Category Archives: Video

Saturday Matinee: A Life on the Farm

Posted on by
Reply

A LIFE ON THE FARM Review: Making Movies

By Ernesto Zelaya Miñano

Source: Screen Anarchy

“Charles Carson. Coombe End Farm.”

This story begins with a videotape. Director Oscar Harding finds an old tape he never got to watch in its entirety as a kid. Said video was titled “Life On The Farm”, a feature-length home movie made by Charles Carson, an elderly neighbor of his grandparents’. When looking into how this salt-of-the-earth, unassuming farmer managed to make a movie, Harding uncovers a great story. A Life On The Farm is the result.

At first, the contents of said tape –  a grainy home movie with bad tracking and all those other bugs that make one nostalgic for the VHS era – prove disturbing. Clad in a plaid red shirt and cowboy hat, Charles Carson takes Harding and his viewers on a tour of his laidback country life in Somerset, England, spending days looking after his animals, tending to the land, showing cows giving birth in graphic detail, talking incessantly to his dead cat and ultimately, taking the corpse of his deceased mother around the farm and posing her for pictures with the animals. It’s no wonder that one talking head compares him to Ed Gein, and you’ll probably be thinking of Norman Bates and his unhealthy attachment to Norma more than once.

But just as you expect Harding’s prized discovery to escalate into a full-blown snuff film or something similar, the director does a total bait-and-switch while digging into Charles Carson’s background, and discovers a simple, well-meaning guy who turned to filmmaking due to loneliness; meanwhile, all his interviewees go from laughing and pointing to sincerely admiring the man.

Carson’s story was pretty tragic; having lived nearly all his life on a remote farm, he lost both his parents, a brother, and his wife, who also did not live with him and only visited occasionally. Left alone in the company of cows, cats and other assorted animals, Carson turned to an old video camera and a photography hobby to have a link to the outside world, and one assumes to keep himself sane.

While he first regaled his neighbors with pictures of himself on his land along with funny captions, they soon started receiving what would be his legacy, “Life On The Farm”. Sadly, Carson passed away in the mid 00’s, alone and mostly forgotten. That is, until Harding and an entire community of found footage and vintage VHS enthusiasts got a hold of his film.

Harding’s doc goes from a budding backwoods horror picture to an uplifting story of an unlikely DIY guerrilla filmmaker whose unconventional work is being rediscovered. Carson’s VHS tape also highlights the love many film fans have for physical media, which is largely disappearing in this new era of streaming platforms; bizarre little gems like Carson’s magnum opus can disappear into the ether (though this one is uploaded to YouTube, so at least it’s safe for the time being), and this film is a rallying cry for their continued survival.

Even though it starts to lay the schmaltz on a bit thick, A Life On The Farm ends up as a portrait of a one-of-a-kind artist who’s finally getting his due, whose work for many will be nothing more than a passing curiosity, but who managed to make his mark. Movies are that one special thing that can bring people together, and for Carson, they’re what brought him to the rest of the world.

____________________

Watch A Life On The Farm on Kanopy here: https://www.kanopy.com/en/product/14052224

Saturday Matinee: Beau is Afraid

Posted on by
Reply

Beau Is Afraid (Film Review): A Baffling Nightmare

By Joseph Tomastik

Source: Loud and Clear

Beau is Afraid. And I’m afraid of what’s in Ari Aster’s head after watching his latest film. The director of Hereditary and Midsommar is back with Beau is Afraid, a baffling three-hour effort to make his other films look easily accessible in comparison. I love Hereditary and consider it one of the best horror films of the 2010s. I like Midsommar purely for the sensory experience of watching it, but its bare-bones, overblown story stops me from calling it good. Beau Is Afraid takes those strengths and weaknesses of Midsommar and cranks them up to eleven. And, fittingly enough, my feelings on that film are repeated twofold with this one.

Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is an anxious man who lives in a broken-down apartment in a corrupt, violent city. He’s set to go on a trip to visit his overbearing mother (Patti LuPone), but shocking news and unfortunate events derail his trip, forcing him to cross paths with a variety of bizarre characters and surreal events. That’s as much of the plot as I’ll be revealing. Not just to avoid spoiling any surprises, but also because that’s about all I feel I’m even capable of saying. Outside of Beau being tended to along his way by a seemingly caring couple (Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane), the events of Beau is Afraid are increasingly difficult to properly wrap one’s head around.

Beau is Afraid is the kind of film that I’ve become more open to over the years. I once had the impulse to dislike any film that I didn’t instantly understand, but now I can appreciate the experience of such a baffling film if I find myself sucked into the craft, performances, visuals, or overall feel. Beau is Afraid is an unshakable 10/10 in all of those aspects. This is Aster’s most skillfully shot, visually haunting film to date. He has such an insanely perfect grasp on his directorial style that I struggle to comprehend how any human being could bring some of this film’s beauty to reality. That sounds hyperbolic, but I really was that mesmerized by what was accomplished here.

There’s so much detail in almost every single shot that you could blink and potentially miss a jarring detail. This is not only impressive, but it guarantees that no matter where or when you look, some form of misery is happening. This is especially true early on when we see what kind of environment Beau lives in. It looks like your typical city, but it feels downright alien because of how relentlessly cruel everyone is and how well the nightmare of such a place is captured. The entirety of Beau is Afraid feels like a nightmare, in fact. The are sights, sounds, and ideas are like something straight out of a David Lynch movie, and they’re never going to leave my head. And, as is typical of Aster, the whole film is effectively raw and relentlessly unpleasant. Even if you don’t always understand what’s happening or why, you feel it.

The editing emphasizes that nightmarish feel as well, not letting you skip out on a single second of the discomfort that would exist in these scenarios. There are no loud tactics or cheap jump scares here, as every dark reveal is slowly thrust upon you. The editing also gets morbidly funny. Beau is about to take a bath, he gets bad news, and a match cut shows the water spilling out onto to the floor, showing how long he’s been standing there stunned. The blocking of characters from wide shots gives so many of them the physical presence of a creeping demon, even if you don’t always know why you’re afraid of them, and the lighting outlines so many set pieces and characters in a disarming otherworldly void.

The actors are all spectacular. Phoenix is amazing as always, getting across Beau’s frightened vulnerability, uncertainty, and buried anger in a heartbreakingly sympathetic way, especially when it’s met with so much hostility. Everyone else works so well with the material they’re given. Their lines get so excessively cruel and heightened that they could easily come across as inauthentic, but every performance brings enough painfully realistic conviction to sell them.

There’s also a sequence at the center of Beau is Afraid involving a stage play that tells its own little story. This entire stretch is stunning enough to work as its own Oscar-worthy short film. It combines a variety of styles and artistry and works them into the emotion of the story being told. If other filmmakers take away anything from Beau is Afraid, it should be how innovative they can get with their own storytelling. Aster’s recurring cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski needs to become one of the most sought-after people in his field. I’m really doing very little justice in describing what he does here.

If only that play sequence felt like it mattered in the grand scheme of things. Which leads me to where Beau is Afraid falls short: the story. I don’t know whether to classify this movie as ridiculously simple or excessively convoluted, because its story is a very long, winding road to what feels like a very basic destination. Beau is Afraid is, above all else, meant to be about a man dealing with the damage his overprotective, abuse mother inflicted onto him, and how that’s molded his paranoia and anxiety. But additionally, you’re also supposed to be trying to figure out the nature of Beau’s reality. Yet the more I think about it (without the luxury of a rewatch, I must stress), the more the story and structure begin to fall apart.

A lot of this has to do with character motivations. Beau’s are fine and understandable, but everyone else makes so many nonsensical and sporadic decisions that don’t feel baked into the well-established natures of who they are. They feel like excuses to show upsetting content or move us to the next set piece. The couple that takes care of Beau has a daughter (Kylie Rogers) who believes Beau is replacing her … and I have no idea why that is, let alone why it drives her to the drastic actions she takes. They have a veteran son (Denis Ménochet) with a severe but pointless and almost tastelessly portrayed mental illness. The parents’ outlook on Beau also eventually flips in a way that feels almost pointless in the grand scheme of things.

The play I brought up initially seems like it may connect somehow to Beau’s past, present, and future, but it really doesn’t. A character supposedly from his past soon shows up, and there are no hints as to how he got there, what he’s been doing, or even what he’s even trying to accomplish, especially after another reveal later on. Flashbacks to Beau’s childhood see him interacting with a very deranged girl whose unnatural, almost sociopathic dialogue is seemingly written that way just to be weird and off-putting.

I think I know the very, very basic nature of what’s going on … maybe. The ending and the hints of said ending definitely lead me down one road, along with a few other theories that may hold some weight when I factor in my own interpretations of other reveals. But that road still leaves a lot of other threads and sequences failing to click into place, at least in a way that contributes to whatever Aster is going for thematically … I think? I swear, there’s something here that could potentially justify a lot of what I’m unclear on. I can’t say specifically what that is, but I’m hesitant to just dismiss the whole story entirely.

By the time the ending rolls around, you understand the core of what Beau is Afraid is supposed to be about. It just stretches what little meat that core has to such an absurd degree, throwing in all kinds of self-indulgent hurdles that distract from the point of the film more than they add to it. I get that certain films are supposed to not follow conventional, natural logic. But they should still have some method to their madness. Beau is Afraid goes all over the place. It’s a few minutes short of being three hours long, and that length is partially due to the many non sequiturs and needless details that muddy up the ambiguous information that probably is relevant to the bigger picture.

To the film’s credit, I never once felt that length, I was never bored, and I never wanted the glacial pacing to speed up. I also, despite how little I can grasp the film’s intentions, still find myself feeling more positively about Beau is Afraid than negatively. I think I’ll even watch it again just to relive this astonishingly constructed fever dream. I must stress that my enjoyment is almost only due to the visceral experience of the entire nightmare playing out, and not from the meaning behind it. Ari Aster is becoming a frustrating director for me because he clearly has god-tier levels of talent behind the camera. But that talent seems to lose its focus when he’s writing, a problem he’s so far only avoided with Hereditary.

I’ll give full props to A24: they clearly don’t care whether or not all of their films make money. There’s no way in my mind they could have looked at this script with this running time and thought it was going to do well. This is the kind of film that’s destined to get a C or D grade on Cinemascore and leave many audiences at odds with the general critical praise the film is getting. In that regard, if you can see yourself enjoying a film for the same reasons I enjoyed Beau is Afraid, then you should absolutely give it a shot in theaters. The same applies if you just like weird, trippy, dark films regardless of their substance. I’m still going to see Aster’s next film, because everything he’s made has shown him to be on another level of directing. He’s one of the few filmmakers who can win me over solelywith his craft, even when his stories are lacking. I just hope he eventually regains control of that crucial other half.

____________________

Watch Beau is Afraid on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/movie/beau-is-afraid-joaquin-phoenix/16497118

Saturday Matinee: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Posted on by
Reply

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” Review — Don’t Forget To Breathe

By Sergiu Inizian

Source: Medium

In 2016, Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan (known collectively as Daniels) premiered their feature debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Swiss Army Man stunned audiences with a bizarre premise and is still one of the oddest films to come out of the prestigious festival.

It is a movie in which the emotional weight gets swallowed by a nevertheless entertaining childish cinematic approach. But it’s also a test run for Everything Everywhere All at Once, a whirlwind of a movie that brings so much more to the screen than downright weirdness.

The Daniels tell the story of Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), a Chinese-American woman who runs a laundromat with her easy-going husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). She is discouraged by life, has marital problems, and is unable to communicate with her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu). On top of it all, she is at a loss when trying to challenge her father (James Hong) about past trauma or present issues.

Yeoh infuses so much dignity into Evelyn, a struggling mother who quietly looks for answers to her personal problems while trying to put the family business in order. Her two priorities are organizing a Chinese New Year party and successfully dealing with an IRS audit.

But, in the IRS building, a wholly changed Waymond introduces her to the Multiverse, a collection of realities that hosts endless versions of Evelyn. This is revealed to her because she is the one powerful enough to combat an entity that desires to destroy the fabric of reality.

What ensues next is a kaleidoscopic montage of possibility that showcases the protagonist’s alternate lives with gripping vigor. This interdimensional music video entertains through dynamic genre mashups, marvelous colors, and an eclectic Son Lux soundtrack. The directors decorate their psychedelic narrative with an abundance of references that range from arthouse drama to “Avengers-style” heroics and to completely silly antics.

At the center of the polychromatic experience, Evelyn is tasked to make sense of it all. Michelle Yeoh is fearless in her multifaceted role, bringing nuance and honesty to a captivating madhouse of a film. Within the Multiverse, Yeoh’s wide-open eyes pierce through all the outlandish embroidery and stand as the film’s brightest marvels.

Underneath the sci-fi-infused cinematic experience, the Daniels reveal an attentive treatment of sorrow, generational conflict, and reconciliation. The portrayal of familial disconnect especially absorbed me: Evelyn is both a mother and daughter and yet she finds herself in the middle of a discord that spans three generations. In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the fractures of reality pale in comparison to the emotional ruptures that define Evelyn’s family.

While the visual experience of the massive Multiverse can be overwhelming at times, the directors know when to hit the pause button and insert quiet moments, allowing the characters to shine. Ke Huy Quan steals the show in these scenes, especially in the universe in which Evelyn is a famous actress. He brings so much authenticity to the kind, hopeful Waymond and his presence is a fitting companion to Yeoh’s mesmerizing performance.

In Everything Everywhere All at Once, the Daniels create so many layers for the seemingly mundane story of Evelyn. It’s a breathtaking journey that deals with life’s “what-ifs” and entertains through sheer ambition. It also embraces a charming message which showcases the wonder of cinema and the craft of the quirky directorial pair: regardless of how seemingly ordinary a destiny is, it always involves plenty of fantasy, mystery, and hope.

____________________

Watch Everything Everywhere All at Once on Hoopla here: https://www.hoopladigital.com/movie/everything-everywhere-all-at-once-michelle-yeoh/16497128

Saturday Matinee: Greener Grass

Posted on by
Reply

By Sheila O’Malley

Source: RogerEbert.com

There’s a scene in “Greener Grass,” written and directed by Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe (who also co-star), where four families in golf carts sit at a four-way intersection. Everyone gestures at everybody else: “You go,” “Oh, no, you go, I insist…” And so they sit at the intersection forever, smiles frozen on their faces, in a standoff of psychotic politeness. If you’re at a four-way intersection, someone has to go first, someone has to allow themselves to be waved on through. In “Greener Grass,” nobody dares.

DeBoer and Luebbe have created a psychotic suburban world where surface conformity is all, where everyone strives to look and be the same. The smiling faces perch on top of roiling emotions, not even necessarily anti-social emotions, just regular ones, like need, loss, pain. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is pushed to its most surreal extreme. Everyone in the town has braces. Everyone dresses the same, in pinks and light blues and light purples. Everyone drives golf carts. It’s like they live in a mini village placed on a country club golf course somewhere. 

The golf cart scene is an excellent example of what “Greener Grass” is attacking, and it’s a sharp and subversive critique: it would be great to live in a more civil world, but too much civility leads to golf carts stalled at a four-way intersection. In another scene, when two meals end up on the ground after a collision between two waiters, the patrons hasten to eat the food off the floor. To say, “Please bring me another meal” would just not be done. Every single interaction in “Greener Grass” is “competitive,” but it’s competition tamped down by friendly beaming smiles. These people live in an agony of one-upmanship.

“Greener Grass” starts out strong and strange in the first scene. Lisa (Luebbe) and Jill (DeBoer) sit in a group of parents on a blazing sunny day, watching their kids play soccer. Both women are immaculately dressed and made up, braces on their teeth. Jill holds a newborn baby and Lisa compliments the baby on being “cute.” Jill immediately hands the baby over to Lisa. Nobody seems to find this strange, not even Jill’s husband (Beck Bennett). Lisa wanted the baby, and so it’s polite to hand it over, it would be selfish to hang onto it. Later on, a neighbor (Mary Holland) expresses resentment that Jill didn’t give the baby to her. Jill clearly has mixed feelings about what she has done, and yet “mixed feelings” are not allowed in the world of “Greener Grass.” Jill’s remaining son (Julian Hilliard) is a handful, a bedwetter and a perceptive observer. His surprising transformation is matched by Jill’s total personality-disintegration.

Both DeBoer and Luebbe have performed with the improv comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade for over a decade. They bring that experience to their creation of this alternate universe, an unholy mix of “Blue Velvet,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” and “The Stepford Wives.” The characters in “Greener Grass” watch a lot of television and DeBoer and Luebbe have a lot of fun creating these alternate-history shows, fake commercials, fake reality shows and soap operas. “Greener Grass” displays its sketch comedy origins, and sometimes the “bits” stand out as not fitting altogether properly, maybe not as fleshed out as they should be. This is a very unsettling film, with a color palette that manages to be blazing-vivid and dreary-muted at the same time, as though it’s all a regurgitated idea of an already-regurgitated idea. (That idea of regurgitation is made explicit in one of the fake television commercials.)

There are very funny details throughout. Pay close attention to the production design. The houses all look like toy houses, with interchangeable decor. People are just “playing house,” they don’t actually live there. In the grocery store, a sign is placed in a prominent position: “Not responsible for stolen lives.” In one surreal moment, Jill and Lisa make out with each others’ husbands, not even realizing their mistake. “Greener Grass” feels a little bit like a comedy sketch drawn out past its capabilities, but the film’s target is always clear.

Like all good satires, “Greener Grass” trucks in exaggeration. Anyone “getting ahead” of anyone else is looked on with suspicion. Personal relationships have a generic quality because if you say you’re “best friends” with someone, someone else might feel left out. Being “unselfish” can be a competition, especially when done performatively. In the leveling world of “Greener Grass,” “standing out” is terrifying. It’s Tall Poppy Syndrome on amphetamines. Even as Jill deteriorates, there’s no sense here of a possible escape to another place where things are different. In “Greener Grass,” Sylvia Plath’s suffocating “bell jar” covers the whole world.