The Shallows

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Tom

Release: Friday, June 24, 2016

[Theater]

Written by: Anthony Jaswinski

Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra

Blake Lively vs. Huge Shark: The Movie is a pretty sweet little thriller, a self-contained enterprise that seeks to unnerve rather than terrify by tapping into human’s innate fear of deepwater-dwelling beasts like great whites (not to mention horrifyingly large jellyfish).

Jaume Collet-Serra’s tropical-set horror/thriller is a refreshingly slight film set adrift in a sea of complex, bombastic . . . well, I’m not gonna name names or genres but we all know where I’m going with this. The premise is simple, the cast is engaged and the cinematography transports us to ‘Paradise’ with Lively’s big-wave-seeking, medical-school-abandoning Nancy Adams who has been having a rough time since the passing of her mother. Nancy has seemingly inherited her mom’s love for surfing as she finds herself now on the sands of a secluded, nameless cove — apparently the very place her mom claimed as her favorite surf spot.

This really is Lively’s movie — okay, and the shark’s, yes how could I forget — because her interactions with others, including the local with whom she hitches a ride to the beach, are limited to a flurry of brief exchanges, most of which are designed to prove that Nancy doesn’t speak very good Spanish and the locals don’t speak good English. That particular communication barrier doesn’t really matter because no one speaks Shark and that’ll come in handy more than anything later.

The Shallows is indeed an intimate experience, reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s 2011 survival drama 127 Hours at least when it comes to the harrowing quasi-first person perspective. Serra’s vision is certainly fun and exciting, but it hardly effects the emotional and psychological involvement Boyle did when James Franco decided to throw down the performance of a lifetime. In fact, in spirit this shares more in common with the personal trials we endure with Reese Witherspoon as she attempts to reconnect with herself and her family by embarking on a bold solo hike in Wild.

As Cheryl Strayed, Witherspoon’s performance was informed by a mixture of guilt and bitterness as she continued along her journey, strong emotions that only fueled her to keep going. Lively’s Nancy isn’t so much bitter as she is guilt-ridden and still at a loss for words when it comes to talking about the past. We see it in the brief glimpses we get of her sister and father via FaceTime on her phone prior to her hitting the waves. She can barely hold a conversation with her father because the conversation about why she decided to drop out of med school inevitably surfaces.

It’s probably not worth delving into character development at any great depth since that’s pretty much the extent of it. Suffice it to say there’s enough here to actually make us feel something when Nancy finds herself, ironically much like Aron Ralston, stuck between (or in this case on) a rock and a hard place when the shark’s aggressive circling pins her to a small outcrop of rock that appears at low tide. She’s only 200 yards from shore but the shark is much too fast for that to be viable option. There’s a small metallic buoy about 15 yards from the rock she could swim to when high tide reclaims the rock.

Can Nancy out-smart her toothy predator?

Boobs. We’d love to find out the answer if the cameras weren’t constantly fixated on ogling Lively’s lovely beach bod. I had a lot of fun with The Shallows — the increasingly versatile Lively is certainly committed to the material and the movie looks glorious — but some part of me can’t shake the feeling this was kind of a pervy shoot. And that is a thought that somewhat diminishes the enjoyment I got out of a film that was never meant to be taken seriously.

Recommendation: More Deep Blue Sea than it is Jaws, The Shallows manifests as a silly but ultimately fun bit of summer escapism, one shot confidently enough to ensure those who have a mortal fear of beaches will never go near one again.

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 87 mins.

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

Inherent Vice

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Tom

Release: January 9, 2015 (limited)

[Theater]

Written by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

The Andersonian school of thought is that one ought to at least work a little for their entertainment. A movie featuring a bunch of booze, bongs and babes doesn’t seem like it would be hard to follow along with, but if you don’t know Anderson then know this: the undertaking is going to be inherently complex.

You know when you are being told that story about someone that knew someone else by way of their sister’s bestie who had a rude neighbor and it was that neighbor’s uncle who was important — and by the time Uncle has factored in to the story your attention is well on its way out the door? A similar phenomenon has been known to occur with this already infamously meandering tale about sex, drugs, a lot of paranoia and a little Private Eye-ing.

I suggest passing on this joint if you are the type to tune out of the Uncle anecdote before we even get to the Neighbor. For there are a whole lot of people to meet, an even greater pile of Hindu Kush to burn through and a sea of narrative drift and perhaps indulgently long takes to overcome before arriving at a conclusion that really doesn’t deliver much in the way of closure.

Joaquin Phoenix is tapped to portray a character in a story everyone thought impossible to adapt to the silver screen. Though the buzz has morphed into something else now: the adaptation is possible but perhaps not without throwing a lot of people, the stoned and the sober alike, into confusion after one too many character introductions. But let’s start from the beginning. Doc Sportello is awoken on his surf-side couch in southern California by the sudden reappearance of his ex, Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), who tells him she’s got a new boyfriend.

The new Mr. Wonderful is someone of fair prominence, a shady real estate developer named Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Roberts). There is a plot, either perceived or actual — just like a great many other situations at hand here — by Wolfmann’s wife (Serena Scott Thomas) and her extra-somethin’-somethin’ (Jordan Christian-Hearn) to have Mickey institutionalized for his wanting to join a clan of neo-Nazis, despite his being brought up Jewish.

This appears to be mission numero uno. On top of this, however, a smorgasbord of subplots start working their way into the fold, including one involving one of Mickey’s bodyguards, who currently owes a lot of dough to some thug named . . . ah, what’s the use with names . . . the guy is played by Michael Kenneth Williams. When Doc goes to investigate the bodyguard’s whereabouts he stumbles upon not a private home but a brothel; when he’s knocked unconscious there he awakens not to the sight of two beautiful girls fighting over his stash of smokable items but rather a disgruntled right-wing, anti-hippie detective named (this one’s important) Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (an absolutely hilarious Josh Brolin) who demands he tell him who killed the bodyguard. And, who is responsible for the recent disappearance of Wolfmann and Shasta Fay.

Ding-ding-ding. Suddenly the priorities change for Doc. But first, another puff. Given the news of his “ex old lady,” he plunges himself deep into the murky waters of the So-Cal beach scene of the early ’70s, a scene that’s loath to obfuscate the difference between acceptable and unacceptable lifestyles — weed is for losers guys, but not cocaine — and assorted other addictions. Doc is a fish-out-of-water 9 times out of 10 as he’s high 10 times out of those same 10, possessing a kind of nonchalance that manifests more often as befuddlement. And of course Bigfoot, himself a former hippie but now more interested in gaining power and prestige, has a field day taking apart and putting back together the cliché that is Doc Sportello.

Behind the year’s best mutton chops lies a surprisingly perceptive private investigator, and a remorseful ex-boyfriend. Though the complexities of Inherent Vice don’t make it easy to access anything on a very deep level, Doc is easy to love. His life choices probably aren’t acceptable to many but when compared to the filth and squalor surrounding him, a misery that encrusts itself upon these shores like barnacles on a ship hull, his vices feel harmless. As Doc works alongside Bigfoot as a favor to him rather than being converted into an informant as requested, he is aided in the unraveling of this seemingly never-ending yarn by a true friend in Sauncho Smilax (Benecio del Toro), a man posing as a criminal lawyer.

There is no point in being vague: I did not understand or keep up with everything that went on during this incredibly sprawling investigation. I could have honestly benefitted from reading the book but there’s something about being confined in a theater chair, completely engrossed by what you’re watching without really any sense of direction or a clear path to the end. Inherent Vice is mesmeric in its ambition. Poetic in its cinematography; entertaining by virtue of its thematic depravity.

Ultimately and unfortunately, not an experience everyone will get high off of though.

Recommendation: Fans of Paul Thomas Anderson, we may not have the most coherent film ever but this is quite intentional. Readers of DSB, this is also not the most coherent review ever either. Intentional? I think not. This is a damned hard film to describe and I actually really dig that about it. The fundamentals are there for me: stunning cinematography, solid performances enhanced by an incredibly entertaining wardrobe selection, humor, an interesting plot and a hell of an atmosphere. If any of that appeals, hit this one in theaters while you can.

Rated: R

Running Time: 148 mins.

Quoted: “Doc may not be a ‘Do-Gooder,’ but he’s done good.”

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

Wild

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Tom

Release: Wednesday, December 3, 2014 (limited)

[Theater]

Written by: Nick Hornby

Directed by: Jean-Marc Vallée

In Wild Reese Witherspoon is desperate to escape her home life. Does she succeed?

I could spoil the movie right from the get-go and answer that question but I actually do have a heart, so I won’t. (Plus, I’m fairly sure anyone should be able to guess the outcome anyway.) With a narrative as surprisingly complex as that of Wild, ruining a movie about a woman who is ostensibly getting away from it all for the sake of getting away from it all is kind of hard to do.

The director of last year’s Dallas Buyer’s Club returns with an offering that refuses to be undermined by cliché, of which there could be a decent amount given that the movie does not begin well in that department. The rocky start to her epic journey seems to be pulled from a textbook on how to make hiking/camping look like a pain in the ass. Things like figuring out how to set up a tent, learning how to preserve fuel, trimming down one’s pack load. Of course, this is an adaptation of the real Cheryl Strayed’s written account of her 90+ days in the great outdoors, ‘Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.’ In that regard the film is accurate, but for experienced backpackers the potential for eye-rolling might seem alarmingly high in the opening sequences.

For all of the premature panic a certain subgroup of the general moviegoing masses might experience, Vallée’s picturesque drama still opens with quite the attention-grabber. It’s Cheryl atop a razor-sharp ridge, overlooking the vast expanse of wilderness that sprawls out before her ad infinitum. She has stopped to nurse a badly bruised and bloodied toe, an ailment she appears to have been dealing with for some time. In a fit of frustration she loses both hiking boots down the mountainside and with the fade-to-black we end up back in civilization in the next scene. What is this girl doing out here? Why is she doing this alone? What’s the end game here?

In the beginning we know two things about Cheryl: 1) she doesn’t seem happy. Presumably she will be hiking to get away from something negative ongoing in her domestic life; and 2) she is quite stubborn. That’s a trait that carries as many positive connotations as it does negative: in the earlygoing we are treated to a humorous scene in which the first-timer is attempting to mount her external frame in her hotel room, a pack that looks like it could easily outweigh its carrier. It doesn’t exactly go as planned but she makes it work. Foreshadowing? Yes, yes that is foreshadowing I smell.

Over the course of an unexpectedly engaging and semi-non-linear two hour timeline — you’d be surprised how effective cutting between segments of the PCT and her life back in Minneapolis can be — these questions, among many others, are addressed but they aren’t answered in the manner in which you might expect. No solution is presented without complication or having to sacrifice something else; no weed is killed completely unless the roots themselves are cut, and this is precisely what Vallée is hoping to convey by flashing back and forth between the two timelines — that of her past and of her present predicament on the trail.

Wild is fundamentally a psychological journey into the heart and soul of this daring, if inexperienced explorer. In fact the inexperience is what helps elevate the stakes considerably. Witherspoon delivers a performance that affects viscerally and consistently. She’s strong-willed, defiant even; stubborn, yes but eventually even that character flaw develops into something more useful — determination. It’s compelling stuff witnessing the transformation of this previously doomed character. (Is doomed too strong a word?)

Around Witherspoon gathers a small cast that delivers big. Laura Dern plays Cheryl’s eternally upbeat mother Bobbi, who has raised her and her brother (there were three siblings, if you want to get technical, but the film decides to pair it down to a more simple family dynamic) on her own for as long as she has been divorced from her abusive ex-husband, whom she still loves dearly. Dern is wonderful in the role. There’s also Gabby Hoffman who puts in quality, albeit limited screen time as a friend of Cheryl’s still living in Minneapolis. And Thomas Sadoski plays Paul, Cheryl’s ex-husband. He’s not in it much but he also makes his moments count, powerfully reporting back to us the state his life has become in the absence of his wife who thought it wise to go hiking on a trail for months at a time on her own.

In short, Wild is a movie that continually surprises with its thoughtful, provocative introspection, spectacular vistas (that part isn’t so much surprising) and keen sense of direction. It’s not a predictable movie, even despite a few sign postings. Witherspoon’s determination to overcome her haunted past is akin to the bold vision Emile Hirsch’s Chris McCandless had of a future without material possession. I urge you to get your ticket and lose yourself in this well-acted drama.

Recommendation: Despite reservations, Wild is a unique experience. Its only shopworn elements are how it initially presents the challenge of hiking and camping. Of course, even if this was cliched through-and-through, the performances are still enough to make this film soar aloft. The outdoors-oriented should really give this a go. In a way it is an odd blend of mainstream acting talent with the intimacy of exploring nature on a solo backpacking trip but I find the combination to work to great effect. This is now the second extremely well-made film I’ve seen from Jean-Marc Vallée in as many years. I think Dallas Buyers Club is the superior film, but really, not by much.

Rated: R

Running Time: 115 mins.

Quoted: “Finish that sentence. Why do I have to walk a thousand miles. . .?”

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

Mud

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Tom

Release: Friday, April 26, 2013 (limited)

[Theater]

You can just call him ‘Mud.’

Sporting a tattered white collar tee shirt, ripped jeans and a hairdo that hasn’t been attended to in some time, Matthew McConaughey delivers a performance that might have single-handedly won me over as a fan. His work of the past, while I’d never describe it as ‘bad,’ has just not interested me all that much — even his involvement in the spectacularly inane Tropic Thunder. McConaughey has just been so-so to me for years.

Well, along comes May 2013 and I’ve been proven wrong about at least one of his roles.

In this humble slice of Southern living, McConaughey resorts to the bare necessities as a man on the lam having shot and killed a man somewhere else — presumably not in the near vicinity. He’s managed to survive in the woods with little more than his confidence and a boat that somehow has been lodged high up in a tree. When two youngins, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) discover the brilliant new ‘treehouse’ on this island that’s pretty far down river from where they both live, they also discover a man living in it.

Mud succeeds on a number of levels. As a character study, it is the most successful. The entire cast turn in performances worthy of an Oscar — the young Sheridan and Lofland are especially enjoyable, possibly even break-outs. The character development that occurs is remarkable and intimately documented, and this is helped by the boys’ precocious nature and the fact that they are suddenly interacting with a homeless man named Mud.

He has stories to tell out the wazoo, and along the way can’t help but try to impart upon the boys some of his rusty (or is that, rustic?) knowledge about getting along in life. His plight — he tells them while rigging up some kind of fishing device — involves meeting up with his long-time girlfriend (or perhaps ex by now, it’s not ever very clear) and escaping the island he’s currently living on and to go live in peace, away from everything. What exactly ‘everything’ means here, you’ll have to wait and find out. While Neckbone and Ellis are keen to listen to this, they continue to dart between trusting and doubting the man’s intentions.

But not only are these three great to watch, the strong silent type presents itself in the form of one Sam Shephard, who plays Tom Blankenship, a widower who lives across the river from Ellis. He’s simply wonderful as the quiet, mysterious neighbor, who turns out to be as much of an enigma as Mud himself.

Reese Witherspoon, while not as involved, turns in a solid performance as the tattered and torn Juniper, the love interest for the estranged Mud.

The film is also intimate in its setting and beautifully shot. Along the gentle curves of the mighty Mississippi we focus in on one particular branch where Neckbone, Ellis and Tom live, and so we never are distracted by the outside world, as it were. The fast-paced and technologically-dependent city life is shrouded by the Southern tincture of Mud. It is even actively avoided.

The crux of the boys’s stories revolves around their current lifestyle. When Ellis’ father is concerned that the government may come and seize their property on the water following an impending divorce, he tells his son that he may have to go live with his mother for awhile, who will now be in town. Ellis hates the idea and is fully opposed to moving off the water. Not only that, but the main conflict of the film (without revealing anything, of course 🙂 ) is coming from out of town. But we only get the part of this that occurs locally, we almost never leave the river. We feel as if we too, are neighborly.

Even if what concerns the boys is still only a subplot to what’s going on with Mud, the directorial treatment that both are given make the stories of Neckbone, Ellis and Mud become so naturally intertwined it was as though footage of real life were unfolding. What ultimately faces Mud will test the mettle of the unlikely friendship that has formed on the muddy banks of the Mississippi. It is a wonderful, fully-focused story that asks important questions about the true meaning of friendship, maturity and doing what’s right.

Recommendation: For the many Matthew McConaughey doubters that are roaming around out there, it’s high time you wander into a theater and check out this film. It’s one of the official selections of the Cannes International Film Festival, one of the best from director Jeff Nichols, and certainly far and away the best featuring McConaughey. I know I’m saying it quite a lot here, but if you don’t go see this film you likely won’t ever understand my gushing. . . .

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 130 mins.

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

Thomas J

My Journey Through Film

Tag Archives: #reesewitherspoon

The Shallows

Inherent Vice

Wild

Mud