Capturing the Friedmans

Released:  June 13^th, 2003

Rated:  Not Rated

Distributor:  Magnolia Pictures

Starring:  Arnold Friedman, Elaine Friedman, David Friedman, Jesse Friedman

Directed by:  Andrew Jarecki

Personal Bias Alert:  likes crime docs, has voyeuristic tendancies

9.5 of 10

            Documentaries, like all genres, can be broken down into subtypes.  There’s crime, historical, scientific, cultural, etc, all of which occasionally intertwine within the same piece.  Capturing the Friedmans is one of those mixers, using the attention-grabbing crime format (see Jarecki’s more recent The Jinx for proof of how popular this can be) to hook you into the film’s real story:  the rapid disintegration of a quintessential American family. 

Under the microscope is the Friedmans, an upper-middle class Jewish family consisting of three boys (David, Seth, and Jesse), a stay-at-home mom (Elaine), and a father who was a respected teacher (Arnold).  Arnold, as it turns out, also indulged in pedophilic pornography, and the police’s discovery of one such magazine in the late ‘80s opened a sinkhole that would drag his entire family down with him.  The police alleged that Arnold and his youngest son, Jesse, engaged in gross sexual abuse of the boys in their after-school computer class, which one investigator evocatively referred to as a ‘free-for-all’.  Arnold and Jesse denied these claims, and as the charges stacked up and the trial loomed, oldest son David inexplicable turned on his camera to document their downfall.

David’s voluminous footage forms the core of the film, providing a wide-eyed look at a disaster few people have ever experienced.  There’s a voyeuristic fascination to watching it all go down, the same inappropriately inquisitive drive that leads all of us to take in stories of the strange and the disturbing.   The Friedmans, it seems, were primed for just such a breakdown, as the stress of the accusations broadened preexisting fissures and personal blind spots.  Their screaming fits and constant needling is drama of the highest order, melding with the crime backdrop and the inescapable fact that this seemingly stable family descended to such an ugly place makes Capturing the Friedmans into a riveting piece of real-life horror.

The backdrop proves to be just as salacious as the behind-the-scenes footage, as director Andrew Jarecki establishes just how heinous the charges against the father and son are through interviews with police and victims.  It’s here, though, that Jarecki makes his lone and minor misstep.  The assemblage of the footage, with hard cuts that immediately put into question the more shocking claims made by the police and even the victims, shows that Jarecki was far from objective about the case.  Since the film was released, it’s been uncovered that Jarecki funded Jesse Friedman’s legal battles, and while Jarecki is certainly sympathetic towards Arnold, he’s downright campaigning for Jesse’s innocence through this documentary.  While it’s hard to argue that the charges against the two weren’t trumped up, the oddities of the situation leave it difficult to digest Jarecki’s firm stance.

While Jarecki does come down hard on the prosecution’s case, he uses this questioning to bring to light some very real and very uncomfortable scenarios.  His explanation for how these charges might’ve been conjured will shake your confidence in police procedures and the reliability of the human mind, calling into question how anyone could truly be sure about what happened in those computer classes.  Couple that with the insistent and borderline delusional proclamations of innocence from David Friedman and the film becomes representative of how much humanity likes to deny that we live a hazy, incomprehensible world.

With all this depth to back up the surface pleasures, Capturing the Friedmans is the kind of documentary that can be taken in on a few different levels.  The first viewing will likely overwhelm you no matter what you’re trying to get from it, but in spite of all its grimness, this is a documentary that demands multiple viewings if you ever want to find out everything it has to offer.

Other Notes:

Ø  The scene around the dinner table where Arnold quietly resigns himself to letting it all fall apart is the kind of unnervingly honest moment that a film crew simply isn’t able to capture.

Ø  Sex abuse and a crumbling family wasn’t what Jarecki set out to document.  He initially interviewed David Friedman for a short on NYC clowns.

Ø  The film lost Best Documentary Feature at the 2004 Oscars to the Errol Morris-led The Fog of War.

Sicario

Released:  September 18^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Lionsgate

Starring:  Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya

Directed by:  Denis Villeneuve

Written by:  Taylor Sheridan

Personal Bias Alert:  anesthetized to violence, big Emily Blunt fan

8.2 of 10

            Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival and having already earned the most money per-screen of any film in 2015, Sicario has been riding a masterful rollout that’s united critics and audiences alike.  Boasting an impressive pedigree both in front of and behind the camera, it’s no wonder people are itching to see this drug war thriller.  Those familiar with director Denis Villeneuve’s body of work, including Prisoners and Enemy, will not be surprised by the film’s beautiful grit, but Sicario seems poised to launch the director’s signature style into the mainstream.

            With Emily Blunt’s Kate acting as the consummate audience surrogate, viewers are sucked into the bleak tale of the US government combating a ruthless Mexican drug cartel.  Kate is no novice when it comes to the drug war; she’s worked in the trenches leading a kidnap response team, but when she’s recruited to join Josh Brolin’s Matt and Benicio Del Toro’s Alejandro in a joint task force, she quickly finds herself in over her head.

            As the two men taking her down the rabbit hole, Del Toro and Brolin feel as if their parts were written for them.  Brolin does his serious goofball shtick, making Matt the unnerving kind of man who will crack jokes as he’s kicking your butt, while Del Toro is more traditionally mysterious; a man of quiet, reserved fury.  Brolin fades into the background as the film wears on, leaving Del Toro and Blunt to battle it out in an undefined game of cat and mouse.  Neither of them trust each other and their reasons for not turning their back on the pairing is what forms the film’s most hard-hitting arc.  The pair worked together previously on 2010’s Wolfman, and they nail the relationship’s uneasy camaraderie.  However, it’s Blunt’s character alone who comes to embody the message of the film.  How Kate handles the horrific things being thrown at her is emblematic of American society as a whole, her final scenes forming a scathing indictment of how Americans handle a war that’s so close to our border.

            As an emblem, Blunt’s character works, but the weight of that metaphor flattens her into a sketch of an actual person.  All the characters suffer from being representations of ideas, which first-time writer Taylor Sheridan never finds a way around.  This would be forgivable if the observations Sicario comes up with were more unique, but the brutal messiness of the drug war should be no secret to anyone.  As the film wraps up, these familiar ideas and thin characters become more apparent, and the final scene hinges on a note that rang false.  The setup for this moment is there on paper, but watching it play out didn’t seem true to character and serves as the largest hint of the film’s near-miss at combining large ideas with a blistering plot.

            Even with this minor letdown, Sicario remains one of the top films of the year thanks to its expert execution of the slow burn.  This is a graphically violent film, but its action is decidedly not packed.  Each set piece milks the audience’s expectations, hinting at the horrors to come until you find yourself begging for the violent release.  It’s astounding work by Sheridan and Villeneuve, backed up by an expertly pushy score by Jóhann Jóhannsson and gorgeously emblematic cinematography by Roger Deakins. 

             You would be hard-pressed to find a better made thriller than Sicario, but its morality tale is ultimately too cumbersome to pull off, leaving it as a frustratingly near-perfect film.

Other Notes:

Ø  This film suffers from the ‘I know this character will be important because I recognize the actor’ syndrome.

Ø  This comes down to personal taste, but I found the visual style to be a tad distracting.

Ø  A thesis could be written on the displays of physical dominance in this film.

Ø  I swear that Josh Brolin’s characters in both this and Everest both talk about loving Texas.

The Last Waltz

Released:  April 26^th, 1978

Rated:  PG

Distributor:  United Artists

Starring:  Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson

Directed by:  Martin Scorsese

Personal Bias Alert:  not familiar with The Band, not big on concert films

9 of 10

            Consistently cited as one of the best concert films ever made, The Last Waltz will seem like an intimidating watch to young viewers looking to check the boxes of cinema history.  The band in the film is literally called The Band, a successful but not infamous group that many people under 30 have probably never have heard of, and helming the film is the seemingly unquestionable Martin Scorsese.  To watch this film and not like it would certainly induce howls of scorn from cinephiles, but the fact is that personal taste will always be a significant factor when it comes to concert films.  No matter how technically sound the movie is, if you don’t care for the music, you’ll have little chance of liking the film.  This is what makes The Last Waltz so intimidating; music from a bygone era often doesn’t play well for younger listeners.  Luckily, The Band’s music is remarkably good, likely to win over even those who are averse to their rockabilly-esque sound.

            At the time of filming, The Band consisted of Rick Danko (bass, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), Levon Helms (drums, vocals), Garth Hudson (keyboards), and Richard Manuel (keyboards), most of whom periodically pick up other instruments.  The concert was staged as an elaborate farewell to touring and featured appearances from other famed performers like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, and Muddy Waters, to name a few.  There’s allusions to why the band is quitting, including the member’s ages (all in their 30’s) and the toll that touring takes, but these musings are only half-baked observations by those still immersed in the lifestyle and are best overlooked if you’re trying to get the most you can from the film.  It plays best as a pure encapsulation of the concert experience, with sweeping performances broken up by brief interview snippets that prove to be mildly boring letdowns.  Great musicians like those in The Band give infectious performances, but their basic humanity is always shown when they must stop and set up for the next song.  It’s like an actor breaking character; one moment they are glorious, larger-than-life figures, and the next they are awkward things fumbling with straps and chords.  The Last Waltz, whether intentionally or not, captures this sensation perfectly as it weaves in and out of performances and interviews.

            The film begins with a title card stating ‘This film should be played loud!”  I don’t know if anything else could give away Scorsese’s intent, particularly for his audience to have a raucous good time, more succinctly.  It then launches into the band’s encore and an interview in which Scorsese directs Robertson on how to phrase a sentence.  This was never intended, Scorsese is saying, to capture precisely what happened that night.  He’s fessing up to the manufactured nature of the film, which was limited by the practicalities of capturing a live performance.  Dylan only allowed two of his songs to be filmed, cameras ran out of tape, and the sound recording was so bad that most of the performances were dubbed in post-production.  None of this matters, though, because Scorsese worked tirelessly to map out as much as he could in advance and fix anything that went wrong later.  He hired a squadron of supremely talented camera operators and storyboarded how the performances should be captured, giving the film a tight visual style that both covers everything that is going on but allowed for small moments, like miscues and chuckles, to be captured in all their effervescent glory.  The visuals are what set apart a concert film from a concert album, and Scorsese uses these to capture just how much infectious fun everyone onstage was having. 

Scorsese was hired through Robertson, and the film does suffer from focusing a bit too much on him over the other band members.  Still, there’s no doubt that few other people would’ve been able to manage the chaos that this production surely was better than him.  The end product is a joyous romp, the preservation of a mythical performance that never really was.

Other Notes:

Ø  Some of the performance footage was filmed separate from the actual concert.

Ø  It took about 40 minutes for them to play a song I know, and it turned out to be my favorite performance in the movie:  The Weight.

Ø  Those last lines are the perfect way to go out.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Released:  September 18^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Dylan O’Brien, Ki Hong Lee, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Giancarlo Esposito, Aiden Gillen, Jacob Lofland, Barry Pepper, Rosa Salazar, Lili Taylor, Alan Tudyk, Patricia Clarkson

Directed by:  Wes Ball

Written by:  T.S. Nowlin

Personal Bias Alert:  liked The Maze Runner, likes Y.A. dystopias

4.9 of 10

            Another week brings another Y.A. adaptation trying to stretch its legs.  While the genre seems to be winding down, Maze Runner was late to the game, releasing the first film nearly a year to the day before The Scorch Trials.  That opener was a rough but interesting potboiler that held itself on the rails until its bewildering third act.  In this second installment, the young filmmakers helming the series must open up the world even more, and instead of finding solid footing they only slide further down the rabbit hole.

            Having escaped the maze, the surviving Gladers (yes, still a dumb name) must elude the clutches of WKCD and figure out how to survive the crumbling world around them.  Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), and company are all targets, we find out, because of their immunity to the virus that has decimated society.  Those infected are essentially zombies, and the mysteriously powerful WKCD believes that a cure can be found in the blood of the immune.  What precisely WKCD is remains a mystery.  Is it a powerful biomedical company?  An evil organization?  A branch of the government?  It could be argued that this isn’t revealed to the audience because Thomas and the other Gladers don’t know the answer, but the multitude of incongruous mysteries that keep stacking up in this series makes a poorly thought-out plot the more likely scenario.  Without giving away what happens in Scorch Trials, it infuriatingly never explains what the hell putting a bunch of kids in a maze accomplished.  In fact, if WKCD only wants the teens in order to develop a cure, taking a whole bunch of them away from your scientists and putting them in mortal danger seems like the last thing you’d want to do.  But there are hints in Scorch Trials that something much larger is going on.  It’s a distinct possibility that all the odd plot points will be explained by some big plot twist in the third film, but any twist that might be on the horizon will be lessened by how muddled its buildup has become.

            Scorch Trials is essentially a chase film, with the Gladers running from civilization pocket to civilization pocket with WKCD nipping at their heels.  These new encounters allow fresh blood to join their dour band, but the speed with which Scorch Trials moves from place to place never allows them to feel fully integrated into the group.  The background players fade into a faceless pack running behind Thomas, Teresa, and Minho, and even the main player’s stories feel simultaneously trite and aimless.  Thomas becomes the de facto leader of the group, but it’s clear that he’s making up the plan as he goes.  Without any clear goal, the film devolves into an episodic series of action sequences that, despite being well staged, never have any meaning.  Due to some heavy foreshadowing, the fate of two of the characters are sealed early on, and the familiar cliffhanger ending makes the whole thing go out with a whimper instead of a bang.

            The smartest move this series made was retaining director Wes Ball, who despite never making any other feature-length films has an incredible eye for visceral action.  The first film featured a handful of tense maze sequences, and Scorch Trials opens up into a never-ending play land of dystopian action.  He’s still hamstrung by a tired and repetitive plot, but Ball never lets the action sequences degrade into such cookie-cutter material.  He plays with the lighting, colors, and sound design to construct some truly terrifying sequences, and one shot in particular is an attention-grabbing moment of quiet despair.  Maze Runner is shaping up to be quite a feather in Ball’s cap, and hopefully one day he is able to find material that matches his extraordinary talent.

            As with The Maze Runner, what The Scorch Trials gets right can largely be traced back to Ball.  The material he’s working with simply isn’t that great, and the young cast is nothing more than a competently likable group of actors.  None of it is particularly terrible, but Scorch Trials remains a definite step back for the series as a whole.

Other Notes:

Ø  I have to mention how delighted I am by Minho.  He’s essentially Thomas’s right hand; a smart, strong guy that’s a straight-up action hero.  He also just so happens to be of Asian descent, which makes the character a rarity in Hollywood.

Ø  I still don’t feel much chemistry between O’Brien and Scodelario.

Ø  “I’m tired of running.”  Good, because I’m tired of watching you run.

Everest

Released:  September 25^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Michael Kelly, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Jake Gyllenhaal

Directed by:  Baltasar Kormákur

Written by:  William Nicholson, Simon Beaufoy

Personal Bias Alert:  fascinated by Everest climbers, likes the cast

5.3 of 10

            Just before all hell breaks loose, the journalist in Everest poses an infamously unanswerably question to his fellow climbers:  Why.  Why pay tens of thousands of dollars, why put yourself through the hellish grind, why risk losing fingers, toes, or even your life?  The real question is why do you need to touch the top of the world, but that’s far too grandiose, even for a writer.  Still, the question hangs over every story featuring the looming mountain, even one that only aspires to disaster-epic greatness.

            This dramatization of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster finds itself torn between answering this question and delivering high-altitude thrills, never finding the right balance to satisfactorily deliver either.  Director Baltasar Kormákur, whose previous films include the lackluster thrillers 2 Guns and Contraband, certainly relishes the opportunity to induce vertigo on his 3D-viewing audience.  A handful of scenes will leave you pressing back into your seat as the camera pans down a seemingly endless fall, but the effect is fleeting, and Everest stumbles when it must move the audience with its own two feet.  The film, for obvious logistical reasons, had to do much of it’s shooting on the stage.  Instead of employing green screens to give a sense of scale, Kormákur keeps most of the shots pretty tight, narrowing much of the film’s tension down to don’t-stop-or-you’ll-freeze instead of don’t-stop-or-you’ll-freeze-and-then-stumble-off-a-cliff.  It’s not that the film lacks tension; the back half delivers some mild thrills, but the potential that’s left unused is as massive as that mountain.

            On the flip side, the film’s cookie-cutter characters prevent it from exploring why this group of people converged on the mountain that fateful day in May, 1996.  You know you’re in trouble when the film introduces a loud-mouth Texan within the first few scenes, and the rest of the characters are either that broadly drawn or don’t get enough screen time for you to really care.  Granted, they have a lot of ground to cover here keeping track of the two key climbing expeditions, which each put more than 11 people on the mountain.  But this lack of depth, even with its most prominent character, Adventure Consultants leader Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), makes the long buildup to the disaster seem a bit tedious.  Kormákur and writers William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy simply don’t provide us with a reason to get interested in the ragtag group as they shuffle around the mountain, slowly acclimatizing and preparing for their summit push.  This lackluster buildup culminates in the aforementioned infamous question scene, which falls flat on its sappy face.

            Even with all this meandering, there’s a certain affability to the whole proceeding.  Nearly everywhere you look is a solid actor, be it big names like Jake Gyllenhaal and Kiera Knightly (with an overdone Australian accent) or recognizable faces like Clarke and John Hawkes.  These are people that, even phoning it in like they are here, have that magical watchability factor that makes their putzing seem mildly pleasant. 

            All this mediocrity spreads itself out over two hours, which feels even longer when you’re sitting in the theater.  The story itself follows all the familiar genre beats, and you’ll find yourself waiting for long periods for the next obvious shoe to drop.  When it eventually does, it lands with a slap instead of a thud, and you never quite get the satisfying thrill you were really hoping for.

Other Notes:

Ø  I would recommend the TV show Everest:  Beyond the Limit or the movie Touching the Void over this.

Ø  It’s just not very cinematic to watch people walk around and freeze.

Ø  I swear they reused a shot of the mountain and just added in CGI people climbing for the second go-around.

Ø  They didn’t really bother tracking the Sherpas, because who cares about the Sherpas, right?

20 Feet from Stardom

Released:  March 7^th, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  RADiUS-TWC

Starring:  Darlene Love, Judith Hill, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Táta Vega, Jo Lawry

Directed by:  Morgan Neville

Personal Bias Alert:  knows music industry history, not a fan of polished docs

6 of 10

            Those not center stage are always overlooked by history.  It’s more mythical and in a way easier to imagine a single person pulling off the great feats of times gone by, but the reality is that for every great figure there was a bevy of supporting players that elevated the top dog’s work.  Directors have screenwriters, presidents have advisors, and painters have subjects.  The music industry is no different, which makes 20 Feet from Stardom’s frothy look at background singers seem a bit overblown.

            Even though they’re not crucial pieces of pop culture history, the singers highlighted in 20 Feet from Stardom are certainly entertaining.  They’ve spent years, some of them a lifetime, perfecting the art in massive tours with the likes of Ray Charles, Elton John, and The Rolling Stones.  They’ll readily tell you how much they’ve contributed to popular entertainment, and most of them seem to relish in the spotlight that director Morgan Neville finally shines on them.  They prance, belt out runs, and feel every bit the diva most of them aspire to.  While Neville’s focus is largely on legends like Darlene Love and Lisa Fischer, some younger singers do enter the mix, and even one man.  Each are accompanied by live or recorded performances, and their talent is impossible to deny.  The reasons why such talent didn’t lead to fame is the question the film allegedly explores, but it too often follows its characters down rabbit holes that prove redundant or irrelevant to really examine the phenomenon.

            Its findings, in fact, are so light that Bruce Springsteen sums most of them up within the first two minutes of the film.  Sting adds a bit of explanation from the business side later, and by the time the credits start rolling, it becomes apparent that all of the backups’ stories can be explained with one of these two reasons.  The fact that Neville has these truths come from real stars is almost duplicitous considering the documentary is about the unsung greatness of their backups.  Even in their own film, these singers are getting put in their place by the leads.  Neville allows other treacherous moments to slip in, such as when someone refers to Sting as “cool enough” to momentarily put the spotlight on Fischer, as if highlighting her extraordinary talents was a great gift that Sting bestowed.  It begs the question of how Neville himself views his role in the film.  Does a part of him fancy himself the great documentarian who’s done pieces on the likes of Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, and Sidney Poitier mercifully turning the light on these lesser-known cogs?  Is that not a bit exploitative itself?

            Whatever the reasons Neville had for making the film, his too obvious setups give away just how manipulative he’s being.  This is a very polished film, some might argue overly polished.  The interviews are immaculately staged and the returns to old haunts seem rehearsed, giving an attentive viewer the uneasy feeling of watching a slanted, one-sided piece that exists under the thumb of the director, not in the real world.  That’s not overly important giving the story Neville is telling; the lasting legacy of our greatest backup and session singers won’t make or break society, but if you have a distaste for being told what to think, then this documentary isn’t for you.

            In the end, 20 Feet from Stardom proves to be an amusing but trivial look at some very talented people.  That it gives its stars some of the attention they so rightly deserve is nice, but the world is full of people who get screwed over.  Neville never finds out why these maligned people are so special, so deserving of the spotlight, when so many other people in the music industry remain ignored.

Other Notes:

Ø  This film spends a decent amount of time on the session performers who got screwed over in the early ‘60s.  What’s left out is how the performers taking credit for their songs were considered interchangeable and got screwed over just like the session singers.

Ø  Of course Phil Spector makes an appearance, and of course he’s a jerk.

Ø  What’s up with the one lady who appears in all their staged recording sessions but never gets talked about?  Was she left on the cutting room floor?  Is she a backup to the backups?

The Visit

Released:  September 11^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Olivia DeJonge, Ed Oxenbould, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Kathryn Hahn

Directed by:  M. Night Shyamalan

Written by:  M. Night Shyamalan

Personal Bias Alert:  went in with low expectations, rooting for a Shyamalan comeback

4.5 of 10

            M. Night Shyamalan is not a man who strays far from his strengths.  After two traditional and largely forgotten films (ever heard of Praying with Anger or Wide Awake?), Shyamalan found his wheelhouse in the delicate blend of psychological thriller, science fiction/fantasy, and horror, with the occasional side of comedy thrown in just to impress us.  As we all know, his execution of this stew has varied quality-wise, and after a rough patch he returns with this low-budget effort funded through his own studio.  Shyamalan has openly stated that The Visit is a passion project, an effort to return to the total control he had at the height of his success, but a second set of eyes might’ve helped Shyamalan smooth out the edges of this uneven film.

            In the best of times, Shyamalan’s genre elements tie directly into his character’s deep-rooted fears.  Signs was about faith, The Sixth Sense about connection, and Unbreakable about greatness.  Searching for this trademark in The Visit leads to the first signs of trouble, as his attempts to comment on the pain of familial rejection is noticeably disconnected from the horror.  On the surface, The Visit is about two kids who take a creepy trip to their grandparent’s house.  Just underneath that is a labyrinth of broken families that affects nearly every character in substantial ways, and while it’s mined for a few surprisingly touching moments, this emotional core never connects with the rest of the film.  This failure to blend the elements around a central theme leads to a major letdown in the third act when all hell breaks loose in an inorganic and incongruous ending.  In fact, the horror is the element that works the least, as its PG-13 edit leaves little room for physical threats and Shyamalan’s ideas for major scares come off as hokey.  It’s telling that the film is being marketed as a thriller despite having some clear attempts at horror.  There’s just not anything here that’s actually that scary.

            The other element that’s been played up in the marketing is the comedy, and this is perhaps what the film should’ve stuck with.  Most of The Visit is infused with a consistently chuckle-worthy sense of humor, and while it’s all pretty lowbrow stuff (look, the white kid raps!), it undeniably works.  Ed Oxenbould, who plays said white rapper, has some real comedic chops, knowing when and to what degree to ham it up.  As the dweeby younger brother, he gets the broader role when compared to Olivia DeJonge’s driven Becca, but both young actors navigate the film’s varied tone surprisingly well.  Considering that they are the only ‘normal’ characters throughout most of the film, their ability to sell every moment saves this from being an utter disaster.  In a supporting role, Kathryn Hahn brings just the right emotional punches as the kids’ mom.  This may sound like an oversell, but I swear to you that her performance in the train station scene is perfect.

            In fact, the core family works really well, and if Shyamalan had figured out how to match this grouping with equally fleshed-out antagonists then he might’ve had something special on his hands.  But alas, the grandparents remain peripheral characters, lurking figures that are at best in major need of assisted living.  Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie play them with gusto, but it’s clear that they’re only there to give the audience and the kids the creeps.  Shyamalan used to understand how much a well-rounded bad guy can add to a film, but here they remain flat as the floor.

            Despite these problems, The Visit remains a step in the right direction for Shyamalan.  He has a natural ability to entertain, and this genre-bender will keep you on your toes.  At my screening, there were people who laughed throughout and others who were jumping out of their seats.  However it works best for you, at least it will give you hope for better things to come.

Other Notes:

Ø  The climax for the girl is especially disappointing.

Ø  Yes, this is styled as a found footage film, but it doesn’t become obtrusive.

Ø  Shyamalan claims to have a cut that’s pure comedy and another that’s pure horror.  I wonder if we’ll get those on the DVD.

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Released:  January 9^th, 2004

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Lantern Lane Entertainment

Starring:  Aileen Wuornos, Nick Broomfield

Directed by:  Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill

Personal Bias Alert:  have seen Monster, doesn’t support the death penalty

8 of 10

            To call Aileen:  Life and Death of a Serial Killer disturbing would be an understatement.  Murder, rape, abuse, childhood bullies, and politics all play a role in the story of Aileen Wuornos, whom the media dubbed as ‘America’s first female serial killer.’  Not surprisingly, the story was sold to Hollywood and made into the Oscar-winning drama Monster, but documentarian Nick Broomfield had already been covering the story for over a decade, releasing Aileen Wuornos:  The Selling of a Serial Killer in 1992 and returning to document her execution for this film.  Over the years, he and Aileen had formed a rather solid bond, gaining him and his audience an up-close look at the disintegration of a woman who had spent ten years on death row.

            For all the accoutrement surrounding Aileen, it’s her flimsy mental state that provides the outright horror in the film.   As Broomfield and partner Joan Churchill explain through interviews with childhood friends, Aileen never got a solid education nor the opportunity for a regular life.  This led her to becoming a runaway, a highway prostitute, and eventually a prolific killer.  Her actions in 1989-1990 caused the death of seven men and are undeniably horrendous, but in a country that allegedly doesn’t execute the mentally impaired, it’s shocking to watch someone exhibit classic signs of mental disorder, clearly misunderstand the court proceedings, and then be put to death.

            Broomfield, working with a low-fi camera and microphone setup and often appearing onscreen himself, openly questions the execution, but retains an admirable amount of reality.  He doesn’t hide that Aileen is dangerous and likely to kill again if released, which makes his humanist approach with her all the more compelling.  Through a series of interviews that are as intimate as you can get with someone on death row, Broomfield shows Aileen in all of her broken glory.  It’s a bit like watching a caged lion hissing and spatting; there’s moments when you forget about the cage separating you, and the chill of being hunted runs down your spine.  But other times you feel sorry for the poor beast, outwitted by a system it’s never fully understood.  It’s okay, Broomfield seems to be imploring, to show these monsters some empathy, and his greatest success comes when he makes the audience feel just that.

            While the low-fi style certainly helped Broomfield pull off this feat, it also remains a bit obtrusive, constantly reminding the audience of the filmmaker’s presence and guiding hand.  Whether this bothers you or not will likely come down to personal taste, but it does lead to some thorny issues when you look back on the film.  Unlike Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss, Broomfield never explicitly states his point of view on capital punishment and doesn’t acknowledge his own country’s history with the issue (Broomfield is British, not American).  As these aspects would certainly influence his views on Aileen’s case, his own prominence in the film becomes questionably slanted, even beyond his clearly intimate relationship with his subject.

            What can’t be questioned is the infinite watchability of Aileen, who rails in long, disjointed yelling fits that don’t quite make sense.  Some of it’s sheer nonsense, but other times it’s a much more subtle breakdown.  She can be talking quite clearly only to take off into a rage, her face hardening and her eyes locking on.  It’s not hard to believe that she’s capable of murder, and the fact is that she readily admits to the crimes she’s been convicted of.  This isn’t a whodunit.  The state clearly found their woman.  No, the question that hangs over this entire film is whether Aileen’s fits were a preexisting madness, if the events were triggered by some slight that threw her into a murderous rage.  While that scenario still leaves her culpable, looking into the eyes of someone who is clearly not in control of her actions as government officials lead her away to die is traumatizing and will certainly make you take a good, hard look at an issue that deserves serious thought.

Other Notes:

Ø  Some of the cast of characters that Broomfield interviews are quite rough around the edges, which he occasionally plays for comedy.  I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

Ø  Disregarding Aileen’s mental state, the question of whether she was educated enough to really understand her case is disturbing in its own right.

Ø  At the end of Aileen’s final interview, I can’t help but feel that Broomfield was speaking for us all.

Quick Hits

Phoenix

Released:  July 24^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Sundance Selects

Starring:  Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf

Directed by:  Christian Petzold

Written by:  Christian Petzold

Personal Bias Alert:  likes slow moving films

7.2 of 10

            Phoenix is the kind of film you’ve seen a million times yet never gets old.  It’s small and quaint, the story of two Jewish women trying to find a life after the Holocaust.  One is angry and demanding change, the other battered and wanting everything back.  The reality that neither of them can have what they want gives the film it’s melancholic shade, but Phoenix smartly holds back from cashing that in too early, letting the audience witness two small journeys back from a world-changing event.  It’s focus may be a bit uneven between the two women and the story a bit too labored, but it lands one hell of an ending, paying off all the simmering tension with small glances and a haunting voice that will follow you out of the theater.

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Mistress America

Released:  August 14^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Fox Searchlight

Starring:  Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Heather Lind, Cindy Cheung

Directed by:  Noah Baumbach

Written by:  Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig

Personal Bias Alert:  not a Baumbach fan

6.5 of 10

            Noah Baumbach has a long history of making films that aren’t to my taste.  His mix of Woody Allen narcissism and Wes Anderson affectation generally makes his characters so grating that I feel like shaking them out of their undeserved ennui within the first twenty minutes.  That made Mistress America a rather pleasant surprise, as all the Baumbach trademarks are still there but without all the precocious navel-gazing.  There are exchanges between the oblivious 30-something New York socialite Brooke (Greta Gerwig) and writing student Tracy (Lola Kirke) that are genuinely funny-sad observations about the disenchantment that dreamers face, an idea that Baumbach and Gerwig have touched on before.  While their ever-bantering writing style makes the characters far smarter and wittier than anyone who’s ever lived, the film plays out like such a fable that the characters’ unreal qualities seem fitting.  Mistress America never quite hits on all cylinders, though, and is often an outright mess, but the interspersed moments that work will charm the bitter aftertaste away.

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Steve Jobs:  The Man in the Machine

Released:  September 4^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Magnolia Pictures

Directed by:  Alex Gibney

Personal Bias Alert:  not a techie, not into Apple

4.5 of 10

            Director Alex Gibney gives this film a clear mandate from the start:  to figure out why people cared so much about Steve Jobs.  It’s an interesting slant to take, although a straightforward documentary of the Apple co-founder would be redundant considering how many times the man has been portrayed and written about since his death in 2011.  Yes, he brought us the gadgets we use every day, but why the worldwide outpouring of grief upon his death?  The answer lies somewhere between the machines we use and the man who made them, but Steve Jobs:  The Man in the Machine fails to cleanly synthesize the story of these two entities.  It jumps disjointedly between company history and Jobs’ life, never delivering a satisfying portrait of either.  Ultimately, the documentary is nothing but a shaggy dog story, waving around some familiar facts without coming up with any real insights.  This is especially disappointing as Gibney is a well-known documentarian with many successful films in his catalogue.  Gibney shows that he can put together an appeal-looking product, but Jobs himself would be disappointed with the film’s lack of delivery.