Hail, Caesar! Review

"Would that it were so simple."

At first glance the new Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar! feels light and breezy, a fun homage to 1950's cinema, but always remember who we are dealing with here. There is a reason so many people (myself included) wait for a revisit or two of their work before declaring their cemented opinions of it. A Coen picture is typically assembled with immaculate precision and a level of intelligence that is often not fully appreciated until years later, and Hail, Caesar! is yet another glorious film that fits right into their wonderful mold.

Here we are told the story of Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), a man working as a fixer for the Hollywood studio Capitol Pictures, a career riddled with chaos and the somewhat scattershot plotting of Hail, Caesar! embraces the concept that we are following a day in his life. It's unconventional and is certain to turn some viewers off because it feels as if we are fed a lot of information that amounts to very little, but that's exactly the point. It's a perfect symbolic representation of the inner turmoil of Mannix, a day of being pulled in so many different directions and it all amounts to very little, and starting and ending Hail, Caesar! with scenes of him inside a Catholic church confessional serves as the subtle touch that made me love this film so much more upon reflection. This movie is disguised as being "about" what feels like a major plot point in the storytelling, the kidnapping of their biggest star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) and the pursuit of bringing him back in time to finish shooting their most important picture, but really Hail, Caesar! is always about Mannix and the irony of his position as a fixer when he is so desperate to fix himself. 

That isn't to say that Hail, Caesar! isn't also a sublime example of what it feels like on the surface, a fun homage to 1950's cinema. It slathered me in a warmth of nostalgia that I shouldn't even comprehend considering I wasn't born until the mid 80's. The film taps into the era with such honesty and absurdity, a totally welcome and essential balance, and while my experience with that decade comes only through the very medium they are celebrating I felt like I had returned to something special. 

A perfectly cast Coen film, from the aforementioned Brolin and Clooney to Ralph Fiennes, Alden Ehrenreich, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, and many others, including an inspired supporting performance from Channing Tatum (I fall more and more in love with this man every time I see him in something), it's easy to be charmed and find some pleasure in the experience that Hail, Caesar! provides, but it wasn't until I played it back in my mind and then gave it that good ole' second viewing that I discovered what an achievement they have here. Is it peak Coen for me? No, but that shouldn't be regarded as a flaw considering what a tall mountain that is to climb, with my deep love for work like The Big Lebowski, Inside Llewyn Davis, No Country for Old Men and A Serious Man forcing my expectations for their brand of cinema to reach unreasonable heights. If Hail, Caesar! is just a notch below, second tier Coen if you will, that's mighty fine by me.

4.5/5

The Huntsman: Winter's War Review

Four years ago the film Snow White and the Huntsman was released and it made a fair amount of money, but in these days of bloated budgets and unreal financial expectations a total worldwide cume of under 400 million isn't much to get excited about. The film starred Kristen Stewart at a time when she was regarded as nothing more than the girl from the Twilight franchise, and I don't remember the specifics but I know that her lack of inclusion in a sequel was seen as a positive, as if she was the force on the picture imposing limitations. The irony of this of course is that now Stewart has proven herself to be one hell of an actress, delivering inspired supporting work in films like Still Alice and Clouds of Sils Maria, and here we are witnessing the release of The Huntsman: Winter's War, a movie that inspires absolutely nothing.

To be fair though, the failures of this film are not due to any performance issues as the cast is not only star-studded but completely worthy of delivering the goods, bringing back some gorgeous faces from the first film like Chris Hemsworth and Charlize Theron and adding in Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain (this war is not short on aesthetically pleasing humans). The problem is that the material they are given to work with is flat, dull and completely silly, but not in an amusing put a smile on your face sort of way. The jokes don't land and the drama won't make you care a lick, which is a troubling combination for a film trying to entertain in both ways.

I never expected a ton from this movie, but I will admit having some hope of at the very least finding it a bit compelling when I saw the cast additions. Emily Blunt is an outstanding talent and Jessica Chastain is one of my favorite actors working right now, but the screenplay for The Huntsman: Winter's War was dead on arrival. Splitting credit for these words are Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin, and the issue here isn't so much that the dialogue is outright bad, it's that it is downright bland. Everything I witnessed and all that was said have been done before and better, making watching the film more of an exercise in going through the motions rather than ever being moved in even the slightest way by the material. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I yawned more than I smiled during the 100 or so minutes of cinema here.

Consider the science of physical attraction and the chemical reaction we naturally experience when we see something beautiful, a cocktail of wonderful rushing through our system. By this logic, just merely putting such a cast on the screen should appeal to our senses in some fashion, not to mention the obscene amount of money pumped into modern visual effects and the choreographed action sequences designed to excite an audience.

It's almost literally physically impossible to be as bored as I was by The Huntsman: Winter's War.



1.5/5

Preparing for Civil War - 5 Favorite MCU Films

Some may be feeling the superhero fatigue, both from the volume of films being released from the sub-genre and also the vitriol being spewed from the fans from each side (call me an optimist, but I root for them all to be good), but I doubt any of this will harm the box office totals that are about to roll in for Captain America: Civil War. The film is going to be insane business, and from the look of it rightfully so because I am expected something special.

As this will be the 13th film released since the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems like a solid time to run down the best of the bunch, my personal five favorites thus far. I hope to amend this soon when I get a chance to see Civil War.

5. Iron Man

The one that started it all eight years ago. It seems crazy to think of all that has happened since the first Iron Man was released, seeing as how it isn't even an old film by any standards. The MCU has done a magnificent job of world building since it kicked off and Robert Downey Jr. has been the engine that made the whole universe go. The first Iron Man film also happens to still be the best Iron Man film.

4. Captain America: The First Avenger

This one being in the top 5 may surprise people because I know loving it is a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I think the introduction to Captain America is an absolute blast, beautifully standing up as an action packed superhero film and also a fun period piece. The aesthetic of the era really stands out and the chemistry between Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones and Sebastian Stan gives the entire picture a heavy dose of charm. I have come to realize that Cap is my favorite Avenger and it all starts with this movie.

3. The Avengers

I still remember how much I doubted that this whole thing would really work when it all came together. I didn't quite appreciate just yet how the patience of Marvel to establish all of their characters before delivering the big show would pay off so wonderfully, but Joss Whedon found a way to balance all of the big personalities and make them each shine thanks to delicious dialogue and an exciting plot. So much fun, a Blu-ray I can put on anytime and just sit back, relax and admire the spectacle.

2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Prior to seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I had one major complaint about the MCU solo films: the villains. They never really did much for me, and that is such a let down. Ever since I was a kid, I loved being unnerved by a great bad guy. Enter the Winter Soldier, a kick ass character that owns the frame when he is a part of it and the entire film turned out to be absolutely terrific. I had such severe doubts about this movie because the choice of directors seemed so random and out of place, calling on Joe and Anthony Russo to take the helm when they had previously been focused on comedy, and yet they crushed an absolute home run here. Now I am thrilled that those same brothers have taken on Civil War and will also be behind the camera for the Infinity War. 

1. Guardians of the Galaxy

If a film based on a comic book wants to win my heart, it needs to feature a terrific script, outstanding characters and a stunning aesthetic. Guardians of the Galaxy fits the bill and thus is my favorite film from the MCU thus far. Endlessly clever and exciting and utilizing grandiose world building by writer/director James Gunn, I can't stop smiling watching Guardians and the fact that it also hits me pretty hard emotionally at times only adds another layer to why I love it so. This movie is one of those releases that exemplifies why I love going to the cinema.

Will Civil War push its way into my top 5? As I said earlier, I am an optimist and my anticipation for this one fits right into that mold as everything involved in the marketing and the proven talent involved tells me this is going to be a film I adore in 2016. Can't wait to see it, but for now revisiting these joyous MCU entries will have to do.

Paris, Texas Review

"I wanted to see him so bad that I didn't even dare imagine him anymore."

Against the desolate backdrop of a desert setting, the man simply doesn't belong there. He wanders into the frame and even his clothing doesn't add up, a sport coat, shirt and tie still affixed but dirty and worn from the environment, along with blue jeans and a bright red baseball cap. After pausing for a moment, he continues to walk and the camera statically presents a long shot of an expansive landscape with seemingly no end in sight and no signs of life in any direction. Who is this man? Where did he come from? Where is he going?

The beauty of this scene as a starting point for the story of Paris, Texas is that through silence the audience is already asking themselves questions, and yet the most important answers given aren't for any of them. The specifics of where his journey begins and his intentions of how it will end are not essential in these frames, but what is clear is that this is a man who is lost in more ways than one. What do you see when we first get a look at his face? Nothing? I would argue everything, because that nothing is something profound. There is an emptiness to him that is startling and I couldn't help but wonder if he even wanted to be found. Whether it be the reason he is out there in a literal sense or that something preceding these circumstances was the emotional causation is yet to be determined, but a tragic feeling drips from every step he takes.

The camera cuts and we see him reaching at least a tiny piece of civilization, structures erected by man rather than God, and his body gives out in the presence of humanity that can save his life. It's an early indication that his plight isn't meaningless, that there is something that drives a man that seems so hollow at first glance. His name is Travis Henderson, and he is played with subtle brilliance by the great Harry Dean Stanton, and his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) arrives at the hospital as his ticket home, back to the life he mysteriously left behind four years earlier. A life with a beautiful wife and a newborn son, and the pieces of what went wrong are slowly put together by Walt attempting to communicate with Travis on their drive together, but the dialogue is quite literally one-sided as Travis remains totally silent. We learn that his son Hunter is being raised by Walt and his wife Anne, left there by a mother who could only support a child financially but not emotionally. Eventually Travis begins to speak and the tone of his words change throughout the picture, as if he was starting over in his silence and building himself back up from whatever shattered him in the first place.

Director Wim Wenders crafted an absolutely beautiful masterpiece, and I love that Paris, Texas tells a deeply personal and moving story without ever seeming to try too hard to do so. If you are looking for flashbacks to paint the picture of hardship and loss, don't expect them because we aren't supposed to see those moments. We feel them through character and dialogue, including a sequence later in the film that takes place in a private booth at a strip club that rivals any monologue I have ever heard in cinema. I found myself leaning forward with each word that eloquently left Travis' mouth, and despite a steady cadence it was impossible not to feel the passion and pain in him as he relived such heartbreak and regret. I was being pulled in by a screenplay that hits every note with precise honesty and realism and a lead performance that delivered on the promise of those written words. Amidst an entire film that feels perfect, it's awkward to declae moments that are the best because absolutely nothing here is flawed. How can there be a best if there isn't a worst? Yet somehow Wenders delivers an experience that elevates itself from merely sublime filmmaking to a final act that is nothing short of miraculous. 

Back to that very first scene, I was instantly distracted by his hat, a shade of red that felt strikingly vibrant given the muted, lifeless world that surrounded him, and it was fascinating to witness the way Wenders filled these landscapes with color and utilized it along with lighting to tell a story within a story. If you look closely, you can spot these colors everywhere in Paris, Texas, even during scenes set in the darkness of night, whether it be a traffic light or the glow of the horizon off in the distance. When we first meet Hunter, he is presented to his father in a classic white button down shirt, a look of innocence and purity that was bestowed upon him by the only parents he knows, his Aunt and Uncle, yet when he leaves with Travis on their quest to find his mother they are matching in red, a jarring shade that is reminiscent of that hat. I can't help but believe these colors are portraying the conflict in their hearts and minds. Both Travis and Hunter are hurt by loss and abandonment, and it isn't until they have found something deeper, something soothing that seems to resolve their angst that they are allowed to bask in a mellow glow of green.

This just doesn't happen very often, and I have learned to not take it for granted. The type of cinematic experience that isn't merely "great" but one that makes you completely alter a list of all time favorites. Paris, Texas has a poetic gracefulness to it that washed over me like a calming wave, and while it bathes us in a feeling of sadness it does so with purpose and meaning. Wenders and screenwriter Sam Shepard had a story to tell and they did so with multiple strokes of beautiful perfection. I can't stop replaying the entire film in my mind, and I slow it down during that scene and remember how moved I was by that monologue. The tears that stream from her eyes as his words bring back the memories filled with pain and regret. The way each of them turns their backs to each other as they reveal their souls and we get to see the honesty of this moment resonate, allowing them to bask in that mellow glow of green.




5/5

Hush Review

The closet door is slightly ajar and I notice my daughter staring at it. I know instantly what is happening but I ask anyways.

"What's wrong?"

Her answer is some sort of generic denial, but I see it in her eyes: fear. It may be irrational to some that a tiny area filled with clothes would be capable of terrorizing someone mentally, but it's honest and real. We all have those buttons that we never want pushed, the specific concepts either based on fantasy or facts that send a chill down our spine. For her it's a creature derived from imagination from a mind too young and naive to realize what doesn't exist cannot hurt you. For me it's the dangerous possibilities of reality. It's the motivations of the deranged. I believe in monsters too.

From director Mike Flanagan comes a new horror film Hush, a Netflix original that is simple yet disturbingly scary. Maddie (Kate Siegel) is a deaf and mute writer living in a nice home in the woods, a solitary life by choice. I will spare you the details of how it all goes down because that's much of what leads to that ugly, uneasy feeling in your stomach as you witness it unfold, but this is a new entry into the home invasion sub-genre that has a way of destroying my nerves and consuming me with a level of fear that makes me nauseous. The added wrinkle here is such an experience from the perspective of Maddie, a voiceless woman in a soundless world at a time when one absolutely wants to hear what's coming. Being afraid of the dark takes on a whole new meaning when the only thing that can save you is your sight.

One of the most interesting choices from Flanagan is the way he uses sound, a means to actually allow us to experience what it's like to be Maddie rather than just tell us her condition through storytelling. Early on we are in the room when the smoke alarm goes off and the sound and flashing light pulses the frame, a sensory experience that is designed to be jarring, yet from the perspective of Maddie it's actually somehow worse. The silence in that moment is deafening as I sat there thinking about her vulnerability.

Being afraid of the dark is quite common because it's unsettling to have to wonder what could be lurking in the shadows that light would otherwise expose. Some scenes in the film were actually too dark visually, which can be a bit frustrating while watching but I believe this was done intentionally for additional realism. We are seeing what Maddie would actually see, not an artificial lit set piece, and the disorienting nature of relying on our vision to pierce through the darkness of night only invokes an even stronger feeling of anxiety. The only real issue I took with the film started when a new character enters the picture and the predictability factor started to kick in, which to that point it had completely avoided, but Hush still managed to utilize plot devices like the memory of her mother's voice and Maddie's desire to fight until the bitter end as ways of maintaining a certain unique vibe to the film and fleshing out her character nicely without her having to say a single word.

Hush has a way of making every window feel like a threat rather than a welcoming gateway to the outdoors. I took a second during the film and became frighteningly aware of just how visible I was and I was overwhelmed with a sudden desire to lower all the blinds and check the locks. When the man outside first appears, he is masked and the imagery of him watching her is horrifying yet something about his look felt cliched, following in the footsteps of a history of horror cinema depicting masked killers. When he removes it and we see the face of reality, as if an inhuman entity suddenly becomes a personification of pure evil, his existence is far more terrifying. He is played by John Gallagher Jr., a wonderful talent seen in films like Short Term 12 and 10 Cloverfield Lane, and the fact that he is recognizable didn't subtract an ounce of fear from my rapidly beating heart because the scariest thing in the world is knowing that his character isn't the creature hiding in the closet. He is the monster that I believe in. The type that actually exist.

It's why I close the closet when I know my kid is afraid. It doesn't matter if it's rational or not, we all are afraid of something and we all long for the comfort of knowing we are safe. Hush may not be perfect cinema, but it's a rush of tension and terror that just may have you leaving a light on late into the night thanks to focused low budget filmmaking and intelligent plotting involving such characters and circumstances.

I tried to remind myself it was just a movie, but I'm sure I had that look in my eyes. The genuine fear of the unknown and what could be. Hush is effective enough to push that button.



4/5

The Boy Review

I know one thing for certain: we have all been bored during a film before. It happens. The question is, what do you do with that boredom? Do you fall asleep? Complain about the failings of the film either aloud or internally? Play around on your phone?

I ask because over the past few years as I have found myself exploring more and more cinema, I have found myself to be bored beyond comprehension a number of times. I've learned to channel that complete disinterest in the movie into something mildly entertaining, an exercise in taking what I am watching and making light of it in a way that I find humorous. For example, when I sat through the awful mess I, Frankenstein, I came up with a television series concept using the title Yo, Frankenstein, a coming-of-age story portraying the four years of college attended by Frankenstein's monster. With a terrific script and a dedicated showrunner, it could be something special.

So now that I have set the table, time to sit down and take a bite of The Boy, the new horror film from director William Brent Bell. It's a painfully boring, completely uninteresting genre piece that feels so stale and silly, my only option was to entertain myself, especially considering I honestly did fall asleep at one point. It was a less than a minute power nap, but it happened. The film tells the story of a nanny being hired to watch a doll named Brahms, a pale little faux boy with a specific set of rules that must be followed in order to keep him happy. I once knew a woman who gave her husband a list of tasks that must be accomplished that day, and she specifically laid out the rules of how he would accomplish them. For a moment The Boy was her origin story. However, the film threw a curve ball during a scene in which the pretty nanny is walking around in her underwear and she notices creepy Brahms staring at her from across the room. Unsurprisingly this makes her feel very uncomfortable, with a look on her face that felt familiar to the one young me saw on a daily basis when I first discovered the beauty of the female form. Perhaps The Boy was my origin story. Perhaps I was Brahms.

Do you see how ridiculously I am rambling here? This is because of boredom. I should probably mention the part in which I started taking the name Brahms and finding various new film titles that I could fit it into seamlessly. For example:

Brahms v Superman
Louder than Brahms
The Jungle Brahms
Everybody Wants Brahms
Suicide Brahms (or Brahms Squad)
Brahms One: A Star Wars Story
Midnight Brahms

Dipped a bit into television with Game of Brahms, Brahm's Anatomy and The Big Brahms Theory.

Let's get back on track here: the point is, The Boy is a really poor picture. The performances are okay, not great but also not a disaster with Lauren Cohan doing mediocre work in the lead as the nanny. The script is serviceable at its best and terrible at its worst, the direction is without any sort of flash or sizzle to spark any sort of interest and the attempts at being scary or unnerving in any way fall flat, which is a bad sign for a horror film. There is a twist I guess, but whether you care or not will be entirely dependent on your interest level when it happens. As you might have guessed, I didn't.

Watching a film like The Boy is a reminder that I need to appreciate some of the great films from the genre released recently like The Babadook, The Conjuring, It Follows and especially The Witch. I feel like I have seen The Boy dozens of times already, and the end result is always the same: falling asleep for a minute followed by playing games in my head to keep me amused. It's the only way to survive such a lame excuse for cinema

Alright, let's go classic:

Brahms of Arabia
The Good, the Bad and the Brahms
Modern Brahms

Alright, I'm done.




1/5

Eraserhead Review

A few nights ago I had two vivid nightmares over the course of roughly six hours of sleep, both involving myself being stuck in the crossfire of gun violence. The locations and the circumstances all felt horrifyingly real, and when I awoke from these bouts of chaotic slumber I had to take a second to remind myself of a much more peaceful reality. It's a strange feeling, that moment in which self created terror and the realization that everything is going to be alright collide. A part of me wants to bottle it and experience that euphoric level of relief whenever I am feeling uneasy. The rest of me hopes to never face that kind of fear in the first place.

When someone has a nightmare, the response from a loved one is always one of sympathy, a goal to remind those haunted by their own subconscious mind that there is nothing to fear. I find that not all unsettling dreams are created equal. When I am plagued by visions soaked in realism, I want to run the other way and never look back. To see myself or those closest to me stuck in a situation that taps into my deepest fears isn't a pool I want to dip my toes into. When those dreams are dark yet surreal, when I can remember the smallest details of an abstract and amazing world my mind somehow created, those are the nightmares I welcome. Those are the nightmares that I crave.

Unfortunately I don't have those experiences anymore. When I was a child they would dance through my mind with regularity and I always remember being scared and yet excited to relive the imagery throughout the following day at school. What better way to distract myself from reading and math than colorful demons and gorgeous, fictional worlds?

I can't help but wonder if this is why I always find myself falling in love with abstract, surreal cinema. Rarely can I comprehend what I am seeing the first time around, hell sometimes I will never fully understand the motivation or thematic depth of it all, but I don't need it to make sense to wrap myself up in the picture as if it were a warm blanket. I just let the seemingly absurd frames and my feverish sweats captivate me and admire the craft of the film rather than try too hard to piece together the narrative puzzle, and that is exactly what I did with the David Lynch classic Eraserhead. 

Shot in black and white, we follow Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) as he marries his girlfriend named Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) after finding out she gave birth to their "child", an alien looking creature swaddled up in its crib which only makes the entire scene feel more deranged. They move into Henry's apartment and soon after Mary leaves in a rage of panic and tears, falling victim to the constantly crying "baby" and the claustrophobic environment of their home, and I think Mary is a representation of a good portion of the audience of this film that would bail halfway through. One thing that is abundantly clear is that Eraserhead and the work of Lynch in general isn't for everyone, and this is a film that will absolutely fry your nerves and drive you insane, and that even goes for those that adore it. Eraserhead is designed that way intentionally, using space and ingenious sound design to destroy our senses and fill our minds with paranoia and dread. It is impossible to ever feel a sense of calm or normalcy while watching this film because Lynch doesn't want us to. At times while watching Eraserhead I just wanted it to end, yet once it did I kept looking back at this bizarre, memorable journey only to realize how appreciative I was to have finally had the experience.

All I can do is cherish filmmakers who craft pictures that feel like the dreams I once had, like more demented adaptations of the films I used to show myself in the middle of the night. It might be difficult for some to understand, but I find the right kind of nightmare to be soothing, perhaps not during it but after when I am able to recognize just how imaginative and wondrous the human mind can be.



4/5