Wind River is a gripping crime movie that is newly released on DVD. Set in the rugged, winter mountain terrain of Wyoming, the movie follows a storyline as harsh and unforgiving as the backdrop of its spectacular landscape.
The body of a young Indian woman is found frozen in the middle of a snowy wilderness. She is barefoot, her feet blackened by frostbite, as if she had been running from something for miles until her lungs burst from the below zero air and she dropped dead.
Because the death happened on Indian reservation land, an FBI agent is sent in to investigate. She is out of her depth in that country and she quickly asks for the aid of a local state game warden tracker. As they follow leads, a second body is found deep in the icy backwoods. This new body is a white male who worked at a nearby oil drilling site.
Things move from there toward events that are shocking in their unforeseen, suddenly explosive violence. Wind River is a powerful drama whose spare, tersely written screenplay reflects the hard realities of reservation life and Western self-reliance to survive.
This movie deserves to be on Best Picture lists this year.
Showing posts with label Movie Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movie Reviews. Show all posts
Monday, November 20, 2017
Friday, February 20, 2015
NIGHTCRAWLER A Social Drama of Obsession
Nightcrawler (Now on DVD) is neither a suspense movie nor a crime movie, although it contains strong elements of each. Rather, the movie is a disturbing social commentary on the endless drive for visceral video footage in TV news coverage.
Lou Bloom is a freelance video shooter who makes a living selling raw video footage of car crashes, fires, and violent crime scenes to local TV stations in Los Angeles. He makes contact with a female news director eager to buy the most sensational footage Bloom can supply.
Bloom is a manipulative, ruthless competitor. He is essentially a sociopathic personality with no internal moral workings beyond his own obsessive personal goals. He begins to cross all ethical and legal boundaries in his pursuit of the most graphic video images to sell.
Bloom's manic conduct builds tensely, with ominous foreboding of a bad end point coming. When it does happen, the violent results are sudden and hideous.
Nightcrawler is also a biting commentary on the TV news culture itself. The daily news cycle is a ravenous beast that must be constantly fed with new red meat stories in order to attract viewers and gain ratings. Viewers are drawn to the most sensational video material. We can't look away from the graphic scenes of carnage in spite of ourselves. TV news exploits this for its own commercial benefit.
The cycle goes on, day after day, always seeking the next new raw spectacle to report. This is the other side of the screen from Lou Bloom's amoral camera lens. And it all never stops coming.
Lou Bloom is a freelance video shooter who makes a living selling raw video footage of car crashes, fires, and violent crime scenes to local TV stations in Los Angeles. He makes contact with a female news director eager to buy the most sensational footage Bloom can supply.
Bloom is a manipulative, ruthless competitor. He is essentially a sociopathic personality with no internal moral workings beyond his own obsessive personal goals. He begins to cross all ethical and legal boundaries in his pursuit of the most graphic video images to sell.
Bloom's manic conduct builds tensely, with ominous foreboding of a bad end point coming. When it does happen, the violent results are sudden and hideous.
Nightcrawler is also a biting commentary on the TV news culture itself. The daily news cycle is a ravenous beast that must be constantly fed with new red meat stories in order to attract viewers and gain ratings. Viewers are drawn to the most sensational video material. We can't look away from the graphic scenes of carnage in spite of ourselves. TV news exploits this for its own commercial benefit.
The cycle goes on, day after day, always seeking the next new raw spectacle to report. This is the other side of the screen from Lou Bloom's amoral camera lens. And it all never stops coming.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Uneasy Suspense in TWO FACES OF JANUARY
Two Faces of January, now out on DVD, is a deceptive movie that mixes intriguing character drama with uneasy, slow building suspense.
Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, the movie is set in Greece in the early Sixties. Three main characters come into accidental contact. Chester McFarland, middle-aged, and his much younger wife, Collette, are seemingly normal tourists in Athens. Rydal Keener is a young American ex-pat working as a tour guide while running minor money cons on the side.
In reality, Chester is an embezzler on the run after stealing investment funds from clients. Rydal is openly attracted to Collette as the three of them become acquainted. When Chester gets involved in an unexpected death, Rydal impulsively agrees to abet the couple's hasty flight to Crete to avoid the police.
Why does Rydal get himself entangled in a crime? Why does Chester allow Rydal to hang around with them, despite his obvious flirtation with Collette? This unstable triangle moves tensely toward an outcome we are never sure of. The plot has an edgy unpredictability that generates apprehension of something dangerous coming, but what is it?
Whether you read the Highsmith novel or see the movie version, Two Faces of January is a nice choice for fans of chilly, ominous suspense dramas.
Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, the movie is set in Greece in the early Sixties. Three main characters come into accidental contact. Chester McFarland, middle-aged, and his much younger wife, Collette, are seemingly normal tourists in Athens. Rydal Keener is a young American ex-pat working as a tour guide while running minor money cons on the side.
In reality, Chester is an embezzler on the run after stealing investment funds from clients. Rydal is openly attracted to Collette as the three of them become acquainted. When Chester gets involved in an unexpected death, Rydal impulsively agrees to abet the couple's hasty flight to Crete to avoid the police.
Why does Rydal get himself entangled in a crime? Why does Chester allow Rydal to hang around with them, despite his obvious flirtation with Collette? This unstable triangle moves tensely toward an outcome we are never sure of. The plot has an edgy unpredictability that generates apprehension of something dangerous coming, but what is it?
Whether you read the Highsmith novel or see the movie version, Two Faces of January is a nice choice for fans of chilly, ominous suspense dramas.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
WORLD WAR Z An Outstanding Horror Movie
The movie version of World War Z is everything a great Horror movie should be: smart, fast moving, and frightening. Although much of the political and military detail in the earlier novel had to be left out, the movie retains the scary core story.
The movie opens like a bullet with a mass panic scene on the traffic-jammed streets of downtown Philadelphia. From there, it charges immediately into an emergency situation of a spreading pandemic of undead human predators.
What makes World War Z distinctive is its portrayal of the zombie threat on a massive, worldwide scale. These zombies are fast, aggressive, and can work together like an insect colony to overrun everything. The mass attack scenes in Philadelphia and at the walled fortress of Jerusalem are truly epic and thrilling.
This movie is a perfect combination of two latent modern fears: fear of human overpopulation, and fear of a sudden pandemic disease that will sweep through society and across the planet. The looming threat comes from too many other people crowding around us ever more densely all the time.
World War Z is an example of the disturbing exploration of our subconscious fears that the Horror genre can offer. We need more outstanding Horror movies like this one.
BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees
The movie opens like a bullet with a mass panic scene on the traffic-jammed streets of downtown Philadelphia. From there, it charges immediately into an emergency situation of a spreading pandemic of undead human predators.
What makes World War Z distinctive is its portrayal of the zombie threat on a massive, worldwide scale. These zombies are fast, aggressive, and can work together like an insect colony to overrun everything. The mass attack scenes in Philadelphia and at the walled fortress of Jerusalem are truly epic and thrilling.
This movie is a perfect combination of two latent modern fears: fear of human overpopulation, and fear of a sudden pandemic disease that will sweep through society and across the planet. The looming threat comes from too many other people crowding around us ever more densely all the time.
World War Z is an example of the disturbing exploration of our subconscious fears that the Horror genre can offer. We need more outstanding Horror movies like this one.
BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Horror Movies - A Dying Genre?
Back in 2009, this blog did a post asking if the Horror movie genre had itself become one of the walking dead lately. Not much has changed since then.
We still get too much recycling of well-worn stereotype plots. How many more vampire and zombie retreads do we need to see? How many more formula slasher movies that kill off victims by ever-gorier methods?
Occasionally, a fresh new take on horror themes will appear. The creepy paranoia of The Ring, an import from Japanese horror films. The pandemic hysteria of 28 Days Later. The claustrophobic intensity of Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.
Sadly, these inventive breakthroughs are all too rare. Last year's Insidious was an unsettling portrayal of hidden demonic forces around us. 2012 has so far offered only Cabin in the Woods, a sardonic commentary on the empty nihilism of the whole slasher movie format.
If the Horror movie genre is to revitalize itself, it needs to get off a stale, dead-end road and find vivid new ways to portray the elemental fears of human existence in modern society. That's what the Horror genre is there for, after all.
We still get too much recycling of well-worn stereotype plots. How many more vampire and zombie retreads do we need to see? How many more formula slasher movies that kill off victims by ever-gorier methods?
Occasionally, a fresh new take on horror themes will appear. The creepy paranoia of The Ring, an import from Japanese horror films. The pandemic hysteria of 28 Days Later. The claustrophobic intensity of Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.
Sadly, these inventive breakthroughs are all too rare. Last year's Insidious was an unsettling portrayal of hidden demonic forces around us. 2012 has so far offered only Cabin in the Woods, a sardonic commentary on the empty nihilism of the whole slasher movie format.
If the Horror movie genre is to revitalize itself, it needs to get off a stale, dead-end road and find vivid new ways to portray the elemental fears of human existence in modern society. That's what the Horror genre is there for, after all.
Friday, August 12, 2011
London Riots Predicted in HARRY BROWN
The ugly violence of the recent riots in London was literally predicted in last year's bleak, angry crime drama "Harry Brown."
The movie, now on DVD, stars Michael Caine as a retired senior who lives locked inside his apartment like a frightened rabbit in an urban neighborhood under siege by vicious young thugs.
When the old man's best friend is brutally beaten to death by the gangs, Harry Brown gets a gun and goes on a rampage of his own.
The frustrated English police go in force against the territory of the thugs in what turns into an all-out urban war. The street battles are graphic, leading to the shocking deaths of police officers themselves.
There are no answers in the movie, only ugly questions about the breakdown of the rule of law and social order in a confrontation with an amoral, violent underclass.
"Harry Brown" is a disturbing, nightmarish movie. Unfortunately, it is now the face of reality on the streets of England.
The movie, now on DVD, stars Michael Caine as a retired senior who lives locked inside his apartment like a frightened rabbit in an urban neighborhood under siege by vicious young thugs.
When the old man's best friend is brutally beaten to death by the gangs, Harry Brown gets a gun and goes on a rampage of his own.
The frustrated English police go in force against the territory of the thugs in what turns into an all-out urban war. The street battles are graphic, leading to the shocking deaths of police officers themselves.
There are no answers in the movie, only ugly questions about the breakdown of the rule of law and social order in a confrontation with an amoral, violent underclass.
"Harry Brown" is a disturbing, nightmarish movie. Unfortunately, it is now the face of reality on the streets of England.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Coen Brothers Movie Asks Big Questions
Two recurring themes run through the movies of Joel and Ethan Coen. Fatalism and Absurdity. Their latest movie, "A Serious Man," embodies both themes.
The main character, Larry Gopnick, is a college professor in a mid-life crisis, beset by a scourge of adversity: divorce, tenure threat, no money. Larry is trying to figure out why all this is happening to him and what his own life means.
Science and Religion provide no answers. Larry teaches quantum physics, but his whole blackboard full of equations only proves that nothing in reality is known for certain.
The three Rabbis he consults offer only absurd advice. One babbles about the sheer wondrous reality of a parking lot. The next rabbi sees life as an unknowable, perverse mystery. The oldest rabbi sage quotes lyrics from a Jefferson Airplane song.
Larry is left to find his own meaning for his life. The movie ending is ominous. Larry's doctor calls with bad news about an x-ray. A dangerous tornado funnel is approaching the area. The precariousness of human life remains always.
Larry's struggles may remind some of the Book of Job. But the movie more closely reflects the bleak fatalism of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
"A Serious Man" doesn't give us any answers, only serious questions to think about long afterward.
BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees
The main character, Larry Gopnick, is a college professor in a mid-life crisis, beset by a scourge of adversity: divorce, tenure threat, no money. Larry is trying to figure out why all this is happening to him and what his own life means.
Science and Religion provide no answers. Larry teaches quantum physics, but his whole blackboard full of equations only proves that nothing in reality is known for certain.
The three Rabbis he consults offer only absurd advice. One babbles about the sheer wondrous reality of a parking lot. The next rabbi sees life as an unknowable, perverse mystery. The oldest rabbi sage quotes lyrics from a Jefferson Airplane song.
Larry is left to find his own meaning for his life. The movie ending is ominous. Larry's doctor calls with bad news about an x-ray. A dangerous tornado funnel is approaching the area. The precariousness of human life remains always.
Larry's struggles may remind some of the Book of Job. But the movie more closely reflects the bleak fatalism of the Book of Ecclesiastes.
"A Serious Man" doesn't give us any answers, only serious questions to think about long afterward.
BEACH RATING: 4 Palm Trees
Friday, July 17, 2009
Horror Movies: All But Dead?
The Horror Movie genre has itself become one of the walking dead lately.
Seen a really interesting, inventive horror movie recently? That's right, nobody else has either.
The genre has degenerated into formula slasher junk, remakes of tired franchise series, and comic-horror spoofs.
How many more tedious revisits to vampire or zombie characters do we have to be subjected to?
How far back do we have to go to find a horror movie with any kind of fresh concept? 28 Days Later? The Ring? Blair Witch Project?
What was the last imaginative creature feature to come out? The Host? Jeepers Creepers? Mimic?
The last slasher film with any glimmer of an actual thought was The Strangers. But not in a good way. In that movie, the attackers are anonymous, practically faceless strangers. Why did they do it? "Because we could," one of them answers. They drive away unknown in an old pickup. There are no consequences.
The Strangers is amoral and nihilistic. It represents a final dead-end road of sadism for its own sake. If the Horror Movie is to survive, it needs to get off that road and find new ways to portray the elemental fears of modern human existence.
Otherwise, the genre will become its own last, mutilated victim.
Seen a really interesting, inventive horror movie recently? That's right, nobody else has either.
The genre has degenerated into formula slasher junk, remakes of tired franchise series, and comic-horror spoofs.
How many more tedious revisits to vampire or zombie characters do we have to be subjected to?
How far back do we have to go to find a horror movie with any kind of fresh concept? 28 Days Later? The Ring? Blair Witch Project?
What was the last imaginative creature feature to come out? The Host? Jeepers Creepers? Mimic?
The last slasher film with any glimmer of an actual thought was The Strangers. But not in a good way. In that movie, the attackers are anonymous, practically faceless strangers. Why did they do it? "Because we could," one of them answers. They drive away unknown in an old pickup. There are no consequences.
The Strangers is amoral and nihilistic. It represents a final dead-end road of sadism for its own sake. If the Horror Movie is to survive, it needs to get off that road and find new ways to portray the elemental fears of modern human existence.
Otherwise, the genre will become its own last, mutilated victim.
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