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

The best boxing matches are roller coasters of emotion, full of twists, shifts in momentum and ungodly displays of skill. Unlike a classic big-time fight, Southpaw, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a short-fuse champion prizefighter who falls from the top of the mountain and crawls his way back up, offers no such surprises or knockout performances. Its title, which refers to the unconventional left-handed boxing stance, couldn’t be more ironic considering how conventional and easy-to-read this movie is.

Cliché is king in director Antoine Fuqua‘s store-brand boxing drama, and a valiant tough-guy transformation by Gyllenhaal just isn’t enough to keep things interesting. Scrunching his perpetually swollen face, flexing his bulging muscles in fits of rage and slurring his words in hopes of garnering punch-drunk sympathy, Gyllenhaal gives “his everything” as Billy “The Great” Hope, the movie’s meathead hero. Billy fights with a death wish, dropping his hands and welcoming his opponents’ haymakers with reckless abandon; unlike most boxing movie underdogs, however, Billy’s got everything to lose.

We meet Billy at the top of his game, on a 43-fight win streak as the light-heavyweight champ of the world. He’s got a nurturing wife, Maureen (Rachel McAdams), who grew up with him in the same Hell’s Kitchen orphanage; she’s been there from the jump, and he worships her for it. She organizes every aspect of his life so that he can concentrate on bludgeoning his heavy-handed dance partners. Their precocious daughter, Leila (Oona Laurence), wants nothing more than to watch her dad in the ring, though the thought is too much for Maureen to stomach. As Billy spits up blood after his fights, Maureen sends Leila two-word texts: “Daddy won.”

In a tragic turn of events that has a snowflake’s chance in hell of surprising anyone, a heated scuffle at a charity event between Billy and smack-talking rival Miguel Escobar (Miguel Gomez) gets out of hand: shots ring out in the hotel lobby, and the scene ends with Billy cradling his dying wife in his arms. This sends him on the obligatory downward spiral of suicidal, drunken rage; he loses his money, house, cars, friends, more than a little bit of his sanity, and most regrettably, Leila, who’s taken away by child services. His Don King-like manager/promoter (50 Cent) offers moral support, though even he turns on Billy when he decides to jump ship and manage Escobar instead.

Floundering in abject poverty, Billy seeks the tutelage of old-timer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker), the former coach of the only man to ever beat Billy in the ring (in Billy’s mind, not the split-decision scorecards). Wills “doesn’t train pro fighters anymore,” instead dedicating himself to mentoring troubled youths and teaching them discipline through via the “sweet science.” But who are we kidding? Wills, of course, eventually changes his mind and trains Billy to fight Escobar for the world title in the film’s final, epic(ish) battle.

Fuqua cakes on grimy imagery of in-ring brutality and low-lit interiors to reflect the darkness inside Billy’s soul (or something faux-poetic like that), but none of it yields any dramatic dividends; the movie just looks gross. With the fight scenes, the filmmakers try to mimic modern televised boxing presentations while throwing in quick cuts of jabs, hooks and body shots seemingly at random. Basically, the fights look like every other fight in every other forgettable boxing movie. First-person shots from both Billy and Escobar’s perspectives are butt-ugly and laughably distracting.

Gyllenhaal is a better storyteller with his facial expressions and body language than screenwriter Kurt Sutter is with his uninspired dialogue. As Billy learns to be a smarter, calmer fighter both inside and outside the ring, Gyllenhaal’s mannerisms reflect his newfound ability to not lose his shit at the tiniest aggravation. It’s a slow-burn character arc, and he conveys each stage of maturation with careful articulation. He’s the only thing in the movie that whiffs of any passion.

Southpaw is nothing more than a loosely-stitched patchwork of ideas ripped straight out of every boxing movie ever. It always feels like we’re five steps ahead of the story, and that’s because we’ve seen this stuff a million times before. The movie was originally designed as a showcase film for Eminem (heaven knows what kind of disaster that would have been), and though it’s far from a success, Gyllenhaal (barely) keeps Southpaw from staying down for the count.

Last night in media you were either jazz-handing your way through the Tony Awards, screaming at LeBron on your television screen, or getting rather depressed at the unfolding events in Westeros. Which means you probably missed that HBO gave us TWO new True Detective Season 2 trailers.

The show, which returns with an all new cast and plot June 21 at 9pm on HBO, has thus far only hinted at plot and characters and now it, well, it hints a little bit more? The first trailer is another non-verbal mood-focused trailer letting us know that, similar to the first season, we should probably prepare for some Debbie Downer characters in the midst of some truly dark cases. Well at least we know they’re keeping the theme of cops-who-need-antidepressants alive.

The second trailer gives us our first taste of dialogue. Colin Farrell’s Ray Velcoro asks immediately if he’s supposed to solve this thing. We’re hoping this means he’s moody AND cocky. Love a cop who knows what he’s good at a la Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle. Vince Vaughn’s Frank Semyon claims to be “no good on the sidelines,” so we can only hope for some rogue bad-boy action on his part. And Rachel McAdams’ Ani Bezzerides generally looks tired, wary, and needing of a stiff drink. Given the twisted mystery of the first season, it makes sense that neither of these trailers would give us a whole lot more to go on, plot-wise, but our appetites are still most certainly whet.

Watch below and let us know if you’re as excited as we are:

What if we took a love triangle between Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, and Rachel McAdams, threw in some John Krasinski, and then situated everything on the island of Hawaii?

Could it indeed get any better than this? The new trailer for Cameron Crowe’s Aloha has just been released and we say, actually, yes. Yes it does. And their names are Bill Murray and Alec Baldwin.

Bradley Cooper plays a disgraced weapons consultant who is called in for a special operation in Hawaii, giving him a chance for redemption, new (or old?) love, and reclaiming the name he had once made for himself there. Emma Stone is the soldier assigned to guide and guard him (from himself, mainly) and Rachel McAdams plays the love-torn ex trying to find contentment in her own reclaimed life as wife of John Krasinski and mother of 2. Bill Murray and Alec Baldwin are the two opposing bosses of said military and contracting companies with vastly dissimilar leadership tactics.

Columbia Pictures’ Aloha is set to be released in theaters on May 29, 2015.

A grey cloud follows every film featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman ever since his untimely death earlier this year (read our Favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman moments). Posthumously released films are always tinged with darkness. So when a film like God’s Pocket comes out to disappointing reviews (read our own underwhelmed reaction) every Hoffman fan among us can’t help but feel slightly dejected. So here’s some much-needed good news; Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man, adapted from the John Le Carré novel of the same name, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead and it’s the kind of material that’s perfectly suited for the late, great actor’s talents. It may not get ahead of films like The Master, Capote, Magnolia, and Almost Famous in terms of substance; but it’s a sophisticated and shining addition to a boisterous filmography.

The plot follows Günter Bachmann (Hoffman) a government operative in command of a small anti-terrorist unit operating out of Hamburg, Germany. Title cards give us the reason behind the susceptible conditions in Hamburg; this is the port where the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed from. It’s been over a decade, and the city is still under major surveillance for any signs of terrorist activity. When a Chechen prisoner of war is picked up on a surveillance camera roaming the streets, he’s found to be Issa Karpov (Grigory Dobrygin) who will become Bachmann’s key to infiltrating a highly complicated network of Islamic terrorist cells. Other prominent players on the chessboard include Karpov’s pro bono lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams) the head of Hamburg intelligence Dieter Mohr (Rainer Bock) Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe) the head of a bank with old ties to Karpov’s father, and Martha (Robin Wright) a CIA agent who represents the concerns and support of the United States. As the game clock ticks louder and louder, the elaborate narrative separates the rooks from the pawns.

Thanks to his formidable cast, and an airtight screenplay by Andrew Bovell (in redemption mode from forgettable yarn Edge Of Darkness) Corbijn manages to build tension and suspense without needing to fire a single gunshot. While it doesn’t fail to hit all the familiar notes of the genre, A Most Wanted Man is engaging from start to finish, ultimately revealing the purpose of espionage in today’s highly paranoid world and the people who suffer at the hands of faceless bureaucrats operating inside air-conditioned offices. Much like the brilliant Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, another successful John Le Carré adaptation, A Most Wanted Man is a highly plot-driven film, brimming with shady characters and between-the-lines dialogue, but it’s got something extra as well. With the character of Issa Karpov, a completely disillusioned young man who ‘has no idea what he wants’ as Bachmann rightly puts it, the picture carries heavy emotional baggage not usually associated with espionage thrillers. Tinker, Tailor carried some as well but in a much more delicate and subtle fashion, which ultimately adds to the superiority it has over Corbijn’s film, but it works just as effectively here because of the story’s build-up and highly involved climax, done with expert precision.

The performances are solid across the board, but Hoffman (and I write this without an ounce of projected exaggeration) truly carries the film on the weary and grounded shoulders of Günter, a withered-down version of his Gust Avrakatos from Charlie Wilson’s War. This is a film that doesn’t pretend to shake any ground, or develop any new artistic cinematic perspectives in a genre that’s become all too familiar thanks to TV shows like Homeland and mainstream attempts at conquering the box-office with action-figure spies like Jack Ryan and Ethan Hunt. A Most Wanted Man is not a story of heroes and villains, but a tightly wound game of chess knee-deep in the murky swamps of morality’s grey areas. As such, it does an excellent job of balancing entertainment, suspense, reality, and just enough emotional investment to stop it from being corny. It solidifies Corbijn’s status as a highly efficient director (the man already has the awesome slow-burning The American under his belt) but above all else and to the delight of Hoffman fans, it’s a film worthy of the actor’s incredible career.

A Most Wanted Man trailer

The first promotional poster for A Most Wanted Man is here for all to see below. The film marks the final lead performance in the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman. The spy thriller is adapted from John le Carré’s novel of the same name, which tells the story of a mysterious refugee who turns up in Germany, who may have terrorist ties. Hoffman plays the chief of a covert German spy group who is tasked with putting the pieces together. The intelligent but secretive character is certainly a role that can fit Hoffman’s best abilities.

A Most Wanted Man should also appeal as a film directed by Anton Corbijn, whose previous film, The American, was a slow-build, intense and smart thriller in the same vein. The film debuted at Sundance to positive reviews and is set to open in limited release on July 25, 2014.

A Most Wanted Man poster

Richard Curtis, the sentimental writer/director behind charming British rom-coms Love Actually, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones’s Diary, is easily England’s male Nora Ephron. His films burst with dry British humor and bashful lovable socially awkward leads. In Time gives every indication it’s setting out to be another cute tale of romance, but is instead a touching embrace of life and the many moments that make it up.

In the way of warning, let it be said that those concerned more about space-time continuums or time travel paradoxes would best either leave their sense of logic at the theatre door or simply pass on this film. This isn’t a sci-fi film with a dose of romance, it’s a romance with a dose of sci-fi. On his 21st birthday, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) is called in by his father (Bill Nighy) for a father-son chat wherein he learns that the men in his family have always had the unique ability to travel in time through their own lives upon turning 21. Skeptical at first, Tim soon finds this to be true and promptly fixes the rather disappointing end to a New Year’s party in his recent past. While they do address the butterfly effect and the many implications of time travel, it’s quickly dismissed as something that hasn’t seemed to manifest as a problem. Warned against the dangers of using his new gift for monetary gain or other worldly things, Tim decides instead that what he really wants is a girlfriend. He sets his sights on his sister’s visiting girlfriend. Flashing back in time to fix every little flub and embarrassment, he learns that he can travel through time as much as he wants, but nothing can make a person fall in love with you if they were never meant to. Thus he embarks on his adult life, moving to London to live with an ornery playwright and one fateful night he meets the girl of his dreams, Mary (Rachel McAdams), and she seems just as interested as he is. But when uses his ability to help a friend, he mistakenly erases their meeting and has to start again.

Mary and Tim’s romance, while cute, isn’t ultimately the love story that makes this movie worth watching. Even the time travel element, an endearing comic device, doesn’t use it’s full potential for mishaps and mayhem. Instead it’s Bill Nighy’s wry, book-loving father who ends up being the emotional core of the film. His encouragement of his son, and even his guidance in how to use this gift of theirs to appreciate every moment of life, repeatedly, teach a lesson in true love. Gleeson is perfectly cast as the goofy geek who seems to always have trouble in love in these movies, and yet who every woman in the theater has been pining to meet. He’s easy to cheer for and charming to watch. McAdams has played this role more than once and continues to be enchanting, if not necessarily innovative.

Curtis has proven he can build on his reputation for romantic comedy. While I certainly don’t recommend he try penning the next great sci-fi romance, he’s successfully added another layer of emotional depth to his usual repertoire. About Time has a deserving place among the heartwarming escapist films that audiences are always craving.

About Time trailer:

Considering that Terrence Malick has never put out consecutive films less than five years apart, one time it was two decades, putting out a film only a year after Tree of Life is very uncharacteristic. Rumor has it that the prolific director is actually working on several films right at the moment. The sudden surge of urgency is unknown, but very welcoming. To the Wonder shares the same narrative style as Tree of Life by showing but never telling the story. Often situations are suggested or hinted at but never quite fully spelled out, forcing the viewer to read between the lines. To the Wonder is even more subtle and less cohesive than Tree of Life, so if you struggled with that on Tree of Life, this film will likely produce similar results.

At the beginning Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko) wander the French coast madly in love with one another. They explore the beautiful cathedral at Mont St. Michel which they call the Wonder and clasp their hands together at what ends up being the pinnacle peak of their relationship. Shortly after that Neil must relocate back to the States and convinces Marina and her little daughter to move with him. The flat countryside landscape of Oklahoma is a stark contrast to the city life in Paris Marina is used to. Not only does Marina not fit in to her new surroundings but her relationship with Neil is unraveling with each passing moment.

The couple drifts away from each other for no specific reason other than they never quite seem to be on the same beat of the drum. Malick wonderfully symbolizes this in a shot when the couple are on different floors of their home walking into separate rooms. But they are not the only ones in a crucial crossroad in their lives. A local priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) preaches the word of God to others but seems to have little direction or happiness in his own life. What these characters have in common is that they are searching for something that is only felt and not seen. In Marina’s case it is love that she is searching for, while the priest is pursuing his faith.

To the Wonder borrows many of the aesthetics found in Tree of Life. The camera always seems to be moving along with the characters, rarely ever is it stationary. Many similar objects appear in both films such as; beautiful stained glass churches, plenty of nature shots of trees and water, and heavy focus on the emotional reactions of the lead actors. Also similar is that the dialog takes a back seat to the stunning visuals of Malick’s visual poetry that is set against a perfectly chosen score. Most of the dialog will cut out mid-way through a sentence, as if the words are not really worth hearing.

Like most of Malick’s films, To the Wonder will not be for everyone. In fact, it may not even be for most. What might frustrate some viewers is how elusive the film is. Being that it features detached characters that are all looking for some intangible item makes the film seem very distant. Malick mostly succeeds at the impossible task of capturing these intangibles such as being in love and being directionless, while rarely relying on words to describe what is happening.

Affleck barely has any lines in the film and none of them were all that important. His character is withdrawn and the fact he spends most of the time in the frame, but seldom in the foreground exemplifies that. I realize that the film purposely does not give much detail about Ben, but I cannot help but wonder if a little more time was spent getting to know him would have been more beneficial. Going with a lifelike approach to its characters and their circumstances yields split results. In its favor, the film captures human nature without dramatizing anything, but it is at the cost of not having much of an emotional punch.

To the Wonder is such an absorbing film that it is not easy to form an instant opinion about it because you must let the film sink in for a while. Essentially the film is a two hour visual masterpiece with a plot that could be summed in ten seconds. Yet, even with a rather simplistic overall story, the film explores complex areas such as the dynamics of relationships, love, and faith. To the Wonder is a visual marvel to look at but its ambiguous form makes it frustratingly impenetrable at times.

To The Wonder is Terrence Malick’s uncharacteristically quick follow-up to his 2011 stroke of genius work of The Tree of Life. There were a lot of similarities in each of their trailers; both have excellent orchestra music accompanying characters that spend a lot of the time running through fields as if they are trying to escape from something. Malick appears to have made yet another visual masterpiece, one that could be a companion piece to his previous film.

Ben Affleck will likely be doing his more serious work of his acting career with his lead role as Neil. He and his girlfriend live happily together in Oklahoma until her visa expires, forcing her to return back to Paris. Making the situation complicated is when Neil’s childhood sweetheart (Rachel McAdams) re-enters his life.

Watch the official trailer for To The Wonder:

Midnight in Paris is Woody Allen’s latest film about a man who loves Paris and nostalgia which Allen gracefully provides in a whimsy and romantic manner. Allen does for Paris what he has done for New York in the past, cinematically capturing the city perfectly. Most people can agree, this is Allen’s best film in years.

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood movie writer who is trying to give a shot at writing a novel but not having the easiest time with it. He is on vacation with his soon-to-be wife Inez (Rachel McAdams) in Paris, a city that he adores every square inch of, especially when it is raining. He brings up the idea of moving there once they are married but Inez does not share the same passion about Paris as he does and she hates being wet. In fact, the couple do not see eye-to-eye on much it seems.

The couple happen to run into some old friends who are visiting the City of Light as well. I decline to say mutual friends as Gil does not care much for Paul (Michael Sheen), a traveling professor who considers himself an expert on every subject on earth. Gil finds him very annoying whereas Inez finds him charming and fascinating. Paul asks if the two would be interested in going dancing and immediately they both respond with different answers.

While Inez and Paul are out dancing, Gil decides to take a walk around the city. He had a fair amount to drink that night so getting lost was not hard for him to do. He ends up on some church steps as the clock strikes midnight it’s bell rings. A few moments later a vintage car full of drunken Parisians pulls up and invites him in.

When the group ends up at a party that is when Gil starts to notice something a little…magical. The first person at the party he meets is Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill). She is very eager to hear that he is a writer himself so she calls over her husband to tell him the news, Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston). He can barely believe what he is seeing.

He does not spend too much time trying to figure out how he ended in what he considers the golden age, the 1920’s, he just embraces it. Woody Allen does the same; he does not bother to explain how this time travel is possible as how is not the important part. Gil has always wondered what Paris was like in the 20’s and now he gets his chance to see it.

The next day everything goes back to normal but Gil can barely wait until midnight to see if the process repeats itself. He walks around until he finds the same church and waits for clock to strike midnight. When the bell rings sure enough the same old car pulls up transports him back in time. Gil runs into a long list of famous heroes including, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody). Gil realizes he finally found some people he trusts to critique his novel, something that he has never done before and what other perfect people do so than Stein and Hemmingway.

The story really picks up when he is introduced to Piacasso’s lover Adriana (Marion Cotillard). He instantly develops a crush on her. Gil and Adriana share one big thing in common; they both wish they belonged in a different time period. It is when Adriana fantasizes about being in Paris in another time than the 1920’s that he finally comes to a realization that life is a little unsatisfying and you can never think the present is the golden age.

Gil comes to this epiphany shortly after he heavily considers leaving his fiancé for Adriana. He does after all, get along with and share more in common with Adriana than we ever saw he did with Inez. The film does a great job making it about impossible to feel pity for Inez, she never seemed right for Gil from the start.

It is no secret that Woody Allen often portrays himself with protagonists in his films, Midnight in Paris is no exception, Owen Wilson might be the best actor to pull it off to date. Wilson may not come to mind as the perfect person for the role but he proved otherwise. He played the enthusiastic writer who is sometimes neurotically long-winded remarkably well. The rest of the cast also do a excellent job, especially Corey Stoll as Hemingway.