Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on November 18th, 2015
“Los Angeles is a beautifully wrapped lie”
Tangerine is a rather interesting comedy that is very reminiscent of Robert Altman’s ensemble comedies of the 1970’s. The film’s writing is especially intelligent given the contemporary issues it addresses, such as: transgendered women, prostitution, the entertainment industry and how it affects the lower class. Most of these issues are not directly addressed; they are represented in very minute but profound ways. While I really appreciated a lot of the concepts within the writing and a lot of the directorial choices, I did not enjoy this film as much as I had hoped to.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on November 17th, 2015
A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence is the title of a Swedish film that won the top award at Venice Film Festival. Many critics think it is one of the best movies of the year. It is also a movie that relatively few people will see. The main reason most people won't see it is because it is an extremely odd film. It could be called boring and fascinating in the same breath. The film is made up a series of master shots depicting events that have very little narrative clarity. Some characters show up periodically but with little sense that their actions have any potency or potential purpose. The title suggests an underlying philosophy of existential confusion. The pigeon is only depicted briefly twice in the film, but the idea is that a pigeon would have very little understanding of human behavior. The film also shows that human beings have very little understanding of human behavior. The various people who float through the movie all seem disconnected to anything that is happening to them. This is the final film in a trilogy by Roy Andersson including You, The Living (2007) and Songs From The Second Floor (2000). It is staged like a series of mini-plays with the characters barely moving in many instances, seemingly caught in some surreal dream. Many events don't seem to relate to others, but two hapless brothers are the most noticeable. They sell novelty items (vampire teeth with extra long fangs, laugh bags) because they want people to have fun. No one in this movie has any fun for even one second. The film is somewhat funny, depicting characters that are hopelessly grim and disconnected, but there are some moments that are bleakly horrifying while they are hallucinatory and confusing. The most obvious and chilling example is a group of slaves being led into a giant rotating drum that is sitting on top of a fire pit that has been set ablaze. It is done by soldiers for a group of finely dressed elderly people staring on dispassionately, totally unaffected by the horror. Another setting is a bar populated mostly by women who are suddenly besieged by the Swedish king and soldiers from two centuries earlier. They institute and implement edicts that long ago lost their relevance. The clear intent of the director is to confuse and alienate a modern audience with an uncomfortable pace and sense of unsettling illogic.
This is clearly a film that is only for seekers of unusual art. Some people will want to see it a few times to decipher the strange tableaux. There is a unique beauty to the crazy display of static boredom, but the average moviegoer will certainly walk away confused and alienated after the first viewing. The film is for sophisticated tastes, but is not easy to recommend to anyone. Intellectuals will respond to the droll absurdity that outlines a society that is dead but still attempting to exist in a zombie-like fashion. The message is subtle and open to interpretation, but it clearly shows modern life as hopelessly suffocating.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 16th, 2015
The geriatric care wing of a hospital — where the employees are undermanned and overworked, and many of the patients are in a near-catatonic state — is not the most obvious sitcom setting. That's partly the reason it took me a while to warm up to the first season of HBO's Getting On, an adaptation of the British series of the same name. The biggest drawback, however, was that those initial episodes didn't seem very interested in shaking the grim specter of the original show. But what a difference a year makes!
Before I get into all the ways Getting On improved during its second season, let's do a quick summary. The show is exclusively set within the Billy Barnes Extended Care Unit at Mount Palms Hospital in Long Beach, California. The staff includes Dr. Jenna James (Laurie Metcalf), the unit's spectacularly off-putting and self-centered director of medicine. Dawn Forchette (Alex Borstein) is the eager-to-please head ward nurse who is a professional doormat for Dr. James and a romantic doormat for on-again/off-again flame Patsy de la Serda (Mel Rodriguez), the unit's supervising nurse/resident stickler. Finally, there's overwhelmed, underpaid DiDi Ortley (Niecy Nash), who remains the most openly compassionate staff member.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on November 13th, 2015
I am not going to lie: I am a complete sucker for the “life swap” genre of film. Whether it is Freaky Friday, The Parent Trap and their remakes, or the fantastic Face/Off. These films always are entertaining for me, as I take great joy watching actors and actresses overcome the challenge of acting out the minute characteristics of the other actor (not just the character). Christmas Trade is no different; the two actors do a good job of keeping their portrayals believable. However, it misses several opportunities to be my second-favorite “life swap” film to date (I don’t think anyone can top Cage and Travolta in Face/Off).
Robbie Taylor (Michael Campion) and his father, Mitch (William Baldwin), are each struggling with the loss of the mother figure. Mitch is doing his best to move away from the tragedy by becoming romantically involved with Chloe (Denise Richards) and keeping himself busy with work as a lawyer. As a result, Robbie is unable to interact with his ideal father figure on a regular basis, causing him to mildly act out at school. One day a mysterious package containing a stuffed animal arrives at their doorstep and magically switches their lives.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on November 13th, 2015
“Their channels have millions of subscribers. Their videos have billions of views. They are the future of dance.”
The definition of “making it” as a dancer has shifted over the years. Movies have dramatized this struggle by having its hoofing heroes struggle to earn street cred, gain admission into some prestigious dance academy, or make noise on Broadway. But thanks to social media and websites like YouTube, wannabe dance sensations can take a more DIY approach to stardom. The best parts of Breaking Through brush up against that notion, but too much of the film gets drowned out by groan-worthy dance flick cliches.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 13th, 2015
Uncanny is definitely an apt title for this science fiction film: a story that deals with possibly the most realistic artificial intelligence entity ever created, in the realm of this film’s universe that is. The impact of this film will likely be dampened due to the release of a recent realistic science fiction drama that will not be named. In the beginning, the film did not fully capture my attention as I had an idea of how things were going to play out. That said, what I imagine could not have been further from the reality. It is rare that a film catches me off guard, and it is also a pleasant surprise when it does. So in that regard, my hat is off to this film.
Reporter Joy Andrews (Lucy Griffiths, Constantine) is selected to conduct a week-long interview with genius and recluse David Kressen (Mark Weber, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) a pioneer of technology said to have created something unlike anything ever seen. Their interaction gets off to the rocky start as the two size each other up and Joy remains unimpressed with Kressen until he reveals his innovation: Adam (David Clayton Rogers, Jane By Design), a fully functioning artificially intelligent humanoid. After the revelation Joy becomes fully engrossed with the story, and the trio spend a great deal of time together.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 12th, 2015
“A straight line…you just go, and you never…look…back.”
Well, I hope you’re ready to have everything you know about the Terminator franchise turned on its head. As a franchise known for his alternative timelines where the things we come to know are often turned around, my previous statement may sound like the usual bread and butter to you. However, I must say that I feel like the latest incarnation of the franchise, Terminator Genisys, has really outdone itself this time. As far as reboots go, this may be one of the best that I have seen in quite some time as we are introduced to a completely new cast (well, almost completely new cast) portraying characters already near and dear to our hearts. Terminator Genisys was an action-packed experience sure to leave the audience entertained.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 11th, 2015
"Different, entirely."
I have been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid. Mixed amidst those Universal horror films I watched with my Pop on weekend chiller shows was an occasional Universal Holmes film with Basil Rathbone as the master of deduction. Soon followed the Doyle books, and a new world was opened for me forever. Since those days we have seen every kind of incarnation of the character possible, or so I thought. I've seen Holmes as a child in Spielberg's Young Sherlock Holmes. There have been several comedies and even a musical or two. Robert Downey Jr. has turned him into an action hero, and Benedict Cumberbatch has brought him into the modern world. I even remember Larry Hackman's television version of a motorcycle cop who has a head injury and believes he's the famous detective, gaining the requisite deductive skills in the process. It was called The Return Of The World's Greatest Detective. Star Trek fans reveled in Data's immersion in the detective's world, even bringing back his infamous nemesis as one of The Next Generation's more sympathetic bad guys. But in all of these incarnations I have never seen anything as truly remarkable as Mr. Holmes. It is most decidedly something different entirely.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 11th, 2015
I don't think there has ever really been a great film about a great writer. We naturally compare their lives to works of great fiction. Great fiction tends to distill the tedium and awkwardness out of real life. Real life can be exhausting in the day-to-day disappointments that can sometimes be wrapped in small victories. David Foster Wallace was a great writer. This is almost universally acknowledged. David Foster Wallace no longer is because he hung himself in 2008 at age 46. Many people who were in his life are now very protective of him and his privacy. They are angry at the idea of a movie being made about his life. Authors like J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon have spent their lifetimes being reclusive, but the fact that they had published and provoked our thought means we are entitled to explore their lives. The problem always will be rising to the occasion and doing justice to the thoughts they provoked.
The End of the Tour is about five days a reporter for Rolling Stone spent with Wallace. The journalist was David Lipsky, who had written a novel of his own and was clearly in the grips of some hero worship. The hero he met was self-conscious to a nearly painful degree. He also seems to be struggling to be an average guy. I don't think the movie is a good indication of what Wallace was really like. But then, let's just look at this as a movie first. As I said, I don't think the author should be protected and hidden from us because he had faults and deficiencies. I think we should keep an open mind as to what the truth really is. I have listened to interviews done with Wallace, and he always comes off as reflective, thoughtful, truthful, intelligent, profound, and open-minded. I think the intention of this movie was to reveal a more unvarnished view of the writer.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on November 9th, 2015
Tibet has been under Chinese oppression for more than fifty years. Recently, a wave of self-immolation has become a disturbing form of protest among Tibetan monks, with approximately 138 incidents since 2011. This alarming number of self-immolations is essentially the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for the filmmaker, as that is a theme that is brought up quite a few times in the peaceful protests depicted in this documentary. However, what earned this film a four-star rating is the nuances of a man’s journey to understand himself within the entirety of the Tibetan conflict.
Lotem Namling is an exiled Tibetan musician living in Switzerland. The increase in Tibetan monks’ self-immolation protests greatly disturbs him, so he begins a journey from Europe to India, dragging a large black coffin with the words “Free Tibet” painted onto its side. As Lotem’s journey progresses, the mentality behind his peaceful protesting seems to sink down into that of radical violence. Only through a meeting with the Dalai Lama does his anger and radicalism subside.
