Thelma Adams: Novelist, Critic, Oscar Expert

Thelma Adams, Oscars, Playdate, Marie Claire, Movie Reviews, Interviews, New Releases, New York Film Critics, Celebrities, Personal Essays, Parenting, Commentary, Women, Women\'s Issues, Motherhood

MENUMENU
  • HOME
  • BOOKS
    • The Last Woman Standing
    • Playdate
    • Bittersweet Brooklyn
  • WRITINGS
  • MEDIA
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT

Review: Can’t Beat it – Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in ‘Whiplash’

November 8, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Blood on the skins.

Blood on the skins.

When ambitious young musician Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) strives to be a Buddy Rich class drummer, he nearly dies trying in a charged battle of wills with his thorny professor Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons). The buzzy Sundance hit that won both the Audience and Grand Jury Prize vibrates with life lived at fever pitch.

Speaking of pitch, while Whiplash takes its title from Hank Levy’s jazz standard, the rousing drama has the construction of a sports movie. The conflict between talented newbie Neyman and authoritarian Fletcher (J. K. Simmons) at a prestigious Manhattan music school mimics the locker room. Think of Neyman as the ace college pitcher that surrenders everything to go pro – and Fletcher as the crusty tough-love coach that throws every curve to break the rookie before he gets to the show.

Whiplash makes this point by opening with Neyman practicing on his drums, awash in sweat, before being interrupted – and dissed – by the muscular Fletcher. By the movie’s end, there will be buckets more sweat dripping off the cymbals and blood, too, lots of blood.

By singling out this drummer, talented writer-director Damien Chazelle shows the performer’s athleticism, the way that being a great musician requires integrating so many skills – physical, artistic and psychological. Chazelle pays homage to the hard work of the aspiring musician in a society that is increasingly disdainful of that profession.

[RELATED: Jake Gyllenhaal makes us crawl in LA noir ‘Nightcrawler’]

Teller — who broke out as a charming yet directionless high-schooler in last year’s indie drama The Spectacular Now — plays the fresh-faced Andrew with quiet ferocity and brutal physicality: His scenes on the drums find him beating not only the skins, but also his own body, leaving a trail of sweat and blood wherever he goes. It’s a performance you can’t get out of your head.

Beat it: Teller and Simmons throw down

Beat it: Teller and Simmons throw down

But it’s Andrew’s antagonist that has the stand-out role, freed of carrying the plot. Simmons, a familiar face (TV’s Law & Order, Spider-Man) if not a familiar name, is ferocious in the supporting role that will bring him an Oscar nomination. His dedicated and abusive music prof hurls racial and sexual slurs, and even chairs, to rip under the skin of his disciples. He’s not a character that fits in the politically-correct present, but the question the movie raises is whether the ends justify the means. Can his raging behavior turn raw talent into genius?

Whiplash has its flaws: the family and romantic subplots are sketchy, with Paul Reiser playing Andrew’s loving father, and Glee’s Melissa Benoist as his blue-eyed girlfriend. Both characters hover out of focus at the edge of the gripping central duel: the fraught battle to achieve greatness that defines both teacher and disciple, to make music together that’s not just beautiful but immortal, like that of Buddy Rich or Charlie Parker.

Whiplash expands on November 14th.

Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Abuse, Damien Chazelle, J. K. Simmons, Jazz, Mentor, Miles Teller, Oscar, Sony Classics, Sundance, Toronto Internat, Whiplash

What is Jennifer Lawrence’s Favorite David O. Russell Movie? Hint: It’s not ‘American Hustle.’

February 2, 2014 By Thelma Leave a Comment

David O. Russell SBIFF 2Jennifer Lawrence hearts David O. Russell’s “I Heart Huckabees,” a jovial Russell told the Santa Barbara International Film Festival audience at the Outstanding Director Tribute in his honor last Friday.

“That was Jennifer Lawrence’s favorite film,” said Russell. Almost a year ago to the day, Russell had accompanied his “American Hustle” star down those very same dark stairs in the Arlington Theatre for her Santa Barbara Tribute — and she was singing as they walked.

While the 2004 film has its enthusiasts, like Lawrence, the ensemble comedy with Jason Schwartzman and Lily Tomlin about existential detectives was a professional low-point for the director. “I was not happy with myself at the time,” Russell confessed, going on to explain that it coincided with his divorce to Janet Grillo, the placement of his young son in a special boarding school, and financial pressures.

[Related: 2013 Top Ten List]

“I call that my head-in-my-ass period,” Russell said. And yet the director could recognize a silver lining in hindsight. “If I didn’t go stumbling through that period I couldn’t have made ‘The Fighter.'”

The failure of “I Heart Huckabees,” compounded by Russell’s personal problems, and criticisms of egomania, became a wake-up call for the Director: “Ego is really fear,” he told the audience. “When someone is acting important, it’s really fear.”

And the worst was yet to come: a movie that never got made. “Nailed,” Russell’s unfinished collaboration with Al Gore’s daughter, Kristin, got shut down nine times, according to the Director. The uncompleted film starred Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal. Russell described “Nailed” as the ‘nadir,” the low-point, of his professional career.

Mark Wahlberg helped turn Russell’s career around when he brought him “The Fighter,” Like a one-two punch, along came “The Silver Linings Playbook,” Russell’s first collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence.

Of casting Lawrence, Russell said: “She skyped her audition from her parents’ home in Kentucky. She killed a spider in her father’s bathroom behind her. She’s a gift. She’s a great discovery.” And her career is on the rise in no small part thanks to Russell.

Filed Under: Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: American Hustle, David O. Russell, I Heart Huckabees, Jennifer Lawrence, Melissa Leo, Oscar

Critic’s Pick: NYFF Edition ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

October 7, 2013 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters

Joel and Ethan Coen continue to surprise audiences with idiosyncratic and authentic movies — some that harmonize with a wider audience and, others, like “Inside Llewyn Davis,” a New York Film Festival selection, sneak in to sing to the choir. With the title taken from the sole solo album of a forgotten fictional folkie, Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), this is a sweet and sour story of a failure. Call it a star-is-unborn story.

Set in 1961 in Greenwich Village, the film rips a wintry landscape from the album cover of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” – and then places Davis at its center without an overcoat, shivering in his thin shoes. Davis is the guy who could have been Dylan – but wasn’t. In the beat before the famed singer-songwriter takes center stage (a lookalike appears in a final scene), a broke and bewildered Davis tries to make one last stand for a career as a folk singer. He’s at the right place at the wrong time, at the very moment that the great folk revival shifted from curating traditional songs and lyrics to combining original lyrics and traditional melodies – and becoming the soundtrack for the social movements of the early sixties.

Recalling “A Mighty Wind,” but more oil painting than satiric sketch, the movie is ripe with supporting characters. Carey Mulligan sparks as Jean Berkey, one half of a comfy duo with Justin Timberlake’s Jim. Jean’s constantly angry at Llewyn, an attitude that taps the actress’s talent in a way that was missing from her languid Daisy in “The Great Gatsby.” Timberlake, all V-neck sweaters and sixties-square sweetness, is impeccable. If anything we want more of the duo, along with Coen regular John Goodman, who shows up for a doomed road-trip to Chicago carrying his own piss and vinegar.

The intense Isaac (“Drive,” “W.E.”) with puppy-dog eyes and a sweet singing voice gets a winning showcase for his talents. Isaac always appears entirely in the moment – no hint of irony, no wink to the present — connected to the other actors and his music with the earnest fervor of a committed folkie. The movie, like Davis’ career, never quite catches fire, but it plays a melody that stays with you long after the final credits.

Bottom Line: A successful study in folk failure from the Brothers Coen

Watch the trailer for “Inside Llewyn Davis”



Filed Under: Criticism, Movies & TV Tagged With: Folk Scare, Inside Llewyn Davis, Oscar, Oscar Isaac, The coen Brothers, Yahoo! Movies

Yahoo! Movies: Adams on Reel Women: Five must-see leading ladies out of TIFF

October 2, 2012 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Keira Knightley (Left) in “Anna Karenina”, and Laura Linney and Bill Murray (Right) in “Hyde Park on Hudson”. (Photos: Focus Features)

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival was rife with strong and varied women’s roles. Here are just a few that will pop and will be buzzed about in the Oscar race and beyond.

Marion Cotillard, “Rust and Bone”: This is a movie about transformation. A woman who works at Marineland in France has a horrible accident with an orca. As a result, she loses her legs below the knees and hits the bottom she was heading for when she was physically whole but emotionally lost. The remainder of the movie shows her slow progress on a journey that doesn’t require legs: the journey to spiritual wellness. A scene in which she finally returns to Marineland, perched on steel prosthetics, and, well, dances with the whale is magical without being sentimental. The camera loves Cotillard, but her physical beauty does not make her lazy. She acts quietly, subtly, a musician who knows her range. In this role, she defies the audience to like her as she casts off the armature of her looks and dives deep. It doesn’t hurt that this is the type of role — the “My Left Foot” affect — that ensures Oscar nominations if not outright wins. Cotillard will be among the five final nominees for best actress.

Laura Linney, “Hyde Park on Hudson”: This is the performance I feel I have to rally behind because of its subtle beauty and deeply felt realization. As Margaret Suckley, a fifth cousin turned secret lover to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Bill Murray), Linney plays a faded daisy. She shows every wrinkle in a face that would have been plainly pretty but has passed its marital sell-by date. She wears dresses that have seen wear in a limited wardrobe, hats that are unflattering, home-styled hair. Linney knows what she’s doing, and she doesn’t give this woman any more power than she would have had. She is like an Edith Wharton character, a Lily Bart; and as she enters the world of FDR, the president of the United States, she feels the weight of being a poor relation in the court of the Sun King. She is outmaneuvered at every point, and yet her love, her sensitivity, her sense of a spinster’s rebirth at an unexpected opportunity that takes her out of the musty cedar closet of her life and puts her in the center of the president’s household — all are real. While there is general acclaim for Bill Murray’s wily, wise FDR, there has been an underlying critique of Linney’s character and characterization. Hers is the more difficult role, and modern women may not have the patience for this passive spinster. However, her pain and relative powerlessness are real verging on tragic, and Linney draws her finely and with honor.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, “Smashed”: I have written about Winstead’s performance as a young married kindergarten teacher who reaches that post-college tipping point when she realizes that she’s not just hard-partying but an alcoholic. That she reaches this awareness ahead of her equally “fun loving” husband (well played by Aaron Paul) makes her climbing the first wrung of her 12 steps all the more difficult. The tall, brunette all-American beauty, the star of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” imbues her teacher with an extraordinary ordinariness, quick to smile and slow to judge. She is our best friend, our next-door neighbor, the woman we laugh with at the supermarket checkout stand about the latest cover of the National Enquirer — and yet her pain is as deep as that of the denizens of “Leaving Las Vegas.”

Keira Knightley, “Anna Karenina”: Knightley dons the hats, veils, and upholstery silks of one of literature’s major heroines, a character played in the past by Greta Garbo and Vivien Leigh. Working with her “Atonement” and “Pride and Prejudice” director, Joe Wright, and a Tom Stoppard adaptation of the Leo Tolstoy novel, Knightley is part of a production that breathes fresh air into the tragedy of a virtuous wife and mother who falls into a spiral of passion with dashing Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Knightley wears the costumes and jewels — they do not wear her. The actress brings humanity, a warmth and intimacy, that make this historical character relatable to lonely wives who play with the fire of passion outside their marriages and burn with the consequences in any era. She gives Anna a contemporary urgency, and following on her overlooked turn in “A Dangerous Method,” she has become a top contender for the 2013 best-actress Oscar.

Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”: in the year’s strongest one-two punch, Oscar-nominee Lawrence proves that her “Hunger Games” box office muscle as Katniss Everdeen is not her only trick. In the latest movie from “The Fighter” director David O. Russell, Lawrence plays Tiffany, the mystery woman whom Bradley Cooper’s bipolar Pat Solitano befriends when he returns home after a stint at a mental institution. They meet cute and ultimately enter a dancing competition together. Sexy, crazy, and dancing? And uplift? How can Lawrence not compete? I would still love to see an Oscar nom for Lawrence’s “Hunger Games” performance, but this appealing role will surely land Lawrence a second best-actress nomination following “Winter’s Bone” and possibly a win.

More to love: Nina Hoss, “Barbara”; Greta Gerwig, “Frances Ha”; Emmanuelle Riva, “Amour”; Ana Moreira, “Tabu”; Macarena Garcia, “Blancanieves”; and Emayatzy Corinealdi, “Middle of Nowhere.”

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Interview, Jennifer Lawrence, Keira Knightley, Laura Linney, Marion Cotillard, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Oscar, TIFF12

Breaking Twilight news: Clooney on Kendrick

September 14, 2011 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Anna Kendrick, TIFF, Up in the Air,George Clooney,Twilight,Breaking Dawn

Kendrick doesn't bite

 

In the world according to George, Anna Kendrick confided while shooting Up in the Air that her Twilight co-stars didn’t treat her with respect. And then came her star turn in Up in the Air, followed by months in the spotlight and that famous Oscar nominee lunch. Insider much? Oscar-nominee Kristen Stewart or Taylor Lautner? Not yet, at least.  No more mean girls and boys on The Twilight Saga set for this golden girl!

 

Filed Under: Celebrity, Movies & TV, Oscar Race Tagged With: Anna Kendrick, Breaking Dawn, George Clooney, Kristen Stewart, Oscar, Taylor Lautner, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Twilight, Up in the Air

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • Next Page »

Copyright © 2023 · Dynamik-Gen On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in