The man behind Austin Powers and Meet the Parents, Jay Roach, joins the podcast today to talk about his new film, Trumbo, starring Bryan Cranston as legendary Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, whose career was cut short when he and a handful of his associates were blacklisted due to their association with the communist party. Bernard goes solo to review Tom McCarthy‘s newsroom drama Spotlight as well as share his Indie Pick of the Week.

Topics

• Indie Picks (1:23)
• Spotlight (5:28)
• Trumbo (26:49)
• Jay Roach (35:39)

Articles Referenced

Trumbo Review
Spotlight Review
Doomsdays Interview
Doomsdays Indiecast

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The Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal is subject matter that evokes feelings of sorrow, disgust, confusion, regret, anger—bottom line, it’s one of the most unpleasant news stories to come to light in the past 50 years. Several documentaries have been made about the controversy (most notable is Amy Berg’s penetrating 2006 exposé Deliver Us From Evil), and each one is a horrific experience, for obvious reasons. Now, director Tom McCarthy examines the scandal with his incredible newsroom drama Spotlight, which focuses on the grinding efforts by a small team of reporters at the Boston Globe to break the conspiracy story. It’s a movie that has every right to be entirely dour and depressing—but is not.

It doesn’t deflect or skate around the terrors lived through by the priests’ young victims, and yet it still crackles with electricity. It’s both powerful and—get this—entertaining. The wound inflicted by the perpetrators and those in the Catholic hierarchy who protected them won’t heal anytime soon, but with Spotlight we’re reminded that, in the spirit of free press and honest reporting, there lies hope for justice.

McCarthy doesn’t present the reporters at the center of his story as paragons of journalistic nobility or even as Bostonian hometown heroes. It’s a more modest, workmanlike procedural that’s as, if not more concerned with its characters’ psyches, ideas and idiosyncrasies as it is with their hard-nosed truth-gathering efforts. Heading up the Globe’s Spotlight investigative department is editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), who’s spent years building unshakeable trust within his small team, Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo) and Matty Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James).

Their new boss, editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber, in a measured performance that could be his career-best), is slightly cold and semi-robotic in temperament (he and the gregarious Robby share an awkward rapport), but with his arrival he brings Spotlight a mission of utmost importance, motioning them to look deeper into the case of an accused priest. His directive is met with skepticism both by Robby’s team and the Globe’s higher-ups (personified by a John Slattery, playing the boss’ boss’ boss) due to the church’s strong presence in the city, but when the team begins gathering details and testimonies, it becomes clear that the church could very well have been covering up child-sexual-abuse scandals on an unimaginable scale for a long, long time.

The film is gripping in the way it follows the team’s cumulative breakthroughs on their path to uncovering the ugly truth about the Catholic Church to the public because it does so on a personal level. We see each of them put their nose to the grindstone as they search for clues high and low. They haul boxes and boxes of old files and articles from the Globe basement to their offices, sifting through everything by hand. Sacha goes from door to door, pen and notepad in hand, getting to know the tortured victims and their stories. Michael hounds an elusive attorney (Stanley Tucci) who’s worked closely with the victims for years. Robby incessantly pesters a tight-lipped lawyer (Billy Crudup) to give him a list of names that could blow the case wide open. Seeing the characters not just get their hands dirty, but deal with the psychological trauma of studying and living with these atrocities for months on end.

Keaton’s ball-of-fire turn in Birdman didn’t earn him an acting Oscar, so it’s a bit of a surprise, in that context, that he’s put his hat in the awards ring again with a performance that’s so low-key and operates mostly on undercurrents. He’s quiet and extraordinary, though the even quieter Schreiber threatens to steal the show with a cerebral supporting effort that will likely usher in a new era in the Ray Donovan actor’s career. Ruffalo, McAdams and the supporting cast are great as well, and if the Oscars gave out awards for ensemble casts, this lot would easily run away with it. The way the actors interact and move around each other feels so dynamic and pulsating and alive that the gravity of the story will sometimes dissipate for a moment as you’re caught up in the cast’s sizzling chemistry.

Intricate work is done by McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer to ensure the movie can’t be read as a blatant attack on the church. It’s undeniable that their presence in the city was, in a way, mafia-like (they did cover up a bevy of serious crimes, after all), but McCarthy and Singer refuse to exploit the narrative in a way that cheaply villainizes them. The real villain here is the idea of institutionalized secrecy. Staunchly, the filmmakers focus on Spotlight’s investigation and the emotional trials the journalists faced. It’s really a class-act of a movie, with all involved approaching the material as tastefully as possible without losing a modicum of artful intent on the way. Spotlight is the best kind of newsroom drama in that it doesn’t get weighed down by meditations on the virtues of old journalism. Instead, it celebrates the people who changed the world with unglamorous, day-to-day, hard work.

Joining the show this week is James Vanderbilt, a veteran screenwriter whose directorial debut, Truth, is out in theaters this weekend. The movie stars Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford and revolves around a the controversial report Dan Rather gave on 60 minutes in 2004 about the alleged fraudulence of George W. Bush’s military record, a piece that would lead to Rather (Redford) and his longtime producer, Mary Mapes (Blanchett) losing their jobs. Also on the show Bernard and CJ run their mouths (as always) about the Mill Valley Film Festival and festival fatigue as well as share their Indie Picks of the Week.

Topics

• Indie Picks (1:17)
• MVFF38 (7:18)
• Festival Fatigue (31:27)
• James Vanderbilt Truth Interview (39:57)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

MVFF38 Diaries
I Smile Back TIFF Review
Room TIFF Review
Son of Saul Cannes Review
The Forbidden Room Review

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Two heavy Oscar hopefuls opened the Mill Valley Film Festival last night as Tom Hooper‘s The Danish Girl and Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight played to packed movie houses surrounded by towering redwoods in downtown Mill Valley and in San Rafael just a few minutes up the road. Both directors were in attendance to introduce their respective films and participate in Q&As before the crowds hurried to the open-air Opening Night party to pass around their thoughts on the films.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

The cast of Spotlight is arguably the best ensemble you’ll see in a movie all year. If the Oscars gave out Best Ensemble statues they’d have it in the bag, hands down. Starring Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci, and Liev Schreiber (whose top-notch performance will likely go unappreciated in the coming months), the film feels dynamic and alive and spontaneous despite its true-story roots. It recounts the breaking of the Catholic church child molestation cover-up by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” news team, an investigation that shook Boston to its core. While reviews coming out of TIFF have gotten movie lovers across the country itching in anticipation to see Tom McCarthy’s latest, I feel compelled to offer a word of warning: This is an excellent movie that’s also decidedly humble; don’t expect any loud, earth-shattering performances or slow-motion, tearful eruptions meant to entice members of the Academy. Spotlight stays right in the pocket, which is exactly where it should be.

Butterflies Are Free To Fly

One of the big shockers from the Oscars last year was Eddie Redmayne‘s Best Actor win, as many expected Michael Keaton to go home with the prize (including Keaton himself). Well, the young British charmer is in the race again with The Danish Girl, the Tom Hooper-helmed historical drama about trans icon Lili Elbe (Redmayne) and her wife, Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander). Lili’s rebirth as a woman in the 1920s (she was formerly known as Einar Wegener, a successful painter) is a staggeringly beautiful story in real life, but Hooper’s picture is too glossy and overly poetic to be truly inspiring. Redmayne exudes femininity and is as good on-screen as ever, and Vikander is his equal, but the dialogue is so maudlin that many moments, especially later in the film, feel hollow and disingenuous. The actors are knockouts across the board, though. Matthias Schoenaerts, Amber Heard, and Ben Wishaw round out a wonderful supporting cast, though the film never provides a solid enough platform for them to look and sound their best.

The Mill Valley Film Festival, which kicks off tonight in Marin County, Calif., is the perfect place to movie lovers to collect their festival-season thoughts and look forward to the approaching awards season. Boasting a lineup of some of the best films that played at the likes of Cannes, TIFF and Sundance, MVFF38 is one of the best festivals on the West coast and has a long history of showcasing films that go on to win Best Picture prizes at the major awards shows.

I’ll be posting daily diaries from tomorrow until closing night on October 18th. Stay tuned for updates on the Oscar hopefuls as well as coverage on the festival’s particularly excellent foreign feature, indie and documentary lineups this year.

The festival opens with Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, which garnered considerable acclaim coming out of TIFF. Starring Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton, the true-story drama should continue to pick up momentum in Mill Valley. Co-headlining opening night is Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl, starring Eddie Redmayne in a role that could earn him his second-straight Best Actor win.

Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan, will close out the festival, capping off a program with a decidedly strong female presence. Spotlighted this year are Sarah Silverman and Brie Larson, who both give standout performances in I Smile Back and Room, respectively, as well as Suffragette‘s Mulligan. Receiving the MVFF award will be Catherine Hardwicke, whose female-friendship dramedy Miss You Already stars Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette.

The foreign feature lineup has got me particularly excited this year, with even the deepest cuts looking irresistible. A great example is Here Is Harold, from Norwegian filmmaker Gunnar Vikene, follows an aging furniture dealer who wages war against IKEA by kidnapping its founder. What’s not to like about that? Other foreign highlights include French director Malgorzata Szumowska’s Body, Jacques Audiard’s Palme d’Or winner, Deephan, Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Dressmaker, Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang, and Grímur Hákonarson’s Rams.

For more info on MVFF38, visit mvff.com

Mental illness never looked so adorable as it does in Infinitely Polar Bear, Maya Forbes’ true-to-life family story about her upbringing in 1970s Boston. The film is an homage to her father, played by Mark Ruffalo, a manic-depressive bohemian type with a big mouth, a big heart and a voracious appetite for making others happy. He’s tasked with taking care of his two daughters while his wife, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), goes off to finish an MBA program. Infinitely Polar Bear isn’t a dreary family drama about a mentally ill father, but a gentle ode to a family man who, despite a difficult condition, kept his family together.

I spoke to Maya during her visit to San Francisco about the film she says she’s been preparing her whole life to make and the strange business of teaching two people to act like her parents. Infinitely Polar Bear is out now.

So what you’ve done here, really, is tell your family’s story, which isn’t entirely flattering, to thousands of people. Almost everyone’s had an emotional reaction to it and enjoyed the film. That’s got to make you proud.
I’m really happy because I wanted to humanize this issue and tell the story of someone I really loved, who was manic-depressive. I feel like you don’t see that a lot, someone who’s struggling and is a difficult person, but still has wonderful qualities. I’m also very happy to tell the story of my mother because I’m very proud of her.

Some actors, when they’re portraying real people, take the approach of not researching much at all and just playing the character to serve the story. Others research as much as they can. What was the case with Mark?
Both Mark and Zoe wanted to know as much as they could. Zoe wanted to meet my mother, and she talked to her a few times. I gave her pictures, letters my parents had written. She just wanted to dig into that as much as she could. My father died in 1998, so he wasn’t available, but Mark started to have dreams about him where my dad would give him notes. With him I shared video of my father speaking. Mark had never done a character from this milieu before, so we talked a lot about the way Cam enunciates—he savors the words he says. Mark’s often cast as characters who mumble more, but here he needed to speak crisply. They both wanted as much guidance as they could get because we wanted to make the world we were building palpable.

You’ve said that you’ve been preparing your whole life to make this movie. Were you emotionally prepared for this process? It’s a little bizarre, teaching people to act like your parents.
It’s really interesting. People ask how I feel about “exposing my life.” I think of it as sharing rather than exposing. It is a lot to put out there, and I never wanted to be self-indulgent, which is why the film is so lean and funny. But I wanted to also make it an emotionally immersive film. I’m so happy people responded to it the way they did, because if you put yourself out there and people say the movie sucks, it’s like they’re saying I suck! [laughs]

There’s a shot near the end of the film where Mark and Zoe lean on each other in an interesting way during a very emotional conversation, almost in a huddle rather than an embrace.
That was something I always saw in my head. It was an expression of, we’re together, but we’re apart. We’re two roots of a tree. It was divisive, that shot. People thought it looked weird. The other part of it is that, when you’re a kid, you don’t want to look over and see that! [laughs] You don’t want to see your parents standing like that and crying! It’s embarrassing!

I thought Mark’s physical performance was particularly good, how he occupies space and moves around a room.
Sometimes I feel like his eyes and his body are doing different things, and that’s really great. There’s this tension between them. We talked a lot about the movement of this character. He’s a theatrical person. When he sighs, it’s heavy. He wants you to know, “I feel really sad right now, and you should feel sad for me.” [laughs] There are also all these ways Cam lights his cigarette. In my father’s era, they went to the movies and saw guys like Jack Nicholson and Jean-Paul Belmondo and Steve McQueen. There was that era of cool guys, and I think there’s a little of that in Cam’s character as well.

I found the set design to be incredibly immersive.
Thank you! I wanted it to be immersive. I had a bunch of pictures we used as a visual reference. My production designer is from a similar world, so I gave him three pictures and he knew what I was looking for. There were always layers of stuff. Every wall was covered in art. We had a door with slats, and any card we got would go into those slats. There was a lot of texture to the world. My aunt kept a lot of my dad’s stuff, so a lot of the things you see in the apartment are actually his. That’s indie filmmaking! Way too indie! [laughs]

This movie kinda feels like a mom and pop shop. You’ve got a lot of your family members involved.
My husband is the producer and plays that loser guy Maggie drives to New York with. My daughter plays me, essentially, and it was wonderful to work with her. My oldest daughter makes a cameo at the end. My sister wrote the song after the end credits. My aunt drove my dad’s stuff to set in her van, and the guy who plays the money manager who gets punched is my cousin, who actually is a money manager! [laughs]

What will this movie mean to your family as the years go on? Will you watch it annually or something? [laughs]
I don’t know! That’s the funny thing. Sometimes when you’re sitting on an airplane, everyone’s watching the same movie. What’s it gonna be like if everyone is watching my movie? It’d be weird. I don’t know what the movie will mean to me or my daughters.

Did unexpected themes or ideas surface in the story once you started shooting or after it was finished?
Yes, they did. I realized I’d never thought of how theatrical my father was. I was talking about the heavy sighs earlier. I realized my dad was in a movie of his own mind, the movie star of his own life. I also learned about mental illness. When you have a tendency toward mania, you get ramped up by stimulus. It was true that my dad couldn’t go to New York City. It was so hard for him to deal with all that stuff coming at him. I feel like I understood a lot more what he dealt with and managed to overcome to take care of us. There was no way he could deal with the pressure of an actual career. I gained a lot of understanding about what he struggled with.

I love how many women are in your movie.
Thank you. I didn’t know until later that my movie was considered diverse because it had 50 percent women. It wasn’t a conscious thing for me; I just had all these characters I wanted to populate the movie with.

Women make up half of this country, but they’re treated as if they’re minorities in movies!
I know! I feel like there’s a genre no one talks about: the “woman-less” movie. No women at all. I feel like there are so many movies like that. It’s crazy.

A lot of the time people with mental illnesses are portrayed as scary people. I love how likable Cam is. It’s clear, even when he’s angry, how much he loves his family.
When my kids were little, I remember somebody telling me, “Never lose your temper around your children.” I’m not a robot! I want my kids to see me as a person! I thought of my dad. He would have a temper, but he’d apologize. Did I love it? No, but who wants to walk around with someone who’s on their best behavior all the time? I want to see real people in all of their horrible glory. That’s the thing with mental illness; sometimes it seems like they’re saner than the rest of us. They’re not playing along with things that don’t make any sense. That line between where mental illness is and where sanity is has always been very interesting to me. It’s a confusing line.

Talk about killing your darlings.
The scene that was the hardest for me to leave out was near the end, between the scene where Cam and Maggie are crying and the goodbye scene at the school. Cam and the girls are driving back from New York after a weekend of staying with their mother. She has a boyfriend, and they don’t like that. Cam is totally understanding and says, “Mommy tries so hard. She wanted things to go differently.” He was so compassionate in that scene, which was something I loved about my father. For whatever flaws he had, he was so kind to other people. He was so understanding that he was hard to live with. The scene ended up being confusing because people didn’t know where they were coming from or where they were going to. I loved it, but it seemed unnecessary.

I like how fluid the movie is, tonally. The laughs bleed into the serious scenes and the funny scenes often carry some heavy emotions.
Mark and Zoe and I were trying to go “life,” you know? I’ll be crying one minute and laughing the next, and it’s all rolled up into one mix of emotions. It was in the script that there’s a lot of humor, and we tried to be true to that in the performances. In the editing, you have to keep playing with that tone. You want it to flow. It is a balancing act with the tone.

I love how Cam is always tinkering with stuff.
He’s always trying to fix things. My father was always trying to fix things, but he could never fix himself. That was moving to me. Anything that was broken had his name on it. It’s funny because Mark Ruffalo is like that, too.

Are you and your husband going to co-direct your next film?
Yes, we are. We’re so excited. It’s for Jack Black, and it’s based on a real story. There was a documentary called The Man Who Would Be Polka King, about this guy who came here from Poland in the ’80s to be a polka sensation. He did become a polka sensation in Pennsylvania, wearing these bedazzled rhinestone costumes. He also ran a Ponzi scheme. It’s a true-crime comedy with polka music and dancing! Jack’s a great actor. You really feel for him; he’s got a great vulnerability.

Somehow, some way, filmmaker Maya Forbes has made mental illness adorable. Actually, that “somehow” is in truth a someone. Mark Ruffalo stars in Forbes’ true-to-life family story Infinitely Polar Bear as Cam Stuart, an eccentric, manic-depressive husband to a black working woman, Maggie (Zoe Saldana), and two young girls, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky, Forbes’ daughter) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide). Set in 1970s Boston, the film is based on Forbes’ childhood, though more specifically, it’s a love letter to her father.

We meet him wearing only red briefs, banging on the windows of his family’s locked car, Maggie and the kids cowering inside with their packed suitcases. After his mental breakdown and a short, institutionalized recovery, Cam is met with the biggest challenge of his life: to better support the family, Maggie goes off to school to get her MBA, leaving him to take care of the girls by himself in their tiny bohemian apartment, his mental faculties still out of whack. She promises to visit on the weekends, but that may not be enough to keep the house in order.

If the premise sounds dreary, don’t be dissuaded; Polar Bear is an almost aggressively upbeat film in which entertainment and fun is of high priority. Ruffalo’s casting is the cornerstone of the whole production. Everything revolves around him: he sets the tone and leads the scenes, and is very much the heart of the film. Very few actors could make manic depression look cute, but if you’ve ever seen Ruffalo and those soulful eyes on-screen before,  you know the challenge is well within his acting capabilities. Cam says some nasty things to his wife and kids, things that would rupture even the strongest family bonds (he occasionally abandons the girls and even flips them off from time to time).

But despite this, he never becomes someone we don’t want to be around. He’s full of love and vim and has a voracious need to make people happy. His off-key sense of humor has trickled down to his girls, resulting in funny, disarming exchanges that come from left field. Cam’s almost always off the rails, but there’s a beauty to his rawness. Sometimes he says things most parents wish they could say but wouldn’t ever dare to. His brutal honesty is admirable, if a wholly unconventional for a parent of two.

The movie, like Cam, is bursting with life. There’s a fluidity to the storytelling that feels refreshing in a sea of family dramedies that too often feel emotionally stiff and segmented. Those movies play out like this: Funny scene. Serious scene. Funny Scene. Serious scene. One minute you’re laughing, the next you’re nodding your head with a stern expression, arms folded. In Polar Bear, the laughs bleed into the dramatic scenes, and most moments of happiness have a tinge of melancholy or sadness lurking in the subtext.

What Forbes does that’s so great is sensitize us to the unconventional inner-workings of the family until their ostensibly wacko ways of doing things feel normal and even sweet (Me and You and Everyone We Know comes to mind). When Cam gets upset with the girls, he throws things and storms off, screaming things like, “I can’t take this anymore!” He’s yelling at his girls, which is scary, but the fact that he doesn’t condescend to them and trusts them enough to share his feelings openly swells the heart. Cam’s room is packed with gizmos and appliances in different stages of repair, and we often see him tinkering with something, whether it be a bicycle gear or a sewing machine or old Polaroids. Maggie tells him she could never sleep in a room so messy with doodads and tchotchkes, but after a while his clutter only makes him more endearing, both to Maggie and to us.

If there’s a downside to Forbes’ upbeat style it’s that she doesn’t give us enough moments of respite. The film flies by, which may count as a good thing to most, though I found the lack of down time to be slightly problematic. Forbes doesn’t allow us to be sad for long before she rushes on to the next dose of positivity and comic hysteria. Like I said, I love the movie’s fluidity, but a bit more narrative asymmetry might have given the story a more interesting shape.

The child actors are exactly where they need to be, conveying intelligence and wit without coming off as too precocious. Not only did Forbes have her daughter helping out with the film, but her husband, Wallace Wolodarsky, produced, and several other family members played small parts in making the film a reality. Infinitely Polar Bear is truly a family affair, like a movie version of a mom and pop shop with Forbes’ father’s name written in big letters on the sign above the entrance. One can only imagine he’d be ecstatic to know that his daughter has turned their family story into a film that will touch so many others.

Three years ago, Joss Whedon was given an awesome set of toys to play with: a bounding, hulking man-beast; a crimson-haired femme fatale; a hammer-wielding Norse god; a deadly archer super-spy; a ballistic man made of iron; a patriotic super soldier; Samuel L. Jackson with an eyepatch. He had a big sandbox to play in, too; 2012’s The Avengers ran a whopping 2 hours and 20 minutes, giving him plenty of room to smash his new toys together, give them quippy things to say and conjure up some villains (alien invaders and a smirking, meddling trickster) for them to save the world from. It was big, it was loud, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and all us kids standing around the sandbox showered him with applause once the dust settled and the show was over. Then, he called it a day, putting his action figures away until his next grand production of geek theater.

That brings us to The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon‘s hotly anticipated encore performance. The super-sequel has got everything you’d expect: insane action scenes, clever one-liners, high-stakes drama and geeky easter eggs galore. It’s exciting to have Whedon return to the MCU playground, but there’s a problem: he’s got about twice as many toys as he did last time. Suddenly, the sandbox seems a bit crowded. With four major storylines going on simultaneously and a staggering number of superheroes and villains to keep track of, Marvel Studios’ latest summer blockbuster feels stretched too thin.

On the other hand, it never feels jumbled or messy; Whedon is a seasoned storyteller, and he somehow manages to make this tightly packed mega movie feel pretty well-organized, streamlined and easy to follow. He never loses command of his band of heroes, but what he’s lacking is prioritization. Each of the nine (!) primary characters is given a rich backstory and emotional arc to explore, which sounds cool until you realize that, due to time constraints, they have a mere handful of scenes to get the job done. As a result, the storylines feel abbreviated across the board.

It’s unfortunate, because there’s some really interesting stuff going on here that could have used more time. Robert Downey Jr.‘s Tony Stark sets up the main conflict early on, strutting unknowingly into a world of tech trouble when he and The Hulk himself, Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), inadvertently birth Ultron (the villain of the film’s subtitle, voiced by James Spader), a sentient A.I. designed to protect the world, but who instead decides to purge it of the “poison” that is humankind. What hath Stark wrought? A.I. panic is fascinating, relevant subject matter that Whedon unfortunately has precious little time to explore (look to Alex Garland’s recent Ex Machina for deeper insight).

Where Whedon excels is at building his characters in quick strokes with tasty details that stick to the back of your brain like bits of candy. It’s amusing, for example, when you realize that Ultron has somehow inherited Stark’s glib, quick-fire sense of humor: When a group of scientists run away from him screaming after he brutally murders several of their colleagues, he sarcastically pleads, “Wait! Guys?!” as if he’d made an innocuous party foul. The tyrannical robot is clearly his father’s son, and yet throws a fit at the slightest notion that he’s anything like his genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist daddy. Whedon’s always been great at giving his villains a human dimension (Buffy fans holler), and Ultron is no exception.

Iron Man’s robo-baby issues aside, the relationships between he and the rest of the Avengers are deepened and expanded. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Dr. Banner explore further the flirtation teased in the first film, providing an unexpected taste of romance. Captain America (Chris Evans) takes issue with Stark’s reckless exploitation of technology (setting the foundation for the impending Civil War), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) does some extraneous soul-searching that’s mostly there to set up his next solo movie. Franchise newcomers Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson join the fray as Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, a pair of “enhanced” twins who carry a deep-seated vendetta against Tony Stark.

Surprisingly, the film’s most poignant presence is that of Jeremy Renner‘s Hawkeye, who’s been significantly upgraded from his second-tier role in the first movie. We get to see a bit of his refreshingly ordinary home life; his wife is played by Linda Cardellini, who gives a terrific, grounded performance that comes completely out of left field. Through Hawkeye, who’s essentially a man amongst gods, Whedon defines both the story’s stakes and what being an Avenger truly means.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the thing most ticket-buyers will be paying to see: the action. The sweet, sweet, fist-pumping, “I can’t believe I’m seeing this” action. The movie opens with a snowy raid on a Hydra fortress in the fictitious Eastern European country of Sokovia. There’s a slo-mo shot (featured prominently in the trailers) of all six heroes charging through hoards of Hydra henchman phalanx-style, each Avenger locked in the most badass action pose you’ve ever seen. It’s ridiculously cool. On the other end of the film, we see Iron Man, Thor, and their new buddy, a monk-like floating android called Vision (Paul Bettany), attacking Ultron with laser beams and lightning bolts in unison. Again, ridiculously cool!

Moments like these are so slathered in comic-book awesomesauce my inner geek spontaneously combusted with excitement. Yes, the action can be a bit hollow and flashy, like watching the Harlem Globetrotters light up the court. But you know what? I love the freaking Harlem Globetrotters! (Especially when they were on Gilligan’s Island!) If I’m being honest, I could watch Iron Man pile-drive The Hulk through a skyscraper over and over without a word of complaint.

Avengers: Age of Ultron has no obligation to be the be-all-end-all epic most people want it to be. In reality, it’s nothing more than the action-packed culmination of three years-worth of superhero solo movies, and that’s fine by me. I did have problems with how evenly the narrative focus was spread across the main characters (I’d have much preferred Thor’s lame side story be cut in favor of more “Hawkeye at home” time), and I do feel like the existential quandary embodied by Ultron could have been fleshed out more.

But then I think about a fantastic party scene early in the movie in which the gang make a fun wager to see who can lift Thor’s precious Asgardian hammer, Mjolnir. Cap gives it a wiggle; a look of panic flashes across Thor’s face. The friends exchange Whedon-esque banter, sip some bubbly, talk a little trash and share some laughs as they use their incredible powers for cheap entertainment. It’s lighthearted, juvenile fun. Can’t be mad at that.

Anyone interested how the acting categories may pan out for the Oscars had their attention on the 2015 Screen Actors Guild Awards tonight, as this award show is much more reliable than say the Golden Globes, though there were a lot of overlap winners in the film categories. In fact, Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), J.K. Simmons (Whiplash), Julianne Moore (Still Alice) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) all repeated their wins in respected categorizes from the Globes two weeks ago. Redmayne continues his streak of edging out Michael Keaton (Birdman) who many consider to be the front-runner. This win might just shake things up for the category come Oscar night. Though Birdman wasn’t completely shut out, the film picked up the Outstanding Performance by a Cast award.

Orange Is the New Black picked up two awards on the television side of the awards, one for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series and Uzo Aduba (for the role of Crazy Eyes) won for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Kevin Spacey was the only Golden Globes repeat winner this year, earning Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series in both awards shows. Other winners included Mark Ruffalo (The Normal Heart), Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge) and Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder).

List of 2015 Screen Actors Guild Award Winners

Film

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
Julianne Moore – Still Alice

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
J.K. Simmons – Whiplash

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood

Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Birdman

Television

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Mark Ruffalo – The Normal Heart

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
Frances McDormand – Olive Kitteridge

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
Kevin Spacey – House of Cards

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
Viola Davis – How To Get Away With Murder

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
William H. Macy – Shameless

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
Uzo Aduba – Orange Is the New Black

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Downton Abbey

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Orange Is the New Black

Director Bennet Miller gets that the complexity of true events and historical people make for the most engaging onscreen experiences. In Moneyball he managed to make the men behind baseball statistics be as compelling as the sport itself. And in Capote he showed that the ongoing relationship of a pair of murderers with the man who wanted to tell their story is every bit as complex and fascinating as the murders they committed. In Foxcatcher Miller melds the strengths of both these films by capturing the intrigue of competitive sportsmanship and the psychological study of one of the most disturbing men to have been in a place of a wealth and power in America. While the film has one of the year’s best performances (by Steve Carell) there isn’t a single person in this bleak but gripping film who doesn’t enthrall with their historical portrayal — shedding light on one of those strange stories that seem too impossible to be true, and showcasing the sort of rare personality that incites fear in all of us.

After having won Olympic gold in wrestling Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) is at a low point in his career, delivering speeches to restless kids at elementary schools. His elder brother David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) has also won gold and continues to work as a coach, working with his brother to train for the world championships. Mark seems to have lived in the shadow of his brother’s accomplishments and good nature for much of his career, and having been mostly raised by his brother he is at odds with his desire to impress his father-figure and excel on his own. The spotlight seems to have finally made its way to him when he gets an unexpected phone call from John du Pont, heir to the du Pont fortune (the same family who hands out the prestigious science award) and a self-proclaimed sports-enthusiast and benefactor.

Du Pont flies Mark to his sprawling Pennsylvania estate, Foxcatcher Farms, and presents an irresistible offer: to come train at his facilities and help him build an award-winning wrestling team. From there Mark finds his motivation once again, training for the world championships and recruiting a team of wrestlers, always with encouragement from John to try to get his brother Dave to come be on the team. From their first encounter, John du Pont is painted as an awkward man, secure in his wealth and eccentric in his passion for ornithology (the study of birds) and philately (stamp collecting). His fascination for wrestling seems as much about raw — somewhat erotic — sportsmanship as it is a yearning for team brotherhood and the parent-like relationship of coach and player. Steve Carell’s every interaction on-screen is nail-biting. His prosthetic nose is at first a distraction and then becomes yet another way that Carell and du Pont seem to merge completely. He speaks with a slowness that at first seems to hint at his dim-wittedness but over time makes apparent his calculated way of getting what he wants. He’s the fascinating product of wealth, a single-child upbringing, and hard to please parents. His mental instability is so subtle it’s hard to tell if it’s always there, or if it wavers in and out.

Tatum continues to prove his range, for while he clearly has a believable body for a wrestler, it’s his portrayal of Mark’s immature devotion to whichever father figure is available to latch on to, and his twisted expectations for his own athletic performances (going so far as physical damage to himself), that show he’s capable of capturing a different sort of mental illness than the one du Pont manifests. Mark Ruffalo as David is the only real outlet for positivity in the film, and his representation of David as an ideal older brother and mentor is almost too sweet, causing confusion as to why Mark could be so easily led astray. But his pedestal-standing character only makes the film’s inevitable historic ending that much more heartbreaking.

For anyone who’s managed to avoid reading about the history of the Schultzes and John du Pont, I won’t spoil the story, but I will say that Miller has done an excellent job of focusing less on the scandal and more on the people involved. It’s a therapist’s psychoanalytical nightmare, having so many neuroses on hand. Miller did right in focusing the story on Mark and John, rather than David and John, despite where history inevitably led. With Mark and John he’s able to explore the bond between two men looking to fulfill impossible needs, each hoping their salvation lies in the other. In one of the film’s most fascinating scenes, Mark and John ride in a helicopter together to a benefit dinner and Mark practices his intro speech for John. John snorts cocaine out of a fancy leather pouch and makes Mark repeat the words “ornithologist, philanthropist, and philatelist” over and over until he can say them with confidence, reiterating his own ideology that given enough time and prodding, he can indoctrinate anyone into showing him respect and possibly love. It’s creepy and compelling all at once.

The true crime nature of the film is a draw, but the performances of the film are what solidify it as one of the year’s best, marking Bennett Miller as a nuanced and capable director. His aesthetic and understated work with cinematographer Grieg Fraser allow the characters to tell their own story and set the sort of realistic tone that adds no note of Hollywood sensationalism. Foxcatcher is chilling, sobering, and the sort of film that will cause audience members to question the people they meet on the street. It’s the sort of cold reminder that within us all lies the capability of strange and frightening behavior. A morbid sick reminder that almost no one can help but be drawn to.

You might be thinking “Already?!” but yes, award season is already starting. Today, New York’s Gotham Independent Film Awards put out their nominees, a list filled with pleasant surprises and some very obvious choices.

Let’s start with the obvious choice: Boyhood. Any indie award would be insane to deny Richard Linklater’s film, possibly the indie event of the year, some love, so Gotham understandably gave it four nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Ethan Hawke), Best Actress (Patricia Arquette) and Breakthrough Actor (Ellar Coltrane). Also unsurprising is Birdman nabbing three nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor (Michael Keaton). Expect to hear even more about Birdman in the months to come.

Because the Gotham Awards are about independent film, that gives some great underrated films and performances the chance for some exposure through a nomination. The biggest surprise might be Under the Skin and Scarlett Johansson scoring nominations for Best Picture and Actress. It’ll be unlikely for Jonathan Glazer’s strange sci-fi to get much love outside of critics’ circles this year, so nominations like these are nice to see. Another great choice by Gotham: Giving Ira Sachs’ wonderful Love is Strange a Best Picture nomination. Sachs’ film, a quietly heartbreaking drama, seems bound to get left out this year once the awards race kicks into high gear (if Best Actor weren’t so competitive this year, John Lithgow and Alfred Molina would have been locks). Any recognition for Love is Strange is a huge plus.

Read on below for the full list of nominees, including the nominees for Breakthrough Director and Actor. For those more interested in the bigger awards, take note of Oscar Isaac’s nomination for A Most Violent Year. The film hasn’t come out yet (it opens AFI Fest next month), so this nomination might be a hint of another shake-up in the coming weeks. And if anyone’s wondering where current Best Actor frontrunner Steve Carrell is, Gotham decided to give Carrell and co-stars Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo a special award for their ensemble performances in Foxcatcher.

The Gotham Independent Film Awards will hold their awards ceremony on December 1st.

Best Feature

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Love Is Strange
Under the Skin

Best Actor

Bill Hader in The Skeleton Twins
Ethan Hawke in Boyhood
Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year
Michael Keaton in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Miles Teller in Whiplash (Sony Pictures Classics)

Best Actress

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood
Gugu Mbatha-Raw in Beyond the Lights
Julianne Moore in Still Alice
Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin
Mia Wasikowska in Tracks

Best Documentary

Actress
CITIZENFOUR
Life Itself
Manakamana
Point and Shoot

Breakthrough Actor

Riz Ahmed in Nightcrawler
Macon Blair in Blue Ruin
Ellar Coltrane in Boyhood
Joey King in Wish I Was Here
Jenny Slate in Obvious Child
Tessa Thompson in Dear White People

Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award

Ana Lily Amirpour for A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
James Ward Byrkit for Coherence
Dan Gilroy for Nightcrawler
Eliza Hittman for It Felt Like Love
Justin Simien for Dear White People

Following the success of Once, director John Carney was afforded a bigger budget and bigger stars to help him in making Begin Again, his follow-up to the eminently popular music-romance mashup. The result is a delightful, breezy movie that’ll please those big on cutesy dramedies with little patience for pretension. The film’s similarities to Once are indisputable, and it’ll be lucky to see half the success of its older brother, but Begin Again will nonetheless hook you with its catchy ditties and irresistible performances.

Carney unabashedly embraces schmaltz with his script, but it’s this uncompromising commitment to sweetness that pushes the film over the hump from sickly sentimental to utterly adorable. Set in New York City, the story revolves around a serendipitous encounter between Dan (Mark Ruffalo), a washed up former record exec, and Greta (Keira Knightly), an English singer-songwriter new to the city. Dan sees Gretta at a bar singing a song called “Step You Can’t Take Back”, a song whose lyrics mirror a near-suicidal experience he had just minutes before. It resonates with him so deeply all he can do is stand there wearing a dopey, drunken smile. Improbability be damned, the film wins us over with a sequence in which Dan imagines the unmanned instruments behind Geta springing to life, laying down the backing instrumentation to her mini pop gem. The film is full of enchanting moments like this, and they’re all as easy to buy into.

Dan’s just been fired from his own record label by his old partner and co-owner (Yasiin Bey), and Greta, a singer who embodies the independent artistry he founded the label on in the first place years ago, is his ticket to regaining control of his career and steering the label back in the right direction after years of relying on no-talent pretty pop stars. Along with a band of musicians plucked from the street, Dan and Greta record an indie pop album in the great outdoors of NYC–in Central Park, on row boats, on rooftops, in alleyways–living out the dreams of every coffee shop musician on earth. The songs, written by Gregg Alexander of “New Radicals” fame (“You only get what you give!”), are beautiful and catchy in the moment, but won’t stick to you like the gripping ballads of Once.

Ruffalo, with his messy beard and generally gruff appearance, is a perfectly likable slob, constantly charming with his self-deprecating, pull-no-punches humor. While Knightly is solid as the sometimes spunky, sometimes brooding Greta, but most impressive is her singing voice, which is actually quite beautiful. Steinfeld is the dark horse of the film, sharing wonderfully earnest father-daughter scenes with Ruffalo, with whom she has nice chemistry.

What adds to the film’s success is that it actually got a few surprises tucked away in its ostensibly predictable plot. While the obvious trajectory for the two protagonists would be for them to fall in love (Carney does toy with this possibility in a tasteful, lovely manner), things prove to be much more complicated than that. Dan’s had a heartbreaking split from his wife (Catherine Keener) and doesn’t know the meaning of “quality time” when it comes to his teenage daughter (Hailee Steinfeld), and Greta’s just been dumped by her boyfriend of five years (Maroon 5’s Adam Levine), who’s been acting like a dick since becoming a famous musician. (Levine’s facial hair grows throughout the movie to ridiculous lengths, the humor of which is addressed in witty banter between he and Knightly, a nice comedic touch.) Too often do likeminded rom-coms lose their luster due to rote plot mechanics, but Begin Again sidesteps this pitfall, with its characters winding up in slightly different, bittersweet places than you might expect.

Begin Again champions the principles of loyalty over money and realness over fakery, though it flirts with hokey Hollywood manipulativeness so often it almost shoots itself in the foot. It ultimately passes the authenticity test with flying colors, however, due to strong, heartfelt performances and well-written tunes that dovetail perfectly into and out of Carney’s script. It won’t change anyone’s life or be heralded as a modern romance classic, but Begin Again is a fine, good-natured movie perfectly tailored for light summer viewing.

Begin Again trailer

Bennett Miller’s follow up to Moneyball, the Brad Pitt-starring baseball-but-not-really-about-baseball movie, is Foxcatcher, the Channing Tatum-starring wrestling-but-not-really-about-wrestling movie. It’s undoubtedly one of the marquee films competing for the Palme D’Or; featuring an intriguing cast with Tatum in the lead, Mark Ruffalo in supporting, and Steve Carell overshadowing in his first villainous role, directed by one of America’s brightest emerging talents, and with an Oscar buzz that began before cameras rolled. Monday was officially Foxcatcher Day in the French Riviera. We here at Way Too Indie felt the itch with this one too, featuring it in our Top 10 most anticipated Cannes list. After missing the first screening at the ridiculous 8 a.m. time-slot, and reading the (mostly) rave first impressions, I knew there was no way Monday was ending without me catching this one. But, in large part, I am left with regret for not opting for one of my other picks.

The story follows Olympic gold medalist Mark Shultz (Tatum), a very determined young man whose solitary lifestyle revolves around training, eating microwaveable food, talking about wrestling, and… wrestling. It’s beyond passion; it’s his entire livelihood. Influenced, mentored and trained by his older brother Dave (Ruffalo) who is also an Olympic gold medalist, but whose life is much more balanced with a family and a sense for the business of the sport. One day, randomly, Mark gets a call from John Du Pont’s people and is invited for a visit and a chat with John Du Pont (Carell) himself. Du Pont, a billionaire with a family dynasty to preserve and upkeep, is a big wrestling fan and expresses his desire to become Mark’s coach and help him achieve his goal of becoming the best wrestler in the world and win gold at the next Olympics. He wants this for himself, for Mark, but most of all, for America. The characters and events in this film are based on a true story, and it’s a juicy one, but Miller – with everything at his disposal – found a way to make a forgettable film with it.

Let’s get the acting out of the way, because if anything will give this movie the strong legs it needs for Oscar season it’s that. Steve Carell will be hogging all the attention that’s only justifiable for Ruffalo and Tatum. The latter is especially impressive, as he uses his bulky fitness to create a truly sympathetic character, brimming with insecurity yet physically intimidating with every swing and stretch. Ruffalo doesn’t get much to do, but he’s one of the easiest actors to watch thanks to his natural talent to demand attention by never showboating, so he’s consistently great in the film. And Carell does bring the comedy here, the Eagle bit is for the highlight reel and his deliveries of “good” have rightly reminded people of Mr. Burns’ “excellent”. But, the make-up and the larger-than-life character do much to disguise what is ultimately a solid performance and not much else. The reason he will be a major Oscar contender is due to the novelty of having a comedian break bad, and not the actual performance itself; something many others with the same make-up could have pulled off.

The real troubles with Foxcatcher lie in the way the drama unfolds; every beat predicted (ah, he wants to step out of his brothers shadow; of course, he will start taking drugs now; oh right, he’s got mommy issues so now we know why he is the way he is) and when it’s not, like two crucial character shifts of attitude, it feels fumbled and graceless like handing a blade to a wrestler and telling him to fence. You don’t win gold medals like that. The cinematography and the editing are something of unexpected accomplishments here, but still don’t help this major fault in the storytelling.

With all the ingredients at his disposal Miller managed to make a film that’s barely compelling, helped mostly by the performances of Tatum and Ruffalo, and the mere presence of a sickly repugnant creature played with decent amount of slime by Carell. The symbolism of America as wrestling (Miller is becoming a pro in utilizing athletics in very thematically engaging ways at least) and the commentary on the debilitating effects of wealth on human spirit are enough to make good conversation pieces. But the execution is so lacking and the overall experience made so bland, that the subject of conversation will quickly change.

The first clip for Bennett Miller‘s Cannes Drama Foxcatcher has arrived. Based on true events, the film recalls the fascinating story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz (played by Channing Tatum) who befriends an eccentric multi-millionaire (Steve Carell) to train at his new state-of-the-art training facility, but the wealthy man is driven by selfish motives. Foxcatcher is ultimately a story about misguided loyalty and the corruption that comes with great power and wealth. Carell sports a prosthetic nose and tons of aging makeup, making him nearly unrecognizable.

Below is the teaser trailer for Foxcatcher as well as the first clip that shows the two characters meeting for the first time.

Foxcatcher teaser trailer

First Clip – “I Want To Win Gold”

I will begin by saying, this is a must see film; an absolute must see film. If you’re confused by my recommendation on your first viewing of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then watch it again, but this time – really see it. Follow every line, and understand every visual, take it all in and let the film run away with your mind. Eternal Sunshine is without a doubt an extremely polished film that delivers on all fronts; it ticks all the boxes.

The storyline is complex and totally far fetched, but is utterly unique and something very beautiful. Joel Parish (Jim Carrey) is an ordinary guy with an ordinary existence. When we’re first introduced to his character he starts the day off with the aim of going to work, but whilst waiting for the train, something out of the ordinary happens to Joel; he runs across the platform and jumps on a train to Montauk – a completely spontaneous act. Whilst Joel walks across Montauk beach he sees a girl with an orange sweatshirt on, also walking along the sand. Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) introduces herself on the train and that is where their story begins or so you would believe.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is anything but ordinary. The film takes you down so many different visual paths that you find it difficult to place each scene. You find yourself understanding Joel’s anger towards what has happened in his life but you also feel the pain of his past when he’s confronted by his memories. Early on Joel decides to undergo a ‘new-age’ therapy that will eliminate all the memories that cause him pain and betrayal he felt during his relationship with Clementine; we find out soon enough that he regrets this decision.

Clementine is a character that can be defined by her own words “Too many guys think I’m a concept, or I complete them, or I’m gonna make them alive. But I’m just a fucked-up girl who’s lookin’ for my own peace of mind; don’t assign me yours.” This speech she gives to Joel is one of the most realistic and direct definition of what women like Clementine are portrayed as through film. She doesn’t pretend to be another ‘Ruby Sparks’ or ‘Allison’ (from Yes Man! also starring Jim Carrey) – she isn’t the girl that breathes life back into the empty chests of men without colour or direction to the world they live in. Clementine is simply a girl who makes mistakes and is looking for some direction of her own.

Opposites surely do attract in Eternal Sunshine. Joel is “boring” and Clementine, “impulsive” – quite a clash in terms of the chemistry within a relationship. Due to their conflicting personalities, harsh realisations are made apparent and the couple are left to deal with the emotions that are brought to the surface. During the course of the film we get to see both sides of their relationship through various memories Joel is reliving. Through this we get to see the good, the bad and the downright ugly; yet when their relationship is good, it’s beautiful. A memorable scene that demonstrates this is when Clementine describes a deep rooted childhood memory to Joel, from where she first decided she was ugly; Joel begins kissing her and tells her she’s pretty over and over again until they fade into a new memory. With fantastic use of cinematography, the director (Michel Gondry) and the DOP (Ellen Kuras) produced phenomenal shots and scenes (including the one just described) by using light, colour and intense intimacy between the subjects, they bought to life the powerful emotion of each memory. This is outstanding filmmaking.

This said, I must also give credit to Carrey and Winslet for their performances as both were out of their comfort zones. Carrey, more known for his humour and comedic roles and Winslet for her super serious Britishness – both delivered fresh and very realistic portrayals of what two people in a dysfunctional relationship are like and how they survive through the love and understanding they share for one and other. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a breath of fresh air when it comes to on screen romance and I rate it highly among the films I adore.

With its release on Blu-Ray and DVD last week, Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret has once again caused a stir online. By now the story behind the film’s troubled post-production, lawsuit and stillborn release have been regurgitated so many times it feels like a formality to explain what happened (The New York Times did a piece here that does an excellent job going into detail about the film’s history). Of course some basic facts have to be told just to give a sense of why Margaret has such a devoted following.

Kenneth Lonergan shot Margaret in 2005 and was contractually obligated by Fox Searchlight to create a final product that was under 150 minutes. It took him nearly three years to finally hand in a cut that met the studio’s requirements, but by this time producer Gary Gilbert, Fox Searchlight and Lonergan were in court over the film. Margaret was shelved for another three years until Fox Searchlight released cut Lonergan handed in years earlier into theatres for a very brief run last fall. Some critics began hailing it as a masterpiece and, by the end of the year, a small but vocal group of the film’s supporters convinced Fox Searchlight to schedule more screenings.

Earlier this year Searchlight announced that a Blu-Ray of Margaret would be released with a DVD containing an extended cut. The extended version would run 186 minutes, adding over a half hour worth of new footage and hopefully grant Lonergan the freedom to finish the film he wanted to make seven years ago. It was a pleasant surprise, and a generous move on Fox Searchlight’s part considering the amount of grief the film has put their company through.

I decided to watch the extended cut first, figuring that it was the director’s cut when it actually wasn’t the case. As Lonergan explained in a recent interview with Indiewire,

“The cut that was released was the cut I delivered. They’re both the director’s cut; they’re just different cuts. One of them was just free from the constraints of worrying about the time.”

Of course, the cut that Lonergan delivered was only done out of necessity rather than choice. Having seen both cuts now, it’s easy to understand why it took so long for Lonergan to hand in a version he was satisfied with.

As Margaret starts we are first introduced to Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) when her math teacher Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) confronts her about cheating on her math test. Lisa is dismissive as she tells her teacher that none of what he teaches has any application in the real world. She leaves, and we see bits and pieces of the rest of her school day. After school she goes shopping for a cowboy hat to wear when she goes horseback riding with her father (played by Lonergan himself) but comes up short. She notices a bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) wearing a cowboy hat and she starts to chase the bus down, screaming and waving at the driver. He waves back, but fails to notice the red light ahead and runs over a woman (Allison Janney in a memorable cameo).

The bus accident is one of the first key moments where the two cuts differ. As Lisa is holding the woman and the attempts by two pedestrians to stop the bleeding fail, the traffic around them starts getting louder as more and more car horns start to blare on the soundtrack. In the theatrical cut the effect is there but it’s mixed into the rest of the background noise. In the extended cut the noises get so loud in the mix that it threatens to drown out the dialogue.

The extended version’s aggressive sound mix heightens the anxiety of the scene and gives a clear sense of what’s going to happen over the rest of the film. In Margaret the crash turns into a reality check for Lisa. Her naïve, selfish view on things is shattered again and again the more she tries to restore her life before the accident. As the woman starts to slip away and the horns blare on the soundtrack, Lisa breaks down completely. For Lisa it’s a horrifying situation knowing that her actions were responsible for a brutal death. To everyone around her, it’s a tragic accident and nothing more. As the crowd around Lisa forms a cocoon blocking off everything around her, we can hear the outside world screaming to break through. The world might have stopped for Lisa at this moment, but everyone else has to keep moving.

The extended cut’s sound mix’ purpose is evident, and it explicitly lays out what Lonergan wanted to do originally. Lisa’s story isn’t any more or less important than anyone else’s. One of the scenes missing from the theatrical cut slowly pans across Lisa’s apartment building from the outside. As the camera moves past each window we can hear bits and pieces of the conversations going on in each apartment. Eventually the camera settles on Lisa’s apartment where she’s talking to her mother (J. Smith-Cameron). It feels like the camera isn’t tied down to Lisa in any way, as if it simply chose to focus on her when it could follow someone else at a moment’s notice.

These kinds of moments are why I think Lonergan took so long to hand in a cut he was satisfied with. By removing or minimizing that aspect of the film it would fail to show what he wanted to get across in the first place. Another scene at a restaurant where Lisa is talking to a classmate is dominated by the sounds of other customers so much that it takes almost two minutes before we hear a single word of Lisa’s conversation. It’s moments like this that show just how significant the differences between the two cuts are.

The theatrical cut, which is a good film on its own, doesn’t have the same expansive feeling as the extended version. Several subplots are chopped down including a romance between Lisa’s mother and a Colombian businessman (Jean Reno). Character motivations are sometimes muddled since the scenes explaining them stayed on the cutting room floor. The worst example of the theatrical cut’s editing comes towards the end of the film when Lisa confesses something that was never mentioned up until that point. In the theatrical cut it isn’t known whether or not Lisa’s confession is true, but the extended cut clears up any doubts one might have had about the scene.

Each of these edits unfortunately takes away what makes Margaret such a great film. Lonergan clearly wanted the film to be a big, sprawling piece that reflected the messiness of real life. By taking away the subplots and focus on Lisa’s surroundings it shrinks the film’s universe when it needs to be as large as possible. The theatrical cut makes Margaret feel more like Lisa’s story while the extended repeatedly states that it’s anything but. In one scene Lisa gets into an argument with Emily (Jeannie Berlin, who has one of the strongest presences in the film),a friend of the woman hit by the bus. She yells at Lisa that everyone around her isn’t a supporting character in the story of her life. In the theatrical cut the line feels more like someone dressing down Lisa, while the extended cut makes it feel more like a summary of what Margaret is trying to accomplish.

It would be a waste of time to go on about what could have been if Margaret didn’t take almost seven years to come out. It’s unfortunate that the film was robbed of any chances of getting awards recognition (especially for Paquin and Smith-Cameron), but the fact that Margaret is available to watch in a version longer than 150 minutes is a small miracle. In the context of the extended cut it’s hard to see the theatrical version as anything but a director’s vision being muffled. While Margaret‘s status as a masterpiece may be up for debate, the 186-minute version definitely feels closer to earning that status than the contractually-obligated one.

Joel McHale will host the 26th Film Independent’s Spirit Awards show and the list of presenters for this year’s ceremony has been announced. Some good surprises are Will Arnett and Rainn Wilson.

See the full list of nominations

Here is the list of presenters:
Will Arnett
Jesse Eisenberg
Terrence Howard
Nicole Kidman
Diego Luna
Craig Robinson
Rainn Wilson
Paul Rudd
Mark Ruffalo
Zoe Saldana
Kerry Washington
Mia Wasikowska

The Kids Are All Right is a film about an unconventional family dealing with the struggles of marriage and raising children that any family can relate to. For better or worse the storyline is straightforward and safe, making it relatable but ultimately very predictable. The cast and screenwriting make it interesting enough to watch even though at times it feels like more could have been done.

Life is neither perfect nor easy but more specifically neither is marriage. That is the message The Kids Are All Right delivers. Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) are a happily married lesbian couple who both have teenage children, Joni and Laser, from the same anonymous sperm donor. Nic is a doctor and Jules is currently trying to start up her own landscape design business.

Joni recently turned 18 years old and is spending her final summer at home before leaving for college. Joni and Laser are aware that they are half-siblings from the same father but different mothers and now that Joni is of age to request to get in touch with their biological father, she does so.

Their father is an easy-going hippie named Paul (Mark Ruffalo) who is in charge of an organic restaurant and garden. He receives a call out of the blue informing him that his two children would like to meet up with him. Even caught off-guard with this news he, as he normally does, has a nonchalant cool-guy attitude about the situation and eagerly accepts the children’s request.

Paul meets up and eventually bonds with the two children. Joni seemed to drawn closer to him than Laser did but I think it would be pretty typical for a 15 year old boy to be hesitant to open up to his father after just meeting him. Nic and Jules soon learn about the children bonding with Paul and are accepting of it although perhaps feel a little uneasy.

After meeting with the whole family, Paul learns that Jules is looking for landscape design work and hires her to do some work. Because Nic is territorial she becomes concerned that Paul is intruding her life. It turns out her instincts were not wrong when she finds out that Paul and Jules have moved on from just hanging out in the garden to hanging out in the bedroom.

The acting performances were solid and earned nominations at the Oscars and Independent Spirit Awards for both Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo. While I understand Ruffalo’s nomination as he does a good job of playing the cool-guy father figure while giving some comedic relief, I do not understand Bening getting nominated for Best Female Lead over Julianne Moore. Moore deserves just as much recognition as Bening if not more for her roles as the heart and soul of the relationship who has her faults.

Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right is a very realistic and honest film, but I felt there could have been more done with the plot. I respect a film that contains as much honesty as this did and I do enjoy loose endings to a film but the emotional connection needs to be strong and deep to really be effective, which is where the film faltered a bit for me.