Swimming In Miami

Year: 2016

Director: Barry Jenkins

Cast: Mahershala Ali, Ashton Sanders, Naomie Harris

Run Time: 1 hour 51 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Gay movies are tough. It’s difficult when your sexual identity is linked to a cornucopia of hot button issues, because the only wide-release gay movies that squeak by are the ones that interact directly with those issues. And you know where movies about social issues invariably end up? The whirling typhoon of overseriousness we call the Oscars. It’s a vicious cycle that has led to the most notable gay movies being the dour Philadelphia, the terrific but dour Brokeback Mountain, the ambiguously sullen Weekend, and f**king I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Moonlight is a member of that massively unpleasant genre, coupled with the even more primordially depressing genre of Oscarbait Movies About Black People. So it’s a damn miracle that it ended up being watchable and, in patches, occasionally splendid.

I’ll get through an entire Oscar slate one of these years!

Moonlight is divided into three distinct parts (because you know a movie’s great if it has chapter titles), each depicting a stage in the coming-of-age of Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert as a child, Ashton Sanders as a teen, and Trevante Rhodes as an adult), a young gay man growing up in the mean streets of Miami.

To a lesser extent it is also about the people around him, at least to the degree that they influence the formation of his identity: his mother Paula (the lovely Naomie Harris, giving a performance that will inevitably be called “brave”), the drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali), Juan’s girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe, whose transition from “R&B starlet” to “respectable actress” has been terrifyingly, imperceptibly fast), and his best friend Kevin (Jaden Pine, Jharrel Jerome, and American Horror Story: Roanoke’s André Holland).

Sidebar: Trevante Rhodes might hold the world record for Most Impossibly Buff Human Being Who Isn’t The Rock.

Moonlight is one of those movies that’s more fun to discuss than it is to sit through. As a portrait of a boy attempting to form an emotional, compassionate identity in a culture that values toughness and resilience, it’s an alternately warm and devastating character study. And probably the best thing about it is that it’s not explicitly about being gay. Although Chiron’s homosexuality informs every aspect of his stunted identity, it’s about the universal themes of love, self, and human connection. Of course, watching this all play out onscreen is about as exciting as watching an infomercial for socks.

To be fair, my brain doesn’t come equipped with the arthouse gland that allows people to sit through a long-winded parade of human misery and come out declaring it a masterpiece (I prefer short-winded parades with more stage blood). And while Moonlight is more than just misery porn, I find that it struggles to strike a balance between art and realism. 

Most of the film is straight-laced, almost documentarian drama that uses long takes and naturalistic lighting to douse the film in the gritty reality of the Miami ghetto. But it takes random leaps into bold, colorful, almost Italian arthouse cinematography that feel completely disjointed, desperately jockeying for your attention. These movements come too infrequently to be anything other than distracting, and they’re not so gorgeous that the movie couldn’t have gone on without them. Especially in the third, weakest chapter, these intrusions almost feel like the film is mocking us for actually getting into the story.

Take the film’s best scene: A moonlit seaside conversation between two boys that carries oceans of meaning beneath tentative words. It’s stripped-down perfection, using nothing but dialogue and the human face to provoke mounting erotic tension in the audience. Moonlight is at its best when it’s simple, because its delusions of aesthetic grandeur merely remind you that the visual style is mostly less than phenomenal.

Although, who could complain about this shot?

Moonlight is more like a novel than a film, packed with subtext and recurring symbolism that’s a thrill to dissect, but could just has easily have been presented as a text piece rather than a work of cinema. As a story, it’s important and heartfelt. As a film it’s nonessential.

That’s perhaps not very fair to a film that showcases well-etched characters portrayed by a bevy of talented actors and promising newcomers, but it’s so dry you could use it to cure meat. I’m in no way saying that it’s bad. Moonlight is terrific. But it’s not the type of movie I would consider taking a friend to or –Heaven forbid – owning on DVD.

TL;DR: Moonlight is a decent character study that tries way too hard to be Important.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 780

Popcorn Kernels: La Vie En Rage

In this set of mini reviews, we explore the modern incarnation of the zombie genre that pumped adrenaline into a decade of horror.

28 Days Later (For our podcast episode about this film, click here.)

Year: 2002

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston

Run Time: 1 hour 53 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A bicycle courier wakes up from a coma, only to discover that London is completely deserted, devastated by a Rage Virus that turns humans into ravenous, bloodthirsty monsters.

Zombies as we know them have been around since Night of the Living Dead in 1968. They’ve been devouring humanity on the regular since that fateful day, but our current zombie boom (spearheaded by the ratings juggernaut The Walking Dead) can be traced back to one vicious epicenter: 28 Days Later. This massively influential flick changed the landscape of 2000’s filmmaking in an astonishing myriad of ways, introducing the world to Cillian Murphy, proving that theatrical films can be successful even when shot on digital video, and ushering in the slightly smaller but nerve-jangling subgenre of “fast zombie” movies that eventually spawned my favorite film, [REC].

We owe a lot to 28 Days Later, but the fervor it spawned shot off in a totally different direction, so it still stands alone as an idiosyncratic littler indie without too many copycats dragging it down. That’s something very unique, but then again 28 Days Later is a particularly special movie. With a budget approximately the allure of the Avengers 2 snack table, it crafts an elegantly simple, paralyzingly terrifying premise, which is a testament to the fact that it was shot by an actual film director (Danny Boyle would later helm Slumdog Millionaire and Steve Jobs, but even before 28 Days Later he had Trainspotting and A Life Less Ordinary) rather than an amateur thinking they can strike gold with a cheapo shocker.

Danny Boyle crafts his scares with great patience, allowing his audience time to breathe, giving the scope of the devastation time to sink in before he pounces, plunging his characters into hot water without a moment’s warning. In his world, you are never safe, and this structure invokes a constant paranoia, even (perhaps especially) during the film’s surprisingly frequent comic relief interludes. The fact that 28 Days Later’s fear is so fiercely politicized (included among the angry grab bag of subtext is an indictment of animal testing, blind activism, sexual aggression, human pettiness, and the military industrial complex – no wonder this flick is nearly two hours long) just makes its undercurrent of rage – the source of every danger in this film – that much more potent.

There’s just one thing that bothers me about 28 Days Later… The film is powerful ugly. It was shot on digital video, which opened up all sorts of avenues for easily obtaining iconic images, especially in the scenes taking place on deserted city streets. This is all fine and dandy, but the unfortunate side effect of the format is that everything looks like a 90’s grunge music video, all overblown colors and Vaseline-smeared lenses. A lot of the handheld, vérité aesthetic is intentional, but when compounded with the low quality camera (which is usually something I never mind much), it’s an immensely frustrating visual schema. However, I suppose that being brutalized by the aesthetic pitches you even further into the film’s deranged terror. Well played, 28 Days Later.

Rating: 8/10

28 Weeks Later

Year: 2007

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Rose Byrne, Robert Carlyle 

Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Virus-devastated England is being rebuilt by the American military, but when the rage virus outbreak begins once more, a defected doctor and sniper must protect two children who potentially hold the key to finding a cure.

28 Weeks Later is the Aliens to 28 Days Later’s Alien. Where the original was a methodical, chilling nightmare, the sequel gnaws the cap off a syringe of pure adrenaline and jams it right the hell into your eyes. And just like with Aliens, it’s a Sisyphean task to even attempt to decide which film is better, because they’re both great in almost totally opposite ways.

While there’s still an angry political element to the film, rotating the vices of the military system front and center, 28 Weeks Later is more of a rapid-fire family drama about a Bad Dad hall of famer who abandons his wife to the rage zombies, destroying his family from the inside out, and then pretty literally destroying them from the outside when he becomes the next Patient Zero. The last vestige of humanity within him converts his guilt into pure rage, sending him after his own children like a bloodhound. As if you couldn’t extrapolate from that, this is a remarkably dangerous movie, a wicked, brutal extravaganza of blood and pain.

This is elegantly reflected in a seemingly innocuous Act One scene where a group of snipers spy on the citizens of the safe zone through their scopes. They may be laughing and joking about what they see, but the message is disturbingly clear: Every single living person is in the crosshairs of 28 Weeks Later. Violence is coming and it has no mercy. This atmosphere makes it a spectacularly effective action-horror film, if not a universally palatable one.

The one area where 28 Weeks Later is a marked improvement on the original is its aesthetic, which isn’t so bodaciously ugly. The quick-cutting handheld aesthetic is resurrected for the zombie scenes, but when it has a confident, appealing aesthetic to juxtapose against, it makes it so much more effective. Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo crafts his film impeccably, making moments like the stunning visual metaphor in the aforementioned sniper scene possible, and capturing the forlorn emptiness of London with a keen attention to detail that grinds the dreary mood into every fold and crevasse of your mind.

It helps that 28 Weeks Later had a significantly higher budget and more developed CGI technology to fill in the cracks, but a well-shot movie is a well-shot movie. Let’s not blame the dollar bills. Now to even things out, let’s broach 28 Weeks Later’s biggest flaw. The film spends much more time world building than its predecessor, allowing us to explore a zombie-free London for quite some time, all this occurring after a significantly long opening scene (a terrifying affair, to be certain, but one that also eats up a good chunk of the run time). As much as I appreciate both these sequences, 28 Weeks Later is already a full ten minutes shorter than Days, so when the main plot finally kicks in, it’s a rather truncated affair that feels like it ends before it can even begin.

It’s not often that you’ll hear me begging for a longer movie, but it’s not often that a horror sequel assembles a stellar cast (including future stars Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots, and even Idris Elba) for a bloodthirsty, challenging, incredibly sharp horror affair. 28 Weeks Later earned those extra ten minutes, but even dismayingly abrupt as it is, it’s an indelible film and an eternal beacon to the cause of proving that sequels can be genuinely terrific.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1198

Spy Another Day

Year: 2015

Director: Sam Mendes

Cast: Daniel Craig, Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz

Run Time:  2 hours 28 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Now, please keep in mind that I haven’t watched a James Bond movie since I was 14, so maybe they’re all brainless and repetitive and I had too much in common with them to notice. But considering that Goldfinger flits by at 1 hour and 50 minutes and the superspy’s latest effort – Spectre – rolls in creaking and groaning at 2 ½ hours, I daresay the original films didn’t take themselves quite so seriously.

Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself. Spectre is the 24th entry in the James Bond franchise, the fourth for Daniel Craig since Casino Royale rejuvenated the series back in 2006. It’s also the first to appear on the pages of this blog, and it makes a game attempt to ensure that it’s the last. I have enough fondness for the previous entries that I look forward to reviewing them one day, but Spectre’s strip-mining of Bond’s past glories is a recipe for half-baked rehash that leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

Coming soon: the Popcorn Culture Cookbook.

I’m going to streamline the plot as much as possible, because to go into detail would require an atlas, unflagging interest in the high-end car industry, and several gallons of Absolut. Here goes: James Bond (Daniel Craig) is an MI6 agent investigating an evil syndicate known as Spectre led by the shadowy Hans Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), based on a clue left for him by the late M (Dame Judi Dench, in a cameo that she could have done from her living room).

Meanwhile, the current M (Ralph Fiennes, who I do believe was just trying to tear England apart with a group of wizard Nazis, so this is awkward) is battling through tangles of red tape thanks to C (Andrew Scott), a government official who wants to shut down MI6 and commence surveillance of the world’s digital traffic in alliance with several major world powers, bringing espionage into the 21st century. It is up to M, his secretary Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), and gadget guru Q (Ben Whishaw) to preserve the old ways and avoid going the way of the Walkman.

Oh, also Bond hooks up with Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), the daughter of a previous bad guy who we’re expected to remember. They scoot across the globe, sticking together even though they have the chemistry of Elton John and a pair of sensible slacks.

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words, how wonderful life is now you’re – eh, who are you again?

Spectre is a dense amalgamation of previous Bond films, both within the Craig tetralogy and the franchise as a whole, coming full circle within the reboot continuity while reintroducing classic characters and concepts. But as much as it’s beholden to the letter of the James Bond traditions, it fundamentally fails to capture the spirit, which flits away like a butterfly, always in sight but just out of reach.

Take the opening pre-credits scene. Bond takes a woman into his Mexico City hotel room, tells her he’ll be right back, and slips out the window. Thus ensues an explosive action sequence, taking Bond through crumbling mortar, the thrumming Dia de Los Muertos parade, and into the air over a teeming mass of bodies while a percussive drum beat smashes into and merges with the classic James Bond theme.

It’s stylish, high octane perfection, but instead of Bond dusting off, casually adjusting his tie, and returning triumphantly to his lady, we cut immediately into Sam Smith warbling “Writing’s on the Wall” over a singularly uninspired credits sequence. Look, as much as Bond’s I Love Lucy chocolate conveyor belt of conquests is haphazardly misogynistic, it’s all part of the came charm of his character, and the missing button from that scene cuts Spectre off at the knees.

Plus, that lady probably racked up thousands in minibar charges while abandoned in that room for hours.

Admittedly there are a handful of moments that embrace the campy appeal of the character, many of which are pretty unequivocally the best moments in the film. However, the degree to which you are asked to turn your brain off is in direct conflict with the length and girth of the stick up Spectre’s ass. In grand Christopher Nolan tradition, Spectre shrouds itself in dark, gritty realism that blocks out the fun factor as effectively as a smothering layer of gold paint. In fact, the Dark Knight gloomsmith was actually approached to direct this film, so that should tell you where returning director Sam Mendes’ (of American Beauty, somehow) ambitions lay.

The amount of time Spectre spends on its knees kissing your boots, begging, groveling for you to take it seriously is its very downfall. It’s never a good idea to approach a Bond flick with an eye for realism, but with this particular entry – and its plot holes big enough to host bar mitzvahs in – it’s cinematic suicide. The second you boot up your brain, the threadbare patchwork of the plot unravels in your hands, leaving you to stare in perplexion at a disheveled mass of thread.

Of course, this is a spy movie, so a certain amount of narrative tomfoolery is permitted (arbitrary countdowns, Rube Goldberg death traps that permit the hero ample time to escape, and the like). It’s all in good fun, but Spectre’s deficiencies sink much deeper than the average espionage flick. Characters mysteriously vanish never to be heard from again, plot points are introduced but never followed up on, and many of the blistering actions sequences take place in preternaturally empty environs. Spectre’s Ghost Train rivals even Halloween II’s Silent Hospital in terms of normally bustling locations that appear to have been abruptly abandoned, leaving only the core cast and maybe a handsome porter for decoration. It’s like they filmed on the Bermuda Triangle or something.

Or maybe the European extras were just all on vacation.

There’s a lot wrong with Spectre, nearly all of which is showcased in the interminable third act (when only two trailers played before this film, I knew it was a portent of doom for my bladder). A vast majority of the plot is pointless wheel spinning and wearisome monologues that leave your adrenal glands parched and shriveled. 

Perhaps it would work better if it balanced on a different central couple, because the crude archetype that Madeleine is brutally crammed into during the finale is hardly appropriate for her character or her shallow relationship with Bond. Watching her blankly go through the motions of a more developed plot only draws attention to the anemic characterizations that populate the film.

Christoph Waltz gives a game attempt at overcoming the peculiar inadequacies of his character, who is rejected from the plot like a bad skin graft. But there is only so much menace he can breathe into the banal, chinos-clad villain with sharply defined motivation but a wicked plan so vague that one can only assume he’s working from a first draft.

But there’s one thing I haven’t talked about: the action. It isn’t particularly original, but it’s as dazzling as altogether too much money can buy. There’s only so many times I can watch a secret agent discover a hidden door or punch an indestructible henchman (this time a totally wasted Dave Bautista) in the face, but this is the one element where Spectre totally embraces its over-the-top pedigree. Armed with his pistol that has the range of a rifle and the delicacy of a dart, Bond sweeps through the massive, inexplicably varied setpieces with relative aplomb.

It’s not enough to fully redeem the film form its monotonous, triumphantly silly depths, but it’s a totally adequate night at the movies. It will hold your attention more often than not, and in today’s climate sometimes that’s the best you can get. If you come into Spectre with an open mind, it does give you some bang for its buck. While 300 million bangs can be exhausting, it’s still quite a spectacle to behold.

TL;DR: Spectre is an acceptable trifle, but a plodding, unsatisfying James Bond movie.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1367