ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER Review

There is a moment in Paul Thomas Anderson’s tenth feature film, One Battle After Another, where Leonardo DiCaprio’s retired revolutionary Bob Ferguson is on the run in search of his daughter, Chase Infiniti’s Willa Ferguson. Bob is having a difficult time finding an electrical outlet where he can charge his phone so that he might make a call allowing him to obtain the necessary information concerning a rendezvous point where he will hopefully be reunited with Willa. Thanks to Benicio del Toro’s Sensei Sergio, Bob finally finds a working outlet and proclaims multiple times, “I have power!” It’s a simple sentiment that in the context of the scene is celebratory and speaking specifically to Bob getting one step closer to finding his child, but because DiCaprio chooses to repeat the words more than once they inherently bear a significance that gives way to consideration of what these words sound like on their own, without the context in which they’re spoken. Without context, it is easy to assume that a statement such as “I have power” is more a proclamation than something meant to express happiness which is Anderson's point: the noise is a distraction from the intent. 

One Battle After Another, based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland”, is a movie all about how power works; about how much of civilization is built on the whims and desires of power-hungry men who both seek to shape the world in accordance with their own concepts of truth as well as eradicate any reminders of their own shame. This is true for characters on both sides of history in Anderson’s film and the writer/director, despite making it clear who he believes are the good guys and who are the villains, does not let any one character off the hook. One Battle After Another could just as easily be seen as a cynical takedown of those in power as it can a hopeful rallying cry for change in a world gone awry but whatever lens one chooses to view it through, there’s no denying the big, broad, bombastic, and most importantly - bizarrely beguiling - entertainment value Anderson is able to deliver alongside his countless ideas.

First Trailer for MARK FELT: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE

As the Toronto International Film Festival draws closer and closer the more trailers we'll likely receive for some of the higher profile titles that will be making their debut there. Today brings us the first glimpse of director Peter Landesman's  (Concussion, Parkland) take on the story of FBI agent Mark Felt, who would become “Deep Throat”, the anonymous whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal in a series of discussions with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. As the trailer shows us, the film chronicles Felt’s discovery of the Watergate scandal and subsequent decision to leak information to the Post as President Richard Nixon’s White House administration began to try and tamper with the FBI’s investigation. While this may have been presumed to be something entirely different to those unaware of who Mark Felt was prior to watching the trailer (a la a Liam Neeson version of White House Down/Olympus has Fallen) I am a sucker for straightforward historical dramas such as this seems to be and would have definitely made time to see this were I still going to be able to attend TIFF this year. While that was the plan up until recently, I unfortunately won't be able to make the trip to the festival this year, but fortunately won't have to wait too much longer to find out if The Man Who Brought Down the White House is as intriguing as this first-look trailer makes it out to be. What concerns me about the film is that it was originally announced back in 2006, didn't start shooting until May of last year, and is just now getting a release date nearly a year and a half after the fact. Whether this has anything to do with the quality of the project overall remains to be seen, but the credentials are certainly in the films favor as Liam Neeson stars in the titular role along with Diane Lane, Tony Goldwyn, Josh Lucas, Michael C. Hall, Maika Monroe, Kate Walsh, and Tom Sizemore in supporting roles. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House opens nationwide on September 29th, 2017.

DIVERGENT Review

If Divergent is anything it is competent. Everything about it screams ambition, what it wants to be and the actual product itself shows it has the ability and the right amount of reverence for the source material to be successful in conveying the spirit of Veronica Roth's novel to the screen. The drawback is that while it is indeed capable and is able to make a suitable enough film for fans of the novel to more or less enjoy and pick apart, nothing about the execution of bringing this story to life screams exceptional or even, for lack of a better term in this case, divergent. I finished the first book in Roth's trilogy a few months back and have since moved on to the next one, but while I was suspicious of this new dystopian franchise with a young female heroine for the lead I was eventually able to look past the similarities between it and The Hunger Games and at least understand the merit people were finding in these books. It might be too much (or too early for me as I'm in the middle of Insurgent) to say that Roth's series is the better written of the two from a creative standpoint, but it is already clear that Suzanne Collins series lends itself well to the cinematic world even if people were weary of it at first given the titular event included the slaughtering of children. I, personally, thought Divergent would be the easier story to tell onscreen, but it becomes obvious within the first hour or so of the film that this may not be so as things and events begin to collapse in on themselves and it is only with the promise of another chapter and the idea that these plot strands with less attention paid to them this time around may rise to become more relevant in the future. It is an odd feeling because as the film unfolded and I was referencing the book in my head wondering when or if they would include certain scenes it became apparent the writers and the filmmakers weren't quite sure how to structure things. The film plays out well enough and we understand the point of why everything is happening, but we don't necessarily feel the tension or the growing fear that should be mounting in our protagonist until it is too late and we feel the film has gone on for too long without ever feeling whole.

First Trailer for DIVERGENT

I've yet to read the Veronica Roth novels on which this latest cinematic attempt to capitalize on the "wildly popular" young adult book series is based. Though I can tell there is a difference between Divergent and the likes of those attempts that have failed to capitalize on that wave of pop culture this year such as Beautiful Creatures, The Host, and most recently, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. My wife is a ninth grade English teacher and it is easy to pick up on which books are actually connecting with a majority of the students and which are more brought about by false hype trying to convince audiences they are in fact popular. Divergent seems to be in that category where there is a genuine interest in the material and the eventual movie version which we gained our first look at yesterday. As I said, I haven't read the novels so I don't know the details of the plot or the motivations of these characters. The first trailer certainly gives off a Hunger Games vibe as it positions a teenage girl at the center of circumstances she doesn't believe she can overcome and offers an overseeing government that forces her to act against her will. In this case, Kate Winslet is literally forcing the act of free will out of the citizens she commands. Beyond this, all I know is that our protagonist portrayed by the lovely and talented Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) doesn't fit into any of the factions her society divides people into based on their personality. As a result, Tris (Woodley) faces certain consequences that will no doubt put her in harms way. The film also stars Theo James, Miles Teller, Jai Courtney, Ashley Judd, Tony Goldwyn, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Mekhi Phifer, Ansel Elgort, Christian Madsen, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Ben Lamb, and Amy Newbold. Divergent opens in traditional theaters and IMAX on March 21, 2014. Hit the jump to check out the first teaser trailer.