Whiplash

1/28/2015

DISGUSTING NONSENSE... *** This review may contain spoilers *** I find it very sad that so many people - including so-called professional reviewers - have rated this crap so highly. I did not walk out (although I was greatly tempted to do so) but saw it to the end. A total waste of time. Here's what might spoil it for you, should you believe the BS that's being spread around this stinking pile of excrement: It could have actually been OK if it hadn't been so laughably impossibly ridiculous. Perhaps if it had been set in the fifties or the forties when people had much less developed consciousness of human rights? But even so... I suppose the moral/lesson we are supposed to learn is... if you can't warp your students enough by abuse to force them to become great musicians then i

1/29/2016

Fantastic movie with a good cast with an impressive Miles Teller and a yet even more impressive J.K. Simmons. Decent script, great directing, selection of the repertoire and performances. Just sit down, get a good audio system and enjoy one of the best movies of the 2010s.

2/26/2017

J K Simmons won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his mean, bullying monster. Jazz teacher Terence Fletcher who abhors the words 'good job.' Fletcher tells a tale about Charlie Parker and how doing a good job was not enough for him. Good job means mediocrity. Yet Fletcher is a mediocre educator and his college seems not to have noticed this. Instead of being an inspiration his students fear him. He is a nasty tyrant and an incident from his past comes back to haunt him. Miles Teller plays Andrew Neiman the put upon jazz drummer in the Shaffer Conservatory in New York. Neiman is eager to impress Fletcher but nothing he can do is good enough and withstands all the effluent Fletcher throws at him until one day he snaps. Damien Chazelle unleashed an unethical monster in Fletch

3/9/2017

When I sat down to watch this film, I didn't know what to expect. I am not usually a fan of films about musicians but this was a brilliant and tense masterpiece. The story is of a very ambitious boy named Andrew (played by Miles Teller) who is a music student in New York. He aspires to be noticed by a prestigious music teacher named Fletcher (played by J.K. Simmons). As his wish starts becoming a reality, he realises the brutality of this teacher who continually pushes him with questionable methods. Damien Chazelle's direction is almost of a tense boxing or war action drama in that it constantly uses the music of the drumming to build the tension whilst using violent and sharp editing whilst the jazz band play. Chazelle's screenplay is very well written. It is filled with humour, tensio

1/27/2020

"There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job". Whiplash follows are main character Andrew Neyman who is a young jazz drummer, single-minded in his pursuit to rise to the top of his elite east coast music conservatory. Plagued by the failed writing career of his father, Andrew hungers day and night to become one of the greats. Terence Fletcher, an instructor equally known for his teaching talents as for his terrifying methods, leads the top jazz ensemble in the school. Fletcher discovers Andrew and transfers the aspiring drummer into his band, forever changing the young man's life. OK let me just start off with this. You had no idea how much I was really looking forward to Whiplash. This was on my movies to check out list, because I heard nothing but posi

11/20/2022

**Whiplash grips its audience from start to finish with a remarkable awe-inspiring performance by J. K. Simmons.** BRUTAL! Whiplash is a savage film with mind-blowing career-defining performances, interesting storytelling, and palpable oppressive anxiety. J. K. Simmons didn’t deserve an Oscar for this movie… he deserved all the Oscars. I was in awe of the intensity and cruelty Simmons unleashed throughout the film while peppering in moments of vulnerability that keep the audience guessing if he is a clever mentor or a manipulative abuser. I love how the film ends, leaving that very question open-ended. I didn’t enjoy the volume of language, and obviously, the subject matter of the movie wasn’t a fun focus, but the mastery of the performances, cinematography, and storytelling establish W