Thunder Road: Film Review

Thunder Road: Film Review

Cast: Jim Cummings
Director: Jim Cummings

Jim Cummings' extraordinary indie film about a US cop on the brink of breakdown is something to behold.

Expanded out from his 2016 12 minute award-winning short, the film opens with Cummings' Officer Jim Arnaud giving his mother's eulogy. With his face contorting with a mix of grief, unease and emotion after parts of his tribute fall apart, it's an exercise in awkwardness.

But unlike most of the mockumentaries that trade in such unease, Thunder Road bathes much of the proceedings in a level of pathos and humanity that's truly hard to ignore.

As Arnaud deals with the fallout from the funeral, he finds his relationship with his ex and his daughter punctuated by various problems, and various issues on the day-to-day front.

What Thunder Road juggles to marvellous effect is the mix of cringeworthy and the humane - Cummings owns every scene and the realistic writing aches with a reality that's at times, painfully close to the bone.

Drawing deep from the well of despair, Cummings' turn is the kind of performance that makes you wonder exactly where it is going to go next - and fearing for the worse. But what actually emerges is that Thunder Road swings from the sublime to the sad with contextual ease, and takes you along for the ride.
Thunder Road from Jim Cummings on Vimeo.

There's a portrait of trauma that emerges from here, and perhaps that's why Thunder Road should hit such a chord with many. It may be the portrait of a broken man who's trying to be better, one that merges both comedy and tragedy but it is compelling from beginning to end.

Vai: Film Review

Vai: Film Review

Kiel McNaughton and Kerry Warkia's powerhouse film Waru, about abuse, was a movie that blazed a trail on the local scene.

Using eight separate stories and eight directors, the film signified something different for film-making and its critical success allowed other wahine to be inspired for the future.

Their follow up treads a similar path of approach, with nine female directors taking on the story of Vai, in different stages of her life. Set across various Pacific islands, the portmanteau approach once again has highs and lows, with the overall film feeling more like a spiritual piece, than a fully fleshed out feature.

However, what emerges from Vai is a strong eye and connection for stories related to the lands, and within the lands they are set. Excellent camera work from those involved give the film a sense of place, and a sense of timing with shots blending into the land, and with set ups being kept within a close frame than would be offered by the likes of drones and so on.

The non-freewheeling camera approach gives the film an intimacy that's seized on by some of the storytelling and that proves to be greatly beneficial. Certainly the short vignette set within school as Vai's reality of existence comes to the fore, and family matters bubble under is one of the more powerful of the portmanteau.

Ultimately, while Vai has less of the power of Waru, it certainly has more of the spirituality with restrained camera work and direction capturing some traditions for posterity that are wondrous to behold, and which have resonance as they play out.

There may not be a familiar narrative thread running throughout allowing for an easy follow, but there's a familiar theme in Vai of the power of the female, and of the indigenous connection to the land.

It's sparsely stirring stuff when it needs to be, and while overall, Vai may not find a wider audience or stir up as much emotion as Waru did, its commitment to giving a platform for different voices to tell one longer form story in chunks is more than commendable.

Bumblebee: DVD Review

Bumblebee: DVD Review

Essentially an origin story for everyone's favourite Transformer, the clumsy Bumblebee, Kubo and The Two Strings director Travis Knight's relatively stripped back approach to the noise and bombast of the Transformers series actually pays charming dividends.

Set in 1987, with Cybertron fallen, Optimus Prime sends Bumblebee to Earth to set up a base for the Autobots to stop the Decepticons. But when Bumblebee loses his memory, he finds himself in a town near San Francisco and stuck in a VW form. Stumbling across Bumblebee is Charlie (Steinfeld), a on-the-cusp of eighteen outsider, who's struggling after losing her dad.

These two form a friendship, but the Decepticons are soon hot on their tail, intent on wiping out the Autobots for good....

It's easy to be cynical about Bumblebee, a film that really doesn't need to be made.

Starting with the fall of Cybertron, and then grounding Bee on Earth and saddling him with an 80s setting, complete with the tropes of an eighties alien invasion film, it's easy to dismiss Travis Knight's intentions as puerile for a franchise that's largely until now, been clothed in sturm and drang.

Yet, there's something pleasingly earnest and charming about Bumblebee, a film that embraces its innocence and gives it a kind of Spielbergian 80s family vibe throughout, and meshes it with the Herbie overtones.

Sure, there are one too many triggers here and there from the overuse of 80s music, to the shoehorning in of references, but the clearly ET influenced plot works nicely as this earnestly acted, occasionally underwritten and oddly cliched here and there buddy movie progresses along.

Smartly settling on less Transformers and subsequent clutter and feeling like an episode of the 80s TV cartoon delivers a stripped back approach for Bumblebee; one which feels like a pleasant ride in many ways, as it juggles the comedy (largely from Cena's gung ho military jock) to the heartfelt relationship between the two. Equally, the actual transforming action benefits from a crisp clarity of vision and not so much overkill - and there's much to love from the expressive CGI eye work too.

All in all, Bumblebee is a film that benefits from being about a Transformer, not about the Transformers - it's an important distinction, and while it won't win any creativity awards, the decision to make a film in this franchise breathe a little more is a more than welcome change of robot pace.

Joker trailer arrives

Joker trailer arrives

Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Joker” stars Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, alongside Oscar winner Robert De Niro, and is directed, produced and co-written by Oscar nominee Todd Phillips.

“Joker” centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. Phillips’ exploration of Arthur Fleck, a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study, but also a broader cautionary tale.



JOKER also stars Zazie Beetz, Frances Conroy, Marc Maron, Bill Camp, Glenn Fleshler, Shea Whigham, Brett Cullen, Douglas Hodge and Josh Pais.

JOKER releases in New Zealand on October 3, 2019.

Pet Sematary: Film Review

Pet Sematary: Film Review

Cast: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimitz, John Lithgow, Jete Lawrence
Director: Kevin Kolsch, Dennis Widmyer

The 2019 remake of Pet Sematary knows what it wants to do.

But unfortunately, in parts, its weaker characters and wider film squanders some of the chance of doing it so.

Clarke and Seimetz play Louis and Rachel Creed, parents who've relocated to the apparently idyllic countryside for an easier life, and to spend time with their young family.

However, when their cat Church is killed by a passing truck, Louis finds an offer of a burial from neighbour Judd (Lithgow, in venerable and stoic form) too irresistible to refuse....and before they know it, their world's changed in ways they could never have imagined.

Pet Sematary may have big themes such as dealing with death and the wider effects of grief, but it squanders most of the well-done earlier edges in favour of traditional jump scares, brooding and foreboding  and creepy edges.

The final result is that parts of the plot creak with the silliness that's clearly been imbued in them by the original pulpy schlocky page turner from Stephen King. And while parts of the movie deviate from the book, the 2019 version is more a portmanteau of jump scares and creepy scenes, rather than a coherently paced story.

That's not to say when they come, the jump scenes don't work, but towards the back half of the film, the scares border on the silly rather than the horrific and sequences which should be terrifying end up more laughable than anything.

Pet Sematary follows the Stephen King writing MO - it has a great set up, but the final portion falls over under either close scrutiny or the weight of what it's been set up for. It's not that the 2019 version isn't unentertaining enough, it's just that paper-thin characters with largely underexplored themes don't create enough of an engaging finale, and wider themes are used solely as a lazy crutch for scares.

Ultimately, the 2019 Pet Sematary is to be lauded for some initial creepiness, and some unnerving moments that catch you off guard. It's just that in the final wash, the schlock overwhelms the B-movie edges and drowns it in a madness that's hard to shake.

Sorry to Bother You: DVD Review

Sorry to Bother You: DVD Review

Possibly this year's most biting satire, Sorry To Bother You's ramshackle approach to its story wields unlikely dividends for an audience looking for more beneath the surface.

Get Out's Stanfield plays Cassius Green, a down on his luck unemployed man searching for work.

Conning his way into a telemarketing job, sakjfdsfds learns that there's money to be had by putting on a white man's voice and selling. So against the odds, and desperate to get out of living in his garage
with his supportive girlfriend Detroit (Thompson, on fire form), Green takes the advice on board - and it works.

Swiftly rising in the corporate world, Cassius finds his life at odds due to his former telemarketer colleagues protesting conditions. But there's much more going on at the mysterious company than Green realises...

There's a lot to digest in Sorry To Bother You, a savage indictment of the underclasses in America and also building on the work done by last year's Get Out.

Boots Riley's frankly indefinable film offers many joys in many ways, and will reward a second viewing with more finer details to be picked up. Suffice to say that Stanfield anchors it with a great deal of heart and innate likeability as the gonzo approach to the film veers into both creative and lunatic territory with veritable aplomb.

There's something of a Twilight Zone here, and an alternate universe as tsadjdsakdsak's world descends into a place of utter disbelief - be it the reality of what's going on where he works, or the commentary on the dumbing down of TV and the reality TV craze that continues unabated.

But Riley's smart enough to pepper these elements throughout, causing viewers to find much for discussion once the lights have gone and once the unease over what's happened has cleared.

Ultimately, Sorry To Bother You may be 2018's most unconformist and subversive ride, but it's also one of 2018's most compelling too - just don't be surprised if the final feeling is one of sickening nausea as you begin to accept reality's coming as close to anything insane produced within. 

Beautiful Boy: DVD Review

Beautiful Boy: DVD Review

Beautiful Boy's take on crystal meth addiction aims for powerful tale, but presents a somewhat sanitised take on the tale, albeit blessing it with two strong leads.

Based on the memoirs Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction by David Sheff, van Groeningen's drama is aimed more at the middle classes unaware of the problems of rehab and addiction.

Carell, in downbeat dramatic mode, plays Sheff, who discovers his son Nic (Call Me By My Name's Timothee Chalamet) is taking drugs and who tries everything to turn him around. But this once close relationship is frazzled and fraught on the journey, in turn causing Sheff's family to be put through the ringer.

Looping nicely between the past and the present, the then and the now of their central relationship, Carell and Chalamet conjure up something special in many ways. Their bond feels natural and real, even if at times, they feel more like brothers than father and son; scenes such as Nic rocking out to Nirvana while David watches on in the car do much to build the bond and closeness before the addiction ripples through their life and damages it irrevocably.

In truth, there's little here that people who've seen addiction stories before won't know about - and the film's desire to portray the events unfolding is done in such a beige way and an almost hesitant approach to condemn the drugs' use that it mutes the final emotional impacts beyond repair, and makes what should be harrowing lesser than it actually is.

At times, it's maddening because of it.

Van Groeningen litters the screen with some beautiful vistas, some touching scenes which display the erosion of trust between father and son, and the heartbreaking feeling of the family left behind; it's almost honest in its empathy, even if it does fail to stir something deeply within.

There's an intriguing use of white noise at key moments, a sound where it feels like the pumping of the veins are overwhelming what's being heard, and if there's an over-reliance on this at times, it's an effective signalling of intent, a sign of what truly drives an addict and what pushes them over the edge.

But as it trawls through the druggy cliches, and builds towards an obvious conclusion, the inexorable march through blander territory robs you of a feeling of impending tragedy, no matter how great the work done by Chalamet and Carell; these two deliver powerhouse performances which do much to overcome the lesser impact of what should have been a stronger film to behold, a journey to be horrified at and a true-life trauma to have endured.