Beyond the Black Rainbow (Review)

I wanted to wrap up my Sidewalk review with a film that took a week to wrap my mind around. Beyond the Black Rainbow, director Panos Cosmatos' 2010 film debut, was by far the most surreal film I've seen over the weekend.

It was on my watch list like many other films, but I must say that I was not expecting to see what I saw. The story is set in the Aboria Institute. Named after its founder Dr. Mercurio Aboria (Scott Hylands), it's a mysterious medical facility specializing in making a "new, better, happier you" through "sensory therapy". Inside the institute is Elena (Eva Allen), a young girl who is routinely tested by Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). Elena doesn't say much, in fact she doesn't say anything at all. But it is apparent that she possesses something very special. Dr. Nyle, a very sadistic individual who takes pleasure in testing Elena, seems to have a motive in his insistence on keeping her guarded in her padded room. Dr. Nyle controls her with an odd, glowing pyramid device that keeps her docile. It's as though her mind and her senses are numb to the effects of this apparatus.

Dr Aboria and the "glowing pyramid"

Elena is this subdued girl that seems to be exhausted by all the test and experiments that she endures. You don't know much about her, but in one flashback scene she's just a baby when she is introduced to Dr. Aboria. Clearly she's endured for a long time. Nyle is also present in a flashback, albeit a bit younger. The scenes that shows him becoming who he is tells you there is something off about him. In all his creepiness, he possesses this calm madness about him that you don't see until the film progresses.

Beyond the Black Rainbow is a trippy exploration of the mind. It's spiritual, its cosmic. Set in the early 80's, the look and the sound will remind you of sci fi films during the period. The music is atmospheric and intensifies the action that takes place. Visually haunting, it manages to be both Kubrickian and Lynchian at the same time. The steady, methodical pacing and it's study of dehumanization is hallmark Stanley Kubrick while the film's disturbing imagery and it's refusal to provide a reason for it is classic David Lynch.

Dr. Barry Nyle. A sick individual

I viewed the film and didn't know what the hell I was watching. I enjoyed trying to decipher what was going on thinking I knew and then being given another clue that was totally unrelated. It was an allegorical, symbolic piece that borders on psychedelic and psychotic. It's death and rebirth. There are scenes that had me glued to the screen and everything around me disappeared.

While it seems I'm glowing too much, I'm trying to emphasize just how intense this film was. I'm hoping to find it on DVD just to watch over and over and grasp the concept fully. Beyond the Black Rainbow is Cosmatos' first film and surely it will be his infamous.          

Sidewalk Film Festival 2012 (Review)

So this past weekend there was this awesome film festival here in Birmingham called the Sidewalk Film Festival. I was a party to this momentous occasion not only as a member of the audience but also a volunteer (projectionist extraordinaire two years running!). As a volunteer I get perks like weekend passes. So, when I wasn't working hard at swapping out DVDs, I was watching films.

I decided to write reviews for the films that really stuck out to me this year. Hopefully this will be a yearly thing I do for Sidewalk.

So, without further ado...

Compliance

The first feature film I found myself viewing was Craig Zobel's 2012 film Compliance. Based on true events, the story takes place at the ChickWich fast food restaurant. The manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd), receives a call from someone identifying themselves as "Officer Daniels". Convincing Sandra that one of her employees, Becky (Dreama Walker), stole money from a customer's purse, he orders Sandra to pull her aside and find the missing money. Sandra is ordered to strip search Becky down to her birthday suit.What transpires is a series of degradation and humiliation.

I won't go into details of what happens. That'll ruin the movie. But I will say that while watching with my fellow cinephiles there were talks of walking out. Matter of fact, there were people who did walk out. I'll admit, there were some scenes that were ridiculous, but I convinced myself and my friends to stay the course. Compliance baffles the audience on the question of logic and common sense.

And that's where the frustration comes from with this movie. It went beyond logic that someone would allow something like this to happen without exercising pure sense. But most of the events that transpired really happened in real life. This is what bothered the audience including a friend of mine who was utterly pissed. But thinking back about it, perhaps that was the goal. The film managed to get the audience engaged and we talked about it after the screening. It became a question of do you question an authority (the police) or do you comply because the police said so? For many of us there it was an emphatic "hell yes" to the former.

I'm not sure how to feel about the film. It did a great job at getting the crowd stirred up. But I wonder if the film itself has staying power beyond just that. It was really fueled by the fact that it's based on real events. Aside from that I didn't really see anything else that convinced me to watch it again.

Wolf

Another film that I found myself watching and enjoying was Ya'ke Smith's Wolf. The story follows a family's downward spiral after the revelation that their son was molested by the church bishop.

What transpires is the measures that the church takes to cover up the incident and a family that is trying to deal with it. Ya'ke analyzes the political conflicts that plague the church as the controversy unravels and the lives that were altered due to the events. Masculinity and the male role is a big part of the film. The relationship between Carl (Jordan Cooper) and his father is not the best. This leads to a father/son relationship between him and Bishop Anderson (Eugene Lee) that eventually turns into something more intimate. When their relationship is revealed, Carl's father reacts with violence. This proves to tear the family further apart. The fact that this is not what a man does infuriates him to the point of rage. Rage that's perhaps exacerbated by regret of not being there as a father.

What is interesting about Wolf is that Ya'ke doesn't demonize the molester nor does he polarize the issue of right or wrong. He instead uses the bishop as an instrument of discussion of a larger issue that many choose to sweep under the rug, especially in a predominately black church. Ya'ke crafts a tale of a boy confused and protective of the man who turns his world upside down. The man himself has demons that he must contend with.

The parallel that he makes between the bishop and the wolf make for a strong description of how Carl feels about his dilemma. His dreams and his thoughts are carefully woven into the film's visuals and you know that they are important in how he perceives his feelings about Anderson. The same can be said about the bishop's thoughts. Both put high emphasis on the fact that their souls are being torn apart in all this. You see their suffering both mentally and physically.  

Ya'ke unveils a vicious cycle and reveals the sickness and the cry for help that is overlooked. He dares to challenge tradition and notion in an effort to foster discussion and encourage help for predator and prey.

Dead Man's Burden

I have a confession to make. As an early film fan I did not like Western films. It wasn't until later on when I was introduced to Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah that I was converted. Dead Man's Burden, the moment I read the synopsis, was on my watch list. This is Jared Moshe's first feature as a director and it is beautifully filmed on the desert frontier and set after the Civil War. We follow the life of a young couple, Martha and Heck Kirkland (Clare Bowen, David Call), as they try to sell off their land to a mining company owned by EJ Lane (Joseph Lyle Taylor). Wade McCurry (Barlow Jacobs), coming home after the war, makes his way to the family homestead. Secrets that were long hidden are revealed and a shocking revelation unfolds.

What I like about this film is the cinematography. Robert Hauer was Moshe's eyes as he captured New Mexico. The scene where McCurry is accosted by two former Confederate soldiers sparkles with the colors of autumn as leaves float in the air among the sound of gunfire. There is something serene about that moment. The vastness of the frontier captured on screen is more reason that this film is aesthetically pleasing.

I liked the character Wade McCurry. I was detecting a kind of Eastwood-esque wit that Jacobs was trying to convey. I'm not sure if Moshe was going for that, but here it works without being a rip off. It was subtle and it fit McCurry just fine.

It was refreshing to see a Western at the festival; the stigma being that you need a big budget and a Hollywood studio to make it happen. Moshe was able to present the bare essentials of a Western with a smaller budget (at least compared to big studio versions) and give the audience the story itself. There are no bloody Peckinpah moments or a classic Leone "Mexican standoff", but a story that still captures the West.

Sidewalk Film Festival

From August 24-26 I will be volunteering for Birmingham's biggest film event, the Sidewalk Film Festival.

The event is a great opportunity to see films before anyone else and in some cases you may never see again. I plan on watching a few films at the event and giving a review or two (one of the perks of being a volunteer!). 

You should go Here 

Possible "Shining" Prequel Rumored

Jack surprises the executives at Warner Bros

For the moment, Warner Bros is pretty mum about the alleged prequel to The Shining. Personally, I don't blame them. Speaking as a fan of Kubrick and his 1980 vision of Stephen King's novel I really don't see the point of making a prequel to the classic. Granted, Kubrick's movie wasn't liked by King but the end result is cult cinema gold that spawned one of the most famous lines in film history.

Warner Bros, wise up and leave Jack Torrence alone! He's been through enough.

The article is Here 

The Dark Knight Rises (Review)

I had the pleasure of watching the last installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. I have been anticipating this film for a year and was bursting with excitement when I bought my ticket. So many thoughts entered my mind. The most prevalent one was how will he end it? How can Nolan close the book on his version of the Batman? I wanted to get the full scope of how important this movie was so I took the liberty of watching it twice. The second time was in IMAX.

Let me say that I tried to avoid the same mistake that many people made and that was comparing and/or anticipating it to be better than the last film, The Dark Knight. In my opinion, after seeing it, it's useless to compare the two because you're dealing with two different characters and two different stories. All this I'll cover in my review.

Let's start with a brief synopsis: the story takes place eight years after the events in The Dark Knight (side note: I highly recommend watching the first two films). Gotham City is at peace and crime has taken a sharp decline. Across the world terrorist leader, Bane, makes a dramatic escape and makes his way to Gotham hellbent on destroying it. This new threat causes the Batman to reappear in order to thwart his plans of destruction and save Gotham City yet again.

Nolan's latest Batman saga is exciting. I found myself glued to the screen and zoning out at the action. It was a fitting end to the franchise that he singlehandedly revitalized. The conflict here is immense. We have two men who possess the will to give their very last to their cause; Batman's will to protect Gotham, Bane's will to destroy it. It seems to overpower them to a point. But the conflict isn't between the two men alone. Batman has grief and guilt that he must overcome in order to protect the city. Batman's troubles is twofold: the evil that is Bane that proves to be more than a formidable foe and the regret that he has from the previous film. We are seeing Batman at his nadir which proves to make for a more suspenseful conclusion.

Bane vs. the Batman

The stakes are higher this time. The city is taken by a calculated and meticulous threat that is Bane. The way that he gains control of Gotham is unique. He gives Gotham what Batman has given them: hope. Let's just say that the way he presents it is genius and is the total antithesis of the Caped Crusader's version.

Tom Hardy's Bane

Bane is one of the reasons, among many, that so many people went to see this film. So, what was all the hubbub about with this guy? For starters we have a villain that Nolan has once again created with a deep root in reality. When the announcement came that Bane would grace the screen people scratched their heads. For those who know the comic, Bane was portrayed as a juiced up muscle donning a wrestling mask. For those who saw the earlier Batman films know Bane as a masked idiot with muscles. Nolan remade him into a cunning and ruthless antagonist. A few alterations were made: the wrestling mask was replaced with a face mask that provided an anesthetic to keep his pain at bay (they touch on this in the movie) and he was dressed ready for a military coup than a wrestling ring. Granted, in the comic Bane was highly intelligent and well read. Nolan simply utilized that. Bane is a military genius that relied on explosives and mercilessness to grip Gotham into fear. The plot that he hatched was, in true Nolan fashion, rooted in reality. All the bad guys that Nolan used in the trilogy all had plots that could happen and still possessed the epic goodness of a comic film.

With the good comes the bad. One of the negatives that people had with Bane was his dialogue being inaudible at times. I had a discussion with two people that I feel are astute when it comes to cinema about this and there a few theories: I felt that the voice was mixed in a way that drew you in. Can you expect someone in a face mask to be audible all the time? The way that his voice was mixed was intentional. It enhanced his menacing demeanor and made him more interesting as a character. Their theory was that the sound editing was just off so much so that his voice sounded detached from the body and it took away from the experience. Darth Vader was brought up in the discussion and how his voice was clear and understandable and he's still memorable. My rebuttal was that was his voice too clean? Both circumstances are different and call for a certain approach. I feel that all points are valid. It's true that there are parts that left you saying "what?" but I still feel that the essence wasn't taken away from him and I was still anticipating seeing him on screen. This debate I'll leave up to the viewer. I will say that when I saw the film in IMAX his dialogue improved slightly. Still, I loved it.

Bane displays the look that many had trying to understand his dialogue

The question that I hate to dwell on but must address because it is prevalent is: is it better than The Dark Knight? My answer is not to answer at all. The Dark Knight was amazing. So was The Dark Knight Rises. Both films had a bad guy who was epic. Heath Ledger's Joker was an agent of chaos and relied on disorder to destroy Gotham. Tom Hardy's Bane was more organized. There can be no comparison between the two. They both served their purpose of bringing the city down. I don't feel that one is better than the other, but I will say that they both edge each other out in certain areas. Still, there is no better villain. Plus, you have a different circumstance here as well that needed a different kind of baddie. This is the last film and as such you need a villain that suits the situation. Bane's plans were brimming with the possibility that this could prove too much for the Batman to endure. To me the Joker didn't give you that because both men wouldn't allow it; they needed each other. With Bane he wanted to break the Batman. The only thing that mattered was the plan and its execution. Again, two different villains with two different ideals.

All in all, The Dark Knight Rises is a hit. My only qualm with the movie was the end. But then again I shouldn't have expected what happened to be what ends the trilogy so I guess the very end was appropriate. I still think it would've been interesting if Nolan ended it in that manner. I feel that I was witnessing history. The Dark Knight Rises will mark 2012 with sadness (the Colorado shooting of 12 people during the film's screening) and excitement. So do yourself a favor and watch this film.               
   

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Review)

*** WARNING: A FEW SPOILERS***

A friend and I decided to check out the new film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. The first time I heard the title, I was all over it. The marriage of the 16th president of these United States and vampires seemed like a fit. So, was this a go see or not?

We'll get to that.

First, a little background. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is based on the book of the same name by author Seth Grahame-Smith, who also served as the writer for the film. It's directed by Timur Bekmambetov who gave us a taste of his action film directing skills with 2008's Wanted. The story follows Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) as a boy who witnesses his mother killed by a vampire, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), due to a debt his father owed. He grows up seeking revenge. When he catches up with the fiend he's beaten nearly to death and saved by the mysterious Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper). Lincoln, impressed with the fighting skills of Sturgess, begs him to teach him how to fight. After a stern rebuff, Sturgess finally agrees and this serves as preparation for the next round against Barts.

Lincoln (Walker) and Sturgess (Cooper)

What Lincoln discovers is that this is no single instance and that there are many more bloodsuckers hellbent on ruling the nation. Leading the undead is Adam (Rufus Sewell), a cunning villain who just so happens to be a slave owner and a Confederate sympathizer. After killing Barts, Lincoln focuses his attention on killing Adam and stopping his sinister plans while balancing being president. 

Abe decides to kill after a day of campaigning 

First off, I didn't read the book. Guilty. I take it as a good thing because I'm watching with a fresh pair of eyes and I consider myself free from trying to nitpick inaccuracies. That being said, the movie was good. This was an action film; there were slow motion sequences that'll make John Woo squeal and Lincoln shows how handy he can be with an axe. It keeps your attention for the entire film. The characters involved, though not memorable, were just enough to keep the narrative going. 

Not surprising is that it's just an action film. The title and the trailers pretty much tell you what you're in for: Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter. Bekmambetov really focused on Lincoln fighting vampires. Lincoln's dynamic relationship with the characters around him really go no deeper than the surface: there there and their interacting with him. Even his relationship with Sturgess is shallow. What I found intriguing is that the whole time the film reminded me of Blade; instead of a black man with a mean streak swinging a katana, imagine a lanky white guy swinging an axe. The training sequences between him and Sturgess were a tad ridiculous (the "forest" scene, 'nuff said) and so were some of the action scenes (the "stampeding horses scene", 'nuff said). Plus, I find that Will, former slave and Lincoln's best friend since childhood, knew karate and fought side by side with Lincoln against the undead hoard (apparently slaves were prohibited from reading, but kung fu was alright).

My friend, who read the book, just plain hated how they adapted the film from the novel. According to him there were a lot of inaccuracies, especially the ending. Sturgess had no backstory in the book and the first vampire that Lincoln kills wasn't some shop owner but an old lady. Suffice it to say, he gave the film a low score of 2/5. I gave the film a 3/5 on the principle of it being fun to watch on a Saturday night. And it was.

Though the film wasn't stellar, it was still enjoyable. I wouldn't own it on DVD but I would definitely watch it again. I found the blending of anachronisms and the bloodlust of the undead into 105 minutes of blood and gore entertaining. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter gives you exactly what the title implies. And that's as honest as ol' Honest Abe.        

Hans Zimmer to Score "Man of Steel"

Hans Zimmer, the composer who crafted the amazing soundscapes heard in many of Christopher Nolan's films, has been slated to compose the new Superman flick, Man of Steel. Initially there were rumors, but were silenced by Zimmer himself in 2010.

This is good news. I find myself hearing his menacing strings from The Dark Knight playing in my head ever so often. His ability to create the sound of the Joker was a beautiful marriage to Heath Ledger's sinister portrayal. 

It makes sense that he would be involved, in my opinion. Nolan is the producer of the new flick and from the looks of the stills they are going for a darker appeal this time and Zimmer has proven that he can bring the darkness when it comes to sound.

Check out the article Here. A sample of those strings are Here