Chris on Cinema’s Top Films of 2019

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Before we go any further: the best movies of the 2010s that
is about the 2000s is The Social Network. The best movie of the 2010s that is
about the 2010s is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. No other film captured,
with pop-art colors and four-quadrant appeal, the greatness – and great
responsibility – that has been thrust upon Generation Z. In the past few years
I have been so inspired by the brave, tireless work of people like Mari Copeny,
David Hogg, and Greta Thunberg. They teach us that we all have a role to play
in improving our world. In fighting for what is right. I hope that our art in
2020 reflects their courage and lives up to the idea that tomorrow will be
brighter if we choose to make it so.

Anyway, here are the movies I couldn’t stop thinking about
this year.

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10. An Elephant Sitting Still

One could spend the entirety of An Elephant Sitting Still’s
four-hour runtime debating whether director Hu Bo’s tragic death diminishes,
elevates, or simply distracts from the film itself. It’s a thought that is hard
to ignore given that the film is steeped in malaise and haunted by death. An
Elephant is difficult to watch but impossible to ignore or look away from; it
is full of characters who are difficult to love but impossible not to empathize
with. On paper, nothing could seem more one-note or more disheartening than
this film and yet its existence challenges us to consider the why of our
hurt and our selfishness and our apathy.

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9. The Report

The Report is not really interested in being a movie and since it
cannot be a documentary it decides to be a dramatic reenactment. It is doggedly
journalistic and its matter-of-factness stands in stoic opposition to cathartic
sensationalism. The Report owes much in form and function to Steven Soderbergh,
for whom Scott Z. Burns, its writer and director, has previously
written four screenplays. Soderbergh has made a career of information delivery
that is cool and frictionless but still compelling. The Report never quite
reaches those heights but it benefits greatly from Adam Driver who is endlessly
interesting to watch. Sometimes that’s all you need: the facts and America’s
most compelling actor under 40.

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8. The Farewell

We can complain about movie ticket prices, we can complain
about the number of ads and trailers that delay a movie’s screening, but the
fact remains that movies are cheaper than plane tickets and easier to swallow
than a semester studying sociology. And therein lies their beauty. The Farewell
gives us a seat at the dinner table of a loving but dysfunctional Chinese
family. We learn, as with any family, the layers of emotion and meaning
embedded beneath seemingly simple conversations. In this way, a simple conceit –
the inevitable death of a family member – is imbued with complex and
bittersweet repercussions. The Farewell is ensemble piece but it is carried on
the slumped shoulders of the charming, emotive Awkwafina. She was new to me
here – I look forward to her becoming an old friend.

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7. The Lighthouse

Midway through Robert Egger’s new horror two-hander, The
Lighthouse, Willem Dafoe gives a dramatic monologue that is so intense, so
impassioned, and, most importantly, so long that I could not help but
burst out laughing. Despite the film’s cold, miserable, gross conditions, The Lighthouse
may have been the most fun I had at the movies this year. Pair that with the
film’s astoundingly ecstatic penultimate scene and the aforementioned Dafoe’s
craggy face filling the high-contrast black-and-white frame, and you have
something purely, simply cinematic. Even if there isn’t much going on below the
torrential surface.

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6. Uncut Gems

Upping the darkly comic ante is Josh and Benny Safdie’s new
film, Uncut Gems. I love the Safide Brothers and I love how much they clearly
love film. I love that they know exactly how to use Adam Sandler’s manic,
desperate energy. I love that they are constantly daring me not to throw up
upon witnessing their exquisitely nauseating characters and cinematography. I
do hope their style evolves. Those who have seen the Sadie Brothers’ previous
film, Good Time, will not be too surprised by anything here. But the cinematic
schadenfreude works for me. As Qui-Gon Jinn said, “Whenever you gamble, my
friend, eventually you lose.” Sandler’s Howard loses in the spectacular fashion
of a firework malfunction where everything explodes at once. We leave covered
in soot, ears ringing, hands shaking, laughing nervously for the rest of the
night.

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5. Ad Astra

Ad Astra snuck up on me in a way that only James Gray
movies seems capable of. It was one of my most anticipated movies of the year
but when the lights came up I felt perplexed and disappointed. Days later,
though, I could not shake the image of Brad Pitt floating alone in his
spaceship. I realized upon reflection that no other film has captured the banal,
isolating imprisonment that space travel so obviously portends. Suddenly, what
seemed like saccharine melodrama was reframed as the necessary tether back to a
humanity so easily lost in the din of industrialization. Before worrying about
whether or not we are alone in the universe, we must find reconciliation for those
with whom we already occupy space.

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4. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is odd and specific and
observational and soulful. It is about gentrification and race and the
performative nature of identity without ever becoming preachy or overly
obvious. San Francisco may have benefited from a shorter runtime but what you
gain in expediency you undoubtedly lose in atmosphere and in the overflowing
humanity and warmth developed by director Joe Talbot and lead Jimmie Fails. The film quietly and gently teaches us
that our endless and exhausting irony is often just a mask to hide our ignorance. It’s easy to claim
to hate that which you do not know or understand. Love is hard. But investing
in something – a relationship, a place – means that against all odds it’s
harder not to.

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3. Marriage Story

Remember that time Kylo Ren smashed a wall fighting Black
Widow and also Alan Alda was there? What a time for movies. Marriage Story’s
thesis can be summed up thusly: “Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best,
divorce lawyers see good people at their worst.” We all deserve agency and
autonomy but what do we owe each other? And what do we allow others to tell us
we’re owed? And what, by our actions, do we tell others they deserve?

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2. Parasite

It seems that every year there is a movie that, for my
skeptical self, does not live up to the hype. Kindly cancel me for stating that
Under the Skin, Fury Road, and Annihilation are among them. I respect
these movies for their singular vision and for not being made by Disney, but my
interest goes that far and no farther. Parasite should have joined that list
but I found myself completely engrossed in its intricate twists and turns. I
won’t bother reiterating what everyone else has already said about it. It’s one
of the best movies of the year.

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1. A Hidden Life

The best movie, however, can only go to A Hidden Life.
Because when Terrence Malick is good, he’s the best. And his latest film
includes an element that has been missing from some of his recent works: necessity.
The true story of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian
farmer who refused to pledge loyalty to Hitler, is an important story for our
time and for all time. As with so many movies on this list, A Hidden Life is
about the cost of doing what is right rather than what is easy or safe. It is
an overwhelming film not only because of its subject but because of the beauty
in every fluid shot’s composition. There is a heaviness in A Hidden Life but it
is never hopeless. It is a rallying cry for the inherent value and beauty in
life. I struggle to write more about it not because it is
undeserving but because a Gesamtkunstwerk like this is almost untranslatable.
It must be seen. If one of the few theaters that is actually playing A Hidden
Life is near you – see it. Full stop.

Lessons from the Edit: Interstellar

Attention: This post contains INTERSTELLAR spoilers. The attached video is provided for educational purposes
under the assumption that the viewer has purchased a copy of the film itself.
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I was going to begin this piece with my own take on Martin
Scorsese’s recent comments about Marvel movies being closer to theme park rides
than cinema and how Christopher Nolan seems to be intentionally threading that
needle: describing his most recent (and best) film, Dunkirk, as “virtual
reality without the headset.” I guess you could argue I’ve done that. Let’s
move on.

Consider, if you will, the tesseract. Much more than a
glowing blue MacGuffin in Marvel movies, a tesseract is the dimensional
successor to a cube just as a cube is the dimensional successor to a square. A
recursive projection of itself possible only in four-dimensional geometry. Germane
to our discussion in numerous ways, we find four-dimensionality in film. In
fact, this writer would argue that film is one of the only four-dimensional art
forms.

While anyone who actually understands science will tell you
that the fourth dimension is not “time” itself, for our purposes we can say
that time is one of the main components of four-dimensionality. Where sculpture
and architecture are three-dimensional objects contained in time, film
(and, to provide another example, performance art) contains time. A
sculpture is static, a performance unfolds. Both the internal narrative
and the external structure of film require the utilization of time.

Were one to note the main structural fixation repeated in
the films of Christopher Nolan, it would surely be time. Inception
explores the worlds within different scales of time; Dunkirk re-orchestrates
the linearity of time; and Interstellar, in its climax – to (literally)
return to the tesseract – utilizes recursive temporality. Time folds in on
itself. It is fitting, therefore, that such self-reflexivity would play a part
in my own relationship with Interstellar.

From my first viewing, Interstellar felt like both
the best and worst thing Christopher Nolan had ever done. Putting to rest his
Batman trilogy with a belabored ambivalence (do note that the most interesting
aspect of The Dark Knight Rises is surely the IMAX-visualized
Police-blitz climax – a concept taken to its logical conclusion in Dunkirk
– but that’s a story for a different post), Interstellar seemed to
contradict itself as Nolan attempted his most human and his most story. Unfortunately,
but perhaps not surprisingly, some of the human elements fell flat to me.

“The answer is simple,” thought a younger me, recently
introduced to the video editing capabilities of Adobe Premiere Pro. “Remove
Jessica Chastain’s scenes from the film and you will have a cleaner, leaner
film wherein the audience will more fully join Matthew McCounnaughey in his
separation from his most beloved child.” And so, I went about working on my first
ever fan edit, losing steam at 90% completion, abandoning it for other
projects for two years, only to return to the project and realize that the only
version of the file I had was corrupted – unable to be opened, salvaged, or
restored.

Two years after that, I, for whatever reason, felt ready to
return to the project – re-editing the film from the ground up, resulting in
the project that exists before you. Learning much along the way, as one does, I
am happy now that I did not complete the project back in 2015. Not only am I a
better editor today, I also have a new understanding of what troubled me with
the film.

I still believe that the Affleck/Chastain “leaving the farm”
storyline is an attempt to make a dramatic mountain out of a narrative molehill
and is probably the least effective cross-cutting that Nolan has ever attempted
because the stakes do not align whatsoever. In this way, I have kept to my
original conception of what the film’s main structure should be. This time,
though, I also reconsidered the ending of the film. Cooper “returning” to an
unrecognizably old Murph (on her deathbed, for like 30 seconds) is narratively
tidy but emotionally false – missing what I believe to be the most interesting
and moving idea in the film.

“Newton’s third law,” Cooper says, over the film’s best
music cue, “You’ve got to leave something behind.” To this point, the film has
trafficked heavily in the concepts of separation and isolation. Cooper leaves
his family behind. Dr. Mann and the other Lazarus astronauts leave Earth and,
potentially, humanity behind. In nearly all of the cases presented, this ends
in tragedy. Murph resents her father for leaving and Dr. Mann, in his
isolation, grows fatally selfish.

It is not until Cooper enters the Tesseract that he learns how
to productively leave something behind. That is, to impart rather than
to abandon. In this way, the film becomes a lesson in the struggle of parenting.
Cooper must finally accept that the universe has not chosen him; it has chosen
his child. Like many aging parents, he gives up his attempts to regain the past
and works to pass on what he has learned. Not for his own benefit, not
even for the benefit of his relationship, but for the express benefit of his
child – emboldening her to do what only she can do. We move forward not by
leaving others behind, but by what is left behind for us. We progress as a
society through collective, communal, charitable effort; not through the
Randian elitism that Dr. Mann employs which can only end in self-destruction.

Still, as in all things, we learn more in retrospect than we
ever can in the moment. Murph can’t crack the meaning behind her ghost’s
messages as a child. She learns in the returning. In the reflection. What do we
say heals all wounds? Only riding out the wave of time. Murph has a profound,
extra-temporal connection with her father that she can only understand,
appreciate, and utilize as an adult. It was through the Tesseract that Coop
gave his daughter all the time he could.

In a similar way, we access higher dimensions through memory.
Memory allows us to hold, in some small way, time: that slippery thing that
contains us. It gives us access to the ghosts of our past that live behind our
bookshelves and inside our keepsakes. It is fitting that Murph’s is a
timepiece. This is, after all, a Christopher Nolan film.

So as not to spoil the experience, I will leave it there.

And I’ll leave this here: INTERSTELLAR: a Chris On Cinema Edit

Please note: video resolution in Google Drive is dependent upon your browser settings and internet connection. If 1080p is not available, try downloading the file.

@chrison_

The Year in Review: Top Ten Films of 2017

Well, we made it. We survived. Before getting into this list, I’d like to thank everyone who read, shared, or commented on one of my posts or videos this past year. It was a pretty monumental year for this blog and for my cinematic journey. I didn’t go into 2017 with a plan to revive this blog but I’m happy I did. I ended up thinking about this very list for most of the year; giving me time to rediscover my love for movies and an excuse to watch way more movies than I otherwise would have. So let’s get to the movies, shall we?

This list is not a definitive, quantitative, or objective ranking of the films released this year. Rather, it is a rough sketch of the movies I enjoyed seeing the most. The movies that moved me, surprised me, or stuck with me. You can see my previous post for a listing of movies I missed and movies that didn’t make it into my top ten. I hesitate to call these my ten “favorites” because, if you ask me in three months what my favorite movies from 2017 are, the list might look quite different. For today, though, I hope it provides something new, forgotten, or overlooked that you can take with you as we head into the new year.

10. It Comes At Night

In an apocalyptic near-future, a mixed-race family must protect their home and their health from foreign threats. Of all the horror movies I saw this year, It Comes at Night was the one I could never get out of my head. Whether director Trey Shults intended it or not, It Comes at Night became a meditation on many of the ills that plague America in 2017: from the failure of white saviors to a tribal and territorial fear of “the other.” What made the film feel special was its simplicity and focus. Shults was not interested in world-building or mythologizing. Without the visual formalism of The Killing of a Sacred Deer or the loaded narrative commentary found in Get Out and mother!, It Comes at Night is its own survival kit: stripped down to the bare essentials, without the fanfare or gloss of over-production. This is a movie with lace-up boots and dirt under its nails. A movie that, above all, feels like its about real characters who react uniquely to new conflicts and discoveries.

Joel Edgerton, whose face I admittedly often forget, gives one of his best performances. His family, played by Carmen Ejogo and Kelvin Harrison Jr. (who were both new to me) were standouts, and small parts by Riley Keough and Christopher Abbott (two of the greatest actors in the indie scene, Keough especially) round out the great cast. Throughout the movie I was reminded of Alien, another horror film that takes place in a claustrophobic environment, where it is just as interesting to watch all the characters converse as it is to see them get attacked by a giant space bug. Many people were let down by the absence of a horror they thought was implied in the title “It Comes at Night.” But, like Alien, they’re missing the trees for the forest. This is a human drama. What makes the film horrifying is its plausibility. Hell? Other people. What comes at night? Darkness, paranoia, emptiness. It doesn’t get scarier than that.
9. The Death of Louis XIV

Moving even smaller in scale, The Death of Louis XIV is a sad, funny, beautiful chamber-piece starring the one and only Jean-Pierre Léaud. Truthfully, a big part of what makes the film so enjoyable is the meta-narrative trip that comes with this casting. Léaud began his career at age 14 starring in one of the most influential films of the French New Wave, Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. He is, quite literally, French cinema royalty and, though Léaud himself is only 73, this feels like his great swan song. As always, Léaud manages to be both funny and tragic; equal parts ornery and charming.
The film’s lofty title may not seem like the most exciting or accessible subject matter but, while stuffiness abounds, there is simply too much to enjoy in this film to pass up and I’m shocked that more people aren’t talking about it. The cinematography is some of the best this year: every single shot looks like a candlelit oil painting. The blacks are endless, the reds are velvety, and the golds are radiant. Is the movie slow? Yes, absolutely. But I, for one, enjoyed drinking with the King, scheming with his advisers, and laughing at each new, ridiculous wig that appears on screen.

8. Lady Bird

As with every new work that seems to be receiving undue or hyperbolic praise, I was highly skeptical of Lady Bird before finally seeing it. So let’s start with all the ways I was right. This is a coming-of-age story and it contains all the usual suspects: a fast-talking, strong-willed protagonist who still has a lot to learn about how the world actually works; parents who just want the best for the protagonist who have trouble communicating with her and with each other; a quirky best friend who is briefly tossed aside while the protagonist tries to be popular; and a concluding event that reminds the protagonist of some little piece of wisdom that was dropped along the way.

Despite all of this narrative predictability, there’s something undeniable about Lady Bird. It works because of the characters that writer/director Greta Gerwig has crafted. An incredibly gifted, funny performer in her own right, Gerwig understands that no relationship is black and white. The best scenes feature Saoirse Ronan’s titular Lady Bird and her mother, played by Laurie Metcalf. Though their relationship is often contentious, at a moment’s notice the two act like the best of friends. They are too similar to be compatible and yet it is this resemblance that keeps them together. If that’s not an accurate, human depiction of mother-daughter relationships, I don’t know what is. In the end, Lady Bird is endearing, warm, and human – genuinely funny and genuinely moving. Gerwig didn’t reinvent the coming-of-age dramedy, but she came close to perfecting it.

7. After the Storm

If you enjoyed the familial drama of Lady Bird, I highly recommend watching the criminally ignored Japanese film After the Storm. The movie centers on a dead-beat, divorced dad trying to reconnect with his young son and ex-wife – well, kind of trying. The film’s lead, Hiroshi Abe, is basically Gob Bluth from Arrested Development: he’s lazy and selfish but is able to skate by on his charm, social flexibility, and a bit of self-deprecation. Like Lady Bird, After the Storm is full of complex, three-dimensional characters, tenuous family dynamics, and lived-in wisdom that never feels hacky. Hirokazu Kore-eda shoots the film without pretension, keeping a careful eye on the little details of everyday life. It doesn’t have the pep of an American dramedy so many viewers might find their minds starting to wander but, like 2016’s Paterson or Kore-eda’s predecessor Yasujiro Ozu, After the Storm has a lot to offer if you’re in a receptive mood. Pair with tea and a rainy day (a monsoon, if you’ve got it).

6. Good Time


Good Time is a travelling carnival. It’s a fever-dream that feels familiar even though you never know exactly what you’re going to see. The music and lights are dizzying, the air is full of weed, sweat, and old cigarettes, and everyone is inexplicably dressed like it’s the 90s. Need I say more?

I didn’t know what to expect from Good Time having seen none of the Safdie Brothers’ earlier films, but I was intrigued by the trailer. The film did not disappoint. Beginning with a bank heist gone bad, Good Time is the story of two brothers played by Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie. As many have noted, the film owes a lot to the 1970s cinema of Scorsese and Lumet but there’s an immediacy to the filming that feels unmistakably modern. Just when the gritty realism sinks in, the movie blasts into space thanks to a bold score from experimental producer Daniel Lopatin (aka Oneohtrix Point Never). It’s one of the best scores of the year, featuring a gut-wrenching, original song from Lopatin and Iggy Pop. The cinematography is equally manic: mid-winter greys mix with neon lights and vibrant reds. The Safdies keep their camera dangerously tight – detailing the desperation on a nearly-unrecognizable Robert Pattinson (and we’ll see him again before this list is over). Twilight? Never heard of it. You’re witnessing a movie star – a direct descendent of Pacino or De Niro. Good Time is grimy, thrilling, and occasionally very funny. Like all carnival rides, I went home feeling nauseous, head-pounding, and in need of a tetanus shot. 
5. Columbus


Columbus is a movie so personal to me that I can barely talk about it objectively – I kind of feel like I made it (but I can assure you I did not). The first feature by video essayist Koganada, Columbus is a movie about love, loss, and architecture so genuine it makes (500) Days of Summer look like the sloppy, insincere mess that it is. The film’s success is largely due to its two leads: Haley Lu Richardson, who I had never seen before but fell in love with immediately, and John Cho who is now, unarguably, a leading man. The third star of the film is modern architecture by the likes of Eliel and Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, and SOM.

Without giving away too much, Richardson’s Casey is a student who meets Cho’s Jin, a visitor to Columbus, Indiana: architectural mecca of the Midwest. Many of you don’t (and couldn’t) know that I went to school to study architecture. I, like Jin, skeptically engaged with bright, young minds like Casey and questioned what architecture really meant to culture, to a city, and to me. Why does architecture matter? That’s a question I’m still answering but I can tell you this: we need spaces of reflection, communion, and discourse. The best architecture provides that. Columbus is the proof. I’m so pleased that this film has made a number of year-end lists. It’s a little film about a simple story and, like the best architecture, I look forward to exploring it again.
4. Nocturama


Nocturama is perplexing, modern, and gripping from the first minute. Nocturama is the story of a small group of French radicals who plan a coordinated attack on Paris. Nocturama asks a lot of questions – Who are these people? How did they meet? Why did they choose to become terrorists? – but if you’re looking for answers, look elsewhere.

What makes Nocturamaso exciting is the immediate immersion in the intricacies of the plot. There is no Ocean’s Eleven-style voiceover guiding you through the plan, no diatribe or manifesto to take in, just the cold, hard act. Bertrand Bonello’s ensemble piece is a commentary on luxury, privilege, and the rebellious naiveté of youth. It’s also impossibly cool: our anti-heroes smoke, dance, and listen to pop music. They’re kids – just like the ones on your street, in your school, at your mall – and that’s what makes the film so challenging, scary, and dangerous. It’s easy to characterize terrorism as a foreign offense. Nocturama doesn’t want to be easy but if you’re not careful, it might seduce you. Nocturama lights a fuse and dares you to enjoy the flames. Either way, your palms will be sweating.

3. The Lost City of Z

I’ve been critical of James Gray’s big, melodramatic films in the past but with his most recent work, I finally got it. The Lost City of Z stars Charlie Hunnam – in what is far-and-away his best performance – as Percy Fawcett, a 20th century explorer searching the Amazon for the titular city of Z. It’s hard to describe exactly why this film works so well. Like the old epics of David Lean, we follow Fawcett from his humble beginnings as a promising, young military officer, we learn and struggle with him, we return with him, after his numerous expeditions, to see his family growing and changing.

The Lost City of Z offers a whole lot to take in and it’s a testament to the editing that this 141 minute voyage moves along as breezily as it does while also never feeling rushed. What helps keep the story going is breathtaking camera work by cinematographer Darius Khondji and a great cast that includes Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Ian McDiarmid. Films like this don’t feel like they should exist anymore – The Lost City of Z is sprawling and beautiful but also quite smart: evoking questions of colonialism, masculinity, and the personal price of one’s work. It’s not perfect, but it’s a rare gem in a field of plastic.
2. Personal Shopper


Personal Shopper was one of the most unique theater-going experiences for me in 2017. It was a Wednesday evening when I spontaneously decided to drive half an hour to the only theater showing Olivier Assayas’ latest film. It was playing in a single auditorium – and a small one at that. I arrived early, as I always do, and waited for the few other moviegoers to trickle in. But they never did. And so I was treated to a personal screening of one of my favorite movies of the year. A movie that, rather fittingly, serves as a meditation for loneliness, isolation, and the vulnerability of predation.

Personal Shopper stars Kristen Stewart as a self-proclaimed medium trying to make contact with her deceased twin brother. Less of a horror film and more a dramatic character study, if you were ever doubtful of Stewart’s acting chops, this film should convince you. I was completely transfixed by her performance. She, and I say this without a hint of irony, is our James Dean. Sporting a leather jacket and a cool, androgynous demeanor, Stewart’s Maureen Cartwright is everyone who has ever slouched with hands stuffed deep in their pockets, anyone whose hands have shaken from an unexpected text message, anyone who’s had the eerie feeling of being watched by someone just out of reach. Personal Shopper is all about atmosphere: chilling, evocative, and sensual. I suppose I understand how people looking for plot-points found this film messy and inaccessible. As for me, though, I’ll be chasing the specter of that first screening. Going to the movies is a kind of séance and I’m thankful to Olivier Assayas for showing us a visionary Kristen Stewart.     
 1. Dunkirk

I know it’s basically a cliché to even talk about Christopher Nolan at this point, but this is where we find ourselves. NOLAN. BROS. FOREVER. Christopher Nolan doesn’t just make films as if each one is the last he’ll make. He makes films as if they’re the last film that will ever be made. Dunkirk is an absolute spectacle and it is, by far, Nolan’s best work to date.

As I’ve discussed before, Nolan came to prominence at the same time I was discovering film. I was in awe of The Dark Knight and Inception when they came out, but by the time The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar were released, my fan-boy-dom had faded. Interstellar is a very good but very flawed movie. It wants so badly to capture the humanity of early Spielberg and the grandeur of Kubrick but, sadly, fails to reach either. Still, the best decision Nolan ever made was swapping out his longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister for Hoyte Van Hoytema. Van Hoytema, who has done great work with the likes of Tomas Alfredson and Spike Jonze, brought a much needed flair for richness to Nolan’s pragmatic sensibilities. With Dunkirk, finally, there is a rich screenplay to match.

It seems Nolan actually listened to the critics who, for years, decried his overly-expositional dialogue and choppy editing. Dunkirk, not unlike Kubrick’s 2001 is pure visual storytelling. The difference is that Nolan was still determined to tell an intimate, human story and, calling upon the cinema gods from Murnau to Hitchcock, he did it.
There was no cinematic experience more breathtaking this year than seeing Dunkirk in IMAX. The sound design is so fierce and the score is so relentless it felt like a deep tissue massage for my brain. I left the theater after each successive viewing feeling invigorated in a way no film has affected me before. Nolan has always tried to make films that could capture the attention and imagination of any viewer (that’s why it was so important for this film to have a PG-13 rating) and he finally did it. The structural experimentation that Nolan was known for from the start is used here to turn the entire film into one of his signature, cross-cut sequences: one long, thrilling crescendo. And he did it all, God bless him, in under two hours.

Nolan-mainstays Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy are as cool as they’ve ever been, and seasoned pros Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh bring much-needed warmth and pathos, but the film belongs to the new faces that Nolan introduces: Fionn Whitehead, Aneurin Barnard, Tom Glynn-Carney, Barry Keoghan, and, of course, Harry Styles. They are the young men who have history thrust upon them – dropped into a giant, dangerous world with the weight of a nation on their shoulders. And they fail. They fail their mission and, occasionally, they fail each other. They return home distraught, ashamed, and confused.

“All we did was survive,” they say.

“That’s enough.”

Perseverance is noble. Support is bravery. Survival is victory. That’s Dunkirk’s message. It’s the one we needed this year.

The Year in Review: 2017 Honorable Mentions

Originally this post was just going to list my top ten films of the year and provide a brief commentary on the honorable mentions that didn’t make the cut but I got carried away with the latter and wrote way too much. So here’s a holiday surprise: a full summation of my year at the movies for you to enjoy as I work on my top ten list.

2016 Addenda

Silence and Paterson were two 2016 films that I was only able to see in early 2017. Had I been able to view them when they were first released, both would have made my 2016 top ten list (which never got a proper post but is accessible via my twitter) and both would have vied for spots in my top three. I highly recommend that everyone watch both films. They are both challenging films in their own ways. Silence is emotionally exhausting; moments of shocking brutality and quiet delicacy abound. It’s an examination of faith worth mulling over regardless of your worldview or philosophy because, in the end, faith is an emanation of our basic humanity. Paterson is similar to Silence in its singular voice and vision. It is meandering, seemingly plotless, and deceptively simple, but sometimes one has to walk slowly in order to see clearly.


Films I Missed
As seen above, every year there are a number of films I am unable to see because I didn’t have time or it wasn’t playing in Michigan or I didn’t have the press credentials to get into a screening. This year, the most disappointing miss was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Threadwhich, apparently, didn’t make it to my local art theater. I’ve loved Anderson’s last three films (and enjoy his entire filmography, in varying degrees) and believe Phantom Thread would have made it onto my top ten list this year, had I been able to see it. Other films I missed this year, in no particular order, include: A Quiet Passion, The Post, Menashe, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, I Tonya, Menashe, Graduation, Manifesto, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Call My By Your Name, and The Square.


Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions
Despite missing a lot, I saw more films this year than I have in a long time. This meant that my top ten list was an enjoyable challenge and that a number of films, for a variety of reasons, didn’t make the cut. These are their stories…

Lemon was the worst movie that I saw this year – or, at the very least, it was the movie I disliked the most that I watched all the way through nonetheless. The anti-comedy antihero that Tim Heidecker played to cringey perfection in the weird and wonderful The Comedy should be hereby retired with Brett Gelman’s new film. I think Brett Gelman is a very funny comedian and his wife, Janicza Bravo, who directed Lemon has a unique enough directorial voice but, in a year of terrible men, we didn’t need this one. In a year of interesting commentary on race, we didn’t need this half-hearted, cynical, frustrating attempt.

Lemon

I swore off comic book movies years ago and have only watched DC movies out of morbid, masochistic curiosity (I did not see Wonder Woman or Justice League, for the record, and don’t plan on ever watching them). That said, the first superhero movie to pique my interest in years was Logan. I hadn’t seen an X-Men movie since First Class, which I found rather pointless, but, as a childhood fan of the X-Men comics, something about Logan seemed different. And indeed it was.

Logan works incredibly well as a neo-Western road movie that happens to feature mutated humans with superpowers. Hugh Jackman is probably the best actor to ever lead a comic book movie and here he finally has a movie that is worth his time. The three leads that form a quasi-familial unit in the form of Patrick Stewart, Jackman, and young breakout Dafne Keen, all perform incredibly well together and individually. The movie falters when it tries to introduce its villains and an action-y plotline. The dude with the Anakin Skywalker hand was sufficient, the evil doctor guy played by Richard E. Grant was introduced too late to matter, and the robo-Wolverine or whatever he was called was just kind of awkward and weird and dumb. Still, I was genuinely moved by the end of this movie – brought closer to tears by this movie than any comic book movie I’ve watched. It’s not a great film, but it’s a very good comic book movie. Count it among the few classics.
Another movie that I was surprisingly moved by was Okja. I felt like I had this film’s number from the start. Not that predictability is inherently negative, I just didn’t think I’d get that much out of it. But this movie is incredibly well-crafted. The performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton are so over the top that they actually work as caricatures of evil people. This movie feels like a live-action anime. It has the energy, the flow, and the colorful cast of characters. The message is simple and perhaps a bit obvious but it works. And while I will continue blaming it on the severe cold I had while watching the film, I did get choked up at the end. Also, Paul Dano continues to be a tragically underrated performer who needs to be cast in way more projects.

Okja

Okja was very good at world-building and, unsurprisingly, Blade Runner 2049 was great at it. I was wary of this film going in and didn’t even know if I’d ever watch it – tired as I am of reboots and unnecessary sequels. Much to my surprise, though, I was captivated by this movie when it was simply following Ryan Gosling’s K through his detective work and personal life. His relationship with his holographic girlfriend is as weird and sweet and inventive as Her. Denis Villeneuve is a director I’ve written about beforewhose work I enjoy – Arrival remains his best film. Roger Deakins, as widely reported, does great work as he always does in this film. Unfortunately, 2049decided to be a legacy act. The second half of the movie is bogged down in a plot that ties the film in with the original completely unnecessarily.
2049 falls apart when it dredges up old Harry Ford in his all-too-ordinary gray t-shirt. Is he playing Rick Deckard or is he someone’s aging stepdad? Credit where it’s due: Harrison Ford performs dutifully and effectively in this movie but 1: I can’t watch Harrison Ford in a movie anymore without it completely taking me out of the narrative (Oh look, it’s ancient curmudgeon Harrison Ford. Remember Indiana Jones?) and, more importantly, 2: there was no reason why this film needed to bring him back. As I said, there were so many interesting directions this film could have gone but, like The Force Awakens, it grinds to a halt so we can see Harrison Ford react to stuff related to a movie he was in a hundred years ago. Also, Jared Leto is a scenery-chewing nuisance who should not be cast in anything ever. My suggestion: if you didn’t see this movie in IMAX, just wait and watch the 90 minute version I’ll inevitably make in 2018.

And while Blade Runner and Star Wars provided science fiction fodder for franchise devotees, horror fans were treated to a vast array of unique offerings. A horror/drama that got a little over-hyped for me was Raw. As with most gross-out horror films, there were early reports of people passing out and throwing up in screenings. With that in mind, I prepared myself for something truly shocking and was, honestly, somewhat disappointed. The story centers on a college freshman who discovers she has a hunger for human flesh. It’s a fun film if you’re a fan of body horror but even so the scenes get rather formulaic. There’s some great, atmospheric stuff in this movie, including some solid cinematography, but the moments when something gross is about to happen are never a surprise. Raw’s great failure is its ending which ties such a deliciously messy story together too neatly.

Raw
Another horror film that could be accused of receiving too much early hype was, of course, mother! This movie is incredibly effective as a comedy of manners. Darren Aronofsky does an amazing job of capturing the panic and confusion of actual nightmares where you know the people populating your dream should be able to hear and understand you but their blank, unresponsive stares simply add to the horror. I had no idea what mother!was actually about or where it was going while I watched it and I found myself disappointed in myself once I realized. The thing is, though, even when the film’s narrative fully commits to its pedestrian eschatology, it’s still churning out moments that are absolutely bonkers. The ways mother! doesn’t work might be more interesting than the ways it does (Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer are particularly effective; Jennifer Lawrence remains an amateurish performer) but…I kind of loved this film in all of its sadistic, messy glory.  

I really wanted mother! to make it into my top ten list simply because it felt so different. That is, until I saw another film about the dismantling of domesticity: The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I should state for the record that I was not a huge fan of Yorgos Lanthimos’s last film The Lobster. That film always felt a bit obvious and stunted to me – though I’m a big fan of both Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. Sacred Deer is a similar beast. The deadpan, monotone dialogue takes a lot of getting used to and I’m sure it’ll be a sticking point for a lot of viewers. It remains an interesting and puzzling choice by Lanthimos who seems to want to strip his films of melodramatic artifice while writing screenplays that contain the drama of Greek tragedies. 

Sacred Deer is a film that knows it’s weird, knows you think it’s weird, but also knows it’s weirdness is making you feel weird. If you can let yourself get into it, this is a pretty rewarding film reminiscent of The Shining (I know this is blasphemy but I actually like it more). Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman both give incredibly performances with what is surely challenging material to work with. The film’s real star, though, is Dunkirk breakout Barry Keoghan. As his character grows more strange and sinister, he somehow becomes even more magnetic. Regardless of what you think of the movie, Keoghan is one of the best performers of the year.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Of course, one cannot discuss the year’s horror films without mentioning Get Out. I have to admit I had trouble with this film for a number of months. I really struggled to see what everyone else was seeing in it. That is, until I watched Detroit. Both films are ostensibly horror flicks where the great evil is white power. Kathryn Bigelow’s film posits itself as a visceral work of journalism but beneath that facade, it’s clear she has nothing to say. Her camera is in a constant Paul Greengrass-esque tremor whether it’s a tense moment or not. Detroitis false immediacy. Detroit is torture porn. Get Out, on the other hand, has a voice and it came to make a statement. Get Out, like They Liveor Night of the Living Dead before it, is not high art. It is, for better or worse, a reaction to the sociopolitical milieu that surrounds it. Hopefully it will soon be considered the first of innumerable, blockbuster works by filmmakers of color that invades the cultural consciousness. For now, Get Out is a film that manages to be both scary and funny thanks to Jordan Peele’s vision and direction.

Logan Lucky and Baby Driver were two films by directors whose work I enjoy and admire immensely that just didn’t quite bring enough to the table to make it into a top ten list. Both films are self-assured, fun, and full of magnetic characters (save for the titular Baby) but they also seem to be exercises in style over substance. Still, I’d recommend both films in a heartbeat.
Another film that comes highly recommended by yours truly that seems to have been completely forgotten is The Red Turtle: an animated, nearly-wordless folk tale about nature, love, and letting go. The Red Turtle is refreshingly simple and unassuming – I’ve heard it described as a children’s film and, while a patient child may be able to sit through it, there’s a depth and maturity to the story that will speak to anyone who would stop to listen. Come for the animation, stay for the beautiful score and sound design.

The Red Turtle
Speaking of design, a couple films that look incredibly good are A Ghost Story and The Beguiled. Both films held spots in my top ten list but were knocked out. I really wanted to love A Ghost Story – I felt like I was really giving it my all – but about two thirds of the way through the film, it starts to preach about what it is and some of the mystery and nuance is lost. Visually, it remains one of the most interesting films of the year, but the story remains half-baked. The same could be said for Sofia Coppola’s new film. It features some of the best cinematography of the year and incredible performances from everyone involved. The aforementioned Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman give it their all; Kirsten Dunst is strong as ever; and Elle Fanning continues to prove she is one of the great young actors working today. The film’s only real fault is its table manners. Reserved and cautious, when the film finally boils over, the room has already chilled.
I also saw The Florida Project this year. I have very little to say about it, apparently. As I’ve been putting it off through this whole post. I thought it was…fine. It’s good, not great. Willem Dafoe is very good in it. If you want to know how I feel about the ending, I’m in the camp that thought it completely undercut the emotional depth and complexity that the film was just about to reach.

So there you have it – my year at the movies, save for my upcoming top ten films of the year. As I said above, many of these films could have, or perhaps should have, been in my top ten list. And if you were to ask me in a few months, some of them might return. As these things go, art is subjective and fluid, but I’m very excited to share the films that I found the most engrossing and moving this year. Some will be obvious, but hopefully some will be new discoveries for you. Come back New Year’s Eve to find out!

Lessons from the Edit: Casino Royale

I’ve always been fascinated by James Bond as a cultural phenomenon, though, if I’m honest, I can’t say I’m a fan of the franchise at large. As I’ve written before, every new Bond presents an interesting framework for viewing the era in which it was created. As a millennial, then, my Bond will always be Daniel Craig. So my Bond film simply must be Casino Royale. While Skyfall benefited from great direction and cinematography from Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins, respectively, Casino Royale is still the greatest Bond movie in decades because of its script.  Unlike the lion’s share of tentpole blockbusters, the film is largely able to become more than a series of action set-pieces tied together by a flimsy plot.

Casino Royale works best when the plot focuses on its characters. What it really has going for it is the relationship between Bond and Vesper. This is due in part to great performances by Daniel Craig and Eva Green but, again, is most due to the script. Finally, we have a Bond Girl (and a Bond, for that matter) who is written like a three-dimensional character. Green’s Vesper is intellectually, charismatically, and emotionally equal to Craig’s Bond. The two have compelling chemistry and we understand why Bond would be willing to throw his flashy but empty life away for her. Until its conclusion, the third act of Casino Royale doesn’t even feel like a Bond film; it’s a straight-up romantic drama and it works because we’re invested in these characters who, for once, have more on their minds than advancing the plot.
Which brings us to the edit.

One of my only criticisms of Casino Royale’s theatrical cut is (you guessed it) its length. The story moves well and there’s plenty to keep the viewer occupied but, and I’ll be shouting this to my grave, there is no reason why an action movie needs to be over two hours long. So, in trimming the fat, I decided to double-down on the film’s best feature: the Bond/Vesper storyline. In the process, some interesting stuff inevitably got lost. In terms of story, the parkour opener become is disposable. This is unfortunate because I think it’s one of the great Bond set-pieces – much better than the airport sequence which is overly-long and visually boring but had to remain (though its heavily cut-down) because it contains indispensable plot developments. Still, the result is a quiet, dialogue-driven opening which, interestingly, sets the film up as a more mature spy thriller rather than an all-out action movie.
What is gained from this cut is a brief addition from Quantum of Solace. I have tried for years to defend this movie. In fact, the initial conception for this edit was to combine the two films more directly – I assumed it’d be about 70% Casino Royale, 30% Quantum of Solace, but boy even that was too forgiving.Martin Campbell and Marc Forster have both made some terrible movies but Campbell successfully rebooted James Bond twice and Forster…made…Monster’s Ball? Do people like that movie?

Anyway, I still think there are some great moments and bold choices in Quantum(I like that it continues the story where Casino Royale left off; Olga Kurylenko is a solid addition and Giancarlo Giannini is great once again; the action cross-cutting is an interesting idea; the opera is a cool location; the death-by-oil moment works is interesting on its own and is a nice nod to Goldfinger; and, generally, I think the film looks good…or it would look good if they would hold on a shot for more than half a second) but in the end, the story just isn’t there. Mathieu Amalric as the film’s villain, Dominic Greene, is just a slimier, discount Le Chiffre and the narrative just doesn’t really go anywhere. Bond goes rogue which would be cool except every spy goes rogue in every spy movie ever. It’s a regular rogue nation out there (sorry)! What remains for this cut is an epilogue to end the film on the same note it started: quiet and character driven.
So, mostly this edit works because this edit is mostly an intact Casino Royale. So if all I accomplish with it is giving you the chance to revisit a great Bond movie, I’m satisfied with that. 
As always, please pay for a copy of Casino Royale first and know that you need to download the video to see the entire thing because Dropbox will only let you stream the first hour.

This will be my last Lessons from the Edit of 2017 but I’m very excited to share some new stuff that I’m already working on in the coming year. Stay tuned for my top films of 2017 post that should be coming in the next few days. NuMbEr FoUr WiLl ShOcK yOu!!! 
Anyway, here’s BOND: a Chris on Cinema edit.

@chrison_

Lessons from the Edit: Man of Steel

[UPDATE 8/27/2017: New, working video link below! Please note: to watch videos in their entirety, download the video to your computer. Streaming from Dropbox will only allow you to watch the first 60 minutes.]

A Zack Snyder film is like that college freshman who got a little too into Ayn Rand his senior year of high school, has taken one Intro to Philosophy course, one Intro to Political Science course, and is now writing a manifesto. You know all of this because when he walked into your English class you said “Cool trench coat” and he mistook your derision for interest and now he won’t stop talking at you.

Zack Snyder’s films won’t stop talking at us and so, apparently, they’re here to stay. When I was a senior in high school, I defended Watchmen as a bold but fitting adaptation of a ground-breaking graphic novel. I thought it was very cool.

Now I’m just tired.

In this installment of Lessons from the Edit, we’ll take a look at Snyder’s first entry in the troubled and tone-deaf DCEU: Man of Steel.

I remember being very perplexed by the news that Christopher Nolan would produce (and, implicitly, oversee) a film directed by Zack Snyder. Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy felt like a fresh take on the superhero genre by treating it like a grounded, crime film. The Dark Knight clearly wants to be a Michael Mann film and blatantly steals from Heat. Zack Snyder has spent his career doing the exact opposite.

300 and Watchmen, whether or not you consider them successful or good, found interesting ways to translate the visual media of comic book graphics into audio-visual media of film without feeling derivative (see Ang Lee’s Hulk for that). A meeting of Nolan and Snyder’s worlds seemed incomprehensible. And it sort of was.
Man of Steel is like Michael Bay on downers. It’s still all American flags and muscle but the 2013 film feels like something Bay would make while on Xanax as opposed to (and I’m just speculating here) his usual cocaine. This is undoubtedly due in part to Snyder’s cinematographer, Amir Mokri, who book-ended his work on Man of Steel with two Transformers movies and was the DP for Bad Boys 2back in 2003.

Snyder trades in Bay’s kinetic maximalism for handheld wobbling in dialogue scenes and extraneous snap-zooms in CGI-heavy action scenes. If a Michael Bay film is a haywire roller-coaster, Man of Steel is like being in a small boat on choppy water. It’s a sea-sickness simulator. If the camera movement alone isn’t enough for you, Snyder kindly included plenty of teal/grey color grading so that everyone in the movie looks as sick as you feel.
The film’s look can probably be chalked up to Zack Snyder knowing he needed to depart from his previous, and now rather clichéd, style of inky blacks and time-ramping. So, credit where it’s due: at least Snyder was trying something – even if it was just extreme close-ups on farmhouse paraphernalia. That’s more than can be said for the aggressively bland visuals in the Marvel movies. Still, the direction in Man of Steel can be broken down into two basic parts: the boring first half and the migraine-inducing second half.

The one scene that I was pleasantly surprised by in preparing for my re-edit involved Russell Crowe’s Jor-El explaining to Clark where he came from and what happened to Krypton. It’s a simulated long-take wherein the camera glides from Crowe to Cavill to the graphite-colored bas-relief sculptures that are interesting enough to look at, if a bit cartoony. This brief moment has fluidity and rhythm and feels purposeful even though it’s all exposition that, in the theatrical cut, the audience already knows because they saw it in the beginning of the movie.
In an earlier scene, Clark is talking to his Earthly father, Jonathan Kent, at an old pickup truck in another relatively long take but here it is understandable why the first half of the film just seems to drag: nothing is happening. We linger on scenes of Pa Kent doggedly trying to convince his son not to become the superhero we all know he will be. These scenes could have been used to build up an actual relationship between young Clark and his dad so that Jonathan’s eventual death might mean something to us. Because here it doesn’t. These characters don’t feel like they have inner lives – they’re clunky conduits for haughty monologues.  

Despite the fact that none of the characters are compelling or three-dimensional, the cast is full of highly talented actors who all seem to be trying their best. And also Henry Cavill. Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Laurence Fishburne, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe – they’re all perfect for their roles, in theory, but they’re reduced to doling out lame speeches and hacky expositional dialogue. Whenever Amy Adams does a damsel-in-distress style scream I feel embarrassed. I’m embarrassed for Adams, who is wasting her time filming this trash, and for all the people who inexplicably think this is a quality film.
Henry Cavill is not good in this movie. Let me rephrase: of all the terrible lines by all the uninteresting characters in this movie, Henry Cavill’s are the least convincingly acted and he is the least interesting performer to watch. Let me rephrase: why was Henry Cavill cast in this movie? Is it because he’s buff? Because basically anyone could be buff if they trained (I’ve always felt that Superman doesn’t really need to have a bodybuilder’s physique anyway, but I don’t want to get into that right now).
If it were up to me, Superman would be played by James Wolk. In his role as Bob Benson on Mad Men, Wolk is the kind-hearted, loyal boy-scout that a superman should be. He has a combination of warmth and strength that doesn’t have to be cheesy or campy if you write it well enough. But there are plenty of people who could play Superman. There are plenty of people who can act. Henry Cavill is not one of them.
Also, whoever did his wardrobe should be fired. Granted, Henry Cavill looks good in the Superman suit but in the scene where Lois meets Clark in the cemetery it looks like Clark has never worn clothes before. Like, his pants and shirt are super baggy and he’s wearing a baseball cap really awkwardly. I guess it’s a “disguise?” Or they were trying to hide how muscular he is? Whatever, I’m getting off topic.

The craziest thing about Man of Steel is that it’s better than Batman V Superman. In Man of Steel, it’s at least clear why characters are doing what they’re doing. The story is pretty simple and character motivations are relatively logical within the context of the film. That’s much more than can be said for BVS. Because, in short, no: a movie is not good just because “Batman had a scene where he was cool in it.” You’re a child. That’s a bad argument.
More importantly, watch BVSand then watch Man of Steel again and try to tell me it isn’t the most blatant invocation of retroactive continuity you’ve ever seen. The last shot of Man of Steel is Clark Kent smiling.

Let me repeat: the last shot of Man of Steel is Clark Kent smiling.
At the time, it felt incredibly tone-deaf that the last scene was so chipper after we just witnessed an hour of cataclysmic destruction but now it just feels strangely quaint and innocent. It seems pretty clear that “Superman Goes to Court” was not the original plan for a Man of Steel sequel and was only a result of the outcry against the gratuitous destruction.

The main impetus for my edit of Man of Steel was the removal of all of that mind-numbing “action” where the characters turn into rubber and Zack Snyder gives up on composing interesting, or even discernible, shots. Furthermore, nothing is learned from these scenes other than plot points to be checked off. Superman doesn’t grow or change throughout the course of the fight and Zod is as hell-bent on his dastardly plan in the end as he was in the beginning. In reading the comments on my Rogue One edit I learned that some people just don’t care about character development. That’s insane to me but it also completely explains the current state of big-budget cinema and why people like something so insultingly dumb.
My other goal, and the most time consuming element, for this edit was fixing the color. Snyder shot Man of Steel on film. There’s a richness and a texture buried underneath all the bland, sickly desaturation that the Marvel movies will never achieve with their cheap, digital shooting. Lots of people have re-saturated the “Superman Flight” scene on YouTube – I tried to carry that through the whole movie and, honestly, I may have overdone it in a few places.

So here it is, Superman: a Chris on Cinema edit: https://www.dropbox.com/s/al3u8hynubs6jdy/SupermanMOS.mp4?dl=0

(NOTE: You need to have one of Dropbox’s paid accounts to stream more than the first hour of the video but you should be able to download the video in its entirety. I’m currently trying to find a better streaming platform.)

Let me know what you think! Not really about Man of Steel (I’m sick of even looking at the film at this point) but about my edit in relation to it. So sound off: is it better? Is it worse? Would you like to hear a commentary track where I go into more detail about everything I cut? What’s another flawed or good-but-frustratingly-not-great movie that you’d like to see an edit of?

Next time on Lessons from the Edit: a movie that didn’t really need my help in the first place.


Before you download “Superman” please pay for a copy of the original film. “Man of Steel” is a Syncopy Production presented by Warner Bros. Pictures in association with Legendary Pictures. Directed by Zack Snyder with music by Hans Zimmer. Based upon “Superman” characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster published by DC Entertainment.

@chrison_

Lessons from the Edit: Rogue One

I trust that the reader will not take umbrage with the following observation: it’s not easy making a movie. It is surely harder to make a great movie. Hardest of all, it seems, is making a great Star Wars movie. George Lucas himself was only semi-successful. By my count, two are great Star Wars, two are good, two are okay, and two are bad. I’ll let you figure out where they all fall with the hint that Rogue One sits squarely in the “Okay” category. You can watch the theatrical cut on Netflix or, if you don’t want to waste a whopping 133 minutes, you can watch my version which is just under 90.

Which brings us to Lessons from the Edit: a new series in which I’ll discuss and present my re-cut version of a blockbuster film. First up: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

There are plenty of videos breaking down what doesn’t work in the first Star Wars anthology movie, so let’s quickly discuss the few positive aspects:

1. Visuals/Production. I believe Rogue One is the best looking Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back and it’s the one area where Rogue One outdid The Force Awakens. J.J. Abrams, like Joss Whedon, feels like a very good TV director but not a great film director. Because of this, many scenes in TFA actually looked a lot like Firefly to me. There was clearly thought and detail put into the production, but everything was a bit clean and a bit cheap. In Rogue One, however, the locations feel expansive and lived-in. The cinematography is rich and textured.

2. The Climax (Battle of Scarif). In Return of the Jedi, Han Solo spends most of the film’s climax trying to hotwire a door. He’s standing. In the same spot. For like half an hour. Legendary actor Harrison Ford has nothing to do. Rogue One manages to give each character a real task to complete (before they meet their unnecessary demise). Unfortunately, “completing the mission” is the only real motivation for most of the characters.

Which brings us to all the bad stuff.
The theatrical cut of Rogue One, much like Interstellar and many other current blockbusters, is long, tedious, and noisy. The characters are bland and can’t connect with the audience or each other; the tone is jarringly inconsistent; fan-service and re-shoots chop up the narrative and prevent cohesion.
Star Wars: A New Hope provides a great example of tight narrative construction. Generally speaking, new information, characters, and plot points are not presented to the audience until they are also presented to the film’s protagonist. We see and experience the movie through Luke Skywalker’s boyish eyes.

Rogue One, on the other hand, opens with an introduction to our protagonist as a young girl and then, after fast-forwarding 15 years during the film’s title card, jumps around from character to character, plot-point to plot-point, until the ensemble finally comes together in the end of the first act. They bicker and butt heads through the second act but by then end of the film we’re meant to believe they’re a team that cares about each other.
And then they all die. And then a CGI Princess Leia says “Hope” which is meant to make you forget that the ending of this movie is actually a total downer.

Rogue One should be a small movie about a band of rebels who attempt a daring mission that alters the course of the star war. But they insisted on shoving Darth Vader into the movie. And they insisted on shoving Uncanny Valley Tarkin into the movie. They tried to modernize the narrative with morally and politically ambiguous characters. It’s too many things, most of them bad.

My intent for Rogue One: The Erso Incendiary was to refocus the story on Jyn’s journey. Therefore, most of the cross-cutting has been completely removed from the story. Director Krennick’s storyline is uninteresting, CGI Tarkin is distracting, and the few scenes with Darth Vader are unnecessary fan service. By allowing more of the film’s runtime to center on the Rebels, it was my hope that they’d feel like more of a team (though they remain pretty bland and, in some cases, are miscast). The entire film has been lightly recolored to warm up the rather bland desaturation. Finally, the ending of the movie has changed significantly. I don’t believe every main character needs to be dead by the time the credits role. By ending a few scenes on a more ambiguous note, the audience is free to imagine what happens to a character when the movie is over. That is, if a character doesn’t have an onscreen death, I don’t believe they needed to die.
Supplemental notes:

1. I’ve added a title crawl not because I think the film needs one to feel Star Wars-y but to highlight plot points that may be hard to follow given the scenes I took out. It looks pretty terrible because I didn’t spend a lot of time on it but it gets the point across.

2. There are lots of small changes and rearrangements in this edit that I simply can’t describe in a written post. I’m considering recording a commentary track to go into detail about my views on the theatrical cut and the changes I’ve made to it. Sound off if that’s something you’d be interested in listening to and let me know what other movies you’d be like to see on this series.

So here it is: Rogue One: The Erso Incendiary, a CHRIS ON CINEMA edit by Chris Perkins.
NOTE: You need to have one of Dropbox’s paid accounts to stream more than the first hour of the video but you should be able to download the video in its entirety. I’m currently trying to find a better streaming platform.

Next time on Lessons from the Edit: Man of Steel

Before you download “Rogue One: The Erso Incendiary,” please give Disney a hand and pay for a copy of the original film. “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” is a Lucasfilm Ltd. production, directed by Gareth Edwards, with music by Michael Giacchino and John Williams.

@chrison_

On the Cinematic Experience: Inception, Quantum Superposition, and the Beauty of Ambiguity

“You’re waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t matter…”

How do you watch a movie?


With your eyes, idiot.
Let me start over.

One of the best theater-going experiences of my life was the midnight premiere of Inception. I had just finished high school and was spending the summer discovering Bergman, Godard, and Tarkovsky in the “Film Art” DVD section of my local library. I was engulfed in film. Immersed. And if Christopher Nolan is a master of anything, it’s that captivation. Audience manipulation. Because a Nolan film is a spectacle. Characters don’t speak, they pontificate. The scores are thunderous, the soundscapes are bombastic, and the editing crescendos into a montage that’s designed to hit you
Right

Before
The screen

Goes
Black.

And so it was with Inception. Maybe your screening was similar. You’re on the edge of your seat as Cobb is coming off the plane and the music is swelling and he spins the top and he sees his kids and the top keeps spinning and it wavers for a sec—INCEPTION.
I will never forget that moment in the theater. The audience was a collective body that exhaled the moment the screen went black. It was communal and invigorating. I remember grinning widely as the lights came up, unable to do much else.

“What does it mean?” we all wondered. “Did the top fall or not?”
Nolan has since explained that the point of the scene is that, for Cobb, it doesn’t matter if the top falls or not because he’s back with his kids – that’s all that matters.


Cool bro but what actually happened after the title card came up?
The answer is: nothing. But a special kind of nothing.

We all know the thought-experiment of Schrodinger’s cat: inside a sealed box there is a cat and a flask of poison that will be released at some point in time. According to the Copenhagen Interpretation (which posits that physical systems do not have defined properties until measurements are applied to them), the cat is simultaneously dead and alive so long as you don’t open the box. This is known as Quantum Superposition. Quantum Superposition collapses into a singular reality the moment you open the box and apply properties to the cat, definingit as dead or alive.
Now, let’s apply this thought-experiment to Inception.

If the audio/visual narrative, the content of the film, is the cat and the movie itself is the box, the box closes as soon as the title card comes up – never to be opened again. We’re left with Quantum Superposition. We’re left with a paradox. And that’s what’s so great about Inception: it challenged the weekend moviegoer to embrace the thrill of ambiguity. To sit in uncertainty. To let the last question linger. Forever.
What happens if you leave it there?

What happens if you don’t try to re-open the box?
In her landmark 1966 essay “Against Interpretation,” Susan Sontag argued that the art world had become overrun with hermeneutics; that criticism was too hung up on the content of a work and the meanings it might contain. “From now to the end of consciousness,” she lamented, “we are stuck with the task of defending art.” Rather than enriching a work of art, Sontag believed that “to interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings.’”

Rather charmingly, though, in 1966, this overabundance of interpretation had not yet reached film criticism “due simply to the newness of cinema as an art.” Oh, Susan. How I’d love to hear your thoughts on Film Twitter and the countless video essayists that plague my YouTube homepage.
What Sontag argued for, in approaching all works of art, was what she called transparence: “the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.” Interpretation of art, in this case, misses the point of art altogether. Rather than focusing on the content of a work and trying to add to it – inserting analysis, theory, metaphor – “our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.” “The function of criticism,” she said, “should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
We all want answers. More importantly, we all want to be the one with the right answers. And it’s exhausting. For critics and writers, it’s helpful to have a take, an angle, when discussing a work. It makes the piece easier to write, and it makes the piece more approachable to read. Nearly everything I’ve written on this blog has used that method of criticism. But as Susan Sontag warned, sometimes when we try to enliven a work with our own ideas, we end up forgetting about the thing itself.

Art, I believe, works best when it is both communal and intimate. When it can speak to everyone while seeming as if it holds secrets just for you. This superpositioning diminishes the more you try to uncover it. Now, I’m not writing this piece to try and convince you to stop analyzing, discussing, or interpreting movies. If this blog is to continue, those methods will be implemented in one form or another. But we have to remember that movies, first and foremost, are not made to be dissected, they’re made to be experienced firsthand. So if you want to get the most out of a movie, you have to pay attention to what eyes you’re watching it with.


Okja is a great movie on Netflix. It’s fun and heartfelt and exciting and it has a straightforward narrative and message. The Fits is a great movie on Amazon Prime. It’s intriguing and rhythmic and naturalistic and, while it might not provide concrete answers to every question it raises, it remains compelling and watchable. It’s not trying to trick you. It’s not trying to be smarter than you. We just aren’t accustomed to movies that don’t spoon-feed us their messages. Upstream Color is one of my favorite movies of this century (unfortunately, it just went off Netflix). It’s dense and atmospheric and puzzling. I’m sure there are countless diagrams, analyses, and interpretations online that breakdown the rather obtuse plot.
What they can’t answer, though, is how you’ll feel watching it. They could not possibly predict the free-associations your brain will make while watching the film, how you’ll react to being puzzled, or what your initial response to the film will be upon its completion. I believe those are all special moments important to the cinematic experience of any movie.

Discussion and analysis can enrich a movie, but neither should work to diminish or supersede the experience itself. To paraphrase the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, do not be so eager to answer that you forget to wonder. Experience a movie viscerally before you approach it intellectually. Dwell in ambiguity. Embrace quantum superposition. Cut back content so you can see the thing for what it is.

So, how do you watch a movie?
With your eyes.

@chrison_

Bright Eyes, Dim Wit: Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood”

“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. When I grew up I put away childish things.”
                                                                                                                                
                                                                                                                                 -1 Corinthians 13:11
Imagine your neighbors invite you over to watch their home movies. Politely, you will agree to spend a few hours as a spectator of the lives of people you recognize but do not know. Like all home movies, theirs will begin with milestones—birthdays, holidays, weddings, etc.—but will meander and devolve until you’re only watching Uncle Frank’s shoes because he forgot he was holding the camcorder. Add some clunky, unnatural dialogue and you have Richard Linklater’s Boyhood: a film with a powerful, intriguing concept that ultimately fails in its execution.

For those unfamiliar, Boyhood is a coming-of-age story that was shot intermittently over 12 years with the same cast. I entered the movie theater to see Boyhood with high hopes but low expectations. Initially, I was charmed by the “period” soundtrack, the late-90s paraphernalia, and the bright-eyed Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane).  Boyhood, as many have described, is like a time capsule. It is fun, at first, to dredge up the objects and images that once defined us. In this way, Linklater does an impressive job of revealing Mason as he grows. At the start of each implied vignette we begin to notice the small changes in appearance that mark growth and age. It is important to note that these moments are the most subtle and also most effective portions of the entire film (and that they would occur simply by the nature of the concept, regardless of the director).
Unfortunately, the rest of Boyhood’s near 3-hour running time is uncomfortable and, worse, uninteresting. As Mason and his sister Samantha grow, their kid-acting becomes less endearing and more distracting. Even less forgivable is their mother, played by Patricia Arquette, who always seems to be reading from a script like an unprepared host on SNL. In fact, all of the dialogue feels like an over-written recitation from the actors and an under-written anti-statement from Linklater.
Characters struggle to guide and advise Mason through his formative years with clichés and rambling diatribes that amount to little. Mason himself grows into a vapid, philosophizing teen which is only slightly more excusable. After all, it is the teenage rite to believe one is smarter and more aware than everyone else. Yet this doesn’t seem to be a theme Linklater is trying to point out; it is merely something he stumbled upon that, like Uncle Frank’s shoes, happened to end up on film.
This is perhaps the greatest summation one can make of Boyhood: it strives for naturalism but is only vacuous. Intentionally or not, it says very little. In this way, it is less of a time-capsule and more of a Rorschach test. Anything one pulls out of the film is only a projection that the film itself, vaguely shaped as it is, did not put in.   

One might argue that all of this is intentional. Matt Zoller Seitz argues, “the movie’s constant (if empathetic) critique of American manhood, or what passes for American manhood: an entitled mental state that is really just boyhood with money and a driver’s license.” This would be an acceptable explanation if the film centered on Ethan Hawke’s Mason Sr. (which would have been a good idea considering his is the only performance that feels natural, watchable, and seems to have a purpose) who enters the film as a displaced ex-husband, caring-but-distant dad, and clichéd man-boy.
It is true that Mason Jr. is devoid of passion, drive, and intelligence (not to mention personality). But the film is not perceptive or intuitive enough to make this interesting let alone a critique and thus, at best, it is the theme. If this is true then Boyhood is not the awe-inspiring, brilliant film that the trailer, poster, and (worst of all) critics have suggested but it is the most nihilistic, negative picture of the American, male condition in recent memory. This also seems far too extreme for Linklater’s tonally neutral production.

If every director has one goal it should be to make an engaging film. Not every film has to have a grand 
message, make a statement, be interesting or devoid of boring moments but if a movie does not engage its audience then what is the point?
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines tell the story of a failing marriage and father-son relationships, respectively, in a way that is affecting and interesting. The characters feel real and 3-dimensional while the story is grounded with an actual purpose. In a much less naturalistic way, Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, which actually deserves accolades like “Brilliant” and “Awe-Inspiring,“ evokes the wonder of being a child and the anxiety that comes with growing up.

None of the characters in The Tree of Life are very interesting but the film is immersive because of the atmosphere it creates. The actors don’t seem to be reciting lines, they’re simply exploring the world that Malick built for them. The opposite is true in Boyhood. Only Linklater himself seems to be alive: he is making mistakes, improvising, and taking risks while his characters only coast.
 Matt Zoller Seitz says, “Every character [in Boyhood] has a least one moment in which they have to heed the advice of Corinthians and put away childish things. None of them like it.” Perhaps Linklater needed to heed that advice as well. It is easy to get tunnel-vision working on a creative project. It is easy to fall in love with a concept and believe that it will automatically translate into a powerful final product. It is hard to put away these childish notions. It is harder to watch a long, pointless film full of unlikable characters. If your neighbors ask you to watch their home movies, consider reading a book instead. If they ask you to watch Boyhood, know that it is an important film—not for what it is but for everything it isn’t. 

Streetlights and Soliloquies: Steven Knight’s “Locke”

Built for efficiency but dressed as luxury, the car is a dichotomous condition. Within the womblike interior of rounded edges, soft lines, and climate control, we are warned to govern the growling, sputtering death machine that could end a life without a seatbelt or sobriety. All of this is of little concern to Ivan Locke—the titular character in Steven Knight’s Locke—yet it proves the film’s main point: a carefully controlled environment—a car or a life—is no match for the inevitable but unexpected complications of life.

 [Some minor spoilers ahead]
When we meet Ivan Locke (played by Tom Hardy sporting a stylish beard and Welsh accent) he is entering his car at the end of a work day and the movie ends before he leaves it. This is Locke’s main conceit: the only location is Locke’s BMW, the only face we see is Hardy’s. It is a (literally) theatrical experiment on the part of Knight and the effortlessly versatile Hardy that is immensely satisfying to behold.

Locke is a construction foreman and a careful man. He obeys the speed limit and is precise in his work. Yet as he drives across town before the birth of his child, phone-call by phone-call, his life begins to unravel. Watching Tom Hardy act opposite abstract voices it is almost tragic to recall The Dark Knight Rises in which nearly all of his expressive face was masked. It is unlikely that Hardy will win any awards for this performance if only because of how effortless it seems. Through heated calls and Shakespearean monologues, Locke’s voice, and Hardy’s prowess, is unwavering.
And yet, tense and flawlessly executed as Knight’s film is, something seems missing. Some might call it an intentional anticlimax but the problem with filming with such a specific, heightened structure (think Nolan’s Memento which takes place in reverse chronological order) when the lights come up that’s all you have.

Like a pregnancy complication that can change an umbilical cord from a lifeline to a noose, the problem with such a self-contained format, regardless of how flawlessly executed, is it is always simultaneously safe and constricting. A dichotomous condition indeed.