Big Eyes

Big Eyes is a fun, lighthearted, feel good comedy that ultimately was just that. A lightweight Tim Burton outing that did not dig deep enough into its characters' psyche to give it much heft - or Oscar prestige - despite a good performance by Amy Adams.

Big Eyes reminds me a lot of the other Burton film,Big Fish, in that they both although outwardly seem atypical of Burton, but essentially, and undeniably, his stamp can still be found. The film floats along in its bright, breezy, palette but writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski never really managed to highlight the artistic struggle that Adams' character supposed goes through.

Also, we never really know Christoph Waltz's character well. His motivations: are they purely greed or driven by a deeper desire for acceptance?

Nonetheless, even with such lack of characterisation, Adams still managed to convey the struggle within Margaret Keane, especially when it came to the relationship that she has with her on-screen daughter. Adams still need to practice on maintaining her accents. Her southern accent drawled in and out.

On the other hand, we have Waltz, who gave Walter Keane such a maniacal energy throughout, that sometimes you wonder if Walter was possibly bipolar. Or at least with some sort of Personality Disorder. Thence, he was a difficult character to relate to.

The music was typically Danny Elfman in a Burton production. Whimsical throughout even in the darker moments.

An entertaining film that benefited from Adams performance, but ultimately too superficial and lightweight for her talents.

Inherent Vice

This is one of the weirdest and most fucked-up film that amazingly made sense in the end! Paul Thomas Anderson has given us an oddly intelligent, stoner-movie that is definitely not for everyone, but with patience, it really was rather engrossing. And Joaquin Phoenix was brilliant in it - he owned the role.

Anderson's latest film was a beautiful and authentic 1970s crime dramedy. There were some cleverly written lines and laughs, yet beneath it all, a certain noir emotional longing that kept it from descending to stoner-schtick.

The central mystery itself was also rather riveting and held the story together as Anderson's script meanders in and out of one weed-hazed scene to another. Each seemingly unconnected but yet, like all drug-induced epiphanies, slowly came together to make sense. Thence, an Oscar nomination for Anderson's adapted screenplay.

I cannot imagine anybody else other than Phoenix in this role. Throughout the 148 minutes, Phoenix embodied his character and all his many facets: the maniac doped out energy, the despondent heartbroken lover, the dogged investigator. Not once, did he really seemed to lose character.

After 2012's The Master (also with Anderson), 2013's Her and the criminally underwatched The Immigrant, Phoenix has given another starling performance that reminds us why he is one of the best actors of his generation. And yet, again, he was not nominated for the Oscars. But the likes of Bradley Cooper scored his third nominations in as many years.

Josh Brolin had the next biggest role, but unfortunately, his character did not require much out of him other than to be a typical Brolin-esque character. Owen Wilson and Benicio del Toro had supporting roles that moved the narrative along; Reese Witherspoon and Martin Short were more extended cameos, whereas Jena Malone and Maya Rudolph were really just cameos. Katherine Waterston: new girl, some potential.

Kudos to the production team, and hair/make-up and costume designers for a great job! Particularly Mark Bridges who deserved his Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design. Loved the 70s soundtrack that was peppered throughout, but that made Jonny Greenwood's music less memorable. Robert Eiswit had some great cinematography, but not enough to stand out too.

Never having read the novel, nor any of Thomas Pynchon's other tomes, I cannot say how closely the film followed the original story, but - weirdly - I can actually see how the book would be written like. It does kinda want to make me read it.

American Sniper

Clint Eastwood's latest continues his trend of subpar movies. His, along with actor - and fellow producer - Bradley Cooper's vanity project is a Left politico film - bordering on propaganda -disguised as an unintelligent, appeal-to-the-masses, mediocre to poor war film/biopic that is all bravura with no soul.  

Eastwood's directorial downward trend started from Grand Torino, and cemented with Hereafter, but even Hereafter - for all its preposterousness - had more redeeming factors than this heartless, cold and uneven film. It is hard to believe it is the same director who gave us the brilliant and balanced war films Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. As a war film American Sniper pales in comparison to recent films like The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan; and as a film exploring PTSD, it barely cleared the topsoil (catch Jim Sheridan's criminally under-watched Brothers starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal and Natalie Portman to see PTSD done right). 

There were some moments through the 132 minutes that Eastwood did do right, but mainly it was more in heightening the tension than anything else. And a great opening scene! However, all that good work was quickly erased by his persistent depiction of the enemies as one-dimensional stereotypes and the Americans as the archetypical near-invincible heroes. Yawn. 

Then we have narrative issues. For biopics, compressing the timelines become an issue and Eastwood and this year's Oscar-nominated writer Jason Hall gave us the war highlights but lost the continuation and, most importantly, the heart of the story. We neither get to appreciate the camaraderie between the men at war, or the emotional ties at home. For the soldiers, we barely even knew most of them so it is hard to care about their survival or their mission(s); and you know something bad is going to happen when Hall and Eastwood decides to let a bit of backstory in. Lazy writing/directing. And with things at home, we are told what's happening and not shown. Lazy writing/directing again. 

Like The Iron Lady or even this year's The Imitation Game, a great actor can make a lot of difference to a mediocre biopic. Putting it politely, Cooper - who is also a producer in this film - is not anywhere near that level, his two past (not very deserving, IMHO) Oscar nominations notwithstanding. A thousand yard stare does not a PTSD maketh. Jake Gyllenhaal was very definitely robbed! This is not saying that Cooper is not a good actor, there was one or two moments where he did do well, but just one or two. Moments. Not scenes. Even in the war zone, Cooper seemed to have only two modes: I am a sniper so I have to be calm and collected; and I am a fucking SEAL, see me go all Alpha shit. Yawn. 

Cooper and Siena Miller had no chemistry. Poor Miller, she really was just a pretty vase here in an effective, but perfunctory role. 

Tom Stern's cinematography had some good wide-angled landscaping shots but the urban and night warfare scenes were oddly lighted. Eastwood needs to stop meddling with the music of his films. 

American Sniper is unlikely going to win any of its six Oscar nominations, but it goes to show what's the demographics of the voting Academy is like. Even just taking it as a movie, without any political connotations, it's still only really just mediocre. 

Whiplash

Disclaimer: Expectations are high going into this film since it had a whole year worth of raves and has been garnering awards/nominations the past few weeks; its five 87th Academy Awards nominations also helped to raise its profile.

A great crowd-pleaser, a cliche plot notwithstanding, that definitely lived up to the hype with a terrific - no, an electrifying - performance by J.K. Simmons. Whiplash deserved its Best Picture and Editing nominations, and Simmons is the one to beat for Best Supporting Actor (sorry, Norton and Hawke).

Damien Chazelle's film managed to engaged the audience almost throughout the 106 minutes, except for those scenes with ex-Gleek Melissa Benoist which really did not serve much purpose in developing Miles Teller's protagonist, despite its cliche over-arching plot. There were still moments where the audience were left in suspense for a bit, which was refreshing.

Chazelle's script had a few good laughs and is up for Best Adapted Screenplay which is a wise-choice since he would unlikely be able to unsurp any of the writers in the Original Screenplay category (with the exception of E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman's Foxcatcher which I have not watched as of this): Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel and Nightcrawler.

However, ultimately, the success of the film really laid on Simmons and his incredible portrayal of the mentor-from-hell. He was riveting, unpredictable, and totally convincing. He utterly made this character come alive and he owned it. Only Simmons could sell a line like: "that is not your boyfriend's dick, don't cum early" and not make it sound silly, juvenile or rude. 

Miles Teller may have finally found his breakout role (interesting to note that he will be the next Mr Fantastic/Richard Reed), however, he will still need a lot of brushing up on his skills, especially with the more emotional-heavy scenes. But otherwise, he got that determined-and-I-am-so-misunderstood artiste down pat.

Kudos also to editor Tom Cross especially in that final scene! Cross and Chazelle gave an energetic, tense, carthatic and riveting finale before the screen fade to black. However, he might likely lose out to the editors for Boyhood or The Grand Budapest Hotel.

The music was by Justin Hurtwitz, but it is really the jazz standards that really lightened up the screen.

Whiplash is a great little movie that was made awesome with Simmon's performance.

12 Monkeys

Pilot: Syfy's new series is based on Terry Gilliam's now-20 years old sci-fi classic, and if you can remember that movie, then unfortunately, this series does not live up to it excellence. Kudos to the creative team in jiggering some plot aspects to make this a 13 episodes series, but unfortunately, it lacked the smarts and the grittiness of Gilliam's hit. With the luxury of time, more should have been spent on establishing the characters - which is one of the first mistakes of this show. None of the characters were believable/relatable; but perhaps the actors had such big shoes to fill: Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt and Madeleine Stowe. Furthermore, the plot holes were a bit too far-fetched, and this is not even considering the timey-whimey-ness of time travelling - which at least they explained/set the rules here.

Episode 2, "Mentally Divergent": It is surprising how large a shadow Brad Pitt had cast with this role. Poor Emily Hampshire. The Dr Railly and (ex-)boyfriend subplot is tedious, as is the fight between Cole and Jones. Unfortunately, after 2 episodes of in, I think I'd rather go re-watch Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys".

Cats

Cats was the first musical I ever watched - or at least clearly remembering having watched it - back almost 20-odd years ago, and this is the first time I am re-watching it since.

Sadly, it was much better in my memory than what was presented on stage. Apparently there was a live band, but there was no orchestra pit and the sound system did not sound like the band was live. Both the band and singing volume would increased simultaneously when the singing got more intense, and that consistently led to overshadowing of the already - often - poorly enunciated singers.

Perhaps it was just the poor sound system in Marina Bay Sand (Grand Theatre)?

The overall energy level of the cast was not high as it could be, and it always felt like the party was winding down rather in the swing of it. Thankfully the second act was an improvement or maybe it was just because of the more familiar songs, including the now-musical standard Memory. Which did send some mild shivers down my spine, and raised a few goosebumps, but it lacked the emotional hit of some other pros.

Kudos to the set design, though. Gorgeous set and lighting. Similarly, great costumes and makeup.

Choreography was good, but the dancers...let's just say if you have watched enough ballet then there wasn't much to be awed by. However the 10-minute Jellicle Ball dance sequence was awesome!

The Normal Heart

In a nutshell: A good play but a poor movie. Ryan Murphy lost the impact of Larry Kramer's work and words through poor direction and cheap visual dramatics. Notwithstanding that, the acting from the main cast - Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts, Alfred Molina, Taylor Kitsch (surprise!) and Jim Parsons - stood out against what can only be described as blatant (gay) male (celebrity) sexploitation. 

Murphy is a talented producer. Without a doubt his mind has frequently captured the zeitgeist of our times. But as a director, and even writer, he is mediocre at best. He has no vision nor style. A copycat with ideas that do not translate. Robert's Eat, Pray, Love suffered tremendously because of that. So was surprised she agreed to this production - a juicy role no doubt attracted the talented actress. 

Murphy has a tendency to indulge in his fantasies and excessiveness, not knowing when subtlety is stronger than brashness. Even the sex scene between Ruffalo and Bomer ended up being unerotic and un-sensual. 

The other big fault in this production is that Murphy treat this movie as if it was a play. Onscreen scene transitions were mostly awkward as if stage lights shut off, actors transit, and stage lights back on. He directed his actors as if they were on the stage, and the camera got lost not knowing who or what or where to focus. Some scenes worked especially if there were only two characters or a wide-angled lens used. 

Unfortunately the cinematography by Danny Moder (Roberts' husband) did not help the visuals. Simple and basic with elementary use of lights and shadows that served no purpose. 

Let's talk about the affecting. 

Ruffalo is good actor. Here he was good. Not his best. His mannerisms were too affected and one could blame the director on that. He was at his best when he played opposite Roberts and Molina. Pity those scenes were far and few between. Bomer and Kitsch, unfortunately, could not parlay as well. 

Bomer gave the best work of his career - doing a MacConaughey. His love story with Ruffalo was equally sweet, romantic and touching, but the dramatic scenes lacked heft and sincerity - the irony! 

Kitsch was barely recognisable, and definitely made a lasting impression. But like his silver screen counterpart - Bomer - his acting was still not up to par with the emotional core of Kramer's words. Kitsch just need to choose his big screen projects more carefully. 

Roberts deserved her Emmy nominations. Her few scenes were all powerful and effective. Ever since her "comeback" in August: Osage County, Roberts has been on a roll, but one does miss her comedic and rom-com chops. Here, she and Ruffalo shared a more intimate relationship than Ruffalo and Bomer. 

Molina also gave a strong performance. His was the opposite of Roberts, with a more restrained portrayal as Ruffalo's onscreen brother struggling to accept and love him for who he is and not what he is. Their scenes together felt more staged than most others, but were effective as it was usually just two of them in the same shot. 

Lastly, Jim Parsons. Re-playing the character he played on Broadway, Parson was the comedic relief and also the true normal heart of the show. And the stage experienced definitely helped as Parson seemed most relaxed and natural of the lot. 

Angels of America still remained one of the best on screen (large or small) depiction of the AIDS epidemic and gay rights of the 80s.