Please Stand By is a 2017 film directed by Ben Lewin. It made it's way to Baltimore's Parkway theater in January 2018. The screenplay is based on the play of the same name. The film, based in Oakland and LA, is a character study of Wendy, a 21 year old autistic young lady living in a group home. She is fixated on Star Trek and ultimately wants to submit a nearly 500 page script to a Star Trek writing competition. When denied the opportunity to mail out her script, Wendy embarks on the journey to hand deliver her script to Universal Studios.
Please Stand By is probably one of the better movie depictions of an autistic individual. That being said, it was generic at times, typical Hollywood, of family ditching the autistic relative into a more understanding environment because of the lack of desire to want to care for the individual. The somewhat predictable script, of the individual in question going on some type of journey of self discovery to prove family wrong, is evoked heavily throughout this film.
It's not uncommon for many films, to add a significant amount of behavioral ticks that make it hard to fully believe or encapsulate a character. Dakota Fanning, who played Wendy managed to embrace and play the role relatively well. I had wondered going into the film if Fanning, a former child star would be able to pick up a role of this nature. I was pleasantly surprised. While she got many of the typical ticks down well: eye contact struggle, the need for routine, inability to process certain emotions, louder more monotone type voice and the struggles with being touched. There were a few inconsistencies with some of the behaviors, but to the basic viewer, these small subtle glitches may go unnoticed. Despite the traditional Hollywood, small budget indie film approach, Please Stand By did bring a well rounded cast together. The story-line did have some novel approaches, with the use of fan fiction and the strong obsessive behavior of an individual on the spectrum. The casting alone should be a good enough reason to see the film, and it's a nice homage to aspiring nerd writers everywhere. Overall, a nice light hearted/feel good movie.
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
Bob Dylan: Trouble No More
Bob Dylan: Trouble No More is a concert documentary of Bob Dylan's final album of the same name. This documentary is more concert footage and has been floating around the States in theaters since November for one night only events. Similar to Pearl Jam's Let's Play Two, it was more concert footage than anything else. The Trouble No More, was Dylan's entrance into more of a gospel phase. The "documentary" also paired this with sermons written by a southern pastor. They were spoken by Michael Shannon. While the sermons provided some insight to Dylan's lyrics from this album, it would have been nice if there was some form of commentary in the film about the correlation between the two. The Pearl Jam Let's Play Two documentary had a nice balance of why Pearl Jam was playing at Wrigley, and gave some additional history of the Cubs, the stadium, the fan base of Pearl Jam and the Cubs, and the neighborhood of Wriglyville, so it was a bit more well rounded. While I could appreciate Dylan's concert footage, the two points didn't seem to converge much, or have any given and take back and forth. Being able to see the concert footage on a large screen was nice, but ultimately I could have probably saved the $11 and streamed it and enjoyed it just as much.
Tuesday, 30 January 2018
In Between
In Between is a an Arabic movie out of Israel. This is another movie that I have struggled to formulate my words, mostly due to the subject matter. I have come to appreciate and enjoy Israeli movies. The original release date was 2016, which I believe was in Israel, but the general US release date was November 2017. However, I'm sure it has been a pretty limited release, as Baltimore, and The Parkway Theatre didn't get it until January 2018. It has been about 2-3 years since Baltimore got any Israeli movies, which has been disappointing for me, as cinenophile whom appreciates these hidden gems.
I feel like this is one of the most promising one I have seen, out of Israel since A Borrowed Identity. In an age, where I relish in the different, In Between begins to break many of those barriers. One of the biggest hyped movies for the Oscars is Lady Bird, mostly due to the female director and strong female leads. Lady Bird, is however, what the basic white people enjoy: a semi autobiographical film that was kicked off in 2001 with Napoleon Dynamite. However, In Between, far better achieves the strong female leads and female director that Ladybird severely lacked. While I am not sure if initially In Between was Israel's submission for the Academy Awards, this one is certainly far better than many of those that made the 5 film cut that were nominated.
Maysaloun Hamoud, the director is a Hungarian-born Palestinian Israeli. The film, Bar Bahar/In Between won the NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Many people are comparing or labeling it as a female version of The Breadwinner. In Between, focuses on three Arab women roommates in Tel Aviv, . The movie starts with two out of the three whom live together, prior to the third one moving in. The triptych relationship of the women develops as the movie focuses on the ingrained Islamic traditions for many women that live in Tel Aviv. One of the roommates works various restaurant jobs in addition to being a dj. The other original roommate is a lawyer whom likes to liberally blow off steam at the local watering hole bars and raves. These two women are far more liberal in their lifestyles and struggle to find their way in the set indigenous Islamic or Christian views of family and those in their social networks. The third roommate, Noor, when she moves in, is a more conservative Muslim, who needs to move into the apartment for school and studying purposes. She is engaged to be married, to another traditional conservative Muslim. Upon his realization on the lifestyles that Noor is exposed to through her roommates, her fiancee struggles to push for an earlier wedding date. This leads to an assault, which bonds the three women to rise to struggle to answer more questions of how they choose to live their lives and discuss this with family.
This movie does far more towards the rise of the women's movement, Time's Up, etc, than many other movies I have recently seen. That being said, this film however doesn't make strong political concepts or discussion points. For being so emotionally charged, Hamoud does very well in not getting to political or really dragging you to one point more so than the other in being the correct way of life. Rather, it's three women that bond together in a harsh assault. These women also struggle with the newer, more liberal identities, and old tradition, something many US films seem to have struggled to achieve recently. The struggles and many of the questions raised by the three women were all valid questions and took on a very humanistic approach to the film without getting too entangled or tripping up over ideas or dwelling on any ideas too long to hinder the development of the film. I feel many of what I have seem try to appeal to more one main audience, where this focuses more on the victims of assault and cultural change. There were tender scenes, as well as heart and gut wrenching scenes, and ones that simply made me smile. My only real complaint, if it is one, would be that there were some ideas I would have liked her to explore more. This being one of Hamoud's first films, I have a strong interest in seeing work that she will produce in the near future. I would highly recommend this movie.
I feel like this is one of the most promising one I have seen, out of Israel since A Borrowed Identity. In an age, where I relish in the different, In Between begins to break many of those barriers. One of the biggest hyped movies for the Oscars is Lady Bird, mostly due to the female director and strong female leads. Lady Bird, is however, what the basic white people enjoy: a semi autobiographical film that was kicked off in 2001 with Napoleon Dynamite. However, In Between, far better achieves the strong female leads and female director that Ladybird severely lacked. While I am not sure if initially In Between was Israel's submission for the Academy Awards, this one is certainly far better than many of those that made the 5 film cut that were nominated.
Maysaloun Hamoud, the director is a Hungarian-born Palestinian Israeli. The film, Bar Bahar/In Between won the NETPAC Award for World or International Asian Film Premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. Many people are comparing or labeling it as a female version of The Breadwinner. In Between, focuses on three Arab women roommates in Tel Aviv, . The movie starts with two out of the three whom live together, prior to the third one moving in. The triptych relationship of the women develops as the movie focuses on the ingrained Islamic traditions for many women that live in Tel Aviv. One of the roommates works various restaurant jobs in addition to being a dj. The other original roommate is a lawyer whom likes to liberally blow off steam at the local watering hole bars and raves. These two women are far more liberal in their lifestyles and struggle to find their way in the set indigenous Islamic or Christian views of family and those in their social networks. The third roommate, Noor, when she moves in, is a more conservative Muslim, who needs to move into the apartment for school and studying purposes. She is engaged to be married, to another traditional conservative Muslim. Upon his realization on the lifestyles that Noor is exposed to through her roommates, her fiancee struggles to push for an earlier wedding date. This leads to an assault, which bonds the three women to rise to struggle to answer more questions of how they choose to live their lives and discuss this with family.
This movie does far more towards the rise of the women's movement, Time's Up, etc, than many other movies I have recently seen. That being said, this film however doesn't make strong political concepts or discussion points. For being so emotionally charged, Hamoud does very well in not getting to political or really dragging you to one point more so than the other in being the correct way of life. Rather, it's three women that bond together in a harsh assault. These women also struggle with the newer, more liberal identities, and old tradition, something many US films seem to have struggled to achieve recently. The struggles and many of the questions raised by the three women were all valid questions and took on a very humanistic approach to the film without getting too entangled or tripping up over ideas or dwelling on any ideas too long to hinder the development of the film. I feel many of what I have seem try to appeal to more one main audience, where this focuses more on the victims of assault and cultural change. There were tender scenes, as well as heart and gut wrenching scenes, and ones that simply made me smile. My only real complaint, if it is one, would be that there were some ideas I would have liked her to explore more. This being one of Hamoud's first films, I have a strong interest in seeing work that she will produce in the near future. I would highly recommend this movie.
The Strange Ones
The Strange Ones is not your typical movie. The concept behind the feature film, began in 2010, when the co-directors: Christopher Radcliff, Lauren Wolkstein, started filming a short for the 2011 Maryland Film Festival. The short of the same name ended up being a scene that they used later for their 2017 feature film, with different actors.
The 2017 film of the same name, appears to have a simplistic approach to two people whom appear to be going on a camping trip in what could pass as anywhere, remote USA. As the movie develops, you get mysterious and thriller ties to why these to people are traveling together. As a viewer, you begin to question why these two people, a young boy, and a young man are really traveling. What is the nature of their relationship? Why are they really going camping? Do they have any intentions of returning home, wherever that be? Why are they being so secretive? What is a simple vacation spirals into human nature and a web of dark and complex secrets that binds the two travelers together.
I really enjoyed the use of rural areas in this movie. It allowed for wonderful natural light and the concepts of how different environments can effect relationships with individual, as well as others. I liked the use of the cat in the movie as well as it seemed like a good connecting factor to a lot of themes, old and new. The farm for troubled teens the young boy ended up at also truly fascinated me, as I'm curious to find out how many of these actually exist and the reasons why he felt safe there and wanted to stay. The big negative for me, is that it had a lot of various clips that spiraled out from the story. Many of the back story lines they visited I felt truly added to the story and made you question human instincts and relationships people had, but at the same time, this was also a big down fall for the movie. The scenes after the initial arrival to the farm of flash fowards were almost too much in potential options for the movie. I think I would have been more confused about the movie, had I not gone to the q&a discussion with the directors. I think this is a promising debut feature film, and I certainly look forward to other potential movies they do, this one I think could have just had a better selection and editing process for the last 30 minutes of the film.
The 2017 film of the same name, appears to have a simplistic approach to two people whom appear to be going on a camping trip in what could pass as anywhere, remote USA. As the movie develops, you get mysterious and thriller ties to why these to people are traveling together. As a viewer, you begin to question why these two people, a young boy, and a young man are really traveling. What is the nature of their relationship? Why are they really going camping? Do they have any intentions of returning home, wherever that be? Why are they being so secretive? What is a simple vacation spirals into human nature and a web of dark and complex secrets that binds the two travelers together.
I really enjoyed the use of rural areas in this movie. It allowed for wonderful natural light and the concepts of how different environments can effect relationships with individual, as well as others. I liked the use of the cat in the movie as well as it seemed like a good connecting factor to a lot of themes, old and new. The farm for troubled teens the young boy ended up at also truly fascinated me, as I'm curious to find out how many of these actually exist and the reasons why he felt safe there and wanted to stay. The big negative for me, is that it had a lot of various clips that spiraled out from the story. Many of the back story lines they visited I felt truly added to the story and made you question human instincts and relationships people had, but at the same time, this was also a big down fall for the movie. The scenes after the initial arrival to the farm of flash fowards were almost too much in potential options for the movie. I think I would have been more confused about the movie, had I not gone to the q&a discussion with the directors. I think this is a promising debut feature film, and I certainly look forward to other potential movies they do, this one I think could have just had a better selection and editing process for the last 30 minutes of the film.
Sunday, 28 January 2018
Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope is a low budget British psychological thriller. It was first premiered in 2017, but I didn't see it until it was premiered at the Parkway theater in January 2018. This thriller takes on the concept of kaleidoscopes and how colors change. Instead of colors changing, this takes on potentially different alternatives, almost like one of the Choose your own adventure books.
The premise behind the movie was about a middle aged man whom goes on his first date upon being released from prison. You are taken through the lead up to the date, and as the date is wrapping up. As the date seems to be an awkward attempt of trying to re-stream back into society, as a viewer you are trying to peice together the events that undwind after the date.
While I don't want to give too much synopsis, as I feel that this will spoiler for others. I usually enjoy a good and well done thriller. I like ones that require some form of thought process and overall potential ideas to add what has happened. I feel like this had the makings of a great thriller, my only complaint is that there were a few too many variables. The kaleidoscope approach while interesting and novel to the thriller approach, detracted from the movie at times. I appreciated the troubled relationship he had with his mother, and I enjoyed the play on relationships in the movie. As a first thriller attempt, I found this to be a good start.
While not quite up to the thriller drama or wit of Alfred Hitchcock, Kaleidoscope was interesting in the approach of providing many potential options for how the story progressed. The variations, at first threw me off, but as the scenes progressed I was able to deem the change when the actual skewing of the scenes with a kaleidoscope. I had originally thought I would skip this one, but am glad I changed my mind.
The premise behind the movie was about a middle aged man whom goes on his first date upon being released from prison. You are taken through the lead up to the date, and as the date is wrapping up. As the date seems to be an awkward attempt of trying to re-stream back into society, as a viewer you are trying to peice together the events that undwind after the date.
While I don't want to give too much synopsis, as I feel that this will spoiler for others. I usually enjoy a good and well done thriller. I like ones that require some form of thought process and overall potential ideas to add what has happened. I feel like this had the makings of a great thriller, my only complaint is that there were a few too many variables. The kaleidoscope approach while interesting and novel to the thriller approach, detracted from the movie at times. I appreciated the troubled relationship he had with his mother, and I enjoyed the play on relationships in the movie. As a first thriller attempt, I found this to be a good start.
While not quite up to the thriller drama or wit of Alfred Hitchcock, Kaleidoscope was interesting in the approach of providing many potential options for how the story progressed. The variations, at first threw me off, but as the scenes progressed I was able to deem the change when the actual skewing of the scenes with a kaleidoscope. I had originally thought I would skip this one, but am glad I changed my mind.
Quest: An American Family Portrait
Quest: An American Family Portrait has been a movie that I've taken about two weeks to ruminate on my approach to reviewing this documentary. This is not because the documentary was poorly done, but more, because I live in Baltimore, the parallels to life in North Philly and Baltimore have been racing through my mind. I, at times, was at a loss for words.
Quest, a documentary filmed over an 8 year span, focuses on Christopher "Quest" Rainey, and his wife, Christine'a "Ma Quest", as they struggle to raise their family in a North Philly home. Their neighborhood has lost much of the funding for localized Boys and Girls Clubs/YMCA type community centers. As they work, and raise their family, the documentary pursues their challenges as they also work with young hip hop artists in their home studio. Through this home studio, the Rainey family creates Freesyle Fridays, and afternoon programming for the neighborhood kids, in hopes to provide options to things other than dealing drugs on the street. I see so much of Baltimore in this idea, of lower income neighborhoods loosing the community support from the city in order to make the neighborhood a more enjoyable existence.
Part of the Rainey family struggle begins when they start helping a son as he commences and progresses through a vigorous brain cancer chemo treatment. The hardships of life seems to be soothed while working with artists. Also, as a direct result of some of these community events, and the lack of funding for good programming, their youngest daughter becomes a victim of gun violence. The documentary follows the healing process and learning to balance the challenges of overcoming the heartbreak and not always understanding ultimately why certain things happen. Again, the paralles with Baltimore rang true here, as there are people that get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the struggle with city violence as a result of struggling communities with minimal options.
The documentary takes a fly on the wall approach to many of the small moments of the Rainey's life. It was a good mix of daily life, and how a strong family deals with a series of unpredictable tragedies. Having lived in Baltimore, I could appreciate the correlation to how the family struggled in the neighborhood. I appreciated the broader view what they did to reduce violence in the area, as well as the struggles. There was a lot of meat to the movie, but not in a heavy handed matter. I was able to screen Quest at the Parkway.
One of the screening sessions on opening weekend, also had a q&a session with Chris Rainey and the director. It was followed by some music demos in the lobby. While at the screening, I had bumped into Theo Anthony, the director of The Rat Film, and we got into a pretty solid discussion on the correlations to his film, as well as the city of Baltimore. I enjoyed the film, as it was an unpretentious approach to family life without being thought pushing.
Quest, a documentary filmed over an 8 year span, focuses on Christopher "Quest" Rainey, and his wife, Christine'a "Ma Quest", as they struggle to raise their family in a North Philly home. Their neighborhood has lost much of the funding for localized Boys and Girls Clubs/YMCA type community centers. As they work, and raise their family, the documentary pursues their challenges as they also work with young hip hop artists in their home studio. Through this home studio, the Rainey family creates Freesyle Fridays, and afternoon programming for the neighborhood kids, in hopes to provide options to things other than dealing drugs on the street. I see so much of Baltimore in this idea, of lower income neighborhoods loosing the community support from the city in order to make the neighborhood a more enjoyable existence.
Part of the Rainey family struggle begins when they start helping a son as he commences and progresses through a vigorous brain cancer chemo treatment. The hardships of life seems to be soothed while working with artists. Also, as a direct result of some of these community events, and the lack of funding for good programming, their youngest daughter becomes a victim of gun violence. The documentary follows the healing process and learning to balance the challenges of overcoming the heartbreak and not always understanding ultimately why certain things happen. Again, the paralles with Baltimore rang true here, as there are people that get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the struggle with city violence as a result of struggling communities with minimal options.
The documentary takes a fly on the wall approach to many of the small moments of the Rainey's life. It was a good mix of daily life, and how a strong family deals with a series of unpredictable tragedies. Having lived in Baltimore, I could appreciate the correlation to how the family struggled in the neighborhood. I appreciated the broader view what they did to reduce violence in the area, as well as the struggles. There was a lot of meat to the movie, but not in a heavy handed matter. I was able to screen Quest at the Parkway.
One of the screening sessions on opening weekend, also had a q&a session with Chris Rainey and the director. It was followed by some music demos in the lobby. While at the screening, I had bumped into Theo Anthony, the director of The Rat Film, and we got into a pretty solid discussion on the correlations to his film, as well as the city of Baltimore. I enjoyed the film, as it was an unpretentious approach to family life without being thought pushing.
In the Fade
In The Fade is Faith Akin's film out of Germany. It was nominated for the Golden Globes and was Germany's submission to the 90th Academy Awards. The story-line develops through Katja's (Diane Kruger) had met Turkish-born Kurdish Nuri Sekerci (Numan Acar) when she bought hashish from him during her student days. They got married when he was still in prison, although their parents were against the marriage. Since her son Rocco (Rafael Santana) is born, Nuri is no longer working as a drug dealer, because he studied business administration in prison and now runs a translation and tax office in Hamburg. One day Rocco and Nuri are killed by a nail bomb, which was deposited in front of the office. This has shredded everything. Because her husband was in prison for drug possession, the police investigated in the red light district. The investigators do not see that the tracks point in a completely different direction. Then they happen to be the real killers on the net. The main suspects are the neo-Nazi spouses André (Ulrich Brandhoff) and Edda Möller (Hanna Hilsdorf). But the trial is developing differently than Katja had hoped. Although her lawyer Danilo (Denis Moschitto) speaks of a watertight evidence, defender Haberbeck (Johannes Krisch) manages to settle the case in favor of the defendants. Humiliated and destroyed by the trial, Katja sees no reason to continue living. If she wants to give meaning to her life again, she has to take the law into her own hands.
Due to the nature of how the story was filmed, it became a bit of a challenge to really get any real connection to characters other than Katja. She certainly was the driving force behind the movie, and in often times was the real carrier of the plot and movie. The movie itself took on an approach to a story-line of filling in the wholes of the story. Little vignettes are given in each section to develop the backstory. The use of lighting was also a saving grace for the movie. The plot is developed into different segments, and includes home videoesque type videos to give sort of a backstory of why the segment was titled the way it was. I enjoyed the general story-line mostly due to the fact I enjoy Law and Order type shows as well as the early Hitchcock type films. This movie struggles to have a good crime movie feel to it, and doesn't have much of a driving supporting acting roles.
A basic approach, but had some solid attempts for potential growth as a director. While I appreciate the basic approach and attempt, and I am curious to see other roles Acar does and the director does. I just find it a bit disheartening to know that most of the foreign movies during award seasons that are nominated, I feel tend to be the mediocre ones. In the Fade, albeit interesting, directed by a female, and had a strong female lead, I feel like the movie only really got hype because of these two.
Due to the nature of how the story was filmed, it became a bit of a challenge to really get any real connection to characters other than Katja. She certainly was the driving force behind the movie, and in often times was the real carrier of the plot and movie. The movie itself took on an approach to a story-line of filling in the wholes of the story. Little vignettes are given in each section to develop the backstory. The use of lighting was also a saving grace for the movie. The plot is developed into different segments, and includes home videoesque type videos to give sort of a backstory of why the segment was titled the way it was. I enjoyed the general story-line mostly due to the fact I enjoy Law and Order type shows as well as the early Hitchcock type films. This movie struggles to have a good crime movie feel to it, and doesn't have much of a driving supporting acting roles.
A basic approach, but had some solid attempts for potential growth as a director. While I appreciate the basic approach and attempt, and I am curious to see other roles Acar does and the director does. I just find it a bit disheartening to know that most of the foreign movies during award seasons that are nominated, I feel tend to be the mediocre ones. In the Fade, albeit interesting, directed by a female, and had a strong female lead, I feel like the movie only really got hype because of these two.
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