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The Integrity of Joseph Chambers (2022)
Could have been half the runtime.
A family man, hoping to prove his survivalist capabilities and manliness to his family, decides to irresponsibly head off into the woods and go deer hunting by himself.
The second feature narrative I saw at Southern Screen and it was intriguing if for no other reason that the trailers kept it pretty shady as far as what actually ends up happening. This set up has plenty of potential so as long as it wasn't just a man walking around the woods with no shake-ups at all I assumed I'd like it all right. Thankfully something DOES happen.... but not much.
My friend watching this movie with me at one points in the first third said "I guess this is a slow burn" and he wasn't kidding because everything in this movie is slow. And that's mostly because they show nearly everything that happens and then hold on every shot FOREVER. Somewhere out there there is a 40 minute cut of this 1h36m movie and it changes nothing about the story. We see very little but him doing mundane tasks for the first half; getting ready, walking through the woods, looking around, walking through the woods some more, etc. Many of these are long takes which would be impressive if more was actually happening.
Highlighting that is the very misguided sound mixing. I'm guessing in post they realized the film didn't have much to hold interest for these incredibly long moments so they decided to jazz it up with some loud music stings and overbearing score moments. They feel like they are trying to convert what's happening on screen as something alarming. Just when you think nothings gonna happen 🎵 DUN-DUN! 🎶....nothing happens. They all feel like purposeful ruses to keep you awake. "Be scared by this!" Other times I wanted spoken moments louder or at the very least to have subtitles to understand the whispery deliveries.
Near the halfway mark we finally get our shake-up moment that gives this some actual stakes. I won't spoil it much but it does give our main character a moral dilemma to grapple with. However it does come with its own annoyances and moments where characters make odd decisions "just because."
Switching to some positives, I have to give props to Clayne Crawford who basically has to hold the film together. If his performance had been subpar I don't think the film would be worth anything but he has to hold the camera for pretty much the entire film. He has to convey most of his emotions with very little dialogueI, and any time it is spoken he has the task of trying to make talking to yourself look realistic. I also like the moments where Joe is reenacting something in his head and we hear what he hears. At one point he is throwing dirt clod in the woods imagining he's pitching at the World Series and we actually hear the crowds cheering and other sfx. It's a relatable peek into his mind, a nice way of showing it, and feeds into his insecurities about how he sees himself. He's a guy who wants to be taken seriously and prove he can provide outside of his career as an insurance salesman, this being the reasoning behind why he takes off on this solo hunting venture in the first place.
When faced with two choices the movie does ultimately end up going the direction I was hoping for but there were still plenty of other routes I was hoping for prior to that. While the integrity of the title character can be admired, the movie as a whole still leaves much to be desired.
Moving On (2022)
Lifeless, confused, disjointed tone, thinly plotted, and NOT funny
In town for a funeral of her recently deceased friend, Claire (Jane Fonda) confides in her long time friend Evelyn (Lily Tomlin) that she sets out to kill the widower husband for a past wrongdoing.
I'm all for this resurgence of movies lead by women over the age of 65 (that aren't Meryl Streep), but so few of them have been good, to me at least. And Moving On may be the worst of them because this "comedy" is awful.
From the moment Claire tells Howard she's going to kill him I'm wondering what sort of wacky issue brought about this desire and the movie certainly lets you wonder for a while. Did he not invite her to the wedding? Did he accidentally kill her cat in some ridiculous fashion? No, He raped her.
Yes, the plot of this quirky comedy is set in motion by a sexual assault. Granted, you don't really know how true the accusations are until the final 3rd of the movie which is becoming a frustrating trend seen in the likes of Invisible Man, The Secrets We Keep, The Watcher, etc. But at least those movies treated it seriously. And if you think this movie is going to cleverly balance the emotions of that dark topic with some wit like done in Death of Stalin (2017) or Bernie (2011) then you'll be disappointed. It feels like there's so little conviction in the characters, despite what has happened and what they are planning on doing. I may not like Promising Young Woman but at least it committed to its subject matter. The darker subject matter here feels wildly out of place in a movie that is otherwise trying to be funny.
Key word: trying. Because good gosh this film was so devoid of laughs. I think I chuckled once and I can't even remember what for. The movies attempt at laughs are just so limp that most jokes don't even make it off the ground adding to an overall lifeless feel to the movie.
Then there's how thinly plotted it is. This movie is a bare 85 minutes and I think only 30 of them are actually about the main plot. Instead we get Claire reconnecting with her old husband and meeting his family. We have have Evelyn making friends with another retiree's grandchild who might be trans. Even that's not much but the movie just stretches each one of these things out SO MUCH. Last week I said 65 felt like the longest movie of 3 at just 1hr 36m. But THIS felt longer and much more unpleasant. This movie wastes the talents of its cast to the point that I am more than happy to be moving on from it.
Fat Tuesday (2018)
Shots of New Orleans with a story thrown in.
It's Mardi Gras in New Orleans and a group of friendly revelers open their group up to a mysterious female hitchhiker which will soon prove a deadly move for each of them.
From the movies opening it's evident the quality of the imaging won't be great. It's clearly shot on a low grade camera. In fact the opening shot starts off very grainy before clearing up, almost as if they want the rest of the film to look glossy by comparison. But in the end, this shouldn't matter, movies like Incoherence have powered through that aspect with competent filmmaking. Fat Tuesday may be a little short on that but it is not without some value. Shot during the actual Mardi Gras with candid parade goers as extras and dialogue almost entirely improvised by its actors, it really does capture a realistic undercurrent of what it would feel like to be there in person. And to its credit, tackling a New Orleans's Mardi Gras is a pretty lofty ambition.
The movie's pacing is its biggest detractor. It takes a good while for any danger to happen and from then on every scene of dialogue and action is connected by extended montages of the festivities. At first it was effective as multiple establishing shots of the parades and streets. It gives us a chance to see some of the eccentricities of Nola and exhibit the energy and mood, but then it keeps doing it. Like, ALOT. It's a characteristic that wreaks of famously bad student films like A Certain Sacrifice, in that though the movie is barely over an hour all montage moments go on incredibly long. "Can't cut any available footage otherwise it won't reach feature length." Now the film isn't anywhere near as bad as A Certain Sacrifice. Fat Tuesday at least has a coherent plot, and an interesting one at that. But when environment shots take up the majority of the film, the movie appears to be a film of New Orleans stock footage being interrupted by a plot. It's hard to escape the idea that the actors and filmmakers simply wanted to go to a New Orleans for Mardi Gras, filmed some of it, then threw in just enough story to call it a movie.
The actors are decent with much of their scenes relying on their improv. Their moments of humor and camaraderie are among the film's better moments. It adds to the movies realism and you get enough character that you do feel at least a little something when one of them is killed. And like I said, the idea isn't bad. With so much chaos and actual foul play going on in Mardi Gras it's a worthwhile idea to have a horror film about such crimes getting lost in the mayhem. The film's closing scenes feature a street sweeper disposing of the massive amount of trash left in the streets. You do get the feeling conveyed about how any potential proof of misdeeds being lost forever. Its first grisly death holds some interest but as the movie goes on it loses steam. It drags from murder to murder with long montages in between but the deaths get more and more mundane until the final one feels like an anti climax.
If you're into student films or a fan of the New Orleans's Mardi Gras scene you might like this movie, but any real potential is swept away like the mopped up debris in the street. The film is clearly more experimental than mainstream but without more plot, Fat Tuesday had a fat chance at succeeding.
Hot Mother (2020)
Good-looking but Hollow Attempt at Tragedy
Saw this at my local film festival and it was probably my least favorite of the block that I saw it in. It's starts out promising. The shots and imagery are very nicely done and we get the set up of a mother and daughter who don't see eye to eye trying to reconnect at a spa. But the true trouble doesn't actually start until they try to leave the sauna and the door handle breaks off leaving them trapped.
For several minutes we cut back-and-forth between shots of them making attempts to get out before cutting to the clueless spa workers being distracted by funny videos online. Not only does this go on longer than it should but it feels so tonally off. The spa workers being happily oblivious doesn't work as dark humor because that's clearly not what the short film is going for, but it also doesn't mix with the rest of the film's tone.
At one point the mother makes frantic apologies to reconcile but there was no lead up or introspection to this moment. It's just something she does because she's worried they might both die so the moment doesn't feel rewarding it just feels hollow.
We then get the tragic ending before dropping the bomb that this was based on actual events like that's supposed to automatically make it admirable. I honestly think that makes it worse, because now these real lives are being used in a story that likely doesn't do them justice. The ending just left me with a miserable feeling of "seriously?!" instead of some thoughtful sadness.
I feel bad for the crew who clearly put in a lot of work to make this film look good. Their effort is noted but this was a misguided attempt to tell this story.
Dirt Road to Lafayette (2018)
More Songs doesn't Equal Character Depth
Though rich in culture and music, The Dirt Road to Lafayette should be a pensive stroll but it comes off more as a melancholic traipse. A lot of this is due to sluggish pacing, unnecessary side characters and an over-reliance on songs in place of character development.
Jane (2018)
Simple but Effective
Saw this at a film festival and it was probably the best short I'd seen in a while.
It's gently told and largely just featuring one person but is able to convey a lot of emotion. This film clearly came from a personal place and will resonate with anyone who has ever felt out of place.
I will admit I didn't quite get that her feeling out of place was stemming from the fact that she was mixed race, but I think it just goes to show that this short's feeling can relate to people beyond this issue. This short just gives a glimpse into this specific one.
Nicely shot and featuring a solid central performance, Jane is a short I'd recommend.
Huevos Rancheros (2017)
Least favorite at the film festival
I saw this short film in a block of 12 others at a film festival and it was by far my least favorite. I found it preachy and condescending mostly. Marcus didn't come off particularly likable even though I could tell I was supposed to sympathize with him. It only gets better when the conflict is ultimately dropped at the end but that's not really a good thing. If the conflict is more annoying than compelling there's not much drive to watch.
Pass.
Miss Stevens (2016)
Confusedly tries for nuance and broad humor at the same time and fails to have either
I cringed ALOT!
An English teacher drives 3 students to a drama competition and along the way grows closer to one of the "troubled" students, Billy. It's certainly the kind of film I like. This is certainly the "type" of film I like; teenagers making self discoveries, a drama competition, a teacher struggling to have the answers, and even some indie roadtrip tropes. All the same I found myself groaning much of the time.
It's hard to say if it's the fault of the actors, the writer, director, or a combination of the 3 but so much of what they're going for just does. Not. Work. The characters frequently say things that don't feel realistic or just seem awkward. There's a lot of cringey dialogue in this. People don't talk like real people and the performances are too forgettable to lend any help to it. When it's meant to be funny they could potentially work with a different delivery, but the delivery appears to be going for realism and nuance, not broad comedy. It feels like scenes happen because the writer thought "I've seen scenes like this in other movies" but without asking whether it was necessary, natural, or even served the plot.
The drama competition is practically an afterthought to the story. In the climactic moment Billy gives an overwrought monologue from an overrated play that's supposed to leave you spellbound. Then he goes on a rant about the pills he's made to take which are brought up before hand about as much as they're brought up in this review.
The movie even ends slowly, seeming to be coming to a close 3 different times and each time starting up the exact same credits song. And when the credits song actually starts playing over the credits, I don't know what I'm supposed to take from this at all. The struggles of adulthood and high school? Finding what you're good at? Finding people that make you feel good? Getting over the loss of a loved one? Something about pills? Whatever it is, it's lost on me. If you're curious I was too, but ultimately Miss Stevens is amiss and a miss.
Our Friend (2019)
Lose the delivery and the let the story be itself!
The story is its greatest strength. It manages to speak to multiple facets of this situation; the person affected by the disease, the exhausted spouse, the lost children, the friend who feels helpless. Each one of these aspects is able to be explored a little and the movie is better for it. Unfortunately much of the stories goodness is hampered by the movies decision to be told in non-chronological order. I'm sure it's a decision that probably made sense from a filmmaking standpoint, but from an audience-viewing perspective, it's so confusing. The movie starts present day, then 10 years ago, then a year after the diagnosis, then 2 years before. It doesn't feel delineated enough to have an easy pattern to follow and after a while it just feels like the movie is toying with you. Add the number of side characters and remembering how each character feels and how that might have changed between the year jumps and it's not helped by that either.
Jason Segel and Dakota Johnson both shine in their roles and pull their own weight, unfortunately they also have to pull the weight of Casey Affleck too who spends much of the movie looking thoroughly uninterested in what's happening. It's hard to tell if some of this was supposed to be intentional character traits but he just always seems flat and very rarely comes across as convincing. And while it does lessen as the movie continues, there are also some odd cinematography trying to make moments seem bigger and it's actually kind of distracting. I don't think it's necessary. Just let the story stand on its own and stop getting in the way of it. I'd be interested to see what a sequential raw cut of this movie would look like. Might be a bit basic but at least it would feel like a good thing wrecked. The goods of the movie are still able to make it recommendable just not great like it should have been.
The Secrets We Keep (2020)
Incompetently cruel story trying to mask itself as something more.
Oof what a polished turd this movie was. And really the only thing that seemed polished about it is it's 50's setting which only lends a veneer proficiency.
In post-World War II America, a Romanian woman, Maja, living in the suburbs with her husband, kidnaps her neighbor and seeks vengeance for the heinous war crimes she believes he committed against her. She recounts a night during the war when she and her gypsy family were assaulted by a group of German soldiers, one of whom she believes is her captured neighbor, Thomas. Her husband, Lewis, is torn by his Maja's claims especially as the more he looks into Thomas's past the more innocent he appears.
So we have a female lead who holds a man captive for the remainder of the film for supposed wrongs he's done. So this is basically a post-WWII version of Hard Candy and many of the problems I had with that movie are present here as well. The biggest being that there is no significant power shift throughout the film. She has this man subdued at the 20 minute mark and he remains captured for the entire film. Why do movies keep thinking you can make feature-length film from a captors point of view? Aside from being without any real threat, it's only possible if you needlessly drag the movie out. This movie accomplishes that by constantly cutting from them holding this man hostage to them going about there daily lives. It's honestly laughable every time it shifts to them getting in bed, talking to neighbors, or doing household chores, as if they don't currently have a man tied up in their basement. Also like Hard Candy, we're treated to a scene where the female lead is having to hide her captive from prying eyes and I'm once again kind of hoping she'll get caught. A lot of that is because I'm never given much of a reason to believe Maja's assertion. Blindly kidnapping a man she claims to recognize from 15 years prior is crazy enough but Thomas keeps providing evidence that appears to clear him of these accusations. So why should I side with Maja?
I at one point I wondered whether this film was planning a subversion of expectations. I mean, here's this man who we have no reason to believe is guilty, that this woman is detaining claiming him to be the holder of all her ill-will. It started to remind me of Hitler's own assertion to his party that the Jewish people were to blame for their problems because they'd taken what was rightfully theirs. I thought that maybe in the film's final moments Maja would come to the horrible realization that she's become the very thing she feared and now she's continuing the cycle of hatred.
Instead the climax suffers from a bad case of "Because the Script Said So" Syndrome in a clumsy way to make movie's events look worthwhile but it REALLY doesn't work. This is further highlighted by the fact that the movie's climax happens in the same set up we were at 20 minutes into the running time. The movie's events should not have been dragged out this much and the writers clearly didn't know how to lengthen it. The dozens of times she prepares to kill him and then stops just had me screaming at the screen "Either kill him or let him go but stop dragging it out!"
I can't even recall much else filmmaking-wise. The horrible plotting is enough to overshadow any competent performances, camera work, or score. It's a dower, unpleasant trudge. A better title would have been The Film We Keep Secret. Seriously, bury it.
The Nest (2020)
A pointless slog
I don't know whether to add this film to the "Movies where NOTHING Happens" list or "Advertised Thrillers with NO Thrills" list, but Lord knows it probably deserves both. This movie was a slog with a plot that was just miserable to witness made even worse by how purposeless it all seemed. What was the point! I feel like this was supposed to be an informative video on "Family Issues After a Big Move" but they left out the narration. Seriously, I am not seeing a reason to this movie
Hard Candy (2005)
Protagonist has total control throughout the movie = Good????
There are a million reasons why this film fills me with bottomless depression but I'll try to leave personal problems to a minimum and explain on an aesthetic reason why Hard Candy fundamentally does NOT work as a movie.
The biggest flaw with this film is there is no dynamic or power shift to it. The first 10 minutes is Jeff and Hayley talking and then going back to Jeff's house. These moments are the only parts of the movie I praise. The conversations they have flow very nicely which has an unnerving amount of uncomfortableness given the context. The fact that a conversation between an older man and a teenage girl who met online could sound this natural is honestly unsettling at times especially in how innocent it all seems. But then Jeff gets knocked out and wakes up to find himself subdued by Hayley, and it pretty much stays here for the rest of the movie. This kind of power struggle worked fine in the movie Misery, where we were meant to identify with the captive character and wanted them to escape. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. The movie clearly wants us to root for Hayley in her physical and psychological torture on Jeff. I get it, "subversion of expectations of roles" and all that Jazz. That certainly could work but for an ENTIRE movie? I can't think of a single halfway decent film where the protagonist is in complete control of the villain for 90% of the film. Maybe this could work for a short film but for a 1h 40m movie, it's only able to accomplish this by dragging it out at a wretched pace that only exacerbates the misery of what's happening on screen.
The movie has several opportunities to improve but it just continues to chug along with no relevant power shifts. Sure the film gives glimmers of that before squashing them outright. There's a moment in the first half where Jeff, tied to a chair, manages to get to his gun but Hayley wraps plastic wrap around his face until he stops moving. As she steps back to take in what she's done my intrigue heightened. "Did she kill him? This clearly wasn't how she wanted to carry this out but now that something hasn't gone as planned she's left in a house with a tied-up corpse that clearly didn't kill himself so what is she gonna do now?" But just as I lean forward with interest it's revealed that he's NOT dead, only passed out. Just a speed bump and now it's on to Hayley's next phase of taunting. Similarly, later in the film, Hayley has to keep Jeff quiet while she answers the door for a guest (Sandra Oh) who is looking for him. Another great opportunity; "Is Sandra going to discover what Hayley is doing and now Hayley is put in a crisis of conscience? She needs to kill this woman in order to keep her plan going but doing so means killing an innocent bystander and going against her principles!" Nope, Hayley is able to divert the guest away, and then it's back to our regularly scheduled torture. It was like the movie kept wanting to tease me with the idea that it was going to turn into a good movie but kept going "Syke!"
We get a little background on Jeff and his life outside the movie's events. I won't say it "endears" us to him, but it gives us, as an audience, more to latch on to which is more than I can say about Hayley. Forget the fact that she is one of the most smarmily, obnoxiously smug, supremely unlikable characters I've ever seen in any movie, but we don't know the slightest thing about her. As the film makes very clear near the climax, we have no idea if anything she's said during this film is true or just part of the ruse. I kept waiting for her to espouse some tragic backstory on how she's been abused and now she does to pedophiles what she wasn't able to do then. Not that you HAVE to have a tragic backstory in order to hate pedophiles but, as is, there's no reason to care about her. What you get is a story telling you to feel one way but unconscious emotions nudging you to feel the other way. The movie's framing is at war with basic character development.
I was willing to cut the screenplay a little slack at first because I was fairly certain the film was probably written by someone who suffered at the hands of a pedophile and that writing a story like this was probably very cathartic for them. But it turns out it was inspired by a real case of Japanese school girls assaulting would-be pedophiles, and then Brian Nelson (whose work I like outside of this) wrote the screenplay. It's said that the final screenplay was the first draft which honestly makes too much sense. What we got really does feel like an early concept that needed to be kicked around a little more. I see people praise this screenplay for being smart but I don't think it's ultimately all that smart. It certainly sounds like what a teenager thinks is smart and deep, but Hayley's monologues are not realistic at all. She sounds nothing like a real 14-year-old girl and that's to say nothing of the number of times she overpowers and outsmarts Jeff. There are a number of things she does in the movies that just aren't believable for someone her size and age. I kept waiting for her to reveal that she was actually in her 20's, which still wouldn't have explained everything but would have made a little more sense. Not to mention the amount of information she's been able to get about Jeff's background and the level of depth she's supposed to understand him. I've never liked characters that ALWAYS know what their opponent is going to do, and ALWAYS has the upper hand, and any attempt to outmaneuver them plays exactly into their plan. This movie is just a wish-fulfillment fantasy of one of the most grotesque kind. If you're going to make it this heavy on him the film should have made Jeff among the worst kinds of child molesters. There is sadly no shortage of those in real life. I get that they were aiming to play Jeff as a more run-of-the-mill creeper but using an entire movie's worth of all this unrelenting torment feels like a waste.
Ultimately this film wreaks of trying too hard and squanders some decent direction as well as Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson's dependable performances. It may be called Hard Candy but it in fact leaves a VERY bitter after taste.
Hate Crime (2017)
Proof the Opposite Extreme of "Don't Over-explain to your Audience" is just as bad.
First saw this film at a film festival and honestly it was my least favorite that I saw. Despite an interesting story, Hate Crime clearly thinks its topical subject and pretentious delivery is enough to convince audiences that its vague storytelling is more effective than it is just aggravating. I was very lost while watching this film. It just feels like it's made up of interlude scenes from a better film, like most of the scenes of actual story were cut from it. I feel bad because a story focusing on the parents of a hate crime victim and perpetrator is a pretty solid pitch for a film. Now some films DO need a gimmick. As an example, the movie Boyhood is a fantastic film, but if it didn't utilize its ambitious gimmick (filming with the same actors for 12 years straight) it would have come off very mundane, tedious, and pointless. But with Hate Crime, I think its idea is interesting enough on its own without having to resort to the gimmick it used. Why use scenes that only seem to be surrounding the story without actually telling it? Why withhold this much from the audience. The gimmick just feels pretentious and sadly unnecessary, a bad combination. I understand the power of subtext in film and how you don't want to explain everything, but this film took it a couple steps too far. I remember reading in the film festival's pamphlet the summary described it something like "A film where you're not clearly told anything but you understand everything." .... Sorry but No. If it hadn't been for the summary in the pamphlet I wouldn't have understood what was going on until at least 40 minutes in. Maybe it's just the kind of film that requires you watching it a second time once you've seen the ending to fully understand. I give it props for an interesting premise and maybe it's delivery would have been great with another story but together they just didn't fit for me.