FRUITVALE STATION

FRUITVALE STATION Review

By Darin Skaggs

     First time director Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station tells the true story of a young man named Oscar and the last few hours of his life.  It begins with real life footage of Oscar’s last few moments as a he is shot during an arrest after a fight breaks out on a subway.  The story starts on New Year’s Eve around midnight.  He goes through his day looking for a new job, buying several presents for his mother’s birthday and dealing with the emotions, good or bad, of being a father.

     Told in a similar way like Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, without the brutal violence, like the story depicts the last few hours of both characters.  But this man is no Jesus.  He has no job, a five year old at 22 and while seeming committed to his girlfriend he also flirts around with other women.  Though, you have to give Oscar an A for effort.  He spends his day trying to find a job, buying not one but two lobsters for his mother’s birthday despite not having much money.  He also takes great care of his daughter, giving her presents and sound advice.  So why tell this story, he doesn’t do anything wrong at the end and yet he is murdered.  The film says that anything can happen anytime.  He is proven to be a great person and at times a not so good person.  God is not trying to punish him nor karma finally getting its revenge.  It is just fate.  He is at the wrong place at the wrong time.

     The film is full of moments that foreshadow the fate of Oscar.  He is constantly telling his friends and family that he will “See them later.”  Other moments that foreshadow include him bonding with a dog that is run down by a car and left for dead.  He is the only one to care for it.  You could say that these moments are suffocating and on the nose, but for some it will work so much.  You could feel the sense of dread throughout the film and find the foreshadowing very compelling. 

     At times the story is pretty depressing and not that fun to watch.  With the ending, which you know from the very beginning it is hard to watch Oscar be in love with his girlfriend or play tag with his daughter.  This is the only real down side to the film which is incredibly well made by the writer/director.

YOU'RE NEXT

YOU’RE NEXT Review

By Darin Skaggs

     In Adam Wingard’s new film You’re Next about ten minutes is spent setting up the Davison family, a group of ten or so people, who are all gathering at the new home on the outskirts of anything.  Then someone, spoilers, kills Tariq who is a boyfriend to one of the daughters in the family.  He is killed by an arrow being shot into his head during a family argument.   When someone notices it all hell breaks loose and the home invasion horror film does not slow down from there, not even a bit.

     The great thing about this first death is that the actor that plays Tariq is a horror director in real life named Ti West.  He is known for his slow burn horror films such as The Innkeepers.  What this film is basically saying by hiring West, making him play a filmmaker in fact and then killing him first and foremost is that this is not going to be a slow burn horror film; it’s going to be a non-stop slasher home invasion thriller.  That is also the kind of humor you can expect from this darkly comic film.  Many deaths are played for laughs with a few horrific and sad moments to not make you feel terrible for enjoying the violence so much.  The film lets you laugh at the misfortune and then makes you search yourself and find out what kind of person would laugh at this.  As the film goes on the deaths get more creative and bizarre.  And unlike the Saw franchise these deaths are not meant to just one up the last one to make you squirm.  They are there for you to get your adrenaline going so you can enjoy your experience.

     There are some twists in the film that in the moment you do not see coming.  Yet, in the second viewing or thinking about the film in retrospect they make perfect sense.  The hero of the film is not who you expect at all.  This sentiment is topped off with a great ending which is the most fitting for a horror film in a long time.

     This is not so much a scare film, with some jump moments.  It is more of a thriller, almost like a roller coaster, that doesn’t stop for anything.  This film is a blast and makes you question your very morality.

THE ACT OF KILLING

THE ACT OF KILLING Review

By Darin Skaggs

     There have been so many telling’s in film about the Holocaust and Nazis that it seems that this tragic event in our history has become a work of hard to watch fiction.  Documentaries have helped see the true tragedy of the events, like Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah.  A more recent depiction of the horrors of humanity is in the documentary The Act of Killing, which is about Indonesian death squad leaders who are recounting the many murders that they committed and are viewed highly of.  They also recount these murders through the format of making their own film based on their life.

     Anwar Congo is the leader of this group.  He and many others performed all of these murders of people they believed to be bad back in the late sixties.  Many scenes pop up where they are describing or acting out how they would murder and the way they felt about it.  At points it might remained you of Dexter or other serial killer products, these men have no remorse and seem to be ignorance to what they have done.  Then throughout the film you realize you are watching a documentary and all of what these men pronounce is truth.  The film is hard to watch; more so than other “truth telling” films like 12 Years a Slave, which is based on memoirs.  Rarely do you get to speak to the bad guy in real life and see what he thinks.  It is absolutely horrifying.

     The film is hard to watch.  Yet, at times it is kind of funny.  They are making this film of their actions.  There is one “actor” in which the roles he plays is always a woman.  The acting is terrible and there are odd musical sequences.  Even though these moments do release the tiniest bit of tension, they are often met with you choking on your laughter with the torture scenes getting too realistic or the actors playing victims bursting into tears for the shear horror of pretending to go through this.

     There are several moments where you think these men have lost any emotional connection to humanity.  They constantly speak of loving gangster characters in movies they had watched or how Congo would have never worn white pants during murders as he reviews footage of him demonstrating how he used to kill people.  That is brilliantly the beginning of the film to get a sense of these people’s disconnection to emotions.  The latter half of the film has some of these people coming to realizations, maybe for the first time, of the weight of their actions.

     The horror of this film is that it is something that has really happened.  These men go on so long not realizing what they have done, some probably don’t know to this day.  It is one of the most harrowing documentaries ever made.

THE GREAT GATSBY

THE GREAT GATSBY Review

By Darin Skaggs

     Baz Luhrmann has a certain style to him.  He can be viewed as a visual genius or an annoying pretentious filmmaker, most of the time in the same viewing of the same film.  His latest film The Great Gatsby is no exception.  The film is told with amazing visuals, mostly good performances and his average amount of non-stop editing.

     The Great Gatsby, based upon the book of the same name, is told from the perspective of Nick Carraway played by Toby Maguire.  He meets Jay Gatsby, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a man who hosts big parties and lives the life of a rich man.  He is also tortured by one fact; he is not with the love of his life, Daisy, played by Carey Mulligan.  Gatsby, who is desperate to be with Daisy, who is now married to someone else, struggles with this fact until it takes him over leading to his fate.

     DiCaprio must have had a mid-life crisis or something because all of his performances lately have knocked it out of the park, including this one.  You can tell Gatsby is sad under all acts he puts on for his hundreds of guest he has at his party.  Mulligan and others do great work as well.  Maguire, not so much.

     The performances are great, which you can overlook from the amazing cinematography.  There are lights all around the city and in the background it almost looks like Luhrmann makes them look fake on purpose to create his own special style.  It is dazzling and while the actors are acting their heart out you at times find yourself staring into the distance.  This film almost wants to be a distraction from its actors by playing hip hop music during most of the party scenes and other scenes as well.  The music was supervised by Jay-Z, the rapper, which is a very interesting choice because the film is set in the 1920’s. 

     With these three elements that don’t mix: the actors, the visual aspect and the music, the film almost blends perfectly to make one big delicious film casserole. 

THE WOLVERINE

THE WOLVERINE Review

By Darin Skaggs

     The Friday the 13^th series is one that has the same premise in each one after the third film.  In the series the immortal Jason Voorhees takes his machete and slashes multiple victims, some of them having sex and others just running through the woods.  The best people in the group eventually defeat Jason until he comes back in the next film.  There is no originality in these films and the superhero genre is going down that very road.  James Mangold’s new film The Wolverine is a great step up in the genre with trying something new and is a great addition to the lackluster X-Men series.

     The Wolverine takes place after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand.  Logan is dealing with the aftermath of his friend’s deaths.  He lives as a hermit and has dreams of the past.  He is then brought to Japan by a man he saved the life of during World War II named.  The man promises him that he will take away Logan’s immortality.  Logan is interested and sticks around long enough for Viper to weaken his skin and saves the man’s daughter, Mariko. 

     Logan spends most of the film trying to figure out why he is weaker and protects Mariko.  Instead of like other superhero films, this one is like a drama.  There is a few action scenes including one on a train that are amazing, but most of the film is talking and solving the mysteries of the movie.  Hugh Jackman does great work as The Wolverine.  This is his sixth time as the immortal hero and he is pretty much on auto pilot.  The other actors are unknown, to American standards.  This is a brilliant choice taking talented unknowns and putting our familiar hero in the middle of them.

     The last act of the film is kind of out of nowhere and is a little too cartoonish.  Viper, who never seemed to be a real threat, does some damage but never seems to be at her full potential.  There is a twist that seems it should belong in the action packed film not this dramatic one.

     The darkness of the film, matched with the darkness of the cinematography and goes along well with the attitude that comes from Logan.  It is one of the better superhero, and especially X-Men films.