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2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Maudie (2017)

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Sometimes our hobbies can unexpectedly turn into our professions. Maudie is the story of Maude Lewis (Sally Hawkins; Layer Cake), a woman with who, due to damage from childhood arthritis, is deemed unable to take care of herself and lives with her aunt, painting for own enjoyment. Tired of being bossed around by her aunt, she answers the ad of Everett Lewis (Ethan Hawke; Before Midnight), a local fish salesman, looking for a live-in maid to clean his tiny 1-room house. The film covers her path to becoming a famous artist whose art is sold all over the country.

Our introduction to Maude is almost repulsive. Because the character is based on a real person, her portrayal receives extra scrutiny. Is she getting the respect she deserves? Hawkins is committed to the performance, but, given the character’s serious physical ailment, the film’s approach is manipulative, capitalizing on her appearance for the audience’s sympathy. This is only exacerbated when she leaves her aunt to become a live-in maid for Hawke’s character. We’re supposed to root for her independence and view her aunt as a villain, but the director (Aisling Walsh) hasn’t yet provided a reason to dislike the aunt. Sure, she may be overprotective, but Maude leaving to live with a complete stranger who doesn’t even have a separate room or bed for her doesn’t seem like the right alternative. This exploitation of her condition makes the early section of the film unintentionally uncomfortable.

Hawkins does her best in the role, but it ends up being very reductive.

The romance between Maude and Everett begins in an equally concerning manner. It is immediately clear that the leads are going to become a couple, but their relationship begins as borderline abusive. Everett, as her employer, berates her constantly and belittles her by saying she is less valued than the farm animals. Hawke depicts him as gruff, intellectually limited, insecure about himself, and quick to anger because of it. Everett doesn’t view respect as necessary for his employee and is deliberately condescending. He is even physically abusive when Maude voices her opinions. Everett is hinted at having had a difficult childhood from being raised in an orphanage and some of his behavior may be typical for the time period, but it adds traces of Stockholm Syndrome to their courtship. It makes their eventual marriage seem like less of a true fit for Maude than her only option given her poor situation.

Maude’s eventual rise to success is heartwarming. She starts taking more control of her relationship with Everett and helping him manage his business until her recreational paintings get noticed by her husband’s clients. Her art soon earns more money than Everett’s fish and their roles swap with him taking on the housework so she can devote her time to painting. This is where his affections for her become more explicit and their relationship starts to look like a true partnership. Finally, the often-cloying direction becomes less bothersome. Hawkins portrays Maude with such an innocent spirit that her accidental success in spite of her modest goals is a welcome event. The real-life character is endearing, but Walsh’s coercive manipulation and the suspect inception of Maude’s relationship add an inadvertently problematic tone that lingers over all aspects of the film.

2/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

The Sense of an Ending (2017)

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What does an old man think of in his twilight years? Two things come to mind: his end and his youth. Based on the award-winning novel by Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending follows Tony Webster (Jim Broadbent; Cloud Atlas), a retired man who owns a small camera store. His life is routine until he receives an inheritance letter from the mother of an old girlfriend – his first serious relationship from his college years. She leaves him a diary and the event jogs memories he had buried away for decades. Unsure of why or what she would leave him, he tries to recall his past and reconnect with his ex to understand what could have made her mother remember him through all those years.

Despite its acclaim and short length, Barnes’ novel had been dismissed as a poor choice for adaptation. The novel was defined by its use of an unreliable narrator, a mechanic typically better suited to literature than to film. Its major theme was memory and the way it changes over time with the main character devoting page after page to discuss his own philosophy on the subject. Director Ritesh Batra chooses to overcome this obstacle by moving away from the nature of memories to discovering missed parts of one’s own past. He views Tony’s memories as incomplete due to his own preoccupation rather than inherently subjective.

Batra adds a gentle tone to the story.

Batra continues the intimate style exhibited in his first feature, The Lunchbox. He directs the film with a gentle, affectionate approach. Camera movements are slow and unobtrusive with characters held in shallow focus to not distract the audience. He is interested in the heart of these characters, not a display of style, and Batra’s restrained hand makes Tony a much more sympathetic character than he could have been. His impact is most evident in conversations. Characters speak to each other with a candid familiarity that betrays their remaining feelings. Few actual words are shared because they can communicate the message nonverbally. They have known each other long enough to fill in the blanks. This warm tone makes the film inviting, pulling the viewer deeper into the story and allowing them to let their guard down with the characters which is meant to make the final revelations all the more shocking.

However, despite his strength with mood, Batra can’t overcome issues with the screenplay. The film has mixed success in adapting the book. The script, by necessity of the medium, makes the ending much more conclusive. This may ruin the suspense for some. Where the book sparked conversations afterwards, the film’s explicitly sealed narrative will leave many unimpressed. The lack of an unreliable narrator might have been needed for the translation to film, but it deprives the story of most of its mystery. Instead of questioning each detail for its validity and wondering what else could have taken place, we just wait for the next piece of info to be handed to us. The script’s structure succeeds in keeping the audience following, but not inquisitive. Batra’s gentle direction is greatly appreciated, but the concessions made when changing mediums sap the story of its most compelling feature: its intrigue.

3/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Beatriz at Dinner (2017)

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There’s nothing like a dinner party gone awry. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, and potentially friendship ending. This is the scenario Miguel Arteta (Cedar Rapids) has brought to life. Salma Hayek stars as Beatriz, a masseuse and homeopathic healer that works in a cancer clinic by day and does work for private clients on the side. After her car breaks down at the house of one of her long-time customers, she is invited to stay for their dinner party until help can arrive. However, she is not their typical house guest. The dinner forces her to come into contact with a local real-estate mogul, played by John Lithgow, who couldn’t be more different from her.

Beatriz immediately stands out from the other dinnergoers. She is plainly dressed and unadorned. She is dwarfed by the other dolled-up, statuesque women and can’t relate to their superficial discussions. It takes several minutes before anyone else even acknowledges her presence. Initially, she is fairly reticent. It’s not until she has had a few glasses of white wine that we get to see her opinions come out. She quickly establishes herself as strong-minded and willing to call out others on their behavior, even to the dismay of her hosts.

Beatriz is completely out of place with the elite, ultra-wealthy guests.

Hayek is completely convincing as Beatriz. Despite being an actress known for her looks, she inhabits the role. Her Beatriz is unpretentious and caring. She bonds with animals and claims to literally feel the pain of others. Even as she starts to disrupt the evening, her intentions are selfless and her heart is kind. Hayek’s greatest triumph is that she is able to portray the character without ever becoming preachy. She doesn’t have a holier-than-thou attitude. She only wants to heal and prevent others from being hurt.

The timing of the release brings new, potentially unplanned, meaning to the premise. With the current political climate of the U.S. divided on immigration, what services may or may not constitute a redistribution of wealth, and an ever-growing income disparity, the characters could easily be seen as symbolic with Lithgow’s character representing the far right and Beatriz as the left. However, Arteta leaves most of the allegory up to the viewer, choosing instead to focus on Beatriz’s reaction when confronted with someone who leads a drastically different life with a polar opposite moral compass (if any).

The allegory becomes less about the rich and the poor and more about those that heal versus those that cause suffering. Beatriz sees healing as not only the most noble, but the most difficult occupation and she has devoted her entire life to that cause. Eventually, she wonders if prevention is better than healing. What if she could stop a source of suffering rather than deal with its aftermath? This becomes her albatross. How does she deal with this man whose actions are entirely damaging? By examining how to stay true to your beliefs when faced with your literal antithesis-made-flesh, Arteta lifts Beatriz at Dinner from a simple comedy of manners to an introspective crisis of morality.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

It Comes at Night (2017)

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In a boarded-up cabin somewhere in the U.S., a family lives in isolation. Paul (Joel Edgerton; The Gift), his wife Sarah (Carmen Ejogo; Selma), and their teenage son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) lead strictly regimented lives. After a needed, but traumatic act is performed, Travis begins to have nightmares about what their living situation requires. Their routine is interrupted when a man named Will (Christopher Abbott) breaks into their house, claiming to be searching for supplies for his family.

While Travis may be conflicted about their actions, Paul has no such quandaries. Edgerton plays the character with a harsh, but necessitated practicality. Every rule they adopt and action they take is designed to protect the family. He doesn’t view things as right or wrong, he sees them as safe or unsafe. When Will enters the picture, it complicates his perspective. He sees himself in Will, another man just trying to take care of his wife and son, and takes some measured risks to help him. It’s the uneasy trust between the two families in the face of the outside threats that is thematic center of the film.

The cinematography, particularly within the cabin, is incredible. Director Trey Edward Shults (Krisha) moves his camera through the house like a cat burglar, smoothly creeping into each room. It maintains its distance however, adding a sense of voyeurism to the images. The sight of Travis quietly walking around the house is always unsettling. His movement is lit only by his lantern whose light reflects off the wood paneled walls like a flashlight held under one’s face during a fireside ghost story. There is tension with every creaking of his steps and the film is at its best when the seclusion and supposed safety of the cabin is translated into fear of the unknown beyond its one entry point, an ominous red locked door.

The foreboding lighting makes their cabin a precarious setting.

There’s a disconnect between what many will expect and what the Shults is interested in delivering. The title, while fantastic for the right type of horror movie, is misleading. It implies that the film is a monster movie, which it clearly isn’t. This is a film that examines the effect of extreme pragmatism created in the wake of a society destroying event. It’s not about creatures in the dark, it’s about the extent to which people lose their humanity when acting solely in their own interest. It’s the conflict between altruism and self-preservation and the risks that either choice creates. The title and marketing hint that there is or could be something beyond the human dangers, but there isn’t – or at least it doesn’t manifest during the course of the movie.

That isn’t a spoiler, it’s a preface. The film does itself a disservice by playing into the tropes of a monster movie. This decision creates an expectation in the audience for something supernatural which will cause many to be disappointed and overlook the other stellar components of the film. It Comes at Night is a deliberate thriller suffused with atmospheric tension that deserves to be appreciated for what it is and not maligned for what it occasionally pretends to be.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

The Mummy (2017)

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Starting off with its own motion graphic, The Mummy heralds itself as the beginning of Universal Pictures’ Dark Universe, their own cinematic franchise built from their classic monster movies. Unlike Marvel or DC, Universal hasn’t had its characters in the public eye for many years. Their most recent effort was the Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz-starring version of The Mummy, so it’s logical that Universal would use a reboot of those films as a launching point for their franchise. But, this is more than a simple reboot. The previous Mummy films were goofy, Indiana Jones-esque action-adventures that didn’t take themselves too seriously. The 2017 film wants to be the next action blockbuster and has its own mythology with only a wink towards earlier entries.

This version has Tom Cruise and Jake Johnson as soldiers in Iraq that accidentally open up an ancient Egyptian tomb. The archaeologist accompanying their squad, played by Annabelle Wallis, recognizes the importance of their discovery and the sarcophagus is put on a plane back to England. Mid-flight, the mummy’s power manifests in ways that allow it (Sofia Boutella) to escape and continue her quest to unleash the Egyptian god of death, with the intent of using Cruise’s body as its host. Beyond the central plot, the film also lays the foundation for future entries into the franchise with Russell Crowe playing Dr. Jekyll, the leader of Prodigium, the Dark Universe’s own Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Boutella is an interesting choice for the mummy, but doesn’t receive the screentime needed to leave an impact.

Cruise, for all the money he must have cost, is still a capable leading man during the action set pieces. Despite his age, he can hold his own even when leaping out of planes or going hand-to-hand with the undead. His Achilles heel is anytime the script requires him to be the loveable rogue. Many recent blockbusters, from Jurassic World to Guardians of the Galaxy, have shoehorned in a “will they or won’t they” romance between the male and female leads and The Mummy is no exception. Cruise and Wallis are written as the film’s own Han and Leia, but without any of the actual chemistry. Their relationship doesn’t develop as feelings grow, instead the filmmaker’s treat it as the only natural outcome between two attractive leads. The foregone conclusion makes their mutual jabs irritating and unnecessary rather than playful or charming.

The greatest flaw of the movie is that in trying to launch a new, expansive franchise, it bears the burden of appealing to as many people as possible. Unlike the Marvel movies that are able to have their solo character entries occupy a distinct genre, e.g. The Winter Soldier as a spy thriller, Kurtzman and his script attempt to incorporate elements of nearly all of today’s most popular films. There is the large-scale action like the airplane scene pulled straight out of the latest Mission Impossible movie, even going as far as copying their image compositions, the standard “witty banter” between the leads from a Marvel movie, and, surprisingly, the jump scares required of a horror movie. For his part, Kurtzman is adept at handling the action and creating tension even when the overall plot is obvious. He can’t however create a cohesive tone to the film. All the spastic genre switching creates the opposite of their desired effect. Instead of appealing to everyone, The Mummy is a film that doesn’t have enough of an identity create the fervor it so desperately wants. By trying to be everything at once, it spreads itself too thin to leave a lasting impression. It’s competently built but doesn’t make the case for a new fan following and leaves the fate of the Dark Universe in the hands of the subsequent films.

3/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Band Aid (2017)

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There are few things as uncomfortable as being in the middle of a couple’s fight. The deep-seeded differences and inescapable feeling that the argument is just one of many can be agonizing. Zoe Lister-Jones (New Girl) has used this difficult scenario as the foundation of a comedy-drama. Anna (Lister-Jones) and Ben (Adam Pally) are a 30-something married couple stuck in a rut. Their friends are having children and rewarding careers while they have dead-end jobs and are constantly at each other’s throats. Instead of repeating the same fight over and over again, they decide to start a band and use their quarrels to write music.

As ridiculous as it may seem, the act of singing their frustrations is rooted in psychotherapy. Famous marriage counselors like Esther Perel use similar techniques like blind folding and roleplaying in couple’s therapy to deal with recurring issues. The use of song here abstracts their conflicts from their deeply personal roots and allows the leads to express themselves without descending into damaging attacks. It’s amazing to see how these makeshift therapy sessions allow the couple to address their marital problems.

The songs themselves won’t hold up to repeated listens. They have a very deliberate garage band crudeness without the benefit of a music producer. These aren’t the playlist-worthy tracks of a John Carney movie. While the singing talents of Lister-Jones and Pally are surprisingly adequate, the songs only work in the context of the film to provide humor and healing. The live performances and amateur lyrics are sometimes clumsy but always evocative of the irritating minutiae of a relationship and the positive effect the band has on their marriage is heartwarming.

Lister-Jones is able to balance the pain and humor of a failing marriage.

The sheer amount of humor is joyous. Lister-Jones turns everyday arguments into comedic commentary on relationships and the differences that divide men and women. She is acutely aware of the minor mannerisms that escalate into larger fights and her chemistry with Pally is perfect. They have the familiarity needed to make both their affections and insults feel authentic. Fred Armisen (Portlandia) as their strange neighbor and drummer kills every scene he is in. His unnervingly agreeable nature is a delight in the midst of Anna and Ben’s often explosive interactions and leads to plenty of awkward laughter.

Lister-Jones has stated that her goal was to make “a [John] Cassavetes comedy” and she has mostly been successful. She effectively examines both the male and female perspective in the central relationship without favoring either side. She impressively handles emotional scenes, but does make some larger generalizations about each gender. She posits that most men have a certain type of thinking process whereas most women have a completely different method, going as far as saying that they should be considered different species. The nuances of this comparison are well thought out, but it neglects the similarities that join the genders. Lister-Jones never considers the common ground between men and women which can sometimes make her assertions feel slightly reductive and incomplete. Still, Band-Aid remains an absorbing and consistently hilarious directorial debut.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Alien: Covenant (2017)

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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

Free Fire (2017)

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Imagine if you made a movie based on the last scene in Reservoir Dogs. Ben Wheatley (High-Rise) has done just that. Free Fire is about an illicit weapons deal gone wrong. A large cast of criminals featuring Sharlto Copley (District 9), Brie Larson (Room), and Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger) is forced into an impromptu battle when two of their lower henchman let a personal, unrelated conflict escalate into violence. As the gunfight continues, loyalties are questioned and it’s unclear who (if anyone) is likely to escape.

You could call Free Fire a bottle film but Wheatley pulls variety out of the setting. The abandoned factory is littered with structural beams, remnants of machinery, and building materials that serve as impartial cover during the shootout. The area is rarely shown in its entirety which makes each person’s hiding spot unreliable. The audience, like the characters, doesn’t know how exposed everyone is and if someone might be creeping around a corner to get an angle on an outstretched leg. The action becomes WWI-style trench warfare and the constant danger makes what is essentially a movie where the cast spends most of the runtime laying on the ground a tense shootout.

Copley’s arms dealer cares about his outfit as much as the sale.

There is a nice mix of humor here. The action, while explicit, is played for slapstick laughs. Characters are often shot in the leg or grazed on the shoulder making their damage a painful annoyance rather than a devastating blow. Even seemingly deadly fire can still leave a character mobile and functioning. The cast also adds their efforts to the tone with Copley as the main comedic relief. He continues in his recent streak of overacted roles, but here it fits the character. His eccentric arms dealer with an exaggerated South African accent is a great take on the barely-competent criminal trope and contrasts nicely with Hammer playing the efficient straight man as his partner.

Wheatley has taken on a significant challenge: making a film in a restricted location with little to no upfront backstory its characters. In the end, we don’t know much about them beyond a broad archetype (drug addict, loyal protector, etc.), but the lack of exposition is a smart choice. Wheatley emphasizes their behavior in battle to reveal their true nature. It’s the way they line up a shot or how quick they are to protect someone on their side that tells volumes about them. This allows the audience to focus on the action without dragging down the pacing. At a taut 90 minutes, Free Fire is a breezy and bloody Mexican standoff with plenty of slapstick humor to boot.

4/5 stars.

2016, Top Lists

Best Films of 2016

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2016 went by in a flash but some of its films have still left an impact. Yes, it has been a while since the year ended, but this list’s lack of timeliness means many of the movies discussed here are now available on streaming services.

One of the biggest surprises of the year was not just the quality of films but the strength of new filmmakers. Several of the films below are made by first-time directors which bodes incredibly well for the industry as a whole and means there will be even more impressive films sure to release in the future.

15. Nocturnal Animals

The framing narrative can be stale at times with unneeded avant-garde flourishes, but the inner story is thrilling. Tom Ford’s take on a Deliverance-style encounter is a frightening look at the fragility of one’s existence. Seemingly perfect lives can be destroyed in an instant and even deep affections can turn into resentment.

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14. Hacksaw Ridge

Mel Gibson has never been one for subtlety and Hacksaw Ridge is no exception. The character development is saccharine but earnest and the action is gratuitous but visceral. He is a visual director whose skills come through in the wordless action scenes. Gibson deftly stages the many moving pieces of combat to create a deliberately disorienting chaos. The violence may be too gory for some, but he captures the pandemonium of battle with great success.

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13. The Witch

Stark and slow-moving, The Witch is a film that uses the bleakness of its period to full effect. It’s a horror film about the paranoia of a pilgrim family. When things don’t go according to plan and mutual mistrust builds, every character’s behavior becomes suspect. Even when the facts aren’t there to support assertions, it’s their perception of others and need for an easy explanation that leads to their downfall.

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12. Maggie’s Plan

Despite her busybody nature, the titular character is never anything but endearing. Greta Gerwig’s performance shows that her meddling comes from the best of intentions. As Maggie pulls strings in the relationships around her, the genuine affection she feels for her loved ones and sacrifices she makes for their benefit make her a lovable presence. Even as she fumbles her plans, her actions are filled with a palpable warmth.

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11. Love & Friendship

Who knew Whit Stillman’s arch humor would translate so well into a period piece? His clever phrasings and prim tone mix perfectly with the haughty manners of the setting. Kate Beckinsale as the deceptively loquacious widow is entrancing as she talks circles around her friends and family to get her every wish fulfilled. The swirling verbal dance she plays is a joy to behold, even when you know of her calculating nature.

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10. Hell or High Water

Hell of High Water is a film that strips a genre down to its core. It’s a modern western presented as a low-scale heist movie. Instead of relying on elaborate staging, it leans on the terse dialogue and body language of its characters. The acting is so expressive in its own subtle way that a brief conversation becomes as thrilling as a police shootout.

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9. Eye in the Sky

Drones have been a hot topic in the media lately, but Eye in the Sky is more than topical. It evaluates the minutiae of several stakeholders in each military mission. Politics, infantry, pilots, and data analysis all play a part in actions that have good intentions but inherent, often fatal, tradeoffs. The film succeeds by creating tension at each stage of decision-making and driving home the moral complexity behind every order.

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8. The Handmaiden

Park Chan-wook is known for his often transgressive plotlines but with The Handmaiden he adds a more playful tone. Returning to Korea after a brief foray into English language films, he is clearly enjoying his freedoms back home. The story swivels through different perspectives, each revealing new, film-altering context. Every twist is a face-slapping surprise as the director expertly – and repeatedly – flips over audience expectations.

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7. Wiener-Dog

Director Todd Solondz has created another world of marginal characters locked into stagnant existences. Like Robert Bresson’s classic Au Hasard Balthazar, it follows one animal as it travels in and out of the lives of its owners. The overwhelmingly depressing tone may be too much for some, but there is truth behind each person’s failures. Their missed potentials or bleak futures are products of their unfortunate situations. Even as the characters sink further into their miserable realities, their plight is deeply sympathetic.

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6. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Balancing over the top antics with a heartfelt message of belonging, Taika Waititi has created his best film to date. The unlikely duo of a 13-year old ne’er-do-well and a grumpy old man mistakenly becoming the center of a nationwide manhunt is an endless source of humor and only buoyed by an eccentric supporting cast.

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5. Girl Asleep

Set in an elaborately designed 1970s, Girl Asleep is a fresh take on the coming-of-age movie. The first half is a vivacious look into a teenage girl’s interactions with her quirky classmates and family, overflowing with panache, and the second half is a surreal exploration of the pressures she faces as she tries to reconcile changing expectations in her transition to womanhood and independence. It’s an original experience that is as flamboyant as it is honest.

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4. Swiss Army Man

While it will most definitely turn off viewers with its aggressively weird premise and moments of gross-out humor, Swiss Army Man is an incredibly emotional journey. It looks at the value of friendship from the angle of outcasts and examines the nature of conformity with Daniel Radcliffe’s talking corpse as the mouthpiece of the directors. It’s a call to break free from our own inhibitions and an indictment of the self-doubt that prevents us from being happy, filtered through the minds of two strange filmmakers.

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3. A Monster Calls

Movies are rarely more honest about grief than A Monster Calls, especially from a child’s perspective. At every turn, it eschews easy answers and delves deeper into the emotions behind the pain of watching a loved one suffer. Using beautifully rendered fairytale stories and a lifelike tree monster voiced by Liam Neeson, it tackles the seldom touched upon topic of guilt with uncommon sensitivity and insight.

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2. Sing Street

Sing Street is the most infectious movie of the year with an incredible original soundtrack and endearingly oblivious characters. As the kids start their own band in 1980s Dublin, their tenacious spirit and adorable naivete is irresistible. Whether it’s writing the next hit song or winning the affections of a certain someone, anything is possible. Director John Carney has proven once again that he is the master of the modern music movie.

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1. Under the Shadow

Blending physical and supernatural dangers, Under the Shadow creates tension with every scene. The unexplained missing items, freak occurrences, and ingrained superstitions escalate into an unbearable level of suspense without ever resorting to frequent jump scares or cheap gore. I have never been more terrified of a piece of fabric in my entire life.

[Streaming options. DO NOT watch the dubbed version. Please change your settings to watch in the original Farsi.}

Special Mention: Pure Pwnage Teh Movie

Its appeal is incredibly small, but if you are in the specific demographic that grew up with the original web series, Pure Pwnage Teh Movie is going to be an unexpectedly successful modernization of an early-internet-video classic.

[Currently available for VOD rental on Vimeo]

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Their Finest (2017)

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WWII movies have been done to death, but Lone Scherfig (An Education) brings a new angle on the conflict. Mrs. Cole (Gemma Arterton; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) joins the British Ministry of Information’s film team working on propaganda films. Her job is to write the “slop”, meaning the women’s dialogue, and inspire them to send their sons and husbands to war. In her way are production conflicts, entitled actors, and a clearly sexist mentality in her predominantly male organization.

The film’s visuals are what we’ve come to expect for period pieces. Colors are muted with only subtle blues and reds to stand out from the dominant grays. The sets incorporate a lot of green screen in order provide era-appropriate backdrops, but these skylines are glaringly synthetic. The contrast in the gray is more reminiscent of Sin City’s hyper-stylized visuals than sepia-toned photographs the filmmakers were likely targeting. While not unpleasant by any means, the heavy digital coloring and choice of sets instead of physical locations make the film more like an artificial, computer-generated landscape than an authentic 1940s London.

The elaborate sets never feel like a real location.

Feminist themes provide the backbone of the film. Mrs. Cole has to deal with constant derision and her intelligent opinions are often overruled or simply disregarded because of her gender. The film makes it obvious how little her contribution is initially valued as she accepts no writing credit and a lower pay than her male peers. As cliché and predictable as it might be, her growing confidence and reputation with the cast and crew are incredibly rewarding. She pitches movies, rewrites endings, and becomes the go-to writer as she consistently proves her ability to create emotions in her screenplay. Her progression from meekly consenting to others to firmly standing by her opinions is a simple, but enjoyable change.

Along with its message, the film brings plenty of humor. Bill Nighy (Love Actually) plays an aging self-absorbed actor whose fame may have subsided in reality but is still very much alive in his own mind. His melodramatic flourishes during his acting scenes or exaggerated advice to a new actor are hilarious. He is the veteran with too much pride and too little patience to bother with pleasantries as he calls out others and demands rewrites so he can have more screen time. His sassy attitude prevents the film from becoming too rigid.

The producers from the Ministry say they are looking to make films that have “Authenticity informed by optimism” to motivate their people for the war efforts.  The makers of this film have plenty of the latter but lack the former. There are major, unneeded plot turns that add forced drama. They feel cheap and go against the grain of the otherwise natural character arcs. These may be holdovers from the novel the film is based on, but they feel constructed for the sole purpose of making the audience cry by any means necessary and are so blatant that they are almost insulting. Arterton’s performance as the ever-committed Mrs. Cole and the unexpected humor are enjoyable, but they can’t overcome a contrived third act.

3/5 stars.