J.T. Kolness ~ Film, Television, Awards Discussion and Reviews

Unbelievably Good Action Saves Unbelievably Inconsistent Third Wick "Chapter" By J.T. Kolness 2014's John Wick was one of the most gleefully good surprises of its year, offering us a shockingly emotional and terrifically badass action thriller and blessing us with a new iconic character for Keanu Reeves to play after the actor had been swinging and missing for years since his last big role in the sci-fi classic The Matrix . Director Chad Stahelski proved to be a brilliant stager of beautifully shot action scenes layered with a crisp sense of humor. Stahelksi upped his game with the uniquely different John Wick Chapter 2 , which switched things up and eyed its focus primarily on crafting some of the most jaw-droppingly choreographed sequenecs of action in modern cinema (rather than the more lowkey approach of the first) and while the film had less emotional resonance and staying power, it still managed to drop our jaws further and clench our fists tighter. John W

An Infectiously Entertaining Return to Bricksburg By J.T. Kolness There are few cinematic surprises as genuine as 2014's The Lego Movie . The fact that it was good was a miracle, the fact that it was one of the best films of its year was astounding, but now here we are, five years later, and that film is now considered the Toy Story of its generation. Shepherded by writer-directors Phil Lord & Christopher Miller (the kings of turning bad ideas into genuinely great films), The Lego Movie inspired filmgoers young and old to dream and build big and love bigger. Oozing with nonstop hilarity, eye-popping visuals, and a crisp and wild pace, the film was a sugar-coated candy shop of earnest positivity and that care and attention was carried over into The Lego Batman Movie (to mostly successful results) and The Lego Ninjago Movie (to less than successful results), both released three years later in 2017. Two years later, Lord & Miller return to write the sequel, directe

"Buzzsaw" Fails to Cut Deep by J.T. Kolness Dan Gilroy has worked in the business for decades. So far back, he was tapped to pen the final rewrite of the infamously never-made Superman Lives . After spending over a year of his life dedicated to that project, only for it to be cancelled, Gilroy built up frustration and finally resonance to move on to other things. During that time, he conceived the ideas that would eventually lead him to making his third directorial feature, Velvet Buzzsaw . Partially inspired by his complicated time working in the film business, you would imagine Gilroy, who delivered us a modern classic with his directorial debut Nightcrawler , would have displayed a little more effort in the writing department. Sure, nuggets of ideas remain in the final product of Velvet Buzzsaw , but the results of this long-conceived thriller feel ultimately half-baked. Set in the ritzy world of art criticism, the film is about a variety of people working in the

No, "They Shall Not" By J.T. Kolness No one could ever really guess in the early stages of Peter Jackson's career that he would wind up being one of the most technologically pioneering filmmakers of this new millenium, but here we are. Delivering monumental epics with his Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as King Kong , and continuing to push the medium with the visual effects company WETA, for better or for worse (given your opinion on the high-frame-rate Hobbit films or The Lovely Bones ), Jackson seems to refuse to be a slouch in the director's chair. In certain screenings of They Shall Not Grow Old , Jackson delivers a forward to the audience, explaining the inception of the film in which the Imperial War Museum granted Jackson their use of World War I footage archives and told him to do whatever he wanted with it. There was never really a concrete idea, just a massive catalog of footage that was left for Jackson to assemble, and he being as bold as he is

"Cold" Is Correct by J.T. Kolness Pawel Pawlikowski is quite a visionary director, managing to craft a unique framing style with his last film, the Oscar-winning Ida (2014) and now Cold War. His unique use of muted black-and-white filtered, 4:3 aspect ratio framing and sticking the subject toward the lower half of the screen beautifully captures a sense of loneliness and quiet fragility for its central characters as the rest of the scenery around them seems to loom about a sense of emptiness. His characters search for a sense of belonging. Why am I here? Where do I fit in? How do we fit in together? The soft lighting he uses glosses a blanket of sensitivity over the stories he chooses to tell. It's very easy to grasp that Pawlikowski loves the films he's making and wants you to love them too. Ida was a very easy film to warm to. Cold War proves otherwise. Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot are our two star-crossed lovers in a story set in post-war Poland where Kulig

Coogan & Reilly Perfectly Recapture Laurel & Hardy By J.T. Kolness Laurel and Hardy, the classic comedians of the early twentieth century, made their charming mark on Hollywood and granting audiences with a one-in-a-million dual pairing of the dainty goof Stan Laurel and the large toe-tapping Oliver Hardy. Beyond Laurel and Hardy, there haven't been many comic duos outside Abbot and Costello, that really had the staying power of these two. Even in the film, as their careers seem to deteriorate and audiences become disinterested in the same-old shtick, it's clear that these two were blissfully unaware of how their legacy would continue to crack smiles long after their deaths. Stan & Ollie , directed by John S. Baird, is a humble, pleasant ride through the last tour of their career, and a reminder of the simplicity of old-time Hollywood where these two could do a song and dance and light up an entire theatre. While the goofy eccentricity of Laurel & Hardy (

Cornish Finds Some Magic In Traditional "King" Tale By J. T. Kolness It's hard to believe Joe Cornish only releasing his second directorial feature, given it's been eight years since his first and previous breakout midnight-madness smash Attack the Block . Cornish has long worked with filmmaker Edgar Wright and even collaborated with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson with the script to 2011's T he Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn , also eight years ago. Cornish seemed like he was truly planting his flag in the industry, but so much time had passed until now with not any much to his credit other than helping craft the screenplay of Ant-Man (2015) with Edgar Wright... years before the script was reworked by Paul Rudd and Adam McKay. So why has this talented filmmaker been such a recluse? Perhaps he was just waiting for the right project or maybe he just felt like hibernating. Somehow, things managed to come together for Cornish,

REVIEW: "Shoplifters" Challenges The Definition of Family by J.T. Kolness From the soft and tender direction of Hirokazu Koreeda comes Shoplifters , a heartfelt story about the bonds of family: what can tear them apart, and what, like the grandma Hatsue's (Kirin Kiki) fabric needle can stitch them back together again. Family relations tension, secrets are withheld for long periods of time, and these people we grow to care about try desperately hard to hide aspects of their past that haunt them. There is something so innocent and sweet about this story that even when the most damning reveals creep their way into the story, when characters open up and speak honestly with one another, it's impossible to not still feel sympathy. Koreeda lets us get to know the sweet side of these people for such an extended amount of time in the most honest and understandable ways, that even when watching them commit their thefts, it's clearly wrong, but it's at least sati

The Oscars: Where There Is Room For More Than One Hysterical Queen A Breakdown of the Academy Award nominations and Assessment of What's Winning What By J.T. Kolness See what I did there? It's a reference to the "hysterical queen" line in Bohemian Rhapsody and a reference to Olivia Colman in The Favourite . It literally took me five whole minutes to come up with that headline and if you don't like it, piss off.  Without getting too ahead of myself, I'm just gonna go down the list category by category, offer my thoughts, and prognosticate at this point what's got the best chance at taking home that gold naked man. I won't be including the shorts on this list because typically when making my winner predictions, I usually just look up pundit predictions the night before the ceremony. I have no idea what any of these are except for Bao . Wasn't Bao great? Bao wins. Moving along... BEST FOREIGN FILM Capernaum (Lebanom) Cold

REVIEW: Kidman Grits Her Teeth and We Grip Our Armrests in "Destroyer" by J.T. Kolness It's no secret that Nicole Kidman is a force to be reckoned with. She's a four-time Oscar nominee and winner (and a whopping thirteen-time Golden Globe nominee) and easily one of our greatest and most recognizable movie actresses. We shouldn't be surprised to see her take a role like this and knock it out of the park. In fact, we should be numb to her talents by now. And yet, within the first few minutes of Karyn Kusama's Destroyer, we are back to being transfixed by Kidman's raw talent. I could write a novel about how good Kidman is in this film and how much weight is granted to this story by her presence, but I have to keep this review a decent length, so allow me to dedicate the next paragraph to Nicole Kidman. Kidman plays the role of a hard-boiled detective on the hunt for a gang leader Silas (Toby Kebbell) she knew in her past that has reemerged and she