Sully (2016)

Score: 3 / 5

There are two good things about this movie. The first is Tom Hanks. Though he is uncharacteristically quiet here, he does great service to his real-life counterpart, the stoic Captain Sullenberger of the famed "Miracle on the Hudson". His nuanced performance won't garner him many awards, but it's definitely worth a watch, if only as a sharp change from his melodramatic verve in Captain Phillips (2013). I'd say Aaron Eckhart is the other good thing about this movie, but he's not in it enough to achieve that recognition. Actually -- and I can scarcely believe I'm typing this -- Clint Eastwood's direction is pretty good. To clarify: Eastwood and his cinematographer Tom Stern imbue the film with such fabulous atmosphere that it often feels as though we are present. Given the chilly setting, thrilling disaster, and even the icy demeanor of our protagonist, the filmmakers have fashioned a movie saturated with blue hues and a distinctly IMAX-like visual approach. Smart move, guys.

Other than that, the latest Eastwood film is typically underwhelming. The six minute flight that made global news would seem to take center stage in this film, and while it does make up the "spectacle" portion of the proceedings, the heart of the film lies not with facts but with propaganda. Eastwood's libertarian worldviews seem to have, yet again, overcome his artistic sensibilities, amping up the NTSB investigations and turning them into such a circus show that I half expected Richard Gere to drop from the ceiling in sequins, crooning about razzle dazzle. Think I'm wrong? Read Sullenberger's memoir.

Before you crucify me for not permitting artistic license, I'd like to point out that I am always in favor of stretching source material, and for making necessary changes in adaptations. However, those changes have to serve the story, and the only thing Eastwood's changes serve is his own mistrust of governmental oversight and his glorification of brave white men. Captain Sullenberger was a hero, to be sure, but Eastwood didn't need to create a villain for him to battle. In fact, Sullenberger wrote highly of the NTSB, saying that he felt "buoyed" by their encouragement and their determination that he and his copilot had "made appropriate choices at every step". What Eastwood fails to recognize here is that the NTSB is also a hero; he sees its investigators as clowns, malicious fools wrapping their victims in red tape, clueless and petty in their investigation.

Maybe the real crime I'm angry about here is that Eastwood totally squandered the opportunity he had in casting Anna Gunn as one of those investigators. That could have been lovely.

The shallow story and stoic characters would have worked fine for the relatively short running time, but they still felt stretched too thin. By the second half, Eastwood allows the bizarre pseudo-courtroom drama to wallow in excess and melodrama, which doesn't come close to meshing with either the titular character or the story up to that point. That's not the only way in which Eastwood and writer Todd Komarnicki fail us, however: They also can't get a grip on the basic narrative structure. We are pulled back and forth in time, forced into a strange limbo where the trauma of the flight is revisited upon us time and again, each time seen from a new perspective. After about the third time, it feels like the film is just spinning the one good idea it has, hoping that each time it will stick a little more.

The scenes of the crash itself are pretty darn good, but we've also seen it before, and better. Remember United 93? Remember the first episode of Lost? Again, Eastwood masters his atmosphere in these scenes, and perhaps the most memorable bit is the chanting of the flight attendants, "Brace! Brace! Brace! Head down, stay down!" That effectively aroused gooseflesh on my arms. The other scene that stuck with me was the opening scene. Sully, viewing the Manhattan skyline, as a passenger plane careens through the towers before crashing and burning into a metropolitan building. It's only a fever dream of his -- what could have happened to all those lives on January 15, 2009 -- but it heralds a film in which Eastwood promises he won't be playing it safe.

And then he plays it as safe as he possibly could have.

Is it a bad film? No, and it's worth a watch. Just be aware that Eastwood is up to his usual tricks, by which I mean the film is almost dull. Be aware that it's not an accurate representation of reality. Be aware that in casting Tom Hanks in a movie about a real-life hero, Eastwood has ensured that this film is a feel-good, tension-less escape from an exactly opposite political climate.

IMDb: Sully

Blair Witch (2016)

Score: 4 / 5

Maybe a 4 is a high rating, but I just loved this movie.

For a film over a decade in the making, suffering mishandled marketing, and released at a particularly bad time of the year (and after a downright fabulous horror film in Don't Breathe), Blair Witch could have been a LOT worse. It's both a sequel and a re-imagining of the original 1999 masterpiece of the found-footage genre, in much the same way that Friday the 13th (2009) was both a sequel to the original 1980 film, a remake of its 1981 sequel, and a reinvention of the franchise. Speaking of which, I certainly do hope this poorly-titled Blair Witch foray ushers in a franchise.

Before you freak out, consider the original film and the mess of expanded-universe crap that came from it: mockumentaries, video games, comic books, young adult novels, a sequel we all pretend never happened. And that's not to mention that the filmmakers themselves envisioned a series of films, all about the mythology they had fashioned, each of which engaging different aspects of the horrors in the woods. Not unlike American Horror Story, the franchise suggests several other chapters of horror, from Elly Kedward to Rustin Parr, from Coffin Rock to the child-snatcher in the river. With this 2016 re-introduction to the franchise, and its lovely higher production values, perhaps we can expect some more chills and thrills from Burkittsville. I mean, it's about kids in the woods losing their damn minds, and it's all right there on camera. Who doesn't want more of that?

In a lot of ways, I love this film because it brought me back to my love of the original, and because it (hopefully not vainly) promises more to come.

Let's focus on this film now. Blair Witch is imagined, constructed, and fashioned just like the original. Some people may find that repetitive, I find it entrancing. Its noticeably higher budget allows all kinds of flair and fun, and increased attention to the horrors of the woods at night. Now we don't just hear snaps and cracks echoing through the dark, we actually see the trees falling, the tents flying through the air, and an emaciated figure hunting our heroes. You may argue that it's all silly and doesn't do justice to the original; I wonder, though, if this film played it safe and presented us with little more than a psychological thriller, would you have written it off as a cheap duplicate? Of course it has to up the ante and shoot more shit at us. Consider The Conjuring 2 and its almost ludicrous exaggeration of style: It works because we need more.

And before you say, "well now it shows us too much, and there's not enough left to imagine," I assure you there are plenty of lengthy chases through the brush wherein we have no idea what's happening. There are plenty of sounds we hear that we can't explain; one in particular sounds not unlike the demon in Paranormal Activity, or the aliens in X-Files, like a walrus in a tank. Does it make sense in context? Not really. Is it creepy as hell in the moment? You betcha. The film also, kind of like Lost, plays with our awareness of time and mystery. Where the original seems to make linear sense as we watch, it's only afterward that we realize we don't know the full chronology of what happened. This film actively confuses us, and the characters themselves describe what seems to be a time loop: a single night seems to be five days with no sunlight, a found video at the beginning seems remarkably like one at the end, and our hero seems convinced that his sister, who disappeared all those years ago, is still alive in the woods. Ultimately, as you might imagine, there is no explanation of and no reprieve from the weirdness, which is maybe even more terrifying, but does feel a tad gimmicky.

The film works best when it points us back to the original. The long, final shot of the car is a clear indication of that. The first appearance of the stick totems is chilling, the second is terrifying. When our team crosses the river, when trees start snapping and falling, when we see the house again, we are reminded of our own experience with those images from 16 years ago. The film is meta in an odd way, not least because our characters know exactly what they're getting into, and they do it anyway. They fall into the same traps the original trio enacted, and they seem to expect a different outcome. The more flashlights they brandish, the faster the batteries die. Somehow their updated technology -- including, ingeniously on the filmmakers' part, a camera-equipped drone -- makes them more vulnerable or at least more blind to the raw power of nature and night.

If I could change one thing about it, however, I would have pulled an Insidious: Chapter 2 in the final act. Remember how that installment meshed up with its predecessor, and in multiple scenes it felt like we were watching the same movie again, just from a different perspective? That's kind of what I was hoping for here. With the obvious time-loop thing going on, I was sort of hoping that the disembodied screams and cries in the woods would be revealed to belong to Heather and her team from the original, and that in the last scene, we'd see that it was maybe our new heroes who ran into Heather in the house, knocking the camera from her hands. Better still, that Heather or her brother would end up killing the other, having gone mad in their arboreal hell. The movie as it is stands well enough on its own, I just would have liked a bit more trippy, cerebral material in the script, like in the original.

This film, lacking in psychology, somehow makes up by being even crazier and more violent. There's a visceral immediacy in the horrors here. We don't just see the trees falling; one falls on us. We don't just see the wound in Ashley's leg, we see it oozing until she pulls out something monstrous and indescribable. We are stuck in the tunnel with Lisa (in easily the best scene of the film) as she claws through the mud and roots. Actually, there is one other thing I would have changed about this movie: We see a couple times a figure in the woods, apparently naked, emaciated and with unnaturally long limbs. We are led to believe that this figure is the witch herself, though that point remains up for debate (along with just about everything else "supernatural" that happens). I wouldn't have shown that figure, simply because the whole point of horror for me in this franchise is that the "monstrous" is not embodied. There is no specific evil thing out to get us (which, logically, we can then outrun, outsmart, or overpower), but rather a general malice of place and intent, where the real physical threat comes from ourselves.

But that's just me.

As you can tell, I have a lot of feelings about this movie. It's not a great film, and really can't hold much of a candle to the original. But it's a lot of fun, has its moments of terror, and it can really get a geek to, well, geek out (obviously). I'm hoping it ushers in at least another film or two, just so we can flesh out a bit more of the mythology at work here. And, of course, so we can go back into the woods again.

IMDb: Blair Witch 

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

One of the most original movies of the year, Kubo and the Two Strings is also one of the best so far. Combining intelligent storytelling with impressive artwork, the film transports us to a fantasy world that feels like pure escapism until we realize that it has stolen our hearts. Appropriately funny and surprisingly sad, it re-spins mythic tropes into fabulous new shapes, not the least of which is its ancient Japanese setting. I'd compare it favorably to The Book of Life, another example of dazzling animation and cultural variation; whereas the latter felt hackneyed and hurried, the former is fresh and focused.

An explanation of the plot would only make the film feel trite, so we'll avoid that here. We can, however, note the flawless combination of magic and adventure and heart and fun. It's an optimistic tale, wherein our young hero comes of age and into his own, battling evils both from beyond the world and within his own soul. As he seeks to reclaim his past and his family, he is joined by mysterious animal companions. As in most myths, the number three circles around in many forms here: three travelers (or, if you count the magical origami man, three companions) seek three pieces of armor hidden in three different tests, all while battling the three villains who seek to stop him. Get the idea? By the time Kubo is done, he has proven himself to be a classic hero, and he has learned more about family, friends, past and future, and life and death than he probably ever expected.

More than all that, the film is a consummate work of art. Kubo is himself a storyteller, and in an early scene we see him use his magic to entertain the townspeople. With his magic stringed instrument (forgive my ignorance, but is it a guitar?) he enchants his colored paper to fold itself into impossible origami figures and enact his tale. Little do we know at the time that his story is what we'll be watching for the next hour and a half.

Incredible visuals, rapturous music, and fun characters, however, don't do much if the story doesn't work. Here, thankfully, it does, and with such powerful effect that by the end there were plenty of leaky eyes in the theater. For all the film's entertaining optimism, it's also one of the darker animated pictures I've ever seen. You may want to think twice before taking a young child to see it. Apart from the rather frightening monsters and villains (those twin sisters in kabuki masks are terrifying), the film deals frankly with death, and we see it more than once on screen. Sure, it's not exploitative or gory, but by the final, resonant image, I felt pretty exhausted.

**
A final note. I've been hearing a lot lately about racial/ethnic casting, and about how films are whitewashed and culturally inaccurate and so forth. There's a lot to say in all that, and it's all important. Period.

AND...we should all be a little more mindful about staying consistent with our opinions on these matters. The other day, I saw someone ranting on social media about the casting of Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in the upcoming Doctor Strange, a casting choice that raises some controversy due to the character sometimes portrayed as an eastern Asian man. I disagree with his argument (because the Ancient One doesn't have to be just one incarnation, per the comics), but I wasn't going to argue his impassioned, relevant ideas.

However, in the same post, he praised Kubo (and, for that matter, The Book of Life) for bringing attention in a mainstream American film to a different cultural aesthetic and artistic awareness. While I would agree with that on purely visual terms, we have to talk about the casting here too. Kubo features Matthew McConaughey, Charlize Theron, Rooney Mara, and Ralph Fiennes. The Book of Life featured Channing Tatum and Ron Perlman. Sure, other characters are played by more appropriate actors, but this is the main cast. And he was praising these films and damning the other.

If we're going to make any kind of headway in this sticky, contentious issue, it would behoove all of us to more carefully consider the things we say and the implications of our ideas.

IMDb: Kubo and the Two Strings