February | 2016 | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.

It can be difficult to balance tone when setting a comedy inside a warzone.

That difficulty only increases when setting that comedy in the aftermath of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. America’s military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan remains a defining moment in twenty-first century history; although the Obama administration might have worked hard to reduce commitment to the region, the conflicts remain divisive and controversial. As such, setting a comedy drama against the backdrop of the Afghan conflict is a dicey proposition.

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot struggles to pitch itself at the right tone, unsure whether it is an absurdist comedy about the excesses of modern war or a character study of what it must be like to live in such an environment or whether it is a more mature reflection on life during wartime. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot tries to have the best of all possible world, which leaves the film bouncing between extremes. There are moments of irreverent irony followed by earnest sincerity. The movie alternates between bitter cynicism and saccharine optimism.

The result is a movie that feels uneven and unfocused, tonally lost and wildly variable. And not in a way that reflects the conflict unfolding in the background.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, non-review review, review, whiskey tango foxtrot | 2 Comments »

The Adventures of Superman – The Sound of One Hand Clapping (Review)

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Darren

This March sees the release of Batman vs. Superman. To celebrate, we’ll be looking at some iconic and modern Batman and Superman stories over the course of the month.

Max Landis has a relatively unique path to writing for Superman.

Landis is one of the most striking young writers to emerge from Hollywood in quite some time, making a strong impression through his collaboration with Josh Trank in the low-budget found-footage superhero film Chronicle. Landis has diversified somewhat since that original screenplay; a filmography that includes films like Mr. Right, American Ultra and Victor Frankenstein suggests that Landis’ interests lie more in unconventional pairings than in the superhero genre itself.

The Joker’s gags really bombed…

Nevertheless, Landis is a writer who does seem fascinated with the mechanics and underlying logic of superhero storytelling. A year before the release of Chronicle, Landis put together a short film that served as an extended discussion of The Death and Return of Superman featuring a variety of top tier talent like Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, Ron Howard and Simon Pegg. At once reveling in the absurdity of the massive nineties comic book crossover and interrogating its central character’s identity crisis, it was a potent piece of pop culture criticism.

In the years following his initial success, Landis has remained relatively connected with the Man of Steel. He drafted an eight-page origin for the Atomic Skull for the first annual of DC comics’ relaunched Action Comics run, and would get a change to craft his own origin story for Clark Kent in American Alien. However, he also wrote a short two-issue story as part of DC’s digital-first The Adventures of Superman comic, scripting Superman’s first encounter with the Clown Prince of Crime.

Last laugh…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, Comics, continuity, dc comics, Jock, joker, Max Landis, superman, the adventures of superman | 11 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Hitchcock/Truffaut

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.

Hitchcock/Truffaut is incredibly light and fluffy.

In many respects, Kent Jones’ documentary about the eponymous piece of classic film literature plays like something of a late night infomercial populated with nerdiest film endorsements imaginable. Hitchcock/Truffaut is not so much interested in exploring and expanding its source text, instead settling for celebration. Wes Anderson boasts that his copy of the book is so well-used that it is held together by rubber bands; Kiyoshi Kurosawa explains that the only thing holding him back from blatantly stealing from the book is a promise to himself.

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There is not anything particularly wrong with this. There is something quite fun in watching film-makers get evangelical about their craft. All of the talking heads offer some insight into their own work when they expand upon what Alfred Hitchcock means to them. Martin Scorsese’s joy as he journeys shot-by-shot into Psycho is infectious, and it is clear that everybody involved with the project holds Hitchcock in the highest possible regard and embraces him as a cornerstone of modern movie-making.

Hitchcock/Truffaut‘s biggest issue is also its strongest virtue; this is a cheerful and superficial acknowledgement of its subject, one that decides particularly in-depth coverage of the auteur is secondary to rendering the material accessible to neophytes.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, adiff 16, documentary, film, hitchcock/truffaut, non-review review, review | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Homefront (Review)

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Homefront and Paradise Lost are a fascinating example of what Star Trek: Deep Space Nine does best, both in terms of theme and storytelling.

In many ways, Homefront and Paradise Lost are among the most culturally relevant episodes produced during the series’ seven-season run. The two-parter speaks to a lot of concerns and anxieties that were part of the public consciousness during the nineties, but exploded in the early years of the twenty-first century. Homefront and Paradise Lost feel more powerful in the era of airport security screenings and extraordinary powers than they did on their original broadcast. These are among the most important episodes the franchise ever produced.

Broken link…

However, the two-parter is also a great example of how the production team on Deep Space Nine approach storytelling. Not just in terms of arc-building and serialisation, but also in terms of structure and pacing. Unlike The Way of the Warrior, which was very clearly a single ninety-minute episode of television, Homefront and Paradise Lost are very clearly structured as two separate episodes of television. It is a subtle distinction, but one which has a significant impact in how the creative team tell their story.

More than that, Homefront and Paradise Lost represent a great example of the strengths of the production team’s improvisational approach to long-form plotting.

More like Starfleet INsecurity, amirite?

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, homefront, long-form storytelling, paradise lost, serialisation, star trek: deep space nine | 13 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Mammal

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.

Mammal is a psychosexual exploration of grief with a strong sense of direction and two strong central performances, albeit one that manages the rare feat of feeling both sensationalism and lifeless in the same instant.

Writer and director Rebecca Daly has a strong sense of tone, creating a palpable uncertainty and anxiety that pervades the first half of the film. Daly crafts an engaging sense of ambiguity, allowing tensions and uncertainties to simmer beneath the surface of the relationship between her two central characters. The performances help a great deal, with Rachel Griffiths doing great work as the divorced and isolated Margaret and Barry Keoghan offering strong support as the mysterious Joe. Mammal is filled with awkward silences and tense foreboding.

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Unfortunately, all of those tension and anxiety has to build to something, and Mammal suffers in how it decides to deliver upon and follow through on all that suspense and ambiguity. Mammal really struggles during its second act, offering twists that should be shocking but are ultimately entirely predictable. Mammal seems to try to escalate in its final act, but the film suffers quite a bit from its own efficiency at setting the mood. In its last forty minutes, the film is left nowhere to go but the most expected directions, the blows softened by the fact they’ve been awkwardly signposted.

Mammal works best when it focuses on the interiority of its characters, but struggles when it asks them to act upon one another.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, mammal, Movie, non-review review, review | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Voyager – Resistance (Review)

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Darren

This February and March, we’re taking a look at the 1995 to 1996 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily Tuesday through Friday for the latest review.

Resistance is a very episodic instalment of Star Trek: Voyager.

It begins with the ship facing a convenient plot-generating fuel-shortage, the type of problem that the ship had encountered near the start of Phage or The Cloud or Tattoo. It is the kind of problem that was not mentioned in previous episodes, and which will never be presented as a potentially recurring problem. In fact, Resistance is the only episode of Voyager (or Star Trek) where the word “Tellerium” is mentioned. Many of the stock criticisms of Voyager apply here.

Fifty shades of Joel Grey…

At the same time, Resistance is proof that the episodic model is not entirely without merit. For all that modern television has tended towards serialisation and arcs and long-form storytelling, there is nothing inherently wrong with a good old-fashioned done-in-one adventure. On a purely cosmetic level, Resistance is the typical Voyager episode; it relies on contrivance, it features a host of guest characters who will never appear (or be mentioned) again, it has no lasting impact. And yet it works better than any episode to this point in the second season.

As easy as it is to get distracted by arguments about serialised and episodic storytelling, or about arcs and standalones, the truth is that Voyager‘s problems are at once more simple and more complex than that. The grand irony of the second season is that it is the only season of Voyager to attempt a storytelling arc, but that storytelling arc is pretty universally derided as one of the worst things that the show ever did. (It isn’t really, but it’s still pretty bad.) The truth is that it doesn’t matter how Voyager chose to tell its stories, as long as it told them well.

Mellon head…

Resistance is a fairly standard episode of Voyager, but it is elevated in the telling. The story seems unlikely to rank among anybody’s favourite Voyager episodes, but it is an efficient and effective character study with a solid script and a great central performance. The production team were able to recruit Oscar-winning actor Joel Grey as the primary guest star, lending the story an incredible level of pathos. Lisa Klink also makes quite an impression with her debut teleplay, providing a story that is careful to give most of the cast something to do.

The result is proof that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a largely episodic approach to Star Trek storytelling, as long as the material is up to scratch.

“This is knife reunion, no?”

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: don quixote, Jeri Taylor, joel grey, kevin j. ryan, lisa klink, Michael Jan Friedman, mocra, resistance, standalone, star trek, star trek: voyager, voyager | 17 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Green Room

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Darren

This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.

Green Room is a masterful artisanally-crafted suspense thriller.

Writer and director Jeremy Saulnier crafts a loving tribute to seventies horror that feels like a truer successor to the “backwoods horror” genre than many contemporary remakes and reimaginings. Following a punk band named The Ain’t Rights that stumble into a tense stand-off with a bunch of neo-nazis in rural Oregon, Green Room is almost aggressively old-school in its horror sensibilities. It is tense and claustrophobic, paranoid and unsettling. Saulnier has a masterful understanding of the genre and its expectations, crafting a pitch perfect homage.

Green Room is a very canny piece of work, but never in a manner that is distracting. The film is wry without being ironic, more arch than subversive. Appropriately enough, given its punk protagonists, the movie’s hints of cynicism about its genre and set-up bely a more earnest appreciation of the form. Green Room is a classic and conventional horror film about a bunch of kids who took a wrong turn, and it is utterly unapologetic about that. Instead, it commits to providing one of the most visceral traditional horror experiences in recent memory.

Green Room is a nasty piece of work. And is all the better for it.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, adiff 16, diff, film, green room, Jeremy Saulnier, Movie, non-review review, patrick stewart, review | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Our Man Bashir (Review)

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Darren

Our Man Bashir is an underrated masterpiece.

It is possibly the best holodeck (or holosuite) episode in the history of the franchise; only Ship in a Bottle can really compete. A lot of this is down to the production value of the episode; Our Man Bashir looks and sounds beautiful, a delightfully detailed throwback to its source material. The production team on the Star Trek franchise seldom get enough credit for their skill at realising alien worlds and cultures from scratch, but their beautiful evocation of sixties design is breathtaking. Our Man Bashir is a clear forerunner to Trials and Tribble-ations, less than a year away.

“The name’s Bashir, Julian Bashir…”

However, there is more to it than that. Like Little Green Men, Our Man Bashir succeeds as a (relatively) light-hearted run-around that never loses track of its characters. The first three seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine struggled with the character of Julian Bashir; audience members could wait entire seasons for a good Bashir episode. With the fourth season, three come along at once. Our Man Bashir might look light and fluffy – and it largely is – but it never loses sight of its core character dynamics in the midst of all the fun unfolding around them.

More than that, Our Man Bashir plays into the broader themes and strengths of the fourth season. The climax of the episode feels like Deep Space Nine is ruminating on its new-found place dictating the direction of the Star Trek canon. Bashir’s decision to “save the day by destroying the world” feels oddly prophetic. The fifth season of the show would find the writers destroying some of the most fundamental rules of the franchise in an effort to keep things vital.