Tag: Michigan theater

REVIEW: Donnie Darko

Nellie Shih Leave a comment

Donnie Darko is a sci-fi psychological thriller and coming of age movie starring a young Jake Gyllenhaal at the start of his career. The film follows a high-schooler who narrowly escapes being killed by a plane turbine crashing into his room when a giant rabbit-like figure convinces him to leave his home in the middle of the night. Feeling indebted to the rabbit for saving his life, Donnie is convinced to commit a series of crimes.

I was under the impression that the film would lean more towards the psychological thriller side and and delve into the horror genre, however the bizarre premise is translated into a surprisingly goofy film that my friend describes as a mix between Joker and Mean Girls: the character arcs of Donnie and Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker follow similar trajectories, and both Mean Girls and Donnie Darko feature high schools as primary settings with quirky teachers and humorous health classes and all-school gatherings. Despite the unusual nature of this pairing, the tone of the film is well-balanced between the darker subject matter and the dark humor. 

The strange plot itself is never too ridiculous, except perhaps the very end. Even so, the conclusion of the film is still satisfying, though it is a little confusing, which admittedly could be frustrating. However, I think the film does a good job of explaining what you need to know, and not leaving the entire storyline up for interpretation and therefore overly vague. I did not initially realize how sci-fi the film really was, but all of the sci-fi elements had a place in the overall story – the elements did not distract from the story, rather, they enhanced the plot. 

Gyllenhaal again shows that he is a great actor, but watching this film 20 years after it came out shows that he has always been a great actor. Gyllenhaal is eerily good at playing Donnie Darko. He plays the character as quiet and calm, but with something sinister lurking beneath – and a killer smile. The role of Donnie falls into the type of borderline deranged character Gyllenhaal often plays, however this performance sticks out because of the two-sided creepy and collected aura that the character possesses. Gyllenhaal expertly portrays Donnie’s inner conflict and nervousness, yet he exudes confidence and is menacing at the same time. 

Overall, with lesser directing or acting, Donnie Darko could have been a bizarre mess and over-ambitious effort, but it is clear director Richard Kelly and all of the actors in the film cared about the project and were fully committed. Donnie Darko was a surprisingly good watch, and a perfect film to kick off October. 

PREVIEW: Donnie Darko

Nellie Shih Leave a comment

Donnie Darko is a science fiction meets psychological thriller meets coming of age film. Set in October 1988, Donnie Darko is a teenager who has narrowly avoided a bizarre accident. He is convinced to begin committing a series of crimes by a mysterious rabbit-like figure who informs him that the world will end in just over 28 days. 

The film was released in October of 2001. Trailers featured a teenager firing a gun as well as a plane crashing, and due to recent events at the time, the film was subject to and suffered from little advertising. Given the subject matter and distribution troubles, Donnie Darko grossed just over $500,000 during its initial run, although it received high praise from critics. After reissues and a positive home media release, the film grossed over $7 million more, and developed a devoted fan base and cult following. 

I am a fan of Jake Gyllenhaal’s work, so I was excited for the chance to see him in one of his breakout roles. I have heard that the film is a little confusing and simply weird, but I am always interested to see how these kinds of films remain unpopular with mainstream audiences but become cult classics. 

Donnie Darko will be re-released on Friday, October 8 at 10pm at the Michigan Theater.

REVIEW: Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival, Short Films

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Short stories, done through any medium, have always felt the most challenging and striking to me. Reading Neil Gaiman in high school English really sealed that feeling for me, especially the story collection Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions. There’s a good amount of slack inside a full-length text that simply doesn’t exist for short story tellers, and in losing that there is a whole lot of additional meaning, interpretable and explicit, that invites itself in. Maybe that’s why I think and write and feel only in vignettes.

So let’s not waste any more time: here’s what I thought:

Tumble, style-wise, did not meet my expectations. True, the colors were moody and there was an interesting rabbit motif hanging around (symbolic of timidity, hiding away, uncertainty in oneself, I think), but it was weirdly repetitive even while having a small running time. The lack of explanations for how Adam’s guardian angel becomes visible to others and solves the problems Adam shares with his mother (they fight to the very end, and nothing is resolved) had the potential to be open-ended mysteries for the audience to consider, but they just feel too much like actual plot holes.

Marcel was no doubt my favorite; I will always, always be a sucker for a soft and quiet romance. The frank tone of the film’s setup reminded me of my favorite movie, Amelie. The idea of a stark change like that happening (going from virtual invisibility to becoming a member of society) as a result of a chance event has so much magic in it. I was also a fan of the division of warm and cool colors/lighting throughout the movie; the glow of little changes. The ending was a point of disagreement between my friend and I, though–for whatever reason I assumed the last line implied she had jumped from the balcony while he slept, but my friend argued that Marcel was only expressing his happiness that the two were together in the same apartment. The ability to have two wildly different interpretations like that makes the movie all the more powerful. 

View to the Wall had a physical pull to it, like I was being closed into a clearly-defined, small space, drawn into Larysa and Borys’ new home.

While I describe that like affection, I was cold throughout. Being artists, the characters were appropriately expressive, the actors who played them able to communicate minute, complicated emotional shifts very well. So much of the hopefulness of starting a family and starting anew as immigrants felt quite tragically earnest. Making a life for yourself is such a fragile thing.

Ricochets was more austere than I thought it would be, or maybe had hoped. The relationship between the brothers was not as thoughtful as it could have been, made a little too dichotomous. Still, it spoke quite clearly to how easily the state of the world can dissolve closeness.

While these movies are no longer available to stream on the Michigan Theater site, be sure to check back periodically for more–the Michigan and State Theaters have been hard at work providing opportunities to see movies while their capacity for in-person viewing remains altered. Keep up to date at https://www.michtheater.org/blog/

REVIEW: I NEVER CRY

Jack Taylor Welsh Leave a comment

Spoilers ahead.

 

Isolated in the basement of my house on a Saturday night, I try to tune out the pounding music that somehow manages to penetrate the two small windows separating me from fun. The rage of the closet light that won’t turn off is getting to me, so I waste no time in beginning my foray into the Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival, by way of Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry.

I Never Cry is a long awaited film for the “Euro-Orphans:” the kids whose parents left countries like Poland to work in the Western powers of the UK, Ireland, France, etc. The film’s protagonist, Ola (Zofia Stafiej), is one of these kids. When her father dies in a construction accident in Ireland, she must leave her mother and disabled brother behind in Poland to retrieve his body. With only a backpack and a dwindling pack of cigarettes, the 17-year old girl bounces around Dublin, doing her best to thwart the different levels of bureaucracy that stand in the way of her father. Ola’s story is one of amusing despair, as she drinks around Dublin and desperately clings to the few cigarettes she finds (12 euros for a pack of cigarettes? No thanks). In this search, Ola finds she knows very little about her father, and the mission gradually becomes about understanding him rather than finding him.

In stories about grief, by now it’s a cliché for the characters to spend the course of the narrative soothing their loss by trying to figure out who the deceased “really was;” if I’ve lost you already with my trite summary, I’m sorry.

But where Domalewski succeeds in this film is the subversion of that trope, because for Ola, she can’t seem to find out anything about her father. From the man at the hiring agency, to her father’s boss, to his roommates, Ola gets nearly nothing of significance about her father. The most she learns about her father is from his mistress, a hair-dresser scraping by who shows him a framed picture that Ola’s father drew of her—“he likes to draw.” And that’s it. That’s the most we learn of Ola’s father. Domalewski holds the man of the narrative’s longing at arm’s length, trapping us in Ola’s feeling of ignorance, of lostness.

The Euro-Orphan does not get a conventional redemption here. Instead, after discovering that her father’s mistress is pregnant, Ola gives the mistress the money that her father left Ola for a car, with the hope that she uses it to go to makeup school and get a better job. Her dreams of a car mean an escape—but realizing there is no escape from her cycle of poverty, she defers her dreams to the next generation. Like Ola, the viewer isn’t left with much hope with regard to the story at hand. But we must hope with Ola that her gift to her father’s future child pays off. At best, we hope with Ola for a do-over, for a kid that has a better life in a better place.

Psych 101 tells us that between ages 40 and 65 is the stage of development in which we worry about our contribution to society, to the next generation, to the things that will outlast us. But, with our legacy ever-present in the social media era of recording everything we do, I think it’s easy to find ourselves wondering at younger and younger ages, “what world do I leave my kids?” For the generation of “savers,” I Never Cry is a brutally realistic picture of what we have to sacrifice for the rest of humankind.

REVIEW: Emma.

Shannon Z Leave a comment

Autumn de Wilde’s Emma. offers a refreshingly whimsical and defiant, pastel-colored adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic romance-comedy novel. The quirky addition of punctuating the title itself complements the film’s mood and aesthetics perfectly, and reflects the protagonist’s emphatic and self-assured mannerisms. The film opens with an elegant quote and homage to Austen’s 1815 novel,

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich… had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.” – Jane Austen, 1815

Indeed, actress Anya Taylor-Joy portrays the titular character Emma Woodhouse every bit as ‘handsome, clever, and rich’ as she perceives herself to be. Taylor-Joy has perfected the detached and rational, yet keenly observant composure unique to Emma and other queen-bee characters, which she punctuates with a penetrating and cool stare that the viewer learns to associate with the plot’s twists, turns, and grievous misunderstandings. Unabashedly headstrong as Emma may be, the character has historically carried certain unlikeable qualities that set Emma apart from Austen’s other famous female protagonists – Emma is spoiled rich and prideful, and with that pride wholly conforms to her period’s class and status norms. Additionally, her stubborn convictions as a self-proclaimed neighborhood matchmaker are almost manipulative, especially when examined alongside the friendship she forms with the less-sophisticated, bumbling Harriet Smith. However, de Wilde’s adaptation and Taylor-Joy’s performance not only allow but also highlight these traditionally unfavorable traits, which is precisely what I find most charming about this film. Unlike its predecessors, Emma. does not attempt as much to reconcile Emma’s haughty, self-satisfied nature with ‘good-girl’ behavior; to the end, Emma’s pride remains undiluted, even as she receives her happy ending with Mr. Knightley. Taylor-Joy with Johnny Flynn, who plays Knightley in the movie.

Though de Wilde’s interpretation of Emma. is slightly modernized in terms of its unapologetic treatment of Emma, the storyline and costume elements remain true to the original narrative while introducing color and whimsy. The cinematography and visual aesthetics of Emma. are every bit as vivid and spirited as the female lead herself, and can be likened to a sugary and symmetrical Parisian macaron. De Wilde’s use of visual symmetry is consistent and strategic, most evidently when interweaving type into lush backgrounds and more subtly to emphasize Emma’s careful hold on her town’s social hierarchy. In later scenes, the visual symmetry is pushed to represent symmetries between characters such as Emma and Jane Fairfax, a multitalented, elegant woman of Emma’s same age. The dreamy and ornate filming locations, shot around England, further emphasize the lavish lives of the characters in Emma. and the comedic frivolity of their distresses.

If you’re seeking a wonderfully lighthearted, visually pleasing period film – I would highly recommend heading over to the Michigan Theater to watch Emma. You can find tickets here.

REVIEW: Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Shannon Z Leave a comment

Truth be told, across all societal provocations, nothing makes me want to take flight faster than a sniffly horde of fruit-juice-charged youth excitedly tugging at their weary caretakers’ outwear. Yet for the sake of reviewing Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (The Musical!) from the most irrelevant age bracket’s perspective, I was ready to face even the most high fructose children of Ann Arbor.

Family engagement is a major part of most forms of educational entertainment fed to American children, and this show was no exception. Prior to the show, the Michigan Theater compiled a fun guide to facilitate viewers’ interaction during the performance that included detachable finger puppets and a musical cues document. Also, before the puppets took the stage by storm, an enthusiastic man led the audience in a collective warm up dance that had entire families jumping up and down in anticipation for the pigeon-ness that was to follow.

Mo Willems’ original children’s book series for Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! has a minimalist aesthetic – most pages consist of one subject, most memorably the blue feathered protagonist, and a stylized speech bubble containing expressive text. However, director Jerry Whiddon and the show’s set designers went beyond Willems’ original minimalist aesthetic and transformed the stage into a colorful and flashy puppet world in which the sounds of a bus sputtering are personified into 30-second-long gibberish monologues. My favorite set elements were the two dynamic mini doors framing the main scene; actors would occasionally pop out of its segments to deliver funny additions to the musical number. Besides the wonderful gibberish bits and intense hot-dog eating noises, the performers shone with Jessica Hartman’s playful choreography with each musical number.

As far as the narrative goes, little bits and pieces of the performance triggered vague memories from my childhood experience with Willems’ works. In the original picture books, the Pigeon puts forth countless attempts to convince the reader to let them drive the bus. This component is often credited as a great introduction to teaching kids philosophical topics like the moral implications of giving into persuasion or viewing punishment and disappointment through new perspectives. In comparison, the musical adaptation seemed to capitalize on the concept of ‘finding oneself’, or one’s purpose, and the overall process of growing up – as told through the perspective of a wide-eyed periwinkle-colored pigeon. Indeed, Willems’ writing even suggested that the Pigeon was undergoing an existential crisis, which would shed light on much of the erratic behavior exhibited by the main puppet. The Pigeon’s bumpy journey from under-appreciated bird to important bus-driver’s assistant is reminiscent of many cartoonish underdog characters who discover their purpose within the universe’s workings near the story’s resolution, like Rudolph, Wilbur the pig, or James and his giant peach. Because it is a universally ideal human experience, especially for children and confused adolescents, this approach comes across as heartfelt and fulfilling in ending.