Amateur Dick

Providing us with a window into a more than hairy situation, writer/director Jeremy Saulnier in many ways thrusts us through said glass directly into a predicament that no one would want to be placed in. The movie is 2015's Green Room, a horror thriller that follows a struggling heavy metal punk rock band – its members being Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner), as they learn that their most recent gig has fallen through. Tad(David W. Thompson), a radio DJ, suggests they head to a small secluded club where his cousin Daniel can set up a performance for them. Desperate, the group, who are running very low on cash, take the tip, making the somewhat lengthy drive into the severely wooded area. More than pleased that they have a paid show, they don’t care that it is at a neo-Nazi skinhead bar, while youthful exuberance even has them daringly perform a cover of Dead Kennedys’ "Nazi Punks Fuck Off". Though some beer bottles are thrown (clearly pissing off the politically right leaning patrons), things turn out okay, with their original material eventually winning the crowd over.

Set within the decaying, abandoned neighbourhoods of Detroit, Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe goes deeper by examining the decline of both family values and traditional American ideals. Following a gang of young hoodlums, at first glance they seem to be nothing but lowlife thugs. Yet, Alvarez provides enough of a back story for us to know that the female of the group, Rocky (Jane Levy – Frank and Cindy), is trapped in a single parent home with a mother (and her boyfriend) that is less than motherly. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, she is more of a mom to her little sister Diddy (the wide eyed Emma Bercovici) than the drug-addled, slovenly matriarch of the ‘family’.

Three weeks ago today, I reviewed Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, a 1989 film directed by Pedro Almodóvar that starred Antonio Banderas. I said that in some ways it was similar to another motion picture that features the iconic director and actor – 2011's The Skin I Live In, which will be reviewed here today. Feeling like a modern take on the Frankenstein story (or perhaps Bride of Frankenstein), Banderas plays Robert Ledgard, a plastic surgeon and scientist at the forefront of his field. He has been successful in developing a type of artificial skin that is resistant to burns as well as insect bites. Controversial in the scientific community, he claims to have only tested it on mice – though when he hints that he has used it on a human being, he is strictly prohibited from continuing his research.

As of this past week, I have officially finished viewing all of last years Oscar Best Picture nominees. The sole one that slipped through my grasp prior to the Academy Awards was Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s epic The Revenant. Snagging Best Achievement in Cinematography (Emmanuel Lubezki), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Best Director (for Iñárritu), the filmmaker transports us to the year 1823, placing us in the heart of the wilderness – more specifically, a piece of pre-government structured territory in the United States located close to the Dakotas.

Dealing with the moral quandary of a drone strike, Eye in the Sky captures the complex nature of pulling the trigger when you’re thousands of miles away from your target. Written by Guy Hibbert and directed by Gavin Hood, the story demonstrates the interconnectedness of military decision making in the twenty-first century. Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) is running a complicated capture mission from a military base in England. She is attempting to seize high value targets from a terrorist group, including Susan Danford (Lex King) – a British citizen turned terrorist (on the top-ten most wanted list). After many long years, Colonel Powell finally has a bead on the elusive militants – who are making a stop in a safehouse in Nairobi.

I have always been fascinated by directors who utilize long takes in their films. By concocting a lengthy shot, filmmakers expect the most from their actors as well as the cameramen, and in so doing, make the audience feel as if they are walking the same path that the characters are journeying. Numerous directors have been successful at elongating the editing pace in which we are accustomed to, a few that immediately come to mind are Brian De Palma, Alfonso Cuarón and Martin Scorsese.