Reasons To Watch "Empire"

I started this during the first season. Seems appropriate to post now, before Season 2 kicks off.

On the Eve of Season 2: Reasons To Watch "Empire"

I became a fan of the Lee Daniels-created show Empire after only a brief internal struggle. Whereas I was hesitant to declare myself a fan at first, I am now firmly in the show’s corner despite a good deal of backlash from many African Americans who say the show’s value systems, depictions of people of color, and flair for ratchet drama are profoundly detrimental to how African Americans are perceived in this country. My first instinct upon viewing Empire was to throw up my hands and cry Lawd-a-mercy! This is airing our dirty laundry! This is just low class! This is culturally destructive! And the music’s bad!

But I couldn’t. And now I won’t.

When I turn on the television at the end of a long day, I want to be entertained. I don’t think every show on television has to represent a paragon of cultural virtue, and I’m tired of black folks bearing the brunt of the need to be politically correct all the damned time. Empire is a fast-paced, of-the-moment, let-it-all-hang-out soap opera fantasia in living color, and to me – someone proudly born and raised in the South Bronx who spent many years as a moth around the flame on the music business – it shines a light on some truths about the black experience while also shining a light into some dark corners that haven't been explored on TV. It does some things production-wise that are entirely sharp. The show often feels like who we are: fast, messy, honest, political, funny, rude, angry, conflicted, warm and lusty. It offers up the variety of black experience – because we are not a monolith – and does so with a neck-snapping intensity and dizzying pace.

Yes, Empire’s record company business tactics and politics are way over the top. And yes, some of the characters and caricatures are extreme. But in the music business, the drive to make top-selling hits, to nurture the impulse to create, to best one’s competitors on the charts, and to maintain the momentum of one’s musical career -- all of this is entirely real. And many of the personalities that drive the industry game ARE extreme.

Yes, Empire shows eye-rolling, neck-snapping black women and angry, occasionally violent black men. It approaches cartoonishness in plot development and caricature. It shows drug dealing and crime as a path to business success. Empire shows sex in a multiplicity of permutations: cheaters and kinky marrieds, cougars and cubs, lesbians and gays, black and white. It’s sex, drugs and hip-hop.

But that is not ALL it is. It is more.

Empire also offers up a wealth of other issues, realities, and portrayals seldom seen elsewhere on the small screen, and it is done with a level of spectacle that to my mind, tops even Dynasty. Here are a some issues of note raised during the show's first season:

• It’s about an African American family headed by a strong black male (Terence Howard, and let's leave his headlining personal life aside). OK, he’s a murdering, duplicitous, manipulative thug -- but a musically talented one trying to leave a legacy for his sons so they won’t have to be the thug he is.

• The male siblings love one another no matter what – even when their father pits them against each other. One of the things I like about the storyline is that although Lucious keeps setting them on a collision course and despite their different sexual orientation, Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray) and Jamal (Jussie Smollett) are better artists when they make music together, and they know it. And the two youngest respect what Andre (Trai Byer) brings to the table and try to hold him together when he is falling apart.

• There was a depiction of a family within the Nation Of Islam. Remember when Cookie (Emmy-nominated Taraji P. Henson) went to speak with the mother of one of the label’s prospective rappers who was raised in The Nation? When do we ever hear “Muslim” mentioned in a TV narrative and it does not refer to terrorism or someone with roots in the Middle East? There is an American Muslim community firmly established here.

• Cookie’s experience in prison spotlights the rising incarceration rate of African American women in the U.S. and the profound impact of their absence on families.

• Jamal’s personal journey sheds light on the homophobia that is fracturing many African American families and turning many young people into virtual orphans with no familial support. Jamal is fortunate to have an established music career that earns him money to pay rent somewhere.

• May-December romances. Remember Hakeem working out his mommy issues with Naomi Campbell's character? The phenomenon of the “cougar” as it is impolitely referred to has long been in play. (Remember Marvin Gaye's first marriage to Berry Gordy's sister Anna, who recently passed away? She was 17 years older than Marvin.)

• The prevalence of – and current attitudes toward -- mental illness within the black community. Bi-polar depression is no joke, but this and other forms of depression are not acknowledged as much as they should be, mostly because historically people of color have had to survive regardless of any physical or mental handicaps and we are not used to admitting to any form of perceived weakness or asking for help. And there is a continued stigma around those who do. Just ask eldest Lyon son Andre.

• The unfortunate perpetuation of anti-intellectualism and ignorance-as-culture within some corners of many black communities, where those who value/seek/achieve high levels of education are seen as sellouts or traitors to their race. This form of black-on-black crime suppresses achievement, academic and otherwise. Andre’s brilliance is undercut by Lucious’ distrust of his son’s “white learnin’,” even while Andre keeps Empire Records financially sound. But it’s true that there is an educational class divide within Black America, where highly educated children and their less-educated parents can feel a loss of kinship and identity. (This was also touched on during the first season of How To Get Away With Murder, between Annaliese Keaton -- played by recent Emmy winner Viola Davis! -- and her mother, played brilliantly by Cicely Tyson.)

• The continued conversation about interracial relationships, thought to be all but irrelevant and politically incorrect in an era of swirly Shondaland programming. Andre and his wife Rhonda (Kaitlyn Doubleday) are a solid unit, regardless of what we think of their sexual and political antics. An acknowledgment of seeming white privilege is evident in the script when Andre tells his mother Cookie that Rhonda is brilliant, and Cookie responds, “Yeah, all little white girls are brilliant even when they aren’t.”

• The undercurrent of colorism and classism within the African American community, played out but not fully acknowledged in the ongoing battle between Anika (Grace Gealey), the light-skinned biracial doctor’s daughter and Cookie, the brown-skinned street-smart hood queen.

• The rate of obesity within our community and in the world in general. Television does not like to have fat people on TV unless the show's storyline is somehow about them being fat (Biggest Loser, My 900-Pound Life, Drop Dead Diva). Gabourey Sidibe's character of Becky just is. She is sometimes blonde, she rocks fashion forward clothes, she has a personality, and she's good at her job.

• Further, Empire has eye-popping, razor sharp set design, costuming, and makeup. What other show has a conference room designed to look like a basketball court? What other sets pop with paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Yehinde Wiley and others? Every episode, viewers wait with bated breath to see what outfits Cookie will rock; her palette has morphed over the first season from animal prints representing her untamed nature to wildly colored but sophisticated prints. Even Lucious’ tailored suits and American Gangster-style overcoats and scarves are stunning. Jamal’s pea coats with their mile-high standup collars are to die for; and Hakeem is frequently garbed in metallic fabrics and jewelry, usually gold, to represent his position as the company’s spoiled hip-hop Golden Child.

So as Season 2 of Empire kicks off on Wednesday (Sept. 23), I’m going to keep watching. I am sure there will be moments when I will wince, as I did when Lucious Lyon had President Obama on speed dial and intimated that the POTUS was cussing up a storm; or squirm, because I’m not homophobic, but I'm at an age where I don't really care to see any two people tongueing each other down on television for more than a few seconds (OK, they're into it, I get it, move on to the next scene!); or shake my head, as when a drunken Hakeem boldly called The President a "sellout."

But look around. Life has those oh-no-she-didn’t, “Awkward!,” What The F---! moments when everything doesn’t approach either PC levels or expectations. And it’s OK. It’s life. If you don't like the show, or what it represents culturally, that is your prerogative and your right. But whether positive or negative, Empire has made an indelible impact on television that can't be denied.

So ... I plan to pour myself a big "Olivia Pope" size goblet of vino and turn on the tube.

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10 Things I Observed Watching "Straight Outta Compton"

Waiting for the dust to clear in terms of media noise and the barrage of opinions regarding the film's dismissal of women, including the Dee Barnes incident, I finally went to see the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. Here's what I observed:

1. Theaters are checking purses and bags .. badly.
When first informed about a search, I thought the policy was racist as related to the film I had bought a ticket to see. Racially profiled at the movie theater, damn! Do I look like the type of gangsta chick who's going to wild out at a Sunday matinee in the suburbs? But then I thought, well, they did just have that mad shooter at the Louisiana theater a month ago, and the sentencing for the crazy-eyed fool who shot up everybody during Batman in Colorado just went down. So... who conducted this serious security screening in the wake of continued random cinema violence nationwide? The same pimply faced kid who had just torn my ticket, and he seemed embarrassed at having to dig deep into the two-gallon satchel I was carrying. At the bottom of my bag were the napkin-swaddled sandwich and chips I smuggled in from outside. For all he knew, it was a gun or a bomb. He barely looked. "You're fine," he said after a cursory peek.

2. The movie appears to serve as a teaching tool.
From the number of parents with their spawn at this R-rated flick, you would have thought it was the latest Disney or teen scream movie. But I saw a handful of father-son duos checking it out together. Looked like the dads -- who were either impressionable lads or hip-hop headed 20somethings when N.W.A. burst through the noise -- wanted to share with their progeny the experience of growing up black in the '80s and '90s in the age of pernicious police profiling, devastating gang warfare, joblessness, and the art of cutting and scratching on the 1s and 2s. The film offers a history lesson on the birth of gangster rap; the unscrupulous methods of the music industry; the cultural fallout of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots; the legal parameters of free speech as applied to rap; and the far-reaching impact of the AIDS epidemic. Further, one could argue that the film also offers some evidence of the moral value of hard work and remaining true to oneself. Watch and learn, Grasshopper.

3. Some kids weren't there for those lessons.
A couple of families in the theater had kids younger than 10 with them. One of these families was of the Caucasian persuasion. WTH? The film had a plethora of sex, violence, drugs, semi nudity and raw language. I'm not a parent, but I don't think I would have been comfortable passing the popcorn with my grade schoolers as this unspooled.

4. Ice Cube Jr. looks so much like Ice Cube Sr. that it's uncanny.
At times I forgot that O'Shea Jackson, Jr., wasn't actually Ice Cube. And it appears that the kid can act. Or maybe he can just act like his father. Who hasn't done their Daddy impression at the holiday kids' table? We'll have to see what the future holds for Junior.

5. The casting was strong overall.
In fact, the young actors portraying Cube, Eazy-E, and Dr. Dre are stellar, and they need to be because they carry the action. O'Shea Jackson Jr. has all of his father's wit and braggadocio. Corey Hawkins brings an eye-on-the-prize gravity and humility to Dre, who seemed the sternest of the group. And Jason Mitchell, in his third film, gives Eazy the impish charm the raw rapper was occasionally known for in real life. Neil Brown Jr. provides comic relief as DJ Yella, and Aldis Hodge gives MC Ren a wiry intelligence. The earnest faces of the main trio, not to mention the scenes of high hilarity and raw human-ness, reminded me of how much great acting can elevate a film. And it also reminded me that N.W.A., for all their gang posturing and experience with the tough streets of Compton, were teens when they began the group.

6. Actor Paul Giamatti has a hard row to hoe here.
Giamatti is an incredibly versatile and skilled actor who can do comedy, drama, and everything in between. His sweet spot is playing the schlub, the nerd, or the official who is the smartest person in the room (Sideways, John Adams on HBO, The Illusionist). Here, he has the thankless task of playing impresario Jerry Heller, who arguably helped the band achieve success just so he could take a heaping helping for himself. In the scheme of this movie, Heller is smart but Eazy-E is (belatedly) smarter. Giamatti is an excellent actor, but the film never really gives us a clear glimpse of Heller's motivations or connections.

7. The film is mysogynistic, but necessarily so.
The members of N.W.A. were not choirboys. They had a mindset toward women that was prevalent in that age and time, heavily influenced by pimp culture as defined in the wildly popular books of Iceberg Slim (read more about the writer's influence and works here and here). Did I like the party scenes with half-clad females engaging in public sex? No. Did I enjoy the scene where "Felicia" gets pushed into the hotel hall with barely a stitch on? No. But it's probably true to what was really going on at the time, and probably represented only the tip of that particular behavioral iceberg. Dre's treatment of women, specifically his beatdown of hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes, is not alluded to in this film. Considered in the context of the overall story that the director was trying to tell, and remembering that its protagonists are also its producers, I can see why it was excluded. A lot of incidents and episodes were excluded. But it would be fascinating to see another film that tells "The Dee Barnes Story."

8. Suge Knight was and is a scary dude.
His reputation was rough before Death Row and it only grew larger afterward. While I was living in Los Angeles covering music and radio, I was loath to cover any awards shows where I thought he might show up. Death Row-sponsored parties at the music conventions were events where one looked over one's shoulder constantly. Suge is currently facing charges over the death of a onetime friend associated with this film; Eazy's son has asserted in print that he believes Suge had something to do with his father's 1995 death. For Straight Outta Compton, director F. Gary Gray found a scary looking dude -- R. Marcos Taylor -- to play Suge with just the right balance of astute calculation and simmering menace.

9. The soundscape for the film is perfect.
What really makes it work is that the film not only uses the music of N.W.A. throughout, it also utilizes the output of other rap and R&B artists whose music was also in the market during those times. Heck, there's even rock and pop tunes included in the flick. We're treated to the classic N.W.A. "Boyz In Tha Hood," but also tracks by Roy Ayers Ubiquity, Tears For Fears, George Clinton, Zapp, Cherrelle, Steve Arrington, and Run-DMC . Understanding where music was at the time -- with a heavy reliance on synthesized sounds like the Roland TR-808 drum machine, but before heavy use of Autotune and the resurgence of acoustic sounds -- does much to convey how important the development of vocal rhyming as a musical instrument in itself was to hip-hop's rising popularity.

10. OK, so Straight Outta Compton is a pretty damned good movie.

Now you might say, "Yes, Captain Obvious, the film made box office history and continues to rake in the shekels! You are 2 thousand and late!"(Number one for three weeks at the domestic box office, Number One in the U.K.; $134 million in North America and counting). But we all know that popular movies are not always good movies. Though the film becomes a bit loose thematically (and factually) in its second half, director F. Gary Gray does a great job at establishing the time, the place, and the realities of Compton in the late '80s, thus setting up the environment that spawned N.W.A. and the group's uniquely hardcore approach to what had up to then been mostly an East Coast-focused phenomenon. From the opening scene that catches Eazy-E in a compromising episode, the film hurtles along at top speed, acquainting us with the main players and depicting the talents they possessed to leverage the popularity of rap music into something entirely their own.

I'm glad I saw it. I was initially trepidatious because N.W.A. represented a turn in hip-hop music that I personally didn't happen to like. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the group made a profound and indelible impact on musical history, that Eazy-E and Ice Cube were among the most engaging rap stylists on the mike, and that Dr. Dre proved to be a production wizard who, in addition to turning rap music on its head, singlehandedly raised the originators of funk music back to the legendary status they deserved.

Postscript: Hollywood is buzzing about a forthcoming Welcome To Death Row film, which would cover the founding and ultimate demise of the legendary label that made household names of Dr. De, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur and others. The film would be based on a same-named documentary and book from 2001. The project is currently seeking a distributor. More here.


Follow me on Twitter at @wordsonflicks

Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service
directed by Matthew Vaughn
adapted from the comic book by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar

Judging from the previews, this looked like a slick youthful update on the James Bond concept, kind of a Percy Jackson goes all Jason Bourne on us instead of mythologically Greek. The flick offers sterling performances from Colin Firth, who struts around in duds that make him look much like his troubled gay English professor character from the visually stunning and emotionally dismal A Single Man from 2009 as well as the classic Harry Palmer character from the gritty '60s spy romps; from movie stalwart Michael Caine, who actually first portrayed Brit agent Harry Palmer starting with The Ipcress File (1965); and from the young hero, played with gutter charm and ebullience by Taron Egerton. But while the film is visually sizzling, with crisp cinematography and eye popping special effects, the narrative is serpentine and limp. The story often hopscotches from set piece to set piece, leaving out important details, and often borders on the WTF.

Falling in lockstep with the current spate of young adult stories where a youthful hero is plucked from unlikely circumstances to save the world, Kingsman starts with working class London kid Eggsy growing up under the thumb of his abusive stepdad and falling short of his potential at school. He wears a medallion of his father's, given to him as a child by Galahad (Firth) when his father was mysteriously killed. He was told to call the number on the medallion and speak a password should he ever get into a spot of trouble; now collared by the police for a bro prank, he calls. Galahad appears to bust him from the joint and recruits him to train for a spot in Britain's shadow force known as Kingsmen. Part of being a Kingsman is dressing the role of an uppercrust gentleman, something Eggsy rightly scoffs at initially (we do not get to see what protocols for dress and comportment are offered to the female recruit), though later he does battle in his own custom tailored duds. After a number of hazing events and eliminations, Eggsy fails the final test to become the next Lancelot, but Galahad soon scoops him up again as the Kingsmen rush to stop a megalomaniac from executing a diabolical doomsday plan.

This is where the movie founders. The convoluted and yet completely nonsensical threat concerns a tech billionaire named Valentine, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who decides that since humans are the cause of the Earth's increasingly rapid demise, he will just winnow down the planet's population in order to slow that process. Said plan includes implanting controlling chips in the necks of world decision makers, kidnapping and holding select desirable future citizens, and mass distribution of free phones that can signal the hoi polloi to unleash hell on one another at a moment's notice and thus wipe themselves out. How messy, I thought -- couldn't Valentine just make everyone ingest poison and quietly lay down and die?

Because that's another problem with the movie -- it's hella violent. A man is sliced in half head to foot by a long blade in the opening scenes. Arms fly off. Heads explode. I was willing to go along with the flick and all it's over-the-top foolishness until a scene set in Kentucky, when Galahad is caught with a bunch of Westboro Church types when the villain sounds the mayhem signal. What ensues is stomach churning; the church members are attacking each other viciously, and Galahad is shooting, stabbing, impaling, hacking off limbs, snapping necks, bashing heads, knocking out teeth, slashing throats, and all at breakneck speed in an extended scene of free-for-all bloodletting and murder. This is SICK! I shouted at the screen. I can't watch this! It was all I could do not to stop watching right then and there. But, in for a penny, in for a pound.

And Samuel L. Jackson. What can I say? The only person of color in the movie, which is welcome. Sort of. He's usually phenomenal, he knows his lane. But this character just doesn't work. Jackson plays the billionaire as a lisping, pimprolling, baseball-cap-to-the-side, expensive-athletic-shoes-wearing homeboy-made-good who is clearly patterned after lisping, baseball-cap-wearing, expensive-athletic-shoes-wearing homeboy-made-good Russell Simmons. Which is simultaneously funny, pathetic, and entirely unsustainable for an entire film. Not to mention that it's a characterization that goes over the heads of 80 percent of this film's audience. Jackson's lisp alone is unfortunate; I could never tell if his lethal blade-footed sidekick's name was "Giselle" or "Gabrielle"; according to IMDB, she was "Gazelle." (And actress Sofia Boutella is Algerian -- does that make her a person of color as well? Hmmm... ) Disappointingly, and adding to the Who Cares of the plot, the source or progression of Valentine's madness is never explained.

The idea of Kingsman is clever; indeed, the film has some moments of hilarity, as when Arthur (Caine) asks Eggsy the name of his loyal pug and the answer is "JB." For James Bond? No. For Jason Bourne? No. "Jack Bauer." Ha ha ha. The film also has a slick, shiny look to it, with some spectacular sets. And of course Colin Firth looks absolutely impeccable in his bespoke suits and brogued Oxfords.

But the overall experience is kind of Meh, even as some of those shots of fireworked head explosions and sliced limbs remain embedded in your memory.

photos: 20th Century Fox; Harry Palmer, telegraph.co.uk

Fifty Shades Of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey
directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, based on the novel by E.L. James
starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Marcia Gay Harden

DISCLAIMER: I did not read the book of Fifty Shades of Grey. I am only responding to the film I saw. And yes, I waited until all the hoopla and hysteria had died down after the Valentine's Day release and only watched it out of sheer curiosity.


SUMMARY:
Virgin college student Anastasia by chance meets young billionaire tycoon Christian Grey, who suddenly becomes interested in her mousy, bumbling, harware store clerk, virgin steez. They play push and pull games until he bumrushes his way into her life, demands that she stop drinking, buys her clothes and gifts, and proposes that she agree to be his sex slave sans any normal romance.

Instead of thinking GTFOHWTS and running for the hills, Ana is intrigued enough to see what will happen. The romantic-minded goon chooses to be deflowered by the freak, and then enters his naughty "game room" a few times for a little S&M slap and tickle. Much to the gratification of the straight male and lesbian audience, Dakota Johnson is only too happy to get buck nekkid on screen for these romps, with her bit-o-honey boobs and teacup ass. (Baring skin on film is a family tradition, from grandma Tippi Hedren flashing a little skin in the Hitchcock thriller Marnie to mama Melanie Griffith in Brian DePalma's Body Double.)

Though she's already entered the Chamber of Freakness, Ana still refuses to sign Christian's formal contract stipulating details of their dominant and submissive relationship. The contract presents very specific clauses regarding the use of a number of items, some of which Ana agrees to, but the film nervously backs off from showing viewers any interaction with dildoes, butt plugs, vibrators, nipple or genital clamps, or ball gags. This is an R rating and not an X, after all. Not that I'm complaining. Some of that stuff sounds hella uncomfortable.

Though the titular entrepreneur insists that he cannot conduct a normal romantic relationship, he confusingly says he is devoted to Ana, refers to her as his girlfriend, buys her expensive gifts, kisses and caresses her extensively, and does everything he can to keep her around. Except when play time comes around, she's not allowed to initiate or reciprocate any touching. It's just the way I am, he says over and over. He tries to explain that his weird desires relate to being born to a crack-addicted mother who mistreated him before he was adopted by a rich family and ... *yawn*, I'm sorry, I fell asleep for a minute.

In the end, Ana says no to Christian and all his kinky proclivities. She has fallen in love with him (because she is a romantic fool who predictably falls for an unavailable man, and because, let's face it, he may be a freak but he's a rich freak), but he will never love her on her terms. Thanks, Captain Obvious.

OBSERVATIONS

1) This movie isn't as sexy as I thought it would be. Maybe because I find the actor playing Christian Grey about as appealing as a swamp possum. Here Jamie Dornan is actually kind of creepy, I guess because he's supposed to be tortured and all. But he and Dakota Johnson have exactly zero chemistry. (He reminds me of passive aggressive Keir Dullea who snatches up one of the lesbian lovers in The Fox.)

2) The film doesn't spend enough time stressing what's at stake for the characters. I kept waiting for some sort of real conflict to kick in. What do each of them stand to lose? The only burning issue is whether they will get into a real S&M partnership, but the whole thing is soft-pedaled. Ana just seems to mull it over: Do I want coffee? Should I take a yoga class? Should I kneel naked and handcuffed for hours while this dude smacks me on me naughty bits with leather fringe?

3) There is no sizzle. The film has zero tension. Now, if Ana had exhibited real fear or more open curiosity or even freaked out about being a submissive, that would be interesting. If she threatened to out him as a weirdo to his family, his company, and the media, that would be interesting. If the flick had more overtly demonstrated that Christian was struggling against falling in love with her and considering giving up the dominant behavior, that would be interesting. But neither the script nor these actors do anything but walk through the setups.

4) For a film about dominant/submissive relationships, Fifty Shades doesn't really explore the psychology of that world. We see Dakota writhing around, but does she gain real pleasure from being put in the submissive position, or is she only doing it to please Christian? He promises that she will feel absolute freedom and total ecstasy in her role. But that doesn't seem to be what's going down for Miss Steele. (In the 90s, I read the erotic Sleeping Beauty trilogy by Anne Rice, under the nom de plume A.N. Roquelaure. Now THAT was a deep dive into a fully detailed WORLD of S&M dominants and submissives, with explicit descriptions of the freaky sex acts and twisted torments going down; but the books also disclosed revelations about the intimate bonds and powerful lessons of humility gained by the participants, and explored the unique human relationship between pleasure and pain.)

5) 50 Shades is really the age-old story of a girl meeting a Bad Boy and deciding that she can change him. Of course, she can't. When she finally figures out that she can't, she leaves.

I was surprised when the film ended, because I was expecting a more interesting twist. With her final "No," I wanted Ana to turn the tables and become the dominatrix that Christian so clearly needs. I wanted that "No" to be backed with "Christian, now you are going to meet me in the game room on your knees, buddy."

Now that would have been interesting.

Back To Life Basics In "Boyhood"

BOYHOOD (2014)
Directed by Richard Linklater
starring Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater

I know the Oscars were months ago. Boyhood is old news. But I wanted to document it here because it is indeed one of those hallmarks of maverick American filmmaking that will be referred to over and over again. If you haven’t seen it, don’t worry – your failure to pay full price at the box office didn’t prevent it from getting its kudos and making its mark. Actress Patricia Arquette was rightfully lauded, earning an Oscar (and calling down wrath for the way she called for women's rights) as well as an Independent Spirit award for her performance, though Linklater and frequent collaborator Hawke did not received as many honors.

By now you have to know the film’s gimmick, that the actors assembled for a short period annually for twelve years to shoot the film. This lengthy process gives viewers the rare ability to see the story of a boy and his family grow, evolve, and change for better or worse as the years pass. Many times the scenes were improvised without a finished script. The result is a beautiful film that captures the small moments of which real life is made: The silliness, inventiveness, resilience and cruelty of children; the struggle of average adults to make career, education, parenting, and romantic choices that don’t always pan out; the tiniest moments of childhood revelation, disillusion, and hard truth over many years that shed the layers of innocence and reveal the budding adult underneath. It’s a brilliant idea to use the same actors year after year, giving the film the weight of a documentary and allowing the characters' individual journeys to unfurl without the usual filmmaking cosmetic and casting gimmicks.

We see Ellar Coltrane grown from a beautifully thoughtful 6-year-old child into a gangly, confused, but essentially goodhearted young man whose parents have tried their best to raise him but have barely prepared him for adulthood. The film should be titled “Life,” but that one’s already been taken (what springs to mind is the underrated Eddie Murphy/Martin Lawrence prison flick).

BUT ... if you are the type of movie goer that insists on a coherent, linear story line with a big payoff, Boyhood is not for you. I’ve seen some comments where viewers feel that they lost valuable hours of their own lives to this film.

*** SPOILERS ***

As Boyhood begins, parents Olivia and Mason Sr. have already parted ways, but Mason Sr. returns after a long work bid out of town, trying to resume relations with his family. Olivia is having none of it. She’s planning to go to college to improve the family situation and needs to move them to Texas, promising their two children, precocious Samantha and dreamy Mason Jr., that they will still get to see their Dad.

Ethan Hawke plays Mason Sr. as a guy who means no harm, but whose aimless lifestyle is at odds with his ex-wife’s ambitions. He's an overgrown teenager, full of dreams and ethics that no longer serve Olivia’s needs. Despite this, he grows into a loving and caring Dad who insists upon developing a real and intimate relationship with his kids. In a scene where he picks them up in his cool convertible muscle car and endures half-hearted, monosyllabic answers to questions about the tweens’ young lives, he pulls the car to the curb and draws a line in the sand. “I’m not going to be that Dad that drives you places and buys you shit,” he declares. It’s a priceless moment where he demands both respect and engagement from his children, and from us as viewers as well. Mason Sr. starts the film as a scattered fuckup, but his devotion and his frankness with them has a profound impact on keeping both kids grounded and clear that they are loved.

Patricia Arquette gives an incredible performance, notable for its simple lack of showiness. She has never been a “mannered” performer, and here she gives us a peek at a woman who is smarter than her circumstances but often finds herself having to choose the best out of a pool of poor options when it comes to love. After breaking up with Mason, she gets involved with one of her professors, a single father who seems stable, with a career, a home, and two children of his own. For a while the blended family presents a classic picture of American domesticity. But he soon succumbs to alcoholism and abuse. Olivia rightfully runs, uprooting her children’s lives in the process. A few years later she has begun teaching at the university and falls into a relationship with a student, a haunted Iraq War veteran who ultimately clashes with the laconic teenaged Mason and also spirals into alcoholism and abuse.

Boyhood is about everything and nothing, the camera walking alongside to document an average boy reaching average benchmarks (smoking, drinking, having sex, learning his strengths and weaknesses) and evolving into an average young adult. He struggles in school, is bullied by classmates, has teenage crushes, plays video games, squabbles endlessly with his smart-aleck big sister, develops an interest in photography, clashes with his stepfathers, experiments with alcohol and pot, gets his heart broken, and is coached in sports and life through by his Dad. He gets a summer job, learns to drive, applies to college. And so it goes. In his averageness is the sum total of all human stories, of a million as-yet-undistinguished American boys of all backgrounds with that most precious and easily squandered of qualities: potential.

In this thoughtful portrayal of an unremarkable life are sparks of revelation about the universality of experience. When Mason Jr. graduates from high school, the family throws him a party; Olivia then helps him pack for college and informs him that she is giving up her house for a smaller residence now that her kids will have to now live on their own. Arquette shines in the moment that Olivia has a brief breakdown. “I thought there would be more,” she says simply. “The only thing left is death.”

There are no stunts, no car crashes, no extreme acts of daring or heroism in Boyhood. No one dies a painful death. The sacrifices are small. But that is the quiet brilliance of this film, which reminds us to savor the everyday and value the time we have with those we love.

New 'Rubble Kings' And Rediscovered '80 Blocks From Tiffany's' Look Back At NYC Gang Life

If you've read some of my posts on Words On Flicks, you know my fondness for film depictions of vintage, dirty old 1970s New York. That's the New York I grew up in, the one I survived.

My parents did the best job possible to insulate my sisters and me from the worst of New York's scuzz, focusing us on education, family, church, and a steady stream of social activities with other striving middle-class families as we came up in the southern part of the Bronx. But there was no denying what we saw from the windows of our Ford station wagon as we drove along Bruckner, Westchester or Southern Boulevards, Gun Hill or Boston Road, 161st or 223rd Street in the Boogie Down. The New York I learned to love was one where you could get mugged on the street, have your gold chain snatched off your neck on the subway, and where hookers and pimps walked openly around on 42nd Street in between the Triple X movie theaters and 3-card Monte scammers. (My mother gave me a hatpin when I first started riding the subway to junior high in mid-Manhattan; the pearl-topped sharp was for stabbing perverts and ripoff artists who preyed on innocents and I got to use that sucker!) Something about the Big Apple's very unforgiving nature in those days fascinated me. (So many stories! thought the burgeoning writer in me.)

There was a lot of talk about the black and Puerto Rican street gangs in the early '70s, particularly as we lived in the Soundview neighborhood adjacent to Hunt's Point and then Fort Apache. Tales of shootings, warnings of burglaries, news reports of murders, and rumors of impending gang rumbles abounded. As I recall there were the Black Spades, the Savage Skulls, the Savage Nomads, the Young Saints, and an Italian gang called the Golden Guineas. It was easy for me, a girl who went to all-female schools and had only a faint idea of the violence and risk involved in gang life, to romanticize these streetwise toughs.

My nostalgia for those gritty days have been triggered by two films: One is yet to be released, called Rubble Kings. This is an upcoming documentary about the New York gangs of the late 70s, and how the historic gang truce they effected in the city ultimately fed into the evolution of hip hop culture of the '80s. Afrika Bambaataa, a former leader of the Black Spades, is one of many personalities interviewed for the film. Rubble Kings is reportedly getting a theatrical release and will be released on DVD. See the trailer below.



Looking into the background for Rubble Kings helped me find the 1979 documentary 80 Blocks From Tiffany's. The title is a reference to the distance between the cool and pricey interiors of the legendary jewelry purveyor on Fifth Avenue and the crumbled and dangerous wild west of the South Bronx. 80 Blocks may not have access to Tiffany diamonds but it what it mines is pure historical and sociological gold, capturing raw snapshots of the lives of some of the Savage Nomads and the Savage Skulls of the South Bronx in the 1970s.

From interviews with members about gang life, to cheesy reenactments of some of their basic crimes, to interviews with the gang division officers committed to keeping the upper hand, to a local woman determined to broker peace between the gang members and the neighborhood residents, to reformed gang leaders reminiscing, this doc is astonishing because it lets their narratives speak for themselves. There is no voiceover, there are no title cards with statistics or warnings, and the film doesn't sermonize about right or wrong. The film just unspools, letting the viewer draw his/her own conclusions. Some might see that as the film's drawback -- the filmmakers don't take a deep dive on the more negative impact that gang culture had on the neighborhoods, springing from poverty, crime, and drug use to perpetuate those cycles. The film even makes it a point to show how in some cases -- like the New York Blackout of '77 -- gang members even protected local residents.

"I just put gang members who don't know how to act into our own version of The Hole for a few days, and they generally straighten up..."

Most revealing are two segments: first, a tense and hilarious attempt at negotiation by one gang member with a hated rival to postpone the date of their fistfight because he hasn't yet recovered from a previous beatdown. And two, the fun of a summer block party is almost destroyed by one gang member's jealousy over a romantic rival, with a scene-ending cut to an interview with the gang moll in question who -- now sporting a busted eye -- offers a flimsy story about how it happened.

80 Blocks From Tiffany's isn't well known, but the documentary was enough to inspire the name of a 2013 mixtape put together by none other than Pete Rock with Camp Lo.

If you want to take a trip back to experience the gang codes, train graffiti, burned and abandoned buildings, the beat and the look of '70s New York, 80 Blocks From Tiffany's is your vehicle. And I'm looking forward to checking out Rubble Kings.

'70s Blood & Guts: "Eddie Coyle" & "Alfredo Garcia"

I'll be the first to admit that sometimes there is no logic to my taste in movies. I don't like horror films or grossout comedies, but I do like a gritty, well-done action, thriller, or gangster movie. Yes, I can overlook violence, misogyny, and even racist overtones as part of the experience of the story in whatever world the director is trying to depict. You have to see these things before you can have an informed reaction.

So, flash back to 2009 when I was living in Los Angeles. It was a rainy Friday afternoon and I was on the phone with my dear friend Scott, who told me that he was going to an American Cinematheque presentation at the historic Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to see these two rare ‘70s "guy" flicks. I admit that the combination of hanging with my best movie-going pal, seeing the unique architecture of a classic Hollywood movie palace like the Egyptian, and the prospect of a testosterone double feature set in the '70s was catnip to this fan. I drove like a bat out of hell in the rain to get to the event.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

First on the bill was a grim little crime gem called The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt, Mother, Jugs & Speed, The Deep, Breaking Away, among others). Adapted from a novel by George V. Higgins, this hard-boiled flick features a broken-down, middle-aged Robert Mitchum as a bakery truck driver who also deals in stolen guns. His loose-knit gang of bank-robbing pals have just pulled off a sloppy series of bank jobs and it's Eddie who has to keep them supplied with weapons. Meanwhile, he's trying to maneuver his way out of going back to jail on a driving-stolen-goods rap. With a wife, a mortgage, and thoughts of spending his golden years relaxing, Eddie mulls whether to squeal on his pals in exchange for leniency in his case. He's caught between giving the feds enough tips to make arrests, and not giving away so much info that he'll rouse suspicion among his gang. Let’s just say that there is no honor among criminals and Eddie hasn't a clue as to who his friends are.

Mitchum, whose history playing dozens of heavies and leading men in Hollywood is long behind him here, plays it way down as a taciturn, former up-and-comer who's now too old for the game. He's marvelous for the simple fact that he is not trying to act, other than struggling with a consistent Boston accent. Mitchum's world-weary Eddie does his best to use his wits, formulating a plan that will keep him from ratting out the linchpins of the bank robbing game and still earn him some money, while keeping himself out of prison and the graveyard.

Unfortunately, things don't go as planned; a pal who's been informing all along pins the squealing it on Eddie, who hasn't a clue. And here the picture goes against the standard Hollywood wisdom of having the hero survive against all odds -- Eddie Coyle catches a bullet in the head before the picture creeps to a close. But Eddie wasn’t a hero — he was a mook trying to outmaneuver a bunch of other mooks, and that's the brilliance of the movie: sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and Eddie loses.

Friends of Eddie Coyle is a tough flick, filmed in that fuzzy, near-sepiatone color stock, with great dialogue and superb performances by Mitchum, Peter Boyle as his bar-tending informer pal, and Richard Jordan as his FBI contact. Admittedly some of the nuances of the plot are easy to miss on first viewing, and a couple of the scenes seem to be played for laughs. I attended college in Boston in the late '70s, so it's sheer nostalgia to see Government Center, Faneuil Hall, the old Boston Garden, and the MBTA trolley system and hear the heavy Boston dialect again. One caveat: The story concerns Irish hoods from Southie and the Bopston 'burbs, so they have some not-so-politically-correct things to say about people of color. The Friends of Eddie Coyle got good reviews at the time, but you don't hear too many people talking about it these days. See it with the Sean Penn starrer Mystic River for a sense of continuity.

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

OK, so I read a lot. I'd gleaned that Sam Peckinpah had a reputation as a director who employs a great deal of screen violence in his storytelling. I hadn't seen a Peckinpah flick until this night. My reaction: Oh Lord. This picture is so insane, I mean, it’s out there. I had caught little bits and pieces of Garcia on TV, which was required to censor it to pieces, but never saw it all the way through. I'd always liked the affable and offbeat Warren Oates; because he’s the star I had assumed that he plays the titular Alfredo Garcia. But, no. His character is shallow, sleazy, conniving, insensitive, and sarcastic. But it's Oates, so you can't help rooting for him.

Oates plays Bennie, an American ex-pat piano player at a bar in Mexico. When a call goes out from a wealthy Mexican underworld don to have this Garcia’s head on a stick in revenge for his young daughter’s pregnancy, Bennie hears about it and decides that this is an opportunity knocking for a lucky money day. So, although he finds out from his Mexican prostitute girlfriend that Garcia, her former lover, is already dead, Bennie is undeterred. He makes a deal with El Jefe's henchmen -- who don't yet know the quarry is deceased -- to hunt down Garcia for a hefty price. Then, with his girlfriend Elita in tow, Bennie sets out to drive across Mexico to the town where Garcia was born. The plan is to dig up Garcia’s head out of the grave, deliver it to Big Man and get his big payoff. Except things go horribly, horribly wrong.

Forces are arrayed against him. He's not the only one searching for Garcia, and then there are the dead man's relatives to consider. Bennie finally gets the stinking, fly-speckled, bloody, decapitated head into his possession but the price is steep. Dozens die along the way; and in the end, Bennie loses his girl, his sanity, and finally his life.

I tell you, images from this flick have haunted my sleep. And not because it was too gory or violent, though it was that, but because Oates was so freaking convincing and the cinematography was so good. Some of the lines are classic, too. Bennie to two guys, one of them Kris Kristofferson, who are holding them up to rape the girlfriend: “You guys are definitely on my shit list.” I mean, that’s an understatement! And so funny. When Bennie and Elita get a crummy room for the night in the little town where Garcia is buried, and Elita is looking doubtful, Bennie says: “Have you ever been drunk in Fresno? This is a palace.” He also has crazy scenes where he’s having long conversations with Garcia’s head in the front seat of his car.

Just – wow. Glad I saw it. But as in Eddie Coyle, the protagonists learn that when you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Eddie and Bennie know the score, they know the risks of their lifestyles. For both Bennie and Eddie Coyle, the journey ends up being fatal.

The Glory Of "Selma" (2014)

SELMA (2014)
Directed by Ava Duvernay
Starring David Oyelowo, Carmen Ejogo, Tom Wilkinson, Tessa Thompson, Common, Tim Roth, Lorraine Toussaint, Oprah Winfrey, Wendell Pierce, Giovanni Ribisi



First off: Ava Duvernay and David Oyelowo were robbed when the Academy Award nominations were announced this past week and they did not receive recognition.

I find the snubbing of Ms. Duvernay especially egregious because what she has done with the writing and direction of this film is a feat of artistic excellence. Selma has been nominated in the Best Picture category, with its John Legend/Common anthem "Glory" competing as Best Song. Very rarely does a film win Best Picture without an Oscar nomination also going to its director (though the Best Picture has been won without its director also winning; two years ago Argo won Best Picture, but director Ben Affleck wasn't nominated).

Setting out to portray the life of a revered and historic icon on screen can be a harrowing endeavor. It is universally recognized that Martin Luther King Jr.'s approach to attaining civil rights for people of color in the U.S. was pioneering, audacious, brave, noble and indelible. His tactics proved effective in shedding light on longstanding injustices and in gaining a measure of equality before the law. He gave his life to the struggle. As such, the example of MLK has become a story for the ages, a brilliant and complicated man who came to be seen as a martyr for all African Americans and others suffering under the yoke of inequality in this country. His legend has been told countless times, on the big screen and in television movies that impress upon audiences the greatness of King's travails.

The brilliance of Selma is that the movie refrains from painting Martin as a superman who singlehandedly strikes a blow for freedom. This is a beautifully conceived, carefully reconstructed set piece in which King is presented as a very human figure confronting an entrenched way of life in the South and an intractable political system, doing so through the coordinated efforts of a team of strategists and the support of everyday people.



What Ava Duvernay does brilliantly is breathe life, wit, and soul into the figure of King, and capture him during one of the pivotal episodes of the civil rights crusade, the march from Selma to Montgomery. Actor David Oyelowo embodies this King brilliantly: Not as a caricature or an imitation, but presenting him as a man with a heartbeat committed to a compelling cause but beset by detractors and a range of conflicting emotions, including the real awareness that his mission is a danger to everyone involved.

There are moments of discomfort in watching Selma, as when we are reminded of the horrors of the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church that took the lives of four little girls, the terror and violence of Selma's police action against African American protestors, and the stinging indignities of Southern Jim Crow racism. But the film must remind us of those realities to present a full understanding of what King and the movement had to push against. And yet this is not a preachy film; it is a carefully rendered story about this episode in the fight for justice, told in a way that taps into the deepest emotions of every viewer. That is truly the power of the film, its humanity.

While a nod from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences would have been thrilling, Oscar should not be the final arbiter of the merit of this film. It is whether it is remembered, viewed over and over, and valued within the culture that gave rise to it. We know of many Oscar winners that have been forgotten.

Remember Selma.

OSCAR Nominations Are Announced!

Nominations for the 87th Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning. Here's the field.
(Wish there was more recognition for Selma, though it is up for Best Picture.) The awards ceremony will be telecast on February 22nd with host Neil Patrick Harris.

Best Picture:
American Sniper
Birdman
Boyhood
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Best Director:
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood
Morten Tyldum, The Imitation Game
Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher

Best Actor:
Steve Carell, Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper, American Sniper
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Imitation Game
Michael Keaton, Birdman
Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything

Best Actress:
Marion Cotillard, Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything
Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Supporting Actor:
Robert Duvall, The Judge
Ethan Hawke, Boyhood
Edward Norton, Birdman
Mark Ruffalo, Foxcatcher
J.K. Simmons, Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress:
Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Laura Dern, Wild
Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game
Emma Stone, Birdman
Meryl Streep, Into The Woods

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Damien Chazelle, Whiplash
Jason Hall, American Sniper
Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Anthony McCarten, The Theory of Everything
Paul Thomas Anderson, Inherent Vice

Best Original Screenplay:
Wes Anderson & Hugo Guinness, The Grand Budapest Hotel
E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman, Foxcatcher
Dan Gilroy, Nightcrawler
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr, Armando Bo, Birdman
Richard Linklater, Boyhood

Best Animated Feature:
Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of Princess Kaguya

Best Documentary Feature:
CITIZENFOUR
Last Days in Vietnam
Virunga
Finding Vivian Maier
The Salt of the Earth

Best Original Song:
"Everything Is Awesome," The Lego Movie
"Glory," Selma
"I’m Not Gonna Miss You," Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
"Lost Stars," Begin Again
"Grateful," Beyond the Lights

Best Film Editing:
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
Whiplash
The Grand Budapest Hotel

Best Cinematography:
Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Ryszard Lenczewski and Łukasz Żal, Ida
Dick Pope, Mr. Turner
Robert D. Yeoman, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Roger Deakins, Unbroken

Best Costume Design:
Colleen Atwood, Into The Woods
Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jacqueline Durran, Mr. Turner
Anna B. Sheppard, Maleficent
Mark Bridges, Inherent Vice

Best Production Design:
The Grand Budapest Hotel
The Imitation Game
Interstellar
Into the Woods
Mr. Turner

Best Animated Short:
The Bigger Picture
The Dam Keeper
Feast
Me and My Moulton
A Single Life

Best Live Action Short:
Aya
Boogaloo and Graham
The Phone Call
Butter Lamp
Parvaneh

Best Documentary Short:
Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
The Reaper (La Parka)
White Earth

Best Sound Editing:
American Sniper
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Interstellar
Birdman
Unbroken

Best Sound Mixing:
American Sniper
Birdman
Interstellar
Unbroken
Whiplash

Best Visual Effects:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Interstellar
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Best Foreign Language Film:
Ida (Poland)
Leviathan (Russia)
Tangerines (Estonia)
Timbuktu (Mauritania)
Wild Tales (Argentina)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:
Foxcatcher
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy

Best Original Score:
Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat, The Imitation Game
Johann Johannsson, The Theory of Everything
Hans Zimmer, Interstellar
Gary Yershon, Mr. Turner

Words On Flicks: 2014 Wrap-Up

2014: WOF's Year In Film

Can you believe that we're at the end of 2014? It went by way too fast!

Though I had begun Words On Flicks last year, this was the year I really started posting about current and past films, doing synopses, analyses and reviews. I haven't done a great job promoting the stuff here, I do it because I love it, but in 2015 I plan to do a better job at posting about new flicks in a more timely way and promoting the posts better. (The WOF post with the most views this year was about Think Like A Man Too. Thanks!

In 2014 there were just too many release, and I didn't get to see them all. That was often due to my work sked or the fact that the more indie flicks aren't first run here. I tend to avoid most of the studio tentpole genre series like the Hunger Games and Hobbit sequels; I also missed the Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Night At The Museum and the like. The big crowd-pleasers are occasionally appealing to me, but I didn't didn't go that way this year.

The list of things I wanted to see and didn't is embarrassingly long. On the WOF Wish List:
1. Boyhood.
Can't believe I didn't see it! It did make its way here to the hinterlands of metro D.C. finally. Must see it before the Oscar nominations!
2. Wild *
I'm reading the book now; author Cheryl Strayed was one of my MFA lecturers. Just found out we share a birth date. (*Saw it December 31!)
3. The Theory of Everything
Just because Eddie Redmayne is fascinating to watch, and this looks like one of his biggest onscreen challenges
4. Whiplash
You can't say enough good things about J.K. Simmons and his awesome versatility as an actor. Plus, it's about music education! Another one to see before Oscar time...
5. St. Vincent
I didn't see it because I was waffling. Love Bill Murray, but is the loveably quirky curmudgeon thing getting old?
6. The Skeleton Twins
Kristen Wiig. Nuff said.
7. Rosewater
Looked like an interesting story about the dangers of reporting from the middle East. Directed by Jon Stewart? Yeah. Shoulda seen it.
8. Interstellar
This year's Gravity? Only in the sense that it has something to do with outer space, it's out toward the end of the year, and everyone's talking about it -- just like Gravity. Didn't see that one either. So shoot me.
9. Nightcrawler
Working as an entertainment reporter for so long began to feel almost like ambulance chasing to me, so this tale about the underside of the news biz looked pretty interesting.
10. Love Is Strange
John Lithgow and Alfred Molina portraying a longtime couple forced to live apart by
circumstance. The flick looked like a chance to see a workshop in great acting.

Still To Be Seen As 2014 turns into 2015:
1. Selma * -- kudos to director Ava Duvernay! Seeing this ASAP. (*saw it 12/31!)
2. Annie -- mixed reviews but I need to support this cast and these producers!
3. Inherent Vice -- gritty whodunit in '70s California with a great cast. Looking forward ...
4. The Gambler -- gritty thriller with a great cast. We'll see if it lives up to the hype.

WOF's "Why? Why? Why?" List:
1. The Other Woman
They finally turned the game and funny Leslie Mann into a completely unfunny pathetic nightmare. A comedy that only confirms outdated stereotypes about women
2, Sex Tape
Raunchy comedies are nothing new, but this one just ventured from mawkish to TMI. Some laugh out loud moments, but mostly way too much and embarrassing.
3. Hercules
I love my Dwayne Johnson, yes I do, but if The Rock is going to do Hercules, you want to see him perform the Twelve Labors -- a series of legendary feats glossed over in the film's preamble. What? Maybe the producers blinked when told that another Hercules film was being released the same year, but this post-legend yarn about Herc as the leader of a band of a mercenaries was just uninvolving.
5. A Million Ways To Die in the West
Too many episodes of Family Guy led me into the theater, hopeful to see what Seth McFarland had up his sleeve. Not much, as it turned out. This was like watching an old episode of F-Troop or Petticoat Junction with bad language and raunch. Pleasant but not worth the price of the ticket.
6. Gone Girl
Yeah, I said it. I'm sure the book was amazing, but I didn't read it. Transferring the novel to screen made all of its plot holes and implausibilities glaringly evident and at times bordered on camp. Ben Affleck seemed comatose, and I couldn't tell if that was his character or just his usual acting job. But kudos to Rosamund Pike, who outdoes herself here, but this reminded me unpleasantly of The Talented Mr. Ripley.

WOF's Favorites of 2014 in no particular order:
Dear White People
Sly, clever commentary on the so-called "postracial" existence on a college campus shatters stereotypes but offers no easy answers.
Get On Up
A snapshot of the life of one of our most complicated musical legends, driven by a towering performance from Chadwick Boseman
Top Five
Not a perfect film, but thoroughly enjoyable mix of comedy and thoughtfulness about relationships, the powers of media, and being our best selves.
Under The Skin
Scarlett Johanssen is one of the most brash, fearless actresses working in Hollywood today. In this eerie and disturbing film, she portrays an alien fallen to earth in Scotland. Assuming human form, she lures unsuspecting men to a horrifying fate in order to survive. The straightforward, documentary style and unique special effects give this film a stark and haunting power.
Selma
Beautifully photographed, painstakingly designed, this is a masterful, breathing portrait of the civil rights legend during a pivotal time in our nation's history. Director Ava Duvernay has wrung strong performances from an impressive cast.

What were your favorite films of 2014 and why? Post in the comments section below and share your views.

Happy New Year and here's to a great 2015 in film!