Say New York is another character one more damn time. Image via A24

Let me get this out of the way before I formally start this review: I do not know New York City better than people who actually live in New York (I can take a train directly into Grand Central from my local stop; that’s where my credentials end), but I at least understand it better than people who have only seen the inside of the Bubba Gump in Times Square.

So once upon a time, New York City was an awful crime-ridden hellhole. This is what you will hear today anytime you enter a trendy Williamsburg restaurant. Mid-bite of a $30 sandwich, some old guy will begin to rant about how horrible the neighborhood once was, and also how much better the city was when The Ramones were around. Nostalgia is a complicated force with many faces.

Instead of piggy backing of off the human need for nostalgia, A Most Violent Year instead uses this time period as a backdrop to tell a surprisingly mellow story. The film is set in 1981, supposedly the peak of deadly crime in the city. It seems like the worst possible time to make a living, but Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) runs a successful oil business. He prides himself on his honesty and integrity. Unlike most people, he can get ahead without compromising his morals. However, as his business gets threatened by rivals in some very violent ways, he is forced to compromise. The problem with Abel is that he is often so passive that it is hard to tell what moral compass it is that he doesn’t want to break.

Oscar Isaac is one of those actors who is so good and so varied in his talent that it makes me angry. Same goes for Jessica Chastain, who scores big as his wife and bookkeeper Anna. She is an embodiment of a tough new money attitude. The most interesting scenes in the film are the ones in which she plays a starring role. In one standout scene, Abel and Anna must decide what to do with a dying deer on the side of the road. He grabs a crowbar; she silently grabs a gun and shoots it without hesitation. Abel might seem to be the most powerful person in the film, but he loses in the war at home.

Scenes like that make me wish Chastain could have had more screen time. She is a source of energy that the film needs, because it often moves at a snail’s pace. At times, I didn’t feel as frightened as I should have during some terrible events, like when a man with a gun gets dangerously close to murdering Abel and his family.

Maybe this is because I was expecting a crime thriller, when this is really a story about the struggle to avoid criminal activity in a world that demands short cuts. A Most Violent Year is a morality tale that sometimes feels more like a novel than a film. Yet, J.C. Chandor, who has the name of a 1940s film noir detective, has a directorial style that feels out of the past. One chase scene, which involves multiple types of transportation, feels like something right out of The French Connection. It builds not just on tension from the moment, but on everything we have known about the character prior.

The highest compliment I can pay A Most Violent Year is that it is certainly a beautiful looking film. It is shot mainly during that depressing part of any given winter day when it seems like the day is ending just as it is beginning. There is one particularly beautiful image where blood and oil mix, something that even Upton Sinclair probably couldn’t come up with in writing. The film captures the gritty, graffiti-covered abandoned factories of the outer boroughs that haven’t gone exactly gone away today, despite gentrification. The Manhattan skyline is featured prominently in the film but usually as a blurry backdrop beyond the reaches of the 59th Street Bridge. These aren’t people living outside the law, but they are living in the shadow of greatness.

The old cliche goes that every New York story features New York as a third character. A Most Violent Year is a New York story that at least tries to look at this familiar city a little differently. We have seen enough couples fall in love on top of the Empire State Building, so why not take us to the East River docks for a change. A Most Violent Year isn’t perfect, but that adds to some of its charm. It is a familiar story about the downside of the American Dream told just a little differently.

March to the beat of your own drum. Image via Entertainment Weekly

Let’s start this review with a new spin on a classic joke:

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Get a cymbal thrown at your head first.

Just in case you were getting sick of watching people in movies succeed without actually putting much work in, Whiplash offers a solution. That solution, of course, is to watch somebody drum until their hands bleed and blister.

Whiplash has been buzzed about ever since it debuted at Sundance this past winter. It both lives up to and exceeds the hype. It is a film that manages to be both insult comedy and horror at the same time. While the horror part might seem like a stretch, I do feel afraid to listen to jazz now.

Every trailer and commercial you might have seen for Whiplash are misleading in a way that serves it well. Remember how you were when you first got into college? You were incredibly naïve in an endearing sort of way. Sure, there are people who knew everything at that point; those people are called liars. Anyway, Andrew Neyman (Miles Teller) enters the best music school in the country with high hopes of being the best drummer alive. Even if you find Miles Teller annoying (there are people who do), it is hard to deny the power of his performance here. His stammering awkwardness hides a frightening ambition that is thrilling to watch.

Neyman is about to get the literal slap in the face he didn’t know he deserved. One day, he is “discovered” by Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) and brought into Fletcher’s band. Fletcher is the teacher everybody wants, because he is tough in a way that I have never seen any mentor be in a movie before. He is unpredictable, and perhaps the scariest part about him is that he will never say “good job,” because to him, there is no such thing as a job well done.

I could probably write an entire review about J.K. Simmons’ performance, because that is how good he is in Whiplash. It is sad that people are just now realizing how lucky we are to have him around as an actor, but I guess playing against type is the best way to gain recognition. Normally, Simmons comes off as the kind, mild-mannered Midwestern dad. Here, he plays Mr. Miyagi by way of R. Lee Ermy. In fact, just imagine if the entire first half of Full Metal Jacket was stretched out into a film. That is what Whiplash is. Simmons portrays Fletcher more like a general making sure his troops don’t get shot than a conductor who is about to lead a symphony.

Whiplash takes the typical story of an underdog overcoming the odds and flips it on its head. Remember the training montage in Rocky? Of course you do; it’s when he eats raw eggs and then runs up the Philadelphia Museum of Art stairs. After that, Rocky is suddenly ready to take on Apollo Creed. A similar montage takes place in Whiplash less than halfway through, and is followed by Miles Teller getting yelled at even more. Plus, Andrew gets his Adrian (they even get a nice little meet cute at a movie theater), and then tells her to go away so he can play the drums more. In the world of Whiplash, the training never ends. In most films like this, the effort matters more than the actual outcome of the competition. Whiplash will make you rethink what it means to “push yourself.” It’s not just about doing more than is expected of you; it is about doing more than is humanly possible.

Whiplash also happens to be one of those films that makes you view something you didn’t think you cared much about in a whole new light. First time director Damien Chazelle clearly knows the world of jazz better than anybody and he is not afraid to show the darker side of it. That is right, you will see lots of bloody hands and lots of spit being emptied from a section of Trombones.

Chazelle’s directing puts you right into the center of this world and refuses to take you out until he feels like he is ready to. In a way, Whiplash takes the audience along for a long con. Just as Fletcher pushes Andrew way past all possible limits, Whiplash does the same to the viewer. Just when you think Andrew is finished, just wait, there is even more. Whiplash can be an excruciating ride, and I say that in the best way possible. Few films actually try to push the viewer. Most try to make moviegoing easier and more accessible. Watch Whiplash and prepare to be challenged, and ultimately rewarded. Mankind needs more movies like Whiplash.

Brain Farts From The Edge

• Doctor Fletcher is a doctor. Sure. That reminds of one of my favorite 30 Rock jokes.
• I think I should just open every review from now on with a Catskills style joke.
• Probably the scariest part of Whiplash is that giant vein that bulges out of J.K. Simmons’ head every time he gets angry.
• Inside Llewyn Davis would have been a much different film if Llewyn had Fletcher as a mentor.
• Whiplash deserves a lot of points for its screenplay, which never tries to give its characters any “save the cat” moments. It is hard to find a movie justify a character’s selfishness like Whiplash does.
• Damien Chazelle. With a name like that, you’re basically destined to hang out exclusively in jazz clubs.

“We have always been a nation of immigrants who hate the new immigrants.” -Jon Stewart

Between Colonial Williamsburg and 90s nostalgia, humans have a bad habit of white washing history. Between the men dressed in funny outfits and the All That reruns, we often forget the wars and the dysentery.

Because of this, I praise the heavens above when a film like The Immigrant comes out. This is the kind of film that treats history less like an epic poem and more like a rap lyric. In other words, this film is aware that life is a dirty game, and you’ve got to play dirty to win. Now, excuse me while I slap myself in the face for writing those last few sentences.

Set in 1921, The Immigrant touches a nerve for me, as all Jews must grow both sentimental and weary at the sight of Ellis Island. Passage into America meant escape from Cossacks, but it also meant living in squalor while dealing with even more persecution (this went for every ethnic group that came here). The Immigrant tells the story of Ewa Cybulska (Marion Cotillard), a young Catholic woman from Poland who is willing to do anything to survive. Or maybe she doesn’t want to do anything to survive, but she is forced to do so.

Not long after arriving at Ellis Island, Ewa is detained and nearly deported. Luckily, she is saved by  the benevolent, vaguely Jewish, Bruno Weiss (Joaquin Phoenix). While Bruno takes care of her and gives her a home, he also forces her into a harsh life of prostitution. Phoenix is on a winning streak lately, and he is so good in this that it is almost hard to describe, but I will try anyway. It looks like he learned a few tricks from Philip Seymour Hoffman while working with him in The Master. Like Hoffman did with Lancaster Dodd, Phoenix paints Bruno as stable on the outside, yet unpredictable within. Every act on kindness seems to be cloaking some sort of shady intentions. Making bad intentions reasonable and good intentions questionable is the crossroads at which the perfect amount of moral ambiguity can be created.

The Immigrant is the kind of film that is rarely made anymore, because it is the kind of film that audiences don’t normally want to see. There is no nice message at the end, and no characters ever really act out of kindness towards one another. It is an endless pit of sadness, yet it is not sadness porn, as some might call it. This is not like 12 Years a Slave that you watch once and never want to see again. There is something both compelling and oddly enjoyable about this film. There is no real comic relief to be found, but the immersion into the culture of 1920s New York is seamless. Besides this, the most enjoyable part of the film is the thrilling plot, which heads in whichever direction it feels like taking.

The Immigrant is a film about the American Dream, but not in the way in which everybody ultimately gets what they want. When you think about The Immigrant, think about The Godfather: Part II and Once Upon a Time in America. That might seem like a bit of a reach, but this is the kind of film that aspires to climb to that high of a level. This is more of a film about what America takes away than what it gives. Even if you are one of the lucky few to get a shot at this great opportunity, that doesn’t mean that your life is all that great. Everyone worked and fought so hard to reach New York, and then once they got there, they all wanted to get away. Nothing better reflects this than the very last shot of the film. I dare not spoil it, but it’s one of the most incredible cinematic illusions I have ever seen. Once you see it, you can’t forget it.