Shelby Oaks

My nephew joined me once again for Shelby Oaks, the final movie in my epic triple feature yesterday.  Writer/director Chris Stuckmann is a popular YouTube movie critic (I often watch his channel) who made this movie by fundraising on Kickstarter so I was really intrigued and excited to see it.  Unfortunately, I found it to be a jumbled and derivative mess despite an interesting premise and a strong beginning.  Riley Brennan (Sarah Durn) hosted the popular YouTube series "Paranormal Paranoids" with her friends David (Eric Francis Melaragni), Peter (Anthony Baldasare), and Laura (Caisey Cole) before the four of them disappeared while investigating the ghost town Shelby Oaks twelve years earlier.  Three of them were eventually found dead but Mia Brennan (Camille Sullivan) still believes that her sister Riley is alive.  She is interviewed about her search for her sister for a true crime documentary which also includes footage from one of the group's cameras showing a terrified Riley right before she disappeared.  After Mia discovers a second camera which shows footage of an abandoned prison in Shelby Oaks, she conducts research about a prisoner named Wilson Miles (Charlie Talbert) which leads her to his dilapidated cabin and answers about what happened to Riley.  I really liked the mockumentary structure because it presents the backstory about the disappearance in a way that I found compelling.  I also liked the use of found footage because it is very atmospheric and unsettling.  However, when the narrative shifts to Mia's investigation in Shelby Oaks, it loses focus and momentum and I became less engaged.  This is obviously an homage to Stuckmann's favorite horror movies but, with so many references to movies such as The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and Hereditary (to name a few), the story lacks cohesion and feels incomplete (I actually fell asleep for about five minutes and it felt like I missed an hour's worth of plot development).  Finally, so much of what happens strains credulity with Mia making bad decision after bad decision just to advance the plot (including an incomprehensible one that leads to an incredibly unsatisfying ending).  I really wanted to like this after rooting for Stuckmann to get it made for so long but I cannot recommend it.

Urchin

My nephew joined me at the Broadway for Urchin, the next movie in my triple feature yesterday, and we both loved this powerful and tragic portrayal of someone falling between the cracks in society.  Mike (Frank Dillane) is a homeless young man suffering from mental health issues and addiction.  After he severely beats and robs a man (Okezie Morro) who attempts to help him, he is arrested and sentenced to nine months in prison.  When he is released, he is sober and commits to a fresh start.  He regularly meets with his counselor Nadia (Buckso Dhillon-Woolley), moves into a temporary hostel, gets a job working in a kitchen at a hotel, maintains his sobriety with a new group of friends while avoiding those who have had a negative influence on him, and even listens to self-help tapes.  However, a mediated meeting with his victim damages his fragile self-confidence which sends him spiraling into self-destructive behavior once again.  An overworked Nadia abandons him, his boss fires him when his behavior affects his performance at work, his temporary housing situation expires, and he returns to the friends who enable his addiction.  I loved the gritty and realistic portrayal of what it looks like to live on the fringes of society interspersed with beautiful images of a dark cave with a light-filled opening that seems too far to reach (a very vivid metaphor).  I was also very intrigued by the recurring motif of a figure that seems to be following Mike because it suggests that what happens to him is inevitable in such a broken system.  The entire narrative is incredibly moving and there were many small moments that made me want to cry because I wanted Mike to succeed so badly.  Dillane gives an absolutely brilliant performance that is both sympathetic and frustrating (I wanted to yell at the screen when someone offers him drugs).  The close-up on his face when Mike is forced to listen to his victim describe how the attack affected him is heartbreaking because his guilt is palpable.  This is an impressive debut from writer-director Harris Dickinson and I highly recommend it.

Ballad of a Small Player

There are a lot of movies that I want to see this month so I actually had a triple feature yesterday in order to fit them all in (it has been a long time since I have done that).  I started with a matinee of Ballad of a Small Player at the Broadway and it is a stylish look at the nature of greed with a committed performance from Colin Farrell.  Brendan Reilly (Farrell) is an Irish con man on the run from a British private investigator named Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) after embezzling the life savings of several women.  He has ensconced himself in a luxury hotel suite in Macau, the gambling capital of the world, as the self-styled Lord Freddy Doyle and believes that he is just one game of baccarat away from hitting it big.  However, his luck runs out when he amasses large debts that he cannot pay and when Blithe eventually locates him.  He flees to Hong Kong where Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a mysterious woman who understands his situation all too well, offers him a choice between redemption or Hell.  Farrell is outstanding as both a bon vivant who swaggers from casino to casino in one gaudy outfit after another in search of his next big win and as a desperate man who slowly realizes that he has no more cards left to play.  I also liked Swinton as yet another awkwardly eccentric character (I think she chooses her roles based on the wig she gets to wear).  The symbolism, particularly the use of food as a metaphor for greed and the use of water as a metaphor for redemption, is very intriguing and the bold and chaotic lights of Macau juxtaposed with the tranquility of nature in Hong Kong is also quite powerful.  The cinematography is beautiful and the bombastic score perfectly matches Doyle's false bravado. The biggest flaw is that the narrative overplays its hand in the third act with a supernatural subplot that is both obvious and convoluted.  I liked this more than others have but it is definitely one that you can wait to see when it begins streaming on Netflix later this month.

Jazz vs. Clippers

Last night was the Utah Jazz season opener at the Delta Center and I got to go with my friend Angela (she has a season package and very graciously lets me pick several games to attend with her).  The game against the Los Angeles Clippers was so much fun (it is probably the most fun I've had at a game in over a year) because the Jazz dominated them from the opening tip-off to the final buzzer and they had a considerable lead during all four quarters (something fans haven't seen in over a year).  Keyonte George was the starting point guard and, despite the fact that he looks about 12, he did a great job leading the team.  He ended the night with 16 points and 9 assists (including an amazing steal in the first quarter).  It was great to see Lauri Markkanen shooting well again, after struggling last year, with 20 points and 5 assists.  The veteran of the team, Walter Kessler, was outstanding (he was the player of the game) and shot 7-7 from the field and 2-2 from the three-point line to end the night with 29 points.  He did a little bit of everything had the crowd cheering every time he touched the ball!  Our newest player, Ace Bailey (another player who looks about 12), didn't play much because he is still recovering from the flu but he scored his first points in the NBA with a really pretty breakaway dunk!  The crowd went crazy and he was so excited!  Our other rookie, Walter Clayton, Jr., also had a nice night with 10 points and it was good to see Taylor Hendricks back on the court with 13 points after an injury that sidelined him for most of last season.  Finally, I was really impressed with Brice Sensabaugh who scored 20 points and looked great with several three-pointers.  The Jazz got a decisive 129-108 win over the Clippers (the most points scored in a season opener in franchise history) and I loved cheering with the large crowd because it was electric.  I don't want to get my hopes up but it really looks like this team has some depth and I am actually looking forward to going to games again after so much disappointment last season!

Note:  My sister made me this awesome hoodie when I complained that all of my jerseys were for players who are not on the team anymore.

After the Hunt

Despite some divisive reviews, my nephew and I decided to see After the Hunt at the Broadway last night.  I was initially very put off by several things but, upon further reflection, I think they were intentional and, ultimately, tremendously thought-provoking.  Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) is a well-respected philosophy professor at Yale University who is being considered for tenure along with her colleague and close personal friend Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield). She and her psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) host a dinner party for several of her students, including her protege Maggie Resnick (Ayo Edebiri), and colleagues, including Hank, where a heated discussion takes place.  The next day Maggie accuses Hank of sexually assaulting her and turns to Alma for support but she is disappointed by her surprisingly indifferent response.  Hank also reaches out to Alma to protest his innocence but she reports him to the dean which results in his termination.  However, the situation becomes increasingly fraught as information about each of the three, and their motivations, comes to light.  I really enjoyed the juxtaposition between Alma and Maggie who are intriguing foils to each other.  They both may or may not have been assaulted (more about that later) but they each respond according to the social mores of the time in which their attacks occurred.  Alma represses what happened to her and counsels Maggie to do the same if she wants to succeed in the male-dominated world of academia but Maggie sees her victimhood as a way to publicly fight against the patriarchy.  My nephew and I, who roughly correspond to the generations depicted by these women, had an engaging discussion about their differing mindsets.  I did not enjoy the ambiguity of the narrative (Alma, Maggie, and Hank are slowly revealed to be incredibly unreliable narrators) because I wanted to know the truth but Guadagnino is emphasizing that the truth is sometimes difficult to ascertain and that it can be manipulated.  I also disliked the theatricality of the performances (Guadagnino even breaks the fourth wall to yell "cut!" after the last scene) which is further emphasized by an uncharacteristically melodramatic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross but I think that this is a commentary on the often performative nature of pursuing social justice (which is provocative, to say the least).  Both Roberts and Edebiri are definitely compelling but I was most impressed by Garfield, who is playing against type, because he is very believable as an unsympathetic character.  This will not appeal to everyone (I still don't know what I think about its themes) but I have not been able to stop thinking about it and that might be the point.