THE NEON DEMON Review

Though Nicolas Winding Refn is hardly a household name his films have come to feel like certain kinds of events. It is in the aura he has created around himself and his ambitions that his movies now feel like these mythic, untouchable experiences that take us into a usually weird and demented world that is largely metaphorical for the one the rest of us exist in. With what is his tenth feature film the director has made his first film with a female lead as he's chosen to explore his inner sixteen year-old girl. In his mind, if he were a girl that is, Refn would seem to want to exist in the world of high fashion and be a fashion model as The Neon Demon takes us through the age old tale of the young, pretty southern girl who travels to Los Angeles to make her dreams of becoming a star come true. This is an interesting choice as Refn adopts a rather straightforward narrative for this film while still remaining experimental through the visual design and the way he integrates interesting visual approaches to convey many of the tropes of such a story. Set in this world of supermodels, pretentious designers, and even more pretentious photographers everything about the film feels elitist-the world should belong to the beautiful. The substance matters little if the surface isn't beautiful enough to stop you in the first place. Ruled over by the few chosen gatekeepers of taste we willingly follow our protagonist despite knowing, that in Refn's hands, there is no way this ends well. What Refn is actually attempting to say (if anything) with the film is anyone's guess as it's clear he means for his works to elicit multiple interpretations, but given the more linear structure and straightforward fashion in which the film has been edited it would appear Refn wants us to believe he is discussing one thing while slyly delivering something else. These intentions don't really come forward until the third act though, when the sleight of hand turns into full on spectacle with the film simultaneously becoming less effective as a result. The slow paced, meditative quality of the first two acts that analyzes the ins and outs of the modeling and fashion industries through the innocent eyes of sixteen year-old Jesse (Elle Fanning) is abruptly disposed of in favor of slasher movie conventions thus making the strong build-up and examination of such a world feel short-changed by the abrupt action that concludes the film. Refn somehow still manages slight poignancy, but with not as unique a perception as he initially sets up.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR Review

As you allow A Most Violent Year to slowly sink in the first theme you recognize is truth. Complete honesty is the way Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) chooses to conduct himself and throughout the entire running time of the film it is difficult to decipher whether or not he is a corrupt man who wants to believe he is good or if he genuinely strives to be honorable. With this kind of reciprocal psychology constantly battling within Abel, Isaac's is able to dig in and deliver a performance that continues to prove his excellence while also anchoring the film with the bigger ideas that director J.C. Chandor (Margin Call, All is Lost) is intending to convey. Within Abel Morales Isaac finds a man who we don't get much insight on up to the point that we meet him. He is an oil distributor, he is attempting to acquire a piece of real estate that will do nothing but expand his business and his control on the market, but to reach this point of seeming solidarity within his business and personal lives he will have to make choices not akin to his way of thinking; choices influenced by the time period Chandor has chosen to place these characters in. In not really knowing the mentality of this character and only having it slowly revealed to us over the course of two hours we are kept in a constant state of suspense with Isaac at the steering wheel taking us only as far as Abel is willing to bend his morality. It is an interesting take on what could have easily been a more Goodfellas or Scarface-inspired film, but rather than make this about the mob or about being a gangster as we generally think of them we are given this idea on what it truly takes to get what you want, to earn real respect. There is plenty to like and admire about A Most Violent Year and its methodical sense of storytelling, but it can't help but feel somewhat scattered in getting the sum of its parts to come together and deliver a wholly satisfying conclusion. Chandor clearly knows what he is doing and is somewhat of a master at putting the pieces in place and building the tension, but it is the payoff where things don't necessarily feel as compelling as one might expect. Given the grace and precision with which he puts these pieces in play I expected more from the third act, but in a film as full of atmosphere and subtly great performances as this it is hard to complain at all.

First Trailer for A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

I listed J.C. Chandor's follow-up to All Is Lost as my tenth most anticipated release for what is essentially the Oscar season of 2014. Though it is highly unlikely that I will actually get to see the film before the end of this year I am still very much looking forward to it and what it might do with its Award chances. Featuring not only what looks to be an electric performance from Oscar Isaac, but also one of the many great, in a wave of performances this fall, turns from Jessica Chastain. Chastain simply has an electricity about her and a passion that oozes into her craft and if this short clip of a trailer gives us anything it is the level of passion both she and Isaac have brought to their characters here. Chandor has written an original screenplay centered around an American immigrant (Isaac) and his wife (Chastain) who are trying to expand their business in New York in 1981 as violence and corruption threaten to destroy all they've built. It should also be mentioned that statistically, 1981 is one of New York's most violent years in the history of the city. The trailer doesn't give away much as it takes us more through the escalating structure and the intensity that it will carry rather than giving away any major plot points or flashy scenes. Personally, I like it this way and the trailer serves its purpose in only getting me more interested and anxious to see a film that I was already excited for based on its credentials alone. After Margin Call and All is Lost, Chandor seems poised to really make his mark with this third feature. A Most Violent Year also stars David Oyelowo, Albert Brooks, Alessandro Nivola and opens in NY and LA on December 31st.

DEVIL'S KNOT Review

There has been so much made of the trial that Devil's Knot dramatizes that the film itself almost seems irrelevant at this point. If you've seen any of the three Paradise Lost documentaries or for a more complete look at the eighteen years after what happens in Devil's Knot, last years excellent documentary West of Memphis, than you already know everything there is to know about this trial with ample amounts of theories and extraneous evidence to boot, but while West of Memphis encapsulated this entire ordeal from beginning to present when it turned from a trial about the murder of three little boys to a witch hunt for three other boys and the eventual plight to free them from the prison cells that constantly reminded them of the actions they were wrongfully accused of, Devil's Knot is simply looking to see what made everything go so wrong from the inception of this incident and more importantly, give a voice to the often forgotten victims and their families. The film is very open to interpretation in terms of what avenue you prefer to travel when it comes to this well-publicized case, but it certainly lays inclinations to what the current state of the case would best indicate. With such a sprawling story, a large cast of characters and multiple perspectives from which you could approach this it always seemed the choice to go with a documentary as far as chronicling the events of this case was the most efficient thing to do, but with Mara Leveritt's 2002 crime book of the same name proving an interesting and well-read piece of source material it was unavoidable that at some point a narrative feature might be attempted that pulled from the well that has seemed to officially run dry. The interesting question here is whether or not the film might be more highly looked upon were there not so many other films surrounding this same set of events because this film, on the most basic of principles, is still engaging due to the horrible circumstances under which these murders happened and the horribly botched job that the police did with the investigation that, when paired with the fine, but admittedly passive performance of actors at the caliber of Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon, you are bound to find a few things making it worth a look.