Counterpoint: Becky's Monthly Countdown for February 2015

Becky's wrong different opinion on a Filmquisition article.

Becky and I usually agree more on movies than we did for this particular Counterpoint.  It's what makes them so (comparatively) easy to do.  Out of the ten movies that she lists, we typically agree on half or more - meaning that these take about half as long to hammer out that similar articles.  That was not the case for February, however.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Boyhood
Dredd
Fury
Jupiter Ascending
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Monster's University
A Most Violent Year
Predestination

Of the ten movies listed above, only two of them overlap with my list: Boyhood and Kingsman.  Two of them I thought were poor films at even their best moments and most of them simply didn't make the cut for me, regardless of how good they actually were.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - As I mentioned when I went over Becky's most anticipated movies of 2015, I wasn't especially fond of The best Exotic Marigold Hotel.  It had an admittedly great cast of aging British A-listers, but not much else to speak of.

When it really comes down to it, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was an old person's romantic comedy.  It's sprawling cast of elderly actors are single-mindedly consumed with only one thing: their late in life romantic prospects (and then there's Maggie Smith).  So you have one man trying to meet with the one great love of his youth, two people looking to hook up with younger partners, one couple whose marriage is obviously doomed from the start and Judi Dench sitting quietly off to the side as the other woman, unassumingly waiting to swoop in on the soon to be single man of her dreams.  It's a well enough movie, to be sure, but nothing worth seeking out nor revisiting.

Dredd - Given the infamy of the last adaptation of Judge Dredd, my expectations for this movie were less than hopeful.  But when Becky and I randomly decided to pop this in one day, it proved to be a surprisingly entertaining and - yes - good movie.  It provided just the right amount of adrenaline-fueled action, dystopian world-building and plot-divined double-crosses to keep it entertainingly on-point for its entire run time.

Dredd basically plays out like what an American remake of The Raid: Redemption would look like.  The anti-heroic judge, jury and executioner of the future, Dredd, takes a psychic rookie out for her first day on the job.  A multiple homicide leads them to the mega-block "Peach Trees" - a 200-story slum run by the merciless crime boss Ma Ma.  Now they need to fight their way out of the locked-down skyscraper through an army of gangsters and corrupt judges.  It's an exhilarating ride to say that least, and has the best built-in reason for excessive slow motion camerawork that I have ever seen.  This is one for the action junkies out there, looking for an easy fix.

Fury - If you've read my review of Fury, you already know that it is awesome.  It's an intensely non-romanticised look into World War II - essentially what would have happened if Saving Private Ryan was shot like a Vietnam film.  It's a savagely conceived, unrelentingly brutal take-down of everything your grandfather remembers from World War II, focusing on a tank team beating the Nazi's teeth in after they've already lost, killing time until the Germans finally say "Uncle."

Fury is one of the two movies that gives me hope for the upcoming Suicide Squad adaptation.  David Ayer - who helmed this Brad Pitt vehicle - is set to direct that film and he is absolutely the perfect guy to do it.  When you see how the tank grinds mangled corpses into the mud or a starry-eyed typist picking pieces of face off of the floor, you can believe that Ayer will be willing to give The Suicide Squad the R-rated treatment that it deserves.

Jupiter Ascending - I still can't believe that Becky's willing to call Jupiter Ascending - a movie that many have likened to Battlefield Earth for a whole new generation - one of the best things that she's seen in February.  The actors have absolutely zero chemistry with one another, the characters are flimsy caricatures whose actions are guided by plot instead of reason and the writing is absolutely laughable.  I think that my favorite line is still "my bowels are anything but royal."

That being said, Jupiter Ascending is not without its charms.  Visually, it's absolutely resplendent.  The production design, prop design, hair / makeup design and CG are easily some of the best that I've ever seen.  Tatum's - ie, Magic Spike's - anti-gravity boots are some of the coolest pieces of sci-fi hardware since the Iron Man suit cropped up in 2008.  It's just a shame that everything else about this movie is so utterly unbearable.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis - This is another movie that, if you read my review on it, you already know my mixed - if mostly positive - feelings toward it.  Beautifully animated, intelligently designed and exciting as Hell, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis might prove to be the best animated movie of the year (considering how so-so-looking Inside Out is proving to be).

The only things that I can really fault the film with is that it appears to have been rushed through development without the man that's made DC animated movies must-see experiences.  The best parts - such as a drunken Arthur Curry starting a bar brawl when a hungry patron interrupts the conversation he was having with a lobster - are only passingly in the movie, which prefers to focus on the Justice League proper than on the narrative soul of the film.

Monster's University - I really didn't epect much going into this Pixar prequel to a movie that I never especially cared for to begin with.  And, for all of my hemming and hawing, I'm glad that I saw it.  Not only did it prove to be a perfectly serviceable piece of entertainment, but got me to rewatch - and, more importantly, reevaluate - Monsters Inc for the first time since it initially came out.

If you've seen even one college-set adult comedy, you know exactly what to expect from Monsters University.  It's basically Animal House meets Revenge of the Nerds, only with monsters.  It has a lot of heart and a few twists that keep it from feeling completely recycled, but is sadly part of a larger trend wherein Pixar can safely rest on its laurels and rake in money hand over fist with hastily constructed nostalgia products hearkening back to their biggest successes.

A Most Violent Year -  On the surface, A Most Violent Year is the perfect movie.  It features an astoundingly good cast - which includes Jessica Chastain, Oscar Isaac and David Oyelowo - in a mafia-styled story somewhat reminiscent of The Godfather, released during the all-important prestige season for Oscar consideration.  While it sadly doesn't quite live up to expectation, it is a fantastic tale of cops, robbers and man trying desperately to stay free from either of them.

Given the generally weak year for female performances, Jessica Chastain was robbed of an Oscar nomination for her role as Anna Morales, the daughter of a mob boss and wife to a bull-headedly honest businessman.  Her performance is worth the price of the movie alone, although sadly, like most comedies, her best scenes were all shown in the trailer.  Still, that doesn't diminish what she has accomplished in the film, nor does it lessen the quality of the movie as a whole.

Predestination - Those of you who already read through my three-part-series of the best movies of 2014 already know my thoughts on Predestination.  It's probably the trippiest movie of a year filled with mind-bending arthouse films like Under the Skin and Enemy.  It stars the criminally underused Ethan Hawke and the breakout Sarah Snook in an adaptation of a Robert Heinlein short story brilliantly adapted from the directors of Daybreakers.

Predestination is an intelligently twisted, delightfully ouroboric story about a temporal agent (aka, time cop) who's seeking out his replacement as he tries to prevent an elusive bomber from killing thousands of innocent people.  It's the kind of film that most people complain about not being made but that most people simply don't come out to see.  With its recent DVD release, now's your opportunity to check out this immaculately produced sci-fi thriller.

So what was your favorite movie that you saw for the first time in February?

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