2012
Rated R
115 minutes

***

At first glance, “Disconnect” seems a cautionary tale about the many dangers of the Internet. The characters in the film are all negatively affected in real life by their online interactions. But the reality is that people have never been that great at dealing with each other. The Internet only makes interpersonal relationships seem easier.

There are three loosely interconnected stories in “Disconnect.” Cindy (Paula Patton) and Derek (Alexander Skarsgard) are struggling to cope with the sudden death of their infant son. Instead of turning to each other, they each turn to a different mode of digital escapism. She bares her soul to a purported widower in a grief support chat room while he numbs himself with online gambling. Though it’s never clear whose activities are responsible for the ensuing identity theft that leaves them broke, the Internet Crime Investigator they hire suggests that Cindy’s chat partner is to blame. So when the police are unable to help, they decide to take matters into their own hands.

Meanwhile, Mike the aforementioned Investigator (Frank Grillo), himself a widower, fails to connect with his teenage son, Jason. With the help (and influence) of his friend, Jason (Colin Ford) takes his frustration out on a classmate named Ben (Jonah Bobo) by posing as a female admirer on Facebook. But when Jason uses some of his own personal details in their heart-to-heart chats, he takes a shine to the sensitive loner and is wracked with guilt when their prank results in tragedy.

Ben’s dad, Rich (Jason Bateman), struggles to figure out exactly when he and his son became strangers and Ben’s sister (Haley Ramm) agonizes over never standing up for him when she had the chance. Ben’s mother (Hope Davis) doesn’t have a whole lot to do here other than give looks of consternation. This is a rare weak point in the otherwise excellent script.

The final thread involves an ambitious television reporter (Andrea Riseborough) who abuses the rapport she has forged with a teenage sex cam prostitute (Max Thieriot) in pursuit of her big break. The results are devastating for both parties in ways they could never have imagined.

There is a paranoid read of this film, but I believe it exists only for people who are already apprehensive about the World Wide Web. Though all of the scenarios in Andrew Stern’s script are based on true stories, they could have happened in a pre-wired world. The details would be different, but the results wouldn’t be. This film isn’t about the hazards of the Internet so much as it’s about what can happen to people who withdraw and/or aren’t honest with one another.

That’s what makes “Disconnect” so disturbing. It’s not that the Internet is eroding society. The Internet merely magnifies the pre-existing emotional erosion of humanity. Identity theft is just another outlet for the age-old grift. Before cyber-bullying, there was regular bullying. As long as teenagers have existed, they have refused to tell their parents anything about their lives. Journalists have always exploited people for a good story. As long as babies have been dying, couples have let their grief tear them apart.

It’s not all doom and gloom. “Disconnect” doesn’t overlook the positive aspects of the information superhighway. Rich actually learns more about his son through his Facebook profile than he ever would have gotten out of him in a conversation. Cindy and Derek are at first understandably mortified when their Internet histories are exposed to one another. But after they have time to process the information, they are able to use it as a jumping off point for reconnection.

Director Henry Alex Rubin (“Murderball”) brings a Soderbergh sensibility to his storytelling. That’s not always a good thing, mind you. But it works here. There were a couple of moments when I thought the narrative was going to dip into melodrama, but despite an editing misstep at the climax, they managed to keep things on the side of realism. The interconnectedness of the stories seems like a contrivance at first, but in a world in which we can direct message celebrities on Twitter, we really are just a click away from one another.

The performances are excellent all around but Jason Bateman is particularly engaging. He has always excelled at comedy (even when the scripts were complete tripe), but it’s clearly not the only trick up his sleeve. I guess all those very special episodes of “The Hogan Family” finally paid off.

Colin Ford has had a lot of practice looking tortured as Young Sam Winchester on “Supernatural.” But he’s not the only minor in this film with major talent. The days of Ron Howard cutesiness are over. Child actors are now expected to bring the drama as much as any of their adult colleagues.

As you may have surmised, “Disconnect” isn’t exactly a fun movie. It doesn’t necessarily bare repeat viewings. I’m fairly certain there isn’t a single joke in the entire two hours. But, as my husband noted, a movie doesn’t have to be fun to work. Movies like this haunt you for days. The Internet isn’t malevolent, but it’s comprised of humans and we don’t always use our free will for good. “Disconnect” makes you want to be a better person both online and IRL.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct). 

April 19, 2013
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2013
Rated R
141 minutes

*****

Proving that he was no one hit wonder, Derek Cianfrance follows up “Blue Valentine” with a stunning slow-burn epic about fathers and sons and how one mistake can having a rippling effect that taints the lives of everyone it touches. “The Place Beyond the Pines” is an ambitious film and it has every opportunity to slip into insufferable melodrama. But Cianfrance and his brilliant ensemble remain in perfect control as the story hurls forward. Don’t worry guys. They’ve got this.

Cianfrance turns chronological storytelling on its ear by trisecting the film, shifting focus from Gosling to Cooper to the resulting teenagers whose fates were set in motion in the same moment. We start in late-nineties Schenectady with Handsome Luke (Gosling), a non-ironically nicknamed motorcycle stunt driver in a travelling carnival, who runs into Romina, a one-night-stand (Eva Mendes) from his last visit. As he escorts her home, they have an awkward conversation in which Romina reveals that she has a man. She just wanted to see Luke one more time.

Curiosity piqued, Luke returns to her house the next day only to come face to face with a baby just old and blonde enough to be his. Suddenly struck with a sense of responsibility, Luke decides he must stick around and provide for the child, even though Romina doesn’t need or want him to. He takes her resistance as a challenge and sets off to find gainful employment. But “gainful employment” means something different to a carnie stunt driver (namely crimes). Under the tutelage of a mechanic named Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), Luke successfully knocks off a couple of banks before getting increasingly adrenaline-drunk and sloppy. This leads to a run-in with rookie cop, Avery (Bradley Cooper) that changes everything.

In Avery’s narrative, he struggles to find the right side of accountability to the detriment of his marriage and career. And then the story jumps fifteen years to present-day when Avery and Luke’s sons have a chance meeting of Shakespearean proportions, and strike up a friendship far more significant and volatile than either of them realize. Avery Jr. (A.J.) buries his identity crisis under a veneer of Guidoism. Meanwhile, Luke’s son, Jason can’t stop obsessing about his origins despite a healthy home life.

In case you couldn’t tell, I loved the crap out of this movie. Cianfrance has crafted a gripping meditation on paternal identity and fuzzy morality. And he cast it perfectly. I’ll be damned if Ryan Gosling isn’t the most fascinating actor working today. Though there are undeniable similarities between “Pine’s” Handsome Luke and the Driver in “Drive”, it’s less typecasting and more a chance for Gosling to expound on a very complex character study. At this point in his career, it seems Gosling is utterly incapable of making poor choices.

Bradley Cooper isn’t doing too shabby himself. In “Pines,” he tops his Academy Award nominated performance in “Silver Lining’s Playbook” and is poised to become the next big exceedingly handsome character actor.

“The Place Beyond the Pines” isn’t the Gosling and Cooper show. Though Gosling’s supernatural magnetism drives the first 1/3 of the film, it does not dominate it. This film is a true ensemble, garnished with flawless performances from the likes of Eva Mendes, Mahershala Ali, Ben Mendelsohn and Ray Liotta (though Liotta IS type-cast). The kids (Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen) deftly wield some pretty weighty dramatic battleaxes as the embodiments of parental nightmares. My one criticism is that I wouldn’t have minded seeing a bit more of Romina, the lone female in this artistic sausage party. Mendes has never been better and her chemistry with (real-life boyfriend) Gosling is incontestable.

Not to sound too much like Stefan, but this movie has everything: A dense script, interesting camera work, a graceful soundtrack, flawless acting, action, violence, romance, some well-timed jokes and a dancing dog. It’s so suspenseful that the dramatic themes sneak in almost unnoticed until you find them punching you in the gut. And then that pain stays with you. It’s as much a cautionary tale as it is a story about inevitability. Though one thing’s for certain: Ladies, never have unprotected sex with a drifter, no matter how much he looks like Ryan Gosling.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

April 5, 2013
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2013
Unrated
103 minutes

***

It seems like a great number of adults forget what it was like to be a teenager. Maybe it’s because they somehow got out of that period unscathed. Maybe they’re suppressing some serious trauma. Perhaps the modern clothes and music that they don’t understand distract them into thinking “I was never like THAT.”

But they were. We all were. I haven’t forgotten. And as long as films continue to accurately depict the horror show that is high school, I don’t see how I ever could. There are films that romanticize it to some degree (e.g. “The Breakfast Club”) and films that fantasize about ways to survive it (e.g. “Heathers”). And then there’s Michel Gondry’s “The We and the I,” a flawed, but still chillingly accurate illustration of that hormonal war that drafts every single one of us on our way to becoming fully realized humans.

Gondry is a singular director who clearly wants to try everything. The one connection amongst his incredibly diverse body of work is that each film is unlike any other contribution to whatever genre it falls into. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was a reinvention of the romantic comedy. “Dave Chapelle’s Block Party” was a music documentary that focused more on the community that music creates than on the music itself. “The We and the I” is Gondry’s version of a John Hughes film. It’s partly scripted, partly non-fiction and wholly genuine.

It’s the last day of high school and the students enjoy a brief moment of free air before boarding a tinier version of the social prison they’ve been sentenced to for four years. The only thing that separates this city bus from a school bus is the (reluctant) presence of civilians. It’s enough to make a masturbating hobo (more prevalent on a public bus than you might think) seem quaint.

It’s not long before the scant grownup commuters, unable to ride in their preferred collective invisibility, evacuate the budding war zone. But there’s no escape for most of these kids. Not yet. They’re still trapped inside their awkward, ragingly hormonal bodies. The bus is a microcosm of their teenage social lives and it’s god-awful for every single one of them, from the lowliest nerd to the popular kids who reign over the rear seats.

For two years, Gondry worked with students at The Point, a community arts center in the South Bronx, to create these characters. Though Gondry drew up a twenty-page outline (along with Jeffrey Grimshaw and Paul Proch) to keep the narrative on track, the kids all play themselves. The final script was a collaboration of Gondry’s own recollections of youth and the true back-stories of these urban students, where there were numerous parallels. While there are certainly some striking differences between the socioeconomics of the South Bronx versus, say, a high school in France, Gondry doesn’t focus on any of that. Instead, he highlights the universality of being a teenager.

No one is safe. In the world of a teenager, there’s no such thing as personal property. Journals are snatched away, ridiculed and ripped up. Backpacks are thrown out the window. Clothes are ruined by pudding. A guitar is smashed, which is fine for the rock and roll star that can afford another, but a tragedy for a kid who probably toiled for months to buy that one. The fact that it’s the last day of school creates a more intense interaction between the students. For some, it’s the last time they will see each other and that makes them more honest and emotional. The kids turn on each other in an instant. They’re balls of Id banging together in a confined space. Not much happens, plot-wise. But somehow it’s simultaneously compelling and horrifying, like one of those abused farm animals videos that vegans like to make.

Of course, certain fabrications were necessary to achieve that level of “realness.” The actual bus ride doesn’t take nearly as long as the film’s 103-minute running time. Gondry employs his signature whimsy in flashbacks and YouTube videos that fill the audience in on the back-story. The prevalence of cell phones may date the film, but even before every teenager had one, they still managed to spread gossip like wildfire. No secret stayed secret very long.

Though the film takes place in modern day, Gondry got the idea from a memorable bus ride in 90s Paris, during which twenty or so students piled on at the same stop and exited slowly, with the dynamic changing after each departure. At that age, they’re only just learning how to be introspective and how important that skill is in interacting with others. They have to be separated from “the We” to become “the I.”

In order to survive high school, you have to either blend in, or defiantly stand out. There is no in between. It really does get better. But it’s not hard to see how escape can seem impossible. Teenagers are teenagers no matter their socioeconomic background. They’re vulnerable and cocky, selfish and casually cruel. They have yet to realize how their actions affect those around them, yet nearly everything that happens TO them, from getting invited to the right parties to sexual assault, carries the exact same (substantial) emotional weight.

The film can feel tedious when some of the less natural performers are on screen. It is also a bit repetitive at times, (especially with the use of Young M.C.’s “Bust a Move”) but that repetition also lends itself to a sort of rhythmic editing. Gondry cut his teeth on music videos after all.

Regardless of its problems, “The We and the I” is required viewing. It very well may be one of the most important films about teenagers ever made. It’s crucial that we grownups don’t forget our teenage years. If adults don’t show teenagers empathy, how are they ever going to learn it themselves?

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

March 22, 2013
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2013
Rated PG-13
130 minutes

**

No one has ever accused Sam Raimi of trying to be an auteur. The guy makes movies, not films. The bottom line is that he wants his audience to have fun. Raimi’s brand of fun usually involves a smartass anti-hero with a particular skill set that happens to come in handy for fighting evil. “Oz the Great and Powerful” is basically a PG version of “Army of Darkness” on mushrooms. Despite the presence of greatness (i.e. Michelle Williams and Rachel Weiss), it is not a great film. But it sure is fun, if you like that sort of thing (I do).

Part homage, part unauthorized prequel to Victor Fleming’s 1939 classic, “Oz the Great and Powerful” has some big shoes to fill. To further complicate matters, they couldn’t even use the shoes you would expect. Iconic images like the ruby slippers, the original Emerald City and even that particular shade of Wicked Witch green were off limits. They managed to work around these elements and still included tons of references. But the way they had to go about putting them in definitely gave the entire film a “red-headed step child” tone.

Though that didn’t seem to bother Sam Raimi much. He clearly had the time of his life making this movie. He pulls out all the Raimi-esque stops including swirling vortexes, sharp objects flying at the protagonist’s head, a preparing-for-battle montage, cackling demonic women and even Bruce Campbell. There are some genuinely comedic moments and some unintentional comedy as well. James Franco actually seems to be doing a Bruce Campbell impression in several scenes.

Like “The Wizard of Oz”, the story kicks off in a dusty black and white turn-of-the-(last)century Kansas. There, a sheister by the name of Oscar Diggs (“Oz” to his frenemies) runs a crooked carnival magic show with his put upon assistant (Zach Braff) and a parade of ditzy crowd plants. He’s also been sticking his wand where it doesn’t belong and must unexpectedly escape the wrath of a cuckolded strongman. His getaway transport of choice is (naturally) a hot air balloon that immediately gets swept up in a twister. Fortunately, it’s one of those supernatural porthole twisters that are so prevalent on the Kansas prairie. Suddenly, Oz finds himself in a full color, widescreen land that shares his name. Is it destiny, or an elaborate coma dream?

While we assume that Oz is a real place within the narrative, because of another Kansan who ends up there, the script drops numerous hints that this might all be in Oz’s head. For starters, the first person he meets is a good witch named Theodora (Mila Kunis) who is as naïve as she is beautiful. She wastes no time telling him that he fits the bill for a prophesy about a powerful wizard savior. After defeating the wicked witch, this wizard would rule the land with the hot townie of his choice and do laps in a gold-filled pit that would make Scrooge McDuck jealous.

So confident are the locals in Oz’s abilities that their faith remains in tact even after he tells them that he is probably unqualified for the job. Along the way, he meets other characters who suspiciously recall people from his former life: Finley, a flying monkey who looks and sounds like Zach Braff (much less irritating in simian form), a busted-up China doll named Little China Girl (heh) who resembles a crippled girl from his final carnival audience and Glinda the Good Witch who bares the spitting image of his sweetheart who got away. In fact, the last thing he said to her real-world counterpart was “See you in my dreams”.

Whether these allusions are red herrings or just sloppy screenwriting doesn’t really matter because at least 50% of the enjoyment is in the 3D experience. It’s certainly one of the greatest uses of 3D ever. So much of the picture is in 3D that it continues to feel like it’s taking place inside a diorama long after the paper cutout opening credits. It’s not so much a movie as it is a ride at Disney Land. We are in that hot air balloon with James Franco. We are ballroom dancing with James Franco. We are riding inside a bubble over a poppy field with James Franco. That is some cool shit. But it’s not sustainable beyond a theatrical release. Once you’re sitting on your couch watching a flat image, you’ll no longer be distracted by butterflies fluttering past your head and enormous flowers blooming all around you. You’ll have to pay attention to the plot and the dialog. The spell will be broken.

That’s not to say there’s nothing left to enjoy. But that monkey’s jokes will grate a whole lot more. Those endless blooming flowers will become tedious. Mila Kunis’ god-awful acting will really stand out. That said one of the biggest laughs for me was when Theodora flips out in a mirror, screaming hysterically at her reflection for what feels like five minutes. It was like an outtake from “Black Swan”. If Kunis displayed that level of camp in the rest of her scenes, her performance wouldn’t have paled so much in comparison to the flawless Rachel Weiss as Evanora, Theodora’s sinister sister that coaxes her to the dark side.

Kunis suffers from the same affliction that plagues the likes of Drew Barrymore and Keanu Reeves. She just can’t shake that California accent. (Worse yet, she lacks their innate likability.) Things would have been vastly improved with Kunis in the bland Glinda the Good Witch role, having little more to do than float around gracefully and offer words of encouragement. Michelle Williams possesses the necessary versatility to convincingly transition from innocent to evil. But she was utterly squandered for no discernible reason other than the color of her hair. Hair color can be altered, people. Bad performances cannot.

James Franco isn’t entirely in the clear either. Even with all of his Franco charm, he just can’t pull off the necessary fast-talking suaveness that a truly effective con man requires, nor does his redemption seem entirely genuine. It’s not the worst performance in the world, but it is, at times, glaringly lacking.

One place where casting excelled was with the background actors. There are some of the most amazing extras in this movie. There are at least five hams in every crowd scene. So while the lack of 3D will majorly detract from the overall quality, the extras bump the re-watch factor back up a bit.

The people who will enjoy this movie the most are fans of “Army of Darkness”, kids who aren’t easily frightened, Steampunk families and stoners. Everyone else will likely walk away unsatisfied. Although, as I was exiting the theater, some dudes behind me were discussing all the dirty things they would like to do to Mila Kunis, despite having hated the movie. So I guess people with Mila Kunis boners might also wish to apply.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

March 8, 2013
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

2013
Rated R
106 minutes

**

After a quarter century of film directing, Steven Soderbergh’s has chosen “Side Effects” as his alleged theatrical swan song. Teaming up once again with screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (“Contagion,” “The Informant!”), he shot and edited the film himself under assumed names. With that pedigree and level of control, I would surmise that Soderbergh made exactly the film he wanted to make. That’s why I’m so puzzled by the tonal shift that occurs right in the middle of what seemed to be a biting yet candid exploration of the anti-depressant industry. There’s giving your audience twists and turns and then there’s pulling the rug out from under them. At the end of the day, it’s Soderbergh’s prerogative. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

To be fair, the film’s opening is a sign of things to come. After an uncomfortably long wide shot that eventually zooms into an apartment window and finally finds a set of bloody footprints, I can’t say he didn’t warn me. But the film immediately jumps back in time three months to a story that is certainly dramatic, but not conspicuously noirish. Our protagonist is Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”), a frail, beguiling girl who puts on a happy face to welcome her husband home on the day of his release from prison. Martin (Channing Tatum) served four years for insider trading and his little mistake cost his family the lush life to which they had become accustomed.

Emily’s crippling depression, instigated by her husband’s arrest, but probably exacerbated by a chemical imbalance, sours their happy reunion. After all, someone in their right mind wouldn’t intentionally drive their car directly into a wall. Having miraculously survived the accident with only a couple of bruises, Emily convinces the hospital shrink, Dr. Banks (Jude Law) that it was just a momentary loss of control and not likely to happen again. He lets her go under the condition that she visits him twice a week and agrees to start a course of anti-depressants.

Emily tries the gamut of available drugs, but experiences crippling side effects with each one. Finally, several influential parties convince Dr. Banks to prescribe a new drug called Ablixa, and everything turns around for Emily. But Ablixa does cause one, very inconvenient side effect: Sleep walking. It starts with preparing midnight snacks and ends with the aforementioned bloody footprints. She always awakes with no memory of what she did while asleep. So how can she be held responsible for something a drug made her do?

Here is the possibility for a compelling courtroom drama that examines every aspect of the anti-depressant industry. And for a while the film seems to be heading in that direction, introducing the perspective of the patients, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies. It poses several difficult questions: Is tricking our brain into being happy really the best course of action? How much does the medical community really care about what happens to their patients? How can one mistake based on improper research ruin so many lives and careers while the companies that release the drug always emerge unscathed?

Dr. Banks experiences a brief existential crisis because he really believed in the drugs. He relies on them not only in his own practice but in his personal life as well. So when the drugs fail, his belief system fails. He can’t accept the idea that his entire philosophy might be wrong and that he could actually be responsible for some very bad things. Now that’s an interesting film.

But that’s not the film we get. Quite suddenly, “Side Effects” becomes a psychological thriller. Someone is lying! It might be the beautiful, but troubled girl who was taking the drugs (I wouldn’t normally consider the character’s appearance were it not actually mentioned as a motivation in the film). Or is it the career-driven psychiatrist who prescribed them? Or maybe it’s the sexy former doctor of the troubled girl who vouched for the drug? Dr. Victoria Seibert (Catherine Zeta-Jones) sports black thick frames on her glasses with her hair in a tight bun while her constantly parted lips hint that the glasses could come off and the hair could tumble down around her shoulders at any minute (probably while her button-up shirt tears open in the heat of passion). In retrospect, Dr. Siebert is total foreshadowing for the film we end up with.

It’s difficult to get into detail about everything that goes wrong with “Side Effects” without massive spoilers. But trust me when I tell you that the mid-stream re-direction is jarring and disappointing if you were enjoying the story you thought Soderbergh was telling. The Emily of the first half is a riveting character. Lots of other actresses have portrayed depression and some have won awards for it. But those performances are generally over the top. Those women celebrate their crazy. Emily is trying desperately to get a hold of her depression. To fix herself so that she can get back to living her life. This is the more common face of depression than the one usually represented on celluloid. Mara’s performance never disappoints, but her character certainly does.

I won’t spoil whom she turns out to be, but I will say that it is nothing new in cinema and it’s not terribly flattering to women in general. Granted Soderbergh rarely lets any of his characters off the hook. He doesn’t seem to have a very high opinion of humanity on the whole.

But he sure does love a twist. The story gleefully doles them out with rapid succession in the second half, making the plot and characters more convoluted, but less complex. I guess the biggest twist is that the film started out being something I liked and ended up being something I didn’t.

Originally published on FilmThreat.com (now defunct).

February 8, 2013
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: filmthreat . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment