Movie Review: Jane

Jane *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Brett Morgen.

Written by: Brett Morgen.

 

The discovery, in 2013, of over 100 hours of footage of Jane Goodall during her time in Gombe in the 1960s – thought lost forever – is the basis for Brett Morgen’s documentary Jane. He was clearly the right director for the material – as he’s proven with The Kid Stays in the Picture (with Nanette Burstein) about Robert Evans, the best ever 30 for 30 Documentary June 17^th, 1994 – about a very busy day in sports news, and no just because it was the day O.J. went on that chase in the white Bronco, and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Morgen is incredibly skilled at taking hours and hours of footage, and editing it together in a way that makes it all flow, given it broader resonance. Having Goodall herself still around to narrate the film helps too – it allows her to expand on the context of what we’re seeing, and why it was so groundbreaking. Add in Phillip Glass’ best score in years, and you really do have one of the year’s best looking and sounding docs. My only real complaint about the film – which does mar it somewhat – is that someone decided that the film had to be a fairly typical biopic about Goodall’s life as well – forcing the material into a direction that isn’t quite as interesting as the footage itself.

 

That footage was shot by Hugo Van Lawick – assigned by National Geographic to go out and film Goodall after she had already been in Gombe for a while – and was making remarkable discoveries. The footage is stunning and beautiful – and looks amazing, not something you really expect when it was shot more than 50 years ago, and has been “lost” for most of that time. The colors are glorious, and you understand by Van Lawick is considered one of the best nature photographers in history.

 

The film though is – and rightly so – mostly Goodall’s story. And it is remarkable when you consider that when she went into the jungle to try and observe chimps, she was a 26 year old secretary, with no scientific training, who was afraid of the chimps because she didn’t know she was supposed to be. Yet, she was able to observe them, in part because, she just didn’t go anywhere – they got used to her. Her journey from an untrained secretary to one of the most justly celebrated scientists of her era is remarkable. It is the stuff of Hollywood dreams of when they set about making a biopic.

 

And perhaps that’s why the material is ended up being shaped that way, especially as the film goes along. It’s odd no one has thought to make a fictionalized biopic of the woman – she’s certainly less controversial than Diann Fossey, who was the subject of Gorillas in the Mist (1988) with Sigourney Weaver (although, perhaps that project was greenlit because of Fossey’s murder a few years before, making her even more famous than she already was). The film is able to draw some fascinating observations from Goodall about her life – and how she learned a lot about herself from her time with the chimps – especially as it relates to be a mother (one wonders if a man would be asked this question, but Goodall seems comfortable with it, so whatever). The film foregrounds the budding romance between Goodall and Van Lawick, and later their son, Grub. Personally, I would have liked more on the chimps, and what was there – and less shots of the modern Goodall, who is clearly invaluable to the film, but also interrupts the visual flow of the film.

 

Still, it’s hard to complain about Jane – which features remarkable sights and sounds throughout, and really does tell a fascinating story – even if it’s one we’ve heard before, it’s not one we’ve seen quite this way.

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Movie Reviw: Rat Film

Rat Film **** / *****

Directed by: Theo Anthony.

 

I often complain that too many documentaries use the rather boring point and shoot style – filming interviews with various talking heads, and mixing them with archival footage in a style that is basically interchangeable from doc to doc – even good ones. Once in a while though, we get something truly unique – and Theo Anthony’s Rat Film certainly qualifies on that level. The film is an 80 minute look at the rat problem in Baltimore – both historically, and in the present, and is a strange mixture of styles and tones, going from deadpan humor, to the surreal, to the tragic, and back again. The film is a tone poem that gets at something real about the city it documents. As one of the exterminators says in the film – Baltimore doesn’t have a rat problem, it has a people problem.

 

That statement, is probably the thesis of the film. Rats are inevitable when you cram this many people into this small of a space, and have rundown buildings, and garbage buildup all around. The rats are going to come. The film documents the historical way that Baltimore first dealt with the problem – including block by block maps by Kurt Richter, who mapped out everywhere rats went, to better able to deal with them. There’s also some other, strange details in the film – like the opening, where we see a rat try and escape a City of Baltimore Garbage Can – rats can jump up to 32 inches, the City’s cans are 34 inches. That rat isn’t getting out.

 

Watching Rat Film is an odd experience, as you never quite know where the film is going to go next. There are scenes literally from the rat’s point of view in the film – virtual reality simulations for example, and then Anthony will veer off to the various, creative ways the residents of the city deal with rats themselves. If they weren’t rats, you’d likely call some of what they do cruel – and maybe it is – but they all have to some way of dealing with it.

 

What emerges over time though is a portrait of this city which is forced to deal with the rat problem, mainly because of class and race issues. Eventually, everything comes back down to that, and always will unless people actually want to do something about the problem. They don’t. Rat Film is an odd film – I almost don’t know what else to say about it, because it is so strange – but it’s certainly one of the most unique docs of the year – and a film that will likely last in your mind after most docs have vanished. Seek it out.

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Movie Review: Thelma

Thelma **** / *****

Directed by: Joachim Trier.

Written by: Eskil Vogt & Joachim Trier.

Starring: Eili Harboe (Thelma), Kaya Wilkins (Anja), Ellen Dorrit Petersen (Unni), Henrik Rafaelsen (Trond), Grethe Eltervåg (Young Thelma).

 

If you can imagine Stephen King’s Carrie directed by Ingmar Bergman, who can get close to seeing what Joachim Trier is going for with his film Thelma. This is a horror story, about a teenage girl with psychic powers in the first throes of love and lust, and who naturally loses control over everything, without really realizing it. The first scene in the film sets things up so we know this isn’t going to be a typical story, as a father and daughter (around 6) go plodding through the snowy forest. The father sites a deer and raises his rifle – his daughter is transfixed by the deer – and doesn’t realize that her father has changed his aim, and is now pointing the gun at the back of her head. Eventually, we will figure out why.

 

But most of the action takes place in the present – where Thelma is a college freshman, away from her parents for the first time. We assume that they are just a little strict – they get nervous if she doesn’t immediately answer their phone calls, and know her class schedule better than she does – and even comes down to stay with her, in her apartment, on a weekend. The whole family is religious, and while it doesn’t seem to be the fire and brimstone type Christianity of Carrie, it is quietly strict. Things seem to be going okay with Thelma – she’s lonely, but smart – until she becomes friends – and then more – with Anja (Kaya Wilkins). Whatever has been lying dormant in Thelma is suddenly not dormant anymore.

 

On the surface, Thelma is a genre film – a horror film going over some well-worn terrain, combining the coming-of-age, sexual awakening of a teenage girl, and unleashing of her power upon those around her. Trier, however, takes this story seriously (perhaps a touch too seriously – I’ll get to that), making a film that really does look at this young woman, her faith, her sexuality, her family, her past and letting it play out as naturally and realistically as it can, given Thelma’s powers. None of the deaths or action is played for thrills at all. The film ends up, perhaps, where you expect it to, but it takes a different, more serious route there.

 

This approach mostly works for me – but left a few nagging complaints for me. For one, I don’t think Trier needs to spend as much as he does showing Thelma playing detective looking into her family history – savvy audience members will get there before the film even starts, so move it along. As well, it always bugs me a little – just a little – when filmmakers making a genre film seem to think that theirs is “above” the genre, and therefore doesn’t want to offer any of the baser pleasures of the genre. Carrie is a masterpiece of its kind, has a lot to say about its subject – but doesn’t hold itself above the genre. Same with Raw. Thelma wants to cloak some of those genre trappings behind a prestige sheen.

 

Still, that’s a minor complaint – and something that didn’t bother me much when watching the film. This is an engrossing film, and one that is expertly directed by Trier – more than making up for his thuddingly dull English language debut Louder Than Bombs a few years ago. Eili Harboe is terrific in the lead role as well, delivering a sympathetic performance, even as the film goes along, and she starts making increasingly questionable choices. She slowly reels you in, as does the film. I just wish Trier had loosened the reigns just a little bit – and let the genre loose.

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Movie Review: My Friend Dahmer

My Friend Dahmer *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Marc Meyers.

Written by: Marc Meyers based on the book by Derf Backderf.

Starring: Ross Lynch (Jeffrey Dahmer), Alex Wolff (John "Derf" Backderf), Anne Heche (Joyce Dahmer), Dallas Roberts (Lionel Dahmer), Vincent Kartheiser (Dr. Matthews), Tommy Nelson (Neil), Harrison Holzer (Mike).

 

As almost any film about Jeffrey Dahmer would have to be, My Friend Dahmer is not an easy movie to watch. This is a movie that ends with Dahmer still at the age of 18 – a few weeks after high school ended - his first victim just getting into his car. He would claim 16 more victims in the next 12 years, before he was arrested – his crimes, because of their brutality, and because they involved cannibalism, and perhaps because they involved homosexuality (something that may allowed them to go undetected, as the police didn’t seem to care much about that community in the 1980s). There is not a lot of violence in My Friend Dahmer – he does some icky things with roadkill, but it’s not graphic, and he kills a fish, but again, it’s not really graphic. The film is hard to watch mainly because we in the audience know just how deeply disturbed this teenager is – and no one else in the film seems to notice. They think he’s weird or strange, but they mainly ignore him – so lost in their own worlds, and own problems to notice this kid. You could barely call him an outcast at school – he was more like a ghost no one really noticed. The film is mainly about his senior year in high school – the brief friendship he had with another student, who years later would go on to make a graphic novel about that time, that would be adapted into this movie.

 

Ross Lynch (probably in an effort to distance himself from his Disney show Austin & Ally) plays Dahmer as a lanky, silent, unknowable kid. If he’s not being picked on in school, no one notices him as he silently plods down the hallways at school, not unlike Frankenstein. At home, his parents don’t have much more time for him. His mother, Joyce (Anne Heche), clearly has a mental illness herself, and his downtrodden father Lionel (Dallas Roberts) is exhausted from dealing with her, and his job. He is the only one who realizes something isn’t quite right about Jeffrey, but just thinks its shyness – not anything more than that. Perhaps in a desperate, last ditch effort for some sort of attention, Dahmer starts acting out at school – throwing “fits” – acting like he’s having seizures, or just yelping and making noise. This draws the attention of Derf (Alex Wolff) and his friends – who take Dahmer as their “mascot”. They think he’s hilarious – only gradually realizing he’s more damaged than they thought. Then, it’s not so funny.

 

The movie, smartly, doesn’t make the case that any of these things are the reason why Dahmer became the serial killer he would become – although it does make the case that it didn’t really help. Dahmer is suffering from whatever he would always suffer from at the outset of the movie, and while it gets worse throughout the film – as does his burgeoning alcoholism – it’s not really the reason any of this happens. The movie drops in some hints and reference from those of us who know more of the details about what Dahmer would do (like the scene where Dallas Roberts, in a sad attempt to bond with his son, gives him the barbells he will use to kill his first victim).

 

Ross is very good as Dahmer – even if the performance is a little one note by design. Dahmer, like all psychopaths, lack the ability to feel empathy or sympathy, or really much of anything – and here at least, he hasn’t really learned how to fake it. He is hardly a charming psychopath – everyone thinks he’s weird – but he flat and emotionless more than anything. Wolff is quite good as Derf as well – a typical, idiot teenager who thinks stupid, and to be honest downright mean and cruel, things are funny, without registering them as that way. A turning point for him may well a scene at the mall – where he has taken up a collection to get Jeffrey to “Do a Dahmer” – and he takes it so far that all of a sudden it doesn’t seem to so funny anymore. If you think you’re laughing with someone, and not at them, make sure they’re laughing too.

 

More than anything, My Friend Dahmer is a sad movie. The production design captures the depressing side of suburban 1970s – full of dull browns and faded colors. It presents a world in which no one really notices a kid who is clearly damaged – except for the other kids, who cannot put into words what is bothering them, so instead, they simply walk away.

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Movie Review: Professor Marston and the Wonder Women

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Angela Robinson.

Written by: Angela Robinson.

Starring: Luke Evans (William Moulton Marston), Rebecca Hall (Elizabeth Marston), Bella Heathcote (Olive Byrne), Connie Britton (Josette Frank), Monica Giordano (Mary), JJ Feild (Charles Guyette), Chris Conroy (Brant Gregory), Oliver Platt (M.C. Gaines).

 

It’s somewhat interesting that the reason why people will be interested in William Moulton Marston and his two loves – his wife Elizabeth, and their girlfriend Olive – is because he is the creator of Wonder Woman, and those two women and their relationship inspired him – is really almost an afterthought in the film Professor Marston and the Wonder Women. Afterthought may be a bit harsh, but it certainly is more beneath the surface than you would expect. If it wasn’t for the frustrating narrative device used throughout the film – and cutting back and forth between 1945, and the years preceding it, Wonder Woman wouldn’t come at all until very late in the film. That’s not a bad thing at all in this case, because it allows you see Wonder Woman emerge slowly out of this relationship. Too much of the rest of the film is too on the nose to be a truly great film, but I appreciated this part.

 

The film takes place in the years between 1928 and 1945. When it opens, William Marston (Luke Evans) is a Professor of Psychology at Radcliffe, trying to get his own theory – DISC (Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Compliance) to take (it never really does). His wife, Elizabeth (Rebecca Hall) is smarter than her husband, but has the handicap of being a woman – meaning even though she has done all the same work, she cannot get a PhD – and is basically stuck assisting her husband’s work. Between the two of them though, they make a great team – he’s charming and funny, she is more serious and smart. They do great work together. Into their lives enters Olive (Bella Heathcote), a young student who becomes their teaching assistant – helping them in their research. It’s clear from the start that William is attracted to her, but it becomes clear that all of them are attracted to each other. Eventually, they start living the type of life that many would still look down on today – and certainly would have at that time.

 

What makes the movie is the chemistry between the three leads. The film works best when it leaves them alone enough to engage in various flirtations, conversations – and eventually, sex scenes, that become gradually more kinky. The best scenes are probably the earlier ones, involving an early prototype of the lie detector machine. The trio use it to expose various truths about each other, in scenes that tense and erotic at the same time. These scenes are almost more sexual than the actual sex scenes when they come around.

 

The film is far from perfect. For the most part, I’m tired of the biopic cliché in which we flash back and forth in time – especially when the main subject of the film is in some sort of interview or interrogation looking back on their life (it worked in Phantom Thread, in part because it wasn’t a biopic, and in larger part, because they’ basically serve to make everything more idiosyncratic). Here, William is being interrogated by Josette Frank (Connie Britton) who wants to shut down Wonder Woman, because of all the sexuality and bondage in the seemingly innocent comic book character. It adds nothing to the film overall, and I think underlines everything about the relationship too much. The dialogue also is a little too on the nose as well – Evans at one point is about one step away from saying together, Olive and Rebecca ARE Wonder Woman.

 

And yet, overall, director Angela Robinson does a fine job exploring this unconventional relationship, and how it led to the creation of one of the most iconic and beloved of all superheroes. The film is also fun, funny, incredibly sexy, has three great performances, and looks great. What more do you want?

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Movie Review: BPM (Beats Per Minute)

BPM (Beats Per Minute) **** / *****

Directed by: Robin Campillo.

Written by: Robin Campillo and Philippe Mangeot.

Starring: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (Sean Dalmazo), Arnaud Valois (Nathan), Adèle Haenel (Sophie), Antoine Reinartz (Thibault), Ariel Borenstein (Jérémie), Félix Maritaud (Max), Aloïse Sauvage (Eva), Simon Bourgade (Luc), Médhi Touré (Germain), Simon Guélat (Markus), Coralie Russier (Muriel), Catherine Vinatier (Hélène), Théophile Ray (Marco), Saadia Bentaïeb (Mère de Sean).

 

The French film BPM (Beats Per Minute) combines the political and the personal in a way that reminds viewer that the two are forever intertwined, and we should expect nothing different. The film takes place in the early 1990s, and focuses on the Paris chapter of ACT UP – the AIDS organization that, through various means, put pressure on governments and pharmaceutical companies to get treatment to the many people living with HIV, and dying when they got AIDS as a result.

 

The film starts out in macro, showing us the group as a whole, first at a protest when they storm the stage of a government spokesperson, and then in the weekly ACT UP meeting, where the various people involved dissect what happened, and disagree about its effectiveness. It’s clear from these scenes that not everyone agrees on what to do, or how to proceed. Various people start to stand out in the crowd. The group’s de facto leader is Thibault (Antoine Reinartz), who wants to take a more diplomatic approach – reaching agreements with the government and pharma companies in a non-confrontational way. Sean (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is almost the exact opposite – wanting to push these groups buttons, and force them to do something, and rub their nose in the effects that their policies are having on real people. Sophie (Adele Haenel) is somewhere in between – seeing the value in both positions, but definitely willing to get her hands dirty. While most in the group are gay men – many living with the disease – that isn’t true of everyone. Among the groups other few female members is Helene (Catherine Vinatier), who is there for her 16-year-old who has the disease, which he got through a blood transfusion.

 

A new face, Nathan (Arnaud Valois) shows up, and will change the course of the movie. He gets more and more involved in the group sure – and has a voice – but at first he is relatively quiet. He isn’t HIV positive, which draws some suspicion, but he gradually gets closer to the action. He also falls in love with Sean, and the two men’s relationship forms the emotional core of the film. The last act basically abandons ACT UP to focus on their relationship, as Sean gets sicker and sicker.

 

The film is incredibly dense in terms of its dialogue – particularly in the beginning – and it takes a while to really find your footing in the film, to get to know the characters, and get on the films wavelength. In the earlier going, the film is built around the various meetings – most of which will grow contentious, and arguments are common – and the various actions the group takes. It’s quite impressive how co-writer/director Robin Campillo, navigates these scenes so that you’re not lost in them. I actually liked this part of the film more than the final act. When the focus on the movie switches to the relationship between Sean and Nathan, the film still works, but it’s also more conventional. The point here is to show that the politics in the film are personal – and have real consequences to those involved. It works, but it also feels like other films we’ve seen before – while the first two acts felt like something different, and more complex.

 

Still, BPM never feels any less than vital and important, and although the film runs nearly two-and-a-half hours, it never grows dull or repetitive – it earns that runtime throughout, and makes an important statement – not just about the past, but also the present.

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Movie Review: My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Dash Shaw.

Written by: Dash Shaw.

Starring: Jason Schwartzman (Dash), Lena Dunham (Mary), Reggie Watts (Assaf), Maya Rudolph (Verti), Susan Sarandon (Lunch Lady Lorraine), Thomas Jay Ryan (Principal Grimm), Alex Karpovsky (Drake), Louisa Krause (Gretchen), John Cameron Mitchell (Brent Daniels), Matthew Maher (Senior Kyle), Keith Poulson (Senior Craig).

 

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea takes a lot of influences – both in terms of its visual look and its storytelling, combines them all together to make an animated film that can sometimes feel patchwork, but it’s always interesting to look at, and entertaining. The film runs a brisk 75 minutes, so there’s not much time to get bored, and while that means the characters are thinly written, the story moves quick enough to keep things from getting bogged down. It’s not a great animated film, but it’s a great first animated film for Writer/director Dash Shaw – a graphic novelist making his transition into the movies. He plays it safe in many ways, just working on making sure everything works. I hope a second film from him will take more chances.

 

The film centers on a high school sophomore named Dash (presumably based on the writer/director, but voiced by Jason Schwartzman in a way that makes him seem like if Max Fischer was animated) – who on the first day of school has a fight with his best (only) friend Assaf (Reggie Watts) because the editor of the school paper, Verti (Maya Rudolph) clearly favors Assaf in more than one way. On a quest to get his permanent record, Dash ends up in the bowels of the school, where he comes across paper work that shows that the school new auditorium – built at the top of the school – has made the whole building dangerously unstable, and that even a small earthquake could send the school off a cliff, and crashing into the ocean. Of course, no one listens to Dash, and of course, that is precisely what happens. Dash has to team up with Assaf, Verti, sophomore class President Mary (Lena Dunham) and a helpful lunch lady (Susan Sarandon) to try and reach the top of the school so they can be rescued, before the whole school sinks.

 

The film is basically what you get if you animated a mishmash of John Hughes and The Poseidon Adventure or The Towering Inferno). The animation style is often rudimentary on the surface – the characters aren’t Don Hertzfeldt stick figures by any means, but they aren’t overly detailed either. Shaw does excel in the backgrounds however – often creating intense, flashing room that leave our heroes in striking silhouette. His other influences ranger from old school Nintendo games – the ones where a character stutters across the screen to fight bad guys, but only have one move, to a deliberate reference to A Charlie Brown Christmas. The result is actually quite charming – as if a high school sophomore’s doodle book came to life along with his fantasies of the school being destroyed, and all his enemies being vanquished.

 

I liked the vocal work in the movie as well – even if, for the most part, Shaw seemed to cast people to do things right in the centre of their sweet spot. Still, it works – and the film does as a whole as well. It’s fun and funny, and just as you start to feel the film flagging a little bit, it’s over. I look forward to seeing what Shaw does next – he’s made a very good first film, but I think there’s something more waiting to come out.

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Movie Review: Happy End

Happy End **** / *****

Directed by: Michael Haneke.

Written by: Michael Haneke.

Starring: Isabelle Huppert (Anne Laurent), Jean-Louis Trintignant (Georges Laurent), Mathieu Kassovitz (Thomas Laurent), Fantine Harduin (Eve Laurent), Franz Rogowski (Pierre Laurent), Laura Verlinden (Anaïs), Aurélia Petit (Nathalie), Toby Jones (Lawrence Bradshaw), Hassam Ghancy (Rachid), Nabiha Akkari (Jamila). 

 

Austrian director Michael Haneke may bristle at the suggestion that his latest film – Happy End – is a kind of “greatest hits” package of his career – but it’s certainly easy to see why many critics have said something along those lines. There are elements here of films like Benny’s Video, Amour, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher and The White Ribbon. I say this not as a criticism of the film – like some have – but rather an acknowledgment that Haneke is still addressing his pet themes, and doing it all in one, strange package. While Happy End doesn’t join the ranks of his masterworks (including The Piano Teacher, The White Ribbon, Amour and his best film, Cache) – the suggestion that it’s somehow a bad film from the filmmaker is silly. He is still trying to, and succeeding in, provoking a response from his audience – and technically, the film is quite different from what he has done before – simpler, more pared down and without the beauty that often accompanies his images. He has made a film for the Snapchat generation, and done so using the same kind of style – and odd for a 75 year old, he does it without coming across as embarrassingly out of touch (something the much younger Jason Reitman wasn’t able to do in Men, Women and Children).

 

The film revolves around the wealthy Laurent family who runs a construction business is Calais. The company has seen better days financially – and to top it off, Anne (Isabelle Huppert), who now runs it, has to deal with the fallout of an accident that killed one of her workers, which may have been caused by the negligence of her son, Pierre (Franz Rogowski), who she put in charge of the site. Her father, George (Jean-Louis Trintignant) used to run the company, but is now 85, and started to lose his mind to dementia – and his determined to die before that happens. His son, Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz), is one his second wife – the painfully shy and quiet Anais (Laura Verlinden) – and they have an infant son, although he is cheating on his wife with an older woman – who we meet through her lengthy chats with him on Facebook – which are kinky to say the least. All of these people are already fairly messed up – and that’s before Eve (Fantine Harduin) re-enters their lives. She is Thomas’ 13-year-old daughter from her first marriage, who hasn’t been around in recent years. She has been living with her mother – who we see in the film’s opening scenes, in videos that Eve herself shoots on her phone. First, it’s just her mother going through her bedtime routine – but then it becomes darker, as she stumbles around, and Eve admits, in voiceover, to poisoning her mother with pills. Whether she meant to just make her sick, or kill her the film never states – but she does end up in a coma, and Eve comes to live with Thomas.

 

Happy End is a film that refuses to draw the lines between the dots that Haneke is placing throughout the film – you are left in the audience to do that, even more than in Haneke’s other films. None of these characters are innocent – but they are all completely self-involved. Their motivations are often obscured in the film (like, for instance, why Huppert’s Anne is marrying a British banker, played by the short, balding Toby Jones).

 

The film jumps around a lot – it’s not quite a series of vignettes like previous Haneke films Code Unknown or 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, but it feels like that at times. All the characters are interesting, but the best performances belong to the youngest and oldest of the cast members. The great Trintgnant, now in his late 80s, plays a character very much like his one in Amour (we don’t realize just how much until late in the film). The film examines how someone like him can deal with the things he has done – and he is now looking for someone to essentially do the same thing for him. In Harduin, Haneke has made a real discovery, as Eve is the most complex character in the film. At first, you may feel that she is essentially a female version of the main character from Benny’s Video – a little psychopath, using technology as a way to keep a distance from the things she has done. But as the film progresses, it gets messier than that – she becomes a more complex character, whose motivations are not so clear cut. She would likely fit in with the kids in The White Ribbon, or even the son in Cache, who know the sins of their parents, and punish them for those sins.

 

Happy End has a fairly blunt visual look for a Haneke film – he almost shot it like a TV movie in many respects, from the aspect ratio, to the lighting. There are a few of his great long takes, he is going for something more direct this time. It works for this film, even if I hope he goes from something more akin to some of his other work in the future. Not everything in the film works as well as it should – Haneke’s ultimate point here seems to be that we are all so self-obsessed we do not see the larger suffering in the world, and to make his point, he uses the current refugee crisis. This comes to a head in a climaxing scene – but it doesn’t really work that well. Haneke’s point is stronger when it’s more focused in Happy End – after all, the individual Laurent family members are not just blind to the suffering in the wider world – they’re blind to the suffering within their own family.

 

Ultimately, if Happy End is a disappointment from Haneke it’s only because we’ve become accustomed to him making masterpieces more often than not over the past 20 years. Happy End isn’t that, but even lesser Haneke is better than most filmmakers at their very best.

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Movie Review: Hostiles

Hostiles *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Scott Cooper.

Written by: Scott Cooper based on a story by Donald E. Stewart.

Starring: Christian Bale (Captain Joseph J. Blocker), Rosamund Pike (Rosalie Quaid), Wes Studi (Yellow Hawk), Ben Foster (Sergeant Charles Wills), Stephen Lang (Colonel Abraham Biggs), Timothée Chalamet (Private Philippe DeJardin), Jesse Plemons (Lieutenant Rudy Kidder), Rory Cochrane (Master Sergeant Thomas Metz), Jonathan Majors (Corporal Henry Woodson), Adam Beach (Black Hawk), Q'orianka Kilcher (Elk Woman), Peter Mullan (Lieutenant Colonel Ross McCowan), Robyn Malcolm (Minnie McGowan), Paul Anderson (Corporal Tommy Thomas), Scott Wilson (Cyrus Lounde), Bill Camp (Jeremiah Wilks), John Benjamin Hickey (Captain Royce Tolan), Scott Shepherd (Wesley Quaid), Ryan Bingham (Sergeant Malloy).

 

Scott Cooper’s Hostiles is a Western that has so much going for it that ultimately it is able to make up for some of it’s rather glaring flaws. It isn’t a classically structured Western, but rather one that aims to depict the brutality of America at that time in all its harshness. This, it undeniably does, but the film also plods along at a rather slow pace, and at times it feels like little more than a parade of misery. And while it’s laudable that the really wants to give humanity to the Native Americans, it suffers because the Native characters are thinly written, especially when compared to the roles for the white actors in the film. The film is about the slow realization of the main character – Captain Joseph Blocker – that Natives are humans to, and deserve that humanity. If only the film had been able to do more with its Natives characters, it could have been great.

 

The film takes place in 1892, and opens with a massacre of a white family on their homestead at the hands of the Comanche – who want to steal their horses. To do this, they kill the husband, two daughters, and an infant son – leaving only the mother, Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike) alive – and only because they cannot find her. The film than flashes to a group of Army men, taunting and tormenting their latest Native captive. These two scenes make it clear that there is no love lost between these two sides, and brutality is going both ways. Captain Blocker (Christian Bale) is then given his final assignment before retirement. He is to escort chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), and his family – who have been prisoners for 7 years – back to his homeland in Montana, where he can die in peace. It has become clear at this point that the White Man has won the “war” against the natives, so a little harmless PR stunt like this won’t hurt anything. Blocker is deadest against it – so much so that he risks a court martial to try and fight it. Eventually, he gives in, because he has no choice. But he isn’t happy about it – and once out of the army base, he demeans the Chief and his son (Adam Beach) by putting them in chains. Eventually, they will come across Rosalie, still staying in her burnt out shell of a house, with the bodies of her family – clearly suffering from PTSD. They take her along with them, and she slowly comes out of her shock – but the danger of those Comanche is always there.

 

The first half of the film is really where it is at its best – the journey from the base, to the point where they have to deal with the Comanche that killed the Quaid family. From there – about the half way point, things become a little more scattershot, and less effective. The film introduces a killer (Ben Foster), who had previously served with Blocker, and who they are tasked with bringing back to another base to stand trial. Foster doesn’t understand why he is being tried for murder, when all the army does is murder people. There are also side trips to deal with brutal fur trappers, and a final showdown with some people who arrive out of nowhere.

 

To be fair to the movie, it handles these things fairly well. Bale is great in his role, and he is able to show his slow dawning change in him in how he views Yellow Hawk, and other natives – from the man practically shaking with racist rage in the opening scenes, to someone who really does fully respect them, and is willing to back that up. Rosamund Pike is also quite good (even if her “recovery” seems rather quick – especially after the incident with the fur traders). The film looks utterly gorgeous as well. While the film has a slow pace, perhaps too slow given its runtime, it does make the eruptions of violence hit harder.

 

Yet, I cannot help but think that much of the energy in the second half, devoted to these side trips, could have been better served rounding out the Native characters. Wes Studi is a great actor, and he has undeniable screen presence in Hostiles – but the film doesn’t really give him anything to do except have screen presence. Talented actors like Adam Beach and Q'orianka Kilcher – are given even less to do. If you’re going to make a film about the relationship between the White Man and Natives, it would help if both sides are given fully realized characters to play.

 

Still, while that’s an undeniably flaw, it doesn’t sink Hostiles – which really is a fine, modern day Western, which wants to help correct the mythmaking of old Hollywood films. The film was directed by Scott Cooper – who has made four solid films now (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace and Black Mass are the others), but hasn’t yet made a great one. He may well get there one day – but for now, it’s been interesting watching him try.

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2017 Year End Report: Best Actor

This wasn’t the best year for this category, but it got better the closer we got to the end, and some of the best performances came from the most unexpected places.

 

Runners-Up: Harris Dickinson in Beach Rats is a great as a young, gay man trying to pretend to exactly like his idiot friends – with fairly dire results. Colin Farrell in The Beguiled has a complicated role, where he has to be different things to each of the different women in the film – and does it brilliantly. Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger does great work, in a tired genre, as a man trying to get his life together after being disabled in the Boston Marathon bombing – he makes this man a person, not a saint. Tom Hanks in The Post makes his role as Ben Bradlee look effortless, which it couldn’t have been, since this is further outside his comfort zone than normal. Tracey Letts in The Lovers finally gets a leading role, and shows the great work he’s being doing in support for a while now translates nicely. Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour is great, in a larger than life performance as Winston Churchill on the brink of catastrophe. Adrian Titieni in Graduation is great as a father, who tries to do whatever possible to get his daughter into a school in England, even as the rest of his life unravels. Vince Vaughn in Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a large, nearly silent lunk in this film – and it’s the best work of his career.

 

10. Andy Serkis in War for the Planet of the Apes

Andy Serkis will always be best known for his motion capture work as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings movies – that character became so instantly iconic, and because when they came out, that sort of work was fresh and new, he essentially invented a different kind of performance. Yet, his greatest work as an actor has been in the new Planet of the Apes trilogy as Caesar. I still think his best work is in the first film – Rise of the Planet of the Apes (even if, as a film, it’s probably the weakest of the trilogy) – but here, playing Caesar as a leader of the apes, who will do anything to protect them, he delivers a stirring performance – one that fully gets the humans on the audience on his side. This is the rare blockbuster series that I think will age well – and Serkis is a major reason why.

 

9. Hugh Jackman in Logan

James Mangold’s Logan is basically the superhero version of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven – with the hero realizing that his time has passed him, and it’s time to move on. In order to make that work, you really do need a performance like the one Jackman gives in this film. For nearly 17 years, we’ve watched as Jackman’s Wolverine has been pretty much invincible, as he hacks and slashes his way through one X-Men movie after another (sometimes to the films detriment – as he isn’t always the most interesting character). Here though, he has aged, everything hurts, and he can barely hold everything together. But then, he finds in a little girl, a reason to fight (so, okay, it’s not quite Unforgiven – Logan remains noble). Jackman has always been a charming actor, but rarely has been given the opportunity to be much more than charming. Here, he digs deep, and delivers the best performance of his career – and really, one the best the superhero genre has ever seen, in part because we’ve never quite seen a movie like this, and in part because Jackman was ready to go there.

 

8. James Franco in The Disaster Artist

It would have been easy for James Franco to just do an impression of the ever strange Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist – just don a fake accent and bad black wig, and mock the man who is known as the writer/director/producer/star of the worst film of all time. But Franco doesn’t do that – not entirely. Sure, Franco has a lot of fun with Wiseau and every strange thing about him, and the performance really is hilarious, and a spot on impression. But he also digs deeper into Wiseau’s humanity – showing us a dreamer, with no self-awareness. He has the resolve to see his vision through to the end – but not the talent, and he never really realizes the mistakes he’s making. Yes, it’s a softer portrait of Wiseau than the book – and perhaps softer than he deserves – but there is a part of Franco that admires Wiseau – and he brings that to the screen so that you will too.

 

7. Colin Farrell in The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Colin Farrell’s performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a study in inactivity couched in privilege. He plays a surgeon who has taken under his wing the son of a patient who died on his table (perhaps his fault, although he’ll never admit it) – only to have that young man come back at him with a threat – he needs to choose one of his family members to die, or else they all will. As one thing after another happens, to lead everyone to believe the threat is real, and unstoppable, Farrell’s surgeon does, well, nothing. He cannot fathom that he’s going to be punished, and puts all his faith in science, and then basically goes about his time. Because of Yorgos Lanthimos’ style, which requires actors to be flat and emotionless in their delivery, Farrell has to delve deeper in other ways to make this character clear. It’s not quite at the same level as his work in The Lobster last year (which was, after all, a better film) – but close. More proof of just how great Farrell is right now – and how many chances he’s taking.

 

6. Claes Bang in The Square

I have a few, minor quibbles with The Square – mostly that it’s too long, and doesn’t quite know where and when to end – and yet I do think that Claes Bang is pretty much perfect in its lead role. It’s the type of performance that seemingly changes from scene to scene, not because the character doesn’t make sense, but because he finds himself in one insane situation after another, never quite knowing how the hell he got there, or how the hell he can get himself out. This is a performance that ranges from hilarious to horrifying, and back again often in the same scene. The movie itself is great – but it teeters on the edge of becoming little more than a collection of strange sequences, with no through line. But Bang is that through line – he keeps the whole thing going from one horrifying set piece to another.

 

5. Timothée Chalamet in Call Me By Your Name

Between this and his performance in Lady Bird, this year was a great coming out party for young Chalamet. He is great in Lady Bird – playing that guy in high school we all know – but he is even better here. I particularly liked him in the first hour of this film, when he’s trying to hide his feelings for Oliver, and trying to pretend everything is normal – when it’s not. It’s a subtle performance, full of longing – and instant chemistry with Hammer. Of course, everyone will talk about that final scene – and with good reason, it’s a feat of acting to just sit there, for minutes on end, and hold the camera. Chalamet is a star in the making – and shows just how good he can be here.

 

4. Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out

Another of the great breakout performances of 2017 was Daniel Kaluuya’s work in Get Out – a performance that is subtle and sneaky in all sorts of ways. The British actor, who I basically only knew from one episode of Black Mirror, plays his character in Get Out as a man who is simply trying to be nice – trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, all the while knowing that there is something just not quite right about everything going on. He gets his bigger moment’s sure – applause lines late in the proceedings – but he’s at his very best early, when he’s trying to navigate this house, and figure out just what the hell is going on. It’s not a performance that calls attention to itself – I honestly worried he would be completely ignored this awards season – but it is a brilliant one.

 

3. Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky

I can think of no better sendoff for the legendary Harry Dean Stanton than Lucky – a movie custom written for Stanton, which gives the character actor a late, great leading role. In the film, he plays the title character – a 91 year old man, who still smokes every day, drinks every day, and walks around his small Texas town. He’s outlived his peers, has no family to speak of, is a lifelong atheist and afraid of death. The movie follows him on his routine for a few days – and in doing so, becomes a quietly moving film about this man. Stanton is the only actor who could have delivered this performance – and he does so in one of his best performances. Stanton will be missed of course – but I’m grateful we got this film before he died.

 

2. Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread

If this is indeed to be Daniel Day-Lewis’ swansong from acting, than he picked a hell of a role to go out on. His performance as Reynolds Woodcock, temperamental genius, who requires everything to be exactly perfect or else he becomes insufferable, truly is one of Day-Lewis’ great performance. He seems like a man who we know completely from the outset – he doesn’t hide his attitudes, his opinions, his wants – but he hides something far greater about himself, even in plain site (in the end, it’s still somewhat hidden). As Woodcock, Day-Lewis begins the performance as one of those toxic men we’ve heard about – the monster genius – but it’s far too complicated to leave it at that. This is one of the deepest, darkest performances of Day-Lewis’ career – and one of the best.

 

1. Robert Pattinson in Good Time

No one is more surprised than I am that Robert Pattinson has turned into a great actor, and more willing to take chances than many of his peers. He was horrible in the Twilight films, but the level of stardom he achieved in them has allowed him to take chances in films directed by the like of David Cronenberg and James Gray, among others. In the lead role of the Safdie brothers Good Time, he plays a would-be bank robber, who over the course of a long night, tries to rescue his brother, and himself into one bad situation after another – almost of all of which, he gets out of – mainly because black people are always there to take the film. Yes, in the film, he is white privilege personified. He is also charming and funny and despicable, and horrible – and full of a nervous energy, perfect for this film that wants desperately to be a 1970s New York crime movie – and pretty much nails it. Pattinson is quite frankly stunning in Good Time – a great performance in a great film and proof that Kristen Stewart isn’t the only one who is leaving Twilight behind, on the way to better thing.

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Movie Review: Human Flow

Human Flow *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ai Weiwei.

Written by: Chin-Chin Yap &Tim Finch & Boris Cheshirkov. 

 

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow is a globetrotting documentary that goes from one war ravished place to another documenting the flow of refugees as they flee violence, persecution and natural disasters looking to find a better life elsewhere – and how, everywhere they go, they find more and more barriers to their travels. Ai Weiwei has, for a long time, been one of China’s most famous and outspoken artists and human rights activists – he has gotten himself in trouble many times, but he’s going to keep on doing what he does – which is, sometimes quite literally, giving the middle finger to the powers that be. Human Flow is done in the same spirit, although the tone is a touch more civil than I thought it may be coming from Ai Weiwei.

 

In the film, Ai goes from place to place interviewing the people who lives have been turned upside down by the crisis – and are no running for their lives, alongside their family. He treats everyone he meets with the upmost respect, and while he does get details of their stories, he doesn’t linger on them. He also talks to experts on the crisis, and just how bad it has gotten – and has a host of statistics, news stories and quotes littered throughout the movie – some going across the bottom of the screen like a news ticker. He doesn’t spend much time at all with those who are against the refugees – those who have built, or want to build, walls and fences to keep them out. The film alternates between two types of scenes and imagery – much of the on the ground footage seems to have been shot by Ai himself with hand held cameras or an iPhone for example, in which he captures the individual stories. There are also a lot of overhead shots – presumably from drones – which capture the whole wide scope of the migrations that are going on. The reasoning is clear – he is trying to capture both the epic and the intimate about this crisis, putting any number of human faces on the crisis, but not wanting the forest to get lost because of the trees.

 

This approach has its positives and its negatives. On one hand the decision to pretty much go everywhere on the planet where people are being displaced makes the sheer, epic scale of the crisis felt – it’s not one or two issues that we can solve, and make it go away, it doesn’t really allow for any in depth reporting on any of it. This is, I think, by design – as Ai is basically showing us people from all backgrounds, faiths, ethnicities, etc. being displaced – which should make it clear that it isn’t a simple, easy fix. At the same time though, it does make the whole thing seem so large that there is no way to solve it all, and as the numbers scroll across the screen, you may well be floored. Still, I can imagine someone like Donald Trump or his supporters (Trump is never named in the film, but it’s still what Ai feels about him) thinking that the crisis is too large from them to handle, and perhaps closing the border is the only way to go. After all, how could America deal with an influx of people this large?

 

What Ai is going for in Human Flow though should provide at least part of that answer – he is appealing to our shared humanity, and counting on the goodness of people to find a way solve the problem. It isn’t going to go away – and no wall can prevent it. So, what are we going to do?

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Movie Review: A Gray State

A Gray State *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Erik Nelson.

 

I have never been much into conspiracy theories, which is perhaps why I had not heard of David Crowley, or the movie he was going to make – Gray State – which documented a time in the not too distant future when the government was going to crack down on its citizens, and kill or enslave them. Crowley became a big hit in the Libertarian and conspiracy theory circles – he supported Ron Paul for President, and was a fan of Alex Jones. A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Crowley may have been affected by PTSD or some other mental disorder because of his time on the battlefield – its impossible to say really – but we do know that when he was Stop-Lossed (the military term for when they refuse to let you leave the military, even after your time is supposed to be up – he started to grow more paranoid and distrustful of the government. When he finally did get out, he embraced conspiracy theories, and set about making a trailer for his purposed movie. The plan was to film the trailer, get funded on Kickstarter in order to be able to write the movie (which he did) and then go to Hollywood, script in hand, to get $30 million to make his would be masterpiece. He got a hell of a lot closer than most would have to making that happen.

 

That all came to an end in January 2015 when Crowley, his wife Komel and their daughter Rainya were found shot to death in their homes. After a year of investigating, the police closed the case – determining that David killed his family, then too his own life. Others in the conspiracy theory world are still not convinced – seeing yet another government conspiracy.

 

A Gray State, a documentary by Erik Nelson, examines the life of David Crowley, and his work, and ultimately his death. After he gives a few minutes, early in the documentary, to a few of the voices who are convinced this is all a government ruse, he examines Crowley life in the military, his work in trying to get his movie off the ground, and finally his unravelling mental state in the months leading up to his death. Those conspiracy theorists at the beginning of the movie probably won’t like the rest of it – it comes together as one sad, tragic portrait of a man who eventually will kill his daughter, wife and then himself. As someone says to Nelson late in the film “You’re not missing anything but the why – and you’ll never get that”. And he’s right.

 

Nelson’s documentary really does give a fascinating portrait of Nelson, who even as he became more and more convinced of various conspiracy theories, remaining outwardly nice and charming. There were warning signs early in his relationship with Komel sure – like the fact that David refused to discuss having more kids, despite how young they both were – but that didn’t mean much. To those who saw them, they seemed like a perfect young couple, very much in love and happy. She supported the family, as he followed his dream of making his movie.

 

And then things just started to go wrong, and no one quite knows why. Friends and family agree that they first noticed something at Rainya’s birthday party in August when the couple would barely acknowledge each other. Komel became increasingly isolated from friends, families and co-workers – who either couldn’t talk to her at all, or else felt like something in her changed. All we really have from this period is David’s bizarre journal, and some videos, where it becomes clear that something strange is happening with both David and Komel – neither of whom seem in their right mind.

 

What happened on Christmas – which is when David killed his family – will never be known. What flipped that final switch that made him go off the way he did is something that can never be known. This documentary makes the compelling case however that it was no conspiracy – just the sad case of someone who goes off the deep end. One could argue that Nelson could have explored Crowley’s beliefs – and circle of influences more deeply (it is a very white group of people and there are some racist undertones that go unstated), and he certainly should have found a different way to end the movie (the final moments, about Crowley’s dog are bizarre) – but overall, A Gray State is a fascinating and sad portrait for our fake news obsessed times.

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Movie Review: My Little Pony: The Movie

My Little Pony: The Movie ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Jayson Thiessen.

Written by: Meghan McCarthy and Rita Hsiao and Michael Vogel and Joe Ballarini based on the television series created by Lauren Faust.

Starring: Uzo Aduba (Queen Novo), Ashleigh Ball (Applejack / Rainbow Dash), Adam Bengis (Code Red), Emily Blunt (Tempest Shadow / Fizzlepop Berrytwist), Kristin Chenoweth (Princess Skystar), Michelle Creber (Applebloom), Taye Diggs (Capper), Brian Dobson (Verko), Andrea Libman (Fluttershy / Pinkie Pie), Max Martini (Boyle), Britt McKillip (Princess Cadance), Peter New (Big Mac), Mark Oliver (First Mate Mullet), Nicole Oliver (Princess Celestia / Lix Spittle), Michael Peña (Grubber), Zoe Saldana (Captain Celaeno), Liev Schreiber (The Storm King), Sia (Songbird Serenade), Tabitha St. Germain (Rarity / Princess Luna / Granny Smith / Muffins), Tara Strong (Princess Twilight Sparkle), Cathy Weseluck (Spike the Dragon).

 

When you become a parent, you end up watching a whole lot of movies and TV shows you never otherwise would – My Little Pony is certainly on that list. It’s been around since I was a kid, sure, but somewhere in the last 30 years, so one determined that it didn’t need to be so stereotypically girlly and frilly – that that the show could use some action and humor to go along with its sappy messages of friendship and kindness. The show has been big for years, and although I avoided the feature film version when it came out this fall (my wife got saddled with that duty) – my girls (especially my three year old) loved it so much, that I recently watched it on DVD.

 

First let me say this – unless you have kids, or are a Brony – there really is no reason for you to watch this film. This isn’t a Pixar film, or even a Dreamworks, film that tries to appeal to adults and kids at the same time – this is candy colored pablum aimed straight at the child’s brain, with only a joke or two for the audiences in the crowd. You are missing nothing by skipping this movie.

 

But I will say this for it – it’s better than it has to be. That doesn’t mean it’s good by any means – but the film is basically brand extension – it wants to add new characters to the series (and the toy line), created a new movie for parents to buy, or watch endlessly on Netflix eventually – and stopping off in theaters along the way is a good way to give it more visibility. The film could be a lot worse than it is, and still make money.

 

The film is typical kids movie stuff – an evil Unicorn (voiced by Emily Blunt) comes down and freezes almost all the ponies – except for Princess Twilight Sparkle, and her 5 best friends (6, including a small dragon), who then have to go on a journey to find a way to stop that Unicorn, and the Storm King, who she works for. Along the way, they make friends, sing songs and learn lessons. The film ends with an action movie climax – which is a little disappointing, because normally the ponies come up with smarted ways to solve their problems, but in this case, I guess not.

 

The film is overly sweet and sappy – and so colorful it will give you a headache. To me, this gets annoying, quickly – but to a three year old like my daughter, she loved every single moment. That’s a little sad of course – but she has plenty of time to realize there are better movies than My Little Pony out there. Until then, she’s more than happy with this one – which I assume we’ll watch approximately 100 times – and she’ll love every time.

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