jbroc62
Joined Aug 2013
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Room completely blew all of my initial expectations away with a very empathetic and human story with phenomenal performances from its two leads, as well as an incredible screenplay and fantastic direction.
Going into Room as someone who didn't read the book that this film was based on, I was expecting a mystery/thriller that centered around the escape/finding of the mom and son that the film focuses on. Instead, what I got was a very emotional, and very human look at the relationship between a mother and her son, as well as how these two are damaged by what they've experienced within a very confined space, and how they recover from and cope with said damage. Emma Donoghue, who wrote the book that this film is based on, did a beautiful job writing the screenplay, and part of that is because these characters she created felt like real people with real problems that pretty much anybody can relate to no matter who they are.
However, the characters wouldn't have been so realistic if it wasn't for the actors who play them. Brie Larson is an absolute revelation, and is, in my opinion, the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar this February. I've always been a fan of her's, from her commercial work in films like Trainwreck, 21 Jump Street, or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, to her smaller work in films like Short Term 12 or Don Jon. Her performance in Room is some of the absolute best work I've ever seen from her, and this is because she portrays the shock and stress of returning to a world that's been snatched away from you for seven years so brilliantly. She captures the heartbreak, and sadness, and anger of this sobering situation perfectly, and it shows it the incredible transformation her character undergoes throughout the film.
As great as Larson is in this film though, it would be unfair to overlook her son played by Jacob Tremblay, who is as important as Larson is, possibly even more. This is because Jack is the character that the audience sees the film through; he's the person that guides us all through the events that take place. And that is absolutely fascinating to me, because essentially Jack is experiencing the world for the first time ever. So because of this, he is filled with wonder about this new world, especially in a fantastic scene involving him laying in the bed of a truck looking at the sky, and the score is just overwhelming the entire scene with how loud it is. And that's the other thing about him; he's overwhelmed and apprehensive about what the world holds, but he doesn't always understand why. And as an audience member, we're able to piece extra bits of the story together without being told, but instead shown what things are like. When you're able to understand something without having to explain it, that's great storytelling, and it makes the character of Jack one of the most fascinating of the entire year.
This film wouldn't be what it was without its director, Lenny Abrahamson. I've heard that Abrahamson took a lot of inspiration from learning how to raise a family for directing this film, and it really shows in every scene that he directs. You really get the sense that this was a film that was made with care, and love, and not just towards the respect that the book and its characters deserve, but in crafting something that felt genuine, that felt relatable to anyone who experienced growing up or raising their child. It feels like the director just wanted to tell a good, relatable story with the material that he was given, and he did just that.
Room is a movie that really affected me. I'm notorious for literally never crying in movies, but in Room, I cried for literally the entire second half of the film. And that's because the characters of Ma and Jack, what they go through, and particularly how this affects other people that Ma knew before being taken away from the world she once lived in, felt so real to me; I actually believed that these events actually happened. And when a film does that to me, it's film that I know that I'll be revisiting time and time again, and Room is exactly that kind of movie.
If I had seen this before the end of 2015, it would've been my favorite movie of the entire year. Without a doubt.
Going into Room as someone who didn't read the book that this film was based on, I was expecting a mystery/thriller that centered around the escape/finding of the mom and son that the film focuses on. Instead, what I got was a very emotional, and very human look at the relationship between a mother and her son, as well as how these two are damaged by what they've experienced within a very confined space, and how they recover from and cope with said damage. Emma Donoghue, who wrote the book that this film is based on, did a beautiful job writing the screenplay, and part of that is because these characters she created felt like real people with real problems that pretty much anybody can relate to no matter who they are.
However, the characters wouldn't have been so realistic if it wasn't for the actors who play them. Brie Larson is an absolute revelation, and is, in my opinion, the front-runner for the Best Actress Oscar this February. I've always been a fan of her's, from her commercial work in films like Trainwreck, 21 Jump Street, or Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, to her smaller work in films like Short Term 12 or Don Jon. Her performance in Room is some of the absolute best work I've ever seen from her, and this is because she portrays the shock and stress of returning to a world that's been snatched away from you for seven years so brilliantly. She captures the heartbreak, and sadness, and anger of this sobering situation perfectly, and it shows it the incredible transformation her character undergoes throughout the film.
As great as Larson is in this film though, it would be unfair to overlook her son played by Jacob Tremblay, who is as important as Larson is, possibly even more. This is because Jack is the character that the audience sees the film through; he's the person that guides us all through the events that take place. And that is absolutely fascinating to me, because essentially Jack is experiencing the world for the first time ever. So because of this, he is filled with wonder about this new world, especially in a fantastic scene involving him laying in the bed of a truck looking at the sky, and the score is just overwhelming the entire scene with how loud it is. And that's the other thing about him; he's overwhelmed and apprehensive about what the world holds, but he doesn't always understand why. And as an audience member, we're able to piece extra bits of the story together without being told, but instead shown what things are like. When you're able to understand something without having to explain it, that's great storytelling, and it makes the character of Jack one of the most fascinating of the entire year.
This film wouldn't be what it was without its director, Lenny Abrahamson. I've heard that Abrahamson took a lot of inspiration from learning how to raise a family for directing this film, and it really shows in every scene that he directs. You really get the sense that this was a film that was made with care, and love, and not just towards the respect that the book and its characters deserve, but in crafting something that felt genuine, that felt relatable to anyone who experienced growing up or raising their child. It feels like the director just wanted to tell a good, relatable story with the material that he was given, and he did just that.
Room is a movie that really affected me. I'm notorious for literally never crying in movies, but in Room, I cried for literally the entire second half of the film. And that's because the characters of Ma and Jack, what they go through, and particularly how this affects other people that Ma knew before being taken away from the world she once lived in, felt so real to me; I actually believed that these events actually happened. And when a film does that to me, it's film that I know that I'll be revisiting time and time again, and Room is exactly that kind of movie.
If I had seen this before the end of 2015, it would've been my favorite movie of the entire year. Without a doubt.
Spotlight is a remarkably well-written and phenomenally acted film that tells a shocking and disturbing true story that just floored me.
First of all, I went into this film not really knowing anything. I knew it involved the Boston Globe, that there was some sort of scandal with the Catholic Church, and that it takes place in the early 2000's. That's all I knew, and as the film unfolded before me, and revealed bit by bit of it's amazing, astonishing story, I was completely blown away by how incredible the writing and acting in this film was.
Tom McCarthy both wrote and directed this film, and he did a phenomenal job on both ends. What he did when writing this screenplay is that he didn't make the reporters who are working on this case heroes. He made them who they truly are; reporters who care about their jobs, who care about the story, who care about justice being served to the right people. He makes them incredibly human, and through this, these characters become very relatable to the people who watch this film.
A lot of the way that Spotlight tells its story is so subdued to the point of brilliance. Sure, this is an Oscar movie, but there really aren't any "Oscar scenes" in this movie, save for one scene in which a character has an outburst of sorts. These actors are really holding back their dramatic chops in this film. For example, when you here bad news, do you throw a chair against a wall and go into a temper tantrum? No. In this film, as this case builds, and builds, and builds to the point where you're amazed that this is a true story, the characters in this film simply shake their head, sit back, and say things that actual people would say, like "Oh my goodness," or "Wow This is not good." It's truly riveting stuff.
The entire cast in this film is spectacular. Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Brian d'Arcy James, and Stanley Tucci all do great work. Liev Schreiber is great in this movie as the new editor-in-chief at the Globe, and I loved seeing him in a more restrained dramatic role that I'm not accustomed to seeing him in. Michael Keaton is terrific in this movie, and I'm so glad that Birdman wasn't just a fluke for his career resurgence. He is truly subdued, and brilliant in this film. However, Mark Ruffalo is the standout in this film. He gives one of the best performances of his career in this film, and the voice he has in the movie really works with his character to the point where I didn't even see Mark Ruffalo. And honestly, that statement pretty much goes for every single actor/actress in this film, and that's because the story and the characters are so well-realized. And when you have well-known actors disappearing into their roles to the point where you don't recognize them, that deserves praise.
Spotlight is one of the best films of the year, and it deserves nothing less than that.
First of all, I went into this film not really knowing anything. I knew it involved the Boston Globe, that there was some sort of scandal with the Catholic Church, and that it takes place in the early 2000's. That's all I knew, and as the film unfolded before me, and revealed bit by bit of it's amazing, astonishing story, I was completely blown away by how incredible the writing and acting in this film was.
Tom McCarthy both wrote and directed this film, and he did a phenomenal job on both ends. What he did when writing this screenplay is that he didn't make the reporters who are working on this case heroes. He made them who they truly are; reporters who care about their jobs, who care about the story, who care about justice being served to the right people. He makes them incredibly human, and through this, these characters become very relatable to the people who watch this film.
A lot of the way that Spotlight tells its story is so subdued to the point of brilliance. Sure, this is an Oscar movie, but there really aren't any "Oscar scenes" in this movie, save for one scene in which a character has an outburst of sorts. These actors are really holding back their dramatic chops in this film. For example, when you here bad news, do you throw a chair against a wall and go into a temper tantrum? No. In this film, as this case builds, and builds, and builds to the point where you're amazed that this is a true story, the characters in this film simply shake their head, sit back, and say things that actual people would say, like "Oh my goodness," or "Wow This is not good." It's truly riveting stuff.
The entire cast in this film is spectacular. Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Brian d'Arcy James, and Stanley Tucci all do great work. Liev Schreiber is great in this movie as the new editor-in-chief at the Globe, and I loved seeing him in a more restrained dramatic role that I'm not accustomed to seeing him in. Michael Keaton is terrific in this movie, and I'm so glad that Birdman wasn't just a fluke for his career resurgence. He is truly subdued, and brilliant in this film. However, Mark Ruffalo is the standout in this film. He gives one of the best performances of his career in this film, and the voice he has in the movie really works with his character to the point where I didn't even see Mark Ruffalo. And honestly, that statement pretty much goes for every single actor/actress in this film, and that's because the story and the characters are so well-realized. And when you have well-known actors disappearing into their roles to the point where you don't recognize them, that deserves praise.
Spotlight is one of the best films of the year, and it deserves nothing less than that.
Steve Jobs is one of the most interesting films of the year about one of the most innovative people of our time. This was made possible due to outstanding performances from a cast led by Michael Fassbender as Jobs, a very subtle and straightforward direction by Danny Boyle, and a classic Aaron Sorkin screenplay that doesn't explore exactly who Jobs was, but instead shows why Jobs was the person he was.
Danny Boyle, taking a more frank approach in his direction by allowing the acting and the writing to shine more, does a fantastic job directing this movie. But by far the best decision he made in terms of his direction was in the way it was filmed. For the 1984 segment, Boyle filmed it in 16mm film. Then in the 1988 segment, it was filmed in 35mm film. And finally for the 1998 segment, everything was filmed in digital. This brilliantly shows how Apple's technology evolved over the fourteen years depicted in Job's life.
This entire screenplay is classic Sorkin; its got the walk-and-talk dialogue, the two conversations going on simultaneously, it's all here. However, what Sorkin really got right in his writing was the emotional relationship between Jobs and his daughter. I really connected with the relationship Jobs had with her, and I thought that Sorkin didn't sugarcoat their relationship whatsoever. Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, and Michael Stuhlbarg all do fantastic work, and their relationships with Jobs were extremely well- developed as the film continued to tell its story.
This is the literal definition of a dialogue movie; the entire film consists of Jobs having conversations with people just before three big product reveal conferences over a fourteen year period, and we get to see how Jobs matured as a person from product launch to product launch to product launch. All of these conversations are riveting because Michael Fassbender is the embodiment of who Steve Jobs was. People who are familiar with Jobs work know that he wasn't exactly decent, sometimes tyrannical, but no one could deny his creative genius. Through Fassbender's incredible performance, we're able to better understand why Jobs was the way he was during his life. At one point in the film, Steve Wozniak, played by Seth Rogan in what may be the best performance of his career, says to Jobs, "You're not an engineer. What do you do?" Jobs responds to him by saying, "Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra." This illustrates that Jobs was an incredible innovator, sometimes too imaginative in his ideas for the technology that existed at the time. He couldn't always do things he wanted to do, but that's how innovators are, and that's how they should be.
Steve Jobs is not a biopic about Steve Jobs. Instead, Steve Jobs is a movie about why Jobs was the way he was, and it capture the person that Jobs was perfectly with the performances, the direction and the dialogue. If you love dialogue-driven movies, you can't find much better than Steve Jobs.
Danny Boyle, taking a more frank approach in his direction by allowing the acting and the writing to shine more, does a fantastic job directing this movie. But by far the best decision he made in terms of his direction was in the way it was filmed. For the 1984 segment, Boyle filmed it in 16mm film. Then in the 1988 segment, it was filmed in 35mm film. And finally for the 1998 segment, everything was filmed in digital. This brilliantly shows how Apple's technology evolved over the fourteen years depicted in Job's life.
This entire screenplay is classic Sorkin; its got the walk-and-talk dialogue, the two conversations going on simultaneously, it's all here. However, what Sorkin really got right in his writing was the emotional relationship between Jobs and his daughter. I really connected with the relationship Jobs had with her, and I thought that Sorkin didn't sugarcoat their relationship whatsoever. Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, and Michael Stuhlbarg all do fantastic work, and their relationships with Jobs were extremely well- developed as the film continued to tell its story.
This is the literal definition of a dialogue movie; the entire film consists of Jobs having conversations with people just before three big product reveal conferences over a fourteen year period, and we get to see how Jobs matured as a person from product launch to product launch to product launch. All of these conversations are riveting because Michael Fassbender is the embodiment of who Steve Jobs was. People who are familiar with Jobs work know that he wasn't exactly decent, sometimes tyrannical, but no one could deny his creative genius. Through Fassbender's incredible performance, we're able to better understand why Jobs was the way he was during his life. At one point in the film, Steve Wozniak, played by Seth Rogan in what may be the best performance of his career, says to Jobs, "You're not an engineer. What do you do?" Jobs responds to him by saying, "Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra." This illustrates that Jobs was an incredible innovator, sometimes too imaginative in his ideas for the technology that existed at the time. He couldn't always do things he wanted to do, but that's how innovators are, and that's how they should be.
Steve Jobs is not a biopic about Steve Jobs. Instead, Steve Jobs is a movie about why Jobs was the way he was, and it capture the person that Jobs was perfectly with the performances, the direction and the dialogue. If you love dialogue-driven movies, you can't find much better than Steve Jobs.