Young Adult

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 14 of 14.



Young Adult, 2011. An alcoholic former prom queen desperately tries to recapture her youth by breaking up her ex's marriage.

Directed by Jason Reitman. Written by Diablo Cody. Starring Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt & Patrick Wilson.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 4/4 (Great)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 4/4 (Great). Theron turns a character that might have been grating into something iconic. Her bitterness is so ridiculously extreme that you even root for her a little.
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). For a film which is basically nothing but a horrible person being horrible, it's not bad. There's a lot of humor, and a lot of cringe-inducing; the scales tip in favor of humor most of the time.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.7/4 (Good)

Warrior

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 13 of 14.



Warrior, 2011. Estranged brothers compete in a mixed martial arts tournament.

Directed by Gavin O'Connor. Written by O'Connor, Anthony Tambakis & Cliff Dorfman; story by O'Connor & Dorfman. Starring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy & Nick Nolte.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 3/4 (Good). The basic story's been done before a million times, but hasn't been done this well since Rocky.
Characters: 4/4 (Great)
Dialog: 4/4 (Great)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent). The fights are so good, I feel a little cheated that we don't see all of them. Meanwhile, the Concerned Wife scenes are awful.
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 4/4 (Great)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 8/10 (Great, 4/4). Pretty damn exciting.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.4/4 (Very good)

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 12 of 14.



Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, 2011. A couple of guys are mistaken for psychotic, murderous hillbillies.

Directed by Eli Craig. Written by Craig & Morgan Jurgenson. Starring Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden & Jesse Moss.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 1/4 (Bad). Most of the acting is perfectly good, except that a lot of the people in this movie have a charisma vacuum. Watching them makes me cringe.
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Amateurish production, but pretty funny.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.8/4 (Eh)

Tabloid

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 11 of 14.



Tabloid, 2011. Conflicting stories of an alleged abduction are told.

Directed by Errol Morris.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: n/a (arguably)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Meh. If you've seen the trailer, the movie doesn't have anything more to offer.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)

Submarine

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 10 of 14.



Submarine, 2011. A teenager worries about his parents' marriage at the expense of his own relationship.

Written & directed by Richard Ayoade, based on a book by Joe Dunthorne. Starring Craig Roberts & Yasmin Paige.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). It goes through the motions of a movie I should like, but it doesn't work. An occasional good sense of humor makes it more-or-less watchable.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.5/4 (Okay)

Shame

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 9 of 14.



Shame, 2011. A sex-obsessed man doesn't get along with his sister.

Directed by Steve McQueen. Written by McQueen & Abi Morgan. Starring Michael Fassbender & Carey Mulligan.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 2/4 (Indifferent). Excellently realized, but with no development to speak of.
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad). In the few great scenes, the pacing works wonderfully. Most of the movie feels like filler, though, and the slow pace is just slow.
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 4/4 (Great)
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 4/10 (Eh, 2/4). It's very well made, but unpleasant to watch (though not quite as unpleasant as I'd expected - we're not talking Requiem for a Dream levels of horrible) and without anything to make me give any fucks about it (apart from a singing Carey Mulligan).
Objective Rating (Average): 2.5/4 (Okay)

A Separation

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 8 of 14.



Jodaeiye Nader az Simin, 2011. An Iranian man separated from his wife gets involved in legal trouble with his father's caretaker.

Written & directed by Asghar Farhadi. Starring Peyman Moadi, Leila Hatami, Sareh Bayat, Shahab Hosseini & Sarina Farhadi.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 4/4 (Great)
Characters: 4/4 (Great)
Dialog: 4/4 (Great)
Pacing: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great). Yes, it's all handheld (which I usually hate), but it's never distracting and often striking.
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 4/4 (Great)
Music: 3/4 (Good). There's almost none, which is good.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Hardly fun to watch, but very good.  There's none of the unpleasantness I expect from a movie that's basically two hours of Angry People Being Angry.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.3/4 (Very good)

Senna

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 7 of 14.



Senna, 2011. The career of a Formula 1 driver.

Directed by Asif Kapadia. Written by Manish Pandey.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). It's a perfectly good story, but not good enough to make a documentary out of - at least, not a documentary that I'd like.
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: n/a. Except for titles, entirely archive footage.
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: n/a
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Never boring, but I was underwhelmed. Ayrton Senna and his nemesis Alain Prost are interesting, but I found them both extremely unlikable - which would have been irrelevant, except that the filmmakers so obviously idolize Senna. My wife complains that after watching it, she still knows nothing about Formula 1. I'm not sure about that, but we agree that the movie is, contrary to every review I've read, for people who already care about racing.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.3/4 (Okay)

Project Nim

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 6 of 14.



Project Nim, 2011. The life of a chimpanzee raised as a human.

Directed by James Marsh. Based on a book by Elizabeth Hess.

Concept: 3/4 (Good)
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 3/4 (Good)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: n/a
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Fascinating, and made with apparent objectivity. It's a powerful and sad story, but ultimately not as much of a downer of a movie as it might have been.
Objective Rating (Average): 3.0/4

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 5 of 14.



Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, 2011. Four secret agents hunt down a would-be nuclear terrorist.

Directed by Brad Bird. Written by Josh Appelbaum & André Nemec, based on a TV show by Bruce Geller. Starring Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg & Jeremy Renner.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 0/4 (Terrible)
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good)
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). There's some truly great action. And some not-so-great action. It's often not entirely clear why everything is happening, but that's probably just as well. I expect that if we had a chance to think about the plot, it would make about as much sense as the climax: a lengthy, brutal fist fight between an old man and a guy that can take out a room full of badasses without breaking a sweat.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.1/4 (Okay)

Jane Eyre

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 4 of 14.



Jane Eyre, 2011. A mysterious man puts moves on his ward's governess.

Directed by Cary Fukunaga. Written by Moira Buffini, based on a book by Charlotte Brontë. Starring Mia Wasikowska & Michael Fassbender.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad). Oh, a 19th-Century love story. That's been filmed about 20 times already. Why do I care?
Story: 3/4 (Good)
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent). So damn melodramatic.
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great)
Special effects/design: 4/4 (Great)
Acting: 3/4 (Good). There's a hint of great performances, probably botched by the director and/or editor.
Music: 4/4 (Great)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). Very pretty, but dull. I expect I would have liked it less if I had had any familiarity with Jane Eyre before watching it.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.7/4 (Good)

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 3 of 14.



Cave of Forgotten Dreams, 2011. A film crew gets access to ancient cave paintings.

Written by, directed by & starring Werner Herzog.

Concept: 2/4 (Indifferent). It's great that this footage was made and released, but it's not really suited to a feature film.
Story: 0/4 (Terrible). No story.
Characters: 1/4 (Bad). Not that kind of movie (although Herzog does have a way of bringing out his subjects' weirdness).
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent). It might not have been possible to do better under the circumstances, but I was decidedly unimpressed by the photography. It probably doesn't help that we saw in on video (therefor in 2D), and recently watched Planet Earth.
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). We get a brief glimpse of a computer-generated 3D map of the cave, created by "laser scans," which is pretty cool. It's very frustrating that they didn't do more with that.
Acting: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 6/10 (Okay, 2/4). I highly recommend it to see the cave, which is awesome. Sadly, it's not much of a movie. About half cave footage, and half Werner Herzog being all Werner Herzog-y.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.9/4 (Eh)

The Adventures of Tintin

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 2 of 14.



The Adventures of Tintin, 2011. Goodguys and badguys race to find a secret treasure.

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish. Starring Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis & Daniel Craig.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad). Making a Tintin movie: good concept. Making any movie using entirely motion capture: bad concept. Making an action/adventure movie using entirely motion capture: terrible concept.
Story: 1/4 (Bad)
Characters: 1/4 (Bad). I felt like these characters could have been very charming. But they're not.
Dialog: 1/4 (Bad)
Pacing: 1/4 (Bad)
Cinematography: 3/4 (Good). The action scenes are a mess, but there are some lovely images in the movie.
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good). Most of it is great, but I can't give full points on account of the Epic Animation Fail.
Acting: 0/4 (Terrible). The actors are mediocre (Bell and Craig in particular bring nothing to their roles). But the animators... were there even animators involved? Or did they just film the motion capture and leave everything to computers? Whatever they did, it didn't work. It's like watching cardboard cutouts. Beautifully painted cardboard cutouts, but still cutouts.
Music: 3/4 (Good)
Subjective Rating: 5/10 (Indifferent, 2/4). I didn't have much fun.
Objective Rating (Average): 1.6/4 (Eh)

50/50

From my 2011 Leftovers Marathon, part 1 of 14.



50/50, 2011. A guy gets deadly cancer and has a cute therapist.

Directed by Jonathan Levine. Written by Will Reiser. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen & Anna Kendrick.

Concept: 1/4 (Bad)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). Predictable, but without causing much harm to the movie.
Characters: 4/4 (Great)
Dialog: 4/4 (Great)
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Special effects/design: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Acting: 4/4 (Great)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent). The score's good, but they also use crappy 90's alternative.
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Emotional, honest, and also pretty funny.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.7/4 (Good)

VSM: 2011 Leftovers

It's the middle of the year, and that means it's finally becoming possible to watch movies from last year.  (One does miss out on quite a bit when living two hours away from the nearest decent theater.)

Very Slow Marathon #10 - 2011 Leftovers
[note: You can find this list from the sidebar, under "Very Slow Marathons."]

- 50/50
- The Adventures of Tintin
- Cave of Forgotten Dreams
- Jane Eyre
- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
- Project Nim
- Senna
- A Separation
- Shame
- Submarine
- Tabloid
- Tucker and Dale vs Evil
- Warrior
- Young Adult