11/21/15 (Part Two): The Abyss Stares Back

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Amy Jump, auteur theory, Ben Wheatley, best friends, British films, cinema, co-writers, contract killers, disturbing films, Emma Fryer, fate, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Harry Simpson, hitmen, husband-wife relationship, Kill List, Laurie Rose, Michael Smiley, Movies, MyAnna Buring, Neil Maskell, psychological horror, secret societies, strange ceremonies, Struan Rodger, twist ending, writer-director-editor

When one is standing at the bottom of a very deep hole, looking up at a tiny patch of daylight, it’s tempting to say that it can only get better from there: the only way is up, after all. This, of course, is a very comforting lie, the kind of fairy tale that helps us all sleep better at night. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that things can always get worse: regardless of far down you’ve already dug your hole, there’s always new depths to aspire to. As humans, the very bravest (and foolhardy) thing we can do is stare fate right in the face and dare it to blink. We’ll lose, every time, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Nowhere is this notion made more explicit than in British auteur Ben Wheatley’s sophomore film, Kill List (2011). When we first meet Jay (Neil Maskell), the poor bastard seems to have dug a hole as far into the earth as humanly possible. Out of work for eight months, after botching some sort of undisclosed job that appears to have left him with a potent case of PTSD, Jay’s doing everything he can to hold his life together, even if he’s doing a piss-poor job of it. Jay and his wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring), are at each others’ throats constantly, to the point where they routinely hurl bottles against walls and scream in each others’ faces until they’re out-of-breath. To make a bad situation even better, their young son, Sam (Harry Simpson), is a silent, aching witness to the whole massive shit show, wanting nothing more than some semblance of peace in his shattered home.

Things start to look up a bit, however, when Jay’s partner, Gal (Michael Smiley), shows up for a night of drinking, merriment and reminiscing. As the night progresses, complete with a number of potent meltdowns between the feuding spouses, Gal takes Michael aside and offers him an opportunity to “get back up on the horse” and bring a much-needed sense of financial security back to his domestic war-zone. Caught between a rock and an even sharper rock, Jay’s only too eager to get back to earning and takes Gal up on his offer.

Just what, exactly, did Jay and Gal do before whatever happened eight months prior? Well, as it turns out, they were hitmen, a revelation that Wheatley gets out of the way fairly quickly. Gal has just received a job offer that promises maximum money for minimum effort: all they have to do are exterminate three separate targets and they’ll get enough money to make any number of problems permanently disappear. After the pair meet with their strange “client” (a suitably sinister Struan Rodger), a meeting that ends with an impromptu blood oath, they set off on their fated path, uneasy but determined to get the job(s) done. It doesn’t take a psychic to know that this ends up being a very, very bad idea, the kind of bad idea that proves, once and for all, that life can always get worse. Much, much worse.

From his humble beginnings with the caustically comic “kitchen-sink-and-gangsters” flick Down Terrace (2009) all the way to his upcoming, much ballyhooed adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise (2016), writer-director Ben Wheatley has made a sort-of cottage industry out of the intersection between “polite” British society and the howling insanity of a world gone very, very wrong. By mashing character dramas up with more traditional (“traditional” being a relative term, here) genre films, Wheatley gives extra heft to his narratives, providing intricate insight into characters that, in lesser hands, might across as either vilely unredeemable or completely sociopathic. In Wheatley films, there are never traditional “heroes” or “villains,” nor is there, necessarily, a “right” or “wrong.” There just is, for better or worse…often, of course, for the worse.

Like all of Wheatley’s films, Kill List takes so many sudden turns and reveals so many surprises that to reveal much beyond a basic synopsis is to rob new viewers of a singularly unique experience. As far as plot and story goes, suffice to say that you will call some of the twists (or, at the very least, suspect them) but you will never call all of them, least of all the harrowing, soul-shattering climax. You may think that you know what Wheatley’s doing and, for a time, you might be right. Hell: even after seeing the film a half dozen times, I still find myself second-guessing earlier viewings and readjusting my understanding of the proceedings.

This, of course, is one of the hallmarks of any indispensable film: that ability to return, time and time again and discover new thrills with each subsequent viewing. There are plenty of exquisitely made films that have always been “one-and-dones” for me: it’s to Kill List’s great credit that, despite the film’s many unpleasantries, I keep returning to it, time after time. Chalk this up to the exceptional filmcraft, the airtight writing or the stellar performances (there, literally, isn’t a bad performance from the entire cast, whether in lead or walk-on parts) but Wheatley’s Kill List is the very definition of a modern classic.

Despite all of this, however, I find myself offering the same caveat that I do with many of my favorite films: Kill List, despite its overriding quality, is not a film for everyone. This is a film that delves into the very heart of darkness that so many genre and horror films only hint at, a film that derives its hideous power not from a collection of gory onscreen effects (although there’s plenty of those) but from the deeper horror of shattered humanity. The finale is impossibly, almost oppressively horrifying, make no bones about it, but it’s also deeply and fundamentally sad and hopeless, the kind of revelation that sucks the wind out of your sails, leaving you defeated and broken.

Kill List is many things: a tale of friendship and duty; a heartbreaking look into the dissolution of a marriage; an examination of the destructive power of anger and the redemptive nature of martyrdom; a mystery; a grotesque; a cautionary tale. Kill List is all of these things and so many more. Above and beyond all else, however, Wheatley’s Kill List is a dark, savage, merciless abyss: stare into it, by all means, but don’t be surprised if you find that the abyss also stares back at you.

11/11/15 (Part Two): Mr. Cage Goes to Washington

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Austin Stark, based on true events, BP, Bryan Batt, cheating husbands, Christopher Berry, Ciera Payton, cinema, Connie Nielsen, crooked politicians, directorial debut, extramarital affairs, film reviews, films, husband-wife relationship, Kerry Cahill, Movies, Nicholas Cage, oil spills, Peter Fonda, Sarah Paulson, set in 2010, sex scandals, The Runner, Wendell Pierce, writer-director

Is the phrase “honest, self-effacing politician” equitable to “jumbo shrimp” or “deafening silence”? Is it actually possible for someone who makes their living brokering deals, securing power structures, rewarding patronage and constantly campaigning to do what they’ve been elected to do and serve the average, every-day citizenry? Sure, there are plenty of examples of good, necessary actions taken by politicians stretching all the way back to the dawn of our political system: the concept of absolute evil is convenient for pop culture and entertainment but rarely plays out that way in real life. Even the very worst, most self-serving and vilely corrupt glad-hander out there is still capable of doing good…provided, of course, that it also benefits their bottom line.

Is there really such a thing as an incorruptible, sincere and tireless proponent for the average tax-payer, however? Are there really politicians who see their choice of career as a personal calling and chance for advocacy rather than a convenient way to achieve power, influence and wealth? The answer, at least based on writer-director Austin Stark’s The Runner (2015), is a resounding, firm “yes and no.”

We begin with Rep. Colin Pryce (Nicolas Cage), from Louisiana, and his passionate, fiery condemnation of “Big Oil” in the aftermath of the BP oil spill of 2010. There’s definitely a lot of Mr. Deeds in Pryce, especially as portrayed by Cage, whose intense earnestness has been a sort of cottage industry for the past few decades. There’s no denying that Pryce wants the best for the fishermen and blue-collar workers that compromise the electorate in his predominately African-American precinct: his speeches before the House and to the locals bespeak commitment and conviction far more than carefully planned rhetoric.

While Pryce might have all the best intentions as a political representative, however, it turns out that his personal life is much more of a shambles. The son of an alcoholic, philandering, former mayor who was known as a public mess as much as a civil rights pioneer (Peter Fonda, doing solid support work), Pryce shares a few too many genes with his daddy for comfort: chief being, of course, that he’s currently shtupping Lucy (Ciera Payton), the wife of one of the local fishermen that he’s supposed to be advocating for. Doh! Even better, Pryce is also married (Connie Nielsen, essentially reprising her role from the TV show Boss), which means that the whole situation is a powder-keg just waiting for an appropriate match.

That match ends up coming in the form of one whopper of a political scandal, the fall-out of which promises to thoroughly thrash whatever remains of Pryce’s career. As Pryce scurries around, attempting whatever measure of damage control he can, he finds that his proposed good deeds have become eclipsed by the mountain of negative press that surrounds him. Once “Big Oil” comes sniffing around the mortally-wounded Pryce, will he be able to hold on to what little values he has left or will he sell out the people who believe in him (along with his own soul) in order for one, last desperate chance to stay in the game?

Earnest, focused, deadly serious and, unfortunately, more than a little dull, Stark’s directorial debut (after serving as a producer for several years) doesn’t make a lot of obvious mistakes but also never rises above anything more than a passable time-waster. The story’s beats are overly familiar, by this point, much more capably echoed in TV shows like House of Cards or the aforementioned Boss: in fact, there were so many points during the film’s 90-minute run-time that directly reminded me of not only House of Card’s plot points but also its characters, cinematography and sound design that the film often felt like some sort of indirect homage to the series.

While the infidelity angle comes across as over-heated and melodramatic (Stark lacks the finesse to paint these scenes with anything less than the broadest brush strokes), the political machinations pack a little more punch, even if they’re given rather short shrift overall. Mad Men’s Bryan Batt turns in a great performance as a gently slimy BP executive whose attempts to court Pryce have the subtlety that too much of the rest of the film lacks.

It’s this schism, in the end, that probably does more to harm The Runner than any of the myriad minor issues that plague it: by splitting the focus between the scandal and the political maneuvering, neither aspect is explored to its fullest potential. There are some nice bits involving the apple not falling far from the tree, as far as Fonda’s character is concerned, and some generic “dark night of the soul” stuff from Cage (who pretty much specializes in that) but none of its interesting or novel enough to keep audience attention from wavering.

Ultimately, that’s kind of a shame: buried beneath the stereotypical sex scandal aspect, it’s clear that Stark’s film does, indeed, have something to say. While the story of a well-intentioned, but flawed, politician attempting to atone for his past transgressions is certainly nothing new under the cinematic sun, it’s not like that particular tale ever goes out of fashion, especially during our current political climate.

Craftwise, The Runner does what it needs to do in fairly unspectacular fashion: it looks and sounds fine and the large cast turns out a collection of performances that run the gamut from “getting the job done” (Nielsen, Payton, Wendell Pierce) to “fully invested” (Cage, Fonda, Batt, American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson). The biggest problem, at the end, is that the whole thing is so predictable that it never subverts, tweaks or upends our expectations: if you’ve seen one film like The Runner you have, quite probably, seen much of what’s being offered here. Even Cage, widely recognized as the “wild card” of mainstream film, turns in the kind of subdued, middle-of-the-road performance that will, undoubtedly, remind one of at least half-a-dozen other, similar performances.

With little individual identity, The Runner manages to go the distance, yet never separates itself from the rest of the pack. We might remember the folks who are the first to cross the finish line…hell, we’ll probably remember the folks who are the last to cross it, too. All the other ones clustered in the middle, however? Just like in real life, it’s kind of hard to tell them apart.

11/11/15 (Part One): Let the Punishment Fit the Crime

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Adam Sliwinski, Andy Thompson, Bernadette Saquibal, Canadian films, cinema, Claudia Morris, co-writers, crime and punishment, Cruel & Unusual, David Richmond-Peck, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Groundhog Day, husband-wife relationship, independent films, Kyle Cassie, low-budget films, Mark Korven, Mary Black, Merlin Dervisevic, Michael Eklund, Michael John Bateman, Michelle Harrison, Monsour Cataquiz, Movies, multiple writers, repentance, Richard Harmon, sci-fi, science-fiction, writer-director

When it comes to crime, what, exactly, is the most effective form of punishment? Incarceration is obviously a popular option, given the exponential increase of bodies in prisons (at least in the U.S. of A.) but how effective is it really? There’s also execution, of course, with all of the moral quandaries, philosophical issues and inability to correct mistakes that come with that particular path in the woods.

While incarceration and execution can have varying degrees of effectiveness as far as recidivism goes (execution, in particular, makes it difficult for criminals to re-offend unless, of course, they happen to be Horace Pinker), is there actually a form of punishment that could make a criminal truly regret their transgressions? Is there some way to make a murderer feel sorrow for their actions, a way to make a monster realize their own monstrosity?

Writer/director Merlin Dervicevic takes a look at one potential (albeit far-fetched) form of punishment/rehabilitation with the low-budget, Canadian export Cruel & Unusual (2014). In this modest little film (confined to a couple of interior locations and a few exterior locales, with a small cast), Dervicevic and co-writer Claudia Morris posit a scenario that’s part Cube (1997), part Groundhog Day (1993) and never less than engrossing. While Cruel & Unusual is far from a perfect film, it manages to be effortlessly thought-provoking, which is far more important.

When we first meet schlubby, unassuming Edgar (David Richmond-Peck), he seems like the kind of stock, cinematic character who’s only one small step away from a crippling midlife crisis: he frequently argues with his “out-of-his league wife,” Maylon (Bernadette Saquibal), and accuses her of sleeping with his boss; Maylon’s son, Gogan (Monsour Cataquiz), is a holy terror at school and a tremendous discipline problem; and Edgar’s blue-collar brother, Lance (Kyle Cassie), constantly drops by unexpected and seems to show an unhealthy interest in Maylon.

Just when it seems as if we’ve stepped into a particularly depressing domestic drama, however, Cruel & Unusual drops the other shoe: after walking into a room in his house, Edgar emerges in some sort of anonymous-looking facility. He has a strange tattoo on his arm and quickly finds himself in a room full of assorted strangers, sort of like an AA meeting but even grimmer. As Edgar soon discovers, this is some sort of alternate form of punishment: not only has he has been accused of killing Maylon, Edgar is also informed that he, himself, is now dead.

As per the rules of the facility (explicated by literal talking heads on high school AV-type rolling TV carts), Edgar and the other “prisoners” must constantly relive the days of their crimes, bearing witness to their actions over and over until they finally realize the gravity of their sins and are properly repentant. The crimes run the gamut from murder to suicide (those who kill themselves are derogatorily labeled “suies” and looked down upon by everyone else) but the process is the same: face your shame, over and over, until you’re finally “rehabilitated” and allowed to “move on.”

The only problem, of course, is that Edgar didn’t kill Maylon…at least, he doesn’t think he did. As our bespectacled protagonist tries to desperately prove his innocence and escape from the facility, he meets a trio of like-minded fellow prisoners: William (Richard Harmon), who cold-bloodily killed his parents; Julien (Michael Eklund), who drowned his own children during a custody dispute with his ex-wife; and Doris (Michelle Harrison), who hung herself from a tree and let her young children discover her swinging body.

Seeking answers, Edgar repeatedly delves back into that fateful day, replaying the scenario between him and Maylon over and over, trying to get some sense of the truth behind it all. As new layers are unwrapped and new information is learned, however, Edgar will come to understand the terrible truth about the day he and Maylon died, a truth that will either set him free…or damn him forever.

Despite an incredibly familiar set-up and execution, Cruel & Unusual still managed to pull the rug out from underneath me in the final third, making this one of the better, more capable sleepers I’ve seen in some time. Similar to Circle (2015) in that it takes a very basic sci-fi concept and then proceeds to fill in the outlines with some exceptionally thoughtful examinations on morality and humanity, Dervicevic’s film is never particularly flashy, yet still manages to pack a hefty punch.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the film’s final reel is not only “quite good” but “damn good,” sending the movie out in the best possible way, with a genuinely emotional, gut-punch of a final revelation/conclusion. Prior to the finale, Cruel & Unusual is undoubtedly well-made, if familiar: the acting is solid, the score is nicely evocative and the cinematography helps to establish the mood quickly and economically. Had the film maintained this level of quality throughout, I’d still have no problem recommending it, albeit more as a pleasant time-waster than anything else. The finale is so smart and impactful, however, that it manages to cast everything that came before it in a different, better light: Cruel & Unusual is proof positive that it (almost) always pays to see a movie through to the bitter end.

With its themes of self-sacrifice, acceptance, repentance and letting go, Dervicevic’s Cruel & Unusual ends up being my favorite kind of modern sci-fi film: smart, subtle, low-key, full of piss and vinegar and ready to take on our preconceived notions of how a polite society really acts. This doesn’t belong in the storied company of recent mindblowers like Automata (2015), Ex Machina (2015) or Circle (2015) but there’s nothing wrong with that, either: they can’t all be headliners, after all, and Cruel & Unusual proves that the openers can be just as interesting and revelatory, in their own ways.

8/16/15 (Part Two): Two Against the World

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A Most Violent Year, Abel Morales, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola, Alex Ebert, All Is Lost, American Dream, Ben Rosenfield, Bradford Young, capitalism, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Christopher Abbott, cinema, corruption, David Margulies, David Oyelowo, dramas, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Elyes Gabel, family business, film reviews, films, Giselle Eisenberg, heating oil, heists, hijacking, husband-wife relationship, husband-wife team, immigrants, J.C. Chandor, Jason Ralph, Jerry Adler, Jessica Chastain, John Procaccino, Margin Call, Movies, New York City, oil industry, organized crime, Orthodox Jews, Oscar Isaac, period-piece, personal codes, Peter Gerety, Pico Alexander, Quinn Meyers, Ron Patane, set in New York City, set in the 1980's, snubbed at the Oscars, suicide, the American Dream, writer-director

While most people will freely admit to having some sort of unalterable moral code, the reality is much less black and white: I’m willing to wager that we’ve all compromised our personal codes, from time to time…that’s just what life is about. Perhaps you’ve tolerated prejudicial beliefs from an otherwise beloved relative. Perhaps you’re an environmentalist who’s taken a soul-killing corporate job with a King Kong-sized carbon footprint in order to pay the bills. When faced with the choice between suffering for our “code” or bending our beliefs in order to achieve some measure of happiness, it’s tempting to say that we would all be able to stand firm in the face of adversity. It’s tempting, sure…but is it true?

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac), one half of the married couple that stands at the exact center of writer/director J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), is a man with one of those aforementioned “unalterable moral codes,” an individual who prides himself on always taking “the path that is most right.” Abel is a man with principles, with drive, ambition and an internal compass that always keeps him oriented towards true north…or, as it turns out, his own personal notion of true north. When his world begins to collapse around him, however, Abel will be forced into a rather unenviable position: greet his massing enemies with the violence and corruption that they’ve shown him or stick to his code and, quite possibly, become nothing more than a minor footnote in someone else’s story. As Pink Floyd so eloquently put it: “a walk-on part in the war or a lead role in a cage”…Abel can have either one but he can’t have both.

Kicking off in the Big Apple during the titular “violent year” (also known as 1981), Chandor’s newest opus concerns Abel and his wife, Anna (an absolutely ferocious Jessica Chastain), as they try to carve out their own piece of the American Dream. They own a heating oil company and have just started the process to acquire a prime piece of seafront real estate, all the better to bring in their own shipments directly and cut out the middle man. While Abel tries to pull together the $1.5 million that he’ll need for the deal, he also must deal with a raft of other problems including his mercenary competitors, a nearly non-stop barrage of violent fuel hijacking and an overly zealous district attorney (David Oyelowo) who’s been investigating the Morales’ company for several years.

After another series of thefts, including one where one of Abel’s drivers, Julian (Elyes Gabel), gets his jaw broken, the head of the teamsters (Peter Gerety) insists that all of Abel’s drivers be issued handguns: he refuses to put his men into any more unsafe situations, despite Abel’s protests that faked gun permits are only going to add to his legal woes. As this is going on, Abel surprises an intruder in his home, a shady individual who drops a gun as he flees. Anna, putting two and two together, realizes that the attempted invasion might not be part of the year’s “crime wave” but actually related to their current problems with the company. The message is clear: the Morales’ aren’t safe anywhere, including their own home.

As Abel watches his carefully constructed plan fall apart, piece by piece, he’s goaded by his loose-cannon wife to take more drastic, unsavory measures: she’s the daughter of a mobster, after all, and those guys always know how to take care of business. Abel has that aforementioned “personal code,” however, and he’s determined to do everything on the up-and-up, even if it means putting his family and business through the wringer. When Julian gets attacked again and takes matters into his own hands, however, it forces Abel to scramble and try to put all the pieces back together before his time runs out on the real estate deal. Will Abel stick to his code or will he give in to the violence around him and respond in kind? Will he become the monster that he fears in order to get the life that he deserves?

Extremely stylish, beautifully shot and as cold as an iceberg, A Most Violent Year packs plenty of punch but still manages to fall short (to this viewer, at least) of Chandor’s previous film, the “Redford on a boat” mini-epic, All is Lost (2013). There’s plenty to like and respect here, no doubt: Chandor is a sure-hand as both writer and director, displaying an admirable ability to cut the fat and get right to the meat of the situation. That being said, A Most Violent Year feels too long and bloated for the relatively simple story beats involved: the structure and pacing feel off, leaving too much “dead air” and sapping some of the film’s forward momentum.

One aspect of the film that manages to shoot for the moon and score brilliantly, however, is the extraordinary performances. Front to back, A Most Violent Year is loaded with so many memorable performances and masterfully acted scenes that he handily establishes itself as a real actors’ showcase. The supporting cast, alone, would make the film worth a watch under any other circumstances: Albert Brooks turns in another great, weary performance as Abel’s lawyer/confidant; Oyelowo is solid as a rock as the dogged D.A.; Gabel offers up some genuine anguish as the conflicted Julian (the parallels between his failure and Abel’s success are one of the film’s most subtle motifs) and Jerry Adler (perhaps best known for his recurring roles as Hesh in The Sopranos) brings a surprisingly gentle, paternal quality to his performance as the Orthodox Jewish owner of the property that Abel and Anna are trying to buy.

The real stars of the show, however, are undoubtedly Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. For his part, Isaac downplays the character of Abel masterfully, allowing all of the anger, frustration and fear to bubble and boil just below the surface until it finally explodes skyward in a truly volcanic display. He’s a case study in restraint and chilly resolve and Isaac works wonders with nothing so much as a soft word and piercing glare.

Chastain, on the other hand, is a completely unrestrained force of nature, the raging hurricane that tosses the rest of the cast around like so much flying junk. To not put too fine a point on it, she’s absolutely astounding in the film: it’s impossible to look away whenever she’s onscreen. From the stunning showpiece where she blows away the wounded deer to the fist-raising moment where she tells Oyelowo’s D.A. just where he can shove it, Chastain’s Anna is, easily, one of the most memorable modern cinematic creations.

Less Kay Corleone than Ma Barker, Anna is the true power behind the throne and Chastain tears into the role with absolute gusto. The fact that she wasn’t nominated for an Oscar only goes to show how vapid that particular process is: the fact that her performance was considered a “supporting” role in other nominations only goes to show how flawed that rationale is. Quite plainly, Chastain is as much a part of A Most Violent Year as Isaac is…perhaps more so, to be honest.

Despite the top-shelf performances, gorgeous cinematography (Bradford Young also shot Selma (2014), giving him two prestige pictures in the same year), great score (despite not caring for Alex Ebert’s main gig in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, his score is absolutely perfect) and effective mise en scene, I still found myself slightly let down by the whole thing. Perhaps it speaks more to personal choice than any major flaws in the film (short of really trite ending to Julian’s arc, there aren’t many major missteps) but A Most Violent Year never quite struck me as “essential,” merely very well-made.

In truth, short of two chase scenes (one decent, the other a real showstopper), the whole film ends up being rather uneventful. Sure, Abel and Anna are faced with a seemingly insurmountable array of problems but each issue ends up being resolved a bit too casually to provide much tension. The resolution of the Julian storyline, the resolution of the fuel hijacking, the resolution of the property deal…in each case, it feels as if Abel and Anna are plucked from the stew-pot just as the water begins to get nice and hot. One of the things that really struck me about the chase scene between Abel and the hijackers is how unhinged and dangerous it felt: for that brief time period, I really found myself questioning the outcome. Were that overriding sense of danger more present throughout the film, perhaps it might have gripped me a little tighter.

Ultimately, A Most Violent Year is a film that deserves no small amount of praise: the performances, alone, are enough to make this a must-watch. That being said, it’s also a film that never quite sunk its claws into me, never quite demanded my complete adoration. Perhaps, in the end, A Most Violent Year is a perfect case of “different strokes for different folks”: extremely well-made and quite evocative, there’s nothing overtly wrong with the film, yet it never quit kicks like it’s supposed to.

That’s quite alright, however: I’ll keep looking forward to Chandor’s films just like I have ever since All is Lost proved him to be a modern master. In an age where “bigger, louder, dumber” seems to rule the box-office, we could always use more films like A Most Violent Year. Essential? Not quite. Worth your time? Without a shadow of a doubt.

8/13/15: More Human Than the Humans

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Alejandro Martínez, Antonio Banderas, Arthur C. Clarke, Automata, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Blade Runner, clocksmith, co-writers, David Ryall, Dylan McDermott, dystopia, dystopian future, end of humanity, future of mankind, Gabe Ibáñez, gorgeous cinematography, grim future, husband-wife relationship, Igor Legarreta, insurance investigator, Jacq Vaucan, Javier Bardem, Javier Sánchez Donate, Kes Bonnet, man vs machine, Melanie Griffith, multiple writers, near future, nuclear batteries, Patrick Salvador, Philip K. Dick, radiation, Robert Forster, robots, sci-fi, science-fiction, self-aware robots, solar storms, thought-provoking, Tim McInnerny, wasteland, writer-director, Zacarías M. de la Riva

At what point, exactly, does a robot cease to exist as merely a “machine” and become something more? It’s a question that’s been an integral part of science fiction practically from the genre’s creation, a question that’s been examined by literary luminaries like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke, across works as unforgettable as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, “I, Robot” and “2001.” The questions are always the same fundamental ones: What is the primary difference between intelligent machines and humans? Can a machine ever “become” human or, at the least, human-like? Do robots possess the capacity for emotions? Can you program “sadness,” “anger,” “hatred” or “love”? If robots were capable of self-awareness, would this be the tipping point?

Cinema, for its part, has been asking the same questions for almost as long as we’ve had movies: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is probably the first example of a cinematic tradition that’s been going on for almost a century, a tradition that includes such diverse films as Forbidden Planet (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Westworld (1972), The Black Hole (1979), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), The Terminator (1984), Short Circuit (1986), RoboCop (1987), Cherry 2000 (1987), A.I. (2001), I, Robot (2004), WALL-E (2008), Moon (2009) and Chappie (2015). One of the newest inclusions into this amazingly eclectic group, Spanish writer-director Gabe Ibáñez’s Automata (2014), also ends up being one of the better ones: barring a few missteps and unnecessary clutter, Automata is a gorgeously filmed, thought-provoking look at what separates us from the machines…and why they just might be better at “living” than we’ll ever be.

The year is 2044 and the Earth has been decimated by solar storms that have, in effect, turned the whole planet into a radioactive wasteland. 99% of the population has died, leaving the survivors to take shelter in the few remaining cities, the equivalent of ants scurrying to get away from the magnifying glass. Since atmospheric disturbances have wrecked holy hell with radio transmissions, electrical grids and the like, technology has regressed to your typical dystopic state of being: in other words, humanity is completely and irreversibly fucked, our future sizzling away like so much fat in the fire.

Into this rather terrible situation comes the ubiquitous ROC Corporation (think RoboCop’s Omni Corp and you’re in the right neighborhood), creator of the “primitive” Automata Pilgrim 7000s, a type of robot which does everything from building the walls and coverings which protect the last cities to helping take care of kids, cooking meals and fighting wars (despite our truncated timeline, humans still need to kill each other, apparently, which always seems to be our one constant). By the time the film opens, there are millions of Automatas running around, each one governed by two very fundamental protocols: robots may not harm any form of life (including themselves) and they are forbidden from altering themselves or other robots. Like the Prime Directives in RoboCop, these are unbreakable, unalterable and, obviously, in place to help preserve humanity’s increasingly precarious place in the pecking order.

Our “Deckard” in this particular instance is Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas), one of ROC Corp’s ubiquitous insurance investigators. Jacq’s job is to run around and look into any and all insurance claims levied against his employers: when we first meet him, he’s looking into the case of an Automata that’s been accused of brushing a family dog to death. Jacq is completely burnt-out (no pun intended) at his job and dreams only of moving his pregnant wife, Rachel (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), to the seashore, if such a thing still exists in this brave new world.

As befits the “one last case” trope, Jacq is called on to investigate one of ROC Corp’s Automata that has been unceremoniously shot in the face by wastoid police officer Sean Wallance (Dylan McDermott). It seems that the “dead” robot had been modified in some pretty significant ways: not only was it capable of “self-repair” (a big no-no) but it also seemed to be smuggling illegal parts (an even bigger no-no). Jacq’s boss, Mr. Bold (Robert Forster), gives him the news that he’s been impatiently waiting for: find someone, anyone, to blame for the modified robot and Jacq will earn a one-way ticket to his dream destination (provided, of course, that it’s real and not an actual dream destination).

From here, Jacq dives into the deep end of the case, tracking the robot’s “clocksmith” all the way from the city’s stereotypically dystopic slums to a creepy android sex parlor and, finally, into the radioactive wastelands colloquially dubbed “The Sandbox.” As Jacq learns more and more about the modified Automata and its ultimate purpose, he also uncovers hints of a wide-ranging conspiracy, a conspiracy that could affect the very future of mankind. With no one but a group of Automata to guide him, Jacq must confront the truth behind the robots, a truth that will eventually lead him to a godlike being and, just perhaps, the long-rumored ocean that he’s always yearned to see. What separates us from the machines? As Vaucan will find out, quite a bit less than we might think.

Right off the bat, Ibáñez’s Automata is an absolutely stunning piece of film-craft: to not put too fine a point on it, the production design (courtesy of Patrick Salvador), cinematography (beautifully handled by Alejandro Martínez) and general mise en scene (Kes Bonnet handled the art design) are nearly flawless. For a film with an estimated budget of $7 million, Automata looks like it cost roughly fives times that. Using a mix of CGI backgrounds and actual animatronics for the Automata, the film is completely immersive and, to be honest, looks just as good as any of the accepted modern sci-fi prestige pictures: again, it’s hard to not belabor the point but Automata blew me away early and managed to keep impressing me for the entirety of its nearly two-hour run-time. If the film has any issues (and it has a couple), they have nothing whatsoever to do with the look, ambiance or general production.

Performance-wise, Automata’s cast is exceptionally solid: Banderas is fantastic as the world-weary investigator, McDermott turns in one of his patented “loose cannon” performances, Forster is suitably paternal as Jacq’s kind-hearted boss and Tim McInnerny makes a great villain as ultra-slimy “company man,” Vernon Conway. Sørensen does a fine job with what she’s given, although her character doesn’t really come into her own until the film’s final third. There’s also a really nice, subtle vocal performance by Javier Bardem as the godlike Automata: he brings a perfect combination of intelligence, gravitas and parental concern to the performance and is definitely one of the film’s highlights, even if he doesn’t get much screen-time.

In fact, the only performance that doesn’t quite connect is Melanie Griffith’s take on Dr. Dupre: even though the actress gives it her all, her performance is never quite as realistic as the others’. Too often, it feels like she’s attempting to make sense of nonsensical dialogue and she never really sells the character: the scenes between her and Banderas have an awkward quality that’s rather off-putting. Ironically, Griffith is much more convincing in her dual-performance as the voice of Cleo, the sexbot: her vocal performance is much more subtle and nuanced than her “full” performance.

One of the most impressive aspects of Automata is how it references and takes elements from other classic sci-fi films, yet manages to make them seem wholly organic. In many ways, the film throws Blade Runner and Westworld into a blender and seasons the concoction with various elements from films like Alien and RoboCop: the Automata “weep” white tears, ala Alien…the godlike robot has a weary intelligence and understanding of humanity’s place in the universe, ala Blade Runner’s Roy Batty…there are sex-bots, like in Cherry 2000 (Griffith’s vocal performance as Cleo is also a great reference to her role in the ’80s film)…the giant hologram ads that “roam” the city are reminiscent of Blade Runner’s chaotic culture-shock…they all add up to make Automata seem like a part of a much bigger universe, a much further-reaching combined aesthetic.

Unlike many multiplex sci-fi thrillers, Automata is an endlessly intelligent film, one that’s not afraid to offer its complex science and mythology with a minimum of hand-holding. The film might open with the equivalent of an info dump but, in a way, that’s also to be expected: when you have a lot of details to impart and a limited time to impart them, sometimes the best way is also the bluntest way. At times, Automata threatens to become too complex and confusing, especially once we get into the robots’ “mind kernals” and their attempts at “self-improvement” and evolution. This, of course, is always the danger one assumes when dealing with a genuinely smart film: it makes demands of the audience and, if you aren’t willing to stay engaged, you’ll most likely be left behind.

In fact, if I had any real issues with Ibáñez’s film (he co-wrote the script with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate), they all lie with the unfortunately hackneyed, old-as-the-hills “corporate conspiracy” that lurks at the heart of the film. Without that silly, action-oriented facet, Automata would be a much slower, more thought-provoking film, much closer to the grandiose vision of Blade Runner than it ultimately is. We’ve already been shown such wonders by the time that an anonymous group of authority figures determine that Jacq “knows too much” that it feels like a serious cop-out: for all of the film’s grand vision and intelligence, the climax still devolves into one of those de rigueur “final shootouts,” as Jacq battles Vernon for ultimate supremacy. The conspiracy angle also introduces at least two subplots too many, subplots which help to drag the film down rather than propel it forward.

Ultimately, however, my quibbles with Automata are minor: this is first-class, grade-A filmmaking all the way, the kind of intelligent sci-fi film that should make any fan of the genre sit up and take notice. While Ibáñez and his extraordinarily talented cast and crew don’t blaze the kind of bold, new trails that pioneers like 2001 and Blade Runner did, they still turn in a film that stands, head and shoulders, above similar pretenders. There is genuine beauty here, along with a tremendously powerful emotional core and some truly unforgettable images: the scene where the Automatas create life is one of the single, greatest nods to Frankenstein that I’ve ever seen and would be a crowning showpiece in any film. As only his second full-length directorial effort, Automata showcases Gabe Ibáñez as a truly formidable new talent, a visionary who will practically demand my attention, from this point on.

If you’re a fan of good filmmaking, I heartily suggest that you follow along, too. I’m not sure if Ibáñez is the next Ridley Scott or merely the next Alex Proyas: either way, I have a feeling that he’s got plenty of amazing things to show us.

7/29/15 (Part Two): His and Hearse

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A Good Marriage, Anthony LaPaglia, bad husbands, based on a novella, Cara Buono, cinema, coin-collecting, dramas, dysfunctional marriage, film reviews, films, Frank G DeMarco, husband-wife relationship, Joan Allen, Kristen Connolly, literary adaptation, Mike O'Malley, Movies, Peter Askin, psychological thriller, psychos, secret lives, serial killer, serial killers, Stephen King, Stephen King's A Good Marriage, Stephen Lang, Theo Stockman, thrillers

How well do we really know our loved ones? Sure, everyone keeps the occasional secret but is it actually possible to be married to someone for a quarter century and not realize that they’re actually a monstrously insane serial killer? This notion of the “beloved stranger” forms the crux of horror master Stephen King’s novella “A Good Marriage” and, by default, the crux of Peter Askin’s cinematic adaptation of said material, handily titled Stephen King’s A Good Marriage (2014).

By their very nature, literary adaptations can be hit-or-miss but adaptations of King’s works seem to be even more so: for every solid to great version of a Stephen King tome, there are at least three hackneyed also-rans waiting in the wings. With the master himself actually penning this particular screenplay, does A Good Marriage end up on the “winning” column or, you know…the other side? Let’s find out, gentle readers, as we take a closer look at a relationship where “til death do us part” takes on a whole other meaning.

From the outside looking in, Bob (Anthony LaPaglia) and Darcy (Joan Allen) seem to have life locked down pretty solid. They’ve just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary, they’re surrounded by loving friends and family, including their adult children Petra (Kristen Connolly) and Donnie (Theo Stockman), they have a nice house and genuinely seem to be in love with each other: even this far into their relationship, Bob calls his wife a “hot piece of ass” and they have a sex life that’s a least as healthy as folks half their ages. In other words: life is pretty damn good.

As a travelling insurance salesman, Bob is on the road quite a bit, which is all just another facet of life for the adoring Darcy: he’s a workaholic who also pursues a lifelong love of coin-collecting, searching around the country for a particular penny that will complete his collection and make him even happier. In a nice move, Darcy is not only supportive of her husband’s hobby but seems to get a kick out of it herself, to the point where she offers to buy her hubby the penny (for a mere $9K, to boot) as a gift: he won’t hear of it, however, since the “hunt” is most of the fun.

One night, while Bob is on the road, Darcy goes hunting for batteries in the garage and discovers that her husband has another hobby: turns out he’s a brutal serial killer named “Beadie” who tortures and murders innocent women, all while taunting the police and media with “clues,” mailing the victims’ IDs back as proof of his “conquests.” The S&M mag that Darcy discovers is bad enough but the little box with the latest ID? That, friends and neighbors, is a bridge too far.

Things go from “simmer” to “boiling over” when Bob returns, unexpectedly, and handily puts the whole thing together: his genial confession is, hands-down, a real corker and sets the stage for the rest of our little couples’ ride into Hell. Darcy offers to just “put it all behind them” if Bob will only agree to quit killing people: after 25 years, there’s gotta be a little give and take, ya know? Plus, with Petra’s wedding on the horizon, Darcy doesn’t want anything to ruin her little girl’s big day: having your father hauled away as a serial killer tends to put a damper on the good times, after all. When Bob starts giving comely next-door-neighbor Betty (Cara Buono) the eye, however, Darcy realizes that leopards rarely change their spots. Will Darcy be able to hold it all together or is her “good marriage” about to head to a very bad place, indeed?

For the most part, Askin’s adaptation is a thoroughly workmanlike, efficient film, spotlighted by an incredibly all-in performance by LaPaglia and a slightly less satisfying one by Allen: too often, her scenes devolve into hysterical sobbing as swelling strings soar on the score, while LaPaglia gets to cycle through just about every emotion/mannerism in the book. There’s also a good performance by the always interesting Stephen Lang, as a ruthlessly tenacious former cop, although the character doesn’t really have much to do with the story, overall: he pops up, from time to time, and then makes his “big” appearance in the film’s final reel, none of which really affect the film in any meaningful way.

The film looks good enough, with the exception of a really crappy opening black-and-white sequence (kind of a shock, given that cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco was also responsible for Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) and All is Lost (2013), both of which looked amazing) and the score is fairly unobtrusive whenever the strings are taking a break. It ends up being about 10-20 minutes too long, at almost two hours (especially considering the novella format of the original story), although that’s certainly not an issue endemic to this film, alone.

Where the film really falls apart, however, is in the almost complete lack of tension and suspense: despite the subject matter, the stakes always seem alarmingly low, the action virtually toothless. Part of this is due to the fact that almost every genuine suspense scene in the film is revealed to be either a dream or a figment of someone’s imagination. Time and time again, tension is built up only to be released in the lamest way possible: ie, Darcy wakes up and goes back to bemoaning her situation. It’s one of my oldest pet peeves and one of the surest fire ways to really get my goat: suffice to say, A Good Marriage must’ve needed an awfully large barnyard for all that livestock.

The other major issue with the film has more to do with its structure. Unlike the best of King’s stories, A Good Marriage is unnecessarily drawn-out, treading water for far too long in between necessary plot points. Although I’m sure I’ve read the original story when I was younger (I ravenously devoured any and all King literature when I was a wee one), I can’t, for the life of me, recall anything about it. Since King also wrote the script for the film version, however, I have to assume that they’re fairly similar: this means, of course, that the original story probably didn’t work, either.

After finishing the film, I reflected back on what might have (for me, at least) worked better: while I’ve never been a huge fan of “what ifs” in film criticism (I’m of the opinion that what ya get is what ya get), there definitely seem to be fundamental ways to streamline the action. For curiosity’s sake, I’ll take a look at two.

In the first “Bizarro-world” version of Askin’s film, the entire movie takes place on the evening that Darcy discovers Bob’s secret. In this scenario, the focus goes to the cat-and-mouse quality of Bob and Darcy’s relationship, allowing for a slow ratcheting up of tension before arriving at the same denouement. This eliminates the slack pace and unnecessary script diversions (like Petra’s wedding), yet still allows us to keep the nature of the revelation and response intact.

The second “Bizzaro-world” version turns the threat to Betty from red herring to white-knuckle. In this scenario, it all plays out as given, with Darcy making Bob promise to be good, etc. The difference comes with the scene where Bob first “checks out” Betty, as Darcy watches: in this go-around, Darcy would need to spring into action in order to prevent Bob from harming her neighbor/friend, which would lead us, ironically, to the same natural conclusion as the others. As with the first scenario, this plays up the cat-and-mouse aspect: Bob and Darcy would both, in effect, be running a game on each other…the tension would come from the realization that Darcy would need to destroy everything she has in order to protect Betty’s life, which would give much more resonance to the proceedings.

At the end of the day, however, speculations about “how it coulda been” are so much stuff and nonsense: in the end, the only version of Askin’s film that we have is the one before us. While I didn’t agree with many of the choices and think Allen could’ve been given a much stronger character, A Good Marriage still ends up being a decent, middle-of-the-road thriller. Hell: any film that features LaPaglia smirking and charming his way through the role of a batshit-crazy killer is always going to have a leg up on a film that doesn’t. File this with the ones that get the job done: not amazing, not terrible but just good enough.

7/29/15 (Part One): A Sinister Case of Deja Vu

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Antonia Campbell-Hughes, archival footage, archivists, Calum Heath, Carl Shaaban, Ceiri Torjussen, cheating partners, children in peril, cinema, dead children, dramas, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hannah Hoekstra, haunted bathrooms, horror, horror films, human sacrifice, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Irish films, Ivan Kavanagh, Kelly Byrne, Movies, Piers McGrail, Robin Hill, Rupert Evans, sewer tunnels, Sinister, Steve Oram, supernatural, The Canal, The Ring, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

Here’s a bit of friendly advice, free of charge and as heartfelt as the day is long: should there ever come a time when you’re in the market for a house and discover creepy video footage of terrible acts being committed in said house…go find another damn house. I mean, sure: this particular place might have hardwood floors, a nice backyard, good schools, a progressive city council and easy access to public transportation. If, however, it was also a place where people were tortured/murdered/sacrificed/et al, well…is linoleum really that bad?

While there have been a handful of films that have utilized the above trope to good effect, perhaps none have been more recently popular than Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), in which Ethan Hawke moves his family into a former “murder house” and shit gets all kinds of…you know…sinister. On the heels of that surprise smash (with a sequel scheduled for sometime in the near future), we get Irish writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s The Canal (2014), in which a husband/father discovers that his family’s new(ish) home might have more than a few secrets of its own. Similar to Derrickson’s film in some pretty substantial ways, The Canal still manages to carve out its own path, paralleling the sad dissolution of a marriage with the eerie happenings in and around a creepy house and the adjoining canal.

We first meet our hapless hero, David (Rupert Evans), as he and his pregnant wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), are just about to buy the aforementioned creepy house. Flash forward five years and David, Alice and their now five-year-old son, Billy (Calum Heath), seem content in their abode, although we get hints of trouble in paradise. In particular, David and Alice seem to have a strained relationship that includes her getting late-night calls from “clients,” one of whom, a strapping young lad named Alex (Carl Shaaban), seems to be just a little too close for comfort to David’s lady-love.

As these dramatic developments are unfolding, David’s day-job suddenly inserts itself into the equation. You see, David and his partner, Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are film archivists and they’ve just got in a new batch of old police films, one of which takes place in the very house that David, Alice and Billy call home. It appears that a husband murdered his philandering wife, was jailed, escaped and proceeded to hunt down and slaughter his own son and the boy’s nanny. Faster than you can whisper “sinister,” David has become obsessed with the case, the grisly details of which have begun to seep into his dreams.

Opting to follow his hunch, David trails Alice, one night, and his worst fears are confirmed when he witnesses her making the beast with two backs with handsome, ol’ Alex. Utterly destroyed, David slouches away and winds up at the undeniably creepy public restroom, next to the canal by his house, where he and his young son once threw stones at “ghosts.” While sobbing in a stall, David is confronted by a mysterious figure who intones the suitably chilling “The Master wants you.” Racing out, he seems to be just in time to witness his wife grappling with someone by the water’s edge.

When his wife never comes home that night, David calls the police and ends up in the gravitational pull of one Detective McNamara (Steve Oram), a cagey, soft-spoken Irish Columbo who gets one of the film’s best lines: “People always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it’s always the fucking husband.” Needless to say, McNamara doesn’t buy David’s story of a mysterious assailant or bathroom visitation for one minute: from the jump, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a bulldog with a bone and has no intention of dropping his “prize” whatsoever, especially once Alice’s body is hauled up from the canal.

As David tries to keep his life together, with the endless assistance of long-suffering, pot-smoking nanny Sophie (Kelly Byrne), he digs deeper and deeper into the history of his house. Turns out that the aforementioned husband and wife weren’t the only tragedies in the home’s past: there’s a virtual laundry list of previous crimes, atrocities and terrible acts, including a woman who burned her own child alive but insists that “demons” did it. David becomes convinced that the house (and adjoining canal) are all part of a terrible child sacrifice conspiracy, a terrifying tradition of evil that he, Alice and Billy have, unwittingly, become part of. To make matters worse (better?), David sees all manner of strange, creepy figures around the house, especially once he begins to film supposedly empty rooms with an old-fashioned movie camera.

With Claire and Sophie worried about his sanity and McNamara doing his damnedest to put him into jail, David knows that the only way to clear his name is to uncover the hideous paranormal monstrosities at the heart of it all. Is David really getting a peep into a murderous, ghostly phantasmagoria or is he just as insane and guilty as McNamara assumes? To find out, David will need to do the unthinkable: he’ll need to go into the murky, seemingly bottomless depths of the canal. Will he find salvation…or doom?

Exceptionally well-made, if always a little too obvious, writer-director Kavanagh’s The Canal is the latest in a series of austere, serious-minded and atmospheric horror films that include the likes of Absentia (2011), The Pact (2011) and Oculus (2013), among others. As with the rest of these “New Wave of Atmospheric Horror” (NWoAH, patent pending) films, The Canal looks and sounds great: the colors are bright and vibrant (the color palette switches between reds and blues, depending on David’s current state of mind), cinematographer Piers McGrail (who also shot the highly lauded Let Us Prey (2014)) shoots some truly lovely footage and the sense of creeping unease is thick from the jump.

The acting is solid, with Evans and Oram leading the pack, albeit from two completely opposite sides of the coin: Evans perfectly portrays the combined despair, agony, fear, rage and sorrow within David, leading to a performance that’s truly three-dimensional, even if the whole thing is colored in shades of gray and black. Oram, on the other hand, is like a breath of fresh air, a vibrant, alive, cynical and altogether awesome police presence who provides a perfect foil for David and a great source of association for the audience.

Between these towering presences, the rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely (Campbell-Hughes is especially great as David’s partner/only friend), although a few of the characters (Alice’s mother comes immediately to mind) are so under-developed as to be more plot points than real people. I also wish that Hoekstra got a little more to do: there are a few nicely emotional moments between her and David but, by and large, the focus is squarely on him, not her. Due to this, Alice comes across as more of a “bad guy” than anything: since we never get to spend much time with her, the decision to cheat on David also feels more like a plot point than an organic culmination of their relationship.

On the horror side, The Canal also equates quite nicely with the aforementioned NWoAH films: like the others, the film has a chilly, glacial pace and a tendency to rely on slow burn chills and “something’s happening behind you”-isms, although the occasional jump-cuts and loud musical cues are thoroughly off-putting and kind of obnoxious. When you have images as nice as the ones in this film, long, leisurely takes work much better than jump-cuts or quick-cuts, especially when trying to build atmosphere. It’s a minor quibble, to be sure, but one that definitely took me out a time or two.

While The Canal is full of really rich horror moments/imagery (one of the most unforgettable being the zombie-like figure that gives birth to an equally horrifying child…I’ve rarely seen anything quite that nasty and it’s a truly bracing moment), the main problem, once again, ends up being the familiarity of it all. In particular, Kavanagh and company make two explicit references to Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring (2002), including one where a creepy woman with long, dark hair crawls out of a television set. To be honest, it’s an oddly lazy moment in a film that’s generally much more interesting than that, although the image, itself, still packs a nice visceral wallop.

There’s also an inherent issue with this kind of “did he/didn’t he?” storyline, especially when the filmmakers seem to push one particular viewpoint over the other: while The Canal does take a few twists and turns and does a good job with the kind of open ending that usually causes me to roll my eyes, nothing that happened was really that surprising or shocking. I felt like I knew what was coming from the first reel and, for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Again, this isn’t to cast undue derision on Kavanagh’s film as much as to state the relative limitations of this particular kind of tale.

Despite some minor issues and the aforementioned similarities to other films, The Canal is actually quite exceptional: some of the supernatural elements and imagery were quietly stunning and the relationship drama aspect feels utterly real (almost painfully so). One of the scenes, where David films by the canal as “something” approaches the camera, agonizingly slow step by agonizingly slow step, is really as good as NWoAH films get: there’s a genuine sense of building terror that hits you in the gut like a brick.

Looking through Kavanagh’s back-catalog, The Canal appears to be his most explicitly horror-related film, with the majority of his work seeming to fall into the “dark drama” category. This, of course, makes perfect sense: as mentioned earlier, the dissolution of David and Alice’s marriage has a verisimilitude that makes you want to look away, even though you’re too wrapped up in the events to do so. Here’s to hoping that Kavanagh continues to work in the horror field: there are enough good ideas and stylish moments here to indicate that he definitely has something to say. Hopefully, in the future, he won’t lean quite so heavily on what came before: I have a feeling that Kavanagh’s “roads not taken” might lead to some pretty damn interesting places.

7/26/15 (Part Two): Run to the Light

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Anna Paquin, auteur theory, Carles Cases, cinema, Craig Stevenson, darkness, dead children, dysfunctional family, father-son relationships, Fele Martínez, Fermí Reixach, Fernando de Felipe, Film auteurs, film reviews, filmed in Spain, films, Giancarlo Giannini, haunted houses, horror, horror films, human sacrifice, Huntington's Disease, husband-wife relationship, Iain Glen, isolated estates, Jaume Balagueró, Lena Olin, Luis de la Madrid, Miguel Tejada-Flores, missing children, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, multiple writers, possession, set in Spain, sins of the fathers, sins of the past, solar eclipse, Spanish-American films, Stephan Enquist, The Nameless, writer-director, Xavi Giménez, [REC], [REC] 2, [REC] 4

Back in 2007, before found-footage/first-person-POV horror films had become as standard a fixture in the industry as zombies were before them, Spanish writer-director Jaume Balagueró unleashed a feral little film known as [REC] (2007) on a largely unwitting populace. While the film would go on to produce three sequels (two of which were also directed by Balagueró) and an awful American remake (Quarantine (2008) is, without a doubt, one of the most unrelentingly shitty films I’ve personally sat through), I was taken enough with Balagueró’s style to check out his entire filmography.

Beginning with his feature-length debut, The Nameless (1999), and continuing through Fragile (2005), his short film To Let (2006) and the [REC] series, Balagueró’s films have been darkly stylish, atmospheric fables that combine the stresses of familial interaction with the traditional tropes of haunted house films. In Balagueró’s hands, the sins of the parents always come home to roost on their children, every dark, sinister room holds a secret and mysterious figures have an alarming tendency to slink around while the hapless protagonists are looking in the other direction. In many ways, Darkness (2002) is a synthesis of his myriad themes and influences, all top-lined by an all-star cast that includes Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Iain Glen and Craig Stevenson. Primo Balagueró? For better and worse: absolutely.

Darkness details the adventures of a small family of American ex-pats who’ve been uprooted from their home and moved back to the father’s childhood stomping grounds in Spain. As horror movie families are wont to be, our happy clan is more than a little dysfunctional: father Mark (Iain Glen) suffers from Huntington’s Disease and has a tendency to either fly into manic episodes or collapse into painful-looking seizures; mother Maria (Lena Olin) seems distracted to the point of completely ignoring her children; teenaged Regina (Anna Paquin) is as overjoyed as any kid would be who has to leave all of their friends behind and move to a foreign country just as she’s about to begin her senior year of school; and young Paul (Stephan Enquist) keeps getting his colored pencils stolen by spooky ghost children. You know…the usual stuff.

As their new home, a sprawling, isolated country manor that practically screams “Here there be ghosts” begins to reveal certain creepy, sinister happenings at an alarming rate, Mark begins to channel ol’ Jack Torrance, leading Regina to fear for the safety of her brother, especially after he begins to develop unexplained bruises and injuries. While investigating the convoluted history of her family’s new abode with her new friend, Carlos (Fele Martínez), Regina begins to unravel a strange story that spans back 40 years and involves her father, his father (Giancarlo Giannini), a complete solar eclipse, insane cult members, murdered children and the end of the world. Will Regina be able to save her family from the grip of ultimate evil or will all of her best efforts, inadvertently, bring about the very apocalypse that she so desperately wants to avoid?

When Balagueró eases back on the narrative clutter, needless back-and-forth and pointless quick-cut editing, Darkness is actually a pretty decent “old dark house” film, albeit one with a “twist” that puts it firmly in the camp of someone like Adrian Garcia Bogliano (there are more than a few similarities to his Penumbra (2011), not the least of which is the eclipse element). The problem, as it turns out, is that the writer-director over-seasons this particular dish something fierce: the final 20 minutes are so cluttered, confusing, noisy and melodramatic as to be almost completely off-putting, despite the genuinely intriguing core story.

There’s just too much of everything: too much explanation, too much confusion, too many vague motivations, too much unrealistic interaction, too many noisy jump-scares and musical cues…stripped of all its bulky “clothing,” Darkness would be a much scrawnier film, to be sure, but it would also be one that could stand better on its own two feet. As it is, the narrative (and film) is too overladen to ever move far in any direction. It’s difficult to get fully invested in a story where new elements seem to pop up at random (the bit about the snake and the egg makes no sense, no matter how I try), while old standards like “characterization” leave and return like a wandering sleepwalker.

Lest I heap too much abuse on the cluttered narrative and stylistic issues (when the quick-cut editing falls by the wayside, cinematographer Xavi Giménez produces some suitably attractive, evocative images), Darkness is also plagued by some seriously odd, uneven performances. While Paquin has a few moments that strain credibility (her occasionally halting line delivery is a real head-scratcher), Glen is all over the place and Olin, despite her legendary status, is almost completely worthless. The character of Maria never makes a lot of sense, to begin with, but Olin’s totally “checked-out” performance does no one any favors. Each and every moment of her screentime is painful (for various reasons) and I never could see through to her character’s actual motivations: was Maria crazy? Did she hate her kids? Her husband? Did she actually care about any of it? Each and every reaction and bit of dialogue is so laissez-faire and noncommittal that Maria always seems superfluous to the larger story.

Glen, for his part, goes the full “Nicholson” here (as we all know, you never, ever go full Nicholson), which turns the film’s back-half into something of a poverty-row re-imagining of The Shining (1980): as Mark bellows, huffs, screams, rages and attacks doors with aplomb, in frantic pursuit of his wife and young son, it’s hard not to think back on the far-superior older film. Glen has moments that are nicely realized (unlike poor Olin) but he’s never a particularly believable character, which really hurts any identification we might have with him. On a lesser note, Mark’s Huntington’s Disease never seems to function as anything more than a plot device, leading him to act in whatever manner the narrative calls for at that time. For all the difference it makes, Mark could have been a recovering alcoholic, a schizophrenic or just really angry…like many of the film’s elements, the disease seems as arbitrary as anything else.

Despite my frustrations with Darkness, it’s still impossible to deny that Balagueró has some genuine skill, both as a writer and a director (here, he co-scripts with Fernando de Felipe). When the film is allowed to work on its own merits, there’s some undeniable power to be found: amidst the chaos and noise of the film’s climax, there’s some really interesting observations about familial duty, fate, the nature of reality and weird dooms-day cults. More’s the pity, then, that the whole thing collapses into a soggy mess of evil doppelgängers, frantic action, ridiculous proclamations (“Regina is in her house…in Hell!!!”) and haunted house conceits that would have been moldy decades ago (the scene where a character is pursued down a hallway by extinguishing lights is so well-worn that it’s threadbare).

As it stands, Darkness is an interesting enough part of Balagueró’s oeuvre, even if it never comes close to either its predecessor or the [REC] films that would follow. Think of it as a transitional film, a bridge between his more atmospheric chillers and the action-packed fare that would follow, that first tentative moment where one transitions from walking to running. While his future ended up suitably bright, there will always be a little Darkness in Balagueró’s rear-view mirror, for better or worse.

7/7/15: The Sweet Science

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Best Craftsman in France, Chris Hegedus, cooking competition, D.A. Pennebaker, dedication vs obsession, director-cinematographer-editor, documentaries, Don't Look Back, France, Frederique Lazard, husband-wife relationship, intense competition, Jacquy Pfeiffer, Kings of Pastry, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, mentors, MOF, multiple directors, pastry chefs, Philippe Rigollot, Philippe Urraca, President Nicolas Sarkozy, Regis Lazard, Sebastien Canonne, self-sacrifice, set in France, The War Room

Like many skill sets, it’s quite possible for just about anyone to bake something: with enough time, patience and resources, the clumsiest oaf among us can create baked goods that are, at the very least, edible…even if just barely. Cooking, after all, is as much about science and process as anything else: if you can understand what happens in the kitchen, there’s a good chance that you can replicate it. In theory, at least.

As with anything, however, it takes something a little extra to truly excel. While just about anyone can prepare a dish (under the right circumstances), being an artist is something else entirely. Becoming the equivalent of Picasso in the kitchen requires no small amount of dedication, self-sacrifice, forward-momentum and tunnel-vision: while there are any number of talented chefs spread across the globe, there are very few who could be considered “the very best,” the shining standard to which all other chefs aspire. The “kings of pastry,” if you will.

Veteran documentarians D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus take a look at these “creme de la cremes” of the baking world with their vibrant, thoroughly engaging Kings of Pastry (2009). The film takes a look at the ultra-prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France (literally “best craftsman in France”), a difficult, stressful and intense three-day baking competition that takes place every four years and draws chefs from around the world. Rather than competing against each other, the chefs attempt to prove their worth and earn the coveted “collar,” a badge of honor which becomes a lifelong calling card. Few will make it through the demanding trials and even fewer will earn the top honor: after all, there are plenty of extremely talented chefs in the world but only a few who can be considered “the best of the best.”

For the purposes of the documentary, Pennebaker and Hegedus follow around several different contestants as they prepare for, participate in and deal with the fall-out from the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (known among the participants as the MOF). We spend the most time with Jacquy Pfeiffer, an intense, driven chef who founded the only “pastry-only” baking school in America, but it’s definitely not a one-man show. We’re also introduced to Philippe Rigollot, a devoted family man, and Regis Lazard, a chef making his second attempt at the MOF after dropping one of his creations during his first go-around. Since the MOF trials are four years apart, the contestants spend the time in between honing their craft and preparing: it truly is the Olympics of baking and the chefs must give their whole lives over to the pursuit if they hope to have any chance of success.

As follow around the various chefs, we also get peeks into their private lives and the forces that guide them on their journey. Pfeiffer is the neurotic perfectionist, an artist capable of the most exquisite, delicate pastry sculptures imaginable, yet wracked by such doubt that his girlfriend, Rachel, has to call him every night and pretend that the MOF competition has been cancelled just so he can fall asleep. Rigollot is the nice-guy family man whose kids are his personal tasting judges and whose mother instilled a love of baking in him from an early age. Lazard is the underdog coming back for one last shot at glory: his long-suffering wife, Frederique, wants this to be Lazard’s last MOF attempt so that he can focus on his own business and family. With all of the forces around them, the contestants must attempt to clear their heads and focus on the task at hand.

And what a task: spread out over three days, the chefs must create 40 different recipes, ranging from ridiculously elegant wedding cakes to chocolate sculptures, sugar sculptures and lollipops. They must create razor-thin candy ribbons, work with chocolate that begins to harden seconds after its poured and fight the ravages of humidity (the enemy of sugar, as we’re told), all while under the constant scrutiny of the MOF judges and the ever-present ticking clock. Disaster lurks around every corner (setting the delicate creations down is a nerve-wracking pursuit that seems roughly equitable to juggling dynamite) and the chefs’ fragile nerves are always in danger of cracking, just like their glossy, edible art. The task is almost impossible but the reward is tremendous: the winners will receive not only personal accolades from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, himself, but life-time bragging rights as genuine “Kings of Pastry.”

Despite its bare-bones look and style (the camerawork reminds of ’90s-era PBS documentaries and the score is as repetitive and chipper as video game music), Pennebaker and Hegedus’ film is a thoroughly absorbing and fascinating peek into one of the most demanding cooking competitions out there. There’s a genuine sense of tension and drama to the film that, at times, translates to some fairly white-knuckle moments: the climatic scene involving Rigollot’s sugar sculpture is powerful and heartbreaking, two terms which are rarely equated with cooking competitions. The subjects are all likable and engaging, to boot, which really helps draw the audience in. While we end up spending more time with Jacquy, his daughter, Alex, and Rachel than we do with the others, we get enough time with Rigollot and Lazard to prevent them from seeing under-developed or like afterthoughts.

There are also plenty of nice reflections and commentary from Philippe Urraca, the head of the MOF organization. Urraca is the one who points out the (sometimes minute) separation between the “great” and the “very best,” stating how it can often just be a matter of timing: it actually took him three attempts to become an MOF and now he’s the president of the whole thing…try and try again, indeed! Urraca and the other judges seem to have genuine affection and interest in the contestants, a fact driven home by everyone’s distress over Rigollot’s last-minute catastrophe. Since the chefs aren’t really competing against each other, per se, there’s much more sense of camaraderie and fellowship than in more cut-throat competitions.

Ultimately, Kings of Pastry is a fascinating look into what it takes to become the very best chef in France, a country that is certainly no slouch when it comes to the art of cooking. Toeing the line between dedication and obsession (one contestant was on his fourth MOF, meaning that he’d been working on this for sixteen consecutive years!), Pennebaker and Hegedus show that you need to be all-in in order to become the very best. Come for the unbelievable displays of pastry (in every sense of the term, this film is hardcore, triple-X “food porn”) but stay for the genuinely involving human drama and the ultimate triumph of true believers putting it all on the line for their dreams.

6/28/15: Livin’ the Life

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based on a book, caper films, Charlie Tahan, cheating husbands, cinema, Clea Lewis, crime film, Daniel Schechter, dark comedies, double-crosses, Elmore Leonard, Eric Alan Edwards, film reviews, films, heist films, held for ransom, husband-wife relationship, Isla Fisher, Jennifer Aniston, John Hawkes, Kevin Corrigan, kidnapped wife, kidnapping, Life of Crime, literary adaptation, Mark Boone Junior, Mickey Dawson, mistress, Movies, partners in crime, ransoms, Supporting Characters, The Newton Brothers, The Switch, Tim Robbins, Will Forte, writer-director-editor, Yasiin Bey

A couple of criminals who don’t quite trust each other…a wealthy husband who doesn’t exactly want his kidnapped wife back…a kidnapped wife who doesn’t really want to go home…a Nazi-obsessed associate who’s not completely sane…a love-struck friend who’s almost an idiot…a conniving mistress who’s everything but an idiot…1970s Detroit…sounds like quite the predicament, eh? In the wrong hands, this many disparate elements and plot threads would be an easy recipe for disaster: good thing that all of the above was the handiwork of one Elmore Leonard, the patron saint of quirky crime fiction for over 50 years.

With a battalion of classics under his belt, Leonard’s novels have been a go-to for filmmakers for some time: indeed, one need only look at the tremendous box-office success of adaptations like Get Shorty (1995), Jackie Brown (1997) and Out of Sight (1998) to see what a perfect fit Leonard’s hardboiled, if tongue-in-cheek, prose and instantly memorable characters are for the silver screen. The latest Leonard adaptation, based on his 1978 novel The Switch, is writer-director Daniel Schechter’s Life of Crime (2013). Thanks to a pitch-perfect cast, a great script, exceptional production values and one of those patented twisty-turny Leonard plots, Life of Crime sits comfortably next to the aforementioned classics, proving that good writing never goes out of style.

Louis (John Hawkes) and Ordell (Yassin Bey, formerly known as Mos Def), a couple of small-time crooks plying their trade on the streets of late-’70s Detroit, think they’ve stumbled upon the perfect crime: they’re going to kidnap Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston), the trophy wife of notorious drunk/golfer/real estate baron Frank Dawson (Tim Robbins) and hold her for a $1 million ransom. With the assistance of their Nazi-obsessed associate, Richard (Sons of Anarchy’s Mark Boone Junior), the pair pull off the kidnapping without a hitch, spiriting their captive away to Richard’s “safe house.”

The problem, of course, is that Frank is a real asshole: he’s currently canoodling with his mistress, Melanie (Isla Fisher), in the Bahamas, and could really give two shits about his wife’s situation. Even worse, he’s actually planning to divorce Mickey and marry Melanie: as such, Frank and Melanie decide to call Louis and Ordell’s “bluff” and refuse to pay for Mickey’s safe return. This, obviously, isn’t quite what they had in mind: after all, what use is a kidnappee if no one wants to pay for said person?

As Louis and Ordell try to figure a way out of their situation, complications arise exponentially. Creepy Richard develops an unhealthy interest in Mickey (he’s particularly fond of peeping on her via numerous hidden holes throughout his house), Frank and Mickey’s family friend, Marshall (Will Forte), is secretly in love with Mickey, blundering his way into the sticky situation and Melanie is working some angles on her own, constantly keeping an eye on the ultimate prize of lifelong financial security. To top it all off, Louis finds himself developing feelings for Mickey, who proves herself to be made of much steelier stuff than all of them put together. Will Louis and Ordell get their “just rewards?” Will Frank get the comeuppance that he so richly deserves? Will poor, pathetic Marshall ever get a clue? As our hardy group of oddballs knows, living a life of crime may not be easy but it sure as hell ain’t dull!

There are a lot of moving pieces to this particular game and, to Schechter’s immense credit, he manages to make the whole thing look rather easy. Working from his own script (he also edited the movie), Schechter proves a steady hand with not only the acting and dialogue (paramount to any Elmore Leonard adaptation) but also the film’s numerous setpieces: the opening scene where Ordell runs over a thug with his van, the kidnapping and Richard’s SWAT team stand-off are all top-notch action scenes, executed with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of flashy nonsense. One of the film’s best moments is the fist-pumping scene where Marshall escapes from Richard, set to the tune of “Don’t Pull Your Love”: it’s a brilliantly executed, fun and endlessly thrilling scene, recalling nothing so much as the giddy heights of Tarantino’s trash-culture aesthetic.

Production-wise, the film looks and sounds fantastic: cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards gives everything a crisp, colorful burnish and the ’70s-era mis-en-scene is effortless, as far from gimmicky as a period piece can get. The score, courtesy of the Newton Brothers (who also did the score for Oculus (2013)) is equally great, accentuating the action scenes while keeping us right in the funky, swaggering heart of the 1978 Motor City.

As good as everything looks and sounds, however, the acting is what really vaults this particular production over the top. To put it bluntly: there isn’t a bad apple in the whole batch. Hawkes and Bey are absolutely fantastic as the untrustworthy partners, so symbiotic in their performances that they come across as a well-oiled, decades-in-the-making cinematic team. Aniston is extraordinary as the kidnapped wife, finding not only the vulnerability but the inherent strength of her character: the scene where she pokes a lit cigarette into Richard’s peeping eye isn’t just an awesome moment (which it certainly is) but it’s a perfect representation of Mickey’s growth as a character. Robbins and Fisher are equally great as the slimy philanderers, with Fisher bringing a miniature universe of subtle tics, quirks and facial expressions to her performance: it’s a role that could have been utterly thankless but, in Fisher’s hands, becomes something much more interesting.

On the supporting side, Boone Junior is a revelation as the kooky supremacist, finding the perfect balance between empty-headed animalism and a slightly sympathetic doofus: it’s nothing whatsoever like his role in Sons of Anarchy and makes me wish more filmmakers utilized him in better roles. Forte is typically great as the simpering, slightly confused friend who holds an unrequited torch for Mickey, showing that he slips into dramatic roles with the same ease that he does comedic ones. And, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that one of my all-time favorite actors, Kevin Corrigan, even gets a bit part as a put-upon police detective: he may not get much screentime but he hits an absolute home-run with what he gets.

All in all, I was massively impressed with Schechter’s version of this particular Leonard story: not only does he hit all the right beats and tones (the film is actually much more serious than it at first seems, winding up in the same general tonal area as Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, rather than Sonnenfeld’s Get Shorty) but he really makes the material his own, no small feat when we’re talking about Leonard. When the film wants to make you laugh, it has no problem doing so: the interactions between Ordell, Louis and Richard are absolutely priceless, culminating in the fantastic scene where Mickey finally gets a wide-eyed look at Richard’s assorted Nazi paraphernalia, to which Louis deadpans, “What’s the matter: don’t you like history?” When the film wants to thrill you and keep you on the edge of your seat, it has no problem doing that, either: the actual kidnapping scene is one of the best I’ve seen in recent years.

As a filmmaker, Schechter has been on my radar ever since his low-key, clever treatise on film editors, Supporting Characters (2012), first crossed my path some years ago. At that time, the writer-director-editor definitely seemed like someone to keep an eye on: his latest film only confirms my original belief. Here’s to hoping that Daniel Schechter finally earns a spot at the Hollywood “big kids table”: in an age where multiplex action films are big, loud and dumb, Schechter’s brand of subtle, smart thrills sounds like the perfect antidote. At the very least, someone needs to get him funds for another Leonard adaptation: when the iron is this hot, you damn well better keep striking.