The Sessions Review

I watched The Sessions like a week ago, and decided I would review it since it was nominated for a few Golden Globes and an Oscar. So, why the hell not? The movie is based on the true story of Mark O'Brien (played by John Hawkes), a quadriplegic, who hires a sex surrogate, Cheryl Cohen-Greene (played by Helen Hunt), in order to lose his virginity.

The performances in this movie really stand out as the best parts, which isn't to say that everything else was bad, but I'll get to that. Hawkes and Hunt had such great chemistry together and all of their scenes were really well acted. Hawkes did such an amazing job, especially given the fact that he had to show all of his emotion using just his head (and his voice.) A lot of his acting came from his line delivery, which was excellent. I'm really glad he's getting recognition for this film, because what he did took a lot of talent (though, I'm not super upset he didn't get an Oscar nod.) Hunt, on the other hand, fully deserved her Oscar nod. Her character in the movie is so multi-layered and just when you think you understand her, she reveals something new. I never really thought Hunt was a great actress, but this was an excellent show of her abilities (not to mention her entire body.)

Other than the excellent acting, the movie was pretty well put together. The direction was nothing special, save for a few scenes between Hawkes and Hunt (especially their first session.) The writing was pretty good, there were some great jokes in the film that made me chuckle, but nothing phenomenal.

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Overall, this film was really well done. The script was strong, but not nearly as strong as the performances that brought it to life. Hawkes, Hunt and even William H. Macy really made the film what it was. I would suggest anyone see this movie (unless you find the idea of Helen Hunt naked scary, because she is naked for half of all her scenes.)

Writing: 7/10

Directing: 6.5/10

Acting: 8.5/10

Pacing: 7/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

Score: 7.2/10

Arbitrage Review

When I saw the trailer for Arbitrage I wasn't super impressed, but thought it had some potential to be a great thriller. It tells the story of billionaire Robert Miller and his incredibly secretive life. Dude is fucking bitches left and right, and apparently committing fraud, as well.

The first half hour of the movie were great and made for a great set-up into what I was hoping would be a great thriller. Needless to say, I was horrible mistaken. This movie was nothing like I expected. It was a real character study of how money effects our lives, and how money can insult you from the law. Too bad writer/director Nicholas Jarecki couldn't write his way out of a paperbag. This script was so disjointed and just...bland. There was only one conversation in this film that really elicited any emotion from me, and I'm not even sure it was because of the script.

The most redeeming quality of this film were the performances from Richard Gere and Brit Marling (I will talk a lot about her when I finally get around to reviewing Sound of My Voice.) Richard Gere delivers a great performance, but not nearly as great as people are saying. I've never really thought of Gere as a great actor (don't even get me started on Chicago.) I think the only movie I've actually liked him in was The Jackal, which I think just says more about my childhood than anything. He delivered a good performance, for him. It was definitely better than anything else he's done before, which surprised me. But really, nothing special. He definitely didn't deserve the Golden Globe nom that he got (which is the only real reason I saw this movie.) I'm kind of disgusted that he got the nom over Ewan McGregor for The Impossible (I really can't talk about that movie enough.)

Brit Marling, on the other hand, was excellent. This is only the second film I've seen her in, so I can't really say if this was on par for her or not, but it was great. Not as good as Sound of My Voice, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was her best performance ever. God, so good.

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This movie was alright, nothing special. If you like a good character study, then you might enjoy it. It has a lot of bland dialogue and mediocre acting (aside from Marling and Gere.) The direction is nothing special, either. I'll give Jarecki a pass, since it was his first film and was decent, but I hope his next film is better than this.

Writing: 3/10

Directing: 5/10

Acting: 7/10

Pacing: 3/10

Rewatchability: 2/10

Score: 4.0/10

Zero Dark Thirty Review

Just three years after directing the critically acclaimed The Hurt Locker, which took home six Oscars that year, out of nine nominations, Kathryn Bigelow returns to some familiar territory. This time, though, instead of looking at the life of a bomb squad unit during the war, she is delving into "the greatest manhunt in history." This film was originally supposed to be about the FAILED decade long search for Osama Bin Laden (called UBL in the film). When UBL was killed in a successful raid in May 2011, the screenplay was completely revamped. 

Bigelow has, once again, paired with Mark Boal, who won an Oscar for writing The Hurt Locker. Again, Boal has put together a very compelling script that chronicles the decade long search for  Bin Laden. It is an amazing task to sum up an entire decade in a 157 minute film, but Boal has successfully done it. His script very adeptly strings together several plots over the course of the ten year span. Even when the dates jump from 2004 to 2008, you still can follow exactly what was missed in that gap with one eloquently phrased sentence. 

Though I could talk about the script for hours, I think it wouldn't mean as much without an amazing cast to convey the strength of the script. They got that and more with A-grade performances from Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, and more! It didn't hit me just how hard these performances were until the first jump from 2004 to 2008. It must have been so difficult for these actors not to play the exact same character for each segment of the film. The incredibly nuanced differences from each actor made each segment feel as if it were taking place further into the exhaustive search. Even though we had only been watching for 45 minutes, we felt the anguish of four fruitless years of searching. Jessica Chastain has always been on my radar ever since I saw The Debt (2011), but I never expected this strong of a leading performance from her. She is truly making a name for herself in this industry, and I can't wait to see more from her.  

I cannot say enough about Katheryn Bigelow as a director. She has always been an amazing director and I am so glad that she is finally getting the recognition she deserves. I still contest that her greatest directorial credit is Strange Days (1995), which was written by her ex-husband James Cameron. It took her another 14 years to garner any recognition for her direction in The Hurt Locker (2009). Now, rightfully so, she is getting another shot at the coveted DGA Award. Though, I don't think it is her year again, I think she has put forth a visually stunning effort with Zero Dark Thirty. Some shots in this movie are unforgettable, most that come to mind though are a tad spoiler-y, so I'll refrain. Enjoy the ones I included. 

What may be considered the best achievement in this film is the recreation of the assault on Osama Bin Laden's compound. The real assault took 25 minutes to complete and was captured via video cameras on the soldiers persons. This video was shown to the filmmakers and they recreated it as best they could. In the film, the assault takes roughly 25 minutes and is shot in a combination of regular and night vision shots. The blend of the two gives a great view to what SEAL Team 6 was actually seeing during the raid and made the viewer feel like part of the action. 

One thing I was afraid about going in to this movie was the chance of political bias in the movie. As someone who is fairly neutral when it comes to politics, I like to find something that can stay as neutral as possible. I really thought that this movie did a great job of presenting the facts as they were and not being politically motivated. That being said, they did include a lot of real news footage of Bush/Obama that worked really well at making this film seem more real. Intercutting news reels was a great idea on Bigelow's part to capture the moment in history more vividly. It really made it a lot easier to relate when you see new footage that you remember and can be like "WHOA I REMEMBER THAT!!11!!1!" Then you shit your pants. 

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I would definitely recommend this film to almost anyone. I will warn people, though, that there are some graphic torture scenes in the first half hour that may be hard to watch. After that, though, it is much  more about following Maya and her search for OBL (well, she's actually looking for Abu Ahmed, but...whatever.) 

Writing: 9.5/10

Directing: 9.5/10

Acting: 9.5/10

Pacing: 8.5 /10

Rewatchability: 7/10

Score: 8.8/10