Review Round-up (Part I)

As promised, here are a few shortened reviews of some 2013 releases I've been catching up with in the past couple of weeks. While I'm not thrilled about doing it like this, time constraints and a massive viewing backlog have made it a necessity. More to come soon. 

Drinking Buddies (Dir. Joe Swanberg, Running time: 90 min., Rating: R)

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

Give Drinking Buddies credit for this: It's real. Almost uncomfortably, amusingly and sometimes unevenly real. What it isn't is your typical romantic comedy. That alone should be cause for celebration, even if it's  a muted one considering how low-key and casual the project feels (a compliment). That much of its script was supposedly improvised isn't much of a surprise. Brewery co-workers and best friends Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) have their feelings for each other tested over a long weekend despite both being attached to significant others Chris (Ron Livingston) and Jill (Anna Kendrick). In terms of working and dating life in your thirties, director Joe Swanberg really has it nailed down and kudos to giving the two major characters an occupation that's actually interesting and heavily informs the narrative in an intriguing way.

The two standouts are clearly Wilde and Johnson, both of whom give Indie Spirit worthy performances and come off so naturally endearing together on camera it's impossible not to root for them to cheat (as awful as that sounds). Wilde, especially, has never palyed a character this multi-dimensional before and many will be impressed how easygoing her work is while New Girl star Johnson continues to prove himself underrated as a film actor. Kendrick and Livingston play probably the two most boring people on Earth (intentionally) so that they soldier through this unscathed is a credit to them. Many will probably groan about the non-ending but it's probably one of the more ironic and painfully authentic finishes you'll see for a rom-com, if this can even be considered that. It's more of a low-budget, character driven alternative to the monotony of standard relationship movies. And it works just fine.

Frances Ha (Dir. Noah Baumbach, Running Time: 86 min, Rating: R)

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 
 
"Adorkable" may be the adjective frequently used to describe another current quirky TV character, but it may actually better suit 27-year-old aspiring dancer Frances (Greta Gerwig) who's stumbling and bumbling through her heavily extended post grad-life with an offbeat sense of humor and a giant smile on her face. You can't help but pull for her, even if at times you feel as if you've entered a world not completely comprehensible unless you're on board with Noah Baumbach's black and white universe of mumblecore hipsterdom. I mostly was. It succeeds almost in spite of itself, but most entirely due to Gerwig. When her Brooklynite best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner) decides to pick up and move on with her life, the "undateable" Frances must come to terms with the fact that hers is a mess. A broke, somewhat homeless, and minimally talented dancer with few prospects, she soldiers on, crashing at the pad of creative types Lev (Adam Driver) and Benji (Michael Zegan). A visit to her parents in Cali to a trip to Paris to an attempted return to her college days upstate all mostly result in disaster. She's like a female, less talented Llewyn Davis, but lacking the depression.

It's rare to find a film and protagonist that's both so endearing and irritating at the same time. But then again, this is the guy who made The Squid and The Whale and Greenberg. Baumbach's clearly channeling Manhattan-era Woody Allen here but what's funny is how I actually enjoyed this more than anything Allen's done in the past decade (which admittedly isn't saying much). A scene with an elated Frances running down the streets with David Bowie's "Modern Love" blasting over the soundtrack is undeniably joyous. It's the one film on here I'd most quickly revisit despite being nowhere near the strongest and a mixed bag. So that says something. Baumbach's never made anything I didn't care for and this continues the streak.

Blackfish (Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Running Time: 83 min., Rating: PG-13)

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

There's a scene in the documentary Blackfish that's almost impossible to watch. As baby Orca whale Tilikum is captured by seaman off the coast of Iceland in 1983 with his family crying in the background. A fisherman on the expedition is interviewed, near tears as he regretfully looks back on it as his lowest moment as a human being. It's tough to argue, but he's hardly the only guilty party here. The most fascinating aspect of this doc is what should have been obvious to everyone isn't until now. Of course, keeping killer whales in in captivity and treating them like trained circus animals has to be dangerous, right? And yet we've all been conditioned by SeaWorld since youth to believe it's okay. I'm usually opposed to documentaries that take a stand for "causes" and animal activists certainly haven't been the most level-headed in the past, but this isn't a propaganda piece. The facts speak for themselves.

What we're shown is damning. From the chilling testimonials from former trainers to the horrifying actual footage of whale attacks (one escape by an experienced diver is a heart-stopper), the only question remaining at the end isn't how these whales could do this, but how they couldn't given the treatment they received.  The abused Tilikum would go on to kill two trainers, the second of whom was Dawn Brancheau in 2010. SeaWorld caused it. And then they sat on it, before blaming her. At best they're guilty of animal cruelty. At worst, they're murderers. It's a shock they're still in business, even if the release of this film justifiably puts the company's entire future in jeopardy. It's proof that documentaries can cause a serious, seismic shift in how we look at things. As for these SeaWorld executives? They should be tossed in the tank. I was surprised just how emotionally involved and outraged I felt watching it. This is documentary filmmaking in its purest, most powerful form.

The Bling Ring (Dir. Sofia Coppola, Running Time: 90 min., Rating: R)

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

Taking its place alongside Spring Breakers, Pain and Gain and The Wolf of Wall Street, Sofia Coppola's latest is only further proof that 2013 in film will be remembered as the year of materialistic excess and social depravity. Based on real events, The Bling Ring tells the story of a group of celebrity obsessesed California teens who successfully burglarized the homes of Paris Hilton (funny), Audrina Patridge (funny), Megan Fox (still funny) Lindsay Lohan (funnier) and Rachel Bilson (not funny!) And that's pretty much the film, but it's amazing just how much mileage Coppola is able to squeeze out of it. It's supposed to be a satire, but that's not glaringly obvious, which is both its biggest strength and weakness.

There are points when you think it's entirely possible the director is enjoying herself a little too much, feeling almost too comfortable in this setting to really go for the jugular like Harmony Korine did with Spring Breakers. But there is a lot to appreciate here, starting with newcomer Katie Chang's performance as ringleader Rebecca and Israel Brussard's work as Marc, the new student sucked into her vortex and yearning for acceptance. He's really the only character with a conscience about what he's doing or comes close to gaining sympathy while Emma Watson's Nikki is by far the most detestable. It wasn't until I saw actual footage of the real person on which the character was based that I realized Watson didn't take it too far and was creepily spot-on with her vacant, airheaded portrayal.

This is the last film shot by the late, great cinematographer Harris Savides and it presents a California that's washed out, depressed and altogether atypical of how it's usually depicted on screen. You also have to appreciate that Sleigh Bells-backed opening title sequence. While I'd agree that the complaints against the film are valid and there's a certain repetitiveness to the break-ins, the hypnotic way it shines a spotlight on the ugliest side of our celebrity obsessed culture makes it a bit more compelling than its superficiality lets on.
      

Safety Not Guaranteed

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeff Garlin
Running Time: 86 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

"Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

It isn't often a film's synopsis is a classified ad, but that ad above is actually based on a real one placed as a gag in a 1997 issue of  Backwoods Home Magazine. It provides the loose inspiration for Safety Not Guaranteed, which shouldn't be considered a time travel movie, at least not in the strictest sense. And yet while this really isn't "about" time travel the entire movie still manages to rest on the "idea" of it. The ad probably could have inspired at least ten equally different but still inspired stories, but director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly still somehow knew the deepest, most interesting angle of approach. That's why criticisms that this becomes just another low-budget indie romance if you take away the time travel element would be wrong. It takes a certain type of person to place an ad like that and also a certain type of person to respond. It's about reading between the lines. Are they really looking for someone to travel back in time with them or it it something else? The answer is more complicated than you'd think going in. Since the nature of traveling through time is built on a desire to go back and change the past it makes sense that anyone this obsessed with the idea would likely be full of regret and have something big to fix. We can all relate, which is why during a movie we can always accept the "idea" behind time travel and then talk about how crazy and unrealistic it is when we get out of the theater. And it is. But someone's desire to isn't. Here's a movie that finally calls us out on that. 

Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a lonely, depressed college grad living at home with her widowed father (Jeff Garlin) while interning at a Seattle magazine for a bitchy boss (Mary Lynn Rajskub). When cocky writer Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) proposes pursuing this lead of a guy putting out a classified ad for a time traveling companion, he chooses Darius and nerdy biology major Arnau (Karan Soni) to join him. But his real motivation for the trip is to hook up with his old high school girlfriend Liz (Jenica Bergere), while dumping all the grunt work on his two lowly interns. The man behind the ad is an eccentric supermarket clerk named Kenneth Callaway (Mark Duplass) and Darius seems to be the only one capable of connecting with him on any level, making her the ideal candidate to pose as his potential time traveling partner. She soon finds out that he's dead serious and is frantically putting the wheels in motion for this mission to take place as their relationship grows closer.  Where he wants to go, why he feels he needs to and how it dovetails with everyone's story, would be giving away too much, but it all together constitutes the essence of the film. With Darius' feelings for Kenneth deepening, she must confront the fact that either this guy is completely crazy and needs help or there could actually be something to his time travel project. It's surprising how much evidence points the latter, while the former still remains very likely. 

There comes a point where it almost ceases to matter whether Kenneth is really telling the truth or not, whether he's sane or not, and of course, whether he's really invented a time machine. The story is about so many other interesting things that his plan becomes the vehicle for which the other characters can find a release. In a sense, they're no different than he his and are going through something similar, but in different ways. All three are dealing with major regret in their past while one of them is still at the point where he's capable of preventing it. For Darius it's the loss of her mother, which seemed to have caused a chain reaction that sent her spiraling into a permanent state of depression that's followed her through high school and college into young adulthood. Haunting Jeff is "the one who got away," leading him to a life of shallow womanizing that's continued into his thirties, a time when many of his contemporaries are settling down. At 22, Arnau still has his whole life ahead of him but won't for long if he doesn't get out there and overcome his fears. If not, he's risking a future as filled with regret as theirs is now. Kenneth's situation is a bit more involved, likely because the details of it are constantly changing, becoming a mystery to everyone but himself. His personal history remains a question mark even past the point the final credits have rolled, despite a finish that's anything but ambiguous.

There's a scene late in the third act where someone from Kenneth's past is tracked down and questioned that's so brutally honest it's almost difficult to watch without cringing. This person says nothing that's overtly malicious, speaking the truth as succinctly and sympathetically as possible, but just hearing it is so hard you're glad he's not there to witness it. It's the the most painful of rejections, cutting right to the bone. If he's making his entire story up, we get why, but if he's being honest about everything, then there's even more to talk about. It also can't be a coincidence the filmmakers chose the year 2001 as his destination point, given all its potential implications. That Kenneth or Darius don't acknowledge this will probably be looked at as some kind of sardonic commentary on self-absorbed young people and maybe that's true but this movie perfectly captures the confusion of your twenties and thirties when you first start seeing things through the rearview mirror, realizing mistakes you made then just might be impossible to undo now. All that's left is what's ahead, and suddenly it's sneaking up on you really fast.

Aubrey Plaza is one of those comedic actresses with a rabid cult of supportive fans who probably want nothing more than for her to carry a truly great movie as its lead. And now she has. My doubts about whether she could do it only stemmed from the uniqueness of the dry, sarcastic, eye-rolling screen persona she's perfected on Parks and Recreation each week. It's great in short bursts but I wasn't so sure it would translate as easily to the big screen without some major adjustments made. What a huge surprise it is then that she gives a performance so sympathetic and sincere, not to mention completely unironic. Yet, she can still call on that trademark dry wit when she needs to, like during her first wacky encounter with Kenneth in the supermarket that's strangely reminiscent of April's interactions with her overgrown kid of a husband Andy on Parks and Rec. Or maybe more accurately, due to the dangerous nature of this mission, Andy's goofy alter ego, FBI agent Burt Macklin, who would probably find this whole thing pretty cool.

Though his name is ubiquitous amongst film buffs alongside his brother Jay as a writer/director, this is the first time we've really gotten a read on Mark Duplass' full range of skills as an actor. And he's staggering, delivering a subtly brilliant turn that doesn't take the easy way out in making this guy either endearing or a lovable doofus. You never pity Kenneth and at points Duplass plays it as if he could legitimately be crazy, or worse yet, really dangerous. And in yet another great role for a TV star, New Girl's Jake Johnson plays sleazy jerk Jeff as, well, a sleazy jerk, at least to start out. But as the story of him trying to win back his ex progresses his arc becomes the most emotional and important, with his performance following suit. Late in the film he has a moment (you'll know it when it arrives) that's not only heartbreaking, but a master class in acting, telling us all we need to know with a single pained expression. Though she is billed in the credits, Kristen Bell's brief appearance still feels shocking, but also integral to what's arguably the film's most pivotal scene. Also integral is the score by Guster's Ryan Milller and his original song contribution, "Big Machine," as both fit the picture's tone like a glove.

This is the feature debut of director Colin Trevorrow, who recently made headlines as one of the filmmakers in heavy talks to helm the upcoming Star Wars sequel. Other than a couple of passing references, his only qualification is that he directed a perfect movie his first time out of the gate. From where I sit, that's about as good a qualification as any. This is distinctly human drama with heart before it's sci-fi, but the great thing is that if you chose to view it as either or neither you can't be wrong. By the end, one definitively wins out, and it's earned. Despite seemingly modest ambitions and a tiny budget under a million, this feels much bigger than most movies twice its cost. And it'll probably resonate deepest for those who never felt like they fit in. Outcasts, rebels, oddballs, weirdos. Call them whatever you want, just as long as it isn't "quirky." These characters are anything but. They suffer real pain, regret and rejection and while there are lots of laughs, Safety Not Guaranteed is also unbearably sad in its honesty, going places you never expected it could.