Tag Archives: Keira Knightley

Collateral Beauty

collateral-beauty-trailer While searching for Will Smith’s filmography, I was surprised to see the pleasure with which critics are tearing this movie apart. The reason I was looking for Smith’s info was to try to figure out whether Collateral Beauty is his best dramatic performance (and I quickly realized that since I haven’t seen Ali, I’m disqualified from weighing in on that topic). With that lead-in, it probably goes without saying that I again think it’s been too long since the critics were thrown a juicy morsel, they’re searching for anything to bite down on as a result, and Collateral Beauty has been flagged as an easy target.

Collateral Beauty is not a great movie by any means, but it’s very watchable for several reasons. First, Smith reminds us that he can hold his own against anyone, no matter how many Oscar nominations/wins they may have (his co-stars in Collateral Beauty, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren and Keira Knightly, have two Oscar wins and countless nominations between them – incidentally, how does Michael Pena not have any yet?). Smith is consistently the most interesting person on screen even though for a significant portion of the movie he doesn’t say a word.

Second, there’s something undeniably watchable as the movie tries to take aim at cliches, even when it does so by using other cliches. Perhaps it’s just that the cliches that bother me the most were the ones under attack. I can’t really say any more without spoiling some of the characters’ arcs, so if you want more of a rant on that point then feel free to request more details in the comments section.

Third, I found out early on that I was wrong about how the movie’s plot would play out in a major way, which almost never happens nowadays due to the sheer number of trailers foisted on me (especially when half of them have no qualms about spoiling the best parts of the movie they’re promoting). On a related note, seeing a movie in Hawaii earlier this week was sobering because I think they showed every trailer currently in rotation. I am sure Canadian theatres will soon follow suit and it’s already too much here! Just let me watch the movie I paid for already.

Since I’ve started complaining (it never takes too long), it seems like a good time to talk about negatives from Collateral Beauty, and there are some significant ones. The bigggest problem is that Smith’s character’s supposed friends treat him in the worst way imaginable during the worst time of his life, and it seems we are supposed to forgive them for it. The film attempts to make it easier for us to do that but its method requires a major swerve by Smith’s character that came too quickly to feel natural, as well as a twist that seemed too convenient a fix.

That same convenient fix also transformed the tertiary characters’ motivations from awful to divine and again the turn felt too abrupt. While it made thematic sense and actually tied the movie together well, the execution was too rough to be satisfying (and it also gave rise to a new (/old) complaint about the trailer that I can’t discuss without getting into spoilers so again, comment if you’re curious to hear more of a rant on this point).

All in all, Collateral Beauty is worth a watch and is definitely not deserving of the hatred it’s receiving from critics. It’s quite decent and gets bonus points for making me choke up a few times (something that doesn’t happen very often). Sure, it’s cheating a bit by focusing on death and loss, but Collateral Beauty is intended as a tearjerker and wholeheartedly embraces its nature. Is that such a bad thing? I don’t think so.

Collateral Beauty knows what it is and delivers exactly what you’d expect. If you’re in the mood for a sob story then this is your horse. I think riding this teary pony wore Jay out, though, so be prepared if you’re a real cryer like Jay as opposed to a robot who occasionally feels sad (which is the category Jay has put me in and I’ve really got no valid argument against it – beep-boop).

Collateral Beauty gets a score of six teary-eyed robots out of ten.

Oscars 2015: Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress

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In recent years, you can burn out on online Oscar debates before the nominees have even started writing their speeches yet but in 1995 all I had was Siskel and Ebert and Entertainment Tongith. I was 13 years old and hadn’t seen most of the movies but the way they talked about Oscar night, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I laughed through Letterman’s monolgue (probably pretending to get some of the jokes), had strong opinions on Pulp Fiction and Shawkshank Redemption without having seen either one, and celebrated when my two favourites (The Lion King and Speed) each took home two statues. Awards season has been like Christmas for me ever since.

Now, I watch all the movies or at least as many as I can. No category is too minor for me and have sat through more shiity movies than I can count just because they were nominated for best Costume Design or Makeup. I don’t always agree with the winners and have found myself yelling at the tv more than once but I’m back every year with a renewed- and delusional- hope that this time justice will be done.

Best Supporting Actor
Robert Duvall- The Judge

Ethan Hawke- Boyhood

Edward Norton- Birdman

Mark Ruffalo- Foxcatcher

J. K. Simmons- Whiplash

This category has been one of the surest bets of the night for years now. Recent winners include Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men, Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds, and Jared Leto for last year’s Dallas Buyers Club. Even before the nominations were announced, no one had a chance against any of these guys and with J. K. Simmons as an undisputed frontrunner, this year is no exception.

He deserves it too. I finally got around to seeing Whiplash a couple of days ago and was on edge almost every time Simmons was on screen. He’s intimidating even when he’s not being overtly mean and scary even when he’s making you laugh. Best of all, he’s unpredictable, which is more than I can say for the Best Supporting Actor race this year.

It’s not that his competition is completely unworthy. I’m not sure anyone in the world is more irritating to me than Ethan Hawke is but even I had to admit that he was likeable and believable as the still maturing father in Boyhood. He’s in most of my favourite scenes in the movie- my personal favourite being his awkward safe sex talk. And of course there’s Edward Norton, one of the better performances in one of the best acted films of the year.

How Mark Ruffalo was even considered for a nomination is a complete mystery to me and I’m still not sure I understand how it happened. Channing Tatum would have made more sense.

Finally, I have nothing bad to say about Robert Duvall. All other things being equal, he’s by far the best actor in this category but there’s only so much that even he could do to elevate the hokey writing and uninspired directing in The Judge.

J. K. Simmons wins. Anyone else would be a huge upset.

Best Supporting Actress

Lately this has been the Academy’s chance to show us how much it celebrates diversity, doing its best to make up for an obvious caucasian bias in the other acting categories. Recent winners include Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Monique for Precious, Octavia Spencer for The Help, and Lupita Nyong’o for 12 Years a Slave. The list of nominees this year are not nearly as diverse- or as interesting- as it had been in recent years.

Patricia Arquette- Boyhood

Laura Dern- Wild

Keira Knightley- The Imitation Game

Emma Stone- Birdman

Meryl Streep- Into the Woods

I think we could have done better.

Dern, for Wild, seemed to come out of nowhere. I’m not sure I heard even a hint of speculation that she’d be nominated. I don’t get it.

Neither Knightley or Stone are able to stand out in their own movies, let alone among the other nominees. Knightley plays an important part in The Imitation Game and we learn a lot about Alan Turing from his relationship with her character but the movie belongs to Benedict Cumberbatch and to give anyone else in it an acting award would be bizarre. As for Stone, I thought she seemed to struggle with the demands of all the dialogue that she had to memorize in Birdman. She mostly rises to the occasion and has some fantastic moments but she’s really not in the same league as Michael Keaton or Edward Norton.

Meryl Streep’s nomination makes sense. She can’t help being amazing in almost everything and has some of the best scenes in Into the Woods. But do we really want to see her up there again acting like she had no idea she was going to win? She’s already been honoured three times for better performances.

This leaves, by process of elimination, Patricia Arquette. I’d have no problem with a win for her and Boyhood was possibly my favourite movie of the year. I still struggle with the idea of calling this the best supporting performance of the year since Richard Linklater went to great lengths to try and make us forget that we were watching a performance. Her work in the film is still impressive and she’s likely to take home the Oscar.

For an asshole’s discussion on the parts available to women in Hollywood, click here.

Begin Again

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Jay watched and reviewed this movie awhile ago and I can’t say that mine would look much different than hers so I won’t bother with a full review of Begin Again, director John Carney’s somewhat disappointing attempt to relive the magic of Once. All I’ll say is that Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo do their best to replicate the improvised feel of Once but it really would have worked better with less recognizable faces.

What I do want to comment on is the recent Oscar nomination for Gregg Alexander and Danielle Brisebois’ original song Lost Stars. The music really is the best part of the movie. Even when the songs don’t leave a lasting impression the way those in Once did, Carney films the recording sessions in a way that makes you want to pick up a guitar and jam with them. Carney has always been good at capturing the evolutions of songs as their written and continue to change each time that they’re played.

There are a lot of songs written for Begin Again and I’m not sure Lost Stars stood out for me. It is one of the better examples though of a song evolving over time with Adam Levine’s hilariously over-produced butchering of it alone making the song worthy of recognition.

It can’t win though. I had mostly forgotten about the song almost as quickly as I had forgotten about the movie itself and, when being forced to compete with a movie with the emotional impact of Selma and a song with the emotional impact of Glory, there’s really no contest.

Begin Again

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A music producer\label owner (Mark Ruffalo) is disillusioned and displaced and drinking himself deeper into depression when he happens upon a waif in a bar (Keira Knightley) who is used to herself and her music taking second place to her cheating-asshole-ex-boyfriend’s (Adam Levine, very fittingly).

Begin Again is Once, with a budget. There are movie stars, and pop stars, and production values. And some artifice. And less heart.

Which is not to say it’s bad. Once is just so good. Sean and I were lucky enough to catch the Broadway musical on stage in NYC and it was incredible and inspiring, an amplification of the movie. We saw it again when it was in Ottawa, at the NAC, with all 4 Assholes in attendance, so safe to say it’s near and dear to our collective heart.

This movie doesn’t really start until about 48 minutes in, which is a long time to not start. And you already don’t trust it because Mark Ruffalo’s had this “epiphany” where he envisions instruments playing themselves to back up Knightley and her lonely guitar. It’s amateurish and should be beneath everyone involved. You could practically see the strings levitating the bows as they “magically” played themselves. Sheesh.

But I admit I kind of adored the whole record-an-album-on-the-fly thing this movie had going, a fuck you to the studio sound, and even better that it was set on the actual streets of New York. Nothing gives life and energy like New York City. Of course, you’re hyper aware, watching the movie, that what you’re seeing and hearing are two different things. Knightley’s character may strive for “authenticity” but you know damn well these songs were recorded in a studio after she had months of voice lessons and that the actors are just lip-synching for the camera, and that the cab horns and kids playing stick ball (did that really happen?) are just sound effects added in. The conceit is obvious, and over-produced, and hard to forgive.

I did love that Mos Def was cast as The Man. Thank you, universe, for that. And Adam Levine sporting a beard that made him look like he wandered in from the set of TLC’s reality show “Breaking Amish” was a nice touch. Plus, the vintage Jag.

This movie profited from my low expectations. I enjoyed it more than I thought it would, and while not nearly as good, it’s at least less soul-crushing than Inside Llewyn Davis, which is the movie I’d rather you watch if you only have the stomach for one.

The Imitation Game

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Mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) meets a girl at a bar while taking a break from trying to build a machine that can break a Nazi code. She may not be the genius that Turing is but she makes an off-hand remark that helps him see a problem that he’s been struggling with in a new way. He gets this crazy look in his eye and runs off without warning, leaving her wondering what she just said. She has just given Turing his Eureka moment.

I hate Eureka moments in movies and The Imitation Game has a few of them. Actually, there were a handful of scenes here and there that felt lazy and occasionally a little pandering. Worst of all though, they distract from what is overall a fantastic script.

Winner of the People’s Choice Award at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, some have suggested The Imitation Game as the front-runner for the Best Picture Oscar. They may be on to something. Like The King’s Speech and Argo, there isn’t much special about it except that it’s a good story told very well with healthy doses of dramatic license taken to keep the truth from getting in the way of a good story.

The best reason to see The Imitation Game is Benedict Cumberbatch. Turing is a tough guy to get to know. At first, the film establishes only that he is brilliant at all things math and ignorant of most things social. He’s portrayed almost as a British Sheldon Cooper, hilariously misunderstanding statements that he takes too literally. He uses logic, not emotion, to guide him and at first it seems like he doesn’t feel much of anything. With time, and the more time he spends with new friend Joan Clarke (well played by Keira Knightley), Cumberbatch slowly lets us see a little compassion and lots of pain. By the end, we’re left with one of the year’s best performances and a genuinely heart-breaking ending.

Read another Asshole’s opinion of The Imitation Game.

Bend It Like Beckham

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Jesminder, aka Jess, a good Indian-English girl and Sikh, defies her traditional parents and secretly joins a girls’ football team. There she meets her new BFF Jules and together they chase their common dream of moving to America to lay professional soccer.

Jules’ (Keira Knightley) mother is not too pleased to have a tomboy for a daughter, and she’s horrified to think Jules may be one of those lesbians (“All I’m saying is, there’s a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one without a fella!”) but it’s Jess who suffers the most from her parents’ expectations. She gets cultural, religious, and filial guilt and shame heaped upon her – her soccer skills even threaten her sister’s marriage, somehow.

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In 2002, this was a fun movie about female friendship and gender stereotypes. ‘A 2018 re-watch is not particularly kind to it. It feels dated. Very dated. Which is great, obviously. Even as we burn in our collective dumpster fire, at least we can look back to the cultural touchstone that is Bend It Like Beckham with just a touch of smugness that we no longer say things like “Mother, just because I wear trakkies and play sport does not make me a lesbian!” and (white man to Indian woman who was just called a Paki) “Jess, I’m Irish. Of course I understand what that feels like.” If you wondered what those sounds were the other night, that was me, winning the world cup in groaning.

I still don’t know what it means to “bend it” like Beckham but I’ve been imagining that he has a crooked penis. This was the movie that introduced American audiences to Keira Knightley, and I didn’t find her completely awful yet. Parminda Nagra was the real stand-out, as was the man who played her father, Anupam Kher, an illustrious and dashing Indian film star. Jonathan Rhys Meyers is even creepier than I remembered. Like, unmanageably, unforgivably, career-killingly (you’d think) creepy. I don’t want him in the same movie as anyone’s juicy, juicy mangoes. He’s nearly as terrible as the 00’s club wear these ladies are sporting. It’s like a fashion show of my biggest regrets.

Laters!