Stream Netflix’s Musical Short 'Anima', a Dream For These Modern Times
While movie theaters remain closed through this ongoing period of social-distancing, we can look to the abundance of films that are available to watch across all streaming platforms (though do support your local cinema through the purchase of gift cards, if you can).
For this week’s review, I want to take the opportunity to recommend something that is currently available to stream, which you may have yet to see or even have added to your queue. But at only fifteen minutes long (did I mention that it’s a short?), you won’t be outside of your comfort zone for too long.
Now streaming on Netflix, Anima is a musical short film from Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke and filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. Where one could liken Anima to an extended music video, it really does operate as a short film. Ambitiously abstract and conceptual in nature (the film touts itself as a “mind-bending visual piece”), Anima is a loosely narrative story of an unnamed man (Yorke) who, amidst the dream-inducing drudgery of working-class life, finds a woman (Dajana Roncione) only to lose her, and attempts to find her again through obstacles and oppressive forces.
I’m not exactly sure why Anima feels like the right film to recommend this week, given the state of everything right now. But as I think through it more, I find that a few things leap out at me since my initial advanced screening at an IMAX theater last year. Quite simply, the thematic undertones of Anima dramatize how, through the society we’ve created and actively participate in, we have grown to sleepwalk through a mechanized, spiritless life. The amazing choreography by Damien Jalet sees a host of dancers envelope Yorke throughout the piece (with Yorke evoking Buster Keaton-like comedy), and blend movements that are a battle between the soullessly dazed and the spiritually awakened.
I don’t intend nor wish to hide the fact that I am also a fan of both Yorke and Anima’s filmmaker, Paul Thomas Anderson (if you need a further recommendation of a film to see, I highly suggest The Master and Phantom Thread). Beyond the film’s other artistic credits (with projections by Tarik Barri and photography by the great cinematographer Darius Jhnodji), Anima leaves the viewer with a very real sense of what dreaming through real life can feel like. Now feels like a moment where we’ve all woken from a shared, comfortable dream, and must reassert how we wish to live our lives now that we’ve awakened.
ANIMA (2019)
Starring Thom Yorke, Dajana Roncione
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Distributed by Netflix. 15 minutes.
'Wendy' is a Gorgeous Ode To Never Growing Up
While the story of Peter Pan is one that is beloved by generations of people, has there actually been a film that's done it justice on the big screen?
Arguably, yes. Perhaps the most celebrated entry remains the 1953 animated film from Walt Disney (a formative movie for this reviewer). And who could forget Steven Spielberg's 1991 take in which Robin Williams starred as a grown-up Peter who had lost his identity? But beyond those films, a scattering of poorly received made-for-TV-movies, as well as ill-fated studio blockbusters, have unsuccessfully tried to bring the story of Pan to the big screen, to an unreceptive response. So why don't the majority of these movies do service to the story of Peter?
As I found while watching Wendy at its Sundance World Premiere, the answer appears to lie beneath what most films celebrate: swash-buckling with pirates, cartoonish Neverland, fairies, and more. At its heart, what most movies miss are the key fundamental human challenges: that of never growing up and the death we accept when we grow hardened, therefore losing the ability to see the world of openness and possibility.
And that idea is precisely what director Benh Zeitlin centers his reimagining around, and what makes Wendy of the most welcomed entries into the Peter Pan filmography.
So what makes Benh Zeitlin's reimagining of Peter Pan so great? Well, let's start by talking about its director, Benh Zeitlin.
As you may or may not know, in 2012, Benh (pronounced Ben) made his feature film debut with a little movie called Beasts of the Southern Wild. The film tells the story of a young girl living in an impoverished yet spirited New Orleans community who escapes her circumstances as well as an impending catastrophic storm by imagining fantastical worlds. It was a breakout hit, nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress (at nine-years-old, Quvenzhané Wallis is the youngest ever nominee for the Academy Award).
Since then, audiences have eagerly awaited Benh's return to the big screen. Well, eight not-so-short-years later, it's finally here, with Benh returning to adapt the beloved story of Peter and make it his own, setting the film in a place of real-world fantasy akin to Beasts. In his version, spirited, untamable children who yearn for adventure are brought down by lifeless, joyless grown-ups, existing in body but far gone from their childhood selves.
It's with this spirit that Zeitlin centers the story of Peter Pan around his main character, Wendy (Devin France). Wendy and her two brothers Douglas and James (Gage and Gavin Naquin) become lured by a curious, boyish figure outside their bedroom window atop a bustling freight train. As impulse leads Wendy and her brothers to follow the mysterious boy, they find themselves a world away, on an island of magnificent wonder where they're free from their previous life's confinements. Finding similarly stowed away kids, these "lost boys" are unbound in daily adventure. Wendy and her brothers remain transfixed by the one who led them out the window, the wise-as-he-is-playful character, Peter (Yashua Mack), whose orders to "never grow up" come more like a dire warning should they do.
It's here, in these moments of shared play, that the film is at it's most powerful and touching. Gorgeously crafted sequences of kids running and playing are beautifully lensed and set to sweeping, heightened symphonies that, for those few minutes, truly do bring a tear to one's eye as bottled moments of the spirit of life.
What makes Wendy so rich is that it unpacks the rest of the mythology of Peter Pan, giving unexpected and insightful reason behind the known elements that make up the rest of the story: Those who have grown old and desperate on the island who threaten the lost boys, a pirate ship in the form of a large fishing boat, and yes – the rise of Peter's infamous foe, Captain Hook. Ironically, I find that it is these elements that, at times, holds the film back, as its dutiful ties to its source material make it somewhat predictable to see where the narrative goes. I say "predictable" quite loosely, though, as it's such joy to see how Benh and co-screenwriter and sister Eliza Zeitlin explain each of these storybook elements so organically and how they fit within the story of real-world interpretation.
And of course, magical realism does abound in the film. Fantastical elements dance with reality, where playfully eruptive volcanoes and the island's protecting oceanic-dweller, "Mother," expand the world even more. It's in these moments where audiences will ask themselves, "Is this all real?" And that question is answered by, if you choose to see life through the eyes of a child, it is.
It's for these reasons combined that Wendy is not only one of the most welcomed entries into the Peter Pan filmography, but one of the most accomplished films about childhood in recent times. Benh Zeitlin is an artist who, with his singular immaculate vision, celebrates the world of seeing life with wonder, awe, fearlessness, curiosity, zest, and untamed spirit. And that's what I found most movies about Peter Pan miss, and makes the classic story what it is: a story of embracing life that will never age, as long as its readers and audiences never do either.
WENDY (2020)
Starring Yashua Mack, Devin France, Gage Naquin, Gavin Naquin
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
Written by Benh Zeitlin, Eliza Zeitlin
Distributed by Searchlight Pictures. 112 minutes. Opening this Friday at ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKktQFFcXL0
'Standing Up, Falling Down': The Ever-Endearing Comedy of Crystal and Schwartz
If Ben Braddock of The Graduate had a wise-cracking older mentor in his life to help guide him through the anxiety of post-graduate adulthood – and if that mentor was the inimitable Billy Crystal – you might get something similar to Standing Up, Falling Down, a feel-good buddy comedy about the unlikely friendship between an unsuccessful young comedian and his life-affirming dermatologist.
Making its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, the comedy settles on the softer side, bordering on conventional clichés that makes for familiar beats, but is still a light-hearted look at moving on, brought to life by a pair of wonderfully charismatic performances.
Stand-up comedian Scott (Ben Schwartz) isn't so much down on his luck as he is failing to realize he keeps playing the same bad band. With his comedy career going nowhere fast, he leaves L.A. to move back in with his parents in Eastern Long Island, which, at thirty-four, hits on a certain anxiety of this millennial generation that feels honest. Now home, Scott is forced to confront the life he left behind for the dreams of L.A. – and the people he left, including sister (Grace Gummer) and ex-girlfriend (Eloise Mumford). In his grief state which warrants a medical check-up, he meets the karaoke-loving dermatologist, Marty (Billy Crystal). It's not long before Marty's natural cheer mixes with Scott's cynical self, and the two find themselves getting along – having drinks, smoking pot, hanging out, and without knowing it helping each other move on from a rut.
Wearing its heart on its sleeve, Standing Up, Falling Down probably won't find its way into the classics of all-time buddy comedies. But this earnest little flick from director Matt Ratner (who produced both of 2015's Manson Family Vacation and Band of Robbers) should delight those looking for a light, enjoyable film that digs into substantial themes when it wishes to. It certainly will find itself being watched by the faithful fans of the film's stars, Billy Crystal and Ben Schwartz. What certainly intrigued me about this film was the anticipation of the comedic pairing between two comic talents who I personally acknowledge as being part of my love of comedy in their own ways. Schwartz, perhaps most widely recognized as Jean Ralphio in Parks and Rec and who's seeing his own star rising as of recently (voicing the main blue speedster in Sony's Sonic the Hedgehog opposite Jim Carrey), carries the film from start to finish with his affable and casual charm. But it's Crystal that proves his legendary status, taking this lovable character and making him all his own. Crystal's warm-hearted wit and heart of gold will make you laugh, which makes the moments of true loss that much more emotionally weighted.
While the film's title could have been called Standing Up, Falling Down and Standing Back Up Again and probably have the same effect, more or less spelling out its intentions every step of the way, it is still an enjoyable and pleasant watch. The pairing of two truly amazing comedians with natural comic chemistry will show you what it's like to move on from hardship and have a fun time doing it.
This review originally ran on May 1, 2019, during the Tribeca Film Festival.
STANDING UP, FALLING DOWN (2019)
Starring Billy Crystal, Ben Schwartz
Screenplay by Peter Hoare
Directed by Matt Ratner
Distributed by Shout! Studios. 91 min. Opening this Friday at the Laemmle Royal.
'Come to Daddy': Elijah Wood's Got Seriously Dangerous Daddy Issues
The funniest and wildest movie I saw at the Tribeca Film Festival this year was the suggestively-titled Come to Daddy, a film whose dark comedy made for a perfect inclusion in the midnight section of films.
What starts out as a slowly built, dry comedy of the uncomfortable reunion between a son and his estranged father ends up being a wonderfully insane and absurd film that is sure to make audiences laugh.
Come to Daddy opens with Norval (Elijah Wood) arriving at the secluded beachside cabin of his father (Stephen McHattie) after receiving a letter requesting a reunion, despite not hearing from his dad since he left him and his mother as a child. But Norval is confused – when he arrives at the residence, his father, grizzled and gruff, doesn't seem ready to reunite. In an odd way, Norval feels like his dad is actively inflicting violence, until an unexpected moment immobilizes him, leaving Norval alone without the reunion he deserved. At least, that's what he thinks, until things get incredibly twisted.
At this point, explaining further would ruin all of the fun of the film, so I won't divulge much more. Just know that Come To Daddy is wild and raunchy and has a good amount of comedic violence that makes this an unconventionally fun time. Think Swiss Army Man meets the little-seen Netflix gem I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore which also stars Elijah Wood. You can expect that Wood is always going to involve himself in these types of movies, which we fully stand behind. If you're ready to laugh by way of shockingly-gratuitous yet still comically-minded violence, you will find yourself entertained by this playfully twisted yet uniquely-envisioned film that is more than a major accomplishment from first-time feature filmmaker Ant Timpson.
COME TO DADDY (2019)
Starring Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie
Directed by Ant Timpson
Written by Toby Harvard
93 minutes. Rated R. In Select Theaters Nationwide + Available on Digital & VOD on February 7, 2020.
This review was originally published on April 30, 2019.
In 2019, Which Films Felt Spiritually Connected?
There's no doubt that every film has its own singular and unique vision that is expressed by its filmmaker. However, it can be found that when films are released throughout the year, certain ideas can be seen between films that directors are all subconscious of circling. And when different films circle the same idea, those ideas become even more profound; It can reveal a universal truth that gets amplified.
In looking back on the films that I watched in 2019, I found several films that felt spiritually connected.
Modern Masters Contemplate the End of Their Eras in The Irishman & Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood
Despite what you may have heard, The Irishman isn't just another gangster movie. While Martin Scorsese's decades-spanning crime epic does follow the life of a hitman, the film is not another celebration of criminals like Goodfellas is. In The Irishman, Scorsese, now all of 77 years old, seems to be very much consciously reflecting on the end of his filmmaking career. To that end, he chooses to depict the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert DeNiro) through Sheeran recounting his life's end in an assisted living facility. Amidst the bloodshed and kills he's seen and done over his life, perhaps the heaviest blow that Scorsese deals to the audience is when Sheeran asks a nurse, maybe two generations his senior, if she knows who Jimmy Hoffa is – the same Hoffa (Al Pacino) that we see Sheeran dedicate his life to over three and a half hours in the film. After she admits to not knowing who the infamous union leader was, it feels as if Scorsese himself is confronting a larger existential question: if after a lifetime of achievements, if they go unrecognized – and especially by the ones you love, did it mean anything?
So too does Quentin Tarantino reflect on a similar sense of displacement in a shifting culture, as Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood shows former leading man Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) struggling to admit that his best days are behind him and that he's eclipsed from relevancy. It's comical when he decries all of the "Goddamn hippies!" at every moment they pop up, revealing his anxiety to an uncertain future. Tarantino's and Scorsese's films both act as meta-tributes to the things they're known for doing best (Scorsese making a "gangster" film, Tarantino making a showy Hollywood romp). However, both directors imbue a piece of tragedy in their leading men's futile attempts to preserve a time that they know, or knew. It's heartbreaking that both Irishman and Hollywood end with each of their leading men – after having endured a lifetime of battles and achievements, and who should feel triumphant for it – being very much alone. After a lifetime of great accomplishments between Scorsese and Tarantino, these films feel as if even masters can feel a sense of emptiness and longing.
Rebirth At The End of Relationships, in Marriage Story & The Souvenir
Two of my favorite films of last year were both beautifully made films about tumultuous relationships, and how the people in those relationships struggle to recover after bitter ends. In Marriage Story, writer-director Noah Baumbach shows that although two people can start out being so right for each other, sometimes they will grow apart. This is seen through the dissolving of marriage between theater director Charlie (Adam Driver) and his muse Nicole (Scarlett Johansson). While Marriage Story starts with Nicole's realization that she wants something different in her life, the film ends with Charlie (Driver) having to re-discover himself, and re-invent after heartbreak.
In another deeply personal film (also circling auto-biography), British director Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir tells the story of a demure young woman, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), whose relationship with Anthony (Tom Burke) is entirely co-dependent, even though his lifestyle is incredibly destructive and dangerous. While The Souvenir wasn't as big of a film as Marriage Story, it is one of the most rewarding movie-going experiences I had last year for its emotional vulnerability. While both films shows the emotional bottom that occurs when a life shatters, each film shows how we can pick ourselves back up, and sometimes that's exactly what we need to be re-born.
The Lighthouse & Joker Show There's Art in the Madness
Blame it on the relentless stream of sensational news headlines or the current state of American politics, but 2019 felt like another strange and unsettling wobble in our nation's struggle to maintain shared national sanity. With the popularization of "fake news," it feels like people are growing more comfortable with living in their self-prescribed truths, which leaves the very concept of objectivity as something that no longer needs to be agreed on. Yes, there is a massive danger to that. Two films embodied this slip into madness perfectly: writer-director Robert Eggers, who directed 2015's The Witch, returned with The Lighthouse, a stormy black and white tale of two lighthouse workers who struggle to stay sane while isolated together. The film features two incredible performances, including Willem Dafoe as a craggy old veteran, but it's Robert Pattinson through which we see the actual unraveling of sanity. He begins the film convinced of his rightness, but after demented seagulls and dangerous mermaids appear, he loses his grasp on what's real and what's not.
And of course, what film embodied losing grip on reality better than Joaquin Phoenix, who took on the title role of playing a failed standup turned murderous terrorist in Joker. While Joker was met with concern for prophetizing a psyche of white male frustration (a very real issue in today's culture), all of these deranged performances – including Pattinson and Dafoe – should be applauded. They created such resonant characters that relieved some tension to a fractured male psyche, and yet were still inspiring in their artistry.
Social Commentary Disguised in Genre, in Parasite & Us
Sometimes, the more uncomfortably real a problem or issue is, the more that idea needs to be disguised through something more allegorical so that it can be better understood. It was so refreshing and revitalizing to see each of these next two films in theaters, as both audiences were electrified while watching. I saw Bong Joon Ho's Parasite after it had been around for a little while, and yet I didn't know anything about it going in (which is exactly how you should see it). Parasite starts as a whip-smart comedy about a low-income family that dupes a more affluent family into hiring each of them in their home, then becomes a head-spinning twisty horror that reveals another level to this concept. Ultimately, it becomes a politically charged piece (like all of Bong Joon Ho's films) that highlights the divide in the world through economic inequality.
Jordan Peele's follow up to Get Out, Us, uses a classic horror set up to show a film about a family and their doppelgängers who seek revenge in the world by taking their place all across America. Peele has proven that he's as aware of the meaning of every shot, and every piece of what goes into a film (much like this video essay shows) so that horror can be effective in informing people of real-world issues.
'A Hidden Life' Dares to Celebrate, Examine the Costs of One's Ethics
After exploring the experimental edges of narratively formless cinema with films like Song to Song and Knight of Cups, director Terrence Malick returns with his newest film: a meditation on morality that, both intimate and expansive, achieves wondrous results.
In this corporately competitive and politically combative era of 2019, it feels as if having personal ethics – compared to those untethered by having any self-imposed restrictions – is something of a weakness. If it's beliefs that hold you back from following wherever the ethically-compromised yardstick has been moved to, and if unethical practices then persist as a result, one must wonder: at what cost are those pesky little ethics truly worth?
It's a tragically philosophical question that has plagued countless men over time, and as a result, caused them to fall nameless to history over their actions (and inactions). It's also a meditation that director Terrence Malick beautifully ponders, celebrates, and examines in his wondrously magnificent new film, A Hidden Life, in theaters this Friday.
Those familiar with Malick will know what his films have in store: melancholic humans searching for life's answers in stories that range in vastness and ambition. At 2 hours and 53 minutes long, A Hidden Life ranks among his more ambitious works, and I'm happy to say that it's every bit as epic in its narrative and artistic scope.
What makes this meditation so transfixing is its setting and place in time: based on a true story of a German conscientious objector in WWII, A Hidden Life centers around the life of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), a German villager and husband to Franziska (Valerie Pachner). It's a life that we see is full of infinite, simple beauties; they cut wheat in the most amazing golden fields, spin around vibrant green grass, and stare longingly into each other's eyes under the rich blue skies. Children soon form to show a happy family. But when the creeping subsiding of war slowly moves in like waves reaching higher tides, Franz is forced to assert an ethical stance that soon enough tears him apart from his family.
With a camera that gracefully glides through scenes, seeking and capturing spontaneous moments of Diehl and Pachner's quiet emoting and performing, Malick's distinguishable cinematography is on welcome display here. And assembled with its jump-cut editing, A Hidden Life feels like a film that's simultaneously unfurling in real-time as well as if remembered like a trace-memory, altogether an impressionistic tapestry of real feeling that cannot be imitated. Mixing this modernized look with its period-accurate era captures a timeless quality to the nature of ethics that gives it new life and resonance.
While Malick's latest experimental adventures (Song to Song, Knight of Cups) didn't tap into the cultural conversation for their understandably formless structures, A Hidden Life is bolstered by having a narrative center that organically moves the film forward, which is a welcomed element. Putting forward a meditation on such a universally important question as morality and inspiring people to ponder it is an ambitious, if not just plain admirable, task. The artistic achievement that is A Hidden Life is one that – like the devastatingly moving quote by George Eliot that the film ends with – should be seen and celebrated.
A HIDDEN LIFE (2019)
Starring August Diehl, Valerie Pachner, Matthias Schoenaerts
Directed by Terrence Malick
Written by Terrence Malick
Distributed by Fox Searchlight. 174 minutes.
Opening this Friday at ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJXmdY4lVR0
'Greener Grass' is Sitcom Humor Laced With Absurdity
For those who get their appetites filled by comedies of the ironic and insane variety, Greener Grass - the brainchild of Upright Citizen's Brigade comics Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe - is sure to satisfy. Greener Grass first premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by IFC Midnight (the perfect distributor to serve up this comedy that's proudly self-spiked with gleefully bizarro corkscrews).
As its pastel blasted look would indicate, Greener Grass is like an 80s sitcom, if that sitcom was laced with trace amounts of psychedelics (think "Desperate Housewives" meets the demented stylings of "Tim and Eric"). With a never-ending stream of ever-increasing and more-ridiculous-than-the-last riffs, the comedy duo of DeBoer and Luebbe have found a rich space to both explore and explode. They tackle the hokey conventions and mannequin-normalcy of white, affluent middle-class suburbia.
Things kick off when Jill (DeBoer) gives up her baby to her best friend Lisa (Luebbe) in front of her un-athletic son at his youth soccer game. It sets the stage for what is possible in this world, a place where, at every moment, another social norm explodes. The most obvious example is that everyone wears braces, an injected awkwardness that their characters have no awareness. Things like this aren't a big deal for the women or their husbands, Dennis (Neil Casey) and Nick (Beck Bennett). The rest of Greener Grass has other absurd discoveries that the characters continue to find unsurprising. The murder of a yoga teacher, Nick's sudden taking to pool water, and getting pregnant with a soccer ball are just a few of the things the film has in store.
Greener Grass will likely be best enjoyed by those who seek comedy on the fringe and inflated past the limits of absurdity. A few of Greener Grass's performers are recognizable by self-professed comedy nerds: Bennett on SNL among them, as well as Janicza Bravo (who directed her own wild comedy, Lemon, starring husband Brett Gelman). Greener Grass and the comedic stylings of DeBoer and Luebbe create an amazing imagination space where – at just 95 minutes long – anything goes. And that's the most liberating part: you truly never know where it's going to go next. – Ryan Rojas
GREENER GRASS (2019)
Starring: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe, Beck Bennett
Directed by: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe
Written by: Jocelyn DeBoer, Dawn Luebbe
Distributor: IFC Films
Running time: 95 minutes
Playing: Opening 10/18 at the Nuart Theatre and On Demand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyOvQfgQhKQ
'The Lighthouse': Take This Drunken Plunge Into Madness
Among the most visionary and daring films of 2019, director Robert Eggers' sensationally absurd sailor's tale, The Lighthouse, should be recognized as one of the great achievements. Eggers – who's known by arthouse fans for writing and directing 2015's Puritan-possession film The Witch – returns with another nightmarishly hypnotic unraveling into madness.
Photographed in 4:3 black and white film by The Witch cinematographer Jarin Blaschke, The Lighthouse tells the story of two lighthouse keepers stationed on a remote and mysterious island in 1890s New England. Newly hired hand Winslow (Robert Pattinson) is eager to do an honest pay's work, at first uninterested in any small talk with his boss, Thomas (Willem Dafoe). But as the craggy old Thomas rants on (the period piece dialects that Pattinson, and especially Dafoe show is humorous and astonishing), hints of oddness creep in. Winslow soon finds that he's questioning Thomas's sanity altogether. But as the stormy season grows closer and stronger, and as stranger occurrences set in (including seagulls and tall tales of mermaids), Winslow tries to keep everything – including a checkered past – together.
The teaming of Eggers storytelling along with the dedication from Pattinson and Dafoe – giving the most fascinating and utterly incredible on-screen performances this year – The Lighthouse is some of the most demented fun you'll have in a theater this year.
THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019)
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Robert Pattinson
Directed by: Robert Eggers
Written by: Robert Eggers, Max Eggers
Distributor: A24
Running time: 109 minutes
Playing: Opening 10/18 at ArcLight Hollywood and The Landmark