Monthly Archives: January 2018

2018, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Leave No Trace (Sundance 2018): Growing Beyond Your Parents

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Somewhere in the middle of the woods, a father and his daughter live alone in what seems to be a permanent camp. It is soon revealed that Will (Ben Foster; Hell or High Water) and Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) are actually living in a national park, far off the beaten path to avoid contact with patrons. They are mostly self-sufficient, taking only infrequent trips to the nearby city for basic tools when necessary, until Tom is spotted by a runner. The authorities later arrive to take them away and they are placed into state-sponsored housing and assistance programs. For the first time in her life, Tom is exposed to society and the possibilities it brings.

The pacific northwest setting envelops each scene. The trees tower over the cast with the tops far out of frame. They create a harsh beauty to Will and Tom’s living arrangements. The film doesn’t shy away from the rain either. The characters are palpably soaked and their camp feels worn with use.

As Will and Tom are taken in by government agencies, director Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone) makes a small statement on their effectiveness. While their accommodations are good and the people assisting them care for their well-being, the mandated processes are shown to be ineffectual. Will has to take a comically long survey (400+ questions) that he is not mentally prepared for and Tom is immediately separated from him, her only companion. It may not be the focus of the film, but this slight commentary is welcome.

Tom’s growth to independence is well portrayed by McKenzie.

So often films examine parents dealing with difficult children, but here Granik is interested in the reverse scenario. As Will pulls them out of their generous state sponsored housing into more precarious situations, his actions raise doubts in his previously obedient daughter. Tom starts to realize that there is something beyond a desire to live outdoors going on with her dad. He has some sort of compulsion to get away from society and it soon revealed that Will is a veteran, likely suffering from PTSD. This is incredibly complex subject matter, but Granik is able to weave through it as Tom gains a better understanding of what she needs versus what her father needs.

Leave No Trace is a film about quiet, gradual realizations. Tom’s growth into an adult is a steady change. McKenzie’s performance is subtle and understated as she takes note of each red flag. Her arguments with her father are compassionate, honest pleadings rather than the shouts of an angsty teen and the composure she displays is impressive, as are her interactions with her father. Foster and McKenzie exhibit the unspoken understanding that comes with close relationships and their affection for each other is obvious. Typically, when there is a story of a man alone with his daughter in isolation there are heinous actions involved, but not here. In the face of Will’s PTSD driven actions, they are still a loving family. As Tom matures and must reevaluate her relationship with her traumatized father, hard, adult lessons are learned. Granik succeeds by making Tom’s journey to understanding her father gentle and nuanced.

4/5 stars.

2018, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Mandy (Sundance 2018): Trippy, Campy, Cage-y

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This may be the most Metal movie made in years. Chapter headings, characters, and the overall art design of the film seem to have spilled out of a Megadeth album cover. Directed by Panos Cosmatos, the story follows a lumberjack (Nicolas Cage; Adaptation) and his wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough; Oblivion) who live in a peaceful cabin until Mandy catches the eye of a cult leader and it is up to Cage to save her.

The beginning part of the film is what anyone who saw the director’s first feature, Beyond the Black Rainbow, would expect. Cosmatos loves his eighties aesthetics and particularly enjoys hallucinatory visuals. Early parts of the film are shot with high contrast color and, when drugs are introduced, VHS-era strobe effects. These scenes are uniformly gorgeous and, at times, surprisingly intimate. When the husband and wife are alone in their cabin there are moments of unexpected closeness shared between loved ones. Riseborough has limited screen time but she turns a supporting role that would have been little more than a plot device into a genuine character that shows motivation and depth of thought behind her actions.

It’s the second half where the film leaps headfirst into camp. Mandy is kidnapped by demons summoned by the drugged-out cult, but these aren’t the classic red creatures with horns. These are motorcycle and ATV riding humanoids wearing armor covered in nails and an unknown black liquid, shot mostly in silhouette. They wield grotesque weapons, swing heavy chains, and only communicate through snarls. When they are introduced, Cosmatos drops the glacial pace and focuses on playful violence between these hellspawn and the one and only Nicolas Cage. Instead of finding a gun, he casts and forges his own sinister looking battleax to fight the demons. Yes, the film is that Metal.

For the past decade or so, Nicolas Cage has become a running joke as a source of unintentional hilarity. His choices of terrible projects combined with his signature overacting have led to a cult following from bad movie lovers and Cosmatos fully embraces this baggage. He throws his star into increasingly preposterous action scenes from catching a demon in a private moment to a chainsaw fight. These scenes are made comical by Cage’s mere presence. A stupid, incongruous grin after landing a successful hit is enough to elicit laughter and Cosmatos times these glimpses of Cage-isms perfectly. If anything, his use of Cage is too understated (relative to some of Cage’s other roles). Cage has very little dialogue which deprives the film of the overcommitted line delivery he is known for. It may be one of his better performances in years, but the film didn’t necessarily need the best Nicolas Cage performance, it needed the most Nicolas Cage performance a la Vampire’s Kiss or The Wicker Man. The film will still be enjoyed by fans of midnight movies and by Cage’s own following, but it’s impossible not to wonder what a truly unhinged Nicolas Cage could have added to the film’s campy thrills.

3/5 stars.

2018, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Sundance 2018): True Compassion

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In retrospect, it’s hard to understand how Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood made it into a second season, much less 31. As the film notes, it has, on paper, the makings of a complete failure. The production values are cheap and incredibly plain, the pacing is deliberate, and there are no pratfalls or easy humor. Comparing it to a film like Minions shows how it goes against everything we expect from entertainment made for children. Yet, despite this, the show not only persisted but made an indelible cultural impact on generations of viewers.

Morgan Neville, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker behind 20 Feet from Stardom, wisely focuses on this impact rather the man himself. This isn’t a traditional biopic. It does include background on Rogers’ early life and his family, but Neville is more interested in the ideas behind the show. He covers how Rogers had clear goals with his content. He wanted to help children grow and deal with the issues they may be facing, to an almost radical degree. The film pulls footage from the earliest episodes in the late 60s and early 70s where he explicitly talks about topics ranging from assassination to Watergate – on a children’s show! It was his direct tackling of issues that allowed him to help children without ever talking down to them.

Mr. Rogers’ genuine kindness comes through every frame of the film.

The film also addresses several common questions related to Mr. Rogers. The most common of which is of course: “Is he really like that?” The answer is an unequivocal yes. Neville does his research and includes interviews from Rogers’ wife, children, and collaborators on the show all of whom attest that he was indeed the man he appeared to be on screen. The film disproves several ludicrous rumors about Rogers’ background, but also examines why these rumors even existed in the first place. The sad truth is that the questions about his background come from a place of disbelief. How can someone really be that kind? It’s a shame that our first instinct is to doubt someone rather than celebrate their virtues and Neville points out how Rogers’ consistent behavior and beliefs caused many, especially those closest to him, to reevaluate their lives.

Ultimately, the message behind Fred Rogers’ show can be found in the film’s original title. It was initially called It’s You I Like after a song frequently performed on the series. Neville shows that Rogers wanted children to believe in their own value and feel loved, regardless of where they came from, and used his show as an entryway into their homes. Through countless interviews and fan interactions, Neville reiterates how this message of self-worth changed the lives of so many. Children heard his words as if being spoken directly to them. In some of the film’s many emotional moments, adults who grew up with the show thank Rogers’ for the influence he had on their lives and his profound effect becomes apparent.

At the end of my screening, the director shared the one requirement given to him by Rogers’ widow, “Don’t make him a saint”. Neville carefully avoids this trap because it would lessen Rogers’ impact. Saints and their actions are beyond the realm of regular humans and portraying Rogers as such would have absolved us of our own responsibility. Instead, Neville aims and succeeds in showing that the legacy Rogers left behind and the central emotion behind his life’s work is one we all can and should strive for: true, human compassion for all those around us.

five stars

5/5 stars.

2018, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (Sundance 2018)

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When news broke that Robin Williams had committed suicide in 2014, the world was shocked. How could a man that brought laughter into the lives of so many be depressed to the point of taking his own life? Given his fame and the global response to his passing, it was inevitable that someone would take a deeper look into his life and director Marina Zenovich (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired) and HBO Films have done just that. The documentary follows Williams from his childhood to his early comedy career to his dramatic roles later in life and features several interviews with loved ones as well as footage from many of his performances.

The excerpts from Williams’ career prove one thing: he was a comedic genius. Each of his colleagues talks about how electric his energy was and the clips show how he could extemporize and create new jokes at any moment. It’s a never-ending joy to watch him perform and a delight to see how hilarious he can be even off the stage and when not on camera. A great moment shows him heckling the crew for an interview for telling him that his hair is slightly tussled and exemplifies how quickly he could turn the slightest comment into a laugh out loud moment with seemingly no effort. The documentary does a solid job of showing his rise to fame and the performances that led to each step in his career.

The film shows how Williams could steal the spotlight in even his guest appearances.

Through the film’s many interviews, we get a better sense of who his closest friends were. The most touching of these are with his eldest son, Zak, and Billy Crystal. His son provides a glimpse into how Williams was around his family and the effect that needing to entertain the public had on his private relationships. Billy Crystal, to my surprise, appears to have been Williams’ best friend and had a long, loving friendship with him. Crystal, along with some very personal voicemails left by Williams, explore some of the isolation that Williams felt. The candid nature of both interviews and clear affections each individual had for Williams can at times make the film almost hard to watch. Both are still very much in pain as they talk about Williams, but their confessions provide the deepest insight into the comedian’s life.

The major failing of the film is that despite its overlong runtime it doesn’t explore much of Williams’ psyche. We can infer some of the pain he must have faced before his tragic passing and there is evidence that he had been dealing with depression his entire life, but we’re left wanting for a better understanding of his state of mind. What pain was he dealing with? Why did he feel so alone when there were clearly many that loved him? Films about comedians, whether fiction or documentaries, often reiterate that being a comedian can be excruciating with several secretly being depressed. With Williams’ potentially falling into this category, providing more detail into his thoughts would have helped explain this unfortunate trend. As it is, Come Inside My Mind, offers sufficient information about Williams’ rise to the upper echelons of comedy and plenty of hilarious clips but, ironically, doesn’t include the desired depth into his thoughts.

3/5 stars.

2018, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Revenge (Sundance 2018): Fun, Cathartic Violence

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In a PG-13 world filled with safe, widely appealing films, Revenge sticks out like a sore thumb. From first time French director Coralie Fargeat, the film is a rape-revenge story with a uniquely empowering spin. It opened to rave reviews at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival to the point that Sundance made an exception and allowed it into their Midnight film lineup despite the fact it had already debuted at another festival. At a remote and luxurious house, Jennifer (Matilda Lutz; Rings) spends a weekend with her wealthy – and married – lover Richard until a couple of his hunting buddies arrive unexpectedly. The four drink and party together until she is raped by one of Richard’s friends. When they try to cover up the crime, she escapes only to return with a score to settle.

Despite the seriousness of the topic, Fargeat keeps the tone of the film light. The sexual violence is, thankfully, not shown in detail and the movie instead focuses on Jennifer’s actions. This subgenre has always been filled with issues of exploitation and even misogyny and the director knows that. She completely plays into the tropes of these films with Jennifer’s introduction being a ridiculous satire of more leery movies. Jennifer joins the film with sun-kissed hair, wearing a bikini, and even sucking on a lollipop – an obvious wink at the Lolita trope so many female characters are subjected to.  As the lead, Lutz is able to shoulder the transformation from objectified trophy to relentless killer. Later in the film, her weary, but focused expressions show her conviction. There is a slight issue with her accent. Jennifer is supposed to be American, but that is never convincing with Lutz’s forced diction. Fortunately, it rarely holds the film back. After the violence begins, our heroine’s appearance completely changes into a determined killer and it is the male characters that become exaggerated.

Lutz makes a stark transformation from her initial appearance.

Again, the director plays up their villainy to comedic effect. The male cast becomes increasingly gross and lecherous with their own incompetence becoming more apparent with every scene. Fargeat isn’t interested in subtlety. She has clear intentions on how the audience should feel about each character and uses those feelings to justify the violence to come. When Jennifer comes back to hunt down her attackers, Fargeat relishes each stab and gunshot. Every death leads to equal parts cringing and laughing as the extravagant suffering plays out.

More than anything, the film has a love for bloodshed. Every injury is shown in grisly detail far beyond the realm of reality. Cuts spew blood to the point that characters are literally tripping in their own fluids. For some, this may lessen the impact of the film. Characters, particularly Jennifer, undergo major injuries and keep fighting with what should be incapacitating wounds, but they continue until the director wrings out every last drop of blood. It may not be the gritty, realistic survival story some are looking for, but Revenge provides the fun, cathartic violence that genre film fans will love without falling into the gender representation issues that are often tied to this type of story.

3/5 stars.