'Blu-ray or Bust' - LION

'Blu-ray or Bust'

LION (2016, PG-13, 118 minutes, SCREEN AUSTRALIA/LIONSGATE)

There is a grimness to this tale of hope which, at times, nearly overwhelms you with emotion.  Almost as if it is dictating to you with a strong, closed, bony fist, demanding that you feel a certain way.

You know—kinda like a mom.

LION tells the story of Saroo, a young boy from a teeny tiny little town in India that gets separated from his family.  The first hour of the film is this young boy’s journey from homelessness in the streets of Calcutta to a loving family in Australia.  Based on a true story, the second half of this tale deals with adult Saroo, pining for his home.  Young Saroo, played by the charismatically wonderful Sunny Panwar, is put through the wringer.  Life is not all that kind to the impoverished child, yet he manages to persevere, and usually with a smile on his face.

If mini-Saroo is portrayed with more care and slam-dunk acting skills by a first-time actor who cannot be more than eight years old, you would assume that big-Saroo would be just as good, right?  RIGHT?!?  Don’t get me wrong, Dev Patel (SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, CHAPPIE) is a fine actor.  And he does get to smile a few times.  But if the first half of the movie is about hope and survival (based on the performance of a kid named “Sunny”), the second half is a brooding, angry, angsty teenager.  I understand that there is a piece of the older character missing because he has no idea what happened to his real family, but seriously—he breaks up with ROONEY MARA because of it!  Who the hell breaks up with The Girl with the Freaking Dragon Tattoo?!?

First-time film director Garth Davis does a splendid job creating a story with characters you care about (even if Angry Saroo can be an asshat).  The other star of this film (no, not the splendid Nicole Kidman) is cinematographer Greig Fraser (ROGUE ONE, ZERO DARK THIRTY).  He manages to capture the landscapes of Australia and India in such a way that you see through the boy’s eyes, traveling from his home country to an entirely different and alien world.  Whether he is showing you the grand scope of both countrysides, or focusing on something as tiny as a bench at a train station, the visual aspect of this story would not have been as effective with someone else at the helm. 

The special features on this disc aren’t all that special.  I seriously expect more if I am purchasing a film—more than three deleted scenes, some pictures, and a music video by Sia (which seems really out of place here).  But you still need to see this one on Blu-ray, at least to truly appreciate what Fraser does with his cinematographic eyeballs.

Despite my grumblings about the second half, this is a truly effective film.  The dramatic switch in storytelling from the eyes of a child to that of an adult is always a bit of shocker to me when it is accomplished as effectively as it is here.  That is a sign of a good filmmaker.  And an irritating teenage-like persona.  And I ain’t talkin’ about me…

Grade: B+

Special Features: F

Blu-ray Necessary: Most Definitely

-- T.S. Kummelman

The 'Not-So-Critical' Critic: on THE CIRCLE

The 'Not-So-Critical' Critic: 

on THE CIRCLE (2017, 110 minutes, PG-13)

The ‘trend’ of books being adapted to film is an ongoing part of the ‘circle of life’ for Hollywood (yes, pun intended).  They take books in… chew them up… and poop them out.  This is one case that this ‘trend’ should take a step back and think about what projects to take on, because they stepped in a small pile.

Grabbing big name stars, like Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, sounds like a good plan.  So it should...  But this collaborative effort is lost thanks to her not being suited for the role and his minor part not being beyond the scope of the whole, just some added flavor.  Don’t get me wrong, they are both stellar actors.  Watson is working her way up the food chain and Hanks will always be regarding as nothing less than an apex predator.  Still, they are not enough to save THE CIRCLE.

As a book, this tech-thriller plot may have worked.  As a movie, it comes across flat and labored, a no thrills ride.  The heart is lost somewhere in the muddled social examination that is offered about the advancements of technology and making our lives available to all who dare to care.  Sure, there are struggles.  But after thirty minutes, “Who cares?” is ringing in my mind.

The idea of information being completely accessible to all, to include your more intimate parts of your life, has been around for a while.  Why this film wanted to feel relevant or progressive to the current state of social media is lost on me.  Maybe in the 90’s we could feel the impact of The Information Age creeping into our darkest, most secret, moments.  By its conclusion, I have seen better ‘Black Mirror’ episodes.

  

In the end, we are just making fertilizer here.  There are no clever moments and no stimulating scenes of surviving the system.  The one take-away, it has the same feel as ARRIVAL – a sense of what could really happen, a potential dialogue concerning invasion of privacy in the not too distant future.  Although, manure is just a part of the ‘circle of life’. 

So, who knows?

Grade: C-

'Blu-ray or Bust' - LA LA LAND

'Blu-ray or Bust'

LA LA LAND (2016, PG-13, 128 minutes, BLACK LABEL MEDIA/LIONSGATE)

I like musicals. Wait, wait, allow me to elaborate: I enjoy a good musical. I don’t like ALL musicals, because some of them are just… crap.

“Cats”, for instance; until Rum Tum Tigger or whatever his name is had his musical number, I was bored. Wait, wait, allow me to elaborate: I was BOOOOOOORRRRED. “Rent”, on the other hand, was great. Theatrically, pulling off a good musical can be a tricky business. Selling an audience on something that they are not seeing live and on stage, while making the product accessible to all ages and gender types, is an occasional art. Not many directors try it, as musical film had its heyday a few decades ago, and, frankly, MAMA MIA! sucked marsupial nuts.

Leave it to Damien Chazelle, the director of the amazing WHIPLASH (which is, essentially, a musical itself, albeit of a different type), to pull off one helluva movie. Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, LA LA tells the story of two kids trying to make it in Hollywood. Sebastian is a jazz pianist with dreams of opening his own club, and Mia is an aspiring actress moonlighting as a barista. The chemistry between the two leads is obvious, and the acting is wonderful (it is no surprise the Stone won Best Actress at the Oscars for her honest and knockout performance here). There are a couple of hitches along the way, but as far as the storytelling goes, Chazelle nails the necessary elements, even if he over-reaches a time or two.

The opening sequence alone is worth the price of admission; the beautifully filmed song-and-dance-on-a-freeway bit is amazing to watch. One long, continuous shot, with precise choreography and amusing moments of reality—it is the type of moment that catches your immediate attention, and demands you pay attention. A musical is a difficult, technical beast to shoot, and the fact that no one got knocked off of the two-lane overpass by the camera amazes me.

Of course the film works best when Gosling and Stone share screen time. Their first number together reminds of the Astair and Rogers days, and damned if the humor doesn’t cement the song “A Lovely Night” into your brain. There are several moments which capture you totally, daring you to not smile or care or respond to the way in which Chazelle tells his story. And then there is the Planetarium.

Don’t get me started on the Planetarium.

But then you get a scene with Mia and Sebastian in his apartment—he at the piano, she in the kitchen. He begins to play and sing softly, she joins in, and from that point it simply looks like two people sharing a magical, unedited, un-dubbed moment together. It’s almost enough to overcome the obvious and unnecessary whimsy which is the Planetarium. (Told you not to get me started…)

The special features are must see’s: from how they all pulled off that opening number, to how many times it took to get the “camera goes in the swimming pool” bit just right, the featurettes are basically a workshop on how to make a musical picture. It is also reassuring to know that Gosling really was playing the piano—makes you appreciate the job of an actor a bit more, knowing that he learned to play specifically for this film.

There is a damn good reason Hollywood no longer churns out musical after musical, and this film is a wonderful example of why: if you are going to do it, you better do it right, and you better hire the right people to do it. Make it different, don’t give it that typical cookie cutter Tinsletown ending, and care about what you are doing. Appreciate what Chazelle and Company have given us, kids; their hard work is a wonderful thing to behold (except for the stupid Planetarium bit).

Film Grade: A-

Special Features: A

Blu-ray Necessary: Most Definitely

- T.S. Kummelman