Between the Buried and Me (Live and Incredible) Some Films Afterwards
Past Due:
Last weekend, I went to see the progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me at Port City Music Hall, here in Portland. I saw them a few years ago, when they had an opening slot for Circa Survive. As an opener, they only had about 30-40 minutes to showcase their musical catalogue and talents. As a headliner, though, they were able to stretch their songs and play an amazing setlist, which included old favorites and new songs from their forthcoming album (due out in July). These guys are absolutely incredible and they played off and with each other as a great cohesive musical unit. Sure, they only played 8 songs, over the span of a solid hour and a half, but that's because their songs stretch between 10-25 minutes long, with several shifts and signature changes that make you think the song is over. An interesting fact to the story of this metal band, which I discovered on my own through research: the band's name came from a Counting Crows song titled "Ghost Train" (took the cannonball down to the ocean/across the desert from the sea to shining sea/I rode a ladder that climbed across the nation/fifty million feet of earth between the buried and me). Go figure!
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"Days and Nights"
starring: Katie Holmes, Cherry Jones, William Hurt, Ben Whishaw, Allison Janney, Mark Rylance, Jean Reno, Michael Nyquist, Christian Camargo, Juliet Rylance
written and directed by: Christian Camargo
Last weekend, I went to see the progressive metal band Between the Buried and Me at Port City Music Hall, here in Portland. I saw them a few years ago, when they had an opening slot for Circa Survive. As an opener, they only had about 30-40 minutes to showcase their musical catalogue and talents. As a headliner, though, they were able to stretch their songs and play an amazing setlist, which included old favorites and new songs from their forthcoming album (due out in July). These guys are absolutely incredible and they played off and with each other as a great cohesive musical unit. Sure, they only played 8 songs, over the span of a solid hour and a half, but that's because their songs stretch between 10-25 minutes long, with several shifts and signature changes that make you think the song is over. An interesting fact to the story of this metal band, which I discovered on my own through research: the band's name came from a Counting Crows song titled "Ghost Train" (took the cannonball down to the ocean/across the desert from the sea to shining sea/I rode a ladder that climbed across the nation/fifty million feet of earth between the buried and me). Go figure!
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(Broken snare after song; Paul told AWESOME jokes)
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- Encore:
"Days and Nights"
starring: Katie Holmes, Cherry Jones, William Hurt, Ben Whishaw, Allison Janney, Mark Rylance, Jean Reno, Michael Nyquist, Christian Camargo, Juliet Rylance
written and directed by: Christian Camargo
Here's an indie film inspired by the Anton Chekhov's story "The Seagull" (which I haven't read). It's a drama focused around a seemingly dysfunctional family. Unfortunately, it's darkness comes off as trite and the little slices of humor fail to really make an impact, as a way to lighten the mood on the family weekend together where truths are revealed and discovered. And, again, unfortunately, this type of family drama has been played out before, better even (re: August: Osage County comes to mind). The film takes place in the '80s, on the East Coast, where things are boring, boring, boring. Ironic, since the film plays itself out as rather boring as well. Nothing really happens.
We have a couple, Elizabeth (Allison Janney) and a young lover, Peter (played by the writer, director Camargo himself). They are a study of contrasts: she is loud and rather bitchy, and he is pensive and self-effacing). Everyone is at this family house for what is supposed to be a vacation, but it quickly turns into a "who will cruelly, out the cruelty of the other?" Most of the drama takes place over the family dinner table, where dialogue and conversations flow so easily. The secrets revealed seemed only to be a way to move the story forward, but in a canned way. And, speaking of dialogue, it's too well-crafted to be even slightly believable, like people actually talk this way.
The writer uses the 1980s real estate boom as an analogy and metaphor for this family's dysfunction. Someone states that there's "a boom" coming- when really it's an emotional one for Elizabeth, and it cannot be helped- there's really no hope. Films like this are real, because they present things in a way that make us realize real life can suck sometimes and often people escape to films in order to escape reality of their own lives. This is the type of film that isn't uplifting and is just a downer.
We have a couple, Elizabeth (Allison Janney) and a young lover, Peter (played by the writer, director Camargo himself). They are a study of contrasts: she is loud and rather bitchy, and he is pensive and self-effacing). Everyone is at this family house for what is supposed to be a vacation, but it quickly turns into a "who will cruelly, out the cruelty of the other?" Most of the drama takes place over the family dinner table, where dialogue and conversations flow so easily. The secrets revealed seemed only to be a way to move the story forward, but in a canned way. And, speaking of dialogue, it's too well-crafted to be even slightly believable, like people actually talk this way.
The writer uses the 1980s real estate boom as an analogy and metaphor for this family's dysfunction. Someone states that there's "a boom" coming- when really it's an emotional one for Elizabeth, and it cannot be helped- there's really no hope. Films like this are real, because they present things in a way that make us realize real life can suck sometimes and often people escape to films in order to escape reality of their own lives. This is the type of film that isn't uplifting and is just a downer.
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"Kill List"
starring: Neil Maskell, MyAnna Buring, Michael Smiley, Struan Rodger, Esme Folley
written and directed by: Ben Wheatley
This is the type of film that starts off really great, well-done, almost a perfect piece of cinema, but then the last 10 minutes of the film unravel everything you've just watched and leaving you wondering what the hell just happened. The ending of the film just does not seem to go with anything else that happened in the film and the viewer can almost take it as a middlefinger by the filmmaker. It's insulting really.
At the beginning of the film, we have a verbal assault at the dinner table which continues with actual, domestic violence between a married couple having a dinner party with another couple, friends of theirs. The man have worked together, as a hit men, and their partners, the women, are younger. One of them, at least, has higher standards and expectations for her life and her husband is not delivering. The metaphysical violence at the end of the film does sort of wrap things up in the violence category, but it just comes off like "seriously, this is ridiculous."
Jay (Neil Maskell) is desperate to find work again, because he feels responsible, as the man, to be taking care of his Ukrainian wife and their young son. His friend, Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to the dinner party with a offer that will pay them both a handsome amount of money: a murder contract.
Jay and Gal go on a business trip and the murders play out like chapters, titled, "The Priest," The Librarian" and "The MP," all victims who have apparently been responsible for their own various manifestations of evil and should/will pay the price.
At the beginning of the film, we have a verbal assault at the dinner table which continues with actual, domestic violence between a married couple having a dinner party with another couple, friends of theirs. The man have worked together, as a hit men, and their partners, the women, are younger. One of them, at least, has higher standards and expectations for her life and her husband is not delivering. The metaphysical violence at the end of the film does sort of wrap things up in the violence category, but it just comes off like "seriously, this is ridiculous."
Jay (Neil Maskell) is desperate to find work again, because he feels responsible, as the man, to be taking care of his Ukrainian wife and their young son. His friend, Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to the dinner party with a offer that will pay them both a handsome amount of money: a murder contract.
Jay and Gal go on a business trip and the murders play out like chapters, titled, "The Priest," The Librarian" and "The MP," all victims who have apparently been responsible for their own various manifestations of evil and should/will pay the price.
The movie is sneaking up on us. The director and co-writer, Ben Wheatley, plays the cards of his plot very close to his vest. There is an uneasy intimation of something growling beneath the surface, but the actors and their actions seem explicable on the level of ordinary reality. None of the incredible third act has been foretold in earlier scenes, and then there's a coda that isn't even hinted in the third act.
It's all done with command of camera, music and lifelike dialogue. That's one of the film's fascinations. Many violent movies begin with a certain discipline and restraint, but then lose control and unleash a frenzy of action. "Kill List" proceeds in an ordered, mannered way as extraordinary events are introduced. It's tempting to find parallels with major films by famous directors, but to name one might be giving away too much.
Does it matter that nothing in the payoff makes sense? Does it need to? Has the movie jumped the rails and thrown itself into the hands of wild invention? It seems that way. But so careful is the setup, so convincing the characters, that we don't quite feel we're being toyed with. Somehow the eventual revelations seem to be in a direction the movie was headed.
The movie may leave you scratching your head way too much when it's over. Yet it proves Ben Wheatley not only knows how to make a movie, but he knows how to make three at the same time. I suppose one of the characteristics of horror is that it wears shifting faces.
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"Old Joy"
starring: Daniel London, Will Oldham
written and directed by: Kelly Reichardt
This is a short film (76 minutes) that chooses to explore a friendship without much concern for advancing the plot. The story between these two characters is punctuated by mistakes and missed connections that do not necessarily lead up to a satisfying finale, instead, it just sort of ends. That being said, it is a thoroughly enjoyable, small-moving film that tells a heartfelt story about friendship, without really saying much at all.
"Old Joy" drops into the lives of Mark (London) and Kurt (Oldham), old friends who are growing apart. Mark’s wife (Smith) is pregnant for the first time; he’s working a lot. Kurt’s a Pacific Northwest hippie: rolling joints, taking night classes, going on about his “transformative” trips to Ashland and Big Sur (“I’m in a whole new place now. Really,” he says), and calling on a minute’s notice with an invitation to go camping. Which Mark, of course, accepts after a certain amount of marital agony. The movie dives into the Cascade scenery – Kurt inevitably gets them lost – and mines the tensions between its characters in a naturalistic moment-to-moment fashion. It’s not aimless – there’s a considerable turning point, deftly handled – but Reichardt paces the action deliberately, with a road-trip rhythm, letting the atmosphere soak in.
Oldham (an indie musician who also can be discovered under the moniker Bonnie "Prince" Billy) is just right: weird but not quite scary, compelling but not quite pushy, and very odd. But the movie belongs to London, the straight man, who’s got a pinched, hangdog quality and a cloud of antenatal doom about him. "Old Joy" is an accurately observed slice of that moment between postadolescence and parenthood, when friends cling or scatter, and circumstances force buried feelings to the fore.
"Old Joy" drops into the lives of Mark (London) and Kurt (Oldham), old friends who are growing apart. Mark’s wife (Smith) is pregnant for the first time; he’s working a lot. Kurt’s a Pacific Northwest hippie: rolling joints, taking night classes, going on about his “transformative” trips to Ashland and Big Sur (“I’m in a whole new place now. Really,” he says), and calling on a minute’s notice with an invitation to go camping. Which Mark, of course, accepts after a certain amount of marital agony. The movie dives into the Cascade scenery – Kurt inevitably gets them lost – and mines the tensions between its characters in a naturalistic moment-to-moment fashion. It’s not aimless – there’s a considerable turning point, deftly handled – but Reichardt paces the action deliberately, with a road-trip rhythm, letting the atmosphere soak in.
Oldham (an indie musician who also can be discovered under the moniker Bonnie "Prince" Billy) is just right: weird but not quite scary, compelling but not quite pushy, and very odd. But the movie belongs to London, the straight man, who’s got a pinched, hangdog quality and a cloud of antenatal doom about him. "Old Joy" is an accurately observed slice of that moment between postadolescence and parenthood, when friends cling or scatter, and circumstances force buried feelings to the fore.
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