A Most Violent Year (2014)

JC Chandor creates a gritty 1981 New York City, with a brooding atmosphere of crime and violence.  Alex Ebert's score with a very prominent flute darkly colors each scene contributing immensely to this effect.  Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain act with an intensity to match the period.  Isaac plays a businessman whose business is under attack, putting a big contract at risk.  He must protect his business and his family, though Chastain, as his wife, holds her own.  The real genius of this movie is Chandor's screenplay.  The only way to describe it is a slow burn.  The story trudges along slowly, but it is never boring.  Every scene is quite deliberate and intriguing.  The pace only enhances the suspense and intensity.

Furious 7 (2015)

The seventh (that's right, seventh!) installment of the Fast and Furious series takes place post-Tokyo Drift.  It has the same message about family, the glamorous high life, diversity (spoiler alert: they kill off the Asian) and fast cars.  The only difference is they aren't fugitives anymore.  And this one is probably the most ridiculous in its stunts. But perhaps what is so ridiculously insane is the stunts were real, with minimal CGI.  They actually threw these nice, expensive cars out of a plane.  That was a pretty incredible sequence that was exhilarating and well edited.  There are some terrific action scenes. They know what they do best: car sequences, though I could've done without the non-auto fighting scenes.  The Rock has a fighting scene early on, and then does not reappear until the end rather comically.

Of course, we know that this was Paul Walker's final film before his untimely death.  This fact looms over the entire film.  I kind of got the sense that the intention was for Walker's character Brian to die. Brian, himself, speaks a number of foreboding lines that seem to foreshadow his death, but I suppose it would have been a bit harsh and disrespectful to have his character die.  Especially towards the end, you can tell that the stand-in for Brian is not, in fact, Paul Walker, but one of his siblings, though they do look strikingly similar.  Walker does get a fitting send off at the end, with Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again" over a montage of clips from the previous films in the series that remind you just how far this franchise has come.

  

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (Broadway) (2013)

This is a very strange musical.  The far-fetched plot: a man discovers that he is a member of the very rich D'ysquith family, except there are eight relatives ahead of him for the earldom of Highhurst.  These eight relatives all with different personas, ages, and genders are played by the same actor (Tony-nominated Jefferson Mays was off but his understudy was excellent in his own right).  Each murder is more ridiculous than the last and you sort of just have to go with it.  The opening number is sung by mourners who warn the audience that the play will be disturbing.

This show benefits from some very creative and clever staging. There is a smaller stage with an elegant red curtain that sits front and center atop the actual stage.  The smaller stage extends out from time to time to accommodate the actors, who at times exit the smaller stage to act on the main stage.  The main stage has a semicircle that protrudes above and around the pit. The back of the stage has a moving LED screen that enhances some of the murder scenes.  The best scene is "I've Decided to Marry You," in which Monty moves between two rooms separated by a corridor.  This is depicted by two doorways facing perpendicular to the audience so the audience can see both rooms.  And there is some excellent, fun counterpoint between Monty, Phoebe and Sibella in this scene.

In all its ridiculousness, the play is actually very funny.  The actor who plays the D'ysquith family enunciates all of his lines very clearly, leading to some very visible spit.  then in Act II, this is acknowledged in a very comical scene that involves a spitting battle of sorts.  

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

I did not really know what to expect going in, and coming out I was not quite sure what I had just seen, completely at a loss for words. For starters, the movie is not about plot.  Imagine a post apocalyptic desert wasteland world that is short on resources.  That's really all you need to know.  There is a society that is run by a disgusting (yet imaginative) looking villain that controls all of the water.  And then the chase ensues, a chase that lasts for two glorious hours.

The movie is literally nonstop, crazy, intense action.  The chase takes place in juiced up monster vehicles that are made up of parts of other cars. Every vehicle is unique and they make the chase all the more exciting.  The violence is brutal and graphic but the sound effects and the ridiculousness of the entire movie slightly mitigate the effect on the viewer.  The production design is incredible, from the cars, to the Citadel, to the variations on barren wasteland that they drive through.  The costumes and makeup too are fantastic.  Due to a lack of water, everyone has this awful dirty look and the War Boys are all bald and pure white with black around their eyes.  They are so devilishly creepy.  And the movie overall is an over-the-top explosion of insane style. 

On the Town (Broadway) (2014)

On the Town might not be as classic as West Side Story, but Bernstein's musical about WWII-era Fleet Week before it was Fleet Week (ironically, this week is Fleet Week) is excellent.  The music is very diverse, at times jazzy, other times operatic.  It makes use of a wide variety of instruments.  In place of the usual overture, the play opens with an energetic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner and the audience rises to its feet in a show of patriotism.  The music adapts to the scene, transforming flawlessly from purely romantic to raucously funny. However, as far as show tunes go, besides "New York, New York," the music is not very memorable or catchy.

In terms of plot, there really isn't much.  The story is quite simple: three Navy men have 24 hours in New York City.  This is a showcase for our great city, and it at least mentions almost every borough (besides the best one: Queens).  The play is pure fun because there is a lot of comedy, but none of it really advances the primary romance between Gabey and Ivy.  The set design is excellent. The actors stand in an imaginary box and hang on imaginary straps to simulate an imaginary subway car.  A mechanical bench that sways back and forth simulates a crazy taxi.  A large moving background captures the hustle and bustle of the city. And a large dinosaur puppet (not quite War Horse-style) brings the Museum of Natural History to life.

This Broadway musical has a lot of ballet, descended from Jerome Robbins.  The dream ballet sequences are gorgeous, especially the Coney Island scene complete with color lighting on the bare back wall.  Joshua Bergasse's choreography is mesmerizing.  The three leads dance in perfect unison, led by Tony Yazbeck as Gabey.  He dances, sings, and deserves his Tony nomination.  Megan Fairchild plays the female lead, though she does not have nearly enough stage time.  She is from the New York City Ballet making her Broadway debut.  She is beautifully majestic in every scene she is in.

The Act of Killing (2012)

The Act of Killing is a very innovative performative documentary. In a refreshing approach to documentary filmmaking, the perpetrators of mass murder in Indonesia in the 1960s reenact their vicious acts.  In modern day Indonesia, the same regime remains in power.  They continue to speak openly about what could only be described as a genocide; in fact, they boast proudly about their methods to Joshua (who speaks Indonesian off-camera), who won a MacArthur Genius grant after making this film to finish his trilogy.  The reenactments are very real, emotions flow, and the eyes of the actors/victims scream terror then someone yells 'cut' and they break.  It is replete with extravagant costumes and gruesome makeup.  It all culminates in Anwar Congo, the most vicious of the perpetrators and the focus of the film, playing the part of a victim and breaking down.  Oppenheimer gets Congo to feel guilt and sympathy for his many victims in a moment that displays the immense power of film.

Despite the heavy subject matter, there are some funny moments as well.  Their normal daily banter is actually quite comical.  What is perhaps so striking is that these killers come off as regular people (at least in the first half) with families that go to the movies and sing and dance, and then we find out the terrible things that they did and the lack of remorse they feel.  Soe Marching, an Indonesian academic, compares the film to Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and the Banality of Evil.  Evil people are not all genius sociopaths, but rather ordinary people do terrible things perhaps without thinking too much about it.

My one complaint is that the movie is a little long, but I look forward to what other innovations Joshua Oppenheimer will bring to documentaries in the rest of his trilogy.

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.     

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

Kingsman is to spy movies as Guardians of the Galaxy is to superhero movies.  It is raucous fun, pure action, and unapologetic in its parody of 007.  It is slick and stylish and fraught with graphic comical violence.  Amidst the slew of spy movies we get nowadays (though admittedly not in quite the numbers we get superhero movies), it is refreshing to find a film that can poke fun and lighten the mood of the typical modern spy movie a la dark and serious Daniel Craig.  The interplay between Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson is so over the top.  You must take the movie for what it is and just enjoy. 

Citizenfour (2014)

This documentary has the intensity and thrill of a scripted drama, even though we all know what to expect.  Or rather, we think we know what to expect--what Laura Poitras and Edward Snowden uncover is really beyond anything we could imagine.  Nothing can prepare the viewer for the shocking revelations that Snowden exposed to the world and those secrets that have yet to be released. This movie is a behind the scenes look at the story we thought we knew, but in reality we only got the media's take that was carefully planned out by Snowden and team.  This documentary lays out how this plan was constructed and executed.  It is a miracle that this movie was even made.  This is thanks to the bravery, sacrifice and caution of all those involved, especially the masterful and gutsy Poitras.  It is very important that this film was made and it is imperative that it gets seen.  

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

As a mock trial attorney, I could relate to everything in this movie. The depiction of the courtroom is refreshingly accurate and non-glamorous.  Everything down to the little details (a voir dire!) made me want to get back to mock trial.  This year, I direct examined an expert witness, and I felt Joe Pesci's helplessness and his triumph.  One of the quotes from Pesci is that they don't teach you procedure in law school...well this movie does an excellent job at teaching procedure. The movie, on the whole, is hilarious.  The back and forth banter between Pesci and his fiancee played by Marisa Tomei is quick and witty.  And the Brooklyn accents down in the deep south are brilliant.  

I'm Not There (2007)

I'm Not There is a very innovative biopic that very loosely based on "the many lives" of Bob Dylan.  Dylan is played by six different actors, including a black child actor, and a woman.  Each character goes by a different name (none of them Bob or Dylan) and they represent different stages of Dylan's life, or rather different parts of his persona.  Cate Blanchett was especially convincing playing a 60s-era Dylan.  I wish I knew a little more about Bob Dylan because I feel like I missed out on a lot of the details that were included in the film that allude to his life.

The film is very stylish with two of the six actors being portrayed in black and white, and one of the six being portrayed in a documentary format.  Time is not linear in the slightest, jumping constantly between personas.  The whole thing is very surreal and sometimes you're not quite sure what to make of what you're seeing on screen.  But it is fitting for such an enigmatic man as Bob Dylan.

The film opens with a motorcycle accident (a reference to Dylan's own motorcycle accident) and Jude Quinn's subsequent autopsy.  I could not help but draw a parallel to the opening of Lawrence of Arabia, another biopic about a complex man who wore different personas in different phases of his life.