A Bunch of Films
"Straight A's"
starring: Ryan Phillippe, Anna Paquin, Luke Wilson, Riley Thomas Stewart, Ursula Parker, Tess Harper, Powers Boothe, Christa Campbell, Josh Meyers
written by: Dave Cole
directed by: James Cox
Remember Ryan Phillippe? His movie star(dom) really rose in the '90s and then he kind of disappeared, perhaps because he chose family life over acting once he and Reece Witherspoon got married and had kids (they've since been divorced).
Scott (Ryan Phillippe) has been in and out of rehab for the past 10 years. He surprises his high school sweetheart Katherine (Anna Paquin) by showing up unexpectedly. His dead mother has appeared to him and told him to return home and see his brother Williams (Luke Wilson), now married to Katherine, and his sick father (Powers Boothe). Katherine’s two children are enthralled with Scott, and Katherine begins to feel a connection between the two again. William is away on business, and struggling with fidelity issues of his own. Scott’s care-free life keeps him a certain distance from the family, but his presence is something that will change everyone’s life forever.
The problem with this film is that it wasn't very well written. I know there's a reason for Scott's return, the inner demons, the family turmoil, etc. but the way things are accomplished and presented just seem very trite and contrived. The way the film turns and ends seems like a cheap way to tie all the knots together, as well.
..........................................................................
"Jackie and Ryan"
starring: Katherine Heigl, Ben Barnes, Clea Duvall, Emily Alyn Lind, Sheryl Lee, Ryan Bingham, Jeffrey Hanson
written and directed by: Ami Canaan Mann
Ben Barnes just played an excellent evil character in the Netflix/Marvel series "The Punisher" but before that, we find him in this film, playing a down-and-out musician in limbo, lost, and recovering, and then, falling in love. And there's the big movie dilemma of Katherine Heigel playing in yet another rom-com/drama. She's just not believable in any of her roles; and here, she plays an past-her-prime musician with a young daughter and an ex-husband, along with her own inner demons she's been fighting for years- and then, of course, that's when she meets Ryan, the train-hopping musician/derelict. Each character brings to mind Jeff Bridges' character in "Crazy Heart," which was just an all-around better film.
When Jackie is inevitably coaxed back on stage for the first time in a long while, she first pauses to deliver an impassioned monologue about the choices people make when they don’t feel they have much to choose from. Supposedly this describes her own plight. In the midst a divorce and custody battle over her adolescent daughter, Lia (Emily Alyn Lind), Jackie’s credit cards are maxed and she’s reduced to living with her mother, Miriam (Sheryl Lee), in a rundown home they can’t afford to fix. Except, it turns out, Jackie has been sitting on a luxurious Manhattan condo, debating whether she should hold onto it and return to New York and her glam lifestyle or if she should sell it and remain at home.
The problem with these type of stories is that they are just so unrealistic. People don't seem to meet and fall in love these ways. Things don't just have a way of working out as they do by the end.
...........................................................................
"Time Out of Mind"
starring: Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone, Steve Buscemi, Jeremy Strong, Kyra Sedgwick, Michael Buscemi, Anna Suzuki
written and directed by: Oren Moverman
This was a film from a few years ago, one of which had Richard Gere method acting so well that he was constantly mistaken for an actual homeless person in New York City. I remember reading about that when the film first came out, unfortunately, I am just seeing it for the first time right before it left Netflix back in December.
It's a great, minimalist approach to storytelling and filmmaking by the writer/director, too. Gere is in top form here as well.
Although we don’t learn his name until later in the proceedings, the homeless man who’s onscreen for almost every minute is George Hammond (Gere), whom we first see awakening in a bathtub in an empty and dilapidated apartment, where he’s promptly thrown out by the building manager. Emerging into the harsh New York daylight sporting several days’ worth of scruff and a few unexplained forehead scratches, George has nowhere to go in particular, except in search of his next meal and place to sleep. He wanders the streets, rides the subway and lingers on park benches, occasionally popping into a nearby bar or laundromat to see a young woman named Maggie (Jena Malone). From the way she rebuffs his attempts, we almost immediately grasp that she’s his estranged daughter.
The film does a great job of putting the "human" aspect of homeless persons right in our face, because after all, each one is exactly that- a human being. Although many of their stories are quite different, they each have a story behind their circumstances.
George is resourceful, but is quickly left with no choice but to spend a couple of nights at Bellevue, the largest homeless shelter for men in Manhattan, where the film begins to simulate the look and texture of a Wiseman documentary. Moverman guides us through every step of the tediously long process of checking in and acquiring a bed for the night: the endless wait for George’s number to get called; the barrage of questions about his personal history in exchange for a meal voucher; and the noisy, disruptive altercations that frequently break out among the center’s mostly black population, some of whom don’t take too kindly to the presence of white men like George in their midst. Everyone here seems both isolated and imprisoned, not just the men looking for a place to shower and sleep, but also the jaded workers forced to shuttle people around in a clearly broken system.
George does not necessarily enjoy or want to reveal too much about himself to anyone, perhaps because of shame or the fact that he'd rather lie (to himself) about his own circumstances. He soon finds himself in the company of a very talkative stranger/comrade and fellow wanderer, whether George lies it or not, the guy isn't going anywhere and he isn't shutting up any time soon. But, it is in this "friendship" and through their talks that George slowly reveals things about himself.
At once non-didactic and intensely political in its intimate snapshot of American poverty, “Time Out of Mind” is also a fascinating exercise in form, one that achieves its immersive effect by alternating between visual deprivation and aural overload.
It is certainly not an uplifting story, and there really is no resolution to George's homelessness by the end, but rather, you gain a better understanding for the man he is.
..........................................................................
"Red Christmas"
starring: Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, David Collins, Sarah Bishop, Janis McGavin
written and directed by: Craig Anderson
Here's an Australian horror film with a bit of a religious undertone, as it really speaks about abortion between the lines. Dee Wallace has a history of playing the female roles in past horror films like "Cujo" and the original "The Hills Have Eyes" and so, she is not out of place here, as the matriarch.
This is definitely one of those weird horror films, one that you don't exactly know where it's going from the first scene taking place at an abortion clinic and then jumping ahead to a dysfunctional family right around Christmas.
If you don't take the film too seriously, it can be decent, in the same vein as something like "My Bloody Valentine."
.............................................................................
"Sun Belt Express"
starring: Tate Donovan, India Ennega, Rachael Harris, Ana de la Reguera, Arturo Castro, Oscar Avila, Stephen Lang
written and directed by: Evan Bauxbaum
Not even sure what to say about this one. It seemed like a made-for-TV kind of thing, in which a depressed teacher/dad/divorced guy is trying to be sort of an antihero by taking a side job of driving seemingly illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border.
The only thing that can be determined from this film is that he is clearly just looking for easy paychecks. And Rachael Harris is a long way from her turn on "The Daily Show."
............................................................................
"Backtrack"
starring: Adrien Brody, Jenni Baird, Bruce Spence, Sam Neill, Anna Lise Phillips, Chloe Bayliss, Malcolm Kennard, Robin McLeavy
written and directed by: Michael Petroni
Poor Adrien Brody, what's happened to him since winning the Oscar for his incredible role in "The Pianist?" He's resorted to cheap indie thriller knockoffs of "The Sixth Sense" mixed with "The Others" (two equally great films on their own).
Yet there’s no melancholy to its understanding of grief, no intellectual symbiosis between its editing and performances, and no grace or surprise to its many narrative sleights of hand. It’s also no spoiler to acknowledge the films that Petroni tips his hat to, as it’s revealed very early on that Sydney psychologist Peter Bower (Adrien Brody), still grieving from the death of his daughter a year ago, doesn’t meet with actual patients, but with ghosts from his past. With increasing and inexplicable rage, these specters drop for him a trail of breadcrumbs that takes him back to his childhood home, in a town whose name is too unbelievably on point to spoil here. Needless to say, the name tips the film’s hand: Nothing here is quite as it seems.
These ghosts are not around to teach him anything new, but rather to act as menacing bullies who just make loud noises in an attempt to scare him into coming to terms with his own deep dark secrets/ghosts, which led to his young daughter's death years prior. Instead of really diving into the psychological aspect of the ghosts and the deeper meaning as to why they've decided to appear (and bother Peter, the filmmaker goes for the more obvious (and in affect, less frightening) scares with the interactions with the ghosts.
This movie seemed to fail almost immediately and certainly does not grab your attention.
..........................................................................
"How to Survive a Plague"
written and directed by: David France
As with most documentaries, the filmmaker usually picks a side when determining which story to tell through their film. It's very clear up front that this will be a film about the homosexual population as it was significantly affected by the AIDS epidemic that hit the U.S. and ran itself rampant in the '80s and '90s. Along with this came movements like ACT UP, which we see several times throughout the film at their meetings and gatherings and protests. But, also, something important was the recent development of technology known as camcorders (yeah, remember those). They allowed things to be filmed that you wanted to remember later, you know, like birthday parties and family vacations. Equally as important as those memories, though, was the fact that you could record movements such as we see in the documentary here.
With video equipment available to all, 1982 marked the dawn of insta-media, and with members of the activist group ACT UP able to film their every move, their revolution wouldn’t just be televised, it would be fully documented too. Such is why journalist turned filmmaker David France’s epic account of this pitch-dark time is so amazingly thorough, composed of a plethora of priceless footage from the very heart of the issue. Beyond offering an aesthetic that is the ‘80s and early ‘90s, his stunning film contains scene after scene that would oft-require recreation in narrative form, showing stalwart heroes caught up in drama no script could conceivably beat. It’s a highly subjective movie, but it isn’t a stretch to consider it the quintessential snapshot of a moment and a movement.
Nowadays, we seem to take advantage of our technological advances and the ability to "live-stream" through several different avenues. Everyone is a documentarian these days, whether they are recording and streaming anything really worth archiving is left up to you to decide. There have definitely been some important movements and moments documented by "regular" people and not necessarily filmmakers. Justice and abuse of power seem to be the things brought to the forefront when someone can just pull out their smartphone (look at that, not even cellphone, anymore) and record something happening.
Living in a society too bigoted, scared, or indifferent to take the proper steps to quell an epidemic, members of the Greenwich Village-based ACT UP are seen as having to become their own scientists, pharmacists, “drug smugglers,” and PR reps. Among them are Mark Harrington, a brilliant Harvard grad who quickly drafts an entire treatment glossary; Bob Rafsky, an ailing PR pro formerly employed by Donald Trump; and Peter Staley, an ex-bond trader who becomes ACT UP’s strongest spokesman (also featured is venerable writer Larry Kramer, the “grandfather of AIDS activism” whose talks sparked the start of the organization). The desperate efforts of these tortured souls shows each in the driver’s seat of his own destiny, and amid heated ACT UP meetings, rallies at New York’s City Hall and the FDA headquarters, and private conversations with the members themselves, it grows painfully clear that not everyone will be alive at film’s end.
On the broad scale, AIDS has always been underplayed as a cultural crisis and a national scar, and in addition to struggling through one inadequate treatment after another, the ACT UP crew is forced to suffer a string of neglectful politicians, from Ed Koch to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush (“If you want change, change your behavior,” the latter was known to say). Only when Rafsky heckles Clinton on the campaign trail does AIDS become a fully legitimate political talking point, eventually aiding the scientific discovery of a decent drug cocktail in 1996.
The film makes it clear that there will come a time when people look back and hear about this terrible disease, but more importantly, they will hear about all the people that stood up and fought for what was right. I guess, the question when things like this happen in our history, what side do you want to be remembered fighting for?
starring: Ryan Phillippe, Anna Paquin, Luke Wilson, Riley Thomas Stewart, Ursula Parker, Tess Harper, Powers Boothe, Christa Campbell, Josh Meyers
written by: Dave Cole
directed by: James Cox
Remember Ryan Phillippe? His movie star(dom) really rose in the '90s and then he kind of disappeared, perhaps because he chose family life over acting once he and Reece Witherspoon got married and had kids (they've since been divorced).
Scott (Ryan Phillippe) has been in and out of rehab for the past 10 years. He surprises his high school sweetheart Katherine (Anna Paquin) by showing up unexpectedly. His dead mother has appeared to him and told him to return home and see his brother Williams (Luke Wilson), now married to Katherine, and his sick father (Powers Boothe). Katherine’s two children are enthralled with Scott, and Katherine begins to feel a connection between the two again. William is away on business, and struggling with fidelity issues of his own. Scott’s care-free life keeps him a certain distance from the family, but his presence is something that will change everyone’s life forever.
The problem with this film is that it wasn't very well written. I know there's a reason for Scott's return, the inner demons, the family turmoil, etc. but the way things are accomplished and presented just seem very trite and contrived. The way the film turns and ends seems like a cheap way to tie all the knots together, as well.
..........................................................................
"Jackie and Ryan"
starring: Katherine Heigl, Ben Barnes, Clea Duvall, Emily Alyn Lind, Sheryl Lee, Ryan Bingham, Jeffrey Hanson
written and directed by: Ami Canaan Mann
Ben Barnes just played an excellent evil character in the Netflix/Marvel series "The Punisher" but before that, we find him in this film, playing a down-and-out musician in limbo, lost, and recovering, and then, falling in love. And there's the big movie dilemma of Katherine Heigel playing in yet another rom-com/drama. She's just not believable in any of her roles; and here, she plays an past-her-prime musician with a young daughter and an ex-husband, along with her own inner demons she's been fighting for years- and then, of course, that's when she meets Ryan, the train-hopping musician/derelict. Each character brings to mind Jeff Bridges' character in "Crazy Heart," which was just an all-around better film.
When Jackie is inevitably coaxed back on stage for the first time in a long while, she first pauses to deliver an impassioned monologue about the choices people make when they don’t feel they have much to choose from. Supposedly this describes her own plight. In the midst a divorce and custody battle over her adolescent daughter, Lia (Emily Alyn Lind), Jackie’s credit cards are maxed and she’s reduced to living with her mother, Miriam (Sheryl Lee), in a rundown home they can’t afford to fix. Except, it turns out, Jackie has been sitting on a luxurious Manhattan condo, debating whether she should hold onto it and return to New York and her glam lifestyle or if she should sell it and remain at home.
The problem with these type of stories is that they are just so unrealistic. People don't seem to meet and fall in love these ways. Things don't just have a way of working out as they do by the end.
...........................................................................
"Time Out of Mind"
starring: Richard Gere, Ben Vereen, Jena Malone, Steve Buscemi, Jeremy Strong, Kyra Sedgwick, Michael Buscemi, Anna Suzuki
written and directed by: Oren Moverman
This was a film from a few years ago, one of which had Richard Gere method acting so well that he was constantly mistaken for an actual homeless person in New York City. I remember reading about that when the film first came out, unfortunately, I am just seeing it for the first time right before it left Netflix back in December.
It's a great, minimalist approach to storytelling and filmmaking by the writer/director, too. Gere is in top form here as well.
Although we don’t learn his name until later in the proceedings, the homeless man who’s onscreen for almost every minute is George Hammond (Gere), whom we first see awakening in a bathtub in an empty and dilapidated apartment, where he’s promptly thrown out by the building manager. Emerging into the harsh New York daylight sporting several days’ worth of scruff and a few unexplained forehead scratches, George has nowhere to go in particular, except in search of his next meal and place to sleep. He wanders the streets, rides the subway and lingers on park benches, occasionally popping into a nearby bar or laundromat to see a young woman named Maggie (Jena Malone). From the way she rebuffs his attempts, we almost immediately grasp that she’s his estranged daughter.
The film does a great job of putting the "human" aspect of homeless persons right in our face, because after all, each one is exactly that- a human being. Although many of their stories are quite different, they each have a story behind their circumstances.
George is resourceful, but is quickly left with no choice but to spend a couple of nights at Bellevue, the largest homeless shelter for men in Manhattan, where the film begins to simulate the look and texture of a Wiseman documentary. Moverman guides us through every step of the tediously long process of checking in and acquiring a bed for the night: the endless wait for George’s number to get called; the barrage of questions about his personal history in exchange for a meal voucher; and the noisy, disruptive altercations that frequently break out among the center’s mostly black population, some of whom don’t take too kindly to the presence of white men like George in their midst. Everyone here seems both isolated and imprisoned, not just the men looking for a place to shower and sleep, but also the jaded workers forced to shuttle people around in a clearly broken system.
George does not necessarily enjoy or want to reveal too much about himself to anyone, perhaps because of shame or the fact that he'd rather lie (to himself) about his own circumstances. He soon finds himself in the company of a very talkative stranger/comrade and fellow wanderer, whether George lies it or not, the guy isn't going anywhere and he isn't shutting up any time soon. But, it is in this "friendship" and through their talks that George slowly reveals things about himself.
At once non-didactic and intensely political in its intimate snapshot of American poverty, “Time Out of Mind” is also a fascinating exercise in form, one that achieves its immersive effect by alternating between visual deprivation and aural overload.
It is certainly not an uplifting story, and there really is no resolution to George's homelessness by the end, but rather, you gain a better understanding for the man he is.
..........................................................................
"Red Christmas"
starring: Dee Wallace, Geoff Morrell, David Collins, Sarah Bishop, Janis McGavin
written and directed by: Craig Anderson
Here's an Australian horror film with a bit of a religious undertone, as it really speaks about abortion between the lines. Dee Wallace has a history of playing the female roles in past horror films like "Cujo" and the original "The Hills Have Eyes" and so, she is not out of place here, as the matriarch.
This is definitely one of those weird horror films, one that you don't exactly know where it's going from the first scene taking place at an abortion clinic and then jumping ahead to a dysfunctional family right around Christmas.
Taken as a straightforward horror flick, Red Christmas would seem to be wildly uneven with an initial scene involving an abortion clinic that would seem to set the tone for some wildly dramatic horror borne out of religious fervor. However, Anderson doesn't really aim for the obvious here even if the story that ultimately unfolds sort of knocks you across the forehead with a "Wow, that was pretty obvious."
It's obvious, but it's not.
If you don't take the film too seriously, it can be decent, in the same vein as something like "My Bloody Valentine."
.............................................................................
"Sun Belt Express"
starring: Tate Donovan, India Ennega, Rachael Harris, Ana de la Reguera, Arturo Castro, Oscar Avila, Stephen Lang
written and directed by: Evan Bauxbaum
Not even sure what to say about this one. It seemed like a made-for-TV kind of thing, in which a depressed teacher/dad/divorced guy is trying to be sort of an antihero by taking a side job of driving seemingly illegal immigrants across the Mexico-U.S. border.
The only thing that can be determined from this film is that he is clearly just looking for easy paychecks. And Rachael Harris is a long way from her turn on "The Daily Show."
............................................................................
"Backtrack"
starring: Adrien Brody, Jenni Baird, Bruce Spence, Sam Neill, Anna Lise Phillips, Chloe Bayliss, Malcolm Kennard, Robin McLeavy
written and directed by: Michael Petroni
Poor Adrien Brody, what's happened to him since winning the Oscar for his incredible role in "The Pianist?" He's resorted to cheap indie thriller knockoffs of "The Sixth Sense" mixed with "The Others" (two equally great films on their own).
Yet there’s no melancholy to its understanding of grief, no intellectual symbiosis between its editing and performances, and no grace or surprise to its many narrative sleights of hand. It’s also no spoiler to acknowledge the films that Petroni tips his hat to, as it’s revealed very early on that Sydney psychologist Peter Bower (Adrien Brody), still grieving from the death of his daughter a year ago, doesn’t meet with actual patients, but with ghosts from his past. With increasing and inexplicable rage, these specters drop for him a trail of breadcrumbs that takes him back to his childhood home, in a town whose name is too unbelievably on point to spoil here. Needless to say, the name tips the film’s hand: Nothing here is quite as it seems.
These ghosts are not around to teach him anything new, but rather to act as menacing bullies who just make loud noises in an attempt to scare him into coming to terms with his own deep dark secrets/ghosts, which led to his young daughter's death years prior. Instead of really diving into the psychological aspect of the ghosts and the deeper meaning as to why they've decided to appear (and bother Peter, the filmmaker goes for the more obvious (and in affect, less frightening) scares with the interactions with the ghosts.
This movie seemed to fail almost immediately and certainly does not grab your attention.
..........................................................................
"How to Survive a Plague"
written and directed by: David France
As with most documentaries, the filmmaker usually picks a side when determining which story to tell through their film. It's very clear up front that this will be a film about the homosexual population as it was significantly affected by the AIDS epidemic that hit the U.S. and ran itself rampant in the '80s and '90s. Along with this came movements like ACT UP, which we see several times throughout the film at their meetings and gatherings and protests. But, also, something important was the recent development of technology known as camcorders (yeah, remember those). They allowed things to be filmed that you wanted to remember later, you know, like birthday parties and family vacations. Equally as important as those memories, though, was the fact that you could record movements such as we see in the documentary here.
With video equipment available to all, 1982 marked the dawn of insta-media, and with members of the activist group ACT UP able to film their every move, their revolution wouldn’t just be televised, it would be fully documented too. Such is why journalist turned filmmaker David France’s epic account of this pitch-dark time is so amazingly thorough, composed of a plethora of priceless footage from the very heart of the issue. Beyond offering an aesthetic that is the ‘80s and early ‘90s, his stunning film contains scene after scene that would oft-require recreation in narrative form, showing stalwart heroes caught up in drama no script could conceivably beat. It’s a highly subjective movie, but it isn’t a stretch to consider it the quintessential snapshot of a moment and a movement.
Nowadays, we seem to take advantage of our technological advances and the ability to "live-stream" through several different avenues. Everyone is a documentarian these days, whether they are recording and streaming anything really worth archiving is left up to you to decide. There have definitely been some important movements and moments documented by "regular" people and not necessarily filmmakers. Justice and abuse of power seem to be the things brought to the forefront when someone can just pull out their smartphone (look at that, not even cellphone, anymore) and record something happening.
Living in a society too bigoted, scared, or indifferent to take the proper steps to quell an epidemic, members of the Greenwich Village-based ACT UP are seen as having to become their own scientists, pharmacists, “drug smugglers,” and PR reps. Among them are Mark Harrington, a brilliant Harvard grad who quickly drafts an entire treatment glossary; Bob Rafsky, an ailing PR pro formerly employed by Donald Trump; and Peter Staley, an ex-bond trader who becomes ACT UP’s strongest spokesman (also featured is venerable writer Larry Kramer, the “grandfather of AIDS activism” whose talks sparked the start of the organization). The desperate efforts of these tortured souls shows each in the driver’s seat of his own destiny, and amid heated ACT UP meetings, rallies at New York’s City Hall and the FDA headquarters, and private conversations with the members themselves, it grows painfully clear that not everyone will be alive at film’s end.
On the broad scale, AIDS has always been underplayed as a cultural crisis and a national scar, and in addition to struggling through one inadequate treatment after another, the ACT UP crew is forced to suffer a string of neglectful politicians, from Ed Koch to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush (“If you want change, change your behavior,” the latter was known to say). Only when Rafsky heckles Clinton on the campaign trail does AIDS become a fully legitimate political talking point, eventually aiding the scientific discovery of a decent drug cocktail in 1996.
The film makes it clear that there will come a time when people look back and hear about this terrible disease, but more importantly, they will hear about all the people that stood up and fought for what was right. I guess, the question when things like this happen in our history, what side do you want to be remembered fighting for?
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