'Newness' Captures Millennial Love in the Digital Age
Having its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival is director Drake Doremus’ newest film, Newness, a romantic drama set in today’s digital age.
Shot in just eighteen days in November of last year, Doremus and team found that they were able to whip the project together and cut it into an unapologetic and raw feature-length film.
Fans of Doremus and his films will know that he prefers to make a certain kind of movie– meditations on modern romance about two lovers who, although in love, are kept apart by some force larger than themselves. The larger force in Newness is the digital age itself, in which social media and hookup apps allow for the possibility of an infinite amount of connections but also leaves this generation feeling emotionally bankrupt, unsatisfied, and incomplete (as if the imagined opportunity of infinite is more desirable than any current situation).
When Martin (Nicholas Hoult) and Gabi (Laia Costa) use technology to swipe and match with each other, the two meet up (after both having been on a date earlier in the night) and hook up even quicker. It doesn't take long after that special night for the two to form a connection that sees them enter into something of a relationship. As their relationship ramps up past the physical desires of each other, the pair soon finds that as they get more serious, the more honest and sacrificial they must become. The messiness of previous relationship histories and the temptations of others are something they can’t ignore, forcing each other to look at their lives and evaluate what they are willing to give up to be together.
Newness is almost like a barometer reading of today’s young love landscape, a near-perfect capturing of the real-life moments that drive our obsession for seeking out the new and the hesitant satisfaction of being happy with what one has. Working off of a script from longtime collaborator Ben York Jones (Like Crazy, Breathe In), Newness runs the full emotional spectrum of young dating life that will surely connect with today’s millennials as well as show the pitfalls of this dating culture to all others.
'Newness' is almost like a barometer reading of today’s young love landscape, a near perfect capturing of the real life moments that drive our obsession for seeking out the new and the hesitant satisfaction of being happy with what one has.
As is Doremus’ filmmaking style, which is exploring and discovering the story in the moment of shooting, Doremus allows Hoult and a whirlwind Costa (who starred in 2015’s amazing single-take film Victoria) to navigate the emotional moments between each other throughout the story. While this is an energizing practice, in some moments, it ends up dovetailing and cornering scenes into emotional walls with no resolution.
After having grown in story scope since his first feature film, Douchebag, and through his bigger films like the dystopian Romeo and Juliet movie, Equals, “Newness” returns to an intimacy felt in Like Crazy. What hurts Newness is that, following Martin and Gabi’s hookup, comes a good amount of steamy scenes between them (we already knew they had the hots for each other), but there doesn’t seem to be any moments that show a real connection between them that would solidify a base foundation for the infidelities and emotional insecurities that threaten their relationship. This, in turn, makes the film feel a bit trepidatious in making its ultimate point. All this can be rationalized as “real life,” but the longer the film plays and the further each emotionally drift from each other, it feels like we want to see these characters fight to be with each other rather than let personally manufactured insecurities let the story peter out.
Yet for these few dips, Newness sees Doremus further developing his directorial storytelling abilities while also showing what he can do better than most of his peers – tell a romantic story that feels so electric, alive, and which captures modern love in all of its beautiful and messy form. Newness is dedicated to the late Anton Yelchin, star of Doremus’ Like Crazy, simply put: “To Anton, Into the Jungle.”
This review previously ran on January 27, 2017, during the Sundance Film Festival
NEWNESS (2017)
Starring Nicholas Hoult, Laia Costa, Danny Huston
Directed by Drake Doremus
Written by Ben York Jones
'Trespass Against Us' Review: Fassbender Is a Criminal And Family Man
Fans of Michael Fassbender know that any movie they see him in, he is fully committed and brings an intensity that rivals most of his contemporaries in terms of consistency and quality of performance. The latest performance from Fassbender is “Trespass Against Us” in which he plays a family man who lives in a rural community on the outskirts of Irish societal living. He has been sucked into the ever-tempting crime world at the hand of his father (Brendan Gleeson) but comes to a crossroads when it threatens to tear him away from his family. While “Trespass Against Us” offers a lot in the way of fresh storytelling, it’s a bit tonally off and inconsistent, which may keep audiences from praising it, or hesitant to check it out in the first place. But if you love indie dramas that have a little bit of everything and are a fan of Fassbender, it might be worth your time.
"Trespass Against Us" is largely a movie about a father, Chad Cutler (Fassbender), living a life of crime that involves petty thievery and pursuits from the cops, which plays like good fun. Living on the outskirts of society past the forest that divides the town, where campers and children's toys litter the area, he and his family live spiteful of the cops, much under the leadership of his "ex"-criminal father, Colby (Gleeson), who proudly states to his grandson the need to defend oneself by those who "trespass against us." But when a heist goes wrong, turning a playful cat and mouse game between Chad and the police into a personal mission to jail him, Chad's life choices catch up with him and threatens the safety and unity of his family.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnq8jZejw-s
It dips into a few different genres and it takes a while to unfurl, and even then, this drama really is a bit all over the place. While it's a rich and well-fleshed out story, Fassbender's character is connected to too many different characters. Between the relationship with his father (their shared scenes are powerful and gripping enough to wonder what an even more simplified version of this drama between them would've been like), the police, his wife, and that with his young son, the drama is scattered and the emotion is lost. In some ways, its story is more closely connected to "The Place Beyond the Pines," in its portrayal of a father who seeks to provide better for his family in the only way he knows how– through criminal activity. He causes mayhem against society and breaks its rules, but returns home to provide for his family.
"Trespass Against Us" shines as a family drama that feels authentic with real life struggles that teeter between collapse and finding peace. While the film is comprised of individually great scenes, it fails to make an overall gripping story and could have included more cinematic textures to add a little meat to the film's bare-bones.
Ryan's Top 10 Films of 2016
I think that for all of the shocking news and dramatic surprises that happened last year, most people would agree that 2016 wasn't too far from being a kind of movie itself (it certainly gets the horror treatment in this hilarious horror-spoof trailer here). Yet no matter the events of any year, I believe that the films that are also released in that same year can shine through like diamonds in the rough and put any year into a sort of context from which to better understand it, this year notwithstanding. For me, the movies that I found myself thinking about at year's end about were movies that I attributed to having a similar shared theme: defiance. I suppose one could say that that is true of the spirit of independent film as a whole, but I found that my ten favorite films all had – in some way or another – a dose of defiance, meaning that it was a refreshingly non-traditional movie with non-commercial ties or scratched and clawed its was into the cultural consciousness, advancing the entire medium and art form as a whole.
Without further ado, below are my ten favorite films of 2016:
10. The Witch (The VVitch: A New-England Folktale)
Perhaps it was an omen for the year to come that one of the first movies to send electricity through me was a horror movie; a period-piece horror film at that, whose scares didn't come from any sort of familiar blueprint before it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the majority of people who found themselves watching "The VVitch" had no idea they were in for a New England-set folktale about witchcraft and black magic circa 1630 (in fact, I'm pretty sure I heard audible disappointments in the theater the longer the movie went on). But what jolted me about this entry was seeing a world that I had never seen before shown in a new haunting tone. The story of a Puritan farming family settling onto new land, the plot is, essentially: don't go into the woods, because an evil witch lives there (a story whose origin I'm guessing would come from parents putting a healthy sense of fear in them to not run off). Yet after the disappearance of the family's baby (in one of the best edits I've seen all year), into the woods the unsupervised children go. What follows is a tale of subtle Satanic possession that fractures this lone family to fear that the devil is in the children. What I personally dig about this film, besides capturing the period so refreshingly well and with anachronistically correct dialogue translated from the era, is that the heart of what makes this a truly terrifying horror movie lies in the scariest thought of them all: helpless paranoia, which festers a fear that forces its characters to wonder if the evil is real, or all made up in their minds, which the widespread practice of the witch trials that would follow this time would also speak to. Also mark "The VVitch" as the film that introduced newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy to the big screen, whose career it seems has only just begun. And let's not forget Black Phillip – the Satanic goat that makes a case for being one of the year's scariest scene-stealing characters.
9. Green Room
A movie about a Washington punk band that gets held captive by a warehouse full of Neo-Nazi punk skinheads after a bad gig ends in murder, and which they need to slash their way out of to make it out alive, "Green Room" was the most cringe-worthy movie I watched in theaters all year (see also: "Angry Birds" and "Suicide Squad," but for very different reasons). "Green Room" doubled down on its being one of the most fearless movies of the year by forcing these young punk rockers to unleash something far beyond "punk" – depravity – if they wanted to make it out alive. The sequel to the equally fantastic underground revenge movie "Blue Ruin," writer and director Jeremy Saulnier returned to make another artistic bloodbath with even more thrills. With a killer soundtrack that scored the death around them, beautiful cinematography (whose polished camera glided through the greenery of the forest's trees into the remote backstage green room itself, to the blood-drained faces of greenery guts), this movie plays for keeps. Credit the final piece of this movie's power to a set of performances that lock the fear and chills in tight. Patrick Stewart, in a head-spinning turn as a measured but ruthless Nazi leader, makes this story even more unsettling. And, one of the final performances from an actor who we tragically lost in 2016, an actor whose intelligence shines through every one of his movies as well as every day in the philosophy class I took with him some years back, I will truly miss the work and artistic spirit of the late Anton Yelchin. His singular intelligence and warm persona made everything he was in shine, and "Green Room" commemorates his fevered commitment and sensitive artistry wonderfully.
Read our full "Green Room" review here.
8. Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Oh, how this breath-of-fresh-air comedy delighted me so. This little-seen Sundance hit was singularly the funniest movie I saw all year (next to the joke-drenched "Deadpool"). And funnily enough, I wouldn't even try to sell this movie to people as a comedy alone, as that might imply limitations of not being anything beyond that, for which it certainly is. The New Zealand comedy that is "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" is a genre-mashing mix of things: a road movie, coming-of-age movie, and certainly a movie that the whole family can sit down and enjoy together. Credit that to the writing and directing effort of "Flight of the Conchords" player Taika Waititi, who, with his second expertly crafted comedy following 2014's vampire mockumentary "What We Do in the Shadows," proves that he is one of comedy's new breakout stars and someone to keep your eye on (especially this year, as Waititi directs the latest Thor movie, "Thor: Ragnarok," in theaters this year. Perhaps the biggest achievement in "Wilderpeople" is how Waititi creates an authentically felt story full of real characters, the main character being one orphaned, overweight, and wannabe gangsta youngster (Julian Dennison) who, after his foster mother dies, is left to be looked after by his gruff and reluctant new foster father (Hey, Sam Neill!). What follows is a terrific and touching movie in so many unexpected ways. Seek this one out – it's as hilarious as it is heartwarming and would have become a home-video classic of yesteryear.
Read our full "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" review here.
7. The Lobster 
If "Hunt For the Wilderpeople" was one of the most laugh-out-loud movies of the year, “The Lobster” was its comedic counterpart cousin – the most intellectually ambitious romantic comedy of the year that has its fun by poking at our modern day culture's overly-rational heads than our much softer heartstrings. This black comedy, a satire of modern day love where people not in a relationship with a romantic partner are given thirty days to find love or be set into the woods, hunted, and tranquilized, and turned into an animal (not all cruel – an animal of their own choice). Colin Farrell leads this surrealist sober movie that is all things at all times: a serious musing on the binary nature of love by way of an utterly ridiculous premise, a somber look at what should be the most heart-affecting things – love, and a movie so dreary and bleak but yet still so hilariously and emotionally felt. "The Lobster" is a stroke of excellence, certainly most enjoyed by those who want their high-brows knocked a little, as well as those ready to embrace and unpack the silliest and yet most contemplative stories of romance and partnerships and its place in modern society.
Read our full "The Lobster" review here.
6. Swiss Army Man
Talk about a simultaneously wacky and heartfelt movie that you won't soon forget. This Sundance darling was a product of pure originality, a true lightning in a bottle movie, a sincere and heartfelt tale of loneliness and companionship that feels like a music video-art piece gone haywire. “Swiss Army Man” features Paul Dano as a lone survivor on an island – ready to off himself – when the promise of a corpse washes up (Daniel Radcliffe). By way of keeping himself sane, he talks to the lifeless body, which animates him back to life (if only in his head), including cinematic montages of a farting corpse that propels them through the water like a jet-ski. However, the fart jokes work as the sly shell of an immature movie that is really about much deeper and more honestly-felt things, like lost love. This indie hit was the first feature film from music video director duo DANIELS, known best for their music video for DJ Snake's "Turn Down For What." There's no reason why this movie should exist, and I imagine that's precisely why I can't stop thinking about it, making it one of the most unforgettable of the year for me.
Read our full "Swiss Army Man" review here.
5. Moonlight
Pure artistry and honestly-felt storytelling always make a film worthy of discussing, but when that film takes those elements and packages them in a way that movies have not done for a particular group of people, a people of color and sexual orientation that has not been adequately represented on the big screen, then it's worthy of consideration in a whole new way. Director Barry Jenkins' stunning coming of age film "Moonlight" doesn't fit into any easily definable genre. In fact, it defies you to try to define it, being the story of one young man's life and chronicling three separate periods in his life. Chiron, a quiet African-American adolescent dealing with the pressures of growing up in Miami's threatening street life while discovering his sexual orientation is powerful by its universal theme of discovering one's identity amidst threatening conflicts. Chronicling three different periods in one man's life in similar "Boyhood" fashion, yet played by three different actors, "Moonlight" is both creatively and emotionally daring whose story feels so personal and vulnerable. For a movie with such devastating conflicts, I consider it to also be the most hopeful movie of the year, proving that even under a night's sky filled with senselessness and oppressions, one might only need to look up at a small sliver of moonlight to feel its comforting power above.
Read our full "Moonlight" review here.
4. Sing Street
If at the end of the day, movies are for escapism, entertainment, and fantasies, then "Sing Street" is the ultimate fantasy of my young adolescent life. The third film from writer and director John Carney, "Sing Street" trades the soft-sincere acoustic guitars of his previous musical films ("Once," "Begin Again") for electric guitars and synth rocking to create a movie that was for me, the feel-good movie of the year. The story of a young Catholic school kid who takes on his school's oppressive regime as well as trying to win over the school's elusive vixen by forming a rock band, this movie was note-perfect. While the movie mamanged to stay fresh and fun in this coming of age formula, what really tipped the scales into being a great movie were the movie's original songs, which rock hard in the 80s pop-rock world that take inspiration from the Cure and Joy Division.
Read our full "Sing Street" review here.
3. Paterson
I saw "Paterson" at the 2016 AFI Film Festival (presented by Audi), and boy was Iastounded. I didn't know near anything except for it was Adam Driver starring in Jim Jarmusch’s latest movie, and that’s still kind of what it is. Driver plays Paterson, a bus driver who drives the same routes and lives the same life repeatedly, as if on auto-pilot, the real moments of beauty come from Paterson's internal poetry that he muses in between his droll life.
2. Manchester by the Sea
An air-tight, note-perfect movie about grief. I’ve discussed this movie with movie-people and non-movie-people alike, and all can agree in some sort of consensus, that this movie is sad. That it is. I’m a fan of sad movies, but it’s the execution of this sadness that left me speechless in the film’s end. Set in Boston, the story of a grief-stricken janitor who, after the death of his brother, is left to care after his nephew, is about as brilliantly realized as it could have been. It’s a blanket sadness, and one without a redeeming ending, so why are people taking to it so? The direction is incredible in its non-styled but brilliantly composed photography, and the story is told with doses of flashback.
1. La La Land
In all honestly, I probably would have loved whatever film writer and director Damien Chazelle came out with following 2014’s "Whiplash,” the maniacal jazz drumming tornado that got my young male blood boiling and landed J.K. Simmons an Oscar. When Chazelle’s next movie turned out to be a 180-degree turn from the fever sweats of the obsessive jazz drumming, lighting up the screen with an old school Studio soft-shoe musical starring the wonderful Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in the city of Hollywood that rekindled the love I have for the first movie I loved, "Singin’ in the Rain," it won me over and lands as my favorite film of the year.
Writer and director Damien Chazelle’s years-in-the-making passion project (he conceived the idea before making Whiplash), La La Land checked all of the boxes for me last year: an old Studio-style throwback starring an irresistibly great Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of our times), a story of artists with both dreams and fears of making it big, a beautifully styled Los Angeles backdrop, a fantastic original score, and altogether incredible direction come together to achieve such a mastered vision of this modern musical. And even past its slick, lovely, fun, and wonderful exterior is a real story and conflicted drama of what it takes to follow your dreams, especially when love – both the love for one’s work and the love for their counterpart – lies at the heart of it. The song and dance numbers are out of this world – literally so in a wonderfully choreographed dance in the famed Griffith Observatory’s Planetarium. With locations all over Los Angeles, I was so moved by the film’s spellbinding jazz music that not long after seeing the film I found myself with Cinemacy’s Editor, my sister Morgan, at Hermosa Beach’s Lighthouse Café for a Sunday Jazz Brunch to take in a location that’s featured in the film. And with a movie that climaxes to such an emotionally soaring level, and ending with perhaps one of the most fantastically choreographed endings of the year, La La Land is the movie that rewards dreamers. And sometimes, people’s faith deserve to be rewarded.
Read our full "La La Land" review here.
Honorable Mentions:
Silence
20th Century Women
American Honey
In 'Paterson', Jarmusch Shows the Lyricism in Life Americana
The light-hearted surreality throughout the movie offers much to unpack, making Paterson more a poetically enrichening experience than a traditional film would offer.
The thing about daily life, since it's typically lived in such a familiar, repetitive and track-like fashion, is that we often miss the subtle, magical coincidences that are going on around us all the time. In his latest movie, Paterson, writer and director Jim Jarmusch sprinkles in these subtle surrealities that often go unnoticed into a week in the life of a bus driver who quietly drives his routes and more quietly writes his original poetry, all while coincidence washes over him and his community, making a film that speaks to the beauty of everyday life and the role of an artist in it.
In this tone poem of a movie, which also plays more accessible than Jarmusch's other films, Paterson is a film that operates more from the invisible structures of poetic stanzas than the freeform swirl that his last released film, the rock and roll-soaked vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive, did. Like Lovers, which showed centuries-undead vampires suck up culture in arts music and history only to live alone in their same unfulfilled lives, there's a similarity here that Jarmusch explores, following as equally an emotionless man who similarly takes in the pleasures of poetry without entertaining the thought of dreaming of publishing his own or even the very poetry in motion around him. It's this failure to dream in which Jarmusch sets up his main character, Paterson (Adam Driver), the humble bus driver who coincidentally shares his name with the city where he drives his routes in Paterson, New Jersey, to show and study this noble pursuit of the artist: as one that is only valid when it's realized rather than romanticized.
Following a day in the life from one Monday through the next in chapter-like fashion, Paterson is tuned to the rhythms of the day from sun-up to sun-down, waking up every day to face a wristwatch that reads around six-fifteen, hunching over a bowl of cereal at home, and scribbling some lines of poetry before setting off on his daily route, and before returning back home that he shares with girlfriend and bulldog who he walks to the local bar for a late-night nightcap – a process that more or less repeats daily. But it's in the moments in between the mundane where Jarmusch hones in on, and where Paterson makes its message.
The rich tapestry of the city of Paterson hides its coincidences and meanings in plain sight – a young girl approaches Paterson with her original poetry about rain, a theme we see Paterson earlier write about in his poem about moving through trillions of molecule of water – showing the playful inter-connected themes that link the things between the days.
Although he's a poet that scribbles things like how love is like his favorite matchbook brand, he doesn't tie together the coincidence that his bohemian girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) shares with him about her dream about twins, failing to see the many varied sets of twins that then populate throughout the rest of the film. The rich tapestry of the city of Paterson hides its coincidences and meanings in plain sight – a young girl approaches Paterson with her original poetry about rain, a theme we see Paterson earlier write about in his poem about moving through trillions of molecule of water – showing the playful inter-connected themes that link the things between the days. Instead, Paterson, the reluctant artist whose humility leads him to follow his same life's track of driving the bus and writing his poems in his secret notebook, goes about his day meekly while larger life meanings play out around him.
Driver in the driver's seat (pun intended) continues to shine in auteur-driven movies – of which this is the latest – delivering a finely controlled and nuanced performance. The quiet depth Driver brings forth in Paterson the man shows a man pondering the serious artistry of a mind stirring. It's not that he's not an insecure artist – he's just an egoless one, more content living his hum-drum life than writing his poems for an audience of one then the restless activities of all those around him. His quiet but commanding performance anchors a film that is also as measured and patient, and within Jarmusch's playfully dreamy movie, it's not out of reason to think that Paterson himself is a physical embodiment, read tour guide or ghost of the blue-collar city.
The light-hearted surreality throughout the movie offers much to unpack, making "Paterson" more a poetically enrichening experience than a traditional film would offer. "Paterson" will be most loved by those willing to experience the movie much like they would a literary work, and actively working to unpack the movie for symbolism and themes like they would a poem itself. The role of the artist as poet is explored by Jarmusch, who in fact self-identifies as a poet over filmmaker, Jarmusch's ode to the quiet American artist proves that there's magic in the mundanities of real life, if only you choose to see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8pGJBgiiDU
'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' Review: This Story Should've Gone More Rogue
Yes, we knew there was going to be a victorious rebellion, but it could have been more of a triumphant win.
It's a risky – and dare it be said, roguish – move, to release a stand-alone Star Wars movie outside of the classic saga series that fans know and love so well. Riskier still would be hiring a director with only three feature films to his name (including just one blockbuster) to pilot and land that Millennium Falcon-sized ship. But in theaters everywhere this Friday is "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," directed by Gareth Edwards ("Godzilla"). Following the efforts of a rag-tag team of Resistance fighters to steal secrets from the mighty Empire, Edwards successfully steps in to the world that George Lucas created and assembles an action-packed and entertaining, if not conforming, addition to the Star Wars universe that gets a passing grade.
Although "Rogue One," which qualifies its title with the further “A Star Wars Story,” is the first companion movie to be released outside of the Star Wars saga, it still tangentially ties into the series, taking place directly before the events of the movie that started them all, "Episode IV: A New Hope," which ended with Luke Skywalker destroying the Death Star by way of blasting into a critically-exposed opening. "Rogue One" explains the origin of how Skywalker and his Rebel alliance friends received the Death Star's blueprints in the first place, as we follow a new cast of characters – who are certainly the most diversely-cast of any Star Wars film – as the unsung rebel heroes that infiltrate and retrieve the plans from right under the Empire's nose. Here, then, it’s a different kind of warring that takes place between good and evil, where boots on the ground combat and aerial dogfights put more emphasis on the "war" in the franchise's name.
"Rogue One" nests out what little room for originality it can, Edwards adding many more textures to these Star Wars worlds like stormy hard-rock mountain regions and a battle on the beach finale that harkens to the Invasion of Normany, while also introducing a fun new cast of characters.
"Rogue One" may open with its infamous "Long Time Ago" title card, but the absence of the traditional serial title crawl doesn’t give us any precursory backstory into where we’ve just been or where we’re headed next. After an opening that sees the kidnapping of scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) by the high-ranking Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) and a crew of Deathtroopers for the purpose of building a secret weapon for the Empire (it’s no moon…), we flash-forward to some years later where Galen's orphaned daughter (a trait that links many Star Wars characters), Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), has grown up to live the life of a criminal and thief, seemingly bored to be locked up for the current moment. That is, until the Rebel alliance, led by the dashing leader Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his wise-cracking maintenance droid sidekick K-2SO (Alan Tudyk), rescue Jyn so that she can both help locate legendary Rebel fighter Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) as well as her father, who, being the leading architect of the weapon that's rumored to be the most destructive weapon in existence – the Death Star – can offer further intel. Together, with a group of rebels including Imperial defector Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed), Force-channeling Chirrut Îmwet (Donnie Yen), and blaster-blazing Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), the group formulate a plan to find Galen and steal the Death Star's plans to bring back to their base in order to stop their imminent destruction.
I'm hesitant to caution of any further spoilers to follow (although a few familiar faces do pop up, including one heavy-breathing baddie in black), mostly because there aren’t that many spoilers that "Rogue One" can really offer up that would truly surprise audiences, since its more or less locked from deviating from the series of events in the films that follow. With these restraints, "Rogue One" nests out what little room for originality it can, Edwards adding many more textures to these Star Wars worlds like stormy hard-rock mountain regions and a battle on the beach finale that harkens to the Invasion of Normandy, while also introducing a fun new cast of characters like Alan Tudyk's comic relief K-2SO (who feel much more human than Felicity Jones' woefully underdeveloped Jyn Erso), but it doesn’t have the luxury of being able to think outside of the box in terms of plot beyond that.
"Rogue One" will most likely satisfy fans who like their Star Wars heavy on the nostalgia with a heaping side of homage. But in terms of offering anything new, it’s more imitative than inventive, recycling what made the original movies so great rather than further develop or explore what else could be introduced and enter the pop culture for a new generation. For better or for worse, it's connective tissue entertainment that deserves a nod for Edwards and company for even navigating the terrains as they did while steering this gigantic ship holding anxious Disney Studio execs rolling the dice on this first stand-alone movie outing. So it shouldn't come as too big a surprise that this movie that plays rebellion actually sacrifices its real rogue streak (the rumors of the extent to which re-shoots were needed imply as much) and ends up conforming in all the ways it has to in order to bridge the gap between the rest of the saga’s series in motion. Yes, we knew there was going to be a victorious rebellion, but it could have been more of a triumphant win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frdj1zb9sMY
133 min. 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' is rated PG-13 for extended sequences of sci-fi violence and action. In theaters everywhere this Friday.
'The Squid and the Whale' Comes to the Criterion Collection
New to the Criterion Collection and part of this November's releases is "The Squid and the Whale," the third feature film from writer and director Noah Baumbach. The story of a Brooklyn family and the divorce that fractures the family, which Baumbach took from his own personal life, is one of the director's finest films and an all-around achievement, a fantastic addition to the Criterion Collection.
The Director-approved Blu-ray special edition features a new, restored 4K digital transfer from the Super 16 mm original (thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, and warps were manually removed, supervised by cinematographer Robert Yeoman and Baumbach). Also included are the special features below, including new interviews, new conversation about the score, a documentary with on-set footage, audition footage, trailers and more.
Read below for a brief list of features included on the DVD:
Noah Baumbach on The Squid and the Whale
"It was almost like the only time I've ever felt – at least up until that point – the only time I felt like writing was a physical thing. That my whole body was in it. It was anger, and it was emotion, and humor, and all these things, but it was also, there was a kind of way of like, in this little way, I'm seizing this time, and I'm going to make sense of it, and I'm going to make it work for me."
Baumbach talks about his writing process for the movie based on his own experience after his first two films ("Kicking and Screaming," "Mr. Jealousy"), and how the time it took to write and make his movie, his producer Wes Anderson wrote and directed two movies ("The Royal Tenenbaums," "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou").
"There's definitely an aspect of revenge in that. You know, I think, in going back and writing about childhood."
Revisiting The Squid and the Whale
Interviews with Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and Owen Kline, as well as on-set footage. The actors talk about how they each came to the project, Linney discussing how she knew Baumbach before the movie, and that Kline was essentially a family friend.
Linney recounts her love for the title: "I love that it's called 'The Squid and the Whale.' I have tape recordings of me as a three year old seeing the whale and my father asking me 'What's that, is that a whale?' and remembering what that felt like as a child, to walk into that room and see that whale.
Kline states that "It's a mood ring movie. It changes however you feel when you're watching it."
Jesse Eisenberg talks about how this one of the earlier movies he had done. "This movie had a script that, I wouldn't call it rare, I think it's more than rare. Rare implies that there's others like it. I really have never read anything like it."
Jeff Daniels on The Squid and the Whale
My dad said something to me, that turned out to be true... he goes, 'You know, I think you're going to grow into your face. And probably the best, most rewarding decade has been the last ten years. And it started with 'Squid,' it really started with 'Squid.'" Daniels talks about flying to New York to get the part after the lead choice was stalling (Bill Murrary), modeling Bernard after his own failures to win Awards and garner giant paychecks compared to his own contemporaries, working with fellow stage actor Laura Linney and how 'Squid got him back into the "serious actor" game.
Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (Original Score by)
The Wareham and Phillips talk to Baumbauch in a conversation conducted for the Criterion Collection about scoring the original music for the film. Having met Baumbach in 1996 when scoring the music for his film "Mr. Jealousy," the trio recount old memories of working together then, and then waiting seven years "for the funding to come in" to make "Squid." Baumbach remembers wanting to share music that he listened to as a kid with the musicians as inspiration for the film, including Pink Floyd's seminal classic album "The Wall" (which serves as a minor plot point in the film), and Wareham remembers learning "Hey You" to teach to Eisenberg. It's a feature well worth watching to learn more about the songs and original music that serves the movie so wonderfully.
Behind The Squid and the Whale (On-set interviews and footage)
On-set interviews photographed by Nico Baumbach (Noah's brother) of Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and director Noah Baumbach. In a moment of downtime, Linney and Daniels talk to Nico about constructing their characters and serving the script, and Daniels talks about what his own playwriting in Michigan. Baumbach expands on the "articulate, cultured" characters that he finds himself writing, and a funnier moment sees Baumbach realizing on one shooting day just how many more scenes they have to finish shooting that day. It's a lighthearted and fun behind-the-scenes look that's well worth a watch.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED EDITION:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by cinematographer Robert Yeoman and director Noah Baumbach, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interviews with Baumbach and actors Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, and Laura Linney
- New conversation about the score and other music in the film between Baumbach and composers Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips
- Behind “The Squid and the Whale,” a 2005 documentary featuring on-set footage and cast interviews
- Audition footage
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones and a 2005 interview of Baumbach by novelist Jonathan LethemNew cover based on lettering by Leanne Shapton
'Hands of Stone' Director Jonathan Jakubowicz on His Roberto Duran Biopic
"And I have to tell you, what I’m seeing in the United States right now is frightening to me, because I am seeing a complete division of two sides of a society," Jonathan Jakubowicz, the Venezuelan-born writer and director of the Roberto Duran biography "Hands of Stone," tells me over the phone during our interview.
As the Duran boxing movie, starring Edgar Ramírez and Robert De Niro, makes its way to DVD and Blu-ray November 22nd, I spoke with Jakubowicz about the frightening similarities he sees between the political unrest he lived through in Venezuela as a child and the current state of US politics, the success of his first film "Secuestro Express," (the top grossing movie in Venezuela's box office history, defeating former champions "Titanic" and "The Passion of the Christ") and having salsa music play on the red carpet for the "Hands of Stone" world premiere at Cannes for the first time in the festival's history.
It’s been a few months since “Hands of Stone" was released in theaters domestically. How have you been spending your time since then, up until the film’s DVD and Blu-ray release on November 22nd?
Well I mean, part of it has been releasing the movie in other territories. Cause you know, since it’s not a big Studio simultaneous release, there’s a delay between territories. I went to the Morelia film festival in Mexico and have been promoting it. The movie actually just opened in most of Latin America in theaters. So, in a way, it’s actually been and extended (laughs), campaign.
But I have been also writing what I anticipate is my next production, and I’m also about to publish my first book. It’s in Spanish, and it’s gonna start in Venezuela where I’m from. So it’s been a mix of promoting and finishing the editing of my book and writing the next movie that I’m directing.
"But what really destroyed [Venezuela] was our inability to communicate, and our inability to listen to the other side."
You mentioned you grew up in Venezuela. What was it like growing up there, and how did that influence how you made your first movie, "Secuestro Express," which was a huge hit internationally and put you on the map?
It was trippy, because when I was a child,Venezuela was a nation that felt like the best place in the world. We had an oil boom and everybody was doing business, and we were known as the richest place on Earth with the most beautiful women. And the problem is that it started going down from there (laughs). Because there was a lot of corruption and every time the place became a little more dangerous, a little more divided, by the time I was a teenager you could feel a lot of resentment between the poor and the middle class and the rich. By the time I went to University, I went to a public university which is free, so you have every part of society in the same classroom, and you really start to understand the complete division that exists around society, and that’s part of where “Secuestro Express” was born. A movie that shows a society that is extremely divided –
And I have to tell you, what I’m seeing in the United States right now is frightening to me, because I am seeing a complete division of two sides of a society–
I was going to ask you if you currently see any similarity between the political unrest in Venezuela that you lived through and the current climate of US politics...
It’s extremely similar – it’s frighteningly similar. Because you see, there are two sides that are not even interested in understanding the other side because they are so convinced that they are right. There is a complete rejection of the other side. And we’re talking – just like in Venezuela – halves of a nation. It’s not even a group. We’re talking about one-half of a nation.
And if you ask me what destroyed Venezuela, the country has been completely destroyed… yes, it was corruption, yes, (Hugo) Chávez was a terrible person. But what really destroyed us was our inability to communicate, and our inability to listen to the other side. And I am alarmed by a different reason most people are alarmed here in the states, because everyone’s alarmed by whose appointment, the new appointment that (President-Elect Trump) made, or this or that, or is he a good person or a psychopath – I’m alarmed by the division, and I don’t see anybody working in the direction of uniting the country for real, and not just pretending that that’s what your discourse is. And I can tell you from experience, nothing destroys a country more than division in its population.
And I tried to communicate that side with “Secuestro Express,” and that movie was extremely successful in Venezuela, but I don’t think anybody listened to it (laughs), because we kept going in the wrong direction. It’s a very tough situation for us right now, and part of what my book is about in Venezuela is that, and it’s sort of another message that I’m trying to send to our society so that we’ll try to rebuild the nation after this disaster.
"And when you start realizing that there’s no black and white, that there are shades of gray in every reality, and you start understanding the other side... I think that is always more fulfilling than rooting for the good guy against the villain."
Do you currently live in the US or still in Venezuela?
I live mostly in LA right now. I live between LA and Panama City where I spent most of the last three years. But this year I’ve been mostly in LA, and I’m probably going to stay here for a while. The book was written in Spanish, and it’s, to tell you the truth, was written specifically for Venezuela. It’s actually already available on Amazon.
So that’s why I wrote it. Sometimes you do something for the whole world, sometimes you do something for a specific group of people, and I don’t think because I’m making a big movie right now I shouldn’t make something specifically for my country which I feel needs to hear a few things more than anybody else needs to hear from me (Laughs). So I made it for my country and if it’s successful somewhere else, then we’ll see. But that’s not the intention.
The political unrest is certainly a big part of “Hands of Stone,” showing the US-Panamanian conflict of the 80s. Was that something you were looking forward to bringing to the big screen along with the story of Roberto Duran?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Duran's story is inevitably linked to the States and his relationship with the Americans and the canal zone that was next door to the neighborhood where he grew up. His father was an American marine who was stationed in Panama. So yes, you can say he had American blood in him. And he felt the American father who abandoned his mother was sort of an occupation of his life, you know? So he was the son of an occupier. So those things are a big part of who he is, and a big part of why he captures so much of the sense of Panama when he was fighting. I think that is something that doesn’t only relate to Panama, but to most of Latin America and many other countries in the world that have that love and hate relationship with the United States, a country that we all feel gives us so much, but also takes away so much.
And there has been so many boxing movies that celebrate American fighters, I thought it was an exciting opportunity to tell the story of a boxing hero who is fighting American fighters, and obviously it was a risky move, and a lot of people react, in America, with a short circuit (Laughs), cause it’s like, “Wait a minute, am I supposed to root against Sugar Ray Leonard?” (Laughs)
But that’s part of what I like to do, and it was sort of the same with “Secuestro.” A lot of people started identifying with the kidnappers in the movie. And when you start realizing that there’s no black and white, that there are shades of gray in every reality, and you start understanding the other side... I think that is always more fulfilling than rooting for the good guy against the villain. And it’s obviously more challenging sometimes because we’re used to being given these stories are clearly the good guy and he has nothing bad about him, and the bad guy has nothing good about him – but I think that is part of what creates these divisions in society. That we’re used to not hearing any other sides, and I always like to put that in the movies and the stuff that I write. Always try to give you the other perspective as well.
"There was salsa music on the red carpet of Cannes for the first time in history."
What was the experience of bringing “Hands of Stone” to this year's Cannes film festival? I understand it had standing ovations.
It was incredible, because even though the movie is you know, as such a big scope and so many big stars, it was really made by me and my wife. She produced it, I wrote it and directed it, raised the money for it, cut it in my home. There was nothing that we didn’t do in this movie. And to go there, in the biggest festival in the world… there was salsa music on the red carpet of Cannes for the first time in history.
Oh, wow!
We took our own culture, about our own hero, with our own actors, half in Spanish, and we were able to get to the biggest place you can premiere a movie in the world. And then for it to be received with such an emotional reaction by the French audience, it was mind-blowing. And Duran was there watching the movie for the first time, which was a risk that I took, and could have cost me my life (laughs) if he didn’t like the movie. But he starts crying, and obviously when he started crying De Niro started crying then I started crying. It was crazy. It was an incredible moment, you know. Completely nerve-racking. I still can’t really see the videos because I get too nervous. But it was a dream come true beyond a dream.
When you’re a film student, you laugh at the notion that one day you may premiere a movie at Cannes, you know? Cause it’s beyond your dreams. And the fact that it happened with this specific movie that we’re so passionate about, it’s just something that will make me happy forever.
Congratulations again. You were talking about how you made this movie with your wife, who is also your producing partner. Did you develop the movie, and when did that process begin?
Well, I first heard of Duran when I was a kid. Growing up in Venezuela, Duran is some sort of a superhero that you hear stories about. And I decided to develop it – and yes, I did develop it and wrote it, and chased Duran for his life rights and everything.
I moved here and I started getting offers to do movies in which Latinos were drug traffickers, rapists, or criminals, and I felt that you know, there’s nothing wrong with telling those stories, but there may be space to tell different stories about Latinos and start changing the stereotypes that have been so embedded in American culture, and that’s how I got to Duran. He’s a positive Latino figure and when I started digging into his story I found Ray Arcel, his Jewish trainer, and I’m Venezuelan and I’m Jewish so I felt like there was something about this story perhaps that I could tell better than anybody (laughs). And I fell in love with it, and never stopped until it got made.
What was it like putting the cast together – specifically getting Edgar Ramírez and Robert De Niro, such commanding actors. How did you direct them on set?
Well, De Niro… I knew, when I was doing the research, I knew Duran had met De Niro when De Niro was preparing for “Raging Bull” and Duran was a World Champ. So I knew there was a narrow possibility that I could get into De Niro’s head with the notion of telling the Roberto Duran story. And I sent him my first movie “Secuestro Express,” and the script, and he really liked my first movie and he liked a lot about the script, but he had some issues with Ray Arcel’s voice, he wanted to hear more of Ray Arcel’s voice, he felt that if he doesn’t hear his voice he doesn’t know how to play him. And it was a process in which I actually found Arcel’s widow, and she happened to have a notebook where she wrote what she called “Ray-ism’s,” which are things only Ray used to say, and I incorporated that into the script and then brought De Niro to meet with her, and we spent a lot of time working on the script. It was about six months before De Niro decided to commit to the movie because he felt that the script was ready.
It was a tough and exciting and nerve-racking process in itself – but it was good because by the time De Niro came to set, I already had a relationship with him, so I wasn’t as nervous as I would’ve been if I had just met the guy. It was a very good thing that we went through all that process.
"When you’re a film student, you laugh at the notion that one day you may premiere a movie at Cannes, you know? Cause it’s beyond your dreams. And the fact that it happened with this specific movie that we’re so passionate about, it’s just something that will make me happy forever."
And Edgar I had known for a decade because he’s Venezuelan too, so I’ve known his career and I’ve known him personally. We always wanted to work together, and he’s such a nice guy, I couldn’t believe he could play Duran! But I met with him and he was so in love with the project and the character, and he promised me that he wasn’t that nice of a guy (laughs). And he committed, he moved to Panama, he trained for eight months in Panama, in some of the poorest gyms in the ghetto, and completely changed and transformed his body, and the way he talks and the way he acts, was basically starving during the shoot. That gave him an edge I don’t think that I’ve seen in any of his movies. And it was a joy to work with him and to work with Bob together, we developed an incredible relationship and we are extremely close right now and very good friends. We’re discussing doing something together again, and Bob has become a little bit of a mentor for both of us. I don’t make any big decisions without asking him his advice. He has been around more than anybody else and has been on top for so long, and he’s a nice man. He’s a very loving family man, so I feel it’s a treasure to have developed such an incredible relationship with him.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I think "Hands of Stone" a movie that speaks to a very specific moment that we’re living right now in which half of this nation have been either even glory or defeat in unprecedented dimensions. And I think this movie is about rising when you fall, it’s about following your dreams, but it’s also about forgiveness and understanding of the people who hurt you, and the people who even with their strategy, and without bad intentions, completely destroy your life. I think that the movie can resonate with a lot of what I feel is happening in the United States right now, and hopefully invite people to communicate a little further, because there’s nothing good about the path of division that we have all taken in the last few days.
And finally – where can audiences see your first movie, “Secuestro Express”?
It’s everywhere. It’s on iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, it’s everywhere. Just make sure it’s not “dubbed” (laughs). Sometimes, there’s a dubbed version around that I hate. But if you can handle subtitles…. it’s a movie that I’m very proud of. And sometimes it plays on HBO Latino!
'Dreamland' Review: Stylish Directorial Debut is Quirky Fun
It seems that Schwartzman the filmmaker, a rocker who has spent nearly his whole professional career playing feel-good pop/indie-rock to screaming fans in huge venues, wishes to make a movie that's immediately accessible and whose fun also comes from not taking itself too seriously.
The Coppola-Schwartzman family counts among their clan some of Hollywood's most famous and talented filmmakers. Patriarch Francis Ford Coppola ("The Godfather") and daughter Sofia ("Lost in Translation") have created some of the most classic and critically-acclaimed movies of our time. On the other side of the family, Jason Schwartzman ("Rushmore") has also contributed to making some of the most beautiful and important movies of cinema to date with pal Wes Anderson.
Now, we have Jason's brother Robert Schwartzman (you might remember him as Anne Hathaway's prince charming in "The Princess Diaries") entering the family business with his first feature film "Dreamland," the story of a young male whose moonlighting as a Hotel lounge piano player brings on the advances of a wealthy socialite and upends his life. While it might not be the next introduction of as artfully-minded a filmmaker as the rest of his family, "Dreamland" is light-hearted fun in the vein of a young male coming-of-age.
With a name like Monty Fagan (Johnny Simmons), it might be fate that he's supposed to be a suave, famous lounge piano player. Instead, young Monty is an aloof guy in a declining relationship with girlfriend Lizzie (Frankie Shaw), whose boring love life has all but stalled out due to living with Lizzie's wino and wig-wearing mother (Beverly D'Angelo). Monty drives to teach piano classes on his sputtering motor scooter to pay the bills, a pit-stop on the road to his true dream of playing jazz at his own nightclub, which seems like pie-in-the-sky dream when he learns of Lizzie's momentary weakness with another man. So when Monty is offered a primo piano-playing gig at a swanky Hotel and catches the eye of one wealthy cougar Olivia (Amy Landecker), who pursues him as a young boy-toy, Monty's head is left spinning to make sense of his new affair and the checks she gives him for his someday night club: Dreamland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGLfBfp8NfM
Robert Schwartzman's directorial debut is a charming, light-hearted coming of age story whose strengths come from the fun performances and a well-layered indie soundtrack (the Rooney frontman has composed original music for film before, lastly in Gia Coppola's "Palo Alto" based on the James Franco memoir). However, a movie about a young male's passion for making music takes too much of a backseat to the Mrs. Robinson story happening, and we wish we could see more of Monty jazzing it up on the piano, or even hearing those jazz standards fill more of the movie's sonic space.
Typically playing more bit parts like in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and "The Stanford Prison Experiment," Johnny Simmons has a chance to take the lead role here, dialing in his trademark boyish young charms to a fun degree while also playing more conflicted shades in the movie's climax. Amy Landecker as Olivia plays the seductress in full-tilt commitment, steaming up the screen when showing her skin, and showing the frustrations in her life as well. Beverly D'Angelo makes good fun out of her wine-pouring weirdo character, and further bit roles filled by stand-up comedian Nick Thune as a homewrecker plumber and Noel Wells ("Master of None") as the Hotel's receptionist extend the fun. And of course, Robert cuts his own family in, having Jason Schwartzman cameo as Monty's dooshy but hilarious bank loaner Peter and Talia Shire making it in for a hear-to-hear phone conversation as Monty's mother.
"Dreamland" may lean more towards bargain-barrel entertainment, but it's still a fun pop riff to catch if you don't mind the fluff. It seems that Schwartzman the filmmaker, a rocker who has spent nearly his whole professional career playing feel-good pop/indie-rock to screaming fans in huge venues, wishes to make a movie that's immediately accessible and whose fun also comes from not taking itself too seriously. In this vein (and like Monty), the most rewarding part of this piece is the achievment that Schwartzman has created his very own Dreamland.
84 minutes. "Dreamland" is now playing in select theaters including Laemmle's Santa Monica Film Center and available to stream on VOD including Amazon Video.