Movie Review: Before We Go

Director: Chris Evans / Starring: Chris Evans & Alice Eve/ Writer(s): Ron Bass, Jen Smolka, Chris Shafer & Paul Vicknair. 

Before We Go is a drama/romance movie about two strangers, Nick Vaughan(Evans) and Brooke Dalton(Eve), who find themselves stranded in New York for the night with only 80 bucks and two non-functional credit cards between the two of them.

The film gets straight to the point opening on a trumpet playing Nick(Evans) in the bustle of Grand Central Station on a late night. He sees Brooke(Eve) storming, seemingly hysterical, through the station down to the subway, dropping and breaking her phone on the way. He chases her down to return it to her and finds out she's stranded in the city because her purse was stolen. Being the good samaritan he is, he offers to help her get home. Brooke is distrusting of Nick at first, she even gives him a wrong name. And that's fair, he's a strange man nearly forcing kindness onto her in the middle of the night. But as if his boyish charm & his disarming kindness didn't already let you know, there's a redemptive scene where he swoops up behind Brooke out of nowhere and throws his arm around her when she's heading down the sidewalk straight for a group of rowdy young men when god knows what was about to happen. It's creepy that he followed her, but you know what they say, the devil you know...

Nick is a man with a bubbly, easygoing personality but some of it is a facade to mask the scars of a past relationship. He seems stoic about it at first, but you later learn how deep his missed opportunity at love cuts. I'll admit, having just recently seen Evans in Age of Ultron as Steve Rogers/Captain America, it's a little hard to immediately separate him from that. Doesn't help Nick has that same upright demeanor to him as Cap, but Evans sheds the Marvel role here as well as he did in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer. Brooke is "icy" as Nick put it, distant and solemn at first. As the night goes on her personality unravels, she opens up and you learn she's had some turbulence in her love life as well, though, more recent than Nick's. 

I haven't seen much of Alice Eve, I know her from Star Trek Into Darkness, though. She's really, really good in this role. She and Evans have fervent chemistry as two characters with a deep connection whilst in a haze over the love of someone else. Towards the middle of the film I was close to writing it off as a derivative of Lost In Translation, but the last act proves this is different from that. Yes there's the dynamic of two disillusioned strangers having a chance meeting against the backdrop of a big city(New York City is affectionately lensed by 'Like Crazy' & 'In Time' cinematographer John Guleserian) but Before We Go is a story that addresses its characters' problems directly. It doesn't offer an answer, because there's never a definite answer when it comes to things like this, but presents a strong notion about what the answer may be.

"You can't allow the people you love to determine how you love." is the most important piece of dialogue in the film and it offers what might be a novel point of view to some. It's spoken to Brooke, but it applies to both characters and anyone who's ever loved someone so to the extent that it makes them question themselves. Being in love with someone even though they're happy without you, still being in love with someone despite how much they've hurt you. That depth of love may not be fathomable to a lot of people, but then again... it might just be. This isn't about just laying down and being okay with those circumstances, though. It's about accepting those things as they are so you can move on if need be. 

"You have to be okay with not being okay" Nick says and he's right. Whether that be a missed opportunity at love or the prospect thereof... Ironically what may just be the case for the two characters. Chris Evans' feature debut behind the camera handles the expansive topic of love tenderly, but doesn't come off as sappy. It's kind of distracting that Evans is in the movie himself, but it's smart that started out small and used himself as draw. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. I remember a while back him talking about focusing on directing more.

Movie Review: Goodnight Mommy

Director(s): Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz / Starring: Susanne Wuest, Lukas Schwarz & Elias Schwarz / Writer(s): Severin Fiala & Veronika Franz. 

Per IMDb, Goodnight Mommy is a German-Language psychological thriller/drama about two twin boys who move into a new home with their mother after she has face changing cosmetic surgery, but under her bandages is someone the children don't recognize. 

The trailer for this film has been spreading through the internet like wildfire for months now. Usually with the adjectives "terrifying" & "horrifying" attached. I was linked to the trailer on twitter and wasn't exactly hyped as everyone else was about it, but it still looked good to me. Now that I've watched I'm here to report that this is not a horror... at least not in a pure sense of the word anyways. And I kind of expected this.

The film starts out with the young boys, Elias & Lukas, roaming the Austrian countryside. The location wasn't specified, but my god is it beautiful. This cinematography in this film is immediately spectacular. The few, and I mean few, films I've seen out of Austria & Germany have been visually bleak but the visuals for this film are vibrant & indulgent. I was in awe of it from beginning to end. The boys play hide-and-seek, frolic through the forest, go swimming, etc. Do things that kids their age do. when you finally meet their mother(Wuest), it's a cold scene. The twins are unforgiving in their reaction the seeing their mother's bandaged face for what seems to be the first time and she misconstrues their being startled for disgust. Tension in the household begins to simmer.

At first it seems like the film is about the mother's disappointment with her self-image. It even seems to be hinted at with the big portraits of distorted female figures strewn throughout the walls of the house. From that I figured her impatience & resent of her children was due to their youth. Those elements are definitely there, but it's not the entire story. You later learn that the true source of her resentment is and what the second purpose of those portraits when the boys start to suspect their mother isn't their mother.

If you got caught up in the "most terrifying/horrifying" hype when the trailer was buzzing then you will be disappointed sitting through the first two acts of the film waiting to be scared by something. There are some slightly disturbing/hard to look at things that happen, some startling cuts in the editing and it has generally disquiet atmosphere, but this is mostly a slow burn... not a pure horror. Goodnight Mommy is a story of emotional & psychological trauma. To be fair, the way the trailer is cut is purposely manipulative in how it portrays it as a horror, but it still shocked me when I seen so many negative reviews for the film.

 It suffers  the same fate as The Babadook & the underrated Silent House remake. People come in with certain expectations of what they think it's supposed to be and miss the point of what it actually is in the process. It's not a horror with contrived plot about two sociopathic boys whose mother has been replaced by an evil witch or something, it's about two boys who are so perplexed by their mother treating them differently they think she's another person entirely. "Our mother would never do that," Elias & Lukas say in unison  when presenting their mother a video of her hitting one of them. 

The human psyche is fragile... even more so when it comes to children. So it's natural for children to lash out when they suddenly experience resentment & bitter embrace from the person who's supposed to love them the most. On the flip-side, this film is presented from a completely biased point of view of the children for most of the runtime. The Schwarz twins are brilliant, you'd think there's not much to what they had to do, but the precise subtlety to performances should not be taken for granted.

When you examine the mother's behavior closer, and look at it from her angle it becomes a completely different film from what you thought you were watching. Imagine you're a recent divorcée, highly insecure about your self-image and in a sensitive state... reeling from a traumatic experience(Susanne Wuest's face is wrapped in bandages for 2/3 of the film, but she still gives a great turn, emitting emotions the way she did with her face covered is no small feat.) Imagine the two people in the world you'd expect to adore you essentially reject you and choose each other's company over yours. Of course that doesn't excuse the abuse, but just imagine the isolation you'd experience seeing them frolic carelessly through the countryside while you're emotionally wrecked. Is that all of the story? No, but I have to reiterate that these elements are there and shouldn't be whisked away by the "twist" that's barely a twist in the first place. These are real-life themes only retrofitted with "horror" tropes. This isn't anything new either. 

In the beginning, most horrors were rooted in real-life phobias, fears & traumatic events. It's just that over the years horror as a genre has become a thing of its own and it has a lot of people thinking  everything that evokes some element of horror is supposed to scare them when that's not necessarily the case. Not the most terrifying film ever, but is one of the most engaging thrillers you'll see in a while.

Movie Review: Beasts of No Nation

Director: Cary Fukunaga / Starring: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba, Emmanuel Nii Adom Quaye / Writer(s): Uzodinma Iweala(novel), Cary Fukunaga

Beasts Of No Nation is a drama about a young boy's story of survival as child soldier in a war-torn unnamed West African country, based on a novel of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala. 

The film starts out with a voice-over of 12-year-old Abu(Abraham) telling us about his current life and his family, but learn nothing about the war between Abu's government and the NDF rebels, just that they're warring and there's some paranoia about it in his community. The war reaches his village and Abu is torn from his family and everything he loves. With almost no time for grief, he's immediately forced to go into survival mode. A rebel leader only known as Commandant (Elba) & his faction happen upon Abu and offer him an invitation to join them in their battle against the army. Abu joins knowing it's either be a rebel or die. He's trained, initiated then quickly dropped onto the front line of the war.

Abu is taken under the wing of Commandant along with another boy, a mute named Striker. They bond over a shared victimization from the Commandant whom Elba plays as charismatic, woeful and meditative. You naturally wonder about man who leads children into war, but despite that he still doesn't come off as the type of savage beast you'd expect these actions from. He's best part of the film by far, but his character sadly isn't delved into. He's not redeemable by any means, but he is humanized. You can tell he genuinely believes in what he's doing. He's a cog in the machine, not the driving force.

Abu's journey of survival plods along from one act of violence to the next until it feels like only a matter of fact. Abu is a boy who having only spent 12 years walking the earth and is forced to do things not even men should be doing. He's hurled into a world of darkness, but it's bittersweet because the film is shot so beautifully by Fukunaga yet so many horrible things are happening. It's harrowing, but majestic imagery. Sometimes it works well  syncing up with the contrast of Abu and the other child soldiers still behaving like children in the midst of all these violent acts they're ordered to do. But it ultimately feels wrong.

That fact this film takes place in an unnamed African country is simultaneously detrimental and beneficial to audience's perception of it's narrative. Though there is a little political subtext to it, this film is not about the tragic wars that take place in African countries, it's about a boy's journey in a war and how it threatens to dehumanize him, the backdrop doesn't matter as much as the story period. The anonymity of the country helps the viewer focus on the protagonist, but it could also lead to those who are uneducated having a blanketed perception about the continent. I hope it leans more to the former.

Even with everything he does, it's still hard to buy him transitioning into a heartless soldier. Maybe that's the intent considering he's still only a boy. But it feels muddled in the end as it amounts to a conclusion that feels a little unlikely. I know of similar real-life narratives that have ended this way so maybe I should instead say it just feels too neat for what kind of film this is. 

It feels similar to Fukunaga's first film Sin Nombre. That film is just as brutal and bleak, but handled with more delicacy. This is a story of survival as well Sin Nombre, but where that film ends on a note of promise, this ends feeling kind of indifferent and ultimately pointless. There's suffering, loss, more suffering and then what? Still, it's a good film, but not great. It's a heartbreaking and visceral experience, just it doesn't have a strong impact outside of that.

Movie Review: Z For Zachariah

Director: Craig Zobel / Starring: Margot Robbie, Chiwetel & Chris Pine / Writer(s): Nissar Modi/Based on the Robert C. O'Brien novel of the same name, Z For Zachariah is a drama set in a post-apocalyptic world where most of the human race has been wiped out in the aftermath of nuclear warfare.

It starts with a wide shot of a deserted town followed by a series of shots tracking Ann(Robbie) in her makeshift hazmat suit scavenging a town on the outskirts of the valley, a natural haven from the fallout, she lives in. Though you only see her traversing the valley alone for about five minutes, you still get a clear picture of how isolated she is. It's even more evident when she first comes across John Loomis(Ejiofor) but doesn't engage him immediately. She just observes him at first like she's never seen another human before. She's hesitant to approach him until she sees him go to bathe in a stream with radioactive water that runs in from outside of the valley; she he confronts and warns him about the dangers of the water then he scrambles back to his wagon to inject himself with some kind medicine to combat the radiation poisoning. Ann helps him, takes him back to her house and nurses him back to health.

From thereon out, the film begins to play out like a loose take on the story of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. There's that theme of religion vs science/god vs man. You learn John is intelligent, but also a little condescending. Or at least it seems that way in how he relates to Ann. He's hopeful, but something from his past weighs on him. Ann is hopeful as well, but naive and apprehensive. Chiwetel & Robbie nail these roles, Ejiofor appropriately so. Though vastly scaled down from the novel, he's still true to the spirit of that character. 

Robbie is also true to her character from the novel, but it's disturbing because in the novel Ann is a teenager. They don't explicitly say she is in the film, but Robbie is clearly playing it that way. There's literally an exchange between Pine & Ejiofor where they agree she seems "older than she is" and it's creepy as hell. The film already strays greatly from the novel, why not change that detail as well? Robbie's performance would've benefited from her playing a more mature woman and it definitely would've elevated the whole love triangle dynamic.

Pine's character Caleb doesn't exist in the book so he has the most free rein for his performance and he's fine for it. He arrives and seems like a sinister element(Chris Pine has always looked like a bad guy to me) but he's portrayed as mostly harmless outside of the inevitable pissing match he and John have. I think Zobel buys into the Adam & Eve bit when he portrays Caleb as a possible threat akin to the snake in the Garden of Eden, presents John's wealth of knowledge as an asset, but also a possible danger to the trio's sanctuary. And creepily, Ann is presented as nubile & virginal. All attributes inherent to biblical characters in one way or another. To be honest, the script lacks, but Zobel's direction is good. He sets the perfect atmosphere for tension in a situation like this to arise, but it never comes out like it should. He has vision, but not a discernible voice. His subtlety worked in his first feature Compliance, but it comes off as lackadasical here. 

This is Nissar Modi's second feature script(to be produced) and it was a popular one from the Black List. It had potential to be great film with some minor tweaks. I'll give him kudos for taking this already original story and making it his own, but he still gets an asterisk for it being it an adaptation and fumbling the middle part. Like I said, Zobel's direction is good, the story just doesn't match his sensibilities from what I've seen from him so far, though, this is only his second feature as well. I think this is an interesting film overall. It's essentially boring, but it's not bad. It's even thought-provoking at times, especially the ending that may frustrate some, but trust there's a good reason it ends that way. Think Knife In The Water if you've ever seen it. 

Movie Review: Boyhood + My Top 15 Coming-of-Age Films

Boyhood(2014)
Writer/Director: Richard Linklater
Starring: Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Ethan Hawke(Gattaca, Training Day, Before trilogy) Patricia Arquette(True Romance, Lost Highway)

 "You how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I kind of thinking it's the other way around. you know, like the moment seizes us."

There was a lot of buzz about this film before it came out. I was interested in it, of course... what avid film watcher wouldn't wanna see how a film that took twelve year's to make turns out? But I'm not a huge fan of Richard Linklater outside of the Before trilogy. I think he's a great filmmaker, yes, but I find most of his other work essentially boring at the end of the day. Boyhood looked to be much of the same to me so I went in this managing my expectations. And it turned out this film is as good as it could ever be. I never imagined it would've touched me the way it did. The little things that I would've normally considered a flaws are perfectly encompassed by the overall magnitude of the film. Whether it be the acting that may come off as amateur or spurious, the script coming off as ultra-simplistic or the monotonous cinematography. I'm here to tell you that these things only compliment the film as sincere and realistic elements. You have to remember that life isn't perfectly written, framed or acted. This is less of a drama and more a window into everyday life of regular people. Not characters or actors, but real, complicated people in authentic settings in real-time.

I can relate to a handful of the moments in Mason's younger years and since I had somewhat of a unique childhood, I might hold some of those moments more dearly than others who had them as a given. But Mason's teen-to-later-years I could relate to even more. He was in a such dark place then. And I knew exactly how he was feeling at that time. They didn't dig that deep into it, but they do touch on it via an exchange with his girlfriend where she makes note of his gloom and doom attitude towards life then. "Fuck anyone else, I care what I think of me. Which isn't very much right much right now." he says... that right there was me for a long time. At one point I was so engulfed in sadness and self-pity that it felt like that's all I'd ever feel and all I ever wanted to feel. It was like I was in love with despair. It wasn't easy and I didn't do it alone, but I eventually climbed my way out of that trench. I still have my dark moments from time to time, but thankfully, I'm in a much better place now. And I'm a lot more optimistic about my future.

Before watching this for the first time, I had just found out Robin Williams had taken his own life. After witnessing a staple in mine & many others' childhoods pass away in that fashion and experiencing this film, my self-awareness became eerily high. I'm scared and excited for the future. At 21-years-old still I don't know exactly where my life is headed, but like this film's ending, there is promise shown. Film lover or not, this truly is a cinematic feat to be cherished and never forgotten by our generation. Thank you, Richard Linklater for giving us for this work of art that is not only moving, but has moved with us in a significant way. The moment does indeed seize us.

And in honor of Linklater's masterpiece I've compiled a list of other amazing coming-of-age tales

1. The 400 Blows(1959) dir. Francois Truffaut

2. Los Olvidados(1950) dir. Luis Bunuel

3. Fanny & Alexander(1982) dir. Ingmar Bergman

4. The Last Picture Show(1971) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

5. Tree of Life(2011) dir. Terrence Malick

6. Y Tu Mama Tambien(2001) dir. Alfonso Cuaron

7. Crooklyn(1994) dir. Spike Lee

8. Stand By Me(1984) dir. Rob Reiner

9. The Graduate(1967) dir. Mike Nichols

10. Paper Moon(1973) dir. Peter Bogdanovich

11. Pixote(1981) dir. Hector Babenco

12. City of God(2002) dir. Fernando Meirelles, Katia Lund

13. Almost Famous(2000) dir. Cameron Crowe

14. Dazed and Confused(1993) dir. Richard Linklater

15. The Sandlot(1993) dir. David M. Evans

Extended List Here