Million Dollar Arm (2 stars out of 4)

Jon Hamm deserves better than he is given in this year's sports drama Million Dollar Arm. While it is certainly nice to see him in something other than a suit-and-tie in Mad Men, he is a better actor than what he is given here. Instead of playing an advertising executive he is playing a sports agent. If it weren't for the tinniest amount of fatigue and desperation in his voice, you could feasibly close your eyes and simply picture Hamm simply playing a less successful and less interesting version of Don Draper. This isn't to say that Hamm is bad in Million Dollar Arm. He is as good as the material calls for. While it is rather bad, Million Dollar Arm feels like we are watching a single A minor league baseball game. You don't feel robbed of your time but you know the game doesn't matter in the slightest.

JB (Jon Hamm) is at a low part in his career as a sports agent. All the talent he scouted and hired in the 1990s have since retired leaving his agency low on prospects and funds. His agency is consistently being outbid by the younger agents. One day while dejectedly watching TV, JB comes across a cricket match and notices how hard the bowlers are throwing the ball. He assumes that these Indian bowlers might be able to excel as pitchers playing American baseball. JB decides to put on an Indian reality show called "Million Dollar Arm" where the faster pitchers will compete for money and a chance at trying out for professional baseball teams. He starts training his two top prospects Rinku (Suraj Sharma) and Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and finds out there is a difference in pitching amateur cricket and pitching for professional baseball. This is JB's last chance at reviving his career though and he will do whatever it takes to see this two boys succeed.

Million Dollar Arm is perfectly serviceable when it is sticking with the basic "from ghee to greatness" storyline. Sharma and Mittal are both charming actors and anytime we spend with them as they see how their success will help their family is great. The problem is that the story isn't as much about them as it is Hamm's JB. For the most part, JB is not a sympathetic character. He is constantly seen lounging around his gorgeous apartment with supermodels and we are expected to worry about how he is going to make ends meet. His interest in the contest and the prospects of his trainee pitchers is entirely selfish. When one of the players accidentally cuts his finger cooking dinner, JB is sent off into a rage because his meal-ticket was damaged. We want Rinku and Dinesh to succeed but we sort of hope that it has nothing to do with JB. That is not how you want to feel about your protagonist.

The supporting cast is mostly where Million Dollar Arm succeeds. While they are definitely not working with top-shelf work Lake Bell as the love interest and Aasif Mandvi as JB's partner are both nice to see. The best acting in the film belongs to Bill Paxton as a USC pitching trainer Tom House. He gives an uncharacteristically held-back performance as a calm but determined coach who has unorthodox methods to train his players. This film would have been improved greatly more time with House's training of Rinku and Dinesh and less on JB's selfishness and if he and Bell will get-together. This is a baseball movie that would be been so much better if it had been more about baseball. Alan Arkin also does a decent job as a crotchety baseball scout. By this point, Arkin can play these roles in his sleep and actually does in a few parts of this film. When his character is awake and present, he is a nice addition that the film could have done more with.

Far too often, the film devolves into creating conflict out of nothing. Like the aforementioned finger-cut, the script is trying to instill drama in weak instances. "Oh wow! The Indian boy ate too much pizza and is now sick!" "Uh oh! That guy didn't know the punch was spiked and is now drunk!" "The woman JB is interested in and who is interested in him as well has a boyfriend!" These conflicts are so stereotypical by this point that we don't care. Why does a film like this need to create conflict beyond the fact that these charming boys are having a difficult time transitioning into American baseball?

Million Dollar Arm is the kind of movie you will catch on cable TV in a few years while switching TV channels. It isn't necessarily a bad time but it isn't really anything you should give a second glance. It isn't the movie star-making turn for Hamm that Disney might have thought it would be but it doesn't necessarily tarnish anything. It is a slow-throw pitching machine. You see the ball coming from a ways away, hit it easily, but don't walk away with any sense of accomplishment.

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Godzilla (3 stars out of 4)

Every summer there is a new movie featuring the mass destruction of a major city. We see whole cities get destroyed without even the slightest mention of human casualties or really process the ramifications of knocking down huge skyscrapers. When another Godzilla remake was proposed, it seemed like it would just join the stream of disaster pictures. Gareth Edwards, a director who had only directed 2008's well-received but modest sci-fi film Monsters, was attached. Edwards isn't Michael Bay, Guillermo del Tero or Roland Emmerich (the director of 1998's version of Godzilla). All of these directors have created good blockbuster films built around the destruction of cities. Edwards, unlike those directors, isn't all that concerned with the destruction of cities or screen-filling explosions. Sound and editing isn't used to give audiences the illusion they are experiencing the token "non-stop joyride". That isn't to say there isn't destruction in Edwards's Godzilla. There are definitely explosions and there are moments where the audience will cheer. Edwards's Godzilla seemingly does the unthinkable. It finds the happy medium between big adrenaline-pumping action and almost zen-like restraint. While it might not please everyone who goes into Godzilla hoping to see this year's Pacific Rim or Transformers, it will please those who like their monster movies to have a slow-burn.

Navy lieutenant Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) has ended his term and traveled back to San Francisco to be with his wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) and son Sam (Carson Bolde). Not too long after he starts to feel comfortable in civilian life, he receives a phone call from Japan. His father Joe (Bryan Cranston) has been arrested for trespassing in a contaminated zone. 15 years ago, Joe lost his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) in a radiation leak at the complex where they worked together. The leak was caused by a pulse that Joe had been documenting well before the accident. He had tried to tell people that there was something unusual about the pattern of the frequencies. Now, 15 years later, Joe is still tracking the patterns which seem to only be getting stronger. Everything is eerily similar to how it was during the last major disruption. Neither the authorities nor Ford will listen to Joe. They believe his ramblings are nothing more than the paranoid words of a man who still hasn't gotten over the untimely death of his wife. When in Japan, Ford agrees to make one last trip with Joe to the abandoned quarantine area where they had lived 15 years ago. What they find is a large military installation that had been built around the area where the original complex where Joe had worked. The pulses were not just tremors or earthquakes. The military is hiding something ancient and dangerous.

The most amazing aspect of 2014's Godzilla is just how little "the Big G" is in the picture. This isn't to say he isn't in it enough or doesn't have an absolutely awesome impact when he is fully on-screen. Those expecting instant gratification are going to be very annoyed by this film. Edwards takes his sweet time building up the mystery of the creature and plays the audience like an instrument. This isn't a hammering guitar solo. This is a long journey to a crescendo. Godzilla doesn't appear for at least the first half of the film. That time is spent developing characters (not terribly well but far better than what we get in most blockbusters) and hinting at what we might see in the rest of the film. When Godzilla fully appears and starts wrecking havoc, it is a thing of wonders. It is the kind of spectacle that will make the pupils of children dilate and will no doubt inspire some adults to cheer. They may not stomp around acting like Godzilla the way they might have acted like Jaegers from last year's Pacific Rim but they will definitely sit wide-eyed with their mouth open whenever the big lizard attacks.

One of the most interesting choices Edwards makes is to not always show us the destruction. There are several instances where the monster will descend on a town only for the scene to cut away to a different location. Sometimes the destruction is only seen briefly on newscasts on television screens in other settings. This might anger those who are expecting there to be destruction. Audiences have been preconditioned to expect the total annihilation of cities. We see buildings fall and don't feel anything. The destruction is just another fleeting stunt. Edwards decision to cut away builds wonderful suspense. When we finally do see the monster attacks, it is incredibly impressive. They don't need to keep one-upping what we say earlier. It doesn't get repetitive or "been there, destroyed that". It makes that final act that much more fist-pumpingly awesome.

Unfortunately, the pacing isn't always used to build tension. There are stretches of Godzilla that are slightly redundant. You can only take so much military tactical planning without getting a little bored. When you know there are giant monsters out there, you don't necessarily care about missile deployment and evacuation plans. While Godzilla isn't terribly long at 123 minutes, it could have used a decent 15 minute tightening. There is no reason it couldn't be a lean and mean beast (unlike the titular creature). The tightening might also make those who are conditioned to the "faster, louder, and more explosive" blockbuster genre not notice that there isn't nearly as many monster attacks as they had signed up for. The pacing doesn't damage the film irrevocably but it does harm it a little.

The cast is more serviceable than you would expect for a big monster movie. Cranston isn't working on Breaking Bad level here but he instills Joe with far more humanity than your typical "crazy guy who nobody believes but who turns out to not be so crazy after all". Taylor-Johnson is a little cold as a protagonist. Ford doesn't necessarily "save the day" but he isn't a casual bystander either. Sometimes he feels like Brad Pitt's character from last year's World War Z. He is just constantly at the right place at the right time despite the fact that he is just a normal lieutenant with an above average knowledge of military weaponry. Taylor-Johnson seems to have this permanent steely-gaze which becomes a little soulless after a while. In one scene where saves a kid who has becomes lost from his family, we don't necessarily believe it is something his character would innately do. It comes off more like a plot device or a weak attempt at humanizing a character who isn't very welcoming. While you don't necessarily need to have your heroes be wise-cracking geniuses spouting Whedonesque lines of fancy, it would be good to have a little more connection to your main (human) character.

While the human element of Godzilla might fail a bit, those short-comings are made up for by the sheer magnitude of the monster attacks.Still, a little bit of tightening and more humanizing of the protagonist would have gone a long way. That complaint aside, nobody goes into these movies looking for strong human characters. We want to see monsters tear down buildings. It might be a bit of a wait for the audience but that tension is definitely worth the wait culminating in one of the best climaxes we will likely see all year.

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Chef (2.5 stars out of 4)

Jon Favreau's Chef is a thinly-veiled rebuttal to his detractors. Although Favreau has never necessarily been seen as a great filmmaker, he has brought us very good films before with Elf and the first Iron Man film. He hit a streak of missteps after that though with Iron Man 2 and the critical and box-office disappointment Cowboys and Aliens. Favreau's character Carl Casper in Chef is burnt-out working for a boss who only cares about putting people in his restaurant's seats. Carl is also sick of critics tearing about his work which is designed to appeal to the largest audience possible. Like Carl, Favreau has decided to go with his passion instead of the money. He went from working in big-budget blockbusters to writing and directing the relatively small movie Chef. Favreau has written a charming and occasionally touching film about an artist who has to walk away from money and safety and try something adventurous. Much like Casper, Favreau isn't always successful but we applaud him for trying and when he is on, he is on.

Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) is in a creative rut. He is head chef at a popular restaurant owned by Riva (Dustin Hoffman), a businessman who cares about profit first and adventurous cuisine a distant second. Casper's creative rut is bleeding into his family life as he is becoming more and more distant from his son Percy (Emjay Anthony). When an important food blogger visits, Riva holds Casper back telling him that he should "play his hits" instead of trying something new and exciting. Casper listens to Riva and receives a blistering review that tears him apart and compares his past accomplishments to his current mediocrity. Casper blows up on the critic using the new-to-him medium of Twitter. This feud keeps building to a point where he confronts the critic face-to-face in a vulgar tirade. The argument is filmed, goes viral, and Casper is forced to step away from his position as chef. Casper now has full reign over his future and decides to use it to dive head-first into a food truck business. With the help of Percy and his former sous chef Martin (John Leguizamo), he sets out to rebuild his art, his passion, and his relationship with his son.

The first act of any redemption story can be frustrating. It is never fun to watch a protagonist fail. Unfortunately, the first act of Chef feels a good 15 minutes too long. You can only watch a person who are supposed to care about fail miserably and lash out at critics and naysayers so many times until you start to care less. Casper’s rants against critics don’t necessarily endure him to us. They just come off whiny and repetitive. It is also not necessarily believable that Casper would have no idea how Twitter works. When my Grandma has a better grasp on present social media than a popular chef does, you have a flaw in your story. During this section Percy is almost unbearable as he is given every chance to explain the latest technology to his knowledgeable rather. When you have a 10-year old explaining how "replies" are different from "direct messages" on Twitter it feels weak. With a bit of tightening and some slight story readjustments, Casper's character could have been that much better and easier to care about.

The second and especially third act is when Chef hits its stride. It essentially becomes a road trip movie with Casper, Percy, and Martin driving from Miami to California establishing their food truck brand. This is when the movie is at its most funny, entertaining, and touching moment. If the whole film had the pacing and feel of the last two acts, we would be looking at one of the most entertaining and successful independent pictures of the year so far. The last act is handled very well. While some might say that it wraps itself up too easily, it felt like a fitting conclusion to the story. It leaves the audience on an up note. The audience at the screening walked out beaming with smiles. 

One of the best areas in Chef is the supporting cast. Favreau has a habit of making friends with the people he works with and they tend to follow him from picture to picture. He seemingly called in every favor for this film and for the most part it helps the film out quite a lot. In almost all instances, these actors are playing against type. Hoffman is essentially the villain which is definitely not how we normally see him. Sofia Vergara plays Inez, Casper ex-wife and Percy's mother, in a surprisingly subdued performance. We have seen her on Modern Family hamming it up so much that we never really knew until now that she could actually be cast in a reserved role. Leguizamo is wonderful as the friend and co-worker role. It seems that every time we see Leguizamo on stage he is over-acting and flamboyant. Here, he is allowed to be a real person. He compliments every scene he is in. The only supporting roles that misfire are Robert Downey Jr. as Casper's food truck benefactor and Amy Sedaris as a publisist that attempts to reestablish Casper after his technological meltdown. Downey Jr seems to be playing himself in the role which results in a bit too much unbridled improvisation. His appearance in the film is almost distracting as we expect him to start shooting energy bursts out of his hand at any time. Sedaris overacts in her role as a publicist. She is given hammy dialogue that brings the film down quite a bit. Luckily, she is only in one scene and doesn't do too much damage.

Chef is a difficult film to disagree with. It is a story about an artist fighting mediocrity and trying new. It is bright, lively, and has enough food porn to satisfy the appetite of those who can't get enough at seeing expertly well-made culinary creations. Unfortunately, the first act of Chef is so lop-sided that it almost hurts the other two acts from ever hitting their true thematic capability. Chef is a crowd-pleasing film that many will no doubt like. It is hard to believe that they won't have the technological babble and short-comings of the first act to cloud their opinion though. If this is Favreau truly stepping out as an independent director seeking his passion we should expect good meals in the future. The meal we are given here is a burnt appetizer, with a good entry, and a wonderful dessert. You will still taste the sugar in your mouth but the leftovers from the beginning can just be thrown out.

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The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (3 stars out of 4)

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the first superhero movie in a few years that honestly doesn't seem to take itself seriously. Spider-Man makes puns about dabbling in "web design". The main villain is introduced as bumbling cartoon version of a nerdy human being. A major fight involves Spidey being slammed into columns that somehow play "Itsy Bitsy Spider". There are screaming Russian gangsters, evil scientists, and little kids who are protected from bullies by their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. It seems that every superhero movie needs to be grittier and darker than the last one. It is nice for a movie to just admit it is about a high schooler dressed as a spider flying around fighting a villain who is made of electricity. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the fun and mostly light-hearted superhero movie that we forgot we missed.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) has finally gotten the hang of being Spider-Man. He is actively loved by most of the community and is seemingly everywhere at once. The only thing that is holding him back is the promise he had made to the dying father (Denis Leary) of his girlfriend Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone). He had promised that he would leave Gwen alone because of the potential danger being associated with Spider-Man could bring into her life. Even when he is fighting villains, he sees visions of father seemingly there to remind him of the promise he is breaking. To make matters all the worse, he is facing Electro (Jamie Foxx), a new villain who grows stronger when he comes into contact with any form of electricity. When Peter isn't battling Electro or his conscience, Peter is reconnecting with his good friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan). Harry is the billionaire son heir of the scientific company Oscorp. Osborn has all the power in the world but can't fight a crippling family genetic disease that has already started to manifest. Harry starts to theorize that the only cure for his disease is the same substance that created Spider-Man. Peter must deal with his power's potential strengths (saving Harry) and its weaknesses (putting Gwen in danger) and still save New York City.

As mentioned above, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a silly movie. With the exception of the last act and a few passing moments, it doesn't take itself seriously. It even goes out of the way to point out the silliness and down-right stupidity of the first film (in one scene they seem to acknowledge how ridiculous it was to have a villain who is giant lizard-man who plans to turn the population into lizards). The fun thing is that Spider-Man seems to actively enjoy his job. He cracks jokes, defends the weak, and still wants to do his own laundry when he gets home. Sure there are the scenes of Parker questioning the danger he could potentially put Gwen in but those don't limit the enjoyment. In a world where our super-heroes are predominantly depressed millionaires (Batman, Iron Man, the "human" known as George Clooney), it is nice to have a hero who simply enjoys saving people.

Director Mark Webb has finally blended his indie sensibilities with the superhero genre. Webb received attention by directing 2009's (500) Days of Summer, one of the best received romantic films of the last decade. When he was given the reigns (web shooters?) to the rebooted Spider-Man franchise the only thing that seemed to fit about the decision was the puns that people would create using his last name. While the first The Amazing Spider-Man was a quick-and-dirty origin picture with an awkward villain and last act, Webb gives The Amazing Spider-Man 2 some much needed lightness. The relationship between Gwen and Peter is fleshed out much more than the first film. There are some scenes between the two with such adorable banter that you could easily see it coming out of an early draft of (500) Days. It really helps to sell their relationship and why it is important to them both. In the first film, their relationship didn't seem to be fleshed out beyond "Well... yeah, man... she's Emma Stone. Of course you are going to want to be with her!" Here we honestly think they should be together and are rooting for Parker's romantic life as much (if not more) than his battles with villains.

The major problem with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is that it is far too long. There is rarely an excuse for a movie like this movie to be 142 minutes long. There is a tight, fun two-hour movie hidden in this bloated picture. It comes down to a similar problem that Spider-Man 3 had where there are just too many villains. Without giving too much away, Foxx's Electro is not the only villain that appears. This raises the question of why movie studios are so quick to throw in as many conflicts as possible. Wouldn't it make more sense to pace them out over the course of a few films? Although there are hints at future villains in the foreground of a laboratory setting, you still are most likely going to do a disservice to your villains if you jam as many as you can into one picture. The length also weighs down a good section of the second act. While it is nice to get some more back story about Richard Parker (Campbell Scott), Peter's father, it isn't entirely necessary. We don't walk away with any new feeling for any of the characters and it is debatable if Peter even does. Superhero movies certainly don't need to be strictly action-packed (some of the very best moments in this film are the understated moments mentioned above) but they should move at a faster clip than Amazing Spider-Man 2 does.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a large step in the right direction after the haphazard and disappointing first film. Webb has started to show that he is the right choice for the production. He has brought some much-needed levity to a genre that had seemed to be driven into the ground with darkness. Hopefully he will continue this light touch and maybe be more liberal in the editing room when he directs The Amazing Spider-Man 3. Until then, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is an entertaining and somewhat surprising start to the 2014 summer movie season.

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Locke (4 stars out of 4)

Steven Knight originally envisioned his new film Locke as a stage play. The entire story takes place in a car driving from one point to another in what is seemingly real-time. There would be only one actor communicating with the rest of the cast over phone conversations. By expanding the scope of his production to film and hiring Tom Hardy to play the only actor on screen, Knight has made one of the most exciting and contemplative films to come out in some time. What might have worked as a play becomes a tense film which will confront viewers on the choices they have made in their lives. Both Knight and Hardy have made the first existential film of 2014 in a bullet-paced trip that leaves the audience reeling from the adrenaline but also from the feelings that it inspires.

Ian Locke (Tom Hardy) pulls to a stop sign after a day at work. He waits several beats too long as the vehicle behind him gets impatient. After a long wait he finally turns. This begins his journey from Birmingham to London that is presented in roughly real-time. Using his car's Bluetooth-enabled phone, Locke starts making calls. He contacts his wife Katrina (voice of Ruth Wilson) and informs his family that he won't be coming home tonight. Locke can't give them a reason but simply asks them to trust his decision. He then calls his boss, explaining that he won't be at the construction site the next morning to take part in a major concrete job. He informs his boss that there is something he needs to take care of and that is all. This sets in motion a journey with Locke talking to various people over his phone, himself and people who aren't even there as he convinces himself that he is doing the right thing. There was a mistake that needed to be made right, no matter if he loses everything.

Tom Hardy is no stranger to acting almost alone. In Nicolas Winding Refn's 2008 film Bronson, Hardy spent the entirety of the film "breaking the fourth wall" to the audience as he told the life of his famous criminal Charles Bronson. Here though, he doesn't have the cinematic flare of Refn to supplement his performance. Although Locke is a expertly-made film, it lives and dies by Hardy and his performance. There is not a moment where Hardy is anything less than amazing. The audience could not ask for a better actor to hold their attention for 85 minutes. He crafts Locke with a wonderful combination of humanism, humor, and even occasional moments of raw emotion. Some may be put off by his accent (his Welsh accent is at times not too far removed from his Bane accent from The Dark Knight Rises) but that is definitely not a very large indictment. The only pity is that Hardy's performance will no doubt be forgotten before next year's award season.

Although Hardy's performance is the most prevalent component in Locke, the writing and direction of Steven Wright is the true second performer. On paper, a film about a man that takes place exclusively in a car sounds like it could be either extremely boring or cut in a way that would make Michael Bay get motion-sickness. Wright finds the perfect medium with his portrayal of the actions going on inside the car. He never caves in to adding in action (there are no car crashes or chases here) yet keeps the story taut and interesting. The 85 minutes fly by but we never feel frazzled or confused. His presentation completely compliments his character, a man who is completely certain in an uncertain situation.

One of the most unexpected parts of Locke is how extremely funny it is. At the screening, the audience was slowly warmed into laughing. Some of the conversations and ways Locke handles them are genuinely funny, even when they are not the most comfortable or friendly. This has as much to do with Hardy's acting brilliance as it does with Wright's script. By the end of the screening, the audience was alternating between hushed sadness and laughter. A movie like this could have been completely serious and unrelenting. The decision of Wright and Hardy to play up the comedic elements in these realistic yet ridiculous conversations is just another brilliant quality of this film.

Although it is not necessarily a movie full of twists and turns, it would be wrong to delve into the plot and action of the film more. The advertising campaign did something seemingly unthinkable in today's film climate and doesn't give away anything more than "Tom Hardy is in a car and it is tense". While it isn't a film like Audition where the less you know, the more impacting it is, there is a certain beauty in going into a film like this relatively in-the-dark. Locke presents some wonderful human debates about what it takes to make something "right" and if that is even possible. It is a movie that can and will be analyzed afterwards in coffee shops and theater lobbies. It will also no doubt develop a following when it hits Netflix Instant. Although viewing Locke in a theater is an exhilarating experience, it is the rare tense film that could play just as well in the isolation of a living room. 

Locke is a daring and captivating film. It is able to be both accessible and deep. It is full of thoughts and challenges that any person has had to go through. "Can I make this right?" "Am I doing the right thing?" At the end of the film, you might not have all the answers. Neither does Locke.

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Only Lovers Left Alive (3 stars out of 4)

Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive is not your typical vampire love story. While Jarmusch's vampires do crave blood and can't handle sunlight, that is where the similarities to the genre end. Only Lovers Left Alive is a dark comedy about love, the reclusiveness of artists, and how chemical dependency (in this case DNA) can affect both. Jarmusch's latest offers an unexpectedly light presentation of a mostly dark story. His methodical presentation coupled with inspired performances by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston help Only Lovers Left Alive rise above some of the trapping of the "troubled junkie musician" trope.

Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is an isolated musician living in Detroit. He stays up late laying down moody instrumental tracks and spends his days sleeping. It isn't just his artistic ambitions that keep Adam up late. It turns out he is a vampire. He lives alone recording music just for himself. The only "zombies" (Adam's term for "humans") he comes into contact with are his music equipment delivery-man Ian (Anton Yelchin) and his "blood dealer" Dr. Watson (Jeffrey Wright). Ian is becoming more and more pessimistic about his life (a neighborhood power outlet with far too many plugs in it sends him over the edge) and is heavily considering ending his eternal existence. His wife, Eve (Tilda Swinton) lives in Tangier and regularly "drinks" with her good friend Marlowe (John Hurt), a writer who you may have heard of by his pen-name. Even across continents, Eve can sense Ian's isolated depression. She hops a flight (a "red-eye" of course) to Detroit to be with him. There she attempts to bring some life into Adam's dead world.

Detroit is the true star of Only Lovers Left Alive. Even though it is shown exclusively at night, there is no better place to create a film about Gothic loneliness and isolation. While the occasional glimmer of light off a building like the Fox Theater shows some of the beauty that can even be found in the dark, Detroit and the story are much more inclined to show the darkness of the surroundings. Eve is astonished to find the area around Adam's dwelling is full of skunks and fungi. Ian takes Eve on a trip to the old Michigan Palace, an abandoned theater that was turned into a parking garage. Detroit encapsulates many of the thematic qualities of Only Lovers Left Alive. It is the perfect setting for this story.

"Blood" in this film is easily interchangeable with some sort of drug. The film is littered with shots of vampires feeding and throwing their head back as they have gotten they much-needed fix. The analogy of "blood" and "drugs" is nothing necessarily new in art but it does tie into Adam's persona as a "malaised artist". Most of the time it accents the "junkie love story" aspect which is nice and somewhat unexpected. The second-half addition of Ava (Mia Wasikowska), Eve's troublesome sister, is where the junkie/vampire parallel is heavily on display. It fits nicely though and adds some much needed characterization and conflict to a subdued story.

It is a wonder that Tilda Swinton hasn't played a vampire until now. All the more interesting is that Swinton is playing the least vampiric character. Her Eve is playful and wondrous about the world around her, even though she has been around for centuries. Swinton is especially radiant in her scenes with Hurt which puts an interesting spin on how friendship can only strengthen through the years. These scenes are unexpectedly sweet, a feeling we don't normally connect with films about vampires. A scene in the last act between Swinton and Hurt is easily the best moment of the movie and one of the most touching scenes in some time. Hiddleston is given slightly less to do with his larger but more subdued role. He plays a shut-in musician very well. Much like Swinton's Eve, we never would confuse Hiddleston's Adam with a human although we have certainly seen humans act in similar reclusive manners. It is nice to see Hiddleston receive strong roles where he doesn't have to wear a super-villain outfit.

Unexpectedly, it is the occasional steps into comedy where Only Lovers Left Alive falters. The occasional mention of Adam and Eve (even writing those names together is somewhat eye-roll inducing) coming into contact with important people through time is charming. Eve's conversations with Marlow about his writing alter-ego Shakespeare are a little excessive (would they really discuss Shakespeare so often after 500 years?) but give the first half some welcome lightness. Unfortunately, hearing Adam discuss inspiring the music of Mozart is over-the-top even as a throwaway line. While Adam's music is definitely impressive (it somehow leaks without actually being released), there is nothing to suggest he is one of the greatest composers living (or dying). This and other references to the passage of time the characters have lived through gets tiresome and waters down the story.

Although far from a fast-paced and romantic film, Only Lovers Left Alive takes an interesting spin on both the romantic dramedy genre and especially the vampire genre. Although it does fall into being a little too cutesy, the wonderful setting and inspired casting make it the best hipster date movie out since Before Midnight. Although both films present a dying relationship, the relationship in Only Lovers Left Alive is considerably more undead.

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Ida (3 stars out of 4)

Ida's Agata Trzebuchowska has the kind of face that pulls you in. Her pupils are dark and seem to take up her entire eye. The film makes a point to address the dimple she has in her chin and the two other ones that appear in her cheeks when she smiles. In Ida she is shown almost always in her character's nun habit and filmed in full-frame black-and-white. She is given the appearance of a classic film star. When she is on-screen it is impossible to look anywhere else. Pawel Pawlikowski's latest film Ida uses both the classic beauty of Trzebuchowska and gorgeous cinematography to create a haunting and bleak story about dealing with the past and what it truly means to devote your future.

Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) is a novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who is a week away from taking her vows to the Church. She is informed by her Mother Superior (Halina Skoczynska) that she has only one living relative, her aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). Anna is told that she must go out and meet with Wanda before she takes her vows. Wanda is former judge who uses sex and alcohol to make it through the day. When she isn't too drunk to communicate, she tells Anna about how important her job as a judge was. She stresses that she sent several people to their deaths. With every drink, it is hard to tell if this is a fact that prides Wanda or haunts her. Eventually Wanda starts informing Anna about her past. It turns out Anna's real name is Ida and she was born into a Jewish family and that her family has died during the Holocaust. Anna/Ida asks if she can visit their graves before she returns to the convent. This leads Anna/Ida and Wanda on a trip to uncover harsh stories from both of their pasts.

Pawlikowski takes some interesting stylistic choices with Ida. The first is the fact that it is filmed in black-and-white using digital cameras. Black-and-white digital photography has seen a resurgence lately in independent cinema (last year's Frances Ha is a recent example)  partly because it looks old and is considerably cheaper to process than color digital film. In Ida, the choice seems to be artistically driven. If it weren't for the cleanliness of the digital photography, it would be easy to think this was a film from the 1960s. It is as if you have walked into a theater playing a revival film. The images Pawlikowski and cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal are able to capture are simply stunning. If anyone believes that independent digital photography can't look cinematic and jaw-dropping, Ida is a prime example of why they are wrong.

There are many stretches in Ida where very little happens. The opening scenes that take place in the convent are especially sparse. Even when Anna/Ida ventures away, it is still presented as bleak and uncomfortably plain. All music is presented diegeticly, that is the only music is from objects that are playing them on screen. The absence of a musical score is especially unsettling. We have grown so accustomed to having a musical score to compliment such beautiful imagery or big moments. When Anna/Ida and Wanda are delivered powerful news about the past of their families and there is no sound but the wind, it hits harder than any music could.

Ida is essentially a two-person story with Anna/Ida and Wanda travelling from place to place finding elements of their past. As a result, the brunt of the emotional work is depending on the two actors. Trzebuchowska plays her character as restrained as to be expected. She still gives a captivating performance. When something as small as removing her headpiece is a deep and powerful moment, that reflects impressively on both the production and the performance. Kulesza's Wanda is left to be the more vocal and flashy character. Her alcoholism and romantic quests are mostly downplayed. Kulesza does a great job of accenting each of Wanda's movements with the sadness that is below the surface.

There are a few story choices in Ida that drag it below the high standard it tries to emulate. Wanda spends a too much time telling Anna/Ida about her religious beliefs and sneaking in jabs at the Church. While it is never offensive, it just seems out of place in some scenes and becomes repetitive. We easily understand that Wanda doesn't believe in religion and doesn't understand how someone would give up so much of themselves for the Church. Her repetitive harshness to Anna/Ida causes us to not look on Wanda quite so favorably. The addition of a handsome hitchhiker Feliks (Adam Szyszkowski) is also somewhat disappointing. The cutesy back-and-forth between Anna/Ida and Feliks  is seemingly out-of-place in such a bleak and challenging film. While it does move the story along a bit thematically, it doesn't seem to do journey Anna/Ida takes the justice it deserves.

While it is not necessarily a fun jaunt, the beauty of Ida lies in the perfect presentation and the chilling performances. It is the kind of movie that will stay with you for days after you see it. It is a great diversion from the upcoming summer movie season. When every movie seems to go bigger and louder, Ida pulls you in with nothing but silence and a silent beautiful woman fully covered.

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