film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Last Call: Review

    Last Call: Review

    Last Call is a poignant, emotional and thought-provoking drama that deals with issues surrounding suicide and grief, talking about the impact that it has on those who are going through mental health issues and those who volunteer to help when those people need to talk.

    Scott (Daved Wilkins) is lonely, suicidal and has also developed a drinking problem. One night after coming home from a bar he decides to make the call that he had been thinking about making for many months – to a suicide helpline.

    Beth (Sarah Booth) is a janitor, part time student and single mother to two boys. Like Scott, life has taken a toll on her, but she works hard and hopes for a better future despite her past experiences. So, when Beth picks up the phone while she’s at work in the evening, she’s surprised and concerned to find that Scott has called her by mistake. What happens next shows their conversation and Beth’s willingness to help a stranger, hoping that one phone call may save Scott’s life and turn his life around.

    Excellently written and directed by Gavin Michael Booth and co-written by Daved Wilkins, Last Call is a realistic drama shot in split-screen and in real time showing both Scott and Beth’s perspectives. Although this idea may appear too distracting and gimmicky when put on paper, Last Call never feels that way because Booth shoots the scenes so seamlessly that it’s as if they’re both connected.

    From watching Scott and Beth doing whatever they do before they call, to what happens as it ends, Booth keeps the audience interested and often glued to their seats as they start to connect to with characters.

    Both Daved Wilkins and Sarah Booth give outstanding performances and the script feels so real it’s almost as if the audience is listening in on a real conversation that may take place at suicide hotline centres every day.

    The drama never exploits the themes of suicide and grief to manipulate its audience, instead giving a realistic and heart-breaking account of a man whose life is on the line and will stay with its audience long after viewing.

  • For All Mankind: AppleTV+ Review

    For All Mankind: AppleTV+ Review

    On July 20th 1969 America put the first man on the moon. This ended the space race and firmly ensured that America was a highly intelligent and capable superpower.

    For All Mankind is a new drama on AppleTV+ that reimagines a pivotal moment in not only US history, but the history of the world by changing that moment so that Russia won the space race. From that moment on, the course of history is forever changed and due to certain innovations made by Russia’s space program, it spurs NASA on to do better and find alternatives to achieve their goals.

    Among the cast of characters is Edward Baldwin (Joel Kinnerman) an astronaut who missed his chance to get to the moon, Molly Cobb (Sonya Walger) an ambitious and determined woman hoping to go where no woman has gone before, and Ellen Waverley (Jodie Balfour) another of NASA’s hopefuls who has to work hard to keep her personal and her professional life separate.

    For All Mankind tells their stories as well as paying homage to NASA’s history during their greatest achievements, even talking about moments that NASA may rather forget.

    Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to the right balance set between these historical moments and the personal lives of For All Mankind’s characters, so the latter seem to be put aside for the first few episodes. This and the show’s insistence on jumping years ahead from episode to episode make it difficult to focus on the human-interest elements, unintentionally softening some of the more emotional moments that could have had a bigger emotional impact if they were given time to breathe. Instead, For All Mankind is so focussed on its mission that it forgets some of the characters it leaves behind.

    However, in the first season’s final few episodes, For All Mankind does manage to slow down a little, giving the characters a little space to expand.

    There are some great moments of joy, sadness and tragedy amongst the cast of characters and hopefully the post credit tease on the final episode will move the show along to yet another era in NASA’s history and build more upon its characters.

  • Spiral: Review

    Spiral: Review

    In Spiral, Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman) and Aaron (Ari Cohen) are taking their daughter, Kayla (Jennifer Laporte) to a new home where they can make a fresh start as a family. They’ve gone through a lot together and with Aaron coming out to his wife, they know all too well that people can be nice on the surface, only for their true colors to show.

    Sure enough, when they arrive there are microaggressions from people such as a neighbor who just stares at them from a distance when they leave the house and the surprise that they get from people when they tell them they’re a couple, but they’re used to that by now.

    However, the aggression in the neighborhood slowly starts to get stronger and Malik starts to think that there may be something more sinister underneath the suburban façade.

    Spiral is a horror movie and Shudder original directed by Kurtis David Hader and written by Colin Minihan and John Poliquin. It’s set up may seem familiar to fans of Get Out, but Spiral still has something unique to say.

    Using many familiar horror tropes to get its point across and scare its audience, Spiral is familiar and yet new as not many gay couples get to be the leads in horror – if any at all. Kayla also attracts the attention of local bad boy, Tyler (Ty Wood) although when Malik and Aaron meet his parents, Marshal (Lochlyn Munro) and Tiffany (Chandra West) they decide that she’s just going through what every girl her age experiences, but they’re still keeping eye on her.

    The problem is that Malik’s paranoia is getting the better of him and as he starts to doubt his validity as a parent, he starts to lose his grip on reality.

    A unique and yet familiar premise, Spiral’s focus on a parent rather than an out of her depth teen helps to explore what it means for a gay couple to be raising a child when it feels like the world is against them. In a horror setting, Spiral manages to excite, scare and even show its audience a perspective they may not have been considering, right down to the grisly end.

  • Red, White & Wasted: Review

    Red, White & Wasted: Review

    In Orlando there lives a man known as Video Pat who lives in what could be called a Redneck community. He’s a family man, divorced but still taking care of his two daughters and even has a grandchild on the way.

    However, Pat’s passion is for Mudding, a motorsport that he’s obsessed with, as he not only loves the sport, but he loves the lifestyle too. It seems though that the documentary may really have a different focus and if you really want to know more about Mudding, then Red, White & Wasted may not be the documentary for you.

    Red, White & Wasted is really about the people, the truth behind the stereotypes and how they really feel. The thing is though that a lot of the stereotypes may actually be true.

    Pat starts talking about the Redneck life, but as with him and many other subjects of the documentary, they don’t think that it applies to them. There’s talk about stereotypes and how they even talk about other people as being Rednecks when they think they aren’t. However, what the documentary shows is that whether they like it or not, they are the stereotypes we all think of when we think of Rednecks.

    There’s teenage drug taking, passionate arguments about the American gun laws and rampant racism that runs through the veins of the Redneck community. However, these kinds of things could be said about a lot of people and although Red, White & Wasted shines a light on those people who it’s believed help Trump come to office, this may be just a part of what made him so popular.

    When you hear about people saying that Trump is just like one of them, then it seems that they really believe it, they don’t see the money and power that he has (although Pat rails against the corporate direction that Mudding is going). They just see a man who tells them he has the same values as them and that’s what speaks to them.

    Red, White & Wasted is an unbiased, honest look at that certain type of Trump voter that people always suspected really existed and even if you disagree with them on certain views – like it or not, they may be a lot like you.

  • Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet – AppleTV+ Review

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet – AppleTV+ Review

    Ian (pronounced I-an) Grimm (Rob McElhenney) is the creator of the world’s most popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game), Mythic Quest. On his team is Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) Mythic Quest’s lead programmer, story writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham), executive producer, David (David Hornsby) and financial expert Brad (Danny Pudi). Together they keep the game running and hope that the can appease their biggest critic, 14-year-old game streamer, Pootie Shoe (Elisha Henig). David also hires Jo (Jessie Ennis) as his assistant and if she’s not reined in, she may actually kill someone.

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is the new sitcom from the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. With Rob McElhenney writing and starring and Charlie Day and Megan Ganz on board as co-creators, the audience from Sunny may know what to expect.

    However, after an announcement at 2019’s E3 gaming event, Rob McElhenney put the audience at ease that it wasn’t just going to cash in on its audience and laugh at their expense (looking at you, Big Bang Theory). Instead, McElhenney et al teamed up with Ubisoft for advice and an insight into the gaming industry.

    Also cast is Ashly Burch, a name that gamers will know for her voice work on games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Life is Strange and the Borderlands games. With Burch being one of the staff writers, this further shows that the show is in good hands.

    Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is not only a relatable office-based comedy, but a show that really knows its audience, knows all the in-jokes of the gaming industry and isn’t afraid to do something different to expand on its repertoire.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaPCYRPhY0

    Halfway through its 10-episode run, Mythic Quest does a stand-alone episode that many will not expect, but many will enjoy as it follows a couple from their initial meeting, to their professional and personal relationship and does it over the space of 10 years. Something that other shows wouldn’t dare to do so early on, but it stands out as one of the best and only confirms that Mythic Quest is made by the right people.

    Although some audience may feel that the workplace sitcom may have run its course and the show does seem to run out of references to the gaming industry, it’s the connection between the characters that makes all the difference. Besides the typical characters that one may find in a quirky sitcom (the evil one, the egotistic one, the overworked one), the laughs keep coming and the main story even gives the audience a few surprises.