Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
This week, we have two films releasing with an array of solid actors who make an appearance on this week’s 5 favorites. We start with the wide release Cocaine Bear. Elizabeth Banks directs the film and it stars Keri Russell and Alden Ehrenreich. The absurd comedy about a bear that gets into a stash of cocaine and goes on a murderous rampage looks incredibly cheesy, but also incredibly fun. Another wide release is called My Happy Ending and stars Andie McDowell as a prominent actor who goes in for cancer treatment. Miriam Margolyes co-stars as one of the women she befriends during chemotherapy. This week, I’ll look at Banks as a director and the other four actors as such.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Hugh Grant had been working steadily for a decade before landing his breakthrough role in this Mike Newell film from a Richard Curtis script. Grant plays a committed bachelor who stumbles into love across the span of the titular four weddings and a feuneral. Grant may have had his earliest success with Maurice, but hadn’t quite burst onto the scene in the United States until this film, which turned him into a romantic lead of some stature. Andie McDowell plays the woman for whom Grant’s character falls while Simon Callow, John Hannah, and Kristin Scott Thomas play their fascinating friends.
Newell’s film is well acted and was a box office success but felt a little too slight for the Academy Awards. Curtis was nominated for his screenplay, which had largely been expected, but the film also landed a coveted Best Picture slot over prominent Oscar nominees Bullets Over Broadway and The Lion King, both of which were in the conversation that year. One of the funniest of the 90s British imports, Four Weddings was a great time at the movies and helped allow other British comedies to make their popular runs in American movie theaters.
No original review available.
Babe (1995)
Miriam Margolyes is likely best known these days for her role as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, but the longtime character actor had been working steadily for four decades prior, starting out in television in the mid-1960s. That’s where she spent most of her early career, but a few films were released in between as well as animated work to which she contributed her talents. Her vocal talents are what lead to her entry on the list this week. Babe is the endearing tale of a young pig (Christine Cavanagh) who’s saved from the butcher’s blade and makes a name for himself as a champion sheepherder.
James Cromwell and Magda Szubanski are the only actors in prominent roles in the film who aren’t animated. In addition to Cavanagh, Danny Mann, Hugo Weaving, Miriam Flynn, Russi Taylor, and Margolyes provide the voices. Margolyes plays Fly, one of Farmer Hogget’s sheepherding dogs who takes Babe in when his mother is shipped off for processing. She provides warmth and guidance throughout the film and it’s thanks to Margolyes’ skill that she comes off as one of the most humane characters in the film. Nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Director, the film remains one of the best films of 1995, easily better than the eventual winner, Braveheart. It’s an enduring classic about not allowing one’s destiny be dictated by how you look or act or from which class you’re born into.
Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)
Jukebox style musicals, having modern people sing to songs of the present and yesteryear, have always been popular. While Broadway’s resurgence of the medium has been prolific, television and film have lagged behind. Sure, there are adaptations of those popular Broadway musicals, but they seldom move the needle at the box office. Taking a tack more similar to Ryan Murphy’s hit TV series Glee, screenwriters Kay Canon and Mickey Rapkin put the audience into the collegiate scene where a young music mixer (Anna Kendrick) finds herself at odds with the A Capella group her mother once led at the university, but ultimately coming together to win an annual competition.
One of the stars of that original film, Elizabeth Banks, directed the sequel to rousing success. Keeping the spirit of the original, the Barden Bellas enter an international competition they hope to win and restore their rightful place after an embarrassing performance that opens the film. Banks’ tight film is enjoyable from beginning to end and much of the malaise one feels in a sequel is barely felt, making this a rather enjoyable effort. Kendrick is her usual magnetic self, but Hailee Steinfeld joins the cast and adds some younger appeal, even though she’s not that much junior her compatriots. If you don’t love modern musical styles, you probably won’t enjoy the film, but the tunes are all well chosen and the whole effort is well worth your time.
Beautiful Creatures (2013)
Writer/director Richard LaGravanese doesn’t have the most illustrious career as a director. His first film was the enjoyable, but trivial Living Out Loud. from there, his next most familiar feature was Freedom Writers, a pale carbon copy of similar teacher inspiration movies. His sixth feature film is easily the best of his output even if its directorial stylings aren’t superlative. Yet, Beautiful Creatures succeeds on the strength of his adaptation. As a writer, LaGravanese has penned some solid 1990 efforts including The Ref, The Bridges of Madison County, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Beloved, The Horse Whisperer, and most notably his Oscar-nominated script for The Fisher King.
Beautiful Creatures was intended to be the first of several adaptations of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s popular young adult novels about a young woman (Alice Englert) who is being torn between light and dark magic while her mundane paramour (Alden Ehrenreich) struggles to understand the mysterious things going on around him. The film wasn’t a box office success, but was entertaining within its narrow genre. Ehrenreich was tremendous, giving a strong breakthrough performance as the love-struck southern teenager. If you’re into young adult literature, then this film may be something worth catching, but if all you want to see is a young Ehrenreich in one of his best roles, then check it out.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
In Matt Reeves’ successful Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy, we find out the origin of the Planet of the Apes and the experiments that turned them into the planet’s dominant species. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the middle chapter of the series as the humans and apes struggle for survival against overwhelming odds. Andy Serkis leads the ape faction, which also included Tony Kebbell, Judy Greer, and others. On the human side, Jason Clarke took the lead with Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and more.
Russell has a key role in the film as Clarke’s wife and the mother of Smit-McPhee and she does solid work, as does the entire human cast, but the real power of this story was always with the motion-capture performances of Serkis and the others. A captivating set of performances that highlight the skill and finesse required in creating credible performances with figures and bringing emotion and heart to creatures who many might otherwise consider savages. And that’s the power of this particular trilogy, inversing perceptions and bringing nobility and courage to material that could have been pandering and cheesy.
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