Blade Runner 2049: The Future isn't Female

Warning: Contains major spoilers

Blade Runner 2049 is a great, ambitious sci-fi movie that is gorgeous and original. There will be tons of pieces analyzing everything about it, but I just want to focus on how the film failed to develop its female characters in the way it develops its male ones. The characters played by Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford and Jared Leto feel fully thought out and developed, but Ana de Armas, Robin Wright and Sylvia Hoeks aren’t given that same respect.

This is seen most in the character Joi, an AI hologram who acts as a wife to Ryan Gosling’s ‘K’. Her character could have been a look at how AI’s are created to pleasure humans, but develop humanity themselves. Instead her character is just there to help K, she’s introduced as a 1950s housewife preparing dinner for him, then goes through a series of outfits to arouse him; not once does he do the same for her, in fact the movie never addresses her own sexual interests. At one point, she even calls a prostitute over, a criminally underused Mackenzie Davis, so that he can have someone to have sex with. The scene has astonishing CGI that puts Armas’ hologram over Davis’ body, but it’s just another example of Joi making a sacrifice for K’s pleasure and doesn’t really fit in with the movie. This is not to say Armas is bad in the film, she’s a revelation, she gives so much presence and pathos to a character that the writers’ figured out what they wanted to do with. In the one scene that she is allowed pleasure, where she goes outside and experiences rain for the first time. It’s a highlight of the film, but then she freezes because K has a call from work and is shut down and forgotten till he needs her again. Near the end of the movie she’s destroyed, yet another sacrifice she makes, but he doesn’t find a way to bring her back. He just stares longingly at a nude projection of another version of her, so we can feel bad about his lose.

Every other female character is two dimensional, Davis as the hooker with a heart of gold. Sylvia Hoeks as the sexy femme fatale. Robin Wright, giving the role her all, as the hard drinking police captain who tries to solicit sex from K. The movie even ends up centering on Carla Juri’s character but she’s never more than a plot point. No female character is more disgraced than Rachael. Everyone talks about Rutger Hauer’s performance as Roy Batty, but Rachael is the beating heart of the original Blade Runner. Sean Young’s astounding performance as Rachael as she discovers she’s a replicant, all her memories are someone else’s, and will now be hunted for as long as she can last. Young’s performance is a tightwire act performance that is both robotic and cold, but also deeply human and emotional. She only has solace in Deckard, but when she saves his life, he takes advantage of her. Even though he cares for her, she’s still just a replicant; a beautiful thing that he can own.

Blade Runner 2049 centers around how she gave birth to a child, which should be impossible, but it’s never about her. She’s long dead. All mention of her is about how Deckard saw her, how she was beautiful and he loved her; never mentioning that she went to him for help and he raped and abused her. She finally appears at the end of the movie; a new model of Rachael is made and she comes out looking just as young and beautiful as in the original film. However, it’s just as a manipulation for Deckard and when he doesn’t go for it they callously kill her. Harrison Ford was paid millions and was given a deep, complex role. Sean Young got to be CGI’ed to look young again and shot in the head. Just another Hollywood story.

By: Ben Ritter

The Humanity of David Lynch

One of the most memorable moments of the original Twin Peaks comes at the end of “Lonely Souls,” the 7th episode of the 2nd season, the murder of Madeline “Maddy” Ferguson by BOB who had just been revealed to be Leland Palmer. BOB beating Maddy to death, often shown in slow motion with her and his screams distorted to sound unnatural and unearthly, is the most brutal and horrific scene ever shown in the original Twin Peaks, possibly in all of David Lynch’s work. However, it is the crosscuts with the Roadhouse that makes the scene so powerful and isn’t given the attention it deserves. The Giant appears to Special Agent Dale Cooper in a vision saying “It is happening again.” After the murder, a figure simply known as “Waiter” comes up to Cooper and says “I am so sorry.” We also see a look of despair on Bobby Briggs face, and Donna Hayward bursts into tears and must be comforted by her boyfriend James Hurley, all while Julee Cruise mournfully sings “The World Spins” on the stage. Somehow all these people are feeling the exact same pain and lose that the audience is even though they haven’t seen what we just have. Somehow, they just know, they just know that something is wrong and the world is darker than it was a second ago.

David Lynch has always been a controversial figure. Famously, after a test screening of Blue Velvet, someone wrote on a response card, “David Lynch should be shot.” Roger Ebert hated most of Lynch’s early work, especially Blue Velvet, writing this about Isabella Rossellini’s character in his review, “She is degraded, slapped around, humiliated and undressed in front of the camera. And when you ask an actress to endure those experiences, you should keep your side of the bargain by putting her in an important film.” Lynch is obsessed with the darker side of humanity, of the violence inside of us, the animalist desire to kill.

This isn’t what makes the collective work of David Lynch so powerful though. It’s the moments like the response to Maddy’s murder. It’s the tears that people shed as they learn about the murder of Laura Palmer in the pilot of Twin Peaks and beyond. It’s in the affection Betty and Rita share in Mulholland Drive. It’s Sailor singing Love Me Tender to Lula in Wild at Heart. It’s in the decency Dr. Frederick Treves sees in John Merrick where everyone else just sees an animal in The Elephant Man. Everyone remembers and talks about the brutality that he depicts, but forget he balances those out with acts of love. He loves his characters and hates to put them through what he does, but he knows there is no avoiding the darkness of the world.

One of the best depictions of Lynch’s humanity is in one of his least talked about movies, The Straight Story. A Disney movie, co-written by Mary Sweeney, a longtime collaborator and now ex-wife of Lynch, it tells story of Alvin Straight, a 73-year-old man from a small rural town in Iowa who learns his brother, whom he hasn’t spoken in 10 years because of a falling out, has had a stroke. Alvin needs two canes to walk and has had his driver license taken away because he can’t see very well, but he decides to take the 300-mile journey to see his brother by hooking up a trailer to his lawn mower and taking it on the road. It seems like it should just be your average cheesy Disney family movie, but Lynch and Sweeney turn it into so much more. Strange things happen throughout, but nothing unnatural or violent, just an old man who knows he’s near death who’s haunted by much of his past and wants to at least fix this one relationship. It’s never explained what happened between the brothers, and it doesn’t really matter, humans are stubborn and squabble over the dumbest things. The film doesn’t even show us much of their reunion, all that matters is that they are now old enough to know that whatever happened to them wasn’t all that important in the first place, what really matters is family.

Lynch is an imperfect director who has some considerable blind spots, not surprising for a 71-year-old man, but also important to point out. One very noticeable aspect of his work is the whiteness of the cast, his work rarely features actors of color and almost never in prominent roles. Wild at Heart features an interracial couple and makes it seem almost unnatural, in Twin Peaks: The Return there is an extended scene where a black prostitute is shown fully nude, and black people are often cast as criminals in his films. He also casts little people in his work a lot including in Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, The Elephant Man and his unproduced film Ronnie Rocket, but they are almost always depicted as unnatural or supernatural.

The issue that gets most discussed in his work is his depiction of violence against women. One of the most common themes in Lynch’s films is the violence that lies in the hearts of men and too often he shows it by having a man attack or sexually assault a woman. Normally he balances this out by having the women who are attacked be fully formed characters and show the affect it has on them, but it still can feel exploitative at times, like in Twin Peaks: The Return when he shows a woman in her underwear brutally murdered just so we can understand the guy she’s with is evil. Its partially why I feel Blue Velvet isn’t quite one of his best films, because Blue Velvet concerned about men who do women harm, how the hero Jeffrey Beaumont isn’t all that different from the monstrous Frank Booth, and isn’t as interested in the woman herself.

This is what makes Lynch’s greatest creation so special, the character of Laura Palmer. When Twin Peaks begins, Laura Palmer is just a sexist cliché, another dead, beautiful woman who we know nothing about. However, as the show goes on we do learn about her, we see the affect her murder has on the town, how almost everyone on the show inexplicably bursts into tears whenever her name comes up, and throughout we slowly learn more and more about her. Lynch was fascinated by her, which is why after the show was cancelled and he had a chance to make a Twin Peaks movie, instead of continuing the story like everyone wanted, he made a prequel about Laura Palmer. When Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was shown at Cannes it was followed by boos, audiences hated it and it flopped at the box office. In retrospect, it’s actually one of Lynch’s best movies. Audiences had fallen in love with Laura Palmer, but they never wanted to admit to the cruelty that she faced, they just saw a beautiful all-American girl who’s live was sadly taken to soon. In Fire Walk with Me, Lynch showed us everything that happened to her, how her father raped and abused her, how the demonic presence BOB tried to drive her insane so that he could feed off her pain and eventually possess her, how she coped with drugs and sex with a variety of men, and possibly women, fluctuating between being sexually dominant and being sexually dominated.

More so with Laura Palmer than any other character does Lynch show us just how cruel men can be, but it’s not this that makes Laura Palmer so special. What makes her special is her strength and inherent goodness, no matter how much pain she suffers she never gives in and the goodness in her is never corrupted. This is why everyone in town cries whenever she comes up and continue to cry even 25 years later in Twin Peak: The Return, because they realize someone truly special had been taken away and it wasn’t fair. That’s why the movie ends not with her death, but with her spirit being lifted up and comforted by Agent Cooper and an angel. This is the image that should define Lynch’s work. Lynch’s work may get dark and violent but that’s not what he’s about, he loves these characters just as we do. He’s a humanist who realizes that the world is a cruel place filled with pain, but he never gives up hope that things will get better; if not in this life then the next.

By: Ben Ritter

REVIEW: Passengers (2016)

Warning: The following review contains minor spoilers.

It’s rare to find a movie that is not a direct adaptation of another work, as just about everything released to theaters seems to be adapted from a book, TV show, comic or another film. This is hardly a new phenomenon as Hollywood has used other mediums as source material pretty much since the dawn of the film industry. I’m not exactly complaining here, but it is still refreshing to see a truly original idea on the big screen. Unfortunately, the end result of a fresh concept isn’t refreshing when it turns out to be average at best. This is disappointing to say as the premise of Passengers is rife with the potential to be something truly extraordinary.

Set in the far future, Passengers is the story of Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), who embark on a 120-year trip to colonize a new planet, naturally to be spent in suspended animation. However, something goes wrong and the pair awaken nearly 90 years early. Unable to go back to sleep, and aware they will die long before reaching their destination, the two form a strong bond, one which is tested when catastrophe strikes their ship.

A great premise, obviously, and a unique one as well, but an idea is only half the battle; it’s the execution that matters in the end. The first element of execution is tone, and this movie flip-flops on tone quite a bit. A good portion of the film is Pratt and Lawrence on the ship together, trying to find meaning in an utterly hopeless situation. They have each other and the ship is equipped with every luxury they could ever want, but they are nonetheless trapped inside a gilded cage. Though this is an extremely tragic scenario, the film seems determined to gloss over it. There is room for comedy here, but it should carry an air of the dreadful circumstances to it. That’s not what occurs. Instead, the film delivers light-hearted montages set to pop songs and improvisation on the part of both Lawrence and Pratt; elements that don’t match the previously set tone.

The other big problem with the execution rests in the script. The central conflict between Pratt and Lawrence is established well, but the third act crumbles to pieces. The climax of the movie is set-up beforehand, but it’s made abundantly clear to the audience far too soon as the characters spend the whole movie playing catch-up. As for the ending, it’s pretty trite, including an out-of-left-field reveal that quickly renders itself colossally pointless. A happy ending does not fit this story, and what the narrative concludes with is nowhere near as bittersweet as it needed to be.

Even with all those complaints, I wouldn’t say I didn’t enjoy the movie on some level. The visuals are a gorgeous sight to look at, the chemistry between the Pratt and Lawrence is strong, and there are some tense action scenes (even if the one at the end stretches suspension of disbelief beyond all logical reason). If viewers were hoping for a nicely shot and well-acted sci-fi flick, they won’t be too disappointed. However, if they’re expecting an intelligent and dramatic film similar to the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Arrival, they’re sadly not going to get it.

Review by: Zak Kizer

REVIEW: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The start of a new franchise is always a gamble. Even when a series's name has been well established for years; trying something new always comes with a chance of failure. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is one such experiment and is, for the most part, quite successful. Any nerd worth his/her salt, myself included, can tell you that Star Wars and prequels have not mixed well in the past. Why exactly that is has been discussed time and time again by other critics, so instead of falling into the same grouping, this review will strictly focus on why this film, which serves as a direct prequel to the original Star Wars, uses the prequel concept to its advantage.

All prequels in every form of media have one common obstacle to overcome: a lack of tension. Setting a story before one fans and/or viewers have already seen is a huge disadvantage, as any and all major events are proven to be inevitable. This is especially true in doing a prelude to a story as well-known as Star Wars, so how exactly does Rogue One bypass this issue?

The narrative is original and interesting for longtime fans and casual viewers. The main characters introduced to the story are completely new to the universe, and thus their ultimate fate in the overall mythology is ups for grabs. The film illuminates elements of the original Star Wars that, while not entirely necessary to explore, are nonetheless pleasant to see on screen. Both of these elements elevate Rogue One no less than several hundred notches above the cosmic train wreck that was the prequel trilogy.

To elaborate on my aforementioned points, the characters of this film are mostly original ones, allowing for a great deal of freedom in terms of their story arcs. The two primary leads, Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso and Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, are certainly the heart and soul of the cast. Both fill rather standard archetypes, with Jones as the jaded cynic who rediscovers hope and Luna as the hardened killer who finds mercy, but in typical Star Wars fashion the performances manage to create compelling and multidimensional personas. I won’t say their arcs carry the same weight as those of the Skywalker clan, but their brand of smaller scope is actually another bonus, serving to differentiate this spin-off from the main saga.

As for the supporting cast, the major standout among our heroes is Alan Tudyk, who voices the droid K-2SO. He has some legitimately funny dialogue, stemming from his blunt, analytical personality; humor which resonates much more than the comedy found in the rest of the movie. It’s no secret that this film went through some well-publicized re-shoots earlier last year, and the plenitude of awkward humor is by far the biggest outcome of this fact. This is especially true of Donnie Yen and Riz Ahmed’s characters who have some pretty cringe-worthy “jokes” earlier on.

Having said that, it is indeed the final act of this film that cements its quality. The entire film is a prelude to A New Hope, but trying to mix that in with its own story and characters at the same time comes across as a little clumsy. However, the finale of this movie is where the two blend together seamlessly. The appearance of Darth Vader (that’s no spoiler, he’s in all the advertising!) is legitimately chilling and exactly what audiences have wanted to see for a long time. Other fan favorites pop up by way of motion capture recreations, and while the effect can be flat at times, it’s mostly solid.

Overall, whether fans truly asked for Rogue One or not, the end result is a slightly uneven but ultimately engaging film. If this is a sign of what’s to come from these “Star Wars Stories”, then it’s a sign to be hopeful.

Review by: Zak Kizer

REVIEW: Arrival (2016)

Language is a fundamental concept to the human race. It may not be entirely unique to our species, but it is a feature that distinguishes nearly every facet of our lives and civilization. As messy as translation can be, the proper amount of work and training can bridge nearly any language barrier on Earth. But what happens when the barrier that must be crossed is not from Earth?

Arrival tells the story of a linguist (Amy Adams) and a physicist (Jeremy Renner) who are contacted by an Army colonel (Forrest Whittaker) to make First Contact with an alien race that has landed spaceships around the world. As they slowly decipher the species' mysterious written language, Adams and Renner become more and more enraptured by the visitors while tension and fear of the extraterrestrials’ motives grows among the general population and the world’s military leaders.

The acting, as expected with a cast of this caliber, is strong, but the most exceptional aspect of Arrival is the narrative. This film is a mix of two genres, science fiction and mystery, and it’s execution of these factors is fantastic.

The aliens are among the most unique and fascinating extra-terrestrials to be seen on the big screen in quite some time. Unlike most movie aliens, the mystery doesn’t come from not seeing them, rather, the suspense comes from getting to know them and understanding their language and thinking process. It’s a unique and clever take on the alien invasion sub-genre that has rarely been seen in mainstream sci-fi.

Usually in fiction, the protagonists simply destroy the aliens (i.e. Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Aliens), or interact with them nonviolently and have at least a minimal understanding of how to communicate with them (District 9, Star Trek, Alien Nation). The concept of first contact, or at least one that doesn’t involve immediate hostilities, is extremely rare in media based on extraterrestrials.

The closest comparison to this film one can envision is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but the comparison lies solely in the first contact premise, as the execution of the two films could not be more different. Close Encounters builds its entire plot-line around the fact that the aliens have come to Earth for benign, yet incomprehensible reasons.  They affect the human psyche and rock civilization to its core, but the heroes don’t understand them or their intentions. The aliens are as strange as there are beautiful. They may frighten humanity and upend all that they thought important, and humans will never understand why, but in the end, that’s okay.

By contrast, Arrival is about understanding, a complete and total understanding to be precise. The aliens’ want is every bit as wondrous and frightening, but they have much clearer goals in mind for the human race. Without spoiling the ending, the aliens show humanity the deepest meaning behind all language. Language, spoken and unspoken, truly is all that there is to us; it’s how we make sense of the entire universe and how we convey every single thought or feeling in our lives. Arrival reflects that sort of infinite complexity brilliantly, not just telling the protagonists what language can capture, but all the things it can’t.

Review by: Zak Kizer

The Naked Gun: A Look into How Political Satire Lost its Literality

The term “PC” culture is one I don’t particularly care for, speaking purely on terms of personal preference. I just don’t see how the fact that hateful things are not acceptable anymore is someone a sign of “oversensitivity” or “the end of free speech as we know it”. That being said, I do think the world has become a bit more sensitive, at least to certain topics, in the last few decades. And nowhere is that better illustrated than in our comedy films.

This week I saw the first Naked Gun movie for the first time, and of course I immediately loved it. The timing, the masterful subversion of genre tropes, the over-the-top but still somehow restrained gross-out humor, and a beautifully deadpan performance by the late Leslie Nielsen all make for one fun romp. However, buried in the film’s mountain of wacky antics are elements, both subtle and in your face, that would simply not fly in the modern era.

The most obvious example comes in the very first scene of the movie. We open on the Israeli city of Beirut with a meeting between dictators and terrorist leaders plotting some grandiose attack on the American people, claiming that they can prove that America and its people are weaker than they claim to be. Then, our bumbling hero reveals himself, beating up his foes in a goofy yet wildly entertaining fight scene. Before he departs, he delivers a high-and-mighty warning to his enemies, stating that he “doesn’t want to see them anywhere in America”. He turns to make a grand exit, only to bump his head on the door.

Where do I even start with this? Well, for starters, all of the villains at the meeting are real life people. And I don’t mean thinly veiled stand-ins, I mean the real deal. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev, and Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi all make an appearance. This serves to date the film in more ways than one.

I recently read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright, a fascinating dive into the history of the rise of modern terrorism. At one point, Wright points out that there was once of time, prior to 9/11, where terrorism was considered more of a nuisance rather than a legit global threat. It existed back then, of course, but its presence on US soil was minimal, and to the public and our government it just seemed a million miles away.  

That sort of naiveté and arms-length attitude is reflected greatly in this scene. As threatening as these real life villains may seem at first, they can still be reduced to jokes with no sense of hesitation or social consciousness. They’re threats of being able to challenge American supremacy are not even remotely taken seriously, and they are simply toppled by a American agent, whom, by the way, is a dense, stumbling buffoon for about 80% of the movie.

We see real life issues depicted in goofy comedies even today, of course, but the execution is nowhere near as brazen as the Naked Gun. Take Zoolander for example. While its structure has a very similar storyline and wacky tone, it doesn’t come close to pushing the same number of buttons as the Naked Gun. The film has an extremely silly critique of the fashion industry, namely the exploitation of workers in the developing world, but never at any point shows us something that comes directly from the real world.

The main villain is a world-famous fashion mogul, but he is a work of fiction and his characteristics could be applied to ANY prominent member of the fashion industry. The dim-witted hero of this film’s story must save the prime minister of Malaysia from being assassinated as part of a conspiracy to continue exploiting workers, but the prime minister does not appear to be based on ANY real life figure. The real world issue is there, but it’s kept at arm’s length, resembling reality but only just.

The whole Reagan Era “America Fuck Yeah” element of Naked Gun is also still around, but it has also been tempered with. The two most obvious examples of this are, naturally, Team America: World Police and its sort-of-spiritual-successor-but-not-really The Interview. Naked Gun has a gung ho, take-no-prisoners and yet somehow apolitical feel to it, whereas the later films lack a good deal of that self-satisfaction and confidence in ourselves, giving us just the slightest hint of self-reflection.

As I stated above, Naked Gun is certainly a product of 1980s Cold War Americana, but lacks any sort of social or political critique. America’s foreign policy, issues of police or government corruption, the overreaching power of Big Money: all of these topics could potentially be read from the film, but they are never given even a sliver of analysis, much less parodied. Its parody is strong and often hysterical, but is solely aimed at the genre clichés of both 1980s action flicks and classic noir thrillers. It’s never directed at any part of American society or culture.

By contrast Team America and The Interview have a much more pronounced social consciousness. In the former, American foreign policy is shown as well-meaning but also carelessly destructive, and our obsession with celebrities nearly allows for the tyrannical Kim Jong-Il to take over the world. In the latter, our media is shown to be glitzy on the surface but hollow underneath, and our foreign policy is shown to be short-sighted, knocking down despots like Kim Jong-Un but doing nothing effective to replace them. Comedy has always been used to tackle uncomfortable and harsh topics, but now we feel like we need to examine and laugh at ourselves as much as we do others. Gone are the days where all we needed was for Leslie Nielsen to punch an Islamic radical in the groin…ah, the naiveté of youth.

In addition, this sort of brazen smearing of dictators is apparently much less welcomed by said dictators today than it has been in the past. As you may remember, North Korea was none too thrilled with the depiction of its leader, and the threats were taken so seriously that the film was temporarily pulled from release, only to be released on time after all with no ill effects. Just to put into context of how childish this was, Charlie Chaplin made a film in 1940 spoofing Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, titled The Great Dictator. According to records, Hitler, an avid cinema lover, ordered the film for his own personal viewing and apparently loved it so much that he ordered it a second time. So now we have proof that Kim Jong-Un is indeed worse than Hitler since at least the Fuhrer had a sense of humor!

The Naked Gun has been called a timeless classic, but there’s no denying it comes from a world that viewed itself in a much different light than our own. But it’s not the world-view that is the most dated part of the film. Funny enough, that honor belongs to the supporting role filled by none other than OJ Simpson. He was given a decent-sized supporting, comedic role—a role that expected viewers to laugh at him and sympathize with him during humorously over-the-top physical moments of torment…it was a different time. 

Written By: Zak Kizer

REVIEW: Sully (2016)

Timing is an essential part of storytelling. If released at just the right moment, a film can trigger a passionate response, either from the world or just one person. For the 2016’s film, Sully, I am that one person.

Sully tells the true story of airline Captain Chesley Sullenberger, “Sully” for short. In January 2009, Sully’s plane with 155 people on board lost both engines and had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River. Miraculously, everyone on board survived, and Sully was justly heralded as a hero, despite all claims and accusations to the contrary.

The biggest asset to the film is its down-to-earth feel. Clint Eastwood’s films have always had a deglamorized realism to them, and that’s used to great effect here as it matches the protagonist perfectly. Sully isn’t some noble figure looking for a righteous cause, he’s just an everyday man caught it in a tumultuous situation. That grounded feeling is reflected in all aspects of the film, even the antagonists who are investigating him. They aren’t snobby or mean-spirited, they are just doing their jobs, and are approaching it from a different perspective than Sully himself.

Perspective is another key element to the film. We don’t actually see the crash as it happened until about half an hour into the movie. Before that, we see only newscasts about the crash, and Sully’s horrifying imaginations about how it could’ve gone so much worse. That’s a fantastically unique way of framing the situation, as it sets up the stakes and magnitude of Sully’s actions before we even see them, allowing for us to be more invested. 

When the crash does happen, we mostly see it from the view of the passengers and those who witnessed it from the outside, without going inside the cockpit too much. That aspect is saved for the climax in the courtroom, where Sully has to prove that his actions were indeed heroic and not an unnecessary risk that just happened to have fortuitous results. Setting up the full story as fragments, and even as sort of a twist, really allows for enough time to see Sully as a person, and not just as a romanticized hero.

And that leads me to the strongest aspect of the film, Tom Hanks as Sully. His performance, coupled with the impressive way in which the story is told, are outstanding. We really penetrate the mindset of someone who’s been through an accident like this, and that’s something that, unfortunately, I can relate. I’m going to go off on a bit of a tangent here, but it’s important I swear.

A few weeks ago, I was in a car accident. I was driving back to college, to finish moving in to my new apartment, so the car was loaded with luggage. It was a head-on collision with the rear of another car at roughly 60 miles an hour. The front of my car was smashed beyond repair, the surprisingly pink airbag went off right in front of my face, and the Buick insignia on the steering wheel left a recognizable cut on a forearm. I managed to stumble out of the car, and my vision went black for a few seconds. I had no reception, but another driver stopped to help and I was able to contact both the police and my family. The police took my statement, had my car hauled away, and took me to a gas station to wait for a ride from my parents.

They arrived soon enough, ditching work and suffering through an hour’s worth of standstill traffic to come and get me. Thankfully, I had suffered no damage other than some cuts and bruises, and we soon collected my luggage from my car. By the same stroke of luck, none of my belongings had been damaged either, aside from a few busted cans of Pepsi. Utterly afraid to drive on my own, my mother drove me the rest of the way to my apartment, and even went to the store for me before returning home. The next day, I shared pictures of my wrecked car online, and was met with the sympathies of most everyone I knew.

This is what makes this film really click with me. I’m no hero, I didn’t save anyone’s life, and I certainly haven’t flown a functioning plane, much less a damaged one (and after this I don’t think I’d want to). But I can see the same effects in Sully that were in me after my crash. That feeling of being in a situation, however brief, where its life and death, and then coming out virtually unscathed, is hard to articulate and even harder to convey. You almost feel like you shouldn’t have gotten through it, and then feel relieved that you did, but that relief is tampered by the fear of what could’ve been.

For me, that last part occurred when I thought back to a family gathering a few days before the crash. As I said goodbye to my cousin Danielle, she called me her “favorite cousin”. As I sat around recuperating, I couldn’t help but think to myself that that could’ve been the last thing we said to each other. To come that close but to come out all right is both a thankful and confusing sensation.

Hanks conveys this magnificently. At first, he’s almost shocked that he and the others made it, hesitating to leave the plane in fear of leaving behind survivors, in spite of the obvious fact that it’s empty. Then, he is elated by the discovery that every single passenger and crew member lived with only a few minor injuries, and Hanks really sells that this is one of the happiest moments of his life. The “flashbacks” we see of how the plane could’ve crashed might be a tad overdone, and I personally would’ve preferred that we only imagine what he thought that might’ve been like, but the dread on Hanks’ face when he conjures up these images more than makes up for it. 

In addition, I really admired how the film doesn’t try to impart some sappy, thoughtless message about how “things happen for a reason”, which I really, really can’t stand about 99% of the time! Every time I hear that phrase, I can’t help but think, “What reason?”

This film, thankfully, does not even remotely go there. Sully doesn’t search for any kind of life lesson in the accident; he doesn’t reevaluate his place in the world or anything. He is affected by the crash (who wouldn’t be?), but it’s simply him trying to come to terms with that trauma and move past it, which I find to be infinitely more relatable that some thoughtless attempt to find meaning in an event where there isn’t any to be found. In life, it’s often pointless to try and make sense of tragedies or potential tragedies, as most often they won’t make sense because they don’t, and this movie doesn’t shy away from that fact! Despite that, it still manages to have an uplifting feel, because as pointless as the tragedy may have been, Sully prevented it. Everyone on board survived the crash, and that’s the only thing that matters in situations like this.

In conclusion, I can relate to this film in a way I couldn’t have just a few months ago. It’s superbly directed and acted, and it encapsulates the trauma of surviving a potentially fatal accident unscathed perfectly. In other words, I can’t recommend this film highly enough! 

Review By: Zak Kizer

I'm Tired of Movies "Based On True Stories"

Hollywood exaggerates stories. Exaggeration is what sells. Clearly, this is the case when labeling films as “based on true events”, “inspired by actual event”, and the like. After researching films for this post, I learned you can label any movie as true.

For example, The Fourth Kind (2009), a movie marketed as not only being based on actual events, but showing real interviews and footage. The movie depicted alien abductions occurring in Nome, Alaska from the 1960s to 2000s and played interviews from the real victims alongside the dramatized version played by the actors in the movie. This sounds incredibly intriguing until you discover that those “real” videos and “real” victims were actually fake videos portrayed by actors, and extraterrestrial encounters had nothing to do with the Nome disappearances.

I ran across the same issues with The Visitant (2014), a film that I had hopes for considering it had won awards and was based off the events of its own executive producer. Most of her interview on the matter revolves around how the paranormal activity affected her daughter and dog, and how the ghost followed her home after working on The Queen Mary. When I watched the movie, it neglected to add any of these elements to the film, only including small occurrences, such as voices and odd electrical phenomenon, which could be attributed to any paranormal activity.

Lastly, in my quest to find a good true event horror film, I decided to watch The Quiet Ones (2014), a film based on The Philip experiment, which analyzed the possibility that paranormal activities were manmade, being produced from the negative energy given off by a person. The Quiet Ones kept that principle in the film, but then suddenly threw it out the window at the end, attributing the paranormal occurrences to a clairvoyant young girl. At this point, I stopped looking for more movies.

Aside from The Fourth Kind, The Visitant, and The Quiet Ones barely resembling the events in which they are supposed to be based, the liberties these movies took with their origins didn’t save the films from being terrible, in my opinion. None of them scared me even the slightest bit, which is saying something for a person like me who scares easily, and their plots were boring.  

I get why these movies are made. A scary movie becomes even scarier if you can believe it to happen in real life, so why not label as such. The problem is that I could do that for any movie. Every single movie in existence contains elements that have happened in someone else’s life. Nevertheless, does labeling a movie as being true really improve ticket sales or improve their story? Some of the highest grossing horror films contain plots not based on actual events, including The Others (2001), The Haunting (1999), The Ring (2002), and The Grudge (2004), just to name a few. These movies could have claimed inspiration from any number of real occurrences and stamped itself as a true story, but they don’t need to. On the other hand, films like The Fourth Kind appear to latch onto the true story brand to compensate for poor storytelling. All I can say is for these “true story” horror films, most of them need all the help they can get.

Review: Beasts of No Nation (2015)

On Friday October 16, 2015 Netflix released its first original film

Beasts of No Nation (2015) simultaneously on its streaming service as well as theaters. This is an important moment for both streaming services and cinemas, and it’s sadly been fairly overlooked by the public. Original TV shows by Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are already having major impacts on the future of how television works; now streaming services are challenging theaters. Most major theater chains have banned the movie because it violates their traditional 90 day exclusivity release rights, but the film has still been released in a few indie theaters across the country, which will ensure it will be in the award race. As Netflix has more original films being released down the road, and other streaming services have similar plans, this may be a watershed moment for the future of cinema. Now for my review:

The film is set in an unnamed African country and tells the story of a young boy named Agu (played brilliantly by newcomer Abraham Attah). A coup is held and the whole country falls into chaos. His mother and younger siblings flee, but Agu, his father and his brother are forced to stay behind. Soldiers of the new government soon attack the village and kill Agu’s father and brother and while Agu is fleeing, he is captured by rebel forces. The rebels are led by an enigmatic leader simply known as The Commandant played by Idris Elba. The Commandant submits Agu to a grueling training and slowly strips away at his innocence to turn him into a child soldier in his army.

Idris Elba has had an impressive career known for movies like Pacific Rim (2013) and Prometheus (2012) as well as for TV shows like The Wire and Luther, giving incredible performances in almost everything he does, but this is possibly his best performance to date. In most films like this The Commandant would be turned into a cruel man who forces his soldiers to do terrible things simply because he says so, but Elba makes him seem caring and portrays him as a father to his soldiers; they follow him not out of fear, but out of respect and love. Idris Elba always exudes this strong sense of power and he uses it well here. He stands out on the battlefield and, while everyone else ducks and flinches as bullets fly past him, he hardly moves--a bit reminiscent of Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now (1979). His charisma is equal parts tender and cruel, which is what draws Agu and the other young soldiers to him. Equally brilliant is Abraham Attah as Agu, who does an incredibly convincing job of showing the development of his character as he is submitted to war, violence, murder, rape, sexual abuse, drugs and starvation. He goes from childlike innocence to murderous to disillusioned and yet is somehow still able to bring some hope to the story through a monologue at the end. This is the type of performance that would be near impossible for an experienced actor to pull off, which makes Attah’s performance that much more impressive.

Of course great performances are nothing without a good script and direction, and luckily Beasts of No Nation was written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga (Sin Nombre, Jane Eyre and the first season of True Detective) who finds a great balance of showing enough violence and horror to draw you in and help you understand the hell Agu is living in without taking it too far. Even in the few scenes where it seems violence is treated nonchalantly, I think it is attempting to show Agu’s disillusionment toward violence. The topic of child soldiers is an intense one; there aren’t many people who would be willing to take it on, and there are even less that could do it well, but Fukunaga took up the challenge and succeeded.

It’s an interesting choice by Netflix to release this as their first film as it’s not attempting to draw in the average viewer and it’s a pretty controversial subject. The movie has received a lot of flak for depicting Africa as a war zone filled with monstrous men, when in reality it is actually largely peaceful, which is an understandable complaint. I wish there were more films that showed the peaceful side of Africa, but at the same time I think it’s important to not forget that stuff like this is happening every day in some countries. The film isn’t trying to say men like this only come from Africa. Men like this have come from every country including America. They are bred out of anarchy and chaos and simply want to create more. They kill because they can and take everything for themselves. They have no nationality or creed. They are hardly even men anymore; they are beasts of no nation.

Review By: Ben Ritter

Rating: 4.5/5