Category: Reviews

Side by Side: Birdman and Whiplash

“Birdman” and “Whiplash” are both technically impressive films about characters looking to feel they exist

All throughout cinema history we see protagonists who wish to be remembered, who wish to become something great. Marlon Brando said in “On the Waterfront”, “I coulda been somebody. I coulda been a contender!” Their means for greatness are always different, but their ends are never the same, and it lets us know just what kind of movie we’re watching.

Two films released this month that are both receiving Oscar buzz but are miles apart in terms of tone and style have protagonists who share these feelings of greatness in their own ways and to their own ends. “Birdman Or (the Unexpected Virtues of Ignorance” and “Whiplash” are fiery dramas that lead to realizations that some of the things in life that feel most real and make people feel most alive, are pain and death. Continue reading “Side by Side: Birdman and Whiplash”

Side by Side: The Double and Enemy

Two films were released this year about people who look identical, but they’re highly different films.

“You’re in my place.” That’s the opening line to “The Double,” and it’s the on-the-nose thesis to both that movie and a similar film also released this year, “Enemy.” In each film, a timid and lonely protagonist comes face to face with a more confident doppelganger, causing the original’s life to unravel.

Two copycat movies in a given year is a jarring coincidence, but to call them doppelgangers of each other would be a misnomer. However, it certainly doesn’t help that both are based off books called “The Double” and that neither is particularly good.

More so than a replica of “Enemy”, “The Double” is actually a pastiche of Orwellian dystopias, most notably Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”. Director Richard Ayoade’s first film was yet another cinematic pastiche (or homage if you prefer) called “Submarine” that reimagined the French New Wave with its own dark comedy turns. This new film owes Gilliam a lot, with drab colors and cold, boxy, ‘80s machinery and technology filling every part of the set design. Continue reading “Side by Side: The Double and Enemy”

Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson is brilliant in the most daring performance of her career.

There are two types of surreal terror in the trippy, experimental sci-fi “Under the Skin.”

In the first, Scarlett Johansson seduces lonely men on the streets, brings them back to a dark, rundown home, and once inside, the confines become an empty, dark void. She disrobes, the men dutifully follow, and as they approach her, they silently slip into a pool of nothingness, completely enveloped by the darkness. As they sink, they don’t struggle, or even break eye contact. They simply vanish, soon to become nothing more than a snake-like shell.

In the second form, Johansson tries her trick again at a beach. Off in the distance, a man watches as his wife is drowning and flailing in a choppy sea. He hurries to save her, but ends up drowning himself. The man Johansson is seducing uses all his strength to save them both, and Johansson then knocks him out cold and begins dragging him away. Sitting alone on the beach is the couple’s baby, wailing all through the night, perhaps never to be claimed.

“Under the Skin” is less a film but an experience, one that combines the grimly fantastical and the grimly mundane to make something that is as much human as it is alien. Jonathan Glazer’s film captures the kaleidoscopic images that made “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Vertigo” genre bending classics, but this aural/visual experience is largely unlike any film ever made. It’s a mostly plotless yet immersive movie with impressive power and dramatic tension. Continue reading “Under the Skin”

Nymphomaniac

Lars von Trier’s two-part opus on sexuality is as explicit as you’d imagine.

Think of a kiss, maybe the first kiss you ever had, or the first kiss with your loved one: what was the most thrilling thing about it? The excitement doesn’t lie in the sloppy locking of lips or tongues, but in the anticipation, the closeness and the connection between the two parties. Viewed at its most mechanical, there’s nothing exciting at all about a first kiss.

The same can be true of sex, which has become tangled up with so many complex emotions, excitement not always being one of them. Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac” created fanfare as a scandalous sex drama because von Trier has become equal parts auteur and “persona non grata”, but his two-part opus does the job of removing the romanticism from sex. In the most explicit ways and on the grandest scale possible, it uses sex only as a lens through which to understand broader ideas about the world, spirituality and humanity.

Volume 1 examines the mechanics of sex while contrasting it with the philosophy and beauty of the more mundane things in the world. Volume 2 dares us to change our lens yet again, equating the main character’s sexual escapades to the Stations of the Cross and making sex truly about a woman searching for fulfillment. The collective whole is provocative, perverse, bizarrely funny and highly explicit, and what’s so surprising and disappointing is how thoughtful and fresh Vol. 1 feels while Vol. 2 could not be more depressing, repulsive and torturous. Continue reading “Nymphomaniac”

The Zero Theorem

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi satire has many of the same visual, structural and thematic elements of his masterpiece “Brazil”.

With each generation comes the same feeling of nothingness and monotony to the present. People get stuck in dead-end jobs with neuroses and apprehensions, and the new wave of technology doesn’t appear to change much. Terry Gilliam’s ‘80s sci-fi “Brazil” captured the Orwellian state with such surreal humor and visual creativity that its now 30-year-old vision of the 21st Century has made it a cult classic.

Gilliam’s latest “The Zero Theorem” is awfully close to being “Brazil 2.0”, a satirical reimagining of another not-too-distant future that matches “Brazil” structurally, visually and to an extent thematically. Critics have faulted Gilliam for doing a remix of his greatest hits, but his idiosyncratic message is as relevant now as it was then.

“The Zero Theorem” tells the story of Qohen (Christoph Waltz), pronouncing his name “Cohen” with a Q, but no U. Years ago he received a phone call that he believed would tell him the meaning of why he was put on this Earth, but he got disconnected in excitement and now lives in an old church vicariously waiting for that call back. His work involves a new form of computer programming, one that has reduced work to video gaming and inscrutable equations. Qohen begs his supervisor (David Thewlis) to work from home to await his precious call, and in exchange, Management (Matt Damon) puts him to the task of deciphering The Zero Theorem. Continue reading “The Zero Theorem”

Only Lovers Left Alive

Jim Jarmusch’s vampire film is dripping with style, wisdom and wry, ironic humor.

Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” is as much about vampires as “Night on Earth” is about taxi drivers or “Coffee and Cigarettes” is about either of those things. And if characters in Jarmusch films need a better excuse to be layabouts and wear sunglasses indoors, actually being a vampire is about as good of an excuse as any.

Jarmusch’s films exude coolness, and in a time when vampires are particularly in vogue, Jarmusch has found a unique vessel for his stories of mismatched relationships, affinities for the retro and ironic romance. “Only Lovers Left Alive” is dripping with style. It’s a vampire movie full of intrigue but remains mostly plotless without action or special effects. That the entire thing is absolutely magnetic despite it all is part of Jarmusch’s magic.

Jarmusch splits the time between urban Tangiers and an apartment on a notably empty street in Detroit. The film is so chic, so distinctly colored in every moment, it could belong to any time or place, and yet it is remarkably modern. Living abroad is Eve (Tilda Swinton), whose luxurious, golden, flowing robes are centuries old, and yet she still communicates fluently with an iPhone. Her only real companion is another vampire, Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt), who confirms for us that he did in fact give his plays to Shakespeare. It’s one of Jarmusch’s wry jokes playing vampires allows him to make, with characters taking credit for Schubert’s symphonies and spending time with Mary Shelley.

Her lover for several centuries is Adam (Tom Hiddleston), living alone in Detroit and making droning, melancholy, underground rock and only leaving the house to bribe a hospital worker for blood. He’s assisted by a helpful and adoring human named Ian (Anton Yelchin), clueless to Adam’s real nature but more than willing to get him rare, vintage guitars and bullets made of a fine wood. Only in a Jim Jarmusch film can the characters have conversations about types of wood and the mechanics of a guitar. It’s odd, tedious conversation, as all of Jarmusch’s films concern, and yet it’s dryly eloquent humor no one does better. Continue reading “Only Lovers Left Alive”

Blue Ruin

Jeremy Saulnier’s indie drama resembles Coen Brothers classics and Greek tragedy.

Vengeance is not for the weak, the inexperienced or the unprepared, and yet so many are drawn to it, and just as many fail. “Blue Ruin” is about a man too careful and timid to get himself killed but not nearly clever, resourceful or vicious enough to get himself out of trouble. Jeremy Saulnier’s film speaks to our constant struggle for survival in an urban world contained within a minimal Greek tragedy. It’s one of the finest surprise indie films of the year.

“I’d forgive you if you were crazy, but you’re not; you’re weak.” Those are the harsh words Dwight (Macon Blair) receives upon returning home to his wife Sam (Amy Hargreaves). For months he’s been living as a vagrant along the beach, rummaging for half eaten food at carnivals and sleeping in cars. Dwight’s hair is long and filthy, his beard consuming his face. Though the movie doesn’t specifically say, he’s on the run from his own past. When a police officer informs him that a man named Wade Cleland is being released from prison, Dwight follows Cleland home and plots to murder him in retaliation for killing his parents years ago.

Dwight is so helpless that he can’t even steal a gun. When he manages to scrounge up a knife, his stealth attack is clumsy and a bloody mess, and his getaway is even worse. Soon the Cleland clan is after him, staking out his family’s home and tracking his every move. His idiocy often gets the better of him, yet somehow he manages to stay alive.

“Blue Ruin” has a quiet tension and careful, close-to-the chest filmmaking that recreates the best of neo-noir from “Drive” to “No Country for Old Men” to the Coen Brothers classic “Blood Simple.” And yet along with Macon Blair’s timid, feeble performance is a delirious sense that this guy is never in control. When he shaves his beard and hair and tries acclimating to society, he looks pitiful and out of place in his own clothes.

He’s trying so hard that he’s almost comically clueless. While trying to badger answers out of a Cleland gang member he’s taken hostage, he gets too close and has his gun stolen away from him. But the changing, ambivalent tone leads to some of the movie’s biggest surprise deaths and shocking acts of spite and hatred coming from this otherwise nervously crippled man.

Yet unlike something like “No Country” or “Drive”, “Blue Ruin” and Saulnier recognize that even these vindictive, backwards hicks are people he’s dealing with. They’re just as timid, just as vulnerable in their homes, just as impulsive to the trigger and just as reluctant to get future generations caught in the same mess.

The film does not end well for anyone involved, but it’s a powerful ending that speaks to how vengeance, hate and the unpredictable messiness of it all can only lead to a foregone conclusion.

3 ½ stars

Begin Again

Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo feel real in this charming musical drama by director John Carney.

The mini-miracle of 2007’s hit musical “Once” was perhaps not so much of a surprise after all. Director John Carney took well-established Irish rock stars from the band The Frames (himself a former member) and made a simple movie without much of a plot and with much of Glen Hansard’s already classic music front and center.

But the fact that the movie had great music was really only half the battle. Everything about “Once” seemed cobbled together on the fly. Its look was a rough, documentary realism style and the dialogue was so bare bones it may as well have been improvised. And above all, the chemistry and romance between its two stars, Hansard and Marketa Irglova, felt genuine in both its journey and its outcome.

John Carney’s latest film “Begin Again” seems inspired by that makeshift attitude. It’s a story about working with what you’ve got and simply letting the magic happen. This time around, Carney is working with A-list actors, a pop-rock superstar and a budget that must dwarf what he had on “Once”. Yet when we see Keira Knightley singing into pantyhose with a wire inside or Maroon 5’s Adam Levine playing ping-pong, he’s found the magic again by making it feel real. Continue reading “Begin Again”

The Armstrong Lie

Alex Gibney’s documentary looks at both sides of Lance Armstrong’s storied lie and his competitive nature.

In the days following the revelation that Lance Armstrong, the most drug tested athlete in all of professional sports, was in fact blood doping and using banned substances all along, a quote came along that put the whole thing into perspective. “I don’t care if he lied; he’s done unbelievable things for cancer research that have nothing to do with his work on a bike.”

Another article talked about Lance’s skill and strategy on the bike that made him a champion regardless if he took drugs. During one Tour de France he daringly avoided a crash right in front of him and took his road bike offroad for several yards before picking up the racetrack again, not an easy feat while traveling 40 mph down a rough French mountainside.

After winning seven straight Tours de France, Lance Armstrong was undoubtedly seen as a hero, and his scandal was such a shocking lie and omission that the world turned on him in an instant. You really had to pick sides and decide, do you hate the man and believe he should be stripped of his titles or don’t you care and feel he should be respected for what he’s done on and off the bike regardless?

Alex Gibney’s “The Armstrong Lie” teeters on those two sides. It’s hardly the only documentary chronicling the details of his lie, but it’s notable as the only one that features a candid Lance. Given that leg up, you would hope Gibney would do one of two things: tear into him and expose him as a psychologically damaged, pathological liar, or actually pay the man some respect and understand why he lied in the first place. Continue reading “The Armstrong Lie”

The Trip to Italy

Michael Winterbottom’s sequel to ‘The Trip’ is as pleasant as funny as the original.

“I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine tonight,” wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ah, but how sweet it is to experience both, drinking in the pleasures of frivolous banter while also admiring the drinks and cuisine of choice.

“The Trip to Italy” is drunk on such vices, a simple, palatable film that improves on the original “The Trip” without striving for much more. The carefree structure is the same, the food porn is just as succulent, the dialogue is just as snooty, sophisticated and silly, Steve Coogan is ever the droll sourpuss and the travelogue setting of Italy over the England countryside is even more beautiful.

The first “Trip” pleased many with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s playful yet eloquent and polished back and forth of impressions ranging from Michael Caine to Al Pacino to Woody Allen. Those who thought the Michael Caine bit from the original was “The Trip’s” high point and enough reason to revisit it on YouTube time and again will be pleased to know his voice has made a reappearance to warrant an admission price yet again. This time Caine is flanked by muffled, inscrutable impressions of Christian Bale and Tom Hardy from “The Dark Knight Rises,” two intense actors you’d never mention to their face you can’t understand a word they’re saying. Continue reading “The Trip to Italy”