Change Your Image
jaronb94
Reviews
After Louie (2017)
Not Saved by the Acting
With fine actors including Alan Cumming, Zachary Booth, and Wilson Cruz participating, I expected a far better film. This is the director's first feature, and it shows. By turns maudlin, self-congratulatory and incoherent, the story purports to be an examination of how an aging gay man - who lived through the worst years of AIDS - now finds himself in a time in which his activism is under-appreciated. Unfortunately, as written, the protagonist (Sam) is self-absorbed and unlikable, a privileged New York artist who treats the hustlers he hires badly and who whines relentlessly to others that, for some reason, put up with him. He is, essentially, a narcissist that the filmmakers present as if he were sympathetic.
The conceit of the film is that Sam is not afforded by young, cute gay guys the respect and honor he deserves for having lost friends and loved ones in the eighties and for having participated in Act Up in the nineties. As a survivor of those times myself, I appreciate the work of activists, but I fully understand that what they accomplished should be gratification enough. Of course younger gay men can't understand what Sam went through. The whole point was to work toward a future when they wouldn't have to.
Sam is stuck in the past, as is the film. The protagonist seems to learn nothing, and watching his journey becomes increasingly frustrating.
One final point (and this truly bothered me): throughout the film, Sam voices particular venom toward the few non-white characters - a latino hustler he stiffs, a black artist who has replaced him in popularity, and the latino boyfriend of an old friend who the friend wishes to marry. This isn't quibbling; his behavior is pronounced and consistent, leaving the impression that, in his mostly-white world, people of color are people to be disparaged.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Does not live up to the hype
Why is a film with a plot no different from a Lifetime movie getting acclaim? Supposedly, the writing and acting are superior, making the simple story seem more weighty than it is. But, sadly, the screenplay's "touching" moments are self-conscious and precious. The pacing is slow and, at 137 minutes, way, way too long. The writer/director seems to have fallen in love with scenes that have nothing to do with moving the film forward. There is a great performance by an actor, but not by Casey Affleck, whose one-note performance is nowhere near Oscar caliber. Lucas Hedges is brilliant, almost bringing life to this moribund tale - but not quite. Lonergan takes us on a dreary journey with unlikeable characters, to a place not worth going to. To say this film is overrated would be an understatement.
Lazy Eye (2016)
Ambitious but falls short
This film is an attempt at a gay version of Richard Linklater's "Before" films, that follow two protagonists as they interact in real time. It has a lot going for it, including great production values, good actors, and dialogue that deftly engages the audience throughout. The problem, though, is that neither character is particularly likable, making it difficult to care about them. The primary character, Dean, lives a bourgeois life, facing obstacles ranging from having to transition to progressive lenses to deciding whether to fill the pool at his beautiful second home with fresh or salt water. He's a bit of a whiner, complaining that his graphic design clients set parameters and don't allow him to follow his "artistic" whims. He claims to be a Democratic Socialist, but his only apparent effort toward social justice is that he used to listen to NPR. He's a bit narcissistic and seems oblivious to his privilege. The secondary character, Alex, remains somewhat a cipher. We learn that he "has money" but not much more other than as it relates back to Dean. He's mostly a foil for Dean's angst, discussing things like whether Dean should trade his vacation desert home up for a better one at the top of the hill. In all, a good try, but I just couldn't care about these characters.
Midnight Special (2016)
What a mess
Having highly regarded "Shelter", I was very much looking forward to this film. What a disappointment! A sci-fi film doesn't have to make sense to be successful, but this film seems to have no idea where it's going, and when it gets there, it's nearly laughable. And the pacing: slow, slower, slowest. This leads to the direction. First, the central character, played by an eight-year-old boy, can (understandably) not act, so the approach seems to be to have someone read each line to the boy and have him repeat the line in a deadpan close-up. And this approach is also used to hinder the performances of a wasted group of fine actors. Long close ups of faces are shot in a silent-film style. They almost scream: 'OK Kirsten, look down sadly for two beats and then look up slowly with a dawning notion that something important has just happened'. And these 'reaction' shots are dropped between live action scenes in a way that the 'reaction' takes far longer than it ever could have believably. And this happens over and over again, creating a pacing that is hard to endure. (No competent editor could have created this mess of a montage unless it was required, for some reason, by the director.) In sum, a bunch of characters do things that make no sense (slowly), then reach a 'payoff' worthy of a low-budget SyFy TV movie. Yeesh, what a dud.
Alex & Ali (2014)
Very disturbing, but not in the way intended
Watching this at a film festival, I was reminded of the Louis Bloom character in Nightcrawler, who not only benefits from filming intrusive scenes of violence and misery, he actually creates the very horrors he films and then blithely peddles the result as reality 'filmmaking'.
In a nutshell, Alex & Ali chronicles the terrible, true consequences of a 'feel good' reality show effort gone horribly wrong. The filmmaker facilitates his uncle, unwell after years with HIV, to encourage the defection from Iran of the uncle's onetime lover, apparently in the naive hope that, after 35 years, the pair of 'soulmates' would be reunited and that Ali would be a companion for the Alex in his final years.
Essentially, the director exploits not only his uncle by fueling this dangerous and naive enterprise, he puts into motion events that will cause Ali to be tortured by Iranian authorities, leaving his life destroyed.
To his credit, the uncle admits his shame at pursuing this fool's errand, but disturbingly, the director of this piece reveals no ethical reservations in completing the film and shopping it to film festivals. He even creates 'suspense' in the telling of this obscene tale, creating entertainment for the viewer based on the very misery he put in motion.
I sat aghast at the screening, watching the filmmaker discuss the events as if he had no culpability in creating them. This film is not 'hard,' as he blithely described it, it is disgusting. Whether the filmmaker is a cynic or merely a fool, I'm not sure. And I don't know which is worse.
Alex & Ali represents a nadir of 'reality' filmmaking, competing with 'To Catch a Predator' in presenting true misery as entertainment or, worse, as legitimate documentary filmmaking. Avoid it unless you want to feel complicit in the events this 'filmmaker' sets into motion.