Nightcrawler

There is something about the New Hollywood movement in the 70s that speaks to me more so than any other period of American Film History (except maybe the late 40s to 50s).  It was an era where the European Art House sensibility was met with a thoroughly American grit, unfortunately abandoned for the blockbuster action pieces near the end of the decade.  Lately, it is a period that is fondly getting referenced both stylistically and satirically in modern cinema.  Sometimes lauded, sometimes lampooned, there is something indelible about it that pervades (in a good way) some of the better, if not more cult like, films of the recent year.  One such film is veteran screen writer Dan Gilroy's Nightcrawler.

Set in modern day Los Angeles, the film is a character piece about a sociopath anti-hero Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal in one of his best screen performances to date) who becomes attracted to the paparazzi world of accident and crime news video.  Armed with a camera, police scanner, and a near psychotic drive to get the grizzliest shot we watch Louis slowly become more and more engrossed in this world, stopping at nothing to top the competition in complete disregard of morals or professional ethics.

The film just reeks of the 70s.  You have your Anti-hero, you have your gritty subject matter, you have the landscape of Los Angeles, you have a high octane chase sequence, one of the best filmed sequences SINCE the 70s if I might add (I do NOT count The Fast and the Furious series), and you have an improbable ending that somehow makes complete sense with one wickedly dark sense of humor.  It's hard to believe that a film of this caliber could be scorned so much by the critics and generally ignored by the public following it's success at the Toronto Film Festival, but that's probably because they market the character completely different from how he is portrayed.

The cinematography is excellent.  I don't know what else to say about it.  This is a film that lovingly dotes on the camera and all of the surrounding concepts of it's use to create an artful image, regardless of the subject matter.  Every frame fits together so well, acting as the toughest imaginable thread for the canvas that makes up the film.  Gyllenhaal, who has taken a step away from mainstream Hollywood films in favor of the more interesting characters provided in the indies, is at the top of his game here.  Award ceremonies can kiss my ass, this is just damn fine acting and commitment to the character.  Not once do you see Jake.  You only see Lou.  Riz Ahmed is a wonderful foil as the manipulated "employee" of Louis, providing the voice of reason that often falls on deaf ears.  Toss in wonderful supporting performances from Bill Paxton and Rene Russo and you've got one hell of a movie.

Well paced, well written, well acted.  It's very hard to find anything wrong with this film.  However, I can see how certain couch potato, meat head, beer chugging, action fans probably would call it the worst waste of time of their lives, but these are also the same people that I secretly wish would choke on their beer and chicken wings while watching the next big game, thus ridding the rest of culture of their impudent shrills of discontent in all things seeking to be something other than vapid, baseless, bullshit masquerading as "film."  Go watch the damn movie.

Late Phases

I've always been drawn to Werewolf stories.  My favorite of all time is The Howling, but I also have a special place for An American Werewolf In London and Wolfen in my heart.  The big problem, of course, with Werewolf movies is that the rich subtext of internal evils externalized is often shrugged off in favor of the carnivorous beast that stalks the night.  Over the years I've watched my favorite of the movie monsters turned into a boring stereotype of rage and fury, lusting after blood on the moonlit thrill of the hunt.  That or they're played by teenagers who are in love with triangle mouthed girls who can't decide between them or the vampire in their life.  Boring.  So, imagine how happy I am to be writing about Late Phases, a new Werewolf movie from the director of Here Comes The Devil.

Set in a rural old retirement community on the edge of a nondescript mountain town, Late Phases starts off with a bang, so to speak, when curmudgeonly blind Veteran, Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) is attacked by a Werewolf.  The story then follows Ambrose as he silently picks through his community in an effort to find out who the Werewolf is and dispatch it.  Sounds pretty straightforward, but where the film does a much better job with the genre than any of it's recent predecessors is by giving it the feel and attention of a true character piece.  By holding Ambrose up in the forefront we are allowed to examine the behaviors of those around him and at times we feel that he may be the luckiest one of all unable to physically see the ugly sides of humanity any longer.

The film still falls in the low budget horror realm, but it makes due with it's budgetary constraints by amplifying the story visually while also employing some excellent costuming and makeup befitting of the bi-pedal hulks of fur and fury.  The whole look of the film has a golden hue to it, visually representing a community of people who's golden years have now passed.  Ambrose, a gruff do-it-yourselfer, doesn't really belong here, but driven by a sense of duty, he stays to put an end to the story.  If I hadn't known any better, I would have guessed that Damici was actually blind, as he does a remarkable job of portraying the physicality of it.

I missed the film's one off theatrical run in Los Angeles, but luckily it can be rented, or even bought, on Amazon Instant.  It's not without it's cheesy moments, but Damici's standout performance is amplified by a good pace and visual element, that when you add in the gore and Wolves you've got yourself one hell of a good Werewolf movie.  Sprinkle in some great supporting performances from Lance Guest and Tom Noonan, what more do you really need?  Definitely on par with some of the greats, if not tugging lovingly at their tails.

"Let's Wage War": Beyond Outrage

When I was fresh out of High School and in my first year of college I used to go to this video rental in Old Town Eureka called Video Experience.  I was tuned into the place by the brother of my girlfriend (at the time) who was also introduced me to the insane world Takashi Miike.  I was hooked on this place.  I used to rent 7 movies a week from them and just eat up foreign films and gangster movies etc.  Then came that fateful day when they announced they had to close that location.  I was crushed, but we went to their going out of business stock sale and I found this little VHS tape of Takeshi Kitano's Sonatine pointing a gun at me on the shelf.  It was 2 dollars, I figured "What the hell."  Ever since I've been obsessed with Kitano's films, so imagine my delight one particularly sleepless night when I found Beyond Outrage as I scrolled through the netflix titles.

Picking up five years after the events of it's predecessor Outrage, the film chronicles the booming Sanno and Hanabishi crime families.  Opening with the discovery of a dead cop and a bar hostess in a sunken car, the police force determines that the Sanno have gotten too big for their britches.  They employ the skills of Special Inspector Kataoka, who has gotten close to the families under the guise of a corrupt cop.  Through suggestion and direct maniuplation, Kataoka uses Kitano's character Otomo and another disgraced yakuza, Kimura, to completely destroy the leadership of the Sanno family.

Kitano has had a tough time with critics following the release of his "Meta Trilogy" (Takeshis', Glory to the Filmmaker!, Achilles and the Tortoise) so when he returned to the yakuza film genre with Outrage it came as somewhat of a surprise as well as a delight to audience and critics alike.  While Outrage and Beyond Outrage don't quite have the meditative quality about them that a film like Sonatine or Hana-bi do, they still manage to pull in the audience and hold interest up to the final moments.  One of Kitano's best qualities when it comes to this genre is his ability to set up and expectation and then surprise the audience in it's delivery.  As a dramatic actor, he has a kind of new wave deadpan style, only showing emotion in the extremes which makes his violent explosiveness sudden and thrilling to watch.

The disappointing thing about this film is the incredibly straightforwardness of the plot.  It's very much an A + B = C sort of experience, which is not what I usually expect out of Kitano.  However, this is subjugated fairly well by the actors and cinematography.  Fumiyo Kohinata eyes everyone with the look of a Japanese Fox mask as Kataoka.  It's no surprise to the audience that he's manipulating the outcome at every step planting suggestions that the yakuza hotly act upon bringing their own doom upon them.  Even though we know that Otomo and Kimura are going to get these guys, Kitano manages to still do it at the moment when least expect it making the violence sudden and brutal.  I'll never be able to look at a baseball batting cage the same way again.

Not one of his best, but certainly not his worst either, Beyond Outrage is a solid yakuza film and the first direct sequel that Kitano has ever made to one of his films.  There are currently talks of a third film, which would make it his first direct trilogy of his career.  If you haven't seen Outrage watch it first.

Keaton is Back!: Birdman

"Meta" is a prefix that seems to get thrown around a lot these days.  A simple dictionary term describes it's adjective use as pertaining to or noting a story, conversation, character, etc., that consciously references or comments upon its own subject or features, often in the form of parody.  This particular form has been popping up quite a lot in our entertainment art forms these days, each to varying degrees and with varying metaphorical contexts.  It's not the easiest thing to pull off, but when it's pulled off well it is damn near dazzling.  Although, "dazzling" is probably not the appropriate descriptor of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu's Birdman, it still works given the subject matter.

The film is centered on Riggen Thomson, a washed up film actor trying to put on a play adapted from Raymond Carver.  Everything seems to be going against him, from a volatile co-star (Edward Norton), various stage accidents, a disaffected daughter (Emma Stone), and, did I forget to mention the voice in his head?  Spurred on by the desire to create something meaningful with his art form and to thereby give his own megalomaniacal ego the stroke that it needs, he plunges forth against all odds to get through previews and finally achieve true artistic success like a moth to a flame.

Nothing is quite what it seems in this story.  For one, Iñárritu masterfully uses his camerawork and editing to make the majority of the film look like one continuous shot, showing the fast and often frantic pace behind the scenes of a theater production, only to bring us to a dead halt on some of the most brutally worded and amazing monologues I've seen on screen in some time.  This is truly an actor's film, but with enough of the behind the scenes insanity thrown in that any industry type person will be in on a joke or two that flies straight overhead of anyone else.  That doesn't distract from the true intention of the story though.  The meat of the story is Riggen's desperate attempt to maintain what fragile control he has left.  Be it his mental state, his relationship with his daughter, or just trying to keep his production from imploding, all the while seemingly cursed by his own self-centered desire and the internal war of his dual personality, Birdman himself.

The "meta" comes into play in the character of Riggen himself.  Riggen, being a fading Hollywood star who's claim to fame is a series of films about a costumed super hero named Birdman, which he quit making in the 90s.  To get even closer to this whole "meta" thing, Riggen is played by Michael Keaton.  Those Batman bells ringing yet?  Keaton's own Hollywood career began to decline in the mid to late 90s, but that didn't stop the actor for making the occasional film or two while throwing himself into a long and warmly received Theater career.  On top of all of this, there is a sort of scathing view of the entire entertainment industry that almost bleeds out of the screen.

What makes the film so damn good is it's humanity.  There is such a human quality behind everything that motivates even the smallest side characters of the story.  Everyone seems to be unsure of their place in the world, whether it's about how they fit, what they want, or who they are in their heart of hearts.  Despite all the volatile personalities and the ups and downs everyone seems to come together to complete the performance, a very human characteristic.  It's this kind of film making that sets Iñárritu apart from most of his contemporaries.

It's still in theaters.  It's probably also on demand.  This film really has a little something for everyone.  Give it a good chance before shelling out all your money for the latest blockbuster schlock that is about to bombard us til the end of the year.

"No Speeches. You point the gun? You shoot the gun.": Blue Ruin

Revenge has always been a constant in the fictional world.  Be it in poetry or prose, theater or film, revenge seems to go back as far as humankind first began as harry apelike beasts evolving too fast for their own good.  There's a whole gamete of revenge films, but the type that seems to stick out are those with a sort of Shakespearean blood feud attached.  Throw in a bit of Greek tragic irony and a Jean-Pierre Melville style of deadpan lead acting, and you've got one hell of a film in Blue Ruin.

The premise is simple.  A young man, Dwight, learns that his parent's killer is about to be released from prison and goes after him in revenge.  Through a series of tense and suspenseful moments we learn that not only is there some seriously messed up southern style retribution coming, but that the nature of the killings are not so clear cut.  The story then becomes about family vs family, son killing son because of the transgressions of the fathers.

Through meditative cinematography and a consistent following of the primary character, the film manages to suck you into Dwight's incredibly conflicted state of mind.  His need to kill his father's killer regardless of his foresight that it can't end there is what makes it so deliciously tragic.  Pitched as a quasi Cohen Brothers style film, Blue Ruin utilizes the revenge story to analyze the bond of blood and bounds of reason.  When it comes to blood, reason tends to get thrown out the window, culminating in a deadly stand off of truly brutal proportions.

The film is remarkably well made and utilizes a cast of nearly complete unknowns and character actors, which forces us to look simply at the characters and story without the distractions that come with A-List casting.  Macon Blair's portrayal of the troubled lead is such a quiet intensity that you can practically see the fuse burning.  His pain reaches beyond the screen so viscerally that it's hard not to sympathize with Dwight's plight, but his conflict is a hugely internal one that he manages to externalize incredibly well.

You can catch this film on most streaming sources, or buy a blu ray.  Top notch indie film making!

"Do you believe that love is a continuous stream?": Love Streams

I'm a little late to the game where John Casavetes is concerned.  In fact, I'm pretty late to the game where a lot of American Cinema is concerned, having spent a great deal of my life absorbing foreign classics and contemporaries from Japan, France, Sweden, Germany, and Russia.  However, I've been slowly making my way through his films and I must admit, the man had a style unlike any other film maker I've seen.  As consummately unique and whole in vision as any of Woody Allen's films, Love Streams is no exception to this, but is indeed an exceptional piece of work in the auteur's canon.

Love Streams concerns the fucked up lives of two siblings, Robert and Sarah, played by Cassavetes and wife Gena Rowlands, in the late middle ages who can't seem to get it together and don't seem to be particularly perturbed by that fact either.  With an improvisational and cinema verite like spin we are given a glimpse into the lives of these two characters in a profoundly honest way.  He does not glamorize the two, instead, shows us their ugly sides as flagrantly as their good sides, although the darkness seems to loom ever so close to the surface, threatening to consume them at any given moment.

I would like to note that I caught this film at work after the projectionist made, what he thought was, a joke about how "...we should be serving Gin and Valiums for this utterly depressing shite of a film."  I laughed outwardly, but inside I felt myself glaring.  If there's one thing I despise, it's a callously derisive approach to films with no regard to another person's preferences or taste.  Having already seen Husbands and Minnie and Moskowitz I had made up my mind to see Love Streams regardless, but I couldn't get the damn statement out of my head.  Luckily, as with matters of taste, my own taste prevailed and I instead enjoyed the intense, funny, sometimes outrageously strange study of these two lonesome characters who can only seem to tolerate each other in a truly compassionate way.

The camera work in this film is top notch and it's subtly induced me to feel like I was almost watching a documentary a few times.  I would plunge into the lives of these people and then just as suddenly be transported to an elaborate and farcical dream sequence.  Rowlands plays neurosis in such a way in this film that I found myself staring wide eyed at some of the situations befalling the character.  It's this quality that defines her as such an amazing actress, her ability to take a character that is, basically, bat shit crazy and still make me love and worry for her.

Even with Cassavetes roguish and sometimes misogynistic portrayal as a man who seems to truly believe that "Well, love is dead." I couldn't help but to pity him.  It's part of his charm, this ability to simultaneously cause shock and adoration.  While not for everyone, it is impossible to deny the profound effect that Cassavetes had upon the women and men who would later rise up through the ranks as America's Independent Film Renaissance.  This is purportedly his truly final film, as his health began to decline in the coming years and he would be dead from cirrhosis of the liver five years after it's completion.  I saw a beautiful 35mm print, but you can also get it on Blu Ray from The Criterion Collection or watch it on their Hulu Plus Channel.

We're Not Policemen. We're Spys: A Most Wanted Man

Ever since 9/11, there has been an emphasis in the "Spy Thriller" genre to create a sort of gung-ho terrorist take down conclusion to further define the narrative as a good vs evil situation, similar to our news media.  Of course, anyone who chooses to educate themselves past High School knows that there is no such thing as good and even.  Rather, there are thousands of shades of gray to every angle of every story.  Few films convey this fact and when they do they're often not met with financial success.  A Most Wanted Man is one of these films and you should do yourself a favor and pay it some considerable attention.

Based on the 2008 John Le Carre novel of the same title, it centers around an intelligence organization that is shadowing two particular men to determine ties to Al Qaeda.  Caught up in the mess are a Banker and a grass roots civil rights Lawyer, but the central characters are Chechen, Issa, and German intelligence man, Gunther Bachmann (one of the final roles of late Philip Seymour Hoffman.)  Bachmann seems to not only have his mission at hand, but seems to continuously clash with an incredibly hawkish German security council and the CIA as well.

What this film does, exceptionally well, is provide multiple points of view.  From the Lawyer to the CIA official, the characters all seem to have a very clearly defined idea of what they stand for and what makes them who they are.  It is Bachmann alone who seems to be more concerned on the big picture, while the Security Council and CIA are more interested in taking down what they believe to be key players in the war on terror.  We start to wonder, who is really the Most Wanted Man (a potential play on words) as the story plays out.

Le Carre was inspired by the real life story of Murat Kurnaz who was kidnapped by the CIA, jailed and tortured in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay for five years under the Bush administration.  While Le Carre's obviously fictional story serves more as a soap box for dissent against many post 9/11 Policies that had sprung up world wide, it also serves as a huge "What If..." argument.  As it was proven that Kurnaz was not a military combatant, is it not possible, likely even, that there are many more people under similar treatment and scrutiny?  How do we justify actions taken before all the facts are in.  

It's no secret that to win popular opinion the only thing that matters is an immediate result.  This is the central theme of the film, the long term vs the short term.  There's also a crippling sense of the humanity one must set aside to attain the goals of the, so-called, greater good and "making the world a safer place."  I can think of no better cast to portray these themes than the one in this film.  Philip Seymour Hoffman's controlled performance is shattered in the stunning climax of the film, making Bachmann's story truly heart breaking.  Furthermore, I seem to find myself more and more surprised at how good Rachel McAdams can be, and when you've got stalwart's like Robin Wright and Willem Dafoe on top of your incredible international support cast, you cannot lose.

This film is a slow burn, make no mistake, and it is made in the same vein as previous Le Carre adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  Director Anton Corbijn makes use of wide shots so well in this film that it feels like it's from a different era entirely, adding to the unsettling nature of the subject matter.  A must see for fans of great cinema, but unfortunately this film will probably not keep the attention of the blockbuster junkie.