With unforgettable quotes like: “I love lamp,” “60% of the time, it works every time,” and “I’m in a glass case of emotion,” Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) set the bar ridiculously high for the recent sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. When I first saw the teaser trailer last year, I was filled with mixed emotions. I wanted to see Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and the old Channel 4 News Team back together, but I was so certain that they would ruin a classic. The gimmicky early marketing campaigns for Anchorman 2 (Ben & Jerry’s “Scotchy Scotch Scotch” flavor, Ron co-anchoring a local CBS newscast, Ron’s ESPN interview with Peyton Manning) were entertaining but did not alleviate my concerns that Will Ferrell would be saying, “I immediately regret this decision” after opening weekend. How “by the beard of Zeus” could director Adam McKay and Ferrell come up with anything more absurd and hilarious than Anchorman:The Legend of Ron Burgundy?
Spike Jonze is a co-founding member of MTV’s Jackass, a part owner of a skateboarding company, an award-winning director of commercials and music videos, the creative director of an online television channel, the editor of a teen music magazine, a BMX photographer, and who knows how many other things. Yet on top of all these eclectic interests he has managed to become the critical darling (or at least this particular critic’s darling) of the last fifteen years.
Critics of Lone Survivor describe the film as jingoistic, lacking substance, and needlessly heavy handed. They are wrong. It is precisely the extremely visceral depiction of an elite team of Navy SEALS in a firefight, juxtaposed with their playful ribbing only moments before, that ranks the film as the best war movie since The Hurt Locker.
There are many ways I could describe Inside Llewyn Davis: a portrait, a character study, a reimagining of the 1961 Greenwich Village folk music scene. But after watching the film and re-listening to its soundtrack numerous times, and finding much to admire in its craftsmanship and musical talent, I don’t know if all that I heard and saw constitutes a story. At the same time, I don’t really think that’s a problem.
The holidays are a delicate time for interfaith families. There is not a lot to agree upon. The only common ground for my own interfaith family is film. Not the quality of a movie – no no, there is rarely a consensus there – but that we see many movies. That’s something everyone can get behind. Jews and bored Christians alike head to the theater on Christmas Day, and once the lights go down, we’re not even allowed to interact. Everyone is together without even the potential for conflict. It’s a beautiful, unifying thing.
Thursday, January 16, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces this year’s Oscar nominations, and Buffer writers Amy Solomon and Zach Saldacher are as excited as can be. They were thrilled to prioritize Oscar betting above homework, so they have spent their valuable time compiling their nominee predictions. See their lists and reactions to each other’s predictions below.
Smug curmudgeonly older men are huddled around the TV set on plaid-upholstered armchairs that you know smell vaguely of musk. Beer is in hand and ranch-dip-and-accoutrements are within reach. The game is on and when they’re not falling asleep, the talk turns around the only thing these men seem to care about: cars. The camera, shooting from the television screen itself, perfectly frames this very American portrait. Nebraska takes the subject of everyday life seriously—you really get the sense they sit there like this every day.
I have mixed feelings about road trips. Who doesn’t love bonding with friends and family with a panorama of beautiful scenery extending as far as you can see? At the same time, road trips are always undercut by cramped space with limited mobility and nothing to do. For me, watching Nebraska, a two-hour film about a father-son trip from Montana to Nebraska, felt a lot like a road trip. I’m torn.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s brilliant film Inside Llewyn Davis is not, by definition, a musical. The characters do not break into spontaneous song to express their deepest emotions. There is no dancing. There is very little performance. No, Inside Llewyn Davis is something else entirely. It is a movie with real, honest music. A movie with real, honest people dealing with real, honest problems. Somewhere between film and real life, bridging the gap through song, it is a movie about love and loss and beauty, and it is absolutely one of the best films of 2013.
I’ll admit, as soon as I heard people claim that The Wolf of Wall Street was the next Goodfellas, my expectations went through the roof. In my mind, Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a perfect movie that sits alongside Casablanca and The Godfather as a god in my movie pantheon. Because Martin Scorsese directed Wolf as well, I bought into the hype and walked into the theater thinking that my pantheon could soon be welcoming a new member.
David O. Russell is the director who keeps on doing. On the heels of the wildly successful Silver Linings Playbook (2012), Russell continues his filmmaking renaissance with the over-the-top comedy crime caper American Hustle. After finding moderate success early in his career with films like Flirting with Disaster (1996), Three Kings (1999), and I Heart Huckabees (2004), Russell went on a six-year filmmaking hiatus. But he’s come back stronger than ever—American Hustle is one of his best movies yet.
It seems that every year around Oscar season, the studios release a plethora of excellent films based on true stories, and soon after their release several of these films inevitably become embroiled in factual controversy. They take a lot of flak, gain a lot of free publicity, and then ironically go on to win an Oscar or two. Last year the highest profile cases were Argo (which won Best Picture) and Lincoln (which won Daniel Day-Lewis his third lead actor Oscar). This year, that Oscar-caliber, true-story film may be Paul Greengrass’ phenomenally thrilling Captain Phillips.
