Category Archives: 2013

2013, Not Recommended, Short

The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever (2013, Mark Robertson)

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The Most Insane Amusement Park Ever is about a New Jersey amusement park called Action Park, which opened in the late seventies and ran for twenty dangerous years—there were apparently six deaths and countless injuries (enabled by the owner running some kind of insurance scheme). The video has a mix of original commercials, interviews, and some recreations. Not sure where the recreations were shot (the park reopened under a different name, with most of the original rides gone, and an emphasis on not maiming customers).

Is it interesting? Not really, no. The filmmakers seemingly picked most of their interviewees for availability, not having any actual salient information about the park. For instance, not a single person interviewed seems to have ever been injured in the park, which is great for them and all, but they've got a particular kind of bias. They braved the park and survived.

Unlike the people who died.

It's unclear if they count the drownings in the six deaths, because when they're interviewing the current owner (and son of original owner), he makes it sound like there were a lot of drownings.

Concerning since he was a lifeguard at the time at the park.

Though apparently the park was just a good place for teenagers to get drunk and bully each other without any adults caring. Because teenagers ran all the rides, even though they weren't old enough.

Because cool. It made men out of all of them. Men who don't think there's anything wrong with rules and laws in place to prevent people from dying at amusement parks. Even skipping all the toxic masculinity stuff and even the fact it turns out to be a bad promotional video for the reopened park… there's also the incurious nature of the filmmakers. They got a former park manager on the phone; he and a law professor provide the more negative side of the park, but everyone else is a cheerleader for it. Yet, again, none of these people had any tragedies. So why not find someone who actually had a negative experience. Since those involved broken limbs and, you know, death.

Instead, there's the owner saying people need to get over themselves and embrace the nostalgia for getting drunk and spitting on people at the park.

It's a weird, limited, and draggy short.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Edited and directed by Mark Robertson; written by Seth Porges; produced by Robertson and Porges; released by Dailymotion.

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2013, Action/Adventure, ★★

All Is Lost (2013, J.C. Chandor)

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All Is Lost is the harrowing tale of an unnamed man (Robert Redford) on his damaged yacht in the Indian Ocean. The film runs 106 minutes. It’s harrowing for all of them. Director Chandor knows how to harrow.

The film has a mundane reality about it. Redford has no back story, no character development, almost no “character” at all. The film opens with a mildly damaging voiceover from Redford; he’s doing a combination apology and goodbye. There’s no indication of who he’s addressing–wife, child, maybe he’s a CEO who sailed off on his yacht after Bernie Madoffing, it doesn’t matter. All Is Lost is about Redford’s struggle during a constantly harrowing experience, with failure more and more certain with each passing moment.

But the opening voiceover informs how the viewer perceives Redford and his actions. Well, except when Chandor’s just dirt cheap about it. Redford risks his life (more than usual) to save a package, opens to reveal a gift, then takes a long pause to consider whether he wants to read the note. Chandor dangles revelation and rescue in front of the viewer throughout. But Redford can’t see it, because then he couldn’t be stoic. And Redford’s stoicism is impressive.

Anyway, one damage is how the voiceover affects viewer interpretation of Redford’s behavior. He has maybe six lines of dialogue after his opening voiceover; five of them are on the radio and the sixth is a single word. The other damage is how that opening voiceover fits into the narrative. Voicever, film title card, then a title card setting the film back eight days. Presumably, Redford’s not going to make the recording for eight days. So what’s going to happen in between?

Lots of harrowing boating things, starting with Redford’s yacht colliding with a shipping container while Redford’s asleep below deck. Bad things frequently happen in the film when Redford’s asleep. He’s either a heavy sleeper or a slow waker.

Once the shipping container situation is resolved, which takes most of the “first act,” other disasters befall Redford and he has to try to figure his way out of them. Chandor does a fantastic job making Redford’s actions make sense. Redford’s not talking, most viewers aren’t going to understand his seamanship activites. Chandor’s juggling quite a bit. Redford’s strong performance makes it all work. While Chandor’s composition is good–though occasionally too fixated on the pretty–and Pete Beaudreau’s editing is phenomenal, Redford’s bringing the humanity. He never voices his fears or anything else, which is frustrating since the opening voiceover is very talky; Redford’s just doing it with his psychical perfomance, his expressions, how he moves around the yacht interiors and exteriors.

Going into the second act, the film downshifts. Summary storytelling is over for a while. Redford’s broken yacht is about to get hit by a huge storm. Is he going to survive? Is something else going to go terribly wrong?

And it does. And then something else. And something else. Redford’s sprinting through a micro-disaster movie (which actually might best describe All Is Lost), which changes the pace of the film quite a bit. Then Chandor changes it again around halfway through.

Redford can weather a lot of the pacing issues. Only because the film asks so little of him after a certain point. The more difficult Redford’s reality becomes, the more Chandor pulls away, only to dangle the narrative red herring again. But the movie’s in a far different place and Chandor and Redford have already had some successes. Red herrings can’t bring it home.

Though the herring is so well-prepared, it ends up righting the yacht enough to recover a bit.

Good music from Alex Ebert. Frank G. DeMarco’s photography is fine. The film goes for realism most of the time and DeMarco delivers it. Beaudreau’s editing is the technical standout.

All Is Lost has a great performance from Robert Redford. He just can’t save the ship–Chandor’s style and narrative clash throughout the film, without ever sustaining the right rhythm.

2/4★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor; director of photography, Frank G. DeMarco; edited by Pete Beaudreau; music by Alex Ebert; production designer, John Goldsmith; produced by Neal Dodson, Anna Gerb, Justin Nappi, and Teddy Schwarzman; released by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions.

Starring Robert Redford.

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2013, ⓏⒺⓇⓄ, Cult

Escape from Tomorrow (2013, Randy Moore)

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Director Moore snuck cameras into Disney World (and Disneyland) to tell the story of a creepy dad who goes insane while on the last day of the family vacation. Moore, who also wrote the tedious script, has reasons for the insanity, but they’re all nonsense because Tomorrow is more about showcasing the guerrilla filmmaking and ogling. And Moore seems to know he doesn’t have a cohesive narrative, so he throws in a bunch of pointless subplots. Almost everything in Escape from Tomorrow seems to be taking a shot at Disney, but it’s more taking a shot at the culture of Disney World guests. Or the lack thereof.

As far as the guerrilla filmmaking goes… Moore’s okay as a director. Given the constraints, some of the shots are impressive. Lucas Lee Graham’s black and white photography is good, though reading about how the shots were planned months in advance as to get the light right since it was an uncontrolled environment actually makes it seem less good. Escape from Tomorrow never looks like it wasn’t digitally desaturated in post. It’s less impressive if these shots were the best they got.

Soojin Chung’s editing is awful. Again, might be Moore’s fault, might be the guerrilla filmmaking constraint, but it’s awful. Especially since it’s supposed to represent protagonist Roy Abramsohn’s descent into madness.

The ogling. Let’s talk about the ogling because it’s the inciting incident of the whole stupid thing. Abramsohn is at the park with his family. Frigid wife Elena Schuber, Oedipus complexing son Jack Dalton, and perfect daughter Katelynn Rodriguez. After being fired and not telling Schuber (she’s a bit of a nag, after all), Abramsohn starts stalking a couple teenage girls, bringing son Dalton along for the trip. Moore’s really bad at the humor in Escape from Tomorrow, starting from the first scene when Dalton locks dad Abramsohn out on a balcony. Moore plays it for Oedipus, not for laughs. Laughs would’ve been better, given the intellectual paucity of the script. Moore also bombs every other comedic possibility, which is even worse considering Abramsohn is far better playing dumb dad than potential pederast.

Now, I’m assuming the actors playing the teenage girls weren’t actually teenagers. However, Moore seems to use that excuse to turn on an exceptional level of male gaze, completely free of irony or even knowing exploitation. Again, the script is many levels of dreadful. Though original. It’s kind of original. If Moore had just ripped off The Shining, Escape from Tomorrow would’ve been much better. Instead, there are similarities and, in those similarities, the film showcases how it’s worse for being original than if it were just aping other movies.

And then there’s the whole subtext about Disney World being gross because of the white trash. Only Moore turns it up to eleven and makes the white trash example an evil disabled obese man.

Schuber is fine in a hard part. She’s supposed to be insufferable and suffering. She’s supposed to be righteous, but she’s also supposed to be frigid (Abramsohn scopes his teenage targets as consolation to Schuber shutting him down). She’s also, the film determines, an unideal example of not just a woman, but a mother.

Oh, and Moore introduces the idea she’s lying to her husband about being the son’s father. Another plot thread Moore completely drops because he’s really bad at the whole writing thing.

There’s occasionally some good music from Abel Korzeniowski. When it’s not good, it’s not Korzeniowski’s fault, it’s because the action is so dumb, nothing’s going to make it right. And by dumb, it’s usually not a dumb turn of events, it’s a failed attempt at conveying something visually. Chung is a terrible editor; Moore’s mediocre composition is the only good thing about his direction.

Tomorrow isn’t even better for being short because the second half of the film, when Abramsohn’s cheating on his wife and taking the daughter around the park to stalk the girls, drags on forever. There are like four endings to this stupid thing, each one worse than the previous.

And, what’s funny… I was onboard with it for a long time. It’s technically pretty neat, though Chung’s editing is even worse when they’re using digital effects to compensate for the shooting constraint, and it could have easily gone somewhere. Instead, it goes nowhere. Because Moore has absolutely nothing to say. Not about madness, not about marriage, not about parenting, not about Disney World. Escape from Tomorrow is a pointlessly offensive juvenile attempt at edginess.

There is no escape.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Written and directed by Randy Moore; director of photography, Lucas Lee Graham; edited by Soojin Chung; music by Abel Korzeniowski; production designers, Sean Kaysen and Lawrence Kim; produced by Chung and Gioia Marchese; released by Producers Distribution Agency.

Starring Roy Abramsohn (Jim), Elena Schuber (Emily), Jack Dalton (Elliot) and Katelynn Rodriguez (Sara).

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2013, ★★★★, Drama

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013, Joel and Ethan Coen)

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Just over half way into Inside Llewyn Davis, there’s a moment where lead Oscar Isaac looks into the face of responsibility–weighs it, weighs the consequences of not accepting it, makes his decision. Until that moment, the Coen Brothers hadn’t candidly identified the film as a character study. It happens in the middle of an epical sequence–the film splits into three (really, five) sections–and they don’t stop the existing momentum. It just changes, ever minutely, how Isaac is going to relate to the viewer. The film acknowledges the viewer wants to make a judgement of the protagonist–as one well should given the protagonist’s name is in the title and that title can easily be seen as an invitation–but refuses that judgement. There’s no need. After all, the film has up until that point warned the viewer and the training wheels are then off.

So with the rest of the film, the Coen Brothers do a lot of different things. They give Isaac some more excellent moments, they craft a really spectacular third act and denouement. They even acknowledge they’ve taken quite a journey–a bigger one than the viewer (or Isaac) realize–and they fit all their many pieces back into the box they so carefully unpacked in the first act.

The film concerns Isaac’s early sixties Greenwich Village folk singer and his callous behavior and interactions with other people, both in the folk music culture and out. Isaac’s performance is outstanding, as are many of the supporting performances. It’s a character study so Isaac’s is the most important and he hits every moment, ably assisted not just by the Coen Brothers’ script and direction, but the fine editing from Roderick Jaynes, who knows just how to cut a talking heads scene for emphasis.

Davis beautifully recreates the period–Jess Gonchor production designing–and Bruno Delbonnel’s crisp photography makes it all even more vivid. It’s a quiet, precise film. Many of the actors–Carey Mulligan and John Goodman in particular–speak in short monologues. The sound is phenomenal, not just because it’s about music, but because of the tone the Coen Brothers get out their cast’s deliveries amid such static, aching quiet.

Isaac’s great, Mulligan’s great. Excellent support from Justin Timberlake (no, really), F. Murray Abraham and Jeanine Serralles. Phenomenal composition and editing from the Coen Brothers (with Jaynes’s assistance, of course).

Inside Llewyn Davis is awesome–big when it needs to be, small when it needs to be. It’s a beautiful extinguishing of hope and, better, watching as Isaac experiences that extinguishing. It’s also phenomenally plotted; I don’t want to forget about that element. The script organically layers the revelations throughout the narrative, forcing the viewer to not just identify–willingly or not–with Isaac, but also with his protagonist’s particular point of view.

It’s a singular character study.

4/4★★★★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; director of photography, Bruno Delbonnel; edited by Roderick Jaynes; production designer, Jess Gonchor; produced by Scott Rudin, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; released by CBS Films.

Starring Oscar Isaac (Llewyn Davis), Carey Mulligan (Jean), Justin Timberlake (Jim), John Goodman (Roland Turner), Garrett Hedlund (Johnny Five), Jeanine Serralles (Joy), Adam Driver (Al Cody), Stark Sands (Troy Nelson) and F. Murray Abraham (Bud Grossman).

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