Category: Reviews

Only God Forgives

“Only God Forgives” is unapologetically frank and vulgar, but its real flaw is forcing us to sit listlessly as it blows steam.

To assess Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” as a bad example of a “style over substance” film would be reductive. Refn’s masterpiece “Drive” could not be called any different, but those stylistic flourishes at the very least evoked fear, thrills and painful emotions for its nameless hero.

“Only God Forgives” is so shallowly repugnant because it stoically, passively and slowly evokes nothing at all. Refn’s film is so often unapologetically frank, vulgar and violent, but its real flaw is forcing us to sit listlessly as it blows off steam.

The story involves a boxing club manager and drug dealer named Julian (Ryan Gosling) who is seeking retribution for the death of his older brother. His brother Billy (Tom Burke) was killed after he raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl (he wanted a 14-year-old). Billy was murdered when a sword-wielding Bangkok cop named Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm) held him hostage so that the 16-year-old’s father could have his justice. Although a sufficient story for Julian, Julian’s mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) wants Chang’s head regardless of Billy’s deed.

The lack of a real compelling justification for so much bloodshed will not escape most viewers and likely does not escape Refn. These characters are not made to be sympathized with. The point seems to be that the Bangkok they live in is already a darkly rendered hellscape, with red filters, exotic wallpaper and neon lighting lining every corridor; any retribution to be found does not exist in this world.

So if you are looking for a reason as to why Julian decides to drag a bystander out of a strip club by his upper jaw, you will not find it. But my question lies with how Julian can sit in front of his masturbating girlfriend or his mother hurling around vulgarities about the size of his penis without eliciting any reaction at all. Continue reading “Only God Forgives”

GasLand and Gasland Part 2

“GasLand” and “Gasland Part 2” are angry documentaries that knows things are bad but will keep fighting for change.

“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” – Howard Beale, “Network”

Documentaries have for years done all they can to motivate people to action. They utilize empathy, emotion, logic and fear, and those frustrated enough to act are all just a little angry.

The Oscar nominated documentary “GasLand” and Monday night’s HBO premiere of “Gasland Part 2” appeal to all your senses, but these are angry films with a damn powerful reason to be pissed. As portrayed by Director Josh Fox, “fracking” is not merely irresponsible but a literally life threatening epidemic already spreading across our nation and posing imminent danger to millions around the world.

I write Howard Beale’s words because although as a movie critic I may question a handful of Fox’s choices as a filmmaker, I cannot lie about how deeply both his films moved me. The first informed me about the science and the dangers behind the oil and gas companies’ new method of extracting natural gas from right beneath American soil, and this new film exposed me to the contempt and corruption bred by both the corporations and the American government.

I’m not just mad as hell. I’m fucking furious. Continue reading “GasLand and Gasland Part 2”

Gideon's Army

Gideon’s Army is a rare documentary that champions lawyers and the tireless work they do.

Lawyers, as a profession, are not typically championed by Hollywood. There are infamous courtroom dramas, but the work they do is often secondary to broader narratives or racial, political or societal talking points. The protagonist is often a hero not because he’s a lawyer but because he was different from the rest.

The HBO documentary “Gideon’s Army” however sees lawyers, particularly public defenders, as people with great burdens that need to be seen and heard in AA style meetings or as soldiers who are thanked for their service by congressmen. It’s a big morality tale about holding your head high under enormous pressure, and it makes for heart-rending drama.

“Gideon’s Army” follows two public defenders in the South taking on two very similar cases. In each, a bright 20-year-old boy has been charged with armed robbery for small amounts of money, which would result in a minimum of 10 years in prison with the possibility of a life sentence.

The movie astutely points out that the flaw in the system is that most people in this situation or similar ones, regardless of innocence or not, would take a plea deal to lessen their sentence. And if they were poor, they’ll rot in jail for weeks, months or even years awaiting a trial as their life collapses around them.

You can wager a guess if you’ve seen say, “Hoop Dreams,” that one of these kids will be found innocent and the other will not, in which case “Gideon’s Army” is not really about the defendants or the broken system the movie merely laments, but their lawyers and the blood, sweat and tears they put into defending them.

The two public defenders are Travis Williams and Brandy Alexander, each juggling upwards of 150 cases at a time, each dealing with crippling student loans and arduous hours that cut into their social lives. Travis has no family and a girlfriend he doesn’t have time for, and Brandy at one point claims she has only $3 to her name. Hopefully this will get her home and back to the office again the next day when she gets paid.

“Gideon’s Army” empowers their work ethic by editing the movie in such a way that their losses are not failings but impenetrable and unseen impasses that make their effort all the more moving. One powerful scene shows Brandy in a hopeless one-sided phone call. She’s pulled strings to get her client’s charges completely dropped, but only if someone can raise $3000 for bail money. No luck, and that’s one more life ruined.

The vindication comes in the form of knowing that these people believe in what they’re doing, believe in the people they’re defending even if some of the people are rightfully evil and are doing all they can to make a difference. It all comes to fruition in a 20-minute long courtroom scene that matches up with some of the best scripted courtroom dramas out there.

“Gideon’s Army” may follow something of a formula and be too much a champion for the cause, but it’s a noble, moving documentary of unexpected emotion.

3 stars

Before Midnight

With “Before Midnight,” Richard Linklater continues to deepen the themes in this beautiful franchise.

If there’s one thing “Before Midnight,” Richard Linklater’s powerfully moving threequel to one of the best love sagas in movie history, has to teach us about middle age, it’s that life is no longer all about you.

Linklater’s most daring addition to “Midnight” could be having two completely different characters walking and talking in tandem, not solely Jesse and Celine. The opposite was once true, and the plotless, intimate focus on just these two young lovers was what made 1995’s “Before Sunrise” so effortlessly experimental. By adding a few characters who fall into familiar conventions, “Midnight” may be the least experimental of Linklater’s trilogy, but he continues to deepen these themes and lives in ways that couldn’t have been imagined if this trilogy was preconceived. Continue reading “Before Midnight”

No (2013)

Gael Garcia Bernal’s performance in “No,” along with an old-fashioned, boxy aspect ratio, make “No” one of hte more mystique and intrigue filled films of the year.

In the foreign language Oscar nominee “No,” Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal) put the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of power in Chile by changing the messaging and look of the “No” campaign against him. Saavedra wasn’t selling democracy; he was selling a concept, and Chile bought it. Director Pablo Larrain distinctly alters the look and tone of his political drama and sells us on this idea of images and perception.

“No” is set in Chile in 1988, when Augusto Pinochet had been in power for 15 years and was now sponsoring an election as a feeble attempt to legitimize the government in the face of the Americans. The two sides of the campaign, Yes and No, would each get 15 minutes of advertising material on TV a day. Leading up the No campaign is Saavedra, a hot-shot marketing agent putting stolid conviction behind his cheesy soda commercials as rebellious, youthful statements that the public is finally ready to embrace. The head of the Yes campaign is his partner, and the two engage in a creative war in which message, not politics, matter. Continue reading “No (2013)”

The Way, Way Back

“The Way, Way Back” will work for many as an indie, coming-of-age crowd pleaser, but through its characters and its story, it struggles to find a voice.

There’s a scene in “The Way, Way Back” where Duncan’s mom Pam explains how she was won over by her new boyfriend Trent. “We’re all in this together,” he told her. That’s sweet, but what’s “this” and why exactly are they “in this” at all?

“The Way, Way Back” will work for many as an indie, coming-of-age crowd pleaser, but through its characters and its story, it struggles to find a voice and a purpose to build a film with real heart and depth.

Just why is Duncan (Liam James), the film’s 14-year-old protagonist, an especially mopey teenager? Hunched shoulders and head down at all times, he can barely string a few words together, let alone tell us why he’s so depressed or what he’s like. His interests seem to include REO Speedwagon and playing with sand, but that’s not much to go on.

His real bitterness stems from a dislike of his mom’s (Toni Collette) new boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell). Trent has taken them both on a vacation to some undisclosed quaint beach town for apparently the whole summer, and although he’s trying to make this a family, the two don’t seem to get along.

Duncan is however drawn to the lazy, oafish, playboy owner of a waterpark named Owen (Sam Rockwell). Owen offers him a job and takes him under his wing, teaching him Midwestern urban legends and how to not-so-discreetly stare at girls in bikinis. He even gives him helpful prodding to join in a dance battle. Continue reading “The Way, Way Back”

The Bling Ring

With minimal stylization and embellishment, Sofia Coppola makes the fashion of The Bling Ring into a silly and mundane farce.

 

Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” rounds out a trio of movies over the last few months that dig into the mystical fascination with the have-more culture. Harmony Korine showed in “Spring Breakers” that this mentality can be disgusting and terrifying, Baz Luhrmann demonstrated with “Gatsby” that it can be destructive, and Coppola has shown just how boring and silly this affinity for celebs, fashion and luxury can be.

Coppola has waded these waters before, depicting the lives of the glamorous, wealthy and famous in quasi-comedies that feel dull, mundane and simplistic. Yet to call “The Bling Ring” her most high-octane movie yet doesn’t say much. It depicts the crimes of five Los Angeles teenagers with detached apathy, like Coppola is staring back at the vacuous on-screen teens with the same expressions they turn toward their parents.

Based on a true story, “The Bling Ring” begins with Marc (Israel Broussard), a new kid in school, making friends with Rebecca (Katie Chang). She admires his style, perhaps, and the two pass time sitting idly at the beach, calling out to friends with the poshest of pleasantries like “Yo bitch.”

She passively encourages Marc to start breaking into cars and homes with her. The two steal wads of cash and select purses, blouses and watches with ease, doing so not because it’s right or wrong or gives them a high but because it was there and it was easy. Continue reading “The Bling Ring”

This is the End

More so than a scathing look at Hollywood, “This is the End” is Seth Rogen and Company taking the piss, lampooning their screen selves for yucks all around.

There might be a few people disappointed that “This is the End” effectively closes the door on a “Pineapple Express” sequel in one quick, hilarious scene. The “Superbad” reunion is even shorter. And for what it’s worth, “This is the End” might just be the last time you see any of these actors make a movie this silly and outrageous again.

But I guess that’s appropriate for a comedy about the end of the world. If Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were going to make a movie that allows Seth, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson, Jonah Hill, James Franco, Danny McBride and all their other assorted friends the chance to play the fool one last time, they’d better do so in the most spectacularly destructive way possible.

Although they’re all playing themselves, this time officially, Rogen and Company have effectively driven the stake in their on-screen personas that have followed them through so many films since the “Knocked Up” days. They’ve been impaled by street lamps, sucked into sinkholes, eaten by cannibals and raped by demons, and maybe now they can usher in a new era of comedies from the ashes of their hilariously vulgar corpses.

More so than a scathing look at Hollywood, “This is the End” is the crew taking the piss, lampooning their screen selves for yucks all around. The film begins with Jay visiting Seth in L.A., in which the two have an epic weekend of pot and video games ahead of them. Is this their lifestyle? Perhaps not, but we as an audience can’t truly see them any other way. Continue reading “This is the End”

Upstream Color

“Upstream Color” is beguiling and impenetrable, but it is not without deep feeling. It’s a potential masterpiece.

 

Shane Carruth’s first film “Primer” was a maddeningly precise work of genius. Its lo-fi, home movie charm managed to amplify the science aspect of science fiction with a dense, procedural script. By its nature, it demanded to be scrutinized but resisted being solved, and “Primer” survives as not quite a cult mind-bender and not quite a critical darling.

Now nine years later, Carruth has grown up from a young man with studious fascination to a worn 30-something with little to his name. “Upstream Color” trades in the jargon for few words at all, and yet it is no less beguiling, impenetrable and a potential masterpiece.

But impenetrable does not mean without feeling. What can’t be unraveled about the plot or motivations in “Upstream Color” is amended by the pain and confusion that is inherent in these characters. On a rudimentary level, “Upstream Color’s” fantastical element involves a powerful form of hypnosis, a device used not as a suspense builder or parable, but one that makes us feel lost due to powers beyond our control. Continue reading “Upstream Color”

Behind the Candelabra

The more mundane aspects of Liberace’s relationship dominate in this biopic, and “Behind the Candelabra” feels like an empty and overdone Vegas showpiece.

Too gay, was the reason Steven Soderbergh gave that “Behind the Candelabra” became an HBO TV movie rather than a wide released feature. And yet this biopic on Liberace’s relationship with Scott Thorson shoves the homosexual politicking to the background in favor of the more familiar trope of marital bickering. Although much of the film is enjoyable in that Mr. Showmanship way, this genre, unlike Soderbergh’s other recent genre experiments, does not fit him as well.

Although Liberace (Michael Douglas) was a skilled pop pianist in the ‘70s, his real claim to fame was his fine-tuned crowd work. We’re introduced to Liberace through a dopey Boogie-Woogie number in his Vegas stage show made fun through his simple pleasantries. It’s not that Liberace was the natural showman, but that everything he says here seems just right, and it’s no wonder he wins over Scott Thorson (Matt Damon) along the way.

The nuance of Michael Douglas’s performance, one that strays away from impersonation, is that he does feel as though he’s trying. It is a performance, no matter whom he’s talking to, and that shows. It’s when we’ve been around this act too much that it grows old and tiresome, and that’s exactly what happens to Scott. Continue reading “Behind the Candelabra”