Tag: movie

REVIEW: Dont Look Back

Laura Dzubay Leave a comment

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 Home, Blonde 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.

REVIEW: Loving Vincent

Jhoanne Castro 1 Comment

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!

 

REVIEW: Blade Runner 2049

Laura Dzubay Leave a comment

I walked into Blade Runner 2049 not really sure what to expect. It had gotten really good reviews, particularly in its role as a follow-up to the 1982 science fiction classic Blade Runner. I was coming in without actually having seen the original Blade Runner, and I was interested in the idea of seeing a sequel without having watched the original movie. I wasn’t sure whether this perspective was going to help me. In the end, I think it ended up sort of doing both.

Blade Runner focuses on K (Ryan Gosling), a bioengineered human — known as a “replicant” — who works for the LAPD as a “blade runner,” seeking out older models of replicants and killing, or “retiring,” them. The lingo sounds like a lot from that sentence, but it’s really not too hard to get the hang of. After the LAPD learns that a female replicant once gave birth to a child, K is ordered to find the child and retire it, since his boss worries that the knowledge that replicants can reproduce could lend weight to growing replicant freedom movements and ultimately come to threaten the order of society. This mission brings K into contact with many interesting characters, such as “memory-maker” Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) and Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), the owner of the company that manufactures replicants.

The film overall is both gripping and visually beautiful. There’s an undercurrent of environmental collapse, which by 2049 has left California reduced to a rainy, snowy wasteland. It’s easy to become invested in the character of K, as he navigates a relationship with his artificial-intelligence girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas) and begins to question whether he is actually the very child he is supposed to kill. The story ends with a delightful twist that I won’t reveal here, but that reinforces its overall touching messages about humanity and the innate beauty of the world.

There were a few aspects in which the film seemed to lag a little. At two hours and forty-three minutes long, there were a few scenes that dragged out more than they really needed to, and Leto’s character, while well played, may not have needed to be there at all. He represented an important aspect of how people are often treated by corporations, but his science-fiction God complex wasn’t really anything we haven’t seen before. The far more interesting and convincing villain came in the character of his replicant assistant, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks). She was the one who represented the realest threat and seemed the most three-dimensional, the one who really struck fear in the heart whenever she appeared. (I was also expecting to see more of Harrison Ford based on the promotional posters, but he played the part of Rick Deckard so convincingly and I was so happy when he did show up that I forgot about this pretty easily.)

Blade Runner 2049 was ultimately a captivating story and a joy to watch. It wasn’t the action-packed thrill ride one sometimes expects from science fiction stories, favoring instead a more thoughtful, cinematic, and existential approach. But it pulled it off brilliantly, and managed to convincingly revive some of Blade Runner’s original storylines while also telling an appealing story of its own.

PREVIEW: Blade Runner 2049

Laura Dzubay Leave a comment

Blade Runner 2049 has gotten a lot of hype recently, with critics lauding the lead performances of Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling. I first became interested in the movie when Ryan Gosling promoted it by hosting SNL, and since then it’s only come up more and more in conversation. Blade Runner 2049 is the follow-up to the 1982 film Blade Runner— thirty-five years have passed and a lot has changed, so it should be very interesting to see how the film responds to the franchise’s preexisting legacy. Most good sequels—of which there are notoriously few in the world—have to find a balance between remaining faithful to the original and taking the franchise in new directions. It should be very exciting to see whether or not Blade Runner 2049 delivers on this.

Blade Runner 2049 is currently showing at the Rave Cinema theater in Ann Arbor, and will be for much of the rest of the season.

REVIEW: Song of the Sea

Jhoanne Castro 1 Comment

Song of the Sea is an enchanting story that addresses family, loss, and closure through the lens of an animated fantasy drama. Directed by Tomm Moore, who is known for Academy Award nominee The Secret of Kells (2009), the magical tale of Song of the Sea follows the adventure of a 10-year-old Irish boy named Ben and his mute sister, Saoirse, a selkie — a mythological creature of Irish folklore that is human on land and a seal in water.

The story begins with a little background behind Ben and Saoirse’s family. Suffering the loss of their mother, Bronagh, their family struggles to be happy. Ben blames his sister for their mother’s passing, Saoirse longs for the love of her broken family, and their father, Conor, still struggles with the loss of his wife. When Ben and Saoirse discover her magical abilities, the two find themselves on a journey to save all the faeries in the land with the “Song of the Sea,” a song of healing that only the selkie can sing.

For those of you who have seen and marveled at the beauty of The Secret of Kells (2009), Song of the Sea proves itself to be even more beautiful. Although at times the story may be a little hard to follow, the breathtaking art and intricate details of the film captivates the audience and keeps them engaged.

The animation is entirely hand drawn and 2-dimensional, playing with the depth of the scenery by overlaying parts of the background with the characters on screen. Almost like a fairy tale book in the form of animated cinema, Song of the Sea is imaginative and beautifully crafted. The animation sequences are fluid and careful, drawn with precision and a kind of gentle softness that draws our eyes, and it becomes enchanting to watch.

Apart from the art, the characters in this film are also very representative of the different ways people deal with loss. The magical characters draw parallels with human counterparts, expressing a variety of ways that people mourn and reasoning with the harmful consequences that they might bring. Macha, the owl witch, promises to take away the pain and suffering by petrifying those who are hurt, even petrifying her own son to save him from the pain. However, Song of the Sea proves that bottling up your emotions and removing yourself from your feelings is not as helpful as we hope it to be.

Song of the Sea inspires its audience to find closure during times of loss and mourning through love and acceptance. The very end of the film brings about the closure the family desperately needed. After Ben and Saoirse’s journey brings them home to their father’s lighthouse, they realize their cooperation and love for each other saves them and their family, as well as all of the endangered faeries and mythological creatures.

Here’s the official summary for the film: “In this enchanting new story from the Academy Award-nominated director of The Secret of Kells, Ben and his little sister Saoirse—the last Seal-child—must embark on a fantastic journey across a fading world of ancient legend and magic in an attempt to return to their home by the sea. The film takes inspiration from the mythological Selkies of Irish folklore, who live as seals in the sea but become humans on land.”

REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2

Julia Byers

(Please note: This review is written in such a manner as to not spoil the film for those who have yet to see it and/or who are yet to read the book.)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 marks the conclusion to box office sensation and critically acclaimed series The Hunger Games. As the title suggests, the film follows the second half of Suzanne Collins’s young adult dystopian novel Mockingjay. It does this in a manner which remains largely faithful to the source material, with brilliant acting by its all-star cast and amazing production value, from the sets to the costumes to the special effects.

However, despite the more intense and action-heavy material of this second half of the Mockingjay story, Part 2 continues to suffer of the same shoddy pacing and occasionally overdramatic writing that led to Part 1’s decline from the earlier installments in the series.

I wanted to like Mockingjay – Part 2 more than I did. As a huge fan of the Hunger Games franchise, I had high hopes for the Mockingjay films, especially after the roaring success of the second film in the series, Catching Fire (which doubles as one of my favorite movies of all time). However—perhaps because of how much I wanted to love this movie—I walked out of the theater Thursday night feeling like I’d been cheated. Not a lot, but a little.

This stems from the way director Francis Lawrence—who has helmed the franchise from the second installment onward—handles the pacing in Mockingjay. The novel itself struggles to find a good rhythm as the trilogy transitions from its traditional setup of pre-Hunger Games build-up, to Hunger Games intensity, to post-Hunger Games fallout. Now, the country of Panem is at war, which is a different game entirely. But rather than fixing the pacing as the filmmakers claimed to hope they would when they announced they would be splitting the third book into two movies (as all good YA book-to-film franchises should be, clearly), they’ve exacerbated these issues. Pivotal scenes in Part 2 move too quickly for the audience to keep up with what’s going on, let alone feel their full impact; scenes between action sequences drag, drawing attention to the film’s bloated two hour and seventeen minute runtime.

This becomes most evident in the scene that finds itself at the heart of Mockingjay’s climax. I don’t want to spoil you if you don’t know how Mockingjay ends, but essentially this scene is the one that makes the series. It’s what Katniss’s journey has been building to from the beginning, the scene that ultimately drives the lessons of the series home. It is the scene on which, more than any others in the entire series, the filmmakers should linger. Instead, we hurry through it, like Francis Lawrence is desperate to get this difficult moment over with. And yes, this is not a happy moment, but it is one that matters. It is one that deserves the extra weight that comes with pausing on it, letting it sink in, so that it can resonate with the audience.

Rather than lingering on this moment, however, we instead spend loads of time on a love triangle that leads to more derisive laughter from the audience than actual investment, along with clunky dialogue rendered decent only by the immensely talented cast speaking it. Indeed, the script spends a lot of time trying to come across as being As Grim and Serious as Possible, which results in more awkward laughing at the movie than genuine laughing with it. For a film about the horrors of war, this is especially unfortunate.

Despite all this, however, Mockingjay – Part 2 is far from a bad movie. In fact, it’s actually a pretty good one, especially when you compare it to the majority of adaptations made from young adult novels. While the Hunger Games franchise’s greatest asset has always been its cast—which includes a bevy of Oscar-winners and household names—the amount of passion and detail put into constructing the world has also been key to its success, and that passion continues to be on display here. Everything about the Hunger Games world is intricate, thought-out down to the smallest detail and too complex to ever fully catch while watching. It is a feast for your eyes. Now, throw Jennifer Lawrence into a world like that, and even the most outrageous elements of The Hunger Games feel horribly real.

While Francis Lawrence might be confused about pacing, he does understand that Jennifer Lawrence is the linchpin to the series. Part 2 thrives on close ups of her face at key moments that tell us more than any exchange of dialogue ever could. She is both parts strong and weak, hardened and dissolving before our eyes, a child thrown into these terrible circumstances and a brave young woman rising to not only meet her fate head on, but to take control of it as well. She truly is the Mockingjay.

So: Mockingjay – Part 2 is not the best film ever made. In fact, it’s a far cry from even the best film in the Hunger Games series. But despite this, it does its best to give moviegoers a valid and satisfying conclusion to arguably one of the best book-to-film franchises ever to come out of Hollywood.

More than anything, Mockingjay – Part 2 is a reminder that this series has been a fantastic ride. And for that I’ll always be grateful.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 is in theaters now. Tickets are available for showings at both Goodrich Quality 16 and Ann Arbor 20 (Rave).