Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
Like an even more depraved episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, if they did a Belgian spin-off starring the McPoyle twins, crossed with the no-holds-barred slapstick comedic absurdity of Dumb and Dumber and the fourth wall-breaking, ultra-low-budget shenanigans of The Eric Andre Show, Mother Schmuckers is tasteless and offensive and grotesque. And it had me cackling in no short measure. Read More
Kids grow up so fast these days or so the adage goes. In Pascual Sisto’s anti-coming-of-age dark psychological thriller John and the Hole, this phrase is taken quite literally when 13 year-old John (Charlie Shotwell) decides he’s old enough to be the man of the house, drugs his family, and stuffs them in a literal 20-foot hole in their backyard. Read More
Inclusive, funny, original, and genuinely moving, CODA is just about the most wonderful start to the 2021 Sundance Film Festival that you could hope for. This endearing fish-out-of-water coming-of-age story about the only hearing daughter in a deaf family embracing her love of singing feels like a revelatory discovery; not only is it a standout film in and of itself but it’s the kind of movie that uses inclusiveness to tap into new voices and entirely new types of stories. Read More
Each and every year, figuring out what to watch at the Sundance International Film Festival is a journey in and of itself. Last year, I saw a good smattering of my favorite films of the year in Park City, including Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor and others that played the fest, like Dinner in America, later made its way onto that same list. This year, things are different. For the first time in its celebrated history, the entire festival will be conducted online. While this means no late-night parties, no skiing on those powdery Utah slopes, no rubbing elbows with your favorite celebrities, and less standing in blisteringly chilly queues, it also means enjoying Sundance from the comfort of your own couch. Read More
Austrian screenwriting and directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala either have terror children or were terror children. They love staging a good the-children-will-be-the-death-of-us yarn, pivoting from a story about two young mischievous twins torturing their mother (who’s recently undergone facially reconstructive surgery and, consequently, her children now refuse to believe is actually their mother) in their celebrated German-language debut Goodnight Mommy to a tale of two young mischievous siblings torturing their soon-to-be stepmother in their English-language horror show The Lodge. Read More
With the 2016 Sundance International Film Festival right around the corner, the Sundance Institute has revealed all its in-competition films including selections from their U.S. Dramatic Competition, U.S. Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition and their featured NEXT competition for emerging filmmakers. Have a look through the list to find standouts in a year that looks surprisingly slim on them. Read More
Things came in twos at this year’s Sundance Film Festival with a pair of Cobie Smulders’ features competing against one another for the Dramatic Competition prize, a set of unexpected pregnancy comedy/dramas, Tye Sheridans (who actually was showcased in three films: Last Days in the Desert, Entertainment and this film we’re in the midst of reviewing) and, most notably, a duo of 1960-70s social psychology experiment films. One of which, The Experimenter told the story of Stanley Milgram, administer of increasing electrical shocks and student of peer pressure. The feature starred Peter Sarsgaard and was met with middling reviews.
The Stanford Prison Experiment featured no such A-list star in its telling of the infamous study of the role of the situation but, from what we’ve gathered, is the superior feature of the two – the Prestige to its Illusionist (2006), the Jurassic Park to its Carnosaur (1993), the John Wick to its Equalizer (2014)- amounting to a chilling, procedural experiment of authority and influence that toys with the variable of structural familiarity. It’s dangerously close to being great – and truly is in some scenes – but it’s true-to-life messiness doesn’t coalesce into the kind of form-fitting narrative perfection that defines stronger films.
You can train a dog to sit, shake and roll over. You should not however force a human to learn the same tricks. What takes place in The Stanford Prison Experiment is very much an exercise in teaching an old dog a new trick by way of unchecked domination. The result is a harrowing, hard-to-watch dissection of the role of power and the all-encompassing effect of the situation on the perception of those inside of it.
In 1971, 24 college-aged students were divided into two groups – prisoner and correctional officers – for a study intended to examine the seemingly unavoidable clash between military guards and their prisoners. If Tim Talbott‘s script can be believe, all participants uniformly preferred to be selected as the “prisoner” in the study. One particular rationale for such preference was: “It will probably be easier.” As The Stanford Prison Experiment unfolds, nothing could have been further off the mark.
Over the course of only the first day, Dr. Phillip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup), the chief psychologist in charge of the study, realizes the data is going to be much more exaggerated than he first hypothesized. From go, those selected as guards assimilate into the role with cowboyish abandon, with one exuberant guard later labeled “John Wayne” going so far as to adopt a southern lawman drawl and persona. Just as Zimbardo smirks and smiles through his mock arrest, the bogus guards find it their simulated duty to wipe that smile off as quickly as possible. Stripped of his clothes and dignity in mere minutes, they achieve their goal with unthinkable menace.
Operating under the presumption that they were selected because of their better standing as students, workers or citizens, the guards take on a hulking superiority complex, one that is exaggerated by director Kyle Patrick Alvarez‘s no-holds-barred grasp on the psychological tension of the situation. Having the consolation of the real Dr. Zimbardo gives the film further credibility, especially in the context of its least humane moments.
Treating the prisons like bonafide wrongdoers and extending so far as to physically beat them (a breach of contractual agreements), each set of guards – morning, day and night – has its own alpha male personality that takes the lead. Not to stoop to obvious parallels but Hitler Youth is written all over these psuedo-sherriffs who’ve tasked themselves with the responsibility of robbing the inmates of their most basic human privileges. The knowledge that they are indeed just peers, unluckily assigned at the flip of a coin, has all but escaped them. The extent of their malicious humiliation is enough to turn blood to ice, creating a hellish arena cloaked in uniforms and aviators well beyond what one would expect your average 18-year-old capable of.
All the authenticity The Stanford Prison Experiment brings to the table establishes an alarming, visceral sense of reality but is also accountable for a skosh of its failures. Because of its strict adherence to factual truths, some of the most intriguing characters disappear before we want them to. A minor complaint in the fact of a lofty accomplishment but one I had none the less.
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Metaphysical bodysnatching from the POV of the snatcher, Advantageous is a soft sci-fi-drama centered around a cool idea but repeatedly undone by shoddy execution, unconvincing performances and dreadful FX. Commendable though Jennifer Phang‘s mother-daughter relationship study might be in the context of Sundance’s overabundance of father-son sagas, Phang is able to capitalize on the maternal bonds between ejector and ejected but has no idea which direction to take it in after it’s been established. Instead, it’s bagged up, zip-tied and casually thrown into an ebb of “does it really matter?”
The future is now in Phang’s minimalist economic fiction and it’s one that’s risibly domineered by white dudes. Though women aren’t technically banned from having jobs, there is an increasingly dominant movement to blast back to the past and re-adopt the Baby Booming mentality of staying at home, making waffles and secretly scarfing cocktails. The commentary isn’t subtle, but neither is the film.
Gwen (Jacqueline Kim) is a single mother, promptly aging out of her cushy position as the face of an appearance engineering firm that’s the modern day evolution of plastic surgery. Faced with the reality that her 40something year old countenance just isn’t paying the bills anymore, she’s forced to make a decision to play guinea pig to a new game-changing procedure that will transfer her consciousness into a younger, more form-fitting body.
This presents obvious mommy issues that extend well beyond the whole “I’m disorientated because Mom’s got a new face” factor and the narrative problems underlying Gwen’s motivation plague the should-be emotionally hefty moments in its later parts. It doesn’t help that the future society in which Gwen and daughter Jules (newcomer Samantha Kim) is populated by half-finished CGI that add nothing to the film aside from a general sense of haphazardness. One is forced to assume that either the money tank ran dry or the effect guys didn’t finish their work. A sadly definitive blanket statement about the film at large.
The appearance of Ken Jeong on the cast list comes as a major red flag though he ends up the least to blame for the frequent failures of Advantageous. The depressing thing is that cinema needs more movies like this: that feature foreign voices, foreign actors and women in the spotlight in front of and behind the camera. But to celebrate the film for its makeup rather than its internal worth is a misstep as well. Ultimately, Advantageous is an unsatisifying, unremarkable, incomplete feeling soft sci-fi that should have been so much more and could have been with a few more coats of paint.
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James White is a revealing ailment drama fastened by excellent performances and as smothered in bathos as cafeteria nachos are in fluorescent cheese. Marking the writing/directing debut for longtime Borderline Films producer Josh Mond, this nuclear family implosion bespeaks a turning point for the genre-leaning studio. In the wake of such cerebral thriller vibes of Martha Marcy May Marlene and Simon Killer, James White is the product of hawkish realism – an blemished, brave story that squares its audience in the midst of an emotional tornado.
Encouraged by the close circle of Borderline principals to “work on something personal”, the tragic development at the heart of the film is culled straight from Mond’s own experience of losing his mother to cancer. Says Mond, “James White isn’t my exact story – it wouldn’t be possible to tell my story in one movie – but it definitely came from a place of wanting to understand things that I was dealing with, things that I am still dealing with.”
And you can feel the verisimilitude bleed off the screen. Rather than sentimentalize and aggrandize the role of the mother and son struggling with the big C, Mond eulogizes in repentant waves. This is no story of heroism, it’s an account of needing an instruction manual when there is none available.
As the eponymous character, Christopher Abbot breaks out in the biggest way possible. Full of rage and anguish, he’s an impossible character but Abbot absolutely nails him. From his hard partying exploits to dealing with his grief in volatile salvos, Abbott rounds the character out without sanding him down. We’re privy to all the ugly, unflattering divots and bumps in his personality. Combative detonations, emotional blusters and huge (but understandable) mood swings reveal a soul as lumpy and bruised as an overgrown tumor.
White’s best friend is played by Kid Cudi, who after a surprisingly impressive debut in Need for Speed (a fun performance trapped in a lagging film) is back showcasing a deft ability to handle drama. Cynthia Nixon is a heartbreaker as White’s fading matriarch, giving a performance soaked in fever sweat and unsentimentally sobering.
Mond keeps things simple in order to showcase the developing relationship arcs – the twentysomething deadbeat manning up, the caregiver role inevitably transplanted from one generation to the next – and for it is rewarded with a singularly affecting film that’s lamentably about as much fun as the death throes.
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There’s a flicker of hope early on in Reversal. A scuzzy captive batters her captor, gaining the upper hand and chaining him in the very binds she was kept in for who knows how long. She scours the house for car keys, stumbling upon a folder filled with Polaroids of similarly imprisoned females. She rages downstairs, pistol cocked, face splattered with blood from their recent altercation. Tensions run high and the stage for a decent horror flick is set. And then she opens her mouth.
Reversal is a film that really isn’t horrible so long as no one’s talking. When they’re forced to peel through Rock Shaink Jr.‘s hacky script, it is. It really, really is. Cheap and stinking more of cheese than bleu basking in the sun, Shaink Jr.’s dialogue are first draft-worthy cliches shaped into an incoherent series of events likely to incur frustration (“Why doesn’t she just call the cops!”) and walk outs (nearly half my theater dumped out before the end).
José Manuel Cravioto‘s misplaced direction doesn’t help the matter. But it’s only fair to cut him a little bit of a break. English isn’t his first language and it shows. Thoroughly showcasing his foreign” director status, Cravioto tries on material he must not linguistically understand. How else can you account for the absolutely horrendous delivery of some of an already shoddy script?
A handful of his shots prove tempestuous, particularly when no one’s speaking. From blood-splattered slow-mo walks to explosive fits of violence, Cravioto has an eye for setting the scene but not the ear to discern performances.
It’s not that Tina Ivlev is terrible so much as her scenes seem rushed and “first take”. Richard Tyson gets out a hair better, but similarly fails to overcome the bargain bin script. Which is a true disappointment. Films of this nature – female-led revenge flicks – ought to empower. Rather, the whole thing feels discounted and inauthentic – the artifact of two men trying to capitalize on feminine rage.
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