"Midnight Special": Masterful Story-Showing

Now in Select Theaters, Wide Release on April 1, 2016

It’s becoming a common occurrence to see low-budget festival-targeted science fiction make its way into theaters this time of year, and much like last year’s Ex Machina, I think Midnight Special is going to be remembered as something… well, pretty special.  Writer-director Jeff Nichols (Mud and Take Shelter) has always been a proponent of story-showing rather than story-telling, and his stab at science fiction is a grand demonstration of just how damn good he is at it.  Seriously, what we have here is a modern classic that I already want to see again, just to try and catch any details I may have (and probably did) miss the first time around.

The film opens on Roy (Michael Shannon) and Lucas (Joel Edgerton) taking Roy’s son Alton out into the night as an Amber alert plays on the television, telling us that Alton has been abducted from his home on a place ominously known as The Ranch.  Alton wears protective goggles over his eyes which sometimes emit a strange glow, and he has a strange relationship with electronic devices.  The federal government is interested in Alton for reasons relating to his powers, as is the cultish Ranch at which Alton was raised, so they both send agents in search of Roy and Alton, hoping to find them first as the fugitives pursue an unknown goal.

If that synopsis seems vague, that was my intention, as it is just about as vague as the film's first act.  This is a film that relies heavily on its ability to tease information that you think you need to know, yet only giving it to you when you truly need to know it.  In no way does this prevent the film from being compelling, as the central relationship between father and son that propels the narrative is immediately relatable, and their struggle is all the more harrowing for our not having all the facts yet.  The backgrounds and narrative significance of plot points and side characters such as Lucas or an FBI investigator (Adam Driver) are kept vague until necessary to provide a sense of tension, which always pays off in the form of a reveal that is rarely directly expository.

This all comes together through some fantastic performances.  Michael Shannon is one of the best character actors working today, and his persistently grim determination is detailed with subtle nuances that make him incredibly engaging to watch.  Edgerton and Driver both also acquit themselves well, surprisingly adding some comic beats that would feel out of place if they weren’t so well executed in relieving the persistent tension the film provides.  Even Kirsten Dunst, a relatively lackluster actress who plays Alton’s estranged mother, manages to carry the climactic scene of the film entirely on her facial expressions, so bravo for that.  The only potentially weak performance is that of Jaeden Leiberher, the child who plays Alton.  I wouldn’t call him bad, and the wooden performance is actually suitable for the character, so the lack of range he may or may not exhibit isn’t ultimately that important.

I hesitate to say more, because I’m still enthralled by how effective Midnight Special was at telling an engaging tale through twists and turns conveyed through the uniquely visual nature of cinema, and I don’t want to taint anyone’s first viewing.  I was actually worried for much of the runtime that one of the film’s central mysteries would remain unresolved, and yet, wordlessly, the final shot of the film not only answered my questions, but it recontextualized the entire experience to make it feel complete in a way I would never have expected.  This is how you show a story to your audience.  This is how you make a memorable cinematic experience.  This is how you make a great film.

"City of Gold (2016)": A Critic's Guide to Community

Now in Theaters

As a critic and general film nerd, it’s important for me to recognize my biases and determine whether my personal proclivities actually line up with a level of objective quality that would accurately convey whether a film is good or not.  I think I do a pretty good job most of the time, but walking away from City of Gold I wasn’t quite sure whether I really liked the film as a film, or whether it just spoke to me on a very personal level about the nature of art criticism and the place it holds in modern society.  I’m inclined to think that I liked the film because it is actually that entertaining, but feel the need to share that personal connection so that you can gauge for yourself whether my feelings would be reflective of your own.

City of Gold is a documentary about Los Angeles food critic Jonathan Gold, an established member of the West Coast journalistic community who has even won a Pulitzer for his pieces on local cuisine.  What makes Gold so special is not only a level of linguistic artistry that I greatly envy, but that he endeavors to find all the little out-of-the-way spots in the city he loves so much, not just the upscale Western-inspired restaurants that one would traditionally find critics pursuing.  He is an intriguing individual, but his life and background merely acts as a focal point for a film that is much more reflective of the city rather than the Gold.

Through Gold’s writing and dining experiences, we are introduced to a side of L.A. that we don’t often see in popular cinema.  We’re too often exposed to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood as if that is the only part of the city worth discussing, but the city is actually an incredibly diverse amalgam of cultures, featuring a number of people who have emigrated to start culinary enterprises in order to serve those of similar backgrounds.  Gold revolutionized the L.A. food scene by focusing on these ghettoed restaurants and encouraging a greater sense of community in the city’s overlapping cultures.

Documentarian Laura Gabbert does an excellent job of making the city of Los Angeles come alive, through interviews with restaurateurs and shots of the city in motion, as well as a light sense of humor that shows the humanity of everyone on screen.  The film does focus on Gold’s role in the critical community and primarily follows Gold around in order to see the city as he does, but Gold is humble enough and Gabbert discerning enough to recognize that Gold’s goal through criticism is not to achieve personal notoriety (though he certainly has just by the nature of being a critic), but to present an expertise that will bring his community closer together.

A documentary is always a limited portrayal of whatever subject it chooses, but City of Gold feels very complete in its conveyance of a city through the eyes of one optimistic food critic.  This is a film that will make you fall in love with an aspect of a city that you thought you already knew all about, even if you have never been there before.  It’s a demonstration of how one person can play a small part in bringing his community together, how his knowledge of the culture and the role that food plays in it can be instrumental in exposing us to our neighbors.  That’s an admirable goal as a critic, and one that I relate to in my own minor way by writing on this blog.  But even if you aren’t a critic, I think there’s a lot to enjoy here.  If nothing else, the loving shots of local dishes are mouth-watering.

"The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2": The Culmination Pays Off

Now Available on DVD and Blu-ray

I recently reread my review of last year’s Mockingjay Part 1, and I almost feel like I did a disservice to the film by reviewing it at all.  Quite frankly, there just wasn’t enough of a movie to even effectively critique, since it was nothing more than a first act stretched to the breaking point of cinematic tolerance just to give Lionsgate one more year to figure out how to make money again once this franchise was milked dry.  So I wrote a retrospective piece about how the films have gradually gotten better from an abysmal start, but I avoided actual analysis by simply stating that the franchise had finally grabbed my interest by finally bringing its subtext to the foreground.  So the real questions now are (a) whether Part 2 justifies the division of this film into two parts, and (b) whether the potential of the franchise has finally been reached.

The answer to the first is most assuredly a negative.  I won’t even bother to try at a synopsis, as Part 2 makes no effort to pretend it’s a standalone affair, jumping in directly where the first half left off without so much as a refresher, which is a bit jarring for the casual viewer.  As payoff for the extra-long set-up of Part 1, this installment does, in fact, pay off and is considerably better paced, if only because it has both a second and third act to expand to two hours rather than only the first.  This means the bulk of the runtime is spent in the best action sequences of the franchise, which isn’t high praise but is still evidence of marked improvement.

What time the film does devote to story is actually rather somber and surprisingly grim.  It’s a terribly gutsy move to keep this PG-13 finale to a popular franchise so bleak, since it risks alienating an entire subsection of the audience acclimated to happy endings that expect just that.  Even the film’s final moments can only be described as bittersweet at best, and are downright depressing when you stop to think about it.  The political message of the film is shockingly prescient, and it’s easy to see why so many have gravitated toward this franchise just based on this ending alone.  It’s a risk that pays off, both from the standpoint of Suzanne Collins’s original text and to adapting it for the screen.

So, yes, this is the film that acts as the pinnacle of a franchise that is immensely overrated, but is at the very least respectable for its ambitions and moral purpose.  It would have been better to cut together Mockingjay into one film for the sake of artistic cohesion, since this final chapter really does not need to be over four hours long to be adequately told, but fans of the series should be able to proudly proclaim that their darling finished strong.  I still don’t think that the finale justifies an investment of three previous films in order to bring newcomers into the fold, and certain elements of the franchise still bug me for their dalliance with cliché and over-used dystopian fiction tropes, but there are a lot worse things to be a fan of, and I’m willing to admit that I had some fun at the end.  Now we can only hope that Lionsgate doesn’t follow through on those prequels they’re trying to cobble together.