Don’t call his movie jazz. Hazily moving back and forth in time, Miles Ahead takes place during the legendary trumpet player’s self-imposed 5-year hiatus from making music during the 1970s, flashing back to memories of his tumultuous relationship with ex-wife Frances Taylor (Emayatzy Corinealdi). It’s a disjointed, bizarre, and oddly compelling structure that Miles himself may have admired. Don Cheadle—playing Miles, co-writing, and making his feature directorial debut—hones in non-musical moments from Davis’ life in creating this muddled biography, with at least one more gun-toting car chase than expected. As cool as Miles Ahead’s stylistic flairs are—bleeding Miles Davis performances into the middle of a boxing ring and elsewhere—Miles Ahead still falls victim to the stiffness of conventional biopics, hampered by its own ambition.

Cheadle has worked nearly a decade on Miles Ahead, co-writing the script with Steven Baigelman (story credit on last year’s James Brown flick Get On Up) and even turning to IndieGoGo for a final bit of fundraising. More than any other element, Cheadle the actor appears ready for the challenge of capturing the soul of Miles. He convincingly resembles Davis when tapping on his trumpet and donning the garish outfits Miles wore at the time. Sounding like a man in recovery from a weeklong binge, Cheadle’s Davis adopts a scratchy, apathetic tone somewhere between conversational dialog and a man mumbling under his breath. His performance brings the dynamic, unpredictable energy Miles Ahead needs, but the film surrounding him is too sparse to keep pace with his rhythm.

Miles Ahead’s frantic assembly loses sight of the characters in Davis’ radius. Though flashbacks (and flashforwards) transport the film back over a decade, the majority of the “present day” action occurs across two crazy days during Davis’ exile. He’s bothered by the unrelenting knocks at his door from fictional and inexplicably pursuant Rolling Stone writer Dave Brill, played by Ewan McGregor, who alternates between authentic and fake bafflement. Davis asks Brill if he can drive before using the writer as a chauffeur to Columbia Records, where he arrives gun-in-hand to demand a $20,000 payment. One of the executives (played by a mustache-twirling Michael Stuhlbarg) makes sleazy attempts to win over Miles before hatching a plan to steal Davis’ latest recordings—which he literally refers to as, “gold.” The subsequent chain of events involved in the losing, tracking, and re-acquiring of this unreleased recording borders on ridiculous, and would more appropriately belong to a Guy Ritchie heist plot than the Miles Davis story.

These distractions pull the film away from the music. Miles Ahead never plays like a greatest hits record, often turning away from the Kind Of Blue hits in favor of obscure cuts from Miles Davis’ career. Even when songs are heard, they are relegated to the background of scenes in which Davis fruitlessly searches for his new sound. In the beginning, pouring a session tape, Davis stares down his trumpet from across the room and mutters, “Fuck you lookin’ at?” Cheadle attempts to define the obstacles Davis had in returning to recording after taking time off, but in the context of his erratic vision, Davis’ inability to compose is reduced to a subplot.

Cheadle reaches for a lot of disparate concepts with his long-in-development Miles Davis biopic. He looks to articulate the impact of his music while focusing on the prolific musician’s least productive period. Cheadle tries to make a film about the essence of Miles’ work but offers an intentionally limited perspective on the man. Miles Ahead remains entirely watchable, yet the ways in which the film falls short of its target are frustratingly apparent throughout. When Cheadle trots out as Davis with #SocialMusic emblazoned on his vest during the film’s finale, it’s one final oblique maneuver that seems as confused as the rest of this incomplete portrait. Despite a tremendous performance at its center, Miles Ahead gets lost in its attempt to embody Davis’ artistic spirit.

Broad and brutal, August: Osage County doesn’t offer much in the way of subtlety, but there’s something satisfying about indulging in the bigness of it all. The all-star cast, headed up by a bitch-mode Meryl Streep and a seething Julia Roberts, put up bombastic, larger-than-life performances. Which makes sense, since it’s based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tracy Letts (Bug, Killer Joe) stage play. This “home-for-the-holidays” family drama’s (substitute “family tragedy” for “holidays”) transition from theater into the world of cinema isn’t a smooth one (due to director John Wells’ lack of vision), but the venomous dialog delivered by the accomplished, decorated cast make it hugely entertaining.

Streep plays Violet, the cancer-stricken matron of the Weston family. She’s a pill-munching, fire-breathing, queen of cruelty who fancies herself a “truth-teller”, when in reality she’s a mean old witch. Her toxic tendencies have trickled down to her three daughters, effecting them each in different ways. Julianne Nicholson’s Ivy has been rendered uncommonly dependent on Violet, never leaving their Oklahoma family home. Oppositely, ditzy, flighty Karen Weston, played for laughs by Juliette Lewis, has made herself scarce for years. Roberts plays Barbara, who shares a most contentious relationship with Violet and has inherited her mother’s nasty bark. When their father (Sam Shepard, whose screen time is brief and sweet) goes missing, the sisters reconvene at the old Weston house in muggy Osage County, bringing their significant others and heavy baggage (mostly figurative) with them.

The tension between Violet and Barb bubbles, then erupts at the film’s bravura dinner table scene, where deep-cutting insults are flung, egos are eviscerated, and we even get a mother-daughter grappling match. The construction of the scene is excellent; if the basement bar scene in Inglorious Basterds is a slow, steep incline leading to a sudden, furious drop, Letts’ symphony of wicked barbs is a twisty-turny, rickety wooden roller coaster ride full of surprises. There are so many tonal shifts, big laughs, awkward laughs, long silences, explosions of anger, and cuttingly clever jabs that your head will spin (mine almost spun right off my neck).

Streep is as Streep-y as ever as Violet, attacking every syllable of every piece of dialog with full force. Her spiteful glare and inebriated rage are met with a cerebral, sober, but equally deadly antagonism from Roberts, whose performance is raw and stripped-down (she’s usually at her best in this mode). Their scenes together are dynamite across the board, surprising no one. The acting, like the story, is a bit obtuse, but the spectacle of these heavyweight actresses going toe-to-toe, line-for-line, is ridiculously fun to watch.

The two other Julias are excellent as well, and each of the supporting players have wonderful moments. Playing the sisters’ lovers are Ewan McGregor (he still hasn’t gotten that American accent quite right…), Dermot Mulroney (surprisingly funny), and Benedict Cumberbatch (playing a meek, boyish character for once). Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper, and Margo Martindale also impress.

Wells sits high in the director’s chair, but his filmmaker fingerprint is nowhere to be found. It seems as though he’s gotten Letts to adapt his play, collected some of the strongest actors he could find, and let them all do the heavy lifting while he does little to transform the theater experience into a cinematic one. Aside from moving certain scenes from interiors to exteriors, there’s no effort made to yank the story away from the stage, where its roots are buried deep. Wells does little to nothing interesting with his camera, and there isn’t a memorable shot to be found. It’s visual vanilla.

The film picks up speed as it progresses, with a cascade of earth-shattering revelations in the latter half causing the characters to exit one by one until only Violet and Barb are left. Everyone leaves battered and bruised to the core, but Violet and Barb are left crippled in the wreckage of the family implosion. They’re ugly creatures the both of them, and though Barb is still pretty on the outside, she can see her monstrous future self wasting away right in front of her eyes.

Containing an all-star cast including, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor and Juliette Lewis, comes a dramatic comedy based on the play by Tracy Letts. The film will be produced by George Clooney and Harvey Weinstein (amongst others) and distributed by The Weinstein Company. The trailer balances the contrasting seriousness and comedic values very well. What has me intrigued the most about John Wells’ August: Osage County is the assortment of characters and the actors that play them. The film seems like it will be very character driven, hopefully they will be developed enough for us to really invest in their emotional family drama.

Watch the official trailer for August: Osage County:

Haywire is the new icy cold globe-trotting film from veteran director Steven Soderbergh. It’s a lean and mean thriller that starts in Upstate New York and works its way all over the world. From Barcelona to Dublin to the desert of New Mexico and back to New York again, Haywire is everywhere. I personally saw Haywire as a great throwback to spy and espionage thrillers of the 70’s. Everything from the music, to the cinematography and editing seemed to be celebrating that generation of secret agents.

Former real life MMA fighter Gina Carano takes lead in the film as Mallory, a freelance black ops operative who seeks revenge against her employers who betray her after a rescue mission in Barcelona. She is beautiful, mysterious and most of all, deadly.

The film begins with Mallory sitting in a booth at a small café in Upstate New York. She sits. She waits. Suddenly a man walks in and sits down at her table. The man is played by Channing Tatum. He asks her to turn herself in. Make it easier on herself. She declines and the within seconds Mallory is fighting for her life.

Mallory escape the café brawl with a young man in tow. They take his car and flee the scene. While this happens the movie cuts to the Barcelona job where we Mallory leading a team of operatives to the aid of a hostage. This team includes Tatum’s character with whom Mallory hooks up with after the mission is complete. This makes the opening scene all the more interesting.

Once the Barcelona job is done, Mallory returns to the States only to be recruited on another European mission by her employer played by Ewan McGregor. He is a snaky and sly person who seems to never be telling the truth with anyone. Mallory is sent to Dublin to meet up with another secret agent. He is name is Paul and is played by Michael Fassbender. Fassbender is having one hell of a career at the moment. He seems to be everywhere.

In Dublin, Mallory and Paul are in Dublin pretending to be a married couple. We soon find out that Mallory was sent there to be killed by Paul. This leads to an extremely brutal fight in a hotel room between the two. I can’t remember the last time I saw a fight on film that was so barbaric. The first that comes to mind is the climactic fight in William Friedkin’s The Hunted. They beat each other to a pulp.

At this point Mallory discovers she has been set up and sets out to exact revenge on those who betrayed her. After Dublin, she is back in the U.S. And now in terms of the plot we are back at the beginning of the film in New York.

Haywire if anything is a very efficient thriller. Like I said earlier, it’s extremely lean. The movie doesn’t concern itself with anything other than its main objective, Mallory’s quest for revenge. The movie is edited in a very slick manner. Cutting back and forth between previous missions and present time, the movie is constantly alive.

Soderbergh uses different colors and hues to distinguish which setting we are in. This makes it easy for the audience to figure out where in the timeline we are. Barcelona uses a warm palate, Dublin more of an icy blue.

The cinematography (by Soderbergh himself) is very well done. The brighter scenes have really nice warmth to them, reflecting the sunny locations of Barcelona and other parts Spain. When the blues are present they crisp and cold, hinting at the loneliness of the life of a secret agent.

The big talking point about Haywire seems to be Carano and her acting. When the film began I’ll be honest I wasn’t that impressed. But as the movie wore on, I honestly couldn’t picture anyone else in the role. Carano is a good choice because she isn’t known as an actress. She doesn’t know how to be a flashy movie star. She’s known for kicking butt, something she does very well in this film. Soderbergh doesn’t give her a lot of dialogue to begin with, but when she has some she delivers it just fine.

Another person I want to bring up is Channing Tatum. A few years ago I could not stand him as an actor. He seemed so awkward on camera, almost as if he didn’t belong there. But recently his choices of films have been great for his career. He’s having a great 2012 at the moment. He was first in Haywire. Then The Vow, which even I thought was pretty decent. Then he did 21 Jump Street, which was a critical success. Next he’s in a film called Magic Mike by none other than Soderbergh.

Haywire is smart, brutal and at times very fun. It’s a very confident spy film that doesn’t insult its audience. It plays to its strengths and has almost no weaknesses. The film has no fat on its bones and moves along at a consistent enough pace to keep the viewer interested and like most great espionage films has a lot of style.

Beginners is a semi-autobiographical film written and directed by Mike Mills about how to find love in relationships. It is also about how much ones upbringing influences their lives as an adult. A young man must deal with his father recently being diagnosed with cancer and come to terms that his 75 year old father is just now coming out-of-the-closet.

Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor) is a graphic designer whose parents were married for 44 years before his mother passed away. At the time of his mother’s death his father Hal (Christopher Plummer) announced that he was gay. Hal confessed that he has been gay since he was thirteen but when Oliver’s mother asked him to marry him he said yes. Oliver accepts his father’s confession just fine but has a harder time accepting that his parents had a loveless marriage for so long.

Oliver is sad and lonely when he finds out that his father now has cancer so he seeks out companionship from his dog. His luck is about to change when he attends a costume party and meets a girl. Even though he was trying to put on a happy face for the party she could tell that he was sad behind the costume. The two connected immediately despite the fact she has laryngitis which prevented her from being able to speak that night, forcing her to write down her words to him.

The girl he met is Anna (Mélanie Laurent), a French actress who happened to be passing through town. Because she is an actress she has learned to read people very well, which is likely the reason why the two hit it off so strongly. Oliver has a history of failed relationships but he is hoping this one will be different.

Beginners frequently flashes back to his childhood with interactions with his mother. Through these flashbacks you understand why he acts they way he does. Oliver experiences similar situations as a child as he does as an adult. One example is as a child his mother would pretend to shoot him and he would act dead, Anna also pretends to shoot him as well. These are subtle correlations but they explain his personality and influences of his upbringing.

In Oliver’s mind, he is always comparing the present to his past. Such as whom the president was when his father was born and who it is now. Because his profession is drawing he remembers the small details in people. He remembers what Anna’s face looks like when she is happy or what it is like when she is crying. He can recall exactly what her eyes, feet and ears look like.

Ewan McGregor had the head role but his character is not the most memorable, to no fault of his own. Mélanie Laurent kept reminding me of a French Penelope Cruz; she was witty, seductive and genuine. But the standout performance in Beginners goes to Christopher Plummer. He did an amazing job playing the man with a delightful outlook on a new lifestyle while he approached death from battling cancer.

The performances from the cast in Beginners outshine the story itself. The storyline is sluggish, not because of the non-linear structure or the lack of an antagonist but from the lack of depth. I still found myself rooting for the characters even though ultimately the story falls short. Because it if there is one thing Beginners has, it is character.