Manchester by the Sea

Kenneth Lonergan, 2016

IMDB

4/5

Any New Englander is going to feel a sense of familiarity to Manchester by the Sea. It's a movie filled with characters constantly battling the cold temperatures, something we are all used to dealing with in the Northeast. But these characters, while possibly making the mistake of dressing a little too lightly, are tough people. They have endured. There is a sense of resilience. These are working class people who are dealing with the difficulties of ordinary life. Loss of a loved one, past mistakes, struggling to make that next dollar.

Casey Affleck is a proper casting choice for the Lee Chandler character because he's not a very external actor. Lee is not a very external character. Lee bottles things up. He carries the weight of his past on his back. The only release for him is the occasional bar-fight that can be provoked by something as simple as accidentally bumping into him. So it's safe to say he's a man on edge. He becomes a profoundly sympathetic character when more of his past is revealed during the films constant flashbacks. There's just so much nuance to his character, along with the other characters in this film. Kyle Chandler, who plays Lee's brother Joe, brings the same level of consistency that he always brings. Chandler is really one of those actors that is always just dependable. Michelle Williams continues to prove how unbelievably good she is. She has this ability to pull a reaction out of you with little dialogue. She's all in with her supporting performance as Randi Chandler. The standout scene with her being an alleyway confrontation with Lee that dares you to not tear up.

This is a movie where you can't point fingers. Everyone is struggling in some way or another, just like normal folk do. There is a defining turning point in the tone of this film that you never fully recover from, even after the end credits. That's why it takes such an emotional toll on you. Because this is a real movie, maybe too real. You aren't spoon-fed a Hollywood ending here. This film ends just like life goes on. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, sometimes it's neither. Sometimes things just keep on keeping on. You just continue to exist in the world, with no choice but to carry the entirety of your history with you.

The Confirmation

Bob Nelson, 2016

IMDB

3/5

There are many angles in which the Father / Son movie dynamic can be approached in film. In real life it's a complicated relationship. Living up to the expectations of each other, letting each other down, reflections of oneself in your own offspring. Being hard on your self, being hard on your son. Martial troubles that trickle down to the rest of the family.

In The Confirmation, you step into the lives of Walt (Clive Owen) and Anthony (Jaeden Lieberher) long after any familial conflict. They are now in a state of reconstruction. Walt and ex Bonnie (Maria Bello) have been divorced for a while, long enough for her to remarry. This is presumably because of Walt's drinking, which reveals itself pretty early on in a conversation between the two when she pleads with him not to drink while taking Anthony for the weekend.

Walt is down on his luck. He's in that sort of purgatory state of existence where he can't seem to get out of his own way. Truck won't start, phones not ringing with construction work. Rent is late, no money to pay the rent. All he really has is this weekend with Anthony. Bad turns to worse when Walt discovers that his antique wooden toolbox has been stolen from the back of his truck while in a local tavern. The film soons morphs into a modern day take on The Bicycle Thief as Walt and Anthony spend most of their weekend together searching for clues. They are forced to approach the (what would be considered) more deplorable people in town that would do that kind of thing (steal toolboxes). Interestingly enough these people don't come off as criminals but more as characters. There is certainly an effort to humanize these types of people in this film. And there is a lot at stake for Walt. With an eviction notice on his apartment door, he desperately needs money right away and not taking the carpentry job on Monday is out of the question.

The Confirmation works largely because of great casting choices. Clive Owen's Walt character solicits sympathy, as the character really needs to. You want Walt to find his tools. You want the relationship between Walt and Anthony to flourish. Walt doesn't take on a victim mentality at all. Not only does he bear the weight of his own mistakes, he bears the weight of his generations mistakes one apologizing to Anthony for leaving his generation with a infrastructural mess to clean up. One should come to expect nothing but an impressive nuanced performance from Owen, who is quietly one of the best working actors in modern cinema. Bello succeeds in her Bonnie role, as she balances the perfect amount of firmness and fairness. Anthony's character works because of its authenticity. He so accurately nails that whole kid being happy with the nothing moments as long as you are with your father. Sitting in front of the TV watching boring black-and-white repeats is enough. Riding shotty in an old pick up truck is enough. The Confirmation is an endearing film that has some appreciation for film history but also has heart in it's own story.

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.

Everything Must Go

Dan Rush, 2010


3/5

Nick Halsey returns home from a not-so-good day at work to find all of his possessions on the front lawn of his house, with all of the locks changed. Realizing that his wife has left him, he decides to stay out on the front lawn continuing to drink beer hoping that the answers will come to him.

A lot of familiar faces and distinct P.B.R. product placement in this dramedy that is a nice change of pace for Will Ferrell. As one of the better comedic actors of this generation, it's refreshing to see Ferrell in a dramatic role. I've always had a theory that comedy actors do well in dramatic roles because of the built-in range they already possess. It's why Jim Carrey was so successful in the transition in dramatic roles like The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and why Bill Murray also succeeded in films like Lost in Translation. 

Rush is effective at creating a film that has doesn't trip over itself with unnecessary story. It mostly focuses on Nick re-evaluating his life and wondering what got him to this point. Rush makes a statement about ones tendency to cling to material objects. Nick soon realizes that in order to move on, he has to let go of the Vinyl records and the George Foreman grill. Part of the letting go is aided by young neighbor boy Kenny Loftus (Christopher Jordan Wallace), and the dynamic that is created between the two is heart-warming and clearly therapeutic for both of them. The gorgeous Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Town) appears in the film as Samantha, the new neighbor moving across the street, providing an ear to Nick during his outdoor stay. The belongings on the front lawn can also be a statement about the Surburbia gossip mill: window peeking and speculation over neighbors unhappy marriages. Nick fittingly makes a statement in the film about how everyone hides their baggage behind closed doors, hidden from the world. He claims that he is more honest because his baggage is out on the front lawn, for the world to see. The film doesn't try to be anything other than a hit rock bottom & pick yourself up piece, and although the twist at the end is a bit unnecessary... it's still an entertaining 90 minutes.

Flight

Robert Zemeckis, 2012

3/5

Flight is a good film. You get a sense of familiarity with Zemeckis at the helm. I forgot how good of actor Denzel Washington is, he deserves more credit than I typically give him - especially in this film. His character Whip Whitaker is a conflicted, yet sympathetic man who is struggling with his alcoholism throughout the film. It is clearly a character study on Whip Whitaker, who is a man of many layers. You get a sense of the unpredictable nature of an alcoholic, someone whose disease has spread to every facet of their life but still remains heavily charismatic. You have to sympathize with Whip's character, because if you don't the film is going to lose its power.

The first half of the film was fantastic. Great pacing, gritty imagery, compelling story-line  The plane scene rivaled the scene in "Cast Away" which was probably the most terrifying plane crash scene I have ever seen before on film (even more than "Alive"). The second half for me seemed to have veered off course a bit. I enjoyed John Goodman's character but I would have been satisfied with the first appearance early on in the film. I found the scene with him later in the film distracting and I didn't think the moment was ripe for a comedic tone.

One scene that really stood out to me was when the three characters are in the stairwell of the hospital. Walt Whitaker, Nicole and the cancer patient (Mark Mellon) are smoking when the subject of death comes up. Mark says something along the lines of "anyone who doesn't believe in God is stupid. As soon as you start to see that all of the random events that happen in your life are actually God, the world gets a whole lot easier". I love how this tackles the subject of death and the concept surrounding yourself to the world. You have three people who are in a hospital under completely separate circumstances. Of course the psychology of that comes into play. These traumatic events have just happened, and you're left with a great deal of uncertainty. Why did this happen to me? Perhaps if you believed that it was pre-destined, it softens the blow a bit.