Bone Tomahawk

S. Craig Zahler, 2015

IMDB

4/5

Bone Tomahawk is going to appeal to viewers that aren't necessarily into the Western genre. It's a pleasant surprise, the great writing grabbing you right away and not letting loose until the end. The violence is going to surprise you. The gore is going to startle you. The performances are going to inspire you.

There are things that were done in this film to the human body that I didn't necessarily want to see at any point in my cinematic journeys, but regardless of seeing said cannibalistic atrocities - this film was an absolute thrill. These are the best films; the ones that sneak up on you. The ones that you weren't bombarded with marketing day in and day out. Everywhere you looked: billboards, television commercials. This is a pure indie shot on a $1.8M budget and somehow managing to cast Kurt Russell, David Arquette, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and an UNRECOGNIZABLE Richard Jenkins. Jenkins was really the exceptional performance in this film. It took about 20 minutes of screen-time to recognize him. There's not much to the story, really. A group of a men set out to rescue a local man's wife and a sheriff's deputy from a tribe of "savages". A template for a lot of standard Western fare, but boy is Tomahawk different.

Zahler does a fantastic job of getting you to despise the brutal tribe that attacked the small town of Bright Hope. You are begging for vengeance, praying for a positive outcome. And when you finally confront the unforgiving Troglodytes, they make the film almost feel like a Western Mad Max or something. There are so many movies that have been made that have these disturbing moments in them. Irreversible, Requiem for a Dream, Human Centipede, Funny Games. They take you so far that you don't want to revisit them again. There's nothing beneficial to go back to. But Bone Tomahawk is interesting, because some of the images shown are on par with some of those barbarous moments in the aforementioned movies. But Bone Tomahawk is a movie that I will almost certainly want to revisit at some point in the future.

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.

The Limey

Steven Soderbergh, 1999

IMDB

4/5

There’s a reason that film schools study The Limey. Its taking a simple premise and building a sophisticated visual construct around that premise. Something that amateur filmmakers wouldn’t be capable of doing. But someone like Soderbergh can. Soderbergh is one of the more prolific directors working, maybe the most. And I will admit right off the bat, I consider him to be a bit overrated. I am not a fan of all of Soderbergh’s films. While everyone raves about Out of Sight, I am not one of those people. I didn’t care for it. I thought Contagion was dull. I thought Gina Carrano’s distractingly bad acting killed Haywire, which felt too much like Out of Sight for me at times. In fact, in memory the two movies blend together for me in my mind. Girlfriend Experience felt empty and forgettable. And the Ocean’s sequels just lacked that same allurement that the first one had. But then there’s the original Ocean’s Eleven. One of the best remakes ever made. I saw it three times in the theater back in 2001. Side Effects was a really well crafted film, was really able to display some of Channing Tatum’s acting chops while giving Rooney Mara another avenue to display her natural abilities. Behind the Candelabra was an HBO release but that should have had a wide theatrical release. It’s unforgettable. That’s the thing with Soderbergh. You can rattle off a few of the films of his that you really care for and any director would kill to have those films in their filmography. He’s not out there to please everybody with every film. He takes risks and jumps around to vastly different material and that’s admirable.

You can really just boil down the plot of The Limey to a father wanting some closure for his daughter’s death. And Soderbergh is able to build this captivating, tense stylistic film around that premise. Precise editing, great performances, a hypnotic score with haunting piano, this sort of yellowish haze that seems to pour over the screen. It has remarks about social hierarchy and the whole wealthy class on the mountaintop. The complicated nature of a father and daughter relationship. There's even a subtle indictments of Hollywood and celebrity culture. In a sense the Limey is what Pierre Morel’s Taken would be in the hands of an auteur rather than an action director.

Frailty

Bill Paxton, 2001

IMDB

3/5

Bill Paxton is an actor who wouldn't make a good straight up villain because of his charm / likeability factor. That is why his "Dad Meiks" character succeeds in this 2001 directorial debut (screenplay by by Brent Hanley) by Paxton.

Almost immediately you like the Dad character. Hard-working, eats dinner with his boys every night and warmly sends them off to bed before retiring himself. It's when he is awoken by a vision that it all changes. He tells his boys how God will be making a kill list for him, demons that he must rid the world of. Your suspicion of Dad grows, and you find yourself finding a certain comfort in Fenton's character, who is seemingly the only sane character left. His impressionable younger brother Adam is going to do anything his father wishes so there's virtually no hope for him to snap out of it.

What transpires is a dark southern gothic story with some real twists. The way that the film shifts your vision of who is good and bad is impressively executed. It's a good opportunity to see some of McConaughey's early acting chops which are evident in the film. He's kind of in his wheelhouse as the Texas-based drifter type that mutters slowly and thought-out. But overall it's a unique film that grabs you, and there's definitely some black comedy elements at work even if they are a bit buried beneath the surface. Paxton is really so perfect for the role as the eccentric father who really feels like he's God hand and doing something important. A straight up scary guy would never work. And it's his ability to be the benign father early on and get you invested in him as the good guy that is the springboard for all of the alternating that continues throughout the film.