POSSESSOR Review

It's crazy how our bodies are just vessels, right? In looking at myself in the mirror the other day I felt, for a moment, as if I didn't recognize myself and the belief that what people saw is all they associated me with if they didn't know me further kind of took me off my feet. We attempt to craft our outward appearance as much as possible to give others the best, most accurate first impression of who we are and what we represent as an individual, but there is so much more going on beneath the surface-beneath the skin-that it's difficult to sometimes grasp that others will take not from what you believe you have to offer, but what they assume you are or are not capable of. This isn't a new idea of course, everyone over the age of six knows one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I'm talking more about distilling down the difference between the identity and the character. The identity being who we truly believe ourselves to be on a level so personal you feel only you yourself know who you truly are whereas the character is that of the one you've constructed based on the context of your life. Whether it be little indicators in your physical appearance that make you lean toward dressing a certain way, the interests of your friends that you don't mind taking a liking to that influence your verbiage, or the beliefs of your parents that convey their expectations and naturally impact how you shape your own perception-there are a thousand different reasons as to why one might have constructed the outward character they've become. As we grow and as appearances and inhabited character traits become more and more a part of who we are we begin to discover what we actually like and don't like and more importantly-who we want and don't want to be. It would be easy to say all of these previous words have accomplished is to break down the psyche of what it's like to brave the terrain of the brain during one's adolescent years, but as much as that may be applicable what was actually the catalyst for these considerations are the ideas at the center of writer/director Brandon Cronenberg's second feature film, Possessor. From the outside, Possessor would appear to be a film made purely in the vein of Cronenberg's father, David's "body horror" genre and while the movie certainly has some gnarly violence woven into its fabric its clear Cronenberg, also like his father, is more interested in intertwining the psychological with the physical and in this movie specifically-the idea of how everyday life has become more like a movie than the movies have grown to reflect everyday life themselves. 

THE GRUDGE Review

Andrea Riseborough is the kind of actor who, even in a movie like 2020's re-make/sequel(?) of The Grudge, goes to the extent of having her character sport certain tattoos that are never brought up, but that she probably knows the backstories of which undoubtedly inform some of the character choices she makes even if those tattoos only make it into a handful of shots in the final film. This is kind of the perfect distillation for the ratio of talent involved versus the quality of the final product for this new take on Takashi Shimizu's Ju-On property. Meaning, there is a depth to the writing, directing and acting here (or at least a certain level of credibility) that is lost in the final edit; glimpses of what could have been only showing up in a handful of moments in the final cut. If you've seen writer/director Nicolas Pesce's 2016 feature debut, The Eyes of My Mother then you know the filmmaker is adept at tackling the unsettling and framing it within such an atmosphere that it truly becomes one of those situations where you want desperately to look away, but can't help but to continue to watch for fear of the unknown. Unfortunately, with his latest all one really wants to do is look away and not for fear of missing out on what happens to the film's characters, but because we largely don't care about what's happening to them in the first place. As stated, there are hints at reasons as to why we might be inclined to care about any one of the recognizable faces on screen and the peril they're facing whether it be John Cho and Betty Gilpin's plight as new parents, Frankie Faison and Lin Shaye grappling with mortality or Riseborough and Demián Bichir coming face to face with their fears, but the screenplay spreads these scenarios and characters so thin with such disparate connections to one another that it's difficult to become invested in any of them and easier to simply give up on all of them. Besides the fact no one was necessarily asking for another installment from this franchise there seems to be no particular motivation even from Pesce's script to try and tap into the core idea of what the curse at the heart of The Grudge is really about; a curse that is born when someone dies in the grip of extreme rage. Shimizu's original short films, like this new version, operated as seemingly unconnected vignettes that are pulled together by police investigating the various, strange events, but whatever it was that made those original films launch the franchise The Grudge has become today has been lost in translation in this latest iteration.

BATTLE OF THE SEXES Review

Going into directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' (Little Miss Sunshine) take on the legendary tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in 1973 I had no real idea of the historical context of the movie or even of the individuals involved and so, needless to say, I was about to get a history lesson from what is arguably the worst place to receive a history lesson: the movies. Still, if one can appreciate cinema as an art form to encapsulate a moment or a culmination of events-a cinematic summary if you will-rather than an accurate depiction of every detail surrounding certain subjects that tend to be true, then we should be okay. While I still don't know much more about the showdown between King and Riggs outside of what I learned in screening Battle of the Sexes what I can say and likely what is the best thing the film has to offer is the insight into just how average casual chauvinism was in that day and age. Without blinking, in one of the opening scenes, Bill Pullman as Jack Kramer-a former professional tennis player and head of the prestigious tennis association King and many of her female counterparts were members of-tosses out how much of a fact it is that men are not only faster and stronger than women, but more competitive by nature. That it's biology. The most revealing part being that Kramer doesn't actually mean this to be offensive because he doesn't think of it as being offensive, but rather that it is simply the truth. While this level of arrogance still exists and is likely even worse in some circles today (don't believe me, look at the YouTube comments on the trailers for this movie) it has been amplified to a defensive level because time has also allowed for women to gain more and more of the equality they seek and so rightly deserve. As a white male I always find it difficult to complain about anything as I've certainly never faced anything insurmountable in my life and while I don't want to make this movie review a discussion about where my opinion falls as far as women's rights and such it kind of shocks me a movie such as this is even considered something of a statement nearly forty-five years after the fact when one would imagine human intelligence might have moved on to understanding that women are better at some things than men and men are better at some things than women, but regardless we all deserve the same type and, more importantly, the same amount of respect. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, but if Battle of the Sexes is a rather by the numbers sports biopic it at least serves to show audiences how little we've actually progressed and how much farther we have to go.

First Trailer for BATTLE OF THE SEXES Starring Steve Carell & Emma Stone

Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for Battle of the Sexes starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell. The film, based on the real life events of between tennis champion and feminist icon Billie Jean King (Stone) and chauvinist has-been Bobby Riggs (Carell), comes to us courtesy of directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris who also worked with Carell on Little Miss Sunshine. I remember seeing the first still released for this some time ago and though I wasn't familiar with the historical event it was depicting the cast and creators alone were enough to intrigue. With this first trailer I'm even more sold as not only is Stone following up her Oscar-winning turn in La La Land with something completely unexpected and rather humorous, but Carell seems to very much be channeling that of what made his clueless Michael Scott both appealing and endearing. For those of us who were fans of The Office and have sorely been missing Carell portraying this type of persona this is a welcome bit of inspiration that will hopefully shine a little bit of light on the typically dour onslaught of awards season movies. As for the trailer itself, this looks solid-both visually and conceptually. It's easy to see Dayton and Faris are very much going for the seventies aesthetic with some of the camera techniques matching those of films of the period to emphasize the setting even further. Story-wise, it's not hard to see why one would want to adapt this into a big screen feature and hopefully frequent Danny Boyle collaborator and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) has accomplished converting the real life story into compelling drama. The set-up for the trailer is especially interesting as it conveys a certain angle on the entirety of the situation that not only makes Riggs easier to swallow, but lends the story itself more layers. I can't wait. Battle of the Sexes also stars Sarah Silverman, Andrea Riseborough, Elisabeth Shue, Alan Cumming, Eric Christian Olsen, and opens on September 22, 2017.

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS Review

Editing. Editing is key in director Tom Ford's follow-up to his 2009 debut A Single Man titled Nocturnal Animals as the narrative begins by introducing Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) as a woman who seemingly has it all together, but whose world it tears to shreds in less than two hours. It accomplishes such a visceral effect on the viewer due largely to the skill in which it is cut. To unravel the neatly wrapped facade of Morrow's life is to cut back and forth between her present timeline, her past detailing how she reunited and fell in love with first husband, Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal), as well as the story in which she is reading. The key factor being the story that she is reading comes to her from Sheffield as a novel he wrote that will soon be published, but as it was inspired by Morrow he thought she deserved to read it first. The book, also titled "Nocturnal Animals", is the story of a family on a road trip whose car is hijacked by a band of troublemakers that includes a nearly unrecognizable Aaron Taylor-Johnson where terrible things happen. The representation of this novel as put to screen is what will come to garner the most attention from the viewer as it is high-tension drama filled with moving and effective plot points as well as performances. What makes Nocturnal Animals, the film, more than just a stirring adaptation of the work within the work though, is the foresight it utilizes in the outside stories and how they will influence our reactions to the actions taking place within that most engaging storyline. How is this accomplished though? How are these two outlying narratives so effective in both supporting and drawing from the narrative that undoubtedly holds the weight of the film on its shoulders? Through the editing. The film is cut in such an extraordinarily unpredictable fashion that, as an audience member, when it cuts we are never allowed to know what it might be cutting to. There are even long pauses that fill the screen with darkness designed to make the audience think a certain segment is over only to drop us back into the same story moments later. This unpredictability not only ups the tension in terms of seeing where certain plot strands might go, but in ultimately structuring the story in such a way that when the payoff for everything each of the three individual storylines has been building to finally arrives it hits you. And I mean really hits you. Nocturnal Animals is an exercise in sheer audacity and nearly every one of its risks pays off.

BIRDMAN Review

Time is not kind. Time is the one thing we can't seem to make more of and yet the only thing, when it really comes down to it, that we could ever hope to gain. Birdman is about the moments in life when it really comes down to it. When everything in life seems so fleeting, materialistic or fake and we have a second of clarity that defines what is really important to us, what makes this existence worth enduring and even why we want to exist in the first place. Birdman is a character study wrapped in social commentary about the current state of cinema as well as a love letter written in blood to the idea of legacy. There are millions of avenues one could run down when it comes to telling a story about the basic experience of being human and those moments that define who we are, who we become or who we want to be despite our actions. Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (21 Grams, Babel) is interested in the moments that make up a personality and the effect or contribution that personality has on society, but he also wants to make a few other notions clear in the process. The guy hates comic book movies, clearly, or at least hates that they have become the cornerstone of the modern cinematic experience. It is hard to find fault in this opinion with as strong a case as his film makes, but then again this can all be perceived as pretentious and taking things too seriously since most comic book films have no intentions other than being escapism for the masses. As much as Birdman incorporates the world of super heroes and comic book movies into its structure to make a larger point the film is ultimately about the difference in love and admiration and how the quest to feel "special" will likely only leave you empty if you disregard those closest to you for personal gain and have no one to celebrate with when that gain puts you at the top of the mountain. Needless to say, there is a lot going on in Birdman. Both on the screen in front of you and as larger analogies Inarritu's film has a lot on its mind and is primarily so successful because it is so capable of conveying this multitude of thoughts and ideas in an entertaining and insightful manner.

DISCONNECT Home Video Review

Crash dealing with technology. This simple four word description is what I believed Disconnect to be before sitting down and giving it a shot. I liked Crash when it arrived back in 2005. Do I agree with it winning best picture? No, not necessarily, but it was a solid movie nonetheless and it elicited some genuine emotion from me and clearly other audience members throughout the film going community. This piece isn't about Crash though, but what I thought about that film likely informs how I feel about Disconnect because though it is not the carbon copy my expectations believed it to be it certainly has many of the same intentions and goes about accomplishing them in somewhat similar ways. In all honesty, I was engaged in this film from very early on. There are some films in which you embark on and immediately know you aren't ever going to really get into the material this visual interpretation is exploring and yet there is the other end of the spectrum where you become so wrapped up in the events of what is happening to the characters on screen that you hate to see the signals that the film will soon be coming to an end. That latter reaction is what happened with Disconnect. It was a very interesting play because it opens with the storyline that ends up becoming the least resolved, but is the most immediately shocking and gets your attention only to segway into the main title sequence that introduces us to our second set of characters against the backdrop of Awolnation's "Sail". Whether it was due to the use of this familiar yet still powerfully resonant song or simply to the supreme confidence director Henry Alex Rubin (Murderball) and writer Andrew Stern seem to have had in their material there was something immediately gripping and slightly epic about the way the film presented itself and to say the least, I was intrigued. Disconnect is a sprawling film that never loses its footing and digs deep into the human psyche and past the technology that its title suggests is the main cause of the rifts in the relationships documented here. That not only are these tools that are intended to keep us all connected separating actual human contact further, but allowing us to take advantage of one another in the least humane of ways.

OBLIVION Review

It takes a while for Oblivion to get going and therefore might lose some of its audience before it really digs into why it's worth sticking around for. I am generally a fan of both science fiction and anything Tom Cruise decides to do and so to have them both served up in a single film that looked to be as gorgeous as it did while paired with a story seemingly ripe with mystery and intrigue from the mind of the director which could only mean a good amount of passion was applied, was rather exciting. My first thought as the credits began to roll though was not how incredibly beautiful the film was (which it is) or how solid the performance of Cruise was (reminiscent of a young Maverick even) but instead I couldn't help but wonder what exactly the film was trying to say or what any of it meant. Was this a simple minded sci-fi flick that had style first with substance a distant second or were all the twists, turns and intended surprises truly trying to say something? I couldn't decide and I wasn't sure I even understood all of what went on in the film. I assumed a few things and talked out a few other plot points I needed clarified on the ride home, but never did I feel fully satisfied with the story or that the filmmakers even had as much of a handle on it as they'd like to have us think. A clear vision for the world it would take place in? Sure. A wonderful musical score that somewhat rips off Daft Punk's from director Joseph Kosinski previous (and debut) feature, Tron: Legacy? Yea, but I was good with it. Still, the story seemed to come in last here; cobbled together from several different influences of the same genre and hoping to pass for something as fresh and new as the look of the film, Oblivion failed to live up to my expectations. Don't get me wrong, it is a fine enough film and is rather entertaining if you give it a chance, but it certainly isn't all it could have been.