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  • Clapboard Jungle: Another Review

    Clapboard Jungle: Another Review

    As a critic I’ve seen a lot of films and for better or worse I’ve often wondered how they got made. The film could be a simple one-handed drama about a person dealing with their own personal crisis, or it could be an extremely over the top sci fi action film which really has no right being made on such a low budget.

    Clapboard Jungle: Surviving the Independent Film Business attempts to answer this question, aiming to tell the audience what works, what doesn’t and how anybody could be crazy enough to want to make filmmaking their career. Clapboard Jungle doesn’t just talk about the independent film industry though, as it’s directed by Justin McConnell.

    McConnell in his own rights is a film director and whereas the documentary details every aspect of the industry, it also tells of McConnell’s personal dreams as a filmmaker where he hopes to bring his own film to a wider audience. A film optimistically entitled Lifechanger.

    Talking to many industry experts such as founder of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman, producers, directors including Uwe Boll and Guillermo del Toro and posthumous interviews with cult actors such as Sid Haig and Dick Miller, Clapboard Jungle tells its audience that making a film is heaven, selling it is hell.

    Like the budget of many of McConnell’s own productions, Clapboard Jungle is also similarly low, often with McConnell filming himself talking to camera in his office. However, this kind of honesty that it’s far from glamorous may just be the wake-up call budding Hitchcocks need to realise that they may not necessarily have what it takes.

    Although, as McConnell’s story progresses and the interviewees all talk about the things that need to happen in production, screenwriting and shooting, little by little Lifechanger soon starts to live up to McConnell’s dreams. Being very honest about himself when he says he lives and breathes cinema to the point where if it didn’t exist, he’d be a husk of a man (can relate), it’s really nice to see a filmmaker succeed at bringing his passion to life and having it so well received.

  • In The Earth: Sundance 2021 Review

    In The Earth: Sundance 2021 Review

    Continuing to bestow the festival scene with his various genre offerings, writer/director Ben Wheatley holds a somewhat controversial presence with film fans. His inventive conceptual designs (Free Fire and High Rise) often tantalize with untapped potential. When it comes to the follow-through though, Wheatley leaves many divided over his ability to carry a narrative over the finish line. The director’s latest effort, the quarantine-driven, sci-fi horror vehicle In the Earth, boasts his trademark levels of inconsistency.

    As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, In the Earth follows a scientist (Joel Fry) and park scout (Ellora Torchia), who venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. When they discover a reclusive nomad (Reece Shearsmith), the two find themselves trapped into a mystical pack to uncover a dangerously untamed force.

    To Wheatley’s credit, In the Earth represents the director’s most visually-assured work to date. Amidst the endless wave of trees and unkempt wildlife, Wheatley elicits some atmospheric dread from his isolated setting. However, it’s not until the film presents its horror-driven chaos that the director truly compels. A vibrant mixture of cloudy green and red tones convey an uneasy mist before wildly subversive imagery confronts the audience. In the Earth works best at its most visceral, often time intoxicating viewers with a nightmarish blend of reality and myth.

    Once you look past the inventive veneer, Wheatley’s narrative collapses under its shallow pre-tenses. Wheatley’s pondering, dialogue-driven frames often confuse themselves for thoughtful meditation, with the dry regurgitations ultimately saying very little about its interesting subject matter. I love meditative nightmares of this elk, but much of In the Earth’s ponderous runtime misses those film’s distinct atmosphere and substantive.

    One could see how the material could connect to our COVID-based dread in thoughtful manners, but Wheatley’s lack of deftness ensures few frames of thoughtful examinations. When the director’s horror-bend isn’t on full display, his narrative barely stays afloat amidst the flat characterization work. Stars Joel Fry and Ellora Torchia are left carrying a listless plot that gives them little in terms of agency or development.

    Many will outwardly compare In the Earth to its atmospheric, sci-fi brethren (Annihilation has been a common point of reference). However, those well-constructed offerings employ a substantive streak that In the Earth is desperately missing from its DNA. Wheatley’s latest genre miss gets caught in his familiar favoring of style over substance.

  • How It Ends: Sundance 2021 Review

    How It Ends: Sundance 2021 Review

    As a fan of their quirky, yet introspective delivery, it’s a joy to see writer/director Zoe-Lister Jones and Daryl Wein reunite for the pre-apocalypse comedy How It Ends. While admittedly scattershot and slight in its delivery, the duo’s loose riff on our ongoing nihilistic dread mines its own playful frequency.

    Set in a world where an asteroid is about to destroy the planet, How It Ends follows Liza (Zoe-Lister Jones), an insular loner who spends most of her time talking to her metaphysical younger self (Cailee Spaeny). In an attempt to find peace amidst the challenging circumstances, Liza walks journeys through town to make peace with some of her long-forgotten acquaintances.

    Between Liza’s intimate friendship with her younger, metaphysical self and the bevy of comedic favorites stopping by for a visit (a who’s who of talents, including Olivia Wilde, Glenn Howerton, and Pauly Shore), Wein and Jones find a clever comedic pulse within their timely material. A wandering pace sets an intriguing sandbox of skits that properly skewer vapid LA socialites. At times, these one-note gags linger on before landing with a comedic thud. When they work though, the bizarre personas strike a humorous balance between authenticity and goofiness while serving as a fit road map for Liza’s journey of self-discovery.

    How It Ends boasts several talented personas, but the ensemble works best when centering its focus. Lister-Jones and Cailee Spaeny have a naturally snippy rapport as Liza’s duel-selfs while still exploring the character’s lingering wounds. I wish the explorations of self-acceptance and regret were more purposeful, as the dramatic beats travel through a number of coming of age cliches without adding anything new to the conventions. Strenuous efforts for an emotive connection don’t really land with their intended impact.

    How It Ends doesn’t consistently operate at its peak, although that fact doesn’t mask the film’s agreeable strengths. This is a pleasant and sharp-enough diversion for fans of the duo’s low-key indie energy.

  • Funny Pains: Review

    Funny Pains: Review

    Wendi Starling has quite the reputation on the New York comedy circuit. She’s funny, self-deprecating and perhaps honest to a fault when it comes to her comedy. However, Starling’s brand of comedy may not be for everybody because for her, her life is what she puts on stage.

    Starling has gone through things that most people wouldn’t want to talk about, let alone laugh about. Funny Pains is a documentary about Wendy Starling and the other stand-up comedians living and working in New York.

    Each of the comedians from many different backgrounds talk about their lives, their work on stage and the passion that drives them to go out night after night and try to make people laugh. They also talk about comedy in general, boundaries that they’re willing to cross and the reactions they get from different audiences as attitudes changes to certain topics being deemed unfunny.

    However, Funny Pains puts its comedians front and centre and talks about their personal experiences which may very well be far worse than anybody’s who comes to see their show.

    Starling in particular has had experiences of rape, addiction and bi polar disorder and still finds a way to talk about her life that makes it funny, engaging and entertaining – which is perhaps what a lot of people are afraid to do. Comedy seems to be cathartic and being able to be so open about subjects that so many try to avoid may be the very thing that saves them.

    Those going in to the documentary cold may get a good understanding of how comedians think and what drives them, but for those who want to watch a documentary about Wendi Starling and her life, then they may be disappointed.

    Because Starling so openly talks about her life on stage, there doesn’t seem to be a huge focus on her, preferring to talk with her fellow comedians about what they think of comedy and how they got there. However, there are some short and quite revealing interviews about Starling’s own life that get inside the mind of a comedian on the verge of becoming famous.

  • Son Of Monarchs: Review

    Son Of Monarchs: Review

    Son of Monarchs: Review.  By Trent Neely.

    This film follows Mendel (Tenoch Huerta Mejía), a Mexican biologist living in New York, studying the genetic causes for the colors of butterflies, specifically monarchs. One day, Mendel receives a call from his uncle informing him that his grandmother has passed, requiring him to return home to Michoacán to attend her funeral. It is soon apparent that Mendel has been away for some time due to some painful aspects of his past.

    Specifically,  both his parents were killed in a flood resulting from an accident in a mine, leaving his brother Simón as the only other living member of his immediate family. In addition to the flood’s personal cost, the mine’s practices decimated the local monarch butterfly population. Over the years Mendel and Simón grew apart following their parents’ death as both found their own ways to cope. The film centers on Mendel’s personal journey of self reflection and realization as he meditates on the traumas of his past, his relationships with others and the world around him, and the relationship between man and nature following the funeral.

    Writer and director Alexis Gambis does a tremendous job crafting a fully realized character in Mendel and a fully dimensional story world. Throughout the film, we see Mendel wrestle with his ties to both America and Mexico. Characters from both countries repeatedly discuss the intricacies of U.S./Mexican immigration and relations; Mendel seems keenly aware of the pros and cons of both countries. 

    Mendel also grapeles with the complex realities of industry and its impact on the environment. One of the sources of tension in Mendel and Simón’s relationship is that by necessity, Simón is working at the mine that flooded and resulted in their parents’ death that has since reopened. At his core, Mendel seems to be a man somewhat conflicted between science and a sense of spirituality. Mendel studies the workings of butterflies for a living and is searching for a genetic answer to their beauty. Yet throughout the film, we see flashbacks and hear voiceover on how Mendel’s father and grandmother taught him that the beauty of butterflies were the result of magic. 

    Even going as far to say that the butterflies themselves represent the spirits of their ancestors. As a result of this, monarch butterflies are effectively used as a recurring symbol throughout the film, mainly Mendel’s journey to understand himself.  Gambis makes sure that these varying facets receive enough care depth so we understand how they impact the characters and the world of the film, while at the same time not providing easy answers for the viewers or forcing ideas on them.

    These vast thematic ideas are brought to life due to great performances from the entire cast particularly Tenoch Huerta Mejía as Mendel, who very subtly, yet fully portrays a man in conflict with many things: two countries, science and the spiritual, his desire to run from his past and his pain contrasting with the need to confront it. These complexities are rarely expressed with direct rage or sadness, but instead through the way in which the dialogue is delivered and physical posture. Because his performance for the most part is so defined by restraint and suntelty, when more direct expressions of rage and sadness occur, it feels more visceral.

    Another aspect that helps make this film feel fully layered is the marriage of image and sound. For instance, the film opens up with Mendel dissecting and studying a butterfly. The cinematography by Alejandro Mejía is up close, reminiscent of a documentary, clinical and objective. When it comes to the sound design, it is somewhat brutal, we hear tearing as Mendel pulls back layers of the specimen.

    In addition, the music by Cristobal MarYán is composed of somber strings as voiceover plays saying that the butterflies represent ancestors. In a few opening moments, the film introduces the main symbol, part of its significance to the protagonist through voiceover, and uses sound design and music to convey that emotional weight to the viewers. In addition, Gambis and the sound department use sound to provide texture to the film. For most of the scenes in New York, there is traffic noise almost always audible in the film while for scenes in Michoaćan which is more rural, the sound design instead focuses on overlapping dialogue during the funeral, or wilderness sounds when characters are outside.

    If there is one drawback to the film it is that while it offers great depth to a lot of its ideas and characters, that time and attention can cause the pace of the film to lag at some points.

    If you are looking for a story with cinematography that highlights the beauty of nature, uses sound to entrance the audience, all while telling the stories of characters that feel real and complex, check out this film if given the chance.