Reviews

There are several small things that go into creating chemistry between actors/characters on screen, and in Cameron Crowe's debut, it seemed he had already mastered them. "Say Anything" has a small story and a handful of perfectly cast roles that are held together by wonderful writing in a movie that could've earned its keep for another hour.

In "Say Anything" we see a couple of different, but very important, things that aren't at all standard fare. John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler, the lead, is unspeakably good. There is a nuance he brings with the character, a tick, a flinch that brings it to life. He's playing an ordinary guy, maybe a little too ordinary in some aspects, with some caveats we get reminded of a couple times throughout the picture. He wasn't one of the popular guys in school, wasn't a straight-A student, wasn't an athlete - it's the lack of titles and the usual stigmas with them that helps define this unique performance and character.

Cusack is aided by a seemingly on-the-surface quiet performance on the other end by Ione Skye's Diane Court. While Cusack's character is relatable in that something about him applies to most males and the story is really, for the most part, told through his lenses, we see a likeness in Skye's Diane, we've known someone like her before. Her character is more of the distant type, close family ties and kept her head down and focused on her grades while her peers, including Lloyd, were out socializing. When we're introduced to her in the early stages, she's almost only something to be admired, and perhaps she'd stay that way if Crowe didn't write her so many important scenes and give her so many crucial moments that craft her character.

There are a handful of moments in great movies that act as crucial moments for character without someone telling the audience how they should feel or how they should think. See Luke Skywalker looking up into the sky in "New Hope" or the look on Kay's face at the ending of "The Godfather." These moments say all about the characters that we need to know with no exposition, and there's a select few in "Say Anything." While the boombox scene is memorable, the moment that stands apart above all, and quite closely resembles the record store scene in "Before Sunrise", involves Lloyd teaching Diane how to drive her new car. In this scene, the audience catches its breath for a moment before seeing a crescendo of emotion between the characters with no words except for driving instructions. The subtle smiles on the character's faces and the culmination of the goodwill of their time spent is nothing short of infectious, and crucial.

"Say Anything" offers a lot more than its peers. While it does follow, closely, to the "boy meets girl" pattern that's tried and true, it makes enough safe, smart, and heartfelt moves and creates a few moments of great cinema along the way that it has more than stood the test of time. John Cusack portrays an earnest character that is important to show on screen because of his vulnerability and his believability, and Ione Skye acts perfectly as not only the apple of his eye, but delivers her own important messages as well through her actions and her beliefs, she's strong in a way that makes her character delightfully lovable and real in the same steps.

Cameron Crowe created a wonderful time capsule of human growth, in an important time of two different but lovable characters' lives. Assisted with a catchy and timeless soundtrack, Crowe created a crown jewel of the romance genre that has a whole lot to say, and it wouldn't without his knack for good conversations, important character choices, meaningful scenes, and a whole lot of chemistry between two wonderfully written characters.

"No Country for Old Men" was a turn in the Coens' filmography that they hadn't went down since "Fargo", a (relatively) serious crime drama.

The Coen brothers have a long-standing reputation for their off beat, sometimes hilarious dialogue and characters, as well as crafting intricate plots that fall into the rear view as the story and all of its zaniness progresses, i.e. "The Big Lebowski". However, "No Country for Old Men" is quite a reach different than the rest of their discography. A western, set in 1980 and based on a Cormac McCarthy novel, that follows Josh Brolin's character Llewelyn after he happens upon a not-yet-discovered crime scene and a case full of unclaimed money. Once the money's proprietor finds this out, Llewelyn is tailed voraciously by Javier Bardem's Anton Chigurh, this plot line is what comprises the majority of the film, in company with Tommy Lee Jones' seemingly slow moving pursuit into the events.

In Chigurh's first moments, we see him escape arrest and commit murder - both in perhaps the coldest ways possible. From this point on, he is on a manhunt without a lot of the urgency. Chigurh follows leads, plans his following actions, even takes steps without making a single sound or uttering a single word. He isn't accompanied with any music, he isn't given any background, and we don't see him answer to anyone. Chigurh almost seems like a man out of a different world, someone just here visiting to do a job, he doesn't look to be held down by earthly restrictions, and it is abundantly clear that no matter where Llewelyn (or anyone else) goes, he is never safe from him. These characteristics are bound together wonderfully and effortlessly by Javier Bardem.

Thankfully enough, Bardem is balanced out by a great protagonist performance by Josh Brolin (one of his best) and the character who acts more as a storyteller and backdrop for the world these characters live in than actual engaged plot-driven character, Tommy Lee Jones. Jones, by far, gets the smallest screen time of the three leads but his moments, his words, are some of the most memorable in the entire film. In his performance we believe we are listening to tales told by a man who has been lucky enough to tell them.

"No Country for Old Men" is a quiet film, a slow film. It doesn't say too much, try too hard, or hit anyone over the head with anything they don't need. "No Country" begs you to feel the created atmosphere, the pauses given by the characters after they're done speaking or while they're listening to perhaps their last moments. There's no soundtrack playing us through scenes, there's no spike in the music when there would be in any other movie, there's just silence. Shots of the surroundings, and there aren't too many, shown by the great Roger Deakins who delivers award caliber work once again by showing western emptiness and making it look beautiful, and our characters and the words that they speak. "No Country" is a better movie if you read it between the lines. Much of the dialogue shouldn't be taken on face value, Chigurh makes this obvious by deconstructing everything that anyone ever gets to say to him. The Coen brothers crafted a screenplay that was smart enough, small enough, to let us infer messages just as the characters do instead of filling minutes with exposition, as it would hurt this story to do. While there are oft moments of humor sprinkled throughout and used sparingly, the tone is held consistently and paced brilliantly by the Coens in their lone western.

"No Country for Old Men" is a unique film, with the Coens that comes to be expected, but it's not their usual brand of unique that they find a way to craft time and again with the zany characters and laughable situations. "No Country" breaks rules, it tells us a story and acts as if it were inconsequential, as if it were another of Jones' characters' tales. It grips us in a pursuit and takes us down with a ear to the ground to listen, and in that, it's a success, but that's not really what "No Country" is about.

While watching Llewelyn and Chigurh scheme and plot their way around the empty Texan landscape in various hotels and deserted roads accounted for some of the most suspenseful cinema since, perhaps, Hitchcock, "No Country" is a bit deeper than a normal cat and mouse movie (like "Heat"). It's unpredictable, it's subdued, and it's just telling you a story, albeit a bitter one and grounded one - with some Coen brothers touches of humor and superb pacing, acting, editing, and storytelling along the way.

What hurt Marvel's "Iron Man 2"? Their "Thor: The Dark World"? A host of problems, some small and others not so much. Marvel Studios has a negative stigma attached to itself in terms of villains. The sequels to "Iron Man" and "Thor" suffered from this perhaps the worst, as well as an overall struggle to fit within their newly built universe. Both movies juggled tone and had a difficult time building on what was built in terms of character and the events that happened to them - nothing was gained or placed in real stakes. Thus, these are mostly disregarded entries in this now still growing series.

James Gunn created the first, biggest Marvel sleeper hit since "Iron Man". His movie shared the year with the ever-serious but tremendously made and highly anticipated "Captain America: The Winter Soldier". In Gunn's film, he gave the audience a group of characters that didn't have the luxury of being as well known or established as Captain America or Hulk. Gunn had a Han Solo-type lead from earth, an alien warrioress who leans on the colder side, an emotionless almost gladiator type who's obsessed with fighting, a generally angry raccoon, and a tree-man who can only say three words. This was the group who lead the now fan-favorite "Guardians of the Galaxy". Naturally some side characters got a bit of the cold shoulder treatment and with such a vast world it mostly laid unexplored. Overwhelmingly, the film was filled with an effective use of its soundtrack, interesting dialogue, and fulfilling character moments. So naturally, a sequel was needed.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" understood what it needed to do, what it needed to fix, and it what needed to address, in mostly satisfying ways. In the sequel, we take what we've learned from the previous film and jump right on the train a canon three months after our first adventure. "Guardians 2" chose not to do the thing it would've been easy to do - ditch the beloved dialogue that set the characters and their motivations up in favor of bright, loud action scenes for 2 hours that didn't further any of our previous knowledge or love of the universe. Instead, we were given a reason for the events that take place. From the start, the dialogue is back, along with a soundtrack that kicks in about like another member of the team. These characters don't necessarily always agree or get along but their chemistry is always felt when it needs to be. The best parts of "Guardians 2" aren't a major confrontation, an action scene, they're moments of character building and use of dialogue (a shot of Gamora sitting in a field alone contemplating the things that've just happened just may be my favorite). We see the group as a whole learn about each other, understand each other. We see them talk, laugh, get angry, and most importantly we see them take action on their established beliefs. These small, and sometimes longer, moments launch these characters from just funny and exciting characters to genuinely interesting and believable ones.

While "Guardians 2" isn't perfect (there's a lot of stating the obvious and a good bit of action movie clichés, along with some questionable CGI at times), it succeeds on its goals and ambitions. In the sequel, we get a wonderful whirlwind effect of what made the original so much fun and so refreshing. "Guardians 2" offers so much beyond simple entertainment, while there is a great deal. Not since Jon Favreau's first "Iron Man" have the action scenes in Marvel fallen so much secondary to the moments of dialogue and lingering scenes. It expands the universe in ways we had yet to see, and it takes what were minor characters and elevates them as equals, giving them time and choices to make that make them fit in all the more and define them going forward. Every single scene has weight, every moment someone has a choice to make, someone to save, something to do. Every scene is a way of showing why each character is so vital to the story and how true their connections are and how important their tasks are that they've now been given.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" was a tremendous success with a lot of boxes it had to check, and mostly it checked them. The good in "Guardians 2" was the type of stuff you go to movies for, and the bad was too few and far between to really detract from it overall. "Guardians 2" is an achievement in Marvel's universe, and will without a doubt be one of the most fun and enjoyable movies of the year, just as its former was.

We hear Coldplay's "Yellow", a song from 14 years prior, as we see a boy lying in the grass staring up at the sky - something familiar. Moments like these are sewn throughout "Boyhood". Small fleeting moments that wouldn't be shown in any other movie because they would slow the story down and be removed in place of an action scene or a romance that doesn't quite belong.

"Boyhood" formally chronicles the life of a boy, Mason, from his youth until his high school graduation. Richard Linklater, a virtuoso in dialogue and the development of believable, human characters, created the film by shooting parts during the summer times of twelve years - a wonderfully unique way of showing genuine growth and the changes that can and do occur in anyone's, but in this case, Mason's life.

What makes "Boyhood" excel and go beyond its interesting period of development is its attention to detail, attention to the world we all lived in during those years, regardless of our ages. In these years of Mason's aging, we hear things about "The Dark Knight" being in theaters, we see Halo being played, and we see Mason and his dad talking about what the state of the "Star Wars" universe may be. "Boyhood" has this interesting way of encapsulating the dozen years it was filmed in each of its scenes, yet it all works perfectly as a whole.

"Boyhood" on its face value is very interesting, but it's the small moments caught on camera and the words written for the actors that extend it to being an achievement. One of the greatest honors one could give to a bit of writing is the material's way of feeling real, that's what's in "Boyhood". While it's about Mason, his friends, and his family, its grasp extends beyond that. By showing the life events and the time periods, there's at minimum one thing from "Boyhood" that will reel you in and make you recall bits from your past in the forms of things you said to your parents, moments you had with your friends, to even whole chapters in your life.

Realistic characters have been brought to life since movies were made, but not in recent memory have we seen several chapters of life be chronicled, and so believably. "Boyhood" is a delight for its entire 165 minute run-time (which doesn't run at all too long) due to the flawless portrayals of its characters by Ethan Hawke as Dad, Patricia Arquette as Mom, and Ellar Coltraine as Mason.