Sherlock Jr (1924)

Directed by: Buster Keaton

Written by: Jean C Havez, Joseph A Mitchell

Starring: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton

Buster Keaton has quite the legacy. I know of his work because of my affection for the 80s Hong Kong films of Jackie Chan. Chan was not only influenced by the silent film star, but lifted or paid homage to many of Keaton's stunts throughout his work. Sherlock Jr is the first Buster Keaton film I've seen. I've seen clips before. Even from Sherlock Jr. The scene where Keaton is stuck on the roof and uses a crossing guard to lower himself into the backseat of a car I've seen before. Even so, this film was an absolute delight.

A couple of months back I watched Charlie Chaplin's "Easy Street". I wasn't able to get enough of my thoughts about the movie onto the page so I scrapped the writing. The one thing that struck me about the Chaplin film was how it was like watching a live action Bugs Bunny cartoon. Obviously the films of Chaplin, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers influenced Warner Brothers and their smart alec rabbit, but I couldn't ignore the parallels. Sherlock Jr uses cartoon logic.

What makes it all the more spectacular though is that we're not dealing with a cartoon. Something about seeing such flagrant disregard for the laws of our universe on screen is breathtaking. There's small gags like using the rain cover of a car in the water for a sail, but there are two logic defying acts that had me gobsmacked. Considering the film was released in 1924, these two scenes feel like actual cinema magic.

There's the sequence when Keaton as the projectionist starts dreaming. He walks into the cinema showing a film on screen. He then walks through the screen into the scene. From there we have a bunch of sight gags as the genre of film changes, usually resulting in a pratfall, but that initial walking into the frame really stuck with me. The second and more remarkable shot is when Keaton as Sherlock Jr is fleeing from the bad guys. He gets trapped in an alley with a salesman. The salesman has his suitcase open, his back against the brick wall. Sherlock Jr is trapped. He runs at the salesman, and dives through his suitcase, disappearing. The goons test the wall, which spins around trapping them on the other side. I'd have to go watch the scene again to see if any jump cuts are obvious, because otherwise I have no idea how Keaton pulled this stunt off. This is what I mean by cinema magic.

So much of the film had me smiling, and I even laughed out loud a few times. I marveled how effortlessly information was conveyed through the acting and the composition rather than relying on the text cards. Keaton is a magnetic screen presence, not only for his physical feats but how he carries himself. I was rooting for him to overcome the villain who framed him. What's interesting is that the villain never receives his comeuppance. In the projectionist's dream he is done in by an exploding billiard ball, but back in reality there is no punishment. Just the girl realising that the projectionist did not commit the crime he was framed for. The film ends with the two awkwardly kissing.

At 45 minutes, I recommend everyone check this out. The jokes land, you feel for the projectionist, and the stunts are still spectacular. The version I watched can be found here.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★★

A Cure for Wellness (2016)

Directed by: Gore Verbinski

Written by: Justin Haythe

Starring: Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

Aside from the creepiness of the eels, the scariest thing in A Cure for Wellness is the idea of water that dehydrates you. That the life giving fluid I always have near by could be killing me in order to prolong the life of another. Late in the film Volmer, the director of the clinic, says that the cure for the human condition is disease, because at least disease brings with it the possibility of hope. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek as he long ago discovered the key to immortality. Considering his past and present actions, perhaps the cure for the human condition is not to be overly burdened by humanity in the first place.

This is one of the most visually rich films I've watched in a long time. The location of a health spa at the foot of the Swiss Alps lends itself to gorgeous shots of the chateau surrounded by mountains, the sun hitting the building in just the right way. The interiors, while less exquisite feature the same sense of masterful composition. There is more than one sequence where the actions of Lockhart, the protagonist, and Hannah, the young girl who has been at the spa her entire life, are inter-cut, both discovering a horrific and thematically similar truth. A lot of the popularity of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie is given to the script and Johnny Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow. After watching A Cure for Wellness, I wonder if Gore Verbinski's skill as a visual storyteller had more to do with it.

It's not just the visuals either, as the entirety of this two and a half hour film engaged me. From the first moment of the New York City financial district backed by that haunting chanting melody all the way to Lockhart's full toothed grin riding the bicycle away from the chateau, I was never waiting for things to wrap up. There were two points in the film, right after Volmer rescues both Lockhart and Hannah from the village bar, and when Lockhart willingly becomes a patient, where I asked "But where can the story go now?" When the film continued into the climax I was surprised. Lockhart is writing a similar letter to the one Pembroke wrote at the start of the film, the reason for the story in the first place. A lot of horror films would end this way. The viewer knows just enough about what is going on at the spa to be satisfied. The mysteries about the spa's history left embedded in the film, allowing theories to arise from piecing the puzzle together like Victoria Watkins and her crossword.

That's why I was shocked when suddenly a ritualistic wedding appeared on screen. Lockhart shakes out of his stupor and the truth about Volmer and Hannah is spelled out. Volmer is defeated in spectacular fashion as the chateau burns. Instead of lingering mysteries, we get a satisfying triumphant conclusion. The board of directors that sent Lockhart there are met at the gates. Lockhart ignores their outrage, riding off with Hannah. He has something to care about. His full smile suggesting that he is now using the same cure as Volmer.

I felt shell-shocked when the movie ended. I feel that there's more under the surface. Themes of ambition, the stresses of modern life, and how tranquility is simply killing us while we wear a smile on our face. Is that so bad though? The patients of the spa seemed happy and peaceful even though horrific things were happening to them. Early on in the film Lockhart's mother calls the nursing home she is living in a place where people get sent to die. The spa Lockhart travels to is the same. Although there is a cure for death that only is granted to those running the facility (and in the town below). The horror isn't that the patients are being killed having obtained a certain amount of peace, it's that others are profiting off of it. A critique of spirituality then?

Personal Enjoyment: ★★★★

Dr. Mabuse -- The Gambler (1922)

Written and directed by: Fritz Lang

Starring: Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Aud Egede-Nissen, Gertrude Weicker

Dr. Mabuse - The Gambler is two films released months from each other making up one story. I am writing this piece after seeing Part 1 and then finishing it after seeing Part 2.

At the end of Part 1 of Dr. Mabuse, I wonder if the doctor is meant to be the main character of the story. The opening act shows him manipulating European stocks through robbery and subterfuge, making large amounts of money, showing off his cunning and unscrupulousness. The rest of the movie focuses on his hypnotism in regards to gambling. How he disguises himself, visits secret casinos, and compels other players to part with their money against their will.

The reason I wonder this is that in a more traditional narrative, Edgar Hull would be the hero. He's a rich young sap who is set on by Mabuse. Not only causing him to lose vast sums of money, but having him fall in love with Cara Carozza, a dancer who loves Mabuse and is willingly part of his schemes. Hull moves the plot forward by getting State Prosecutor Von Wenk involved (well, Wenk gets himself involved after Hull has been set upon). Wenk is the actual hero of this story, using his own wits to hunt down Mabuse. Near the end of the film, Mabuse sets a trap for Hull. Wenk evades it, but Hull is murdered in the street, Carozza being arrested as an accomplice in the act.

Whether it's another disguise or his original profession, an early scene shows Mabuse lecturing on the topic of psychoanalysis and how it can cure a large number of nervous conditions. The work of Sigmund Freud would have been famous at this point in history, and this scene seems to explain why Mabuse has these strange hypnotic powers that can compel weak minds to obey him. In the final scenes of Part 1 he tells Countess Told that the only thing that matters in life is will to power (one of the popular philosophical ideas of Nietzsche), and then he proves his will by forcing the Countess' husband to be revealed as a cheater. In the confusion of this revelation, he takes the faint Countess back to his home, ending Part 1.

There is no doubt that Dr. Mabuse is the villain of this story. My question is if he's the main character. Is this a tragedy, where we're following a man whose downfall is ensured by the end of the tale? I'm cheering for Wenk to outsmart Mabuse and rescue the Countess. To avenge the death of Hull. I would be lying if I said that Mabuse wasn't the most captivating character of the movie. The film is named after him too. I have to wonder if he gets away with everything. There were two other films made starring him after all.

Having watched part 2, I think I have an answer to my question. Dr. Mabuse is the main character of the picture. The film could even have been titled "The Fall of Doctor Mabuse". Part 2 shows off the lengths the doctor will go to. When Countess Told doesn't comply with his advances, he sets upon her husband. He pretends to treat the Count for his illness, convincing him through his hypnotism to commit suicide. Thinking that Carozza will betray him, the doctor has a guard that works for him sneak poison into her cell. She willingly drinks it. A young man working for Mabuse is arrested and on his way to be interrogated by Wenk, Mabuse orchestrates a mob to waylay the transport, allowing a sniper to dispatch the prisoner.

Mabuse waits for Wenk and lets him know about Sandor Weltmann, a stage hypnotist who might be to blame. Of course Weltmann is Mabuse as well. One of the last sequences of the film is Wenk attending Weltmann's stage show. Feats of mass hypnosis and magic are displayed. The whole evening is a ruse to dispose of Wenk. During the hypnosis, Wenk realises that Weltmann is Mabuse, as well as the old man from the secret casino that failed to manipulate him. At this point though it is too late. Wenk is under Mabuse's spell and the only thing that saves him from crashing his car into the quarry are his aides who realise something is wrong and pull him out of the speeding car.

The finale is a shootout at Mabuse's house. The army is called in. Mabuse flees through a secret passage and is trapped in his counterfeiting house. He is not strong enough to unlock the steel door at the entrance or lift the trap door he came through. At this point madness and guilt start to creep in. He is haunted by the ghosts of those he has killed, and when Wenk and the police finally reach him, he is a quivering mess. The whole of Part 2 is Mabuse making bad decisions that lead to his downfall. His hubris gets in the way, or perhaps it's the idea that playing with the fates of other people will always lead down the path of destruction.

Considering all the people he had killed, I was quite surprised that Mabuse wasn't shot or beat up by Wenk. Of course I'm thinking in modern American cinema terms where a villain this diabolical, that caused this much pain and suffering needs to pay for their crimes on screen. The hero has to triumph. Mabuse being haunted by those he killed, losing his mind, all alone trapped in a room is likely punishment enough. He's been arrested and will face justice, although this is only implied. I'm also thinking that Fritz Lang the director might have loved the character of Mabuse so much that he needed to ensure it was possible to make another movie with him. There were two more Mabuse films made after this one.

This leads me back to the idea that Mabuse is the main character. I mentioned that the hero has to triumph. Wenk is most definitely the hero, but the hero doesn't have to be the main character. Mabuse's reach extended so far and his powers touched so many lives that there was always that wonder if he was going to get away with it in the end. Like Walter White in Breaking Bad, we don't have to agree with the main character of a story, we just have to find them compelling enough to follow their journey. I wanted Mabuse's downfall after Part 1, but seeing how many more bodies he was responsible for in Part 2, I wondered if a man this powerful could be taken down. Someone willing to go this far. Mabuse certainly flexed his will to power, but that same will destroyed him. He was too arrogant in dealing with Wenk, not careful enough. Wenk was competent, but not a true adversary. In the end, the one truly responsible for taking down Mabuse was Mabuse. A lesson for those in positions of great power.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★★ 

The Post (2017)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Written by: Liz Hannah & Josh Singer

Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson

It feels obvious that The Post was made to parallel the current political climate in the US. One in which the press feels under attack by the President of the United States and sees it as their duty to inform the public when their government lies to them. There's a coy line near the end of the film after The Post has won their Supreme Court case that this decision and what they've been through will help for "next time". It was difficult not to roll my eyes. Then the film ends with a bizarre tonal shift. Nixon railing against The Post before a security guard discovers that the Democratic National Committee is being broken into at the Watergate Hotel. It wouldn't feel out of place to have an announcer exclaim "Next time on: Spielberg makes a movie about history - Watergate".

It took a while for me to get invested. The opening was rather dry and I didn't feel I had the proper context. The film kicked in once The New York Times ran their story about the Pentagon Papers. Then the film was off like a runaway train that didn't slow down until its closing moments. I think it was so effective because the stakes involved were so important. The freedom of the press being attacked by a White House administration when the truth shows that the White House has been lying to the American public about the Vietnam war for 3 administrations. That despite knowing the war was unwinnable very early on, they kept sending American troops to die based on a sense of pride, and to avoid humiliation by withdrawing and admitting defeat. I see parallels in US foreign policy in my lifetime, especially with Iraq and Afghanistan after 2001.

The character arc of the movie was Meryl Streep as Mrs. Graham learning to accept her role as owner of The Washington Post, and what she wants the paper to be. To stop listening to her advisers and learn to make a decision for herself. What I like about the final moment when she changes and decides to run the story is how quiet a moment it is. It has no triumphant musical swell. There's been a lot of arguing. She feels overwhelmed. She starts to make her decision. There's push back. She becomes assertive, decides her fate, and then goes to bed. The scene just ends. I found it refreshing for such a moment.

Another scene that stood out to me is earlier on when Tom Hanks' Ben Bradlee crashes a party Mrs. Graham is hosting, to tell her that he has the papers, and she needs to make a decision about whether she will allow The Post to publish them. There's discussion of how Ben was friends with the Kennedys and how when you have friendship with people in power, it affects how you cover their power when you work in journalism. How it's difficult if not impossible to be objective about friendship, especially when that friendship holds benefits such as White House dinners and presidential access.

It's a movie that's important for the time we live in. It examines the press' duty and relationship to the power it covers. It apparently came together very quickly, and perhaps that's why the opening is so dry and the last scene feels so campy. Everything else breezed by with captivating performances and a lot of the camera work that has become noticeable to me after watching that Every Frame a Painting episode on 'The Spielberg Oner'.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★

Nosferatu (1922)

Directed by: F. W. Murnau

Written by: Henrik Galeen

Starring: Max Schreck, Alexander Granach, Gustav von Wangenheim

Count Orlok really looks like a vampire. Watching Nosferatu, I was constantly reminded about how easy it would have been to come up with the idea for Shadow of the Vampire, a film about the making of this movie in which the actor cast to play Count Orlok turns out to be an actual vampire, and they destroy him for real in the finale.

I feel that having not read Bram Stoker's Dracula, I am missing context. Knock, who seems to be already under the spell of the vampire at the start of the movie sends Hutter out to close a deal so the count can buy a local home. The count moves by ship and brings coffins full of rats with him, causing a plague wherever he travels. A lot of the latter half of the film is dealing with the panic and paranoia stoked by the plague, and how the townsfolk blame Knock and are chasing him through the streets. At this point, Orlok seems forgotten.

The true hero of the film is Ellen Hutter. Most of the run-time she's weeping, in a sleepwalking trance, or moping about her husband being gone. I think that she is under the spell of Orlok. It seems that she might be the reason he decided to travel to this town in the first place. That the story was put in motion to bring her and the count together. After all, the book about Nosferatu that Thomas finds at the inn claims that the only way to kill him is for an innocent maiden to offer herself willingly. The vampire will be so mesmorised, they will forget that the sun is coming up, and will perish. That is exactly what happens. I was expecting a greater special effect. Sometimes I forget that these films are still the early days of cinema because of the obvious money put into them in costume and location.

The soundtrack on the version I watched (which I will link at the end) is odd. It starts very upbeat and happy, but moves towards sinister even before Hutter starts off on his travels. The rest of the time it's this eerie droning that fits well, but no scenes of horror are punctuated by the music. The final scene in Ellen's bedroom returns to a triumphant bombast. I'm not sure if it added or detracted from the images, but it is preferable to silence.

This is the first silent movie I watched where I felt its slow pace was a detriment. Birth of a Nation was slow paced, but still engaging. It was also double the length of Nosferatu. I could feel my interest waning at certain parts of the film. This is hyperbole, but after Orlok is introduced, every scene that did not feature him, or a reaction to him, did not engage me like the rest of the movie.

I've now watched two films from Germany in the early 1920s and both are horror films. I find the context of the culture a film is made in fascinating. My guesses are the climate of post World War 1 Germany, especially with the scars of those who had survived the conflict led to a need for the expression of darker themes. The next film on my historical list (I'm trying to alternate between modern films and going through film history) is Dr. Mabuse - The Gambler, also from Germany. We shall see if it too is a horror film.

I'd recommend Nosferatu to horror fans. There are two scenes in particular that I'll always remember. Orlok shuffling towards the camera outside Hutter's room and the infamous shot of Orlok rising out of his coffin on the ship. Orlok is definitely one of the best vampires I've seen in film.

Personal enjoyment: ★★★

The version I watched can be found here.

Brigsby Bear (2017)

Directed by: Dave McCary

Written by: Kevin Costello, Kyle Mooney

Starring: Kyle Mooney, Mark Hamill, Jane Adams

For a good potion of Brigby Bear, I wondered what the movie was. Was it about the dangers of fandom? Was it celebrating fandom? Why was this kid raised in a bunker with a fake TV show? Why is the Brigsby Bear show important when it seems like he's integrating with the outside world? After a while, James (the main character) gets his flash of insight. He wants to make movies. Not only does he want to make movies, he wants to finish off the story of Brigsby Bear. The not-so-hidden subtext being that if he is able to finish the story, than perhaps he can put his ordeal behind him and move on with his life.

Along the way he makes friends and the main conflict comes from his new parents worried that this obsession with Brigsby Bear is stopping him from moving forward. In the low part of the film, they even institutionalize him. That part of the movie contains the strangest Andy Samberg cameo I've ever seen. Just because he plays everything so straight and serious. There's not a hint of goofiness. As this is a movie written and starring Kyle Mooney, his SNL buddy Beck Bennet has a cameo as a police officer that I thought might end up being the antagonist of the film due to how he kept popping up and looking sinister.

This is also one of those movies where the enthusiasm and naivete of the main character infects all those around him. Everyone begins to believe in James' dream and it inspires them to keep working on theirs. It makes me think that the point of the film might be that positivity can come from even the most toxic fandoms, and while Brigsby Bear is a wholesome kids show, it was made by a man who kidnapped a baby and raised him in a bunker for 25 years. That's pretty toxic.

Kyle Mooney plays James off as awkward and yet endearing. It was easy to cheer for him through the film. To cringe at the awkward situations he finds himself in, and laugh at how everything turns out ok. Like James' effect on the other characters, his enthusiasm is infectious for the audience. I like how the film never uses James' lack of knowledge of the world as a punchline. The film never laughs at him. He is not the joke. There is some comedy to mine in the way he sees the world, but that's always peppered with feeling sorry for him and his inability to see where he went wrong.

There is a sincerity to the characters and their motivations that rings true despite how ugly or weird the situations presented actually are. Even near the end of the film when James visits a prison to talk to the man that kidnapped him (played by Mark Hamill), it's a touching moment instead of a confrontational one. He ends up helping James complete his movie and there is no ill will between them. Yes, James does complete his movie. The audience loves it. It's a nice parallel because I loved the time I spent watching Brigsby Bear and easily recommend it.

Personal Enjoyment: ★★★★★

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Directed by: Robert Weine

Written by: Carl Mayer & Hans Janowitz

Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher

One of the confusing aspects of watching old silent films is that they have been restored to make them viewable by modern audiences. That means that the version we are watching today may not be the way the film was originally presented, and an audience's emotional reaction to the movie might be different because of these changes. The restored print of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari I watched contains colour grading, a jazz soundtrack, and creative title card design which all added to the horror and engagement of the film. I'm fairly certain the colour grading is from the original, and perhaps even the subtitles (translated from German of course). However, there is no way a jazz band was synced up to the steps of a character as he walks downstairs.

Caligari is regarded as one of the highlights of the German Expressionist movement. Expressionism is an artistic style concerned with subjective reality. Warping images for emotional effect. A highlight of my watch was not only the painted backgrounds, but the way sets were constructed with wonky perspective, creating a sense of claustrophobia as the characters moved through them. Everything seemed off-kilter and surreal, and that added to the horror of the story.

A somnambulist is in town and gives people their fortunes, controlled by the creepy Dr. Caligari. A string of mysterious murders start happening. One young man whose friend is a victim seeks to discover the truth. The way the film ends was a little confusing. It turns out that the story that the young man told was to a doctor at the very insane asylum that Caligari is the director of. Earlier in the tale, when the young man finds out that Caligari is the director of the asylum, in horror he tells the orderlies of the hospital what he's encountered. After so many years of horror stories, the trope I was expecting is that the orderlies think the young man insane and commit him to the asylum, Caligari having used his position to get away with his crimes. I'm sure you've encountered such a story before.

To my surprise, the orderlies believe the young man. They wait till Caligari sleeps and then search his office and find the evidence they need to commit the Director. The young man is vindicated. The ending shows that this was just a story. The question raised is whether or not Caligari has actually gotten away with it, or if the whole ordeal is just the delusion of a mental patient. The film ends on an ambiguous note when the Director says that since he now understands that the patient thinks of him as this Dr. Caligari, he knows how to cure him. The end credits come on screen. Whether this last line is meant to be menacing or hopeful, I do not know.

This might be one of the earliest examples of the unreliable narrator in film. The girl in the story who was attacked by Cesare the somnambulist is in the asylum too and the young man asks to marry her at the end of the film. At the start when she wandered by he called her his fiancee. I'm inclined to think the whole story is actually the delusions of an insane asylum patient. It would also explain the backgrounds and set design. that are not present in the final scenes of the film.

The version of the film I watched can be found here.

Coco (2017)

Directed by: Lee Unkrich & Adrian Molina

Written by: Lee Unkrich & Jason Katz

Starring: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt

Coco is one of those movies looking back on it, I should have seen a lot of things coming. If I had thought about why this part of the plot was setup in this particular way, I could have seen that the payoff was the only logical outcome. What happened though is that the movie was so good at emotionally affecting me that each revelation and moment was pulled off with great impact.

Take the sequence where Miguel finally achieves his goal and makes it to Ernesto de la Cruz's party. Ernesto learns he has a great grandson and there's a beautiful montage showing them reconnecting and enjoying each others' company. Miguel is so happy to finally have a family member that accepts his desire to be a musician, and Ernesto is only too happy to show his new family all of his accomplishments. I even said to myself during this sequence "I hope that Ernesto actually is his family, because not being able to send him back after this would be devastating." Then the sequence where Ernesto is confronted by Hector happens. The truth comes out, and that feeling of hoping that Ernesto is Miguel's great grandfather is but a distant memory. The landscape has changed too much.

Another example is Hector being forgotten. The way it played out I thought that there might be a chance he would stay forgotten. That Miguel would use that moment to understand once and for all the power of family, while still being able to gain the support of them. The theme of family didn't quite work for me. Near the end Miguel was willing to sacrifice his dream for Hector, a change that took place over the entire movie. Meanwhile Imelda and Abuelita have a change of heart very quickly after one incident each. For Imelda it's the finale of the film, stealing Hector's photo away from Ernesto, and for Abuelita it's Coco opening up and talking after Miguel plays her 'Remember Me'.

Now that I think about it, Abuelita's change is quite strong. She sees in one act the power of music. It brings Coco back to life more than she has been in years. I think the same idea is behind Imelda's change, but that scene is trying to do so much more (reveal Ernesto's wickedness to the whole world for one) that her change of heart doesn't seem as earned.

Coco is another part of the movie I should have seen coming. Watching the trailers I wondered why it was called Coco. That question returned to me throughout the film, even though Mama Coco is introduced right at the beginning. It was only when Hector talks about his daughter and it clicks why he wants to return to the land of the living that the full weight of that title hit me. That's the genius of the film. The way all the pieces are in plain view for the entirety of its run time, but it's only when they click into place that you realise the answers were right in front of you the whole time. That's why every reveal is emotionally powerful. Even the character arc of Dante the street dog. He and his floppy tongue sit right alongside Doug in the pantheon of great dogs in animation.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916)

Directed by: D.W. Griffith

Written by: D.W. Griffith & Anita Loos

Starring: Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh

The siege of Babylon impressed the hell out of me. I wonder if it's because I know it was achieved with sets, extras with costumes, and camera trickery. In 1916 that would have taken a lot of money and a lot of planning. I mean it's only confined to a couple single shot locations but the sheer magnitude of what's being captured on film is astounding. Flame tanks, beheadings, men falling off the ramparts of 300 foot walls, and the statue of Ishtar glowing with her favour, turning the tide of battle - all these elements made for a breathtaking finale to the first half of the movie.

Intolerance is wildly ambitious. Set across 4 different time periods, it tells the story of love and the forces against love (intolerance). The main story is a present day tale about a poor young woman who endures multiple hardships through the actions of a temperance society, trying to eradicate everything they deem an affront to decency (dancing, drinking, and then single mothers). There's the aforementioned war between Babylon and Cyrus which focuses on a mountain girl who falls for the ruler of the great city. In 14th century France there's fighting between Catholics and Protestants with a peasant girl called "Brown eyes", and there's the story of Jesus Christ.

The film cuts back and forth between these time periods, the backdrop of the title cards letting us know where in history we are. There's also the book of intolerance which is the overall framing device of the story, along with the film cutting back to a woman rocking her baby in a blue lit room. I haven't watched much silent film but I am constantly delighted by how the use of colour tinting, title cards, and music help convey the story being told through the movement onscreen. How so much of the composition of these single shot scenes is striking. How even though the characters don't have names for the most part (the woman in the main story being known as "the dear little one"), I found myself attached to their plight. I was furious when the uplifters (the temperance society) took her baby from her.

Not all these stories have happy endings. Babylon is betrayed and the Mountain Girl is shot with arrows as Cyrus and the priests of Bel take over. Brown Eyes is murdered along with her lover in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and well, we all know how the story of Jesus Christ ends. The single shot of him on the cross is majestic, the screen bathed in a stunning purple. The Dear Little One's husband is charged with a murder he didn't commit and is sentenced to death. There's a tense race against the clock as she tries to halt this wrongful execution. This climax is inter-cut with the climax of all the stories, and it brings to light how the modern day tale and the Babylon story have the most care put into them. The story of Brown Eyes and Jesus Christ seem like an afterthought with how they resolve, even though I feel their resolutions are stronger than the resolution of the Babylon story.

The film ends on a saccharine note. The same tint that was used for the rocking baby is used for scenes of conflict and incarceration. The film urges us to allow peace and love to overcome our intolerance as the prison fades to a field of flowers. Thinking back over the 4 tales, I'm not sure peace and love helped to resolve any of the stories. It certainly influenced the actions of certain characters, but for the most part, things did not work out. Perhaps the idea is we shouldn't stop striving for this ideal no matter the outcome, but watching those scenes, I couldn't help but feel this moral lesson was unearned and watered down a lot of the spectacle and drama that came before it.

Ready Player One (2018)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg

Written by: Zak Penn & Ernest Cline

Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn

I should be the target audience for Ready Player One. I'm a white male who grew up in the 80s and 90s. This movie (and from what it sounds like, the book) seems tailor made for me. The problem I had with it is that the references are all this film seems to have, and when it wasn't making them it was a generic CGI filled quest to get the special thing before the bad man gets the special thing. I'll say one thing for it though, for a movie that's 2 and a half hours long, I was engaged for the entire runtime. That's gotta be because of Spielberg right?

The world sucks, so most of the planet escape into a VR video game known as The Oasis. A corporation is enslaving people within said video game and engaging in all kinds of shady business practice. It seems despite the world sucking, everyone has access to the technology required to dive into the game. Artemis makes a big deal of wanting to take IoI down because they killed her father, and when she kidnaps Percival in the real world, she says "Welcome to the resistance". This thread is completely forgotten as the finale is all about protecting The Oasis from IoI and for the heroes of the movie not to get killed by them in real life while they're trying to protect The Oasis.

At the end when they become the new owners of The Oasis, they talk about shutting down the game 2 days a week because reality is important. That's the on-the-nose message of the movie. If you spend all your time in virtual worlds, you'll miss out on what's really important in life, and that can only be found in reality (even though the rousing speech Percival makes before the final giant action setpiece talks about how he found friendship and yes, even love inside The Oasis). I can make a leap and say with more time in reality, people can start to address the problems of the real world, but it also seems that a lot of the problems of the real world are because of The Oasis and the companies that make a profit off of it like IoI.

In a lot of CGI action sequences these days I find myself tuning out. It may be because of a lack of weight to the characters and what's happening ,or it may be that too much is being thrown on screen. It all ends up swirling up into an amorphous "stuff happening" blob. The action sequences in Ready Player One are easy to read, but all I can remember vividly is King Kong in the race, and the Gundam fighting Mecha Godzilla. My favourite sequence in the whole film is when they visit The Overlook Hotel from The Shining. I think it's because I was caught off guard by the movie using a Kubrick reference as the basis for a whole sequence (most of the references in the movie are name drops or background characters). The Overlook also holds some fun character interactions between H, Daito, and Sho, who are supporting characters painted in the broadest strokes possible. After H warns Percival that Artemis could be different than she presents herself in the game, the reveal of who these characters are in the real world is deflated. Yes they're a little different, but they're still stereotypes.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy the movie, so I went in with the goal to just have fun with the experience. The theatre was full of teenagers and other movie goers, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I'd also say this is a film where the action sequences would benefit from seeing it in 3d. Maybe that's why the CGI action fell flat for me.

Annihilation (2018)

Directed and written by: Alex Garland

Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson

I was mostly confused after watching Annihilation, so this piece of writing will be my attempt to make sense of it. The travel into the shimmer and its strange remixing of nature is inter-cut with the relationship between Lena and Kane, and Lena's affair with Dan. I wondered what the affair had to do with anything, and maybe the ending has the explanation for that. The Kane that arrived back at her house and kickstarted the whole movie was not technically the real Kane. The real Kane killed himself on camera with a phosphorous grenade. Early on in the film I remember talk about the ability for cells to copy themselves. The shimmer is a prism, a DNA reflector, bouncing around a little bit of everything into everything, but it can make copies too. Or maybe the creatures that live in the asteroid that crashed make copies and the DNA prism is just part of their atmosphere or how they live. I think that they need the prism to live seeing as Kane started to undergo organ failure when he left the prism and arrived on Lena's doorstep.

It would make sense that once Lena destroyed the lighthouse, the parts of Kane that are conflicting with his new human body burn away. There's no longer conflict and he is now a man. A new man. At the end of the film, Lena says that the creature that she killed was creating something new. I think that's a big clue as to why the affair is shown. This is a new Kane that doesn't have the memories of the original. This Kane doesn't know about Lena's infidelity. They can start anew. Also, that they both were exposed to the DNA remixing of the shimmer, they are something new themselves. The Adam and Eve of a new world. There's no guarantee that the shimmer's effects have been eradicated. What would happen if they now had a baby?

Dr. Ventress' cancer and what happens to her in the belly of the lighthouse confused me. It seems she was taken as a whole in order to create the creature that mirrors Lena. Is it because she had cancer and was willing to die? There's evidence that an individual's will does play a part in how this world affects you. Josie chooses to give herself over to the shimmer before Lena reaches the lighthouse and appears to have become one of the human shaped flowers. There's also the theme of self-destruction. There's a line about how the desire to self-destruct is programmed into every one of our cells. Ventress' cancer is her cells self-destructing, and she turns into a pulsating fractal ball of energy before Lena's mirror is created out of it from one drop of blood.

I like how the colours of the forest are muted. Due to the colour choices of the flowers and the fungus, there's an otherworldly element to them. Seeing these colours next to each other in nature, these particular shades is off-putting. That's why even with how beautiful the deer were, I could never feel comfortable with them or the landscapes. Maybe it was because of how dangerous this place is to our group of explorers, but I think it's that I recognise that there's something wrong with this picture. Maybe it has to do with it being on Earth. If they were in another dimension or on another planet, it would make sense. Here on our planet, especially knowing what the shimmer has been doing to all the humans that entered before, it's unsettling. It's just wrong.

At the end of this writing, I've worked out a couple of the idea strains floating around in my head regarding the film, but I'm still at a loss as to what it's trying to say. What the point of it was. There's a speech by Kane on the video recording. After spending time in the shimmer he starts to question what he actually is. Maybe we all are just a group of cells that can be easily interchanged, and that our identity is a fabrication. If that's the point, I can see why all the characters devolved into an existential nightmare. Destruction of the cell, destruction of the self. There might be something there.

Loving Vincent (2017)

Written and Directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman

Starring Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Robert Gulaczyk

The most impressive part of Loving Vincent is of course the animation. Most of the film looks like the animators were trying to recreate the style of his paintings. There are brush strokes that call attention to themselves to indicate detail as moving trees or the beard of Chris O Dowd. Watching the characters move through the landscape reminded me a lot of cutscenes in early 90s adventure games. There was a lot of rotoscoping going on to capture movement in those cutscenes and the surreal traversal of these images gives the same impression.

Where the visuals of the film really shine are in the flashback sequences. They are painted in black and white and it looks like a lot more attention was given to each particular frame. Because of imitating the style of Vincent Van Gogh, there's never a moment in the colour scenes where I was fooled that I was watching a movie with real actors and locations as the imagery was so surreal. I was fooled on many occasions during the flashbacks. The rendering of light in whites and grays is astonishing. Often the movement will break the illusion, but even still, most of the flashbacks made me think I was watching a black and white movie instead of an animated painting.

Now I've been thinking whether or not this mammoth undertaking and unique vision of animating a story in the style of Vincent Van Gogh actually has any bearing on the narrative being told. The plot is a mystery. The son of the postmaster that Vincent sent his letters through has one final letter to Vincent's brother Theo he wants delivered a year after the artist's death. Armand spends the film tracking down Theo, and then trying to understand what happened to make Vincent want to kill himself (and if that is really what occured). Talking to the townsfolk reveals insight into Vincent as a character, and this is where the black and white scenes take over and the world is rendered in great detail.

The rest of the movie, when Armand is trying to discover what happened to Vincent and who he was, that's when Vincent's art style showcases itself. Like Armand is trying to see the world through Vincent's eyes to understand him, or at least that's what we as the audience are meant to do. When the conversation with Dr. Gachet at the end of the film finally occurs, the revelation is shocking, and very sad. Vincent thinks himself a burden to his brother and to the rest of the world. Anyone familiar with the thought processes of depression will recognize this feeling and how destructive it can be. I teared up a little during this revelation.

The film ultimately ends on an uplifting note with two letters of Vincent's talking about the struggle of an artist, his goals for life, and the lasting effect he wanted to make on the world. I never knew this story. It paints Vincent Van Gogh as tragic as all the tales you've likely heard about him. Despite his inner turmoil, he gave us 800 pieces of beauty in the short time he painted, and this film is a celebration of his life (Gachet's daughter says this outright). I was happy that beneath the impressive visual undertaking, there was a well acted story that was at least for me, emotionally resonant.

Logan Lucky (2017)

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Written by: Rebecca Blunt

Stars: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig

The first scene in Logan Lucky should have been a tip off to the climactic end of the movie. Logan sees his daughter's performance and she sings the song from that first scene. This climax is not the end of the movie however. It keeps going. Afterwards he gives the money from their successful heist back and we see the fallout of that action in terms of Adam Driver's character and Joe Bang getting out of prison. There's also a weird scene where Joe gets beat up by the warden for seemingly no good reason other than maybe the warden has realised that Joe being sick means he could have escaped even though the warden can't prove it.

Joe gets out and talks to Adam Driver's character about Logan (man, I can't even remember the names of the two brothers. The main characters) and his whereabouts. He has a fancy new arm so this might be a tip off that he kept some of the money. Then there's a sequence about how he fooled the Bang brothers and kept a lot of the money. This is alongside an FBI agent investigating the crime and learning that the speedway replaced all their stolen money through insurance. The dicky race car manager and the warden are interviewed and made to look stupid, but there's nothing to those scenes just as there's nothing to the FBI investigation. The FBI Agent turns up in the bar at the end of the movie when the Logan brothers, Melly, and Joe Bang are all toasting a successful job well done. This makes me think that a sequel is being set up, but for what? Another heist?

I mean Daniel Craig as Joe Bang was great. Truth be told I thought Channing Tatum was Mark Wahlberg for most of the movie because of the type of character he was playing. Adam Driver's character was harder to get a read on. He was meek and not too bright, but protective, and willing to do whatever he needed to. Skilled as well, at least in bar tending or getting by without his arm. The Bang brothers were comic relief, as was the new husband of Logan's ex-wife. At the end her interaction as Logan was picking up his daughter makes me think that it didn't work out and she wants back with him now that he seems happier. What was Logan's character arc? He wanted to rob the raceway because he was let go from his job. His daughter already loves and adores him. He does his best for her, so it's not to be a better father or provider. In the early part of the movie his daughter is moving state and he says he's getting a lawyer to make sure that doesn't happen, but no time is spent on that being the motivation to put together the heist, and in the end he just moves state anyway.

The characters make this movie worth watching, and there are some genuinely funny moments in it (the bear in the woods was my favourite). The heist is original and not too much goes wrong so it was even weirder when the film kept going. I think perhaps it has to do with character motivation but something was missing. The soul of the film. What it's really about. I wouldn't mind seeing another film with these characters, I just would like that film to be about something and to have their motivations more defined.