Chris Pine

Passion Project (The Florida Project review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Not everyone gets a fairytale, but if you will it you can absolutely have a happy ending. And this movie will have you pondering those ideas over and over again.

 

The Florida Project (2017)

Cast: Brooklynn Prince, Bria Vinaite, Willem Dafoe
Director: Sean Baker
released on blu-ray February 20, 2018
********* 9/10

IMDB: 7.7
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%, Audience Score 79%
The Guardian: *****/*****

Sean Baker makes movies about topics that he wants to see on the screen. Movies about the lives of illegal immigrants with gambling debts, street hustlers, intergenerational friendships, and trans sex workers. People who are very real, but who have less then glamorous stories to tell.

An American director, cinematographer, producer, writer and editor, Baker’s best known for making independent films about the aforementioned subjects. Notably Starlet, the iPhone filmed Tangerine, and most recently The Florida Project. Fun fact, supporting actor Willem Dafoe has been nominated for an Academy Award in his portrayal of Bobby Hicks. But what’s it about?

Special thanks to IMDB user Huggo for the synopsis.

Halley (Bria Vinaite) lives with her six year old daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) in a budget motel along one of the commercial strips catering to the Walt Disney World tourist clientele outside Orlando, Florida. Halley, who survives largely on welfare, has little respect for people, especially those who cross her, it an attitude that she has passed down to Moonee, who curses and gives the finger like her mother. Although the motel’s policy is not to allow long term rentals, Bobby (Willem Dafoe), the motel manager, has made arrangements for people like Halley to live there while not undermining the policy as he realizes that many such tenants have no place to go otherwise. Halley, Moonee and Moonee’s friends, who live in the motel or others like it along the strip and who she often drags into her disruptive pranks, are often the bane of Bobby’s existence, but while dealing with whatever problem arises, Bobby has a soft spot especially for the children and thus, by association, their parents, as he knows that Moonee and others like her are just children acting like a children under whatever guidance they have, Moonee who has less guidance than most. Although there are some lines which he will not tolerate to be crossed, Bobby lets most of the disruptive things that they do go, largely as long as it does not affect the bread and butter of the motel, namely the tourist trade. The summer in this collective is presented, when Moonee and her friends, such as Scooty, are out of school and are left largely to their own devices while self-absorbed Halley does whatever she wants, often just staying in the room watching TV. Halley is supposed to look after Scooty, the son of Halley’s friend Ashley, they who live in the unit immediately underneath Halley and Moonee’s, while Ashley is at work at a local diner. In turn, Ashley pilfers cooked meals from the diner to feed Halley, Moonee and Scooty. Over the course of the summer, Halley systematically begins to alienate one by one the people who are her unofficial support by responding with that disrespect to anything she feels is against her. As such, Halley begins to take more and more extreme measures to maintain the life she leads with Moonee.

I think the director himself said it best when he described the experience he wanted to create in making this film. So many people are concerned with seeing a story in three parts. Setup, confrontation, and resolution. But this is story about summer vacation. It so happens that the summer vacation is set in ghetto motel right beside Disney World, but it is a summer vacation nonetheless. Not everyone has two parents, a house, and food on the table.

And while the subject alone should be enough to hold your interest, what makes it even better is the sheer weight Baker holds up by documenting, studying and paying attention to the details of these peoples lives. Halley is on a road to ruin, and Moonee is likely headed in the same direction, but just right now, for this moment, we get to see her and her friends having fun in the environment they live in.

Pros: There is so much to reflect upon in the way that the movie opens, over a simple act of rebellion, later ending on the same sour notes. There is no bowtie with which we can neatly resolve this story, but where a movie like The Place Beyond The Pines relies heavily on obvious drama to drive home the point of the family ties that bind, The Florida Project is that much wiser in it’s presentation.

Cons:  It’s difficult to believe that Halley is so devoid of feeling that she is incapable of wrestling with personal demons. In an era of social media darlings, Bria Vinaite has quite literally been shopped from Instagram.

I know in my hearts of hearts why Willem Dafoe was given a best supporting actor nod, but I can’t help but be enamoured with the characterizations between newcomers Bria Vinaite and her would-be daughter Brooklynn Prince. Perhaps it’s the raw nature of their performances, and perhaps it’s that it reminds me a lot of my favourite director Richard Linklater (and how I wish he had made this movie instead of Last Flag Flying), but either way The Florida Project has captured a moment in time, and quietly asked us to observe the forgotten poor outside a magic kingdom.

Runtime: 1 hour 51 minutes

Points of Interest: The Florida Project was an early production pet name for Disney World. The motels filmed are true-to-life locations and many of the people seen during the film were actual residents and staff of the buildings. The final scene was shot on an iPhone as Disney World has strict rules about filming without park consent.

I can’t help but vote for a film shot by a guerilla director, and one which sheds light on a group of people often ignored by the greater population. While they live in great poverty, the joy they find in life is encouraging.

theories Summarized

I think I may have found a new hot director to watch, keep your guard up Linklater, the new kid on the block just might supplant you sooner or later. And I’m not sure if it’s obvious you should watch this movie yet, but please do yourself a favour and check it out.

And if you want to see another timotheories cast member who’s super excited to share a film review, just take a look-see at one Chris Murphy. He has a solid Watch Culture video review on Patty Jenkin’s Wonder Woman, which I can almost assure you will convince even the most stubborn to give it a shot.

What do you think though? Is The Florida Project worthwhile? Did we miss the mark on our Wonder Woman review? Hopefully you have good things to say, but either way… Check it out! And remember… Like! Comment! Subscribe!

Tim!

Give Em Hell (Hell or High Water review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

The superhero genre is giving us our money’s worth folks. This year alone, there have been 7 major studio movie releases alone. That’s more than half the year spent on superheroes folks. And there are even more planned for next year.

There is this film director who is pretty much sick of it all. He can’t stand the superhero genre, and I can only now see his point. He made my favourite movie of the year and it features real people. No capes.

 

 

 

Hell or High Water (2016)

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster, Chris Pine,  Dale Dickey, Gil Birmingham
Director: David Mackenzie
released on blu-ray November 22, 2016
********** 10/10

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IMDB: 7.8
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%, Audience Score 89%
The Guardian: *****/*****

 

David Mackenzie is a Scottish film director and co-founder of the Glasgow-based production company Sigma Films. Known for his ability to resist genre and typecasting, his set of films don’t really fit into one format or another. But his passion for a thorough and nuanced story sure comes through every time. His list of directed films to date includes – The Last Great Wilderness, Young Adam, Asylum, Hallam Foe, Spread, Perfect Sense, You Instead, Starred Up and now Hell or High Water.

Mackenzie has made an excellent name for himself in the indie circuit, but Hell or High Water is the watermark which should garner him serious attention in 2017 and beyond.

Let’s talk about the plot for a few minutes though.

As something of a mix between crime thriller and neo-western with the bad guy really and truly played by the bank, the Howard brothers are trying to save their family ranch from foreclosure. This was the result of their mother’s recent death and a reverse mortgage the bank instated to pay her personal debts – if the debt is not paid within a few days, the bank gets the ranch.

The duo of younger brother Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and ex-convict older brother Tanner Howard (Ben Foster) are now working a series of small bank robberies against the efforts of Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton and his partner Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham). The rangers are always mere steps behind in their quest to arrest the brothers. The Howard brothers are close in securing enough funds to disrupt the Texas Midlands Bank daily operations for the week throughout its network of bank branches and simultaneously gather enough money to pay back their debts and put the ranch squarely in the family. Toby hopes to leave the ranch to his estranged sons in the form of a trust and finally break a cycle of poverty generations deep. Tanner just wants to do some good after having murdered their abusive father and spent so much time in jail. But he also enjoys committing crimes.

Hamilton is close to retirement, and quickly sizes up the brothers and how the crimes are being committed. He wants one last case before his forced retirement and is happy to dig into his temporary partner Parker, focusing on his Mexican and Indian heritage as a source of insults. Once Hamilton figures out the pattern of the robberies, the window of opportunity for the Howards is shortened and the brothers are forced to rob a bank on pay day in the middle of the afternoon. An impromptu shootout with the mob of townspeople forces the Howards to split up, with Toby narrowly evading capture and Tanner taking the mob with him into the hills, in what will likely end in a stand off.

But that’s all I’ll reveal about the plot. It would ruin it if I did.

 

Pros: The three lead characters are infinitely fascinating, and the details of the story slowly engross you, asking the question, what does a modern day western look like? This isn’t your typical heist movie, it has all the richness of film from the 1970s. Every shot and piece of dialogue is necessary.

Cons: If you aren’t interested in a thinking man’s western, then you might find the pacing a little slow and switch back and forth between the two groups unsettling.

Runtime:  1 hour 42 minutes

Points of Interest: Comancheria (the film’s original title) is set in West Texas and is named after the region of New Mexico, West Texas, and nearby areas occupied by the Comanche before the 1860s. The phrase come hell or high water holds a double meaning for this movie. It can refer to a contract that requires that payments come through no matter what the circumstance OR when you must do whatever is necessary to accomplish the results, consequence or no.

I cannot recommend this movie highly enough. It does everything it should do within the confines of the genres it samples form, and more. The characters are well acted, the supporting cast is engaging, the set locations are evocative, the action sequences are realistic but dramatic all the same, hell, even the subtext is clearly there if you need it. Hell Or High Water is my pick for movie of the year (and I loved Captain America: Civil War and Zootopia). Enough said.

Hell Or High Water is incredibly important in a world filled with Disney princesses, Marvel superheroes and new Star Wars movies. It respects the heavy films of the past, the ones before Jaws and A New Hope came along. The ones that really engage with their audience, and which are being eaten up as television shows at the moment. But films are self-contained stories, and television requires a larger commitment.

I hope that David Mackenzie influences a new generation of filmmakers to follow in his footsteps and leave the capes and tights in the closet. It’ll enrich our lives. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!

Jennifer Lawrence In Winter’s Bone (Star Trek Beyond review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

When you finally receive your geek badge, it’s a wondrous thing. And with it comes all the trappings of geekdom – insider knowledge, scrutiny of any associated media, and a sense of family.

Artists which are capable of tapping into that pulse usually produce the most interesting content, though not always perfect, for sure. But much closer to what that specific crowd is really after than a run of the mill director. That’s where the magic happens.

 

 

 

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin,  Sofia Boutella
Director: Justin Lin
released on blu-ray November 1, 2016
******* 7/10

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IMDB: 7.2
Rotten Tomatoes: 84%, Audience Score 82%
The Guardian: ***/*****

 

Justin Lin is a Taiwanese American director who is best known for his work on The Fast and the Furious franchise (movies 3–6), Better Luck Tomorrow, and now Star Trek Beyond. He is also known for his work on television shows like Community and True Detective. But I bet you didn’t know that the character of Han was ripped right out of Better Luck Tomorrow and dropped directly into The Fast and the Furious franchise – Which means that they are in a shared universe.

Another interesting tid bit, Lin’s second feature film Annapolis, shared stars Tyrese Gibson and Jordana Brewster, who are also staples in The Fast and the Furious franchise.

I mention these things because Star Trek Beyond happens to be a continuation in another series of films, one with a rich history of both film and television iterations. In other words, while Lin had a major hand in shaping The Fast and the Furious films, Star Trek has been up and running without him for quite a while now. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Consider for a second that Beyond is written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, the thirteenth film entry. And Pegg is also currently portraying Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the rebooted series.

Pegg had mentioned on several occasions that he and Jung worked with the fans to help flesh out the story of this film and that Beyond wouldn’t have worked if it weren’t for the support of Star Trek supporters. Additionally, the film is dedicated to the memory of Anton Yelchin, who portrayed Chekov in these new films, and who died a month prior to the film’s release. As well, original cast member Leonard Nimoy, was given a dedication, as he also featured in the reboots, but unfortunately died during pre-production of this film.

This says a lot of Lin’s ability to bolster a fan base and work with the actors to foster a family environment.

So what about the movie though? Well, I’ll get right to the point, in the spirit of Beyond’s own directness. This movie is fun, straightforward, and showcases a better chemistry amongst it cast of youthful star trekkers than we saw in the previous two films. I will say this though, the plot isn’t nearly as interesting as I would have hoped.

Effectively, the film starts with the USS Enterprise taking a break at the 3 year mark of their 5 year journey. Kirk wants to be promoted to Vice Admiral and turn his captain seat over to Spock, while Spock and Uhura are on the rocks. We later find out that this is because he has recently discovered that his counter-part Ambassador Spock has died and he wants to leave for the small Romulan colony and help repopulate his species. Then a survivor from a spaceship appears and the Enterprise is assigned to bring in other survivors. It turns out to be a trap. The ship is attacked, the majority of the crew abandons ship, and the bridge crew are stranded on a planet called Altamid. It turns out a warlord named Krall is at the centre of this and he wants to destroy the Federation.

I won’t reveal the plot twist, but I will say this, it is very reminiscent of the 2009 Star Trek reboot. And for that reason, it loses some points with me.

Pros: It embraces the spirit of the original series, focusing on it’s cast of characters, costuming, and terminology to set a stage similar to how the TV show felt, albeit longer and with much better special effects.

Cons: If you take away the action sequences, fighting, and CGI, you’ll quickly notice how much this feels like a TV episode of Star Trek, and then the plot becomes more of an issue.

Runtime: 2 hours 2 minutes

Points of Interest: Starbase Yorktown is a reference to the original name of the starship in Roddenberry’s first drafts of the TV show script. Alice Eve who played Dr. Carol Marcus in Star Trek: Into Darkness is surprisingly missing from this film and no mention is made of her, though she was part of the 5 year voyage. Kirk makes a toast to absent friends at the end of the film and we quickly see the shot move to  Anton Yelchin.

I really enjoyed this movie but it’s important to consider it in the scope of the Star Trek universe. For those who liked the two most recent J.J. Abrams movies, it might be harder to take this one in, and for those who enjoy older Star Trek, it might make you nostalgic for another television series. But overall, this film sits well within the canon.

Simon Pegg told this cute little anecdote about new character Jahlah (Sofia Boutella). They had originally intended to create this strong independent female character stranded on the planet of Altamid. But they couldn’t land on a name, so they just inserted Jennifer Lawrence from Winter’s Bone into the script. Over time this kept getting shortened, but a name wasn’t chosen. It finally got to the point that J-Law was being said aloud and it was agreed that Jahlah was the right name.

It’s decisions like this that Star Trek fans get a kick out of, and why the franchise is much beloved. Those easter eggs make all the difference, and the universe created a little more more nuanced. Justin Lin gets that, and I hope you do too. But that’s just a theory.

Tim!

Post-Apocalyptic Triangulation (Z for Zachariah review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

People are sick. They have an odd fascination with the end of the world as we know it. EOTWAWKI for short. But the problem with the EOTWAWKI is that it’s been done so many time in film, music, visual art and literature now, that we don’t really react to it as viscerally as we should.

I blame it on summer blockbusters, but that’s just my theory. Now, where it gets interesting is when we start to explore movies that deal with the subtleties of what could happen both during and post. Today’s review is about the later.

 

 

 

Z For Zachariah (2015)

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Margot Robbie, Chris Pine
Director: Craig Zobel
released on blu-ray October 20, 2015
******** 8/10

Z_for_Zachariah_poster

IMDB: 6.0
Rotten Tomatoes: 79%, Audience Score 45%
The Guardian: ***/*****

Craig Zobel is an American director, who got his start as a co-founder of the animated web series Homestar Runner. If you don’t know anything about Homestar Runner, you need to go check it out right now. Stop reading this review and watch some episodes of the show. Start with the back catalogue first, especially the Strong Bad Emails. Done? Good.

How weird is it that the guy who made that show is making serious movies now? I find it very unsettling, especially considering how much I enjoyed Z for Zachariah. And the fact that Zobel also directed Compliance, a 2012 movie about the strip search prank call scam that happened in the United States in the early 2000s.

Z for Zachariah is the story of a woman named Ann (Margot Robbie) who has survived nuclear war. She is living on her family farm in the middle of a valley – which has somehow been sheltered from the fallout, with the exception of water that comes over the falls from the mountains. She has a good routine which involves feeding both her and her dog, tending the land, and enjoying music and books.

One day a stranger (Chiwetel Ejiofor) enters the valley in a radiation suit. He was working in a government bunker and avoided the initial attacks, but has definitely been effected by the radiation and loneliness from searching for survivors. When he stumbles upon Ann’s valley, he immediately goes to the falls to clean himself, but Ann jumps out and warns him of the radiation. The man gets sick, and she cares for him until he is well, asking God that he might live. We learn his name is John Loomis, and both Ann and John begin to trust one another.

At one point John suggests that they build a waterwheel to divert the water and generate power, however because it would require a break down of the community church that Ann’s father built, she is reluctant to do so, and John drops the subject. Their chemistry and sexual tension increases over time as well, and just as the relationship is about to blossom another stranger shows up. His name is Caleb (Chris Pine) and he has a different perspective on how events should play out than John.

This is where the story gets interesting, a love triangle forms between the three characters, with conflict between John wanting Ann for himself, wanting her happiness, distrust for Caleb and Ann caught in the middle. We get to witness the full range of emotions that each character has about the other two, without a ton of dialogue. In some ways, it simplifies the plot, but in others it sets the story up for a rather poignant ending, which I won’t ruin because I think it’s worth saving.

Pros: It is a very thoughtful story, albeit somewhat slow in it’s pacing. But with the decision made, it allows the viewer the opportunity to really mull over what has been seen and wonder whether characters are committing deeds out of love or self-love.

Cons: The movie struggles with knowing when to speed up and really make a choice about it’s message. We are left to fill in a few of the gaps ourselves.

Runtime: 1 hour 38 minutes

Points of Interest: Based upon a book by Robert C. O’Brien, the love triangle is not in the original story, which only featured Ann and John.

This is a nuanced and interesting take on the post-apocalyptic film. Chiwetel Ejiofor gaves a nuanced performance and makes you question his character though he is set up as the sympathetic male lead from the start. Margot Robbie of course delivers with a range of emotions and her obvious naïveté as a young woman who doesn’t know what to do. She pulls it off well. And of course, Chris Pine is always charming and interesting with his devil-may-care attitude. While Z for Zachariah s not quite the same thing as the book, Zobel manages to construct an interesting story all the same.

 

 

 

This post-apocalyptic movie is definitely a slow go, but it does ask the question – what if you had all the time in the world? What would you do? And then what would you do if all of a sudden there was a possibility that you had to suffer as a third wheel in an infinite loop? Zobel manages to expose these shifts in power and opportunity, never revealing what each characters true motivations are. I doubt you’ll catch many Z’s after watching this one, but that’s just a theory.

Tim!