NOMADLAND Review

As much about those she encounters as it is Frances McDormand's Fern, Chloé Zhao's Nomadland chronicles a year in the life of a woman whose world is dying and her journey to discover a new one. McDormand's performance is as reassuring as ever, but its these portraits Zhao paints of those the grind has forgotten that give the film a sense of hope without ever romanticizing its notions. In fact, everything about Zhao's latest is as authentic as one would expect if familiar with the filmmaker's previous features in Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider. While most will know Zhao's name soon enough for directing Marvel's The Eternals it is her documentary-like approach to fictional material that will seemingly carry over no matter the brand she applies it to. This stylistic approach is one that requires a certain level of patience and attention, but as with most things that are worth investing time and effort in if one is able to give those things over to the film completely what it delivers is more than a rewarding experience - it's a stunningly cathartic one. Such praise is heaped upon the film with caution, mind you, as Nomadland is also a film about both everything and nothing. It's a movie difficult to describe to people in terms of why it carries the weight it does as it would appear to be little more than a road movie from the outside looking in. This is a movie in which we see Academy Award-winner Frances McDormand play a character who goes from one job to the next, living out of her van, while allowing the third act of her life to be shaped by those she meets along the way. If this were a traditionally structured movie it would undoubtedly include some tangible goal McDormand's Fern was chasing and must reach before a certain deadline or a certain destination that holds the resolve to all her earthly issues she attempts to deal with while on her journey, but Nomadland has no such structure. If Zhao's style and approach are distinctive for nothing else it is actually the complete lack of structure her films exhibit. It is because of this abandonment of design though, that the film is able to capture the loneliness of the world without much dialogue, it is through this that it provides the audience with an exploration they themselves might be craving around who we are and what the point of all this might be while reminding us of how good we can be, need to be, and must be to one another while we're still here.

TIFF 2015: LOUDER THAN BOMBS Review

If there has been a single trend in all of the films I've seen so far at TIFF it is that of the one focusing on depressed white people. Apparently, a lot of these folks become so bored with their seemingly perfect(ly fine) existences, that many others would no doubt kill for a piece of, that they feel the need to create senseless drama for themselves to feel something, anything. It's a sign of some type of narcissism as the three main male figures in this film are so self-involved in their quest to get past canonizing a woman who, despite being gone for several years, still dictates much of their daily lives. This isn't to say the death of a loved one is an easy thing to cope with, but it is the actions and the inability to communicate between these three in the wake of their loss that places them each on different roads that see them looking to heal themselves in ways of aggression or impulse or hatred instead of trying to sit down and figure it out together. Director Joachim Trier, who has made two previous features (Reprise, Oslo, August 31st) that I haven't seen has written an original screenplay with frequent collaborator Eskil Vogt and while it is easy to see where he is coming from with his examination of the effects we can each have on one another's lives, even in the smallest senses, Louder Than Bombs still feels like something more appropriate for a forty-five minute short rather than a nearly two-hour slog that keeps piling on the bad, conceit-ridden choices that push these individuals farther and farther from where they need (or want) to be.

GODZILLA Review

Admittedly, I have never been a fan or seen much of the supposed entertainment value in what a giant lizard fighting other monsters brings to the table other than spectacle, but for some reason Hollywood feels a need to keep going back to this well to the point it seems they have something they really want to unearth, but can't put their finger on. I was only eleven years old when Roland Emmerich's version of the King of the Monsters hit the screen and for the most part I enjoyed that one with my easy to mesmerize mentality. It has been a long while since I've re-visited that take and was never able to get into the string of films featuring the creature produced by the Toho Co. What has always evaded me is where audiences find substance in this idea that watching a mythological monster, sometimes played up as the lesser of two threats, has anything more to say other than it looks pretty awesome when he fights these creatures, but only if we know the city's they are destroying in the wake of their battles to determine who resides at the top of the food chain are completely abandoned. Otherwise, we just feel bad for the countless lives being lost in one seemingly small motion of this monster rather than being able to enjoy the majesty of what is taking place before us. Coming around to director Gareth Edwards take on the monster though, Godzilla, the marketing did something unexpected and actually had me fairly excited to see what this new film might bring to the table and if the studios may finally have been able to press that button or unearth that value they so desperately are searching for with this property. I guess, if I were to say anything in this introduction without giving specifics away it would be that Edwards has given over to the more serious undertones that were the point of origin for the character in the first place and with that he has crafted a film as much about the story and the impact of the fact Godzilla exists rather than simply producing a film that goes exactly where your instincts want to take you. That the film subverts the obvious ideas and goes in a completely different direction assured me that audiences don't really know what they want when it comes to a Godzilla movie, but would no doubt be satisfied with monster-fighting on an epic scale and while Edwards Godzilla is not the exceptional piece of popcorn entertainment I was hoping for, he still delivers on many levels.

First Trailer for GODZILLA

I've never been a big fan of the monster movies or the character that was spawned in the 1954 original Japanese-language film, but that doesn't mean Hollywood will stop trying to convince me and everyone else who was introduced to Godzilla through the 1998 Roland Emmerich disaster that there really is something awesome to see here. That's really an exaggeration as at 11 years-old I was fine with the monster movie starring Matthew Broderick just as I accepted Batman & Robin without any real qualms, but now that we are in a phase of remakes and reboots with grittier, more reality-based substance it is no surprise that the time has finally come for Godzilla to receive the same treatment. It isn't as much a surprise as much as it is refreshing to see that the trailer looks interesting and that director Gareth Edwards (Monsters) has acquired a certain style with which he wants to tell this familiar story. The opening sequence looks like it could be potentially breathtaking while setting up a creative way of revealing our titular monster. If this type of energy and creativity spans the entire length of the feature there is no doubt it could turn out to be a rather invigorating re-imagining. I wasn't the biggest fan of Edwards previous, small budget film that was more a character study under extreme circumstances than the loud action flick the title might imply, but he clearly has a budget behind him here and will have been able to play out his directorial ambition on a much larger scale. Here's hoping he is able to even it out rather than over-indulging in either one as he has a pretty great human cast in at work here as well. Godzilla stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins and opens in 3D on May 16, 2014.

LINCOLN Review

When coming from a generation where director Steven Spielberg has already been placed upon a pedestal as an iconic director it is hard to look at anything the guy does with anything less than high expectations. While other times it will naturally feel as if the man is skating by on his reputation rather than his abilities that could have easily come to a halt once reaching such a status. I have always wondered about this, wondered if Spielberg had what it takes to continue walking his line between serious films and blockbuster money-makers while maintaining his credibility with the critics and keeping the general public intrigued no matter what type of project he chose to take on next. In the time since I began seriously loving films (say, the last ten years) the director has created two genuinely great films and a slew of others that are very good. One thing was ultimately clear, these movies were made by a filmmaker who knew what he wanted and no matter the genre or the size has the power to make you feel something, an inherent reaction to what is happening on screen. While I have always been a fan of Spielberg and of course have wrestled with what some of his films might have become were they made by a less established name, none of this came into consideration when reflecting upon Lincoln many hours after the credits rolled. A film that has been in the works for over fifteen years, it is simply rewarding to see this work finally come to fruition. An intense and stirring look behind closed doors that doesn't cover Lincoln from birth to death but instead focuses on a small window in his life that very well defines why the man still commands an iconic status today.