Whiplash

Wowza this is so good. The most obvious thing is insane level of acting performances from both Myles Teller and J.K. Simmons. Both were absolutely generational, and even in that specifically id say Simmons was literally like so peak, on a different level. The film is shot and edited so we'll, the green and yellow lighting, the perfect cuts that never makes it go too long or too short The story is pretty simple yes, but that's never a bad thing, and this movie did actually throw me off a lot because going into it i thought it was gonna be some glory story of Andrew Neiman going from nothing to world superstar with a ruthless teacher, and though it was similar he definitely isn't a world superstar when the movie ends nor does the movie go how you'd expect it to. Even with the simple story, the moment Terrence Fletcher went on the JWC stage and started off with uplift or whatever, my jaw dropped, that's when I realised, that in these 2 “gray” characters, Fletcher is definitely a lot more on that darker side, it was a cruel move even for the “ruthless teacher” it wasn't just being tough on students it was a most likely career ending situation to put a 19 year old in. And God dayum, those 15 final minutes, from uplift, to Neiman walking off and coming back, why? Because: “The next Charlie Parker would never get discouraged”(my favourite dialogue exchange in this film with absolute peak dialogue btw) to the absolute, insane, ultimate, generational aura farm and gain of Andrew Neiman abruptly starting Caravan against Fletcher completing it perfectly, then going into an absolutely godly solo that basically had Fletcher “break character” because it was that damn good into ofcourse “Whiplash”. Perfect, perfect, down to the last minute detail. I could watch those last 15 minutes for an hour bro. And the abrupt ending of the movie definitely leaves you thinking on what's next, but i think it's pretty clear what the movie is trying to tell you. Andrew Neiman is the next Charlie Parker. He cemented himself on that stage. And Terrence Fletcher, for the total asshole he is, proved his training fucking works(even though it is genuinely just plain evil at some points). My one thing would be to keep Terrence more on the middle gray side like Neiman was, not a total cruel asshole. Neiman had a good reason for getting Fletcher fired, he got a kid to kill himself ffs. What Fletcher did on the other hand was straight up unjustified, but again, looking at what Neiman became, can you really it WAS unjustified? Because it worked. Whether it was justified or not, doesn't really doesn't matter when it works.