Tag Archives: Drama

We Are Your Friends (2015) (DVD)

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I really like Zac Efron. I have nothing particularly against him. He’s a nice looking guy with some chops to him when pushed hard enough by a competent director. When he’s really just asked to flash his looks around and literally do nothing, we get “We Are Your Friends,” one of the stupidest, most forgettable movies of 2015. I’m glad I’m not the only person who felt this way about the film, as it was one of the bigger flops of the year. “We Are Your Friends” has no substance to it, and pretends to be about something, when it really isn’t. Deep down it’s a remake of “Saturday Night Fever” and fails to capture any of the substance and complexity that John Badham’s masterpiece obtained.

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Jem and the Holograms (2015)

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It’s hard to imagine a movie this year more sadistically boring and bland than “Jem and the Holograms.” This comes as somewhat of a surprise since director John M. Chu is a pro when it comes to making films that are visually dazzling and marketed toward teens. “Step Up 3” was a fun, beautifully edited, visual feast, while “GI Joe: Retaliation” was a decent follow up to a much maligned movie. So it’s disappointing and crushing to see Chu not even really seem to try. Everything about “Jem and the Holograms” is so vanilla and uninspiring that I never even care about anything happening on screen. I’m not one of the kids from the eighties that watched “Jem,” so I have no nostalgic connection to the animated series, but I can understand that anger toward such a horrible movie.

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Love & Mercy (2015)

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Music bio pics are rarely masterpieces, and while “Love & Mercy” is itself a fine movie, it’s not the entry in to the long library in the sub-genre that’s changed my mind about music bio pics just yet. Much like previous films about musical geniuses, the film gets lost in a miasma of pit falls, including the inability to balance the story of the musician and the story of the man himself. So we’re thrust back and forth in to what ends as a flawed, but above average tale about mental illness, and the creation of art. “Love & Mercy” takes the concept of the bio pic above the norm, focusing on Brian Wilson, the founder of the Beach Boys through two stages of his life. One as a young man, and through his perils as a middle aged man. In both stages he’s enduring the horrors of mental illness and is systematically being victimized by someone in his life that he finds incapable of escaping.

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Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

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Adapted from the novel that made bored housewives across the world dream of being tortured by the most boring man in the world, “Fifty Shades of Grey” lives up to its reputation. It’s cheap, misogynist, Z grade exploitation masquerading as the romance of a woman trying to tame the ultimate man, who by all accounts should be alone left to his own demented fantasies. It began its life as fan fiction and reads like the cheap fantasies of a bored sexually repressed woman. “Fifty Shades of Grey” is about boring people doing stupid things to one another, and cardboard characters trying to create some sense of tension and conflict that never amounts to anything interesting. “Fifty Shades of Grey” is the film that essentially romanticizes abuse and misogyny as something that’s admirable in a man and can potentially be snuffed out with the right woman by his side.

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The Final Girls (2015)

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Todd Strauss-Schulson‘s “The Final Girls” is probably the best coming of age film of the year. Hiding beneath the veneer of a slasher horror comedy beats a touching and heartbreaking dramedy about letting go, and accepting that sometimes nature has to take its course. Taissa Farmiga is wonderful as young Max, the daughter of Amanda, a once popular actress who has unfortunately been typecast for her role as Nancy in a famous slasher movie named “Camp Bloodbath.” Max keeps the hope in her mom alive, despite Amanda completely losing faith in herself, and in the hope of becoming a popular actress once again. Tragically the pair gets in to a horrible car crash killing Amanda and leaving Max orphaned. Three years later, Max is still clinging to memories, and is convinced by friend Duncan to attend a double screening of mom Amanda’s “Camp Bloodbath” movies, in hopes of indulging hardcore fans of the movie series.

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Ex Machina (2015)

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Alex Garland’s “Ex Machina” is a brilliant often mesmerizing amalgam of “2001” and “Frankenstein” in where man has once again reached the ability to create life, albeit artificial. Garland chronicles the ever enduring battle of artificial intelligence and human intellect and how the lines can sometimes be blurred by the geniuses seeking to create actual life. “Ex Machina” is a consistently enigmatic and stunning science fiction tale of humanity, and the god complex that entrenches us in a deep and very bleak mystery as well as introducing us to a slew of characters, all of whom may not particularly be devious at first glance.

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Paper Towns (2015)

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One thing I loved about “Paper Towns” is that it’s not your typical romance. Deep down it’s about a man chasing the love of his life, but it’s more so about the brevity of life, and how we can often lose our paths chasing something that might not be there. While “Paper Towns” is no masterpiece of the sub-genre of young adult adaptations, it is still a very pleasant and complex coming of age drama that packs a universal message that could be absorbed by pretty much anyone reaching a big change in their lives. In the midst of all the ballyhoo about co-star Cara Delevingne, “Paper Towns” went sadly unnoticed through all the gossip which is a shame since it’s a drama that deserves to be appreciated if only for its subtly and quiet charm.

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