Review- Beasts of No Nation (2015)

Directed by: Cary Fukunaga

Written by: Cary Fukunaga

Starring: Abraham Attah, Idris Elba

Synopsis: As civil war rages in Africa, a fierce warlord (Idris Elba) trains a young orphan (Abraham Attah) to join his group of guerrilla soldiers.

War movies usually follow the same themes. War can do things to a person. War is nasty and unkind. It's common, we've seen it a lot since Apocalypse Now. So when I watch a war movie now, I don't need to think about what the film is trying to tell me, but how effective it is at telling me. Beasts of No Nation does it perfectly. No movie has shown the horrors of war in such a way since Saving Private Ryan. This movie is emotional and tense, and it's unforgiving in its portrayal of the modern wars of Africa. The war is fictional and the country is unnamed (some might compare this to the offensive No Escape, but it really isn't), but the themes ring true and the situations our main character, a child named Agu played wonderfully by Ghanian actor Abraham Attah, faces have and do happen to real people. Agu ends up being the perfect way to show the audience what war is.

Along with Abraham Attah, all the child actors are great in this movie. Nothing feels like acting, it feels real. Idris Elba deserves to win an Oscar for his performance as the Commandant, a cult leader-like soldier who picks up children and forces them into his battalion. The character is incredibly well acted and incredibly well written.This whole movie, including the character of Agu, is incredibly well written. It's based off of a novel by the same name written by author Uzodinma Iweala, which I've never read, but I believe it must have been adapted well.

This movie also looks amazing for a 6 million dollar movie. I don't know how Cary Fukunaga did it. If you look at the list of producers and small production companies involved, you can tell this movie wasn't brought up the usual way. A lot of people came to help raise the budget for this movie. I think people saw the potential and genuinely wanted to help make a fantastic piece of art. Thanks to Fukanaga, we got that piece of art. Cinematography is gorgeous, color grading is appropriate and natural, and there are no major CGI shots. There are helicopters and explosions and villages, and nothing at any time feels cheap. Not even 150 million dollar movies can do that.

Talking about this movie not being made the usual way, I have a feeling this movie is going to be largely ignored by the academy because Neflix is behind it. It deserves to be nominated for Best Picture to be honest, and I'll be surprised if it's nominated for anything at all. Releasing a movie the same day it's available for streaming is a controversial idea and it budding heads with movie theater companies. Regardless of the politics of Netflix and movie theaters though, it's hard to ignore that this is a phenomenal film.

I'd highly recommend this movie to anyone and everyone. It's the best 2015 movie I've seen. It's dark and may make those who aren't use to violence in movies queasy, but that's the point and you should endure it. I have no criticisms, only praise.

9.5/10

Review- Creep (2014)

Directed by: Patrick Brice

Written by: Mark Duplass, Jason Blum

Starring: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice

Synopsis: Aaron answers an online ad and drives to a stranger's house to film him for the day. The man wants to make a movie for his unborn child, but his requests become more bizarre as the day goes along.

The more I thought about this movie, the more I liked it. Initially while watching it, I thought it was bad but with a few good moments. But I kept thinking about it for the rest of the day, and I came to realize that those good moments outweighed any negative aspects.

The movie suffers from a main character who is completely idiotic. So much that it takes you out of the movie. There are realistic ways to portray how the character made the decisions he did, which basically let the movie's 'Creep' named Josef stalk him and eventually kill him, but instead of taking the time to explore those avenues, they just have a scene where he calls the police once and gets angry because they apparently weren't very helpful. I guess someone who accepts obviously creepy jobs on Craigslist must not be very smart, but no one would be that stupid. It's like most horror movies in that respect, characters who make dumb decisions just so the plot can move along. Also like most horror movies, it's predictable. Within the first few seconds of the movie, you already understand what's going to happen; creepy guy who hired the main character is going to do creepy stuff and eventually kill him.

There's also issues like the use of the found footage style after the part in which the main character escapes Joseph's cabin and the ending scene where our main character dies. The found footage feels forced and doesn't work all the time. The scene which the main character dies sort of feels like a Looney Tunes gag, and it's just plain silly.

So what part of this movie works? It's all Mark Duplass and the character he plays. I'm not a fan of the movies Mark Duplass as a director, and I wasn't a fan of his acting in the film The Lazarus Effect, but he did a great job in this. He says everything naturally, and does a good job at looking unintentionally funny but creepy at the same time. This is the first time I think I've ever seen a found footage film where acting is one of the film's strong points. The character is very well written as well. His whole story about raping his wife (which was really his sister), his past mental issues, his whole love of wolves, a search for his 'buddy', and 'Peach Fuzz' were all great little things that helped build a very good character. I think the creators thought a lot about his backstory that's not directly explained (For example, I think there was some implication that his father had raped him.) It's all so believable too. There is a lot to appreciate with the character and it's something you don't find too often in modern horror movies let alone found footage movies.

I recommend this movie for his character alone. This movie is named 'Creep' for a reason. It's not filled with jump scares or blood and guts, but it is very creepy (while also being humorous). It might not be for the average horror fan, but I suppose that's what makes this a very unique movie.

5.5/10

Review- Upstream Color

Directed by: Shane Curruth

Written by: Shane Curruth

Starring: Amy Seimetz, Shane Curruth, Andrew Sensenig

Synopsis: A woman (Amy Seimetz) unwittingly undergoes a series of bizarre experiments, then meets a kindred spirit (Shane Carruth) who may have experienced the same ordeal.

Shane Curruth is brilliant no-name director who ought be doing more movies. His debut was with a low budget science fiction film called Primer in 2004, which has since been known for being unapologetically complex and scientific. His second film, Upstream Color, is an amazing follow up. It's a bit abstract, it's a bit easier to understand, but incredibly beautiful and stylish.

The premise is an interesting one; two people find themselves together after both unknowingly become part of a parasitic worm's life cycle. With such a subject, other directors would make it a horror movie. Shane Curruth takes a different route and makes a movie about breaking the cycles of life, achieving happiness, and people with difficult pasts accepting each other for who they are. It has warmth and beauty and love. It feels like Terrence Malick instead of David Cronenberg. It's the most beautiful film I've seen in a long time.

The film, like Primer, is an intentional puzzle. I'll try to help with a basic interpretation and I'd recommend reading other people's interpretations after watching it; there are three stages in the parasite's life cycle. There is the man who takes the worm from the flowers and gives it to people, which puts them in a hypnotic state, to steal their money. The next is the pig farmer, who takes the worm out of the person's body and into a pig, which allows him to see what the person sees when he touches the pig which has the person's worm, and this inspires him to make music. The third are two women who, after the pig farmer throws dead pigs (or, as seen in the movie, piglets) into a riv.er, collect orchids that turn blue from the parasite-tainted water. At the end of the movie, the two main characters fall in love because they are connected psychically to the parasite and thus to each other, but they are able to break the cycle and kill the pig farmer (most likely because they think he's the one behind it all, when in reality none are aware that they are part of the life cycle and only do what they do for their own personal gain). They, along with the other people who were given the parasite, take care of the pigs at the end. This seem to make them and the pigs happy, which I believe is a big part of the film. Who's happiness is it? The parasites or the people? In my opinion, I think the ending is optimistic and because they broke the cycle the parasites will stop being able to breed, even though they're still all connected because of the parasites inside them. The rest of the film, however, has the parasite controlling the world around them to allow their life cycle to continue. Again, this is a basic interpretation of the events of the film and I believe it does go significantly deeper. Feel free to come up with your own conclusions because, like most films of this type, they're meant to have different interpretations.

If I had any gripes, it would be one piece of music used in the film. Most of soundtrack is beautiful and mesmerizing, but one piece in particular felt repetitive and, quite frankly, annoying. It sounded like the horn of a truck going off continuously. There were also a few moments in which the screen goes black for dramatic effect but they felt like false endings and it makes the movie drag on more than it should. Another issue, this one minor, is that in the beginning one of the characters works at what I thought was some sort of robotics company and there were videos and pictures of CGI robots. I'm on really sure what that was and why it was in the movie, but it was never brought up again. Why did they waste money in the movie's budget for a CGI robot that had nothing to do with the plot and was only in it for seconds? I may be confused on what her actual job was and it's possible tha.t the CGI robot in the film was really some sort of stalk video or something, so they didn't have to pay for it. If they did actually spend money on that though, then it was a pretty big waste.

I recommend Upstream Color for those with the patience to watch a slower paced visually-driven film. If you despised Primer or hate Terrence Malick, this isn't up your ally. But if you're interested in this beautiful movie, it's on Netflix.

8/10