REVIEW: NIGHTCRAWLER

The hunks of North American cinema are wasting away before our rapt eyes, are going from studly, cocksure, and suave to gaunt, weird, and rickety. It's tempting to be cynical about leading men taking roles usually reserved for character actor roles as maybe a way to gain credibility, but one could also see the trend as a means of making darker, odder fare a bit more palatable for a public that's becoming increasingly interested in challenging films.

(An aside: it's likewise interesting to consider that a new generation of Hollywood blockbusters are relying on unlikely heroes, a trend kicked off with then-unhirable Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man and, most recently, the once-portly goof Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy - both of whom opened up slick summer explosion and tights flicks to people fed up with that junk.)

Jake Gyllenhaal isn't as established a dream boat as the recently emaciated Matthew McConaughey; his role as Louis Bloom in Nightcrawler is more an oscillation back to stranger parts. In certain circles, Gyllenhaal will always be best known as the dead-eyed youngster Donnie Darko, and his fumfering squirrelyness buoyed Zodiac. Bloom is possibly one of the more complex, elusive, and repugnant characters you're likely to see on screen anytime soon - a mix of Rupert Pupkin and Travis Bickle and that gregarious creep from work that no one really knows anything about - but Gyllenhaal manages to cajole the viewer into liking that unlikeable leach.

There are two movies in Nightcrawler, really. There is the objective story, about a man we know nothing about stealing and bluffing his way through life, eventually stumbling onto "nightcrawling," the disaster-chasing profession of capturing footage of LAs nightly horrors for the "if it bleeds, it leads" news programs. Like backwards Spider-Mans, they descend on the scenes of crimes, sometimes ahead of the police. Wanting to get ahead, Bloom begins to venture past the already blurred moral line of nightcrawling to get to most explicit - and so most expensive - shots. That objective movie, where Bloom becomes more and more a villain, is hard to watch, would compel most viewers to believe that the world is a terrible place full of terrible people. 

But there's also the subjective story, in which Bloom is the hero, rising up from nothing and becoming a success through his wit, charm, and ambition. In some ways, Nightcrawler in fact treats Bloom like the hero, conforms to Bloom's purview. Pay attention to the soundtrack, to the score, as at moments when an objective movie would be subliminally articulating the reprehensibility of Bloom's thoughts and actions, the score instead plays those moments as revelatory and triumphant. Like every character in the movie, we know that Bloom is an odd, untrustworthy person, but just as Bloom - like any good psychopath - worms his way into their favour, so does Nightcrawler tempt us to side with him.

Indeed, Dan Gilroy's directorial debut is very much concerned with the perception and presentation of reality. Bloom brings his ill-gotten footage to newsrooms desperate for ratings, certain they need to shock and scare their audience into watching their show. It's up to the editorial team to decide the most profitable version of reality to portray. What crimes and disasters to report? What broader story of the world are they trying to establish? "We like crime," explains Rene Russo's desperate news editor, "but not all crime. Urban crime. Creeping into the suburbs."

The objective opinion of the world Nightcrawler lays out is troublesome and current, and will probably come home with and gently rankle most viewers. Chances are many would steer clear if it weren't for the comfort and accessibility of having a known face, even if it is more hollow and creepy than usual. A spoon full of hunk helps the medicine go down.

- Andrew

REVIEW: WHIPLASH

Comparisons between J.K. Simmons's stand-out performance as Whiplash's conservatory jazz tyrant Fletcher and R. Lee Ermey's epochal eruptions as Gunnery Sargent Hartman in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket are as inevitable as they are apt. Twenty-nine year old writer/director Damien Chazelle has been very open about the Kubrick influence, himself referring to the film as "Full Metal Jacket at Julliard." Both Fletcher and Hartman spume vitriol with the ease and fluency of Shakespearian villains, both with the purported goal of taking a human being apart and reassembling them more to their liking. There's even a sly nod to the abusive, disastrous interaction between Ermey's Hartman and Vincent D'Onofrio's Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence when Simmons's Fletcher tears a moonfaced, white t-shirt-wearing D'Onofrio-looking student he refers to as Elmer Fudd a new one. In Kubrick's film, Hartman's psychological disassembly of Leonard turns the doughy hick into an ideal, shark-eye soldier--possibly the type of musician Fletcher would like to hone his students into. But if you've seen Full Metal Jacket, I don't need to remind that it doesn't end well. And if you look closely, you may also catch a few of Fletcher's students displaying Kubrick's classic forehead forward, chin down, about-to-snap look.
 

In Whiplash, Miles Teller adds to his growing reputation as a youngster to watch as Andrew, a repressed pushover attending Shaffer Conservatory to become not just great, but "one of the greats." He has no back-up plan: he'll either be a drummer as talked about as Buddy Rich or Jo Jones, or he'll be nothing at all. It's this slavish, singular devotion that Fletcher spots and exploits. Fletcher will either draw greatness out of Andrew, or he'll destroy him trying. Simmons and Teller together recall and amplify that spittle-in-the-face duoship of Ermey and D'Onofrio, thriving off and taking from each other with such an intensity that, even when the punishment is starting to feel difficult to watch, you can't not.

At the core of Whiplash is the Charlie Parker creation myth. A 16 year old novice honing an imporovisational style all his own, Parker found himself on stage jamming with a band that included venerable drummer Jo Jones. In some tellings, a frustrated Jones tossed a cymbal at the kids feet in reaction to a flubbed note. In other tellings--notably, in Fletcher's telling--Jones Frisbeed the cymbal at Parker's head, nearly decapitating him. In the former version, Jones insults Parker, in the later he physically threatens him, ostensibly seeking to punish Parker's flaw. The film comes to some complicated conclusions about what's required to climb to the top of your game, engages in a sometimes troubling way with the myths of greatness, but whatever your reaction to Whiplash's findings, it can't not be energized by the performances and the bleeding, sweating, drum solo pace.

A year in movies tends to follow a year in reality: as the days get darker, so do the films. The psychological tampering and out-and-out abuse in Whiplash may be challenging for some to be audience to, but the reward is more than worth the effort. Whiplash, mostly thanks to the--excuse me--drum-tight performances from Simmons and Teller, is one of the most alive movies of the year. This is winter cinema that doesn't require 3D glasses to make you feel present and enveloped in the action.

- Andrew

 

REARVIEW: BIG

The twilight of the 80s saw a raft of "body swap" movies--what temperature of the times that trend takes exactly is open to your own reading. There was the Two Coreys vehicle Dream a Little Dream, the Kirk Cameron/Dudley Moore dud Like Father Like Son, the similar son/father switcheroo Vice Versa starring everyone's favourites, Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage, and, finally, George Burn's final film, 18 Again! Big, the story of twelve year old pipsqueak Josh Baskin being granted his wish to be "big" by an unplugged carnival game, is the odd log out in this raft. These others slabs of dead wood mostly concern the personality of a rebellious soul being exchanged for the soul of some stuffed shirt and in the end both souls realize the value of one another's lifestyle. Big also stands out because, twenty-five years later, it's still watchable. It's good.

You can only get so far on a tank of nostalgia. No one's calling Big great cinema here, but for what it is, and for where it's situated, it's a rare corker. It stands out and stands up because it takes its absurd premise seriously. All body swap movies have that scene where the passenger sees themselves in the mirror and doesn't recognize the vessel. But beyond that initial forehead slap, the emotional effects of "the swap" become moot. However, Big spends some real time with the fear and loneliness attending Josh's transformation. Yes, there's silly string and inflatable dinosaurs and floor pianos to remind you that Josh is a child in a man's body, but there's also Josh scared for his life in a New York flophouse, terrified of the situation he's found himself in. And there's Mrs. Baskin believing that her son has been kidnapped by Tom Hanks, fearful that Tom Hanks is harming him. Even beyond the situational fear, there's the undercurrent of adult dread, of being ill-equipped--at whatever age, however big--for the real world. When Josh breaks it to Susan (Elizabeth Perkins) that he's really twelve, she parries with: "You think there isn't a frightened kid inside of me, too?"

Of course, Big isn't really and won't be remembered for the current of fear of the adult world that runs through it. Hanks and Robert Loggia performing "Heart and Soul" on the giant floor piano in F.A.O. Schwartz. If we're not willing to call Big classic cinema, I think we can at least agree that that scene is classic. Hanks' floppiness and Loggia's initial debonairness that gives way to childish abandon alone elevates Big from the body swap dross it came up with. Director Penny Marshall, while not an auteur by any stretch of the imagination, but she's adept at making otherwise run-of-the-mill popular movies feel classic. It's that touch of class, I think, mixed with how serious it takes its absurdity, is why we still watch Big and probably wouldn't buy Dream a Little Dream for $2 from a box in a gas station.

And if we want to get really specific about it, I think the source of Big's indefatigable charm can be found with Josh belly down on his flophouse bed, watching TV and tonguing the filling out of Oreos. Hanks performs this bit of business where he's mindlessly flopping his foot behind him, brushing his toes against the wall. Eating the whites out of the Oreos is fish in a barrel when it comes to showing there's a kid in Tom Hank's body, but there's something so special and specific about Hanks' idle foot business that captures childhood and childishness perfectly. When it's at its best, Big doesn't just succeed at reminding you of your own childhood, but of childhood itself.

- Andrew

REVIEW: THE OVERNIGHTERS

Future-bound, still aboard the bobbing Arabella, the Hon. John Winthrop Esq. addressed his "great company of Religious people, of which Christian tribes he was the Brave Leader." Their check was in the mail: Winthrop and the Puritans had not yet reached the Massachusetts Bay Colony, had not yet fully added themselves to the American Experiment. Still on the Atlantic, Winthrop described the gas that would fuel this new world: Christian Charity. Famously, Winthrop declared that this new community would be a City on the Hill--a nod to Matthew 5:14 - 16--a forward model for the backwards world they were then quitting. 

"We must delight in each other," he said, "make others conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labour and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in that work, as members of the same body."

Winthrop's nautical address has become a canonical contribution to the idea of American Exceptionalism--an ongoing belief that America is inherently different, essentially more blessed than any other nation, that it has managed to unmanacle itself from history. "You are the light of the world," goes the Matthew passage, seeming to give America a pre-game pep-talk in this context. "A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven."

At a sober distance--to us who, say, live at the base of the hill--that idea has become mostly risible. But of course there are still plenty of Americans who believe in this warp and woof exceptionalism. And that camp would seem to be divided into those who believe exceptionalism to be a constant state and those who believe that it must be constantly renewed, protected, and fought for. It's been nearly 400 years since Winthrop described his and his people's perfect project and the said lamp on said stand is severely guttering, maintained by so few. Jay Reinke, the subject of Jesse Moss's fantastic new documentary, The Overnighters, is one such person, his hands cupped around that struggling flame.

In the film, desperate, lost, Steinbeckian men flock from all over the country to the oil fields of North Dakota for work, pooling largely in the small town of Williston. Pastor Reinke opens up his church and his parking lot to the migrants, the grand majority of whom are good, respectful men looking for the good, respectful life assured to them by the American Exceptionalism. While the consternated residents of Williston receive these unrequested men with coldness and suspicion, Pastor Reinke receives them with warmth and patience. His church becomes a sort of Shanty Town on the Hill, much to the often hypocritical chagrin of the actual town. As Williston and its residents attempt to hobble Reinke's compassionate efforts through social and legal pressures, the Pastor does his best to soften the situation, going door to door, holding meet and greets; he advises the men--The Overnighters, as they're dubbed--on how to avoid conflict with the townspeople. Talking with one Overnighter, Rainke urges him to simply get a haircut. Even a trim would make him less threatening in the eyes of the put upon community. 

"Didn't Jesus have long hair?" the man asks, in one the more casually poignant exchanges of the doc.

Reinke concedes, adding "Jesus didn't have our neighbours."

The trouble with a passive view of American Exceptionalism is it tacitly implies that there's something wrong with those who aren't thriving. It's a system that can't recognize its own failure. Ostensibly Moss set out to document the dual bankruptcy and success of the American Experiment--or, if not the failure, then the ongoing findings--and through meeting the Overnighters, the Willistonians, and Pastor Reinke, he succeeds at detailing all the rocks, all the hard places. In this way, the doc comes wrapped with a bow: The City on the Hill is crumbled, and this one astoundingly tolerant man is doing his best to salvage what few little corners he can. Of course, being the only one in the heaps of fallout, Reinke can't help but draw the wrong kind of attention to himself.

What could have easily been suited to a ten minute reportage for TV explodes and distorts, however, and Moss is suddenly dealing with not necessarily a different story, but a much more nuanced and complicated one. The thrill that Moss must have felt as his story organically and unsuspectingly opened up is palpable. One can't say too much, as there really is a walloping human twist here, the likes of which are becoming increasingly rare in a genre that's become bloated with essays and agendas and foregone conclusions. But the plastic cover does get popped off compassion and charity, exposing the unsightly snarl of wires that makes it go. The revelation and inspection of these tangled workings transforms The Overnighters from a perfectly fine documentary about a nation struggling to fulfill the promise of its founding to a much deeper look at goodness and compassion, at the failure to live up to expectation, to be honest about the past, to be free from it without ignoring it.

Much of American pride is located more in idea more than deed. The lofty aspirations of the founders are cited more than they are ever tangibly employed, and so much national chaffing seems to come from how a person is and how a person thinks they should be. The Experiment's hypothesis is clung to, the findings largely ignored. On the Arabella, Winthrop implored his boatmates to make others' conditions their own, but what happens when you open yourself to the flaws and struggles of others when you yourself and flawed and struggling? Moss couches us in this conflict with The Overnighters, making for one of the most outward-looking and inward-looking documentaries you're likely to see.

- Andrew 

Guelph Movie Club: Absurdly Quick Growth Spurt Edition

It’s Episode 22 of Guelph Movie Club. Gosh, how quickly you’ve all grown (not terrifying-carnival-fortune-teller-overnight-growth-spurt quick, but you know). We’re watching Big. Big is a personal favourite of mine, so good on you for picking it. It’s Tom Hanks at his pre-serious Tom Hank-i-ness. It’s just good stuff.

On Thursday November 27th at 9:00 p.m., come be a kid again – just for the night. It’s Hanksgiving.

Deep Breath: Next month is Christmas. Depending on your outlook, that’s awesome or terrifying. On the plus side, we’ll be doing our Christ Movie Club. We’ll have more details on the particulars on the 27th.

I try and always use this last paragraph for a plea for awesomeness. In the no particular order, The Bookshelf, Guelph Movie Club, and you are awesome. Spend some money at the Bookshelf – they deserve it because they’re terrific. Come to Movie Club – it’s only as good as the people in the seats, so be one of those people. You. We like you. Come watch a movie with us.

'Til then, see you at the movies!

- Danny

REVIEW: THE SKELETON TWINS

One of my favourite lines in all of anything comes from Lorrie Moore's story "The Jewish Hunter" from her 1990 collection Like Life. Odette, a forty-year-old poet is set up with Pinky Eliot, a farm lawyer while on a library fellowship in the boonies. Like most Moore characters, Odette is a bit too eccentric for her own good, struggles to be understood by and find happiness with regular people. But Pinky, a regular person with a slightly bizarre interest in WWII, falls for her, views her oddness as affectation instead of who she really is. "Everything's a joke with you," he says one night, after she laughs at an attempt of his to open up, to be serious.
 
"Nothing's a joke with me," Odette explains. "It just comes out like one."
 
It's this line--this line that sums up the struggles of the inherently sarcastic, the naturally odd; a club I consider myself a member in good standing with--that kept caroming in my head while watching The Skeleton Twins. Though one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while, it's incredibly serious.

Twins notoriously establish their own language, understood only by each other--idioglossia, if you want to learn a new word today--and Milo and Maggie Dean (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig), dubbed by their somewhat macabre father "The Gruesome Twosome," communicate almost entirely in their own idioglossia: sarcasm. Sarcasm is the shared lens through which these odd balls see the world. After ten years without talking to each other--being brought back together by Milo's attempted suicide, the call about which interrupted Maggie's attempted suicide--it's through tongue-in-cheek wryness that Milo and Maggie begin to reacquaint themselves with each other.

In the past ten years, Milo has detrimentally stayed true to himself, and Maggie has detrimentally tried to be a different person. They're miserable and lost, each with a closet full of individual and shared (ahem) skeletons. They root through their own and each other's closets with the sardonic distance of teenagers killing time in a store, making fun of everything on the shelves.

If this sounds grim and annoying, don't sweat it. The back and forth between Hader and Wiig, who shared about a decade together on Saturday Night Live, never gets tiresome. If the load is weighty, the delivery's always swift and light. Their sarcastic bandying, while indefatigably entertaining, manages to convey an always relevant depth and nuance. The sarcasm shared between the two is, all at once, a coping mechanism, a defense mechanism, and also a legitimate way of talking about yourself and the world with someone you trust understands you.

Much like a Moore story, the "story" isn't always the strong point of The Skeleton Twins. Estranged siblings, disillusionment, a family secret: it's Indie Film 101. While it might sound trite on paper, the integrity of Hader and Wiig's performances steer the film away from those tired indie tropes. The stand-outs of a limp decade of SNL, Hader and Wiig excelled at giving depth to what would otherwise be shallow goofs. As zany as they might have gotten in their wigs and costumes and accents, Hader and Wiig always managed to play characters in a show rife with caricatures. In a genre that's becoming a bit stale, The Skeleton Twins is refreshingly fresh. This is thanks to the supporting cast as well. Luke Wilson submits one of his best performances here, as Maggie's hapless husband--described perfectly as a golden retriever--drawing a good deal of pathos from what might a cardboard cut-out.

And, like a Moore story, you get so charmed by the oblong characters that you can forget that that humour is both a cover for and a product of a profound hurt, of a troubled lostness. In The Skeleton Twins nothing's a joke, even if everything's hilarious.

- Andrew

GO WES, YOUNG MAN

Thanks to everyone who played dress up this Halloween for our Dress With Wes evening. Here are just a few highlights.