Oscars 2014: Who Will Win/Who Should Win

             

      Every year the Oscars come and go and there always seem to be at least a few upsets. Having been a big supporter of the Oscars over the years despite its seemingly endless quest to make me hate the prestigious awards show with unnecessary winners, I am writing this to both say who I think will win and who should win. So without further ado....here are my predictions and hopes in all major categories:
Best Picture: Who will win: 12 Years A Slave. There's no doubt in my mind that this important historical drama will take home the gold due to its tough to swallow but ultimately powerful subject matter and strong performances.
Who should win: The Wolf Of Wall Street. Yes, I know many people spoke out against this film but I have come to the conclusion that the sensitivity of those people ultimately didn't allow them to acknowledge the fact that this is one of Scorcese's masterpieces, up there with Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.

Best Actor: Who will win: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club. At one point, I may have said Chiwetel Ejiofor but ever since the strong campaigning of McConaughey and team, the multiple wins that have already come McConaughey's way, his terrific acting year in 2013 and his dedication to the role which included losing a gross amount of wait, I think he's finally going to get the gold.
Who should win: Bruce Dern, Nebraska. Dern's been a legend for decades and has never won an Oscar and his performance in the black and white drama Nebraska is definitive proof of why he's been considered so great for so long. An honorable mention is Leonardo DiCaprio due to the fact that his performance in The Wolf Of Wall Street was so incredibly unrestrained and just plain fantastic but give it to Dern...the man deserves it.

Best Actress: Who will win: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine. Blanchett's performance in the Woody Allen drama about a rich woman whose husband leaves her prompting her to move in with her sister is a complete lock. She has more than proven to the Academy what she's made of with this performance and they will no doubt eat it up.
Who should win: Judi Dench, Philomena. Yes...I know Dench has already won two Oscars but her work in this film about a woman desperately trying to track down her estranged son with the help of a journalist (Steve Coogan) is the kind of work that proves why she's such a legend. As great as Blanchett, Adams and Streep were (I left out Bullock on purpose,) Dench's was the stand out of the bunch.

Best Supporting Actor: Who will win: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club. This is one of the tougher categories to choose as Leto is definitely still the favorite for most people but the talk of how great his performance as a cross dressing AIDS patients was has gone down quite significantly since the film's initial release.
Who should win: Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips. With a natural screen presence as the leader of a group of Somali pirates who take a ship hostage, Abdi gives one of those performances that definitely proves that a first time actor can have the best performance amongst much more experienced actors such as Michael Fassbender, Jared Leto and Bradley Cooper.

Best Supporting Actress: Who will win: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave. Another performance by a not so experienced performer who proves that the power of a performance is in the hands of the performer and not their experience level, Nyong'o will no doubt win for her performance as a slave who forms a bond with a man sold into slavery.
Who should win: Lupita Nyong'o, 12 Years A Slave. As much as I want Jennifer Lawrence to win simply due to my never ending infatuation with her, Lawrence's performance in American Hustle, great as it was, could not match the powerfulness that Nyong'o brought to her role. One of the toughest roles anyone had to play in 2013, Nyong'o shows that Hollywood and actors can still come up with original, great performances from not so enjoyable subject matter.

Best Director: Who will win: Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity. As with last year's Life Of Pi, the winner for best director will not take home the best picture Oscar as well. Cuaron will win for his visual work on the space-set thriller Gravity.
Who should win: Alexander Payne, Nebraska. Not only has Payne been an incredibly underrated director for almost two decades but he managed to make the southern set drama Nebraska a beautiful film and integrated black and white flawlessly. Not an easy accomplishment in modern day cinema if I do say so myself.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Who will win: 12 Years A Slave, John Ridley. There's no doubt that the powerful book to screen adaptation of the harrowing tale of one man's being sold into slavery will take home the gold for best picture and Ridley's view in which he adapted the book by former slave Solomon Northup will make Oscar voters swoon.
Who should win: Terence Winter, The Wolf Of Wall Street. The man created "Boardwalk Empire" and wrote for "The Sopranos" and has now written a film adaptation of a memoir that easily could have not translated well to the big screen. Winter knew that making this film adaptation into a straight drama would make it too cliche and making it into a straight comedy would be too over the top so he brilliantly mixed both with no problem. Needless to say, I want this man to take home the statue.

Best Original Screenplay: Who will win: Spike Jonze, Her. In the not so distant future, Jonze will win an Oscar for a film about a man who falls for his computer system. This film no doubt will be looked at by the Academy as not only the best original screenplay but as a chance to give Jonze the recognition he has long deserved.
Who should win: Spike Jonze, Her. This is about as flawless as a screenplay as one can write made even better by the fact that Jonze never went into the laughable territory he easily could have went to. Joaquin Phoenix was no doubt robbed of a best actor nomination but I'm happy to say that Jonze will deservedly win a best original screenplay Oscar.

And here are just my votes on who will and should win for the other not so major categories:
Best Foreign Film: Who will win: The Hunt, Who should win: The Broken Circle Breakdown.
Best Documentary Feature: Who will win: The Act Of Killing, Who should win: 20 Feet From Stardom.
Best Animated Feature: Who will win: Frozen, Who should win: Frozen.
Best Cinematography: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Prisoners.
Best Costume Design: Who will win: The Great Gatsby, Who should win: American Hustle.
Best Documentary Short: Who will win: Prison Terminal: The Last Days Of Private Jack Hall, Who should win: Prisoner Terminal: The Last Days Of Private Jack Hall.
Best Film Editing: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Captain Phillips.
Best Makeup And Hairstyling: Who will win: Dallas Buyers Club, Who should win: Dallas Buyers Club.
Best Original Song: Who will win: Let It Go, Who should win: Happy.
Best Production Design: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Her.
Best Animated Short Film: Who will win: Get A Horse!, Who should win: Get A Horse!
Best Live Action Short Film: Who will win: The Voorman Problem, Who should win: Helium.
Best Sound Editing: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Lone Survivor.
Best Sound Mixing: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Lone Survivor.
Best Visual Effects: Who will win: Gravity, Who should win: Star Trek Into Darkness.

3 Days To Kill Review

Dances with kills----Kevin Costner as a spy on one last mission and Amber Heard as his sultry boss in 3 Days To Kill
                             3 Days To Kill comes courtesy of the writing team of Adi Hasak and Luc Besson, whose previous effort, From Paris With Love is a film that so charmingly revels in its complete and utter stupidity that it became one of the most entertaining films I saw in 2010. I suspect come 2015 I'll be saying the same thing about 3 Days To Kill. This is an utterly ludicrous film with enough plot holes and unintentionally hilarious moments in its 2 hour running time that it gives the Twilight saga a run for their money. The film would not exist if star Kevin Costner was not still a big working name. This makes sense considering he's the key to giving this film its edge. This is a film that proves his seemingly endless ability to kick serious ass and make it look both totally realistic and seemingly easy. If it were anybody else....none of this would have worked.

                             In the film, Costner plays Ethan Renner...a spy who plans to go into retirement after he learns he's dying of cancer. However, when a sultry femme fatale named Vivi (Amber Heard) hires Ethan for one last mission in exchange for an experimental drug that can potentially save his life, he accepts. All the while, Ethan is making an honest attempt to reconnect with his estranged daughter and wife (Hailee Steinfeld and Connie Nielsen) as well as allowing homeless people to live in his apartment (?) and trying to track down a villainous something or other called The Albino.

                             Yes.....the plot makes about as little sense as one plot could possibly make. However, Costner keeps this thing on the right track by giving the audience an easily relatable character despite the fact that he's involved in a plot that makes you think "wait..what...how...since when did that happen?" This is not to say the other actors aren't good, either. Steinfeld and Nielsen bring significantly more depth to their characters than they probably deserved to and Heard makes great eye candy, which is basically all her role requires to do.

                            The film is directed by McG, director of the Charlie's Angels films and This Means War which means that he's done the stupid spy film thing before. I honestly love the Charlie's Angels films as pure dumb fun but This Means War is one of the blandest films I have ever seen in my many years of watching about 300 films in the theater a year. This directing job definitely falls more in the first category. I can't get past the fact that 3 Days To Kill is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have an absolute blast while I watching it.
(3 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language)

In Secret Review

The affair of the reckless----Oscar Isaac as a man who has an affair with an unhappily married woman (Elizabeth Olsen) in In Secret
                                           In Secret is continuing to follow the trend of most films that have come out thus far in 2014 where I walk out of the theater not caring one way or another what I have just seen. This is a good example of a dull period piece that knows how not to appear as if it is a dull period piece. It dresses its characters up in nice looking costumes and creates an atmosphere that harkens back to the days of cinema in which someone like Humphrey Bogart would fall in love with someone like Lauren Bacall. However, try as it might to actually become one of those classic films...In Secret ultimately can't inch past its bland script, terrible direction and odd miscasting even with talented actors at its helm. Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange are all actors I have admired for quite some time and will no doubt continue to prove themselves in better films. Here, however, they seem too molded into one person to make us root for either side. The audience is expected to decide whether they are rooting for Oscar Isaac and Elizabeth Olsen to stay together or whether they want Jessica Lange and Tom Felton to catch this adulterer and her lover in the act. However, both sides are pretty similar to each other in the way they conduct things and in how truly reprehensible they are. The film should shine in showing these two different sides to a coin that the audience ultimately has to flip but that's where the film manages to bore the most.

                                          The film follows Therese (Olsen) whose adoptive mother (Lange) forces her into an unhappy marriage with straight laced Camille (Felton.) When Camille brings home seemingly innocent Laurent (Isaac)..Laurent and Therese start an affair that may or may not end up badly. All the while....Camille seems oblivious to the whole thing as his character is portrayed as often being.

                                           One of the reasons this film falls flat on its face despite its best efforts is that Camille being completely oblivious to the affair is ultimately too easy of a plot point to pursue. If he had been suspicious and started subtly digging into their day to day lives, the suspense of the film would have been considerably more present. As it is, the film feels too much like a game of dress up and double cross to work. Even when Therese gives Camille obvious hints that she's having an affair (she has to go back to the shop they own every day during her lunch break, she tells him she hates him, ETC)...he still seems clueless to his surroundings and that feels like too much of a cop out to work.

                                            In Secret, written and directed by Charlie Stratton, a former actor with whom this is his first feature length film is pretty despicable but it's hard to pinpoint whose fault it is. Stratton obviously has no good material to work with here and just got unlucky while all the actors try really hard but are just too miscast to fit the film. I think I'll just blame the film itself for being yet another boring period piece.
(1 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for sexual content and brief violent images)

Vampire Academy Review

Bloody mediocre---Zoey Deutch and Danilla Kozlovsky as a student and teacher at a school for bloodsuckers in Vampire Academy
                                  Here's something not so new...a film that manages to both mock and become the very thing that it has no desire to be. Vampire Academy has one goal in mind---to bash the ludicrous nature of the Twilight films. However, this film falls victim to forgetting  what it wants to be about and just doing whatever it wants. It is in this instance (which comes about ten minutes into the film) that this bad mouthing of films about bloodsuckers made for screaming teenage girls becomes a film about bloodsuckers made for screaming teenage girls. That's not to say that this isn't 100 times better than all of the Twilight films combined. In actuality..it totally is. However, I am truly saddened by this film because there's people of genuine talent making it. Director Mark Waters directed the excellent high school comedy Mean Girls and writer Daniel Waters (yes...they are brothers) wrote the equally fantastic 80s high school comedy Heathers. As well...talented actors such as Gabriel Byrne, Olga Kurylenko and Sarah Hyland quickly show up and collect their paycheck without adding any pizzazz to the film. It's hard to think so many extremely talented people who should really know better made such a mediocre film.

                                     The film follows Rose (Zoey Deutch) and Lissa (Lucy Fry) as they escape from the school for bloodsuckers that they are forever confined to only to get caught and go back. Then, in a series of plot points too ridiculous for me to even type without losing all of my pride as a human being...Rose and Lissa have to find a mysterious figure who is attempting to take them down.
 
                                      Where this film went wrong goes in so many types of directions it's hard to even explain just one. Perhaps the biggest sin here is that no one is really trying. Taking an easy day's paycheck is one thing but making it seem as if you're sleepwalking through the entire film shoot is another. No one here even seems to be aware they're in a film. While Deutch and Fry make extremely good eye candy...this is no more than a film without a leg to stand on. The whole plot is drawn out to the point of madness with every minute becoming less mysterious and growing significantly more tedious. There's even a love interest between Rose and her instructor (Danilla Kozlovsky) that feels way more creepy than it does sweet.

                                        I liked the idea of jabbing every stupid film of this kind with a stake through the heart behind Vampire Academy. However, it never worked and in turn became almost as unbearable as the thing that it very tries to make fun of. I can't say I hated this film with a passion. I can say, however that there's no reason to ever see this film and that no one will remember this existed come March.
(1 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, sexual content and language)

About Last Night Review

Lovers in a dangerous time---Kevin Hart and Michael Ealy as best friends with relationships on the rocks in About Last Night
                                             About Last Night is a film that continually tries to get to that place where good remakes exist and yet seems to insist on not getting there. It is a film about a funny, charming couple (Regina Hall and Kevin Hart) and a couple whose good looks make them no less boring (Michael Ealy and Joy Bryant.) Unfortunately, the film is significantly more about the latter. This doesn't mean that this remake of an 80s comedy that let's face it---no one really needed to see get remade doesn't have its high share of charming moments. In fact....it has a lot of them. This just means that the film proves the reason that no one wanted to see this subject matter get remade. The film is about a couple who fall in love on a dime and then almost as quickly, get bored with one another. This wouldn't be a problem if the audience wasn't able to feel the boredom with the characters.

                                               Hall and Hart play Joan and Bernie....a couple who seem to differ on whether their relationship is actually headed somewhere of if it's purely carnal. Of course...Bernie, the man suspects that him and Joan are simply having a good time. The film opens with them introducing their respective best friends, Debbie (Bryant) and Danny (Ealy) to one another at a bar and well....I already explained the rest in the paragraph above.

                                              This is the film equivalent of a massage that only last half an hour. It gets you pumped up for more but then disappoints when it has nothing else left. Joan and Bernie are a funny couple who have hilariously snappy banter with one another. This is despite the fact that they spend most of the film broken up and fighting with each other. However, Debbie and Danny are exactly as Joan and Bernie describe them in the film's first scene---boring people who belong together. This can be seen by the fact that Debbie seems to never really understand why Danny wants to spend time with his buddies or in the fact that Danny seems to have a desire to spend a suspicious amount of time with his buddies. This idea of two people who find each other in how dull their lives are is fine but there has to be a reason why the audience should still be pulling for them. Here...viewers will find themselves simply rolling their eyes at the long slog that is these two people's relationship. However, Hall and Hart are always there to, at the very least, partially save it. In fact...these are legitimately excellent performances from them as they portray the kind of people that can be seen anywhere you go.

                                                Although I can't recommend About Last Night....I have a strong desire to and perhaps even feel that there's no reason not to. However, the uninteresting gets in the way of the interesting far too many times to warrant throwing down your hard earned money to sit through it. However, I would definitely recommend catching it on TV in a few months. Trust me...even if you're a fan of Hart and Hall...you can wait.
(2 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for sexual content, language and brief drug use)

Robocop Review

Suited up and made of steel---Joel Kinniman as a cop who gets remade as a robot after a freak explosion and Gary Oldman as his maker in Robocop
                                Robocop is a somewhat entertaining flick that is so in love with everything about itself that it decides milking every aspect endlessly, whether good or bad is the way to go. Unfortunately, this also means that by the 45 minute mark I was already rolling  my eyes in extreme boredom. I imagine this 80s reboot would have worked much better had it been toned down from the original and not sped up. Yes---I am aware the original is in theory more crazy than this 2014 reboot but it's also not as loud and doesn't feature so many redundant ideas that are deemed cool by the filmmakers behind it. This is not so much a bad film as it is a film that takes advantage of what it doesn't have. It wants to have its cake and eat it too but the cake isn't even ready to come out of the oven yet.

                                 The film opens with Samuel L Jackson hosting a fake political show called "The Novak Element." Jackson is Pat Novak (hence the show's title)....the host who appears to be channeling Bill O'Reilly in his blatant disregard to ignore anyone who disagrees with him. Novak is talking about how it's actually making other lesser countries safer to have robotic cops running the streets. However, The United States has not yet caught on to this incredible idea. This brings in Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton)...a corrupt businessman who wants to use this idea. His luck comes when Alex Murphy (Joel Kinniman) gets blown up in a freak car explosion and making him a robot is his only hope.

                                   The problem here is that this reboot both wants to open up social discussions about prejudices, disregard for society and the line that is drawn between human and non-existent and make an explosion a minute, bang bang shoot em up action film. While this can be done, it's not a terribly easy task (just look at last year's Elysium.) However, director Jose Padilha and writer Joshua Zetumer don't blend these two seamlessly enough. There are multiple times in which it's extremely apparent that the filmmakers are trying to do both at one time and it makes the project all the more frustrating. Also....the film opens up the kind of discussions that it obviously has no idea of actually justifying. For example...the idea about the dismissal of what's actually good for society is asked multiple times but when the film is asked to give an answer....the screen might as well have gone blank. Perhaps this refusal to answer any questions would have worked better had there been some kind of irony or subtext behind it. As it is, however, it just feels dull and pointless.

                                    The explosions look good but they don't really go anywhere. The audience gets treated to multiple shoot em ups and things getting blown up real good but why watch them when nothing comes from it? It's the film equivalent of empty calories. The cast is very apparently trying to elevate the material  with Kinniman adequately portraying a man in a robot's body, Keaton nailing yet another role, Gary Oldman being effective as the doctor who makes Murphy's suit and Jackie Earle Haley being more than a little enjoyably wacky as one of Keaton's testers. However, this material isn't right for them and the performances, good as they are, feeling as they're all coming out of different films.

                                     Robocop isn't excruciating even when compared to the original and it doesn't do anything to harm the original's importance of status. However, the filmmakers and actors put in admirable effort to bring a film that's as ineloquent as one single film can get.
(2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action including frenetic gun violence throughout, brief strong language, sensuality and some drug material)

That Awkward Moment Review

This isn't working out---Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan and Zac Efron as three friends who all get tangled up in relationships in That Awkward Moment
                                             Perhaps I was the only person on Earth who was excited to see the buddy comedy That Awkward Moment. I know from American Pie to 21 Jump Street to American Reunion that while the bromance idea has been done very well multiple times in the past, it has also been done to death through the years. While I almost gave up hope that there was anything new to come from a film about bromance....the trailer for That Awkward Moment gave me hope that perhaps the bromance film is just starting to blossom. The keyword there is perhaps.

                                               This is a film with nothing new on its agenda and so many attempts at gross, dated jokes that it gives January 2013's awful gross out comedy Movie 43 a run for its money. Perhaps it's only appropriate when one considers the fact that the writer-director  of That Awkward Moment, Tom Gormican had a  huge part in getting Movie 43 off the ground. The most baffling part of this film, however, is that as with Movie 43....Gormican has once again gotten extremely talented actors to star in this film. By now...everyone knws how Gormican managed that with Movie 43 but why would any of the major talents in this film sign on to this excruciating mess? From Miles Teller, the strongest aspect of 2011's Footloose remake to Michael B Jordan, fresh off of his excellent, Oscar worthy performance in March 2013's Fruitvale Station to Zac Efron who proved twice last year with At Any Price and Parkland that he is an actor of genuine talent....this is a baffling project with a lot of talent behind it. Perhaps it's so baffling because of all the talent and not in spite of it. Any three of the male leads should easily be able to save an entire film on their own. Here, however, all of them can barely get past a line without cringing at how truly unfunny the material is. The fact that a consistent punchline is one of them calling the other two idiots...a thought that the audience has already had from the opening credits does not help.

                                          The film follows Mikey (Michael B Jordan) and his buddies Daniel (Miles Teller) and Jason (Zac Efron.) Mikey has just gotten the divorce papers from his wife who is leaving him for a man who looks like Morris Chestnut (and yes....Mikey does mention how the guy she's leaving him for looks like Morris Chestnut about 50 times in the film's 90 minute run time.) Upon finding out about this...Daniel and Jason promise to stay single with Mikey and then inexplicably go out to a club to look for one night stands. Jason ends up sleeping with Ellie (Imogen Poots) who makes it very clear that she's in love with him. Unfortunately, since everyone's an idiot in this film....Jason is too stupid to pick up on her very obvious signals and continues to sleep around while Ellie is too stupid to pick up on his very obvious signals that he doesn't want a relationship. All the while...Mikey tries to see if there's any way to win his wife back and Daniel goes to bars with his very attractive friend Chelsea (MacKenzie Davis) acting as his wingman or wingwoman...I'm not sure. Soon...Daniel...well...you already know where that's going and they all end up being in what the woman perceive as relationships and the guys perceive as simply having a good time.

                                        If all of this sounds like a sitcom episode that ends with the words To Be Continued... at the bottom of your screen and then gets nicely wrapped up in the next episode....that's exactly what it is. However, you somehow get tricked into paying 10 dollars to watch it in a multiplex and it's not 40 minutes...it's 90. The film tries desperately to get laughs and yet is the most laugh free film in recent memory. Then, after confirming to the audience that every character in this film is an idiot, a prick or both...the film tries to get sweet and convince the audience that there's some deeper meaning that we, the audience did not see. The audience then gets treated to the most hackneyed joke anyone could possibly think of in which Jason dresses up for a different kind of costume party. Oh....and I still haven't mentioned the moment in which Jason and Daniel try to find out how to pee with an erection over the phone. Never mind...I'll spare my reader and just tell you to avoid this film at all costs.
(1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for sexual content and language throughout)

Labor Day Review

Escaped love----Kate Winslet as a broken hearted single mother who falls for an escaped convict (Josh Brolin) in Labor Day
                                           Based upon an extremely popular novel that was accurately deemed as impossible to translate from paper to screen when news of the production broke...Labor Day is the newest film from Jason Reitman, who based upon this attempt, should stick to his quirky mixes of drama and comedy such as Young Adult and Thank You For Smoking. This is an attempt at something new for the talented director that failed miserably and the misery of the production is more than passed onto the audience.

                                            Starting with a simultaneously laughable and totally creepy opening scene in which a young boy named Henry (Gattlin Griffith) is narrating as an adult (in Tobey Maguire's voice) discussing the fact that he couldn't give her heartbroken mom, Adele (Kate Winslet) what she needed (a real man to be specific) and getting even worse from there....this is the sloppiest film in recent memory.

                                          Okay...fine....there is more of  a plot than that but not much. Henry, being the dumb kid he is, gets caught up in a situation in which escaped convict Frank (Josh Brolin) forces Adele to help him hide out. Frank then plans to catch the next train to a new town but it's a holiday weekend so he can't. Then...through a series of situations too laughable for me to even type..Frank and Adele end up falling for each other. Of course....this doesn't happen without the obligatory pie baking sequence (okay...that IS the funniest scene in recent memory.)

                                         I may be making it sound like I actually kind of enjoyed but don't be mistaken....this is a long, dull, abnormally unexciting film. The main problem is that despite the fact that Frank just broke out of prison for a crime that he claims he didn't commit...the audience already has their mind made up about the fact that Frank is a deadbeat long before the mystery of whether or not he is has even begun. Therefore, the fact that Frank may or may not get caught by one of Adele's nosy neighbors doesn't provide any stakes. If he goes to jai...so be it. If he doesn't...Adele is equally as annoying so let them be together...they deserve each other. Also....Brolin and Winslet, great performers that they are, can't get over how laughable the idea is. All of these actors are obviously attempting to mold something from the weak premise they have. Even Griffith...good young actor that he is (one may remember him as the kidnapped son of Angelina Jolie in 2008's Changeling amongst other films) tries to give the audience something to root for. I can't blame the actors for the film at hand...it's the way that Reitman adapted the novel for the big screen (he both directed it and wrote the screenplay.) Be that as it may...even Reitman obviously tried....it's just not a doable film concept.

                                     I would go so far as to say I hated Labor Day but then I wouldn't be giving the effort involved in making the film something more than it is its fair due. I will, however, go so far as to say that if it's 2 AM and you feel like getting to sleep...Labor Day will be just what you need.
(1 and 1/2 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated PG-13 for thematic material, brief violence and sexuality)