Review: The Danish Girl (2015)

* * 1/2
Director: Tom Hooper
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Alicia Vikander

I can't help but wonder how much better The Danish Girl could have been if it was actually about Lili Elbe. In its present form, The Danish Girl is the sort of standard issue prestige picture Hollywood typically resorts to when it finds itself trying to grapple with the plight of the "other": handsomely mounted, polite and playing it safe narratively, and using a character that better reflects the sensibility of the people making the movie to act as the lens through which the minority character's story is told. This is Lili Elbe's story by way of Gerda Wegener. It's so much Gerda Wegener's story that she is the "Danish girl" of the title, referred to as such by another character. She's the character we meet first. She's the character we see last. The distinction between "lead" and "supporting" performances for the Oscars has always been a bit sketchy, but Alicia Vikander winning as supporting actress for this film renders the distinction entirely meaningless.

Netflix Recommends... Transcendence (2014)

* *
Director: Wally Pfister
Starring: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Paul Bettany, Morgan Freeman

We can do anything now that scientists have invented magic. But, oh, this is not cause for celebration, for the future brings nothing but despair according to Transcendence, a film pitched not merely at the level of panic, but at sheer hysteria in its nightmare vision about the slippery slope of technology. Once we create a self-aware AI, there's nothing it won't be able to do! We'll have to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater just to stop it! All that will be left is destruction, darkness, and a backwards leap into a pre-technological age. Transcendence has an interesting premise, which is perhaps to be expected from a film whose screenplay once appeared on Hollywood's famed Black List, the annual roster of the best unproduced screenplays in any given year (though given that this year's critically reviled Dirty Grandpa also once appeared on the Black List, as did such beloved classics as The Other Boleyn Girl, Wild Hogs, All About Steve, Clash of the Titans, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it's perhaps not the prestigious list it sells itself as being), but it doesn't do anything very interesting with it.

Review: Primer (2004)

* * * *
Director: Shane Carruth
Starring: David Sullivan, Shane Carruth

The question of accessibility is one of the more complicated aspects when considering a film's quality. One the one hand, an argument could be made that a film can only really be as successful as its ability to reach and connect with as many people as possible, meaning that anyone could sit down and watch it and absorb what it's doing to the extent that it's effective even with just one viewing. On the other hand, there are many really great movies that can't really be grasped with just one viewing and demand more work on the part of the audience to follow it the first time and then take what you know from the first viewing and use it to enhance your understanding on the next. In a certain context the words "see it again" can be an obnoxious thing to say to someone about a movie, implying as it does that if they didn't like it, it's because they just didn't "get" it, but some movies you really do need to see at least twice in order to understand what they're doing and how they're doing it. Those films are less accessible, but they aren't lesser films for that. Shane Carruth's Primer is one of those movies, a film that doesn't do a lot to help its audience along, but which feels more engaging and more rewarding with every viewing.

21st Century Essentials: Away From Her (2007)

Director: Sarah Polley
Starring: Gordon Pinsent, Julie Christie
Country: Canada

The world for her is becoming a bare canvass, a place full of blanks that her mind struggles to fill so that she can carry on rather than be rendered paralyzed with fear. Part of what makes Away From Her so effective a film is that it manages to find a sustained visual way of expressing the loss that she - Fiona, played wonderfully by Julie Christie - is experiencing, and couples it with the deeply emotional and very complex experience of her husband as he reckons with their past, tries to come to terms with their future, and does whatever he can to stave off the feeling of helplessness that threatens to overwhelm him. Now almost 10 years old, Away From Her remains a powerful drama, one fueled not by melodramatics, but by strong character work by the actors in front of the camera and by sharp, empathetic work behind the camera by Sarah Polley, making her feature debut as a writer/director.

Review: Creed (2015)

* * * 1/2
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone

Two men stand in front of a mirror. The older one, the mentor, points to the younger one's reflection and tells him that that's the toughest opponent he'll ever have to face. Is this moment a cliche? Yes, absolutely; variations on this moment have factored into countless stories, especially sports stories. Does it work regardless? Yes. Like so many cliches that have appeared throughout the course of the Rocky series, this one is embraced in such a sincere fashion and woven so lovingly into the fabric of the narrative that it becomes a positive instead of a negative. Seven films in, the Rocky formula is by now well-worn (truth told, the formula was already well-worn with the first one), but with Creed - an entry which takes the story in the only direction it has left to go: back to the start - it doesn't feel tired. Thanks to a new star in Michael B. Jordan and a new energy brought by director/co-writer Ryan Coogler, Creed is a vibrant movie that more than justifies the continuation of a series that is now just shy of 40 years old.