trendaway.com

Bellflower is an interesting film, overall, but not one that I particularly enjoyed or can recommend. It is pretty cool in a lot of ways, too, but unfortunately its flaws scream a little bit louder than its successes. A dude named Evan Glodell wrote, directed and starred in this film, which is obviously a pretty great accomplishment in and of itself. He apparently modified some gear and ended up with a unique camera that creates a really cool over-saturation of images.

The first half or so of the film is pretty great, interesting and watchable. Then it gets all weird (as my friend John says, “As soon as he had a beard, it went downhill!”). The film’s look is pretty unique (although it did remind me a bit of “Domino”) and switched between vastly different types of looks. I’m not sure if there was any relationship between the type of camera used and character/story/etc, but it looked cool. The dialogue was pretty believable at times, and pretty horrible at others. The story ended up being so extreme and out of left field in the second half, and was kind of confusing with the way the timeline was edited that it ended up being a big mess. After thinking about it a bit, I was able to conclude that it is essentially a story of friendship but unfortunately this is overpowered by explosions, guns, blood, Mad Max, a lot of alcohol and most of all, bad editing.

I do applaud the effort and I’m glad that I saw it, but it certainly doesn’t measure up to a lot of other first-time directors whose work I have seen. I feel like this is kind of a typical “first film” but what I liked, I liked ad will certainly check out whatever Glodell does next.

The Raid was awesome, I loved it. It’s an incredibly well-choreographed, executed and shot film that hardly stops to breathe once the action starts. The story is simple and doesn’t waste too much time setting up the meat of the film, and doesn’t fall prey to a lot of the melodrama that a lot of Asian films suffer from. Also, it’s pretty exciting to see such a bold and well-made film essentially burst out of Indonesia, a country that is not especially well-known for its films, not to mention action films.

I did quite enjoy 2009′s Merantau and it’s pretty cool to see such a good working and personal relationship between director Gareth Edwards and his star, Iko Uwais. They clearly understand and trust each other and I’m really excited to see what the come up with next.

Check out the Q&A videos I took (below) to get some insight from Edwards, Uwais and co-star Joe Taslim, including a Silat demo from Iku Uwais!

I didn’t love Skoonheid (Beauty) but I’m still glad I saw it.

What I didn’t like: I feel like I’ve seen this type of character many times before. There were aspects of it that I thought were different but overall I didn’t think I was seeing anything really new. Maybe if I were in South Africa, I’d feel differently – I’m not sure what the culture is like there. Also, the director mentioned some things that he put in there to show more about the character’s OCD, and I was like, he has OCD? I’m supposed to figure out that he’s OCD because he keeps his office door open?… I didn’t interpret his obsession with Christian as him being OCD – I thought it was just a sexual obsession, or conquest, or something taboo that he had to have. Now that I think of it, though, if it was related to him being OCD then that kind of takes away from the darkness of it, since it’s so easily explained.

What I liked: It was really well shot and acted and it was certainly thoughtful. The pivotal scene was difficult but still very watchable in that “really well done” kind of way. I absolutely loved the opening shot, which a nice long take and totally sets the obsessive tone that we follow along with for the duration of the film. The tension was thick and even though it was quite slow at times, I never knew what Francois was going to do next and if/when he was going to snap.

Urbanized, Gary Hustwit’s latest in his trilogy of design films, had its world premiere yesterday afternoon at Ryerson Theatre. I haven’t seen Objectified yet but I thoroughly enjoyed Helvetica, which I found to be ridiculously interesting and shot much to well for a documentary about a font. Fans of Hustwit’s earlier work, as well as anybody interested in urban planning and city design, should definitely make it out to see this film. Acutally, anybody who’s ever had any kind of thought about anything related to one’s relationship to one’s city should see this. I thought it was pretty incredible, and others in the theatre did, too, as they cried, laughed, cheered and clapped.

Here is the film’s Q&A, in two parts:

Gus Van Sant’s latest, Restless, was written by newcomer Jason Lew and stars Mia Wasikowska and Henry Hopper. It’s a sweet and sad little film and this duo of fresh new screenwriter/seasoned master director, combined with the youthful chemistry between up-and-coming Mia and first-time actor Henry really makes it magical.

Cinematographer Harris Savides (who has worked previously with Van Sant on Milk, Elephant, Last Days, Gerry and Finding Forrester and who did Fincher’s Zodiac, Madonna’s “Rain” video, Greenberg, Birth and Margot at the Wedding, among much more – in other words, he’s brilliant and has worked with some amazing directors) keeps things nice and tight in this film, mainly using close or medium shots of the actors. This, combined with an incredibly warm colour palette, make watching this film a pretty intimate experience. The takes are very relaxed – never too short, and often a bit longer than you realize until it cuts – and the pacing is just spot-on.

I liked Restless a lot. It doesn’t have a lot of surprises but that allows you to really invest yourself and experience the discovery of how things end up the way they do. There’s a lot of dialogue, but a lot of silence, too. (In the Q&A video 3of 4 that I took of the Q&A, we learn that Gus has been experimenting with a technique that Terrence Malick uses, where he shoots versions of scenes with the actors doing everything with no dialogue, and that how not only did he incorporate a bunch of shots from those takes into the film, there is also a full cut of the film done without any speaking. That would be really interesting to see!) It’s quite funny in some parts, too, which isn’t something I’m really used to in a Gus Van Sant film. And I don’t think I’m even going to say about the Japanese kamikaze imaginary friend/ghost.

Hopper did a great job in his film debut but I can’t help thinking that if Gus had directed this twenty years ago, we’d be seeing River Phoenix up there, and he’d blow us away. That being said, I really enjoyed Hopper’s performance (as well as his hair) and Mia is always so striking and a wonder to watch.

Van Sant seems to have taken a liking to the music of Sufjan Stevens, just as he clearly did with Elliott Smith (I had to buy “Wolverine” as soon as I got home). I would be very, very happy to see Sufjan, one of my favourite musical artists, do some original work for one of my favourite film directors, too! (Remember the awkward awesomeness of this?)

Below are my videos of the Q&A, in four parts:

I started The Man from Nowhere (2010, written and directed by Jeong-beom Lee) like I start almost every other Asian action-drama-thriller: I was prepared to be a bit bored at first and then be entertained by some amazingly choreographed action and moments of slapstick/dark humour. This movie did indeed follow this pattern, but ultimately didn’t deliver. Why not? One word: tone.

Where the main flaw in tone reveals itself, and rather quickly, is in one of the main cop characters, who was meant to be the comic relief. He was stupid, clumsy, and irritating. I found him to be much more offensive than the over-the-top cuteness of the little girl, So-Mi (Sae-ron Kim) and will go so far as to say that his character single-handedly ruined the film’s tone and made it seem rather amateurish and unfocused. I wanted to be sucked into a dark story with mysterious characters but that was impossible with this buffoon bumping into stuff all the time and constantly saying stupid things.

The crime bosses were pretty ridiculous, too. They yelled unconvincingly and were laughably un-frightening (but with weapons, which are pretty frightening). They were presented like caricatures and made me roll my eyes.

Nowhere’s look is pretty great, though (in addition to Won Bin, pictured above): there is some creative photography and great use of darkness. There is some nice, stylized violence and great shots, notably the one where the man from nowhere himself, Tae-Sik Cha (Won Bin) is being chased and jumps through the window with the camera following him, kind of like the building-jump in The Bourne Ultimatum, but not as good as that amazing one-shot chase scene with the guy jumping off the ledge in The Secret in Their Eyes (there’s a pretty cool making-of video of that scene here). Anyway, I digress. Some of the other action sequences are pretty memorable, too, but I wish Lee had more confidence in his story and characters to not feel the need to inject all of the unnecessary comedic- and cutesy-relief.

This film had something going for it! The premise, although not inherently original, had promise. The lead had experienced some tragedy and is a legitimately a mysterious anti-hero. The drug and organ-trafficking stuff was pretty harrowing, All-in-all, though, this is ultimately a forgettable film with a few memorable moments.

Julia’s Eyes (2010; directed by Guillem Morales; written by Guillem Morales & Oriol Paulo) is a pretty good suspense movie. I was expecting something more psychological thriller/horror, but it didn’t really present me with anything that was really scary or psychologically disturbing like the trailers suggested.

I enjoyed it, though. There were a few incredibly intense scenes that were filmed in a way to make you feel like you were looking through, er, Julia’s eyes. Some of the techniques I’ve seen before but that didn’t take away from how well they worked.

This film is one of the many that Guillermo del Toro has his producer-hands in and it was a nice treat to have him there to introduce it, along with director Morales and star Belén Rueda.

I watched Eat Pray Love (directed by Ryan Murphy; written by Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt; based on the book by Elizabeth Gilbert) with Lora because I knew she would be the only one that would watch it with me. It was terrible, and I’m glad Lora thought so too. It’s full of sentimental drivel, non-compelling characters and the filmmaker is ridiculously oblivious to how empty this high-brow pretentious tale is.

The only reason I wanted to watch this is because James Franco is in it. (I’m going to assume that this was a simply a paycheck for him.) When he first appeared onscreen, I got goosebumps.

Armadillo (2010; directed by Janus Metz Pedersen; idea by Kasper Torsting) follows a group of young Danish soldiers for six months in a shared Danish/British army base in Afghanistan. Pedersen was present to answer questions about his 2010 Cannes Critic Week’s-winning film.

I didn’t know much about this film going in other than the general premise, but the first thing that struck me was that, after maybe ten minutes had passed, there had still not yet been any voiceover exposition. Not using this standard documentary convention has more of an effect than you’d think. The absence of voiceover, combined with such incredible cinematography and editing, has incredible impact. It made everything seem more real and perhaps even more voyeuristic. It’s strange that a doc that is shot, cut and edited like a narrative actually makes it seem more real.

There’s plenty of controversial subject matter here. Some of the soldiers look so… young. They look so intent on going to Afghanistan but one can’t help but wonder if they realize what they are supposedly there to defend. This is made pretty clear as they routinely trample fields of crops in the village in province of Helmand where they are situated – the crops being the village’s only source of profit.

The biggest controversy, which is apparently still being investigated by Danish Military authorities, is concerning the behaviour of certain individuals during a shootout with Taliban fighters. The actions of the soldiers in the footage can be interpreted as crossing the lines of accepted war conduct as they are possibly engaging in “systematic executions of their Taleban enemies“. The enthusiasm of some of the soliders to kill, in a fashion not unlike the way we see them play games like Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, is not necessarily surprising, and the comparison is quite harrowing.

Controversy aside, this was an incredible sequence in the film, as Pedersen and (I believe steadicam operator Karsten Jacobsen) were literally in the midst of the shootout with their cameras. This combination of real-life proximity to the action, as well as footage taken from some of the soldiers’ helmet-cams, creates a uniquely intense and riveting set piece that one needs to remind themselves of as being completely unstaged and terrifying.

This is a pretty amazing film – it is literally like no other documentary I have seen before. Whether you’re interested in the topic, or the unconventional filmmaking process, or just compelling film in general, Armadillo is certainly worth checking out.

I recorded three videos of Pedersen’s Q&A after the screening:

1/3

2/3

3/3

First-time Canadian director Michael Goldbach brings to life his own screenplay in the stylish teen film Daydream Nation. Kat Dennings leads the cast in a story about love, loss, confusion and isolation. Teenaged death, a teacher-student affair and a serial killer spice up the story and, unlike work seen from less skilled screenwriters, actually have relevance in the big picture.

Dennings’ Caroline is a smart and sassy character who, as the new girl in town, can reinvent herself with nobody being the wiser. She’s all talk, though, and the insecurity and sadness behind the carefree, “anything goes” persona that she exhibits is blessed by a spot-on performance from Dennings. Supporting actors were strong, too, and the story and performances, combined with the snazzy production and good pacing made this a pretty compelling watch.

After viewing the film and then mulling it over for a few days, I feel more affected by the character Thurston (played rather sensitively by Reece Thompson). His spectrum of emotions and his ability to express them are a strong contrast to the disaffection exhibited by Caroline (and essentially every other teenager in the film). Even though both he and Caroline go through some changes by the end of the story, I felt like Thurston’s journey was the one that really carried the emotional arc of the story. Yes, the story focuses mainly on Caroline, but without the emotionally charged supporting characters like Thurston (and of course Josh Lucas’ Barry), there would be little to make the audience actually feel something.

Goldbach was in attendance at this screening and said that he’s been working on this film for about six years. It wasn’t until Kat Dennings read it and agreed to do it, however, that funding and other actors really began to come on board. He spoke about growing up in a small town outside of London, Ontario, and his frustration of how small towns are usually depicted as being incredibly boring and lifeless.

When asked what he would like audiences to take away from this film, Goldbach answered, “Travel in pairs” – a message that is seen on signs all over the town to keep people safe from the serial killer; a thinly veiled (and somewhat offensive) suggestion that one needs to be in a romantic relationship in order to get through life.