Jeremy Beck

Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.

The Failures of 2013 (Part II): Lone Rangers, Hillbilly Gangsters, and Walt Disney

Jeremy BeckFeatures

Today in the Manifesto’s Review of 2013, we’re continuing with our look at the year’s failures. If you missed Part I, you can find it here.

The Lone Ranger. I concede that The Lone Ranger is not a good movie. Tonally, it lurches between lifeless comedy and nostalgic neo-Western. The writing is both winkingly self-conscious and painfully earnest, but the jokes are dead on arrival, and the odes to the grandeur of the Old West feel strained and unconvincing. The typically reliable Johnny Depp seems unsure of how much humor he’s supposed to bring to his character, an uncertainty that applies equally to the film’s weird flashback structure. And the plot is both overstuffed and undercooked. It’s a mess. Read More

Read more

The Failures of 2013, Part I: Shyamalan, “Anchorman,” Meryl Streep, and Oprah

Jeremy BeckFeatures

Earlier in the Manifesto’s Review of 2013, we looked at the unmemorable movies of the year. Those movies were lackluster not because they were bad but because they barely tried to be good; they were inoffensive and harmless, meaning there was no reason to remember them. This post will highlight the flip side of the coin and examine movies that actually strove to be good but flopped in their attempt. In a way, these are nobler pictures in that they’re failures of misguided ambition and strenuous effort rather than of complacent mediocrity. But they’re failures all the same. Read More

Read more

March Madness 2014: Gators and Shockers and Bairstows (and Jabari Parker)

Jeremy BeckUncategorized

There’s a great throwaway scene in Major League when the immortal Bob Uecker is growing increasingly frustrated by the combination of the Indians’ poor play and the city’s utter disinterest in the team. He’s doing his solo radio show, and he knows nobody’s listening anyway, so when he struggles to locate the sponsor he’s supposed to be plugging, he just gives up: “Christ, I can’t find it. To hell with it!”

Well, that’s pretty much how I feel analyzing this year’s March Madness bracket. I didn’t watch quite as much college basketball in 2013–14 as in years past—which is to say that the number of hours I spent glued in front of my television dipped from “coma-inducing” to “merely socially unacceptable”—but I’d like to think I’m fairly knowledgeable about a fair number of the 68 teams competing for the national title. Yet at no point during this season did I watch a team and think to myself, “That squad is definitely making the Final Four.” Well, that isn’t strictly true, but the one team that did inspire those thoughts recently lost its second-best player—who has been repeatedly compared to Hakeem Olajuwon—to something called a “spinal stress fracture”. Thanks a lot, Joel Embiid; you just robbed the Manifesto of its one surefire Final Four pick. Read More

Read more

2013 Oscars: Show recap (“12 Years a Slave” holds off “Gravity”)

Jeremy BeckOscars

The Manifesto was overdue for a good night. After hitting on a paltry two-thirds of my predictions each of the past two years (14-for-21), I hit on all but two categories at the 2013 Academy Awards, finishing 19-for-21 for a success rate of 90%. Now, did I do that well because the awards were thoroughly predictable, or because I’m a prognosticating genius? I’ll let you decide.

As for the show itself, you know what? It could have been worse. I’m not a huge Ellen DeGeneres fan, but after last year’s Seth MacFarlane fiasco (for the record, I liked him), the Academy needed to bring in someone safe and inoffensive. By those guidelines, DeGeneres did her job. Her opening monologue was generally funny, and her overall demeanor was enthusiastic, playful, and non-threatening. The majority of her jokes landed, and the ones that didn’t were earnest and warmhearted rather than mean-spirited. Her act wore a tad thin as the show went on (and on and on)—particularly the pizza bit, which was strained to begin with and gradually turned into a complete train wreck as it continued—but that’s more indicative of the defunct nature of the hosting gig in general than any specific failure on DeGeneres’ part. Read More

Read more

Oscars 2013: Prediction roundup

Jeremy BeckOscars

I wrote earlier that, as obsessively as I analyze the Oscars, I tend not to care who actually wins. This year, that’s true with the exception of two categories: Best Original Screenplay and—much to my amazement—Best Original Song. If my preferred nominee fails to scoop the statuette in those areas, you’ll likely hear my wail of anguish all the way from suburban Denver. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to a competitive, unpredictable night.

Below you’ll find my predictions in each of the 21 feature categories (as always, I’m declining to predict the three shorts). The predictions are organized by level of confidence, so for the first four, I advise you to pick something else in your pool. Read More

Read more