Ghost World (2001) - Zwigoff's adaptation is a flawless coming-of-age masterpiece

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The skirted teenage girl protagonists stand opinionated and firmly placed in a vacuum on this smart and funny poster for Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World

Enid and Rebecca are best friends. Done with high school and seemingly ready to move in together to embark on adult life, Enid begins a relationship with a much older record collector named Seymour, which brings her to doubt herself, the world and her future tremendously.

Ghost World is written by Daniel Clowes (Art School Confidential (2006)), based on his same-titled 1997 graphic novel, and Wisconsinite master filmmaker, co-writer/director Terry Zwigoff (Louie Bluie (1985, documentary)), whose fiction debut it is.
It is a film that will fool some to rate it under its value due to its surface look of being a 'small' film, (which is a questionable summation of any film generally.) In terms of scale it is a small movie but not in terms of themes or achievements, and as importantly there simply is not a fault to put one's finger on in Ghost World.
Thora Birch (The Competition (2018)) as the evolving Enid; Scarlett Johansson (The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)) as her voice of reason friend Rebecca, and Steve Buscemi (Mr. Deeds (2002)) as the hilariously funny dejected Seymour are all fantastic.
The music (score by David Kitay (Smiley Face (2007))) and acerbic, poignant descriptions of modern US society in the film help its unique effect of smarting while making one laugh. The cinematography (by Affonso Beato (Treason (1998))) and costumes are very 1990s/independent/Americana. Ghost World is an unequaled gem.

Related posts:

Terry Zwigoff: Art School Confidential (2006) or, World of Phoney
Bad Santa (2003) - Zwigoff sticks dynamite under Christmas in this modern dark comedy classic 
Crumb (1994, documentary) or, The Artist As a Cartoonist

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 8.7 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.24 times its cost)
[Ghost World premiered 16 June (Seattle International Film Festival) and runs 112 minutes. Shooting took place in California, including Los Angeles, from March - May 2000. The film opened #30 to a 98k $ first weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #20 and in 128 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 6.2 mil. $ (71.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 587k $ (6.7 %) and France with 357k $ (4.1 %). The film was nominated for the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, lost to Akiva Goldsman for A Beautiful Mind. It was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 2 AFI awards, won 2/3 Independent Spirit award nominations and a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Zwigoff returned with Bad Santa (2003). Birch returned in 5 TV and video credits prior to her theatrical return in Silver City (2004); Johansson in An American Rhapsody (2001); Buscemi with a voice performance in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and physically in The Grey Zone (2001). Ghost World is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.83/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ghost World?

Saint John of Las Vegas (2009) - Slight deadpan comedy debut unduly dumped

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+ Best Las Vegas Movie of the Year

Splashy graphics with three of the film's stars on this poster give a vague sense of the luck-centered story of Hue Rhodes' Saint John of Las Vegas

John is addicted to gambling, and his vice gets an opportunity to soar when he heads on a trip to Las Vegas and its surrounding area to uncover insurance scams. He also has a new, sweet girlfriend, but the itch to gamble just won't leave his hands...

Saint John of Las Vegas is written and directed by feature-debuting Hue Rhodes (Practice (2006, short)). It is a funny little deadpan-comedic flick with a high Vegas quality to it. Rhodes has screwed it together well, - and gotten Steve Buscemi (The Messenger (2009)) to co-produce and play the title character, protagonist John, whom Buscemi inhabits with gusto.
Romany Malco (Top Five (2014)) looks good in any project, here in an undefinable partner part. There are fine, original characters at play here, even if the film is basically slight.

Related posts:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 2 mil. $
Box office: 111k $
= Box office disaster (returned 0.05 times its cost)
[Saint John of Las Vegas premiered 10 June (Cinevegas Film Festival, Las Vegas) and runs 85 minutes. Rhodes had come into contact with co-producer Spike Lee (Pass Over (2018)) as an NYU film student and later Buscemi and co-producer Stanley Tucci (Medora (2013, documentary)). Shooting took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico and in Las Vegas, Nevada. The film opened #52 to a 21k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #50 and in 14 theaters, grossing 102k $ (91.9 % of the total gross). The only other market for it was Russia with 9k $. The catastrophic performance of the film seems to have stubbed out Rhodes' budding career, although CinemaBlend's interview with him around the time of its release reads enthusiastically that "it certainly won't be his last." He has had no credit since. Buscemi returned with a voice performance in G-Force (2009) and physically in Youth in Revolt (2009); Malco in Bored to Death (2009, TV-series), Off Duty (2009, TV movie) and theatrically in Gulliver's Travels (2010). Saint John of Las Vegas is rotten at 23 % with a 4.28/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Saint John of Las Vegas?

Boardwalk Empire - season 2 (2011) - Winter's gritty show reaches towering heights

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2 Time Film Excess Award Winner:

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon 
Best Production Design: Bill Groom, Charley Beal, Adam Scher, Carol Silverman

7 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Actor: Steve Buscemi (lost to Jack Black for Bernie)
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Pitt (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2)
Best Supporting Actor: Michael Shannon (won)
Best Supporting Actress: Kelly Macdonald (lost to Agnieszka Grochowska for In Darkness)
Best Costumes: John Dunn, Lisa Padovani (lost to Mildred Pierce)
Best Make-up and Hair: Mary Aaron, Christine Cantrell and others (lost to J. Edgar) 
Best Production Design: Bill Groom, Charley Beal, Adam Scher, Carol Silverman (won)

+ Best Adaptation of the Year 
+ Best Gangster Movie/TV-series of the Year

Several of the major characters are lumped together, all eying each other with caution on the Atlantic City boardwalk on this poster for the second season of TerenceWinter's Boardwalk Empire

The following episode summary will contain SPOILERS:

1. February 1921: Atlantic County's corrupt treasurer Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson's young protege Jimmy Darmody finds himself at a crossroad, as his father, the Commodore, the gambling and resort town's former leader, and Nucky's brother, the town's sheriff Eli Thompson are scheming to remove Nucky from power, which Jimmy could gain tremendously from. Prohibition agent Van Alden, who is targeting Nucky, enjoys a visit from his wife through 13 years, whom he impresses with a liquor raid on a restaurant. Nucky's stepson with his mistress Margaret Schroeder plays with matches at his school and is bribed to behave, before Nucky is arrested for election fraud. Nucky's liquor-making partner in the city, African-American Chalky White, has his headquarter violently attacked by the Ku Klux Klan.
2. White is for a short while imprisoned with Enoch before he is put in with fellow Negroes: One among them, who doesn't know White, makes the mistake of insulting him in a cool scene. Nucky is bailed out and learns of his brother's betrayal, as his wise, beautiful wife saves evidence and money from their suite, which is being ransacked. He donates some to the Irish nationalist cause. Jimmy is visiting New York, which goes awry: The metropolis' mob boss Philip Rothman doesn't believe his stories from Atlantic City, and he is assaulted by goons, whom he dexterously offs.
3. Margaret learns of her estranged relatives and diverts with her servants. Meanwhile problems go on for Nucky. New York wiseguys Lucky Luciano and his partner are forced by Rothstein to pay for a killing by Jimmy, when he was in the city. Back in Atlantic City, Jimmy is visited by his old pal Al Capone and is once again torn between his loyalties to Nucky and his ailing father. Nucky's former mistress Lucy is pregnant and miserable, and following an affair with Van Alden, she is locked inside by him.
4. The Commodore is indirectly disabled by Jimmy's mother Gillian, who later beats him up for his having raped her in the past. Jimmy's artist wife portrays Richard, the sad, one-eyed WWI veteran, Richard, who is their tormented friend. Jimmy strikes an important deal with Jewish butcher Manny, while Nucky makes a liquor distribution deal with Arnold Rothstein of New York. Margaret and Van Alden struggle with their respective marriages, and Chalky White is released back into the black community, who look up to him. But he is unable to give them the revenge that they seek and instead causes a scandal in his own home.
5. Jimmy gives an address at Memorial Day, introduced by Nucky, as knowledge of the Commodore's fatal disability spreads. Eli attempts to win back his brother's favor - but too late: They end up in a serious fight, which Margaret ends with a riffle. Eli goes on to murder a curious financier with a wrench in this bloody episode. Richard goes to the woods to commit suicide but meets people there, and instead returns to help Jimmy get rid of a proud, old war profiteer in brutal, Indian style.
6. Margaret's son goes to his first confession, and Margaret herself confesses that she is attracted to Nucky's IRA-volunteer muscle Owen Sleater. Jimmy and Manny's criminal ties strengthen, and Lucy gives birth alone and in pain. Van Alden is upset after having seen his badly burned colleague, who seems to have understood Van Alden's own corruption, and in a lapse of character calls his wife, who arrives to find Lucy and her baby in her husband's apartment.
7. Margaret visits her brother, his daughters, and her little sister in New York, but it is a sad reunion. Sleater kills an old enemy and makes love to the returning lady of the house, Margaret. Van Alden cannot live up to his monetary promise to Lucy and receives an offer from Nucky, his sworn enemy, but instead sees the newly appointed federal investigator with his proofs. Meanwhile the atmosphere in Darmody's camp is boiling, as Luciano screws his mother, and he authorizes an attempt at Nucky's life but then regrets. It results only in a shot through Nucky's hand.
8. Pressed from all sides following the attempt on his life, Nucky has a new idea, which involves Ireland. He and Eli's father dies, and they quarrel bitterly at his deathbed. Nuck resigns as treasurer to keep his life, and Jimmy celebrates his seeming success - but with more than a drop of vinegar to it. His wife indulges in an affair with a female writer after having heard some truths about Darmody's work. Van Alden hires a Norwegian woman to care for Lucy's baby.
9. Margaret's daughter with her deceased husband takes ill with polio, as Nucky has left for Ireland in a bold move, smuggling Tommy guns in his "father's" coffin to the IRA. He meets resistance from Father MacGarrigle, who wants to "give peace a chance", - but his own kill him and make the deal: guns for whiskey. Jimmy wants to cover up his failed assassination and decides to off Manny, but it is easier said than done. Legendary boxing match 'Battle of the Century' (Jack Dempsey v. Georges Carpentier) takes place.
10. Margaret is in a turmoil due to her daughter's illness; filled with guilt due to her own infidelity, she donates a fortune to the Catholic church. Darmody's charge of Atlantic City comes to look toothless, as the town's blacks - on Nucky's request - start a riot that has violence breaking out in public. Sheriff Eli is jailed, and Manny returns to AC and takes revenge for Darmody's failed attempt on his life by shooting both his wife and her mistress.
11. Following the tragic double murder, Darmody's past at Princeton University is revealed, where his intense mother disrupted his studies and - horrifically - screwed him, - which made him enlist in the military. Margaret is beside herself, sees sin everywhere and refuses to face the possible outcome of Nucky's legal case, which sees him frying in the electric chair. Instead she threatens him with turning witness herself, - keeping her own untruthfulness a secret, - and is set straight. The case takes a new turn as Van Alden, after having signed his divorce, is accused of the murder of his colleague, which took place in season 1, shoots a new colleague and escapes! Darmody returns with a vengeance, throwing himself furiously at his mother but ending up instead killing his father. Gasp.
12. Darmody gives up running the perilous city on his own and comes back to Nucky, - against everyone's advice. He is put to work just before Nucky's case may end him for good, spoiling a key testimony with a 'suicide' in a phenomenal montage, as Margaret helps Nucky by marrying him, which means she cannot be forced to testify against him. Nucky even arranges a 1½ year sentence for his brother, who is drinking himself to an early grave, and the Assistant US Attorney Esther Randolph, who is assigned to the electoral fraud and murder case is left with nothing. Nucky finds Manny and promises Jimmy revenge on a rainy, thunderous night, - but it turns out to be a trap, and Nucky shoots him as an unforgiving, Old-Testament God. Wrapping up the season, Nucky celebrates newly allocated funds for a new road to the city, as Margaret, unbeknownst to him, donates all the land away to her church.

Creator Terence Winter's (Vinyl (2016), TV-series) Boardwalk Empire, based on Nelson Johnson's book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City, goes on black as tar in its second season, which is even better and grander storytelling than the first one.
The series gains from several great characters and formidable performances: Steve Buscemi (The Chosen One (2010)) is still terrific in the role of a lifetime as Nucky Thompson, a character whose political turncoat ways are showcased in all their splendor in the very first episode, as he gives radically different speeches to his city's blacks and clansmen.
Kelly Macdonald (Anna Karenina (2012)) portrayal of her character's ups and downs, and especially the frightening predicament of her daughter, is outstanding. Michael Pitt's (The Dreamers (2003)) Jimmy Darmody is an anchor for the season, and his dramatic development, torn between different flawed role-models, has many highlights, and Pitt's performance is incredibly well-played.
But the most fascinating and complex character in the second season is prohibition agent Nelson Van Alden, whom Michael Shannon (My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)) inhabits with intense sparkle. The series also has a long row of compelling smaller characters, and among those who deserve singling out are Michael Kenneth Williams (When We Rise (2017), TV-series) who is moving as Chalky White, Charlie Cox (Hello Carter (2013)) as Owen Sleater, Jack Huston (Hail, Caesar! (2016)) as disfigured war veteran Richard, Gretchen Mol (The Deli (1997)) as Jimmy's mother Gillian, Julianne Nicholson (Masters of Sex (2013-14)) as the Assistant DA and William Forsythe (Infected (2013)) as the statuesque butcher Manny.
Season two has several outstanding episodes and only one that feels a little stalling and lesser (episode 10: Georgia Peaches). It is brilliant craftsmanship and storytelling of the finest grain, and it finishes off with an ingenious cliffhanger.

Best episodes:

3: A Dangerous Maid: written by Winter and Itamar Moses (Men of a Certain Age (2010-11)) with staff writer Bathsheba Doran (Bruiser (2000), TV-series), directed by Susanna White (Masters of Sex (2015), TV-series)
Nucky's Irish muscle Owen steps to the plate. Van Alden is hiding his pregnant mistress. Jimmy's loyalties are torn. With a magnificent dinner scene.

9. Battle of the Century: written by Winter and Steve Kornacki (Bates Motel (2015-17)) with Moses and Doran contributing, directed by Brad Anderson (Stonehearst Asylum (2014))
Margaret's daughter takes seriously ill with polio, as Nucky has left for a daring mission to Ireland. Legendary boxing match Battle of the Century takes place.

Related posts:

Terence Winter: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Boardwalk Empire - season 1 (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats

Watch a preview for the Battle of the Century episode of Boardwalk Empire's season 2 here

Cost: Reportedly 5 mil. $ per episode, which comes to 60 mil. $
Box office: None - TV-series
= Unknown - but probably a solid hit
[Boardwalk Empire - season 2 was first broadcast 25 September - 11 December 2011 on HBO. It runs 12 episodes of approximately 55 minutes each, totaling around 660 minutes. The season takes place between February and August 1921. Shooting took place in New York. The ratings were generally a bit under the first season's, with the Martin Scorsese-directed pilot ranking high above every following episode with nearly 5 mil. viewers. Season 2 averaged between 2.5-3 mil. viewers on its first showing. It was nominated for 12 Emmys and won 4. IMDb's users have made Boardwalk Empire the #145 best TV-series ever on their Top 250 list, sitting between The Newsroom (2012-14) and the reiteration of Twin Peaks (2017). Together with its season 3, season 2 is the series' lowest-rated in its 5-season history on Rotten Tomatoes: It is still certified fresh at 88 % with an 8.26/10 critical average there.]

What do you think of Boardwalk Empire - season 2?

Desperado (1995) - Rodriguez' second Mexico actioner is a sexy, latino fireball

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Antonio Banderas is the passionate Latino with the Big Gun on the poster for Robert Rodriguez' Desperado

QUICK REVIEW:

Bitter after having lost his girlfriend, our Mariachi hero sets out to kill the responsible, Bucho, - who turns out to be his brother. On the way he falls in love with a highly curvaceous book store assistant.

The universe has changed to one which is juiced up by big cash from great Texan writer-director Robert Rodriguez's debut El Mariachi (1992), which was the first in his Mexico trilogy, to this the continuation of the trilogy that ended with the bad Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).
Desperado has great, well-choreographed action scenes and some delightful supporting actors; namely Cheech Marin (Masked and Anonymous (2003)), Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire (2010-14)) and Quentin Tarantino (She's Funny That Way (2014)). As well as a starring couple, Antonio Banderas (Original Sin (2001)) and Salma Hayek (Frida (2002)), who reek of sex and passion. It all makes it more than okay that Desperado is a very different kind of beast in terms of scope and tone from the great Mariachi.

Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas pose for Robert Rodriguez' Desperado. - Where they the sexiest screen couple of 1995?

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 7 mil. $
Box office: 25.6 mil. $ (North America only)
= Uncertainty
[But certainly a big hit. Desperado was shot entirely on location in Ciudad Acuña, Mexico. It opened #2 to 7.9 mil. $ domestically. Only few numbers are out about its global performance, which seems to have been decent.]

What do you think of Desperado?
Were Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas the hottest screen couple of 1995 in your opinion?

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Precious, pleasant vignette sit-down with some wonderful people

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+ Best B/W Movie of the Year

Checkered coffee table with neat character pictures inserted, for Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes

QUICK REVIEW:

Coffee and Cigarettes consists of a row of human meetings over coffee and cigarettes (d'uh), carried out by a string of cool celebrities: There's vignettes with Cate Blanchett and a fictional cousin, Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, RZA and GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan meeting Bill Murray, Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes and Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, among others. Eleven scenes in all.
Writer-director Jim Jarmusch (Dead Man (1995)) elevates the precious and random qualities of human meetings in some beautiful situations here in this little gem, which is based on three short films that Jarmusch had already made in 1986, '89 and '95, (called Coffee and Cigarettes, Coffee and Cigarettes II and Coffee and Cigarettes III), which are all three incorporated into this feature.

Related posts:

Jim Jarmusch: Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

 

Iggy Pop and Tom Waits in their segment of Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes

Watch the original trailer here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 7.9 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[But probably a hit, with nice numbers overseas especially; the film only made 1.9 mil. $ of its revenue in the US. Coffee and Cigarettes was probably a very affordable film, seeing as 3 of the 11 scenes in it were already shot as previous shorts, and the rest are simple sit-down scenes of celebrities who are friendly admirers of Jarmusch and may even have appeared as favors, however; we don't know for sure.]

What do you think of Coffee and Cigarettes?
What is your favorite Jim Jarmusch movie?

Boardwalk Empire - season 1 (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats

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1 Film Excess win:

Best Production Design

2 Film Excess nominations:

Best Production Design (won)
Best TV-series (lost to Treme S1)

+ Best Gangster Movie/TV-series of the Year
+ Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Michael Pitt

Protagonist Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson played by Steve Buscemi heads inland in Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

The 12 episode 1st season of the HBO series starts at the beginning of Prohibition, which seems to mostly evade Atlantic City, where the show takes place, in a sense, (namely that they keep on drinking, now just illegally distilled and distributed liquor.) The city's gangster treasurer, Enoch 'Nucky' Thompson arranges the booze smuggling and profits from it, as well as from other illegal and legal enterprises in the tourist-heavy, coastal spa city. 
The following will contain SPOILERS.

Wonderful, heightened reality HD character poster for Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

The series starts with strength in the 73 minute long first episode directed by Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)), which became the costliest pilot ever produced at 18 mil. $: Thompson underling Jimmy Darmody (the brilliant Michael Pitt (Rob the Mob (2014))) is tempted by the FBI, while the violent husband of Irish immigrant Margaret Schroeder is killed as a scapegoat for a smuggling operation gone haywire. The pilot is almost over-filled with introductory stuff, stuff happening, - just LOTS of stuff to keep track of. It had to establish the whole series for other directors to follow, so they could emulate Scorsese's style. It succeeds in catching you, and just might confuse you a bit, too. In the following episodes, the pace luckily slows down a bit, as we get to know the characters better and better.

Michael Pitt and Steve Buscemi in Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire

Nucky's brother is the sheriff of AC, and is bitterly subordinated to his triumphant brother. Darmody, after some stupidities, goes into exile in Chicago, where he joins a bloody partnership with the young Al Capone and sees his lover get her face slashed open as retribution. After getting even with the help of a new acquaintance with a war disability, Darmody returns home to AC, while FBI agent Nelson Van Alden (Michael Shannon) whips himself and tries to (metaphorically) force a boulder up a mountain with his professional and personal goal: To enforce Prohibition in the city. Thompson's top-distiller, the black Chalky White is also his entrance to the city's big, African-American population, whom he needs at election-time.
The very high quality level of the series is held, as women attain the right to vote, and Darmody unwittingly scares his girlfriend's bisexual friend-couple away at his homecoming, where he also succeeds in ending the slow poisoning of his father, the city's retired 'Commodore'.
Agent Nelson's insanity culminates in his drowning of his subordinate at a Baptist church mass baptism, and he then receives a sign that he has to stay and continue his impossible job in AC, opposing his wife's begging. (The 'sign' being that he has impregnated a whore there, the former lover of Enoch, Lucy Danziger (Paz de la Huerta)).
Shroeder appears to want to stay with Nucky, thus compromising her own ethics and moral.
In the end we get what we are hoping for: A little romance. After all the stiff whiskys; dark, hard and prone to tragedy, as the series is.
Boardwalk Empire is a lavish, tragically swinging 1920's Sopranos (1999-2007) in its best moments. Incredibly well-produced, succulent and brilliantly casted. Michael Stuhlbarg (Men in Black 3 (2012)) and Kelly Macdonald (In the Electric Mist (2009)) as Schroeder are also excellent, and they all have their places well behind the show's seasoned, great lead, played by Steve Buscemi (The Sopranos (2004-06)) in the biggest role of his career.
This is a grand and crazy-good series. - Get it!
It is created by Terence Winter, who also produced many Sopranos episodes, and directed one, Walk Like a Man (2007), and has written a lot; Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), 25 (!) Sopranos episodes (2000-07) and The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) to name some of it. He has now written and will produce an untitled HBO rock 'n roll TV movie that Scorsese is set to direct. The film is cast.

Best episodes:

Episode 5: Nights in Ballygran
The series shows its dark face again around St. Patrick's Day, wherein Schroeder and her Women's Temperance League confront the reality of the city, and an unexpected romance between her and Enoch starts.

Episode 8: Hold Me in Paradise
The highpoint in the series to this point: The sheriff gets shot in the fight against the incoming Italian hoodlums, and the election is determined.

Related posts:

Martin Scorsese:  The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - A helluva movie! (Written by Terence Winter)
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic 
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants 

What do you think of Boardwalk Empire?

Monsters University (2013) - A funny and inspiring prequel

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A great congregation of monstrous but hilarious characters are gathered on this poster for Dan Scanlon's Monsters University

We first travel back to a glimpse of the trying first school years for one-eyed, green monster Mike Wazowski, until he finally gets to go to Monsters University, his life-long dream, - where he will train himself to become a scarer. But again things line against him: No fraternity except the pariah Oozma Kappas (OK) fraternity will take him in, and what's worse; no one thinks he's scary. The arrogant, impressive blue monster Sullivan is thrown out of school at the same time as Mike, and they both decide to sign up with the OK fraternity to the school's Greek Games in order to win back their chance to become scarers.

 
Monsters University is the excellent prequel to Pixar's hit animation adventure family movie Monsters, Inc. (2001). It is Pixar's 14th film, and its first prequel. It is written by great Michigander filmmaker, co-writer/director Dan Scanlon (Tracy (2009)), Daniel Gerson (Monsters, Inc. (2001)) and Robert L. Baird (Ferdinand (2017)).

In the course of the story, Mike and Sully learn about work moral, working as a team, conducting yourself with integrity, - and how true friendship can be greatly rewarding. Monsters University is a surprisingly solid, funny and heart-warming follow-up to the wonderfully original first movie, in which a human child got out in Monstropolis and came into Mike and Sully's unfamiliar care.
Billy Crystal (Analyze That (2002)) and John Goodman (Downwardly Mobile (2012, TV movie)) are back to voice the main characters, and Steve Buscemi (Double Whammy (2001)) voices a younger, less evil version of Randy. Helen Mirren (Cause Célèbre (1987, TV movie)) is the imperial Dean Hardscrabble, and other enjoyable voices include those of Bill Hader (Her (2013)), Sean Hayes (The Bucket List (2007)) and Alfred Molina (Angie Tribeca (2016-17)).
A reason to see many good animation films are for their characters, and Monsters University doesn't disappoint. Besides the beloved protagonist pair there are plenty of new, funny, eye-popping characters.Careful brainstorming and research has obviously gone into Monsters University in its depiction of American college life, and it really pays off: From first being a praise of the world of a major, (U.S.) college, we go through classes, student types, clubs, parties, fraternities, and the imaginative Greek Games. Especially funny scenes include a basement initiation for the OK fraternity's two new residents, and a Game discipline about stealth abilities game by way of capture-the-flag under the blurry gaze of an ancient, tentacled monster librarian. The film is really funny, - it oozes with joy in its material, and Randy Newman (The Paper (1994)) has made a terrific, percussion-filled score that lends a full dimension to the grand, high-spirited material.
SPOILER The ending yields yet another valuable lesson about life, which is that college isn't the only way to get to where you're going, and to not give up on your dreams when the straight path you'd imagined proves blocked.
Monsters University is an amazing, wonderful time, - and it can be watched just as well with or without kids.

 
Related posts:

 

Dan Scanlon: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Estimagted 200 mil. $
Box office: 743.5 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 3.71 times its cost)

[Monsters University premiered 5 June (London) and runs 104 minutes. Sequel rights-holder Disney had been developing a sequel prior to their acquisition of Pixar in 2006, at which point their project was scrapped, and the reins instead handed back to Pixar's people. Production took place from May 2008 - May 2013 in California. The film opened #1 to an 82.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then another in the top 5 (#4), grossing 268.4 mil. $ (36.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 90.1 mil. $ (12.1 %) and the UK with 47.1 mil. $ (6.3 %). The film was nominated for 2 BAFTAs, among other honors. The-numbers.com estimate that it made in excess of 134 mil. $ at the North-American home video market. Scanlon returned with Onward (2020). Crystal returned in 6 TV and short credits prior to his theatrical return in The Comedian (2016); Goodman in CollegeHumor Originals (2013, TV-series) and theatrically in The Monuments Men (2014). Monsters University is certified fresh at 80 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Monsters University?