Deepwater Horizon

The story of the Deepwater Horizon could be transformed into one of many types of film genres.  There’s the political drama about BP’s failure to properly secure the safety of the vessel, and the way the men responsible are walking free.  There’s an environmental-friendly family film, perhaps about the saving of a pelican covered in oil. But Peter Berg, who directed Deepwater Horizon, chooses to focus on the men and women who survived through the horrors, that on April 20th, 2010, engulfed them on a floating furnace in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the worst oil disaster in United States history.  Peter Berg chose to make a disaster movie. To be clear that’s not to say that he belittles the real-life event in favor of something entertaining, because his film is mostly understated, very serious, respectful to those involved (except for the ones working for BP), and very good.  And…it’s a disaster movie.

When you think of a disaster film these days, you tend to think of Roland Emmerich destroying the world in The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Independence Day, or others like San Andreas, which was not directed by Emmerich, but might as well have been.  There was of course the 1998 one-two punch of dueling asteroid films, Deep Impact and Armageddon that may have started the trend of a disaster film, like most super-hero stories, becoming about a group of people banding together to survive the potential end of the world.  They’ve seemed to forgotten that a catastrophe can be much smaller, with just as much influence and drama.  Deepwater Horizon is closer to The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Titanic, than more recent affairs, though it stands apart from those films too.

The film’s structure is simple:Establish the characters; build tension; chaos.  First we meet the major players that are going to be the eyes and ears to guide us through the event, and Berg does a much better job of establishing these characters than most films do.  He doesn’t do anything particularity inventive; it’s nothing new to begin the story with our main character, played by Mark Wahlberg, waking up with his wife, played by Kate Hudson, having a family breakfast.  But Berg let’s this character moment double as an explanation for how an oil rig is supposed to work, using the couple’s daughter’s school presentation of what her father does for a living, as a way to allow the audience to understand what they’re about to see, and why they’re about to see it.  It’s ingenious because now that we’ve seen the kind, everyday people it’s going to affect, we immediately dread it.

The best section of the film, for me, was once we get to the rig, and the way Berg continues to introduce characters, relay information, make us care, and make us worry.  The previously established Mike Williams (Wahlberg), who is starting a three week tour on the Deepwater Horizon, barely has time to take two steps on the rig when his boss, Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell), also just arriving, is ordering safety tests, because it’s clear that safety has not been established.  The reason for the negligence would be because of a prickish BP exec,(John Malkovich), who along with other BP executives on the rig, are concerned about the project being 43 days behind schedule. The Transocean employees, such as Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez), Caleb Holloway (Dylan O’Brien), and Jason Anderson (Ethan Suplee), who run the rig, and keep it floating, are deeply concerned by some of the readings and indications they’re getting.  The audience, through the film’s opening scenes know why they should be concerned, but the BP guys ignore the red-zone pressure indications and force them to forge ahead.  All the while Berg shows us the structure coming undone on the ocean floor.  The tension is excruciating, and the payoff of the moment that chaos finally hits, is very well earned.

I won’t go into how things unfold from there, other than to say there is a lot of fire.  The film chooses to forgo suspense in this last section in favor of moving as quickly as it can to get the characters off the rig, and to safety.  There’s a moment late in the film when a character sacrifices himself in favor for others, and while I felt lousy about the man that perished, he wasn’t an established character, and so I thought Berg missed a chance at making a strong moment even stronger. These “mistakes” could be a major gripe, because I would’ve rather had a few moments where the characters get a chance to breathe and reestablish themselves in the midst of the action, but that’s not something time would afford you in a real-life situation.  And despite this being based on a true story, you don’t want to diminish that story when part of it’s power is how their was no time to waste.  Or…maybe you do. It is still a movie right?  Maybe it would’ve been even better if it did things a little differently.  I guess I’ll see how I feel about this in time, and unlike the film’s characters, I’m thankful to have that time.

Wahlberg is at his best when he plays more eccentric and wild characters, such as in The Departed and I Heart Huckabees, but he mostly plays an every-man, and while he does it well, it can get boring after a while.  But Berg, who directed him in the excellent Lone Survivor, gets strong work out of him here.  Kate Hudson doesn’t have much to do past the film’s first act, but she’s still good enough to make an impact.  I really liked Gina Rodriguez, as well a rounded Transocean worker with a broken down Mustang that’s her pride and joy.  But the two best performances in the film are unsurprisingly by Kurt Russell and John Malkovich.  I grew up watching these two play tough good guys and joyful bad guys respectively, and while I never forgot how good they were, it’s nice to have a fresh reminder.

Before the film, there was a trailer for Patriot’s Day, Berg’s next film, again starring Wahlberg, about the bombing during the Boston Marathon.  It almost looked like the exact same film as this one, again, based on a trailer, so I hope Berg doesn’t fall into a trap, but I suppose they’re two very different real-life events.  Either way, Deepwater Horizon is as well made a disaster film as I’ve seen in a long time, and all of the issues that I have are really more nitpicks that only annoy me because I think it pushes the film away from being an all-timer.  Still, when the end credits show the pictures of the actual people that perished, and most of the pictures are of them holding their very young children, it’s easy to set aside my complaints, and respect the film Berg has made.

Grade: A-

The Magnificent Seven

What makes a good remake? There are so many these days, and so many of them are unmemorable.  That angers people because they ultimately see a remake as nothing more than a cash grab; a lowest common denominator with a memorable title that’s easier to market for the big studio engine.  In most cases, that is the case, and it makes audiences judge the next remake coming down the pipe before it’s on the screen, and I don’t blame them.  Why watch the remake when I have the far superior original on my hands? Why go see something unoriginal at theater prices, when there’s other, less lazy, options?  But that doesn’t mean a remake is an automatic death sentence, it just means it has a harder hill to climb in order to be a success.

I always thought that in order to say a remake is successful is to judge it on two fronts:

Is it necessary?

Does it add something new?

Some films, even the best ones, do not age well.  They lose something overtime that robs an audience of what made them great in the first place, and usually those audiences are new ones.  That means a new film can act as a polish to the old, and fix it for the newer times.  But it is also important that it brings new ideas to the table, ideas not possible when the original was made, otherwise what’s the point?  That later option can be expanded in the form of a genre switch.  Take a look at the work of William Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet becomes West Side Story; Hamlet inspires The Lion King; King Lear becomes Akira Kurosawa’s Ran.  And Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai becomes The Magnificent Seven.

But those last few examples are not what we’re dealing with here when we compare the 1960 Magnificent Seven to Antoine Fuqua’s update, because his new film doesn’t really add anything new, other than a more diverse cast, and more violent action. In fact, it ends up being unnecessary to someone like me that now, having seen both films, prefers the 1960 version.  But I’m not everyone, so while it isn’t necessary to me, I acknowledge that Fuqua’s version will be something new for some audiences.  And because of that, I think it sneaks around the whole remake thing unscathed.  A better reason is that despite my issues…the new film is a lot of fun. Is a great movie? No, it’s a pretty straight forward affair, elevated by expertly handled action scenes and a cast that is able to distinguish themselves enough to care for.

A prologue introduces us to the town of Rose Creek that has become under the deadly control of industrialist Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), who shows off his power and ruthlessness before the opening credits roll.  This leads the desperate townspeople, led by newly widowed Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), to employ protection from seven outlaws, that consist of bounty hunters, gamblers, and hired guns.  The rag tag group is recruited by former Union member Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), and alcoholic womanizer, Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt).  Shortly joining the crew is former confederate soldier, Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), fur-trapper, Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Korean knife-wielder, Billy Rocks (Byung-Hun Lee), wanted Mexican outlaw, Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and loner Cherokee, Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier). The film doesn’t spend much time showing them bond as a group because once they unite, they set their sights on doing their duty, and doing it quickly. And as they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money, which again, the film doesn’t spend it’s time on finding the reasons for each man to do so…other than paying for their sins, or being able to die a better death than most.

Washington commands the screen with little more than his whispers, but his presences is as loud as the army he faces down.  It was nice to see him reunite with his Training Day costar, Ethan Hawke, who takes the little given to him and makes the best out of it. D’Onofrio either annoys me, or I enjoy him; I enjoyed him here.  Pratt seems a little too Pratt at times, but he’s having too much fun to not be infectious.  Haley Bennett, as the widower, is going to be a star soon, and she shows exactly why here, standing toe to toe with the some acting heavyweights.  Sarsgaard is fine as the villain, though not very memorable, and too cartoonish at times.  Everyone else fills their roles nicely.

Fuqua makes mostly pedestrian choices with his camera, but he does love a good sunset, and I loved looked at them.  He uses the open landscapes and firelight as much as he can, and uses them well.  His most impressive feat is the way he handles the film’s final showdown.  It’s as well done an action sequence as any I’ve seen this year, including the airport fight in Civil War.  It was also lovely to hear the score by Simon Franglen and the late James Horner.  I was able to recognize Horner’s familiar sounds, and appreciated every second they’re used.

If you’re unable to get past that this is a remake of the 1960 film, then I would say to not trouble yourself with something you’ve already given up on.  But if this is a new experience for you, or if you just want to enjoy a western with a cast to get behind, then saddle up and enjoy it.  I did.

Grade: B

Snowden

Apathy, by definition, is the lack of interest or concern about something.  It’s normally used when there’s an indifference to something important, such as an election, race relations, or national security.  There are so many people in this world that have just had the worst day of their lives because of war, riots, or any other form of abuse, and most of us will be showing our support and concern by watching Thursday Night Football tonight.  Terrible things happen everyday because of horrors that we already know exist, yet we do little more than share an article on Facebook, instead of actively trying to prevent these things from happening. Maybe we tell ourselves that “one person can’t make that much of an impact” or “my life is too busy right now.”  While there is truth to all of this, I’ll be honest and give you my reason:  I don’t want to waste my time.  We only get so many days on this earth, and I don’t wish to spend them doing something I’m not passionate about. Furthermore, I like watching football, going to the movies, going out for drinks, reading quietly, and so on.  But that doesn’t suggest that I find an ounce of fault in someone that does fight for these very important causes daily, because I believe they’re doing it because they want to, and if not…then they’re even braver for sacrificing their time.

Which brings me to my biggest issue with Oliver Stone’s Snowden.  The man the story revolves around has been called a traitor, a whistleblower, a hero, and a rat; Stone clearly has his own view, and presents it front and center for the film’s 140 minute runtime, but he does so in such a bland way that I found it difficult to sympathize with the main character.  Here’s a man that is finding out terrible secrets about how our country spies on it’s citizens, and decides to do something about it at the possible cost of his life, and yet there is hardly a drop of passion to his choices.  I looked at his well paying job, his beautiful and loyal girlfriend, and I saw no reason to let it all go for “something bigger.”  Not because what he does is the wrong choice, but because the film wastes opportunities to show why the choices he makes are truly important to him. Stone hammers home the point that our government is awful, and that our privacy is at serious risk, but after two hours and twenty minutes, that point looses it’s edge, and in so doing…fails to make the point.

The other major issue I had with the film was the way Stone structured it. This is story that can have the feeling of a thriller with suspense being pumped through it’s pours, but Stone robs it of that by imploring a flashback structure in which the film’s opening moments tell us that the story will find it’s way to June 2013. It’s here we see Edward Snowden (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) trapped in a hotel in Hong Kong, dispersing classified NSA documents and information to journalists, among them is Laura Poitras (Melissa Leo), who made the excellent Snowden based documentary Citizen Four, a more compelling film on the subject than this one.

During the interview and conversations in the hotel room, Snowden recounts important times in his life, such as his 2004 Marine basic training; meeting his girlfriend, Lindsay Wills (Shailene Woodley); interactions with his CIA boss and mentor, Corbin O’Brian (Rhys Ifans); growing misgivings about the “Big Brother” aspects of the NSA and CIA’s surveillance.  All leading to his eventual decision to make classified information public knowledge, but Stone doesn’t let that decision feel like the slow-burn it should, instead Snowden is repeatedly aghast by what he learns until he finally says “no more.”  He doesn’t feel like a very different person from when he’s in the military in 2004 to the man in the hotel room nine years later.  Stone tries to get suspense out of his whistleblowing moments, and his escape from Hong King, but the audience knows how this is going to end, so the suspense falls flat.

The film is backed by strong and committed performances, lead by Levitt, who can’t make Snowden exciting, but he does his best to disappear into the role.  A well suited choice considering the story.  Leo along with Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkenson, as the other two journalists interviewing Snowden, have little to do, but they do it seriously.  Ifans is excellent and scary as the CIA head honcho, having the wing of a vulture, but making it an inviting place to take comfort in.  Nicolas Cage has a small roll, and it’s a reminder that when he’s working with talented people, he’s a talented actor.  My favorite performance in the film goes to the compelling and heart-felt work of Shailene Woodley, who shows us a caring and honest person that seems impossible to leave, even if it’s for more important reasons.

Stone has made some classics, and Snowden has elements of the man the made those films, but he mostly plays things too close to the chest, and for something that he’s passionate about, what’s the point in not taking chances?  Why tell me something I already know in a by the numbers way, and why tell it to me over and over for two hours and twenty minutes so that it bores me?  Yes, there is some really disturbing stuff going on in this world, and it’s scary to think that everyword I type is being recorded, but If I had someone as lovely as Shailene Woodly standing by my side, my whistle would remain silent, and Stone’s film didn’t give me a good enough reason as to why Snowden let his roar.

Gotta go.  Football is on.

Grade: C

Blair Witch

I was twelve years old when I heard about The Blair Witch Project.  I remember reading about it in a newspaper; I don’t remember what the article said, or if it even mentioned what the film was about, only that it was terrifying.  Then a month or so passed and the first commercial for the film came on my television, and it instantly tapped into that part of my mind that makes me afraid of noises in the dark. The commercial didn’t show much other than some black and white footage of teenagers interviewing people about the Blair Witch inter-cut with those same teenagers running in the woods.  Running away from something.

From something.

You see that’s where the fascination came in, that’s the real reason why the film made so much money back in 1999.  Of course the film being in the found footage style was an original concept that also fascinated people, but it was that something that made people want to go see it.  Why are these kids running?  What are they running from?  What is it going to do to them if it catches them?  It’s the unknown that scares us the most; it’s what may be lurking in the dark that makes the dark so unsettling. The Blair Witch Project knew this, and in it’s best moments, used it to great effect.

Time is rarely a story’s friend though.  The best ones find ways to transcend time’s obstacles, but most stories show their age so swiftly, it feels like it happened overnight.  The Blair Witch Project has given way to films like The Paranormal Activity series, that while not having the same initial impact of the former, they’ve taken it’s idea, or gimmick, and have used it to a greater technical effect.  If someone were to watch The Blair Witch Project  today, I doubt it would have the same impact it did seventeen years ago.

So when it was announced that Adam Wingard’s new film, initially titled The Woods, was actually a sequel to The Blair Witch Project, I became very excited.  Wingard is a strong horror filmmaker, and here was a chance for the foundation of a type of horror film, to return with an angry vengeance.  A chance to use all of the bells and whistles a greater budget affords a director, in order to make something new out of something that’s shown it’s age.  A chance to be original where previous ideas have become stale.

The good news is that when Wingard tries this, he succeeds; the bad news is that he doesn’t try it enough.  His film is, for the most part, a remake of it’s 1999 predecessor with better cameras and jump scares throughout.  This isn’t always a bad thing, but it doesn’t do enough to warrant a sequel to something that could’ve benefited from finding new ways to be genuinely frightening.  Then the final twenty minutes happened, and they assaulted me in a way that I wasn’t expecting, giving me exactly what I wanted from the film in the first place.

The film tells the story of James (James Allen McCune), the younger brother of Heather, from the first film.  James has found a video online that claims to show Heather’s final moments in a house in the Black Hills Forrest, where the Blair Witch makes creepy stick figures.  James sets out with three other friends and two strangers, that claim to know the area, into the very forest his sister disappeared in. He’s looking for answers for what happened to her; he and his group find something worse.

The problem is that most of the film plays out the same way as the first one, though there are double the characters, in that they get lost, walk in circles, and see familiar stick figures and rock piles.  Because of these similarities, it results in less effect on the audience than the characters, as we’re not surprised by these developments, but more waiting on what the film can do to surprise us.  It attempts to hide these faults with jump scares that make the film feel even less original.  It’s worse that most of these jump scares are just one of the characters suddenly appearing in front of the camera.  Sure, some of them work, but it makes the situation feel less dangerous, which hurts the film.

I did like how Wingard, and his writers, make the excuse to have most of the film take place at night; I won’t reveal that excuse here.  Nighttime brings the unknown, and allows for noises in the woods to be much more than that.  The film does a much better job when it focuses of what could be making those noises than when it tries to cheaply scare the audience.  It also has a better relationship with gore than the first film, as one character’s death is particularity gruesome and ingenious.  The cast sells all of this well enough, some better than others, but they’re mostly just here to be picked off one by one.

But it’s in the final twenty minutes that Wingard brings the fury of his talent to the story.  Those last scenes in the film are some of the most frightening in a horror movie I’ve seen this year, and this has been a good year for horror.  Wingard assaults the eyes, ears, and minds of the audience.  He shows us nothing, and then just enough to make us fear looking at the screen.  I hate to recommend a film on it’s last moments, but I actually think they’re worth it here, as they gave me exactly what I wanted from Blair Witch, and then some.  What I wanted is what I felt back in 1999 when I saw those commercials; I wanted to want to look away in fear of what I’d see next.  The fear of what awaits us in the dark, of what we may see if we turn around.

Are you afraid to turn around right now?  No?  Turn off the lights then…and listen…and wait.  Because then, just then, you may realize something you’re afraid of, is waiting for you.  Wingard’s film, when it’s right, makes me wonder what’s there in the dark.

Grade: B-

Sully

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from Laguardia Airport in New York City en route to a stop over at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in Charlotte, North Carolina.  It contained 155 passengers, crew included.  Three minutes into the flight, a flock of Canadian geese struck the aircraft while it was in a traditional ascent into the air. The bird strike caused the plane to lose both of it’s engines at an altitude lower than ever before in aviation history for an aircraft of that size.  The captain, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, was initially directed to turn around and land back at Laguardia.  Feeling that he could not make it back, nor to the near Teleboro Airport in New Jersey, he opted for a water landing in the Hudson River.  The plane, three minutes after losing power, was successfully landed in the water near Midtown Manhattan.  All 155 people, including it’s captain, survived with no more than a few non-life threatening injuries.

Whether or not you believe in miracles, whether you choose to opt for fate; or chance; or whole lot of luck, this 208 second event in time was nothing short of a miraculous one.

Bur does it make for a good film?

A three minute snapshot in time needs more than those three minutes to sustain a story. Yes, there was an investigation into the character of Captain Sullenberg, and his decision making as it pertained to the choice of whether or not the plane could’ve made it back to the airport it took off from, as that would’ve of been the much safer course if it was determined that such a course was possible.  The thing is that Captain Sully is not a man with demons worth investigating, making him normal, and therefore, not particularity interesting for a drama (I say this only for him as a character in a fiction, not as a reflection of the man, who seems incredibly good natured). As far as the crash/water landing goes, even if it was determined that it was entirely possible to make it back to the airport…does that truly account for the experience of making those decisions in that amount of time?  If you experienced a miracle, would you really tell yourself to not just let it be?  Maybe you would question it the rest of your life as to why you were the recipient of such good fortune, when so few of such things happen in the world, but why waste time on thinking that the same outcome could’ve happened differently, when the only thing certain, is the miracle that has already happened.

Thankfully Clint Eastwood’s Sully knows all of this, and uses it to wring out just enough story for a 90 minute film, that moves as brisk as those three fateful minutes on that cold January day.  It has it’s issues relating to all of the things I’ve so far mentioned, and those issues are magnified in some of the film’s moments on the ground, but I found that there’s just enough here to keep Eastwood’s vehicle afloat. Most important was the wise choice of having snippets of the event populate the film as flashbacks, making the other times in the film when flashbacks are used to flesh out the character of Sully, less jarring. It also helps that Eastwood has Tom Hanks, who has considerably less to work with here as opposed to times in the past with similar films like Captain Phillips, yet he still finds away to command the screen as an every-man.  His Sully doesn’t have enough self-doubt, or enough time to have it, in order to really see the how heavy weight of the situation on him is, but Hanks still finds a way to make him compelling.

The rest of the cast is effectively underused. Laura Linney, as Sully’s wife, and Eastwood regular, spends the entirety of her screen time talking to her husband on the phone in concern and bewilderment, but she does it quite well.  Aaron Eckhart is fine as the co-pilot of the flight in question, as I liked the character’s pure devotion to his captain, though why shouldn’t he be? Everyone else in the film does thankless work, but they do it well enough to be invisible, with the exception of Michael Rapaport as a bartender that recognizes Sully; he feels too over the top.  Actually some of the performances of the passengers are slightly over the top as well, but I think that’s more of the film’s fault for only slightly caring about a select few, and only giving those select few little to play.

Otherwise, I think the film plays to Eastwood’s strengths as a filmmaker, as he likes to make his stories quickly when he makes them.  This helps when there isn’t a contrast between something as long reaching as his J.Edgar, and the quickness of Eastwood’s work effort. He’s become a less patient story-teller in recent years, and here he almost relaxes enough to get out a good one.  From the subtle movements of his camera, to his lovely piano induced score (the main theme composed by himself), and the film’s icy January setting that meshes well with his muted color palette, Eastwood marries the material well. Some may argue that the crash itself isn’t as dramatically enhanced as it could be, but I think it works for the story, though Eastwood shows his lack of experience with CGI.

The film is opening on the weekend of the 15th anniversary of September 11th, which I note here because the studio seemed to have it in mind when deciding a weekend to release the film.  There are images and sounds, included in the film’s stunning opening sequence, that clearly reference that day. The way a character says how nice it is to have news about planes in New York being good for a change almost feel like a wink to the audience.  Some people may feel that it enhances the film’s emotions; some may feel it’s pandering.  I think that there’s more to a film than it’s opening weekend, so I’ll leave that touchy subject for you to decide.

While Eastwood’s film may not be a miracle, I think it’s a very nice reminder that miracles are possible, and that they should be remembered.

Grade: B

Morgan

Luke Scott’s Morgan is the equivalent of looking in your kitchen cabinets and picking the perfect glass to have a drink of water.  Once the glass is chosen, you grab the ice cold water pitcher out of the refrigerator and slowly pour it into the glass.  Slow and steady, the water rises to the top, looking more and more refreshing as it fills.  Then, at the exact moment that you’re about to enjoy your ice cold beverage, someone comes along and smacks it out of your hand.  As you stare down in bewilderment at what just happened, you hear the person responsible for this development say, “See, isn’t that more exciting?”

Technically, they’re right, but who cares about exciting when you just want to enjoy a glass of damn water?

Morgan (the film, not the character) is the glass slapping person in this instance.

The film has a decent enough, if not familiar sounding premise, that is aided by an exceptionally well-rounded cast.  It then takes that premise and cast, and fills it with  potential for a strong morality tale about playing God, and then chooses to neglect all of it by descending into nothing more than a garden variety sci-fi thriller.  If you’re looking for more of the horror aspects that Morgan‘s trailer suggests, then you’ll most likely be bored by the film’s first half, with it’s slow pace, and non-existent body count.  But, if you go into the film with more of an open mind, then you’ll be accepting of the sci-fi tropes about synthetic organisms and their rights as living things.  The problem with the the latter is, as I’ve said, ruined by the film’s second half, which falls into the preference of the former.  Leaving both audience types most likely coming out of the film with a rather large resounding “meh.”

The film stars Kate Mara as Lee, a  corporate troubleshooter, that is being sent to a remote, top-secret location, where she is to investigate and evaluate a terrifying accident. The accident was triggered by Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), a scientifically created being, designed to be a perfect weapon for an unnamed company.  The rub is that Morgan’s creators, led by Dr. Lui Cheng (Michelle Yeoh) and Dr. Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), have attempted to give “her” a conscience, and an ability to form relationships.  This, of course results in not only Morgan caring for her “friends”, but the other specialists in becoming fond of her.  So, now you have a group made up of about eight characters, that have been stuck in this remote location for years, wanting to see their project succeeds.  More than that, they don’t want to see Morgan…their Morgan, be terminated.  Which will be what exactly happens if Lee, and a therapist, played by Paul Giamatti, feel as though the incident in which Morgan attacked a doctor, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, may be more than a one-time thing.

The film, only with a 92 minute run-time, spends the first half of that introducing us to all of the characters, giving some of them hints of personality, while others…seem nice…I guess. The good news is that the talented cast makes the most out of every character, personality or not.  Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones) in particular makes you see why she’s Morgan’s favorite; Yeoh, Jones, and Giamatti, all deliver professional performances that they could do in their sleep.  The rest of the cast gets the similar thankless work, but they made me believe that they cared about Morgan.  The two best performances in the film go to Mara and Joy.  Mara’s Lee seems to be made of steel, which can be interpreted as stiff, but once the performance is put into context, it makes sense.  Joy builds on the promise she showed in this year’s The Witch, playing Morgan as a seemingly innocent “human,” who presents a mystery of both infinite promise and incalculable danger.

Again, once those first 45 minutes are up, and the next 45 minutes begin, the film switches gears to what it’s opening moments promised.  The problem for me wasn’t the switch in pace, so much as how quickly it made the first half irrelevant.  The questions of what Morgan is capable of are answered, and the body-count piles up at such a fast rate, that I didn’t care.  I know that Luke Scott, the director and son of the great Ridley Scott, was going for something visceral and unrelenting, but it lost it’s power by not making me care about the victims enough.  Just as the film’s moral dilemma was reaching it’s zenith, it begins to kill it’s way to the finish line, instead of continuing to ask the questions it once seemed so interested in.  Scott does know how to create tension, and his fight sequences are hard-hitting, though edited too quickly; he wisely focuses on his actors as opposed to his visuals, so I think he shows some promise, and with a little longer of a script, could’ve made a far better film. A twist ending has the groundwork laid out for it so that it doesn’t cheat, though some may find it to be too obvious.  I, again, feel the quickened pace of the second half lessened it’s impact.

I won’t call Morgan a shattered glass; more of one that’s half-full.  I just wish the second half had more to it.

Grade: C+

The Light Between Oceans

Derek Cianfrance knows the pains of relationships, and the beauty in their tragedy. He knows that we hurt ourselves by fighting for something as doomed as it is life-affirming. We make choices that may seem outrageous to outsiders because they don’t understand what it means for someone else to be a part of you. Even if one day, they are no more than a memory.  Those choices are more difficult still if one tries to stay true to oneself, so that he/she can look themselves in the mirror and respect what they see.  It’s an impossible balance akin to acceptance of pain, because even if the pain is not worth it in the end, it was worth it for a time.  Perhaps that’s why we often feel that time is stolen from us, until we remember that it’s the greatest gift we have.

Cianfrance’s new film, The Light Between Oceans, is one about people making catastrophic decisions because of love, whether that be the love of a child, or a soulmate. And these choices are thrusted upon the characters through no faults of anyone but the cruelty of fate, disguised as a blessing. Yes, the decisions that they make are ultimately poor ones, but when a choice must be made with emotion because reason has been ripped from you, then your choices are poor no matter how rightly they are justified. The film struggles at times (meaning it’s entire second half) by descending into melodrama, but it’s performances and sheer beauty elevate it into a rare philosophical adult fare, unlike most of the films you’ll see in 2016.

The film introduces us to a subdued World War I veteran, Tom Sherbourne (Michael Fassbender), who takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on a remote island off the western coast of Australia. During his brief time on the mainland, he meets and falls in love with a local woman, Isabel (Alicia Vikander), who agrees to be his wife. She comes to live with him at the lighthouse, and the two of them seemingly have a perfect paradise to share.  But joy turns to depression as Isabel becomes pregnant twice and, on both occasions, loses the child. Then, miraculously, they are given a chance to be parents in the form of a stray rowboat that carries a dead man, and his living infant daughter.

This opening half of the film was my favorite half.  Cianfrance is best know for the grim, gritty, and original Blue Valentine.  He replaces that grit with polish, and originality with a more by the numbers narrative here, but that didn’t matter to me.  The film is a feast for the eyes, as golden horizons and wind-graced, tearful faces populate it’s sights.  Even the times when it’s visually muted, Cianfrance and his cinematographer, Adam Arkapaw, paint with a delicate brush.  It helps that these visuals are aided by an elegant score from the underrated Alexandre Desplat.  This segment of the film reminded me of what I thought was the most heart-breaking aspect of Blue Valentine, which was to see the happier moments of a relationship’s past, while knowing the pain they’d bring.  As joyful and in-love as I felt that Tom and Isabel were, I could see the dark that would follow their sunset horizons. And it was a painful feeling.

The narrative could be argued as one that’s too convenient for things to move forward. And while that argument has merit through it’s characters making seemingly insane choices, I don’t think it applies to the films coincidences.  After all, if you think about how any two partners meet each other in life, you’ll find that it takes a large series of choices in order for it to be possible.  Still, the film became a bit of a slog for me in it’s second half where Tom discovers that the lost-at-sea baby was presumed dead and is being mourned by her mother (Rachel Weisz). Unable to cope with his role in her grief, he makes rash decisions that made me want to slap him, even though I understood why he was making them.  The real problem is due to the film’s pacing in this section.  The story grinds too slow to feel the thunder of the tragedy that should have been coming like a freight train. Instead, that tragic train just kind of pulls into the station and stays there, causing it to have less impact. Worst of all is that the film’s ending, which contains perhaps it’s saddest scene, felt too rushed and too convoluted to earn the tears it was trying to pull from me.

With saying all of that, I almost cried because of Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander.  Fassbender is reserved until he has reasons to let go of his emotions, which thankfully happens quite often.  Vikander made me fall in love with her, and in so doing, made me want to help her through her character’s darkest moments, in which she appears so grief-stricken that it boarders on mentally unstable.  The two performers became a real-life couple as a result of filming The Light Between Oceans, and they both made me see why.  Rachel Weisz has a role that, despite the character being in the absolute right, begins as an antagonist, but her performance is able to get past anything black or white.

There’s a lot of things that I loved about this film, but it’s second half, at times, can be as long-winded as it is windy.  I suppose I’ll choose to look at it like a failed relationship, in which certain things leave a bad taste, but those things don’t take away from the positive highs.  And while the lows are there to learn from, the highs are what should be remembered.

Grade: B

Looking Back & Looking Forward: Part 8

The first two thirds of the year are over, and the awards season is about to begin.  August was supposed to be a lousy month, but I found it to be the best since April of this year.  The summer blockbuster season is over, and while I did enjoy plenty of films, August was able to put a better period at the end of the sentence.

Things started out poorly with yet another misfire from Warner Brothers’ DC Universe in Suicide Squad.  It may of been better than Batman V Superman, but most films I saw this year can share that distinction.  More painful was that I was personally anticipating Suicide Squad more than most of the summer film releases.

Luckily, of the six other films I saw this month (I missed out on Pete’s Dragon for now), three of them will enter my top ten of the year.  The best of these was the near perfectly made Hell or High Water, a film that reminded me of why I sit down to be entertained by an simple story.  It was such a pleasing experience to watch something so un-apologetically confident in it’s characters and setting, that the story embraced the cliches with the sheltering arms.

The other two excellent films was the stop-motion animated Kubo and the Two Strings, and the low-budget thriller Don’t Breathe. Kubo is a gorgeously animated melancholic tale, that may or may not be the deserving choice for that Best Animated Film Oscar; it’s competition in my view is Disney’s wonderful Zootopia, though Kubo may have more ambition.  Don’t Breathe is a kind of sister film to Green Room from earlier in the year; they’re both chess matches wrapped in the skin of a tension filled assault. I also caught the solid Mel Gibson’s starer Blood Father, the foul and funny animated food story Sausage Party, and the missed opportunity, War Dogs.

Updated Best of the Year list:

1. Sing Street
2. Hell or High Water
3. The Nice Guys
4. The Witch
5. Everybody Wants Some!!
6. Green Room
7. Captain America: Civil War
8. Don’t Breathe
9. 10 Cloverfield Lane
10. Zootopia & Kubo and the Two Strings  – I can’t decide which on I prefer yet.

Now here’s the bottom, unchanged ten:

1. The Brothers Grimsby
2. Gods of Egypt
3. Zoolander 2
4. Knight of Cups
5. The Boy
6. The Finest Hours
7. Independence Day: Resurgence
8. Ghostbusters
9. Alice: Through The Looking Glass
10. Demolition

On to September, were I’m going to try to check out a whopping nine films.

It begins with the first Oscar hopeful of the season, Derek Cianfrance’s The Light Between Oceans.  Cianfrance knows how to make a relationship story a painful ordeal (Blue Valentine), and this should be no different, expect prettier to look at.  Trailer Below:

Also this week is Luke Scott’s (Ridley’s son) Morgan.  On the surface, this wouldn’t normally interest me, but a very cool looking ensemble cast has me anticipating it.  Trailer Below:

Next is Sully, the story about the “Miracle on the Hudson”, that looks a lot like Robert Zemeckis’ Flight, except this story is true.  Tom Hanks looks to be in fine form, though I’m more concerned with Clint Eastwood’s recent quality streak, or lack thereof.  Still, I’m looking forward to this one.  Trailer Below:

Next we have Blair Witch, the previously titled “The Woods” so as to brilliantly keep it’s production a secret.  Early word is that it’s fantastic, and the trailer makes me see why.  Trailer Below:

That same week brings Oliver Stone’s long awaited Snowden, a story that could easily be told in a way that could make you roll your eyes, but Stone looks to have found a way.  Trailer Below:

The next weeks brings us Antoine Fuqua’s remake of The Magnificent Seven, which is a remake in it’s own right.  While this may end up being unnecessary, the cast makes it look entertaining.  Trailer Below:

The last weekend of the month brings in three releases.  The first is Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.  It looks to be Burton-esq version of “X-Men.” And I think it looks  pretty decent.  Trailer Below:

Next is the excellent looking Deepwater Horizon.  I’m expecting a lot from Peter Berg’s account of the men on the doomed oil rig.  The trailer promises just that.  Trailer Below:

Finally we have John Michael McDonagh’s War on Everyone.  The writer/director of Calvary looks to be closer in his Guard mode, but it looks like fun.  Red-band Trailer Below:

See you in October.