Category: Reviews

Review: Into the Abyss

One of Werner Herzog’s first requests in his documentary “Into the Abyss” is, “Describe an encounter with a squirrel.” But we know Herzog; you can practically hear him asking it in his chilling German accent along with speculations about smuggling sperm out of a prison, and it almost sounds sadistic.

But from these oddities Herzog gleams a devastating and powerful film that examines death and loss from those who live with death, those who bring death, those who bring life and one who will know death very soon. Continue reading “Review: Into the Abyss”

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I can imagine the History Channel approaching Werner Herzog to make a documentary on Chauvet Cave. In my mind, they ask if he would make an informative but cinematic documentary with lots of talking heads because they have very successful shows like “Modern Marvels.”

But of course Herzog has no interest in making such a film, and instead he makes “Cave of Forgotten Dreams,” a film with beauty and philosophical ambitions that far surpass those of the scientists who discovered, studied and preserved this cave dating back to the dawn of man. Continue reading “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”

Le Havre

 

A fairy tale is the right expression to describe “Le Havre.” There’s nothing fantastical about this Finnish film set in France, but it’s filled with good-hearted characters and a slightly saccharine story that makes the entire thing feel blissfully right.

Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) is a shoe shiner in the French port city Le Havre. His job is to make people clean, but he’s in some murky waters. His loving wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) is sick in a tragically Old Hollywood way. And now a boy discovered in a group of African refugees making their way to England in a shipping crate has escaped from the police into Marcel’s care.

The boy’s name is Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), and he’s quiet and timid but willing to help and anxious to get to England. Marcel has no reason to help him, but he does. That generosity and genuine tender care seems to supersede any accusations of “Le Havre” being one-dimensional or simple minded. Continue reading “Le Havre”

Review: Terri

 

I knew kids in junior high and high school who would say weird stuff just to get a rise out of me. They would talk dirty, and it wasn’t insulting to me personally, but they could sense I was naïve, and they enjoyed it. They were just as insecure, but they didn’t carry themselves that way. They were unnecessarily ruthless for the sake of being so.

That’s the problem for Terri (first time screen actor Jacob Wysocki). He’s a big kid for 15, large and fat beyond his age. Kids whisper stuff to him about vaginas and squeeze his man breasts. Is that particularly insulting? It’s certainly annoying. And it doesn’t help that he has to put up with this junk when he’s living alone with an uncle developing Alzheimer’s and walking to school everyday through the woods.

The title character in “Terri” is in a tailspin, developing as an adult and now conflicting with whether he’s weird or normal, smart or mentally challenged, and even good or bad. I liked getting to know Terri and observing how he grows in these few weeks of high school. I would’ve liked to know him as a kid before life seemed so confusing, but the film’s third act leaves its character wandering in uncertainty. Continue reading “Review: Terri”

Win Win

 

How do you take a losing situation and turn it into a winning one? Better yet, how do you take a generic screenplay and turn it into one that is clever, funny and, yes, winning?

“Win Win” is the simple story of a down on his luck father who gets stuck with a runaway teenager but learns to love him, which is not the most ambitious of ideas, but whereas another film would be cynical and mean spirited, “Win Win” cheerfully takes the punches life dolls out in failure after failure and wins us over naturally. Continue reading “Win Win”

Hugo

Who other than Martin Scorsese could make a kids movie about the first pioneer of cinema and make it the most visionary, lovely and wondrous film of the year?

Scorsese’s “Hugo” is certainly a departure for the legendary director, and Brian Selznick’s equally imaginative children’s book would likewise be a hot commodity to many other directors, but few people other than Scorsese could wholly embody his love of cinema and general nerddom for silent films and trick artists like Georges Melies and get away with it.

That’s the selling point for me and other adults speculative about how Scorsese would handle a children’s film. “Hugo” could actually double as the biopic of Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), the story of how as an adult the magician turned filmmaker who made the masterpiece “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) became a quiet recluse who never spoke of his films after nearly all of them had been forgotten and destroyed.

Scorsese worships the man, arguably the first auteur of film, and he honors Melies by literally recreating his films in stunning color and 3-D cinematography.

For all the movies being re-released and up converted into 3-D today, the last one I thought would get the treatment would be “A Trip to the Moon.” Yet I’m giddy at watching this fantastical mystery story for children simply dripping with film history, and there is something wonderfully fulfilling about seeing a moon with a rocket poking out of its eye floating mystically above the screen. Continue reading “Hugo”

The Descendants

“The Descendants” is a complex family drama that provides lots of inner details without ever delving into them and becoming bloated

“The Descendants” is a film filled with bitterness, resentment and judgment. And yes, I would say it’s a comedy and that it’s quite lovely.

If the film’s idyllic Hawaiian setting or quirky indie comedy trailers seem deceptive, that is exactly the point. “The Descendants” is a film about appearances, and with each character there is a long lineage of Hawaiian heritage who show us that with every meeting and action, we carry along with us emotional baggage and sins of the past that skew our perception of the present.

We want to be honest about the here and now, but in others we only see the past. Sometimes what we see seems unfamiliar, and it’s tough to forgive. Continue reading “The Descendants”

Meek’s Cutoff

I’d be lying if I said this movie was a Western.

“Meek’s Cutoff” is an indie drama that explores the pain of boredom. It is set on the Oregon Trail in the 1860s typically associated with Westerns, but it’s not that.

And while it can still be gripping, pointed and poignant character drama, there’s a frustrating feeling about illustrating the pain of boredom that feels more like the pain of pain or the boredom of boredom.

The three couples wandering the Oregon Trail is director Kelly Reichardt’s way of showing how any group of people going for weeks without water, without anything to do and without a sense of certainty as to anything can begin to weigh heavily on everyone. It’s not so much about the characters or the setting but about the burden it evokes.

In that way, you will feel a weight on your shoulders watching “Meek’s Cutoff.” The film is deliberately slow, with the opening shots themselves beginning the trend of a film that is quiet, slow, drawn out, distant and quaint. When we hear dialogue, it is often not of consequence but more atmosphere filling the void. Continue reading “Meek’s Cutoff”

J. Edgar

J. Edgar Hoover worked tirelessly to maintain an image of power, fame and significance in the 48 years he served the FBI.

Since his death, his legacy has been tarnished, if not forgotten, with allegations he was not as pivotal to the FBI as he appeared, that he held confidential information over politicians and public figures as a form of blackmail and that he was a homosexual who occasionally wore women’s clothes.

Clint Eastwood’s “J. Edgar,” along with Leonardo DiCaprio in the eponymous role, dons an equally inflated presence and renders itself just as unmemorable. Continue reading “J. Edgar”

Incendies

Denis Villeneuve’s powerhouse Greek tragedy drama was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.

“Incendies” is an emotional powerhouse of a drama drawing from real world headlines, Hollywood epics and Greek tragedy. This French Canadian soul-wrencher is a deep, far reaching film of many characters and complexities. But for all its ability to shock and floor you with painful realizations, it is never anything but engaging and riveting to watch.

It begins with the twins. Jeanne (Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxim Gaudette) Marwan have just been read their mother Nawal’s (Lubna Azabel) will. “Bury me naked, face down, away from the world with no stone. No epitaph for broken promises.” Her broken promise was not revealing her full past to either of her kids, one who loved but never fully understood her and the other who gave up on her odd behavior long ago.

In death, she gives them two envelopes, one to be delivered to the father they never met and the other to the brother they didn’t know existed. Jeanne travels to Nawal’s homeland in the Middle East to track both down, and as she does, the movie intercuts her journey with Nawal’s own journey and torturous history. Continue reading “Incendies”