Antebellum

November 10, 2020 at 9:49 am | Posted in 2020 | Leave a comment
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I had been looking forward to this film since before COVID. I had seen a cryptic teaser and was all in. It looked like it would be evocative. It turned out to be entertaining and a bit mysterious, but I think I over hyped it in my mind. It’s definitely worth seeing, as long as you know what it is. The film starts with a beautiful long shot moving through a plantation. We see a little girl running, confederate soldiers, slaves, and a woman thrown over a horse. That woman, played by Janelle Monáe, is the film’s core; she is in every scene. The film felt very slow at first, and it appeared to be unfolding as just another film about slavery in America. And, given the brilliant films we have already had on the subject, one might reasonably wonder why bother with this one. But, then, about 45 minutes in, something strange happens. The less I say about this, and the rest of the movie, the better. Let’s just say, it shifted my whole experience of the film and what I thought was going on. And, when I thought I had figured it out, I was wrong. That made the film much more interesting than it first appeared to be. In the second part, there are some great scenes with Gabourey Sidibe that were a delight to watch. Tonally, the final act of the film felt more like a thriller, and did a pretty good job of creating some suspense. In the end, it wasn’t as good as I had expected, nor was it as bad as I had feared. It was just fairly entertaining. And, for $5, that was good enough for me.

The Vast of Night

July 6, 2020 at 9:21 am | Posted in 2020 | Leave a comment
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If there is any benefit to not being able to see many of the films slated for 2020, it is that I get to see some that I would have otherwise missed. This film (which is now available on Amazon Prime) would be one of those. Set in a small New Mexico town some time in the 1950s, and taking place over one dark night, the story covers two teens as they try to track the source of a mysterious noise showing up on the radio. There is a palpable sense of foreboding hanging over this entire film; somethings going on. The question is does the audience care enough to find out what it is, and will they care at the end. I have a feeling this film would have scared the hell out of movie goers of an earlier generation. But don’t go to it expecting that. What you will get is a moody, atmospheric exercise in storytelling. The cinematography is the real pleasure here. Scenes are framed beautifully and manage to be both elegant and tense. The film uses several long dolly shots very effectively. My favorite one lasted just over four minutes, as the camera moved rapidly over the vacant town like a beast hunting prey (with an effective “boom-boom” beat in the background). It moved into a high school gym, where the giddy energy was contrasted effectively with the nebulous sense of menace, before the camera continued out of the gym and across town to the radio station. It’s a fantastic shot and exemplifies what is best about this film. However, the next scene, exemplifies where the film really stumbles. Starting at about the 35 minute mark, and lasting for an interminable 12 minutes, we listen to a phone conversation between the DJ (Everett) and the man who has called in with information about the sound. We never see that man’s face. Instead, we sometimes focus on Everett and sometime we get a dark screen. This is a very long time, almost 1/6th of the film, and it kills the pacing. As much as the conversation has tension in it, it goes on long enough to become dull. The shots of Everett listening (framed on the left of the screen and with the microphone almost off camera on the right) are really beautiful, but they are not suspenseful. If you are making a thriller, and I think that’s what this film is trying to be, then it needs to be thrilling. The tension should rise. But, this film was a very slow burn. That is its biggest weakness (or perhaps its strength, depending on what you want). The film never felt scary or creepy to me. But it often felt eerie, and I was very drawn in by the beauty of this little slice of 50s America. As slow as it was, I really enjoyed the film. But, again, it depends on what you are looking for.

Widows

November 20, 2018 at 3:57 pm | Posted in 2018 | Leave a comment
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With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 91%, this film has been getting a lot of buzz. It’s important to remember that Rotten Tomatoes is a straight up-and-down vote; we know that almost every single critic liked this film but not how much they liked it. That makes sense to me. I do absolutely like this film. If you came to the movies to watch a heist/thriller, I don’t know how you could not like it. This film checks all the boxes and does so very well. Written both by director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”) and Gillian Flynn (author of “Gone Girl”), the script is taut and well executed. The big twist was not much of a surprise, but that is more a consequence of hiring big-name actors than of any flaw in the story. McQueen makes some interesting directorial choices, some of which bring a sly, unexpected humor to the film. My favorite one occurs early on, when Colin Farrell’s character jumps into a limo with his assistant. We can hear him yelling and complaining, but the camera sits on the hood at a weird angle; it captures a portion the windscreen and the street as they move through it. Farrell’s character is on a racist rant that is suddenly given more power when the camera slowly pans to sit dead center on the hood and we discover that the driver is Black. It’s a clever, powerful moment that demonstrates McQueen’s skill at the understated. It is that skill that elevates an otherwise pretty standard genre flick. Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo play the titular widows who are trying to pull off their husbands’ last job to get out from under the debt the dead men left them. They are being harassed by the scene-stealing Daniel Kaluuya, who is perfectly menacing every time he is on screen. An all-star cast lends a hand as dead husbands, rich aldermen, and various other villains. This is a world in which nobody is really good, they are only varying gradations of criminal: lifelong criminal, inter-generational criminal, criminal of necessity, criminal with a soul, criminal without… the variations are many. Still, the women are the clear protagonists and it is hard not to root for them. Davis has made a career of playing “I’m stronger and craftier than you think I am,” and she’s in her element here. The film is fun and it moves along at a good pace. The audience will hardly have a chance to get bored. They will also never be particularly inspired. As I said, this is a good, fun genre film. But, you won’t be hearing about it at the Oscars. So, go and enjoy it for what it is; just don’t expect anything more than that.

Wind River

September 4, 2017 at 11:17 am | Posted in 2017 | Leave a comment
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“Wind River” starts out promising enough. Set in Wyoming in the dead of winter, the film begins with scenes of a stark and imposing landscape. The audience gets a sense of foreboding right off. There is a murder and an outsider comes in to solve it. Sometimes this works well (as in the terrific “Insomnia”) and sometimes not so much (as in “Thunderheart,” which this movie kept reminding me of). “Wind River” lies somewhere in the middle. An FBI agent sent in from Vegas (Elizabeth Olsen) to work alongside the local sheriff (Graham Greene) and a US Fish & Wildlife employee (Jeremy Renner). She’s in over her head but Renner’s character keeps her pointed in the right direction. If you have seen a film like this before, you have essentially seen this film. There are dark people doing dark things but the good guys will stop them. There are some twists and dead ends along the way, a couple of brief outbursts of violence and an ending rich in “justice” (or revenge, anyway). The scenery is visually arresting and helps to create the right mood for a film like this but mood alone can’t sustain you. Writer and director Taylor Sheridan has a great track record. This is the third film he has written. The first two were “Hell or High Water” and “Sicario,” both of which I loved. But this one lacks the humanity of the former and the punch of the latter. Sheridan appears very earnest in wanting to shine his light on the injustices faced by American Indian women but that goal would have been better served by a multi-layered drama, whose focus was on developing complex characters dealing with real life issues, including possibly the one that is the central focus of this film. Instead, what we get is a fairly paint-by-numbers detective thriller, in which two white people swoop in and save the day. The film appears to belie Sheridan’s intent, in that it consistently goes for cheap thrills (tension, violence, revenge catharsis) rather than for empathy or insight. Audiences will leave the theater having no more understanding nor feeling any greater concern for American Indians but they will have had a moderately successful thrill ride.

Get Out

March 6, 2017 at 6:20 pm | Posted in 2017 | 2 Comments
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Admittedly, it seems a bit odd to be getting a horror film written and directed by comedian Jordan Peele, from Key & Peele fame. But, don’t worry, this isn’t really a horror movie. Or, rather, this isn’t a standard, “Halloween”-type, slasher film. Instead, it’s more of what I might call social-horror; a razor sharp social commentary disguised as horror. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things to make you jump and squirm and wince a bit. But that is not what is really going on here. What should really make movie-goers wince is how deeply Peele cuts into the bone of American liberalism. This is really a film about racism, but not the racism of Trump’s American, in all of its blatant, ugly glory. This is a film about the racism of Obama’s America, hidden just below the surface of liberal white paternalism. It is not about people who overtly hate people of color but, rather, people who fetishize them. This is fairly dark material and, despite its humor, the film is pretty dark. What makes it work is the largely strong performances. In particular, British actor Daniel Kaluuya (“Sicario,” “Black Mirror”) is fantastic as the lead, playing shy, incredulous, jaded and terrified with equal ease. Betty Gabriel was the other scene stealer as the clearly not-quite-right maid. They were both great fun to watch and, in fact, this whole film was great fun. It was also all the things you would expect from a decent thriller and managed to keep you on the edge of your seat most of time, even if you were also laughing.

Split

February 5, 2017 at 6:21 pm | Posted in 2016 | Leave a comment
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M. Night Shyamalan has always seemed like a kind of sad cautionary tale to me. He burst onto the scene in 1999 with one of the best debuts of a new director ever. “The Sixth Sense” was a remarkable film in every respect. It was hard to tamp down Hollywood’s expectations and, perhaps, that got the better of him, because every succeeding film was not as good as the previous one and, by the time “The Village” came around, they were just plain awful, and have stayed awful ever since. Until now. With “Split,” he seems to have finally found his groove again. While not nearly as good as “The Sixth Sense,” this is certainly one of his best. It’s a taut thriller with steady action and a good dose of creepy. James McAvoy gives his best performance in years, and demonstrates what a talented actor he is. As, Kevin, the traumatized man with 23 personalities living inside of him, McAvoy manages to give each personality we see his/her own distinctness. The audience can tell by the sound of his voice, the way he carries his shoulders, the arc of an eyebrow or the purse of his lips, whether he is Dennis or Patricia or Barry or Hedwig. It was a brilliant performance to watch and made the movie. Beyond that, this remains just a good film in the genre. It builds tension nicely and keeps the audience guessing. Shyamalan has avoided the heavy theatrics of the game-changing twist that made “The Sixth Sense” but ruined so many of his other films. This time, he relies on the strength of his performers and a well-written story. There is an intriguing twist in the final moments but it’s more of an add on than an attempt to rewrite the story. Overall, this film was a lot of fun. I hope Shyamalan can keep this new momentum up.

Money Monster

November 12, 2016 at 8:57 am | Posted in 2016 | Leave a comment
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While we primarily know her from her extensive acting career, Jodie Foster has also established herself as a skilled director and producer (“Little Man Tate,” “The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys,” “Home for the Holidays”). Her films have tended to be heartwarming, funny and intimate portraits of how people try to find meaning/ fit into the world. But that is not the case here. “Money Monster” is a flashy Hollywood production with top-tier stars, action and very little depth. George Clooney plays Lee Gates, a tv personality and financial advisor, who is a thinly veiled Jim Cramer character (his show is even called “Money Monster,” which is an obvious reference to Cramer’s “Mad Money”). In the middle of filming a live episode, a disgruntled young man with a bomb enters the studio and takes Lee hostage. The young man, played by Jack O’Connell (the British star of the fantastic film “’71” and Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken”), has a message he wants to share about the evils of rogue corporate interests and the plight of the little guy. This is another post-financial crisis movie but, unlike “The Big Short” or “Margin Call,” it sheds no light. The crisis is simply a cheap tool used to give a certain superficial relate-ability to O’Connell’s character. In fact, that is what I thought of the film, in general: it never went deep, or even tried to. It was always willing to simply move the story along. These are one-dimensional characters (well, maybe two-dimensional) who exist only to entertain the audience. That’s not a bad thing. Many films are pure escapism. I had just been under the impression that there would be more than that here. The film moves along quickly and, at barely more than an hour and a half, is over before you know it. It isn’t an unpleasant way to spend your down time. Just don’t show up expecting insight, catharsis, or any depth of emotion at all. This movie, for good or bad, is just a slick, glossy, thrill ride.

 

Green Room

May 1, 2016 at 4:56 pm | Posted in 2016 | Leave a comment
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Jeremy Saulnier is a relatively young director who began his transition from cinematography to director and writer with his 2007 film, “Murder Party.” That title tells you something of his interests and he has been true to them in the 3 films he has written and directed thus far. After his first film, he returned to cinematography for another 6 years, before releasing the 2nd feature film, “Blue Ruin.” “Green Room” is now his third. I think I smell a trilogy here. I mean you can’t name one movie “Blue Ruin” and the next one “Green Room” without having some sort of sequence in mind. Perhaps we have a “Red Rum” or “Purple Rain” to look forward to. Here, Saulnier shows his cinematographer’s roots, as he has created the perfect visual set for the tension he intends to build. Four band mates, looking to make quick cash so that they can get home after a disastrous tour, agree to perform at a skinhead gathering. Let’s just say things go wrong, and they end up trapped in a green room. The group of young actors are mostly unknowns, with the exception of Anton Yelchin (who plays Chekov in the current spate of “Star Trek” films) and Alia Shawkat (who we all know as Maybe on “Arrested Development”). They all do reasonably well at playing terrified or terrifying, as need be, and there is plenty of opportunity for both. Once the ball gets rolling (maybe 20 minutes into the film), the anxiety ratchets up quickly and doesn’t abate. The story unfolds with a gruesome cadence: sudden bursts of horrific violence followed by retreat, reassess and more anxiety. This is the dance the film does for the remainder of its 90 minute run time. And, I should note that those bursts of violence are very graphic, often involving things like machetes and vicious dogs. Oh, and one more thing worth mentioning: Patrick Stewart plays the leader of the white supremacists. He brings a cool-headed malevolence that is much needed. He serves to slow down the impending violence, while also increasing our anticipation for it. All of that said, this was a film that worked very well at being what it was, which was a horror thriller. However, it had nothing more below its surface. None of these characters had any depth or any reason for us to care for them. As a result, the deaths may have made you look away but they were unlikely to make you care. The action unfolded in a steady stream and I was on the edge of my seat for much of the movie. I was never bored but I was never fully engaged, either. I get a sense that Saulnier wants to do something more than just make b-movies. He has an aesthetic to his work that suggests he wants to say more. He just hasn’t quite figured out how to say it yet.

Goodnight Mommy

September 27, 2015 at 7:45 pm | Posted in 2015 | Leave a comment
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I noticed recently that I give a lot of 3 1/2 lozenge ratings; it appears to be my fall back for a movie that is more than just “I’m glad I saw it” but less than “I loved this film.”  I’m going to try and get off the fence over the course of this review and decide if this film is a 3 or a 4. This German thriller (“Ich Seh Ich Seh” was the original title) follows the relationship between twin brothers, Lukas and Elias (who look to be 9 or 10) and their mother, who has just returned home after major surgery. But, is she really their mother? Her head is entirely wrapped in bandages, except for her piercing eyes. She seems different, acts different. Where is the mole she used to have? Why is she so punitive and suspicious? What happened to the cat, anyway? The boys’ fears grow deeper as they become convinced this woman is an impostor and they hatch a plan to try and find out where their true mother is. This has all the right elements of a great thriller: an engaging mystery, people trapped in close quarters together, some child endangerment. Yet, it takes forever to get going. The first 45 minutes of the film moves mostly languidly and with long stretches of silence. There was so little tension, I was at risk of nodding off. Not a good thing for a thriller. However, things suddenly switch dramatically half way through and the remaining 45 minutes are a wild ride of increased tension and horror. While the first half is vaguely creepy/unnerving, the second half is full-on creepy/cringe-worthy. I understand why this had to be the case. The film is built on a massive (and clever) conceit and, if the twist is going to come as a surprise, the emptiness of the first half is a necessary evil. The twisting this film does, and there is definitely more than one, makes its final scenes great thriller fun. In addition, young brothers, Lukas and Elias Schwarz, are terrific in their roles and the audience gets totally drawn into their world. The end itself is quite a shocker and there were gasps in my audience. All great stuff for a thriller. And, yet, it’s a long slow set up for that pay off. Was it worth it? Was it… yeah, I think it was.

Trance

April 15, 2013 at 3:08 pm | Posted in 2013 | Leave a comment
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Director Danny Boyle (“Shallow Grave,” “Trainspotting,” “Slumdog Millionaire,” “127 Hours”) hearkens back to his earlier works with this twister of a tale that seems part “Inception,” part “The Mechinist” and part “The Spanish Prisoner.”  In the world of convoluted plots, this one is a doozy.  Simon (James McAvoy, “The Last King of Scotland,” “X-Men: First Class”) works for an art dealer and helps Franck (Vincent Cassel, both “Messrine” movies, “Black Swan”) to steal a priceless painting.  However, he has attempted to double cross Franck and has hidden the painting but, after a serious injury, he cannot remember where.  Frustrated, Franck brings in a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson, “Kids,” “Sin City”) to help Simon remember.  With me so far?  If so, you won’t be for long.  The story twists and turns as we slip in and out of Simon’s brain.  Little clues to his repressed memories pop up in flashes here and there as it becomes less and less clear to the audience when we are in a dream and when we are in reality.  As the story becomes stranger, so does the filming of it.  The movie started out with very standard cinematography and lighting but, by the end, it is all odd angles and primary colors; whole scenes are in orange or blue or red lighting.  This vividness adds to the audience disorientation and our inability to tell reality from dream.  I am sure this is Boyle’s intention, however, we might have been better served with fewer tricks.  The initial mystery had me drawn in but I was a bit exhausted by the end.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun ride and I enjoyed myself.  I just think it might have been a better film if it had spent less time trying to play with the audiences’ minds and stuck with just playing with Simon’s.

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