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THE CHOSEN (2019) series review
Category: Indie
LITTLE MEN (2016) film review by Gwen Hughes
No, definitely not Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men. This film from director Ira Sachs tells the story of a friendship between two young boys growing up in Brooklyn.
Brian and Kathy Jardine (Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Ehle) move to Brooklyn with their 13-year-old son, Jake (Theo Taplitz), after Brian’s dad dies and leaves them the building he owns. Having grown up in Manhattan, Jake is reticent at first but learns to enjoy the quieter side of the city and space to roam.
Jake befriends Tony (Michael Barbieri), another 13-year-old whose mother Leonor (Paulina Garcia) rents the storefront below the Jardines’ apartment. Exuberant Tony dreams of being an actor and looks to Jake’s dad, a washed-up movie star for inspiration, because his own absentee father is a nurse working overseas.
Jake and Tony spend days rollerblading and scootering through Brooklyn. Sleepovers and video games abound. But problems arise when Jake’s parents must raise Leonor’s rent to support their family. Leonor objects, citing her close relationship with Brian’s late father as the reason she deserves to stay. She’s a single parent, an immigrant and longtime tenant, and she won’t go down without a fight.
The dilemma is unique, and the solution is sure to be complex, if it exists at all.
Amidst this simple story, some scenes drag. Long scenes are used to exhibit the slower pace of life in Brooklyn but frequently end up feeling rather clunky.
Overall though, the script is tight. Insightful and simple dialogue is knocked out of the park by perfect casting. The two young boys, newly discovered by Ira Sachs, give honest and raw performances. A highlight is Theo Taplitz’s emotional monologue at the end of the film – he had me in tears.
Paulina Garcia is also incredible. The Chilean actress plays the role of disgruntled Leonor beautifully. She shines in the uncomfortable money discussions with Kinnear, where her searing and highly personal insults pack a punch.
Little Men is simple and unassuming. Friendship is at its heart, but the demands of parents and city life won’t let up. Head to Hulu and see how they fare.
(Now streaming on Hulu)
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Gwen Hughes is a seasoned writer and the Editor-in-Chief at Madison Park Living magazine. When she is not working, she enjoys reading short stories, quoting John Mulaney Netflix specials, and eating family-size boxes of Mott’s Fruit Snacks.
THE FLORIDA PROJECT (2017) movie review in haiku by Gwen Hughes
Mother and daughter
Live in a purple castle,
Not Cinderella’s
Danger all around
Little Moonee rules the roost
With buddies in tow
—
Landlord Bobby watches
Mother Halley make mistakes
Can’t help but protect
Mom smokes in the room
Unwelcome guests come at night
Moonee, still smiling
You might lose friends, but
Nothing like a mother’s love
And breakfast buffets
Disney adjacent
We grow where we are planted
No break for Moonee
Sean Baker is king
Of cotton candy colors
And iPhone endings
—
(Now streaming on Netflix)
~~~~
Gwen Hughes is a seasoned writer and the Editor-in-Chief at Madison Park Living magazine. When she is not working, she enjoys reading short stories, quoting John Mulaney Netflix specials, and eating family-size boxes of Mott’s Fruit Snacks.
LEAVE NO TRACE (2018) movie review
Ben Foster’s man of the woods lives rogue with his teenage daughter in the damp forests of the northwest.
Together they plant, gather, forage, and hide – working to survive and to maintain their quiet lives just outside of civilization. His sleep is plagued by fearful dreams that keep him restlessly moving forward on his inconstant quest.
The pacing of this film is unexpectedly slower, focused, examining the realism of an unsteady life in self-imposed exile. Soft-spoken, it floats scene to scene, the trek unforced yet fearful.
It isn’t until the daughter, Tom, tastes the stability of a roof and amenities and human interaction that she sees her life as it could be rather that what she is told it must be.
The father is the loving protector, but Tom is the stalwart strong, the peace that grounds her father. Needing more than a roof, she comes to realize that refuge lies in more than rescue but in the courage to re-enter reality.
ISLE OF DOGS (2018) movie review
Wes Anderson rides again in his purest puppy parade to date.
While he famously kills a dog in each of his symmetrical dollhouse menagerie films, here in Isle of Dogs he attempts a mass rescue of dog-kind. Only one little hero pilot willingly risks his life to save his best pal Spot.
Wes puts his diorama-prone filmmaking to the test in this puppeted art film including every ounce of classic Andersonism fans have come to expect, though the tone is perhaps even more dry and stoic and the narrative arc less pronounced than his usual fare. Immersing in Japanese culture, Anderson allows for half or more than half of this film’s dialogue to be in Japanese without subtitles. It’s an adjustment at first, but we’ve come to expect nothing less from Wes.
And though he worked remotely on this project, he still filmed himself acting out the dog roles, controlled each element of visual story, and offered what can only be called his style to the production. He in his classic tweed suit lends even the mangey dogs living on “Trash Island” a level of posh austerity, a demure grace.
At times watching this felt like watching a Miyazaki film. Perhaps it’s the slower, continuous flow-through pacing or the neutral-toned setting. As it turns out, Miyazaki is just one of the artist influences that Anderson nods to. Also in the list are renowned filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and Charles Schultz of Peanuts cartoon fame.
Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Jeff Goldblume, Greta Gerwig, Bryan Cranston, Tilda Swinton, and of course Bill Murray are only a few of the voice talents behind the hand-painted hand-designed stop-motion characters.
Each one took around 16 weeks to make, with around a thousand interchangeable faces to pinpoint specific expressions within each of the 12 frames per second. It took 670 artists years to create this hour & 41 minute long film. An excellent interview with some of the Isle of Dogs animators can be read here.
Two scenes still stand out days later as potential for pop genius and eccentricity unmatched: the sushi scene in which audiences gain point of view from the eyes of a sushi chef as he slices and creates a box lunch, and the kidney transplant scene with a realistic overhead view within an operating room as a surgeon slices, removes, stiches up, and replaces a kidney. It’s surprising and yet fitting in the world as presented by Anderson.
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (2016) movie review
Captain Fantastic is just that: fantastic. But beware, it’s emotionally raw, bravely honest, and a little too personal for anyone who has dealt with real loss. Days later I’m still reeling, stopped in my tracks by moments of both pain and healing that I witnessed there in the woods and on the road with this family.
Viggo Mortensen, perfectly cast, plays drill sergeant hippie Von Trapp to his tribe of children that he is raising in the Pacific Northwest woods. In the opening shots, his eldest son proves his manhood by killing a deer for food as camouflaged family members step out of the forest to cheer him on. They eat, sing, read, run, and train together daily from vigorous athletic routines and mountain climbing to gardening and essential yurt maintenance. Daily studies include literature, religion, and philosophy. The children are kind, hearty, smart, gifted individuals who grieve just like everyone else in the world when they learn of their mother’s suicide.
This film is exquisitely unique showing the many sides of grief in a single brilliant brazen family from the backwoods. While some may watch and say, “what an interesting indie,” others will re-grieve any sorrows they’ve set aside and now find that they have company in saying goodbye.
CAFE SOCIETY (2016) movie review
“Bad company corrupts good morals,” 1 Corinthians 15:33. This verse rings true, and proves much worse when all characters begin and end with the same character flaws, the same proclivities toward destruction, the same lies for personal gain, and the same old starry gazes at the way things could have been.
Woody Allen offshoots from his recent run of sweet charming Paris-in-the-20s films and jumps into New York & LA in the 30s. Cafe Society, though beautiful frame-for-frame, is a diatribe, a tragic spiral into the depths of disappointment over past failures and Niche-esque psychological queries on the purposelessness of life. 
Steve Carell’s forefront character, remains abrupt and unfeeling throughout. Jesse Eisenberg is the perfect young Woody Allen replica with his despondent stammer and tragic tropes as he works to woo Kristen Stewart, still sullen post-Twilight. Blake Lively is barely there, a wisp in model pose for the few moments she walks on-screen. My favorites, Paul Schneider and Parker Posey, were sadly more like extras, mere furniture in the film, not fixtures. 
The true tragedy is, if this film had succeeded in producing even a single hopeful, likable character to root for, it would have been enough to redeem even the wooden performances of the least emotional actors in Hollywood.
I’ll say: 3/10
SHORT TERM 12 (2013) movie review
If you never see another indie film…
If you’re sorry Newsroom ended and love John Gallagher Jr…
If you adore Brie Larson…
If you work in any way with humans who need you to be there for them even when that work fills you with pain…
Short Term 12 somehow manages to plumb the depths of human interaction without wounding you permanently in the process. Don’t get me wrong. It destroys you, but it also offers unconventional, inescapable hope. Set in a temporary foster home in California, a small team of young workers deal with the daily lives of kids living in-between homes in the system while processing their own similar demons.
The language is unfiltered, but so is the truth. Kids from all sorts of backgrounds find shelter in foster care, for better or worse. Sadly, too many stories of abuse, crime, and mental illness pervade these adolescents’ lives. Now and then, however, one success story feels worth the retelling. It gives us hope knowing that our work is not in vain. It sees us though the next difficult day knowing that there just might be a silver lining. 
This film offers that story.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY (2014)
THEM. HER. HIM.
That’s the order to watch them in. The director made three films of the same story from three perspectives. Them (2014), he released a year after the other two. Despite the overlap, a distinct change in perception exists and shifts between the three. I found myself sympathizing with each character equally, depending on the perspective. However, the changes were subtle and the story often unaffected.
We are selfish beings who protect our own innocence and see ourselves as the victims. It is somehow healing to see the same story from three sides. It’s the essence of sociology. The same book sits on a table, but one person sitting there gets a view of the top edges and rough pages while another sees only the spine.
This beautifully acted story tells the three sides of heartbreak as tragedy tugs at us all differently. Some, like the husband, swim headfirst under the wave of sorrow and into the torrents of business and busyness and every day existence hoping to come up on the other side unscathed. James McAvoy runs a failing restaurant in New York City with his best friend Bill Hader . His father, Ciaran Hinds, runs a successful restaurant and can offer little support or advice that will help his wounded son find what he also cannot.
Others, like the wife, tumble in the riptide until fighting the wave feels too difficult and they want to give in to the dive knowing they’ll never resurface to breathe the same air again. Jessica Chastain dives and is reborn. She moves home, cuts her hair, starts over. She takes classes from the perfect teacher, Viola Davis . Sometimes, people inadvertently offer life-giving support just by sharing a coffee or a personal story. Her father, William Hurt, obviously aches beside his daughter but says little. No one can bring Eleanor Rigby back to life any more than they can revive her child. Healing takes time, turmoil, patience, forgiveness, and more love than any of them believe that they can spare.
These films are not for the fearful, forlorn, or finicky. They are dark, personal, pain-filled and foreboding. They deal in recovery, but hit bottom first. The layers serve to complicate and dissect the tumultuous waves of grief, which are unforeseeable and almost unnavigable, much like real life.
THE LOBSTER (2016) movie review
Horrifying. Tragic. Unlovely. Why?
In a dystopian Britain, a widower finds himself stuck between two warring worlds – the hotel of love and the woods of the loners. The hotel staff teaches and tests in the ways of love, offering quirky events and daily checkups meant to help people find a mate. 
If hotel guests fail find their matches in 45 days however, they are turned into animals. 
The downtrodden main character, played by Colin Farrell, makes a series of bad choices then escapes the hotel and joins the loners who live with only one rule: never fall in love. In these woods he meets the narrator and his perfect match in Rachel Weisz.
It jolts from the start. Then impending death threatens at every corner. An odd romp to a summer camp hotel for sad solitary souls quickly turns terrifying and totally unpalatable with slow suicides, dogs kicked to death, murderous night hunts through the woods, threats of gore, and overt sexual scenes. It goes too far.
In short, The Lobster is a truly dark comedy which attempts to dollop sweet, quirky, memorable, A-list likable into a vat of horrific scenes I wish to wipe from my brain.
Splatter: on FILM 