"Interstellar"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

“Interstellar” has to be one of the more polarizing movies in recent months. Many are head-over-heels in love with it; others gag just thinking about it. This makes sense. There is plenty to love and plenty to hate about this movie—plenty that’s great and plenty that’s pretty bad. So I can see how one might think the great totally swamped the bad, or vice versa.

One thing we can all agree on is “Interstellar” is ambitious. It takes a while to pinpoint the historical setting of its opening scenes. At first it looks like 1930s dust bowl. Dirt everywhere. People trying to live through crippling dust storms—trying to keep their crops alive, tractors running, curtains clean, and lungs clear.

Then we see Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) beat-up pickup truck, his clothes, and his family—his daughter, Murph (Mackenzie Foy), son, Tom (Timothee Chalamet), and father-in-law, Donald (John Lithgow)—and it looks more like the 1990s or early 2000s.

Then we see Cooper whip out some fancy electronic gismo and it’s clear that we are in the future. Nonetheless, there is a reason it looks like the 1930s dust bowl: The land has been ravaged, we humans are responsible, and now we are paying for it. It is not clear what we did—it seems to be some combination of global warming, bad farming practices and nuclear holocaust—but this time it is not just Oklahoma, or the Midwest, or even just the United States. This time the whole Earth is dying.

The only thing for the human race to do is call it a day—move on, give up on Earth and look toward a new horizon. To be a bit more specific: People need to find a new planet. Luckily a mysterious wormhole has opened up near Saturn, and scientists believe that several habitable planets lie just on the other side. So Cooper, his family, Oklahoma, the Midwest, and all of humanity need a space cowboy. They need someone to go out there, wrangle with the wild side of Mother Nature, and find out what’s up.

Cooper is that space cowboy. He has to go. And yet, his 10-year-old daughter begs him not to. His 15-year-old son is stoic, but clearly needs his pa. Cooper is torn, not just between his family and the rest of humanity, or between life on the farm and a space adventure, but also between the felt need to move on to a new frontier—to a new way of life—on the one hand and an instinctual, arch-sentimental loyalty to Earth and its current inhabitants on the other. Cooper always has one eye looking forward and one eye looking back—one to the planets before him and one to the planet behind him; one to the future and one to the past.

So does the good swamp the bad, or is it vice versa? Was it true love or bitter hate? I think I am in the “love it” camp. I think. The first 2/3 of the movie is, in many ways, masterful. It is beautiful, compelling, well-acted, and intriguing. Perhaps the biggest highlight is the score. The incessant, chilling organ reveals the universe to be our greatest cathedral. It is a bold and ambitious score. Quite often it dominates all other sound—even to the point of drowning out dialogue. But this is a brilliant move. Despite outer space’s utter silence, the hounding, divine chorus of the universe is deafening. The score alone—but also the rest of the first 2/3 of the movie—are enough to garner my approval.

There is, however, the last 1/3 of the movie. Best to ignore it. It is a mess. It pushes the story from science fiction to silly fiction, or science farce, or you know whatever—it doesn’t so much push the bounds of physics, cosmology, and astronomy as it dribbles out a bunch of words that kinda sound deep but actually are not meaningful or coherent or interesting or cool or deep in any way, shape or form. It is a cheesy and ham-handed finale. Halfway through the movie I wondered: Can (filmmaker) Christopher Nolan do it? Can he land the dismount? Can he give this movie the ending it deserves?

Nope.

But the first 2/3: That’s a good movie.

"Nightcrawler"

By Matt Dunca
Coastal View News

To call Louis Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) a sociopath—i.e., a person who exhibits extreme anti-social behavior, lacks a conscience, and feels no empathy for other people—is to assume that businesses are not people. If they are people, then Bloom has to be among the most perceptive, conscientious, caring, non-sociopathic people of all time, especially when it comes to his own business.

Bloom is a “stringer” aka “nightcrawler”, which is someone who trolls around city streets (L.A. in this case) in the middle of the night waiting for some kind of human disaster—whether it be a car wreck, fire, or murder—so that he can film the ghastly business and sell it to a news station eager to spice up their morning rundown.

This automatically puts Bloom in the “sleazy” category. But it’s not an over-the-top, oily-used-car-salesman sleazy. It’s more like an over-eager, nerd-who-took-some-business-classes-and-is-now-Obsessesed kind of sleazy (if there is such a thing). This is a subtle but key distinction—one that Gyllenhaal is masterful in getting right—because, insofar as we are to be icked out by Bloom, it is not because his way of comporting himself is hokey; it is because it is too measured and calculating (and, again, a bit nerdy).

Now, at first it seems like Bloom might just be like any ol’ guy desperate for a job, perhaps with the exception that he is willing to sidestep certain rules (or go the extra mile, depending on how you look at it). What he does prior to nightcrawling is go around in the middle of the night stealing chain link fencing and manhole covers to sell for scrap. So we know Bloom has no problem slinking around in the middle of the night.

But one night while driving around he comes across a car wreck. The police are already there, trying to save a woman from her burning car. Just after Bloom arrives a crew of nightcrawlers come screeching onto the scene like a pack of wild animals unconcernedly jostling those around them. They butt right into the action—getting intrusively close to the drama for the sake of the best shot.

Bloom is in awe. He thinks (a) “What an awesome job!”, (b) “Hey, I could do that!” and (c) “What a really awesome job!!” So Bloom starts his own nightcrawling business. He jumps right in, tirelessly stalking disaster—waiting, hoping, aching for the blood and gore that will help him realize his economic ambitions.

Before long, Bloom gets his foot in the door at a local news station. And then it is no time at all until he has jammed and crammed his whole maniacally single-minded self through that door and taken up residence like he owns the place.

Again, Louis Bloom isn’t much for lines he ought not cross. It is not that he sees those lines, feels their pull on his conscience, but then steps over them anyway. No, Bloom doesn’t even see the lines; or maybe he does in some cold, intellectual way (after all, it is not good business to seem like a ruthless sociopath). But he certainly does not feel as if there are any lines he should not cross; they are not part of his moral landscape.

Here I refer to his “moral landscape”. At first it is easy to think this is nonsense for Bloom—that he just doesn’t have a moral landscape. But really Bloom’s moral landscape is just different (and sick and twisted). His ethos, moral code, conscience, religion are centered on the demands of the marketplace. One might ask: How could it be wrong to make money while at the same time giving people want they want? What could be so bad about ambition? Are not diligence, creativity, and efficiency the spirit of capitalism—what drives our culture … The American Dream? Why would anyone want to thwart a small business owner?

You can guess how Bloom might answer these questions. Others—presumably without Bloom’s moral and social pathology—are happy enough to ignore their consciences and go along with this business of shock and awe because staying afloat in the competitive marketplace demands ignoring such things. But for Bloom it is hard-wired. It is natural. He is the byproduct of economic evolution—the values of capitalism are encoded in his genes.

The short of it is “Nightcrawler” is a really good movie. To my mind, this is Jake Gyllenhaal’s best performance. And as for filmmaker Dan Gilroy, he has been playing around with pretty movies that lack a soul (or any plot, or any thematic punch) for a while, but now he has finally made something worthwhile.

"The Drop"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

A “drop bar” is a bar where criminals conveniently drop off cash from their criminal activities. Each night there is a different drop bar in Brooklyn, N.Y. People come in, drop of their packages, and then slink off unnoticed. Then the boss comes in and gets all the cash.

“Cousin Marv’s” is one such bar. The owner is, appropriately enough, Cousin Marv (James Gandolfini). Marv and his cousin, Bob (Tom Hardy), run the bar and manage all the cash transactions. Marv is the shrewd ringleader. Or so it seems. Bob is the meek (and maybe a little slow) bartender who does Marv’s bidding. Or so it seems.

The usual routine is broken up one night when burglars rob Cousin Marv’s. This would suck pretty much no matter what. But it really sucks for Marv and Bob, since the mob bosses still want their cash. This thread fizzles out pretty quickly, though. What seems to be important is just that we get a sense of how ruthless and unforgiving (and predictably stereotypical) the mob bosses are. They don’t care what happened. They just want their money.

Even more tangential than the robbery is a peculiar little romance. One night when Bob is walking home he hears something jostling around inside a trashcan in someone’s front yard. He investigates, and finds a beaten, bloodied puppy dog. Nadia (Noomi Rapace), who lives at this house, hears the commotion and comes out to see what is going on. She has no idea about the dog—she did not put it there and does not know who did. But she is just as concerned about it as Bob. So they form a bond over the dog.

What happens next? Well, there are some scenes where more robberies are planned. Then some more of Bob, Nadia, and their puppy. Then more sociopathic mobsters. More planning. More puppy. More mobsters. At some point a lunatic of a jealous ex-boyfriend/ex-dog owner shows up and mixes things up. Then more planning. More puppy. More mobsters. And so on.

“The Drop” is a poorly sewn together Frankenstein of a movie—with one dangling, comical arm longer than the other, ears where there should be eyes, and alas, no soul animating its heaving, clunky corpse. The effect is neither scary nor dramatic nor funny nor interesting nor touching nor compelling. It’s odd, this movie. You get the sense that each of its parts belong somewhere in a good movie. Take the score, for instance. Its persistent foreboding tones do a nice job of casting an ominous pall over the whole movie. But why? A scene where two people are playing with a puppy has no use for the music from “There Will Be Blood”.

Or consider the acting. Tom Hardy is a gifted actor. And he is by far the most compelling person in this movie. One wishes he could save the movie. Perhaps in another version of it—with the right context (and more of it)—he could. But here Hardy’s character is perplexing, and not in a good way. At times he seems quiet and dim-witted, but at other times he comes off as sharp and assertive. His true character never really emerges—it never finds a place in this script. It would be nice if this could be chalked up to complexity or mysteriousness. But I doubt it can.

No, “The Drop” is a collection of poorly organized parts—some of which are silly and cliché in their own right, others of which could be good parts of a better movie.

"The Giver"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

It’s a shame when a movie fails to live up to its source material. Take “The Giver”, for example. It is based on the Newbery Medal winning novel of the same name—a novel that has been remembered and adored for decades now, and one that, if I remember correctly, is indeed pretty great. The movie adaptation, on the other hand, is not going to win any awards. And it will probably be forgotten. And, to be honest, it isn’t great.

But I don’t think it is bad, either. Start with the story, which may be familiar. After some particularly awful period in human history, a community is built where any difference between anyone is pretty much shunned and, if possible, eliminated. Everyone rides the same bikes, wears the same clothes, eats the same food, lives in the same style of house, and so on. Oh, also, everyone’s memories of the past—of the history of everything before the community was started—are completely erased. As far as they all know, their little hill with its little houses and little fake trees just sprung up out of nowhere.

Despite these oddities, this community is pretty appealing. Everyone gets along all right. There is no bloodshed or strife. Everyone is taken care of. No one wants for anything, it seems. It looks like a Utopia—a place where ignorance is truly bliss.

There is one exception: the Receiver (Jeff Bridges). He is the only one who knows the full story of how this community got there—where it came from, why it was formed, what events led to its creation, and how it is alike or different from any other community in history. You see, the elders of the community decided it would be a good idea to have one person who remembers the past. That way he or she can give advice and whatnot. Hence, the Receiver.

By the outset of “The Giver”, the Receiver is growing old, and thus, a replacement is needed. A teenage boy named ‘Jonas’ (Brenton Thwaites) is selected, and so the old Receiver becomes “The Giver”—the passer-down of memories and experiences. At first Jonas is all about being the new Receiver. He experiences color for the first time, feels snowflakes on his skin for the first time and goes sledding for the first time; he hears music, dances and kisses a girl, all for the first time.

But then comes the pain—he sees the agony of war, the horror of starvation, the ugliness of cruelty, and every other ignoble aspect of human history. This opens Jonas’ eyes both to the ways things have been and to the way things are now. And so he wonders: Is the relative tranquility of the community worth it? Are joy and pleasure and dancing and true love worthy sacrifices for the sake of peace and prosperity? These are the questions—the questions no one wants to consider but on which everything hangs—that Jonas must answer.

That “The Giver” falls a little short cannot be blamed on the source material, of course. Nor can it be blamed on the acting. Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, and Odeya Rush, for example, do a nice job. Nor is the cinematography to blame. This movie is beautiful.

No, I blame it on the writing and, to some extent, the directing. The dialogue and voice-over is sometimes cheesy and overwrought. The pacing is often all wrong. And some of the scenes are not handled with the delicacy they deserve.

But you know, I still enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed it because it is beautiful, and because many of the actors are engaging. And I enjoyed it because the source material—with all of its layers, ingenuity, moral insight and everything else—cannot help but shine through.

"Boyhood"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

“Boyhood” covers 12 years in a boy’s life (ages six to 18). Filmmaker Richard Linklater and his prodigious cast took the same number of years to film it. That’s because, each year, they met somewhere in Texas to shoot a couple of scenes. Then they went home. Then they came back the next year and did it all over again. They did that until the thing was done.

“Boyhood” is no documentary—it is a work of fiction—but the truth of it is inescapable. The characters are there, at those times, in those places, really growing up, really coming together and apart, really learning about life and finding out who they are.

The boy is named ‘Mason’ (Ellar Coltrane). At six, Mason lives with his mom (Patricia Arquette) and sister, Samantha (Lorelei Linklater; i.e., the director’s daughter). His dad (Ethan Hawke), who has been MIA for years, is trying to break back into the family. But it’s tough. Mason and Samantha get along well with their dad, and he turns out to be pretty darn thoughtful and caring—not your average deadbeat. Mom isn’t having it though. She is done with dad—ready to move on.

Unfortunately mom does not have very good taste in men. Not that it’s her fault—sometimes it is tough to tell. But the men she looks to for love and comfort are anything but loving and comforting. They only introduce further instability in an already unstable situation.

Some of the scenes here feel a tad bit stilted. It takes a little time for Ellar Coltrane and Lorelei Linklater to find themselves on screen. But this is forgivable—more than forgivable, in fact. Their growing up on screen mirrors their growing up in the story. Their occasional awkwardness makes sense—it is a seamless part of the whole, intricately woven tapestry.

Linklater celebrates such awkwardness. He celebrates unevenness, insecurity, and incongruity in this film. Although various brilliant and subtle motifs emerge and reemerge throughout, Linklater, to his credit, does not succumb to making this film about any particular idea or theme or concept. It is more about the characters’ grappling with these things, and living, and struggling, and surviving, and learning and growing without ever being certain or comfortable or fully mature.

That is why this film is so compelling. Do not expect melodrama, shocking twists, triumph or devastation, or too many scenes that will make you gasp. These moments are largely ignored. Mason’s graduation from high school, for example, is a huge moment in his life, but we do not see a second of it. Instead what we see is the after party with a hodgepodge of parents, friends, and awkward acquaintances milling about making small talk and navigating their insecurities and the strands of their entangled lives. That is what this film is about. All 165 beautiful thrilling minutes of it.

The concept of “Boyhood” and the methods used to make it are unique and ambitious. But the results are even more so. This film is a landmark. It is fresh and unique, but it also evokes a striking nostalgic feeling—an unmistakable familiarity with one’s growing up, the remembrance of which sparks wonder, perplexity, maybe a touch of longing or sadness, and most importantly, a sense of awe at the indescribable and miraculous growth and development—the cocooning and emergence—of a human being.

In a way that’s unlike any other medium, film can reveal a dynamic, evolving reality that cannot be fully put into words. It can explore truths that cannot be uttered. Linklater and his collaborators have done right by this art. But, even more, they have told a story, which, from the lips of many less able individuals would have either been trite or else horribly boring and mundane, but from Linklater et al. is revealed to be of immeasurable significance and beauty.