Category Archives: Long Reviews (>400 Words)

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Lion (2016) Movie Review

December 26, 2016 Alex Brannan

The first notable aspect of Lion, the international homecoming story from Garth Davis, is the abrupt sound design. The vibrant score of piano and strings that accompany massive birds-eye-view shots of the countryside is immediately striking.

The mechanical dissonance of trains and people in a busy market are contrasted by immense silences, as when Saroo (Sunny Pawar) loses his brother Guddu (Abishek Bharate) in a train station. When the train pulls off with Saroo Continue reading Lion (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Elle (2016) Movie Review

December 24, 2016 Alex Brannan

Elle opens on the immediate aftermath of a rape. More specifically, Paul Verhoeven’s film opens on protagonist Elle (Isabelle Huppert) cleaning up afterwards as a means of hiding the crime’s existence. Her nonchalance over the issue becomes an anomaly. “I guess I was raped” is how she breaks the news to her closest friends. The police are never involved.

Yet she prepares herself for another attack. She sleeps with a hammer by her pillow. She purchases pepper spray and a hatchet.

Elle is a slow-burn thriller about the nature of power. Elle’s character is introduced as a bifurcated one, trapped between Continue reading Elle (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It, Romance

La La Land (2016) Movie Review

December 18, 2016 Alex Brannan

The opening number of La La Land, the new musical from Whiplash director Damien Chazelle, is the appropriate first impression of Los Angeles: a gridlocked freeway of cars sitting idle. Only, instead of the frustration and cynicism that would arise from this situation, people burst into hopeful song and dance among the stalled cars. In a rush of agile choreography, a rainbow color scheme, and immense depth staging, a flurry of people dance on hoods and sing of the wonder of Hollywood sunshine.

At the culmination of this tune, we are introduced to Mia (Emma Stone), another hopeful going over audition sides in her car as she waits, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), who honks aggressively at her when she refuses to move once the congestion breaks up.

With the first few scenes, La La Land presents itself as a

Continue reading La La Land (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Movie Review

December 15, 2016 Alex Brannan

In 1977, the groundbreaking science fiction film Star Wars was released, featuring an opening text crawl describing a period of civil war in which a Galactic Rebellion has won their first victory. “During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star.”

In 2016, Disney and director Gareth Edwards give us a visual representation of this event, the inception of the Galactic Civil War. Jyn Urso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of a reluctant Imperial engineer (Mads Mikkelsen) who is forced into the creation of the Death Star, is sprung from Imperial prison by the Rebellion. Jyn and an unlikely band of anti-Empire figures are tasked with finding Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), which leads them on the trail of the Death Star plans that jump-started the original Star Wars trilogy.

Rogue One is the first “non-saga” Star Wars film, and it does feel distinctly Continue reading Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Movie Review →

Action/Thriller, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Nocturnal Animals (2016) Movie Review

December 9, 2016 Alex Brannan

Susan (Amy Adams), an art gallery owner, receives a novel manuscript from her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). The twisted work, a thriller involving characters not dissimilar to Susan and Edward, proves to be an added hindrance to Susan’s already strained life, a life of lavish emptiness and a philandering new husband (Armie Hammer). As she progresses through the novel, she begins an introspection into her own life that could prove to change her.

Director Tom Ford, a fashion designer by trade, brings his talents to this film, and his touch becomes clear on the Continue reading Nocturnal Animals (2016) Movie Review →

A Movies, All Movie Reviews, Drama, Long Reviews (>400 Words), Love It

Manchester by the Sea (2016) Movie Review

December 8, 2016 Alex Brannan

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) lives a mundane existence as a building handyman. Cold and blunt, he works all day and drinks all night, isolating himself into a bubble. When his brother (Kyle Chandler) dies, Lee is asked to take custody of the man’s son (Lucas Hedges).

Affleck plays Lee bristly, but not icy. In an extended conversation sequence in a hospital following his brother’s death, Lee reacts with Continue reading Manchester by the Sea (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Drama, Like It, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Collateral Beauty (2016) Movie Review

December 7, 2016 Alex Brannan

Love, time, and death. The three abstractions that connect every human being on Earth, according to ad exec Howard (Will Smith) in a rousing speech to his colleagues. Three years later, Howard returns to work after the death of his six year old daughter. Cue domino tower cascade.

Howard, in his grief, sends letters to ideas: love, time, and death. He has, for all intents and purposes, an eccentric depression. The type of depression that is Continue reading Collateral Beauty (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Yoga Hosers (2016) Movie Review

December 5, 2016 Alex Brannan

Kevin Smith’s latest feature, the blatantly Canadian-set Yoga Hosers, feels at first like an unofficial Clerks 3 graduated to a new generation to include Instagram, yoga, an attempt at current slang, and a female empowerment angle. Indeed, most characters are introduced through an Instagram insert that adds no information to the character that was not already presented through narrative context.

The film is also a horror movie about bratwurst Nazis. And a musical, kind of. It paints Canada like a fantasy world completely alien to American audiences, so alien that Continue reading Yoga Hosers (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, F Movies, Horror, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Incarnate (2016) Movie Review

December 1, 2016 Alex Brannan

The exorcism film. Has it ever lived up to its contemporary creator, The Exorcist? Not really. Yet, here we are four decades later still letting Hollywood churn them out like soap operas.

Incarnate, the latest effort (if we can call it that) from Blumhouse Tilt, takes the possessed child angle to “new heights” by providing our exorcist character Dr. Seth Embers (Aaron Eckhart) with an ability to enter the victim’s subconscious during the exorcism. In short, Incarnate is The Exorcist meets Inception, only without everything that makes those films interesting and different.

The wheelchair-bound Embers is executing exorcisms (or “evictions”) in search for the demon Maggie. Maggie has also been searching for him so that she can cause him interminable pain, only it has taken Embers dozens of exorcisms to find her. Horror movies don’t need logical premises, right?

The reality check with Incarnate is that Continue reading Incarnate (2016) Movie Review →

All Movie Reviews, Comedy, Leave it, Long Reviews (>400 Words)

Why Him? (2016) Movie Review

November 30, 2016 Alex Brannan

Nothing screams a middle aged man writing a teen-targeted comedy like an extended opening gag involving “Netflix and chill.” The subject of the gag in question, the parents (Bryan Cranston and Megan Mullally) of upcoming Stanford grad Stephanie (Zoey Deutch), are about to take a holiday to visit their little girl…and her new boyfriend. Laird Mayhew (James Franco) is a tattoed man-child who stumbled into wealth with an app production outfit, and he wants to marry Ned Fleming’s daughter.

Throughout the setup of Why Him?, every joke is punctuated or predicated on Continue reading Why Him? (2016) Movie Review →

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