ARTS & CULTURE
Monday, September 29, 2014 19
deranged entertainment and landing as an incomprehensible oddity. It’s fun and sick at times, but Smith
fails to rein in Johnny Depp’s shtick, and the screenplay feels like a series of tweets. Earning points for
sheer audacity (and for getting hilarious debuts from
Smith’s and Depp’s daughters), Tusk’s tonal mishmash is otherwise a misfire of gross proportions,
amusing, appalling, and ambitiously shaggy. It’s
preaching exclusively to the converted.
While We’re Young (2014) 2.5/4
The Bottom Line: Friends + Margot at the Wedding
Whiplash (2014) 3.5/4
The Bottom Line: Black Swan + Full Metal Jacket
Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) has high aspirations: to catch the attention of Terence Fletcher (JK
Simmons), his upscale conservatory’s legendarily
fearsome jazz chair, and to become a hall-of-fame
drummer no matter the cost, even if it means flaming
out and dying young. Relying on emotional brutality
rather than pedagogical instruction, Fletcher is despotic and insulting, spewing vulgar epithets, hammering home the notion that “if it’s not flawless, it’s
worthless.” Writer-director Damien Chazelle, with
this expansion of his Sundance-winning short, has a
similar message: you can be a world-class musician,
or you can be a well-adjusted member of society,
but you can’t be both. Unromantic and unapologetic, Whiplash is an accomplished work of kinetic
cinema, delivering a sharp and gripping rhythm and
an energy you’re unlikely to see again this year. The
film’s closing sequence is some of the best drumming
you’ve ever seen; by the credits, Chazelle has demolished the clichés of the musical-prodigy genre, and
Neyman and Fletcher have worked out the theory
that pressure turns coal into a diamond. It’s virtually guaranteed to send you out of the theater on an
adrenaline high.
Winter Sleep (2014) 3.5/4
The Bottom Line: Scenes from a Marriage +
The Shining
Turkish hotel owner Aydin (Haluk Bilginer) has a feud
with one of his tenants, a fight with his wife, and his
sister over the course of a long winter in the Anatolian
steppes. Benevolent, selfish, and judgmental, he
experiences a slow-dawning realization that his
chest-thumping view of himself as an alpha male has
deprived him of love and affection. Rabidly engrossing, ravishingly beautiful, and rich in details, a rock
breaks a window, a child kisses a hand, a horse is
dragged from a stream, Winter Sleep is the epic Palme
d’Or-winner from Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a
Time in Anatolia). Ceylan spins gold in thought and
image with this morality tale of a wealthy man who
sins by omission: it’s a rigorous, robust, challenging experience that he’s been building toward with
his previous features, as well as an adventurous step
above them. The plot grows steadily over many extensive conversations, and the hotel’s inhabitants are ensconced in their own isolation. This is not an easy
watch, but it is lyrical and full of unpalatable truths.
At the very least, it qualifies as the least boring 196minute film ever made; at most, it’s a near masterpiece. ◆
ê Above: Kirsten Bell. Below: Vanessa Redgrave. Photo credit: Peter Kudlacz
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