Author Archives: Matt

Scared Shitless: Alone or with a Group of Strangers?

So I finally saw the rest of Hardcore Henry. I completely stand by my review of the first 45 minutes and am only disappointed in myself that I gave this inexcusably boring failed experiment of an action movie a second chance.

Despite receiving some very generous reviews from some of our Honourary Assholes, Hardcore Henry didn’t quite draw the crowd that I was expecting. In fact, for the first time in my life, I found myself alone in a movie theater for a full 96 minutes.

Having the room to myself had its advantages. I didn’t have to glare at anyone for eating noisy nachos or checking their phone and could even feel comfortable to check my own phone whenever I wanted. I also got up and changed seats twice. I didn’t enjoy the Coming Attractions though.

Have you seen the preview for Lights Out?

It’s fucking scary!!!! Now imagine watching it in a big dark room all by yourself where the speakers are so loud that nobody outside would be able to hear you scream. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder throughout the previews. They actually make these previews way too scary if you ask me. Here I am sitting down to watch a guilty pleasure action movie and am stuck watching terrifying clips of scary movies that I never would have consented to see.

This trailer didn’t have the same effect when I was forced to sit through it again, this time with twenty or so other people who came to see Green Room. There seems to be a feeling of strength in numbers when dealing with the paranormal. I didn’t know anyone else in the theater but I felt safer knowing that they were there.

That feeling of security didn’t last once Green Room started. If you haven’t heard of this (by my count) third feature from writer-director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin), it features a young punk band who barricade themselves in their dressing room after a controversial set to protect themselves against neo-Nazis. It’s the kind of movie that makes you fear your fellow man and wondering what the guy sitting behind you is capable of.

Saulnier takes his time at first to give us a chance to start to like this struggling touring band. As the story unfolds and the sense of danger continues to intensify, it becomes harder and harder to guess what’s coming next. Which isn’t to say that there is any real mystery or even any major twists. Saulnier isn’t nearly lazy enough for that. He just presents believable characters in a credible (at least credible for this genre) situation and dares to ask “Now what?”. It’s a violent film with terribly violent things happening to its characters on both sides of the door. Somehow, however, it never feels sadistic or exploitative. Every act of violence in Green Room is presented as a terrible thing and, for once, there isn’t a single character that seemed to want this situation to turn this bloody.

So, to sum up, see Green Room if you don’t mind a tense and occasionally punishing 95 minutes, don’t see Hardcore Henry, and don’t watch the trailer for Lights Out alone.

Angry Inuk

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An Inuit community in Canada’s northern territories faces an interesting challenge. How can a culture, that prides itself on a patient and understated expression of anger, make themselves heard when their opponents are famous for a more aggressive approach?

Canadian seal hunting has gotten a lot of media attention since the late 1970s thanks to well-funded animal rights groups and their celebrity spokespeople. The brutal clubbing of baby seals in Newfoundland and Labrador may be the most common image associated with seal hunting but, for many Inuit people living in Nunavut, the practice looks very different. Traditional seal hunting, in a culture well-known for a humane and non-wasteful approach to killing animals, can be a matter of survival in some parts of northern Canada. Not only do they eat the meat and wear the fur, the latter of which is a necessity with the region’s frigid temperatures, but they also need money to survive just like the rest of us. One way they can earn money is by selling products made from seal fur.

Although the laws related to seal hunting make exceptions for the Inuit, decreased demand due to such laws, and the propaganda put out by Greenpeace and other organizations, have driven prices down, making it harder for them to survive economically. In Angry Inuk, filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril follows fellow Inuit activists to Ottawa, Toronto, and Europe as they try and tell their side of the story.

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, using fantastic footage of northern Canada, gives us a behind the scenes look at traditional seal hunting and the preparation of furs. More importantly, she takes the time to lay out the historical and political context that can limit the options of First Nations communities. And finally, by focusing on a social media campaign designed to educate people about traditional seal hunting, she gives hope for a more constructive dialogue in the future.

It’s a side of the story that is so often drowned out by extremely vocal activist groups that have the money and resources to make themselves heard. At my day job, I work as a social worker with First Nations and Inuit people and even I have never heard the story of seal hunting told quite like this. Regardless of your position on animal rights, Angry Inuk is a fascinating film, one that offers a perspective that we don’t usually see.

Originally posted at Cinema Axis.

Where Talent Blooms: Pt 2

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When people call our nation’s capital a “government town”, they don’t mean it as a compliment. As much as I have loved living in Ottawa for the last ten years, the city has earned a bit of a reputation for being a little too conservative, even boring and uninspiring. Even though Pearl Jam will be playing here next month, I chose instead to travel four hours to see them in Toronto so as not to have my buzz killed by a bunch of Ottawans and their polite applause.

How inspiring it can be when talent blooms in your own city, especially one that is too often written off as unexciting. Not that the entertainment industry is any stranger to Ottawan talent. We have the dubious distinction of being the first to hate Tom Green, who used to try out his bits on unsuspecting citizens before moving to Hollywood. Alanis Morissette and Sandra Oh were born here. Even Tom Cruise went to elementary school in Ottawa for three years. Back in August, we had the pleasure of interviewing a young local filmmaker who has renewed our interest for local talent and strengthened (if that’s even possible) my passion for the medium. Even more than Tom Green.

When we last spoke with Morgana McKenzie, she had just turned 16. She had already written, edited, and directed three award-winning shorts and was in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for Ellie, her most ambitious project yet, which she was about to start shooting. After our interview, we’d been as impressed by her contagious enthusiasm as we had been by the knack for storytelling and attention to detail that she’d shown in her films.

Ms McKenzie premiered Ellie at a private screening yesterday for friends, family, and donors. As visibly excited as she was to share her latest project with us, she first took the stage to introduce us to eight short films by other local filmmakers to further highlight the exciting things that are happening right here in our own hometown. If you’re interested in reading up on any of the films or filmmakers that she selected to showcase on her big day, I’ve listed them below. For our purposes here, I’ll just sum them up by saying that they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The weak points of each film, I’m assuming, are a result of the limited experience (in some cases) and resources that are par for the course as independent filmmakers start out. The strengths of each film (and there are many) can only come from a palpable passion and unquestionable creativity that no budgetary constraint could ever suppress.

As for Ellie, Ms. McKenzie is clearly a fast learner and is working for the first time with ACTRA actors and her biggest budget so far. It comes as no surprise then that Ellie is her most impressive film yet. Telling the story of two young people held captive in a mysterious cabin, it’s darker, more mature, and more confident than anything else I’ve seen from her. A stand-out performance from local actor Sebastian Labissiere is also worth noting. If Ms. McKenzie keeps doing what she’s doing with the same eagerness to learn and grow as a filmmaker, I am quite confident that I will be reviewing her movies for years to come.

I am proud to be living in a city where talent is blooming.

For anyone interested, here is a complete list of the short films we saw yesterday.

The Garage– (dir. Patrick White) A young woman discovers that the case of her stolen car in a parking garage may be more complex- and spooky- than she ever could have imagined.

Eyetooth– (dir. Cory Thibert) A creepy stalker is faced with a moral dilemma.

The Canvas– (dir. Adrie Sustar) When faced with some hurtful criticism of her work, a young painter becomes more emotionally invested in her work than ever before.

Ignite– (dir. Lora Bidner) A music video set to original music. Sparks will fly.

The Clean-Up– (dir. Kristian Larieviere) Two former best friends must work together to dispose of a body after a hit gone bad. But can they resolve their differences in time?

Connections– (dir. Nicole Thompson) An incident involving an old lady being pushed to the ground and having her purse stolen is examined from multiple perspectives.

Pieces of You– (dir. Derek Price) A young girl copes with loss through poetic voiceover and beautiful cinematography.

Primary Colours– (dir. Derek Price) A woman’s experience with domestic violence is told directly into the camera with disarming poetry.

We All Go the Same– (dir. Morgana McKenzie) A music video for Radical Face’s We All Go the Same set to images of brutal fairy tale murder.

Ellie– (dir. Morgana McKenzie) Two teens are held captive in a mysterious cabin. One makes a daring attempt to change his situation.

Knight of Cups

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Yes, Terrence Malick fans. Knight of Cups is finally here.

For those unfamiliar with the legendary though anything but prolific filmmaker, his work isn’t easy to describe. When talking about his style, it’s just as easy to sound uncultured when trying not to sound pretentious as it is to sound pompous when trying not to sound uncivilized. So for now I’ll just say that his fans can recognize his presence behind the camera from his distinctive style as easily as they can identify Morgan Freeman by his voice or John Travolta by his chin. I can only name a couple (Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson) of American directors that working today with such a distinctive voice.

As strange as the comparison between Tarantino and Malick may seem, True Romance (Quentin’s first screenplay) was clearly and deliberately influenced by Badlands (Terrence’s first feature). Malick, who also wrote an uncredited draft of Dirty Harry, changed his approach to storytelling significantly after his directorial debut, a (relatively) straightforward story of young lovers on a crime spree. The director has only made six films since including Knight of Cups but all of them are notoriously light on dialogue, heavy on introspective voiceover, and generous with beautiful yet sometimes abstract imagery.

Because he has directed only six films in 43 years, you may have guessed that they take forever to make. Both The New World (2005) and The Tree of Life (2011) were based on scripts that he started back in the 70s. They also take forever to edit. He reportedly shot over a million feet of film for The New World, which of course had to be edited down to a concise 135 minutes. Knight of Cups, shot during the summer of 2012, spent nearly four years in post-production. Both Christian Bale and Natalie Portman have said that they spent more time recording their voiceovers than they did in front of the camera.

Here’s where I really risk sounding like an asshole. Malick’s films have very little in the way of conventional plot and a whole lot in the way of atmosphere and feeling. They exist to be experienced, not understood. They’re not for everyone. I’m not even sure that they’re for me. To compare Knight of Cups to any of the director’s post-Badlands works, you’d have to be a much more devoted fan than I am.

I will say that Cups offers even less dialogue than The Tree of Life and yet its “plot”, about a screenwriter (Bale) who experiences some existential angst after seeming to have forgotten his sense of purpose, is somehow easier to follow. The director brings his unique vision to dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish, vision of modern Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It’s a significant change of scenery for a filmmaker who usually makes period pieces. The cast is filled with recognizable faces, including Bale, Portman, and Cate Blanchett but to judge the performances would be to miss the point. Even Fabio can act in a Terrence Malick movie. That’s not a joke. He actually has a small part in this.

Knight of Cups probably won’t convert those who found Malick’s other films dull or inaccessible but, if you’ve never seen one, it’s worth a watch even if only for an experience that no one else in Hollywood can give you.

The Bronze

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In 2004, Hope Ann Greggory (Melissa Rauch) made her small Ohio town proud by bringing home the coveted Olympic Bronze Medal in women’s gymnastics. With her career cut short by a minor injury, Hope has been costing on that accomplishment ever since.

Rauch, who co-wrote this script with her husband, is best known for a show that I don’t watch. She insists though that Hope is a huge departure from her Big Bang Theory character and I’m willing to take her word for it. Unless CBS is willing to let her masturbate to footage of her glory days or say things like “absence makes the dick grow harder”, Chuck Lorre fans may be in for a side of the third most famous female BBT actress that they made not be ready for.

Hope is an obnoxious mess. Living with, mooching off of, and verbally abusing her sweet mailman dad (very well-played by Gary Cole), she makes a living off of stealing cash from his route. She also has a habit of going on a spoiled brat tirade of obscenities every time she hears something she doesn’t like, giving the sentenced-to-network-television actress a chance to do her best Melissa McCarthy (but somehow sounding a lot like Reese Witherspoon in Election).

Hope gets a second chance at life when her former coach dies and, for implausibly selfish reasons, she decides to take over coaching a promising sixteen year-old (Haley Lu Richardson) with dreams of Olympic gold. Richardson plays Maggie as naïve, hard-working, and loveable and Hope comes very close to ruining her. When Maggie beings to make the mistake of believing her own hype, The Bronze judges her way too harshly for the same attitude that it is so ready to forgive the 30 year-old Hope for.

The supporting cast of characters that Hope treats like shit- her dad, her pupil, and her sweet love interest (Tom Middleditch)- are all easy to like and make the film itself much more enjoyable to watch. The real problem is Rauch. As much fun as it must have been for her to unleash her inner Apatow, she’s more annoying than charmingly outspoken and her eventual redemption is too little-too late. And the ending, without giving too much away, is unforgiveable.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

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About a year ago, Wandering Through the Shelves had us binge-watching Movies Based on Young Adult Novels. The first two films in the Divergent series were neither the best or the worst things I watched that week. They’re not great- even “good” would be a stretch- but I was won over by the decency and unlikely strength of Tris (Shailene Woodley). I also couldn’t have done without the effortless charisma of Miles Teller as Peter, who brings much-needed personality to a series that takes itself way too seriously whenever he’s not on screen.

In the first two films in the series, the citizens (prisoners?) of Chicago have been assigned factions based on their defining trait (athletic, honest, kind, smart, and selfless). I’ve always found this basic premise to be a little lazy and a pretty adolescent view of the world but, hey, it’s young adult fiction. Besides, it’s what makes Divergent Divergent. To do away with these factions would be like the Twilight series continuing without any vampires or werewolves of the Fifty Shades series going straight edge. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this series does.

Allegiant picks up where Insurgent left off, immediately after the fall of the faction system. Without it, not only does Chicago lose control over its population but the story loses its focus and coherence. Fearing that Evelyn, (Naomi Watts) is becoming as oppressive a leader as Kate Winslet’s character had been, five young adults venture over the walls. What follows is sillier than the other two films combined, exposition-heavy, and impossible to follow. Tris, the heroic non-conformist of the story, somehow starts towing the party line. Woodley does her best to keep her interest but it’s tough not to be frustrated with her when everyone onscreen and in the audience thinks it’s obvious that she’s being played. Even Miles Teller’s shtick is getting old. Pick a side, buddy!

The Divergent series isn’t really made for adults and for all I know may please its target audience. Because most 16 year-olds wouldn’t be interested in our site and most of our readers wouldn’t be interested in this series, you might wonder why I’d even bother reviewing it. To that, I can only say “Jeff Daniels”. Daniels, joining Winslet, Watts, Octavia Spencer, and Ray Stevenson, becomes the latest good actor over 40 to have his talents wasted by this trite material. How so many good actors got involved in this series, I have no idea. But judging by their performances, I can tell it’s not because they wanted to be there. By the third film, their talents are no longer just wasted. They’re giving bad performances.

What’s happening in Hollywood that the likes of Naomi Watts and Jeff Daniels need a job this badly? Or that any filmmaker could become so distracted by their pretty but mostly boring young stars that they would forget to give Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer even a single key scene?

This is why I care enough about this series to write about it.

Requiem for the American Dream

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Requiem for the American Dream opens with Noam Chomsky reminiscing about the good ol’ days of the Great Depression. As bad as it got during the Depression, he recalls a shared understanding among the people that this shall pass. Now things are bad again, he claims, and this time nobody seems as optimistic that things will get any better. Of course, it’s perfectly normal that the outlook of a young boy packing into the back of the family truck with Grandma, Grandpa, Ma, Pa, and Uncle Tom and heading to California looking for work (assuming of course that his childhood was exactly like The Grapes of Wrath, which is my only point of reference) is probably a little rosier than that of a cranky 85 year-old linguist but he has my attention. He claims that the disparity between the rich and poor in the US has never been higher, predicting the death of the American Middle Class. Which worries me a little, as a member of said Middle Class.

It all started with America’s beloved forefathers, who understood Democracy’s biggest problem. In a true democracy, with poor people having the right to vote, what’s to stop the underprivileged from voting to take the big fancy houses away from the rich? Hardly seems fair, doesn’t it, since the rich worked so hard for said property? So they were left with two choices: take steps to reduce inequality or to limit democracy. So, according to Chomsky, begins the process of building a system that limits the access of the underprivileged to the highest office in the land.

Honestly, I’m not a fan of documentaries like these. Requiem features four years worth of interviews with Chomsky. Visually, we’re offered only tight close-ups of the renowned political activist’s face that even the most vain of starlets would never agree to along with the occasional stock footage of skyscrapers and highways. The filmmakers seek no other opinions, neither dissenting or complementary, and Chomsky’s lecture is accompanied only by an irritating score from Malcolm Francis.

So it’s not much of a documentary. That doesn’t mean its subject isn’t worth listening to. His observations are as alarming as they are timely. Even better, he has the decency to offer some hope for the future, reminding the American people that their system is set up so that regular people can bring about real change as long as they stop fighting amongst themselves and stand up and make themselves heard. Still, the documentary has nothing to offer but the words of Noam Chomsky. So you’re probably better off just reading some Chomsky.

One Floor Below

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This summer, I wrote a little about my appreciation for some harmless eavesdropping. Not in a creepy way. But if you’re having a conversation while I’m in earshot, I’m listening in. For instance, just a moment ago, I overheard one colleague saying to another “I brought soup for supper tonight but will go out to get some salad so I can get my vegetables too. Not that salad is vegetables”.

The comments from some of our readers could not have been more validating. Who would have thought that so many bloggers loved to watch out of the corner of their eye as strangers live their lives? I’ve never felt better about not minding my own business.

The response I got was a little surprising. It seems to contradict my favorite Morgan Freeman speech of all time, where he tells Brad Pitt “In any major city, minding your own business is a science”. This line from Se7en, despite being delivered with the conviction of a great actor in his prime, may seem a little strange given our obsession with office gossip and the private lives of celebrities. Of course, this isn’t what Freeman was talking about. What if the person you’re watching happens to need your help? Suddenly, it can be quite tempting to play the “Hey, this is none of my business” card.

So it goes with Patrascu in One Floor Below, a Romanian thriller from director Radu Muntean. Climbing the stairs to his apartment, Patrascu can’t help overhearing, especially since he stops for a moment to listen in, a scandalous argument between two lovers in an apartment one floor below. From the sounds of it, the heated discussion quickly escalates into a case of domestic violence, at which point the middle-aged husband and father decides “Hey, this is none of my business” and moves on. The next day, he learns that the young woman one floor below has been murdered.

Why introduce my review with three paragraphs of questionably relevant references to eavesdropping, salad, and Morgan Freeman? Well, I had to talk about SOMETHING! What do you say about a movie where nothing much happens? However thought-provoking Patrascu’s moral dilemma, Muntean makes his point in one or two short scenes, leaving very little to talk about for the rest of the movie. The ambitious director struggles to find drama in a murder case where the main character makes no effort either to investigate or find justice (in fact, he lies to the police to avoid getting involved).

Muntean asks some good questions and makes some unsettling observations in One Floor Below but there aren’t enough of them- and not nearly enough plot- to fill 93 minutes. I admire the restraint with which he tells a story that could have so easily given in to melodrama. I couldn’t help feeling like I really should be liking this movie. But it really couldn’t hold my attention. And this coming from a guy who is captivated by two colleagues talking about soup.

London Has Fallen

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Unfortunately, a lot has changed in 3 years.

2013’s Olympus Has Fallen opens with a friendly boxing match followed by a tragic car accident that explains why Secret Service Agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) and President Asher (Aaron Eckhart) aren’t boxing buddies anymore. It’s neither the most interesting or most original opening but at least we know what we’re in for. Olympus Has Fallen was harmless and predictable fun,just not especially interesting or original.

Three years later, London Has Fallen opens with a montage of news footage covering recent terrorist attacks, making it clear that the Olympus sequel takes place in a more dangerous world. Where the first thing we hear about every seemingly random shooting is whether it’s being investigated as “an act of terrorism”. Now that Islamophobia has such an influential and dangerous spokesman as Donald Trump, some have even questioned whether we really need a movie like London Has Fallen right now.

I could have overlooked London Has Fallen’s social and political irresponsibility if the film itself had been more gripping. Well, yes and no. Banning telling a terrorist to go back to “Fucheadistan or wherever the hell you come from” might have been taking it a little far. Same for Morgan Freeman (who should really retire) and his final speech which shamelessly defended America’s foreign policy. Other than that, London’s worst offence is not being any good.

As in Olympus, Banning doesn’t have any great kills or great stunts. And even if he did, director Babak Najafi doesn’t understand the genre enough to showcase them properly if he did. Way too many fights and chases are obstructed by sloppy editing.

And way too many questions are left unanswered. How did terrorists manage to attack “the most protected event in the world”? Why does Banning leave POTUS alone so often when he knows the bad guys are after him? WHERE IS EVERYBODY? Would the streets of London really be that bare, even after such a devastating attack? And, most importantly, how does Gerard Butler still get work?

45 Years

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When I first got married, I used to fantasize about a 40th wedding anniversary. As one character in 45 Years puts it, a good marriage is “so full of history”. I couldn’t wait to start living forty or more years of history with the woman I was marrying and to one day hopefully celebrate how we beat the odds and stood the test of time. We lasted a little more than four years.

I knew that marriage would be hard. Literally everyone I knew who had ever walked down an aisle warned me of this and I really did think I understood what they meant. But nothing could prepare me for the seemingly impossible choices and challenges that awaited me. If I, as keen and committed as I was, couldn’t last 5 years, what does it take to make it to 45? I’ve often thought about the kinds of compromises the couples that last would have to make, the things they’d need to talk about, and the things they’d need to avoid talking about.

45 Years looks at what happens when a happily married couple are faced with one of those subjects that they got along just fine without talking about just one week before their 45th anniversary party. Five years before he married Kate, Geoff (Tom Courtenay) lost his girlfriend in a tragic hiking accident. Fifty years later, he gets a letter telling him that her body has been found.

Initially, Kate (Charlotte Rampling) can’t understand why Geoff is so preoccupied with this development. Once she realizes how much he wants to talk about his memories of her, she tries her best to be supportive and starts to ask questions about her husband’s former lover. Although she seems genuinely curious at first, she starts to regret her questions when his answers make it more and more clear that her husband’s previous relationship may have been more serious than she’d been led to believe.

Kate’s jealousy of a woman that died fifty years ago is fascinating. She always knew that Geoff’s last relationship didn’t so much end as was cut tragically short but she seemed to always avoid asking herself the hard questions. Would he have married her had she lived? How often does he think of the life he could have had with her?

What makes a good marriage? 45 years seems to suggest it’s as full of little white lies as it is of history and explores whether a seemingly strong partnership can withstand being shaken up by a little truth. Of course, these are polite old British people in a British movie so the distance that begins to develop between husband and wife may not express itself explosively enough for some audiences. This is a restrained film with restrained performances where the drama comes as much from what is NOT said as from the dialogue itself. Luckily, Courtenay and Rampling are masters of subtlety. Oscar-nominee Rampling in particular is captivating both with the brave face she puts on and the unshakeable doubt that she occasionally shows us. She gives a performance that is way too honest and low-key to ever win her an Oscar. But she gets my vote.