film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 – Review

    Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 – Review

    Twenty years ago this month, the Twin Towers were hit by a terrorist attack that shook the US and the entire world. Suddenly the mood changed from where audiences were willing to laugh at almost anything to where audiences started being very cautious with what they watched, how they felt and when they laughed.

    In New York there were many comedians and many shows that relied on people to come and see them and after 9/11, it didn’t seem like those audiences would want to go out and laugh amidst a terrible tragedy.

    Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 is a documentary that discusses a turbulent time where the world was changing and so were attitudes to things most people had never even considered before. Comedians found themselves on the backfoot because as much as audiences were wanting to laugh, people were still grieving. Also, any joke that touched upon the subject on everybody’s minds was considered a step too far.

    Talking to many comedians who were around at the time and people involved in publications such as The Onion and shows like Saturday Night Live, Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11 shows the changing attitudes towards comedy and how eventually they learned to laugh again.

    There were many different opinions around the time and some that still stand up today, but as time went on, comedians started to feel as if they could make jokes about such a terrible event. Especially as it was the only way they could process it themselves. There were even some such as Gilbert Gottfried who tested the water by jumping in head first.

    Too Soon addresses other things that arose after 9/11 such as islamophobia, the political climate and even the patriotism of those who dared makes jokes in a time where America wanted action. Muslim comedians even slowly stepped into the spotlight and were about to tell jokes from their perspective which helped the healing process as well as change minds about those the media deemed as evil.

    Mostly told by American comedians who were in and around New York at the time (with the exception of Jimmy Carr), Too Soon manages to effectively detail the months and years where comedy changed forever.

  • Incognito: Review

    Incognito: Review

    The year is 1996 or maybe 1995 and Isabel Courtney (Autumn Harrison) has been picked up by the police. She claims that although she knows what year it is, that she’s from 1952 and doesn’t know how she got there. She’s sent to Dr. Vogel (Tom Wade) for psychological evaluation and of course he doesn’t believe her time travelling story at all.

    He’s investigated into her claims regardless of how ridiculous they sound, but there’s just no record of her at that time. Then Dr. Vogel finds evidence of a woman named Dorothy Laurent (Sarah Carson) and after Isabel disappears, he thinks she may be able to help him to tidy up Isabel’s story.

    Incognito is a short film about time-travel co-written and directed by Jacky Song, which takes an unexpected turn. Beautifully shot with a great production value, Song takes her audience right back to the 1950’s and gives them a glimpse of a time gone by with all the glitz and glamour an audience may expect.

    Then transporting Isabel into her future, the story is laid out and although is a premise that has perhaps been seen time and time again, it’s still interesting to watch as the audience would have no idea where the story is going.

    However, it seems that Song’s short film takes its time to get to the most interesting part of the story. Also, when it gets there there’s so little time left to tell the rest of the story that it feels like it could have been focussed on a bit more.

    In fact, although the set up for Incognito is certainly intriguing, it almost feels like it’s inconsequential to the real story that Song wants to tell. This may be so that such a high concept premise could bring in a wider audience, only to surprise them later on down the line. However, the story that caps off Incognito could stand on its own.

    With a wider narrative and a more expanded story, Incognito could be a great feature film which could combine science fiction with romance and not short change any part of its story. A great short film that leaves its audience wanting more, but perhaps one that could be more courageous with its narrative.

  • The Madness Inside Me: Review

    The Madness Inside Me: Review

    The Madness Inside Me: Review

    Madison (Merrin Dungey) is a forensic psychologist who lives in New York with her husband in their large apartment. Madison spends her work days talking to prisoners who have fallen foul to the law and through her interviews with those criminals, she tries to understand why people would do such terrible things as take a life.

    Then one night, Madison hears a commotion and rushes to the bathroom where her husband is being accosted by a masked man who quickly overpowers her and knocks her unconscious.

    Waking up in hospital, Madison only has a hazy recollection of what happened and when Detective Thompson (Thomas Q. Jones) tells her that her husband was killed, she retreats into her work and tries to get on with her life. However, the thought of making sense of her husband’s senseless murder leads her to find the killer but once she does, she starts to get closer to him to try and find out why he did what he did. Although whilst doing so, she starts to lose herself.

    The Madness Inside Me is a psychological thriller written and directed by Matthew Berkowitz. Set in the middle-class area of New York it seems that Madison has it all; she has good friends, someone who loves her and a job that gives her great satisfaction. It’s unclear than as to why she does what she does.

    The implication is that she wants to know why her husband was murdered, but the lengths in which she goes to defy logic as the audience aren’t let in on the secret. It’s one thing to be ambiguous about a character’s motives, but to completely keep the audience in the dark is a somewhat confusing and frustrating experience.

    Merrin Dungey does a great job showing her character’s decline from the seemingly innocent and her performance plays well. The trouble is that with such a rapid change in character through the movie, it seems that the audience may have missed something. What starts out well, albeit a bit slow, turns into something that ramps up the sex and violence and borders on what could be called an erotic thriller.

    For a movie that prides itself in wanting to understand the psychology of the worst in society, it seems to not understand basic psychology itself.

  • Zone 414: Review

    Zone 414: Review

    David Carmichael (Guy Pearce) is a private detective that spends his days hunting down humanoid robots and killing them. He’s lost his wife and the world has never felt the same since, so he just gets on with the job and does what he’s told.

    Then one day he’s contacted by Marlon Veidt (Travis Fimmel), the creator of the revolutionary humanoid robots who tells Carmichael that his daughter has gone missing and he needs him to track her down and bring her back. His only condition is that he contact Jane (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), a humanoid robot who was very close to his daughter.

    So, despite their differences and views of the world, David and Jane set out to find the truth behind the disappearance of Veidt’s daughter – by going into Zone 414.

    Zone 414 is a dark noir sci fi movie which heavily borrows its style and characterisations from Blade Runner. Pearce’s embittered private detective may as well be called Deckard for all that it’s worth and the film clearly doesn’t have any imagination beyond various sci fi the filmmakers have seen over the years. There is sadly nothing new to see here and everybody seems to know, giving their most basic and uninspired performances because they all know it doesn’t really matter.

    There are attempts at giving a bit of tension and chemistry between Pearce and Lutz, but it all seems to be delivered in lazy exposition dumps rather than anything where the characters may ever feel something for each other.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfA8_ax0M1c

    Although Fimmel does give a completely unrecognisable performance in the movie, so he may get away with being in something like this and still be in tact on the other end. However, it’s only because the bad make up effects make him look distractingly like Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2.

    It’s easy to say that actors are just going from project to project to make money so that they can afford to do things they enjoy better… and this is one of those cases. Audiences may very well enjoy the dark and brooding side of Guy Pearce and enjoy the aesthetic pulled from better material, but others may want to find something more original.

  • Wild Indian: Review

    Wild Indian: Review

    Makwa (Michael Greyeyes) is what you’d call a troubled young man. He frequently gets into trouble at school and argues with his father at any given opportunity. Then one day while out with his friends, he has an overwhelming urge to use his gun and he kills one of the friends with a rifle.

    The only witness to this is Ted-O (Chaske Spencer) and seeing as Makwa has always been the more dominant of the pair, they bury the body and go about their lives promising to never speak of what happened again.

    Thirty years later, Makwa is now known as Michael and he’s a successful business owner with a beautiful wife, (Kate Bosworth) and child with another soon on the way. However, it seems that although Michael’s life has changed, there’s a raging guilt which wants to bubble to the surface.

    Ted-O has taken a different path in life and has just come out of prison. He’s moved back in with his sister and his niece and is looking forward to moving on with life. He has no regrets other than the tattoos on his face and he wants to make the best of what he has. However, the secret that he was forced to bury with Makwa has come to a head when he decides to track him down. What follows after their meeting changes both of their lives and reveals their true colours.

    Wild Indian is the directorial feature debut of writer/director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. and shows a very promising start as it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Corbine Jr.’s story could be billed as Native American Psycho as it shows a decline in a man’s character, not only through his loss of identity and soul, but through the denouncement of his heritage.

    However, Greyeyes manages to bring a certain amount of pity to a man who on the surface seems so despicable. Although the film rarely leaves his side, Greyeyes’ performance shows a man who’s barely holding it together.

    Some may dislike following a protagonist who is so obviously unlikeable and the ending may not come to any satisfying conclusion. Saying that though, Wild Indian is a good character study which addresses how some indigenous people have to make sacrifices to survive in the world.