go out of her way to make her point. Leading the way (though the emphasis does seem to shift several times) are Benning and Moore, who turn in poignant, heartfelt performances as a normal couple suddenly caught up in an unexpected situation they hoped never to face. I won't play the "who's better" game, as that feels unfair; like Nic and Jules, Benning and Moore balance each other out, even though this results in a few clashes.

And like any normal family, the parents have both chemistry and discordance with their children. Wasikowska, who headlined the unfortunately flat Alice in Wonderland, actually gets to show what she's made of here, and radiates a quiet charm and likability. Hutcherson, unfortunately, is saddled with the less exposed role (for much of the second half he seems to be "there" and not much else), but he shows promise in what he's given. Ruffalo, initially grating, quickly settles into his role, even though it doesn't feel as well defined as the other four characters. In addition to the performances, the soundtrack and Carter Burwell's gentle music add energy to this well edited film.

But like Nic and Jules' family, Cholodenko's film has a few issues that need fixing. In addition to the aforementioned lack of polish (and why does it look slightly dingy on screen in comparison to the trailer?) in the script, there's the climax of Ruffalo's character arc. While I understand it, it does seem a bit frosty and slightly unfair considering the initial forgiveness given to another character. But maybe that's the point, family is family no matter what, and no matter how crucial Ruffalo's role, he'll never be family. Thankfully the film doesn't end there, with the full ending being a much more complete, satisfying one, but the treatment of Ruffalo's character seems a bit much, even considering what happens. Cholodenko's film may treat one character in a questionable manner, but she still treats her audience fairly and the film that unfolds is an insightful look at the ways families are both changing and remaining the same. And, like any family, the film is a little rough around the edges, but at the end of the day, maybe that's alright too.

Grade: B/B+