The Interview, A Most Violent Year, Cake

The Interview

Cake

A Most Violent Year

Capsule reviews on three of the last four films of 2014. Only “Leviathan” remains and I’ll see it tonight.

This is 40

There are enough big laughs in “This is 40” that Judd Apatow could have had another “Bridesmaids” on his hands if he’d mustered the self-control to trim the fat – the trite family drama we’ve seen a million times before that detracts from the insightful, sometimes hilarious situational comedy involving parenting and the vicissitudes of marriage. Adorable Paul Rudd plays Pete, a struggling indie record-label owner, and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann his wife Debbie, not doing any better with her small clothing boutique. They’re perfectly good company, but you wonder what more gifted comedians could do with these parts. As it is, the money woes aren’t treated seriously enough to do anything but bring down the proceedings. And yet, every so often, Albert Brooks or Melissa McCarthy comes onto the scene, and you simply sit up in your seat and watch genius at work.

"Drive": To Live and Drive in L.A.

The more I sit here thinking about "Drive," the more parallels I find to "To Live and Die in L.A." This is high praise, as TLADILA is one of my all-time favorite (and most often watched) films. Nicolas Winding Refn's picture opens with Ryan Gosling acting as a getaway driver for two robbers (his day job is as a stunt driver for the movies). "I give you a five minute window," he tells them. "Anything that happens in those five minutes, I've got you covered. Something happens a minute on either side, you're on your own." The gorgeous lights of downtown L.A. at night play across Gosling's face, which we see mostly through his rearview mirror. This sequence can't compare to TLADILA's definitive car chase (driven the wrong way through the L.A. freeway system), but it's a terrific opening set to - of all things - Ralph Lawler's radio call of a Clippers-Raptors game (you had to know I was going to like this movie). Did I hear echoes of William Petersen extolling the virtues of Quentin Dailey's jumper in TLADILA? Yeah, I did. (By the way, later in the movie Gosling takes his neighbor Carey Mulligan and her son on a ride through the same L.A. River basin featured prominently in the TLADILA chase.)