My Day with Film (Tuesday, 12/6/16)

Tuesday, 12/6/16


Dear Diary,

As I expected, the first trailer for the next TRANSFORMERS movie was released within the last 24 hours. I'd be lying to myself, and to you, if I said this trailer didn't surprise me at least a little bit. There are some striking images, and I dig Anthony Hopkins' voiceover. How on Earth they hoodwinked Hopkins into doing TRANSFORMERS, we may never know. THE LAST KNIGHT doesn't look like a good film by any stretch, but it may mark an improvement from the last handful of nigh-unwatchable sequels. A kid can dream. Here's hoping Michael Bay somehow turns this ship around before leaving it in another director's hands.

I also came across another movie trailer on Twitter today for a film called THE CIRCLE. It apparently stars Tom Hanks, Emma Watson and John Boyega.

So it looks like Hanks plays some sort of a Steve Jobs-type, and Watson and Boyega are a couple of employees who stumble onto something they shouldn't have with one of the company's new gadgets. Sounds like it might be fun, but it could also turn out to feel like an average episode of BLACK MIRROR. With James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) handling the script and direction, and with that cast, prospects seem bright.

In personal news, I was feeling under the weather most of today. While resting up, I finished the season finale of HBO's WESTWORLD which blew my mind a little bit. I feel like I need to rewatch that series about a half dozen times to catch things I missed. This gives me anxiety because there is just too much great content I need to get through and not enough hours in the day. I've been trying to get through a stack of movies on my shelf which consists of KRAMPUS, THE REVENANT, OCTOBER SKY, SPACE JAM, THE THIN RED LINE, THE GAME, and BOYHOOD among others. Since writing yesterday, I also watched GREMLINS all the way through for the first time on Amazon Prime. So that's one more streaming movie I can cross off my ever-expanding list.

Also I read the news today that the U.S.'s bid to extradite Roman Polanski was denied by Poland's Supreme Court. Authorities in the States have been trying to get this bid through for decades. In the late 1970s, Polanski allegedly made inappropriate contact with a 13-year old during a photoshoot in L.A. and has eluded American justice ever since. The rejection of the extradition bid means that Polanski is now free to work and live in Poland as he pleases. With this second chance, let's hope he keeps his nose clean.

David Ehrlich of IndieWire published a list of his 25 favorite films of this year, including the most memorable moments from each. I think it's neat that Ehrlich chose a favorite scene from each one, explaining how the films left their impressions on him personally. This is a far more engaging piece than your standard "end-of-year" Top 10 list. I may try to do something similar once I get around to seeing the rest of the awards contenders.

Lastly, my friend Tyler Keeton has a really cool horror blog called "Dripping Red Cinephile." He just interviewed Gian Keys, who plays Detective Griff Meadows in THE LOVE WITCH. Their discussion is worth your time, and so is this movie!

Until tomorrow,

BC

"Don't Breathe" Review

From the creative team behind 2013's remake of Evil Dead comes the most brutal, most intense, and most original American horror film in at least a decade. In fact, writer/director Fede Alvarez's Don't Breathe will leave you just that - breathless.

The premise of Don't Breathe is something of a reverse-home invasion thriller. We open on three young burglars - Money (Daniel Zovatto), Rocky (Jane Levy) and Alex (Dylan Minnette) - casing the empty house of a wealthy family on holiday. Hungry for a bigger score, the group sets their sights on a seemingly easy target - a blind man (Stephen Lang) living in the last occupied house in a decrepit neighborhood. Word is that the blind man is sitting on a $300,000 legal settlement which is stored in cash somewhere inside the house. However, the thieves underestimate the measure of a man with everything to lose.

The film has so many refreshingly unexpected twists, and they all generally work. Just when you think you know what's coming, something else comes totally out of left field. Oftentimes when writers try to insert this many plot or character twists, they jumble things up too much and ultimately fall flat. It's a feat in and of itself that Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues pull the rug out from under us this many times, and the film never loses steam. This is a lean, mean picture with little to no extraneous detail to distract from the story at hand.

Acting performances are strong with Levy and Lang shining brightest. Levy is well on her way to becoming one of the next great "scream queens." Although his character arc ultimately hinges on a few far-fetched circumstances, Lang hands in a positively chilling tun as the Blind Man.

The cinematography is also very well done. There's a scene where Alex and Rocky find themselves trapped in total darkness; the Blind Man thus forcing them to "see what he sees." The visuals this scene is executed with are something akin to night vision, but the shot isn't glowing green. The gradient turns, essentially, black & white, which makes the facial expressions of the terrified actors somewhat horrifying themselves.

As cool as the acting and cinematography are, those aren't my favorite things about this movie. As a horror movie fan, it's easy to feel jaded. Once you've experienced the graphic atrocities of Cannibal Holocaust and the disturbing, supernatural dreamscapes of The Shining, it's all sort of downhill from there in a way. There are things that happen in Don't Breathe that made me believe in American horror movies again. Brutal, nasty, unsettling things the likes of which haven't been seen in a mainstream release in years. Words cannot express how delighted I am that this movie is getting a general release in theaters nationwide. Outside of the indie scene, horror has been dominated by sequels and reboots. The genre needs a movie like Don't Breathe now more than ever to haunt the hearts and minds of genre fans everywhere. I think we're going to be discussing, watching and remembering this one for a long, long time. 

A-

"War Dogs" Review

War Dogs is the latest feature from Todd Phillips, the director of The Hangover. It's based on the true story of David Packouz (Miles Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), two twentysomethings who scored a $300 million government contract to arm America's allies in the Middle East.

The movie is told from Packouz's perspective; we find him as a masseur for wealthy clients in Miami but having a hard time making end's meet. When his girlfriend Iz (Ana de Armas) informs him that she's expecting, David takes advantage of an opportunity to work with Efraim, his best friend from middle school. Efraim is a gun runner, and together, the two young men build a company that has them running weapons through some of the world's most dangerous places. David and Efraim meet lots of colorful characters on their way to the top, and the story is the better for it.

The trailers for this film didn't look that great. It looked like another stupid "frat boy" comedy, the kind of which Phillips has largely staked his career in. War Dogs has some of those elements, but it turns out to be a much more engaging dramatic piece. Its execution owes almost everything to Martin Scorsese; Teller's voiceover is reminiscent of Ray Liotta's in Goodfellas. The "rise and fall" narrative for Packouz and Diveroli also follows similar beats to Henry Hill's story.

Performances are great. Teller proves time and again that he's one of the best young actors working today. He cements his spot on a list of actors this reviewer would watch in just about anything - Kevin Spacey, Tom Hardy, Tom Hiddleston, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey, Jr. to name a few. Hill exudes charisma while handing in an award-worthy turn.

For me, the film doesn't have many glaring issues. My biggest gripe is that the narrative slows down about 3/4 of the way through while David is in Albania. However it picks up again as it comes to its climax. Some may also find the nods to Scorsese as cheap imitation rather than an exhibition of its own director's voice. It didn't come off that way for me; I appreciate how cinema history informs present works. I'm just warning you if you're the type of viewer put off by "original" films which seem beholden to something else.

War Dogs is recommended to anyone who appreciates the works of Scorsese and/or Phillips' oeuvre of male mayhem.

B+