Category: Film Review

Kong: Skull Island

by tfuglei, posted in Film Review

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Remakes and monster movies continue to be reviled in many corners of the filmgoing public, which is surprising considering both are practically as old as the form itself.  King Kong debuted on the silver screen not long after silver screens themselves took their initial bow, so the royal title remains apt to this day.  The creature’s climb up the Empire State Building remains iconic, not only for the audacity of the image but the promise of the fantastic that cinema itself offered newly minted movie fans—the very idea that walking into a theater would take you away from reality and show you things you’d never see anywhere else.  Clearly the great ape was built to last, as he’s turned up in one form or another over the years, most recently in Peter Jackson’s 2005 laborious love letter to the original.  Fast forward 12 years and Time Warner, fresh off the relatively successful Godzilla reboot, is looking to craft its own interconnected series of blockbuster films just like all the other remaining major studios, hence Kong: Skull Island is set to be released (somewhat tentatively in March instead of tent pole-y in May).  Is it a successful undertaking?  The short answer is yes and no, and a somewhat longer answer follows.

First of all, you’re not going to get the coy buildup towards monster mayhem that Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla offered, although you do get a credit sequence similar enough to that films’ that you’ll pick up on the universe building intentions right off the bat.  Once Kong arrives, he’s in full view and he’s rampaging just the way you want him to, smacking down uninvited guests on the titular island and throwing down with its fellow oversized inhabitants on the regular.  This all commences after fifteen minutes of highly perfunctory character introduction and motivation establishment.  At times the dialogue and reasoning feels like it’s being generated by a scripting software app, but at least Kong: Skull Island assembles a relentlessly charming cast, from handsome Tom Hiddlesworth to Oscar winner Brie Larson to affable John Goodman and badass Samuel L. Jackson.  A lesser group would have probably sunk the proceedings, as several of them—especially the purported leads, Hiddlesworth and Larson—are so underwritten it’s safe to say the film could have marched through its explosions without their presence.  Fortunately Goodman and Jackson are given a bit more to do, the former harboring a belief in the fantastic that’s not explained right off the bat and the latter adopting the warmongering swagger of Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore by way of Melville’s Captain Ahab.  They each have what the film comes closest to offering as far as character arcs go, and Jackson especially stands out.  The best story and performance hiding in between the flying bullets and crashing helicopters belongs to John C. Reilly, a punchy World War 2 veteran looking to return to civilization with our band of heroes.  He gets the strongest lines from a script that struggles to find any rhythm outside of the genre tropes we all expect.

On the plus side, Kong and his monstrous neighbors are lovingly (and of course digitally) rendered, and Larry Fong’s camera guides us around location sets ranging from Hawaii to northern Vietnam with grace and awe.  Once director Jordan Vogt-Roberts (an interesting choice given the indie film and television comedy background he brings to the table) stumbles through the early expositional scenes, he does a fine job staging the carnage, chases and explosions, of which there are many.  And Kong himself, in keeping with the typical incarnations of the character, really is just a hero in screaming ape’s clothing, there to provide deus ex machina services when the other creatures get too problematic.  There are enough tributes, visual and otherwise, to make fans of the previous films feel right at home on Skull Island as well.  In short, this is a fine action setpiece delivery system if that’s what you’re in the mood for.  A perfectly fine if not transcendent slice of fantastic escapism, with the inevitable promise of more to come if enough tickets are sold.

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Top Five Hugh Jackman Performances

by Frank Mengarelli, posted in Film Review, Top Five Lists

With LOGAN being a gigantic hit at the box office, after seventeen years and seven turns as the Wolverine, Hugh Jackman is done with his most seminal character.  I imagine we’ll see him again, at some point down the road, but time will tell.  Jackman is so much more than the rough and tough Canadian mutant, he’s a wonderfully rounded actor that can mix brute blood lust with musical performances and soul bearing dramatic performances.  While Jackman is just hitting the sweet spot of his career, I wanted to take a look back at his finest performances.

 

THE FOUNTAIN 2006 Dir. Darron Aronofsky

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This is a film that has accrued such a following over its lackluster release, that one day, this will be looked at as not only one of Aronofsky’s finest films but also one of Jackman’s best performances.  Here, he plays the same soul over a course of three different centuries.  It’s apparent he’s a different man with each new becoming, yet he still is able to remain the same person.  It’s an incredibly heartfelt and touching performance in a film that needs more acclaim.

LES MISERABLES 2012 Dir. Tom Hooper

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Hugh Jackman has gone through a bounty of physical transformations playing Wolverine on screen, but nothing like his turn as Jean Valjean in LES MISERABLES.  Here, he embodies a fugitive, for decades, on the brink of the French Revolution – well, I’m pretty sure everyone knows the story.  But here, Jackman is able to pivot back to an area of performing that he loves: musicals.  While the contemporary Hollywood musical comes back in fads, I think this film stands out due in part to the actors are all singing live while being filmed.  This not only enhances their performances but makes them feel honest and organic, particularly Jackman.

LOGAN 2016 Dir. James Mangold

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This is it (maybe).  Jackman in his last turn as Wolverine.  He brings his all to this film, not once coasting in a character he’s played seven times in seventeen years.  Here, Logan is broken, surrendered, and wanting his life to finally be over.  Bravo to Jackman for going all out for this role.  He didn’t have to, and it is incredibly admirable of him to treat this character with such fondness and respect.  While the overwhelming echo chamber of hype is loud, I imagine this is the film that everyone is going to remember Jackman for.

THE PRESTIGE 2006 Dir. Christopher Nolan

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Jackman has an incredible knack for taking all of his affability and rolling into ambiguous characters that are cast in the greyscale of morality.  Here, Jackman’s obsession takes him down a rabbit hole of darkness where he ends up doing things so unforgivable, there is not really much of a shot at redemption, but I suppose that’s the point of this dark and twisted tale of magicians bent on obsession.

PRISONERS 2013 Dir. Denis Villeneuve

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In the role of a grieving father, blinded by revenge and rage, Jackman plays his most complex character.  The brilliance of the film, but in particular, the development of Jackman’s character, is that we’re given clues to who this man in before the events of the film unravels at a rather rapid pace.  While some of the clues are aesthetic choices or shot composition, a majority of them are cued in by subtle actions Jackman takes.  While his character becomes more and more vested in revenge and violence, the path to atonement becomes more and more opaque, and Jackman eventually gets the ambiguous end that he deserves.  Or does he?

 

JAMES MANGOLD’S LOGAN — A REVIEW BY NICK CLEMENT

by nlclement, posted in Film Review

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Depending on your sensibilities, you may agree with how I feel about Logan – this is the most satisfying comic-book/superhero movie since The Dark Knight Rises and EASILY the best movie to have that flashing-image Marvel logo attached to it. It took 17 years, but they finally made an R-rated Wolverine movie, and because of this decidedly different tone and approach, no other cinematic endeavor featuring any of the X-Men can remotely come close to touching it. This film feels as if it was created for adults rather than for children; look elsewhere for spandex outfits and reassuring, jokey humor. I’ve always felt that there’s nothing PG-13 about a mutant with razor blades that pop out of his knuckles when he’s pissed, so considering that director James Mangold got a chance to go balls-out with the character, it would be sort of hard to screw up the potential that this particular premise has to offer. Mangold has long been a solid craftsman with more than a few very strong pictures on his resume (Cop Land is my favorite work that he’s released and I’ve viewed Walk the Line countless times), and after he delivered two-thirds of a good entry back in 2013 with The Wolverine (the final act is really dumb with that mechanical samurai thing), it’s clear he learned from that film’s shortcomings, dialing it back a notch, and making a genre film that is refreshingly free of distracting and needless CGI.

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It’s pointless to reiterate the fact that Hugh Jackman is perfectly cast in the lead role; this will be the big-screen character that he’ll always be remembered for. He’s absolutely on fire in Logan, all animalistic fury but with a broken heart as well as a crushed soul; he needs one final shot at redemption. I loved that the film felt like a desolate Western, both visually and thematically, and Dafne Keen was a total scene-stealer as the mutated child, all feral rage and explosive anger to match Jackman’s patented brand of ferocity that he’s always brought to his dual character of Logan/Wolverine. Patrick Stewart is, as usual, terrific as Professor X, and gets some key emotional moments because of the surprisingly thoughtful screenplay. Richard E. Grant smartly underplays the chief baddie role, while Boyd Holbrook is very menacing as one of the main henchmen, with a flawlessly integrated mechanical hand that’s definitely creepy. And under albino make-up, Stephen Merchant is affecting as the link between the two parties, as this is essentially an extended chase scenario, with an ailing Logan and Professor X trying to protect a special girl with a dark history.

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The screenplay by Mangold, Scott Frank, and Michael Green is literate, witty, and packed with brutal action, with cinematographer James Mathieson doing some beautiful yet low-key work behind the camera. The set=pieces sting with a level of brutality that feels bracing for the gore-free previous outings, which seem downright jokey and lame in comparison. I don’t really care, on the whole, about the comic-book movie genre; to me, these types of movies are fast-food-cinema. They get the job done, and then you’re hungry for something more substantial. But Logan is a different beast in that it DOES feel substantial, like there’s some emotional heft and weight behind it. And the way it subverts your expectations is a crucial reason for its success. The filmmakers present a narrative with true stakes, never spinning out of control and unleashing the dreaded CGI vortex in the sky, keeping the themes intimate so that you actually care about the outcome, while the action is bloody, unrelenting, and consistently savage. As it should be. Free of creative constraints, it’s abundantly clear everyone had a blast with this seemingly final chapter of this particular saga.

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Marvel has boxed themselves in with Logan; how can one be asked to take their product seriously when they’ve offered a definitive portrait of one of their most iconic characters, doing it the gritty justice that it deserves? The best thing that one might be able to say is that someone has come along and made a superhero film that doesn’t really feel like a superhero movie for nearly the entire runtime. I’m no easy-lay with Marvel product; I’ve skipped or not enjoyed as many as I’ve been able to hang with. My favorite stuff has included the two Captain America films, Iron Man 3, and Ang Lee’s underrated Hulk. But Logan is something all-together different. It doesn’t give a fuck about anything that’s come before it and doesn’t give a fuck if you don’t like it or think that it’s too nihilistic or aggressive. In short, it’s the Wolverine movie we all deserve and I can’t imagine myself feeling inclined to see too many more movies of this type in the future.

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“I am very sure that’s the man who shot me.”: Zodiac 10 years later – by Josh Hains

by Josh Hains, posted in Film Review

The idea of offering up a defence for David Fincher’s Zodiac seems rather silly given that ten years later it’s widely regarded as perhaps Fincher’s greatest film, often revered as one of the finer films released over the past decade. We all know it’s great, though admittedly, I didn’t know that for several years.

I avoided Zodiac like it was coated in radioactive slime until 2014. I had heard a great deal of positive things about the movie, and had been greatly intrigued by the marketing behind it, but the knowledge that not only was it was a long, slow paced movie, but also a rather unsettling one too kept me away for so long. When I did finally give it a chance late September 2014, my mind immediately gravitated toward Google, scouring through page after page of information about the investigation in an attempt to better understand the finer details of the case, and come to my own conclusions about who the Zodiac killer may have been. My gut however, felt like I’d eaten a bad take out meal, disturbed, shaken, and stupidly hungry for more. I felt like how I imagined Robert Graysmith felt all those years ago, minus the fear, paranoia, and impending danger of course.

That David Fincher populated Zodiac with such a great cast is a marking of a great director who knows how to compile actors who will treat the characters as individuals and not just caricatures. I find it intriguing and perhaps even ironic, or merely coincidental, that Jake Gyllenhaal starred in last year’s underrated thriller Nocturnal Animals, given that in Zodiac he is essentially one. His Robert Graysmith is a nocturnal animal, an increasingly gaunt, wide eyed mouse sniffing around for a piece of cheese, in this case the next tangible clue or lead worth obsessively investigating. And it’s all thanks to his unshakeable love for puzzles, a factor that helps decode the first Zodiac letter. As he digs deeper into the case, we come to fear for his safety, in particular during a genuinely white knuckling scene in which the unarmed and unimposing Graysmith ventures into the basement of someone we begin to assume might put an abrupt end to Graysmith’s life.

Before the blockbuster splash that was Iron Man in 2008 thundered into the film scene, one could have argued that Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as the San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery was the best he’d ever given. An argument can be made that while he was seemingly born to play the billionaire tycoon and saviour of the planet Tony Stark, his best work still resides in the fractured Avery. The deeper the investigation gets the further Avery seems to slip from cool as a cucumber journalist to a paranoid, spineless slob.

Prior to his self induced exile on a houseboat, I got a kick out of the scene where he joins Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) for drinks at a populated watering hole, chugging back those luminous bright blue Aqua Velvas while rambling about the case and their personal lives. There’s a great sense of both humour and humanity in that scene, as Avery lets his guard down and actually engages with someone beyond a superficial relationship, while Graysmith sheds his mouse-like internalized mannerisms in favour of energetic, loud behaviour, though briefly. From this point forward however, Graysmith has a spine, albeit a rather loosely fitting one, and Avery has seemingly lost his, donning “I am not Paul Avery” buttons in the hopes of fending off potential threats. He’d have made a wonderful Doc Sportello.

And of course, there’s San Francisco detective Dave Toschi played with a real sense of respectable authority by Mark Ruffalo. Toschi, an Animal Cracker snacking family man, and the inspiration behind both Steve McQueen’s preferred method of wearing his service revolver in Bullitt, and Dirty Harry’s iconic law breaking detective Harry Callahan, can’t seem to figure out how to put the pieces together in the Zodiac case, understandable in light of the overwhelming amount of contradictory information at hand. Under Fincher’s direction, Ruffalo portrays Toschi as a driven yet logically minded detective. He remains dedicated for years to catching the Zodiac, but lacks the desperation and paranoia Graysmith possesses. Instead, Toschi approaches every aspect of the case with the kind of logical thinking and reasoning every detective should be in possession of, following procedure by the book, and generally doing everything he can to crack the case until the psychological burden becomes far to heavy to bear. You can see how heavy sits in his mind by Ruffalo’s subtle body language in later parts of the movie, and you soon feel sorry for the guy.

Near the end of the film, Graysmith declares “I need to stand there, I need to look him in the eye and I need to know that it’s him.”, desperate to prove that Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch; perfectly unnerving and subtle) is indeed the cold blooded killer. He gets his wish a short time later when he encounters Allen at an Ace Hardware store in Vallejo where Allen works as a clerk. Allen offers his assistance to Graysmith with a polite “Can I help you?”, Graysmith responds with a “No.”, the two men simply staring at one another until Graysmith leaves, Allen thrown off by Graysmith, and Graysmith appearing much more certain that Allens is the man they’re after. The movie moves forward eight years to when Mike Mageau, survivor of the Zodiac killer at the start of the film, meets with authorities to potentially identify the Zodiac killer, positively identifying Arthur Leigh Allen as the man who shot him and killed Darlene Ferrin. While many had their suspicions and some evidence pointed in his direction, Allen died in 1992 before he could be questioned. Not that he would have confessed anyway.

Admittedly, I have intentionally left out many details and characters, with no disrespect intended, and it should be said that every actor involved in this film, from the leading performances to the smallest of cameos (for exmaple, Ione Skye of Say Anything as Kathleen Johns, a woman who was threatened in her car by the Zodiac killer), give world class performances, some even the best of their careers to date. And the script by James Vanderbilt, based on books by Robert Graysmith, is an achievement of impeccable research and respect for the case. And the cinematography  by the late Harris Savides is bar none the greatest work the man had ever crafted, richly capturing everything with immaculate detail, from the lush valleys of California and its busy, inviting cities and streets, to the Aqua Vera drinks, to beams of red light emanating from police cars. He painted a gorgeous picture for us to gawk at for years to come.

Ten years later, I find it astonishing that Zodiac never truly ends like other movies do. Most movies tie up every loose thread with a ribbon to go with it, others leave room for potential sequels. You can’t end a movie when their is no resolution in reality, forcing a tacked on Hollywood ending wouldn’t sit right with anyone in possession of a brain. You can only leave the audience with the next best thing, the assurance of a living Zodiac victim that the man in the picture they’re pointing to is indeed the man who shot him. That Fincher was bold enough to choose this manner of ending his film shows us he’s a director capable of unsettling viewers long after the film ends, without needing to manipulate his audience or present alternative facts. Zodiac is a bona fide masterpiece, the crime film equivalent to All The President’s Men, and just as good too.

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Sam Peckinpah’s The Osterman Weekend 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


-Nate Hill-
Sam Peckinpah’s The Osterman Weekend is so strangely plotted, so illogical and hard to understand, that not even John Hurt providing a play by play from an ever present tv monitor can seem to make sense of it. It’s not that it’s a bad film, parts are very well done and there’s that nostalgic Cold War vibe that 80’s espionage thrillers always have, it’s just that somewhere along the way, whether in the editing room, the shot list or scheduling, someone quite literally lost the plot. It’s enjoyable, well acted and supplies some of that classic Peckinpah grit he’s known for, but it’s just one massive loose thread that no one bothered to pull taut, which is a shame when you look at the talent involved. The film opens with the murder of a beautiful woman, the wife of a CIA spook (Hurt). Now, this inciting incident is what spurs on the rest of the plot, but the how and the why seem to be missing, and the matter of his wife doesn’t come into play again until all is almost said and done, and seems to have not a lot to do with the entire rest of the film. The bulk of it focuses on controversial talk show host John Tanner (Rutger Hauer), a man who lives to rub people the wrong way and put men of power on the spot with provocative, candid questions, all from the safety of his brightly lit studio. He’s forced to get his hands dirty though when Hurt contacts him, informing him that his three friends he’s planned to spend the weekend with (Craig T. Nelson, Dennis Hopper and a sleazy Chris Sarandon) are in fact soviet spies in hiding. Forced to bug his weekend home and play host to Hurt as he watches them all via hidden cameras, tensions arise as they try to smoke the three out and figure out… something. But what? It’s anyone’s guess what three potential traitors have to do with a murdered agent’s wife, and I’m sure the novel by Robert Ludlum on which this is based covers that a little more pointedly, but this film is just all over the place. It drags where it should glide, and skips hurriedly over scenes with potential to be great. Nevertheless, they achieved some level of class at least, with a crackling on-air conclusion that cathartically weeds out some corruption and provides almost a glimmer of an answer to what’s going on. There’s a fight scene between Nelson and Hauer that’s excellently choreographed, the performances are committed and engaging, and I’m always a sucker for cloak and dagger theatrics. But the thing just can’t seem to cohesively pull itself together and present a story that makes sense. It’s not even that it doesn’t make sense in a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy sense, because I’m sure that if I sat down and watched that film like five times in a row, id get it, it has a plot buried under all of it. This one though, it’s like there’s pieces missing, and the ones that are left are either out of order, or from a different puzzle entirely. Close, but no cigar. 

Predator 2

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review


-Nate Hill-
Predator 2 is a gem of a film, and don’t let anyone ever try and convince you otherwise. It’s just so different and so much crazier than the first that I think people had a knee jerk ‘wtf’ reaction and panned it. It’s tough to top the sheer bombastic overdrive of the first one, which is considered a classic, but if anything the sequel switched the nitrous dial past maximum and blasts off into the stratosphere of excessive R rated chaos, an impressive feat. It also switches settings, from the sweaty jungles of South America to the equally sweaty and opulent grime of the urban jungle, namely Los Angeles of the future, bursting at the seams with so many over the top criminals and hectic, delirious violence that by the time the Predators show up they not only fit in, but seem relatively sane compared to everyone else. Seriously, every human character in this film is a coked up tornado of cartoonish energy and brashness it’s hard to keep up unless you’ve hoovered up a few rails yourself prior to sitting down and popping in the blu ray (the blu ray of this is wicked by the way, gorgeous transfer). So get this: Danny Glover, before he got too old for this shit, basically serves as a renegade SuperCop in this hellhole of a metropolis, waging all out war on loads of feral gang members and degenerates, constantly leaned on by the obligatory pain in the ass of a police commissioner (Robert Davi, god bless his republican ass) and backed up by a team of state of the art badasses, including Aliens’s Bill Paxton, who gets all the best lines and delivers them with the gusto the material deserves. He’s also backed by Ruben Blades and tough girl Maria Conchita Alonso, whose appearance and scenes with Paxton call to mind him and Jannette Goldstein side by side in Aliens, or is that just the fanboy in me having an aneurysm? Together they achieve 80’s action movie squad goals by messily wiping out as much of the criminal faction in the city as they can, including weird Rastafarian crime lord King Willie (Calvin Lockhart, spooky as all hell), until something else comes along. Something they can’t see, hear, or easily empty clips at whilst cheerfully spewing profanity. The predators have branched out, and this time there’s more than one, giving their inherent tactical nature a whole new twist. So who better to take on these extraterrestrial game wardens? Glover of course, who positively froths at the mouth. You know you’re overacting when Gary Busey has to keep up with you, and he does his loony best as some hush hush Fed who has been keeping tabs on the Preds for sometime, and has big notions of taking them down. It’s all in good fun, with jaw dropping, spectacularly brutal set pieces, violence that would not go over well these days (the 80’s didn’t give a fuck, man) and a seriously chaotic vibe humming through the whole breathless ordeal. I’d even be so bold as to say that this is the better of the two Predator films, upon getting all misty eyed and craving a rewatch after writing this. Go ahead, shame, me. It’s just too great of a flick to be as under appreciated as it is. Oh, and watch for a sly cameo from another otherworldly baddie late in the third act. 

THE FITS (2016) – A REVIEW BY RYAN MARSHALL

by population40, posted in Film Review

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If Anna Rose Holmer is simply testing the waters with her marvelously brooding first feature, then let it be said that she isn’t content to merely leave it at that and swims around a little; and even if the New York native isn’t quite as fearless as her outstanding work would suggest, and it’s likely that she is, she’s quick to conceal it for the entire duration, which is just a few minutes short of seventy.

THE FITS is a bold and totally committed portrait of isolation, maturation, and an inexplicable outbreak of hysterics – all filtered through the curious, abstracted gaze of an eleven year old girl. Tony (Royalty Hightower) exists in what is unmistakably a “man’s world” and yet the temptation of normality is never too far. Day after day, she trains with her brother Jermaine (Da’Sean Minor), a boxer, in their local community center, but a trip down the hall to retrieve a water jug could inevitably lead to a voyeuristic view of the dance team which also functions there.

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What is initially a grim reminder of the character’s introversion is soon turned into an outlet for pent-up frustration and desires alike, until the titular epidemic begins to spread throughout the building’s female population. As one can probably infer, this is certainly a weird one, and one can also imagine it might have been a bit of a tough sell; as much a coming-of-age narrative of remarkable posture and patience as a disturbing psychological horror film that never steps over into discernible genre territory.

And yet, these prove to be rather attractive qualities in the end. There isn’t a single moment that goes by when we aren’t seeing the events through the eyes of our charming protagonist, never a time when her loneliness and pursuit of social acceptance isn’t felt deep in the gut. Cinematographer Paul Yee’s work here should not go unmentioned, as virtually every frame is packed with pulsating tension, and every hypnotic movement registers as the purest expression of a singular soul. It threatens to alienate through suppression, but so do most films that commit this thoroughly to it.

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The film’s potent sense of dread is thankfully complemented by something comparatively sweeter but not so much that the atmosphere loses density as a result. THE FITS has a great deal of merit as a testament to the relationships that young women forge during their formative years, as evidenced when Toni takes a shine to Beezy (Alexis Neblett), a younger dancer. Their friendship is simultaneously a complicated and beautiful one; in other words, it’s entirely believable, no small thanks on the part of the efforts of the cast.

Hightower is an exceptional find, her presence positively demanding your attention with the kind of naturalistic swagger that would suggest a successful career in the cards, further enhanced by the actress’s intrepid gamble with the unfathomable void which surrounds her.  If there’s any price at all that Holmer must pay for such gratifying results, it’s that sometimes her interest in crafting exquisite tonal stagnation occasional gives way to sequences which border on relatively mild tedium. Luckily, this doesn’t speak for the experience on a whole, but in a film that is otherwise so intoxicating, it has the tendency to induce a distinct sinking sensation.

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Nevertheless, this is an exhilarating and audacious first-timer, even more poignant afterwards than it is in motion. So much of it – especially that oddly enticing ending, which is certainly more cathartic than downright odd in retrospect  – can seem cold and uninviting, when really it embraces a spectacularly unorthodox existence. Holmer’s decidedly different beast isn’t always the easiest to pin down, unless the rather blunt central metaphor is taken into consideration, but getting anywhere close to doing so works just fine. Simply put, it’s a peculiar pleasure, getting lost in the film’s depressed depths. If Holmer doesn’t have all the right answers, she at least does well to ask all the right questions.

“You got a problem with me?” – A review of Out Of The Furnace by Josh Hains

by Josh Hains, posted in Film Review

Scott Cooper’s sophomore film Out Of The Furnace follows Russell Baze (Christian Bale) through the empty, broken down streets of Braddock Pennsylvania like a lonesome ghost. He works in the local steel mill where his slowly dying father once worked, using what little money he makes to pay off his brother Rodney Jr.’s (Casey Affleck) gambling debts to sleazy local bookie John Petty (Willem Dafoe), all the while trying to maintain a relationship with his girlfriend Lena Taylor (Zoe Saldana). That all comes crashing down when Russell gets into trouble with the law and spends the next four years in prison, getting periodic visits from Rodney with updates on the state of their father’s health, Lena, and Rodney’s own exploits overseas in Iraq. Both men are broken and trying to keep it together for the sake of each other.

In due time Russell is released back into Braddock, the once thriving city on the verge of death with the mill soon to be closed. Things are different now for Russell, the times have changed, people have changed, and he has no other choice but to suck it up and trudge forward into the unforeseeable future. Rodney has picked up a deadly new habit, bare knuckle boxing, his way of violently paying off his debts to Petty before the stack gets too high. Russell tries talking him into a “normal” job to no avail; after multiple horrific tours of duty in Iraq, Rodney has been left shaken, twitchy, and is a mere shell of the man he once was. All that seems to be left is violence, anger, and undying love for Russell. Rodney begs John Petty to get him into bigger fights in backwoods New Jersey, dirtier, bloodier fights held under the watchful eye of local sociopathic hillbilly Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson).

By this point in a standard issue revenge thriller, Rodney would have been long dead, but Cooper wisely makes the decision to give us time to settle into this world, and come to understand characters who feel like people, and not just cardboard cut outs. That the latter half of the movie devolves somewhat predictably into the same kind of movie it was previously avoiding replication of, is a disappointment. However, what does occur is given room to breathe. Cooper might be following the tropes of the genre, but he at least has the sense to let it unfold slowly and organically. Very little feels forced.

Things quickly turn ugly for Rodney and Petty, and when both go missing, the local law led by sheriff Wesley Barnes, exhausts all possible means in an attempt to find the pair, but can only go far because law enforcement lives in fear of DeGroat’s brutal reign of the area, and the fact that it’s outside of Braddock police’s jurisdiction doesn’t help matters either. So Russell and his uncle Red (Sam Shepard) cautiously take matters into their own hands the only way they know how.

Christian Bale delivers his most believable performance to date, fully embodying the heart and soul of Russell Baze, right down to the slightest nuances and subtleties of the man. He’s a truly masterful actor, strutting his stuff in such low-key fashion that because of the deep naturalism, rawness, and intense realism he imbues, within the first few minutes it stops feeling like a performance. It becomes, real, as Russell battles his inner demons and carries the weight of the world on his lean shoulders right up until the final frames fade to black.

Woody Harrelson knocks it out of the ball park as Jersey backwoods hillbilly sociopath Harlan DeGroat, topping his wildly over-the-top performance as Mickey in Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers. If you thought Mickey was a bad dude, wait until you watch DeGroat force a hot dog down the throat of a woman at a drive-in movie theatre in the films unnerving opening sequence. Harrelson has an uncanny ability of inhabiting even the most repulsive of villains with some semblance of humanity, and toward the end of the film does so with nothing more than an all-knowing expression upon his face and burning in his eyes as he delivers a couple heartfelt lines.

With this performance, Casey Affleck shed the boyish light his previous performances have always been garnished with, trading it in for a toned body and volatile outbursts of pent-up rage. He gives the more energetic performance of the two brothers, effortlessly capturing Rodney’s broken down mannerisms. Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, and Sam Shepard each provide the right amount of nuance and naturalism to their perfomances that blend evenly with their bleak surroundings and the trio of astounding lead performances.

In a scene near the midsection of the film, Russell and Lena have a conversation on a bridge about their future after Russell has been released from prison. Despite Russell’s plea to make things right between them, Lena cannot commit to him anymore because she’s carrying Barnes’ child. In a moment that ought to shatter even the hardest of hearts into a million pieces, Russell congratulates Lena, assuring her she’ll be a good mom amidst tears from both of them. This scene assuredly carries the finest moments of acting we’ve seen from Bale and Saldana to date. 

The cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi (The Grey) is impeccable, capturing beautifully and quite often starkly, the dreary and dirty grit of Braddock, the crispness of the violence, the cold bitterness of the dialogue dripping from the tongue of the people inhabiting the film. Scott Cooper directs this film with ease, honestly and authentically capturing the bleak essence of the dying town, the harsh realities of the effects the economy is having on the people, and the brutality that is the violence that twists their worlds upside down in the blink of an eye.

 

“If you ride like lightning, you’re gonna crash like thunder.” – A review of The Place Beyond The Pines by Josh Hains

by Josh Hains, posted in Film Review

As the opening title, “A film by Derek Cianfrance”, dissipates, a breath is drawn followed by the clinking of an angel knife as Ryan Gosling’s Luke Glanton menacingly opens and closes it, his abs glowing in the dimly lit room, his body battered with tattoos as the sounds of people, rides and games emit from outside his small trailer. He’s told it’s showtime by an outside authority, jamming the knife overhand into a wall before picking up his shirt and red jacket and slipping out the door, putting them both on as he traverses the crowd until he reaches a large tent boasting The Globe Of Death. He walks with the swagger of James Dean as he enters the tent to cheers and cries of excitement from fans alike as he and two fellow riders known only as The Heart Throbs gear up on their motorcycles and glide into the deadly spherical cage. Engines roar and fans scream as Handsome Luke and The Heart Throbs dizzyingly ride their motorcycles loop de loop until the screen fades to Luke signing autographs. And to think, that was all done in one take.

The Place Beyond The Pines is a beautifully brooding, tragic, heartbreakingly powerful, and ambitious genre film about fathers and sons, legacy, and consequences. Luke Glanton (Gosling), a daredevil carnival motorcycle rider finds out former fling Romina (Eva Mendes), a local waitress and fan of Luke’s skills, recently had their son, Jason after their last fling. Much to her surprise, he quits his job in the hopes that he can concoct a relationship with the infant and her too, even though she has a new, responsible man in her life by the name of Kofi (Mahershala Ali, in an understated role).

Luke is irresponsible, impulsive, tattooed all to hell and prone to outbursts of violence. Things only get complicated once he meets Robin Van Der Zee (Ben Mendelsohn), a grubby mechanic who hires him after witnessing his outstanding skills on the motorcycle. He suggests that Luke rob banks, Robin himself having robbed banks years earlier, and Luke, in need of quick cash to support his son, opts to do just that. As time marches on the risks get higher and the cash comes thicker during riveting, manic heists and intense and stunningly realistic getaways; until Robin suddenly balks, leaving Luke to sloppily rob a bank and subsequently get chased across town on his motorcycle. The breathtaking chase leads Luke to a violent confrontation with Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a young police officer and son of a well respected judge.

After his confrontation with Luke, Avery begins to question his actions during the encounter as fellow officers headed by Pete Deluca (the always intimidating Ray Liotta, in full-on bad cop mode) engage in thuggish, corrupt behaviour which begins to take its toll on Avery and his family life as the father to a newborn son and husband to a fearful wife.

Skip ahead 15 years and Avery is running for public office, as his and Luke’s respective sons Jason (Dane DeHaan) and A.J. (Emory Cohen) begin a tumultuous and troubling friendship. I have to stop there, as any more details about the film will surely spoil what is undoubtedly a surprising film.

Luke’s story takes up the first 45-60 minutes, and is the best of the three stories in this triptych film; a deep, emotional roller-coaster that follows Luke as he struggles to provide for his newborn son. The heists are crisp, increasingly sloppy and volatile, brimming with an underlying intensity and fiery rawness. When he robs, he angrily squeals and shrieks his commands, grabbing the closest person to him as leverage until he has the money. When he rides, it’s as if you’re right there with him; the roar of the engine thundering through the air as he speeds down twisting roads into Robin’s cube truck.

Ryan Gosling as the violent, troubled Luke Glanton is mesmerizing, delivering his best performance since 2010’s Blue Valentine (which marked his first collaboration with this film’s director Derek Cianfrance), and surely one for the Oscar nomination list. He doesn’t say much which draws comparison to his eerie role as The Driver in 2011’s Drive, his eyes and facial expressions exuding Luke’s restrained and ominous personality in the same brooding manner as he did in Drive. He also has a vehicular skill, this time motorcycles and not cars, but that’s about where the comparisons stop. Where Driver felt like a caricature, or a fantastical vigilante ripped from a ludicrous dream, Luke feels, and very much so is, a genuine, authentic and honest portrayal of a man struggling to leave a strong imprint in his son’s life while dealing with his own inner, violent demons. He holds honest intentions, but is far too explosive and violent for the life he quietly yearns for.

Eva Mendes is at her quiet best here as Romina, giving an heartfelt and touching portrayal of a mother trying to do what’s right for her son, which may or may not always be the best of decisions. Ben Mendelsohn (of Animal Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises and Killing Them Softly fame) yet again find a rhythm for playing the greasy, twitchy mechanic and Luke’s only friend Robin. His ability to slip into these scuzzy roles is fantastic, as he once again delivers a magnetic performance.

The second story that follows Avery post-Luke encounter runs for about the same length as the first section, as does the last section. The film seamlessly weaves between the sections, pausing only for a moment with a black screen as if to let us breathe before it catapults us into Avery’s battle for survival in the world of policing. The story presents itself much like a cop film from the ‘70’s, something the likes of William Friedkin or Francis Ford Coppola would have sunk their teeth deep into. Bradley Cooper is fantastic in this act, quickly taking the reins of the film as the torch gets passed along, proving once again that most audiences have underestimated his acting prowess in the past despite the complexity of his most recent roles. Ray Liotta as Pete Deluca, a corrupt veteran officer, is at his menacing best, and Rose Byrne (Jennifer, Avery’s wife), Harris Yulin (as Avery’s judge father Al) and Bruce Greenwood as slippery lawyer Bill Killcullen all deliver with quiet, small roles with actions that echo a lifetime.

I won’t go too deep into the final act, but I will say that Dane DeHaan is one to watch, one-upping his co-star Emory Cohen as Luke’s estranged son Jason, matching pound for pound the intensity delivered by the more seasoned actors in the film. Emory is convincing as the drug-addled interpretation of MTV styled behaviour infused into Avery’s son A.J.

The latter two stories following Avery post-confrontation, and later their respective sons, are thoroughly engaging, edgy and potent, but are intentionally not as electrifying as Luke’s daredevil lifestyle portion of the film. Luke’s story is one electric scene after another, each as haunting and memorable as the last until his story ends, when the film slows down to give us a deep insight into the lives of police officers and their family, and the ramifications of the violence and corrupt actions committed in the first story; each scene for the 140 minute running time never failing to captivate your eyes and mind. Despite how well acted the last two chapters of the film are, one can’t help but feel underwhelmed by them both after the volatile, quick paced first act.

This is a powerhouse, haunting, Shakespeare-esque cinematic experience of a lifetime. Derek Cianfrance, the director behind Blue Valentine and the largely unseen Brother Tied gives us his best film here, an honest tale of fathers and sons, violence and its impacts, actions and their consequences. He gets the absolute most of of his actors, no matter how big or small the role, with relative ease it seems. As stated in several dozen interviews, many of the scenes are genuine, featuring real actions from his actors during rehearsals, or spontaneous behaviours from them as filing was occurring, which helps push the realistic, honest and authentic nature of this film to greater heights. The violence is quick and bloody, but never stylized or gimmicky, instead remaining true to the speed and ferocity of real violence one would see in a Sunday night instalment of World’s Wildest Police Chases, which Derek himself said inspired the realism of this film. Mike Patton’s thrilling score greatly enhances each scene, never becoming overbearing or underused.

While Blue Valentine was a small scaled romantic tragedy, The Place Beyond The Pines is on a much larger playing field as it spans its 15 plus years, giving us a sweeping genre epic that stands an equal among similar father-son consequential films such as The Godfather. Derek Cianfrance once again shows us he’s a masterclass in filmmaking, delivering what will surely be the year’s best dramatic film. This is filmmaking from the pelvis by Cianfrance that grabs you by the throat and never lets go until the final, heartbreaking frames contrasted with Bon Iver’s ‘The Wolves’; this, is one hell of a film, and among the best of its year of release. As this epic tale of fathers, sons, and consequences rides off into the morning sunrise, its grip will loosen just enough to leave you breathless in its powerful wake.

 

Logan

by 39frames, posted in Film Review

Logan

2017.  Directed by James Mangold.

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A skin deep swan song by way of a bloodstained road movie, James Mangold’s Logan is a touching, but sadly adequate capstone to the X-Men saga pioneered by Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart.  Profanity laced unbridled fury, an outstanding debut performance, and a meticulously crafted entry into the superhero genre are unable to obfuscate the film’s mediocrity.
Using threads from the Old Man Logan comic series, the story begins during the final days of the last mutants on Earth.  Logan is has finally, irrevocably broken underneath years of pain and alcoholism.  Professor X is slowly losing his mind, making him an unstable danger to friends and foes alike.  This quiet extinction is disturbed when a young girl is dropped into their midst putting them on the run from nefarious, albeit typically boring Marvel villains.  Mangold’s story is ultimately a sly metaphor on how the genre itself is being consumed by its fandom.  The heroes are used up and uninterested in caring, let alone acting.  Society has become automated allowing evil men to do evil deeds while the grassroots of manual labor are mercilessly replaced.  Regrettably these chilling concepts are only flirted with, as Mangold seems to use every intriguing moment as a stepping stone to the next CGI bloodbath.

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On the topic of violence in the film, rumors of its brutality are vastly overstated.  For an R Rated adult offering, this is tame considering how practical effects could have been used for maximum impact, but ultimately violence itself is a fleeting notion in this film as scores of mechanically augmented soldiers are repeatedly, unceremoniously ripped to shreds.  Joel Harlow’s makeup design is fantastic, chronicling a life of torment on Logan’s body and as the damage multiplies, the visible, slowly healing wounds become marks of desperation.  John Mathieson’s cinematography latches onto the obvious with a death grip, never deviating from the surface except during some wonderful shots of automated behemoths in a corn field and a few stills of Logan at his worst.

 

In the end, there is no real villain besides time, an existential conceit that is never developed in favor of a repetitive combat rhythm that carries the story into a remarkable final act that comes too soon despite the overlong running time.  It’s a strange paradox, but this is a strange film.  Everything is apparent.  The tired gunman on one last mission cliché is everywhere, even on a television displaying one of the many films from which this trope was conceived, the ultimate admission that blockbusters have run out of fresh ideas.

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Patrick Stewart delivers an award caliber performance.  Professor X is the heart of this film and Stewart does an amazing job with the unexciting material he’s given, delivering the film’s greatest heartbreak and some hilarious one liners.  Jackman fully embraces being able to finally be the Logan we’ve all wanted with ease and it’s a touchstone to how talented this man truly is.  Newcomer Dafne Keen gives ferocious turn as the girl that everyone is pursuing.  She’s primal and abrasive, compassionate and furious, portraying the anguish of a living experiment with a handful of words.  Stephen Merchant’s supporting performance as Caliban also merits mention, as he is the example of the work-horsed mutant’s plight in a world that no longer needs them.

 

In theaters now, Logan is a great sendoff for its titular character, but little else.  The marketing campaign set this up as a transcendent experience that had the potential to rewrite the entire game.  Potential is the key word because it is genuinely everywhere within Logan’s dust choked set pieces.  Sadly, the film is more interested in getting to the sendoff rather than exploring its powerful capabilities.  It’s worth seeing in theater for the remarkable tribute to Jackman and Stewart’s work and the fact that adult oriented superhero films need all the support they can get to ensure that the studios continue to take chances on them.  However, if you’re looking for something that breaks the mold, this is the not film.

 

Recommend.

-Kyle Jonathan

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