Lawrence Uncut: My Most Anticipated Movies of the Upcoming Oscar Season

Summer and all its big comic book Blockbusters has come and gone, and it is finally time for film buffs such as myself to come out of hiding in preparation for this year's Oscar race. Now and again a good old CGI-heavy popcorn extravaganza can be really good fun, but for me personally, the last four months of the year is where the real action is at in terms of movies. With new films from directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, David Fincher and  Alejandro González Iñárritu coming out, the fall of 2014 looks particularly promising, and thus I find it only fitting to take some time to write about some of my most anticipated films on this year's Oscar season. 

Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice

Currently, PTA is my favourite film director, and Joaquin Phoenix is one the most interesting actors working today. Alas, it should come as no surprise that their latest collaboration finds itself on the top of my own and hundreds of other film fans' lists of upcoming films to look out for. This one is a contender in all the main categories as far as I can tell, although its biggest potential probably lies in the leading actor's category (Phoenix) and possibly the adapted screenplay category as well (Anderson). We have not seen a trailer from this film as of yet, but the vibe I get from the posters and the interviews that I have been able to find is that of a smokey, weird, 1960's detective film noir, which seems to fit the Anderson/Phoenix combo perfectly. Saying that I am extremely excited for Inherent Vice is an understatement, but I will just leave it at that for now. Getting too hyped for a new movie can often spell its downfall, but I in this case, I simply just can't help it. 

Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler

Take a look at this poster, claim that you are not excited to watch Nightcrawler, and the world will know you for a liar. I had no idea who the director was or what he had done in the past when I first laid my eyes upon this visual feast of a poster, but I instantly knew that this was a movie I just had to watch. Call it successful marketing or visual manipulating if you want, but as someone who loves films such as Collateral, Taxi Driver and of cause Drive, this poster and the film's two trailers struck a nerve in my head that had me hooked form the very beginning. The fact that it happens to star Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role does not hurt my anticipation in the slightest, as he happens to be one of those actors who overcame a somewhat rough start and has gone on to become one of the biggest talents in Hollywood, and one of my personal favourite actors. This film is a lock for the Oscar for best poster as far as I can tell, although I have to admit that I don't see it winning any main awards because of its indy-ish vibe. 

David Fincher's Gone Girl

Yes. Please. Ben Affleck has been proving everyone wrong over the past few years, both behind and in front of the camera, and based on the incredibly high standard of everything Fincher has been involved with over the last  two decades, I see no real reason to believe that Gone Girl is going to be anything but spectacular. My one reservation would be the fact that the film is an adaptation of a very popular novel written by Gillian Flynn, who interestingly enough wrote the adapted screenplay herself as well. Whether this is a good or bad thing is somewhat hard to say, seeing as successful authors don not always turn out to be good screenwriters, Cormac McCarthy. Finding a better director to take good care of said script would prove incredibly difficult however, and as far as I can tell, Gone Girl is a major contender in all the major categories come November 2015. This could very well be the year where Fincher takes home his first Oscar, and if that indeed happens, I would neither be surprised nor upset. 

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar

I am about to trespass on holy ground here, but please, stay with me for a moment. Yes, I agree that Chris Nolan is a very talented director, and yes, his Batman films were a lot of fun, but I do not think that he is the Messiah of movies in the same way that everyone else does. He has yet to make a better film than Memento in my opinion (which is an incredible movie), but who knows, Interstellar might be the one to top it. The film finds itself on this list mainly because of its spectacular cast and the success of its first teaser trailer, which given its ambiguous nature and sense of mysterious grandness remains the best trailer of the year so far, but I'm still not entirely convinced that the film is going to be as "epic" as most people would have you believe. Unlike a lot of people, I personally do not think that the academy has "robbed" Christopher Nolan of any awards in the past either, but I would not be mad at all if he ended up taking home an Oscar or two for Interstellar. Still, I do not see that actually happening. 

Final thoughts:

Although most of these films probably could be considered the "cream of the crop", they are in fact just a few of the many, many upcoming films that I am extremely eager watch. Titles such as Birdman, Foxcathcer, The Imitation Game and A Most Wanted Man are all very high on the list as well, along with a bunch of films from the earlier parts of 2014 which are not available in Denmark as of yet, such as Boyhood, Frank, Locke, Calvary and Snowpiercer. The next few months contain a lot to look forward to for a film nerd such as myself, and I solemnly vow to watch every single one of the previously named titles, in order to make as in depth and varied a top 10 list as possible once the season is over. Movies, ho!

Lawrence Uncut: Behind the Scenes of PTA's Magnolia

A true Paul Thomas Anderson fanboy:

As readers of my Magnolia film review will know (review here), Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my most cherished film directors at the moment. The fact that he wrote and directed three films before his 31th birthday, including such titles as Boogie Nights and the beforementioned Magnolia, is simultaneously the most scary and most inspiring thing in the world to me. Most directors would be more than happy to make just one film that is even half as important as either of those two movies, but PTA just keeps on creating one mesmerising masterpiece after the other, as if being the best filmmaker of his generation is no big deal at all. His upcoming film Inherent Vice starring Jauquin Phoenix has been my most anticipated movie of 2014 ever since it was announced, and although David Fincher's Gone Girl looks pretty great as well, I really hope that Inherent Vice ends up shining brighter than any other film come awards season.

That moment: 

Being my favourite film of his, I decided to look around for some Magnolia interviews and BTS clips last night, and came across the incredible documentary that you see above. I found that watching P.T Anderson doing his thing on set and at productions meetings was a very inspiring and entertaining experience, and the enthusiasm and emotion that he put into his work with his actors and his crew told the story of a man who truly loves his job and feels very passionate about his craft. I would highly recommend anyone who has not seen it yet to check out this documentary as soon as possible, because even if you do not love PTA's films as much as I do, it works brilliantly as a behind the scenes-look on how movies go from pre-production to shooting and editing before landing in out theaters. It also features a few hilarious and heartwarming conversations between Paul and Phillip Seymour Hoffmann, who was one of his favourite collaborators before his untimely death earlier this year. R.I.P. 

Bonus: My 100 % subjective ranking of PTA's currently released films: 

6: Punch Drunk Love

5: Sydney 

4: There Will Be Blood

3: The Master (review here)

2: Boogie Nights

1: Magnolia (review here)

Lawrence Uncut: My Top 10 Favourite Movies of 2013

Better late than never:

So yea, I know that 2013 is long gone by now, but I still really want to make one of these lists. I did not get to review every good movie I saw last year, and even though I will not get the chance to go into very great detail about them, I still feel as if writing a top 10 list will give me the opportunity to express my thoughts on a lot of really good films, that definitely deserve to be talked about. As with everything else I write here on my blog, this top 10 will be extremely subjective and personal, and it will probably piss a lot of people off as a result thereof. It is also important to keep in mind that I did not get to watch every single movie from 2013, so if you wonder who titles such as Frances Ha, Frozen, Lone Survivor, Osage: Orange County, Philomena, The Wind Rises and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug are not anywhere to be found on the list, it is simply because I have not seen them yet. However, as an added bonus to those who read the entire list, I have included a list of honorable mentions at the bottom of this post, which contains the movies that I wish could make it to the list, but just did not make the final cut. With all that boring stuff out of the way, I think it is about time we get into my top 10 favorite movies of 2013.

#10 - The spectacular now

To start off the list, we have James Pensoldt's adaption of the writers of 500 Days of Summer's third screenplay. Not only is this film one of the best teen romances of 2013 in my opinion, but also one of the most realistic and relatable romantic movies that I have seen for a long time. I vividly remember watching this film a cold Wednesday afternoon whilst feeling a little sick, and being in the fragile state that I was, this film's honest and emotionally draining story swept me off my feet even more than 500 Days of Summer did. Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley play the two main characters in this indie coming of age high school love story, and both of them deliver the performances of their careers in my opinion, especially Woodley, who I am sure has a long and bright acting career ahead of her. Being at a very similar point in my own life as the two main characters are in this film, I felt a strong connection to both of their characters, and after the film had ended, I just sat still and stared at the screen with wet eyes for more than ten minutes. The Spectacular Now is one of the best romances of 2013 for sure.

#9 - Nebraska

Nebraska is director Alexander Payne's latest movie, and even though I personally think that The Descendants is his best movie yet, Nebraska is one of the funniest, most engaging and most well created movies I saw in 2013. In this film, Bruce Dern plays a drunken old man by the name of Woody, who struggles with a lot of regret over what he has and has not achieved throughout his life. As he embarks on a road trip to his home town along with his youngest son, played brilliantly by Will Forte, Woody gets a chance to fix some of the broken relationships and settle some of the disputes that have been troubling him for many years. Shot beautifully in black and white, Nebraska is one of the most personal movies I saw in 2013, and I almost felt as if I could reach out and tough its many-layered characters whilst watching the film. Dern is brilliant in this film, and so is his wife played by June Squibb, who delivers one of the funniest performances of the year. Please, do not let the black and white fool you, because Nebraska is one of the most strangely heartwarming and colorful movies of 2013. 

#8 - Fruitvale Station

This one is a true gutwrencher. As I said in my review of the film, Fruitvale Station is based on the real life shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant on the last day of 2008, and it is one of the most harrowing films of 2013 for sure. The amount of emotional attachment I felt towards this individual, no matter how many wrong choices he might have made throughout his life, was stronger than almost any other connection I felt towards a film character from last year. This is largely due to newcomer  Michael Jordan's phenomenal performance and first time director Ryan Coogler's extraordinary directional effort, and I absolutely cannot wait to see what the two of them come up with next. The most impressive thing about this film, is the fact that Coogler managed to make a very open minded and neutral film based off of a story that very well could have turned into an extremely one-sided affair, which is a feat that a lot of more established Hollywood directors do not always manage to pull off. You can read my review of Fruitvale Station here.

#7 - Inside Llewyn Davis

In my opinion, Ethan and Joel Coen are the two of the best living screenwriters, if not the very best, as well as two of the most reliable directors who still make movies. These two incredible filmmakers just keep on surprising me with their darkly funny, strangely poetic and flawlessly crafted films over and over again, and the way I see it, Inside Llewyn Davis is their best movies since No Country for Old Men. It might not be all the way up there with No Country, Fargo and The Big Lebowsky, but it is still one of the most catchy and melancholically entertaining films of 2013. I usually never listen to music on my own and do not fancy myself a music enthusiast, so the fact that I have listened to all the songs from this movie almost every day for more than a month, should tell you something about how much I loved watching it. The Death of Queen Jane and Please Mr. Kennedy, although very different in tempo and subject matter, are two of the best movie soundtracks I have heard since Ben Nichols' Shelter from the movie Take Shelter, and are just two of many reasons as to why I cannot wait to revisit Inside Llewyn Davis on BluRay. 

#6 - The Way Way Back

The Way Way Back is one of those movies that you can watch over and over again and never get bored of. Not only is it the funniest movie from 2013 in my opinion, but it is also one of the most heartwarming, loving and honest films I have seen in quite some time. It focuses on a young awkward teenager by the name of Duncan, who is having the worst summer of his life in his douchy stepdad's beach house. Duncan eventually meets Sam Rockwell's character and starts hanging out with him in a water park nearby, which is where he starts learning what growing up, being yourself and falling in love really means. The Way Way Back truly is one of the sweetest, funniest and most loving films I have seen for as long as I can remember, and it captures the essence of teenage mystery, awkwardness and excitement better than most movies in its genre. In my opinion, Sam Rockwell also delivers one the best performances of the year in this film, and even just thinking about his monologue about the reason as to why the water park was founded still cracks me up even today. In short; please, for the sake of your inner child, watch this movie.

 #5 - Mud

As far as I am aware, 36-year-old writer/director Jeff Nichols is going to be remembered as one of the very finest filmmakers from our generation. Shotgun Stories is great, Take Shelter is a timeless masterpiece, and Mud is almost just as good. This film is a coming of age story just like The Spectacular Now and The Way Way Back, but more so than those two other films, Mud is an incredibly profound, many layered tale about love, friendship, mystery and the path to becoming a grown up human being. It features the two best performances by young actors from 2013 in Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, as well as the crown jewel in Matthew McConaughey's career comeback as the titular character "Mud", and the three of them make this film one of the most engrossing movie going experiences of last year. I absolutely cannot believe that Nichols was not nominated for best original screenplay at the latest Oscar ceremony, because the way I see it, Mud's phenomenally well told story, engrossing themes and fateful atmosphere makes it the most well written movie of 2013, even better than Spike Jonze's Her. You can find my full review of Mud here, but please keep in mind that my opinion on the film has changed a lot since I wrote the review. 

#4 - All Is Lost

This film truly amazed me. Although All Is Lost only features one character, has next to no dialogue and takes place almost entirely on a small boat, it is one of the most exiting and nerve wracking films from 2013, as well as the single scariest movie I saw last year. Although Gravity probably will go on to become the most well remembered survival movie from 2013, All Is Lost had me much more engaged and much more worried about its main character. Robert Redford is flat out phenomenal in this film, and if I had to choose a favourite male performance from 2013, I would have to go with his heartbreaking and surprisingly physical portrayal of the unnamed main character in All Is Lost. The fact that writer/director J.C. Chandor and Redford managed to create such a thrilling and crushing movie with as small an amount of scenery and diversion as they did is a remarkable feat, and I still get goose bumps from thinking about the way in which the film concludes. In my opinion, All Is Lost is high concept filmmaking at its very best. 

 #3 - Only God Forgives

Kicking off the top 3, we have the most "controversial" pick on the list. Only God Forgives was absolutely crushed by critiques and audiences all over the world upon its release, but in my opinion, it is one of the most atmospherically pleasing and visually stunning movies that I have ever seen. Yes, it does feature a lot of very slow paced walking and a huge amount of melancholic staring, but no film from 2013 managed to keep me enthralled, riveted and mystified as much as Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives did. Refn has a very distinctive visual style which borrows a lot of elements from directors such as Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, and as a direct result thereof, this film feels more like a fever dream than an actual movie. Refn does not waste a single frame in this film, and as much as I hate to be the asshole who says "pfft, you just don't get it!", the people who claim that Only God Forgives does not make sense and has no character progressing or story arc, just did not fucking get it. I personally bought it on BluRay as soon as I got the opportunity, and luckily enough, Only God Forgives only gets better and better the more I watch it. You can read my review of the film here.

#2 - The Great Beauty

The Great Beauty is an Italian film, and it is nothing short of spellbinding. It won the award for best picture in a foreign languae at the Oscars, but in my opinion, only one film from 2013 spoke the language of film better than this aesthetic masterpiece. The movie takes place in Italy, where 65-year-old playboy Jep Gambardella has been navigating the superficial and materialistic highlife of Rome for almost 40 years, without ever having felt happy or fulfilled. He seems to be the only person in his circle of "friends" who actually know that everything they say and do is complete and utter bullshit, and the film goes on to depict how wealth, art and social status has become a hollow shell of nothingness and stupidity for Jep and the people around him. Director Paolo Sorrentino tells this satiric story with some of the most gorgeous and visually pleasing images I have ever seen on film, and the movie contains several of the deepest and most telling sequences I have ever seen in any sort of visual artform. I am ashamed to admit that I have never seen seen a film made by Federico Fellini, but the fact that Sorrentino and The Great Beauty is being compared to Fellini and his work, makes want to change that as soon as humanly possible. You can read my in-depth review of The Great Beauty here.

#1 - Blue is the Warmest Color

When I said that The Great Beauty was my favourite film of 2013 back when I originally reviewed it, it was because I had not seen Blue is the Warmest Color yet. I decided to give it a go out of pure coincidence, and never in my life had I thought that a three-hour-long French movie about a lesbian couple would end up becoming the best film about love and sexuality that I have ever seen. As the poster truthfully states, this movie is absolutely shattering in more ways than I can describe. Not only it a gripping coming of age story about a young girl's personal struggle with friends, school, parents and herself, but it is also a genuinely heartbreaking, honest and realistic depiction of self discovery, homosexuality and love. Adèle Exarchopoulos plays the main character in the film, and she gives the best performance of any actor or actress in any film from 2013, making her character the single most emotionally engaging film persona of the year. I knew within very few minutes that this film was something special, and by the time it ended, I cared more about Adèle than any other fictional character I have encountered all year. Blue is the Warmest Color broke the barrier between fact and fiction more effectively than any other film I have seen for a very long time, and that is why it is the best film I saw in 2013.

Honorable mentions:

The Act of Killing

Out of the Furnace

Rush

Star Trek into Darkness

Filth

Dallas Buyers Club

Short Term 12

Blue Jasmine
Behind the Candelabra

The Kings of Summer

12 Years a Slave

Prisoners

Her

American Hustle

Place Beyond the Pines

Upstream Color

Gravity

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

Lawrence Uncut: True Detective *SPOILERS*

True Television:

In honor of one of the best season of TV I have ever seen coming to an end quite recently, I have decided to break protocol and talk about True Detective, which is an HBO series that I am sure most people on earth must have heard of by now. This episode of Uncut will feature major spoilers for the entire season, so if you have not seen this show yet, please, do not read any further. 

About the investigation:

One of the things that I was most worried about going into the season finale of True Detective, was whether or not Cary Fukunaga and Nic Pizzolatto were going to be able to wrap everything up in a way that felt both satisfying and exiting. There has been a ton of different timelines, perspectives, plot points and story/character arcs in play at all times throughout the entire show, and I am pleased to say that even though some of them were not wrapped up very tightly at all, the conclusion of True Detective really hit the nail on the head. I love the fact that Marty and Rust did not end up taking down the entire cult of nutbags in a blazing raid of led, blood and rock music, but that they just barely managed to erase their own debt, and had to accept the fact that there were powers beyond their control at play. This ending felt very un-hollywood to me, and even though I know that it is going to piss a lot of people off, I really enjoyed the conclusion to the 20-year-long investigation. 

About Marty:

As to what happened to the characters of Rust and Marty, I feel as if this is where the season finale of True Detective shines the most. After the incident in 2002, both of these men have been lonely, drunken and miserable, and the way in which they end up bonding over the Yellow King investigation was very heartwarming and satisfying to me. After all, this series is not a regular cop drama, but a character study unlike any other character study ever put on screen. The scene in the hospital where Marty is overwhelmed with joy when his family shows up is incredible in my opinion, because not only is he very happy to see them, but he is also painfully aware of what his character flaws have cost him. This is the moment where Marty realizes what he could have had but ultimately ended up distancing himself from, and this emotional breakdown is both heartbreaking and strangely fulfilling. After this scene, his character is surrounded by an incredible sense of peace and calm for the rest of the episode, which tells us that Marty has finally come to terms with what he has done, and has accepted that life moves on. It is a bittersweet ending to a bittersweet character's journey, and I loved it so much.

About Rust:

In terms of Rust's fate, this is where some people have expressed a sense of disappointment with the season finale. After everything that this sorry individual has been put through and after all his talk about death and the meaninglessness of life, it would seem as if the only way for him to find peace would be by dying, and a lot of viewers have speculated that Rust would need to die in order to give the show a meaningful ending. As it turned out though, both of our heroes ended up surviving the descent into hell, albeit with an axe in the chest and a knife in the gut respectively. I personally do not mind that Rust ended up living, especially after his heartbreaking account of how he felt the presence of his deceased daughter during his near-death experience. This final scene was very tough to watch, but the fact that Rust seems to end up leaving the hospital with a new, slightly more positive outlook on life, totally makes up for it in my opinion. He has been such a miserable and dark person throughout the entire show, and even though we do not know exactly how happy and/or depressed he is going to be in the future, that small amount of warmth he felt when he was so close to dying seems to have sparked some kind of fire inside him. Even though he had his stomach ripped open with a knife and was seconds away from dying a horrible death, being stabbed by that child murderer might have been the best thing that ever happened to Rust. 

In conclusion:

In the end, I feel as if this first season of HBO's newest smash hit was one of the best experiences I have ever had with a TV show. Watching this series was an entirely new experience to me, because instead of watching the entire season over the cause of a couple of days, I had to wait an entire week between watching each episode, which is something that I have never done with a show before. True Detective also featured quite a few of those unforgettable magical moments that I talked about in my review of The Great Beauty a little while ago, such as the "you should kill yourself if you get the chance"-scene, Marty's reaction to watching the Marie Fontenot tape, Marty Breaking down in the hospital, and of cause the uncut 10-minute scene at the end of episode 4. Even though the show was not as beautifully filmed as Breaking Bad or House of Cards, True Detective might very well be the most well-written show I have ever seen, and it certainly features two of the best characters that have ever been featured in a police investigation story. On a final note, I firmly believe that Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson both deserve some kind of flashy statuette for their performances in this show, and Cary Fukunaga and Nic Pizzolato, the guys who directed and wrote the entire series respectively, do as well. Here is to hoping that season 2 will be just as great.  

Lawrence Uncut: The Oscars

Reintroducing "Lawrence Uncut"!:

So yea, I formally introduced the "uncut" segment here on my blog a while back, but still have yet to take it into proper use. I've been having a huge load of school work to do and a lot of plans for the future to make in the past few weeks, but now that I seem to have been given a bit of spare time, I thought I'd take some time off to give you my few cents about the 86th annual Oscar ceremony, which took place last night. 

The foreign language race:

Seeing as "The Hunt" had a pretty good shot at taking home the statuette for best foreign language film last night, this probably was the category that me and my fellow Danes were the most interested in. However, for those of us who actually saw "The Great Beauty", the Italian film that actually ended up taking home the Oscar, there really wasn't much hope to find. I expressed my thoughts about the movie in this review, but to put it shortly, I personally think that Paulo Sorrentino and Italy deserved to win the award over any of the other nominees. The Hunt is a great movie and I love Thomas Vinterberg and Mads Mikkelsen, but the film just never reached the level of cinematic weight that The Great Beauty did. 

Honoring the screenwriters:

In terms of the awards for best adapted and original screenplay, which are the two categories that I personally look forward to the most every year, I was extremely happy to find out that "12 Years A Slave" and "Her" ended up winning, predictable as it may have been. I managed to catch a screening of "Slave" just 36 hours before the ceremony and still have yet to watch Her, but based on my admiration for both Steve McQueen and and Spike Jonze, I couldn't be any happier. I did find McQueen's first feature film "Hunger" a bit artsy-fartsy in some ways, whereas I think that "Shame", which was his second feature, is an incredible movie with an even more incredible central performance by Michael Fassbender. Jonze on the other hand has directed nothing but good movies, and I'm a huge fan of the movies he's made with Charlie Kaufmann, especially "Adaptation", which also features the last great Nicolas Cage performance. 

An acceptable compromise:

This year's Oscars are somewhat different from all the previous years in my opinion, because for the first time in recent memory, I'm actually not mad about the awards for best director and best picture being given to two different movies. Watching "Gravity" was a fantastic  experience in my opinion, especially visually, and I think that all the years of hard work and dedication that Alfonso Cuarón put into this pet-project of his was worth the best director's award. 12 Years A Slave was a very straight forward but also much more touching movie experience, and even though I don't love is as much as everyone else seems to do, I still think that its ability to tell a tough and grueling story in a sober and ruthlessly honest way makes it one of the finest movies of 2013. Its subject matter might be a little worn out by now, especially seeing as it came out relatively shortly after "Django Unchained" and "The Butler", but it still managed to add  a new perspective on a story that has been told many times before, which in and of itself is very impressive. 

Flying high on national pride:

Finally, I have to mention the fact that Denmark actually did bring one Oscar statuette home last night, in spite of The Hunt loosing out to The Great Beauty. Anders Walter's "Helium" won the award for best live action short, and even though I haven't seen the film yet, I do feel a little proud of this Danish achievement, seeing as three of the people who worked on the film went to the film college that I'll hopefully be studying at in a couple of years. How exciting!