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From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. November 2024: More reviews of titles from 1990-2024 - Upcoming review: The Idealist (2015) - Now with 2,300+ reviews!
Frances McDormand stars as Lisa Chodolenko's Olive Kitteridge
Olive Kitteridge is a 4-part HBO drama miniseries adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's (The Burgess Boys (2013)) same-titled 2008 novel, written by Jane Anderson (Mad Men (2008), TV-series) and directed by great Californian filmmaker Lisa Chodolenko (The Kids Are All Right (2010)). Olive is a school teacher in a small Maine community, where her kind husband Henry runs a pharmacy. With very different temperaments and outlooks on life, the two raise their son and grow old together. Chodolenko and Anderson have done a bang-up job with Strout's marvelous novel, and the miniseries format is auspiciously chosen for the piece. Olive Kitteridge makes me wonder if climates across nations might affect people in the same way. - The Maine folks here certainly remind me of Scandinavians, who come from a very similar climate and landscape. Frances McDormand (Friends with Money (2006)) enjoys one of her career's best characters here, and she is wonderful as Olive, whom she tackles with total disregard for her own vanity. - A bold and terrific performance. Equally well-cast and spectacular is Richard Jenkins (Burn after Reading (2008)) as Henry Kitteridge. The family share several dinner scenes in the series, - but many are hilariously short, as Olive has a way of ending them prematurely, quite dictatorially. Sentimental Henry's colleague and compassion project Denise is played with admirable grace by Zoe Kazan (What If (2013)); Brady Corbet (Force Majeure/Turist (2014)) is good as her short-time husband; Cory Michael Smith (Carol (2015)) is terrific as the mentally ill Kevin Coulson, and Bill Murray (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) is perfect as Jack Kennison. Besides the top notch cast, Olive Kitteridge has Carter Burwell (Carol (2015)) composing its effective score. This is a story of life as it unfolds in Olive Kitteridge's case. There will be situations and arguments that most can relate to. The series is both funny and sad, poignant and surprising, warm and human. It moves fast in a few places, and it's few experiments with digital effects are not altogether successful. But these are minor details of a whole which is extremely recommendable, a moving snapshot of everyday life. Related posts: Lisa Chodolenko: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] The Kids Are All Right (2010) - Chodolenko's excellent indie crowdpleaser
Watch a trailer for the miniseries here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: None - TV miniseries
= Unknown
[Olive Kitteridge debuted on HBO Sunday November 2 with 559k viewers tuning in in North America for the first two episodes. The two remaining episodes were shown the following evening. Those ratings are not impressive for an HBO miniseries compared to other recent works and TV movies by them, but when taking into account that this focuses on an acclaimed but not superstar actress portraying a schoolteacher in Maine growing old, the ratings must look better. Olive Kitteridge should also have a significant life after its premiere on other platforms as a high-quality drama with universal appeal. Filming took place in Massachusetts and Maine. The miniseries was nominated for 3 Golden Globes and 13 Emmys, winning 8. Olive Kitteridge currently rests at #231 at IMDb's user-generated TV top 250 and is certified fresh at 96 % with a 8.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
1. Inside Out - Pete Doctor and Ronaldo Del Carmen + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best American Movie of the Year
2. Looking S2 - Michael Lannan (creator) + Best LGBT Movie/TV-series of the Year + Best San Francisco Movie/TV-series of the Year + Most Underappreciated Movie/TV-series of the Year
3. Embrace of the Serpent/El Abrazo de la Serpiente - Ciro Guerra + Best Colombian Movie of the Year + Best Psychedelic Movie of the Year + Best B/W Movie of the Year + Best Poster of the Year
4. Carol - Todd Haynes + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year + Best Adaptation of the Year
The first update of the 2015 lists adds 15 titles to the mix, bringing the tally up to 34, - still far from comprehensive. On the best-of list, the year's best film remains Pete Doctor and Ronaldo Del Carmen's ingenious and insightful Inside Out, - the first animated movie to top the Film Excess annual lists. It is followed byMichael Lannan's second and regrettably already last season of the amazing Looking series, Ciro Guerra's transcendent Amazon excursion Embrace of the Serpent, Todd Haynes' sensational 1950s-set lesbian romance Carol,Christopher McQuarrie's flawless action jewel Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Adam McKay's indignant, inventive financial crisis movie The Big Short andAsif Kapadia's devastating Amy documentary, all masterpieces. The top 10 list is capped by two huge blockbusters; J. J. Abrams' inspired, tremendousStar Wars: The Force Awakens andColin Trevorrow's majorly satisfying Jurassic World, as well as a smaller, adult and very recommendable one, Tom McCarthy's Spotlight. Leaving the top 10 this year are Paul Feig's hysterically funny Spy, Tobias Lindholm's forceful A War, George Miller's acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road and finally Mikkel Nørgaard's laugh-coaster Klown Forever. The
year has been terrific especially from the major movie Hollywood front,
which has given, - as the top 10 also reflects, - several spectacular films,
most from existing franchises, which combats the often cited opinion
that Hollywood's creative recycling and reworkings makes for poor
storytelling and movies. But, of course, the year's worst film so far, -
and more similar mega-movies will undoubtedly follow it, - is also a sequel in a decades old franchise. Other great films of the year includes a fine transgender drama (The Danish Girl), a poignant youth drama (Me and Earl and the Real Girl) and a creepy religious period horror (The Witch). Daniel Craig returned in another good Bond movie, explosive, fun Spectre, and Amy Schumer made her much hyped big screen debut in the successful Trainwreck. The worst-of list is crowned by Alan Taylor's Terminator: Genisys. It is followed by a dismal mining accident movie, Patricia Riggen's The 33, the second season of Silicon Valley, in which the sitcom's quality plummeted, and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu's acclaimed, hollowly violent, preachy and overlongThe Revenant.
The 2016 Oscars:
The ceremony was hosted for the secondtime by Chris Rock, who faced a hard task in making the evening enjoyable after draining months the so-called 'Oscars so white'-controversy regarding the few black faces to be nominated that year and in general, (not a movement for non-white people in general, the problem was, according to the statements from everyone from execs to major stars, specifically the lack of black nominees and Oscar winners...) Rock tried and enlisted Whoopi Goldberg to try and pump some fun out of this, admitting Hollywood's racism while also attacking vocal protesting talents such as Will Smith and Spike Lee. The night wasn't fun though, - probably among the least bearable Oscar nights in my memory. It didn't help that the biggest winners were the wrong films: Mad Max: Fury Road (6 Oscars) and The Revenant (3 Oscars) don't even make Film Excess' top 10 of the year. Spotlight won Best Film and Original Screenplay (Tom McCarthy, Josh Singer). Revenant won Best Director (Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárrituthus became, ridiculously, the third of all time to win the award consecutively), Actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki, also ridiculously, became the first to win the award three years in a row). Room won Best Actress (Brie Larson), and Mark Rylance won Best Supporting Actor for Bridge of Spies. Alicia Vikander won Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl. Adam McKay and Charles Randolph won Best Adapted Screenplay for The Big Short. Inside Out won Best Animation, Son of Saul Best Foreign Film (ahead of Embrace of the Serpent, Mustang, Theeb and A War) and Amy won Best Documentary. The short film Oscars went to A Girl in the River - The Price of Forgiveness (short doc.), Stutterer (short live-action) and Bear Story (short animation). Ennio Morricone won Best Score for The Hateful Eight, and Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith won Best Song for Writing's on the Wall (Spectre). Smith provided one of the evening's most embarrassing moments, when he stated that he was honored to be the first out gay person to win an Oscar, (whichhas already happened more than once in the last few years.) Mad Max: Fury Road took a batch of technical Oscars: Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design and Costumes. Ex Machina won Best Visual Effects. Honorary Oscars went to Spike Lee, Debbie Reynolds and Geena Rowlands.
2015 titles still on the watchlist:
Joy,
In the Heart of the Sea, The Funhouse Massacre, Rock the Kasbah,
Goosebumps, Anomalisa, He Named Me Malala, Absolutely Anything, Pixels, Scream Queens (2015-),
A Deadly Adoption, The Assassin, Dheepan, Youth, Sicario,
Hitchcock/Truffaut, Son of Saul, Song of Lahore, Other Space (2015-),
I Am Michael, Finders Keepers, People Places, Things, Mistress
America, Shaun the Sheep Movie, Blackhat, Racing Extinction, Cartel Land, Cucumber (TV-series), High-Rise, The Colony, The Meddler, Krisha, Bone Tomahawk, Time to Choose, Walt Before Mickey, Bridge of Spies, Chronic, Room, Steve Jobs, 45 Years, Creed, The Hateful Eight, Ex Machina, Mustang, What Happened Miss Simone?, Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom, A Girl in the River - The Price of Forgivenes and Stutterer.
+ Worst Movie of the Year + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year
A packed main poster for Gareth Edwards' multi-racial Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Note the storm troopers in the bottom, walking on water (...), which they also, very strangely, do on the other poster featured in this review
The daughter of a brilliant scientist, who was kidnapped by the evil Empire when she was a child, as a young woman faces the fact that he has been used to create the powerful weapon the Death Star, and she decides to team up with the Rebel Alliance to fight the Empire's domination.
Rogue One marks the first of the announced 3 spin-off Star Wars movies in the new Disney-owned part of the franchise's lifetime, whereof the following two are supposed to focus on Han Solo and Boba Fett's backstories. Rogue One starts well with the exciting division of father and daughter by evil Ben Mendelsohn (The New World (2005)). Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt/Jagten (2012)) is good as the reluctant scientist father. You might wonder why I don't care to use the names of these characters, but there is a clear reason, which is also the film's major problem: They're not that interesting. The expectations for a Star Wars movie, - and especially one that follow J.J. Abrams' excellent Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015), - are very high indeed, and the characters have a lot to live up to. Rogue One builds up as a story about some of the rebels in the ragtag alliance army, but they just don't sweep me off my feet as they are supposed to. - I didn't feel much for them and thus their cause, which is the whole core of this dark war tale. - The film fails, although its technical merits are, as expected, above question. Felicity Jones (A Monster Calls (2016)) plays our lead, who sulkily shares that she doesn't really feel like being a rebel but suddenly becomes the leader of the rebels anyway. She isn't too interesting, but she's a young woman who's leading the film and ergo 'progressive' as the most ridiculous critics have opined. Diego Luna (Milk (2008)) is a veteran rebel soldier, who also isn't too interesting, but together, they make up the Rogue One couple, SPOILER who only seems to lean towards a romance right at the end when they die. Donnie Yen (Ip Man 2 (2010)) is the only character who really talks about the Force, the center for all the previous Star Wars movies; but his blind faith-centered character doesn't elevate the soul as he seems engineered to do. The meticulously multi-racially gathered cast also includes Wen Jiang (Lotus Lantern (2005)), (who together with Yen must be cast in order to return a hefty dollar in the lucrative Asian markets), Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler (2014)) and Forest Whitaker (The Butler (2013)), who is pretty much wasted in a part that demands that he looks ridiculous in a way that calls his turn in Battlefield Earth (2000) to mind. - Surely, noStar Wars movie shouldever do that! The film is almost without romance; the humanity and heart of, for instance, The Force Awakens has vanished, and for kicks we are given a new droid that's just a poor substitute for C3PO, R2D2 or even Jar Jar Binks. We don't get to see any new planets or creatures that are very amazing, (there are exciting new aliens, but we see each of them for about a second.) Instead Rogue One focuses on this overly serious war tone until it just plain bores and starts to depress with explosion and destruction followed by more explosions and destruction. SPOILER It might be symptomatic of its sickness that the film kills off just about every half-baked character it has conjured up. It feels like a bad joke and feels about as uplifting as a slush-ice poured down your back. Rogue One is written by Tony Gilroy (The Great Wall (2016)) and Chris Weitz (About a Boy (2002)), with story by John Knoll (Deep Blue Sea, visual effects supervisor (1999) and Gary Whitta (After Earth (2013)), and directed by great English filmmaker Gareth Edwards (Godzilla (2014)), whose third theatrical feature it is. Last year at this time I couldn't wait to get to a cinema and watch The Force Awakens again. This year I have no problem waiting a decade to go back and re-watch Rogue One, without question the worst Star Wars movie to date, (which means basically the first one in the franchise that's actually a bad film.)
Cost: 200 mil. $ Box office: 305.8 mil. $ and counting = Too early to say [Rogue One: A Star Wars Story premiered December 10 (Hollywood) and runs 133 minutes. It is based on visual effects expert Knoll's 10 year-old idea. Filming took place in England, Jordan, Iceland and the Maldives from August 2015 - February 2016, with reshoots in June - July 2016. The film has opened #1 to a 155 mil. $ first weekend in North America, huge but far below The Force Awakens' 247.9 mil. $ first weekend. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story?
