Whiplash (2014) - Damien Chazelle
By Lara Culcu. Warning: Contains Spoilers. Whiplash is essentially a sports movie disguised as a music movie. Directed by Damien Chazelle, It follows Andrew Neiman (Miles Teller), a student at the Shaffer Conservatory who aspires to be a world-class jazz drummer. After a late-night meeting in a classroom, he starts being mentored by Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the notorious conductor of the conservatory's band. Put simply, Fletcher is a nightmare. He throws chairs at the band members, yells at them, and slaps Andrew multiple times when he struggles to keep the tempo. Interesting fact: When Fletcher tells him to start counting the tempo marked on the page, despite the fact that he insists that the tempo is wrong, Andrew is counting the right tempo. This is only the first instance of his manipulative nature. To get the best performance out of his student, he berates him and abuses him, criticizing his performance even in places where he was playing correctly. The story of Jo