- Jon Kissel

From its first scene, Ryan McGarry's Code Black disabuses the viewer of any preconceived notions about the practice of emergency medicine.  Opening with dozens of doctors and nurses swarming around an LA gunshot victim, there is only the barest semblance of order emerging from this chaos.  The patient is at the center of a series of concentric circles, with those in the innermost circle passing instruments back and forth and barking instruction while those in the outermost circle are standing on whatever they can find to see the action.  Captured with a handheld camera, it's stressful just watching it.  Code Black reveals that this kind of ER medicine is largely over in LA, but what's replaced it carries a different set of problems.  It is repeatedly stated by interview subjects that this is a precarious moment in healthcare, and McGarry does an excellent job portraying those doctors attempting to find the narrow way forward.

The state of transition heralded by McGarry's film is not just referring to healthcare delivery, but the actual location of its delivery.  The opening scene was captured at the LA County ER's 'C-booth,' described as the birthplace of ER medicine.  With the kind of pride that auto workers have when they see the fruits of their labor roll of the line, veterans of the C-booth describe it as a place where more lives have ended per square foot than anywhere else, but more importantly, the same is true for imminent deaths that have been halted.  With essentially no privacy considerations, C-booth was incapable of adapting to HIPAA laws passed in 1996, but due to the necessity of an LA county ER, a waiver was given until a new hospital could be constructed.  When that new hospital was completed in 2008, operations were moved there and the curtains were finally closed on C-booth.

The new LA county hospital is built like a cathedral, befitting the more dignified and respectful ER compared to the frenzy of C-booth.  There are now private rooms connected by gleaming hallways.  However, now that the privacy standards can be applied, there is a much greater bureaucratic demand on the doctors' time.  Forms upon forms await them after each new patient, while the waiting rooms are consistently at capacity, giving the film its title.  Unconscionable wait times of greater than 12 hours can be expected for walk-in patients, who are there because they have limited options for treatment.  An endemic, vicious cycle takes hold, in which the stress of the job contributes to high turn-over amongst the support staff, which leads to under-staffing, which leads to departments being shuttered, which leads to more patients localized in the ER, which leads to the job becoming more stressful.  The doctors begin to take on the aura of long-suffering saints, working 80-hour weeks to help individuals in their time of need, but making no dent in the backload.

Just when McGarry has the viewer longing for the simplicity of C-booth, he switches back in time and shows its ugly side.  In one painful anecdote, the maximal use of space meant that a nurse had to tell family members about a loved one's death in a closet used for bedpans within earshot of a raving psychotic, piling more misery onto the worst moment of their lives.  A shocking, thesis-making scene is presented in which a patient, lying prone and naked on a bed, is forcefully prevented from covering himself.  These are despairing but honest truths about the two delivery systems presented to the viewer.  Their placement, after an extended rant against the crush of paperwork and the shortening of doctor-patient time, drives home how complicated it is to find the right balance.  McGarry reintroduces the patient back into this discussion as not just a broken organism in need of repair, but a person inherently worthy of respect and just as desperate for a solution as the doctors and nurses.

Code Black seems to present a problem without a solution.  It is a depressing, affecting documentary that captures true moments of despair.  This probably shouldn't be shown in med schools anytime soon, lest we want to further constrict the flow of new doctors into the country.  A-

 - Jon Kissel

The indie movie to end all indie movies, God Help the Girl is overflowing with tight-panted bands and eye-catching hats.  That it's also a musical means there's plenty of opportunity for the characters to sing directly into the camera about how emotionally deep they are.  Director Stuart Murdoch, best known for his music career in Belle and Sebastian, tries his hand at filmmaking here, and in the moments where he's successful, I'm inclined to give more credit to the actors.  His debut is a series of 20-something tropes run into the ground by lyrics full of navel-gazing and the misplaced ennui of beautiful people.

Central character Eve (Emily Browning) has been relegated to a Glasgow hospital following a bout of anorexia.  Her counselor tells her her body is waking back up, and as a therapeutic exercise, she should document them as her feelings come back to her.  This recommendation gives cover to the following series of introspective songs that follow, as Eve was previously musically inclined.  After being released, she meets nebbishy indie band member James (Olly Alexander), who just so happens to have a spare room in his apartment for rent.  Without much to do during her days, Eve tags along with James while he gives guitar lessons to Cassie (Hannah Murray), another interesting-looking and eccentric millennial.  The trio form a band, recruiting backup players and booking gigs, while Eve's medication dwindles and James's infatuation with her goes unacknowledged.

For me, it's easier to determine why I like or dislike movies than it is music.  I can reason myself into liking a movie, while music preference is an immediate determination.  Musicals live and die by the music itself, and this music just didn't do much.  Because the stakes are so personal, the lyrics have to communicate Eve's emotional progression and there's only so many words for that before it gets repetitive.  The music itself is fine, but with the focus on the lyrics, it becomes insufferable.  A similar film, Begin Again, had much catchier music while still telling story through song, albeit in much smaller doses, as that movie was not a musical.  Perhaps it's just the genre, making God Help the Girl fatally flawed.

Visually, Murdoch is doing better work, but he's holding back the tide.  As a location, Glasgow looks like an interesting place, verdant but gray.  Imaginative sequences of Eve and a friend dancing through the city look great in the frame, though the sequences themselves are essentially an extended music video, complete with camera tricks and instant costume changes.  There's the requisite running-through-park scene, plus plenty of other indie boxes to be checked.

Hannah Murray and her odd charisma largely save God Help the Girl from intolerability.  Essentially her character from Skins, down to sharing a name, Cassie is weird for the sake of weird, but Murray's clearly having a good time with it.  Her enthusiasm is infectious, and the gray film brightens when she's onscreen.  Too serious by half, Browning is mostly wan and empty, and the main hipster offender with her various hats and short haircut.  Alexander is a standard, pining friend who would prefer to be more than that.  With his glasses and curly hair, a subplot involving a love triangle between Eve, himself, and a hunky European singer is thankfully third or fourth tier.  The friend zone has gotten enough exposure.

The main problem with God Help the Girl is distance.  Murdoch's band wrote all the songs long before the movie, and then wrote the movie around them, plus several new songs specifically for the film.  He rightly fancies himself as a talented songwriter, as he's a member of a successful band, but it should be more unclear if Eve is or not.  By putting his successful songs in her novice brain, Murdoch is stacking the deck.  Characters tell her she's great at composing, except for when she isn't, though the viewer doesn't hear the material that leads to that negative opinion, so there's no evidence of progression.  She was always great, apparently.  As I was not a fan of the music in the first place, it felt like characters were either lying to her or I was unable to get on the film's level.  Eve's recuperation transitions into her possible break-out as a musician, and if that's going to be the motivating plot, there was plenty of dissonance between what I was experiencing and what the character's are outright saying about her talent level.

Musicals haven't done a great deal for me in the past, and that trend continues with God Help the Girl.  It was difficult enough to get on board with the music, and the addition of the indie hipster element didn't help matters.  Hannah Murray remains delightful in her supporting role, but she alone can't elevate this film.  Instead of dancing through the streets to the soundtrack, the impulse most associated with God Help the Girl is to burn a second-hand vintage clothing store to the ground.  C-

By Jon Kissel

Julianne Moore's character in Boogie Nights, Amber Waves, might be a coke-addled porn star, but she would certainly make a better mother than her character in What Maisie Knew.  At least Amber wants to spend time with her child.  A story of divorce told entirely from the perspective of the very young child-as-football in the middle, Maisie turns out to know quite a lot from all the fights she observes from peeking around doorways and watching people who pretend she's not there. 

The dysfunctional center of the film is a well-heeled NYC family of three.  Moore plays Susanna, a touring rock star married to Steve Coogan's Beale, an art dealer.  Their sunny, raven-haired daughter Maisie (Onata Aprile) loves both her parents even as they have clearly fallen out of love with each other long ago.  Her parents are outwardly supportive, sending her to a beautiful school and tucking her in at night, but she's often left to her own devices, finding a tip for the pizza man while they fight, loudly, in the other room. They ultimately split up, with dad taking up with Maisie's old nanny Margo (Joanna Vanderham) and mom marrying Lincoln the bartender (Alexander Skarsgard) on a spur-of-the-moment decision.  Both biological parents shack up with their new partners less for companionship and more for live-in babysitters.  The most important thing for Susanna and Beale is that their lives continue as normal, while Maisie is left with Margo, who she was already comfortable with, and Lincoln who she tentatively gets acquainted with.  While working out the flimsy and disrespected custody schedules, Margo and Lincoln get to know each other, creating a makeshift family around Maisie that puts her real one to shame.  

As the film is told through Maisie's perspective, her relationship to the four adults around her informs how the viewer feels about them.  Beale pays lip service to her existence, too consumed with his career to give her his full attention.  Susanna treats her as a contemporary, thinking nothing of throwing a raucous party while Maisie is having a sleepover.  Maisie's friends are just more guests that the drinking and smoking adults can mingle with.  Susanna also is deeply jealous of anyone who would compete with her for Maisie's affections, indicating how tenuous she feels her maternal relationship is.  Margo is the prototypical mom, making healthy snacks and doing productive activities.  Lincoln is the most interesting within the film and in the broader milieu of independent cinema.  He spends an afternoon with Maisie that is highly reminiscent of a pair of twee hipsters frolicking around Brooklyn.  Sequences like this, where the characters have a gleeful obliviousness to the crowded city around them, make so much more sense when one of those characters is a young girl and the other is her babysitter trying to entertain her.  Other scenes, in which Maisie is stuck at Lincoln's bar, are winning in the same way that Sally Draper making a drink for Don Draper is.  Children piercing the veil of the adult world seems more palatable when Lincoln is teaching Maisie how to make a cocktail than when Maisie is stepping over Susanna's drunken party guests.  It's instruction versus immersion, and is a contrast that feels true in a perceptive film.

Directing team Scott McGehee and David Siegel put together a strong cast that results in naturalistic performances.  Amongst the actors, Saarsgard stands out by transforming his body and manner to match Lincoln's passivity.  He's always covering for his height by slumping a little bit to bring himself down to the average person's level, and his voice is small and obsequious.  He gradually stands up for himself with Susanna, but not so much that she respects him after.  Moore gives her a narcissistic and confident persona, such that it's nearly impossible for her to entertain another point of view.  A user of all the people around her, Susanna is totally blinkered but still recognizable, as her motivations come from the aforementioned paranoia about her wavering relationship to Maisie.  Coogan is not really treading new ground as Beale, another in a long line of upper class assholes that he's portrayed.  Vanderham makes the least impression, though she has great chemistry with Aprile.  At the center of the film, Aprile gets by with her soulful eyes, taking in the strange behavior around her.  Bewildered by her changing circumstances, Maisie remains friendly in the genuine way that kids can, with a heart big enough for anyone who wants to give her time and attention.

The refrain in What Maisie Knew is a constant Someone Take Care of This Child.  Aprile makes the viewer what to enter the film and slap some sense into her selfish parents, so that they might stop thinking only about themselves.  Lincoln and Margo can't substitute for the real thing, and shouldn't be expected to.  Filmed in heavenly light, a late idyll suggests an alternate universe in which Maisie is higher on an adult's priority list.  With a kid like her, that universe shouldn't be difficult to get to.  As a story about children but for adults, What Maisie Knew demonstrates how life-changing having a child is, but also why making those changes are worth it.  B+

Review by Sean

How does the burden of expectations effect one's enjoyment of a film?  Is it possible to look past a movies failure to reach the lofty expectations thrust upon it and still be a good movie or does that failure result in an altogether negative experience?
These are the questions that need answered to review Inside Out.


Spoilers ahead.

First, it is understandable why the critics love this movie, it really is full of heart and explores our emotional makeup more than any other movie of this or most genres.  While the idea of exploring the characters that make up emotional thoughts and decisions has already been done in the raunchy Fox comedy of the 90s Hermans Head, Inside Out deals more with the effects our emotional memories have on our growth.

And now for the spoilers.
Inside Out revolves around 5 core emotions Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Anger, and Fear within a 12 year old girl named Riley.  These emotions work in a mission control within Riley's brain and help her determine her attitude and drive how she feels about things around her.  Each experience creates a memory defined by one of these emotions. Joy (Amy Poehler) is the captain of the ship, she's the first around from birth (our little bundle of joy) and has driven
the majority of these memories. The other emotions yield to her and despite their own nature they want Riley to be happy.  Occasionally major life events develop "core memories" which are the driving force of Riley's personality. When the movie begins Riley has 5 core memories and they are all Joy's and create "Goofball Island Friendship Island Hockey Island Family Island and Honesty Island"
When Riley's family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco the story gets going. Of course a young girl moving across country is going to have some obstacles emotionally and our story is set in motion when Riley is introducing herself to her new class and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) touches one of Joy's memories turning it sad. This leads to Riley crying in class about moving and develops the very first sad Core Memory.  Joy panics and attempts to dispose of the sad core memory and in doing so knocks her own joyous core memories out and next thing you know her personality islands no longer have power and Joy and Sadness get sucked out of Mission Control and out into Riley's long term memory.  This immediately turns Riley into an emo shell and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) Fear (Bill Hader) and Anger (Lewis Black) to run the show. They each take turns trying to make Riley happy and doing what Joy would do before failing miserably as Riley gets more and more unhappy before eventually deciding it would be best to run away back to Minnesota.
The real story is Joy and Sadness and their return to Mission Control.  They encounter of course meet new characters along the way and run into obstacles trying to catch the "Train of Thought" back to Mission Control.  The most important of these is long lost imaginary friend Bing Bong who wanders Riley's long term memory and hoards all of his best moments in hopes of not being forgotten forever. The most entertaining characters are the pair whose jobs are to get rid of faded memories- names of the presidents?- keep Washington Lincoln and the fat one get rid of the rest. These two love an old crappy gum commercial jingle and for fun send it up to Mission Control which is why dumb things always get stuck in our heads. They send this up 4 or 5 times throughout the movie and it works every time.
Inside Out attempts to bring us both our laughs and our tears through Joy and Sadness' journey back to Mission Control, their interactions with the characters of Imagination-land and Joy's ultimate realization that Sadness is a vital part of Riley's emotional makeup and not just a screw up as the ultimate payoff for the film is the direction Pixar decided to go and is the direction of maximum emotional effect which is exactly why the critics love it.
I'm here to say they're all wrong. They could have gotten to the same end result without sending Joy and Sadness on their journey and left all 5 in Mission Control. The most entertaining parts of the movie were when all 5 of the emotions were together making decisions and driving Riley. By spending so much time inside Riley's head Riley and her life is an afterthought.  2nd best part was when they would give glimpses into the insides of other characters heads. Dad thinking about hockey during family dinner and panicking when he realizes mom wants him you talk. Mom thinking about the sexy latin helicopter pilot she could've had instead of Dad every time we interact with someone else it works. Unfortunately we get this only 2 or 3 times in the movie then again as the credits roll.  The best of which is inside the cats mind.

By choosing the path of maximum of emotion the chose the minimum entertainment. I think they could have ended with the same emotional result in a much entertaining movie simply by spending more time in the world and leaving the 5 main characters together.

Between failing to reach the expectations of being A- best Pixar ever and B-simply just a Pixar movie. Inside Out is ultimately a disappointment.  Off the top of my head I prefer all 3 Toy Storys, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Up, Wall-E and probably a few more if I looked them up.
Leave me in the Rotten Camp
C

By Jon Kissel

With enough XX-genotypes to satisfy several Bechdel tests, Clouds of Sils Maria takes on the vagaries of female friendship while also being an interesting depiciton of actors in an industry that values them less and less.  Olivier Assayas' film also features two lead performances, one from the predictably and regularly amazing Juliette Binoche and the other from a surprisingly engaged Kristen Stewart.  No more playing with her hair while vacantly staring for Stewart, apparently.  Clouds of Sils Maria elevates all involved in its adult, intelligent depiction of the public and the private.

Binoche plays Marie Enders, a respected actress in her 40's fresh off of a role in a comic book movie.  Her attentive assistant Valentine, played by Stewart, doubles as a sounding board and a friend.  On their way to an awards ceremony in Switzerland, Enders gets news that the director who guided her towards her break-out role has suddenly died.  She and Valentine make a detour for his wake, and Enders is approached by a director meaning to remake the play that made her famous.  In the play, a younger woman seduces her boss before casting her aside, leading to the older woman's suicide.  When Enders was younger, she played the seductress, but she's now meant to play the boss.  The seductress will now be played by scandal-prone up-and-comer Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloe Grace Moretz).  Enders accepts the role, and takes up residence in her old mentor's mountain cottage, bunkering down with Valentine to learn the opposite role.

Assayas is methodical and deliberate in establishing the world of his film.  The main plot doesn't kick in until what feels like the 45-minute mark in a two hour movie.  Everything before then is character work, an introduction to Enders' and Valentine's dynamic.  They have a rapport that masks their business relationship.  Valentine is totally honest with Enders, and Enders is appreciative of it.  There's no sourness at their base, only normal jabs that friends get in at each other.  The emphasis on Enders and Valentine from the beginning suggests the film is about them, first and foremost.  Once Enders accepts the role, Valentine is revealed to be a strong actress in her own right, vanishing into the seductress role as easily as Enders must have 20 years previously.  The professional actress's intransigence and frustration at the role reversal drives a wedge between them, likely tied up in Enders' concerns about growing older herself and losing ground to the Jo-Ann Ellis's of the world.  Valentine has to increasingly prop up her friend, altering the balance in their relationship where before, there was only mutual respect.

The introduction of Ellis provides for some generous stances taken toward big-budget Hollywood.  In trying to leaven Ellis's tabloid reputation with Enders, Valentine shows her boss clips from Ellis's most recent sci-fi actioner.  She plays a mutant or a cyborg or something, and the scene involves all the proper names that tend to make those films sound inherently silly when removed from their context.  However, Valentine insists quite persuasively that Ellis is giving herself completely over to the character, no matter how nonsensical or outlandish the character may appear or sound.  She's making the performers just as central as the visuals, which is the only way they'll remain relevant as movies become more about brand recognition and product placement.  The implication is that Enders' recent foray into this kind of role was not taken seriously.  Assayas's treatment of Ellis's start in CGI-driven spectacle as equal to Enders's in the theater is treated derisively by Enders, but the film appears to take the suggestion seriously.  In a world where Birdman and its intense disgust for superhero films is the reigning Best Picture champ, that's a surprising position to take in any film, much less a French one budgeted at $6.5 million.  Maybe Assayas is ready to cash in and get himself a Star Wars film.

The triumvirate of actresses at the center of Clouds of Sils Maria all give entrancing performances.  I'm most familiar with Binoche from her work in Three Colors: Blue, a dour, wrenching film.  Here, she's naturalistic and delightful, regularly deploying an infectious laugh and a readiness to trade the day's work for an Alpine hike and nap.  As things degrade for her, that warmth gradually fades until a depressing final scene that implies both a smaller win and a larger loss.  Moretz is an enigma as Ellis.  The character claims that her public persona is an act and a game, and while she's obsequious with Enders, Moretz's sphinx-like face doesn't tip whether what she's saying is genuine or not.  When her antics begin to take over the publicity for the play, Moretz manages to keep Ellis sympathetic while she's being decried as a vapid starlet.  As Valentine, Stewart is the heart of the film.  Where my previous impression of her was as non-committal wallpaper, I'm completely turned around on her here.  In fact, her awful performances in Twilight, now juxtaposed with her excellent work here, imply that she had no respect for those films.  While Valentine would argue that just makes her a snobby actress, it can't help but further raise my opinion of her.  Stewart is completely believable throughout, able to turn on and off multiple settings and live authentically in them.  Low expectations might've been a factor, but she has redeemed herself.

As a film about acting, Clouds of Sils Maria gives the viewer a new facet of that profession to think about.  As a film about friendship and give-and-take, it transcends that narrower view and becomes universal.  While Assayas's Summer Hours remains my personal favorite of his, Clouds of Sils Maria proves to be just as thought-provoking.  A showcase for Binoche is always worth seeing, but with a resurgent Stewart complementing her, this is a stand-out film.  B+

Original Review: Bryan

It's impossible to review Jurassic World without the Original Jurassic Park in mind. Heck, I refer to the current movie as the prior quite frequently.

The original Jurassic Park is an easy A in my book. The sights, sounds, and music hook the viewer from the beginning and takes them on a believable, incredible journey.

I might be all over the place with this review, bear with me.

Jurassic Park inspired awe of the dinosaurs and the science very quickly. The dinosaurs' enormity and the park's awesomeness are front and center. This is not the case with Jurassic World, for who knows what reason, the focus is constantly driven to the two brothers. One of whom is a girl crazy teenager and the other an academic all-star. A scene discussing their parents impending divorce is used to entice the user to relate to these two boys, but I didn't pay $7.75 to watch a divorce story. There is an early fly-over of the park, but honestly it felt small on screen compared to the maps and surrounding jungle. Classic Jurassic Park scores are pumped into the movie and those brought back memories, but Jurassic World is new, the directors should have expanded or enhanced the prior score.

Jurassic Park hits peak action early in the show, the T-Rex is loose and everyone is in danger - children and kids might die, who knows! Mr. Gennaro (lawyer) is plucked off the pot as a midnight snack setting the viewer up for an, "any character might die moment." Nedry (computer security/Newman) is setup as the bad guy stealing embryos, but through a series of unfortunate events is killed by Dilophosaurus. Those dinosaurs may not have been able to projectile spit tar, but the viewer doesn't know or care. There was  drama and death to important characters. Jurassic World does none of this - security guards and private contractors of whom the viewers knows nothing are gobbled up.

Jurassic Park is all about the dinosaurs and the suspense. Jurassic World mixes in a weird combo of a love story, brotherhood, anti-corporation, and evil science. None of them stick and none of the story lines evolve enough to draw users into the story. I never felt as though any main character was truly in danger. There is no Jurassic Park-esque kitchen scene of velociraptors opening doors trying to eat children.

Chris Pratt (Jurassic World - Owen) lives in a world somewhere between everyday voice and overly excited. That works for Parks and Recreation, but it doesn't work for Jurassic World. He never seems frightened or excited. Just a little extra happy. Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire) plays a work-work-work aunt with a surprising lack of worry as her colleagues are gobbled up, talking, and worrying. I don't blame her, but her character's role and lines were not well done. I couldn't handle that she wore heels the whole show and her dress went from perfectly clean to a tattered mess in one scene break. The two brothers were played just fine, but I don't think their characters were well done. I didn't need their parents' divorce story or really much, just them being scared to death and occasionally bonding. Vincent D'Onofrio plays the private contractor (bad guy) and his role and acting are brutal. He's not supposed to be likable and I get that, but his role is more irritating than engaging. He, as an actor, is pretty flat as well. I compare him to poachers in "The Lost World", in "The Lost World" the bad guys are despicable, and you can cheer against them, but they are believable and truly take on their role.

If you've made it this far, thanks. I've complained a lot and I have one more - what is the story in Jurassic World? Is it brotherhood? That wasn't written well and didn't progress realistically. Was it anti-genetics? I could have gone for an anti-new creation vs bringing back what existed prior, but this wasn't developed. Was it anti-corporation? The island owner was all over the place with his thoughts and actions. Was it anti-army? This was dwelled on, but seemed like a ripoff from "The Lost World." I just wasn't sure where this movie was going or why it was going there.

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. Here we are, and I've been tearing apart Jurassic World for 7 paragraphs.

The CGI was incredible. I never felt as though the dinosaurs were green screened or drawn in like most TV and movies today. This was Jurassic World's saving grace, because I went to see Jurassic World to see dinosaurs doing awesome things.

The evolution of Indominus (the lab created, giant T-Rex) was great. I loved the twist and turns of her character. Can a created dinosaur win best actress?

There has been some buzz online about the product placement in Jurassic World, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. If there were to be an actual Jurassic World it would be a corporate mess, but in a movie it seems overly distracting. It pulls the viewer's eyes from the middle of the screen to the edges - distracting them from the beauty to be seen.

I'll give a little credit for not totally screwing things up, but Jurassic World fell way short of my expectations. Final Grade: B- simply for the visuals.

PS: The trailer gives away most of the visuals in short form.

By Jon Kissel

During the first spasms of the Reign of Terror, young Terroriste Antoine St. Just sent the French king Louis XVI to the guillotine with the admonition, "One cannot reign innocently."  After rising to the Committee of Public Safety, the same could've been said to him when he was executed in turn, 18 months later.  St. Just's truism applies to nations as well as rulers when they exert their will over other nations, as France did to Algeria for over a hundred years.  Michael Haneke's Cache shrinks that abusive relationship down to the micro level and examines the ramifications of it in a vivid, naturalistic style.

Georges (Daniel Auteuil) and Anne (Juliette Binoche) Laurent are highly successful literati, raising their teenage son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky) in upper class comfort.  A recording of the outside of their apartment is delivered to their door, catching their daily comings and goings.  The implication that they are being watched brings suspicion into their lives, as every knock becomes threatening and anything out of place is a sign of tampering.  Hand-scrawled drawings are mailed to all of them at their jobs and at school, always in red marker.  Due to the specific content of the drawings, Georges is fairly certain that this harassment originates from an Algerian boy named Majid that Georges' family briefly cared for.   Georges goes to see the now middle-aged Majid (Maurice Benichou), but the Algerian swears he has no knowledge of what's befallen the Laurent family.  Georges has no choice but to leave, and the tapes and drawings continue to show up on his doorstep.

Once Georges begins to put the pieces together, Haneke's minimalist script deliberately parcels out information.  A key anecdote between Georges and Majid is withheld, but not because of contrivance or the cheap accumulation of tension.  Instead, both characters know what happened, and feel no need to explicate it.  This naturalism makes the eventual reveal completely earned, as the shame of it keeps the incident buried deep inside Georges.  His eventual telling of the story to his wife demonstrates what a talented actress Binoche is, as waves of fear and betrayal and disgust wash over her face.  The story itself, teased by one of Haneke's trademark nightmare sequences, was perpetrated by a very young Georges, but the ramifications of it have reverberated for decades, steering his life in one direction and Majid's in another.  That child Georges can have the impact he does, and maintain the lifestyle he does as an adult, demonstrates the different set of stakes the two boys lived under.  Accidents of birth made one's life comfortable and the other's tenuous, with the added force of colonialism putting fingers on scales.  Haneke never engages in speechifiying or blatant thematic statements, but his message comes out clearly.

The voyeuristic aspect of Cache fits well with Haneke's camera work.  There is no distinction between his camera and the camera of whoever is taking these surveillance videos.  No grain appears in the frame to distinguish the two, and there's no Record symbol or color shift to signify which is which.  Therefore, any long shot could be the way Haneke chose to film a scene, or within the film, it could be the stalker watching the central family.  In fact, both are often true.  An early sequence of Pierrot leaving school both establishes his daily routine and his camaraderie with his friends, but it also shows that the stalker is watching him.  In a clever meta turnabout, the viewer becomes the stalker.  Later scenes of intimate, intense conversations add to this feeling, as what's being discussed is so private that the viewer feels like an intruder.  Additionally, Haneke uses the film-within-a-film gimmick to add more information to scenes that have already happened.  Haneke's camera leaves a scene between Georges and Majid once Georges leaves Majid's apartment, but the stalker's camera stays inside, later revealing Majid's private reaction.  This technique adds depth to every scene and every frame, making the viewer question the perspective of what they're seeing.

Riveting and arresting, Cache is an excellent examination of unquestioned privilege and far-reaching sin.  Haneke again impresses with his small-scale storytelling and large-scale ideas.  A repeated line in the film stresses the innate need to protect what you have.  Cache acknowledges that need while asking the viewer to wonder how they got it.  As one cannot reign innocently, neither can one accumulate innocently.  A-

By Jon Kissel

Robert Bresson's donkey show Au Hasard Balthazar is an exercise in abuse and humiliation.  Unlike most donkey shows, though, there's plenty of beauty here, too.  Telling the parallel stories of a teenage French girl and the donkey she raises from a foal, both animal and human protagonists are seemingly made to suffer, but through their suffering, they gain some semblance of grace.

At the outset, farm girl Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) is depicted as in love with an adorable baby donkey, which she names Balthazar.  She even baptizes him as a full member of her family, which includes her father as a novice farmer.  As Marie gets older, she's presented with two romantic options.  Jacques (Walter Green) is an obsequious childhood friend, comforting but staid, while Gerard (Francois Lafarge) is the local ne'er do well and chief of a gang of toughs.  A dispute between Marie's father and Jacques's parents over land rights pushes Marie towards the cruel Gerard, who is indifferent towards his new girlfriend, and abusive towards Balthazar, who he uses to carry bread in his job.  As Marie falls in deeper with Gerard, her father is forced to sell the donkey, sending him on a series of mini-adventures while his original owner is left to fend for herself.


As an introduction to Bresson's work, the first thing that jumps out in Au Hasard Balthazar is how deeply Catholic its philosophy is.  Neither Marie nor Balthazar can catch a break, with her playing the part of the prodigal daughter and he in the role of Job.  Their suffering through neglect and abuse is depicted as their lot in life, and they must bear it before exaltation in the next, becoming completely debased in the process.  Together, they're the embodiment of the parable of the poor man sitting in heaven, while the rich man is tormented in hell.  This kind of dynamic, where suffering is the path to paradise, is ultimately unappealing, but Bresson's depiction of it is somehow uplifting.  He's able to convey that a heaven exists in this world, one with room for humans and beasts of burden.

The downside to this approach is that Marie is left as a fairly blank character, passive and reacting to the whims of those around her for the bulk of the film.  However, supporting characters are more lively, particularly Gerard, who jumps furthest out of the film.  Lafarge's childishly cruel visage makes Gerard a hateful character from his introduction playing dangerous pranks on drivers.  Coddled by a relative at his job who overlooks lateness and theft, he strides through the film with dull entitlement, the polar opposite of Marie's passivity.  In his more despicable moments, he turns Marie's love for Balthazar against the animal, violently beating him after watching Marie tenderly place a crown of flowers on his head.  A schoolyard bully in a man's body, he cannot let anyone enjoy a pleasant moment, and his presence lingers over the film.  When he's eventually stuck in hell, Marie would be right to not give him a drop of water to wet his lips from her perch in heaven.

As animal performances go, the donkey or donkeys playing Balthazar turns in a memorable one.  There seems to be inflection and intonation behind his well-timed (possible ADR'd) brays.  Something's happening behind his eyes, which Bresson is sure to catch in close-up.  An interlude at a circus stands out, as Bresson films Balthazar scanning the different animals, locking eyes with grander beasts in the same state of captivity that he is, sharing something in their misery.  Other sequences seem to transcend filmmaking techniques, transporting the viewer directly into the world.  While pulling a grain cart, Balthazar picks up speed, while Bresson adds more cuts between animal, driver, wheel, and axle.  Suddenly, he's broken loose, galloping down the road and back to Marie.  While the journey isn't depicted, it's easy to imagine Balthazar making it, stopping to eat some clover and being spooked by a car horn.  While Bresson gives Balthazar something like an inner life, it's not an anthropomorphized portrayal, avoiding the cutesiness other filmmakers might indulge in. 

More than anything, Au Hasard Balthazar makes the viewer want to go to a farm and watch a donkey laze around all day, happy and content.  That a donkey basically steals the film is a feature, not a complaint against the human actors.  Bresson's highly acclaimed work is full of life of all sorts, even as we're witnessing some of the lows of human behavior.  While the film's ethos is too religious by half, when that ethos is as well communicated as it is here, one can see the appeal.  B+

By Jon Kissel

Unpleasant and unsettling, Ben Wheatley's Kill List is a forerunner of True Detective with less charismatic leads.  Gloomy foreboding infects the film from frame one, which is a symbol being drawn in chalk on a black background.  As scratchy sound effects accompany each line or shape, the symbol acts as a Sword of Damocles, dangling over the film and ready to consume the characters at any moment.  In making a horror film about hitmen in over their heads, Wheatley has wildly succeeded at capturing a mood of encroaching disaster, though his and Amy Jump's script lacks larger impact due to the sheer detestability of the characters.  After yet another screaming match or act of bullying, the forces behind that symbol can't catch up to everyone fast enough.

After accepting the contract, Kill List leaves the oppressive home of the central family for a world where everything is a little off.  The location of their contact is a spotless manor house, looming over them and perfectly squeezed into the frame.  The contact himself is dressed impeccably, but there's something malevolent in his eyes.  People have too much information about Jay and Gal, considerably more than the viewer.  Initially efficient and professional, Jay unravels, becoming increasingly violent and perturbed by his targets.  They don't act like they should when confronted, staying secretive and obsequious even in the face of hideous torture.  Wheatley constricts the world around the two men, reducing their options til a claustrophobic ending has shut off their senses, leaving them to grope through their surroundings in abject terror.

That Kill List has a dark ending is fitting and appropriate for how repulsive its characters are.  Jay is a roiling volcano, ready to erupt at everyone he encounters in the film, from his family to complete strangers.  That he's also a charmless killer for hire is almost secondary to what a misanthrope he is.  Shel is perfectly knowledgeable about what her husband does for a living, and has no qualms about it.  This reframes her earlier urgings for him to go to work, the shrewish, nagging wife arguing for not just her financial well-being, but for the snuffing out of other people so that her moderately comfortable life can continue.  Gal is more weathered, taking little joy in his work but doing it anyway.  The inability of the film to humanize its characters thus puts plot first, such that the viewer is not wishing for Jay's safety or escape but is instead just waiting to see what happens next.

Atmospherically, Kill List is perfectly attuned to the slow-motion train wreck happening onscreen.  The passengers on that train, however, are too vile to invest in.  The sadistic final scenes confirm that Wheatley's film, though memorable and occasionally thrilling, is an exercise in misery.  C+

By Jon Kissel

Coming off the majestic accomplishment of Fury Road, it would be easy to think Mad Max auteur George Miller could do no wrong.  Behold Beyond Thunderdome, the third entry in the Mad Max franchise.  Tonally confused and a near-betrayal of what became before and after, Beyond Thunderdome is the first hint that Miller would spend a big chunk of the 30 year vacation he took between Mad Max installments making movies for children.  I love the Miller-written Babe, but I shouldn't be reminded of it when spending time in the post-collapse Australian wasteland.  Miller's prodigious and singular imagination is still hard at work here so Thunderdome isn't a total disaster; only a slow-moving one.

In the years since the events of the Road Warrior, not even Max (Mel Gibson presaging his Braveheart haircut) can find gasoline anymore.  Reduced to riding a vulnerable camel-drawn cart, he's skyjacked by a gyrocopter captain, and Max is left to wander to Bartertown, one of the last bastions of civilization.  Auntie Entity (Tina Turner) recognizes the deadly competence of Max and coerces him into a mission.  Bartertown is powered by pig shit, and the machinery is run by Master (Angelo Rossitto), who is using his valuable expertise to usurp Auntie.  A defenseless, elderly dwarf on his own, he's protected by the hulking, fully armored Blaster.  If Auntie is going to assert her dominance, Blaster has to go, and Max is the man for the job.  It's not difficult for Max to goad Blaster into a fight to the death, as the justice system in Bartertown revolves around fights to the death, taking place in the Thunderdome, where two men enter, and one man leaves. 

The first 45 minutes of Beyond Thunderdome are a blast, not as intense as scenes from Mad Max or the Road Warrior, but packed with detail and discovery around every turn.  Costumes remain a big part of the franchise, and the piked mannequin head on one of Auntie's henchmen, or Auntie's chainmail, or Blaster's armor, are all worthy entries.  The codes and mores of Bartertown are well-established, centering around the Thunderdome.  However, once Max gets himself exiled and sent off into the wilderness, things take a sharp turn into film-breakage.  Rescued from the wasteland by a tribe of children, Beyond Thunderdome turns into Hook meets Lord of the Flies.  Additionally, the climactic chase, present in every Mad Max film, is completely neutered, trading brutality for slapstick better suited for Wile E. Coyote.  It does the Mad Max thing, where Max is dragged into helping people he has no reason to care about, but that trope has never been as paper-thin as it is here.  The latter half of Beyond Thunderdome feels like a prescient Miller salting the earth of the franchise, making a film that is such an outlier, it will scare away any potential re-booters until he's ready to personally resurrect it 30 years later.  If so, I'm glad it resulted in the Fury Road apotheosis, but that doesn't retroactively make Beyond Thunderdome a better film.

Even with the epic third act collapse, Beyond Thunderdome is still vital for fans of Miller's work in the Australian wasteland.  The aforementioned scenes introducing Bartertown are fantastic, and Rossitto's curt commands in broken English are likely the funniest thing in the franchise.  It is thematically consistent with the rest of the franchise, as one act of selflessness radiates out and heals a little bit of the world.  This is perfectly captured in Turner's showstopper song We Don't Need Another Hero, which plays over the end credits.  It's one of the very few times an end credits song has made me re-evaluate the film that preceded it, and its inclusion validates Turner's participation in the film.  However, the magnitude of the eventual collapse cannot be overstated.  It's worse than Sunshine, worse than I Am Legend, the kind of WTF transition that accompanies 2001's light show.  To add a cartoonish element to the grand action setpiece is a bridge much too far.  The Mad Max franchise lived with Road Warrior, died with Beyond Thunderdome, and thankfully, lives again with Fury Road.  C