REVIEW: Wild

9/10 - Not nominated for Best Picture or Best Director? What an oversight. 

Last night I cleaned my kitchen. Took a nice hot bath. Made a cup of tea. Got in my PJ's, with blankies and my puppy on the couch, ready for snuggles. Then I turned on this movie and was unable to look away. 

I highly recommend anyone else who wants to watch this film to do the same. Not only was it a nice Sunday night, this movie is highly deserving of your focus and attention. And you will probably also need something to snuggle. 

Wild follows the story of Cheryl Strayed as she hikes across the west coast of the United States via the Pacific Crest Trail. It's a story of her learning to deal with her past, as the journey on the hiking trail reflects the journey her life took to get to this point. You might even call the hike the b-plot because the "flashbacks" are really the focus of the film. 

As a screenwriter, I also read the script, which wasn't nominated for an Oscar (I'm supposed to be reviewing those movies right now.) I have a ton of appreciation for a script that's entire purpose is to illustrate an internal struggle. That's not an easy thing to do. There was no voice-over narration saying "Hi, I'm Cheryl and today I started hiking!" or massive physical transformation. It's a story about a woman reflecting on her life, fondly remembering love, and regretting mistakes, dealing with deep soul-crushing pain, and avoided memories of heartache. There's a movie in here that follows Cheryl chronologically, I'm sure. That's not this movie. Wild isn't about what happened to her in the past, it's about her dealing with it in the present. 

The only major difference from script to screen I noticed was the hike itself. The script seemed to emphasize more the difficulties of the hike, but that's difficult to express on screen and if more hiking had been included in the final cut of the film I'm sure someone would have made a Lord of the Rings joke about her hiking to Mordor. 

There is really something wonderful about the relatability of Cheryl in this film. Women are so often portrayed as either strong and cold, or weak and flirtatious. This is as close to the female "every-man" as I've seen on screen. Her character reflects the way people are composed of contradictions. She's a character full of love, compassion, and empathy, but also makes selfish and impulsive decisions. She struggles to deal with things that are hard to deal with. She doesn't have the answers. She has to make hard mistakes to figure out who she is. So rarely are women given the opportunities to see those stories told on film, even though this one made for one fantastic film.

Reese Witherspoon is vulnerable and raw, but also optimistic. She brings so much dimension to this already complex character. Laura Dern is undeniably charming, as she often is on screen. Her moments in the film are brief but haunting. I've always felt like she was an underrated actress. I think Jean-Marc Vallee brought out some quality performances from the cast. 

So yes, I highly recommend Wild. It fits somewhere outside the normal convention of film. It's a drama that isn't agonizing. It's a female-driven film that doesn't dwell in romance. It's a biographical memoir told in an unconventional way. This is what I like about independent films. Sometimes going just a few steps outside of the 'expectations box' can lead to wonderful things. 

IMDb - Wild (7.4)

Wikipedia - Wild

Rotten Tomatoes - Wild (90%)

Amazon.ca - Wild

87th Annual Acadamy Awards Rundown

Here are a selection of the nominees from this years awards. I'll try to review as many of these as I can and see what shakes out. I'm already predicting a few categories: Boyhood for Best Picture. Many of these, I've also read the screenplays for so perhaps that will work into my review. Worth nothing that Gillian Flynn was shut out of the nominations for Gone Girl. I was also quite surprised Wild wasn't nominated for Best Picture.

Best Picture

American Sniper

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Boyhood

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

Adapted Screenplay

American Sniper (Jason Hall)

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten)

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo)

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Foxcatcher (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

REVIEW: The Maze Runner (And a YA series rant)

5/10 - Da do run run, hey! Da do run run!

I hate movies like this. By that I mean movie-franchises like this, movies that are build to be part of a trilogy or whatever. There's something so infuriating about a film that intentionally is left incomplete. It offers no sufficient climax to the audience. Perhaps there is an action climax on some level, but certainly no emotional one.

I think the failings of The Maze Runner can be attributed in part to the failings of the novel in creating a series. Part of what works in the Harry Potter series of novels is the school story framing device. It provides a clear timeline for events to build up, and conclude. The Hunger Games features an annual event that play out over the year culminating with the Games themselves. These things are tremendously helpful in creating expectations, creating suspense, and allowing the audience to be included in the emotional journey. It ebbs and flows with the natural catharsis of life. For young adult series' like Divergent and The Maze Runner, that don't have that framing device, the narrative becomes a never-ending series of events that build, and build, and build and break. It's not as satisfying and it doesn't draw in the reader to the next adventure. Divergent had a somewhat okish climax and conclusion, but left the audience to fester in frustration at plot holes, and unfinished stories lines A poor 'hook' for the next film. At least it had full and complete story beats and a conclusion of the action. I've read the books, and they go downhill quickly. The Maze Runner isn't so fortunate. It's as if they took the first act of a film and dragged it out to create a two hour movie where almost nothing happens.

The essential problem with a movie that sets up for sequels is it's need to create questions without providing answers. What ends up happening is I cross my arms and look pissed off, knowing that when they say things like "I don't know who I am" that they will never get addressed in the course of the film. Let's be clear: That's fucking bullshit. A movie should be able to stand and walk on it's own two legs, sequel or not. This film cannot. If you take The Maze Runner for what it's worth, without considering it to be part of a series, this movie crumbles. It's got about as much story content as a 22 minute TV comedy. That's unacceptable.

I know I shouldn't keep comparing this franchise, but lets be honest if it wasn't for the success of the other YA novel adaptation film series's then this movie would have never been made. So lets compare it to The Hunger Games. In The Hunger Games, the world is introduced as part of what shaped the protagonist. When Katniss gets entered into the Hunger Games, that's the turning point and she experiences the Capital, the people there, the games, who runs them, and what meaning they have. Then she gets into the games, and a bunch of crazy shit goes down. In The Maze Runner, there is no setup or introduction. The protagonist is a blank person. We experience the glade and learn about the maze over a painstaking first half of the movie where no information is the only information. Then they go into the maze and ... that's it. All the questions of who these people are, what motivates them, why they are doing this, what their purpose is, nothing is answered. I don't even have a clear view of the characters by the end of the film because they literally don't know themselves. It's beyond frustrating to know that it's going to take 3 movies for this series to tell the story that should have been told in 1.

In conclusion, there are some special effects and some great kid actors (along side a bunch of really, really terrible ones) and you'll have to spend another $30 worth of movie tickets to find out what really happens.

IMDb - The Maze Runner (7.0)
Wikipedia - The Maze Runner
Rotten Tomatoes - The Maze Runner (63%)
Amazon.ca - The Maze Runner

REVIEW: Wit & Remembering Mike Nichols

Mike Nichol's is a filmmaker who will go down in history as one of the greats. His work as a film director has been beyond inspiring to me. For 50 years his work in the industry has been pushing boundaries and telling unique stories with some of the most memorable characters of all time. Many know him as the man who brought The Graduate to life. An utterly iconic film that brought Nichols an Academy Award for Best Director. He also won several Tony's over the years for his theatre work on Broadway, winning Best Director 6 times over. He's one of 12 people known to have an EGOT, an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, an illustration of his outstanding achievements in media over the years.

What I truly find remarkable are the films that prominently feature women in film. Over the years Nichols has developed a body of work that reflects strong women, through complex and engaging characters. From Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to Working Girls, to Silkwood, to Closer, to Heartburn. Nichols showed that shattering stereotypes can create remarkable characters that persist in our cultural memory.

With the passing of the legendary Mick Nichols I wanted to explore a film in his repertoire that I had not before seen. Wit is one of only two writing credits on Nichol's IMDb page, for an HBO film he co-wrote with the wonderful Emma Thompson. It's the adaptation of a play by the same title by Margaret Edson.

9/10 - If you cry at the opening of Disney's Up then NEVER watch this. I cried a river. 

In it's most simple form, Wit follows the diagnosis and treatment of a philosophy professor's ovarian cancer.

The majority of the film is composed of monologues by Dr. Vivian Bearing as she reflects upon her treatment, and her life. She shares her love of the English language, and the poetry she spent her life dedicated to teaching. As her treatment progresses her dignity is diminished and the philosophy she recollects learning and teaching takes on new meaning.

Make no mistake, Wit is not a nice film. It's not funny, or sweet, or warm. It's brutally honest and never wavers or offers relief. It's sharply intelligent with a precise and concentrated use of language. It's utterly emotionally draining. And yet this film is also beautiful, inspiring, and touching.

As heart wrenching as it is to watch, Wit is a tremendously honest movie experience. Mike Nichols reigns in the audience with a focused and unflinching view of the raw emotions Vivian feels. I was utterly enraptured by the film. With the lyrical poetry that Vivian spoke, and the way the events were presented as experiences, I simply could not break away from this film. Without question, Emma Thompson does some of the best work of her career. The whole film relies on her ability to convey the exact emotions of the present moment and she does so brilliantly.

Here is a fantastic review by Roger Ebert.

IMDb - Wit (8.2)
Wikipedia - Wit
Rotten Tomatoes - Wit (80%)