bernardovillela

Mini-Review: The Thompsons

Posted on September 15, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old-school Mini-Review Round-Up post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically. Enjoy!

The Thompsons

Essentially part of the criteria for falling through the cracks in one year is cognizance. The release date on video for this film was 12/31, which made it a tough one to acquire and view before the end of the year.

This film reaches an honorable and rare duality of being a sequel that one could watch without having seen its predecessor (The Hamiltons) and that continues the trajectory of a series properly. This sequel builds upon its own vampire myth, which is one whose origin is genetic rather than viral. What this film does infinitely better than its predecessor is build mystery, and suspense but also has reveals and significant plot points at a persistent pace. The necessary information, both new and old, is relayed quickly enough such that the raising of stakes happens early and often. You also have here a rather unusual paradigm wherein humanity is the outside world and you’re purely in a vampiric world. What The Thompsons does is firmly establish a foothold for the Buthcer Brothers’ concept in the genre, one that should be supported by those who like seeing new takes on old creatures, and specifically, want vampires to be brutal.

8/10

Review: The Chambermaid

Posted on September 15, 2015 by bernardovillela

One of the most challenging conundrums a film can face is documenting the activities of a voyeur. Whereas in a novel the author can decide how much of character’s thought processes to reveal, and to what end, even a film’s most earnest attempts to disseminate the desired amount of information may not reach an audience or be received.

This task becomes more difficult when it’s widely agreed that the novel the film is basing itself on is commonly agreed to have an enigmatic protagonist.

The Chambermaid tells the tale of Lynne, the most dedicated and proficient employee at her hotel. She gives the rooms immaculate care and attention. Unbeknownst to the guests she gives them equally clandestine attention looking through their things, hiding under the bed, listening to their conversations, and so forth.

Being placed in the role of observing the observer can be a distancing and disenchanting one particularly when not given sufficient illumination on the character’s motivations, wants, and needs. However, what occurs in this film as Lynne (Vicky Krieps) develops a relationship, both personal and physical with call-girl Chiara (Lena Lauzemis) she begins to emerge from her shell but we remain observers. Much like her psychologist, who remains unseen like Antoine Doinel’s, we’re left in many instances where we see only the surface she decides to reveal.

The film begins with Lynne sharing a story of how her whole philosophy on life was formed at a young age. The majority of the film is her exploring if there’s any truth, any genuine emotion behind the lie she believes life to be. Yet that morsel at the beginning is the only thing easily learned for the audience. And we have more real information than her psychologist ever does, and even we don’t really ever fully know what landed her in in-patient treatment.

In the most banal terms The Chambermaid can be reduced to a woman learning how she can about living life, while being an active participant rather than a passive spectator. Getting her to make that decision will be a process that will be imperfect and cause some pain but one that ultimately happens and it’s the one the audience is invited to see. The ebb-and-flow, the essential struggle underway to come to that conclusion is one that is a bit inundated by the set-pieces and the gorgeous mise-es-scène, which displays that not only can prisons be self-imposed, but they can also be brightly colored.

At the beginning Lynne ruminates on the story her mother told her about the waves being caught in a seashell. As a child, she bristled at this wondering how something so large could be contained in something so small. Yet that statement seems to define the philosophy of the whole film where a much bigger tale of Lynne’s whole life is reduced to this flashpoint where she finally spies something in one of her hotels room that prompts her to act rather than view.

Review: The Lesson

Posted on September 14, 2015 by bernardovillela

Far too often the word mundane carries with it the connotation of a story that will induce ennui. However, the mundane when skillfully deployed and dramatically rendered even a seemingly simple morality tale can be so universal and inviting that things like language, currency, and location are no barriers.

Such is the case with the Bulgarian film The Lesson. It’s a film whose title is even simpler than its premise, as the title belies the fact that the financial, and moral, complications a school teacher Nade (Margita Gosheva) faces are intertwined and coming at her from several different directions.

The threads that run through this film from beginning to end are: she’d trying to discover which of her students stole a wallet, she’s trying to chase down payment for recent translation work she did for a small company, and then get out of a financial mess in her personal life.

Yet, as the case usually is, each of these issues feeds off the other and they are intermingle wondrously. That is not the only thing that’s awe-inspiring here; one nearly needs to be reminded of the fact that this is, in fact, a film that’s co-directed (Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov). The result is such a singular vision you wish there’d be fewer roadblocks to co-directing. Regardless, in this film Grozeva and Valchanov clearly present a unified, powerful voice that is hynoptic to see.

The film becomes a further inspiration when reading the directors’ statement on the Film Movement release. A real bonus of their physical editions but I will preserve that surprise for those that get it, and also further tease that there’s a fascinating short documentary, Crooked Candy, about a man’s lifelong love affair with Kinder Eggs that must be seen by chocolate lovers and the young at heart.

The film’s neorealist qualities are an antidote not only to the ripped-from-headlines story but also to the overwhelming majority of films that seem to refuse to acknowledge that small stories can say big things and matter a great deal. It’s a drama that builds itself around relatively miniscule amounts of money, we at times don’t even know the total in local currency until later on (and web searches can confirm what the amounts translate to locally), and the point is they don’t matter. It’s about more than livelihood but survival and trying to do what’s right.

The film in its laid back way ups the suspense, about midway through in a way that makes it feel like a traditional third act. An indicator this films 100+ minutes were more than likely built in five-acts. However, there are still surprises, shocks, and drama in store in the latter half.

The central figure in the story is Nade. She is the one whom all events revolve around and must take decisive action when all others are unwilling to do anything much less the right thing. The least an audience asks of its protagonist is that they be watchable. Gosheva makes Nade much more than someone you want to watch but rather someone you have to watch. Her magnetism and sensitivity, intelligence, toughness, and at times impetuousness are all identifiable that make her one we’re drawn to whether we always agree with her decisions or not.

The Lesson, like any lesson, could be an experience that is didactic, drudgery or could be an experience you’ll likely hold on to and cherish for a long time. This film is far closer to the lattermost option on that list.

Mini-Review: Penumbra

Posted on September 14, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Penumbra

What Penumbra attempts to do is something I can definitely appreciate. How it goes about trying to do it is what I really have a problem with. It overplays its hand in some regards and is a bit too broad in the portrayal of its protagonist, her dialogue a bit too blunt; not to mention the scenes that set-up the gotcha ending that only play more annoyingly once everything is revealed. It’s an interesting examination of the Spanish-Argentine dynamic but many other recent co-productions layer horror, colonial antagonism and modern Latin America’s socioeconomic climate better than this does, combine that with its failings as a horror film and it becomes quite bothersome indeed.

4/10

Mini-Review: Branca’s Pitch

Posted on September 13, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Branca’s Pitch

This is a fascinating bifurcated documentary about the man who threw the pitch that became “the shot heard ’round the world.” The bifurcation comes not only from not only telling his life story, both before and after that seismic moment, but also discussing the ghostwriting of his autobiography. There was also a shocking turn in this film, which is as much as I’ll say but baseball fans are in for quite a fascinating turn of events if they weren’t already aware of recent developments regarding that Branca-Thomson at-bat.

The most interesting part of the ghostwriting aspect of the film is that it really examines how everyone has their own story that is their individual truth. Aside from the fact that it it illuminates a career that was otherwise quite accomplished that got reduced to that moment, that is it’s most valuable contribution.

8/10

A Visit with M. Night Shyamalan

Posted on September 13, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

For 61 Days of Halloween, as well as for my posts categorized as Shyamalan Week (these usually lead up to, or surround, one of his new releases), I usually do some posts that are formatted a bit differently.

It’s with that I commence discussing M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit. As per usual with Shyamalan, I go in depth and may reveal plot details you’d rather not know, so spoiler alert. Forewarned is forearmed.

The Visit (2015)

The Visit has a simple set-up: two kids, aspiring filmmaker, Becca (Olivia DeJonge), and her irreverent younger brother, Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), are going to spend a week with their grandparents (Peter McRobbie and Deana Dunagan) to get to know them as they are long estranged from their mother (Kathryn Hahn). It’s a scenario that allows for a stripped-down, character-driven relatively shoestring take from M. Night Shyamalan, and it’s also a perfect vehicle for found footage.

As do a lot of other found footage premises, so what makes this one work?

Auteur Theory

Knowing a director’s work can be a double-edged sword, to Shyamalan for me; I feel it always works as a benefit. Here what ends up occurring is that you’re put in the mindset of a Hansel and Gretel (Not the witch-hunters) tale immediately through the set-up that’s reinforced by the marketing but it ends up being the first of the film’s misdirections.

Shyamalan works some of his common touches better in this film than in many of his others including the ones with the most similar occurrences.

In no particular order they are:

Mom’s full story about the fight that lead to her leaving home, along with the fact that she is a single mom is reminiscent of The Sixth Sense.
In this film the tale of sports-related trauma is more organically folded in and involved the climax than in Signs.
When Grandma is stalling to tell the truth about her relationship with her daughter the tale she tells in its place, that sounds like lunacy, is not unlike The Lady in the Water.
The inclusion of Sundown Syndrome, a strange and fairly rare affliction, is also a recurrent theme most notably employed previously in Unbreakable.
Lastly, Pop Pop’s tale of the white creature with yellow eyes he saw at the factory reminds me of the creature in The Village.

Way back when, I forget if this was on At the Movies or in an article, Roger Ebert exclaimed that M. Night Shyamalan’s Pennsylvania was beginning to be a cinematic analog of Stephen King’s Maine. Here Shyamalan goes to Masonville, PA. Even as someone who lived in the state for four years it’s still a marvel to me how vast and expansive to me. It’s certainly a larger in-state playground than King has.

There are all touches that delighted me, and there’s a sort of active engagement, what-next urgency to my viewings of his films (most of them) that have me rapt regardless, like a kid listening to campfire story.

So far as his dovetailing he’s not only filmmaker who does so, and that’s also like a King story. With regards to the moviegoing public there seems to be a strange phenomenon with Shyamalan where certain people keep going to see his movies though they may not necessarily want to. It’s like sports fandom: you believe your team hasn’t been good in years, and maybe never will be again, but you still won’t give up your season tickets.

Performance, Tonality and Character

It manages to successfully shift tones and close-out all aspects of its narrative appropriately. It’s unquestionably both comedy and horror (the inclusion of Hahn and Oxenbould was a hint even beforehand). However, unlike many horror/comedies it does not struggle in either aspect and it does find equilibrium.

It excels mostly because Olivia DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould are both inordinately exceptional and achieve the unique tricks of appearing natural as if the camera is just rolling, being believably awkward when the moment demands it, and also entirely inhabiting their characters.

They have many memorable moments: the companion coerced confessions, freestyle rapping, and Oxenbould when snapping out of freezing in a rage are dream takes for an actor and director both.

DeJonge’s interpretation of Becca is that of clearly intelligent girl without a note of falsity or petulance, heartbreaking in her embittered memories of her father. These two are really the glue that holds the film together.

This is not to discount Peter McRobbie and Deana Dunagan. They provide some of the needed laughs as well, all the necessary scares which are very effectively delivered, and even one heart-rending moment. Their feat is also not limited as their physicality is a triumph for both.

With a cabin fever aspect to the story, and a lack of a supernatural element, character is at a premium and remains so. The characters are explored even more than the plot is built but both are slowly revealing themselves sometimes it’s even subsumed in seeming temporary nonsense.

Even in the conclusion where Tyler is allowed to do his closing freestyle rap (Shania Twain, bitches!) and Becca is looking into the mirror, her former aversion to such and the trauma that started that behavior were previously established. We see the growth and progression of both.

Newfound Footage

This film takes a few tired found footage tropes and injects some life into them, as well working a few tried-and-purported-to-be-true ones better than prior acclaimed films of the technique.

Incessant documentation is a new reality that is becoming more accepted by society with less and less backlash with each passing day, therefore one of the past requirements of this technique is already passé.

In differentiating itself from the newer brood of the found footage approach it both doesn’t ignore the cameras to its detriment nor does it obsess over the “Why Are We Filming This?” Conundrum.

With regards to the past it does at times it seem to echo The Blair Witch Project with dramatic moments in corners. It also takes what was the entire basis of at least two Paranormal Activity films, distills it into one chilling scene; and thus condemns the former to the purgatorial state of anti-cinema wherein it belongs for all eternity.

Conclusion: The Visit Twists

The Visit is a film that deals with creatures both real and imagined, the real being people, the ghosts of this tale being figurative. It’s a film where I was not waiting for a twist but rather reveals, but this one is successful because it was just sitting there waiting to be discovered like some others, but is highly organic and intrinsic to the plot. Furthermore, little morsels of prior information that seemed meaningless before ring true after it.

Another way for a viewer to ruin their potential enjoyment of a film is to be expecting a twist and constantly trying to ferret out what it is. What would happen if there was none? It’s like going to see an adaptation of a book and constantly be referring to your mental checklist about which favorite parts were included and which were edited out. It occludes you from focusing fully on what’s before you because you’re worried about parallel problems.

How many given endings can a story really have in cinematic terms? In most movies, especially Hollywood releases, you know how things will go. You’re there for the journey.

Previously I discussed how at least Shyamalan is consistently giving us something to talk about, something a lot of people can’t even claim, which is noteworthy at the very least. I still want to discuss, and watch, and I wanted this visit to continue and enjoyed it greatly.

Review: Love at First Fight

Posted on September 12, 2015 by bernardovillela

Love at First Fight is a French dramedy that tells of the relationship between twenty-somethings Madeleine (Adèle Haenel; Aliyah, Three Worlds) and Arnaud (Kévin Azaïs), two young people searching for themselves. The English title promises are far cutesier romcom than the French title Les Combattents (The Combatents), which is far closer to the truth of the matter.

The film begins with Arnaud and his brother, Manu (Antoine Laurent) having a contentious meeting with a sales rep trying to to pass off a subpar coffin to them. They storm out and it establishes their line of work, they are contractors and are taking over their late father’s business. Manu is more dedicated than Arnaud, which is part of his internalized and externalized conflicts.

Enter Madeleine who is a wannabe survivalist and army recruit, who is in a transitory life-moment herself setting off down this path after earning a few master’s degrees. With this the film introduces its strongest performance and to an extent its largest problem.

There is no wit in platitudinal cynicism. To find truth in nihilistic existentialism one needs to find a uniqueness in the characters worth exploring, exploiting, and extrapolating this idiosyncrasy into universality, and this film doesn’t really accomplish that task.

And to do so it’s best to not have a character put themselves through a situation obviously predestined for failure, and not only failure but one in the most frustrating way possible. Truly this section does allow the original title top ring true, but as previously stated it does get tiresome.

While it is compelling that the seemingly more lost-in-life Arnaud is more comfortable in their self-imposed survival situation, the winding down of the film is overly-languid under-compelling relegating this film to ultimate mediocrity.

Azaïs’ performance is sufficiently endearing, Haenel is a true talent and I have yet to even view her most well-known works, but ultimately they are the only thing that makes this film a tolerable pastime. There are films to be seen and to be made about the 21st century malaise not exclusive to Milennials alone, but this is not among them.

There are a few gorgeous images, some laughs and the standout leads but the drama is never compelling enough and the sweetheart element is never touching enough. A film about a survivalist ought to be able to keep its head above water better than this.

Mini-Review: Excision

Posted on September 12, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

Excision

What is most successful about Excision is that it is a study in character from the inside out. Which is to say that the fantasy/daydream segments in this film may be too numerous, but the purpose they do serve is to show how the inner-monologue of a disturbed, delusional character come to the fore and affect her everyday life. There are a few dichotomous splits in character: a struggle between adoration and mutilation (both their own versions of body worship), a fight against authority, a struggle between a libertine attitude and a theistic construct. Perhaps, what’s most intriguing about Excision is watching the journey, granted I did figure where the journey would end at some point, but it seems like a basic virginity plot with a very socially awkward lead, but as it progresses you see so much more is going on here. Through all the serious and horrific observations you make there are also some laughs to be had, and many great performances notably AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Roger Bart, Ariel Winter and Jeremy Sumpter.

8/10

Short Film Saturday: Bedfellows

Posted on September 12, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

No, Short Film Saturday is not over. When scheduling in advance I had horror films slated for the 61 Days of Halloween slot, and wasn’t watching many other shorts so there was a hiatus. When I watch some more I’ll keep the schedule filled. Enjoy.

Bedfellows

At this point it’s likely you’ve discovered this film. However, one of the issues that the Internet presents is that “If it’s not new, it’s not worth it” seems to be the mantra. This is a highly effective, creepy short worth your few minutes.

Mini-Review: [REC] 3: Genesis

Posted on September 11, 2015 by bernardovillela

Introduction

[REC] 3: Genesis

This is a prime example of having to go where the movie takes you and not judging it based on what you wanted or expected it to be. I have already expressed how much I love what [REC] 2 did for that series. When you hear that this one is going to be a prequel you assume, “Great, it’ll be about the patient zero.” The connection is more tenuous than that. However, what you do get in this [REC] tale is humor, great horror, action, effects and gore and more theological blanks filled in than before. Whether or not part 4 can, and will, be the conclusion this series needs/deserves remains to be seen, but this film is what it wants to be: a very strong, fairly stand-alone piece that contributes to a larger narrative.

8/10

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
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7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

The Movie Rat