Dahl and Anderson Short Film Collection (10.27.23)

 

It might damage my film nerd cred a bit to admit this, but before this year I had never seen a film by director/writer Wes Anderson. Thanks to cultural osmosis I was nonetheless already familiar with a lot of Anderson’s favorite tropes and quirks going into the theater, however—ensemble casts, pretty color schemes, and inventive visuals, to name a few. And while Anderson seems to prefer directing stories that he has at least co-written, he also appears to be a big fan of Roald Dahl; In 2009 he adapted the British author’s Fantastic Mr. Fox to great critical acclaim, and now, fourteen years later, he has returned once more to the Dahl collection to produce four short films based on four of Dahl’s short stories, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison. Of these four, I recommend Henry Sugar for its simplistic inventiveness alone. The other three are significantly less interesting, mostly because the stories they are based on don’t offer much in the way of plot or creative opportunities.  

At forty minutes in length, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the longest of the Anderson-Dahl short film collection, and every minute of it is a delight. The film is written in such a way that it feels like a live-action picture book reading—characters in the scenes narrate events as they happen as asides to the audience, sets change in real-time much like they would in a stage play, and there is no music to speak of. The story and moral are simple, and by the time the screen fades to black and the credits roll, things are tied up in a little bow, a nice little tale for a nice little time.  

The other three stories I am much more conflicted about. While Henry Sugar feels like a complete story, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison feel more like superfluous anecdotes that don’t really go anywhere or mean anything. “Don’t really go anywhere” is pulling double duty in the meaning department here, as the characters don't really go anywhere physically, unlike in Henry Sugar were the sets and scene transitions were some of the best parts. And while all four short films feature wonderful ensemble casts made up of accomplished actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley, the direction seems to have been for them to speak their lines as monotonously as possible, giving the impression that they were middle school theater students doing their very first run through of the fall play. Maybe this is one of the quirky things Anderson always likes to do? I wouldn’t know. But I did find that this choice occasionally made my mind wander as people droned on and on.  

But hey, they’re all short and harmless. You have very little to lose by firing one of these up on Netflix if you’re bored.   

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan, The Rat Catcher, and Poison are now available on Netflix.  

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on October 27th, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com/

 

The Burial (10.20.23)

 

              I am a simple man. Often times I look into a movie or TV show a bit before deciding to review it (avoiding the reviews of others as to not influence my own opinion beforehand, of course), but other times I simply see Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones on a cover together while scrolling through my streaming service options and I click it. It doesn’t hurt when the title of the film is something vaguely intriguing in and of itself, like, say, The Burial. This is what happened last night when I opened my Amazon Prime streaming app in search of something to watch, and it is nice to have my simpleness rewarded: The Burial, a courtroom drama with a healthy dose of social and racial commentary mixed in, is quite good thanks in no small part to the electrifying performance of its cast, even if it is a bit unsubtle at times.

              Normally I would avoid a film described as a “courtroom drama” like a swarm of flying, plague-infected sharks, but The Burial successfully entertained me simply because the cast is so incredibly watchable. Jamie Foxx gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the charismatic Willie E. Gary, a star attorney who knows he’s awesome, relishes this fact, yet doesn’t let it make him unlikeable or out-of-touch. At first I couldn’t tell if Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Gary’s client and funeral home director Jeremiah O’Keefe, was giving a more subdued performance in contrast to Foxx’s broader one or was simply phoning things in, but it eventually became clear that it was the former. The two compliment each other so well that it’s hard to believe the choice wasn’t intentional, and the friendship that blossoms between their characters is hard not to smile at.

              It was a bit odd how often the subject of race came up in a court case that essentially boiled down to one white guy suing another white guy for breach of contract, but the social commentary this offered drew some interesting parallels between the history of racial discrimination in the United States and the dangers of unchecked greed in a capitalistic society. Sometimes the message was offered a bit heavy handed, but more often than not it was done quite well, making not only for an interesting courtroom battle but also a nice story of brotherhood and friendship between Gary and O’Keefe. I don’t believe that the world should be colorblind; we should celebrate our differences just as we celebrate the things we have in common, but when it comes to the law the lady with the scales should really keep that blindfold on. This is not the case in The Burial, but this is presenting things as they are, not as they should be. So while the subject of race might seem like an odd pairing with this clash of businessmen over a contract it really does make sense and it really does work well, much like the combination of Foxx and Jones.

              The Burial is now available on Amazon Prime.

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on October 20^th, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com/

No One Will Save You (10.06.23)

 

Although I’ve been freaked out by fictional aliens before—the alien from Alien, the thing from The Thing, the potato-headed creep from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial—I have never considered myself afraid of aliens like I am of serial killers and ghosts and the like. Maybe it’s because while the more earthbound spooks can theoretically get at you anywhere, I have no plans on ever going to space or Antarctica or into a Stephen Spielberg film. I do frequently go home, though. That happens to be where I live. So when a movie drops about freaky aliens invading someone’s house I take notice. This time that film was No One Will Save You, a quite effective horror piece that stands apart thanks to its fantastic central performance, admirable CGI, and interesting framing.

There are less than ten spoken words in No One Will Save You, a bold choice that could have gone wrong in multiple ways if it weren’t for Kaitlyn Dever, who plays our main character Brynn, as well as some good old fashioned “show, don’t tell" storytelling on behalf of the screenwriters and director. Dever’s presence and command of the screen is astounding, making us care about and sympathize with Brynn despite the fact that we go into the film with only vague hints of her backstory and almost never hear her talk. All we know at first is that she is the town pariah and that, if the title is to believed, she won’t have anyone to turn to when things start to go down.

The film rarely lets up when this happens, ratcheting up the tension and keeping it there. The aliens are appropriately scary, always showing some new disturbing trait just when you thought you had them all figured out. As Jaws taught us, the less we see of a movie monster the scarier it is, and while this holds true of the aliens in No One Will Save You the CGI used to render them is done well enough that they are still scary when you do get an eyeful. The sound design and directing adds to the visuals, keeping things dark and creepy even when the action moves to the daytime.

And that ending? Well, let’s just say that it is one that I was thinking about long after the film ended. The lack of narrative handholding that makes Brynn's backstory so interesting is felt up until the credits roll, leaving the end up for debate and interpretation. Or I’m just a rube who thinks a lack of clarity is the same as being artsy. It’s one of the two.

Even at ninety minutes No One Will Save You does occasionally feel long, but I think this speaks more to the tension present in the film than any perceived pacing issues. It’s a tight, effective thriller that is a good choice for this upcoming spooky season, and if the creep factor doesn’t stick with you the ending will.

No One Will Save You is now available on Hulu. 

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on October 6^th, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com.

A Million Miles Away (09.29.23)

 

Too often do we focus on “firsts” to judge whether or not something is inspiring. The first person to get the top of Mt. Everest, the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic, the first man on the moon. As I sat down to watch A Million Miles Away I assumed it would be about the first Mexican-American to go to space. This turned out not to be the case (it was actually Franklin Chang Diaz), but Jose “The First Migrant Worker in Space"  Hernandez's story is no less inspirational, even if the movie based on his life is not as ambitious as the man himself.

A Million Miles Away stars Michael Pena as Jose Hernandez and Rosa Salazar as his wife Adela, a pair that make for some very easy viewing. Their chemistry is genuine and their performances are heartfelt and well done, as are those of everyone else in their orbit. A Million Miles Away is strongest when it focuses on the family dynamics of the Hernandez clan, affectionately showing that when one person excels it is usually with the help of many unseen and sometimes underappreciated coaches and cheerleaders. The performances and focus give A Million Miles Away an irresistible emotional core to its quintessential American Dream narrative, a core that sustains it when another movie might have started running on fumes.

If the film sags it is because of its script, which is not as interesting as it could have been. The dialogue is fine but not particularly snappy, a fact that can be easy to overlook when you have people like Pena and Salazar delivering the lines. And while it may closely resemble reality, the fact that Hernandez’s journey is so prototypical of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps tale that has enthralled hopeful immigrants for generations also means that the film sometimes feels like a cliché, or at least has moments that feel cliché. This might seem a bit unfair to real-life events, but even the narrative embellishments have an air of familiarity (How many times have we seen a butterfly metaphor in films like this? I feel like it’s a lot). Some additional time fleshing out the relationships between Jose and those close to him might have been nice as well, because while family is the driving force of this film it also feels oddly secondary, at least when compared to Hernandez’s ultimate goal of going to space.  All of this is to say that A Million Miles Away doesn’t take any chances from a movie-making standpoint, instead mostly letting its sentimentality speak for itself.

But speak for itself it does. A Million Miles Away is a good time that will remind you that when you shoot for the stars you sometimes just might make it there. It’s sometimes overly fluffy and sometimes doesn’t have much substance under the surface, but it has its heart in the right place, and that’s enough for me.

A Million Miles Away is now available on Amazon Prime. 

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on September 29^th, 2023. Visit at www.keizertimes.com.