Manchester by the Sea

2016's "Manchester by the Sea", written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan.

Starring Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler, Michelle Williams, and Gretchen Mol.

Winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Lonergan), and Best Actor (Affleck).

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director (Lonergan), Best Supporting Actor (Hedges), and Best Supporting Actress (Williams). 

What is it about?

In Manchester, we are immediately introduced to  Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), working as a handyman for run down apartment complexes in Boston. He says little, lives a Spartan life, and at bars would rather fight strangers than reciprocate flirtation from pretty distractions. Clearly, something is off. Affleck receives word that his brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler), has suffered a heart attack, and by the time Affleck has travelled to his hometown of nearby Manchester, Joe has passed. In his passing, it is discovered that Chandler willed his son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), to Affleck for guardianship. While Lee is bonded to the headstrong and independent young man who is attached to his school, sports, and (multiple) girlfriends, Lee has no interest in raising Patrick in Manchester, and wants to move back to Boston. As the pair go about mourning and estate planning, he creeps through his old haunt of the sleepy coastal town. Some of the ghosts who turn up are his former partner, Randi (Michelle Williams), who triggers flashbacks of why Lee is so against staying in the community he once called home. Will he reconcile his trauma and step up to take care of his nephew?

Why is it worth seeing?

Great, timeless films are about characters who feel as real as anyone you know, in authentic environments we can relate to. Even when we don’t agree with their actions, we can understand them. That’s what great screenplays establish, and they hit their mark even more precisely if they can make the audience implicitly realize that, instead of explicitly telling us . The fact that Manchester by the Sea was considered a third place finisher in the Best Picture Academy Award, to eventual winner, Moonlight, and 2^nd place contender, La La Land, is an embarrassment of riches for the Best Picture category of the 2016 year (consider that if they moved back to a 5 person line up, it could have been the 3 pictures listed above, plus Hell or High Water and Arrival= Yowsa).

Affleck is mesmerizing as a broken shell of a man having to deal with a past that he seems to have wiped from the whiteboard of his memory- except it never erases completely. What he does with the little bits he has to work with is nothing short of a blessing, an epic portrait of a person's openness to a lack of availability. Him and Williams also share one of the best scenes of the year, as 2 people once connected, undeniably morphed by the hands life has dealt them, attempt to address their changes. Lucas Hedges, in his role of a teenager who spends equal time mourning the loss of his father and trying to make it with the opposite sex, rounds out the cast's conveying of that New England masculine sense of repressed emotional disconnection.


Here, writer/director Lonergan has crafted an amazingly poignant tale of grief with ridiculously good performances by the authentic cast, but what keeps it from being simplified misery porn is it features plenty of lighter moments, never taking itself too seriously, creating a delicate balance of humour and pathos. Featuring one of the better ambiguous closing shots in recent memory, Manchester delights in the discovery of this authentic world, while demonstrating (and not telling) that we all have a choice to suck it up, or pack it in.

5/5

Trailer: Click Here.

Almost Famous

2000’s “Almost Famous”, written and directed by Cameron Crowe.

Starring Patrick Fugit, Frances McDormand, Zoeey Deschanel, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Billy Crudup, Jason Lee, Noah Taylor, Jimmy Fallon, Kate Hudson, Anna Paquin, and Fairuza Balk.

Winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress (Hudson), Best Supporting Actress (McDormand), and Best Editing (Joe Hatching, Saar Klein).

As a youth, director Cameron Crowe was quite academically advanced, and skipped past kindergarten and 2 grades, leading to him being significantly younger than his classmates. Feeling alienated from his older peers, he began writing for the school newspaper and fell into writing for the rock magazine, Rolling Stone. Despite his teenage age, he fooled everyone that he was an adult, as he wrote about touring with the Allman Brothers Band, as well as Led Zepplin, The Eagles, and Lynard Skynard. “AF” is his loosely based tribute to this time in his life.

In “AF”, during the 1970’s we meet a young Crowe (Fugit), who’s overbearing and vigilant mother (McDormand) forbids rock music and it’s freewheeling lifestyle. His sister bails the family home with her boyfriend to become a stewardess- but not before leaving behind the devil’s influence in the form of rock records under Fugit’s bed.  He falls in love with writing for the music scene, and finds a tutor in the form of Seymour-Hoffman, an angry rock music critic for Creem magazine, who provides impassioned but cynical advice for Fugit. While on assignment for Creem, Fugit gets in with the band, Stillwater (based loosely on The Allman Brothers Band), before getting hired for Rolling Stone magazine. While on tour, Fugit’s youthful innocence and naiveté don’t stand a chance, as he gets sucked into the band’s vortex of chaos. Constantly being promised an interview that will happen at the next destination, while he tries to write an article that constantly gets derailed by the drama around him, all while giving his overbearing mother a nervous breakdown.

Distracted by crushes, false friendships, and the never ending line up of sycophants vying for the band member’s time, Fugit has to grow up fast. In particular, he falls hard for the Hudson character, a member of the “band aids”: groupies who deny being groupies to the band(s), but are just that. Fugit, Hudson, and the band’s most charismatic member (Crudup), form a sort of triangle, and both of them take turns mentoring Fugit, constantly selling the image of the party that never stops, for a family that never gives up on each other. Here, Crowe lovingly creates a world that is a testament to the constant push and pull of the spirit of the artistic process, set against the grinding gears of commercialism. Time and time again, Fugit’s journalist character is derided as “the enemy” by the various members of the band, while Fugit is warned by Seymour-Hoffman that the band’s intentions lack authenticity. Crowe skillfully balances a truckload of relationship dynamics, from the band’s various members infighting, to the family dynamics of McDermond, Deschanel, and Fugit, to Fugit and Crudup’s mentoring/mentoree, to Hudson and Crudup’s road love story, among larger issues such as the band’s struggling to deal with success, and the band aid’s frustrations at not being more than just poker antes for various bands. While Hudson’s character can be quite grating at times (what Nathan Rabin calls a, “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”), the rest of the characters in “AF” are wonderfully drawn out, with tons of awesome cameos thrown in (Marc Maron and Jimmy Fallon are amazing). The soundtrack is a killer, and at the end of the journey, we see why these characters do the things they do, and what really matters to them. It’s a delight to echo what so many of the 70’s flower children repeat in this film, “It’s all happening”. And working well, man.

4/5

Trailer: Click Here.

T2: Trainspotting

2017’s “T2: Trainspotting”, directed by Danny Boyle.

Starring Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Anjela Nedyalkova, Kelly McDonald, and Irvine Welsh.

1996’s “Trainspotting” further placed Danny Boyle on the directing map. His adaptation of Edinburgh author Irvine Welsh’s tale about drug addiction was a gleeful and exhilarating cautionary tale about youth’s painful lessons. Flush with a thrilling soundtrack and exaggerated scenes of the character’s lives, it depicted how difficult it was to choose life when you have heroin, but maintained that a clean break was possible as long as you don’t mind pissing off your mates. Timeless in its enjoyment but very much a memorial to 80’s Edinburgh, it was a 90’s cinch that is a pleasure to return to.

Sharing that sentiment, Boyle brings back the old gang 20 years later, last seen being betrayed by a member of the group after a successful drug deal. We catch up with McGregor (Renton), now a married accountant and visiting Edinburgh from Amsterdam. Miller (Sick Boy), when not snorting cocaine, runs a dive bar with a Bulgarian prostitute (Nedyalkova) whom he uses to lure men so he can videotape them for blackmail purposes. We see Carlyle (Bagby) still in prison, bathing in his usual hostility that makes him at times resemble a motor mouthed Michael Myers. Finally, Bremner (Spud), still an active heroin addict, going through his struggles of losing employment, his partner, and custody of his child. The 4 of them end up together, with dreams of opening up a “spa” (brothel), with plenty of hustling, reminiscing, and relapses along the way.

In interviews, Boyle has stated that the time was right to show the changes in the characters of Trainspotting, loosely basing it around Welsh’s book sequel, “Porno”. Returning is the original gang, the depravity, the innovative camera work and visuals, even some of the same songs. There are some new wrinkles, both figurative and especially literal- but we’ve seen this before. Throwing in a throwaway trope about Bremner writing a memoir that retells the original movie that the sequel simultaneously is celebrating, the terribly named “T2: Judgement Day Trainspotting” starts to lose it’s lust for life. When it’s needle comes off the well worn tracks, “T2” has it’s moments of cathartic inertia (McGregor’s visit to his old house is stunning, and the Nedyalkova character is a treat), but when it treads old ground in their 20 years wiser bodies, as one of the characters proclaims, “It’s over- can we go home now?”

3/5

Trailer: Click Here.

The Man Who Haunted Himself

1970’s “The Man Who Haunted Himself”, directed by Basil Dearden.

Starring Roger Moore, Hildegard Neil, Freddie Jones, John Welsh, and Olga Georges-Picot.

We meet Moore, a meticulous creature of habit, whom is a partner at an engineering firm. While driving, he has a vision of himself driving a different car simultaneously, before getting into an accident. While doctors work on him at the hospital, he flat lines, and then briefly has 2 heartbeats, before returning to normal. Released from the hospital, soon people approach him that he doesn’t know, who claim he did things he did not. While his engineering firm tries to determine the source of a leak of information while they plan a merger, Moore more and more continues to doubt his sanity as he investigates a trail of crumbs- that he may have left behind. He enlists the help of a wacky doctor (Jones), in the hopes that he can keep his marriage and family intact. Eventually he comes face to face with his greatest enemy whom is so difficult to defeat, and has to make a tough choice.

Moore, who at times in his career makes the term formal seem informal in comparison to him, here is refreshingly disheveled as he starts to energetically doubt his faculties. And Basil Dearden makes some interesting camera work choices, particularly with some transitions and when meeting with mental health professionals. Finally, there is a neat idea here, full of possibility for metaphor. However, the girlfriend of his (or his double), Georges-Picot, is a train wreck to watch. And Moore’s children are beyond annoying, sounding like they are dubbed over by chipmunks. Most of all, the paranoia that is almost Hitchcockian runs out of steam, leading to a very goofy climax that is essentially a shrug of the shoulders. I wondered initially if “Haunted” was a metaphor for suburban ennui, but it certainly doesn’t seem so based on the climax, and in general the movie paints itself into a corner- before just rolling around in wet paint. Featuring the only photography based pick up line I’ve ever heard, you’d have to have the cunning of a secret agent to see through the parallax error that is “Haunted”.

3/5

Trailer: Click Here.

The Queen

2006’s “The Queen”, directed by Steven Frears.

Starring Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings, and Roger Allam.

Winner of an Academy Award for Best Actress (Mirren).

Nominated for an Academy Awad for Best Picture, Best Director (Frears), Best Screenplay (Peter Morgan), Best Costume Design (Consolata Boyle), Best Musical Score (Alexandre Desplat).

Set in England during 1997, we see the royal family, specifically Queen Elizabeth II, and their reactions to 2 key events: the election of prime minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), and the death of Princess Diana shortly after. Deeply steeped in conservatism and tradition, the royal family in general was wary of Blair’s modernism and progressive views. As well, the family had an uneasy relationship with Princess Diana. Divorced from Prince Charles (so no longer attached to the royal family), the overwhelming majority of the country (and world) viewed her as an enormously popular figure of charity and good will. The movie’s depictions of Sheen (and various other subordinates) walking on eggshells around the monarch mother serve as excellent lessons on how to talk to someone who carries great clout and wealth- but who has lost their touch with the people they claim to represent.

Frears wisely inter cuts plenty of actual footage of the era (interviews with Princess Diana and news clips of reactions to her death, etc), and re-stages events with the actors to make a fictionalized historical snapshot.  While we’ll never know what was said behind closed doors, Frears creates a world that feels plausible as we watch the Royal Family hide from civilization behind their wealth and privilege, only to consider that connecting with their populace on some level could ultimately strengthen their rule. Mirren is great, as she tries her hardest to keep a stiff upper lip, but betrays occasional moments of doubt and emotion, after a lifetime of training. I don’t know if it’s Best Actress of 2006 great (I’m a huge fan of Penelope Cruz’s performance in “Volver”, and Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” is solid too), but I figure it’s partly a lifetime achievement award on top of a good performance. Very good is Roger Allam’s role, as a sympathetic aide trying to tell his employer something that she does not want to hear. Harder to take are Sheen’s at times grandstanding ethics. With Blair’s record being what it is (supporting the U.S. in the invasion of Iraq, etc), it’s difficult to believe that Blair was sympathetic of the royal family and not just cynically gaining favour with the populace for politics as usual. For some reason, that archetype of Machiavelli’s “The Prince” seems to go to his wife, Cherie Blair, played with maximum hostility and passive disrespect by Helen McCrory. At times teetering close to an HBO made for TV movie, “The Queen”’s script can sometimes feel as stilted as it’s subject matter, but can also at times come across as royalty.

3/5

Trailer: Click Here.

Prometheus

2012’s “Prometheus”, directed by Ridley Scott.

Starring Michael Fassbender, Naomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green, Charlize Theron, Guy Pierce, and Idris Elba.

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley, and Martin Hill).

What is it about?

The 5^th standalone Alien movie in the series, “Prometheus” takes place in 2089. We open to a group of scientist explorers, who discover ancient art depicting “engineers”, an alien race thought to be the forbearers to humans, and a map. They hop on a space ship (not too subtly named Prometheus and financed by the Weyland corporation), and head for the moon of planet LV-223. 4 years later, they wake up from cryo sleep and touch down. We meet Fassbender’s android character, David, and observe his attempts to research and fit in with humans. We also meet a couple, Naomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green, she faith based and primed for the heroine role, while he is impulsive. Elba plays the ship’s captain, following orders but not scared of going against the grain. Theron is the project manager, and definitely lets the crew know the corporation she reports to is large and in charge. The group begin exploring, heading into a structure. The setting of religious looking iconography and not too safe looking goo filled alien pods, combined with a hostile weather storm, eventually reveals the intentions of the corporation, and as the company men go about their orders, the fun begins.

Why is it worth seeing?

Featuring a gorgeous opening credits sequence that would feel at home during a Blue Planet segment, initially it was a delight to see Ridley Scott returning to the universe that made him so famous in the first place. But has he? It’s a mess. Officially called a prequel to 1979’s “Alien”, but changing the rules on how/where the aliens’ live, hatch/spawn, impregnate, mature, and look, Scott fights the mythology (and logistics set up in the earlier films) that he made so famous in the first place, and creates another species that is practically as hostile as the iconic creature.

Worse, Prometheus has abandoned plot points, and half drawn characters that at times act so stupid that it’s possible to be delighted at their dim witted demise. Scenes of the group spending time together (as per “Alien” or 1986’s “Aliens”) are abandoned for scenes of Fassbender learning how to mimic humans behaviour (Fassbender studied “Bladerunner”’s Rachel replicant character for his inspiration). After multiple viewings, I realize that the disconnect starts to make some kind of sense: Prometheus feels more like Fassbender’s movie than Rapace’s, or even the hostile alien life forms, as he cheerfully tries to orchestrate destruction at the highest level. Scott mostly abandons the haunted ship theme of movies past, and here there is an almost agoraphobic tension instead, which changes how the movie feels in comparison. As mentioned above, it’s also quite beautiful, with the future (past?) looking bright, functional, and futuristic- again a far cry from the (very) lived-in universe of the other Alien Movies.

If you stand far enough back and squint at the context, you start to wonder if the Fassbender android’s promotion to star player is a sign of a different kind of evolution. His own creation, born from mankind, and then willing hatchet man of the chaos, echoes the “engineer” race’s intentions of creating the antagonistic aliens as weapons designed to wipe out humans, in order to create life out of the destruction. Company Men androids are nothing new to the Alien universe, but this would be the first time we’re watching a film where they’re practically the protagonist. It’s a glossy but chilling statement from Scott, that underneath the acidic blood and burst body cavities, lie an artificial consciousness that speaks more of petty irritation at mankind than cooperation and inspiration. But Scott has shown us before, once you have an alien inside you, it’s tough to get it out of your system.

Rating:
3/5

(add a half star if you consider the trailer a part of the movie)

Trailer: Click Here.

The Discovery

2017’s “The Discovery”, directed by Charlie McDowell.

Starring Robert Redford, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Segal, Brian McCarthy, Jesse Plemons, and Rooney Mara.

Set in a future that looks a lot like today, “Discovery” depicts a world where millions of people begin committing suicide after Redford’s scientist character proves that an afterlife is possible. Segal’s character travels to a remote island via ferry, meeting Mara along the way. She is difficult but intriguing, and sure to show up later. Segal is picked up by his brother (Plemons), and taken to a former boarding school where their father(Redford), runs an organization based around experimenting with recording dead people’s visions. Segal wants Redford to stop the studies, as he believes they cause more harm than good, but is also trying to track down where some visions he has recorded came from, and what they mean.

Somewhat of a “Flatliners” for world class brooders, Segal seems tortured by something he doesn’t understand and can’t alter. Redford is somewhat mysterious as the cult like leader, leading experiments that include interviewing people that are difficult not to compare to “The Master”’s Scientology scenes. There’s plenty of fertile ground here in terms of themes to explore life and death, but it’s tough not to feel “The Discovery” shirks the fecund ideas of life, death, memory, the afterlife and reincarnation, as much as possible. As well, as Segal attempts to get to the bottom of his past amidst his visions and recordings of his possible death states, we’re still trying to get to the bottom of who these characters are. Redford is the mad scientist, and everyone else his subjects, but we know nothing about these people, who all are attracted to that place where life and consciousness divert. It’s a shame that the only real discovery to be found here is that the wanna-be cool, circular exposition of the film doubling as a substitute for character development and plot. Featuring a “tell, don’t show” screenplay, heavy on words that explain little of why our characters do anything or what they are actually feeling, “The Discovery” shows little about human experience that we don’t already know.

2.5/5 (May require a second viewing to adjust score)

Trailer: Click Here.

Miami Vice

2006’s “Miami Vice”, written and directed by Michael Mann.

Starring Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Li Gong, Naomi Harris, Barry Shabaka Henley, and Ciarán Hinds.

Michael Mann became a household name with his 1984-1990 television series, “Miami Vice”. Starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, “MV” was a neon soaked tribute to the flashy eighties where they played undercover cops. The show was less about procedural police methods and characters, and more about visuals and an accompanying soundtrack (Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” anyone?).

Mann moved on to movies, keeping his distinctive sense of style intact, but also developing a sense of intense professionalism from his respective heroes and villains. Mann was approached by Jamie Foxx about re-doing “MV”, but Mann would only do it if the show was modernized. Gone are the iconic cheese of Jan Hammer’s show opener, as well as the neon and pastel colours so dominant in “MV”’s era. They are replaced by gunmetal grays and neutral hues, as well as a grainier digital camera look.

In the 2006 version, we’re introduced immediately to Crockett and Tubbs, now played by Colin Farrell and Jamie Fox, operating as always undercover in the Miami underworld. An undercover deal goes bad, and an informant commits suicide, bringing up questions of trust from within the various police organization partnerships. Crockett and Tubbs infiltrate a dangerous Columbian Cartel, having to do some major acting to convince the cutthroat businessman that they are for real. Crockett also starts something on the side with the cartel’s accountant, further complicating things. Eventually a team member is kidnapped, and the team has to attempt rescuing them, revealing their hand, before a propulsive showdown.

The colour schemes aren’t the only thing that has changed- the Miami we see today has also seen modern globalization at work. The Columbian cartels are joined by white supremacists, and flanked by Asian accountants and Portuguese bartenders. The television show’s sometimes goofy flash and panache have also been replaced by a sense of driven angst, both exemplified by Linkin Park’s “Numb” in the background, and the show’s conclusion, as the duo is forced to examine whether the life of undercover cops (who drive Ferrari Testarossas and speed boats) is everything its cracked up to be. Mann’s decision to shoot digitally (as per his 2005’s “Collateral”), is a misstep in my opinion. While Mann claims that he likes being able to film at night and still be able to see every single light source, I prefer darkness and atmosphere (at nighttime in the backgrounds) over grainy light pollution where there is no darkness to be found anywhere.

“MV” is lean and focused as any Mann film, but it doesn’t quite work, as the heart of the original series was always about the excessive life styles of the protagonists and the outrageous lengths the show went to appeal to the MTV crowd. 

We take those basic character archetypes and plop them in a time machine to the next millennium, and find grim protagonists and sociopathic antagonists, who still feel the need to play cops and robbers. Mann has always excelled at this trope (and shots of characters staring at water), but “MV” feels muddled as a result, as he tries to pay tribute to something faddish and outdated. That’s hardly a crime, but it does rank “MV” below such Mann favourites such as “Heat”, “Thief”, “Collateral”, “Manhunter”, and “Last of the Mohicans”.

3/5

Trailer: Click Here.