The We and the I
By: Addison Wylie
If you’re like me, you’ve been waiting for filmmaker Michel Gondry to wow you after his messy miscalculation known as The Green Hornet. In Gondry’s defence, The Green Hornet played as a film where its “it” star and successful producers had more creative control than its masterful director. Gondry’s visions work better when he’s given a fair bit of leeway and trust, and The Green Hornet didn’t allow this for the Oscar winner.
The We and the I is supposed to act as a progressive return to form for the director – and it is. The low budget high school flick is an offbeat hybrid of Kids and Dazed and Confused if Spike Lee served as a creative consultant.
The We and the I is more than fitting for Michel Gondry’s directorial style, writing, and creative mind. It features the best qualities from his more well known work that made him a standout, and he’s able to adapt those strengths in this story about a bus ride home after the last day of school.
The film and its cast have a communal feel which is similar to the movie loving community we watched in 2006′s Dave Chappelle’s Block Party and 2007′s Be Kind Rewind. The amateur actors – who all take on characters who have the same name as them – are likeable and are almost always yapping. Surprisingly, this non-stop jibber-jabber is endearing, honest and adds to the fly-on-the-wall nature of this slice of urban life in New York City. The film has the power to transport you back to when you were in high school eagerly listening – or contributing – to the rumour mill.
The actors may be likeable, but we feel by a few individuals; you’ll know who when you watch the movie. It’s easy to use the “they’re not professional actors” excuse, but that song can be played only so many times. Some students lack so much comfortability in front of the camera that one wonders why Gondry and his casting crew didn’t search for more natural actors who are equally authentic.
Gondry’s storytelling trickery that we saw in 2004′s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is also at play. Many stories are told on this long bus ride home. At one point, three of them overlap. Instead of using split screen techniques, Gondry blends in his settings. When a girl is explaining to her girlfriends about a late night hook-up in a car, the car is seamlessly integrated into another story taking place at a party. The camera pans over to the passenger side window and we’re seeing another wild memory take place. It’s a very cool effect and effectively displays how our ears can wander in and out of multiple stories we hear.
The flashbacks are shot on camera phones and more consumer-based cameras. Again, this adds to the fly-on-the-wall perspective but it also conveys that this is probably how other students would’ve seen this event take place if someone was shooting it. All that’s missing is a YouTube engine, but that would’ve been too much excessive product placement – though Blackberry can consider The We and the I as a subtle commercial for their sleek smartphones.
If you took away the smartphones and any mention of technology, The We and the I would be a product of the 90′s even more so with its older hip-hop soundtrack and the lack of heavy modern politically correctness. The kids are pervasively bullying, yet there’s no message that what their doing is considered tasteless. Upbeat music even plays over top of most of these gags. It’s not that Gondry and his team are insensitive. They just want to playfully show that this is what kids might do to amuse themselves amongst their friends. And I dare you not to laugh during a scene when a misplaced cigarette is spotted by the bus driver after the more intimidating bullies are caught smoking at the back of the bus.
It’s all in good fun and we find ourselves having a ball and drinking in the style the film takes on. Even then, the film wears thin as friends gradually get off the bus leading to the material getting more serious. The We and the I has the mentality of a really good party. It’s exciting and joyous when everyone is together and having a great time. But when the party starts to diminish, you soon have a scattered group of people who feel tired and burnt out. Audiences will feel the same.
While The We and the I may still be inferior to Gondry’s past work and music videos, it’s a confident sign that this filmmaker hasn’t lost his touch. It’s an exciting reminder mixed with touching nostalgia that runs a wee bit too long.
Does It Float?: Texas Chainsaw 3D
By: Addison Wylie
Horror movies usually guarantee fun at the movie theatre. Whether the quality of the movie is good or not, experiencing an eerie and tense film with a group of mostly strangers – who hopefully aren’t too gabby – is a riot. Everyone is witnessing the disturbing visuals and the scares for the first time making the overall vibe very exciting and relentlessly uneasy.
However, some horrors have a hard time making that jump to DVD, Blu-Ray, and VOD because the in-theatre experience plays crucial. Some frightful flicks hold up tremendously – and even look better on your HD television – but not all scary movies can be so lucky.
With this webisode of Does It Float?, I wanted to see if that was the case with 2013′s Texas Chainsaw 3D. I absolutely dug it in theatres and really enjoyed how director John Luessenhop handled the popular franchise. But, I wanted to know if this love for the 3D film could carry over to the small screen on Blu-Ray in 2D. And, do the twists, the turns, and the unsettling sequences float on a second viewing?
Webisode two, coming right up!
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To read my original review, click here!
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Mud
By: Addison Wylie
Set against a bluegrass backdrop, Ellis and his best friend Neckbone (both played exceptionally by Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) scavenge through their surroundings to help a wayward, disheveled man named Mud find tools to rescue a tattered boat from out of a towering tree. As they travel back to the island where Mud (played by a striking Matthew McConaughey) roams and hides, the three work together to carry out this seemingly doubtful task.
This is just one of the many moments in Jeff Nichols’ Mud where it appears our three leads are living in a Neverland of sorts. Not worrying about distressed parents, heartbrokenness, or any of that other “real world” junk. Ellis and Neckbone are lost boys and a raggedy man named Mud is Peter Pan. Just imagine those ripped jeans as green leggings.
The plan the three are devising revolves around Mud’s lost love. A love that never feels concrete but is worth fighting for in these guys’ eyes. The problem is Mud’s damsel in distress Juniper (played by a subdued and defeated Reese Witherspoon) is always falling out. She’s getting involved with the wrong company and getting herself into all sorts of trouble – at least, according to Mud.
What starts as a small curiosity pining on a shady homeless individual escalates to a secretive operation as Ellis starts to see more of himself in this enigmatic man. The same can be said both figuratively and, at one point, said quite literally about Mud’s admiration for these inquisitive kids.
Nichols’ film may sound like a mystery for reasons that are insinuated by the young curiosity found in Ellis and Neckbone – and it is – but Mud is much more. It’s an immensely effective movie about developing masculinity as these three main characters learn to grow up in one way or another. It’s a gripping, fantastic watch and you walk away from Nichols’ film having witnessed something incredible with its small scale story and amongst the acting, which includes star making performances from Sheridan and Lofland and a career high for McConaughey.
These performances are so quietly powerful, that they may make some overlook the greatness in other side roles. For instance, the grizzly hard-shelled Tom “the Assassin” Blankenship (played by Sam Shepard) is certainly a memorable portrayal that is as adequate as McConaughey’s role and as distraught as Mud.
Ray McKinnon is very good as Ellis’ father. While playing off a seemingly stereotypical redneck outer layer, McKinnon has the difficult task of being a dislikable hard ass, but also showing a more sympathetic side when he’s emasculated by his wife after he’s fittingly put into place.
Women aren’t represented as the source of all of man’s problems. It’s the refusal and stubbornness of a man that becomes his own worst enemy. Mud, without being heavy-handed, tells a terrific story abut this struggle and how a young mind can realize this apparent pitfall yet still find himself walking in those same footprints. Nichols can be sure he’ll find his outstanding film on many top ten lists come the end of this year.
The Great Gatsby
By: Addison Wylie
Baz Luhrmann’s flashy adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby is a “production” in every sense of the word – as many of us expect it to be. In fact, the film evoked the same reaction I had when I watched Luhrmann’s much loved Oscar winner Moulin Rouge! in 2001.
Judging from these two examples, I find Baz Luhrmann likes to scream and shout during the first thirty minutes or so of his spectacles. It’s pretty to look at but especially alarming because it’s during these initial scenes when key characters and environments are introduced to us.
During this first leg of The Great Gatsby, audiences receive a lot of loud colours, a bombastic array of sounds, jarring and ridiculous modern day musical remixes, and quick cuts galore. The editing gets so speedy that characters aren’t even allowed to finish some single actions before Luhrmann and his editor decide to focus on something else.
Characters are also presented to us in no other way than to focus on the celebrity playing the role. When the mysterious Gatsby makes his way onto the screen, he’s presented in a way that makes it impossible for us not to see him as any other person than Leonardo DiCaprio. The same goes for a tired Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s soon-to-be best bud played by Tobey Maguire.
With all this razzle-dazzle and chaos, Baz Luhrmann is trying to emphasize and focus solely on the extravagance of Gatsby’s eventful parties, the high class, and the confusion and hysteria that occurs when one is settling in to a lifestyle. As Luhrmann has a ball behind the camera and the cast of well dressed attractive actors are consistently active dancing and talking with wide eyes, we sit in the audience questioning if we’ll be able to take the film seriously and be able to believe anything we’re seeing – as I did during the first thirty minutes of Moulin Rouge!.
However, we find ourselves allured and captured by Luhrmann’s style and his theatrics. It completely sucks us in to this tale of romance and tragedy – two familiar territories for the director.
The story about Gatsby’s endless love for Nick’s cousin Daisy (played by Carey Mulligan) and his hard-wired devotion to persuade Daisy to leave her husband Tom (played by Joel Edgerton) is very entertaining as we watch Gatsby’s charisma and imagination act as tracks possibly leading to a messy train wreck.
We forget about which actor is playing who. The performances from Marguire and DiCaprio are enjoyable and the two leads work very well off of one another, making a great team. Mulligan, Edgerton, and other members of this ensemble are just as pleasant.
The Great Gatsby may translate to the screen as a flashy “production” but, as Baz Luhrmann has the ability to do, the film turns into an event – as if we’re watching a really well done and attractive stage play. The 3D may seem as if its there to throw confetti at moviegoers, but it’s also clearly there to add to the interactivity of the film – making us further believe we’re sitting front row centre at a delectable stage play and the actors are within reach.
I do wish Luhrmann finds a more successful way to be spectacular during cinematic introductions while not pushing his audience to squint and flinch. But for now, it’s that chaotic hysteria that leads to a consistently energetic and throughly pleasurable “production”. You win again, Baz.
The Good Lie
By: Addison Wylie
Shawn Linden’s The Good Lie is good looking and straightforward with its premise that instantly hooks you.
A normal high schooler named Cullen (played by Thomas Dekker) is devastated after being pulled out of class to find out his mother Doris (played by Julie LeBreton) has died in a car accident. He’s even more upset after learning he’s the product of a horrific rape. Furious and upset, Cullen sets out to find his mother’s rapist with revenge and justice on his mind.
The film’s good ole’ revenge plot has enough risks and raised stakes to satisfy a moviegoer’s expectations. The emotional and well-qualified lead performance by Dekker adds to the engagingness of The Good Lie.
Dekker’s Cullen is constantly put in conundrums and exchanges that challenge his integrity while twisting and tugging on his heartstrings. It’s a role where an audience will question whether the actor is over doing it with the contorted facial expressions and the furrowed brows, but we realize the actor is nailing it as he’s being put into these troublesome situations written by Linden. Dekker has a captivating screen presence and we want to see how our hero gives this villain his well-deserved comeuppance.
Sadly, while the film is interesting for the first half, Linden gets carried away with his own noir style and characters that turns The Good Lie into a snake eating its own tail – offering a lot of the same and wringing all it can out of its eager snarling actors.
Linden has Cullen searching for people who are key in his search for the evil-doer. When Cullen finds who he’s looking for, they send him off in the right direction to find someone else. While Cullen’s mystery is carrying out, Doris’ husband Richard (played competently by Matt Craven) hunts for Cullen in order to track his son’s footprints – giving Richard his own mystery.
Linden’s storytelling method is greatly affecting having his script jump around to different points in the narrative providing lots of clever and cunning reveals that will dazzle any moviegoer. His continuity among the stories that play and the stories that follow that may have taken place before those prior events is pitch perfect. I would love to see this creative writer/director tackle time travel in his developing film career.
But, as The Good Lie’s surprises and innovativeness turn into the film’s formulaic routine, it’s hard to stay impressed. More characters give Cullen attitude and after the umpteenth baddie who gives Cullen a stunned snarl after the mention of who he’s looking for, it’s hard to take their roughness seriously as they growl lines out of this Tarantino lite screenplay.
Did I mention Cullen is planning on telling his story to friends around a campfire? At the beginning of The Good Lie, we understand that Cullen and his buddies escape to the woods to tell each other urban legends and other off-putting stories.
These moments with these younger characters are obviously here to break up the tension in this taut storyline, but does it have to be so obvious? As Linden hits pause on his more interesting storyline, the audience is transported back to the campfire to watch these annoying actors (sans Dekker) play obnoxious roles and tell their tale that I’m sure will be used as a monologuing staple in each of their demo reels.
They kid around with each other, swear, and remind us that they’re all just a group of hooligans wanting to hang out with the bro’s and drink some brews. But, again, do these brash beats in Linden’s script have to be so broad?
Unfortunately for The Good Lie, a pivotal jolt in the lead’s story is anticlimactic and goes against the satisfying nature that hooked us at the beginning – finishing the film on a humdrum note. If only Shawn Linden wasn’t too busy leading audiences on for too long, maybe then he could’ve thought of a striking way to maintain that buzz he established so well during the film’s initial build-up leading to a conclusion that snaps like a campfire’s blazing licks.
Slaughter Nick for President
By: Addison Wylie
Many connections can be made through social networking, but obscure actor Rob Stewart made the ultimate one that also changed his life.
Through Facebook, Stewart discovered a TV show he starred in 20 years ago called Tropical Heat had taken on a new life in Serbia. A Serbian punk band named Atheist Rap contacted Rob and offered an opportunity where Rob could perform with them during a song dedicated to Stewart’s Tropical Heat character Nick Slaughter. Stewart agreed and before you can say “Slaughtermania”, Rob and his filmmaking pals Liza and Marc Vespi were on a plane headed for Serbia. The reception they received during their two-week stay was unforgettable.
Slaughter Nick for President is a bundle of fun – mostly because Stewart comes off as a nice, charismatic guy deserving enough to be recognized for his work. It’s delightful to see avid fans approach him for photos and to shake his hand. It’s as if Stewart has entered a whole other universe – one that’s completely different from his homestead in Brampton, ON.
There are even some moments where art imitates life. In a hilarious scene where Stewart is approached to star in a commercial for a product he’s unclear of while he reads his lines in an inflatable bubble, we can’t help but think of Bill Murray’s overwhelmed presence on the set of a game show in Lost in Translation.
As Stewart finds out more from Serbian sources, audiences can’t help but be in awe as well. During harsher times in Serbia when student protests were taking place against former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, the overall vibes and outlooks were very bleak. People would turn to Tropical Heat for the bright colours, Slaughter’s brand of humour, and for the silly action. This audience found optimism in Stewart’s Hawaiian shirts and ponytail.
Slaughter Nick for President lets audiences now just how effective escapist entertainment can be. Some may see these types of films and television as schlock, but this documentary shows just how much of an impact this entertainment can have in the places you wouldn’t have even thought of.
Though this new information about Stewart’s career is interesting and flooring, the moments where Stewart interviews various Serbians is where the documentary slowly comes to a halt.
Simply, the film needed more cameras and an editor who knew how to keep the interest high during talking head one-on-ones. The one camera set-up ensues long takes where the interviewee gabs and gabs and the lack of cutting makes these interviews drone on and on. In the film’s defence, they try to keep things moving by adding older news footage, stills, and fade-to-white transitions, but it just isn’t enough to satisfy moviegoers.
The energy diminishes partly because Stewart and company are brimming with energy during these initial scenes as they drink in Serbian culture. When this excitement takes extended breaks, it seriously affects the audience’s ability to stay as energized.
But, Slaughter Nick for President always knows how to return to form. One of the more rewarding scenes in the documentary – and one of the catchiest scenes I’ve seen recently – involves that climactic night where Rob Stewart assists Atheist Rap during their song ‘Slaughteru Nietzsche’ as a crowd full of young punks bounce around. It’s unreal for Stewart but as we’ve watched how everything has unfolded and led to this vibrant event, it’s equally as surreal and electric.
Revolution
By: Addison Wylie
Revolution could very well be one of this year’s most important watches, but by the end of the documentary, you’ll be wondering what’s more of a threat: carbon dioxide poisoning in our atmosphere or filmmaker Rob Stewart’s constant need to be on camera. I can’t ignore it. No one can. Stewart just loves to star in his own passion project.
I hesitate to continue with this criticism about the director/producer/writer/cinematographer for fear I get sidetracked, but it’s Stewart’s self-congratulations that almost clouds the facts in Revolution, an otherwise informative yet occasionally stuffy documentary.
Rob Stewart is very proud of himself. He should be. His documentary Sharkwater helped uncover truths about the critical danger sharks are in. But, when a semi-cynical and skeptical question asked at a post-Sharkwater Q&A challenges Stewart to think about what the point of saving a species set to diminish in 2048 would be, Stewart was taken back and driven to make Revolution.
We see Stewart interacting with classes as he teaches young students more about relevant issues and how we can help change this grim outcome. He’s even captured moving and devoted protests in his doc, showing how co-operation and team work can help make a change leading to results rather than pipe dreams.
But, as a documentary filmmaker, there’s a line that is drawn between teaching an audience how they can help and showing an audience how you helped leading to how awesome you are. Stewart is a sharp guy and is dedicated to his topic, which is why it’s even more unfortunate when we see his doc slowly feature him prominently as he shows moviegoers just how much he’s involved with the change as he displays his best “blue steel”.
But while he loves screen time, I don’t believe he’s intentionally going out of his way to make this a glamour project. Rob Stewart cares about fixing these environmental malfunctions. When he’s talking to moviegoers about dangers such as how much carbon dioxide is being pumped into our atmosphere which then affects eco-life within the water, his facts are eye-opening.
Stewart walks us through just how everything is connected. For instance, by unleashing this pollution, it takes its toll on coral, which then leads to shorter lifespans for critters who depend on it for basic necessities.
Stewart and his team of cinematographers have captured all their footage phenomenally. As we see schools of plankton swirl around as they light up the depths of the sea like fireworks, it’s hard to consider and fathom that all of this hidden beauty may not exist towards the peak of our lifetime.
The facts are inspiring, but what’s even more uplifting is Revolution’s attitude towards skeptics. If all nature documentaries have a message that says, “if we all stick together and fight, we can make a difference”, Revolution has a message that says, “No, really. You CAN make a difference”.
While graphic footage of bloodied bodies and de-finning may be a lot to handle near the beginning of Revolution (especially with its G-rating), the footage of protests and activists banding together isn’t overbearing, gimmicky, or ham-fisted. It fills us with confidence that hard-driven teamwork is still used to make a statement. Even though security may eventually escort non-violent spectacles off the property, these brave people have the determination to link arms and push in a non-aggressive manner hoping to enlighten even one person.
Towards the end of Revolution, we see past interviewees and a charismatic class of grade school students give inspiring words of wisdom. The class is the icing on this cake because we see just how thoughtful and inspiring actions can trickle down to younger generations and help ignite ideas.
These final words from the interviewees, of course, is followed by Rob Stewart lying down on the shore in shorty-shorts looking seriously into the water right before Mr. July jumps into the water to swim with sharks. Ladies? Activists? Anyone…?
