10 Cloverfield Lane is a type of movie that we just don’t see very often in modern cinema. It’s a film with a decent budget and a major production company behind it, with some serious marketing power, that still prefers to keep things simple and constrained throughout most of its runtime. With a few changes Cloverfield Lane could have easily been a stand-alone no-budget indie flick. The fact that a major studio released and marketed such an effort at all is encouraging, as it suggests that mid-budget films can still get made (and, hopefully, be successful) even in today’s entertainment business climate.

But aside from supporting the return to small character-driven entertainment and the mid-budget blockbuster, there’s a simpler reason for why you should see 10 Cloverfield Lane: it’s just damn good. The trailers have smartly kept most of the plot details under lock-and-key, and I won’t go into details much here, but the script plays with expectations wonderfully. Your suspicions of other characters shift back and forth with each new reveal, and the pacing is perfect, giving the film plenty of time to breathe without ever stalling out.

Continue reading 10 Cloverfield Lane Review →

Zootopia is one of the smartest, most nuanced movies I’ve seen about race relations. It gets so many complex and often-overlooked aspects across: the way that historical biases still have power in a “post-racial” world, how racism often comes from a place of fear or ignorance rather than outright hate, how even good people can let their biases get the best of them, how society’s presumptions about race can dictate one’s behavior, and quite a lot more. Even generally well-received films like Best Picture winner Crash can get this stuff wrong and make characters cartoonishly racist, so for an ACTUAL cartoon featuring a city of animals to convey these ideas so brilliantly is quite an achievement. Like last year’s excellent Inside Out, Zootopia manages to convey ideas that are far above most childrens’ heads in a way that they can understand on an emotional level.

But to just say that Zootopia is successful for conveying complex ideas to a broad audience in a nuanced manner is to sell it short. Just as a piece of entertainment, it’s hugely successful. For children, there is great animation and plenty of visual gags to keep them entertained. It’s briskly paced, very funny, and features extremely likable characters. For adults, there are several clever jokes that are likely to fly over kids’ heads, including references to R-rated fare like The Godfather and Breaking Bad. However, unlike a lot of animated pictures, these references feel like genuine nods of affection rather than cheap throwaway jokes, and they never detract from the central narrative.

Continue reading Zootopia Review →

Room’s premise is interesting enough that, even if it were a complete failure, it would be worth seeing. The film is presented entirely from the viewpoint of Jack, a five-year-old boy who has lived his entire life inside a garden shed. His concept of reality is what he can physically touch inside of Room. Anything outside exists in “outer space,” and all of the people and places he sees on television are simply unreal. The psychological state is both fascinating and completely believable, but also prevents him from understanding how dire his situation is: he’s being held captive along with his mother by a psychopathic rapist who also happens to be his own biological father.

By presenting the story from Jack’s point of view, the film plays with the discrepancy between what we understand to be happening and the actual narration. Jack talks excitedly about the TV world, and the other planets with dinosaurs and dogs and all of the other things that he knows don’t actually exist, yet as an audience we feel constrained and discomforted by the tiny room that represents all of Jack’s known existence. As for his mother, we know what’s happening every night when “Old Nick” pays her a visit, and we understand what she’s talking about when she explains her kidnapping story to her son. But Jack doesn’t, so when he explodes at his mother and calls her a “liar,” we empathize more with her than our narrator.

Continue reading Room Review →

Depending on which point in its runtime you examine, Brooklyn can appear to be about various different things. It begins as an immigrant’s tale, but that gives way to romance, and that too ultimately slides into the background to highlight the feeling of returning home. However, despite the shifts in focus, Brooklyn never feels schizophrenic or overlong, as all three acts are deftly grounded by an overarching theme of belonging.

It also helps that all three acts are so masterfully executed. There are templates for how these stories are supposed to work, and while Brooklyn never strays too far from them, it tweaks each one to feel specific to its narrative. When main protagonist Eilis leaves Ireland to come work in Brooklyn, the film makes it clear that she doesn’t really feel at home in EITHER location. In Ireland, she is a shy wallflower with no real profession, unlikely to marry into a happy life or provide one for herself. But in America, she faces the same feeling of alienation that many other immigrant stories chronicle. She gets homesick, but as an audience we are aware that she has little back home to return to.

Continue reading Brooklyn Review →

There’s no doubt that The Revenant is an impressive film. Shot entirely with natural light, director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu put his cast and crew through hell, filming in difficult environments at trying hours and incorporating some extremely long shots. Actors had to wrangle with the environment on top of their characters, especially Leonardo DiCaprio, who gives his most physical performance to date.  Much has already been written about how he ate raw liver for one particular scene, and the Hollywood star and hearthrob deserves credit for committing 100% to a role that lacks any sort of vanity.

But despite the impressive craft that went into the creation of The Revenant, the film itself is a disappointment. If anything, the gorgeous digital cinematography  and painstakingly blocked long-takes of the film feels a bit at odds with its rough, dirty aesthetics.  A similar style was utilized in Birdman, but there the content fit the stylization, with the unblinking cinematography matching the intensity and mounting stress of directing a stage play. Although The Revenant does contain a handful of extremely tense moments, all empowered by the film’s formal choices, the majority of the film exists in the lull between action sequences.

Continue reading The Revenant Review →