In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs column: What music should play when you enter the room — and does that have any place on a job application? Plus: zero-tolerance drug policies in the workplace.
My Highly Subjective List of the Best Movies of 2014
Here’s how this works: I go to the movies. While I’m watching, I think, “I like this quite a lot” or perhaps “I don’t like this very much at all.” Then, at the end of the year (or, if you want to be technical, the beginning of the next), I think back on all the new-release movies I saw in a theater, and attempt to rank my “top 10” films. It’s a radical concept, I know, but with luck you’ll catch on as we go along.
10) Particle Fever Forget Saturday Night Fever and Pac-Man Fever; this documentary followed science’s mad but meticulous search for the Higgs boson, the particle that basically holds the key to life as we know it. (You know, no biggie.) This was more eye-opening than any other film I saw this year, and I was fascinated to learn about the individuals who have dedicated their lives to this incredible work.
9) Monty Python Live (Mostly) If this was indeed goodbye for the legendary British comic troupe, what a wonderful gift they left us with: a live “best of” of classic sketches and songs. Of course they’re older and perhaps have lost half a step here and there, but it only added to the charm. And that the performance was broadcast live to movie theaters around the world made it that much more exciting.
8) The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies After 13 years of movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit, Peter Jackson did not disappoint with the finale. Purists griped about the addition of storylines not in the book and the enhancement of minor characters, but who cares when the filmmaking is this strong. A satisfying and very fun conclusion.
7) Boyhood The film that ended my 25-year Ethan Hawke boycott didn’t quite live up to the hype: I found it overly long and lacking in dramatic arc. But still, you can’t deny the concept—revisiting the same cast over a span of 12 years, and watching a kid grow up before our eyes. Richard Linklater takes on almost every aspect of life (ok, not the Higgs boson) and presents it with an impressive sense of realism.
6) Top Five Falling just short of the top-five is Chris Rock’s latest shot at movie greatness. The film takes a little while to find its footing (a not-funny flashback scene goes on much too long), but I felt it greatly improved as it went along. Rock gives a refreshingly honest portrayal of the pros and cons of fame. We end up with a surprisingly subtle and mature film, aided quite a lot by Rosario Dawson’s tremendous performance.
5) The Grand Budapest Hotel Wes Anderson keeps getting better as a director, and is firing on all cylinders in this madcap comedy with an extremely strong sense of place. If the film doesn’t quite have the heart of some other Anderson efforts, Schwartzman and Goldblum and Murray and Wilson and the rest of the gang make sure you enjoy yourself nonetheless.
4) Only Lovers Left Alive In perhaps the year’s coolest movie, Jim Jarmusch takes a crack at the vampire genre with impressive results. It’s after-hours in burned-out Detroit, and Tom Hiddleston’s morose rocker vampire is a reclusive underground sensation. Tilda Swinton is excellent as his better-but-also-a-vampire half. I wanted to spend more time in the lonely, barren world they inhabit.
3) Under the Skin I will readily admit that I went solely to see Scarlett Johannson as an “alien seductress.” But there’s a lot more going on in this arty sci-fi flick, even if not a lot happens on the, um, surface level. As Johannson picks up lonely dudes and terrible things occur, we get a meditation on solitude and desire. The look (bleak, grey) and sounds (raw, unsettling) are perhaps more important than the plot. More than anything, the sad, creepy, contemplative mood is what stayed with me.
2) Foxcatcher Bennett Miller takes a classic sports-movie structure—down-on-his-luck athlete attempts comeback, facing challenges as we count down to the Big Event—but turns it on its ear. Director Miller slows the pace way down, and it’s quiet, so quiet. For his plot, he utilizes the too-creepy-to-be-fiction story of John du Pont and his obsession with Olympic-caliber wrestling. Steve Carell is a disturbing marvel as du Pont, matched by Channing Tatum’s physicality and vulnerability as Mark Schultz, and Mark Ruffalo as his brother, desperately trying to hold it all together. Foxcatcher rattled me, with its twisted take on everyone’s need for acceptance.
1) Big Eyes Tim Burton challenges himself and emerges with his best film in a long while. What starts as a light-hearted rom-com becomes a pointed commentary on art-vs.-commerce, before spinning into a Hitchcockian thriller where Burton really starts to enjoy himself. He really gets to sink his teeth into the bizarre true-life story of Walter and Margaret Keane, superbly portrayed by Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams. There are laughs, weirdness, period kitsch, building tension, and yes, a Danny Elfman soundtrack. But what raised Big Eyes to the top for me was the real tale of brave Margaret Keane, who despite the times and personal circumstances, kept fighting for her own independence, self-expression, and recognition.
Honorable mentions: The American Side and Guardians of the Galaxy
Worst movie: Transcendence
New releases I saw in a theater this year: 35
My best-of lists from: 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2009
You can check out all my movie reviews by clicking: here and here
New Year’s Resolutions 2015
1. Since I do have an entire year, maybe don’t wait until 11 minutes before posting this to write hilarious list of new year’s resolutions.
2. Try to figure out why touring companies of Broadway shows never, ever seem to schedule performances in New York City. Totally unfair!
3. You will never believe the SHOCKING reason I decided to stop writing clickbait headlines!
4. I shalt not covet my neighbor’s… hubba hubba!!!! [Insert some other biblical mumbo-jumbo here later.]
5. Remember: You’re never fully dressed without a smile, or pants.
6. Stop playing Candy Crush Soda Saga so much; spend the extra time binging on candy and soda.
7. Return overdue library books, but kidnapped librarian stays here until demands are met!
8. Stop smoking e-cigarettes until somebody figures out how to eliminate the unwieldy extension cord.
9. Go out for drinks with Bill Cosby and when he isn’t looking, switch glasses.
10. Write a novel on a whole bunch of bumper stickers, mail one to everybody in the United States, and ask them to pretty please drive in a particular order.
11. This year, really focus on the true meaning of Cyber Monday.
12. Spend more time helping the harmless. What’s that? It’s “homeless”? Ooh gross!
13. Devise “five-year plan” for the launch of my sure-to-be-hugely-successful eyeglass store: 2020.
14. Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, new stand-alone HBO service… If only I could come up with some way to bundle together all the different channels and send them directly to people’s home television sets through some sort of, I don’t know, a cable or something?
15. Be generous and put a link in my resolutions with a $1,000 prize code for the first 50 people who click on it.
16. Apologize for tricking people into clicking on one of my pay-per-page-view articles.
17. Encourage merger of Starbucks and StarKist; only sell tuna-flavored coffee.
18. Make fun of that dumb-head Kim Jong-un but do it way down in the list because like everybody else, he probably won’t read that far.
19. Work on my golf game; inquire about those metal sticks the other players seem to be carrying.
20. Release my next album only on vinyl flooring.
21. Swim the English channel (BBC America).
23. List my resolutions in the correct order.
22. Keep in mind that the elderly are people too, who just happen to be wearing some kind of crazy all-wrinkly bodysuits.
24. Contact my first wife and explain that it was all my fault: I shouldn’t have stolen her ID, forged her signature, dressed up that mannequin, and married her without her knowledge or consent.
25. Come up with a way for blacks and whites, police officers and everyday citizens, to all respect and appreciate one another; start doing that just as soon as this Simpsons marathon is over.
• My resolutions for 2014
• My resolutions for 2013
• My resolutions for 2012
Movie Review: Top Five
4 stars out of 5
I am always fascinated to see the publicity machine at work. Chris Rock had a movie coming out, that movie was aimed at me as an audience member, so suddenly, Chris Rock was EVERYWHERE i might possibly look: magazine covers, TV shows, radio interviews, etc. (His very funny Letterman appearance is literally re-airing as I type this.) Rock’s New York magazine interview went viral on my Facebook feed. The message I kept hearing over and over: The movie’s great, the movie’s great, the movie’s great; this is the one that will turn it all around for Chris Rock in the movie business.
And yet… I saw the trailer, I’d see the commercials, and I kept thinking: “This is going to be yet another unsuccessful Chris Rock movie.”
Guess what? It hasn’t been very successful. Which is a shame, because it is genuinely a really good movie.
Early on, I wasn’t so sure. I was enjoying it but was thinking, maybe this was overhyped, maybe Chris Rock is not quite as talented a screenwriter and director as he is a stand-up. And while that ultimately may still be the case, Rock ends up piecing together a much more subtle, complex, interesting, ambitious, and satisfying movie than I previously would’ve guessed.
Was it as simple as just “writing what he knows”? Maybe. Rock plays Andre Allen, a popular and well-regarded stand-up comedian who has been wasting his talent on the big screen, so now tries to make… the Serious Film. (There’s clearly some Eddie Murphy in the character too; Allen has walked away from stand-up.) Even with little touches such as people in the background calling out his character’s name, Rock is giving us a very honest portrayal of what it’s like to have a certain level of fame.
Rock also has a wonderful feel for New York; the city is rarely portrayed so realistically. From neighborhood to neighborhood, it feels authentic.
The script is loaded with different topics; it feels a little like Chris Rock’s State of the (Gabrielle?) Union address, or an outline for a stand-up routine transformed into a feature script. Aside from the many plusses and minuses of fame, there’s love, family, friendship, substance abuse, hip-hop history, reality television, Tyler Perry movies, wanting to be what you’re not, and finally, appreciating your own strengths.
And yet, Rock doesn’t really hit us over the head with any of it. (Though I do agree with Terry Gross that a comedic bit on gay sex was played a bit too broadly.) The subjects are woven into the conversation, with lots and lots of laughs as well, as we spend a long day’s journey into night with Andre Allen.
Rock is helped immeasurably by Rosario Dawson (as Chelsea Brown, the New York Times reporter interviewing Allen), who gives the best performance I’ve ever seen from her. The character she creates is smart, sexy, confident, and cool, but also a little jaded and vulnerable. Dawson goes toe-to-toe with Rock the entire movie and absolutely holds her own.
Who else is in this movie? Everybody. I was especially happy to see Ben Vereen, Brian Regan, Seinfeld, Tracy Morgan, Allan Havey, J.B. Smoove, and Wee-Bey.
So, there’s all that, and the movie builds to a really nice conclusion. Top Five isn’t a lock for my top five of the year… but top 10 is looking good.
Ask Jack: Job Search Resolutions, Candy Crush Addicts, Job of the Week
In this week’s installment of my AOL Jobs column: job-search resolutions for 2015, and the strong allure of video games while you’re supposed to be working.
My Internet Radio Playlist, 12/30/14
EPISODE #161: THE PAST
The Who — “Happy Jack” [THEME]
Calvin Johnson — “The Past Comes Back To Haunt Me”
Paul McCartney — “Ever Present Past”
Robert Forster — “Danger in the Past”
Prefab Sprout — “A Prisoner of the Past”
Teenage Fanclub — “The Past”
Bleached — “Searching Through the Past”
Wesley Stace — “Pieces of the Past”
Smog — “Cold Blooded Old Times”
Mary Hopkin — “Those Were the Days”
Harry Nilsson — “Remember”
Billie Holiday — “Yesterdays”
The Field Mice — “Emma’s House”
The Smiths — “Back to the Old House”
Eleanor Friedberger — “I Am the Past”
broadcast live from Hoboken, NJ, on “Jack’s Aquarium”
Tuesday, 12/30/14, 10:00–11:15 a.m. eastern time
Gridiron Gastronomy
I’m really pleased to be back in the New York Times today! The article is in the Metropolitan section, on the NJ Dining page. Timed to upcoming bowl games, etc., I visited eateries in north, central, and south Jersey looking for great takeout options.
Movie Review: Inherent Vice
3.5 stars out of 5
Twenty years ago, maybe a little more, I picked up a used copy of V. by Thomas Pynchon. I tried to read it, I really did. I like to see things through, you know? But it was really tough going; hard to understand. At some point, I put the bookmark in, put the book down… and I never picked it up again. It was the first time I ever did that, not finishing a book, and I felt kind of ashamed. But it was also strangely liberating. Have only done it once more (sorry, Howard Zinn), so the experience has stayed with me. And I’ve never attempted to read another word by Thomas Pynchon.
Yesterday, I saw Inherent Vice, based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon, and I can proudly say that I sat through the whole thing. I liked it, in fact! Now, did I understand it? No I did not.
This was written and directed by good ol’ Paul Thomas Anderson. Since 1997, I’ve seen each of his movies in the theater. I like P.T. Anderson! He makes good, interesting films. Some people didn’t like The Master — they didn’t “get it” — but I sure did. I loved it. Mm-hmm!
With Inherent Vice, is there anything to get? I’m not sure. As the commercial mostly tells you, you’ve got Doc (Joaquin Phoenix) the private eye, and his ex, and her boyfriend, and his wife, and her boyfriend, and Doc’s current girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon, done wandering through the woods), and Owen Wilson somehow, and Josh Brolin as a cop. And somebody’s trying to bilk money from a rich guy, and some other stuff is happening. If you are a fan of, oh, PLOT, and, um, THINGS MAKING SENSE… then this is perhaps not the movie for you.
Viewed as a series of interconnected skits, however, Inherent Vice works rather well. The leads are having a blast—Phoenix probably paid them to play this role, and Brolin gets to play things both totally straight and totally goofy. There are lots of laughs and lots of weird moments to enjoy. You like cameos? There are cameos. Martin Short and Omar from The Wire, for example. Anderson switches gears a couple of times, maybe just to remind us that he’s in charge. (There’s a quiet, sexy, sexy scene late in the film that is certainly a mood-changer. Hoo boy.)
Reviewing a movie of seeming non-sequiturs, may I make one? I have been noticing, in this movie and others, that there is a breed of young actress—not the best actresses, mind you, just certain supporting characters—who speak with this… I don’t know… forced casualness, perhaps?… and it’s driving me insane. I don’t know why but I feel like Girls has something to do with it.
OK, back to the review. There’s good music, but of course there is—it’s a P.T. Anderson film. It’s the early 70s in southern California and all is groovy. So, with the detectives and all, this has a bit of a Chinatown vibe, mixed with Easy Rider and maybe Peter Sellers in The Party. But I’m especially reminded of a movie, Two-Lane Blacktop, which I saw in film class. James Taylor (!) and Dennis Wilson (!) go from town to town, drag racing. Nothing much happens, and at the end, the “film” seemingly burns up in the projector.
This felt kinda sorta like that. Inherent Vice is a lot of fun, and not much more. And that’s OK. Now, am I inspired to try to read Pynchon again? No I am not.
Jack Silbert, curator