Tag Archives: #creative

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

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Release: Friday, June 24, 2022 (limited)

👀 Showtime

Written by: Dean Fleischer Camp; Jenny Slate; Nick Paley

Directed by: Dean Fleischer Camp

Starring: Jenny Slate; Dean Fleischer Camp; Isabella Rossellini; Thomas Mann; Rosa Salazar; Lesley Stahl

Distributor: A24

 

*****/*****

For a movie whose star stands a whopping one-inch tall, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On packs a sizable emotional punch. A runner-up at the 95th Academy Awards in the Best Animated Film category, this gentle reminder of the importance of friendship, community and bravery in the face of uncertainty finds the little guy really coming out of his shell as he tries to reunite with his extended family.

Shot in stop-motion and at basically ankle-height, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On acts as a continuation of a series of YouTube short films featuring the talkative, inquisitive little mollusk but it ups the ante in terms of the challenges he faces and territory he has to cover. At his size he obviously has to deal with the physical obstacle course of navigating ordinary household objects — the laundry room is a particularly treacherous place — but this is also a journey of self-discovery that will require him to face some of his biggest fears, a prospect that may sound cliché but is handled in surprisingly mature and interesting ways.

Once part of a bustling community of shells, Marcel, whose whispery, childlike voice is rendered in a seemingly impossible pitch by SNL alum Jenny Slate, now lives only with his grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) and his pet lint Alan. They reside in an Airbnb whose previous occupants (Thomas Mann and Rosa Salazar) fought so much Marcel and company came up with designated fall-out shelters to retreat from the chaos. Unfortunately that plan backfired during a particularly bad blowup and the group got split up. Since then the two have managed to eke out a quiet if lonely existence, spending their days in the garden and their nights in front of the TV sharing a mutual admiration for 60 Minutes host Lesley Stahl.

Our way into this world is through aspiring filmmaker Dean (Dean Fleischer Camp) who has just rented the place following some turmoil in his own life. Empathetic to his housemate’s situation but also impressed by his resourcefulness and positivity he decides to film Marcel’s daily activities and uploads the footage to the internet, which then goes viral. Complications arise when Marcel reaches out to his rapidly growing fanbase for help in tracking down his family — a development that ends up bringing new levels of stress and danger to their doorstep.

The pitfalls of the internet may not be as topical a theme as it was when Marcel first debuted on YouTube, but the concept opens up the movie in ways that are unexpectedly affecting. As the national media get involved — even the 60 Minutes crew reaches out with a request for an interview — Marcel grows more resistant to the idea of allowing more strangers into his life and possibly destroying what little he has left. Yet Connie, ever a beacon of wisdom, urges her grandson to embrace the opportunity for personal growth and to live a life that’s meaningful.

The collaborative screenplay (by Camp, Slate and Nick Paley) is surely heartwarming but the craftsmanship takes the experience to another level. Scaled down to proportions that are amusing but also practical and lifelike (where else are you going to find tennis balls being repurposed as vehicles, or the muzzles of champagne bottles functioning as upscale furniture?) Marcel’s world is the beautifully ergonomic result of some clearly painstaking effort — one careless bump of an elbow or a knee and the whole scene, the whole world falls apart. The minutiae of stop-motion animation is a labor of love that puts to shame some of the most elaborately detailed CGI showdowns.

The aesthetic makes it tempting to describe Marcel the Shell with Shoes On as a playful thing destined to be limited to a younger audience. But just as there are new things to discover in the nooks and crannies of just about every shot, there is an undercurrent of melancholy, even darkness to the story — to a few of Marcel’s pithy observations about the world around him. The dialogue is as witty as it is incisive, like a precocious child unaware of their own impact. 

While there is some drag to the running time and some of the plot points feel rushed, the filmmakers justify the big-screen treatment by making Marcel’s journey a universal experience, one of human emotion and connection rather than just a series of cutesy questions and observations remarking on his diminutive stature. There’s significant growth for our protagonist, which seems a weird thing to say about a shell, but there you go.

setting up the IMAX screening for the public

Moral of the Story: I was expecting to get along great with the Marcel the Shell movie; I was not expecting to be moved as deeply as I was by it. A beautiful, bittersweet little adventure that has something to offer viewers of all ages. 

Rated: PG

Running Time: 80 mins. 

Quoted: “My cousin fell asleep in a pocket and that’s why I don’t like the saying, ‘everything comes out in the wash,’ because sometimes it doesn’t. Or sometimes it does and they’re just like a completely different person.”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Everything Everywhere All At Once

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Release: Friday, March 25, 2022

👀 Theater

Written by: Dan Kwan; Daniel Scheinert

Directed by: Dan Kwan; Daniel Scheinert

Starring: Michelle Yeoh; Ke Huy Quan; Stephanie Hsu; Jamie Lee Curtis; James Hong; Jenny Slate

Distributor: A24 

 

 

***/*****

No one makes a movie like Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, nor does anyone dare try. Relatively unknown as the guys behind viral music videos such as DJ Snake’s Turn Down For What, the writer/directors etched their shared first-name moniker into audiences’ minds forever with their supremely strange feature film debut Swiss Army Man in 2016. Now they return with a proposition that makes their first effort seem unadventurous by comparison.

With a fatter budget and increased confidence Daniels take massive swings for the fences with their own indie flavored multiverse movie. Everything Everywhere All At Once is undeniably the product of two of the most inventive and unapologetically odd filmmakers running around Hollywood at the moment. It is also a rare casualty of production company A24’s artist-friendly approach. Unfettered weirdness mutates from exhilarating to eventually exhausting over the course of two long and chaotic hours.

In the off-kilter and unpredictable world of Daniels nothing is certain except death, taxes and this pesky thing called Jobu Tupaki, an anarchic entity intent on destroying literally everything in existence. The story centers on a Chinese-American family whose matriarch is unwittingly pulled into a confrontation with this threat. In acquiring all kinds of abilities and insight jumping in and out of the various lives she might have lived she becomes the only one who can stop it. However, her ability to succeed may well hinge on her willingness to make amends with those closest to her.

The simple yet heavy question “what if my life went differently” is at the heart of this highly cerebral and often ridiculous journey. When we first meet her, Evelyn Wang (a dynamic Michelle Yeoh) is not exactly living the high life. Struggling to make ends meet with her laundromat, she is preparing for an audit by the IRS (represented by an amusingly frumpy Jamie Lee Curtis) while nervously awaiting the arrival of her intimidating father Gong Gong (James Hong). All is not well on the home front either as husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), at wit’s end trying to make their life happy, trails her around with divorce papers. Meanwhile daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) wants to introduce Gong Gong to her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel) but Evelyn doesn’t think that is a good idea.

There is enough tension and acrimony in the early going to serve a compelling family drama on network television. But this is Daniels, not This is Us, and so the film with all of its fantastical elements takes a rather circuitous route in elucidating what really matters. When we arrive at the IRS building the story takes on an entirely new life — The Matrix meets Boots Riley — and it’s as though Daniels have bailed on their early suggestion of more intimate drama. In an elevator, a transformation occurs and suddenly Evelyn’s pushover hubby becomes a kung fu master brimming with charisma. Like Morpheus, this more assertive Waymond from the “alpha-verse” has searched far and wide to find the right one for the job.

As it was with Swiss Army Man, the established rules and mechanisms that enable the action to tick forward can be challenging to accept. Here you’ll receive a crash-course in “verse-jumping,” learn what “mind-splintering” is (and perhaps, like me, experience it yourself) and encounter bagel-worshipping cults and people with hot dogs for fingers. Absurdism is part of the filmmakers’ appeal, but Everything Everywhere takes liberties with your goodwill — a moment in which a man flings himself across a room for the specific purpose of impaling himself on a sex toy seems like an easy cut to make.

Fortunately the performances are really good, particularly the dynamic between Yeoh and Quan. Together they imbue the narrative with just enough humanity to make the insanity relatable. Yeoh is a force to be reckoned with as she multitasks as both hero and an everywoman. Semi-retired actor Ke Huy Quan makes a triumphant return to the screen, falling toward the center of emotional devastation as a man who can’t imagine any version of his own life without his wife. As the daughter, Hsu fits in nicely as well, creating a character full of believable torment — a young woman caught between cultures who never seems to measure up to expectations.

Everything Everywhere toes the line between artistic freedom and pretentiousness. For all that this swirling mass of energy and ideas does differently and at times movingly, the cumulative effect is not entirely satisfying, the payoff frustratingly minimal for all the energy required to keep pace.

Gonna take this to another level.

Moral of the Story: Kung Fu Bagel. Enter the Bagel. Big Bagel in Little China. Whichever way you want to slice it, this crazy visual feast is unlike anything you’ll see this year. Personally, I don’t think the film’s messaging is particularly original or profound, but there’s certainly stuff here to strike an emotional chord. And I also do appreciate how the film’s conflict revolves around imperfect people vs chaos, rather than pure good vs pure evil. The villain(y) is refreshingly nuanced. 

Rated: R (for rocks!)

Running Time: 139 mins.

Quoted: “So, even though you have broken my heart yet again, I wanted to say, in another life, I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you.”

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com 

Titane

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Release: Friday, October 1, 2021 (limited)

👀 Theater

Written by: Julia Ducournau

Directed by: Julia Ducournau

Starring: Agathe Rousselle; Vincent Lindon; Garance Marillier; Bertrand Bonello; Adèle Guigue

 

 

 

*****/*****

Really the best way to follow up a critical success is to make another, while further pushing boundaries to see what you might get away with. Titane certainly tests some limits. This is a potent, unpredictable and morally challenging exhibition that will either have you recoiling or marveling at the audacity of the artist.

A story involving cars, sex and violence sounds pretty mainstream but then this is Julia Ducournau, far from your garden variety director. Thus, gearheads and Fast & the Furious fans need not apply. For the moment, Ducournau seems enamored with transformative narratives that fixate on the body and alienate her protagonists from their own skin. But where her cannibalistic début feature Raw was more literal, in Titane it’s more about skin as one’s interiority, their sense of self. Though vaguely thematically related I suspect not even Raw‘s hard-to-stomach content would serve as adequate prep for the wild and uncomfortable ride she offers with her follow-up.

Titane deals with a young woman named Alexia who we first meet as a child (chillingly played by Adèle Guigue) in the jolting opening sequence — a car crash caused by her distracted father (Bertrand Bonello) which leaves the little girl with a titanium plate in her skull. Jumping forward in time Ducournau’s camera shadows older Alexia (Agathe Rouselle) as she heads in for another shift as a sexed-up model working seedy auto shows. When not writhing around suggestively on top of shiny hoods she’s signing autographs for desperate dudes . . . and murdering them when they try to get cute.

Indeed, it doesn’t take long to appreciate Alexia’s wired differently than most, the scar on the side of her head a kind of red marking to warn off her prey. And her prey turn out to be alarmingly susceptible. Acts that begin in self-defense become upsettingly random. We also quickly learn her sexual preferences are in constant flux and, uh, exotic.

There’s a girl, Justine (Garance Marillier), and a steamy moment where you begin to believe the movie is about to course-correct into a more familiar drama about being lost and desperately hoping to be found. However all bets are off when lovemaking with a car turns out far more productive than with her coworker, the former leaving Alexia pregnant and the latter devolving into a multi-room, multi-victim bloodbath that forces her to go into hiding by committing to an elaborate ruse that will have profound physical and psychological impacts.

Though the surreal, foreboding atmosphere never relents and disbelief and discomfort remain constant companions, Ducournau’s monstrosity (a term of endearment, in this case) evolves as a tale of two measurably different halves, distinguished not by quality but rather purpose as well as a noticeable shift in tone away from something fiercely feminine and toward brute masculinity. All the while this moody, bathed-in-neon head trip also morphs into something that for awhile seems out of reach; it becomes relatable.

French screen veteran Vincent Lindon provides a crucial link and the sledgehammer performance needed to match his co-star. He plays an aging fire chief who continues to mourn the disappearance of his boy Adrien ten years ago while blasting himself through with steroid injections, often to the point of collapse. When Adrien seems to reappear in police custody joy is soon replaced by concern over his son’s mute, sullen behavior. He attempts to integrate Adrien back into society, with mixed results.

In only her second film the 37-year-old provocateur is a rising star in her own right. The fact that she manages to turn so many negatives into a small but notable positive takes serious talent. But let’s not get things more twisted than they already are. There are many aspects that help inform the off-kilter vibe she’s going for — the rattling, industrial score and disturbing make-up work loom large — but not one thing, not one person commands your attention like newcomer Agathe Rousselle, an androgynous actor who burns up the screen, leveraging her lack of A-lister conspicuousness into one of the most compelling characters and performances this year has to offer, one that’s hauntingly human-adjacent.

The Palme d’Or winner at Cannes 2021, Titane might be memorable for timing alone, winning in a year in which the pomp and glam returns to the French Riviera after the event’s first hiatus since World War II. But Ducournau has the bizarre content and undeniable confidence to justify the strong reaction. Titane isn’t a crowdpleaser, it’s a crowd shocker, designed to start a conversation or quite possibly end one.

Not quite Titanic

Moral of the Story: I stop short of saying best movie of the year because ‘best’ is such an awkward term to apply to something so uncompromising and unusual, a movie touting a very challenging character to root for, no less. So to be more accurate Titane sits comfortably among the most unique cinematic experiences you are going to have in 2021. For all that is bizarre and unpleasant, I put it in the category of must-see-to-believe (or not). A stunning effort from a name already making noise in the industry. Spoken in French with English subtitles. 

Rated: hard R

Running Time: 108 mins.

Quoted: “My name is Alexia!” 

Strap in and hold on for dear life in the Official Trailer from Neon Productions here!

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Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; www.chicago.suntimes.com

Sorry to Bother You

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Release: Friday, July 6, 2018 (limited) 

👀 Theater

Written by: Boots Riley 

Directed by: Boots Riley 

Starring: LaKeith Stanfield; Tessa Thompson; Jermaine Fowler; Danny Glover; Armie Hammer

Distributor: Mirror Releasing

*****/*****

Sorry to Bother You is the filmmaking début of Boots Riley, and the only thing it may be more than ambitious is strange. In its strangeness it is both brave and brilliant — the kind of pure cinematic experience we didn’t even realize we were missing until it became a reality. Kind of like Swiss Army Man from a couple years back, whose flatulence-driven plot still wafts through my mind.

Amazingly, that reality almost never was. Raymond “Boots” Riley, heretofore known for his community activism and anticapitalist views as channeled through the hiphop-funk group The Coup, was one Dave Eggers away from not being discovered. The award-winning novelist (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; The Circle), having been so impressed by the screenplay Riley had been carrying around with him, decided to publish it in a special issue of his quarterly literary magazine McSweeney’s. This was back in 2014. Then the Sundance shuffle happened, with established talent like Guillermo del Toro and Forest Whitaker offering mentorship and crucial funding, and at the age of 47 Riley found himself uniquely positioned to express his voice from an entirely different platform.

Sorry to bury the lede, but this is really why we are here. The Oakland, California native has a powerful, distinctive voice that simply must be heard. If comparisons help, think the righteous anger of Spike Lee spritzed with the idiosyncrasy of a Michel Gondry. The end result of a long and unlikely process is a blistering satire that doesn’t make a statement — it screams it, until it goes (and bear with me here) hoarse with rage. In this film voice isn’t just some intangible quality that informs the overall piece and every element within; it becomes a very literal role player.

The hustle begins in a garage that happens to double as Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield)’s bedroom. He and his fiancé Detroit (Tessa Thompson) are desperately behind on rent and dream of the day they can afford something a little nicer, a little less garage-y. To that end Cash heads off for an interview with a telemarketing company called RegalView, while Detroit goes to work as a sign-spinning advertiser on the streets of Oakland. She also moonlights as a Banksy-esque graffiti artist for The Left Eye, a grassroots movement that protests corporations like WorryFree who have elevated the commodification of human labor into an art form. Run by cocaine enthusiast Steve Lift (a smarmy Armie Hammer), WorryFree is a massively profitable conglomerate that hires employees to unpaid, life-term contracts in exchange for food, shelter and the most stylish work uniforms you’ve ever seen.

Although invigorated by his recent employment, Cash soon turns to despair when he struggles to make any sales, despite his obedience in sticking-to-the-script. With the help of Langston (Danny Glover), a more experienced coworker, he discovers the secret to success. All he has to do is hide his real identity and sound white, ideally like David Cross. Because of company ageism narrative contrivance, it’s the young and eager who quickly ascends the ranks of RegalView, destined to land amongst the company’s elite as a “power caller.” (I would explain what that is but it actually sounds more mysterious if I don’t.)

Meanwhile, the workhorses in the cubicles down below, led by Squeeze (Steven Yuen) and Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), are starting to organize for better working conditions. Despite his initial involvement in the uprising, Cassius is nevertheless given that promotion, and finds himself having to choose between pursuing a life of greater comfort and supporting his friends fighting in the trenches. Sure, it’s pretty obvious which option he is going to choose. It’s the specifics of that choice that make this an adventure unlike any other. And so we pass through the same bizarre thresholds alongside Cash, both amused and disturbed by his actions (and sometimes the lack thereof).

With Sorry to Bother You (the film bears the name of The Coup’s sixth studio album, released in 2012 and based upon this very screenplay) Riley has created a reality parallel to our own in which the rules of society have a malleable property to them. He takes full advantage of the privileges of operating within the realm of magical realism. So many of the juiciest, most outrageous bits he simply can’t achieve in a more traditional comedy. The subversiveness begins with creative transitions featuring sales reps physically crashing into the living spaces of the customers they are calling, and ends in an uprising that feels mother!-esque with the way it so aggressively pursues the metaphorical.

Indeed, Sorry to Bother You hits a tipping point eventually, going from dark comedy to just plain . . . dark. Of course, it isn’t as nasty and antagonistic as anything Aronofsky has done, be they collaborations with Jennifer Lawrence or Jennifer Connelly. As far as satires go, Sorry to Bother You is right up there with the best of them. If you are listening to what the filmmaker is saying, even a little bit, then you are probably going to be leaving this one feeling as queasy as you are thrilled.

Hey kid, you ever try radio with a voice like that?

Moral of the Story: Sorry to Bother You is a modern satire that skewers so many aspects of modern American society. It isn’t just about race and class, it evaluates ambition and the kinds of sacrifices Becoming The Best requires. Perpetually forward-bounding with gusto and verve, with an intensely likable LaKeith Stanfield leading the charge, it’s a strange but powerful experience that you really shouldn’t miss out on — even when there is a percent chance greater than fifty you walk away from it feeling something other than purely amused. 

Rated: R

Running Time: 105 mins.

Quoted: “If you beautiful perversions don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll turn you into glue!”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Tangerine

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Screen Shot 2015-12-11 at 1.53.09 AM

Release: Friday, July 10, 2015 (limited)

[Netflix]

Written by: Sean Baker; Chris Bergoch

Directed by: Sean Baker

How I felt when I first tucked into indie dramedy Tangerine — yes, that film, the one shot entirely on the iPhone 5s — and how I felt when the last scene faded to black couldn’t have been more radically different feelings. Talk about a film that earns your empathy.

Introducing itself to the world at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and creating substantial buzz in film festivals the world over before opening in an elite listing of American cinemas in July, Sean Baker’s fifth feature plays out with genuine emotion and manifests as an eye-opening day-in-the-life of two transgender sex workers on the streets of Los Angeles. Offering transgender actresses Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor their break-out roles, Tangerine swells with emotion thanks in large part to the pair’s naturalistic, amusing and occasionally heartbreaking performances — performances that suggest these are much more seasoned actors than they really are.

The story tells of Rodriguez’s Sin-Dee Rella, who learns the pimp she’s in love with has had an affair during the time she had recently spent in prison. Her best friend Alexandra (Taylor) breaks the news to her in the opening scene, setting the wheels in motion for the rest of the film by triggering a reaction within Sin-Dee that suggests a history of confrontational, violent behavior. Tangerine has no interest in dwelling in the past however; it beats a path forward on the sun-scorched, unforgiving streets of Tinseltown where people do what they must to get by.

It might seem surprising, counterintuitive even, for someone to have such a reaction when hearing one’s pimp has been seeing other women. After all, this is the kind of movie that has no qualms with describing flesh as product, where “the only thing that matters is the hustle;” in this gorgeously rendered production the world can be so cruel and ugly. That painful reality is also what makes the film so good. It takes some adjusting to, there is no doubt about that. And that, too, is a painful reality in and of itself: this is a scene largely overlooked in the industry.

Baker’s smart not to keep the focus entirely on Sin-Dee’s vendetta. Factoring into the equation is a subplot involving Alexandra trying to get people to attend a show she’s putting on at a night club later in the evening — it’s Christmas Eve — and an Armenian cabbie (Karren Karagulian) who frequents transgender prostitutes when on the clock, with a wife and child waiting for him back at home. Indeed, the cast may not be extensive but it’s enough to suggest a world filled with all sorts of broken people in various states of — well, I would say ‘decay,’ but that seems . . . harsh.

Tangerine develops in such a way that you’re constantly questioning whether a script was involved, or if real people were grabbed off the street and asked to contribute bit parts. It’s a hybrid of reality TV and independent cinema, bearing traits of the former in the way characters talk, behave and treat one another. There can be a lot of drama, and if we’re talking strictly narratively, Tangerine boils down to little more than relationship issues. But focusing on the machinations of the plot ignores the soft tissue of humanity that lies underneath wigs and layers of make-up.

These aren’t people we start off easily identifying with or even liking all that much. It’s almost irrelevant that the characters we are dealing with happen to be transgender, though the distinction should still be made. This isn’t yet another indie featuring the pains of adolescence as a white cisgender male. The trio of key players all share in common a lack of self-control that, coupled with their uniquely challenging professions, make them worthy of pity. They may not ask for it, but they’re going to get it anyway. And it’s not the worst thing to feel sorry for people who are less innately vile as they are products of their environments, and possibly products of terrible upbringings.

That was the last thing I expected to feel for Sin-Dee when all was said and done. I didn’t expect to find myself finishing the film. That’s because I also didn’t anticipate the screenplay to become so involving that it obliterated any sense that Baker’s decision to capture everything on an iPhone was nothing more than a gimmick. In this film, we feel like we could have stumbled into the frame at any given point, not realizing what was actually going on. That’s a really cool feeling.

Tangerine

Recommendation: I don’t know if you can call it a classic, but Tangerine is an all-too-unique film even in an era where a growing percentage of up-and-coming filmmakers are electing to take vastly different approaches to filmmaking and storytelling. It’s an important film as it deals with a number of socially relevant issues and features impressive performances from stars who are also far too rare in an industry that claims to be representative of a larger population. Tangerine is as good as any independent release I’ve seen and with any luck it’s a matter of time before more films like it start making the rounds.

Rated: R

Running Time: 88 mins.

Quoted: “You didn’t have to Chris Brown the bitch!”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.imdb.com; http://www.villagevoice.com