The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - Fincher's Nordic noir is technically astute but overlong and redundant

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Score: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross (lost to Cliff Martinez for Drive)

The slick, black and white poster for David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

QUICK REVIEW:

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist has to leave his magazine workplace in Stockholm due to a libel case and finds an interesting freelance job in working with a younger female hacker at searching out the fate of a teenage girl, who disappeared into thin air 40 years ago.

Following the excellent Scandinavian adaptation of Stieg Larsson's 2005 bestselling novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor, the first in his Millennium trilogy, Niels Arden Oplev's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009), it is impossible not to view this second adaptation just two years later by great Denver-born director David Fincher (Zodiac (2007)) as redundant.
Daniel Craig (The Golden Compass (2007)) and particularly Oscar-nominated Rooney Mara (Side Effects (2013)) as cool hacker Lisbeth Salander give outstanding performances, while Stellan Skarsgaard (Breaking the Waves (1996)) plays his Martin character a bit too pleasantly.
Fincher's visual flair is unmistakable, realized in fine, Oscar-nominated cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth (Down with Love (2003)), and especially the car scenes are handsomely shot. The score by Trent Reznor (The Social Network (2010)) and Atticus Ross (Blackhat (2015)) is quivering in its vivaciousness. The Oscar-winning, stressful editing by Kirk Baxter (Gone Girl (2014)) and Angus Wall (Panic Room (2002)) gives the film an impression of constant development, although the plot is stretched out on a playtime (158 minutes) which is too long, and we for instance have to watch what must nearly be an unequaled amount of cigarettes get lit. In Steve Zaillian's (American Gangster (2007)) script, we are far across the one hour mark before the Blomkvist and Salander plot-lines collide, which is far too long. After the climax, the makers also go to great lengths in order to try to weave the Wennerström plot to an end.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an alright film, but a far cry from the lean thrills of the first adaptation.

Related review:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009) - An exciting adult ride in sadism and mystery from cold cold Sweden 

Watch the admittedly bold and awesome trailer for the film here

Cost: 90 mil. $
Box office: 232.6 mil. $
= Even Steven
[Dragon Tattoo's development began in 2009, unrelated to the Scandinavian film, and it was shot in September - December 2010 on location in Sweden, the UK and US. It opened to great reviews and a 21 mil. $ first domestic weekend. It grossed 102.5 mil. $ (44 % of the total gross) in North America. It went unreleased in India and Vietnam due to the strict censorship in those countries. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK (18.7 mil. $) and Japan (15.8 mil. $). The film has made an additional 22.1 mil. $ on DVD/Bluray. It was 5 time Oscar-nominated; for Actress (Mara), Cinematography, Editing (won), Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is 86 % certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 7.6 critical average. There is still talk of Fincher directing the second and third book in the trilogy as well, although it will likely never happen in my opinion.]

What do you think of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
If you have read the book(s) and/or seen the Scandinavian film(s), please make your verdicts known

Fruitvale Station (2013) - Well-meaning issue drama heightened by stars Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer

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The brooding poster for Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station

QUICK REVIEW:

Oscar is a young Afro-American father in Oakland, California, who wants to stop selling drugs. On New Year's Eve he and his girlfriend leave his mother's birthday to go to San Francisco, as a dire situation arises.

If you know the basic skeleton of the 2009 true story that is the basis of Fruitvale Station, the feature debut of Oakland-born writer-director Ryan Coogler (The Sculptor (2011), short), a part of the film feels pretty manipulative: For us to grow a deep sense of sympathy for protagonist-lout Oscar, he is made out to be not only sweet to kids and strangers here but also just a great guy around animals, women and gay people.
This does not make the narrative awfully exciting. - Getting into the shoes of a young black man in America, who is trying to better his ways, is, however, and especially because Michael B. Jordan (The Wire (2002), TV-series) is very good in the part.
Fruitvale's other ace is Octavia Spencer (The Help (2011)), who play's Oscar's mother. Coogler has made a speedy rise to big business on top of the hugely successful release of this little independent film: His coming, second film is the 7th Rocky film, Creed (2015), coming out in December, again starring Jordan, here as the son of Apollo Creed, Rocky's opponent in the first two Rocky films.
Fruitvale Station is a good and very pertinent film that addresses a part of a tragic problem in US society. - It is not a party-starter.

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 0.9 mil. $
Box office: 17.3 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Coogler developed his script through the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and gained Forest Whitaker on board as one of the film's producers. Both Jordan and Spencer were also involved in getting the tiny budget to suffice. The film was shot in 20 days in Oakland. SPOILER The climax is shot at the actual location of Grant's death, and real amateur footage from the tragedy is, controversially, included in the film. The film premiered at Sundance, winning the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for Best US Drama. Its distribution rights were secured by The Weinstein Company in a bidding war for 2 mil. $. The film had a very successful run in the US and gained several nominations and awards, great reviews and was on many central Top 10 lists of the year. It grossed 16.1 mil. $ (93 % of the total gross) in North America.]

What do you think of Fruitvale Station?

Memories of My Melancholy Whores/Memoria de Mis Putas Tristes (2011) - Carlsen signs out with a dubious adaptation

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The ethereally beautiful poster for Henning Carlsen's Memories of My Melancholy Whores

We follow our old, nearly 90 year-old protagonist, who wants to spoil himself with a visit to an old, familiar brothel and to a virgin. But close to the young woman, his will freezes, - and then a murder is committed. (Or something.)

Great Danish filmmaker Henning Carlsen's (Hunger/Sult (1966)) last film is a very little-engaging offering, an adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez' (Love in the Time of Cholera/El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera (1985)) 2004 novella of the same title by Jean-Claude Carrière (The Monk/Le Moine (1972)) and Carlsen.
The film feels fabulating and distant. It is not without interest but a far cry from successful as a film.
Carlsen passed away in 2014, and this is his last film. R.I.P. 

Related posts:

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Watch the trailer for the film here - unfortunately, it doesn't have English subtitles

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[The production met considerable difficulties, as women's groups in Latin America fought against it on the ground that it supposedly glosses over prostitution and mistreatment of women. The film lost what seems like a large part of its budget on this back in 2009 and had to scramble to pick itself together again for a later than scheduled shooting. Carlsen was nearly 84 when the film premiered in his native Denmark. With the few commercial numbers publicized, the film looks like a big flop: It made 148k $ in Russia, 104k $ in Mexico and 28k $ in Poland, the three biggest markets, according to the information I have been able to find.]

What do you think of Memories of My Melancholy Whores?

A War/Krigen (2015) - The Dane goes to war in Lindholm's great third feature

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+ Best War Movie of the Year

A simple yet powerful image provides the poster for Tobias Lindholm's A War

  
Krigen [the war] is the third feature from great Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm (The Hunt/Jagten (2012), writer), by some referred to as the first real Danish war movie ever, because it contains scenes of Danish soldiers at war abroad, although this distinction is certainly up for debate.

We follow a Danish commander of a military outfit in Afghanistan's Helmand-province, who is in charge of patrolling and attempting to aid the local populace. - A job that is difficult if not utterly impossible due to, especially, the Taliban's reign of terror over the Afghanis.

Lindholm impressively triumphs once again here with A War, which is a very human portrayal of the Danish contribution in the Afghan War. A War is a strong and poignant film that works on several levels and carries its heart, - both for the soldiers as well as their families at home and for the civilian Afghanis affected by the war, - on its sleeve.
A War makes it obvious that the mission in Afghanistan was usually one step forward and two steps back. This is disheartening but seems to have been a fact. It showcases different types of soldiers and locals and succeeds in letting them stand out as human beings as opposed to mere character types.
A pattern is beginning to show in Lindholm's own films, (he has also scripted for several of the biggest Danish enterprises in film and TV in recent years.) His films, R: Hit First, Hit Hardest/R (2010), A Hijacking/Kapringen (2012) and now A War are all minimalistic portrayals of a Danish man played by Pilou Asbæk (Speed Walking/Kapgang (2014)), who might as well be simply called 'the Dane', because the particulars of his characters aren't all that important. What's important is what he goes through in the different films; a sentence in a Danish prison, a hijacking by Somalian pirates and here, the war in Afghanistan. All three films are tense, lean, realistic and well-crafted drama-thrillers with societal relevance.
Lindholm's 'formula' clearly works. I'm all for each of these films. I wonder if perhaps he will venture something more personal to himself in a future film?
 

Pilou Asbæk, Tuva Novotny and Søren Malling in Tobias Lindholm's A War

A War also works, of course, because of its great performances:
Asbæk is once again a commanding, sensitive lead, and Swedish Tuva Novotny (Eat Pray Love (2010)) also deserves praise for her vital, strong performance as his wife. Lindholm regulars Søren Malling (A Hijacking), Dar Salim (Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)) and Dulfi Al-Jabouri (Northwest/Nordvest (2013)) give fine supporting performances, and Charlotte Munck (Shake Your Heart/En Kort En Lang (2001)) is sober and believable SPOILER as prosecutor, as the film turns into a courtroom drama in its second half. This development is quite well-observed and speaks to the consequences and long aftermath of any war.
A War is accompanied by sparse, atmospheric music. Several of the soldiers in the film are played by actual Danish Afghanistan veterans, which only heightens the film's realism and integrity. They speak in military code, and much of what they say is unintelligible to the commoner. I also had trouble hearing the dialog in general, and as is often the case I wished that all movies were simply subtitled, so that it was possible to read what can't be heard, even when the language spoken is your own.
A War is an honest and strong film, certainly among the best Danish films of the year. I give it a warm recommendation.

Related posts:

Tobias Lindholm: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
A Hijacking/Kapringen (2012) - Realistic piracy negotiation drama-thriller, minimalist-Scandinavian style
The Hunt/Jagten (2012) - Vinterberg's strongest film since 1998 is a reversed Celebration (writer)

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[A War was produced by Nordisk Film and DR, with an 8 million DKR grant from the Danish Film Institute, filmed in Denmark, Turkey, Spain and Jordan and premiered at Venice International Film Festival. Its current admissions tally in Denmark stands at just 27k, far from success status.]


What do you think of A War?

Django Unchained (2012) - Tarantino's gutsy, colorful 'Southern'

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+ Best Western of the Year

The potent, black-white-and-red poster for Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained

Django is a slave, who has been sold away from his wife Broomhilda. He is now bought free from a strange, German bounty hunter; together they are to kill wanted men and find and rescue Broomhilda!

Django Unchained is not quite like any other film. It is like a modern piece of blaxploitation, but in epic length (165 minutes), which is justified by the film having a mission which the majority of the old spaghetti westerns it pays homage to didn't: Unchained entertains while exposing slavery as the epitome of depravity that it was.
The film is technically astute, with unusual musical choices and first-class performances from several cast members: Oscar-winning Christoph Waltz (Carnage (2011)), who, however, is perhaps just being himself, more or less; Kerry Washington (Scandal (2012-15)) is stunning; Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wold of Wall Street (2013)) is formidable; Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction (1994)) has probably never been better than he is here as the ultra-low slave handler Stephen; and Jamie Foxx (Ray (2004)) just is Django!
The film also has fun cameos and overly bloody shoot-outs, which may appeal more to some than master writer-director Quentin Tarantino's (Reservoir Dogs (1992)) beautiful dialogs that also elevate the film. He won the Best Screenplay Oscar for his work here.
Django Unchained is a filthy, undeniably still a bit overlong raised middle finger to racism and slavery.

Related posts:

Quentin Tarantino: 2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Death Proof (2007) - Tarantino's awesome, rubber-burning Grindhouse homage 
Desperado (1995) - Rodriguez' second Mexico actioner is a sexy, latino fireball (actor)

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 100 mil. $
Box office: 425.4 mil. $
= Big hit
[Unchained is Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date. It was shot in 130 days in California, Wyoming and Louisiana. Its premiere was moved a couple of weeks due to the Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting, so Unchained came out on Christmas Day. It was criticized for its violence, handling of slavery and use of the f-word, but became a huge crowd-pleaser anyway, grossing 162.8 mil. $ (38 % of the total gross) in North America, following a 30.6 mil. $ first weekend. It is Tarantino's first film that was approved by the Chinese authorities for release in the country. Besides the two Oscars for Tarantino and Waltz, Unchained was also nominated for Best Picture, Cinematography and Sound Editing. Additionally, the sale of DVD and Blurays of the film has accrued more than 62.2 mil. $ in North America alone.]

What do you think of Django Unchained?

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared/Hundraåringen Som Klev Ut Genom Fönstret och Försvann (2013) - One of the year's funniest films is this Swedish adaptation

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+ Best Swedish Movie of the Year

The original Swedish poster for Felix Herngren's The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Allan does not want to celebrate his centennial birthday as a nursing home resident and therefore escapes out of his window to evade the pending 'festivities'. On his escape he happens to steal a suitcase, and a new adventure begins in his eventful life.

The Hundred-Year-Old is a highly enjoyable tall tale, which is an adaptation of the same-titled 2009 bestseller by Jonas Jonasson (The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden/Analfabeten Som Kunde Räkna (2012)). Co-writer-director Felix Herngren (Every Other Week/Varannan Vecka (2006)) and Hans Ingemansson (Every Other Week) have done a first-rate job of adapting the book. - As someone who has read the book, I can attest that their film might actually be better than the book.
Gallows humor, absurdism and even subtle stings to the state of affairs in contemporary Sweden are served in a lavish production with a high  pace and good performances across the board: Especially Robert Gustafsson (Four Shades of Brown/Fyra Nyanser av Brunt (2004)) is, incredible as it may seem, very good as the titular hero, who was 52 years older than him at the time of shooting! Several of the other actors are also terrific.
The Hundred-Year-Old is a super fun, festive gunpowder-fueled blast. Hooray!

Related posts:

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the trailer with English subtitles here

Cost: 9.1 mil. $
Box office: 50 mil. $
= Big hit
[The film opened at Christmas in Sweden, where it came off to a great start; after nearly 6 months, 1.565 mil. Swedes had paid admission, making it the 6th most seen Swedish film in Sweden to date. Its gross makes it the third-highest grossing Swedish film of all time behind The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor (2009) and The Girl Who Played with Fire/Flickan Som Lekte med Elden (2009). A sequel of The Hundred-Year-Old is in the mold for release in 2016.]

What do you think of The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared?

Casa de Mi Padre (2012) - Will Ferrell's weird, funny Mexican movie

♥♥♥♥

+ Silliest Movie of the Year

The retro-styled poster for Matt Piedmont's Casa de Mi Padre

Two Mexican brothers, one a successful drug dealer, the other a gullible, goodhearted moron, duel against villains, - some very very bad guys...!

The plot of Casa de Mi Padre is fast forgotten, to put it mildly. The film is a weird, Spanish-language western comedy that spoofs Mexican telenovelas, and for those who are game for it, it's a lot of fun. It is a campy patchwork of genres mixing and references (to films like The Wild Bunch (1969), El Mariachi (1992) and Mexican stuff that's unfamiliar to most audiences who aren't Mexican.) It blends old with new in deliberately crappy sets and effects, which makes it funny in a kind of obscure way. Besides Will Ferrell (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)), who learned his Spanish for the film in a month and is surprisingly good as a Mexican, Gael Garcia Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)) as the villain and Efren Ramirez (Napoleon Dynamite (2004)) and Adrian Martinez (American Hustle (2013)) as Ferrell's friends are all funny.
Casa de Mi Padre is written by Andrew Steele (A Deadly Adoption (2015)) and Eva Maria Peters (Antikiller 2: Antiterror (2003)) and directed by Matt Piedmont (The Spoils of Babylon (2014), TV mini-series). - It's weird! - And fun!

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 8 mil. $
= Huge flop
[The film was shot in 24 days, and it premiered on 382 screens to a 2.2 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it grossed 5.9 mil. $ (74 % of the total gross) in its two month run. It did not play in many other countries, and Mexico was the biggest secondary market with a 2.4 mil. $ gross. The film reportedly spend 8 mil. $ on marketing, which is after the 6 mil. $ production budget. In this light, the film's commercial failure is much steeper.]

What do you think of Casa de Mi Padre?

Before Midnight (2013) - Linklater, Hawke and Delpy's Before trilogy comes to a tender, incisive and chilling end

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Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy by the Mediterranean Sea on the poster for Richard Linklater's Before Midnight

QUICK REVIEW:

Jesse and Celine of the two previous films in the Before trilogy, (Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004)), are now a married couple with two lovely twin daughters, who have just spend their summer together on the Greek Peloponnese peninsula. But as Jesse is sending his teenage son back on a plane to his ex-wife in the States, he feels that perhaps it is time that they should move with him over there.

The last Before film so far, (for who knows for sure that this will end as a trilogy?), starts marvelously in an airport and with a long car talking scene. A later dinner scene is perhaps a little long and over-populated with the extremely articulate Before types that Jesse and Celine seem to attract everywhere. - But it ends on a moving note.
SPOILER As the fight between the two breaks out, it is depressing because it is so real and such an accurate depiction of the way couples tend to behave in a midlife crisis situation.
Ethan Hawke (Training Day (2001)) is phenomenal, and so is Julie Delpy (Broken Flowers (2005)), although Celine definitely comes off as the most antagonistic. SPOILER The fight is steered back into romance in the end, but the way the married couple wear down each other's emotional blades, - which is really well captured here, - is still so disheartening that, for me, Before Midnight, though unmistakably great, is the least enjoyable in the trilogy.
In online forums others have attacked co-writer-director Richard Linklater, (who has written the films with Hawke and Delpy), for "trashing" the characters that have moved people profoundly since the first film. But these critics fail to accept that these characters and their relationship merely evolve and change in each 9 year span to some degree, just as real people do. That this change is heartbreaking in some sense is not something the artists are responsible for. This is just the way life turns out for many if not all people.

Related reviews:
 
2014 in films - according to Film Excess 2011 in films - according to Film Excess 
Richard Linklater: Boyhood (2014) or, Colored Mirror
Bernie (2011) - Linklater, Black and Hollandsworth's incredible true-crime dramedy
A Scanner Darkly (2006) - Dick and Linklater's drug-infested vision of the future 

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 3 mil $
Box office: 23.3 mil. $
=  Huge hit
[Before Midnight was shot in the summer of 2012 in 15 days in and around Messenia, Greece. The film premiered at Sundance, played at Berlin International Film Festival and opened widest (897 theaters) in America on June 14th. It made 8.1 mil. $ (35 % of the total gross) domestically and was Oscar-nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, (adapted since its based on existing characters.) It became the 2nd best reviewed film of the year according to Rotten Tomatoes, only bested by Gravity (2013). It also appeared on a long row of critic's top 10 lists of 2013 and was nominated for and won a slew of awards.]

What do you think of Before Midnight?

Irrational Man (2015) - Allen's pleasant morality tale divertisement

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Joaquin Phoenix looks swanky (and hides his giant beer gut) on this stylish, albeit slightly dull poster for Woody Allen's Irrational Man

Irrational Man is the new film from master writer-director Woody Allen (Anything Else (2003)), who is already shooting his next film and also set to direct his first TV-series, both to come out next year. Pushing 80, the impressive man is anything but slowing down.

Abe Lucas is a philosophy professor, who is moving to a friendly New England college, where a couple of women take to his depressed outpourings. Real trouble sets in, as Lucas seizes a radical means to pull himself out of his slump.

Thematically, Allen is in (familiar) Crime and Punishment waters here, (referring to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic 1866 novel), and the novel also gets mentioned in the film, along with a long line of other novels, writers and thinkers. As is usually the case with Allen's films, prior knowledge to the intellectual and in this case also the academical world heightens the understanding and pleasure of the film. I found it to be a stimulating story. It's not among Allen's deepest and certainly not his funniest, but as a weary adult's diversion, it's excellent.
SPOILER The weakest moment of the film, and I can't, regrettably, really explain why, is a dinner scene, in which Emma Stone's (Magic in the Moonlight (2014)) character presents her professor Joaquin Phoenix (The Master (2012)) to her parents at home, and they debate the facts surrounding a mysterious local murder. For whatever reason, this scene just doesn't work. But I find that the plot is generally plausible and sound enough, and that this is just a little rough patch in an otherwise good film.

Woody Allen directing Jamie Blackley and Emma Stone for his Irrational Man

The details:

Irrational Man sees Allen work with Phoenix for the first time. Phoenix, in the title role, has grown a solid potbelly for the film (I guess...?), which is impossible not to notice, although I couldn't say I enjoyed his abdominal addition per se. He plays the lead as he finds best and not in the vein of how Allen might have done it himself, which works in his favor, and he does well. Stone  is back for her second Allen film, (following Magic in the Moonlight), and she is perfectly cast as the keenly intelligent young woman, SPOILER who still falls right smack for her professor's 'charms'. Parker Posey (The Sweetest Thing (2002)), who is actually 6 years older than Phoenix, is beginning to look her age. - Not to say that she isn't still sexy as hell, though, and she also gives another fine performance in Irrational Man.
Great cinematographer Darius Khondji (Magic in the Moonlight) doesn't get too much to play with visually here. The film has a typically Allenesque, snazzy jazz sound side, although without any majorly recognizable tracks this time.
One of Allen's producers for several decades, Jack Rollins (Alice (1990), executive producer), passed away in June, and Irrational Man is his final screen credit, as co-executive producer.

Related reviews:
 
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Woody Allen:  Magic in the Moonlight (2014) - Allen's irresistible French Riviera romance
Fading Gigolo (2013) - Turturro's pleasant turn as a high-end NY prostitute  (as actor)
Blue Jasmine (2013) - Allen presenets Blanchett, a woman under the influence
To Rome with Love (2012) - Woody Allen's slightest film to date  
Midnight in Paris (2011) - Allen's zany (and a little depressing) crowd-pleaser  
Cassandra's Dream (2007) - Allen's well-laid but inconsequentiel English cul-de-sac  
Anything Else (2003) - Perfect contemporary relationship comedy    
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) - Allen's hypnotic, noirish shenanigans 
Celebrity (1998) or, Stars in New York 
Celebrity (1998) or, Beautiful Celebrities Talk About Sex (guest review) 
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) - Sin and guilt up for laughs and rumination in unspectacular Allen work 
Broadyway Danny Rose (1984) or, Keep Your Heart   
Annie Hall (1977) or, My Relationship with Alvie Singer   
Bananas (1971) - Woody Allen's South American misadventure is still a barrel of laughs   
Casino Royale (1967) - The packed spy spoof frontrunner, a film very much of its time (as actor)  

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 5.8 mil. $ and counting
= Uncertainty
[Irrational Man was shot in Newport, Rhode Island, in July - August of 2014. It premiered in Cannes, and its domestic gross seems to have landed on a rather flat 3.8 mil. $. Abroad, it has so far done best in Russia, where it has made 0.5 mil. $. It does not, unfortunately, look like it is going to end up as a theatrical hit.]

What do you think of Irrational Man?