Tag Archives: Shame

2020, Top Lists

Most Anticipated Films of 2020

Leave a comment

With 2019 coming to a close, here are my most anticipated films of the upcoming year. Note that titles from last year’s list that were delayed to 2020 have been excluded here (like I’m Thinking of Ending Things which would otherwise be near the top).

12. Underwater (1/10/2020)

William Eubank is one of the most promising young sci-fi directors working today. He brings big ideas and grounded emotions with incredible special effects and visual flair. His two films to date (The Signal and Love) were not complete successes but they showed a filmmaker with potential to do something special if given the right canvas. Underwater is his first studio film and while the January release date and multiple delays are worrying, I’m still hopeful for a thriller with a unique vision.

11. Another Round (TBD 2020)

Rejoining many of his team from The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg has another impressive project in the works. Starring Mads Mikkelson and co-written by Tobias Lindholm, the film follows a group of high school teachers that experiment with being intoxicated throughout the day after learning of a theory that claims it is beneficial. The precarious plot and the combination of Vinterberg, Mikkelson, and Lindholm mean we can expect plenty of taut drama.

10. Color Out of Space (1/24/2020)

The producers of Mandy have re-teamed with Nicolas Cage for an adaptation of a short story by H.P. Lovecraft. The premise is strange, but that’s to be expected given the pedigree. Festival reviews have been positive and it looks like another great opportunity to see the great actor at his craziest and at his Cage-iest. The film is also the return of director Richard Stanley (The Island of Dr. Moreau) and is a welcome entry in the growing number of fun B-movies made with A-grade talent.

9. Next Goal Wins (TBD 2020)

Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) is directing a live-action remake of the acclaimed documentary about the football team of American Samoa going from being a terrible team to qualifying for the FIFA World Cup. The sports underdog story should allow Waititi plenty of situations to craft his signature brand of goofy humor and the casting of Michael Fassbender (Shame) in the lead role is an interesting twist. Fassbender is an incredibly talented actor, but he hasn’t starred in a comedy before. His inclusion is an exciting wildcard in what I hope will be a sports comedy to rival the likes of Shaolin Soccer.

8. Tenet (7/17/2020)

Using in theaters only trailers and previews, the hype machine for Tenet has already begun and with good reason. Christopher Nolan is one of few filmmakers that is as critically acclaimed as he is commercially successful granting him the chance to make original ideas with budgets usually reserved for established franchises. Nolan has called Tenet his most ambitious film yet and it appears to involve time travel elements that will create Nolan’s favorite puzzle-like structure for the narrative and will likely have film fans discussing what happened and in what order for months after release.

7. Mank (TBD 2020)

David Fincher (The Social Network) hasn’t directed a film in half a decade so his next feature is long overdue. Based on a screenplay by Fincher’s late father, the film follows screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he writes the script for Citizen Kane. Fincher has shown his mastery of period details in Zodiac and Mindhunter and with Gary Oldman in the lead role, this will be much more than the typical biopic about a Hollywood insider.

6. The Lodge (2/7/2020)

The only film on this list I have already seen, The Lodge is a psychological thriller from Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (Goodnight Mommy). Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road) plays a future stepmom with a traumatic past left alone at a remote cabin with her two future stepchildren. What follows is a tense and troubling series of inexplicable events that cast doubt over all the characters. Franz and Fiala are unrelenting in their commitment to unnerving horror and the end product is satisfyingly ruthless.

5. A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (TBD 2020)

Aardman Animations (Chicken Run) is still the best stop-motion animation studio working today. They are masters of slapstick humor and use expressive puppets and fluid movements to bring their stories to life. The original Shaun the Sheep Movie was an absolute delight that showed how much humor can be mined from characters that don’t even speak. Farmageddon released in the UK recently and the feedback has been just as positive as for the original.

4. Dune (12/18/2020)

His last film (Blade Runner 2049) may have flopped at the box office, but Denis Villeneuve demonstrated that he was more than capable of bringing a complex science-fiction world to life. Villeneuve is being given something the previous adaptations have not had, at least not concurrently. He has a blockbuster movie budget and his film will only cover the first half of the book, reducing the risk that the film will suffer from a condensed plot. A sequel based on the remaining half of the novel as well as a television series spinoff, also directed by Villeneuve, have already been announced placing significant confidence in this new adaptation of a beloved novel.

3. Annette (TBD 2020)

Leos Carax is definitely an oddball. His last film (Holy Motors) featured everything from motion capture suits to chimpanzees to talking cars, but somehow worked. He has the manic energy and absurd plots to make films that seem like the work of a mad genius. His newest film is his English-language debut and sadly the first to not include the great Denis Lavant as the lead, but it does have Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard to compensate. The story is supposedly a musical about a girl with a special gift. There is no telling what any of this could mean, but the unpredictability is the most exciting aspect of any Carax project.

2. Memoria (TBD 2020)

Another English-language debut, Memoria is the newest film from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives). Starring Tilda Swinton and set in a mountain village in Columbia, the beauty of the area will provide ample opportunity for his contemplative style and his focus on nature.

1. About Endlessness (TBD 2020)

After finishing his trilogy “about being a human being”, Roy Andersson (You, the Living) returned to the Venice Film Festival this year with About Endlessness. Like his previous work, the film uses the same stark artifice for ironic humor, but initial reviews have noted a more emotional tone. Andersson is one of the most distinct filmmakers alive and it is entirely fitting that he release a 70 minute film titled About Endlessness. I can’t wait.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Leave a comment

Five years after Prometheus began the Alien prequel series, Ridley Scott returns with Alien: Covenant. The film picks up with an entirely new cast aboard the titular ship, this time a colonization vessel headed to a far-off target. It is operated by an android named Walter (Michael Fassbender; Shame) until an electrical storm requires him to wake the crew from stasis. As they work on repairs, the ship picks up a transmission from a nearby planet that appears to be a viable candidate for their new colony. The crew seize the opportunity to start their new lives early and dispatch a team to investigate. This leads them to David, the android from Prometheus (also played by Fassbender), curiously alone on the planet,

Fassbender is again the highlight of the film. His performance in the dual role is able to distinguish the two android iterations in very subtle ways. The differences in regard for others, self-preservation, and thinking process all convey the slight reduction in Walter’s humanity and the effect it has on his behavior. Furthermore, the androids provide the biggest source of thematic allegory in the film. There are several biblical allusions, both overt and subtle, throughout the story, but David and Walter as Cain and Abel is a fitting comparison, particularly given David’s own obsession with creation. As the two interact and David examines Walter’s consciousness, the film recalls Scott’s own Blade Runner. The line between independence and subservience becomes a compelling question but is unfortunately only barely touched upon.

The contrast between Walter and David is the film’s most interesting idea.

The major problem with Alien: Covenant is that it devotes too much effort to not being Prometheus. The first Alien prequel had such a vitriolic backlash that it is understandable why Scott would prioritize placating franchise fans, but in doing so he prevents Covenant from having an identity of its own. As flawed as Prometheus was, with its characters acting in nonsensical ways, it had a distinct feel from the main Alien films. It was about big ideas, like the origin of life itself, and had huge set pieces as opposed to the narrow corridors of the early Alien films. The hook of the film, humanity meeting its creators, justified the expedition and the risks it required.

In contrast, Covenant feels like an unnecessary side story. The new cast checks the boxes of an Alien film, but isn’t relevant to the greater fiction. The film can’t compete with Prometheus in terms of its narrative thrust and gorgeous, sprawling sets but also can’t rival the high-strung horror tension of Alien. It even continues the problem of characters making obviously stupid mistakes. They take enormous risks with little caution and without the potential reward to rationalize their decisions which makes the consequences they suffer bring little sympathy. Even when their actions are valid, most of the cast is still inconsequential to the series which gives the audience little reason to invest in them. Without a distinctive personality or greater franchise implications, Alien: Covenant can’t help but feel like Scott is treading water until the next prequel which will hopefully bring the franchise into new, more inspired territory.

3/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Song to Song (2017)

Leave a comment

Continuing his rapid pace of releasing movies, Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line) sets his newest film in the music scene. It features a star-studded cast with Michael Fassbender (Shame) as a music producer, Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Rooney Mara (Lion) as performers, and Cate Blanchett (The Lord of the Rings) and Natalie Portman (Black Swan) as other women who get wrapped up in their series of short-lived affairs.

The film’s “plot” is barely present and the few discernable aspects are disappointing. Supposedly, Song to Song is a romance, but there is nothing remotely romantic shown. Malick is known for not using traditional scripts. He relies on actors to improvise scenes based on only the setup and never have the pitfalls of this approach been more apparent than the scenes of what I can only assume was intended to be romantic chemistry. The actors have big smiles on their faces as they attempt to have authentic, playful interactions. Instead, they come off as annoying or severely cringe-inducing, best exemplified in a scene where Fassbender hops around a beach screeching and scratching like a monkey. As painful as these scenes are to watch, I can only feel sorry for the actors that had to perform them.

There is also a worrying trend regarding the treatment of women. Malick has been known for infantilizing his female characters. They are often young, innocent girls or adult women who display a pure naivete, but this previously appeared to come from a good place. It seemed like a celebration of innocence rather than a restriction on what women could do, but his new films have revealed some disturbing ideas. As in his last film, the women here are treated as sexual objects to be used, cast off, then reused when needed. They may have their own motivations but Malick’s portrayal shows them as little more than ways for his hedonistic male characters to satisfy their own desires.

The upscale parties and general opulence offer little reason to feel for the characters.

Visuals have always been Malick’s strong suit, but even that seems to be deteriorating. Using his regular cinematographer, the incredibly talented Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity), he is again able to create some stunning natural-light footage. Yet, there are a few confusing choices that mar his normally perfect images. Several scenes were shot on location at the music festival Austin City Limits and some use GoPro-like cameras. This was likely done to get closer to the action of the mosh pits, but the lower-resolution fish-eye shots do not mesh with the rest of the film. Their low-quality is a glaring fault. There is also a strange overuse of oblique angles. Many scenes are off-kilter close-ups of an actor’s face. Perhaps this was done to convey the subjectivity of the character’s thoughts, but instead it is only distracting. These unfortunate choices detract what would otherwise be the film’s greatest strength.

One of the few changes to Malick’s style is his use of music. His usual ethereal, orchestral score is still present, but, due to the setting, more modern music is also included. These songs offer some desperately needed energy to the film. Their use helps add variety to the soundtrack and breaks up the overused strings. It was perhaps the only modernizing of Malick’s approach throughout the film.

Song to Song is almost a repeat of Knight of Cups but set in the music world instead of the film industry. Like that movie, there are people living in exorbitant wealth while pursuing their dreams that are inexplicably mopey. Characters go after their desires in selfish ways and, when the obvious consequences occur, Malick expects the audience to sympathize with them. But, why would we? He, like his characters, appears to be living in a bubble. There are no sympathetic or relatable characters here, only sketches of vague emotions. The frequent voiceovers are filled with pretentious, pseudo-philosophical thoughts that are often unrelated to anything onscreen and read like midnight scrawlings from the director’s bedside notebook. His narrative films after the flawed, but magnificent The Tree of Life, if you can call them narrative films, have been a continual letdown. Malick’s work has sunk further into incessant navel-gazing and his visual style is no longer enough to make up for it. Song to Song is another exercise in Malick’s recent string of insufferable self-indulgence.

1/5 stars.

2016, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

Leave a comment

Finally rounding out the year’s lineup of video game adaptations is Assassin’s Creed. The popular video game franchise launched in 2007 and sparked eight mainline sequels and several more spinoffs selling over 90 million copies across the games. Unlike many adaptations, the premise, while far-fetched, provides an intriguing setup for a blend of sci-fi and historical action. After he is executed by lethal injection, Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender; Shame) wakes up in a strange research facility with Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard; Midnight in Paris), a scientist leading the Animus project. The Animus, a giant mechanical arm that connects to the spinal cord of the user, taps into data stored in DNA to relive the memories of ancestors. Sophia and her father want to use Callum to find the Apple of Eden, a mysterious object that can control humanity, through his ancestor Aguilar (also played by Fassbender), an Assassin during the Spanish Inquisition who is the last person they know to have had it.

The film spends far too much time on exposition. This is a common mistake in storytelling in interactive entertainment but ironically it was never an issue in the early Assassin’s Creed games. The games would have the player in the historical setting for at least 80% or more of the time, but the screenplay calls for the majority of the film to be in the present so they can explain the adversarial history of the Assassins and the Templars. The games threw you into the action and let the player, along with the main character, discover the greater story as they played, but the screenwriters here instead opted to stuff in as much setup as possible for the sequels that were clearly in mind at the film’s conception. The movie opens with an explanatory text crawl that is groan-worthy and further exposition is always just around the corner. Unfortunately, all this additional explanation only weakens the story. Each further detail creates plot holes rather than filling them. If the writers had been willing to leave more unanswered, the backstory would have been intriguing rather than perplexing or, in many cases, silly.

The film spends too much time in the present trying to rationalize its setup.
The film spends too much time in the present trying to rationalize its setup.

Justin Kurzel (Macbeth) is able to fluidly adapt the series’s action. Known for incorporating an acrobatic style based on using counter attacks, the fighting could have easily felt distant without the interactive element. This happened in 2010 with Ubisoft’s other major film production, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, where the signature parkour didn’t translate to the big screen. Combat is clearly sped up, but the increased speed isn’t overly disorienting. Kurzel also makes the unexpected decision to transition back and forth between Aguilar fighting in the past and Callum fighting through the same experiences in the present. Doing so adds an extra dimension to the action (literally) as we see how Callum is affected by his time in the Animus.

This is the second time this year we’ve had a talented indie director take on a large video game movie and the result is again a moderate success. Kurzel was able to maintain some of the harsh realism found in his previous work as he moved to this larger project. The historical scenes don’t try to emulate the lighthearted tone of Marvel films or the self-seriousness of the DC extended universe. The world feels dirty and unforgiving. He also has the benefit of an incredibly talented and, more importantly, committed cast. Even minor roles have their moments with actors like Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) stopping by to add gravitas to the screenplay. Kurzel isn’t able to escape the forced exposition typical of the genre, but the unique premise combined with his gritty staging of action scenes make the film stand out in the crowded blockbuster space.

3/5 stars.

2016, Recent Reviews, Reviews

The Light Between Oceans (2016)

Leave a comment

Despite its similar naming structure, The Light Between Oceans, shares few similarities to its predecessor The Place Beyond the Pines. Set in Australia shortly after WWI, the film stars Michael Fassbender (Shame) as Tom Sherbourne, a veteran hired as a lightkeeper for a remote island. Soon, he meets and falls in love with Isabel (Alicia Vikander; Ex Machina). After their marriage, they have two miscarriages within three years leaving Isabel despondent until a rowboat washes ashore. Inside they find a dead man and the baby girl that will forever change their lives. Tom attempts to report the incident, but buckles under Isabel’s desire to have a child.

Once the little girl, Lucy, enters the picture, Tom and Isabel’s lives are filled with joy. They play with their new daughter and show her off to their family and friends. The hapiness lasts until her christening where Tom spots a tearful woman, Hannah (Rachel Weisz; The Deep Blue Sea), praying in front of a grave for her husband and infant daughter who were lost at sea the same day he found Lucy. Racked with guilt and unable to persuade Isabel to confess their sins, Tom leaves a note for Hannah letting her know her baby is safe, but her husband is dead. What soon follows is a messy situation. Lucy taken from the parents she knows to the rightful mother she wants nothing to do with as Tom and Isabel face repercussions of their actions.

In its early parts, The Light Between Oceans resembles a Nicholas Sparks movie. The leads only require one picnic before Isabel brings up the idea of marriage so they can spend the next 10 minutes handwriting cliche-ridden professions of love a la Dear John. “I never knew I could talk about the way I feel”, writes Tom. Cianfrance’s films are known for their raw intensity of character interactions. He’s been called an “actor’s director” because he is able to create an original intimacy even in predictable situations, like the relationship in Blue Valentine. This makes the overly simplistic beginning to the central romance especially disappointing. Fassbender and Vikander are a real life couple, but their early scenes of courtship (or rather the single scene) feel forced. It’s like the director looked at the actors and said “Be perfect for each other” and started rolling. Isabel’s optimism doesn’t match with Tom’s taciturn demeanor and it’s unclear why either has developed affection. Fortunately, the romance becomes more believable as the two grow closer during the hardships they face.

The gorgeous scenery monopolizes the early parts of the film. Excessive, but beautiful.
The gorgeous scenery monopolizes the early parts of the film. Excessive, but beautiful.

The Sparks comparison extends to the setting and cinematography. The film is set by the ocean with an overabundance of landscape shots. Granted, the visuals are breathtaking. Ocean waves crashing against the shore and lonely sunsets dominate the first half of the movie. While aesthetically stunning, the focus on the backdrops unnecessarily slows down the film’s pace and has the unintended effect of distancing the viewer from the central conflict. The fading light of the sun seems to carry equal importance to Tom and Isabel’s relationship early on, but Cianfrance lacks the ability to imbue meaning into the natural imagery. He is not Terrence Malick.

In the final act the film, Cianfrance finally delivers on the emotional resonance he is known for. Actions have consequences, and the depth of Tom and Isabel’s relationship is shown, not told, as they take steps to protect each other. Here, the professions of love are earned. In some ways, The Light Between Oceans is Cianfrance’s version of a Merchant Ivory film. Romantic, but deliberately old-fashioned with his natural inclinations muted until the end. Still, not many filmmakers working today can match Cianfrance’s ability to draw out an emotional response. The feelings come like waves hitting the rocks of the island, overwhelming and powerful. While the The Light Between Oceans starts out slow, the scenery is enough to carry the film to its piercing final third.

4/5 stars.