Don’t Breathe is a tiresome piece of work, but that’s for good and bad reasons. On one hand, the genuine adrenaline that the film forces you to use up is exhausting and even nauseating. Considering that this is a horror film that’s all good, though. The other tiresome reason is, unfortunately due to directional tact the film becomes much more sloppy than it should be. No, that’s not to say that Fede Alvarez is a bad director, or that his direction of this film is particularly weak, it’s only to say that under the circumstances direction is related to tone and here the tonal contrivances really show. The reason for this is because of the way that the story plays out. Three robbers, the main character being a mother named Rocky (Jane Levy), attempt to rob the house of a blind man (Steven Lang), only to realize that he is extremely fatal. As the night goes on, more and more is revealed and the shocking truth comes out. That actually makes for an shocking if a little floaty premise. Only Rocky and the Blind Man are given any motivation, letting us know that the others are expendable, but it’s intense and compelling stuff, especially since Alvarez pulls his greatest tricks out of the bag at the beginning of the film. He stages an early tracking shot that displays tools that will later be used in brutal ways parallelling the house establishing shot in Panic Room. His best little addition to this is that he assigns a sound effect to almost every item that will be used in the bloodshed. This calls a very intense focus on sound in the film, matching the Blind Man, but also gives a semblance of structure for the rest of the film. Subconsciously, when a noise is heard it means that that item will appear causing a large amount of dread. The main problem with the film as it goes along is that Alvarez doesn’t continue this early focus. The premise calls for a continually twisting plot, so soon things just start forcibly happening, as more and more random situations keep beating the hell out of the robbers. It all seems a little much, and some of it seems unnecessary as suspenseful as it all is. The film’s turning point and scariest scene is shocking but it is never grounded in the rest of what’s going on. It was never really set up. When the items that were signaled by the sound effects do appear, Alvarez smartly pulls off his intelligent trick, but he does it sloppily. Soon, the forced nature of the continuing events of the story start to really show. Lacking the directorial focus that was set up the film just gets more tiresome as it comes along. Don’t Breathe is a fine film though, and that’s on the back of both Alvarez and the actors he’s brought together. The events of Don’t Breathe are horrifying and the actors perfectly pull them off, but it’s how the events relate to the actors that truly scare. Steven Lang is scary as hell, but a female-centric exploitation focussed on recent horrors of the same form are scarier than anything that Lang or Alvarez throw on screen. The overall twist of the movie is terrifying and sad bring a dreaded feeling to the movie. If anyone should be making Resident Evil movies it’s Fede Alvarez. Paired with excellent performances from the protagonist, her partner and Lang, despite its flaws Don’t Breathe is horrifically believable. Don’t Breathe doesn’t always use the directional flourishes it has to its benefit but it’s still a disturbing and just fine ride. As a buckled down thriller it’s certainly worth 88 minutes. Don't Breathe gets an 8 out of 10.
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Laika has made two of the greatest films of all time, and two good, but underwhelming ones. Coraline is a scary masterpiece and Paranorman is so emotionally wrenching and important that in its greatness will never be understated. The Boxtrolls was more slapstick silliness but was just bizarre enough to mess with the conventional trappings that it was part of. Kubo and the Two Strings is a film that while creative as Laika has ever gotten seems to bungle its own premise by being too compromised. The route that it takes is new and heartfelt, but it’s not satisfying, unfortunately. This new route goes a little like this: by using the pre-built idea that this kids movie will automatically include a message, the film dangles a fulfilling one in front of our faces and then out of nowhere swaps it away. That’s some complex story mechanics there, but the reason it doesn’t work is because the message that we end up getting is less satisfying and meaningful than the one proposed in the beginning. Kubo is our young protagonist who can control origami paper using his own magic and a magic guitar. One night he stays out too late, in order to contact the spirit of his father, and is found by his night dominating grandfather, the Moon King and his aunts, all mystical “God” like characters attempting to take revenge on Kubo’s mother for leaving them and trying to rip out the one eye Kubo has left (they took the other one). That’s a lot of exciting setup that’s wholly original, and the film cleverly establishes the rules though a beautifully animated story that Kubo tells with paper, and a heavy helping of exposition (one of the film’s biggest problems). All of this set up pretty much works though. Kubo is an understandable character, the Moon King and the sisters are “Other Mother” from Coraline menacing, and the disparity of Kubo’s mother to protect him is emotionally satisfying. The opening moments are so overwhelmingly impressive from an animation set up, you might swear you were just watching real people. It’s beautiful. But then the first message comes in. Through a series of events Kubo must go find three pieces of mystical armour: a sword, a breastplate, and a helmet, with the help of a monkey (Charlize Theron) and a Beetle-man (Matthew McConaughey). As the trip progresses, it all seems ok. The message is obvious. A melancholy look at the way that in a modern world sometimes your family wants to hurt you and it’s important to trust adults that will always be good to you. That’s an important and relevant message having to do with trust in foster parents and the meaning of true kindness from a guardian...that the film completely cops out on. As the film twists and turns it takes the original setup that is so lush and takes it in unsatisfyingly easy routes. The emotional maturity of the material is important to consider, but the new message about the legacy of the dead seems forced into the movie, and is less grounded than the original one considering whether or not family is really good for the characters. It makes one think that the chaotic group fight that would have been all but mandatory in the climax was not possible for Laika to pull off because of budgetary or creative reasons and it’s unfortunate that this cripples the emotional throughline of the movie. All that said, Kubo is easily one of the most impressive animated films technically ever made. Stop-motion animation proves itself to do anything in this film. It’s marvelously impressive, especially one of the most thrilling of the year taking place between Monkey and one of the evil sisters. The difficulty of Kubo comes mainly in the fact that looking at all of its parts it’s a truly breathtaking film. Everything that leads to its downfall isn’t all that bad either, presenting a sense of maturity that is not often seen. The film just doesn’t really add up or feel all that good, and with all the beautiful work that went in, it really should. Kubo and the Two Strings gets a 6.5 out of 10. Empathy is tricky, but when it’s there, it’s there. Its power can overshadow the horrors that characters perform, and the barriers between good and evil. At the pivotal moment of Hell or High Water, the pure breed of the anti-hero tension is born as any narrative intensity is bled from both the good guys and the bad guys. That’s the true strength all the way through the film, about two brothers robbing banks. As mechanically well pulled off as the story is, the emotions of brotherly love somehow find a way into working. Seriously, Hell or High Water is so well put together as a thriller that you almost expect it to become too boring in its perfection like the bad Christopher Nolan movies. Wait, scratch that, the 8/10 Christopher Nolan movies. But it never does. Instead, the emotion of the film stays and grows to build on both the anxieties of living in modern America and the evil that sits in all of us. Hell or High Water is the type of intelligent screenplay that plays our own want to be politically correct and good against us as it uses both concepts to make us bring both sides of the characters down to in some way “evil.” Yes, Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine) Howard are robbing banks, but Jeff Bridges' old sheriff is uncompromisingly and uncomfortably racist to his Native American/Mexican partner, Alberto (Gil Birmingham). Bridges' sincerity combined with his gruff nature kind of brings him down to the standing in our minds as just another mean old man, and probably meaner than the two brothers. Especially since the brothers have a good reason to do what they are. The greatness of the film is the moment that it takes the piss out of you for siding with the robbers and judging the sheriff, simply because he’s being irreverently racist. The moment that this happens isn’t worth spoiling, but it’s a deliriously shocking moment of character realization. You realize in this moment that the sheriff, who is soon to be retired, has been being racist as simply a thin layer of bravado, trying to keep himself masculated as he nears the end of his career. The moment is both shocking because it almost completely dehumanizes things that we liked about the robbers (who for the record have been charming all the way through) and reveals all the depth of the sheriff. Now you have to live with rooting for the brothers to make it on their crime spree, and all the horrible implications that rooting for that has for the characters in the story. Hell or High Water’s ability to play with audience empathy and what that means to both the film and to the audience is masterful. It’s moments like the one described above that raises the film above the pack in doing this. This is a film that through character, theme, and our own prejudice makes us own our support for the anti-heroes at its center. The direction of David Mackenzie has always been smooth, but brutal. His Starred Up proved to be a masterpiece of prison cinema, but through a sequence of one-shots and brutal pov shots, Mackenzie outdoes himself here. His camera easily becomes the essential world building engine, using close-ups to lend an intense sense of chase to the brothers from both the sheriff and the bank and quick loan programs that have financially crippled everyone around them. This is a message movie for all intents and purposes and it wears its message not just on its sleeve but plastered to its face. Every aspect of the set design, performances, and camerawork suggests a world of poverty and people struggling to rid themselves of it, and that focus drives the entire film along with the complex character mechanics. Hell or High Water is a not too often seen spectacle. It’s a stressful, thrilling Western, with a lot to say. It sets up impossibly empathetic characters and then makes it genuinely impossible to not feel for both sides once everything falls apart. This is a genuine piece of perfection in a year of only a few. Come, Hell or High Water, don’t miss it. Hell or High Water gets a 10 out of 10. There’s a moment near the end of Mike Birbiglia's Don’t Think Twice when Sam (Gillian Jacobs) stands alone on a stage, her four friends having abandoned their improv group as they all try to simply move on and become new people. The group, “The Commune” was a group of people slavishly devoted to the art of improv theater and dreamed of gigs on Weekend Live (you just guess what that’s making fun of). As you can tell this is a film completely built on improv through and through. That’s why it makes sense that Birbiglia would structure the piece as if it were an improv performance. There are six major characters to cover in Don’t Think Twice: Miles, Sam, Jack, Lindsey, Allison, and Bill. Each of them needed a proficient amount of screen time to make the movie work. That’s particularly hard balance to place, but the secret is simple. Don’t Think Twice is masterfully built. It introduces us to the characters while they are performing at the beginning, setting up each character's importance to the story through their importance in the improv sketch. Sam starts off the show front and center because she is the most important character, and the story’s themes hinge on her. Everybody else is relegated to the back because while they are integral to the plot (they are part of the show to say), they are nowhere near as important as Sam. And then from the beginning Sam’s story starts even if she’s not necessarily the driving force of the plot at the moment. It’s like a great improv sketch. Soon everyone who is part of the show has started to add their little section of the story. Bill’s father is in the hospital, Jack is getting the opportunity of a lifetime, Lindsey is troubled, Allison is desperately trying to be happy and dealing with past mistakes and Miles is trying to find a way to outdo his students who seem to be leaving him in the dust. Everything about these characters is well defined and well thought out, and while some may get overshadowed by others (Lindsey and Allison don’t get that much to do), it never matters that they don’t because they aren’t the front and center characters. Blocking and movement in the first scene define the structure of the movie, and then the film takes that and knocks it out of the park. The best part of all of this is that Don’t Think Twice never feels like it’s doing this on purpose. There’s never any sense that the internal story mechanics are being pushed any specific way and that’s most likely because of the improvisational delivery that the film brings to the plate. All of the actors from Birbiglia to Keegan-Michael Key to Gillian Jacobs feel almost like they are playing themselves keeping a realistic and hilarious beat to all the delivery. There are lines that seem to push for “iconic and scripted,” but even those fail to seem that way. Instead, they land with an elegant poignancy that all but continues to elevate the proceedings. Plus, these people are writers. You can believe they’re going to say something pretentious every once in awhile and that in itself is kind of funny. All that aside, the most important thing about Don’t Think Twice is that as a movie it’s optimistic. It’s about how people who have become slavishly devoted to an art form are both harmed and benefited by that form, but mostly about what happens whenever they can transcend the idea that they need anything else other than that love.for art and each other. For someone with the constant worry that everything won’t be ok If they don’t succeed that’s a beautiful prospect. This is an oasis of optimism that is incredibly beneficial. If you love art and want to make it more than anything in the world Don’t Think Twice understands that and encourages that even in the darkest of times that passion is something you can always fall back on. Besides, it’s a strong film even without those implications and masterfully balances the ability to feel spontaneous. Don’t Think Twice gets a 10 out of 10. There have been so many great, but forgettable British biopic movies coming out in the past few years, i.e. The King’s Speech, The Imitation Game...etc, that it’s almost become infuriating how excellent all of them are. Game is close to a masterpiece. This is why it comes at such a harrowing surprise that Florence Foster Jenkins while funny, and saccharine, is broken on a fundamental level. On one hand, that might seem oddly fitting because each character is broken in some way. They all have dreams they want to achieve but have failed in doing so. Meryl Streep’s Madame Florence wants to be a concert singer and pianist but can’t really because she can’t sing and has syphilis so the nerves in her hand are damaged. Hugh Grant is her husband, a man who loves and takes care of Florence, but wishes to live with his girlfriend, played by Rebecca Ferguson (so good in Mission Impossible 5). He’s also a failed actor. Simon Helberg plays Cosmere Macmoo, a concert pianist of high ambitions heavily caught off guard by the fact that he’s playing with a woman who cannot sing. Streep is doing spectacular character work that she is usually cast for. Hugh Grant is mugging to the camera in his wonderful British way, and Helberg is using unsubtle sitcom acting, that while less fitting, milks a joke out of every scene he takes part in. All of these elements combined should theoretically create a fine film grabbing for Oscars. But it doesn’t. While all of those prestigious actors are fine in their roles, again, the film is broken through its own screenplay and direction. Grant’s character, as the film shows us, is much happier with his girlfriend while also being slavishly devoted to Florence. But the girlfriend and he seem so happy together and everyone seems so annoyed with Florence that you start to hope for Grant to end up with the girlfriend, which in turn leaves the story of Florence in a place where you don’t actually care. By the end of the film as Florence prepares to sing at Carnegie Hall the sense is one of why does this matter? Sure, Florence is inspiring, but why would you care about this poor, but irritating woman who has all but trapped this man? This isn’t inspiring. This is sad, upsetting, and kind of pointless. That’s what the film feels like upsetting and kind of pointless. Streep, Helberg, and Grant try their best, but it’s the screenplay’s focus on the relationship of the husband that kills the film’s drive and purpose. It will be nominated for Oscars because of its pedigree, but that’s the only thing this film has. Florence Foster Jenkins gets a 4 out of 10. Sausage Party: Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernan, Starring: Seth Rogan and Kristen Wiig8/13/2016 As Finding Dory is about mental illness and The Incredibles is about a midlife crisis, Sausage Party is about the modern world that we live in. That’s both calling attention to the fact that the supermarket, the place the movie mostly takes place in with a bunch of talking food as our heroes, acts as kind of the real “Earth” in the movie, with its own interesting and understandable geography, and also the views of the foods in the market. See, while it is a lowbrow comedy, Sausage Party has its eyes set on very lofty ideas including religion, racism, sexism, and the journey of self-fulfillment that all exist in the world. This is Disney fare with big boy pants on, and the fact that it’s just as genuine and earnest as those films is what works completely about Sausage Party. See, the food characters of Sausage Party, including: Frank (Seth Rogan), Brenda (Kristen Wiig), Barry (Michael Cera), near the beginning of the film all hold a blissful ignorance, almost as if they are just repressed souls desperately attempting to make it in a system that limits their ability to really enjoy life. This creates a melancholy sense to their characters that is only complimented by the feelings of dread that the story ultimately creates, but also slyly makes the raunchy humor of the film really work. Sausage Party is nowhere near close to understated, so when all this racy, uncomfortable, and just overall upsetting stuff happens the earnest nature of the characters makes up for it. As the jokes get more ridiculous and raunchy we start to understand it as less of the comedians just throwing jokes into the movie for the sake of jokes, but more character informed stuff. Sure, not all the jokes land (a lot of racial humor shouldn’t be that funny, but the movie through design choices actually overwrites this) but Frank, Brenda, and Barry aren’t just cracking all these jokes because it’s a comedic film. They are doing so because they need to stay emotionally stable. This creates a tone that perfectly fits the more disturbing fare that the film’s story offers, and sets everything up perfectly for the final act. This is no place for spoilers, but it’s simply one of the most satisfying endings of any film for the whole year. The gonzo action of the third act and the implications that it creates are almost fully fueled by the sympathy that comes with the food’s feelings, while also being an excellent irreverent blowout. There’s a literal orgy of evidence for why the foods are now able to enjoy life and it’s deliciously gratifying. For all the focus placed on dirty jokes, Sausage Party has the type of emotional depth in its characters that is only present in films from the Disney house, only it’s bolstered by the “R” rating. Sausage Party serves up the best animated film of the year, and a hearty helping of brain food about the world that we live in. Sausage Party gets a 9 out of 10. Well, after seeing Suicide Squad I was optimistic that The Killing Joke might cleanse my DC comics movie palette. The best of the DC films have been animated, with legitimate classics like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, and Batman: Assault on Arkham (a Suicide Squad film you should see now) DC has far overshadowed the boring efforts that Marvel has shelled out. This begs the question as to what would happen if someone made a movie out of one of the most intentionally wrenching and skillfully forced comics of all time? It turns out not much. Batman: The Killing Joke is a fluke, that while not horrible, never really comes to life.. Throughout its entire length, the book felt paranoid and almost poisoning, including the almost slightly misogynistic implications that it’s plot brought into play. The Killing Joke follows the Joker as he shoots Barbara Gordon in the spine, tries to drive her Commissioner father insane in an amusement park reveals his backstory, and slowly attempts to drive Batman insane. It was about a horrible thing happening to squeeze out a feeling of dread and fear, that while overwhelming and effective, was a little too persistent. It is really crushing though. The movie of The Killing Joke only ever reaches the hysterical nature that the book created during moments of its climax. The rest is boring and not very well directed animation. This is kind of a surprise because of how startlingly good the team and voice cast on the film is. Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Tara Strong, and Ray Wise are all veterans. Sam Liu, director of the well written and animated Batman: Year One animated film obviously knows what he’s doing, but here seems to be doing things too straightforwardly. The nature of Brian Bolland’s almost surrealistic panels don’t translate well as the film version plays it all realistically. The intention was probably to create a world where all of this crazy stuff could in fact happen, but it robs the story of its fangs until a crazed final battle between Batman and the Joker. The camera movement and action is excellent during this beautiful final confrontation. The nothingness that is the first 30 minutes isn’t completely mentionable. It comes and goes and ends as it is, but doesn’t effect the plot to much. Wow, this is not a good month for the DC Comics cinematic department. As is The Killing Joke doesn’t seem to hold the depth the cartoon that much of its pedigree came from or the book it was based on. This may come from the forced nature of the original material, but seems more a product of execution unfortunately. Not as bad as the DCEU, not close to previous animated films, The Killing Joke is still an an indication that DC needs to get back on track. Batman: The Killing Joke gets a 5 out of 10. For as much as I wanted to hate the DCEU I simply couldn’t. Oh, I could acknowledge the fact that they are bad movies, I just couldn’t accept that fact. The tangible connection that I have to these characters is unprecedented to the point that I have an uncomfortable bias. The first time I saw Man of Steel this got the better of me. I projected the hope that Superman embodied for me onto a movie that while sound wasn’t very hopeful. I couldn’t even properly review Batman v Superman because this bias was there on my shoulder clouding all the judgment that I could have. I still watch that film wishing it were great...but every time I slowly realize that it’s not. Suicide Squad did not work on that bias. I hate this movie. I hate it so much that I couldn’t even apply that to cushion the blow. This is a tease. A film that promises something bigger and better than it really is and that disarmed any favors I could give it. The original vision of Suicide Squad seems to have been something lurid, and nasty, something that you never see in a PG-13 movie, so the film seems to be trying to run away from that the entire time. David Ayer, a talented director, throws hints of the manic energy that could have inhabited the film but all of that seems to have been killed in the editing room. Notice how fans started to say that they didn’t want DC movies dark anymore. Notice how I said that in one way or another too? Well, this is what happens when the studio or a director takes that and misses the whole point of it. The film feels like it’s desperately trying to embrace the manic energy of films like Harmonie Korine’s Spring Breakers but is also trying to stay as light as Guardians of the Galaxy. Instead of landing on either side the film falls right in the middle feeling really confused and joyless. The only moments that seem to rise above the pack are the moments that hint at the crazed, but also totally not PG-13 mania that luridness provides. There’s an early scene in a club where Joker (Jared Leto) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) take out another gangster that hints at some crazed depth and psychology to their actions. Harley, over-sexualized, draws the gangster into a hysteria, and then the Joker shoots him in the face at the peak of his desires. It’s a moment that just hints at what could have been. Ayer’s frenzied cutting, Leto’s wide-eyed eccentricity, Robbie’s sexuality on display in an almost toxic way, all of it combining to create a baser feeling. But the film doesn’t let that ever cut loose. It never could. So, here’s what we have instead. We have a scrambled film that never provides proper character motivation or at least none that sticks. We have a film where most of the exciting footage in the trailers isn’t even in the freaking movie. We have a film that looks down on its audience. Oh, you can’t handle villains like Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Loki in The Avengers. No, take a green dude who wants to destroy the world. Oh, you can’t handle the absolutely psychotic whims of Jared Leto’s performance. Cut him almost completely out of the movie and cover what he is part of in garish music to appeal to the teenage girls in the audience. They think Jared Leto’s attractive right? Want to see Katana? Well, you can have like 3 minutes of her doing stuff and Karen Fukuhara trying. Captain Boomerang gets even less to do. There're so many character moments sprinkled around this film that seem to just be surface things never suggesting to deeper characters. The movie also just downright takes an intermission to explain El Diablo, just so it can desperately make us care when he is killed off. At least Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne, and Viola Davis can have the initiative to carry a scene, but others like Joel Kinnaman and Scott Eastwood are completely useless. Deadshot is set up for an arch but in his big moment, much like Batman in BvS, betrays it. The action chops of David Ayer could have at least made it intense and gripping, but the rotting tone and horrible action kill that prospect. Ayer’s previous hard edge brought to his magnificent Fury has all but disappeared here as he stages fight scenes with enemies that blend into the background of the sets. The image of our heroes swinging at what looks like thin air is laughable and unexciting. The DCEU has failed. There is no doubt about it now. Wonder Women will fail. Justice League will fail. Warner Brothers will fail. If something this promising can crash this hard even while containing a truly well studied performance by Leto, two cool cameos for the fans, and a glimmer of hope then it’s all going to fail. RIP the DCEU. Suicide Squad gets a 3.5 out of 10 |
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |