Category: 2010s

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The Boxtrolls (2014)

In the hilltop town of Cheesebridge, the human denizens fear the Boxtrolls, humanoid creatures who wear discarded boxes for clothing, who are rumored to have kidnapped a baby. Instead it’s the underground-living, peace-loving Boxtrolls, and the orphaned boy whom they have raised from infancy, who must fear the human Snatchers who are swiping trolls for nefarious purposes. An ugly bit of stop-motion animation distracts from a fairly charming albeit predictable story. Narratively, it reminds me a lot of Aardman productions, especially in its somewhat silly comedy parts.

Oscar Nomination: Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

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Political Animals (2012)

Obviously influenced by the career of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady and current Secretary of State Sigourney Weaver eyes a second run for the White House, juggling her political aspirations with the demands of her messed-up family. I had gone into this miniseries feeling that the premise along with a cast that also includes Ciarán Hinds, Ellen Burstyn, and Carla Gugino would have to be compelling. Instead, it’s a fairly standard nighttime soap opera, focusing more on family melodrama than the politics and power of its main character. The production feels set up for a multi-season arc, but not one I would have been interested in pursuing.

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Cyndi Lauper – Front and Center Live (2013)

Thirty years after recording the iconic She’s So Unusual album, Cyndi Lauper celebrated by performing the entire album from start to finish for the first time at New York City’s Highline Ballroom. While certainly not the best concert film I’ve ever seen, it’s still a great chance to see Cyndi performing all of the well-known songs off of the album. She obviously has an incredible amount of talent and I’d love to see her in a bigger, more extravagant production.   Music

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Louise by the Shore (2016)

On the last day of summer at a seaside resort, the elderly Louise misses her train to return home. Making the best of a bad situation, she builds a shack on the beach and lives there with her new-found dog companion until the next summer’s guests begin to arrive. I’m not sure how this got on my radar nor whether in the end if it was worth my time. It’s a gentle, attractively rendered piece of animation that offers plenty of reflection on a life lived and where our choices lead us, but it also has includes too many necessary suspensions of belief to ignore.

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The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014) – Rewatch

Perpetually angry Robin Williams is told by his stressed and drugged out doctor Mila Kunis that he has ninety minutes to live, so he sets out trying to connect one last time with his family, including wife Melissa Leo and brother Peter Dinklage. Criminally underutilizing its entire cast, except for maybe James Earl Jones in a small role, I had completely forgotten I had already seen the film until the very ending that is memorable for its bizarre wrap-up. Because of the theme of death, it resonates as one of Williams’s last films. Fortunately there are much better choices in his filmography that both showcase his talent and touch on such themes that this one can just be skipped.

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Burlesque (2010)

Christina Aguilera moves from Iowa to Los Angeles looking for something more and finds it in a burlesque club run by Cher. I can’t imagine this is anyone’s idea of a good movie. Each scene feels like it was made by a cliché generator and the various plots only held together by the most nebulous of threads. Christina with all her singing talent is not made for acting let alone as a lead. The dance sequences aren’t bad and some of the songs are catchy, though at least three of them essentially share the same title as the film. At least Alan Cumming and Stanley Tucci seem to be aware exactly what type of movie they’re in and they play it to perfection.  Musical

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If a Tree Falls: a Story of the Environmental Liberation Front (2011)

The recent history of the Environmental Liberation Front in the United States is chronicled here, particularly as it relates to the case of Daniel McGowan, an activist who was sentenced to seven years in jail on terrorism charges for his work with the group. An engaging documentary, for better or worse, it doesn’t stray too far into choosing a side between the activists or the companies they are fighting against. If anything the biggest enemy in the film is the overzealous justice system aggressively pursuing the activists years after committing crimes that didn’t physically hurt anyone. In particular, one detective shown is over gleeful in how McGowan’s partners were trapped into turning on each other.

Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary, Features

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The Book of Eli (2010)

Years after a nuclear holocaust, Denzel Washington travels westerly across the former United States protecting the last remaining copy of the Bible from people like Gary Oldman who would use the book for his own nefarious reasons. Some nifty action sequences, effective barren cinematography, and a pretty cool twist are marred somewhat by the silliness of the religious aspects. It really begs the extremes of disbelief that a book found in 90% of the households in a country would manage to all be destroyed except for one or that all the Christians would mysteriously disappear in thirty years. Luckily Washington and Oldman both bring their A games though and make the experience worthwhile.  SciFi  Action

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Farewell Meu Amor (2016)/The Market King (2014)/Suspense (2011)

Included on the DVD for Farewell Amor were these three earlier shorts from director Ekwa Msangi. Farewell Meu Amor could be considered a prequel to the feature film where a man is preparing to reunite with his family while also having to say goodbye to the life he has built without them. The Market King is the sole comedy of the set where a well-intended father takes his daughter to get her hair done for school while his wife is sick. Set against the upheaval of the 2007-2008 Kenyan crisis, Suspense is a brutal portrayal of the tough choices that must be made at such times and the consequences that ripple afterward. As varied as the films are, taken as a whole they showcase a bold voice representing new takes on African stories.

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Too Big to Fail (2011)

Told mostly from the perspective of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (portrayed by the great William Hurt), this film chronicles the 2008 financial crisis, particularly the interactions between the government and the banks. With an incredibly stacked cast, this somehow came across more accessibly than other films I’ve watched about the crisis. It helps that the various lectures trying to put things in layman’s terms were kept in the general flow of the narrative. It also doesn’t pretend at all that the darts thrown blindly at the problem did anything more than put on a temporary band-aid on it, setting up for bigger and worse issues festering and swelling underneath.

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