movie taco: december 2014

8/10/2019 Movie Taco: December 2014

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Issue 12 June 2012


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FROM THE EDITOR As the year comes to an end, so do great film franchises. For our lastissue of 2014, we have assembled a massive special on Peter Jacksonslast trip to Middle-Earth: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Ifyouve enjoyed staring at our 10 collectable covers, youre going to lovethe feature weve got in store for you inside the magazine!The end of the year also marks Oscar Season, when critically-adoredfilms start streaming into cinemas. This month, we preview some ofthese films: Inherent Vice, Big Eyes and Foxcatcher among them.Of course, the film this year we were most excited for was Chris NolansInterstellar, which is reviewed on the next page: it really did live up tothe hupe!Enjoy the issue, and see you next month!


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REVIEWS

04 INTERSTELLAR

08 NIGHTCRAWLER

09 THE JUDGE

10 GONE GIRL

FEATURES

16 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF

THE FIVE ARMIES

25 STAR WARS: THE FORCEAWAKENS


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Nulla vel tortor ac

eros pretium feugiat.Mauris iaculis antenon lacus.

While there is no doubtin anybodys mind thatInterstellar is A ChristopherNolan Film, the work of theensemble cast is very impor-tant to discuss. McConaughey

swaggers onto the screendoing his thaaaang butslowly begins to showunprecedented emotionaldepth in his interactionswith both his family andhis Space Crew. MackenzieFoy, previously seen as Scary

Vampire Baby in Breaking

Dawn Part 2 is absolutelysuperb as Murph, the rareMajor Child Character who isat no point irritating, overly-precocious or needy. Cooperand Murphy are a delight to

watch as a father-daugh-ter duo, and the extendedset-up of their relationshipthat Nolan provides us withdoes wonders for the audi-ences engagement with thecharacters throughout theremainder of the story. AnneHathaway gets surprisingly

little to do as Space Crewmember Amelia Brand, withneither the intensity of herLes Mis role or the fun ofCatwoman to work with, butshe is as enjoyable to watch

as usual. Wes Bentley andDavid Gyasi, as the remain-ing Space Crew-ees, aresadly underused consider-ing both actors considerabletalent, while Bill Irwin real-ly deserves a lot of praisefor his work as ummmanother soul(s) upon the


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Endurance. Michael Caine, the one actor who literally transcends time to play younger and older ver-sions of the same character in the film, is basically playing Alfred again, be it an Alfred who recites

Dylan Thomas over and over again.If you want to see stars, planets, wormholes and other visually mesmerising Space Stuff on the big-gest cinema screen possible, youre not going to get it much better than Interstellar. Its hard to graspthat there could be a more immersive space adventure than Alfonso Cuarons Gravity, and whilethat film outdoes Interstellar in several areas (i.e. making button-pushing seem thrilling), this filmis genuinely the perfect outer-space IMAX experience. One could argue that Sandra Bullocks RyanStone is a more resourceful and independent female astronaut than Hathaways Brand, and they maybe right, but Murph (played in childhood by Foy but later in life by, its not much of a spoiler to say,

Jessica Chastain) is undeniably Interstellars standout female role, defying more odds than Cooperand taking brilliant initiative to save the people close to her through basic common sense- commonsense than not only Murphs peers, but the audience- would have failed to use.When Nolan confirmed that Hoyte van Hoytema would act as cinematographer on Interstellar,replacing his regular DOP Wally Pfister (off making his mediocre directorial debut Transcendence),some were worried that the Let The Right One In veteran would be unable to recreate the magicalglow of Inception and The Dark Knight Trilogy. Any fears were utterly unnecessary, as van Hoytemasvisuals are arguably the finest in any of Nolans films, at first blurry and cold but gradually moreslick and colourful. The cinematography, combined with Hans Zimmers surprisingly subtle score(if youve seen the very first teaser trailer youve heard the basic theme)- replacing the composersusual electric guitar and kettle drums with organ and strings, give the film a perfect tonal blend ofepic and homely family drama.

The Space Exploration middle act of Interstellar has a number of problems, largely the excessiveamount of action- which, interspersed with complicated scientific exposition, is somewhat head-ache-inducing- putting too many characters in too many places at once. This is cured largely before


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the Grand Finale, during which the multiple locations are edited together quite nicely, but ruinswhat would otherwise be a wonderful opportunity to take in an Iceland-shot Ice Planet with floating

cloud-mountains. A mildly amusing in-joke extended to a full role is extremely distracting and makessome of the dialogue on the Ice Planet unintentionally laughable. As well all know, unintentionallylaughable is not something you want to hear about a Christopher and Jonathan Nolan script!

Even with its many flaws and visible poor filmmaking decisions, Interstellar succeeds eventually inbeing an incredibly moving, thought-provoking arthouse-blockbuster crossover. Its homages to 2001:A Space Odyssey are at times embarrassingly obvious, but Nolan has made what Kubrick failed to dowith his 1968 masterpiece: a human film. I, along with others I saw Interstellar with, thought deeplyabout our own relationships with our parents and children- past, present and future- after experienc-ing Cooper and Murphs spellbinding, heartbreaking story. Interstellars heroes transcend time andspace. Christopher Nolan has transcended the cinema screen once more and reached out, graspingthe hand of the audience and taking us on a truly magical journey. What shall our next adventure be?


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THE JUDGETwo Oscar-baiting American family melodra-mas were released in October 2014: ShawnLevys This is Where I Leave You and DavidDobkins The Judge. The two films share numer-

ous traits: An estranged son returning to hishometown for his parents funeral, an intellec-ually-disabled friend/sibling, a cheating wife,

a teenage girlfriend who hasnt changed, asurprisingly well-cast Dane Cook, a predictableColdplay track. While these films are alike in somany ways, the one major difference is that, inenacting all these clichs, The Judge uses itsbig budget (three times as big as TIWILYs) toake some initiative and try to do things slightly

differently.Robert Downey Jr., the fast-talking bag of cha-isma who has become the biggest actor on

Earth since last taking on a role like this, starsas Henry Palmer, a successful New York lawyerwho learns of his mothers death just beforehe start of a trial and is accused of fictionalis-ng her death by the opposition. Upon return-ng to his Indiana hometown through a series

of expensive helicopter shots accompanied byThomas Newmans beautiful but occasionallyoverwhelming score, Henry must face his fatherthe great Robert Duvall in a role the film-

makers must have felt sure would win him anOscar), the local Judge who blames Henry forhe accident which cost his brother the use of

his hand, taking away his chances of a success-ul Baseball career.

The scenes between Downey Jr. and Duvall arewell-acted enough on Duvalls side, and fran-tic enough on Downeys to make the almost2-and-a-half-hour running time float by sur-

prisingly fast. Interspersed with well-scriptedcourtroom scenes involving the wonderful BillyBob Thornton and just-sentimental-enough-to-be-moving interactions between Downey andhis brother Dale, who lives through a Super 8camera and projects his footage in the familysbasement during a tempest.

Oh yeah, theres a TEMPEST in THIS movie! TAKETHAT, This is Where I Leave You! Bet you didnthave money for a TEMPEST!As Duvalls character is accused of murder andvarious factors appear before Downey whichcan both help and hinder his case, the film driftsin and out of over-saccharine melodrama andattention-seeking SHOCK moments. A minorstoryline that sees Downey hook up with his oldgirlfriend (Vera Farmiga) is a completely uninter-esting, irrelevant waste of time which could eas-ily be cut from the film without anyone noticing.140-minute courtroom dramas are not typicallythe kind of film one enjoys watching, unlessthey star Gregory Peck or Jimmy Stewart, butthe glossy direction, loud acting and SO VERYEMOTIONAL Thomas Newman score are enoughto make The Judge a solid mainstream mid-range drama.


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GONE GIRLDuring its 149 minutes, David Finchers adaptation of Gillian Flynns bestselling novel appears tobe setting itself up as a lot of things: a traditional missing-person procedural with a disturbingfinale, an emotional drama filled with social commentary on domestic violence, a Hitchcockianmystery with a groundbreaking twist. In fact, it is really none of these things: Gone Girl is atheart an absurdist comedy about, as celebrity lawyer Tanner Bolt (Tyler Perry) puts it, some reallyfucked-up people.

The first hour of the film, which comprises almost all of the footage featured in the trailers andpromotional material, sees Ben Afflecks Nick Dunne return home on his wedding anniversary tofind his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. Simultaneously, we are shown flashbacks to his andAmys meeting and early relationship, told from Amys perspective. The two sides of the storymatch up for a while, before both go in very different directions and Nick and Amy both becomes

very unreliable narrators. Afflecks everyman quality and Pikes radiance make them both instantlyappealing characters, and as their individual traits come to the fore, the audiences loyaltiesbecome questionable and the film really starts to get interesting.Flynn has adapted her own novel for the screen, and as her first screenplay, she couldnt pos-sibly have done a better job. The transitioning between Nicks present and Amys diary entrynarration is somewhat clunky for half-an-hour or so, but the seamless editing between bothcharacters perspectives for the remainder of the film compensates for this. Affleck truly proveshimself as a superb dramatic actor in Gone Girl, conveying Nicks inner dishonesty in his eyes andtwitching mouth in a manner which we havent seen in a major actor for years. Pike, on the otherhand, is the true on-screen standout of the film, as beautiful as she is terrifying- the perfect mixof Hitchcock femme fatale and David Lynch psychopath. Her actions throughout the film are attimes so unforgivably inhumane that its left to the excellent Carrie Coon as Nicks sympathetictwin sister Margo to remind the (male) audience that most women arent like Amy Dunne!


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Fincher has time and time again proven himself to be one of mainstream Hollywoods finestvisual storytellers, and outdoes himself once again with the beautiful cinematography and mixof great editing and score that made The Social Network such a brilliant film. The film, largelymarketed as a dark, gritty thriller, is at some moments so absurd that it requires a great deal ofhumour to succeed in telling the Dunnes story, and Fincher achieves the varying tone perfectly.Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry, two successful comedians known for cross-dressing, take onrare dramatic roles here, with the latter probably the more successful- possibly because hes aterrible comedian and has been on the wrong career path all along! Its difficult to take Harrisseriously when hes essentially playing a slighter creepier version of How I Met Your MothersBarney Stinson, and the Very Bad Thing that happens to him in the films penultimate act is, per-haps because of its tremendous unpleasantness, likely to cause any audience to descend intohysterics of laughter.

If Gone Girl is as big a financial success as it is expected to (and deserves to) be, it will not onlyprove that, with enough pre-release hype and big names, the mid-range film still has commercialpotential, but that people will always love a great character study. Gone Girl is about as good amainstream 149-minute character study as youre going to see these days.


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The Hobbit was originally envisioned as a two-part film, but Jackson confirmed plans for a third filmon 30 July 2012, turning his adaptation of The Hobbit into a trilogy.According to Jackson, the third film would contain the Battle of the Five Armies and make extensiveuse of the appendices that Tolkien wrote to expand the story of Middle-Earth (published in the backof The Return of the King). Jackson also stated that while the third film will largely make use offootage originally shot for the first and second films, it would require additional filming as well. Thethird film was titled There and Back Again in August 2012. In April 2014, Jackson changed the title of the film to The Battle of the Five Armies as he thoughtthe new title better suited the situation of the film.He stated on his Facebook page, There and Back Again felt like the right name for the secondof a two film telling of the quest to reclaim Erebor, when Bilbos arrival there, and departure,

were both contained within the second film. But with three movies, it suddenly felt misplacedafter all, Bilbo has already arrived there in the Desolation of Smaug. Shaun Gunner, the chair-man of The Tolkien Society, supported the decision: The Battle of the Five Armies much bet-ter captures the focus of the film but also more accurately channels the essence of the story.


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AN UN EXPJOURN EY

At this point, I dont find it necessary to remind you that The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one ofGods greatest gifts to mankind (both in book and film form), and it would be impossible for Peter

Jackson to even slightly match how amazing those films were. With that said, I will begin by stat-ing that The Hobbit has not done the seemingly impossible and been better than TLOTR. I willalso state that it is not the best film of 2012, as I have hoped it would be since sitting through thedisappointing The Dark Knight Rises back in July. This is not so much a disappointment of a filmas an underwhelming, unsurprisingly and predictable remake of something we all adore. Thatsnot the description of a bad film, is it?

Ive spent weeks deciding whether to see this is 3D 48FPS, 2D 48FPS, 3D 24FPS or 2D 24FPS. IMAXhas not yet reached rural Western Ireland.

I eventually chose the most exciting option, and the one I have preferred since my birth- two-dimensional 24 frames per second. Yay! I wont therefore be commenting on the new format Peter

Jackson has used to make The Hobbit.

AS THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIESHITS CINEMAS, LETS REMIND OURSELVESOF BUZZHUBS ORIGINAL DECEMBER2012 REVIEW OF PETER JACKSONS FIRSTHOBBIT FILM!


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TED

The opening prologue, which tells of how the dwarves lost their mountain to Smaug(pronounced smowg, fyi), is notably lighter is tone and visuals than anything in LOTR.Its also very beautiful, breathtaking even in the boring old fashioned format I watchedthe film in. We then begin our time in The Shine literally a few hours before Fellowshipbegins, with Frodo heading off to read under that tree. I know, I was crying too.We then go 60 years backward, when Bilbo is played by the excellent Martin Freeman,who shines in this as expected. Thirteen dwarves whom vary in annoyance arrive at hisfront door and barge their way in. Some of them are old and wise, some middle-agedand aggressive and some young and foolish (Do you have chips?) The ones I wasmost interested in (Dwarf with Axe-head in Head, Dwarf that is Gimlis Dad) didntspeak once, werent referred to at all and featured on screen for less than 5 secondseach. Why? Its not like the film had to be cut down! It was almost 3 hours for Godssake! I was almost asleep by the end, and it was only 6.30pm by the time it ended! TheShire bits were too long, the bits with the Orcs and Wargs were WAAAAAYYYY too long,and their were at least 3 endings. Jackson has two more films to deal with this story!


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The highlight of the film by a mile is the Riddles in the Dark portion, which sees a techni-cally improved Gollum appearing on film for probably the final time ever! It was directed byAndy Serkis (who plays Gollum and should have gotten an Oscar for Rise of the Planet ofthe Apes), whilst PJ was filming some other stuff, and you can really tell that it was a differ-ent person behind the camera. Everything about it deserves an award, but especially Serkisperformance as literatures greatest schizophrenic, which is way more playful, experimentaland absolutely mad than it ever was back in the Noughties films. Smeagol and Gollums

personal arguments are absolutely hilarious beyond belief, and had me rolling around onthe floor laughing.Sir Ian McKellen (I usually ignore the sir but, you know, its Gandalf!) is amazing as alwaysas the ol guy, and cameos from Sir Christopher Lee, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving and (should be)Dame Cate Blanchett really add to the small amount the atmosphere the film has. RichardArmitages performance as Thorin gets better and the film progresses, and by the end is verygood indeed.

The main problems I had with the film were the length, the repetitiveness of everythingfrom the music to the dialogue to the fighting and how unsurprised I was by the eventsthat occurred. I predicted exactly how it would end, with us catching a glimpse of Smaugseye, and I left feeling a bit bored. Who am I kidding, a lot bored. The film has received noGolden Globe noms, and I can see why. It feels like a decent Christmas blockbuster whichI wouldnt mind seeing a few times again, but its not the well-made masterpiece, the workof art that Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings films were. All that said, it was nowhere near asbad as George Lucas first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace. There is no Jar-Jar Binksequivalent in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. PUT THAT ON YOUR POSTER, WARNERBROTHERS!


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THE BATTLE OFTHE FIVE ARMIESThe first person to appear onscreen in TheHobbit Part II: The Desolation of Smaug in3D, High Frame Rate 3D, IMAX 3D and 2D inselected theatres (as it should be referredto) is its director, Peter Jackson. Jackson hascameoed in all of his previous four Middle-Earth adventures, but the fact that he hasnow put himself in such a prime and obvi-ous position is a sign of his new vanity andarrogance, caused by the fact that, in 2012,another of his films crossed a billion dol-lars at the worldwide box office, despitebeing- frankly- one of the worst films of theyear. Jacksons vanity results in much posi-tive content in this newest installment, butalso some problems carried through fromAn Unexpected Journey.

We begin with an entirely unnecessary andincoherent prologue involving a meetingbetween Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield,in the Bree pub from Fellowship, one yearbefore the events of the previous film.Nothing much happens here, but consid-ering that the film would otherwise haveLITERALLY NO BEGINNING, it serves a pur-

pose. Cut to present day, and Bilbo Baggins,Gandalf and the Dwarves 13 are hidingfrom Orcs on the side of the road. They seekrefuge in the house of Beorn The Bear-Manbefore heading into Mirkwood. This portion

of the story was supposed to come at theend of Journey, and is hence rushed throughquite briskly and cut in a desperate way, soas the dialogue comes across as being trulyawful. Who knows? Maybe the dialogue wasawful in the first place, but compared withthe rest of the film (and even Journey), itsREALLY bad!

As soon as the New Fellowship enterMirkwood, they encounter some delightfuland cuddly GIANT TALKING ARACHNIDSwho proceed to try and kill them. Apartfrom the arachnophobe-bothering nuisanceof these creatures, the Mirkwood scenes are

fantastic, with Martin Freemans Bilbo suf-fering psychedelic hallucinations involvingButterflies! Now were getting someplace!Oh, and look whos finally coming to sayhello: LEGOLAS! OH HOW WEVE MISSEDYOU! I have no problem admitting thatOrlando Blooms Legolas is one of myfavourite film characters of the century,and one I have unsuccessfully attempted tomodel my image on in the past. I cried withjoy at the thought of his arrow-shooting,wisecrack-cracking self returning to mycinema screen this year when it was firstannounced, and seeing the awesome pair-ing of him and one of my favourite Lost


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stars, Evangeline Lilly as She-Elf Tauriel, fighting their way into Smaug was almost toomuch to handle. Unfortunately, Legolas really doesnt do much during the film, and ismostly just there to (a) enhance the Rings nostalgia that was Journeys sole saving gracebut that isnt really required here and (b) give Tauriel something to do in the area of char-acter development. Lilly is a great actress (although the pathetically immature introduc-tory conversation between her and love-struck Dwarf Kili almost ruins her performance)and is, genuinely, beautiful enough to be an Elf, but the not-in-the-book Tauriels onlyreal job is to fire arrows and kick stuff. Mind you, she does it excellently, but an interest-ing backstory would have been nice! Lee Paces Elven King Thranduil is also somewhatunderused, but has such a role that we know all three bad-ass Elves will return in 2014sThere and Back Again).Overall, The Desolation of Smaug couldnt be less about the characters. That was Journeysjob: introducing Freemans Bilbo to the wider world of Middle-Earth, setting up the char-acters of the Dwarves and bringing Ian McKellens Gandalf out of retirement. Smaug isall about moving the story forward, a difficult task as it turns out, involving many hoursof viewers time and a large amount of fake spider-web. Anyway, this film does for Peter

Jacksons Middle-Earth both what Thor: The Dark World did for the Avengers films (mov-

ing the story along after a suitably disappointing follow-up to a classic) and what Attackof the Clones did for George Lucas- a man who Peter Jackson could be compared to- andhis Star Wars (be the superior second prequel after a bad first prequel to an amazingtrilogy with a slightly inferior third film).

After their encounter with the Elves, the New Fellowship (now missing Gandalf who haseither gone off to shoot X-Men: Days of Future Past or to appear briefly later on whilstexploring the terrifying ruins of Dol Guldur, now inhabited by the spirit of a pleasantlyfamiliar Middle-Earthean foe) arrive in Laketown, a gorgeously realised Venice-alike ruledby Stephen Fry and guarded by Luke Evans Bard, an extremely minor character from thenovel whose role has been massively inflated to provide an Aragorn replacement forthis and the next film. Evans, like almost all the actors in the film, never really gets thechance to show off his skills, but his character- a widower with two young daughters whosmuggles people into the town to provide for his family- could provide some interestingplot, if there is time (but why talk about time in what is basically a 9-hour film?).

The Desolation of Smaug starts off pretty bad, improving as it goes along until it reachesits peak- in terms of story, acting, script and visual beauty- when Bilbo enters The Halls ofErebor, home of Petes Dragon, the vicious wyrm Smaug (pronounced smOWg, just so youknow) and is forced to persuade Benedict Cumberbatchs gigantic beast to NOT MURDEREVERYONE! Cumberbatch has proven himself a magnificent screen presence a milliontimes over, and this carries through to his voice (and motion capture) work here. Smaugweaves his way through the lair with gold pouring down his back, deep in narcissisticconversation with Freeman as Bilbo (giving a genuinely great turn and proving himselfonce again to be the standout of this trilogy), who is searching for the Arkenstone- which,we know, sounds like something from a Marvel sequel! The Smaug portion of the filmlasts a very long time, but is the equivalent of Gollums film-redeeming scene in Journey,and is completely worth the effort. This is where Jackson spoils himself the most, andtakes the audiences respect for his directorial opinion for granted. His cliffhanger endingproves that he FULLY knows that everyone brave enough to return after the 2012 messhe released under the banner of a film has been won over enough to come back a thirdtime. What he will fill the expected 3-hours of There and Back Again, no-one knows, but

if its anything like The Desolation of Smaug, hes welcome to split that film into a 9-hourtrilogy.

Actually, hes not. No, Pete! Dont do it! We were only joking!


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STAR WARS: THEFORCE AWAKENS

F I R S

T L O O

K !


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IN NEXT MO


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THS ISSUE

AVENGE

2+REVIEW OF THE YEAR 2014


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movie taco: december 2014

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