Swiss Army Man

Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinart, 2016

IMDB

3/5

There hasn't been a movie made quite like Swiss Army Man, and theres a good chance there wont be another. Surely nobody has seen a movie about a morose castaway that befriends a farting corpse. Perhaps the best way to describe this film is to say its like Cast Away on mushrooms. The movie is almost entirely Paul Dano's Hank character interacting with deceased Manny, played by Daniel Radcliffe. Hank is on a small deserted island and has lost all hope. He's about to commit suicide and end it all for good when he sees Manny's body wash ashore. So desperate for human contact of any kind, he decides to scrap his plans for suicide and finds inspiration in silent Manny.

What follows is one of the most quirky films made in some time. A zombie bromance story. An imaginary friend movie. It's for the most part an incredibly quirky comedy, but there is certainly some heart in this film. Hank's character is truly tragic. Like the trash he discovers in the forest, he is a person disregarded by society - even before he was stranded. He is able to discover so much about himself through Manny. In a sense he is forced to rediscover everything that makes someone human, as Manny has no memory of his past life and Hank needs to start from square one. An unsettling revelation in the final moments of the film wrap things up quite nicely. Swiss Army Man has a place somewhere but it's definitely in a category of it's own.

Being Flynn

Paul Weitz, 2012

IMDB

3/5

Being Flynn is a Boston-based drama based on the memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn. The film gives young Paul Dano another opportunity to work with one of the greatest actors of all time - Robert Deniro. Dano has had some fortunate employment opportunities at this point in his career. Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, Michelle Williams in Kelly Reichart's Meek's Cutoff, Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine. Add Steve McQueen in 12 Years a Slave and Denis Villeneuve in Prisoners, two of the best living directors, and it's pretty obvious that Dano has one of the most colorful resumes in Hollywood. He deserves these opportunities though, because he delivers every time.

The narration starts off a bit confused, with young Nick Flynn (Dano) fighting for control of the story with his father Jonathan Flynn (Deniro). It becomes evident quite quickly in the story that Jonathan is a bit delusional. He is more of a drinker than a writer, but the booze gives him a cloudy arrogance that has him thinking that he is a great writer that simply hasn't released his masterpiece yet. One of the first things we hear from him is "There were three great American writers. Mark Twain, J.D. Salinger, and me... John Flynn". After he says this we see him driving out of parking garage in his taxi cab, his real day job. Nick didn't have a relationship with his father at all, raised solely by his mother Jody (Julianne Moore). Moore is sort of the perfect person for the role, the tired woman who is trying desperately to keep it together for her son. Nick describes his early years as being guided by lots of boyfriends. Being Flynn has what could be considered one of the best shots of all time, certainly one of the best of the past 20 years. We see a panning camera where Nick is playing catch with one of Jody's boyfriends, and as the camera pans back and forth each time it's a different boyfriend. Finally it shows his biological father John, but when Nick goes to throw the ball he isn't there on the other side and the ball goes rolling into the street. Powerful. The film is an example of how far Deniro has come as an actor. In 1976 Deniro drove a taxi cab in Scorcese's masterpiece Taxi Driver. His Travis Bickle character was more of a numb sociopath. Here Deniro is able to channel more of a narcissistic, delusional, stubborn alcoholic that is quite different than the role he filled 36 years prior. Still detached, but more conversant.

It's a story of finding your place in the world while trying to avoid the mistakes of your predecessors. A struggle of separating yourself from your parents, trying to see yourself as a unique person. We do see an arch in Nick's character, and after enduring some time in some pretty heavy drama, you really need some form of redemption. One of the frustrating qualities of John's character is his absolute defiance to break down. His thick stubborn personality never breaks, and it almost feels like if it cracked a little it would have added some more substance to the story. Interesting to think about whether this was a deliberate thing, part of the actual Flynn family narrative or whether Deniro's decision to bring that armored performance to his Jonathan role.

Meek's Cutoff

Kelly Reichardt, 2010

Can I Stream It?

2/5

Set in 1845, a group travels across the Oregon country under the guidance of a man named Stephen Meek. Meek promises to guide them through what he believes is a shortcut over the Cascade Mountains. Their doubts grow as they continue to travel in what seems like endless country with food and water running low. When they encounter a Native American in their journey, they are torn between the guidance of Meek and the guidance of the man widely thought to be threatening to settlers.

Reichardt's Oregon Trail-based period piece focuses on the survival of a group across a very desolate landscape. Scattered clusters of dry grass across the cracked earth. The intermittent sight of copper boulders that provide a small sliver of hope that there may be something bounteous on the other side, only to soon find that it's just one of many disappointments across the steppes. Very unforgiving. While the group moves across the harsh terrain, there is a common theme at work: uncertainty. Uncertainty is a dominant motif at work here. They don't know if they can necessarily count on Meek to bring them to their destination. They are certainly losing faith in him. They aren't sure how close they are to finding water, food. In fact, they don't even know if they will drink any water tomorrow. Because of this, they aren't even certain of how long they will be able to maintain the same company. They aren't certain that the cattle or the wagons will persevere. The wooden barrels roped to the sides of the wagons are running dry like their morale. They don't know if their recent "companion" to join the group is going to be helpful, or dangerous. As the wheels turn on the rickety wagon, the wheels turn in their minds. They tread on, continuing forward. Because they have no other choice. The uneventful days turn to black nights, consisting of Emily scraping together some supplies for some minimal calories.

Unfortunately the story maintains synchronicity in terms of the crawling pace that the group upholds. Devoid of any real bursts, you are left in the company of a fairly two-dimensional group of people who don't ever really pull you in and keep you fully concerned. To their credit, their struggles feel realistic and their fortitude is inspiring. But like them, your thirst builds to the point of pure exhaustion. It's betraying when the score builds in the background, only to have that particular moment deflate and transition to a long shot of the two wagons continuing slowly across the empty plain. It's a bold piece of work for Reichardt in terms of a filmmaker attempting to make something with very little. Sadly that it's just not enough.

Prisoners

Denis Villeneuve, 2013

Amazon Instant Video

4/5

Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and his wife Grace (Maria Bello) are spending some time with their neighbors Franklin (Terrance Howard) and Nancy Birch (Viola Davis). Their girls ask to go play at their house. They return home not long after only to find the two girls missing. With a suspicious RV in the neighborhood the police act quickly. Not feeling that the police investigated the initial suspect thoroughly, Keller loses faith in the police and decides to perform his own investigation for the girls independently, knowing that with each hour passing without their return the hope diminishes.

Prisoners is a tough film to get through. Not because its a poorly made film, it's quite the opposite. It's an exceptional film. It's just disturbing at the same time. A film that could have easily made this blog's Top 5 great films I don't want to see again. It's a difficult two hour ordeal involving child abduction, one of those horrific scenarios that everyone fears and doesn't want to think about. And it plays on that theme so well. At times it's likely to remind you of similarly themed kidnapping films Gone Baby Gone, Ransom, Taken or even Mystic River. But Prisoners stands out on it's own. Notes of desperation, suspicions of all of the shady characters embedded in the community (and there's no shortage of shady characters here), degradation of hope, loss of spirit. Even the small, rural town of Conyers Pennsylvania is bleak. It rains a lot, and when it's not raining or snowing the sun doesn't really resurface - it just sort of stays miserably overcast. This is no mistake by Villeneuve, who clearly wants the town of Conyers to have a more dreary air to it. The mechanics of such a film wouldn't work so well if the parents woke up to a sunny sky, almost hinting that things are going to get better. Instead, Keller and Grace don't really wake up because they hardly sleep. And when the daylight hits the windows, it's just another day that they spend every waking moment trying to find their daughter Anna. Next door there's no shortage of grief either as the well-off Birch family holds out. But the film has more of a focus on the Dover's. Their characters are more layered. Not financially stable. Their struggles feel identifiable, more realistic. Keller struggles to find carpentry work while also doomsday prepping in his well-organized basement. His son asks for some financial support in purchasing his first car and Keller almost immediately states that it's an impossibility. Clearly things can always get worse. And of course they do.

Jackman puts his Wolverine claws in the closet and delivers what's arguably the best performance of his character, full of nuance. A religious man, a recovering alcoholic who has already been to hell and back in the past. A man who likely at a certain limit only to have it pushed further. His morals become compromised, he makes drastic decisions, but you understand. He maintains conscience, at times even feeling desperate for a church confessional. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as the twitchy Detective Loki is a bit restrained but his determined yet calculating demeanor is interesting. Keller unfortunately doesn't see how hard Loki is on himself. Character actor Paul Dano nails it as peculiar loner Alex Jones. Melissa Leo is the chameleon she always is. Maria Bello so perfectly demonstrates the complete collapse of one's character. The years that a trauma can put on someones mind and physical attributes, like that person you know in your town who lost a child years back that everyone feels so sorry for when they see her at the gas station while she hides her face. From beginning to end the cast performs like a gloomy symphony of melodrama. The final moments of the picture play on some of the notes of Silence of the Lambs, perhaps making more of an impact on you as you watch the the credits roll. Prisoners will without a doubt stick with you, for good or bad. 

12 Years a Slave

Steve McQueen, 2013

4/5

Solomon Nothrup is a free man living in Saratoga. A skilled fiddle player, he is convinced by a couple pf men to travel to Washington to perform. Soon after he arrives, he is Shanghaied and sold into slavery. His requests to be freed on the account of being a free man from the north fall on deaf ears.

McQueen's adaptation of the Solomon Northrup memoir is an honest one. A true account of a tragic story. A very raw display of one of the true American horrors. McQueen is a skilled filmmaker and the technique involved in this picture is very deliberate. A lot of close to medium shots. Long takes, a lot of hanging on a shot, longer than one would expect. It's all intentional. He wants to enslave the audience, and he is effective at that. The tendency to cringe at what you are seeing, amd you do. The urge to look away, and you try to. It is also a film that wants to be heard, with Hans Zimmer providing the score. And so the pieces come together and the result is an ominous construct of deception. And the film is not over-stylized like Tarantino's very popular Django Unchained. That makes it feel more personal. While there is plenty of disturbing imagery in the film (possibly some of the worst you'll ever see), what makes the film truly upsetting is the truth behind it. You are seeing what your fellow man is capable of doing. What humanity is capable of. That's what makes it truly horrific. Manipulation, deception, betrayal, heartache, loneliness, theft. And not just theft of a person's livelihood. Not only a theft of a man's name. Theft of the human spirit. Northrup is living an honest life in Saratoga. A threat to no one but a set of fiddle strings. A family man, one who pays his taxes, has an honest job. The separation of North of South feels quite skewed when there is a threat of a southerner making their way up only to double-cross an honest man only because of his skin color. And so he is Shanghaied. He is not stripped of his freedom but his existence.

Great performances throughout. Chiwetel Ejiofor is well equipped to play Northrup. He will likely earn an Oscar nomination, and the praise is well-earned. Paul Dano plays the chilling Tibeats. Avenging after being undermined, he holds a grudge and doesn't value any real principles. Paul Giamatti plays a horrible slave trader Freeman, pawning off humans as if they are livestock, even if it involves separating mother from child. McQueen once again works with Michael Fassbender, who has appeared in all three of his feature films. Fassbender is so wonderfully despicable here. Hidden under the false charm of his Southern regalia, he puts the slaves in strict competition over cotton volume and on lonely nights forces them to dance to his own amusement while he stands around in bare-feet and loose garments. His temper is short and can be triggered by his repellent wife (played by the great Sarah Paulson). 

A story of perseverance, personal fortitude, but also one of shame. Germany may have the scar of Nazism on its face but we will always have slavery on ours. While the title of the film may give the ending away, it's not only about whether or not Solomon Northrup is eventually freed. There is no happy Hollywood ending to this piece. Taking 12 years away from a man not only strips him of time he cannot get back, it strips him of a certain freedom for the rest of his life. And what justice can be made for such time? Hard to quantify it. That's what makes it such a true American tragedy.