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If the goal of the sequel in a dystopian trilogy is to enhance the audience’s understanding of this fictional world and its belief system, then Insurgent missed the mark. In fact, the most noticeable difference between the plot, characters, and general feel of this film and its predecessor, is Shailene Woodley’s new haircut. Work it, girl!
If Nicholas Sparks had written Disturbia, I suspect it would have looked a lot like The Boy Next Door. In reality, I feel like Jennifer Lopez went to her agent, and said, “I’m still pretty damn hot, could we make a movie about that?” Fortunately for the likely 100% female audience that attended, Ryan Guzman, the fresh face they got to play her young stalker, is damn gorgeous as well.
Leaving Birdman, I was a little bit frustrated. It has one of those open endings where you’re supposed to fill in the blanks, and those have never been ideal for me. What’s most frustrating about this fact is just how good the rest of the film is. It’s like when you finish a delicious cup of coffee then go for that last bit left in the cup, and when it hits your tongue, you realize how bad of a decision you just made because all of the sweetener had settled down in the bottom. However, if open endings are your thing, then you’re in luck, because you will have watched a great movie that comes to a satisfying ending.
Make out scene in the rain? Check. Parents who disapprove of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks? Check. Boy from the wrong side of the tracks—who’s pretty hot? Check.
To clear up any genre-confusion regarding The Skeleton Twins, it is a weighty drama which happens to feature funny actors. The film, which stars Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, follows two estranged siblings who try to reconnect after one attempts suicide. Twins has the feel of many indie projects. It’s emotional, raw and aims to say something real about life and its relationships. Occasionally, the cinematography tries a bit too hard, but, by and large, its narrative feels authentic.
There are a lot of jokes about bad movies, but the truly terrible film that is “The Identical” is no laughing matter. The one exception to that may be the hysterical presence of Seth Green, whose random yet significant appearance in the movie, forces me to assume he lost some sort of bet.
The flick is about Tris (Shailene Woodley), a young girl born into a dystopia where the motto is “faction before blood.” The factions in “Divergent” equate to districts in “The Hunger Games”—it’s how the society is divided. And yes, you guessed it, Tris just does not fit the mold—she’s a “divergent,” she “diverges” from the norm, and if two paths “diverged,” I bet she’d take the one less traveled. Basically, in this world, children are born into factions, and then at age 16 they’re subjected to a test that identifies which faction the children should join based on their personalities. A dangerous rarity is being divergent: not fitting a faction. Beatrice keeps this result a secret and chooses the Dauntless faction: the brave warriors who protect society. Chaos ensues.
Dir. Stephen Frears
Well it’s about time Rachel McAdams broke out of her typecast and starred in a romantic comedy. It’s been a whole two movies since “The Vow” disappointed audiences everywhere. However, her latest project “About Time” looked promising. From the writer of “Notting Hill,” “Love Actually,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and so many more, I was expecting a home run—especially with the hilarious Bill Nighy serving as a supporting player. Unfortunately, the movie was great until about halfway through. It may have had something to do with the baby—babies ruin everything—or the cancer. But somewhere around the climax, everything slowed down.
“People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they’re really saying is that something you didn’t want to happen at all…has happened.” Now that’s a quote from Nora Ephron’s “You’ve Got Mail,” and that quote and that movie are exactly the right way to transition into the issue at hand. Somewhere around the turn of the century, something changed in pop culture. Yes, things are always changing in pop culture, but in this particular scenario I feel acknowledgement must be shown: two types of films died in order to make way for the raunchy Judd Apatow comedies of the last decade.
Dir. Paul GreengrassColumbia Pictures4/5 stars
From the co-writer of "The Kids are All Right" comes Stuart Blumberg's latest, the new off-beat rom-com “Thanks for Sharing.” Starring Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow, "Thanks for Sharing" centers on a group of recovering sex addicts as they travel the bumpy chafe-ridden road to sex sobriety.
Beginning. Middle. End. Those are the three components of a story. Teachers have reinforced that fact in our minds year after year. We see it reflected in our lives: dawn-day-night and birth-life-death. The concept is used in the books we read, the TV we watch and the movies we see. Now, by no means am I setting out to attest that this is a bad thing. I enjoy books, TV and movies, and usually the most successful ones have the strongest sense of structure. But at the moment, I am completing a course in which I will write a feature length screenplay, and the structure to which my class was introduced—and its application to practically every single movie that’s out there—honestly shocked me. Yes, we all know that romantic comedies follow a formula and that every “Law & Order: SVU” episode is basically the exact same show. But when it comes to movies, it’s not just the cliché stories that fit the formula but the Oscar noms too. Here’s how it works.
Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” will make its Duke debut this November. The show is in the very early stages of rehearsal, but the performance promises to be a memorable one.
Woody Allen’s presence was keenly felt in the Bernie Madoff-inspired film “Blue Jasmine.” The music, cinematography and tone are exactly what audiences have come to recognize from this iconic writer/director. However, while his character-driven films usually either move me to tears or to laughter, “Blue Jasmine” left something to be desired.
Oblivion—the sci-fi story of Jack Harper (Tom Cruise), a drone repairman who works alongside his partner and lover Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) to protect earth’s remaining resources after an alien war—is a little tough to describe. Too much plot description, and I’m afraid I’ll ruin the many many twists and turns that drive this otherwise stagnate film forward, and too little might lead you to think this is the action-packed War of the Worlds 4 the trailers advertised. Instead, the story is more about Jack’s journey to uncover a conspiracy and discover the life and love he lost when everyone’s memories were wiped clean five years ago.
Durham’s own Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has grown with every passing year, inevitably drawing submissions from Duke itself. This year, that includes Erin Espelie, instructor, visiting artist and MFA candidate in the Experimental and Documentary Arts. Full Frame will mark the North American premiere of her documentary, True-Life Adventure.
Science fiction and (Stephanie Meyer’s favorite) love triangles come together to create a very long two hours with The Host. As human bodies are taken over by alien souls, their eyes turn blue, and the audience’s eyes roll—both back in their heads as they fall asleep and from side to side as the protagonist and uninspired “hot guy number one” make out in the rain for the second time.
The act of war conjures up brutal imagery of death and violence—the focal point of most war films. Emperor, while undeniably a war film, chooses to move away from the battlefield. It provides insight into the end of World War II and examines the resulting devastation and the duties of the still-occupying armies. Set after the Japanese surrender, Emperor follows the story of General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox) and his investigation of Emperor Hirohito (Takatarô Kataoka) as a war criminal.
In the wake of Duke’s own scandal about race, Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park feels all too relevant as a played concerned with racial tension. Often considered a response to Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, the play picks up where Raisin left off. A 1950s white neighborhood is coping with—or not coping with—the imminent arrival of an African-American family. In Act II, the play fasts forward to what would be considered the present day; this time, a white couple is negotiating construction contracts with a black couple who represents the neighborhood’s homeowner association. Although the conversation is different, the racial conflicts are identical, commenting on the lack of progress even as eras change. What’s most surprising, perhaps, is that Clybourne Park is funny.
