The Movie Paradise

With 2016 coming to a close, I thought it would be fitting for my final post of the year to be a movie review of the last film I saw this year, Fences. I saw this a few days ago, but I have procrastinated writing this review until the final hours of the year. I had really high expectations for Fences. The first trailer absolutely blew me away. It had so much raw power and emotion that I was overwhelmed. After seeing that trailer, I did a little more research into the film and found out the backstory. Denzel Washington and Viola Davis performed the play on stage, and even won Tony Awards for their performances. So they worked with the playwright, August Wilson, to adapt it for the big screen, with Washington directing. When I learned this, my excitement level immediately increased, because these people know this play inside and out. If anyone was going to deliver on a great film adaptation, it was going to be these guys. So I walked into Fences thinking it could very well end up being…

La La Land has been one of my most anticipated films of the year for a while now. Writer/director Damien Chazelle stole 2014 for me with Whiplash, which turned out to be my favorite film of that year. So naturally, his next film was going to be up there for me in terms of anticipation. What struck me about Whiplash was not just how well he constructed the story and characters, but how embedded into the film his passion for music was. So it made sense that his next movie would be a full-out musical. In the past, I haven't been a huge fan of musicals. There are only a handful of ones that I actually like. But from what I had heard, this was a film that even non-musical people could enjoy and appreciate. So I went into La La Land with pretty high expectations. I went in thinking it was going to end up being one of my favorites of the year, and I wasn't proven wrong. La La Land is a masterfully directed film with a beautiful story, fantastic performances, and wonderful music. 
A j…

When I first saw the trailers for Jackie, I could tell that Natalie Portman's performance was going to be fantastic, but I thought the movie itself was probably going to be kind of mediocre. It very much looked like an okay film with an amazing performance, and that's what I was expecting when I went to go see this movie. I wasn't anticipating an overly dynamic film, nor a complex or profound picture. Instead, I was simply there to see Portman's (most likely) Academy Award nominated performance. For the first half of the film, I was proven right. The film was kind of dull and moved at a very slow pace. But by the halfway mark, Jackie really turned itself around, becoming not only an incredibly competent film, but a rather engaging one as well-- all the while having a truly mesmerizing and captivating performance on Portman's part. Jackie really does work to transcend beyond being held captive to Portman's performance, and instead becomes it's own entity. 
J…