Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater
Cinematographer: Lee Daniel and Shane Kelly
Producer: Richard Linklater, Cathleen Sutherland, Jonathan Sehring, and John Sloss

by Jon Cvack

Check out the first thoughts on Boyhood from January 4, 2016.

​There are many movies that use iconic songs that elicit a heavy dose of nostalgia - Stand by Me ('86), Now and Then ('95), Dirty Dancing ('87), My Girl ('91); essentially any coming of age story having taken place in the 1950s has that one track that elevates the story and impacts the culture. Yet while most of those films I watched as a kid, Boyhood was my first encounter with a coming of age story as an adult, portraying the era in which I grew up; realizing that for how fresh the film's opening song of Coldplay's “Yellow” feels in my memory, the song was released close to sixteen years ago, demonstrating how fast time moves, in which the period seems both close and distant, as with most of the things that’ve transpired since.

For a three hour film, I was absolutely blown away by how quickly the story plays out, though I suppose it’s due to the ten different individual segments, creating an anticipation for what Mason Evans (Ellar Coltrane) will experience next. There would be best friends who come and go and fights with parents and first loves and subsequent heartbreaks and those first drinks and drug experimentsd. We watch as Mason encounters each problem, often assessing it all wrong and taking away the wrong lesson, all while his parents are doing the same. It’s a movie that allowed me to go back and re-experience all of my own ups and downs while growing up, with an amazing cast that brings such profound flavor to moments that seemed so banal or fleeting when first remembered. It allowed me to reconsider how certain events have affected latter ones, and that the small moments that seemed so large then and I laugh about now actually were strong and powerful and in no way insignificant, allowing me to no longer cringe at their memory, but instead embrace them as real and universal, serving as rite of passage.

In the end, during one of the most powerful scenes between Mason and his mom Olivia (Patricia Arquette) we discover her adult view of life. Nothing goes as expected and the frustration is neverending. Just when things seem to calm a new event occurs. As Linklater explores, the challenges we all face in adulthood become increasingly more serious and consequential, and it’s only by pushing through the pains of adolescence that we could ever possibly be prepared for those later in life.

Boyhood celebrates where one is at in any particular moment, no matter the age. The mom can’t find the right husband, or she’s a moment too late. The dad gives up on his dreams while his friend continues and reaches some success. Boyhood takes a look at those small moments that assemble and evolve us into becoming what we are. We cannot escape our choices or the way we respond to certain situations anymore than we control the actions of others and how we're impacted by them. I look at all the chapters in my life, the past year, the past eight years, and I consider how they’ve all affected me; realizing that aside from the spectrum of events - from heartbreaks to deaths to professional and personal frustrations - that the only consistent piece is the feeling they’ve all provided. Whether something goes well or terrible, the response is the same, except with a little more knowledge that time will heal, or that the sheer ecstasy of good news or a good day cannot last forever. Everything passes and all we’re left with are the memories of those moments, which Linklater has shown to be some of the most precious of human experience.

BELOW: Not a perfect drunk step-father, but pretty dang close 

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Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Cinematographer: Hoyte van Hoytema
Producer: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan

by Jon Cvack

After the success of watching Interstellar ('14) without seeing a single trailer, looking at a single screenshot, reading a single synopsis, and only accidentally seeing a tagline on a bus station billboard, not having a single clue what to expect, I was excited to see Dunkirk with the same strategy in mind (this time making sure I didn’t look at any bus stops); however, unfortunately having one person spoiling the triptych structure in an article title on Reddit.

There was once a movement of epic war films that we haven’t seen since Saving Private Ryan (1998) and The Thin Red Line (1998), first brought about by The Longest Day (1962)and reaching its zenith with films like A Bridge Too Far, The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Where Eagles Dare (1968). Inglourious Basterds (2009) returned to the genre, offering the action over drama and yet bringing the high brow art of Tarantino and, as with all his films, standing tangentially to the genre than within it. Dunkirk isn’t exactly the epic war film I was expecting to see, and yet it provided the greatest iMax experience I’ve yet had, serving as one of Nolan’s best films.

Similar to Nolan’s other explorations of time as, seen in Inception (2010) and Memento (2000), this film follows three separate storylines; all taking place at the infamous retreat at Dunkirk. One thing I kind of wish I read was a brief synopsis of Dunkirk, as having recently read about it in "Atonement" and its devastating history, and seeing the effects in the film (which left out much of the action from McEwan’s book), I realize how little we Americans know about the event. 

In an interview, Nolan reveals how it was a story that he grew up with; ingrained in English culture the ways D-Day is in American. Logline being that, in 1940, before America was even in the war and after an unsuccessful invasion across the English channel and into France, the German slaughtered the British forces, forcing them to retreat to Dunkirk. With the channel filled with German U-Boats, numerous Luftwaffe flying through the sky, and the German forces closing in, the United Kingdom was humiliated, refusing to risk anymore carriers to take the men off the beach, instead opting for a bunch of small fishing boats to make the long journey and retrieve the men. In the end Churchill would make his famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speed, of Iron Maiden Live After Death Fame.

Not knowing about the great retreat or the method involved, it made me assume that this was much more about an immense battle per the likes of The Battle of the Bulge or Stalingrad. On the other hand, it’s a testament to Nolan’s prowess that - after gaining a more base understanding of where I was and what I was watching - he made me excited to start piecing together the story.

It involves three narratives - one follows an ace spitfire pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) and his partner Collins (Jack Lowden), taking place over a single hour; the second follows fisherman Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance; in a brilliant role) who’s taking his boat across the channel with his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and George (Barry Keoghan; who will go on to do great things), taking place over a day; and the third follows British army pilot (Fionn Whitehead) who for once looks his character's age at only eighteen years old, determined to do whatever it takes to get off the beach as quickly as possible, taking place over a week. It takes a second to fully grasp how this structure plays out. One of the first criticisms I heard coming out of the film was an older man’s inability to follow the events by even midway through.

It makes me where Christopher Nolan is simply interested in the idea of time within narrative, or how time is observed by particular characters within certain situations. A plane that’s only got an hour left of fuel left while trying to save as many men as possible is more pressing than hiding away in a boat for half a day, waiting for the tide to come in. I’d have to watch it again to see the way this might operate, though I suspect I might not find much. Instead I’d argue Nolan’s more interested in how time provides new forms of narrative, rather than any grand philosophic examinations. While I was expecting an epic battle sequence, instead Nolan focused on the more minute elements of the larger tragedy; using his hyper realistic style (with the vast majority of the effects being practical and it's wonderful) to, as he said in his interview with Peter Travers, “...capture what it’s like to be there.”

Everything looks so real and so large on the iMax screen, with the ocean and beaches extending as far as the eye can see, that Nolan somehow takes what seems a straightforward story and weaves it into a challenging and yet accessible narrative unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Like most of his movies, and the reason I think he’s one of the best contemporary filmmaker, is his commitment to film language while being at the pinnacle of popular entertainment - he’s a High Art filmmaker, who while occasionally wandering into melodrama, is able to make you believe, or even certain, that what you are watching has actually or could actually happen. Dunkirk accomplishes the rare feat of ushering in a new style of Hollywood action filmmaking; especially in an age where the vast majority of these films abandon everything Nolan promotes - an over reliance on VFX and a strange homogenous language, looking as though the same voice extends throughout the majority of these films.

Dunkirk has been criticized for celebrating war with others saying it celebrates valor. I think both are silly questions to ponder. It is action movie that celebrates the civilians who dedicated their lives to rescuing the soldiers at Dunkirk, capturing the fear, worry, and events which surrounded the day. Nolan’s brilliance comes by abandoning any commitment to actual events, instead opting to try and position the audience as close as possible the experience. I resent those who refuse to accept anything beyond an anti-war message when positioning viewers as close as possible to the fear as possible might be a far greater way to demonstrate the horror and dangers. No one should ever want to feel that way, or wish that any of their younger citizens would have to. Few filmmakers have provided such a visceral experience, some pro-war, some anti, some celebrating veterans, and Nolan has joined their ranks. He created a war film that will be watched for the rest of cinematic time, living in the same ranks as any of the greats.

​BELOW: Great Vox explainer video about Han Zimmer's score 

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Director: Andy Muschietti
Writer: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman; based on It by Stephen King
Cinematographer: Chung-hoon Chung
Producer: Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Seth Grahame-Smith, David Katzenberg, and Barbara Muschietti

by Jon Cvack

I’ve grown increasingly fond of Stephen King over the years, having started out reading his memoir "On Writing" (which continues to be the greatest book on writing that I’ve ever read), specifically his ability to achieve a rare prose that feels as though it’s like a great friend speaking to you. Most recently I completed his deeply dark and disturbing "Pet Sematary"; a story that I had only known through the film adaptation, which having tried to revisit the film after reading the incredible book is so terrible that I couldn’t even finish the thing when revisiting. While any who are familiar with the movie and even the general premise of the book would recall the ability to reanimate the dead, the book offers a grueling and slow burn where we know the inevitable tragedy that’s bound to occur. As much as it’s a horror novel, there’s very little in the ways of terror until the last hundred pages of so (it’s over 500 pages long).

It wasn’t a delayed horror so much as a perfect balance between endearing reflections on youth with the immediate terror of a killer spirit who takes the shape of a clown. At over a thousand pages it’s greatest strength is getting you lost within the relatively innocuous subplots before shifting back to horror. However, similar to my other experiences with some of King’s other work (namely, "The Shining"), it was the climactic sequence, where similar to the film, I was struggling to follow what I was suppose to be seeing and how the characters were dealing with it, often extending so far into the fantastical that I was pulled out of the novel that was otherwise realistic.

I was most excited for the film back when True Detectives' Cary Fukunaga was attached, who then left the project with few details provided, though with such a heavy property, it’s clear there were disagreements over creative direction, with Fukanaga replaced by the far less exciting director Andy Muschietti. I think I’ll forever wonder what Fukanaga could have brought to the project, where at the very least, I anticipated a visual style likely more on par with Kubrick’s The Shining ('80).

Similar to the book and miniseries, the film opens up with Ben  and his brother Georgie, with Ben sick in bed, helping Georgie create a paper boat to use in the water runoff during a heavy downpour, eventually resulting in George meeting Pennywise the clown in the sewer who rips his arm off and pulls the kid down, disappearing forever. Counter to the book or miniseries, the film sticks with the kids, taking place the following summer as more kids begin to disappear from the community.

Recently there’s been a trend of ensuring that all the tweens portrayed in films don’t veer too far off into offensive territory, with "Stranger Things" and Super 8 ('11) as two recent examples. For as much as they attempt to replicate what The Goonies ('85), Stand by Me ('86), and Now and Then ('95) accomplished, the film again falls victim to feeling as though it was written by a bunch of adults imagining how kids speak, rather than portraying them as how kids actually speak - saying offensive things with all the dirty and immature language. It comes close to correcting the problem, but again something was off, as though feeling that an executive made redlines in the dialogue, never wanting the kids to drift too far and risk blowing up social media over an offensive comment. "Stranger Thing"’s Finn Wolfhard was the closest the film got to showing real kids, but his departure from the nerdy and reserved Mike Wheeler from "Stranger Things" felt a bit too forced, especially in the way of his wardrobe where it felt as though they figured putting on glasses would allow for a more believable character shift, even though his overall look failed to meet the demands. I ended up liking him in the end and he’s by far the most interesting character, with the rest feeling more like personality tropes than fully fleshed out characters.

I wasn’t sure if my expectations were fairly low after Fukunaga dropped out, then raising a bit when seeing how excited Stephen King was on Twitter, and again after hearing good things from a few trusted sources. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen the film and while I was hoping it might take position as some type of grand coming of age film, it felt just a bit too shallow, never capturing the essence of King’s book, nor the depth of his story. It’s a tragedy that it’s only going to be about a four to five hour film total (with the sequel), as it averages to just shy of a hundred pages being condensed into an hour film. It demanded a miniseries, or a phenomenal director. I will be left forever wondering what Fukunaga would have done with this, as I truly believe it’s one of the greatest unproduced tragedies in cinematic history; serving as the bridge between independent art house horror films and the mainstream, leaving David Gordon Green to probably be the one ushers it in with Halloween [I wrote this last year and was very pleased]).

One the largest concerns is the fact that the clown or its essence seems to be included in every single scene, as though the one note from executives was a cowbell of more clown. While King’s book works through building from an atmosphere of dread that eases toward the supernatural, for two and a half hours the film relies on jump scares and pop outs, all building toward a climactic set piece that is large, fantastical, and completely unrealistic, where we know that only an office of computers could have constructed it.

Even with those factors in mind, I was left wondering if my bias of having grown up with the original film, along with some of the greatest coming of age stories ever made, has affected my objectivity. I suspect if I was younger, maybe just getting into horror films - and if this was all that was offered in the genre next to the "Stranger Things" - that I’d probably like it. While the horror is overwrought at points, all the more disappointing for how little was in the book, it offers a pretty good look at growing up. It’s not a perfect adaptation, but I could see myself turning it back on in a few years and seeing how it goes.

BELOW: Solid opening scene and one of King's best

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​

Director: Gore Verbinski
Writer: Ehren Kruger; based on Ring by Hiroshi Takahashi and Ring by Koji Suzuki
Cinematographer: Bojan Bazelli
Producer: Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald

by Jon Cvack

Now that we’re less than a couple years away from finishing out this decade, popular movies from the 00s are starting to take on a more distinctive style. I hadn’t seen The Ring since high school, where it’s terror spread by word of mouth, with many agreeing it was one of the scariest movies they’d ever seen. Still a coward to horror at the time, heading to the theater to avoid missing out on the event took a bit more motivation than usual. While I couldn’t remember my reaction or any specific details, like most I was horrified and kept awake long into the night by the image of the contortionist girl crawling out of the television. I tried returning to the film back in college, unable to  finish it, as by then the film had become parodied and replicated ad nauseam that it fell victim to what happens when transitioning out of any filmic phase - it felt boring and uninspired. The Matrix-like, desaturated greens and blues were adopted by countless other films, across a range of genres, and by the middle of the decade the look was completely played out.

Fifteen years later, the look is now associated with the decade. While the film isn’t perfect, it’s also far from what I remembered and expected, serving as much more a surrealistic mystery film than countdown murder movie. Remembering it as cheap and shallow, I found it smart and complex, whose flaws were apparent, but in no way diminished the narrative. Only able to watch the first half I had that rare experience of wanting to fight through Sunday’s bedtime and my exhaustion in order to see where it was going.

The story involves a mysterious videotape whose origin I didn’t fully understand, discovering that the Wikipedia page doesn’t have an explanation either, forcing me to a Wiki page which explained that in the original film the tape was made by Samara, who after being thrown in a well by her mother and dying after seven days, possessed or developed the power of nensha (aka thoughtography), which allows a person to burn images from one’s mind onto photographs, canvasses, or film. It was a particularly big idea in Japan during the 20th century. It therefore makes sense that The Ring would have such difficulty conveying this fact (if it even tried at all; as I don’t recall any explanation). Unfortunately, when you really think about this shortcoming, you realize how big of a plot hole it is, as we do not in any way understand what brought all this about.

It opens on the film’s most terrifying and popular sequence, involving two girls at a sleepover discussing an urban legend about a mysterious tape made years ago that kills the person seven days after they watch it. One then admits she watched the tape seven days prior, soon getting killed and driving the other girl insane.

A Seattle Journalist Rachel (Naomi Watts) is hired to investigate the strange death, soon coming across the tape, watches it, learns about the seven day limit, and enters into a journey to discover how it came about and who's involved.

Similar to The Blair Witch Project released just three days prior, though arguably beginning with Haneke’s Benny’s Video in 1992, the story provides a fascinating examination of analog versus digital formats. Now that VHS tapes have officially entered into the vintage category, this film captures the format’s death nail. By 2004, VHS sales would essentially be void, dominated by the rise of the DVD. In 2002, they were fractions of home video sales, providing a fitting tool for where an apparition would render their thoughtographies. Aided in the discussion is Rachel’s ex-boyfriend Noah (Martin Henderson) who has his own “A/V” business - which is cheesy to say, but it’s never specified what he exactly does, though he does know how to slow down the playback and print freeze frames, perhaps even speaking to the medium’s overall limitations, both in quality and durability.

It also speaks to the film’s reliance on imagery. Expanding beyond Samara’s infamous crawl from the well is that of the Rachel’s determination to unravel each of the shots from the film, all in an effort to track down the truth and learn about the tape’s origin. The images transcend the infamous Samras crawling from the well, including a black horse, a randomly placed ladder, a shot aimed directly into an old mirror, a strange woman, and a fly that seems to bounce in and out of the frame. While playing like a pretentious student film (and offering the movie's most poorly aged element), each of these images eventually makes it way into Rachel’s reality, with the horse offering the most thrilling sequence, minus a bad CGI effect of it falling off the ferry and into the bay.

While I’ve had problems with surrealists like Alain Resnais and Luis Buñuel, The Ring skirts the limits of patience, providing just enough explanation before heading into meaningless frustration (minus failing to explain how the tape got made). It was exciting to anticipate when and how the elements from the tape would arise in the film, abandoning the sepia tone in favor a the dreary Seattle streets and seasides.

My largest problem involved Rachel’s peculiar son Aidan (David Dorfman), with the filmmakers appearing to be far more concerned with providing their own rendition of the Creepy Kid than plausibility. Looking up his peers, I was shocked to see Aidan topping out Buzzfeed’s ranking of the "Creepiest Kids in Horror Films", beating out everyone from The Omen’s ('76) Damien to Poltergeist’s ('82) Carol Anne. The complete lack of explanation as to why this kid acts so strange toward his mother makes the entire character seem unnecessary, serving no purpose than fitting the archetype. This isn’t to disparage Dorfman’s performance, who seems to deliver each line without a single blink of an eye. Rather, his inclusion seemed based entirely on the eerie concluding scene, in which Aidan reveals that he had watched a copy of the tape, forcing Rachel to make a copy of a copy to start an ostensible chain letter, in which the seven day death is foregone should someone else watch it.

The ending seems deliberately designed for a sequel, foregoing reason and explanation and diminishing The Ring’s position in the horror pantheon. Between the lack of explanation for the tape and strange rules which apply, while creepy in the immediate sense, upon further reflection it makes you all the more frustrated; wishing they could have foregone a few sequences in order to provide some - any - information as to why and how. Nevertheless, it’s a fun film that captures the essence of the decade, and just as other popular horror films from their respective periods didn’t necessarily make complete sense, these shortcoming - while glaring - are easy to ignore in favor of a pretty fun mystery/horror film hybrid.

​BELOW: A great surrealistic which I wish they cut out of before showing the horse floating

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