'Aftersun' A Review

Aftersun is a drama about a father/daughter vacation, Sophie(Frankie Corio) and Calum(Paul Mescal) through the lens of the adult daughter's reflection. The bulk of the film takes place during the vacation itself, with brief cutaways to the adult Sophie watching camcorder footage from the vacation, as well as dream-like sequences in a strobing dance club where the adult Sophie pursues her un-aged father Calum.

Corio and Mescal give grounded, realistic performances however frequently their Scottish accents are so thick it is impossible to make out what is being said(outside of the UK subtitles should have been provided). But ultimately they don't do too much because of the pervasive vagueness of the script and it's disinterest in imparting any specifics narrative or emotional.

Normally beautifully shot but also intercut with grainy, shaky, barely legible camcorder footage as well as the lack of intent in the dream and adult Sophie sequences, visually it's uneven. The score is relentlessly ominous preparing the audience for a tragedy that never arrives which renders it ineffective and inappropriate. The soundmix, presumably intentionally, is one of the most bizarre choices in recent cinema memory because it jacks up the volume of the score, music, and ambient noise way above the vocal track. So not only does the audience have to contend with the thick accents but also the disproportionately cacophonous back ground noise to attempt to discern what is being said.

Narratively the film seems to have little point to it and offers no insight. What is actually wrong with Calum, is it mental health, cancer, AIDS? What does adult Sophie think of this vacation, why is it important? What we see is kid Sophie, seemingly having a pretty nice vaca, so why all the telegraphing of tragedy? Are we to presume Calum commits suicide after this? If so there is so little there in the way of dimension for either character that implication has little to no impact.

It appears what we are left with is some graduate level mediation on existentialism and classic post-modern rejection of narrative. Which, OK, but the result is so reserved it says nothing, so inert it is boring.

Perhaps appealing for those yet to contend with an absentee father.

Currently in theaters, coming soon to VOD.

Don't See It.

Out Of The Past

As if
from a college town in 2004

outside of an Umphree's concert
this scraggly, lost man-child
replete with pathetic patchy beard

and distressed army/navy surplus jacket

puts himself in my way

in 2022 

on the northside of Chicago

with a dispensary 

no more than 4 blocks away

and says

"you got any weed?"

I laugh in his face

overcome 

by the anachronism

and the audacity

'Decision To Leave' A Review

Decision To Leave is a mystery/drama about insomniac detective Hae-Jun(Park Hae-il) working in Busan and only spending the weekends with his wife in Ipo. An immigration officer dies under mysterious circumstances and he becomes obsessed with his widow who is the prime suspect Seo-Rae(Tang Wei).

The film is strictly demarcated at the 75 minute mark, after which there is a time jump and the tone, editing and narrative drastically shift. The performances obviously are influenced by this. Hae-il and Wei, at the start, give wonderful, layered, odd performances and have great chemistry. It builds in this complicated way and comes to a satisfying conclusion. Then the film continues for another hour and a half in which the portrayals become somewhat farcical as the tone goes full on melodrama and the characters behave illogically. Not a fault of the actors but still a bizarre and ineffective drastic turn.

The production is uneven, visually(at the beginning) crisp with some very effective and evocative editing choices. Scenes bleeding into one another, characters observing other characters or imagining what other characters are doing appearing in those scenes as observers, a character making audio notes serving as narration for the scene we're seeing. It's all very lyrical and transportive and is present throughout the first portion of the film. Bafflingly this technique is abandoned after the time jump. At the start the tone is a weird mix - mystery, romance, procedural, drama- but it works. This delicate dance of genre is jettisoned for daytime TV melodrama halfway through and it becomes plodding, convoluted, and so illogical as to be, not to put to fine a point on it, dumb.

Incredible promise and intrigue deflated to the mundane.

Currently available on VOD.

Stream It(in it's entirety).

See It(stopping at the 75 minute mark).

Generational Gaming

Playing Mario Kart with my niece
my nephew contentedly
in my lap
I am grateful for my Nintendo 64
for its stalwart diversions

its simple adventures

its sturdy construction

for this shared moment

in quiet communion

even if 

after fifteen minutes

she proclaimed it 'too hard'

and went back to playing Barbie

'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' A Review

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is a vacation mystery, a somewhat sequel to 2019's Knives Out, carrying over the detective Benoit Blanc(Daniel Craig) but nothing else. A group of friends who have a vague involvement in lead friend Miles'(Edward Norton) tech/media company get together for their yearly vacation/adventure hosted by Miles. Andi(Janelle Monáe), one of the group, recently completed a failed suit against the company and was estranged from the group but attends anyway. Blanc is mysteriously/erroneously invited.

The star-studded cast all have wonderful outfits and clearly are having a great time on their Grecian island shoot but all are thin, grating characterizations(if not outright caricature), even Craig so wonderful in the first film here is predictable, boring, and less sophisticated than his previous iteration. There is attempt at class commentary which is way off base and particularly ironic coming from a cast and a filmmaker who are themselves rich, part of the strata in which they attempt(and miserably fail) to send up. There is a cavalcade of cameos which are cool I guess, but serve ultimately no purpose and function only to overstuff an already bloated runtime.

Visually a bit glaringly glitzy, full of pastels and over-saturated coloring, the costuming absolutely incredible, the soundtrack/score mostly forgettable. The production, overall, inconsistent. The script is baffling. The turns and reveals in the mystery are telegraphed, predictable and frequently illogical. Even if the mystery element of it were engaging the characters are so two dimensional, so unlikable, there is ultimately no stakes, we don't actually care about anyone, they could all be killed with no emotional effect. 

One of the reasons the first film was successful was because Ana De Armas was the center, a good person caught in an impossible situation, and Craig was a supporting character and as such allowed to go big. Here Craig functions kind of as the main with Monáe somewhat sharing the spotlight as the movie progresses and as such the chemistry doesn't work. Not to mention Monáe is simply out of her depth, in recent years she has failed to make good on the promise she showed in Hidden Figures and this is no exception.

Plodding, uninspired, self-satisfied.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Don't See It.

'Avatar: The Way Of Water' A Review

Avatar: The Way Of Water is a scifi movie, a sequel to 2009's Avatar. The Navi are again threatened by corporate/military humanity, this time the desired resource is anti-aging whale gland extract.

There is not much to say about the performances because the characters or so thinly drawn and the plot so convoluted there is little in the way of performance to be found. The returning characters frequently act in ways counter to what the first movie set up and the new characters frequently act illogically clearly only to further the uncompelling, contrived, ill-conceived plot.

Visually indistinguishable from its predecessor(other than the inclusion of awful and extremely jarring motion-smoothing in a couple sequences) it begs the question what took so long given the technology employed seems not to have evolved. The water and reef sequences, the ecosystem that is "new" in this installment is only featured for a fraction of the runtime. Additionally the script is so bloated, derivative, and regressive(even in regards to it's predecessor) it seems it was written in a rush upon the initial box office returns in 2009 and never revised, again begging the question what took 13 years.

The original, even if narratively simplistic and trading in problematic tropes, was at least fun and felt visually fresh. This is a three hour plus trudge, immediately forgettable upon it's conclusion.

Perhaps it's time for writer/director James Cameron to retire or at least take on some collaborators who can provide some perspective outside of the boomer billionaire niche.

Currently in theaters.

Don't See It.

Winter Solstice

I welcome the Winter
its difficulty
its capriciousness

in its return

am I reminded

of life's certain

changeability

in its intrinsic

discomforts

am I yearly tempered

enlivened

by cold and darkness