2015 Films: #21. Spotlight

November 28th in Chicago, IL. This film opened to rave reviews and received a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed and written by Tom McCarthy with an all-star cast that includes the following:

• Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes
• Michael Keaton as Walter "Robby" Robinson
• Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer
• Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron
• John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr.
• Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll
• Stanley Tucci as Mitchell Garabedian, attorney
• Gene Amoroso as Stephen Kurkjian, Boston Globe general investigative reporter
• Jamey Sheridan as Jim Sullivan, an attorney representing the Church
• Billy Crudup as Eric MacLeish, an attorney

McCarthy and the cast do not disappoint. The picture is based on the Boston Globe's investigative reporting team's (it's called Spotlight, hence the title) uncovering of the the Boston archdiocese's sexual abuse scandal in 2002. McCarthy focuses the story on the tedious investigation of the systematic abuse. The more the team digs, the more the they uncover. The more people become disgusted and the more defensive people get. It also doesn't overlook the fact that there was a community wide cover-up that goes back to the 60s in the Catholiciest town in the United States.

With a run time of nearly 130 minutes, the film does not get boring, as McCarthy does a really nice job with the pace of the film. The cast had excellent performances all around, especially Keaton and Ruffalo. The subject matter of the film is disturbing and it made me cringe when they deduced that there were 90 potential abusers but, this film is a must see and wouldn't surprise me if it gets some nominations for the awards season. Any problems I have with the film are very minor and not really worth nitpicking. 

2015 Films: #20. Trainwreck

An On Demand viewing on November 27th in Chicago. A Summer rom/com released that got an 85% Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $110 million at the box office. Directed by Judd Apatow and starring Amy Schumer (who also wrote the film) and Bill Hader in the leads. There's also a bevy of comics (Colin Quinn) and cameos (John Cena and LeBron James) that round out the cast.

Amy Schumer plays "Amy," a hard drinking, weed smoking, journalist with a penchant for no strings attached sex. Which basically means that she sleeps with whomever she wants and never has any repercussions. Amy is a journalist and has a great apartment as every single woman in NYC has. While on assignment, she starts to date the subject of her article Dr. Aaron Connors (Hader). Connors is a work-aholic sports surgeon who naturally falls in love with Amy because she's unconventional or something. The issue with Amy is that she's a commit-a-phobe despite the fact that she really likes Dr. Connors. It's obvious that they like each other but can't stay together and then Amy performs a ridiculous grand gesture that gets them back together. Ta Da!

This is a formulaic rom/com with some laugh out loud scenes. John Cena and LeBron steal the show in their roles. Cena is Amy's workout addicted boyfriend and his scene where she asks him to talk dirty to her while in bed was hilarious. LeBron plays himself and he's quite good going up against comedic talents of Hader and Schumer.

What makes this a decent film is that it's rated R. There are several laugh out loud moments in this film that would not be as good if it was PG. The film clocks in at over 120 minutes and no rom/com should ever be more than 100 minutes. The film was a minimum of 20 minutes too long with scenes that didn't need to be in the picture. Then there's the fact that Amy is a free thinking woman who lives her life the way she wants to but in the end needs a man to "save" her from herself. There's also the standard "dudes shooting baskets" rom/com trope, the only thing that makes it funny is that it's Hader playing 1 on 1 with LeBron. Of course the play in an empty gym in NYC. If LeBron James is shooting baskets in a gym in NYC, there's people there. Colin Quinn is solid as Amy's foul mouthed father who basically teaches her that monogamy is bad in the opening scene of the film. There's several ridiculous scenes in this film that have no basis in reality but that's expected in an NYC based film.

This was a good but not great film. Apatow sticks to the rom/com formula but it runs too long. Schumer was good as the foul mouthed lead, Hader was a good lead and there's chemistry between the two but their relationship is unrealistic. I do not believe that a big time sports surgeon has the kind of free time that Dr. Connors has in this film. The film is a lot of laughs and worth watching but it's not breaking any new ground.

2015 Films: #19. Uncanny

This was an iTunes rental that I watched on the flight back to Chicago after the NHRA Auto Club Finals on November 16th. This picture interested me because it seemed similar to Ex Machina and I think that's one of the best films I've seen this year. A bit of research shows that Ex Machina was film in 2013 and released in early 2015 (U.S. release was April 2015). Uncanny was released during the January 2015 film festival circuit but didn't seem to do much after that as I hadn't heard of it until I was looking for viewing options a few weeks ago. So it looks like Ex Machina was the 1st indie sci-fi film about AI. Both films involve a new breed of artificial intelligence that its creators want to pass as human and a minimalist cast.

Directed by Matthew Leutwyler and starring Mark Webber, Lucy Griffiths, David Clayton Rogers and Rainn Wilson, the film opens with Joy Andrews (Griffiths) going to an exclusive interview a programming prodigy David Kressen (Mark Webber). Since graduating from MIT at 19 years old, Kressen has been a bit of a recluse working for Simon Castle (Wilson), the billionaire CEO of Kestrel Computing. Kressen has been working on a new form of artificial intelligence that is supposed to be near human. Joy arrives at the facility to interview Kressen for a week of unfettered access. Kressen introduces her to Adam (Rogers) and she marvels about how "human" he is.

Adam begins to notice the Joy and David are becoming enamored with each other and starts to exhibit some creepy behavior. Eventually David has Joy over for a date and she spends the night. Suffice to say Adam is not to happy with this and attacks David. As David and Joy try to escape the building, David succumbs to the effects of the attack and Joy is rendered unconscious. When Joy awakes, David is strapped to a table being vivisected by Adam. She pleads for his life and admits that she loves him. Let's just say there's a really big reveal here.

This isn't a bad film, the acting is fine and the story moves along well and the reveal was good but it was lacking something. That something was I had seen Ex Machina and this film wasn't as good. Uncanny went into a different direction than Ex Machina that I could kind of see coming, though the big reveal was surprising. I would recommend seeing this film but I'd recommend seeing Ex Machina more but why not see both films about AI so you can compare?

2015 Films: #18. Cartel Land

This title was an iTunes rental that I watched on my flight from Chicago to Ontario, CA on November 11th. A documentary directed by Matt Heineman that center around two vigilante areas involved in the Mexican Drug War, one in Arizona and the other in Michoacán, Mexico. In an Arizona town about 90 miles south of Tucson we have Tim Foley founder of Arizona Border Recon, a militia group that concerns it self with patrolling a stretch of the Mexico-Arizona border in order to stem the flow of drugs into America. Foley says that he started doing this because he was fed up with the flow of drugs through his community and how the police (90 miles away in Tucson) were powerless to help. He didn't feel safe so he and a handful of volunteers took it upon themselves to take the risk and do what they can.

Foley was a construction worker prior to the economic crash of 2008 and found himself unable to get work because Mexicans were working for less money. I got the feeling that while he may have started on this venture with some racist beliefs he realized that there are Mexicans who are in the same boat as him (or worse in a lot of cases). He does however have some blatant racists working with him (ideology is overlooked because he needs the help).

The Mexican portions of the film center around Dr. Manuel Mireles Valverde. Valverde founded his group Autodefensas because he felt the the Mexican was too corrupt to do anything about the rampant violence carried out by drug cartels. He slowly gathered a following of fellow fed up citizens who armed themselves against the cartel. They slowly began taking towns from the cartels and gaining new recruits. As the Autodefensas began to grow the Mexican government took notice and offered to bring the vigilante group in the fold after an assassination attempt on Valverde. Valverde doesn't trust the government but while he was laid up his 2nd in command took over and Valverde got left without a chair when the music stopped. It should also be noted that while Valverde was recuperating, the Autdefensas got a little rough with their methods and turned people against them (its pretty much inferred that they were pulling suspected "cartel members" off the streets and torturing them). It turns out that Dr. Valverde is quite the devout family man as we are led to believe. He's got a penchant for younger women, much to the dismay of his wife.

The film ends with Dr. Valverde being put in prison by Mexican authorities, Arizona Border Recon continuing their patrols and the cartels (who fund Autodefensas among others) going about their business. The cycle continues.

This an interesting picture about people who took matters into their own hands. I'm more sympathetic to Valverde than Foley and it's hard for me to comprehend what either has gone through. Without Valverde, Autodefensas became as bad as the cartels. Arizona Border Recon is quick to point out that they are neither militia nor vigilantes but have worked with Border Patrol. But Foley isn't in a position to turn down help and the time may come when his group becomes part of the problem instead of part of the solution (if there can be one).

2015 Films: #17. Spectre

November 4th in Miami, FL. So the marketing agency I work for has a client that had a advanced screening of Spectre for its customers. I was in Miami on some other work and offered to help out. It appears that they were desperate and the accepted my offer. After the sign-in I was able to stick around and see the film. This is Daniel Craig's fourth film as James Bond and there's been a lot of buzz about Craig not wanting to be James Bond anymore. I can understand that Craig may not want to get pigeon holed as he is a talented actor (his best non-Bond role to me is Layer Cake) but Craig doesn't become the international star that he is without Bond.

When the announcement came that this film was being released I was pretty stoked that 007's old nemesis was being revived. Spectre was last seen in 1971's lackluster Diamonds Are Forever and it's CEO, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, was killed off in 1981's For Your Eyes Only. With Sam Mendes returning to direct and a cast that includes Monica Bellucci and Christoph Waltz, I was going to see this film. I did miss the first few minutes of the film but I will probably view the film again in it's entirety at some point.

Now I don't want to go too much into the plot as it's very detailed. In all of the Craig bond films, there's been that hint of a larger criminal organization at work behind the scenes. In this picture, it all comes to fruition in the form of SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion). A shadowy organization that has far reaching tentacles.

Hence the logo.

Bond starts of in Mexico, then travels to Rome (where he attends a Spectre meeting with the ring he took from a dude he killed in Mexico), Austria and Morocco. Leaving a trail of damaged equipment and bodies in his wake. Bond comes across the elusive Mr. White (again) and finds out that he was poisoned and fears for his long lost daughter's (played by Léa Seydoux) life. Whom Bond naturally vows to protect.

I often wonder how much Bond would "care" about the women he comes across if they weren't attractive.

The two wind up at at overly elaborate complex which houses Spectre and eventually Bond finds himself being elaborately tortured by Blofeld (who gave some overly elaborate exposition for his origin) and eventually gets away and destroys the lair. Then we go back to London for the final showdown that deals with MI6 going to shutdown the 00 program in favor of a massive surveillance system (remember the cell phone surveillance that Batman used in The Dark Knight? Kind of like that) that's secretly run by Spectre. In the final showdown there's some monologuing by the Blofeld, Bond saving his girlfriend and yada, yada, yada.

There were some dumb things in this film and it seemed like a lot of scenes were driven solely by product placement (there were several unneeded wardrobe changes that shouted, "look who James is wearing now!"). There were also a few scenes that were stolen (Hollywood prefers to call it an homage). For instance, there's a big fight between Bond and Spectre's top assassin, Mr. Hinx...

and it's very reminiscent of the fight scene on a train between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love. The film didn't seem cohesive to me, they tried to tie all of Craig's Bond films together and it didn't really work for me. After Skyfall, Spectre was a bit disappointing. Skyfall was tough to top given but they had over 2 years to come up with something and they fell short. I got the feeling that Daniel Craig didn't want to be in the film, he just didn't seem to care (IMHO). The quality of the even numbered films of Craig's run has seen a drop-off (Casino Royale has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 95%, Quantum of Solace is at 65%, Skyfall is at 93% and this film is at 64%). Numbers don't lie. This is a decent film, nothing more but I had higher expectations. 

2015 Films: #16. Hyena

October 26th in Tampa, FL. This title was an iTunes rental that I watched on a plane from Chicago to Tampa. This is a British film that was released in the U.S. at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival and received a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. Written and directed by Gerard Johnson, the film is about a unit of London detectives that rack up arrests but are really crooked. The unit's leader, Michael (Peter Ferdinando) and the team are working for a Turkish drug smuggling ring. Things go south early into the film when Michael's Turkish contact gets brutally slain by some Albanians who are moving in on the drug trade.

Michael is pursued by an overzealous internal affairs inspector who wants him in jail. Michael is transferred to a sex trade task force to take some attention of him and his team. He ends up investigating the same Albanians that took over the Turk's operation (if movies have taught me anything is that Albanian mobsters are not to be trifled with, unless your name is Bryan Mills). Despite that Michael is a terrible person, he tries to help Ariana (Elisa Lasowski) but it just gets her in more trouble.  Eventually he rescues her because she can help put the Albanians away before they probably kill Michael. Remember that task force Michael was assigned too? That was all a ruse to set him up and let's just say that Michael doesn't handle it well.

This film is dark, gritty and very graphic. It's a good film with solid acting but it is basically an R rated version of The Shield. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Michael is the corrupt cop that has some good in him but he's in so deep he can't get out and he makes bad decisions yet somehow manages to escape until he runs out of luck. Hyena is worth watching but it's not breaking any new ground.