'Love, Antosha' A Review

Love, Antosha is a documentary about the life and career of late actor Anton Yelchin. Through talking-head interviews, archival footage, and extensive home videos the portrait of a passionate artist is drawn.

The filmography of Yelchin is lovingly and sedately explored with interviews from collaborators as well as his background by his parents and friends. His diagnosis of and subsequent struggle with cystic fibrosis is chronicled and a highly driven, strong, creative, but certainly angsty figure is drawn. Yelchin is an interesting figure and leaves behind an impressive body of work, the access to his character allowed by all the personal documentation is substantial but ultimately the subject is left at a certain remove.

Not that there is criticism to be leveled at the almost universally loved actor however his extremely close, almost bizarrely so, relationship with his mother, the implication that he was a chronic sex club visitor if not out-and-out patron, as well as his prototypical 20-something existential malaise, is mostly only simply related not particularly investigated. The specter of the subjects death as well as CF play a big part in the film however death itself is only addressed or grappled with on a surface level which, given the circumstances, seems like a missed opportunity.

 A loving sometimes poignant study of an established talent with continued promise that doesn't plumb the potential depths the subject allows.

Stream It.

'Ready Or Not' A Review

Ready Or Not is a thriller/horror movie about a wealthy family with a dark secret. The movie opens on a flashback to a wedding night when two boys are attempting to hide, enter an injured bridegroom who asks for help but is subsequently killed. Flashforward to the present one of the two boys Alex(Mark O'Brien) is getting married to Grace(Samara Weaving) at the family estate. Although the family isn't exactly warm Grace is hopeful she will be accepted. That night however Grace is informed she has to play a game in order to officially join the family, the game, hide and seek - for your life!

Weaving puts in a stellar performance as the put-upon, tenacious lead, going from normalcy to shock to courageous endurance without ever tipping into meekness or hysteria. She balances action, humor, and an emotional journey perfectly. With this and 2017's broad and delightful The Babysitter Weaving is poised to make some serious cinematic waves. The rest of the cast, and the movie itself for that matter, aren't able to achieve the harmony and wattage that Weaving does. The supporting cast are all good,  Andie MacDowell as the matriarch especially, but they aren't given as much to do and the wobbly narrative pacing makes any character arch near impossible.

Visually simple and sleek with some over the top gore and a great tonal mixture of suspense and humor the movie falls short in its ADD plotting. Instead of a steady build to a climax, or multiple builds to various crescendos the story meanders and gets stuck and find thrills almost be accident as if we the audience, like Grace, are wandering around this maze like mansion lost and confused. Stumbling upon moments of excitement and discovery rather than working deliberately towards them.

Entertaining, lots of potential almost fully realized.

Rent It.

Devil's Lake, ND

Bleached trunks
protrude like claws
desiccated poles
jut like weathered tombstones
and rotting foundation
thrusts from the murk
like broken teeth,
one can easily imagine
the terror and awe
of that long ago nomad
who discovered this pristine horror
as it was so aptly named.

'The Peanut Butter Falcon' A Review

The Peanut Butter Falcon is a buddy dramedy about Zak(Zack Gottsagen) a man with Down syndrome who escapes the retirement home in which he lives by government mandate in order to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler. He meets up with Tyler(Shia LaBeouf) an unsettled thief/fisherman on the run from Duncan(John Hawkes) after burning his crab cages. The two traverse the Outer Banks on the way to Zak's hero Salt Water Redneck's wrestling school.

LaBeouf is arguably the best he's ever been- committed, earnest, and charming but still retaining some edge and unpredictability that give his screen presence some weight. Newcomer Gottsagen gives a wonderfully varied and emotional performance, conveying much with his face and physicality alone. The real star though is the two together, there's an infectious fun and undeniable magnetism with just the right hint of danger whenever they share the screen. They also discover some very real and very poignant moments that feel improvised or are so organic it's impossible to tell the difference. Dakota Johnson as Eleanor is servicable as Zak's initial caretaker and the eventual love interest of Tyler but the part is underwritten and Johnson's lackluster presence can't do much with the part nor compete with the wattage of Gottsagen and LaBeouf.

An incredible soundtrack and beautiful landscape help capture this heart warming small scale American adventure in a way that is evocative of the past but also wholly of the present. A disarmingly effecting, surprisingly fun ride.

See It.

Riding With My Dad

We don't talk much, we can't
but we travel
in a pocket out of time
together, in tandem
consuming mile after mile
reliant only on each other
and our grumbling metal steeds
churning up the road
into unknown adventure.

Home Again

Had lunch at the Norske Nook a famous, at least in our family, Scandinavian restaurant. Great food and pie. Headed to Madison to have dinner with my sister Marta and niece Maris, got there a little early and we were able to tag along to pick up Maris from preschool.

Had a wonderful meal and visit and then finished the final leg to Rockford. A little under 2K miles in total.

It's been great spending time with my dad. We haven't taken a "family vacation" since me and my sister were college-age, we got older, life gets complicated, other things take precedent. As an adult I realized that if I had the time off why not make some time to spend with my dad especially doing this thing we both love and bonded over. Going on a trip like this is kind of surreal because you're traveling a good portion of the day, daylight and pacing and bathroom breaks and eating are more important than normal. There's also a certain amount of nerves, not only because motorcycling no matter what is dangerous, but you could breakdown you could run out of gas and in a city that's not a big deal but in rural North Dakota that could set you back a whole day. It's an adventure. A unique challenge and experience and it's really cool to share that with my dad especially since he's getting older and slowing down a bit.

We've done trips two years in a row, here's to more to come.

Hjemkomst Center

Yesterday we cut in to Devil's Lake, ND and spent the night in Grand Forks, got up this morning went to the UND bookstore then headed to Fargo and stopped at the NDSU bookstore(my dad's a huge fan). Fargo butts up against Moorhead, MN which is where the Hjemkomst Center is one of the things I wanted to visit most on this trip. It has a replica 10th century Norse Church which is what was built when the country converted to Christianity and the style is a combination of the old ways and the new in order to make the conversion more palatable for the commoners. Gorgeous and detailed wood work, really special.

The other big item they have is a replica viking ship that was made in the 70's by a local Robert Asp whose family, along with additional crew, sailed to Norway and back. Pretty inspiring and my dad loved it. His side of my family is mostly all Scandinavian and we've always had cultural pride.

After spending a good amount of time at the center we blasted to Minneapolis to have dinner with my dad's cousin Rick and then bedded down right across the Wisconsin border in Hudson. Final push tomorrow.

Wind In My Face

At speed
the wind
is a torrential din
the cacophonous keening
of some glum god
eradicating all thought
save this moment
to be endured.

Lake Superior Lighthouse

Rode up what's called the North Shore out of Duluth and stopped at this historical landmark the Split Rock Lighthouse. Pretty spectacular views.

We turned in on highway 1 which took us through the Superior National Forest, beautiful rolling forest land but about half way the road went from great shape to pretty wrecked, made for a bit of a challenge and my visor broke on my helmet so the wind was pretty loud. We made it through to Bemidji where we stopped, they have the oldest Paul Bunyan and Babe statues.

The Phantom Couch

An insecure truck
launches a forlorn couch
time slows one second
becomes ten
as it haltingly descends
to the bustling highway,
an electric snap
of premonition
reveal the accidents to come
I weave through
the closing gap
unscathed
at least for now.

Minnesota Ride

Left this morning on a motorcycle trip with my dad, we did one last year and it was a lot of fun so hopefully we're starting a bit of a tradition. Rode from Chicago to Duluth today, heading up the coast of Lake Superior tomorrow then cutting across the state.

6th Anniversary

Nicole and I celebrated six years together today. We went to Ali Wong yesterday(amazing) and out for a fancy meal this evening. It was really fun but there was so much food and all of it had an obscene amount of butter in it.

As time goes by we know each other better, our partnership deepens, and the challenges we've navigated and fun things we've done compound to create this broadening shared experience. Over time the hurdle is keeping things fresh, not falling into extended routines, and doing special stuff for our anniversary is a way to do that, to break out of comfortable patterns that can, if left for too long, become sedentary. It was a great anniversary and with our wedding next year this year will be an exciting one and I can't wait for it.

'Blinded By The Light' A Review

Blinded By The Light is a coming of age dramedy about aspiring writer Javed Khan(Viveik Kalra) the son of Pakistani immigrant parents struggling to find himself and his place in 1987 suburban England. His friend Roops(Aaron Phagura) gives him Bruce Springsteen tapes which inspire Javed to get out of his shell and pursue his passions.

Kalra gives a great open and emotional performance at the center of this almost-all-diagetic-musical. His enthusiasm, youthful searching, and inevitable self-involved angst are relatable without ever being tiresome. Meera Ganatra and Kulvinder Ghir as Javed's parents also give nuanced, uncompromising performances, a wonderful balance is struck with his family between cultural expectation and the inevitable individualism of the west. The supporting cast are all engaging but it is Javed's journey and the music of The Boss which are the film's real stars.

The music of The Boss, justly, dominates the soundtrack mostly played onscreen by Javed with some more involved dance or heighten set pieces that really weave in perfectly with the story, elevating it, but not distracting or completely breaking the fourth wall like in a conventional musical. Although mostly a feel-good story the film doesn't shrink from the racial conflicts of the time, also resonant today, but never tips the scales into the overwrought or melodramatic.

A fun, inspiring love letter to Springsteen and the power of music.

See It.

Sunday Ride

Gliding through farmland
a friend at my back
floating along curves
ears full of wind's crack

Small town pit stops
waves of corn and beans
seasonal ice cream shops
the road a patient stream

Simple is the beauty
of the middle west
but deep runs the heart
of the people who know it best.

'Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark' A Review

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark is a PG-13 horror film set in a small Pennsylvania town in 1968, a quasi-adaptation of the children's book series. A group of friends get revenge on their school bully only to be chased into the local haunted house where they get trapped in a secret room and discover a malevolent book, which has a life of it's own...!

The cast is a solid group of mostly unknowns(aside from defacto extended cameos by Lorraine Toussaint, Dean Norris and Gil Bellows) and the core group of friends played by Zoe Margaret Colleti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, and Austin Abrams have confidence and charisma enough to carry this visually interesting but narratively mostly by-the-numbers adaptation. The effects are mostly practical and the monster performances are a treat.

Some evocative horror sequences and pleasing period design elevate the potentially pedestrian production. Similar in conceit to 2015's Goosebumps, the source material book existing and the stories manifesting out of it, but with a clearer intent towards thrill and scare rather than camp. The film strikes a fine balance, walking right up to the line of too-much but never crossing it. The attempts at socio-political messaging are mostly a failure but don't detract.

A great, stylish entry into horror for adolescents overshadowed a bit by the volume of similar nostalgia fare like Stranger Things and It.

Rent It.

Drew

the saddest thing about it is for awhile there i thought we were best friends
i wanted to hang out with you all the time and only partly because you had a car
i never had a brother never had a confidant never felt like someone totally got me
i thought you did we would drive around talking and inventing games and inside jokes
drop in on unsuspecting classmates or play video games and watch kubrick movies in awe
inseparable for awhile then you got a job at target and when i asked you that time at lunch
what your work schedule was you snapped at me as if my attention was unwanted
our friendship a burden like i was some repugnant leech and i never understood why
you said that and acted that way and we were never that close again and honestly
i hated you for awhile especially in college when you were such a negative boring
mopey waste of space and when i saw you at the reunion i realized it didn't really matter
and i didn't actually care about you and i was actually glad you made me feel like shit
for asking to hang out in the lunch room all those years ago because if you hadn't
i may not have realized what a friend is and should be and that its ok to let go of a friendship
that doesn't make sense or doesn't make you feel good or doesn't give you anything back
so really i'm actually really happy we were friends because we did have a great time
for those first couple months at least and then you helped me learn a valuable lesson
to let go.

'Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw' A Review

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is an action movie, a spinoff from the Fast & Furious franchise. The movie opens on the a covert military action to capture a dangerous virus, this is interrupted by the self proclaimed bad guy aka Black Superman aka Brixton Lore(Idris Elba) before he can take possession of the virus MI6 agent Hattie Shaw(Vanessa Kirby) injects herself with it and flees. The US and UK government enlist Luke Hobbs(Dwayne Johnson) and Hattie's brother Deckard Shaw(Jason Statham) to track down the virus and unravel the mystery.

Johnson and Statham have a fun insult-heavy chemistry and their partnership is reflected not only in their personalities but in how the approach various situations and in the camera work which is playful and charming if not particularly deep, nor does it need to be. It is wonderful to see Elba as the near undefeatable heavy and he clearly relishes(and excels) at how big he can go. Kirby is a welcome foil and addition balancing out the potentially bro-y central duo. There are a number of fun and exciting cameos and supporting players and overall they all pretty seamlessly work together to pull of this absurd, light, action-packed popcorn flick.

The soundtrack is thumping the action is big and over the top and it delivers on all its promises if not really any surprises. A great mostly mindless summer blockbuster.

See It.