Tag: the oa

Actor’s Spotlight: Nate’s Top Ten Scott Wilson Performances

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

Scott Wilson was one of those actors who showed up on screen and before you even heard him speak you wondered what thoughts, feelings and history were behind those introspective features. Whether playing cowboy, cop, criminal, family man, mayor, general or anyone else he always brought a measured, contemplative grit and grace equilibrium to his his work and consistently stood out. Here are my top ten favourite performances!

10. Frank Reasoner in FX’s Justified

Amidst a rogues gallery of fantastic character actors playing criminals, creeps and rapscallions, Scott stands out as a senior citizen tethered to an oxygen tank with one last heist in him, do or die. He’s essentially a decent guy whose plan goes pretty disastrously and he’s inevitably collared by Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) after a, shall we say, leisurely chase. He wistfully outlines his intentions, regrets and and eventually concedes to the law in a very memorable one episode guest arc.

9. General George C. Marshall in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbour

He’s basically here in a cameo delivering military exposition to President Roosevelt (Jon Voight), but it’s one of the first things I remember seeing him in as a kid, his grave demeanour and poised line delivery steals the scene from a room packed with venerable talent.

8. Abel Johnson in Netflix’s The OA

This was his last role before passing on and indeed he can be seen in one last season two episode that aired in 2019 a year after his death, which is a nice touch. He and the great Alice Krige play adoptive parents to protagonist Prairie Johnson (series co-creator Brit Marling). Their journey is a complicated, elliptical and metaphysical one that’s often sad and fraught with suffering but he blesses this character with a gentle paternal energy. I’m still so pissed that they cancelled this after only two seasons but that’s another story.

7. Hershel Greene in AMC’s The Walking Dead

Sometimes you don’t get international acclaim and ComicCon level attention until you’re in the vicinity of like 80 years old but hey better late than never. His stoic, vulnerable yet badass turn as farmer and family man Hershel blew up his career as an actor, prompting him to make many visits to conventions all over the world, including my city of Vancouver. I was able to meet him and he was every bit the gentleman, sage and class act I always knew he’d be.

6. Horton/Last John in Patty Jenkins’ Monster

Another brief cameo but one that speaks volumes. Serial killer Eileen Wuornos murdered many men in her spree, some that probably deserved it and others that were total innocents. Horton is just an old man driving across country to visit family when he has the unfortunate luck to run into her. His tearful pleading and telling her he has children is one of the most haunting, heartbreaking scenes of the film and even brings out a note of chilling complexity in Theron’s performance too.

5. C.O. Salem in Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane

One of the all time great drill instructors in cinema, Salem is a sassy, back talking prick with a wry sense of humour and an unwillingness to take shit from anyone, even a manipulative bitch senator (Anne Bancroft) who tries to give him the gears. With a snappy comeback for everything and no shortage of attitude, he’s tough but ultimately fair on Demi Moore’s character who has quite the gauntlet of a character arc to get through.

4. Norman in Krzysztof Zanussi’s Year Of The Quiet Sun

This melancholic postwar romance sees an American soldier (Wilson) stationed in a decimated Polish village sometime after WWII where he falls in love with a local woman (Maia Komorowska). They seem destined to meet yet challenged by circumstance and the still felt affect of the war. He approaches this character dutifully, quietly and with care, it’s worth seeing as it was one of his only romantic lead roles.

3. Eugene in Phil Morrison’s Junebug

This small town family drama sees him play a quiet husband and father who exists mainly in his own headspace, and in his secluded woodworking shop. This is during a time when things begin to change for the clan and his son (Alessandro Nivola) brings home his new wife (Embeth Davidtz). The dynamic is fascinating but most so in Wilson’s work, especially when he makes a wood craft for his daughter in law, doesn’t end up giving it to her and leaves us wondering what it’s like for him internally. One girl at the convention I was at asked him about this part of the arc and his response was as astute and intuitive as this perfectly calibrated performance is, an answer which I’ve provided a YouTube link below so that you might hear it from the man himself:

2. Dick Hickock in Richard Brooks’ In Cold Blood

Based on Truman Capote’s infamous true crime novel drawn from knowing these two real life killers for a time, Wilson and Robert Blake have magnetic, chilling chemistry as these two wayward men who commit an unforgivable crime seemingly because they just have nothing else better to fill their time up with. Blake is the intense one while Scott brings a sort of breezy, nonchalant vibe that just barely masks the raging turmoil beneath.

1. Judd Travers in Shiloh, Shiloh 2 and Saving Shiloh

This is the performance I grew up watching and the one that made me such a fan of Scott’s work. Judd is a mean, broken down man with a drinking problem, a violent streak and no end of troublesome behaviour in him. But he’s also an abuse survivor himself and as this surprisingly mature and adept trilogy of children’s films unfold we see the man at his worst and also what’s left of his best, we see how local kid Marty Preston and his dog Shiloh can somehow find some kindness and compassion in Judd by showing him some of their own. It’s a tragic, overlooked performance in American cinema and perhaps the most affecting work he did his whole career.

-Nate Hill

End of an Era: Nate’s Top 20 TV Shows of the Decade

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

It has been an amazing decade for television! Not only that but in the last ten years we have seen a giant shift from the casual week-to-week entertainment factor of cable TV towards serious arthouse long form storytelling, major production value on the small screen and a much celebrated golden age of serialized television. There have been dozens upon dozens of beautifully crafted, innovative, imaginative and affecting pieces of work produced and here are my twenty personal favourite!

20. The Big Lez Show (2012/YouTube)

This one is something else. Essentially a simplistic piece quite literally animated on Microsoft Paint, it highlights the profane, raucous and often meditative adventures of Big Lez, his stoner Sasquatch buddies and many others. Australian humour adds an offbeat quality and there’s never a shortage of bizarre comedic set pieces, hysterical character interaction and a sense of WTF-ness that permeates the whole thing.

19. Justified (2010/FX)

You’d never believe that such a legendary, Kentucky fried aesthetic could be distilled from one Elmore Leonard short story, but this thing is a feast. Timothy Olyphant scores big as brittle Federal Marshal Raylan Givens, venturing back to his rural roots for six glorious seasons of pulpy, star studded, densely verbose modern western intrigue.

18. Goliath (2018/Amazon Prime)

Billy Bob Thornton does a career best turn in this surreal LA noir about a disgraced ex super-lawyer on the skids and forced to take on near suicidal class action lawsuits. Cue mystery, political corruption, glossy California decadence and a sense of ramshackle family within his tight knit crew. It’s a fantastic, high powered thriller and intense character study with top caliber guest actors and a feel for California and the surrounding area that draws you right in.

17. Ray Donovan (2013/Showtime)

Part Grand Theft Auto, part L.A. Confidential with a healthy dose of contemporary pop culture, this is a fantastic cross section and often satire of gritty underworld Hollywood through the eyes of Liev Schreiber’s Ray, a Boston bred tough guy with the polish of L.A. who acts as fixer, muscle, often romantic partner and secret agent of sorts to the elites of media and sports industries. There’s morality plays, fierce examinations of Shakespearean loyalty and betrayal, stinging dark humour, farcical sensibilities, dastardly villains and a lot of pathos packed into this still continuing epic.

16. Shameless (2011/Showtime)

Life for a lower middle class Chicago family is hilariously documented in this candid, raunchy, heartfelt and chaotic framework full of fantastic performances, chief among them William H. Macy as their perpetually drunk patriarch and the lovely Emmy Rossum as his brave, fierce and resilient daughter. There’s never a shortage of hijinks, severely R rated shenanigans or berserk subplots around, plus along the way you get a good sense for each family member and their woes, joys and personal struggles.

15. Game Of Thrones (2011/HBO)

I do have issues with this show, namely pacing, tone and the fucking rush job of a last season thanks to those two writers. However, this is a gargantuan fantasy epic that changed the landscape of television forever and has an infinity of gorgeously mounted set pieces, complex character dynamics and yes, dragons.

14. Stranger Things (2016/Netflix)

Neon, 80’s nostalgia, Amblin vibes, Stephen King atmosphere and yesteryear pop culture abound. This show is now an international phenomenon and rightfully so but it legit has the quality and heart to back up the hype, particularly in the near perfect first season.

13. Homecoming (2018/Amazon Prime)

Julia Roberts uncovers a deeply planted conspiracy amongst the ex military patients she’s hired to provide counselling for in this baroque, moody noir that only arrives in thirty minute episodes but somehow seems much denser. Melancholy, burnished and stocked with musical tracks lifted right from classic Hollywood films, this is one captivating piece of storytelling.

12. The Alienist (2018/TNT)

This dark, macabre tale sees a psychiatric pioneer (Daniel Bruhl), a crime scene illustrator (Luke Evans) and the first woman in the New York police department (Dakota Fanning) on the hunt for a terrifying, ever elusive serial killer near the turn of the century. It’s slick, intelligent, unexpected and not watered down whatsoever, leading to one of the starkest and most brutal yet captivating portraits of history I’ve ever seen onscreen.

11. The Terror (2018/AMC)

This inclusion goes for season one, which in its own is a thing of magisterial beauty, terror and primal existentialism. An elemental fiction reworking of a real life naval disappearance in the arctic, this story is best binged in one rainy day to absorb character, incident and the cold atmosphere of such a remote series of events.

10. Fargo (2014/FX)

I’ve been flayed for holding this opinion before but for me this tv adaptation outdoes the Coen brothers’ original film itself. A near biblical trio of seasons that begins with the icy Minnesota black comedy crime aesthetic and ascends at times to something daring and esoteric, this breaks both the mould it was forged in and that of television itself. Plus you get to briefly see Bruce Campbell play Ronald Reagan and if that ain’t worth the time capsule then I just don’t know what is.

9. Letterkenny (2016/CraveTV)

Rural Ontario seems like an odd setting for one of the snappiest, smartly written and hysterical comedies this decade has seen but there you go. Basically just the humdrum misadventures of a town with 5,000 population and no shortage of mayhem, this is television like no other and you really have to just crush like five episodes, immerse yourself in the mile a minute dialogue and jokes to experience the magic. Pitter patter.

8. Happy! (2017/SyFy)

Disgraced, alcoholic ex cop turned hitman Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni in a career best) and his daughter’s imaginary friend Happy the flying unicorn (Patton Oswalt) hunt down all kinds of freaks, weirdos, perverts, contract killers and arch villains on Christmas Eve to find a bunch of kidnapped children. That description says nothing though, only through viewing this can you appreciate how ballsy, subversive and deeply fucked up this story really is. Not for the faint of heart, but anyone with a love of whacked out dark humour and unconventional storytelling will get a royal kick.

7. Hannibal (2013/NBC)

I’ll admit I wasn’t super pumped when I heard that NBC was doing a Hannibal rendition, as they’re kind of a vanilla cable show runner. But creator Bryant Fuller churned out something spectacularly atmospheric, unbelievably artistic and so not what you’d expect to see. Mads Mikkelsen makes a chilling, low key and almost ethereal Dr. Lekter, Hugh Dancy a haunted, empathetic Will Graham and there’s an eclectically rounded cast of guest stars including Laurence Fishburne, Kacey Rohl, Eddie Izzard, Michael Pitt, Katherine Isabelle, Lance Henriksen and more.

6. Westworld (2016/HBO)

The advent of artificial intelligence blends with humanity’s deepest desires and eventually something more profound in this complex, operatic, gorgeously mounted science fiction epic. It’s a tricky beast and a labyrinthine (literally and figuratively) experience to process but stick with it and the resulting effect is mesmerizing.

5. Maniac (2018/Netflix)

Jonah Hill and Emma Stone headline this psychological fantasy that’s kinda tough to pin down. A clandestine drug trial in a casette futurism setting leads to personal revelations, social satire and the kind of episodic time travel multidimensional storytelling that I live for. Brilliant stuff.

4. The Haunting Of Hill House (2018/Netflix)

Stephen King called this a work of genius, and I too share that sentiment. This is old school spook horror done beautifully, with powerful performances, psychological depth, harrowing scares both ghostly and wrought from human nature and characters that forge a strong place in your heart with each passing episode.

3. The OA (2016/Netflix)

I’m still so choked that Netflix cancelled this after only two seasons yet they keep tired, mediocre garbage like Riverdale and 13 Reasons Why limping on long past their shelf life. I’ll quit being bitter now but you’ll see what a gem this is after five minutes of the pilot. Rich storytelling, groundbreaking conceptual design and ideas that don’t only think outside the box but defy dimensional existence. One day someone will pick this up for continuation but until then please check out the two masterful first seasons.

2. True Detective (2014/HBO)

A southern gothic conspiracy folk horror, an inky, fatalistic LA noir and a bleak ozark family saga. So far. The first season kicks off with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the darkest heart of Louisiana and while it’s my favourite part of this anthology so far, all three chapters cast their respective spell wonderfully.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (2017/Showtime)

David Lynch delivers not only a dazzling, appropriately perplexing and ever mysterious follow up to his initial series but a personal filmmaking magnum opus. He and his team changed the face of television once in the early 90’s and with this stunning piece of originality, horror, musical performance, surrealism, coffee, cherry pie and inter-dimensional travel… they pull it off again.

Thanks for reading and tune in lots in the coming decade for much more!!

-Nate Hill

Opening the doors of perception: Netflix’s brilliant and undefinable The OA Part II

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

When season one of Netflix’s The OA aired back in 2016, it went by largely unnoticed. This was due to the network doing little to no marketing, fanfare or ads and it kind of just attracted its own little fan base without creating the whirlwind that say, Stranger Things has. It’s sort of a shame and sort of not, because it’s by far the best original content that Netflix has produced and one of the most intricate, challenging and cosmically investigative pieces of storytelling out there (with an emphasis on ‘out there’). Season 2 has recently aired, again with little hubbub surrounding it, and the leaps, jumps and creative epiphanies that series creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij have made in the three years since are both staggering and revolutionary in the SciFi/fantasy genre.

Anyone who isn’t caught up should heed a spoiler warning regarding Season 1 right about here and stop reading as I’d like to discuss certain story beats. When we left our characters after the ambulance chasing cliffhanger of S1, we weren’t sure what became of The OA/Prairie Johnson when the school shooter got her and she seemingly died. S2 opens with a slow burn episode as we follow a gruff ex FBI private detective (Kingsley Ben-Adir, phenomenal) as he searches for a missing girl in a version of San Francisco that’s just a bit removed from the reality we know. This is the reality that Prairie has travelled to after dying in the dimension she came from, for the Movements related to near death experiences explored in the first season are a gateway to endless parallel dimensions and subsequent travel between them. Confused? That’s nothing, I’ve barely described the season opener so far. This new dimension is a fascinating one, full of futuristic tech, underground ‘games’ ruled over by an unseen force and even more intangible metaphysics that we got the first time around. Prairie is stuck in this new plane with Dr. Hunter Percy, the unorthodox rogue scientist played with startling compassion and chilling resolve by the great Jason Isaacs, who is just wonderful here in a role that lets him flex his talents. Prairie leaves her friends in the previous dimension behind to wonder where she went, including Steve (Patrick Gibson), Buck (Ian Alexander), Betty (Phyllis Smith), French (Brandon Perea) and Jesse (Brendan Meyer). The new reality thrusts her forth into a frightening situation with her old friends Will (Scott Brown), Renata (Paz Vega), Rachel (Sharon Van Etten) and Homer (Emory Cohen) the love of her life. It’s a ton of characters to keep track of, each playing at least several versions of themselves and there’s even more new additions that show up for this part of the story including The Florida Project’s Bria Vinaite and an appearance from Zendaya as a mysterious girl with ties to the forces around all of them.

Marling and Batmanglij are light years beyond most artists writing original content right now, their level of storytelling and drive is sort of unparalleled in the sense that they reach out to ask questions that are difficult in the context and boundaries of television, or any filmed medium. The first season hinted at life beyond death and took its time getting to the initial breach between worlds that might open up new possibilities. This season dives headlong into the implications and ripple effect of what came before, has no patience for laggers and hurtles along at a sonic pace, blasting us with ideas, emotion, tricky concepts, psychological labyrinths, new wave cyber software, bizarre biological phenomena, a rose stained glass window with untold power and a telepathic Octopus named Old Night. This is either a show that is ‘too weird’ for most who aren’t open to unconventional thinking or have no capacity for abstraction or it will be the favourite thing out there for those of us that eat this stuff up. Prairie says of her travels and revelations that she’s ‘looking for a border’ that’s hard to define, and the same can be said about the show itself. This isn’t something that is just SciFi or just fantasy or even both, it’s an organic piece that feels like elemental forces at work rather than constructed artifice spin for entertainment.

With this story, all the creative forces work together to open the doors of perception and stretch the nature of what is possible in storytelling. Brilliant characters abound who we care about, are funny and seem like genuine, fleshed out human beings, a specifically distilled visual aesthetic that Sci Fi lovers will go gaga for, fantastic original music by multiple artists including Danny Bensi, Saunder Juuriens and Van Etten herself, haunting complexity in narrative arcs and an overall desire to strive for something new, something we haven’t seen before and that may expand our perspective on the world around us, and those beyond. I’m hooked on this and can’t wait until we get a Part III.

-Nate Hill

Netflix’s The OA: A Review by Nate Hill 

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

I always try to find unique and original projects when choosing films and shows to watch, for we live in a time where many titles you see out there are sequels, nostalgia reboots or spinoffs. These aren’t bad things per se, but it’s also important to break new ground and produce organic material, something which Netflix has a fairly glowing track record for. Tapping the creative well that is the mind of young female director/actress/producer Brit Marling, the platform has given her the chance to tell one of the most striking, beautiful and altogether astonishing pieces of work I’ve ever seen from the long form storytelling format. Earlier this year, Stranger Things knocked me flat, and recently Westworld has captivated my attention and imagination. But The OA has done something different for me; stirred my soul in a way that few creative pieces can, with a story so unpredictable that it starts to feel like the forces of nature at work, forking off into tributary sections of narrative that you would never, ever have been able to to surmise ahead of the reveals. 

  Now, something I’ll say right off the bat: This won’t be for everyone, and I predict many confused, bitter reviews. Such is the case with work that requires effort and clarity of attention from the viewer, as well as the key ingredient: objective thinking. This is both a scientific and spiritual story, bereft of any religious implicatioms, incredibly vague, esoteric and at times left open to interpretation, or clarification we will get from a second season, fingers crossed. 

  It starts off simply enough, with the return of a girl named Prairie (Marling) to the home she disappeared from seven ears prior. Mysteriously cured of childhood blindness and very secretive of the events which have befallen her, her loving parents (Scott Wilson and Alice Krige in knockout performances) are just happy to see her again. It’s here the story turns off it’s headlights and hurtles blind into the night, going to places you’d never have thought it would, let alone be explored in a mainstream network series. Marling and Co creator Zal Batmanglij (yes that’s his real name) have outdone themselves in the originality department, presenting ideas and questions so far from the norm of what we’re used to that their story really and truly feels unique from anything else we’ve ever seen. Marling is incandescent in the role, which requires her to go to some fairly tricky places in terms of acting, handling it with the shimmering grace of an angel. It’s difficult for me to say anymore because I want you to open up this gift of a story on your own, without anything to go on, but I must mention her co star Jason Isaacs, who plays a scientific man involved in her disappearance. He’s obsessed in a feverish, sick way, and in any other actor’s hands the character may have come across as too villainous or intense. Isaacs is an unheralded genius of the craft though, and despite the callous nature of the role, he seems more human, more grounded than most. 

  I really can’t tell you much more at this point, and what I’ve said so far is much less than I usually do in reviews, as far as plot goes. This is one to binge watch, one to let wash over you like a blanket of stars, and one to think long and deep about as soon as the credits of the last episode make themselves known. For the thinkers, the wonderers, the ones who ponder what’s out there and what may be in store for us way down the road of the cosmos, The OA is a blast of nutrition for the soul.