Silence (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

More an experience than entertainment, Silence is one of those devastating masterpieces of cinema that rivet you to your seat, punish you while you watch, and leave you breathlessly humbled by its end. Martin Scorsese's newest drama ranks among his best in its technical brilliance and thematic timelessness. Understated and undermarketed, the film succeeds best by surprising us with its staggeringly ambitious scope, turning a simple story into a labyrinth of emotional and spiritual bewilderment, forcing us to engage with our own religious and moral convictions with each and every turn. Stark and cruel, the film is not one we enjoy or "like" outright, but one that cuts into your skin and stays there for you to carry long after.

We follow two 17th-century Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) who travel to Japan to find their missing mentor (Liam Neeson) and to continue their religious mission to help the persecuted Christians there. If that sounds like an enjoyable film to you, you're in for a treat. Two and a half hours of oppressive regimes and religious colonialism include no small amount of imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and death. It's an exercise in cinematic fatalism, a sort of predestined hell we are dragged through with no promise of relenting, repentance, or even enlightenment. And that lack of promise holds true to the bitter end, where the final image could be taken as either rapturous vindication or tragically bitter irony.

Lest you think this is another Passion of the Christ-type exercise in drama-turned-exploitation, I should mention that, while brutal, the film is far more than gory body horror. It is also -- rather, primarily -- about spiritual horror, a Conradian journey to the heart of darkness. Not unlike the visceral Apocalypse Now, this film sets us immediately on a mission for God and for man, though of course we find only man. More specifically, as the title indicates, we find man with no God, or at least a God whose silence suggests a far more cruel deity than any of the torturous violence we see on screen. Indeed, you might argue, we do hear the voice of God on occasion, yet I wonder at those times if it truly is the voice of God we hear through our protagonist's mind, or if it is only his mind attempting to fill the divine void.

To be clear, it's not an anti-religious movie, an anti-Christian movie, or even an anti-Catholic movie. I suppose I've painted it as such, but that's a large part of what I got out of it. It contains enough of the opposite message to also satisfy the most imperial of religious devotees. But its meditation on the boundaries between religious piety, moral obligation, social responsibility, and humanistic integrity is so provocative, so profoundly dense, and yet so unanswered that it stands as accessible to anyone and will provide anyone exactly what they need to be challenged in their own situation. It concerns the nature of doing what is right or what is good, what is practical or prudent, what is true or necessary, and with all those lines blurred, we are left in a miasma of doubt from which Scorsese dares us to emerge stronger and better than we were before.

IMDb: Silence

The Founder (2017)

Score: 3.5 / 5

If you thought we'd never need a movie about McDonald's...well, you'd be right. But for one of the most unexpected films in recent memory, The Founder isn't all bad. In fact, it's surprisingly well done (puns about burgers? Please no). Yet it has a few fundamental flaws, principal of which are its tonal inconsistency and narrative structure. While it seems ridiculous to be too critical of a movie about McDonald's (I'm sorry, but for fuck's sake, look at your life and look at your choices) there's just enough decent plot material here for a decent movie, it just wasn't handled well by screenwriter Robert D. Siegel.

The story is arresting in its timeliness. Michael Keaton plays Ray Kroc, a travelling salesman whose grandiose ambitions lead him to developing a franchise out of a small fast-food restaurant. As the franchise grows, his success waxes and wanes in turns as he makes business decisions that satisfy consumers but alienate him from his peers, friends, and family. Though, as we know, his efforts prove wildly successful to the protagonist and his company, the original founders find themselves railroaded, usurped, shanghaied, cheated, robbed, and generally given the shaft. It's alternately an inspiring vision of the American dream and a damning indictment of capitalism, with apparently no logical bridge or thematic inspiration behind the shifts. Unless that, of course, is the central message, in which case it could have been more eloquently explored.

Director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, The Alamo, Saving Mr. Banks) does his tried-and-true thing of crafting mythic Americana on screen, one that plays it safe and works hard to maintain its nostalgic illusion. Unlike his previous films, however, Hancock here keeps all sentiment out of his film. While it works for the most part, heightening the tension and keeping the film calculated and cold -- fitting for the monomaniacal character at its center -- it also doesn't work in its dramatic sensibility. We're supposed to feel for the neglected and scorned wife (played by a criminally underused Laura Dern), and the hardworking brothers who actually founded the restaurant (played to perfection by John Carroll Lynch and Nick Offerman), but we don't because their personal lives are so poorly incorporated into the otherwise clinical script. Admittedly, the film would work without much personal life brought into it, and yet a central twist late in the film is Kroc's abandoning of his longsuffering wife in favor of his colleague's (Patrick Wilson) younger spouse (Linda Cardellini).

The only real reason you should watch this film is Michael Keaton. As Kroc, the famous real-life antihero, he is a chillingly glib and viciously entrepreneurial figure, a Machiavellian conman, "Professor Harold Hill's on hand" and so forth. While the intimate look at his life never gets microscopic, we can understand his drive, ambition, perseverance, and success. And yet, at each and every turn, he defies sanctification. Keaton -- by virtue of his performance far more than the screenplay -- denies our access to his own humanity, resisting empathy and daring us to hate him. Fortunately for us, that's easy to do by the end of the film. Besides him, however, the film is confused and uncertain of itself. Too bad it can't sell itself as well as its protagonist sells himself. Ultimately, as you might suspect, the film leaves us feeling as empty and vaguely unsatisfied as the food its subject produces.

IMDb: The Founder

Hell or High Water (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I might say this with every new Western that comes along, but Hell or High Water breathes life into a seemingly long-dead genre. Its dusty swagger and stark vision belie a surprisingly complex plot, a heart of gold, and more character work than we usually see in crime thrillers. Two brothers rob branches of the Texas Midlands Bank in order to save their family ranch from foreclosure by the same bank while two Rangers hunt them across the dusty plains.

It would be easy to view the picture as a sort of exercise in cynicism, comparing the two brothers' thievery to that of the bank, which knows full well their loans can't be paid back by their customers. You could also compare the surprisingly loving relationship between the brothers to that of the rangers hunting them, who, while comfortable and trusting of each other, is founded on dangerously unjust dynamics of race and class. The film also does something unexpectedly unique wherein a Western seemingly concerning the death of the West is alarmingly timely. The film carefully outlines our shifting economic fault lines until it taps into the great reserves of legal and moral anarchy bubbling beneath our social surface. With so much already on its mind, it's unnerving that the film deftly harnessed the anxieties and hatreds of 2016 and seems to have prophetically predicted our new president's rise.

Yet focusing on these elements means missing out on what makes the film so great. Its aching humanism is what remains in your mind after viewing. Sympathetically centering on the love the brothers (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) have for each other and their land, it keeps us grounded in reality and tenderness. While their rough and tough facades are paired so keenly with the unforgiving landscape, there's not a moment that we don't identify with these men. Similarly, the screenplay (written by Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan) allows the rude and crude ranger (Jeff Bridges) to be world-weary and emotionally vulnerable, though his hardened, leathery visage would never betray his machismo.

These men, in the end, are all of us. They are an essential form of American masculinity, one that is at a breaking point and will be dynamically changing in the coming years. Focus on the cruelty and pain, the hope and love, or the fears and desperation, but whichever you pick, you'll not be walking away from this movie lightly. Like Icarus, these men will all try and fail, and as Americans, we know we'll have to don those wings and follow suit, come hell or high water.

IMDb: Hell or High Water

The Lobster (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

This is what filmmaking is all about. Aggressively weird and disturbingly tender, The Lobster defies effective description because it is so many things packed into one. A pitch-black romantic comedy that is too clinical and distant to be romantic and too deadpan and creepy to be LOL-ed at, the film seems to exist in a vacuum. In it, single people are observed Big-Brother-style in a hotel, where they are tasked with finding a romantic partner within 45 days despite bizarre and punishing house rules. Failure to mate within the allotted time results in the subject being transformed into an animal.

Enter our not-quite hero, played by a distinctly un-self-aware Colin Farrell. Channeling his brilliant comic timing from Martin McDonagh's films, Farrell plays a man adrift in this dystopian world, who goes with the flow so much he often blends into the strangely familiar sets and landscapes. As he begins to assert himself into the world and make autonomous decisions, however, he learns the cost of nonconformity and takes drastic steps to find his happy ending. Matching his lost soul and dry wit is Rachel Weisz, a member of the lone singles hiding from society in the woods, and as the two embark on a romantic journey they learn that love is not without its consequences.

A star-studded cast populates this picture, but the focus is strictly on Farrell. That's not quite fair, as the script steals the whole film right away. Beautifully crafted, bewilderingly complex, and lyrically absorbing, the dialogue and pacing control the film in wondrous style. Especially noteworthy is Weisz's narration, which adds distance to our perception of the film and lends formidably bleak satire to the proceedings.

It's not a feel-good film, and I'd even be wary of calling it a comedy. This flavor of vicious black humor and absurdism is an acquired taste, and its scathing satirization of superficial courtship (think of our increasingly virtual interactions with potential lovers) and our cultural ideal of the nuclear couple is so dense and allegorized that it will leave you thinking long and hard for days after viewing. The best part? I'm still not sure the film has a message; it just lambastes our norms and mores, leaving them pulpy and quivering on the screen for us to digest at our leisure. Daring cinematic surrealism at its finest, right here.

IMDb: The Lobster

Split (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

Any discussion of this film needs to start with a very specific message: This film is a dark fantasy and horror-thriller, not a psychological drama. The marketing seemed to focus on the latter, which does nothing to help the misconceptions and harm done in the mental health world and which rather misrepresents the film itself. While to some extent Split does stigmatize mental illness and people living with mental illness, by the end the film clearly reveals that the behaviors and symptoms it depicts are not inspired by or even analogous to real-life disorders, but rather indicative of a fictional mythology begun by one of Shyamalan's earlier films.

Beyond the problematic marketing, then, Split is an effective horror flick that keeps us on the edge of our seat and reminds us of why we really do like M. Night Shyamalan (if we ignore his work between 2010 and 2015). A basic plot and thin screenplay -- a man with an extreme caricature of mental illness abducts three young girls -- leave a lot up to the director, and we see a master of the uncanny in his element. He views the proceedings with a knowing eye, and a fun sense of demented glee, keeping everything safely PG-13. Reminding us that not all horror has to be ripped and splattered across the screen, Shyamalan performs his old-school suspense and weirdness act with great sentiment if not quite great effect. In addition, his control over the narrative seems dubious at times, but by the end we see that he knew what he was doing all along.

I'd argue that 10 Cloverfield Lane, in all its narrative and thematic similarity, is a better film by virtue of its cinematography, editing, script, and general atmosphere. But Split works best when it focuses on the talents of its two leads. James McAvoy single-handedly saves the film from top-shelf mediocrity with his showstopping performance, flipping between personas with athletic enthusiasm and suave dexterity to electrifying effect. Anya Taylor-Joy, though given almost nothing to work with, almost matches him but in subdued manner, heavily nuanced with self-loathing and righteous fire. Thankfully, Shyamalan and Taylor-Joy worked well in crafting a complicated damsel in distress, one who ultimately escapes and subverts that trope.

While its familiarity and irritating subject matter might make you want to roll your eyes -- as I did a few times during the viewing -- give Split a watch. If only for McAvoy, the film is far better than your average thriller fare. And then there's the final scene, which isn't really a twist ending, but it changes everything about the film and made me appreciate it a whole lot more.

IMDb: Split

Live by Night (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

This Gatsby / Godfather mash-up is lovely, if not as fun as we might have hoped. The newest melancholy installment in his typically excellent directorial ventures is no let down in some important aspects. Beautifully shot, emphatically acted, awash in atmosphere and spectacle, Live by Night showcases some of the best talents of our Hollywood darling. Unfortunately, as many will no doubt complain, it doesn't present his best work, partly because the film feels hodgepodge and distracted, partly because it rehashes typical Affleck themes, and partly because it just isn't much fun.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed almost every moment. Dazzling cinematography and an impeccable sense of place and time keep things riveting. Entrancing performances by the likes of Chris Messina (in an unexpectedly hilarious role), Zoe Saldana, and Chris Cooper are the stuff of screen gold. And the plot has just enough twists and turns to keep you interested if irritated by its familiarity and predictability. There's a lot to be said for doing rote things really beautifully, and though this particular picture is nothing new for Affleck, he does what he knows and he does it reasonably well. If all would-be crime sagas or period thrillers were this good, it would be my favorite genre.

However, we can scarcely ignore the alarming problem with this film. It's just not something most audiences will want to watch. Sure, it has its action moments, its sexy shots, its gorgeous style, but it's a largely bland enterprise. Not sure if it wants to be a hardcore thriller or more calmly examine its central theme of the hollow and compromising nature of the American dream, not sure if its heart is with our leading man's troubled business affiliations or his romantic affairs, most of the film feels stuck in a limbo of indecision. Furthermore, this lack of focus trickles down to other elements of the film (also written by Affleck), which causes one to speculate why this film was made. Nothing about it feels urgent or necessary, and its lack of narrative trajectory or thematic force translate clearly across the void. Was he contracted to put out another picture before he dove into another Batman costume?

Maybe I'm being too critical. The film is fine, and if you like period crime dramas, it'll heat up your cuppa nicely. And its downfalls are less a criticism of Affleck's abilities as they are recognition that the well-trod and worn-down genre and themes have their limits. It's a lovely way to spend an evening, even if it doesn't really leave much of a lasting impression afterward. Depending on who you ask, that's the best way to spend an evening.

IMDb: Live by Night

Patriots Day (2017)

Score: 4 / 5

One of Peter Berg's better films, Patriots Day stands as one of those disaster films that seeks to inspire and celebrate more than warn and terrify. In as much as it captures the terror and anxieties gripping the Boston area during the events of the 2013 Marathon bombing, it succeeds admirably. In as much as it honors the heroes and victims of the same events, it is bluntly heartfelt and reasonably sentimental. Yet as an action thriller, or even a historical drama, it lacks much heft or logic.

Perhaps, you say, I'm trying too hard to qualify or categorize a film rather than letting it be itself and work on its own terms. You'd be right if it weren't a Berg movie, Berg being one whose films tend to skate along by virtue of a) their ensemble casts who usually do very little by way of acting, b) their thickly emotional plots and grassroots-style dialogue (replete with often racially problematic rhetoric -- remember The Kingdom?), and c) a focus on spectacle and thrill instead of the drama of real-life stories. And all those exist here.

A huge cast is great, until you realize that nobody is being used to their potential and most of the action rests on Mark Wahlberg, who, by the by, is playing a totally fictional character. Why even have a historical drama/thriller that centers on a fake person, when there were so many real heroes during the events? To tie the strands of the film together? It seems to me that they are all bound together anyway, simply by nature of the situation and the theme of Boston community; any narrative issues, then, would be the fault of an unfocused script or a confused director. The rest of the cast is nice and all, and I love seeing John Goodman and Kevin Bacon, for example, popping in for a few scenes, but I have to wonder if they even help the film. A crucial message by the end of the film is that of "Boston Strong", the everyday heroes and nobodies who helped and saved each other. It's a little hard to remember that when JK Simmons stands out so well from otherwise indistinguishable officers. I wonder, then, if the film should have worked a little harder to fill up its dramatis personae with less stars and more strangers. It sure worked for United 93.

The film works as a thriller, no doubts there. A streamlined script cuts away most of the crap, and we find ourselves immediately in the middle of a small web of lives, preparing for the annual holiday and festivities. It doesn't take long before the marathon begins, and by then it's all pins and needles until the end of the film, after a brief but ferocious manhunt. The film, though it unfortunately spends far too much time on Wahlberg and his antics, does a nice job of observing the general paranoia and anxieties of both civilians and law enforcement during this time. And while the film wastes precious story time on action -- disparate images of violence and carnage -- it effectively provides an atmosphere and sensation of chaos.

I should mention a couple of highlights in the film. The ending presents us with the real-life survivors and heroes of the Boston Marathon, and while it is no doubt emotionally powerful, it is also difficult to swallow in a film so full of itself. Perhaps with less stars, less focus on spectacle, or more fleshed-out dialogue, we might care more about these individuals and relate to them better. Instead, I found myself distanced and a little annoyed; after all, if the filmmakers wanted to make a documentary, they should have made the whole film one, not just the last five minutes. Come to think of it, I totally think they should have just made a documentary. It would certainly have honored its subjects better.

That said, the two best sequences in the film came in surprising turns. One was delivered by Jimmy O Yang as Dun Meng, the student who was carjacked and abducted, and the time in which he and the terrorists ride together in the car are the most tense in the picture. The other was delivered by Melissa Benoist and Khandi Alexander as Katherine Russell and an FBI interrogator, respectively, when the former is brought in for questioning about her involvement. It's a brief but brutal scene, beautifully written and densely nuanced, and will leave you gasping for breath -- perhaps even more than the suspect.

It's a solid picture, and one that is sensibly aware of its importance and relevance. I had my issues with it, you'll have yours. And while it's not a "great" movie, it stands as a testament to the power real-life stories can have on us. Heroes that walk among us, everyday instances of courage and kindness, and community in the face of tragedy. There are much better films about terrorism, about Boston, and about the police, and there are much better ways a film about this particular tragedy could have been handled. But, as the film we got, this one is definitely worth a watch.

IMDb: Patriots Day

Hidden Figures (2017)

Score: 5 / 5

In an age of superheroes with countless sequels and even television spinoffs, it's hard to immortalize figures that aren't white or male. Especially when you can't buttress them with smash-bang special effects. Especially when they have to be based on real people doing real things, and the main thing of those things is math.

Hidden Figures does that, though, and does it well. Concerning the real-life heroes behind the US space race, the film follows its three black women as they rise up in the white-male-dominated world of NASA and Virginia and, through their brilliance and diligence, ultimately enable the first American to orbit Earth. Most importantly, the film never uses conventional means of shame, punishment, or even much tribulation to torment these women as a result of their skin color or gender. They are consistently brave, smart, beautiful, and successful in their endeavors, and are never victimized by the camera or screenplay. Even these days, it's hard to find such a film. To be sure, we see the evils of segregation and more than once the visceral hatred of white people against our heroes, but the film by no means normalizes those moments. Try finding that in many other mainstream movies.

Some might argue that the film plays a lot safe, and with good reason. It's all very PG, and while moments may take some time explaining to the kids, it's a clean and wholesome way to spend your family movie night. While that may not excite some of our palates, it is by no means a bad thing here, where the technical aspects of the film are so keen and deliberate they rival major awards contenders. Sometimes the editing is distracting and sometimes the cinematography bland, but when the story is as rich and engaging, the themes timely and urgent, and the performances nuanced and fun, who cares?

Hidden Figures, for all its feel-good, Hallmarkian packaging of sentimentality, is easily one of the best movies of the year simply because it does what no other film has done this year. Sure, it was directed by a white guy, and sure, it plays a lot of white sympathy cards, but in our current sociopolitical climate, the more white people use their privilege to create art like this (and the more white people go to experience this kind of art), the better. The last two films I saw in a theater as crowded as the one for this film were Sully and Passengers, and frankly those were both full of white people applauding for white things. This time it was only mostly white people, and they broke into applause in exactly three scenes: when the boss took a crowbar to the "Colored" sign over the bathroom, when Janelle Monae proclaimed her right to ogle fine men in every color, and when Taraji P Henson told her boss to act like a boss. Nothing like a whole lotta black girl magic to start the new year out right!

I'll happily sit in a theater like that again.

*NOTE*
I was shocked when, during the opening scene for the film, subtitles indicate that Henson's character, Katherine Johnson, was born in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, just a few miles from where I lived in my adolescence. I had never heard of her before, nor had I heard about her story. I'd heard loads about Homer Hickam, and he was from an even smaller town in a nearby county. After I went home and read more about Mrs Johnson, I found out she had pursued graduate studies at WVU and helped to desegregate the program. How had I not heard about this?

Then I came across this article, and I hope you check it out. One of my favorite undergrad professors is working to install a statue of Katherine on my old campus, West Virginia Wesleyan College, to inspire the students, visitors, and local community, and the project can use your help!

IMDb: Hidden Figures

I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Coming too late to be very effective, I Am Not a Serial Killer is a lovely little independent horror flick to chill your Friday the 13th date night. While other (better) throwback examples have stolen our collective hearts lately -- I'm thinking of Stranger Things on Netflix and It Follows -- there's a lot to be said for a creepy, atmospheric '80s-style horror side show with a lot on its mind but a small budget that forces a tight focus.

The film concerns various takes on death in an obscure Midwestern town: Your neighbor is not your typical suburbanite, and his hunger may kill you. We meet a young sociopath (Max Records, a little grown up from Where the Wild Things Are) as he works in his mother's funeral home. Whether his occupation sates or starves his homicidal impulses is left unresolved as a string of grisly murders in town attract his curiosity. Each murder victim is left without an organ, and a black oily goo has been dribbled nearby (so, I guess, The Mummy meets X-Files?). Enter Christopher Lloyd in his best role in years, as the aged neighbor, whose proximity to these murders piques our protagonist's suspicions.

The plot is so thin, I don't really want to spoil it for you. Just know that it's not terribly original and the mystery is almost painfully short-lived. But the joys of this picture are not in such conventional elements, but rather in the film's character study, sense of place, and meditation on desire. Both Records and Lloyd deliver satiating performances of people with instinctual hunger, who, while sympathetic at times, are no less horrifying in practice. Once they are pitted against each other, it's only a matter of time before the icky, sticky, final confrontation that reveals the supernatural yet surprisingly grounded monster inside us all.

So if you're looking for that creepy little slow-burner to chill you out when the moon is full tonight, you could do a lot worse than this one. And watching a grizzled Christopher Lloyd actually acting is not something you want to miss.

IMDb: I Am Not a Serial Killer

A Monster Calls (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Adapted almost perfectly from its eponymous book, A Monster Calls is one of the most beautiful dark fantasies we've ever seen. Writer Patrick Ness, in writing both the book and screenplay, captures a heightened language rife with metaphor yet brutally appropriate for the characters using it. Melancholy and sad, hopeful and empowering, the story follows young Conor (played by Lewis MacDougall), whose efforts to come of age are bewilderingly hindered by his difficult situation. Surrounding him and clouding his judgment are his single mother dying of cancer (Felicity Jones), his estranged but earnest father (Toby Kebbell), his severe grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), and the cruel school bully.

As Conor navigates his confusing and painful life, he is visited at 12:07 (am or pm) by a monster that looks not unlike an Ent. Voiced by Liam Neeson, this monster acts much like Jacob Marley, informing Conor that he will be visiting again several times to tell the boy three stories. Then, the monster will demand a story from Conor, whose recurring nightmare of losing his mother seems a likely subject. As the monster returns and tells his tales -- bizarre parables with no clear moral center or conventional narrative form -- the boy becomes confused and frustrated, and yet in small, slow increments begins to learn and recognize the true nature of the real world. He learns that people are not stock characters, that goodness can be wicked and that cruelty can be necessary and many lessons besides. He learns courage and bravery, hope and love, and ultimately the necessity of sacrifice.

Conor's only refuge from his circumstances -- or, perhaps, only outlet -- lies in his art, most specifically in his watercolor painting. Filmmaker J.A. Bayona uses this as a strong aesthetic motif in the film, most obviously in the tales the monster tells. Gorgeously animated (not unlike the Tale of the Three Brothers in the seventh Harry Potter film), these sequences bring the story to vivid life and, by contrast, remind us of the grit of the real world. And in the final moments of the film, some of the more memorable images are revealed to have been shared by his mother, seemingly as she faced similar fears and needed the monster to call on her as well.

Fair warning: This is not a picture for children, and it's not a light-hearted venture for a warm spring morning. Dark and heavy, this movie delves deep into family structure, life and death, moral relativism and inevitable tragedy. While it is ultimately empowering and sweet in its unusual delivery of a coming-of-age drama, and teaches far more valuable lessons than in many a Disney film, it will leave you a blubbering mess. The monster isn't necessarily as nice as, say, Aslan or Treebeard, the school bully has a disturbing psychosexual presence, and the eventual death of young Conor's mother is left as heartbreaking as you might imagine. But these things are also why this film is so good. Its novelty in its genre, its grim purpose and dim aesthetic, these things are important; partly because they show that problematic directors like Tim Burton don't have a monopoly on dark fantasies, and partly because this film presents a more mature alternative to similar stories.

IMDb: A Monster Calls