Great Intense Drummer Movie

Rating: 9/10 (5 March 2015)

Andrew Nieman (Miles Teller) an aspiring drummer is enrolled at Shaffer, a high-end music conservatory, and is tutored by Terrance Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) who demands perfection and who has a tendency to push (read push too far) students he thinks can be great.
I was kind of tentative about seeing this movie because all the promos had J.K. Simmons yelling and shouting crude sexual insults at his students. Did I want that to continue? No, not exactly, but decided to go ahead anyway. And hey, I have always liked J.K. Simmons and always thought he deserved better than what he got (awards wise). Also I almost bought some Farmers Insurance because of him. Okay, the real reason: I like drums.
Whiplash is a musical piece and it also can be considered a physical neck whiplash as Fletcher starts and stops the music at breakneck speed. I cannot say enough about the editing in here. Wow!
Miles Teller is a new comer and yes, his looks, at times, can remind us of Elvis (hey, you said the same thing about Robert Pattinson) and his acting performance is very good. All the cast were very good, but this was a contest um battle between Andrew who would probably kill himself to be a great drummer and Fletcher an wanna-be mean Drill Sergeant. Fletcher keeps saying he wants to push a student so the student can achieve greatness, but we see him as that mean drill Sergeant on a never-ending ego trip.
However, both Teller and Simmons give amazingly great performances that would be hard pressed to forget. Kudos.
The break-up scene between Andrew and girl friend Nicole (Melissa Benoist) was something we have rarely - if ever - witnessed. At the time it made sense to Andrew. No, not to us.
We do get to hear some arguments regarding musical greatness, crossing lines and does the end justify the means.
There is a twist in here and the very last scenes make this movie all the more worthwhile. They are some great really great scenes.
I read that Miles Teller did perform all the drumming you see. Wow !
The music was simply great even though we only got snippets for the most part due to Fletcher's starting and stopping at unbelievable speeds. But on the whole the musicians were probably some of the best we shall ever hear. Kudos.
J.K. Simmons won the Best Supporting Actor Award and deservedly so. The Academy should install a new Oscar, the J.K. Simmons Oscar to those actors who we see all the time and are exceptionally good, but they never achieve any kind of elite status. Otherwise those actors will have to wait for an Oscar Worthy role as J.K. Simmons did in here and that role may never come. It's time for this new award.
Just so you know this movie was nominated for Best Picture and did win Oscars for Editing and for Sound Mixing and deservedly so. (9/10)
Violence: Yes.
Sex: No.
Nudity: No.
Sexual insults Yes and quite crude too.
Language: Yes.