Mini-Review

Mini-Review: The Short Game (2012)

Posted on 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 Short Game (2012)

Netflix has been making waves this year [2013] in good ways, after a string of PR nightmares with its core services. Its role as distributor of original content to streaming platforms, first in television-formats, has been groundbreaking. However, it’s also dipping its toes in the film world picking up a few documentaries. This one debuted in theaters first and is now available to stream.

Perhaps what’s most important in a sports documentary centered on prodigious young athletes is having an interesting cross-section of personalities. Even if one is not familiar with, or a big fan of, a sport (golf, in this case) narrative and cinematic conventions and approaches should keep you engaged. The editing and scoring of this film, as well as the structural approach to the tournament that serves as the climax, is great. What keeps you interested and involved in the build-up is that while they all have golf in common they’re still kids at the core of it and quite different: Jed (A Filipino boy with autism), Alexa (a wunderkind who lives with her dad), Amari (A girl emulating Tiger Woods), Kuang (a Chinese boy who happened on the game by chance as an infant), Allan (A whiz kid who’s Anna Kournikova’s younger brother), Augustin (An intellectual French player of literary pedigree) Zama (A South African boy growing up in a different world than his father seeking a breakthrough) Sky (A Texan girl with a large stuffed bunny collection).

Combining all that, the unexpected twists and turns golf can take, and the volatility of a child’s emotions makes it an engaging, funny, suspenseful and at time even moving film.

10/10

It was awarded a BAM for Best Documentary.

Mini-Review: Into the White

Posted on 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!

Into the White

Here’s another case where I had a little inadvertent crossover between months. I saw this film towards the end of June and included it in the BAM Considerations there, then I stalled on writing the review until now so it kicks off July.

This film does a few things that are a little out of the norm that I feel work for it every well: first, though it is a wartime tale it’s not really concerned with battle sequences, but rather with human nature and survival. Two World War II fighter planes, one British and one German, are downed in Norway. The crews of both find refuge in the same abandoned hunting cabin and seek to survive the harsh winter. Second, while there is some of the expected banter, power struggles and a effective chamber drama set-pieces; the film is the latest in a gray-area treatment of World War II inasmuch as it tell not a black-and-white tale but a more involved human character study and psychological approach to those involved. In short, these are people, not types.

With a common goal of survival this film studies its individual characters both on their own and in relation to one another. Eventually façade come down and they are able to see each other as individuals. One of the pitfalls of a tale like this is that there could be the danger of going too far in the other direction. Things end too well and they get too chummy. The film walks that tightrope well. The performances all around are great by the five central figures particular standouts being Florian Lukas, David Kross and Rupert Grint.

7/10

Mini-Review: The Hunt

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The Hunt

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

Mads Mikkelsen plays a kindergarten teacher who has been falsely accused via misunderstanding (when you watch you’ll quickly see how) of molesting a student. That’s established early on. There’s not cat-and-mouse mystery about that much because that’s not the point. The film’s really about the snowball effect of a misunderstood notion being repeated, how assumptions are made, hysteria spreads and a witch-hunt begins, and how it affects all those involved.

Mikkelsen turns in a marvelous performance (not that he’s alone in that regard) and the film ends on the right note, as opposed to one that might feel untrue. It’s chillingly, unnervingly realistic portrait of how such a thing can escalate, even without any basis in fact, and takes a naturalistic progression.

10/10

Mini-Review: The Broken Circle Breakdown

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The Broken Circle Breakdown

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

There has been the occasional resurgence of bluegrass music into popular culture via cinema over the past decade or so. Many of those instances, while they are films where I’ve heard the music, they are movies I did not happen to see.

Perhaps what’s most interesting here is that The Broken Circle Breakdown is a film that’s not even ostensibly about the music. The music is there, it plays a role, it functions as a part of the characters, it underscores the emotions of the story (usually counter-intuitively) but it’s only a musical quantitatively. The film is a fractured chronology of a couple’s relationship. It begins in a present where their six-year-old is battling cancer. The film then backtracks, and goes back and forth to tell the story of these two and where they head as new challenges face them.

The toe-tapping heart of the film is its pair portrayed by Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh. Through their earnest performances, and the music, you’re left on a tightrope walking through the end of this sad tail without spinning completely into despair yet completely absorbed within it.

9/10

Mini-Review: Maniac (2012)

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

Maniac (2012)

This is another case of my having seen a remake prior to the original. I attempted to watch the original once but Netflix had a very weird audio glitch that made it impossible to progress past the thirty minute mark. In that version I was marginally engaged at that point and things were starting to pick up. Here the film dives in headfirst taking much POV, a lot of talking to himself. This in a similar but far more intriguing and artfully shot way we’re in the mind of this madman. That and due to the way Elijah Wood portrays Frank there’s a disconcerting sense of understanding if not empathy that makes it a far more engaging tale. The score is a hypnotic as the images are lush and the film has a fairly good thrust as it scales through anonymous victims building a protagonist slowly on the side.

9/10

Mini-Review: Blackfish

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

Blackfish

I heard of this film quite some time ago as it featured prominently on My Radar. I recorded the CNN airing a while ago but was reticent to watch it. In the end I’m glad I did. There are a few graphic and disturbing images but the takeaway from the film is far more profound than that. The scariest, most stomach-turning thing is the pervasiveness of lies documented that Sea World spews as facts. Lies that I as a child believed to be true and still recalled learning there. What this film shows is not only that these massive mammals are smarter and more complex that we can yet understand, but also that there are dangers inherent to the people who attempt to keep them in captivity as glorified circus performers.

9/10

Mini-Review – The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

When I discussed The Hobbit last year I spent a few too many words on the High Frame Rate because it was new. This time around suffice it to say I found the experience a bit better, however, still awkward at times. I don’t know if skipping on IMAX and sitting closer to the screen played a factor but it may have.

There’s an impressive thing that this one does is that even at quite close to three hours it does leave you wanting to continue. Sure, that has to do with where the “cliff” drops off, but no one was happy when The Devil Inside ended (save for the fact that it was finally over). There’s less filler here, which the first had a bit of but this one is unquestionably better, even to someone like myself who happened to like the first one just fine, and who still hasn’t read the book.

9/10

Mini-Review- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Based on all the banter I had heard about this film before I got to see it, I fully expected to despise this film. I didn’t. I do acknowledge that for those who have read the book that divorcing oneself from the source material may prove difficult here as it is a sprawling, elaborated version of the tale. I, personally, came in unencumbered by expectations from another medium.

I hope that as a series this bucks the precedent of the original trilogy where the second installment plays like a feature-length second act as opposed to an individual installment. Getting back to this film once it gets really going, which does take a bit longer than desired, it works. I also saw this film in 48 fps. It’s not quite ready for primetime it would seem. In the beginning when the lighting is flatter, it’s like you’re watching the world’s largest HDTV. There are issues handling both movement of the camera and character movement throughout. Movement isn’t always smooth, it’s at times jittery. As for helping the 3D, I’m not the best judge there, but the depth seemed consistent later on. I usually defer to CinemaBlend and agree with their final assessment.

Aside from all the extras, including the fact that I was also watching this in a new local theater, I think it is enjoyable, and perhaps having the original three as a background buoys it, but I think it’s a better start to the proceedings.

8/10

Mini-Review: The Aggression Scale

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

The Aggression Scale

My tweet on this film gives no more away than the synopsis of this film I feel: This is like the Home Alone as a horror film trailer taken seriously, and I mean that as a compliment. It’s awesome. This film has an effective open that directly ties to later events, features great bloodwork, some very solid performances including Ray Wise, Dana Ashbrook and the chillingly astute, silent turn of Ryan Hartwig. It raises the stakes, chaos, violence, and in some cases, ingenuity of the aforementioned film while also making those things a function of character more so than the element of surprise.

9/10

Mini-Review: Holy Motors

Posted on by bernardovillela

This year, as I did both last year and in 2012, I am engaging in something I like to call the Year-End Dash. Basically, its the scramble to get as many eligible titles viewed as possible before the end of the year for the forthcoming BAM Awards.

The extemporaneous reactions to late viewing will be short, but they will be logged. So I thought it would also be a good idea to re-post in standalone form some of the more memorable films I’ve seen in the first few jaunts.

Holy Motors

While Holy Motors, like Alps deals with an unusual “business,” and like Alphaville deals with much larger implications than production value might otherwise indicate (not that they’re low), you can’t really compare it to anything. It’s the kind of film that as you think about it you find it’s absolutely saying something at given points, it may not be a wholly underlying ideal, but there are several within the context of one most unique tale. It’s the kind of film that’s just enjoyable to watch even if you’re not sure why at first. It’s the kind of film that exemplifies Bergman‘s assertion about an audiences understanding the emotional meaning of a film rather than the literal meaning.

It features a mesmerizing lead performance by Denis Lavant, brilliant prosthetics work, and a catchy original song performed by Kylie Minogue, amongst many other things.

It’s almost impossible to give a rating to the film at this juncture, especially as it seems to be ascendant at this moment. However, let’s say the placeholder is:

9/10