The Cinema Touch

Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Aimee Garcia, Douglas Urbanski

Labor Day (2013/US)

Julien Faddoul

(0 stars)

wd – Jason Reitman (Based on the Novel by Joyce Maynard)

ph – Eric Steelberg

pd – Steve Saklad

m – Rolfe Kent

ed – Dana E. Glauberman

cos – Danny Glicker

p – Jason Reitman, Helen Estabrook, Lianne Halfon, Russell Smith

Cast: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Tobey Maguire, Tom Lipinski, Maika Monroe, Clark Gregg, James Van Der Beek, J.K. Simmons, Brooke Smith

Labor Day is one of those movies where every name in the end credits induces a double take. It is sincerely baffling that people with such talent could be responsible for such a mess. Or maybe it isn’t. I often think about Roger Ebert’s review of Death to Smoochy (2001) where he states that it would only take people of such talent to make a movie that bad. This is true. Talented people have the internal freedom to dream big, to reach higher. And the higher they reach, the greater they can fall.

The Worst Films of 2013

Julien Faddoul

Forgive the lateness, but the 2^nd Annual Cinema Touch Awards will be completed and announced at the end of February, once everything is in order. Until then, as we enter 2014, these were the top ten worst films I saw in 2013.

Please enjoy (although you shouldn’t see any of these movies).

10.

Safe Haven

A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.

Of all the movies on this list, this one is the funnest to deride. It seems every year these Nicholas Spark's adaptations keep getting worse. For some reason, when actors read these scripts they begin to lose all understanding of natural human behaviour and we are always left with something that is sour and sugary at the same time. Plus, the ending of this movie is such a brick wall of stupid that it will give you a nose-bleed.

Crisp Criticism - "12 Years a Slave", "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit", "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones", "Grudge Match"

Julien Faddoul

12 Years a Slave ***

In pre-Civil War United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

Unsentimental, brilliantly realized and fiercely controlled treatment of a true story. As a film of ideas, the imagery if often searing but the handling is restrained, with an exceptional cast.

d – Steve McQueen

w – John Ridley (Based on the Book by Solomon Northup)

ph – Sean Bobbitt

pd – Adam Stockhausen

m – Hans Zimmer

ed – Joe Walker

cos – Patricia Norris

p – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Bill Pohlad, Steve McQueen, Arnon Milchan, Anthony Katagas

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Adepero Oduye, Paul Giamatti, Alfre Woodard, Garret Dillahunt, Scott McNairy, Taran Killam, Chris Chalk

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013/US)

Julien Faddoul

*** (3 stars)

d – Martin Scorsese
w – Terence Winter (Based on the Book by Jordan Belfort)

ph – Rodrigo Prieto

pd – Bob Shaw

ed – Thelma Schoonmaker

cos – Sandy Powell

p – Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, Riza Aziz, Joey McFarland, Emma Tillinger Koskoff

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, Matthew McConaughey, Kyle Chandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Jon Favreau, Jean Dujardin, Joanna Lumley, Cristin Milioti, Christine Ebersole, Shea Whigham, Katarina Čas, P. J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Brian Sacca, Henry Zebrowski, Ethan Suplee, Barry Rothbart, Jake Hoffman, Mackenzie Meehan, Spike Jonze

In Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990), the director plays an ingenious slight-of-hand trick of the mind, using 146 minutes of cinema to simulate the process of a bullet ejecting from a gun. As the picture progresses, the faster and more haphazard it becomes, with Scorsese leaving out more and more information, culminating in Henry Hill’s famous “last day” sequence and concluding the film with a gun being fired directly to the audience.

Crisp Criticism - "Her", "Inside Llewyn Davis", "Drug War", "47 Ronin", "In a World", "Evocateur"

Julien Faddoul

Her **

In the not so distant future, a lonely writer purchases a newly developed operating system designed to meet the user's needs and unexpectedly develops a romance with it.

Soft, sweet to the point of saccharine, all-encompassing sci-fi/romance. There are acute allusions to Kubrick, Malick, Vonnegut and strangest of all, painter Cy Twombly. But Jonze’s point is both an obvious and diminutive one, with an ending that lets all the air straight out.

wd – Spike Jonze

ph – Hoyte Van Hoytema

pd – K.K. Barrett

m – William Butler, Owen Pallett

ed – Jeff Buchanan, Eric Zumbrunnen

cos – Casey Storm

p – Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Chris Pratt, Matt Letscher, Portia Doubleday

My 2013 Academy Award Nominations reactions

Julien Faddoul

PICTURE

American Hustle – Charles Roven, Richard Suckle, Megan Ellison, Jonathan Gordon

Captain Phillips – Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca

Dallas Buyers Club – Robbie Brenner, Rachel Winter

Gravity – Alfonso Cuaron, David Heyman

Her – Megan Ellison, Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay

Nebraska – Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa

Philomena – Gabrielle Tana, Steve Coogan, Tracey Seaward

12 Years a Slave – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, Anthony Katagas

The Wolf of Wall Street – TBD

9 out of 9 correct! I feel validated in my relentless feeling before-hand that all those people predicting Saving Mr Banks were making a foolish mistake. It is a shame about Inside Llewyn Davis though.

2013 Academy Award Final Predictions

Julien Faddoul

Precursor prizes are listed with each corresponding nominee. With Best Picture I am predicting 9. For the rest, the top 5 serve as my official predictions. Lock them in.

Crisp Criticism - "August: Osage County", "Dallas Buyers Club", "Short Term 12", "The Selfish Giant", "Wolf Children"

Julien Faddoul

August: Osage County **

An Oklahoma family comes together for the funeral of their patriarch.

A masterful and inspired work of the stage is turned into a rather lifeless piece of cinema, with a poor sense of space and tone and a cast using their juicy roles to repeatedly trump each other. Despite this, Letts’ brilliant reconnaissance on the disillusionment of life remains intact, even if his humor has been gutted.

d – John Wells

w – Tracy Letts (Based on the Play by Tracy Letts)

ph – Adriano Goldman

pd – David Gropman

m – Gustavo Santaolallo

ed – Stephen Mirrione

cos – Cindy Evans

p – Harvey Weinstein, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Jean Dourmanian, Steve Traxler

Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard, Misty Upham

The Cinema Touch

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The Films of 2014

"Robocop", "Winter's Tale", "Endless Love", "The Past", "I, Frankenstein"

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Labor Day (2013/US)

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The Worst Films of 2013

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Crisp Criticism - "12 Years a Slave", "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit", "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones", "Grudge Match"

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013/US)

Friday, January 17, 2014

Crisp Criticism - "Her", "Inside Llewyn Davis", "Drug War", "47 Ronin", "In a World", "Evocateur"

Thursday, January 16, 2014

My 2013 Academy Award Nominations reactions

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

2013 Academy Award Final Predictions

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Crisp Criticism - "August: Osage County", "Dallas Buyers Club", "Short Term 12", "The Selfish Giant", "Wolf Children"