'The Yellow Birds' Review: Young American Soldiers Endure the Trauma of War
This review originally ran on February 2, 2017, during the Sundance Film Festival
As American military presence in the Iraq war has fallen out of the more day-to-day news cycle (perhaps the current news circuit might be focused on situations domestic instead of abroad), so too have war dramas in the cinematic space that continue to explore the traumatic effects war plays on those in the field.
In The Yellow Birds, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Kevin Powers and adapted by David Lowery (Pete's Dragon) and R.F.I. Porto, director Alexandre Moors (Blue Caprice) explores the traumas of war through the story of a disappeared soldier and his fellow comrade who must keep his mental health in check for the sake of his own freedom.
The Yellow Birds opens with weapons brandished soldiers wading their way through a barren Iraq landscape as silhouetted shadows, voiceover monologue describing how soldiers like these may already be dead long before they've been killed. Such ghosts are what two young soldiers, Brandon Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich), all of 21 years old, and Daniel Murphy (Tye Sheridan), an even younger 18, face as newly enlisted soldiers in the Army. When the two are deployed to Iraq, under the command of the steadily unhinged Sergeant Sterling (Jack Huston), the more hard-shelled "Bartle" takes to looking out for the more sensitive "Murph" in the war-torn landscape. Yet, as the stresses of war amount, where combat and killing become a more prevalent and consuming reality, cracks begin to show in the fragility of Murph's toughness. His mental stronghold begins to give, leading to physical and emotional instability that worries Bartle and company, which eventually becomes the root cause of his disappearance in the field.
'The Yellow Birds' opens with weapons brandished soldiers wading their way through a barren Iraq landscape as silhouetted shadows, voiceover monologue describing how soldiers like these may already be dead long before they've been killed.
What starts out as a war drama cuts back and forth from flashback to the present, as the wartime events in Iraq are cut in between Bartle's return back home. This creates a vacuum of a story in which Murph is disappeared, adding intrigue to the mysterious circumstances. It certainly alarms Murph's mother Maureen (Jennifer Aniston) who pleads her case to the Army. And a rattled Bartle is clearly shaken after returning home, which his mother Amy (Tony Collette) tries to reconcile. Bartle's depression soon becomes inescapable and all-consuming, leading him to his breaking point and finally addressing what happened overseas to the Army and Bartle's mom.
One of the strengths and most defining parts of The Yellow Birds is how it really gets into the heads of its characters. While it's a bit stilted in its mechanics of cutting back and forth, Ehrenreich gives a fine performance and Sheridan gives a quietly moving performance as well. The perspective of The Yellow Birds is an emotionally engaging one that offers a fresh, new look at wartime films from the perspective of young and impressionable soldiers.
'The Yellow Birds' is rated R for war violence, some grisly images, sexual material, and language throughout. 110 minutes. Opening this Friday at Laemmle's Royal Theatre.
Charlize Theron is a Fearless Mother in 'Tully'
If you’re looking for a film that is simultaneously sharp and funny, as well as deeply and deftly observational of the struggles of early motherhood, then I can’t recommend Tully enough.
Starring a fearless Charlize Theron as a mother of two – and then to an unexpected third, before a night nanny comes to offer her some relief – Tully is intimate, emotionally affecting, and in the end, an unexpectedly surprising film that should connect with audiences who are willing to seek out a smaller, darker movie about the joys and hardship of motherhood.
Marlo (Theron) is a mother of two, struggling to keep her head above water when an unexpected third enters the equation. Heavy bags under her eyes and a bloated middle (Theron gained 50lbs pounds for the role), she is obviously overworked and beyond tired, which her sweet but oblivious husband Drew (Ron Livingston) doesn’t notice. It leads her well-off brother Craig (Mark Duplass) to offer her the services of a night nanny to help when her newborn arrives. When Marlo welcomes child number three, she’s hesitant to accept Craig’s offer… until she can no longer say no. This is when we see the arrival of Tully (Mackenzie Davis) – a free-spirited bohemian living out her youthful twenties as a caretaker that swoops in at night and cares for the infant so Marlo can get a decent night's sleep. Early hesitations turn into a real connection and friendship, in which Marlo re-connects with her younger self and a freer, lighter spirit allows her to feel good about herself. However, Tully goes even further when it shows Marlo’s dilemma of confronting the spirited night nanny on whether to continue using her services or continue mothering by herself.
Reitman crafts a very moving love letter to the tolls of motherhood and all that it demands.
In Tully, Charlize Theron takes on this role with full fire and commitment. It’s absolutely Theron’s movie, and she should be applauded for how far she takes this role that requires her to be so emotionally vulnerable that she hasn’t displayed since Young Adult, which no coincidence, was also directed Jason Reitman and penned by screenwriter Diablo Cody. Where Theron played a single woman looking to steal a married man away in Young Adult, she plays the exact opposite in Tully. They’re bookend performances, no doubt, and Tully showcases Theron as a serious actor willing to take o these sorts of demanding roles. Not to be forgotten, Mackenzie Davis is true magic onscreen, as her spirit is captivating at every turn and only promises more moving performances.
While Tully is a small movie that might not register with everyone, it’s rewarding in so many detailed ways. Reitman crafts a very moving love letter to the tolls of motherhood and all that it demands. It leans into its humor with another sharp piece of strong story and writing, both absolutely fearless as well as humorous. Theron, Reitman, and Cody manage to craft a sharp and funny movie with beautiful images and sequences that will stay in audiences’ heads for long after.
'Tully' is rated R for language and some sexuality/nudity. 95 minutes. Now playing in theaters everywhere.
The Best From the 2018 TCM Classic Film Festival
The accessibility of digital streaming has made watching movies and television shows all the easier,
but that also means that films are not getting watched in the proper format, and with the number of streaming choices, it means that classic films aren't getting watched altogether. This is why events like the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival are so important these days, to promote watching classic movies. This year, Nelson Tracey and I were accredited to attend the festival where we both caught up on films we have never seen. Read below for the films we saw, and be sure to try to attend the TCM Film Festival next year for a weekend that you will truly love and appreciate.
Windjammer (The Voyage of the Christian Radich) (1958)
Nelson: From the outset, I knew that among the classics long overdue for me to see and the hidden gems of the past I may never find otherwise, there was one film of 2018’s roster not to be missed – which thankfully Ryan and I both caught at the fest. Prior to the release of this year’s festival lineup, I was unfamiliar with Windjammer, and even my enthusiastic expectations couldn’t have been surpassed any higher. Released in 1958, the part documentary, part travelogue, part music movie was the only film ever created in the “Cinemiracle” format, a 3-camera process designed to rival Cinerama in creating immersive cinema. After a short prologue in standard 16mm, the curtains opened up on the Windjammer, a massive schooner sailboat charting the open seas in a pristine, uninterrupted concave image that emulates panoramic eyesight. It’s spectacular, and that’s just frame one. We follow this massive sailboat from Norway, with a crew of young men ages 14-21, all learning their ways in a boy scouts-meets-boot camp program that will take them 250 days to traverse 20,000 nautical miles. Miraculously, the film isn’t a one-trick pony, it continues to up the ante at every destination, from Portuguese islands to Trinidad to New York City, and finally, a spectacle involving the U.S. Navy and a submarine.
There is much to analyze in the film: by taking a sailboat in 1958, the characters themselves are, in a sense, living in the past by holding on to an antiquated tradition, aware of it as something worth holding onto despite technological advances. In the film, call-backs to the past are present everywhere, in the indigenous cultures at every destination, and a Philadelphia fire parade which pulls out fire carriages from the turn of the century. And on a meta level, watching the film today is the same experience: it’s a pure specimen of a bygone era that in a generation will be completely obscure if not already so. We heard two different people in the audience (fairly well-attended but not enough for what it deserved) share that they had seen the movie in cinemas in 1958 as boys under the age of 10. It’s emotional to vicariously imagine what that must have been like to return to such a movie a full sixty years later. Of the many movies at this year’s festival, Windjammer and all that came with it stood head and shoulders above the rest.
Ryan: To say that seeing Windjammer in the ArcLight Hollywood Cinerama Dome was undeniably one of the most incredible movie moments I've ever experienced would not be an overstatement. The moment that the screen projected the Cinemiracle shot onto the Cinerama screen was breathtaking, and it didn't let up for the rest of the runtime. In terms of immersive experience, WIndjammer gives Dunkirk a run for its money. This was an unforgettable experience and perhaps the best time that I had at this or any other TCM Film Fest before it.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Nelson: This was the classic movie on my festival roster most overdue for me to see, the type of movie that everyone’s seen clips or parodies of but is now multiple generations removed from its source. It’s got the patriotic wide-eyed wonder of Forrest Gump, and the wholesome underdog spirit of Rudy. It’s impossible to see a film like this and not feel a little more optimism for American democracy, and rather than painting it with rose-colored glasses, even in 1939, Mr. Smith was willing to acknowledge its corrupt fallacies and that authenticity makes it endearing and a great match for a heroic, naive protagonist played to perfection by Jimmy Stewart. The odds will always be stacked against change, but that doesn’t make good any less worth fighting for. Frank Capra’s film captured this timeless spirit ages ago and yet it resonates so much today as any classic film can do so well.
Ryan: If you were to take a look at the schedule of films from this year's festival, it wouldn't be any surprise to say that no film was more politically relevant to these times than this Frank Capra classic. I was eagerly looking forward to seeing this film in today's political climate. Like most people, I was at least aware of the clip of Jimmy Stewart in the Senate building giving an impassioned speech of sticking to moral rightness in the face of a corrupt system, but to see the complete film is to also see the complete arch of a performance that was mesmerizing. What comes before this fiery speech is a story of a fresh-faced boy scout turned Senator that's so wide-eyed that he can't help but stand out from his corrupt and cynical peers. To see Stewart start from the most innocent of places to turn so physically strained and horse-voiced shows a leap that reveals a star-turning a performance unlike any I've ever seen. Capra's staging of Stewart on the Senate floor to command a room of Senators and mezzanine-viewers becomes more than an iconic image but the visual representation of fighting for moral rightness.
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Ryan: Seeing this film for the first time and in the best viewing experience I could ask for (the TCL Chinese IMAX theater) was overwhelming and humbling. It made me remember why we reserve the word "masterpiece" for these sorts of artistic achievements, and why we also make the effort to see them in the best viewing experience possible. Although my personal film diary is admittedly weak on Westerns, any sophomoric cinephile worth his salt would be able to associate the name Sergio Leone with being responsible for creating the best Westerns of American cinema. Before watching, I read that Once Upon a Time in the West is unique for a number of reasons: the film was made and released after seminal classic westerns like Shane, The Searchers, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly came out and which Leone then consciously used these conventions from. Which is to say that this film used the very best of what came before it to tell this tale. To see the most amazing landscapes, masterfully composed compositions, amazing editing, was all breathtaking. But what makes it all immaculate was the score by Ennio Morricone which brought tears to my eyes. This will stand as one of the moving movie moments in my life.
Hamlet (1948)
Nelson: Directed by and starring the iconic Laurence Olivier, the Best Picture winner of 1948 is the definitive cinematic adaptation of the Shakespeare play. At two and a half hours long and screened on the last day of the festival, this was a real test of stamina – not because it wasn’t worthy of my attention, but because it's so much to take in after having viewed many films before it. But alas, that’s the spirit of TCM: when else would I get a chance to spend all afternoon watching Shakespeare in the dark? And in my lengthy journey to see every Best Picture winner, why not take a chance to check this one off? It would only prove to be worth it.
If I may be honest, this viewing took me around a solid hour to settle into: with the density of Shakespeare matched with 1940s cinematic elegance, Hamlet is not film school 101. And yet, while it certainly isn’t the experience most audiences would rush out to a theater for, once the wheels started turning, it’s a true towering force of nature. Influenced largely by Citizen Kane, Olivier’s Hamlet combines the theatrics that made Shakespeare the very best with cinematic deft that allows them to reach new heights. Hamlet’s soliloquies are given an authentic reading here: he alternates between voiceover in his head and audibly speaking the words to himself (isn’t that how we all talk to ourselves?). And yet I’ve never seen a movie do this with such intentional elegance. Tracking shots through Xanadu-esque cathedrals give it a timely, ominous nature that, despite being shot on soundstages, feel truly lived in and vast (it also won Oscars for Art Direction and Costume Design). While the climax is stunning and the numerous tragic deaths are unforgettable, the highlight of the film is the midpoint, where Hamlet instructs his theater cast to put on a play of murder designed to agitate his uncle. It’s a brewing of Shakespeare, cinema, and Olivier, and while it’s no casual viewing, the concepts you can glean from this work are vast.
Stage Door (1937)
Nelson: Screened on a nitrate print, this 1937 Best Picture nominee depicts a New York City boarding house for young aspiring theater actresses. The ensemble cast is led by Ginger Rogers, the house’s unofficial ringleader, who is forced to room with the new girl, Katherine Hepburn, who, unlike the rest of the house, comes from aristocracy. The ensemble piece is comedic and snappy throughout (as to be expected from the premise), yet equally human and emotional. I walked away with more empathy for actors and their internal struggle than I ever have had before, and do not take that lightly. The cast is entirely made up of young women at different stages of trying to catch a break in an industry that can chew them up and spit them out, only to replace them at a moment’s notice. All artists struggle with this, even today, but the actor’s plight, in my eyes, is one of the most challenging. If you want to be an actor, the sheer numbers are insurmountable, and yet if you let that stop you, you shouldn’t be there in the first place. And it took me a film this old to properly come away with an understanding of this timeless struggle. Add some great comedy, great performances, and a surprising topicality thanks to a subplot that resembles the #MeToo strife, and you have yourself a truly classic movie.
Finishing School (1934)
Nelson: You know you’re at TCM when the host announces the film is “pre-code” and the audience oohs and aahs with the same level of enthusiasm as if they were seeing Leonardo DiCaprio perform a live version of his filmography. One of the rare films directed by a woman from the 1930s, Finishing School was an instant hit among the TCM audience (earning a coveted Sunday TBA screening), depicting the naughty misgivings of a stuffy girls’ boarding school in that era. Young movie star Francis Dee (whose grandson was in attendance and participated in the discussion) plays the naive girl new to school opposite Ginger Rogers, the rebellious rule-breaker. Breaking into all kinds of good taboos, the girls drink, smoke, swear, and ultimately, are sexually active, all of which would never pass in most movies for the next 30 years. And yet these experiences give more truth and experience to teenagers and college kids than the more orderly counterparts, and it helps give the film an ageless feeling. The film doesn’t skirt away from these uncomfortable subjects, and walks away with a progressive notion of not conforming to arbitrary societal standards, and carving your own path. Yay for pre-code values!
'The Rider' Review: A Meditative and Moving Look at Americana
Tales of Americana rodeo cowboys –typically men – often portray a heavy helping of machismo in their identity.
But in director Chloé Zhao's second feature film, The Rider, we see a softer and more observational story of blue-collar workers who, with the use of non-actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves, reflect a larger societal observation of overcoming hardship in pursuit of a deeper passion for something as beautiful as it is dangerous and destructive.
In a simple story sense, The Rider celebrates salt of the Earth people who face hardship and does so with a real painter's eye. Brady Jandreau (who plays himself) is a man of the land – silently wise for a young man who has experienced a lot in his young life, including a debilitating post-rodeo accident that sidelines him. Brady is also a man of grit – we don't see the accident, but we do see him removing staples from his head before putting on his cowboy hat. The film follows Brady as he attempts to literally “get back on the horse” which is such a big part of his small-town life.
Zhao captures an authenticity to a part of this American character and life that loosely fictionalizes a narrative that cannot be faked with very masterful observation and understanding of these people and their lives.
The Rider goes further in painting a larger image of the hardships that Brady faces, as Zhao portrays Brady’s life with a single father, whose drinking means the rent doesn't get paid and threatens the stability of him having to also raise a developmentally disabled younger sister. Here, Zhao shows that he has more in his life that he must tame. These storylines are even more powerful when you learn that Chloé Zhao uses non-actors to play these characters, essentially versions of themselves, including his aforementioned father and sister as well as another rodeo cowboy who is a full paraplegic, to stunning effect.
At the center of the story is newcomer Brady Jandreau who along with the cast doesn't so much perform as he does live his everyday life and express his very real feelings. Zhao captures an authenticity to a part of this American character and life that loosely fictionalizes a narrative that cannot be faked with very masterful observation and understanding of these people and their lives. The Rider is one of the most unique and moving viewing experiences I've seen in quite some time. It's largely a meditative film, which means that it requires you to watch with patience. Like Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke as a professional wrestler on the brink of retirement, The Rider shows the blue-collar workers who follow a career and passion to a detrimental degree. It will reinvigorate your love for your passions and show what meaning we find in life when confronted with hardship.
'The Rider' is rated R for language and drug use. 104 minutes. Now playing at The Landmark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlrWRttLTkg
'You Were Never Really Here' Review: Joaquin Phoenix is a Brutal Contract Killer
Lynne Ramsay is in the driver's seat of ass-kicking arthouse films, injecting another strain of sadism into the genre that shows the depravity of human capabilities and the redemption in spite of it.
The life of the contract killer requires control in the midst of chaos, as having full control over any situation is what keeps you alive. Now, throw in the unaccounted variable of companionship, and this contingency becomes a vulnerability and jeopardizing to one's life. This is the synopsis of the new movie You Were Never Really Here.
You Were Never Really Here is the story of a buy-for-hire killer, Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), who lives a life of dark solace in modern day New York City. A burly bear of a man, Joe is silent and consumed in his own thoughts, blending into the background of normal daylight hours before operating in the shadows of his nighttime life as a monastic mercenary. And how easy it would be to live this lifestyle, except Joe must care for his aging mother (Judith Roberts), whose home he returns to between jobs to tend to her in her declining mental state. One day, a new job pops up – to locate the daughter of a high-profile Senator (Alex Manette) – except finding the girl, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), doesn't mean the end of the job. Joe soon finds that he's waded into a criminal underworld of child sex trafficking coordinated at the highest levels. When the job goes south, Joe must decide whether to live a lone wolf life or to fight for her safety, which threatens everyone's survival, in his most compromised, uncontrolled state.
The pairing of the film's director, Lynne Ramsay, and Joaquin Phoenix, artists who don't so much as turn a blind eye to the heinous and horrific parts of the human psyche as much as they full-tilt bulldoze towards it, makes for an electrifying experience. As the grizzly-bearded and barrel-chested Joe, Phoenix delivers another stunning performance in a role that requires him to push to the fringes of human behavior. Playing a muscly heat-seeking missile during the film's action scenes, Phoenix also delivers in the moments of mental anguish in which Joe stows away in the closet of his childhood home and wraps a plastic bag over his head to re-live moments of childhood trauma to queasy effect.
The pairing of the film's director, Lynne Ramsay, and Joaquin Phoenix, artists who don't so much as turn a blind eye to the heinous and horrific parts of the human psyche as much as they full-tilt bulldoze towards it, makes for an electrifying experience.
The theme of control is something that Ramsay has become acclaimed for mastering in her movies. She pushes audiences past the limits of their comfort zone to show the depths of wickedness that humans are capable of, as 2011's We Need to Talk About Kevin revealed the amount of sin that people commit that borders on the demonic. In You Were Never Really Here, while Ramsay again displays the depravity of human behavior, she seems more intent on exploring how people get to become broken, how innocence can become lost at the earliest of ages. When Joe sees Nina experience horrors first-hand, he realizes that the circle of abuse he endured as a child continues against all of his efforts and forces him to question: did he really save her? Was he ever really there?
While You Were Never Really Here doesn't set out to capture the poetry of We Need to Talk About Kevin, the film is still a crackling action thriller with stunning cinematography that shows artistic flourish. Ramsay and Phoenix craft a morality drama that shows how good efforts in a broken world can come up fruitless. Ramsay wades into these waters to capture this dark, depraved part of the very real human psyche while capturing this in an artfully electrifying fashion is a trip that cinephiles will love to take.
85 minutes. 'You Were Never Really Here' is rated R for strong violence, disturbing and grisly images, language, and brief nudity. In theaters April 6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8oYYg75Qvg
'Final Portrait' Review: An Eccentric Artist is Crippled From Creating
Portraits of artists as tortured souls are generally funny for their self-imposed silliness.
However, in today's multi-cultural landscape in which the voices of a wide variety of people of color, gender, and oppression are finally having their stories told, the stories of artists – almost all (white) men – are slowly gathering louder sighs and more pronounced eye rolls.
Now, if you have the appetite for it, this idea can still be a very funny thing, as the stubbornness of an artist is still the same silliness as in all egotistical people. Certainly, this conceit is something that the brilliant Phantom Thread (my second favorite film of last year) executed exactly right. Showing Daniel Day-Lewis' couture dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock as a man who could only create his art when having breakfast totally undisturbed of toast-scraping, it flips this script on its head when it shows the utter absurdity of how fragile and irritable he is, should that sort of joke bemuse you.
The fragile and eccentric artist who is crippled from creating is also the story of Final Portrait, the debut feature film by Stanley Tucci. In Final Portrait, Tucci is similarly interested in the inner-workings of the manic mind of the tortured artist, of which the same temperament and unpredictability creates the greatest of masterpieces as well as stifles the creation of art. This study is found in the real-life story of a socialite – James Lord (Armie Hammer) – who agrees to sit for a portrait to be done by the legendary Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush). The joke of the movie – which also hinders the film's pacing – is that what was estimated to be an afternoon's worth of sitting ends up turning into days, which turns into weeks, of Lord waiting for Giacometti to do more than a few brush strokes at a time, or glob over days of work and re-start.
Tucci is similarly interested in the inner-workings of the manic mind of the tortured artist, of which the same temperament and unpredictability creates the greatest of masterpieces as well as stifles the creation of art.
One learns quickly that art isn't in the final product, but in the process. Or at least one learns that's what Tucci is interested in. As James Lord tells it – in sporadic voiceover narration that resembles a fascination to the mysterious mythological man like Nick in The Great Gatsby – he arrives at Giacometti's studio day after day, only to join the artist on his tangents of frustration or going out to get drinks and women (Lord doesn't partake, it's hinted that he's already spoken for by a man back home).
Hammer is polished and handsome but plays a toothless version of what his Winklevoss character might have been had he been entirely prep-school than bully. He does lend a soft and selfless performance, allowing Geoffrey Rush to own the movie as a chain-smoking and wild-mannered artist. Rush, even though his performance is all bravado and a hard act to maintain from start to finish, is captivating.
Ultimately, Final Portrait is just like its story of a temperamental and exacting artist. Tucci's writer/director debut is a noble journey of exploration that, after all of the time that was put into it, is unfortunately unfruitful.
90 minutes. Final Portrait is rated R for language, some sexual references, and nudity. Now playing at select Laemmle Theaters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRsiW5c29Sk
'Isle of Dogs' is a Lovingly Crafted Doggy Tale of Pure Delight
Is there anyone who could transition from live-action filmmaking to stop-motion animation as gloriously as the wonderful Wes Anderson?
No. Unsurprisingly, the attention that Anderson gives to the tiniest of aesthetic details, as seen in now-modern classics such as The Royal Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom, makes his natural tinkerer sensibilities only logical for the stop-motion medium. In his latest feature film, Isle of Dogs (in theaters today), we see the director at his best – crafting a storybook adventure that distills the essence of delight into a small-scale canine and kiddie-friendly epic.
Set in a fictional near-future Japan, Isle of Dogs (say it fast for an added treat) tells the story of a Japanese nation under siege by a dog epidemic known as "snout fever." This brings about the rise of fear-mongering Mayor Kobayashi (voiced by Kunichi Nomura) who sets out to banish all dogs, forcing them to live out the rest of their numbered days in exile on Trash Island. Of course, this premise is a not-so-veiled political commentary about demagoguery, but with Anderson's trademark wry and winking humor at play, the whole thing is hilariously satirized and maintains a sentimental heart.
Against this backdrop, the young Akira (Koyu Rankin) sets out to find his lost dog on Trash Island. This leads him to rest of the heroes in the story: the famished and sickly Rex (Edward Norton), Duke (Jeff Goldblum), Boss (Bill Murray) and King (Bob Balaban) who all agree to help the young boy find his dog, Spots (Liev Schreiber). However, it's the pack's leader and single stray of the group, Chief (Bryan Cranston), who is hesitant to help Akira because of his "obey no man" attitude. Ultimately outvoted (the dogs always put group decisions up to a democratic vote), Chief reluctantly accompanies the fool-hearty dogs – and human – on their odyssey.
It's a magical thing to watch these animated dogs come to life on the big screen. Anderson's skilled animators and voice cast breathe magical humor and humanness all their own into these dogs, making you remember that every movement was made with the faintest of touches. Through a long journey that sees Akira and the dogs evade military forces in the form of robotic dog hunters, it all leads to a climactic end in which, with the help of pro-dog resistance fighters – including an outspoken American foreign exchange student (voiced by Greta Gerwig) – the dogs must fight for survival, lest man's best friend be eradicated from civilization.
Anderson's youthfully defiant films speak to our innermost selves.
The story and staging are all very refined and tight, which makes sense, as this isn't Anderson’s first foray into stop-motion animation. His 2009 outing, Fantastic Mr. Fox, saw the auteur first explore the stop-motion medium by bringing the seminal children’s book to the big screen. While it was acclaimed for all of the right reasons, it also felt like a director doing a one-off homage to a beloved source material (P.T. Anderson's under-appreciated Inherent Vice feels like a similarly executed auteurist exercise). But with Isle of Dogs, we get an original story from Anderson and collaborators Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura, and feels like an even tighter, more coherent story that paces fantastically all it's own.
And while Anderson has literally shrunken down the size of the production for Isle of Dogs, it should be noted that he expands in his exploration of a new cultural landscape and continent, bringing every bit of Japanese culture and detail to life in his storybook world. And no matter the size, whether as grand as The Grand Budapest Hotel or as intimate as Isle of Dogs, one thing always remains the same: Anderson's films are about a spirit of adolescence that stands out, or up, to a larger, more absurd, adult world. Anderson's youthfully defiant films speak to our innermost selves.
So, where does Isle of Dogs rank next to the rest of Anderson's other brilliant works? To put the finest point on it, Isle of Dogs is his most delightful work. I loved every minute and moment of this film, and it's not hard to do exactly that. How Anderson and company are able to make a movie so funny with the most minute gestures, glances, and moments is something that will have audiences wagging their tails over in pure joy.
101 min. 'Isle of Dogs' is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some violent images. In theaters this Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt__kig8PVU
101 min. 'Isle of Dogs' is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and some violent images. In theaters this Friday.
'Annihilation' Review: A Sprawling Sci-Fi That Explores Humanity From the Cellular Level
It's fun when sci-fi is combined with grandly ambitious ideas – here, director Alex Garland explores what it means to be human by understanding our own cellular division at the most microscopic level – but Annihilation is less of a coherent vision then it is a familiar flick of a fight-to-survive with some psychedelic flair.
In Annihilation, the threat to humanity isn't so much that of humans being wiped from the face of the Earth by extraterrestrials, but rather, extinction through mutations to DNA in which humans either cross-evolve with other life-forms, or be killed by those very creations. This wildly ambitious and heavily conceptual sci-fi flick begins with a crash course in explaining cellular make-up at its most basic level: as taught to us in a collegiate course setting by biologist Lena (Natalie Portman). She explains how the activity of endless division within the body – one becoming two, two becoming four, and so on and so forth – shows a fundamental error in our own evolution, in that we are programmed to divide rather than unify.
It's a somewhat cynical premise, but as Lena's military husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) has been gone for a full year since being deployed on a covert mission, we concede that Lena has rightfully become hardened. That is, until Kane stumbles his way through the front door of their home one unexpected night, to Lena's shock. From a military pop-up base that she and her husband are immediately whisked away to, Lena is informed by Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that her husband was part of an infantry unit called upon to enter a mysterious site called "The Shimmer." At this location, evolution of all living matter refracts up to its bubbly orb and then back down on itself, making for crazy cross-pollinating life forms that include beautiful floral families and mutated killer bears. With Kane lying comatose, Lena decides to join a new unit who is prepping to enter The Shimmer to discover its origin. Of course, early scientific study turns into an all-out fight for survival as the team soon learns what threatens them inside.
While it strives to blend action and philosophy, 'Annihilation' is more exciting for the ideas that it attempts to bring forward rather than a complete, coherent story.
We've seen this sort of alien expedition mission movie before in films like Prometheus and even in Arrival, but this cast brings another dimension to this film. Natalie Portman returns from her Oscar-winning turn in 2016's Jackie to re-assert herself as a big-screen action star, and while it may be more likely to believe Lena is an academic biologist rather then seven-year army veteran, Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Ventress is commanding all the same, lending more pathos then bravado in her position of power. And one of the most welcomed points of the movie is the all-female crew that moves into The Shimmer, comprised of Anya (Gina Rodriguez), Josie (Tessa Thompson), and Cass (Tuva Novotny). Writer and director Alex Garland once again brings brainy and ambitious ideas to the big screen, but whereas the power of his first feature film Ex Machina was in its intimacy and single location, the world of Annihilation is a world that requires great canvases, and the story is spread too thin to execute a coherent story.
Director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) is among the more ambitious sci-fi storytellers to bring challenging material to the big screen, and Annihilation offers a closer reading for those who read into it. The fact that teams of soldiers continue to enter The Shimmer, knowing that nobody has come back alive (the exception being a comatose Kane) is actually a comment about the flaw in human design. Lena also discovers a shared characteristic in the crew: they are all escaping vices and addictions that await them at home. Garland makes the connection that perhaps humans are destined to be self-destructive creatures.
Of course, this is a deeper reading that may penetrate audiences, and the rest of the movie offers enough serious and interesting world-building that it becomes a unique movie-watching experience. Annihilation ends with a wordless sequence that is stirring and captivating. While Garland expands on bringing his philosophy into action and grander visual storytelling, Annihilation is ultimately more exciting for the ideas that it brings forward than its execution.
115 min. 'Annihilation' is rated R for violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality. Now playing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89OP78l9oF0