Watch Online 12 Years a Slave (2013) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis:

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave stars Chiwetel Ejifor as Solomon Northup, a free black man in 1840s America. He makes his living as a fiddle player, and his wife is a teacher. He is shanghaied by a pair of nefarious white men, and soon finds himself on a ship headed to New Orleans where he is informed he will be called Platt and is sold into slavery by an unscrupulous businessman (Paul Giamatti). As he toils away for the kindhearted but conflicted plantation owner Mr. Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who recognizes that Platt is both educated and an artist, he butts head with Ford's underlings, especially the casually cruel Tibeats (Paul Dano). After they have a violent altercation, Ford fears for his slave's life and sells him to Mr. Epps (Michael Fassbender), an alcoholic sadist who owns a cotton plantation. Though Epps reads from the bible to his property, as he frequently refers to his slaves, he is himself not immune to sins of the flesh. He has taken the young Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) - his best cotton picker -- as his lover, and this doesn't sit well at all with his severe wife (Sarah Paulson), whose particular hatred for blacks and her jealousy fuels her many degrading actions toward Patsey. Solomon bides his time, attempts to preserve a modicum of self-respect, and waits for the chance to reclaim his rightful name as well as his family.

Review:

With his first two films, Hunger and Shame, British director Steve McQueen showed a masterful command of style and an ambition to tackle important topics. His third movie, 12 Years a Slave, takes on the institution of American slavery, a subject that comes so loaded with potential blowback that few artists ever attempt to deal with it head-on. He succeeds so strongly that the film's power is only mitigated, and not undone, by a third act that fails as storytelling even though it's likely historically accurate.

The uniformly excellent cast is headed by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup, a free black man in 1840s America. He makes his living as a fiddle player, while his wife is a teacher. However, he is soon shanghaied by a pair of nefarious white men and finds himself on a ship headed to New Orleans; he is informed that he will now be called Platt, and is sold into slavery by an unscrupulous businessman (Paul Giamatti, more frightening than you ever expected he could be).

As he toils away for the kindhearted but conflicted plantation owner Mr. Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who recognizes that Solomon is both educated and an artist, he butts heads with Ford's underlings, especially the casually cruel Tibeats (Paul Dano). After they have a violent altercation, Ford fears for his slave's life and sells him to Mr. Epps (Michael Fassbender), an alcoholic sadist who owns a cotton plantation.

Though Epps reads the Bible to his property (as he frequently calls his slaves), he himself is not immune to the sins of the flesh. He has taken the young Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) -- his best cotton picker -- as his lover, and this doesn't sit well at all with his severe wife (Sarah Paulson), whose jealousy and hatred for blacks fuel her many degrading punishments toward her husband's paramour. Meanwhile, Solomon bides his time, attempts to preserve a modicum of self-respect, and waits for the chance to reclaim his rightful name and his family.

From a sheer storytelling standpoint, 12 Years a Slave pulls off something nearly impossible. Screenwriter John Ridley was given a lead character who has no control over his own life -- unable to flee or fight back in any meaningful way, Solomon does little more than suffer and try to persevere. That kind of character is the death of drama, but Ridley has plotted the movie ingeniously so that each scene follows logically from the actions of the previous one. This is not a random collection of horrific incidents that happened to one man; it's a harrowing explanation of exactly how and why these atrocities occurred.

McQueen's grand ambitions are revealed in his overall theme, which is to show how Solomon is far from the only victim of this inhumane institution. He efficiently and effectively details how every single person who comes in contact with slavery is corrupted by its vileness. What the slaveholders do to maintain their power alters them for the worse in very real ways -- that shines through in the characters of Epps and Ford. Additionally, the victims of slavery do terrible things to survive that will leave them scarred forever.

That point is driven home in the movie's best-written scene: a conversation between Solomon, Patsey, and Mistress Shaw (Alfre Woodard), an older black woman who enjoys formal afternoon tea and has servants who wait on her, all because the master of the house practically treats her as a wife. Shaw delivers a monologue full of anger and self-defensive justification for her own actions, but never drops the veil of civility. It's a showstopping scene that doesn't stand out by being better than the rest of the film, but because it's the most artistically powerful evocation of McQueen's overarching point.

The other aspect that helps elevate 12 Years a Slave is that, while tackling such an important topic, it never feels self-important. The director doesn't think he's teaching you anything you don't know, and he feels no need to pass judgment or to reassure you that all of this is awful because he trusts that you're already well aware. There isn't any condescension in the movie -- just a desire to tell this one story, and in so doing expose how such a malevolent system eroded everyone who was a part of it. By presenting that theme with such purpose and clarity, McQueen allows his viewers to consider how the echoes of that time reverberate to the modern day.

Also, while the film doesn't flinch from the disturbing violence that was commonplace in that era, it never wallows in the degradation. We are witness to nightmarish brutality, but it's presented in a way that makes it clear that McQueen trusts you are already horrified and don't need to have your buttons pressed.

The only thing undercutting the movie is a third act that is a total dramatic cheat. The climactic confrontation between Epps, his wife, Patsey, and Solomon feels redundant by the time it finally occurs. The choices Solomon makes in that scene should destroy us emotionally, but McQueen has so assuredly expressed his point-of-view that there's an inevitability to this conflict, no matter how well-acted and artfully staged it is. Additionally, the story's deus ex machina resolution adds to the sense that the movie runs just a little too long, even if it's never dull.

Like Spielberg's Schindler's List or Polanski's The Pianist, 12 Years a Slave is admirable, important, and serious filmmaking that is antithetical to what most people think of as entertainment. While it might not be perfect, it demands and deserves your attention.

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Watch Online Creed (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis:

Adonis Johnson Creed (Michael B. Jordan), the son of former heavyweight champion Apollo Creed, attempts to follow in his father's footsteps and become a boxing legend in his own right. Apollo died in the ring in the 1980s at the hand of Russian pugilist Ivan Drago, forcing Adonis to grow up without his dad in his life. The young man travels to Philadelphia to find his late father's nemesis-turned-best friend, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), in order to recruit him as a trainer. Balboa soon takes the young Creed under his wing and helps him get in shape for a shot at the title. Ryan Coogler directs this spin-off of the hugely successful Rocky franchise.

Review:

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) never knew his biological father, famed boxer Apollo Creed, who died in the ring before his birth. He's the illegitimate child of the former heavyweight champ, and spent his early life in juvenile detention and floating between group homes in Los Angeles, until Apollo's widow Mary Anne (Phylicia Rashad) tracked him down and adopted him. Flash-forward to 2015: Adonis fights (and dominates) in unlicensed matches in Tijuana at night, then returns to a promising office job in L.A. the following morning. He resents his father's legacy and is desperate to make his own name in the ring, but wants to do so without relying on the fanfare of his bloodline.

Against the wishes of his adoptive mother, Adonis quits his job and heads to Philadelphia, where he seeks out the only man who stood toe-to-toe with his father in his prime: Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone). Adonis is a self-taught boxer with a raw style, and he asks Rocky to train him to become a serious contender. The aging fighter begrudgingly accepts after much pestering, and Balboa takes young Adonis under his wing. The public quickly become aware of Adonis' heritage, and after knocking out a celebrated young fighter, he's catapulted into the spotlight and arranged to face reigning champ "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Anthony Bellew). Meanwhile, Rocky's health suffers as the title fight nears, testing the fortitude of both men as the seventh installment of the Rocky franchise reaches its final act.

The 28-year-old Jordan breathes remarkable life into the title role, balancing the cocksure, boastful attitude of his character's late father with his own sense of exuberance and loyalty. In addition, his scenes with love interest Bianca (Tessa Thompson) are tender and candid. Jordan escaped the tire fire that was The Fantastic Four relatively unscathed, and here he reminds us that he's a tremendous talent.

Likewise, Stallone is a treasure as the aging Balboa, who's been beaten down physically and mentally from a hard life. As his health deteriorates over the course of the film, it's shocking to see him look so withered while steadfastly training the young Adonis. Sly is able to distill the most vulnerable and amiable elements of Balboa, which have persisted throughout the franchise, into an earnest, emotional performance.

Sure, there are rehashed plot points from earlier Rocky flicks; the underdog-boxer tale only has a finite number of routes it can take. But director Ryan Coogler (who previously teamed with Jordan for 2013's fantastic Fruitvale Station) forgoes scenes of drinking raw eggs and meat-locker boxing, instead helming the movie like any true prodigy would -- by making Creed distinctly his own. He taps into the heart of Philadelphia the same way Stallone and John G. Avildsen did in 1976, even if Rocky's home looks vastly different nearly 40 years later. Coogler and cinematographer Maryse Alberti use the gritty cityscape as a backdrop for Adonis' transformation: While the young man grew up fighting all the time in group homes, he was able to live a life of luxury after Mary Anne found him. Thus, his move to Philadelphia signals a shift in his character, and the city represents the type of the fighter he wants to become under Balboa's tutelage. And just as previous Rocky films focused on Italian neighborhoods in the blue-collar city, Coogler takes Creed into historically African-American pockets of Philadelphia, where Meek Mill blares on gym stereos and wheelie-popping dirt bikes are heard outside. Despite hailing from Oakland, CA, Coogler (who also co-wrote Creed with Aaron Covington) manages to bring this milieu to life without it feeling forced or disingenuous.

Creed is as artfully crafted as any pugilist flick in recent memory. Adonis' fight scenes are choreographed with both technical fluidity and a palpable intensity: Heads don't dramatically snap back like they did when the Italian Stallion fought Drago in Rocky IV -- instead, the blows land with a realistic force. With all the potential pitfalls that could have stunted Creed before its opening bell rang, it's no minor achievement that the pieces come together into such a bold, funny, and satisfying whole. Big-budget, studio-produced franchise films don't get any better than this.

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Watch Online The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis:

Martin Scorsese reteams with Leonardo DiCaprio for this adaptation of Jordan Belfort's memoir about his exploits as a crooked banker. Terence Winter provides the screenplay. Jonah Hill and Oscar winner Jean Dujardin co-star.

Review:

With The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Jordan Belfort's memoir, the legendary director has made his most playfully rambunctious and funniest film ever. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jordan, an ambitious stockbroker who learns all too well from his coke-snorting mentor (Matthew McConaughey) that the trick to the business is making your own money from commissions -- the customers don't matter.

Jordan sets off on his own hawking penny stocks, and quickly figures out that -- because the commission rate is so much higher on them -- he can quickly amass a personal fortune by convincing millionaires to invest in these probably worthless companies. Setting his plan in motion, Jordan puts together a loyal if dim-witted team of salesmen -- including his eventual second-in-command Donnie (a skeevy Jonah Hill) -- teaches them his tenacious, never-take-no-for-an-answer verbal patter, and eventually becomes so successful that Forbes magazine writes an article about him that gives the film its title.

Of course, all of this obscene wealth comes at a price. Jordan, who starts out as a classic nice guy who wants to do right by his wife, quickly drops her for a model whom he later marries. He develops a seemingly insatiable appetite for drugs, hookers, and extravagant displays of conspicuous consumption. If he doesn't implode from debauchery first, he might get taken down by FBI agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), a straight arrow who has made it his mission to uncover the illegality at the center of Jordan's financial empire.

Scorsese maintains a nearly relentless sense of momentum for the film's just shy of three-hour running time, which is all the more impressive because Terence Winter's script is very talky: The movie has numerous monologues and a handful of epic verbal confrontations -- none better than when Jordan and Denham have their first face-to-face meeting. Thankfully, the words are as seductive as the images, and Scorsese lets you feel the buzz that Jordan experiences as he ingests more and more substances and throws around increasing amounts of cash.

With its rise-and-fall tale of a man who spins out of control on drugs, wealth, and power, it's tempting to think of Wolf as a revisit of Goodfellas. However, there's a fundamental difference in Scorsese's feelings about his two lead characters that explains why they are very distinct movies. As ridiculous as Henry and his cohorts got, there was a lethalness to them that the director feared. Their actions were too somber to joke about -- as Joe Pesci's character famously asked, what was so funny about them?

However, Jordan Belfort is the kind of slick corporate shark that Marty has spent decades trying to squeeze money out of in order to make movies, and he uses this opportunity to unload all of his contempt at these modern masters of the universe. For the first time, it feels like he has genuine disdain for his main character, and this frees him to humiliate Jordan in endlessly entertaining ways. Religion has always been central to Scorsese's work and iconography, and with Wolf he gets to unleash some Old Testament wrath on a sinner who deserves everything the Almighty can summon.

No sequence makes that more clear than when Jordan, after taking too many powerful quaaludes, has a physical breakdown and must drive back home while suffering seizures. DiCaprio, as he does throughout the movie, throws himself into this scene with the commitment of a silent-era comic. It's hard to think of another A-list leading man so willing to make himself look ridiculous, and working with someone he trusts as much as Scorsese only inspires him to push even further. It's an outrageously funny sequence, one that few actor/director combinations would have the talent to execute this well.

But don't be misled into thinking that Wolf is just modern slapstick. The movie is unafraid to let people talk for extended stretches of time, yet it almost never feels improvised; the scenes are structured as tightly as Jordan's script to potential clients. That fact comes through in a showpiece scene late in the picture when Jordan must address his frenetic employees and tell them he's stepping down as the head of the company. The scene pivots, though, as he works up yet another head of steam and you realize he's so far gone from the person he was at the beginning of the film that he now buys his own line of crap.

That's the moment that exposes the movie's point -- America itself is so drunk on its own excesses and drive for success that it has absolutely lost its way. The Wolf of Wall Street is a hilarious, angry, and scathing indictment of greed. It's so funny you might not notice how deep it cuts.

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Watch Online The Big Short (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Review:

This adaptation of Michael Lewis' nonfiction book The Big Short explores the 2008 financial crisis through the lens of four unorthodox moneymen, who foresaw the consequences of the fraudulent mortgage-lending practices of large banks on Wall Street. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry, a former hedge-fund manager who was one of the first to forecast the collapse of the credit bubble due to excessive subprime lending. Steve Carell is Mark Baum (based on the real-life Steve Eisman), a money manager who rose to fame after successfully betting against subprime mortgages. Directed by Adam McKay. Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, and Marisa Tomei co-star.

Review:

After the rise of alternative comedy, driven in large part by the creators and alumni of the Upright Citizens Brigade, several performers known for their funny work successfully managed to branch out. Stars like Louis C.K. and Jenny Slate have won accolades for their dabblings in pitch-black humor, and actors such as Steve Carell (Foxcatcher) and Sarah Silverman (Masters of Sex) have excelled in dramatic roles on both the big and small screens. Now, Adam McKay, former Saturday Night Live writer and the director of just about every funny Will Ferrell film from the past decade (Anchorman, The Other Guys, etc.), has helmed a movie about the disastrous 2008 collapse of the housing market, based on a nonfiction book by financial journalist Michael Lewis. The subject matter is heady, but McKay pulls out all the stops in an effort to underline how misplaced hubris and greed resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs, with no real consequences for the majority of the bankers and managers truly responsible for the carnage.

To help stir up the requisite outrage and laughs needed to pull this movie off, McKay brought in heavyweights like Carell, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt, and utilizes fourth-wall-breaking commentary to give this wide-ranging tale the feel of a cautionary documentary. In addition, Ryan Gosling pulls double duty as both the de facto narrator and the character of Jared Vennett, a smooth-talking, successful mortgage trader based on the real-life Greg Lippmann. Vennett decides to short the housing market after learning about a hedge-fund manager (Bale) who has been betting against a variety of subprime mortgages to the tune of 1.3 billion dollars. As Vennett discovered in his work for Deutsche Bank, a variety of high-risk housing loans are being grouped together as CDOs, which eventually cause the whole system to...well, we'll stop there, because a good deal of the film's acidic laughs come from having this dilemma explained to us by Gosling and several unexpected guests.

Vennett partners with a team from an independent money-management firm, which is led by a cynical, tightly wound executive portrayed by Carell in another performance worthy of high-level accolades. Pitt provides some dry levity as a skilled former trader roped back into the game by a couple of shrewd young investors (played by John Magaro and Finn Wittrock in capable turns), who require his financial backing and guidance.

The high-quality actors benefit from a superb screenplay by McKay and Charles Randolph that allows them to casually siphon humor from their characters' anger, paranoia, and disgust. After several terrific films that mined guffaws from outsize and outlandish individuals, McKay relies on real-life subtlety, tics, and gravitas here to bring these players to life. The explanations of mortgage bonds, subprime loans, and tranches sometimes come off as slightly smug, which makes us crave more of Pitt's dry, prescient financial veteran. The Big Short is also guilty of laying its moral agenda on pretty thick with the pair of upstart investors, employing them as a Greek chorus who practically spell out the movie's themes in bright neon lights.

These are minor qualms, though, considering that this is an impressive, out-of-left-field turn from an established comedy director. Carell delivered an all-time-great comic performance as Anchorman's Brick Tamland in his prior collaboration with McKay, and the actor achieves another career milestone here by playing the smartest guy in the room, one who's burdened by the weight of both professional foresight and personal grief. Meanwhile, Gosling has never been funnier, and Bale makes us feel the inner turmoil of a lifelong outsider finding himself on an island yet again. The Big Short is a well-crafted and important comedy wrapped around a genuinely harrowing drama. It will make viewers both belly laugh and ponder the highly unsettling relationship between big banks and the government, all within the same scene. In what feels like another debut, McKay has made an enlightening and engaging picture that shouldn't be missed.

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Watch Online Southpaw (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis :

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as troubled boxer Billy Hope in this high-stakes drama from director Antoine Fuqua and Sons of Anarachy creator Kurt Sutter. At the height of his fame and success, Hope is convinced by his loving wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) to retire from the sport in order to spend more time with the couple's daughter Leila (Oona Laurence). On the night of his retirement announcement, a rival boxer calls out Hope and an altercation breaks out, killing Maureen. Hope's self-destructive behavior worsens, and Leila is taken away by child services. In order to redeem his life and get his daughter back, Hope must return to boxing under the tutelage of hardened trainer Titus "Tick" Willis (Forest Whitaker).

Review :

Screenwriters can put words in a character's mouth, but it takes aconscientious actor to spin what's on the page into a person's truth. That's exactly what Rachel McAdams does in the first few minutes of Southpaw, playing a woman named Maureen who is sitting ringside at a boxing match while her fearsome, tattooed husband, Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal), paces the mat like an animal and pounds his way through a particularly gory round. He's got a sparrow in flight inked on his neck, and in the cutaways, we can discreetly see that she has the same tattoo, as well as a word inked around her finger where a wedding ring should be. There's no tight zoom and freeze frame revealing exactly what that word is -- in fact, the audience never finds out. It's a private communication between husband and wife, something that speaks to their bond as clearly Maureen texting "Daddy won" to their daughter at home, or the way she rushes to Billy when it's over, unafraid to get his blood on her face during a post-match kiss.

Billy loves his wife, and we can see why: She's loyal, tough, shrewd, loving, and beautiful. She is his rock, and if he weren't equally devoted to her, whisperers would say she's too good for his mumbly, thuggish self. That's why Billy can ignore the taunts of an upstart palooka (Miguel Gomez) looking to goad him into a fight -- until one night, when the trash talk after a charity gala includes a slur against Maureen. That does it: Billy throws a punch, a fight breaks out, and a shot is fired. Maureen the courageous and true dies in her husband's arms.

Southpaw isn't a movie about simpleminded revenge, about how "finding the man who killed my wife" will put everything right. That's not how it works in life. Terrible things happen that can't be undone and then we're thrust back into our lives, forced to make it all up on the spot as time marches on. Things soon get worse for Billy. He loses his house. He gets a DUI. He blows a multifight deal engineered by an avaricious manager (50 Cent). He loses custody of his daughter. The downward spiral continues until he meets Tick (Forest Whitaker), an ex-boxer now running a small gym for troubled kids. Tick refuses to train professionals, but he offers some free advice: When you lack control over your own anger, anyone can yank your reins.

It's impossible to watch Southpaw without reflecting on how different Billy Hope is from Gyllenhaal's previous role, the predatory weirdo Louis Bloom from Nightcrawler. Louis was glib where Billy is inarticulate, sociopathic where Billy is loving, gaunt and sickly compared to Billy's 200 pounds of angry, determined muscle. With this role, Gyllenhaal proves he's now entered that rare class of actors (which include, among others, Christian Bale) who are such chameleons that they seem able to transform into any character. It's extraordinary work, but it's still not the best performance in a movie that also contains bravura turns from Whitaker and newcomer Oona Laurence as Billy's daughter. Instead, that honor goes to Rachel McAdams, whose Maureen appears in only the first quarter of the film, but whose goodness and tragedy color the rest of the story.

Written by Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy) and directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), Southpaw has some stiff competition in the boxing-film subgenre: Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby, The Fighter, Cinderella Man, Requiem for a Heavyweight (and coming in the near future are Bleed for This, Creed, and Hands of Stone). But it succeeds not only as an exhilarating sports movie with some top-notch fights (Fuqua builds on the visual grammar of televised boxing to create a visceral experience), but as a character portrait in every sense of the word "character." We might not be able to read the tattoo on Maureen's finger, but it's obvious that Billy's forearms are inked with the words "Father" and "Fighter"; when he loses both of those core parts of his identity, he redeems himself by taking on the true mantle of manhood. Southpaw wins on much more than a judge's decision.

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Watch Online Whiplash (2014) - MovieTimeUs

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Synopsis :

A talented young jazz drummer experiences a trial by fire when he's recruited by a ferocious instructor, whose unyielding search for perfection could destroy both of them. Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) has been watching his father fail for most of his life. Determined to make a name for himself no matter what it takes, he enrolls in a prestigious East Coast music conservatory, and his talent quickly catches the attention of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), an esteemed music teacher notorious for his caustic approach in the classroom. The leader of the school's top jazz ensemble, Fletcher promptly transfers Neyman into his band, giving the ambitious young drummer a shot at true greatness. He may achieve it, too, if Fletcher's methods don't drive him to madness first.

Review :

You don't have to have a working knowledge of jazz music or history to be riveted by writer/director Damien Chazelle's Whiplash; all that's required is a working knowledge of dreams and how they function. Dreams in a figurative sense, that is, as this blistering psychological drama takes you into the vulnerable headspace of a talented young jazz drummer suffering acute mental anguish under the tutelage of his relentless music instructor -- a man driven by the singular goal of molding the next Charlie Parker or Buddy Rich.

For as long as Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) can remember, he's been watching his father fail. Determined to make a name for himself no matter what it takes, he enrolls in a prestigious East Coast music conservatory. His talent quickly catches the attention of Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), an esteemed music teacher who's notorious for his caustic approach in the classroom. The leader of the school's top jazz ensemble, Fletcher promptly transfers Neyman into his band, giving the ambitious young drummer a shot at true greatness. He may achieve it, too -- if Neyman's methods don't drive him to madness first.

We've all had those teachers whose expectations seem somewhat unrealistic, but Simmons' Terence Fletcher is much more than that: Like a volatile mix of Swimming With Sharks' Buddy Ackerman and Full Metal Jacket's Gny. Sgt. Hartman, he's an absolute force of nature who's capable of summoning a hurricane in the blink of an eye. A veteran supporting player whose recognition is long overdue, Simmons is nothing short of terrifying in his portrayal of a teacher who wouldn't think twice about breaking 100 students if it meant that one had a shot at legendary status. Unlike those aforementioned antagonists, however, the thing that makes this character so positively compelling are the nuances with which Chazelle paints him in the film's uncompromisingly intense screenplay, as well as the seemingly effortless manner by which Simmons can turn from soulful to savage in the clash of a cymbal. From the moment we first encounter Fletcher, it's apparent that he has a reputation, and though his gruffness is almost endearing at first glance, the manner in which he manipulates young Andrew during his very first session with the band hints at something far more sadistic beneath the surface. Fletcher would have been completely unsympathetic in almost any other film, but together with Chazelle, Simmons reveals the character's human side at just the right intervals to make him utterly fascinating.

Of course, a character of such stern conviction can't exist in a vacuum, and in talented up-and-comer Miles Teller, Chazelle finds the perfect foil for Fletcher's unrelenting wrath. In his role as the young drummer as determined to succeed as Fletcher is to break him, Teller portrays a potent mix of ambition, vulnerability, and hubris that leaves him particularly susceptible to his teacher's ethically compromised methods. He also sells his performance scenes with sweaty conviction, a factor that gives his character's obsessive drive to become "one of the greats" true substance. But while each scene between Teller and Simmons bristles with tension, the scenes that find Neyman pulling away from seemingly perfect match Nicole (Melissa Benoist) exist solely to emphasize his all-consuming focus on drumming. As a result, they're more functional than profound, despite a commendable effort from charismatic Glee veteran Benoist.

Far more interesting and relevant are the moments between Neyman and his father (Paul Reiser), an aspiring writer-turned-teacher who has long since given up on his dreams, yet never wavers in support of his son. In addition to providing a satisfying contrast against his onscreen son's swelling hubris, Reiser's paternal warmth delivers a much needed respite from Simmons' severe volatility.

But make no mistake: It's Simmons' explosive, career-defining performance that really brings Whiplash to life. His Fletcher is a deeply passionate, fatally flawed character whose obsession with molding the next jazz great has clouded his good intentions with inky, malicious acidity. We never quite know what to expect from him, especially after his relationship with Neyman has gone beyond the breaking point, and that's the singular factor that gives their final confrontation a near-agonizing intensity. Even with an experienced veteran like Simmons firing on all cylinders, that's an impressive feat for a first-time director, and should Chazelle succeed in summoning a fraction of that passion in his future films, he's unlikely to be just another one-hit wonder.

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Watch Online The Imitation Game (2014) - MovieTimeUs

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If you watch Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game without any knowledge of who pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing was, the odds are good that you'll never forget his name when it's over. A deft mix of spy-film tension and a sensitive portrait of the mind of a social misfit, the movie is a thoroughly engaging experience -- thanks in large part to first-time feature scribe Graham Moore's ingeniously tight script and a charismatic lead performance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The film juggles three different timelines in Turing's life. In the earliest, he's a teenager at boarding school, where he's cruelly bullied by classmates and finds solace in his close relationship with his only friend. In the furthest timeline, he raises the suspicion of police detectives after his home is burgled and he has no interest in pressing charges. A determined inspector starts digging, thinking that Turing is hiding something and is possibly a spy. However, most of the movie is spent in the middle timeline, in which Turing works on building a machine that will crack the German Enigma code, arguably doing more to help the Allied Forces win WWII than any other single individual.

The Imitation Game covers a great deal of material, but never bogs down thanks to the superb script. Moore's dialogue and structure allow Tyldum to touch on military history, the birth of computer science, and the legal persecution that homosexuals faced in mid-20th century Britain without the movie ever feeling self-important or preachy. At heart, it's an old-fashioned spy thriller, and it works perfectly in that manner while also presenting a three-dimensional profile of the complicated man at its center.

Cumberbatch fills the role perfectly. He's basically playing a more repressed version of his Sherlock Holmes, the TV part that made him a star; the scenes in which Turing's social cluelessness and smug superiority alienate his fellow code-breakers feel like they could have been lifted from that series. But Turing is a far more complex figure than the famed fictional detective. He hides so much from so many people, and suffered so greatly as a boy for his otherness, that he stammers when he's flustered. Turing is forced to quash his sexual urges, and if you pay attention to when Cumberbatch makes his stammer more pronounced, you'll appreciate how a first-rate actor can seize on a particular tic to reveal someone's inner life. It's a wonderful piece of technical acting that Cumberbatch makes completely natural -- and makes the film worthy of repeated viewings.

The entire cast are spot-on. Keira Knightley plays a fellow code-breaker who faces constant prejudice because she's a woman, and that social stigma allows her character and Turing to form a deep bond (and even become engaged). Matthew Goode warms up the film as Hugh Alexander, who becomes the closest thing to a male friend Turing has during his years in intelligence work; Hugh's charm stands in stark contrast to Alan's prickliness. Mark Strong plays the code-breaking group's MI6 contact, and his typical menace is used to great effect: You have no problem believing that he knows more horrible truths than anyone else onscreen.

Accusing The Imitation Game of being "Oscar bait" misses the point. Yes, it's obviously a film designed to get good reviews and to serve up the kind of history and moral lessons that usually click with Academy voters, but it never does this at the expense of being a terrific thriller. Even if you are familiar with Turing and the breaking of Enigma, the movie still enthralls due to the rich performances, snappy dialogue, and economical script. It's a genuinely entertaining film that doesn't announce its significance, but instead allows viewers to learn for themselves how important Turing was to modern society.

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Watch Online In the Heart of the Sea (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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In 1850 Nantucket, young novelist Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) arrives at a dockside boardinghouse late one night, when all of the boarders have gone to bed and only the proprietress (Michelle Fairley) and her husband Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson) are still awake. The husband is spending the wee hours as he usually does: drinking himself into a cloud of whiskey and gently jiggering upright the masts of the model ships in the many bottles around him. Melville has come to hear his story, which he thinks would be beneficial for the research he's doing for a novel: a whaling saga, set on a ship, about how the search for the unattainable can ruin a man's life. He's willing to pay for an interview, but money alone won't pry open this man's box of memories. He's a survivor of the wreck of the Essex, a legendary whaling ship that met its match under shady circumstances, even though its first mate, Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), was one of the finest sailors who ever lived. He hedges. Melville persists. And so, with some encouragement from his wife (and a fresh bottle), he spills his unforgettable tale.

In the Heart of the Sea, based on Nathaniel Philbrick's nonfiction novel about the sea voyage that inspired Moby Dick, boasts an impressive cast of cult-favorite actors from former and current British territories -- Chris Hemsworth, Brendan Gleeson, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, Frank Dilane -- who, with their various accents, form a believable ensemble hailing from what was, after all, New England. Studio head Jack L. Warner once famously complained, after his company produced a string of historical films that were box-office duds, "Don't make me any more movies where people write with feathers." That stuffy formality is the downfall of the many period dramas so eager to get the details right that the thrust of the story is forgotten, but In the Heart of the Sea sidesteps that danger mostly through the combined skill of its cast. Only the ship's highborn captain (played by Benjamin Walker) behaves like a stuffed shirt, and rightly so: He is the only character who is conscious of performing a destiny, as if he's already posing for the ancestral portrait that will someday grace his well-to-do family's estate. Everyone else is just a working stiff trying to get through the day with the tools he has. For Chase, it's an arsenal of harpoons to cut down the whales, and for Melville, it's a frantically scribbling pen, the only thing he has to ward off the ego-squelching presence of literary contemporaries like Nathaniel Hawthorne. This world is rich with artifacts, from crystal wine cruets to whale-oil lamps to a key-cranked marine chronometer, but their matter-of-fact handling by the actors keeps the focus on the story.

Regrettably, the one directorial decision that disturbs the movie's immersive, you-are-there quality is the unwanted and interrupting presence of extreme close-ups that look as if they're from security cameras affixed to strange locations -- looking straight down the rail of the ship, for example, or in a Nantucket gutter so we get a worm's eye view of a corn cob being slobbered on by a stray dog. Is this an attempt to graft the visual language of reality TV and surveillance footage onto a historical epic, in order to convince us of its authenticity? If so, it doesn't work, and it somewhat undermines the topsy-turvy sensation of the shots that give us a sense of the hazards of whaling, getting up close and personal with a behemoth mammal in the frothing surf. (There's also a disorienting casting choice: Chris Hemsworth bears a strong resemblance to Brendan Gleeson, which might make audiences think that the story is told from Chase's perspective, not that of the younger shipmate Nickerson later turns out to be.)

But these are small quibbles considering that In the Heart of the Sea is a thrilling survival saga that will get your blood pumping. Director Ron Howard has created a maritime redux of his other explorers' epic, Apollo 13; both of the films are about men at the mercy of technologies that help them traverse dangerous places (outer space, the open sea) but also make them more vulnerable, and both focus on the deep reserves of courage those men discover while trying to survive a no-man's-land. Indeed, this movie features two different journeys into a heart of darkness running in parallel: one aboard the Essex, and the other between Melville and Nickerson as they slowly reveal their demons to each other over the course of that long, witching-hour conversation. In the Heart of the Sea is more than just a diverting footnote to the legacy of Moby Dick -- it's an illuminating look at the sacrifices of brave men in ages past, a seafaring adventure, a survival yarn, and a meditation on courageous journeys both public and private. 

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Watch Online Joy (2015) - MovieTimeUs

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Let's ignore Accidental Love when discussing David O. Russell's recent career; after all, he chose to be credited as "Stephen Greene" on that disaster following monetary and artistic disputes with the studio. Without counting that one,Russell has made three of the finest films of the 2010s with The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle. Along the way, he's honed his directorial craft to a science by relying on terrific ensemble casts to tell compelling stories about American life. Joy seems like it should have been a natural progression in Russell's development, since it appeared to have all of the hallmarks of his greatness on the surface. Unfortunately, the film is a step back for the director, but perhaps that's only because he's set the bar so high for himself.

Joy Mangano (Jennifer Lawrence) is a struggling single mother living in her cramped childhood home on Long Island, and is employed in a dead-end job with an airline. Her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) shares the basement of the home with her divorced father Rudy (Robert De Niro), while her mother (Virginia Madsen) is a first-floor shut-in glued to her soap operas on television. Joy's true kindred spirit is her grandmother Mimi (an excellent Diane Ladd), who still believes that her thick-skinned but crafty granddaughter is destined for great things. While cleaning up some spilled red wine, Joy badly cuts herself on broken glass while ringing out the mop by hand. Something clicks in her industrious brain and she begins chaotically drawing up prototype diagrams for a new cleaning device, using her young daughters' crayons and construction paper as the canvas.

Joy petitions Rudy's newest girlfriend Trudy (Isabella Rossellini), a wealthy widow, for a loan to kick-start production on her invention: a self-wringing and machine-washable mop. After much consternation from her endlessly meddling family,Joy convinces Trudy to fork up the loan and produces a first run of her design. She struggles to get the business off the ground and constantly flirts with bankruptcy, but things begin to turn around when she gets a chance meeting with Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), the head honcho at the newly formed QVC home-shopping network. Soon enough, business novice Joy must fight to keep control of her fledgling empire as shady maneuverings threaten to send her back to obscurity.

Jennifer Lawrence is as talented as any actor working right now. She's Russell's muse, and her first starring role for the director is clearly the film's main attraction. Lawrence deftly navigates the rocky terrain of both Joy's life and the unbalanced script she's been saddled with, and her beady-eyed intensity and wide emotional range allow her to command every scene. She more than holds her own alongside veterans like De Niro, Madsen, and Rossellini.

However, Russell never settles on a tone for the movie, possibly because he doesn't trust his source material. To be sure, it's a daunting task to make a compelling flick about a mop and its creator, but Russell's uncharacteristically unsteady hand fails to locate a sense of triumph in this narrative. There's a recurring bit about a fake TV soap opera that's wholly unnecessary. That cathartic-looking scene from the trailer ofJoy firing a shotgun adds nothing to the story. The ideas behind Joy are inherently subversive; you can probably count on one hand the number of Hollywood films that follow a woman's entrepreneurial journey. And the scenes at QVC provide the movie's best moments -- Lawrence once again has superb on-camera chemistry with Bradley Cooper. Yet the black-comedy bits about Joy's dysfunctional family just don't feel complete. Frankly, a lot of this movie could have used some tightening and cleaning up.

All of this might sound a bit overly critical since, in the end, Joy isn't a bad film. It's just hard not to see that the pieces of a better, more complete picture got left on the cutting-room floor. Maybe it's time for Russell to step outside of his comfort zone and try something new; regardless, that shouldn't stop anyone from appreciating Lawrence's talent in Joy.

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