Haikus and Reviews: Saving Mr. Banks, American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave

Cinema award season is upon us, which means there are lots of good movies to watch — supposedly. Here are three I recently saw.

banks

Saving Mr. Banks

Colin Farrell is
manic pixie drunkard dad
sleeping with the pears.

Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks are both excellent, but that’s par for the course. The film cuts back and forth between the present and P.L. Travers’ childhood, and the transitions are pretty rough in the beginning. They get better as the movie progresses, but the film does not.

ah

American Hustle

epic comb-over
semi-accented cleavage
perm-fisted acting.

Outside of Christian Bale, everyone was overacting in this film. The movie isn’t convoluted, but it feels convoluted. The last fifteen minutes is fun, but it does not excuse what has come before it. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at the massive critical love for American Hustle, since it features many fine actors and a director recently feted, but the fact is, it’s just not that good.

12years

12 Years a Slave

This is not a film.
It is a marathon of
darkness and darkness.

I’ve been a fan of Chiwetel Ejiofor since Dirty Pretty Things, and this is a fantastic showcase of his talents. But this is just a grinder of a movie, with one agonizing scene after another. Of course this is the way it should be, since we’re dealing with the very bleak subject of slavery in its most unfiltered form, but if there was any way to inject humor (just a bit here or there), it would’ve gone a long, long way. Be on the lookout for Amish Brad Pitt.