Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I think Disney actually did an enchanting job with this remake of the (Oscar Best Picture-nominated) original. The acting and casting is spot on. Specifically, Emma Watson is simply divine. She's beautiful and charming and who knew she could sing? Her voice actually sounds very pure. She is helped greatly by the new orchestrations, modernizing the familiar tunes. Emma Thompson is fine as Mrs. Potts but I don't think her rendition of the title song can match the iconic Angela Lansbury. There are some new songs in addition to the old classics. And they're all quite good. There is a noticeable amount of diversity among the villagers and even some interracial couples, though in provincial France they were surely all white. Disney of course had the controversy with Josh Gad's flamboyantly gay Le Fou, but it was actually surprisingly tame. They're making a big deal out of nothing. And Josh Gad is perfect for Le Fou. Besides, shouldn't Le Fou be gay? It's really just reading a little deeper into his character. The one casting I wasn't crazy about was Dan Stevens for beast. I have to admit, I did not recognize him or his name, but it's Matthew from Downton Abbey! His face is only in a small portion of the film, but the big reveal at the end was shocking. He looked to pretty with his golden locks to be taken seriously. It was like a joke ripped from the cover of a romance novel. If Disney was really trying to push boundaries, the prince would've been black.

Visually, the castle and costumes are quite stunning. The Be Our Guest sequence is just like the original. I, personally, had a problem seeing the detail though. I don't know if it was the movie or me, but every time the camera moved, everything looked blurry. I couldn't make out any of the lines. It felt like watching a 3D movie without the glasses on sometimes. Maybe it was filmed in 3D? There are definitely 3D versions being shown, but we had a 2D screening in a large cinema in Dublin.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay--Part 2 (2015)

This is a much darker film than other blockbuster series. And that tone matches the the book but I didn't really like the last book. The Hunger Games series was great because of the hunger games. But the last two films don't feature a hunger games. They focus instead on rebellion, which is complicated, cynical and messy. Much of this final movie is spent filming propaganda. And there is no glamour in propaganda. There is no glamour in war. It makes you long for the extravagance of the earlier films. Jennifer Lawrence can do no wrong-- she'll forever be known as The Girl on Fire. The novelty has kind of worn off now that dystopian teen fiction is everywhere, only exacerbated by splitting the final book (arguably the worst one) into two films.

Spotlight (2015)

I don't know if I've ever looked at journalists as heroes, but this movie paints these investigative journalists at the Boston Globe as heroic figures.  It makes you want to pursue a career in journalism to uncover all the dirt that our most important institutions are hiding.  That's not to say that the movie glamorizes journalism, because it doesn't.  It is gritty work and these are average people that do not have much going on in their lives outside of their careers.  This movie is so good because it doesn't try to sugar coat it. This is difficult, demoralizing, alienating, soul-searching work.  And as the story (very) slowly unfolds at a controlled pace, the audience comes to the same discoveries of disbelief that the characters do.  

Michael Keaton has been getting all the buzz because he's fresh off of Birdman, but I think Mark Ruffalo gives the best performance amid a phenomenal ensemble cast.  He always does.  Rachel McAdams, too, does a standout job following some disappointing work in True Detective.  And John Slattery looks markedly different outside of a suit, but the big office still suits him well.  From inside the Boston Globe, we get the perspective of the journalists. We hear the victims' stories through the ears of the interviewers, and we hardly see any of the perpetrators.  They are unseen villains. The visible antagonist is the community itself and I think that is what makes the story so devastatingly interesting, how ingrained the Catholic Church is in Boston society.  

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I (2014)

The penultimate Hunger Games film is all about setting up the final battle between Katniss and the Capital.  Where this movie fails is that it does not give the viewers quite enough.  When it comes down to it, just not that much happened and the action was kind of lacking. I, for one, am not a fan of the recent trend of splitting the final book of a series into two parts. To be fair, I was not particularly fond of the last installment of Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games trilogy anyways.

But this movie does some things right.  With an ensemble cast, there are some very solid performances. This is one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's final roles and his performance does his legacy justice.  And Jennifer Lawrence is good in everything she does (though she doesn't do anything terribly special).  This film does lack the stylish glitz and glamour of the Capital, and the intensity of the Hunger Games that stood out in the first two films.     

The Wind Rises (2013)

Having grown up with Hayao Miyazaki's films, I was very saddened to hear that he would be retiring.  This was his final film. In the past, Miyazaki has shown a fascination with flight (much like his protagonist), and his films have featured pacifist themes.  It is Miyazaki's only film based on real life, though it retains his signature fantastical elements in lifelike dreams and imagination. The Wind Rises is about Jiro Horikoshi, who designed Japanese war planes during WWII--or rather he designed planes that Japan used for war.  Miyazaki ran into some controversy.  The film does not attempt to glorify a weapons maker, but an engineer and artist whose art was corrupted by war.  Horikoshi sums his feelings up in one line: "All I wanted to do was to make something beautiful."

As always in Studio Ghibli's films, the animation is incredible.  Depicting prewar Japan (which I became very familiar with after taking a class on Modern Japan last semester), Horikoshi experiences the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923.  Watching this animated world shake and the city set ablaze is a feat of animation.  If there is any question as to Miyazaki's pacifist views, all the characters question who the warplanes would be used to attack, surely not America.  After reading John Dower's Embracing Defeat, I learned that most Japanese in the weapons industry were always aware of how behind Japan was technologically.  They knew that western weapons were far superior and figured Japan would not dare bomb America.  Miyazaki does not shy away from the historical facts, but presents it honestly.