The Ides of March Is A Shallow Exploration of American Politics That Wastes So Many Talented Actors

MASSIVE SPOILERS WITHIN!!

George Clooney is a great actor. He's usually always a charming presence in whatever he pops up in but he's especially stellar playing more troubled characters that serve as a subversion of his movie star persona, like in Up in the Air or in his outstanding voice work in Fantastic Mr. Fox. He also seems like a decent fella in real life and his 2005 directorial effort Good Night and Good Luck was a well-made piece of historical drama cinema. All of that being said, Clooney's attempts to direct and/or star in films that have some kind of sociopolitical message in the 2010s (Suburbicon, Money Monster, even Tomorrowland) have been a big o'l miss, Clooney always ends up being a part of films that have really nothing need to add to the conversation, they just add surface-level observations at best and downright nonsensical takes on real-world problems in the worst instances like Suburbicon.

Despite Starring Two Acting Legends, Fracture Is Criminally Forgettable

Now that he's spent the 2010's working with the likes of Denis Villeneuve, Damien Chazelle and Shane Black, it's hard to imagine an era where Ryan Gosling would star in a disposable courtroom thriller like Fracture. But this hunky leading man of very few words did just that back in 2007 in between two movies, Half Nelson and Lars and the Real Girl, that saw him deliver two of his best performances. Those two motion pictures became more of the norm for Gosling going forward whereas Fracture, as the years go on and on, looks more and more like a strange anomaly for one of the most fascinating modern leading men in American cinema.

Half Nelson Tackles Two Troubled Human Beings With Remarkable Levels of Nuance

Dan Dunne (Ryan Gosling) is a good teacher. He's maybe not the best teacher ever but he's passionate about what he teaches his Middle School students, clearly has a dedication to the material he teaches and has some real personality when he's teaching to his students. However, as an everyday human being, Dunne is more of a complex person as he struggles with the sickness of addiction. Cocaine is his drug of choice and he takes it regularly, to the point that one of his students, Drey (Shareeka Epps), catches him in the middle of a drug trip in one of the school's locker room. Believe it or not, this moment leads to an unusual friendship between the two of them, as Dan starts to look out for Drey, who has her own set of problems at home mainly stemming from the sudden re-emergence of Frank (Anthony Mackie), a drug dealer that Drey's brother used to sell for, in her life.

First Man Explores Uncharted Emotionally Powerful Territory Within A Famous Historical Event

SPOILERS FOLLOW

We've all seen Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. Whether you've seen it in photographic form or in videos or in parodies of the man, we're all keenly aware of Neil Armstrong being the first human being to walk on the moon. It's a momentous moment in the history of humanity whose grand importance seems to be as deserving of a movie as any historical event but as many historical dramas have been grappled with in the past, how do you wring drama out of real-life events that everybody and their grandmother knows everything about? For First Man (Damien Chazelle's fourth directorial effort and his third winner in a row as a filmmaker), the solution is to explore both the extensive training leading up to the historic moon landing and the psychological condition of Neil Armstrong himself.

Lars And The Real Girl Finds So Much Power In Kindness And A Terrific Ryan Gosling Performance

There is, to quote Avenue Q, "a fine fine line" between kindness and schmaltz. The latter element is widely detested and, not unfairly, looked at a manipulative way to generate pathos without actually generating substantive characters or plot details for the audience to get invested in. There are times where I've seen movies that get too schmaltzy for their own good (remember that ending of The LEGO Ninjago Movie that smothered the audience in too many hollow dramatic monologues?), but I'm always gonna root for a movie to charge towards kindness, even if it stumbles along the way. Kindness is such a vital thing in our lives and it's always good to see art championing it. Well-done kindness is one of my favorite things in all of cinema and you can see it in all kinds of movies like The Muppets, Blockers, City Lights or even the 2007 dramedy Lars And The Real Girl.

Song to Song Is Out of Tune And Devoid of Substance

Here we go again...here we go again.

Yes, Terrence Malick returned to the silver screen this year with Song to Song, his fourth directorial effort in the last eight years, a stunning turnaround in terms of output considering the long gaps of time between projects in his filmography prior to 2011. Now he's just churning these things out like a madman and while his work ethic that's rivaling Ridley Scott or Takashi Miike is admirable, the quality of his recent efforts suggest he should maybe chillax, take a breather and come up with some kind of imagery or atmosphere he wants to exude before filming a movie instead of just tossing a bunch of major actors into a number of disparate locales and calling it a day.

Thoughtfulness And Gorgeous Visuals Are Very Much In Supply With Blade Runner 2049 (SPOILERS!!!!)

Discussing Blade Runner 2049 in any kind of detail requires spoilers, so be forewarned, this entire review is lathered in spoilers. Want a spoiler-free reaction to the movie? Then I shall tell you this is a great movie with beautiful visuals and thoughtful ideas. If you want to hear me get more in-depth then that, then read on but BEWARE OF SPOILERS

La La Land Explores The Costs Of Reality By Way Of Stylized Musical Numbers

In our dreams, anything is possible. You can go anywhere, you can be with anyone, you can do anything. In its own way, musicals are akin to dreams in that the stylized nature of these productions allows for an "anything goes" approach for storytelling to make the frequent action of bursting into song feel acceptable. Events like The Paris Uprising Of 1832, the psyche of felines or even the life of Alexander Hamilton can all become easy fodder for musical theater, all told with a heightened guise that allows the musical aspect of these productions to truly flourish. After all, just because you're telling a somber tale doesn't mean you can't use a musical number to express a characters emotions (just look at how enduring opera has been through the centuries).

The First Trailer For La La Land Is Packed With Gorgeous Visuals And Ryan Gosling Harmonizing

Look, I love Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. And I love musicals. And I loved Whiplash, Damien Chazelle's feature film debut from 2014 that changed how the world saw J.K. Simmons and drums forever. So the concept of seeing those three elements merge in La La Land? Yeah, that's a tantalizing prospect, especially given how scarce original live-action musicals are in a post-1950's world. Today, the world got its first look at the highly anticipated project in the form of a teaser trailer that you can watch below!

The Nice Guys Review

Ryan Gosling may be one of the most exceptional leading men in American cinema today. I say that without hesitation, namely due to the guys talent and his versatility, two traits that typically go hand-in-hand. Who else could play a Confident (with a capital C) expert on romance in Crazy, Stupid, Love, a mostly silent driver in Drive and a manic Wall Street heavyweight in The Big Short all with the same level of authenticity and major success? In the new Shane Black effort The Nice Guys, Gosling gets to flaunt his comedic muscles to noteworthy opulence. It's almost not fair to see one of the most chiseled good-looking dudes on the planet also reveal himself to be also be gifted in the areas of slapstick comedy and comedic timing. How'd this one guy get so lucky in his talents??

The Big Short Review

All pieces of writing, no matter what form (i.e. as a book, as a film, as a song) they take, intend to provoke some kind of reaction. Certain pieces of media look to make those who consume it laugh, other creations intend to sweep up its participants in sensations of euphoria. The Big Short makes it abundantly clear from the get-go that it wants nothing more than to send its viewers into an all-consuming mouth-frothing rage over the injustices that led to the financial meltdown of 2008. And, yeah, by the end I had more than a hint of resentment bubbling for the various figures at Wall Street who allowed this catastrophe to occur and got away from the calamity scott free.

The Big Short Trailer Has Big Name Actors And Stock Market Advice To Spare

Paramount just added another motion picture to a crowded Christmas Day release schedule today by announcing that Adam McKay's The Big Short will be released on December 11 in limited release and on December 23 in wide release. It's no shocker for weirdos like myself who obsess over movie release dates, considering Paramount is always doing these sort of last minute announcements regarding the crucial Christmastime frame (who else remembers their public indecisiveness over whether to release The Wolf Of Wall Street or Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit over Christmas 2013 two years back?), and to commemorate the films new release date, the studio has released a trailer for the drama that you can watch below!

I Wanna See That!: Drive

In this Thursday fixture, I Wanna See That!, I take a look at specific trailers that are both well crafted and have some kind of importance to them beyond just informing you a film is coming soon. This week, hang on tight, because we're going full throttle in analyzing the trailer for the 2011 indie hit Drive.