1D 3D

Year: 2013

Cast: Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles

Director: Morgan Spurlock

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

The biggest problem inherent in making a One Direction documentary is that none of them have been alive all that long, really. At 21, Louis Tomlinson is the eldest, and how many truly insightful stories does a 21-year-old have to tell?

Granted, much has happened in One Direction's meteoric rise to fame since the seventh series of The X Factor in 2010. But the fact still stands that this entire documentary spans what would be the fifteen minute "early life" segment of any other artist's onscreen story. Heck, even 28-year-old Katy Perry has lived veritable eons compared to these fresh-faced young lads (And don't even get me started on Katy Perry: Part of Me, which I can say with no guilt is my favorite documentary film).

Suffice it to say, One Direction: This Is Us just couldn't have had enough to say to justify a 92 minute feature, and really it doesn't. It's just a corporate product shoved out by Syco Entertainment in an attempt to ride the tidal wave that is 1D's success before it evaporates into thin air.

I am being relentlessly bitter here because I can afford it. You see, One Direction: This Is Us has a few tricks up its sleeve. First and foremost is director Morgan Spurlock who, despite his films' spurious claims having recently come under fire, is a darn good documentarian, perhaps the first veteran doc filmmaker to tackle a project of This Is Us's bubblegum magnitude.

With a strong hand at the wheel and the boys' charming personalities at the forefront, it might not have a lot to tell, but the manner in which it is told is flashy, precise, and a lot of fun.

Shirtless boys provide a valuable thematic arc throughout.

The beginning of the film is, by no coincidence, the first song of their 2013 concert tour and right off the bat This Is Us proves itself as a work of cinema. Summertime popcorn cinema, yes, but there is a lot of talent behind (and in front of) the camera. Crisply shot and thrillingly edited, the opening sequence pairs modern quick cuts and flashy cutaways with a more traditional sense of introducing characters and location (let us never forget that documentaries and fiction are very similar in the way they tell stories).

Concert footage thankfully doesn't dominate and the songs get room to breathe as we delve into the history and interactions of these five boys. Their interrelationship is at the forefront as it should be, and it is not hard to see that there's a lot of love and attention that goes into keeping One Direction what it is - a purely enjoyable experience no matter how you slice it.

Or pants it.

And for once in a concert doc, the 3D is put to good use. While the staging of a One Direction concert is fairly simple (empty stage, big ol' screens behind them), the material displayed onscreen during the performance is laid over and intercut with the live footage in a way that makes the performances immensely tactile and aesthetically pleasing. These creative twists elevate the movie from simply repeating a live show, a trap which their previous DVD venture Up All Night: The Live Tour enthusiastically fell into.

There were less shirtless boys in that one.

Now if you'll allow me to indulge myself for a couple of paragraphs, I'd like to discuss the nature of One Direction's appeal. They've oft been criticized for being just another dumb boy band that girls wet themselves over and love them though I do, this isn't exactly far from the truth (It's a mark of my professionalism that I don't jump into the ring and defend their singing abilities, which are showcased to great effect in This Is Us).

What rubs me the wrong way is that these girls are criticized just as much for loving the band the way they do. Many reviews reduce them to shrieking harpies paralyzed by their hormones or the first signs of the apocalypse from the dumbed down "Me Generation." This could not be further from the truth. Yeah, maybe the ten-year-old girls with smeared mascara and "You Are My Heroes" posters are overreacting.

But let me ask you a question.

When was the last time you were so ecstatically happy that you cried? Or danced without fearing that other people will see you? Have you ever been happy enough to scream at the top of your lungs?

I know I haven't (well, maybe not the dancing part). That's just a sad truth of growing up. For a limited time only, these young girls have access to emotions the likes of which most of us have never seen. They experience happiness so pure and positive that it colors their entire experience on this Earth. We shouldn't judge them for loving a dumb boy band. We should be jealous.

I would give every last cent I had just to be as happy as one of those girls for twelve seconds.

Who are we to say the reason they feel this way is invalid?

Happiness is happiness is happiness is happiness and there's not enough of that in the world as it is, so let it be.

For some extra fun, check out the KidsInMind review of the film. They're a "parental review" web site that makes sure your precious children don't see such violent things as "five teen boys cry[ing]" or filthy smut like a girl whose "T-shirt rises up partially to reveal her navel."

America.

TL;DR: One Direction: This Is Us is a piece of cotton candy fluff, but it features beautiful editing and is packed with buoyant energy.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Only if you're a One Direction fan, but if you aren't, you're probably not reading this anyway. 

Word Count:  1000

CinemaBeach: The Meh of Mehing

The Act of Killing

Year: 2013

Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

Cast: Anwar Congo, Haji Anif, Syamsul Arifin

Run Time: 1 hour 55 minutes

MPAA Rating: UR

Personal anecdote time! The screening of this film that I went to in L.A. was also attended by Joshua Oppenheimer and executive producer Werner Herzog and I got a picture with him because I'm super cool and pushy.

He never smiles.

In 1965, a group of gangsters in Indonesia perpetrated a series of mass killings of communists and Chinese in the name of the government. Although the genocide has stopped, these people are still in power. In 2005, director Joshua Oppenheimer asked Anwar Congo, who himself murdered over a thousand people with wire, to recreate his killings onscreen for a film. The Act of Killing details the six year process of making the film, and the documentary allows us to see a mass murderer through his own eyes. So why does it feel so empty?

If we had been shown their movie – the final product, we could fully understand the scope of how much they do not understand about the torture they inflicted on countless human beings. If we had been shown a full documentary about the process and their antics (one of the gangsters frequently dresses in drag for comedic effect), we would have gained a similar understanding of the nature of evil and humanity and how they can coexist. Unfortunately, what we are shown is a meandering narrative with no real focus that hopscotches back and forth in time, presenting a recklessly uneven distribution of the two types of footage.With an increased emphasis on the documentary aspects in which the gangster friends goof around making their movie, the audience spends more time laughing at their antics than gaining any real emotional connection.

Now, this film hasn’t been critically lauded for nothing. There are many instances that give one pause, including an ex-gangster gleefully recounting the story of stabbing his Chinese girlfriend’s father, the actors pausing the recreation of a killing for the evening prayers, and a man using his own daughter as an actress in a torture scene and trying to calm her down after she bursts into uncontrollable tears. These men are truly incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions and whether it’s because they are truly evil or because they willfully delude themselves to try to avoid feeling guilt is up to the audience to decide.

Therein lies the film’s biggest strength. The Act of Killing deliberately provides no narration or opinion, allowing the viewers to come to their own conclusions. The film’s biggest flaw is not achieving the necessary emotional resonance by straying too far and too frequently into tangential side plots, like a gangster’s unofficial run for office. While it did expose the corruption in the system and the incompetence of the people in office, it is miles away from the film’s central focus.

Despite its flaws, the editing does have strong moments, especially with intercutting footage a gangster spending the day at the mall with his wife and daughter. My one fervent wish, though, is that we’d spent more time in the hallucinogenic dream world of Congo’s imagination. In a world of his own creation, we would be able to understand him on his own terms and The Act of Killing keeps the footage from his film mostly locked away. Without it, the film suffers from issues with overall coherence and gives us a lot of Indonesian history instead of making a sweeping emotional statement (for good or for bad).

There is one powerfully raw moment in which Congo viscerally reacts to the realization of the horrors he has inflicted upon others. This moment is like a sucker-punch to the gut and will stay with me for the rest of my life. That footage lasted for one minute in a two hour documentary.

The Act of Killing is well-intentioned and has a lot of potential, but mostly misses the mark. Here’s to hoping that the extended director’s cut on the DVD goes toward solving some of these problems, because that film could change the world.

TL;DR: The Act of Killing squanders its potential by focusing on irrelevant storylines in a meandering documentary narrative.
Rating: 4/10
Should I Spend Money On This? I don't think I know a single person that would be interested in this movie.
Word Count: 738