Mini Reviews

The Drop
Stars: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini
Plot: An adorable abandoned pit bull plays a pretty big part in this story about a robbery at a bar used as a drop location for the mob.
Thoughts: I wanted to write a full review for this movie right after I saw it but I couldn't quite find the right words to describe how much I loved this damn movie. Based on a short story by Dennis Lehane and featuring superb performances by Hardy and Gandolfini, The Drop is easiest the best slow burn crime thriller I've seen since Mystic River.
Grade: A

Palo Alto
Stars: James Franco, Emma Roberts, Nat Wolff,  Jack Kilmer
Plot: A bunch of bored teenagers drink and party and mess around with strangers and teachers.
Thoughts: What a waste of time and talent. It's not that this movie was bad, just sort of boring and unnecessary.  It has it's moments - Kilmer, son of Val, is crazy cute the way his dad once was and Wolff is phenomenal,  stealing the movie with ease. But mostly it's a bore.
Grade: C

A Long Way Down
Stars: Pierce Brosnon, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots
Plot: Based on the novel by Nick Hornby, the movie follows four strangers who meet and form a pact when they all try to kill themselves on New Years Eve.
Thoughts: It's a fine adaptation of a fine book. The casting is pretty right on and all of the acting surely elevates a plot that somehow feels less ridiculous on screen than it did on the page. This movie is not anything special or amazing buy it's nice and Poots is my new girl crush.
Grade: B-

The Other Woman
Stars:Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann
Plot: A successful lawyer finds out her boyfriend has a wife and then the wife and the mistress bond when they realize he's cheating on them both but it's with Kate Upton so they are all, sure, that makes sense.
Thoughts: I found this movie mostly infuriating, disgusting and slightly offensive. However, it has a few charming parts, most of which concern Mann who I adore. I would just about watch her in anything. Obviously.
Grade: D+

Gone Girl

Disclaimer: I am an unabashed, unapologetic David Fincher fangirl.  In my eyes, he can do no wrong. I love temporarily living in his demented, creepy, brilliant world. Has that skewed my opinion of Gone Girl, his adaptation of Gillian Flynn's electrifying novel? I don't think so. I'd like to think I'm still being completely impartial when I say this is not only the best movie I have seen this year, but also the most perfect adaptation of a novel I've ever seen.

For anyone living under a rock who hasn't had the pleasure of reading Flynn's best selling, twist and turn filled portrait of marriage,  the movie follows Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) who arrives home on his 5th wedding anniversary to find his seemingly perfect blonde New Yorker wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has gone missing. Was she kidnapped or murdered? That is the major question during the first half of the movie as police officers Kim Dickens (of Treme,  Friday Night Lights fame) and Patrick Fugit (of my favorite movie Almost Famous) investigate the odd crime scene and try to piece together the convenient clues. Meanwhile, through Amy's diary entries, we discover the ever increasing tension in her marriage to Nick. And then the second half of the movie begins and everything you think you know is completely turned on its head. And I won't spoil any of it since it's all simply too good. If you haven't read the book, you will be wowed by the twists and turns.  If you have, you couldn't possibly be disappointed with the movie.

Fincher has done it again. Like in his masterpiece,  Zodiac, Gone Girl is a well crafted, perfect slow burn of a thriller where every word and shot and performance is just so brilliant that you can't imagine anything being better than the two and a half hours you spend watching this movie. The time literally flies by, and Fincher keeps you on the edge of your seat from the first frame to the last image. Filled with dark humor and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's haunting score, this is a movie that can't be missed.

And the performances... where to start when they are all so good? Everyone in this movie is top notch, and bringing their A game, from Dickens and Fugit's cops to Neil Patrick Harris' suave rich boy and Carrie Coon's hilariously droll performance as Nick's sister. Among the supporting cast, surprisingly it's Tyler Perry who is aces as Nick's slick high priced attorney. Then there is Affleck and Pike.  Let me just say this: they are perfect. Pike has the most difficult part - playing unreliable narrator Amy, a character so complicated that actresses probably dream of roles like her. And she nails it. She is everything Amy needs to be: icy and mysterious and dangerous, like a caged animal. But it is Affleck who is most impressive. I feel like I owe him a public apology. I've complained for months how wrong he is for this role. Turns out I should have just trusted Fincher because Affleck couldn't be more perfect. From that sly smile to the way we can never quite know if he is, in fact, a nice guy, it feels like Affleck has such an understanding of this character that he brings it to a whole other level.

The biggest criticism I have heard about this movie is that it has a "woman problem" but I think it is actually the world who has a woman problem. Roles for women in movies are dangerously one dimensional. It's like society needs to know what box to put us in - the wife, the mother, the sister, the friend - and if they can't find a box for us, then it's a problem. Well, guess what world? Women are much more complex than that. Not all of us can simply be put into one of your pre - determined boxes. And that's not a problem. The truth is we need more women like Gillian Flynn who aren't afraid to write female characters who are tough and unlikable and complicated. Here's hoping the unmitigated success of Gone Girl - the book and the movie - will usher in a new wave of interesting female characters.

Grade: A