Brief Words of Mouth - The Neon Demon (2016) - or, Show Biz Will Eat You Alive

The Neon Demon: Or, what the hell did I just watch? Like Only God Forgives as a follow up to Drive, this movie is partially Nicholas Winding Refn saying, "that was too nice, how can I go darker?"

The first 2/3rd of the film are a hallucinatory show business/fashion world as Hell story, along the same lines as Black Swan. The final act is a disgusting series of events that keep getting more and more ludicrous until I went from feeling sick to just throwing my hands up and laughing. Every shot's perfectly composed, with incredible color, light, and framing, and Refn makes sure that we watch, in graphic detail, some absolutely horribly gross things. I really don't get grossed out by movies easily; I did here! This wouldn't be as effective at home on a TV, being there in a theater unable to turn away is truly something special and horrible.

Maybe there's some psychic future-sight at play here. Maybe the moon's a conscious, malevolent force. Maybe there's witches around. No one turns into a literal werewolf, though maybe they should. There are monsters, in the form of walking, talking metaphors. While picking out lipstick names, Jena Malone's character asks,"Are you food, or sex?" The best line in the film.

Keanu Reaves is really funny, until an awful turn of events. Jena Malone is the only real human in this world and has the only solid arc, until an awful turn of events. Elle Fanning and the other women playing models are all (intentionally) robotic. Alessandro Nivola is hilarious, and nothing bad happens to or with him! He says, "Beauty isn't everything, it's the only thing," which is maybe Refn lightly laughing about himself. The mix of the beautiful and the shockingly monstrous in this film's leads parallels the nature of Refn's films themselves.

Do not watch if you have a weak stomach. Even in the movie itself, some people just don't have the stomach for it.

Brief Words of Mouth - Money Monster

Jodie Foster's Money Monster: "Wall Street/Big Money as the Monster" has been a pretty major trend lately from Wolf of Wall Street to 99 Homes to The Big short to this one. Money Monster isn't directed with the strength of those three films, but it's a really solid, small picture set almost entirely in one room (it opens up towards the end.)

A CNN clown host (George Clooney) is held hostage by a man whose life was ruined by a bad day on Wall Street and is kept alive by his director/The Voice of God/Julia Roberts. It opens as a blunt mockery of the sort of cult of personality that surrounds entertainment news before turning into a pretty tightly written thriller that does its best to sound like Aaron Sorkin but doesn't quite get there. Very little time is wasted, though you could probably cut nearly all of the NYPD chatter and change nothing. I'm surprised Wolf Blitzer appeared in the film (as himself) given how hard it thumbs downs the idea of pop journalists with no investment in actual truth.

It's an openly nihilistic film where nothing is won or gained with a ending that (intentionally) deflates and says that there will be only a customary, in name only investigation of what happened. The theater audience is a target of mockery, as we watch an audience within the movie lap up its violence and cheer for the "heroes" of the its narrative (both as a film and a show within the film.) Director Jodie Foster essentially says "Nothing's going to change, but go ahead and cheer while the people on the screen pretend it will. Look at these ratings." At times it's almost the Wall Street Meltdown genre equivalent of Haneke's Funny Games.

Brief Words of Mouth - The Jungle Book (2016)

Jon Favreau's Jungle Book: Probably the most average movie I've seen in a long time, though with exceptionally good animation. This is the second Disney talking animals movie featuring Idris Elba in a main role this year, but it's nowhere near the extremely good Zootopia. Average voice acting, a plot designed only to take us from platforming sequence to boss fight to platforming sequence, and one and a half songs.

I liked the portrayal of elephants as almost otherworldly Old Gods, really did not like the amount of exposition stuck in everywhere. Kaa explaining Mowgli's origin story is just really odd and halts the momentum of what should be a trippy, scary scene.

For 20 minutes in the middle, the movie wants to be a musical; it's forgotten after that until the credits. The best singer in the film is Scarlett Johansson and her song gets stuck in the credits instead of the film proper.

It felt like a pretty long hour and a half to me, I was tired by the end. You'll find much better acting and singing in the original version that this is entirely a remake of, rather than a reimagining of Kipling's stories. It's nowhere near the ghoulish awfulness of Tim Burton's live action Alice in Wonderland sequel/remake, but there's nothing that really stands out here, other than the tech on display.

Brief Words of Mouth - The Witch

The Witch: Really well made horror movie with a focus on an uncomfortable atmosphere rather than dumb loud noises. Filmed extremely well, with some lovely, dreary, convincingly New England (but actually Ontario) countryside shots.

Anya Taylor-Joy's performance as the young Thomasina is fantastic. Everyone does a good job (including a pair of impressively irritating, awful young siblings) and it's amazing that this is director Robert Eggers' first film!

The focus here is on religious paranoia and insecurity, on top of an awkward coming of age story. What appears at first to be a Book of Job story (down to the family's mother explicitly calling herself Job's wife) takes a rather nutty turn in the final act which I'm still trying to digest. It may actually be an Anti-Job story. Also, the lesson here is that you shouldn't be rude to goats, it won't end well.

Brief Words of Mouth - Carol

Carol (2015): Great looking film, strong performance by Blanchett. The film is from the point of view of Rooney Mara's Therese (and it's ridiculous that she got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination when this is almost entirely her story) as she falls in love with Blanchett's Carol, a woman in the midst of a messy divorce.

In many ways it's structured like a very old school Hollywood romance while playing with gender roles; the strong and assertive Carol plays a role much akin to classical Handsome Suave Male roles while the star-struck Therese mostly stares at her in wonder while functioning in large part as a blank slate character. Her other love is photography, but the only person to show a great interest in this passion is a minor male character with which there's certainly no romantic bond.

The slow, leisurely pace of the film is another throwback, along with the fashion and soundtrack of the era in which the film's set.

It didn't deserve an R rating.

Brief Words of Mouth - Amy

Asif Kapadia's 2015 documentary of Amy Winehouse covers roughly ten years of the singer's life, from her teenage dreams of being a jazz singer to her monumental success to her cyclical abuse of drugs and alcohol. A collage of home footage, concert video, and new and old interviews with those who knew her best, Amy is a commentary on our relationship with celebrity and the relentless monster that is pop entertainment media.

This film functions well as both a documentary and a narrative, and like the best documentaries, doesn't require you to be intimately familiar with the subject before going in. As a Winehouse fan, I was able to find added value in some of the lovely clips included, both personal and professional, but even with no knowledge of her work, Kapadia's film tells a strong, cautionary tale of neglect (both familial and occupational) and despair.

Amy does not sugarcoat the singer's failings and treats her as a real, flawed, yet brilliant human being stuck inside of a diseased system.

Brief Words of Mouth - The Revenant

The Revenant: Or, I wasn't joking when I said Domhnall Gleeson was in everything.

Alejandro G. Iñárritu's follow up to his critically acclaimed 2014 dark comedy Birdman could not be more different. In stark contrast to that film's surreal stage drama, we have here a film focused on the life and death struggles of a fur trapper in the 1820's seeking vengeance for his son's murder.

Featuring absolutely beautiful landscape shots, the use of natural light and real environments adds authenticity to the physical suffering of Leonardo DiCaprio's Hugh Glass. It really did make me feel cold and isolated, and I did something I almost never do: I briefly napped for a few seconds a couple of times. I don't really mean that as a negative, either; the relentless cold, lack of dialogue, and soothing music during the middle of the film felt calculated to lull you into a state between waking and dreaming alongside Glass.

DiCaprio is fantastic here, and he's miles above costars Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson, though both perform their roles decently. This really is all about DiCaprio, as he plays a role of a ghoul risen from near death for revenge, and he absolutely shines.

Issues of racial hatred, betrayal, and loss are shown with both the Natives and the Settlers, with only brief sparks of goodness in the hearts of either side. This gives the film an ultimately hopeless feeling, though it doesn't reach the levels of nihilism of Quentin Tarantino's competing snowed-in western The Hateful Eight.

Brief Words of Mouth - The Hateful Eight

Going to try something new: Before writing longer, more formal reviews, I'm going to post my brief, immediate responses to films I watch. Full review to follow, some day!

What we've got here is an absolute great film that's unbelievably unpleasant to watch. Gorgeous cinematography, very well directed actors, bombastic, discordant music that perfectly sets the tone. Every aspect of the film-making is top notch, while every character is detestable outside of James Parks' O.B., a mostly background character.

It's functionally a remake of Reservoir Dogs: The film is centered entirely around a group of men in a single room scheming and murdering and we've got to figure out who's on whose side and what's going on. Ultimately it doesn't matter, because they're all demons stuck in a frozen purgatory waiting for hell. There's no morally gray lead here to sympathize with; no Django, no Schultz (though Tim Roth plays a bizarro version of him, taking on his look and mannerisms), no Shoshanna, no Beatrix Kiddo. There isn't even a weaselly but endearing Mr. Pink.

What we've got here is basically a rebuttal to Reservoir Dogs while following the same basic structure, complete with using flashbacks to establish who a few of the men stuck in the room are. It strips the film of its "cool factor," taking away the fancy suits and suave demeanor, leaving us with gross, dirty bandits. It takes the romanticized bounty hunter element of Django and shows it as a disgusting abomination with no winners on any side. It's a hopeless, utterly nihilistic film that I won't be able to watch again for a good long while, but it's a work of an expert craftsman. That doesn't mean it's enjoyable.

In spite of that: It's got a lot of good, dumb jokes.

Tarantino narrates a couple of scenes. I don't know why.