Author Archives: Keith Garlington

REVIEW: “Finding Oscar” (2017)

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Some of my favorite documentaries are ones that dispel ignorance, most notably my own. I’m not talking about the minutia of any given subject. I’m referring to an ignorance of significant events, subjects or people who I should know about. I love the ones that educate, enlighten and expose. Sure, like any film, some docs have trouble melding movie with message. But the good ones find all sorts of ways to inform minds and provoke a response.

“Finding Oscar” is one of those good ones. The film documents the search for justice for the Dos Erres massacre which took place during the decades-long Guatemalan civil war. Director Ryan Suffern explores the dynamics of the bloody war which raged between the government and leftist guerillas. He then puts his focus on the 1982 massacre that took place in the small village of Dos Erres. From there the film highlights the work of a small but determined group of people set on uncovering the truth behind Dos Erres and bringing to justice those responsible. And the secret to doing it may lie in tracing one of only two known survivors – a missing boy named Oscar.

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The story of Dos Erres is potent and distressing on its own. It was a poor isolated village with no means of outside communication, yet we learn from a former villager that life there was “good”. A guerilla attack in the region left 21 government soldiers dead and guns and ammunition were stolen. President José Efraín Ríos Mont deployed the elite special forces commandos known as Kaibiles to Dos Erres which he believed to be guerilla sympathizers.

On December 6, 1982 the Kaibiles entered the village dressed as guerillas and slaughtered every man, woman, and child. The lone exceptions were four children – two boys and two girls. The scope of the barbarism was appalling and included brutal killings and rape. The four surviving children were taken by the Kaibiles. The two girls were raped and strangled to death a few miles from the village.

The lone exceptions were four children – two boys and two girls who the soldiers took with them. Both girls were raped and strangled to death a few miles outside of their village. The two boys were separated and raised by two of the same soldiers who took part in the massacre. One of those boys was named Oscar.

“Finding Oscar” doesn’t shirk on the details of what happened in Dos Erres. It leans on multiple sources to paint a bloody unsettling mental portrait of what took place. It’s not easy to watch, but it is necessary. The film also examines the political climate which led to Ríos Mont staying in power. It was during the height of Cold War paranoia and United States foreign policy often went through that prism. The film doesn’t shy away from America’s culpibilty in keeping the Guatemalan military regime in power.

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Then you have the group of dedicated individuals resolute in their quest to bring the Dos Erres truth to light. Included is a determined family advocate, a forensic anthropologist, and a young Guatemalan prosecutor. Through years of devotion and through drastically different avenues their search leads to the two young boys who survived the atrocity in particularly to Oscar. Can they find them, the only true witnesses to the horrors that took place.

Dos Erres wasn’t the only massacre of the Guatemalan civil war, but it is certainly one deserving to be brought to light. And as it is, hopefully it draw attention to what happened there, they lives that were forever effected, and those responsible. That is what “Finding Oscar” wants to accomplish and it succeeds. It skillfully balances its many efforts to cover this multi-faceted subject. The results are powerful and gut-wrenching. Yet even among such grim savagery, we do see exercises in courage by those fighting for justice and closure. Such welcomed inspirations from this tough but beautifully made picture.

VERDICT 4.5 STARS

4-5-stars

REVIEW: “The Glass Castle”

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While walking out of my screening of “The Glass Castle” I immediately pulled out my phone and began perusing opinions on a certain red vegetable movie review aggregate (or fruit depending on your culinary or botanical lean). I had avoided reading reviews but knew reactions were all over the spectrum. Sure enough some have heralded it as “one of the best films of the year” while others have called it “unpleasant”, “lumbering”, “tiresome”, and so on.

So where do I land on “The Glass Castle”, a film based on Jeannette Walls’ best-selling memoir about her nomadic childhood and the family dysfunction she endured. I never found it lumbering, tiresome, or even unpleasant outside of when it was meant to be. At the same time its inconsistencies and messiness keeps me from embracing it as one of the year’s best.

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The movie is co-written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton whose previous film was the intimate and tightly-made “Short Term 12”. “The Glass Castle” is much more wide-open in its attempt at covering a lot of ground. It hops back-and-forth in time stopping at significant points in Walls’ childhood and mixing them in with her  story as a young adult out on her own.

Brie Larson plays the twenty-something Jeannette living in 1989 New York City. Her determined quest for independence took her away from her harsh family situation and she now writes for a newspaper and has a fiancé (Max Greenfield). But despite her new life, she can’t completely escape the scars from her past, and the internal connection to her family inspires a longing for the idyllic life she dreamed of as a child.

Woody Harrelson plays her father Rex, and through every time hop we see the same complex and deeply flawed man. Harrelson is given the bigger, louder role and his performance is spot-on. But it’s the movie’s depiction of Rex that’s problematic. There’s an effort to sell him as both a charming free spirit and a despicable father. The problem is most attempts at a positive reflection simply don’t work. In fact many of the tender moments are found in scenes where Rex is feeding his children’s imagination in order to hide their poverty and/or lawbreaking – situations he is responsible for.

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To go further, the negative reflections of Rex are profoundly more prevalent and overpowering. I found it difficult to see him as anything other than a violent, abusive alcoholic and a generally repugnant human being. Naomi Watts plays Jeanette’s mother Rose Mary, and she just seems along for the ride. She does nothing to curb Rex’s behavior and at times is just as abusive and negligent as her husband. There are moments where Cretton creates some genuine sympathy for these two characters, but I found myself too turned off by their actions to be sympathetic. They are appalling individuals.

Here’s the thing, I’m fine with the movie presenting them this way especially if it’s key to the story being told. But the ending undercuts the rest of the film, and it asks too much of the audience. I won’t spoil anything, but it’s here that the film’s earlier attempts at creating a compassionate side of Rex simply don’t hold weight. If more time had been given to his complexity over his repugnance it could have worked. Instead we have an element of the story that feels short-changed and a final act that needed much more attention to be effective.

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There is also a general problem with tone. At times it’s wildly inconsistent. Make no mistake, there are some very disturbing and effective scenes that deal with abuse. But there are also these jolts of humor, mostly involving the Rex character, that are hard to figure out. It works when portraying him as an eccentric, but not so much when the humor crosses over into the abusive scenes. At my screening I’m not sure the audience knew when to laugh. There were several instances where some people were laughing and others groaning in disgust all during the same scene.

“The Glass Castle” is a tough experience to define. It’s depiction of the dark side of Janet Walls’ painful childhood is clear-eyed, visceral and hard to watch. But it badly undersells a significant part of this profoundly penetrating true story. Larson and Harrelson are excellent and the movie’s boldness in tackling the subject matter is commendable. Despite the tonal shifts I was onboard for most of the way. But reconciling the bulk of the film with the tidy ending is something I still haven’t been able to do. I can’t help but believe the book offers up a better, more emotionally satisfying balance.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

2-5-stars

REVIEW: “Pilgrimage” (2017)

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For those few folks needing more proof (assuming they still exist) that big budgets aren’t essential to good moviemaking, I present to you Brendan Muldowney’s “Pilgrimage”, a beautiful and propulsive medieval thriller anchored in 13th century European complexity and brutality. With a meager budget of just over $5 million, “Pilgrimage” looks and plays out better than many of its higher-priced counterparts.

The movie’s Crusade-era setting is an intriguing place in itself – a land filled with volatility and hostility. Just on the outskirts of the many conflicts we meet a small group of monks living on the western coast of Ireland. They are approached by Brother Geraldus (Stanley Weber), sent at the behest of the Pope to retrieve and escort back to Rome an ancient holy relic being guarded by the monks. This quest (subtly reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring”) becomes the centerpiece for Muldowney’s movie.

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Four of the Irish monks are sent to escort Geraldus. Among those chosen is Brother Diarmuid (Tom Holland), a young novice who has never known life outside the monastery, the wise elder Brother Ciaran (John Lynch), and a mute (Jon Bernthal) who has faithfully served the monastery since mysteriously washing ashore a few years prior.

The group’s cross-country venture takes them through lands filled with factions hungry for control. They encounter one such faction led by Sir Raymond (Richard Armitage) a soldier and a loyalist to his king. At the urging of his father, Raymond and his men agree to escort the brothers and the relic across the treacherous island. What follows is an arduous and sometimes brutal pilgrimage that stretches each of these men to their limits.

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“Pilgrimage” is more than a simple “quest movie”. Writer Jamie Hannigan’s story tests each character by fire – in many cases spiritually and in all cases physically. There is a steady examination of both the strength and weakness of faith, whether it be faith in God, faith in Rome, or faith in a king. And it’s fascinating to watch the film explore the contrasts between the natural and the supernatural, divine providence and unmitigated chance, men of the cloth and men of the sword. At times I wished it went deeper, but there was never a time when I wasn’t absorbed.

It isn’t just the historical setting that’s so potent. The way Muldowney and cinematographer Tom Comerford shoot the film is just as puissant. Ominous skies filled with boiling clouds and vast landscapes as beautiful as they are dangerous. And then you have the bursts of violence that gruesomely clash with the monks’ pursuit of piece and piety. They are brutal reflections of the real world outside of the monastery – a revelation of reality young Brother Diarmuid quickly becomes acquainted with.

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And what a stellar cast. This is Holland’s story and he continues to define himself as one of our best young actors. Weber, Armitage and Lynch are all very good. But it’s Jon Bernthal who steals the show. He is mysterious and subdued (he actually took a vow of silence to prepare for the role of a mute). But there is also a blistering ferocity to his performance that that adds yet another layer to his character and the movie.

Made with a small budget and shot in thirty days, “Pilgrimage” sleekly maneuvers through its limitations instead of succumbing to them. One one side it’s a driving medieval action thriller. On the other side is a story that delves into the various shades of faith found within the spiritual (“We are not alone. We are never alone. Have faith”) and the carnal (“Before one can plant new flowers one must cut away the weeds”). I was caught up in it from start to finish and was surprised at how much it gave me to chew on. A second viewing only confirmed my enthusiasm.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

4-5-stars

REVIEW: “The Mummy” (2017)

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One of the most popular (and priciest) trends in today’s movie culture is the shared cinematic universe. Easily the biggest belongs to Marvel Studios. DC Films is following behind them. And then outside of the superhero genre you have 2014’s “Godzilla” and this year’s  “Kong: Skull Island”, the first two films in Legendary’s MonsterVerse.

The more recent entry into this craze comes from Universal Pictures. It’s called the Dark Universe and it’s meant to be a shared-world revitalization of the classic Universal monsters. Some couldn’t care less. As a fan of those great oldies I was anxious to see what they would come up with.

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“The Mummy” is the first film to get the reboot treatment and serves as the launching point for the Dark Universe. It’s essentially an origin story but one that doesn’t resemble either the Boris Karloff classic or the more fun-loving Brendan Fraser films. It’s definitely its own thing but defining it beyond that isn’t that easy. Is it an action movie? Is it a horror movie? Is it a Tom Cruise vehicle? Yes to each but especially the third.

Cruise is clearly the centerpiece which works for and against the film. I still like him as an actor and he brings an unquestionable star power to the movie. On the other hand maintaining that star power sometimes outshines everything else. His character resembles roles he has played variations of in other films and he is intent to stick with that type. So much so that when this particular character flirts with some interesting new directions he never goes all the way.

After an obligatory prologue the film introduces us to Cruise’s character Nick. He’s a sergeant with the U.S. military who has a side gig as a soldier of fortune. He and his stereotypical sidekick (played by Jake Johnson) nab artifacts and sell them on the black market. While in Iraq the two stumble across the ancient tomb of Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), an Egyptian princess who sold her soul to Set, the God of Death (see the aforementioned obligatory prologue). They extract the sarcophagus with the help of Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) a spirited archeologist and Cruise love interest.

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As you can guess they manage to release Ahmanet (aka the Mummy) and computer-generated death and destruction follow. Nick becomes her conduit, Russell Crowe pops up as Dr. Henry Jekyll, Cruise gets a running scene, and a not-so-likely sequel is set up. Here’s the thing, in between that titillating synopsis are moments of good ol’ corny fun. And there are a couple of action sequences that are pretty exciting. But there is just as much that doesn’t work – the goofy humor, a bad ‘return from the dead’ angle inspired by “An American Werewolf in London”, and any attempt at romantic tension.

In the end “The Mummy” is a generic middle-of-the-road movie. I don’t think it’s as bad as many critics say and it’s certainly not as good as a studio would want. It simply has no true identity. It’s all over the map in terms of tone and quality. With big names already signed up for Dark Universe installments – Javier Bardem’s Frankenstein, Johnny Depp’s The Invisible Man, Angelina Jolie’s (rumored) Bride of Frankenstein – it’s clear Universal has big plans. You would think the franchise launching point would be given a little more attention.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

2-5-stars

REVIEW: “The Lost City of Z”

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“He’s been rather unfortunate in his choice of ancestors.” We get this key line of dialogue early on in James Gray’s masterful biographical adventure “The Lost City of Z”. This snide, condescending jab is aimed at the film’s lead character Percy Fawcett and surprisingly it gives a ton of insight into what makes this complex fellow tick.

Percy Fawcett was a British officer, geographer, and eventual South American explorer. His intriguing life was made all the more fascinating by his mysterious disappearance in the Amazon during a 1925 expedition to find a long-lost ancient city. Many theories blossomed concerning his vanishing but there has never been any concrete evidence to help determine his fate.

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James Gray writes and directs this sweeping epic that’s based on David Grann’s 2009 book. As with his previous film 2014’s “The Immigrant”, Gray exhibits  a strickingly classical form of filmmaking and an impeccable eye for period detail. There is an undeniable familiarity with many of his visual and narrative choices, yet he stays away from common cliches and he’s not afraid to hold a magnifying glass to subjects glossed over in similar movies.

Fawcett is played with sturdy authenticity by Charlie Hunnam whose performance travels the spectrum from dashing and gentlemanly to rugged and determined. We first meet him in 1905 where he is stationed in Ireland but called to London to meet with the stuffy heads of the Royal Geographical Society. He’s offered an assignment that would allow him to redeem his family name and finally earn officer decoration that has unfairly been denied him due to his father’s (wisely unexplored) past transgressions. The mission – represent the British government as a neutral party in surveying and mapping the border between the warring Brazil and Bolivia.

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Fawcett agrees but it will require him to be away from his young son and wife Nina. She’s played by Sienna Miller who is very good here. Nina is a strong progressive type but is also supportive of her husband. She vanishes for a good chunk of the film but plays a more significant part in the second half. We also get Robert Pattinson in another absorbing yet slightly underutilized role. He plays Corporal Henry Costin, a man familiar with the Amazon who faithfully accompanies Fawcett on his mission.

Upon getting wind of an alleged lost city somewhere deep in the Amazon, Fawcett is driven to push further into uncharted territory to prove its existence. Gray does several interesting things here. The dangers of the land grow more and more evident yet Gray and cinematographer Darius Khondji offer a unique perspective. Often the dangers are camouflaged by a liberating sense of calm and beauty captured through the camera. I don’t mean to say it’s romanticized. In fact at times it feels downright tranquil – the result of a crafty visual touch that puts us in tune with Fawcett’s point of view.

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It’s also interesting to watch Gray tilt the Fawcett character towards madness without ever letting him topple over. Both script and performance move him dangerously close to the mental edge, but he never ceases to be sensible and empathetic. Hunnam is a perfect canvass for this, equally balancing Gray’s call for rationality and obsession. And despite the film’s massive scale, it always maintains an intimacy with its lead character.

“The Lost City of Z” is as beautiful and mysterious as the isolated world it explores. You can’t help but see shades of Herzog’s “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo”. Even touches of John Huston come to mind. Yet remarkably James Gray has created a movie that feels completely of itself. It’s his best film. It’s Hunnam’s best performance to date. It’s one of my favorite movies of the year.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

4-5-stars

REVIEW: “A Ghost Story”

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When looking at the last three feature films from writer/director David Lowery you’re immediately struck by how dramatically different one movie is from another – 2013’s romantic crime thriller “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”, last year’s Disney fantasy adventure “Pete’s Dragon”, and now his latest film, a meditative supernatural drama “A Ghost Story”.

Lowery’s dabbling in new areas of cinema makes sense. Throughout his time in filmmaking he has worn many hats – writer, director, editor, cinematographer, producer, and even actor among other things. So it’s no surprise seeing him try something new. But “A Ghost Story” (which he writes, directs, and edits) is so  unique and, quite frankly, unlike anything I’ve seen in a long time.

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As is always the case, the less you know about the film the better, but it rings especially true here. Still it should be said that “A Ghost Story” flips any genre norm on its head. There is nothing conventional or routine about it. Some are certain to check out before it’s done. Lowery is okay with that. In an interview with Yahoo! Movies, he stated that he hopes audiences will stick with it, but knows some will not. Thankfully it didn’t influence his creative choices otherwise “A Ghost Story” wouldn’t be the daring, profound experience it is.

The film reunites Lowery with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck (from “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”). We never know the names of their characters, only that they are a husband and wife living in a modest suburban home. Their lives are shattered when Affleck’s character is killed in a car wreck. We wakes up as an invisible white-sheeted ghost and returns to his home. There he observes Mara’s character navigate through her various stages of grief.

Mara’s work here is quiet but astounding. It’s light on dialogue, soulful and evocative. Lowery often puts his camera in the observer’s role, leaving it on her through long extended takes. Many times the ghost stands silently in the background watching her every move and emotion. Throughout these scenes the film’s mood steadily grows heavier. Yet it’s not without humor. The absurdity of the ghost costume (a long white sheet with two cut-out eyeholes) is an intentional move. Lowery has described humor as a great “gateway emotion”. The costume is a wacky but welcomed entry point.

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This is also where Lowery begins to play around with time, something that becomes more pronounced as the story progresses. We see it through the unfolding narrative but also in the incredibly clever construction of individual scenes. It’s even relayed through some aesthetic choices. For example the entire film is presented like a vintage snapshot – squared borders with rounded edges. The framing is reminiscent of something pulled out of time.

Around the midway point the film makes a notable but fluid shift that challenges the audience on an entirely different level. The mournful, tragic mood doesn’t go away, but Lowery expands his interest beyond a simple exploration of love and loss. We are never spoon fed the meaning to everything we see. Instead we’re prodded to react to and interpret the movie for ourselves. As we do, the haunting, meditative atmosphere remains with the exception of one scene, a half-drunken nihilistic party lecture. It is the single longest sequence of dialogue in the entire film. Unfortunately it pulled me out of the movie’s carefully maintained tone. But only briefly.

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And then you have Daniel Hart’s fabulous score. It’s easily my favorite of the year so far. There are many moments where Lowery leans heavily on the music and often puts it in the place of dialogue. It’s a brilliant composition of emotions that ranges from eerie and haunting to tranquil and calming. Hart has worked with Lowery on his previous two films and their incredible chemistry is beyond question.

“A Ghost Story” isn’t for everyone and I’ll be interested to see how people react. I was under its spell from the start and found it to be both beautiful and tragic. Its story is patient and personal; its presentation audacious and impressionistic. And I was captivated by David Lowery’s unwillingness to embrace our expectations. This is the story he wanted to tell and it turns out to be one of the year’s biggest surprises and delights.

VERDICT 4.5 STARS

4-5-stars