Tag: films

The Men Who Stare At Goats: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Stephen Lang Week: Day 2 
There’s a scene early on in The Men Who Stare at goats where hapless General Dean Hopgood (Stephen Lang) attempts a platform 9 & 3 quarters style sprint towards a solid wall, in attempt to use ‘psychic abilities’ he is being taught at a hush-hush military base. He smashes headlong into it, and in the most deadpan drawl, mutters “damn” in all seriousness. This one moment sort of sums up the absurd vibe that thrums throughout the whole film. It’s kind of like a Coen Brothers thing; you either get it or you don’t. This film isn’t quite as hilarious as it’s sister, Burn After Reading, but damn if it doesn’t try, and come out with some really weird and memorable stuff. It’s colorful hogwash that the cast sells with the enthusiasm of a drunken used car salesman, and speaking of cast, wow there are a lot of heavy hitters playing in the sandbox here. George Clooney, in yet another of his patented lovable goof roles, plays Lyn Cassidy, a former US Army nutjob who claims to have been a part of a clandestine program called the New Earth Army, employing paranormal powers in their missions. Bemused journalist Ewan McGregor is shanghai’d into following him on a mad goose chase to find out if any of his stories are true, but mostly just to babysit him, as he’s kind of a walking disaster. Ineptitude reaches a breaking point when we meet pseudo hippie Bill Django, played by Jeff Bridges who channels every other oddball role he’s done for maximum effect. Bill headed up the program until he got stymied by opposing official Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), a tight ass skeptic with no patience for such silliness. In fact, one must have a huge tolerance for such silliness to sit through this, and a sense of humour just south of normal to appreciate what it has to offer. I have both, and greatly enjoyed it, despite being thoroughly bewildered. Watch for Stephen Root, Glenn Moreshower, Rebecca Mader, Nick Offerman and good old Robert Patrick in a cameo as some sort of vague spy dude. A clown show to rival a high school play, no doubt, and I mean that as a compliment. 

The I Inside: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It’s mind-bender time with The I Inside, a supremely trippy little psychological thriller with shades of everything from Stay and Jacob’s Ladder to Memento and The Jacket. It’s not derivitive though, finding it’s own little bubble of confusing plot twists and unreliable reality for our protagonist, played by Ryan Phillipe, to navigate. He plays a man who awakens in a hospital with no memory of the last two years, how he got there or what went wrong. The head doctor (Stephen Rea) informs him he’s come out of a coma, but offers little other information. Soon time blurs out of mind and he awakens yet again, this time two years in the future, once again in the same hospital. Somehow he can travel in a rift between 2000 and 2002, and must find the connection between the two, and how it relates to him. Now, forewarning: This is one goddamn confusing film. I’m usually pretty adept at distilling dense, scattered or otherwise inaccessible story lines, but this is a doozy. I’ve only seen it once and wound up not having a clue how it all ended up, whether it was due to scattershot writing, or the filmmakers deliberatly making it near unfathomable just to put you in his predicament for effect. Either way, it’s a confounding blizzard of time shifts, strange characters, mental blank spots and perceptive trickery that I’ll need at least a few more viewings to get a handle on. Two different women show up at various points in time, played by Piper Perabo and a chilling Sarah Polley, each claiming to be his wife and messing with his head even more. The only thread that links the two time periods besides him is a mysterious heart trauma patient (an excellent Stephen Lang) who recognizes him in the future and gets his own dose of WTF in the process. This is based on a stage play called Point Of Death, and as such has that intimate, one location feel. We’re never allowed to see outside the hospital in either era, adding to Phillipe’s paranoia and unease. I sometimes think about this film, and what it all really meant, and keep reminding myself to slot in time for a revisit. Take a look, and see if you can figure it out the first time around. 

Joss Whedon’s In Your Eyes: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

JOSS WHEDON ALERT
Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about In Your Eyes, a lovely little romantic/fantasy/drama written by the J Man, concerning a boy and girl who have shared a strange psychic bond over hundreds of miles since they were kids, despite never having met. 

  Its a slightly unconventional romance, a charming, breezy little piece that took me by surprise, having known nothing about it going in except Whedon’s involvment. It starts with his lovely script, laying down the bones for two adorable leads (Zoe Kazan and Michael Stahl David) to go to work. Dylan and Rebecca have never met. They live on opposite sides of the US, and lead considerably different lives. They would have nothing in common if it weren’t for an odd metaphysical connection. They can periodically (and often at inconvenient times) see into each others lives like a perceptive window, complete with senses like smell, taste and touch. When they are growing up its confusing and stunted, but I imagine it blossoms along with every other attribute, and suddenly they’ve discovered they’re not both crazy, and that there’s a real person on the other end of this bewitching mutual conduit. Soon they are communicating, much to the puzzlement of everyone else in their lives, who just observes them talking to themselves like loons. Romance isn’t far off, as we can well guess, and soon they are deeply in love in spite of their differences and the great gulf of distance between them. He’s a troubled fellow with a criminal past, a lenghthy RAP sheet and a nosy parole officer (Steve Harris). She’s a mild mannered, fragile girl married to a prissy control freak of a Doctor (Mark Fuerstein). Both of their lives are continuously disrupted by their relationship until they’re at the brink of crisis, and it seems the only way out is to find one a other in person. The almost supernatural aspect of their connection  is treated frankly, like more of a biological anomaly as opposed to ghostly gimmicks. It can be seen as Whedon exploring the nature of love in our world, finding “the one” who is always out there, somewhere, waiting. Or are they? The real hero is his incredibly down to earth script, an easy going, hilarious and poignant piece of writing. The cast is from all walks of Hollywood and includes Nikki Reed, Shameless’s Steve Howey, Richard Rhiele and a priceless cameo from Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey, who is starting to look like a character from Desperate Housewives. Kazan and David are just the cutest, most earnest couple I’ve seen in a romantic film of late. She’s unsure, passionate and intuitive, he’s a scrappy patchwork teddy bear and together they’re perfect, capturing the essence of the relationship in a single very unique sex scene, nestled in with all of their “spiritual Skype” bonding, and eventual face to face meeting. Whedon loves his characters, right down to the bit parts and it shows. His writing is never short of sterling, and this one is another winner for him. 

Joss Whedon’s In Your Eyes: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

JOSS WHEDON ALERT
Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about In Your Eyes, a lovely little romantic/fantasy/drama written by the J Man, concerning a boy and girl who have shared a strange psychic bond over hundreds of miles since they were kids, despite never having met. 

  Its a slightly unconventional romance, a charming, breezy little piece that took me by surprise, having known nothing about it going in except Whedon’s involvment. It starts with his lovely script, laying down the bones for two adorable leads (Zoe Kazan and Michael Stahl David) to go to work. Dylan and Rebecca have never met. They live on opposite sides of the US, and lead considerably different lives. They would have nothing in common if it weren’t for an odd metaphysical connection. They can periodically (and often at inconvenient times) see into each others lives like a perceptive window, complete with senses like smell, taste and touch. When they are growing up its confusing and stunted, but I imagine it blossoms along with every other attribute, and suddenly they’ve discovered they’re not both crazy, and that there’s a real person on the other end of this bewitching mutual conduit. Soon they are communicating, much to the puzzlement of everyone else in their lives, who just observes them talking to themselves like loons. Romance isn’t far off, as we can well guess, and soon they are deeply in love in spite of their differences and the great gulf of distance between them. He’s a troubled fellow with a criminal past, a lenghthy RAP sheet and a nosy parole officer (Steve Harris). She’s a mild mannered, fragile girl married to a prissy control freak of a Doctor (Mark Fuerstein). Both of their lives are continuously disrupted by their relationship until they’re at the brink of crisis, and it seems the only way out is to find one a other in person. The almost supernatural aspect of their connection  is treated frankly, like more of a biological anomaly as opposed to ghostly gimmicks. It can be seen as Whedon exploring the nature of love in our world, finding “the one” who is always out there, somewhere, waiting. Or are they? The real hero is his incredibly down to earth script, an easy going, hilarious and poignant piece of writing. The cast is from all walks of Hollywood and includes Nikki Reed, Shameless’s Steve Howey, Richard Rhiele and a priceless cameo from Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey, who is starting to look like a character from Desperate Housewives. Kazan and David are just the cutest, most earnest couple I’ve seen in a romantic film of late. She’s unsure, passionate and intuitive, he’s a scrappy patchwork teddy bear and together they’re perfect, capturing the essence of the relationship in a single very unique sex scene, nestled in with all of their “spiritual Skype” bonding, and eventual face to face meeting. Whedon loves his characters, right down to the bit parts and it shows. His writing is never short of sterling, and this one is another winner for him. 

Captain Fantastic: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Somewhere deep in the rugged mountainsides of the Pacific Northwest, a mother and father have chosen to raise their five children off the grid, away from society and by a completely different set of rules and customs than anyone in our day and age is used to. Viggo Mortensen doesn’t take on just any film, and in fact since his breakout role in Lord of The Rings which allowed him some clout, he’s done nothing but carefully thought out, worthwhile cinema, Captain Fantastic being probably one of the best. He is intense and caring as Ben, an intellectual renaissance man who has been bitterly put off of capitalism and commercialism. His wife (Trin Miller, angelic in flashbacks) is mentally ill and eventually passes away, leaving him on his own with the brood. He does what he knows best, sticking to the rigid physical and intellectual education plan in place for them. They learn to hunt wild game with homemade tools, read from classics like Lolita and Brothers Karamazov every evening, grow all their own grains and vegetation, practice complex defense, combat and survival skills, and live a life of elemental potency, far from the lemming’s march of consumerism just beyond their verdant and very isolated homeland. Trouble has a way of finding paradise though, however well it hides, and here it arrives in the simplest form of all: the absence of a mother. Things aren’t the same following her death, and they all take up arms and head south to New Mexico for her funeral, in a big old repurpoused school bus. They’re the most ecentric family you’ve ever met, and the ironic part is they’re the closest thing to what we were meant to live like in this world you’ll find. The real absurdity is the technicolor strip mall fast food fever dream we inhabit today, far removed from our earthy origins. It’s just because it’s become so commonplace that it seems normal to us. The family clashes spectacularly with an unprepared outside world who react to their behaviour in many different ways. The children all have the physique of a professional athlete and the academic abilities of six college professors, but somewhere along the way Ben forgot to teach them about what matters most: How to interact with one another, how to care for and love another human, and the simple social cues one aquires from growing up around a large number of people. His jaded father in law (knockout work from Frank Langella) sees Ben as a loose cannon, a danger to his grandchildren and the cause of his daughter’s death. At one point the film levels out and let’s us see things in a complete objective way: yes there are extreme benefits to a method of raising children like this, an experience that no one else could have and an implementation of their human potential that goes several degrees farther than usual. But how far is too far? Is there a dangerous element to their training and conditioning that goes beyond what they’re capable of and poses a threat? Mortensen is a picture of conflict, his undying love for his children tested when he’s thrown out of the comfort coccoon he has forged for them. Suddenly he is not the all knowing protector they’ve gotten used to, and the world outside is just as much a cause of fear for him as it is for them. They are a family though, which is achingly, evidently clear in each performance. George Mackay is the eldest and bears the brunt of realization when it comes time to meet other people. The others, including Annaliese Basso, Shree Crooks, Nicholas Hamilton and Samantha Isler are all sensational and have a lived in, well worn and often quite hilarious dynamic. It’s essentially a fish out of water story that begs us to question both the water and the land, and how going from one environment to the other, both worlds apart but in the same realm, can affect a human being. This is the best film I have seen so far this year, one that challenges us to ponder what we see unfold, urges us to be more than just another fish in the school, but to laugh, be crazy, think for ourselves and pitch in an effort to find the scattered pieces of the puzzle we call the human condition. Fantastic is the word indeed.

Ron Howard’s The Missing: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Ron Howard usually plays it both straight and safe, never taking too many risks, never siding too much with abstraction or grey areas, and over the years this has made me somewhat of a non fan. Not a hater, simply seldom blown away or challenged by his work. With The Missing, however, he strayed from the path and brought us a dark, threatening picture of life on the frontier in all its brutal, treacherous glory. With the success of last year’s brilliant Bone Tomahawk, I couldn’t help but be reminded of this beauty, as there are elements of horror and evil dancing on a thread with origin points in both films. Different altogether, but from the same elemental stew and highly reminiscent of each other. Cate Blanchett is hard bitten single mother Magdalena, trying her best to raise two daughters (Evan Rachel Wood and the excellent Jenna Boyd) with only the help of her sturdy farmhand (Aaron Eckhart). One misty night, someone or something snatches Wood right out of her bed and disappears into the wilderness with her. Magdalena is raw and determined, launching a desperate search across woods and plains to find her kin. Joining her is her half breed injun father Samuel, played by an eerily convincing Tommy Lee Jones. Samuel left her years before and only re-emerges in her life for fear of being punished for forsaking his family in the beyond. Gradually he turns around and a bond is formed through the crisis, an arc which Jones nails like the pro he is. It turns out they are tracking a group of despicable human traffickers who take girls and sell them across the border into sex slavery. They are led by a mysterious witchdoctor (Eric Schweig) whose tactics border on voodoo prowess. It’s scary stuff, never outright horror, but sure aims for that with its hazy nocturnal atmosphere in which any denizen of the night could be poised behind the next thicket or cluster of trees, ready to pounce. Blanchett is tough as nails, a terrific female protagonist blessed with a mother’s love and a winchester to back it up. Jones is gruff and badass, believable as a native american and treated as a well rounded character seeking redemption in his twilight years. There’s also fine work from Steve Reevis, Clint Howard, Elizabeth Moss and a cool cameo from Val Kilmer as a sergeant who helps them out. My favourite Ron Howard film by far. Just a mean, dark genre piece that aims to thrill and chill in equal measures and comes up aces. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Some people give me funny looks when I say I enjoyed the Hobbit films. There’s this giant festering stigma around the entire trilogy that’s hard to wade through if you are one who geniunly did enjoy a lot of what Peter Jackson brought us with his second barrage of Middle Earth sagas. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of things he muffed up, the chief aspect being editing and length. We did not ask for, need or want an entire LOTR lenghth trilogy based on a book that could have fit into one volume of that series. Jackson has a tendancy to overreach, film too much and throw it all into his final cut. It started with the extended cuts of LOTR, which were somewhat unneeded, continued with King Kong, which could have been at least 45 minutes shorter, and has now climaxed with The Hobbit films. They’re so long and stretched out that at times we realize we’re not even watching stuff from Tolkien’s annexes or archives, but simply shit old Petey made up to pad the waistline of content that’s begging to be slimmed down. I’m still waiting for a fan edit that condenses everything down into what is necessary to tell the story, and pitch everything else into the purgatorial halls of DVD deleted scene land. And therein lies my argument: There’s gold to be found here, but a lot of folks are so turned off by all the unnecessary razzle dazzle that they have become blind to what actually worked. An Unexpected Journey kicks off the trilogy and definitely fares the best, feeling the most akin to the book. Martin Freeman is lovely as a young Bilbo, baffled to find thirteen rowdy dwarves dumped on his doorstep, the work of Gandalf The Grey (Ian McKellen, like he never left the role), who wishes to prod him in the direction of a most dangerous and thrilling adventure. Bilbo is a mild creature and deeply in love with the comforts of home, but is whisked along all the same, after a chaotic dinner party and plate throwing contest from this knobbly group of mountain dwelling pygmies. Orcs, Wargs, Goblins, colossal mountain giants and an appearance by the ever fascinating Gollum await them. There’s an interlude into Elrond’s heavenly glade where Gandalf, Saruman (Christopher Lee) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) have a little CSI: Rivendell episode with an ancient dagger that hints towards the return of Sauron. One thing Jackson added that is a highlight is additional wizard Radagast The Brown (Sylvester McCoy) an eccwntric hippie who rides a chariot led by massive rabbits in breakneck bouts of Need For Speed: Middle Earth with Orcs atop Wargs. A distinct feature about these films compared to LOTR is the ramping up of CGI; many Orcs are no longer stuntmen in gloriously goopy makeup, but giant computer rendered behemoths, taking some of the texture and authenticity away. Jackson also chose to shoot in many more frames per second than the human eye is used to, giving everything a strange, wax museum sheen that is pretty distracting. Close your bag of tricks and make us a goddamn straightforward flick Pete. Fuck sake. For all the issues, it’s terrific to be back in Middle Earth, however different it looks and feels. The production design is still an elaborate wonder of creative design and decoration, Howard Shore’s now timeless score makes a triumphant return and there’s a beautiful new song courtesy of the dwarves. Say what you want, bitch and moan til the Wargs come home, I love this first outing dearly and rank it nearly as high as LOTR. I can’t say the same for the next two, especially the exhausting Battle Of Five Armies which diminished my patience for Jackson and his tricks a whole lot. But, like I said, there’s always gold to be mined from the needless padding that’s been tossed in. One day someone will edit that perfect cut for us, and we’ll have that definitive Hobbit film. Until then, cherry pick the best parts and try to put the rest from your mind. 

Jack Pérez’s La Cucaracha: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

La Cucaracha means cockroach in Spanish (duh), which is somewhat of an ironic and sad reference to the main character of this exquisite little indie character study, a damaged man named Walter Pool (Eric Roberts). Walter is a writer drowning in alcoholism as he spend his days hiding out in a Mexican shanty town. Wallowing in self despair, he’s the perfect protagonist just waiting for an inciting incident, and as we all know, rural Mexico is a breeding ground for trouble of all sorts to spur on a good campfire tale. While on a bender in town, Walter is approached by a shady American lawyer (James McManus) and offered a job with malicious implications involving the son of local Mexican mobster Jose Guerra (Joaquim De Almeida). He takes the task, but nothing is what it seems and he realizes he’s been set up, lied to and left for dead. Used to being a write off, something snaps in him and he fires up with a need to know the truth about Guerra and his family. He’ll wish he never bothered, because the truth is disturbing and not at all what you’d expect from this kind of tequila soaked, south of the border intrigue. There’s very little action, gunplay or usual thriller tropes, and pretty much all the narrative is left to the actors and the writing, making it very unique amongst this type of fare. This is essential for any Roberts fan, he’s not doing one of his extended cameos or winking supporting jaunts here. He’s front and center the entire time and owns it with vulnerability and resilience, especially in a curiously sad monologue that goes into his past and let’s us see some of what has led him to his unique, end of the road situation. Almeida once again plays a Latin criminal, but unlike most of the other times, he’s given something to do here besides wave a gun around and be the villain. He’s treated intimately by the script, giving Guerra a personality, secrets and a haunted soul of his own. The scenes later in the third act between him and Roberts crackle with charisma and potency. The cover of the dvd for this shows a gunslinger type guy brandishing two pistols. Ignore that fully. Nowhere in this film is there anything that can be branded as an action flick. It’s all about character, good and bad deeds, redemption, evil and choices we make. An astonishing little story that’s been seen by almost no one up til now, deserving of far more accolades. 

B Movie Glory with Nate: Sensation 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Sensation is a very erotic thriller that breathes hot, heavy and hard all over its audience, almost overpowering the murder mystery at it’s center with the large number of sex scenes throughout. It’s essentially trash, and wouldn’t be worth much of a mention if it weren’t for some great actors, and an opening score that sets an eerie mood the film hardly deserves. Eric Roberts is Dr. Ian Burton, a college teacher who is looking for people with vague psychic abilities, for some sort of research. Enter stunning Lila Reed (Kari Wuhrer), a student with the unique ability to experience an object or person’s past simply by physical contact. Roberts is in fact looking for the person who murdered his lover, unbeknownst to her, and jumps at the chance to use her talent for his investigation. Many suspects run about, there’s sex scenes between Roberts and Wuhrer, in which her abilities flash back to… even more sex scenes from the past, and it’s all a wee bit disorganized, but oh well. Ron Perlman, always welcome, shows up as a Detective who thinks he can crack the case, winding up in over his head as well. There’s also a bizarre and inexplicable cameo from a creepy Ed Begley Jr. who hassles Kari in a bar and runs off as quick as he showed up, never to be seen again. It’s sleazy late night cable fun, without much to go crazy over except the actors, and that score I mentioned. Oh and.. you know… all the naughty bits, of which there is an overload 

Remembrance: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

On a chaotic summer day among the poor souls in a horrific Polish concentration camp, 1944, young inmate Tomasz  (Mateusz Damiecki) is desperate. German jew Hannah (Alice Dywer) is almost certainly meant for death at the hands of the nazis running the facility. The two have fallen hopelessly in love, and he knows he must get her out and far, far away before it’s too late. In an impossibly courageous effort and in a scene that will pummel your nerves, he uses a stolen SS officer’s uniform, scoops her up from the workhouse wing and quietly leads her right out the front gate. The two disappear into the neighboring Polish woodland in what is one of the only escapes from a nazi concentration camp ever documented. It’s a bold, thrilling, stirring way to start the film, whether or not you know of its origins in actual history. That kind of escape from a place so hellish is a collective sigh of relief from both audience and characters, and it’s one nail biter of an emotional ring of fire we all are forced to jump through. But we know this isn’t the end, the resolute happiness we so wish for these two, because the film has only just started. In the confusion near the end of the war, the two of them are separated, and move forward in life each believing the other to be dead. This is all interspersed with visions of Hannah’s life far in the future of 1976, now married, in her 50’s and played by the sensational Dagmar Menzel. In a dry cleaner shop one day she happens to see a talk show on European television, where a man recounts his daring rescue and escape from Auschwitz. The details are eerily similar, and Hannah’s mind races. Could this be Tomasz? Could he be alive after all these years and most importantly, should she go to him despite the gulf of time that signifies their prolonged separation? The film tugs at your heartstrings in so many different ways and moments, effectively hanging your tear ducts out to dry. No one can say no to a good wartime romance, because the formula is just too workable. Amidst all that confusion, terror and violence it is essential to find some sort of good with which to combat the dark, and what better way than the strongest force of all, love? Dywer and Damiecki are beyond convincing in their roles, so clearly blessed and burdened with that go for broke, die for one another type passion that we all look for and seldom find. American actor David Rasche plays Hannah’s husband in New York, clearly torn up by the tumultuous past rearing it’s head in their lives, but willing to empathize with the woman he loves and strive to do what’s best in this difficult situation. Menzel is conflicted, hurt, hopeful and utterly, convincingly reactive in a role that’s just not an easy one to pull off. Director Anna Justice uses majesterial skill to get the flow of story just right from scene to scene. Narratives which skip backwards and forwards in time can often feel jagged and unfounded in cohesion, but this one ebbs and flows from moment to moment without a single beat skipped or turn of plot out of place. I did some research on the true life tale this is based on, and for the most part they have stuck to fact to bring us as story that’s almost unbelievable, and deeply emotional. Remembrance is a keeper.