Citizen Charlie
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  • 2018 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • The Death of Stalin
      • Isle of Dogs
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      • Avengers: Infinity War
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      • Hostiles
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      • Annihilation
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      • Blockers
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      • Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
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      • The Commuter
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  • 2017 Films
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      • Blade Runner 2049
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      • Buster's Mal Heart
  • 2016 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Captain Fantastic
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      • La La Land
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      • Paterson
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    • 3 Stars >
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      • Author: The JT LeRoy Story
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      • Creative Control
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    • 2 Stars >
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    • 1.5 Stars >
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      • How to Be Single
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    • 1 Star >
      • Gods of Egypt
      • Ice Age: Collision Course
      • My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
      • Now You See Me 2
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    • 0.5 Stars >
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      • Norm of the North
      • Ride Along 2
  • 2015 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • The Big Short
      • Ex Machina
      • Jafar Panahi's Taxi
      • Steve Jobs
      • The Tribe
      • While We're Young
      • Youth
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • Best of Enemies
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      • Brooklyn
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      • Concussion
      • The End of the Tour
      • The Hateful Eight
      • Inside Out
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      • Mad Max: Fury Road
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      • The Martian
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      • The Revenant
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      • Sisters
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      • Truth
    • 3 Stars >
      • The Age of Adaline
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      • Black Mass
      • Carol
      • The Cut
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      • The Good Dinosaur
      • Grandma
      • James White
      • Janis: Little Girl Blue
      • Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet
      • McFarland, USA
      • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
      • Merchants of Doubt
      • MERU
      • Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
      • Mustang
      • Pan
      • The Peanuts Movie
      • Pitch Perfect 2
      • Pixels
      • San Andreas
      • The Second Mother
      • Son of Saul
      • Spectre
      • Trainwreck
      • We Are Your Friends
      • Woman in Gold
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • American Ultra
      • Anomalisa
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      • The Assassin
      • The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
      • Boulevard
      • Crimson Peak
      • The Danish Girl
      • Far from the Madding Crowd
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      • Furious 7
      • The Gunman
      • Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor
      • In the Heart of the Sea
      • Jurassic World
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      • Listen to Me Marlon
      • Macbeth
      • The New Rijksmuseum
      • No Escape
      • Spy
      • The Visit
      • A Walk in the Woods
      • The Water Diviner
      • The Wolfpack
    • 2 Stars >
      • The 33
      • Aloft
      • Black Sea
      • Do I Sound Gay?
      • Fifty Shades of Grey
      • Focus
      • Freeheld
      • Get Hard
      • The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
      • Joy
      • Minions
      • Mississippi Grind
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      • The Salvation
      • The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
      • Seventh Son
      • Terminator Genisys
      • Tomorrowland
      • True Story
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Chappie
      • Desert Dancer
      • Hot Tub Time Machine 2
      • The Divergent Series: Insurgent
      • Jupiter Ascending
      • Maggie
      • Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
      • Run All Night
      • Ted 2
      • Vacation
    • 1 Star >
      • The Lazarus Effect
      • Magic Mike XXL
      • The Transporter Refueled
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • The Gallows
  • 2014 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Calvary
      • A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
      • Inherent Vice
      • The LEGO Movie
      • Life Itself
      • A Most Violent Year
      • Mr. Turner
      • The Theory of Everything
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • American Sniper
      • Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
      • The Boxtrolls
      • Boyhood
      • The Equalizer
      • Fury
      • Gone Girl
      • Guardians of the Galaxy
      • The Imitation Game
      • Like Father, Like Son
      • Mommy
      • Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
      • Particle Fever
      • Selma
      • Top Five
      • Whiplash
    • 3 Stars >
      • 22 Jump Street
      • Alive Inside
      • Beside Still Waters
      • The Book of Life
      • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
      • The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: THEM
      • Draft Day
      • Edge of Tomorrow
      • Get on Up
      • Godzilla
      • The Grand Budapest Hotel
      • The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
      • I Am Ali
      • The Judge
      • Kill the Messenger
      • Locke
      • Love Is Strange
      • Nas: Time Is Illmatic
      • Night Moves
      • The November Man
      • The One I Love
      • The Overnighters
      • The Raid 2
      • Rosewater
      • Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
      • St. Vincent
      • Still Alice
      • Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
      • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
      • Two Days, One Night
      • Unbroken
      • Under the Skin
      • Wild
      • X-Men: Days of Future Past
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • 3 Days to Kill
      • About Last Night
      • Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
      • Art and Craft
      • As Above, So Below
      • Begin Again
      • Blood Ties
      • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
      • Divergent
      • The Expendables 3
      • Fading Gigolo
      • Foxcatcher
      • The Giver
      • The Grand Seduction
      • Horns
      • Horrible Bosses 2
      • The Hundred-Foot Journey
      • Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
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      • Magic in the Moonlight
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      • The Monuments Men
      • Mr. Peabody & Sherman
      • Muppets Most Wanted
      • Need for Speed
      • Non-Stop
      • Point and Shoot
      • RoboCop
      • Tracks
      • Transcendence
      • Veronica Mars
      • Winter's Tale
    • 2 Stars >
      • 300: Rise of an Empire
      • Alan Partridge
      • The Amazing Spider-Man 2
      • The Art of the Steal
      • Big Hero 6
      • Blended
      • Exodus: Gods and Kings
      • The French Minister
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      • The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
      • Into the Storm
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      • Laggies
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      • Noah
      • The Nut Job
      • Oculus
      • Rio 2
      • That Awkward Moment
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      • Wish I Was Here
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Big Eyes
      • The Fault in Our Stars
      • I, Frankenstein
      • Pompeii
      • Transformers: Age of Extinction
    • 1 Star >
      • Brick Mansions
      • The Identical
      • Ride Along
      • Son of God
      • Tusk
      • Vampire Academy
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • Left Behind
      • The Legend of Hercules
      • Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
    • Zero Stars >
      • A Haunted House 2
  • 2013 Films
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      • 12 Years A Slave
      • Frances Ha
      • The Gatekeepers
      • Gravity
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      • Much Ado About Nothing
      • Stoker
      • We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • All Is Lost
      • August: Osage County
      • Before Midnight
      • The Bling Ring
      • Captain Phillips
      • Fruitvale Station
      • God Loves Uganda
      • The Great Beauty
      • Inside Llewyn Davis
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    • 3 Stars >
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      • American Hustle
      • The Company You Keep
      • Dead Man Down
      • Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
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      • In a World...
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      • Now You See Me
    • 1.5 Stars >
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      • Girl Most Likely
      • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
      • The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
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    • 1 Star >
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    • 1 Star >
      • 2 Days in New York
  • 2011 Films
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      • Another Earth
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    • 1 Star >
      • The Three Musketeers
      • Toast
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  • Misc...
    • 2016 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2017 Middleburg Film Festival
  • Review Index
  • About Me

Begin Again

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Directed by: John Carney
Written by: John Carney
Starring: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam Levine, James Corden, Yasiin Bey, Cee Lo Green, Catherine Keener
Comedy/Drama/Music/Romance - 104 min

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Movies tend to hold music, especially the songwriting and recording process, on a pedestal.  No matter what transpires in the outside world, the artist holed up in a darkened studio with a scratchpad and pencil ferreting out lyrics is sacrosanct.  Arty, tortured souls seek out and then wax nostalgic about their process’s integrity and how deep, meaningful, and personal their songs are.  In the real world, these platitudes come off as artificial and are as easy to pick apart as looking at the liner notes to see the poser did not write their own songs at all, but are merely the most visible part of a pre-packaged product designed to please the least common denominator.

In Begin Again, the recording process and resulting songs act more as life-cleansing elixirs rather than aiming to be the next Billboard chart toppers.  The songs help an alcoholic, borderline suicidal record producer stop drinking.  They cheer up a morose and shell-shocked girl with a broken heart and then even go so far as to bring together an estranged father and daughter who cannot connect with each other without the tunes.  The songs and creative process in Begin Again are omnipotent, benevolent answers to a diverse range of problems.


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It is not surprising music arrives with so much life-affirming power when you learn John Carney directed Begin Again.  In 2006, Carney delivered the movie Once to theaters.  It spawned a Tony-award winning Broadway musical and even won an Oscar for its centerpiece original song, “Falling Slowly.”  Once chronicled an unsigned, raw musician with bottled up tunes in his head he just had to record in the studio.  Sinking all of his money and life prospects into the recording, Once is the epitome showcase of the fierce integrity involved in bringing out music from the soul.

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Begin Again is poppier than Once.  The songs move at a faster metronomic pace and there are even other instruments involved than the solo acoustic guitar.  Greta (Keira Knightley, 2012’s Anna Karenina) is a Brit marooned in New York City after her boyfriend, Dave (Maroon 5’s Adam Levine) break ups with her when he signs a major record deal and feels he owes it to his new legion of female acolytes to provide them with his personal attention and affection.  It does not matter that Greta wrote most of his songs; she must be left behind when the bright, neon lights of the future beckon.

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A life-saving coincidence occurs at an open mic night at a crowded bar when Greta, shyly plucking out a song about what else, a dumped girl wandering around a big city, is seen by Dan (Mark Ruffalo, 2013’s Now You See Me).  Ruffalo, recently in Thanks for Sharing (2013) playing a sex addict, is now an alcohol addict drunk just about every hour of the day and was just fired from his record firm he co-founded.  This guy who has a golden ear for the next hit has reached rock bottom.  Exactly why he spiraled down so far is muddled; there is something about marital problems yet the film makes it seem like it is the music.  He has not heard a genuine artist in so long it is taking its toll on him mentally and is not doing his liver too many favors either.

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With a noticeable lack of subtlety, Greta and Dan need each other.  Greta needs Dan to produce and record her radio friendly music about boys dumping girls and Dan needs Greta to save his life.  He hears her potential, knows he found the genuine article, and at the same time, their musical collaboration helps him talk to his troubled teenage daughter and even soberly chat with his estranged wife.  Carney is nothing if not over the top about the transformative power of music.

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Begin Again is a mostly by the numbers plot and earns praise for not succumbing to easy distractors such as allowing a sexual relationship to grow between Greta and Dan or make ex-boyfriend Dave overtly cruel.  Dave is pretty much a good guy but discovers he cannot settle for his college sweetheart when the Manhattan co-eds swoon at his every note.  The friendship between Greta and Dan would catapult into something more in most lackluster rom-coms, but Carney is wise enough to leave it alone.

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There are also a few eyebrow-raising scenes stylistically.  When Dan unexpectedly sees Greta perform for the first time, he sees much more than a lonely girl on a stage hiding behind a guitar.  The piano starts to play by itself, the drumsticks strike the snare by themselves, a cello stands upright, and Dan visually sees what he can make the song into.  Further into the film, when Greta and Dan truly start to connect and understand one another, they listen to music while walking around Manhattan, which provides a jaunty soundtrack as they take in the sites.  They sneak into a dance club with throbbing techno music but they are dancing to Stevie Wonder instead lost in their own world.

Begin Again follows a path trail blazed by 2007’s Music and Lyrics rather than Once.  It will be palatable to just about every film-going demographic because it offers us no punch.  It is cute and easy to digest for there is no weight or extra dimensions.  No conflict is strong enough to survive the almighty pop song.  


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