The Spectacular Now

Sutter envisions himself as the Ferris Buhler of his time. Maybe the drunk Ferris. Party all the time & don't care about anything. He meets a girl (she finds him in her front yard after a particularly potent party) and finds that she looks at the world differently. He seems to be sincere and engage her as an important person. He seems to be looking at the world differently because of her. And yet we find that the real struggle is not how he looks at the world, but how he looks at himself. Is he ready to be mature? To take himself seriously? This is probably supposed to take me on my own journey of self discovery while making me laugh along the way. But it wasn't that funny and I wasn't that engaged. Probably will forget this one pretty quickly.
2 stars (out of 5)

Mud

Word on the street is that this is a modern Huck Finn. Well, it is on a river and it does have a guy running from the law helped by a couple of young kids. But I think this is really a story about love. Or maybe an investigation of love. Ellis and Neckbone are the two local kids living on the Mississippi River. Ellis is our protagonist who lives with his parents ON the river, on a houseboat passed down from generation to generation. Mom and Dad are disagreeing about the direction of their lives and Ellis now looks to every relationship as a benchmark to determine what he can expect from his own life in the realm of love. He watches Neckbone and his uncle, Mud and his girlfriend, his parents, the old guy across the river, his popular girl girlfriend. He is always watching or asking about what makes relationships work or not work. So while the plot involving Mud was interesting, for me it was only a device to allow me watch Ellis inquire and grow in his understanding of human relationships. Very well done.
4 stars (out of 5)

The Winning Season

Sam Rockwell is a down and out guy. Job, fatherhood, identity... nothing is going his way and he forgets about it by drinking. Then he helps out a friend by taking the job coaching the local girls basketball team. Well, the 6 girls at the local high school who are on the team. So in many ways, this is a classic sports underdog film. Team loses all the time, gets a new coach, soars to new heights while bonding as a team in ways never thought possible. Rockwell is unconventional as a coach only because his constant state of drunkenness affects his ability to care. What I liked about the film was that the team did not aim for an undefeated season and a national championship. They were happy with a few wins, and with progress. Like the players, the script stayed within its abilities, not trying to be too much. This is a nice, small film. Don't expect too much and you will enjoy.
3 stars (out of 5)

Blue Jasmine

I've never been sure about Woody Allen films. I haven't seen many, but they seem either quirky (Funny Girl) or so character driven to require patience (Hannah and her Sisters). And then I saw Midnight in Paris and was converted. Funny, clever, insightful, just enough quirky. And now we have Blue Jasmine. Can I un-convert? This is the story of Jasmine, who is one of those chameleon characters that is completely unable to care for herself. As a result, she becomes who she needs to be to ingratiate herself upon those around her for support. Cate Blanchett is a beautiful woman, but in this film, she is most often ugly. Ugly with pathos and self-loathing. The surrounding cast was helpful, with Bobby Cannavale as Chili most interesting. Perhaps because he was the only character not reaching beyond himself.
2 stars (out of 5)

Erased

Aaron Eckhart as action hero is not something I would have cast. But he plays the role a bit more "everyman" that others. In his fights he takes a few more hits and finds it just a bit harder to defeat three bad guys at a time. Other than that, this is a completely derivative and boilerplate action film. Think Liam Neeson in Taken crossed with either Damon or Renner in Bourne. A rogue CIA analyst finds she needs to get paid by a weapons contractor to help them deal arms.  When the deal gets exposed in the media Eckhart, as a former black ops, security specialist gets caught in the middle. His teen daughter, who doesn't really like him follows along for the ride. Can you guess who wins?
3 stars (out of 5)

20 Feet from Stardom

A documentary that follows a few backup singers through their career path. All of the principles have astounding talent. So what we are treated to is an investigation of why some artists are lead/primary artists that become popular and others are not. What are the intangible characteristics that lead to stardom. And what is fun is that this investigation is primarily told from the perspective of the background (there is some screen time by the likes of Sting, Bruce Springsteen, & Ray Charles) with the power of the story coming from the discussion of the struggle. I particularly liked the filmmaking technique of allowing a few of the songs to play in full, with the documentary narration floating over the top.  An extremely satisfying and musically solid film.
4 stars (out of 5)

Incendiary

Set in London, Michelle Williams is an unsatisfied wife and mom (unsatisfied with the wife part) whose husband is a London bomb squad tech. His detachment leads to her infidelity. And then husband and son are killed in a terrorist bombing at the local soccer match. So we get Williams at her best... haunted. She is haunted pre-bomb, by her marriage and her own disappointment with detachment and she is haunted with her grief after. The wonderful plot device here is that Williams was instructed by her therapist to write a letter to Osama as a mechanism to process grief. And as the story progresses, this becomes a truly wonderful letter. For someone who despises violence and is looking for culturally alternative expressions and attitudes toward violence, this surprised me. The character finds a way to overcome this haunting as well as to authentically stand against violence without jumping to counter-violence as the solution.
4 stars (out of 5)