Arrival

Denis Villeneuve, 2016

IMDB

4/5

Denis Villeneuve is without a doubt one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. His filmography spans through different genres. Abudction thriller in Prisoners. Psychological thriller in Enemy. Dark family drama in Incendies. Drug action thriller in Sicario. They are films with a particular distinction, a noticeable intensity. They all carry a certain weight to them. They all feel like they were in the hands of a confident, capable filmmaker. 

Arrival is his first real dab into sci-fi genre, a taste of maybe what we can expect when his take on Blade Runner is released in 2017. Arrival is an adaptation of a Ted Chiang short story that got tossed around by the studios quite a bit before finally getting some life. Starring Amy Adams, it is rooted in an alien invasion film but has some real family-oriented emotion to it. Its what a film would look like if Contact and Independence Day had a baby. The visual elements are fresh and inventive. It refuses to dumb itself down. If it were to dumb itself down it would certainly feel much more like Independence day. And Arrival probably won't fill theaters like an Independence Day would. Its not that kind of movie. Its a thinking mans Sci-Fi. Like they should be. The way that the film plays with time and a non-linear format is really remarkable. There are moments of pure tension in this film. When the crew first enters the alien spacecraft and as they approach the glass wall the score kicks in with an incredibly loud humming that feels like Han Zimmer's Inception score. What a great decision it was to cast Adams. She possesses the perfect amount of vulnerability and curiosity needed for the Louise character. Villeneuve continues to create mystique around spider-like creatures in his films but instead of eight legged beings they are instead seven legged heptapods. The film explores questions about humanity, how we perceive the unknown as threats, how time can interact with our universe. 

It's probably the second best film Villeneuve has done. Incendies will continue to hold the number one spot for me personally but this is a movie that needs to be seen by cinephiles. The sci-fi genre doesnt typically get a lot of best picture love so this one probably will not get that time of recognition but its just another remarkable piece in Villeneuve's already impressive filmography.

Midnight Special

Jeff Nichols, 2016

IMDB

3/5

Jeff Nichols is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today. Rooted in this sort of gritty, southern gothic headspace - he is able to convey images through the eyes of the everyman and sometimes figures struggling at poverty level America.

Viewers got a taste of the supernatural in his 2011 film Take Shelter. By going down that avenue he separated himself from his prior film Shotgun Stories, which was really just a straight drama picture. The supernatural elements in Take Shelter were so well used, and the ending was one of the best endings in modern cinema.

Midnight Special is interesting, because it's a really great film but probably my least favorite of his filmography. For me personally, I would probably rank Nichols films:

1. Take Shelter
2. Mud
3. Shotgun Stories
4. Midnight Special

There are a lot of things to appreciate with this movie. The unique supernatural elements, that in a sense resemble character "11" in 2016's Stranger Things on Netflix. And actually, the two can compared to each other even more with the alternate dimension concepts that both pieces of work experiment with. But Nichols is confident in his film-making, not willing to slow things down or worse - dumb things down for the viewer. There is some decision making with the picture that is bold, and really does pay off at the end of the day. The decision to not show a cliche car chase scene, and instead, focus on the aftermath as the car descends upon it. Some sudden shifts in the story without waiting for the audience to catch up. Midnight operates that way. It is what it is, Nichols probably doesn't care if you don't approve of some of his methods of storytelling. And while the end may be a bit confusing, it's something that is still lingering with me days after viewing.

10 Cloverfield Lane

Dan Trachtenberg, 2016

IMDB

4/5

Everyone has probably at some point imagined what their emergency plan would be if some catastrophic event were to occur. Perhaps there's a bomb shelter in town. Or perhaps you have that rural family member that is as close to off the grid as it gets.

There is this whole sub-culture of doomsday preppers. They are meticulously building emergency shelters, often underground. It's part of our whole post 9/11 zombie-obsessed culture. Planning for the worst. Some would say it's overcautious, even paranoid. There's a stigma associated with the prepper type. Far right wing, reclusive, lacking certain social skills. What's interesting is that while we often let our imagination run wild when it comes to what we would do in an emergency situation, we probably don't envision ourselves buddying up to the doomsday prepper in order to survive.

Howard (John Goodman) is exactly this type of person. Building his underground bunker for years leading up to this "chemical attack", his efforts finally feel justified when something finally occurs. A doomsday preppers wet dream. And Howard is exactly the socially awkward type of person that you would picture a prepper type to be. Paranoid, controlling, impatient, unpredictable. When Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) awakens from her state of unconsciousness after a car accident, Howard doesn't exactly help her feel comfortable. She is chained to the wall, so she might as well assume she's being held captive.

It's a limited storytelling movie for sure. Most of the film takes place in Howard's underground bunker. There is impressive production design here too. Every little nook and cranny of the shelter is decorated. The wallpaper makes it feel kind of homey, and the back-lit glass behind the kitchen sink almost makes you feel like you aren't 20' below grade. And although you don't see the threat above ground, you know it's there from the constant loud noises that suddenly erupt.

It's a satisfying film for sure. You spend a good portion of the film wondering yourself if Howard is a good guy or not. You feel locked in there with Michelle, dealing with that same uncomfortable uncertainty. But of course there's all these things going on above you as well, so it makes you wonder even if Howard is a bad guy you have to weight it out. It's probably still better putting up with the bad guy if it means you aren't falling victim to the chemical attack above you or whatever it is.

A lot of people probably go into this movie having seen Cloverfield (2008) and assuming that it's connected to this film. But it's not really. Producer JJ Abrams has said that it exists in the same universe. But it's probably better to just disregard any connection, because they are really just two completely different films. The only similarity is the extra-terrestrial presence. But that's all. And don't worry, that's no spoiler. 

Europa Report

Sebastian Cordero, 2013

IMDB

2/5

A group of astronauts are deployed on a mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons where there is suspicion of alien life or at least the evidence of past life.

So many films in the found-footage genre use the less is more device when it comes to employing something freaky or creepy. There is an expected build-up of tension, suspense, anticipation. Sometimes, like the foundational found-footage genre-creator The Blair Witch Project (a personal favorite that gets a lot of praise on this blog), it's a device that's used very effectively. There you are getting a gradual increase in the amount of creepy stimuli. At first it's just a little pile of sticks in the woods. Then it's the chilling cries of a baby. And then of course the climax at the house. It's about pacing, accumulation and then release. Structure.

Here, you wait for delivery that just never comes. It starts off as a little flash on the screen that one of the astronauts sees from the ship. Then it's another flash. Then it's another flash with some camera distortion. Then some more camera distortion. You continue to get teased and teased for the duration of the film and by the end it's just not enough. The documentary-style interviewing recounting that events that occurred feels faulty and unnecessary. The set design is impressive in regards to the space craft and it's endless surroundings, but there are points in the film where you just want to get off the damn thing and explore. There are no rules set in stone in terms of a story like this, it can go anywhere. But it's supposed to be a Sci-Fi Thriller. Instead of any thrills it has the mildness of Contact without the quality. Its a film that feels too restricted, too minimal. Upon looking back to some of the much better space movies: Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Starship Troopers, Moon... Europa feels very scant and very forgettable. 

Honeymoon

Leigh Janiak, 2014

IMDB

1/5

The Sci-Fi/horror genre has become so offensively saturated with mostly copycat knockoffs of past classics, reusing old tropes and beating them to death. Regurgitated themes. Re-purposed cliches. Sometimes when you watch something that feels like a huge waste of your time, making you think that maybe its all been done before. That maybe there aren't any new ideas in this genre. But then every now and then, something will float to the surface. Something will stand out. Films like The Conjuring, The Cabin in the Woods or Insidious will appear and it gives us all hope. It gives us hope that maybe there can be new things done with the seemingly forlorn genre.

Unfortunately, Honeymoon doesn't fall into this category of refreshing and unique horror films that are trying new things. Instead it falls into that category of pretty good acting spoiled by an awful script and amateur direction. Janiak tries to make too much with too little here. This one can be filed under the category of predictably stagnant alien films. It's a bit irritating too, because you are likely delighted to see Rose Leslie on screen after seeing her in Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey. She has already proven herself a good actress while working with good material. But she doesn't have a whole lot to work with here. In fact, her Bea character and husband Paul (Harry Treadaway) characters are actually quite annoying. You spend the first 20 minutes of the film watching them groping each other like a couple of spider monkeys. To be expected on ones honeymoon. But we aren't going into this movie hoping to spectate a weekend of lovemaking. That's another kind of movie that we can watch some other time. That one will probably be better directed as well. Because you will have two minutes of foreplay and casual dialogue and they will get down to business. Honeymoon takes a lot of time getting to where it wants to, when most of the audience will probably know where it's going the entire time. The decision making on the parts of Paul's character are frustrating. The most obvious of them all is his inability to get Bea in the car and away from the cabin. Her condition continues to decline, his solution is to fondle her more and tell her how much he misses her. His character seems to be desperately horny, like he should have been in Deadgirl and not Honeymoon. Honeymoon feels like a weak ripoff of a Stephen King story with too much build-up and an insufficient reveal.

Edge of Tomorrow

Doug Liman, 2014

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Typically reluctant to get involved in the physical elements of war, Cage (Tom Cruise) finds himself on the battleground fighting against an invading alien force that has already destroyed much of the world. When he falls victim to one of the creatures during a firefight, he realizes that when he dies he awakens at the beginning of the day where everything starts over again.

Liman's Sci-Fi thriller is a mix between Groundhog Day and Starship Troopers (who would have though that would have ever been possible?). Cruise once again finds himself in the Sci-fi genre, where at this point he should feel quite comfortable having already starred in films like Minority Report, Oblivion, War of the Worlds -the latter two dealing with similar plots of aliens invading Earth. But where last year's Oblivion fell victim to dragging predictability, Edge really keeps you engaged and maintains it's rapid pace to the end. Unfortunately Edge fell victim to poor marketing, and didn't really perform well at the box office in early June 2014 when it was released. It should have done much better, seeing as it wasn't up against any big-budget action films but instead found itself up against tween-adaptation/tearjerker The Fault in our Stars. But it was probably too smart for the typical action-seeking-moviegoers who are still mourning the loss of Paul Walker from cinema, forever depressed about the unfillable hole in their precious Fast and the Furious franchise. But who cares about the numbers, really. The only unfortunate part of it is that Liman wasn't immediately praised for his work here, and he really should have been. Instead, the film will likely go on to maintain more of a cult status which is fine too. History should be kind to you Doug Liman.

The film is certainly not absent of lots of CGI and big-budget effects, but they really provide a complimentary dynamic to the brilliant screenwriting. It never feels gimmicky or ever makes you feel like there's any kind of imbalance. It doesn't just try to wear you down with stimulation. It's a heady piece that puts your brain to work. And along with the great writing, Liman puts some his familiar Bourne Identity film-making techniques to work again, with a lot of the erratic jumps and cuts. During the opening moments of the film you realize that the earth has been invaded by aliens as they land on earth on asteroids. You don't see them right away, and when you are finally introduced to them on the battlefield you realize how much of an unstoppable force they are. They sort of come off as a hybrid of Predator & James Cameron's Alien on amphetamines. By the time you actually have one in your sights, it's probably too late to take it down unless you have an impeccable shot. And Cruise's early work on the battlefield is anything but impeccable. Playing against type, he attempts to blackmail his commanding officer in an attempt to cowardly escape actual battle. It's a clever trick, because you really get a sense of his character's evolution as he has to repeat each day correcting his mistakes, hoping to eventually figure out how to defeat the mighty force. In a genre where is quite the disparity of quality, Edge manages to stand out while performing its own take on the alien invasion theme.

The World's End

Edgar Wright, 2013

Can I Stream It?

3/5

Gary King (Simon Pegg) rounds up a group of his old mates and returns to their hometown in an attempt to complete a pub crawl that they failed to accomplish when they were much younger. But they only manage to get a couple of pints down when they realize that the residents of their old town don't appear to be the same as they remembered.

Wright and Pegg team up once again in this quirky take on the alien invasion genre. Instead of the Pegg / Frost duo fighting off zombies, they find themselves dodging blue-blooded robotic aliens with shape-shifting abilities who are trying to perform a covert takeover of the rural town person by person. Gary's priorities are skewed. He seems to be more inclined to make sure that they all complete the crawl this time around instead of worrying about his friends and family's well-being. This is very much frustrating to the rest of the group, who reluctantly joined him on this mission which pulled them away from their long-standing responsibilities. They have all grown older, found a significant other, found a nice career. Gary is stuck in the past, suddenly resurfacing as the friend who wants to pull them back into their old habits. Gary clearly has his own issues that he hasn't dealt with properly, mostly having to do with his inability to grow up and become a responsible adult.

Wright's invasion piece doesn't necessarily have all of the charm as some of his previous work. But there are some really amusing comedic moments as well as some well-executed action sequences. The most enjoyable element is probably when the group takes on groups of the aliens, grabbing whatever set pieces they can to use as a weapon against them. The film very much feels like a hybrid of Shaun of the Dead and Wright's video-game-romantic-action picture Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It feels like it takes a while for Gary to assemble the group and the action to pick up. The World's End would have been better served had Wright trimmed up some of the introductory fare and attempted to get the film down to the 90 minute mark.

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer, 2014

Can I Stream It?

4/5

Set in Scotland, a shape-shifting alien creature is secretly killing young men in an effort to feed a mysterious source. Soon the carefully maintained routine is disrupted when the seductress begins to gain an awareness, suddenly seeing the human race as something more than just lustful meat.

Under the Skin has a lingering quality to it, a quality existent in Glazer's past film Sexy Beast. But while Sexy Beast was simply rooted in great performances, this picture's lingering qualities are more obvious, more impacting, more elaborate. More intriguing. Glazer's cold black predatory piece plays out like a David Lynch created hybrid of Stephen King's Sleepwalkers and M. Night Shyamalan's Signs. The chilling score is noticeable from the get-go as the hum and the heartbeat manipulates your senses. Some of the images dance slowly across the screen, never slowing down to a bore.

Scarlett Johansson's femme fatale creature is calculating, tactical. She's precise in her pursuit. If there is any compromising moment in the hunt, she scraps the moment and moves on to the next attempt. Using sex as bait on young men is just too effective. When you see a black wigged, made-up Scarlett how can you not get into a van with her? The fact that these scenes were filmed using hidden cameras on oblivious walker-bys without making that segment of the film gimmicky only adds to Glazer's skilled film-making abilities. It's a film that almost demands to be re-watched, as you are likely to find little marks here and there that you may have missed. It's the long-awaited true Cinephile's alien movie. And although the film gets lost a little bit in it's own abstraction as the female creature begins to empathize with the human race, the memorable imagery never slips between the cracks. When the two humans are submerged and the one sees the other get "processed", how are you to ever erase that from your brain? There is an artful brutality to this picture that Nicholas Winding Refn only wishes he could have achieved in Only God Forgives. So many aspects that will stick with you for days, months maybe. Mica Levi's score is so much like the background noise we heard in The Master or There Will be Blood, but it's so brilliantly embedded in the fabric of the film that hearing anything remotely resembling the sounds after will trigger your memories and have you looking behind your back for a Dodge Sprinter as you walk down an empty street. As the cold temptress creeps through the Scottish city, Glazer forces you to look at your own race through a different set of eyes. You sympathize with the poor young men that are so unfortunate to fall victim to their own libido. But you soon find yourself sympathizing with the very creature that so mercilessly takes them from the world. Another testament to Glazer's pure brilliance with making this film. Under the Skin is a hypnotic art piece. So cleverly disturbing without being pure gore, and unnerving without using any horror cliches.

Oblivion

Joseph Kosinski, 2013

Can I Stream It?

3/5

Jack is a Drone Technician that services patrolling drones that defend the remaining habitable portions of Earth that haven't been destroyed by nuclear blasts that won the war for the human race. These drones keep the alien invaders still present at bay while Jack's organization can successfully complete their Nuclear Fusion accumulation mission off of the coast. Jack is told that the work is nearing completion and he will soon join the remaining members of Earth on a moon orbiting the planet Saturn. But he soon finds that the agency that he works for might not have been completely honest with him, and that there may be something more to the visions that he has been having in his dreams.

This Cruise-led Sci-Fi that gives nods to Minority Report, A.I., Planet of the Apes, to the Matrix and Blade Runner. The dystopian landscape is a truly a feast for the eyes, from the Sky-High contemporary pod house that Cruise's character Jack resides in or the multitude of gadgets that they use. These visual elements are the biggest perk of the film, the highlight probably being the spaceship / drone battle about 3/4 into the picture. In fact, the drones could easily be considered characters in the film. You never really get sick of those little sounds that they make as they zero in on a target, and if it's hostile you hear the couple of beeps before the enemy becomes nothing but disintegrated matter. Jack spends the first hour or so of the film showing you the modern planet. Manhattan is submerged under soil, with pieces of classic architecture still protruding from the surface. He even has his little nostalgic shrine that he sneaks off to periodically, where he can listen to rock LP's and read A Tale of Two Cities. Oblivion really feels like it has something going for it, that is until the reveal. At this point, it makes a predictable stroll to the end. By the end you are given a certain amount of closure but wondering why the hell it took so long to get there.

Grabbers

Jon Wright, 2012


3/5

A small Irish community is is shaken up when an alien creature lands in the sea. As residents begin to vanish, a newly-paired Guard duo tries to find its weakness. Upon discovering that it feeds off of blood, they attempt to poison their own blood by consuming large amounts of alcohol at the hometown pub.

In this silly beer-soaked sci-fi horror, Grabbers possesses some of beats of similarly-themed Attack the Block but also has some of the laughs-in-the-middle-of-chaos of Shaun of the Dead. The lead characters are easy on the eyes newbie good-girl Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) and jaded lonely sad-sack Ciaran O'Shea (Richard Coyle). Nolan can't wait to fulfill her duties as Guard while O'Shea can't wait to wade through the monotony of his day, so his liver can do the bulk of his daily work at the local watering hole. When the two are assigned together early on there's a bit of tension between the two that makes you anticipate the predictable shift to romance. It doesn't take long to introduce the antagonist alien sea-beast (the first scene actually). Introduced at first using the effective what you don't see is more scary technique, when you it does finally show itself it's not disappointing. As the town bands together to fight it off using their best tool, their ability to put down the pints. The normally quiet town gets a shot in the arm when the beast arrives, and the sense of inebriated community between them all is inviting and amusing. Although the film may push the Irish stereotypes, as soon as "The Irish Rover" starts playing in the pub you wish you were right there with them singing along, Guinness in hand.

A film that could quickly become distracting with lame CGI and poor acting really isn't at the end of the day. There's impressive camera work involved, a fitting score, and a medium-sized cast that really deliver satisfying performances. The lack of a back-story and rush to create a romance between the two Guards feels a bit far-fetched, but then again its a movie about a giant alien squid who pukes up drunkards so who is really judging it on that level? Besides, there are moments in the film where it could venture down over-used roads and it actually pulls back. For what the movie is it's good. It knows what it is, and what it needs to accomplish. 

Pacific Rim

Guillermo del Toro, 2013


2/5

As giant alien creatures (known as the Kaiju) ascend from the middle of the earth to destroy humanity, humans join together to mobilize a defense. They decide to fight fire with fire as they create massive robots called Jaeger's that rival the Kaiju in size. These robotic machines are human operated involving two people bound by the mind. They are able to gain a bit of a foothold in the war with their machines but are intent on destroying the crevice in which they emerge from.

A film likely to be adored by thirteen year old boys across America. And only them. Guillermo del Toro proves that he should stick to the Fantasy genre, and not enter the world of big Hollywood Blockbusters. Toro goes from treating viewers to such haunting, imaginative creations in Pan's Labyrinth to removing all layered storytelling and just shoving big budget effects down our throats. Like the monstrous Jaegers in Pacific Rim, the film is bloated, too big for its own good, uninspired, and derivative. The premise itself feels imitative. The look of Iron Man. The interface of Avatar. The utter destructionism of Godzilla. The Transformers-like battles. Yeah, we've seen all of that. It's been done before. 

What is the point of the soldiers proving that they are capable of proving their martial arts abilities? The robots don't even utilize those moves. They slowly punch through the air like soaking wet Rock-em Sock-em toys. Oh, and they can break out a sword in a clutch moment to abruptly end the battle so the film can make one of many erratic cuts in the story? How convenient. The $190M budget was clearly spent on CGI and not on the writing. The dialogue is so elementary and just feels empty and downright lacking. Cliche sayings like "step into my office" or "let me check for a pulse, okay, no pulse". Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) does step out of his Jax Teller comfort zone (albeit handcuffed to Ron Perlman), and does come off as a more wholesome figure than his well-known Samcro President role. And poor Idris Elba. The man who will always live in infamy for his role as Stringer Bell deserves more than this. But he probably made the mistake we all did. We all saw Guillermo del Toro's name on it, and thought: "how could this be a bad move?!". He had nothing to work with. The soldiers jump into the Jaeger head and they look like Daft Punk members who couldn't play an instrument. The interpersonal relationships between father and son, or almost-lovers feels rigid. It will be interesting to see how history treats this film. Maybe Guillermo is saying bye bye to his darker days. Clearly at this point he is more inclined to channel Ishiro Honda instead of The Brothers Grimm.