Review - Black Mass

After the better part of a decade squandered on commercially shiny yet artistically hollow multiplex vehicles, Johnny Depp has reemerged from the abyss and has his steely blue, contact-lensed eyes on awards validation in Black Mass. Though hardly a one-man show, all eyes are on Depp as the strictly criminal South Boston gang lord James 'Whitey' Bulger.

A wily machinist of the Irish mob with purported psychopathic tendencies, who manipulated a dubious informant alliance with the FBI to expand his own bloody empire throughout the 70s and 80s, Bulger provides the 52-year-old actor's juiciest opportunity in years. Resembling a grim spectre of death – capped with prosthetic fivehead and darkened eye sockets – he commands his scenes with quiet malice, hissing a sinister Southie brogue through blackened teeth.

Longtime devotees of Depp and his famously eccentric characters may hope that the inevitable "comeback" narrative set to unfold around his awards campaign takes. But they'd also be the first to admit that such an angle is sheer media-generated poppycock. Even when prestigious material eluded him, he's never stopped being one of the most ubiquitous and bankable stars in the industry.

Whether or not the quality of his performances have been as consistent as his mere presence is subjective of course, but Black Mass is at least a return to the sort of movies that serious film-lovers can get behind.

Oscar Postmortem Pt. 3: John Travolta must be stopped

This is about as silly a microcosm of last Sunday's Academy Awards broadcast there is, but I feel like this level of snarkiness merits its own post.

You'd think John Travolta would have learned to tread more carefully when the whole world is watching him on camera. Last year's infamous "Adele Dazeem" flub -- the hilarious mispronunciation of Idina Menzel's name -- seems destined to be one of those celebrity bloopers that stands the test of time, admittedly dogging Travolta far more than the sporting Menzel.

Banking on the longevity of this much Twitter-ized and parodied moment, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron had the wherewithal to have Menzel and Travolta present an award together, with Menzel introducing him as "Glom Gazingo".

Cute banter ensued (in fact, the only funny presenter shtick of the night), but so did this...

[Menzel whispers:] "send help..."

... and social media exploded once again with a fresh wave of mockery to last us until next year.

When Aliens see a human being. pic.twitter.com/qVUBq5HNPG
— Sam Kalidi (@samkalidi) February 24, 2015

One Category at a Time: Actor

It seems every year that Best Actor is, if not the most competitive Oscar category, then certainly the cruelest. Every season we see at least a half dozen nomination-worthy performances unable to make the final five. The whole Selma and #OscarsSoWhite controversy may have unwittingly made a thespian martyr of David Oyelowo for his tragic snub, but he's in good company with the likes of Jake Gyllenhaal, Ralph Fiennes, Timothy Spall, Channing Tatum, Oscar Isaac, Ben Affleck, Miles Teller, Matthew McConaughey, Andy Serkis, and the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman on the sidelines. There just isn't enough room.

It makes it particularly true that it's an honour just to be nominated for these five men, a couple of whom can relax and enjoy the show with the knowledge that they won't be winning. For those of us who follow this awards madness closely, however, it will be the one suspenseful acting award of the night, as we nervously wait to see if a beloved veteran can fend off the late advances of younger A-listers with more typical Oscar roles.

"Ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist, Oscar nominee."

Review - The Imitation Game

“Are you paying attention?” a blank movie screen asks it audience in an austere British accent. “Good. This is going to go very quickly now. If you are not listening carefully, you will miss things. Important things.”

The voice belongs to Alan Turing (by way of Benedict Cumberbatch), the subject of The Imitation Game. The preeminent mathematician and number theorist is widely regarded the 'Father of Computer Science', but his other claim to fame – which this film dramatizes – is that it was he who cracked the Germans' mind-boggling Enigma Code during WWII, thus turning the tide in the Allies' favour.

I thought it might be fitting to encrypt this review, but since not everyone is as proficient at deciphering garbled letters as Mr. Turing was, good old fashioned English will have to do. Come to think of it, 'good', 'old fashioned', and 'English' are probably the three best terms to describe The Imitation Game.

Yes, the film is very English, like an episode of Masterpiece Theatre that's slightly too good to be relegated to the telly. Yes, the film is old fashioned, mounted with a classical absence of style that your grandmum would love. And yes, for any sniping about how flagrantly it's been groomed to win over Oscar voters, the film is indeed quite good.

Early Best Picture Predictions

I've been slower than usual this year at pulling myself out of March's Oscar withdrawal and gearing up for next year's awards, so my apologies to all two of you who have been impatiently itching to see my early predictions. Rest assured they'll be posted on the sidebar by the first of May (my normal deadline for early guesses), but I'll only bother doing a write-up for one category; Best Picture. And here it is:

Review - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Peter Jackson's overdrawn saga of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit continues in the ongoing trilogy's second episode, subtitled The Desolation of Smaug, which as it turns out, is not about bringing an end to air pollution in Middle Earth (I shudder imagine the size of Mt. Doom's carbon footprint). Smaug, of course, is the vain and ferocious dragon (voiced and mo-capped here by Benedict Cumberbatch) who has hoarded generations worth of stolen dwarf gold in the stony mountain keep of Erebor; the ancient kingdom which you'll recall young Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and our intrepid band of heroes set out on an unexpected journey to recapture in last year's first installment.

The stakes heighten in this chapter, as Bilbo & Co., now well beyond the point of no return, draw ever closer to the villainous fire-breathing reptile, encountering all manner of other threats along the way. These include the usual orcs and wargs, but also a bearlike skin-changer, giant spiders (been there, done that), a menacing Necromancer, and suspicious wood elves among whom we meet Lord of the Rings mainstay Legolas. Shrewdly added to the proceedings after the first film was mildly criticized for its lopsided lack of female characters – Tolkien's fault, not the filmmakers' – is the elfin warrior Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), an original creation of Jackson and his writing team intended to shoot a much-needed strong woman's presence into the testosterone-heavy cast. Unfortunately, she is eventually relegated to being the fulcrum of a silly romantic subplot.

Review - 12 Years a Slave

Two men labor on sweltering a Louisiana afternoon, planing wood and hammering nails into an small unfinished building. To their own eyes, they are equal; sharing conversation and stories of their lives. But equal they are not; one a free white man working for wage, the other a black man in bondage, working simply because it is what he was sold to do. “Your story is amazing,” the free man says to the slave. “And in no good way.” That really is the most essential way to describe the incredible true story of Solomon Northrup, who was kidnapped from his home and family to be sold into slavery. Based on Northrup's 1853 memoir, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave stares unblinking into arguably the darkest chapter of the United States' history, making a case for itself as the definitive American horror story.

In 1814, still 59 years before the Emancipation Proclamation, Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives as an upstanding citizen in Saratoga, NY – an atypically progressive community for its time. A gifted violinist by trade and a decent man by nature, he is free and proud to walk the streets with his family, wearing his finest clothes, frequenting the finest shops, sheltered from common bigotry by his respected status. But this dream existence proves to be just that: a dream – one from which he awakens in shackles, alone and confused in a cold, dark cell. Daring to insist to his captors that he is free man and justice shall be done, he is flogged, menaced, and stripped of his identity along with his bloodied shirt. He is Solomon Northrup no more. He is a “Georgia runaway” by the name of Platt, or so he must pretend if he wishes to survive his waking nightmare.

Review - Star Trek Into Darkness

After an auspicious blastoff in 2009, J.J. Abrams keeps the success of his Star Trek reboot burning strong with Star Trek Into Darkness, a slick summer actioner that takes off at warp speed and rarely lets up.

All the cast members from the original are back in fine form (including Abrams' nettlesome blue lens flares): Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Karl Urban as 'Bones' McCoy, John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and Bruce Greenwood as Cpt. Pike. All of them excelled in 2009's origin story, but with their characters now firmly established, the writing team of Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman devote more time to developing the spiky but loving Kirk-Spock dynamic that is very much the heart of the franchise. Personifying the conflicting philosophies between logic and instinct, these two foils make this one of the more thematically compelling popcorn flicks you're likely to see this summer, at least whenever it takes the time to stop and breathe.