{"id":546,"date":"2014-12-31T17:49:56","date_gmt":"2014-12-31T17:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=546"},"modified":"2014-12-31T17:49:56","modified_gmt":"2014-12-31T17:49:56","slug":"sag-screener-movie-wrap-up-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/?p=546","title":{"rendered":"SAG Screener Movie Wrap-Up #2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hope you all had a\u00a0beautiful Christmas\/Hanukkah\/Whatever. For me, nothing says “home for the holidays” quite like a confirmed diagnosis of bronchitis and gnarly ear infection. Wahoo! Thank Cripes my new doctor’s cute. Which only compliments\u00a0the fact that I’ve had some considerable cabin fever-y time to lounge about in my skull\u00a0jammies going insane. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Which brings us to:<\/strong><\/p>\n

SAG SCREENER MOVIE WRAP-UP #2:<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Click pics for trailers)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Whiplash” –\u00a0Exhilarating! J.K. Simmons<\/a> is the R. Lee Ermey<\/a>-like\u00a0conductor\/drill\u00a0sergeant of\u00a0Shaffer Conservatory, who sees great\u00a0potential in a wimpy young drumming pupil. The two clash in ways you haven’t seen lately in this\u00a0highly-nerve-wracking\u00a0emotional thriller\u2026one which kinda felt like a\u00a0cinematic hybrid of “Full Metal Jacket” and “Fame”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was very surprised to learn that Miles Teller<\/a>, the young man who plays determined-to-be-the-next-Buddy Rich student, Andrew, was NOT, in fact, cast for his drumming prowess. Sure, he knew how to beat\u00a0the skins a bit prior to winning his role…but the dude basically had to be put through a jazz drumming boot camp to appear as convincing as he does onscreen. And guess who plays his nebbish-y pops? Paul Reiser<\/a>! But \u201cWhiplash\u201d is ALL about J.K.. I mean, how reliable is this guy? Going all the way back to his terrifying turn as Neo-Nazi prison inmate Vern Schillinger<\/a> on HBO\u2019s \u201cOz\u201d. I LOVED hating that character. And I liked loathing his monster Fletcher here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cStill Alice\u201d – Oof. Love Julianne Moore<\/a>, mean it – and I\u00a0really do – but this one was a snore<\/span>. Geez, I wanted to care, I REALLY did. But this just felt like a drab, flat, stale LIFETIME<\/a> movie. And I was so<\/em> into the premise here. Are you kidding? Early onset Alzheimer’s is a TERRIFYING notion. But any looming dread of Moore’s deterioration just came off…listless <\/em>to me.\u00a0And I don\u2019t know what it is about Alec Baldwin<\/a> these days, but every time he turns up in something, I just can\u2019t help but chuckle. Maybe it\u2019s the hair. Or at least it\u2019s gotta be the pursed lips. Hey, it’s not HIS fault he’s an absolute riot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Alec-Baldwin\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you really wanna see Moore at her finest, check out \u201cSafe\u201d<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Gone Girl” – Oh, boy. I didn’t read the book (and now I don’t plan to), but I believe I have seen ENOUGH of this story to last me the rest of my lame-ass lifetime. This film is SEVEN AND A HALF HOURS LONG. And things get REAL murky from the second half onwards.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thought Neil Patrick Harris<\/a> and the score by the Nine Inch Nails guy<\/a> were spot on. But I’m sorry to say I was hardly captivated. Gotta hand it to that\u00a0David Fincher<\/a>, though. Man, that\u00a0guys gets to do whatEVER he wants. I’m a huge fan of his “Fight Club” and “Se7en”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

OTHER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh, it’s so silly but you kinda gotta rent “Starring Adam West” on iTunes. I watched the old “Batman” TV show growing up like most of us did, and so\u00a0it was a real hoot to spend 90 minutes with the geriatric Adam West<\/a> of today. And OF COURSE West is a total character. A real hambone and super bizarre. He also PAINTS these days. But I liked that the doc had an actual\u00a0through-line\u00a0(getting Adam West a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame<\/a>) and it was fun to see Ralph Garman<\/a> care so much. I made a short film once with Ralph and you can really tell he cares about Adam, which I found immensely moving. Even ol’ Burt Ward<\/a> shows up at one of those goofy conventions! Yes, they’re still friends…<\/strong><\/p>\n

More movies to come! It’s crazy how many they sent!<\/strong><\/p>\n

WINE PAIRING: Tonight is New Year’s Eve. I’ve never been the biggest New Year’s fan AT ALL,\u00a0but I have to say, I am looking forward to a fresh start in 2015. Not only do I have big plans for Max Koch Uncorked but I also\u00a0hope to DRAW a helluva lot more in the next 365 days. So why not celebrate tonight with the RED sparkling Rouge<\/a> from Frank Family Vineyards<\/a>! Cheers! Happy New Year! Happy Days! And this<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hope you all had a beautiful Christmas\/Hanukkah\/Whatever. For me, nothing says “home for the holidays” quite like a confirmed diagnosis of bronchitis and gnarly ear infection. Wahoo! Thank Cripes my new doctor’s cute. Which only compliments the fact that I’ve had some considerable cabin fever-y time to lounge about in my skull jammies going insane. Which brings us […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[145,143,144,146,141,142],"class_list":["post-546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-frank-family-vineyards","tag-j-k-simmons","tag-miles-teller","tag-ralph-garman","tag-starring-adam-west","tag-whiplash"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4VgPA-8O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=546"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maxkochuncorked.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}