Aaron (Sean Mcarty) is at a business retreat in Astoria Oregon when an earthquake hits the state. The damage is said to be huge and a lot of people are stranded without any food, water or means of transport including Aaron himself.
Deciding that he has to get to Portland besides a journey that’s over 700 miles, Aaron tries to get a lift from a passing car. However, he has trouble as people are starting to panic and the mentality of ‘every man for himself’ sets in.
Eventually though, Aaron does meet a group of people who at first are reluctant to help, but as they continue on their journey, they find that despite their differences, they can still find a bond.
Crossing Shaky Ground is an earthquake movie on an extremely limited budget written and directed by Paul Bright. Like a lot of natural disaster movies such as Twister, Dante’s Peak and San Andreas half of the reason for an audience to see a film like that is to be in awe of the spectacle and special effects that occur during the movie while the characters bond while trying to survive.
The problem is that although an ambitious project, Crossing Shaky Ground has no choice but to focus on the characters, which is usually the least interesting aspect of films like this with much bigger budgets.
It also doesn’t help that there are a lot of grey moral areas in the characters, which may lend a bit of depth to them in an attempt to try and flesh them out, but doesn’t give the audience anybody to root for besides Aaron and that’s just because he’s the lead of the movie.
There is an attempt at showing the initial earthquake which is also a mistake because of the low budget and unfortunately this may raise a smile or two in the audience as the camera shakes back and forth. However, after nearly two hours they may not be smiling so much because of the consistent shaking of the handheld camera which keeps going even when the ground is still.
Jason (Ian Stout) is a budding actor who works in a restaurant, but his real dream is to become a successful playwright. Then a few months ago the pandemic swept across the world and although initially he doesn’t think it would be so bad, over time Jason becomes more aware of the serious problem affecting the world right now.
On the one hand this left him more time to do the things that he always wanted, but on the other hand he lives by himself and it feels like if the world was going to end, he would die alone. However, Jason soon decides to do something about it and joins a dating site and that’s where he meets Sorrell (Tiffany Groben) and they hit it off after an awkward first date.
As things get worse and internet dating becomes more and more difficult, Jason and Sorrell find that love in dangerous times is more complicated than they ever thought it would be.
Love in Dangerous Times is a rather timely film written and directed by Jon Garcia. Whereas some may find the film and its release somewhat opportunistic, Love in Dangerous Times could very well be considered as a time capsule.
The film does manage to capture the moment and a lot of people will be able to find themselves relating to Jason and his situation, but whether they would feel comfortable watching a film like that right now will be up to them.
Personally, watching a film at home on my computer where a man sits at home watching his computer may be the most meta film experience of my life and I don’t know whether I liked it or not.
Love in Dangerous Times hits all the right notes and maybe in future will be considered a very accurate portrayal of an unusual time in our history when we all thought we were untouchable. However, being filmed so early on in the pandemic, it isn’t really thorough enough and feels like the film is in a bubble. There’s more going on right now than anyone could encapsulate in one movie and although a valiant effort, maybe Love in Dangerous Times would settle better in a few months.
Faye (Sarah French) used to be a successful actress before she lost her sight. Now she spends her days going to support groups and trying to transition to a life with not being able to see. She’s made friends; Sophia (Caroline Williams) who has also lost her sight and Luke (Tyler Gallant), a mute personal trainer who has taken an interest in her.
However, Faye is too stuck in her own head to realise that losing her sight doesn’t mean that nobody will ever love her again. Unfortunately, there is someone who has noticed her and he’s willing to kill anyone in his path to get to her.
Blind is a generic and unimaginative horror movie which takes the tropes of a blind victim in a horror movie and does nothing new with it. Also, as understandable as it may be that somebody would spend time learning to cope with a new disability, Faye does spend the entire run of the movie feeling sorry for herself which makes her a difficult character to warm to, especially as the killer gets closer.
The deaths also come very sparingly in a movie which is already quite short. So, in between those times the camera likes to either linger on Faye as she mourns for her former life, or it moves to the serial killer whose expressionless Ken doll mask still has more emotion than the lead. Either way it takes away any suspense from Faye’s situation.
The film does try and add a sense of danger as it does keep the audience guessing as to the true identity of the killer. However, with that being the most interesting part of the film, there’s not a lot else here that hasn’t already been done a million times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkbewmI6jh8
Moodily shot and with a focus that clearly likes to wander over French’s body, Blind is a movie as uninspired as its title as it plays with the cliches of horror films that have been around for years and yet doesn’t attempt to do anything different.
Also, the final reveal of the killer’s true identity comes off as unintentionally funny rather than scary.
Marcus (Duke Van Patten) and his dad, Johhny (Michael Paré) have just moved to the idyllic town of Middleton. They’re poor so Marcus sets about to find a job and soon finds himself working for a local garage. That’s where he meets Samantha (Kennedy Tucker) and there’s an instant attraction between them. Unfortunately, Samantha already has a boyfriend and her mum, the principle of Middleton High School, Alana (Eileen Davidson) is having problems as the school is in financial trouble and she may have to close the school.
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who only start shopping two weeks before Christmas and refuse to even acknowledge it before December and there are those who are happy that Halloween is over so they can finally start putting their decorations up and start looking for a tree. Middleton Christmas is aimed at the latter.
Although it does seem that sometime during production there may have been a decision to make it a Christmas movie so that it can appeal to a wider audience. With barely a sprinkling of Christmas, Middleton Christmas could have been done just as easily as a drama set during any other time of the year and it certainly looks like it was filmed outside of Christmas.
With only a few decorations and a finale set piece desperately trying to make up for the lack of Christmas in the rest of the movie, it certainly won’t be a movie on your Christmas watchlist.
There are certain expectations about Christmas movies, especially those made for TV like Middleton Christmas and this one barely scratches the surface. Besides the terrible acting, predictable plot and forced expressions of comfort and joy among its cast, there just isn’t enough there to genuinely enjoy or even enjoy in a cheesy, ironic way where everybody is in on the joke.
The point of cheesy Christmas movies is that they’re so over the top that it’s funny. This one just slapped Christmas in the title and hoped for the best.
However, the biggest question is never answered; why doesn’t the principal take a pay cut to save the school? Her house looks like it’s far too big for somebody working on a school principle’s wage.
Cinema has been going for over 100 years and, in its time, it’s shown many different people from many walks of life. Representation has become more and more important over the years and many film studios have gone out of their way to tell the stories of different people so that we can see people and hear stories that we may not have heard otherwise.
However, with great representation comes great responsibility, so the portrayal of a character that the film makers may or may not have knowledge of varies greatly depending on the research that the film makers put in and the input from the people that they are trying to portray on screen.
Some film makers get it right and some don’t and often that means that there are various cliches and tropes that rear their ugly heads and become so common that it may be hard to undo them.
Inspirational films about disabled people distort reality
Over the past few years, it seems that Hollywood has started to tell stories with trans people and as a disabled cis male, I and many others have started to notice that the trans community are getting treated much the same as the disabled community have in cinema for over 100 years. So, here I am offering up a guide on what not to do when representing the trans community in cinema because disabled people have been down this road before and if it doesn’t stop now then there may be no way back.
Firstly, the struggle that many trans people experience in order to be the person they are inside is one that’s full of emotional anguish, self-acceptance and mostly a time where they can truly feel like they are the person they are meant to be. Some people also go through some kind of turmoil when they become disabled, usually after being cut down in the prime of their lives.
Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar bite didn’t get a bite
These stories are not comparable, yet Hollywood may find the temptation to make the story of a trans person align with the stories that have been told about disabled people for years. The individual journey of a trans person becoming who they are inside should not be the sole reason for their story, it only serves as a way to teach cis people what a trans person may experience while they’re transitioning, and as mentioned earlier, results may vary as to how involved trans people are in the film.
Also, trans and disabled people do not exist to be pitied or looked down on because of a change in life or that they were born differently. Our stories shouldn’t be intense melodramas that tell the story of a person who lives their life in isolation because nobody understands them. There are many disabled and trans people that live great, varied lives and many are accepted widely by the people around them. Their physical appearance and their behaviour should never be an excuse for film makers to make the audience cry because of our supposed sad, lonely lives.
Dustin Hoffman’s portrayal became the benchmark of acting for Oscar contenders
On the other side, our supposed differences should never be highlighted to indicate that we’re in some way different psychologically from other people. In short, we are not evil. Often disabled people have been portrayed as villains with physical differences such as facial scarring, a missing limb or a wheelchair. Similarly, there has been trans representation in horror and thrillers because serial killers are often portrayed as cross dressers or go to more extremes to be women such as in The Silence of The Lambs.
The implication is that because somebody chooses to dress differently than the sex that they were born is that their minds must be affected in some way and that makes them untrustworthy which couldn’t be further from the truth. With disabled people, if they have a facial scar, a missing limb or something else then it suggests they have been wronged by the world and that their minds have turned to revenge on a world that mistreats and ignores them. Again, something that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Characters such as Buffalo Bill from Silence of The Lambs enforce a harmful stereotype
Also, it wouldn’t hurt if trans and disabled people played themselves. Once Hollywood started to write stories in the way that only mainstream cinema could, certain actors jumped at the chance to portray somebody other than themselves. Eddie Redmayne portrayed Lili Elbe, a Danish painter and trans woman who underwent ground breaking surgery in Tom Hooper’sThe Danish Girl which was hotly tipped as an Oscar winner which would bag Redmayne his second Oscar win. This resulted in an expected Oscar nomination for Redmayne and ironically a win for Alicia Vikander as Elbe’s partner.
However, that didn’t stop Hollywood to try and tell more stories from the trans community with reports of Scarlett Johansson and Halle Berry expressing interest in playing trans men. Disabled people have been dealing with this kind of representation for years and there’s an assumption that if you’re an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino or Dustin Hoffman that have played disabled people and won Oscars then it makes you a better actor. It does not. Don’t let that be a thing with trans people too.
Heart-warming true stories about disabled people limit their potential on screen
Finally, and perhaps most importantly. We are not your inspiration. Stories showing trans people becoming the people they were always meant to be and disabled people ‘overcoming the odds and triumphing in the face of adversity’ are not good reasons to make films. It may make audiences feel good that somebody on screen can finally feel good about themselves, continuing their lives as normal, but these feel good moments of achievement are few and far between.
They also ignore the continuing ignorance and prejudice that we all experience every single day. Nobody overcomes something they’re born with, because once they’ve achieved something that other people wouldn’t believe they could do, the way they were born is still very much a part of them.
Daniela Vega in A Fantastic Woman is only one of a handful of trans people in cinema
So, there are a few examples of what could happen in cinema with trans people if Hollywood gets the idea that representing their stories could be the next big thing. Hollywood always likes to think it’s progressive, but if they start to fall back on old tricks to manipulate audiences then they may be setting back representation for many years to come.
