Oscar Predictions

My predictions for the Oscars.  Because I might as well put it on the Internet where the world can see how badly I do.

The Short Categories:
(aka Who the fuck knows?)

Best Live Action Short:  Helium - Sounds the saddest in a heartbreaking way (as opposed to That Wasn't Me which is sad in a harrowing way) so I would think this would win.  However, anyone can vote in these categories now, with no required proof of viewing, so it's one of those two or The Voorman Problem since it has a well known actor in it.

Best Animated Short:  Buy a Horse - Crazy as it sounds, Mickey has never won the Animated Short category, and I expect the voting changes (plus the fact that this played before super-hit Frozen) to change that fact this year.

Best Documentary Short:  The Lady in Number 6 - A documentary about the oldest living Holocaust survivor (who died during voting, sadly).  While the subject matter isn't a guaranteed win, it is a genre that they like to reward, so I expect it to take the win.

The Ghetto Categories:
(aka We are too snobby/lazy to nominate these for Best Picture so we'll throw them a bone here)

Best Animated Feature:  Frozen - Disney has also never won this category during its short life (the category, not Disney) and the massive success of this movie should push it over the already-reward Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises.  Bonus points for "Let It Go" and being Disney's best film since The Lion King.

Best Documentary Feature:  20 Feat From Stardom - It's between this and The Act of Killing.  I think the Academy will go for the more feel-good documentary that follows backup singers to famous stars over the more troubling documentary that has mass murderers re-staging their kills with actors.  But it could easily go the other way.

Best Foreign Film:  The Great Beauty is favored, but I'm going to pick The Broken Circle Breakdown in a surprise since more and more people started talking about it once voting started.

The Aural Categories:
(no mean other-name for these, I guess)

Best Sound Mixing:  My gut tells me Gravity is gonna somewhat mini-sweep the technicals, but I also think they might try to reward Captain Phillips somewhere.  Plus songs that feature people singing have extra work here (Inside Llewyn Davis).  I'll go with Gravity, somewhat uncormfortably.

Best Sound Editing:  Again, probably Gravity.  But All is Lost has the least to work with and apparently knocks it out of the park (haven't seen that one yet), but sometimes this category goes to the loudest nominee, so maybe The Hobbit could sneak in a win here.  But my guess is Gravity.

Best Original Score:  Gravity is again expected to win here, but I don't really equate the music with the overall success of the film (it's not the first element I think of, anyway).  Saving Mr. Banks has too much non-original music to win and Frozen was criminally left out of this category, so I'm going to predict Her for the win here since the music was a much more a part of that movie.  Although Alexandre Desplat is becoming a perennial nominee and hasn't won yet, so maybe this is where they reward Philomena?

Best Original Song:  "Let It Go" from Frozen - The Academy has a bad record when it comes to giving the win to songs that will stand the test of time (they passed over Stayin' Alive, to give an example), so this win isn't the guarantee it should be.  I just don't know which of the other three they will rally behind, so that should help "Let It Go" get the win it deserves.

The Visual Categories:
(again, no mean name)

Best Makeup & Hairstyling:  American Hustle!  Wait, that wasn't nominated.  12 Years a Slave!  Wait, neither was that.  What was nominated?  The Lone Ranger, Bad Grandpa and Dallas Buyers Club?  Are they trying to break my heart?  Dallas Buyers Club, I guess.  What is wrong with this branch?

Best Visual Effects:  Gravity.  I mean, come on, what else even stands a chance?

Best Costume Design:  Very much an 'anyone-can-win' category.  I'm going to go with American Hustle since it has to win somewhere and the work on the costumes was almost as inspired as the makeup and hairstyling (seriously, what is wrong with that branch?).

Best Production Design:  Of the movies I've seen, I'd go with Her in a New York minute, but it doesn't really stand a chance, so instead I will go with 12 Years a Slave which looks to have great sets in all of the stills I have seen.  But The Great Gatsby and Gravity are legitimate threats.

Best Film Editing:  This often goes to the eventual Best Picture winner, so my guess is going to be 12 Years a Slave.  If you are picking American Hustle or Gravity, you will want to switch to those.

Best Cinematography:  Gravity has swept this category all year, so I expect it to take the Oscar.  The only was it doesn't is if there was a sudden groundswell of support for the legendary Roger Deakins' work on Prisoners.

The Majors (Behind the Scenes Division):

Best Adapted Screenplay:  12 Years a Slave - I mean, they just added the book it was based on to high school curriculums across the country.  I don't see anything else spoiling this.

Best Original Screenplay:  Going with Her on this one.  American Hustle could easily sneak in and take it, but the screenplay for Her is almost universally praised, so I think it will take it.

Best Director:  Alfonso Cuaron for Gravity.  He's won everything it feels like.  The only challenger is Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave.  Either way, only the second non-white director ever is going to win the category (the first being Ang Lee).

The Majors (Out in Front Division):

Best Supporting Actor:  This is going to Jared Leto for Dallas Buyers Club.  He doesn't deserve, it is one of my most hated performances of the year, but he is winning this category.  I hope to get this one wrong (I won't.)

Best Supporting Actress:  It's a close race between Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle and Lupita Nyong'o for 12 Years a Slave, but I am going with Lupita Nyong'o since Lawrence did just win last year.

Best Actor:  We are in the middle of the McConaissance, so expect Matthew McConaughey to win for Dallas Buyers Club.  The only one who could conceivably upset is Leonardo DiCaprio for Wolf of Wall Street, but I don't like his chances.

Best Actress:  This has been Cate Blanchett's to lose since Blue Jasmine opened.  Amy Adams is the spoiler, but lock this one up for Cate - she's winning it.

The Big One:

Best Picture:  This has been a three-way race between 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle, and Gravity.  I'm going with 12 Years a Slave, but it could go to the other two just as easily.  It's rare that the category is undecided at this point, and I'm loving how open it is.  Good luck to everyone else making their predictions, and hope you enjoy the show!

2014 Movie List

The Movies:
All Cheerleaders Die

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Annabelle

The Babadook

Bad Words

Big Bad Wolves

Big Hero 6

Blue Ruin

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Godzilla

Gone Girl

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

The Imitation Game

Interior. Leather Bar.

Interstellar

Into the Storm

Into the Woods

Jersey Boys

Jim Jeffries: Bare

John Wick

Journey to the West

Knights of Badassdom

The Lego Movie

Lucy

Maleficent

The Maze Runner

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Mine Games

Muppets Most Wanted

Nightcrawler

Noah

Oculus

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

The Rover

Selma

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

That Awkward Moment

The Town That Dreaded Sundown

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Tusk

Under the Skin

Wild
Willow Creek

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Zombeavers

5 Favorite Movies
The Babadook (winner)

Blue Ruin

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Godzilla

Interstellar

Best Actress:
Elizabeth Banks, The Lego Movie

Essie Davis, The Babadook (winner)

Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin

Rosamund Pike, Gone Girl

Reese Witherspoon, Wild

Best Actor:
Jason Bateman, Bad Words

Macon Blair, Blue Ruin

Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler (winner)

Matthew McConaughey, Interstellar

David Oyelowo, Selma

Best Supporting Actress:

Carrie Coon, Gone Girl (winner)

Laura Dern, Wild

Anne Hathaway, Interstellar

Anna Kendrick, Into the Woods

Rene Russo, Nightcrawler

Best Supporting Actor:
Riz Ahmed, Nightcrawler (winner)

Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy

Robert Pattinson, The Rover

Chris Pine, Into the Woods

Devin Ratray, Blue Ruin

Reviews: The Croods, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

The Croods

A decidedly average animated movie.

The movie is enjoyable enough, it moves along at a good pace, the jokes are fine for the most part, and the animators did go wild with the prehistoric animals - the single most creative part of the movie.  However, it is quite lazy in the writing:  Of course the father is stubborn and resistant to the new ideas.  And of course he hates his mother-in-law (though why he hates her is never established - just because she is the mother-in-law I guess).  Every familial trope possible is thrown into the movie with the expectation that the audience will go with it just because they are so familiar.

Again, the movie isn't bad - several of jokes work quite well - it is just lazy in many aspects.  The creation of the various prehistoric creatures is the only truly inspired (if scientifically inaccurate) part of the movie.  What's more, they put realistic movements into the animals, so they seem quite believable as far as creatures go.  Sadly, we get very little of the animals compared to the journey the Croods make to find a new place to live, so they often feel like an afterthought.

The voice work is fine across the board, though I expected more from Emma Stone and Cloris Leachman.  The best vocal work probably goes to Ryan Reynolds as the new caveman who shakes up the status quo:  It''s his most charming performance in years.

It will entertain the kids, though it lacks rewatch value.  6.0 out of 10.

Oz the Great and Powerful

Another mostly average movie, but one that had a lot more potential.

A prequel to the much-beloved The Wizard of Oz that focuses on the titular Oz (James Franco) as he arrives in the magical world that bears his name, it doesn't quite fall to the level of overt busy-ness that Alice in Wonderland did when Tim Burton directed that movie, but it relies too much on CGI much like its predecessor.  The China Doll (creatively named The China Girl) is the worst of this, with several scenes where it is obvious that Oz isn't holding anything and the CGI creation superimposed into the shot.

One place where the CGI doesn't fail is the magic of the 3 witches:  Glinda (Michelle Williams), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Theodora (Mila Kunis).  The spells cast throughout the movie are top-notch, and much better than anything the Harry Potter movies managed during their run.  However, the performances are where it becomes spotty here.  Weisz is best-in-show with her cold, calculating performance of Evanora, Williams is merely adequate as overly-supportive love interest, and Kunis is downright bad at the start of the movie, managing to improve slightly once she is turned into the Wicked Witch of the West.

With better casting (Kristen Bell as Glinda?  Emma Stone or Emma Roberts as Theodora?) and less reliance on CGI for all special effects, this movie could have been great.  Instead it settles for merely good.  6.5 out of 10.

Paranormal Activity:  The Marked Ones

A much needed bit of world-building, this companion piece to the Paranormal Activity movies is much better than one would expect 6 movies into the series.

This iteration follows Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) and his friends Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) and Hector (Jorge Diaz) as creepy things start happening to and around Jesse when their downstairs neighbor, a rumored bruja, dies at the hands of a classmate.

One of the best parts of this movie (and the reason I am willing to check out the other (unofficial) companion movie, Tokyo Night) is the change of location via the focus on a Hispanic family as opposed to a well-off white family.  Without giving too much away, the magic explored briefly in Paranormal Activity 2 through Martine is expanded upon here to great effect.  We also see a few familiar faces that move the plot forward for the series as a whole and expand upon the Coven that made its appearance in Paranormal Activity 3 and 4.

The film does rely on jump scares a bit too much, especially compared to the other movies in the series, but damn if they are not effective, particularly the last one.  This is forgivable though, as the extra plot more than makes up for the lack of artistry in the scares.

The acting is so-so, with no one being outright terrible, though no one is great either.  The writing is solid in that it doesn't repeatedly have the characters do stupid things throughout, but it doesn't have that slow build that has become a hallmark of the series.

Fans of the Paranormal Activity series will definitely want to see this, though horror fans in general might find it to be average.  7.0 out of 10.

Review: Saving Mr. Banks

Saving Mr. Banks

A feel-good movie about Walt Disney's (Tom Hanks) 20 year battle to adapt P.L. Travers' (Emma Thompson) Mary Poppins to film.

Flashing between the 20th (and final) year of Disney's attempt to get the rights to Mary Poppins and the childhood of Helen 'Ginty' Goff aka P.L. Travers, the movie has a bit of an identity crises as to whether or not it wants to be a full life-encompassing biopic or a a more focused narrative on the battle of wills between Disney and Travers.  It never really successfully juggles the two, although it does manage a rather powerful moment where P.L. Travers flashes back to a speech made by her banker father, Travers Goff (Colin Farrell) while the Sherman brothers (Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak) sing "Fidelity Fiduciary Bank."  Otherwise, the cutting between the two seems rather arbitrary, as if director John Lee Hancock was worried the audience might forget what they've seen if he waited to long to return.

The movie is still enjoyable, despite this, mostly because of the performances given throughout.  Emma Thompson, especially, gives a spirited turn as the sour P.L. Travers.  Many of her line deliveries are incredibly cutting, yet you still laugh due to how well she times them.  Her scenes with the Sherman brothers and co-writer Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) are amongst the films best, with her constantly dampening their collective enthusiasm while the struggle to work with her constant demands.  B.J. Novak, as Robert Sherman, shines the best of the three, with his constant wordless reactions to Travers being some of the strongest supporting work in the film entire.

Tom Hanks gives a much more human portrayal of Walt Disney than one would expect, given that Disney is the one that made this film.  A scene involving him giving out pre-signed autographs while walking the part with Travers is particularly surprising, given how tacky it makes Walt look.  The movie still pushes the 'magic of Disney' brand despite this, but it is still a more honest portrayal than I thought we would get.

Given how strong the 'Making of' sections of the movie are, it isn't the least bit surprising that many consider the 'Early Life' scenes to be amongst the weakest.  I would argue otherwise (I think Colin Farrell does a rather nice job of a man who hates his job and turns to alcohol while still loving and doting on his children), except that tonally they take you out of what is mostly a feel-good comedy and take you into a rather depressing look at childhood neglect.  The problem isn't how the scenes are played or written, it's that they are there at all.  They don't work, and the director and/or the screenwriters should have either cut them or reduced their length considerably (at just over 2 hours, the film could've been shorter without suffering).

Still, despite its many flaws, the movie is an enjoyable look at the making of Mary Poppins (and I think many would want to watch said movie after seeing this).  6.5 out of 10.

Review Catchup (Pt. 4)

The final 3!  Woohoo!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

I saw this movie for one reason only:  To see Peter Jackson do his special effects thing on a dragon.  I was not disappointed.

But, to give a slightly fuller review, this movie is more than the dragon.  It is a considerable step up, much more action packed and character driven than the first movie.  Instead of just focusing on Bilbo, and to a lesser extent Thorin, we get some bits on Fili, Kili, and Balin - not to mention newcomers (kinda) Legolas, Tauriel, and Bard.

The movie does make you wait to get to the dragon:  First the merry band of dwarves (plus one hobbit) meets Beorn, a shapeshifter, then they run into giant spiders (because there are always giant spiders), then they ride some barrels down a river as they escape Thranduil (Lee Pace), and finally they run into Bard (Luke Evans), who sneaks them into Lake Town (much to his later dismay).  Then, the dragon.

While everything before the dragon is enjoyable (indeed, the Wood Elves' Kingdom is great), Smaug is in the title, and it is Smaug we want to see.  Once Bilbo (Martin Freeman) descends into the ruined Dwarven kingdom in The Lonely Mountain to steal the Arkenstone from Smaug (voiced and motion-captured by Benedict Cumberbatch), the movie kicks it into high gear, and it was everything I wanted in a dragon-fighting sequence.  And even better (maybe not), they stopped midway through and will finish it in the third movie a year from now!

Damned cocktease of a movie (I would totally watch it again just for Smaug).  7.0 out of 10.

American Hustle

The movie is a bit of a mess, flirting with greatness, but never quite achieving it.  More of an actor's showcase than anything else, there are worse ways to spend two and a half hours.

American Hustle is a somewhat (mostly?) fictional retelling of the ABSCAM scandal in the 70's that got a whole bunch of Congressmen arrested for corruption.  When the movie focuses on this and the many ways it can go wrong, it is pretty amazing.  However, the movie wanders down plot threads unnecessarily and barely manages to hold everything together at points.

Really, everything to love about this movie involves the acting.  Christian Bale is phenomenal (please stop torturing your body though), Jennifer Lawrence is great as his scenery-chewing wife, Bradley Cooper slowly comes unhinged as the FBI agent who keeps going for bigger and bigger targets, and Jeremy Renner is lovably corrupt as the mayor whom Cooper's Richie DiMaso initially targets.  Even the bit parts get some love, with special mentions going to Elisabeth Rohm as Mayor Politio's wife and Colleen Camp as a cat-crazed FBI agent.

The true standout, however, is Amy Adams as Sydney Prosser/Lady Edith Greensley.  And she really should be credited twice, because Adams fully differentiates between the two identities during the course of the movie, and the scenes where she goes back and forth between the two are a marvel to watch.  Lawrence may be the easier one to love, but Adams is giving the better, more nuanced performance.

David O. Russell has had quite a string of movies lately (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and now this) and is obviously gifted with actors.  His direction here is solid, and I think that, much like 2001's Moulin Rouge!, the fact that the movie feels like it could fall apart at the seams at any moment is an intentional choice on the part of the director.

A solid film, if a bit messy.  8.0 out of 10

Blancanieves

A black and white, silent film from Spain, this outside-the-box telling of Snow White is a must-see for cinephiles.

Blancanieves sets the story of Snow White in (what I assume to be) old time Spain.  Carmen (the titular Blancanieves, played in her youth by Sofia Oria and by Macarena Garcia once she is a teen/young adult) is the daughter of famed Matador Antonio Villalta (Daniel Gimenez Cacho).  Antonio is paralyzed from the waste down during a bullfight the same day as Carmen as born (killing her birthmother, played by Inma Cuesta).  Carmen goes and lives with Dona Coñcha, her grandmother (Angela Molina) while he recovers, and Antonio falls in love with and marries his nurse, Encarna (Maribel Verdu).

Encarna swiftly takes control of the household and, once Doña Concha dies, Carmen - abusing both her stepdaughter and paralyzed husband while spending his vast wealth on whatever she desires.  She soon tires of both.  After successfully killing Antonio, she sends her lover to kill Carmen.  She ends up being rescued by 6 dwarven bullfighters with no memory of who she is.

All of this is told with minimal dialogue, and you do not get lost once in the entire endeavor.  Every now and then some exposition is thrown up on the screen, but it is used sparingly.  All of the actors give stellar performances, with special mention going to Maribel Verdu, who seizes upon her role and gives a full-bodied performance of careless evil.  The direction is solid, with nothing overtly spelled out ahead of time (despite the tale being well known across multiple languages) and smart asides and character details filling the screen throughout.

A thoroughly imaginative retelling of a classic, with more soul than any of the more recent 'updates' have managed.  9.0 out of 10.

Review Catchup (Part 3)

3 more knocked out.

The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire

A substantial improvement over the first one, but still not what it could have been.

Anchored by the better-than-the-movie-deserves performance of Jennifer Lawrence, this sequel thankfully doesn't feel the need to recap the previous movie, but still falls into the same trap as the first where it over-explains everything in extraneous scenes featuring President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  Yet again, valuable world-building is cut out for this unnecessary exposition and, even worse, it lessens the threat Snow exudes in his actual scenes from the book.

However, the world-building that does occur is great:  Katniss and Peeta's trip to the Capitol is filled with decadence (the Costume Design, in particular is great) and the best parts of the movie come during this sequence.  It's during this part that we meet Finnick (Sam Claflin) and Johanna Mason (Jena Malone), along with Mags (Lynn Cohen), Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), and Wiress (Amanda Plummer).  I wish more time has been spent on these characters (Johanna in particular - Malone is fantastic in the role) as opposed to cutaways to Snow/Plutarch, but all the actors make the most of their material.

Once the actual Hunger Games start, the pace quickens (though we still get those damn cutaways to Snow).  A few glaring plot holes are in this part (if keeping Katniss alive is so important... why do they keep almost killing her?), but it's better-shot than the Games in the first movie.  They do still skirt around the Katniss-as-killer aspect, however.

A step in the right direction, but I worry if they will keep moving forward for the last part where things get much more violent.  6.5 out of 10.

Frozen

If Catching Fire left me cold, Frozen warmed me right up.  While not quite as good as the hyperbole would suggest (it's better than Tangled, but not quite as good as anything from the Disney Renaissance), it is still a great way to spend an hour and a half.  Especially in 3-D.  The movie follows Anna (Kristin Bell), a young princess, as she goes to retrieve her sister Elsa (Idina Menzel), who was born with magical powers that let her create snow and ice.

This is first Disney animated feature to have a woman as a co-director, and one can't help but feel that perspective enriched the movie as a whole.  This isn't your typical Disney fairy tale.  It's a bit too on the nose as far as the slight mocking of prior Disney films, but it doesn't hurt the film.

The movie moves along at a brisk pace, has some great musical numbers ("Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" is a great passage-of-time number, and "Let It Go" is the main reason to see the movie in 3-D.)  The comic relief provided by Olaf the Snowman works well within the context of the story (the trailers featuring him were my biggest concern about the movie as a whole) and Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) is a great foil to Anna's enthusiasm.

The real standout is Idina Menzel's Elsa.  In some ways, the movie might have been stronger had it focused on her, but that might have been too much of a good thing.

Not amongst the top tier of Disney movies, but definitely up high.  8.5 out of 10.

Gravity

Not really sure I can add much to the discussion of this movie, coming into it so late.  Sandra Bullock was quite good in Alfonso Cuaron's auteur piece.  George Clooney was totally phoning it in though.  9.0 out of 10.

Review Catchup (Pt. 2)

3 more movies I should've written about awhile ago.  Whoops!

Drinking Buddies

This is an under-seen gem that I will be recommending to anyone who will listen.  Across-the-board strong, naturalistic performances coupled with a screenplay by Joe Swanberg (also serving as director) that trusts the intelligence of the audience makes this one of the year's best movies, period.

The movie focuses on friends Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) as they work at an independent brewery, go out drinking afterwords, and interact with their respective partners (Ron Livingston's Chris paired with Kate, and Anna Kendrick's Jill with Luke).  What follows is a realistic look at a platonic friendship that faces a challenge when one of the two (in this case, Kate) ends up single.

Of the four principals, it is hard to single one out as best in show, as all are hitting their scenes with refreshingly realistic portrayals of actual people (as opposed to the quippy RomCom dialogue - not that this is any form of a RomCom).  Wilde might be best for so believably playing Kate's bad qualities without making the character unlikeable, or maybe Johnson for his irrational irritation (and Luke's understanding that it is that) with Kate for hooking up with a coworker.  Livingston and Kendrick both provide great support in their scenes, never coming across as standard RomCom villains (maybe this is a RomCom and I just don't accept it?).  And the final scene, played between Wilde and Johnson, is a beauty of wordless dialogue that gives us the ending we need, as opposed to the ending we want.

Between this and Frances Ha, I'm wondering if I am becoming a mumblecore fan.  9.0 out of 10.

 

Frances Ha

Speaking of, here is another great, naturalistic movie about a 27-year-old having an early-life crises.

Shot in black in white and starring Greta Gerwig (who shares writing credit with director Noah Baumbach), Frances Ha follows dancer Frances (Gerwig) who faces a bit of a crises when her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Summer) decides to move out.  Frances moves from place to place while struggling to stay connected with Sophie, find a job that involves dancing, and figure out what she wants to do with her life in general.

This movie is really the Greta Gerwig show, and she gives one of the best leading performances of the year in it (he says, despite the pitifully low number of movies he has seen).  Frances is at times incredibly frustrating, hypocritical, selfish, and confusing and Gerwig never once lets her be irredeemably unlikeable.  Michael Zegen provides charming support as Benji, one of Frances' roommates early on, and Summer has a good report with Gerwig, making their scenes as best friends utterly believable.

Director Baumbach keeps a spontaneous energy throughout the proceedings, and every shot feels right, with interesting angles highlighting various encounters between Gerwig and whomever is sharing the screen with her at that time.  I've seen the complaint that the narrative drifts, but that is a credit to Baumbach, as Frances herself is drifting through her life trying to figure out what to hold onto.

The only real complaint I had was an odd music choice during one of Frances' wordless scenes walking New York.  And that is rather small compared to the film as a whole.

Easily amongst the best movies I have seen in recent years.  9.5 out of 10.

The Place Beyond the Pines

A moody ensemble piece that follows two men and how their lives affect their sons, The Place Beyond the Pines is a great drama with solid performances.

Following a 3 act structure where each act focuses on a different character, this movie ties together well and moves at slow, deliberate pace that may turn off some expecting a more action-packed movie.

Act one follows Luke (Ryan Gosling) as he tries to get involved in his son's life, eventually turning to bank robbery to get money for him.  This leads to a confrontation with police officer Avery (Bradley Cooper), who the second act follows.

The third act follows the friendship between the sons of Luke and Avery, Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen) and the inevitable confrontation that follows.

The movie feels like a modern-day Greek tragedy, as the sins of the father fall on the sons, with gut choices in what turn out to be life-defining moments shape the structure of the film.  Tonally, the movie has the feel of inevitable sadness, which works well with the screenplay.

Performances are strong across the board, with special mention to Emory Cohen as Avery's son AJ.  His performance as a spoiled rich kid who thinks he is hardcore will annoy some, but the character is supposed to grate on the nerves, which makes Cohen's performance somewhat brave in that he doesn't try to be likeable, just charming enough to get people to do what he wants.

Dane DeHaan also deserves mention for so believably playing an introverted, slightly damaged high school kid (DeHaan himself is 26 years old) who longs to know about his father.

Throughout the film, various well-known actors play what amount to bit parts (though the interactions with said character carry repercussion felt throughout the film).  Harris Yulin, Ray Liotta, and Rose Byrne are my particular favorites, but the richness of all the characters makes picking favorites an enjoyable exercise where there isn't really a bad choice.

All in all, a heavy drama that holds your attention with its strong performances.  8.0 out of 10.