WASHINGTON — “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is currently dominating the box office, breaking records since its release last weekend.
But there are a bunch of other new releases in theaters this holiday weekend, typically a busy time for moviegoers to hit the multiplex.
Which ones should you see while you’re home for the holidays?
Here’s a quick-hitter review of four new releases.
‘Concussion’
You’ve no doubt seen the trailers, some ironically playing during National Football League games.
It’s ironic because “Concussion” doesn’t lower its head at all as it spears the NFL; it squares up, drives through the league’s chest, keeps its legs moving and slams it to the ground like an Oklahoma drill.
Should football fans be worried? Should movie fans rejoice? A little of both?
Will Smith gives a Golden Globe-nominated performance — his first since “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006) — as Dr. Bennet Omalu, the Nigerian-American immigrant who discovered the brain degenerative disease C-T-E during his medical research in Pittsburgh. Dr. Omalu desperately seeks the truth, hoping to be accepted by his peers as he strives for the American Dream, but little does he know that his brain research puts him at odds with the most powerful entity in America: the NFL.
A number of moments ring “too Hollywood,” such as the distracting casting of Luke Wilson as NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, or a slow-motion montage of Smith destroying a wall. Clearly the story would have been better served by a more raw moment, a la Robert DeNiro head-butting the jail-cell wall in Martin Scorsese’s “Raging Bull” (1980). Compare the two and you’ll see what I mean.
Still, even if the film is sanitized in its “mainstream” presentation, it bucks the mainstream entirely with its gutsy quest to take on a giant corporation, which, as the film says, “owns a day of the week.” Time and again, “Concussion” refers to the NFL as Big Tobacco, suggesting Goodell uses the same lawyers and joking of the need for a “surgeon general” warning on helmets just like cigarettes.
In this way, the film is not unlike the journalism flick “Spotlight,” which exposed the Catholic child abuse scandal, exposing Boston for its complicity and suggesting it “takes a village” to abuse a child. “Concussion” suggests a similar complicity by the blue-collar city of Pittsburgh, where a number of former Steelers Super Bowl champions horrifically show up on Dr. Omalu’s autopsy table.
TRUE STORY: How accurate is the movie? WTOP’s Noah Frank interviews the real Dr. Omalu
Fans of the game needn’t despair; the movie goes out of its way to remind audiences that football is a “beautiful” game filled with guts, glory and poetic acts of athleticism. Even if you’re a die-hard fan like myself — born, raised, obsessed — it’ll make you think twice about blatant hits to the head. Instead of jumping off your couch shouting, “Defensive backs can’t do anything anymore! Might as well play flag football,” I guarantee you’ll take a step back, sigh, and realize that the old way doesn’t fly anymore.
Surely there’s a compromise between preserving the game we love and keeping its players from committing suicide. As star players one-by-one shoot themselves in the chest — leaving suicide notes asking for their brains to be used for concussion research — we realize something is horribly wrong.
There are so many great things about this game, offering a blood-and-guts camaraderie you won’t find anywhere short of the military. Those who never played are all too eager to ignore these positive aspects, which is every bit the mistake as a meathead refusing any changes whatsoever. While we shouldn’t regulate football into extinction, we should at least figure out a way to prevent players from committing suicide. That’s just common sense, or as Smith repeatedly reminds us, a hard truth.
‘The Big Short’
Let’s now move from football to the author of “Moneyball.”
In his book “The Big Short,” author Michael Lewis sought to explain the 2008 housing crisis and Wall Street financial collapse in the same way he so brilliantly explored baseball statistics.
The film adaptation follows four rebels working in high-finance who predicted the housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s and decided to bet against the major banks.
Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Steve Carell lead a talented ensemble cast that includes Melissa Leo, Brad Pitt and Marisa Tomei (bonus points for casting Pitt after “Moneyball” and Bale after his Wall Street killer in “American Psycho”). Making their characters all the juicier is that they are all morally flawed themselves, questioning their own hypocrisies for betting on the U.S. economy to fail.
Director Adam McKay finds clever ways to break down confusing financial jargon like “subprime loans” and “C-D-Os” by finding lowbrow vehicles to explain them. In one scene, we get “Wolf of Wall Street” bombshell Margot Robbie sipping Champagne in a bath tub. In another, we get celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. In another yet, we get Selena Gomez at a blackjack table.
Perhaps most effective is Gosling plucking “AAA” bond-rating blocks from a Jenga pile, the entire collapsing just like the housing market. While you may still walk out scratching your head at the ins and outs of the industry, it’s the closest you’ll come to having this complex, corrupt world broken down in laymen’s terms. Why dumb it down in this way? Because it’s friggin’ important.
As McKay flashes pop culture images in a sort of pop-art tapestry, you can’t help but dig his daring approach. Watching the freeze frames, narration and quick cuts, you’ll realize we are all children of “Goodfellas” (1990), as Martin Scorsese’s style continues to show its influence 25 years later. “The Big Short” is no “Goodfellas;” it’s more akin to “The Wolf of Wall Street,” only slightly less vulgar.
Unlike finance, there are no bailouts in filmmaking. Thankfully, “The Big Short” delivers.
‘Carol’
If “The Big Short” goes out of its way to break things down for the audience, “Carol” takes the opposite approach, favoring more nuanced glances for engaged audiences to devour.
That’s not to say it’s any less effective; it’s two different styles striving for the same acclaim.
In 1950s New York, a lonely department-store clerk, Therese (Rooney Mara), dreams of a better life around the holiday rush. That’s when an older, married woman, Carol (Cate Blanchett), enters the store, catches her eye, and “accidentally” leaves her gloves on the counter (or was it on purpose?).
As the two explore their forbidden feelings — further complicated by Carol’s husband Harge (Kyle Chandler) and longtime friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) — America’s ’50s social mores are at stake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4z7Px68ywk
Director Todd Haynes (“Far From Heaven”) offers brilliant directorial touches, tricking us to think a toy train set is a real train, catching symbolic reflections in car windows as characters’ reflect, placing insert shots on tiny details like hands on a car radio, and shooting through the windows of a New York apartment building to isolate two characters staring at each other across the room during a party.
Likewise, screenwriter Phyllis Nagy — adapting from Patricia Highsmith’s novel — drops clever touches, particularly during a road-trip to a small town named Waterloo. We sense the impending doom of the Napoleonic reference without ever quite knowing the reason — until it whacks us hard.
Sure, this story isn’t for everybody. The pacing is patient and the subject matter is edgy. But if you like either of these actresses even slightly, you won’t be disappointed by their interplay. It’s a feast to watch the two-time Oscar-winning Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine,” “The Aviator”) go toe-to-toe with Mara, who inspired Facebook by dumping Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network” (2010) before earning an Oscar nomination as the titular badass in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011).
Both women are absolutely convincing, as Blanchett once again proves her brilliance in conveying little things, like softly touching her neck in a flirtatious nervous tick. Still, this is Mara’s coming-out party, looking dangerously like Audrey Hepburn and saying so much with her eyes to trigger juicy P.O.V. shots. Our eyes wander with her; our passions flare with her; our hearts break with her.
It’s a bit odd that Mara gets the Supporting Actress lane at the Golden Globes, while Blanchett is nominated for Leading Actress. If anything, this feels more like Mara’s story. In any event, having already won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival, expect Mara to be in play come Oscar time.
‘Joy’
Finally, we get David O. Russell’s much-anticipated, star-studded dramedy “Joy.”
Russell reassembles his “Silver Linings Playbook” stable of Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro, while adding the likes of Diane Ladd, Edgar Ramirez, Virginia Madsen, Isabella Rossellini and Susan Lucci to create one of the deepest acting benches of the year.
Loosely based on true events — as the film playfully suggests at its outset — “Joy” explores a family across four generations, namely the titular Joy (Lawrence) whose entrepreneurial dreams lead her to invent a state-of-the-art mop. Despite the relentless pessimism of her condescending father (DeNiro), Joy pitches her mop to QVC’s Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) during the network’s peak.
The film seemed like a sure bet, considering the talent of those involved. Even the “blah” premise of a mop maker had surprising promise considering the popularity of reality shows like “Shark Tank.” Everyone likes a well-told American Dream story with underdog heroes achieving impossible odds.
Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.
That pains me to say, as no one sang Russell’s praises higher after the modern masterpiece “American Hustle,” which remains my favorite flick of 2013, one of my favorites of the 21st century, and a film that remains underrated in its study of artifice. There’s way more going on than you think.
In “Joy,” Russell shows flashes of this unique talent: daring camerawork, a flair for rock ‘n roll soundtracks, and a rare ability to blend drama with comedy. Likewise, Lawrence once again delivers a dynamite performance as a shirt-stained single mom, certain to pick up nominations this award season. These individual pieces aren’t bad; the overall whole is just less than the sum of its parts.
The first 20 minutes feel like a completely different movie — a family comedy like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” — before the tone shifts completely in Act Two. The uneven movie starts to find its footing around the time Cooper shows up at the midpoint, but he unfortunately disappears for much of the second half. You may start checking your watch before we arrive at some rushed under-the-table business in Act Three, but as J-Law struts off in trailer-made triumph, we simply don’t feel it.
We recognize our beloved playbook, but in this case, there are few silver linings.
“American Hustle” absolutely “mops the floor” with “Joy.”
The above ratings are based on a 4-star scale. See where these film rank in Jason’s Fraley Film Guide. Follow WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP.
