REVIEW: The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist is more than just a good movie about a bad movie, it is a story about trying to fulfill your dreams in anyway you can. The movie chronicles the making of The Room, dubbed by many as the best terrible movie; and in many ways that holds up. There have been plenty of bad movies over the years but none have stayed in the theaters for 14 years and have such a large cult following like The Room.

This movie is based on the book of the same name, by Greg Sestero. The movie focuses on him (Dave Franco) and his friend, Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), the director of The Room, and the journey that they went through to make The Room. Along the way the movie explores their friendship and the mystery that is Tommy Wiseau.

The performances by all the actors involved in this movie were spectacular. The Franco brothers, especially James, played their roles very convincingly and very accurate. On top of this the smaller parts with Seth Rogan, Josh Hutcherson, and Zac Efron make up some of the most hilarious parts of the movie – which is already very funny throughout. However, what stood out to me wasn’t just the comedic aspect, but the story of Tommy and his friendship with Greg. It tells a story about trying to make it in a cut throat industry and them adapting and doing it their own way. We see Tommy’s sympathetic side come out of his mysteriously unique personality, and it dives into what it is like to follow your dreams even when it happens in a way that you may not have thought. In the end, The Disaster Artist, is a story of uncommon friendship and passion.

You will walk away with not only questions about who Tommy Wiseau is, but also how this unbelievable story can be true. Although, it is important to note that Tommy himself says that it is 99.9% accurate, and the .1% that is wrong was the lighting (but that might just be due to the sunglasses he always wears).

I think that this movie was excellent, and can definitely be seen even if you haven’t watched The Room, as I hadn’t. It is currently showing State Theater and tickets can be purchase for $8 with a student ID.

REVIEW: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

I was not sure what to expect, going in to see this movie. The trailer didn’t give me much to go off of, and the brief summary provided little information as well. I just knew it was a black comedy drama as I sat in the Michigan Theater, waiting for the organist to stop playing and for the movie to start.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri greatly exceeded all my expectations.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie that literally made me tear up and gasp and cringe, my hand covering my mouth as I watched tragedy and horror unfold that numbed my heart and chilled my spine.

This was that movie.

It brought the crime and the drama and the intensity and the violence that made your heart pound one second and stop the next.

It tackled issues of racism, divorce, rape, murder, suicide face on. It didn’t shy away from controversial scenes, and forcing it in your face so casually and blatantly is what makes this movie so powerful.

The best part of Three Billboards was definitely the characters, people so tough-skinned and resilient and raw and tender and so human. That’s the thing with Mildred Hayes and Chief Willoughby and Officer Dixon. They are so flawlessly full of flaws that it makes them painfully real. As the characters persevere through that pain trapped in their minds and exacerbated by the community, they maintain a truthfulness that allows them to forgive but not forget, a moral authenticity that rips them open viciously only to piece them back together, fragilely yet stronger than ever.

This movie shows humanity at its worst and at its most pure; it shows all sides of humanity, and it reminds you of the humanity in people, through the facades they put up.

It was brutally nasty and brutally honest. It was heartwarming and heart-wrenching. It was emotionally intense and intensely emotional.

Yet there was laughter throughout the movie, a humor so dark it brought light to this grim film. Frances McDormand’s caustic performance of Mildred Hayes, along with dim-witted, stereotypical clueless young girls, slow advertising men and eager midgets, helps ease the weight in heavy situations. This fine balance of drama and comedy worked perfectly as every scene kept you on your toes and engaged your heart and your mind.

At what price does justice come at? How can anger and hate be reconciled with hope and love? Is forgiveness possible? How do broken hearts heal?

To reflect on these questions and watch them transpire in a sequence of scenes of sinking realization, follow the journey of a grieving, bitter mother coming to terms with the haunting limits of reality and the remains of what life holds.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is now showing at the Michigan Theater with student tickets for $8.

PREVIEW: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

An unsolved murder case. A grieving, demanding, unapologetic, bold mother. Controversial billboards. “Dim-bulb” police officers. Violence in the name of love, hatred, hope, rage, and forgiveness. Comedy. Crime. Drama. What more do you want in a movie? Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri features all these elements and more. Starring Academy Award winners Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes and Woody Harrelson as William Willoughby, with Sam Rockwell as Officer Dixon, this dark comedic drama captures “something truthfully human.” The film opens at the Michigan Theater on Tuesday, November 21. Student tickets are $8, and it is also free with a Passport to the Arts voucher from November 22-29!

REVIEW: Dont Look Back

Bob Dylan is celebrated far and wide for his sense of enigma. It draws many fans to him like a magnet — the fact that he rarely, if ever, reveals details of his personal life, the impenetrable nature of his ever-changing persona. In fact, I actually went to see him in concert this October, and I was surprised by the fact that he didn’t say a single word outside of the songs that he played. This mystery is a trait that he carries even to this day, and it can be traced all the way back to the very beginnings of his fame in the 1960s.

Dont Look Back, a 1967 documentary focusing on his 1965 tour of London, England, brings its audience closer to Dylan — the “real” Dylan, if there is such a thing — than any of them are otherwise likely to get. This Dylan is striking, more than anything, because he wavers so much between different facades. At times he is visionary, playing guitar and singing straight from his heart, or talking honestly with people who see life differently from him; at other times he is downright arrogant, interrupting people often and discounting their opinions in favor of his own. Sometimes he is quiet and attentive, carefully listening while fellow musicians like Donovan and Joan Baez play music for him in hotel rooms; sometimes he is loud and angry almost to the point of not making sense, like when he demands to know who in his hotel is guilty of throwing glass into the street. He’s humble and down-to-earth, but also remarkably full of himself (“I know I’m big noise,” he taunts to a man he has accused of being guilty of the glass-throwing). Sometimes he’s very serious, and sometimes he grins and makes jokes — and what’s more, he’ll often switch between many of these attitudes within the span of a single minute.

Of course, many of these less endorsable sides of Dylan — that he is argumentative, acerbic, full of himself, etc. — are traits that a great deal of his fans will easily dismiss. They’ll say, “That’s just the way he is,” or, “That’s what makes him so great — he’s not afraid to tell people how it is!” Luckily, the film itself takes no sides; with no retrospective voiceover or imbalance regarding what footage it decides to show us, it is indiscriminate. It leaves its audience to make their own decisions.

The crowning achievement of Dont Look Back, then, is that it’s honest. It gives fans an inner look at everything they love about Dylan — the ways in which he can be at once relatable and completely, untouchably elevated — while refusing to shy away from the paradoxes of his character that at times can undercut this. I’ll admit feeling a personal pang of anger during a moment in the movie when Dylan tells a reporter something on the lines of, “I know more about you and your profession, just now from meeting you, than you will ever know about me.” But I also laughed anytime Dylan told a joke, and watched breathlessly during recordings of his live performances of songs like “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “Talkin’ World War III Blues”.

Dont Look Back was filmed at the height of Dylan’s fame and at the cusp of some of his most major creative breakthroughs (a.k.a., his 1967 triple-album win with Bringing it All Back HomeBlonde on Blonde, and Highway 61 Revisited). It situates us directly in Dylan’s touring life, to the point that we feel like we’re actually sitting where the camera operator is sitting, three or four feet away from him. It is arguably the closest any film has ever or can ever really come to penetrating the eternal mystery and captivating persona of Bob Dylan, for better or for worse.

PREVIEW: Dont Look Back

When I first got to Ann Arbor, I was amazed how many Bob Dylan fans I seemed to run into. It’s not surprising, considering how enduring his work is and how popular he remains to this day. I even remember my History of the Sixties class talking about his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Naturally, there are a ton of movies and documentaries focusing on aspects of Dylan’s life. My favorite so far has definitely been the extensive documentary No Direction Home (after the line in his famous “Like a Rolling Stone”). But Dont Look Back, with appearances of people like Joan Baez and Donovan and a 100% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is definitely at the top of the list of necessary Dylan-related films. It covers Dylan’s 1965 concert tour in England, on the cusp of many of the creative breakthroughs that would eventually confirm his place in history as a legend.

That’s why I’m very excited to see Dont Look Back tonight at The Michigan Theatre, as part of the theatre’s 1967 Film Series. I’ve never seen it before, and I can’t wait to see what it’s like. The film will show at 9:30, and student tickets are $8 each.

REVIEW: Loving Vincent

A painting in motion — Loving Vincent. Brushstrokes that mimicked the iconic artistry of Vincent van Gogh’s own paintings moved to tell the biography of Vincent in a never-before-seen feature film. An hour and thirty-four minutes of animated paint, in the style of Vincent van Gogh, was an exquisite film that I felt honored to behold with my own two eyes.

It was a rainy Sunday night, with the typical wind chills of early November in Ann Arbor, when I went to see the film with some of my colleagues. We had just come from a fantastic dinner of pizza, including margherita pizza — my favorite kind of pizza — and joined the ranks of Loving Vincent moviegoers lined up outside of Michigan Theater.

Luckily, we had arrived just in time not to miss the beginning of the film itself. The whole lot of us settled upstairs in the balcony, appreciating the extravagance of the Michigan Theater’s classic theater setting and ambience. As soon as we settled into our seats, the lights dimmed and the screen flitted between trailers of upcoming indie films and the like. And then, at long last, Loving Vincent painted itself across the screen.

In a word, Loving Vincent was…divine. Artistic. Exquisite. Every second of it, quite literally the epitome of a painting in motion, enraptured the audience with its imagery.

Honestly, the second the movie opened, I was already mesmerized by the names rolling on the screen through their careful and immaculate brushstrokes. I was watching the lines of colors, imitating Vincent’s illustrious and iconic style, move across the screen in unison to depict movement. It was enrapturing.

I felt chills go down my spine.

The movie opens with the most renowned and perhaps most well-known work by the artist: Starry Night — hooking every audience member with its fine brush work and celebrated imagery as one of the most historically reputable works of art. It was so meaningful to see that be the opening scene to a film revolving around the artist, to whom the film is dedicated for, I was just captivated and touched by it. And then, when that Starry Night picture began to actually move, animated brushstrokes depicting the scene, my heart melted. Such an extraordinary picture transformed into a setting for a narrative to take place. It was the most fitting way to tell the biography of Vincent van Gogh.

As for the narrative itself — the story follows Armand Roulin, who is to hand-deliver a letter from Vincent to Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother. In this narrative, Armand learns more and more about the late artist Vincent, who had been a new artistic sensation in Paris at 28 but took his life while at the verge of his own impending success as an artist. Although skeptical and critical of Vincent in the beginning, Armand slowly grows wistful and fond of him. In fact, Armand even comes to Vincent’s defense when bad gossip arises and surrounds his death and reputation.

I’ll spare you all the details, but basically — the film follows Armand, a man who seems far detached from having any relation or kinship with Vincent van Gogh, and Armand’s journey to find the truth behind Vincent’s death — whether it was a suicide or a murder, what his motives were, who Vincent van Gogh truly was.

Ultimately the film really is a biography of Vincent van Gogh, which doesn’t lend itself to having that much opportunity to deviate from reality and express creativity and imagination as wildly as possible, as one might expect from an animated film. I have heard criticisms of the writing in Loving Vincent that claim the story is hard to follow, but they heralded the artistry of the film itself. Animation is a breathtaking craft, and it’s painfully difficult, and being able to dedicate an entire feature film of animated oil paintings for Vincent van Gogh is truly the only way to express his biography, I’d say. I personally don’t have a bad opinion of this film, having been so mesmerized by the immaculate craft of the moving pictures.

Now, my colleagues and myself hail from the art and design school at the University of Michigan, and inevitably we were drawn by the uniquely beautiful craft of the film, especially because we all express an interest in the art of animation. Safe to say we were all very moved and absolutely amazed by the sheer amount of work and effort required to make Loving Vincent and transform his most distinguished and impactful works of art into moving pictures.

If you have not seen Loving Vincent, I hope you at least consider it! If not for the story or biography of the great artist Vincent van Gogh, then for the beautiful craft of the film and its hundreds of artists who carefully painted and animated each frame of the film.

Go and love Vincent!