The Grey (2012)

Trying a new format here, see how I feel about it.  Less verbalizing, more boiling it down.

Directed by: Joe Carnahan (do watch his excellent Narc, avoid watching the terrible Smokin’ Aces)

Written by: Carnahan co-wrote the screenplay with Ian Mackenzie Jeffers who adapted his own short story “Ghost Walker”

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Joe Anderson, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, James Badge Dale

What it’s about: A plane transporting Alaskan oil drillers crashes, and the survivors must battle both nature (the titular grey wolves) and the elements for survival

B-Movie Alternate Title: The Grey Wolves Attack!

Movie Mash Up: Frozen + Alive + A Lonely Place to Die with a little bit of Neeson badassery from Taken thrown in there

What I liked: gritty, dark, excellently shot, decent enough acting for what’s asked of the actors in this type of movie, Liam Neeson as a man questioning faith while attempting to lead these oil drillers to survival in the Arctic wilderness, tense.

What I disliked: the aforementioned “questioning faith” aspect felt a bit tacked on, some of the wolves didn’t appear as realistic as they should have, and how goddamn cold watching it made me (which is more a compliment to the cinematography)

Would I recommend it to everyone?: Yup, unless you have something against Liam Neeson being a bad ass.

Rating: 4 / 5

Shame (2011)

Here is another in a long line of movies that went unrecognised by the Academy Awards, and in the case of this film, it is quite obvious why it happened.  The Oscars are an American invention, and if there’s anything that is frowned upon in American movies, it is explicit sexual acts.  A man’s naked penis tends to be the butt of many “jokes”, displayed in it’s flaccid state, usually belonging to some old dude or terribly unattractive man.  When the penis is taken seriously, whoa nelly, we have ourselves an NC-17 film and that is essentially the kiss of death for it making back its money, because many theatres will not play an NC-17-rated film.  It’s okay for them to show any number of films that have disturbingly large amounts of violence, but no way do we show the WANG on multiplex screens.  ANYWAYS, moving on from the hypocrisy of American movies onto the sham that the Oscars are.

Michael Fassbender should have been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for his performance in Shame.  I’ve seen three of the performances that were nominated (not the winner, yet), and Fassbender’s performance as Brandon – a sex addict whose everyday functionality is beginning to be threatened by his compulsive addiction – was easily better than those three, no offense to George Clooney, Gary Oldman, or Brad Pitt.  Fassbender puts so much complexity and longing into his character, it nearly took my mind off of how much I – scarily – related to Brandon’s interactions with women and views on marriage/relationships.

Carey Mulligan should have been nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Brandon’s sister, Sissy.  In the case of the Best Actress nominees, I saw four of nominated performances, including the winner.  Meryl Streep should not have won for The Iron Lady, and the only performance that was close to Mulligan’s was Viola Davis’ in The Help.

I still have yet to see The Artist, so I have no idea whether or not director Michel Hazanavicius actually deserved his win, but I did see three of the other nominees.  Terrence Malick’s nomination for The Tree of Life was terrible, but Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne deserved theirs for Hugo and The Descendants, respectively.  I hate to use the word in this review because it will come across as a pun, but it is an atrocious shame that Steve McQueen was not nominated for a Best Director Oscar.  The performances he got out of Fassbender and Mulligan were nothing short of heart-stopping.  Five minutes after finishing the film I took a deep breath and realised I had been in such a tense, taut state since the end of Shame that it surprised me.

It is not a movie that you will probably want to re-watch anytime soon after viewing it.  It is a powerful, well-written and directed movie with absolutely intoxicating performances that will linger with you for days afterwards.  It’s not a fast-paced movie at all, more languid and sexual, but well-deserving of all the accolades it has been given.

5 / 5

The Departed (2006)

Here’s something I wrote in the Long Ago about The Departed, and after re-watching it, it is still how I feel.

With five Oscar nominations heading into tomorrow night’s Academy Awards ceremony, The Departed certainly has developed the reputation of an excellent movie. I was somewhat leery about watching it, worried that it would be another in a long line of Best Picture nominees that were clearly well-made, well-acted movies but were only borderline entertaining. Add in that it was a Martin Scorsese-directed film and I was even more worried that I wouldn’t like it since I’m not the biggest fan of Scorsese’s most popular movies. Thankfully all that worrying was for naught as Scorsese has finally made a movie that is an entertaining – albeit derivative – movie.

Actually, saying that’s derivative is pretty redundant as The Departed is a remake of Infernal Affairs, a Japanese movie released in 2002. Unlike the recent Americanization of Japanese movies (The Ring, The Grudge) it has nothing to do with creepy off-putting children scaring the bejezus out of you. Departed just has Jack Nicholson doing his best Tony Montana-descent into madness performance, with a stellar supporting cast grounding the movie in the wonderful cinematic environment of Boston.

It’s the tale of two cops, with Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) infilitrating the Boston police force on behalf of crime boss Frank Costello (Nicholson) and the other, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) going the other way and immersing himself into Costello’s gang. The story takes place over a few years, but thankfully it doesn’t feel like your typical epic Scorsese movie, time is actually heavily compressed in this movie. Sullivan’s on the inside helping Costello keep a half-step ahead of the Boston cops, while Costigan sacrifices his identity for the Special Investigations department, headed up by the fatherly Olvier Queenan (Martin Sheen) and the foul-mouthed Dignam (Mark Wahlberg).

It’s an intriguing story made all the better by the excellent performances of the entire cast. I’ve never been a Mark Wahlberg fan, but I’d definitely be casting my vote for him to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year and those are words that it kills me to type. The most enjoyable performance for me personally was Alec Baldwin, probably his best small part performance since Glengarry Glen Ross. I still have no idea how Matt Damon wasn’t nominated for his role, other than maybe DiCaprio’s performance split the vote but DiCaprio was nominated for his part in Blood Diamond so it beats the hell out of me.

The only two problems I had with the movie are spoilerish in nature, but definitely made the movie feel cartoony with one of the major characters semi-goofy – but heart-wrenching – death as well as the last shot of the movie. Those two sections definitely lend credence to Scorsese personally referring to The Departed as his “B-movie”, but it’s still one of the worthier Best Picture-nominated movies in recent years. It’s entertaining, delivers an engaging story with electric performances and it’s one of those movies that you could see yourself re-watching over and over again.

4.5 / 5