The Mirror of Perspective

I am slowly emerging from the shadows of the worst period of illness in my life. Never one to resist the attractions of common viruses, 2015 stuck me with three (four, if you can residual contagions). The first, commencing on Mother’s Day after a visit with sickly family members, was the Norovirus. A crippling cold came just a month later. And three weeks after that, I developed a throat infection – later discovered to be bacterial in nature – that quite literally paralyzed me in the clutches of fever and weakness. We thought it might have been strep throat, but after symptoms dissipated in four days, I paid the idea little regard (no one near me contracted anything, either, which violates the principle of strep as a very contagious infection). But then that relapsed further into heavy breathing problems, uncontrollable body sweats and a concerning heartrate. For the first time in most of my adult life, I was fearful that I might have contracted something life-threatening.

Mr. Holmes / *** (2015)

The general perception of Sherlock Holmes is that he was a man of impeccable observation and droll sensibilities, often wandering through his story arcs with tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. His legend is embellished further by rather silly devices of presence: a deerstalker hat that was traditionally worn by men in hunting parties, and a long pipe that was as absurd as it was overkill. To any who might have read any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s yarns about the British detective and his loyal sidekick Watson, his was a persona that leapt from the pages as if a cartoon trapped in live action backdrops. And yet we admired him tremendously in spite of his more zany values, mostly because he legitimately was good at what he did, and we believed he did it all for the sake of bettering the world. Those core qualities are replicated in the underlying narrative current of “Mr. Holmes,” but something starker has crept into those realizations. Old age changes men as fast as the tide changes a shoreline, and what once was the visualization of an all-knowing detective has become a portrait of a frail man seeking penance for wrongs that seem to cast ominous shadows.

Minions / ** (2015)

“I would wager a movie entirely about their antics would be welcomed immediately by moviegoers… They are simply too amusing to ignore.” – Taken from the review for “Despicable Me 2”

When one forecasts an idea without thinking about possible repercussions, he gets exactly what he deserves. Though it might have been contrary to the tone I was going for, I initially spoke highly of the Minions in the “Despicable Me” films as a way of finding silver linings in the clouds of mediocrity; never did it dawn on me, especially after the above proclamation, that a film about said ensemble would legitimately come to fruition, especially so soon after their most recent theatrical appearance. But while our youthful imaginations gravitate towards comic relief in feature cartoons because of how natural it all seems to worlds full of energy and color, could an idea like this have really amounted to something passable in a stand-alone fashion? These quirky, strange yellow underlings amuse us as consistently as Saturday morning cartoons, but never for much more. They occupy the screen with demeanors that suggest momentary distraction, reminding us how much quirk can go on in the peripheral of a whimsical animated adventure.

Pixels / *1/2 (2015)

Though it ought to have inspired something tremendously amusing, “Pixels” functions like a rally of egos down at the story conference workshop.  A hypothetical image begins to formulate in our heads very early on, in which a gathering of middle-aged comedians come together, wax nostalgia over the forgotten innocence of ‘80s boy culture, and then share in a moment where their love of old arcade games bonds them. In a moment that must have transpired like most spastic nerd fantasia of its kind, you can predict the ensuing dialogue: “What if characters in a movie sent a time capsule of those games up into space, and it was discovered by aliens who perceived it as a threat instead of a gift? Surely there’s an idea for a movie here somewhere!” Roughly one out of ten people in a focus group would respond to that premise with some level of colorful enthusiasm, while the rest of us would, I’m sure, solve the problem entirely by asking one rebuttal question: “why don’t we just go play the old video games again instead of subjecting them to something completely absurd?”

Spy / *** (2015)

The biggest risk in film comedy comes down to a principle in writing: with the right personality carrying the material, a screenplay may not always have to embellish the essential platforms. Melissa McCarthy and Paul Feig have tried their luck with this prospect over the course of several movies in the recent years, but at long last they have struck gold in “Spy,” a film that celebrates their union in an ambitious display of excitement and cheeriness that fuel a healthy arsenal of very funny wisecracks. Most of them do not originate from basic written composition either; if one were to read them directly from a script page, they would scarcely register as anything beyond half-amused scowls (or worse yet, a few muddled guffaws). But Feig, probably sensing that his work would once again wind up in certain hands, does something almost prophetic by staging them in a way to tap right into his lead star’s charismatic chutzpah; not only does she use his setups as effective outlets for wit or physicality, but in many ways sees them as a tipping point in liberating herself from the conventions of basic comedic principles. This isn’t one of those run-of-the-mill sitcoms stretched to an unendurable length, but a very sharp and pointed espionage romp that frames everything precisely, and then allows its dynamic ensemble of actors to deliver the material with a fresh sense of gusto.

Romancing the Stone / ***1/2 (1984)

There is an observation in the last five minutes of “Romancing the Stone” that provides a great framework for the material that comes before: in it, romance novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is staring out of a window in the building of her publisher, who has just finished reading her new manuscript and offers a brief glimpse into her client’s silent desires. “You are now officially a hopeless romantic,” she says. “Not hopeless,” Joan corrects: “hopeful.” And with that remark comes the realization that her preceding adventures – be they about love or dangerous encounters with treasure-hungry foreign rebels – do not always have to end with the damsel being lost in the shuffle of less optimistic realities. Even when her romantic interest, the brave but mysterious Jack (Michael Douglas), leaves her standing at the site of her near demise, she isn’t resigned to a morose perspective. She believes, rightfully, that one day it will all come to a happy ending, and one that is authentic to the context of what the movie has built us up to.

Beasts of the Southern Wild / **** (2012)

The earliest of many discoveries occurs during the first set of establishing shots, which utilize handheld camerawork and are coarse, soiled and un-romanticized depictions of a ransacked social climate. They suggest the bleakest of realities, a life of paralyzing limitations. And then we meet the heroine, a plucky and adventurous young girl who contradicts those possibilities with more singular outlooks. She lives with her dad on a plateau in a Louisiana bayou that is separated from the mainland by levees, where houses are made out of the remnants of damaged structures, and belongings scattered across the high grasses act as reminders of memories lost to the unforgiving elements. They, like the lowly neighbors they keep company with in a world they call “the Bathtub,” are the forgotten faces of poverty. And yet none of that ever seems to phase the worldly imagination of this inquisitive child, who passes her time by watching on with earnest enthusiasm as her elders celebrate their fortune rather than mourn it (“Up in the dry world,” she says, “they got none of what we got”). It is a value clearly instilled by her father, but even his guidance is no match for a mind that runs so wild, and with such unrestrained purity.

Inglourious Basterds / **** (2009)

For most filmmakers, the first 20 minutes of “Inglourious Basterds” would have been a revelatory accomplishment; for Quentin Tarantino, they are just another demonstration of a transcending artistic philosophy. It all begins with the ominous arrival of a caravan of Nazis at the farm of a noble Frenchman and his daughters, each of whom look upon their sudden fate with the sorts of morose gazes that seem to hint at an ongoing custom of exchange. One of the Germans, a Colonel who has been branded the “Jew Hunter,” has come to investigate the unanswered disappearance of a Jewish family living nearby; they have not yet been accounted for, and in the thick of world war, an unclaimed enemy of the state – especially for the Germans – suggests an imperfect military operation. The setup is framed in a context that recalls the most pointed of western stand-offs: the key characters banter uncomfortably, exchange digressed platitudes, and then engage in a polite showdown of wits that concludes in a stretch of tragic implications, all of them executed under the weight of precise stylistic tension. But because the screenplay refuses to treat the scenario from a conventional war perspective, that also takes the material into a realm far removed from our initial expectations. It only serves to provide a modest point of interest, too; as a prologue to something more sweeping, these minutes are a precise marriage of skill and delivery, a display of flawless filmmaking to effectively arrange all the fearless impulses that will follow.

54: The Director's Cut / *** (2015)

A modest act of vision can instigate hard-fought wars within the film industry, and such battles are seldom resolved in the favor of directors. One of the more legendary discussion points in that scenario is Mark Christopher, whose “54” – a long-forgotten relic from the summer of 1998 – arrived on screen in a flurry of hype, and then left with scarcely a notice beyond faded party-goers. It had been pushed by the Miramax promotion machine as the definitive expose on the controversial legend of Studio 54, but what wound up showing in theaters was actually a watered down rendition of Christopher’s original picture, which had been butchered significantly and then refilled with a variety of reshot footage (reportedly, up to 30 minutes of alternate scenes). The reason? According to the film’s distraught creator, the studio wanted less drug use and homoeroticism than what they were given, and demanded more visual excess (not to mention a much more conclusive ending). Only years later did the tribulations of it all come to our full awareness, further perplexing the matter: if the released product was such a financial and critical failure, what was the harm in releasing the original version in some other format after the fact?

The Babadook / ***1/2 (2014)

“If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of ... The Babadook.”

“The Babadook” is a work of implicit realizations, of painful memories that rise to the surface when two wounded souls encounter a malevolent force lurking in the shadows of their home, and attempt to disarm it without understanding its underlying nature. Why has it drifted out of obscurity to stalk them? Most urban lore suggests that such beings exist because they feed on the negative emotions of others. It is the requirement of this plot, therefore, to tether the entity to those who represent the extremes of that value. Consider the deadened demeanor of Amelia (Essie Davis), who occupies space as a withdrawn woman incapable of escaping self-imposed isolation. That reality comes from a distant memory: the moment when, on the way to the hospital to deliver her son, her loving husband was killed while driving their car. She survived the crash, and so did the unborn son; years later, there is an indifference in her to the possibility of moving on, and her heart is frozen in a stasis of unending grief. Adding to that tragic implication is the personality of her son, whose wide traumatic eyes and shrill voice are the outlet for a very vivid imagination that believes ghosts and demons are always lurking under the bed. Watching him, one can only imagine what fate has in store for his adult years.

Inside Out / **** (2015)

Inside the mind of every teenage girl is a plethora of conflicting emotions struggling to find a meaningful balance. This is the narrative according to “Inside Out,” the newest Pixar film, which takes that dependable sense of adventure of animators, quite literally, into the head of one such young girl who is learning to deal with the tribulations of growing up. She has more than her fair share of reasons to doubt her own stability, too; a rather joyous sort who was perfectly happy in her Minnesotan hometown, she finds herself thrust into the realities of cross-country relocation to San Francisco, learning how to function in a new school (without friends), and living in a house where the narrow walls seem to create their own sense of anxiety. To suggest she feels like a stranger in her own life only scrapes the surface of the realization; her eventual detachment informs her perspective so thoroughly that her joyous demeanor quickly falls under the weight of conflicting feelings, all of them extreme. Many kids inevitably must walk the long mile of change when it comes to a family moving away from a sense of security, and yet how can poor confused Riley possibly rediscover her lost optimism, especially when everything she has ever known has been replaced by things so frighteningly foreign?

Zodiac / **** (2007)

The conventional sense is that serial killer films must almost always deal in certainties. While the details and underlying motives will be dynamic based on a specific vision, each detail comes to the screen with decisive clarity, as pieces of a puzzle that must always be assembled within the structure of a dependable formula. Sometimes, the root causes take on a deeper importance if one descends into the maw with more psychological considerations; in other examples, they are simply narrative obligations used to propel suspense or style. Our collective acknowledgment of this reality is so impenetrable that it becomes somewhat of a shocking revelation when a movie like “Zodiac” winds up moving into our sphere. After eight decades of dealing with a genre that has always been about an oblivious police force trying to solve the crimes of someone who is usually made the way they are because of childhood torment and social alienation, here is a film about fewer absolutes: confusion, frenzy of the masses, dead-ends, distant obsessions, silent warnings, patterns without consistency, false leads and gut feelings, and an instinct to suspect that maybe, just maybe, the real answers are right in front of us defying all procedural reasoning.

Philadelphia / **** (1993)

There are two stories running parallel through the course of events in “Philadelphia”: one about a man dying of AIDS, and the other about a former colleague learning to find acceptance of alternate lifestyles. Their struggles converge early on in a moment that plays like accidental destiny, when one of them arrives at the office of the other in hopes that he will take on a case of wrongful termination. The scenario: Andrew Beckett (played by Tom Hanks) believes he was fired because of his illness, a factor that came to light suddenly after he was promoted high up into a law firm partnership. So few share in that perception, however, and when he arrives in the presence of the cynical Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), it is because all other possibilities have already been exhausted. Joe shares in that skepticism, but is also silently unnerved by the discomfort of being around a gay man dying of a contagious disease. But through scrupulous desires to take on big challenges, eventually he comes back around to representing the case, all while acknowledging that his client’s own death sentence is fated to be more than just a peripheral detail. That discovery is ultimately what gives added validity to these two intersecting lives, whose mutual wisdom and courage are made universal in a situation where an uninformed mind must ask itself: at what point must we overcome personal prejudice and realize that we all share the same right to live without persecution?

Jurassic World / *** (2015)

The wisdom of Ian Malcom’s chaos theory ought to have inspired more heeded warnings in the “Jurassic Park” films, but sometimes tragedies are doomed to enter vicious cycles before higher influences catch on. In Steven Spielberg’s first of these outings, those words served as foreshadowing in a premise where man’s gift of scientific advancement became the tool for which he could recreate the dinosaurs from extinction, essentially for monetary gain. When a pair of paleontologists (and some skeptical investors) were then offered a chance to see those endeavors in a new theme park on a remote island in the Atlantic, it became the launch point for an elaborate nightmare of chases, accidents and skillful animatronics. It all began when security grids were compromised during a bad storm. Then electrical fences went down. Dinosaurs escaped their compounds. And at the height of it all, the eager visitors were all thrust into a situation where they had to act – and often quickly – in order to maintain their survival, if for no other reason than to ensure continuity for additional chapters.

Poltergeist III / **1/2 (1988)

The high-rise is essentially a character all its own, with corridors and rooms and vast galleries that seem to permeate an aura of supernatural danger. That one prospect is what separates the much-maligned “Poltergeist III” from its predecessor, and all with good reason; whereas the first movie’s direct sequel often took the launch point of thrills and lost them in a haze of elaborate confusion and boredom, this movie – the last of the original franchise – isolates them in a single space where they could fester into something of underlying tension. Often, the key scares don’t amount to everything they should; that much is never in doubt. But because nearly all the attempts are gathered within an area that offers foreboding identity, that which does not amount to something lucrative still has the benefit of some peripheral creepiness. Was it by accident at all then that the director Gary Sherman, an enthusiast of B-movie horror well before his Hollywood undertakings, used ice as a conduit for a poltergeist’s violent obsessions? Or was it at all surprising that their dimension of malevolent unrest could be spied through the reflections of mirrors, as if they had always been windows into their nightmarish intentions?