7/8/15: If These Walls Could Talk

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abused children, abusive childhood, Agnes Bruckner, based on a short, Bridger Nielson, Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, cinema, Dakota Bright, dead mother, dysfunctional family, estranged siblings, family home, family secrets, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ghosts, Haley Hudson, haunted house, haunted houses, horror, horror movies, Judas, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Mark Steger, mediums, Movies, mysteries, Nicholas McCarthy, Petra Wright, Ronen Landa, Sam Ball, serial killers, sisters, small town life, The Pact, twist ending, writer-director

Based on an earlier short of the same name, writer-director Nicholas McCarthy’s debut full-length, The Pact (2012), is an effective, if overly familiar, little haunted house chiller that manages to distinguish itself by dint of its austere atmosphere, focus on mystery and mood over gore and a twist ending that’s massively entertaining, if more than a little nonsensical. While nothing about the film is exactly revolutionary, the overall quality certainly bodes well for the rest of McCarthy’s burgeoning career.

After vowing to put as much distance between her abusive mother and herself as possible, Annie (Caity Lotz) finds herself returning to her childhood home under less than auspicious circumstances. Annie’s much-detested mother has just passed away and, under no small amount of duress, she’s come home for the funeral, mostly to appease her sister, Nichole (Agnes Bruckner), and see her adorable niece, Eva (Dakota Bright).

When she gets home, however, Annie discovers that Nichole, a former drug addict, has seemingly vanished into thin air, leaving Eva under the care of cousin Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Annie assumes that her sister has relapsed but there’s just something about her old home that doesn’t sit quite right. When Liz vanishes under similar circumstances, Annie is convinced that something sinister is going on right under her nose.

As she investigates the history of her family and childhood home, Annie draws the attention of local sheriff Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien), a pensive, kind-hearted lawman who knew Nichole from her wild, druggie days. She also enlists the aid of Stevie (Hayley Hudson), a mysterious, blind, trailer-park medium who makes house calls along with her sketchy, paranoid brother, Giles (Sam Ball). Stevie detects a ghostly presence in the house, some kind of maligned specter who’s only seeking justice for its untimely end. She also detects something much crueler and more malignant, however, a festering, suffocating evil known only as “Judas.” Who (or what) is Judas? How, exactly, is Annie and her family connected to the tragedies at their old home? Will Annie be able to bring peace to the dead or will she find herself joining them?

Although there’s nothing about McCarthy’s debut that screams “instant classic,” it still ends up being a highly likable, well-made and effective film, albeit one with plenty of cheesy moments, overly familiar plot elements and more than a few outright holes. Caity Lotz is effective as Annie, bringing the right mixture of hard-edge, spunk and insecurity to the mix: she certainly doesn’t vault herself into the company of luminaries like Jaime Lee Curtis or Sigourney Weaver but she more than holds her own and gives us a (fairly) level-headed hero to hang our hats on.

The supporting cast ranges from dependable to slightly over-the-top, with Van Dien underplaying his role to the point of mumblecore, while Hudson and Ball have quite a bit of fun as the oddball, white trash mystics. Hudson, in particular, is suitably ethereal and brings a really odd, interesting quality to her performance as the blind psychic. For his part, Mark Steger brings a weird, lurching and almost insectile physicality to his performance as Judas, making him quite the memorable villain, even if he never utters a single line of dialogue. Just the sight of Steger hanging around in the background of various shots is enough to chill the blood and McCarthy gets good mileage out of it.

One of The Pact’s biggest strengths is its focus on the mystery aspect of the narrative, rather than a simple rehashing of moldy haunted house tropes. While McCarthy’s script certainly isn’t comparable to something like Silence of the Lambs, it definitely recalls Vincenzo Natali’s equally modest and effective Haunter (2013), another indie horror film that prided atmosphere over effects. There are still plenty of traditional haunted house scares, of course: people get pulled backwards by invisible forces, doors open and close on their own, lights turn on and off, sinister forms appear in the background while our heroes look in the opposite direction…basically “Ghosts 101.” For the most part, however, these end up being the film’s weakest moments (the invisible forces aspect, in particular, is so old that it sweats dust): when we’re following Annie on her quest for knowledge, the film is an altogether more interesting, tense and driven affair.

Another aspect of The Pact that separates it from its contemporaries is the big, Shyamalan-esque twist that pops up during the climax. While I would never dream of spoiling the surprise, the whole thing tends to make imperfect sense under closer inspection (it presupposes, for one thing, that a key character is either completely deaf or incredibly stupid, neither of which seems to be the case) but it ends the proceedings with a gonzo flourish that’s a lot of fun, if rather silly.

For the most part, I quite enjoyed The Pact, although it was certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before. When the film is silly, it can be quite silly: the scene where Annie draws a Ouija board into the floor and proceeds to contact a spirit is a real howler, as are most of the parts where Annie is shoved around by empty air. When the atmosphere, mood and languid pace all mesh, however, The Pact has plenty of genuinely chilling moments: the scene involving the ghostly photograph is fantastic, as is the one where Bill and Annie discover the hidden room. Any and all of Stevie’s scenes have a genuinely weird, otherworldly quality to them and the finale (minus the eye-rolling coda) is a real corker.

McCarthy would follow-up his debut with At the Devil’s Door (2014), which I’ve yet to see, along with an entry in the upcoming horror-anthology Holidays, which has been on my must-see list since it was announced. If McCarthy can continue to tweak his formula here, replacing some of the overly familiar material with stuff that’s a bit more singular and unique, he stands a good chance of blazing his own trail through the horror wasteland.

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6/7/15 (Part Two): The Heart and the Loneliest Hunter

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A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, addicts, Alex O'Flinn, Amirpour, Ana Lily Amirpour, Arash Marandi, atmospheric films, Bad City, based on a short, black and white film, black-and-white cinematography, cinema, death, Dominic Rains, dramas, drug addiction, drug dealers, evocative, fantasy, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, French New Wave, ghost town, horror films, Iranian-American, isolated communities, Jim Jarmusch, John Hughes, loneliness, Lyle Vincent, Marshall Manesh, Milad Eghbali, moody films, Movies, Mozhan Marnò, romances, Rome Shadanloo, Sam Kramer, set in Iran, Sheila Vand, skateboarders, spaghetti Westerns, street urchin, stylish films, vampires, writer-director-producer

Billed as “the first Iranian vampire Western,” writer-director-producer Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is an endlessly fascinating debut, a thoroughly confident horror-art piece that manages to turn its grab-bag of cinematic influences into something effortlessly cool. More Dead Man (1995) than Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Amirpour’s film throws gorgeous black and white cinematography, nods to the French New Wave, German Expressionism, the holy trinity of Jarmusch, Bergman and Jeunet and the ’80s youth flicks of John Hughes into a blender and hits “puree.” While the results aren’t perfect, AGWHAAN is still a stunning feature-film debut from an amazingly talented new filmmaker and a necessary addition to the existing bloodsucker canon.

Amirpour’s debut (based on an earlier short) concerns the various residents of the Iranian town of Bad City. A virtual ghost town, Bad City appears to be inhabited solely by drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps/pushers, hustlers and the odd street urchin, here and there. Our humble hero, Arash (Arash Marandi), is a hustler who looks like he stepped straight out of East of Eden (1955): with his white t-shirt, blue jeans, omnipresent sunglasses and vintage muscle car, he’s a classic rebel without a cause. His father, Hossein (Marshall Manesh), is a pathetic junkie who owes a wad of cash to the local pimp/dealer, Saeed (Dominic Rains). For his part, Saeed is a philosophical, if thick-headed, thug who isn’t above taking Arash’s car as partial payment for his dad’s debt, while ruling his “girls” with an iron fist. One such “employee” is Atti (Mozhan Marnò), the sad-eyed, thirty-year-old prostitute who plies her trade on the barren, empty streets of Bad City, overshadowed by the towering oil derricks in the background.

As these various sad-sacks go about their repetitive routines, a new force emerges to shake up the status quo: a mysterious, silent young woman (Sheila Vand) has taken to stalking the streets, doling out death to any who cross her path. When the vampiric girl puts a permanent end to Saeed, Arash seizes the opportunity and attempts to fill the void left by the drug dealer. As Atti and the mysterious girl form a bond, however, Arash finds himself similarly drawn to the enigmatic figure. What does the young woman really want? What does the future hold for Bad City and its shadowy residents? One thing’s for certain: if you have to be out after dark, be sure to stay far, far away from the girl walking home alone…your very life may depend on it!

Lush, hazy, hypnotic and vaguely hallucinatory, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the kind of film that you wrap around yourself like a cozy blanket, consciously giving yourself up to its warm embrace. While the pacing and visuals often bring to mind a perfect synthesis of Jim Jarmusch and Ingmar Bergman’s respective styles (the scene where the Girl skateboards down the center of the deserted street is framed in a way that turns her into the spitting image of Death from the iconic Seventh Seal (1957), while the film’s numerous long takes and relative lack of forward momentum handily recalls the aforementioned Dead Man), Amirpour’s influences are far more wide-reaching than something as simple as “Indie 101.”

Rather, Amirpour has taken a range of different styles and influences and made them all work towards a common goal: in this case, the goal being the film’s all-encompassing sense of foreboding atmosphere. Along with the more traditional indie influences, there are several strong, direct nods to the ’80s youth films of John Hughes (the lovely scene involving Arash, the Girl, a mirror ball and the White Lies’ song “Death” is one of the best examples but certainly not the only one), as well as a strong Spaghetti Western undercurrent (the wonderfully evocative score, locations and sense of big, empty spaces is pure Leone, through and through). On paper, Amirpour’s debut might sound like a rather head-scratching gumbo but the results speak for themselves: thanks to the Iranian-American filmmaker’s deft touch, everything comes together beautifully, giving the film the sort of unifying style befitting something like Jeunet’s exquisitely-crafted fantasias.

While the evocative score and beautiful cinematography (Lyle Vincent, who also shot the upcoming Cooties (2015), is an absolute wizard with a camera) help to give the film a sense of dreamy unreality, the acting keeps everything from dissolving into just another morass of pretty images. Marandi is a suitably cool, aloof “antihero,” while Manesh brings enough genuine regret to his portrayal of the sad-sack, aging junkie to make his character decidedly more complex than he might have been. Rains brings an interesting, almost empathetic quality to his portrayal of the sleazy pimp/dealer, calling to mind a less outwardly insane version of Gary Oldman’s iconic Drexl.

Most impressive, however, are Mozhan Marnò as the melancholy Atti and Sheila Vand as the titular vampire. In both cases, the actresses do a tremendous amount with as little as possible: Marnò is able to express entire worlds of sadness and sensuality with nothing so much as a half-smile and a look from her piercing eyes, while Vand’s portrayal of the Girl is nothing short of ethereal and completely alien. In many ways, Vand’s Girl is similar to Scarlett Johansson’s Female in the similarly eerie Under the Skin (2013): other-worldly, curious, nearly mute and of constant interest to the males around them, the Girl and the Female could certainly share a common bloodline, even if their ultimate goals differ wildly.

Amirpour’s hazy film is many things (seductive, sad, odd, cool and hypnotic being but a few) but it also manages to nail one of the most important aspects of any horror film: when necessary, the film is also genuinely scary. Although the Girl’s attacks have a tendency to rely on some decidedly stereotypical musical stings and old-as-the-hills “scary voices,” the pacing, framing and sense of impeding dread are all masterfully executed, resulting in some great, unique scares. The scene where the Girl stalks a young street urchin is a virtual master-class in how to build and execute: the fact that Amirpour also manages to throw in a clever reference to Fritz Lang’s child-killer classic M (1931) is only frosting on a very tasty cake.

Despite being thoroughly impressed by A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, there were a few elements that let a bit of air out of the proceedings. The aforementioned vampire stereotypes are problematic only because the rest of the film is so clever: at times, relying on the same stock clichés as other vamp films does more to pull Amirpour’s film down than it does to unite it with a common cinematic sensibility. I was also less than on board with the more verite, handheld-shaky-cam style of certain scenes, usually those involving Hossein’s drug use and withdrawal pains. Not only was the handheld style a distinct step-down from the gorgeous cinematography but the “drug scenes” had a different flow and pace that jarred against the rest of the film’s more dreamy atmosphere. In truth, all of these moments could have been cut without damaging the rest of the meticulously crafted narrative.

All in all, Amirpour’s debut feature is a real showstopper, the kind of film that kicks in the door and practically demands your undivided attention. While her debut was set in Iran (although filmed in California), Amirpour’s next film will, apparently, be a “dystopic love story, set in a cannibal compound, in a Texas wasteland,” featuring the combined talents of Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Mamoa and the always amazing Yolonda Ross. In other words, it looks like Amirpour is going to continue her fearless genre-splicing. I’m willing to wager that her next feature will grab the world by the scruff of the neck and shake it silly. If it’s half as impressive as her debut, I’ll be the first person in line.

6/3/15: Outside the Lines

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absurdist, animated films, animated shorts, animation, based on a short, Brian Hamblin, cinema, dark humor, depression, Don Hertzfeldt, dramas, dysfunctional family, false memories, fear of death, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, flashbacks, growing old, hand-drawn animation, insanity, It's Such a Beautiful Day, memory loss, mental disorders, mental illness, Movies, multiple award nominee, multiple award winner, Rejected, sad films, surrealism, the meaning of life, voice-over narration, writer-director-producer-cinematographer

In many ways, mental disorders like depression, schizophrenia, OCD and dementia can be more brutal and debilitating than any physical injury a person might get: after all, upon seeing a cast, one can handily deduce a broken bone…how possible is it for one to deduce a broken mind using the same process? Not only do many who suffer from mental illness suffer alone, many of the ill don’t even realize how “sick” they are until their conditions have spiraled wildly out of control: when you’re trapped within the fun-house of your own mind, after all, it’s difficult enough to make sense of the world on a moment-to-moment basis…trying to figure out your place in the larger, cosmic scheme can be nigh impossible, similar to building an entire jigsaw puzzle of identical, blue sky pieces.

Legendary counter-culture animator Don Hertzfeldt’s extraordinary, immensely painful It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012) examines the issue of mental illness from the inside, putting us into the shoes (and mind) of an ordinary, every-day sort of fellow named Bill. When we first meet Bill, his off-the-wall observations about the banality of life have the rhythm and flow of a genuinely hilarious stand-up comic, the incisiveness of his commentary belied by the off-handed simplicity of Hertzfeldt’s hand-drawn stick figure animation. As the film goes on, however, Bill’s observations gradually become stranger and more surreal, a tonal shift further accentuated by the increasingly bizarre and absurd visual images.

As Bill begins to describe his very colorful family, we gradually get more of the corner pieces in this particular puzzle: the history of mental illness in his family is very explicit…as one character says, “Genetics is pretty messed up.” When put into context of the growing gulf in Bill’s mental faculties, much of what we’ve already seen comes into sharper focus. Just when we’ve gotten used to this sudden shift, this virtual pulling of the rug from beneath our feet, Hertzfeldt makes another hairpin turn and we’re suddenly knee-deep in some of the most beautiful, challenging discussions about the meaning of life and the nature of happiness to factor into any film, much less one animated with simple stick figures. By the time the film ends, not only do we emerge with a greater understanding of the enigma known as Bill but we walk out with a greater understanding of the human animal, as well. Bill is us and, under the right (or wrong) circumstances, any one of us can, and will be, Bill.

At times, you’re confronted with films that pack such a hefty emotional punch that watching them often feels like going ten rounds with an iron-fisted juggernaut: Hertzfeldt’s It’s Such a Beautiful Day is one of those films. Stitched together from three previous shorts, with additional material to help it all cohere, the film is nothing short of stunning: even at just over an hour, in length, there’s nothing about the film that feels small or inconsequential. Indeed, the film becomes so raw and painful, after a point, that the animated style almost feels like a necessity: any more sense of realism, here, and the whole thing would be almost to intense to bear. It’s to Hertzfeldt’s immense credit, then, that It’s Such a Beautiful Day so expertly balances its hilarious moments with its heartrending ones: too much on either side and the film might risk becoming sappy or melodramatic.

One of the more ingenious things that Hertzfeldt does here is to co-mingle his animation with brief flashes of the “real world,” a technique that begins gradually but builds to a truly dizzying climax that completely obliterates our preconceived notions of what, exactly, constitutes an animated film. While this isn’t the first film to freely blend live-action and animation (in a way, its closest relative might be the use of live-action in The Lego Movie (2014), although Hertzfeldt’s shorts easily predate that film by several years), the use of the technique is much more subtle and powerful here. In many ways, Hertzfeldt may have come up with the perfect visual depiction of a fractured mental state, one in which live-action, animation, repetitive voice-overs, unreliable narrators, splashes of color and sudden noises combine to keep us constantly on edge and at arm’s length from our troubled protagonist.

In almost every way, It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a complete tour de force for Hertzfeldt: written, directed, narrated, produced and shot by the animator, his pitch-black sense of humor and inability to sugarcoat difficult subjects covers every frame of the film like an especially rich veneer. Were it not for the involvement of Brian Hamblin (known not only for his editing of the Hertzfeldt shorts that comprise It’s Such a Beautiful Day but for effects editing on huge productions like Spider Man 3 (2007), I Am Legend (2007) and Watchmen (2009), as well), It’s Such a Beautiful Day would be a virtual one-man show. As it is, there’s a singularity of vision, here, that marks the film as a complete, unified whole, the equivalent of carving a detailed wooden totem from a single block of oak.

As someone who’s not only known plenty of folks with mental disorders but lived several decades with his own, it should come as no surprise that It’s Such a Beautiful Day hit me pretty hard: I’ll wager that would be the identical outcome for anyone in a similar situation. While Hertzfeldt’s film is not overwhelmingly dour or emotionally manipulative, there’s a brutal honesty and inherent melancholy to both the subject and film that’s difficult to shake. By turns hilarious (the segment involving a tenacious guy with a leaf-blower could have been lifted wholesale from my own experiences), terrifying (the segment involving Bill’s highly disturbed grandmother and her “cat therapy” is truly the stuff of nightmares) and almost overwhelmingly sad (the segment where Bill begins to lose memories of his loved ones is incredibly difficult to watch), It’s Such a Beautiful Day really puts you through the wringer, albeit in the best way possible.

Ultimately, despite its grim subject matter and overriding feeling of helplessness, Hertzfeldt’s multiple-award-nominated film is not the alpha and the omega of sad cinema: in truth, there’s an underlying air of optimism and hope in the film’s message, much of which comes during the penultimate scenes where Bill is “transitioning” from this reality to the next. At this point, Bill comes to the life-affirming notion that the world is constantly filled with wonder and beauty, most of which we glance over en route to whatever our ultimate “goal” is. We can try to soak it all in at the end, ingesting as much beauty and life as we can in huge, shuddering breaths, like one drowning and trying, desperately, to fill sodden lungs with necessary air. That’s one way to live life, no two ways about it, and many people do just that.

On the other hand, as Hertzfeldt so cannily notes, there’s a lot to be said for trying to get the most out of the ride, soaking up and absorbing as much beauty, tragedy, wonder and horror as you can, well before you start that final, terrifying plunge into the unknown. For the millions of people, worldwide, who deal with mental illness on a daily basis, it can be all but impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hertzfeldt, through his unforgettable art, reminds us, one and all, that there’s always hope.

As Bill calmly echoes, at the very end: “It’s such a beautiful day.” It is. Or, at least, it can be, provided you’re able to open your heart and your eyes to the possibilities. Life will never be easy, or fair, or logical: it can be beautiful, however, and that’s probably all that any of us can reasonably expect.

3/3/15 (Part One): On the Beat

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, abusive relationships, Austin Stowell, based on a short, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Film Editing winner, best films of 2014, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor Winner, C.J. Vana, character dramas, cinema, Damien Chazelle, dedication vs obsession, dramas, drummers, dysfunctional family, egomania, father figures, father-son relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, J.K. Simmons, jazz musicians, Justin Hurwitz, Melissa Benoist, mentor, Miles Teller, Movies, multiple award nominee, multiple Oscar winner, music school, musical prodigy, Nate Lang, New York City, obsession, Oscars, Paul Reiser, protege, romance, set in New York City, Sharone Meir, teacher-student relationships, Tom Cross, twist ending, Whiplash, writer-director

For musicians, there’s a thin, almost invisible, line separating “dedication” from “obsession.” On one side of the line, adherents remove all unnecessary outside distractions, focusing almost exclusively on their craft. They practice endlessly, never stop learning and live, eat and breathe their music. For dedicated musicians, it’s not necessarily a sacrificial move: when you live for music, what else would you rather be doing? On the other side of the line, it’s a similar story, with one major twist: when you’re obsessed with your craft, you eschew any and everything, zeroing in on your music with a frightening degree of tunnel vision. Turning their back on friends, family, relationships (both romantic and professional), societal niceties and any concept of a well-rounded life, obsessed musicians live for only one thing: their craft. Removing their music from the equation would be as deadly as dropping a goldfish on the floor.

The world is full of amazing, talented, dedicated musicians. The irony, of course, is that the only way to be a legendary musician, the kind of performer that other players idolize, copy and envy, the kind of musician who achieves immortality through their art, is to be obsessed. There are plenty of normal, well-adjusted musicians covering virtually every square inch of the Earth. The geniuses? I’m guessing you’ll only need one hand to do that math.

Damien Chazelle’s vibrant, kinetic and endlessly thrilling Whiplash (2014) takes a good, hard look at the dividing line between “dedication” and “obsession,” at the difference between being “your best” and “THE best.” Our entry-point into this world is Andrew (Miles Teller), a 19-year-old drum prodigy who idolizes Buddy Rich and wants to be the best damn drummer in the world. As such, he’s currently studying at the prestigious Shaffer Music Conservatory: when he’s not in class, he’s behind his kit, pummeling his way through one endless practice session after another. Andrew is a fine, upstanding young man, with a good head on his shoulders and a supportive father (Paul Reiser) who only wants the best for him. At this point, our hero is standing firmly on the “dedicated” side of things.

While practicing one night, Andrew happens to attract the attention of Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the Draconian, hot-tempered, much feared “local god” who commands (conducts isn’t quite strong enough) the much-vaunted Shaffer Academy studio band. Getting selected for Fletcher’s group is kind of like an amateur getting invited to spar with Bruce Lee: it’s a huge honor but you’re gonna get your ass kicked. While Fletcher doesn’t give Andrew the nod right away, he does pop into his class the next day, gives everyone an impromptu audition and whisks our young hero from obscurity into the upper echelons.

Once he finally gets a chance to sit in on Fletcher’s class, however, Andrew comes to a massive revelation: his wannabe hero is an abusive, violent, savage, mean-spirited shithead who believes that the only way to achieve greatness is to be battered until you’re broken. For him, the only way to test greatness is with fire…lots and lots of fire. As Andrew and Fletcher slam heads like bighorn sheep, each one attempting to exert their authority over the other, it seems that Fletcher’s tact is working: under his exacting, abusive, obsessive tutelage, Andrew is getting better and better, faster and faster. When it finally comes time for the student to challenge the master, however, Andrew will come to find that not all obsessions are created equal: his obsession to be the best might just get crushed into dust by Fletcher’s obsession with MAKING him the best. Will Andrew scale the heights that he so desperately wants, joining the esteemed company of his hero, Buddy Rich, or will Fletcher break him just like he broke everyone else?

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat: Whiplash is a pretty amazing film. Smart, relentless, brutal, simple, streamlined…if Chazelle’s film was a fighter, it would be the silent, pensive and cold-blooded tough guy that doesn’t need to brag: he just wipes up the street with you. In every way, Whiplash is an old soul: the film’s simplicity and style handily recall similarly single-minded dramas from the ’60s and ’70s, so sparse and frill-free as to be a complete breath of fresh air in this increasingly fractured modern era. This is a no bullshit character study which, at the end of the day, is exactly what it needs to be.

As a film, Whiplash is as single-minded and laser-focused as our young protagonist: in fact, the only element of the film that ultimately falls flat is the obligatory romantic angle involving Andrew and Nicole (Melissa Benoist), the concession-stand worker that he falls for. I understand why the relationship is there: it provides a nice, first-hand illustration of the relationship sacrifices that obsessed musicians make. Thematically, it holds water just fine. On a filmmaking level, however, the side-story actually dilutes some of the film’s power: watching Andrew and Fletcher battle is like watching Godzilla go ten rounds with Ghidora, while the awkward courtship feels like the padding in between the “good stuff.” It also doesn’t help that the scenes between Teller and Benoist are some of the most conventional and static in the film, featuring basic back-and-forth coverage and mundane dialogue.

Quibbles aside, however, Whiplash pretty much knocks everything else out of the park. Teller is fantastic as the young prodigy, able to portray naivety, vulnerability, anger and obsession in equal measures. Whether facing off against Fletcher, his backstabbing peers or his own condescending family, Teller is more than up for the task. While I believe that this is the first film I’ve actually seen him in, I’m willing to wager that I see lots more of him in the future.

There’s a reason why J.K. Simmons took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar over Edward Norton’s fiery performance from Birdman (2014): his performance as Fletcher is one of the most intense, incredible and uncomfortable acting tour de forces that I’ve ever seen. There’s no denying that Simmons is an absolutely essential actor: he’s one of those guys who seems to be in everything, including TV commercials, yet he never wears out his welcome…he’s like Ron Perlman or Bruce Campbell in that you just want more of him, regardless of the production. As an acting job, it’s practically a master-class in the craft: veins popping, spit flying from his hard-set lips, throwing chairs, slapping the shit out of students…if you don’t jump the first time he really lets loose, you might be watching a different movie. Simmons performance is so good that it’s the kind of thing that could easily get lost in hyperbole: it really is one of the best performances in years, no two ways about it.

Aside from the kinetic style and tremendous performances, Whiplash is a marvel of filmmaking technique. The score, sometimes foreboding, sometimes playfully jazzy (in a “Times Square circa 1970” way), is used sparsely but to great effect. There are no leading musical cues, no heart-tugging orchestral swells (I’m glaring at you, The Theory of Everything (2014)) and no hand-holding. As befits a film about jazz musicians, Whiplash is expertly edited on the beat, making the jazz an integral part of both the film’s narrative and its DNA. Editing is often (and rightfully so) an invisible art-form but we all owe Tom Cross a debt of gratitude for his stellar editing job here. There’s a reason why Whiplash won the Best Editing award and the proof is definitely in the pudding.

The film also looks great, with plenty of atmospheric shots and some wonderfully slow, measured pans. There’s a tendency towards extreme close-ups, which really heightens the film’s tension, as well as drawing attention to the film’s incredible performances: Teller and Simmons do so much with their faces (particularly their eyes) that one well-timed close-shot says as much as a scene full of expository dialogue. Again, this is a film that purposefully recalls an older style of filmmaking: the assumption, here, is that we’re all smart enough to follow along…no need to telegraph, over-explain or “connect the dots,” as it were.

You can have a good film with a terrible script but, in my opinion, you can’t really have a great film with a terrible script: good thing for us that Chazelle (who wrote the script) is also the genius behind the screenplay for Eugenio Mira’s extraordinary Grand Piano (2013), one of the smartest, best written films I’ve ever seen. With two fantastic script under his belt (I might even be forced to check out The Last Exorcism 2 (2013), since he penned that, as well), Chazelle is officially a force to be reckoned with.

In every way, Whiplash is a simple story told exceptionally well: in other words, my favorite kind. By cutting out all the unnecessary minutiae that clogs so many similar films, Whiplash hums like a live wire and never releases its grip on the audience. From the brilliantly stylized, simple opening, to the awesome visual of Andrew plunging his bleeding hand into a tub of ice water, all the way to the genuinely surprising twist ending that manages to throw conventionally clichéd “triumphant” final performances right out the window, Whiplash is one delightful surprise after another. As an ode to the impossible dedication and obsession that go hand in hand with creating beautiful music, as well as the universal need to be accepted by those we look up to, Whiplash has few peers.

One of Fletcher’s favorite retorts, snarled in his typically polite, bulldog-with-a-smile way, is “Not my fucking tempo”: no matter how good his students are, they’re never good enough for him…or for themselves, as far as he’s concerned. I’d like to think that, if it could “talk,” Whiplash would have the same withering contempt for most of its peers: not my fucking tempo, indeed. The rest of ’em are welcome to play along but they’ll never be able to keep up.

2/1/15 (Part Two): Nobody Likes a Quitter

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addiction, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, audition, based on a short, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, comedies, dramadies, dramas, drug abuse, drug dealers, dysfunctional family, Emma Rayne Lyle, family obligations, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, indie films, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, mother-son relationships, Movies, musical prodigy, Paul Calderon, Phil Dorling, piano player, Predisposed, puppets, rehab, responsibilities, Revolutionary War reenactment, Ron Nyswaner, Sarah Ramos, single mother, Stephanie March, The Prince of Philadelphia, Tracy Morgan, voice-over narration, Why Stop Now, writer-director

As anyone who’s ever dealt with drug or alcohol addiction knows, cessation, treatment and sobriety can all be difficult, life-long challenges. Regardless of how an addict gets clean (support groups, medical programs, cold turkey, psychotherapy, hypnosis or prison), the very first step must always be their own, genuine desire to get clean. Until a junkie, any junkie, can actually look themselves in the mirror and express that desire, no process or procedure, short of death, will have any lasting effect. Friends, family and authority figures may all want the very best for an addict but, in the end, the only voice that will really make a difference is their own. Once that decision has been reached, for lack of any less schmaltzy way to put it, the actual healing can begin.

Why Stop Now (2012), the feature-film debut of co-writers/directors Phil Dorling and Ron Nyswaner, deals with the issue of addicts deciding to get help, although the film’s main focus ends up being the fractured relationship between a perpetually fucked-up mother and her increasingly frustrated, jaded son. Despite a worthwhile subject and some solid performances, however, Why Stop Now ends up fading into the “indie dramedy background,” failing to do much to distinguish it from any of a bakers’ dozen of similarly “heartfelt” message films. A pity, to be sure, since casting Melissa Leo as the dysfunctional mom would seem to guarantee a real firecracker of a film: in the end, however, Why Stop Now is more fizzle than sizzle, a spark that never manages to fully catch fire.

Eli Bloom (Jesse Eisenberg) is a young man with a lot going for him: he’s smart, independent, a piano prodigy and has just been offered an audition for a coveted spot at a prestigious music conservatory. Everything, it seems, is coming up Milhouse for the guy. The other half of the coin, however, doesn’t look quite as shiny: Eli is also confrontational, has a tendency to get ridiculously drunk at parties and puke everywhere (sometimes while playing the piano, for added spice), works a shitty job as a bag-boy and has a home-life that could best be described as “difficult,” with a side of “complicated.” His mother, Penny (Melissa Leo), is a “whatta ya got” kind of drug addict and has spent years in a chemical haze, leaving Eli to care for his younger sister, Nicole (Emma Rayne Lyle), who appears to be a high-functioning autistic, albeit one who communicates via a sarcastic, obnoxious and mean-spirited hand puppet named “Julio.” The Brady Bunch, it ain’t.

While Penny has never been able to get her shit together, the situation has just become critical: the music conservatory is in Boston, meaning Eli would be away from home, out-of-state, for over a year. Since he can’t be in two places at the same time, however, enrolling in the academy will leave his single mom as the sole caretaker for his sister, a role that she’s never been able to handle. In preparation for this, Eli needs to get Penny into a rehab facility post-haste, a necessity which she, naturally, fights at every step of the way. When he finally gets her to agree, however, fate steps in and backhands him once again: Penny has been sober just long enough to pass a drug test which, combined with her lack of insurance, means that she’s not eligible for the rehab facility. When one of the doctors “helpfully” suggests that Penny go cop, in order to fail her test and get admitted, Eli knows what he has to do: get his mom blitzed in order to help her get sober.

Nothing is ever that easy, however, as Eli discovers when it’s time to go score some dope. Seems that Penny owes quite a bit of change to her usual dealer, Sprinkles (Tracy Morgan), and is a little afraid to show her face. While attempting to negotiate with Sprinkles and his partner, Black (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), they discover that Eli can speak Spanish. This ends up coming in handy, since Sprinkles and Black need to make a buy from their source and don’t speak his language (leading astute viewers to wonder how, exactly, they managed to do this before Eli came along…Pictures? An English to Spanish dictionary? An intern?). The two agree to hook Eli (and Penny) up in exchange for his acting as translator. This, of course, leads to a series of minor adventures that culminates in Eli injuring one of his highly valued hands. With his audition in two hours, the sand is rapidly slipping through the hourglass. Will Eli be able to get his mother squared away in time to make his audition? Will he even be able to play with an injured hand? Will Eli finally gather up his nerve and ask out the cute Revolutionary War reenacter (Sarah Ramos) who’s been showing an obvious interest in him for the entire film? Will the two drug dealers ever get tired of hanging around with a piano prodigy, his puppet-sporting little sister and addict mom? If you’re not able to guess the answer to any and all of these questions, Why Stop Now may very well surprise…but I seriously doubt it.

The biggest issue with Why Stop Now, aside from its rather blah cinematography (the blown-out, constantly shaky cam gets old almost immediately) is how familiar everything is. Minutes into the film, I thought to myself: “This is where Eli’s voiceover comes in” and, lo and behold, there it was, right on cue. I assumed that Sprinkles would have some sort of “quirky” secret and he does. The part where Eli finally gathers up his courage and pursues Chloe is right where it’s supposed to be, as is the scene where Eli finally loses it and reads the riot act to everyone, including his little sister. We get the obligatory audition scene. Hell, we even get one of those “let’s see how happy everyone is” montages, just like the rule-book states.

There are just no surprises here, whatsoever. For some movies, that might not be an issue but when your film slavishly checks “requirements” off a list, you better have at least a few twists up your sleeve. In this case, however, Dorling and Nyswaner just go through the motions and give us what’s expected. There are plenty of solid performances here but nothing that we haven’t seen from these actors before, with the possible exception of Tracy Morgan: with only shades of his Tracy Jordan persona, Morgan is much more serious than expected and extremely effective. Eisenberg and Leo do nothing unique (or particularly interesting) whatsoever and Sarah Ramos might as well be playing her character from TV’s Parenthood. The only real stand-out is child actor Lyle, who makes the character of Nicole completely empathetic, if slightly otherworldly. As only her fifth (listed) acting role, Lyle promises to be an actor to watch in the next several years: perhaps we’re in on the ground-floor of the next Chloe Grace Moretz?

Another problem I had with the film is how relatively low-stakes it feels: while there’s an element of “race against time” for part of the film’s running time, that element goes out the window as soon as Eli gets injured. From that point on, it’s no longer about getting there in time so much as “will he be able to play” and we already know that answer, long before Eli does. The film also seems to fracture at the conclusion, with all of the characters meandering off into a multitude of directions and no unifying sense of cohesion: rather than coming to a definitive conclusion, everything just kind of peters out, like a car running on fumes.

Despite my above concerns, Why Stop Now isn’t a terrible film: it’s just a thoroughly pedestrian, run-of-the-mill one. I can certainly appreciate some of what the film has to say about addiction and recovery (the bit where Penny advises her son to keep an eye on his own alcohol issues is particularly sharp and powerful), although a lot of it falls into the realm of feel-good, pop psychology. There’s also an ironic core to the film that almost comes across as one, long, sustained set-up for a punchline: Penny can’t turn down drugs until she actually needs to get high, at which point she learns that she doesn’t want to do them anymore, yet must…sustained trumpet wah-wah. Again, I can appreciate the irony but the film’s message gets conflicted and confused, in the process. When all of the elements come together, such as the very funny scene where Eli tries to start his car while Sprinkles, Black and Penny provide non-stop “armchair-quarterbacking,” Why Stop Now is a fun, if decidedly non-essential, way to pass some time. Anyone looking for any real insight into either drug addiction or dysfunctional families, however, would be better served elsewhere. Why Stop Now is perfectly non-offensive, no two ways about it, but it really is a film that could have (and should have) got its hands just a little bit dirty.

10/31/14 (Part Three): A Healthy Fear of Clowns

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31 Days of Halloween, All Hallows Eve, anthology films, babysitters, based on a short, Catherine A. Callahan, Christopher Cafaro, Christopher Eadicicco, cinema, clowns, Cole Mathewson, Damien Leone, disturbing films, evil videotapes, feature-film debut, films, films reviews, George Steuber, gory films, Halloween, Halloween night, Halloween traditions, horror, horror film, horror films, Katie Maguire, Kayla Lian, killer clowns, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Marcel Marceau, Marie Maser, Marvin Suarez, Mike Giannelli, Movies, multiple cinematographers, Sydney Freihofer, trick or treating, VHS tape, violence against children, violence against women, writer-director-editor-makeup

What is it about clowns, exactly, that seems to instill so much subliminal fear in so many people? Could it be that a whole generation of folks were spoiled by Stephen King’s classic killer-clown novel It or, perhaps, the 1990 miniseries which served up Tim Curry as the most terrifying thing in grease paint and over-sized shoes? Was this fear compounded by the Chiodo Brothers’ cult-classic Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988)? Perhaps this all leads back to mimes, which manage to seem both friendly and sinister at the same time: with their stark, white appearances and silent demeanor, there’s just something inherently…off…about the long-time street performers, poor Marcel Marceau notwithstanding.

Whatever the reason, clowns have been a reliable part of horror films (and childrens’ nightmares) for several decades now, although Curry’s Pennywise will probably always be the gold standard for these type of things. In the 20-odd years since It made a generation of kids afraid to walk too close to storm drains, there’s been more killer clown flicks than you can shake a stick at, most of them just as generic and faceless as the anonymous zombie films that used to clog video store shelves. Every once in a while, however, a film rises above the crowd and establishes itself as something ferocious, terrifying and utterly essential: Conor McMahon’s amazing Stitches (2012) blew me away earlier this year but Damien Leone’s intense, jaw-dropping All Hallows’ Eve (2013) may just have it beat, at least as far as genuine scares go. While Stitches was a pitch-black horror-comedy with a main villain who often felt like a bigtop version of Freddy Krueger, All Hallows’ Eve is a deadly serious, often hallucinatory voyage straight into the heart of darkness. Using ’80s grindhouse films as inspiration, All Hallows’ Eve is a brutal, ultra-gory bit of insanity that may just have introduced the world to its next iconic monster: Art the Clown.

Along with being a “killer clown” film, All Hallows’ Eve is also an anthology film, albeit one where all the various stories were written and directed by the same person, ala the instantly classic Trick ‘r Treat (2007). This, of course, has the effect of giving Leone’s film the kind of cohesion that’s usually missing in multi-director/writer affairs like V/H/S (2012) or The ABCs of Death (2012). By utilizing multiple cinematographers, Leone manages to give each of the segments, as well as the wraparound, distinctly different looks, a nicely realized tactic that adds immeasurable interest to the various stories. As with any anthology, however, the real proof is in the quality of the individual segments: as with everything else, All Hallows’ Eve doesn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Based around two of Leone’s early short films, All Hallows’ Eve consists of three separate stories and a traditional wraparound: in this case, the wraparound deals with a babysitter (Katie Maguire) watching over two young charges (Cole Mathewson, Sydney Freihofer) on Halloween night. The trio have just returned from a profitable night of trick or treating and the kids are eagerly divvying up their hauls when young Timmy discovers an unmarked VHS tape in his bag. Unsure of where it came from, the kids wheedle and cajole until their sitter reluctantly agrees to watch the video with them. The video, then, forms the meat of the film’s three stories: in between segments, we return to Sarah as increasingly odd things begin to happen to her in the house, leading her to the terrifying realization that what’s on the tape might be real…and that her and the kids might be the next victims?

What’s on the tape? Well, as mentioned, we get three different stories, all of which are completely batshit insane in their own fevered ways. The first segment begins with a woman meeting a mysterious, mute clown (our antihero Art (Mike Giannelli) in a deserted train station and ends with a deliriously Grand Guignol blow-out that manages to weld C.H.U.D. (1984) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968), with predictably nutso results. The second tale involves Caroline (Catherine A Callahan), whose artist husband has gone out-of-town and left her alone with his newest painting, a mysteriously covered work that gives Caroline a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. The segment takes a drastic left-turn when Caroline is besieged by some decidedly otherworldly visitors: I would never spoil the “twist” but suffice to say the middle segment, like the first one, manages to combine multiple horror subgenres into one crazy little stew and is anything but predictable. The final segment, perhaps the nastiest of the bunch, involves a woman (Marie Maser) who makes an ill-fated late-night stop at an isolated gas station. Our good buddy, Art, is there and it seems that he’s made a righteous mess out of the restroom (and the attendant): when the woman steps into the middle of what must be some little bit of Hell on earth, Art pursues her relentlessly, determined to take care of any and all witnesses to his work. Hitting the open road, the woman desperately tries to put the sinister clown as far behind her as possible. As she’ll find out, however, you can’t run from fate, no matter how hard you try.

Here’s a little bit of straight talk from your humble host: All Hallows’ Eve absolutely blew me away, no two ways about it. Despite what must have been an exceptionally low budget, the film is a hit in just about every aspect: stellar effects and makeup; good acting (especially from Giannelli as that terrifying clown); a fantastic electronic score that handily recalls John Carpenter’s synth work; some truly jaw-dropping gore setpieces (I absolutely cannot hammer this home enough: All Hallows’ Eve is ridiculously, explosively gory) and a truly authentic “grindhouse” look that’s one of the best-looking modern examples I’ve yet seen. Only the final, gas station segment had a look that I wasn’t particularly fond of: too blown-out and white, it’s almost as if the filmmakers tried a little too hard to approximate an old ’70s-’80s look, right down to the ubiquitous scratch marks/film flaws. Whereas the other segments look effortlessly real, the final segment looks a bit off, mostly because the aesthetic is a little too obvious.

Truth be told, I really only have one complaint about the film, a complaint that can also be leveled at a good many of the original ’80s grindhouse flicks: almost all of the violence in the film is perpetrated against woman, with the gas station attendant (Michael Chmiel) being the only male victim. This issue, of course, is absolutely nothing new as far as slasher and grindhouse films go: while movies like Friday the 13th (1980) managed to throw in plenty of male victims, they’re still distinctly ruled by the “male gaze,” particularly with regards to the depiction of female characters. While the terror in the second segment of All Hallows’ Eve is more universal, the violence in the opening and closing stories is distinctly feminine in nature, a point which definitely made me uneasy, despite how much I liked the film, overall.

This is not to say that All Hallows’ Eve is inherently misogynistic, mind you: unlike particularly egregious examples from the ’80s (see pretty much any ’80s Italian gore flick), there does not appear to be an explicitly anti-feminine agenda at play here. The most problematic moment, by far, comes with the resolution to the third story, a nasty little “twist” that comes a little out of left-field and resembles something from an August Underground production: this bit is extremely strong stuff and I could definitely see it prompting an extreme audience reaction. The underlying misogyny of the horror industry is certainly well-documented and continues to be a problem, although plenty of modern-day horror films such as The Woman (2011) and The Descent (2005) have taken steps to help correct that: my assertion here, I suppose, is that All Hallows’ Eve is no more explicitly misogynistic than any of the slasher and grindhouse films that it’s obviously seeking to emulate…the film is nothing if not an homage to a by-gone era, out-dated viewpoints included.

At the risk of continuing to ramble on endlessly, however, let me wrap this all up by stating, once more, how much I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It definitely won’t be for everyone: it’s incredibly grim and unrelenting, astoundingly violent and incredibly unpleasant at times. Looking at my other list, however (to paraphrase the late, great Mr. Ebert), I also see that the film is brilliantly made, especially for its obviously low budget, insanely energetic, genuinely scary and, above all, smart. This is a film that acknowledges tired genre tropes yet manages to inject new life into them via some truly inspired twists (the first segment, in particular, is a pretty dizzying genre mashup). It’s a film that’s actually fun to watch, even when it goes to some pretty dark places…pretty much the epitome of a good horror film, right?

There’s no shortage of invention and genuine talent on display here, whether from the folks behind or in front of the camera: Damien Leone is obviously a ridiculously talented filmmaker who, with a little luck, might develop into the next John Carpenter. All Hallows’ Eve is pretty much the perfect Halloween film, especially for folks who want something a bit darker than the usual fare. Oh, yeah…and that clown? Fucking terrifying.

10/15/14: All in the Family

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31 Days of Halloween, adoption, Andres Muschietti, based on a short, childhood fears, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Daniel Kash, David Fox, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, fairy tales, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Guillermo del Toro, horror, horror movies, Isabelle Nelisse, Jane Moffat, Jessica Chastain, Mama, Megan Charpentier, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, sisters, The Woman in Black, writer-director

For the majority of its run-time, writer-director Andres Muschietti’s Mama (2013) is a moody, atmospheric and fairly slick little chiller that handily recalls such recent films as Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) and The Woman in Black (2012). Relying more on suspense and fantastic visuals than creative bloodshed or mass chaos, there’s something decidedly old-fashioned, yet intensely endearing, about the film’s rather modest aims. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, for the most part, but it’s an incredibly easy film to get along with.

At the climax, however, Muschietti tries something a little bold and stretches for a pretty emotional, almost melodramatic, finale. While this tactic could have resulted in something with all the consistency of sodden cardboard, it actually ends up working spectacularly well, imbuing the film with a warm, authentically emotional and subtly powerful finale. If the final moments can color our ultimate impression of a film (how many otherwise quality movies have been all but ruined by terrible endings?), then Mama’s finale helps boost the movie up into a slightly loftier collection of peers.

Muschietti’s feature-length debut is actually an expansion of his earlier short (also called Mama), which garnered quite a bit of attention, particularly from genre superhero Guillermo del Toro. Suitably impressed with Muschietti’s ability to combine atmospheric chills, creepy visuals and genuine emotional impact, del Toro jumped on as executive producer, leading to the full-length expansion that we’re currently discussing. There’s always an inherent danger to expanding a short into a feature: one merely has to look at the vast majority of SNL “features” to fully see how difficult it can be to stretch 5 minutes of material across 90 minutes of dead air. In this case, however, Muschietti has succeeded in expanding out his original idea without making the whole exercise seem unnecessary and academic.

Beginning with a haltingly handwritten “Once upon a time…” scrawled in white over a black screen, Mama has all of the nightmare unreality and sense of fantasy of the best fairy tales. We follow an obviously distraught man as he packs up his two young daughters (leaving their pet dog behind, which strikes a subtly ominous tone from the get-go) and races out for an isolated cabin in the woods. His behavior is erratic and frightening and there’s nothing about this that seems to spell a happy (or long) life for either young girl. Once at the cabin, however, the father is attacked and dragged off by some kind of unseen something, leaving his daughters on their own in the middle of nowhere.

Jumping ahead five years, we learn that the girls’ uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), has been looking for them ever since, despite the nagging notion that five years is an awful long time for a couple of young kids to be missing. As luck would have it, Lucas’ friend, Burnsie (David Fox), manages to stumble into the hidden cabin in the woods and finds the young girls alive and well, if filthy and seemingly feral. With the aid of his punk-rocker girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) and the kindly Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), Lucas attempts to reintegrate the girls back into the civilized world.

The girls, however, are acting a bit odd, to say the very least. For one thing, they won’t stop talking about the mysterious “Mama” that (supposedly) cared for them in the cabin for the past five years. Burnsie and Lucas find no sign of anyone, however, leading them to believe that the girls have retreated into their imaginations in order to deal with the trauma of their father’s actions. Even more unnerving, however, are the quiet little conversations that Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse) appear to have with no one in particular. As these behaviors continue, Lucas and Annabel begin to feel the influence of a powerful, potentially malevolent force.

When Lucas is inexplicably shoved down the stairs by an unseen force, Annabel is forced to care for the kids on her own, while her boyfriend lies unconscious in the hospital. Despite her steadfast refusal to devote herself to kids or “settling down,” Annabel comes to care for Victoria and Lilly, vowing to protect them at all costs. Something else feels protective towards the children, however, something primal, evil and relentless. It would seem that someone else was looking after the girls, after all…and Mama has no intention of letting her “babies” go without one helluva fight.

Similar to Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and The Woman in Black, Mama puts atmosphere before action and setpieces, which tends to give the whole affair a more muted, subtle feel. This isn’t to say that the film doesn’t feature more “modern” scare moments (ie: the “screeching jump-scare sound of death”) but it is to say that these moments are easily the film’s weakest. When allowed to spool out slow and creepy, however, Mama proves to be a real winner. There one scene, in particular, which showcases the film’s aesthetic to great effect: as Annabel and Victoria play in one room, Lilly plays with an unseen Mama in the other. The shot is devised as a “natural” split screen, with the door frame dividing the screen in half. It’s a cleverly staged moment, to be sure, but it’s also a fantastically effective one: I’m willing to wager that more than one viewer will experience a bit of the ol’ goose-flesh during that particular moment.

As mentioned earlier, the film is aided considerably by a nicely realized, very emotional finale. Without giving anything way, suffice to say that Muschietti manages to temper the character of Mama with enough melancholy to put her evil into a different perspective, allowing for a climax that’s equal parts sad, lovely and very satisfying. There’s nothing especially upbeat about Mama but it also refuses to traffic in easy “sorrow-porn,” either.

Craftwise, the film has a consistently polished look that works quite nicely, especially during the aforementioned finale. The special effects scenes, while obviously CGI, are fairly well-integrated into the film, allowing everything to feel a bit more organic than in the similar Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (which often felt perilously close to slipping into CGI-silliness). The acting is good, although I must admit to being less than impressed with Chastain’s performance: her character vacillates between whiny and ridiculously self-assured and there were plenty of moments where I found myself unable to fully invest in her character. By contrast, Charpentier and Nelisse are rather amazing as the young girls: child actors can be notoriously hit-and-miss but there’s nothing about either one of their performances that took me out of the film, especially once things start to ramp up in the final third.

While there’s nothing especially gritty about Mama, it stands as an exceptionally well-made, effective and moving bit of fairy-tale influenced horror. From the outstanding opening credit sequence (creepy kids’ drawings that tell the film’s story in shorthand) to the knockout finale, Mama is a consistent pleasure. It may not be the most original film in the world (astute viewers should probably be able to get the general drift by at least the midpoint of the film, if not sooner) but it’s also the furthest thing from anonymous dreck as one can get. If you’re a fan of slicker, more commercial fare (the movie is rated PG-13 which, for the most part, means absolutely nothing nowadays), you could definitely do a whole lot worse than pulling yourself up to Mama’s table.

8/24/14: A Fistful of Nuts

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animated film, animated films, bank robbery, based on a short, Brendan Fraser, cartoons, cinema, film reviews, films, Gabriel Iglesias, Gangnam Style, heist films, Jeff Dunham, Katherine Heigl, Liam Neeson, Maya Rudolph, Movies, nut store, nuts, Peter Lepeniotis, Sarah Gadon, self-sacrifice, squirrels, Stephen Lang, Surly Squirrel, The Nut Job, Will Arnett

There are few things in this world that I openly detest quite as much as overly referential animated films, ala Shrek (2001), although films like Scary Movie (2000) and Disaster Movie (2008) are certainly right up there. My big problem with movies like this (aside from the fact that they’re usually obnoxious, shrill and prone to induce seizures in anyone younger than 20) is their undue reliance on “of-the-moment” pop culture references: a few months (or even weeks) after films like this are released, they’re instantly dated and feature no staying power whatsoever. It’s similar to SNL skits that are based on recent celebrity faux pas and “current affairs”: these incidents may have relevance at the moment but who’s going to care in a month, let alone a decade?

I begin with this disclaimer by way of saying that Peter Lepeniotis’ The Nut Job (2014) almost lost me before it had a chance to grab me. Within moments of starting the film, I was treated to my first pop culture reference (albeit an extremely dated one): the heroic squirrel Grayson (Brendan Fraser) smirkingly remarks to another character that “Chicks dig the tail.” Not only was this roughly the millionth tired variation of the Batman & Robin (1997) bon mot that I’d been treated to over the years but it also managed to come almost twenty years too late to be anything more than a complete head-scratcher: do people still remember Joel Schumacher’s Batman films, especially in the wake of Christopher Nolan’s extremely popular modern reboot? More importantly, does anything really care enough to be tickled by another stupid reference to an already tedious film?

I say “almost lost me,” however, because The Nut Job manages to pull off a rather nifty hat trick: it nimbly straddles the dividing line between “cheeky, good fun” and “hyperactive kiddie fodder,” coming out quite handily on the side that doesn’t tend to make me see red. In many ways, The Nut Job reminds of recent films like Free Birds (2013) and The Croods (2013), although it’s a solid step down from either of those movies. Nonetheless, there was enough good stuff here to keep me utterly engaged all the way up to the end credits, wherein an animated Psy appeared to shake his pixels to his mega-hit Gangnam Style: it probably says a lot that not even the ultimate gratuitous pop-culture reference could spoil the good will that the film earned.

The Nut Job concerns the misadventures of Surly Squirrel (Will Arnett), the disagreeable loner with the “all about me” attitude. Surly lives in one of those giant cinematic urban parks that seem to consist of miles of unspoiled trees, pristine ponds and general pastoral beauty. The rest of the park’s resident animals, including the aforementioned Grayson, Andie (Katherine Heigl), Mole (Jeff Dunham) and Buddy the Rat (Rob Tinkler), are ruled by the iron-fisted Raccoon (Liam Neeson), a smooth-talking “Tammany Hall”-type politician with a hidden agenda. When Surly’s newest scam (stealing a mobile nut cart) backfires and leads to the destruction of his fellow animals’ winter food storage, the angry animals banish the rapscallion to the terrifying wilds of the city proper, the worst punishment that any of the animals can imagine.

Once in the city, alone but for the continued friendship/servitude of his mute buddy Buddy, Surly happens upon a little bit of nirvana (nutvana?) in the form of a nut store, seemingly run by the same shady fellas that ran the doomed nut cart. Turns out that these fellas, Fingers (James Rankin) and Lucky (Scott Yaphe), are a couple of gangsters working for King (Stephen Lang) and the mysterious, mute Knuckles: they’re all playing to use the nut store as a front for breaking into the bank next-door. In a cute bit of symmetry, Surly plots to break into the nut shop in the same basic way that King and his gang plot to break into the bank. When Andie and Grayson show up, however, looking for food for the rest of the park animals, Surly is forced to reexamine his standoffish ways and must decide whether to swallow his pride and help those who’ve exiled him. As Surly will learn, it doesn’t take anything special to look out for number one but it takes a whole other kind of animal to selflessly look out for others: it takes a hero.

While The Nut Job features a witty, tight script, its two greatest strengths are, without a doubt, the exceptional voice acting and the eye-catching computer animation. While I’ve always been a huge fan of the traditional cel-style of animation (think the classic Disney films), I’m gradually warming to the more recent computer animation of films like the aforementioned Free Birds, The Croods, Rango (2011) and ParaNorman (2012). When done well, these films can look quite beautiful (if slightly colder than more traditional animation styles) and The Nut Job is no exception. Indeed, the scene where the animals’ storage tree burns is quite wonderfully evocative, almost artistic in its destruction. Nothing about The Nut Job looks cheap, which really helped to pull me into the story.

The biggest boon for any modern animated film is its voice cast, however, and The Nut Job features some real winners. While Arnett is a slightly less interesting presence here than in his live-action performances (or the animated Bojack Horseman, for that matter), he’s still a commanding performer and utterly magnetic. I’ve, personally, never been the biggest fan of Katherine Heigl, but was completely taken with her Andie: she brings a refreshing measure of common sense, trepidation and strength to the character that makes her not only an interesting character but a pretty good role model, to boot…not a bad trick for a “kid’s movie” to pull off. For my money, however, the real pick of the litter this time around has to be Liam Neeson: the veteran actor (now action star, apparently) rips into his role with absolute gusto, turning in one of the most bravura performances of a pretty bravura career. Neeson is having so much fun as the nefarious Raccoon that it’s completely infectious: I found myself grinning from ear to ear whenever he showed up to spread his pretty poison about and the climatic battle with Surly is a complete treat. My only complaint with the voice cast at all, to be honest, is with the relative lack of Fraser as the boneheaded, heroic Grayson: there just wasn’t enough of him here, making the character come across as woefully underdeveloped and strictly one-dimensional. This, of course, is a tremendous pity, since Fraser is one of the few human actors around (Andy Serkis being another one) who almost seems more of an animated character than a flesh-and-blood person.

Ultimately, I found a lot to like about The Nut Job. The film is vibrant and kinetic, yet manages to downplay the hyper-active pop-culture references that manage to sink similar films (at least as far as I’m concerned…Shrek’s massive popularity seems to bespeak of a much more tolerant attitude among the general movie-going populace). The voice talent is top-notch and the film is full of nicely orchestrated, suitably tense action scenes and set-pieces. I also really liked how the film manages to serve as commentary on our current superhero-obsessed culture: despite Surly’s position as park savior, the film is really about how self-sacrifice is necessary to the continued survival and evolution of our communities and societies. Surly doesn’t truly find happiness until he sets aside his own selfish needs and feelings and works towards the greater good: I’m not suggesting that I completely believe in this kind of “feel-good community activism” but it sure as hell beats the “every man/woman for him/herself” tact by a country mile.