CRAZY RICH ASIANS Review

Crazy Rich Asians is, for the most part, your standard run of the mill rom-com, but it bears the distinct responsibility of carrying a fair amount of cultural significance. Crazy Rich Asians is also about twenty minutes too long and a little less focused for it, but those last twenty minutes are so damn good and make so much of the groundwork that has come before them so meaningful it's hard to hold much against this endearing, predictable, yet wholly individual piece of work.

When I say the film is your "standard run of the mill rom-com" that is to say it follows a similar structure and borrows familiar tropes from the genre in which it squarely exists (yes, climactic airport scene and all), but the silver lining is what it does with those clichés to underline a story that is being told to really emphasize the character dynamics and this core conflict of passion versus obligation and how these clash due to a firm belief in tradition over conceit and the cultural differences within a group of people too often lumped together. This was maybe the most interesting aspect of the film given my complete outsider perspective; seeing both how an outside country views the lifestyle of many Americans as well as the judgment and degrees of difference that exist within this culture that is completely different than my own.

LA LA LAND Review

What is worth more? Where does ambition measure when compared to reflection? Or...how does one know when to quit? When that ambition outweighs or cannot be met by the pure skill or natural talent possessed? La La Land is a movie about Hollywood and the Hollywood system and how it all flows in and out of making and breaking stars, but La La Land is also a movie about dreams and the ugly side of those dreams no one likes to talk about when they tell you to chase them-compromise. Compromise is what must be obtained if one is hoping to have their cake and eat it too. There is compromise in life no matter what professional or personal route one may choose to take, but when dreams are big enough to take you around the world and on extended stays in places away from home that require long or odd hours such as, say, when someone is a musician or film actor-compromises are unavoidable and typically made by the half of the relationship not actively participating in such a career. With La La Land director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) follows up his Academy Award-nominated feature debut with an out and out musical in the vein of those golden age Hollywood musicals from the forties and early fifties that personified stardom, celebrity, and a certain type of lifestyle most could only hope to obtain. This goes well with the plight of the story as we follow two young aspiring artists-the girl an actress and the guy a jazz pianist-as they navigate modern Los Angeles in hopes of achieving their dreams even if the odds seem stacked against them and despite their closest friends and family not exactly holding out hope for success to find them. The standard structure of boy meets girl combined with that of a few song and dance numbers that pay homage to those aforementioned golden days of Hollywood aren't enough for Chazelle though. The writer/director isn't simply looking to recreate images and feelings afforded him during his youth as he watched Gene Kelly dance across the screen, but more he is interested in exploring the consequences of having such aspirations; the dark side of fame that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with addiction or other harmful habit forming activities, but more with the decisions such individuals have to make without knowing the answer as to what they'll regret more twenty years down the road. Can I be the person I want with the person I want? Is it worth more to make a life as I so desire or with the one I desire? La La Land doesn't prescribe to know the answers to these heavy questions, but its musings on the subject are infectious and reaffirming in that they capture the struggle one in a handful experiencing the film will have come face to face with at some point in their past.

Teaser Trailer for LA LA LAND Starring Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone

It's a little ironic that we've received the first trailer for director Damien Chazelle's follow-up to Whiplash on the week it was originally scheduled to open. La La Land was and still is my most anticipated film of the year so it only hurt when distributor Summit Entertainment pushed it from the middle of summer to a more awards friendly December release date, but at least they finally gave us something. For me, Chazelle directed what might be one of the best movies of the past fifteen years with his 2014 feature debut and whatever it was the thirty-one year old director chose to do next there was sure to be a great amount of anticipation around it. Working again from an original screenplay that he penned La La Land tells the simple story of a jazz pianist who falls for an aspiring actress in Los Angeles-the catch is that Chazelle and stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone will be conveying this love story via musical. Taken from a screenplay Chazelle wrote before writing and directing Whiplash, this first trailer for his sophomore effort very much elicits the magic and music of old Hollywood that feels both inherent to the story and supremely executed. While it was originally planned for Miles Teller to reunite with his Whiplash director, that the lead male role eventually went to Gosling seems more of a perfect fit as Gosling is already a singer and musician on his own terms and that Chazelle and Summit have chosen to set the first footage audiences will see to a song sung by the actor can only suggest they made the change for the better. It doesn't hurt that Gosling and Stone have magnetic chemistry together as has been displayed in their two previous films together (Crazy Stupid Love, Gangster Squad). I was in from the get-go and after seeing how lush the visuals are and how keenly Chazelle has seemed to capture what I can only imagine he was going for I'm only all the more excited for Oscar season to arrive. La La Land also stars J.K. Simmons, Finn Wittrock, Rosemarie DeWitt, John Legend, Jason Fuchs, Callie Hernandez, Sonoya Mizuno, Jessica Rothe, Tom Everett Scott, Josh Pence, and will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 31st before opening in NY and LA on December 2nd, in limited release on December 9th, and wide on December 16th.

EX MACHINA Review

This is a story of ideas. A story of very precise ideas. It is the ideas that make the story and not the other way around. This is a film that if you were to take all the attributes of any major summer blockbuster and put them on the opposite end of the spectrum it would be something similar to what we have here. In essence, this is people in rooms talking. As always though, it is the human mind and the countless contemplations we can come up with when given an interesting topic that fuel how fascinating such a simple set-up can be. There is no need for explosions, action or even a convoluted plot when instead all of the adrenaline these things strive to rouse in an audience are done through the power of conversation, of possibilities and of our own interpretations. Needless to say, writer/director Alex Garland's directorial debut, Ex Machina, is fascinating not just for the ideas it brings to the table, but for how well it executes them. It is a combination of many factors coming together to form a completely harmonious final product that feels labored over to the point of near perfection. It is clear this began with the script in that the aforementioned basic set-up doesn't take a single line of dialogue for granted. Garland is communicating tone, thoughts and themes among many other facets with his script and as he brings in actors to bring them to life these things only become more enhanced. As he brings in the production designer things are only implicated further. Everything about the film builds off one another until we reach a point where we're almost suffocating in the amalgam of philosophy, technology and mystery the film presents. That is, of course, until it reprieves us from the weight of those implications just long enough for us to catch a breath before delving back in to explore the unknown a little further. To put it bluntly, the film is enthralling in a way that is almost cryptic. There is nothing to warm up to here because it is a decidedly cold film, but despite that coldness this story of ideas pulls you in by the nature of its bleakness hitting a little too close to home.