Top Five - First and foremost, this was THE comedy of 2014. No one even came close to Chris Rock’s loving ode to comedy, culture, and love. The story is similar to Birdman: a washed-up star attempts to jump start his career by making a pretentious art piece. Birdman focused on behind-the-scenes drama, but Top Five is more about the promotion. We follow Rock and Rosario Dawson’s characters around, each stop illuminating more dimensions of these heartfelt characters. Don’t rent this one, you should be buying it. Read the full 4.5 review in the “T” album.
The Theory of Everything - James Marsh’s story of Stephen Hawking, the acclaimed handicapped astrophysicist, forgoes science talk to focus more on things like humanity, love, life, and struggle. Way to get things off on a good start. Eddie Redmayne may have won the Oscar for his physically demanding role, but Felicity Jones was all the more impressive. Her role demanded some serious emotional legwork, seeing how Jane Hawking’s problems were all internal. Whoever you think is more impressive, there is no denying that this is a film worth seeing. Read the 4 review in the “T” album.
Annie - And so begins the movies you should NOT be renting. Annie 2.0 offers nothing fresh to the table. Director Will Gluck cracked us all up with Easy A, but no such laughs find there way into this unnecessary confection. Most of the songs do not benefit from their hip-hop remixes and none of the performances are worth watching. Quvenzhané Wallis is the most watchable, but its only because I have such fond memories of her in Beasts of the Southern Wild. The only reason I would suggest you rent this is if your other option was…
Dumb & Dumber Too - Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The original D&D is a permanent staple of my childhood. Any film that makes me question that original love must be utterly awful; so is the case for this completely unfunny mess of a sequel. Nothing about Harry and Lloyd’s second adventure works. Every aspect of the production, from writing to acting to plotting, fails. At the end of the day, what really ticks me off the most is how the Farrelly brothers have smeared my memory of the original. None of the other nonsense even comes close to that infraction. Read my full 1.5 review in the “D” album.